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Q & A: Will You Burn Out Before Your Big Race?
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Q: I train very hard in the spring and summer by cycling mostly on the road, but I seem to peak in mid-July, and then by mid-August, it seems my aerobic capacity simply drops off. I suddenly struggle to keep up with my cycling groups and I tire easily. It’s happened 3 seasons in a row. What's going on and how can I prevent this next year?
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How to Avoid Bogey
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When the game's on the line, do you hit the big shot or fall short? For most of us, the iron lands short, the drive finds the rough and we hit way too many two-putts. You can have the greatest intention not to screw up, but sometimes you can’t help yourself, especially if you have no idea that what you’re continually doing is filled with risk. Joe Rehor, director of golf at Bethpage State Park, knows the common mistakes and how to avoid them:
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4 Shots You Need to Hit Better
Your strokes may be rock solid, sometimes even overpowering, but keep playing the same way, and at a certain point, you’re easier to figure out and defeat. The best antidote is to keep your opponent guessing. The following four shots are underused and will provide the needed unpredictability. Click on the slideshow above to get started.
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Are Pit Crew Members Athletes?
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It wasn’t that long ago that NASCAR drivers were viewed as beer-swilling, cigarette-smoking drivers who gave little thought to fitness. These days, most drivers tend to follow the lead of 50-year-old workout devotee Mark Martin and Carl Edwards, who uses his washboard abs to help perform celebratory backflips off his Ford Fusion after victories.
Piloting a race car at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour for up to five hours takes a huge level of fitness. So too does serving as a member of a pit crew, who must handle some stressful, physically demanding tasks. Not surprisingly, NASCAR crews have begun to recruit former college football players for the duty.
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How to Develop a Better Backhand
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Your backhand may not necessarily be a liability, but it may well lack a certain pop. That’s not an unsolvable problem. Here’s how to bolster the often-attacked wing:
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Last-Minute Prep for the Tees
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Here are a couple pleasant surprises for your golf life: There’s a last minute cancellation and you have 10 minutes until tee time, or you’re finally getting a round on the exclusive course. Both situations would have you excited, but that excitement will do wonders for your score, and not in the good way. Joe Rehor, director of golf at Bethpage State Park, advises on how to calm down, learn the new terrain and shoot a decent score:
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4 Keys to a Better Swim Stroke
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Many would-be triathletes are discouraged by the prospect of tackling an open-water swim, even a modest quarter-mile swim in a sprint triathlon. After all, most everyone can ride a bike and most adults have done some distance running at some point. For those two legs of the event, it’s just a matter of building enough endurance.
Swimming, though an endurance sport, actually is more comparable to golf. In both instances, you’re mastering a series of integrated yet separate motions that collectively make up a single stroke. The key in both sports is to spend most of your time on drills to master a proper, repeatable stroke. Until that happens, you’re merely practicing poor form. Here are some tips for newbie swimmers to channel their inner Michael Phelps:
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"Hitting either slice or topspin will take the pressure off and will force your opponent to have to make decisions about how to handle heavy, high bounces or low, short shots."
—Brad Dancer, University of Illinois men's head tennis coach in "5 Tips to Win a Tiebreaker"
"The biggest determinant of calorie burning is your metabolism. And the biggest factor in that is your lean muscle mass. Build more lean muscle, increase your metabolism. "
— fat loss expert Alwyn Cosgrove in "5 Keys to Fat Loss".
Master the World's Greatest Stretch
Performance specialist Nick Winkelman explains why this is our favorite movement.
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"While alcohol can make you sleepy initially, it should never be used as a sedative because it disrupts your sleep cycles, especially REM. This stage is particularly important to athletes because it’s when you consolidate and commit to long-term memory what you learned during the day."
— from "6 Ways Alcohol Disrupts Performance".
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