Watch Out For the Dirty Dozen

Posted May 14th @ 3:56 pm by James Ledoux

My good friend Donna sent me a link today to The World’s Healthiest Foods list of the 12 ‘dirtiest’ foods. These are the conventional foods found with the highest levels of pesticides. Even if you can’t eat entirely organic it may be a good idea to go organic on these foods.

  1. Apples
  2. Bell peppers
  3. Celery
  4. Cherries
  5. Grapes (imported)
  6. Lettuce
  7. Nectarines
  8. Peaches
  9. Pears
  10. Potatoes
  11. Spinach
  12. Strawberries

If you can’t buy find (or afford) organic offerings, do your best to wash them well with a fruit/veggie wash.

Nike to Introduce New Technologies at Olympics

Posted April 27th @ 10:58 am by Brandon O'Connor

Nike has recently unveiled two new technologies that will be found in the shoes of athletes from around the globe. Here is the press Release from Nike.

April 7 2008
Nike and Kobe Bryant today launched the Nike Hyperdunk, Nike’s (NYSE: NKE) lightest and strongest basketball shoe ever and one of the many superior, lightweight performance product innovations the company unveiled to support athletes from over 100 countries who will compete for gold in 32 sports in Beijing this summer.

“Our performance product for Beijing is some of the best work Nike has ever done,” said Nike President and CEO Mark Parker. “The Nike Hyperdunk is a prime example of our commitment to deliver extraordinary innovation and lightweight performance product to the world’s best athletes. Every gram counts in competition. Athletes need superior lightweight footwear and apparel that they can compete in with confidence and that’s exactly what we’ve created for them.”

“The Nike Hyperdunk is extremely lightweight, strong and responsive to give a real advantage on court,” said Kobe.

Nike’s lightest and strongest basketball shoe owes its existence to Nike’s revolutionary Flywire technology as it made its transition from track spikes to basketball. Flywire is the innovation driving Nike’s strongest and lightest footwear. Super-strong nylon filaments provide precise support akin to the suspension cables in a bridge, and allow a radical reduction in weight with material only where it’s needed for structure.

Rigorous testing was required to translate the technology into basketball. In running, the typical forces are straight ahead, but in basketball, footwear must accommodate a 200-pound basketball player landing on his feet with upwards of 2000 pounds of force. Then there’s lateral forces with side to side cutting and 45-degree lateral moves which all require exact stability in the upper. In Nike Sports Research Lab (NSRL) testing, basketball wear-testers cut with the ball in an early prototype as minimal as a ballet slipper, yet the shoe held up. It didn’t “tube-sock” as researchers call it – the shoe didn’t roll over athletes’ ankles. Instead, it supports them ensuring they don’t invert their ankles.

Before testing with athletes, the NSRL developed something they called “The Roman Sandal.” Simply board and straps, the researchers developed the prototype to see exactly where the shoe needed support to determine the Flywire placement. As NSRL researcher Matt Nurse explains, “We figured, ‘What’s the bare minimum the shoe can be and still work?’ Now the designers could literally wrap it in plastic wrap and we’d know it would work.”

But, the Nike Hyperdunk’s designer Eric Avar did far more than that. He created a shoe with the style of Nike’s classic basketball footwear from the original Air Flight Huarache in the early ‘90s to the Huarache 2K4. The Nike Hyperdunk’s upper is encased in a web of Flywire filaments. As work on it evolved, so did the outsole. The design and research team saw that with a more flexible midsole and outsole, a Flywire upper has a more dynamic fit. The shoe now marries Flywire with Nike’s other new cutting-edge technology, Lunarlite foam, the super light springy cushioning in the forefoot, and Zoom Air in the heel. A small keyhole at the ankle ensures the upper stays with the leg in those hard-angle cuts, and the flex grooves between each toe allow players to articulate and flex each toe for added stability, flexibility and comfort. At just 13 ounces, the Nike Hyperdunk weighs three ounces less than the average basketball.

As someone who is a huge fan of Nike Basketball shoes I can’t wait for this technology to hit the market. The performance of the shoe sounds amazing. I also hear that the hyperdunks are going to retail for $110.00 which is extremely reasonable for a Nike basketball shoe with cutting edge technology. I will certainly be writing a personal review when these bad boys get released.

 

Rule Your Brain With Exercise

Posted April 24th @ 4:23 pm by James Ledoux

In episode 94 of the Fitness Rocks Podcast, Dr. Monte Ladner interviews author Dr. John Medina about his new book Brain Rules. They discuss the rules the author developed that address the interplay between physical exercise and the brain. Their discussion is somewhat technical but very accessible and a fun listen.

Discussed research lists the positive effects of exercise on higher mental functions, fighting depression, stress reduction, sleep cycles, and nutrition. Turns out that aerobic workouts 2-3 times a week really can make you feel dramatically better - if not high.

You Are What You Drink

Posted April 18th @ 2:54 pm by James Ledoux

Snapple Ingredient Image

Folks trying to lose weight spend a lot of time thinking about what they eat. It wasn’t until I stopped drinking sugary drinks that my progress really started to pick up. We touched on this topic in first episode the Talking fitness Podcast but it is worth repeating.

This graphic shows how something as innocuous as Snapple may be hiding lots of things you might not want to be drinking if you r are trying to lose weight. So the next time you reach for a drink, be sure that you check the label - your beverage choices may be undermining your hard work in the gym.

Via Graphjam

Now On iTunes

Posted April 18th @ 8:58 am by James Ledoux

Good news! The podcast can now be found on iTunes. I need to pimp out the RSS feed to provide a richer description and the show logo but we have arrived.

You can find it by searching for Talking Fitness or via the following iTunes Store URL:

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=277055906

I’ll be adding a Subscribe button later this weekend but wanted to share the news.

Please subscribe and post a review if you have a moment.

Episode 3 will be posted in the next 2-3 days.

Google Map Pedometer

Posted April 3rd @ 7:21 am by James Ledoux

My friend Paul, who is a much better runner than I am, recently shared a great online fitness resource. Whether you walk, jog, or run for fitness, knowing how far you have traveled is important. The Gmaps Pedometer lets you plan a route, save it, and export it for use with a GPS device - all with a few clicks of the mouse.

Of course you could also buy a real pedometer and use it during your workouts. I’m currently running/walking at Town Lake in Austin which is a great scenic spot with distance markers. But when I don’t have time to hit the trail around Town Lake the Gmap Pedometer will come in handy planing out quick workouts around the neighborhood.

Why Dirk Nowitzki’s Injury Is Worse Than It Should Be

Posted March 28th @ 2:37 pm by Brandon O'Connor

Why oh why do NBA, NFL, and players from other major sports leagues continue to tape their ankles? Do athletic trainers know anything about the function of joints and there surrounding tissues? Basically the body is a series of stacked joints that are either designed for mobility or stability. If you were to list the joints in the body from bottom to top it would look something like this:

  • Ankle-mobile
  • Knee-stable
  • Hips-mobile
  • Lumbar Spine-stable
  • Thoracic Spine-mobile
  • Cervical Spine-stable
  • Gleno-humeral-stable

So let’s go back to taping the ankle and how this caused a much greater injury to Dirk Nowitzki then it should have. The ankle’s function is to dorsi-flex and plantar-flex in the sagital plane. Although the ankle can move somewhat in the frontal plane and somewhat in the transverse plane it is not designed for extreme range of motion in either one. That is why when the ankle gets contorted in either of those planes (especially in a ballistic fashion like jumping and landing on someone’s foot) injury to the ligaments and other soft tissue occur. So after this injury occurred many times in sports especially in basketball athletic trainers and shoe manufacturers came up with the idea of creating more ankle support through taping ankles and creating shoes that really lock the foot and ankle into place. Now in theory this is a good idea but the more we learn about the body the less sense this makes.

Back to Nowitzki; All Seven feet two hundred sixty pounds go up for a lay up he gets tangled up with another player and comes down awkwardly on his ankle. Now if that ankle were not taped and his ankle was able to move naturally more than likely he would have still been injured with a traditional ankle sprain which is when the ligaments and soft tissue surrounding the lower part of the ankle get hyper extended and the soft tissue and ligaments become inflamed.

But because of the taping and the locked down basketball shoes the lowest part of the ankle cannot move upon impact so the first thing that can move does which is the highest part of the ankle. But because the highest part of the ankle can’t move all that well the force of the impact moves up the body and a joint that is not designed for mobility (the knee) is bent awkwardly as well. The result: High Ankle Sprain, Knee Sprain, out indefinitely. The same thing happened to Terrell Owens of the Cowboys this year. The high ankle sprain is so much worse than the traditional ankle sprain and takes much longer to heal.

So the next time you suit up to play basketball consider leaving you tape at home.

Reference: Boyle, M. 2006. Joint-by-Joint Approach to Training. Ptonthenet.com: Personal Training on the Net.

YouTube: Drik’s Injury Video

I Must Not Be Running The Right Way

Posted March 27th @ 2:29 pm by James Ledoux

NY Times Running Image

While I was a decent cross-country runner in high school I never felt the “runner’s high”. Running has always been something that I’ve done reluctantly. I don’t mind running within the context of another sport but I’ve never really loved running in and of itself.

But it turns out that running can, in fact, make you high as this NY Times article by Gina Nolata points out.

Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

Leading endorphin researchers not associated with the study said they accepted its findings.

My last few 2 1/4 mile runs left me feeling as if I’d been beaten with a stick - not high as a kite. I guess I’ve been running the wrong way my whole life - maybe I need some new shoes.

Via Lifehacker.com

How To Subscribe To Talking Fitness Podcast Via The RSS Feed

Posted March 25th @ 7:55 pm by James Ledoux

You can subscribe to the Talking Fitness podcast in iTunes using the RSS feed.

Simply use the following steps:

  1. Launch iTunes.
  2. In the Advanced menu, select Subscribe to Podcast.
  3. Enter the URL - http://talkingfitness.libsyn.com/rss in the text box.
  4. Click OK.

It is that easy. iTunes will then download new episodes of the podcast whenever we post them . And of course it is free! Can’t really beat our price to value ratio. Please let us know via the comments if you have any issues/questions about subscribing.

A Disturbing Trend

Posted March 24th @ 7:14 pm by Brandon O'Connor

Every time I walk into a commercial health club these days I keep noticing a disturbing trend. Personal Trainers having de-conditioned individuals doing all sorts of dynamic movements and stability exercises all in the name of functional training. I hate the word functional. It is the worst thing that ever happened to the fitness industry. I say this because most of the people who have marketed products, equipment, and training methods with the word functional attached to them are actually moving further, and further away from true function.

Let’s look at the word function. Webster’s Dictionary defines function as the kind of action or activity proper to a person, thing, or institution; the purpose for which something is designed or exists.

So let’s relate this definition to a “functional exercise” and the average client. The average client is typically de-conditioned, overweight, and has a terrible diet. The average client has limited movement skills and for the most part has limited or no athletic background. To most trainers a “functional exercise” is an exercise that forces a person to move in more than one plane of motion, integrates multiple muscle groups and typically has some sort of a balance demand. So if the average client has the average client goals of weight loss, getting stronger, and feeling better and no have little no prior exercise experience one would assume that the most basic of starting points would be the best viable option. But this is not the case for most “functional” minded trainers. They want their clients to be doing the cool exercises they just saw online, or on a DVD. So instead of starting the client off with basic movement patterns like squatting, hip extending, pushing, and pulling patterns they are having de-conditioned people squatting on bosu balls, doing pushups with rotation components, and combining lunges with pulling motions. Now for a well trained athletic individual these movements may have some benefits. But for the untrained beginner these movements are the furthest thing from functional.

From my experience even the most coordinated people have trouble doing basic saggital plane movements properly. Just look around any gym. I would be willing to bet anyone that I could walk into any gym any moment of the day and not see one person pulling or pushing properly. And these are people who typically pull and push day in day out, year in year out. Now I am hardly an advocate of dinosaur bodybuilder style routines or training. But I think that there has been an overreaction to the whole “functional” training trend.

There is a reason why most of the top trainers nationwide still teach Dead lifts, Squats, Dumbbell Chest Press, Pushups, Lat Pull downs, Rows and other basic exercises first. As well as basic core stability exercises like quadraplex, bridges, and planks. And this is because these exercises build strength and teach people how to move load properly as well as teaching the core how to function. And no matter what your goal those three things are always functional.

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