MostMuscle.com- Weekend Warrior- Fantasy Football becomes reality

Fantasy becomes Reality by Mark-Anthony Bailey

The Weekend Football Warrior.

You know who you are. You love the game. You played football in high school or in college intramurals. You probably belong to a few fantasy football leagues. You can recite last year's statistics from all of your favorite players. Your Sundays involve watching two hours pre-game shows followed by 8 hours of football (night game). Professional, college, or preseason it does not matter to you. You watch it all. You may even be an "expert" in the latest edition of Madden 2004 for the Playstation.

The draw of football is multifaceted. The pureness of going one on one with a defender and leaving him in your dust is one. Certainly the ability to hit and both mentally and physically crush your opponent is another. But one great thing about the game that is overlooked is that no matter your body type, there is a position for you. You may be tall, short, skinny, fat, ectomorphic, endomorphic; football has a position for you. So whether you are the star QB on your office flag football team or the one guy that nobody can catch at the family barbeque let me show you how to stay on top of your game.

Things are not like they used to be.

First you must come to terms with the present condition of your body. If you are a true weekend warrior and do not regularly exercise, demanding your body to perform at a high level (such as a football game) can cause you to be sidelined for weeks to come if you are not careful. To keep yourself from limping into the office on Monday morning you must focus on a combination of strength, endurance and flexibility with the latter being one of the most important and often overlooked by weekend warriors. Keeping your body flexible is one of the best ways to avoid injury and muscle soreness. But it is not enough to just stretch out 5 minutes before the game. Full body stretching on a daily basis will not only improve your game and also may help with any lower back pain that you may experience just from sitting in the office.

Modified Hurdler's Stretch

Cat Stretch

Rotator Cuff Stretch

Calf Stretch

The Workout

As a weekend warrior, your time is precious. But you must find the time to build and maintain your warrior physique. Most of the injuries people suffer from "weekend football" are to underdeveloped muscles such as the hamstrings, hip flexors and rotator cuffs. It is important to strengthen these muscles along with everything else to keep you strong and injury free. Remember that this program is no intended to replace the years of hard work that college and professional players put into the gym, just something for you weekend football warriors. Perform these exercises at least once per week with a rep range of 8-12 reps and 2-3 sets per exercise. Many of thee movements may seem odd and nontraditional but are effective in developing the strength and range of motion you are seeking on the field. You juke, twist, and turn on the field and your training should reflect that. Training in all ranges of motion (not the traditional straight lines) will give you an advantage when you step on the field. Think sport specific. Below are the exercises that should be included in your routine.

Rotator Cuff

Step-up

Hamstring Reach

Abdominal Crunch

Incline Bench Press

Twist Squat

Build your explosive endurance

On the cardiovascular side of things, you should train to fit the game. Football is all about strength, speed and explosiveness; all in about 3-5 seconds per play. Your endurance training should be geared to fit this type of activity. By using interval training, you can easily improve your cardiovascular endurance and even your speed. Interval training is a combination of high and low intensity aerobic training. You can use interval training with almost any cardio activity: running, cycling, swimming, stair climbing etc. By varying the intensity of the activity, you can train your body to perform at extremely high intensities for a short period of time and then recover faster which is ideal for football. An example of this would be to train for 20 minutes on the treadmill. You would sprint for 30 seconds at a very high speed then slow the treadmill down for 90 seconds. Repeat this cycle for 20 minutes. At the end of this workout you would have successfully sprinted all out 10 times for a total of 5 minutes. Nobody can sprint for 5 minutes straight, but using this technique you have accumulated 5 minutes of sprinting while also improving your cardiovascular endurance and burning a large amount of calories at the same time.

Nutritional Supplements

Proper nutritional supplementation can improve recovery, decrease muscle soreness and improve your speed and reaction time. Here are a list of supplement I recommend.

PowerDrive: A great formula that improves the performance of strength athletes, endurance athletes, and even those athletes who require extreme concentration like marksmen or golfers. Businessman or students might benefit from it too, as it will give them unparalleled mental energy and drive.

Nutrex Vitargo-CGL: Acts like a pump, pulling creatine and water along with it into the bloodstream, thus synchronizing creatine and insulin levels for maximum creatine transport to the muscles. This avoids a premature insulin spike as seen in creatine/dextrose formulas, where dextrose is absorbed faster than creatine. Vitargo® is a newly developed and patented sugar-free high molecular weight carbohydrate from Sweden that is revolutionizing the way we take creatine. More creatine can now be transported to the muscles resulting in significantly better muscle and strength gains as compared to non-Vitargo® creatine formulas. Creatine will improve your strength, power and recovery times.

Medium chain triglycerides (MCT) fats are saturated fats that are very useful on low carb, or ketogenic, diets since MCT's are more quickly converted to ketones than other fats. MCT oil does not need bile to emulsify them like other dietary fats, so the fat is available to the blood stream to be used as energy more quickly. This can improve your energy levels when you experience low blood glucose levels from lack of carbohydrates. MCT's do not affect insulin sensitivity as other saturated fats do.

Train Hard, Play Hard

Mark-Anthony Bailey is the Editor-in-Chief of MostMuscle.com. As an Exercise Physiologist and competitive natural bodybuilder, his goals have been to ensure that his clients get the latest information on training techniques, nutritional guidelines and lifestyle modifications needed to obtain optimal health. He can be contacted at: markanthony@mostmuscle.com