Weightlifting

Weightlifting is something that has become part of my lifestyle. I've been lifting for about five years now. It's something I look forward to during the day, it's a great way to relive stress and get quality exercise. There are two main types of weightlifting, power lifting and bodybuilding.

Power lifting is solely concerned with increasing functional strength as much as possible. Power lifters do not care much about aesthetics, but it will come with time. They mostly perform compound exercises, that is exercises that use more than one joint (Knees and hips for example). The four essential exercises for power lifting are: Bench press, squat, dead lifts, and cleans. These exercises will add total body density and strength. A power lifting routine generally sticks for low repetitions per set, something around 1-5 reps. This is because 1-3 reps are the most conducive to strength, and 4-6 reps is a good range for adding strength and size. Power lifters also take long rests in between sets. This is because they want their muscles to be fully rested so they can use as much weight as possible for each set. Power lifters may not look as strong as body builders, because they don't focus on "beach muscles", but a power lifter can have incredible strength relative to his size.

Bodybuilding on the other hand is mainly concerned with aesthetics, adding as much lean muscle as possible. Bodybuilders also do compound exercises, but they do many more single joint ones than power lifters do. Unlike power lifters, body builders generally do sets with reps of 8-12 repetitions, as this is best for hypertrophy. They usually have very little rest between sets, usually a minute or even thirty seconds. They don't want to give the muscle a chance to recover, causing it to get cut up. It's also not unusual to see bodybuilders perform multiple exercises without rest, helping the muscle to get ripped. This is seldom seen in power lifting, as it's not too conducive to strength gains. Although bodybuilders will look strong because they have so much lean muscle (and they are strong compared to people who do not lift), you can't compare their strength to a power lifters of the same weight.

I've done both types of training, and I like power lifting a little more. Currently I'm doing a hybrid program that follows power lifting principles for compound lifts and bodybuilding principles for auxiliary lifts. Hopefully this will contribute to a good mix of lean muscle, but with lots of strength. It is important to understand that variety is essential when weight lifting, but the most important thing is nutrition, which i will discuss in another blog.

Several weeks ago a fraternity was suspended at St. John's University, the school I attend. One of the pledges was allegedly subject to severe hazing. I don't believe the fraternity members meant to hurt the pledge this badly, it was probably a joke to them. But the fact is the victim is in the hospital on kidney dialysis, no laughing matter. As a pledge, the victim allegedly had to perform rigorous acts of conditioning such as walking down flights of stairs on his knees, doing push ups with people on his back, hold heavy objects for extended periods of time, and he was also supposedly beaten. Now these acts appear to be criminal in nature, especially the beatings, but there is an important question that must be answered before any legal action can be taken.

That question is if the pledge performed these acts on his own volition, or was once he decided to join this fraternity, was he forced to perform them. The immediate answer in my mind is he acted freely, although some investigation is needed. I say this because two other pledges dropped out on the second of five days of pledging. The victim stayed until the fourth. I don't see any logical reason that the fraternity would force this one person to stay in the fraternity, and allow the others to leave. The victims mother is saying her son felt he would be beaten even if he left the fraternity. It has been made clear that she wants some legal repercussions to follow, and I think she is saying this in order for the suspects to be arrested.

The fact of the matter is we will probably never know what happened. It's hard to blame the school for this, considering all of the acts of hazing took place off of school campus. I'm mostly shocked that the fraternity would subject people to this,even if they treated it as a joke. If the allegations are true this behavior is border line barbaric. I would think young adults would have some sense in them and understanding of the serious consequences that can and did occur. I mean it's not unreasonable to say that another day of pledging could have caused the victim to die. Hopefully this incident will open up people's eyes, namely those belonging to a fraternity, and this form of hazing will end.

As you may have heard, there have been reports of nooses found lieing around or hanging in trees. This is a pretty blatant form of racism in my opinion. It is believed they are being placed around as a response to the jena six case, where six black minors are being charged with attempted murder for beating a white kid. Take whichever stand you want on the case (I personally think attempted murder is a little ridiculous, although some reprimandations should follow), but placing nooses around is simply ignorant.

If you disagree with the case being turned around, from attempted murder to a lesser sentence, that's one thing. The people who think attempted murder is injustice are forming petitions and protests, perhaps the people who think the original sentence is appropriate should do the same. I'm not sure if I agree that persons placing nooses around should be criminally charged, unless it's evident there was intent to follow it up with a form of violence to something to that effect. In any case I would think that this form of idiocy and biogtry wouldn't exist in a supposedly sophisticated society, I guess I was wrong.

I can understand why people are getting upset over the nooses, especially the blacks, whom this form of racism is aimed at. Personally if someone does something that is supposed to offend me because of ethnicity I normally shrug it off and laugh at their stupidity. That's why I don't see a reason to prosecute the noose placers (If someone is inane enough to think this will get their point across, who cares.) but I really do understand why some would want them to be charged.

I'm starting to get sick of my favorite genre of music, rap. All the new music released is essentially the same thing said in a different way. If the song has a good beat the rapper could have any ridiculous nonsensical lyrics, but the song will sell because of the beat. It's really starting to annoy me that most of the newer successful rappers have little lyrical talent and simply rely on catchy phrases. Lil john is a good example of this, on ninety percent of his songs he just repeatedly says: "YEAH, OKAY, WHAT", and has other rappers featured in his song that rap the verses, which are invariably egregious. Yet he's one of the more successful rappers as far as record sales go.

In my opinion the only current main stream rappers that have quality lyrics are Jay-z, The Game, Eminem, and maybe a couple others I can't think of at the moment, but those three are the three best in my opinion. Fifty cent used to have good lyrics, now he's relying on his past success to carry the sales of his newer songs. In the 1990's, you could argue that for the most part rap was intellectually profound. The rap of 2pac and Biggy, who wrote during the 1990's, was a form of poetry that was lyrically genius and some of their songs addressed social issues. You can't even compare the best lyrical song of some of these newer rappers to one of 2pac's weaker songs.

Don't get me wrong, there are quite a few very good lyricists around. It's just that their records don't sell and you don't hear about them. People are ignoring the fact that someone such as Lil John has no talent as a song writer. I'm not sure if it's cause they don't care and just like the beat, or they don't realize that his lyrics are garbage. For me the solution has just been to listen to the older stuff, even though it's old it is so much better than most rap out there now.

I enjoy almost every aspect of MMA, mixed martial arts for those of you that do not know. You may know it as "ufc" (ultimate fighting championship) style martial arts. I love watching MMA and I think it's more entertaining than boxing. Watching it on television has inspired me to train in MMA several days a week and I'm glad i started it. There's so many different things to learn because it's not a traditional martial art that just focuses on stand up fighting or grappling, but rather incorpates the arguably best elements of each martial art into one, hence the term mixed martial arts. The main styles in MMA are boxing, muay thai, wrestling, Brazilian jujitsu, and judo. I personally like the muay thai and wrestling the best, but it's all fun.

Boxing and muay thai are both stand up style martial arts that have little to do with grappling. Boxing obviously is just based around hand fighting, but it's arguably the best type of style for punches. Muay thai is also a stand up style, but it includes four ways of attacking: Fists, elbows, knees, and shins. The muay thai kicks are not intended to strike with the foot, but rather the shin as it's a much harder and dense bone. Muay thai also has a clinch element, something that is broken up quickly in boxing. A muay thai clinch is when the hands are wrapped around an opponents neck and you mainly use your knees and elbows to strike from there, but you can also sweep or trip the person.

Wrestling, jujitsu, and judo on the other hand revolve mostly around grappling and do not have many striking techniques. Wrestling is a great style to take someone to the ground, there are all types of slams and shots you can do. Jujitsu is also good for take downs, but really excels when the person is already on the floor. When on the ground Jujitsu's main goal is a submission lock or choke, something that will break a joint or bone or cause someone to pass out. Judo is good while in the clinch as there are all types of nasty sweeps or throws you can do, such as a hip throw, which essentially tries to flip someone over your hip so they land on their head. Judo is a little impractical because it's best suited for tournaments as it takes advantages of gi fighting, that is fighting with something similar to a karate uniform. However some of the Judo throws can be very damaging with or without a gi.

Overall i really enjoy watching and training in MMA. It's a great form of exercise but more importantly it's fun. I've only been training for about seven or eight months, but hopefully i will continue for a while, the only reason i would stop is because of time constraints.

Last night the NY Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs. This is, of course, sad news for most NY baseball fans (aside from some die hard Met fans). I seldom follow baseball but when the playoffs start and a NY team competing for the world series, I pay attention. The Yankees lost the series four games to one, losing the first two of the series. So what happens now?

For one Steinbrenner, the owner of the Yankees, has said he intends on firing Joe Torre, the Yankees' coach. This can be disputed, but i agree with Steinbrenner. The Yankees have a 200 million dollar roll, fraught with star players at most positions, certainly more than the Cleveland Indians have. So what it comes down to is poor motivation and game time play, which results from poor coaching. Joe Torre has done great things for the Yankees in the past, no doubt about that, but that is the past and as a ulitarian would say, "what has he done for me now?"

Among other things, the Yankees now have to find a capable head coach, one that could turn 200 million dollars into a championship formula. Another problem the Yankees face is that two of their better players, Jorge Pasada and Rivera are both now free agents and able to leave the Yankees if they get a better offer. This would certainly damage the Yankees roster, considering that Rivera is one of the best closing pitchers in baseball. It will be a long and interesting off season for the Yankees, but hopefully things turn around for them.

Halo 3

So, it's finally here, "The Game of All Games," Halo 3. Veteran and novice gamers alike have anticipated this game for three years, ever since the new Microsoft console, Xbox 360, was released. It's here, I bought it, and yes it is the best game of its genre to date (in my opinion of course). The hype surrounding the game was unprecedented, over 1.7 million reserved orders alone, that's not including the countless number of the more casual gamers who will just head to the game store to pick it up when they get the chance. Make no mistake, this is the fasting selling entertainment product ever sold in history, that's right, not just the fastest selling in the video game industry but the entire entertainment industry. And all of this hype and success is a good thing, it's good for the gaming industry, for Microsoft, and of course for all the gamers who finally have a chance to play it.

However there is something rather troubling about the release of Halo. And that is the way in which some people are responding. People have camped out for days in an attempt to be the person to own the first Halo 3 copy. Grown men are taking days off from work simply get in some extra hours of game time. Students are missing school to play this, and worst of all their parents allow it! I mean this is a real life caricature of society's priorities. I enjoy playing Halo as much as anyone, but come on now you have to draw the line somewhere, it is after all just a game. I don't know about you, but I think it's damn ridiculous to play a game over going to work or school.

I hate MTV. Labeling this station, "Music Television", is as hypocritical as the most blatant oxy-moron ("Living-dead" comes to mind). What happened to the times where MTV would play hours upon hours of music video marathons? I don't know why but for some reason MTV has succumb to the reality T.V. phase that has swept many television stations, and I for one am not pleased with it. It's not so bad if a station has gone from showing sitcoms or something to airing reality shows, but when your station is named Music Television, you have a problem. But MTV had a chance to redeem itself.

Several years ago they announced a new, 'Music television' station, one that would actually play music twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. This was called MTV2, and for a while it actually did play music all day every day, as it promised. But as time passed it slowly but surely transitioned itself into a reality based T.V. network. I guess showing videos just isn't profitable enough for them, I can't see any other reason for them to not show music.

Okay fine, so they want to air reality T.V. all day instead of music, at least make it good reality shows! Every reality show is the same thing recycled, it's either some eccentric dating show or one that follows the lives of several wealthy people as they face, you know, the hardships of life that result from belonging to America's upper class... right. At the very least MTV should change its station's name to something along the lines of, "Second rate reality show television". Of course the best thing to do is to just bring back the music, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.