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, 10 Jan 2011

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 :

7 Years of Straight to the Bar : The Contest
Scott Andrew Bird
New gear for the home gym? Perfect.
Strength Training Changed My Life
Joe Hashey
Strength-training certainly has a transformative effect. Here’s Joe’s own story.

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 SU and Twitter icons beneath each post). Cheers.

Video : 260kg Squat with Strap Setup

How do you use straps when squatting? Like this.

What’s This?

What are they?

I love vintage strength-training equipment, and this certainly qualifies. A pair of wooden-handled vintage dumbbells. Now the tricky part – identification.
Does anyone here know who used these, who sold them or perhaps who made them? Carrie (the bells’ new owner), has more pics on her Flickr page.
Take a look – they’re great things.

Twitterchat 100 – Fitness for Beginners

Al Kavadlo.

Pretty soon, everything settles in to a routine – but exactly where and how do you begin?
This week we’re looking at Fitness for Beginners, or just where to start. How to clean up your diet (and what is meant by a ‘clean diet’), the equipment you need, whether or not you should hire a personal trainer and much, much more.

Helping us explore this fascinating topic is none other than We’re Working Out‘s (@alkavadlo). Fantastic.

Details –
Who : Strength-training fans
Topic : Fitness for Beginners
When : Wed Jan 12, 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.

Dean Coulson.

Quick update on last week’s twitterchat : Thanks once again to everyone who took part in the discussion on Motivation. Some superb ideas in there.
For those who missed out on the conversation, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What sort of (training-related) things are you motivated by?

Checking Out : Shoulder Harness

Shoulder Harness.

If you enjoy your sprinting or dragging work, a good shoulder harness is essential.
There are several ways to use a harness such as this, and the video below demonstrates one of the more common : as part of a simple dragging setup. Just add a dog leash (or similar strap), a length of chain and you’re good to go. Beautiful.

Exercise of the Week : Tire (Tyre) Dragging

The other day Fight Geek pointed to an excellent article by strength coach Nick Tumminello, covering various forms of tyre work. Including several varieties of the superb Tire Drag. Good fun.
Here’s the simplest dragging variation, using nothing more than a basic DIY strap setup :

Love it.

Incidentally, if you’d like to get in touch regarding this or any other aspect of strength, you can send me an email here. Look forward to hearing from you.

Free eBooks from Straight to the Bar

As a Strength & Fitness Newsletter subscriber you get several great eBooks, absolutely free. Just head over here, save them to your hard-drive, and dive in.
Good stuff.
NB : This is an ever-changing list of books. If you’d like to put your own work in front of a fantastic strength-focussed audience, let me know.