1. CrossFit, You’re No Branch Rickey (Patrick McCarty)

History remembers Jackie Robinson at the man who broke through, but to be fair, it was Branch Rickey who was the visionary. CrossFit, Inc. had such a chance to be visionary, but they played it safe.

2. Time to Change How You Recover Between Sets (Doug Dupont)

How much rest between sets? It’s a question every gym goer has probably asked at one point or another. A new study sheds light on a different question: what kind of rest between sets?

3. The 2014 Top 10 Fitness Blog Contest Winners Announced! (Breaking Muscle HQ)

How much rest between sets? It’s a question every gym goer has probably asked at one point or another. A new study sheds light on a different question: what kind of rest between sets?

4. Friday Flicks: Lydia Valentin 140kg Clean Slow Motion (Breaking Muscle HQ)

This is Lydia Valentin, a Spanish weightlifter. It is simply the best example we have seen of keeping the bar close throughout the entire lift.

5. Super D Video: How to Increase Ankle Flexion (and Save Your Knees) (Donnie Thompson)

If you don’t have enough mobility in the ankle, you are going to struggle in the squat. But don’t worry! We’re going to use a band around the heel to put things right.

6. 10 Articles to Improve the Performance of Your Hamstrings (Breaking Muscle HQ)

For athletes of many sports, the hamstrings tend to be a problematic area. Here are ten articles to guide you through how to improve hamstring strength and performance.

7. What Kind of Deadlift Is the Right Kind of Deadlift? (Josh Henkin)

Since there are so many deadlift variations, it can be overwhelming to think about which one is the best one to train. In my mind, though, it is a rather easy question to answer.

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1. Why 10 x 3 Is Best for Strength and Size (Andrew Read)

Everyone knows typical gym training begins with three sets of ten. But what happens when you do ten sets of three? Give it a try for six weeks and see how fast you grow in size and strength.

2. The 5 Most Effective Strength and Conditioning Exercises for Muay Thai (Orion Lee)

If you practice martial arts, then you need to strength train in order to maximize your performance. Here are the top five bang-for-your-buck exercises for fighters.

3. Join the 300 Swings a Day Kettlebell Challenge and Burn an Extra 947 Calories a Day (Breaking Muscle HQ)

Introducing the 300 Swings a Day, 30-Day Kettlebell Challenge for those who want to blast fat, boost muscle, and build ‘kettlebooty.’ Are you in?

4. The CrossFit Games Open: Let Go of the Leaderboard (Patrick McCarty)

Your position on the leaderboard and in your box is completely arbitrary, based on the huge variable that is everyone else. Why would you define yourself according to variables you cannot control?

5. The Value of the Get Up: Broken Down Into 6 Pieces (Andrew Read)

Here’s a list of reasons why you should be doing the get up, broken down by section – as in, the various sections of the movement itself. And no, it’s not just simply standing up with a bell.

6. 4 Reasons Why Everyone Should Participate in the Tactical Strength Challenge (Craig Marker)

The StrongFirst Tactical Strength Challenge is based on functional and varied exercises that challenge an athlete’s strength and endurance. Are you signed up?

7. Getting Control of Overhead Movement: 5 Basic Drills to Prepare the Body (Lauren Beasley)

Everyone needs to perform overhead shoulder movement. Here are five drills to activate muscles, layer movements together, and prep for overhead work.

Photo courtesy of Al Kavadlo and DragonDoor.

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1. Squats and Hip Dysfuction: 2 Common Problems and How to Fix Them (Robert Camacho)

Struggling with your squat form? We’re going to take a look at the two most common dysfunctions at the hip, how they affect your squat, and what you can do to fix them.

2. Training the Core: 4 Exercises That Take It To The Next Level (James Cerbie)

Instead of relying on crunches and other popular core routines, I’d like to introduce a few exercises that’ll not only get you ripped, but also increase performance and functionality.

3. The 300 Swings a Day, 30-Day Kettlebell Challenge (Starts March 1st!) (Pat Flynn)

We challenge you to do 300 swings a day for 30 days straight! That’s 9,000 swings over the month of March. Can you do it? We think so! (Plus, there’s really fantastic prizes for three lucky winners!)

4. 2 Mistakes That Can Harm Your Training Efforts and How to Fix Them (Tom Kelso)

Are you tending to what gets you from point A to point B or are you unsure if your training components are working? Here are two mistakes you might be making.

5. What Makes a CrossFit Box a Home? (Patrick McCarty)

Last weekend. I had the opportunity to put on a seminar in Texas. While I was there, I rediscovered why I fell in love with CrossFit to begin with.

6. How Living, Working, and Training in the Wild Made Me Evolve (Dan Vinson)

I believe we were all born wild and wildness is still a part of who we are. I also believe outdoor exercise can be a means to reconnect to the innate wildness in all of us.

7. How to Train Like an Olympic Speed Skater (Those Legs!) (Katie Chasey)

I was so impressed watching the speed skaters in Sochi that I just had to sit down and research their training methods. You’d be surprised at how much of it you can give a try.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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1. The Scapula: How It Can Make or Break You (Lauren Beasley)

Some things just go together. Peanut butter and jelly. Jordan and Pippen. Cheech and Chong. In the body, the biggest power couple is the ball and socket. But what about the shoulder blade?

2. How to Hold a Freestanding Handstand (Logan Christopher)

If you’ve built a solid base with lead-up stunts, then practice your kick-up, you’ll find the balancing isn’t too bad. By following this smart progression you’ll cut your learning curve in half.

3. Mobility’s Dark Side: Why Being Super Bendy Isn’t All That (Brooke Thomas)

Are the people who are flopping their torsos down onto the floor in a spread leg forward fold actually experiencing less pain and discomfort in their bodies? Usually not. What we want is balance.

4. The Story of the Endomorph: How to Work With What You Have (Bret Hamilton)

Do you feel that your body type works against you? You are in control of what you put in your mouth and the amount of exercise you do. The body you earn is a result of those two things combined.

5. How to Build a Super Solid Kettlebell Snatch (and Avoid the Dreaded Smack) (Andrew Read)

When it comes to kettlebells, the snatch is often the first lift that many people want to learn. But let’s start at the start and figure out what the snatch is, and how best to build it.

6. 2 Skills You Need For a Better Vertical Jump (Doug Dupont)

Power is certainly a prerequisite for a high vertical jump, but so is skill work. A new study identified two skills to work on if you’re looking for a higher jump.

7. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (Or How to Grow Older Disgracefully) (Patrick McCarty)

I am going to rage against the dying of the light. Pick up the bar. Grab the rings. Squat heavy, and often. Look aging in the face and laugh. I will not go gentle into that dark night.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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1. The Biggest Loser: A CrossFit Perspective on Rachel Frederickson (Patrick McCarty)

Shouldn’t we get excited when someone who is out of shape, unhealthy, overweight, weak, or recovering walks in to our box? That’s what this movement is supposed to be about.

2. Spine Stabilization: How Your Core Should Be Working (Jason Burtchell)

When you “tighten your core,” what muscles are you using? Does your posture change? Does your pelvis tilt? Let’s take a look at what’s going on in your core, and how it should be working.

3. The Rules of Strength Training (Part 1): 25 Things I Have Learned (Chet Morjaria)

I think part of the reason I love lifting is the fact that it is a lifetime journey of learning and strength. Here are 25 things I’ve learned so far along the way.

4. How to Unlock Your Athletic Potential Through Good Posture (Robert Camacho)

If you fix your postural alignment you will jump higher, run faster, hit harder and help prevent a laundry list of injuries that could keep you out of the gym for months.

5. Proper Foundations: A 5 Step Progression to the Bar Muscle Up (Amber Larsen)

This article is going to explain the five proper foundational movements to get your first bar muscle up – and how to do so without injuring yourself in the process.

6. 12 Sets of Advice on the Kettlebell Swing (Breaking Muscle HQ)

Welcome to our collection of articles and videos on the humble kettlebells swing. Whether you want strength, speed, endurance, or fat loss, you are in the right place.

7. Stop Peeing Yourself During Workouts: The Science Behind Stress Urinary Incontinence (Meghan Rovig)

Losing urine during a workout isn’t okay, and isn’t a badge of honor as to how hard you worked. Here’s what’s really going on and how you can stop peeing yourself.

Photo courtesy of NBC.

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1. Your IT Band is Not the Enemy (But Maybe Your Foam Roller Is) (Robert Camacho)

Chances are high that if you’ve ever used a roller, you’ve used it to roll out your iliotibial band. Stop abusing your IT band. It is your friend, and you haven’t been treating it like one.

2. 8 Common Squatting Mistakes and How to Correct Them For Stronger Squats (Chet Morjaria)

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone squats. Through the combo of these two things, I’ve worked out eight common mistakes that limit squatting potential and how to correct them.

4. 4 Supplements That Are Good for Your Life, as Well as Your Lifting (Spencer Nadolsky)

Nitrate, creatine, pycnogenol, and acetyl-L-carnitine are good examples of supplements with well-documented effects, but also great potential for more health-oriented discoveries.

5. Combining Bodyweight Exercise and Weight Training for Maximum Benefit (Ryan Hurst)

Which is better, bodyweight exercise or weight training? The answer is neither is better. In fact, often you will get more benefit if you use both approaches together.

6. 10 Opinions on The CrossFit Games Open (Breaking Muscle HQ)

It’s that time of year again. Thoughts are turning to the impending CrossFit Games Open. Here are ten opinions on the Open from those who have been there before.

7. GPP Forever: How to Avoid Accidental Specialization and Actually Get Fit (Andrew Read)

Personal training has become overtaken by all the “strength coaches” out there. Except do you know what beginners need? GPP – not SPP.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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1. 7 Reasons Why Your Child Should Practice Martial Arts (Eric C. Stevens)

Whether your kid is too bossy, too shy, or perhaps a little hyper, the martial arts can help your child learn many important life lessons. (And those same lessons apply for all of us, not just kids.)

2. The 5 Most Annoying Fitness Questions I Get Asked at Parties (Andrew Read)

Here’s my list of the things I get asked the most and what I do to deflect the conversation (without just telling people I’m smarter than them, because that never seems to go down so well).

3. How to Freshen Your Snatch (Pat Flynn)

Nobody who ever went to college for the snatch, so far as I know, ever learned a thing about it. But surely the snatch can still be learned from somebody who knows his way around it, like myself.

4. CrossFit Updates: Kevin Ogar and the Masters Level Competition (Patrick McCarty)

An update and clarification on what happened in the Kevin Ogar accident, as well as my assessment of the new set-up of the master’s level competition for the CrossFit Games Open.

5. Your Achilles…Hip? (Lauren Beasley)

Here’s what you need to know: I am a physical therapist who works almost exclusively with athletes. And over and over again I see a common thread limiting my athletes, their Achilles heel – the hip.

6. 4-Week Intermediate Strength and Power Program (Sally Moss)

The goal of this free program is for you to increase whole-body strength and power, as measured by 1RM in deadlift, power clean, and bench press.

7. 4 Exercises to Cure the Dreaded Imaginary Lat Syndrome (Mike Samuels)

Here are four awesome lat-building moves that will get your training mojo working overtime, strengthen your back, and give you some lats you can actually be proud of for the first time.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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1. How Do We Honor Kevin Ogar? (Patrick McCarty)

We have a man down. Burying our heads in the sand dishonors him. Digging deep to locate the weak link in the chain honors not only him, but protects those who aspire to be like him.

2. How Bands Are Actually Holding You Back (Amber Larsen)

It wasn’t until I attended the current CrossFit Gymnastics certification that I realized bands are not essential, and can even be a crutch to an athlete’s progression.

3. On Not Giving a S%&# About BJJ: Don’t Judge (Valerie Worthington)

I have allowed BJJ to influence my choices throughout my life. So nobody found it more unexpected than I when I spent the final months of 2013 not giving a flying f*ck about it.

4. The 8 Most Hated Exercises (Tom Kelso)

I recently conducted a poll to find out which exercises you hate but know are good for you. Here are the top eight exercises, based on 76 responses and listed from least to most reviled.

5. Advancing Bodyweight Skills: Proper Handstand Progressions (Andrew Read)

How do you progress when the load is bodyweight? And in particular how do you progress when the exercise has a large skill component such as handstands?

6. Why Your “Max” Isn’t Your Max – The 6 Types of Actual Maxes (Chet Morjaria)

Here is my breakdown of the types of maxes we all encounter throughout our strength journey, and how to makes sense of them.

7. Why Successful People Don’t Set Goals and You Shouldn’t Either (Graeme Turner)

It’s popular to push the setting of goals, but what if setting goals could actually be a negative thing? And is it something that successful people actually even do? Evidence shows otherwise.

Photos provided by Jorge Huerta Photography.

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1. The Importance of Respecting the CrossFit Process (Mike Tromello)

There is a process to getting better. Just like anything, you have to develop the little things first. Then, with a little bit of luck and tons of determination, you just might accomplish your goal.

2. 15 Things You’re Probably Not Doing Enough Of (Chet Morjaria)

Through my time as both a strength athlete and strength coach, I’ve discovered some very effective aspects of training that, for whatever reason, have not hit most people’s radars yet.

3. What’s Preventing You From Doing Pistol Squats? How to Progress Pistols (Chris Garay)

Consider this article to be a user’s manual of sorts for the pistol, complete with a step-by-step progression as well as a troubleshooting guide.

4. This Year, Exercise Less(Katy Bowman)

Hold onto your hats. This is the year I challenge you to exercise less. I know you think I’m either joking or crazy, but I’m (hopefully) neither. Allow me to explain.

5. 3 Drills for Building Wrist Flexibility (Logan Christopher)

If you are working on handstands or trying to overcome wrist inflexibility and pain, then I would highly recommend doing these exercises every day.

6. The Life-Cycle of a CrossFitter, Part 2 – Moving Into Real Fitness (Patrick McCarty)

CrossFitters – if you’ve hit a plateau, you’ve begun to get soft, or you are beginning to feel the early pangs of some sort of injury, then read on.

7. What Is Healthy Eating? Turning the Food Pyramid Upside Down (Kevin Cann)

Did you know that the official USDA food pyramid is actually the opposite of the food pyramid proposed by the USDA nutritionists?

Photo courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

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1. Top 10 Olympic Weightlifting Articles of 2013 (Breaking Muscle HQ)

Year upon year, it seems that more people step into the world of weightlifting. Luckily, we have a selection of weightlifting experts on hand to keep you stepping in the right direction.

2. Top 10 Nutrition Articles of 2013 (Breaking Muscle HQ)

We have assembled a team of nutrition experts, each with different specialities, to present you with a wide range of topics and opinions on the subject of nutrition.

3. Breaking Muscle Top 10 Articles of 2013 (Breaking Muscle HQ)

If you were stranded on an island with just ten articles to read, we think this would be a good list. We looked at all the numbers from 2013 and these ten articles came out on top.

4. Top 10 Health and Fitness Books of 2013 (Breaking Muscle HQ)

2013 was a great year for fitness geeks who like to curl up with a good book. Here are the top ten fitness, nutrition, and health books that we reviewed this year. Have you read them all?

5. Top 10 Kettlebell Articles of 2013 (Breaking Muscle HQ)

This year’s top ten articles cover a whole spectrum of training tips and applications for kettlebells, including how to combine kettlebells and sandbags, an interview with Valery Fedorenko, and more!

6. Kettlebells as a Cardio Tool: Yay or Nay? (Doug Dupont)

For some strange reason, people who use kettlebells often seem to only want to use kettlebells. A new study asks how kettlebells compare to traditional types of cardio workouts.

7. Top 10 Sports Psychology Articles of 2013 (Breaking Muscle HQ)

Here at Breaking Muscle we want to help you become better at every aspect of training, including the mental side. These ten articles cover visualization, self-image, goal-setting, and more.

Photo courtesy of Katie Chasey.

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1. 5 Common Training Mistakes and How to Fix Them (Tom Kelso)

We’re human and not infallible. We all screw up from time to time. Here is a short list of what I believe are the common training transgressions.

2. The Real Biggest Loser Is the Show Itself (Andrew Read)

If I could have one wish granted for Christmas it would be for “Biggest Loser” to be removed from television for good.

3. How to Squat More Without Getting Stronger (Chet Morjaria)

Here are eight ways you can increase your squat without getting any stronger. Believe me, you already have the strength. It’s simply a case of learning how to tap into it.

4. The Life Cycle of a CrossFitter, Part 1: The Dreaded Plateau (Patrick McCarty)

When we first start CrossFit we are in a honeymoon phase full of PRs and magic. But about eighteen months in we hit injury and plateau. Why does this happen and how can you change your trajectory?

5. Fixing Common Squat and Deadlift Problems with Bands (Greg Nuckols)

I prefer to fix common squat and deadlift problems with a loaded bar on my back or in my hands. You can use resistance bands to accomplish this, as long as you have a little imagination.

6. It’s Not Your Metabolism, It’s Your “NEAT” That’s Stopping Your Fat Loss (Vanessa Bennington)

The vast majority of people who complain about their slow metabolisms don’t have a metabolism problem at all. They have a movement problem. A lack of movement, that is.

7. Strong, Healthy, and Vegan? (Yes, It Can Be Done) (Melody Schoenfeld)

If the only thing standing between you and going vegan is the fear that your health or strength will suffer, then allow me to allay your fears. What should a vegan strength athlete eat?

Photo provided by CrossFit LA.

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