Another week of links for you to enjoy:
- Two great posts from Mark’s Daily Apple to report: the first is about Thoracic Spine Mobility. As Mark (or his ghost writer) says, hip mobility is easy to understand and to improve: you just push your hips back and work on keeping your lumbar spine flat. Thoracic mobility is much harder to visualise and to improve, because every time you arch your back, it arches in total and either more or less mobility comes from the thoracic area or the lumbar area. A tricky one and I look forward to a more in-depth analysis from Mark in due course.
- The second great post from Mark’s Daily Apple is about sugar. I am convinced that sugar is one of the great killers of our time and certainly deserves much worse treatment in the press than, say, saturated fat gets.
- Bret Contreras has done a personal experiment on “special workouts”, as recommended by Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell fame. He identified a weak point in his deadlift, addressed it and saw a (10kg) 20lb improvement as a result. Right now, a 10kg improvement in my deadlift would push me over 200kg, which would make me seriously happy, so you can bet I have been reading this carefully.
- Samson Strength and Conditioning have done a great post about how to improve your squat. There are some great tips here that I have been thinking about during my workouts. In particular, keeping my upper back tight by bringing my grip in has been helpful in keeping in my groove.
- A fun post from Jason Feruggia to report: it’s an interesting perspective on a typical day in his gym and a visit from Jon Hinds that leads to some friendly competition. You’re not going to learn a lot but it’s certainly good entertainment.
- Mike Boyle is back on his single leg squat pony and he makes some well-supported points. In this brief article, he notes that glute activation is highest in the single-leg squat.
- One of my guilty pleasures is reading Alwyn Cosgrove talking about cardio. He has such a great way of describing how the whole concept of “cardio” is counter-intuitive. Fundamentally, if it were possible to train just your heart then rowing training would transfer across to running, which would transfer across to cycling. But, as Alwyn notes, there is no transfer. Two words: Lance Armstrong.
- Will Gadd is quite a famous ice climber and he’s got into CrossFit recently. Here, he outlines what he feels are the threshold levels for taking part in mountaineering and climbing. The strength requirements are actually quite low, which is very interesting…
- Powerlifting Watch has been getting nostalgic recently. This brief video footage shows Doyle Kenady pulling more than 900lbs for the first time in front of international judges.
- The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban has an interesting article on levers by David Willoughby. Some good round-ups of the various records and a lot of speculation of what may or may not be possible.
- And, sadly, it looks like Konstantin Konstantinovs is out of the Andy Bolton deadlift challenge.
And if you watch nothing else today, watch this Star Wars lego video:
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