If you compete in any sport you probably would have
experienced a hamstring strain.  It hasbeen
quoted in research to have one of the highest injury rates in all sports, that
is for non contact injuries…knee ligament and cartilage injuries from contacting
someone or something else are even more common.

I have been pretty quite over the past few months as I’ve
been working on completing my Masters degree…to do this I just need to do my thesis.

I have to admit that it has been really difficult getting back
into the academic way of writing (it looks so different to how I ‘chat’ here)
but I have really enjoyed delving deeper in to my chosen piece of research.

I could off completed this a few years ago if I’d got involved
with some of the current research the university was doing but I really wanted
to do something that was useful to me.

So I started looking at some of the people I had dealings with
and what I could do for them as a piece of research….it’s really a case study
as it only involves one person but you get the point.

As an ‘in the trenches’ fitness professional, I had worked with
people in the rehab of many injuries and one person in particular had a problem
that I thought we could really look to put right.

As I said hamstring injuries are wide spread in sports and this
guy, who was a 200m sprinter, has had a long term hamstring strain that stops
him performing at the level he was (i.e. he is slower) and gives him some mild
pain when sprinting.

So I got to work looking at all the research on long term hamstring
strain and also how to try preventing hamstring injuries.

Now to be more precise for any techies out there he has a chronic
tendonopathy of his left hamstring at the origin.

In other words he has a problem with his hamstring tendon at
the bottom of his butt and it has been around for a long time.

With out doubt the most amount of positive research out there
has been designed around protocols that used a lot of eccentric training.

An eccentric muscle action is described as when a muscle is lengthening
under tension.  So an easy way to remember this is to think about gravity –
every time the weight moves towards the floor is an eccentric movement.

So when you squat your hamstrings and bottom eccentrically
lengthen (if they didn’t you’d just collapse the floor) as you move down.

If you are doing it on a machine where you have to put a pin
in then again it is when the weight stack is moving down.

So here I had a problem with my research.

Finding a training protocol that could be carried out in a gym,
and not need specialist pieces of equipment costing tens of thousands, was extremely
hard.

I did it finally and really think I have put something special
together.

Next time I’ll be sharing with you the exact make up and look
of the particular program.

Until then, remember,

Train hard, train smart, make every rep count!

Alex

Tweet This Post

This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson. I have his permission to share it with you.

Below are two videos. Watch them if you dare.

Then, by all means… take action.

Part 1

Part 2

Put an END to this! Grab the book below…

Tweet This Post

This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson. I have his permission to share it with you.

A Candle In A Dark Week

Unless you hitched a ride on NASA’s Lunar Orbiter, you’ve heard the news.

In a single day, we lost two people that almost everyone in this country, if not this world, felt as if they knew personally.

In the same week, there was a candle flickering in the darkness.

A candle fueled by science. By research.

By hope.

We lost Farrah Fawcett to cancer. But this week a promising new cancer drug has a large number of folks highly optimistic.

And of course we lost Michael Jackson. We don’t know why yet. I wonder if we ever will.

But still, the candle burns.

The light here is a light of reckoning. A light that says, “You are but dust in the wind.” To dust, we return.

In a sense, at least.

You are also the stuff of stars.

I’m not talking about movie stars — I mean literal stars.

The inspiration for this article comes from one of my personal heroes, Carl Sagan. In his brilliant book, A Demon-Haunted World, Carl brings is wit, intelligence and sobriety to bear on the candle in the dark — science.

Science has helped liberate us from the dark ages, literally.

Science has cured more people in a single generation than all the wars in “history” have taken. Can you believe it?

During this dark week, science enabled us to launch the most sophisticated lunar probe in history to the moon.

And science will eventually find a cure for that monster we call cancer.

But science may never find a cure for what killed the King of Pop.

You see, I don’t think it is as simple as it seems. It may be. Who knows. But I think Jackson died of loneliness and self-abuse.

It just took time.

That, combined with stress (the number-one killer in the world) is enough to do anyone in.

The candle in the dark? Managing your health is really under your control… more than you think. That includes your mind.

Not totally, but in a few years, who knows.

That’s a candle that burns bright to me.

Brighter than the sun.

A bit of honesty:

My first thought upon hearing Jackson died was, “Wow. Too young. How?”

I’ve always recognized his contribution to music, but I’ve never been “attached” as a fan per-se.

When Kurt Cobain died, I cried. When Gene Roddenberry died, I cried. I cry every time I watch the end of “Contact” that just says, “For Carl.”

When Michael died, I shook my head in disbelief, skepticism, and reflection.

My candle was burning at both ends, I suppose.

How fragile we are. Yet, like Sagan loved to say, we are all “starstuff.” Literally.

Every atom in your body with the exception of hydrogen can be traced to a red star, billions of years old.

That makes me hang my head in utter awe. How beautiful, yet how chaotic our universe and our lives seem to be.

The reason I do what I do is not to try and extend “just years” to your life — it’s to help you make your life the best it can be.

To extend the healthy, happy, joyful aspects of your life.

To give you the candle in the dark called “self-management”.

Your time can come in a snap of a finger. In a breath, your light can go out.

But until then, I urge you to fight the good fight.

And keep your candle lit for all the world to see.

Fit Bits: This Will Kill You. Really.

Inflammation.

That’s the ticket. That’s the answer.

That’s what you must address if you want to live a longer and more productive, healthy life. No ifs, ands or buts.

Inflammation is caused by insulin resistance, among other things.

I’ve decided to share this week’s Fit Bits with you in an entertaining video I made called “Low Carb Lunacy.”

Get ready for the facts like you’ve never seen them before…

Please press the Play button to start the video. Thanks!

P.S. For those of you who really want to take charge of your health, I do encourage you to adopt a dietary plan you can live with. The best I know of is found below.

The Every Other Day Diet     Lose Weight. Lower Inflammation!

Tweet This Post

This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson. I have his permission to share it with you.

In this video I hope to shed some light on some provocative issues. First, craving fatty, sugary, high-calorie foods is not your fault. However, it is your responsibility—you have to learn to manage this vestibule pattern passed down through generations of DNA.

I have included a transcription of the video below. Enjoy!

Note: Thanks to too many years in scuba, I continually say “vestibular” in the video. The correct term of course is vestigial. But other than that… ; )

Please press the Play button to start the video…

Note: You can learn more about how to escape the “vestigial loop” covered in this video while still eating your favorite foods and losing all the weight you want by picking up my book The Ever Other Day Diet below…

TRANSCRIPTION

Hi, Jon Benson from Jon Benson Fitness dot com. Again, excuse the video-less video… my iCam is busted, but I’m getting it fixed this weekend.

If you missed the first video in this series, “Low Carb Lunacy”, be sure to check that out. Link below:

Low Carb Lunacy Video

Fat is not your fault.

Craving foods high in fat is not your fault.

Craving foods high in sugar is not your fault.

Craving high-calorie foods is not your fault.

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Well, it’s a biological and evolutionary fact.

BUT….

Guess what.

Just as a ruptured appendix is not your fault, it’s damn well your responsibility.

Just as your appendix is primarily useless; a vestigial organ no longer required for daily function, so is… yep.

Your cravings for sugar, fat, and calories.

Picture yourself living on the Savannah countless thousands of years ago. Everything you ate you either hunted or gathered—and for most of your days hunting was far more rewarded by your clan and by the females than gathering.

Gathering was the sign of a poor hunter. In fact, there’s an old joke: Vegetarian in the Cherokee tongue means Bad Hunter.

Turns out there may be more to this joke than you think.

On the Savannah, you might go days without food. Hunger and discomfort was associated mentally with “gathering” — picking up second choice. Is it any wonder so many of us as children seem to have a built-in aversion to vegetables? Our ancestors probably viewed what little vegetables were available during the warmer seasons as scraps from a table — not nearly enough calories, protein or fat to sustain themselves against the ravages of the day.

But bring home a nice tiger or lean game and presto: Hero status. The clan celebrated. The women swooned (great hunters were like rock stars in that day, or so I can imagine.) And the clan ate like crazy. Why? Who knew when the next high-fat, high protein, super-filling meal would come?

Folks, this same pattern, now just a vestigial mental organ if you will, is very much alive in your DNA. The problem? That tiger is now conveniently packed in your grocery’s freezer section. You may expend about 75 calories driving to the store, picking up a nice fatted piece of beef, drive home, cook it, and serve it. Hardly worthy of lavish praises from the female in your “clan”… but again, that genetic memory is a monster. It kicks in. The “provider” is still “worshiped” in the recesses of your DNA guys.

Unfortunately, it’s now a matter of economics, not hunting prowess. And being good with money rarely entails expending calories. So, that same drive to collect high-calorie, high-fat, energy-sustaining food is all but useless in today’s evolved society.

Same with sugars. When sweet fruits were in season on the Savannah, they provided the energy needed for the hunt. They tasted great. They were, as some anthropologists suggest, a type of early aphrodisiac. Sugar can trigger powerful “feel good” hormones, especially in its refined form. So, if you cannot eat filling food, how about a quick fix of feel good food?

Again, you were rewarded for this, albeit probably not as much — and definitely in different ways — back on the Savannah.

So you’re bucking eons of societal evolution folks… countless thousands of years of how humans ate, every time you sense hunger. Every. Single. Time.

Only now, everything is at your fingertips. Ladies, you no longer need a “hunter” — you can “hunt” for yourselves. Unfortunately you expend far less calories than males, both then and now. Some theorize than the females were responsible for preparing the meals. that, in and of itself, was very demanding calorically. Now… er… not so much. Guys, the hunt is over. All that’s left is brining in the cash to pay for the meals — one of the reasons, btw, many psychologists believe women are attracted to security of wealth. Yep — it all goes back to the hunting fields.

The obvious problem is that we now have these foods — but we have them at our fingertips and we have them on steroids multiplied by infinity. Our sugars are 100x sweeter than any fruit ancient man could have ever tasted. Our beef is loaded with hormones and unhealthy altered fats never known in the ancient world.

But our vestigial cravings are still there.

So, while craving foods that are high in sugar and fat makes perfect biological sense, it is no different than your appendix. It is a useless vestigial organ if you will, and it must be removed.

That part is your responsibility. It is the price we pay for societal evolution. But you can do it. As we’ve evolved, we’ve also become far more intelligent. More aware of our actions and their consequences. And we can fool the body quite nicely into thinking it has all the nutrients it needs.

I cover more about how to trick the body out of this historical “loop” of hunter/gatherism in my book The Every Other Day Diet…

Think about it. Comment below. Let me know if this resonates with you at all.

Thanks.

Tweet This Post

This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson. I have his permission to share it with you.

Please press the Play button to begin the audio. Thanks!

Related Product:

Tweet This Post

[ Note: This guest blog post was written by fitness and nutrition author Jon Benson. I have his permission to share it with you. ]

Please press the Play button to begin the audio. Thanks!

Related Product:

Tweet This Post