What's next best harness similar to DaKine XTSeat?

[mrgybe]

[DanWeiss]

Please, lest anyone hire Mike Fiction as a trainer, let paid experience carry some weight. coachg and I are experienced coaches in sports that require immense amounts of power, speed and coordination. I recall that coachg is a football coach whereas I am a wrestling coach.

The truth is that whole body exercise can provide enormous benefit. Pushing, pulling and lifting a squirming person is one of the very best ways to achieve very high core strength in a way that traditional isolation training cannot. Windsurfing in high winds and chop can mimic some of the benefit that hand-to-hand, whole body combat sports provide. I think most of us can show this with our own bodies. On the other hand, no successful collegiate wrestler in the last 30 years (of which I'm aware, at least) reached that level without serious weight/resistance training in the most conventional sense.

Anyone familiar with MMA understands this conventional wisdom. One must lift regardless of other rigors incorporated one's training.

[swchandler]

"I INFINITELY prefer sailing for 8-10 hours at my recreational skill levels to sailing at a pro level for half that."

Wow! How about that guys? isobars, at 67 years old, can be a pro level sailor if he wants to.

[boggsman1]

[boggsman1]

[isobars]

Because what's at stake is lurkers' oft-stated desire to get and stay fit, I'm peeking through the curtain. I hope any lurkers trying to learn something useful have more open minds than these guys do; it may significantly enhance your conditioning efforts. You’re windsurfing, not training for the Olympic decathlon or clean’n’jerk; you get your skill training on the water. Don’t let these guys’ uninformed* dismissal of something they don’t understand and aren’t willing to study deny you the opportunity to investigate proven exercise paradigms that may improve your lives significantly. Consider something radical: do your own research and choose for yourselves, rather than letting unbelievers persuade you with largely unrelated or confused objections that their way is the only way.

* That's not an insult; it's demonstrated by their posts and it's understandable. Even the piles of books and research I've read specifically about these principles can't begin to cover it all, I've condensed it >99%, and these guys don't have the spare time I do to read this stuff.

Hell, these experts apparently can’t even put in a solid 4-hour session totally powered on a 4.2. What’s that say about their denial of basic conditioning principles used by the Japanese Olympic teams, U.S. Olympic sprinters, the first man to break the 4-minute mile, the 76ers, and the Philadelphia Ballet? I’m guessing these guys even recommend regular stretching, even before a game or match!

[coboardhead]

I did a 6 hour session on a kite, followed by a 1 hour session on a windsurfer, after doing a two hour bike ride. This at 51 years old.

Dos Equis interview in order? Or am I too short?

Seriously, I know some top mountain bike riders. Most put in at least three hours a day on a bike, then hit the gym or the pool!

Mrgybe is correct. It is all about what works for an individual's physiology and what his fitness goal is.

[mrgybe]

[coachg]

Mr. G,

Most recent studies indicate that there is no gain from stretching in preventing injury. The most recent study had half the U.S. Olympic team stretch and the other half not stretch prior to competition. There was no difference in injury rate. We have not pre stretched for football in 7 or 8 years and there have been no increases in injury. Under Bo Schembechler Michigan never pre stretched because he said "How can you start football pracitce with evey on laying around on their back?" Of course, we are talking about young athletes.

But I agree with you, stretching only helps as you get older to regain or maintain flexibility lost to time. It feels great after a good stretch and I figure yoga has been around for a long time. Like you said earlier, different workouts for different people. My doctor-a sports injury doctor-recommends I stretch as well. Rhonda Smith Sanchez showed me some excellent stretches for windsurfing that I do every day.

Coachg

[isobars]

Again for the lurkers trying to make sense of all this and choose a path to better fitness …

“Long established”? Berger's never-validated 3X10X6 days a week 1960s BB claims began getting bowled over by Arthur Jones' HIT BB champs within about a decade. The literature specifically suggests that only the Joe Weider industry-promoting juggernaut has fended off HIT strength building's popularity this long, and HIIT conditioning precedes aerobics by 30 years formally, maybe centuries in practice. Only momentum, misinformation, and a few special-purpose applications such as marathons have kept Cooper's aerobics folly (according to him) alive this long. HIIT began blowing LSD off the short-distance (e.g., a mile or a few K) tracks in the 1930s. The guys beating HIIT-trained runners were genetically superior HIIT-trained runners, and BB potential is almost purely genetic. (Jones would tell a newbie/wannabe BB, “Make a muscle”; if his bicep didn’t almost touch his forearm with the elbow flexed at 90 degrees. he’d pretty much tell them to “find another sport”. BB is constrained by the ratio of muscle length to tendon length, and that’s simple DNA.)

Keep in mind that far more injuries occur during training than during competition, so anything that achieves matching or superior fitness in significantly less training time is a winner. Much briefer, much higher-intensity strength/aerobic/anaerobic training time appears to achieve that, leaving the bulk of training time to the fun stuff ... playing weekend ball or windsurfing for us recreational athletes, specific sport skill drills and scrimmage for competitors. That combination should vastly reduce the time spent on mind-numbing, chronic-injury-producing, less effective, far less efficient, old-fashioned, rote “gym stuff and roadwork” while making more time and energy for vital sport-specific skill honing. Better yet, the skill honing segment relevant to this forum is called WINDSURFING. Our ratio of playtime (or pounds of fat shed or muscle gained) to workout time can apparently be increased something like tenfold with these approaches if we have the will power to work smarter and much harder very briefly.

The team physicians/trainers/competitors writing these books on strength and interval training continually rail against high volume and high frequency while praising high intensity. On an anecdotal level, a bud’s 3 closely-spaced full sets of leg presses @ 1,500 pounds got him strong, but that level of training left welds -- surgical scars -- on too many of his joints before he finished college, and that level of effort on the water has cost him extended agony and disability for years. There's got to be a happy medium. Getting 90-110% of the strength/aerobic/anaerobic benefits in 10% of the time should appeal to anyone dedicated enough to gut out the last agonizing lifts of a 12-minute Superslow circuit, 240 seconds of a lung-rending Tabata protocol blast, or a single weekly ripslog 15-20 minute fartlek session. According to every source and my workout log, I’m getting stronger, aerobically and anaerobically fitter, and leaner as I sit here typing, because almost all the benefits occur during recovery; only tissue damage occurs in a good workout, which is why they should be widely spaced.

Regular stretching increases joints' injury potential by allowing joint ROM to exceed their muscles’ protective zone, offloading joint protection 100% to the ligaments at their own outer limits. Pre-game stretching diminishes plyometric (e.g., jumping, sprinting, throwing ... any quick, powerful movements) performance quite dramatically, and may increase injury rates. About the only beneficial and non-harmful applications of stretching are injury rehab, sports such as ballet where freakish ROM trumps safety and strength, and in older people, especially when heading out into very strenuous endeavors, especially in chilly environments but only after a thorough warmup. You guys know, but many people don't, that "normal" (i.e. static) stretching is not a warmup and is much riskier if done before we break a little sweat; it also serves no purpose after a workout. Active stretching (think a cat after a nap) and dynamic (NOT ballistic) stretching are far more useful and safe than the usual motionless pretzel stuff we see recreational athletes doing.