New research has found that running barefoot is safe. Scientists have studied how the foot hits the ground while running barefoot or with minimal footwear and have determined that the foot does not heel-strike when it lands.  Running shoes are designed for heel-striking. When your running barefoot you’re more likely to land on the balls or the middle part of your foot which reduces the potentially harmful impact that a heel-striker would experience.

Daniel E Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University authored a paper that appeared in the journal of Nature.  The paper says, “By landing on the middle or front of the foot, barefoot runners have almost no impact collision, much less than most shoe-ed runners generate when they heel-strike. Most people today think barefoot running is dangerous and hurts, but actually you can run barefoot on the world’s hardest surfaces without the slightest discomfort and pain. All you need is a few calluses to avoid roughing up the skin of the foot. Further, it might be less injurious than the way some people run in shoes.”

If you decide to try barefoot running make sure you start off easy. Like most Americans, if you have been running with running shoes your body is used to heel striking. Running barefoot involves different muscles. Let your body slowly adjust to your new style of running. Check out Professor Lieberman’s web site Running Barefoot or in Minimal Footwear . It has a lot of helpful information on the subject.

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Best – Mike Cola

Fitness Contrarian – Helping Peolpe Build Healthy Bodies

We all need protein for growth and to repair muscle and tissue. But how much protein you ingest should be based on your lifestyle and activity level. There’s a lot of evidence indicating that individuals and athletes who engage in intense training need more protein.

Both Endurance Athletes and Strength Athletes need more protein then the general population. For many years the general belief was that protein did not contribute to energy demands during exercise only muscle repair. But research has shown that it’s not just carbohydrates and fats that fuel the muscles. Protein is used as fuel along with carbohydrates and fats especially if your glycogen (carbohydrates) stores are low. Not only does protein help repair and promote growth in the body, it also can help fuel the body when needed.

Since athletes and active people place more demands on their bodies they need more protein.

Recommended protein for the general population is:

• .8 grams per kg of body weight per day

To figure out your protein requirement take your weight ÷ 2.2 × .8 = Protein requirements. So if you weight 150 pounds: 150 ÷ 2.2 × .8 = 54.5 grams of protein per day

Recommended protein for aerobic or endurance athletes:

• 1.1 to 1.4 grams per kg of body weight per day

A 150-pound endurance athlete would need therefore up to 95.5 grams of protein a day.

Recommended protein for strength athletes:

• 1.5 to 2.0 grams per kg of body weight per day

That same 150-pound person who is a strength athlete would need therefore up to 136 grams of protein per day.

The research is indicating that athletes can need two to almost three times the protein requirements than the average individual.

It is important not to over do it. You may have read or heard bodybuilders advocate taking 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight.  Be careful; in my opinion, that’s too much protein. You will just wind up gaining weight with the extra calories.

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Best – Mike Cola

Demystifying Nutrition

When you’re playing sports and your main goal is to win you’re most likely training too much. More specifically, you have to train in a manner that my not be healthy for you but will get you prepared to win. Training for a competitive sport is very different than training to be in top physical condition. Just about any motivated person can get into incredible shape without spending too much time training each week. They can do this while staying healthy and never hurting themselves by over training and breaking down their bodies.

Why does a World Class Athlete Have to Over Train?

If you’re a world-class tennis player you need everything—- speed, strength, endurance and obviously tremendous skill. For example, what are the main reasons tennis players have to play tennis for hours upon hours every day for years? Are they doing it to get faster, stronger or more aerobically conditioned? In my opinion, that’s part of it, but the real reason they have to put the long hours in is to keep their neuromuscular system in precise condition. The skill of tennis takes hours on a daily basis to perfect. Plus, when you stop playing tennis the first thing that you lose is your neuromuscular control (your timing and skill). You can miss days of strength and cardiovascular training without any difference in performance. You can possibly miss weeks with minimal training and still stay in world-class condition. But when it comes to the actual skill of the game you have to play a lot. Athletes get sick and injured because they have to over train. These athletes are pushing themselves way beyond a level of optimal condition for their sport to achieve amazing skill. In addition, there is another component that drives an athlete to over train, which is mental confidence. The more some athletes practice and push themselves the more confident they become.

If you’re a recreational athlete and play sports to keep in shape don’t think more is better. The health benefits of exercise pretty much disappear after an hour and I’m being generous with that statement. It could be more like 30 minutes. There’s a famous study by Dr. Izumi Tabata and his colleagues at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo. This study shows how 4 minutes of high intensity interval training improved aerobic capacity by 14% and anaerobic capacity by 28% in six weeks.

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Best- Mike Cola
Fitness Contrarian

I will never forget the feeling of weight lifting and playing sports when I was in my twenties. Nothing hurt; I could go all out without any concern of hurting myself. When I see these young kids in the gym training or when watching sports on TV, it’s disconcerting to me how age can take that athleticism away from you. I’m in my late 40’s now and devoted my life to the pursuit of fitness and a healthy life style. Even though I did most things right when it came to training and conditioning, I can’t escape from the fact that I’m getting older. I love seeing an older athlete, like Brett Favre, still playing at such a high level but to be honest I have no idea how he is doing it. I’ve been studying exercise physiology and biomechanics for over 25 years and it seems that he is one in a million. There are some sports where world class athletes are in there 40’s but they seem to be more endurance oriented like biking and triathlon type events not speed and strength.

Why can some athletes play longer then others? Part of it is mental determination and the other is unknown to some degree. There are so many things we don’t understand about the body. Why do some people recover from the same injuries that others don’t.

These are questions I’ve been trying to figure out for the last few years. What I have concluded is that its part hormonal, part genetics, part related to optimal training and the rest is still unknown.

Here are some guidelines for the older athlete:

• Adequate Rest and Recovery– that means enough sleep and rest between workouts or events;
• Periodization– which is an organized variation of training intensity over a whole athletic season or year;
• Slow Progression– letting the body fully adapt to the training protocol; and
• Optimal Nutrition– nutritional timing to help fully recover from intense training.

If you’re 40 or older let me know how you feel about this subject.

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Best – Mike Cola
Fitness Contrarian

Quick tips to get rid of tennis elbow:

• Loosen the strings in your tennis racket
• Consider changing to a more flexible tennis racket
• Wear a tennis elbow support
• Ice your elbow for 15 minutes right after you play
• Consider taking anti-inflammatory medication (ask your doctor)
• Rest your elbow

Keep in mind the reason you have tennis elbow is most likely because you have an imbalance or weakness somewhere else in your body. You are compensating for this weakness by making your elbow work much harder than is has to. To cure tennis elbow, you must figure out where the weaknesses and limitations are through-out your whole body and not just focus on the muscles and connective tissue in your elbow. Once you know where the limitations are, than you can start a tennis elbow treatment program that integrates the whole body as well as isolates the muscle and tendons in the elbow. Refer to my video Tennis Elbow Treatment for help with the exercise program.

Quick outline of the integrated and isolated exercise program for tennis elbow:

• Squat with rotation
• Stationary lunge with rotation
• Stepping lunge with rotation
• Wrist flexion and extension
• Wrist pro-nation and super-nation
• Stepping backhand lunge with resistance band

Start off easy; one set 10 slow reps (up for 2 seconds and down for 5 seconds for isolated exercises)  per exercise. Work up to two sets 20 reps per exercise three days per week. Watch the video for a complete demonstration of the tennis elbow program. It also addresses the most common limitations I have seen over the years that lead to tennis elbow.

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Best – Mike Cola

Fitness Contrarian

Tennis Elbow Treatment from Mike Cola on Vimeo.

Laird Hamilton in the picture above  is the worlds greatest big wave surfer.  I’m sure Laird warms-up before getting into the water. Check out my video about warming up before surfing.