Heroes of Athleticism (HoA) - Benson Henderson

Heroes of Athleticism Part I: Benson Henderson

As you guys all know by now, I’m a big proponent of training in an athletic fashion wherever possible. Gone are the days of doing ‘a bicep workout’, and spending 50 minutes working solely that muscle, that’s not exactly going to translate well to an athletic endeavour.
In this series, which I’ve called Heroes of Athleticism, I’m hoping to inspire you guys with some of the athletes who I believe are perfect examples of how athleticism and functional training can lead to the best results. I won't be posting this up weekly like I have in my other series posts, these will be sporadic, whenever the urge takes me.

In our first installment we have one of my favourite athletes:

Benson Henderson

So before I get cracking on extolling his virtues as an exceptional athlete, let’s just go through some basic introductory stuff about Benson Henderson, because some people might not know who he is (you strange, strange people).

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest - Part 6

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest

Welcome to part 5 of the Why I Love & Hate Pinterest series, in which I’ll spend some time pondering some pins I’ve seen lately that either enraged, encouraged, or exasperated me.

This week, I'm finishing off the problem with a lack of ACTUAL information.

I'm also finishing off this series! It seems to have had a decent response, but I'm probably going to move away from this more bloggy-type of writing to a more informative style from now on.

So let's finish up here...

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest - Part 5

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest

Welcome to part 5 of the Why I Love & Hate Pinterest series, in which I’ll spend some time pondering some pins I’ve seen lately that either enraged, encouraged, or exasperated me. This week, I’ll start off the problem with a lack of ACTUAL information.
Unlike the usual way I do these posts, with the first point in the first post and then 2 more in the following, I'm doing 2 in one post here. The final point of this heading is quite long, so it can carry a post on it's own.
Enjoy!

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest - Part 4

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest

Following on from last week, where we started looking at the poor understanding of realistic attainment displayed by pinners on Pinterest, this week we have the 2nd and 3rd examples of this heinous crime. Starting with...

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest - Part 3

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest

Following on from last week's third installment of Why I Love & Hate Pinterest, in which we focused on the how Pinterest could promote Warped Goals/Ideas, this post will have the 1st part of our second topic...

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest - Part 2

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest

Following on from last week's first installment of Why I Love & Hate Pinterest, in which we focused on the 1st reason Pinterest could promote Warped Goals/Ideas, this post will have the 2nd and 3rd reasons...

Let's crack on.

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest - Part 1

Why I Love & Hate Pinterest

I’m sure a lot of you, maybe even most of you, have come across this site due in no small part to Pinterest. I use Pinterest a fair amount, primarily because it’s an easy way to get free exposure for my writing and, eventually, my services as a personal trainer. As a whole, I really love Pinterest, there’s some great stuff on there and the community that ‘pins’ seems to be without the judgemental trolls that inhabit other social media outlets like Tumblr and Imgur.
Unfortunately though, as far as I’ve seen in the Health & Fitness bracket of the site, Pinterest does offer a platform for some pretty suspect stuff to get a great amount of exposure.
The way I see it, Pinterest is a great place for great training practice, nutritional advice, and encouragement, but there’s an awful lot of stuff that’s the complete opposite appearing and, worse, getting frequently repinned.
There seems to be 3 major ways in which Pinterest is not well-serving the fitness community, and they are: promoting warped goals/ideas, extolling poor understanding of realistic attainment, and lack of actual information.
Over the next few weeks I’ll go through examples of each of these three headings, and talk a little bit about why they’re not helping you, or your fitness goals (or even your mental health, some of them). Given that each heading is averaging around 500 words, I’ll separate each heading into 2 weeks, so it’s not just massive article after massive article.

This week, we’re going to go through example 1 of how Pinterest can give exposure to, and potentially promote, warped goals/ideas.

MMA Conditioning Part 5

MMA Conditioning Part 5

In the previous instalment of our MMA conditioning series we looked at rest & recovery. In this instalment we’re finally tying it all together to create a schedule you can apply to your training!

MMA Conditioning Part 4

MMA Conditioning Part 4

In the previous instalment of our MMA conditioning series we looked at increasing power production. In this instalment we’re going to focus on rest & recovery.

MMA Conditioning Part 3

MMA Conditioning Part 3

In the previous instalment of our MMA conditioning series we looked at increasing muscular endurance. In this instalment we’re going to focus on power production.

MMA Conditioning Part 2

MMA Conditioning Part 2

In the previous installment of our MMA conditioning series we looked at increasing VO2 max to improve aerobic fitness. In this instalment we’re going to focus on muscular endurance.

MMA Conditioning Part 1

MMA Conditioning Part 1

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is becoming pretty popular these days, its following has grown from a small cult of wacknut wingjobs interspersed with some genuine sporting-connoisseurs, to a full-blown teeming horde of avid and knowledgeable fans. Instead of just the badly-covered and poorly-attended events, the UFC now hold massive events for tens of thousands of spectators in places like the MGM Grand, and Canada’s Bell Centre. The UFC isn’t even the only gig in town as far as professional MMA goes, organisations like Bellator and World Series of Fighting, even grappling-based Metamoris, are now doing very well for themselves alongside their major competitor in the UFC.

In addition to the sport getting more of a following in terms of spectators, it also has more of following in terms of participants. I myself even did some MMA training for a fairly long period of time, around 18-24 months or so, and I absolutely loved it. One thing I really found was that, no matter what weight I could lift in the gym, or however ‘swole’ I thought I was (I wasn’t), ultimately my performance hinged on how well conditioned I was.
Fighters such as Cain Velasquez, Benson Henderson, Frankie Edgar, Nick Diaz, all have one thing in common – their conditioning is top-notch, and they do not flag once in any of the 5 rounds they’re forced (or not) to fight.
So in this series, we’re going to be looking at the different types of training necessary for those who are training MMA. In this first instalment, we’ll be looking at improving the oxygen delivery to muscles, thus being able to maintain output capacity.