A huge Congratulations to my long-time client Josh Thompson.

Josh called me this morning from the road and let me know that he just won his first professional golf tournament on the Hooter’s tour.

He is now the champioin of the 2008 Touchstone Energy Open (Josh is in green)

Way to go Josh!!

Bill

Q: Bill, I love your blog. I wish you had time to post more often. I had a question. I have never been able to do a lot of push ups. My chest gets fatiqued after about 25-30 now matter what I do. I hear people talk about doing 50 push-ups at a time. Do you have any advice that will help me be able to do more push-ups?” Thanks.

A:  Thanks for the question.

If you really have your heart set on setting a PR (personal record) for push-ups there’s a number of factors that contribute to your performance.

1.  Stability

If you lack trunk or scapular stability, your prime movers at the shoulder girdle and upper extremity will be limited in their ability to produce force.

The Fix:  Perform long duration planks and isometric holds in the lowered position of the push-up.  Be sure to actively depress and stabilize the scapula.

2.  Maximal strength

When doing a regular push-up on the floor, you’re lifting about 2/3 of your body weight.  If you can increase maximal strength of those muscle groups involved, your 2/3 body weight becomes a lesser percentage of your maximals strength and theoretically your maximal number of push-ups performed should increase.

The fix:  Loaded push-ups with a weighted vest, push-ups with chains, push-ups with bands, asymmetrical and unilateral push-up variations, partial range of motion push-ups, and even bench pressing.

3.  Strength-endurance

High rep sets of push-ups are a test of your strength-endurance, so in essence, doing more push-ups will help.

The fix:  Try this progression.  1-2x/week start by performing the maximal number of push-ups that you can do in a row while timing the duration of this first set.  Rest the same amount of time that it took to complete the set.  Repeat this process until your complete the desired number of repetitions.  As strength-endurance improves, it should take fewer and fewer sets to complete the desired number of repetitions.

Bill

I’ve always said that the scapula is my second favorite bone (insert joke here).

Apparently, I’m not the only one.

http://www.biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=6353

Thanks to super-client Galya Talkington for the link

Bill

My friend Jim Smith looks at things from all angles…literally.  His brain never stops and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t sleep.

Last time he was in town, dinner was like the ultimate roundtable discussion on every training method imaginable.

As one of the masterminds behind the Diesel Crew, he’s also got a reputation for being one of the great brains in strength and conditioning

His Building the Ultimate MMA Athlete book is one of the most thorough resources on the subject.

His Chaos Manual is literally the bible of supplementary training.  At over 600 pages of “no fluff” information, it’s a go-to book for solving the “what to do in this case” training issues.

As much as I enjoy and reference these books, I think Smitty has outdone himself and just about everyone else.

He’s just released his new book, Combat Core:  Advance Torso Training for Explosive Strength and Power. 

There are many “must haves” in the strength and conditioning field, but this beats them all in the core conditioning category.  Like I mentioned in the title, this is real core training.

By the way, Smitty is known to overdeliver in the information department, so if you’re on the fence, here’s what you get in addition to Combat Core:

The Combat Core Basic Package includes:

Combat Core
BoxingPerformance.com Interview
BoxingPerformance.com $1 Trial Membership
The Deadlift 101 Video
The Deadlift 101 Manual
The Underground Combat Files
The S&C Interrogation Files
Lifetime Updates

The Combat Core Deluxe Package includes:

Combat Core
BoxingPerformance.com Interview
BoxingPerformance.com $1 Trial Membership
The Deadlift 101 Video
The Deadlift 101 Manual
The Underground Combat Files
The S&C Interrogation Files
The Complete Abdominal Index
Advanced Kettlebell Training
Sledgehammer Essentials
The Summer Shredder Program
The MMA Power Program
Lifetime Updates

Get it while it’s on sale.

Bill

I was doing my food prep last night while my wife was watching “60 minutes.”  Most of the time I’d have ignored the TV, but they were talking about the science of sleep and it’s impact on health so my ears perked up.

Here’s some highlights:

After 6 nights of sleep deprivation, subjects of one study were found to be pre-diabetic…6 nights!

Leptin hormone concentrations are altered by sleep deprivation such that you become hungrier and consume more calories.  This kind of makes sense that I you’re awake more you would eat more, but these calories may be in excess of your daily requirements and increase fat storage.

A lack of deep sleep may be risk factor in most of the major cardiovascular diseases.

As we age, we spend less time in deep sleep.

Sleep is not just a primary recovery tool as part of your training (see http://billhartman.net/blog/2007/06/22/restoration/), but it’s also an important component of overall health.

One little piece of advice:  Try to go to sleep and wake at the same times each day.  Otherwise, it’s like constantly changing time zones which makes it harder to get restorative sleep.

Here’s a link to the 60 minutes segment:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/14/60minutes/main3939721.shtml

Bill