It's hard to find a sport where having less speed would be an advantage. And in this case we would have to be talking about sports that are objectively measured i.e. faster,higher,stronger as opposed to subjectively measured with judging.I don't have to think back very far to a situation where I wish I was a little bit faster.This situation goes back to when Megan and I were in Las Vegas for a conference and had plans to go to a concert on one of the nights. Anyways the conference schedule was to have all the sessions completed by 6 pm with the concert set for 730 pm.It looked as though everything was going to align perfectly for us and then the presentations went over time and the conference was behind schedule. This meant that we would now miss the last presentation of the day.But guess what?The last presentation was by a friend of mine. And were sitting up near the front row.I was waiting for the previous speaker to finish up so we could sneak out during the break and not create a distraction during my friend's presentation.Of course the conference host takes the stage and announces there won't be a break and they will go straight in to the next session. So I lean over and tell Megan 'we have to leave now'.So we pack up our stuff, trying to quickly and quietly exit from the room as the next presentation is starting.Now this where more speed would have helped me.I had been sitting for 9 hours and so I would be tight and slow moving. If I had the time what would be the best way to to sprint the 20 or so meters to the back of the room and out?Should I do some aerobic exercise?What about a...

So yesterday I had the chance the play a round of golf with a buddy, Jim, and he invited a couple of friends which was great. I actually knew one of the guys from many years ago at a gym in downtown Kelowna called Flex Fitness. Anybody remember that place? Anyways Jim and I planned to have lunch on the course and then hit a few balls before teeing off. Well we got involved in conversations about travel and other things that we didn't realize that we hadn't gotten our food and we had about 10 minutes until we were due up at the first hole. Needless to say we didn't hit any balls at the range and went straight from the restaurant to the first tee where we both proceeded to find the sand. While it was a beautiful day I would have been okay with the middle of the fairway rather than the beach. To summarize the round I was about 11 strokes better on the back nine than the front. And I attribute a large part of this difference from a lack of a warm up before playing. And it got to thinking back to a study I had read in the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research which had 30 military cadets performing a number of agility and power tests after either: * a dynamic warm-up* a static stretching warm-up* or no warm-up at all The tests were a T-shuttle run to measure agility as well as a medicine ball throw and a jump test. What they found is that the dynamic warm-up group outperformed the other two groups on all three tests. There was no significant difference between the static stretching group and no warm-up group on the agility or med ball throw but the static...

I'm sure most of you have taken a plane before. And you've probably paid for that flight.Sometimes you time it right and book during a seat sale. And other times you need to get somewhere and end up paying more than you'd like. And definitely more than what others are paying for the same flight.Back when I was in grad school my brother was working off-shore off India. He became sick and I ended getting on a plane to help him back home to Canada.Since the amount of time from we when learned he was sick to the time time it was decided I would go get him no more than a few days passed.So I showed up at the airport and bought my ticket on the spot to leave on the next available flight. This is not the way to travel on a budget.Even though I was sitting beside someone travelling the exact same route as me we experienced vastly different financial 'pain' to make that trip. Even though the result was the same our investment in that trip was totally different.And this is very similar to the experiences many people have when they work out in the gym.Some people plan ahead and have a purpose in mind and get tremendous results from their efforts in the gym.Others do not plan anything out and are not sure of their purpose. These people get minimal, slow results from training.Below are 5 keys that account for achieving great or marginal results.Reason #1 Some Get Better Results - PlanIt's really hard to make effective use of your time in the gym when you don't have a very clear idea of what you're going to do that day in the gym.What exercises are you doing? How many sets? How many reps? What loads will you...

  This is a continuation of a 3 Part series related to common gym training mistakes. Please see the previous post for Part I.4. Going straight into my first set. When I was younger and it was bench day a warm-up involved doing 10 or so reps with just the bar. That's it. And then as I started to add load to the bar for my working sets I might do a doorway chest stretch in between sets. Not anymore. Now before I even get under a bar for I'll do a general warm-up, some foam rolling, a dynamic warm-up, some mobility and stability work and then some full depth squats or hip hinges. And even once I step under the bar I'll do many more light sets before getting up to working load. And guess what? My lifts are as good as they ever been, I recover more quickly and I have no joint issues to speak of. Couldn't say the same of my body in my younger days. 5. Don't ignore the little guys. I'm talking about the 2.5 lbs and 5 lbs plates. When was the last time you added 2.5 lbs to the bar? Be honest? But how many guys with a strong bench will do 135 lbs, 225 lbs and 315 lbs for their last set? I'm not sure why it is but we seem to ignore the value of small increments in our loads. If you are calculating your loads properly then 2.5 lbs per side  may be adequate for some people to increase from one workout to the next. To keep your gains coming and to minimize injury look to the little guys. 6. Shrugs. Every young at some time has wanted big traps. It goes without saying that when we're young guys we want to work on every muscle from the...