Totally Tired

"This is insane. Are you really going to abandon this movie? We're supposed to be a unit!"
"Suck my unit"
--Ben Stiller/ Robert Downey Jr.

Yes, Robert Downey Jr. is playing a black guy

So I am kinda tired right now. I have been sleeping really early the past couple weeks. The odd part is that I wake up really late as well. You figure I'd be up at like 6 or 7 if I went to bed at 10. I'm rockin some sleep until 10-10:30. Maybe I am not getting enough deep sleep. The sleep that actually counts.


On the bright side, I qualified for Mens Raw Nationals in Power-lifting recently. I think I actually have a shot in placing in my weight class too. Who'da thunk it right?

I actually get to have Mark Rippetoe coach me at the meet. He is the strength coach I follow and he will be coaching me, alongside with him will also be my best friend Justin.

Gonna be a killer meet.

Training Kids

"I just use my muscles as a conversation piece, like someone walking a cheetah down 42nd Street."
--Arnold Schwarzenegger

There is one fundamental problem with training young people. It can determine whether they succeed or fail before they even start.

Will.

If someone doesn't have the will or desire to do something then it will never be done. This is especially true in high schoolers. At this time their hormones are flowing like the salmon of Capistrano. They want to have fun, rebel, and do really really stupid things. I was one just a few years ago and I can recollect and provide examples of all of those.

Fortunately for me I had an interest in working out early on. My dad was a power-lifter and had a stint in bodybuilding as well. He had an influence on me early on and I was hooked since then.

I wanted to be like him when I was a kid so I worked my butt off.

If a young adult has the desire to work hard and is ready for a barbell program, then and only then should they enter the dragon. If you force a kid into something like this and they don't want to, they will hate it forever.

That's why I think high school should have weight training as a class, but as a SERIOUS class.

Not something to sit in there and fart around. Most of the time trying to not look like an idiot in front of the older blond girl you had a big crush on. All while she thinks you're cute but the older guys rip on you causing you to trip and fall in the middle of class. . . Just saying. Totally didn't happen to me or anything.


Me in High School, what an ass

The Hows

"Vincent Van Gogh . . . VAN GO!!!"
-- Shotgun Harley

The basic program for the kids would be a program from Mark Rippetoe's: Starting Strength. With some slight modifications, if not the exact program.

It consists of three training days a week. Placed on alternate days. (Ex. MWF or TTRS) with the days in between being rest days.

A:
Squat 3x5
Press 3x5
Deadlift 5x1

B:
Squat 3x5
Bench 3x5
Pull-ups/Back Extensions

The days would go A-B-A, then the following week would be B-A-B. This is just a general look at the program. It can be altered very easily, but for the most part it would remain constant.

You may think that this might be too much for a high school youngin to handle. It's not. Teenagers are much like mutants. They have the ability to recover very quickly to just about any stress applied to them. That is if they eat and sleep along with the program.

As the students start and maintain this program, until change is necessary as deemed by a coach, they will grow and become much stronger. The addition of strength will be followed closely by the addition of lean body mass.

Now I am not saying every single student needs to be on this exact program, but considering strength is the foundation for any athletic endeavor barbell training will only help.

Here is a video of Colton. He is a high school athlete who trains in Wichita Falls. Since this video he has gained another 30 pounds I believe.



You can find this video off of 70sbig.com

The website is a great resource for strength training.

For real

"You killed the only two people I ever loved. Why?"
--DareDevil (Worst Movie Ever)

The reason why I advocate barbell training to help fight obesity in youth has a few simple reasons. When someone applies stress to their body, the human bodies homeostasis gets disrupted. When it returns back to normal the stress applied to it has been adapted to. Then you grow.

When you squat with the technique taught by Mark Rippetoe. You squat using the most muscles over the longest distance. The more you squat, the stronger you get. Safely. This is not saying you need to squat 800 pounds and be a professional powerlifter. That is what those guys get paid to do. Everyone can benefit from adding 100 lbs to their squat. If they don't squat, they should.

I digress.

When you get stronger and eat and sleep your muscles will grow. Lean muscle will be built over a short period of time. The more lean muscle a person has the faster their metabolism is.



This is a picture of my friend Justin Lascek. I think he's got 435 on the bar. He is a coach in Wichita Falls.

The faster the metabolism the quicker you can burn off calories. It is crazy how that works huh?

Potential

"Who wants cream? Nobody? Okay, no cream."
--Farva

Change can happen in the youth if there are capable and competent trainers guiding them along their journey. I am not talking about the men and women who go to weekend certifications and sit there without having to lift a finger and magically become a personal trainer.

If you really think about it, would you really listen to anyone who believes that they can conquer the mysteries of the human body in a one weekend certification for two hundred dollars?


We all wanna be like these champs right?


This kind of knowledge requires specific and practical training. Obesity can be fought and can potentially be a thing of the past. This solution of barbell training does go against conventional wisdom, but it will work – for sure.

My Best Friend

“Hey, Blinkin!”
“Did you say "Abe Lincoln"?”
---Robin Hood: Men in Tights

Lifestyles that young adolescents have now are not influenced by athletics or physical activity. Kids are influenced by technology and demand instant results. This demand for instant results leads to little work ethic amongst that age group.

Doing something difficult can change a teenagers work ethic. “By overcoming hard obstacles on a consistent basis, we set ourselves up for success. Our thoughts formulate our feelings, our feelings compose our emotions, our emotions are exhibited through actions, and our actions define who we are. So you see, if we can structure our thoughts in a successful mindset, one that strives towards success regardless of the obstacle, then it makes us a better person. One of the best ways to train to do this is to do something that is really f***ing hard. And then do that on a regular basis.” (Do Hard Things, pg. 9).

That was a clip from an article written by my beeeeeeeest friend. He is a strength coach in Wichita Falls, Texas and has currently qualified for Nations in Olympic Lifting.

In life it is necessary to do hard things.

BMI

“Nice night for a walk.”
---The Terminator

The obesity problem is an issue because being over-weight leads to more chances of diabetes and also leads to heart risks. The obesity problem needs to be measured in the correct way though. BMI, Body-Mass Index, is a joke.
It is an easy way to get extremely inaccurate results fast. That’s how America works doesn’t it?

A BMI test just measures body-weight to height ratio. This test is an assumption that the extra mass per height is FAT. If this were true every player in the NFL would be on the way to the morgue due to his extreme obesity. You might be saying “Duh!” right now, but most people do not know this.




I have tested myself on a BMI calculator as well. According to it I have a BMI of 30.6, OBESE by that standard. There is a large margin of error in calculating obesity with some of these tests. Your average P.E. teacher does not understand these fallacies. If students were subjected to a Body-fat assessment the results would be more accurate. A better way to approach this would be to use a body fat caliper. It is more reliable that a BMI test by far. Some one with experience can easily help by using a caliper.


This might cause a younger person to lose some confidence and maybe start feeling upset. You have to be delicate with certain age groups in the way you talk to them about “fat”.

We Need More Blankets

"I've heard police work is dangerous."
"It is. That's why I carry a big gun."
---Frank Drebin

Most programs for any sort of activity need funding. Funding for programs would be simple and very effective. The only problem is the popularity of exercise or training, is lacking, unlike many other European and Asian countries. (Training is considered having a goal or an end result from lifting). A great example of this is Olympic weightlifting. The number of registered weightlifters in China alone is in the millions as in the U.S. it is only in the tens of thousands. Most of these lifters are teenagers, some children. There is a huge emphasis on exercising and weightlifting in China. (USA Today.)

In America there is no benefits from lifting weights. There are no scholarships for power-lifting and Olympic lifting. So it is no surprise that every other country besides America does great in that category of the Olympics.

Don’t try to disagree with that statement because Kenya beat out the Americans recently. That’s right. Kenya.

Funding is crucial to the popularity of many sports. The more funding means the more demand for that particular sport.

"Are you sneaking around in here, Charles?"

Most physical activity is thought of as something easy you can do in 5-8 minutes. Maybe get up off the couch and grab your shake-weight and wiggle it around for fifteen seconds and I am sure you will look like the super models on television – Syke. Sure these items will show results, but that’s only because the un-active become active. That is why having qualified coaches who know how to properly teach and design barbell programs is a necessity.

Young adults need someone to look up to and to motivate them. The P.E. teachers of today just aren’t doing the trick. Very few give the kids an opportunity to be involved in correct training.

Correct training is essential to the success of any sort of program that involves exercise. The gym teachers just stick their prospective students under a bar and tell them to squat. That is because they don't know how to teach and they just might not care.

Then the student gets a knee injury because an un-qualified coach taught them to squat incorrectly and barbell training gets a bad rap. Not the coach who has no idea about the mechanics of a correct lift (No one is happy at this point). This is a common misconception of barbell training. It is perfectly safe when taught correctly.

Unfortunately lots of people do not understand much of anything in regards to training now.

O The Youth

“Today is Evaluation Day. The key word being value. Do you have any? Not yet you don’t”

Young adolescents have hundreds of activities they can choose from now. Most of them not including any sort of physical labor.

There is not enough discussion in school about the importance of physical activity. Most "Coaches" just roll out the ole' ball and say shoot around some baskets, its good for you.

Some kids play around, while most sit in social circles and fart around. This does not induce an active behavior in the youth. If those coaches actually had some sort of training and experience in something besides high school (insert X sport here), then something might get done.

There needs to be qualified professionals in a position of authority in the physical education department.

This is rare.

First Timer

"He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight, on his huge pillow."

This is the first post of many for my English 1102 class. This blog I have created will mainly be talking about the troubled overweight teenagers in high school and one of the many solutions to help. My solution revolves around an addition of barbell training by qualified coaches in the high school level. After all stronger people are harder to kill than weak ones and more useful in general.

The programming and technique that I would be referring to would come from

Mark Rippetoe's: Starting Strength

It is a fantastic book. If you haven't read or heard about it I suggest you take a second to check it out.