Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
Saturated Fat and Insulin Sensitivity – by Stephan Guyenet. Researchers and nutrition experts claim that saturated fat decreases insulin sensitivity all the time. Stephan actually looks at the evidence, and you might be surprised by what he finds.
Eating Fat and Diabetes–Response to Bix Weber – by Chris Masterjohn. I can’t link to this one directly, but it was written on January 10th. It is an awesome discussion of research in rats that was purposely misinterpreted that I think is really interesting. Chris is a brilliant guy and I am enjoying his work more and more.
Are Energy Drinks Dangerous? – by Me. I think this was a good piece that parents and kids should read.
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
I have written before about pasteurization and some of the problems associated with it, such as 7-keto cholesterol formation. I have also written about the health benefits of whey protein, mainly its ability to boost glutathione (our master antioxidant).
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about both, but first I wanted cover glutathione in a bit more detail.
Glutathione has many important functions:
- Neutralizes free radicals and peroxides
- Maintains blood levels of antioxidants vitamins C and E
- Helps the liver and white blood cells in the detoxification of foreign compounds and carcinogens
- Is essential for the immune system to be maximized
- Plays a key role in a plethora of metabolic and biological processes like DNA synthesis, protein synthesis, prostaglandin synthesis and more.
We know that whey protein’s cysteine content is responsible for much of its ability to boost glutathione, but not all of it. This ability may also come from two biological fractions: beta-lactoglobulin and serum albumin. These proteins contain some very unique glutamyl-cysteine bonds that tend to enter our blood stream intact, and are much more readily turned into glutathione. Unfortunately it seems that when whey protein undergoes extensive heat treatment, these two delicate fractions are destroyed.
Not only is this a problem in whey protein powder processing, it is a problem with pasteurizing milk. In fact, pasteurization in general decreases the whey protein concentration in milk. The heat causes the proteins to denature and associate with the casein proteins. The higher the temperature, like when milk is ultra-pasteurized, the greater the denaturing of whey.
In fact whey normally makes up about 20% of the protein in raw milk. Gentle pasteurization (high temperature, short time) causes this to drop down to about 12-13%, while ultra-pasteurization causes whey to fall to only about 5% of the total protein content!
On top of that, exposing raw milk to different heat treatments also affected those delicate biological fractions of whey. In raw milk beta-lactoglobulin makes up almost 90% of the whey protein. After gentle pasteurization it made up just under 70%, and after ultra-pasteurization it dropped down to just over 20%!
In addition to the beta-lactoglobulin, serum albumin levels are also affected by pasteurization. Gentle pasteurization has been found to decrease serum albumin levels by 40%, while ultra-pasteurization reduced it by 77%!
I point out all of this simply to highlight the fact that much of what we have done to our food supply, and this is just one example, has significantly decreased the benefits of those foods. We have gone away from using traditional (and by that I mean non-industrial) methods of food preparation and food safety, and much to our dismay our health has diminished and our food safety is not what it should be. Is pasteurized milk healthier? I would say no. Is it safer? Maybe.
I am not telling you that you need to drink raw milk, in reality you don’t need to drink milk at all. I am simply giving you the information so that you can make an informed choice.
From a personal standpoint I was consuming raw milk before my wife was pregnant, but have not done so since. As much as I feel it is a healthier food, to me the difference between that and the Maine’s Own Organic Milk (gently pasteurized) that we drink now is not enough to justify the risk of listeria to her and our unborn daughter.
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
A reader sent me a pretty cool link the other day. It is called the Food Environment Atlas.
This atlas allows you to see things like access and proximity to grocery stores, availability of grocery stores and restaurants as well local food options such as number and percentage of farms with direct sales, farmer’s markets and more.
You can see these and more in your home state, as well as across the country. Check it out and see what you find!
Have a great weekend everybody!
Filed under: Nutrition
I am a firm believer that humans should minimize most vegetable oils in our diets. I believe them to be detrimental to health, as they contribute enormous amounts of omega-6 fatty acids at the expense of omega-3 fatty acids, at ratio’s never before seen in human history.
These oils: corn, cottonseed, safflower, soybean and sunflower are not potent fat sources (who eats corn and worries about its fat content?), so how is a substantial amount of oil extracted from them? I am glad you asked. To concentrate the oil and make it usable, it has to be exposed to high heat, degummed, refined, bleached, deodorized, and more to produce a clear oil with a long shelf life. These oils are now devoid of the polyphenols that provide antioxidant protection for the easily oxidized polyunsaturated fats.
Sounds delish! These oils are a food product, not a food.
There are exceptions, and that’s what I really wanted to talk about today: a vegetable oil that almost everybody is already consuming, olive oil. Olive oil is a tremendous food, but I don’t really want to discuss its health benefits as I think we all know those, instead I wanted to cover more of a what-t0-look-for when you are purchasing, as it is more complicated than you might think.
Olives have been consumed for roughly 10,000 years, and made into oil for probably 6,000 (nobody knows the exact dates). Regardless of the exact time-frame, this is clearly a food and an oil that we have been consuming for a long time.
Industrial seed oils like corn, cottonseed, safflower, soybean, and sunflower were never a significant contributor to the human diet until the past 50 years, so why should they be now? Because they’re cheap, that’s why, but I digress. Olive oil does not require any of that above-mentioned harsh processing to extract its oil. In fact, you can just squeeze an olive and oil comes out! Unfortunately the production of olive oil isn’t as simple and rosy as one might think.
The problem is the olive oil industry is pretty much as corrupt as it gets. Italy is known as the mecca of olive oil, there is just one problem: much of the olive oil “from” Italy that we have here in the US is actually made in other countries, and just bottled in Italy. This maybe doesn’t seem so bad on the surface, but these oils are of inferior quality, are often not of the grade claimed on the bottle, and are sometimes oils from other sources mixed with chlorophyll to make it look live olive oil. You probably are not getting what you pay for.
Where is the regulation? There is a regulatory agency in Europe, the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) that regulates quality and labeling. There is a problem however. The US is not part of the IOOC.
While the US refuses to join the IOOC, the USDA does not regulate the market either, so the quality of the olive oil sold here is almost anyone’s guess. However, the US does have a private equivalent to the IOOC, the California Olive Oil Council (COOC). The COOC ensures purity, freshness and origin of the oil. The COOC also requires that the oil have less than 0.5% acidity, which is a measure of damage to the oil, and actually exceeds IOOC standards. The COOC labels oils it approves of, and I give them my highest recommendation.
Look for the COOC label on the next bottle of extra virgin olive oil you buy. It may cost a few bucks more, but at least you know exactly what you are getting.
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
In my recent blog on the awesomeness of potatoes, I got some interesting and common questions from people that I thought should be shared more fully than on the comments section.
Q. Good information and makes a good case to eat potatoes. However, how much of the nutrients do you think are in the skins – the part that most Americans don’t eat? Haven’t done the research myself but I’ve heard most of the nutrients are in the skin.
A. The idea that most of the nutrients are in the skin is a myth. While it is true that some nutrients, and much of the fiber is in the skin, the flesh itself contains plenty of nutrients and some fiber too. I honestly don’t think it makes too much of a difference if you eat the skin or not. If you enjoy the skin, eat it, if you hate it, don’t eat it. It isn’t worth forcing it down and making your meal less enjoyable for extra gram or two of fiber.
Q.Great articles, as always, Brian.
I’m wondering what your thoughts are on the glycoalkaloids and saponins found in both potatoes and quinoa? For someone with no known auto-immune of GI dysfunction, are the levels contains in these foods even worth worrying about? For myself and most of my clients, I’m a big fan of adding in quality starchy carbs in the form of peeled yams, sweet, red and white potatoes. Quinoa seems like a nutritional powerhouse, but the saponin levels are much higher than that of peeled potatoes. Cause for concern, or overblown hype?
A. The glycoalkaloids of potatoes are tightly controlled and monitored in the US. The most common varieties have incredibly low quantities of glycoalkaloids.
The level that is generally recognized as safe is 200 mcg/g. As you can see, only the flesh of one variety exceeds this level – snowden. I have never seen these sold anywhere, and I believe they are only used for potato chips.
It is absolutely true that glycoalkaloids can be toxic at high doses, and can cause low birth weight, liver damage, anemia, weight loss, diarrhea, and even death. However, pretty much every plant on the planet (and some animal foods too) contain some form of toxin. These defenses are how they prevent themselves from being eaten. There are dangerous levels of these toxins, but we are adapted to tolerating them in small doses.
On top of that the research that showed the ill effects from glycoalkaloid consumption used amounts that far exceed anything we could get from normal potato consumption. Stephan also explained this in great detail in one of his posts, so I am just going to post what he laid out, because it was incredibly well done:
“What happens when you feed normal animals normal potatoes? Not much. Many studies have shown that they suffer no ill effects whatsoever, even at high intakes (1, 2). This has been shown in primates as well (4, 5, 6). In fact, potato-based diets appear to be generally superior to grain-based diets in animal feed. As early as 1938, Dr. Edward Mellanby showed that grains, but not potatoes, aggravate vitamin A deficiency in rats and dogs (7). This followed his research showing that whole grains, but not potatoes, aggravate vitamin D deficiency due to their high phytic acid content (Mellanby. Nutrition and Disease. 1934). Potatoes were also a prominent part of Mellanby’s highly effective tooth decay reversal studies in humans, published in the British Medical Journal in 1932 (8, 9).
Potatoes partially protect rats against the harmful effects of excessive cholesterol feeding, when compared to wheat starch-based feed (10). Potato feeding leads to a better lipid profile and intestinal short-chain fatty acid production than wheat starch or sugar in rats (11). I wasn’t able to find a single study showing any adverse effect of normal potato feeding in any normal animal. That’s despite reading two long review articles on potato glycoalkaloids and specifically searching PubMed for studies showing a harmful effect. If you know of one, please post it in the comments section.”
In my opinion the skin and the glycoalkaloids are not worth worrying about. There might be conditions where they aggravate the symptoms, like inflammatory bowel disease, but in an otherwise healthy person, the choice is yours.
As for the saponin content of quinoa, that is another example of a bitter plant-based toxin to prevent itself from being eaten. In most commercially available quinoa’s in the US, the saponin content has already been removed, so this is not an issue whatsoever. Another concern is the phytic acid issue in all grains and seeds. Phytic acid is an anti-nutrient that binds to minerals and prevents their absorption.
Quinoa does contain phytic acid, but the same process used to remove the saponins also removes about 30% of the phytic acid (reference), so this isn’t a big issue either. If you want to ensure that their are no saponins, and decrease the phytic acid content even further, you can germinate or sprout the quinoa.
To do so, you simply soak the quinoa in water for 2-4 hours, and then rinse well in running water in a fine strainer. Quinoa has a very short germination period, which is convenient. This step will probably improve your quinoa even more, though it isn’t necessary if your quinoa has already been washed and/or rubber to remove the saponin content.
Filed under: Nutrition
“Fat is not the problem,” says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. “If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases.”
“The good news,” adds Willett, “is that based on what we know, almost everyone can avoid Type 2 diabetes. Avoiding unhealthy carbohydrates is an important part of that solution.”
Walt Willett is a smart guy, and one of the leading nutrition researchers in the world. While I still believe that a lot of academics need a paradigm shift in how they view nutrition (focus less on isolated nutrients, and more on actuall food), their work is still of great importance.
However, when did the nutritious potato get lumped into the unhealthy carbohydrate category? Sure, potatoes contain a good amount of carbohydrates, and they do raise our blood sugar quickly, but is this the only measure of a food’s quality? Not even close. In reality the glycemic index is vastly overrated. Helpful, but overrated.
Potatoes have been consumed in enormous quantities by many cultures for tremendously long periods of time, and their health was impeccable. Potatoes are one of the greatest sources of potassium on the planet (which lowers blood pressure), and are also among the most satiating foods ever tested.
Another argument often put forth is that potatoes are low in vitamins and minerals compared to vegetables on a per-calorie basis. This is true yes, but potatoes are simply more calorie-dense. Instead if we compared them on a per-serving basis (which is how we eat food), suddenly that is no longer the case.
One medium potato is a good source (meaning it has at least 10% of the Daily Value) or more for 10 vitamins and minerals: vitamin C (28%), vitamin B6 (27%), potassium (26%) and manganese (19%) are the best, as well as niacin, folate, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and copper. This is all packaged in about 160 calories, with 37 grams of carbohydrates, 4 of it being fiber, and 4 grams of complete protein while weighing in at 173 grams. I would also like to point out that potatoes have a low phytic acid content, allowing their vitamins and minerals to be well absorbed.
Now let’s take a look at a fantastic vegetable – broccoli. Two cups of broccoli weighs in at 182 grams, so this is a pretty close comparison in weight and normal serving size. This serving size provides about 60 calories, 12 grams of carbohydrates, 5 of it being fiber, and 5 grams of incomplete protein. This two cup serving is a good source or more for 11 vitamins and minerals, only one more than the “unhealthy” potato: vitamin C (270%), vitamin K (232%), folate (28%), vitamin A (22%), and manganese (20%) are the best, while riboflavin, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, magnesium, phosporus and potassium round out the rest.
While broccoli clearly was slightly better in these measured categories, does this make the potato inherently unhealthy? Broccoli is supposed to be one the superstars of health, and yet it isn’t that much better than a potato (at least in these measures). When you compare potatoes to other starches like quinoa for example (another fantastic food), it compares even more favorably, as quinoa is a good source or more of 10 vitamins and minerals: manganese (58%), magnesium (30%), phosphorus (28%), folate (19%) are the best, with thiamin, riboflavin, vitamin B6, iron, zinc and copper rounding out the rest. All this comes in 222 calories, with 4 grams of fat, 39 grams of carbs, 5 of it being fiber, and 8 grams of complete protein, while weighing in at 185 grams (1 cup cooked).
How does the potato seem now?
While simply looking at macronutrient as well as vitamin & mineral content does not tell the whole story of a food, it gives us a glimpse. In reality we can also look to how these foods supported cultures throughout history, and how well they fared on these foods. The fact is many cultures throughout history have relied on potatoes as their chief calorie source, and have thrived.
To me that is a much greater indication of the health of a food than simply looking at its nutrient content. The point is, real whole foods should not be lumped in with industrially refined foods. They are not one and the same. Stephan over at wholehealthsource did a 3 part series on potatoes and their impact on health, I highly recommend checking them out: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training
Many of you have probably heard the phrase “When you all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This is often used in reference to orthopedic surgeons. When people with knee or other joint problems seek them out for counsel on their pain, more often than not, they get surgery as the answer. Makes sense, surgery is what surgeons do, even if it is not the best course of action.
Recent research actually found even more damning evidence against orthopedic surgeons – If you see an orthopedic surgeon who also owns (or co-owns) a surgical facility, you are even more likely to get surgery. Awesome. While orthopedic surgeons most definitely have their place, see a good physical therapist first. They will let you know if physical therapy alone can solve the issue, or if surgery is the next step. Its worth a shot. Surgery should be the worst-case scenario, not the immediate solution.
In other interesting news, among the growing amount of research done on green tea it was found that EGCG, green tea’s major antioxidant, can actually raise your VO2 max. Your VO2 max essentially tells us how well your body uses oxygen – ie your cardiovascular fitness. We aren’t talking hugely dramatic increases (about 4%), but since we already know that green tea improves endothelial function and increases blood flow, it makes perfect sense. The study used EGCG pills, which were equivalent to about 3 cups of green (or white) tea per day.
On top of that a diet rich in flavanols (of which EGCG is one) found in tea, wine and dark chocolate improved blood vessel dilation up to 47%. This separate research only makes the above study make even more sense, and lend further credence to the idea that what you eat is just as important as how much.
Lastly a recent 12 week study looked at Norwegian cross-country skiers. They had half of them lift weight and do cardio, and compared them to the other half who did cardio only. Unsurprising to those who actually lift weights, but probably very surprising to those who want to believe that cardio is god, the group who lifted and did cardio were able to perform at a higher level for a longer period of time than the cardio-only group. Just one more reason to do cardio, and lift weights for your best performance.
Have a great weekend everybody!
Filed under: Nutrition, Training
I am currently in the midst of the Precision Nutrition Certification program and I am greatly enjoying it. I figured since I am already in school this probably the best time to truly enhance my education overall. While me taking this certification program might surprise some people, it shouldn’t. No matter how much you may know, there is always more to learn.
Once you think you have all the answers is when you will have failed as an educator. John Berardi and his Precision Nutrition team have worked with thousands of people directly with their Lean Eating Coaching Program, which is far more people than I can work with myself. Think of all of the experience and information they have gleaned from those situations. Does anybody think we all can’t learn something from that?
If I pick up just a few tips and ideas to further improve my services and the results of my clients, why in the world wouldn’t I sign up for such a program? I am always looking for ways to improve my services and the results of my clients. Anyway, that was a slightly off-topic rant. Back to the point of what I have been enjoying in the program thus far.
One piece of advice that really jumped out at me was that Good Nutrition Achieves Health, Body Composition, and Performance Goals. While this is something that I try to hammer home to people myself, and something that I discuss quite a bit in my Show and Go Nutrition Guide, I like the way they worded their discussion on the topic.
People often eat and train with mainly their aesthetics and body composition in mind. They want to look good naked, and often need to lose quite a bit of fat, so they tend to do excessive amounts of cardio and high-rep/poorly executed weight training in conjunction with highly restrictive crash diets. These strategies can certainly work, and their can be a time and a place for rapid fat loss, in the long run these strategies will negatively impact your health and well-being (and often lead to binging and aggressive regaining of lost weight).
Instead, people should look to create a long-term nutrition and training lifestyle based on the intersection of these three goals:
- Improving body composition
- Improving health
- Improving performance
picture courtesy of The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition, pg 15
The same rule applies for long-term training goals. A lot of trainees, guys and girls alike, exercise with only their body composition in mind. Maybe they aren’t crash dieting or anything, but they train in a manner that is not conducive to improving their performance or long-term health. Without any focus on soft-tissue quality (ie – foam rolling), proper warmups, correct exercise selections or balanced training programs, they will run into problems in the long term.
Unfortunately these problems take a long time to unveil themselves, so often people will justify their current methods because it does not hurt at this moment in time. Newsflash for you Walter Cronkite, most injuries are of a chronic and degenerative nature that could have been prevented, not an acute instant-in-time occurrence. While training in the appropriate manner may not be as sexy, and it is certainly will not be what you read in bodybuilding magazines, it will allow you to train forever, and actually make you more resistant to injuries, not prone to them. While I know that most of us are not training for the Olympics, myself included, training to improve your performance can range from high-level athletics to simply improving your energy levels and ability to play with your kids.
When the focus is on a blend of performance, health and body composition the aforementioned issues do not arise. While this method may not produce results as rapidly as a single focus on any of the one areas, they lead to a balanced and healthy long-term approach that will reduce inflammation, blood lipids, diabetes risk, cancer risk, and body fat percentage as well increase lean mass, movement and tissue quality, strength, athleticism, and other health markers (good cholesterol, insulin sensitivity, etc). Sounds like a plan to me!
To wrap this up, focus your training and your nutrition on improving your health, body composition and performance and you get the best of it all. You get to look good naked, improve your quality of life and perform at your peak!
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training
Today I wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary. With the New Year upon us and many people making their resolutions to improve their health, body composition and performance, I want to let you know that I am here to help.
I just recently wrapped up some consulting with a few clients, and had some spots open up. I figured with the New Year, that people might be interested in my online coaching services. To top it off, I have even decided to offer a 20% discount on my services, for anyone who signs up before Jan 31!
This is includes a discount on any of my online nutrition consulting services, as well as my online training services. Below is a general idea of what my nutrition and training services include:
Nutrition
- Comprehensive Nutrition Questionnaire – this provides me with your likes, dislikes, allergies, intolerances, and more to help me customize the consultation specifically to you!
- Complete Dietary Analysis – this provides me a snapshot of your normal dietary intake, and I provide you thorough and detailed feedback to maximize your results.
- BSP Nutrition Tips & Guidelines Packet - you will learn the nutrition principles to guide you through your lifetime, and dispel so many myths and misconceptions along the way! This packet along with my feedback on your actual eating habits will teach you the skills to make you nutritionally bullet proof.
- Personalized Meal Plans built specifically for you, no cookie-cutters here!
- Unlimited Email Access to my personal account 24/7.
- Training programs written by me to work synergystically with your unique nutrition program, all specifically designed for your needs and goals.
Training
- Comprehensive questionnaire covering your health and injury history, prior training experience, your goals and your schedule. We will look at postural photos, any videos you can send of you performing exercises and more to ensure you maximize the effectiveness of the training.
- Video demonstrations and/or pictures with descriptions of how to properly perform every exercise I program for you.
- Personalized One-Month Training Programs built specifically for you, based upon all the information gathered in your questionnaire. Each program will cover proper warmups, soft tissue work, dynamic mobility, recovery modalities, corrective exercise and whatever training modalities your goals warrant; fat loss, strength, power, mass, athletic, general fitness, etc.
- Unlimited Email Access to my personal account 24/7.
- I bring the knowledge and the ability to put the whole package together. You just need to bring the attitude and effort!
- Nutrition Programs written by me to work synergystically with your personal training program, catered specifically to your needs and goals.
If you are interested in my specific consulting offerings at 20% off, please shoot me an email at brian@brianstpierretraining.com.
For those of you skeptical of working with me online, I have worked with dozens of clients online, from all over the world, and here is what a few of them had to say:
“I can’t say enough good things about working with Brian! I will admit, I was a bit skeptical about working online/from a distance with someone for nutrition purposes, but Brian quickly put that skepticism at bay. I was most impressed with the amount of time he took talking to me in our initial phone consult and then all the subsequent emails answering any question I had in a very timely fashion. There was no cut and paste programs here–he really focuses on you as the individual. His feedback on all my nutrition logs was incredibly detailed and extremely helpful for making the necessary positive changes to reach my goals. I also loved all the recipes he gave me. I had a real issue eating unhealthy snacks because I lacked the knowledge/creativity to create healthier more interesting snacks. Brian gave me so many options for easy to create, healthy snacks that filled a real void in my daily diet. I highly recommend working with him!”
Jeanne Higgins, Seattle, WA
“In late March 2010 I contacted Brian St. Pierre for a nutritional consultation hoping that he could assist me in cleaning up my diet. At the time I felt as if my eating habits were “good” but I was certainly aware that they could be better. Brian was thorough and exhaustive in his evaluation and critique of my eating habits and provided me with the perfect ideas on how I could alter my diet to achieve my goals. What I liked the most about Brian’s services is that he didn’t try to totally revamp my current ways but instead offered ideas and insights into how I could do things better. He worked with my food choices and how I schedule my meals and provided me with a path to success that I am confident will last forever.”
Joe O’Leary, Brighton, MA
“After working with Brian, I can say, without a doubt, that it was the best decision I’ve made for my training in a long time. Being a facility owner, I found myself neglecting my own training, and when I did train, I only did the exercises that I favored the most. I decided to get in touch with Brian because of two reasons 1) having visited CP before, I knew how creative Brian could be with his programming, and 2) he had the nutritional knowledge to back it up!
The results speak for themselves – in 3 months of being a training/nutrition client with Brian I not only added 7.7 pounds of lean weight, but I also increased my Front Squat by 27.5 pounds, my 3RM Chin Up by 14.3 pounds and my Deadlift by 17.6 pounds – all this after I broke my finger the first week of the program, was put into surgery in the second week, and couldn’t do any grip intensive work until after the first month!
The best result, though, was that Brian showed me how to make quality food choices, and helped me develop solid nutritional habits – something that will last with me throughout my whole life. If you’re on the edge of deciding whether to use Brian or not, my advice is just do it – you won’t regret it.”
James Garland, Strength Coach, Australia
Again, this is a limited time offer, so if you are interested in hearing more about my services, please contact me at brian@brianstpierretraining.com. What do you have to lose?
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training
I was able to visit CP yesterday for the first time since September. I gotta say, it was nice to train in that environment again, compared to my normal gym these days it was a nice change of pace. I brought a few friends with me who had never seen the place, I think they enjoyed seeing what a non-commercial gym actually looks like. Meeting Kevin Youkilis probably didn’t hurt their opinion either.
The renovations are looking great, and the space is going to kick even more ass. I have to admit that it is a little bittersweet every time I visit, as I greatly enjoyed my time there. It would be really nice to coach in the new set up too, as it allows for improved vision of the entire floor.
Anyway, I thought I would leave you guys with some interesting articles for the weekend. Some of these were inspired by my trip to CP, some were just awesome. Enjoy!
DeFranco Prowler Training – Joe DeFranco. This is a brand new T-nation article from Joe DeFranco on proper utilization of the infamous Prowler. When he talks about the love/hate relationship with the Prowler, I can totally relate. I mainly hate it though. Enough that I wanted nothing to do with it yesterday, so we did some sledgehammer swings instead. Regardless, Joe provided a quality article on some excellent ways to utilize the prowler.
5 Loading Protocols that Suck – Eric Cressey. First I want to state that EC did not choose that title, and it does not accurately represent the content, so keep that in mind when reading. This is another T-nation article inspired by my trip to CP. Eric takes a look at 5 common loading protocols and discusses their strengths, weakness, applications and times to try something else.
Wheat: In Search of Scientific Objectivity and New Year’s Resolutions – Chris Masterjohn. While many of you may know that I am not a fan of large amounts of wheat consumption, I do think that preparation makes a huge difference. Hence why I like sprouted grains. In this article Chris digs into the study that is often cited to support the idea that “wheat is evil”. It is excellent, and he pokes some serious holes in the study. I highly recommend reading more of his stuff, as he provides some fascinating and top-quality information.
Posted on January 25th, 2011 by Brian St. Pierre
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