With 2011 winding down, I’ll be dedicating this week to the best content of the year, based on traffic volume at EricCressey.com. I’ll kick it off today with my most popular articles from the past year.

1. My New Favorite Training Shoe – This post received more than 3,000 views more than #2. Apparently, footwear is a topic about which folks were anxious to read, and I gave a detailed review of all the minimalist footwear options I’ve tried – and folks shared it a ton. Additionally, based on feedback on my Twitter account, a lot of people purchased the New Balance Minimus based on my recommendation and have absolutely loved it.

2. Your Arm Hurts? Thank Your Little League, Fall Ball, and AAU Coaches. – This post received well over 1,000 Facebook “shares” and loads of Tweets, and I’m hopeful that this is indicative of parents, coaches, and players learning about how to approach arm care and throwing programs intelligently. I think it was also popular because it was a good blend of scientific evidence and simple, everyday logic.

3. Tim Collins: Why Everyone Should Be a Kansas City Royals Fan (at least for a day) – This was my favorite post of the year, as it was a chance to celebrate a good friend and long-time Cressey Performance athlete who is everything that is right about Major League Baseball. As a cool little aside, traffic to this article played a large part in having “Tim Collins” trending on Twitter during his MLB debut on Opening Day in March.

4. Weight Training Programs: You Can’t Just Keep Adding – It sounds like many of my readers were glad to hear that I was doing some writing on managing training stress. There is a lot of common sense in this one, but sometimes, that’s what people need!

5. Strength Training Programs and Squat Technique: To Arch or Not to Arch? – Here’s a very misunderstood topic in the area of strength and conditioning technique. You’ll be happy to know that I’ll be addressing it in great detail in the new Functional Stability Training resource that Mike Reinold and I are releasing soon.

6. Shoulder Hurts? Start Here. – In this piece, I outlined three sure-fire strategies that just about everyone can employ regardless of their shoulder issues.

7. Healthy Food Options: Why You Should Never Take Nutrition Advice from Your Government – One of the biggest surprises for me in 2011 was that my readers absolutely ate up (no pun intended) nutrition content, and summer Cressey Performance intern Tyler Simmons’ guest blog perfect example. He shared some great (and controversial) thoughts in this guest blog.

8. Correcting Bad Posture: Are Deadlifts Enough? – People want results, and they want them fast. This post touched on whether or not the deadlift could be an optimal “shortcut” for getting to where you want to be.

9. Why the Gym’s Out-of-Business and the Porn Store’s Thriving – This was proof that I can write about just about anything. Don’t ever expect to see a content drought here at EricCressey.com. The timing for this was really good, as I got the idea to write it right around the time that we released The Fitness Business Blueprint.

10. Lifting Heavy Weights vs. Corrective Exercise: Finding a Balance – I can definitely see how folks found this topic so interesting, as it’s a very challenging balance to strike. In fact, it was even a very challenging piece around which to wrap my brain!

This wraps up our top 10 posts of 2011, but I’ll be back soon with more “Best of” highlights from 2011. Next up, I’ll list my top product reviews of the year.