If you want long, lean muscles, swimming is one activity that is almost certain to deliver, especially if you like doing laps rather than, say, water aerobics. But you’re going to have a much harder time bulking and building upper body strength beyond a certain point if you rely solely on aquatic sports for your physical fitness.
If you’re into competitive swimming (like triathlons or swimming the English Channel) or you simply want to improve your performance for your own benefit, building upper body strength is a good way to accomplish your goals.
A regimen that includes a variety of cross-training options is likely to provide the best solution.
Here are just a few extra exercises that are sure to deliver the upper body strength you need to take your water-based fitness to the next level.
If you know anything about martial arts, you are probably aware that they often require intensive training to master, which can make them an excellent form of exercise. But you may also know that there are several different disciplines under the umbrella of martial arts and that they differ in both goals and practice.
Jiujitsu is a form of martial art that focuses on grappling, striking, throws, joint locks, and even some weapons mastery. As such, you might wonder if it can offer you the cardio benefits inherent in some other forms of martial arts.
While grappling and striking may certainly help you to gain strength and agility, the form might not necessarily give you the calorie-burning workout needed to reach your weight-loss goals. However, there’s more to this martial art than getting your opponent into a figure-four leg lock on the mat. And it can definitely play a role in your weight-loss regimen.
Heading off to the mountains for some winter sports fun is a great way to give your entire body a workout and get out of the gym and into the great outdoors. Winter sports are a great way to exercise and will strengthen your leg muscles as well as your core muscles, as long as you can avoid injuries skiing and snowboarding.
We know we are already past the holidays, but you can use these tips in-season as well, to try to build up your lower body and core strength and healthy throughout the season.
Enhance Sports Performance with Resistance Training
Most athletes do whatever exercises are most beneficial for their sport of choice. Often, the focus of a workout regimen is geared towards the demands of the sport in question.
For example, marathon runners train by running, while cyclists – you guessed it – train by riding their bikes. But whether you play soccer or basketball, you’re big on Parkour, or your idea of a good time includes a kayak and white-water rapids, you may find, at some point that your training sessions are not delivering the results that they used to. Or perhaps you’ve found that you can’t seem to get over a personal plateau with a pure cardio routine.
Whatever the case, you may eventually come to the realization that adding weight training to your efforts could be beneficial to your overall health and fitness, taking you to the next level with whatever form of athletics you prefer. And here are just a few benefits that should help convince you to take the leap and lift some weights.
Though proper nutrition is vital for high energy levels and performance, the right nutrition is also vital for proper recovery.
What you ingest right after a workout determines, for the most part, how you’re going to feel the next day and your enjoyment and performance levels during your upcoming workout.
Proper post workout nutrition helps you replenish energy tanks and rebuild muscle tissue damage. On the other hand, skipping on recovery nutrition will leave you more susceptible to infections, low energy levels, high frequency of aches and pains and a loss of motivation for the training itself.
Therefore, here are some of the best nutrition guidelines that can help you recover faster and become a better athlete as a result.
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:
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.
Someone, I think in the forums or maybe in a comment to another post, asked earlier today why gymnasts are so muscular even though they don’t lift weights, and if starting gymnastics training would be a good idea for him to gain muscle.
Regarding the question “why are gymnasts so muscular?” I direct your attention to the following video, which captures mere school girls training for gymnastics. Observe the 5 million jumps, flips, hand stands, band training, and sprinting. Even when you use only bodyweight for these exercises, the power and repetitions over time are going to build really strong muscles – in the core, arms, legs, everywhere. (more…)
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.
If you want to bypass all my ranting and raving about the NBA championships and skip directly to the free NBA jersey offer, click the image below, otherwise read on and forever hold your peace.
NBA Basketball 2010-2011
I’ll be the first one to admit that I am not the biggest basketball fan in the world. I can’t play basketball. I tried once when I was 10 or 11, and in high school people came up to me and asked if I was that chubby kid that tried to play basketball in the rec league back in fifth grade. Funny thing is, I got the most improved player award at the end of the year. Lebron James, eat your heart out.
In any case, I don’t watch much basketball, except for the occasional Boston Celtics game. Those guys have played a damned good ball game for the last 3 years now, dating back to that sick 07-08 season when they crushed everyone. Anyone remember that 131-92 win against the Lakers in game 7 of the 07-08 finals? That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Who Will Win the 2010-2011 NBA Championship?
The Celtics are on pace to come out on top again this season, but there are some other contenders too.
The San Antonio Spurs are killing everyone.
Koby Bryant and the LA Lakers are always at the top of the standings.
Lebron, Wade, and Bosh have come together as the Miami Heat’s Big Three. (Although they can’t beat Boston.)
The Chicago Bulls are making a comeback.
In Dallas, the Mavericks are putting on a good show, but they operate in the shadow of the Spurs.
I would like to know who you think will make it to the playoffs and win the championship this year. Vote now and leave me a message in the comments to support or defend your decision.
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.
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.
Check it out all my US peeps! Click on the link, enter your e-mail address, fill out a survey, get a free NFL jersey, but only if you live in the US. With Superbowl XLV on horizon, be sure to get your favorite Pittsburgh Steelers or Green Bay Packers jersey so you can celebrate with your friends on the big day next Sunday!
I personally am rooting for the Packers since I hate the Steelers, whom the Patriots crushed in the regular season. Aaron Rodgers deserves it anyway, he’s a pretty good quarterback. (Incidentally, I hate the Jets more than the Steelers, so I’m glad the Jets got squashed in the AFC Championship game.)
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.
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.
“Shin splints” is a term used to describe the pain felt between the knee and the ankle after athletic activity, and are considered a cumulative stress disorder rather than an acute injury. This painful condition occurs when muscles and tendons in the lower legs pull on the tibia bone along the shin.
There are several reasons why athletes develop shin splints, but ultimately we can say they develop when the constant stress placed on the joints, bones, and muscles of the lower leg overwhelms the body’s natural ability to recover from trauma.
The most common cause is inflammation of the periostium, the sheath that surrounds the tibia. Traction forces on the periostium from the muscles of the lower leg cause shin pain and inflammation.
Today’s post can be filed away in the there-is-hope-for-humanity category.
A 17 year old high school student named Ike Ditzenberger has down syndrome. He also plays on the varsity football team.
In late September, the Lake Stevens Vikings were crushing the Snohomish Panthers 35-0 with 10 seconds left in the game. That’s when the Panthers ran their top secret play, The Ike Special.
Ike took the hand off from the Panthers quarterback and proceeded to run 51 yards for a touchdown as the clock expired. Vikings players definitely took the end of that play off, but in this case it mattered way more to everyone on that field for little Ike to score 6 points, than to tackle the poor guy to salvage a shutout.
The Vikings ended up winning 35-6 and now have a 4-0 record in 2010, but Ike Ditzenberger and his family have a memory they will treasure for the rest of their lives.
And in Pro Football News…
If Ike’s story doesn’t make you feel warm and fuzzy, then I’ll leave you with this:
Listen, I grew up in NH and I love Boston sports teams. Everyone who reads Project Swole regularly, knows I am a Patriots fan. I will root for them this season, with their lame running backs, high speed receivers, and what appeared in the preseason as a Swiss cheese defense.
What I refuse to do however, is to praise or even acknowledge Tom Brady’s hair. I had seen glimpses of it and heard the rumors that many New England fans were boycotting any discussion of the 2010 hairdo. I feared the worst, but hoped for the best.
I found this great slideshow on Men’s Health yesterday depicting a 175 lbs Men’s Health editor working in with NFL football star Dwight Freeney during one of Freeney’s offseason workouts. It is hilarious, fun, interesting, and educational all at the same time.
You will get an idea of how NFL players train in the offseason, which you can then use to add some conditioning drills to your own workout routine. The modified MH workout routine at the end of the slideshow leaves something to be desired, but the slidehow itself is worth your time.
Who is Dwight Freeney?
Dwight Freeney is a 6’1″ 270-pound, Pro Bowl defensive end and all-time sack leader for the Indianapolis Colts. He is powerful, explosive, fast, and generally pretty intimidating. Peep the slidehow:
I have fun watching football each season, and I’m sure some of you do too. Just wanted to point out that ESPN has a 2010 Quarterback Rankings article up. At the end of the article you can rank the quarterbacks yourself.
For those who feel inclined, go ahead an comment on the ESPN post and let me know who you think the best quarterbacks are. Here, I’ll post my completely unresearched full rankings from what I can remember about last year and the 2010 preseason off the top of my head.
The Project Swole 2010 NFL Quarterback Rankings
Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts
I’m a Patriots fan but I can’t dispute that Peyton is probably the best NFL quarterback to ever play the game. I’m sure he’ll win at least one or two more Superbowls before he’s done. This year his team is even better than last year, if that’s possible. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t toss 40+ touchdowns and win nearly every game in 2010. (more…)
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