The Turd Posts again!

So I've been a complete turd about posting to my blog. A lot has been happening in my life: I became Chief Editor of the scientific journal, adopted a dog, any various other things, which are not the subject of this post.

Actually, I've been working hard on my body weight workouts and as evidence that they do work, I thought I might share a few things that have happened to me in the gym. First, I am stronger than ever. I can do the handstand, the handstand pushup with wall - easily pumping out 3-5 sets of 6-8 reps. I've continued adopting, with the help of the trainer at the Gold's Gym, new moves with my suspension trainer. Second, I have become "known" around the gym. Not by name, but rather by what I do. One fella said to me he's never seen anything like my workout, but "it's apparently working." Another guy mentioned that he talks about "the guy in the gym who does no resistance training or work to hypertrophy, but is really cut up." Third, my wife' trainer who is a beast of a woman and I mean that in the most flattering way possible; she is trong as an oxe and ripped. She was a pro body builder and now is a cert personal trainer and is totally awesome. She regularly whips people into shape. Well she said in a conversation that I am the fittest guy in the gym and don't use half of the equipment; that compliment meant loads to me.

Now onto some new moves, progress updates, etc.

New move 1: Hanging L-seat to hanging planche. Hang your suspension trainer, ropes low to the ground for this one because if you fall, and you will the first time, it will hurt. Take my word for it on this one. So about a foot off the ground grab the handles and enter L-seat. This is hard as you try to maintain straight legs, tight core and no swinging. Then move legs thru into hanging planche. I have attained it once, it is absolutely killer. I got so excited it caused me to fall. Ouch!

New move 2: Split squats to dumbbell snatch. Place a pair of dumbbells out in front o you about 36 inches or so. Lunge toward the dumbbells and when you go down, pick the dumbbells up. Actually, just grab the handles. Instead of lunging back, or forward, jump as you would during a split squat (that is your lunge position changes from (e.g.) left foot forward to back foot forward) while simultaneously snatching the dumbbells over your head. While in the lunge position, slowly lower the dumbbells and then lunge back to standing. A variation on this, place a series of dumbbells that increase in weight along a court/floor. Then lunge forward and walk. I have not tried that one.

Anyhow, I guess I am back, re-motivated to write about working out for a while.

Your fat? It's all your mother's fault

A recent article published in the journal Eating Behaviors has found evidence that the development of eating related disorders (e.g. anorexia and bulimia, especially in females) is related to family factors associated with, or surrounding food. The main finding is that family dysfunction leads to eating disorder, but that the connection between eating disorder and family function was completely mediated by negative family food-related experiences (e.g., parental modeling, parental expectations, and teasing about food, eating, or being overweight). Interestingly, a close look at the data show that maternal effects appear to have slightly larger impact (remember these are girl research participants) than paternal effects. 

Especially with the major eating holidays just around the corner this made me think about my family food-related experiences. I asked myself what were they like? Typically and at key times when stress might be particularly high, or low, like Holidays? I asked myself about whether I thought these experiences led to my eating "issues" and fitness addiction? 

My upbringing was not an unusual one for a boy born in Philadelphia and later raised in South Jersey. School every day; play (sports or video games) after school; make every attempt to convince mom and dad I had done my homework, when in fact I had not even bothered bringing it home; etc. Both of my parents worked full time jobs, and my dad worked overtime just about every chance he could get. It's probably, no in fact it IS the reason that we had an in ground pool and I was able to play on the local ice hockey club, which cost a fortune (+ travel around the country). Neither of my parents have college degrees, they came from working class families and were hell bent on their kids going to college. My mom was a medium sized, blonde bombshell, not that she flaunted it, but I've seen pics and my mom was hot! My dad was a beast. there are few other words I could ever use to describe this man - but a beast. He was an ex-marine turned railroad laborer. He swung a sledge hammer or operated heavy machinery for a lot of his life. He hand hands like King Kong. I remember one day we were laying down railroad ties to serve as an outline/barrier to our garden. He told me to grab one, which I did after about 15 minutes of struggling with how to hold the damn thing and walk with it. He grabbed one in his left and one in his right. Stood up and walked off as if he was carrying to grocery bags! He was also ripped, like Men's Health cover ripped and diesel. Strong as an oxe, obviouly I worshipped him when he was alive. He was also kind of a dick. He would scare the shit out of my friends on a regular basis. One of my very good childhood friends actually stopped coming to my home because every time he walked into my house my dad would grab him by the shirt (usually with about a fistful of chest skin too) and pick him up off the floor about 1-2 feet and say, "What the hell do you want?!"  Then drop him and laugh... hahaha, some sense of humor eh?

They, my folks, grew up in an era where fitness was not fab, posh, or even existent outside of NFL'ers, ironman comps, and pro body building. Fitness was neither science nor fad for them; it was not even a thought (ok until Richard Simmons' explosion onto the scene). As kids without televisions, and nintendos, and such, they were forced outside to work and play. They lost weight the old fashioned way - outdoor sweat! (Unlike kids of today!)  They were not taught to eat healthy. Rather they were taught to eat; if it was on the plate you ate it - else you went to bed hungry. Kind of makes sense to me, actually. Even health related disease was not a concern - my mothers OB/GYN told her that is was OK to drink while pregnant (that it would alleviate the tension and calm the child) and to smoke. Smoking was thought to, and now known to, reduce birth weight. Well I guess for mothers, reducing the size of objects tearing apart your vagina sounds like a pretty good idea....but nowadays we frown upon it, I think, although I have been to several Liverpudlian pubs... hmmm. Anyhow....

So, obviously they learned - things change. Except when it came to food. Based upon this upbringing they were crazy eaters. We had the money to buy food and put it on the table and even have leftovers and that did not stop my mom and dad from saying - EAT UP BOYS AND GIRLS! A typical meal at my house consisted of: a meat (e.g., chicken, pork chops, meatloaf, hamburgers, and most items were breaded and deep fried, cuz we could(!)), at least 2 usually 4 different vegetables, a starch or two (e.g., potatoes and rice), bread, salad, and dessert. Every meal we had something for dessert. What's that? what's that you ask? Was I a fatto as a kid? Yes. Of course I was. I was a walking, breathing tird! When we sat down for dinner, which we always did together seven nights a week as a family (a great thing) we ate what we took and more. My dad would literally force us to eat more. "Come on! You can put down at least 2 more (fried) pork chops and some more green beans, I know you can!" Then afterwards, because of course I did it to impress him with how much I could eat, he'd shout "Jesus christ! Steve you eat like a truck driver!" No offense to Drivers, I have actually never seen one eat, mainly out of fear ;-) 

It was not until college actually that I changed my ways. I went on a long road trip to Daytona Beach, Florida with a friend of mine (that one who'd be picked up by his chest skin) and two females from one of our classes; I didnt know their names then, and still dont. Anyhow, on the way down - straight drive 24.75 hours - stopping only to urinate on the side of the road (much to the gals dismay), on this trip, I ate 3/4 of a 5lb bag of Mike & Ikes (you know, the world's greatest candy!) My friend so kindly said to me as we unshirted for the pool, dude - you're fat. Now this was probably a mate retention tactic on his part, as he was very close to mating the hotter of the two unknown females, but for some reason, at that very moment, those words struck a chord in me. I laughed, while angling my head down at myself - "I was fat!" How? When did this happen? 

This started me on a road to eating "disorderhood" - restrained eating as it is scientifically called. Where I monitor, binge, become addicted to exercise, and then stop and then start in a vicious circle of self-hate and exercise love. 

I now think back: What were the cues that made me eat the way I did, and think it OK to devour an entire Dennys Big Breakfast like it was a handful of peanuts? It probably was my family; there incessant desire for me to have what they did not. But I cannot blame them. They did not know. For me, it was me, my own doing. I ate, because eating fucking rules! I still love to eat and in a hot minute you might find me at the local Waffle House downing the pecan waffle supreme b-fast - that baby is about 6000 calories of no redeeming nutritional quality, but tastes like a gustatory orgasm! Brilliant, in other words. 

I wonder what people think about parental effects on their current eating habits? I constantly annoy my mom and sister now with the way I eat. My mom eats ok these days - but she doesn't weigh more than 99 lbs. But in general I watch what I eat. Try to measure serving sizes. Try to avoid dessert and sweets, replacing them with trail mix and dates. Anyone else have experiences like this? I realize that this is a huge theme in female development of eating disorders, but similar effects can and in my case have occurred in males. 

Anyhow, I gotta run. I have to make my pre-measured, low calorie, high protein and fiber, well-balanced afternoon snack before I go to martial arts :-)

Home made "nut butter"

So just about everyday, after our workout, my wife and I down a protein shake and then in a few hours take down our mid-morning snack. Our midmorn snack lately has taken the form of a rice cake (or 2) spread with some peanut butter. High carb, low sugar, high protein snack. It's a great, absolutely wonderful post-workout snack. Well in my enthusiastic culinary skills (read no idea how to cook, but like playing with new toys like my Magic Bullet), I decided I would try to make my own Peanut Butter. The problem, I had not peanuts. Doh!

I did, however, have a can of mixed nuts. I bought them to add to my homemade trail mix, which will interestingly, never ever see a trail (only my office :-)  The trail mix is really good, filling, and a low sugar, high fiber, high protein snack - something that our paleolithic ancestors probably dined on often. It contains: mixed nuts, sunflower seed, pitted dates, raisins, extra walnuts, and dried blueberries, cranberries, and cherries.

I digress. I was talking about making homemade nut butter. So here's what you do. Add about 1/2 cup (that's 8oz) to the magic bullet cup. Chop the nuts coarsely using the flat blade. It won't do much, but it will get them down from full size nuts to smaller more manageable chunks. You will have to shake the device and scrape the sides a few times. OK, when the nuts are a little smaller add 2 teaspoons olive oil and continue to blend using a pulse technique and shaking with the cross blade. As the butter gets thicker you will have to scrape the sides of the cup. Eventually, and actually quite rapidly it will smooth out. I blended mine a touch too long and it became liquidy, which I hope will wear off in the fridge. This is natural nut butter, so it's recommended that you refrigerate it.

At any rate, there you go. You get about half the butter you would in a small container of peanut butter you purchase at the grocery store. You get the fun of making your own. And you get a high protein, relatively low fat, high fiber, and no artificial additives spread for your mid morning snack.

Enjoy!

What of Overweight Personal Trainers

So last night I was fortunate enough to score tickets to a local professional Ice Hockey team, and while I found it really difficult (as if I was murdering a family member) cheering for the home team and not the Philadelphia Flyers (who were not even playing), I did just that. However, in between periods and even during periods when play was slow (read as: no one was getting slammed against a hard wood board!) my wife and I began an conversation with a fella behind us. Primarily because this guy made it abundantly clear that this was his first hockey game, that he was taken here by someone he was training, and that his profession was a personal trainer. Obviously without halt my wife and I turned so quickly we probably caused permanent brain damage. An interesting thing about our turning so quickly. It's a psychological effect known as "Attentional attunement." You can do a few neat little studies to test this effect. For example, if you are a teacher or a tutor, then do this right before a big exam. Ask them to remember a list of words, say 50 or so. 30 of those words should be randomly selected words, the others should be related to tests, test anxiety, etc (e.g., words like: test, mark, grade, question, etc). Chances are if you students play along with this little experiment (and care about their grades) they will be much better at remembering these test-related words. The same is true with just about anything. Alcoholic 'hear' and remember more words that deal with, well ethanol injected liquids. Similar effects can be shown in people addicted to drugs and sex. It even occurs in relation to race perceptions, but that's for another post. When it comes to fitness (addicts) we are not immune. Put a group of people who care about losing weight into a lab and ask them to remember a set of words that include words such as fat, skinny, weight, calories, etc. Guess what words they remember best?  

So in the few minutes it took for my wife and I to recover from our minor head turning concussion, our eyes began to re-focus and what we saw was 1) amazing, but 2) not uncommon. There, sitting behind us was one of the largest men (& I dont mean muscular) I've ever laid my eyes on. He must have easily been 350, maybe more, pounds.  This couldn't be the guy pitching himself as the Personal Trainer, could it? Yes, it was. This is now the third time I've met a personal trainer that, well, is fat! This seems completely inane to me and makes me wonder how this guy could even get a client, let alone be allowed to graduates PT school. I mean, it's tantamount to being a Cracker Barrel regular who's profession is nutritionist - makes not fucking sense. I wonder about these people: why did they get into this profession? Where they once thin? Are they trying to battle their own issues with being overweight? Do they think they represent the epitome of fitness and thus people will be lining up around the corner to sign up for a PT session with them? Well I could never, in good conscious do such. I pay for my wife's PT sessions and we agree that we would not pay over $100/month to someone who did not "look the part" - you could be educated until you are blue in the face, but damn it, if you cannot practice what you preach then how I can I pay you? I couldn't. Not sure how anyone else feels... Could you pa your hard earned $$ to an overweight PT? Why? How? 

Opposites don't attract and make you fat!

I really believe this one when it comes to fitness, friends, and well in my case, marriage!

In my experience there are two types of women (people for that matter) in the world: 1) Those who appreciate the benefits of exercise and thus engage in it and 2) those that recognize the benefits of exercise, but who do not engage in it. Now, within the former group there are subtypes of people - those who really like to exercise; who like it when their body is in motion; who love to play sports and engage in rigorous exercise routines, and who probably would so even if the benefits were not there. Then there are the other subtypes, those that do it because "you are supposed to", because "its good for you", etc, and loathe every stinking minute of it. I find myself, quite happily in the former subtype. Of the latter main type - those that do not engage in fitness - well it is hard work and tiresome and takes time and effort and planning and distracts from your personal life so I understand, but this post isn't about those lazy bastards. 

I am fortunate to also be in the category of having married a woman who is like me. We both exercise, a lot, and we both enjoy it. OK, not every workout is like a day in Mr Rogers neighborhood, but generally we like the feeling of working out and being fit. I truly believe that when it comes to selection of a long term romantic partner fitness is a huge factor. I was married once before. My ex-wife was, well, one my say, a lazy turd. Not only did she loathe exercise of just about any sort, but she ultimately developed an allergy to her own sweat! I am serious! So even a brisk walk was out of the question. This, as you might imagine, created quite a rift between us. I woke up every morning and hit the gym (I prefer morning workouts when Testosterone is high). By the time I got home from my workout she had left for work. So we spent a lot of time apart, which at the time was find by me. That was not the major issue that my fitness program created. Rather it was more social. For example, on a night out I would make plans to hit the gym with a workout partner the next morning. Now this is particularly easy for me because I don't experience the phenomenon related to ingesting large quantities of alcohol generally known as a "hang over." Never have had one, hope I never do because they appear to be a really big pain in the ass. So Saturday morning I'd be up, as normal, bright and early off to pump some iron. Grunt groan and schlep those weights!  I would often receive comments from her about my fitness regime. I was "too serious about working out" (coming from someone who never did a shred of exercise nor played a sport). I was "wasting money on a gym membership." I was "getting to musclely." Then when some of our friends started noticing me lose weight and get fit and commenting on it, well things got even worse. Sublt things that it took me a while to come to - like baking batches of cookies (I am about the biggest sucker for a batch of cookies that you will find and cannot stop at 1 cookie, rather I eat about 2 dozen in a sitting, seriously!) Then on several occasions a girlfriend would comment, "steve, your arms are getting really big." It was not a flirt, but you know you get if someone makes that kind of comment about your partner. First time, it is ok and you interpret it as it was probably meant - nice that they notice, and that they are right. Then, as it happens more and more often there is a tendency to develop a paranoia about it. Hm, I wonder if s/he wants to get it on with my wo/man? Bitch! Dick! Asshole! etc. Obviously, we were completely different. I loved to workout and would always take the opportunity to do so - whether it be to jet off to a touch football game on saturday or to just hit the gym regularly. Well that situation did not work out. 

My new wife, on the other hand, is the best thing that has ever happened to my fitness and I! She, Austen, loves to workout! She is an addict like myself and we compliment each others addiction perfectly right down to the low cal high protein post-workout snacks!  we are truly birds of a feather and we workout together :-)

Austen and I sometimes even workout together. For example, we are doing another (5K) run in two weeks. We will sometimes spot each other or show each other new exercises that we (think we) created. Then we push each other - come on baby, one more rep, you can do it, dont quit on me now!!! In the gym we have very similar attitudes about fitness and about the consequences of not maintaining our fitness. I love that about her. However, this similarity is just the icing on the cake. The cake is loaded with characteristics that are wonderful.  I have notice for a long time, that inside and outside the gym she is supportive of me, and I of her. In just about any situation we can turn to our best friend and ask advice, emote, or simply vent! It is not judged, it is not devalued, it is just information exchange that is taken for what it's worth. If advice is asked, because we are similar, the advice tends to be that you might expect of someone who has known you for your entire life (past and present, if there is a past life... LOL!) But all this support, love and compatibility became abundantly clear to me while we were working out. She put a premium on finding time to workout. One weekend in a New Jersey Winter we were snowed in. Worried about whether we'd get to dirty our workout clothes we started up the 4X4 truck and took a try at getting to the gym. I think the first day we didn't make it because the roads were a mess, but rest assured we made a little home circuit to compensate. The second day we were snowed in, we were able to get out and get to the gym, which to our surprise was open. Yeah they were open - it's like a drug dealer going on vacation - it doesn't happen! They had to be open to feed our, and others addictions. And feed they did. We had a great workout, if I recall correctly, and went home and snuggled in the snowed in house, which was not "really" snowed in. 

Anyhow, in all this there is a message - opposites don't attract and they (might) make you fat. I think many of us have been subject to starting the new dating relationship and forgoing a number of things - working out is almost always one of them. Like when the economy goes bust (as if that would ever happen) extras go, and the gym for many people is extra! Finding someone who shares your enthusiasm and dedication to fitness and exercise is paramount for a healthy (figuratively and literally) relationship. Now go find yourself a gym rat girl! ;-)

Mixed martial arts - it's good for ya!

Tonight, finally, after being in the Atlanta metro region for about 5 weeks, I was able to get myself out to a local dojo to take part in a mixed martial arts class. Actually it was a Muay Thai (Thai Kickboxing) class. I had taken about 4 Muay Thai classes when I lived in England and while the workout and techniques virtually killed me, the benefits to my fitness were profound. I noticed when I was did these couple of sessions prior to my Las Vegas wedding that I was tight! I lost about 8-10 lbs of body fat (was hanging around 12% body fat, which for me is outstanding!).  Then I moved back and I stopped. I still train very very hard and work hard on functional muscle strength and circuits. Tonight reawakened me to the benefits associated with martial arts training. Let me explain:

To start we warmed up. This consisted of 3 sets of 5 exercises, each performed for 1 complete minute and moving to the next exercise without rest. After completion of each of the 5 exercises then you got 1 minute rest. So this is what constituted the 1st 18 minutes of the session.

Set 1 (each exercise performed continuously for 1 minute): Pushups - Squats - Burpies - Frog Leaps - Side twist pushups

1 minute rest

Set 2: pushups (either clap pushups, or a variant where you lift your entire body, legs and feet too, off the ground - toe grab squats - leg lifts - frog puhups - hindu pushups

1 minute rest

Set 3: kick with right leg out straight to hand - repeat with left leg - right kick to side with hip twist to hand - repeat with left leg - alternating knees to elbows

Die. No, seriously, stretch.

After this "warm up" we did some drills. We started with alternating 1 minute continuous Thai kicks to pads. Then we did push, or jab kicks to the pads.

OK that took about 25-35 minutes.

Now we did the "cool down" which consisted of 100 Thai push-ups, which entails doing a push up and then clap your partners hand at the top of the movement. We followed this with 100 Thai situps. Here your partner sits on your quadriceps, when you are in the down position of the sit-up a third person smacks your belly with a kick pad. Ugh!!!!

Absolutely grueling, but worth it.

Low fat, low calorie sausage and peppers over high fiber pasta

Yes I said LOW FAT!

Pan fry 5 links of low fat italian seasoned sausage
While that is cooking, slice up 1 green, 1 red, and 1 yellow pepper. Place in a crockpot/slow cooker
Crush 3 cloves of garlic, toss them into the slow cooker as well.
Add about 1-1.5 cups of your favorite spaghetti sauce (I used Ragu tomato and basil)
and
Add 1.5 cups of water to the slow cooker
Chop about 1-2 handfuls of baby portabella mushrooms in quarters. Toss into the slow cooker
Add salt, pepper, dried chili peppers, garlic salt, dried oregano, dried italian seasoning and about 6 fresh basil leave (torn to peices) to the slow cooker mix.
Now that the sausage has had some time to cool off, cut it into about 2-4 oz size chunks. Using turkey sausage 4 oz serving should be about 200 calories (hence the low fat, low cal)
Toss those sausage chunks into the slow cooker
Cook on high for 2 hours.
At the 2 hour mark add 4 chopped Roma (plum) tomatoes to the slow cooker
Re-season to taste (I added a dash more salt, some pepper, some more dried hot chili peppers, and 4 more whole basil leaves.
Turn the slow cooker to low and allow to cook for about 4 more hours. The sausage should pretty much melt in your mouth.

Before serving boil some high fiber pasta to pour the sausage and peppers over.  Sprinkle with a dash of parmesan cheese.

Enjoy a low fat, low calorie, high protein and high fiber dinner. Yummy!

Functional training: Moving weight

These guys are athletes in the World's Strongest Man competition - they are truly beasts. Their burden - to move stuff! Quite literally, to move really fucking heavy stuff a long way. See here on the left pulling a train locomotive and to the right pulling a truck! I love watching these competition - mainly because of the gross display of testosterone that remind me of two bucks or ram butting heads in the wild... ah animal nature, but lately I have been thinking about this type of exercise - this functional training as it were. Functional because in everyday life we have to move stuff. Bench press does not help you move anything, except of course a long bar with plates on the end of your chest. So I guess if you find yourself pinned to the ground by a tree the benchpress might help, but chances are if you are in that predicament you are a goner anyhow! 

Lately, I've been modifying my rope/suspension trainer to train like a "world's strongest man" - seriously. Although, I am not really that strong. Here's what I do. I wrap my rope around my car, just teasing, actually in the gym I wrap my rope around a few plates. Then I combine step lunges, or just walking, with chest press or back pull. Yeah you can step backwards and pull the weights to you. It's not exactly like pulling a truck or train, but if it doesn't get your heart rate up then something is wrong with you.

Good Circuit to Elevate Heart Rate

OK, so today was supposed to be a "light day" at the gym. So I did 20 minutes of cardio and got really really bored of watching news about the economy and the debate tonight, and for some odd reason the music at the gym today completely sucked ass: Britney Spears, Maroon 5, I mean come on, how am I supposed to run, bike, etc to that. 

I decided I would do a little circuit to get my heart rate up and work on some explosive power at the same time, here's how you do it. It's a super set of two exercises to be done consecutively with 1 minute of active rest (walking around room) between sets: 

Grab a medicine ball (~8-12 lbs). Squeeze it tight to your chest like you are giving it a big hug. Now slowly squat down so that your upper leg is about parallel to the floor and jump as high as you can and bring your knees up in front as if you are trying to touch them to the medicine ball. Repeat for 10-12 reps. 

Immediately move to exercise two, which is a lunge push with rope. Wrap a rope, or suspension trainer around 2 45lb (20Kg) plates. Grab a handle in each hand. Now lunge forward so that your arms are bent at the elbow and back near your lats. Push the ropes out as if you were doing a pushup or bench press. Try to push the weight in an explosive fashion as if you were trying to push the weights past you or punch something in front of you. Repeat lunging with other leg. Go to one end of a room/basketball half court (~4-8 steps per leg), turn around pull the weights to you and go back to the other end of the room. Try to get to the other end as quickly as you can without sacrificing form, without losing your balance, etc. 

Take 45 - 60 seconds active rest. By active rest I mean walk around, dont just stand there. You could up the intensity by jumping rope or hopping, or you could just walk quickly around the gym.

It certainly got my heart rate pumping. It also gave me a pretty good leg and chest workout. 

Fitness addiction is, what? Bad?

The first step is admitting that you are an addict. That is what I hear is stated at AA, NA, etc type meetings when confronting yourself with an addiction. Such addictions as alcohol, drugs, sex, etc are all seen as relatively negative, but why? Well aside from the damage that can accrue to one's body, the resulting outcome is typically an inability to function outside of the addicted substance/context. For example, the alcoholic might not be able to get out of bed and go to work with out that shot of whiskey in his coffee. The pot head might not be able to get through lunch without that one toke of the bong. The sex addict may not.. well actually sexual addiction sounds just fine and dandy to me, but apparently it can lead to disruption of relationships. Like, for example, when the sex addict decides to cheat incessantly on her husband with other men, women and children.

 

What about our dear old friend - fitness? Well some recent (or not so recent, depending on how you read the literature) findings suggest that fitness has the qualities necessary to create an addiction: it demands attention, a specific context or specific set of tools, and it can produce feelings of pleasure, euphoria and excitement. But being addicted to fitness - that can't be bad, can it? 

Well listed below are some of the common warning signs associated with fitness addiction. They are essentially the same as those listed for drug, sex, and alcohol addiction, but tailored to the fitness context.  

Some warning signs include:

• Turning down dates/social events/family events in order to work out
• Avoiding social situations for fear of eating foods that may interfere with training progress (similar to orthorexia)
• Social isolation
• A feeling of general worthlessness if you have not completed your workout for the day
• Only allowing yourself to eat after you have exercised
• Feelings of depression/irritability when cannot exercise or when you don't have a "good" workout
• Reduced drive to engage in activities formerly enjoyed
• Exercising for extended periods on a daily basis or several times a day
• Feeling anxious if a workout is missed
• Scheduling your day’s events around your workout session
• A fear of becoming injured and having to miss a workout
• Exercising in spite of injury, weather, or other factors
• Taking multiple exercise classes and then working out again at home
• Overexercising and then getting feelings of euphoria after a workout; needing increasingly more working out to reach your high

OK, so there it is - yes I am addicted to fitness/exercise. These symptoms can escalate into a full-blown bout of depression either through feelings of worthlessness built up because you cannot reach that next goal or through withdraw from not being able to get enough of the euphoric sensation associated with exercise. There are some differences with fitness addicts and alcohol, drug and/or sex addicts. Fitness addicts typically want people to know that they are fitness addicts. It's cool and accepted to be addicted to fitness. "Hey I had a great run this morning and later I will be hitting the gym to pump some iron", says meathead. "Oh my god, you are like, so fit, and your arms are so big", says ditsy waitress who becomes sex partner to meathead. But what about it? I don't mind. I like being addicted to fitness, as most addicts like being addicted to what they are addicted to. The difference - mine helps me stay fit. 

In all seriousness, it's a dangerous line to walk. The addiction can become so overwhelming that it affects families, lifestyle, even god forbid -YOUR SEX LIFE! And for fuck's sake isn't that why many people work out? OK, I am a perv, but in reality, I have read stories where fitness addiction has actually caused mothers to blow off activities with their children, husbands to forget anniversaries, etc. This addiction can really impact the way your life goes - positively and negatively. 

How do we get ahold of this addiction? How do we wrangle it up and wrestle to the ground? Well, if you are like me, you probably won't. But if you are like me, then you are just mildly addicted. See I only check off a few of the above warning signs:

1.Turning down dates/social events/family events in order to work out. This seems perfectly logical to me because most of my social events involve drinking heavily. Thus, it is a win-win situation - I dont drink and I get a good workout in.  I typically wont (cant) turn away from family events to workout, but will make plans for alternative ways to workout when away at family houses or gatherings. Most of my friends and family now just know I am going to be up and out running early, before most of them even wake up. 

2. Feelings of depression/irritability when cannot exercise or when you don't have a "good" workout. Probably more irritability than depression, but shite, this is how I respond to everything when I dont feel I have done "good." When I write a paper for a journal and it's rejected I get irritated. When I design and experiment that does not work - I get irritated. You get the point. Another issue, I think is just plain personality. 

3.Feeling anxious if a workout is missed. OK, this is a little neurotic, I admit that. Mainly I just get anxious when I don't know when my next workout will occur. So when traveling, if I have a plan for getting back to the gym upon arrival home, I am usually fine. However, when I get home and my toilet is flooded, my house has burned down, or my gym has closed down, taken my money and gone away - then I get pretty anxious. 

4.Scheduling your day’s events around your workout session. Well, not really. But damnit, ever tried working out after 9-5 work hour day - you can barely get in the gym let alone on a piece of equipment! So yeah, I try to schedule some things around my workout, mainly for convenience. Boy I am really making excuses here, eh? 

Well that about sums it up, the extent of my addiction. It's not yet debilitating, but well on its way, I am sure. I don't know that I am going to lose sleep over this, just yet. I like to workout. I married a gal who likes to workout. We are active and like it. I mean yes it does impede our social life once in a while - mainly because we don't want to diminish the results of our workouts. We like looking fit for each other, for ourselves. It's cool. If you are going to be addicted to something, why not make it be fitness right? Well to some extent this is correct or 'right' for us. However, I sometimes have to remind myself (& my wife): we are not professional athletes. We do not collect a paycheck for working out, as bad as that sucks, it's the truth. In fact, we give a large sum of our paychecks to be able to workout! Most of us will never be in the position of having a job where working out is part of your everyday duties. I don't make my living hitting home runs, throwing touchdown passes, scoring slapshots, or punching other blokes in the face. I am ok with that. And that is why I don't exercise more. At the end of the day its about balance. Everything in moderation. 

Anyone out there feel they might have fitness/exercise addiction? Anyone have any thoughts on whether they think it is an actual issue/disorder/debilitation? How does your addiction impede your life?

Now, if it's time, go feed your addiction and do a few extra reps just to say "up yours" addiction!

One-arm negative dyno combo pushup

OK, this is a new move that I sort of created while away at a wedding. After running a bit, I decided i was going to do some standard dyno pushups, you know the kind where you pushup and your hands leave the ground. OK, easy enough right. I figured, I would be eating a ton of shit and drinking like a fish so I had better up the ante and make this an actual workout, so I did. Here's how you do it (again I would post pics, but my f-ing phone is on the shit again! - advice - do not under any circumstances ever waste money on the new palm 800 - it blows! work gives it to me for free, otherwise i'd have an iPhone already). Ok the move:

Get in standard pushup position (medium grip) with legs fairly wide apart (at least should width, if not more). Now, slowly lower yourself. Pause for 1-3 seconds at the bottom and explode out of the move so that your hands are lifted off of the ground. Now while in the air move one hand to the center (to land on) and the other either behind your back or tight into your abdomen. Now land on one hand and slowly (as slowly as you can) lower yourself to the bottom pushup position. While in the bottom position, place your other hand on the floor and explode up. Repeat the process, but alternate which hand you land on. I could not do many, but am working to do about 3 sets of 8-12 reps.

Photo credit: 1

Don't forget to train your cortex!

Many, well let's face it all of the posts I have recently been writing deal with physical fitness training. However, I thought I would digress from that excursion to discuss Cortical training; i.e. brain training. This has actually become very popular lately with the advent of Nintendo's Brain Training DS game. But is this worth anything? Yes, actually, it could get you laid. (Yes we are back to the good old posts about how fitness gets you laid!)

A recent paper outlines how this works and I summarize here. OK, here goes. The English language (as just one example) has about 20,000 plus/minus words. The average human, however, only uses about 6,000-7,000 on average. In fact, only about 6,000-7,000 words are actually necessary in order to communicate with another human. So why so many words? And, how does your vocab get you laid?

Well we know that use of infrequent words and extended vocabulary is a good indicator of intellectual function (i.e. your general IQ). We also know that intellectual function is attractive to females; i.e. females prefer males with indicators of higher intelligence (e.g. educational status, lots of money, etc). Why, you might ask? Well, mating with a guy who has greater intelligence increases the probability that your offspring will inherit that greater intelligence. This serves two functions: 1) individuals with greater intelligence do better in life - they are better equipped to deal with the world, adapt, be flexible and generally attain greater social and economic statuses and 2) Individuals with greater intelligence are chosen as mates more often then individuals with lesser intelligence. It might be that, by choosing to mate with smart males, females may actually be manipulating future generations attractiveness and mate-ability (note the intellectual ability to combine and make new words... ;-)  This recent study, which was published in Evolutionary Psychology , shows that males actually employ use of lower frequency words (i.e. odd words that are not used in normal everyday language, or the words that make you sound smart!) when asked to imagine they were in a romantic situation with a picture of a young female. That is they spoke "smarter" when imaging that they were going to get lucky with the young chick. The same effect was not seen when the same males were asked to repeat the task imaging that they were in a romantic situation with an older female. Additionally, females actually decreased their use of low frequency (i.e. "smart" vocab) when asked to imagine a romantic situation with a younger male, but not with an older male. 

These findings, I think, support the idea of sex differences in behavior associated with parental certainty and the costs associated with reproduction. See, for males there are few costs. Essentially, the expenditure of sperm (say 15 minutes of fame!) For females the costs= bearing the result of impregnation. That is 10 months of gestation, child birth, rearing the offspring, oh and yes stretch marks (thanks Charlotte). So females put a premium on high quality males (i.e. intelligent males, males who use "smart" words) because they have a lot to lose. Mating with a loser, aside from the fact that you just banged a loser, may actually have longer term, potentially devastating effects - you might give birth to a loser! Then what you have is a new loser to enter teh reproductive workforce and in good conscious, could you really do that? :-)

Some food for thought? While running on the treadmill, tossing your kettle ball, or holding that handstand, don't forget to train your brain. You can do this easily by subscribing to a word-a-day feature in your email. Then while running make up as many sentences as you can using that new word. Use it in all its differing forms - noun, verb, adjective, and get creative. Try to describe your workout buddy using that term. Or trry to describe events happening at the gym using the word. It could be amusing. For example, my most recent word:



isthmus (noun): 1. A narrow strip of land with water on each side, joining two larger land masses, for example, the Isthmus of Panama. 2. A narrow strip of tissue joining two large organs or cavities.  



OK this one is kind of hard to use, however, not impossible. For example, in my new gym there is an isthmus (granted no bodies of water) connecting the ab/stretch region to the water fountain, that allows people to literally sturt their stuff in front of everyone using the cardio machines. Another example: Last tuesday at the gym, during TaiChi class, I notice that one of the older ladies had an isthmus of clothing covering her privates, ew! 



You can also keep your brain alert by counting backwards by 7, 11, 13, 3, 4, 5 etc from 100 or up the ante and start at 1000. Make it really hard and start at some god awful number like 13, 486! Changing the number and the pattern each time will help keep your brain working hard.  You can also sign-up for one of the several websites that aim to reproduce the Nintendo DS brain training rage.  Anyhow you do it, don't forget to use it, else you might lose it. And I don't mean lose your brain - chances are without neurosurgery you will always have a brain, rather I mean lose the mating race, the attractiveness game, and your potential reproductive prowess! Eeeeeeeck! (My poor wife!)

Photo credit(s): 1,

Travel Workouts: Take trainers, Clothes, and, food?

So this week/weekend I am traveling for a wedding up north and to complete my move to the Atlanta Georgia USA region. My wife and I are desperate not to allow these types of excursions to derail our exercise programs. So, every time we travel - be it for pleasure, work, or family affairs - we are certain to take our trainers and workout clothes. Seeing my workout shorts and favorite tank top in the suitcase invokes a sort of exercise guilt (probably unhealthy mentally, but...) and I grab them and will do something. Sometimes we just go for run - like yesterday. We ran about 3 miles, she then did some pushups and situps. She rules! I moved boxes... LOL!

However, in our recent excursion we added something else to our traveling gym attire - food. Yes food. We brought (and or bough when we arrived) the foods we have been eating at home. Now, don't get me wrong, we are not in the orthorexic stage of things where we have to eat everything raw, or know every detail of what goes into my food or even eat all organic - shit we can't afford that! But we are actively trying not to derail our diets and exercise progress while on holiday. To this end, we brought things like high fibre muffins, purchased cottage cheese (low fat, of course), and the like. This allows us to bypass what many family member keep on stock that is high in sugar, fat, etc. It allows us to maintain some semblance of control over what goes in our bodies.

I have obviously become accustomed to odd looks. I still garner a few when I pull out my rope suspension trainer (which I (in)conveniently forgot this trip). Now I get strange looks, when I open my suitcase shortly after arriving to put food items in the refrigerator. The looks are probably in distates - people feeling like "what my/our food is not good enough?" that is not the case. Rather, it's just we watch closely what we eat. It helps us to allow ourselves to drink beer and wine at the wedding without that guilty orthorexic feeling.

At any rate, my advice if you are trying hard to keep on track - when travelling, bring food. See if you buy food at the airport, like we used too, well you are in for a caloric treat (read nightmare!) the food items at the airport are loaded with calories, sugar, sodium, all that stuff you have been trying to avoid. The problem is not so much that these things are all that bad for you in moderation. No, in fact you need all of these things for survival. The bad thing is that sugar and sodium actually have addictive qualities. Thus, by allowing yourself to eat that plate of salty chips washed down by the milkshake - because you are on holiday - is like falling off the wagon and in some cases (my own included) this can spur a downward spiral of poor eating. I can remember getting to the airport and eating like this, then on the plane scarfing the nuts/pretzels or whatever they give you and the meal, then landing and well you get the picture. I would just keep eating. I was feeding my addiction, and it can get out of control while on holiday because even if you are going to the house of a family member, you are often times encouraged to overeat. Be careful. This can be the downfall. The start of something bad. Now, I am not saying you should watch what you eat at thanksgiving, christmas, etc - damn you should eat - just watch what you eat. And if you are travelling take some snacks - trail mix, fruit, cottage cheese, etc. That the things that you keep in your kitchen and ask if you can place them somewhere that you can easily get to them. Seeing those items you eat regularly at home will cue your brain - hey, I should be eating that cottage cheese - yes I do see the plate of donuts, but the cottage chees is already here, i would not want to waste my money, etc. So I, personally am more inclined to grab what I brought.

So, i gotta run to finish packing boxes before the rehearsal dinner where I will pigout royally, but wanted to impart this little tidbit of advice that is working for Aussy and I - when travelling, bring food!

What's up with your fat?

OK, so I have been writing on this blog now for over 1 month and not only am I having a blast (even though no one reads the damn thing), but also learning loads. Most interestingly, as I learn and investigate more and more about fitness and health I find my research interests veering in this direction (really I am a evolutionary cognitive neuroscientist, 1, 2). This stuff is becoming really interesting both at a personal and academic level. In fact, I am very close to co-authoring my first peer-reviewed paper on the topic of obesity. Thus, I thought it might be appropriate for me to discuss fat, or adipose, here. 

So, what's up with your fat? I think most people think fat is bad. That fat causes a plethora of metabolic disease, the most prominent being diabetes. I agree, I think fat is bad, but I also know that fat has gotten a bum wrap. Our culture has inundated us with 'fat free' this and 'low-fat' that, that many of us fall victim to the idea that eating any fat is horrible for us. Some people I know delude themselves (probably using self-deception) into thinking that the fat goes directly to their thighs within minutes after eating something fattening (e.g., and ice cream sundae... mm, that sounds really really good right now, but instead I will go make a bag of SmartPop = 100 calories and very filling, and NOT fat free). 

Fat is really not all that bad for you. In fact, if you are not supplied with fat in utero and during development your nervous system is severely negatively affected. Primarily the casing that protects the axon of neurons (the part that allows neurons, or brain cells, to talk to one another) does not develop properly and children born to "fat free" fanatical moms can experience a number of psychological, neurological, and neuropsychiatric disorders. In fact, the extent of that relationship is well under investigated and I would hypothesize it is partly involved in the sudden appearance of many "new" disorders (think AD/HD, for example). 

Fat also helps us old farts (I say at the ripe old age of 34, ouch!). Fat can actually help you lose weight. Fattening foods are more full-filling then low fat substitutes, which generally work to try and dupe your nervous system into thinking you are full, only to be back munching in an hour or so. If you are like me then fattening foods also make you "feeeeeel" good, too. Like, how do you feel after you down that cod and chips, ice cream sundae (there I go again), or hot wings.... mmmMMM. I feel psychologically wonderful after eating these foods. That is, until the guilt about eating all that fattening food set in and I realize how much fucking exercise I need to do to burn off all the calories (yes I have mental illness related to eating and working out too). 

But, there is hope. You can be fat and healthy. Seriously. A recent study (3) suggests that it is not how fat you are that matters in terms of developing obesity related illnesses, but how you utilize that fat. Take or example, the Sumo wrestler pictured above. Fat bastard, right? Wrong! Well wrong in our colloquial use of the term fat bastard. Yes he is fatter than the average  middle American. He is one big mother fucker. However, He utilizes his fat in a fundamentally different manner. Sumo wrestlers through rigorous eating regimes and exercise regimes (yes they exercise, about 8 hours per day! They eat the rest of the day), they actually assist their body to store fat subcutaneously (under the skin). This keeps the fat away from the vital organs - heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, etc - which are involved in obesity-related disorders. Neat eh? 

Now chances are you won't have this luck as Sumo's start their training very young and thus their body actually develops like this. This recent study suggests that for each of us, we have a fat "set point". Yes this is a new take on an old idea. The old idea, that everyone has a set point weight and if you go too far above (or below ) this individual set point you can get sick. The new idea relates the weight directly to the storage of adipose (fat) tissue. It states, succinctly, that each individual has a fat set point, or what might be called a "metabolic" set point. This is the point at which you effectively utilize fat stored in our body. Too little and you can develop diseases. Too much and you can develop diseases. The latter, the authors suggest, is related to a storage issue. Think if it this way: you have a determined amount of fat your body can store with little effect on your health. If you exceed this limit then the fat stores (of which you might be continuing to ingest) need to go somewhere. The hypothesis suggests that this extra fat, since it has no place to go in the individuals normal storage places, starts to find and store itself on major organ systems. Think of it like pouring yourself a drink. You set out a glass. The volume of the glass is your fat store limit. Now your pour a little liquid in, let's say beer for shits and giggles (and because it's about my favorite liquid beverage on the planet). If you pour that brewski down the center chancing are you will get a large head on your beer. If you keep pouring into that glass eventually that head needs to go somewhere. First it slowly moves upward toward the top of the glass (i.e. the top of your fat limit). Keep pouring and what happens? The head and maybe some beer spill over the top of the glass and onto the countertop, into your hand, etc. That is how I think of the fat spilling out over your fat store limit and the countertop or your hand is the rest of your body, the major organ systems. 

Now when this happens and people get sick (i.e. the beer is all over the countertop) we get all worked up and decide that this person needs to lose all the weight. This is where the idea of a metabolic set point comes into play. See, if we adopt the position that there are normal limits of fat store (under the skin) that vary individually then we can begin to design weight loss programs to target the set point instead of the ideal. That is, we can wipe the counter enough so that there's no beer visible (it might still be sticky, but shit we've got beer to drink and who has time to clean up that mess?) So rather than forcing people into weight loss programs that hold for them the ideal portrait of healthiness and fitness (e.g., a supermodel, or men's health magazine cover model) we hold for them an ideal that is personally tailored to their individual set point. This is the point at which, while still over weight in appearance, is actually a healthy point at which the major organ systems are not impacted by the fat. At this point the weight loss program may be further tailored to a longer term (as opposed to an acute - lose weight now or die) program. The authors suggest that this could increase the efficacy of such weight loss programs because psychologically you are giving patients 1) realistic goals to reach and 2) using individually tailored data.

So, can you determine what your fat/metabolic set point is? Well, not exactly. This is where more science is needed. See to determine your metabolic set point scientists need to understand the genetic mechanisms involved (currently underway in mice) as well as the individualistic, developmental experiences of that individual. So in the end, more science is needed and the likelihood of a "take this pill" to get think approach is not going to be as effective for long-term health. 

Thoughts welcome....

Photo credits (1)

Iron cross progression

Today I worked again toward the suspended iron cross using my suspension rope. Here's how I did it: 

I first tightened the ropes up so that they were above shoulder height. I then kneeled on a swiss ball. Grabbing the ropes now and balancing on the Swiss ball, my arms are out at my side slightly higher than my shoulders. Then I push down into the cross - only the tips of my knees touching the Swiss ball. I held that for about 20 - 20 seconds, then I finished off with a press down of my arms so that I raised myself up. I was now suspended with the ropes and my arms at my body's side. I then let myself down slowly. I repeated this sequence for about 3 sets of between 6 -12 reps. 

It's a very unusual feeling to be suspended with arms out straight. It is also really hard. Even with the Swiss ball, you find yourself not concentrating and losing focus. I found that in order to maintain focus and strength I had to maintain a very strong core. I think I am getting close... Slowly but surely. I will try to post some pictures or a video to demonstrate the progression.

Fitness fads or new trends in exercise?

Like everything else in life, fitness is subject to faddish developments in the hopes of making money. In fact, because millions of people are looking for the get fit quick fix device, fitness may be more susceptible to such fads than many other disciplines.  So how is one supposed to separate the good from the bad; what works from what does not; what you might SQUANDER your hard earned money on and what you SHOULD spend your hard earned money on? Well I don't know if I have the answers, but I will try to think it out, out loud, so to speak here.

First up: Diet.There are about a hundred different diet regimes on the market these days from the "juice only diet" to nutri system to weight watchers to the Atkins and Zone diets. Shit, there is even a diet called the South Beach diet! Do any of these work? Do any of them make physiological sense? Well, when I ask such question, almost invariably the answer leads me to what our physiology has been selected to do by evolution. That is, what our ancestors ate is probably what we should be eating. See, our ancestors did not have McDonalds, Burger King, Steak & Shake, etc. They also did not have sweets - candy bars, chocolate, and refined sugar. Guess what? Our ancestors weren't fat either! If they were than they would not be able to do a number of important things for their survival: evade predators, catch prey, maintain respiratory health to effectively collect tubors, roots, etc, and most importantly they would be unable to attract a mate. So what did our ancestors eat? Well that is an archeological and anthropological mystery that will never really be solved without that good old invention - the time machine. But science has uncovered a few clues about what our ancestors most likely ate by excavating archaic site of residence. It appears that our ancestors were a combination of hunters and gathers. We, our ancestors that is, most likely ate ground roots, leaves, and other 'wild' crops. We also probably hunted, at least small mammals, the occasional bird and most interestingly we also appear to have been meat scavengers. See, without nasty claws, teeth and the means to fend off other predators, our ancestors may have been left to ravage what was left by those big predators (think tigers, lions and bears (OH MY!)) Some evidence suggests that our ancestors learned (i.e. big brains are useful for something) to crack bones open using rocks to dig out the protein rich bone marrow. 

So, the point of this little archeological excursion - our ancetor ate a variety of foods - not just protein, not just fruit and veg, but a healthy (albeit availability might have also played a role) mix. I think that's what makes a healthy modern diet.  A good mix of fat, protein and yes carbohydrates! Carbs are good! They fuel you. The key is to not eat bad carbs - you know sugar and such. Instead replace with high-grain, multi grain and high fibre low sugar carbs. My wife and I recently found Thomas' English muffins that are actually fortified with extra fibre - they are fantastic in taste and the fibre is great for us. In fact, fibre is one of those things that is hard for your body to digest so you actually burn calories while digesting it. So high fibre and high protein is what I would recommend.

OK so all that sounds pretty good, but there is a down side: food that is good for you usually costs much much much more! Bite the bullet and buy it; it is worth it!

Second: Cardiovascular training.

The list of cardio machines that are in existence and that have been marketed for quick fix fitness is innumerable and far too great to list hear. Instead of listing all those crazy machines I will just impart a few recommendations that have worked for me:

1) Get your heart rate up to where it feels like your heart is going to explode and/or pop out of your body, then slightly decrease the intensity until you can catch your breath. Once you have caught your breath increase that intensity again to the heart exploding feeling. Yeah that's it. The whole 50-80% max heart rate - throw that lousy advice out with your Turbo Track and get that heart pumping (advice: if you have heart probs, then don't follow my advice). The key is really to get your hear moving. It increases your cardiovascular endurance and strength and your respiratory ability; i.e. your ability to utilize oxygen effectively. Here I turn to my martial arts training (which can hardly be called training at all, actually). In martial arts you have to withstand 3-5 minutes of pounding and being pounded. So not only are you jumping around and increasing your heart rate, but you are being beaten on and delivering it back (hopefully!) The thing is when you are fit like a proper martial artist you are fit as a fiddle! One of my students back in Liverpool is an amateur mixed martial artist who had been training for about 12 years. One day, literally, one morning he decided he was going to run a half marathon. I think it was to impress a gal, but that might also be rumor. At any rate, he showed up, paid the late regist

ration fee and ran the entire thing. The reason I know this. He showed up after the race to train; i.e. to train martial arts as if he had taken a drive for 13 some fucking miles. If that does not convince you of the interval training, high tempo, kill your heart rate training, then go fuck yourself and be fat! It sold me, mind you I am not going to rush out and run for 13 miles ANYWHERE!

Third: resistance training.

Need I really say more. Again, from my rather academic evolutionary perspective the thing you want out of a resistance training program, I would hope, is the ability to actually use your muscles. Pretty mirror muscles have no purposes, they have no place in today's day and age. So yeah there are loads of faddish machines from bow flex (which seems to be pretty good actually) to the Total gym, another one I kind of liked. However, at the end of the day, I think you want to use what works for you. Our ancestors did not have weights. Sure they carried around a club to beat you with, and they probably did scoop up women like in the cartoon. They might also have carried stones and animal carcasses. Note any similarity in all of these activities? They all seem to incorporate some very large muscles and a lot of total body strength (think dead lift, squat, etc). 

Now stop reading and go eat and train like a caveman!

Photo credit: 1)http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1602/images/homo_habilis_img5.jpg

2) http://www.red-spirit-energy-healing.com/images/caveman-diet.gif

3) http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/jlv/lowres/jlvn337l.jpg

Mirror muscles, from the wast up, that is....

This afternoon at the gym I saw a dude working out. OK, I was riding the bike and could only see his top half. And he was admirable in size - one huge mother fucker. He was solid, ripped, just a giant. Then he walked out from behind a machine and started to calf raises. Well it must have been his first day doing calf raises, but no, it looked like today was "legs day." Must have been that one day this year. My wife said he looked like a caricature of a man, a cartoon picture - Jonny Bravo style. All big up top, little bird legs below.

Why does this happen? Well the number 1 reason this probably happens is because training legs is hard and not done by these guys for fear of not being able to train those damn biceps, pecs, or triceps. The other reason I think this happens is because females, chick, girls, don't did legs on a man. Women, correct me if I am wrong. But I can count, on one mangled hand the number of times I have heard a girl look at a guy and say, damn, he has nice legs. On the others hand, I don't know if I can count high enough to indicate how many times I have heard: he has such great arms, huge chest, v-shape, etc. Quite frankly, it's an insult to the term "fitness training." I don't see these guys as being fit at all. Granted, they do look good. But that is not what fitness is supposed to be about. Maybe it demands another term - I know body building is the term, but that does not quite capture it, does it? I mean, my definition of fitness (outside of my evolutionary one, which means to reproduce) is to be physically fit. That means being able to do some athletic stuff. Maybe we should call it: Flirtness. I mean that is kind of what their training is for - to flirt.

So a little rant, but it irritates me because these guys walk around like they own the gym. It irritates me that other people look to them for fitness advice. They actually ask these dudes questions like: How'd you get so big? What's your training program? Etc. I mean, don't get me wrong I don't want anyone asking me about my training regime although I'd be glad to let them know. It just seems plain wrong.

So what about not training legs. I cannot even imagine not training legs. Here's a good link about leg training, which I summarize here. Legs are the very essence of your existence, assuming you walk on two legs and are not wheelchair bound. They stabilize everything from your movement to your bench press. Your legs are your roots. Imagine a tree with no roots. Now imagine trying to kick or push that tree over. It'd be pretty easy right. Now imagine your typical tree, with roots. Go try and push over a tree. If you succeed, I bow down to you, however, chances are you were unsuccessful. Tree roots are powerful. They are the essence of the existence of trees. Like your legs. I am not saying that I could have walked over and pushed over Flirtness Trainer mirror muscle max, but I bet I could have come pretty darn close if not for the sheer fact that he was top heavy.

Trees are hard!

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Exercising in the "Digital Age"

Is everything today electronic? Even our fitness? When I worked out at EFC in England I was turned onto a system called FitLinxx. It is actually pretty cool - not only does it serve as your personal exercise and training log book, but it helps you through exercise range of motion (when calibrated correctly). Additionally, before it broke at EFC they would give prizes for reaching new 'levels.' So, I won a water bottle, a free PT session, and a massage. It was fucking brilliant (see image).  

However, today I somehow stumbled upon a link for a digital jump rope - are you freaking kidding me? This whole thing got me thinking: what ever happened to good old fashioned hard nosed fitness training. The days when you would run up and down stairs, and may actually do it outside, for cardio training. When you would pump iron or do calisthetics or punch a bag for resistance training? And to add, you might record your progress in a written fitness journal, or god forbid, actually remember how damn strong and / or fast you were!

Rather in today's "digital age" we are force fed digital media in our exercise routines. Rather than going to the local stadium and running stairs, we use the stairmaster, stepper, or elliptical. Rather than actually running on solid ground, we run on treadmills (and the former, real ground is way harder, I dont care who you talk too, there is no comparison). And rather then do 3 sets of 50 pushups and squat thrusts, we deconstruct our workouts into muscle group defined isolated machine work - so for example, I used to do Chest on the same day I did my Triceps. And I had a set of luxurious machines - and I mean nautilus style and free weight devices, thinks smith machine, cables, etc - to meet that end. 

This apparently really frustrates me, especially now because I feel like I am seeing real results with my new total body, body weight training regime: my so-called functional workouts, which actually serve no function accept to give me the opportunity that something I do in a day is "functional." It really started to irk me lately, combined with the odd ganders I attract at the good ol' gym, I have been talking to several colleagues about the state of individuals in our society, particularly young folks - the 9-22 year old group. Many of these kids are currently prescribed medicines for AD/HD or other "behavioral developmental disorders." No I use quotes, half jokingly, not to mock those with real physical disease, but rather to poke fun and mock the medical industry for creating drugs to calm down little boys. I mean for fuck's sake - being rambunctious and annoying and aggressive is what being a little boy is all about. I wish I could still be like that!!!!  At any rate, these kids are raised on electronic devices - the Wii (not fit version), PS2, PSP, Nintendo, Game Cube, Television, etc. When I was a kid my mom forced me to go outside - no I mean literally threw me out and gave me the "I will call you for dinner, and I should not see you until then. Now go have fun, Steve." I had no abandonment issues. I felt no shame, or dislike for her. In fact, I was pleased as pie I was thrown out of the house to go "play" otherwise I had to watch one of the 4 Tele channels available when I was a kid. OK, 5, we did have PRISM, but come on! 

This and we ask ourselves why our society is fat? Not me. I think I;ve got the answer, and it's not original - by any stretch - we made our selves fat. The issue for me is that making ourselves fat, we have actually created a number of new medical disorders (e.g. Type II diabetes). 

Right, so this is supposed to be a blog about fitness, not a political blog, sorry. So, do this for me, a little experiment if you will. Next time you are in the gym observe the members. Take note of how many are using the digital machines and how many are using the non-digital, what I will call here "old school approach", which may include, but is not limited to: gymnastics moves, body weight exercises, kettle balls, non-digital jump rope, etc. Is there a difference in the fitness level perceived by you between these two groups. I did this today and noticed two things: 1) I was one of 3 people at the gym doing "old school" moves (although at 7am I can't be picky about numbers) and 2) that the people doing the "old school" moves seemed to have more muscular definition, more mobility and flexibility, a generally happier demeanor and pleasantness about them, and in males a better V-shaped torso. 

I would like to hear others opinions... 

No turn off your electronic device and go move! LOL ;-)

V-sit progression

Well today was a grande day at the old gym. First of all, that fella who made me feel all self-conscious yesterday actually started chatting with me again. Turns out, he was not trying to be the biggest douche bag in the world, but rather he was actually interested in how I maintain muscle mass by doing primarily body weight exercise routines. That was kind of nice. We then had a neat conversation about psychological/neuroscience research... this is my life... sorry. 

Second, I made an astonishing (well, to me only) discovery. Over the past two days, I have actually, unconsciously made progress toward the V-sit position (see pic, but I am not even close to that!). 

Yesterday, while doing my L-seat to planche progression, I worked hard on getting the legs higher and reached about 80, maybe 75 degrees inclination of the legs (up from 90 degrees). Then today my wife was training her hanging L-sit variation. I was starting to show her the move and realized I could easily get up into a full hanging V. It must be the work I have been doing on the front level, but i almost felt easy, and this was at the end of my workout. 

I was very pleased, to say the least. Not to mention props to Aussy - she has been training with Cassandra, probably one of the best personal trainers we've ever seen, for about 4 weeks (1 day / week). Today she got remeasured and lost 2.5% body fat. 2.5% body fat in about 1 month! That's fucking awesome! She is my idol!

Body weight training makes you small?

Which Approach to Training (Above) Do you Take?

Today a fella approached me in the gym as I was "dismounting" non-gracefully from my rope trainer and asked when I do weights? I responded, "Weights, I haven't really touched an actual weight in several weeks, at least since I had hurt my back, and even before that had gone almost completely body-weight". He was amazed and shocked and immediately questioned me: "Well, so, you CANNOT maintain 'real' muscle mass with only body weight training, right? Because with body weight there is no way to bring progressive overload to your muscles helping them to grow, it just can't happen." OK, so before I continue with the text of my conversation I generally smirk and distrust anyone in a gym who uses terms like "Progressive overload" b

ecause it means one of two things: 1) you are a physical fitness trainer (or some other sports/fitness professional, and I don't mean athlete), in which case you should introduce yourself to me as such so that I DO believe what comes out of your mouth or 2) you read too many muscle mags (FLEX, Muscle & Fitness, and the like). So, I say, quite humbly I might add, "Right, what exactly is, or do you mean by, progressive overload?" Fucking huge mistake! The fella goes on for about 5 minutes (my time is precious!) explaining to me that progressive overload is tantamount to increasing weight or reps so that you work your muscles to complete failure. You break down the tissue and that helps them, actually he said "causes" them to grow. So I responded with my dumb founded, un educated response that seems to usually shut people up long enough that I can abscond back to my workout, "Have you ever seen a fat gymnast?" This guy in a complete lack of awareness of what I was trying to do there, responded! Yes, actually responded: "No gymnasts are not fat, but you also never see a large, muscular, fast twitch built gymnast either." Oh, ok, so we are obviously going to argue here and use technic

al jargon, in the fucking gym. (Fast twitch fibers, for those of you who might not know are the ones involved in anerobic exercise; i.e. weight training and muscle building, slow twitch are more involved in endurance (e.g. marathon muscles). ) Ar you fucking kidding me dude? I hate ever so much to toss around my education (PhD in evolutionary BIOLOGY and Cognitiv

e neuroscience, with education in all forms of hard science), but on occasion I need to draw this weapon. However, this was not the case in this situation. Rather, my funny, teasing side (something I picked up in England, who am I kidding, I was born with it!) took over and so I said, "Whoa dude. You really seem to know a lot about body building and lifting. I could probably learn a lot from you." In between hair flicks and obvious expressive feelings of grandeur I threw in this comment: "Before I take down my rope, you wanna try some rope dips, or a suspended L-sit. I mean, I don't know if they work slow or fast twitch muscle fibers, but maybe you could tell me by trying it..." His response: "i am already into my workout, maybe next time if I catch you in here I will try, or you could workout with me". Um, no thanks. 

Generally, while I can recant this little incident in a slightly humorous manner, this interaction did upset me. It got me thinking, and asking my wife - are my muscles getting SMALLER? For fuck's sake, I realize I am an old bastard, but the last thing I want to be doing is training to be smaller and less muscular. Any thoughts on whether body weight training can decrease the growth of muscle would be greatly appreciated. Here are a few examples that keep me on my path...