Before I started doing CrossFit in 2007, I was blissfully unaware of the term “tabata,” but now it’s part of my everyday vocabulary. Lucky me.
The Tabata Protocol consists of 20 seconds of maximum intensity exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest. The cycle is repeated eight times for a total of four minutes of work. It’s named after Izumi Tabata, Ph.D., a former researcher at Japan’s National Institute of Fitness and Sports.
According the man himself,
“[Six to 8 very hard 20 second intervals with 10 second rest periods] may be one of the best possible training protocols…”– Izumi Tabata, Ph.D.
This Men’s Fitness article — “The secret of Tabata: this 14-minute workout may be the best you’ve ever had!” — gets into a some of the science.
“The key to the Tabata Protocol’s effectiveness appears to be the short rest intervals between sprints. Conventional interval-training guidelines suggest keeping a 1:3 work-rest ratio. [...]

Original post by mel@chancemccoy.com (Melissa Joulwan)

A young planet sits in wobbly orbit, still a bit amorphous and unsure of its final shape. A gurgling, bubbling primordial soup simmers on the surface, stewing and brewing for millions upon millions of years as massive temperature fluctuations, atmospheric pressure shifts, and extended bouts of thunderous lightning mar the landscape. Radiation is a constant, steady force. Deep within the soup, a spark! The beginnings of life, the organic, single-celled compounds that will grow and reproduce and mutate into a hundred million fantastical forms, emerge. All the while, similar – yet totally different – conditions are occurring on other planets concurrently, but no spark is seemingly produced. Why is that?

Consider, for a moment, the plight of the modern feedlot cow, a species that evolution has “constructed” to subsist most effectively on open grassland with plenty of access to sun and the freedom to roam. Instead, we stuff it full of [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

The Ultimate Mma Strength And Conditioning Program 
Combat Core Strength: Advanced Torso Training for Explosive Strength and Power

Back with more news for you today. It’s amazing how much good information there is on this stuff out there if you know where to look. Three in particular that I found really valuable were…
Become Super Fit With Boxing Exercise | Lifetime Fitness 4 Men
Is boxing exercise good for your fitness? You bet it is. Boxing exercise, whether called box-aerobics, cardio-box, or any of the other names it gets.
Fitness Boxing Instructor| Koreabridge.net
New media site for expats and Koreans includes classifieds, forums, photos, videos, blogs and more from Seoul, Busan, and other parts [...]

Original post by dominic Paris

If you ask people whether “falling back” or “springing forward” hits them hardest, most will say spring. (I’m in this camp also.) I’ll admit that I love the extra hour of sleep in fall but dread the reverse a few months later. Switching the clock (in either direction) can leave you feeling oddly displaced, like you’re never where you’re supposed to be at any given time. The world is going about its business in the usual routine, but something feels off. For some people, sleep is the area hardest hit and the last thing to finally adjust. I get emails pretty frequently about sleep. For some readers, it’s the final frontier in their Primal conversion. Not surprisingly, time changes (both fall and spring) seem to inspire more emails on this front. To summarize the batch, a lot of people feel thrown for a couple of weeks and struggle somewhat to [...]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Haven’t heard of it yet?
Don’t worry, you will.
Invictus is a new movie that is coming out soon that stars Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman.
So why does it get it’s own workout? Well Matt Damon plays Francois Pienaar, the Captain of South Africa’s Rugby team in the early to mid 1990’s. And, at minute 0:57 of the trailer for Invictus, you see Matt with his shirt off for about 1.5 seconds.
Sounds silly but this is the equation:
Male Hollywood Celebrity Appears “Jacked” in a movie = On-line Hysteria over “How he did it”.
Think the Christian Bale Batman Workout, the Gerard Butler 300 Workout, or the Hugh Jackman Wolverine workout.
It works every time, without fail. Hollywood Celeb gets jacked, someone tries to cash in.
So I’m going to Preempt everyone with this one:
I know EXACTLY how Matt Damon got in shape for this movie…It’s the exact same way Hugh Jackman got in shape, which [...]

Original post by Brad Pilon

 
Here at Passionate Fitness, we love our members so much that we just can’t stop giving you chances to get free money. In that spirit, we’re announcing the Invite a Friend Contest with up to $1000 in CASH prizes.
You heard us right, $1000 dollars. That’s 4 figures.
How it Works:
Here’s how it works. On the left by the main menu, you’ll see a little item called “Invite a Friend”.

When you invite friends, and the friends you invite join the site and sign up with the email they were invited at, you gain points. Here’s the break down:
Friends Invited + Activity of Friends (measured by forum posts and article/recipe/workout submissions) = Points.
When Passionate Fitness hits 10,000 members, and we will, the points are tallied and the members with the most overall points win cash.
Here are the prizes:
First Prize: $500
Second Prize: $200
Third Prize: $100
Fourth Prize: $50
Fifth Prize: $50
Sixth Prize: $25
Seventh Prize: $25
Eighth Prize: [...]

Original post by rafael@thefitnessadviser.com (Rafi Bar-Lev)

Eric Wong's Ultimate MMA Strength Workout Introduces Creativity To MMA

Back in August we bought a copy of Eric Wong’s Ultimate MMA Strength & Conditioning program and gave two of our instructors a copy. (Yes, we did copy it, but just once)
It may seem weird that the top MMA gym in the outer banks would buy an online training manual, but the fact is that a lot of students work out on their own, either because of scheduling issues or because they work better following their own program.
For those students, KnuckleUp wanted to have a solid w0rkout plan that they could follow and get better results than trying to figure it all out on their own.
So, we asked some of our instructors to look over the course and try it out. The very first thing they pointed out was the importance given to mental training and psychological preparation. As noted on [...]

Original post by knuckleup

The Ultimate Mma Strength And Conditioning Program 
Combat Core Strength: Advanced Torso Training for Explosive Strength and Power

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog posts lately you’ll know I’ve come to adding a few news posts from around the web on this subject. I’ve got a couple more today that are new and updated, so let me know what you think of em…
MMA Fighting Stances: Mixed martial arts intelligence from the cage and ring
Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney waited to make the right broadcast deal for the upstart MMA promotion's second season. …  Read More…
MMA Fighter Brett Rogers to Sign Autographs at Buckle, Mall of America
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire/ [...]

Original post by dominic Paris

No, we're not going to pull the Polar Bear on you.

DONT STOPPPPP!!!!!!!
Our students have done SO well this summer, we’ve had such great results with the beach bootcamp, Charles Craddock got 1st place in a VA beach jiu jitsu tournament, and we’ve seen people shredding weight in all of classes.
To keep the momentum going, we’ve boosted our Winter class schedule – click the link to check it out.
We’ve added more classes, and Sal is taking over the Friday classes.
But the biggest change is in the Martial Arts program is the new Jiu Jitsu program.
As we’ve mentioned on that post, the Jiu Jitsu curriculum now obeys the official USA Jiu Jitsu program. A couple of modifications are still in the works: we will expand the mat area to the upstairs weight room soon, and Jeremiah is going to teach only the Advanced class.
For now, Chris Stolzman is taking over the BJJ [...]

Original post by knuckleup

There are menacing spirits about tonight. Truly horrifying, ghastly ghouls in shiny, enticing packages. Resting ominously in bowls, baskets and bags, they await their jolly little prey. With the power of the Pied Piper, they will lead all manner of small witches, scarecrows, Spidermen, vampires, princesses, cowboys and gypsies toward ebullient, screeching glee, then sugar shock and moody mayhem this evening. Dastardly little devils, aren’t they…?

Chocolates, lollipops, Tootsie Rolls, M&Ms,
Pixy Stix, Bubble Gum, candy corn and Pez!
Jaw breakers, Milk Duds, Jolly Ranchers, caramels,
Star Burst, licorice, Kit Kat, and gummi bears!
Mounds, Nut Rolls, Laffy Taffy, Life Savers,
Reese’s, Skittles, Milky Way and Now or Laters!
What, finally, should a Primal parent do
In the midst of this Halloween hullabaloo?
Corny fun (we never said we were poets) and jokes aside, Halloween is one of those days when it’s tough being a parent battling societal pressure and cultural practice. You don’t want to ostracize your kids [...]

Original post by Worker Bee