Time for another random one today ...

1. I first saw this dynamic warm up exercise on a blog post by Tony Gentilcore and it's probably my favourite upper body warm up movement. It's called the Side Lying Windmill and here's a few points Tony makes about this movement. I do it as below but with my knee resting on a foam roller.

 

What Does it Do: We actually get a lot of “bang for our training buck” with this particular exercise in that we’re working on glenohumeral external rotation/mobility, thoracic extension, as well as eliciting a great pec stretch.  All in all, this is a superb exercise for those who spend a great part of their day hunched in front of a computer.

Key Coaching Cues: Ideally, you would want to place a med ball or even a foam roller underneath the knee to “save” the lumbar spine; but other than that, I think the video is pretty self explanatory.  With your hip flexed to 90 degrees, you essentially want to “glide” your hand across your chest and then follow it with your eyes as you extend to the opposite side.   Try to shoot for 1-2 sets of 6-8 reps before each training session.

All that aside though, this movement just feels awesome. I start off feeling pretty tight and after just a a few passes my ROM improves significantly. Give it a shot before your next upper body workout.


2. Here's an awesome lat exercise I stumbled across a couple weeks back in an article on back training by a bodybuilder by the name of John Meadows. He calls this exercise “Stretchers” and after playing with this for a few back workouts, it's quickly become a lat dominant favourite of mine. I almost have to terminate the set before it's over due to the extreme burn that quickly builds up in my lats.

 

 

3. So growing up my favourite NFL team was the Washington Redskins – back in the days of Art Monk, John Riggins, Joe Theismann, Doug Williams (when he punished Denver in the Super Bowl – sorry Little Bronco). Unfortunately, I'd never had a chance to go to an NFL game, never mind a Redskins game. Closest opportunity for me would have been a Bills game – no comment necessary.

 

 

This year I'm back to being a Super Fan and a couple weeks ago had a chance to go to my first NFL game, against division rival Philadelphia Eagles in the amazingly huge Fed Ex stadium. A Monday Night Football game no less. My friend Amy, who does the Recipe blog here and who's Curls and Whey cookbook is launching in December scored us some sweet tickets. We were right on the 50-yd line in the Club Level. I don't think it could have been much better.

 

 

So I flew into Virginia for the weekend and on Monday we headed out to DC. I also wanted to see the White House and meet Barrack Obama on the way, but about an hour or so into the drive Amy realized ... we forgot the tickets. So we had to turn around and start over. So I had to pass on the Presidential greeting as I only had time to get to the Redskins store. So we hit up the store and I bought some Redskins underw ... er, I mean another Redskins jersey and some other little things. Then, off to Fed Ex ... in traffic so bad I didn't even think we were going to make it. It took us 2 hours to go about 35km. I guess with 92000 people expected it's a bit understandable. It was a long, long day so far. But as we got close and started to see all the tail gaters the excitement showed up. It was just awesome.

 

 

I couldn't decide which jersey to wear ...

 

 

 

... but eventually after a couple back and forths decided on good ol' Joe.

 

 

Despite the fact that it started to rain in the 2nd quarter and the fact that it was 28-0 within the first 10 minutes of the game en route to an Eagle walloping of the Redskins, it was an awesome, awesome experience. And hey, we were part of history – the worst beating in Monday Night Football history.

Can't wait to go again.

 

Posted Nov 23, 2010 by Erik Ledin.
This entry is filed under Training and Off Topic.