Brandon Charls

The Best Core Exercise

Jun 12

BrandonBuilding muscle, Challenges, Fun, Speed and Agility No Comments

The fitness world goes through these phases in which certain exercise and theories get the most attention. Today, core training receives the most popularity among people who are trying to shape up their mid-section and achieve 6-pack greatness. However, the core is comprised of muscle located in the center of the body that stabilizes the body when it is in an upright position. When you walk, run, jump, squat, and lift weights you are using your core muscles. These muscles also control the head, neck, ribs, spine, and pelvis (Dominques & Gajda 1982). In addition, achieving a strong core will allow for greater neuromuscular efficiency, an increase in functional strength, and leads to improved performance on and off the field.

I believe that the best exercise to train your core is the overhead squat (OHS). The overhead squat is a very physically demanding exercise that not only challenges your core but, also every muscle in your body. If you have never done an overhead squat before, you must first start out light and focus on maintaining proper form throughout the whole exercise. A good way to practice is to start out using a PVC pipe or a broom stick. Using a wide grip, extend the bar over your head slightly behind your ears by retracting your scapula (shoulder blades) and maintain that position. Set your feet into a good squatting position while keeping your torso upright and your eyes focused straight ahead. Now, take a deep breath and hold it as you descend as deep as possible making sure that your heels are flat on the ground and your hips pushed back. When you are ready to ascent from your squat, stand up slowing and exhale while keeping your chest upright and your heels still flat on the ground.

 Practice makes perfect!  The more OHS you do will lead to greater flexibility, strength, and core strength.  It is also a great way to correct a lot of muscle imbalances you may have, which will help you prevent injuries from occurring and allowing you to move more efficiently. 

Treadmill Training

Jun 11

BrandonCardio health, Challenges, Losing Fat, Speed and Agility No Comments

Put down the weights and tighten up those shoe laces for a workout that will have you burning more calories than you can ever imagine. In this workout you will have to be comfortable with running at high speeds on the treadmill and most importantly hoping off the treadmill while it is still going. For instance, on pretty much every treadmill there are ledges on the side of the rotating belt that are big enough for you to step on to and rest if you have to. You might have done this before when you were running on the treadmill one day and stepped off to the side to rest, get a drink of your water bottle, and then you proceeded to complete your run. However, in this workout you will be allowed to rest/hop off the treadmill after every assigned run, but the rest you take should not exceed past 45 seconds. In addition, there will be some runs in which you will hold on to the rail in front of you (usually where the heart rate monitors are) and perform the run. This workout is not easy! If you need to take more rest or adjust the intensity (speed/incline) do so to meet your needs. On the other hand…PUSH YOURSELF

Here’s how it goes…

This prescribed workout is for elite athletes who are comfortable at running high speed on the treadmill, as well as hoping off while the treadmill belt while it  is still moving. If you feel that you are going to fly off the treadmill because it is too intense, decrease the intensity (speed/incline) so you don’t kill yourself. This workout will allow you to burn a lot of calories and also increase your speed, agility, and joint proprioception (joint awareness).  Have Fun!

Measuring Aerobic Performance

Jun 09

BrandonCardio health, Speed and Agility No Comments

Are you in good cardiovascular shape???

 A good way to check if you are getting into cardiovascular shape is to check your resting heart rate (RHR).  To get an accurate reading of your RHR, you must take your pulse just after you wake up, while you are still lying in bed.  The best way to do it is to take your carotid pulse by lightly placing two fingers on the side of your neck, just to the side of the larynx (throat).  Once you have found your pulse, count the pulses for 60 seconds and record that number (or count pulses for 30 seconds and then times it by 2).  If you are training properly, you should see a decrease in the amount of pulses in 60 seconds.

What is this important?

1.      Your heart is getting stronger:  Seeing a decrease in RHR means that your stroke volume (SV) is getting stronger.  SV is the amount of blood the heart pumps out in a single beat.  Having an efficient SV will allow your heart to not work as hard to supply oxygen to your active muscles. 

2.      Blood Volume:  With your heart getting stronger, there will be an increase in blood volume and it will be easier for blood to supply oxygen to your active muscles and also clear up lactic acid.

a.      Lactic acid is the burning sensation you feel in your legs if you sprint up a flight of stairs.  In other words…lactic acid = muscle fatigue.  The increase in blood volume will buffer away lactic acid and keep you going longer.

3.      Increase in VO_2max:  Maximal oxygen uptake (VO_2max) is regarded as one of best measurements of aerobic performance.  It is the maximal volume of oxygen that your body can consume per minute and used for aerobic energy production. 

What if you see an increase in RHR through your training program?

1.      You are overtrained:  This is a good indicator that you need to rest so your body can recover.  Overtraining will lead to a decrease in performance, decrease in motivation, decrease in weight, and an overall decrease in energy.

2.      You are detrained:  Your body cannot increase in performance if you don’t train properly.  This means you must increase in frequency, time, and intensity in your workouts.  The body adapts to everything you throw at it so challenge yourself every time you train.  If you train correctly, you will see a decrease in your RHR.

The normal values for relative (mL/kg/min) VO2for various groups of individuals?

Untrained College-aged Females 30-35 mL/kg/min
Untrained College-aged Males 35-45 mL/kg/min

Active College-aged Females 40-45 mL/kg/min
Active College-aged Males 45-50 mL/kg/min

Trained College-aged Females 50-60 mL/kg/min
Trained College-aged Males 55-65 mL/kg/min

Competitive College-aged Males 65-85 mL/kg/min
Highest measured VO2max ~95 mL/kg/min

A strong heart leads to a strong performance

The 5 Most Overrated Exercises

Jun 05

BrandonBuilding muscle, Challenges, Speed and Agility 1 Comment

1.  The Bench Press: 
“How much can you bench?” seems to be the question that every gym rat would like to know when you tell them you workout. In my option, I think the bench press is the # 1 most overrated exercise that is performed in the gym (especially on Mondays/National Bench Press Day). The reason I think this way about the bench press is because I am a man of functionality and I believe that you should train movements and not body parts (the body building era is over!). The only time you are lying on your back and pushing something heavy off of you is when you are getting your ass kicked in a fight or in competition.

2.  Bicep curl:  
I absolutely hate this exercise! I will just quote Alwyn Crosgrove who is a well renowned strength & conditioning coach and an overall great guy. He states, “If you cannot achieve 10 pull-ups on your own, you have no right doing bicep curls”. I’ll just leave it at that because I can go on for days about why this exercise is irrelevant…

3.  Leg press:
Ok, let’s load up 8 plates on each side of the leg press and have people be AMAZED about how much weight you are pressing. Let’s see…
8 plates x 2 sides = 16 plates total
16 plates x 45 lbs = 720 lbs that you are pressing while you are reclining in a chair with your feet up. That is amazing! So if you can leg press 720 lbs…How much can you squat???
(I had a professor once told me that “leg press is only functional for truck drivers”)

4.  Seated Adductions: 
Women love this exercise!…They believe that if they do enough reps, the fat will melt off of their inner thighs. Not only is this not true, but this will cause a major muscle imbalance in the body especially in women. For example, the next time you see someone squat notice their knees and how they move (in or out). If the knees move in towards one another then that is a perfect example of someone who has tight adductors. Having tight adductors will lead to someone having weak glutes and not having a strong ass will lead to sprain ankles and knee problems.

5.  Tricep Kick Back:
This exercise is ridiculous because for you to perform this exercise you must pull your arm into shoulder extension and maintain an isometric muscle contraction (no movement) in your latissimus dorsi and posterior deltoid. In other words, you are not just working your triceps in this exercise because your motor neurons are firing to your lats and deltoids to hold you in the proper position. You won’t be able to overload the triceps with weight and thus you will not see any gains by doing that exercise…throw it out!

Honorable mention
• Forearm curls
• Crunches
• Knee extension                                                                                                                                                               

Got to love Mondays

uh???

 Northridge CA, 91325

Train Movements NOT Body Parts

May 31

BrandonBuilding muscle, Challenges, Speed and Agility No Comments

The body it divided into three planes in which movements are performed. These planes consist of the sagittal plane, frontal plane, and transverse plane.

1. The sagittal plane divides the body into right and left halves and 80% of movements in the gym are performed in the sagittal plane. Exercises in the sagittal plane include bicep curls, squats, walking lunges, crunches, shoulder press, triceps extension, shoulder flexion/front raise, etc.
2. The frontal plane divides the body into front and back halves and is associated with adduction and abduction. However, there are not as many exercises that are performed in this plane. Exercises in the frontal plane consist of lateral lunges, hip abduction, hip adduction, and lateral shoulder raises….I think that’s all of them.
3. The transverse plane (my favorite) divides the body into top and bottom halves. Anytime you are rotating/twisting your body, you are performing movements in the transverse plane. Exercises performed in the transverse plane include cable chops, Russian twist, crossover crunch, transverse lunge, and any other movement that involves rotation.

 
The next time you exercise, it would be a good idea to incorporate more lateral movements in the frontal plane, as well as more rotational movements in the transverse plane. If you play a sport, it is crucial to focus on movements in the frontal and transverse planes. Even in everyday life, you are performing movements in all three planes and training movements rather than body parts will allow you to improve the way you move on and off the field. If you want to look like an athlete, you must train like an athlete so challenge the body in multiple planes!

Workout Intensity

May 28

BrandonBuilding muscle, Challenges, Losing Fat, Speed and Agility 1 Comment

The single most important aspect in your workout should be intensity. The reason why people do not see results with their workout is because it is easy and comfortable to them. I love the people who do an exercise and after their set, they rest for 3 minutes looking up into space or talk to their gym friend. A professor at my school told me that, “if you are in the gym for more than an hour, you are making more friends than you are making muscles.”

The best tip to intensify your workout is to stop resting in between sets. There are a couple ways to do this.
1. Superset: Take two exercises and perform them back to back until you achieve the amount of sets you strive for. My favorite is the deadlift – pull up combo. After I do a set up deadlifts, I jump right into doing pull ups. After I’m done with pull up, I go right back into doing deadlift and so on.
2. Active rest: Let’s say you just finished a set of heavy squats, the worst thing you can do is just stand there. Proceed to do some crunches or something less demanding on the body but you are keeping your heart rate up.
3. Time your rest: After you are done with your set, hit your stop watch and rest for 30 seconds. When those 30 seconds are up, go back into doing the exercise. As the weights get heavier, you can take longer rest periods to allow your muscles to recover.
4. Tabatas: Take a multiple joint exercise like a squat and do 8 sets of 20 second squats as fast as you can and then rest for 10 seconds.  A Tabata only takes 4 minutes to complete but, it will be the hardest 4 minutes you will ever experience if you do it correctly.
5. Heart Rate: Is the single best indicator to measure intensity. You can purchase a heart rate monitor or you can simply check it by placing two fingers on your carotid artery (neck) and see how many beats per minute your heart is generating.

High intense workouts will allow you to burn more fat, increase lean muscle mass, and increase cardiovascular endurance in half the time it used to take.  The harder you push yourself…the faster you will achieve your goals.