I have been involved in a number of sports and activities. I try to learn as much about what it takes to improve in that sport. Some sports are easy to follow a conditioning program for. Others have so many versions of how to improve and train it takes a 400-page book to list all the methods. I tend to believe that training should be as close to that sport's demands as possible. I had several conversations this past week with physiology educators and trainers with a good background of knowledge, and we were comparing notes on some of the more unique training methods that we have experienced.
One of the trends in weight lifting today is the use of kettle bells. Kettle bells are round balls of iron with a handle. Kettle bells were the main piece of equipment for strongmen back in 1918 or so. Now in 2018 they are once again in use. It took about 100 years to be a new thing for training, but it is a good example when “old timers” in fitness say, “Yes, we did that when I was a kid.”
Stretching has been the good and bad over the years. Runners stretch before a race to loosen up the muscles and use the stretching to prevent injuries. Around 1960 a professor in exercise physiology, Dr. Peter Karpovich, did a study where he took students from Springfield College and had them run a quarter mile for time. The students were in a jogging class and did some stretching exercises in one class. The next class period he had them run with no warm up. Just take off and run. He even grabbed some students as they walked by on the way to another class and had told them to run a quarter mile. (You had to know what type of personality professor Dr. Karpovich had to get students to do his command. In class he would have students sweating at their desks as he prepared to ask questions.) The basic results of the quarter mile runs were that the times were almost identical, and none of the students pulled a muscle from not stretching or warming up. It was a good study at the time and down played the value of stretching before an activity.
