Top 10 Articles: Nick Tumminello

Nick Tumminello is fast becoming a popular trainer in a number of circles, including the Strength Coach Forums, Perform Better and T-Nation.  He’s renowned for his innovative approach to exercises and, of course, being the trainer for his better half, the figure athlete Allie McKee:

1. Truth about the Traps (part one) – in this post, Nick reviews some research that was done recently (recently in scientific terms, the research was actually done in 1992!) that goes some way to challenging the idea that the upper trapezius is a shoulder girdle elevator.  If you like your anatomy and you’re a bit geeky then dive in.  Otherwise, you might find this a bit dry.  I loved it.
2. Unconventional workouts: triceps – I particularly liked this article by Nick because it focused on exercises that anyone can do anywhere.  I must admit that I do get a little frustrated reading an article that has lots of great ideas but all of them require lots of specialist equipment that you can only find in a commercial gym.  In this article, Nick goes to town on reverse skull crushers, using different heights for the hands and feet to change the load, thereby giving you a larger rep range to work within.
3. Big gains with active recovery – Nick explains that you don’t have to waste the time between sets of your main exercises.  Instead, you can be doing mobility work, low intensity work or core and neck work that won’t detract from your performance on your main lifts but which keep you moving and improve performance in the long run.  I must admit that I do get a lot of benefit out of doing rear delt work or grip work during my leg workouts so I am a fan of this approach.
4. Big lats – to be honest, I would link to pretty much any article promising to build big lats.  I’ve pretty much written the book on how to get strong lats but big lats elude me.  Anyway, in this article, Nick talks about various different and unusual exercises that you might try if you are looking to increase your bag of available exercises.
5. Five new exercises – this is now classic Tumminello territory, as Nick shows us five unique exercises that he has developed and uses with his clients.
6. Allie McKee Figure Competition – I really like reading about the personal experiences of the people that write the technical articles that I read.  I like to see that they are involved in the lives of the people that they train and that the training is personal to them.  This is a great example of how Nick is involved…
7. Joint friendly training – I think this article was so successful that Nick turned it into a product! In this article, Nick talks about how to get the best possible training effect without putting undue pressure on your joints.  Unsurprisingly, the one-leg squat and pistol crop up at the beginning (check out the picture of the one and only Jim Bathurst, moonlighting as a model!).
8. How strong are your abs really? – this great little article sets out a number of easy-looking but surprisingly challenging little exercises that may reveal a weak point somewhere when you try them.  Conveniently, Nick has arranged them in order of difficulty so you can work through them.
9. Unconventional workouts: abs – another abs article but this one focuses more on training the abs as they are used in functional movements, by making them work to maintain stability in the trunk rather than flexing to produce movement.
10. Leg circuits and leg complexes – Nick takes a leaf out of Scott Abel’s book and looks hard at the ways and means of building leg muscle without squatting a ton.

I hope you enjoy this selection of Nick’s work as much as I have.  Let me know if you have a favourite that I’ve missed, though!