Wednesday, June 15, 2011
weight loss
If you want to lose weight, you have to, you must, put effort into it.
You cannot make positive changes to your physique without effort. Effort means hard work, sweat, discomfort and self discipline.
100% of the people that I talk to about weight loss don't really want weight loss; what they want, but don't realize, is fat loss. Fat loss takes effort. Starve yourself and you'll lose weight. 90% of the people I talk to about weight loss need to build muscle; they just don't realize it and have a distorted view about what muscular development is (and does).
Most of the people who tell me that they don't want to lift weight because they " don't want to get bulky" are already carrying around a vast bulkiness.
( darlin' this ain't gonna happen to you no matter what jenny craig says)
If you want to improve your fitness, at any level or to any degree, you must first come to terms with the fact that you have to put effort into it. You have to work for it.
The harder you work, the more effort you put in, the better the results.
Invest in yourself with effort
The media, the infomercials, the infotainment television, the get thin quick schemes and scams are lying to you. 3 min a day, 10 min a day, 15 min a day will not give you magazine cover good looks.
20 minutes a day, 20 hard minutes, I can work with but that's a different article.
You have to move.
If you never restrict or manipulate calories again I don't care, but you have to move. No amount of exercise will overcome a donut and coffee diet but exercise is integral to HEALTH. You have to constantly work intelligently on your strength. You have to maintain your mobility throughout life, and you have to keep your heart pumping and the only way to do these things is with exercise.
However diet is integral to weight loss and fat loss.
Diet is such a four letter word and what we really mean is eating or lifestyle habits.
Hello, this is hunger, hunger this is ( your name here)
You must make friends with hunger. No, not starvation, just get comfortable with a less than full stomach. Learn the difference between hunger and desperation.
If you wait until those little hunger pangs start, then hit an exercise session ( 20 min hard yakka) fat will melt away (as long as you don't become a gorging beast right after) be mindful of your portions and nutrients. I mean really, you know there's zero nutrients in a mars bar.
We do things outside the box. We focus on performance. We are not the 'norm'. Take a look around . Do you want to be 'normal'
Don't spend time agonizing over the scales. Hell, throw them away or stash them under the kids bed. The best measure for how effective your slimming regime is, are your blue jeans. A tape measure on your waist gives you a quantifiable measurement and allows you to make (fixed) period adjustments, but how will your blue jeans fit really tells you how much effort you're putting in to your program.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Body weight training is regaining in popularity among certain circles; particularly boot camps and dinosaur enthusiasts. And that’s a good thing. Body weight training gives the practitioner a greater kinaesthetic awareness and athleticism.
One of the more obvious body weight exercises to choose would have to be the handstand. The handstand allows the trainee to practice a variety of conditioning principals singularly and jointly.
You can practice isometric contractions, max strength, strength endurance, repetitive strength, muscular isolation principal , explosive strength. It also enhances athleticism and balance.
I believe that when you’re learning the handstand the best and first thing to do is fall down. I find that most people cant do the handstand because they’re too busy being scared of falling down and getting hurt. If you fall down a couple of times you will realize that you’re not going to get hurt so you can then get on with learning the exercise.
Now when I begin with these I usually start off with some ugly cartwheels just to warm up and get the feeling of being upside down.
Practicing the hand stand (which often becomes walking on the hands due to trying to keep your balance) increases your bodies skills at spatial awareness ( where you are in space) and athleticism. It also strengthens the rotator cuffs spinal erectors and core.
We usually start practicing the exercise by walking up a wall. We begin in a pushup position with our feet by the wall and then walk backwards up the wall until we are in the handstand.
Walking up and down the wall is a routine in itself. Here we are integrating the core and pushing muscles of the body.
From the up position we can lock and hold it for isometrics, great total body conditioning.
As we get stronger we can start doing handstand pushups. For those seeking size this is a great shoulder builder. My favourite pushup technique from this position is a J push up. Essentially, from an arms extended position lower your body down until your nose just about touches the floor, then, pretend you’re pushing an orange with your nose (away from you) and extend back up. This movement really gets the lats firing as well.
After we get stronger in this position we start doing handstands where we bend down, face away from the wall and swing our feet overhead so the come into contact with the wall. We end up in the handstand position facing away from the wall.
Once again I like to practice holding the locked out position. I believe this is great for strengthening the posterior and small muscles. After you get to the stage when you can hold it for a minute then its time to start doing handstand pushups from this position. Now just because you’re doing pushups doesn’t mean you ‘have ‘ to drop the iso holds. I generally do both. I promise, those holds will make you strong. When you can do 10 handstand pushups, its time to start increasing the range of motion by placing your hands upon some blocks. I’ve used blocks as well as bars to get my head to dip lower.
When you’re capable of doing 3 sets of 10 or more like this its time to start playing with tiger press handstands, one arm handstands, I’ve even done plyometric handstands.
Handstands should be taken seriously and integrated properly into your training regime, but they should also add a fun element to your workouts. They’re great for total body mastery as well as developing awesome strength in the shoulders and shoulder girdle.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
wrestling
Rasllin' dear old 'granny would call it.
Wrestling is a sport. A great sport and there are as many variations as there are cultural divides.
But if we get away from 'sport' and just wrestle, like we did as kids, man, that's fantastic exercise. If you have some good friends you can work with, throw down some mats and get to it.
'you probably want better mats than this one'
You'll be working max strength, relative strength, repetitive strength, strength endurance, cardio, mental toughness, energy systems, mobility. Its all there (in wrestling) and it's fun. You'll be having a great time, boosting your testosterone naturally and developing a team ( team building).
Now I'm not advocating reenacting the best of WWF smack down or destroying your living room. You don't want to be doing pile drivers and figure four leg locks to your friends and sending them to the hospital ( i don't really know, maybe you do)
Set down a few ground rules of gentlemanly conduct. Around here we warm up then start out with some ground work. From there we do a series working (starting) from the knees and then graduate to standing (starts). We go from 1-3 min rounds, usually only 1 min. You'd be surprised how long a minute lasts.
Wrestling, with smart rules, is an awesome way to exercise. It can be recovery work, active rest or integrated into your program weekly.
One last note: a reminder really, We're just talking wrestling as exercise, not full out greco roman or mma.
pushing the boundaries of friendship a little far.