Archive of links I've read related to training (exercise). For general links, see Links.
I organize by the following tags appended to the end of each entry. Search the page by tag to find specific types of links. As of 19 November 2022, I only use tags for select links.
| !weightlifting | !calisthenics | !gymnastics |
| !mobility | !running | !handbalance |
| !nutrition | !recovery | !philosophy |
| !important | !injury_prevention | !martial_arts |
| !cycling | !grip | !diy (do it yourself) |
| !favorites | !events | !general |
| !rowing | !sleep | !endurance |
| !injury | !equipment | !mountaineering |
| !coaching | !advice |
do not listen to these songs regularly outside the gym. Somehow, I feel like this palpably reduces their effectiveness, perhaps by diluting the adrenaline rush you get from hearing a truly brutal song.
To understand a food's complete effect on blood sugar, you need to know both how quickly it makes glucose enter the bloodstream and how much glucose per serving it can deliver. A separate measure called the glycemic load does both
During low intensity rowing (one breath)—Exhale gradually on the drive, expelling all remaining air at the finish. Inhale on the recovery. During high intensity rowing (two breaths)—Exhale as you finish the drive. During the recovery, inhale, then exhale quickly. Inhale again just before the catch.
Foot position is relative to height and specifically shin length. The longer your shin, the lower your feet need to be.
When the feet are too low, the rower can reach too far over his or her knees, and this puts the back in a weak position, not just for injury risk but also for power application. As a rough guide, you want your knees to be in the general vicinity of your arm pits at the catch position (when the handle is at its closest to the flywheel)
Strength work should be limited to total body exercises, which include both the upper and lower body and require taking something heavy from the ground and putting it overhead. This work should be done standing or kneeling.
Awkward training implements including sandbags, heavy bags, slosh bags, kettlebells, etc. need to have a greater role in our programming as these cause greater strength and proprioception demands on the mid section and demand Chassis Integrity.
Core circuits should include three movements – anti-rotation, rotation and extension.
Core exercises should be done either standing, or kneeling. Never laying on the grounds as this doesn’t train or challenge Chassis Integrity
Core circuits must train not only strength, but strength endurance. Rather than reps, use time.
Several investigators observed that short naps of less than 30 min duration had an invigorating effect, helped to maintain daytime arousal levels and enhanced performance...Moreover, short daytime naps were also reported to improve the emotional state. Even habitual nappers have been reported to benefit from naps
Naps of less than 10 min duration have few if any benefit, whereas naps of between 10 and 45 min have restorative effects that last throughout the rest of the day...The body and mind thus need to be trained to take short naps.
The optimum time for a nap is in the afternoon around 15:00 hours [3:00pm]. Daytime naps during the afternoon may have a biological basis, as daytime arousal levels have been shown to decline around this time
Daytime naps are associated with sleep inertia after the patient awakens. Sleep inertia results in impaired alertness and performance for approximately 30 min after awakening from a nap, and slows the speed of cognitive tasks, but has few effects on the accuracy of task performance.
Another concern about daytime naps is that they could diminish the quality of subsequent sleep at night [23,24]; however, there is little evidence to support this concern. Most investigators have not found daytime naps to affect nighttime sleep adversely.
Standards are set to help raise people up. To inspire. To push. Standards aren’t lowered just so folks can brag about hitting them. If it could be done easily you wouldn’t bother trying. If everyone achieves it easily they must be doing it wrong. Or the standard must be changed. How do so many end up on the bad, self-defeating side of ego?
So I say, “Why don't you try to get good at something?” Pick one thing and do it to the exclusion of other things. Develop it. Progress. Rise. By doing so you will reach a height from which you may observe what you have left behind, what you sacrificed in order to achieve. Being good at the one thing clearly exposes the difference between what you can do well and what you can’t. Weaknesses become obvious. The focus of future work is clear. But only IF fixing those deficiencies will take you closer to your goal.
Moral of the post: stay consistent in your diet, count everything. You're probably underestimating how much you eat. [!nutrition]Consistency: Being consistent is hard, as all it takes is a single day to screw you over (same for gaining weight). That's why counting calories is so effective. If you knew at days #3 and #5 that you consumed a total of 1350 extra calories, you'd make sure to consume a greater deficit during the remaining days.
Cheat days: Boom, that's an extra 1500 calories. You went from a negative -1500 calories to a maintenance level just because you ate pizza, drank 4 beers and ate some chips in the span of no more than a couple hours!
Details: How much oil do you use? Do you like your salads with a crapload of vinaigrette, or a small amount? Do you use a lot of mayo, or little mayo or any other low-calorie dense condiments? Do you often incorporate butter in your meals? Do you drink milk/juice, or only water? Do you add milk and sugar in your coffee? Do you pour sauces over your meat? How often do you eat desserts? Are you more of a red meat consumer, or a white meat / fish consumer? Do you put grated parmesan on all pasta dishes? Do you consume bread with your pasta dishes? Do you generally drink light beers or calorie dense craft beers such as IPAs?
Healthier =/= better (at least for losing weight): Incorporating healthy snacks throughout the day can be problematic if you weren't eating snacks before, for example. "I'm gonna start eating more fruits!"Heck, some people might grab a healthier brand of chips that has about 60% the amount of calories than Doritos, but they end up eating more of it! Because they know it's technically healthier and less calorie dense, in their mind, they can eat more of it without feeling guilty. At the end of the day, you're still going to consume a crazy amount of calories.
We make the argument that the force production of a repetition is a vital and often underemphasized aspect to training specificity for maximal strength. Training with heavy loads and low intraset fatigue/velocity loss results in force production the most specific to a 1RM.
For short to moderate term strength gains, performing sets to or close to failure doesn’t offer an additional training effect but can cause other detrimental changes. We also discuss the interplay between muscle growth and proximity to failure for long term strength gains.
The available research suggests that when training with 65-85% of 1RM, staying far from failure allows for the accumulation of repetitions that provide the majority of the strength stimulus. This means that sets can be terminated before large decreases in bar velocity occur (roughly 10-20% velocity loss) while still maximizing the strength stimulus. We also recommend incorporating regular heavy top sets (>85% of 1RM) for skill practice at velocities similar to a 1RM.
Maximizing exposure to high force production is an important aspect to specificity for strength gains. While using greater loads increases force production, it is not practical to accumulate all of the required volume with very high loads. When load is dropped for “volume work,” minimizing intraset fatigue by avoiding close proximities to failure provides the greatest return on investment.The practical applications section at the end is important. [!weightlifting]
As an injured area starts feeling better, the temptation to jump back into normal training becomes almost irresistible. However, at this point the concepts of load management are as critical as ever, because there is likely a period of deconditioning that occurs following an injury due to a decrease in performance levels. Returning to normal training without doing the necessary work to build back up to that level of training is associated with increased risk of injury due to a relative ‘spike’ in workload and can potentially be detrimental.
The process will not be easy, there will be setbacks, and there will be days where you feel defeated. Don’t let that discourage you. As long as you keep showing up and putting in the necessary work, you will get back to baseline and far beyond.[!injury_prevention, !important]