Seminars, Workshop, and Class Information

By Roberto Parker, CSCS, MS, CHEK2,FMS,FDN,USAW,MTA

We have a dilemma in this country, it is called “Health Degeneration”. Ask yourself the following questions regarding Health issues:

Why are 2/3 of the USA overweight?

Why is obesity on the rise in this country among adults and children in spite of the fact that we spend billions of dollars on health and fitness products and services?

Why are there so many varying expert written opinions on how to eat?

How is that my best friend has success on a low carb diet yet I feel lousy with minimal success when I incorporate those same eating patterns?

How can cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and a host of other degenerative diseases be on the rise each year?

Accumulatively there have been thousands of books written on losing weight and dieting, Who is right and who is wrong? Basically there is no right or wrong way to eat. Most foods in there purest intrinsic form are not deleterious to our system, however the manner in which we grow, process, and prepare foods are key components in determining how that food is accepted and processed physiologically by our bodies..

Most importantly, each person has there own “biochemical individuality” or Metabolic Type similar to a finger print.

Metabolic Type (MT) is related to how we evolved as human beings. The USA is a melting pot of people from all corners of the world. We can date back thousands of ancestral years which called for dietary adaptation to climate, vegetation, geography, and natural occurring food supplies.

If your ancestry dates back to people from the far northern regions of the world, more specifically Eskimos, they relied heavily on animal fats and protein, primarily because that was the main food source available. It is reported that Eskimo’s could consume up to 10 pounds of meat per day , yet there was not a hint of cancer or heart disease among there tribes until a number of them became “westernized” and started getting away from their ancestral foods.

You might be asking how did they get there supply of minerals and vitamins typically found in fruits and vegetables? The northern people were eating a heavy supply of fish (salmon and cod) and whale blubber, where were the fish and whales getting their supply of food? Answer, seaweed and algae from the ocean floor, which are loaded with healthy minerals, vitamins, and phyto-nutrients.

Converse to the northerners are the equatorial inhabitants of South America and Africa. There diets primarily consisted of vegetative foods (vegetables, fruits, and nuts) with moderate amounts of animal fat and proteins.

Many of us have heard that dairy products are bad. Healthy peoples of the Swiss Alps region diets consisted of dairy and rye bread.

Here is the challenge we have in our current global society; what happens when a person of Eskimo ancestry marries a person from South America or Africa who also has Swiss ancestry? All of us have a predominant gene that determines what type of MT we are. This predominant gene is our Dominance Factor (DF). All foods have a sedating or stimulating effect on our body’s chemistry. Some foods will alkalinize (sedate) the system while others will acidify (stimulate) the system. Certain foods will have a catabolic (muscle breakdown) effect while others will have an anabolic effect (lean muscle building).

What is Your Metabolic Type?

Contact Roberto Parker, Innovative Sports Training to learn more.

[email protected]

816-405-7703

Components of Athletic Performance

No matter what sports you participate in it requires a combination of the following 4 components:

• Strength
• Mobility
• Balance
• Timing

Granted each respective sports has its own unique combination of the aforementioned 4 components.

Example, a football lineman needs a significant amount of strength followed by mobility, balance, and timing. Conversely, a place kicker requires a significant amount of timing, balance, mobility, followed by strength. There is an old saying “a chain is strong as the weakest link”. An athlete must know their strengths and weaknesses. I have seen to many athletes over-train in areas where they already have significant amounts of strengths. Over a period of time if one continues to over-train there are diminishing returns of muscle imbalances, weakened immune system, fatigue, loss of motivation, and an immense amount of frustration.

I have worked around quite a few baseball athletes who will head to the weight room and do a ton bench press work and arm curls. Yet many of them neglect pull-ups, chins, rotational core work, medicine ball drills (core), posterior back work (lats, rear delts, and spinal erectors). I often ask them why is bench press important to baseball performance? Their answer is “ that’s what my high school coach has the team doing” or “I read in a muscle magazine”. These athletes training is completely out of balance and their coaches need to attend some workshops or classes on functionally training athletes. The athlete also needs to quit reading body building magazines that promotes muscle building without any functional purpose with the exception of posing on a stage and flexing. If you training is out of balance you are not maximizing your competitive athletic potential and you are increasing your risk of injury.

How are we meant to train?

The human body is a multi-dimensional design that was meant to be trained in integrative patterns of movement (compound movements), such as bending, twisting, lunging, squatting, pushing, and pulling. These are the movements that you use in athletic games and competition. Incorporating compound movements in your training sessions will train the muscle and nervous systems to fire and activate dualistically in the heat of competition. To often I see athletes training with isolated( body building movements) which trains the muscle and nervous systems to activate and fire separately which leads to poor timing/coordination and increasing injury potential. Isolation movements are exercises such as arm curls, bench press, lat pull-downs, and a few others. Please do not misunderstand what I am saying here, I am not advocating anti bench press, arm curls, and lat pull-downs. There are times when you may need to isolate muscle groups to build more strength and bulk for athletic purposes, however, management is the operative word . Do not over do it while compromising other areas of your total training package.

By the way, one can also perform too much stretching, timing drills, and balance drills. Know your strengths and weaknesses.

Conclusion

Lets revisit our baseball example. What are the important components of baseball? Do you need to able to bench 300 pounds to effectively swing a bat, throw a fast ball, or throw a man out at 2nd base? Obviously the answer is no. However, you better have good timing, good balance, good mobility, and good explosive strength to bat, throw, and sprint effectively. It is matter of knowing your strengths and weaknesses.