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Showing posts from December, 2010

Into the New Year with a Blast from the Past

This is footage from the 2004 Midwest Championships--the first time I ever took video at a competition. JMBrown dukes it out with Danny Herr in a epic battle of 77 kg school-age dudes. It is a sentimental favorite. Happy New Year to everyone! May your 2011 be filled with PR's on and off the platform.

CAA Freshman of the Week

Northeastern freshman Ryan Pierson has been named the Colonial Athletic Association Men's Basketball Rookie of the Week .

RIP Bud Greenspan

Two great moments in time from the work of Bud Greenspan . He was the ultimate story teller and a friend of weightlifting, with his 1953 documentary of and then 1986 SI article remembering two-time US Olympian, John Davis. I would love to purchase his official Olympic documentaries if they are available. Does anyone know if they are for sale? Until then, I will hunt around YouTube for some more Greenspan gems and try to find more on John Davis. It is so refreshing to read and see these stories of the human spirit and condition. So much of today's media, especially the sports media, focuses on the flashy trappings of professional athletes or the seedy underside of their lives. It's now all about entertainment and the freaks that entertain; not about the purity of a sport, sport skill or the head-to-head competition.

Video for thought: Why aren't more women sitting at the head of the table?

Never Say Never

Career-ending injury? Not for Zach Krych.

Easy, Economical Visual Feedback

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Most of you know have seen my videos and know I'm pretty competent with Dartfish . Great software, but it is expensive and in order to use it in the gym (via In The Action) you have to have your camera streaming to a laptop via Firewire cable or an IP camera set up. This can be a problem if you cannot leave things set up in the gym and there are other things and people flying around the gym. I'm not interested in leaving my laptop or camera around chalk, bouncing barbells or bounding bodies. What to do? Well, I've used my circa 2000 Sony DSC camera quite successfully to take basic video, but the screen is really too small to see well, and there is no easy way to slow down the video or to quickly get it to people without importing the images to the laptop and emailing them after the session. I've considered the Flip video cameras, but again, you need to connect the camera to a computer to send the files. The Flip Share / Library is very, very nice, but the screen i

OT: Revenge of the Electric Car

The Fobers, owners of a plug-in NEV for 1.5 years now, will be first in line when this film hits the 314. We highly recommend watching Who Killed the Electric Car? to get a bit of the history of the electric car and the issues surrounding its success (or lack thereof) in the US.

Great barbell warm up drills from Greg Everett @ Catalyst Athletics

This warm up series and video is like an early Christmas present! It is so refreshing to see someone else emphasize purposeful, dynamic mobility work and quality bottom position work with the barbell. I love the long pulls for both lifts. Lately I've been emphasizing the muscle snatch and clean with all of my athletes to help develop mobility, proper receiving position and smooth, close turnover for the snatch and clean. I will definitely be incorporating these barbell sequences into my warm ups. And I could just hug Greg for asking people to maintain grip on the barbell with the clean long pulls into the receiving position on the shoulders! Solid racking of the bar on the shoulders in the bottom position demands a very specific shoulder flexibility. Yes, you need normal wrist and elbow mobility, but the key here is shoulder mobility; specifically BILATERAL shoulder external rotation in the context of BILATERAL shoulder flexion with normal thoracic spine mobility. If you fai

Kings Firecrackers!

Very impressive group of young women in 4th - 8th grade. Read more about the team and the PE teacher/coach who founded the club here . You can see more video on their website . I wonder if they do any conditioning besides jumping rope?