Tuesday, November 23, 2010

You Can Still Do Heavy Dips

You Can Still Do Heavy Dips

You can still do heavy dips                                                
The deep branch of the ulnar nerve runs through the center of the hand. Serious athletes who train heavy and are progressive eventually have to stop dipping or alter the way they do the exercise.  Pressure from the dip bar on the nerve causes numbness in the fingers, hand, forearm and elbow each time they lift big weights.
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The extra thick handles requested by the University of Indiana's strength coaches and developed by Rogers Athletic address the problem. The Rogers dip station allows the athlete to continue one of the great upper body exercises without discomfort.
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Josh Eidson does a series of dips with 135 pounds
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Getting A Grip On Things

 Get Strong

 Getting A Grip On Things

Most people agree that combative sports require training your hands to reach your maximal potential.
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Little agreement exists among research studies on the optimum position of the wrist to facilitate optimal grip strength. Knowing the exact position would certainly aid in hand strength development. describe the image
Standardizing how you hold your wrist when applying force and how you deviate your ulnar or radius is a factor in replicating results.
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What researchers are in agreement upon, is that  standing and testing your grip strength is the strongest position to be in. Some studies have showed that there is not much different in sitting or supine gripping strength, all acknowledge that in a  supine position the grip is the weakest.
There is no real consensus whether gripping with your arm at 90 degrees or 180 degrees or somewhere between is the best.
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Yet 90 degrees of elbow flexion is the recommended testing position by the American Society of Hand Therapists for grip strength measurement.
Wrist position is another factor that affects grip strength. Wrist  extension somewhere between 15 and 30 degrees of the 70 degrees of movement with very little radial and ulnar deviation, seems to be the strongest position and most repeatable.
The bottom line is this: in order to maximize your hand strength you must keep your wrist extensors extremely strong to fixate the wrist providing a stable base for squeezing the hand closed.
Three excellent movements to maximize hand closing strength.
1). Start with a great gripper that allows you to stand. A gripper allows you to be systematic and progressive so you 'overload'.
2). Follow the gripper with wrist extension. Order of exercise is important in this series of exercises as you need the wrist extensors to remain strong when doing the gripper to maximize hand closing.
Wrist extension is the upward movement of the hand. The wrist movement starts and returns only a few degrees or so below parallel and extends upward.  Your forearm should be at  a 45 degree angle below parallel relative to the upper arm while seated. Start this exercise with a very light dumbbell. Slowly adapt to the movement.
3). The wrist roller is a great finisher to augment wrist extensions. Wrist rollers are notorious for being inaccurate in trying to be progressive. There are so many muscular groups that enter into the movement.You must have very strict form during this exercise.
describe the imageFirst select a thin wrist roller. Thin wrist rollers require a great deal of wrist extension.  Stand with your arms full extended with the roller directly in front of your chin. Select a weight you can roll up and down twice without bending your elbows or deviating from your beginning position. This means that your arms must remain straight and not drop or raise above parallel and your body must remain still with the exception of the movement of your hands.

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Monday, November 15, 2010

Sometimes You Don't See What Is Right In Front Of Yo

Sometimes You Don't See What Is Right In Front Of You

Sometimes You Don't See What Is Right In Front Or In Back Of You 
 
describe the imageMike 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, that Mothers know where to look.

My wife and I walk. On our outing we head by the local golf course down the street from our home. We collect golf balls for competition.  Who can find one first and not be obvious as we walk the same daily path is extra cool.  It is a contest which I seldom win which frustrates me. Yet I have resided to the fact that moms know where to look.
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What is amazing is that we find the golf balls in the same place every time almost everyday all summer long. The same place! How can all the golfers lose their golf balls in one area all the time and never find them  or at least pick up someones.
It is so simple just look around for a couple of minutes as you casually stroll and there they are! We have become golf ball rich.
Every Sunday during the football season I have several high school players who's moms bring their sons to my home to train their head and neck musculature. Their schools do not have neck machines.
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The moms look in the magazines and read about concussions, they look in the papers and read about head injuries and they look on TV and hear about helmet to helmet collisions. It is so simple to know what is going on as they look around.
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They  apparently can see the problem very clearly and respond. If I offered neck training at my house to all the moms on the local teams,  on Sundays I would have a house full of boys and would have to have more neck machines in my home.
I have visited over 300 colleges and have found very few neck machines.  Maybe no one reads and sees the media as moms do. Maybe the machines are there and I didn't see them. My wife says maybe they are like golf balls, the machines are there but I don't know where to look. My wife has offered to come hunt for neck machines with me. I should probably take her her up on it......Moms know where to look...
They found a neck machine at my house.....
If you want to impact concussions and protect kids look around for neck machines to Get them Strong.
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Lets Spring Into Action And Protect Athletes

The Ralph Cornwell Files

 

Lets Spring Into Action And Protect Athletes                                                   
describe the imageRalph 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.
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Research from the best minds in the automotive safety industry  all agree, the circumference of the neck changes the way it reacts to forces applied to that area.
The former Congressional appointed Chairman of the Head  and Neck Committee put together a study on concussions and found: " Stronger necks reduce head acceleration, deltaV, and displacement. Even relatively small reductions in deltaV have a large effect on head injury criterion that may reduce concussion risks because changes in deltaV change head injury criterion through the 4th power."
Test dummies are used to simulate a human in a collision whether it is by automobile or playing sports.
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How do they simulate neck strength in humans?

They change the size of the spring on the test dummies. Small to replicate a child’s neck circumference.  Medium size for female adults and large for adult males.
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To simulate an athlete’s neck you have to go one step further.  The athlete’s neck is simulated by the largest and most stiff spring on a crash dummy in order to replicate the kinematics of a collision accurately.
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The replicated athletic neck is more resistant to change than the mock-up normal population neck.  It  deforms less then all the simulated necks.
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This is true for crash test dummies; is it not true for athletes playing sports that include collisions?
By increasing the circumference of our athlete’s necks the same result should occur. Less deformation of the cervical spine.
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If this is good for test dummies, it should be good for America’s athletes risking concussion during sports. It will certainly lowers the subconcussive forces.
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Congress calls concussions an 'American Epidemic'. Let’s start inoculating our athletes with larger stronger necks.describe the image 
Get Strong

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Have We Missed Training Our Hands In Athletics?

Have We Missed Training Our Hands In Athletics?


Association Of Oldtime Barbell And Strongmen

describe the imageAttending the AOBS dinner in New Jersey is quite interesting. At the hotel and throughout the evening you have a chance to visit with some of the greatest strength performers throughout the world.

In casual conversations you can learn tips about training. It is fun to listen to the avenues that these athletes take to enhance their enormous strength.

After the dinner ends strongmen bend steel in the lobby of the Marriott until the wee hours of the morning.

This year about 300 people attended to honor the great Dennis Rogers, the Grandmaster of Strongman. Following the reception the young strongmen of America put on quite a show.

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They ripped up New York City phone books

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They busted baseball bats across their heads

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They bent steel while held in their mouths

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They rolled up steel

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They snapped chains

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They drove spikes through 3 inch planks with their hands

What you learn is that we have a long way to go in developing the hand strength of our athletes that play sport. Those that attend to hand strength will change the game. Get Strong!

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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Ralph Cornwell Files

Three Ways To Innervate The Lower Trapezius


describe the imageRalph 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.

Although it is one continuous muscle, the trapezius has three distinct sections: the upper, middle, and lower trapezius. It has a diamond shape, with the triangle of the upper trapezius attaching to the occipital bone at the base of the skull and spreading outward to the top of either scapula.

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Beneath the middle portion is the inverted triangle of the lower trapezius, which runs diagonally on either side of the spine from the spinous processes of the middle-to-lower thoracic vertebra to the lower inside edges of the of the scapula.

The lower trapezius is positioned to pull downward and inward on the scapula toward the spine.

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It works in opposition to the upper trapezius which is the division of the muscle whose job is to elevate the scapula, or shrug the shoulders.

A strong lower trapezius is critical in the positioning of the scapula for developing a base for power in the upper torso. And is one of the areas of our anatomy that is a dissipater of kinetic energy during head collisions.

Lower Trapezius

Three Ways to innervate the lower traps

1. Scapular depression

describe the imageOn a dip bar, keep the arms straight and let the entire body lower in the direction of the force of gravity. In this phase of the movement the scapula actually elevates.

Now the arms are fixed and the lower fibers of the trapezius will have to raise the weight of your whole body.

describe the imageThis is a lot of effort for a small amount of muscle fiber to perform this movement.

2. One arm dumbbell seated overhead press

The dumbbell must be directly over the trapezius. This produces a rotary movement of the scapula; moving the inferior angle of scapula laterally and upward.

3. Use a seated row machine, such as the Pendulum 3-way row. The lifter does one set of rows with a neutral or parallel grip. This should be performed for period of 60 seconds or less to momentary concentric failure or until a repetition cannot be performed with good form. The athlete will pause at the top of each repetition retracting the scapula. This is to fatigue the larger muscles such as the rhomboids.

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With minimal rest the load is reduced by at least 40 percent, more if needed. With an underhand and wide grip, the arms are pointing at a slightly downward angle approximately 10 degrees.

This exercise has two movements. The first is similar to a Kelso Shrug. The arms do not bend and all the movement is done by scapular retraction. Once the scapula is fully contracted the athlete flexes the elbows and pulls the weight 10 to 12 inches and pauses for a second. At that moment the athlete should be envisioning depressing the scapula.

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The weight is then lowered under control and another repetition is then performed. The exercise is terminated when form is compromised. This movement innervates the lower most fibers of the lower trapezius.