Jumping and Sprinting Improves Shot Put Performance

February 29, 2012 by jcissik

In the March issue of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, Terzis et al take a look at post activation potentiation (PAP) and the shot put.  The authors begin the article with an excellent review of the literature pointing out that there are inconsistencies in the literature about its effectiveness.  They hypothesize that these [...]

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The Squat Exercise, Part 4: Training the Squat

February 20, 2012 by jcissik

To get better at your squat, there are a few things that you need: 1. More muscle mass: The more muscle mass you have, the stronger you have the potential to be. It’s going to be important to increase your muscle mass to lay a foundation for strength gains. 2. Stronger legs and hips: Since [...]

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The Squat Exercise, Part 3: How To

February 19, 2012 by jcissik

The squat basically has three parts: set-up, the descent, and the ascent. The squat begins with you standing up with the bar on the back of your shoulders. Success in the lift begins right here. Where precisely you place the bar depends upon your make-up, placing the bar higher or lower on your back works [...]

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The Squat Exercise, Part 2: Dangers

February 18, 2012 by jcissik

We’ve probably all heard that squats are bad for the knees. This all comes from a classic study done in the 1960’s by a professor at the University of Texas named Karl Klein that looked at the impact of the “deep squat” exercise on the knees. The deep squat exercise (in his study) is where [...]

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The Squat Exercise: Part I, What it Does

February 16, 2012 by jcissik

The squat exercise is widely used in bodybuilding, weightlifting, athletics, powerlifting, strongman, and recreational training. It has an effect on the lower body, trunk/core, and total body strength unmatched by almost any other exercise. And yet, it is also one of the most misunderstood exercises largely due to a single study done over forty years [...]

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Strength Training for the Sprints: Practice vs. Theory

February 7, 2012 by jcissik

Leo Settle has written an old school article on strength training and sprinters. I call this old school because he is drawing heavily from some of the older material from Dintman, Ward, and Telez (circa Sports Speed) and Dunn and McGill (The Throws Manual). At the core of this article are two ideas. First, strength [...]

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Classic Article: Ozolin and the Speed Barrier

February 2, 2012 by jcissik

When it comes to the training of speed, we have a number of interesting tools. These include tools that make sprinting more difficult (i.e. resisted sprinting) and tools that allow the athlete to move his/her limbs faster than they’d normally be capable of (i.e. assisted sprinting). Resisted sprinting tools include things like sprinting on an [...]

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The Nervous System And Exercise: It May Be More Complicated Than We Think

February 1, 2012 by jcissik

Roger Enoka has been an interesting author and researcher for a number of years. He did an analysis of the pull in Olympic lifting that is a classic paper and also published an excellent textbook with Human Kinetics. He has a review article on fatigue in the February issue of the Journal of Biomechanics that [...]

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