Pistorius gets advantage from blade

Oscar Pistorius, who remains in pursuit of qualifying for the Olympics or world championships to compete against able-bodied runners, was studied by two performance researchers writing for the Journal of Applied Physiology.

By Associated Press | Posted: Nov 18, 7:08a ET | Updated: Nov 18, 7:08a ET

LONDON (AP)-The prosthetic legs of double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius give the South African a 10-second advantage over a 400-meter race, according to a new study.

Human performance researchers Peter Weyand of Southern Methodist University and Matthew Bundle of the University of Wyoming found that Pistorius, who has been cleared to compete against able-bodied athletes, runs the distance 10 seconds faster than he would if his prosthetic limbs behaved like normal legs.

Their conclusion will be published Thursday in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

"Pistorius' sprinting mechanics are anomalous, advantageous and directly attributable to how much lighter and springier his artificial limbs are," Weyand said in a statement. "The blades enhance sprint running speeds by 15-30 percent."

Based on tests performed by German professor Gert-Peter Brueggemann, the IAAF banned Pistorius from competing against able-bodied athletes in January 2008, but that was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in May.

The CAS ruling cleared Pistorius to compete at the Beijing Olympics, but he failed to run the required qualifying time of 45.95 seconds. His personal best is 46.25.

After failing to reach the Olympics in Beijing, Pistorius won three gold medals in the 100, 200 and 400 at the Paralympics last September. He also failed to meet the qualified standard ahead of this year's world championships in Berlin.

The 22-year-old Pistorius, known as the "Blade Runner," still hopes to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics.

Weyand and Bundle say that the lightweight blades allow Pistorius "to reposition his limbs 15.7 percent more rapidly than five of the most recent former world-record holders in the 100-meter dash."

"The springy, lightweight blades allow Pistorius to attain the same sprinting speeds while applying 20 percent less ground force than intact-limb runners," the pair found, according to the statement. "The springy blades reduce the muscle forces Pistorius requires for sprinting to less than half of intact-limb levels."

Usain Bolt - 2008 World Athlete of the Year - World Athletics Gala, 23 November (Getty Images)

Lausanne, Switzerland – On Monday 6 July Usain Bolt will be on the campus of IMD, the leading global business school based in Lausanne for a unique event in which he will discuss motivation and how one sustains it through both failures and eventual victory with the business audience in attendance.

The event is intended to enable business leaders to apply lessons in their respective careers from a world-class athlete such as Usain Bolt.

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Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt is the fastest man in human history after setting three World records at the Beijing Olympics last year. Reaching the heights that Bolt attained required motivation, critical thinking and focus. Even more important, it required turning early setbacks into advantages, turning weaknesses into strengths and developing the motivation required of a world champion. These three attributes are lessons that can apply to those working in business.

Play to one’s strengths

If a sports coach hadn’t recognized that Bolt’s special gift was speed when he was young, he might have stopped at being reasonably good at cricket, a sport he had been practicing in his youth. When coaches advised Bolt to concentrate on a 400-meter race, Bolt had enough self-confidence to realize that his strength lay in the 100m dash. The Olympics proved him right. Bolt was cognizant enough in his own abilities that he knew when to accept or ignore feedback.

In business, you often find a heavy emphasis on gap-analysis, encouraging executives to focus on improving their weak points. It is almost always the wrong advice. If you are a great writer, but a terrible speaker, focus on writing even better and get someone else to do the speaking. Often the things we are bad at are the things that we don’t really want to do.. A recipe for success is to do fewer of the things we don’t like, and to concentrate on those that we are good at. I remember a salesman who was spectacular at signing up new clients, but terrible at following through. His boss finally fired him. It was a stupid move. Finding his special talent is extremely difficult, while it is easy to find someone to handle mundane details once the sale is made. His boss should have kept him on the job and hired someone else to handle the administration. You need confidence in yourself, and if you are not the CEO, you need an organization that will support you.

Turn setbacks into strength

After going professional Bolt experienced a series of injuries and setbacks that might have discouraged anyone. However, without these setbacks, he might never have achieved the focus, discipline and pacing required of a champion.

What distinguishes highly successful people is not that they face fewer setbacks. We all face obstacles in our lives. However, successful people have the ability to find a positive framing that allows them to learn from setbacks and use them as a source of motivation. Apple's Steve Jobs likes to tell the story that had he not dropped out of college, the Macintosh would not have been as great a machine. He credits his current success at Apple to having been fired by that company 14 years ago. Facing death helped him focus on what he wanted to achieve in life.

Similarly, what distinguishes highly successful people is not they have no weaknesses. We are all human and are all weak. What distinguishes successful people is their ability to find ways to use their weaknesses to their advantage and to find strengths in themselves that others may not recognize. One of the heroes of the American Civil War was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, an English professor and poet but also a fervent opponent of slavery who felt he couldn't live with himself if he didn't contribute to the war effort. Many of his colleagues felt he was too bookish to lead men into battle and too intellectual to be an effective field commander. But, when put to the test, the fact that he was different gave him credibility with men who mutinied against their more conventional officers. His ability to clearly articulate his vision of what the Union army was fighting for proved to be inspirational to his soldiers. Their valiant defense of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg was an important part of the Union victory. Chamberlain was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Motivation is the key to everything

Bolt had trouble early in his career because he was so much faster than everyone else that he neglected training, ate the wrong food and failed to concentrate. That was enough for local competition, but becoming a world champion required more. The key was motivation.

Motivation is equally important in business, and often as difficult to maintain. Some executives feel passionate about the job, or they feel a responsibility to the people they know in the company. Others want to hold on to the influence that comes with the position. What is the incentive for an executive at a company like Microsoft who has already earned millions to stay at the top of his or her form? Executives who already have everything they want can continue to give maximum effort by not resting on their laurels, but finding new challenges and other means of motivation to always be better. Many sport stars and executives share an intensely competitive spirit to win, which often has nothing to do with accumulating greater wealth.

What about the executive who sees his career at its limit with no prospects for moving further up the ladder, or is working for a company with a flattened management structure? In some situations you may have to work at motivation, just as Bolt did. Even the most routine jobs can be made interesting by turning them into a game. The trick is to treat the component parts of the job as a series of challenges and then to set small goals. It is a question of identifying something that you want to do a little bit better, a little bit different and then working on it incrementally. Usain Bolt is only 22 years old, but he knows the way. He has already been there. You in your job can do the same.

Professor John Weeks for the IAAF

John Weeks is Professor of Organizational Behavior at IMD, the leading global business school based in Switzerland (www.imd.ch). He will take part in an event with Usain Bolt on 6 July 2009 at IMD in which the Olympic gold medallist will share his insights on motivation with a business audience.

After sitting on the couch for two consecutive Olympics, I finally decided to get up and do something more than just think about what could have been. I started my track training around the end of 2006 at California State University Northridge. While training on my own and running some of the drills I learned back when I attended Americus High School, I was recruited to run at LA Valley in Glen Oaks, CA by my current track Coach, Yannick Allain.

At the time I was 33 years old, and just wanted to finally do something with the running talent that I had been dodging all these years. So, being that I had served almost 6 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and attended a community college where I did not participate in athletics, I was eligible to participate in track and field at LA Valley College. By then it was 2007, and we started out with a pretty good 4 x 100 team that would eventually fall apart due to the poor grades of some my teammates. Besides running the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400, I also ran the 100m(11.09), 200m(22.34), and finished 2^nd in the Western State Conference in the 400-meter with a time of 48.52. My fastest time that season in the 400 meter was 48.32, which I ran in the meet prior to beat out my 19 year old rival and teammate Anthony Baker.

After finishing second in the Western State Conference, I took a break and flew to Jamaica to marry my wife, Antoinette. After returning from the wedding in Jamaica, I decided to run in my first National Competition in Orono, Maine (having not practiced in 1 month). It was almost a great end to my season because I finish 3^rd in the 400 meter in that competition (despite running a 49.98), only to find out hours later that I had been disqualified for stepping on the line during the race (just like Wallace Spearman in the 100 meters in the 2008 Beijing Olympics). It was pretty devastating to finish that way with all the people back home supporting me, but I just used it as motivation to train better and harder.

I took the rest of 2007 off and began my training for my 2009 season in late July of 2008. Practices were grueling as usual with the weight room on Tuesdays and Thursdays before track practice and everything from 800 meters down to 50 meters on Mondays and Wednesdays. Start/finish drills, plyo metrics, sand dunes, and long runs in the hills, were just some of the training methods used!

My initial races this year took place at UCLA. They were open meets where you were likely to see the faces of athletes like Shawn Crawford and Allison Felix preparing for their big races by running in these fast college meets. There was no first place finish there for me, but running with these world-class athletes was definitely preparing me for my competition ahead.

I started to track my progress around May 23^rd, 2009, which is when I ran my first Masters Meet (Southern California Striders Meet of Champions in Costa Mesa, CA.). There I won 1^st in the 100m(11.55), 200m(23.32), and 400m(49.40) sprints. The time of 49.4 in the 400m was my fastest time this season, but far from the 48.32 PR (personal record) set in 2007.

My next meet would take place in Aliso Viejo, CA on June 6th. It was the USA Track & Field Southern California Association Championships where again I finished 1^st in the 100m(11.32), 200m(22.59), and 400m(50.50) sprints. Being a little unsatisfied with my 400m results, I decided to participate in another college meet to challenge myself more. This meet was the Oxy Invite, which took place at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. There I finally broke the 49-second barrier I had been experiencing all season by running a 48.99 in my 400m races. I reached my personal goal for that moment by less than .01 of a second, but for me this was a sign that the best was yet to come!

I was scheduled to run again in Aliso Viejo, CA. on June 20^th in the USA Track & Field Regional Masters Championships, but gladly postponed the meet and the 400m sprint due to the birth of my newborn son Kingston Mitchell Spann, (born on June 20^th, 2009 at 4:20pm). With support from both my wife and mother-in–law, I returned to the track on June 21^st to run and win the 200m finals in 22.53 seconds!

Next up, was the 2009 USA Track & Field Masters Championships in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Here I redeemed myself of my 2007 dilemma by finishing second in the 400 meter with the same time that I finished second with in the 2007 Western State Conference (48.55). This was definitely a sign that the best was yet to come! I also won 3rd in the 200m(22.51), and finished 4^th in the 100m(11.13).

NEXT UP, THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS:

I had been planning for this moment since I started training in 2006. I was now 35 years old (on July 20^th), and was eligible to run in the Masters World Champions in Lahti, Finland (July 28^th - Aug 8^th). I had ran a 400m time of 48.55 and finished 2^nd at the Masters Nationals, and dominated all the Masters Meets prior to it. Almost everything was pointing at the World Championships except the fact that I had just become a new parent, had already sacrificed leaving my newborn son to run at the Nationals in Wisconsin, and this World trip would be a great expense. Not to mention my training had suffered because of the lack of sleep with our newborn. So what do I do?

Well, with wanting this dream of competing in a World Championship to become a reality, I pitched the ideal of a birthday party/fund raiser to my wife. Then on my birthday weekend, with the support of family and friends we raised enough money to offset the cost of the trip. So, on August 1^st, 2009, I was headed to Lahti, Finland to compete in the 400m race in my first Masters World Championship competition!

ABOUT THE RACE:

No question, hands down, this race had to be the most stressful, and at the same time most invigorating experience in my lifetime. I definitely have a newfound respect for fellow athletes that compete at this level. After leaving Los Angeles International Airport on Saturday, August 1^st, I arrived in Lahti, Finland on August 2^nd. With a day of rest in between, I was scheduled to run the quarterfinal races on August 4^th. Pacing myself (as not to exert too much energy before the finals), I won my heat by running a 50:0 flat. My Coach keeps it pretty simple in teaching that it’s all about executing your race despite the elements that surround you. Therefore this is exactly what I did. Each race was exactly the same. If you start fast you will finish slow, but if you start slow you will finish slower. With this in mind, after resting all day August 5^th, I won my semi-finals by running a 49:48 in the 400 meter.

August 7^th, 2009 would be my big day. After all the blood, sweat, and tears that I put into my physical training, none of it was good enough to prepare me for what was to come. On August 7^th, 2009, I laid down around 12:15am to sleep and rest myself for the race to come. After lying there for two hours straight with thoughts and images of the race rushing though my head, I realized that I wasn’t going to get any sleep that night! Not to panic, being that my race wasn’t until 5pm that evening I embraced the fact of not sleeping, and posted some videos to my website (www.superfittv.com) for the remainder of the morning. Once done, I headed to breakfast around 9:30am, returning around 10am. With the college dorm being empty at this time, it was a prime opportunity for me to get the much-needed rest to properly prepare for the race. I slept until 3pm. After waking, I went though my standard routine of a rub down with mineral ice, a 30-minute warm-up in the park across the street, and then I changed into my U.S.A. track & field uniform and calmly walked over to the track.

Once I reached the holding area at the track, I changed into my red, white, and blue sprint spikes, ran one practice start out of the blocks, then stood by with the other seven competitors silently awaiting our turn to run our race. Men’s thirty-five 400m, lane four, in the Masters World Championships, I am really here. I stand in my lane awaiting the start commands! RUNNERS TAKE YOUR MARK, GET SET, BANG! Forty eight point one four seconds later, I am a MASTERS WORLD CHAMPION!

Why I Train!

As a little boy one of the few things I remember most about my dad is a set of dumbbells in his room under a chair he'd sometimes use to do bicep curls. Then there was my mom whom I often got to go see, along with her cousin Robin, play softball games that I thought were so exciting. My uncle, her brother, had so many trophies over his fire place from running road races that I just had to get some myself! Well with all this being said, believe it or not but i didn't get physical until my 12th grade year in high school. Nope, I was a band greek! I played the clarinet, and even broke my finger in the 3rd grade just trying to catch a football. I guess what I'm really trying to get at is now that I am a father, I've realized the ultimate, somewhat underlying reason to why I train! It's because I want my kids to train! I want them to have dumbbells in their rooms and I want to go and see them at games, and most of all just like any other proud parent, I want to see them healthy and strong. So, take this attitude on for your child's sake. If your not a parent now, don't wait until you are to start exercising. Have the attitude of do as I do, not just as I say, and the both of you will be well on your way to a more fulfilled and invigorating life experience!

Eat as much as you want!

It's really pretty simple! Now I'm not telling you to go out and eat processed foods, fried foods, or candy all day; but if you make intelligent decisions about what you eat you can have as much of it as you want!

Calorie tracking is the solution to you dilemma (if you have one), as long as you burn more calories than you consume each day, you're losing weight! Burn the same as you consume and you stay the same. And as you probably already figured out, burning less calories than you consume each day MEANS YOUR GAINING WEIGHT. I guess it all depends on your goals! Now the next question is probably along the lines of how do I burn the calories? Well, I have just the answer, check out www.superfittv.com everyday for new and exciting fitness videos to get you on your way.

Boxing for fitness!

A great get away from the normal gym routine is boxing for fitness. I burn as much as 500-700 calories in a one hour session with some of my clients. Men tend to burn more calories than woman but it's still a great workout that everyone loves. The simple jab, cross, hook, and upper cut are all you need to learn. Thrown in a couple of jumping jacks, pushups, and crunches and you have yourself a workout. 

Terrance L. Spann C.P.T.

A.C.E. - American Council on Exercise

www.superfitchallenge.com

Manhattan Beach Sand Dunes!

Early in the morning on Memorial Day, I enjoyed a nice workout in the sand! Sort of like a mix of the sand box when I was little kid and the sand pit when I was in the U.S. Marine Corps! Either way you gotta love it, get some!

www.superfitchallenge.com

Eating on the road or in a rush!

Is it ready that hard to eat healthy when your on the road or in a rush? Well there's an old saying that goes like this "Failing to plan is like planning to fail". With that being said, it sounds like the answer is pretty simple. With today's more health conscious restaurants there is almost always a healthy salad that can be dressed up with a side of grilled salmon and some honey mustard or raspberry vinaigrette dressing! And as far as being in a rush, I personally like to keep dried mango, mixed nuts, and an occasional piece of turkey jerky in my cars glove compartment for those time when I hungry as hell, and don't want to push myself without eating every 2-3 hours a day!

For more healthy eating tips, check out some of our videos at www.superfitchallenge.com

Flip Video!

Is this thing cool or what? Enter to win a free Flip Video today!

www.superfitchallenge.com

The Perfect Push up/Pull up!

Great piece of equipment or not, what do you think?

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