UAP (Universal Athletic Position)

In my years of wrestling and kickboxing and every other sport, I have always heard my coaches repeat to me over and over one thing, GET IN YOUR ATHLETIC STANCE SAM! It's what is generally known in the world of Sports Performance as the UAP or Universal Athletic Position. It is the only stance a human being can take where they can generate the most amount of power with the least amount of strain onto their being.

It is the position outfielders in baseball squats into when they are trying to read where the player will hit the ball. It is the position a basketball player gets into before he shoots. It is the position that all football players start in. It is the position wrestlers will hand fight in. It is the position kickboxers take before driving a knee or throwing a knockout punch.

And it is the position you will need to develop strength. It will also be the key to your weight loss or any other athletic goal. You look at lifts that use the UAP and what do you have? You have the squat, the dead lift, the thruster, the push press, the clean, the snatch, kettebell swings, clubbell swipes, box jumps, power jumps, etc.

Any other exercise is inferior and should be used as a compliment to exercises in the UAP family. This is another secret athletes use in their training that a lot of regular gym go'ers do not know about. These lifts use more muscles at once, burn more calories, and produce more results. You ever seen a middle weight boxer, wrestler, or even a middle weight Olympic lifter? All of them will have shredded abs and a lot of them don't do any ab exercises. They get it from all their UAP movements. It forces every part of you to be lean, strong, and highly efficient. It is the reason athletes can lift tremendous amounts of weight beyond their own body weight yet the normal Joe strains his back lifting something light off the ground.

Add this into your work outs.

About the Author:

Sam Y. is a Personal Trainer, Coach, Performane Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook at his personal fitness page.

Working Out From Home

Functional Strength

What separates man from animals? It is functional strength. Functional strength is the strength that allows human beings to use their hands (and sometimes feet) to manipulate objects or tools in a way no other animal can. It's what allows us to swing a bag, mountain climb, even surf.

It is our ability to use our appendages and lift heavy objects or our own body weight. It's the reason why some say gym strength doesn't always mean the person is strong. Or that big muscles don't = big strength. Functional strength is what makes someone fit, someone healthier, someone burn more calories, and it's something that will never develop with just doing cardio.

When you use machines, they do half the work for you and never force you to use your grip strength. So though you may develop big muscles over time, it will not translate over to sports or overall fitness. It's why a big guy can do a heavy shoulder press yet can't do a hand stand. He can't function.

One of the first things I notice with my beginner clients is their grip strength. Seems their wrist and their grip is always the first thing to tire out so they are not able to do more of the complex exercises that involve free weights. The second thing that usually gives out is the neck (that's for a later post). So that functional strength is one of the first things beginner clients need to work on.

This is another argument for free weights, intensity, body weight exercises, and to start thinking about your own strengths and fitness levels. If what makes us human is our ability to manipulate objects with our hands and feet yet now we have to rely on machines to do that for us, then what are we really good for?

This is what separates athletes from people. This is the knowledge that separates sports trainers from personal trainers.

Super Human Strength

A Word on the Importance of Practice and Repetition

So inside of our bodies are muscles. Inside of muscles are muscle spindles. Inside of those are cells. Our cells are constantly moving, it's what helps us heal, function, and basically live. With enhanced microscopes you can even see cells moving like glow in the dark worms.

When muscles contract, the cells move even more, in a frenzy. Uncoordinated and wild. Now the more that muscle contracts in the same manner, the better the cells move. It moves smoother, carries better signals, creates patterns. This is the scientific act of muscle memory. Something trainers and martial artists always throw out but have no idea what it really boils down to. The more you practice something, the more your cells remember, the more they remember the better they perform. Scientists have been trying to figure out ways to make cells move, especially to help with healing. All they have determined thus far though, is the best way to make cells move is through constant repetition.

If I teach you a punch, will you be knocking someone out in a day? No. But maybe after years of practice you will be knocking people out professionally. If I show you how to bench, you won't go from 130 to 250 bench over night. That will take years. You don't grow more muscle fibers, your cells just move better. This is true for all physical and athletic endeavors. I apply this especially in my martial arts training. The repetition of gross movements and common movement pattern.

There is one other thing that practice and repetition does. It creates more myelin around your synapses. That means faster signals from your brain to your body. That means no matter how fast someone is, or how many fast twitch muscles they have or explosive training they do, they will never be able to compensate with someone who can send a signal from their brain faster. Not only that it also remembers efficient movement and takes the slack out of your moves, makes you perform better, faster, with less effort. Be it a golf swing to a judo throw.

Muscle memory combined with nervous system memory creates perfection in human performance. This is another secret that separates the elite from the regular Joe.




About the Author:

Sam Y. is a Personal Trainer, Coach, Performane Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook at his personal fitness page.

The Probability of Weight Loss

There is a show I sometimes watch as a guilty pleasure. It is called The Biggest Loser. Yeah that's right, The Biggest Loser. I don't watch it to get inspired or learn anything, I watch it because I find it a very funny and entertaining show. Mainly in how they dramatize weight loss.

The reason I bring this up now is because of a situation that arose on this new season. It was about if a girl was throwing the weigh ins because she didn't lose any weight for 2 weeks. The trainers Bob and Jillian were convinced that she was throwing it. She was emphatic that she was not and it just was not happening. The trainers said that was scientifically impossible...

This is why I'm writing this post. There is an inherent flaw in logic here and if the contestant knew a little bit more she could have stated her case better.

Bob and Jillian made the claim that if you work out hard and eat right there is no way you cannot lose weight based on weight loss science. They said they were 99% sure and how dare she question their knowledge of this science. Oh brother.

Here is what they did not account for in there absolutism and is the reason why you can't have a drug test or book terrorists on a 99% positive ratio. Because lets say in sports, for every 10,000 athletes tested, there will be 100 false positives. For every 100,000 citizens investigated, there will be 1,000 false arrests.

So even though Bob and Jillian were so sure, for every 100 contestants, there will be at least 1 contestant who will sometimes not lose weight. Was this contestant the one? I don't know, but was there a major failure in scientific rationale and logic? Yes.

So let me swing this back to you, the average gym goer. Sometimes you will do everything right and still not lose weight. It's unlikely but it happens. Maybe for every 1,000,000 people working out, it will happen to 10,000 people. That's 99%.

Here is the important part to learn. It happens. THAT'S SCIENCE! But for every time you work out and do it right with all out effort, you exponentially increase your chances of success. For every time you don't go work out, you decrease your chance of success to 0. That is the only guarantee and absolute. Try and eventually you will succeed. Don't try and you will fail. That's 100%.



About the Author:

Sam Y. is a Personal Trainer, Coach, Performane Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook at his personal fitness page.