Archive for off the top of my head
Fat kids and report cards
Posted by: | CommentsAlright
So I was reading a blog post last night about a school in Massachusetts who in an effort to improve the health of youngsters in their town were going to take a Body Mass Index score and put it on a kids report card to be sent home. Not a bad idea in my opinion even though the Body Mass Index is a steaming pile of crap but hey at least they are trying.
What I hadn’t expected was the backlash on that post from fellow fitness professionals on how it’s not the schools business and it’s going to give the kids a poor self image and we it’s just judging them and a whole lot of other crap. Have we ALL gotten soft here? It appears we are.
One thing that I am sick of is all this touchy feely Oprah type training. Now I know people think I am one of those types that call my clients maggots and what not but I’m not. I’m actually not harsh at all and half the time my clients are laughing all the way through the session because I have a somewhat unique sense of humor. My job is to get them in better physical condition not to berate them, I make them laugh because it makes both of our experiences better. Having said that I won’t tell them their farts don’t stink either. That is essentially what my “fellow fitness pro’s” are doing with their statements.
Let’s take a look real quick at what a report card does. Math, English, History, Science and a couple others have a grading system. If one of those has lower grades then the parents are notified that there is a problem that needs to be addressed so that children can improve. The purpose of the report card is to put a problem out on the surface because the first step to solving a problem is realizing you have a problem.
So how exactly is including a Body Mass Index any different then saying what their grade in any of the tested subjects is? Does getting a poor grade in math equate to the board of Ed calling the kid stupid? So why would including their BMI whether it’s good or bad be like calling them fat? It is meant to let the parents know that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed.
Now personally I think the intentions are in the right place but it is misguided. Body Mass Index only does your height compared to your weight according to the general population. It is extremely inaccurate. What I suggest is a performance based test. Time the mile, do pushups or pullups (if kids haven’t gotten so out of shape that they can’t do it), time a bean bag sprint and test hamstring flexibility. They did that when I was a kid and the Governator was in charge.
Arnold says fix the problem....or else.
Oh yeah and don’t give them anything for participation. It does nothing for a kids self esteem because they can see right through that. When a kid does accomplish something physical and they get a patch then yes it will do wonders for their self confidence.
As for it not being the schools business. The child’s welfare IS the school’s business. Parents…you don’t like it when you are wrong? Deal with it.
So what do you think? Do you agree with me or disagree? Why?
Rom fast exercise…uh thing. Are you kidding me?
Posted by: | CommentsYou know every once in awhile you come along something revolutionary, something extraordinary and something that makes you question everything you know or thought you knew. This isn’t that something.
4 minute exerciser
Now maybe this thing provides a heck of a workout but I will probably never know. Curiosity will not over power my stinginess to subtract 15 grand (yeah you heard me) from my bank account in order to try it out. This thing promises to provide a world class workout in as little as 4 minutes including the muscles that push pull and squat. Perhaps it does but like I said at a hefty price tag of 15 thousand big ones, I’ll never know.
But I do have some questions.
What about “core stability”?
What if your sport requires you to go longer then 4 minutes?
Is this 1 size fits all? If yes that means that an NFL player should leave Defranco’s gym will be able to use it and a sedentary woman will be able to leave Curves for this?
No supervision required? Idiot proof?
And here is a simple observation. One of the selling points is that it only takes 4 minutes which makes it easy to fit into a busy schedule. Well judging by the size of that thing that means you aren’t going to be taking it anywhere so that means you would have to go back to wherever it is to use it. Doesn’t seem so easy to fit into a schedule for a lot of people.
And if 4 minutes is all you have to spare for exercise…how valuable is your time that would justify the purchase of this thing over something else that takes a little bit longer? Does that mean that a 20 minute workout using an $80 piece of equipment isn’t worth your time? Are you Donald Trump? (If you are what are you doing reading my blog if your time is worth that much money?) To conclude, are you kidding me?
What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Why?
Strength Training for Fitness and Aesthetics
Posted by: | CommentsAlright I was sitting here at my laptop with no clue what I wanted to write about so I’ll just give you a free workout to try at home. Hell I’ll write down the guidelines for you to complete it free of charge since I am not an asshole after all. I just came back from running a class and this is what I had them do. All you need is a kettlebell. The purpose of this training session is to train over head stability and movement quality, build strength and boost your metabolism to burn some fat (if that is your goal get on a proper nutrition program).
4 turkish get ups alternating sides. Make sure to pay attention to proper form.
“Countdowns” (I stole “countdowns” from uber Strength Coach Alwyn Cosgrove…he told me to…)
Complete this as fast as you can with good form.
10 swings
10 goblet squats
9 swings
9 goblet squats
8 swings
8 goblet squats
till you get down to 1
Wait for your respiration to return to normal then do kettlebell arm bars to open up the chest. That one doesn’t have a specific rep count since I want you to just kind of explore your way through the exercise. Remember to keep your lats tight and keep your shoulder away from your ear.
Then do a couple halos and round the body pass just to loosen up your shoulders a bit more.
Prone cobra stretch at the end.
Enjoy.
Eric Moss RKC
I want you to notice that even though there is a lot going on in that workout I stress the basics. It’s turkish getups, swings and squats. Do more of the stuff that provides a high bang for your buck and you will get better results. Exercise selection is the last thing your body adapts to so don’t buy into that muscle confusion crap. Try that training session out and let me know how you do with it. I mean it, speak up.
Thoughts on the Shane Carwin fight against Brock Lesnar
Posted by: | CommentsWarning there are spoilers.
As you might know I am a fan of Mixed Martial Arts both because I was a martial artist with a love of Judo in particular and because I am a strength and conditioning coach/personal trainer. Now this past weekend was a big fight between Shane Carwin who came in with an astonishing record of 12 wins and zero losses with nobody even making it out of the first round and Brock Lesnar a freakish athlete who held the legitimate Ufc heavy weight belt. Here let me just show the promo video so you can get a little bit of an understanding of what the fight was like in case you went unaware of it.
Now here come the spoilers.
The entire first round was very one sided in favor of Carwin. Carwin has monstrous power and was giving an incredible beatdown on Lesnar. If you ever wondered what a frightened look on Lesnar’s face would be like it was after he felt the power of Carwin. I was amazed that they didn’t stop the fight thats how much of a beat down it was.
The thing is it didn’t last. Going into the second round Carwin basically locked up and had lost all of his strength/power and was unable to stuff Lesnar’s takedown. A friend of mine who could actually be a fight analyst had a little debate with me via facebook comments where he said it was probably attributed to “adrenaline dump”. I figured he was unable to buffer his lactic acid.
According to an article on MMAfighting.com Carwin claimed to be feeling the effects of lactic acidosis. Supposedly it happens with the build up of lactic acid in your body which causes the effects of fatigue and is a biproduct of the body using it’s ATP stores (adenosine tri phosphate).
Now I’m not going to pretend to be smarter then Greg Jackson (Carwin’s trainer) because I have no champions or number 1 contenders to my credit while he’s put out the likes of Carwin, Georges St. Pierre, Rashad Evans as well as a host of other bad asses. I can only comment as a coach on the outside looking in.
Carwin has serious power but it appears he doesn’t have power endurance. It could be because he hasn’t trained to produce, buffer and tolerate high levels of lactic acid which would be required for power endurance. The only thing I can really recommend is to program that into his training sessions with specific work rest ratios with the intention of doing that. The only way I really know how is with the lactic acid tolerance protocol and lactic acid boost protocol from Viking Warrior Conditioning.
Since power is a function of strength and speed I would probably focus a little bit more on speed via over speed snatches done to the rules of that book. I really believe that if he could have maintained the kind of power he had in the first round of that fight it would have been him walking out with that 4x hand raised in the air of victory.
I am currently doing the V02 Max protocol from that book and it is actually a little scary how effective it is.
So what do you think? Do you agree with my opinions? Yes or no I am curious what you think.
Here is why running for fat loss sucks
Posted by: | CommentsAlright so not that long ago someone commented on my blog here asking why I said running sucks for fat loss. Well here is why.
The basic premise behind just about every exercise program for every goal one can think of is that our bodies are all adaptive mechanisms. We adapt to every single thing we do to become more efficient at it. You do things that require strength, your body responds by fortifying it’s nervous system, increasing muscle mass, increasing tendon strength and that sort of thing. It adapts to become more efficient for the given task.
Well running works along the same lines. You run a certain distance at a certain speed and your body adapts to it by making your body more efficient. Once your body becomes more efficient at it it ends up taking less calories to run the same distance. Think of it like trading in a car with bad gas mileage for a car with good gas mileage. I know that sounds good except for the fact that our bodies don’t store the gas that isn’t used up in the form of six pack diminishing body fat.
So in order to burn the same amount of calories you would have to run either longer, faster or both. Then once again your body picks up the slack and adapts to it and you are right back where you started. It’s just like a dog chasing it’s tail. Run as you might you will never catch it.
So if you are trying to burn fat the best strategy is to try to replace it with muscle via resistance training at a fast pace and couple that with a proper nutrition program. My preferred tool is the kettlebell. Muscle itself takes up a lot of calories just to maintain itself and hey it looks cool too.
What do you think?
