Active Life

You can spend all day reading about different styles of running. The literature generally falls into two camps. Either you are a heel striker meaning you first land on your heel then role off the toe or you are a chi/pose runner meaning you land on your mid-foot. Many will argue the pros and cons of both. Landing on your heels creates more breaking and impact forces to be transferred up your knee and into your hips. Landing on your mid-foot with your foot more directly beneath puts more stress on the bones of the foot and ankle and creates more vertical movement in your stride.

Which is correct? Who cares? Try both. Running is more than just a journey across the pavement. We all have a lot to learn about our best running form. Running is also a journey of personal experience and growth. Get to know your own body and try both techniques. Learn what both feel like. Run a mile one way then switch to the other. If you are considering changing running styles altogether you’ll have to do this anyways, building up new strengths over time. You may find that spending a little time landing on your mid foot as opposed to rolling from heels to toe will give you insight into your dominate stride style and vice versa.

Whichever style you choose, know that both styles will benefit from effective arm action, a strong core and hip stabilization. Exercises like Standing Arm Action, Hip Abductions and Hip Extensions will promote these qualities.

Many top athletes with the best footwork in the world train using a jump rope. Why is that and what sets them apart? The reason so many athletes train with the jump rope is because it physically conditions your body to be quick and explosive off the ground. Jumping rope can also train your mind to control your footwork in a very precise way that allows your body to generate extremely rapid movement. However, this mental conditioning will not happen unless you know how to practice it. The mental conditioning has to do with the specific way athletes use their jump rope.

There are three things you are probably not aware of about jumping rope that helps boxers and soccer players and other athletes achieve amazing foot speed. Those things are rhythm, counting and foot patterns. Counting out various foot patterns while jumping creates a rhythm. The foot patterns require you to move from one foot to the other at different intervals and in different directions. While practicing these patterns the sound your feet and the rope make hitting the ground takes on a syncopated quality.

A unique feature of jumping rope in this way is that it combines two of the highest forms of human performances; sports and music. In music, you practice a pattern until it goes from awkward and difficult to natural and effortless. This can also be done with a jump rope. Work on different foot patterns, left, left, right, right. Jump twice between turns or jump once. Lunge forward, lunge back, switch feet, one footed, move to the left, move to the right, heel –toe, high knees etc. See what you can come up with. You will literally stumble upon new foot pattern all the time. It is challenging and fun.

Just like practicing music, you will be working on some pattern for a while, maybe 1-2 minutes then you mess up mostly because of either mental or physical fatigue. Take a breather for a minute then start back again. Do that for 20-30 minutes every other day and you will find your footwork and speed improving rapidly. You will also experience the fringe benefit of weight loss and you might even learn a new dance step or two. Not bad for a $10 kid’s toy.

The way you feel and how others react to you has as much to do with what you say as it does with what your body is communicating while you speak, but do not confuse body composition with body language because it’s your posture not your percentage body fat that determines what message you will send. Your body language has a profound effect on you and the people around you. This is so true that half our brains are dedicated to interpreting body language and not words. That’s why we have a left brain and a right brain because before humans used spoken word we communicated using body language.

I’m sure that you can read body language, but how good are you at speaking it? Not sure? The good news is body language can be learned just like learning a spoken language and it just as important too because before you speak a single word to someone, they have already made a judgment about you based on your body language alone. It’s just human nature.

It’s a language of movement, poise and performance. Those who are most fluent in this body language will also excel in activities like sports, combat and the arts like dance and music. You can also use it to influence others, improving your posture will even help you make friends.

Ultimate Body Press exercises help you with your body language in two ways. First, they give you strength and help you build muscle quickly, boosting your metabolism and helping you lose fat. Learning these exercises will teach you how to develop and maintain the amazing instrument that is your own human body.

Finally our exercises teach you about body language and posture. You will develop a new feeling of control over all parts of your body so that you can move with great precision and power. You will look different, feel different and move differently, changing the way you feel and how others react to you.

Popular primal living blog Mark’s Daily Apple spent the entire month of August giving away some great stuff as part of his Primal Blueprint Health Challenge, but Mark saved the best prize for last.  We were happy to partner with Mark’s site and offer an Ultimate Body Press Full Package as the big grand prize for the event.  We think that Mark’s site is great, and if you’re committed to a healthy lifestyle, it’s an excellent resource to look at.

And if you haven’t seen our newest products yet - like the pull-up bar or our weighted, adjustable speed rope, take a look in our store and get acquainted.

If you are designing your new home gym, make sure that music is part of the equation. Listening to music while you workout adds a little extra entertainment and the great thing about working out at home is you get to pick what plays. Just make sure that something, anything is playing. You will work out longer and with more intensity if there is music playing.

According to recent study presented at the American College of Sports Medicine you may also want to turn the music up louder for even better results. The study compared the exercise output of individuals listening to music at various volumes. The individuals were tested during strength training and cardio exercise. The researchers found that when music was present at any volume the subjects performed better at cardio. The research also suggests that for strength training there is a distinct advantage to playing the music at a louder volume. The study found that the individuals listening to louder music could perform more repetitions than those listening at lower volumes. Those listening to louder music did an average of 29 leg presses while those listening at a lower volume only averaged 26.

Simply put, music is fun. When you’re having fun you will perform better. So next time you workout make sure you have some music playing. Put on your head phones. Drag the computer into your workout room. Crank up the satellite radio. Let the music take control and your workouts will improve because you will feel less fatigue and build more muscle without even knowing it. Sounds good doesn’t it?

I just took my new goggles for a test swim in the open waters of Wrightsville Beach and I could not be happier with their performance.  I don’t think I’ll be using my old racing goggles for open water swimming again. I’ll probably never use normal goggles in the pool either. The Aqua Sphere goggles made my swim much more enjoyable for two reasons, but before I tell you why,  I’d like to say a little bit about open water swimming in general.

Aqua Sphere Goggles

For those of you who have never done any serious open water swimming, understand that swimming in a pool is much easier because the water is clear and there are lane lines to keep you going straight. You also get a little mini-break every time you turn at the wall. Swimming in open water is a whole different ball game. The murky water and lack of visual cues makes it more difficult to swim straight to your target. Combine that with the added burden of not having a wall to push off of every 25 yards and the occasioinal cusious thought about what little critters might be swimming underneath you and this can add up to more than a little anxiety in the water. On the other hand, open water swimming is fun and kind of adverterous so I am always lured back in.

The Aqua Spheres are a one piece mask that is like a hybrid between racing goggles and a snorkeling mask. They solve the visibility problem by increasing the distance between your eye and the murky water so you don’t have to lift your head nearly as far out of the water to see where you are going. With racing goggles your eye balls are encapsulated in a murky pod of water. The second any part of your eye goes below sea level all you see is inky water that might as well go on forever down there and who know what what else could be swimming in it, right? All kidding aside, it not cool. With the Aqua Spheres there is no water between your eyes or on your eye brows so your field of view is increased drastically. The second reason why they are better and why I’ll probably use them in the pool from now on is because the larger pocket of air around your eyes makes you head more buoyant. Image having little pillow to rest your head on while you swim… It’s nice.

My thanks goes out to TriathlonSports.com for their great selection of Triathlon gear and their great prices. “Them’s good peoples” www.triathletesports.com/

Les Paul, the guitar player and inventor passed away yesterday at the age of 94. As an inventor, entrepreneur and musician, I would like to express my great admiration for this man. He lived a life that can serve as an inspiration to us all.

Les Paul was passionate about music and pursued with great vigor his vision for how to make it better. He invented the electric guitar in 1941 and he continued to play music in a club in Manhattan well into his 90’s. Whatever your passion is, be it sports or fitness or music or your faith or your business,  I encourage you to be like Les Paul and pursue it with great vigor.  This can surely only make you and the world around you a better place.

A new study covered in the New York Times concludes that athletes will sustain less injuries by improving their balance. The article sites a study initiated by the Harkness Center that studied dancers and compared their workouts to athletes in sports. The researchers concluded that dancers sustain fewer ACL injuries because they practice movement and balance more precisely during their workouts resulting in better biomechanics and less risk of injury.

Ultimate Body Press wants to help everyone lower their risk of injury by including Speed and Agility exercises in all our workouts. These exercises focus specifically on good biomechanics, posture and balance. Not only are they great for boosting the fat burning potential of all your workouts, Speed and Agility exercises also reduce your risk of injury and improve your overall well being and athletic performance. Give one of our workouts a try for just a few weeks and you will notice the difference. You will look different, move differently and feel great.

At Ultimate Body Press our motto is that the ultimate body is “More Than Fit”. That means not only do we want to help you build a great looking body, we want you to have a body that works great too so you can run farther, play harder and have more fun. We want you to have strength and speed.

A perfect way to combine these two ideals into a simple workout is to take your favorite cardio activity like running and combine it with a quick strength training workout. This is a Quick Pump routine to get the blood flowing before your run. Simply breeze through a couple sets of dips, pull ups, ring pushups and one arm rows on your way out the door for a nice long run. The Quick Pump routine is also a great way to burn off the maximum number of calories from one workout. The strength training spikes your metabolism and a long run at a comfortable pace puts your body into fat burning autopilot.

Running is an important part of maintaining good health, especially if you want to boost your cardiovascular performance and increase your stamina. As one of the best and easiest forms of aerobic exercise, running can be incredibly beneficial to your overall health. Haven’t sold you yet? Maybe National Running Day will.

Get out and run!

National Running Day is a national event where many of the running industry’s best will join forces to promote running as a healthy, easy, and accessible form of exercise. There’s no equipment involved, it’s great for building community, and it’s a great alternative to jetting to the gym in order to get in shape. Today, groups around that nation will participate in fun and informative sessions on the sport, how it can impact your health and how it’s an important part of an active lifestyle.

To find out more about some of the Running Day events near you, check with RunningDay.org or just slip on your shoes and plan a run with family or friends. It’s that simple and it’s great for your health.