Passive Warm-Up

Let’s breakdown the typical 50 minute client workout:

·         5-10 min cardio warm-up

·         5-10 Specific/Dynamic  warm-up

·         20-30 min main workout sets

·         5-10 min warm down/ stretching

Let’s also look at a basic format for an athlete training:

·         5-20 min general warm-up

·         5-20 min specific warm-up

·         20-60 min main set

·         5-20 min warm down / stretching

Both workouts follow the same time progression in order to be successful.  Most workouts will begin with a client or athlete training in a general warm-up to prepare for the demands of the workout.  These preparations include the build-up of heart stroke volume, the dilation of capillaries in both the cardiovascular and the circulatory systems, and an increase in polarity in the nervous system to allow for proper body mechanics under the training conditions.  All the systems of the body increase activity during this time including the release of synovial fluid to the joints, the increase of hormonal activity such as adrenaline and testosterone, the increase in body temperature as a response to the shift in metabolic function, and the digestive system reacts to release discomforts that might inhibit the body from performance (often requiring pre-race/pre-workout bathroom breaks.)

The athlete’s workout is predicated by having longer warm-up steps to allow the body to accommodate higher in levels of workout volume and intensity; a product of increase output from the organs of the body.  While the athlete’s system is more efficient at providing fuel to its body and managing the stress levels associated with a more demanding workout, we should not forget the objective of a workout is to accomplish the tasks of the main set.  Simply put, unless we are purposely trying to string out a workout for increased calorie burning time, the bodily resources should be preserved through the warm-up (both general and specific) in order to accomplish the main set with the appropriate resources.    It would not make sense to fatigue yourself or your athlete before a competition, game, or race; yet many coaches and trainers believe that this is the best way to prepare the competitor.  Let’s take a look at an example of a typical competitive club swimming meet schedule for a single day.

·         1500 yards general pre-meet warm-up, various strokes

·         Race #1 : 200 Individual Medley

o   300 warm-up, 500 cool down

·         Race #2 : 100 Butterfly, followed 8 minutes later by Race #3 500 Freestyle

o   400 warm-up, 250 in between, 200 warm-down

·         Race #4: 50 Freestyle

o   500 warm-up, 300 warm-down

·         Race #5: 100 Breaststroke

o   300 warm-up

·         500 Meet warm-down

While swimming is based on perfecting technique using repetitive yardage, the competitor, who only had 5 races this day covering 950 yards, has swum at least 5,700 yards total or 3.2 miles.  Track athletes habitually cover miles during race day and max speed day workouts.  Football games are often preceded by nearly a half hour of running warm-up drills.  Basketball warm-up drills involve athletes running half the length of the court many times over, yet during games minutes are tracked and minimized.  While these are positives for calorie expenditure, allowing full systemic activation and warm-up, they often times cause an extreme amount of energy loss; energy that could be better allocated to competing at a higher level.  While I do not condone the minimization of warm-up as it has been linked to injury numerous times, I would like to have trainers and coaches reconsider the most appropriate mode of warm-up for their trainees.

In this article, I would like to examine the option of passive warm-up techniques as they relate to the issue at hand.  First, passive warm-up is defined as increasing the bodily temperature by external sources in order to activate metabolic functions in the

·         Heat Packs

·         Sauna Suit

·         Dry Sauna

·         Hot Tub

·         Steam Room

Lateral Speed Training

If you have ever played a football video game, I am sure that you are aware of the make a player feature.  Many of us who enjoyed these games growing up can account to making a player with their favorite team.  Often times I created action heroes such as Arnold Schwarzenegger at defensive end, Kobe Bryant at quarterback, and Ivan Drago at wide receiver.  You can often make the player have bulging muscles and manipulate their stats to be the most dominant athletes on the field.  One of the traits you can apply to the athlete is agility.  While agility is somewhat hard to define, as it often overlaps with what you can consider as acceleration, agility is best understood as the ability to move laterally and to stop and change speeds or direction quickly.  The phrase ‘to turn on a dime’ is often associated with agile athletes and the NFL combine measures it in the 20 and 60 yard dash events.  The 20 yard dash, also known as the pro agility test specifically tests three characteristics of an athlete’s agile movement: side stepping, crossover lateral running, and hip rotation to an anterior-posterior sprint.  Understanding the movements will help you score a lower time.  I was able to score a 4.09 in my senior year of high school, tying that of Marcus Vick’s combine score.  Because these three movements utilize the same muscles for the most part, the training regimen following should provide enough strength to move with agility. 

Lateral acceleration is characteristic in almost all sports, however it is often times the least trained. Developing lateral speed works with the same principles of forward speed; greater power output will result in greater speed.  A stronger athlete in the anterior posterior direction can display greater power output and greater speed than a weaker athlete given that all other factors are equal.  This is also true of an athlete strong in the lateral direction, or movements in the frontal plane.  By understanding the movements, we are able to develop muscles that will characterize good lateral speed.  When force is applied to move laterally, athletes are performing hip abduction: a movement characterized by the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, gluteus minimus, Sartorius and the Tensor Fasciae Latae as primary movers and the other muscles of the leg and abdomen as synergistic helpers, dynamic stabilizers, or antagonists (primarily the hip adductor muscles).  To develop these abductors, conventional machine and cable movements can be utilized, however, I have found the best exercises for the development of lateral speed are those that mimic the movement (law of specificity) and those that are most challenging (law of overload). 

To develop initial hip abductor strength, perform the following workouts:

·         Jane Fonda’s

·         Fire hydrants

·         Seated band abduction

·         Standing band/cable extension

More advanced athletes with established hip strength can now utilize these exercises:

·         Low Lateral band walks

·         Band lateral sprints

The abductors are not as large and powerful as those that extend and flex the hip and knee, however by working on the movements and gaining strength, lateral speed and subsequent agility will follow.  Progression, overload, and specificity are your friends.

First Workout Book

All great trainers will be able to tell you the very first book they referenced when they began workout out.  For some, the ACSM/NSCA/ACE/NASM study guide was their first understanding and set-up to the modern world of exercise.  For others it was a professionally written book by a famous coach, doctor, athlete, competitor, or bodybuilder.  Who can forget Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “New Encylopedia for Modern Bodybuilding”, with the cover portraying Arnold’s solid shoulder and bicep musculature in black and white.  The reason for mentioning these books is that they often times precede particular philosophies when it comes to strength, fitness, and health.  A person reading Arnold Schwarzenegger’s book will have considerably different opinions compared to someone reading a book by Doctor Oz or Jillian Michaels.  Regardless of how you feel about the “correct” approach to achieving your fitness goals, remember that having an open mind to new ideas, modes of exercise and fitness, new strategies to progression, training frequency, and even sets and reps can help you determine the best way to accomplish your goals, when you want to achieve them. 

The very first book I can remember back to working with and reading through was Getting Stronger by Bill Pearl.  In the book, Mr. Pearl explains everything from exercise by sport, to nutrition, to posing techniques for bodybuilders, to supplementation.  After reading the book by about the 5^th time, I noticed that Mr. Pearl mentioned he was a lacto-ovo vegetarian.  Lacto-ovo vegetarians consume nuts, eggs, and milk as their main sources of protein but do not consume meat products or fish.  It struck me as quite shocking that this seemingly huge man would be a vegetarian by any means.   While there are some benefits to a vegetarian diet, I am not advocating for the diet itself but rather that we consider that even a Mr. Olympia champion, someone who we associate with the highest levels of athletic achievements, is open to thinking in a unique and independent manner.   I admire Bill Pearl for his accomplishments and open thinking  throughout the book as it taught me that the greatest athlete isn’t one who follows a standard program to perfection, but instead is a free thinking individual that is willing to adapt, incorporate, learn, and progress.

Every great trainer has a book of exercise knowledge that they started with.  These books help for the basis to the knowledge that we have in the exercise community.  While traditional hard, blood sweat and tears programs can help you make progress and improve, opening your mind to the possibilities outside your comfort zone will allow you to select a more perfect program.  I invite everyone to challenge the conventional wisdom, to experiment, to learn and grow, as these are often times the best ways to find what will work best.  Please, learn the basics for experts like Bill Pearl or Arnold Schwarzenegger, but learn where they also fall short.  The best plan will be the one where you have the most knowledge about the outcome and results.  Medical journals, professional journals, experts, and books are a great place to start.

Drop Sets

Recently, I have been using more and more hand pressure sets lately.  By hand pressure, I mean that I am physically applying force to increase or decrease the intensity of exercise to the RPE(rate of perceived exertion) I am seeking for any given set.  For example, on the Jane Fonda exercise of side lying straight leg lifts, I can apply pressure and force the glute medius and glute minimis into agony.  By being able to progressively control the intensity of the exercise I can have people target the appropriate muscles and muscle firing patterns before increasing the intensity, all within the same set.

I called this article drop sets because drop sets because I would like to mention them as very effective and useful for everyone, from seasoned athletes looking for something new to beginners.  Drop sets involve lifting a particular amount of weight for a designated number of repetitions before the weight is minimized and continued with little to no rest between weight drops.  Just as with the hand pressure I am able to apply the amount of force appropriate, but in this case I am able to maximize the intensity while maintaining a particular repetition range.  Athletes that belong to middle distance or endurance events can benefit from these exercises because they remain challenging for extended time yet provide a strength component. 

While most article talking about drop sets say that usually 1-3 weight drops occur during the set, I have worked with as many as 10 weight drops for sets lasting upwards of 100 repetitions.  Let’s not forget that with strength training, race tempo is difficult to simulate but intensity can be gauged through the weight, RPE, and extended over a similar time period.  By this I mean that we might not able to move the legs as quick as running when performing squats or pull downs as fast as swimming strokes but that the time of the race should be comparable in length to our drop set.  For example, an 800 m dash is run in about 2:00 for men so a drop set for the legs lasting as long could be considered beneficial even though the legs move at different speeds (running vs. weight lifting with legs).   As a swimmer in high school, I used cable lat row drop sets to maximize my intensity through up to 8 drops for 60-80 repetitions total.  An eight drop set would often times simulate a 200 yard swim or 8 laps in the pool where each lap consisted of 8-10 breaststroke pulls (64-80 strokes).

Drop sets are especially versatile for clients that need to increase their repetitions to increase their activity.  Overweight and obese clients can benefit from drop sets because the endurance component increases calorie burn while still providing the strength training to build muscle and lose fat.

Since most athletes are involved in activity over a period of time often longer than traditional weight lifting sets, drop sets can be useful to prolong the RPE and for sets longs

Sprint Starts: Hand Postioning

Take a look at the image below:

In this picture you will see the athletes in great postion.  Explosive athlete's are coiled into the starting blocks and when they rise into the set position, the weight will be shifted onto their front foot and hand.  Usain Bolt shows us this coiled set position.

Bolt and these other world class sprinters are at the forefront of the track and field sport.  They have highly devloped programs and their coaches are world renowned.  Despite the fact that these people are the best at what they do, I believe that a consideration could alter the game as we know it.

If you put yourself in the Bolt set postion properly, you should only be able to hold it for a mere 2 seconds at best.  Because so much of the weight is shifted over the hands, the balance of this position is easily lost/comprimised.  To be on the edge of out of controlling the position is correct.  As you can see, the shoulders are over the hands and the arms, even with a slight bend, lean forward.  The athlete relies on the friction of the fingers to hold themselves coiled.  The weight of the fingers is held over three fingers on each hand (thumb, index, and middle).  The hands are to remain tugging (frictionally) at the ground until the start at which time the athlete releases the hand brakes, using the stored elasticism of the stretch reflex to explode out of the blocks.  It would appear that the athlete that can coil with more tension will be more successful exploding out of the blocks.

After spending some time fooling with the hand grip, I noticed that when I get the hand in the set position, where the hand makes the L shape on the ground, my hand can sometimes spasm as I am bordering a loss of balance.  Not only is the loss of balance a detriment, but not being able to activate a significant forward lean would result in a slower time in the start.  Trying several other hand starts, I came to one that felt comfortable and helped me establish a balanced forward lean with the arms.

Since the tripod is the most stable platform on earth, I decided to create a tripod with my hands. The weight of the body is shifted onto the knuckles of the index and middle fingers.  By being on the knuckles we remove the weak distal end of the finger.  Compare fingertip pushups to bare knuckle pushups to notice the difference.  By loading the weight of the compressed spring in line with the knuckles (facing forward) we are able to compress the spring to a greater degree.  Also, I found that there is virtually no difference in the removal of the hand from the ground, thus making it superior to the standard hand variation.  This move would be similar to placing the hands past starting line, which in theory would allow the athlete to travel faster.  I will be testing this starting variation in the future an keep you posted as to the success I find with it.

You don't have anything unless you have it on paper or film!

As much as I wish it weren't true:

You don't have anything unless you have it on paper or film!

This relates specifically to two things in life especially: college/job experience and sports.

No one can define their college experience eloquently enough as to make it seem more significant than anyone else.  If that was so, then there would not be a need for transcripts.  No one wants to hear how difficult things have been for you, or how much you have grown, or how much you have changed as a person because of college or some life experience.  These are subjective forms of criterion and often have no place in the methods used to process applications, decide candidates, or how information/teaching is distributed.  I have learned this the hard way.  Thinking that my ideas would be more credible than most, I sought to get higher levels of decision making.  I even tried making contacts with people who could inspire change (in my field of environmental film studies at the time).  Despite having graduated in two years and belonging to MENSA, I did not receive any positive feedback.  Many people want to tell you that going to college are more important than where you go.  Most people will tell you that the degree is the most important thing you receive from college.  These are both wrong.  Where you go to college matters just as much as if you went to college or not.  Also, the most important thing you receive from college is your GPA; not your degree, not your greater awareness of the world, not your newfound connections; your GPA.  Go to the best school, get the highest GPA and things will take care of themselves.

Second relates to sports.  Since the documentation of sports figures (stats) are so variable and the validity of anyone's recommendation is questioned; film is the only criteria on which people can make fair judgments.  The forty time is a perfect example of this.  I don't want to hear that you ran a 4.4 40 because everyone I know runs a 4.4 40.  Having the video that confirms your killer speed will convince me that you can run fast.  I don't buy your vertical jump, but show a video of you dunking and I will believe that you have hops.  The truth of the matter is that no one is trustworthy when it comes to these quotations.  We don't really know the height and weight of any professional athlete.  Creating film is the best way to prove to people that you can do what you say you can do.

These two life lessons took me many years to uncover and finally get on board with.  Stop trying to fight what you already know and make yourself successful by giving yourself the evidence to make your claims worthwhile.

Swimmers are Overtrained

I will try to keep my ranting to a minimum; however this is something that I feel people should know.

Swimming is a technical sport.  Because of the nature of the sport, athletes must become very accustomed to the mechanics of the movements so that they truly become "fluid".  I find that the value of a base level of swimming practice comes in handy because without the practice of technique, we are just too inefficient to compete.  I feel however that coaches in swimming have taken this too far. 

There is no reason that swim sets and practices should be as long as they are.  I remember some days in high school where I swam triple days: three practices; two of which were in succession.  Not only was this overwhelming from a mental standpoint, I was chronically fatigued and could not recover.  As a larger swimmer, I felt as though my body needed more time to recover.

After swimmers have established perfect technique (which should be developed through low volume, high quality sets, such as swimming with underwater cameras), the focus should be on race preparation.  Too often, I feel that coaches make athletes do sets because they need to fill an allotted time and by beating the swimmers up, they practice fundamentals better.  I can promise you that my performance and technique disintegrated when performing long sets.  Since understanding swim sets is difficult to visualize from a outside observer perspective, I will show that the important variable is time.

Swim races range from 50 yards to 1650 yards.  Most all races consist of 50-100 yards, especially of one stroke.  For the men, 50-100 yards should not take more than one minute (any style).  Females are often close behind these numbers.  In a track analogy, this would be similar to running 200-400 meters.  A longer swim might be a 200 yard swim, which on a track compares to an 800.  Almost all the races take either ~30 seconds, ~ 1 minute, ~ 2 minutes.  In developing a protocol for runners how much would you assign them to run?  Would you make them do repeats?  Lets say you made them do 400 repeats for aerobic endurance.  And what is the most you might give them?  I would say that most track coaches would not go higher than 10x400 repeats, and that is being kind to the high volume coaches.  This would compare to 10x100yards, which for most swimmers occurs during the warm-up.  Many swim programs can range between 3,000-10,000 yards in a single practice.  Would you make a 400m dash sprinter run 40,000 yards (22.7 miles) in a practice?  I wouldn't.

The next thing to consider is the muscles involved.  While track and field runners utilize the strongest and largest muscles in the body (the legs); swimming is dominated by the upper body.  Kicking does not count as an effective means of propulsion because it often accounts for <30 percent of the propulsion.  Therefore, the smaller muscles of the upper body are forced to handle the workload.  Considering the size to workload ratio, swim practices are not designed for swimmers success.

In this article, I am proposing that we consider some alternative methods to approaching swimming.  Adding pull-ups is probably the most successful form of dry-land practice that swimmers can take part in because the angles mimic the butterfly and breaststroke pulls.

As for coaches; stop overtraining your athletes.  Make technique a priority and ensure that your swimmers work on quality rather than quantity.  The yardage does not make you swim faster.  The technique and race specific training will.

Cam Newton: A fitting Heisman

I have often been the fan of villains in sports.  Kobe Bryant is one of my favorites because he seems to be fighting him against the world on every possession.  Michael Vick uses his legs to escape defenders that his linemen won't seem to block and whenever you see his passes in slow-motion, they are crisp direct spirals, that somehow are always dropped by receivers.  While it seems fitting that Cam Newton would fit in easily on this list I think it should come with a disclaimer. 

 Cam Newton was never found guilty of soliciting himself to a school.  Only his father was found to be committing an act of discretion.  As for his inability to get good grades at Florida and resorting to cheating, plus purchasing a laptop from a black market salesman; I feel as though he never once took his eyes off the goal.  He is a football player first.  Because of the structure of the NCAA and the rules preventing him from going to play in the pros earlier, I think that he should not have to be viewed as a student-athlete but rather an athlete-who happens to go to school.

Cam Newton is being described as having one of the top 5 seasons of a college athlete ever.  How is it that we feel he has tainted it so much.

First, he accepted no money in the first place, making him innocent of any crime or infraction.

Second, he lifted a team through the most difficult conference to the national championship despite it being his first year.  Even Tim Tebow did not accomplish that feat.

Third, Cam Newton has ensured that he was playing football the entire time.  Rather than play at a better school (Florida), he played in JC so as to make sure that he started for more years.

Let's also not forget that Tyrelle Pryor, who many consider to be an upstanding quarterback playing at Ohio State, accepted money.  Reggie Bush, a champion of the down-trodden New Orleans Saints, accepted money.  And even their rival, the University of Oregon, has been all about money from the beginning.  Cam Newton never got an athletic deal like the University of Oregon has.  He didn't get 80 different outfits for each game.  He didn't get their facilities.  If we really had a problem with Cam receiving money, then why didn't the NCAA suspend him to investigate further?

Cam Newton might have just captivated me with a very polished jaw, but I have never seen a quarterback with more focus and less strain than Cam had while playing in the National Championship.  Cam stands for poise and he deserves just as much credit as he deserves.

Hat's off to Cam Newton!

 

Getting over it

sulk/səlk/

Verb: Be silent, morose, and bad-tempered out of annoyance or disappointment.

Noun: A period of gloomy and bad-tempered silence stemming from annoyance and resentment.

"Living well is the best revenge” George Herbert

In 2008, I was just coming finishing my fifth or so month practicing with the UC Davis Men's Football team.  I had committed to mornings, afternoon meetings, weight lifting sessions several times a week, and two hour practices daily.  I had spent a considerable amount of effort making sure that I put forward enough so that I would be able to play with the team yet not exert myself into a state of bodily failure, compromising myself to being sick or getting injured.  It would prove to not be enough. 

After being called in to meet with the head coaching staff, they informed me that I would be dropped from the roster.  There would technically be no record that I ever was a part of the men's football team at UC Davis.  After informing my parents and close friends, I felt something that baffled most people: enjoyment.  While my friends and family started consoling me about my loss I was jubilant and upbeat.  No longer would I experience the aches associated with over-training.  No longer would someone put a deadline or expectation on me that limited my progress or achievements.  No longer would I have to manage being ostracized or feel inferior by others.  No longer would my body be in the control of another person.  This was an amazing day for me!

That very same day I began my swim training.  I pulled out my old suits and goggles and was excited to enjoy the sunshine, the racing heartbeat of a racing swim set and the pool environment rich with young women.  While this optimism was obvious to me, I feel like the others around me would have reacted differently.  By first realizing what is and what is not in our control, we can learn to appreciate what matters and learn to discard emotion for what we cannot control.  More than this however, I feel that I would have wasted an opportunity had I not taken on new challenges immediately.

Yes I did fail.  Yes I do accept that I am responsible for failing.  But, Yes I do also accept that I am responsible for making the next change/improvement to myself to become better than I was at that moment.

Although I would later go on to quit the swim program at Davis, I never took any time to regress.  I always made a stopping point into a springboard.  I fail many times.  Almost every day.  But if I don't get over these failures, then I fail to gain for the failure.  Failure is critical to success.  I only hope that I do not repeat my failures as this is a sign of regression.  I know this individual is out of vogue, however his words have always rung true in my head:

"You only get better or worse.  You never can just stay the same."

Tiger Woods