Athlete In The City

 Found this new video on youtube which shows some good things to try for building planche strength.  Good stuff!

This guy Hannibal is a powerhouse. Unbelievable. He does a lever on a fire hydrant, then flips up to a planche and does a few planche pushups. Amazing. In one shot it looks like he’s doing a maltese. Damn!

Sanjay Gupta talks with Dan Buettner author of The Blue Zone: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. A blue zone is a place around the globe with a disproportionately long living population, and Buettner goes to these places to study what makes them different. His three rules: 1. eat a mostly plant based diet 2. Regular low-intensity exercise 3. Invest in Family and Friends

If you ever watch late-nite TV, you’ve probably seen these commercials for amazing weight loss supplement that will - you know - change your life. This particular one seems to be changing more than people imagined. You know the moral of the story right? No pain no gain, and there are no shortcuts in life, etc etc.

CNN Health Minute has an interesting article on running as people age. No need to hang up your running shoes as you ageThey point to the weekend warriors, who don’t stretch, and exercise regularly, who go out and play tennis, football, or basketball like they did when they were in their twenties, and end up in the hospital with knee and other joint injuries.You’ve heard me say it before, it is more and more crucial as you age, to stretch and stretch seriously.  And put real time into it, warm up slowly, and cool down slowly.  Stretching the joints related to running in all directions, and with slow, deliberate, and sustained intensity before, during, and after the workout is key.  This maintains joint health, which helps those joints continue to do what you’re asking them to do.  Of course a balanced diet is important too.  Keeping your overall bodyweight down, puts less stress on the joints, even when you’re not working out.  Remember, working out taxes the joints causing them to tighten.  Running especially causes this to the hamstrings.  That means you need to stretch more than someone who doesn’t run.  Plain and simple.

Was clicking around the CNN/Sanjay Gupta fitness site, and found this interesting piece in the expert Q&A How can someone with arthritis work out?It turns out that some of the myths around arthritis prevent those with the ailment from exercising, out of fear of making their symptoms worse.  It is true that one needs to avoid the pounding of some exercises, so they recommend stationary bicycle with some resistance training as well.  I might add the suggestion of swimming, if you have the facilities to do that.  A little bit of weight loss can make a big difference to arthritis sufferers who have pain in the lower joints.According to the article, your goal will be 30 minutes of cardio 5 times per week, and two days of intense resistance training.  I’d agree as a goal, but for starters, two days at 20 minutes would be good, and one day of resistance training.  Build up slowly, and add a third day of cardio after three months, and after six months a fourth day, and another day of resistance training.Of course also be sure to do extensive stretching during a slow warmup, and slow warmdown after you are done.  This goes double for someone with arthritis.

A new twist on handstand pushups.  If handstand pushups get too easy, try deep press hanstand pushups (on parallettes) where your chest comes down to hand level.  If those get to easy, destabilize one or both of your hands with a medicine ball.  And a caveat aka warning, please don’t try this if you struggle with basic handstand pushups.  You’ll fall splat on your face!!

Shrink Wrap Radio is a weekly podcast interviewing various luminaries in the field of psychiatry and the brain.  In this episode, Dr Dave interviews Dr John Ratey, about “miracle grow” for the brain aka exercise!

It’s a little bit geeky at the beginning but well worth a listen.

“There is just a flock of evidence for the benefits for depression, anxiety, panic disorder. Part of what the real message is, is that if you activate your brain with exercise, you’re gonna release a lot of the neurotransmitters we aim with in psychopharmacology, you know, our drugs that we use, serotonin drugs, dopamine drugs, neurepinephrine drugs, all tend to try we think to elevate the levels of these neurotransmitters. Well exercise does that pretty quickly!”

This video is pretty awesome.  Jack Lalanne is an old school strong man and fitness enthusiast.  He makes all these hard-core training exercises look easy.  A great role model, even with the funny commentary!

I found this video on another youtube like site.  This guy has a lot of exercises for training the planche.  One particular one I’ve been working on is the handstand pushups, where each hand is supported by and destabilized by an exercise ball!!

Acrobatic 3-The Planche - Awesome video clips here