Theresa Plunkett is my savior

thanks so much for the coffee this morning after my alarm malfunction.  You are my hero.

Visit From Fellow Affiliate Owners

Mike and Lynne from Valley Crossfit were visiting Dayton, and dropped in to see how we do what we do.   Some nice pics of yours truly on their daily blog

Congrats to all my swimmers

congratulations to all the PowerAthlete swimmers that kicked butt this weekend at the Makos Swim Meet. 

Don't Follow Professional Athletes

I just received Laird Hamilton's new book, which documents his thoughts on how to live a productive and balanced life. 

I have huge respect for Mr.Hamilton, his spiritual connection to the water and the earth is truly inspiring, and the holistic way that he lives life is amazing.

When I was first looking for his book, I landed on a few forum sites, where different people where explaining how they were going to start following his way of life and his training, and how it would make them a kick ass _____ (fill in the blank, I saw everything from a better surfer to a better firefighter)

Where we common mortals make the mistake, is that these amazing human beings are the genetically the top one percent of all of us.  Laird could eat coco puffs and watch TV all day, and still be a much better surfer than most people, Michael Phelps could take a year off swimming, and still beat 99 percent of the population of this planet in the 400 IM.

The point that I am making is we should take inspiration from these people, not try and emulate their training or dietary habits.  I read that Michael Phelps ate nothing but pizza in Beijing, and still beat everyone!

The average person doesn't have the genetic make up to withstand their training or dietary habits and still be successful.

Two classic examples, my favorites are the young men that try and follow the "Nebraska football program" or the "Notre Dame football program" or those that find a "super hardcore special forces workout" on the web and try to follow it. 

Trying to excel is fantastic, but realism in the face of injury or other negative turns of events trying to follow such programs, is an indication to re-evaluate the intensity rather than push through the pain with some ideas of grandeur.

Gaining Weight

Football is finally over, my boys have done we, and we are back to the same questions, "how do I gain weight for next season?"

To anyone over the age of 35, this question seems silly, as weight gain seems to be what you are fighting, but to a teenage boy, who has a metabolism in over drive, it is a serious problem.

First of all junk food will do the job, but not in a positive way.  You will gain weight but not a the right kind.  Anytime you eat more, the weight you gain will be both muscle and fat, what is important is what percentage of fat and muscle you gain.

In order to keep the amount of muscle gained as the higher percentage of total weight gained, I suggest to my athletes that they stick to as much natural food as possible, and avoid processed foods the majority of the time.

The benefits of natural foods is they have natural controls built in, to control absorption of calories at a steady rate, high amounts of fiber help significantly.  Fiber is most prevalently found in natural foods, and not very often in processed foods.

I suggest a diet high in protein and good sources of fat, combined with high fiber carbohydrate sources, such as brown rice, whole wheat pasta, and of course all the fruit and vegetables you can eat. 

Good sources of fats would be from nuts, as in natural peanut butter, or cooking oils such as olive oil.

High protein is from any meat source, or eggs or milk (preferably whole, vitamin D milk)

A sample day would look like this:

• whole grain cereal with whole milk
• scrabbled eggs (whole eggs not egg whites)
• fruit (apple, orange, banana, etc)

 

• apple or banana with ample peanut butter 

 

• whole wheat bread lunch meat sandwiches with cheese
• whole milk
• fruit and ample peanut butter

 

• mixed nut and dried fruit

 

• meat  large portion
• whole wheat pasta or brown rice
• ample vegetables

 

• ice cream and fruit smoothie

Max Plunkett most improved

After one year with Power Enterprises, Max Plunkett won the most improved senior award for his state winning football team.  See what Power Enterprises can do for you.......

Congrats again Max Plunkett and the Alter Knights for their State Championship win.

This is a picture of Max Plunkett, Senior Offensive lineman at Alter High School.  Max barely played last year.  He came to see us at the end of last summer, looking for the extra push to jump start his football aspirations.  This year, with lots of work at Power Athlete, and lots of constructive encouragement from his coaching staff, Max had a starting position on the offensive line of a State Championship Winning Football team.

This is a story of perseverance, fantastic coaches, and a true team of brothers.

If you have these kinds of aspirations, come see us at Power Athlete, you won't be disappointed.

Kettering Alter Wins State Championship

Congrats to Alter football with their win tonight.  Great athletic leadership with the athletic director Chris Hart, all the Coaching Staff, and of course parents.

Congrats to everyone.

Alter Knights Football Goes to war!

The Archbishop Alter Football team goes to war in the Division 4 state finals against Stubenville this Friday.

The boys have played some very impressive football this year, but what is most impressive to me is their mental poise.

After having to forfeit 2 games due to a rules oversight, they could have fallen apart mentally, and cried foul.  Instead this outstanding group of young men, and their coaches rallied their resolve and went after the stars.

I work with a number of players from  this years team, and I am very proud of them, but I am also very proud to be in anyway associated with a program that teaches kids to succeed through hard times.

Coach Ed Domsitz and his staff should be applauded for their life changing skills with these young men.

Visitor From Crossfit Verve

We had our first traveling crossfitter this week, Amy from Crossfit Verve in Colorado.  We exposed her to our version of crossfit, she took what we showed her and posted it to her coaches at home.  It was a great experience meeting Amy, an obviously well coached athlete.

This is what I love about Crossfit, it is all about the open source method of performance improvement, thousands of minds and ideas coming together to improve the system using the basic laws of exercise physiology set forth in the crossfit method.

We endeavor to become fitter in all the 10 elements of fitness, what ever way works, not just which ever ways are popular.

Wiener Deadlifts

I have had this since halloween, but have just got off my lazy butt to get it off the camcorder.  This is Ty B. who in passing told me he had a hotdog costume for halloween, we couldn't pass that up.

Post workout Recovery

I have told my athletes for along time that the commercial protein powders are second rate compared to the source of nutrition found in whole milk. 

British researchers recently found that "The protein and carbohydrates in milk appear to inhibit muscle-protein breakdown, and may also reduce inflammation.  This leads to quicker recovery.

A focused mom.

this video I found very interesting.  The kid is obviously phenomenal, but the most amazing thing about it is that mom is much more focused on his education.   Very refreshing

Which movement is more useful for athletic endeavors?

Not everyone that reads this blog is a coach or exercise Nazi,  but it doesn't take a genius to see how misguided our athletes have been when selecting exercises to improve athletic performance.  For example, pick which one looks the most athletic:

or this one, my favorite exercise to blame for athletic injury.

we ask our athletes to perform explosively on the field with their whole bodies, and then train them with exercises that support most of their bodies while they perform them. 

I guarantee you that an athlete that can perform a 210# thruster, as is shown in the first video, can do a 210# bench press, but not necessarily the other way around.

Congrats Kelly W. and the Alter Vasity Volleyball

Nice Job Girls with your win over Tippecanoe, keep it up!

the video to go along with swimmer gymnastics

It is a mobile phone video, but you get the idea of the movement and how powerful such movements can be to the sport of swimming

I have now seen it all

this is from a Hawaiian website, they are crispy creme bacon cheese burgers.

Action Shot, Sandy P

Paleo Diet Redux

this is the simplest explanation of the paleo diet I have ever found.

http://www.tbkfitness.org/TBKdiet.html

Crossfit Trains the complete athlete

I have preached in blog posts earlier that crossfit trains all athletes to be better athletes, not just better basketball players, soccer players, SWAT team or special ops team members, but better athletes.  This video is a prime example of that

Click Picture to see video of this amazing feat of varied athletic ability.