Posts Tagged ‘Sports’
Friday, August 26th, 2011
Today’s society is keener on converting young athletes into peak performers overnight by just winning competitions. The people behind these young athletes i.e. parents and coaches, fail to understand that there is much more than just winning.
Peak performance is not only about winning a competition or two. The athletes should be able to perform well for a long while in their field of interest.
The training program thus, should comprise of a comprehensive plan that combines various elements pertaining to the body, mind and spirit, so as to improve the performance of the athletes both on and off the court. What are the factors to consider while devising such a training program?
Here are some tips for young athletes to achieve peak performance:
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Tags: athletes, fitness, Kids, performance, Sports, teenagers, young
Posted in Fitness Tips, Kids, Sports, Weight Training | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 18th, 2011
I am not going to get into a long detailed post today. Instead I am going to supplement my top 6 back training mistakes post with another guest post about back training by expert Mike Robertson. I’m not cool enough to get Mike to post on my website though, so I have to link to the post from another blog entirely.
Find it here: 3 back training mistakes you could be making.
Mike tells you how people go wrong by training without a neutral spine, without a neutral pelvis, and without paying attention to detail. This is just another example of how every aspect of your physiology has to be healthy and aligned, or you risk injury.
About Mike Robertson
Mike Robertson received his Masters Degree in Sports Biomechanics from the world-renowned Human Performance Lab at Ball State University. He is also the president of Robertson Training Systems and the co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training, which has been named one of America’s Top 10 Gyms by Men’s Health magazine in 2009 and 2010.
About Rick Kaselj
Since the guest post is actually posted on his site, this is a lead in to another awesome fitness blogger, a guy named Rick Kaselj who is an expert on sports injuries. Hopefully he will write a couple guest posts for Project Swole soon. I’ve requested some serious rehab / prehab articles and I know if he can find the time to write them, you will be amazed.
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Tags: back, exericse, fitness, injury, mistakes, spine, Sports, training, Weight Training, weightlifting, workout
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Plyos, Olympic Lifts, and Dynamic Efforts are not the Only Ways to Increase Speed and Power
Strength coaches around the world prescribe plyometrics and Olympic lifts to increase force production – to build speed and power. Powerlifters around the world utilize dynamic effort lifts – box squats, speed deads, board presses – to increase their speed and power.
We can all learn A LOT from those methods, but there is one constituent of force development that the above methods don’t take into account. Consider reversal and/or starting strength, acceleration, and stretch reflex actions of the muscles that act as the antagonists to the primary sports movement.
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Tags: agonists, antagonists, athletes, concentric, eccentric, force, muscle, power, speed, Sports, strength, weightlifting
Posted in Martial Arts, Sports, Weight Training | 6 Comments »
Friday, July 8th, 2011
Should Athletes Train Individual Muscles or Only Sports Movements?
As a trainer, I have to know how to train people from all walks of life. I’ve seen bodybuilders, strength athletes, middle aged men, obese housewives, trained athletes, newbies, weekend warriors, and about 100 other types of people and athletes. No one routine can be designed for everyone.
Even in niches like baseball athletes, strongmen, and Olympic lifters, there is no one-size-fits-all training routine. You can’t take a baseball pitcher and train the pitching motion for 5 hours a day, 7 days a week. It just won’t work. So how do you train athletes that only need a small variety of movements to be successful at their sport?
The Myth
A long standing myth about training for sports, is that you should only train the common movements for your sport, so that you can get better at those movements. If you know nothing about physiology, kinesiology, or basic physics, then logically that makes sense.
However if you think about how the body really works, you will realize that the body will always find a way to perform any intended movement. Have you ever bench pressed and altered your shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, or foot position in order to eek out that last rep?
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Tags: athlete, athletes, bodybuilding, exercise, fitness, Sports, train, training, weak point, Weight Training, weightlifting, workout
Posted in Bodybuilding Myths | 4 Comments »
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
Sports continue to be exciting in New England these days. I’ll be the first to admit that I rarely watch a full game of anything except football, the Red Sox occasionally, and playoff/championship games. Still, I frequently watch Sports Center on ESPN late night when I’m working on the Internet, and I often read ESPN.com on my lunch break. I try to keep my sports IQ up to par.
How’s your sports IQ these days?
Baseball
The Red Sox occasionally go on a roll and are nearly above .500, which is not great, but makes for an exciting season. The starters have not pitched up to expectations and the lineup has not heated up yet either. Good things will come in the month of May if Crawford can start hitting, and Matsuzaka, Lackey, and Buckholtz can start pitching.
Click here to test your Baseball IQ
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Tags: baseball, basketball, bruins, celtics, football, hockey, IQ quiz, patriots, poll, red sox, Sports
Posted in Sports | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
This post was written back in 2008, but the poll didn’t get many votes and the post didn’t get any comments. Now that Project Swole has much more traffic and somewhat of a loyal community, I went and rewrote some of this piece and I’m re-posting it today so that we can get more comments and votes. I think it will be an interesting study into the training background of most Swole readers.
When and why did you first learn about exercising?
We all know how beneficial exercise is to maintaining a healthy body. Kids don’t usually know this and teenagers don’t usually care. Typically it is up to parents and schools to educate kids about exercise and nutrition, ’cause quite frankly they aren’t very likely to do it themselves.
I learned about exercising in junior high school when some of my friends started curling and bench pressing to build the “show muscles” for the girls. I even did some curling and bench pressing myself, but not more than a couple times a week, and I didn’t build any significant muscle mass. My real education in weight training came in high school… I’ll talk about that more below.
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Tags: Conditioning, fitness, Kids, Personal, Question of the Week, Sports, teenagers
Posted in Question of the Week | 16 Comments »
Monday, February 7th, 2011
By now most of you know that the Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl XLV. A big congrats to those guys! Aaron Rodgers and Packers defense were great pretty much the whole game.
Rodgers threw 3 touchdowns and the Packer’s D forced 3 turnovers, all of which led to points. Big Ben had a streak of good play when he nearly tied the game after being down 21-3, but the Green D kept him down where he belongs.
Eat your heart out Brett Favre.
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Tags: football, nfl, Sports, super bowl, superbowl
Posted in Sports | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
You saw my offer the other day to get a free NFL team jersey in support of Super Bowl XLV. Well, I have a new and better offer; I found something bigger and better, and wanted to let all Swole readers know about it.
Today I want to give you a chance to get 2 free Super Bowl tickets! Click on the link below and submit your e-mail address to get more information.
If you get the tickets and go to the game, you HAVE to let me know how it goes. Let’s send some Patriots fan to cheer for the Packers on Sunday!
Even if you just go to the game and root against the Steelers, Project Swole supports you! Enjoy the game.
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Tags: football, nfl, Sports, tickets
Posted in Sports | No Comments »
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 »