Peak Performers

We have had quite a few great athletes come through Pair & Marotta Peak Performance over the past few years. And one thing that never fails is the outcome of the hard workers. Those that are the most consistent see the greatest results. The ones that are the first ones in, last ones out and always trying to get better will out perform those with raw talent.

But the really interesting thing is that the ones who are the most consistent, are the hard workers! Those who have a great work ethic won't be floating in and out, here for 3 weeks then out for 3 months. 

James Barragan pitches against Liberty.

And its tough to tell the talented ones that talent will only take you so far. It almost seems like talent can be a liability because it makes them think that their talent will steadily increase and their performance will improve because of it. But the less talented ones will always be the underdog that we at P&M love. These are the ones who we know that no matter where they go in life, they'll succeed because they won't give up.

Yes, some kids have greater potential because of their genetics, but natural talent has a ceiling - hard work doesn't. Natural talent will take you far, but hard work will take you further.


Another P&M athlete, James Barragan made the paper this past week as he had a stellar pitching performance against Liberty. James pitched a 3-hit complete game shutout the other night and gave Stockdale its first league win of the year.


Great job James!

What's the key to improved QUICKNESS and AGILITY?

Balance.

No, not stand on a single leg, close your eyes and touch your nose balance. But balance between strength and power training.

What is the difference? Well if I asked you to describe strength training, how would you describe it? Most have the picture to the left in their mind. Lift as much weight as you can, regardless of speed. Actually the heavier you lift, the slower the movement.

Now what is power training? Power the same but has a time component. Power is the amount of weight lifted x distance divided by the time taken to lift it, or (force x distance)/time.

Some people claim that if you lift heavy, you lift slow and as a result you won't get any faster or more powerful. This group tends to stay away from heavy lifting and focuses strictly on plyometrics, agility training and reaction time training. These are all good attributes to have in a sports training program.

But by leaving the heavy lifting out, they are missing a very crucial component to their programs!!

Which component?? STRENGTH!

See strength (or in other terms work) is simply a force x distance. So it is in itself a component of power! If you have no strength, then this will directly influence your ability to move fast. After all, its not simply how fast you can move nothing, but instead its how fast can you move your body weight (most sports aren't played wearing a weighted vest).

If an athlete weighs 180 lbs, well he better be able to move and control not only his own weight, but also the added force from the momentum/inertia created by his 180 lbs moving quickly.

Heavy resistance training is a key component to being able to prevent injuries because most non-contact injuries occur during the eccentric or deceleration part of sports. Strength training improves the ability of muscle to control weight external to a players own body weight. 

Look at the video below, as quick as he is, he's also amazingly strong for his size!

Do you think he was able to change direction multiple time by working on speed and agility alone? No. Strength training plays a huge role!!

Then there are some who say that strength is all that matters. This can be countered with the principle of specificity. Specificity states that a person will adapt specifically to the demands placed on the body. So if you teach the muscle to contract with high amounts of force, but it contracts slowly, you'll see a person who is slow, but strong. So you really have to find the balance. 

In sports, especially baseball, we need to find the balance between the two.

At Pair & Marotta Peak Performance do just this! During our FAST Forward workouts, we spend the first 45 minutes of our workout on speed and agility training and the final 45 minutes on strength and flexibility training. And we see some amazing results! Want to come take a look?

Send me an email and let me know you'll be coming by! We would love to see you.

1 Surprising muscle building trick for your YOUNG ATHLETE

There are many things that I have told you about on how to build muscle. First, you've got to eat enough. If you aren't eating enough, nothing else you do will matter. You'll just be a really STRONG skinny kid.

Dead lifts are a MUST for muscle building!

The second thing is you've got to lift heavy. Heavy lifting uses lots of muscle which increases growth hormones and testosterone, both of which are necessary for muscle gain. So skip the body part splits and start doing squats, bench press, deadlifts, cleans, pullups, rows.

And building on the second point, you've got to keep the reps under 8. Anything more and you're wasting energy with reps 1-4, because those first few aren't nearly as difficult as the last 4. So make it work. A great starting point is 5 reps for 5 sets. This keeps you lifting heavy and keeps the total workload low so that you're stimulating type II muscle fibers to grow (which by the way grow the biggest).

Then you've got to sleep and allow your body to recover. This includes drinking plenty of water and sleeping 8-10 hours a day.

But there is another little trick that has been discovered to indirectly increase muscle building: Fat.

A study done by Dorgan, et al. (1996) found that those who had a fat intake of between 20-40% of their total calories had elevated testosterone levels. They also found that higher cholesterol levels were associated with higher testosterone levels. Granted this study had a pretty small sample (10 people) the outcome can still be used, but with caution. 

So how do you increase fat intake? Start eating more tree nuts, avocados, and eggs. Heck that could make a pretty good omelet right there! Grate some cheese and throw it over the top and you've got a muscle building breakfast that is high in protein, moderate in fat and low in carbohydrates!

The take away from today's lesson??

Don't be afraid of fat. Instead embrace it. But not the kind on your hips or around your belly. But rather the kind you eat. Because by boosting fat intake, you boost testosterone, and testosterone builds muscle!!

_____________________________________________

Dorgan J. F., Judd J. T, Longcope C.C,, Brown C.C., Schatzkin A.A., Clevidence B.A., Campbell W.S., Nair P.P., Franz C.C., Kahle L.L., Taylor P.R. (1996). Effects of dietary fat and fiber on plasma and urine androgens and estrogens in men: a controlled feeding study. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 64, 850-855.

The Forgotten Part 4: The WORST thing for gaining muscle

If there is one thing that skinny guys are almost instantaneously afraid of when they start trying to gain weight, its gaining fat. 

At the first sign of their skinny guy 6-pack disappearing, they make a mad dash for the treadmill. But this is THE WORST THING they could do.

Go back to the first part of this series and see how many calories you've got to eat in order to gain muscle. What do you think happens when you hit the treadmill after a workout? Or if you spend 2-3 hours a day playing basketball with friends?

Using even more calories is counterproductive to muscle gain.

You have to eat that many MORE calories! 3 hours of basketball can burn up to 2000 calories. So now not only do you have to eat 4500 calories just to gain weight, but now you have to eat an additional 2000 calories because of what you burned playing basketball!

So what should a skinny guy be doing when he's not working out?? 

Stretch, sleep, eat. That's right. Until you start gaining weight, you need to back off all that extra curricular activity that is chewing up calories you COULD be using to gain muscle.

So unless you enjoy going crazy because you aren't gaining weight despite the dump truck worth of food you're eating, then you need to BACK OFF the extra curricular activity.

But at that point, the question becomes which do you want more: muscle, or the extra activity?

The Forgotten Part 3: Build muscle WHILE YOU SLEEP!

During your gut busting, avalanche of testosterone causing, muscle building workout, your body is going through a lot. You are breaking down muscle so your body can rebuild it in a stronger form. This is called adaptation. 

However, there is something that all young athletes and even coaches think when they are working out. And it's completely backwards. The idea that more is better or that muscle is built DURING the workout is the greatest fallacy in the weightlifting world! Muscle is not built during the workout. Muscle is built while you rest. 

So to go to school, practice for sport and then lift weights only to stay up until 11pm is the golden road to frustration. You see after you workout, you need to recover. You need nutrients, minerals and vitamins to fuel and speed up recovery. Because the faster you recover, the sooner you can lift heavy again!!

So here is what needs to happen in order for skinny kids to recovery quickly so they can get back to their muscle building workouts.

Sleep. Preferably at home.

• Sleep. A lot. You need to get AT LEAST 8 hours a night, and more is better, if you want to build muscle. Which means if you wake up at 6am, the latest you need to be crawling into bed is 10. Your body can't rebuild if you are still breaking down.

• Vegetables. Your body needs more than just protein to rebuild. Vegetables provide a lot of the smaller nutrients that allow your body to recover faster! So every meal should have at LEAST 1 handful of vegetables AND 1 handful of fruit.

• Fat. Your body needs fat. Certain fats, such as those found in fish, seeds and nuts help prevent and minimize inflammation of muscle, which occurs after a hard workout. However, these fats should not be eaten immediately after the workout. Instead its best to have them right before bed so your body can put them to use. So eating fish oil capsules, up to 6 per day, as well as having almonds, walnuts and cashews over the course of the day will speed up recovery as well.

Muscle is 70% water. More water = more muscle.

• Water. Muscle is about 70% water. Plus water is necessary to flush waste products out of your system so repair can happen quicker. In addition, water is necessary for certain vitamins to be absorbed. These are called water soluble vitamins. So drinking up to a gallon of water over the course of a day, is certainly NECESSARY if you're looking to add muscle.

Recovery is often the MOST OVERLOOKED aspect of building muscle. But look around at the meatheads who are walking around with slabs of muscle. They're usually carrying a jug or bottle of water of some kind.

Stay tuned tomorrow as we wrap up "The Forgotten" series on building muscle for skinny athletes!!

The Forgotten Part 2: Turning your twiggy legs into tree trunks...

Yesterday I discussed the need to eat with the intention of gaining weight. Basically what that boiled down to is that if your kids aren't gaining muscle, but they want to, they need to eat more. Now granted eating enough is THE most important aspect of gaining muscle.

Lets get Anabolic!!

But all of that food won't do much if you're spending hours on end in the weight room. The reason for this is that after about 45 minutes of some heavy lifting, your body will begin to run out of carbohydrates for energy and instead will begin to break down muscle for energy. This is called catabolism. The buildup of muscle tissue is called anabolism.

So how long should you workout then? Well to prevent this muscle breakdown, workout should be kept to right around 45 minutes. Much longer and you run the risk of catabolism. Now a lot of you are thinking, "Dude, i'm just getting warmed up after 45 minutes!!"

Well start warming up quicker. Say in about 5 minutes. Do some body weight calisthenics such as pushups, body weight squats or lunges and about 20 arm circles in each direction.

No need for calf raises here!

And you don't need 4 different exercises for each body part. Instead stick with the biggest "Bang-4-your-Buck" exercises like squats, bench press, chin-ups, standing military press and deadlifts. Basically make sure your hands have to hold onto something or pick up weight on each lift. So skip the calf raises, the leg extension, the 3 different types of curls and the wrist curls.

The next point is to keep the weight heavy. None of this 3 sets of 10 reps junk. Keep it short and HEAVY! 4 sets of 6 or 5 sets of 5 is sufficient. Do 4 exercises, 4 sets of 4 reps with 1-2 minutes between sets should get the testosterone flowing and the growth hormone pumping!!

But why not those typical body builder schemes of 3 sets of 10-12 doing 3 different exercises for your arms? Well as I discussed above, was that workout will take WAY TOO LONG. In addition, it won't stimulate the proper muscle fibers!

See there are 3 types of fibers. Type 1 are slow twitch, and don't grow much. Type 2a are the middle fibers, and they grow some. But the type 2b are the ones that are begging to grow. And its only through heavy lifting that we'll hit those fibers without burning up the calories. So again, heavy weights, old fashioned tough guy weight lifting and only a handful of repetitions are your best bet.

Here are the exercises you should be doing to gain muscle:

• Squats
• Deadlift
• Bench press
• Chinups
• Push press
• Hang cleans
• Lunges
• Dips

These are the only exercises skinny guys need until they start actually gaining weight.

Now, stay tuned because next week, I'll tell you what you should be doing on the days between your lifting days to keep your physique from being confused with a 12-year old girl.

The Forgotten

In the age of childhood obesity their is a group of boys that are invisible. Invisible to football coaches, invisible to the eye of girls, invisible, not because they are gone. But because they are SKINNY and UNDERWEIGHT!

I’m not going to drag this out because it doesn’t need to be too incredibly complicated or over analyzed. But I’m just going to list the things you NEED to do if you want to gain muscle as a skinny kid. Because face it, nobody cares that you've got a 6-pack if you get blown around like a leaf in a light breeze.

1. Look at what overweight people are doing and do it. Except add in some weight lifting to it.
2. Speaking of weight lifting, don’t spend all day in the gym. 45 minutes…TOPS!!
3. Because you’re on a time crunch in the gym, you’d better be doing exercises that use most or all of your muscles. More muscle usage = more testosterone and growth hormone
4. If you play a high activity sport such as basketball, soccer or swimming, gaining weight will be even TOUGHER. So if you aren’t practicing or lifting weight, you need to be eating. 
5. SLEEP... a lot.
   

Today I will just discuss the first point and I will address the others in future blog posts.

Step 1: try to become overweight.

            Granted we don’t want you to be obese and slothful, but we do want you to gain weight. And there is no better person to look at for gaining weight, than somebody who has…gained a lot of weight. What is it they do? Well, they eat a lot. They eat frequently. And they eat a lot of carbohydrates; which is what you need. But you also need to make sure you’re building muscle instead of adding fat to your belly.

            And the thing with most skinny kids is when they think they are eating a lot of food, they usually AREN'T eating enough. Put it this way, if you aren’t gaining weight, you need to eat more. 

Here is what a skinny guy’s day should look like if he works out in the morning

Wake up (0 hours) – eat 1 measured cup of oatmeal (300 calories), 2 cups of milk (244 calories) Total = 544 cal

Workout – have a protein shake (130 calories)

After workout ( + 1.5 hours after wakeup) – 2 pancakes (350 calories), 1 cup cottage cheese (204 calories), ½ cup orange juice (56 calories) Total= 600

Snack ( + 2.5 hours) – 1 bagel (270 calories), 3 tbsp peanut butter (300 calories) Total = 570

Lunch ( + 4.5 hours) – 1 can tuna (150 cal), 2 tbsp mayonnaise (200 cal), ¼” slice of cheese from block (200 cal), 2 slices of bread (140 cal), a salad the size of a boat (60 cal), balsamic dressing (enough, but less than you think)(150 cal) Total = 900 cal

Is this what you see in the mirror??

Snack ( + 7.5 hours) – 2 cups yogurt (200 calories), ¼ cup peanuts (300 cal), ½ cup granola (180 cal) Total = 680 cal

Dinner (+ 10.5 hours) – Meat the size of your hand (300 cal), [broccoli + raisins] the size of your hand (150 cal), glass of milk (200 cal) Total = 650 cal

Before bed meal ( + 12.5 hrs) – 2 Scrambled eggs or protein powder (150 cal) + spoonful of peanut butter (200 cal), apple (75 cal) Total = 425 cal

Total calories = 4500 calories*

For most kids this is going to seem insurmountable. But it can be done. And with a quality lifting program, it can add a significant amount of muscle to ANY kids frame.