MobilityWOD is the best fitness video weblog I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. Kelly Starrett is filming/discussing a mobility workout every day. Engaging speaker, walks the walk, and clearly knows his stuff inside and out.

This T-Nation article, The Third-World Squat, is the second time I've seen this particular stretch touted. First time was at the end of Mark Sisson's beach sprints video (more sensitively referred to as the Indigenous People Stretch). The Crossfit boards also picked up on these articles. Anyway, it's definitely one of the perfect stretches. Hits a lot of different muscle groups, proficiency will help with form/flexibility issues you might run into squatting or deadlifting, and you don't need a lot of room. I like to get out of my office chair every once in awhile, squat for a bit, then hit the camel pose (watch your back on this one, esp. doing it cold). To me this combination seems like the quickest and most efficient way to stretch out a lot of the stuff that shortens up when you spend too much time sitting.

Oh, one tip I don't think anybody has mentioned regarding the squat: if you can't get low while keeping your heels down you can roll up a towel and put it under your heels. That'll make it easier to get lower. After a few days, as you get comfortable, unroll the towel a bit. Repeat until you don't need the towel any more.

• Compared with a bunch of carrots, a package of Twinkies, to take one iconic processed foodlike substance as an example, is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget. So how can the supermarket possibly sell a pair of these synthetic cream-filled pseudocakes for less than a bunch of roots? Michael Pollan delves into the answer and implications (sorry, this one's a couple weeks old).
• I'm a computer guy, and let's face it, most of us spend too much time at our desks. Hence, this T-Nation article: (De)-Constructing Computer Guy.
• Dusty Rhodes linked to this Mark Sisson piece, Is There Any Safe Meat?, and that started me exploring Mark's site. Lots of interesting stuff on there. For example, I had previously posted some soy links, so was interested to read Sisson's take: 10 Things to Know about Tofu. I also really appreciated this nugget from his recent wine & chocolate post: Like chocolate and coffee, wine is one of those "marginally nutritious" issues that is endlessly debatable and ultimately not a huge factor in health, in the sense that there is probably some benefit to be gained from reasonable consumption thanks to the antioxidants, but don't expect any miracles. It's important to put these sensational stories in perspective...

A few of the links that caught my eye recently:

• All Around Strength posts a nice collection of back exercises.
• Static stretching still has its place: Jason Ferruggia on stretching.
• It doesn't get much simpler, and I bet it works: simplefit.org.

Some quickies:

• Skwigg describes an exercise I'll dub the "Plank Knee Drop":

  Get into a plank position with only your forearms and toes touching the floor, like this. From that position, WITHOUT dropping your hips, touch your knees to the floor and return to the starting position. You accomplish the knee drop by recruiting an army of core-stabilizing muscles to keep your hips still, and then you roll forward on your toes and tap your knees to the ground. This exercise will destroy every muscle in your entire body. Try it for a minute or two and get back to me.

  Nice. Needed a quick core workout so did 100 of those to the tune of one per second ("one-one thousand, two one thousand..."). Definitely felt it. Would have been even better to do few more such sets, but I was pressed for time.
• Straight to the Bar links up Dr. Cobb's interesting Dynamic Joint Mobility stuff.
• On the RossTraining forums: the Burpee, Mountain Climber, Push-up Challenge.
• Via Crossfit forums, a fun Parkour-ish video. Love the tree work.

We desk jockeys are prone towards tightness pretty much across the whole front. Chest, quads, hip flexors and the various ancillary muscles. Tight calves in athletes are not uncommon (and can contribute to various ailments). I failed the modified Thomas test (you should definitely try this on yourself), and yet the typical "stand and pull your heel to your butt" stretch does nothing for me. I know my calves are tight, and that my chest/shoulder flexibility needs work. So here are the stretches I've found that really work for those muscle groups:

This one is fantastic: lie on your side, bend the leg you are not stretching and brace it against a wall. Stretch the other leg. You can feel this one from the hip flexors to just above the knee and everywhere in between. You can experiment with where to put your upper body, but I tend to think I get a better stretch with my torso closer to my off-leg. Directly applicable to Thomas test-type flexibility. Not that you're doing this solely to ace the test; the test is just an indicator. Criminy, note how I can't even make a straight line, tracing along my stretched upper leg up through my torso.

For the calves, this one is great. None of the other "pushing against a wall" stretches have done much for me, as with them I feel compression in my ankle joint before I can get a good calf stretch going. Not here though! Here it's all calves. Note the critical hard-to-see 2x4 under my toes. You just want to lean in, trying to get your hips to the wall, keeping your legs straight (or thereabouts - position such that you feel it in your calves, not the backs of your knees).

This one's easy to describe. Find a corner, assume this position, and try to walk your body all the way into the corner. You can also do this with a doorway. You can alter the height of your elbows to vary the stretch.

I also like this one as a quick break stretch, as it hits the hips and opens up the chest all at once (and I can't do a real bridge). Watch your back though! When I do this without warming up, my wife cringes, so I go easy with it. I tend to feel compression in the lower back first, which limits the stretch for me. Fine for a quicky, but not as effective as either of the dedicated (non-calf) stretches above.

18 Tips for Bulletproof Knees. Gotta get past a mildly grisly knee surgery photo to read the whole thing. The timing of #3 and #14 were quite amazing to me, as I just this weekend attended an open house at my NMT friend's practice. She works with a PT who did an injury Q&A, and it was very interesting, especially since I had the guy to myself for part of it, so got some one-on-one attention. We didn't go into great depth (I was only had him to myself for about 20 minutes), but it was very informative nonetheless. We talked about my weak ankles, creaky knees, shin splints, achilles, etc. (basically every lower-leg aliment in the book, it feels like). He was pretty keen on blaming my flexibility. I was kinda skeptical, as I stretch pretty regularly, and have made good strides in my flexibility, but he put me through a few basic tests, and sure enough, I failed. Not miserably, but pretty typically.

Anyway, the first test he had me do was that "modified Thomas Test" in #14! One thing they don't tell you in the article is that you really want to hug both knees as tightly to your chest as you can, and then drop the one knee, keeping the other knee pulled tight. Otherwise it's easier to fudge. Failing this test (as I did) makes some sense with the behind-the-kneecap pain (as I have), as the muscle basically keeps your kneecap "strapped down" too tight (that's my understanding, anyway). Anyway, might be worth trying the test on yourself if you're having similar issues.

(A fun aside: this PT also told a story about a trainer he knew for an NFL team. They'd have open calls, where they'd bring in hundreds of athletes and give them a look. This guy would just go down the line and look at the way guys were put together, and pick a handful out of hundreds to take a closer look at. This was without watching any of them do anything! Like checking the confirmation of a horse. The thing that stuck with me was this line: "Pronators? Forget about it, go home." Dang.)

I just watched the trailer (WMV, 1.6MB) for The Art of Strength: Newport DVD, and it's pretty nice. What grabbed me though, was the stretch he demonstrates starting at 1:10. Definitely going to have to start including that in my stretch breaks.

Janet Cromley on stretching:

...a recent study in the Journal of Athletic Training found that pre-exercise stretching doesn't seem to decrease injury and post-exercise stretching doesn't seem to reduce soreness.

That research, an analysis of previous stretching studies, comes on the heels of evidence that stretching can impair performance of explosive moves such as sprints and jumps.

I've read lots of this stuff elsewhere, but this short piece sums it up nicely. And be sure to take note of the hip flexor advice if you have a desk job (I seem to recall stretching your chest is also important if you spend any significant amount of time desk-bound).

Click on through to Top 15 Exercises for Higher Vertical Jumps and check out item #2, "Static Hip Flexor Stretch". A couple things caught my eye: first, this stretch sounds very similar to the "Samson Stretch", a Crossfit favorite. Second, the author doesn't recommend static stretching prior to working out (good advice, in my experience) except for the hip flexors. Very interesting exception to the rule, and yet another reference to cross my desk about the primacy of hip action in athletic endeavor.

Having only skimmed the exercises previously, I'm now giving Ultimate Flexibility by Sang H. Kim a good thorough cover-to-cover treatment. While I've been stretching every day for at least eight months now—and have enjoyed some benefits—I probably haven't been as efficient in my efforts or visualization as I could be. For example, I haven't been focusing on reciprocal inhibition in my stretching, and I should be. Reciprocal inhibition refers to your muscles operating in pairs: when one contracts (the agonist), its partner (the antagonist) relaxes. I think actively concentrating on this phenomenon will help my stretching. From the book:

The result of this function is that the muscle that is not contracting is inhibited, i.e. its ability to contract is suppressed. This principle can be used to enhance the results of your stretching program by inducing the inhibition response just prior to stretching a muscle. For example, when stretching your hamstring muscles in a forward bend, focus on contracting your quadriceps by pulling upward, as if you were pulling your kneecaps up toward your hips. The contraction of your quads signals your hamstrings to release further, allowing you to achieve a deeper stretch. This technique also develops strength in the quads. If you apply this principle to each stretch, you will build both strength and flexibility in opposing pairs of muscles, a nearly perfect model for increasing your flexibility.

Even just skimming the exercises I knew the book was a keeper, but now that I'm getting deeper into it, I'm finding it even more valuable.

The Netflix Workout carried me a little ways, but it wasn't far enough. Starting at the beginning of 2005 I completely overhauled my training approach, and that overhaul is now fodder for this weblog. Here were my revelations (which I'm sure are old hat to anyone who's already fit):

• You can only get more flexible and stave off injury if you make stretching a priority. Do it every day, and not just as a half-assed workout warmup. I now take a break from work to stretch, making it an entirely separate activity from my workout proper.
• You have to train for strength in addition to training for endurance.
• Intervals and high intensity training are king. Long duration aerobic training is for marathoners, not team sports and power athletes. Shorter, more intense workouts will still boost your endurance, but without sacrificing speed and power.

You can check out the links to the right to see how I came to many of these ideas (none of which are original, that's for sure).

I have to admit, I was quite skeptical that intense interval training would get me the same endurance benefits (within the context of Ultimate Frisbee) as my hour-long aerobic sessions in front of The Sopranos. But the bottom line is this: I cut my workout time in half, and was easily two months ahead of schedule, conditioning-wise, from the previous season. I was amazed. Shorter workouts, better results. Oh, and I dropped the rest of the forty pounds, bringing me roughly back to my college weight.

Best of all, after many months of forcing myself to exercise, I'm finally happy to exercise for its own sake (and that's despite my workouts being intense and varied enough that watching TV at the same time is out of the question).

Okay, that's enough groundwork. Time to start blogging for real.