Seventeen Football Training Tips for Beginners

If you are a football player, or any athlete for that matter, check out this article by Steve Morris on how to become big, strong, and successful in your sport.

Seventeen Football Training Tips for Beginners by Steve Morris

Get big or die tryin'.

When to Use Manual Resistance

Manual resistance is something that I rarely see used in the gym anymore, which is too bad because, when implemented appropriately, it can be very affective for increasing strength, particularly for female and elderly clients or those with movement disabilities. Okay, it probably sounds awful that I am grouping all females into the same category as the elderly and physically disabled, but please bear with me and let me explain.

First, what is manual resistance? Basically, manual resistance is any type of controlled external resistance loaded against your movement by another human being, such as a training partner, personal trainer, or performance coach. What manual resistance allows you to do is generate a lot of force without having to a move a lot of weight.

Examples of manual resistance exercises would be towel curls or extensions where the client or athlete is holding on to one end of the towel and performing an overhead triceps extension or a biceps curl and the trainer or coach is holding the other end of the towel and pulling down, providing an appropriate amount of resistance throughout the range of motion.

As I stated earlier, I like using manual resistance with my elderly and female clients, in particular. The reason I like using it with the elderly is because I can have them train a bunch of different muscle groups without having to make them move around the gym from machine to machine or rig up a bunch of different pulleys at the cable station. Instead, they can just stand, sit, or lie in one place and I can provide the resistance as they move their limbs.

For females, manual resistance can be a very important training tool as well. The reason I like using it with my female clients is because a lot of them are afraid to use bigger weights, even though they are stronger than they think. So instead of having to deal with a hissy fit when I give them certain dumbbells for an exercise, I can apply an appropriate resistance to them and they have no idea what the exact number is.

One of the downfalls of manual resistance is unilateral movements. Reason being, it is extremely difficult to ensure you are applying the same amount of resistance to each limb during the set. For this reason, I would not suggest using manual resistance as your sole form of resistance for unilateral exercises, but instead use it to supplement weights or bands.

Get big or die tryin'.

Charlie Cates is a human performance specialist and the owner of Self Made (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL. He is a Certified Personal Trainer and Performance Enhancement Specialist through NASM and has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP's. He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

This article may be reproduced with biographical information intact.

Strong(her) University: The Female Psyche

This article couldn't have been better timed with the post I made yesterday (Too Sore for Cardio??). Why do females not want to lift weights, and is their reasoning just and sound? Check out this article by Jen Comas to find out more.

Strong(her) University: The Female Psyche by Jen Comas.

Get big or die tryin'.

Too Sore for Cardio??

I received an e-mail from a client yesterday that said she would be canceling her training session with me this week because she didn't wan to be too sore for her cardio the rest of the week. This client is not a person training for an athletic event or for weight loss; just someone who is training to live healthier. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the e-mail. When, America, did we fall so far that we are to believe sitting on an elliptical for 40 minutes a day while we mindlessly stare into a TV screen six inches from our face is not only a substantial form of exercise, but a superior form as well?

There are many different avenues I could pursue with this post, talking about how the catabolic hormonal response to long bouts of aerobic exercise is slowly killing you; how people who only perform low-intensity aerobic exercise have extremely low quantities of muscle mass, and therefore are lacking a natural metabolic stimulator to keep their metabolism high when they stop working out; how doing anything but high-intensity sprint work or recovery work on cardio equipment is a completely inefficient way to train, both from a caloric expenditure standpoint and from a anabolic, physiological, and evolutionary standpoint as well.

I am sure all of these topics will be covered in due time, but for right now I just want y0u to think about that reason I was given as to why this client couldn't train. Think about how many times in your life you opt to take the easy way out rather than challenging yourself to achieve more, to be more. If you're not happy with how something is in your life, it's up to you to change it. I challenge you to be more today than you were yesterday; to be more next week than you were this week. I challenge you to make a commitment to yourself right now that when temptation rises to take the easy way out you will not allow yourself to continue to falter but rather you will take control of your life, your dreams, your visions and do something that is uncomfortably challenging.

Too sore for cardio? Ha. We should all be so lucky as to be too sore for cardio.

Get big or die tryin'.

This Past Week (4/17-4/23)

This past week was my deload week for SMS^2.4. I lifted Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Then, instead of doing a body weight circuit deload on Friday, I began SMS^2.5. That day consisted of squats and deadlifts, and I was completely toasted by the end. It was awesome.

Saturday I went home for Easter and while I was there I made a stop at Ace Hardware and Farm and Fleet. I picked up a 12-pound sledgehammer, two 50-pound bags of pea gravel, heavy duty contractor bags, gorilla tape, and two canvas bags. When I got home I wrapped up the pea gravel in the contractor bags and taped them shut, then put them in the canvas bags to make my own sandbags. So now I have two 50-pound sandbags and a sledgehammer to add to my training tools. Believe me, I'm pumped.

That's all for this past week. Now it's time to go live this one.

Get big or die tryin'.