Bolt and the 200 M at the Olympics!

Be sure to watch the Mens 200m tomorrow and see if Bolt can smoke another world record!

Blog updates may be less than normal this week since I am off to Z Health I Phase training (yes, again) right here in Minnesota this Thurs-Sunday. I am sure I will pick up some new things and it will be great to see everyone there once again.

Rock on
Mike N

Bolt New World Record 9.69 on Mens 100 m at the Olympics

INSANE!!!
My prediction game true (see a few days ago) and Bolt got it done! What a BLISTERING time.
Amazing.

The Olympics are on!

The Olympics are on!

Olympic fever is catching on everywhere!

My personal fav event to watch is going to be the 100 m and then the 200 m race. My prediction is that Bolt will win both! What do you say?

In the 100m you will most likely have former record holder and the second fastest man Asafa Powell and world champion Tyson Gay plus Usain Bolt who ran a blistering 9.72--a new world record earlier! Bolt will need a killer start to have a chance of winning, but I think he will do it.

The 100 final is currently set for Aug. 16.

Rock on
Mike N

Z Health S Phase Wrap Up

S Phase Wrap Up!

S Phase is the Unfair Advantage!

Below are my comments/thoughts on it. Remember, these are MY interpretations of the course and events and may or may not be the same as Dr. Cobb. When possible, I have put quotes around exact quotes.

For a brief overview, also check out my first post on it here

No one is really taught to be an athlete

Mental note to myself-work on motivating clients/athletes to earn the basic R Phase drills and that it gets even more fun! R Phase is just the beginning

Use can start to see immobility after only 2 weeks of little to no movement

"There is really no true focus on high-level athletic skill development for 98% of our culture" UNTIL NOW!

"Movement is a skill and skills are trainable."

One of the basic movements we learned was the plyo step, or a fast step back to go forward. This was a debate recently on the Strength Coach podcast also. Check out episdo #9 here

Athletic development is a LONG TERM process! Even the best athletes with great parents (read:genetics), correct coaching and training, motivation, etc still take YEARS to reach a very high level. Nobody really wants to hear this in today's "fix me now" society. Ben Johnson, drugs aside, worked for almost 10 years with elite sprint coach Charlie Francis before he broke any records (ref conversation Aaron S)

Visual information from the eyes is of huge importance! 20/20 vision is not enough! If your are eyes are sending your brain "bad" info, you are screwed for starters! We learned different assessments and fixes for them! Remember, the eyes are controlled by muscles and muscles can be trained.

We saw some video of a football player running sprints before and after just visual work and the difference was amazing!

Working with a metronome really gives you an idea of speed and forces you to work outside your comfort zone. I think mine may have a horrible "accident" soon.

"People only see what they are prepared to see" --- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I will have a post on this at some point, but the more I learn, the more I "see". If I can't fix it or do anything with it, I will not even "see" it. The explanation of this is probably related to the reticular filter in the brain. A little part of the brain that decides what info to let in and what to keep out. Click here for some quick further reading on it.

Want to do things you never thought you could do? I can help! Email me or see this link for info.

Depending on your eye alignment, you may fall asleep while reading because it is so taxing on the eyes or the opposite is that you may be ADHD like if you are the other extreme. Again, this probably can be corrected if the eyes are the source of the issue.

There is a good reason why there are some basic eye drills on the Neuro Warm Up 1 and 2 (you can pick up a copy at the link on the upper right here).

Movement
Reviewed the static athletic ready stance (weight on the inside).
Reviewed the three point sprint stance
Reviewed the 4 point stance
Practiced movements (pivots, crossover, t-step, plyo step, hip turn) to transition from any direction--forward, backward, lateral and angular

Plyometrics
Classic plyos
1) eccentric component (muscle lengthening)
2) amortisation (no change in muscle length per say, going from eccentric to concentric)
3) concentric (muscle contraction)

Goal is to increase RATE of force production, so max force in min time

Eccentric component and range of motion (number of joints involved) are probably the most important components

Given the above info, plyos should be QUIET not loud.

Life is plyometric, so this applies to EVERYONE! Last time I checked, I did not see any fall in slow motion, so everyone needs to work up to be able to do some form of "plyos" (again, progression is key)

Linear Speed
Sprinting!
This was actually FUN! I can honestly say this was the first time that running at a higher speed was actually fun and felt good. More work to do of course, but it was great.

Combos
Everything can be combined, including the visual work.

Overall it was a great time and I am already looking forward to going back to S Phase again

Any questions, let me know.
Rock on
Mike N

Z Health S Phase Update I

Greetings from sunny AZ! Just wanted to do a super fast Z Health Update on S Phase!

S stands for Sports Phase, so it is time for athletic movement! Whoo ha.
The basis of Z Health is the 9S model

Strength
Stamina
Skill
Sustenance (nutrition)
Suppleness (flexibility/mobility)
Structure
Spirit
Style
Speed

Think of all of those coming off of the athlete in the middle. The job of the coach/trainer to infuse each of those qualities into the athlete to make them better. This may change during each training session! How many qualities do most strength coaches/personal trainers work on during a session/season even?

VISION
A key component to elite performance is vision. Not just your visual acuity (how well can you see the eye chart in the docs office), but beyond that.

We go over many different types of vision such as
Dynamic Visual Acuity
Eye Tracking
Eye Focus/Accommodation
Peripheral Vision
Vergence Flexibility and Stamina
Imagery
Sequencing
Eye-hand and Eye-foot Coordination

So vision is beyond just an eye chart! Think of all the great players like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Walter Payton, etc and all of them are described as having great vision. Many times the greats were NOT the best in the weight room. Performance on the field is what matters.

Remember that your eyes are controlled by MUSCLES, therefore, vision can be TRAINED. I have never been able to figure out why most people, even at a very high level, NEVER talk about this fact??

Most Olympic athletes have not even done visual training. We are primarily visual creatures and the nervous system's highest priority (most of the time) is visual. So this has HUGE applications to sport and pain relief!

This also means that if you sucked at any ball sports now or when you were growing up (my hand is up), you probably have a vision issue and many many times IT CAN BE CORRECTED! Trust me, I know first hand the difference is jaw dropping. You will actually ENJOY sports!

Athletics should be a LIFE LONG activity, and the true promise of Z Health is that it can elevate almost anyone to an extremely high level at virtually ANY age! Life does not end a 30, 40, 50 or even beyond 60 years of age!
But, like all things, you need to put your time and reps in and no one will ever do that for you. Then again, was anything that gave a huge sense of accomplishment ever easy?

Movement Training (aka Speed training)
There a trend now for speed camps and speed work galore. Yep, athletes need to be fast, but most of it is not speed in a linear sense (e.g straight line). They need to be taught how to move and do transitions from one position to the next.

The reason R Phase and I Phase are before S Phase is that they teach all the basic movements that are integrated even further in S Phase. To use a language analogy, if you want to learn Spanish, you need to learn the alphabet (letters--R Phase) first. Next put them into words (I Phase--integrated movements) and then sentences (S Phase--larger/gross movements). Without a good foundation, you will have bad movement but it just be a little faster.

Think of putting a larger engine (more muscle) into a car with a bad alignment--no good! You could even argue that with a bigger engine, you are on a path to tear yourself apart even FASTER!

Again, QUALITY over QUANTITY.

So far it has been great and there are still 2 more days to go! Can't wait!

Any questions, let me know.
Rock on
Mike N