Under Armour Giveaway – Winner!
Man Biceper Therese won the Under Armour Giveway!
Congrats!
I also just wanted to take a second to post this awesome magazine cover she sent me with her entry.
I think the new fashion accessory for this next year may just be biceps….
Being afraid of Bulk – It’s all grey
NO.
Then why are so many freaking women so afraid of lifting weights?
Because we aren’t logical when it comes to how we look?
Possibly. I know Ryan would probably say that most of the time my emotions more than my brain dictate how I feel I look.
But so then what keeps convincing us that we will get bulky, if that belief isn’t at all logical?
What makes women shy away from lifting heavy even when they KNOW logically that they don’t have the hormones/eat enough calories/lift enough weight to become big and bulky?
I honestly believe it may be our definition of femininity. It is this standard that irrationally makes us fear anything that might take us away from this traditional belief.
I mean really think about it….What words do you associate with feminine? Or even masculinity for that matter.
Feminine – gentle, sensitive, thin, empathetic, caring, compassionate
Masculine – strong, competitive, virility
I know these are generic, but let’s face it….They are to some great extent what most people truly believe.
We like things in black and white – female or male.
We fear the “grey areas.”
And to be a woman who lifts weights…well that area is still grey.
It’s still emotionally a struggle because it goes against things we’ve been indoctrinated with since we were very young.
I mean shoot, you say to a woman, “Wow your arms are jacked.” Or “Wow your arms are toned.” And I guarantee she will go home and stare in the mirror and wonder if she is bulky. She may even be so offended by those comments that she cries or turns to friends to tell her she isn’t bulky. (Trust me…I’ve had friends do this).
Even I’ve had moments of being illogical. I’m sure every woman has.
It is hard operating in a “grey area.”
But we can’t give in to that ILLOGICAL fear that we will become bulky.
We can’t give in to all of those freaking people who seem to keep spewing the “Women who lift heavy look like men” phrase.
Because the simple truth is we don’t.
And we never will.
Because even though we may lift like men, we don’t look like them.
(Of course there is still something wrong with the fact that lifting is defined as masculine, but that is a topic for a different day.)
ONLY A COUPLE MORE HOURS!
If you haven’t already, you only have a few more hours to enter the Under Armour giveaway for a chance to win a free Under Armour Sweatshirt!
Breathing Squats
With my return to a powerlifting program for the next couple of weeks before moving back to kettlebell work, I’ve started doing breathing squats.
So far they’ve been light as I get back into really handling heavy weight, but I can just tell they are going to be murder soon. Talk about a great way to add strength and power to your legs!
So what are breathing squats?
After warming up, you set a box that allows you to go to parallel or just a bit below parallel.
You then pick a weight that you know you can do for about 10 reps consecutively. BUT instead of doing 10 reps, you are going to do 20 reps with that weight before you put it down.
And trust me, even using a slightly light weight, these have gotten me out of breath and my legs fatigued.
So next time you are looking for a killer leg workout, I want you to do one thing – breathing squats.
Heavy weight. 20 reps. DONE!
P.S. If you haven’t yet, enter the Under Armour Giveaway!
UNDER ARMOUR GIVEAWAY!!!!
I’m excited to be giving some Man Biceper an Under Armour sweatshirt!
Yay you could have this sweatshirt!
I don’t want to make you jump through too many hoops BUT I do what to hear some interesting comments!
So what do you have to do to get one?
- Share this post on Facebook or Twitter.
- Comment that you shared the post.
- In that comment on this post also state either the funniest aka stupidest thing you’ve ever heard about diet and exercise OR your favorite exercise move and why.
- THEN send me a picture of your Man Bicep, manbiceps@gmail.com. (This last one is optional but it would be awesome to have a picture of a few awesome Man Bicepers! :-))
So there you have it.
Share this post and then comment on it with the link and either an exercise you love or the stupidest thing you’ve heard about diet and exercise! (And hopefully an awesome photo of your Man Bicep!)
You have until the end of the day Monday to enter! And on Tuesday I’ll announce a randomly picked winner from the comments!
Loving my Under Armour
Ok so a few weeks ago, I was contacted by an Under Armour rep. about doing a product review and giveaway.
I won’t do promotional things UNLESS I really believe in the company or brand – and I LOVE Under Armour.
I actually gained a huge respect for the brand when they started the “What’s Beautiful” competition.
So when he offered me a chance to review a product and give one away to a dedicated Man Bicep reader, I jumped right on the opportunity.
I work in a gym with tires, atlas stones, barbells, dumbbells, ropes and sleds. While we do have a cleaning crew that does a great job, the gym does have that sort of dirty outdoor feel.
It definitely isn’t a gym where I want to wear Lululemon. (Granted I only sometimes even wear my stuff from Lululemon to lift…It just doesn’t feel right to me…but that is me.)
BUT I do love wearing big comfortable t-shirts to workout in AND my Under Armour clothes.
I have a number of shirts from Under Armour, which are cute and flattering BUT NOT TIGHT (Even though I have half-naked photos on my blog, I really don’t like tight clothing.)
So anyway, I love my Under Armour stuff because it is cute but makes me feel comfortable and just seems to fit with all of the different things in the gym.
However, most of the Under Armour stuff I have is short-sleeved and while it isn’t COLD here, in a gym with no heat, you do sometimes need a sweatshirt.
And an Under Armour sweatshirt is one thing I didn’t have so I chose to review that product!
I got the purple Fleece Divide Hoody and I LOVE it!
It is warm and cute and comfortable (and I’m a fan of color so I love the brightness). I like mine loose so I got a medium and it fits perfectly! It is fitted enough without being skin-tight.
It makes me feel like I’m wearing something stylish, but at the same time it isn’t so cute or fragile feeling that I’m afraid to get it a little dirty.
It is perfect to lift in and perfect to coach in.
Some breathing squats to warm up
Deadlift warm up
(Ok so these pictures are taken from this morning workout and I look tired…I’m apparently not a morning person any more…)
The only “negative” I guess is that it is missing thumb holes, but I’m just a weirdo and like to play with those…
So who is interested in getting their own Fleece Divide Hoody!?!
Check back later today for the GIVEAWAY!
P.S. I’ve decided breathing squats are going to be awful by the end of next week. Right now the weight is light enough that 20 in a row down to a low box isn’t bad, but once I up the weight next week…UH OH!
Farmageddon
So this morning while we were drinking our coffee (one of the few mornings on which I attempted to make myself try to like coffee…it wasn’t successful..), Ryan put on Farmageddon.
I was curious to see the movie after all of the seizures of raw milk going on and the fact that California is one of the few states to still sell it in a few markets.
Raw milk cream…even better!
Honestly, what I saw in the movie was slightly depressing. SMALL farms were being raided and their raw milk products seized and destroyed.
The government was coming in and taking away the livelihoods of small, local farmers.
They claimed that these raw milk products were dangerous and contained bacteria that could make people ill. They claimed they were doing it for the good of people.
But why were they really doing it? Where these raw products really bad?
Why the government did it, I can only guess at. Was it to protect big business? Was it to keep people in line?
Who knows, but I can say it wasn’t because the products were actually dangerous.
Observational evidence suggests that raw milk may improve lactose tolerance, prevent the
development of asthma and allergies, and may be more digestible than pasteurized milk for
people who have difficulty digesting fat. Pasteurization decreases the content of iron, copper,
manganese, and iodine in milk, and may diminish the bioavailability of calcium and phosphorus.
It causes major losses of biological activity for vitamin C and folate, substantial losses for
vitamin B6, and may have similar effects for other vitamins. The available data for the
prevalence of foodborne illnesses associated with specific foods are extremely poor in quality
and rich in bias. Even taking these data at face value, however, raw milk may have the potential
to protect millions of people from asthma and prevent hundreds of asthma-related deaths without
causing major increases in the total burden of foodborne illness. (Realmilk.com)
Honestly we didn’t even start pasteurizing milk because it was dangerous in and of itself. We started pasteurizing it when we started keeping cows in crowded DIRTY pens and we started feeding them waste. Then their milk was blue and we added chalk to make it look new.
No wonder people started getting sick and we figured we should start pasteurizing it!
So it wasn’t the raw milk but all of the awful practices we had that made the milk dangerous….I guess I would understand why we wouldn’t allow raw milk from the cows on some of our big conventional farms since those cows are kept in disgusting conditions and fed crap, BUT I don’t understand how we can’t allow raw milk from naturally raised, grass-fed cows when it has benefits such as more vitamins and improved fat digestion.
Why? Why don’t we want to explore the healthiness of raw milk? Why do we just ban it WITHOUT doing any true studies?
Hmmm…maybe because we don’t want to actually change the problem, we just want to do a superficial fix. It is easier to just pasteurize milk than it is to make all of our farming practices better so that we don’t have to….
One potato, two potatoes, three potatoes…ICK! No more!
The potato diet has been sweeping the Primal and Paleo community ever since Chris Voigt did his 20 potatoes a day for 60 days diet and lost weight and improved his cholesterol and blood pressure.
So I decided to try it.
Baked fries were great the first meal….
I mean how can you turn down trying a diet that has health benefits, promotes weight loss and supposedly keeps you full and energized throughout the entire day!?!
Anyway, I started the diet and for the first day, liked it. It was fun eating potatoes and getting to eat a large quantity of food at each meal. (This diet is literally potatoes and about a tsp. of fat per potato).
But the morning after my first day on the diet, I woke up starving, which is something I’m not used to. Usually, even when I’m not doing a lot of fasting, I don’t get hungry to at least 12 p.m.
But I was starving. My stomach was literally growling.
However, I did lose 2lbs after my very first day on the diet.
Eating potatoes that next day again wasn’t bad except that an hour after eating, I was again starving.
My energy was low all day and I felt sluggish during my workout
Ryan felt the same way. He was grouchy and aggravated all day.
But we stuck with it.
I slept well the following night even though I again woke up feeling ravenous. (I lost a pound.)
Ryan on the other hand slept terribly and woke up hungry and in one of the worst moods ever. He, however, gained weight.
We again stuck with the diet. We tried making mashed potatoes. We baked some “fries.”
And it tasted fine although we both started craving meat.
I felt like I was suffering from the low carb flu. I felt awful.
But another day complete.
On the third day, I woke up angry, but I’d lost another 1/2 pound. Ryan also gained weight and he was ready to give up.
Again we struggled through another day of feeling crappy…And my workout suffered.
On the fourth day, we both gained weight. We both decided that if we gained again, we just couldn’t put up with the fact that we felt completely and utterly horrible. (And trust me, we don’t give up on diets easily…Actually Ryan has never even acted like a diet was tough!)
On the fifth day, Ryan gave up. He gained weight again. I only chose to continue since I lost another pound, putting my total at 3 1/2 for four days.
It was hard struggling through without him on that fifth day. All of his food looked so good!
All I could think was, “I HATE POTATOES!” How the heck did all of these people like this diet!?! I feel hungry basically all the time. I’m low energy AND my workouts are suffering. I feel like I have the low carb flu, but unlike the low carb flu…IT WON’T GO AWAY!
That night I woke up starving in the middle of the night and felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I sat awake reading for hours until my body normalized.
When I woke up, I’d lost 2 more pounds, but I couldn’t handle any more. I was eating till I was full each meal, but I ended up feeling like I hadn’t eaten only 30 minutes later!
I’d lost 5.5lbs in 5 days, but the weight loss wasn’t worth the way I felt. While the potato diet wasn’t ever meant to be something long term, it wasn’t even maintainable for me for one week.
On that sixth day, I caved. I needed a re-feed. The second meat touched my lips, I felt re-energized.
But on Monday, I went right back on the diet. I’m trying to really give it a chance, but I’m not sure I’m going to make it another 5 straight days.
I’m sure there are people out there that this diet would work to kick-start their weight loss, but it isn’t for me….And definitely isn’t for Ryan.
His body definitely operates better on few to no carbs. I definitely need more carbs than he does, but all potatoes…Uhm…NO.
This diet doesn’t work for me. Is it worth trying?
Of course! (I did find it interesting that I didn’t really crave anything specific while eating ONLY potatoes. I did want real food, but nothing specific…It makes me wonder if you crave more specific things when you can occasionally have them…)
I would be interested to hear anyone else’s experience with the potato diet! And I’ll keep you posted during this second week of trying!
P.S. This does also highlight my point that just because someone says something works for them, doesn’t mean it will work for you!
P.P.S. Coming soon…An Under Armour giveaway! Get excited! 🙂
Building up
Just because you can pick the weight off of the ground, doesn’t mean you should.
While you technically may be strong enough to lift a weight, your body may not actually be ready to handle the loads, especially on a consistent basis.
So how do you build up so that your body can handle the weight?
- Foam roll – Foam rolling releases tight muscles and helps restore proper length tension relationships so that the correct muscles are recruited when you need them.
- Stretch – So if you’ve ever seen a competitive lifter, you will notice they are extremely flexible. While you may not want to do any static stretching BEFORE you workout, a good stretching program each day will help to prevent injury and increase range of motion around your joints.
- Activate – Too often people aren’t using a HUGE muscle when they do squats and deadlifts – their butts. Make sure before you work out that you have all the proper muscles activated – you will lift more that way. And part of having everything activated….Is warming up!
- WARM UP – Walking on a treadmill for 5 minutes before you lift isn’t a proper warm up. Sorry. A good warm up should loosen up muscles and active muscles so that they are ready to work. Band walks to activate your glutes can be a great part of a warm up. So can inch worms, side shuffles, skips and multiplanar lunges!
- Light first – So each time I start a heavy lift, my first couple of sets is lighter than the rest. Even if I’m trying to maintain the same heavy weight for 5 sets, I’ll do two or three warm up sets first to build to the weight. NEVER jump right into the weight you built up to last week!!!
- Steady slow increases – As you build up to heavier and heavier weights, you want to do it in slow, steady increases. While form may break down when you hit your true max, you don’t want it to break down as you slowly add weight. Track your progress and each time try to add just a little more.
- Work your weak points – You are only as strong as your weakest link. If your shoulders aren’t strong, you won’t be able to bench as much or do as many push ups as the rest of your upper body can handle. You don’t have to do isolated muscle movements to strengthen the weak points just choose exercises that allow them to be the main mover!
- Choose complementary exercises – Don’t just keep doing the same exercises over and over again. Sometimes variety can be key. While you don’t just want to do random exercises, you do want to make sure that you are strengthening your muscles from a couple of different angles. For deadlifts, kettlbell swings can be great. Glute bridges can also help. Plus the variety in exercises can keep you mentally interested.
- Fuel properly – Eating the right stuff can also help your body be ready to handle the loads. If you don’t eat enough, you may find your strength declining!
- REST – Yep. If you want to hit the big numbers, you need to get enough rest. This means days off each week AND it also means adequate rest in between sets. If you don’t rest enough between sets, you won’t be allowing your body to get ready to lift even more weight the next set!
So follow these 10 tips and start building up to the big numbers!
Be your own role model
I feel like increasingly we search for motivation and inspiration outside of ourselves. We look to magazines and search Pinterest for Thinspo or Fitspo pictures to be good influences on us and get us to eat well and workout.
Stop looking for motivation and JUST DO IT!
I’ve found that the best way to stay motivated and inspired is to inspire myself.
I work to do my best day in and day out. I work to accomplish goals that push me to become a better me.
I strive to impress myself.
I want to prove to myself that I can be stronger, fitter or faster.
Each day that I work hard and each day that I accomplish something new, I become more committed and more motivated.
I BELIEVE more in myself.
That belief in myself is something that no picture or magazine or story of any other athlete can give me.
So while I do understand that pictures of our “role models” can keep us motivated when we want to walk to our fridge and eat something bad, they won’t keep you committed in the long run.
They won’t make you believe more in yourself.
When was the last time you looked at yourself and thought, “I’m a pretty freaking great role model for myself!”
Man Bicep 