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The Importance of Filming Your Lifts – Mark Woods
This was a great article discussing the new age of lifting via using video of our lifting. It’s not uncommon to see lifting videos streaming like wildfire on social media, but Mark discusses how filming your lifts can have some immediate feedback if you know what you’re doing and what to look for. I personally do this via my YouTube channel, add commentary, and have everything documented. It’s nice when I want to reflect back from previous training sessions and see improvement or adjusts. Plus, if you’re someone that trains alone, having the ability to easily film yourself from your smart phone is about the best training partner you can have (if you know what to look for).
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Muscle Fiber Types and Training – Jozo Grgic
While this is one of those science-based pieces, it’s pretty easy to get through. Nothing is overly complicated and it breaks down how and why training certain qualities can be crucial based upon performance outcomes. Certain muscles and fiber types will dictate training, and the more the trainee can understand this, the better a training program can be laid out to yield the desired adaptations. Fibers can be “pushed” towards certain types, but research is, and still will be probably mixed on this for a long time. A “chicken and the egg” scenario, for sure.
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Top Down Versus Bottom Up Deadlift Set Up – Dean Somerset
This was an excellent article breaking down the differences between setting up for your deadlift from the top or the bottom. While either way can work great, there might be some advantages an disadvantages based upon your sport/athletic goals and what works best for you. Both have merit and strong people backing each way, but taking some time to understand both can benefit everyone, especially coaches and trainers.
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Stronger Back = Better Everything – Tony Gentilcore
Tony does an excellent job covering back training for being an overall badass. It’s pretty common in the powerlifting world how important a big, strong back is. However, there are other reasons that Tony goes into why you should be training your back probably more than you are. He’s got some excellent videos, training template layouts, and other extra tidbits that can help you bring up your back more efficiently.
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Why Every Endurance Athlete Needs to Strength Train – Amber Thome
Strength training is super important when it comes to about any athletic conquest, but to see something directed towards endurance athletes makes me incredibly happy (and over on Girls Gone Strong, to boot!). Perhaps this is by design as many women think that running will give them the body they want, when in reality many women just need more strength training…but I digress. Amber discusses how as an endurance athlete, you can use strength training to not only increase your race performance, but how it also keeps you healthy and going strong year-round.
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A Refresher on Traditional Periodization – Jennifer Petrosino
My nerdy friend, Jenn, did an excellent job with this article discussing “traditional” periodization. It’s what many of us learn in school, for certifications, and how we usually start out training by nature. It makes sense, and it does work for many people. What I like about this article is that Jenn laid out how to use this for a powerlifting emphasis and gave examples on what my constitute each phase of the yearly plan. This makes it very adaptable for anyone looking to use a “traditional” approach.
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Why Hamstring Training is the Key to Lower Body Development – Alex Mullan
This was an excellent article going into depth on the hamstrings and how to train them. Why it might not be powerlifting sexy (how I like it), it is great for just the average trainee looking to increase their leg size. Way too many people have weak or underdeveloped hamstrings, and this can not only cause issues later down the road, but your wheels will just never look as good without those huge hanging hammies. Using these tips you’re sure to see some hamstrings progress.
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The 10 Deadlift Commandments – Joey Percia
This article by Joey is essentially a nice 10 step guide to having a great deadlift. If you follow each of these ten things, you’re bound to end up with a good technical deadlift and make progress drastically quicker (and stay healthy). It’s written so that basically anyone can follow it, and not have to worry about too much minutia.
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Problem Solving with Paused Reps – Squat Edition – Tony Bonvechio
I really enjoyed this resource for how to implement pause squats and other pausing variations of the squat to help improve technique and strength. There were some new variants that I had not seen before, and it’s incredibly detailed. If you’ve got any issue technically in your squat, you can probably find something in the article that will help you out and get your squat moving again in the right direction. Besides, nothing is as grueling as sitting in the bottom of a squat with hundreds of pounds on your back.
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Problem Solving with Paused Reps – Bench Press Edition – Tony Bonvechio
Just like with the squat article above, this piece covers the bench press in a similar fashion. What I liked about this one specifically is the fact that Tony covers a host of the major issues we see in the bench press for most lifters. If there is any lift people want to throw up huge weights on, it’s the bench press, and fixing some of these weaknesses and getting the proper cues and feedback can help. Most of these variations and “quick fixes” provide immediate feedback, so you can feel the difference and where your body should be in space.
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Signs You’re Overreaching (And What to Do About It) – Alex Mullan
Recovery is beaten to death like crazy these days. What I enjoyed about this article is that it actually gives you some pointers of how to notice when overtraining is becoming real, and how you can address that to ensure that you do in fact only overreach, and not overtrain. It’s more than “just listen to your body” tips, too. We know that sleep, nutrition, programming, and outside stress all comes into play, but give this a read so you can catch the early signs and stay ahead of the game so you don’t get injured and can benefit in the long run.
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Problem Solving with Paused Reps – Deadlift Edition – Tony Bonvechio
The final installment of the big three lifts from Tony (using the pause). I’ve been known to not be a huge fan of the paused deadlift, but there can be places and times when it might help a lifter get a coaching cue or position. This article discusses those circumstances and how to keep that bar close to the body and get the bar through that dreaded sticking point. Nothing is worse than getting the weight to break the bar and not getting the lift (trust me on this one, as I’ve never missed a weight from it not breaking the floor).
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How to Improve Your Front Squat Without Squatting – Robbie Farlow
I’ll be the first to tell you that this title is a bit misleading, but I liked the grand takeaway. Robbie talks about the little things that might help your front squat improve: positioning, mobility, trunk strength, and upper back strength. Most people that I’ve worked with have the leg strength to do drastically more weight than they are, but they lack one (or more) excellent qualities listed above to having a huge front squat. Look at any high end weightlifter and you’ll see all those qualities, allowing them to display that huge front squat.
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Louie Simmons Live Demonstrations at Westside Barbell – Tom Barry
While this is a video (and a very long one), this was excellently done by Louie showing how he uses many of the machines and pieces of equipment he’s invented. I think the biggest misconception is that Westside Methods only work for geared powerlifters, but Louie is seeing excellent results in many of his fighters, wrestlers, and track athletes. He walks you through how they use each specialized piece of equipment, and why. Well worth the hour of time.
That’s all the great content that I enjoyed over the course of the month. Check back next month for all the great things from July.
