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The Bounce
News and Notes from nuBound
November 2008 - Vol 2, Issue 12
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Dear Reader,

Welcome to the November edition of The Bounce from nuBound!

The leaves are finally off the trees here in New England. That big oak tree in the back yard which provides such wonderful shade in the summer is now bare and the bags and bags and bags of leaves are finally history. Cleaning up is an annual challenge.

In this issue we look at stretching as part of a proper warmup and its role in recovery. Then we turn to another kind of challenge; the Athletes for a Cure fundraiser to support research on prostate cancer

If you have ideas, thoughts or stories for future issues, please let us know!

At least ... not when what you're doing is a static stretch. Stretching and holding it until "your muscle relaxes" has been an age old prescription, but unfortunately it's bad advice. The theory behind static stretching argued that elongating the muscle would cause it to lengthen and that as part of a warmup, it would increase the range of motion available to that muscle.

Evidence continues to build from multiple sources that this is not the case, and that static stretching actually is counterproductive. The New York Times cites studies that show "athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent."

Physical therapist Aaron Mattes notes that "prolonged static stretching actually decreases the blood flow within the tissue creating localized ischemia and lactic acid buildup. This can potentially cause irritation or injury of local muscular, tendinous, lymphatic, as well as neural tissues, similar to the effects and consequences of trauma and overuse syndromes."

The right way to warm up is with a dynamic session that gets the blood flowing and the muscles, joints and tendons open and ready for movement. The best beginning is a few minutes of aerobic exertion "at about 40 percent of your maximum heart rate (a very easy pace) and progressing to about 60 percent. The aerobic warm-up should take only 5 to 10 minutes, with a 5-minute recovery."

After you've gotten your heart working, it's time to move on to sport specific movements to prime the body for the actions you'll actually use in your workout or competition. The Times quotes Terrence Mahon, the coach of Deena Kastor and Ryan Hall at Team Running USA. "You need range-of-motion exercises that activate all of the joints and connective tissue that will be needed for the task ahead ... For runners, an ideal warm-up might include squats, lunges and 'form drills' like kicking your buttocks with your heels."

Proper stretching also plays a key role in recovery. Maintaining (and extending!) flexibility is of obvious importance for any athlete. Both as part of an ongoing daily recovery routine and while recovering from an injury, the techniques developed by Aaron Mattes are the best that I've found.

Over the last four decades, Aaron Mattes has developed a sophisticated set of stretching techniques that he termed Active Isolated Stretching. These techniques combine active movement and reciprocal inhibition to produce superior results in restoring, maintaining and extending flexibility. Mattes limits the duration of any stretch at two seconds to prevent an antagonistic contraction by the stretched muscle. Mattes' book, Active Isolated Stretching, provides the definitive resource on these techniques (another valuable resource is The Wharton Stretch Book). (The Mattes book is geared toward trainers and professionals, but has the best illustrations. The Wharton book provides a condensed version that is easier to apply for individual athletes.)
There's nothing better than a good hard workout. To be soaked in sweat and gasping for breath, knowing that you gave all you had gives a special kind of fulfillment. The Fight Gone Bad fundraiser for prostate cancer research organized by Athletes for a Cure provided the perfect opportunity to lay it all out.

Athletes for a Cure has done a great job bringing awareness of prostate cancer to the attention of a wider audience and raising funds to support research. With one in six men being diagnosed with prostate cancer over their lifetime, chances are good that you know someone affected by this disease. AFAC has recruited athletes from a number of high participation sports such as running (Dean Karnazes and Josh Cox), triathlon (Karen Smyers and Simon Lessing), kayaking (Eric Jackson and Tao Berman) and more. Of course, they also sponsor targeted events like the Fight Gone Bad fundraiser.

Fight Gone Bad sounds easy. You do five different exercises as hard as you can for one minute each. After five minutes you rest for one minute. Then you repeat for a second round, rest again and then a third round. Fifteen minutes of work doesn't sound hard compared to running a marathon. But, this workout is different--it involves no aerobic respiration. It drains each major muscle group of all anaerobic energy sources (phosphagen and glycolytic metabolic pathways) and then moves on to another. By the end, you've spent fifteen minutes draining all available energy out of your body.

I participated in the Fight Gone Bad fundraiser at CrossFit Boston, which for the second year in a row was the top fund raiser among 200 participating gyms (with facilities smaller than 25 participants). Thanks to some "in your face" encouragement from good friends I raised my score by 50 points over last year and received the unofficial in-house award for most additional reps beyond the point of apparent exhaustion.
CrossFit founder Greg Glassman designed FGB as a conditioning exercise for mixed martial arts fighter BJ Penn, prior to his entry into UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) competition.

The time format of the workout matches that of a mixed martial arts fight. Five minutes of work and one minute rest, for a total of three rounds.

The amount of work required exceeds that of a fight. The exercises were selected to completely fatigue the energy sources in one major muscle group then move on to another group.

Have a great fall. There's plenty of time to enjoy the late fall weather before winter sets in.

Watch for us at other races and events throughout the year to come. As always, make sure to catch The Bounce from nuBound!

Sincerely,

 nuBOUND
Mark Connell
nuBound

phone: 888.480.NUCLeotide (or 888.480.6825)

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