David Akers gets a kick from new regimen
By Matt Gelb
Inquirer Staff Writer
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - David Akers acknowledged he was embarrassed. The Eagles kicker is a perfectionist. He keeps diligent track of his statistics in practice, games and training camp. That's why his 2-for-10 clip from beyond 40 yards last season made him desperate to change something.
Then one day, while in Dallas during the off-season, Akers saw an infomercial for a new training regimen called P90X.
"I said, you know what, it looks legit because it's not some gimmick," Akers recalled. "It [involves] actually working hard and changing the regimen all the time."
He tried it for the sake of change. He did not intend to lose weight, but he ended up dropping 20 pounds and 6 percent of his body fat.
And his leg feels stronger. He has shown that in camp. Akers, out to prove last season was a fluke, has made two 60-yard field goals, including one yesterday.
"I'd be real happy if I was able to keep this type of power and consistency through the season," Akers said.
Last season, Akers lacked on deep kicks for the first time in his career. For a lifetime 68.1 percent kicker from beyond 40 yards, 2 for 10 was like a slap in the face.
Akers, though, was not overly disappointed with last season. He made every field goal under 40 yards that he attempted (22 for 22). Of the field goals he missed from beyond 40 yards, many were near-impossible kicks, he said. Plus, he was working with a new holder, Sav Rocca, which caused some headaches.
"You don't lose it just like that," Akers said.
The distance was not the problem. A 57-yard attempt in Week 14 against the New York Giants that would have tied the game banged off the right goalpost. He did not think he had a shot at making it from there, anyway.
Still, Akers questioned himself in the off-season. The 33-year-old cannot regain the strength he had as a younger player, but he wanted to do something new.
That's when he saw the infomercial for P90X, which boasts on its Web site that users can "get absolutely ripped in just 90 days."
"I liked it because it really worked a lot with the explosion of the legs," Akers said. "Jumping, cardio aerobic, push-ups, pull-ups, jumping back and forth, it's crazy. Yoga, stretch, tempo . . . it's all kind of mixed into one."
He convinced Eagles trainer Rick Burkholder, who said he lost 30 pounds on the regimen. "And he was standing on a chair doing it at first," Akers said. Burkholder has the injured Eagles doing parts of the training system.
Special-teams coordinator Rory Segrest sees a different Akers, who now weighs 183 pounds.
"He's showing really good leg strength right now," Segrest said. "He's hit them in warm-ups. He's hit them during our team reps."
The first day Akers came to camp, he was playing around with Rocca and long-snapper Jon Dorenbos. He said he nearly hit a 70-yard field goal. That's when he realized that maybe this regimen could pay off.
"There's something to it," Akers said of his new training technique. "It's not like, 'Hey, take this pill, you're going to lose 40 pounds of fat.' You bust your butt. It's tough."
When it comes to reshaping your body, nothing is quite as effective as lifting weights. Cardio is great for your heart, Pilates will help you get stronger, and yoga will balance you out; but nothing compares with a well-designed resistance program for getting lean.
A simple overview of body composition looks like this. At the base is a skeleton that is held together with connective tissues. This encases most of your organs and circulatory system. Muscles surround the structure and enable it to move. Body fat protects the organs and joints. It's all covered by your largest organ, your skin. We're leaving out some obvious functionality but this is basically what makes up your body composition, which determines your shape.
Most weight training is what we call anaerobic. This means, simply, that the intensity it takes to do it exceeds your body's aerobic (oxygen-carrying) capability. Anaerobic training relies on something called the Krebs cycle, which is a process in each cell that puts the body under stress. This stress forces your body to adapt and works nearly every human function we associate with fitness, including your body's aerobic system. So, oddly enough, a well-crafted anaerobic workout program is all the work you need to have a perfectly healthy aerobic system. This is because recovering from anaerobic work requires your aerobic system to work. If you can understand this concept, it will be easy to understand why weight training is so vital.
At low-level outputs, your body burns its stored fat as fuel. At higher outputs, it burns sugars that have been stored in your blood and liver, called blood glycogen. It's important to do both, but targeting fat mobilization as your primary fuel source in your workout makes little sense, unless you're training for endurance sports.
This is, at its most basic, the speed at which your body engine runs while resting. The more fit you are, the higher your metabolic rate is likely to be. Excess muscle on your body takes more energy just to keep it there. Body fat doesn't have the same requirements. In fact, it sort of does the opposite, by gumming up the works and inhibiting the metabolic process. Remember that muscle is there so that the body can move and do stuff. Fat is there to protect the body, especially the organs. It is similar to having a spare tire sitting inside of you. It adds weight and slows you down but does nothing helpful for your metabolism. This means that the most effective way to burn body fat is to add muscle to your frame because it burns fat around the clock. That is precisely what Chalene Johnson's new program will do—and you'll be hearing a lot more about "muscle burns fat" in the coming weeks.
This is especially important to consider if you're highly de-conditioned, because not only do you have more fat on your body than you should, you probably have less muscle. As this ratio comes into balance, the scale may not be dropping, but your body can be making substantial changes. Furthermore, weight training can change your bone density. This does not increase the size of your bones but increases their weight and strength. For this fact alone, it's recommended that everyone add some resistance training into their lifestyle as they age.
"Bulky" (in quotes, because it's a matter of opinion) is a term used for muscles that are larger than normal. These are much harder to get than most of us, especially women, tend to believe. Bodybuilders certainly wish it were a lot easier. But adding excessive muscle takes an almost obsessive amount of work. Due to gravity, our bodies don't like to weigh too much and resist adding muscle. It's easier to add excess fat because not much can be done about overeating. Adding bulk is so difficult that steroids have become a huge societal problem.
For those of you who question why we do Yoga as part of the P90X program, read this.
From AM New York
If football star Tom Brady loves Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga, so will you. "It's great for flexibility, and it's therapeutic," says Brady. In fact, creator Baron Baptiste spent four years as the peak-performance specialist for the Philadelphia Eagles, proving this yoga is perfect for tough guys too.
Instructor Andrew Gray of Big Apple Power Yoga says this combination of poses is geared toward abdominal sculpting and back strengthening. It will keep you toned, balanced and.
1. Eagle Crunches
Wrap your right arm under your left and your right leg over your left in Eagle position. Extend your wrapped up arms over your head and your wrapped up leg long, toes touching the floor. Inhale extend, exhale crunch in bringing elbows to knees. Repeat 10 times. Switch your arms and legs and repeat 10 times.