For all of you snow showelers out there, here is a Harvard Health article on how to do it safely! It looks similar to idad’s tips - he is our snow shoveling guru!
http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/protect-your-heart-when-shoveling-snow-201101151153
iDad is our guru PERIOD!
Couldn’t face the cold this morning or even get out of bed in time to do my planned run, but I did get in 2.3 miles on the treadmill before work. May try to get outside with the headlamp after work since it should be in the low 40s.
SI had an article a few weeks ago with more depth in Brady’s program to stay young forever:
http://www.si.com/nfl/2014/12/10/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-age-fitness
My daughter & her BF use bands.
They also have a set of weights, but the bands allow them to work out at the same time and trade off.
http://greatist.com/fitness/resistance-band-exercises
ohiopublic:
I’ve been interested, but haven’t really seen much detail on the workouts at Guerrero’s TB12 facility. The buzzwords, especially “prehab”, are the lingo of the whole approach that is now common in pro sports – the stuff of Mike Boyle, the Functional Movement Screen people, and so forth. When I get glimpses of Patriots warm ups and workouts here locally, I see the same stuff that I have cribbed from these guys.
The “prehab” stuff is essentially replacing static stretching with exercises that actively move the major joints of the body – instead of a stretch and hold, an exercise that moves the joint through its full range of motion repeatedly with mild loads.
In this context, the bands are not used as resistance (a substitute for weights), but as a way of getting certain muscles to fire during these prehab movements. A perfect example are mini-band monster walks. The idea isn’t to use big heavy resistance bands, but to use minor resistance from a band to get the hip muscles to work. Same thing doing squats with a band around the knees. I suspect that this is the stuff Brady is doing.
I also think (know) that Brady does some power exercises with bands: for example, coming out of the blocks on a 40 yard dash type drill against the resistance of a long stretch band harness. A way of improving the ability to generate power into the ground.
Here’s an example in a video with Pats Strength and Conditioning coach Harold Nash:
The x-walks in this video are awesome. I’ve been doing a Mike Boyle variation on these as a part of my warmup for a coulple of years. They work the hips like nothing else.
I was wrong. Not sore at all from snow shovelling. Just an all-over “good workout yesterday” feeling. Much of my snow shovelling is actually more like pushing a weighted sled.
Saw photos of a friend in the Boston area who shoveled out BOTH cars in his driveway, making nice neat lanes with room to back up in. He must be in great shape to have moved a couple tons of snow!
Bought DH the 5 lb. weights for his birthday coming up. He can stop laughing at mine and do some work on his own self. 
Edit: Meant to comment on the x-band walk. It seems similar to the sideways walk I do with a band just around my lower legs? It’s a good exercise.
“iDad is our guru PERIOD!”
Amen. 
Yes. Same exercise, The additional loading from holding the bands fires the hips even more.
The big-x version I do takes it even further by extending the arms. I do it more with the arms straight out to the sides instead of overhead as in this video. Either way, it engages just about every muscle in the body:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TafdT6Qn3SM
Here’s my version, done with a mini-band around the ankles and two exercise bands to the hands. It looks so simple, but it’s amazing how tiring it is.
Wondering how PlantMom is doing and how her ankle (?) injury is healing…
Shoveling the sacred ground:
I saw that! Very cool.
Apropos of warming up and stretching, what is both interesting and perhaps counter-intuitive, is that there is no solid evidence that pre-activity stretching does any good what-so-ever in reducing activity based injuries or to enhance performance. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that pre-event static stretching can cause a degradation of performance because the resultant increase in muscle fiber length weakens contractile force. Also, static or more ballistic stretching of muscles that are not warmed up can result in injury producing micro-tears. Most of the literature recommends pre-event or activity dynamic warm ups consisting of light load movements that simulate or replicate the movement patterns that will be engaged in during the activity. This seems to be the most effective way to use a “warm up” to avoid injuries during the activity and to also facilitate performance enhancing neuro-muscular patterning.
On another note, I think I have taken leave of my senses. Just signed up to ride the Hell of Hunterdon bike event on March 21. 82 miles of back-country roads with 5700 feet of climbing in Hunterdon County New Jersey. About 15% of the course consists of gravel or hard packed roads. Signed up to do it with a number of my racer friends and the general consensus is that there must be something wrong with the way our brain synapses are firing for us to be so excited about riding an event that we know we will be so under-trained for, coming out of our mostly indoor training winter training mode. Here’s the website for anyone interested in what makes cycling lunatics tick. http://hellofhunterdon.com
I didn’t find much in the way of Tom Brady workouts, but I did come across a YouTube of Gisele Bundchen doing some very impressive planks on Jimmy Fallon:
That looks a bit fancier than my planks 
Hey you hikers out there, we don’t likely need a study to tell us this, but hiking makes you happier, scientists say 
http://www.outsideonline.com/news-from-the-field/Study-Hiking-Makes-You-Happier.html
Even though my morning nature treks are quite short, I do find this to be true!
Dog walks work too!
Ah, Gisele. Now if my parents had only named me Gisele, I’m sure all of that would come naturally to me as well.
Yesterday I did an hour of Pilates and then tortured myself on the treadmill for 5 and change. It looks like my work schedule will be changing yet again which doesn’t thrill me.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com//2015/01/28/how-weight-training-can-help-you-keep-the-weight-off/
Times had yet another article yesterday on the benefits of weight training. Limited short term study that only allowed participants 800 calories a day (!). Women either didn’t exercise, did cardiovascular exercise, or weight trained. What the study demonstrated was that women who weight trained showed an increase in their levels of N.E.A.T. (a measure of how much energy people use to stand, fidget, walk to the car and otherwise move around without formally exercising) - hence it was easier for them to maintain the weight loss.
I’m really trying with the strength training.
Sabaray, I don’t think there is any question that strength training plays an important role in a weight loss and maintenance program. It raises your metabolism and keeps it elevated for a period of time after the session, it builds lean muscle tissue which itself raises your metabolic rate and helps prevent loss of muscle tissue during the weight loss process which otherwise occurs. It helps you alter your body composition to reduce fat % and increase % lean muscle tissue so that you look healthier, move and feel better outside of any wright loss. Stick with your strength training. In conjunction with a well structured nutrition plan and your cardio, you will see and feel a difference!
That study, though, as reported in the article, I think would “raise more eyebrows” then provide good science to support its conclusions. Limited test population, women only, 800 calories a day starvation level diets, no real longitudinal follow up after the restricted diet ended. What was also confusing was what kind of nutrition plan the participants were put on after the diet. As reported in the article, some were put on an “energy balanced” diet and others were put on a diet where they neither " gained" nor “lost” weight. Is there a difference?
I grew up in the old school way of static before workout, so it has been kind of hard to change the old ways. I’ve often wondered about the age of the test subjects in these static stretching tests? Young, old, athlete, body type, etc. It seems like all of those different variables might have an impact?
I keep thinking that an older body might benefit more from static before the workout? I spend a lot of time with dynamic then progress to static in my pre-run routine. I have stayed relatively injury-free as it relates to muscle issues.
Of course I cringe at some of the old school ways we used to follow from some of our coaches: salt tablets, no water, don’t eat before you run, run through your shin splint pain, etc.
Most of the studies involving the benefits and effects of stretching have involved college students/athletes 'cause it’s the universities that have the $ and ready made populations for the studies. With regard to age, older people have less elasticity and extensibility in the muscles and tendons making the nature of their warm ups even more important than with youth. The current predominant view among fitness industry professionals and exercise related scientists is to engage in a dynamic warm up that is movement based before the activity to facilitate blood flow and raise the temperature within the muscle tissue. “Cold” static stretching does neither of these very effectively, doesn’t prepare a person very well for the activity to follow and increases the opportunity for injury from the stretch itself. Cold static stretching triggers the “stretch reflex” (where your muscle involuntarily contracts in response to the stretch) more than static stretching after the activity where your muscle is fully warmed up. This is particularly so in older people who are already at at disadvantage because of age related elasticity and extensibility losses. Static stretching has a role in post exercise/post activity cool downs at which point the muscle tissue is at its peak for blood flow, “operating temperature” etc and can be effective to ease muscle tension and muscle fiber shortening from the contractile actions the muscle had been undergoing. So dynamic, movement based warm ups pre-activity and static post-activity. The type of dynamic warm up you want to do depends on the activity in which you are going to engage but the more it simulates a low load movement pattern similar to the activity, the more effective it will be.