BOXING:

There has been a lot of interest in the boxing that I have done as dry land activity.

I don’t think that you need to incorporate full contact boxing to reap the benefits. Hooks with a partner using focus mits make you work the trunk rotation that will help freestyle swimming. Incorporate some of those “hold your breath for 30 seconds” hypoxic work that we were discussing in the message board area while doing hooks or uppercuts sets.

It is also an incredible workout if you can find a sparring partner to go through a few 3 minute rounds.

If you are just starting out it is less important to hit hard. You can sprain your wrist. As you practice it more and build strength in your wrists you can start hitting the mits harder.

Watch the athlete throwing hooks, they learn to use their core rather than their arms. This is really important. The balance shifts, using the core from one arm to the other and one leg to the other. You see the same transfer in proper freestyle swimming. If you just watch the core it is doing the EXACT same movement as when you swim freestyle.

Someone that has never thrown hooks will start by using their arms. Watch as they fatigue the power transfers from the arms to the core automatically. Your body finds the easiest way, which is keeping your spine aligned and having short explosive rotations, not swinging wildly.

It really strengthens the core. It’s good aerobic work, keeps the heart rate elevated for a long period of time. And builds explosive muscle that will get you from one end of the pool to the other faster than those wimps that don’t box.

When you start to get it down have your coach help you find your desired race pace stroke rate and throw your hooks at the exact same pace. It ingrains the tempo into your brain. Get a metronome and do all of your dryland activity to your stroke rate beat. Weight reps, pushups, situps. When you get to the race that tempo is in your head and keeps all the other stuff that you don’t need to be thinking about out.

Try it. Pick up some of the most padded gloves you can find and a pair of focus mits. Start out with a 5 minute hooks session, just hitting the mits LIGHTLY. If the soreness you feel the next day doesn’t convince you that this is incredible exercise try a set of 1 minute explosive rounds (maybe with the first 30 seconds of the minute holding your breath). Then, if you really want to up the ante, take off the gloves, dive in, sprint 50 meters all out, swim back easy, hop out, put the gloves back on, repeat until you throw up.

NBC, you are not perfect:

I am going to stop just short of criticizing NBC because I have a lot of appreciation for their contributions to growing the Olympic Games. It’s true they have contributed an awful lot to the Olympic movement but everyone is capable of making wrong decisions. I know this as well as anyone. In 2006 NBC has made some wrong choices.

The problem that I have is that you can’t have your athletes picked out six months before the Games. You’re missing the best stories as they are unfolding around your chosen few.

NBC you cannot have a story board for the Olympic Games. Your job is to cover the games. Cover the stories. Cover the champions in their moment of victory. Don’t you or any of your sponsors feed us a story about some rebel skier. No one can know what the story is going to be before it happens! Bode thus far has been a dud. We can all name the half dozen focal points of these winter games. 1) The rebel skier 2)Michelle Kwan (this bombed despite NBC’s greatest efforts to put her on the team) 3) The “Flying Tomato” 4) The goatee’d speed skater 5) The girl snowboarder with the curly hair 6) The wild Texan skater 7) the “electric” figure skater. Okay, these are standouts, folks that have a better shot of making the big story that NBC is looking to capture but as camera men swarm around these faces that we have gotten to know they miss the other competitors. Sometimes the other competitors live the story that NBC wants and they miss it.

If sports can provide us with one thing it’s the reminder that the underdog does sometimes win against the invincible opponent, the Vegas odds, the over funded and born talent. This happens at the Olympic Games. And when it does happen it serves as a reminder that we are in charge of our own destiny. (Except in figure skating where the corrupt judges actually control the universe.)

Don’t take this the wrong way. I like all of these athletes and am cheering them on. I want them to do well. I like hearing their stories. I know it takes a long time to prepare those profile pieces.

Well, here is an example of what I mean. Apolo Anton Ohno is doing very well. I have watched and enjoyed his races. But during the relay NBC shows close ups of Apolo waiting for the other speed skater to approach, not the other speed skater who by the way is also an OLYMPIC ATHLETE THAT IS REPRESENTING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! Think there might be some interest there? I for one find the relay race more interesting than the look of anticipation on Apolo’s face as his relay team mate approaches. He’s not a bad looking guy, it’s just that, never-mind.

WADA And The Incredible Car Chase Through The Italian Alps That Ends Quite Suddenly With A CRASH Into An Italian Police Barricade:

Read this story if you haven’t read about it already:

Click here.

That’s fantastic! A chase that ends in a crash with an Italian police road block! NBC should pan out and cover some of the real action that is going on. Did you see the cuts on the evil, banned, doper guy’s face! Dirty syringes and a pumping blood machine flying out of an open trunk that probably held a dead body at some point?! Man, this is better than the last five James Bond films.

Who is this Walter Mayer guy and how did he get his Olympic credentials to get into see the athletes?

HUZZAH! For Dick Pound! Dick, and the Italian police are cracking down on cheats and it’s about time!

Boo hoo, we were kept up late? The rude Italian police kept us up late, and took our performance enhancing drugs. How rude! I’m sorry but Olympic athletes should not be shooting up anything, unless of course you need insulin. But other than insulin to stay alive, what really does an athlete need syringes for? And why would they throw them out the window when the authorities showed up? It’s suspicious I tell you, the whole thing. Oh yeah and one more thing, Inspector Clouseau, the good one that is Peter Sellers, wants to know what the hell this lifetime banned, reduced to ten year banned, drugger coach is doing fleeing from your hotel room in the middle of the night in a high speed car chase through the Italian Alps that results in a crash?

Maybe I am being too quick to judge. I’ll wait until the test results are in to really lay into these CHEATERS!

I really admire the no tolerance stance that the Italian authorities have taken on illegal performance enhancing drugs and the athletes that use them. Jail time, that’s what I’ve been saying! What is this standard where grass gets jail and copious amounts of steroids get you a book deal and a talk show circuit?

It’s not okay!

EXCLUSIVE SPORT and GLOBAL WARMING:

If you want to read, read. Here is an article with some interesting points:

Winter Olympics an exclusive club, not global Games

Click here to read more.

Well, it sure isn’t the SUMMER games! Swimming IS as easy as joining a Y. $4,000 for Alpine ski’s? Do you get a free lift ticket with that? Oh, the lift ticket for 1 day is equivalent to an annual membership fee for United States Swimming and I don’t get one free with those skis that just cost me 4 grand? Whazza lesson cost? We can moan and groan about a lot of things but we all have access to a water hole somewhere. And with global warming even the skiers will be swimming soon.

I don’t know what one of those skating outfits cost. I don’t want to know what those skating judges will do to you if you showed up in something cheap!

WOODY SURF WAGON FOR SALE:

Click here to view.

Even if you don’t need a used car you might get a kick out of seeing what I load my surfboards into on Miami’s BIG WAVE DAYS and cruise around town in. I crank up the reggae and paddle out. Bid now and you can roll in this sweet ride.

God bless us all! Each and every one! Even the figure skaters.

Signing off sore cause I’m training again,

Gary