Here's Hoping Someday, May Will Mean More Basketball In The Rose City
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For eight teams in the NBA, this time of May is a celebration of excellence. Teams, even those on the cusp of elimination like the Warriors and Knicks, are receiving high praise for competing for spots in their respective Conference Finals. For an excellent team like the San Antonio Spurs, the month of May is nothing special. Spurs fans expect to make it to the second round, and the team always delivers.
For the Portland Trail Blazers, the month of May is officially vacation season. It's been thirteen years since the Blazers have emerged victorious from the first round of the playoffs. These long years have been bittersweet for the team's fans. The month of May sure has been tough for me.
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The Portland Trail Blazers tripped, crawled, and skidded their way to a 33-46 record to close out the 2012-13 campaign, losing twice as many games as they won since the all-star break. While wholesale changes may or may not be necessary, the Blazers' efforts and lack of success this season absolutely raised some eyebrows around the league, and assuredly in the Rose City, where fans are still tormented and teased by the memory of the 1977 team, a team anyone under the age of 36 was not around to see..jpg "Image Courtesy The Oregonian")
The Portland Trail Blazers sit wedged between two warring NBA cities.
As someone that has been in the gym regularly for the past 20 years as a bodybuilder, trainer, club owner and also an “observer”, it truly surprises me how few trainees take advantage of the many varied angles, grips and planes of motion we have at our disposal to target our muscles. One of the fastest routes to stagnation, when it comes to hypertrophy (muscle growth), is to continually to do the same things over and over again. This may not occur in the very beginning, but after you have been toiling away in the gym for a few years, believe me when I tell you that your muscles and nervous system will become quite resilient at not responding to the exercises you expose them to. So, does this mean you have to constantly switch movements at every workout in order to continue to make progress? Not necessarily. By simply changing your grip, torso angle, and/or plane of motion you can use the same basic exercises while actually altering motor unit recruitment patterns entirely. So, in a sense, to both your muscles and central nervous system, it will seem like you are doing a totally different movement, and thus the stimulus they receive will then be unique (and more productive). Here are some simple examples of how you can make just one exercise seem like three to your body:
From the makers of the Northwest Convergence Zone comes Happy Hour, a new Oregon Sports News podcast! Unlike The Zone, this show does not typically have guests and instead focuses on conversations like you'd have in a bar with your friends, such as sports, relationships, news, etc. The show also features segments like Big D on Sports, Pick-Up Line of the Week, Celebrity Bar Fight, where Mr. Von picks a new celebrity to pick a fight with each week, and more!.jpg "Image Courtesy The Oregonian")
It was oh-so-easy for the Portland Timbers Saturday against Chivas USA. The Timbers strolled in the park for 90 easy minutes, and no one needed to put up a fight, except a brave ball-boy against a petulant and ill-tempered Mario de Luna. It was an effervescent victory delivered with panache and without a drop of sweat.
On this episode of The Slant, host Brad Stein talks about why the NHL playoffs are better than the NBA, what the NFL would be like without the NFL Draft, and the friction between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia.
Every dog has his day, but the Oregon Ducks are in the midst of an unprecedented run of excellence, and if you’re not a fan, that day can’t end soon enough.
In this special episode, Matt and Ridley start the show by talking about the new Star Trek movie coming out this week. As a long time Star Trek fan, Matt is in his element. After that, the guys talk about controversies in the MLB, relocation of the Sacramento Kings, and the new head coach of the Oregon Ducks. 
10. John Olerud
The Northwest Convergence Zone brings you stellar interviews with the leading artists in the Northwest, and their music, every week. They also give their take on the news, sports, and anything else they find interesting, all brought to you with their unique Northwest perspective on things.
