London 1948 Marathon

Muay Thai good football cross training?

I play defensive tackle, but I would like to do something to cross train next season. I refuse to take lacrosse, soccer, or basketball. End of story. Do you think Muay Thai would be good?
Also I picked Muay Thai for INTENSE training. I’m not afraid to go 3 hours of heavy workouts. Please don’t suggest family kickboxing at the Y.

Free running viva Phoenix

Hey all. This Video is me and my friend in Arizona for the summer. You can call what we are doing Free-running or Tricking or whatever. Its not that important. The fact is that we were just way bored so we started hucking off of stuff and then made a video out of it. Anyway hope you like it. One of us is in Brazil and the other in Lithuania for a couple years and we dont have time to write or read or do anything really so dont fret about writing us. Laikykis Biciuliai!

What types of Yoga would be good for soccer?

What types of Yoga would be good for soccer? I know there are different types but am not entirely sure which to try that would best suited for physical fitness for soccer performance. Thanks in advance.

When i run my legs get sore like i have been running up stairs, but when i stop running it goes away?

I play soccer, but i dont notice it during games. And it’s not sore after i run just while i am running. I get it when do laps. It never happened to before because in the beginning when i started running, i just ran out of breath, and then i didnt run out breath and my legs were fine, now my legs kill. WHat’s wrong with them?

Cross-training: Variety is the Spice of Sport

One sport may not be enough anymore. As the triathlon grows in popularity and professionals from every sport share the secret of their success, athletes at all levels are learning the value of cross-training.

Could Bikram yoga make you a better tennis player, as Andy Murray has claimed? Can running make you a better soccer player, as running-shoe giant Asics asserts in its magazine ads? While the latter may sound like a marketing ploy, Andy Murray was able to defeat Roger Federer and credits yoga for the win. Cross-training has grabbed a share of the exercise market for decades, but today, its value is more widely appreciated. Cross-training is also becoming more creative as new and lesser-known sports make their way into the mainstream.

Spice Up Your Cross Training for Running

Running can become tedious after a while.  It takes a toll on your mind and body so you gotta trick your brain and make it think that running is FUN.  It’s good that you cross train with weight training at the gym, climb stairs or aerobics at the gym, but it can get boring just staring at the machines or running the same routine all the time.   So here are some ideas you can use to spice up your cross training.

I participate in a lot of sports such as rockclimbing, dragonboating, snowboarding, swimming, softball, ultimate, yoga, squash, cycling and more.  But those are not my main sports, I don’t tie myself to any one of them.  I pick them because they have a unique feature in them that will help me improve my running, whether it be in upper body strength, speed training, core strength, breathing, stretching and the list can go on.   So you can also pick a sport or multiple sports that you not necessarily enjoy, but have access to and you can add to your cross training routine.

I’ll give a highlight of each sport and their benefits to running.

Rockclimbing – helps build arm, quad and calf muscles.

Dragonboating – helps with upper body strength, arm strength and stamina.

Snowboarding – helps build co-ordination, quad muscles, breathing in cold weather and strengthens your ankles.

Swimming – helps build overall body strength, core strength, and breathing.

Softball – helps build arm strength, hand eye feet coordination, and sprint training.

Ultimate – helps immensely in building stamina in speed and sprint training, also helps you control your breathing, and pushes your lactate threshold.  Highly recommended for long distance runners to help with speed work.

Yoga – helps build core strength and with stretching.

Squash – helps with sprint training and stamina.

Cycling – helps strengthen legs.

All these sports are great if you already have a high level of stamina as with most long distance runners.  You will be able to last longer in each sport but try to exert yourself to the max when participating in them.  In other words, running slow to first base or biking at a very low speed and intensity, just doesn’t cut it.  Push yourself to 100% each time you run.  If you get tired, just think it’s only for a few more minutes.  Ultimate or Softball runs don’t last long, they are just tiring because it’s short sprints across the field.  I know that soccer and volleyball are also great sports to participate in but I’m just wary of all the injuries with sprained ankles and dislocated joints.  I don’t want to injure myself in secondary sports for my primary sport of running.

Overall, have fun in your sports and try to pick a mixture of low to high impact sports.

How Much Water Does An Athlete Need?

 

By Dr. Lorraine Williams, chiropractor turned TrackMom.

One of the biggest challenges for parents, athletes and their coaches is determining how much water an athlete needs at different times in their day and training.

If the athlete’s urine is dark and scanty, it is concentrated with metabolic wastes and the athlete needs to drink more fluids. When the urine is pale yellow, your body has returned to its normal water balance. Your urine may be dark if you are taking vitamin supplements; in that case, volume is a better indicator than color.

All athletes must drink water before, during, and after exercise. Follow the basic guidelines below to be sure that a child is drinking enough water throughout an exercise session.

• Before Exercise: Drink 10 to 14 oz. of cold water 1 to 2 hours before the activity. Drink 3-6 oz.of cold water or diluted fruit juice 15 to 20 minutes before the activity.
• During Exercise: Drink 3 to 4 oz. of cold water every 15 minutes.
• After Exercise: Drink 2 cups (16 oz.) of cold water for every pound of weight loss. With no weight loss still drink the minimum of 8oz of water.

You must watch and see how much water a young athlete actually drinks. Supervision is essential because children do not instinctively drink enough fluid to replace body water losses. Children may not recognize the symptoms of heat strain, and they may push themselves to the point of heat injury. Young athletes can use non HFCS sports drinks, especially during activities lasting lore than 90 minutes (such as Football or  Soccer). These drinks should contain between 6 and 8 percent carbohydrate or 15 to 18 grams of carbohydrate per cup.

Other tips include:

• If products labeled “sports drinks” do not meet these guidelines, they may need to be diluted. Water is adequate for most children.  However, some youth athletes are more likely to drink sufficient amounts if you give them flavored fluid; sports drinks or diluted fruit juice are appropriate choices.
• Be sure to dilute fruit juice at least twofold: 1 cup of water for every 1 cup of juice.  Tell children not to drink carbonated sodas or undiluted fruit juice as a fluid source during exercise. These beverages are too rich in carbohydrate (which can cause stomach cramps, nausea, and diarrhea).
• Caffeinated beverages (such as tea, coffee, and cola beverages) will dehydrate the body even more.
• Athletes can also replace their body fluids with foods containing a lot of water, such as oranges, watermelon, apples, grapes, and tomatoes, along with water. These foods provide water and carbohydrate, and they are good for replacing lost water and lost energy (glycogen) after exercise.

 

How to Get Your Kids to Exercise

By Amy Bertrand – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

If your child’s school isn’t out for the summer, it will be soon. Summer vacation used to mean late nights playing flashlight tag with your friends, riding bikes all over your neighborhood and catching balls with your buddies. Times have changed. Fear keeps kids close to home, and both the hot sun and lure of video games keep them inside.

That may mean safety, but it doesn’t mean health. "It’s so important to keep these kids active in the summer," says Gina Pona, a trainer and owner of Kid-Fit, a company that helps churches and schools set up fitness programs for kids. "Kids really have a tendency to become couch potatoes when school is out, but parents can’t let that happen."

Here’s a guide to keeping your kids healthy and active this summer.

Tip No. 1: Limit Screen Time

While TV, video games and computers do have their benefits, too much screen time is detrimental to your kids’ health.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids under age 2 have no screen time, and that kids older than 2 watch no more than one to two hours a day of quality programming.

"Especially with the computers and MySpace, it seems kids want to be inside more often," says Sherri Brown, fitness director of the Downtown-Marquette YMCA.

"What we’ve found is that most would choose something else if you offer them an alternative," says Paul Jenkins, a physical therapist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Tip No.2: Buy a Few Basics

You don’t have to outfit a whole home gym, but purchasing a few active toys for your kids will give them incentive to move. Pona recommends a few balls (a basketball, soccer ball, even a beach ball), a jump rope and, if you can afford it, a bike.

"These toys encourage a kid to play outside; you can’t play basketball inside," Pona says.

Tip No.3: Get Your Kids Outside

While indoor exercise is certainly possible, kids are much more likely to move in the great outdoors. To get the kids out of the house, you may have to help, even on weekdays when you get off work.

"Sometimes I stop at the park with my child," says Brown, mom to a 2-year-old. "It’s like the gym theory: You have to do it before you get home and don’t want to get back out."

Pona even suggests that parents use a timer or a stopwatch and treat playing outdoors as a reward. "You could say, `You took out the trash "" now you can play outside for 30 minutes.’ "

Tip No.4: Give Them Things to Do

The challenge for these kids, Jenkins says, is finding something that’s available to them. That’s why buying the items in Tip 2 was so important. But if you put a little thought into it, you can make fitness exciting for your kids. Brown suggests a scavenger hunt. "At each station, in addition to the next clue, have an exercise the children need to complete before continuing. It could be 25 jumping jacks, 10 push-ups, run one lap around the yard, jump rope for 30 seconds, hula hoop for one minute, frog hop to the next station "" the options are endless."

Tip No.5: Enroll Them in an Activity

Brown says the planned activity doesn’t have to be athletics-oriented. "Try dance, karate, swimming "" just get a set day and time you are going to do something that forces you to do that every week."

The YMCA offers everything from yoga to boot camp for kids, and you can find a variety of activities at community centers and community colleges.

Tip No.6: Try a Fitness Calendar

Sit with your child and find what activities he or she likes or wants to try, says Brown. Then pick two days each week of summer vacation to try that activity. For example, one week it could be 30 minutes of shooting hoops at the basketball courts on Tuesday and 30 minutes of hiking trails at Castlewood State Park on Thursday. "This could easily be a family event and modified for all ages," Brown says.

Tip No.7: Model Good Behavior

"The first thing we try to tell people is to lead by example," Jenkins says. "Kids want to follow their parents’ lead. So that’s an easy way to inspire them." You can go biking together as a family on the weekends, or go for a nature hike.

 

 

The Truth about Abs: Trim the Flab, Shape that Abs!

 

I have been having problems with my weight for how many years now, and I really want to eliminate such problems. I went looking for answers until I read “The Truth about Abs”. Since then, I have been following it so as to lose weight and get the shape I’ve been dreaming of. Continue reading for I will share with you some tips on how to get the body you like.

“HOW DO I TAKE THIS AWAY?” People of all shapes and sizes keep asking me this question as they point to their bulged tummies. Unfortunately, the answer remains unspoken of despite of companies earning from it.

Actually, money must not be spent on losing weight. What one needs is the understanding of the body and its dynamics.

Modern Attention-Grabbing Ads for Abs

Recent commercials show equipments that stimulate the muscles in a way that they repeatedly and continuously contract without the person moving. One of these products even acts as a belt and in a matter of ten minutes, it was like doing 700 sit-ups! Commercials of this kind shows the difference between doing the regular exercise, a tedious job that does not appeal to the audience, and having to go about with your work with the “ab-thing” wrapped around your bulging body parts. Very tempting!

Testimonies from previous users are aired. They claim of losing weight through the use of the product. Men with chiseled abs pay much credit to the product they use.

The advertisements are misleading their viewers on the ways to trim their bellies. Stimulating the abs and making them stronger (although this may still be questionable) is not the way to do it.

Why is that? It’s the fat! If I do sit-ups everyday, strong and tight abs will develop, however, fat still surrounds my tummy. Thus, I will still look oversized since I did not become any slimmer. Although about 50% is found under the skin, the other 50% remains inside the muscles. Sit-ups will not remove the fat, neither will the wrap-around belt do it.

Burn the Blubber

The secret to a firmer belly is cardiovascular exercise. Examples of which are brisk walking, running, aerobics, swimming, cycling and vigorous sports like basketball, soccer, and tennis. Rigorous activities that keep the heartbeat fast for twenty minutes or so are tickets to a healthier heart, and even burned fats. These burns do not only the burn the fats under the skin but also those within the muscles. As a result, you look thinner and firmer. Think cardio five times in a week; it is the best fat eliminator.

The Human Body: The Lean Machine for Burning Fats

The cardio might do well in sculpting your abs. However, the abs is not the only FATTY part of the body, isn’t it?

When a workout is done on all muscle groups, you increase your metabolism at a greater level. Therefore, the calories from the food you eat will be taken mostly by your muscles instead of the other parts, in this case, your tummy. A healthy heart (undergoing prolonged cardiovascular exercises) also burns fat faster. Exercise-exposed muscles and cardio-conditioned heart, the perfect combination!

While all the fats are eliminated, those that are located on your middle will also be removed. Indeed, mi ne has been eliminated. Concentration must be on (in exact order) the thighs, buttocks, back, chest, triceps, biceps, and then, calves, hips, forearms and shoulders.

The abs should be exercised before a workout is done. This is because it is indirectly used during most of the activities. If the abs goes first, the body will become tired easily. Work should start from the biggest muscles down to the smallest.

Abs 101

The largest muscle in the abdomen is called rectus abdominis. It is the primary muscle affected by sit-ups and crunches. External and internal obliques (“nature’s girdle”) are on the sides. They also tighten the abdomen so they should be exercised as well.

Just below the obliques are the transversus abdominis or lower abs. Leg raising is an effective exercise for the these.

The How’s

Proper walking includes swinging your arms and tightening the abdomen at a faster speed. Get yourself used to walking properly and you will never go wrong. Do it for half an hour everyday for better results. Also, drink the recommended amount of water everyday. This is how I do it.

Weight training is also an effective way in losing weight; in fact, it toughens the bones as well. It helps to prevent osteoporosis in old age. Lifting weights definitely burns fat giving symmetry and shape to the body.

Yoga is also an excellent way to be fit. It focuses on the back and of course, the abs. It also gives you a leaner posture. Many exercises using the mat offer a variety of exercising options.

What matters is finding the activity that fits your personality. This helps you stick to your exercise regimen. Me, I stick with activities that fit my personality.

What about Drugs?

Pills and other drugs for losing weight are not safe to use, unless there is a prescription from the doctor that your life depends on it. Do not believe that they are natural or herbal because its synthetic form makes it actually a drug.

Some over-the-counter drugs are harmful, too. There were drugs being removed by FDA from shelves because of the dangers they pose to the health. In addition, they can even make you fatter eventually after prolonged use. Your metabolism will experience imbalance, thus, the harder it is to become thinner. Indeed, I have tried different pills, but I didn’t lose a single pound, in fact I gained some more.

The Outlook

What really matters when you are trying to lose weight is the outlook. Do not push yourself too hard by measuring the progress through a weighing scale. Motivate yourself through that pair of pants you would want to wear again. Once you fit into the pants, you will have the confidence.

Maintain a good posture. Sit up straight and do not slouch. Level your shoulders. These are simple ways on how to look thinner.

Genes

Some people may be thinner because they are born that way, and lived and looked that good. They may be lucky, but consider yourself luckier. Your figure will get you to building a positive attitude. If you were born with the excess flab, don’t blame your ancestors for it. With cardiovascular exercises, balanced diet, and other activities on the side, you can be shapely and even healthy. Try it, it works!

It may difficult in the beginning but discipline will get you to the look that you want to have. Man is still the same from then until now, anatomy probably is still the same. If you acquired the discipline and ethics at work of your old folks, you can get the best results. You can get yourself ‘the truth about abs’ manual in order to get more tips, instructions and guides on how to effectively lose weight, I have my own manual and I am following it until now.

 

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