You’ve heard that regular exercising helps make you look younger and may even extend your lifespan and improve the physical quality of your life. But how? What are the variables you can control or at least heavily influence in the healthiest direction?

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Unilateral strength training involves the use of one limb at a time and for this dumbbells, kettlebells and bodyweight movements are the primary implements. I have found out that it is one thing to do a barbell lift but it is an entirely different proposition to do the same lift with dumbells. If you don’t train much with dumbells, expect to have your strength imbalances and weaknesses exposed as I have found out, much to my dismay. Glaring weaknesses. I would benefit greatly by doing an entire cycle of just doing unilateral training. Mixing in DB cleans, snatches, push presses, bench presses, in short, most of the things I do with a barbell. for good measure, adding in some plyometric and bodyweight exercises would increase the “fun factor”.

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You can go online, searching for information on a topic, like fitness and strength and it is much like drinking water from a fire hydrant. (While drinking from that hydrant, I already have forgotten where I read the analogy)!

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Your training is going well. You are making gains. Lifts are going up and times are coming down. And you’re injury-free. Can it get any better? Of course it can. Here are some ideas.

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In another guest post by Scott Brengel, C.S.C.S., Scott answers questions about injury rates in strongman training, Crossfit and strength training in general. I believe you will find Scott’s insights interesting and better, helpful to your own training, whatever that is.

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I followed a recent thread over at Performance Menu about the idea of using strongman training as a type of GPP instead of Crossfit brand of GPP. The contention of the poster, quoting a Marine, was that some strongman training might be more suitable to what soldiers do regularly in the field.

I posed this question to pro strongman competitor, Scott Brengel who responded in this guest post.

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Most of the best conditioned people in the world are Navy SEALS. Their training is legendary and it has to be since their life depends on being better than the other guy. The surprising thing is while their work capacity far exceeds what we do or need, they use the same types of basic training that can get the rest of us in top shape for whatever we do in our lives. Here is a solid strength routine:

This is part of a series of short training videos put out by the US Navy. Take a look at “Core” and “Basics 101″.

Hat Tip to Straight To The Bar