Core Daily
The Performance Life
Mark Verstegen and a team of experts and writers provide useful strategies to perform great, while talking about their own goals and challenges as they practice the Core Performance tenets in their daily lives.
The Performance Life
My New Outlook
by gerlos on flickr.com
Sometimes you find inspiration when you least expect it. After making quite a dramatic change in my life a week and a half ago, I kept looking for a new challenge.
I was considering running track for my college, joining a local men’s soccer team, and even trying out as a pinch runner for our baseball team, all of which seemed like good options.
But nothing gave me that spark of enthusiasm I needed, and it showed in my daily routine: I stopped following my exercise regimen, was falling back into bad eating habits, forgot about my multivitamin, and as a result had no energy and felt sick. I had hit a rough patch.
The Performance Life
Moving on to New Challenges
by philo on flickr.com
This past week, I was forced to make one of the toughest decisions in my life. Because I felt like I was compromising my academic success by playing soccer, which had turned from a stress release to a stress factor over the past weeks, I met with my coach to inform him I would not be playing for the rest of this season. The move, surprisingly and to my happiness, was met with understanding from my teammates and many people I have talked to since my decision.
So what’s next? Physical activity will still be a way for me to clear out my head, as evidenced by the 30-minute run I went on this morning.
The Performance Life
Who's Watching Out for Your Waistline?
The U.S. government has just announced new physical activity guidelines for Americans. If you’re a glutton for reading long federal documents, check out the plan. Otherwise, save yourself the pain—we’ve unscrambled the key facts for you: The government wants you to move more every day.
mrdorkesq on flickr.com
That’s outstanding advice, but here’s the issue: Beyond the idea to get active, this new recommendation provides very little information for you to actually act on. So to help make sense of the senseless, we called in a third party — Athletes’ Performance founder Mark Verstegen.
With Verstegen’s help, we’ve decoded five crazy federal mandates contained in the government’s new guidelines and laid out a rescue plan for overweight America.
1. Uncle Sam says: Shape up with the Chicken Corn Chowder Workout
“Some people like resistance bands because they find them easy to use and put away when they are done. Others prefer weights; you can use common grocery items, such as bags of rice, vegetable or soup cans, or bottled water.” – According to the new government physical activity guidelines.
The Performance Life
Cook Once, Chow for a Week
by christine592 on flickr.com
A few weeks into the school year and I’m starting to get sick of cafeteria food. There aren’t many healthy choices except for the salad and sandwich bars, and I feel like I’ve already exhausted every possible combination on those fronts.
But one of the nice things about my living arrangement this year is that I have a kitchen. So over the weekend, I bought a few groceries – just cheap and healthy staples: Chicken breasts, whole wheat pasta, olive oil, garlic and fresh shallots. I also found out our school has a student-run garden full of vegetables and herbs so I went there and grabbed some tomatoes, peppers, rosemary and basil.
The Performance Life
Regeneration Matters
Image by lngorrr on flickr.com
Six games into the soccer season and we are still unbeaten and currently ranked #11 in the nation. But here’s my dilemma:
School is taking up more and more time and we have not even had tests yet. So I started doing less foam rolling and less stretching to save time.
The Performance Life
The Cruelties of Preseason
by katie@! on flickr.com
It’s been incredibly hot and humid this preseason, but I promised myself I’d learn from last year and foam roll and stretch after every practice, and keep eating all day.
Anyone else have good strategies for surviving practice in the heat?
With help from the specialists on the Core Performance forum, I’ve set up a daily plan for myself.
The Performance Life
Improve Your Quality of Life at Any Age
If you do the simple things savagely well, you may not be able to extend your life, but you can certainly expand your life. To this point, I found a recent article on losing muscle mass interesting, and I've included an excerpt below:
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Daily Quick
"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.
Click here for more videos from our experts.
"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".
Live Better
Play Better
Blogs
One Small Change
6 Ways Alcohol Disrupts Performance
Before you reach for a drink, consider how alcohol affects your muscles, metabolism, and sports performance.
Live Better
Strong Thighs, Healthy Knees
A new study found that strong thighs can decrease the likelihood of painful knee arthritis in women.
The Performance Life
How One Guy Eased Pain and Raised His Golf Game
After waking up in a world of hurt, Jay Lavender decided to finally commit to his health.
News
New Core Performance Book for Women Coming Soon!
Core Performance founder Mark Verstegen and noted author Pete Williams have written a new book specifically for women.
Secrets to Success
Tony Stewart on Taking Charge
NASCAR driver Tony Stewart shares his tips for making the jump from employee to owner.
