Physics and fitness for roller derby

Cross trainer - This made for a great warmup. Honestly I recommend this over jogging or even walking to get your heart rate up. It has practically zero impact on your knees and there’s very little risk of any overextension  Jogging - The fact that my sore knee is usually referred to as a Runner’s knee should give you an idea of how well this was likely to go. After a few minutes the impact of the steps started to take it’s toll and I got a dull ache in my knee. I also found it fairly easy to overextend my knee. Overall not a good exercise, not a particularly mode of transport either really Rowing - I've written about rowing in the past and I think it’s a great piece of High Intensity Interval Training. But how is it when you've got a bad knee? Honestly not so bad. It’s quite low impact but does come with some risk of overextension, especially if you're pushing yourself.  Biking  - After a while biking does leave a small ache in my knee but that’s after a good few miles so overall I’d say it’s a low impact exercise but make sure you set the bike up so you can’t overextend your knees. After trying a few different types of bike I generally felt like the more reclined bikes put less pressure on my knee. Resistance training On to the bulk of our training, we’re finally going to move some weights around!  Leg extension - This exercise is nice and simple - you’re sat down, hook your feet behind the pads and straighten out your legs to work your quadriceps. I’ve seen low weight versions of this recommended to strengthen your knee but with the sort of weight that challenges a skater’s quads it’ll put a lot of strain on the front of your knee though the risk of overextension is  quite low the risk of injury seemed fairly high to me and it left me quite sore and stiff. I'd probably recommend avoiding this if you've got a bad knee Prone leg curl - A decent exercise for your hamstrings with low pressure on the knee but there was a small risk of overextension if you’re not set up right.  Leg press - This seemed to put a medium amount of pressure on the knee, especially at high weight but at low weight there’s a fairly high risk of overextension. So while it’s a nicer exercise to do than a squat with weights you really need to make sure you keep the movement slow and controlled. Squats - The granddaddy of leg exercises. Problem is getting a space on a squat rack or a spare bar and they’re often in the free weight area which is filled with meatheads and smells funny. They’re a great leg exercise for derby but they come with a fair amount of pressure on the knee. Overall I’d recommend everyone does squats and gets used to doing them with good form at a low weight but those of us with bad knees should probably avoid lifting any serious weight. Lunge walks- Hold some weights either side and take a deep lunging step then step through and lunge with the other leg ad infinitum. I quite like lunges for derby, we spend a lot more time than we appreciate on one leg so doing exercises that work each leg individually are really important, Also having evenly strong muscles on both sides reduces your risk of injury. These in particular place a fair amount of pressure on the front of the knee when weighted but are still a really good exercise to do around the house at bodyweight. Lung stepbacks - Similar to the lunge walks except this time you step back into your starting position then repeat with the other leg. Again this is a great exercise for making each leg equally strong, however, these put a lot more strain on my knees than their variation above so  I'd always recommend the lunge walk where space permits. Rotary hip - One of the weirdest looking, least loved machines in the gym-  in fact I'm the only guy I've ever seen use it in my gym  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  But arguably the best machine for strengthening your legs for derby because you can do it on either side and it’s about the closest to an actual skating moting you can get in the gym. Also it requires no bending or straightening of the leg so your knees will be absolutely unaffected but you get to work your hip muscles. I highly recommend this machine to anyone who skates, I do a full round of hip abduction, adduction extension and flexion every time I'm at the gym Calf press - Again another exercise you can do without your knees. By pointing your toes you're engaging just the calf muscles which are the ones that give you that last little push at the end of your stride. If you take a look at speed skaters or your favourite derby player’s legs you'll usually find that they have big calves in relation to the rest of their legs, there’s probably a very good reason for that, don’t neglect your calves.

So a question I get a lot is "which exercises should I be doing for derby?"  Well unfortunately the jury is out in all honesty, there's never been a decent study (to my knowledge) on which exercises help skaters most so I'll try and help by sharing some concepts 1 Roller derby is a sport played on your legs - Primarily you'll want to be working those. Many a guy at the gym skips leg day and if you're serious about skating you never should. Every day should be leg day, even non-gym days. You don't want to become SexyBodyChickenLegs like most gym rats, instead your spirit animal is the Tyrannosaurus Flex - Huge powerful legs and ass, underdeveloped arms, tail for extra balance, Solid core. 2 Your legs aren't just going up and down when you skate -  I see a lot of skaters doing leg pushes, curls and extensions but not everyone works on their hip adductors and abductors (the muscles that make your legs move towards and away from the body) and they're super important for skating, especially crossovers. Get yourself acquainted with the rotary hip machine it's one of the best machines out there to work your legs 3 A bout takes a whole hour - Roller derby is a tiring sport, you can easily get a sweat on after a single jam so needless to say your general fitness and recovery needs to be good enough to keep up with demand. You really never can be too fit. It's also interesting to note that derby is HIIT, it has intervals of very high intensity followed by bits of rest. Your recovery is super important so train accordingly.  4 People are going to try and hit you - They won't be trying to hurt you, they just want you to move for whatever reason. You get hurt. It's important to minimise the risk of injury and the best way of doing this is by making sure your joints are equally strong and flexible. If you've no muscle around your shoulder then needless to say you've got nothing to stabilise that shoulder if you fall or get hit, increasing your risk of injury. Similarly if there's no flexibility in your joint and it gets forcibly moved then it's going to hurt. Well balanced strength and flexibility is important because people who are uneven are significantly more likely to pick up injuries.

Today was my first day back in the gym after a long and lazy Christmas and I could definitely tell. My goal for today was to try and hit all the major muscle groups just to get myself back in the habit of going the gym and to sort of "wake my body up" to exercising again. I did get a bike for Christmas so a lot of my cardio is going to be coming from that and might not get recorded properly but I'm not going to lie I hate cardio so I’m not very good at it. That being said I will be clocking up at least 3 miles on the bike a day commuting to work and back and another 4 miles if I go the gym that day so  hopefully I won't be too bad soon So since it's just after New Year, I was expecting my gym (probably the cheapest in town) to be packed to the rafters a bit like this -   So I went at like 8:30 PM and it was nice and quiet Here's the bare bones of it:    Exercise Reps x Sets(x2 if done unilaterally) @ Weight(lbs)  Back extension 5x5@305* Row  5x5@145 Hip Adduction 10x2x2@295* Hip Abduction 10x2x2@295* Hip Extension 10x2x2@295* Hip Flexion 10x2x2@295* Leg Press 5x3@305 Single Leg Press 10x2x2@155 Lateral Raise 5x5@135 Pec Fly 5x5@190 Abdominal 5x5@130 Arm Curl 5x3@130 Tricep Extension 5x3@120 Rotary torso 5x2x2@100 Calf Press [email protected]* Distanced cycled today ~ 9 miles *=max weight on machine As you can see it's hardly the worlds best thought out exercise plan and I certainly couldn't manage it all again the day after but I think I managed to fit in fairly decent full body workout. By the end of it I was noticeably lagging and couldn't quite get the numbers I probably would have been able to rested. Even though I'd barely used my arms I could tell they were lacking in some glycogen by the time I got round to them, the Rotary Torso was an absolute chore when I usually love it and I only managed a total of 50 reps on the calf press when I always try and hit 100. 

Current record 305lbs - machine max

Current best 7 sets - did almost throw up afterwards though

As you can see I've taken a lot from 5x5 starting strength and tried to change it around to make it more skating orientated. 

Say what you want about America, they've given us some pretty good stuff over the years: jeans, roller derby and most importantly for this post they exalted pancakes from a once a year deal to something that can be eaten every single day. "But what about how grossly unhealthy they are?" I hear you cry. Well fear not, I have a solution for this - the protein pancake First of all we're not going to be making those thick spongy pancakes you're used to seeing on TV, this is going to be thinner and more crêpe like. You will need : flour, protein powder, eggs, some oil and a pinch of salt Mix 50g of flour with 50g of protein powder and a pinch of salt Place in a bowl and leave a little dent in the middle so it looks like a volcano, or a toroid or a donut, or a ring, or whatever analogy you'd prefer. Crack two eggs into the middle hole bit of your geological feature/foodstuff/jewellery/ surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis coplanar with the circle. Add about 50ml of milk and about a tablespoon of oil to the mixture and whisk until it is a thick paste Add more milk until its the desired consistency (I tend to aim for something about as thick as double cream). Your mixture should now have taken on the colour of your protein shake, mine was an awesome shade of pink thanks to my strawberry powder Make the pancakes in a pan as you would any other Unfortunately they won't stay whatever colour they were and will instead go a bit darker than a normal pancake. I'm a huge fan of doing this with the strawberry protein powder as I mentioned before because its just so versatile. Watching Wimbledon? Strawberry and whipped cream pancakes. Feeling amorous? Strawberry pancakes with chocolate on them! "But where the hell does the healthy part come in?" Well flour is pretty much just all carbs and like most people you're probably eating too many carbs and not enough protein (you need about 1gram per lb you weigh) so substituting flour for whey protein is a no brainer. Calorie wise, they're about the same however you'll feel fuller for longer on protein and carbs mixed than you would on just carbs - A 2005 study in "The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" showed that a high protein diet increased satiety and decreased appetite and calorie intake throughout the day. So there you have it. You can boost your protein intake by about 10g per pancake you eat and it'll help stop you snacking throughout the day. Making you a stronger, leaner skater

Irrefutable proof that santa must be real