Need more resources?  Check out this page full of a ton of S&C resources from blogs to books to webinars to DVDs.  Broken down into multiple categories for ease of reference, everything from nutrition to business side of training is covered.  The one thing we always can use more of is different resources.  Don't get stagnant with the same blogs and books.  Switch it up, learn from all points of view.  

Tony Gentilcore is a strength coach that works at Cressey Performance.  He's written numerous articles and published videos online.  In this article, Tony talks about foam rolling and tennis balls for implementing soft tissue work.  

The nice thing about this article is Tony explains when foam rolling may be more efficient vs when using a tennis ball may be.  Additionally, he works into his article Anatomy Trains principles as a basis for why he does certain soft tissue work.  Each explanation has a picture or video to go along with them.  It is a great article to get better ideas for implementing soft tissue work into your own routines or your athletes.  

Whether your a strength coach or not, if you've ever gone to the gym on a Monday you've probably seen hundreds of people benching.  While it may not be deemed an official day, its common gym knowledge that every Monday is national bench press day.  

This phenomenon with bench pressing is not just limited to your regular gym fanatics though.  Athletes are just as mesmerized by the bench press and use it as a standard of strength.  While I could sit here and make a case against the bench press as the "standard of upper body strength" that would do no good because its not going away anytime soon.  What is important is that we fix the way the bench press is taught.  Unfortunately, more often than not, the bench press is not taught to young athletes.  Furthermore, the way most athletes bench wrecks their shoulders, not to mention the volume of work they do on the bench press each week.  

Luckily, their are very good strength coaches out there that have taken the time to educate themselves and give us very well thought out articles.  This article by Mike Robertson is just that.  In this post you will find: the set-up for the bench press and its variations, each type of bench press (barbell vs dumbbell), common bench press flaws (flaring elbows for ex), performance improvements, and most of the gear to use while bench pressing.  Its very informative and comprehensive, check it out. 

Which lower extremity muscle groups are most important to sprinting speed in an athlete?  According to the research it would appear to be the hamstrings and glutes.  In this article by Chris Beasley, he breaks down the studies analyzing sprinting performance.  

In the study he breaks down, the authors found that the hip extensor and knee flexor muscles had the greatest workload during terminal swing.  What that indicates is that these muscle groups are vital to strengthen for improved sprinting ability, according to the study.  

Additionally, it was found that peak knee extension torque during stance phase of gait were not affected with increased running speed.  Check out the review by Chris for more details.  

This week's strength and conditioning post is from a physical therapist and strength coach named Kelly Starrett.  For those of you unfamiliar with Kelly, he is the owner of mobilitywod.com and a private practice in San Francisco.  Known for working with athletes and crossfit, his primary philosophy revolves around the idea that movement plays a primary role in most injuries and can be corrected.  

As you can see from this video Kelly is offering a corrective exercise to help rectify his athlete's poor ankle mobility.  Often our athletes are not taught correct form when they begin squatting and it leads to very poor motor control patterns and compensatory positions preceding injury.  Finding the link to what is contributing to poor form when we first meet our clients is vital.  Make sure to look at the entire body structure when analyzing the squat as each individual presents with a different set of compensatory strategies.