A new training video has been posted onto Youtube. This is a video I took recently with three women I train, all of whom are mothers! They love training on the prowler and pushing themselves to the limit both mentally and physically. Enjoy the training!
Congrats to Amanda Hottenstein and Trevor Stutzman. Amanda placed 2nd in the PIAA AAA shot put and 6th in the discus! She had a great season and was recently voted co-athlete of the year for Berks County track and field. Amanda dominated the entire season from start to finish, she is still up in the air on where she wants to attend college.
Trevor Stutzman endured a tough a state meet. He threw well in the javelin and finished 13th. On the second day of competition he was slated to perform in the discus. He threw ok but he did not have enough to make the finals and ended up in 11th place in the discus. Trevor was still an All-County discus thrower and will return next year for his senior season. Congrats to both!
This past weekend was quite busy. Friday I spent most of the day driving a hiker to the Appalachian Trail and then heading to Shippensburg to watch the district track meet. Two of my throwers, Amanda Hottenstein and Trevor Stutzman went on to qualify for the state track and field meet held next week. Amanda won the shot put and hit the qualifier in the discus while Trevor placed second in the javelin and 3rd in the discus. He also pr’d in the shot put and placed 5th but missed the qualifying mark.
Two Garage Strength boxers, Van Oscar Penovaroff and Travis Kauffman also were victorious this weekend. Travis won by TKO in the 2nd over Chris Koval and may be in line for a fight on Friday Night Fights on ESPN. Van won by brutal KO in the 3rd. I will post pictures tomorrow!
Get your brain moving in the morning. Throw some eggs in the cast iron pan and eat some ground grass fed beef. The eggs contain some choline to wake up your brain along with the carnitine found in the beef. Follow that up with some raw yogurt and black walnuts. Fueling your brain at breakfast is the most important part to having an energy packed day!
Also, as the day goes along, try to get a mid afternoon nap. Wake up and have a glass of raw kefir with rhodiola to calm down the nervous system!
The best known way to increase potentiation (to enhance or increase the effect of force output) is to utilize proper activity prior to the actual lifting of the weight. In Roger Enoka’s book, “Neuromechanics of Human Movement,” he describes the effect of post tetantic potentiation as “a twitch elicited in a resting muscle does not represent the maximal twitch.” (pg. 391) According to Enoka, muscular twitch force is maximal following a brief tetanus or stimulation. One study showed an increase in strength after tetanus in the realm of 5% to 140%. I believe the discrepancy in strength increase is based off the muscle fiber make up of the subjects studied. Fast twitch muscle fibers tend to ellicit a greater potentiation response than do slow twitch fibers. Therefore, slow twitch individuals (distance runners) may not respond to eccentric hook training as well as fast twitch individuals (shot putters).
As you can see in the video (Eccentric Hook Video), the hooks provide a strong muscular contraction on the eccentric portion of the lift. When the hooks are released from the bar a more powerful muscular contraction is achieved due to the effects of post-tetantic potentiation. There are even further benefits to training with the hooks. Higher threshold motor units are recruited and thus trained/fatigued. Vladimir Zatsiorsky, sport scientist at Penn State and author of “Science and Practice of Strength Training”, has made it clear that to reap the benefits of high threshold units, they MUST be trained and fatigued (pg. 86). Hooks train high threshold motor units, they fatigue the high MU’s and dramatically improve maximal strength.
Please Note: These strength gains are related primarily to maximal strength. Shot putters or fast twitch fiber type may respond well to this training but this does not mean this training is necessary for their sport. Long Jumpers experience large eccentric forces, so it may work at times for them but for individuals such as shot putters and discus throwers and hammer throwers, special strength takes priority over maximal strength.