Tough Mudder Team

We’re try­ing to gauge inter­est in form­ing a BC4C Tough Mud­der team. Check out the info and let’s see if we can get a crew together!

SAT FEB 11 & SUN FEB 12, 2012
GEORGIA AT AONIA PASS MOTOCROSS PARK

Tough Mud­der events are hard­core 10–12 mile obsta­cle courses designed by British Spe­cial Forces to test your all around strength, sta­mina, men­tal grit, and cama­raderie. As the lead­ing com­pany in the boom­ing obsta­cle course indus­try, Tough Mud­der has already chal­lenged half a mil­lion inspir­ing par­tic­i­pants world­wide and raised more than $2 mil­lion dol­lars for the Wounded War­rior Project. But Tough Mud­der is more than an event, it’s a way of think­ing. By run­ning a Tough Mud­der chal­lenge, you’ll unlock a true sense of accom­plish­ment, have a great time, and dis­cover a cama­raderie with your fel­low par­tic­i­pants that’s expe­ri­enced all too rarely these days.

FACT #1 – Marathon run­ning is bor­ing.
And the only thing more bor­ing than doing a marathon is watch­ing a marathon. Road-running may give you a healthy set of lungs, but will leave you with as much upper body strength as Keira Knight­ley. At Tough Mud­der, we want to test your all-around met­tle, not just your abil­ity to run in a straight line, on your own, for hours on end, get­ting bored out of your mind. Our obsta­cle courses are designed by British Spe­cial Forces to test you in every way and are meant only for truly excep­tional all-around peo­ple, not for peo­ple who have enough time and money to train their knees to run 26 miles.

FACT #2 – Mud­ders do not take them­selves too seri­ously.
Triathlons, marathons, and other lame-ass mud runs are more stress­ful than fun. Not Tough Mud­der. As hard­core as our courses are, we meet you at the fin­ish line with a beer, a laugh, and a rockin’ live band. It’s pretty hard to take your­self seri­ously when you’re cov­ered in mud and have just fin­ished an obsta­cle called ‘Just The Tip’, so please don’t show up at a Tough Mud­der with­out a sense of humor. Just check out the ridicu­lous team cos­tumes in our event pho­tos to get a feel for the spirit of Tough Mudder.

FACT #3 – You can­not com­plete a Tough Mud­der course alone.
To get through mud, fire, ice-water, and 10,000 volts of elec­tric­ity you’ll need team­mates to pick you up when your spir­its dip. To get over 12 foot walls and through under­ground mud tun­nels, you’ll need team­mates to give you a boost and a push. Tough Mud­ders are team play­ers who make sure no one gets left behind. To that end, all Mud­ders are expected to uphold our ideals and exhibit team­work and cama­raderie both on the course and off it. All par­tic­i­pants are asked to join us in recit­ing the Tough Mud­der pledge before start­ing each event.

Learn more →

3 Exercises to Cure Your Knee Pain

By Natalie Gin­gerich, Active​.com

The jury is in: “Bad knees” aren’t sidelin­ing your work­out; your hips may be the guilty party. Accord­ing to a review of 28 years’ worth of research on com­mon exer­cise injuries, hip strength is the biggest pre­dic­tor of knee pain. So grab a resis­tance band and do these moves daily, work­ing up to 3 sets of 10 reps on each side.

Don’t for­get to add flex­i­bil­ity exer­cises to your strength train­ing. Stretch­ing helps pre­vent injury and strength­ens joints, espe­cially for those 40 and over.

Side Swing: Anchor band on left side at floor height and loop band around right ankle. Bal­anc­ing on left foot (hold on to some­thing if needed), raise right leg out to side; lower.

Front Kick: Turn so band is anchored behind you and around left ankle, foot flexed. Swing left leg for­ward about 12 inches, keep­ing it straight, and return to start.

Seated Rota­tor: Sit so band is anchored to right and around left ankle. Cross ankles. Keep­ing knees together, rotate left leg out­ward about 12 inches. Return to start.

The Benefits of Push-ups

Did you enjoy your med­ley of push-ups this morn­ing? Mil­i­tary, dia­mond, incline, decline and more… these exer­cises have an over­all pos­i­tive impact on your health — beyond just arm strength.

FROM ACTIVE​.COM

Build Strength
Push-ups are one of the old­est and most basic exer­cises and they are very effec­tive. They work out all the mus­cles in the upper body and build opti­mal strength in the fore­arms, wrists, upper arms, shoul­ders and chest. For­mer NFL star Her­schel Walker was one of the top run­ning backs in the game in the 1980s. He eschewed weightlift­ing but he did a reg­i­men of at least 100 push-ups every­day, some­thing he has con­tin­ued well into his retire­ment. “They helped me get in shape and stay in shape,” Walker said. “That’s why I have always done them. Every day.”

Increase Metab­o­lism
Push-ups push the body toward phys­i­cal exer­tion. In addi­tion to build­ing strength, they force the heart to work harder and the blood to pump faster. This increases metab­o­lism and helps you burn more calo­ries. The ben­e­fit of the push-up is still felt hours after the exer­cise is done.

Con­fi­dence
Doing push-ups on a reg­u­lar basis will make you stronger and improve your over­all con­di­tion­ing. How­ever, it will also increase your con­fi­dence. You will find that doing push-ups in sets of 25, 50 and 100 will build mas­sive arm and upper body strength. Do it reg­u­larly and you will build as much strength as the guys who spend hours in the gym. This will give you tremen­dous pride in your accom­plish­ment and the con­fi­dence that comes with achieve­ment. It is such a good exer­cise that the U.S. Army still uses the push-up as one of its pri­mary activ­i­ties to get sol­diers in shape.

Build Core Strength
In addi­tion to build­ing upper body strength and gain­ing more power in the arms, shoul­ders and hands, push-ups done with the proper form will help build the core mus­cles in the mid­dle of your body. To do push-ups prop­erly, your elbows must be fully extended at the start and end of a push-up, your toes should be on the floor and your legs, hips and back should be straight.

The Official Compendium of Burpees

Please enjoy this re-post from last year!

BY TRACY

Results from our very sci­en­tific and non-biased poll con­firm that Burpees are the least favorite activ­ity among boot campers.

The Burpee is defined by the Oxford Dic­tio­nary as “a phys­i­cal exer­cise con­sist­ing of a squat thrust made from and end­ing in a stand­ing posi­tion”. Accord­ing to the highly-regarded and rep­utable Wikipedia, the Burpee orig­i­nated “in the 1930s for Amer­i­can psy­chol­o­gist Royal H. Burpee, who devel­oped the Burpee test. Con­sist­ing of a series of the exer­cises per­formed in rapid suc­ces­sion, the test was meant to mea­sure agility and coor­di­na­tion. It is not clear whether the exer­cise itself was invented by Burpee, or if his test merely pop­u­lar­ized it.”

I have com­piled an offi­cial list of var­i­ous Burpee forms:

• The Pain-Free Burpee – if the “burper” (ath­lete per­form­ing the burpee) devel­ops knee or back related pain while per­form­ing the burpee, the burper can do the same num­ber of frog jumps and push-ups.
• The Facil­i­tated Burpee – the burper does not per­form a push-up at the bot­tom of the burpee.
• Dou­ble Burpee – Instead of the burper doing one pushup, they do two in a row to can­cel the drive from land­ing after the jump. This also makes the next jump harder.
• The Sully Burpee (aka the one-armed Burpee) – the burper per­forms the entire exer­cise using only one arm.
• The Mary Ellen and Daniel “Cir­cus” Burpee – dur­ing the act of the kick­ing his/her feet back, prior to the push-up, the burper kicks their feet up as high as pos­si­ble (one at a time). This is a very fluid motion and should only be per­formed by tal­ented and expe­ri­enced burpers.

Do you have any new Burpees ideas? Get your Burpee form added to the offi­cial list by click­ing the “Com­ments” link above this post!

REFERENCE: Wikipedia​.org
IMAGE CREDIT: <a onclick=“javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview(‘/outgoing/www.cafepress.com/+i_love_burpees_light_tshirt,317919475′);” target=“_blank href=“http://www.cafepress.com/+i_love_burpees_light_tshirt,317919475″>Cafe Press

Core Training > Ab Exercise

Please enjoy this re-posted arti­cle from last year. While the com­ments may be out­dated, the info in the arti­cle is timeless!

BY LAUREN

Think core train­ing involves just a bunch of sit-ups, crunches and bicy­cles? Actu­ally, true core train­ing requires much more than just abdom­i­nal con­di­tion­ing. The abdom­i­nal mus­cles play a very lim­ited and spe­cific role in your over­all core.

Your core actu­ally con­sists of many dif­fer­ent mus­cles that run the entire length of the torso. These mus­cles sta­bi­lize the spine from the pelvis to the neck and shoul­der, and pro­vide a solid foun­da­tion for pow­er­ful move­ments of the arms and legs.

Your strength orig­i­nates from the cen­ter of your body out — never from your limbs alone. The goal of core sta­bil­ity is to main­tain a solid foun­da­tion and trans­fer energy from the cen­ter of the body out to the limbs. The more sta­ble the core, the more pow­er­ful the extrem­i­ties can contract.

In addi­tion to improv­ing your over­all strength, core train­ing has some valu­able side ben­e­fits: First, core train­ing cor­rects pos­tural imbal­ances that can lead to injuries. And, core train­ing is inte­gral in devel­op­ing func­tional fit­ness — that is, fit­ness that is essen­tial to reg­u­lar, daily activities.

What are your favorite core exer­cises? Mine is squats. Share your thoughts by click­ing the “Com­ments” link above this post.

IMAGE CREDIT & ARTICLE ADAPTED FROM: About​.com: Sports Medicine