Back and Front

Do you have a favorite muscle group to work? If you workout much, you probably do. If you don't workout much, then the easy muscles to work may be your favorite to work. Those are usually the abs, biceps, chest and triceps. Those muscle groups are super easy to work. Pretty much anyone knows how to work those... and guess what: those are some of the most commonly over developed muscles. Over developed muscles strong, but give you bad posture and can strain the opposite muscle group.

I'm kind of a lucky guy. My favorite muscle to workout is the back. The back can always be worked. I doubt someone could over develop it. It's muscles are naturally large and helps with posture. With all the computers, iPods, writing, video games, movies, and cell phones people tend to get an under developed back, and over developed chest and abs from all the leaning forward... also, the 'big rave' in weight lifting is the bench press, which develops the chest and triceps even more. If all you do is pushups and bench press, you're bound to destroy your rotator cuff eventually.

Moral of the story? Do more back workouts and less chest and ab workouts until your posture is great.

Back workouts probably help you more in life activities. Granted, you can punch harder and push more weight with the bench press (legs are better for pushing anyway), but back workouts improve posture, help you lift things, help you keep good posture when lifting heavy objects, help you climb, and if you are ever hanging from the edge of a cliff, a strong back will help you a ton more than a strong chest.

When you workout your back, it tends to help build just about everything. If you're doing lower back, your legs (and a little bit of abs) are working to help you: thus legs are worked. When ever you pull something towards you (a back exercise), you use your grip, thus it strengthens your grip. When ever you pull, you also use the biceps, thus biceps are built. Everyone likes to build biceps!

So, what's stopping you from working out the back? You don't know any back exercises? Well, look back through my blog about rows, pull ups, and dead lifts. Those are all back exercises! Don't try the dead lifts unless you have someone there to help you learn them so you won't blow out a disc.

A Little Test

Yesterday I had track practice. Our head coach wasn't there, but she did plan a workout during the amazing thunderstorm. She planned an indoor workout, but it stopped raining before practice started. A few runners wanted to go outside and do their our workout (a better workout), but because I wasn't going go States for an individual event I didn't really want a harder workout and most of the team was doing the indoor workout, I did that. We did a stair circuit with pushups, burpees, crunches, squats, and lunges. Got a pretty good quad burn and a ton of sweat.

After the circuit we went off to the weight room. There is always big football players in there who seem to think they kind of own the weight room, so I let them do their thing and went with most of the team to the more cardio/body weight area of the weight room, where you don't find large football players.

I pretty much did dips and pull ups, but those got boring, so I went over to the weight area and grabbed a 10 pound dumbbell and did weighted pull ups and dips. That was pretty fun. Got a pretty good upper body burn and plenty of sweat. That was my test: to see how pull ups felt with the dumbbell. It felt alright. Good on the arms and back, but I could tell my legs could be the limiting factor. My hamstrings, groin muscles and glutes had to be partially flexed to hold the weight off the floor, and with more weight that would be tough. The hamstring and glutes can handle a ton of weight, but not so much the groin muscles. They are more of a stabilizer muscle and are pretty small. Also the leverage is against you because of where the weight is, so that makes the weight seem heavier. The same went for dips, but I can't do those at home, so I won't go into details with that. The nice thing is that I have a weighed vest. The weighed vest is limited to 40 pounds. That's more than I can handle right now, but Lord willing, not for too long. Anyway, back to my point: with the weighed vest I can add 40 pounds... I can also add dumbbells. That way I can go over 40 pounds! I want to be able to do that so eventually I can do a one arm chin up or pull up.

Needless to say, the weighted pull ups and dips worked. My lats and chest are pretty sore right now and my biceps and triceps are kind of sore.

Practice ended early, so a few of runners who were waiting for their rides played soccer for 30-40 minutes. That was pretty fun!

Yeah, so this post was pretty much a more in depth post about my practice then what I wrote about yesterday. Pull ups, for the win!

KVACs, Sean and Ultimate

Last Friday afternoon Sean Hughes came to visit us Clarkes for the weekend. It was a surprise to me and Shannon. Of course, with Sean we had tons of hilarious conversions all the time.

On Friday we had a really, really easy practice. I threw the frisbee around more than I ran. It was pretty fun, but I think my 100m time may have suffered from taking off a couple of days off of blocks starts. We did get new uniforms though! That was nice.

Saturday was KVACs, so I couldn't stay up late that night. I was invited to a mini party Friday night at the Donahues, but I couldn't go because it was a late night... then the Donahues said we could come early, so I could come, I just had to leave when it 'really' started. That was pretty fun. Played ping-pong, joked around and inhaled a few sliced of amazing pizza before I had to go. When I got home I packed up my non-food things I was bringing to KVACs and went to bed.

Saturday begun at 5am for me. I got up, showered, packed a ton of tons of water and food (just in case I got really thirsty or hungry), ate a small but hardy breakfast, and headed out.

My team was ready to leave at 6:30am... but the bus was not there. We were a bit worried, because we had to get there early for the coaches' meeting and the 4x800. The bus driver showed up a little before 7:30am. He slept in. We had to make a call so we would not get disqualified for for being late to the coaches' meeting, but we made it in time for the 4x800.

The weather was pretty nice. A pretty humid, but that was ok, because it was around 65-75 and overcast. I ran the 100m and got a 12.26. Kind of slow for me, but I knew I would never be that competitive in that event, because there are some crazy fast kids out there running just above 11 seconds. My next event was the 400m. My best event. It's a killer event, but that's kind of part of the fun! I was in the fastest heat. Dude. My PR was a 56.16... someone in my heat had a PR of 51.something-low! I was the slowest in my heat by a long shot.

I had a lunch break before the 400. I was pretty hungry, so I ate all of my three sandwiches (first mistake), a banana and an apple (second mistake). I thought I had a ton of time before the 400... I was wrong. I had some, but not enough to digest my food enough to run without cramping. When I was in the starting blocks, I knew it was going to be a painful run. I could feel my food in my stomach. I was really hoping this won't end with me throwing up. To make matters worse, the clouds disappeared, the the temperature increased to about 85 degrees. It was super hot... I thought to myself: I'm going to run a terrible time.

I ran. It hurt. I went numb in the last 50 meters, my speed dropped and I knew I was going to lose my heat. I did... Or so I thought: but I didn't. I looked at the clock after the run. Time: 57.46. Darn! One of my worst times of the year. The fastest guy in my heat ran a 50.61... I was feeling pretty down for awhile. I messed up my best event, had a headache, cramps and stomachache. I couldn't get my time out of my head... until a hour or two later I looked at the wall where all the times were put up. I was in 8th overall for the 400. I was thinking: What the...? How?! No way with that time. I then saw my time: 55.95. A PR! I read the clock wrong! I beat some guy in my heat, and I was reading his time, not mine! I was re-pumped with energy. I was super happy with that... then I checked the 400 qualifying time in States: 55.90 for provisional. 0.05 away in the 400! Imagine if I didn't eat as much for lunch! Would I have gotten 7th, gone on the podium got a ribbon, qualify for states? I well, it was too late to think it over, so I said whatever, I got a PR!

My next event was the 200! I had a bit. I only ran it once that year, so I knew I was probably getting a PR. I was in the slow heat, but I didn't really care, because I knew my time was bad. I ran a 24.99. A PR that gave me 13th overall. I was pretty pleased with the meet. It was way too hot, but it was still pretty fun!

My final event: the 4x400. One of best runners (Brandon) pulled his hamstring so he couldn't run it. Jordan and I were the only 'strong' runners on the relay team. I ran first and got us in 2nd or 3rd. Ben and Isaiah had to run against a little faster athletes. We fell to around 9th. Jordan, being a tank, caught us up to 7th place, back on to the podium!

Even though I didn't place that well at the meet, I had a blast hanging out with my team and cheering on my other team members! I also go burnt on my shoulder blades. Oh well!

We went home and did some stuff, but I can't remember what. I was super tired.

Sunday was kind of tough. I had trouble staying awake during church. I relaxed most of the afternoon, until Sean, Dad, Colleen and I went to play some tennis. Sean is new to tennis, Colleen hasn't played much, I was 'eh' or 'ok', and my dad was good. The teams were: Colleen and I vs. Dad and Sean. Colleen and I won both sets. 4-6, and 3-6 I believe. That was a pretty awesome feeling finally beating my dad with Colleen's help!

After tennis we chilled. It felt good. I needed rest.

Monday was Memorial Day! First off we headed over to Tim's and helped him clean out his house, because he plans on moving soon. Tim treated us to Tin Tin Buffet (all you can eat Chinese food)! That is a time to break your healthy eating habits! I ate a ton of food: 3 plate fills and a dessert plate! So much good and weird stuff!

My 'fortune' cookie said I was going to have a romantic evening. It was right... just continue reading, I'm not there yet.

We headed back to Tim's to do a little more work, then cleaned went home to change and go to the Morris's Memorial Day party. Had some fellowship and food. A hour or two after I arrived, we started a game of Ultimate Frisbee! That lasted for about two hours. It was amazing! There was a little hill in the middle of the field, which made the game very interesting! The points went back and forth, but slowly, my team's points increased more. We had a slight skill advantage... but our team was usually down 2-4 players. A huge thing was that we had Mr. Taylor (he could bomb it one and one third the field), Shannon and I. Shannon and I think alike, work well together, and can out run most people there, so when Mr. Taylor bombed it, there was a pretty good chance we'd get get it.

I think I heard the end score was around 16-21... but I'm not sure, I know we got the 'golden point' though!

After Ultimate we all hung out for a few hours and joked a ton. I'm pretty sure we all had a pretty good time!

Today Sean had to leave he left around 1pm. We had a blast! He is hilarious. After he left, I had track practice. It was pretty fun. Ran stairs, did a circuit, lifted, played some indoor soccer and was invited to a graduation party!

Overall, I'd say I had a grand weekend, but I can't wait until next week: my week off of running. I have some aches and pains that need rest!

Take it Easy...

Summer is almost here. Maybe it's already here for you! For many of you it's time to start training or just doing physically straining activities! It's all fun and games... until you get injured. I went too hard, too fast this past year and sprained my shoulder. That's really no fun at all. My left arm is now so much weaker than my right arm, and some things that I would love to do, hurt in a bad way. I wake up with a sore/stiff shoulder almost every morning. So how do you prevent this from happening to you? I'll give you some tips.

Warm up! I don't care how hot it is. Your muscles need to warm up and your joints need to some more liquid to prevent injuries. Warming up may seem pointless in 80 to 90 degree weather, but it's not. Trust me. Do it. You won't need a long warmup, but don't just start lifting, jumping or sprinting cold.

Another thing is to cool down. Stretch. Stretching increases flexibility, flexibility helps prevent injury. If I could do a split, I would probably never have had a pulled hamstring. Increasing flexibility is always good. Just don't push it too much or you'll strain and/or tear something and lose all your flexibility. There are some exercises you can't do because of lack of flexibility, so it's always good to work on this.

Ok, now the point of this post: take it easy......at first. You may have the strength in your muscles and heart to run 5 miles 3-6 days a week suddenly, but I doubt your tendons (and some of your muscles) will handle that well. If your form isn't perfect, increasing that rapidly will most likely give you shin splints as well. You see, with almost anything physically straining, you're breaking down your muscle, then it repairs in better shape, and bigger if you're training for that. You tendons take a beating as well... but due to lack of blood flow and a few more various things, they recover slower. The more you do, the harder they work. Heavy or explosions strain them even more. Light weight and light running are the best way to increase tendon strength. Lifting heavy without a month (at least) of light weights is asking for tendon issues. Believe me, I know. It's not fun.

So start off with light weights, or low volume slow running. If you aren't a trained athlete, starting out with one or two days with 20-30 minutes of running/brisk walking. Then maybe one day of 2-3 miles. You should track your weekly milage, and increase 5-10% weekly... but listen to your body. If it's unusually sore or achy and it's a running day, don't run. Take it off. Maybe run tomorrow. Injuries will slow you down 10x more than not running for a few days. I'd say a good starting number is 8-10 miles a week. Then build up to at least 20 miles a week before you start adding a hill run or sprinting work. If you're only training for sprinting, then less milage is ok. Just be careful, your tendons may not be ready. If you're cross training (mixing two or more sports), then 20 miles a week is not needed. Maybe something like 15 miles of running a week, with 15-30 miles of biking a week.

Just slowly build up. Take it easy. Once you have a strong base, then boom. Time to go harder! It actually might come naturally, if you slowly build up and don't plateau, hardcore training might just happen and almost seem easy to you! But you'll likely plateau if all you do is long slow runs. Once you get above 20 miles a week, you're going to have to mix it up. Maybe add sprints, hill runs, and extra slow runs for extra mileage.

As for weight training? There is tons of stuff you can do, but I'd start with a weight I can do 15-25 times, 3-5 sets or 8-16 reps, with 0.5-2 minutes of rest. And slowly build up. Adding 2.5-5 pounds is usually good. Only increase if you can complete your higher rep range for all your sets. Eventually if you want, you can lower your reps to something like 4-10 reps. This builds more muscle but increases the chance of injury. So be careful, as usual.

Bottom line? Start out easier than you think you could do. Build up, and you should be fine. Don't be over zealous and burnout... but most of all: have fun and still run!

What's Stopping You?

Let's say you're not like me. You don't enjoy exercise and don't find time for it because it's not something you want to do. Well, welcome to the world of the average person. I really like getting fit, and then using my fitness for fun, work and competing. You may just want to look a little nicer, be healthier, or some other goal.

You could claim to be non-athletic, thus you shouldn't even try to get fit. Well... guess what, my genetics aren't that great: I have the build of Clarke (my Dad's side of the family), and no offense to them, but they aren't that fit. Granted, I'm only 16, so I have the upper hand of being young... but I'm also one of the most fit guys on teams, so I'm pretty fit for my age group as well. How did this happen even though my genetics weren't very good? I trained hard and ate pretty healthy (only starting to eat healthy this year).

Ok, so now that you know genetics aren't stopping you (unless you're super fit and you reached maximum muscle capacity, which I'm sure none of you readers ever will, nor will I), what could be stopping you? You might say: "Well duh, I'm too busy." I highly doubt that. If you're reading this, you have time to workout unless you're a speed reader... but what if you have a Facebook? Or a Google+? how much time do you waste on those? I know I waste too much time on them. It's easy and addictive. You may spend some time on there doing something productive, but chances are you are wasting time as well. Facebook and Google+ are great ways to talk to friends you can't see often or plans things, but it really has become a time consumer for me, and probably a time consumer for thousands or millions of other people too. The same goes for things like YouTube, Pininterest, email texting... etc.

Imagine if you cut off 25-75% of your Facebook/Google+/texting/etc time and put it towards exercise. Would you gain fitness? Oh yeah you would! If you spend more than 2 hours on all that stuff a day, you could take off 25%-75% of that and replace it with exercise, you'd be exercising 30-90 minutes a day. That is plenty of time to exercise! You get the most of your workout within the first hour, so you only really need that much time, or less!

What if you go on those things at night when it's too late too exercise? Well, it's not too late to exercise. If it is, you should be going to bed, not texting or Facebooking. This way you will go to sleep earlier, get up earlier and then maybe have time in the mornings to workout.

Ok, if none if the above applies to you, yet you can't get a workout in and your problem is TV or movies. Well, watch less TV and/or movies. A movie usually lasts 1-3 hours. You only need 1/2 a hour to workout. 1 hour is better, but still, 2 hours of sitting on the couch, or 1 hour of exercise? Which sounds healthier?

What if you like video games. Those are real time suckers, and aren't good for you. I like them, but I notice if I play them more I feel tired, lazy and heavy. If you really can't stop playing them, do pushups during load times at least...

Ok, one of the best excuses? Homework. Honestly, that shouldn't be a problem. It's more likely one of the above. Some of the smartest people I know practice their sport 1-3 hours a day! They still manage their homework quite well, and some of them get to bed (or so they claim) before 10 every night. Sorry folks, homework probably isn't it. Maybe in college, but you can usually find 30 minutes a day no matter your homework load.

Here's probably the best excuse: work. I never had a constant job before (plan to soon), but some days when I worked 5-7 hours I still managed to fit in a workout. Some of you work 12 hour workdays. Ok, you got got me beat. It's a real toughy to fit in a workout then... but I doubt you'll be working everyday. If you are, you'll probably burn out soon enough. So workout on your off days... at least 30 minutes! That's barely any time if you clean out some Facebook time. Go Nike style: Just Do It.

Ok, going to point fingers, but I heard this before: "It's bad for my hair to shower everyday, so I can't workout everyday." or "My won't dry in time." Uh. First off, you don't need to workout everyday. 4-6 days is best. Second is, dry your hair, then brush it or something. Thirdly, washing your hair isn't that bad for it. I shower everyday. Sometimes twice a day. Even three times a day if I get super sweaty from three different things throughout the day. My hair doesn't get any worse. My hair is only 1/2 to 5 inches, but still, it can't be bad for it.

If you care more about your hair than your health... well, it's time to rethink things.

What I said about work was wrong: the best all time excuse is: an injury. That's a pretty darn good excuse. If you can't workout without aggravating your injury, then don't. Usually you can. For example: upper body injury: Try running, biking lower body weight lifting and maybe some core. Lower body injure: Do some upper body as long as it doesn't hurt the injury more!

These habits are hard to break. Try and break them. Slowly but surely is good. Don't go full out, burn out and give up. That's useless. Slowly incorporate working out into your life style.

Still reading? You probably could have done over 50-200 pushups within the time you took to read this. Not all in one set, but within a workout. So if reading this is the only thing stopping you from working out, don't read my blog and workout.

Bridge Jumping...

So yesterday was the first day I've gone bridge jumping this year. I went after my track practice. Which felt really nice, because running in humid, sunny 75-80 degree weather for 3.4 miles makes me quite sweaty and hot. I actually couldn't go right away, because Shannon and I had to bring Gabe back to his house. We picked up Colleen while we dropped him off.

When we finally got to the bridge the temperature dropped to about 70-75 degrees. Still pretty warm, but it was May: the water is still quite cold.

Casey showed up a few minutes after we arrived. There was no way cold water was stopping us. We all jumped, at different times, at the same time, all the girls screamed... all of it was pretty fun. Casey and Shannon had a dirt fight...sometimes they seem older than me, but most of the time? Nah.

After we got kind of cold and ran out if time we all headed to our homes. When we got home, we had supper then had our last Taking It Deeper study until this fall, because we're taking the summer off.

Destroying the Abs

I thought I had pretty strong abs, I get bored doing crunches (which I don't do, unless my coach makes me), I can do plank work for over 3-10 (not really sure) minutes, I can hold a L-sit for over 30 seconds (not a full one due to hamstring inflexibility), I get bored during leg raises, and I can do some pull up bar leg raises... but I haven't tried the ab roller yet. I never have access to one

Let me tell you what an ab roller is. An ab roller is a wheel with two handles; one on each side of the wheel. The way to do a full 'roll out' is to grab the handles, roll out until your arms are almost lined up with your straight body, then the tough part: rolling back up. Is this exercise it's actually bad to make your lower back kind of like a U, unlike the dead lift and bent over row. If you make your back like a U then you're not tightening your abs enough and you could pinch your lower back. It's best to keep a perfectly straight back, but bent slightly either way is fine.

So, I don't have an ab roller... how'd I do an ab roll out? A barbell. It's not as good because it requires less stabilizing and sometimes the weights tighten up so a 'wheel' (the weight) stops moving and I'm forced to stop and fix it.

Before I explain my workout, I'd like to say what I did before so I don't sound like a wimp... The day before I did 4-6 minutes of planks, a couple pushups with someone on my back, and some leg raises. Right before I left for track I attempted to do a full standing ab roller... I felt my soreness from the day before and also realized I'd need to warmup or I'll pull an ab muscle, so I stopped and decided to wait until after track practice.

At track I did seven 400s going at my mile/two mile pace for the first 300 or 200 meters then sprinting the rest. Helps me improve my 'kick' near the end of the harder races.

So after I walked home from Greene Central School, I stretched a little and then did my ab workout.

I warmed up with a minute of planks. Then tried the standing roll out. I got fully extended, but couldn't pull my body up... my abs were on fire, pulling as hard as they could but I wasn't moving. Soon enough they gave out and I fell to the floor. Now that I think about it, I might not have been using enough of my lats, but who knows.

If I couldn't do one full ab roll out, I'd have to drop my ego and do them on my knees. I alternated between plank variations, almost full L-sits and knee ab roll outs for about 20 minutes. My abs were a little sore to start, but man. They were dead now. I did a little bit of oblique planks in the end. Normal ones felt kind of easy, leg in the air ones spasmed my hip flexers a lot, so I tried adding a weight to my hips. Boo-yeah. Talk about a oblique burn!

So that was my ab workout. I'm pretty darn sore right now... I probably won't do anything like that until after KVACs because I have a feeling if I do this again, I won't recover in time to preform as well.

Notice this though: all the exercises I did, promote good posture. Unlike the crunch... yet my abs got a serious workout. Planks beat crunches any day! So do them.

It's All Fun and Games Until Something Clicks

Yesterday I had a pretty funny meet. It was the Mt. Ararat Non-Qualifier. So pretty much if you already automatically qualified you can't compete. I really wanted to try and qualify for for States in something like the 100 meter dash. So coach signed me up for the 200m, the 400m, the 100m, and shot put for the fun of it. I'm automatically qualified in the 200m and the 400m so I was disqualified in those right away. It was still iffy if I could compete in my other events: the 100m and the shot put. I did shot put. I wasn't 'caught' yet.

I threw the first one like a football. My shoulder felt a tad weird but nothing too bad. I did the rest of my throws and my best throw was 25' 4". It was kind of funny. I was probably one of the few fit guys there... and almost all of them were bigger than me. That pretty much was my 'just-for-the-fun-of-it' event. Little for I know my first throw wasn't very good for my shoulder, but I didn't feel it yet.

Right after I finished throwing, they called the 100 meter dash... had they caught me yet? I'll find out soon enough. When I signed up, my name wasn't on the list... I was caught. So I was pretty much done for the day. I talked to coach with Lucy, Maddie and Jordan because they too, couldn't compete. We decided to go on a 3 mile trail run and then do some stride outs. It was pretty fun! We actually got kind of lost. Ended up in a local neighborhood once. Ran to some kind of private construction site, but just turned around there. It was pretty fun getting lost. We eventually found our way out, and realized we haven't ran 3 miles yet, so we went back I and explored some more. Didn't get as lost this time.

After a little rest and saying hi to friends we did our stride outs which are like slow sprints with extra long strides. That was kind of nice after we finished. Felt stretched out.

I talked to the Wrights, Caleb and some team members of mine for a while. Then did some core. Which pretty much was just plank variations. Jackie on team said I did them for 5 or 6 minutes. I'm not sure if I did, because it seemed too easy for that much time. I did do 2 or 3 'Norman-pushups'. Which pretty much was a pushup with Noah (we call him Norman) on my back. That was pretty tough, but funny! Norman is only around 90 pounds, so it wasn't *too* hard.

Before I did core, I noticed my shoulder felt a bit odd. I did some rotations after core and then my shoulder clicked... almost every rotation. It still felt weird. Not really painful, but just like something was out of place... my shoulder still clicks.

After core I hung out and joked with my team, cheered on people, and got ready to go.

I left with my family. My shoulder still clicked. So I decided to ice it when I got home and then I'll go see the trainer next time he's at Leavitt. I'm hoping he'll be at Leavitt today so I can talk to him. Let's just say I'm not going to be shot putting again...

Living Room and Returning of Family!

Well, first off I'd just like to remind you all that Shannon and Mom went to Haiti not this past Saturday, but the Saturday before that on a medical missions trip.

I have not posted much about what I did this past week for a reason... if Mom and Shannon saw on my blog what was going on, it would have ruined our Mother's Day surprise.

What we did all wee was redo our living room. Our floor was a chipboard floor because we removed the rug after I accidentally threw paint all over it during SMASH one year. Our walls were kind of beat up and not-so-nice... and our window was a mess.

This past week we cleaned the living room out (everything, including furniture), sanded the floor, primed the walls, put up wall paper, painted the paper, installed a new wood floor and got a new window. Mr. Donahue was a huge help. He showed Nick Estes and my dad how to do wall paper, and did the hard parts for us! Nick probably put as much, if not more time into our living room than anyone else. He came over after my Monday meet (I saw the Avengers again with Colleen, Nick and Jenna that night), we got up around 8am and he started working before breakfast! He stayed our house until the next night (Wednesday night, or early Thursday morning depends how you look at it) helping out. He obviously put in more time in than me, because I was at track half the time. It also helped that he is a super handyman, unlike me or my dad. Casey came over once for a ton of painting, she also gave me a ride to track that day when I didn't have a ride!

What I did all week was work in the morning, go to track in the afternoon and relax and then work in the evening. On Friday I had the day off of track (because of it was the day after our second meet of the week), so I helped a lot more that day. Friday night Colleen and I went to watch the tail end of Ben Wright's track meet, and then spent the night at the Wright's house that night. Harrison Otis, Maggie and Josh Wright were there as well. We all talked, played games, made jokes, and then realized it was 1 o'clock... and we thought, what can another hour do? Let's play Mario Cart. Us guys stayed up to almost 3am, while the girls went to bed around 2am. I'm usually against staying up that late, but I haven't seen Harrison or the Wright's in a long time.

Saturday morning we got up (zombie mode), ate breakfast, packed up and left for our house around 9:15am. We had to be back around 10am so we could help put in the floor. Now, mind you: I had two track meets this week. I stayed up late watching the Avengers (1am), worked all week on either the track or the house, and to finish it off I stayed up until 3am the night before. If I liked coffee, this would be the one time it would come in handy. I don't, so I had a cup of tea... much weaker than coffee, but I guess that's for the better.

Mr. Estes and Nick came over around 10:45am. I was kind of awake, but not really. We then went into working mode. I was still in zombie mode, so I was like a working zombie.

I did a little more sanding, the helped with the floor and other various small jobs. Mr. Estes did a ton of work on the floor, being the handiest man out of us all (that's saying a lot, because Nick was there)! Dad and I did the more basic repetitive work. Colleen painted. Colleen left to babysit around 1 or 2pm. So it was just us guys for a long time.

We worked on the floor and some other small things until around 7pm. Casey came over again to help around 5:30pm. When we finished the floor I painted the last coat on a corner of the house, Dad left to go get Shannon and Mom, Mr. Estes and Nick worked on fixing the couch that they gave us (Nick also fixed up our surround found wiring), and Casey cleaned up the kitchen. I believe the Estes left around 9:30pm. Casey helped me clean and put furniture back in the living room until 10:15ish. After she left I continued to clean and put a little more furniture back in place. I cleaned up the parent's room, swept and put the chairs and table back in the kitchen all while blaring some music. Colleen came home a little past 11pm. I told her she had to clean her room. I was too tired. I then headed off to bed. I laid down, and boom! It was 2 or 3am and Shannon and telling me good job and such and patting me on the back. I couldn't really get up to say thanks, and so I just grunted a few times and fell back to sleep.

That morning I got up at 8:30am. Then I realized I went to bed in my work clothes, forgot my pillow, and didn't use any blankets. Yeah. Guess I was tired.

We all made it to church that morning... I can't say I got in everything... yeah. But I managed to stay awake!

At home I ate some junk food, and then sat on the couch... and then woke up three hours later.

I put up the sermon that evening, talked, ate some healthier food and made blueberry and strawberry pancakes. We watched part of a movie, and then went off go bed around 10. I fell asleep around 11, and finally got up around 7 this morning. Now I'm writing this.

Ok, now that I got you caught up, I thought I'd let you know about my past meet. It was a great meet. There was only three schools there. Our school was probably the most athletic, but not the biggest. About 1/3 of our team was out for the meet because they gave blood. Because of this, my relay teams were off. I didn't mind, because I then ran better personal times in my open runs. I actually won the 100 meter dash with a time of 12.25. 0.01 seconds from automatically qualifying for KVACs and 0.15 seconds from provisionally qualifying for States.

I ran the 400 meter in 56.16 seconds. That's a .61 second PR, automatically qualifying me for KVACs. I also won that event. Jordan on my team is way faster than me in that, but he didn't run it that day.

I ran the 200 meter for the first time since my freshman year. When you're seeded in an event, they use your best time. My best time was just above 28 seconds... so I was in the slowest heat. Let's just say I won by almost 50 meters with a time of 25.16, a huge PR. It actually wasn't that great of a time. I wasn't under pressure to run faster, so I didn't. Hopefully I'll run it again today in a faster heat so I can get a better time.

Sprinting vs. Distance Running

To start this off I'd like to say this is just my opinion from what I've read and felt. I also don't know a ton about running. I know some, but I don't know how a lot of it affects your body.

Sprinting us much harder, for this reason you can't go on as long it as far. You can just travel much faster. Sprinting is usually more important in sports, but if your cardio and/or endurance can't last through a game, then you're sprinting ability will soon become useless. If you can't sprint fast at all, but can run forever, then you'll be out ran a lot, but if you're playing with people with weak cardio, then you'll seem really fast in the end.

But why not mix those? Being able to run distance and pretty sprint fast is pretty awesome. It's fun, is great for sports, and is the best way to burn fat, in my opinion.

If all you play is football or volley ball, then yeah, stick with sprints for now. You don't need endurance. If play any other active sport (golf doesn't count as active), you'll probably need some endurance and need to run distance.

Now, let's get on to how sprinting and distance running affects your body.

Running distance will improve your cardio, increase endurance (your legs will be able to endure more stress), burn fat and can be relaxing. A down side of distance running is you barely build muscle. It's more cardio and endurance. You build some, but not much. You might think you're building muscle after awhile, but it's more likely that you burned off a little fat and now you can see your muscles. Your leg muscles will tone up. Partly from the fat burning, but they will get a bit more dense and hard. Another down side is that if you run a ton, you might lose muscle mass if you're not eating right, but that's more eating habits than running.

Sprinting. Sprinting builds much more muscle than distance running. You use fast-twitch muscle fibers which can grow more than slow-twitch muscle fibers. Also, if you do sprinting right, you'll lose fat faster than your would if you ran distance. Granted. This may not be true if your body has mainly slow-twitch muscle fibers. Sprinting will strengthen your cardio, but not quite the same as distance running. You can only sprint so long, so your heart rate will be increased rabidly for a while, but to get the most out of sprinting, you should take breaks to let your fast-twitch fibers recover and let your lunges catch up.

You see, to sprint fast, you need to use fast-twitch fibers... but fast-twitch fibers also get tired quickly, hence why you use slow-twitch fibers to run for a long time. I've also read that fast-twitch fibers your a different chemical in your body than slow-twitch... but I can't remember how it all works, I just know fast-twitch fibers need more recovery time.

Probably the biggest downside of sprinting is the risk of pulling a muscle. This can be avoided with a good warmup and stretching... but still, a cold day and slip of a foot and you can pull something.

Then again, with distance running you could easily roll an ankle because of lack of muscle support. All thar takes is a hole or an awkward step. So they both have potential injures.

You might say: "What about shin splints? Or an inflamed IT band? Runners knee? Etc..."
My answer to that is: if you train too hard too quickly or run with bad form then you have a good chance of getting any of those. I'd say distance running has a higher chance of an inflamed IT band, but sprinting has a higher chance of knee pain (runners knee)... but still, those could just accrue from the surface you're running on.

Moral of the story? Run. Sprint and run distance, but listen to your body. If you get better results from more distance running, then do that. If you feel an injury coming, rest, then see if your form is bad when you start up again. Most importantly? Make fitness fun, because if it isn't fun, you'll likely stop. That doesn't mean go easy, but don't make running a chore.

Run on!

Lats

So, if you're like me, you may have first thought of the pull up as mainly a bicep exercise. Granted, it is a great bicep exercise, it's meant to target the biggest back muscles: the lats. Their real name is the Latissimus Dorsi... but I'll just stick with lats or lat. These muscles help with posture, are super for pulling objects, and help stabilize your core. So they're pretty important. They are kind of like the Gluteus Maximus (glute or bum muscle) for the upper body, because they are the biggest muscle in the upper body. Pretty much if you strengthen it, everything is better: pushing power, pulling power, posture, less back pain, etc...

Back to the pull up. If you are thinking the pull up is a bicep exercise. Then it probably will be mainly be a bicep exercise. Why? Because of the muscle-mind connection. When you think about contracting a muscle when doing an exercise, that muscle will most likely be hit. You can see your bicep and everyone knows to flex the bicep when some tell you to 'show your muscle'. So you most likely have a very strong muscle-mind connection between your bicep and mind. The lats on the other hand? Probably not. You can't see your back flex, you might not even know how to flex your lats! Well, here's how: concentrate on squeezing your shoulder blades together as hard as you can. I find I get a better lat squeeze when I bring the lower part of my shoulder blades together, that way I'm squeezing my back more than my shoulder muscles. If you only do this with one arm, you can try and squeeze the flexed lat with your other hand. You might not feel much tension in the muscle, but that could be because you don't have a strong muscle-mind connection, or your lat isn't very strong.

So how do you activate the lat in a pull up? It can be tough. Try doing the shoulder blade trick and think of pulling the elbows down, don't think of flexing the biceps, they will flex, just try to think about the lats as much as you can when doing the exercise. Sometimes looking up a little and leaning backward a little helps too...

If you are like me, then thinking about the biceps will still give you more reps because of the muscle-mind connection is strong and my biceps have been worked for years, while I'm only starting to really work my lats.

If you can't do a pull up yet and are thinking about the biceps, your problem may be just thinking about it wrong. The lats are WAY bigger than the biceps. Actually, naturally the biceps are one of the smaller upper body muscles. They are just so easy to train that they tend to grow ahead of everything else. Try using your lats more when you try to do a pull up. You might just do it!

There are plenty of other lat exercises you can do. If all you have is dumbbell, then doing a single arm row will work the lat, if you use a barbell, then doing a bent over row will be a superb lat exercise. Just remember the tips (flexing the shoulder blades, pulling the elbows) about activating the lats with your mind.

If you're trying to put on bulk, the lat is a great muscle group to work. It is the biggest muscle in the upper body, so it can put on some meat pretty fast. Also, when it starts getting wider, your waist look slimmer. You get kind of a V shape with your back, thus making abdomen appear thinner.

That whole thinking about and flexing the muscle during an exercise apply to every muscle. So try and work on your muscle-mind connection with all your muscles... you can do this with your face too, so you could become better at raising an eyebrow, for example.

Too Much Variation to Give a Title

Friday night Dad and I had the house to our selves. Shannon and Mom left for Haiti and Colleen was spending the night at the Donahues. We didn't have much food so we went out and got some pizza at Little Caesar's. After our pizza we checked out stuff at Home Depot for a bit until we headed off to the movie theater to watch The Avengers! I would write more about it, but I don't want to give anything away for my friends and family who haven't seen it yet! After the movie we bought food. Hopefully it's enough to last the week so we don't have to go again! I'm not a huge fan of shopping...

Because of our night shopping we got home pretty late: a little before 11pm. Not bad because it was a Friday night, right? Nope. I was planning on biking Saturday morning to the Donahues. I got up a little later than I wanted to (I got up at 7:15 and wanted to get up at 6:30). I did some chores while I ate my breakfast and packed my bag of stuff I would bring to the Donahues.

I'm used to it being in the low 40s or upper 30s in the morning, so I put on some sweat pants and a sweater, strapped my bag down and was off! I realized two thing two miles down the road. One: it was way too hot for sweat shirt and sweat pants, actually, almost too hot for a t-shirt. Two: I forgot the jalapeños I was planning on bringing to make jalapeño poppers. So I turned back, found the peppers, took off my sweater and sweat pants and wore shorts and a muscle shirt.

The ride was almost 9 miles, plus my little extra 4 miles from forgetting the peppers and dressing too warmly. I texted Colleen to let her know I'd be late. Never got a reply.

The ride had some hills, but only one quite challenging one, and once I finished it, I went down the other side, which was less steep, but longer. I probably went the speed limit going down that hill! So much fun!

When I arrived at the Donahues I quickly changed my shirt and put on deodorant so I wouldn't kill anyone with my smell. I actually wasn't that sweaty, but a t-shirt does a better job at covering stench than a slightly sweaty muscle shirt. I then knocked on their door. Waited a minute or so... and no one opened it. I then figured it out: Colleen didn't reply to my text because she was asleep, and still is. Mr. Donahue then came out the side door and didn't see me at the front door. I thought he had, so I just said "Hey Mr. Donahue!"... He then jumped back startled, because he wasn't expecting to see me right there. It was pretty funny, then we headed inside and talked a bit. Which he then told me that Colleen and Corrie were still asleep. So I was right.

Eventually everyone got up. Turns out Colleen and Corrie talked until 4am in the morning (genius, I know). I already had breakfast and so did Jolie so we all just talked until Corrie and Colleen finished eating. Colleen and Corrie were still in their pjs so Jolie and I tried playing Badminton while they changed... It failed. The birdie kept getting stuck in the rackets, so we decided to throw the frisbee around instead. Colleen, Brenna and Corrie came out soon after we started. We threw it around for a bit, meanwhile Colleen and I were also teaching the Donahues how to throw better.

After throwing the frisbee around Jolie drove us to the local tennis courts. Brenna held the keys and hung out while Colleen and I taught Corrie and Jolie the basics of tennis. We tried playing doubles, but didn't workout that well because of lack of experience... let's just say I was probably the best there, and I'm pretty bad. Corrie, Benna and Colleen walked back to the Donahues because they were going to take showers and probably do some girly thing like doing hair.

I did soft-toss with Jolie so she could get the basic forehand swing down. At first I was almost being drilled in the head, but by the end of it she hit all 5 balls we had into the other court. We then got ready to go and realized Brenna still had the car keys. We put all the rackets into her car and then walked back to their house. Mr. Donahue and Jolie then took their other car to pick it up for time's sake. We all had some kind of lunch and then got ready to head to Charlotte's house. I was going to be picked up at Charlotte's by Patrick's parents around three so I could go hangout with him instead of hanging out with 10 or so girls getting ready for a ball. I probably would have died if I stayed. The smell of burning hair and whatever else they use are quite toxic to males.

At Patrick's house we threw the frisbee around (I'm loving all this frisbee time!) for a bit, and then got a few of his neighbors and his brothers and played wiffle-ball. That was pretty darn funny and fun. I believe my team won as well!

After wiffle-ball we headed inside for supper. I had a chicken burger (like a chicken sandwich at McDonalds), and a hot dog. After supper I had to head back to Charlotte's so I could get a ride back to the Donahues..... We arrived there and it was full of girls getting their hair and stuff done. Yeah. Not my thing. So I teased them until we left! That's me being a guy! It was nice to see a bunch of SMASHers again though!

In a little while Jolie, Colleen and I left to head back to the Donahues. Corrie stayed because she was going to the ball thing.

When we arrived at the Donahues, Colleen left right away with Dad to go on a 'farther-daughter date'. I stay at the Donahues. This is when I actually made the jalapeño poppers! I don't want to brag, but they were really good in my opinion. Not as hot as I was hoping, but it made them 'eatable' for everyone else! I had two. I made eight. After they were pretty much finished off, we had Mexican burgers! Which were amazing, by the way! I had one, then I had one half of a 'magic powder' burger. I was planning on biking home... but after playing some Hearts with Jessi, Jolie and Brenna and watching some fireworks, I realized it was nearly 11pm. Way later then I thought it was, and I didn't really want to bike 40 minutes in the dark at 11pm on a Saturday night. Thankfully. Jolie offered to give me a ride, which I took. When I arrived home we heard a really near by howl... might have been a coyote, but usually they are in packs and it sounded slightly less yappy, so I rushed the bike in the shed. Thanked Jolie for the ride and headed in.

I soon went to bed. I was pretty tired. Sunday morning I made eggs and toasted bagels for everyone and then slowly got ready for church. Went to church, came home, relaxed most of the afternoon and read some. Then that evening I did some more chores, snacked, and then and got ready for bed...

In the morning I had my green smoothie, a yogurt and then an egg McMuffin with a homemade jalapeño bagel for the muffin part (yum!)... that bring me to now! Hopefully this wasn't too boring of a read for you people who were not involved in this past weekend's events!

A Practice or a Party?

Yesterday I had a very different practice. We did our usual 15 minute warmup run and then our rope stretches. Our coach then let our team do a 'cookie run'. The store which we ran to was about two miles away. We ran there at a pretty easy pace. Usually you have to buy the cookies, so a few people did different runs for some reason. When we arrived Noah, (a team member) who was related to the owners of the store, talked to the owner. The owner then announced that because of our hard run (we all were really sweaty because it was really humid), we all could have a free cookie! They had amazing cookies! Homemade because it was an organic store! Mine was a chocolate mint chip... superb taste.

When we ran back, Jordan, Brandon and I ran at a hard, good pace. That was pretty much our workout. Jordan worked on hurtles, Brandon and I worked on block starts until everyone else arrived. We all were just chilling, talking, then Brandon brought out his soccer ball so us soccer guys juggled around for a bit. Then my coach had one of our players drive their car on to the starting area for the 110m hurtles. The reason she had him do this was to blare some music... because she wanted us to do a dance party to loosen up from our previous meet. It was quite hilarious to watch! I didn't join, I continued with soccer... but then our coach made all of us join in their dance party. It was really weird, but really fun(ny)! So that sums up my practice. More like a party to me. Though: free cookies, soccer and dancing! How can that not be called a party?

Mt. Ararat

Yesterday my meet which was scheduled for last Friday happened. It was in Mt. Ararat. I believe Mt. Ararat was the only class A school there. I also think that there was only one other class B school besides us. It was really humid, overcast and in the 60s. Pretty good running weather, but would have been a little better with less humidity. I'm not complaining though, because it was supposed to be raining all day, which it didn't until the 4x400 which is the last event.

Anyway my meet went pretty well. I didn't get to race in the 100m because my coach forgot to add that to her email to the person in charge. I did run the 4x100, the 800 and the 4x400. We did ok in the 4x100. Wasn't our usual team and the guy I handed off to didn't start until I ran into him. I think we got fourth. Not great, but still some points.

My 800... Oy. I still have a bad habit of running too fast for the first 300 meters! I ran it better than last time though. I ran a 2:14.66. Not a PR, but best this year. I got fourth with that time.

My final event was the 4x400. This time we had our strongest 4x400 team: Ben, Brandon, Jordan and I. Most of us were tired. My legs personally felt like led, but we still did pretty darn well! I ran a 58, Ben ran a 58, Brandon ran a 58, then Jordan ran something around 55 seconds, almost catching the Mt. Ararat kid who was in first! The Mt. Ararat guy had at least 20 meters up on Jordan, but Jordan finished less than 2 meters behind him. We lost to him by less than a second. Together, our team ran a 3:49.16. Huge PR for our team!

On another subject, this morning I had a homemade jalapeño bagel. It was amazing... My sister's cooking rocks!

Ultimate... Kinda

Yesterday at practice coach told us to play Ultimate for our light workout. It sounded grand to me! Even if it was raining and cold. The main problem was that we have around 40 kids. That's 20 per team. Nearly double what it should be in my opinion for the field size we had... Once the game got started, we realized about 1/2 the team didn't know how to play, and more than that didn't really do anything. About 10 kids on my team actually played, and about 5 kids on the other team... and my team had better players, so it was ended quickly, with a score of 3-0. It was short lived, but still fun. We headed inside after the game and played capture the flag in the gym until practice was over. Which was much more fun, because we had smaller teams and everyone played.

So that was my practice. Pretty fun, oh did I mention coach made us cookies? Yup. My coach is cool.

Biking Along...

Yesterday my mom was working, Shannon had class, and my dad had a doctors appointment. I could have gone with my dad to get a ride to Leavitt, but I would have had to leave two hours early and I didn't really want to do that. Instead I biked to Leavitt. Leavitt is 10 miles from my house. That's not too bad, but it was pretty hilly, and there is a sketchy bridge I had to cross.

The first mile was pretty tough; it was all hills, I was fresh, so I thought big gears would be fine. They made it much harder than it had to be, and my legs weren't used to biking yet. The next part was route 202. 202 is pretty much a mini highway. I had to cross it. Luckily it wasn't that busy at 1:15pm. From there to the Greene-Turner bridge it was pretty hilly, but nothing I couldn't handle.

The bridge is kinda sketchy... in a car. Let alone on foot. I couldn't bike across because of the tread on the bridge was really bumpy and had kind of wide gaps so I would have destroyed my tires. I didn't want to be on the bridge when a car drove over it, so I ran across it. My legs were a bit shaky from biking. Trying biking 7 miles then running, and you'll see what I mean. Luckily I ran across it before any cars went across. Then I continued biking. The last 3 miles were a bit easier. A few small hills, but mainly flat ground. I arrived there just before 2pm. I left around 1:15pm. So I figured I biked it in 45 minutes. I did the math and I biked an average of 13.3... miles per hour. I thought that was pretty good because last year my record of biking to Leavitt was 55 minutes, which is an average of 10.9 miles per hour. When I did that my quads were nearly numb, this time they actually weren't that bad. I just lacked energy.

Practice started at 2:30 so I had a pretty good rest time. It was sunny, so just relaxed and drank water to rehydrate. At 2:30 we did our 15 minute warm up (probably like 1.5 or 1.75 miles), stretched, then did our workouts. I had the option to run 8 400s at a 1:15 pace and cut off one second off every run or 3x100, 3x60 and 6x30. I chose of the latter. It was much easier, and I was already tired. The workout wasn't that hard, but I got small headache, probably from lack of oxygen. After I finished I talked to the trainer again, got some strengthening exercises for my rotator cuff, and he also told me that for my hamstring I should just work on flexibility more. Once I was satisfied with what I got from him, I refilled my now empty water bottle. After drinking some water we gathered up the distance runners and the sprinters to do core. We went through a deck of cards doing pushups, crunches, and leg lifts. Wasn't too hard, but got a good burn.

After core I was getting ready to bike home, but Lucy (a caption on my team) pretty much insisted that she give me a ride to Greene. Because she did, my ride was 3 miles shorter. Which was pretty awesome because I was already pretty tired. It took a little over 35 minutes from there to get home.

When I arrived at home all I really wanted to do was sit there and eat... but Colleen said I smelled really bad so I had to shower first. I then had a protein/frozen-banana shake. Which was pretty amazing.

Overall, I'd say it was a productive day at track... and today we'll play Ultimate if the weather isn't too bad! Even better!

Basic Lifts

These lifts actually aren't that basic. They just build basic, overall strength. One is the bench press. I usually replace that with pushup variations and weighted pushups.

Another basic lift, and probably the most important, is the squat. This is the weighted squat, builds a lot of over all strength and tons of leg power. You can also go really heavy with this movement, thus it hits a lot of big muscles. Big muscles have the most power, so this exercise will probably make you the strongest. Not a lot of arm strength, but everything else will be stronger. This exercise is grand, but requires a squatting cage/rack to go heavy. Sadly, I don't have access to one of those. A variation to the squat (actually called the back squat), is the front squat. In this movement you have the weight in front of you, on your chest/collarbone area with your hands taking some of the weight and balancing it. I'm not going to describe this movement because I'm yet to try it. You can get into this position without a rack, via a power clean. Another movement that I haven't even tried, so I won't describe it.

Another basic movement is the row. There are variations in this exercise to hut different muscles, I prefer the bent over row. This one requires good lower back strength, or you might hurt yourself. To do this, get a barbell (or two dumbbells, but a barbell is better), place your shins about an inch from the bar, bend at the knees and the hips so that you bring your back nearly parallel to the floor (parallel is better, but most people don't have the flexibility). Your chest should be touching or close to your knees. This next part is extremely important, if don't think you can do this, then don't, unless you have someone who knows how to lift with you. This is it: keep back straight. It's better to make your back more U shaped than arched over, because if your back is arched you will destroy your back. A good way to help keep your back straight is to stare at a spot on the floor in front of you, but only a few feet in front of you so don't strain your neck. It is also a good idea never to go too heavy without someone watching you. Once you have your position down, grab the bar, pull it to your chest or gut, depending what feels more natural for you. Then lower it to the ground. This exercise does a little leg, some arms, and if done right, a ton of back! Your lats, are the main muscle group hit, but pretty much all your muscles in your back are hit. This should not replace your pull up. Pull up beats all.

The next exercise is the deadlift. The squat and the deadlift exercises are the two exercises you can put on the most weight. The squat is safer (if you have a rack), but the deadlift is an extreme back builder. It's a lot like the row, but less arm movement, and more hip and knee movement. To do a deadlift, place your shins against a bar, feet shoulder width apart. The bar your remain in contact with your legs at all time. This may cause scraping and bruising, but that's nothing compared to a slipped disc! From here, get into the position that you did for the row. REMEMBER: keep your back straight! Don't go heavy without a friend watching you! You don't need to go as low as you did with the row, but if your back and/or hamstrings aren't flexible enough, then you might have to. If you are so inflexible that your can't keep your back straight in the down position, don't even try this. Get more flexible first. Now that you are bent over, grab the bar and flex your late and rear shoulders. You don't want to bend at the top of your back or pull a shoulder out of joint. Push your chest out, look straight ahead, explode up by throwing your hips forward until the weight is mid thigh. Drop the weight. If your floor isn't padded and strong or your gym doesn't like dropping of weights, then lower the weight in a controlled fashion, making sure your back is straight, and that the bar is touching your shins.

Notice I didn't mention where to grip the bar. That's because there are tons of options. You can have your feet wider apart, and place your hands in between them. This is the easiest way, and hits your legs more. If you're not flexible and want to work your legs more, and less back, do this way. If you want a better back workout and are flexible, do a wider grip. An ultra wide grip (so I've read) is brutal, I haven't done it yet, I'm not flexible and I'm still trying to master the basic form. Don't go and try this before research it more, and it would be ideal to have a coach watch you. I didn't have a coach, but I started out really light and researched it a ton. I probably have the muscle to deadlift over 200 pounds, but I'm only at 110-120 right now just to be safe.

Those are the basic lifts! Do those and you can get a strong base. Just be carful, because most of these work the back, and if you bend your back during an exercise, you can seriously injure yourself.

I personally am going to try and master the power clean so I can do front squats, because I doubt I'll have a squatting rack/cage anytime soon. I'm doing the deadlift and the bent over row, but only once a week for now because of track. I also just started, so I'm still going pretty light.

Pull ups

I've written posts about pull ups before, but I'll write another one because I love them!

Pull ups are actually probably one if the best upper body exercises you can do. That's not just me saying that, a ton of the sites I visited about strengthening the back, biceps, and grip said that pull ups are pretty much the best back workout. Lat pulldowns aren't quite the same. They hit the back a little differently, hit less core muscles, and don't require you to move your own body weight. Pull ups do it better.

Let's say you can't do a pull up, should you use a lat pulldown machine? If you want to... but I'd recommend doing assisted pull ups. You can do these at the gym, or use a chair at home.

If you're at home and want to do an assisted pull up, place a chair right behind your pull up bar, put one foot on it, grab the bar (if your bar is up high, use the chair to help you up), then preform a pull up (slowly), using the chair to push you up if needed. Once you reach the top (chin over bar), remove your foot from the chair and do a slow negative. Put your foot on the chair again, and repeat.

A read up on a way to really start your pull up skills. First, make sure you're running 2-5 days a week to burn fat and eating healthy. Burning fat will make your load lighter, thus easier and better for all your joints. A good pull up program to follow is this 8x8. That's a lot of pull ups, so you may want to start out with 8x5. The way this works is you do 8 assisted pull ups, rest 1-3 minutes, do the next 8, rest, then again, and etc... Until you reached either 5 or 8 sets. You could probably slowly add more sets, like add a set every or every other week. Do this 1-3 times a week. Never two days in a row. At the beginning of ever workout, try and do an unassisted pull up. If you can't, that's fine, keep at it. If you can, then do it, and without rest continue your set of 8 reps with the chair to assist you. Eventually you'll be able to do more than one pull up. When you can, do them at the beginning of your workouts! Pretty much the basic rule is do pull ups to fail, subtract that number from 8 eight, and do that many assisted pull ups without rest. Then rest for 1-3 minute and repeat until you complete your 5-8 sets. Once you can do 8 pull ups in a row, you don't need to follow this program. Try something else, mix it up!

I never tried that plan, but it sounds like it'll work. I'd recommend only doing the workout twice week. Otherwise you might overtrain.

Now that you can do eight full pull ups, try slowing them down. Chances are you were cranking those pull ups out with speed. Going slow will make them harder. You can also mix your grip up! Close grip, wide grip, neutral grip, one arm reversed grip, etc!

If you want the pull up to be more than just a back, bicep, forearm, and shoulder workout, try bringing your knees up so that they're parallel to the ground, body at 90 degrees. This with engage your abs as well. Once you can, straighten your legs (requires done flexibility), this is called an L-sit, great static ab workout along with your pull up!

You can do 'around the world' pull ups. You pretty much make a circle with the pull up. It puts more weight on each lat during different parts of the pull up. Make sure to switch directions each pull up.

Another is the T pull up. You do a pull up, bring your nose/chin to your hand, then to the other hand, and back to the middle and then go down.

As usual, you can also add weight to your pull ups. Don't do this unless you can do over 15 slow and controlled pull ups. You need a strong base, or you'll hurt yourself.

There are many ways to add weight. The best is a weight belt and the next is weighted vest. Most people don't own these and don't want to buy them because they're a bit pricey. So what's next? Bend your knees so that your feet are behind you, put a dumbbell between your legs. Wide plate dumbbells work better because they have less of a chance of falling between your legs. This will likely give you a good hamstring burn once you go heavy!

The next thing you can do is a backpack. I don't recommend this. It makes your body very unbalanced. I could see injuries coming along with this. Also, you'll probably destroy the backpack once get over 20 pounds... unless you buy a strong one, but you might as well get the dumbbells, vest or belt instead.

The hardest thing you can do with a pull up is make it one handed. Yeah. That's a toughy. I can't do this. I'll work towards it though!

There are plenty more variations you can try, so keep at them... they can be quite fun and handy! Climbing trees, roofs, rock walls, and mountains will become easier, so will picking up heavy objects, because that's what your back does! Oh, and getting jacked could be a side effect.....

Make the Pushup Harder

So, the basic pushup is hands directly under the shoulders, keep your body stiff as a plank, and then bend at your elbows and shoulders so that your arm forms a 90 degree angle. Not too hard. I could do 93 when I was really into high rep pushups.

The problem with high rep pushups is that they barely build any muscle. They mainly build endurance. Endurance is good. It helps with athletics... but it doesn't build much power, which I want for my sports.

Lower rep ranges build more power and mass. 1-8 reps is the best (usually) rep range for building up mass and strength. I can't do that yet because of my shoulder, but I can at least bring down my rep range so that I get more out of my pushups.

We do pushups at track a couple times a week. We usually don't do many, the highest amount of reps in one set was 15. Now, I can't do 93 pushups anymore, but I probably can do in the 70s or 80s. 15 reps won't do much for me if I can do so many more reps. So, I want to make them harder.

How so? Well the easiest way to make pushups harder is to slow down! Cranking out 50 pushups in 30-40 seconds don't build much muscle, and that isn't great for your joints. Try going real slow on your pushups. This will also let you use more of the muscles in your chest, and shoulders because when you do them fast you actually are only using some of your muscles. You're only really pushing on the bottom half of the rep when you go fast. Your momentum carries you up the rest of the way. Granted, this is good when you're in a contest, but don't train like that. Your joint don't like it as much.

Next basic way to make pushups harder bring your hands closer to your hips. Your hips are your center if gravity when doing a pushup. Your hand and feet split up your bodyweight. Putting your hands directly under your hips puts much more weight on the hands, and less on the feet. More weight=harder=less reps=more muscle. You won't get hugely jacked doing this, but you'll get much more out of this than regular pushups.

Another way to make them harder is bring your hands closer, and then eventually into a diamond pushup. This is much harder, but isolates your triceps more than your chest. So if you're trying to gain some chest strength, this one won't be much good to you. A note of cation; this puts a lot of strain on your elbows. Even if you have the strength to do a lot of these, go into them slowly. You don't want elbow tendonitis! Stretch (as usual) after this exercise.

You can make pushups really hard by going out wide. This isolates the chest, but I don't really recommend it. The wider your hands, the more strain is on your rotator cuff. Maybe doing a few of these would be good. They also don't give you full range of motion, so be sure to work a full range of motion exercise as well.

Going deeper can increase the difficultly of a pushup as well. Some people have a problem with just going to 90 degrees. Maybe going deeper would be better for them so that they don't cheat by mistake. I have seen people say this can be worse for your shoulder joint, and I've seen people say it's fine for it. So if you feel like this is irritating your shoulder(s), don't do it. Try some other variation.

Another way to make a pushup harder is put your body in a decline position. This loads you're arms with more weight. Only problem might be if you're trying to work your chest, a higher incline will put more weight on your shoulder muscle, and less on the chest. You can use a physio ball to make your feet unstable to increase the core work.

Speaking of physio balls, try putting your hands on one, then doing a pushup, balance is key. Probably give you a good core and shoulder workout.

There are plenty of other ways to make a pushup harder, but I don't have the time to write more about that... but I want to cover three more kind of pushups.

Try taking a limb out of the question. First off, a leg. This will put a little more weight on your hands and require you to use a little core. Make sure to switch legs to balance out your core. Once you've mastered most of these variations, try taking an arm out. One hand pushups arm pretty hard. I can do them with wide legs, but I can't do them with close legs yet.

The next kind of pushup is a handstand pushup. This one is super tough if you don't use a wall for balance. It isolates your shoulders, and does nearly no chest... but is a great shoulders, triceps, and core workout!

Lastly, the Planche pushup. Yeah. It's like a pushup, but with your feet off the ground. This one requires much more balance and core than the handstand pushup because of the body angle. This is an insane exercise. You're lifting your entire bodyweight in pushup form. Your chest and shoulders are doing a ton of work to hold the body up, while you're entire core is trying to balance the body. This is my long term goal. Probably will take ms at least a year, if I stay constant with my work to the get to this pushup.

Sprain!

Usually when you see a post named "sprain" it's a bad thing. This time, it isn't. I thought I tore my rotator cuff back when I hurt my shoulder a week or two ago. I figured this by reading up on it... which is much less accurate than asking a doctor or trainer.

I talked to the sports trainer at Leavitt after practice yesterday. I only had 15 minutes, so she only did a quick check up. She said my rotator cuff was very strong, and didn't seem injured. She then tested out some of my flexibility. I had a weird twang from one of the rotations. So she looked into that a bit more and figured I had a sprain in one or two of my tendons in my rear shoulder. She then told me a way to use moist heat in the mornings to loosen it up.

She said pushups are fine as long as they don't hurt, and that I shouldn't go heavy weight for awhile, and when I do, bench with a barbell, not dumbbells because that's more stable. I probably could do pullups, but I think I'll just rest it a bit longer for those.

Next time I have a chance, she told me to see her or the other trainer to get rotator cuff exercises and if I have the time, get my hamstring checked out as well.