Featured Fitness Content: Volume 72

We’re back at it again with another weekly installment of Featured Fitness Content. As always, if you’d like to go through last week’s edition, you can find it here.

But now onto this week’s content…

Featured Content

The 3 Upper-Body Exercises You Should Be Doing By Alan Bishop via T-Nation

4 Intensity Techniques for Increased Muscle Growth By Tony Bonvechio

5 Important Benefits of Focused Breathing By Jared Packer via Move Strong Physical Therapy

Helping Athletes Achieve Mental Toughness Through Psychological Struggles Via USA Swimming

Young Athletes, Lean into Fear and Risk, Live Life By Erica Suter

How I’m Training to Ascend Utah’s Highest Peak…

Earlier this week we published Part II of the series Training for a 46-Mile Speed Ascent of Utah’s Highest Peak. In the first part of the series I discuss my draw to Utah, its extreme environment, and perform a brief recap of my experiences in that state during the Ruthless Performance Ride America charity event.

In part 2, I discuss, in greater detail, some of my training philosophies for this ascent, how much of this training is weight-room oriented, and how, in many ways, it is a similar undertaking and requires similar adaptations to the requirements of our athletes.

Consider this passage for example:

Many of the principles here apply across a spectrum of our athletes, but some areas are more neglected by certain sports than others; consider a ballet group overlooking the value of strength or a football team spending too little time on injury prevention initiatives like mobility drills. The key is to match the variable with an appropriate frequency and intensity as to prevent that variable from being the weak-link in an athletes sport-specific training or competition. By doing this, the limiting factor in an athlete’s success is always their focus, the scientific validity of their training style, or some other variable outside of the athlete’s physical capacities.

Training for a 46-Mile Speed Ascent of Utah’s Highest Peak – Part II

Quote of the Week

A perpetual staple of the training and philosophy behind Ruthless Performance are stoic principles. This quote fits that theme quite nicely and is a good reminder that your focus and energy should be spent dealing with that which you can control.

Consider a high-stakes competition; here you are only in control of your own actions. By acting to the best of your ability, you’ll be best suited for bringing home the gold. Time spent dwelling on the opponents can only conceivably change the outcome for the worse.