Results matching “Bird”

The Masters' Performance blog notes an interesting study by a team at Indiana State University; looking at the correlation between core strength and athletic performance. Their findings - perhaps surprisingly - indicate that for many sports, core strength does not have a significant impact on performance.

Very interesting.

Physical Strategies points to a great piece by Staff Sgt. Paul McCully, showing the real value of combative training. Excellent reading.

Recently on the Virtual Meet forums, James Santi mentioned the Hockey Deadlift. After watching the video [streaming, 1.4mb .flv download] I was left scratching my head; I'd seen a similar exercise before, but not with that name.

As many long-term readers of Under the Bar will recall, Kris mentioned the dumbbell equivalent (*) after coming across it in Bill Pearl's excellent work, Keys to the Inner Universe. If you can get your hands on a copy, it's a good read.

Regardless of the name, it's definitely a great exercise.

* In the dumbbell version, the weight is lowered three times; left, middle and right. The Hockey Deadlift version appears to omit the middle.

It's been an obscenely busy week here at Straight to the Bar. Amid the mayhem, the following made their way onto the site :

• Articles : Thib took a look at the 3 ways to pack on a bit of muscle, Dr Michael Eades launched a very interesting discussion on obesity in ancient Egypt and I took a brief look at one of the concepts behind a sustainable gym (incidentally, if anyone's interested in pursuing a similar idea for the heavier gym gear, drop me a line).
• Videos : Rif points to a great demonstration of the Tactical TGU, Jack Beers demonstrates a phone-book tear at 94 years of age and Mark Vogels inflicts some serious pain on a Red Nail. Nice one.
• Ideas : Turn your kettlebell over and explore a wealth of new exercises (the Tactical TGU will get you started), take your shoes off and learn to walk like a fox and experiment with static holds (the Overhead Supports look great).
• To do : Grab your gym bag, throw out the leftover food and photograph it (there are t-shirts up for grabs), try out the sleeper stretches before your next game and grab your tickets for Sochi 2014. Should be a good one.
• Bonus : Dr Michael Breus looks at the findings of a recent study on the effects of sleep deprivation in teenagers. The video linked to in the article [streaming, 6.5mb .flv download] provides a little background on the situation. Would later school starts make a significant difference?

George Jowett ad in Science and Mechanics, Dec 1945.

Perhaps not the greatest thing for encouraging clean eating, but definitely one of the strangest - bacon-flavoured toothpicks.

Via the Diesel Crew blog : Smitty explains just why kettlebells and dumbbells feel different when doing lateral raises.

A great supplementary exercise for the Jerk - the Overhead Support [streaming, 1.8mb .flv download].

Mike over at Anvil or Hammer points to a great competition by Tsampa.org's Kris Lindqvist on the Virtual Meet site. Short version - photograph the contents of your gym bag and win a VM t-shirt. Superb.

Russia's definitely on my travel destination shortlist; having narrowly missed it several times. 2014 now seems like the perfect time to go.

More specifically, the resort town of Sochi - which has just been named the official host of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Should be great.