www.MichaelReid.ca

Are you achieving maximum performance?

If you are serious about achieving maximum performance then you should know that you need to do the following:

1. Strength train - it does not matter what sport you play, strength training can help in a big way.
2. Sleep & Recovery - your body grows, heals and rejuvenates when you sleep.  Do you have aches and pains that do not seem to go away?  Maybe you are not getting enough GOOD sleep.
3. Food - what you put in your mouth matters.  Your food is the raw material that is going to be used to build your body.  You are what you eat.

Here is a good nutrition course offered by Dr. John Berardi.  The good doctor practices nutrition in clinical and research settings.  Simply sign up and get the course via email.

8 Day Nutrition Clinic

If you are a serious athlete then you will also educate yourself about all of the "things" that can make you better and nutrition is a huge one.

Be Well,
Mike Reid

Got Hops?

I currently work in a Basketball club and the number one question I get asked on a weekly basis is: 

"what can I do to jump higher?" 

Almost always, the athlete is looking for a quick fix or some secret exercise that is going to make them jump through the roof in a few short sessions.  If there was a "secret" exercise or program do they not think I would have them doing it?  There are no quick fixes, no special exercises although there are many bad exercises and absolutely no secrets.

With out getting to technical, jumping high is all about power which is a function of strength and speed.  Improve either one and your jumping will more then likely improve, improve both qualities and your jumping will improve for sure.

"what do I need to do?" the athlete will ask.

My 4 step guide to jumping high:

1. Get in the weight room and get strong with a focus on squats.  This is a very powerful exercise  and when done right your physical performance will go through the roof, done wrong it could      destroy your athletic career in one session!  Always master the body weight squat first.  Have a  professional coach teach you and to make sure you are doing it right.  Leave your ego at the door, a good coach will not allow serious external load to be used till you have mastered the body weight version.  To be able to squat efficiently you may also need to work on your flexibility (see the video below).
 
2. When playing your sport take time to practice your jumps.  If your sport is Basketball, then during water breaks or at the end of practice practice jumping for the rim or higher.  You should practice jumping off two feet and both left and right foot to develop balance in your body.

3. Work hard and be consistent.  Training hard for 1-2 weeks then slacking off for 1-2 weeks is not going to cut it.  If you are serious about improving then you must train on a weekly basis.

4. Get good sleep every night and eat good food to nourish your training.

Be Well,
Mike Reid

 

   

   

Mobile Phone Use & Cancer

This may very well be the new health concern in the years to come.  Before it was smoking, now it is obesity where all developed countries have yearly increased rates, in the future it could very well be mobile phone use and brain tumors.  Not good news and just like the association between smoking and lung cancer took many years to be accepted, mobile phone use could be the next epidemic and with approximately half of the worlds population using mobile phones this could be some serious S**T in the coming years.

Researches are seeing that with at least 10 years of consistent exposure to the radiation of a mobile phone many health symptoms begin to appear including brain tumors (1, 2)!

Dr. Mercola has a lot of information on his website and is a great resource for health information including this topic.  Below are links to some of Dr. Mercola's articles on mobile phones:

"If Mobile Phones Were a Type of Food, They Simply Would Not be Licensed"

Scientists Warn Congress About Cell Phones and Cancer

How Cellphone Radiation Affects Your Cells

Practical Advice to Limit Exposure to Electromagnetic Radiation Emitted from Cell Phones

(from University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute webpage)

1. Do not allow children to use a cell phone, except for emergencies. The developing organs of a fetus or child are the most likely to be sensitive to any possible effects of exposure to electromagnetic fields.
2. While communicating using your cell phone, try to keep the cell phone away from the body as much as possible. The amplitude of the electromagnetic field is one fourth the strength at a distance of two inches and fifty times lower at three feet. Whenever possible, use the speaker-phone mode or a wireless Bluetooth headset, which has less than 1/100th of the electromagnetic emission of a normal cell phone. Use of a hands-free ear piece attachment may also reduce exposures.
3. Avoid using your cell phone in places, like a bus, where you can passively expose others to your phone's electromagnetic fields.
4. Avoid carrying your cell phone on your body at all times. Do not keep it near your body at night such as under the pillow or on a bedside table, particularly if pregnant. You can also put it on “flight” or “off-line” mode, which stops electromagnetic emissions.
5. If you must carry your cell phone on you, make sure that the keypad is positioned toward your body and the back is positioned toward the outside so that the transmitted electromagnetic fields move away from your rather than through you.
6. Only use your cell phone to establish contact or for conversations lasting a few minutes, as the biological effects are directly related to the duration of exposure.
   For longer conversations, use a land line with a corded phone, not a cordless phone, which uses electromagnetic emitting technology similar to that of cell phones.
7. Switch sides regularly while communicating on your cell phone to spread out your exposure. Before putting your cell phone to the ear, wait until your correspondent has picked up. This limits the power of the electromagnetic field emitted near your ear and the duration of your exposure.
8. Avoid using your cell phone when the signal is weak or when moving at high speed, such as in a car or train, as this automatically increases power to a maximum as the phone repeatedly attempts to connect to a new relay antenna.
9. When possible, communicate via text messaging rather than making a call, limiting the duration of exposure and the proximity to the body.
10. Choose a device with the lowest SAR possible (SAR = Specific Absorption Rate, which is a measure of the strength of the magnetic field absorbed by the body). SAR ratings of contemporary phones by different manufacturers are available by searching for “sar ratings cell phones” on the internet.

Be Well,

Mike Reid

PS if you need to get hold of me, send me an email!

References:

Hardell L, Carlberg M, Söderqvist F, Mild K, Morgan L. Long-term use of cellular phones and brain tumours: increased risk associated with use for >10 years.  Occup Environ Med 2007;64:626–632.

Söderqvist F, Carlberg M & Hardell L.  Use of wireless telephones and self-reported health symptoms: a population-based study among Swedish adolescents aged 15–19 years.  Environmental Health 2008, 7:18    (PDF available online)

www.mercola.com

Want more studies?  Simply do a search on PubMed and you will find a lot of information.

"Trying times are not the times to stop trying."

-- Ray Owen, Writer

Comments:

Have you ever had a training session that was not going well or was just so challenging that you wanted to quite?  Well, those are trying times and if you keep going you will be stronger in more ways then just physically.  At certain times of the year I will actually design programs to put athletes face on with these trying times.  It usually consists of anaerobic endurance training and I usually use weight lifting exercises in a circuit to accomplish this.

Here is one circuit I have had the professional basketball players I work with do in the preseason for general conditioning.

• All exercises are performed for 60s work / 60s rest.
• Simply perform as many reps in that 60s; the reps do not have to be continuous, just add up what you get done in the 60s.
• At the end of the session, add up the total reps for each exercise then calculate a grand total.
• The next time you perform this circuit try to beat your grand total.
• Perform 5 rounds of this circuit which is a total of a 29 minutes.

Here is the circuit:

1. Back Squat - 65kg (very light touch to a low box so that depth is consistent with each rep)
2. Chin Ups - body weight; supinated grip
3. Push Ups - feet elevated on weight lifting bench

Here are some actual numbers from two of the athletes on the team:

Player 1 - guard (body weight = 75kg)

1. Back Squat - 65kg: 31, 24, 23, 22, 20 reps = 120
2. Chin Ups: 23, 18, 18, 15, 18 = 92
3. Push Ups: 47, 40, 35, 30, 31 = 183

grand total = 395 reps

Player 2 - power forward (body weight = 100kg)

1. Back Squat - 65kg: 31, 25, 23, 24, 20 = 123
   
2. Chin Ups: 18, 13, 13, 10, 12 = 66
   
3. Push Ups: 31, 31, 24, 23, 23 = 132

grand total = 311 reps

Both of the above players are real beasts when it comes to physical training. 

It is very interesting as a coach to watch these kind of sessions and see who drop offs once the going gets tough.  You quickly find out who the warriors on the team are.

Anyone want to give this a workout a go?  It is simple in its design but much harder then it looks.

Be Well,
Mike Reid

Lithuania: part III

In Lithuania they know that these are a powerful training tool.  The dumbbells, barbells, weight plates were free to use but the kettlebells or what are known as Girya's, were under lock and key! 

Like many weightlifting exercises, Kettlebells are a great training tool.  Use them properly with respect and your physical performance goes up.  Do them the wrong way and they can destroy your body in one training session.

The same thing goes for Squats, Dead Lifts and all the Olympic Lifts.  Respect the exercise, learn how to do them properly and leave your ego at the door.

Be Well,

Mike Reid

Lithuania: part II

Below are some pictures from the training camp in Lithuania.  You will notice how beautiful the gyms are but the locker rooms are less then desirable!  The last two pictures are from the locker room showers in one of the halls we practiced in. It was very interesting to me to see some parts of a building like the basketball court kept to such high standards but other areas in the same building were in complete ruin.  The pictures with the rope ladders and such are from an adventure park we went to just outside the city, this was really fun and was essentially climbing up trees and going through different obstacles to get from tree to tree.

Be Well,
Mike Reid

Lithuania: part I

I know, I know ... I have been bad, no blog entries for over a week!  I won't give an excuse but a reason; I have been in Lithuania with the Gothia Basketball team on a preseason training camp.  Not much of a reason but it is a country of the former USSR and when most hotels in other countries have internet, ours didn't.  Still pretty lame reason but I am sticking by it.

Even though Lithuania is not very far away from Gothenburg, it was a long 12 hours of travel each way.  We actually flew into Riga, Latvia which is a 4 hour bus trip from Kaunas where we were training plus we had to drive in cars to an airport near Stockholm for our flight.

Anyway, the trip was really good for the team, great practice halls, wood floors every where, very interesting "locker rooms" and we got to see Arvydas Sabonis scrimmage.

I will post pictures from the trip tomorrow.

Be Well,

Mike Reid