CALGARY RESULTS PART 1

Very good first day of competition. Mens senior synchro was up first this morning.  There were teams from Switzerland, South Africa, Denmark and all across Canada. 10 teams competed in total. Me and my partner, Philip Barbaro were ranked 2nd after the prelims compulsory and optional. Somewhat shaky routines but it was good enough to land us top 3 going into finals. The video will be posted  when I get home. Individual prelims tomorrow and finals for synchro. I will keep you all updated:)

IN CALGARY: AIRDRIE

Canda Cup  is here:) I have just arrived in Ardrie, just north of Alberta. Tomorrow is synchro and on friday is individual. Lots of international competitors have arrived and  the competition is heating up. Wish me luck and I will post up results.

PERSONAL TRAINING TRAMPOLINE CLASSES

I have been asked to do personal trampoline classes for a family up in the King area. I am starting August 2nd and will continue through into the fall. If you are interested in any personal training for trampoline for your children or know anyone who may be interested please email me.

Aerial Skiing Videos from Quebec

NCCP WEIGHT LIFTING CERTIFICATION

I have signed up for a technical weight lifting course in September that is the equivalent of a level 1 and 2 technical course. I cant wait :):)
NCCP is offering a super clinic where two or more courses are condensed into a weekend. If I were you i'd check it out. The link is below.

http://www.cvent.com/events/nccp-super-clinic/event-summary-bbc2bea687e941449243d93b3f349dc3.aspx

TRYING PROTEIN SUPPLEMENT AND PROPER DIET FINALY

Hello everyone,
I have finally decided to give protein supplementation a try. I will monitor my results closely to see if there are results that are worth paying for. I will be taking Whey Protein will be the supplement of choice for this experiment. I will inform all of you about the improvements in my training if their are any.

Fat Loading For fat loss

I ran across this article the other day and found it controversial but logical and very interesting. It is about how increasing the right amount of fats in ingested is better then a low carb diet or high protein diet. The  conclusion is that if you ingest certain healthy fats the body increases the amount of enzymes that are used to break down fat so your fat metabolism increases. The second part of the article also speaks about amino acid loading to increase satiety and build muscle. The only question I ask is, what happens long term, when you stop fat loading. The body will adapt back to the original state prior to the fat loading and you are back at square one. The only way it could work would be for it to be a long term lifestyle change.  I think that would get boring. Even with this potential downside it is a very interesting simple article from a NFL trainer which I think is worth reading.

part 1: http://www.elitefts.com/documents/dietary_fat_loading.htm

part 2: http://www.elitefts.com/documents/dietary_fat_loading2.htm

Fluid and Fuel Intake during exercise

Hello Everyone,
    I came across this review article the other day and found it very interesting. It makes a lot of good points about how dehydration affects athletes, when to consume foods on a training day and what types of foods to consume. I would suggest you take a moment and read it. The link is below:

http://www.uni.edu/dolgener/Advanced_Sport_Nutrition/fluid_intake.pdf

New Trampoline Training Regimen

                I have trained Trampoline at a competitive level for 4 years now and have basically done the same basic training program for as long as I can remember.  I am starting to get bored on the same structured training and need to change up my style.

                I like to be a very efficient athlete in terms of my training. If I can train for an hour and get the same results of training for 2 hours I will do it. I find that the people I train with are more laid back and take their time with their training but unfortunately I am too busy to take time that does not need to be taken. So I started racking my brain to think of how to increase performance and decrease time in the gym. I came up with this conclusion.

                I found that when I worked on extremely difficult tricks that no one even competes because they are so hard, that It made my skills that I put into a routine easier. For example I start with a triple front flip in the pike position with a half turn on the last flip. If I train that skill but with four flips it would obviously increase my rotation because my body knows I have to do it or I will land on my head. So naturally and subconsciously I am increasing my rotation on my triple flip half turn out making it easier to do a trick out of it because I have more time to see my landing. Most trampolinists will simple do 10 triple fronts with a half out instead of trying a quad flip. When I tried that repetitive style of training I got bored and found it did not really help as much. After 10 attempts I found that I did improve a bit and the skill was easier but after only 1 or 2 quad flips I felt even faster and steadier on the triples with 20% of the time used in my training.   If I take this principle and apply it to every skill then all my skills will seem very easy  with very little effort and time on my part. I can increase my twist and rotation of all my tricks in  15 minutes. If I just did the same skill but just tried to force myself to do it faster I found it did not work as well and it took a lot more time.

                A routine is obviously not just one trick at a time however. If I am going to take this principle and apply it to a full length routine then what I need to do it try the hardest difficulty I can do every day. Even if the routine is not completed, I still force my body to put a lot more force into the tricks and into the bounce height. I found that I jumped only as high as I felt I had to. If I was doing a simple routine in my eyes, I would naturally jump lower, but If I am doing my 18.2 degree of difficulty (D.D) then I notice I jump way higher because obviously I need to. If I am doing even one or two 17.5 D.D routine and over I still gain a lot of adaptation in terms of jump height , flip and twist power; more so then if I did 7 routines with a 15.8 D.D This saves me time and forces more adaptation then the training that most athletes do.

                This principle is not a new phenomenon; it has been talked about before by a few people including Tim Ferriss, the Author of the book “Four Hour Body” (1). This source is only a sample of the book, for more info visit Tim Ferris’s blog which is posted on the right side of my blog (2). It is called the 80/20 Principle (Pareto Principal). It simply states that 80 percent of desired outcome comes from 20% input.  These numbers are not exact but the idea is that the simple things that you do in life will get you the most results, instead of wasting time on the little things that do not get a lot of results.

                Everyone, not just athletes can use this principle. A business man such as Tim Ferris can use this principle to make their business more functional and easier to handle but still retain profits. When  you do anything in life stop and think, is there an easier way of doing this? Most likely there is but you just need to stop and block out what other people tell you and find what works for you. Sometimes a coach, boss, co worker etc. do not know all the answers or have the most efficient way of progressing.  I found the best way to get through life in any aspect was to figure out what works for you, not to blindly listen to others because it has worked for them. Everyone is different and everyone needs a different structure of progression no matter what it is in life.

1) http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Alternative-to-Dieting.pdf

2) http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/

Aerial Skiing Injuries

                Having trained with the Canadian National Aerial Skiing Team for the last few days I have asked a lot of questions and gotten to understand some of the finer points of the sport. My very first set of questions revolved around the incidences of injury. I was informed by Travis Gerrits (1) that the two major areas of injuries are in the lower back and in the knees.  The lower back issues arise from the constant landings up right in the water causing the force to shoot up the spine as the athlete lands in the water. If the athlete does not land perfectly vertical upon entering the water from a 20- 30 foot drop the impact can severely strain the core muscles causing them to stiffen and ultimately create low back pain. 

                I understand that the Ski Team’s personal Trainer enforces a strict periodization plan with monthly adjustments to help keep the team injury free.  It seems that core strength and control is very crucial in this sport. I believe that a gymnastics based conditioning program would greatly help reduce the incidence of lower back pain. Gymnastics is based on strength, stability and flexibility. In my opinion gymnasts are one of the strongest types of athletes because of their conditioning. If I were to train an Aerial Skier I would focus on a lot of isometric contractions. Nicholas Fontaine (2), one of the Aerial Ski coaches has explained to me that Aerial Skiing is all about staying straight into the jump, during the jump and on the landing. Based on his information I would work a lot of stability and core tightening drills. I would introduce balance drills where the athlete would be forced to maintain a tight core during an external push or a movement that would throw them off balance so that the athlete would learn to control the body and not relax the core muscles. Basic contractile strength is key as well as eccentric strength which is what causes control of a movement.  If an athlete is unable to eccentrically contract their core without completely relaxing then the tendency will be to relax the muscles when the body is in the air to be able to help control the twist. If the body can be held in a constant contracted state during the entire flip the spine will be held solidly into place which will reduce the incidence of bad landings that cause back problems. Even when the athletes have a bad landing the muscles will be strong enough to withstand the impact over and over again.  

                Another issue I was told about by John (another member of team Canada) was knee problems. John told me that he felt his knees hurt a lot because of the fact after every jump the athlete has to walk up the stairs to the top of the jump again. If the athlete is going a day of triple jumps then the athlete is walking up about 8 stories to the top of the jump.  The athlete’s on the team are told to perform a minimum of 15 jumps in the morning and also in the afternoon. 8 stories x 30 jumps a day = 240 stories a day. That is a lot of repetitive stress on the knee.  That cannot be helping injury prevention. With all those stairs climbed, the members of team still are forced to do cardio session for an hour  a few times a week to increase recovery rate and are forced to do  athletic conditioning about 3-4 times a week. That is a lot of stress on the knees.  John also felt that a lot of posterior, anterior and lateral shearing occurs at the knee joint upon entry into the water. Even a perfect landing would cause a lot of impact on the knee joint so imagine what is happening to the knees when entering the water short on the flip or over flipped. I would be willing to bet that is a large reason as well for the knee injuries due to the stress the ACL, PCL, MCL and LCL undertake upon landings.  Upon my experience with aerial skiing I found that my knees hurt getting out of the water. There are platforms under the water that the athlete is suppose to step on sideways and get out of the pool. There are three steps and I found that there was a large current from the water bubbles and it was actually tough to go up the steps with the water dragging my feet down. I felt as if a tough force was pulling my knee joint apart. If someone creates a more efficient way of getting out of the water such as a incline where it is not so hard on the knees then less joint separation would occur. Along with that maybe an escalator or an elevator would help reduce the amount of repetitive stress on the knees. If even the athletes were instructed to only use elevator or escalator once every two jumps that would still give the knees a slight rest but still force them to be strong enough to withstand the impact of the high water landings.

                A large part of injury prevention in any sport is flexibility. If the muscles are not able to move freely and easily then stiffness will occur and can cause damage to the muscles. If an athlete is not flexible enough the muscles  have no give to impacts which is a lot more costly to an athlete then if the muscles can move freely and be able to recoil a bit after an impact. However if the muscles are too flexible then the joints are not strong and a subluxation or complete dislocation can occur. There is a fine balance within sport but the general conclusion is that most athletes are not flexible enough and a lot of tight muscles are the cause of a lot of problems. For an aerial skier the glutes , hamstrings, Iliotibial Band and the quads are very important leg muscles that I have been told by John and Travis are a large cause of injuries in aerial skiing. A lot of the skiers find that those muscles are very tight and get sore easily. I hope for their sake their trainer is enforcing a strict flexibility regimen to keep their muscles working smoothly and easily.

                In any sport injury is a problem; it is just a matter of understanding the mechanics of the sport and applying basic anatomy to understand what areas of strength and flexibility are important.  I hope to be a personal trainer for a national team one day so i have taken it upon myself to look into different sports to get a better understanding of what injuries are prevalent in certain sports.

1) http://www.freestyleski.com/en/index.php/national-team/travis-gerrits/

2) http://www.freestyleski.com/page.php?la=en&pa=team&id=coaches

Supplementation in trampoline

                In trampoline I believe that supplementation may be beneficial to a trampolinist to help them achieve higher time of Flight and to maintain height during the routines. A lot of supplements such as protein and BCAA (branch chain amino acids) are ingested to improve strength and size of the muscles. Trampolinist’s does not want size however so the search is out to figure out what supplementation would help a trampolinist.

                Because I already mentioned them I will start with BCAA’s.  BCAA’s are special types of amino acids that have been shows to help athletic performance (2). This review article shows that BCAA’s may help a trampolinist recover from a workout better then not taking any supplementation.  Trampoline is a very precise sport meaning that if a trampolinist comes in to train with too little recovery from the previous training then that training day will most likely not go very well and even may  increase the rate of injury. Recovery is very important so a supplementation of   BCAA’s two or three times a day may be helpful.

                HMB (Beta-hydroxy-Beta-methylbutyrate) is a supplement that is relatively new and is also said to decrease the amount of muscle being broken down during a workout meaning it would help recovery and help to build more muscle because more workouts could be achieved by the athlete.

                There are a lot of different supplements and in general most of them all do the same thing. The majority of supplements for sports are based on preventing the muscle breakdown or by increasing the amount of protein so that more muscle can be built. There are a ton of other supplements that help in other areas such as increasing testosterone levels or helping to increase lean mass which is not very beneficial to a trampolinist.  Taking testosterone boosters are illegal in a lot of sports including trampoline and the athlete would have to take epitestosterone in the exact amounts to make sure he or she can still pass the doping test (4). This can be very tricky and is never 100% guaranteed to work and the potential consequences are very severe. I don’t believe it is worth messing around with. The supplements that cause an increase in lean body mass is not what a trampolinist is looking for because that is more weight the trampolinist has to move in the air which will make it much harder.

                A trampolinist is simply looking for about 16-20 maximum power bursts. (Ten jumps in a routines and 6-10 pre bounces to get to starting height. Any more bounces than around 8 will cause the trampolinist to be tired. The main energy system used in trampoline is glycolysis. This system provides energy for sports or activities that last about 30 – 50 seconds (5). There are a few vitamins that are shown to help glycolysis work more efficiently. Thiamin is a vitamin in the body that helps to break down glycogen so that it can go into glycolysis.  You can find Thiamin in whole grains, fish, poultry and other foods of the sort (5).  Niacin is also said to help the body use the energy in glucose. Niacin is instrumental in the formation of NAD and NADP which is used in glycolysis (6). Riboflavin is also used to help produce FADH but riboflavin is more focused on transporting electrons into the Electron Transport Chain. The Electron Transport Chain is primarily used in aerobic conditions which do not help a trampolinist. My belief is that riboflavin would not be beneficial. Pyridoxine is also used in glycolysis and functions to make glycogen into smaller chains more readily available for glycolysis(6).

                Creatine is a supplement that gets a lot of attention and for good reason. The body’s way of initiating any activity, be it low intensity or extremely high intensity involves the use of creatine. After the initial start the body switches to an energy system that fits the demand of the activity such as anaerobic or aerobic pathways. In the sport of trampoline the phosphocreatine system would be responsible for the trampolinist gaining initial height before the start of the routine and then the energy system being switched to glycolysis to maintain the height for another 20 seconds. Logically if someone has more creatine in their body the more energy can be produced in that first 10 seconds of a trampoline routine which is crucial to how high the athlete will start. There have been no studies that I have seen done on this theory but by using applied kinesiology it is understandable how a creatine supplementation would be beneficial to a trampolinist.

                There are thousands of different vitamins and supplementations that everyone advertises saying that it can promise an extra 20 lbs of lean body mass in 2 weeks but these are fake and are just over exaggerated to try and make money.  Again there is no right and wrong in the world of supplementation, it’s all about what you personally need. If you have vitamin deficiencies then a supplement of that deficiency will help your body. If you don’t have any deficiencies then you will pee out the extra vitamins. Protein has not been shows to have adverse effects when taken in large quantities so do not be scared to experiment a little bit. The above vitamins and supplements are available in any nutrition store such as GNC but please ask for assistance before buying any supplement and do your own research. Everything I have told you is a generic idea of what the supplement does, but does not go into great detail. Make sure if you have any medical conditions, to talk to a doctor or specialist before trying any type of supplementation no matter where you heard about it.

Thank you

1) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20609257 

2) http://www.exrx.net/Nutrition/Supplements/BCAA.html 

3) http://www.trulyhuge.com/hmb_review.htm 

4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14630088

5) http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/601glycolysissum.html

6) http://www.ehow.com/about_5030650_effect-niacin-glucose-levels.html

Nitrogen Balance and Exercise

                There is a lot of debate about protein supplements and their effectiveness for athletes who are looking to gain muscle size, power and strength. Unfortunately a lot of the results that are advertised are exaggerated for profit purposes. In this article I hope to shed some light on the real truths behind protein supplementation.

                Protein being the basic building block of muscle is very important for all athletes who require strong muscles to achieve high levels of athletic performance. The daily required intake (DRI) of protein for an average person is about 0.8-1.0 g/kg of body weight. However for an athletes who is constantly doing a lot more physical activity on a regular basis, the body requires a lot more protein to keep building muscle. How much you ask? Well it really depends on the athlete. A very physically demanding sport such as foot ball or power lifting would obviously require more muscle and therefore more protein compared to ping pong or tennis. One article shows that women cyclists require 1.6 x the amount of the daily required intake of the general population (1). For a football player carbohydrates are more of the focus and they are required to have about 1.2-1.4g/kg of body weight a day (2). So you may be asking yourself, how much do I need? The answer is that there is no right or wrong amount. Everywhere I look I see articles saying protein supplementation does work and other articles saying it does not work. It comes down to your personal body type and preference. A trampolinist for example would most likely not find a large increase in performance with a high protein diet. Maybe a creatine supplement may help a trampolinist, but that is a topic for another day.  

The basic concept of a protein supplement is to keep the nitrogen balance from being in the negative state. During exercise nitrogen balance decreases and is considered to be negative meaning amino acids, which contain nitrogen are being used up to fuel the exercise. Protein ingestion during exercise is hypothetically supposed to help prevent nitrogen balance from decreasing as much as in a protein-free workout. This would allow the muscle to build back up after the work out quicker. Here is a simple analogy that may help to picture what is happening.

                Say you are walking up the stairs but for every three steps you climb you have to go down two steps. This would mean that you are constantly back tracking and only gaining one step of improvement at every cycle. Now imagine if   you only had to go back down one step for every three steps you go up. You would help increase the amount of steps you go up because you are not going back down as much as before.  That is what protein does before and during a workout.

After a workout protein is suppose to help increase the amount of muscle actually being built rather than decreasing the amount that is broken down. So it makes sense that both before and after workout protein ingestion would be beneficial (3).  This article shows that amino acid ingestion does increase performance however this article says it does not (4). The bottom line is this:

If you have money to spend then it is worth a try because there is not any scientific evidence that shows extra protein ingestion has a negative effect on the body. If you are not a millionaire then do not waste money on it because you can get a lot of protein from meats and brown rice and peas etc. Buying supplements will not make you have astronomical adaptations and cause you to increase your bench press from 150 lbs to 300 in a month. The actual gains of extra protein are not what people think.  Some fitness magazines will say that you can build one pound of muscle per week or 20 lbs of muscle in 2 months and this is simply wrong. The muscle gains of protein are much smaller. A beginner body builder would roughly expect to gain maybe around 20 lbs of muscle due to extra protein in a YEAR. As you know, adaptations do not just increase at the same rate, they plateau. A seasoned body builder would be expected to gain about 2-3 lbs of muscle in a year due to extra protein. That is not what the advertisers would ever tell you because obviously that does not sound as impressive (5). I have seen other articles that say the gain in muscle mass is actually even less then that but unfortunately i don’t have it so i won’t reference it.  I believe the above website will re-enforce the point I am trying to make even if the numbers are not 100% correct. With this said, extra protein cannot hurt you (6). There has not been any real scientific evidence that shows that too much protein will hurt you. Even consuming up to 4g/kg/ day has been shows to have no negative side effects.

So in conclusion, protein is not the be all and end all of training and strength gains can be attained the same way with a proper periodization plan and a well balanced diet and maybe a bit of extra protein per day. You cannot overdose on protein based on the scientific evidence that is available currently so give it a try and see if you think it helps you. I would start off by working out for a month and then recording the muscle gains and anthropometric measurements and then try protein for a month and compare the results. I hope that this has helped and shown some of the truths behind the protein supplementation myth.

1)      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20508536

2)      http://www.livestrong.com/article/479572-recommended-nutritional-intake-for-a-football-player/

3)      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed 

4)      http://www.swimforums.net/thread-235.html

5)      http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/whats-my-genetic-muscular-potential.html

6)      http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/randy11.htm

TSN Amateur Sport Highlight Contest Submission

I have successfully submitted my video of the Hurricane  (Triple Backflip with five twists)  to  the advil TSN contest. Now I am waiting to see if i make it as a finalist and maybe even the grand prize of  $25,000. Wish me luck. The link is below and if you link it please click on the thumbs up.

Thank you

http://advil.tsn.ca/en/gallery.aspx

Trying Aerial Skiing For The First Time

I have gone to Quebec to try aerial skiing with the Canadian National Team. I am staying for 4 days and am going on the ramps into the water. This sport may be a potential transition sport after trampoline. I will be posting videos of my jump attempts.  Below is a link to their facebook with more info about the team.

http://www.facebook.com/CanadianAerials