Posts Tagged ‘leg training’
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
I get plenty of questions in various comments throughout the website, but I also get comments and questions via the Project Swole Contact Form.
Generally I address those questions through e-mail, but often I do not have the time to reply to each and every question personally.
From now on I want to take a more proactive approach to answering Your Health Questions by posting them separately in the blog. This way we can be sure that everyone benefits from the Q & A.
Kalee wrote:
I have shin splints right now so I can’t run or bike or anything but lift weights while sitting and do core exercises… unless you can think of anything that I could do for cardio that wouldn’t require me to use my legs. What exercises [should I use] until my shin splints heal? Thanks!
Response:
If you haven’t managed to avoid shin splints, then it is obvious that you haven’t read and understood my article about How to Avoid Shins Splints, but first, if you haven’t already, you should take a couple minutes to understand What Are Shin Splints. Once you’ve become well versed on shin splints, you can now read about how heal or treat shin splints. Let’s get this problem under control so you can get back to training.
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Tags: injuries, injury, leg training, legs, Medical, prevention, running, shin splitns, shins, Sports
Posted in Fitness Tips, Medical, Sports, Your Questions | 2 Comments »
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
Isn’t it obvious that we wouldn’t have to know how to recover from shin splints if we could avoid them in the first place? In order to understand how to avoid shin splints, we must first understand What Are Shin Splints. Then we can better understand how to proactively avoid them. We need to learn more about who gets shin splints, how to properly warm up and stretch the lower leg, and finally we need a method of strengthening those muscles. Assuming we can’t avoid shin splints, we will need to understand How to Treat Shin Splints.
Now, let’s examine the best ways to avoid shin splints by first understanding who is in danger of developing them.
Who Gets Shin Splints?
Athletes, weekend warriors, and even military recruits often experience shin splints, especially at the beginning of the season. Sometimes treatment can be as simple as changing to softer running surface or adding extra arch support to shoes to redistribute the stress. Active rest is often recommended by doctors as a primary treatment. This means that a runner should take up non-impact exercises such as swimming or biking, which gives the injured areas time to heal, but also maintains the cardiovascular benefits of exercise.
It is also believed that people with misalignment often develop problems such as shin splints. Misalignment to the knee, pelvis, ankle, neck, and spine, can result in abnormal posture and abnormal ROM at different joints, which causes excessive wear and tear on bones, joints, and muscles.
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Tags: biomechanics, calf, calves, exercise, fitness, footwear, injuries, injury, injury prevention, leg training, legs, Medical, shin splint, shins, Sports
Posted in Fitness Tips, Medical, Sports, Weight Training | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010
The calves are a serious problem area for most bodybuilders. You can win or lose a contest depending on whether or not you have put some time into building thick slabs of beef on the back of your legs. Women tend to have calf issues as well; many are sporting the dreaded “cankles”. Both sexes often suffer from skinny little twiggy leg syndrome, sometimes known as “bird legs”.
To build marvelous calves, you have to put time into training them frequently and from a variety of angles. First and foremost, you can’t make the following 6 calf training mistakes and also hope to build world-class wheels. Train your legs right and you will prosper. Make too many mistakes and they will continue to lag.
The Top 6 Calf Training Mistakes
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Tags: calf, calf training, calves, exercise, exercise technique, leg training, legs, mistakes, myths, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Your legs are the foundation of your physique. With their bulging tear drops, incision-like cuts, and shredded striations, prize leg development can win you a contest. Lagging leg development can also lose you a contest. Additionally, having strong legs makes it that much easier to develop a strong upper body. Here are 6 mistakes most athletes make when training their legs. These tips apply both to active bodybuilders and newbies, so pay attention!
The Top 6 Leg Training Mistakes
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Tags: exercise technique, hamstrings, leg training, legs, mistakes, myths, quads, squats, squatting, technique, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | 6 Comments »
Friday, April 16th, 2010
How to Perform Squats
There are many different lifts that a weightlifter can do to increase their strength, speed, and power. All kind of weightlifting is great for your body, but I prefer to not waste time in the gym lifting with tunnel vision, going from machine to machine and seeing little results from my hard work.
Instead, I would rather do 3-4 exercises with maximal intensity to wipe out my whole body in order to reap a maximal anabolic effect. The most well known and most dreaded of these exercises is the squat.
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Tags: Conditioning, leg training, legs, squats, technique, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 8 Comments »
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Increasing Your Vertical Jumping Ability
A single vertical jump for maximum height is one of the most intense exercises you can do.
Why? Because it requires you to utilize your entire lower body chain in a maximal effort contraction, to produce a maximal amount of force in a split second.
The important aspects of training to work on, to increase your vertical leap include:
- Squatting strength – Maximal leg strength transfers directly to a vertical jump. A strong 1 rep max = a big jump.
- Squatting speed – The faster you can squat, the more power you can generate, the higher you can jump.
- Squatting power – Tied in directly with speed and strength, squat heavier and squat faster and you will jump higher.
- Acceleration - You want to continue accelerating out of the hole all the way through the top of your jump.
- Single leg strength – To eliminate strength imbalances and to improve neuromuscular coordination, train your legs individually.
- Calf strength – Your calves are used at the end of the jump, so max calf strength can mean an extra inch on your vert.
- Sprint speed – Sprinting trains the Type-II Fast Twitch muscle fibers, which are what you need to attain your highest jump. Acceleration applies here as well.
- Hip drive – Your hips are responsible for a significant portion of jumping power from a parallel squat position to standing.
- Glute activation – Your glutes are responsible for driving you out of the hole at the bottom of a squat or jump.
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Tags: glutes, hips, jump squat, jumping, jumping rope, jumps, leaping, leg training, legs, plyometrics, squats, squatting, vertical
Posted in Conditioning, Fitness Tips, Weight Training, Workout Routines | 4 Comments »