What's This?

The Strength & Fitness Newsletter is a weekly email newsletter which summarises the things added to Straight to the Bar (as well as a few gems from the archives). Absolutely free.

btw, I’d love to hear your feedback – both on the individual items and the newsletters themselves. Drop a comment below the relevant issue, or swing by Twitter ( I’m @scottbird ).

cheers,

Scott

Ready To Learn Even More?

I love learning new skills, and the many seminars & workshops available are a great way to do that. If you’re looking for a specific type of workshop nearby, check out the ones on Dragon Door. Great mix of kettlebell and calisthenics-based offerings.

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Podcasts

I listen to an ever-changing pool of podcasts, discussing the many aspects of training and nutrition possible. Most recently :
FoundMyFitness (Dr Matthew Walker on Sleep)

Over to you. Any you’d recommend?

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Strength Training on Instagram

It’s fair to say that we’ve checked out quite a few images over the years – on Flickr & Smugmug in particular.

A friend of mine just pointed me to Chris Stanciu ‘s Instagram feed, which contains a great mix of nutrition and workout images :

instagram.com/officialgainsthetics.

NB : if you’d like to share your own images, just add them to one of the sites noted above and send us a link.

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Strength Training on Facebook

I suspect you love talking about strength training constantly (certainly the case here), and you’re always on the lookout for places to do that. Comments on various sites, forums as well as various in-person communities.

Online, I gravitate toward both Twitter and Facebook. In addition to the SttB offerings, here’s another one you may wish to check out :

Garage Gym Reviews (Cooper Mitchell’s page)

We’ve noted a few of his videos in the past, and they’re great for diving in deep on a particular type of equipment. Nice one.

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Twitter Lists

I use Twitter for a number of things, as I’m sure everyone else here does. To talk about strength training, nutrition and many other topics. Works well.

To make this a little easier – and so people can dive right in to the topics that interest them – I use Twitter’s ‘List‘ functionality quite a bit. There’s a full list of them here :

https://twitter.com/scottbird/lists

Whatever you’re in to, it’s all there.

NB : the above lists are always being fine-tuned. If you know of someone who tweets regularly about a particular subject and should be on one of them, let me know.

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Other (Daily) Newsletters You Might Like

Finally, for a daily dose of tangentially-related information – check out the following. All are compiled daily, and cover the following topics :

Aging & Longevity (living for a very, very long time)
Electric Cars in Australia (great way to help tackle air-pollution)
Better Sleep Nightly (my favourite form of recovery)

And yes, they’re absolutely free.

Bruce Lee : The Art of Expressing the Human Body (Bruce Lee & John Little)

If you’ve ever watched a Bruce Lee film and marveled at his strength, speed, agility, endurance, flexibility or muscularity, this book should take pride of place in your collection. Unlike many other writings covering everything from Lee’s training methods to nutrition, this book is based not on the recollections of people around him; but on Lee’s own notes. Brilliant.

Definitely worthy of a place on the fitness shelf.

Bruce Lee : The Art of Expressing the Human Body.

Monday, 13 Sep 2010

This Week on Straight to the Bar

I’m constantly amazed at just how much my training is influenced by the people on this site. Whether you’re looking for a new piece of equipment, an unusual exercise variation or just an idea of how others approach things, you’ll enjoy these :

Kipping Pull-ups
Al Kavadlo
Al takes a look at the uses, benefits and techniques involved in the Kipping Pull-up.
Grip, Strength & Conditioning Workout
Dave Lemanczyk
Grip-heavy strength workouts. Good stuff.

Ready to add your own opinion, workout log or training article? Just head over to the Forums, Training Logs, or swing by the Article Submissions page. They’re fantastic ways to share your ideas.

NB : if you enjoy the articles, show the authors your appreciation by voting (using the Like, Digg and Retweet icons). Cheers.

Video : Tim Hull – Pittsburgh Strongest Man

Tim enters the world of Strongman. Nice one.

Learning the Skills : Dave Lemanczyk’s Private Training

Dave Lemanczyk.

It’s incredible how much you can learn from someone who knows precisely what they’re doing. When it comes to building some real-world strength, check out Dave Lemanczyk’s Private Training. Fantastic.
If you’ve ever watched Keg Conditioning, you know exactly what you’re getting in to. Creativity, hard work and astonishing levels of strength. Seriously, if you’re in New York, give Dave a call.
Highly recommended.

Coming Events

Tearing

Twitterchat 83 – Tearing

One of the topics which was raised in last week’s discussion was tearing. Fantastic activity.
This week we’re taking a close look at Tearing : playing cards, phonebooks and anything else that’s handy. The benefits of tearing, the various techniques and the ways to train. Helping us explore this fascinating topic is none other than the man behind the superb Card Tearing Ebook, the Diesel Crew‘s, Jedd ‘Napalm‘ Johnson (@jeddjohnson). Fantastic.

Details –
Who : Strength-training fans
Topic : Tearing
When : Wed Sep 15, 9pm EDT (1am UTC)
How : Include #sbgym in your tweets.
To see when it’s on in your timezone, head over to the twitterchat calendar.
See you there.

Jedd Johnson

Quick update on last week’s twitterchat : Thanks once again to everyone who took part in the discussion on Grip Training for Beginners. Some superb ideas in there.
For those who missed out on the conversation, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you train grip directly, or mainly modify other exercises? How?

Checking Out : The Satisfaction Transformation

The Satisfaction Transformation.

I’m a big fan of books on nutrition (as a glance at my bookshelves will quickly attest), and The Satisfaction Transformation is certainly in that category.
Featuring everything from meal plans to exercise routines, this is an intriguing collection. Looking forward to diving in.

Exercise of the Week : Thor’s Hammer

Thor’s Hammer.

I love a spot of forearm training, and have for as long as I can remember (growing up surrounded by Bruce Lee books and movies, I guess that isn’t surprising).

Although there are many, many ways to work the wrists; I love the simplicity of the Thor’s Hammer approach. Just take the plates off one end of a dumbbell, and swing it around (slowly, in control) in various ways (up/down, side-to-side, round and round). Like you’re conducting an orchestra in slow-mo.
Beautiful.