Don’t miss these great links!

I thought at first that this was going to be a slow week for links but a last-minute flurry saved the day.  Enjoy.

• The incomparably well-read Aaron Friday gives us a glimpse into what makes him tick and reveals that he actually writes for a living.  I should have guessed, really.  I now feel much better about the jealousy that strikes when I read his writing…
• Eric Cressey has written up an interview with Dr Rick Cohen, who specialises in testing the biological health of athletes, with a view to helping them remove any vitamin deficiences that they may have.  You can read part one , which deals extensively with vitamin D and part two, which talks more widely about magnesium, Testosterone and Cortisol, essential amino acids and essential fatty acids.  Well worth a look if you are interested in nutrition and its impact on sports performance.
• Brian St Pierre draws our attention to an article in the New York Times about how exercise functions for weight loss.  I particularly liked this great quote drawn from the experience of Eric Ravussin, a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge.  “In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss.  It’s especially useless because people often end up consuming more calories when they exercise.  The mathematics of weight loss is, in fact, quite simple, involving only subtraction.  Take in fewer calories than you burn, put yourself in negative energy balance, lose weight.”
• Geoff Neupert has drawn up guidelines for a minimum style programme that will still get results for the majority of people.  It’s structured around the push, pull, legs trio three times a week.  I think it looks good but I would probably add a suitable abs exercise in there as well.  Not many people have ever overtrained by doing hanging leg raises, I would have thought.  Actually, when I think about it, when I add those in, then it starts to look pretty much like my programme…
• In a similar vein, Brian St Pierre has drawn up another minimalist programme, but topped-and-tailed with foam rolling and interval training.  I tend to split those out from my weightlifting but I see where he is going.
• Aaron Schwenzfeier goes off on a rant because he saw a one-year old child being fed waffles with syrup for breakfast.  As a graduate of the multi-coloured sugar-coated cereal culture in the UK, I have to sympathise.  And little old ladies still have a go at me in the Co-op when I buy more than two dozen eggs because they are worried about my cholesterol.
• Rob Russell has cravings for a 100kg kettlebell.  One has to wonder who would be swinging whom if he ever gets his hands on one…
• Some sound advice (as always) from The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban about training for the man over 40.  Actually, I thought it was good advice about training for the man over 30 but then I am a bit banged up.         
• I was saddened to read about this whale that was washed up on a beach with hundreds of items of our rubbish stuck inside its internal organs.  I remember reading a lot about how we were polluting the seas when I was younger and it doesn’t look like things are much better now.  The sheer variety and quantity of the items found inside it are staggering.
• For those rugby players amongst you, check out this summary of the rugby articles on the Science of Sport blog.  I for one would welcome more posts of this kind on the blog and fewer marathon analyses but I guess they have their own audience to worry about. 
• Boris at Squat RX has just republished some of his early YouTube videos about how to get into powerlifting gear.  Worth a look if you are interested in competing at some point and haven’t decided whether to go raw or geared.
• I hadn’t realised that Shelby Starnes was one of Dante’s early DC-style clients back in 2001.  Here is some footage of Shelby training in DC style with a phone interview dubbed over the top.  It’s actually a really good interview and the visual footage makes it easier to get through without wandering off in the middle.  Shelby makes some interesting observations about his technique, which tends to be an explosive concentric and a very slow and deliberate eccentric.  He notes the similarity with Dorian’s approach.
• Kelly Baggett has an interesting article about hypertrophy.   He has some interesting comments on the difference in the types of muscle growth that occur with different weights and rep ranges but ultimately he notes that it all comes down to what you’re eating.  I couldn’t agree more.

I’m really excited to see whether Konstanin Konstantinovs competes at the Andy Bolton challenge.  Here is some footage of his training: