July 9 2008
IIiotibial Band and External Hip Stretches
One of the areas of the lower body that frequently gets tight from sports activities such as cycling, running,
racquetball, martial arts, basketball, skiing, snowboarding, tennis, and golf to a lesser extent, is the external hip
and outside upper and lower leg. This outside of the leg has connective tissue (tendons) running down the leg
from the hip to the tibia, commonly known as the shin. The entire muscle/tendon/connective tissue group is often
referred to as the iliotibial band. (The actual ilitibial band is a tendon running from tensia fascialata, a small muscle
on the top,front portion of the hip, to right outside the lateral aspect of the knee) For our purposes,
we will be stretching the lateral aspect of the hamstring, tensia fascialata, the lateral quadricep, and inner groin muscles.
Below is a drawing of the part of the body we are going to stretch.
The rest of the article
July 4.2008
June 21 .2008
A healthy treat.
The raw brownie
*1 cup walnuts or almonds or almond meal (Process in food processor until finely ground )
*10 dates, pitted(Process in food processor until finely ground or cut into tiny pieces)
*1 cup unsweeted cocoa
*1 cup of whey protein
*put everything in a bowl mix it up,
*add water until you get a consistency you like
*then 1 tablespoon of honey or agave
Press in square container (like a Rubbermaid plastic sandwich container).
Chill for at least 2 hours. . Keeps 1 week in refrigerator and
1 month in the freezer.
June 6.2008
Proper nutrition can help you manage post-exercise muscle tissue inflammation
When you think of inflammation, you probably think of the pain and swelling you experience
after you suffer an acute injury, such as an ankle sprain, or an overuse injury, such as tendonitis.
But exercise scientists have recently discovered that inflammation has a much more pervasive
impact on athletes than was previously thought. It is now known that every hard workout triggers
a less severe and less localized inflammation response affecting the muscles and joint tissues.
Over time this type of inflammation may affect your performance and health even more than an ankle sprain.
The rest of the article
Powerlifting for Runners
May 28th, 2008
I’m not one to ever suffer from a dearth of ideas. There are always more ideas in my head than I can use.
I often get ideas for books that I do not even have the expertise to write.
A few years ago I thought, “Somebody should write a weighlifting book that shows people
how to maximize their strength instead of showing them how to maximize their muscle size,
like all of the existing weightlifting books.” I thought this was such a good idea that I found a smart,
up-and-coming strength and conditioning specialist (and nationally ranked powerlifter) to coauthor the book with me.
That book, Maximum Strength, was published by Da Capo earlier this month, and it’s selling briskly.
My coauthor, Eric Cressey, owns a gym in the Boston area where he trains a number of endurance athletes
in addition to powerlifters, bodybuilders, and ball sports players. Since the beginning Eric has preached to me the
benefits of heavy lifting for endurance athletes. I’d like to believe he’s right, because I would like a lot endurance
athletes to buy our book.
Well, a new study provides good evidence that Eric is right. Norweigan researchers (it’s always the Nords who do these
kinds of studies!) divided 17 well-trained runners into two groups. Members of one group continued with their
normal run training while members of the other group added to their routine three weekly strength sessions consisting
of four, four-repetition sets of half-squats using their four-repetition maximal load. After eight weeks, members of the
strength group exhibited not only the expected gains in maximal strength and rate of force development, but
also significant improvements in in running economy (5 percent) and in time to exhaustion at maximal
aerobic running speed (21.3 percent). The control group showed no improvement in any of the measured
parameters.
It’s time to chalk up that Olympic bar, boys and girls!
Entry for May 27, 2008
2008 ADIDAS TRACK CLASSIC
Entry for May 19, 2008
A Tribute To Jeremy Wariner
Entry for May 15, 2008
Homemade Powerbars
1 cup of natural peanut butter
1/2 of honey or agave(you can use 1/2 to 1/3 of a cup depending on how sweet
you it)
1 cup on dry oatmeal(not the instant stuff)
1 cup whey protein
Mix honey and peanut butter together microwave for 30 seconds. Add oatmeal and whey protein.
Mixed it all together spread into a tray. Let it cool for 20 minutes and store in fridge.
Cut then into 10 bars the nutritional breakdown is per bar.This is based on a 1/2 cup of honey.
protein 14 grams
carbs 24 grams
sugar 14
fiber 2
fat 14 grams
saturated 2
poly 2
mono 10 (the good fat)
Entry for May 06, 2008
Broccoli-Haters: Here's What You're Missing
by Mike Howard
Broccoli is a superfood in every sense of the word. If you aren't eating broccoli and other cruciferous veggies -
here's what you're missing out on; Broccoli is a superfood in every sense of the word.
If you aren't eating broccoli and other cruciferous veggies - here's what you're missing out on;
A cup of cooked broccoli contains almost twice as much vitamin C as an orange and almost as much calcium
as a cup of whole milk - all in just 44 calories! Broccoli also contains the phytonutrients sulforaphane, indoles, kaempferol
and isothiocyanates (they'll be a test later). These difficult-to-pronounce compounds have significant anti-cancer and
other health effects. Here's what the literature says about it;
The rest of the article
Entry for May 04, 2008
A little motivation video(the upload is a little slow)
THE BEST FOOD FOR RUNNERS
The 15 foods runners need every week for good health and top performance
By Liz Applegate Ph.D.
PUBLISHED 09/06/2006
Most supermarkets stock more than 30,000 items, yet every time we race up and down the aisles of the grocery store,
we toss into our carts the same 10 to 15 foods. Which isn't such a bad thing, as long as you're taking home the
right foods--ones that will keep you healthy, fuel peak performance, and easily cook up into lots of delicious meals.
So before your next trip to the grocery store, add the following 15 foods to your must-buy list.
Then, when you get home, use our tips and recipes to easily get them into your diet and onto your menu.
The rest of the article
Brain Training
Contrary to popular belief, fatigue in running is seldom caused by events in the muscles or blood,
such as muscle glycogen depletion or lactic acid build-up. It's actually your brain that makes you slow down to protect
you from excessive muscle damage, a heart attack, heat stroke or any other running-induced injury.
For this reason, factors that used to be considered "purely mental" can raise your performance limitations
as effectively as training does. Training alters the signals of fatigue that reach your brain, but thoughts,
beliefs and experiences affect how your brain responds to these signals.
We see this effect at the elite level in sports all the time. For example, no runner was able to
run a mile in less than four minutes until Roger Bannister accomplished the feat in 1954.
But within just a year and a half, 16 other runners ran sub-four-minute miles! Bannister's breakthrough
proved to his rivals that running this fast was possible and probably would not kill them,
so their brains' finally allowed their bodies to do what they had been physically capable of doing all along.
Training in groups is another way to get results. When you train with other runners of similar ability,
you not only tend to push yourself harder in workouts, but you also afford yourself more opportunities
for performance breakthroughs. Every time one of your training partners makes a leap forward,
your brain will see evidence that you can do the same without killing yourself.
Many running experts cite the propensity of North African runners to train in large groups
as one of the keys to their dominance. If it's true, this brain training mechanism is likely the reason.
So find a local track club to join, or at least do your hardest workouts with a training partner of similar ability.
The desire to win is the oldest and best performance-enhancing drug there is.
The rest of the article
Target Pace Training
A target pace is an average running pace associated with an event time goal.
If your event goal is to run a 3:45 marathon, your target pace is 8:35 per mile.
If your goal is to run a 39:59 10K, your target pace is 6:26 per mile. And so forth.
Whenever you have an event time goal, your entire training program should be
focused toward achieving the ability to sustain your target pace in that event.
This doesn't mean you should always run at your target pace, of course.
But it does mean you should include some target-pace running in your weekly training
throughout your training program
and do a fairly large amount of training at or near your target pace in the final weeks before your event.
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