Training Log

Why You SHOULD Use Your Back as a Crane

by Mia Inman, PhD, SSC | January 05, 2017

In the 1980s, the New Zealand Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) began a campaign to prevent lower back injuries in the general population. A central tenet of the ACC campaign was the phrase “Don’t Use Your Back like a Crane”. While this phrase is not as well known among younger people [1], those of us who are older had it drilled into us via TV, print media, at school and at home. This phrase is still used around the world today, and the underlying principle is still being followed, although alternative phrases such as “Lift with your legs” or “Bend at the knees” may also be employed.

Performance vs Training

by Mark Rippetoe | December 29, 2016

What do you do when you go to the gym? Do you load the bench press or the leg press machine and work up to a heavy weight, just to see how much you can do today? Or start at the light end of the dumbbell rack and go up as heavy as you can, blasting your “pipes”? If you do, you're “performing” instead of training.

paul horn demonstrates a low bar stretch

Low Bar Position Stretch

by Paul Horn | December 22, 2016

Starting Strength Coach Paul Horn shows a way to improve your low bar squat bar position over time.

Coming Back After a Layoff

by Andy Baker, SSC | December 15, 2016

I’ve had a few conversations with clients at the gym regarding what to do after a long layoff from training. This is definitely one of those issues that almost all of us face from time to time during the year. How to restart a program and what weights to use after a layoff are inevitable concerns since I train real people with real jobs, families, and a whole host of obligations that sometimes force them to take time away from the gym. Some do a better job than others about staying committed to their training, but usually even the most committed of clients will miss a week or a month with injury, illness, vacation, or business related travel. It’s called Life, and it happens. But layoffs are something we can work around.