The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 37

The Most Important Exercises

The most important exercises in the gym are the ones you need.  These needs are a mixture of your goals, your ability and your experience.  The most important exercises for two people will rarely be the same.  There are most definitely exercises that will overlap.  An exercise like a squat will be important for most people.  These common exercises will give you a good list of things to do often.  You could probably get a good “Top Ten Exercises” list out of these.  The next ten exercises will be where the magic and art of training happen.

It may not be obvious what these second-tier type exercises should be for an individual.  These exercises should address something that is important to the individual.  Some of these exercises should address your goals.  If your goal is to bench press 400 pounds, you are going to need big strong triceps.  You will need to do a lot more triceps exercises than a normal person just wanting to be “fit.” These exercises will be very important to your progress, when to your friend they won’t matter much at all.  Other exercises will be important to you because they address your weaknesses.

At some point to get better in the gym you will need to proactively address your weaknesses.  I personally have a naturally weaker back.   I must constantly be training my spinal erectors to keep them performing up to my standards.  You will have your own weaknesses to address.  This is where injury prevention comes into play as well.  If you are more susceptible to a specific injury than it would be wise and important to add exercises to mitigate this risk.  Neck training exercises are very important for football players, I can’t say there is a lot of benefit for a cross country runner doing them.  These concepts are not too hard to understand but the practice of finding these important exercises is a little harder at times.

Finding the right exercises is a mental exercise itself.  It will not always be obvious what your weak point is.  Sometimes you can be stuck at a plateau until you find the right exercise to add in to get moving again.  That exercise whatever it is, that is an important exercise.  In time you will become good at finding these exercises.  Actively engaging in this mental process will only enhance your training.

Useful Links                                                        

I am constantly on the search for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found lately.

Another good Table Talk Podcast from Dave Tate.  Worth a listen for the training and thoughts on life.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR7LETkZyJM&t=123s

Great look here at assessing bench press weakness and solutions.  https://www.elitefts.com/education/movement-tiers-for-bench-press-weakness/

This was a good video discussing butt wink if you have that problem squatting.  Even if you don’t have that problem, it is worth a watch just for the discussion of anatomy.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuWxLb-iYlg

Training made simple in this article.  This is a good intro to training type article.  https://www.elitefts.com/education/simple-does-not-mean-easy/

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 36 Learning to Try

“They don’t even know how to try.”  I said this about a group of high school kids that were in gym one day.  The kids were trying to get a workout in, it didn’t appear to be all that useful to my experienced eye.  To give these kids credit they were trying to do the right thing.  They just don’t know how to try, how to really work out hard, how to do what they are doing with intention.

None of this is their fault.  They are learning how to do these things.  I think us adults screw up, we tell these kids to try but we don’t teach them enough how to try.

Trying in the gym comes down to a lot of things.

Trying is not just trying at the thing you’re doing part of it is trying at all the things around the thing.  You can try hard at the exam to get a good grade.  Did you really try if you didn’t study hard a few days before the exam?  The things around the thing matter.  Warmups matter.  Sleeping the night before a workout matters.  If you don’t try at these things did you even really try?

Intention can come into play in weird ways.  As you develop, you have to learn how to apply some intention to what you are doing.  I use very light weight on a chest press machine at the gym.  Almost all my clients use more weight on that machine than I do.  I can bench press more than double what any of them can lift.  Why do I use less weight than them?  I have learned how to move weight with intention.  I can use this machine with a level of focus that allows me to concentrate on the muscles I want to work.  I really feel this machine in my chest where I want to.  This intention matters a lot.

Working out with intention is a form of elevating your state.  You are moving in a different way than others, it is not a normal movement.  This is an elevated state.  An experienced athlete knows how to elevate their state.  I know many people that are a completely different human being in the gym than they are outside the gym.  They elevate their state in the gym to do amazing things.  This is not how they are their everyday lives.

This is all part of trying.  You have learn how to do these things.  This takes time.  Few of us are born with the ability to just do all these things.  As a trainer its an amazing thing when I get to see a client start to learn these things.  You can guide them but they have to figure it out for themselves.  The good news is that you don’t need a guide, you can figure it out.

I suspect there is similar lessons out there about being a parent, being a business owner and any number of things.  I however am just a dumb weight lifter, so I can speak about that.

Useful Links                                                        

I am constantly on the search for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found lately.

Strength And Conditioning

This article shows some options for cycling max effort exercises if that’s your kind of thing.  There are some real fun ideas here to play with.  https://www.elitefts.com/education/5-max-effort-cycles-to-break-your-next-pr/

Upper body positioning pointers for the squat.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=204r-KMg7a8

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 35 A Case For Offseasons

Right now I am in an offseason from lifting weights hard.  I find it hard to even call it an offseason because I don’t even have a season to be honest.  I am an adult, I just workout.  Even without an actual season I think an offseason now and then is a good idea.  There are a lot of benefits to having an “offseason” phase to your workouts where you just chill out a bit. 

An offseason is a time to be less strict.  If you are dedicated to your workouts that is a good thing.  Mentally it can be nice though to just have some fun and be less strict.  This lets you do things like move workouts around to go do fun things or focus on work priorities.

The offseason is a good time to try new stuff.  If you are caught up in churning forward towards goals it can make it hard to try new stuff.  If you have a program that is working, why would you change it up to try a new exercise?   You probably won’t want to change what is working.  In the offseason you get a chance to just try new stuff.  If it doesn’t work, it really doesn’t matter.  You might find something that works well and then you can work that back into your base program.  Experimentation is a lot of fun, and the offseason is probably the best time for this kind of thing.

I don’t worry a lot about hitting certain numbers during an offseason period of workouts.  I just relax and take what is there for the day and move on with life.  This is a lot less stressful than trying to do something specific in a workout.  There can be a lot of stress associated with trying to hit a certain number in the gym.  Getting a break from that can be very healthy.

The offseason is a great time to get healthy too.  If you are always pushing hard you are going to start to accumulate nagging injuries.  These might be minor injuries but they start to have an impact over time.  In an offseason you can often rest and let things heal.  This lets you come back to training in a way that you can properly train instead of just dancing around injuries.

Sometimes an offseason in your workouts can also be good just so you can focus on your real life.  The gym is a fun hobby, and good for health.  However it starts to take a bit of energy out of most of us at some times.  It can be good to have an offseason to just focus on other things. 

Thinking about having an offseason is something most of us have to do proactively to some degree.  If you are working out for fitness and not competing in any way there is not really a natural offseason.  All the days, weeks, and months tend to just blur together.  It can be a trap to fall into just moving along at our workouts without much change in intensity for a very long time.  Over the long term adding in offseasons will probably lead to greater results from our workouts.  Changing pace now and then is a good, there is a reason athletes and coaches insist on doing it.

Going one step further there are likely other aspects of our lives that could benefit from an offseason.  A break from social media is kind of an offseason.  A break from big projects can be an offseason.  A break from professional develop can be an offseason and recharge batteries.  Professors have utilized sabbaticals for decades to work on other projects, that is just an offseason from the university.  Your offseasons will be your own, they have a lot to do with your goals and responsibilities.   If you can find space to have an offseason though you might just find yourself revitalized, fresh, and further along than you would otherwise be.  Grinding forever is hard, and there is no reason to do things the hard way if we don’t have to.

Useful Links                                                        

I am constantly on the search for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found lately.

Strength and Conditioning

Good video on foot pronation in the squat.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01Udfnd84eo

A nice article on the merits of direct oblique training, it is worth consideration because you don’t see a lot of people training obliques with much intention in the gym.  https://www.elitefts.com/culture/coaching-logs/oblique-training/

This training program seems like a rather reasonable approach for people that are burnt out and wanting to back off training for a bit.  https://www.elitefts.com/education/8-week-reset-program-for-the-stressed-lifter/

Mindset

I like this approach to adding in new habits to life.  https://zenhabits.net/perfectionism/

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 34 Doing Stuff That Doesn’t Work, Again, On Purpose

Right now like a lot of other people I am looking ahead to 2022 and thinking about what this year could hold for me.  I have some goals for the year and have started moving forward on them.  I am starting at the beginning with a lot of things.  It is good for me to be a beginner again.  I am trying a lot of new things to get things moving.  I am also retrying a lot of things that didn’t work the first time I tried them.

To repeat what works and toss out the rest is wise.  Doing things over and over that do not work is insanity.  I am thinking however for me it’s time to revisit things that didn’t work the last time I did them.

In the last couple years I have become a different kind of person.  I am now a personal trainer.  I am now a writer.  I am vastly different than I used to be.  I have come to believe that it might be time to do some things that didn’t work for me last time around.

In the next year I’ll be looking to jump back into networking events.  Networking events haven’t worked for me in a while but I’m jumping back in with a new profession and outlook on life.

I’m looking to build up an online business.  This time around though its providing real services I know how to perform well.  There are no hopes and dreams with this plan.  It’s all about doing the things I’ve been doing well all my life. 

I’m looking to try a bunch of things again, and trying to be open minded.  I think when we fundamentally change, we have good reason to retry things again.  The things that didn’t work for an old version might work for the new version of ourselves.  If we don’t retry we might be missing out on something that might just work today. 

2022 will be a year of trying new things.  It is also will be a year of retrying some things that didn’t go well the first time around.  It only takes a little courage to retry those things.  What will you be retrying?

Big Conjugate Article Drop

In recent years I have been using a conjugate training system for my workouts.  I enjoy the flexibility I am afforded by training this way.  I have also been using it as a framework to have a lot of random fun workouts in the gym.  With a little creativity you can make this system fit all sorts of goals.  Recently I published an article laying out how I organize all my training and the system I like to use.  You can read all about it here https://nehemiah.co/funconjugate/

I have also released several workouts that fit into this framework.  I will be releasing many more workouts that fit into the system into the future as well.  Here are a couple routines that I’ve launched, if you need a new workout challenge I hope you give them a look.

Intro To Glute Training Program: https://nehemiah.co/workout-routines/intro-to-glute-training-program/

Old School Chest Program: https://nehemiah.co/workout-routines/the-old-school-chest-program/

Useful Links

I am constantly on the search for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found lately.

Strength And Conditioning

This is a good article with some exercises for serratus strength.  This is something a lot of people are lacking in the gym.  https://meghancallawayfitness.com/my-blog/5-exercises-for-a-stronger-serratus-muscle/

A nice intro to the Hatfield Squat, which might be a fun variation to add to your program.  https://zacheven-esh.com/hatfield-squats-lower-body-workout/

Nice summary of common weak points in the squat and potential solutions.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz9FYFwcm5g

Mindset

This is a nice video from Jujimufu about peak performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRgRNyll-m8

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 33

Today I went in for a squat session and it felt like a disaster.  It was hard to get deep on the squats.  I also had a lot of trouble staying tight while squatting.  I was supposed to move the weights fast today, they did not move fast for most of my sets.  For the most part everything I did in the gym today was a disaster.   Staring this series of disasters in the face, I left the gym without a care in the world.  I could call today’s workout a bad workout, but I’ll just call it a workout.

Even if my workout felt like garbage that is just some sort of perspective.  Does this perspective reflect reality?  I would say no.  A lot of things happened in today’s workout.

I felt like total garbage and had no energy.

I felt like I moved slow in sets that I am trying to call speed work.

I really couldn’t get tight on my squats, I was all bloated and hardly could breath.

I was cutting my squats a little short and not hitting the depth I wanted to.

I had a plan for the workout and I hit all the numbers that were part of the plan.

I completed the whole workout.

I didn’t hurt myself and I did everything in a safe manner.

If I look at my training log for today, everything looks pretty good on the sheet of paper.  What I did checks out.

The things that were a disaster were largely things I felt.  The not getting tight on the squats, that is a legitimate problem I will address.  Otherwise, my workout felt like garbage.  It didn’t feel like garbage in a “this is injuring me way”  it felt like garbage in a “this sucks kind of way.”  I’m not going to react to a workout sucking, sometimes they suck.

Having an emotional reaction would be a mistake.  Getting emotional and worrying about a workout, that would tire me out.  I have other places to put that energy.  In this case having some sort of reaction to the workout would be a major mistake.  I would be reacting to feelings and not objective reality.

Objectively this workout was a good workout.  Numbers were hit and progress was made.  That is all you can want from a workout.  I got everything I could want but for some weird reason I felt like everything was a disaster.  I could have done a lot of things to react to this feeling, but I didn’t.

If I wasn’t paying attention I might have done a lot of things that would have taken up my time.   I could have been in a bad mood all day because my workout felt awful.  I could have taken a few hours of time and written a workout program to “fix” what I thought were problems.  Instead of that I stayed settled, and that is the path forward.

I am constantly on the search for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found lately.

Strength and Conditioning

Upper back training for the deadlift.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8syHJ34EhY

Strengthening the hamstrings and avoiding hamstring injuries in sports activities.   https://www.elitefts.com/education/never-pull-a-hamstring-again/

I liked this video on rotational rows.  My training really lacks any rotational training so I have been trying to stick a little bit of it in there for general health.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngzBBg7rkOE

This is a good video on glute training frequency.  Even if you’re not really into glute training this video is a good watch.  His process for evaluating frequency can apply to all body parts and is a great way to think about training.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWyIb-kVh3w

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 32 The Times Are Always Strange

“These are strange times.”  I have heard this about a lot of times.  I am reaching the age where I have lived through a good handful of times that things have felt weird for myself, and society at large.  I no longer pay any attention to all this weirdness or strangeness.

I am starting to think that MAYBE the time are always strange.

Life seems to be a pretty weird thing.  People always seem to behave oddly.  The more I look at things and try and really understand them, the more everything looks strange.

From a practical standpoint, I don’t think it even matters.

From a practical standpoint all a person can do is the best they can do.  While we need to pay attention to our surroundings we still need to get on with what we are going to do.  I think this matters even more when the times are indeed strange.

Executing on our visions and goals despite chaos and strangeness is possible.  Part of going where we want to go is actually going.  Strangeness sometimes can stop forward progress, but it doesn’t always.  I just try and ignore the strangeness and go ahead.  That’s what I’m thinking about today.  I know this post is a bit strange, but whatever I just try and ignore all the strange bits.

I am constantly on the search for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found lately.

Strength and Conditioning

Good article on using indicator sets to regulate your training sessions.  This makes you audible ready.  https://tonygentilcore.com/2021/11/the-art-of-the-indicator-set/

In my search for a bigger deadlift I’m getting serious about glute size and strength.  I found this hip thrust tutorial helpful.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM8XHLYJoYs

Good tactics to overcome stalled progress on a lift.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gENWbC3miAM

Mindset

I liked this article about how to frame our thoughts.  https://zenhabits.net/frame/

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 31 Getting Stuck and Bench Pressing All The Things

I am stuck on a bunch of stuff right now.

A quick moving person would be making progress right now, but I am not.

My default setting is to stay stuck for a long time.  I wouldn’t find the answer. 

I can experiment my way out of things.  I can at least try things.

I can make a few phone calls. 

These things would help.

I could also just sit and think about things and read about things.  These things would not help so much.  The answer is not out there on some website in a 700 word blogpost.

I have been thinking a lot the last few days about what path I will choose.  That is probably part of the solution, choosing a path rather than just thinking.

Life is largely good, but I am still stuck on some important things. 

I think I stay stuck a lot of times by accident.

I don’t do this kind of thing with my lifting.  When I see a weak point or am stuck with things I address it immediately.  If my bench press has a problem during a workout, I address it in that same workout.  I will do some technique practice or special exercise to work on the problem.  Things don’t always get fixed immediately but they get addressed. 

I wonder if I get stuck at other things because I don’t address what needs addressed fast enough.  I let things simmer and fester instead of addressing things that day.  When I was a coder I would have trouble with learning a new programming technology and that problem would tend to persist.  I rarely sat down and addressed the problem the same day I realized it existed.  I might have read a blog post but I didn’t address it in a meaningful way.  In retrospect a 2 or 3 hour deep dive on this new technology would have saved so many problems.  This is addressing problems in a meaningful way.  I do this with my bench press problems though.

I don’t know why I don’t address business problems immediately.  I don’t really care either.  I just know this is part of how I keep getting stuck.  I know how to fix things with my bench press, so I can at least apply that principle to other stuff.

This is how I think of things, and yes how I keep trying to bench press all the things.

Interesting Finds

Every week I spend a lot of time reading and looking for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found this week.

Strength and Conditioning

Good intro to the Romanian Deadlift: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3eO9RVbadY

More advanced Romanian deadlift video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJUP3O-_MJ4

Mindset

Some good thoughts on discipline, and how we can have great self discipline and accomplish nothing.  This one gave me a few things to think about.  https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/behavior/are-you-disciplined-or-just-self-disciplined/

I really enjoyed this article on leveling up.  It really goes along with my thoughts of making sure we are practicing the right things.  https://www.raptitude.com/2021/10/how-to-level-up-instead-of-plugging-away/

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 30. The Easy Conversations

My career has never really gone that right.  I have been out of college for 12 years now without a lot of high points in my career.  At this point there is a lot of shame and avoiding all sorts of conversational topics.  People ask how is work going?  Well I don’t really work.  Can you come to this thing?  Well maybe if I can borrow my parents’ car that night.  A lot of conversations are hard for me anymore that a lot of people find easy.

As I sit here and write I am getting ready to see a friend I have not seen in a couple years.  I’m happy to get to see my friend.  I am also a bit mortified because I have to answer a bunch of questions.  How are you doing?  Well not so good, that’s how I’m always doing.  Once we get past that part of talking about how my life is a total clusterfuck we’ll talk about other stuff.  Some of the stuff we talk about will be hard to talk about for me, but I’ll fake it and get through it.  Some of the stuff will be easy to talk about.

My writing will be easy to talk about.  I am doing a lot of writing, I enjoy it, and it’s easy to talk about.  I don’t have much pretense about what I’m doing.  I just write for me and to try and help other people.  It feels right and it feels right to talk about.

My workouts and personal training feel good to talk about.  When I talk about this stuff, I am in command.  I don’t feel hesitation.  Even when I don’t have a clue about something, I am centered in my uncertainty.  I’m just confident in what I know and don’t know.  I am confident I can figure out what I need to know.  This stuff just feels right in every way.

In my previous lives and jobs, I didn’t often feel centered and in command like this.  Often I would feel unbalanced.  I felt like I was trying not to be found out.  I don’t feel like that when discussing these new things.  I don’t know if I would call it a sign, but it could be a hint.

The ease of these conversations, is the kind of hint I try and follow.  I try and lean into this kind of ease.  It’s the kind of hint I could miss if I’m not careful.  In otherwise awkward and hard conversations, what feels good to you?

These are the breadcrumbs I try and follow.  The guide on the path forward can be this kind of hint, not always a loud roadmap.

Every week I spend a lot of time reading and looking for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found this week.

Strength And Conditioning

A good video going through how to use the box squat.  Applicable to most people since we all sit down and get up from things.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4AJ03LAEQU

A good rundown of exercises that can make you brutally strong that are not seen a whole lot in the gym.  https://joshstrength.com/2021/09/5-unappreciated-strength-exercises/

Mindset

More from Steven Pressfield about dealing with Resistance.  https://stevenpressfield.com/2021/09/just-write-the-damn-thing/

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 28. What Do You Do?

I used to go to a lot of tech networking events and was involved in that social side of things locally.  A lot of people there would tell me what they did for a living.  When I would get done talking to them I still had no idea what they actually did for a job or with their time at all.  Some of them were professional bullshitters.  Some of them I guess I just didn’t understand what they actually did. 

The bullshitters where hiding what they did with their time.  The others were hiding on accident I guess. Thinking about that, I realize I don’t want to hide.  I want to be open about what it is I do.

Specifically I want to be open about my workouts.  At this phase in my life I mostly lift weights and help others lift weights.  I want to be open about the weights I am lifting.

That is why I have put up my training log online at https://nehemiah.co/category/training-log/

I used to read the training logs of the athletes at EliteFTS so that is where I got this idea. 

I feel like if I am going to run around talking about working out I need to be open about the workouts I actually do myself.  A lot of fitness type people share a lot of stuff on Instagram and other social media.  I don’t want to be like them, I want to show more of the total picture.  They are showing the greatest hits.  Well a lot of working out is boring and simple I want to be open about that and show the truth of what my workouts are.

I ask clients to do boring and methodical things sometimes.  I think its important to have that training log out there to point to tell them “Yes I know it’s boring, and I’m doing the same thing you’re doing.”  I want to share the truth. 

The world is lacking truth.  I suppose this training log is just a little way I am trying to combat that.  So when you see me out there networking I’ll probably be talking about lifting weights.  I might not be talking about lifting anything impressive, but it will be the truth.  More truth than you’ll get from the financial advisor next to me with his blue collar shirt, khakis, and his nifty business card holder.

Every week I spend a lot of time reading and looking for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found this week.

Strength and Conditioning

A couple good tests to determine if you are strong enough to begin running.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb1iIj9PKYQ

Good ideas on building balanced glutes and a rule of thirds for doing so.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKNqDd_epnI

Mindset

A short article on being operational and getting going, this can apply to so many pursuits.  Really like that point that no one is going to clear most of us to be operational at much of anything.  https://stevenpressfield.com/2021/10/i-wasnt-even-operational/

The Useful Strong Stuff Journal Vol. 28. Practicing What I Preach

This last week I started training my first client in person in the gym.  The first real client, not a buddy I was showing some stuff in the gym.  This personal trainer thing I want to do is now real.  Instead of just tossing some ideas on training to a buddy, I am now having to think about a whole new set of things.  Things like professionalism, long term client fitness programming, and being a good example.  Clients are now going to look at what I do in the gym and judge my behaviors.  I became a role model overnight I now need to practice what I preach, what does that even mean?

For me this means I need to sharpen up everything I am doing in the gym.  I have to have a fitness goal and plan for that goal.  I have to follow the plan even when I don’t want to.  I have to do the warm ups and cool downs right.  I should be doing these things, so I do them.  It is mostly about trying to have no loose ends, and not cut any corners.  I feel the responsibility as a leader to act this way.

This responsibility is something that is a part of my value system.  It has always been there in my mind and nudged me the right way with all sorts of things.  Being a “leader” I feel a nudge to do things in a way I wouldn’t feel if I was a “follower.”  I have in my mind what a leader should be, so by taking on that role I must become that thing.  This nudge has made me better at all sorts of things in my life.

I like this nudge.  This nudge is just another tool I can use.  It makes me want to take on even small leadership. If I take that on, I know the nudge will be there. 

These leadership opportunities are available in so many of the things we are already doing.  A big part of being a leader of a professional Meetup group for example is doing things like booking rooms, unlocking doors, cleaning up the trash, and greeting new attendees.  These are things most of us can do.  Once we are helping out with these kind of things it puts us into a leadership role.  When I helped organize a tech meetup I mostly did these kind of organizational tasks, but I felt this nudge as a leader to spend my own free time learning more technology.  In my mind a leader of a tech group should be on top of tech.  I find this to be a rather fun motivational hack.

So as I find myself transitioning into being a “professional fitness expert” I find the nudge again.  I am grateful for that nudge.  I know it will get me in better shape.  The last several weeks have reminded me how powerful a force this nudge can be.

I am thinking about other places I can get this nudge from.

If I am already participating in something, is there a way to position myself so that I feel this positive pressure? 

Being a good example, well that is going to make me better, I promise however this newsletter won’t turn into a shirtless selfie newsletter.

Every week I spend a lot of time reading and looking for new ways to get stronger, healthier and more awesome.  Here are some of the best things I have found this week.

Strength and Conditioning

A good run down on incline benching with the shoulder saver pad, and why you might want to use it instead of board pressing.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYlgOLtbIcE

A good run down on some science about stretching.  Takes a few minutes to get going, but this vid is full of good stuff.  https://charlieweingroff.com/2021/09/should-you-stretch-after-you-workout/

A good article on glute training frequency.  The thought processes shown here can be applied to any number of things, a great article for overall training knowledge.  https://bretcontreras.com/your-optimal-training-frequency-for-the-glutes-part-i-exercise-type/