Bad workout? Maybe it’s your fuel!
So on Sunday, I had an EPIC cheat day.
And Monday morning, I was paying for it.
I felt like crap. Congested. Bloated. Upset stomach. And that wasn’t even when I was working out.
But I decided to do a hard metabolic workout any way, hoping it would get my system somewhat back on track – knowing that this workout had brought many a strong woman and man to their knees…and their heads into the bushes.
I’d never had that issue before. The workout was always hard, but it had never made me want to puke before. Honestly, I didn’t fully understand how it made anyone puke…until yesterday.
While I didn’t literally throw up, my cheat day was up in my throat after one round. And it did take about 20 minutes laying on the mats after my workout to begin to feel somewhat human again.
Apparently this isn’t the first time I’ve rolled out and looked completely dead…although I’m pretty sure this one was from an overdose of cardio not food haha
To my credit at least I did more weight than usual and the two-inch rope instead of the inch and a half one, but still….my whole body felt way more ill than it should have.
And really, I don’t think it was the workout. Yea it was a bit harder, but nothing completely ridiculous. And my body was technically fresh and ready to go.
What I think…actually what I KNOW…was the HUGE difference, was the way I FUELED!
We think about our eating habits when it comes to weight loss, weight gain or health but I think all too often we forget to think about how eating affects how we feel during our workouts and even in day-to-day life.
The reason most people either want to puke or not puke for that matter during the workout I did yesterday, has a lot more to do with how they fuel than anything else.
Yes how hard they push themselves is a factor, but fueling can’t be ignored.
Notice….I’ve called it FUELING….
Our body is a machine that needs fuel and if you don’t fuel a machine properly, IT WON’T RUN…
Therefore, how do you expect your body to run properly if you aren’t fueling it properly!?!
HA! YOU CAN’T!
Yet so many people do!
So if you aren’t feeling so great during your workouts…and if you even feel like you’ve plateaued or gone backwards, you may want to take a look at what you are eating.
The wrong type of fuel, or too much or not enough fuel, may be hindering progress during your workouts (not to mention you may not feel near as great as you could, or have near as much energy as you should, during day-to-day life!).
P.S. Note that I also mentioned UNDER FUELING. It isn’t only over fueling or incorrect fuel that is the problem. If you don’t eat enough, YOU ARE GOING TO HINDER YOUR PROGRESS AND FEEL LIKE CRAP!
Part 5: Bootilicious – The Kettlebell Swing
So the swing that I would like to discuss is the one that is best for your butt – the Russian swing.
The Russian kettlebell swing is a hip hinge just like a glute bridge or deadlift. The main muscle working in the hip hinge is the glutes with help from the hamstrings (and of course other stabilizer muscles).
And while you see everyone and their mother’s uncle attempting some sort of hinge exercise, most people don’t do it correctly – People either turn the hinge into a reach with their back (aka back rounding) or a squat.
It’s interesting…the hip hinge should be an easy movement for us to do but it is actually the one that most people have trouble with.
So how do you teach this easy but hard movement?
I start most people out with glute bridges. Once they have mastered the two leg, bodyweight glute bridge, I move them to a standing hip hinge near a wall.
The key with the standing hip hinge near the wall is to use the wall as a guide. You want to make sure that they keep their back flat and reach their butt toward the wall.
If they have trouble keeping their back flat, you can have them hold some sort of dowel down their back and make sure that the dowel doesn’t come off their head and butt because their back rounds or really separates from their back because they over arch.
If they seem to have trouble getting their butt closer to the wall (or even to touching it…I sometimes start them close enough so that if they do it correctly their butt will actually touch) and they aren’t rounding their back, then they are most likely squatting.
Use the wall or pole or something behind them to teach them to stick their butt back and hinge at the hip-joint. If they perform the movement correctly their butt should either touch or at least get closer to the object behind them!
After they master the bodyweight standing hip hinge near the wall, I will add a resistance band around their hips to teach them to be explosive with the movement.
With this move you face away from the wall with the resistance band attached to something behind you. You wrap the resistance band around your hips and step as far away as you can.
Then you hinge over and explosively come back to standing, squeezing the butt cheeks and driving the hips forward.
For this move, you will need to assume a more athletic stance (so knees slightly bent through the entire motion) than you would necessarily for the standing hinge by the wall.
The resistance band is an especially great way to teach the kettlebell swing because the band mimics the weight of the bell.
Your hips go backwards and you hinge over because the weight drives you backwards and you want to absorb the load. You then squeeze your glutes and drive your hips forward to propel the weight forward.
Once you have managed this you are ready to start on the actual swing. Start with the two-handed, single bell swing.
Starting with the kettlebell on the ground, you will hike it backwards like a football to start the swing. It doesn’t matter how high you get the kettlebell to go…and actually it really shouldn’t ever get above your shoulders!
You are powering each swing with your hip hinge. As you swing the kettlebell forward, you will have a slight lean back at the top and a slight posterior tilt to your hips because you are squeezing your butt cheeks. You arms aren’t working at all to lift the kettlebell…it is swinging because of the power from your glutes.
You then leave your hips out long enough to catch your forearms with the kettlebell descending. You don’t want to be hinging over while the kettlebell is away from your body. You hinge over only to slow the kettlebell down and absorb the momentum.
The connection between your forearms and hips is very important and is key to making sure this movement is powered by your glutes and not your low back!
Your forearms then maintain a connection with your hips as you hinge over leaning forward with your chest to counteract the weight of the kettlebell between your legs.
The kettlebell should go back smoothly and shouldn’t really swing up and hit you in the bottom. If it does, you are actually using too much power for the weight and can probably even go up in weight.
This video actual shows a great swing.
In this swing, his spine is in line from the tip of his head right to his tailbone. At the top of the swing, he is standing up straight with only a slight lean back and he hinges back over when the kettlebell drives his hips back. There isn’t a gap between his forearms and hips as he goes back into the hinge. Everything is connected and moves TOGETHER. As he hinges over, his butt goes back. He doesn’t squat and his back doesn’t round.
If your swing looks like this and you can feel that forearm/hip connection, you are doing the move correctly and can start upping the weight or playing around with variations.
Another variation of the swing, the single arm swing, can also be a great way to learn the swing movement as it can sometimes force people to maintain that forearm to hip connection. BUT this variation is more challenging on the core and may be more challenging on the grip.
To progress the swing move, try a double bell swing, but when you do this make sure you have a really really good handle on the other two variations first.
While the kettlebell swing can be a more frustrating move to truly master, it really is a great way to develop glute strength and improve your power. It can be a great way to get over a deadlifting plateau if you find yourself struggling!
Shoot some people even argue that heavy kettlebell swings are even better than deadlifts….and, while I love my deadlifts, kettlebell swings are definitely pretty freaking good.
So work on your swings today. If you aren’t confident in your hip hinge (if you round or squat), start with a beginning move like the glute bridge and progress from there. Don’t just jump right into swings and end up hurting your low back!
And….P.S. Speaking of progression yesterday…this article is basically one to do the kettlebell swing!
How to turn “I can’t” into “I can”
So I’m not talking about mindset here. I’m literally talking about taking something you CAN’T DO and turning it into something that you CAN DO.
Let’s take for instance the pull up, which is a difficult body weight move to perform that many people would like to be able to do.
Been wanting to be able to do a true pull up for awhile, huh?
I happen to love pull ups although posing for this picture while Ryan took numerous shots wasn’t very much fun! 😛
What steps have you taken to get yourself there?
None?
Many people have a DESIRE to be able to do certain moves but never really do anything to work toward being able to do those moves.
They may do some random exercises to strengthen their back or lats, but they never outline exact steps to get themselves to a full pull up.
But if you want to do a full pull up, or any other tough move for that matter, there is a way. If you do the research, you can create a PROGRESSION for just about any move.
For any exercise move, there is a way to make the move easier and harder – a way to progress and regress.
So if you want to do a pull up, but can’t, you just need to find a regression for the move that you CAN DO. And once you master that, you need to make that move more difficult. Each time you master a level, you make the move more difficult until you reach your goal. (And once you reach your goal, you can always find a way to progress the move from their so that you are always challenged.)
Usually progressing a move isn’t the challenge…Those are the glamour moves that EVERYONE wants to do. Everyone seems to know the hardest variations of every exercise…weighted pull ups, or one arm pull ups, or one pinky pull ups (yes…there is a guy that can do a pull up with one pinky…).
But if you ask many people about ways to REGRESS moves, they usually don’t have near as many ideas.
How do you regress pull ups? Use the assisted pull up machine? Yes…that is one way. Do lat pull downs…EH…Not that good.
But there are actually a bazillion ways! Jumping pull ups. Leg assisted pull ups. Band pull ups. Negatives. Dead hangs. Pull up and hold.
See there are just a few great ones right there!
You want to do a full pull up right? How many of those have you tried?
My point is that if you want to be able to do a move, you have to EARN it. You’ve got to figure out a way to build yourself up to the moves. You’ve got to be patient as you progress yourself through even the most basic variations of the move.
You can’t just randomly pick a level to start with. You’ve got to start at a level that you can MASTER. As you build, you want to make sure that you are doing the move CORRECTLY and not just racing to complete the reps so you can move on to the next progression. Doing one of the progressions sloppily just to be able to say you did a harder variation, won’t help you reach your end goal any faster (actually it may slow you down). Mastery of each level is key if you want to achieve your goal.
If you want to be able to do an exercise that you CAN’T DO right now, you’ve got to find a regression that you CAN DO so that you can work toward your goal. Success isn’t a straight line. But having some sort of progression or system in place to help you build toward your goal will get you there with hard work and patience. If you have no direction, then you will probably just end up floundering…and if you get there it will be by accident and pure luck.
Over the next couple of weeks, I will outline some great regressions to help you EARN those glamour moves. I’ve been asked about a couple moves like the pull up (which is what I’ll start with), but if you have a specific move you want to learn regressions/progressions for, feel free to comment below or email me at manbiceps@gmail.com.
NOTE: Returning this week will be the conclusion of my Bootilicious series…two more posts to go! Up first will be the kettlebell swing and how to do it CORRECTLY…sorry American swing…you just don’t make the cut!
Where’s the love? – Practice What You Preach
So I was on the phone with my Mom the other day talking about workout videos. She actually mentioned that she wasn’t very fond of the Jillian Michaels DVDS, which sidetracked us onto the topic of Jillian Michaels.
And my Mom informed me that Jillian Michaels went 7 weeks without working out and actually ADMITTED TO THIS FACT on TV.
WHAT?!!
For one…how could someone whose life supposedly revolves around fitness be ok with not working out for 7 weeks!?!
For two…how could you admit that you didn’t have TIME to workout when we trainers work so hard to tell people, that no matter how busy they are, they have time to live a healthy lifestyle?
And three….HOW CAN YOU NOT PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH!?!
How can you expect to convince people to fit in working out to their crazy busy schedules if you don’t find the time to workout yourself? (And how can she admit that on TV!?!!?!?!)
It also goes back to one of my posts a few weeks ago about the girls who ate all the Paleo baked goods…The girls who claimed they were doing Paleo when in fact THEY WEREN’T!
I honestly believe that there are a lot of different things out there that work for a lot of different people. So maybe that fake Paleo worked for them (but still call it what it is…and it isn’t Paleo…)
I’ve even seen my own diet and exercise habits change over the years…heck even over the last 6 months…Not huge changes all the time, but definitely slight modifications….(I ate more dairy. I ate super super low carb. I tried out some corn tortillas. And now? Carb cycling with some rice and potatoes. Not much dairy. Not much fruit. Barely any nuts…Mostly meat and veggies. YUM!)
But whatever exact program I’m writing about and preaching, I’M ACTUALLY FOLLOWING IT!
This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when people talk about diets or exercise programs BUT DON’T ACTUALLY DO THEM.
Be it TV trainers like Jillian Michaels or even friends on a new diet and exercise program, I hate when people CLAIM they stand for something or claim that a diet does work, or for that matter doesn’t work, when they haven’t actually even DONE IT.
And I’m not saying that your current beliefs won’t change over time. They actually SHOULD change. You should constantly be learning and self-experimenting and adjusting to make things better as you learn more.
You should never be standing still. And just because you adjust your beliefs over time that doesn’t mean that you are admitting your were wrong.
It just means you are smart enough to always continue learning and GROWING!
You should take pride in the program that you do. You, in fact, should LOVE IT. And that means working always to make it the best it can be.
So whether you’re a trainer or weekend warrior, if you ever tell someone “get enough sleep,” “eat whole natural foods,” “cut out grains,” “lift heavy weights,” MAKE SURE YOU ARE PRACTICING WHAT YOU PREACH!
Why do people love cleanse diets?
So recently I’ve had a few of my female clients ask me about cleanse diets.
I personally would NEVER ever do one…or for that matter recommend that any of my clients do one.
This is what I think of when I think of cleanse diets (although many of them aren’t low carb).
I know they are the popular thing, but honestly, they are stupid.
Really? Drink juice for a week and your body will be cleansed?!?
Sounds like a week of feeling crappy and overloaded with sugar!
And when I tell most people that I think cleanses are stupid, they say to me, “Well then how do you rid your body of all the toxins that accumulate?”
UHM…I DON’T EAT CRAP FOOD MOST OF THE TIME!
You shouldn’t need to do a cleanse if you are eating a healthy diet 80% of the time. That healthy eating will, itself, make your body healthier and remove all of the “toxins.”
And really you think that one week on a “cleanse” is going to remove all the toxins from your body that you’ve been consuming for months and months and months eating a poor diet!?!
HA!
If you want to make your body healthy, you need to eat healthily most of the time…not for one week!
And the funniest thing is, when I say they should eat healthy 80% of the time if they really want a clean, healthy body, they tell me that only cleanses TRULY remove all of the gunk. That eating healthy doesn’t get it all out.
REALLY!?!
Some cleanse diet is going to remove some hidden gunk that eating only whole natural foods won’t remove!?!
UHM…NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
Sometimes I want to ask people obsessed with cleanse diets what this supposed hidden gunk is? I mean really what is so supposedly stuck in us that only a cleanse diet can rid of us?
Also, I would just like to point out that most of these cleanse diets really AREN’T THAT HEALTHY OR GOOD FOR YOU!
You really thinking drinking juice for a week is that great for you? All you are consuming is a ton of carbs in the form of SUGAR!
That isn’t healthy!
But when I tell people that cleanse diets AREN’T healthy, I usually get a response like, “Well I saw a cleanse diet by Dr. Oz!”
Dr. Oz….Usually I would have a rant against him, but in this case…Well I actually kind of like him.
When they say that to me, I usually say, “Have you looked at the difference between your FAD cleanse and Dr. Oz’s?”
The Dr. Oz cleanse is basically like eating just a super clean all natural diet!
It isn’t juice with cayenne pepper! It is chicken and veggies. It is just SUPER CLEAN NATURAL FOODS!
If you want a TRUE cleanse, you don’t need to do some crazy diet that cuts out all but one food group! Just eat whole natural foods that aren’t processed at all!
Or you know what…maybe even add in some intermittent fasting…Now fasting a bit…that IS truly good for your body!
Oh but wait….you aren’t doing a cleanse to be healthy? No…you are doing the cleanse because your friend supposedly lost 10lbs in one week?!?
Oh well then of course do the cleanse! It must be the magic pill for weight loss!
NOT!
Cleanse diets might help you lose a bit of weight, but the second you stop the cleanse, do you really think you are going to maintain the weight loss?
You haven’t changed your normal daily eating habits so how do you think you are going to keep that lost weight off?
YOU AREN’T GOING TO!
So why waste a week of your life on a completely miserable diet only to lose weight that you will probably gain back in less than two days when you return to your old eating habits?
DON’T!
There is no quick weight loss solution. If you want to lose weight, eat clean whole, natural foods. Eat a well-balanced diet of fruits, vegetables and meat. (Shoot I would even say a well-balanced diet of vegetables and meat, which is completely the opposite of some of those fruit and sugar-laden cleanses!)
If you want to truly lose weight, you need to start a diet you can maintain for more than a week.
And if you are completely and utterly set on doing some sort of “cleanse” go super strict the first couple of weeks on your diet. Eat only vegetables and meat.
Then maybe after those two weeks of super clean eating, add back in a few healthy treats…like fruits or maybe a glass of wine or some dark chocolate or a little full-fat dairy here and there.
The point is that these fad cleanses aren’t healthy AND they don’t truly help you lose weight. If you want to be “clean” and lose weight, your only solution is to eat whole natural foods.
Even Dr. Oz says so!
Flexibility – How important is it?
So yesterday I had a new client that I was assessing, lay on her back and raise one leg straight up toward the ceiling. I wasn’t looking at hamstring flexibility, I was looking for asymmetry between her two sides. Asymmetry puts people at greater risk for injury and means that there are some imbalances that need to be taken care of.
When I had her raise her leg, she said to me, “Oh I’m not very flexible.”
I told her it was ok…that I wasn’t looking at flexibility.
She said, “Ok, but still…it is embarrassing!”
I smiled and thought…It’s crazy that people worry so much about their flexibility, especially when there are really bigger fish to fry!
How important is being flexible really? I mean is it really important that you are able to touch your toes?
I am not very flexible…At points I have worked on it just for the sake of being able to do certain moves…but usually…I just worry about mobility!
Honestly, being able to touch your toes really isn’t that important, BUT that doesn’t mean you should be locked up and immobile.
Mobility is WAY more important than flexibility. Mobility means how well we are able to MOVE..to squat, jump, push, pull.
Being able to touch the ground with your head while standing with straight legs doesn’t mean you are going to be able to move well. In fact, it could mean that you have potential imbalances that are actually inhibiting you from moving well.
So while being able to do the splits is cool and something that you may decide you want to master, being that flexible really isn’t essential to being able to move well.
What is essential to being able to move well is mobility of the joints.
And to have mobile joints means much more than having crazy flexibility. Flexibility can mean different things for different people.
You are flexible enough to be mobile if you take care of all shortened and tight muscles. So if you sit a lot, you need to make sure that your hips, which have been tightened and shortened by sitting all day, have been stretched and loosened so that proper length-tension relationships have been developed between all muscles around your hip.
And on top of needing good length-tension relationship between all the muscles around a joint, to be mobile you must also make sure that all the correct muscles are activated. That means that if you expect to have good hip mobility, you can’t have shortened and tight hip flexors and UNDER ACTIVE glutes.
So you must make sure that on top of making sure tight muscles are loosened and lengthened that overactive muscles are relaxed and under active muscles are ACTIVATED.
If you want to be mobile, stretching or flexibility is just a piece of the puzzle. You also need to do SMR (self-myofascial release aka foam rolling) and activation exercises.
While stretching is GOOD it isn’t near as important as most people make it out to be. You don’t need to be able to touch your toes….It may be something you want to do, but it isn’t necessary.
And even when people do spend a lot of time stretching, they usually stretch muscles they LIKE to stretch, not the muscles that are necessarily tight from sitting or doing repetitive movements day in and day out.
So instead of spending a ton of time stretching each day, focus on only stretching the tight muscles and use the rest of that time to do SMR and activation exercises! You will become more mobile and therefore GET MORE OUT OF YOUR WORKOUTS!
Functional Lifts – Awkward Weights
For months now I haven’t really touched a dumbbell or a barbell, BUT I’ve still been lifting heavy.
And while I still LOVE barbell lifts, I have become very fascinated by lifting with awkward weights.
In every day life, we rarely have to lift something that is perfectly balanced and easy to grip. So even though in the gym we may be able to deadlift 500lbs on the barbell, it may be impossible for us to lift even 100lbs in the form of an awkward box on the floor.
And which is more important to be able to do?
While I love deadlifting, I must admit I really really really get frustrated when I can lift or move something on my own.
I don’t like struggling to lift, carry and move things. And I most definitely HATE when I have to ask for help.
So while I’ve always considered a deadlift a functional lift, it might not really be that functional when you add weight in the perfect form of a barbell.
It was actually incredibly humbling to find out just how not functionally strong the barbell deadlift had made was when I did my first strongman atlas stone lift on Saturday (which is probably one of the most functional lifts out there).
The baby stone is 125lbs.
I was told to start with that one. It looked small enough and I figured I wouldn’t have any trouble. I could easily deadlift 125lbs!
Shoot…I even thought I might be able to attempt the next one up!
Uhm…lifting a round concert 125lb ball is WAY different than lifting 100 more pounds on a barbell.
The first time I attempted to lift it, I couldn’t even move it off the ground.
I couldn’t budge 125lbs!?! WHAT!?!
It was awkward and hard to grip. There was nothing to hold on to! You just had to squeeze the ball with every inch of your hand and arm. You even needed to use your back to grip the dang thing otherwise you were going to drop it.
And on top of that, it wasn’t just one smooth lift up like the barbell lift. It was a lift to your thighs before you needed to re-grip so that you could really use your glutes to power the ball up.
It was honestly exactly the move you realistically have to do when you move super heavy awkward things in everyday life.
I can name a few times when I’ve moved that I can remember attempting that exact same move to lift a heavy box (and actually failed to get it off the ground even though I was lifting super heavy with dumbbells and barbells)….SO FRUSTRATING!
There is nothing more frustrating than not being able to move something!
So it really got me to thinking about all of the time I spent doing the traditional lifts – doing traditional exercise moves.
While I love them, they may just be more functionally beneficial when done with AWKWARD weights.
You don’t need to give up deadlifts, push ups or any of the other meat head moves (that I most definitely love).
But maybe you can just make them better by adding in some awkward elements.
Like pull ups for example…
I can do pull ups off a bar…but pull ups holding on to some awkward rock climbing grip things? OUCHIE!
Or overhead presses…Instead of using a barbell, what about a slosh pipe? WAY more core engagement when you lift that pipe only half filled with water overhead (actually it kind of reminds me of a squirming child, which there is a great chance that sometime in your lifetime you will be lifting up overhead!).
You don’t have to go crazy making the moves overly awkward. Actually you SHOULDN’T try to add in too many strange elements. Awkward is good..Super awkward is crazy.
But anyway, after being humbled by the stone, I would DEFINITELY recommend that if you are training to be strong in life that you add in some more functional variables like awkward weights or grips! You don’t necessarily need to find a gym with an atlas stone, but sandbags and other uneven or awkward weights can be good! (And if you don’t already…get ready to add in some grip training…but that is a post for another day!)
Paleo Drama
So I don’t know how many of you follow or read Paleo blogs, but there has been some drama going on in the Paleo blogosphere.
And frankly, I haven’t really been interested in commenting or getting at all involved until I saw a tweet by Mark Sisson the other day.
This twitter conversation was sort of the last straw for me.
I will address his tweet and the comments first before I begin my rant on about the women behind a lot of the drama.
For one, Mark is completely right. You may find an article or post on a site that you agree with, BUT that doesn’t mean that you agree with everything on that site.
I mean shoot….I know I have actually quite a few readers who are vegetarians. They obviously don’t agree with my perspective on nutrition, however, they do like what I have to say about working out!
So they may link out to a workout post on my blog.
If someone from their blog, clicks on the link to the workout article they posted and then happens to stumble on to an article about how much I LOVE meat, I highly doubt they are going to go accuse the author of the blog that posted my link of being anti-vegetarian just because they linked out to a post they did happen to agree with on my blog.
I know I’ve definitely linked out to conventional wisdom blogs that have ONE post that I agree with even if I don’t agree with anything else they’ve ever posted.
A good post, is a good post…PERIOD.
So when readers attack a blog author for linking out to posts from another site just because that site has other questionable content is COMPLETELY INSANE!
If you don’t like the other content on the blog linked out to, THEN DON’T READ THAT BLOG!
Secondly, I would like you to note the last comment on Mark’s tweet by Evelyn. I almost completely blanked out her info because I don’t really want to give her any more publicity since she is apparently seeking it out based on all of the rude comments she and another woman have been leaving ALL OVER THE PLACE!
But seriously lady!?!
Why insult him on a personal level even if you don’t agree with the links he posts? WHY make that comment about the memory supplement!?! WHY!?!
Also, as I stated above, just because you support one post on a site doesn’t mean you even agree with anything else. And if you, the reader, doesn’t like the site linked out to…DON’T READ IT!
Which leads me into the rest of the Paleo drama….
A couple of women have been attacking a number of the big “Paleo” bloggers…like Robb Wolf and Free The Animal, Richard Nikoley (who I actually don’t even consider a “Paleo” blogger).
They have even created a site that supposedly addresses:
Problems with the paleo community: misogyny, quackery, orthorexia, and more. Posts are by a variety of people. You can submit your own as well.
I refuse to link out to the site as I don’t want to help their rank on Google or really promote it in any way. If you choose to go in search of it and read their freaking ridiculous posts, the site won’t be hard to find.
But honestly, it isn’t even the site that really bothers me despite all the completely disrespectful shit-talking that goes on.
Hey…on your site, you can say WHATEVER you want. If I don’t like it, I don’t have to read it. Hence, I read a couple of posts, HATED THEM and refuse to go back onto the site.
BUT what I do have a problem with is when you start to take your fight onto OTHER people’s sites.
Honestly, I NEVER understood making nasty comments on someone else’s site. If you don’t agree, then don’t read their stuff!
If you don’t like the fact that Free the Animal uses the “c” word, DON’T READ HIS STUFF! Shoot write on your OWN site that people shouldn’t read his stuff, but don’t make nasty comments on his site about it! What’s the point!?!
Oh wait…the point is to get yourself publicity…not to ACTUALLY, TRULY make a point.
YOU JUST WANT ATTENTION!
One of the women involved in this drama actually created a fake account to attack one of the other commenters on a blog post and then denied it and finally admitted to it because the other person was supposedly “stalking” her….What a way to make women look bad!
It seriously drives me crazy when people do crap like this.
You can literally say whatever you want on your own site. I don’t care even if I think you are completely and utterly off base.
BUT if you are allowed to say whatever you want, ladies, then why can’t these other bloggers!?!
The whole point of a blog…the whole point of twitter, Facebook…social media…is to be able to say what YOU think!
And if a reader doesn’t like it? They don’t have to read it!
Plus I do just want to point out that what does misogyny really have to do with diet and exercise? Just because you don’t like their personal views doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to diet and exercise.
Also, quackery!?! UHM I would say you could use quackery to describe just about every opinion in the health and fitness field. You can find studies to prove and disprove just about EVERYTHING! We are all just experimenting and trying to find our way so really who knows what works.
If someone wants to try something and then write about what they found, WHO CARES!?! If you think their diet is stupid, DON’T DO IT!
And orthorexia!?! Please…For one they are writing a BLOG about diet and exercise…It is their BUSINESS. It isn’t like they are randomly going to talk about computer software on their health and fitness blog. I mean that is like condemning a golf website for only posting about golf stuff!
Anyway, that is my rant for today. And if those ladies DO happen to stumble across my site and my rant, I wonder what the would say.
They couldn’t get mad at me for cursing…since I rarely do.
They couldn’t get mad at me for being a misogynist because…well…I’m not.
I guess they could say I’m orthorexic…But then they should see the cheat day I had this week.
I guess they could also find some link on my site where I’ve linked out to a blog that has “hateful” posts. They could then accuse me of supporting a hate-filled site…
But then again…I didn’t link out to their blog…So that is one hate-filled site I’m definitely not supporting.
So now I ask…What do you think?
B-I-N-G-O
So I heard this great quote in an ESPN 30 for 30 last night…
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
YES! This is why I’ve said you need to plan out your workouts and diet program and PROGRESS yourself toward your goal!
But apparently not everyone has heard this quote before.
Yesterday I was also told about a trainer that plays “Bingo” to provide people with their workouts.
BINGO.
Basically, people pull exercises out of a hat and the exercises that they pull out make up their workout for that day.
That means they could pull out all leg exercises and just completely annihilate their legs that day even if they did a leg workout already that week. It could also mean that they pulled out four or five sheets with the same exercise on it so that they had to do burpees the entire workout.
AH!
When I heard this, I honestly had to shake myself because I couldn’t believe it. It was potentially the dumbest thing I’d ever heard.
Talk about a lazy trainer. Sorry…but it’s true. And potentially a dumb trainer…Because who the heck could put such little thought into their workouts for their clients and think it was ok!?!
And the worst part about all of this for me was that it wasn’t even being done with people who were just casually working out (not that it would be good even then!)…BUT it was being done with a college athletic team!
A COLLEGE ATHLETIC TEAM!
A team competing at a high level with specific needs – a specific GOAL!
How the could that trainer think it was ok to have them do random exercises? Did that trainer really think it would help the players reach a SPECIFIC goal!?! Random exercises!?!
And all of the players weren’t even doing the same intensity workout or working the same parts so when they went to do a “planned” workout later that week, some of them may have already completely destroyed that muscle earlier when they played BINGO while others may not have worked that muscle for over a week!
Plus it the stupid game didn’t address imbalances or injuries or ANYTHING!
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Seriously hearing that made me so angry.
It also made me sure that I had to post the following statement:
Just because someone has a title or certification DOESN’T mean they actually KNOW anything.
Sorry…but it doesn’t.
So that is why I constantly post that you’ve got to experiment and do your own research.
You should be able to judge if what you are given by a trainer or dietitian or anyone else for that matter has merit. You should be able to judge if something is totally bogus and worthless or something that does have potential to get you to your goal.
And please…NEVER….EVER…play BINGO as your workout!!!!
Cardio using a towel – The Towel Taz
So today our metabolic workout included, among many tortuous things, the Towel Taz.
The Towel Taz has become one of my favorite aerobic conditioning moves. While not necessarily hard if you do it for 10 or even 20 seconds, it becomes brutal at about 30 seconds and completely destroys you if you do it for a couple of minutes.
So what is the Towel Taz?
It sort of looks like this, especially when you get tired and start to grimace.
Basically it is you shaking a towel as powerfully and quickly as you can up and down while moving quickly around from side to side, in a circle, forwards, backwards and every which way. (Just like the Tasmanian devil above, you are basically moving around as fast as you can in a whirlwind!)
Trust me…It is harder than it sounds. That towel that at one point seemed light (although the moving blankets we use don’t exactly feel light even to begin with) gets pretty heavy, pretty quickly. And your legs get amazingly fatigued moving around quickly.
BUT I also like this move because it is something that anyone at any level can do.
AND you can easily do this move even at home…or well…anywhere for that matter! All you need is a towel or blanket. Even a freaking bath towel will work! You don’t even need a lot of room to do this move (just make sure there isn’t anything around that you could knock over with the towel!).
So the next time you want to do a little aerobic conditioning, but don’t feel like going for a run or you don’t have a piece of equipment like a treadmill, bike, VersaClimber or elliptical handy, grab a towel!
Start with 3 two-minute rounds of Towel Tazes. Try to decrease your rest from 2 minutes in between each round to only 30 seconds between each round. BUT if you decrease rest, make sure that you aren’t doing it at the expense of working hard the next round. It is better to rest for 2 minutes and work just as hard the second and third rounds than it is to rest for only 30 seconds and be super sloppy the last couple of rounds.
Once that feels easy try 5 rounds or even up the time that you do the Towel Taz.
OR if you are looking for a great metabolic circuit, try the one I did today!
WORKOUT:
3-4 Rounds of the following 9 exercises, with one minute rest between rounds.
Each exercise is done for 40 seconds, followed by 20 seconds of rest to change to the next exercise.
Towel Taz
Sled “Fight” (Push, pull, rotate the sled every direction within a small amount of space.)
Power Ropes battling waves with shuffle (So alternate arm waves while shuffling side to side.)
Push against Wall (So if you don’t push yourself on this one it isn’t hard, but what you do is literally push against a wall as if you want to move it!)
Lateral Shuffle, Sprawl, Sit Thru (So shuffling in a semi-circle, at random points drop to the ground and perform a sit thru, which is an ab move where you lift your left hand and bring your right foot up to replace your hand and literally “sit through.”)
Bag Carry (Take a heavy bag, sandbag or any other awkward heavy bag and bear hug it and walk around quickly.)
Sidewinders (Using a two-inch, 50 ft rope, stretched out all the way, rotate side to side creating waves like a snake moving over the ground. A total ab killer!)
Woodchop Sit ups (Hold a weight with both hands over your right shoulder. Knees bent, sit up and drive the weight across down to your right hip. Then lay back down and repeat)
Glute bridge with twist and reach (In a glute bridge reach your right hand as far back over your head on your left side as you can. Then come back center and reach your left hand across your body and as far overhead to your right as you can.)
Super good! AND lots of different ways to move!
Anyone else have any random exercises that they love that look kind of stupid and not that hard but are actually KILLER?
Man Bicep 