Blog
January 2012
2012 IYCA Summit
Join us as some of the top strength and conditioning coaches, therapist, speed coaches, personal trainers and performance enhancement experts share their knowledge. The blueprint we’re handing over to you has been the proven blueprint for developing athletes for some of the top coaches from around the globe. But here’s the interesting part…
This complete athlete development system you’ll learn literally provides you with everything you need From A-Z to consistently coach your athletes to reach their maximum potential. If you can follow this blueprint, then you can be the go to resource for developing athletes in your area.
Join us in March and you will be personally guided every step of the way… by over 10 of the world’s most accomplished and knowledgeable coaches as they teach you the exact systems they’ve used – all blended together to provide you with one master system for developing your athletes.
Performance Wellness Research: January
Movement
Research shows that regular cardio doesn’t really help with fat loss. One study showed interval training was better than cardio at burning belly fat (and cutting workout time in half). A second study found that 300 hours of cardio per year helped men lose only 6 pounds (and women lost only 4 pounds). So that’s about 50 hours of cardio per pound of weight lost – at BEST!
(Source: Obesity 15:1496-1512 (2007). Exercise Effect on Weight and Body Fat in Men and Women. Anne McTiernan, et al.)
Mindset
You may not be aware of it – they might not be aware of it, but the people in your work environment might be slowing you down. New research by University of Calgary shows that regardless of their intentions, having an individual working on a different task – within your field of vision – could be enough to slow down your performance.
The reason for this is a built-in response-interpretation mechanism that is hard-wired into our central nervous systems. If we see someone performing a task we automatically imagine ourselves performing that task. This behavior is part of our mirror neuron system.
(Source: Science Daily, Feb. 21, 2008)
Rest and Recovery
If you’re getting less than eight hours of sleep each night, chances are you’re sleep deprived. What’s more, you probably have no idea just how much lack of sleep is affecting you.
You may be sleep deprived if you…
Need an alarm clock in order to wake up on time
Rely on… [ read more ]
5 Beginner Pilates Exercises
Pilates exercises strengthen what Joseph Pilates called the “Powerhouse”. Most people refer to it in the fitness industry as your core. The muscles that make up your powerhouse are the abs, buttocks, lower back, hips and inner thighs. When these muscles are strengthened they protect your back from potential injury and can alleviate most existing back problems. A strong powerhouse also helps to take undo load off of your joints and spine helping the body to work more efficiently. The Pilates method is also excellent for rehabbing repetitive stress injuries, shoulders, backs, knees, and hips by focusing on strengthening the deepest muscles of the body and increasing flexibility.
The 100 – This exercise is called the 100 because you do the exercise for 100 beats. It is for breathing, getting the blood flowing and strengthening your abdominals and torso.
The Roll Up – This exercise strengthens your core and stretches your hamstrings and back.
Rolling Like a Ball – This exercise will improve your balance, work and massage your back.
Double Leg Straight – These next two exercises are part of the stomach series. This exercise here works your Powerhouse to the extreme! It gets your entire core while fueling the stretch in the hamstrings.
Criss Cross – This exercise works the obliques and increases flexibility in the back, hips and torso.
Wellness Tip of the Day
Powered by Cleveland Clinic
Stay full for longer: Include protein and complex carbs in every meal and snack. Think peanut butter on toast or turkey-Swiss roll-ups.
When it comes to successful dieting, what you eat is just as important as how much you eat. That’s because the two often go hand in hand. Choosing foods with protein and fiber can help keep you fuller for longer, so you’ll be less likely to snack. Anything that takes a longer time to digest will move more slowly through your system, giving you sustained energy and satiety. As we all know, being overly hungry can make us grumpy, irritable, anxious — and prone to gargantuan snack attacks. Try to include some protein and complex carbohydrates in each meal and snack.
Conditioning Emotionally
Written by Natalia Kielcz
Believe and you will achieve. This saying can be applied to many aspects of life, including health and fitness. Emotional training is just as important as physical training when it comes to total body strength. “Athletes that participate in mental preparation, rehearsal, and skills training tend to achieve a higher level of the elite status,” Mark Hogue, PsyD, clinical psychologist and sports psychologist at Northshore Psychological Associates in Erie, Pa.. This can be applied to anyone that wants to get in better shape, regardless of your goal.
Many people at the gym are reading, watching TV, or chatting with the person next to them while ‘working out.’ Just simply going to the gym and tuning out of your workout is not going to get you the results you want. It takes practice and really mentally focusing to block out distractions to tune in to the workout, focus on what your body is doing, and to push yourself to levels above and beyond your comfort zone for maximum results. Mental strength really kicks in when the workout gets hard and you break through that barrier by telling yourself that you can get through it. The reward of completing and not quitting when it gets tough is an amazing feeling of self-fulfillment and achievement.
Some tips to workout and strength your ‘mental muscle’ are setting goals and establishing rewards. Goal setting is key, whether you are Michelle Kwan or just want to play some golf over the… [ read more ]
5 Keys to Boosting Your Metabolism
RESISTANCE TRAIN & BUILD LEAN MASS
What is your metabolism and how does it affect you? Well, metabolism is just a fancy word to describe the rate at which the body carries out chemical processes, which in turn burns calories. Scientific research has shown that commitment to a resistance training program yields significant results to boosting the metabolism. After any resistance training session, the metabolism operates at a significantly higher rate than cardiovascular training alone. While cardiovascular training should be a part of almost any exercise program, more emphasis needs to be placed on building lean muscle mass. In the battle of resistance training versus cardiovascular training in terms of raising the metabolic rate, resistance training wins.
IT’S ALL ABOUT INTENSITY
It goes without saying that pushing it to the limits every time will yield better and faster results. Some ways to increase intensity in a resistance training workout are to increase reps, sets, tempo (rate at which reps are performed), and range of motion. Another way to increase intensity is to decrease rest time between sets.
INTERVAL TRAINING TO FINISH
Performing interval training on a cardio piece after a resistance training workout is a sure way to attack fat stores in the body. Glucose stores are completely depleted after resistance training which means the next line of defense in energy production is fat. Performing intervals is done by completing a 3:1 active rest to work ratio where the work session is done at 80-95% of the maximum heart rate.… [ read more ]