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 X/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 X/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 X/Twitter’s ‘List‘ functionality quite a bit. There’s a full list of them here :

https://x.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 posts 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, 11 Nov 2013

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 :

Gem From The Vault : How to Make Your Own Bumper Plates on a Budget
Mehdi Hadim
Ready to try a spot of Olympic Weightlifting? Make your own ‘plates’.
Looking At : Nov 10, 2013
Scott Andrew Bird
What’s been going on this week? Quite a lot actually.

Over to you. I’d love to hear what you think : leave your comments on the above articles, and share them with your friends/colleagues/clients and so on.

NB : If you’d like to submit your own piece for Straight to the Bar, here’s how.

Video : Strong at 64

Good stuff.

Gymchat 223 – Progressive Calisthenics (with Al Kavadlo)

Al Kavadlo performing a Dragon Flag.

Calisthenics. Wonderful area. Question is, how do you progress?
This week we’re diving deep into this one, looking at everything from ‘what it is‘ and ‘how to get started‘ to the all-important ‘how to progress the exercises‘. Tackling this one is none other than Personal Trainer Al Kavadlo, joined by Strongman & Personal Trainer Josh Hewett. If you’ve got questions for Al or Josh, just swing by the event page for this Gymchat (during the discussion itself). Details below.

Details –
Who : Personal Trainer Al Kavadlo and Strongman & Personal Trainer Josh Hewett
Topic : Progressive Calisthenics
When : Monday Nov 11, 4pm EDT (the Event page shows what time that is in your local timezone)
How : Watch the live stream, and ask questions, directly on the Event page. We’ll also post the full video shortly after the Gymchat.

See you there.

Chris Lutz.

Previously : A couple of weeks ago we held Gymchat 220 : High Intensity Training – HIT (with Chris Lutz and Josh Hewett). Great discussion.
If you missed the live stream (or just want to go over a particular point again), you can watch the entire video here.

Josh Hewett.

Coming Up : we’ve got several fantastic discussions lined up for the next few months, details shortly. One of those is an area I’m intrigued by personally, the Future of Fitness. Fascinating topic.
To give you an idea of what we’ll be talking about and why it’s essential (especially if you’re a fitness professional yourself, or planning to be), here’s a quick primer. And if you’d like to join us on the panel, just drop Josh a line. We’d love to hear from you.

Tip of the Week: Why Warm Up?

Each week we publish a number of tips and techniques via Twitter, Google+, the blog; and now the newsletter. Wherever you are, there’s always a way to improve what you’re doing.
This tip comes to us from Kirk Fontaine, and is a snippet from the discussion Stretching & Warming Up. Was a great one.

In response to a couple of questions on ‘Why Warm Up?‘ :

Kirk Fontaine.

If you are to participate in exercise the first thing you need to do is warm up. The warm up is important to prepare your mind and body so that you can get the very best out of the exercise. The effect of a warm up on preventing injury is not clear however research does suggest increased muscle temperature decreases the risk of muscle tear.

Warming up will :

Increase your heart rate to give you increased blood flow around the body to the muscles

Improve oxygen delivery to the muscles

Stimulate faster muscle contraction

Improve the joints’ ability to endure stress.

Good stuff.

Revisiting : Lift the Blob

Quick update on the Lift the Blob package we mentioned recently – fantastic collection.

Jedd Johnson.

I’d love to hear how you go with it, when it comes to tackling this challenging feat you really can’t go past Lift the Blob. Superb.

Exercise of the Week : Kettlebell Step Up Press

Lisa Shaffer demonstrates the Kettlebell Step Up Press. Interesting variation.

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

Kettlebell Exercise Demonstrations & Tutorials

We’ve looked at a lot of kettlebell exercises and variations over the years – in the form of tips, tutorials and demonstrations.
Where do you find them all? Right here – a complete list of Kettlebell Exercise Demonstrations & Tutorials.
Enjoy.

A Daily Dose

Love this stuff? Same here. If you’re looking for a daily dose of strength-training goodness, grab the Straight to the Bar Daily.
Absolutely free.

Free Downloads from the Strength Kit

Returning to Heavy Training After a Break

I recently added a number of resources to the Straight to the Bar Strength Kit, and as a Strength & Fitness Newsletter subscriber you’re more than welcome to download as many of them as you like. Several great eBooks, podcasts and videos – all absolutely free.
Just head over here, save them to your hard-drive, and dive in.
Good stuff.

NB : This is an ever-changing list. If you’d like to put your own work in front of a fantastic strength-focussed audience, let me know.