Speed, Strength & Conditioning, Personal training & Fitness Class Training Video Montage 7/22-7/28

Last week was a big week for the Spot Athletics.  Hilliard Darby and Dublin Scioto girls volleyball both finished up with their summer training and tested out.  Both teams had dramatic increases in their strength, speed and explosiveness.  Probably why they are busting out big numbers on the deadlift in the video!  Our college athletes are also finishing up for the summer, ready to move onto the next level, where we expect them to excel because of all the hard work they have put in this summer.  Personal training clients are working hard and seeing results.  How many training facilities do you know of where the clientele are beasting up atlas stones?  Our Metcon classes are also growing!  The word is getting out and people can't get enough.  Come in and check out a class soon, it is filling up quickly!  Finally, our coaches are all getting ready for upcoming contests this fall.  We train to compete, because we are all athletes ourselves.  We believe that if we can't walk the walk, how can we ask our athletes to?  So check out last week's training, share and enjoy!

Your nutrition questions answered: is the ALF diet right for you?

Nutrition Questions Answered Part 2 by Nic Bronkall BS, CSCS

Last week I posted on our facebook wall asking what your top nutrition questions were. Well here are your questions answered to the best of my professional ability. These recommendations are not medical guidelines but are for educational purposes only. You must consult your physician if you have any medical condition or injury that contraindicates physical activity and certian dietary guidelines. Now do not take my responses as the end all be all. Question everything, use what is useful and get ride of what is useless!

What is the best way for me to study up on and understand macro (maybe micro) nutrients?

Either use google, buy a biochemistry book or purchase Knowledge and Nonsense by Jamie Hale http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?m=PD&cid=136&pid=2543This book has a lot from basic nutrition to the sicience behind popular diets to kinesiology and biomechanics.

How do you beat the belly bulge?

I’m assuming the belly bulge is lower abdominal adipose tissue. This is usually the hardest to place to get rid of fat. You can workout as much as you want but you can’t out lift a fork. Meaning if your diet isn’t on point (lots of junk processed food along with alcohol) you will never beat the bulge.

I really like this milk, I don't eat red meat and not eating fish often. I first bought it because I saw it had the B12 and Folic acid in it. I think it has some good fats in it, am I looking at the right? I am however drinking the vanilla, which has rice syrup in it, but that is the one I like. Also a little afraid I will test positive in a drug test, but I still like it. What do you think of the nutritional value in this milk?

First issue here is that you don’t eat red meat and fish. That needs to be fixed in your diet now. But your question was on hemp milk. I’ve never had it. There are a lot of vitamins and minerals in it. Also, it doesn’t contain high levels of enzyme inhibitors or oligosaccharides. There really isn’t a lot of fat in hempmilk per serving. According to the link you provided me there is 6g per serving 4.5g coming from polyunsaturated. I’d rather see somebody have more grassfed beef and salmon in their diet to get their healthy fats. I wouldn’t be afraid of testing positive in a drug test. It’s a good replacement for milk but I wouldn’t use it as your main source of fat and other nutrients.

When looking to put on size and strength what numbers should you follow for macros (carb, protein and fats). I see all of the diets like carbnite, carb backloading but never took the bait. The goal would be to lose fat if possible while trying to maximize muscle gain?

There are a lot of variabilities in such a broad questions as this. How long have you been lifting? How many days a week do you train? How long do you train? What’s your current body weight? What is your current body fat percentage? Are you trying to be a bodybuilder or are you trying to be as strong as possible? Just eat healthy and train hard. Lots of eggs, red meat, fish and healthy carbs. The goal is to be consistent and eat healthy.

Are Omega 3 gel capsules good for men over 45 to take?

I was unable to find any studies or research to say it was bad for men over 45 to take. Just make sure the Omega 3 gel capsules you take have a purity of at least 50%. To calculate the purity of fish oil, divide the amount of combined EPA and DHA by the total amount of fat in a serving size.

Example

Brand A has .18 grams of EPA and .12 grams of DHA per 1 gram capsule.

.18 + .12 = .3 grams (300 mg)

.3/1g (amount of fat per serving/capsule)=.3 or 30%

Brand B has .65 grams of EPA + .45 grams of DHA per 1 gram capsule

.65+.45=1.1 grams (1100mg)

1.1g/2g = .55 or 55%

Also make sure you are eating meats that are high in omega 3’s

Is my cannibalistic lifestyle harmful or helpful?

Depends. Harmful or helpful to who?

Would you recommend Alf's alternative diet that consists primarily of cats? If so, are there any specific breeds? i.e. - calico, siamese, or (my favorite) ragamuffin?

Yes I am a big fan of Alf’s alternative diet that consists primarily of cats. It leads to unbelievable muscle gains and keeps the fat off. Science isn’t caught up to it yet but cat in copious amounts is recommended. I am a big fan of the ragamuffin.

 

This is obviously a joke. If you don’t know who Alf is youtube him.

Well there are the questions you asked and I answered! Remember these are my opinions and thoughts based on my experience and studies. Question everything I said. If you have any other questions on training, nutrition or how you can just be more awesome please do not hesitate to ask!

Speed, Strength & Conditioning, Personal training & Fitness Class Training Video Montage 7/14-7/20

It was another week of records being broken and set.  Spot Athletics strength and conditioning athletes are putting in the time, and getting results.  Our summer volleyball teams are working hard.  Dublin Scioto was pulling big deadlifts, while Hilliard Darby was bench pressing big weight!  We also had the jiu jitsu fighters from GFTeam in here, working hard to maintain their statuses as world champions.  Our personal training clients were sweating hard and seeing results.... while they're getting stronger and healthier, the body fat keeps dropping! Our Kids Athletic Ability Training (K.A.A.T) program had kids putting in some hard work to help them build a solid foundation for their future athletic careers.  Finally, our coaches were working hard on their own training.  If your coaches aren't walking the walk, then how can they expect you to?  Great job to all of our clients!

Personal training, Strength and Conditioning, and Met Con class clients from the week of 7/7-7/13.

The Spot Athletics of Columbus, OH, training montage of speed, strength & conditioning, Personal training and Met Con class clients from the week of 7/7-7/13. This is just another week at The Spot, if you want results and live around Columbus, you need to be training here!
The Spot Athletics is the best place for personal training, strength and conditioning and fitness classes in all of Columbus. Started by former University of Kentucky strength and conditioning coach, world record holding powerlifter and top grip sport athlete in the world J.L. Holdsworth, The Spot Athletics' staff has more knowledge, experience and education than any training facility in the area. It is also recognized internationally as one of the top training facilities in the world.

The Spot Athletics, (614) 753-1314
1200 Steelwood Rd., Suite B., Columbus OH 43212

Jiu Jitsu strength and conditioning at The Spot Athletics yields gold

This past weekend, GFTeam fighters, and Spot athletes, Vitor Oliveira and Guilherme S. Cordiviola, competed in the NY Summer Open.  Both fighters took Gold.  Vitor, who placed 3rd at Worlds, took gold in both the black belt middle weight class, as well as the blackbelt open class.  Guilherme, who took 1st place at world's as a purple belt, took home gold in the heavyweight purple belt class.

Both fighters, along with many others from GFTeam, have been training at the Spot for quite some time and they never fail to impress us with their hard work and dedication!  Great job this weekend guys, we're proud of you!

Which Rice is Right for You?

 

By Jimmy Olivieri

 

As of recent years, nutrition plans abound have touted brown rice as a healthier, more nutritionally valuable source of carbohydrates and nutrients when compared to plain, white rice. Nutritionally speaking, whole grain, brown rice is micronutrient dense, as the husk and bran remain intact with the actual grain. During white rice processing, the husk and bran is removed, leaving only the plain white grain, stripping the food of a solid vitamin and mineral profile. However, this emergence of whole grain, brown rice as a healthy and nutritious source of carbohydrates, fit for athletes and non-athletes alike, is entirely deceiving. Surprised? If not, your dilemma can be resolved with two words, “self defense.”

When considering every form of life alive today, each individual organism has inherently developed certain self-defense tools or techniques. If they didn’t have these self-defense abilities, they would have committed self-extinction due to their lack of resistance to any form of predator. Now, at this point, you are asking yourself what this has to do with whole grain, brown rice. See, as an organism, whole grain brown rice has developed two nasty compounds as a defense mechanism: phytic acid and lectin.

Phytic acid, the first compound, is contained within the whole grain element of the rice, and binds to all the valuable minerals just consumed in the whole grain and renders them completely useless to the body, resulting in their removal from your body instead of being digested. This presents quite a problem. The whole grain, or husk, that contains the valuable nutrients also contains a substance that renders them completely useless to the body. While inhibiting mineral absorption of the whole grain rice during digestion, this phytic acid has a bad habit of binding to minerals already present in the body. Essentially, this can leave someone more mineral deficient than they were before actually consuming the brown rice. All this being said, the whole grain doesn’t just stop at phytic acid as a means to protect itself.

Whole grains, beans and soy, and members of the nightshade family (tomato, potato, peppers) generally all contain what is considered toxic levels of the compound lectin. Lectin boasts a myriad of threats to the human body’s system, that is, its ability to inactivate, and promote, proteins consumed and inflammatory responses by the body. An accumulation of lectins, therefore, can result in acute and chronic health conditions, including autoimmune conditions. One of its most aggressive assaults on the body occurs on the gut wall, and linings, inciting inflammation and causing lectins to be absorbed into the blood stream.

Now that brown rice has been flipped on its head, in a sense, lets break it down to what we need to know when making the right dietary choice for ourselves. Whole grain, brown rice, by no means, will hastily sling you into a unhealthy state of being just by eating it every once and awhile. See, lectins accumulate, in larger amounts than you think, with repeated consumption of its carriers. So, brown rice is still an acceptable option when it comes to the food. However, white rice is stripped of its bran and husk,thus removing phytic acids and lectins. And, white rice remains a solid carbohydrate source that is easily utilized by the body, while generally only being about 10 points lower on the glycemic index when compared to brown rice. This makes white rice a less toxic, and more viable, source of carbohydrate for athletes and non-athletes alike.

Speed, Strength & Conditioning, Personal training & Fitness Class Training Video Montage 7/1-7/6

The Spot Athletics of Columbus, OH, training montage of speed, strength & conditioning, Personal training and Met Con class clients from the week of 7/1-7/6. This is just another week at The Spot, if you want results and live around Columbus, you need to be training here!

The Spot Athletics is the best place for personal training, strength and conditioning and fitness classes in all of Columbus. The Spot Athletics' staff has more knowledge, experience and education than any training facility in the area. It is also recognized internationally as one of the top training facilities in the world.

Personal Training to prepare children for sports - What skills should they be learning

Personal training, or more specifically strength & conditioning, for children is not about keeping them busy.  It's about teaching critical skills that improve performance and more importantly, prevent injury.

Every program should have:

1. Great coaching 2. provide a good assessment before the program begins.

Skills every program should teach are:

3.Pelvic Tilt

4.Hip Hinge

5.Deceleration/Landing

6.Posterior Chain training/awareness

7.Jumping/Running form

8.Jumping rope/hopping

9.Crawling/Tumbling

As parents, it's almost impossible to know what your child should be doing in their training to improve performance and prevent injury.  Most parents are happy when their child's training has met two qualifications: 1. They worked hard and/or are tired  2. they had fun.  Although I agree that a child should enjoy their training, I think that being tired is an awful judge of what kind of workout your child is getting.  Some of the most important skills that we teach involve drills that do not make the children tired at all.  I love analogies and examples and the example I always use for this is:  If you offered a bum on the street $50 to make your child tired, I guarantee he would run your kid around and get them exhausted to earn that $50.  The question you have to ask is:  do you want a bum training your kid?  Of coarse not, no one would, but if you judge your child's training based on your child being tired then any bum can meet that qualification.  It takes experience, vast knowledge, research and a great strength coach to be able to actually make your child improve their performance and prevent injury.  Above I gave the list of skills your child should be learning/doing if you want them to improve performance and reduce injury and below I will elaborate on these skills.  I don't care if your child trains with us or somewhere else, but what I do care about is that your child is learning these skills so that they are not wasting their time and opening themselves up to injury.  Most kids from other facilities, or kids that aren't training, start training at The Spot and cannot perform these basic athletic movements and/or come to us with needless injuries.   The purpose of this blog is to educate parents so this stops.   If the training your child is receiving does not include all of the below elements then please take them to another facility or you will regret it later on.  If your child is not training then take them somewhere that ensures they learn all of the below skills.  Do I think that our strength & conditioning program is the best, yes, but as long as the below skills are being met then you are taking your child to a quality facility and they will be better for it.  This is not an all-inclusive list but it is somewhere to start so that you know if your child is receiving quality training.  The first two are requirement for any quality program but the last 7 are skills that must be taught in that program.

1. Learning, not babysitting - The most important thing on this list is: IS YOUR CHILD BEING TAUGHT PROPER PATTERNS?  We coach every rep our athletes do.  On top of that, we make our athletes coach each other, every rep, so that they are learning as they are teaching..  If your child is just running through drills or cones, over and over again, or doing exercises with little to no supervision, then they are not learning.  Simply throwing some cones and ladders out and having kids run around is just babysitting, not learning.  If the athletes aren't being taught proper patterns then they are learning bad patterns and these patterns lead to injury.  So even if they include drills/exercises to work the below skills, if they aren't coaching the kids up properly, then it doesn't matter.

2.  Assessment -  If you take your child somewhere and they just throw them in with a bunch of other kids, without first doing an assessment, then you are wasting your money and your child's time.  The assessment sets the base for the whole training program and it gives you a measurable way to track progress.  With our semi-private athletes we do an extensive assessment that gives a very tailored program for the athlete.  Even with our large team training we still do a more basic assessment so we can direct training for the team as a whole.

3. Pelvic Tilt -  If an athlete does not possess pelvic tilt control then their control over their body will be very limited.  On top of that they will lose out on precious speed and jumping ability.

4. Hip Hinge - The most basic of all athletic movements is the hip hinge.  From the golf swing to tackling in football, if you can't hip hinge, then you can't play at a high level.  If your child can't touch their toes, 99% of the time it's not a flexibility issue, it's that they don't know how to properly hip hinge.

5. Deceleration/Landing - Most injuries in sport happen during deceleration.  This is usually expressed as a torn ACL in landing jumps or in slowing down to change direction.  If proper body positions are not taught for these activities then you are playing with fire and asking for an injury, especially for female athletes.

6. Posterior Chain training/awareness - The muscles of the back of the body are what makes an athlete good.  Strong hamstrings, glutes, and lower backs are what professional athletes have that make them special.  Ignoring this area is asking for less performance and more injuries.  I put this before jumping/running form because although form is very important and will make big changes in the novice or poor athlete, it will only take you so far.  An athlete must strength train to get faster and jump higher and that strength training must be focused on the posterior chain.  Many facilities don't do strength training with young athletes and just have them repetitively jump or run, calling it "speed" or "jump" training.  Some even add bands to make it seem like they are doing something.  Bands alone are not strength training and without the strength training component the program is doing something - wasting your athlete's time.  If just running and jumping made athletes faster or jump higher then all they would ever have to do is play their perspective sports and they would keep getting better.  We all know this isn't true,  yet parents keep taking athletes to these "speed" and "jumping" places that provide no real strength training component.

7. Jumping/Running form - Speed ladders do not make you faster!  No sport moves your feet in tiny little patterns.  Coaching jumping/running form and doing form jump/running drills should not just be an afterthought of an athletes program but a cornerstone of the young athletes program.  If jumping/running drills are not taught and coached then your child will not be able to maximize their potential speed or vertical.  Simply telling athlete to do a drill is like giving a kid a math book and not teaching them anything.  Having information is different then learning information and thats where a good strength coach comes in.

8. Jumping rope/hopping - Speed ladders don't give athletes better footwork but jumping rope does.  Jumping rope is a lost art, but not at The Spot.  It is a critical part of any of our young athletes programs.  Jumping rope involves hopping(two feet jump,two feet land,which is a basic skill that must be mastered) hand eye coordination, timing, body awareness, joint durability and conditioning(once they can do it without messing up).

9. Crawling/Tumbling - Body awareness or proprioception(if you like big words) is one of the biggest things being lost with the specialization at such young ages with athletes.  When I was a kid I might play 3 different sports in one day but now kids are only doing one sport year round. This gives them very limited motor pattern exposure and limits their overall athleticism and body awareness.  Crawling/Tumbling are two of the best ways to fix this problem.  My 2yr old daughter can do a better front roll then a few of the Division I athletes I've worked with for the first time.  These athletes also, not surprisingly, have had an issue with injuries due to poor body awareness.  We incorporate special crawling/tumbling exercises, that we coach well, to illicit great body awareness changes in our young athletes.

An athletes window to play college or professional sports is very small.  If they waste their time training at a facility that is not teaching them these skills, that are essential for athletic success, then they are risking injury, not getting a scholarship or potentially being cut from a professional team.  We want to see every athlete reach their fullest potential and that is why we view our young athletes as the most important part of The Spot Athletics.  We know that we have the chance to effect what happens the rest of their life and this is not a responsibility we take lightly.

Kids need physical preparation for sport and rest: Says Top NFL Orthopedic Surgeon

By Zach Gallmann

The link below will guide you to a very informative article about a top NFL orthopedic surgeon, Dr. James Andrews.  His message?  Kids need time to be kids. Kids need time to recover. Kids need proper preparation for their sport.  Here at The Spot, we have the same beliefs.  We see it all the time; kids come to us, in middle school and high school, with extreme shoulder issues, knee issues, tight hips, and a host of other issues, and the parents wonder why they aren't performing at the level they should be.  Then, we hear that the child has a hitting coach, or a swinging coach, basically just lots of "skills" coaches, but no coaches who are teaching them to move their bodies properly.  Add to this that they get little to no down time and injuries start to creep in.  What happened to letting kids run free to learn the valuable skill of play?  I know I gained more body awareness and physical readiness from climbing trees and rocks than any sports coach ever taught me.

Another crucial problem we see is that kids are being sent out onto the playing field without any sort of strength training or physical preparation training under their belts.  Would you, as a parent, step out onto a football field without having the proper strength and injury preventative training?  If you did could you withstand, without injury, getting tackled by a linebacker at full speed?  I know I wouldn't.   So why would anyone send their child out onto a playing field without the proper preparation, if they wouldn't want to do it themselves?  This is a question that defies logic and ends up getting a lot of kids needlessly injured.  This is one of the primary reasons that we started our KAAT (Kids Athletic Ability Training) program.  With this program we take kids from 6-11 years old and teach them sound athletic patterns such as running, jumping and most importantly deceleration.  With these patterns we also strengthen these kids thru a properly progressed weight training program that starts with body weight exercises and moves to loaded efforts.  This great program will help these kids not only excel at their sports, but do it without getting injured.

We understand what it's like to want to be a champions, and want our kids to be champions.  Unfortunately, all too often, we see the downfalls of kids being injured from not being properly prepared for sport.  These needless injuries could be prevented if parents would just properly prepare their kids for sport by putting them in a program like our KAAT program.  Our main goal when we train an athlete, at any age, is to make sure they are ready to excel at their sport, safely.  Strength training is one of the best ways to prepare athletes to prevent injury in sport.  An example we use a lot, but I'll throw it out there again is: when a child runs or jumps out of a tree, they exert up to 5x their body weight in compressive forces on their joints.  If that sounds pretty taxing, it's because it is.  Building strength to absorb that force is the greatest way for kids to be able to manage that type of demand and not end up injured.  For more information on our KAAT program CLICK HERE.

Finally, I encourage you to read the article below and think about what Dr. Andrews has to say.  Kids need to be kids.  Kids need time off to recover.  Sure, a college scholarship is great, but not at the risk of blowing out an ACL or two, instead of leading a strong, healthy life.

Click here to read article.

Fitness Class - 4th of July - Columbus, OH - Met Con Class - The Spot Athletics

The Spot Athletics Staff came in on their day off and put together a special holiday Met Con Class for our members. With 80,000 square feet of space at our disposal we created a giant obstacle course with 21 difficult challenges. Before heading out to their holiday barbecues, our members came out in full force to take on the challenge.

Fitness Class Columbus, OH - The Spot Athletics - Met Con Class

Other Fitness classes in Columbus Ohio need to come watch Met Con Class at The Spot Athletics to see how fitness classes are supposed to be done.  These fun, fast paced, and ever-changing classes are taught by world class instructors in an 80,000sq ft facility and are designed to make you tone up, lose fat, get fit, strong, conditioned and look amazing.  If you're bored, sick of seeing no results and not having fun with your workouts, then come try our Met Con Class.  The Spot Athletic's staff has more knowledge, experience and education than any training facility in the area. It is also recognized internationally as one of the top training facilities in the world.

Speed, Strength & Conditioning, Personal training & Fitness Class Training Video Montage 6/24-6/30

Our strength and conditioning, personal training, and metabolic conditioning clients are working extremely hard and making great strides.  Robbie Fusner, a football player entering his sophomore year of high school, front squatted 315lbs for 2 reps, which is by no means, an easy feat, while our Upper Arlington Lacrosse players are getting stronger by the day.  Our college athletes are on the top of their game and we expect nothing but great things from them in the future.  Metcon has been growing fast, with new clients everyday, and our personal training clients are seeing great results.  Summer is in full swing, but that just means it's time to work hard for the fall!  What are you doing to get better this summer?