Fitness expert reveals how to get arms like Michelle Obama

“I want arms like Michelle Obama!” That’s what women across the world have been saying ever since the American First Lady’s shoulder-baring appearances during the US Presidential inaugural balls.

Fitness expert Brad Schoenfeld, author of Sculpting Her Body Perfect and six other fitness books has the answers for those who want to look great sleeveless.

He recently gave away some tricks of the trade for attaining ‘buff ‘arms. While acknowledging that genetics play a role in body tone, he maintains that, “Genetic predisposition covers only about 50 percent,” adding, “if you work out properly, everyone has the ability to look terrific within their own genetic framework.”

Human Kinetics’ authors honoured

Every year the American College of Sports Medicine recognises individuals or groups who have made significant and important contributions to sports medicine or the exercise sciences.

This year’s awards have just been announced and of the six given, three went to these Human Kinetics’ authors.

Honor Award

Barry A Franklin, Ph.D., FACSM. the citation read ‘The ACSM Honor Award is granted to an individual with a distinguished career of outstanding scientific, service and leadership contributions to the exercise science community, and Dr. Franklin is fully deserving of this recognition for all that he has brought to the exercise science community’.

His books include:
Resistance Training for Health and Rehabilitation
Pollock’s Textbook of Cardiovascular Disease and Rehabilitation
Training Techniques in Cardiac Rehabilitation

Recreation Facility Management

The management of sporting facilities is a complex responsibility. Professionals in this field are responsible for a variety of facilities including recreation centres, water parks and pools, playgrounds, parks, fitness centres, sport complexes and resorts – each with its own set of goals and challenges.

Recreation Facility Management: Design, Development, Operations, and Utilization provides students and new professionals with a basic understanding of recreation facilities and prepares them to perform the duties required of a recreation facility manager.

Part I of Recreation Facility Management provides a detailed look at the foundations of the profession, including the defining characteristics of recreation facility management, descriptions of the duties of a recreation facility manager and the various areas within the facilities.

Steroid doping tests ignore vital ethnic differences in hormone activity

Current steroid (testosterone) doping tests should be scrapped for international sport, because they ignore vital ethnic differences in hormone activity, suggests research published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Testosterone and other hormones that boost testosterone levels, such as growth hormone, are among the most widely abused performance enhancers used in sport, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Evidence of steroid (testosterone) abuse is determined by the testosterone: epitestosterone ratio, or T:E ratio for short, in the urine. The threshold is currently set at above four for everyone and any reading above this is considered suspicious.

To highlight the inadequacy of the current test, the researchers tested the steroid profiles of football players of different ethnicities, after they had deliberately added steroid to their urine samples.

Keeping Texas in shape

It was in March 2007 that the State of Texas first announced that FitnessGram had been selected as the state-wide assessment programme that was to be intoduced to almost two and a half million school students aged eight to eighteen.

Jeff Kloster, the Association Commissioner of Health and Safety with the Texas Education Agency (TEA), said at the time “We are excited about moving forward to provide this exceptional programme to the state’s schools,”

But just what is FitnessGram?

FitnessGram measures aerobic capacity, body composition, muscular strength, endurance and flexibility. Students do not “pass” or “fail” tests, rather the tests determine a student’s overall physical fitness and suggest areas for improvement when appropriate. The goal is for all students to achieve a “Healthy Fitness Zone” for each test, and the standards to reach the Healthy Fitness Zones are based on gender and age.

Mental fatigue can affect physical endurance

When participants performed a mentally fatiguing task prior to a difficult exercise test, they reached exhaustion more quickly than when doing the same exercise when mentally rested.

This is the major finding of a study by Samuele M. Marcora, Walter Staiano and Victoria Manning of Bangor University, funded by the University’s School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science and published in the Journal of Applied Physiology by The American Physiological Society.

The study also found that mental fatigue did not actually cause the heart or muscles to perform any differently but instead, it is a “perceived effort” that determines when we reach exhaustion. It also indicated that motivation did not decrease as a result of mental fatigue and was not a factor.

High-technology trainers a waste of money?

A study from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales has analysed 60 years of sports medicine research and found nothing to prove that “high technology” shoes had any special benefit for runners.

Dr Craig Richards, who led the research at the Australian university said that some designs may actually make injury more likely.
“The shoes are specially designed to make you land on your heel and that’s very artificial. That may impair balance and make you prone to ankle strain.”

FINA acts over hi-tech swimsuits

Last month we reported that FINA had convened a summit meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, to debate the issue of all high-tech swimsuits with manufacturers, scientists, coaches and swimmers following calls to ban them on the grounds that they offer extra buoyancy and therefore amount to performance-enhancing aids.
Read original article>>

Now comes news that World swimming governing body FINA has acted by placing restrictions on the design of the controversial hi-tech swimsuits that have prompted a spate of world records in the last year.

The benefit of warm-up exercises

Warm-up exercises that enhance flexibility, balance and strength can double as injury prevention programmes by successfully modifying players’ movements according to a study involving young soccer players aged 10 – 17, conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina.

“Soccer players and other young athletes have a fairly high incidence of injuries, especially involving the anterior cruciate ligament, or ACL, a ligament critical for knee stability,” said Darin Padua, Ph.D., associate professor of exercise and sport science in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. “For some reason, girls seem to be at greater risk of ACL injuries. You hear about a lot of these injuries in basketball, too.”

True competition in sport and society

True Competition: A Guide to Pursuing Excellence in Sport and Society offers a blueprint for maximising the potential of competition to foster both excellence and enjoyment.

Readers of this book will learn the differences between positive and negative competition and discover how to implement change in their organisations, teams and individual practices.

Picking up good vibrations

When former supermodel Cindy Crawford, at the ripe old age of 43, credited her irritatingly toned body to working out using the Power Plate, it raised quite a bit of interest and some undisguised envy.

But what exactly is Power Plate and how does it work? Well it consists of a vibrating platform upon which users perform all sorts of moves ranging from squats, crunches and push-ups, to dips, steps and lunges. The vibrations mean that muscles work harder than in traditional strength training and therefore training time can be cut.

Are Cyclists Pedalling Towards Osteoporosis?

While maintaining a steady exercise regimen is one of the best things people can do for their general good health, recent studies suggest an alarming correlation between bicycling and the onset of osteopenia (lower-than-normal bone density) or osteoporosis (very low bone mineral density), even among those who are young and fit.

Cycling is a low-impact sport that puts little mechanical load on the bones and joints and is a wonderful cardiovascular exercise that people can enjoy into their later years.

When it comes to the risk of thinning bones, however, it’s the weight-bearing nature of exercise that signals bones to create more mass. Without such stress, bones do not get stronger, and become more prone to injury.

Funny what you see on TV

So there you are down at the local library trying to read when the peace is shattered by ex-BBC newsreader and presenter Angela Ripon dancing down the aisles.

Angela, who once famously showed off her legs on a Christmas edition of the Morecambe and Wise show, was filming a trailer for Let’s Dance for Comic Relief. Interestingly the book being read in the clip is Mastering Kung Fu published by Human Kinetics – funny that!

View the clip…

BT Red Nose Climbers reach summit

Professor Greg Whyte of the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences at Liverpool John Mores University and Human Kinetics’ author, was a trainer to the nine celebrities undertaking an iconic challenge for Comic Relief.

He took the celebrities, all with little or no walking or high altitude experience, to the summit of Africa’s highest peak – Kilimanjaro.

This also involves being filmed for a documentary with the promise of raising millions of pounds for charity and with failure not an option!

The lucky nine(?) seen here are Gary Barlow, Chris Moyles, Ronan Keating, Ben Sheppard, Alesha Dixon, Denise Van Outen, Fearne Cotton, Cheryl Cole and Kimberly Walsh.

Take time for Take Six

Mini-baskeball is a school sport played by millions of primary PE pupils across the world and was introduced internationally in 1964 with the objective of introducing young people to the world of sport in a spirit of friendship and understanding.

Take Six Mini-Basketball provides a simplified game format that can be used in all primary schools and mini-basketball clubs. Unlike the 5 versus 5 on court basketball game, Take Six Mini-Basketball is a 3 a side game which allows children with different abilities to develop their skills and tactical awareness and is far more appropriate for most children.