Decrease Muscular Soreness

In order to decrease muscular soreness that you feel 24-48 hours after working out (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS) you need to do a light bout of low intenstiy cardio after you lift. You can ingest your protein supplement while walking on a incline on the treadmill at a low speed or have a low stride rate on the elliptical with little resistance.
This helps the blood continue to circulate through your muscles that allows for the impurities (lactic acid and other metabolic byproducts) to be flushed out at a quicker rate.

After performing this short amount of cardio (10-20 minutes), stretching all major muscles groups is essential to limiting the amount of soreness you feel and increasing/maintaining your range of motion. I suggest stretching each muscle group 2-3 times for 30-60 seconds. You can also rehydrate yourself with water while stretching.

Up down sprints

I had the idea for this drill this past weekend...
Our team splits up into all defensive teams for part of a practice so you can split your team up by lineman, defensive backs, and linebackers. If you have enough players so that no one plays both ways put the receivers with d backs and running backs with linebackers.

The players run a ten yard sprint and chop their feet until the entire group gets to you standing at the ten yard line, blow your whistle five times for five up downs (player falls to the ground, hitting their chest and then has to pop back up). Midway through the five up downs, you need to backpeddle another ten yards and repeat. The total drill that I used was fifty yards with the players doing five sets of up downs and then sprinting the fifty yards back like a quarter gasser.

I had the team do this for conditioning Tuesday after running four gassers after practice. We scrimmage three teams Saturday so I likely will ease up on the running after today when scrimmages occur on the weekend and Wednesday when we start playing on Fridays to give their legs some time to recover so they are able to go full speed for their games.

Horrible Marketing, don't be fooled

I am relatively new to blogging, but not fitness. After I set up this site I realize I could post some ads on the bottom row for fitness related sites, which most people interested in reading my blog could possibly want to check out.
So I clicked on one and started reading... and started laughing.

I clicked on "super strength in seconds" because I know that it takes a time commitment and effort to achieve true strength... I was curious to what this site had to say about gaining strength or muscular size in a short amount of time.
This site (www.strong-in-7-seconds.com) is claiming to have the secret to an ab workout and full body strength routine to give people abnormal strength...

First of all, if you scroll to the bottom to the youtube video, he says he is benching 352 pounds. He is on a smith machine, which is assisted lifting. The machine guides the bar, which is great for beginners or lifters wanting to keep very strict form, BUT the weight of the bar is considerably less than the free weight barbell of 45lbs.
Secondly, he also performs an isometric contraction, which is pushing against a force in which your muscle fibers do not lengthen or shorten. This is not a very effective way to train or build muscle mass. You muscles receive no benefit of moving through a full range of motion, nor do you get the personal benefit of being able to say "I benched/squatted so and so weight" and achieving an actual repetition.

Please watch out for fitness scams like this that are out there.

A late intro...

I should probably back up a little bit and introduce myself. I am currently attending the University of Kentucky to pursue my masters degree in exercise physiology. I have a physical education degree with a business minor from Eastern Kentucky University. My concentration for my undergraduate degree was Physical Fitness and Wellness Management.
I have been a certified personal trainer for over four years and acquired my CSCS earlier this year.

I have helped previous clients with weight loss, lean body mass building, endurance training, strength building, and overall fitness improvement. I can customize a program for any client that wants results, let me know if I can help you.

take it easy,
RS, CSCS

Power Training

Power lifts-- such as power clean, snatch, jump shrug-- should be completed at the beginning of your workout because they require highly explosive movements and it is best to be fresh when you start these exercises. Once you have completed your 4-6 sets of 3-5 repetitions on these power lifts and variations (hang clean, dumbell snatch, hang snatch) your muscles will be ready to attack your core lifts for your program.
I recommend changing the plane and type of lift that you are doing, your muscles need constant variation in your program to constantly grow. A lifter that has a program that becomes stagnant will illicit a lot less musclar growth. An example of this would be including all of the following in your training schedule on varying dates: barbell bench press, dumbell bench press, one arm dumbell bench press, incline press, dumbell incline press, one arm dumbell incline press, cable chest press...

Another thing that is vital to training programs is to write down your weights and repetitions daily. Keeping track of your weights that you use and the repetitions you achieve is a strong motivator and is also helpful when you use a lot of variation in your program. You are able to look back several weeks and see what you did the last time you completed a one arm dumbell shoulder press without having to guess at the weight you last used!

Circuit Training and coaching update

I got back from three days in the sticks with Woodford county's football team... we went to Aldersgate camp, which is synonymous with the middle of nowhere. I was able to help condition the guys in the morning and then I ran the d-line through some individual drills.
I had the d-line guys do some ladder drills, bag drills, and a couple drills on the tackling sled.
I had them focus on ripping with one arm and taking a strong first step... they really need to focus on changing their stance from offensive to defensive, since most players play both ways.

the defensive back coach showed me the hill on friday that they were supposed to run this morning, a steep three mile hill.

I imagine that was a site seeing the whole team run that... all and all the trip was more about team building then showing them how to run hard.
A lot of the players give full effort and some others not even close to full effort. They have to realize that mediocre effort will result in a mediocre season.

Strength/D-line coaching

I am Woodford County High School's defensive line coach and hopefully their strength and conditioning coach as soon as possible. We start running at 5:30 tomorrow morning and I have been working on the morning conditioning routine that I am going to put the guys through:
1st quarter
-four half gassers
2nd quarter
-2 notre dames (6 down and back 20 yard shuttles)
3rd quarter- repeat first
4th quarter-repeat second
each is down in position by position group and the notre dames are timed and the players have to beat their times
I expect to see a lot of puking tomorrow...

aight then, i'll see whats up with you all this weekend

TRAINING FOR SIZE

I am currently training for muscular size (hypertrophy) while splitting my workout routine into all push one day, and all pull the next day. Alternating the two four days a week, take Friday off or I will do light cardio and then hitting my weaker spots again on Saturday morning. I had a lot of help with this program from Chance Cianciola, CSCS, and the Power Training book by Coach Dos Remedios.
I also have added lifts that I prefer to my workout, while still incorporating exercises that fully challenege my muscular and central nervous systems.

I plan on starting a new 12-week hypertrophy/strength macrocycle at the end of this month. I will lift with my workout partner, Chance, and we will measure and record circumferences, body fat percentage, weight, and max lifts for at least bench and squat.