Month: April 2012

Speed Up Your Metabolism

Our body has a set of rules that we must abide by in order for it to act/react the way we want it to. If we follow these rules, we then will maximize our metabolic potential and burn more fat daily! If you are not seeing results…..you are not following the RULES

MELT Your Fat……Speed up your metabolism

 

What is Metabolism?  Metabolism is the rate at which your body burns calories!  Your metabolism is a direct result of how much muscle you have and how often you move that muscle.  The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn daily.

 

To speed up your metabolism, you can do 4 things.

  1. 1.    Increase the amount of lean muscular tissue on your body
  2. 2.  Move your muscles more often….. i.e.: EXERCISE
  3. 3.   Eat every 3 hours to keep your fire burning
  4. 4.  Drink water, drink water, drink water

 

 

Step 1: How do you add more Muscle? 

Exercise!  Don’t just go through the motions, actually push yourself.  Weight training will help you tone and strengthen your muscles.

 

Muscle is the most metabolically active tissue in the body.  It is alive and wants to be pushed.  The body will adapt to anything you ask it to do.  The more muscle you have – the more calories you burn.  This is why men burn more calories than women.  They have more muscle.

 

Not only does muscle help you burn fat at a faster rate, it also gives you your shape.  The muscle is what creates the curves in the shoulder, arms and legs.  Muscles do not need to be big to be strong!

 

SUMMARY:  Increase your muscle tissue and your body will burn fat much easier.

 

 

Step 2: Move your Muscle

A 5’4” women can about burn about 1200-1300 calories a day, just by waking up; even if she stays in bed all day.  Now, add some exercise and your calories expenditure goes through the roof.

 

One hour of Boot Camp training can burn over 700 calories.  However, it is not those calories which are most important.  It is the calories your body burns over the next 24 hours while it is working hard to repair your muscle tissue you broke down during exercise.

 

SUMMARY:  Exercise your muscles.  Movement increases your metabolism.

 

 

Step 3: Rest Your Body

Muscle is built when you are asleep.  Muscles need about 48 hours to recuperate fully.  That is why you should mix up your workouts.  Most injuries occur from overuse of the muscles.

 

Step 3: Eat Every 3 Hours

Every diet says “Eat 5 – 6 meals daily.  Why?  Your body runs on a 3 hour metabolic clock.  Every 3 ½ hours your body looks to you for instruction.  It wonders if you are going to feed it or if it should slow down and preserve energy (FAT).

 

Our ancestors grazed and ate every time they found food.  We were designed to eat every couple of hours and we cannot change the way we were built.

 

SUMMARY:  You need to break down your daily caloric intake into meals every 3 hours.

 

 

Want to lose weight? Create a Calorie deficit

You must burn more calories than you take in.

 

When you burn more calories than you take in – where does your body go to get the extra energy it needs? It takes it from body tissue…both fat and muscle.

 

Body fat is nothing more than a layer of energy that your body is storing.  We need to tap into the layer of energy that is lying on top of your metabolic engine.  Dieting without exercise will always slow down your metabolism

 

 

Tricks to help you reach your Metabolic Potential and live a healthy life!

Eat Breakfast: When you sleep our metabolism dies down. So, when you wake up in the morning, your metabolism is barely moving. So, to get your metabolism going in the morning, you must eat breakfast to kick start the fat burning process.

 

Eat Healthy: Eating healthy is the practice of eating whole, natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and complex carbohydrates. It also means staying away from man-made sugar, bad fats (hydrogenated, trans-fat), preservatives, white bread, and any other ingredients that are unnecessary. An easy way to remember if a food is clean is: “if man made it, don’t eat it.”

 

Stay hydrated: Water is crucial when it comes to improving athletic performance and weight loss. Everyone should strive to drink half their body weight in ounces of water daily.

 

Use Supplements: It is tough to get the nutrients we need to optimize performance, lose weight and stay as healthy as possible in our daily diet; therefore – we turn to supplements:

 

 

Our body has a set of rules that we must abide by in order for it to act/react the way we want it to.  If we follow these rules, we then will maximize our metabolic potential and burn more fat daily! If you are not seeing results…..you are not following the RULES

 

Speed Training for Young Athletes

What does speed mean? Running at a quick velocity is comprised of several bodily systems all working synergistically with each other –

Speed Training for Young Athletes

By: Brian J. Grasso www.DevelopingAthletics.com

Although running at a quickened pace appears to be an extremely simple concept, developing good speed is actually a very complex endeavor. Speed, agility and quickness are physical attributes that all athletes require regardless of the sport. In fact, speed camps and speed-based training programs are currently among the most popular and trendy activities within the youth sport industry. Are we teaching young athletes the proper application of speed?

What does speed mean? Running at a quick velocity is comprised of several bodily systems all working synergistically with each other –

  • Balance – Alternating rapid force production with one leg at a time in a linear motion can be likened to losing your balance and then regaining it in a successive fashion. Speed requires balance.
  • Core Stability – The core musculature is comprised of ALL muscles (major AND minor) from just below the pelvis to right around the scapula. All of these muscles need to be conditioned in order to maximize the potential speed of the young athlete. Speed requires core stability.
  • Eccentric Strength – Eccentric strength refers to the ability of a muscle to produce force while it is being elongated. During a running stride, every time an athletes foot comes back to the ground, the muscles in that leg are contracting eccentrically. The stronger the eccentric contraction, the quicker and more powerful the propulsion forward. Speed requires eccentric strength.
  • Fluidity of Motion – Sprinting requires the human body to move in a very relaxed and fluid motion. If fluidity of motion is not present, then the sprinting stride is labored and subsequently speed is reduced. Speed requires fluidity of motion.

One of my biggest concerns within the youth sporting world is when coaches and trainers use ‘adult style’ training strategies and equipment when working with young athletes. Understand that the above list represents some of the physical attributes necessary to produce good speed. Having said that, speed based camps could and most certainly should include training time for these aforementioned components. It is a very common misnomer that exists within the youth sporting world – to train speed, one must simply run fast; that is the exactly wrong thing to do.

When you first picked up a baseball, did you know how to throw it? If you progressed in baseball, you know that not only did you need to learn how to throw a baseball, but you likely received instruction for a long time, even into your adult years. NO athletic skill is done well without a certain degree of instruction. Think about it, Olympic sprinters have coaches don’t they? Moreover, they often hire consultants to teach them how to ‘clean-up’ their form in order to run faster. The fact is that running for speed is no different than any other athletic skill in that it is an involved endeavor with much technique which requires good coaching.

This leads us to a current problem with the very trendy “kids’ speed camps“. All to often, I watch coaches hook external apparatus up to their young athletes and proceed to ‘run’ them through a series of sprints. These external devices are either over-speed or resistance in nature and serve different purposes. Over-speed devices force the athlete to run a small percentage quicker than normal. The science behind this is that the nervous system will become accustom to that pace of firing or sequencing and will adapt (become faster). Resistance devices work to slow the athlete down. Their basic purpose is to create stronger muscular contractions through a running motion which would support those muscles becoming functionally stronger. Again, the end result is increased speed.

The problem lies in the fact that young athletes typically lack the functional strength to benefit heavily from this style of training. The core musculature in most kids, for example , will undoubtedly lack the ability to control the pelvis appropriately through either over-speed or resistance sprinting drills. Lost in the contemporary world of sport and fitness is the need to get back to basics. Simply put, if you want to get young athletes to run faster then TEACH THEM HOW. The biomechanics of most young athletes is wild at best and if coaches would concentrate on teaching kids how to move their bodies in a fluid manner then that would result in an exponential increase in speed within their athletes.

Bottom line – get back to basics. Stay away of fancy speed equipment and highly intensive strategies. Biomechanical concerns and fluidity of motion will have a much bigger and safe impact on the speed of your athletes.

Key points when developing speed in young athletes –

  • Speed is power. Optimal power requires dynamic flexibility. Teach kids how to stretch both statically AS WELL AS dynamically. Especially work on the dynamic flexibility of the shoulders and hips.
  • Do some unilateral strength training. Single leg squats (with the free leg held in different positions) is a great way to develop unilateral strength and stability. Unilateral strength and stability is a MUST for good sprinters.
  • Work on balance. Use games, un-stabilizing devices and anything you can think of to train the balance of a young athlete.
  • TONS of core strength. Train the core endlessly through both multi-joint and specific exercises.
  • In order to develop good eccentric strength, perform both in-place as well as movement based jumps. Don’t get caught up in ‘plyometrics’ – another great catch phrase. Have kids jump, gain their balance and then jump again. Be more concerned with body mechanics and execution than height, distance or speed.
  • Teach kids HOW TO RUN. Break down the mechanics and show them how to become fluid. Bad mechanics means wasted energy and reduced speed.

Don’t get caught up with coaches who have all the latest gadgets and toys. To increase your speed, all you need is a willing athlete, a park or track and a coach with some know how.
Brian Grasso President – Developing Athletics
Director of Athlete Development – Sports Academy Northwest

Brian Grasso and Developing Athletics are the world leaders at providing educational literature to coaches, parents and athletes on the concepts of functional conditioning and athletic development.