Adarq.org

Congrats, man, closing in on Machinist status, lol.

CNS training right there man! with the dog! lol. good thing it didn't jump or something!

Stretch to Win (http://www.amazon.com/Stretch-Win-Ann-Frederick/dp/0736055290) is an excellent book. Its purpose is to lay out the foundations of the authors' methodology and then describe how to apply those principles for personal use. The principles are described first. Then there is a quick, well-written anatomy lesson that goes into basics about different types of fascia and muscle tissue and how they respond to stress (whether it be good or bad). Then the authors describe a self-evaluation that the reader is supposed to undertake before proceeding with the last part of the book. That's all laid out very clearly, with each step broken down and some helpful cues given. After that the authors give detailed descriptions of each layer of stretching, from the core stretches (which I'm doing now), down the chain of to sport-specific stretches.

Couple of interesting takeaways:
1) Stretching to a count (10 seconds, 20 seconds, whatever) is dumb. Your muscle doesn't know what a second is so setting an arbitrary length of time makes no sense. It's better to cycle stretching with your breath, pushing a little bit with the exhalations and relaxing with the inhalations, until you feel the muscle release some of its tension.
2) It's important to stretch the core (hips) first before moving to the extremities, and to stretch muscles/tissues that just cross one joint before moving to multi-joint muscles/tissues.

Couple of downsides:
1) This isn't really a fault of the book, because I can't imagine how you would describe it in writing, but I've had a hard time knowing when to stop a particular stretch, i.e. when the muscle has "released its tension." But this may simply be a result of my muscles being super, super tight!
2) The stretch descriptions are generally adequate to very good, but a couple of the ones I've followed so far either aren't explicit enough or I'm too dumb to understand what to do.

On the whole, though, a really, really worthwhile book. I'm looking forward to incorporating a little bit of sense into my stretching and seeing how my flexibility, posture, performance, etc. improve. And for $13.57 on Amazon, the price is right.

One last thing: A lot of fitness-industry products will get "testimonials" from "pro athletes." These tend to be minor-league types, or obscure Pan Am games qualifiers or whatever. And often, the athlete met the product-seller one time, or they had a phone consult, and the product-seller tries to say that the athlete is a client, or a friend, or whatever. The athletes giving testimonials for Stretch to Win are legit high-level pros, and they're obviously really clients. Donovan McNabb is the model for some of the stretches at the end of the book and you know these people don't have enough cash lying around to afford McNabb's endorsement rates. Anyway, testimonials only mean so much, but these are still impressive. Eric Cressey may train some minor-leaguers and may have spent some time with Curt Schilling after he retired, but Ann and Chris Frederick work extensively with elite-level pros at the peak of their careers. Think Al Vermeil or Dan Pfaff. These people obviously know their shit.

290x1-went to try for a second rep and something thats been in my upper right pec/shoulder finally tore, IDK if I tore my pec, but might be too close to the shoulder. lol
not too worried about it, benching is gay anyway and I think I can still press vertically.

Quote from: adarqui on September 27, 2010, 03:30:15 am

Quote from: Flander on September 26, 2010, 09:03:45 am

The surprise was that you have shaved right? 

well, i did shave specifically for that video, lol.. but the surprise was definitely eddie droppin some nasty shiz.

Quote

Great dunks. Some tohanders. NICE!!

thanks man!$!@$ tried to land some off dribble but nothing dropped.

Quote

And Eddie has some jumps man. And some cool tats it seems.

ya he got more tats since i've last seen him hah.

Youll get it off the dribble mang. DAmn thatll be sweet. I hope Ill get closer to dunking this winter with the new program. How would that look. 242pounds, 6'2 dunking a volley ball.

Anyways. Eddie has some crazy hops. Is he natural or has he trained hard for it?

Quote from: adarqui on September 27, 2010, 03:34:50 am

Quote from: Flander on September 26, 2010, 09:09:28 am

btw, this what you meant when you said ytw?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12i9VmaIpx0

ya, you can do them slightly bent over too in a nice semi bent leg + lean, that's how i do them, but you can definitely do them on a bench like that, it works just as well if not better.

peace man

Cool. Ill do them standing then. We dont have a bench like that.