Results matching “Bird”

The holiday season in full swing, it was a light week here on Straight to the Bar. Here's a quick glance at the highlights :

• Periodization nuts and bolts : a nice look at Periodization by Jack Reape.
• Planning workouts around vacations : Blaine wraps up this month's article series on workout locations.
• 8 push-up varieties : Craig Ballantyne demonstrates some of the lesser known push-up varieties.
• Humour helps you live longer : an interesting Norwegian study on the benefits a sense of humour has on serious illness.
• Pure Strength 1987 : videos from the Pure Strength strongman contest of 1987, featuring some great names such as Jon Pall Sigmarsson, Bill Kazmaier, and Geoff Capes. Superb.

This is a great find by the Diesel Crew's Jedd Johnson - videos from the Pure Strength strongman challenge of 1987. There were some big names in there, including three men who each claimed to be the world's strongest man: Jon Pall Sigmarsson, Bill Kazmaier, and Geoff Capes. Enjoy.

According to researchers at NTNU and St. Olav’s Hospital in Norway, a sense of humour may be an effective weapon in the fight against many serious conditions. Having observed a number of critically ill kidney patients for a year, the team noted that the patients in the top 50% when asked several questions (designed to assess various traits, including sense of humour) were up to 30% less likely to die from their illness than the other patients. Interesting.

Interesting video [streaming, 860kb .flv download] from Turbulence Training demonstrating 8 push-up varieties. Naturally there are many more than this available, but this selection contains a few of those not commonly seen in gyms such as the Grasshopper and Spiderman versions.

Blaine wraps up this month's series on workout locations with a look at planning workouts around vacations. If you're about to disappear for a well-earned rest before the new year kicks in, make sure you read this first. There are some great ideas in there.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. If you're anything like me, your fridge will be overflowing with food for quite some time.

The topic of periodization is one which has been over-simplified, over-complicated and generally made less useful than it really deserves to be. At the risk of finding himself in the 'just one more' pile, Jack Reape takes a look into periodization in his latest piece over on T-Nation. The result? It certainly isn't 'just one more'. An excellent resource.

Photo © 1997 Tapani Tarvainen.

Merry Christmas, and I'll see you back here just in time for the 4th test (Dec 26th for those who haven't been following The Ashes this year). Take it easy.

Mike Strom launches what promises to be a great article series on the bench press; this time looking at technique. Very good advice.

As the holiday season gets underway things have definitely taken on a festive tone around here. Amid the usual round of parties and Christmas shopping came these :

• Grip training obsession: enjoy training your grip? So do these guys. Passionately. Also from the grip-training world comes Gripper Hell's look at gripper seasoning.
• Evolution of WSB training (part II) : the second part of Mark Reifkind's superb look at the early days of Westside Barbell.
• Workout locations - the park : the workout locations series continues with my personal favourite (outside the home gym, that is) - the park. Especially in weather like this (it's fantastic here at the moment).
• Anatomy of submissions : Leith Darkin does it again, with this superb look at the many varieties of submission holds and the effect of holding them just a little too long.
• Fear less. Live more. : inspiration in blog form from triathlete (and amputee) Sarah Reinertsen.

Via The Diesel Crew : the Luminetx VeinViewer. Featured at this year's Wired NextFest, the VeinViewer is an X-Ray machine on steroids. Rather than simple photographs of bones, this one shows up the veins from just beneath the surface of the skin. Very cool.