Friday, August 27, 2010

Every Rep Counts!

Count and record every rep that you do and remember Every Rep Counts.

repdescribe the image

Mike Gittleson was the Director of Strength & Conditioning at the University of Michigan for 30 years and was a part of 15 Football Championships in that time. He explains, when I coached I put the following sign on the door. I wanted the players to know that everything they did counted towards their potential.

describe the image

The sign meant many things. It referred to all aspects of life from sleep, eating and exercising - to school, family and friends. All of these aspects of living add up to who you are.

We discussed that all teams trained and we always assumed that everyone worked hard. Our goal was to be purposeful and get the most out of everything we did. The repetition in life is everything. The rep is how you grow as a person and reach your potential and grow as a team. Every rep of life counts.

rep6The repetition in the weight room has a uniqueness as it causes muscular tension and physically changes who you are. This mechanical stress elicited by the lifter determines the metabolic stress or the amount of ATP in the cell. With brief and hard training there is little ATP, the mTOR pathway is triggered. The genes for skeletal muscle growth respond.

When you perform a repetition lifting weights, contract your musculature and pause at the top of the movement. The length of the pause should always be the same. After pausing ease back into the lowering phase of the repetition. You should feel the muscle lengthen. The lengthening phase causes high muscular tension and growth.

I like to have the athlete pause each repetition and wait for a number from the spotter. This creates quality repetitions, accuracy of results and requires a certain degree of discipline. Working until you can't control the descent of the weight creates the highest muscular tension. So, forcing reps and training to 'momentary muscular failure' is the way to go.

rep3Performing repetitions, that is building muscular tension, is like pumping up the tire of a bicycle. If someone is helping you, but keeps releasing air at the valve: while you are trying to pump up the tire you can pump all day and never get the tire filled.

When lifting weights you are the someone who is in control. You make the decision to release air or tension based on effort or the discomfort you feel when pumping up your muscles. You can lift all day releasing muscular tension or you can get it done.

Remember these points when training - you lose the value of the rep or you lose muscular tension:

1. If you relax during the movement

2. If you use momentum as an advantage to make the lift easier during the movement.

3. If you use leverage to your advantage during the movement.

If you do properly performed reps and never lose muscular tension, pausing at the top of each movement and feel the lengthening of the muscle on the descent.......you will become brutally strong.

jumb4jumb2describe the imagejumb5

Systematic and Progressive Strength Training causes Adaptation.

Get the most out of each rep that you do

Make every rep purposeful

Make every rep count

And.............describe the image


Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Bonus Interview: Ralph Cornwell

Bonus Interview: Ralph Cornwell


http://www.highintensitynation.com/2010/08/bonus-interview-ralph-cornwell/


Bonus Interview: Ralph Cornwell

Here’s a special bonus Interview of the Month with Strength and Conditioning expert Ralph Cornwell.

ralph2 ralph1 Ralph_4_232134354_std

Ralph is currently a PhD candidate at Virginia Tech University, where he is conducting research on the effects of neck strengthening protocols on the reduction of traumatic head and neck injuries in sports (that’s not the official title of his research, which I’m sure sounds much better than what I just said-but you get the idea).

Obviously, serious head injuries are a huge problem in sports, and the problem is finally getting a lot of attention. Even The U.S. Congress is now getting involved by considering legislation that will help protect athletes on the field. Ralph is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the country on this subject, and has actually been contacted by members of Congress about this issue, which he discusses in the interview.

Head-games-_20100523235011_335_220_397x224

He has also worked closely with Rogers Athletic and Pendulum Fitness Equipment on the development of Pendulum’s 5-way neck machine.

ralph shrug neckmachine

Ralph is also an experienced and accomplished strength and conditioning coach, facility owner and personal trainer, having trained many elite level athletes as well as people from all walks of life-including the West Point Military Academy. As you can see from the pictures above, Ralph practices what he preaches.

Listen in on this fascinating and uncommon interview as Ralph discusses:

  • What he had to give up to get his first weight set as a kid
  • How he legally stalked NFL strength coach Dan Riley, and what it meant to his career
  • How to give yourself a neck vaccine-without any needles
  • The virtual workout he put me on (I puked after legs-and I wasn’t even really there)
  • How he contracted the “High Intensity Bug”
  • What his studies reveal about training the traps
  • His overall philosophy of full-body training (awesome stuff)
  • And much, much more!

To hear the Ralph Cornwell interview, just click on the play arrow (the little triangle on the left) below:

Don’t forget to leave your comments below!

Click here to visit Ralph’s website

.

  • Share/Save/Bookmark

Monday, August 23, 2010

Pad-Up With Muscular Tissue


Pad-Up With Muscular Tissue


You can only wear so many pads when you play the game.

describe the image

There are other ways of protecting athletes from injury, the Pendulum 5 Way Neck is one of them.

describe the image


Train the head and neck to pad-up with muscular tissue and Get Strong.



Thursday, August 19, 2010

Train Those Beams.

Ralph Cornwell is a Ph.D. candidate in health promotion/human performance at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Prior to pursuing his Doctoral Degree he was a collegiate strength coach.

He is currently developing a protocol for strength training the musculature that protects the cervical spine.

describe the image

Biopolmer molecules can resist bending forces similar to the bending elasticity of flexible beams. Bent squeezed or pulled molecules try to drift back to their equilibrium distribution. This occurrence represents an opposing effect against external forces and they act as entropy springs and dissipate the energy.

Deflection of Beams:

The deformation of a beam is usually expressed in terms of its deflection from its original unloaded position. The deflection is measured from the original neutral surface of the beam to the neutral surface of the deformed beam. The configuration assumed by the deformed neutral surface is known as the elastic curve of the beam.

Deflection of Necks:

The deformation of a neck is usually expressed in terms of its deflection from its original unloaded position. By increasing the number of molecules in the neck which is done by developing muscular tissue you obviously increase its strength and reduce deflection thereby protecting the athlete.

Make sure you train the athletes' neck this season and reduce deflection.

TRAIN THOSE BEAMS-KEEP SHRUGIN'

describe the imagedescribe the imagedescribe the image

50 rep set

Every Friday in the off-season we trained the 50 rep leg press.

describe the image

Mike Gittleson was the Director of Strength & Conditioning at the University of Michigan for 30 years and was a part of 15 Football Championships in that time.

Early in my career I watched Dr. Ken Leistner train Kevin Tolbert, now the Head Strength Coach at Stanford University, on a leg press for fifty straight repetitions. The weight was enormous and the exercise was absolutely brutal. After about the 25th rep I figured Kevin would never get another rep and he did. This went on until he reached 50. I was more than impressed.

describe the image

I respect Dr. Ken and figured if this young man, Kevin, had legs that strong by doing 50 rep sets and Dr Ken advised it then I'd better check it out.

I returned to school and instituted the 50 rep set. Every Friday in the off-season we trained the 50 rep leg press.

Photo Courtesy of Kathy Leistner

What amazed me after 5 weeks of training was how incredible the strength of the athletes legs became.

describe the image

Photo Courtesy of Gabe Harrington of Colgate University

Initially I thought their gains were going to be slow. There is a correlation between endurance and strength, but training high reps normally is not the most efficient way to build strength. I was surprised the players leg strength exploded.


This is what I like about the 50 Rep Leg Press:

1. It is brutal.

2. The athletes don't like it even though they make tremendous gains.

50 rep3. You learn a lot about the anatomy of your legs and how muscles like the adductors on about the 45th rep begin to scream as the femoral head of the femur tries to disengage from the acetabulum of the hip joint. This is not going to happen, but it sure feels like it.

4. You learn a lot about each athlete and effort.

Burnie Legette was an engineering student as well as fullback on the football team and played professionally for the New England Patriots. When he leg pressed 50 reps the weight room would kind of stop and the focus would be on Burnie. Burnie's leg press weight was not only heavy, but every rep was so perfect that I wanted to to write home to his mother about each movement he performed.

The exercise and effort was so extraordinary you couldn't help but watch not once, but everytime he lifted. 'Burnie is leg pressing", we would whisper. The irony was that being competitve and tough the players wanted to emulate his effort and as a coach I wanted each player to perform 50 reps the same way. I think everyone who saw Burnie lift tried to train the same way as it was their nature..... but there are reasons though there is only one King.

describe the image

50 rep3Sometimes I must admit training 50 reps straight may put you in Wonderland. You must be prepared for the adventure and be smart when training in the aforementioned manner...... this is what the King said as quoted from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland"....very sage advice I might add.

“"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop”

Friday, August 6, 2010

Little Movements Make Big Changes

FROM THE COACH'S DAUGHTER

My Dad was a Strength Coach for 30 years. We literally live in a gym with furniture. I remember when my brother asked to play contact sports, my father agreed, but said, “You
will have to train that neck.” Shortly afterwards a neck machine
appeared about 8 feet from our living room couch.


“Little Movements Make Great Changes"".....he said

My Dad said this to me when I was running track,”Little movements cause great changes, make the little stuff count.”


When I first started hurdling, I had a lazy trail leg. I didn't have to bring it very far to make my step over the hurdle quicker, and lower my
time. Of course, this took years to perfect, but the results were clear:
small movements make great changes.


When my brother began neck training on our neck machine, my father also showed him an exercise for scapula retraction. He said, “KC, you need to include Kelso and Hise shrugs in
your neck routine.”

He marched KC down the steps to the downstairs lat machine, I followed. Dad showed KC this little shrug movement that made me laugh; it seemed so
silly.


He had my brother keep his arms straight and and try to pinch his scapula together, “Retraction” he called it. “Keep your arms straight. Now squeeze. Again squeeze. I began to giggle
and crack jokes.” Dad got mad and went to his library, in what we call
the. ‘gun room.’ You know the exercise-for-your-arms room. He threw KC
this book, "Kelso's Shrugs". “Read it,” he said.


Materials exhibiting characteristics that are both solid and fluid-like, are simply categorized as viscoelastic materials. Most of the biological tissues, such as your
muscle tendon unit, and ligaments, are viscoelastic materials. The human
head-neck system is a fluid-filled spherical cavity supported by a
viscoelastic neck.


Viscoelastic materials possess time dependent, or rate sensitive stress-strain relations. In other words, the stress-strain relationship will change as
the loading speed, or strain rate, changes. The goal in a collision is
to deflect and dissipate force, and effect the strain rate. Building up
the size of the cylinder, that is, the upper neck muscles, is only part
of the goal.


Strengthening the muscles that run down the cervical and thoracic spine, the rhomboids major and minor, middle and lower traps, are all tremendously important. Therefore, scapula
retraction is a must-exercise for the dissipation of a deflected force.
Remember, it's not easy being in head-on collisions.


Now that I am older, and have been in athletics, I don’t giggle when KC is doing his tiny lifts.


“Little Movements Make Great Changes”.....he said


G Force deflection and dissipation exercises for the cervical spine:

(1)Front of the neck


(2)Right side of the neck


(3)Left Side of the neck


(4)Back of the neck


(5)Shrugs


(6)Scapula retraction


(7)Hise shrugs. (KC does these on our Pendulum Squat Pro; it is in the garage. Dad asked if he could put it in my bedroom...seriously!)




Tags: athlete, athletic, best, neck, rodgers, strength, tech, training., virgin

The Equation for a better Protected Athlete

The Equation for a better Protected Athlete.



Head and Neck Strength Training + Helmet + mouth guard + Proper Coaching Technique = Safer, better Protected Athlete. If any of these variables are missing the equation makes the athlete more vulnerable to injury.





Thursday, August 5, 2010

Examination of Chris Henry's Brain

Chris Henry Had CTE Before Death, And Why That Matters So Much

There are no mentions of Iowa sports in this post, but rest assured it will affect all of football very soon.--AJ

As the football world has come to better understand the causes and effects of brain damage in its sport, three general assumptions about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) started to take hold:

  • It is a result of concussions, particularly multiple concussions
  • It happens to people with long, contact-filled careers
  • Its onset happens later in life

Basically, the general consensus was that Mike Webster was the poster child for CTE.

And then Chris Henry died, and now there's evidence that blows up all three of those assumptions. And that is just about the worst news possible for the sport of football.

Star-divide

In fact, not only does Henry satisfy none of those three conditions, he doesn't even come close. Down the line:

It is a result of concussions, especially multiple concussions: If Henry ever suffered a concussion, it was news to his teams; Henry never missed a game to head injury during his career at West Virginia or Cincinnati.

It happens to people with long, contact-filled careers Chris Henry spent four years at West Virginia, then five in the NFL. But even those numbers are both somewhat inflated; Henry redshirted one of those four years at WVU, declaring for the draft after his junior year. Once in the NFL, Henry was suspended for half a year due to arrests--some of which included erratic, violent behavior. So of those nine seasons after high school, Henry was actually playing for just 7 and a half.

Further, Henry played wide receiver, one of the least contact-intensive positions in sport. Yes, Colin Sandeman can surely attest to how violent the worst hits can be for wideouts. But the repetitious, incessant helmet contact that we've been led to believe (and not unfairly) causes CTE and that linemen, linebackers, and safeties face just isn't there.

Its onset happens later in life Henry died at 26. And not only did he exhibit classic signs of CTE, his brain was already in advanced stages of decay:

Finding CTE in a current pro football player wouldn't surprise Robert Cantu, whose Boston University research group has received funding from the NFL.

"It also wouldn't surprise me that somebody as young as 26 would have it, either," Dr. Cantu said of Mr. Henry. "What would be a big surprise is if the amount of Tau protein. ... would be as excessive as it is in people who had much more lengthy careers and died at a much later age."

"It didn't look like the brain of a 26-year-old," said Dr. Omalu, a former Allegheny County pathologist who first found CTE in an autopsy of Mr. Long in September 2005.

A picture of the tissue study of Henry's frontal cortex, compared to that of a normal brain, is here. As one researcher put it, "you should never see" the red stainings evident in Henry's brain. One would expect them in an Alzheimer's patient.

The absolute worst thing that could happen to the NFL is if multiple players routinely died as a direct result of their play--that the sport had become too brutal for humanity. And not even in a sense of shortened lifespans by 10-20 years, but Jack Trice situations happening left and right. The sport would surely collapse quickly, because human life trumps all.

The next step down from life itself is quality of life, and by that we don't mean how nice your house is or how often you smile. It's how close to "normal" your body and mind are. The lasting physical tolls of football on that quality of life are as well-known as they are devastating. Gnarled fingers and fused joints abound. Earl Campbell can barely walk. The life expectancy of an NFL veteran is currently under 60. Again, well-known, and more or less accepted by everyone involved. Would you accelerate the degenerative effects of aging for a few years of glory and fortune in the league? Many men would.

Mental degeneration, however, is a different beast altogether. When the brain goes, everything goes. The stories of Webster, Terry Long, and Justin Strzelzcyk were all characterized by CTE, depression, substance abuse, violent and erratic behavior, and early, awful deaths. And those were just three guys from one franchise.

It's hard to tell right now what lasting effect a substantial football career has on today's NFL and collegiate players, mainly because CTE can only be conclusively identified during an autopsy. The former athletes who are dying today are primarily in their 60s, 70s, and 80s; they mostly played in an era that didn't involve such violent and repetitive blows to the head. This is not to say that football was ever not a nasty sport, but the players are larger and faster now than they used to be a generation or more ago. Yes, that goes the same for both hitters and hittees (new word alert), but the one thing that hasn't gotten any more suited to contact on either side is the brain.

The NFL has been getting more proactive about concussions recently, but this news puts basically every player in the league--punters and kickers can probably sleep well at night--at substantial risk for serious mental health problems down the road, regardless of whether they've ever actually suffered a concussion. That's not to definitively say that every player's brain is self-destructing, but there's really no way to tell if any of them are suffering from those disastrous effects until the symptoms begin. And by then, frankly it's too late.

The worst case scenario is eradication of the sport as we know it. That likely won't happen, although rules of contact may change substantially. To put it coldly, it depends on whether it's worth it for everyone involved. Money talks--especially when billions are on the table. What's more likely is that the NFL will be more explicit to its entering players about the significant dangers to quality of life if one pursues a life on the gridiron. How much farther they go than that will have to depend on the results of ongoing research. From what we know right now, it's not terribly inspiring.

There's an old phrase about Bernese Mountain Dogs: "3 years a young dog, 3 years a good dog, 3 years an old dog; the rest is a gift from God." This news about Chris Henry might mean career football players are something close to the same: "20 years a young man, 20 years an athletic man, 20 years an old man; the rest is a gift from God." As an avowed and diehard football fan, I hope so much that, in the face of the evidence unfolding in fron

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Train the Neck Regardless of Gender

Get ready for a season of contact and train the head and neck regardless of gender.

gabe1

All Photos Courtesy of Gabe Harrington

1). If you use Manual Resistance make sure you and your spotter know and understand the rules.

gabe2gabe

2). The Lifter begins each exercise with the goal of 6-8 reps. This requires pacing, in other words, the first repetition is not an all out effort. The effort must be increasing for every subsequent repetition.

2a). The Spotter should allow the lifter to perform each repetition at the same pace or speed of movement. This will require different amounts of pressure by the spotter during the rep ( because of leverage). The lifter will feel as though the resistance is similar at all joint angles (the resistance will feel smooth).

3). The lowering phase of every repetition should be slower than the raising phase. A guide in learning manual resistance is raise the involved limbs up in 1-2 seconds or at a 1-2 count and lower them in 4-5 seconds or at a 4 or 5 count.

gabe3This female athlete starts off with her hands behind her back. She will eventually hug the bench and fire up her upper traps.

3a). The Spotter must make sure that they feel more force by the lifter during the lowering phase of each repetition.

4). The Lifter should continually contract their target musculature during the raising phase and the lowering phase of every repetition.

4a). The Spotter must give feedback to the lifter to ensure there is always a constant contraction on every repetition performed. The spotter should identify any relaxation or loss of force by the lifter during the movement.

5). The Lifter should pause with pressure against the spotter's resistance at the top of every movement. Pausing with pressure and no relaxation is extremely difficult.

5a). The Spotter should insure the lifter is applying force at the top of the movement. The spotter must feel if the lifter is relaxing. The spotter must ease slowly into the lowering phase of the exercise. Slowly easing into the lowering phase or decent is extremely important.

6). The exercise is completed when the athlete reaches momentary muscular failure.

describe the imagedescribe the imagedescribe the image