Articles, etc

Just some stuff I've come across, some of it is interesting:

Bar Speed: Actual vs. Intended

Speed of movement is one of the most important factors related to strength gains. Actually, intended speed of movement is the real key. What's the difference? We've established that maximal strength training should be done above 85%, while including sets over 90% for best results. Those of you who have moved a weight above 90% understand that no matter what your intentions are, the bar isn't going to move quickly. The actual bar speed doesn't matter — the intended bar speed does.

From the same article, about warmups:

Overshoot Your Working Intensity

Warming up is receiving more attention than it used to, for good reason. A high quality warm-up will positively influence the rest of the workout. If you haven't purchased Inside-Out by Mike Robertson and Bill Hartman and Magnificent Mobility by Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson, you're doing yourself a disservice.

Following your dynamic mobility and activation work, it's still necessary to warm-up on a specific lift. If you're going to be working at submaximal intensities (which I'll loosely define as below 90%), extend your lift-specific warm-up to a higher intensity than what you'll be using for your work sets.

So, say you're doing a lower body workout that starts with deadlifts for a 4 x 5 set/rep scheme at around 80%. Your max deadlift is 400 pounds, with 80% of that equalling 320 pounds.

Your mobility and activation warm-up might look something like:

Bodyweight squat x 10
Diagonal split-squat x 8 (each leg)
Lateral miniband walk x 10 steps (each direction)
Glute bridge hold 1 x 30 seconds
Reverse crossover lunge x 10 (each leg)
Quadruped hip circles x 6 (each direction and each side)
Glute bridge with miniband x 15

Lateral lunge x 10 (each leg)

Moving over to the platform, your deadlift-specific warm-up would look like this:

135 x 5 (35%)
225 x 3 (56%)
275 x 1 (68%)
315 x 1 (79%)
355 x 1 (89%)
320 for your 4 x 5 (80%)

this is interesting. Seems a lot of warm-up but it does make sense.

An article about training during injury:

http://www.t-nation.com/article/performance_training/creating_a_training_effect_when_youre_injured&cr=

Article on ankle strength:

http://www.t-nation.com/article/performance_training/the_ankle_paradox_building_indestructible_ankles&cr=performanceTraining