Replace Your Cardio Exercise with Basketball.

September 18, 2008 · Posted in Exercise, Health and Fitness, Home Life, Men, Men At Home, Sports · Comment 

Cardiovascular exercise is a necessity in order to obtain bodybuilding success, as well as general health and mental clarity. For most people, it is the most despised and least successful part of the bodybuilding routine. This is due to the tedious and never ending nature of sitting on a machine for hours and hours without the somewhat immediate results. But most people don’t know that cardio doesn’t have to be as tedious and uneventful as it is, and also that it can be done outdoors. Perhaps these people should get off of the exercise bike and go outside to lose weight while playing basketball! Basketball is liked amongst all age brackets. It can be played with one player, two players, or even ten players with two separate teams. You can determine both the pace and the intensity of the game. And with a little planning, basketball can be used to supplement and improve your cardiovascular exercise.

Be Healthy

Basketball is an excellent work out for the cardiovascular system. If you are playing by yourself, you can shoot some baskets, try to get rebounds, or just run with the ball up and down the court practicing lay-ups. Any of these activities will definitely keep your heart rate going and cause it to improve. Being exposed to the sun will help your skin develop a tan as well as absorb Vitamin D. Your mind will feel better from the break from the boringness of the exercise bike. The competitive spirit inside you will feel great from the accomplishment that comes when you make a tricky shot or get a tough rebound. And let’s not forget that all of this also increases your metabolism, which means that you’re going to lose body fat, and oxygen will be better carried to your heart, brain, and other systems, which is the ultimate goal of cardio for health.

Be Careful

The time spent on the court having achieved an accelerated heart rate needs to be the same amount of time usually spent on the stationary bike. Basketball can be a great tool for fitness, but a few minutes of arbitrarily shooting hoops isn’t going to benefit your health. While playing, the time needs to be spent running, jumping, shooting, and rebounding for an amount of time between a half an hour and an hour in order to get the cardiovascular benefits involved in bodybuilding. So if you enjoy doing it so much that you’re playing for three hours a day and overdoing it, a noticeable hunk of muscle mass is going to get burned off. So remember that all good things are to be consumed in moderation. Basketball is considered a high impact sport, so also be careful making the change from low impact exercises such as elliptical machines. It can also be tough on the knee joints due to all of the fast changes in direction.

So if you love to be healthy and in shape but are tired of the usual bore of the average gym, replace your cardio with basketball and see what can happen!

About the Author
Dane Fletcher is the world-wide authority on bodybuilding and steroids. He has coached countless athletes all over the world. To read more of his work, please visit either http://www.BodybuildingToday.com or http://www.SteroidsToday.com


Winning at Fantasy Sports.

September 3, 2008 · Posted in Fantasy Sports, Men, Men At Home, Sports · Comment 

Winning fantasy sports can be easy, but it takes time and preparation. There are certain steps that need to be taken before your draft even starts.

The very first thing you should do to begin preparing is to come up with a depth chart of every team in the league. This should probably be done right before pre season starts. I would also recommend writing this yourself and not just printing it out so that you become familiar with the teams and their new additions and subtractions.

The next step may be one of the most important because it will affect all of your results. You need to check the settings of your league. You have to see what stat categories are worth points and how much of a value they have. You have to check to see what positions you need to draft and how many. This seems simple but most people never bother to check this and they think that players are good in any league no matter what. Well Reggie Bush is not nearly as valuable if the league does not count receptions. Ryan Howard is not as valuable in leagues that count strikeouts against you.

Now is where the work comes in. You have to go position by position and player by player and project how they will do in the upcoming season. You will be looking at the stat categories provided in the settings and only these categories because anything else is meaningless. If a pitcher gets a lot of losses it wont matter in most leagues because they usually don’t count against you.

You can come to a reasonable projection on players by looking at their past 3 years stats as well as taking into account any changes in the offseason that may affect the players stats. Some examples of this are being traded to another team, a big player being traded to his team, an injury, a key player on his team getting injured.

After you have finished projecting each player, you have to rank each player by position. To rank a player you have to come up with a value for each stat category. You would add up all the stat category values and come up with a grand total for each player.

Another very important part of preparing that most people do not do is to put the players into tiers. You look at your rankings and group players into their similar values. This is important because you do not want to draft a player when there are four or five players right behind him who give you around the same value. On the flip side you will also know when this is the last player left at this value. You can say to yourself, if I don’t draft this guy the next player is going to be a big downgrade.

You are now set for the draft, but after the draft your research will still be valuable. You will be able to match up trades based on your values of each player. I would also suggest sticking with your values to at least half way through the season maybe more especially with proven players. Most people in fantasy baseball give up on their players way to early. Baseball is a long season and sometimes players don’t start out great, but in the long run proven players will come close to their career numbers.

For more on how to win fantasy sports, depth charts, and player rankings. Check out http://www.winningfantasysports.synthasite.com