Macro THEN Micro-Managing
Today I saw a guy in about his early 60s walk out of 24 Hour Fitness. He had a beer belly hanging out from beneath his nice tight spandex Nike shirt.
And while this picture made me shake my head what made my jaw drop was the fact that this overweight guy, with relatively little muscle, in his 60s was carrying a huge jar of N.O.-Xplode in his hand.
N.O.-Xplode is a nitric oxide booster and dilates your blood vessels to supposedly help deliver all of the extra CRAP the supplement has in it to your tissues quicker.
Some people say it enhances their workouts. Others just feel ill from the rapid heart beat that can follow a dose of N.O.-Xplode.
Really though it is one of those supplements that the average Joe shouldn’t even be worrying about. (I mean I don’t think even the fitness models and athletes should take it, but that is a totally different discussion).
But that is what average people do. They buy supplements and diet stuff that the super in shape models use instead of working on their base program first.
They overcomplicate things instead of focusing on a few solid basics.
This 60-year-old man didn’t need a diet supplement. He needed a new workout program and a solid diet of whole, natural foods.
But the diet supplement was a simpler solution. An easier solution.
One that won’t work.
He is focusing on micromanaging his diet. Supplements are for those people who have a solid diet and workout program and may be looking to get off that last 1% of body fat (of course I don’t think even these people need them, BUT if anyone does they do).
Everyone besides these fitness models and elite athletes shouldn’t even go near any supplements. First, they need to focus on the macronutrient proportions in their diets. They need to focus on eating only nutrient dense carbs, whole, natural sources of protein and lots of good fat. WHOLE NATURAL FOODS!
Build a solid base and then once you have seen results from that, then start getting closer to micro-managing every last thing.
Because if you don’t, you’ll be that 60-year-old man walking out of the gym with your belly hanging out and the latest supplement in your hand.
And in three years, if he hasn’t given up by then, he will be three years older and still walking out of 24 Hour Fitness with the newest supplement. His beer belly still hanging out from below his tight Nike spandex shirt.
How long will it take me to reach my goals?
I hate this question.
To me this question means, “I don’t like to work hard and have given up in the past and want you to have some secret that will make me better almost instantly.”
Do you think I am reading too much into this statement.
Not one bit.
When people ask this question, it means they really aren’t ready to commit to all of the hard work, dedication and time it will take to reach their goals. They aren’t willing to sacrifice or really change anything that they are currently doing.
I never ask how long will it take me. I sometimes think, “Ok how long should this take me or what is a realistic time-table.” But never how long will it take me.
The more I think about the question, the more I hate it.
And usually I respond back to the person, “Well how hard are you willing to work and how dedicated will you stay to the program when I’m not there.”
I usually get a whole bunch of “Uhmmmm” and “I don’t know” and “How hard will it be?”
Honestly, that to me means that you won’t achieve your goals unless we change your attitude.
Accomplishing any goal is HARD WORK. It usually takes time and a clearly laid out plan. It will involve a lot of ups and downs and times when you want to just give up.
I mean do you ever really achieve your goal and go “Well I’m done. Back to not working out and eating badly.”
I most certainly hope not!
Most health and fitness goals don’t have a set end date. They are ongoing.
So please don’t ask how long it will take to get you to your goals. Set a goal and lay out a plan. Work each and every day toward that goal in some small way.
And guess what?
You’ll get there when you get there but you’ll feel good every day knowing that you are working toward something that matters. You’ll feel good knowing that you were willing to sacrifice and work hard!
One size doesn’t fit all
I was telling everyone at work about my “AH HA!” moment in the shower the other day.
I was thinking about our gym, Crossfit and personal training when I thought….
“Would you go to a doctor that prescribes the same thing to cure all of his patients? NO! So why would you go to a gym that does?!?”
I like Crossfit for a number of reasons, BUT some of the people doing it really shouldn’t be doing it.
Sorry but that is the cold hard truth.
Crossfit is one prescription for a whole bunch of problems and frankly that just doesn’t work.
I usually don’t say anything negative about Crossfit because I do like the movement and a lot of what it stands for.
But it shouldn’t ever have become mainstream.
I’m sorry. Lifting “heavy” is for everyone, but as I’ve said before “heavy” is so very relative.
While I love the variety of Crossfit, a lot of the people doing the workouts SHOULD NOT be doing the moves they are doing. Can they be learning snatches?
YES. But they should be learning proper form and progressing in a fashion that allows their bodies to adapt to the loads.
Unfortunately this doesn’t happen at many Crossfit gyms (which gives the ones that do do this a bad name).
Crossfit is also all about pushing the body past the point of failure.
Which I love.
But the average person doesn’t have the same understanding of their body that athletes and advanced/experienced lifters do.
I know when my form breaks down. I know how far I can push my body past that point of absolute fatigue without risking injury.
Many of the people doing the heavy Crossfit lifts don’t.
I mean, “Do you?” Can you tell when your form breaks down? Do you know which muscles are compensating and how much they can handle? Do you know that your body is prepared to handle the loads placed on it?
If you can’t answer yes to those questions, you shouldn’t be using a heavy weight till failure. You shouldn’t be doing many of the Crossfit workouts.
Sorry.
I guess what it comes down to for me is that Crossfit is a sport – A sport MEANT for elite athletes.
I know many of you will disagree with me, but before you start ranting and potentially leaving comments just take a second to think about what I’m saying.
One size doesn’t fit all.
Is Crossfit really getting you toward your goals?
Or is this another one of those things that people do because it is popular right now, but eventually get injured/tired/bored or don’t reach their goals so they give up?
Is Crossfit really the right program for you?
It may be super cool and “bad-ass” right now, but in the long run, is it the right prescription for YOU?
Babies do it – So should we!
I hear too many people complain that they just don’t have time to go to the gym. That they just don’t have time to get in a good workout.
Seriously!?!
You only need 20 minutes to get in a killer workout. You just need to pick the right exercises.
And crawling would be one of those killer exercises that are perfect to include in a workout when you don’t have much time.
Yea you can make crawling more difficult by adding in chains and weights and such, but you really don’t even need more than your body weight to get in a great workout using crawling.
You can go forward, backward, left and right and do a bunch of different types of crawls. You work your arms and legs and core. AND you will get out of breath doing it if you push yourself to go fast.
Really crawling works it all.
A great crawl to start with is either the baby crawl (basic) or the table top or bear crawl.
To crawl forwards and backwards:
- Start on your hands and knees with your knees under your hips and your hands under your shoulders.
- If you can, lift your knees off the ground so you are on your toes and hands. If this is too much at the beginning, start with a baby crawl from your hands and knees.
- Begin to move forward with a contralateral movement – opposite hand and opposite foot move. Ex: Reach out with your right hand and bring your left knee up to the back of your left wrist. Then bring your left hand forward and your right knee.
- Keep crawling forward for a set amount of feet. Keep a nice table top position with your back. Don’t put your butt up in the air and keep your core tight.
- Once you reach the end of your set distance. Crawl backwards. You will do the same movement just going backwards. This will feel awkward. Do not get too spread out.
To crawl sideways:
- Set up the same way you did with the forward crawl except facing sideways.
- Have your hands wide and your feet together.
- As you move sideways, you will bring your feet wide and your hands together and then bring your hands back wide and your feet together.
- Repeat this motion all the way down and back.
- You can also straighten your knees and remain in a high plank if you would like to change it up.
- Again keep your hips down! No butts up in the air.
The crawl can be used as part of your warm up or added to your workout. Either way you will work your entire body and get some cardio out of it!
Yesterday I incorporated crawling into my workout out at the park and it only took about 20 minutes! Yay sun and yay crawling!
10 rounds as fast as possible
5 pull ups
10 push ups
15 body weight squats
50 ft crawl forwards
50 ft crawl backwards
I’m pretty sure this is the look I gave Ryan at some point during this deadly quick workout.
Has your diet evolved?
I think the sign of a good diet is whether or not it has evolved, even just a little bit, from when you started it.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other!
When you first start a diet, you should stick to the guidelines laid out as strictly as possible because that way you know if the principles work.
But most of the time the guidelines laid out by that other person, aren’t perfect for you. So either you end up giving up on the diet OR you start evolving the diet to better work for you.
I started out doing the Primal diet as Mark had it laid out. But slowly I made my own changes.
At first apples and almond butter were a staple snack to replace the apples and peanut butter I had been eating. Now….I can’t even remember the last time I ate them as a snack.
At first I also didn’t eat rice and potatoes. I ate nuts and fruit and vegetables as my only carbs. But then when I wanted to really cut body fat, I stopped eating as many nuts (actually I basically only eat macadamia nuts now) and started carb cycling with rice and potatoes.
Recently though, I haven’t eaten any potatoes. Instead I’ve had a very little bit of white rice and homemade corn tortillas. Although corn isn’t recommended in Primal, I’ve found that having tacos with corn tortillas as kept me from really cheating otherwise. And my energy levels have felt great, my workouts have been intense and my body composition has actually improved.
I also used to eat a lot more cheese when I first started Primal. Slowly cheese became more of a treat and less of a staple. I no longer need the cheese each day to keep me sane.
That is really what experimenting with your diet is all about – staying sane while being healthy.
You don’t want to deprive yourself of something you love to the extent that you complete give up on a healthy lifestyle. Remember the 80/20 rule – perfection is only required 80% of the time to reach your goals.
You need to find what works for you.
How many carbs do you need? Do you crave sweets or can you not live without your cheese?
All diets can and SHOULD be adjusted to fit YOUR needs.
How has your healthy diet evolved since you started it? What changes have you made to keep yourself dedicated to an overall healthy lifestyle? What do you allow in your 20%?
Farmers Market
So off course not everything is healthy at the farmers market.
There are people selling baked goods and chips and popcorn. But at least everything is fresh, local or homemade!
Ryan and me at the farmers market today with his dad.
Most of the food is from no further away than a few hours. And a lot of it, like the peaches, was literally just picked yesterday. No pesticides. No preservatives. Straight to from the farm to your table (or your belly if you are like me and want to eat it all right away).
I love the fact that everything is so fresh at the farmers market. I love that everything is local. I love that everything is grown without chemicals and evil farming practices. I love that everything is as natural as can be.
But most of all I love that everything tastes so darn good and is picked and sold exactly when it is in season.
In season….that isn’t really a word that concerns us much any more when it comes to foods.
I mean something is in season somewhere right? So we can always have it.
I do wonder though how much better off we’d be if we only ate foods that were in-season at that time. Granted it would stink depending on where you live, but still.
They do tend to taste a whole heck of a lot better when they are in-season and local. Just look at those peaches and strawberries. I can tell you for sure they are sweet and juicy and delicious!
What do you think? Do you try to eat fruits and veggies that are in-season? Or do you not care? And are you as obsessed with your local farmers market as I am?
Happy Saturday Man Bicepers! Sorry that I’ve been missing in action. Back to more regular posting this week!
Taking that first step
Great cartoon!
How many times have you looked at a task and thought, “I can’t do that” or “That is going to be so killer and I won’t try it today”?
Probably too many times.
I don’t like being on a piece of cardio equipment for more than 2 seconds. Honestly, I could never step foot on a piece of cardio equipment and be more than happy.
But one of the basic tasks I have to complete is a quarter-mile on the VersaClimber.
Have I mentioned that the VersaClimber is one of the newest activities that I have a love/hate relationship with?
Well I do.
And since I first tried the VersaClimber and realized I had to spend more time on it than a minute, I sort of had started to tell myself I would never survive the quarter-mile.
I told myself, “I hate cardio.” “I can never zone out when I do stuff like that.” “I always am miserable doing that.” “I won’t be able to do very well.”
Finally I told myself to shut up.
Why was I having such negative thoughts? Why was I psyching myself out!?! I was making the whole thing worse by thinking so negatively.
I needed to JUST DO IT! If I couldn’t do it then I couldn’t do it, but I would never know until I actually TRIED.
And on Monday night, I did it. I didn’t set any expectations, I just did it. Whatever time I got, I was going to be proud that I took on the challenge instead of just saying “I can’t” and never trying.
I took the first step toward success – Actually TRYING the activity!
And I did a GREAT job. (Not to brag, but I’m pretty happy with how I did!). Here I’d thought I’d never survive, but instead I kept a pace that set me up to do a mile in under 40 minutes (which gets you up on our wall at our gym). Of course I’d need a some more training to do it, but I’d shown myself it was possible!
After I finished, I couldn’t believe just how negative I’d been beforehand. Why hadn’t I embraced the challenge? Why had I psyched myself out of even taking the first step?
What if I had let my negative mental attitude keep me from taking on the challenge?
Then I would never have known if I could do it. I would never have tested a new mental and physical limit.
Sometimes you need to cast aside all expectations and JUST DO IT. Don’t say “I CAN’T.” Just TRY IT!
Take that first step.
And this applies to everything in life. Any goal you have, if you don’t take that first step toward achieving it then of course you will never get there! If you want it, take that first step!
If you “fail,” get back up the next time and just go a bit further.
Trying but not succeeding isn’t a failure. It is a learning experience.
Never trying it….well that is a true failure.
Take the first step…Go for it!
Battling Ropes
Ingrid is the awesome woman in this photo who lead most of our course. So RAD! (Had to throw in some California slang!)
Yesterday I attended a Level 1 Battling Ropes Certification course.
It was AWESOME!
Honestly, it is one of THE BEST THINGS that most people AREN’T INCLUDING in their program.
Who can do battling ropes?
That is the best part…EVERYONE!
It was one of the few workouts we can all do that really has no risk of injury AND doesn’t need a lot of practice to get the “form” correct.
When we are teaching someone to deadlift, it is a slow and long process. Their joints and connective tissues have to be ready to lift the weight before they can bump up the resistance. So even if they have the muscular strength to do a weight, their body might not truly be ready to handle it. AND form is an important part of the deadlift. You have to learn the form before you can increase the weight you are using.
But that isn’t the case with the Battling Ropes. With Battling Ropes, a beginner or a professional athletes can use the same 50ft, 1.5 inch rope and get a killer workout.
Everyone’s connective tissues can handle the weight of the ropes. AND everyone can DEVELOP correct form as they do the ropes more. At the beginning your body may compensate, but as you get tired your entire body has to work together correctly to produce the force necessary to make waves all the way down the rope. Imbalances will reveal themselves AND correct themselves as people do the ropes more and more.
All of the PROBLEMS that develop or can hinder progress with traditional weight lifting can be corrected using the ropes.
And on top of that, THEY AREN’T EASY!
I can bench press, do tons of push ups, deadlift and squat heavy weights, but one minute on the Battling Ropes and my body is says, “OUCH!”
I just love it!
Battling Ropes help increase your work capacity, teach you how to use your entire body to move EFFICIENTLY and increase your power and strength. They do everything basically AND everyone can do them.
You just start by making the waves go as far down the rope as you can. That may be two feet or all the way down. As your body learns how to move efficiently and becomes stronger, you will get the waves further and further down the ropes and increase the speed at which you can produce the waves.
Start with just a minute. Each time try to go longer! Right now I have two challenges that I want to take down. Five minutes straight of the alternating arm waves (after that I’ll try 10 minutes) and then the 1 mile rope pull. Wish me luck!
If you want to learn more about Battling Ropes and the exercises you can do with them (hopefully I will have some of my own videos soon!), check out these videos by John and his crew. John’s website also has some great info on it! Our gym also has some great videos that I will link to as soon as our site is back up!
Next we will discuss some more natural movements for our body, CRAWLING. Not only forwards, but also backwards. It is crazy how hard the backwards because we never train that movement pattern YET it should be something we train since we have to do it naturally!
P.S. I thought one of the most interesting things about using Battling Ropes is that you don’t get SORE from a workout with them. Because of the constant motion and the use of only concentric and isometric contractions, you don’t get sore the next day. Fatigued, yes, but sore, no.
The good, the bad and the simply stupid
I love the Olympics. I love confident athletes. But you don’t have to act like a jerk. I almost always cheer for the American athlete, but I have to admit that I was cheering against Lochte. Anyone else find his attitude annoying? (That and he is definitely not good at interviews!)
The Good
- I’m so excited that we have a sled at the gym I’m now working at! It is a great tool to increase your leg strength and speed!
- I see people spend hours working on just about every part of their body, but their feet and ankles. BUT your feet contain about 25% of the bones in your body…Shouldn’t you be working on strengthening and making them more flexible since if they are weak or immobile they can cause altered movement patterns, muscle imbalances, pain and injury in other parts of your body!?! (Ok this isn’t good, but the exercises in this IR Blog post are!)
- Why am I not surprised that fit children do better academically?
The Bad
- Why is there so much drama on the internet about female athletes and their bodies? Why can’t we talk about what they can DO instead of focusing on whether or not their weight makes them beautiful by society’s standards?!? And can I just say….I REALLY LIKE ZOE SMITH’S ATTITUDE!
The Simply Stupid
- Cameron Diaz is publishing a book about health and fitness!?! What does she know!?! AH!!!!! Does this scare anyone else
- I’m tempted to add a section called interesting because I don’t know how to react to the articles I’ve included below.
- Beetroot and Tart Cherry juice can improve performance….Ok….They are all-natural…now I wonder if they really work. AND if they do, would you drink them?
- I get why we want people to have nutritional certifications if they are providing nutritional advice. At the same time, we allow people to post all sorts of opinions and advice online that they aren’t necessarily certified to give…Do you think this regulation of bloggers providing nutritional advice is only occurring because mainstream society is afraid that if people realize that these Primal diets are better that the whole “low-fat lie” will crumble?
Carbs
Carbs – To eat or not to eat…
Isn’t really the question.
What you should actually ask yourself is, “Where should I be getting my carbs from?” and “And how many should I eat on any given day?”
You need some carbs. How many you need exactly is dependent upon the activities you are doing.
Especially when I was lifting and doing very little cardio, I found that I felt best when eating relatively no carbs.
Now that my workouts are more cardiovascular, I find that I need to eat more carbs than before.
BUT that doesn’t mean that I’m gorging myself and pasta and stuffing myself with all of those simple sugar power gels and drinks. You don’t need to “carbo-load” they way that people often do.
Anytime I need to fill up or replenish my glycogen stores, I eat whole,natural, unprocessed and unrefined carbohydrates.
I’ve always gotten a large portion of my carbs from veggies. Now that my body is craving more carbs with the increase of aerobic exercise in my circuit training, I’m finding that I’m craving more fruits and even occasionally some white rice and potatoes.
I’m sure some of you will be surprised by the fact that I said WHITE RICE over BROWN RICE, but my stance on “whole grains” is an issue for another post.
The point of this post is that you do NEED CARBS. You just don’t need to eat pasta, oatmeal and bread to get what you need.
Honestly, depending on your level of activity, your body may be satisfied if you just eat some nuts and veggies. If you workouts are intense and you are doing more cardiovascular activities, you may find that you deplete your glycogen stores more and that you crave more carbs after your workout. Fruit is a great way to get some extra carbs because fruit also contains essential vitamins and minerals.
And if you need quick acting carbs to replenish your depleted stores, potatoes and white rice, yes white rice, are a great way to get the carbs you need.
How many carbs you need exactly is dependent on YOUR level of activity. Not what your friend or neighbor or trainer eats.
Too many carbs can lead to fat retention and the “carb belly.”
BUT consuming too few carbs can also hinder your progress. Sometimes you need to eat a few more carbs or “carb cycle” (high carb and low carb days) to get off that last little bit of fat or to enhance your performance.
So experiment. Take a look at your diet. Have you been severely restricting carbs but are struggling to get off that last little bit of fat? Has your performance lagged? Have you failed to lose any fat?
Your carb intake, or the types of carbs you are consuming, may have something to do with it.
Man Bicep 