I was watching one of my clients doing the “World’s Greatest” stretch as part of their warmup, and I decided to do a little experiment. So I grabbed my flip video and asked him to start over without any instruction. Here is the video:
Then I asked him to take his shoes off and start again; also without any instruction.
Notice anything? Say, the way he lands?
With shoes, it’s an aggressive heel strike. I realize I stopped him after 2 steps with shoes, but what you saw in the video reflects how he normally lands that exercise.
With socks, he does one heel strike but then corrects it to a mid-foot strike. There has been a lot of talk of minimalist shoes over the past couple of years. One of the key points that is often made is that people naturally move to a heel strike gait when wearing cushioning shoes but somehow they just automatically move to a midfoot strike when the shoe is gone. Personally I was a bit skeptical that our body would change an ingrained habit with a simple footwear change, and yet…here it is. Cool! Yet more evidence at how amazing the human body is. And maybe another nail in the coffin of big cushion-y shoes.
More people these days seem to follow the adage that “abs are made in the kitchen”; yet there still seems to be hope among many that doing more crunches or planks will help cut out some of that abdominal fat.
Researchers at the University of Southern Illinois put it to the test, with a recent research study to determine the effect of abdominal exercise on reducing abdominal fat.
Survey said…
The research study results were published in the September 2011 edition of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Twenty-four “healthy sedentary” (really?) participants were selected and split into an activity group (AG) and a control group (CG). The activity group behaved as normal but were asked to perform a 5 minute warmup plus 10 minutes of abdominal exercises 5 times per week for 6 weeks. The exercises were 2 sets of 10 each of bent-knee sit-ups, lateral trunk flexion, leg lifts, oblique crunches, stability ball crunches, stability ball twists, and abdominal crunches. The control group did no prescribed exercise, and just behaved as normal. Measures of body fat (using DXA), body mass, BMI, and waist circumference were taken before and after the 6 week period. “No differences were existed between the groups at baseline testing”.1
AT the end of the 6 week period, “there was no significant difference between the AG and CG for android fat as measured by DXA, waist circumference, or abdominal skinfold measurements.“1
Now the activity group did see some benefit of their exercise: their abdominal muscle endurance increased.
Core exercises are of course still a great idea as a strong core is essential for general health, reducing the risk of low back pain, and for sports performance. But it’s not the key to a trim tummy.
Reference:
1. Vispute, Sachin S, Smith, John D, LeCheminant, James D, and Hurley, Kimberly S. The Effect of Abdominal Exercise on Abdominal Fat. J Strength Cond Res 25: 2559-2564.
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I love food. I particularly love the trifecta of food: delicious, nutritious and easy to make. I haven’t always done a lot of cooking. Or I should say, I used to be a much lesser cook. I’m not really sure what happened. It’s almost as if I used to think that really delicious meals took hours to cook and required some sort of refined skill. And so I didn’t cook really delicious meals. Instead I stuck with a few very basic meals that took very little effort. They were relatively healthy (back in the day I thought a bowl of pasta with tomato sauce was a healthy meal), and they were definitely easy to make. But they were far from delicious. They lacked…the third heat.
Maybe the relevance of that clip is a stretch…but what can I say? I’m a fan of hilarity. But back on topic…
I’m not sure when I made the discovery that truly delicious (but still nutritious) food can actually made with little effort and little time. But it’s something that can’t be unlearned. And so now I cook delicious and nutritious meals often; but I am far from a slave to the kitchen. In fact most of the meals shown in the photos scattered throughout this article took about 30 minutes to make. That’s 30 minutes fridge to fork (F2F); not 30 minutes once you’ve already cut and measured everything like you see on most cooking shows.
It recently occurred to me that many fitness gurus and those who live healthy lifestyles don’t really know how to make great food. I’m sorry if I have offended, but it had to be said. I see some truly horrible recipes masquerading as healthy and “delicious”. And on the other side of the coin, a lot of great chefs don’t seem to understand nutrition well. Somehow it is difficult to have taste and health in one recipe. It would sure be nice to see a cookbook collaboration by a great nutritionist and a great chef. Imagine a John Berardi and Jamie Oliver cookbook. That would be awesome!
But in the meantime, I will try to fill a bit of the void by sharing some of what I’ve picked up about cooking over the years, combined with some of what I know about nutrition. I am fortunate to have some truly great cooks among my friends and family, and I’ve learned from all of them. This is actually volume two of this list. Volume 1, Real world tips for healthier eating, has a bigger focus on the nutrition side. The 10 tips below relate more to the delicious cooking side:
1. Just cook already. It’s actually faster than you think. In fact if you really think about it, it’s probably faster to cook something than it is to drive to the nearest fast food outlet, stand in line to order your take out and then drive home. It’s most definitely healthier and tastier. Plus there’s the added bonus that you get leftovers. Delicious, nutritious and quick to reheat leftovers. I had leftovers for lunch today: steak with pasta and salad. How about you?
2. Cut onions with swim goggles. I figured this one out shortly after buying a pair of swim goggles with the intention of swimming several times each week and then realizing that I really don’t like swimming. My eyes are quite sensitive, so cutting onions is typically a cry-fest for me. But no more. Yes, it looks ridiculous. But cutting onions is now an easy and enjoyable task (enjoyable on account of I get a little chuckle over how ridiculous I know they look).
3. For stir-fry, cook the vegetables first. Most people cook the meat first and then add the vegetables. Probably because vegetables tend to take less time to cook. Solid reasoning, but not a good idea. Unless you want your stir-fry to have a runny sauce. Vegetables are largely made up of water, and when you cook them, much of that water leaves the vegetables and enters the pan. Cook the vegetables first, take them out of the pan while you cook the meat, and then add them back at the end, and your meal will live up to its deliciousness potential.
4. Meat goes on sale. I’m curious to see if I’m the only person who is suspicious of sale meat. Anyone else? Until recently (like really recently), I thought that whenever meat was on sale, it was because it was going bad. So obviously, I avoided it like the plague. And of course, I looked with judging eyes at those of you who were smart enough to buy your meat on sale. I was shopping with a close friend when I made a comment about not getting some meat because it was on sale and she looked at me like I had two heads. Then she laughed. And finally she explained to me that I was being ridiculous, and that I should actually give thought to my theory: we live in Canada where there are health laws and selling expired meat is not okay. She picked up one of the packages of sale meat and pointed out that the best before date was in fact in the future. It was a huge “ah-ha” moment for me. Now when I shop, I look to see if any meat is on sale, and often let that guide what I’m going to cook. Some of the sales are unreal: I bought pork tenderloin last week for $2.99/lb!
5. Use a screen. That is, the thing that looks vaguely like a tennis racket but with a metal screen. It’s pretty cool – it keeps stuff from splattering from the pot or pan onto the stove. This is particularly useful when cooking anything in oil (even if it is not much oil), and when making sauces or soups. Much easier to clean the stove later!
6. Frozen vegetables. Fresh rules in summer, but frozen is an amazing option in the winter. You know how annoying the fresh (“fresh”) vegetables are in winter: they don’t taste very good, they are very expensive, and they go bad so fast. In fact I suspect frozen vegetables are healthier than “fresh” in the winter if you live in a winter climate. I just can’t imagine that the truck ride from California makes for great quality produce. And remember that frozen vegetables are much better than they once were. Individual flash freezing has done wonders for them. They are easy to use and quite delicious. And you may even be able to find a brand that were farmed nearby, like the Arctic Gardens ones for me. I love that my winter vegetables are local.
7. Use reputable recipes. It’s really easy to follow a good recipe, and your success rate with cooking good recipes should be very high. To help ensure your recipes work, avoid using recipes from random websites. At least until you get the hang of cooking. There are many recipes online that either don’t work or just don’t taste very good. When you have been cooking for a while, you can recognize recipes that won’t work well. Until then, stick with known quantities. I have two go to recipe books that I’m going to share:
Another place I go to for great recipes is allrecipes.com. There is lots of great stuff here. If you decide to get recipes here, look for ones that have hundreds of reviews but still have an average rating in the 4-5 star range.
8. Make roasts. I’m guessing your mom and dad never shared how easy they are to make because it would make it seem like they didn’t slave over Sunday dinner. But here’ s a secret: they didn’t slave over Sunday dinner. Roast is delicious, inexpensive, nutritious and easy to make. Try it.
9. If you are cooking beef and plan to have leftovers, lean toward rare for the first cooking, because reheating it will cook it a bit more. That is as long as you are okay with rare.
10. Get a good meat thermometer. People who cook without meat thermometers tend to overcook meat because they worry that they’ll get sick if the undercook it. People who cook with meat thermometers enjoy tender and juicy, perfectly cooked meats. It’s up to you. Now the meat thermometer will only help if you know what temperature the meat should reach. You can google this, or consider getting a reference cookbook like:
The Fanny Farmer Cookbook. This is a must-have in the kitchen. I don’t find the recipes here are amazing . In fact they are a bit boring by my standards. But it is full of the basics, like how to cook corn on the cob, and liquid measurement conversions. Get your copy.
11. Grate is far from great. I’m talking about parmesan. I love parmesan. But I’m a bit of a snob about it. And if you’ve tried freshly grated parmigiano reggiano, then you know what I’m talking about. If you use parmesan, please, I beg of you, stop buying the grated stuff, and buy a piece of the good stuff and then grate it yourself just before you use it. I suggest this primarily because the difference in flavour is so extreme that I am having trouble coming up with a comparison that does it justice. Imagine the best meal you’ve ever eaten, and now imagine the worst. It’s like that. The other reason is that the pre-grated stuff doesn’t last well. I suspect it’s due to the air that ends up in the container. Personally I find the pre-grated stuff does not last well in my fridge, but the chunk does. Now if you are thinking that yours doesn’t go bad, it’s probably because you buy the Kraft stuff from the shelf in the middle of the grocery store. Think about that for a minute though. It’s cheese. But it doesn’t require refrigeration. You sure that’s something you want to eat?
Hopefully some of these tips will help get you into the kitchen and creating some delicious and nutritious meals for you and your family. Because the thing is, junk food is much less appealing when it’s up against delicious home cooking. And home cooking really doesn’t have to take long.
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I’m still not sure why pullups and chinups are so awesome. But they are. I like to do them and so do my clients. Despite the high awesome factor (HAF), it’s actually quite hard to make progress with them.
So how can you improve on them? That depends on where you stand (hang?):
1. Can you do a full pullup (no shame if you can’t!)?
2. Can you do at least 1 but fewer than 5 consecutive full pullups (or chinups)?
3. Can you do at least 5 consecutive full pullups, but still want to be able to do more?
If you fall into category 1, then check out this article that I wrote about getting from zero to 1 pullups.
If you are in category 2, then, well, you’ll have to wait for my category 2 article. Sorry. It’ll be ready soon-ish.
If you are a category 3 pullup-er (I’m actively destroying the English language here – with no remorse) then read on! My approach to improving pullups beyond 5 is 3 fold:
1. Keep working at it. There is an element of practice that is important. Get your repetitions in.
2. Improve absolute pullup strength by doing resisted pulllups. Add weight. This will likely mean fewer reps, but it can be effective at getting you through a plateau
3. Do 1.5 partial pullups.
What are 1.5 partial pullups?
There are actually two versions of them: the TRX 1.5 partial pullup and the band 1.5 partial pullup. Both have two functions to help improve your pullups:
- They help strengthen part of the pullup (the top half for the band version; the bottom half for the TRX version). Most people are either stronger on the bottom (stronger back) or top (stronger arms). If you know which is your weaker link, then work on improving it.
- They help improve your pullup endurance. This is key when increasing your pullup numbers. If you’re in the 5 to 10 range, then a set of pullups is actually quite a long, especially if you have long arms. That means it’s not just about strength; it’s about endurance. The 1.5 partial pullups allow you to spend more time doing pullups with a little less effort, which can help improve your staying power.
Check out the following video to see both versions of the 1.5 partial pullups:
Elsbeth Vaino is a personal trainer in Ottawa, Canada.
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Bret Contreras is a smart guy (and a nice one too), so I usually watch or read when he puts out new stuff. Last week, while going through Ben Bruno’s “For Your Viewing Pleasure“, a great weekly collection of fitness videos, I saw Bret’s new video showing a variation of the SL RDL (that’s single-leg Romanian Deadlift) that intrigued me. Read more…
…you probably have anterior pelvic tilt (APT). That is, your butt probably sticks out a bit. In some cases, the upside may be that it’ll make your butt look great. Although it doesn’t always look good…
Looks aside, for many people, it can cause or contribute to low back pain, either on a regular basis, or while trying to perform ab exercises. Raise your hand if you yourself or any of your clients have complained that they feel planks in their low back more than in their abs. Read more…
I just received an email from a prospective new client who mentioned she wants an FMS (Functional Movement Screen) to see what, if any, imbalances she has and correct them as she’s training to become a firefighter. I love that she’s keen to build her body on a base of sound functional movement before adding strength. I suspect I’m going to really enjoy working with her.
As I was replying, I thought of an email that I had written to another client who decided, after he’d been training with me for a while, that he would like to do the test at some point and wondered if I could help. I took a look at the test and realized that for the most part, the training that he was already doing with me would prepare him very nicely. I wrote a detailed email explaining why I think that. Read more…
I was at the bike store-coffee shop this morning for an Americano between clients (Cyclelogik has great Americanos – featuring beans from Francescos….mmm…) and was feeling a little snacky. It was almost 1130 and I had another couple of assessments before lunch. So I noticed the snack offerings they had today: a big oatmeal raisin cooking and a protein bar. Not thrilling, but I considered them enough to look at the nutrition numbers for each. The power bar looked decent: less than 250 calories, and it was somewhere in the 3:1 to 4:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio. It has fat, but fat is really not such a big deal – unless there is so much that it increases the calorie content too much. In fact some would call fat essential. And by some, I mean smart people who understand nutrition: The “Essential” in Essential Fatty Acids is not just a marketing thing. Read more…
It’s a concept of how we should position our shoulder when doing any sort of lifting with our arms. Now some will say that this is ridiculous – we just move our arms and that’s how they should move. I could get behind that line of thinking. Except for one thing: many of the people that come and train with me don’t actually position their shoulder properly when moving their arms, and then they complain of pain or discomfort in their shoulder or neck when doing exercises like pushups, rows, and planks. But when I help them to position their shoulder properly, they proceed to exercise without pain or discomfort.
That’s pretty convincing for me. Why does this happen? I’d say it’s a fair bet that your computer is the culprit. In fact take a look at your shoulders right now. They’re rounded, aren’t they? Read more…
My friend Brian has recently decided to move to a standing desk setup at work and asked my opinion about it. Because he is smart, he researched this before just jumping in. This means he didn’t just buy a taller desk, but has considered all elements of the desk ergonomics. Based on that, I think it sounds like a really interesting option, which is what I told him. I do have concerns about this approach for someone who has neck troubles, as the lack of arm rests could be troublesome. But otherwise, it sounds interesting.
If this is a topic that has made you go “hmmm”, then I suggest you read through Brian’s blog post about it:
