Summer 2014 Issue Inside: Tips and info to make this your best Summer of training yet!!
The Performance Training and Conditioning E-Magazine of Athletes and Fitness Enthusiasts
In this Issue: Book review: The Mindful Athlete
Feature Article: Change up your Workout Tempo and Pace
in this issue:
Editorial: Is your performance life helping you make the most of your DASH?
Training Tech: The Fitbit Surge taking your training to the next level Book reviews: Misty Copeland’s Life in Motion, and The Mindful Athlete Seal Grinder PT: How much is too much? Swivel Vision goggles combined with agility ladder training drills.
PLUS
Increase your workout intensity with the TITIN weighted compression shirt and short set Why being an explosive athletes gives you an advantage Pur Motion Clean and Jerk adds support to traditional lifting Can’t run outside? Use the Vertimax! Get HERE to THERE faster with agility training! SKLZ lateral stepper creates great lateral movement Why single legged box step ups gives you the most bang for your buck! Train the body as a complete engine—not in parts and pieces! Tempo and pace help you vary your workouts!
Is your ‘performance life’ helping you make the most of your dash? From the Editor Poet Linda Ellis wrote an inspiring poem called “The Dash” in which she eluded to the fact that there are two distinctive dates that define our lives here on earth----the date of our birth and the date of our death. Two dates separated by a “dash”—a dash that represents our entire lives. The Dash IS our life. Recently a young friend of mine passed away in a tragic accident. Her passing hit all who knew her very hard with shock and grief for such a young life gone far too soon, leaving this Earth in only her mid 20’s. In the days following her passing something amazing happened. Myself and those around her already knew she was an awesome person. However in the days following her death, story after story came out of how her life had affect so many people while she was here. They weren't just stories about how she was a good, kind person, but stories about how her acts of kindness touched those around her and made such a difference in their lives. She had created a ripple effect by her life here on earth that touched far more people than anyone could have imagined. She was fierce and feisty as she took on life with everything she had to be the best wife, sister and daughter that she could be to her family who adored her. She REALLY lived her DASH. As we roll into summer, ask yourself---are you REALLY living your DASH? Do you wake up everyday just existing with your dash or living your dash? No matter where you are in your performance life, live your DASH. My friend Dana showed us how; now it's our turn. LIVE your DASH.
Daimond D. Dixon Editor, Pro Power E-Mag
The Mission The Pro Power mission is to provide training information to athletes and fitness enthusiasts by sharing training and conditioning ideals from various sources helping individuals to reach their personal performance potential.
Publishing Pro Power E-Magazine is published monthly in an online viewing format along with an accompanying online web site and blog.
Contact Information Editor: Daimond Dixon Web: ProPowerMag.com Email: PerformanceSport21@gmail.com Phone: (616) 633-1883
Training Tech Tech that adds variety to sports performance and fitness training
The ability to track your workout progress began with writing down your workouts/training sessions on pieces of paper, then in spiral notebooks, evolving into ready made workout journals. Workout recording has now come full circle with the advent of fitness trackers. Fitness Trackers are today's workout journal SUPER CHARGED. They can track things such as steps taken, calories burned, sleep patterns, mileage traveled and more. One particulate monitor that has taken the world by storm is a personal favorite of mine---the Fitbit Surge.
The Fitbit Surge is more than just your typical fitness tracker watch. It is a key tool in anyone's training arsenal. It tracks all of the above--them some. It also has multiple workout settings that allow the user to track progress during different types of workouts such as weight lifting, running, hiking, yoga, biking and spinning. The versatility of these settings adds variety to your workouts and what you can accomplish with the Surge. And with Bluetooth and App technology, your smartphone can sync to your Fitbit Surge, giving you the ability to link your cell phone to view texts and also a Fitbit app portal on your phone allows you to view your daily training progress in real-time. It’s for sure the “cats meow�. Made for function, fit and comfort, the surge is the right piece of technology for the right kind of activities we are striving for in our daily fitness lives. To see more on the Fitbit Surge and to grab yours click here.
Book Reviews:
Life in motion, and The Mindful Athlete From Amazon: Misty Copeland— Life in Motion In this instant New York Times bestseller, Misty Copeland makes history as the only African American soloist dancing with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre. But when she first placed her hands on the barre at an after-school community center, no one expected the undersized, anxious thirteen-year-old to become a groundbreaking ballerina. When she discovered ballet, Misty was living in a shabby motel room, struggling with her five siblings for a place to sleep on the floor. A true prodigy, she was dancing en pointe within three months of taking her first dance class and performing professionally in just over a year: a feat unheard of for any classical dancer. But when Misty became caught between the control and comfort she found in the world of ballet and the harsh realities of her own life (culminating in a highly publicized custody battle), she had to choose to embrace both her identity and her dreams, and find the courage to be one of a kind. Life in Motion is an insider’s look at the cutthroat world of professional ballet, as well as a moving story of passion and grace for anyone who has dared to dream of a different life.
Get the book here
From Amazon: The Mindful Athlete Michael Jordan and countless other NBA stars credit George Mumford with transforming their game. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford shares his story and strategies in The Mindful Athlete. His proven techniques transform the performance of anyone with a goal, be they an Olympian, weekend warrior, executive, hacker, or artist. A basketball player at the University of Massachusetts (where he roomed with Dr. J, Julius Erving), injuries forced Mumford out of the game he loved. The meds that relieved the pain of his injuries also numbed him to the emptiness he felt without the game and eventually led him to heroin. After years as a functioning addict, Mumford made meditation the center of his life. He kicked drugs, earned a master’s degree, and began teaching meditation to inmates and others. Mumford went on to partner with coach Phil Jackson, a long-time mindfulness practitioner, working with him and each of the teams he coached to become NBA champions. His roster of champion clients now includes executives and Olympians. With a charismatic style that combines mindfulness with lessons from icons like Yoda and Bruce Lee, Mumford delivers an engrossing story and an invaluable resource.
These books and others are available in both print and tablet versions in our Pro Power Bookstore HERE
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Knowing our audience of PT animals, this is probably one of the most important topics we’ll be covering. It has been engrained in your head and heart to push beyond pain, crank out the last few reps, then add a few for good measure and to strive for greatness no matter the cost. Hey, don’t let me stop you, get in line and give me some repetitions! I’m simply going to help you help yourself by providing some guidelines to avoid overtraining and becoming counterproductive. So, PT phenoms, I hope you enjoy this read and benefit from the advice. The PT cycle is pretty simple, we push ourselves, recover, push harder, recover, increase reps, recover, get stronger, recover and simply repeat this process. But how much is too much? At what point am I hitting the benefit side of the spectrum and at what point am I simply hurting my progress by going too hard with certain exercises? If I’d only read this years ago when I was in my 20’s maybe I’d have made more progress, but instead I was a numbers guy. I would go to a field and crank out push-ups, pull-ups and other calisthenics until I couldn’t move, then I’d do a few more and I repeated this almost daily. If only the now me knew the then me and educated me! When you conduct an exercise there is a certain amount of muscle tissue damage you incur. When the muscle tissues are damaged, satellite cells found on the outer layers of muscle tissue get to work by fusing together in an effort to biologically repair your damaged tissue and proliferate to the injury site. This often results in cross layering and of course, hypertrophy. After this occurs, some of the satellite cells remain as organelles and some will convert into muscle protein strands (myofibrils) creating new, thicker muscle tissue or a little something we like to call gains. In other words, pushing yourself and damaging the muscle tissue is a necessary part of making progress and gains. That being said, the healing process is vital to making progress and pushing through the healing or over exerting your muscle tissue will harm the recovery process resulting in the exact opposite of your desired result and could potentially lead to rhabdomyolysis, a condition resulting from rapid destruction of muscle tissue and the release of protein into the bloodstream resulting in acute renal failure. Unless you’re a big fan of hospitals, excessive bags of sodium bicarbonate and not hitting your fitness goals, try and avoid this one and simply avoid overtraining. Here is some expert advice from a man that needs no introduction, our very own Navy SEAL fitness guru, Mr. Stew Smith: How Much Is Too Much? When it comes to calisthenics (aka bodyweight exercises), too many people make the same TWO mistakes: (Con’t)
1 – Calisthenics every day of the week (same muscle groups / exercises). 2 – Way too much volume too fast. Ca. For instance: If you can do 20 pull-ups, 80 pushups, 80 sit-ups – a good and challenging calisthenics workout would be 100 pull-ups, 400 pushups / sit-ups. That may sound like a lot of reps to you – well it is! And when you hit this kind of volume in a workout, you need to recover. It is all relative, however. So if you can only do 10 pull-ups / 40 pushup/sit-ups it is too much to do 50 pull-ups / 200 pushups / 200 sit-ups day after day after day. I do have a TEN Day plan that works very well if you are trying to increase your max rep 2 min testing in pull-ups, pushups, sit-ups. See links: 10 day Pull-up + 3 days rest = Day 14 Test 10 day Pushups + 3 days rest = Day 14 Test 10 day Sit ups + 3 days rest = Day 14 Test Calisthenics at a low volume several days a week is not a bad idea if treated like a dynamic warm-up for 5-10 minutes a day. But, when people do hundreds of repetitions of pull-ups, pushups, dips, situps, lunges, even flutter-kicks and other hip / abdominal exercises, there is such a thing as TOO MUCH. Here is an easy way to fix both problems of daily PT and too many reps for your own good: I call it the 5TIMES test. Take your max 1 set repetitions (2 min time limit pushups / sit-ups) and multiply by FIVE. Whatever that number is – that is a sufficient workout total repetitions for a day BUT not repetitive day after day after day All are TWO -WEEK overload / specificity training programs that will help you increase your testing numbers. Some have seen 100% increase is scores in 2 weeks. You should only do this ONCE – then go back to a normal every OTHER day training program with calisthenics. Still Too Much – Now if you are well above your 5x Max rep during a total workout too often, you will pay usually with some form of tendonitis of the elbow, shoulder/chest connections, or bicep connections (pushups, pull-ups, dips). So take it easy on the 1000 rep workouts and 250 pull-ups workouts. I am not saying you cannot push yourself every now and then and test those numbers but be smart and recover, rest, and go back to normal numbers / split routines of moderate reps in your workouts for a month of so before doing TOO MUCH again. Your joints will thank you for it. Doc Goody BIO: Shawn Goodwin, HM2 Navy Corpsman of 7 years with multiple deployments in both hostile and non-hostile zones. Deployed ISO 5th Group SF & 98th Division “Black sheep” as medical augment. Duty stations include:
-II MEF CBIRF (ISO Presidential Operations) -Guantanamo Bay Cuba ISO HUMINT / Detainee Ops -Command Fitness Leader
Swivel Vision and Speed Ladder Training
Swivel Vision + Agility ladder Zig Zag Side Step Reaction in sports is as important as sports speed, because in most sports we play with our eyes. Our movement, change of direction, and reaction skills all come from what we see. In a nutshell, the faster we see it, the faster we react, the faster we make plays. YES, powerful, explosive body movement makes the difference, but its the ability to SEE what happens and to react to it that makes the key difference. Be as strong as you like: if you cant react to what’s going on, you're lost in the shuffle. The swivel vision goggles helps to improve reaction time by limiting your field of vision, forcing your eyes to track objects opponents with more focus and concentration.
The Drill: Swivel Vision with Quick foot Ladder moving laterally. Swivel Vision cuts off your field of vision which is particularly tough while wearing them and moving laterally. For this drill you'll need your SV Goggles and an agility ladder. Line up laterally and square to the ladder, and perform a zig-zag backwards side step laterally through the ladder. Keep your field of vision down towards the ladder as you go through, “tracking” your feet visually with your eyes. After performing about three sets of this drill, now take of the goggles and perform again. You'll notice how your field of vision opens up peripherally, and in essence makes your movements faster and quicker. Try this drill also by contrasting, wearing the goggles every other drill. Also perform other lateral drills such as quick feet laterally, hops laterally, zig zag side step forwards, and other lateral movement ladder drills. Good luck!!
See The Ladder Pattern Below
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The Worlds only weighted compression shirt for performance training and fitness Good old fashion body weight training is very important for both athletes and fitness enthusiasts because by utilizing your “internal source” (your body) instead of an outside source (free weights, med balls, etc) you create total body strength using YOU. What I like about the TitTin weighted compression unit is that it supplies resistance as you wear it. The upper body compression shirt is approximately is weighted with flexible resistance pieces and the lower body compression shorts contain the same witha “sung fit” that stays close to your body with zero bounce.
Although it may not be hundreds of pounds, the resistance adds crucial resistance to select portions of your upper and lower body. And when performing body weight training, your body weight is suddenly increased and you are forced to adapt to it. Check out some exercises below where adding the TiTin can have a critical effect on body weight strength training and explosiveness wearing either the weighted compression shirt, weight compression shorts, or both.
Quickie TinTin Body weight routine Push Ups: Perform various types in your TiTin from wide grip, diamond (hands close), upper/lower body inclined, one foot elevated, etc.
Lunge/Squat Series: Perform various TiTin body weight squat and lunge patterns such as forward, backwards and lateral. Also set your feet square and drop your butt low and perform body weight squats. Pull ups: Your pull ups just got amped up by adding the TiTin weighted compression shirt and shorts to this already tough exercise. Depending on your pull up device, alternate your grip depending on a wide grip, close grip or neutral grip (palms facing each other). Plyo Jumps: Here is where explosiveness is king---wearing your TiTin while performing plyometrics such as knee tuck jumps in place, bounding over a distance or barrier jumps with boxes and hurdles. Remember to focus on technique and stable landings, since now your body weight jumps are loaded! Jump Rope/Battle Ropes: If you thought that jumping rope and slamming battle ropes was tough, now add in the TiTin weighted compression unit and take another entire step into cardio madness. Looking to purchase a TiTin or want more info? Check it out below:
Click here for more info
Why being Explosive as an athlete gains you an edge Being explosive athletically has many advantages from sport to sport. Its uses are wide and varied, from being explosive vertically, horizontally, or how we move objects or COMPETITIORS—the list goes on.
In many sports, the athlete who tends to be the most explosive has one of the greatest physical advantages. Train yourself to be more explosive by incorporating explosive moves into your workouts as often as you can. Many of the Olympic style lifts and plyometric drills pay HUGE dividends when it comes to training for explosiveness, so includes these into your training arsenal!
Pur Motion Clean and Jerk unit work as support to traditional clean Whether its the power clean or the Hang Clean, the Clean is fast becoming the weapon of choice among explosive athletes when it comes to power-explosive types of movements. From training sports specifically in the weight room, to training in a crossfit box, the Clean has becoming the “King” explosive lifts. But being one of the best movements also makes it one of the most technical lifts to learn and do properly. You get the most bang for your buck out of the entire movement: Set feet, solid erect core loaded up, exploding through the ground, hips forward and through, big shoulder shrug at the top to create the quadruple extension (An extension through your ankle, knees, hips and shoulders which is one of the cornerstones of athletic movement. ) The more we can explosively extend, then the more power we can put into the ground, and the faster more accelerated our athletic movements. Everything from running, to jumping can be enhance by this one exercise that we called the Clean. Traditional barbell cleans are great, and recently within the last couple of years I have found a supplement/alternative tool to work the clean---the Pur Motion Clean and Jerk Unit.
See the video
This simple “wish bone” shaped unit attaches to the end of your Olympic bar and mimics the clean from the feet all the way up. Here are a couple little gems of info: The grip of the CJ allows for a neutral grip hold, so much of the stress is taken off the wrists and forearms.
You can work the CJ either from the power position (all the way from the floor) or the hang position (just above the knee).
As far as foot positioning goes, you can have square stance or the CJ allows for a split stance.
The Catch position at the top allows for catching with a forward lean opposed to straight up and down---a typical sports specific running angle. The CJ unit is a great complement to the standard clean and can be used together with each other in the same workout. Check out the CJ videos below and see the CJ in action!
Add the CJ to your training arsenal!
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Tip of the MOnth: Cant get outside? Run on the Vertimax! Do you remember running in place in gym class in elementary school ? How boring was that---running with no place to go! Plus, a couple steps in, and you start to question the purpose of the entire adventure. Running in place can now have far more meaning when running with the the Vertimax training platform. The platform utilizes resistance bands that run throughout the underside of the platform and come out through the top attaching to the athlete. And with the Vertimax, this can be used to train sprints IN PLACE.
THE SET UP
The setup is quick and painless. Although there are a variety of configurations and cords, attach right and left cords at your waist, and gray cords on the rails of the top of the platform attach to the hip flexor leg harness'.
V-Max Sprints
THE ACTION
Start in a staggered position as if you are going to run off of the platform (BUT STAY ON!) Begin sprinting in place with a slight body tilt by tucking your chin forward. Focus on keeping your arms at 90 degrees utilizing a violent arm swing with elbows firing backwards. Drive your knees up and down as if you were moving forward, landing repeatedly on the balls of your feet
WORKOUT TIPS
To work on explosive speed, run 4-10 seconds per set MAXIMUM
Perform about 4-6 sets
Recover completely from each set before attempting another, about 45-60 seconds.
Alternate between different levels of Resistance.
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What is the Competitive Cauldron? A MUST use application for any coach. See
“Our competitive cauldron is a player development tool. By making the player better, it makes the team better. We don’t use players’ rankings to determine starting positions or playing time. The rankings are for the players’ information. Those that are ambitious will want to climb and those that are content to be mediocre will also be content to remain in the middle to bottom of the rankings.”
Customize your own Categories. Filter by Categories and by Player position. Create a cauldron from our templates for Soccer, Lacrosse, Basketball, Football, Volleyball or create your own personalize cauldron. Create and enter your players stats for each training sessions online or via the app. Printout/Email individual players stats or the entire Team. Allow players to login online to view only their stats and progress. Create and Email player evaluations (Customize your own evaluation for your team)
From ‘here to there’ faster with agility training Looking to get from point A to point B in a hurry? Want to do it without slowing down if you are not just traveling in a straight line? Then agility training is for you!
Agility is rapid changes of direction that at a high rate of speed. Simply put, agility allows us to get from point A to point D, while still passing by B and C even if they are only “on the way” to D. Want to get your feet out of the sand and not get stuck when changing directions? Grab a set of cones and work your agility training today!
SKLZ side stepper creates lateral strength and sport specific lateral speed Moving laterally is one of the tenants of being a good athlete. Lets face it, most sports are played with multidirectional actions so it should be fitting that the ability to move laterally is of utmost importance to todays athlete. The benefits of lateral movement help to: stay square and move side to side vs a defender
make a defensive move trying to stay with an offensive player
increase first step quickness and reaction laterally
Training to move laterally properly demands an attention to detail with an absolute focus on form and technique. One of the best ways to learn to really efficiently move laterally is to train to shuffle or “slide” side to side. This action happens when: 1. Our foot width for our base is just outside our waist line, with body weight on our forefoot 2. Our knees are bent with hips sitting lower, chest up with shoulder blades slightly pulled back 3. Our head level, but moving side to side as we slide/shuffle with shoulders “non-turning” and square 4. Our torso is stiff and rigid, core engaged 5. Our feet moving in a push-pull fashion----back foot pushing up, front foot pulling , NEVER crossing our feet. The SKLZ side stepper tool allows us the ability to train with resistance while moving laterally. The resistor has two padded ankle straps which are connected by a single bungie between both ankles. As you slide/shuffle, the device goes from resistance to the front leg on the pull, to assistance on the back leg with push. The resistance cords allow for tension to be used to train this lateral motion, so that when you remove the device your feet feel light as a feather. Keep in mind as you move, those hip flexors are also engaged and working, being strengthen by the SKLZ side stepper tension. Check out the Video below of the stepper in action, and remember its applicable from sport to sport!
See the video
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Tip of the MOnth: Why single legged box step ups is a bang for your buck For sure---we want to be strong and stable while on two legs. Because if we have them both and they are healthy, they will be used on a daily bases. When operating in tandem, our legs form a "super team" enabling us to squat, jump, and be really explosive and strong. “It's twice the strength for the money”. But we must be careful not to forget single legged strength---the ability to be strong on a single leg, while performing jumps, squats, bounds and everything other athletic and nonathletic action required of that 1 limb. Training for single legged strength is important for a variety of reasons. One way we do this is by performing a good old fashion box step up, driving your foot up and on the box while holding weight resistance. Tips of the one legged box step up: Keep your torso tall as you perform the step up Don't use your bottom leg to help you get on the box---drive to the top with your "box leg". Don't rock your body while attempting to get on the box----stay rigid and steady by tightening your core. Push "down" and into the box doing your best to rise onto the box by driving "through" the box
See a Lateral Box Jump here
Train the body as a complete engine, not in parts and pieces. There are a lot of moving parts and pieces associate with the human body...now take those pieces and attempt to enhance the body’s
performance in sports and fitness.
Workout of the Month: Workout Tempo and Pace are other factors that can vary in your workouts to change it up. Being able to vary what we do from workout to workout is a key factor in how we train and how we progress in our performance and fitness endeavors. Being able to use different exercises, training tools and working out in different places has a great effect in reaching our training goals. Varying the tempo/ pace of our training and the set up of our workout also gives us an added variable that can enhance our training experience. Depending on you goals, these variables can take your usual workout and give it the extra boost your looking for. Tempo/Pace Set the clock and try to get your workout done in “x” amount of time. Use a clock or your watch to monitor your pace. If you know you have 4 exercises with 4 sets per exercise, that’s 16 sets you need to complete in “x” amount of time. Monitor your pace so you can see where you are at different points of time throughout the workout. Next workout do the same, and compare your results to the previous workout. Great for adding a cardio effect if your goal is to grind it out as fast and efficient as you can. Workout Set Up Vary how you set up your workout instead of “your usual”. Here are a couple tips: If you have multiple exercises to do, instead of completeing all sets of one and moving on to another, complete one set of each, one after another going back and forth between exercises. If you like cardio and strength training blend them together. Do 5 mins of cardio, then do your first exercise on your list for that day. After that last set of your first exercise, go do another 5 min cardio set, then off to your second exercise. Continue this back and forth pace. You can also do a combination of the two by doing 5 min cardio, set of an exercise, 5 min cardio, different exercise, until you complete “1 set” of all of your exercises. Be creative and you can find the best ways to amp up your performance fitness workouts for optimum gains!
Training and Conditioning Products Get a jump on gaining your competitive sports and fitness edge by utilizing some of the great training products we feature!
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