Over the last few weeks you may have noticed some changes at Okanagan Peak Performance. When there was a flu going around we thought hand sanitzers might help to control the spread of this.  When Ryder Hesjedal won the Giro D'Italia, and in anticipation of the London Olympics, we thought it would be appropriate to display a Canadian flag. And when we recognized we would have a need for a summer intern we brought on Jeremy Martin. Jeremy is going into his 3rd of kinesiology at UBC and is gaining some practical experience with us this summer. He has played a number of sports from football, rugby, basketball, MMA and more recently has gotten into powerlifting. I'll step aside here and let Jeremy introduce himself to you all.                 If anyone is still wondering who the meat head in the OPP shirt telling you what to do is, my name is Jeremy Martin. I'm a 21 year old Kelowna native, transferring into my third year of kinesiology at UBC Vancouver. Chris was brave enough to hire me on as a summer intern and I couldn't be more excited to be here.                I'll start by giving a brief rundown of my athletic background; I played basketball and rugby all through high school, going to provincials a few times in both sports. I also played football from grade 8 to grade 12 but my high school (Immaculata) did not have a football team so I played city league. After high school I decided to take up competitive mixed martial arts, much to the chagrin of my mother. I competed for about a year, ultimately stopping due to a mixture of concussions and the desire to pursue an education/career. Not having a sport to compete in started wearing on me so I decided to take up...

Often times the seasons dictate what we do for exercise. When it is nice outside people tend to move their workouts outdoors and take advantage of the warmer weather. Around here you see more people boating, golfing, biking and doing triathlons.But when the weather gets cold we move indoors and get in more of our gym-based workouts. I'm not saying that's the way it should be, only that's what many around here tend to do.Even though we may move indoors for a lifting workout there are still somethings we can do outdoors and can actually only be done outdoors in the winter. Consider the outdoor skating rink downtown. Or going up to the ski hill. Going snowshoeing, tabogoning or even just going for a run and you can see that cold weather doesn't have to mean all activity stops.If you're going to do some exercise this winter make sure to check out the following video where I give you a number of tips for going outdoors this winter for some activity. Now there was one more tip I didn't cover in the video that I want to share with you. And this has to do with supplementation. If you're in the habit of taking omega-3 (which I think is a great thing by the way) you don't want to jump up your dosage too much during the winter months. Especially if you plan on going up to the hill. Here's why.You see omega-3 has blood thinning properties which is part of the reason it is effective in lowering blood pressure in some. In the winter however the relative humidity is much lower than in the summer.Basically warm air holds more water than cold air. So in the winter our tissues lose water to the environment as we have a higher humidity than the...

Often times when we step foot in the gym it's with the intent at getting better at something.  Maybe we want to accelerate our fat loss goals (a big one at this time of year). Or maybe we want to improve our joint function and move a little bit better. And then sometimes the goal is to perform better. Specifically with respect to sports.And this is my passion. Don't get me wrong it's very satisfying to hear of someone who's had shoulder pain for years tell you how they now sleep through the night because digging their elbow into the mattress to turn over doesn't wake them up anymore. (hello AV!)Or someone else who tells you how their hip pain has improved enough they can finally make a trip to their home country where there was not an unbandance of modern plumbing and thus had to be able to maintain a static deep squat. (BG will vouch for me on this one!)And then there has been countless stories of  the many who have lost pounds and inches off their bodies.  How their confidence and energy are at all time highs and life hasn't been better for them.  These are all the things that make getting up when it's still cold and dark out that much easier.But when it comes to training for performance there's no comparison. That's when it gets fun for me.And here's the interesting thing.Sports performance and sports training are completely different.What?How can that be?Wasn't sports training supposed to be as 'sports-specific' as possible? (I put that term in quotes because it can so many different things to do different people)Actually no.Sports training is quite distinct from sports performance. And here's how.1. Sports performance is on the balls of the feet whereas sports training is on the heels.  Ever...