Strength & Fitness Newsletter

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

DragonDoor Workshops

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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, 28 Mar 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 :


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 : I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment beneath the article itself, and share your views with the fantastic strength-training community. Cheers.


Video : DIY Training Equipment

Reading Fight Geek‘s excellent site this morning, I came across this : a brief video showing how to make a few of your own strength training tools (medicine ball, slosh-pipe & suspension trainer). Good stuff.

Want more? For several fantastic grip tools you can make yourself, check out Jedd‘s superb Home Made Strength II. Love it.

Twitterchat 111 – Making the Most of Your Gym Time II

Love training? Same here. In the garage, local park or a hotel gym somewhere.
This is the second part of the discussion on ‘Making the Most of Your Gym Time‘, looking at things from the client’s point of view. How to make the most of the time spent in the gym, and in the period inbetween visits. Nutrition, training logs, measurements and so on. Helping us explore this fascinating topic is none other than Body by D-Rock‘s Derek Peruo (@bodybydrock). Fantastic.


Details –
Who : Strength-training fans
Topic : Making the Most of Your Gym Time II
When : Wed Mar 30, 9pm EDT (1am UTC)
How : Include #sbgym in your tweets.
If you’ve never been to one of these twitterchats before, here’s how to join in the fun. Simple, quick to set up and free.
And to see when it’s on in your timezone, head over to the twitterchat calendar.
See you there.

Quick update on last week’s twitterchat : Thanks once again to everyone who took part in the discussion on Making the Most of Your Gym Time. Some superb ideas in there.
For those who missed out on the conversation, here’s a brief summary. Was a great one.

Checking Out : The Beast Sled

Yael pointed me in the direction of this recently, and I must admit, it looks great.
The Beast Sled has thick uprights (same as an Olympic bar), 4″ skids and is as tough as they come. Whether you’re doing strength, speed or endurance work, the Beast Sled is for you.
70 lb of pure joy.

Quick update on Home Made Strength II : Grip Strength Edition : A few weeks ago we noted Jedd’s upcoming DVD (now on sale), the second in the Home Made Strength series. Absolutely fantastic.
This is the one that shows precisely how to build – and train with – several fantastic grip tools. It really is top quality.
Thanks to everyone who grabbed a copy, and to those that left feedback; it’s greatly appreciated. If you haven’t yet got one for yourself, you can grab it here. Love it.

Exercise of the Week : The Neider Press

I first saw Ross Enamait performing a variation of these (with an upright barbell) several years ago. A painfully simple exercise – The Neider Press.
To perform the exercise, imagine you’re performing a bench press whilst standing up. The bar moves from the chest -> to arms’ length -> and back. That’s one rep.
NB : as you’ll see in the video, gravity’s not your friend when doing these. Although I said ‘bench press‘, the bar actually moves up a bit.
Here it is in action :

Incidentally, if you don’t have access to a bar, try using a weight plate. Or a large stone. Or the branch of a tree. In fact anything that will keep you hands apart, and is reasonably heavy when held at arms’ length.


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

10 Essential Conditioning ToolsAs 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.