Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for my readers, especially the ones who have provided me some some good questions that I can paste together with my answers to create a blog post.
Questions include: why does it hurt here; why doesn't it hurt here; why is my hamstring stiff; and should I use resistance on sports movements?
(By the way, if you want to ask a question and get it answered in a future post, contact me here.)
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I know what I want for Christmas! A soccer playing robot! Check it out!
I just watched a nice TED talk by neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert on how the brain controls movement. Check it out below.
Check out this video of Geoffrey Mutai running in slow motion. This was taken at mile 21 of his recent record breaking effort at the New York City Marathon:
Look at that. Just like buttah.
This reminds me of some interesting physics of running that I learned recently.
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The movement of the week is about squash! I love squash, and like most squash players, I would give my left arm to be a better player.
Squash is one of those things like surfing or rock climbing or fly fishing that hard core fans get so geeked up about that non fans have a tough time understanding why there is such a fuss. So if you get that impression at some point during this blog post, ...
After writing last week’s post on the meaning of strength, I was thinking about doing a post that would address whether getting “stronger” in the gym makes you stronger on the field. The big question is: to what degree will resistance training make you better at your sport? For example, will improving your deadlift make you better at soccer?
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I just read a great quote from Steven Pinker that I wanted to share. In case you haven’t heard of Pinker, he’s a very smart guy who writes excellent books on How the Mind Works and other stuff.
Here he is describing his efforts to understand the complex system of the brain:
Everyone seems to agree that strength is a good thing.
Sports trainers claim that increasing your strength will allow you to run faster, jump higher, hit harder. Physical therapists will tell you that increasing strength in a certain muscle will cure back pain, knee pain, and hip pain.
Regardless of whether or not these claims have any merit, one thing I find interesting is that hardly anyone ever defines what they mean by strength. And that’s probably because it can be a very elusive concept to pin down...
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I have always been amazed at how far basketball skill has come in the past fifty years. Today's players are so much better than players from previous eras that it doesn't even look like the same sport.
To put this development in perspective, let's compare some footage over time. Bob Cousy was one of the top players from the 1950s. He was considered one of the game's flashiest players, earning him the nickname "Houdini of the Hardwood." Check out some of his "fancy dan" moves ...
There has been a lot of discussion on the internets recently about the idea that excessive sitting is bad for your health. For example, a widely circulated article from the New York Times asked whether sitting is a “lethal activity.” The concern is based on several studies that have shown that the number of hours spent sitting per day is a risk factor for a wide variety of ...
This is beyond belief. Some day I would like to take twenty years off and learn how to do this:
When you train a particular body area, what exactly adapts to make an improvement? One interesting source of insight into these questions comes from studies where they train just one limb and then see whether the performance of the untrained limb changes in some way.
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When you are doing joint mobility drills or otherwise exploring movement at a particular joint, do you spend more time at the end ranges of motion where movement is stiff and limited, or in the neutral zone where movement is easy? Of course movement in each zone is a potentially beneficial way to map the joint for the brain. But often the ...
I’ve written before on this blog about how manual therapists can develop some very questionable ideas about exactly how they are helping their clients. Like thinking they can manipulate energy fields, chakras, chi or cerebral spinal fluid patterns. Interestingly, my own observation is that many therapists who believe the craziest things actually get some pretty good results! How could this happen? How ...
I write a lot on this blog about the value of moving 
What are your physical limits? What is your body capable of? How fast, how far, how strong, how long? In all likelihood you will never know, because your brain will probably never let your body reach its real limit. And that’s a good thing, because that will help prevent you from breaking bones, straining muscles, dislocating joints and maybe even killing yourself...