Working Out

[Danno]

Bowlers do not underestimate the value of good workouts. All athletes benefit from getting in better physical shape. Especially those of you who are tournament bowlers. The better conditioned you are the more endurance you'll sustain during the tourneys.
Keep in mind however that these workouts should be constructed with the bowler in mind. Your not trying to be a powerlifter or bodybuilder. The goals are different and you must train accordingly. tony has given some great advice on the other threads so read through those and if you need any help developing a personalized program go to www.integratedhealthfitness.com. I work with some of the areas top bowlers already and they are seeing great results so get to working out it will help your game.

[Danno]

What is resistance training? It is important to really know what your dealing with when you pick any form of exercise. So I want to define for you and teach you what resistance training really is about.
Well it is a form of exercise that we utilize tools to put force (stress) on the muscular system to cause the muscles to work harder under a load.
Well there are many tools. Weights are just some of the tools we have at our disposal. We have bodyweight, we have elastic bands, we have elastic rods and springs and of course selectorized weight equipement or free weights. A good trainer will utilize any and all of these to achieve a desired goal. One must understand the goal of resistance training is to train the muscular system to become stronger, effecient, and gain good mind/muscle connections through proper execution of exercises. To lift heavy weights with a complete lack of control which I see in gyms everywhere is not helping people and may be hurting them in the long run. Understand there is no such thing as complete muscle isolation when resistance training because the brain utilizes the muscular system completely even when you do arm curls. The muscles of the trunk (core) and shoulder girdle have to isometrically contract to form a foundation for the arm muscles to work off of. The brain automatically tells these guys to participate even though you are supposed to be working arms. That is why it is so important that a trainee develope a mind muscle connection to get a higher percentage of the work being performed by the targetted muscle area and less from the supposed isometrically contracted supporters. When you see that guy in the gym heaving and rocking the weight up that person is using to much weight and because they lack complete mind/ muscle connections they don't realize how much the assistors are really doing the work (also known as cheating).
Cheating is a completely normal response in the human muscular system in reaction to a demand placed on the targetted muscles that exceed there force output capabilities. Cognitively though we can control that but the weight selected needs to be the proper load placed on the muscle you targetted. The brain will try to protect the muscular system and recruit help to get the reps done.. the problem with this is the joints end up taking a hell of a beating when you train this way. I go into some of these hardcore gyms around the country and watch the 35 and up hardcore lifters and I see all kinds of muscle tears, muscle imbalances, and they all need knee wraps and elbow wraps. Many times everything needs a wrap on it. They have damaged there joints with there years of poor form and too heavy a weight. Ok I will leave off here but I must say I am not against training with heavy loads but what determines how much you should load the muscles is your ability to completely control the exercise through concentric, eccentric, isometric conntractions.
My next post I will go into why is it paramount for all people but especially athletes of any kind to do resistance training for the rest of there lives................Thanks for reading.....Hit me up with questions!