Showing posts with label Muscles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Muscles. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Nueromuscular conditioning

This semester of school is going about how I expected. My health promotion class is easy enough, but also interesting at the same time. My Kinesiology class is brutally difficult, and I think there should be some introductory classes before people take it. You have to know every bone, muscle, and peice of hair on the entire human body... and the scientific term for those. My first test I studied harder than any point of my College career (not saying much), and ended up getting 68%! That's not going to get the job done.
My third class is Nueromuscular Conditioning. I figured this class would be good for me. We get to learn about all kinds of weight lifting and other conditioning techniques. I plan to be a high school coach someday so this will certainly be relevant to me. I will know how to organize specific training routines for each individual person.
So far we've just been doing in class bookwork. BORING stuff to me. The teacher is explaining how muscle movement works and blah blah blah blaaaaaaah!!! I just want to see how it's done. I have the basic idea how muscles work, I don't need a Sheldon Cooper explanation for every little detail. I'm already getting that in my Kinesiology class.
So today we started the "fun" stuff. We did some fitness testing to see where we're at individually. The four test we took were: T-test, Vertical jump, standing long jump, and push-up test. Let me just say that my results were depressing. I consider myself to be in fairly decent shape. I am fairly good at a variety of sports. I found out today that I'm muscularly challenged!
Here are my test results and the accompanying feedback that I got out of my book:

T-test- (This test is completed by setting up one cone. Then about 15 feet away there is a line of three cones. Each of those cones is about 8-10 feet apart. The cones form a T! You sprint from the single cone to the middle cone, then side step to the left cone, sidestep to the right cone, sidestep back tot he middle cone, and run backwards to the starting cone. You must touch the base of each cone as you go.... and it's timed. It's designed to test a person's agility)
I got this done in 9.97 seconds. In case you're wondering that's WELL below the expected time for my age. A few guys were getting in the 8's. My book said I performed at the level of a 17 year old boy, or a womens college basketball player.

Push-ups- I maxed out at 15 which put me in the "Needs improvement" category. I could have squeezed out a few more but it wouldn't have improved my feedback much.

Vertical Jump- You have to stand flat footed under this measuring stick and jump as high as you can. I got 23 Inches, which actually wasn't horrible. The feedback said it was at the level of a Div. one college baseball player.

Standing Long Jump- I jumped about 8 feet. Sounds good, but it isn't! Well below the expected level once again.

I would like to point out that I was wearing skater shoes while doing these tasks. I didn't know we'd be running or jumping so I wasn't prepared. The point is that I'm a weakling. I have no muscles, speed, power, agility, ect. ect. ect. I guess what I've had all these years in sports is a drive to win! I don't take losing lightly, and I don't ever play a sport half assed. I've been mistaking myself for the athletic guy all these years, but it turns out I'm the Matt Harpring! I'm the guy that just tries harder than everybody else.
So I've decided to try to work on the muscles a little bit. Hopefully by the end of the semester I'll improve some of these tests and I won't be a 17 year old boy anymore.

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