Listen, I grew up in NH and I love Boston sports teams. Everyone who reads Project Swole regularly, knows I am a Patriots fan. I will root for them this season, with their lame running backs, high speed receivers, and what appeared in the preseason as a Swiss cheese defense.
What I refuse to do however, is to praise or even acknowledge Tom Brady’s hair. I had seen glimpses of it and heard the rumors that many New England fans were boycotting any discussion of the 2010 hairdo. I feared the worst, but hoped for the best.
I found this great slideshow on Men’s Health yesterday depicting a 175 lbs Men’s Health editor working in with NFL football star Dwight Freeney during one of Freeney’s offseason workouts. It is hilarious, fun, interesting, and educational all at the same time.
You will get an idea of how NFL players train in the offseason, which you can then use to add some conditioning drills to your own workout routine. The modified MH workout routine at the end of the slideshow leaves something to be desired, but the slidehow itself is worth your time.
Who is Dwight Freeney?
Dwight Freeney is a 6’1″ 270-pound, Pro Bowl defensive end and all-time sack leader for the Indianapolis Colts. He is powerful, explosive, fast, and generally pretty intimidating. Peep the slidehow:
I have fun watching football each season, and I’m sure some of you do too. Just wanted to point out that ESPN has a 2010 Quarterback Rankings article up. At the end of the article you can rank the quarterbacks yourself.
For those who feel inclined, go ahead an comment on the ESPN post and let me know who you think the best quarterbacks are. Here, I’ll post my completely unresearched full rankings from what I can remember about last year and the 2010 preseason off the top of my head.
The Project Swole 2010 NFL Quarterback Rankings
Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts
I’m a Patriots fan but I can’t dispute that Peyton is probably the best NFL quarterback to ever play the game. I’m sure he’ll win at least one or two more Superbowls before he’s done. This year his team is even better than last year, if that’s possible. I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t toss 40+ touchdowns and win nearly every game in 2010. (more…)
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.
When you are up by 13 points in the third quarter, shouldn’t you be able to close out the game? What a bummer. Try again next year guys. Hopefully most of the team will stay together.
In an issue that is close to my own heart, there may be a new, better medication for controlling chronic blood clots. The drug, called Dabigatran Etexilate, is just as effective at controlling clots as Warfarin/Coumadin, but is far easier to manage.
Regarding Dabigatran, Dr. Sam Schulman of McMaster University and the Henderson Research Center in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada said this:
“For patients and health-care providers, Dabigatran is a far more convenient drug than Warfarin because it has no known interactions with foods and minimal interactions with other drugs and therefore does not require routine blood-coagulation testing.”
Dan Osman scales the side of a mountain in like a minute. This is one most excellent feat of strength and conditioning.
Unfortunately Dan Osman died when he jumped off a cliff and his rope broke, but it would be sweet if he was still alive, still helping to teach us to test our limits. RIP Dan-O.
I am far too busy writing an article that is tentatively titled “The 10 Best Ab Exercises” to draft a post of decent length or content for you today. Instead I will leave you with these four moderately interesting, if not time leaching, links.
Skip the nutrition fluff stories and go right to the most important story of the day: Mark Buehrle’s Perfect Game
Manny Ramirez, former Boston Red Sock, current LA Dodger, and president of the D-bag Hall of Fame is at it again. This time the guy gets suspended for 50 games for testing positive for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a female fertility drug. He was also found to have artificial elevated levels of testosterone in his bloodstream.
What is the significance of hCG?
Specifically, hCG is often used in post cycle therapy (PCT) when cycling off the juice. It basically helps to restore and maintain testosterone production, which is also useful for combating impotence (eg. hCG helps men who can’t ‘get it up’).
Oh man, how did the Cardinals make it to the Super Bowl? No one saw that coming about 3 weeks ago, or even last week. After all, the Cardinals finished the regular season by losing 4 of 6, one loss was 47-7 to the Patriots, with a final regular season record of 8-8.
Titans – they’ve been pretty good all year but I believe their offense could be shut down by either the Colts or the Steelers in the AFC Championship game the Ravens in Week 2 of the Playoffs. They may have peaked earlier in the season and Kerry Collins is WAY overrated right now. He will be out of the NFL again by 2010.
Steelers – I could see the Steelers advancing to the Super Bowl as long as they don’t play the Colts in the AFC Championship game. Ben Roethelisberger can stay healthy. QB concussions in the NFL do not bode well for future play. Assuming he’s healthy, this team is probably headed for Tampa.
I think this all went down back in September, but I just found out about it. Usually I watch this whole event on ESPN around New Years, but this year I was too busy with the fam to watch much TV.
In any case, as if you didn’t already know, Mariusz Pudzianowski won his record 5th Worlds Strongest Man title at WSM 2008. This is the video of the final event pitting Mariusz against Derek Poundstone in the Atlas Stones.
Seems to me that Derek had it won until he missed his placement on the last stone. For what it’s worth Derek, I’m sorry that you have to live with that. Good times.
Public Enemy #1 aka Brett Favre has successfully thwarted the Patriots attempts to make it into the playoffs this year. Thank you Brett for throwing 3 pics and completing only 50% of your passes.
So many little things could have gone differently, and the Patriots would be in the playoffs.
These four events come to mind first:
If the coin flip in the overtime game versus the Jets had gone to the Patriots, New England would be in the playoffs.
On September 27, 2008, the Florida Gators (10-1) lost 31 – 30 to Eli Manning’s college team Ole Miss (7-4), but if they had not lost that game they would probably be #1 or #2 in the nation and they would definitely have an 11-0 record rather than 10-1.
Update: my bad, Florida is currently ranked #2 in the AP polls as of Sunday 11/23.
I mean Tim Tebow passed for 319 yards and one touchdown, and he rushed for another 2 touchdowns. Apparently the offense took the first and third quarters off, and the defense basically took the whole game off.
All hail the baseball gods for they have seen fit to respect my wishes. Mangina Ramirez is now officially an LA Dodger! Unfortunately the Red Sox will have to pay the remaining $7 mil of his bloated contract, but that price is well worth being rid of him once and for all. Let the Pirates deal with his options.
The Red Sox Get Jason Bay
Two-time All-Star slugger Jason Bay is coming to the Red Sox as part of the 3-way deal that will also send 4 minor leaguers to the the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates also get Brandon Moss, which stinks because Moss seems like a decent outfield prospect, and Craig Hansen, who is a crappy bullpen pitcher that mostly plays in losing games or gives up a bunch of earned runs and loses the game anyway.
As a Red Sox fan, I feel the need to vent about Manny Ramirez. You’ve heard the expression, “It’s just Manny being Manny”, well the reality is, as ESPN put it, “It’s just Manny being about Manny”. This guy is a jerk. He doesn’t care about the fans or the team or his teammates. Every single year he complains about the Red Sox, says he is sick of the team, that he wants to be traded. This is fine by me. I say, “Trade the fat bastard.”
