Many exercise enthusiasts are interested in the nuances of fiber types and their responses to exercise. It is commonly thought that the large, powerful, and rapidly fatiguing fast twitch fibers work to ... Continue Reading
Athlete Journal: Alli Moyer, Entry 14 – 3/6/2014
EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to the athlete journal of Allison Moyer. Allison is a nationally ranked NPC Figure Athlete, nationally and internationally published fitness model, an avid CrossFit athlete, BSN, ... Continue Reading
Weekly Work-In: Week 2 – Create a Personal Affirmation That Works
Affirmations are positive, present tense statements that keep you focused on the immediate goal at hand. I never connected with the affirmation process until I found a statement that truly resonated ... Continue Reading
Hardstyle, Girevoy, or CrossFit? How to Decide Which Kettlebell Style Is Best
I am a student of strength. As such, I can see benefits of many different styles of kettlebell use. I try to take the good components from each school or at least see the different purposes. I have ... Continue Reading
Strongman Series: The Yoke
Click Here to Try Our Free Strongman Workouts I’ve been thinking about the most useful way to break strongman training down into relevant chunks for you. After much deliberation, I’ve worked out that ... Continue Reading
Athlete Journal: James Kearns, Entry 9 – 3/5/2014
EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to the athlete journal of James Kearns. James is an active Brazilian jiu jitsu competitor and also trains and competes in Olympic weightlifting.Follow his journals here every ... Continue Reading
What Does Active Recovery Actually Mean? How to Define a Recovery Ride or Run
Imagine you finish a day of hard training such as a steady-state effort or you focused on lactate threshold training and now you realize that tomorrow is going to be a day filled with both muscle stiffness ... Continue Reading
How to Practice Perseverance in BJJ, MMA, and Life
When I woke up yesterday I felt like garbage. I hadn’t had a drink the night before, but I woke up dehydrated with a killer headache and a slight case of the shakes. The last thing I wanted to do was go to ... Continue Reading
The CrossFit Games Open: Let Go of the Leaderboard
The leaderboard is like a drug. Once you do the workout and establish a score, it places you in the worldwide pecking order of “who is better than you” and “whom you are better than.” Have you ever ... Continue Reading
Why 10 x 3 Is Best for Strength and Size
One of the things that has always stuck in my head as far as training goes is to do the opposite of what most do. Breaking Muscle athlete and super-coach Charles Staley is the guy who said this. It’s a ... Continue Reading
The Reliability of the NFL-225 Bench Press Test
Whenever a test is used to assess performance, we should question its reliability. The popular NFL-225 test, which consists of doing max bench press reps with 225lbs, is no exception. Researchers performed ... Continue Reading
Weightlifting Development for Children: The Importance of the Long Term Approach
Kids are just smaller, slightly weaker adults, right? They’d be fine with the same program you’d give any twenty-something-year-old, wouldn’t they? If worse comes to worst, drop a set off, reduce the reps, ... Continue Reading
Plyometrics: Terms, Definitions, and Proper Planning
The term "plyometrics" was born in the late 1970s in the United States thanks to the work of Fred Wilt (1920-1994), a long-distance runner and member of the U.S. Olympic Team in 1948 and 1952. After his ... Continue Reading
Getting Control of Overhead Movement: 5 Basic Drills to Prepare the Body
I am passionate about what I do. Luckily for you, I’m even more passionate about what you do. You do some amazing stuff. You’re dancers, you’re track stars, you crush WODs, and you find your inner warrior ... Continue Reading
Sochi Winter Olympics 2014: Is it Okay to Switch Citizenship Just for a Gold Medal?
I am a sucker for the Winter Olympics. I am an avid snowboarder myself, and I love to watch the ski and snowboard events. So now that the winter Olympics are over, what was the biggest thing I noticed at ... Continue Reading
The Relation Between Rest Interval Mode and Duration in Sprint Training
Sprinting is the key to field sports like football, hockey, and soccer. Plays are won or lost based on a player’s ability to execute a sprint faster than his opponent. So naturally, sprint training is an ... Continue Reading
Athlete Journal: Terry Hadlow, Entry 19 – 3/3/2014
EDITOR'S NOTE: Welcome to the athlete journal of Terry Hadlow. Terry got started in Olympic weightlifting in 1970 and is the only Canadian to have competed in senior nationals in five different decades - ... Continue Reading
4 Reasons Why Everyone Should Participate in the Tactical Strength Challenge
The StrongFirst Tactical Strength Challenge was started in 2002 by Pavel Tsatsouline. At the time, Pavel was looking for a way to help military and law enforcement operators test workplace performance, but ... Continue Reading
How to Work Up to a Full Range of Motion Handstand Push Up
When I first got involved in bodyweight training one of my main goals was to be able to do a single handstand push up against the wall. I had done things like the bench press before, but I was never very ... Continue Reading
Embracing the Flexed Lumbar Spine in Lifting
It is interesting to contemplate the fear that has encompassed society, and much of the training community, around the concept of lifting with a flexed spine. “Bend your knees and not your back.” Manual ... Continue Reading
Does Your Trainer Know the Difference Between a Ferrari and a Nova?
Click Here to Start Your Free 4-Week Program From Eva Twardokens Which one is worse? Chronic or acute injury? Or are they actually the same thing? Are acute injuries a product of chronic destruction? Or ... Continue Reading
20 Finalists Announced: 2014 Top 10 Fitness Blog Contest
The nominations have been counted. The twenty finalists have been selected. Now it's in the hands of the judges! Over the month of February we received over 1,300 nominations for our third annual ... Continue Reading
Adrenaline Is the Early Bird’s Best Friend
Up to this point, most of the research on time of day and exercise has primarily been concerned with how the time of day affects your workout, but not why. A recent study in the Journal of Strength and ... Continue Reading
Sunday Seven: The Week’s 7 Most Popular Articles, Vol. 99
Every Sunday we post the "Sunday Seven" so you can quickly see the seven most popular articles of the week. This week's most popular posts cover squats and hip dysfunction, training the core, 300 swings a ... Continue Reading
