You have to watch this!  I've watched it three times already and still get a kick out of it.  Incredible fitness, coordination, agility, balance… you name it!

I've also got some really big news to share with you next week.  Some great things are happening at Athlon REAL SOON.

Click the picture or the link below and enjoy…

http://biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=22029

Have a great weekend,

Ryan

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My birthday was last week and I have a Luau every year to celebrate.  Boy it was a good one this year!

It's great to get together with friends and family and celebrate but you know what that inevitably means… eating and drinking a lot of great-tasting food that isn't so great for your waistline!  Here are a few pictures from the night:

Now that it's over, it's time to get back into a healthy mindset.  And Athlon client, Nancy Loe, sent me an interesting article out of the New York Times last week about exercise that you should know about.

Exercise Makes You Smarter!

What goes on inside your brain when you exercise?  The New York times reported on some interesting new research on that topic.

First, it has been thought for years that you were born with a certain number of brain cells and that's all you we're ever going to have.  "Better take care of 'em 'cause that's all you get," I was told in high school and college biology classes.

But In the late 1990s, Dr. Fred Gage and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute in San Diego elegantly proved that human and animal brains produce new brain cells (a process called neurogenesis) and that exercise increases neurogenesis

Yes!  The brains of mice and rats that were allowed to run on wheels "pulsed with vigorous, newly born neurons, and those animals then breezed through mazes and other tests of rodent I.Q., showing that neurogenesis improves thinking."

How this happens is what the New York times article is all about, which you can read here:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/your-brain-on-exercise/?em&exprod=myyahoo

I'll spare you the details for now other than to tell you that your brain is packed with adult stem cells which given the right stimulus divide and differentiate into either additional stem cells or baby neurons.

As we age these stem cells become less active, less nimble, "older" because of a certain chemical called BMP.  And yes, you guessed it, exercise encourages other chemicals that inhibit this BMP and hence encourage stem cell activity.  In Dr. Gage's laboratory, mice given access to running wheels had 50% less BMP-related brain activity within a week.  Here's the study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19841742

Now it is still not clear how much exercise one must do to stimulate this neurogenisis but it is clear that you "have to do something."  Possibly "even a fairly short period" of exercise produces results, says Dr. Gage.

So, if you want to become smarter and you want to finish out this summer with an amazingly fit body come into Athlon Elite today and get your training in.  As our governor used to say,

"a day missed can never be made up."

And now a day missed may even make you more dense!

If you're not already a member/client of Athlon's call us today and take advantage of your FREE fitness and nutrition consultation (an $85 value):  (805) 440-0215.  We'll get you started right!!!.

During this consult, you'll receive detailed information on how to get fit that's tailored to YOUR body.

This means that you'll be on the path to burning fat, getting the slim body you've always wanted and actually becoming smarter in no time at all.

There's no obligation and it's totally and completely free. To sign up, click here.

Until next time,

Ryan

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Here's a good workout "finisher" for you golfers to really get the metabolic system going and burn some body fat…

The Golfing Workout Finisher!

1.  Right rotational medicine ball slams
2.  Rope battling
3.  Left rotational medicine ball slams

:20 seconds as hard as you can go, :20 seconds rest as you transition to the next movement…

Complete the circuit 5 times.

Get in there and BURN some calories!!!

Take a look at athletes today… professional, Olympic, collegiate, even high school athletes.  There's a definite, even dramatic, trend of increasing muscularity in almost every sport.  It's no surprise to see well muscled track and field athletes, huge football and baseball players, and even the female soccer players now look like middle-weight boxers!

Everyone now knows the importance of muscle for sports performance.  Muscle is the engine of your body and typically a bigger engine makes a body go faster.  That said, there IS a limit to that simple equation, "bigger engine, faster performance."  But where is that limit?

WARNING: Veins DO NOT = sports performance…

When it comes to strength training and sports performance there are a few schools of thought, but basically you can boil those down to:

"it works,"  or  "it doesn't work."

The 'traditionalist-hold-outs' that still believe weightlifting "doesn't work"  think that it makes you slow, it adds muscle to your frame without the joint/ligament integrity to support it, and it adds a higher risk of injury to your training program.  They often think that body weight exercises and/or gymnastics exercises are superior for delivering real world strength, or like the wrestlers and MMA guys say, "Mat Strength."

Harder than it looks…

However, the weightlifting-for-sports-performance people say (in a nutshell):

• muscle adds strength and power,
• more strength and power in anything makes you perform better, and
• there is no better way to add muscle and strength than to add "overload" resistance through the use of heavy barbells and dumbbells (and maybe a few other cool things like tires and hammers, etc.)
  

Here's the deal…

They're both right!

Now days there is no question that more muscle mass and strength improves your general fitness, quickness and power.  And pretty much every sport benefits from those improved qualities (even finesse sports like golf).

Even Phil Mickelson has started building muscle…

Just about every university and high school has a weight room for its athletes to train in.  And every professional athlete now spends their off-season weightlifting and improving their STRENGTH and MUSCLE MASS for the upcoming season.

But weightlifting is weightlifting, right?  It's NOT the sport.  You have to get on the field or on the court and learn the strength needed for your sport.  The golfer needs to swing the club and do drills that improve "club swinging strength" on the course, the football player needs to do footwork and agility drills on the field to really improve his "football speed," right?  It's like my old Karate instructor used to say,

"you can't learn to punch unless you throw a punch!"

And unfortunately many athletes these days (especially younger athletes) are making the case for these "non-weightlifting" proponents.  They take up weightlifting to improve their performance but do it ALL WRONG, and hurt themselves and hence their performance in the process!

These novice lifters sacrifice good full range of motion movements to try and lift heavy weight, and fail to properly and slowly progress the amount of weight they're lifting so that they build the tendon and ligament strength as they build the muscle.  This inevitably sets them up for failure.

Are you systematically progressing your resistance training using scientific principles?  Or, are you just going into the gym and lifting heavy weights??  Let us help you know you are doing it right.

If the novice lifter survives this "hap-hazard" strength training program and add a little muscle and strength to their body without an injury they still fail to truly realize the improved sports performance on the field or court because they don't "teach" that new muscle how to move explosively with proper power movements (like Olympic lifting and plyometrics) and correct field drills.  Or they attempt to do some of the "power movements" with horrific form and cause injuries or set themselves up for a guaranteed future injury like the lifter below using bad low back posture.

How is your Olympic lifting technique?  If you're doing plyometrics are you staying within the appropriate number of ground contacts each session?  And then progressing them appropriately (here is a system to proper progression of plyometrics training).

So, back to the question…

Should athletes strength train to improve sports performance or just focus on sport-specific body weight drills for their sport?

John Cortese, our Elite Performance Camp lead trainer, recently finished a literature review of 15 peer-reviewed studies on weightlifting, strength and sports performance and found that improved strength is STONGLY correlated (no pun intended) to faster speed and hence sports performance.  Athletes that had a stronger squat (or even just started doing squats) had significantly greater speed and sports performance power than those that did not.  Heavy squats and heavy power cleans ARE significantly correlated with greater sports performance (e.g., running speed and quickness).

However, his review also found that combining "in-the-gym" strength training with "on-the-field" sports conditioning drills was FAR BETTER for improved sports performance than strength training alone.  And I don't mean just "practicing" your sport like you have to do everyday anyway, I mean real sports performance… body weight drills like form-sprinting, first-step starts, lateral agility, plyometric push-ups, etc.

So the answer IS "both."  An athlete needs to do both strength training using barbells and dumbbells (and tractor tires, and sledgehammers, and ropes, and straps, and chains, etc. like we do at Athlon), and they need to be doing some "body weight" field drills that are appropriate for improving their sports performance.

He said, "it was very obvious from the literature review that following a smart program that included both [strength training and field drills] at varying intensities created the fastest most powerful athletes, hands-down."  

(and the fastest, most powerful athletes are almost always the ones getting their hand raised in victory on the first place podium)

The reason for this is fairly intuitive… just because you add the muscle doesn't mean it automatically knows how to coordinate itself to run faster, or punch harder, or jump higher, etc.  You have to teach that new-found muscle and strength how to properly apply itself in a particular sporting environment or movement pattern.  This is right inline with one of the most common principles of biological systems (and skill improvement) that all physical therapists, personal trainers, strength coaches and physicians understand and use… the "S.A.I.D." principle:

Specific
Adaptation to
Imposed
Demand

"…if you want to learn to punch you have to throw a punch!"

The Take-Home Message

Strength and conditioning in the weight room following sound principles of safety and progression is an absolute must if you want to step on the field and compete with the average athlete these days.  However, you must also incorporate body weight skill training drills into your strength and conditioning program in order to truly realize and increase your performance (and hence realize the TRUE benefit of improved performance, i.e…

Athlon Elite has put together the most comprehensive, effective training program for Athletes in SLO County…

The Elite Performance Camp

Click the link above or go here: www.ElitePerformanceCamp.zreply.com and learn about this program and how it puts together ALL of the components of a performance enhancement program, both "in-the-gym" and "on-the-field" to GUARANTEE you're walking off the field with the "W" EVERY TIME!

Or,

Call us at (805) 440-0215 to get a free consultation about this program and how it WILL help YOU!

Until next time,

Ryan

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Athlon is closed for Memorial day but that doesn't mean you get out of your workout, right?!  In honor of our fallen heroes push yourself a little harder today before enjoying some good barbeque with family and friends.

Train hard!  Pain is Your Friend!

Option 1:
Load your backpack with 40 to 50 pounds of weight and hump it up and down Bishop's peak as fast as possible wearing it.  A weighted vest works good too.  40 minutes to the top under a load will be a respectful time…

Option 2:
The Army Ranger Workout (try your best)

Run 2 miles in 12 to 14 minutes, then try to complete
100 Push-ups in under 2 minutes, and
100 Sit-ups in under 2 minutes

If you can do this you'd be well prepared for the Special Forces physical fitness test!

Have a great Holiday and see you on Tuesday!

If you read my blog post from last week you know that I don't subscribe to any "one way" to achieve something physically, e.g., the "one way" to get a beach-ready body, etc.  If you haven't read it, read it now:

http://www.athlonelite.com/2010/05/the-answer-to-a-beach-ready-body/

However, there are a few definitive principles out there to physical development that must be adhered to… a sort of one "answer" if you will.

Today I'd like to share the "secret" or "one answer" to developing your butt…

I know that sounds silly but whether you're an athlete needing to explosively move to avoid the defender, or you want to have that rock-hard tush on the beach, you must adhere to the concept I'm going to talk about today.  Then I'm going to give you 5 exercises that target your rear end, because nice "glutes" not only look great (whether you're male or female), they also come into play in almost every movement you do, especially in sports. They are a key "core" muscle.

You might even be doing one or two of these but here's why…

Tush-Training At Athlon Elite (athletes or models)

If you're not as fast and explosive as you should be in athletics, or if you're just not happy with the way your tush looks, then you're probably missing the key ingredient to a good "tush-training" program:

One word:   Transverse Plane

What's that you might say?  Well, all modern physics aside, (like quantum physics or super-string theory), our world is made up of only three dimensions: :"forward-backwards" which is the sagital plane, "side-to-side" which is the frontal plane and "rotation" which is the transverse plane.

A large percentage of the gluteal muscles (your butt muscles) are aligned in this transverse plane.

So, why would you do straight up and down or forward and backwards exercises (like the Leg Press machine) when you want to train these muscles.  It just kills me to see an athlete doing leg presses, or squats on a Smith Machine, that doesn't allow for any forces in the transverse plane.  You can't possibly train the glutes correctly when most of the fibers (the ones that go sideways) aren't being stimulated.

This apparatus stabalizes (stops) all side to side (frontal plane) and rotational (transverse plane) motion.

End result… your Ass takes a nap and never really develops!

If you're an athlete you're probably going to lose…

If you're a model (or want to look like one) you're probably not going to attract many looks…

You must add a rotational component into your training program to effectively "condition" the butt muscles.

5 ways you can get those buns of steel…

1. Lateral Lunges – Excellent for your glutes, quads, calves and low back. If you don't have lateral motion incorporated into your current workout, find a way to add it.

yours truly demonstrating in my first gym in 1997

2. Twisting Lunges – Do the normal forward lunge but as you're dropping into the forward position twist to the side of the forward leg.  Add a medicine ball or dumbell in your hands to increase the intensity of the movement.

3. Split Squats – A variation on the "ol' reliable" exercise, the squat. Extremely good for a "round ass" and athletic power. Start with body weight and maybe even a pole for support, then take away the support and add weight.

Pete Freitas in Athlon (he can do more weight)

4. Step ups – All you need is a step or bench for this one (and eventually dumbells when you get strong). Start with one foot up on the step (12 to 24 inches tall), using that leg drive your body up to a standing position (and pull the opposite knee up)

5. Resisted Sled Drags - There's not a lot of active rotation here but a ton of "rotation stability" as you run.  Plus, the forward lean really activates the glutes.  Have fun!

Amanda crushin' the sled drags at Athlon

There you go.  Five exercises that will really get your "rear-end" in gear and going.  Now go train hard and if you need some assistance on form and technique, or for even more effective and fun ways to get a rock-solid, fast and powerful "b-hind," contact us for a free consultation.

(805) 440-0215

www.SLOPersonalTraining.com/consult

Until next time,

Ryan

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6-Week "Summer Shape-Up"    Fitness Contest

Work Hard, Get the Body You Want… And Win!

It's going on right here inside Athlon Elite and costs you NOTHING!  It starts Monday, April 19th, Ends May 28th. The person that collects the most stars over the six weeks wins a FREE month at Athlon Elite ($287 Value)  Get all the juicy details about the contest inside Athlon Elite. (posted on the doors)

And if you're still not a client of Athlon Elite yet?…

What are you waiting for!  CLICK HERE TO GET STARTED

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Click the picture for the video

Click the picture above to see a short video on core training from Stuart Magill, a very accomplished professor of biomechanics at the University of Waterloo in Canada.

(http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/06/17/magazine/1194841000095/core-values.html)