
Welcome to Straight to the Bar
If you’ve just joined us, welcome. Here you’ll find everything that grunts, groans and ticks in the world of strength training. In short, this site is the home of all things strength.
Incidentally, this site’s been helping people become fitter, healthier and stronger since January 2004. If you’ve just joined us, I highly recommend subscribing to the weekly Strength & Fitness Newsletter (part of the Strength Kit), which contains details of new posts on the site, freshly-minted video demonstrations & tutorials, details of upcoming Gymchats and a whole lot more.
And yes, it’s absolutely free.
To help get you started, here are a few of our most recent posts. And if you want to dive in to a particular area. check out the ‘Start Here‘ page above. Enjoy.

Fitness Reading/Listening For The Week : ‘Live Forever? : A Curious Scientist’s Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death’ (by John Tregoning)
John Tregoning’s ‘Live Forever? : A Curious Scientist’s Guide to Wellness, Ageing and Death’ takes a thorough look at the possibility of living indefinitely, from a somewhat skeptical position. Interesting.

Gpath Pin (Gym Assistant)
The Gpath Pin is an assistant for the gym. A little hard to explain – the video below will show you exactly what it is.

Fitness and Mental Health (The Bioneer)
Agree entirely.

Looking At : Mar 23 2025
This Week On Straight To The Bar…

Looking At : Mar 9 2025
This Week On Straight To The Bar…

Fitness Reading/Listening For The Week : ‘Music as Medicine : How We Can Harness Its Therapeutic Power’ (by Daniel Levitin)
Daniel Levitin’s ‘Music as Medicine : How We Can Harness Its Therapeutic Power’ is a wonderful combination of cognitive neuroscience & music therapy, and incredibly thorough to boot.
Love it.

Cmate QuickCare (Health Tracker)
Looks great.
The Cmate QuickCare is a portable health tracker which monitors 9 common areas, rapidly. The usual suspects, as well as a few which probably should be.

Ex-Pharma Rep – Why American Healthcare Is So Broken (Chris Williamson & Brigham Buhler)
Yep, it certainly is.

Looking At : Mar 9 2025
This Week On Straight To The Bar…

Fitness Reading/Listening For The Week : ‘How Superfoods Work’ (by Julia Nordgren for The Great Courses)
Julia Nordgren’s ‘How Superfoods Work’ highlights an incredible pairing – that of a medical doctor with a healthy dose of nutritional knowledge. And given the area being discussed, that’s a wonderful partnership indeed.