A Philosophy of Strength and Health

I am prompted to ask this question after the death of US strongman Jesse Marunde this week at the age of 27. By all accounts, Mr. Marunde was a terrific athlete, good father, loving husband and human being. He was 6'5" and 300 lbs and collapsed at while working out--possibly just after high volume and heavy squatting. An autopsy is to be preformed, and only then will we know if the event was cardiac, vascular or related to something else. Do we really understand the physiologic stresses a human body must tolerate with the training load and caloric intake necessary to create and maintain such strength and size? I'm not sure we do. Our culture glorifies these larger-than-life men, but I'm not sure we understand the health implications of developing and maintaining such mass and strength. I take the nutrition and the health of my clients and patients very seriously--especially the young people. I try to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk. I had a conversatio...

Thanks to Cory Doctorow and his post on BoingBoing for sharing the link to Vibram's FiveFingers products. If you believe less is more, when it comes to developing and maintaining foot health, these might be right up your alley. Check them out here .

Note to anyone traveling with the helpful and convenient "Stick" . If you have checked baggage, you might want to pack it there, or it could be confiscated at the security checkpoint. Some TSA supervisors and security checkpoints technically consider this a prohibited item , since it might be interpreted to be a martial arts club-like device.

We are 3 workouts into the school-age camp--16 to 17 y.o. athletes. It has been good so far. My goals here are to improve my group coaching & management skills and observe different weightlifting coaching styles. It is never good to get set in your ways and think that one method works best for every athlete. I walk an interesting path among the world of weightlifting, physical therapy and general athletic development. One of my goals in life to facilitate interaction, collaboration and understanding among the disciplines. There are some very talented weightlifters here. However, some of them lack sound general physical preparation and movement literacy, so we are working a bit on that in warm up. The boys have a tendency to want to put a little too much on the barbell, so we spend some time reigning them in and harping on them to focus on body awareness and perfect technique. The girls are just blowing my mind. There is some serious strength and power here and it is cool to ...

Anyone else find this something a little sad about the presence of this junk in the dining hall at the Colorado Springs OTC? Not exactly the beverage of choice of champions in training....

St. Louisan Jeff Wittmer finished 5 th yesterday in the extremely competitive 94 kg weight class at the Pan Am Games. Jeff had a 10 kg PR total of 355 kg (158 kg snatch and 197 kg C & J). Now, he's still 30-40 kg behind the truly elite of his class in the world, but this performance represents a real break-through for Jeff. Anyone who can go 5/6 and hit personal records in both lifts, at a major international meet, should be proud. And this performance makes Jeff a real contender for one of the 4 coveted spots on the 2008 Olympic team. I believe Jeff is 23 (a graduate of Hazelwood East High School) and currently trains in Springfield, MO while he attends Missouri State University. It seems like he is finally getting his weight up to the full 94 kg, something he's struggled with over the last few years. Jeff's father and coach, Mike Wittmer , is a chiropractor in St. Louis and a former lifter himself.

A Philosophy of Strength and Health weightlifting scoop! Bud Charniga ( link to his great site, Dynamic Fitness ) gave me permission to post photos of the new Adidas prototype for the 2008 Olympics. Lou DeMarco looked pretty tough as he trained in them down in the NSCA exhibit hall! The arch of the shoe is covered in a shiny metallic plastic. Bud said they've tried to increase the ventilation in the shoe, as it is anticipated that the competition and training halls in Beijing will be quite warm. And for whatever reason, people like to see that the heel is solid wood, so the heel is again exposed vs the adiStar/Ironwork. Note the single strap vs the 3-strap models currently being sold. Price will likely run similar to the current adiStar model.

See the press release here ! Hits her best competition C & J in nine years--108 kg!

I am so happy I decided to attend the NSCA conference in Atlanta. Not so much for the conference itself, but more so for the people who were there. Met some new people, revitalized old friendships and had the chance to talk to several mentors and colleagues. Highlights included dinner with Jerry Mayhew and Alex Koch of Truman State (nothing like drinks in ceramic coconuts!), the poster session and early-morning training sessions with all of the ETSU grad students (Mike and Meg Stone students), training and gabbing at Bud Charniga's Dynamic Fitness booth with Bud, Lou DeMarco and John Garhammer, chatting with Victor Bergonzoli and my Dartfish peeps, and of course, coffee talk with Jedi Masters Vern and Mrs. Vern. The biggest news for me, was finding out my proposal to speak at next year's conference has been accepted! Huge challenge and great opportunity for me to present my ideas on rethinking back health and performance. Hope to see/meet many of you next year in Las Vega...

The Dark Lords of the Sith at the NSCA National Conference surely sensed a powerful disturbance in the Force today, as Jedi Master Vern took the stage. His presence and message loomed large over the cleverly placed Empire propaganda that was left on stage from the talk before. The juxtaposition of this talk with the Power Plate on stage could not have been more ironic.

Here is a link to an article and video about a high school football player who died this week while bench pressing at home by himself. It is tragic to hear about accidents like this. How I wish the football coaches of this country would stop emphasizing this exercise with their young athletes! Maybe companies will think twice about making home bench press benches. It does very little to increase true athleticism and brainwashes boys into an absurd obsession with their upper body/pectoral development. It screws up our shoulder mechanics and mobility. It requires very little athleticism, yet allows one to easily put 1-3x bodyweight in a potentially precarious position over the neck and chest, while you are pinned on your back. And of course, you'll note the headline is "Football Player Dies While Weightlifting." No he was not weightlifting; he was weight training. Weightlifting is a sport that does not involve bench pressing. Weightlifting is to weight training, a...

Farmer Tom has been delivering mutant 20 lb. organic cabbages. Eat your veggies.

when they are not limited by poor mobility or activity-related arthritic changes! Oh to be 3 years old with normal hip, knee, ankle and shoulder mobility! And a strength to bodyweight ratio that > +1. Not really something the standard American lifestyle promotes. Can you keep your center of gravity over your base of support and mimic the positions of the two littlest guys in these pictures?

This is my friend Melanie Roach. She's working toward her dream of Beijing--at the age of 32 and as a mother of 3. See a great local tv story about her here . Melanie was the first woman in the US to clean and jerk double-bodyweight; I think it was back in 1998. She still holds the record at 113 kg @ 53 kg bodyweight. Here it is, almost 10 years later, and she is hitting lifetime PRs in terms of volume and intensity during training. Anyone else care to even think about back squatting 155 kg at 54.3 kg bodyweight, or power jerking 120 kg? She has her sights set high and they are focused on the 2008 Olympics. She most recently hit a double-bodyweight clean and jerk at the 2007 Nationals in May. You can see that highlight in this video. As of July 1, she is ranked somewhere in the top 15 in the world in the 53 kg weight class. Send her good karma as she travels to Rio this week to represent the US in the Pan American Games. Melanie is a tremendous athlete and a wonderful per...

Last Friday, Kevin and I went to see "Sicko." We highly recommend it to all. This health care professional learned a thing or two. Like Michael Moore, I too believe that the US for-profit insurance industry should be abolished. We left Plaza Frontenac about 4:30 pm that Friday, and as we sat at the stoplight at Lindbergh and Clayton, we chatted about the movie. Then it happened: BLAMMO! We were rear-ended by a minivan. Wow. Neither of us saw it coming so we were not able to anticipate the blow. Luckily, we were far enough behind the stopped car ahead of us, so we did not hit them. I have never experienced a force of that magnitude; I immediately thought of some of my nightmare auto accident patients. My thoracic and cervical spine were not happy. Kevin began having flashbacks of being rear-ended in Chicago and the hassle he went through with that. What of our nice Subaru Forester? Well, the person that hit us pulled over with us and we exchanged info. She was ve...