Why You Should Test The Broad Jump

I recently read an article about the correlations that are made with the NFL combine tests. The article was called "Relationships between NFL Combine performance measures." Robbins 2011.

The one thing that stood out was that sprint performance had the highest correlation with the horizontal jump. This goes against many long held beliefs that the vertical jump held the greatest correlation to sprint performance.

10,20,40 yard dashes are the sprints that are tested. Essentially, these are all acceleration activities. It makes sense when training for speed to keep measuring the broad jump to make sure gradual improvements are being made. It's much easier then testing the 40 yard dash every week.

-train out pain and train in performance!

Single Leg Plank Donkey Kick

If planks get to easy. You are looking for more of a glute activator/strength. This hits the gltues like crazy.

Memorial Day Motivation: Fallen Soldier Tribute

Understanding Pain: What to do about it in less than five minutes?

Mountain Bike Fascial Stretching

Monday Motivation: 1440 Minutes

Why You Need to Get off the Elliptical Trainer

The Elliptical trainer can be a useful training tool if you have some joint pain involving the hip, knee or ankle.  If you have low back pain or calf problems, the elliptical can be contributing to your situation.

 The benefit of the elliptical is that it does not load the extremity joints in a way that running on a treadmill or running outside will.

The cost of the elliptical is that it sends all the force into the sacral region.  I often find that people that do a lot of elliptical have fixated sacrum's that don't nutate or counternutate as they should.  Another issue that may arise is increased tension in the foot muscles. The heel always stays down, there is not the natural loading and unloading of the calf muscles and the fascia.  This will potentially exacerbate plantar fascia and create an increased load on the front shin muscles, specifically the tibialis anterior.