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Golf: Basics For Beginners

These days there are a rising number of people who are getting into gold for the first time. If you’ve been a golfer for quite some time now, you might be looking back and remembering just how frustrating it was working on that swing and simply playing good. If you’re just a beginner however, it might seem daunting at first. All it takes is some practice, and more practice!

Golf to many is a great way to relax, spend the weekend and enjoy nature. You do have to reach a certain level of proficiency in the game to fully enjoy it though, which makes it all the more challenging and interesting in the first place. There are many books on golf available, however, there is not much in the shelves today that focus on golf for beginners. So as an alternative, you may want to look into schools, which often provide and introductory class that lasts up to 4 hours and costs about 300 bucks. Still, some beginners choose to practice on their own or with their friends once they feel that they’ve already got all the basic knowledge they need.

It can’t be stressed enough though that you need to establish your knowledge in the basics first and foremost. It is well known that those who play rounds of golf too soon in their development end up with such a bad experience that can prompt them to quit golf for good! There really is no shorter way to learning golf. Take the time to enjoy your learning progress. Golf is something you need to practice and practice until you are perfect. A repetition of the swing and some accumulated skills will aid in the development of your game.

What To Expect

As a beginner, know that the competitor is only your own self. Yes, golf is a hard game to play especially if you’re a beginner, expect to be utilizing both your body and mind to manage all the potential results your hit could make. Furthermore, expect the sport to require lots of patience from you. Other sports may require you to just “go and do it.” Golf, on the other hand, will require you to start at square one and stay there for maybe a couple of months or more. In fact you may need much more time than you could ever expect. Many golfers would tell you though that that is the beauty of the game—you’ll be able to concentrate on your own pace until you are ready to progress.

Some Tips

There are just some tips you need before embarking on your new sport. The first tip is to avoid getting the latest golf clubs. As a beginner, you will not be able to take advantage of them anyway. If you’re going to focus on practicing for now, which you should be doing, you can always borrow or purchase some used equipment. This way, you get to save more in the long term plus use equipment that’s appropriate for your current skills.

Next, listen to yourself and only yourself. Your family and friends may start telling you tips that might actually work against you. As mentioned earlier, golf is a sport you develop on your own, at your own pace. Of course, you may ask golf pros for some advice, as they will often teach you how to avoid bad habits that could lead to bad hits.

Finally, enjoy the game as much as possible! Don’t think of it as an obstacle, but a challenge. Enthusiasts love golf mainly because it is challenging. If you get frustrated and discouraged easily, you may easily quit the sport that many others are truly enjoying.

A great place to practice your golfing skills is at the driving range. Practicing here will of course save you a lot of the embarrassment, as everyone else will be just be hitting a bucket of balls just like you. You can practice putting in your own room or backyard (advised not to used real balls unless you want to risk damaging your neighbor’s windows). To play, par-3 course are great for novices.

Some equipment you’ll need for gold include golf clubs, a bag designed to carry golf clubs, a set of golf balls, and a proper attire for golf. You may ask for some assistance at the shop when it comes to choosing the types of golf clubs and golf balls you might need. A good golf attire would be something light and comfortable, like a shirt or blouse that allows more movement for you to swing comfortably. Shoes should have soft spikes underneath and comfortable. And of course, sunscreen and a cap or hat are advisable, as you will be out under the sun probably the whole day!

For more information on golf tips visit http://www.easygolftips.net/

James Gunaseelan advises consumers of leading golf tips portal regarding basic glof playing tips & techniques for beginners.

Mothers Capture Precious Medals at the Beijing Olympics

The full range of female athletes on the 2008 Olympic teams makes it clear that age and family responsibilities are not the barriers to participation in the Games they used to be. Stories from Beijing highlight the courage and resolve of the mothers of the world - as they demonstrate their athletic prowess and win gold or silver medals.

Significant are the 20 mothers on the USA Olympic team, including past medalists - swimmer Dara Torres, basketball player Lisa Leslie, and softball player, Jennie Finch. Dara Torres stands out as a role model for any mother wondering if it is too late to begin again. Now age 41, she began participating in the Olympics twenty-four years ago, swimming in the 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2000 Games. Retiring, getting married and wanting to start a family, she skipped the 2004 Games and had a child two years ago. Swimming for fitness after the birth of her daughter, Tessa, she thought she was done with competitive swimming. But she found that her times were better than ever.

Eight long years after her last Olympics, Dara marched in the Beijing opening ceremonies with 9 medals to her credit, the most of any USA athlete in these Games. Swimming in individual and relay team competition, she won 3 silver medals, losing gold in the freestyle individual event by only one one-hundredth of a second. She now can now be proud of a record 12 Olympic medals in her career - so far! Asked “what will you tell your daughter about your record at this Olympics,” Dara said, “You don’t have to put an age limit on your dreams.”

Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania, a 38-year-old mother of a 13-year old son, was the triumphant gold medal winner of the women’s marathon in Beijing. Four years ago in Athens she had to relinquish her dreams of an Olympic medal at mile 20 due to heat exhaustion. But even then she did not completely quit. She walked for a mile - then started running again, coming in 20th in the 2004 competition. This time she was determined to win the race. She practiced and practiced in hot weather, firmly focused on avoiding another injury. Learning from her past failure, Constantina refused to give up on her dreams and worked hard to achieve her goal of Olympic gold.

Another mother, 33-year-old Oksana Chusovitina, took the silver medal for Germany in individual women’s vault. Older than most of the other gymnasts by ten years, Oksana had participated in four previous Olympics, representing the former Soviet Union and winning a team gold. What brought her to Germany at this stage of her career? For the past 6 years her 9-year-old son, Alisher, has been treated there for leukemia. When he was first diagnosed, Oksana could not get help for him in her native Uzbekistan. Not one to be stopped by the challenges she faced, she and her husband moved to Germany to train while Alisher was in treatment. Oksana demonstrates her commitment to family by competing for Germany in Beijing.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re too old to reach your goals, you can learn a lesson from these athletes and mothers. It’s never too late to challenge yourself. With maturity, drive and focus, you can achieve your dreams. As Dara Torres said, “To me, if it helps anyone else out there who is in their middle-aged years, putting off something they couldn’t do because they thought they were too old or maybe because they had a child, they thought they couldn’t balance things as a parent - if it shows anyone you can do it, I’m absolutely thrilled.”

Tips and Tricks to Improve Your Baseball Game

Baseball as we all may know is not only a physical team game but it poses as a mental game as well. It often requires solid focus, concentration and mental preparedness. Considering this as a mental game will involve how well we manage certain circumstances and how to stay focused when things get worst. I do know what it feels like when you are on the losing end, it is sometimes very frustrating and tear jerking especially when winning the game was almost in your hand only to slip it off of your grasp in the end. It is excruciatingly painful. But baseball is baseball, it is a game where one team wins and another loses. Between two opponents, only one will prevail despite how hard you try to win the game over. The mental aspect of baseball is basically attributed to how you deal with worst things and how you stay positive about the whole thing whether you are on the winning or on the losing end.

There are possibly lots of tips and tricks you can find out there to improve the mental aspect of your baseball game. But we will start with few. Clean your mind from all the non-game distractions or better yet, leave only BASEBALL and nothing else in your mind. That is what focusing exactly means. Give it your 100% attention and never lose it even if things are not going into your advantage.

Next, remove all doubt and anxiety from your mind as well as from your heart for you to be able to focus. The only way you can do this is to sit back and relax on minutes before your game. Do not be anxious with anything, just go out there and do your own thing. It really helps a lot if you play a game with a light heart, have fun and enjoy the rest of the time while having a positive outlook whatever the outcome may be.

If you have positive mentality before the game, chances are that you already got an advantage and just make the most of it. Having this will not only increase your game focus but will increase your confidence as well. By making the most of thinking positively, you can get to the upper edge of the game. While it is true that some players are fit,physically strong and skilled, it is also true that some of them do not really have what it takes to deal with circumstances like being on the losing end.

While you got positive thinking, you have the upper hand of being in control and deal with not so good moments during the game or perhaps maybe even the worst. Baseball is indeed a mental game; whoever has the strong edge will come out the winner in the end especially when you learn the trick as well as the better game plays. You can learn this and gives you the opportunity to get the right upper hand.

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Muscle Fatigue is No Match For Prepared Athletes

For the professional or amateur athlete, there’s no thrill like reaching the finish line. And there’s nothing more frustrating than not reaching the finish because of the debilitating effects of muscle fatigue. It’s long been understood that dehydration and carbohydrate depletion are the main causes of exercise-induced fatigue. Athletes know they can prolong their activity by loading up on carbohydrates and drinking plenty of fluids. However, recent studies also reveal there are additional key factors that contribute to fatigue during prolonged exercise.

Dehydration

During exercise, the body loses water through sweating and evaporation. Sweat is the way your body keeps from overheating as sweat glands release perspiration that evaporates, cooling the skin and the blood underneath. The cooled blood then flows back to cool the body’s core. Even mild dehydration can impair athletic performance. To restore the body’s fluids that are lost during exercise, athletes should consume beverages that contain agents such as glucose and sodium, two ingredients found in most sports or energy drinks. These agents help maintain blood volume and aid in the absorption of water into the body.

Overheating

During exercise, an athlete’s body temperature, typically about 98.6 degrees, can increase to temps up to 104 degrees or more, especially during intense exercise. While a certain percentage of blood is used to regulate body temperature, large quantities of blood are still required to meet the energy and metabolic needs of working muscles. These demands can overtax the circulatory system, resulting in inadequate removal of body heat and a rise in an athlete’s body temperature. Research has proven that athletes involved in endurance sports can experience risks of overheating. Studies indicated that athletes who drank fluids during a two-hour run lowered their body temps by two degrees compared to those who did not rehydrate.

Depletion of Muscle Fuels

During intense short-term exercise, fatigue can result from depletion of glycogen. Glucose is the predominant fuel source for muscles in the first 10 seconds to three minutes of intense exercise. During long-term exercise, the aerobic pathway kicks in for energy production. In addition to glucose, fatty acids and amino acids are burned as fuel for aerobic metabolism, providing a wider range of energy resources.

However, glycogen depletion contributes to muscle fatigue even during long-term exercise. During studies, when athletes exercised to near exhaustion at 80 percent of their maximum capacity, the glycogen content of their muscles dropped to near zero in about 90 minutes. Through carbohydrate loading, endurance was increased and glycogen storage capacity was enhanced. These results suggest glycogen is a crucial fuel for energy production.

To preserve glycogen, some athletes adopt the method of training the muscles to become more efficient in using fat as a fuel source by completing several extended training sessions, each lasting more than two hours. This method stimulates the enzymes responsible for the conversion of fat into energy, which enables athletes to burn a higher percentage of fat and conserve glycogen for more strenuous efforts.

Low Blood Glucose

In addition to providing energy for muscles, glucose is also a source of energy for the brain and nervous system. In fact, 50 to 60 percent of the glucose supplied by the liver is used strictly for brain and nervous system function.

During longer exercise sessions, glycogen stores run low. This reliance on muscle glycogen is balanced by an increased reliance on blood glucose for fuel. After two to three hours of exercise, the majority of carbohydrate energy appears to be derived from glucose, which is transported from circulating blood into exercising muscles. This causes blood glucose to decline to relatively low levels. Fatigue occurs because there is not enough blood glucose available to compensate for the depleted muscle glycogen.

The use of sports drinks, carbohydrate gels and sports bars help athletes keep good blood glucose levels elevated to maintain central nervous system function and provides carbohydrates to working muscles. Studies show that athletes are capable of absorbing up to 80 grams of carbohydrates per hour during exercise, delaying fatigue by as much as 30 to 60 minutes.

Central Fatigue

Recent research has also examined mental fatigue during exercise. Although it does not affect the muscles directly, central fatigue can reduce an athlete’s capacity to perform. Doctors have uncovered a correlation between levels of the amino acid tryptophan in the brain and the degree of mental fatigue. Once tryptophan enters the brain, it can depress the central nervous system, causing fatigue. Supplementation of branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) helps to regulate the entry of tryptophan into the brain and has proven to increase performance for athletes. Additional research is being conducted in this area.

By making sure you’re properly hydrated before and during exercise, and by consuming enough of the nutrients your body needs to fuel activity, you can increase your chances of beating muscle fatigue and reaching the finish line a winner.

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No Fear Motocross Apparel: Sophisticated Riding Gear

For those riding enthusiasts who love to ride in style No Fear has introduced a funky line of clothing and high end riding gear. Right from exclusive motocross boots to eased up motocross apparel like shirts for men and women there is a lot to choose from!

Offroad boots

The range of motocross boots from No Fear is designed for men and kids alike. The collection of these motocross boots comprises the Trophee collection which predominantly comes in black and white colors. Just as all trademark No Fear motocross apparel even in the case of these motocross boots style and comfort have been kept in mind. These masterfully designed boots have been crafted in style and provide real good value for money. The pivoted aluminum buckles as well as straps provide accurate fitting right from the top of the motocross boots right till the very bottom. There is also an accented leather burn guard to provide protection against heat and also offer high grip on the boots. The metal toe cap on the top of the motocross boots are very heavy duty and hence resistant to a wide range of rough riding conditions. The kids also have plenty of reason to rejoice as the vast array of designs and styles in these motocross boots is available in vibrant colors and designs.

Chest protectors

Most motocross riders have to ride under very strenuous conditions and difficult terrains. This is why No Fear has introduced a line of protective chest protective gear that constitutes its line of motocross apparel. These chest protectors have been designed for kids and adults alike. The most popular amongst these chest protectors is the Stratos collection which is available in white and black colors. Instead of the heavy and uncomfortable chest protectors from so many other brands, No Fear has gone one step ahead to provide comfort in this protector. Each of these motocross apparel has contoured shells for the body both at the back and the front to help ensure optimal fitting. The adjustable straps are slip resistant and even adjust perfectly on the shoulders. The front rubber TPR is replete with 3D graphics. The foam collar is seamless and is soft padded providing ultimate in comfort factor. There is also a front as well as rear venting mechanism and an optional removable arm piece to aid in protection. The chest protectors available for kids come in bright colors like black, blue, red, white etc.

Helmets for the racing action

No Fear also has an impressive collection of motocross helmets which define true style and comfort in one piece. The Optimal and Prime collections are the most popular amongst all motocross fans. The Dungeon, Lowbrau, Matte Gold, Silver. Monogram, Race Orange, Race Red, Spike Bitmap, Spike Blue, Tornado Blue, Trans AM Patriot, Bandana, Trans AM White, CMYK Plaid, Race Blue, Gothic Matte Navy, Race Red etc. are just some of the many favorites amongst the collection of these motorcycle helmets.

Bobscycle.com provides an amazing selection of Motocross Apparel such as Motocross Jerseys MX Gear and Motocross Boots

MSR Apparel: Makers of High End Motorcycle Apparel and Motocross Accessories

MSR has always been synonymous with its high end line-up of exclusive motocross accessories that make riding fun and more secure. Right from ATV accessories to handlebars and tie-downs there are also gear such as motocross boots and motocross apparel like gloves etc.

Accessories available

MSR has introduced a wide array of motocross accessories comprising predominantly ATV accessories, ATV handlebars, gear bags, various novelties and gifts, tie-downs, goggle accessories, tubes and motorcycle tires accessories and mounts as well as handlebars. For example, the collection of motorcycle tires accessories and tubes are available under the heavy duty and ultra heavy duty ranges. These provide ultimate protection from toughest of trails on account of the natural rubber used. These motorcycle tires tubes are designed to be resistant to all pinches and punctures. In addition, MSR also has interesting ATV motocross accessories such as steel shift levers manufactured by Yamaha Banshee and Kawasaki Bayou as well as Yamaha Bear and Blaster. These are reasonably priced and have tough steel shift levers from MSR. The range of MSR tie-downs are also a favorite with all motocross riding enthusiasts. The MSR Goggle motocross accessories are all the rage and come in black or cyan colors. These goggle bags accommodate roll-off styled goggles easily and the usage of plush fabrics on the insides protect the lenses of goggles. You can store as many as 4 pairs of goggles on the main compartment. The fine-toothed zipper provides protection against dirt and offers a smooth action surface. The usage of ventilation grommets will offer suitable aeration for the goggles inside.

Riding equipment and motocross apparel

MSR is also famous for its amazing collections of motocross apparel that appeal to men and kids alike. Their range of motocross boots for men is available in the MXT 08 and VX ATV as well as VX-1 styles. The motocross boots come in different colors such as black, grey and white etc. Each of these boots has large calf circumferences and comes with genuine leather shell protection. This allows for easy and secure break-ins. Each key point has ergonomically designed and placed plastics which help protect against high impact jolts. The motocross boots also come with cam locking buckles which are easy to use and can accommodate myriad tensions and positions easily and quickly. The embossed bio-foam area inside the calf region comes with smooth padded finishing and inner sole pads. The calf’s exterior is made of high quality suede which is heat resistant and even prevents damage to the bike’s finish. The sole is extremely durable and comes with a steel toe plate. Thus, all of these motocross boots have been designed with the sole purpose of protection, functionality and durability.

Chest protectors

MSR also has introduced a fine collection of chest protectors for adults and kids alike. The chest protector range of motocross apparel for kids comes in exciting colors like black, pink, yellow etc. Each chest protector has a polycarbonate chest and back panel for optimal ventilation and protection.

Bobscycle.com provides an amazing selection of Motocross Apparel such as Motocross Jerseys MX Gear and Motocross Boots

Baseball Is It America’s Favorite Pastime

In case you missed, baseball is considered the national pastime here in the United States. Even after the sport’s recent battles against use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs, baseball has quickly recovered from the fiasco, and the sport’s popularity continues to remain high. Although it was controversially removed out of the summer Olympics, many people rank it as the seventh most popular sport in the world. While it’s popular world-wide, the sport is most popular in the United States, Central and South American, and Eastern Asia.

One interesting aspect of attending baseball games is that every ballpark is different. In contrast with the highly regulated playing fields in other sports, each baseball field is unique from the others. Although the infield of the park must fit specific dimensions, the rest of the field can be configured uniquely.

There are a wide variety of customizations that take place in major league ballparks. The distance required for a home run varies between stadiums, and sometimes one side of the field is further back than the other. Some stadiums have higher fences than others, affecting the likelihood an athletic over-the-field catch. The discrepancy means that statistics aren’t always effective in comparing players. A home run in one stadium may be an easy out in the outfield in a game played at another stadium.

For an avid baseball fan, finding a great ticket is an important part of making the most out of trip to see the big game. Some fans make pilgrimages to history stadiums such as Fenway Park, while others just look to support the local triple-A team, but there’s definitely a strategy to finding the best seats in the ball park.

Some fans’ dream seat would be right behind the fence, down at the home plate. After all, all of the action is right in front of you, and you can watch the plays unfold in front of you in real-time, without needing the aide of the giant scoreboard or a pair of binoculars. If you want to be in the prime seat for watching the ceremonial first pitch, or watching your team trot around the bases after a bottom of the ninth grand slam, then down behind the fence is the premier seat.

However, if you souvenirs are what you’re after, it’s necessary to rethink the seating strategy. Some sports memorabilia collectors carefully pick their spot outside of the stadium, waiting for player to hit a homer out of the ball park. For the purposes of this article, though, we’ll focus our seating strategies inside the field.

When memorabilia collectors expect there to be a souvenir ball sent over the fences, they strategically pick their seat in the park, picking what they consider to be a “hot spot”. This spot depends on which hand the batter uses to swing with. If an easy catch is what you’re after, tough, foul balls are easier to come across. They’ll still have some sentimental value without significantly raising you to another tax bracket.

Baseball continues to be a tremendously popular game for both young and old people alike. For those people of all ages, still looking to live an outlandish childhood dream of playing in the major leagues, experiencing the game from inside the ball park is a great way to live the dream and potential catch a souvenir.

If you are looking for cheap baseball tickets visit MLB Tickets Box for your MLB tickets.

Tennis Mental Training is Just Like Tennis Fitness Training

Why tennis mental training?

You’ve got great looking shots and you can run all day!

You are now all set to win lots of tennis matches right?

Wrong!

It’s always too difficult to concentrate, you never play the way you practice and your opponents always control the match.

Things just don’t work out and getting angry makes things worse.

You know that this is a mental problem but……..

You understand the basics of how and why physical training can aid performance, but you are nowhere near as sure about what to do in terms of your tennis mental training.

You know it’s important but don’t know where to start with putting tennis psychology into your game without complicating it.

Well, tennis mental training is just like tennis fitness training. It has many areas that are important but there are four that stand out as being more important than the others.

Let’s look at them!

Tennis Mental Training vs Tennis Fitness Training

Just like your physical fitness, your tennis mental fitness has four critical components - strength, flexibility, speed and agility.

Strength:

Just as physical fitness is about your ability to provide a strong resistance to outside forces (i.e. the weight you are trying to lift), tennis mental strength is about you being able to provide strong resistance under sometimes high levels of emotional pressure.

Flexibility:

Good physical flexibility allows you to get into many different positions (quickly) to react to what your opponent throws at you, the more mentally flexible you can get will allow you to do the same in a mental sense.

Physical flexibility is all about increasing your range of motion around a joint and mental flexibility is all about increasing your control over a range of emotions around your game.

Speed:

Speed on the court is essential if you want to a) get to lots of balls and b) recover in order to get to the following balls.

Mental speed is needed to mentally move along at pace with the game.

If you are mentally slow then you can never react in time to what is needed on the court at any given time, never mind react and respond to a chain of events.

Agility:

Physical agility is the ability to move, stop & change direction at speed without losing control.

Often this requires recovering from “negative” situations such as when you lose balance.

The same can be said of your mental agility.

The game of tennis requires you to negotiate a wide range of emotional barriers not all of which are easy. In fact it is often the ability to stay “mentally balanced” in times of relative disappointment that separates the champions from the “others” and is therefore a vital part of the “Champions mentality” I often speak about.

There was no greater example of these skills in action than in the “Greatest Tennis Match Ever” - this years’ Wimbledon Men’s final where both Federer and Nadal showed their ability to bounce back from many disappointments and mistakes whilst still keeping themselves highly focused, aggressive and ultimately highly competitive.

In fact the greatest match ever showed possibly the greatest array of mental skills ever – a coincidence??

I think not!!

Paul Gold is a registered Licensed Tennis Coach. He has a Masters degree in Sports Sciences and is a Performance Enhancement Specialist and Speed Agility Quickness trainer. Get your FREE Top 10 Tennis Training Tips at http://www.tennis-training-central.com/tennistrainingtips.html

Learning Speed Handicapping in Greyhound Racing

Speed comes up almost constantly in greyhound handicapping. Why wouldn’t it? Speed is what gets one dog around the track faster than the other 7 dogs. Obviously, if you can figure out which greyhound has the fastest speed, you can pick the winner of any race. But that’s easier said than done. Believe me, learning speed handicapping in greyhound racing can take a lifetime.

I think most of us handicappers start out by looking for dogs with the fastest times in their last races. When we realize that doesn’t work, we may switch to dogs with the fastest “best time” if the program provides that information. Many of them do. But that’s not really a true picture of how fast the dog will run in any race. Even if the conditions and dogs of the “best time” race were exactly the same, there’s no way to tell how fast a dog will run.

The weather might have been different that day. The track might have been soft near the rail or roughed up or particularly hard if the “best time” is a lot faster than the dog’s usual times. Speed is more than just numbers. Speed has to be compared to grade, class and post position. In other words, there’s no way to compare speed between dogs without taking other factors into account.

There are some dogs who are speed demons if they catch a good break, can see the lure throughout the race and don’t get cut off by other dogs. But when they race against dogs who don’t have quite as much speed, but who run the same kind of race whether or not they get the break or can see the lure, these dogs can lose their speed advantage if things don’t go just the way they want them to.

What I mean is that speed only works if the dog also has determination, catches a good break and is able to run where and how it wants. Trying to figure out whether all of this will come together today for this particular dog is the first step to learning speed handicapping in greyhound races.

There are many, many sports betting systems that purport to translate speed figures into a mechanical formula that allows you to compare dogs’ speed ratings between grades, but I’ve never found one that worked. Maybe it’s partly because I’m not big on crunching numbers with a calculator or software when I’m handicapping. But maybe it’s also because you can’t really use prior speed to absolutely calculate today’s speed in a greyhound race.

True, if you look at a race and see that one or two dogs are consistently faster than the other dogs, you’d make a mental note of that as you look at the other factors in today’s race. But you wouldn’t stop right there and play those dogs just because they look fast. You’d keep handicapping and looking for how they’re going to get out, what their running style is and how the other dogs are going to affect them.

So, speed is one factor in greyhound handicapping, of course it is. But learning speed handicapping isn’t the whole secret to winning at the dog track. If it was, we’d all be rich and it wouldn’t take half as long to handicap our programs. Learn to handicap for speed, but then go on to post position, running style, class and the other factors that help you pick winners, quinielas and trifectas.

Get free tips, articles and greyhound handicapping systems at http://ebnetr.com.

How Swimmers Get Their Lean Muscular Bodies

As a physical fitness instructor, when I am meeting potential clients to assess their fitness objectives for the first time, a very common request would be “Can you help me develop a swimmer’s body?” The question seems like a no brainer, don’t you think so? The most logical and simplest answer would be to swim more often, isn’t it?

Really, do you think it just that simple? If that is the case, you will see many people with lean muscular bodies in your neighborhood swimming pools, right?. So why isn’t that the case?

Firstly, we need to know what do my clients mean by getting a swimmer’s body? Is it the body of your local lifeguard or of world class competitive swimmer’s physiques like those of, say, Ian Thorpe? I put my last dollar down that they meant the latter.

Most of you would have seen Ian Thorpe’s superb body shape in swimming competitions or commercials that he is endorsing. Do you really think world class competitive swimmers get their awesomely well toned muscular body by merely swimming? Of course not. The reason for them having such fabulous body shapes are that they include weight training into their exercise program. So their toned muscles are built mostly in the gym and not in the pool.

The perceived misconception about swimmers having well sculpted lean muscular body is that people only see them swim but did not see them working out in a gym.

Yes, swimming is a fantastic exercise and will get some people into shape, but not the body shape of world class competitive swimmers. Now, unknown to most people, although swimming is a fantastic exercise, trying to get a muscularly toned physique through swimming may get you into trouble because swimming only develop the muscles that are used to pull and not to push.

You can swim in any stroke and in any style, your swimming actions are all pulling actions. That means that swimming only develops your pull muscles. This can lead to muscle imbalances. An imbalance in a muscle group will cause the opposite muscle to work too hard, causing pain, loss of strength and endurance in that muscle group. Never thought of it that way, did you?

Now, since the opposing muscles (push muscles) are not being trained, the development of the pull muscles will also hit a plateau pretty quickly since your muscles like to grow and gain strength symmetrically. This is your body’s natural way to protect you from muscle imbalances and will put the swimmer’s improvements to a screeching halt. That is one of the reasons why competitive swimmers have to train with weights not only to strengthen their pull muscles but to develop the push muscles as well.

So you see, competitive swimmers get their muscularly toned body not by swimming training alone but through weight training as well. So if you are one of those who desire to get that fabulous swimmer’s body, then you must include weight training into your swimming program.

Chris Chew is a fitness personal trainer and author of “Burn Fat Build Muscles Fast”. More free articles at his sites at Get Rid Cellulite and How To Gain Weight

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