Happy Holiday's

I wish all of you a restful winter break and hope you get to spend some quality time with your family. My gift to you is no blog for this week and we will only have one more blog for the semester.

Take some time over the break to reflect on what went well this past year. What things were you successful in and where could you use more work? Set your self up for a great 2014 by making a plan to address those areas that need work, by either tackling them head on if they are necessary or letting them go completely if they are not.

See you in the New Year,
Mr. Kirk

How processed are your foods?

Here is a great explanation I found on line about what processed food are, you can find out more at Link: http://betsywild.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/what%e2%80%99s-wrong-with-processed-foods/

Processed foods are foods that have been altered from their natural states in order to extend their shelf life. Foods that come in a box, can, bag or carton are processed. They are often poor quality and usually cheap. About 90% of the money Americans spend on food is used to buy “edible foodlike substances” as Michael Pollen, well-known author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and professor, calls them.

Processed foods have been implicated in most of today’s chronic diseases and health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. What makes processed foods so bad? Many processed foods contain trans fats (or hydrogenated) a dangerous type of fat, which raises the bad cholesterol and lowers the good. Most processed foods are extremely high in salt, which is also not good for the heart and addictive. Have you ever tried to eat just one potato chip?! Another addictive ingredient you'll find in processed foods is high fructose corn syrup, linked to obesity and diabetes. Sugar is burned and turned into energy; high fructose corn syrup turns into fat. Potato chips and French fries often contain Acrylamide, a carcinogenic substance that forms when foods are heated at high temperatures, such as during baking or frying.

Processed foods also contain a lot of additives. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintains a list of over 3,000 chemicals that are added to the processed food supply to add color, stabilize, texturize, preserve, sweeten, thicken, etc. Some of these additives have never been tested for safety and require no government approval. They belong to the FDA's "Generally Recognized as Safe" list.

Some examples of processed foods are

• Canned foods
• Breads and pastas
• Packaged high-calorie snack foods such as chips and candies
• Frozen fish sticks and frozen dinners
• Packaged cakes and cookies
• Boxed meal mixes
• Sugary breakfast cereals
• Processed meats - deli meats, hot dogs, bacon, etc.
• Nutrition bars and shakes

For this weeks post, I want you to think about what you eat on a regular basis and what percentage of your current eating is comprised of processed foods. Use the meals you put on the blog last week and let me know if your current way of eating has :

Very little processed food mostly whole foods
Half processed foods half whole foods
Very little whole foods mostly processed

A Look at Nutrition

You have been working hard all semester in weight training, learning how to move correctly and you have now developed your own program that you will be following for the next several weeks. If you remember back to the beginning of the semester I said there are three things that have to be addressed if you are going to be successful in being as healthy as you can be. Those three things are exercise, lifestyle and nutrition. We have covered the exercise portion and started to address the lifestyle factors by talking about stress and relaxation, we will talk more about sleep in the near future, but for the next few weeks we want to talk about Nutrition.

The quality of your health is directly proportional to the quality of nutrients you provide yourself in the way of food. Garbage in = garbage out. Good quality food in = Good quality health.

We will start by taking a look at what you are currently eating. For this weeks blog, I want you to list for me everything you ate yesterday, including drinks. Be detailed and give me everything including quantities and be sure to include what you drank. 

A Look At Your Progress

This second half of the semester we are going to hand over some of the control of programing your workouts to you and you will begin to set up your program based on your individual goals. For this weeks blog I want you to take a close look at your measurement sheet and analyze your midpoint results. 

Answer the following questions:
1. Are they headed in the direction you expect and want? 
2. Is there anything that surprised you about your results?
3. Is there anything that disappointed you about your results?

Use the information from your midpoint measurements to set realistic goals for each measurement for the second quarter.

I will give you time in class this week to complete this assignment, but expect your measurement sheet to be completed with goals by the end of the week.

Deadlift Form

Take a look at the following video.

I will give you a hint and let you know that his form is pretty bad, but I have seen similar form in several of our classes. If this young man were in your lifting group, how would you help him? Remember when making corrections people can only fix one thing at a time so I want you to prioritize. What are the top three things this athlete needs to do to fix his deadlift form?

For this weeks blog. I want you to list the top three things this young man can do to work on correcting his deadlift form.

What Am I Saying?

I use a lot of teaching cues during class in an effort to get you to move in a certain way. For this weeks blog I am interested in knowing how well you understand the most common cues I use in class. Below are five of the most common cues I use in class, for this weeks blog I want you to tell me what each one means to you. What do you think when I say these things? There is no right or wrong on this. I simply want to check for understanding and see if what I am trying to communicate is getting through.

Like last weeks blog, this one will not post, but will be sent to me first. Remember we have a short week this week, so get your blog done early.

1. Chest out, shoulders back
2. Push your ribcage down.
3. Knees out
4. Brace the core
5. Move through the hip

The Supercompensation Curve

For this weeks blog we are going to take a look at a theory of training that was first introduced by Nikolai Jakowlew in 1976. We are going to do this by trying to interpret the graph above. One of our school initiatives this year is to analyze and interpret complex text. In physical education, charts, graphs and performances can all be considered text.

For this weeks blog, I want you to analyze the graph above an answer the following questions.

Based on what you have learned in weight training so far this year, I want you to explain what this graph means to you and how it can be used to plan your training sessions.

Your comment will not post to the blog this week but will be sent to me so that I can review all of responses before posting at the end of the week.

Choosing Your Program

We have spent the past several weeks learning how to properly perform many fundamental movements. These movements are called fundamental movements because they are fundamental to how you move and work in everyday life. We will continue to work on our skill with these movements in our workouts, but need to take a look at what our goals are and adjust our individual programs to fit with those goals.

We will use adjustments in our sets, reps and load to personalize our program to our individual goals. These next three weeks you will have a choice between three types of set and reps schemes that will address there of the most common goals for people who train with weights.

Muscular Strength - Going after pure strength goals involves lower reps and heavy weight. Remember heavy weight is a relative term and refers to a percentage of the most amount of weight you can lift USING GOOD FORM! once. While as you get stronger there will be some growth in muscle, this approach does not address size and is for individuals who simply want to get strong. An example of a strength workout would be 7 sets of 3 reps.

Muscular Hypertrophy - This is a size gaining program. You will perform more volume with a different range of weights. The sole purpose of this training is to exhaust the muscle and then allow time for the muscle to fully recover before training it again. An example of a hypertrophy set would be 12-10-8-6-4 Reps of a weight that get heavier as you work your way down in reps.

Muscular Endurance - The muscular endurance training program is for individuals who need their muscles to do continuous work over long periods of time.  The focus is less on the weight used and more on the number of repetitions. An example of a muscular endurance training program would be 3 to 4 sets in the 12 to 15 rep range. This is the perfect program for the endurance athlete or the beginner who is still working on mastering the movements and building that strong foundation.

Decide which of the three plans above meet your goals and for this weeks blog let me know which program you are going to follow and why you chose that plan. How is that plan going to help you reach your goals?

Your current fitness level?

By the end of this week we will have completed our fitness testing.  We use several mesures of fitness because fitness is a dynamic thing.  You may be really good in one aspect of fitness but very low in another. Our goal for this class is to build a broad general base of fitness with which you can use to help you in your own specific activities.

It is important to understan that these are initial tests and just give aus a glimps of where we are right now. We can than use these results to guide our work in class.

Taking a look at you fitness testing results, answer the following questions.

1. What results are you most happy about?

2. What areas of your fitness are in need of improvement?

3. Based on these results does you goal stated in the first blog change?

Movement Quality

2nd period doing an upside down Cindy, Impressive!

We have spent a considerable ammount of time focusing on the quality of your movement. For this weeks blog I want to check for your understanding of the importance of quality movement. Answer the following questions to give me an idea of where you are in your understanding.

1. Why is quality movement important?

2. What can result from continuous practice of poor movement quality?

Muscle ID Quiz

This blog is a test of following dorections as well as what you know about the muscles of the body. As we said in class the body has several hundred muscles that control all of our various functions. No one really knows the exact number, but most agree on more than 600! We will focus on 10 muscles or muscle groups in class this semester. Their numbers are listed below the chart. Use the following diagram to name the muscle groups identified by the ten numbers listed below.

#11
#12
#13
#14
#17
#22
#23
#41
#49
#52

Welcome Back!

I hope you had a safe and restful summer but not so restful that you did not get out and move. We will use this blog as a way to support the learning that goes on in class. The blog will be updated every week or so and you will have a week to answer whatever the blog question is, or to comment on a class member response.

For your first blog, I just want to know that you know how to leave a response or comment. Below you will see a hyper link to comment, click on that link and a text box will pop up. You may have to scroll down to see the box. In that box, type your name and one goal that you hope to achieve this semester in weight training. Make sure you leave your name and period in the text box, so that I know to give you credit. Then choose a profile to comment as, if you have a google account you can use that, if not comment as anonymous. Then click publish.  There will be a word verification box type in the letters and hit publish again. Once your comment is published you should be able to see it. If you cannot see it it did not publish.

Let me know in class if you are having problems.

Weight Training Blog #4 Halfway Point

We are at the halfway point in our four week program. I want you to stay focused and see this thing through so that you can reach your goals. What end result of your program can you focus on to help you stay motivated and get your workouts done each day you are in class?

For example, I have a 5k race coming up in a couple of weeks that keeps me motivated to do my runs even on day's that I don't want to. Find one thing you can use to keep you motivated and working hard towards your goal and list it for this weeks blog.

Period 3 Blog #4 Football Plays

For this weeks blog I want you to tell me what play has been the most effective for your team. Describe the play to me and include why you think it has been effective for your team.

Period 3 Blog #3 Football

We have teams and are working on plays, hopefully the weather will cooperate so that we can get some games played.  Each day you will have time to work with your team and practice your plays.

For this weeks blog I want you to find the strengths of your teamates.  List your teammates and one thing they do well.  It may be catching, throwing, running routes, planning plays, short receptions, deep balls, etc. In order to do this blog you need to know the names of everyone on your team. Saying things like the guy with the dark hair will not count.

Blog #3 Weight Training - Program Update

We are one week into our four week program. I have my opinion of how things are going, but I would like to know your's.  For this weeks blog answer the following questions.

1. What are your overall feelings about the four week workout?
2. Do you feel that you and/or your group are using your time effectively?
3. How could you improve the use of your in class time?
4. Are there any changes you need to make to your goals based on one week of workouts?

Badminton Skills

We will be assessing on the following skills this week in badminton.

1. Smash: when the shuttlecock comes to you at a high level in the midcourt area, hitting it aggressively towards the opponent's floor, to finish the rally.
2. Clear: hitting the shuttlecock high to the opponent's backcourt. Clear shots are of two types - defensive clear and attacking clear.
3. Dropshot:  Usually used after a clear (a far shot to the back of the court), is where the player gently taps the birdie over the net so it makes a player either....
a) hit the birdie high up into the air (a good drop shot is one that you can't smash).b)sprint forwards to try and reach.
4. Returning to base:  After hitting a shot you shuld move quickly back to your base position to prepare for your opponents return.

Watch the video above. Notice how the players work together and seem to know where the other player is going to go at all times.  Communication is key and they have a set base point that they return to after each shot.  For this weeks blog I want you answer as a team, I only need on answer for each team. What is going to be your base position in games? Are you going to play front and back or side to side? There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Let me know what you base position is going to be and why.

4 Week Plan

This week we will be working on developing our four week workout plan.  One of our main goals in this class is to instill in you an intrinsic desire to work out so that you can maintain or improve your health. This project will give you an opportunity to work on your own and with that the responsibility to get your work done.  To monitor your progress on this front we wilol use the self and social responsibility rubric given to you in your workout packet.

You will recieve a daily grade based on the first two rows of the rubric. The individual and partner/group sections.  For this weeks blog let me know specifically what you plan to do as it relates to that rubric in order to earn your desired grade for this project over the next four weeks.

A Couple of Definitions

For this weeks blog, I want you to look up the following term.

Muscle Atrophy


Let me know in a sentence or two if you think you experienced any effects of this during your recent break.

Badminton

Badminton is an awesome sport. We can use many of the same skills and tactics we learned in the volleyball unit, just in a different game.

The first tactic we are going to look at this week is creating space on the opponents side of the net. Specific to badminton, I want you to share with me some of the skills you use to create space on the opponents side of the net.

Period 3 Blog #7 Team Handball Questions

Team Handball, like hockey, is an invasion game, so the tactics we used to create space and attack the goal in hockey will carryover into team handball.  We this week we are going to add one new offensive tactic to help us attack the goal and one new defensive tactic to defend our goal.

The offensive tactic will be the give and go and the defensive tactic will be person to person defense. For this weeks blog, please answer the questions below about these two tactics.

Give and Go
1. How does a give and go work to get you open when attacking the goal?

2. What did you do to keep the defender from getting between you and the ball?

3. What does the passer need to do to help make the play a success?

Person To person Defense
1. What is the first thing you want to do in person to person defense?

2. If your player has the ball where should you be positioned at all times?

3. If your player does not have the ball what two things should you be able to see at all times?

Weight Training - Nutrition

Lifting weights is an important step in gaining muscle mass.  Without some sort of progressive overload you will not get stronger, but there are two other components to see the most from you hard work in the weight room that must be addressed if you are to see reach your full potential.  They are sleep/recovery and your nutrition.  We will take a look at sleep and recovery in future posts but this week we are going to start to take a look at nutrition.  Before we go into too much detail lets first look at what we are currently eating.  Take a minute to think back to yesterday.  For this weeks blog, I want you to list for me everything you ate and drank yesterday.  This will give a quick look into your nutritional habits.  You can break it down to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, however many of us skip one or more of those meals each day so you can list it in whatever way makes sense to you.

Period 3 - Team Handball

Watch the introductory video below to get an idea of what team handball is and how it is played.  We will begin our team handball unit this week.  It is classified as an invasion game and as such many of the same tactics that helped you have success in hockey will help in team handball.  For this week blog I want you to list for me one tactic you can use to attack the goal in team handball.

Team Games Blog #5 Hockey

We are well into our hockey unit.  The game of hockey is an invasion game and tactics we learn and use in this unit will be used in all invasion games units.  Look over the following five questions.  I want you to pick two of the five questions to answer based on what we have learned in class.

1. How can two people beat one defender?
2. How can a long pass help you?
3. How can players without the ball help a player who has the ball?
4. How can you make it hard for opponents to recieve the ball?
5. What do short passes do to the defender?

Weight Training Blog #4 The Hip Hinge

We have spent quite a bit of time working on your ability to hinge at the hip when performing many of the lifts we do in class.  If we spend a lot of time on it, it must be important.  For this weeks blog I want you to explain to me why you think the ability to hinge at the hip is so important.  There are many ways to answer this blog, just be sure that your explanation is complete.

Period 3 Blog #4 Game Selection

We are starting our floor hockey unit and we will be getting into teams that we will stay in for the rest of the semester. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Once we are in these teams it will be important for you to work together as a team to improve everyone's ability so that your team can have success.

For this weeks blog I want you to pick which sports you want to see included throughout the semester.  After our two week hockey unit we will have four three week units.  From the list below of possible sports and activities, let me know which would be your top four.

Basketball
Football
Soccer
Ultimate Frisbee
Badminton - doubles
Tennis - doubles
Handball
Softball
Lacrosse
Hockey
Recreation games - kickball, longbase, flickerball, capture the flag etc.

Volleyball Game Play

Watch the clip above and comment on at least two of the prompts below.

• What do the teams do in order to set up the attack?
• Where in relation to the net do you see most of their sets?
• What defensive tactic do they use frequently that we have not introduced in class yet?
• How do their serves differ from ours and why do we not use th same serve?
• How do they support each other in the serve recieve?
• Why is it important to contain the ball on your side of the net off of a serve or a downball?

Weight Training Blog #3 Class Climate

For this weeks blog I want you to think about what kind of environment makes you want to work hard.  I worked with the Volleyball and Softball team a couple of weeks ago after school and we had 40 kids in the weight room hitting a metcon as hard as they could and the energy was so high I wanted to jump in and workout myself.

Your behavior has a direct influance on the climate of the class in either a positive or negative way.  I want you to do two things for this weeks blog.  First tell me what kind of environment makes you want to work hard and secondly tell me what you can do as an individual to help bring about that environment in our class.

Period 3 Volleyball

Our skill level is improving quickly and we will start using that skill in more competitive games.  For this weeks blog please answer the following questions.

1. How do you know it's your ball to play when the ball is coming over the net?

2. How do you attack in volleyball?

3. How does an attack help you win the point in volleyball?

Weight Training Importance of Form

We are getting close to finishing up our starting measurements and are learning how to perform the various lifts.  We spend a lot of time working on form to ensure that we are all performing the lifts correctly.  For this weeks post I want you to tell me three reasons it is important to use proper form at all time when we are performing lifts.

A Fresh Start

Welcome back from the exam break.  The second semester is a fresh start for everyone.  We will use this blog to help support the learning that goes on in class.  For your first blog I want to know that you know how to leave a comment and I also want to know what your main goal for the semester is as it relates to you taking this PE class.  So click on the comment tab below and leave me a comment with your name and your main goal for this semester.

Semester Reflection

Believe it or not the year is over, This will be your last blog. We do not have a final exam in Physical Education. I would like to think the last 18 weeks have been useful to you in some way.  I hope you not only learned proper form on many of the lifts but also the importance of resistance training as it relates to long term health.

A great practice to get in the habit of early in life is that of reflection. When you reflect on things you take a moment to look back and figure out what was good, bad, or just different. This practice will keep you from making the same mistakes over and over and will help you figure out what things work for you as an individual. We are all different and things effect us and work for us in different ways.

For your final blog, I want you to take a moment to really think back throughout the semester and list for me three things you learned or just liked about the semester and three things you did not like or wish you had learned. Feel free to speak your mind. I use this reflection to help plan my future classes