What’s the best source of training advice for your garage gym?
Garage gym goers don’t spend time in their garage for the décor or the ambiance. They can’t distract themselves from an unsuccessful workout by ogling girls on the treadmill, retreating to the sauna or floating in the pool. The garage gym goer wants results.
Results can be measured in pounds or kilograms, by a measuring tape around the waist, or the more high-tech method of taking a photograph in front of a mirror. Results can be hitting the deadlift PR you’ve been working towards for three years or finally getting your first one-arm press up.
Whatever result you want, there are articles on the internet that will tell you how to achieve it. But how can you know which articles are trustworthy and which are not?
The top 10 free strength and fitness websites
Here at The Garage Gym Online, I’ve been combing the internet for several years now for the best information on strength training, fat loss and fitness. This is my top 10 list of the resources and writers that I have come to rely upon:
- T-Nation must be at the top of any list of free resources for strength training. T-Nation have gone out of their way to be the premier free source of the highest quality information in the field, attracting the best writers and the best coaches to share their insights. The only caveat is that they are also a supplement company so beware the hype when it comes to articles about supplements.
- Eric Cressey is probably the fastest rising star of the celebrity strength and conditioning coaches on the internet at the moment. His material is always worth reading and his insights are wide-ranging. He has particular expertise in baseball (and therefore shoulder injuries). I benefited hugely from Eric’s writing (mostly published on T-Nation) two years ago when I overdid my pull-ups and dips and neglected my foam rolling. A couple of weeks following some of Eric’s protocols in his shoulder savers series on T-Nation and I was back in the gym and have had no problems since.
- Mike Robertson is another rising star who has done much to alter the face of the strength and conditioning market as it is seen on the internet. Mike does a regular podcast where he interviews other strength coaches. These are always worth listening to and Mike often brings other extremely knowledgeable people into the limelight who wouldn’t normally seek it.
- Diesel Crew are the authority on the internet for grip training but they also have a number of great general “how to” articles, including the best “how to squat” article I have ever read.
- Elite FTS are the authority on the internet for powerlifting. I learned more from Dave Tate’s “how to bench” video than anything else I have ever seen. The next time I was in the garage, lying on the bench, all I could hear was Dave’s voice in my head saying “you don’t know how to f**king bench, keep your traps tight and grip the bar tighter”. I swear my bench went up 5kgs just by watching that video.
- Lyle MacDonald is probably the one source of dietary information as regards cutting fat or gaining muscle that I trust on the internet (with the caveat that Alan Aragon is starting to win me over but that’s another story). From his early appearances on T-Nation to his present status as fat-loss guru, Lyle has always won my respect.
- Dragondoor, the vehicle for the remarkable human that is Pavel Tsatsouline, is a great source of articles about bodyweight and kettlebell training. Not very frequently updated, I tend only to go there if I am looking for an article that I have already read before.
- Beast Skills is the bodyweight exercise website I always dreamed of creating but have never been strong enough to do. All I can say is, I want to be Jim when I grow up. Wait… I’m already older than he is… Damn.
- Strength Coach Podcasts is a free podcast that offers an insight into the world of Mike Boyle’s Strength Coach, a subscription-only site that boasts a roster of the most well-known sports and strength coaches in the US.
- Superhuman Radio is another free podcast run by the extremely easy-going and likeable Carl Lanore. Carl’s zest for life and sheer enjoyment at discussing strength and fitness, particularly as he embarks on his fifth decade, is a joy to listen to. Miss this and your life will be poorer for it.
That’s it for the websites. I hope you found it a useful list. Did I miss any out that you would have put in? Do you have any great websites to share? I’m always on the lookout for new information that I can put to work in my garage and I’d appreciate any insights you may have.
Next week, I’m going to write about the top 10 strength and fitness blogs that I read regularly.
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Tags: Beast Skills · Diesel Crew · Dragondoor · Elite FTS · Eric Cressey · Lyle McDonald · Mike Robertson · Strength Coach Podcasts · Superhuman Radio · T-Nation2 Comments
[...] week, I wrote about the top 10 fitness websites on the internet that I browse to find trustworthy articles on strength and fitness. This time, [...]
[...] I’ve written before about how much I’ve learned about benching properly from Elite FTSand, in particular, Dave Tate. The main things I have focussed on in the past are technique, [...]