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As you can imagine, we’re pummeled with marketing and advertising for the “newest,” “most cutting edge” and “next generation” of equipment for youth fitness.

What’s odd about this stuff is that it looks like “Mini-Me” versions of the same crappy, dangerous machines that parents and adults are getting unfit and unhealthy on in their “health clubs!” Fixed position, uni-planar, single movement “fitness” equipment that nearly always creates injury patterns in the people who use them.

Yes! Building muscle will help you lose body fat! Yes! Regularly performing resistance training will help build muscle! Yes! These machines were “engineered” to maximize (isolated) muscular output! (and maybe for use at Gitmo?) Yet a strange thing has happened to American adults, even those who use these machines to “get in shape!”

They’ve become so dependent on them that they’re no longer capable of performing strength building exercises without the artificial “intelligence” provided by these contraptions! So when the time comes to apply their newly developed “strength,” they either get injured or realize they aren’t nearly as “strong” as the numbers on their exercise machines would indicate!

Add to this the fact that more back, shoulder, knee, ankle and hip injuries are caused by the use of these torture machines in a year than in the NFL in 10 years, and it makes me wonder. It makes me wonder why we’d shove our children onto this junkyard fodder in the first place!

We know that “free-form” functional exercises, those that mimic real-life and sports movements, not only result in better movement patterns (think injury-resistance), they burn more calories and build more muscle! That’s right, functional integrated training stimulates the development of a far greater number of muscles than isolated, fixed position machine training.

Let’s look at a very popular exercise machine for both youth sports and adult fitness, the leg press. Plate loaded, selectorized (think weight-stack-and-pin) or otherwise resisted, it artificially stabilizes the body as the exerciser tries to perform hip and knee extension. The design creates higher levels of lumbar strain during the eccentric lowering, or negative phase of movement. Extreme hip flexion at the bottom of the leg press prevents proper glute activity and puts a tremendous amount of stress on the knees.

Squatting done correctly increases knee stability. The leg press reduces knee stabilization, increasing the risk of serious injury. Additionally, many exercisers, especially young athletes, load far too much weight on the leg press, in a misguided effort to increase leg strength. This can result in spinal injury and, potentially, permanent damage to knees, back and hips.

Good squat form may be a challenge to master but squatting develops far higher levels of functional strength. Here’s a great bonus: squats help athletes develop total body, multi-planar strength and power, compared with the limited strength developed on fixed position, artificially stabilized exercise machines designed to “isolate muscle groups.” (More on this fallacy in the future!)

Speaking more generally, most exercise machines are simply not designed to support the adolescent body, let alone pre-pubescent kids!

Seated overhead press machines are typically designed in a way that places a great deal of stress on the lumbar spine. These forces far outweigh those produced during standing overhead pressing, when the core stabilization system is more readily recruited for spinal stability. Athletes often end up in severe lumbar misalignment in an effort to lift higher weights.

Leg extension and leg curl machines fix the body in the sagittal plane (think straight-ahead) and create hip flexion and shear force at the knee (leg extension) or extreme lumbar extension (lordosis) and hip flexion (leg curl.) Both seriously reduce the body’s ability to stabilize the knee and spine.

How then should children exercise in order to avoid the onslaught of the machines? Ground-based training, with an emphasis on bodyweight stabilization exercises first, with progression to bodyweight/implement based strength training, integrated along with speed, agility, balance, flexibility and power training, is the key to youth fitness and sports training success!

Better fitness levels for everyone? Higher levels of sports performance? And all of this while drastically reducing injury and extending athletic careers? Yes, yes and yes!

The strategy is simple…resist the “rise of the machines!” Your future depends on it!Contact us today to learn how to become part of the “Resistance!!

Contact us here: http://www.allstarsportsacademynj.com

The Cleveland Cavaliers have had somewhat of a rocky history since their first season in 1970, but if you were to be introduced the current team you would have never have know it. The Cleveland Cavaliers began their first season in 1970-71 season along with the Portland Trailblazers and the Buffalo Braves. Their first season started off slow and they had the league worst record that year. By the third season they had made some improvements and had a regular season record of 32 and 50. By the fifth season in the league the Cavaliers would finally make it into the playoffs and they would even win their first playoff series, but they would end up losing to the Celtics in the second round. The 1976 season marked the franchise’s best so far, and their coach Bill Fetch was even named NBA coach of the year.

1980 changed things a bit as Ted Stepien would buy the Cavs and start them on a long road of dismal play and bad basketball recruiting. Ted’s main concern was saving money, so he would often trade away any first round picks that the team would have. Because of his penny pinching ways, the Cavaliers were never able to step up their game and be a real competitor in the league. They never won more than 28 games the entire time that Stepien was in control of the team.

The mid eighties brought some fresh new ownership in the Gund brothers, and brought the team back into playoff contention. The Cavs picked up players like Brad Daugherty and Mark Price and finally had some winning seasons. In 1992, Cleveland won 57 games in the regular season and were expected to take the NBA Finals. They, however, ran into a big problem named Michael Jordan when they reached the second round of the playoffs against the Bulls.

The next ten years or so we be more positive than the previous twenty, but still no real shot at the NBA finals or deep postseason hopes. Then came 2003 that marked the year of a new era for the Cavs. They received first overall draft pick Lebron James. James changed the entire organization when he came in, doubling the regular season wins that year. They reached the playoffs again in 2006 with James at the helm, and won over 50 games. They would lose to the Pistons in the second round, but it was definitely a huge step in the right direction. In the 2006-2007 season, the Cavaliers would make it to the Conference Finals only to meet the Pistons again. This time they prevailed and went to their first ever NBA Finals. In the Finals the Cavaliers would be ousted by the San Antonio spurs, but this new motivation in the team was catching on. Lebron James had secured his spot as an NBA All-Star and paved the way to where we are now, with the Cleveland Cavaliers holding the best record in the NBA. This may or may not be the year they take the Championship, but with Lebron James on their side they have a pretty good chance.

I only remember that fight because there were about 40 grown army soldiers outraged that after Hagler dominated for most of the 12 rounds the decision went to Leonard. I did not understand boxing and didn’t really care until later that year.
On November 22, 1986 me and my two other brothers went with my dad to his friends house to watch an up and coming boxer named Mike Tyson, he was fighting for the WBC title against Trevor Berbick. Before the fight started most of the guys were bragging how Berbick was going to mop the floor with the young Tyson. People had heard about Tyson but not many thought he could win the fight. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the TV with the other kids at the party playing with our G.I Joes waiting for the fight to start.
As they entered the ring to tap gloves and agree on a clean fight, when the cameras did up close shots of the fighters staring at each other Berbick looked like this was going to be a walk in the park. But Tyson had this grim reaper look on his face, and once the fight started Berbick’s face quickly changed to the expression of a deer in headlights. As Tyson started pounding Berbick with powerful body shots and quick combos it looked like Berbick was in fear of his life. Once the bell rang to signal the end of the first round everybody in the room was saying I cannot believe this kid is taking it to Berbick. As the second round started Tyson just went in for the kill and sent Berbick down to the canvas twice in the second round. Berbick tried to get up three times after the second knock down but there was no use, he didn’t know where he was and almost feel out of the ring.
From that moment on, Mike Tyson became not only mine but millions of boxing fans favorite boxer to root for. Tyson was the first boxer to knock out Larry Holmes on his way to win 19 straight fights by knockouts with 12 being in the first round. As his fame began to grow his fighting skills started to go down from lack of proper training. He lost his championship belt to James “Buster” Douglas by a knockout in the tenth round in February of 1990 and his life was never the same after that.
In 1992 he was arrested and sent to prison for three years for sexually assaulting Desiree Washington. Once he was released he went back to boxing, he seem to be back on track until he lost to Evander Holyfield by an 11th round TKO in 1996. When the two fighters met up again for a much anticipated rematch, Tyson did the unthinkable and bit a piece of Holyfield’s ear off while they were tangled together on his way to be disqualified. After that Tyson became a reckless mess he ended up finishing his career with a professional boxing record of 50 wins, 44 knockouts, 6 loses, and 2 no contest.
As kid growing up watching Tyson rise and fall from greatness I wondered how someone so gifted could just throw it all away. Like many people I never really understood the craziness behind him, I just seen him as your normal rising star gone bad. It was not until my early twenty’s that I learned about Tyson harsh childhood. I was shocked to learn that he had been arrested 38 times by the age of thirteen. When he was sixteen his mother died and he was split up from his brother and sister, when he moved in with his boxing trainer Cus D’Amato in upstate New York. If D’Amato did not step in and help Tyson turn his life around he would of most likely been dead by the age of 18. Once Cus died Don King entered his life and forever changed Tyson to the crazy barbaric many people think of him as today.