The Garage Gym Online

I just couldn’t miss the opportunity to do one more links post in 2009!  This is my ninth links post and judging from the welcome receiption they’re getting, I’ll be continuing to do them in 2010…

• You just can’t beat a good Star Wars picture to cheer you up.  Especially at Christmas time.  And here are two great ones.  Firstly, with a snowy theme, the weather is so frightful… on Hoth.  Secondly, make sure you’re sitting down before you check out this picture of the Millennium Falcon bed… You have been warned!
• This call to personal excellence from the Unbreakable Adam T Glass is a great read to start the New Year in the best possible way.  How are you going to spend 2010?  Are you going to carry on doing what you’ve always done or is it time to step it up a gear and show the world what you can do?  As Adam says, everyone has talent.  Use it or don’t use it.  It’s up to you.
• This great montage of (allegedly) genuine photographs will make you smile.  They are photos that everyone thinks are photoshopped but there is another explanation in each case.  If you do decide to look at it, please, please, please keep scrolling down until you see the giant rubber duck.  Just brilliant.
• Mike Boyle has a gift for great metaphors.  Here, he asks how you would take care of your car if you weren’t ever allowed to shop it in for another and replacement parts were really expensive.  Because, you know, that’s just what your body is, really.
• Watch Mark Felix pull 881lbs in Lancashire, UK of all places.  He makes it look like he is warming up.  No, I’m not joking.  He really does look like he’s warming up.  Or maybe using plastic weights or something.  I would put money on him being able to do 900lbs at any notice.  Watch this space.  We could have another great British deadlifter on the rise.
• I don’t think I’ve linked to Elite FTS in one of these links posts before, which is certainly remiss of me.  After all, my bench was nowhere until Dave Tate’s voice came blaring out of the laptop at me in a video he did for T-Nation.  Not that it’s any good now, but at least it’s moving upwards.  Anyway, this summary of the conjugate system is both timely for me (as I consider what my workout programme will look like in 2010) and a great summary of the overarching routine followed by the most successful powerlifters on the planet: Westside Barbell.  I really, really need to work on my lower back.  Please remind me next year.
• This great old-time article from Alan Calvert on Natural Strength talks a bit about deadlifts, has some great yarns and a few contraversial opinions.  Like the idea that a gymnast unaccustomed to lifting would be stopped by a 250lb (113kg) barbell.  I am pretty sure I lifted about 110kg the first time I deadlifted and I am no gymnast.  I don’t think Alan liked gymnasts very much…
• I am sure all of you will have seen Jedd’s new pinch record but just in case you didn’t, here it is.  While you’re in the mood to think about grip strength, please go and look at the British challenge from Steve Gardener, where he sets the British pinch record but, owing to dodgy weighing procedures, did not claim the world record from Jedd.
• This week’s animal feature comes from Applied Strength: Christmas with cats.
• I have been very interested by this hip drive cue from Begin-2-Dig.  If you are tempted to try it, please let me know how you get on.
• John Barban breaks down the steroid debate with some tough love and very sound arguments.   I agree with much of what is said apart but I would add that if I were competing in a competition in which steroids were technically illegal, then I would not feel that I had deserved my position if I used steroids to get there.  If I won, then I would not feel that I had really won if I had been “assisted” in getting there.  Just my opinion.
• So if you want big triceps, then you need to do dips.  I think dips are an amazing exercise that really build upper body strength.  However, I don’t think that everyone builds big triceps from this exercise.  I built up to a double-bodyweight dip at 72.5kg and my triceps are not huge.  Maybe it’s the combination of higher rep dips that build size.  I don’t know.
• The CrossFit saga continues with Robb Wolf responding to more recent allegations.
• What if climate change is a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing? This cartoon really made me chuckle, in a sad sort of way.
• On a completely unrelated note, I am a keen photographer (my house is covered with photo montages) and I thought that this inventive way of helping a lost camera find its way home was both entertaining and useful. 
• Donald Unger has been honored as the recipient of this year’s Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine.  For 50 years, Donald cracked the knuckles of his left hand at least twice a day, leaving those on the right as a control.  Thus, the knuckles on the left were cracked at least 36,500 times, while those on the right cracked rarely.  After 50 years, it was noted that there was no arthritis in either had and there was no difference between hands.  So cracking your knuckles probably doesn’t give you arthritis.
• Bill Hartman has written about thoracic spine mobility on his blog.  Bill has been variously described by authorities as significant as Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson as the smartest man in fitness.  What are you waiting for? Go and read it already!
• And this is a video of Tony Gentilcore doing a naked get-up.  I’ll leave the rest to your imagination… Unless you go and check out the link…
• More great material from Jason Ferruggia, with these tips on how to avoid elbow pain.  I would add that one-arm chin training is possibly the very best way to obtain elbow pain, if you really want it… I trained for a few years with heavy dips and heavy chins (up to double bodyweight) and never had any elbow pain.  I did a few weeks of one-arm chin training and I could feel them starting to creak.
• Don’t miss this great opportunity to read part of Randy Roach’s book “Muscle, Smoke and Mirrors“.
• And Will Gadd does what he does best: climbing ice.

Well that’s all from me.  I hope you have an enjoyable Christmas Eve.

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