HIIT It

Devoting time to exercise is crucial to a person’s physical and mental wellbeing. But that time devoted to exercise is limited. Why not make the most of it? The determining factor in how effective your workout is lies in your approach to working out and how you utilize that precious workout time. That age-old question of quantity vs. quality applies to your workout routines. It isn’t necessarily a question of how long you work out but how you work out that determines your success. If you need a workout switch-up and want a break from workout volume, try incorporating High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) into your routine.

Spend less time exercising. Burn fat quicker. Finish with a more effective workout.

Fitness magazine offered a 20 minute workout that incorporates the BOSU and a resistance band.

GlistenFit offers a 40 minute HIIT workout circuit.

Or try this workout and complete it in 30 minutes. Perform each exercise for one minute at high intensity. At the end of five, rest for one minute. Repeat the circuit five times.

• Hip abduction
• Lunge
• Trunk rotation
• Bicycle
• Dome pushup

This entry was contributed by Stephanie Berger, a Public Relations and Marketing intern at Hedstrom - Ball, Bounce and Sport. She studies at the University of South Carolina and is addicted to breakfast foods and sunshine.

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Training for Football

Football season is upon us. Americans wait the whole year for the distinct smells that combines aromas of crisp fall, new pigskins, wet grass, booze, and hot chocolate. We’re so enthused that we follow football at every competitive level: from peewee to high school to pro.  One team is never enough. One football game never satisfies. We always come back begging for more.

The roar of the stadiums will soon be drowning out any intelligible thoughts as the two teams have spent months preparing come face to face. One team will emerge victorious. Player motivation, coaching decisions, fan support, talent, and not least of all training will determine who will rise as victor.

The time and diligence spent repeating drills, weightlifting, and bulking up pay off in the stadium. The imposing figure of a football player leads an outsider to believe that most time spent strength training and packing on the muscle; balance also is an integral, if less obvious, part of a football team’s training regimen. For obvious reasons, players need to be in tune with their bodies. Incidentally, balance training is shown to reduce chances of ankle sprains. While balance training is incorporated during rehabilitation for athletes who sprain an ankle, it is worthwhile for trainers to be proactive and incorporate training that will reduce chances of sprains occurring in the first place. To achieve balance training objectives trainers will design workouts using the BOSU® Balance Trainer. Don’t believe it? Check out some of the informational clips on the web (like this one) that people have made for football players.

Or if you want real, authentic proof straight from the pros, I’ll redirect to your attention to these shots that have been floating around cyberspace of the Steelers.

Questioning the power of balance? I’ve seen these people on the field. I have enough faith in the powerful combination of their balance, stability, and power to know that I wouldn’t want to be caught standing in front of them.

During football season I cheer from the sidelines or from the safety of my living room with firm confidence that balance training leads a team to have poise and stability that will make certain that their opponents on the field will be in for one wild ride.

This entry was contributed by Stephanie Berger, a Public Relations and Marketing intern at Hedstrom - Ball, Bounce and Sport. She studies at the University of South Carolina and is addicted to breakfast foods and sunshine.

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Weight Lifting, Composing, and Mental Focus

Practicing an instrument, composing music, and lifting weights are very much the same mental and physical process (assuming you do them correctly). Of course only one of these three activities takes up a substantial amount of my time these days: weightlifting (I kid).

More often than not it surprises people to learn that weightlifting is one of my favorites hobbies (likely because I have the natural physique of Gumby on Atkins). In actuality, I’ve had some sort of regular physical fitness routine for most of my life. When I was in middle school and high school, I swam competitively; in college, I ran long distance; and in graduate school, I started doing body-weight exercises and began to learn the basics of weight training. For the past year, however, I’ve focused almost exclusively on strength training. What exactly is strength training, and how does it correlate to my musical endeavors?

Strength training is the process of lifting weights with the primary goal of increasing how much mass you can move, not increasing the size of your muscles nor the attainment of a particular physique as seen in bodybuilding.

There seems to be a clear divide between practicality and aesthetics in lifting weights, but in reality there is far more overlap. While a bodybuilder’s ultimate goal remains an aesthetic one they will often build massive amounts of strength in that process. A strength trainer may focus on lifting more and more weight regardless of physique, yet they will undoubtedly build muscle along the way.

How then, does this relate to composing music or practicing an instrument? The similarity is two-fold: process and practicality.

Perhaps this process can best be explained through the practice of music making which most of us learn first: playing an instrument. I truly wish I had learned earlier in life how to properly practice an instrument. I was never terrible at practicing, but I often shrugged a passage off and said “meh, it’s good enough.” I never realized the true level of mental and physical discipline required to master an instrument. In recent years I’ve come to improve my ability to focus on the task at hand. I recall in the first theory class I took with Per Broman at BGSU. He discussed the value of putting your complete attention and highest level of focus towards our readings. This of course makes perfect sense, as our readings were Caplin’s theories of sonata form, and they demand your fullest attention to be properly understood.

This same degree of attention is required to properly practice an instrument, as well as to lift a barbell. When I’m at the gym, if I lose focus for even a moment before attempting a heavy lift, I stand almost no chance at completing the range of motion, despite the fact that my body is strong enough and capable of performing the motion. The same goes with a tricky passage on the violin. My hand may have the dexterity needed to complete that god awful triple stop, but I don’t stand a chance at completing it without having first practiced it with my fullest mental capacity.

Musicians often speak of muscle memory when referring to the learning process of a piece of music. This term isn’t really correct. It’s nervous-system memory. It applies when learning an instrument, and it especially applies when lifting a barbell. You train your body to complete a movement pattern well before you build muscle along that movement pattern. What this all boils down to is consistency. In order to complete a heavy lift or to perform a tricky passage, one must practice with their full attention with consistency, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Musicians modify the final product of the piece they’re working on by doing things like slowing it down or adding dotted rhythms to train the fingers. When weightlifting, you do the same thing. You decrease the weight to improve the movement pattern, or you focus on one portion of the exercise, often strengthening it by performing other isolation movements. The end goal is to always be making progress. If you’re reading a book, practicing an instrument, or lifting weights, you’re either making progress, or you’re not.

So let’s bring this back to composing, since that’s sort of what I’m about.

Composing is an aesthetic art form, much in the same way that performing on an instrument and listening to music are aesthetic. However, the actual process of sitting down to ‘do’ the composing is a practical process, and a grinding one at that. So perhaps it’s better to say that composing is influenced by aesthetic.

Throughout my process of slowly (and I do mean slowly) lifting more and more weight, I’ve trained my mind and body to become stronger. I’m also becoming a stronger person overall, and this is the result of learning how to truly focus my efforts and attention on the task at hand. Practicing an instrument helped me learn all of the wrong ways to do this, reading advanced music theory taught me the importance of it, weightlifting taught me how to do it, and composing is where I now make use of it (or am at least trying to). In short, training your mind and body to lift weights trains you to compose and practice your musical endeavors more effectively. Weight lifting is just as much a mental exercise as a physical one, perhaps even more so.

If you’ve read this post to the end, perhaps I can incentivize you to hit the gym, do some deadlifting, or go for a run! And while you’re at it, pay attention to how you’re focusing your energy, it just might make you a stronger person and a greater musician!

Cheers.

Carter's most recent composition:

Let Me See Your Face
For flute and live-electronics. Performed by Colleen O’Shea Jones at the 2014 National SCI Conference at Ball State University.

This post was contributed by Carter Rice. He is currently studying to get his Doctor of Arts in Music Theory/Composition at Ball State University. For more information or to contact Carter, check out his website at http://carterricecomposer.weebly.com.

Rice, Carter John. (2014, August 10). Weight Lifting, Composing, and Mental Focus. Retrieved from http://carterricecomposer.weebly.com/blog/weightlifting-composing-and-mental-focus.

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What A Person's Gym Shoes Says About Them

We love the diversity of people dedicated to working out, looking good, and being fit. You have to admit that it takes serious motivation and commitment to go to the gym, let alone sign up for a gym membership.

The beauty is that there isn’t just one certain group of people that puts forth that dedication. You can meet a wide variety of people at the gym.

Take a look at the shoes. You can tell a lot about somebody working out just by looking at their shoes.

• White Sneakers. The little lady that always smiles and waves before stepping on the treadmill is wearing a pair of white sneakers. While the shoes are inconspicuous, do not underestimate her dedication. Even when she isn’t at the gym, she stays active getting up early to bake for the family and stays out late at the grandkids' T-ball games.

• Gray Cross-Trainers from Asics. You’ll recognize him as the working man next door. The friendly neighbor that stops at the gym on the way home from the office will be reacquainting himself with the dumbbells that he knew oh-so-well back in his younger days. Maybe you currently bench-press more than he does, but stop and ask him what he used to do and what his goals are.

• Flashy Nikes. Clearly an extrovert. The people wearing these are dedicated to looking good and being fit. (Or they have a significant other that makes sure they look good.) If you are lucky, you can catch them taking a selfie. Instagram will make those bright colors pop.

• Classic Pair of Adidas. This guy pumps some serious iron. Don’t let the tough-guy act fool you; you can find his soft spot and start up some conversation if you offer to buy him a protein shake.

• The Sleek Pumas. Back in the day this person was a track star or soccer goddess.This person has a lot of self-confidence in his or her ability. Whether or not that confidence is well-founded is for you to decide.

• Worn-out Mizunos or Sauconys. You probably are in the proximity of a runner. Don’t take it personal if they start to speed up when you step on the treadmill. They can’t help it. In response you should either: a) speed up and give them a run for their money, b) carry on as planned, or c)switch to the elliptical.

• A Pair of Reebok or New Balance. You’ve likely spotted a CrossFitter. Take note of their workout intensity. If you love extreme enthusiasm go and strike up some conversation. Or avoid them if you don’t. Either way you should take note that you might find yourself subconsciously competing against them on the rowing machines.

If you’re competitive, you might find yourself eying up everybody else as competitors. But just because somebody wears a different pair of shoes doesn’t mean you should avoid them. They say that birds of the same feather flock together. Put that notion to rest. Work out with somebody else who has a different pair of kicks. Regardless of whether it be fitness or shoe related, you are likely to learn something new at the gym. And if you are open to people of a different shoe, you just might get a new workout buddy.

This entry was contributed by Stephanie Berger, a Public Relations and Marketing intern at Hedstrom - Ball, Bounce and Sport. She studies at the University of South Carolina and is addicted to breakfast foods and sunshine.

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