The missing hip stretch!

Cooking tip for Beans

Beans were the Roman gladiator's main source of protein.  As for the Greeks, beans were considered as a symbol of democracy.  The benefits of beans in your diet are endless, yet in today's post we are going to talk about bean cooking.  As suggested from Hofmekler's book 'The warrior diet'' (an alternative diet methodology), to eliminate gas formation, bloating, and water retention the correct cooking bean regime is:

1. Triple rinsing

2.  Soak in water overnight

3.  Triple rinsing again, and at the end

4. Peel and remove the skin- all before cooking

Make sure you kill those healthy beans! I'm out.......

Power Balance Bands.....Does anyone out there wears them?

EFFECT OF THE POWER BALANCE

BAND ON STATIC

BALANCE, HAMSTRING FLEXIBILITY, AND ARM

STRENGTH IN ADULTS

PRINCESS J.R. VERDAN, THOMAS S. MARZILLI, GEANINA I. BARNA, ANNTIONETTE N. ROQUEMORE,

BRAD A. FENTER, BRITTANY BLUJUS, AND KEVIN P. GOSSELIN

Department of Health and Kinesiology, The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, Texas

Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research

2012 National Strength and Conditioning Association

ABSTRACT:

Verdan, PJR, Marzilli, TS, Barna, GI, Roquemore, AN, Fenter, BA,

Blujus, B, and Gosselin, KP. Effect of the power balance

band on static balance, hamstring flexibility, and arm strength

in adults. J Strength Cond Res 26(8): 2113–2118, 2012—The

purpose of this study was to determine the effect of Power

Balance bands on strength, flexibility, and balance. Strength

and flexibility were measured using the MicroFit system.

Strength was measured via a bicep curl and flexibility via the

sit-and-reach method. Balance was measured by the BIODEX

System SD. There were 4 different conditions for the balance

test: eyes open on a firm surface (EOFS), eyes closed on a firm

surface (ECFS), eyes open on a foam surface (EOFoS), and

eyes closed on a foam surface (ECFoS). There were 24

subjects in the study (10 men and 14 women). A counterbalance,

double-blind, placebo, controlled within-subject design

was used. Each of the subjects participated in 3 treatment

sessions, consisting of Power Balance , placebo band, and no

band. An alpha level of p # 0.05 was set a priori. There were no

significant differences in strength, flexibility, or balance with

regard to the treatments used. There was a significant

difference between the conditions in the balance test (p =

0.000): EOFS (0.51), ECFS (0.68), EOFoS (0.99), and ECFoS

(2.18); however, these were independent of the treatment

conditions. The results indicate that the Power Balance bands

did not have an effect on strength, flexibility, or balance.

My opinion:

To be honest Power Balance Bands do not enhance performance.  Strength, flexibility, and balance are only gain through training and wrist bands will not do it for you. You need to put some effort if you want to increase your performance levels.  Do not relay on solutions that do not require you to move at all!  If people wear the power balance bands as a fashion trend only maybe I can understand why.  I'm out.......

Healthy Lifestyle Camp 2012!

Hey everyone,

Just came back a week ago from HLC camp in Agros at Rodon Hotel that included ages 10-15.  The experience was amazing.  All the kids were mostly new.  The theme of the camp was around nutrition and fitness/ sports.  Our team was fantastic and enthusiastic.  My part included fitness in the morning(speed and agility emphasis).  In addition, I was a helper of  Mr. Andreas Achniotis- brazilian jiu- jitsu instuctor in the afternoon.  Enjoy the photos....I'm out!

 

The 'A Team' with Mr. Andreas Hadjithomas

Core exercise demonstration

 

Perfect form of the core exercise shown above by Miro :)

 

Agility mirror drill

 

 Robin's Nest game

Rope pulling game

Loaded carry variation!

Early Sport Specialization for youngsters?

Late specialization: the key to success in centimeters, grams, or
seconds (cgs) sports

Scandinavian  Journal of  Medicine & Science in Sports

K. Moesch, A.-M. Elbe, M.-L. T. Hauge, J. M. Wikman

Abstract: A controversial question within elite sports is whether young
athletes need to specialize early, as suggested by Ericsson et
al., or if it is more beneficial to follow the path of early
diversification proposed by Coˆ te´ et al., which includes
sampling different sport experiences during childhood and
specializing later on during adolescence. Based on a Danish
sample of 148 elite and 95 near-elite athletes from cgs sports (power sports)
(sports measured in centimeters, grams, or seconds), the
present study investigates group differences concerning
accumulated practice hours during the early stages of the
career, involvement in other sports, career development, as
well as determining whether or not these variables predict
membership in the elite group. The results clearly reveal that
elite athletes specialized at a later age and trained less in
childhood. However, elite athletes were shown to intensify
their training regime during late adolescence more than their
near-elite peers. The involvement in other sports neither
differs between the groups nor predicts success. It can be
concluded that factors related to the organization of practice
during the mid-teens seem to be crucial for international
success within cgs sports. Future research should adopt a
longitudinal design with means of drawing causal inferences.

As you can comprehend from the study's abstract above, kids should not specialize in a sport early. Late specialization is more superior than early specialization. Children need to learn key training fundamentals first such as catching, throwing, skipping, running etc and then progress slowly slowly. In addition, other studies depict that learning key training fundamentals first surely can affect children activity levels later on in their lives.

I'm really furious when I hear that children ages between 6-12 are trained like normal adults.  Kids are different structurally and neurologically build so there is a quite a big difference in comparisons with adult training.  There is a great chance that early specialization kids will be superior at first in relation to kids that are not specialized early, but it should be noted that this phenomenon will not be true afterwards.  

The bottom line is that kids should not be specialized early.  Kids need to experience all the training fundamentals first and then specialized in a sport.  Let your kids try different things and sports.  Make sure you listen to your kid and do not push them and train them like adults.

Coach Prezas, 'Founder of Youth Movement Performance'

Pushing movement pattern with an isometric and power component