The Importance of Being Barefoot

One of my favorite strength and conditioning authors, Martin Rooney, wrote an article today outline why he believes training barefoot is a great idea. While I'll leave all the particulars to Mr. Rooney, I certainly agree with him.

That article will cover many of the reasons that barefoot training is good for anyone, but for my sport (mixed martial arts) I think it is obviously essential.

Now, you certainly can't go into your local LA Fitness or YMCA completely barefoot and start lifting or running. It is possible to lift in socks, but any small pieces of glass or rocks can be problematic. To combat this, I purchased Vibram Five Fingers (picture above). I've had my Vibrams, as the lingo goes, for 8 months or so. Here's a quick pro/con list for you.

Pros
Feel great on your feet

Allows you to take advantage of the benefits of barefoot training, but provides some protection from injury and the elements.

Great conversation starter

Machine washable

Very versatile (i.e. you can use these for jogging, sprinting, hiking, lifting, jumping, etc. There are different models of shoe to fit your specific needs.)

Seem very durable so far

Cons
You have to be willing to take a step back before enjoying all the advantages of training barefoot.
-To expand on this, if you are used to running 3-5 miles a day, or you do lots of plyometric jumping and training, you will have to lower your volume significantly for awhile to allow your feet to properly condition to being asked to carry the load again. When you wear regular shoes, the high heel, arch support, and thick soles do some of the work your feet will normally do. This naturally de-trains your feet. You will need to work up to running (especially sprinting or long distances) before jumping right into full training

In a related story, you will also have to learn to run properly. Many runners tend to heel strike hard in their gate. The gel, air, or thick insoles in their running shoes allow them to get away with this. When you train barefoot you have to learn to be on the mid-foot/balls of your feet. The good news is, you'll naturally start doing this when you run barefoot. The bad news is, you are probably not conditioned to it. Therefore you'll likely experience a lower level of performance in the short-term. Don't worry, it's all worth it.

Even though they are machine washable, they still stink bad. Trust me.

They have released newer models since I bought mine, but my version of the KSO model doesn't provide good protection at all against stepping on rocks or sticks. This can be annoying because it dictates where you can run.



All in all, I really recommend giving them a shot. Enjoy!

Low Carb Snicker Doodle Cookies

As the holiday season approaches, we all know that we will be faced with a sobering choice between our fitness goals and pleasing our palate. But with a few good recipes, you can eat some delicious desserts and still keep trekking towards your fitness goals. Note: this is not a low calorie food, but a low carb food. I'd advise you that keeping carbs low is a major key to fat loss, but don't forget that total calories matter a lot. Here's the wonderful recipe for low carb snicker doodle cookies:

1.5 cups Almond Flour
3/4 cup Splenda
3/4 cup (1 stick) butter (You can use margarine, of course, but the trans-fats are worse than the butter. I like the butter made with a touch of Olive Oil. Moderation makes butter fine.)
1/4 cup Brown Sugar Splenda (Note that this is a sugar and splenda blend. You can cut a few more carbs out by using a whole cup of regular Splenda here, but the small amount of brown sugar shouldn't hurt much. Moderation folks!)
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar (optional)

Put half of the almond flour, and all the rest of the ingredients, in a bowl and mix thoroughly. After mixing, add the rest of the almond flour and mix evenly. Batter should be fairly stiff. Put batter, covered, in the fridge for 1 hour.

Mix to roll the cookies in:

2 Tbsp. Splenda
2 tsp. Brown Sugar Splenda
3/4 tsp. Cinammon

Preheat oven to 350F. Roll batter into balls and roll each ball in the sugary mix. For thinner, crisper cookies, smash the balls into thin sheets. For thicker, gooey-er (word?) cookies, leave as balls. Bake 14-16 minutes. Immediately transfer to a cooling rack. Makes 8-10 cookies.

Enjoy!!!

Beautiful Judo

I ran across a link to this fight in the Bellator organization. Rick Hawn is a former Olympian in Judo who is enjoying a very successful start to his MMA career. In this fight, he executes a wonderful throw to set his opponent up for a quick finish. Judo as a base art has enjoying varying levels of success so far in MMA. It does, however, contain the inherent work ethic and ability to fight well in the clinch that gives wrestling so much success in MMA. Perhaps the difference lies in the use of the gi in many Judo throws, as well as the lack of ground work in Judo tournaments. Satoshi Ishii is another interesting prospect. He was the 2008 Olympic Gold medalist in heavyweight Judo. He has started off his career in Japan, and has looked promising to this point. I have long admired the power and grace in Judo throws, and look forward to the day when more and more high level Judo players develop no-gi games and bring another alternative to wrestling. Enjoy the video!

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

The major theme of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report is that the debate in this country is being controlled by ideological zealots, or media companies who can't figure out how to report the news without making it seems as if an atomic bomb is about to drop on us, while the vast majority of Americans are reasonable people who want reasonable solutions. They both approach this theme by using satire to make folks laugh, but intentional or not, both shows have a point and we'd be wise to listen a bit. Let's take an example:

Christine O'Donnell is running for Senate in Delaware. Now, if you have followed the race at all, or even caught a blurb about it on a news program, you probably know that Ms. O'Donnell admitted to "dabbling in witchcraft" at one point in her life. You also know that she appeared on MTV 14 years ago to say that masturbation is immoral. New organizations love this kind of stuff because it makes people talk, but I'd like to present another angle.......who gives a shit? If you are looking for someone who has never said or done anything questionable in their entire life to vote for, well, good luck!

The problem with Ms. O'Donnell is that she is ignorant. She has little knowledge of the Constitution, which she claims as her guiding light. She has mislead people time and time again about her education credentials. She has also presented no actual plan to address any issue we face today. But, the reality is, most people don't know about those issues at all. I talk to people who say, "who is Christine O'Donnell?" One quick reminder about masturbation and *bam* the memory is jogged.

The media, however, emphasizes the most extreme and ridiculous presumably because they feel that's what we want to know. My guess is that it's less about that being what we want to know, and more about that's all we hear. At any rate, the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear is about trying to chill out that rhetoric a bit.

The rally is about showing people that the extreme fringes of the debate in this country shouldn't be the driving force. Rather, reasonable people should get together to solve some problems. People are encouraged to bring signs to the rally, but they should be, well, sane! In fact, the rally has set up a website to post some ideas for sane rally signs. A good example: I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler.

Anyway, check it out. The wife and I are going and would be happy to carpool if anyone is interested. The rally is free to attend (FYI: so are most of the museums in D.C., so it could be a pretty inexpensive weekend getaway), and on October 30th.

Be Sane!

Football Dogma

I love football. I love the chess match. I love the concept of getting 11 people to work together towards a common goal, even it it means self-sacrifice. Indeed, football is the ultimate team game.

We folks in Indianapolis have long been spoiled by watching one of the great franchises in the sport. But, just for curiosities sake, how does a team consistently win games in the NFL? Turn on ESPN sometime, and you'll hear a certain dogma.

Now, to be fair, ESPN employs some pretty good former NFL players, while I was not a very good former high school player. To be sure, Mark Schlereth, Merrill Hodge, Darren Woodson, and Co. know the game very well. They have played it at a high level and won Super Bowls. But one of my recent pet peeves has been watching the veins on Mark Schlereth's head pop out as he breathlessly proclaims that a football team has to get physical and run the football, while stopping the other team from running the football on the football field during the football game. As a side note, I love how he assumes he is talking to an audience of goldfish, so he must remind us several times mid-sentence that is talking about the sport of football.

At any rate, this has often annoyed me because these sermons come at the expense of the Colts. Every year we hear the analysts put the Colts down after both wins and losses in which they give up a bunch of rushing yards, or fail to run the ball many times. Obviously, despite the doomsday predictions, the Colts remain successful year in and year out.

But do the analysts have a point in most other cases. It is fair to say that many rules might not apply to the Colts because they have Peyton Manning. Do you HAVE to run the ball well and stop the run to win a Super Bowl or, at least, your division? I visited Pro Football Reference's website, looked up team stats from 2000-2009, and recorded data on every playoff team from that time frame.

Let's talk offense first. A quick glance at the list shows that the best running team in the league (note that the official stat the ranks the teams is rushing yards), made the playoffs 7 out of 10 seasons. However, the average rush offense rank for Super Bowl winners was only 13.5, while the average rank for Super Bowl runner-ups was 16th. And the story has only gotten worse for the Wish-Bone fans recently, as only 2 out of the last 8 Super Bowl teams have posted top 10 rushing offenses.

The playoffs, though, can be a bit misleading for a strategy's actual success. After all, late season injuries, inclement weather, the extra time and focus to prepare for a teams attack, and just the "ball didn't bounce our way" factor that exists in single games can make trends a bit harder to identify. So looking at division winners should provide a more accurate view. Over the course of an entire season, some of those hard to control for factors should average themselves out. For this analysis, I took out the 2000 season because that was the last year before the new divisional alignment. There have been 72 division winners since 2001, and their average rush offense rank is 13.2.

Does this mean that a team need be only average at running the ball to win games? It would even be accurate to point out that in some of these cases a team's rank is probably elevated over their actual effectiveness. Indeed if a team is at a elite level, they are probably ahead late in games. Being ahead late in games means running the ball a bit more to keep the clock rolling. Even so, an average ranking shoots some holes in the story that you absolutely have to run the ball well to win.

I would make that same argument, to an even greater degree, in the case of rush defense. Most fans are familiar with the strategy of running the ball early and often to "wear out" a defense. As the game ticks down into the last quarter or so, a team should be churning out the most yards rushing, as they are facing a tired opponent. But elite level teams are often far enough ahead late, that their opponents can't run the ball because of the clock. In 2007, for example, the Patriots boasted the 10th ranked run defense in the league. They were a very good defense, no doubt, but it helped that they lead many of those games by 3 touchdowns or more in the 4th quarter.

The average rush defense rank for Super Bowl winners since 2000 is 10.2. For the sake of clarity though, I should point out that in 2006, the Colts had the 32nd ranked rush defense in the league. Therefore, throwing out that statistical outlier, the average rank drops to 7th. Runner-ups boasted an average of 9.9, while division winners posted a 11.6 ranking.

What do these stats show? Simply that you can win without running the ball and stopping the run at a very high level, but your chances certainly do improve if you perform at an average rate at least. Passing tells a similar story, though it has been more important recently. The average pass offense ranking for Super Bowl winners is 14.7, and losers is 7.2. However, of the last 8 Super Bowl teams, 5 have posted top 10 passing offenses (compared to 2 posting top 10 rushing offenses).

So are the analysts wrong? Well, the stats can still be misleading. While a running play is defined as a underhanded pitch or handoff to a player, is it really that different from a screen pass or 2 yard slant or hitch? The Colts often use wide receiver screens or quick slants in place of traditional run-between-the-tackles kind of plays, but they still act as running plays in that offense.

Whatever the case may be, Colts fans shouldn't fret when the analysts proclaim that they can't win due to a bad performance or two stopping the run. We've been here before, seen this movie, and still won. Now you have the stats to back that up. Of course, as the old saying goes, 'there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.'