I admit that I’m more of a bench press guy, but I really should throw more pushups into my routine. This article provides a a great explanation of getting the perfect pushup form and also includes huge list of 32 pushup variations and a video showing how to do all of them.
This article provides an excellent explanation of insulin, how it works in your body and how insulin resistance occurs. There are also some great tips on preventing insulin resistance.
I’ve been working out regularly for years and I’ve always noticed that I think more clearly on days that I workout. Well here’s proof! A study from the Montreal Heart Institute shows that exercise helps the body oxygenate the brain and increase cognitive function.
If you have glaucoma, you might have heard about the drug Bimatoprost. Interestingly, it seems the drug not only slows the progression of glaucoma, but it might also help grow back hair. My brother actually suffers from a condition called alopecia that causes him to lose hair in random patches. It would be awesome if Bimatoprost could help him.
I don’t have the skills or tools necessary to build this, but it sure is an awesome idea. This is a really cool blog too because it’s all about creating DIY fitness equipment. Definitely going into my favorites.
It’s interesting to see the varying diets of top athletes of the world. It’s crazy to see how crappy some of these athletes ate, yet still managed to be the best at what they do.
Good to know if you’re planning to have a baby. There’s also a long list of sperm quality parameters in this article that can help men diagnose various issues with their semen.
I’ve had very noticeable results in cognitive function on days that I workout and occasionally when I drink coffee, but I’ve never really done any tests. I would really like to do everything mentioned in this post, so I’m going to turn it all into actionable goals that I work on over time.
I don’t ride if it’s below 55 degrees. I’ve tried several times at around 45 to 50 degree weather and I was miserable each time. But after watching this video I realize that I wasn’t wearing the optimal gear, so for Performance Bicycle’s Cyber Monday sale I bought some new stuff, which you can see in the photo above. I already had a few of those things shown in the photo just so you know I didn’t go nuts in the store, but I did buy a long-sleeve jersey, a balaclava and windproof bike jacket. I rode my bike yesterday and it worked out pretty well! It was 52 degrees, so I still need to test it around 45 degrees or less, but I definitely noticed a difference compared to my previous cold-weather rides.
This article starts with a ton of information on the anatomy of the back, but the best part of this post are the tips halfway down the page. I love the tip mentioned here from Dorian Yates – If you can’t hold a row for at least one second at the midpoint, you’re using too much momentum. Drop the weight and do it right.
This one’s a tearjerker. Arthur gave up all hope of ever living a normal life after suffering back and knee injuries as a paratrooper earlier in life. His doctors told him that he’d never walk/run again. WCW Wrestler, Diamond Dallas Page, now known as DDP proved those doctors wrong, by putting Arthur on the DDP Yoga system that he personally created. I didn’t know DDP had his own program, but it looks like it works.
I love this tip! I always have leftover rice and I never know what to do with it, so I usually toss it into a burrito or throw some soy sauce all over it and finish it up. I can’t wait to try this.
I can’t vouch for this chili just yet because I don’t have the black eye peas or chickpeas to make it yet, but I’ll be trying it soon. I don’t usually care for chickpeas all that much, although I don’t hate them, so we’ll see. Even without chickpeas, it looks like a solid recipe.
I agree with everyone in this list. I already follow a few of these people, for example Kelly Starrett, Mark Sisson, and Martin Berkhan, but I now follow pretty much all of them. If they have blogs, YouTube channels or Facebook pages, they’ve been added to my feed reader.
Google Maps is expanding to hiking trails! I love this idea. Trails can sometimes be a little more difficult than expected, so I think something like this would be extremely beneficial. It’s a great way to plan a hike too. You can seek out spots to rest or have picnics. You can find areas you want to avoid. Or maybe stopping points where you want to turn back. If the weather takes a turn for the worst, you can decide on if you want to keep going based on the knowledge of how much trail is left to climb. There are so many ways this can be useful.
I knew I had to include this in my weekly roundup as soon as I read the last paragraph in the very first tip. There’s a ton of great deadlift information here.
Have you ever thought of using a car buffer to rehab your back? I haven’t. There are lots of other great tips here too. I’ve never heard of Clint Darden before, but this guy definitely knows what he’s talking about.
This is a really long video (30 minutes), but Mehdi provides a whole bunch of great tips about the 5×5 program as he actually completes an entire workout. It’s really helpful if you have any questions about the program.
I must admit, this program sure does sound enticing. Shoot! I can’t help myself. It’s only 4 weeks so I’m gonna take a break from my routine and try this one out.
Awesome article and I love this quote “Caffeine is kind of like getting a green shell in Mario Kart – it’s readily available, can certainly help you win, but has to be used properly or it can end up doing more harm than good.”
This article goes through the pros and cons of drinking alcohol, how alcohol is processed by the body and the best ways for you to consume alcohol so that it doesn’t effect your health.
I don’t eat chocolate that often but this research has me thinking that I should. I just went to see my physician yesterday and oddly I seem to have an elevated blood pressure. I’m going back in for some tests on Monday, but for now I’m thinking that I should start eating at least 45g of chocolate a day to help keep my blood pressure normal. 45g actually seems like a lot though. For example 45g of the Lindt chocolate bar in the photo above is about half of the bar, or 275 calories and 27.5g of fat. I suppose it’s not too bad if you’re in good health.
I love that this guy did his experiment, tracked results and posted it, even though he didn’t end up improving his deadlift, which was the goal of experiment. Still something to be learned from it though. He had fun by changing his routine and he saw an increase in muscle mass over his entire body. Still sounds like a success to me.
Powerlifters, CrossFitters and lifting coaches always seem to slip in a quick mention about using olympic lifting shoes, but I’ve never seen one person actually say why someone should use them. This article has all of the “whys” covered. Great article!
Being healthy usually means spending a good amount of time preparing food, which I don’t mind at all. I love cooking. But despite all of the hours I’ve spent in the kitchen, I’ve never learned how to properly use a knife. Or at least that’s what I thought. After looking over this infographic, I realize that a lot of the individual knife tips I’ve read over the years has stuck with me. This is a really handy infographic though. I still learned some things.
This is a perfect go-to list of exercises for those times when you can’t get to a gym, for example if you’re traveling or on vacation. When I went to Vegas a few years ago, I did many of the bodyweight exercises in my hotel room every morning.
If you have questions about using wraps, belts or straps to aid in lifting weights, read this. I personally don’t like to use anything, but I would be interested in using a weight belt for heavy squats and deadlifts.
Patric Young is a six-foot-nine, 249-lb. athlete that does more in a 3-minute routine than most people do in 30 minutes. I feel Patric’s fatigue just watching this short workout.
This is a list of 14 common excuses people give for not getting vaccines. I work with several people who have told me many of the things in this list. I never flu vaccines either, but not really because of any reason on the list. I just don’t go because I’m lazy. After reading this I feel like I should start though.
This is the first week in 86 weeks that I haven’t published my regular “Health and Fitness Articles of the Week” post on Mixed Fitness. I wanted to so badly, but I had a really big work deadline that required pretty much all of my free time this past week, so I read absolutely nothing.
I went to work for 8 hours, came home, did whatever needed be done and then I worked again until bed. It was such a draining week, but my deadline was met successfully and I can get back to my regular schedule again. Be ready for a big “articles of the week” post next Friday though, because I’ve got a ton of catching up to do!
I’ve done several CrossFit workouts before, but I’ve never actually done CrossFit on consecutive days. I got the urge, so I decided to take a break from my old tried-and-true routine by throwing in a full week of Crossfit.
I started by gathering a list of CrossFit workouts from the official CrossFit website. I went back into the archives and put together a full week of WODs (workout of the day). I squeezed them onto a Microsoft Word document and printed it out to take with me into my home gym.
One of the first things I realized is that I didn’t understand most of the terminology, but I finally found it all explained on the CrossFit FAQ page. Probably the most useful things to understand as a beginner are the terms “PX’ed” (prescribed), “AMRAP” (as many reps as possible) and “For time” (complete the workout as fast as you can).
The Routine
This is the routine that I did, along with the notes I took along the way.
Monday
Workout Name: CINDY
AMRAP:
5 pull-up
10 push-ups
15 squats
My completed rounds: 12
I was able to complete 12 rounds before I couldn’t do any more pushups or pullups. I probably could have done more squats, but I didn’t know the rules on continuing. I figured that I should stop anyway, because I wasn’t sure how punishing the following week was going to be on my body. I finished my final round with an extra long set of squats of about 50 or so. I don’t remember the exact number, but it was somewhere around there.
Tuesday
Workout Name: NANCY
5 rounds for time:
400m Run
Overhead Squats, 15 reps (95#/65#)
My time: Approx. 28 minutes
I really thought I was going to do well on this one, but wow, it was difficult. I especially had problems keeping good form on the overhead squats. I just couldn’t seem to keep my arms straight above my head while squatting. Overhead squats are a new exercise for me so I probably should have started with much less weight than what was prescribed (95 lbs. for men, 65 for women), but I powered through anyway.
Wednesday
Workout Name: CrossFit Tri
2000m Row
1 mile run
100 Double Unders (or 4x singles)
This one wasn’t timed or for reps, but I finished it at about 24 minutes. I don’t have a row machine, but I found that the suggested alternate exercise for rows are sumo deadlift high pulls (SDHP) with just an empty olympic bar (45lbs). Those things really kicked my ass. For each 100 meters, you need to do 10 SDHP’s, so for this WOD, I had to do 200 pulls. By the time I got to 150 SDHP’s, I just wanted the pain to stop! I’m not able to do double unders yet, so I just did 100 regular rope jumps instead. I realized later that single-unders are in no way able to compensate for the exertion required of double unders and that I should have done at least 400 single-unders or the official CrossFit approved one-for-one alternative, tuck jumps. Here’s a video with an example.
Thursday
Workout Name: Elizabeth
21-15-9 reps for time:
Squat Cleans (135#/95#)
Ring Dips
My time: approx. 23 minutes
If there one thing I learned from this day, it’s that if you don’t have experience with a lift, start out with lighter weight than what is prescribed. I pulled a muscle in my arm at the very beginning of doing the squat clean, which made the rest of the workout much harder than it needed to be. I kept massaging the muscle after every couple of reps to work it out, and that helped me get through it.
This one is definitely tough. I had poor form for the first 4-5 reps and then I re-watched the exercise video on the CrossFit site a couple of times to get the form down. Since this was my first time doing this exercise, I could only get in 3-5 reps each time with short breaks in-between before starting up again.
I don’t have Olympic rings available to me, so I had to do dips on my power tower. From what I’ve read on the CrossFit forums, they recommend substituting power tower dips for olympic dips at a 2:1 ratio, and some suggest a 3:1 ratio. I have always had shoulder problems with dips so I just did them one for one. It was still a great workout.
Friday
Workout Name: Jackie
For time:
1000m Row
50 Thrusters (45#/45#)
30 Pull-ups
My time: 14 min. 34 seconds
I don’t know if it was the previous day’s workout or if it’s all of the workouts of the week finally catching up to me, but I was pretty sore all around. The foam roller was putting me through some pain!
This day was probably the easiest of all of them so far, but that’s not to say that it isn’t a tough workout. Thrusters are a new exercise for me. I did the exercise with just the bar (45lbs.), which is the way the workout was planned. I saw some videos of people on YouTube doing it with 45’s though. Now that’s crazy.
I also learned that there are different types of pull-ups in the CrossFit world; kipper pull-ups and butterfly pull-ups. Both of those pull-ups seem really weird. I watched a video online and I couldn’t help but laugh at how silly it looks when a group of people are doing butterfly pull-ups at the same time. I can see how these pull-ups can add some variety to a workout though and I’m sure they work a lot of other muscles that regular pull-ups don’t. I don’t have the space in my basement to swing my body around to do these, so I had to stick with regular pull-ups.
Saturday
Workout Name: AMRAP 20
10 Burpee Box Jumps
10 Toes-to-bar
10 Burpee Wall Balls
10 Goblet Squats
400 meter run
* 10 walking lunges before each 400m run and 10 more after reaching turn-around point
My completed rounds: 2.75 rounds in 20 min.
I got to rep 8 of round 3 on the wall ball squats when the timer went off. I went on to finish the round at 4 min. 18 seconds later. I was beat by the time this workout was finished.
Some Final Notes
CrossFit is a lot of fun! Even without lifting heavy weight, I got really sore. CrossFit is very similar to HIIT training, except that CrossFit puts more focus on functional strength & conditioning while HIIT often focuses more on cardio-only training and less weight lifting. I love that I was able to lift weights and get a cardio workout at the same time. It definitely felt like a more athletic routine than what I’ve ever done before.
There are a lot more body movements involved when doing CrossFit, so to prevent injury I would recommend that if you’re a beginner that you watch instructional videos for all of the exercises, even the ones that you think you know, because CrossFitters do a lot of things differently. I also suggest that you start slow and use a lighter weight than what is prescribed – at least for the first couple of weeks.
I’m doing my old weightlifting routine again right now, but I plan to start adding a week of CrossFit into my routine regularly from now on. I’m thinking that I might do one week of CrossFit every couple of months to start, but I had so much fun that I have a feeling I might do it a whole lot more as time goes on. The way I get with things, I wouldn’t be surprised if my garage became a fully-outfitted CrossFit gym within a year 😉
If you want to know the quick answer, spirulina and chlorella are primal, and amaranth isn’t, but all three are fine to consume. There are lots of benefits to eating all of these. I just wish spirulina and chlorella were more affordable.
I would be running for a bucket after about 5 minutes of doing this workout. 😉 Watching this video really helps to understand how someone has to train in order to be a professional athlete.
Killing yourself in the gym everyday can help you lose weight, but you can lose weight faster and do less damage to your body if you don’t take it past the point of diminishing returns. If you go too hard on your body, you can actually reduce your overall wellness. The article suggest 4,000 being just about right for the cut off point. That’s not a lot. In the summer when I’m riding my bike to work, I’d meet that mark by Wednesday and I’d still have a couple more workouts to finish in the week.
An excellent five minute interview with Dr. William Davis, the author of the hugely popular book Wheat Belly. He talks about what’s wrong with the wheat of today and the health issues that wheat causes. I haven’t read his book yet, but I plan on it.
I’ve never cheated myself by doing incomplete reps, but I saw it in the gym all the time when I still had a membership. This video runs much longer than it needs to, but you can get the info you need in the first couple of minutes.
This is one of those things that’s so simple, you’ll feel stupid for not thinking of this before. Well that’s how I feel anyway 😉 I always hate cutting the end of the onion because it starts slipping all over the place. Hopefully this neat trick helps.
Lots of good tips on perfecting technique when doing different types of rows. He demonstrates only one handed cable machine rows, but it easily translates to other variations.
I think a lot of people, even me at first, were led to believe by the recent Stanford study on organic produce that organic produce isn’t healthier than regular produce. The study didn’t say the word “healthy” though, it said that organic wasn’t more nutritious. According to this excellent article from Marks Daily Apple, that might not be entirely true either.
I’ve been feeling exceptionally great lately – I’ve been thinking more clearly, I feel alert all day and I have tons of energy. It’s awesome, but the problem is that I don’t know which of my lifestyle changes to attribute it to! I’m always trying new health products, exercises and body hacking experiments and in the past couple of months I’ve changed quite a few things.
Started taking a pre-workout shake consisting of dextrose and hemp protein
Drinking high-quality coffee with MCT oil
Mobility stretching and foam rolling before workouts
Changing up my workout routine
Cold showers
Taking Aniracetam w/ choline every morning
Getting more sleep
Why I Do The Things I Do
Pre-Workout Shake – I started doing this after reading an article from Mike Roussell, Ph.D. titled “Ask The Macro Manager: Should I Drink Protein Before Or After A Workout?” I’ve always had a post-workout shake, but after reading this, I learned that a pre-workout shake has a ton of benefits – it can fuel your muscles, it can jump start protein synthesis and it can help you burn more calories.
Coffee and MCT Oil – I’ve learned about the many great benefits of drinking coffee from the Bulletproof Executive blog and at the age of 30, I finally decided to start drinking it. Coffee can improve your memory, it’s an excellent source of antioxidants and it can improve athletic performance if taken before a workout. Like coffee, MCT oil is thermogenic, which converts to energy quickly. MCT oil has also been shown to improve nutrient absorption of some nutrients and provide better immune protection. I add it to my coffee and blend it in a bullet blender or shake it up like crazy in a blender bottle.
Mobility Stretching and Foam Rolling – Ever since doing P90X for the first time several years ago, I’ve known first-hand about the benefits of warming up before a workout. I didn’t warm up as often as I should have after finishing P90X, but then I read this article a couple months ago about warming up with mobility and foam rolling exercises. I do this routine before every workout now and I love it. After finishing the mobility exercises, they recommend foam rolling these areas: plantar fascia, calves, quads, IT band, hips, glutes, pecs and lumbar and thoracic spine.
Changing Up My Workout Routine – I try to not to switch up my routine too often because that’s a big reason people never see progress in the gym. People tend to switch up routines before seeing if the routine really works. This was my problem in my beginning years of working out, but I finally wised up and created a routine based on big compound lifts and I’ve continued to see progress ever since. I do still like to switch things up though, especially if I start to plateau or if I get bored. Instead of completely changing routines, I’ll instead rotate lifts or I do a totally new routine for one or two weeks and jump back into my regular routine after that. I haven’t modified my routine at all in about seven months and I started to get bored, so I decided to do a week of Crossfit and then a week of a random routine I pulled out of a Muscle & Fitness magazine. It was exactly what I needed to prevent myself from getting burned out on my routine. I hope to do something like this every couple of months from now on.
Cold Showers – I first learned about the health benefits of cold exposure after reading Tim Ferris’ book, “The 4-Hour Body.” Tim Ferris noted several reasons why someone should take a cold 30 minute shower; increased lean muscle gain, improved immunity, effective treatment of depression and increased fat-loss. I didn’t start taking cold showers after reading his book though. More recently I read an article from Dave Asprey about cold thermogenesis and then Ben Greenfield did a podcast on cold thermogenesis with Dr. Jack Kruse. It was finally starting to sink in. Then I read a free Kindle book called The Flinch by Julien Smith which had “homework” at the end of one of the chapters that suggested taking cold showers for a week. I did it and I stuck with it for three months. I just recently started taking warm showers again, but I plan to experiment with cold showers again in the future.
Aniracetam w/ Choline – The benefits of taking smart drugs like aniracetam is something else I’ve learned about from reading the Bulletproof Executive blog. Aniracetam has been shown to sharpen memory and learning abilities and it also optimizes the use of oxygen in the brain. It also heightens the effects of caffeine. Most people take choline supplements with racetam drugs (Aniracetam, Piracetam) because racetams lower choline levels in the body, but if you’re in the small percentage of people who are choline dominant you need to be careful about overwhelming your choline system. If you get headaches or clenched jaw you probably shouldn’t supplement with choline. I haven’t really noticed a difference after taking Aniracetam in 750mg capsules, but perhaps the amount I’m taking makes the effects too subtle. I plan to experiment with higher dosages soon.
Getting More Sleep – I think we all know that sleep is important. It helps your entire body recover. It clears your mind and heals your body, which is especially important for people who exercise. One of the vegan athletes I follow is DurianRider, a raw food fruitarian, who is always talking about the importance of going to sleep really early in order to get as much sleep as his body needs, so I decided I’d try to do the same.
I’m always learning new things (which you can see by reading the weekly update post that I publish every Friday here on MixedFitness.com) and I’ve been testing and “upgrading” myself for years. I wish I would’ve tracked everything I do to see what works and what doesn’t, but I definitely plan to track things from now on.
What I Have Planned For the Future
Meditation
Sprinting exercises
Adventures and fun activities (hiking, trampolines, repelling, paintball, indoor skydiving, go karts)
Brew Kombucha
Remove wheat from my diet
Do a one-week juice fast
Learn to roast my own coffee
Start doing mobility exercises
Meditation – Meditation is a topic that comes up in my daily reading all the time. I always read about the benefits but I never do it. Did you know that meditation can strengthen the brain? It’s also a great way to clear your mind and reduce stress levels. You only need to meditate for a couple of minutes per day to see a benefit, so that’s how I want to get started. Setting aside two minutes a day should be easy enough.
Sprinting Exercise – Since February of this year I’ve had “add sprinting to routine” in my fitness notes, and I never got around to doing it. I’ve read all about the benefits of sprinting over the years, but I didn’t write that note down until reading “The 6-Week Sprinting Solution from T-Nation. Now there’s snow on the ground and I most likely won’t be doing sprints anytime soon. This one will have to wait until the spring season.
Adventures and Fun Activities – I read an article a couple of months ago from PsychologyToday.com about how spending time with friends can increase happiness, health and longevity. I can’t find the article anymore so you’re just going have to believe me that it’s true 😉 Anyway, I often skip going out with friends because I’ve convinced myself that I’m too busy, but since reading that article I’ve started saying yes every time someone invites me out and I’ve noticed that I’ve been much happier. I think planning more activities and adventures will help me get away from my computer and work and will let me enjoy life with friends and the people I love.
Brewing Kombucha – Kombucha tea is a fermented drink that is a probiotic, like yogurt for example. It introduces helpful bacteria into the body and heals the gut. I’ve actually just started brewing my own Kombucha so this is a goal already mostly accomplished. I’ve brewed one batch so far and it came out great. I didn’t get enough out of it to drink daily and feel the benefits, but I’ve got two batches going now and when those are done I’ll do four batches. That should be enough to drink at least one tea per day. I bought an extremely over-priced kit from Kombucha Brooklyn, but you can get everything you need for much cheaper if you buy everything from your local department store. All you need is a scoby, which you can get from a friend, buy online or from Craigslist. Here are directions on brewing your own Kombucha tea
Removing Wheat From My Diet – By now you’ve probably read about the drawbacks of consuming gluten, and wheat in general, especially if you’re paying any attention to the growing Paleo movement. The claims are that wheat makes us fat and it causes inflammation in the body that can last up to six months. Dr. William Davis wrote the book “Wheat Belly” which really got the ball rolling on this idea. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve read many other reports on the subject. I’m not totally convinced, but I want to experiment with removing wheat from my diet to see if I notice a difference.
Juice Fasting – I’ve been wanting to try a juice fast (not green smoothies) ever since watching the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. That movie is how I discovered raw-food vegan vloggers like John Kohler and Dan “The Man” McDonald (the Life Regenerator). Dan McDonald has covered several of his own fasts (juice and water) on his YouTube channel and talks about the healing powers of fasting all the time. I know it fasting sounds crazy, but studies have shown fasting to protect against brain diseases. And raw-foodists are always talking about how juicing is great for detoxing because it gives you the calories and nutrients you need, without putting strain on the digestive system because there is no fiber to digest. I’ve also been following popular Redditor Israel Torres as he juice fasts his way to health. He has lost a ton of weight and is currently doing his fourth 60-day juice fast right now. I don’t want to do a juice fast to lose weight, but I still find it interesting.
Roasting My Own Coffee – I’ve really been into drinking coffee lately and I think I may be on my way to becoming a coffee snob 😉 I would love to seek out high quality green coffee beans and roast my own to see how they come out. I’ve watched several videos on YouTube showing how to roast beans in a cheap popcorn popper, so that’s probably what I’ll try first.
More Mobility Exercises – The mobility exercises I mentioned above are designed more for doing as a warm-up before working out, but I’d like to work on specific body-part mobility exercises, such as the ones mentioned on MobilityWOD.com (mobility workout-of-the-day). I want to do mobility work to improve my lifts, especially the shoulder press. I’m seriously lacking in shoulder mobility.
What About You?
Are there any changes that you’ve made in your life that makes you feel great? Any goals or experiments that you have for yourself in the future? I’d really like to hear about them in the comments section!
This is what I love about plants. There are just so many benefits, many of which aren’t commonly known. That’s quite alright though, as long as we’re eating them, right? Eat as many different types of fruits and veggies as you can and you’ll heal your body.
I’m amazed by this feat of strength. This fit and beautiful woman can squat much more weight than I can. I suppose that’s not saying much, but wow, I’m impressed. She’s doing 330 pounds! The most I’ve ever squatted is 300 lbs. I haven’t tried a 1-rep max though.
The study mentioned in this article claims that muscle atrophy can begin in periods as short as two days or less. Use those muscles or you’re gonna lose ’em. That doesn’t mean losing muscles is going to be permanent though, say for example after a debilitating injury that keeps you out of the gym. You can always earn your muscle back with time.
Here are some great tips from the American Academy of Dermatology on self-diagnosing skin cancer. One in five Americans are diagnosed with skin cancer, so do your due diligence and check yourself for warning signs to catch it early.
I found this one interesting and timely because a group of us were talking about flu shots at work. The first and last myths here were actually mentioned in our conversation and I guess my coworkers were wrong about it.
I’m posting this only because I think the author is totally ignorant about what he’s talking about. I think it’s completely irresponsible for Kiefer to flaunt his degrees and credentials to convince people that what he says is true, then judge Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s health based on the way he looks. Appearance is not always an indicator of health. What if Dr. Fuhrman doesn’t want big muscles? That’s not everyone’s goal in life, you know? And while the studies might suggest that vegans and vegetarians don’t get the nutrients they need, that may or may not be true depending on the wide variety of factors. I guess Kiefer doesn’t know about these things called supplements. I get vegan b12. I get EPA and DHA from algae sources. I get nutrients from chlorella and spirulina. It’s all natural, from the earth and healthy. And if you’re judging health based on looks, I’m bigger than Fuhrman and I’m bigger now than when I was eating meat. But that’s not because of my vegan diet. It’s because of the hard work that I do in the gym and because I know what I’m putting into my body.
Did you know that apples can prevent your potatoes from sprouting? And that storing root vegetables right-side up can keep them fresher longer? There are some other really cool tips here too.
Ok, I’ve always been a little bit afraid of pressure cookers, but after watching this I’m not so scared anymore. I kinda want one, but I’d have to find a bunch of recipes that sound good so that I get enough use out of it.
I love the example Mark uses in this article about healing the body. If someone cuts their finger when slicing a tomato, they don’t use that finger anymore because they know it’ll take longer to heal, yet for some reason people don’t understand that the same healing process needs to be applied to the body after workouts too. This article provides some great instruction on de-loading. I think I’m going to try taking a scheduled de-load week every six weeks moving forward.
This was a fun three part series to read, with a lot of great information for hardgainers like me. I don’t know if the story is true, but this series definitely has me on the verge of purchasing the program. It’s hard to part with money when you don’t know if something is gonna work for you though. I’ll put it on the backburner for now, but I’d really like to try it out.
A quick video explaining why it’s a good thing to exercise the day after having a few too many drinks. If you can manage to get yourself up to workout on a hangover, you should definitely do it. I remember one specific time when I tried to workout on a hangover while I was out in Vegas and I felt miserable. I’ve never tried it again.
When I had a gym membership, I would see people misusing weight belts all the time. If you use a weight belt and you want to make sure you’re not looking like a fool in the gym, read this. I actually have one of those really wide-backed belts because it was given to me by someone who sold me weight lifting equipment. If you don’t already know, the extra wide backs on lifting belts are pointless, because it’s not the back of the belt that’s important, it’s the front. And when the back is too wide, it’s difficult to get a proper fit.
I’ve actually just started making my own kombucha at home about a month ago. I’ve only bottled one batch so far and I have two batches fermenting right now. This is a really helpful video from Ben Greenfield.
I liked this one a lot because it’s all new stuff that I’ve never heard before. I had no idea that coffee and tea can reduce the ability of the body to absorb nutrients from plants. Being vegan, it’s really good for me to know.
Coffee has many benefits, but it seems that overuse can lead to glaucoma. This study shows that three cups or more per day can lead to increased risk of developing glaucoma and women with a history of glaucoma in the family are at an even greater risk.
I thought this was really informative. I’ve never suffered from any of these injuries, but it’s good to get a better understanding of how they’re caused and how they can be prevented.
I guess I’m in the minority because I eat plain oatmeal with coconut oil mixed in every morning. I eat quick oats, which I now know from reading this article that it isn’t as nutritional as steel cut oats, but it’s not all that bad. It has no additives or other ingredients of any kind. If I had an oven at work I’d move to steel cut oats, but that’s not an option. I’ll try to find a more natural rolled oats option when I finish the oats I have right now.
I’ve only used jicama to make jicama rice for nori rolls and I think it’s really tasty. This recipe sounds delicious too. All you need to do is slice a jicama into chunks like fries, sprinkle chili powder and salt on top and add a squirt of lime juice.
I purchased a power rack and I’d have to say that it’s my most prized possession in my home gym. If you don’t have access to one though, you still have options.
I’ve been waiting forever for Dave to post an article about alcohol on his website and it’s been there the whole time! This was before I started following his blog, so I didn’t know it was there until he linked to it in one of his recent articles. I like to have drinks with friends, so I’m excited to see how well this works. I actually don’t get bad hangovers anymore anyway since I’ve cleaned up my diet, but I’m sure this will really help me feel much more alive the next day.
