Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Core, How About Parkour?

Core, How About Parkour?
Now that we have a core, it's time to move with it!

In an amazing article, "Too Old, Too Fat, Too Weak For Parkour" by Ryan Ford, Ryan suggests an expansion into Parkour regardless of age, size or anything else, is possible. It's an empowering idea.  It looks easy.  But as we now know the easier it looks... doesn't always mean that it didn't require a massive amount of effort, focus and humility to make it look so easy, and fun. 

Parkour for all?  Why not. 

Ryan Ford has put together some incredible vids that introduce you, the beginner, to this highly coordinated movement art. Ryan picked 5 moves to work toward for increased mobility in Parkour: full squat, passive bar hang, wall support, basic quadripedal, and jogging.  If you've (n)ever thought about crawling backwards, here's one of his instructional vids to check.



Is Parkour only for the young? Looking at some of the amazing advanced students, many of the traceurs are young men.  The advanced traceurs apparently create with ease something extraordinary, without breaking their neck, or a sweat, in the process.  The question remains, will they be able to do Parkour at 50+?  Does it matter?



More informed, with cross-training (Pilates, Gyrotonic, Yoga, SportsMedicine), we can not only want to move with ease, we can train to move with ease throughout our entire lives.  Of course,  embarking on this Parkour adventure, as with everything else, will require skill and prep, risk analysis in any environment, awareness of one's own ability not someone else's.  And it must be mentioned, a healthy sense of play throughout the rest of our lives shouldn't hurt, too much.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

ULTIMATE PLANK VID

Ultimate Plank Vid
by Men's Health

LOOK NO FURTHER for perfecting your PLANK challenge.
(Thanks to my friend and colleague Andre Levitt for posting this on his fb page.)

22 Plank Variations
22 new plank variations:
Posted by Men's Health on Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

REVIEW: The Elevation Training Mask

REVIEW:  The Elevation Training Mask

Just pay me now for saving your future brain cells!  We'll start with the low cost of $79.99.

I'm serious!  These are accidents just waiting to happen.  Have your AED's charged and ready.

I can't figure out what people think they are training for here: Maybe it's someone with a strong desire to be resuscitated at the gym.   Do you really want to work so hard to forget your name today, tomorrow or what day is it? Are they training for pearl dives without scuba equipment? Even the Aegean pearl diver has the better sense than to stay under too long.   Ever hear of necrosis?

You may not know this but your brain requires oxygen.  And using this mask will not make you stronger, faster, give you more endurance, and it most definitely won't make you smarter. 

It doesn't simulate the effect of high altitude training--only altitude itself or a highly expensive, humungous hypobaric chamber can do that. 

Sure you'll feel the burn--in your lungs.  This is what it feels like to be an asthmatic exercising. It will not train your anaerobic threshold--sprints with unobstructed breathing will do that, or power lifts with unobstructed breathing is the way to go. It's no fun to have asthma.

It will not improve your cardiovascular capacity--but high intensity interval training by cycling, walking, running, sweating, breathing works just great.

You may injure your already aching heart--got to be nice to this muscle.

I beg of you, do not let your children near this thing.  If you have training questions that you think this mask will short cut, THERE ARE NO SHORT CUTS.  Get a real trainer.