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Lead Stories: Saturday, September 6, 2008

Jon Rankin: Training to Become An Olympian
(Elite Athlete Blog - Entry #2)

Posted December 19th, 2007 at 1:00 PM by Jon Rankin

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics, Elite Athlete Blogs, Jon Rankin

Welcome to the official blog of rising U.S. track & field star
Jon Rankin; the inaugural member of TheFinalSprint.com’s
Elite Athlete Blog Series. Make sure to check back every other Wednesday for Jon’s latest entry.

Hi everyone. I hope this entry finds all of you happy and healthy this holiday season. I am writing this entry while I sit on my bed feeling terribly sore. Yesterday, December 17th, twenty of us athletes from the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, CA experienced something that will forever change our perspectives on mental toughness and limitations: we spent the day going through the BUD/S Navy Seal training course

The day started off with all of us getting up at 4:30 AM. We departed at 5:10 AM for the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado, CA. We couldn’t arrive late because to keep the instructors waiting would have made an already-hard day that much harder. They would already be yelling at us and putting us through the worst day, psychologically, of our lives. So we left really early to avoid being late and start off on the wrong foot.
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Q & A: Is stretching helpful or harmful for exercisers?

Posted November 30th, 2007 at 2:12 PM by Andrew Goodman

Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise

Stretching the leg muscles improves muscle flexibility and strength, running speed, and jumping distance, according to a study from Louisiana State University (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, October 2007).

Stretching elongates muscles and tendons. Longer tendons allow muscles to exert a greater torque on the joint to exert more power to help you lift heavier, jump higher and run faster.

However, other studies show that you should not stretch before a competition involving speed and strength (Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies, April 2006). The longer the athletes stretched, the weaker they became. Prolonged stretching fatigues muscle fibers so that they contract with reduced force.
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Q&A: Are hot tubs and saunas helpful or harmful?

Posted November 1st, 2007 at 8:15 PM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: Health & Fitness, Injury & Rehab, Exercise

For many years I have believed that heating muscles in a whirlpool or sauna after exercise interferes with muscle contractions and hampers muscular endurance.

However, a study from the University of Otago in New Zealand shows that taking a sauna after workouts for three weeks helped athletes to exercise longer to exhaustion (Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, Sports Medicine Australia, August 2007).

Trained runners sat in a humid sauna for 30 minutes at 89.9 degrees centigrade immediately after exercising, 12 times in three weeks. They then ran as hard as they could on a treadmill for about 15 minutes, to exhaustion.
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Interval Training on Consecutive Days

Posted October 15th, 2007 at 11:45 AM by Martha Jones

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Health & Fitness, Exercise

The faster an athlete moves in training, the faster he or she will be able to move during competition. So athletes use a training technique called interval training in which they run, cycle, skate, ski or swim very fast for a short time. When they become severely short of breath, they slow down until they recover, and then move very fast again.

Researchers at Ithaca College showed that athletes can gain as much by doing this type of intense interval training on consecutive days as on alternate days (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, September 2007).

Interval training causes considerable muscle damage, so it usually leaves athletes sore the next day. Most trainers recommend exercising at a slower pace until the soreness disappears. That is why athletes usually follow each intense day with one or more easy days.

However, many competitions require an athlete to exercise flat out for several consecutive days. He/She may have to compete in multiple preliminary heats over several consecutive days to reach the finals.
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Results in less than 5 minutes: The Tabata Method

Posted July 13th, 2007 at 7:19 PM by Adam Jacobs

Section: Health & Fitness, Exercise

The following article is written by HesFit.com writer Stephen Antel.

It looks easy on paper: 20 seconds of exercise, followed by 10 seconds rest, for 4 minutes total. A workout that claims to melt fat, increase your aerobic and anaerobic thresholds, can be done with little or no equipment, and can be done in less than 5 minutes? It almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? Well, such a ‘program’ does exist, and it’s called the Tabata method.

The Tabata method is named after Dr. Izumi Tabata. Dr. Tabata conducted several studies to determine the effectiveness of high intensity interval training on sports conditioning. He compared standard HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) using 30 seconds of intense exercise with 2 minutes rest to a protocol that had shorter bouts of exercise and rest periods with 20 seconds of intense exercise with 10 seconds rest. What his findings revealed was that standard HIIT, while effective at increasing aerobic capacity (sessions of exercise over 3 minutes), did little to increase anaerobic capacity (intense exercise of less than 3 minutes). The Tabata method, as it was later named, showed marked increases in both aerobic and anaerobic capacities.

Read the rest at our partner site: HesFit.com

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TFS Review: Trigger Point (TP) Stability PODS

Posted May 28th, 2007 at 4:00 PM by Paul Petersen

Section: Gear & Apparel, Product Reviews, Exercise Equipment, Special Features, TFS Reviews

Trigger Point Technologies hit a home run with their TP Massage toolkit, which is designed to release trigger points, restore muscle elasticity, and improve biomechanics for runners, cyclists, and other athletes. For me, TP massage as been key component of returning my body to health and my recent rise in running performance (Also see my full review on the TP Massage Ball).

Another oft-overlooked aspect of injury prevention, performance, and biomechanics is core strength. Many runners will be willing to train for hours and hours each week, but fail to put any time into improving their core — the result of this neglect is sometimes poor biomechanics that propagate into injury.

While actively recovering from my barrage of injuries in 2006, I dedicated myself to improving core strength, both during physical therapy and at home. From wobble boards and stability balls, to simple crunches and bridge exercises, I consistently invested about 15 minutes per day into my core muscles. And it has been time well spent, as I have logged over 1400 miles in 5 months and set several big PR’s…all while staying injury-free.

The TP Stability PODS are designed to increase core strength through challenging balance and symmetry. They come as a set of three different-sized, concave, foam…er…pods (for the lack of a better description). The differential heights of the three pods represent three difficulty levels (I, II, and III). In other words, it is much harder to find balance with the tallest pod than with the shortest pod, which engages greater work in the core muscles.
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Running Strength

Posted March 11th, 2007 at 10:21 AM by Jim Fortner

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.

Running strength isn’t quite as definitive as VO2max or LT. It’s a bit ambiguous. However, as I view it, it has two components … physiological and psychological.

The physiological component is related to running economy, but it is also different. I think of both running strength and running economy as sub-elements of a broader subject that I call running efficiency.

Running economy is a measure of how efficiently you use oxygen while running at a specific pace. Improving running economy means that you can physiologically sustain a faster pace at a given percentage of VO2max, or a given pace at a lower percentage of VO2max, for a longer distance.
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Switch it up and challenge yourself with a trail running adventure!

Posted January 22nd, 2007 at 2:30 PM by Kathryn Magro

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips, Cross Training, Health & Fitness, Exercise

We’ve all experienced that day when we finally grow tired of seeing the same houses and landmarks along our running route. What’s a runner to do? Fear no more! Add some excitement, change your scenery, enjoy nature and increase your workout intensity by trying: Trail Running!

Trail running typically takes place on hills, mountains, hiking paths, etc - and is exponentially growing in popularity among runners, triathletes, hikers and other athletes. As a matter of fact, there are now approximately 6.5 million regular trail runners in the United States. The main allures of trail running comes from the more challenging and scenic courses. Constant changes in terrain are common; therefore, proper training and equipment are recommended before participating in any sort of formal races or events.
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Benefits of hill training & inclined runs

Posted December 2nd, 2006 at 11:00 AM by Jenna Sumara

Section: Running & Training, Training Tips

Many runners avoid hills like the plague. When mapping out routes for training runs or even races to run in, runners will stay as far away as possible from anything that even remotely resembles an incline. Often, if faced with no choice but to run the hill, runners will choose to walk it and reserve energy for the remainder (and flatter!) position of the route or course. While it’s true that hills can provide difficult, and even sometimes dangerous, challenges - runners can also derive tremendous benefits from the occasional hill workout. Read the rest of this entry »

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iTrain lets you train

Posted July 27th, 2006 at 11:49 AM by Adam Berger

Section: Gear & Apparel, Gadgets & Acces., Miscellaneous, Motivation, Music

Always wanted a personal trainer but just couldn’t shell out the extra $50 per workout? What if getting a personal trainer was as easy as making a new playlist in iTunes?

A new addition to the iPod craze has spawned - the iTrain, it allows users to download personalized workout information straight to their MP3 player. Workout choices include: iTrain, iClimb, iTread, iCycle, and iStrength, for other options visit their website. A yearly workout package runs for $49.99, a monthly for $9.99, or if you’d like, get a sampler for under $1.00 per workout.

Now while this won’t get you to the gym, it may help you stay there longer and for much cheaper than a personal trainer.

[Written by Natalie Mayslich]
Read [Chip Chick]
Via [Gadgetell]

This review / post is also linked on the iTrain website under “News & Press”

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