Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

Does Your Grip on a Baseball Bat Affect the Trajectory of the Ball?

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

I saw this nifty little video on ESPN today about the effect of your grip on the trajectory of a baseball. Nomar Garciaparra gets wired up with electrodes to conduct this experiment. He used to be a pretty good ball player.

Essentially what happens, is this:

Pitcher throws the ball. In this experiment it is a 90 MPH pitch.
Bat comes in contact with the ball. Nomar swings the bat 67 MPH.
Shockwaves from the contact between bat and ball travel down the bat to the hands.
Some shockwaves are reflected and bounce back up the bat towards the ball.
The ball leaves bat before shockwaves bounce back.
Therefore your grip on a bat doesn’t directly influence the trajectory of the ball when hit.
… with a couple possible exceptions.

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Tags: baseball, mlb, science, Sports
Posted in Research, Sports | No Comments »

A Coffee a Day Keeps Head Cancer Away

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Healthy Coffee

OK, I might be stretching it a little bit with that post title, but the facts are the facts: coffee does have positive health benefits, the most recent being that coffee may cut down the risk of developing head and neck cancer.

The results were pooled from 9 other studies done throughout the years, and scientists feel confident in saying that the risk of developing head and neck cancer was 12 percent lower in people who drank coffee compared with those who didn’t.

In this case more is better, as people who drank more than 4 cups of coffee a day had a 33% less chance of developing the cancer. Now, I’m not trying to drink 5 cups of coffee a day, but I won’t feel too bad if I have 2 or even 3 cups.

Decaffeinated coffee and tea had no measure effect on decreasing the risk of head and neck cancer.

Read the research article here: Coffee and Tea Intake and Risk of Head and Neck Cancer

Tags: caffeine, cancer, coffee, head, healthy, healthy food, Healthy Lifestyle, neck
Posted in News of the Day, Research | 2 Comments »

Training with Bands and Chains Increases Strength and Power

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Benching with bands

I recommend training with bands specifically in the Werewolf Training routines, but also in any routine you might currently be following.

Recent studies investigating the effects of training the bench press with added bands and chains, have confirmed that strength and power increased faster by using bands and chains than by using free weights alone.

The Study

In this 13 week study on the effects of training with elastic tension on the bench press, 11 men in their early 20s started with a 1 rep max (RM) baseline strength test.

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Tags: bands, chains, gain strength, powerlifting, strength, strength gain, strength training, weight traning, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Equipment, Research, Weight Training | No Comments »

NSCA and ACSM Proclaims Strength Training is Good for Kids

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Strength Training is Good For Kids!

It’s official! After many long years of arguing with fools, I am validated! Based on hundreds of studies and thousands of hours of research, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) have finally taken the position that age-appropriate resistance training is not only good for kids, but recommended.

Strong Kid

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Tags: acsm, children, Kids, nsca, Research, strength, strength training, teenagers, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Kids, Research, Weight Training | 7 Comments »

How to Build Muscle Mass Fast with Kaatsu Training

Thursday, July 9th, 2009

Douglas Robb at HealthHabits posted the other day about the Occlusion/Kaatsu training method, which is popular in Japan. While not necessarily useful to me, I found it a very interesting read.

Kaatsu Training / Occlusion Training

What Kaatsu Training Does

Kaatsu training looks like it can increase muscle hypertrophy significantly more than regular resistance training over an extremely short period of time. In fact the results of the studies show that 2 weeks of Kaatsu training increases muscle mass to a higher degree than 5 weeks of regular resistance training.

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Tags: build muscle, gain, gain muscle, kaatsu, mus, muscle gain, occlusion, weight, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Research, Weight Training | 12 Comments »

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Archive for the ‘Research’ Category