Piaad 3 Basketball

Archive for February, 2010

I used to own one of those big pulley system weight machines. It cost me a couple of thousand dollars and was really good quality. I sold it on Ebay for $150 last year.

Now I use low cost equipment and get heaps better results. I can go outside and train, or I can train in front of the television. I can train in the living room and watch the kids at the same time. Or I can pack it all up and take it to the park and train with friends and clients in a different setting. No longer am I stuck in the study. And as I said, the results have been amazing. So what do I use?

First off I would recommend a good set of adjustable dumbbells. You know the ones where you can add or remove weight plates as required. I actually have a couple of sets. One I keep quite heavy for use with leg exercises and one set that I change around a lot more depending on what exercises I am doing. These will probably be your most expensive purchase, but you will use them over and over. There are so many different ways to use them and you can easily work your whole body in any number of ways. Almost any exercise can be done with a set of dumbbells.

Another piece of fitness equipment I use a lot are my medicine balls. There are so many different ways to use medicine balls too. You can get them quite cheap at large sporting goods stores or from the internet. I use a 4kg one and a 6 kg one. I use these in every session with my Personal Training clients and Bootcamps too. They are great to use on your own or for partner work.

One of my most used pieces of equipment is a step. I had a friend build me one from some timber he had laying around. It is about 12 inches high and wide and about 4 foot long. Clients can get on either end of it and step up and down together. It is amazing how much harder they can go with someone else to keep up with. The step combines well with the dumbbells or the medicine ball for step ups, step downs, sideways step ups, lungeing off the box or onto the box or even dips off the side. You can also jump on and off the box or even use it to do push ups with. Put your hands on it to make them easier, or your feet to make it harder. Clients that find it hard to get up and down from the floor, can even do ab exercises on it and it doubles as a bench as well. To improve fitness, a step is invaluable.

Another cheap piece of fitness equipment is the humble skipping rope. Uses are obvious and you will be surprised how hard it is if you haven’t tried it lately. If you persist though, you will improve your fitness really quickly with regular jump rope sessions and they are great for weight loss too.

There are many other inexpensive items to include in your home gym set up. These can include resistance bands which are great to take on holidays and yoga type mats which come in real handy when training outside on hard surfaces. Kettlebells are a great item to have, but they can be quite expensive so search around for them. There are many suppliers on the net. I use them a lot in my training sessions and my clients love them too. There are many kettlebell exercises for either strength development, endurance improvement or fat burning, and they work really, really well.

These are just some of the inexpensive ways to equip your home gym. Don’t be fooled into thinking you need an expensive pinloaded weight machine. All of my clients, not to mention myself, have fantastic results without them.

The Phoenix Suns came to the top of NBA Power Rankings this week by playing strong on road including handling the Celtics their first loss the season on Friday.

Five of Suns’ seven games have been on the road in their remarkable 6-1 season opening, who made Boston look like a bad defensive team.

The Celtics were one place down to second with a 7-1 record. Playing eight games in 12 days. Tired legs affected the defense and the three-point shooting.

The Lakers were one place up to third with Kobe Bryant leading the league in scoring again. Lakers are surviving without Pau Gasol, needing overtimes to win in Oklahoma and Houston this week.

The heat also climbed one place up, joining the Nuggets on the list of teams we didn’t think could have a better season than they did last year. But they’ve got a top-five defense and Dwyane Wade hasn’t had to carry as big of a load.



With half the league looking pretty good and half the League looking pretty bad here’s your NBA Power Rankings:

1. Los Angeles Lakers (4) – Kobe is giving me flashbacks of 2005-06 but I snap out of it when the 40 point game ends in a victory.

2. Boston Celtics (1) – If you want to stay in the top spot you can’t drop your only home game against your only legitimate opponent in the week.

3. Orlando Magic (3) – Blowout in OKC is a head-scratcher, if “the deepest team in the NBA” can’t play better a few people short when the Cavs visit on Wednesday they will be sure to drop–win over the Suns is keeping them afloat.

4. Phoenix Suns (12) – 3-1 with one game left on Eastern Conference road trip, team couldn’t have asked for anything more and they couldn’t be shooting any better from deep.

5. Miami Heat (9) – Quentin Richardson is in the best shape of his life and he is playing great D in addition to outstanding three point shooting—when will be the first game Wade doesn’t lead the team in scoring?

6. Denver Nuggets (2) – Back-to-back road losses hurt, this team is very happy to bring J.R. Smith back but they might be having fears about the Friday the 13th meeting with the Lakers.

7. Dallas Mavericks (7) – The team went 2-1 against three quality opponents, Dirk is in the top five for MVP voting at this point in the season.

8. Atlanta Hawks (8) – Small ball works, the Hawks have done a great job of integrating Crawford in the lineup and Josh Smith realized how difficult he can be to guard in the post.

9. Cleveland Cavaliers (6) – After a four day break, the Cavs will face Orlando and Miami back-to-back, right now splitting would be considered a victory.



10. Houston Rockets (13) – Taking the Lakers to OT is very impressive, Houston is the junkyard dog of the NBA and nobody is excited to face them.

11. Portland Trail Blazers (10) – Win over the Spurs was important for moral, Portland is in a great position to run-off four road wins before entering Atlanta.

12. San Antonio Spurs (5) – Will have to beat Houston this week if they want to get back in the top 10, I understand Pop doesn’t want to wear his guys out but he’s not giving his stars enough PT to win.

13. Toronto Raptors (15) – The Bosh-Bargnani combo is a difficult guard for almost any team in the League, and that’s before you have to worry about the size of Turkoglu.

14. Chicago Bulls (16) – A strong week has the Chi at the top of their division, Tyrus Thomas is out for a while but Luol Deng is playing the best basketball of his life.

15. Oklahoma City Thunder (17) – Beating the teams they should is a good start, beating the Magic at home goes a long way, Durant, Westbrook, and Co. can go 3-1 over the next week.

16. Utah Jazz (14) – Sure they beat the Spurs but they lost to Dallas and now Sacramento, have fun on your road trip.

17. Detroit Pistons (21) – Beating Orlando and Philly in the same week earns them some respect, are the injuries to Rip Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince real?

18. Philadelphia 76ers (18) – They haven’t beaten a team who’s better than them yet, in fact, they almost lost to the Nets.

19. New Orleans Hornets (19) – Beating Dallas was a nice sign of life but their aren’t many easy wins on the horizon.

20. Charlotte Bobcats (24) – Raja Bell’s return sparked a few needed wins, this team is twice as good at home as they are on the road.

21. Indiana Pacers (22) – After the next two weeks this team should be sitting above .500, they aren’t ready for the playoffs but they are better than people think.

22. Los Angeles Clippers (23) – Three-game streak has Chris Kaman looking like an All-Star, but don’t be fooled they were playing Minnesota, Golden State, and Memphis.

23. Milwaukee Bucks (20) – Brandon Jennings showed New York the mistake they made when they drafted Jordan Hill over him.

24. Washington Wizards (11) – A four-loss week hurts, Gilbert is scoring but he isn’t taking over like he did before the injury.

25. Sacramento Kings (27) – Down goes Kevin Martin (surprise, surprise) and Tyreke Evans is ready to battle Jennings for the ROY, 55 points in two games is a good start.

26. Golden State Warriors (25) – How long till Don Nelson starts going crazy with his roster?  If Morrow isn’t starting by the end of November I’m starting a petition.

27. Memphis Grizzlies (28) – Saying goodbye to A.I. could be best for the team, now if they could only find a way to chase off Z-RO.

28. New York Knicks (26) – This team is sorry, sad, and ugly.  I hope 2010 is worth it because basketball is dying in New York.

29. Minnesota Timberwolves (29) – Is everyone aware that Olesksiy Pecherov is starting in Minnesota?  You know, the 7-footer born in Donestsk, USSR?  No?  Anybody?



30. New Jersey Nets (30) – John Wall would be my pick, especially if Harris is going to get hurt once a month.  If not maybe Ed Davis or Derrick Favors would be an attractive post to pair with LeBron.

In this article we are going to take a look at how to bet the NCAA Tournament and hopefully win with your brackets this year. First off, for the novices out there, betting against the spread and the points total are the two main forms of collage basketball betting. Making these types of wagers will give you the best chance of winning on a consistent basis.

When the first round of the tournament starts this is your best chance of winning your bets. For example, a #1 vs. #16 seed or a #2 vs. #15 seed can be prime bets for the spread. The listed spread in these games average between 20 to 30 points. The #1 and #2 seeds 95% of the time win the game but the spread at the end can be smaller because since it is a blow-out and half way through the second half the coachs pull out all the starters and put in the bench warmers to finish the game.

Another fun way to bet the NCAA Tournament is to make futures wager on who you think is going to win the whole thing. Most online sportsbooks provide players with this option. For example, UCLA is currently the favorite to win the NCAA Tournament in Las Vegas. The Bruins are listed ar 7-2 odds. This means that a wager of $100 dollars will pay 3.5X if the Bruins go on to win it all. We like to look for a little bit more value with these futures wagers as rarely does the favorite come through. For example, Tennessee os having a great year and is listed at 12-1 odds. If your small wager comes through on the Vols, you’re going to have quite the nice little payday.

Most popular way to celebrate March Madness is to get involved in your Office Pool and determind who will survive by picking each game starting with the opening rounds all the way through the championship game. Monday morning every person cut out the brackets from their sports section. Everybody involved puts in $20. The person with the most wins by the end of the tournament wins the pool. The first teams that you need to look at that are the “Fraud Teams”, these teams will go out eary. For example the #1 “Fraud Team” this year is Duke. They were seeded at 2 when they really should be no higher than a 4 seed. Next teams you look at are the “Chalk Teams” the teams that are expected to win and win by the spread. For example, all your #1 seeded teams in each region are going up against the #16 seed team, no #16 seed team has ever beaten a #1 seed. Then work your brackets from their. Keep an I on the games that have the #12, #13 and #14 seeded teams involved, these are prime upset picks.

Good luck and have fun this March. For more tips to help you make your selections in the Big Dance this year.