Goodbye Coffee..

How i will miss thee. At least for a few weeks.

Living here in the Pacific Northwest i can’t step out of my house without passing by a coffee shop. There is literally a Starbucks on every corner. I have seen them outside of grocery stores, and inside the store there will be another Starbucks kiosk. Portland has a lot of good coffee roasters, the most popular probably being Stumptown Coffee. Its great fun buying a different brand of beans every week and trying new roasts. I have at least three to four different implements for brewing coffee.

But i have been drinking to much of it lately. Working in an office i often get bored, and what better thing to do then walk five minutes to the coffee shop. In addition i received a bunch of Starbucks gift cards and went kind of crazy with them, buying a coffee in the morning, then a four shot espresso later on at lunch, then perhaps one towards the end of the day when i was getting tired.

So i need to get my system back to normal. From what i understand coffee ilicts a flight or fight response in your body, and gradually wears out your adrenal glands. Four shot espresso drinks i assume only speed that proccess up. For the past few weeks i have been feeling tired alot, can’t recover from exercise, and generally feel ready to go to bed around nine o clock. My nutrition is pretty good and i get enough sleep. So starting this Friday i am going to cut out coffee completely for a few weeks. I am starting it on a three day weekend so if i have to can lay in bed all day. My mother in law says my wife should go on a vacation for a few days, and i think i agree with her. I probably won’t be the most cheerful person.

But hopefully that should bring my adrenal levels back to normal, give me more energy, and then later on i can work it back in, though perhaps only one to two cups a day.

Wish me luck

Anton

Explosive Strength

Explosive strength is widely regarded as being the type of strength that carries over most usefully into sport. Kicking, punching, going for a takedown, or rushing in for a tackle all involve explosive strength. Its that ability to generate force in minimal time and distance that is so important.

Having a large amount of maximal strength (how much strength one can produce for a single repetition) is very useful, but often times the strongest athletes are not the most explosive athletes. I have wrestled people who i am bigger and stronger than, but they are very hard to control due to their explosion.

There are many different ways to develop explosive strength. Many people use the olympic lifts such as the snatch and clean and jerk. O-lifters are among the most explosive athletes in the world, hoisting hundreds of pounds above their head in the blink of an eye. However, the O-lifts are somewhat technical in nature and require some formal instruction and plenty of practice to become competent with. They are definitely not out of anyones reach however. You just need to factor them in relation to your other training goals. As a grappler i might dedicate one workout a week to explosive strength, using some of the olympic lifts, but not using maximal loads and perhaps catching in the “power” position, which is not going down to a full squat.

If you don’t want to delve in to the O-lifts there are plenty of other options. Clapping pushups, jumping squats, and explosive pullups where your hands leave the bar at the top are a few examples. Box jumps, medicine ball slams, sandbag or keg shouldering would also work well. When putting together a explosive strength training routine be sure to keep the reps low enough so you can put forth maximal power with each effort, don’t turn it into a conditioning routine.

People new to training or clients who are overweight shouldn’t start in on explosive exercises right away. The joints, ligaments, and tendons are not ready for the impact. An athlete should be able to do at least 50 push ups and 50 air squats before tackling explosive exercises.

Anton

A start

Well here is my start at a fitness/grappling/healthy lifestyle blog. I enjoy talking about all aspects of exercise to people, whether they are just starting to workout or want to improve their strength and conditioning for a certain sport. I figured having a place on the net dicuss those things, post articles, etc that are interesting would be fun.

anton