Re: Jordan: Building fast-twitch muscles?

[Guest guest]

I know for my self, being 51 years old, that explosive training is

helping to increase my speed and reaction times. I am sore after most

training sessions but relax with a post workout drink (fresh OJ,

bananas, and protein), hot shower or bath, and adequate rest. Also

increasing my GPP has helped to attain a level of fitness that I

never had before. As to the pain, there is a difference between pain,

as in sore, or pain, as in injury.

As to the martial arts training, sometimes you can overdo the

punching and kicking into the air which can, for myself, result in

hyperextension of the elbows and knees. Try training on a heavy bag,

speed bag, wing chun dummy, and makiwari training for close and long

range techniques as it has helped me to keep the stability around the

joints. Maybe someone with boxing training experience can help as

they always traing shadow boxing (as kicking and punching in air) but

also hit the heavy bag.

I incorporated one arm snatches, cleans, c & js, swings with a

kettlebell and dumbell and it has helped with speed and power {and at

high reps a great aerobic training. Also instead of slow jogs try

wind sprints.

An old dog can learn new tricks!!

Remember that in your training you become how you train. To become

fast you must train fast.

In reference to the article, the slow tempo, machine based training

has been extolled for elderly training but when they fall down they

do not fall down with a 4 sec negative action but fall explosively.

I watched Santana, CSCS, in Boca Raton, training an elderly

couple and he had them jumping rope, hop scotch, and steps up (curb

size) after they had a basis of strength and they loved it. Remember

that the elderly built and rebuilt all of our countries through hard

physical labor and it was only after they retired that it was

discovered that it is better to sit in a nursing home that exercise!

Charlie Newkerk, CSCS

Rockledge, Fl

-----------------

bobyu5 " <bobyu5@l...> wrote:

> I came across this article in the Fortune magazine, and I was hoping

> to get some comments from other people.

>

> As a martial arts practitioner, I currently suffer from 2 problems:

> pain and lack of speed.

>

> Performing a whipping or snapping punch or a kick at medium speed

> resulted in pain at elbows or hips, but thanks to Ashtanga yoga,

the

> pain is now gone. I can now move without pain at slow to medium

> speed, even with extreme movements like high side kicks.

>

> But I still cannot perform them at maximum speed for the pain comes

> back or I just cannot go as fast as I used to, as if all my muscles

> are now slow-twitch fibres. So performing maximum speed drills or

> high-impact plyometrics right now are too painful.

>

> I thought that I would embark on a regimen of ballistic weight-

> training to regain that explosiveness, but this article threw some

> doubt upon it. I am 30 years old, so due to my relatively younger

> age, maybe weight training will restore explosiveness into my

> training, but then maybe not.

>

> Any comments?

>

>

> http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?

> channel=artcol.jhtml & doc_id=205777 & page=2 & _DARGS=%

> 2Fartcol.jhtml.4_A & _DAV=artcol.jhtml

>

> Somewhere between those poles there must be a sensible approach,

but

> even fitness trainers are having to find their way in the dark.

When

> Tim Grover got his master's in exercise physiology in 1989, he

> says, " What you did was, you either learned to train the athlete in

> his prime or you learned geriatric fitness, which is people over

65. "

> Today he is the trainer on whose shoulders rest the hopes of a

> generation. That is, he's Jordan's fitness coach.

>

> Grover says he uses " two totally different programs " depending on

> whether an athlete is in his prime or past it. " You're going from a

> low-rep, quick type of movement to more reps, lower weights. We're

> saying, Okay, your body's got a lot of wear and tear. Stabilize

those

> muscles. " Jordan, he says, is " in the older guy's regimen, " and

while

> he won't disclose training secrets, he says " we are trying some new

> techniques. " Assuming Jordan's knee gets better, this could be fun

to

> watch. Says Grover, tantalizingly: " We should know in a couple of

> months whether we have found a way to rebuild some of those fast-

> twitch muscles. "

>

> What he's referring to is the problem of muscle loss, which affects

> sedentary people at the rate of about 1% a year. Muscles can be

> rebuilt with weight training and other sorts of exercise, but the

> tissue that's restored tends to be of the slow-twitch, not the fast-

> twitch, variety, which is why geezers play sneaky tennis.

>

>

> Bob Yu

> Montreal, Canada