The Barbell Prescription: The What, Why and How of Weight Training

So much cool stuff happens on campus all day every day. It breaks my heart that I literally don’t have the time to go do and see and hear everything. On Tuesday, I went to a free seminar that was held at Hart House called, “The Barbell Prescription”. You know it’s going to be a good one when you’re already taking notes and salivating over the guest’s credentials. Dr. J Sullivan joined us from Michigan. A former US marine, 3rd degree black belt in Karate, 3rd level Krav Maga practitioner, doctor, researcher… The guy received a $2 million research grant from the NIH… that’s the National Institutes of Health. It’s a big deal. On top of all that, he owns, manages and trains clients at a gym called Grey Steel, for aging adults.
Dr. Jonathon Sullivan
Dr. Jonathon Sullivan Source: greysteel.org
We started off talking about what we considered an “athlete”, how we’d define the word. I learned a little bit about Greek athletes (the word athlete comes from the Greek “athlos” which means contest or feat). Apparently there was an athletic event in the Greek games, “Hoplitodromos”, which was a race in full battle armour. Competitors in the games had to swear an oath to Zeus that they trained for a minimum of 10 months. Awfully specific for so many years ago!

Feature: UC Yoga Club & Upcoming MoveU Events

For this week’s post I interviewed David London, the founder of the University College (UC) Yoga Club. David is a 3rd year undergraduate student studying computer science. He says he founded the club because he had a lot of friends who were interested in doing yoga but couldn’t afford to take a class. Knowing it was something David practised, it was his friends who brought up the idea of starting a club. David says he loved the idea because he wanted to teach but couldn’t do it full time.

Why Would One Strive to Fail?

I didn’t know what to write about this week, but then I went to my Olympic lifting class and the “eureka” moment happened in the strength and conditioning centre (SCC) between sets of clean pulls (literally picking the barbell up two feet off the ground and putting it back down). The reason the SCC intimidates a lot of people is because of the Olympic weight lifters. The SCC even offers OWL-free hours (OWL= Olympic Weight Lifting)! Why be intimidated? Because Olympic lifting tends to come with a lot of noise. Primarily the sound 250 lbs makes when it falls from 5-6 feet up. It’s loud.

You Never Know What You’ll Discover – A Testament to Fitness and Athletics on Campus

Anyone who knows even a little bit about me probably knows that I do Jiu Jitsu. I started practising Shorinji Kan Japanese Jiu Jitsu in September of 2013, when I began my undergraduate degree. I joined the Jiu Jitsu Club at UofT and I've now been the president of for about two years. That decision was the best I've made over the course of my undergraduate career. Let me tell you why.