[Written 2 days ago...]
I was originally going to write about something else today, but remember when I did my “man crushes” post several weeks ago? Well, team success hasn’t exactly followed LaRon Landry and Blake Griffin, and although Landry was personally playing at a defensive POY level, he hasn’t played in a few weeks and is now on season ending injured reserve. While the Clips haven’t exactly been tearing it up (for the better part of the season they had the NBA’s worst record), they have suddenly started to show improvement. They have gone 4-6 over their last 10 games. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s better than going 4-16, which is what they were at one time. So, while they might not win 45 or 50 games this year like I once predicted, they are no longer in the Pacific division basement, and they have only the 4th worst record in the whole league as of right now…baby steps, baby steps.
Griffin has been a monster though. In the words of Joakim Noah, “He’s a problem.” He’s currently averaging 21 points and 12 rebounds per game for the year, which would put him in historic company for a rookie. Also, for a rook he’s been remarkably consistent, as he posted his 17th consecutive double-double last night (his 23rd in 30 games this year). Those numbers are impressive, but he’s been even better of late. His last five game split looks like this: 24 ppg, 15 rpg, 4 apg, while shooting 53% from the field. Add to that the fact that he’s worth at least 1 or 2 oh my damn, did you just see that plays every night. Case in point, last night when he threw down a one-handed lefty oop where at his highest point he’s just about eye level with the rim.
At this point, I feel like I could just post a “B-Griff highlight of the night” the day after every Clippers game. Even though their record is still terrible, I’ve come to three realizations. 1st, Clippers highlights/games are now appointment viewing for me. On most days I put on Sportscenter before I leave for work in the morning, and if I don’t get a chance to see the Clips recap (usually in a losing effort still at this point) it’s the first thing I check for online once I get to my desk at work. 2nd, since the Wizards can never seem to get it together, I’m pretty close to adopting the Clippers as my other favorite team. Along with Griffin, Eric Gordon is a fun player to watch. If they can remove some of the dead weight on the team and acquire a couple more good young players, they might have something there (although when your owner is Donald Sterling that might be asking too much). It would also be really cool if they uprooted the Lakers, who I loathe (as anyone who knows me knows). 3rd, I haven’t bought a jersey in probably 5 years. I have never really been a jersey guy to begin with, and I soured on them even more due to the fact that seemingly every time I got one that guy would immediately get hurt or traded…but I would at least entertain the thought of rocking a Griffin jersey…maybe.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Bench Press Blues
I had a ridiculous case of hiccups this morning that for whatever reason just wouldn’t go away. Hiccups and yawning are two quirky biological functions that as far as I know are pretty much medical mysteries to this point. With all the technological and medical advancements of the 21st century, I can’t for the life of me understand how we haven’t figured out what causes stuff like this. I mean, there are much more pressing things that medical funding goes to (and rightfully so), but you would think we would have a better guess at this stuff by now than something like your brain is trying to get more air.
Anyway, on to what I wanted to talk about…my workout splits look something like this nowadays: day 1 is chest, day 2 is arms, day 3 is shoulders and back, and day 4 is legs and abs. Looking back at when I first started lifting, I can’t believe I ever did chest every other day, but at the same time I can understand why I did. First, I didn’t know any better. Second, there is simply nothing more fun to lift than chest. Arms is a close second, but even the pump you get from doing arms doesn’t approach the little workout high you get from a killer chest workout. Usually the only thing that gets me through my “day 4” as I’m slaving away with my leg workout is the fact that chest day is only one day away.
The problem is that even though I’ve made some gains with chest, it’s been increasingly harder to go up in weight. This has been especially true with the flat bench press on my gym’s Smith machine. (Our gym doesn’t have a real bench or squat rack.) The main downsides to the Smith machine are that for any given exercise it makes it easier on the lifter than if they were using true free weights because the lifter doesn’t have to worry about balance and could simply concentrate on lifting the weight, and you’re not quite sure exactly how much weight you are actually lifting. The bar on the Smith machine in our gym looks like a standard 45 lb. universal bar, but for whatever exercise you’re doing it’s obviously easier to lift the Smith machine bar then a regular ol’ barbell. There’s a sticker on our Smith machine that says the unweighted bar is the equivalent of a 15 lb. bar, but that seems awfully light to me. Anyway, if I wanted to be overly optimistic about my strength and just assumed the bar weighed 45 lb., I would say I max-out at about 250 lb. on the flat bench right now, but if I go by what the Smith machine says that number is actually 220 lb. (I have had the goal of benching 225 lb. for awhile now). So, I’m not exactly sure where I’m at right now…if I actually tried to bench 250 lb. on a real bench, I would probably end up like that USC running back from a year back, but I would like to think that I could very nearly put up 225 lb. (or very close to it) on a real bench for one rep at least.
Like I mentioned before though, I’ve been finding it harder and harder to go up in weight on that exercise over the past several months. I’ve still been making good progress on the Smith machine with the incline bench press, but I haven’t nearly begun to approach the weight that I’ve doing on the flat bench yet. Interestingly enough, I’ve still been making pretty good progress on both the flat and incline benches with dumbbells though. This has got me thinking about the mechanics of the Smith machine itself. Another drawback of Smith machines aside from the removal of the need of balance from the lifter and the question of how much weight you’re really lifting is that it’s impossible for the Smith machine to exactly replicate what the lifter’s motion would be using real free weights for any given exercise. Some Smith machines are angled, but the motion of the one at our gym is straight up and down. If you were using a real flat bench, this wouldn’t be the case, as the trajectory of the bar actually angles from the lifter’s chest towards the lifter’s eye level. Because of this, and this is just based on my own thinking without doing any actual research, I’m wondering if the Smith machine actually stops being effective at a certain point anyway. I try to keep a blind eye to what other people in the gym are doing, but for some reason I seem to have as much strength or more with the dumbbells than other guys that are lifting more weight on the Smith machine than me. I guess that in reality if you were going to be better at one or the other you would definitely want to be stronger on the dumbbells, but it just doesn’t look quite as sexy to use the 100 lb. dumbbells as it does to keep piling on 45 lb. plates onto a bar.
One of the problems I have with the dumbbells though is the same problem that I run into using the Smith machine: how much are you actually lifting? At first, this seems like a stupid question. If you’re using the 100 lb. dumbbells, you’re technically lifting 200 lb…but just like the introduction of balance makes using a real barbell harder than a Smith machine, dumbbells are more difficult to use when you’re benching than a barbell…but to measure strength, everyone always wants to know how much you bench, meaning bench on the flat bench press using a weighted barbell. I can probably rep the 100 lb. dumbbells 7 or 8 times in one set on the flat bench, but how exactly does that translate? And in my gym, the dumbbells only go up to 100 lb., so it’s not like I can even say I max-out on the 105 lb. or 110 lb. dumbbells (210 or 220 lb. total weight, respectively). I’ve asked my friend Mac, who always crushed me on the bench, how many reps he could do with the 100 lb. weights, and it was difficult to gauge how hard or easy it was for him compared to for me. I wish there was some kind of chart for this. Like, if you knew the maximum number of reps you could do in one set for 100 lb. dumbbells, that would mean you max-out with the barbell at 215 lb. or something. Unfortunately, pretty much everyone is different anyway, and if you can do a certain weight for a certain number of reps, there isn’t really any guarantee as to what your one rep max will be.
The end result of all this is that I should probably concentrate more on the dumbbells than the Smith machine, but in our gym it’s hard to shy away from it too much given the lack of variety. One thing that I think I have working against me no matter what I do though is genetics. Most bodybuilders are short, stocky, barrel-chested guys. As a somewhat tall, lanky guy, I’m the complete opposite of that. With no shoes on, I’m a hair under 6-0, but I have a pretty long wingspan. The average person that stands 5-11 and ½ would be proportioned to have a wingspan of about 73 inches, but my wingspan is a little over 75 inches long. (By the way, I’m tired of basketball announcers going crazy because a 6-10 guy has a wingspan of 7 feet, because that would actually be the average wingspan for a guy that height.) 2 inches doesn’t seem like a big deal, but for an engineering major like me this is just simple math: a longer wingspan creates a larger moment arm, which makes it more difficult for me to lift the same weight as a person of my height with an average or less than average wingspan. So, if you see me in the gym with the bar resting on my throat and choking me to death, just remember that I have a built-in excuse.
Anyway, on to what I wanted to talk about…my workout splits look something like this nowadays: day 1 is chest, day 2 is arms, day 3 is shoulders and back, and day 4 is legs and abs. Looking back at when I first started lifting, I can’t believe I ever did chest every other day, but at the same time I can understand why I did. First, I didn’t know any better. Second, there is simply nothing more fun to lift than chest. Arms is a close second, but even the pump you get from doing arms doesn’t approach the little workout high you get from a killer chest workout. Usually the only thing that gets me through my “day 4” as I’m slaving away with my leg workout is the fact that chest day is only one day away.
The problem is that even though I’ve made some gains with chest, it’s been increasingly harder to go up in weight. This has been especially true with the flat bench press on my gym’s Smith machine. (Our gym doesn’t have a real bench or squat rack.) The main downsides to the Smith machine are that for any given exercise it makes it easier on the lifter than if they were using true free weights because the lifter doesn’t have to worry about balance and could simply concentrate on lifting the weight, and you’re not quite sure exactly how much weight you are actually lifting. The bar on the Smith machine in our gym looks like a standard 45 lb. universal bar, but for whatever exercise you’re doing it’s obviously easier to lift the Smith machine bar then a regular ol’ barbell. There’s a sticker on our Smith machine that says the unweighted bar is the equivalent of a 15 lb. bar, but that seems awfully light to me. Anyway, if I wanted to be overly optimistic about my strength and just assumed the bar weighed 45 lb., I would say I max-out at about 250 lb. on the flat bench right now, but if I go by what the Smith machine says that number is actually 220 lb. (I have had the goal of benching 225 lb. for awhile now). So, I’m not exactly sure where I’m at right now…if I actually tried to bench 250 lb. on a real bench, I would probably end up like that USC running back from a year back, but I would like to think that I could very nearly put up 225 lb. (or very close to it) on a real bench for one rep at least.
Like I mentioned before though, I’ve been finding it harder and harder to go up in weight on that exercise over the past several months. I’ve still been making good progress on the Smith machine with the incline bench press, but I haven’t nearly begun to approach the weight that I’ve doing on the flat bench yet. Interestingly enough, I’ve still been making pretty good progress on both the flat and incline benches with dumbbells though. This has got me thinking about the mechanics of the Smith machine itself. Another drawback of Smith machines aside from the removal of the need of balance from the lifter and the question of how much weight you’re really lifting is that it’s impossible for the Smith machine to exactly replicate what the lifter’s motion would be using real free weights for any given exercise. Some Smith machines are angled, but the motion of the one at our gym is straight up and down. If you were using a real flat bench, this wouldn’t be the case, as the trajectory of the bar actually angles from the lifter’s chest towards the lifter’s eye level. Because of this, and this is just based on my own thinking without doing any actual research, I’m wondering if the Smith machine actually stops being effective at a certain point anyway. I try to keep a blind eye to what other people in the gym are doing, but for some reason I seem to have as much strength or more with the dumbbells than other guys that are lifting more weight on the Smith machine than me. I guess that in reality if you were going to be better at one or the other you would definitely want to be stronger on the dumbbells, but it just doesn’t look quite as sexy to use the 100 lb. dumbbells as it does to keep piling on 45 lb. plates onto a bar.
One of the problems I have with the dumbbells though is the same problem that I run into using the Smith machine: how much are you actually lifting? At first, this seems like a stupid question. If you’re using the 100 lb. dumbbells, you’re technically lifting 200 lb…but just like the introduction of balance makes using a real barbell harder than a Smith machine, dumbbells are more difficult to use when you’re benching than a barbell…but to measure strength, everyone always wants to know how much you bench, meaning bench on the flat bench press using a weighted barbell. I can probably rep the 100 lb. dumbbells 7 or 8 times in one set on the flat bench, but how exactly does that translate? And in my gym, the dumbbells only go up to 100 lb., so it’s not like I can even say I max-out on the 105 lb. or 110 lb. dumbbells (210 or 220 lb. total weight, respectively). I’ve asked my friend Mac, who always crushed me on the bench, how many reps he could do with the 100 lb. weights, and it was difficult to gauge how hard or easy it was for him compared to for me. I wish there was some kind of chart for this. Like, if you knew the maximum number of reps you could do in one set for 100 lb. dumbbells, that would mean you max-out with the barbell at 215 lb. or something. Unfortunately, pretty much everyone is different anyway, and if you can do a certain weight for a certain number of reps, there isn’t really any guarantee as to what your one rep max will be.
The end result of all this is that I should probably concentrate more on the dumbbells than the Smith machine, but in our gym it’s hard to shy away from it too much given the lack of variety. One thing that I think I have working against me no matter what I do though is genetics. Most bodybuilders are short, stocky, barrel-chested guys. As a somewhat tall, lanky guy, I’m the complete opposite of that. With no shoes on, I’m a hair under 6-0, but I have a pretty long wingspan. The average person that stands 5-11 and ½ would be proportioned to have a wingspan of about 73 inches, but my wingspan is a little over 75 inches long. (By the way, I’m tired of basketball announcers going crazy because a 6-10 guy has a wingspan of 7 feet, because that would actually be the average wingspan for a guy that height.) 2 inches doesn’t seem like a big deal, but for an engineering major like me this is just simple math: a longer wingspan creates a larger moment arm, which makes it more difficult for me to lift the same weight as a person of my height with an average or less than average wingspan. So, if you see me in the gym with the bar resting on my throat and choking me to death, just remember that I have a built-in excuse.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Monday Morning Deflation
For all but 5 or 6 weeks out of the last 2 NFL seasons, Krissy and I have participated in a pick em’ pool. In the 20-some weeks that we’ve done it, we have only won it once. We have come very close a bunch of other times, and it’s rare for a week to go by where at least one of us isn’t still in the running by the time Monday Night Football comes along. I’d like to think that in the case of the Redskins, my team, that I’m able to pick their games with my head rather than my heart. I know some people, like our friend Kevin, aren’t able to do that. Kevin is as die-hard of an Eagles fan as I’m a Skins fan or Krissy is a Giants fan, but he refuses to pick against the Eagles regardless of the situation. Similarly, because of his hate for the Giants, he will almost never pick them to win either. It’s the same reason Kevin doesn’t play fantasy football: according to him, it’s just bad karma. Aside from the internal turmoil it creates to bet against your team or for a hated archrival (or in the case of fantasy, for players of those teams), I just don’t look at it this way. I’d like to think that I can separate my rooting interest from following the money. That’s probably foolish of me to think, but that’s how I approach it at least. If I think the Redskins are a lock to lose and the Ravens and Cowboys are locks to win in a particular week, I have no problem making my picks accordingly. If I simply followed my heart, that might mean 3 L’s right off the bat. That’s just bad business practice in my opinion.
The Redskins are more than likely to finish well below 0.500 this year, and likewise I’ve picked them to lose more often than not. With that being said, I think I’ve only picked about half of the Redskins games correctly this year. Such is the nature of a mediocre middling team: they are just as likely to win some games they’re not supposed as they are to choke away games that they should win. After saying everything I said in the last paragraph though it’s still pains me whenever I pick them to lose. I’ve rationalized it the following 3 ways. 1st, like I already said, it’s nothing personal…it’s just business. 2nd, if it came down to winning the pot or the Redskins winning, I would sacrifice my winnings for the Skins to win. 3rd, I’ve come to find that picking against your team actually takes the sting out losing…and that goes for watching your team lose and losing the pool. It’s basically the equivalent of emotionally hedging your bets. In this situation, nothing would be worse than picking your team to win only to have them lose. Then, you have to deal with your team losing and your incorrect pick. If you pick your team to lose and they win, then at least your team won. If they lose…hey, at least you picked the game right. This probably falls under the category of stuff that gives you bad karma as well, but until this organization fields a team that you can actually believe in, I don’t see my psychology changing anytime soon. The aforementioned Kevin is actually the one that we turn our weekly picks in to. If I happen to pick Washington to lose and he notices, I will soon hear a, “You picked against them again,” accompanied with a look of disbelief, to which I usually just sigh and nod my head in shame.
Anyway, this week I picked Tampa Bay to beat my Skins. Coming off the week where Albert Haynesworth was finally sent his walking papers after a listless loss to the Giants, I could actually envision the Redskins winning this game. Sure, the Bucs still actually have playoff aspirations, but I thought maybe the last week would have given the team some kind of spark. Combine that with the fact that you had a warm weather team coming to play in what was forecasted to be a cold rainy December day in the nation’s capital, and this was scripted as one of those games that the Redskins could win despite having no business winning (similar to when they won in Tennessee a few weeks ago). This would only further serve to tease and torture Redskins fans with the possibility that maybe this team isn’t that far away from being good after all. Still, I just didn’t have the guts to pick them to win. My prediction was some kind of ugly 17-13 loss filled with turnovers, mistakes, and missed opportunities.
My prediction turned out to be not that far off. The final box score showed the Bucs winning 17-16, but that didn’t begin to tell the story. Donovan McNabb, who apparently had no business conducting a 2-minute offense earlier in the season, efficiently marched the offense down the field for a game-tying drive. After a short touchdown pass to Santana Moss on 4th down, I could only think of one thing. They’re going to miss the extra point. I think I even said it out loud. Maybe that was some kind of reverse-jinx I was trying to pull off, maybe it’s what I really thought, or maybe it was some combination of both…but I did say it. The kicker, Graham Gano, had missed 2 chip shot field goals earlier in the game and had very nearly yanked an extra point wide of the left upright as well. Shaky didn’t begin to describe his game up to that point, and if he had made those 2 earlier kicks, the Redskins might not have even been in that position to begin with. What actually happened wasn’t even within the realm of possibilities I had gone through in my mind.
I have been a Redskins fan my entire life. The 1st team I ever followed as a kid was the 1991 Redskins, a team that dominated the league on the way to 14-2 and a Super Bowl win. Really, there hasn’t been much to cheer for since then. In the past 2 years alone, the Redskins have found more embarrassing ways to lose then it would probably take for most franchises in an entire decade. From the shalackings the Skins got courtesy of the Eagles and Giants over the course of the past month to the overtime loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Saints last year (where aside from missed field goals, a Redskins defensive back intercepted a pass only to have the ball stripped and returned for a touchdown on the same play), I thought I had seen the full spectrum of losses that was possible…until yesterday. On that extra point attempt, the ball and the field were soaked, as a cold drizzle had persisted throught the whole game. The snap was high, but catchable, yet the ball skipped through the hands of holder Hunter Smith like a wet bar of soap…ballgame. I don’t think I had any particularly pronounced reaction to the play. There was no shoe-throwing or cursing fits of rage. While I hadn’t predicted that exact sequence of events, I had predicted the outcome of the play. I don’t think I said anything else after that. I simply slumped down into my sofa like a deflated balloon. So much for hedging my bets…
The Redskins are more than likely to finish well below 0.500 this year, and likewise I’ve picked them to lose more often than not. With that being said, I think I’ve only picked about half of the Redskins games correctly this year. Such is the nature of a mediocre middling team: they are just as likely to win some games they’re not supposed as they are to choke away games that they should win. After saying everything I said in the last paragraph though it’s still pains me whenever I pick them to lose. I’ve rationalized it the following 3 ways. 1st, like I already said, it’s nothing personal…it’s just business. 2nd, if it came down to winning the pot or the Redskins winning, I would sacrifice my winnings for the Skins to win. 3rd, I’ve come to find that picking against your team actually takes the sting out losing…and that goes for watching your team lose and losing the pool. It’s basically the equivalent of emotionally hedging your bets. In this situation, nothing would be worse than picking your team to win only to have them lose. Then, you have to deal with your team losing and your incorrect pick. If you pick your team to lose and they win, then at least your team won. If they lose…hey, at least you picked the game right. This probably falls under the category of stuff that gives you bad karma as well, but until this organization fields a team that you can actually believe in, I don’t see my psychology changing anytime soon. The aforementioned Kevin is actually the one that we turn our weekly picks in to. If I happen to pick Washington to lose and he notices, I will soon hear a, “You picked against them again,” accompanied with a look of disbelief, to which I usually just sigh and nod my head in shame.
Anyway, this week I picked Tampa Bay to beat my Skins. Coming off the week where Albert Haynesworth was finally sent his walking papers after a listless loss to the Giants, I could actually envision the Redskins winning this game. Sure, the Bucs still actually have playoff aspirations, but I thought maybe the last week would have given the team some kind of spark. Combine that with the fact that you had a warm weather team coming to play in what was forecasted to be a cold rainy December day in the nation’s capital, and this was scripted as one of those games that the Redskins could win despite having no business winning (similar to when they won in Tennessee a few weeks ago). This would only further serve to tease and torture Redskins fans with the possibility that maybe this team isn’t that far away from being good after all. Still, I just didn’t have the guts to pick them to win. My prediction was some kind of ugly 17-13 loss filled with turnovers, mistakes, and missed opportunities.
My prediction turned out to be not that far off. The final box score showed the Bucs winning 17-16, but that didn’t begin to tell the story. Donovan McNabb, who apparently had no business conducting a 2-minute offense earlier in the season, efficiently marched the offense down the field for a game-tying drive. After a short touchdown pass to Santana Moss on 4th down, I could only think of one thing. They’re going to miss the extra point. I think I even said it out loud. Maybe that was some kind of reverse-jinx I was trying to pull off, maybe it’s what I really thought, or maybe it was some combination of both…but I did say it. The kicker, Graham Gano, had missed 2 chip shot field goals earlier in the game and had very nearly yanked an extra point wide of the left upright as well. Shaky didn’t begin to describe his game up to that point, and if he had made those 2 earlier kicks, the Redskins might not have even been in that position to begin with. What actually happened wasn’t even within the realm of possibilities I had gone through in my mind.
I have been a Redskins fan my entire life. The 1st team I ever followed as a kid was the 1991 Redskins, a team that dominated the league on the way to 14-2 and a Super Bowl win. Really, there hasn’t been much to cheer for since then. In the past 2 years alone, the Redskins have found more embarrassing ways to lose then it would probably take for most franchises in an entire decade. From the shalackings the Skins got courtesy of the Eagles and Giants over the course of the past month to the overtime loss to the eventual Super Bowl champion Saints last year (where aside from missed field goals, a Redskins defensive back intercepted a pass only to have the ball stripped and returned for a touchdown on the same play), I thought I had seen the full spectrum of losses that was possible…until yesterday. On that extra point attempt, the ball and the field were soaked, as a cold drizzle had persisted throught the whole game. The snap was high, but catchable, yet the ball skipped through the hands of holder Hunter Smith like a wet bar of soap…ballgame. I don’t think I had any particularly pronounced reaction to the play. There was no shoe-throwing or cursing fits of rage. While I hadn’t predicted that exact sequence of events, I had predicted the outcome of the play. I don’t think I said anything else after that. I simply slumped down into my sofa like a deflated balloon. So much for hedging my bets…
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Dollar Dollar Bills, Y'all
Every day that I come into work I have a little ritual that I go through. Unless I have an early meeting or something like that, I logon to my computer, and immediately sift through a couple of websites (Gmail, ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, etc.). I have to do this before I start any actual work. It’s such a reflex at this point that even though I probably only spend 10 minutes a day on ESPN in the morning at 8am, if my work started to just block ESPN from our computers, I probably would be psychologically paralyzed for the rest of the day, and would get no real work done at all.
Anyway, one of the big headline stories on each sports site this morning had to do with the upcoming labor agreement (or disagreement potentially) in the NFL. One of the sticking points of this upcoming collective bargaining agreement is switching from a 16 game regular season to an 18 game regular season. At first glance, who wouldn’t want that? The NFL is the most popular sports league in the country. Mo’ games would be mo’ better, right? But the timing of this couldn’t make the NFL look worse. The only thing that would be more hypocritical is if a pot literally called a kettle black. Every year, more and more rules come out that prohibit certain kinds of hits (helmet-to-helmet hits, leading with the helmet, horse-collar tackles, blows to the head, etc.), and this year more of these rules have been legislated than ever before. Whether these rule changes are actually good for the game or not is a debate for another day. Some say that tackle football is moving closer and closer to flag football all the time, but you can’t really argue that the rules have been put in place to help protect player safety. So, someone remind me again how lengthening the season will promote player safety.
Listen, this issue has already been debated by people much, much smarter than me, but the NFL, the king of all sports leagues in the United States, has a real public relations problem here. Not only does it make it look like the league and its owners don’t care about the players at all, but it makes them look like liars to boot. While the league continues to chug along without any real competitor in the world of sports, they have been called out on this kind of hypocrisy before. When the league’s legislators first started looking at putting rules in place against helmet-to-helmet hits some years back, some wondered how the NFL could do so with a straight face, as hits where players were getting “blown up” were still celebrated. The NFL was creating rules against these hits, and then still making money off them at the same time by putting out videos and DVDs for sale chronicling the NFL’s hardest hitters…which brings us to the real crux of the issue: money.
The fact of the matter is that the NFL is a business, and all businesses are in the business of making money. While the further they stretch themselves out (whether that means lengthening the season, adding more franchises, or whatever) will probably hurt the overall product, the NFL still hasn’t saturated the market yet. Football isn’t like other sports. In football, teams don’t play seasons that last close to or over a hundred games. Each NFL team hosts 8 home games a year, and most franchises sell-out all those games (or come close to it). Television ratings for professional football dwarf those for all other sports. The fact is that for those reasons alone the move to an 18 game season was always inevitable. But hey, NFL owners, do us a favor…don’t tell us about an 18 game season, and then mention player safety to us in the same breath. We’re not stupid. We know what the deal really is. And since this expanded season is coming like a runaway train, at least do us one other thing: cut the NFL preseason in half…please. We never needed 4 preseason games per team. No one likes watching games where the real teams play about a quarter (if that), and then we get to watch a bunch of practice squad players, most of which will never see the field in an NFL regular season, for the majority of the game. But then again, we know what that’s all about as well. I hope you know what you’re doing, NFL. Just like how I feel about the NCAA tournament expanding to 68 teams, you don’t mess with perfection, and March Madness and the NFL are as close to perfection as we get in sports. The old Wu-Tang lyric still rings true though: cash rules everything around me…
Anyway, one of the big headline stories on each sports site this morning had to do with the upcoming labor agreement (or disagreement potentially) in the NFL. One of the sticking points of this upcoming collective bargaining agreement is switching from a 16 game regular season to an 18 game regular season. At first glance, who wouldn’t want that? The NFL is the most popular sports league in the country. Mo’ games would be mo’ better, right? But the timing of this couldn’t make the NFL look worse. The only thing that would be more hypocritical is if a pot literally called a kettle black. Every year, more and more rules come out that prohibit certain kinds of hits (helmet-to-helmet hits, leading with the helmet, horse-collar tackles, blows to the head, etc.), and this year more of these rules have been legislated than ever before. Whether these rule changes are actually good for the game or not is a debate for another day. Some say that tackle football is moving closer and closer to flag football all the time, but you can’t really argue that the rules have been put in place to help protect player safety. So, someone remind me again how lengthening the season will promote player safety.
Listen, this issue has already been debated by people much, much smarter than me, but the NFL, the king of all sports leagues in the United States, has a real public relations problem here. Not only does it make it look like the league and its owners don’t care about the players at all, but it makes them look like liars to boot. While the league continues to chug along without any real competitor in the world of sports, they have been called out on this kind of hypocrisy before. When the league’s legislators first started looking at putting rules in place against helmet-to-helmet hits some years back, some wondered how the NFL could do so with a straight face, as hits where players were getting “blown up” were still celebrated. The NFL was creating rules against these hits, and then still making money off them at the same time by putting out videos and DVDs for sale chronicling the NFL’s hardest hitters…which brings us to the real crux of the issue: money.
The fact of the matter is that the NFL is a business, and all businesses are in the business of making money. While the further they stretch themselves out (whether that means lengthening the season, adding more franchises, or whatever) will probably hurt the overall product, the NFL still hasn’t saturated the market yet. Football isn’t like other sports. In football, teams don’t play seasons that last close to or over a hundred games. Each NFL team hosts 8 home games a year, and most franchises sell-out all those games (or come close to it). Television ratings for professional football dwarf those for all other sports. The fact is that for those reasons alone the move to an 18 game season was always inevitable. But hey, NFL owners, do us a favor…don’t tell us about an 18 game season, and then mention player safety to us in the same breath. We’re not stupid. We know what the deal really is. And since this expanded season is coming like a runaway train, at least do us one other thing: cut the NFL preseason in half…please. We never needed 4 preseason games per team. No one likes watching games where the real teams play about a quarter (if that), and then we get to watch a bunch of practice squad players, most of which will never see the field in an NFL regular season, for the majority of the game. But then again, we know what that’s all about as well. I hope you know what you’re doing, NFL. Just like how I feel about the NCAA tournament expanding to 68 teams, you don’t mess with perfection, and March Madness and the NFL are as close to perfection as we get in sports. The old Wu-Tang lyric still rings true though: cash rules everything around me…
Monday, December 6, 2010
Supplement Soup
When I started getting a little bit more into lifting, I never thought I’d be one of those people that took a ton of supplements. I mean, I have been taking post-workout protein shakes for awhile, but I always thought that the shakes combined with simply making sure you had enough protein in your daily diet was enough as long as you were putting your time in at the gym. I guess I am sort of living proof of that, as in the past couple of years I’ve gone from one of the scrawniest guys in the gym to…still pretty scrawny, but at least not the scrawniest! Still, in the last year or so it’s gotten more and more difficult to continue to add on weight in most exercises, and because of that I have been in the process of researching (and when I say researching, I mean asking my personal trainer friend, Scott) various supplements. Fast forward to this morning, where as I was packing my gym bag for after work, I found myself packing not only protein powder but these “Con-Cret” creatine capsules (Con-Cret is short for “concentrated creatine) and these BCAA (branch chain amino acid) chewables as well.
There are a couple of reasons this has given me pause…1st, I generally don’t like putting stuff into my body. In fact, Krissy has made fun of me because I usually won’t even take Advil unless I feel I absolutely need it…as if the Advil would be laced with PCP or something. Now, when I step back and look at, I probably take more stuff than most people I know. I’ve always taken a daily multivitamin, but now when I wake up in the morning in addition to the vitamin I take a fish oil tablet (for heart and joint health) and a zinc tablet (for…actually I know zinc is good for you, but I’m not sure what the exact reasons for taking it are…basically, my Mom told me to take it) as well. Krissy and I had also been taking niacin tablets at the suggestion of my Mom, but one of the side effects of niacin is this weird hot, tingly, blood-rushing-to-your-head type feeling…needless to say, we stopped taking the niacin a while ago. But add to that the performance supplements like protein, creatine, and the BCAAs, and sometimes I feel like a walking pharmacy. On the other hand though, it’s not like I’m snorting cocaine or pumping my body with steroids. Other than the fish oil, this stuff is all naturally occurring in your body anyway, and I’m not sure there are any bad sides to taking these. (I mean, I guess if you take too much of any of it, you could probably make yourself sick, but I’m going strictly by the recommended serving sizes.)
The 2nd thing is that once you add all this stuff up it starts to get kind of pricey. I mean, I think it’s like anything else: if you’re even somewhat serious about anything, you’re probably going to end up investing a little bit of money in it. Even though I am signed up to get discounts from GNC, the Vitamin Shoppe, and FitFuel.com, the creatine, BCAAs, and protein (and a pre-workout energy supplement that Krissy takes) definitely starts to add up. It’s enough that I think other than the protein, I think I’m only going to take one other thing at a given time. For example, the creatine that I have been taking is running out, and I didn’t re-up with more of it this past month. Instead, I opted with the BCAAs. If I want to go back to the creatine (or even try something different like glutamine or something else), I will drop the BCAAs for awhile…otherwise, it’s just too much money, not to mention too much stuff. I will start to need one of those pill holders that old people use that helps keep track of the different medicines they are supposed to take on certain days of the week.
The 3rd thing just goes back to what I said right off the bat: while I won’t deny that all of the supplements out there have value, I’m not sure any of them are a substitute for eating right and working hard in the gym. There are some guys in the gym that should be known as “2-baggers”…a gym bag for their gym clothes, and a 2nd bag for all the supplements they’re taking. These guys are taking everything I’m taking plus some type of weight gainer or mass builder, some type of pre-workout drink that gets you so amped up that you start bouncing off the walls, and maybe even a couple other things as well. I guess some people want every advantage that you can get, but if you’re spending more time in the gym mixing up different concoctions by the water fountain or your duffel bag than actually working out, that’s probably not the best way to maximize your gym time…but that’s a discussion for another day.
There are a couple of reasons this has given me pause…1st, I generally don’t like putting stuff into my body. In fact, Krissy has made fun of me because I usually won’t even take Advil unless I feel I absolutely need it…as if the Advil would be laced with PCP or something. Now, when I step back and look at, I probably take more stuff than most people I know. I’ve always taken a daily multivitamin, but now when I wake up in the morning in addition to the vitamin I take a fish oil tablet (for heart and joint health) and a zinc tablet (for…actually I know zinc is good for you, but I’m not sure what the exact reasons for taking it are…basically, my Mom told me to take it) as well. Krissy and I had also been taking niacin tablets at the suggestion of my Mom, but one of the side effects of niacin is this weird hot, tingly, blood-rushing-to-your-head type feeling…needless to say, we stopped taking the niacin a while ago. But add to that the performance supplements like protein, creatine, and the BCAAs, and sometimes I feel like a walking pharmacy. On the other hand though, it’s not like I’m snorting cocaine or pumping my body with steroids. Other than the fish oil, this stuff is all naturally occurring in your body anyway, and I’m not sure there are any bad sides to taking these. (I mean, I guess if you take too much of any of it, you could probably make yourself sick, but I’m going strictly by the recommended serving sizes.)
The 2nd thing is that once you add all this stuff up it starts to get kind of pricey. I mean, I think it’s like anything else: if you’re even somewhat serious about anything, you’re probably going to end up investing a little bit of money in it. Even though I am signed up to get discounts from GNC, the Vitamin Shoppe, and FitFuel.com, the creatine, BCAAs, and protein (and a pre-workout energy supplement that Krissy takes) definitely starts to add up. It’s enough that I think other than the protein, I think I’m only going to take one other thing at a given time. For example, the creatine that I have been taking is running out, and I didn’t re-up with more of it this past month. Instead, I opted with the BCAAs. If I want to go back to the creatine (or even try something different like glutamine or something else), I will drop the BCAAs for awhile…otherwise, it’s just too much money, not to mention too much stuff. I will start to need one of those pill holders that old people use that helps keep track of the different medicines they are supposed to take on certain days of the week.
The 3rd thing just goes back to what I said right off the bat: while I won’t deny that all of the supplements out there have value, I’m not sure any of them are a substitute for eating right and working hard in the gym. There are some guys in the gym that should be known as “2-baggers”…a gym bag for their gym clothes, and a 2nd bag for all the supplements they’re taking. These guys are taking everything I’m taking plus some type of weight gainer or mass builder, some type of pre-workout drink that gets you so amped up that you start bouncing off the walls, and maybe even a couple other things as well. I guess some people want every advantage that you can get, but if you’re spending more time in the gym mixing up different concoctions by the water fountain or your duffel bag than actually working out, that’s probably not the best way to maximize your gym time…but that’s a discussion for another day.
Friday, December 3, 2010
We Can Quit While We're Ahead
I hate to do two straight fantasy football posts. Like I said before, it’s one of those things that if you start talking about your fantasy team, you induce everyone around you to fall into a deep coma…but all those people would similarly love nothing more than to talk about their fantasy team. Still, I documented past fantasy teams in blogs, and (I don’t know if I can stress this enough) this team is actually good. I have had a history of lousy fantasy teams, so much so that I considered not doing a league at all this year. As a reasonably intelligent person and someone who at least considers himself to be a pretty knowledgeable sports fan, there’s not much that can make you feel dumber than having a bad fantasy team. It doesn’t really matter that at least half of a fantasy team’s success is basically decided by luck. Sure, you can make shrewd draft picks, trades, and waiver-wire pickups, but it’s just about impossible to account for freak injuries (not just in terms of the effect of the player who got hurt but the guy who replaces the injured player as well) or guys having great years out of nowhere. Exhibit A is my team this year, where 2 of my best players were my 9th and 10th round draft picks, respectively. Still, it’s hard to swallow when your team is barely treading water, and some guy who doesn’t know the difference between a tight end and a shortstop has the best team in the league.
My fantasy history is nothing short of mediocre. I’ve done a handful of leagues powered by ESPN and Fox Sports, but for the most part all of my leagues have been on Yahoo. If you go to my “Yahoo Fantasy Profile” page, it’s not much to write home about. All told, it lists me as having played in 21 leagues (including the league I’m in right now) dating back to 2006. 10 of those were football leagues, 6 were basketball, and 5 were March Madness pick ‘em pools. My overall fantasy rating (however that’s calculated) is 38 out of 100. I’ve won a fantasy league exactly once, and it was like the 1st league I ever played in. As I mentioned before, I believe that was a team that was the lowest seeded team to make the playoffs, and my team made some incredible New York Giants-esque run to win the whole league…the best part about it is that that was a league where I think I only knew 1 or 2 other people, my team looked like it was out of it early on, and I lost interest in checking it about halfway through the season. I didn’t even bother to adjust my lineup the last few weeks of the regular season and the entire postseason, and I somehow still managed to win. I don’t even think I realized I was the league champ until like a couple weeks later when I randomly stumbled on the league page…classic proof that it’s better to be lucky than good in all things fantasy sports related. My best finish other than that was 3rd place in a 10 team league back in 2008. Other than that, I think I’ve only finished in the top 50% of a league’s standings twice…not great, but at this rate once this league is over I could bump my Yahoo fantasy performance rating up to, I don’t know, 41 out of 100 or something!! I don’t know what’s sadder: the fact that these sites track you entire fantasy history or the fact that I actually went to the page to check my stats before writing this. I guess the point is that as soul-crushing as it is to have a bad fantasy team, it kind of reaffirms what made you think fantasy sports would be fun in the first place when your team is actually decent…so simple it’s got to be true.
My fantasy history is nothing short of mediocre. I’ve done a handful of leagues powered by ESPN and Fox Sports, but for the most part all of my leagues have been on Yahoo. If you go to my “Yahoo Fantasy Profile” page, it’s not much to write home about. All told, it lists me as having played in 21 leagues (including the league I’m in right now) dating back to 2006. 10 of those were football leagues, 6 were basketball, and 5 were March Madness pick ‘em pools. My overall fantasy rating (however that’s calculated) is 38 out of 100. I’ve won a fantasy league exactly once, and it was like the 1st league I ever played in. As I mentioned before, I believe that was a team that was the lowest seeded team to make the playoffs, and my team made some incredible New York Giants-esque run to win the whole league…the best part about it is that that was a league where I think I only knew 1 or 2 other people, my team looked like it was out of it early on, and I lost interest in checking it about halfway through the season. I didn’t even bother to adjust my lineup the last few weeks of the regular season and the entire postseason, and I somehow still managed to win. I don’t even think I realized I was the league champ until like a couple weeks later when I randomly stumbled on the league page…classic proof that it’s better to be lucky than good in all things fantasy sports related. My best finish other than that was 3rd place in a 10 team league back in 2008. Other than that, I think I’ve only finished in the top 50% of a league’s standings twice…not great, but at this rate once this league is over I could bump my Yahoo fantasy performance rating up to, I don’t know, 41 out of 100 or something!! I don’t know what’s sadder: the fact that these sites track you entire fantasy history or the fact that I actually went to the page to check my stats before writing this. I guess the point is that as soul-crushing as it is to have a bad fantasy team, it kind of reaffirms what made you think fantasy sports would be fun in the first place when your team is actually decent…so simple it’s got to be true.
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