eat like a bear

There's a lot of diet advice circulating around in common jargon and one of the most cleche sound bites is "eat like a gorilla". Obviously because a gorilla is big and strong.

What does a 600lbs gorilla do? anything it wants to.

I've never ascribed to the eat like a gorilla spin.

For starters I'm not a gorilla.

Beyond that, gorillas have an almost exclusive vegetarian diet and all the gastric hardship that entails. they are essentially herbavours. If you want a hugely disended gut and excrutiationg gas then by all means, eat like a gorilla.

I generally tell people to , "eat like a bear".

I know I said I'm not a gorilla; and I realize I'm not a bear; science likes to argue that we are "almost " gorillas but Native American legend says that I'm, well, a bears nephew.

Regardless, bears and humans are both carnivours (omnivours really).

Protien is an essential componet of our diet, and neither bears nor humans can easily get adequate amounts of protien from grass and leaves. ( The gorilla diet)

We need meat, I'm not advocating eating ants, termites, grubs and worms (all great sources of protien) but hunting for deer would greatly improve your lean protien intake.

Bears are famous for fishing for salmon. Essential fatty acids and.... protien.

Bears also spend time foraging for berries and stealing honey. minimal carbs with ample antioxidants and phytochemicals.

Next time your making food choices, instead of thinking to yourself what would a gorilla eat? maybe you should thing what would a bear eat.

can't never could

One of the things 'me dear old da' must have engrained in me was the expression "can't never could do nothin' ...boy"

'there is not try. there is do or do not'

Sometimes clients come into the gym and they 'can't' do something; and thats okay-except when the effort's not applied to let you do something.

The kids often come in and look at something new and go ' i can't' . Well if you don't make the attempt how do you know? Our sand bag work is often like this. It looks hard (because it is) it looks heavy (well, thats relative) and the expression 'can't' often finds itself in the ether.

How do you know you can't? Squat down and do it! 'I can't its's too heavy!' - incorrect. You've nudged it and felt that it's heavy and it is; So what. Pick it up!

'Wow I picked it up'. Yes, now do it again, and again and one more time.

Invest in yourself with effort. Hard work. Success. Confidence. Improvement.

Can't never would have gotten that weight up or that pull up done. It may have been improbable, but not impossible. When the improbable is accomplished, often, the investment has paid its dividends physically and psychologically.

Don't let four letter words hold you back in the gym or in life.

more sprint training in the gym

So we've addressed shorter (but effective) training sessions with smart exercise selection so that we are still recieving a training effect and not just ' gassing' ourselves for the euphoria of persieved physical exertion.

So, here is an example of a 20 min. training session:

1 hindu squats

2 alternating kettlebell bent over rows

3 punching bag

4 russian twists

5 jumprope

Here we have 5 exercises, done for 1 min. in a circuit fasion, 4 times through.

keeping in mind that the body (wants) to work as an unit we have a lower body exercise (pushing us away from the planet [jumping]), a pulling movement, a pushing movement a core movement and active rest.

This circuit allows for high volume multi -joint exercises which in turn increase hormonal output; raise the metabolic response; increase fat burning, hypertrophy, cardio-vascular adaptation, strength endurance, mental toughness and intestinal fortitude all without decreasing current strength levels.

sprint sessions in the gym.

now by sprint sessions i don't mean sprinting from one end of the gym to the other,

what i mean is brief but intense training sessions. well orchestrated so that your time is used most efficiently . sometimes you don't have an hour to spend at the gym and often you don't need to spend an hour at the gym (deepending on your purposes).

a well chosen series of exercise set into a streamlined circuit can give a tremendous training session, accomplished in a brief time period.

the key to this?

choosing good exercises.

i like to fit this into a 20 min slot.

i'll pick around 5 exercises and run through a circuit 4 times.

KAPOW ; 20 min done.

don't count sets and reps, watch the clock or better yet have someone watch it for you. do each exercise for 1 min.

also, there should be as much flow from one exercise to the next as you can manage.

these sessions are great for cardio workouts, metabolic training, conditioning or recovery workouts.