The 14 Best Resources for Strength – March 2016 Edition

1. The Over Warm-Up: And How It Can Help You Lift More Weight – Tony Gentilcore

   Tony goes over a very simple yet warm up routine that can help increase your typical training session. Essentially this uses post-activation potentiation to help make your work sets feel lighter and faster than normal. If you come into a training session and are feeling a bit rough or sluggish for the day, this might be a great way to get things going and feeling better for your work sets.

2. 5 Ways to Avoid Deadlift Hitching – Tony Bonvechio

   Tony discusses many ways to avoid hitching for the conventional deadlift. This is something that is seen at about every powerlifting meet I’ve ever been to, and it’s really not that complicated to fix. Unfortunately, many people use their lower back for extension, rather than optimizing and using their glutes effectively. This is a must read if you have issues locking out your pulls.

3. 13 Ways to Improve Your Deadlift, Fast! – Tony Gentilcore

   Tony G with another fantastic piece covering a lot of the little intricate details to a big deadlift. There are a lot of great videos showing exactly how things should (or shouldn’t) look. This is great for not only the average gym goer, but competitive powerlifters as well.

4. How to Do Your First Pullup: A Step By Step Guide – Ryan Wood

   Ryan goes over many of the reasons why pull ups are so damn hard, and how to slowly progress and build the proper back strength to eventually get your pull up game up. On top of that, he’s also laid out a program to help get you on the path to doing your first ever unassisted pull up.

5. The Science of Variable Resistance – Jozo Grgic

   While this is a bit more of a scientific piece, the use of bands and chains has had it’s place in strength training for quite some time thanks to Louie Simmons and Westside Barbell. Not only does this give you some of the science, but it also explains how it can help improve overall strength.

6. 3 Biggest Core Training Mistakes Most Athletes Make – Mike Robertson

   Mike is one of the guys I really like to keep up to date with in terms of education. This post is centered more towards competitive athletes, but it also gives the average Joe something to think about when training the trunk. I’d admit that many of these I don’t do, or haven’t done in a long time. This could be something that helps protect your low back in the long run if you’re in the iron game, like myself.

7. Building the Squat from the Bottom – Tony Gentilcore

   This article is great for working with clients that are having a hard time grasping the basic squat patterns. It’s probably not the best resource for those that have years experience squatting, but if you work with clients and are having a hard time getting your points across, the bottom up approach is wonderful. I personally use this myself with many clients, and also some of the assessment steps Tony does as well. All really good stuff to save you time, and get your clients squatting better.

8. Glute Gains: Mastering the Pelvic Tilt Technique – Alycia Israel

   This is a concept that coincides with locking out the deadlift above. Alycia does a wonderful job of making this simple and effective to help all you ladies improve your posterior with your hinging movements. Strong glutes not only look attractive, but can help help improve those hinging exercises.

9. How to Fix Your Bench Press: The Execution – Marilia Coutinho

   This series has been wonderful to help lifters improve their bench press technique. Things are listed out in some serious detail and practical examples are given to help make it click. The bench press is pretty damn technical, and locking that in can yield huge improvements on the platform or in training.

10. Effective or Ineffective: When To Keep or Drop Your Training Program – Jennifer Petrosino

    I personally love Jenn’s writing and educational material she puts out. She’s super nerdy, but also has some damn impressive powerlifting accomplishments to back it up. While this isn’t a direct way to improve your training, seeing lifters (mostly novice) program hop is not only frustrating, but takes away a lot of the progress you could have been making had you just stuck with the original game plan.

11. WATCH: How to Set Up Bands Correctly for the Squat, Bench, and Deadlift – Nate Harvey

    Strength and conditioning coach, Nate, shows how to set up bands for the big three with simple methods based upon what you have access to. As someone that also uses bands pretty frequently (for myself and clients), this is a huge resource to help take out the questioning if you are doing it right. It’s consistent, simple, and effective.

12. Endurance Exercise Enhances the Effects of Strength Training on Muscle Fiber Size and Protein Expression of Akt and mTOR – Zuzanna Kazior et. al

    While this is a research piece, it’s not terribly hard to get through. It goes to show that aerobic work does in fact help strength and hypertrophy training via different pathways, and that it pays to not be lazy and actually do some aerobic work to be the best athlete you can be.

13. 5 Core Training Exercises You Should Be Doing – Mike Robertson

    Mike lays out five great trunk exercises that are bound to help keep you healthy and improve your overall stability for training. Some of these are certainly much tougher than they look, but they are without a doubt effective. If you’re looking for some new “ab” exercises, some of these could be very helpful.

14. Should Powerlifters Do Curls? – Dave Tate

    This is a common question that powerlifters ask, as there isn’t any direct bicep utilization in the competitive lifts. But, many of us know that staying healthy for a long time is the best way to continue to break PR’s. Elitefts’ own Dave Tate weighs in on how to implement this within your training program to keep those elbows healthy and happy.

That’s all for this month. Be sure to check back in April for more of some of the best resources to stay strong.