Category Archives: Uncategorized
Happy Holidays Man Bicep Style!
Someone found Man Bicep by searching, “Santa doing push up.” I love it!
I then searched for "Santa doing a push up" and found a pic!
Anyway, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!
Why are we proud of our sleep deprivation?
I feel sleep deprived all too often and I hate it. During the work week, I try going to bed at 9 p.m. if I can just to get enough sleep.
And I LOVE vacations where I get the chance to catch up on sleep. I LOVE sleep!
I don’t want to be sleep deprived. I don’t think its cool. Actually, it sucks. You feel tired and sluggish and your workouts aren’t near as good as when you get at least 8 hours of sleep.
Yet it seems like so many people enjoy bragging about how little sleep they got and how much caffeine they need to stay awake.
I mean how many times have you heard a friend say, “Dude, I only got like 3 hours of sleep” as if it were a good thing and super cool?
Too often!!
Why do people brag about being sleep deprived? Why does our culture tell us it is cool to run only on caffeine?
Seriously, I don’t get it!
I LOVE SLEEP!
Competition Pictures and Video!
I only got photos of deadlift, but I thought these two were pretty awesome!
I’m a little embarrassed by the video, but what the hey!
Pre and Post-Workout Meals
How important is it to eat in a specific time frame before and after your workout? How important are the pre and post workout meals?
If you Google “pre and post workout meals” a bazillion different articles come up.
And most articles tell you when the best time to eat is and what ratio of carbs to protein you should consume.
What do I think about most of these pre and post workout meal articles?…
They aren’t worth paying attention to.
Are you a world-class athlete or a fitness model? Or are you just an average Joe/Jane trying to look your best, be healthy and reach personal fitness goals?
I would say most of us fall into the second category, which means that pre and post workout meals shouldn’t be our main concern. Having great nutrition overall and working out consistently should be our primary concerns.
Yes, eating the right things at the right times before and after your workout could help you, BUT they would only really make a significant difference if you are already near perfect. At least that is my opinion.
If you are trying to lose weight, I think it is more important to learn to eat when you are hungry than it is to try to force in extra calories around a workout because some article tells you that your muscles NEED the fuel at a specific time.
I know there are lots of people who would disagree with me – that think the proper pre and post-workout meals can make a huge impact on your progress…but they just aren’t correct…sorry.
Your muscles won’t disappear if you don’t drink that protein shake within an hour of working out. You really don’t NEED carbs or even food for that matter to be able to perform an intense workout. I’ve actually even found that when I perform fasted training, I get in my best workouts!
So then you may ask why there are so many articles about pre and post workout nutrition.
BECAUSE THERE IS A WHOLE INDUSTRY AROUND WORKOUT NUTRITION.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. People want to make pre and post workout meals a big deal because it helps them sell products!
Also, for bodybuilders and fitness models and figure competitors, pre and post workout meals ARE important. And a lot of the products were original created for those people.
Of course, now the industry has a great marketing tool…if you want to look like those people, you must consume our products around your workout.
What do you think? Do you worry about your pre and post workout meals? Or are you like me and just make sure that you eat the proper things throughout the day without worrying about the exact timing?
Studies, Links and Whatever
Interesting stuff…or at least stuff I think is interesting!
- I just want to start this post by saying that I LOVE this biking jersey for cancer that Jen sent me! Showing off the bicep! (It is definitely a lot of pink though).
- “61.6% of American adults today are overweight, but only 39% say they think they are.” Interesting…it seems like every other day there is some new news story or article out there about how the majority of our population is overweight…yet people don’t think that they may be one of those overweight people…
- Uhm…That is all I can say about this article called “Check Children’s Cholesterol Levels.” This article upset me for so many reasons. Really medicate children that are only 10 years old!?!
- Working out in only a sports bra? Unless it is summer and I’m outside…I DON’T THINK SO! Why do women do it? Our gym is freaking cold! (No offense if you are a woman who does this…I just don’t get it.)
- I Googled “Weight lifting” in Google News and was really really excited to see an article called “Why women should do weight training” among the first links on the page! Now all we need is for the NY Times to write a nice little piece about it…
- I love gum. I don’t chew it everyday, but when I get the chance I chew a ton so when I saw this article I couldn’t help but smile. I hope it’s true that there are cognitive benefits to chewing gum!
- This guy looks pretty darn good even though I don’t totally agree with Dr. Life’s diet plan.
- I love macadamia nuts. Why are they so addicting?
- And last but not least…why can’t airports have better food options? haha
HAPPY THANKSGIVING MAN BICEPERS!
I hope everyone is enjoying a day with family and friends! I must admit that I’m enjoying a relaxing day of eating all the bad food that I’ve been craving for the past month. There is nothing as good as mom’s home cooking and baking to fill you up!
Squat form – Babies can do it, but most adults can’t
If a baby can do it...
When do we lose the ability to perform a perfect squat?
As children, we all have perfect form, but I can tell you that most adults don’t. Usually during the first couple of sessions with a client, I have to work on a client’s squat form. Which always shocks me because of how often we perform squats throughout the day.
We squat to sit down in a chair. We squat to go the bathroom. We squat to pick something up off the floor (or at least we should be squatting instead of just bending over).
But if you watch adults squat to sit down, they don’t have near as good of form as children do. Most adults lean forward and don’t keep their weight in their heels. Most let their knees fall together or flare out. Most adults let those toes flare out.
Most adults have lost the ability to squat. They don’t know how to activate their muscles to squat down properly. Why is this? Is it because the more we sit around, the more our muscles forget how to move properly? I mean inactivity and all the sitting we do can result in tightness and altered muscle length-tension relationships, which can cause bad movement patterns…but when do we start losing the ability to move properly? Maybe this phrase is true – use it or lose it!
I mean you really do have to teach most adults all the steps to squatting that a baby is born knowing.
I have to tell them to stand upright with their feet pointing straight ahead, about shoulder-width apart. I have to tell them to push their butt back as they lower themselves to the ground, keeping their weight in their heels. I have to tell them to keep their chest up and head in a neutral position. I have to tell them to tighten their core to stabilize as they sink down. I have to remind them that if they are sitting back correctly their knees won’t go past their toes.
I have to remind them of everything that the baby above is doing without thought. Seriously, does anyone else find it sad that what a baby can do, most adults can’t?
Maybe play and recess need to be kept a part of the school day for longer so that we don’t lose our ability to move correctly (like until college at least…or maybe we should get recess at work….).
All the random thoughts…
- There was an interesting article on Mark’s Daily Apple about Gateway Foods – those foods that you eat that lead you down a slippery slope toward full on binge. He says avoid them, but I ask…aren’t those the foods WORTH cheating for?
- Whether or not you enjoy the humor of this blog, this is a great post about nutrition. How can data about our diet be so misinterpreted? How can people not realize that carbs and vegetable oils are to blame for the climbing obesity rate and not animal fats? Read this post on Fatty Lane – Why We’re Getting Fatter – and let me know what you think.
- Why is every client that I talk to so intimidated by Spin class? Seriously, it is probably the easiest class to tailor to your personal fitness level. AND it is about the only cardio other than circuit training that I can stand doing for a full hour…
- Not to be mean…but Jazzercise? I can’t take a class named Jazzercise seriously…
- So I was curious to see what 5 fitness myths we should ignore in this article by Carol Sponagle. Myth #1 said that spot reduction (or doing crunches to reduce belly fat) doesn’t work…ok so far I agree. If you do lots of crunches you probably have a six-pack the question is “is it showing?” Myth #2 refutes the belief that if you aren’t working up a sweat, you aren’t working hard enough. Again, I agree. I sweat just standing still sometimes while Ryan doesn’t sweat after we do like the hardest workout in the world! Myth #3 says that no pain, no gain can be a misleading statement, which I agree it is. There is a difference between muscle fatigue and injury. At the same time, the average client that I work with doesn’t want to feel any discomfort so sometimes telling them “no pain, no gain” can get them to push just a teensy bit harder! Myth #4 states that women won’t get bulky from lifting weights..YAY! BUT I don’t really like the way the argument is worded. Why is so little space dedicated to refuting this myth?!? Also, why are barbells not included? Only free weights? And I’m not a fan of the statement “if you are a woman, using free weights will not make you look bulky unless you have a hormone imbalance (genetic or steroid-induced) and lift weights more than the average woman.” Ok the steroids part is true but what about lifting more than the average woman!?! 😦 I don’t like that statement at ALL! And to end the list Myth #5 really frustrated me. It says that the statement “avoid certain food groups, such as carbohydrates or fats” is false. Uhm nope! You should avoid certain food groups. IT ISN’T JUST ABOUT CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT!! Seriously, what garbage.
- Do you like foam rolling? I love it! I find that some clients love it while others hate it. The ones that love it realize that sometimes the statement “no pain, no gain” is incredibly true (especially when it comes to their IT bands)! Take that Carol! If you don’t suffer the pain of releasing all the knots, you may suffer more injuries than if you go through the painful process of foam rolling!!! Anyway, I highly recommend adding foam rolling to any warm up/stretching routine that you may do!
- I want more push up pictures in random places for our Push Up Craze!!!
- That’s all folks!
Vanishing of the Bees
Ok so sometimes I’m really glad that Ryan picks out the TV shows and movies that we watch because I would never have watched this documentary on my own (of course this also has a downside…sometimes I’m forced to watch movies like Step Brothers BLEH).
Anyway, yesterday we watched Vanishing of the Bees. The documentary talks about the fact that honeybees have been literally disappearing from their hives…just sort of dying off.
Which may leave you thinking…who cares all they are used for is honey…BUT THAT IS FALSE!
Honeybees are the reason that we have most of our vegetable and fruit crops.
Commercial honeybee operations pollinate crops that make up one out of every three bites of food on our tables.
So without the honeybees, we would be EXTREMELY dependent on foreign crops.
So of course…scientists began trying to figure out ways to SOLVE the problem…let’s be clear here…not ways to PREVENT the problem…but ways to SOLVE the problem.
They tried dividing up the hives to repopulate the abandoned ones. They tried antibiotics. But nothing was really solving the issue of the disappearance of the bees (or as they call it Colony Collapse Disorder). Hives were still being abandoned and droves of honeybees were still dying off.
The farmers then find out from their European colleagues that the disappearance of their honeybees may have something to do with the pesticides being used on some of the crops that the honeybees are pollinating.
The pesticides may be killing off the bees! But does the government respond by pulling the product off the market? NOPE!
Why? Because we would rather solve a problem with a new product rather than prevent it by not using an old one.
We would rather create drugs for ailments and disease than prevent them by educating people on healthy eating.
We have the attitude of we can SOLVE any problem so we don’t need to worry about PREVENTION.
BUT PREVENTION IS KEY!!!
Prevention will help us keep this planet healthy. Prevention will help you keep yourself healthy!!!
It’s like I tell my clients, you invest in your health now (prevention) so you don’t have to spend more money later dealing with all the medical bills (trying to solve the problems).
The same applies to almost every aspect of our lives, including the fact that it is worth spending more money on grass-fed beef and organic vegetables to save our environment and our health.
I mean…think about it…if pesticides are killing the bees…they’ve got to have some effect on us. Not to mention if the bees die off so do most of our fruits and vegetables!!
So stop believing there will be a solution to any problem and start trying to PREVENT the problems!!! Start eating well and buying organic and taking care of yourself!!!
PREVENTION may be the BEST SOLUTION to any problem!
(DISCLAIMER: I’m really not a hippie…not that there is anything wrong with being one).
Pushing Past a Stick Point
A “stick point” is a weak point in a lift where you have a tendency to stall when the weight gets heavy. Like when you get stuck three inches from your chest on a heavy bench press.
Hitting a stick point always frustrates me because I know that if I could just somehow force the weight over that point it would go up the rest of the way fairly easily.
Most people recognize these physical sticking points and work on them. They do exercises to strengthen their weak points like starting their bench from their stick point and locking out.
But very few people ever recognize their mental “stick points.” Most people never try to push themselves beyond that first muscle burn or fatigue because they believe that they are truly and utterly at their limit. They never test that limit or try to move beyond that mental stick point by performing one more rep or using just a little bit more weight.
I believe that with most people the mind will fail before the body does. We feel fatigued and our brain will start telling us we are too tired to continue. BUT our body still has the capacity to perform a few more reps.
The question is…which do you listen to? Do you listen to your brain telling you that you are tired or do you push your body until you can’t lift that weight one more time and your muscles are shaking?
I’ve found that most of my clients stop when their brain tells them they are tired and their muscles first start to burn.
I’ll watch them as they do bicep curls to press. The weights will still be moving fluidly through the motion with no muscle shake or even a slowing of pace. BUT they will be telling me they can’t possibly do one more. They will try to stop or take a break before the set is over. I push them to finish. I can tell their muscles still have more reps left in them while their brain is screaming out to them that they are tired.
And most like to be pushed like this (especially when they realize that they will get great results from pushing themselves!).
It was nice to have a client realize that she hadn’t been pushing herself to her limit. The other day she told me that she would never have done more than 10 repetitions with 10 pounds if I hadn’t forced her to use 15lbs and do 20 repetitions.
She was amazed at the fact that, while she struggled to perform the last few reps, she could in fact do that much weight for that many repetitions. I pushed her to move beyond the fatigue that she thought meant she had pushed herself hard. I helped her do the extra reps and weight that pushed her beyond her mental stick point.
So next time you think you couldn’t possibly do one more rep or use a little more weight, try it! Don’t go crazy with this of course…you don’t want to be unsafe and drop a weight on your head or cause yourself to barf (unless you are into that), but do CHALLENGE yourself.
If you challenge yourself, the worst thing that will happen is your body will fail. You won’t be able to do that one extra push up or lift those two extra pounds. BUT that failure will move you closer to success the next time!
So work on those mental stick points. They may be holding you back from getting the exact results you want! Just remember…your brain will give up before you body has to!!
Man Bicep 