Filed under: General Health, Training
This month I made my first appearance in Men’s Health magazine, which I am pretty pumped about. On page 114-118 of the June 2011 issue there is an article by Lou Schuler called 15 New Muscle Builders.
Lou asked various experts for new tips on improving muscular growth, posture and performance. I was fortunate enough to be one of those guys, and in fact my tip is #1!
Other experts include guys like Tony Gentilcore, Eric Cressey, Lee Boyce, Nick Tuminello, Chad Waterbury, Jonathan Fass, and Stuart McGill. That is some pretty incredible company and I feel humbled to even be a part of it, so check it out!
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training
I know my blogging has been lacking a little bit lately, I have just been swamped with my school work and thesis research the past two weeks. I have some good topic ideas that I just haven’t had time to flesh out, but once I do it will be a BSP Avalanche of Awesome, so keep your eyes peeled!
I also wanted to let you guys know that Mike Robertson has released on DVD his Bulletproof Knees and Back Seminar that he presented in Vancouver in late 2010. As usual Mike has provided a high-quality product that would benefit any fitness professional or fitness enthusiast.
Considering that about 80% of the population will develop low back pain at some time or another, and many of us suffer from knee issues as well, Bulletproof Knees and Back is well worth checking out.
Here is some good content from others that I thought might interest you guys.
Maine Voices: Health hazard signs require understanding and action – Dr. Larry Catlett. This was sent to me by one of my best friends, as this article was written by his boss. It voices my opinion on the topic of healthcare models, and how it is imperative that we shift our mindset to a preventive/proactive approach. It is simple and clear and very enjoyable.
How to Deadlift: Which Variation is Right for You? (series) – Eric Cressey. Eric is in the midst of a phenomenal series on the benefits of deadlifting, outlining appropriate technique, and specifically discussing when and where you may want to utilize conventional, sumo or trap bar variations.
Organic or Conventional: Is There a Difference? – ME! This is an oldie but a goodie, that I think is still a relevant topic. Maybe even more so with the ever increasing gas prices and the impact on produce prices and food budgets.
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training
I haven’t done a random thoughts post in a long time, and I have been attending many interesting seminar presentations the past few weeks in grad school, as well as doing my own presenting. In addition I read a rather interesting paper on moving beyond standard LDL-C numbers in assessing CVD risk (though it was written by people who consult/work for Big Pharma, so I am a little skeptical of their conclusions).
1. Many peopled still believe that increasing their protein intake will damage their kidneys or lead to bone loss or some other nonsensical statement that is not supported in the literature in healthy people. This is even what is stated in our nutrition textbooks! In the dietetic world, there is pervasive thought that high protein is unhealthy and dangerous, even though this has never been demonstrated. In short it is a complete and utter myth.
One of my classmates presented some research she did in her undergrad on this exact topic. She worked with Dr. Lonnie Lowery and compared weight lifters who habitually consumed high protein diets (250g/day), compared to matched weight lifters who consumed more normal protein intakes (109g/day).
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Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training, Weight Loss
The fact of the matter in this industry is that there are a ton of people who market themselves as experts, and very few actually have a damn clue about what they are doing. It is an unfortunate state of affairs, but it is what it is.
People saw an opportunity to make money without having to actually be really good at what they do, and they took advantage of it. However, there does seem to be a subset of people who generally care about being good, honest and getting their clients results.
While we may not all agree on everything, we all understand many of the same concepts, and actually have a grasp on the literature on fitness. We don’t just perpetuate dogma or write things that are controversial and sexy just for a few more sales. Its about good content, and good results.
With all of this in mind, I think Mark Young has created an absolutely fantastic new product – How to Read Fitness Research. Mark makes it simple and straightforward. Explaining in layman’s terms what I spent several semesters learning about!
Whether you are a fitness professional or even a fitness junkie who loves to be informed, this would be a tremendous tool in your arsenal. To many, reading research articles is like reading German. This is where Mark comes in with his research Rosetta Stone.
He will teach you how to use Pubmed, give an overview of how research is generally conducted, how to read research, what are the best journals to subscribe to (and even how to get some for free!), how to know the quality of that data, and most of all how to interpret and apply the results. Now, he may not be able to teach you the nitty gritty of neurophysiology, but he can certainly give you the foundational knowledge to comprehend the basic tenets of ALL research.
Learning these new skills will make you far better at sifting through the junk, and knowing fact from fiction. Whether you are a fitness professional who needs to increase their knowledge and provide a better service for their clients, or a fitness enthusiast who simply wants to be able to read some research and know what is going on, this would be the greatest tool for you.
I took a class last semester called Research Methods and Biostatistical Techniques. That class cost me over $1200 to learn exactly what Mark is teaching and more (plus his is much more exciting, that’s for sure) for only $77! And in fact, How to Read Fitness Research is on sale this week through Friday for only $37!
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training
The past two days I have spent up at school just swamped with work. Between the time working on my thesis data collection (which I am doing right now as I write this, my samples are incubating), creating and presenting a 40 minute presentation (which I gave today, on the awesomeness of full-fat dairy), taking a test and a quiz, and 3.5 hours of commuting each day, there has been little time to wrap up the supplement blog I wrote on Tuesday.
However I will wrap that up tomorrow, I promise.
In the meantime, here is some great content from some of my colleagues that I believe you guys should check out. It’s like a CP reunion. Enjoy!
Workout Routines: Exercising on Vacation – Part 2 – by Eric Cressey. I really liked EC’s discussion of being active on vacation, even if you don’t engage in formal exercise. He also provides some fantastic TRX exercises and workout ideas for those of you who do exercise on vacation (or at home). The article is worth the read for those ideas alone in my opinion.
Miscellaneous Miscellany Monday: 4/11/2011 – by Tony Gentilcore. I always love Tony’s Miscellaneous Monday blog posts, and this is one of my favorites. He talks about Tim Collins, his new training program written by Bret Contreras, as well as potentially coming out with a product of his own (we have actually discussed the idea of doing one together, but certainly nothing definitive). Plus Tony just cracks me up.
8 Reasons Carbs Help You Lose Weight, or Something Like That – by ME! I really enjoyed writing this blog post, and I think it is one of my best of 2011. The love affair with grains and carbohydrates in general from the media and public health authorities is ridiculous, so I try to enter a little sanity into the equation.
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training, Weight Loss
I know I have been talking about Tim Collins a lot this week, but it is a truly amazing story. EC and Pete flew out to Kansas City to see him on Opening Day yesterday, and lo and behold Timmy got to pitch the 9th inning. While KC lost 4-2, Timmy threw 19 pitches, 10 for strikes leading to 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 strikeout and 0 runs. Not too shabby for a 21 year old kid huh?
I also hope that those of you not living in the Northeast are loving life right now, as up here in Augusta, Maine we are projected to get 8-14 inches of heavy, wet snow today! Awesome! I love shoveling.
Anyway, onto actual nutrition content.
Jonny Bowden had a recent article called Foods to Fight High Blood Pressure that I thought was excellent overall. However I feel that there were a few important points that were left unsaid that I wanted to touch on and expand on the topic a bit. To truly get the most out of this post, I recommend you read that one first, though I will provide a small recap:
- Approximately 1 in 3 US adults has high blood pressure, and 25% of them don’t even know it
- High blood pressure is directly responsible for over 56,000 US deaths each year
- The research generally shows that excess sodium in our diets contributes to high blood pressure for many
- While cutting back sodium can help, consuming more potassium can be just as effective for managing blood pressure
- In fact increasing potassium intake without decreasing sodium will still improve blood pressure
- Here is the list JB provides on potassium containing foods:
- Swiss Chard – 961 mg per cup
- Bananas – 422 mg in one medium banana
- Spinach – 839 mg per cup
- OJ – 496 mg per cup
- Dried apricots – 550 mg per 1/4th cup (1 serving)
- Sweet potatoes – 542 mg per medium sweet potato
- Avocados – CA variety – 690 mg per, FL variety – 1067 mg per
- Cantaloupe – 368 mg in 1/4 of a medium cantaloupe
- Figs – 381 mg per half cup
- Peaches – 322 mg in one large peach
- Beans – 477-1224 mg per cup
- Kale – 299 mg per cup
- Some other foods lower blood pressure by other mechanisms such as celery, garlic, beet juice, whey protein powder and vitamin D.
Now my two cents.
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Filed under: Training
Yesterday in my Stuff You Should Read post I finished it off with a congratulations to CP client Tim Collins, who went from an undrafted free-agent signee to a major league rookie this year. Well EC just wrote up a tremendous piece of Timmy’s whole story, and I highly suggest you check it out – Tim Collins: Why Everyone Should be a Kansas City Royals Fan (at least for a day).
One more quick note is to let you all know that today is the last day to get 14% off ALL Prograde Nutrition products. The sale ends tonight at midnight, so get on it!
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition, Training
While my blog reading has been lagging a little bit lately, I was able to read a few gems recently that I wanted to share with you guys. Check them out!
Success Tips From Cressey Performance – by Jay Bonn. This is an excellent piece by Jay about the how successful people in all walks of life (though in this case CP and Precision Nutrition) tend to do things in similar fashions. He finds the common threads among these successful places, and shows how success really boils down to simple actions. Great stuff.
Oblique Strains in Baseball: 2011 Update – by Eric Cressey. I think this one of Eric’s best posts ever. While that is a bold statement as he has written probably close to 1000 blog posts, I found this to be a quick and easy read with tons of really interesting information. While I worked for him for 3 years and know his core training philosophy like the back of my hand, this was an enlightening refresher that applies even if you are not or do not train baseball players.
3. While not an article, I thought I should note that CP client Tim Collins has officially made the Kansas City Royals major league roster. Tim is a 21 year old reliever who went undrafted out of high school. He walked into CP right when I first started as an intern there. He was 18 years old and all 5’5″ and 135lbs throwing mid-80′s. He now stands 5’7″ and 170lbs, and throws low to mid 90′s.
This is a testament to good training, good nutrition (ahem), and Tim’s tremendous work ethic. He practically lived at CP in the off-season, as he would be there the day after his season ended ready to begin anew. I couldn’t be happier for him and wish him all the best this season.
Filed under: Nutrition, Training
There are always interesting new developments in the research world, and I wanted to share a few fun ones with you guys today.
Many of you know how I dislike unstable surface training – ie. training on a Bosu ball or physioball, etc. EC’s Master’s thesis showed that unstable surface training actually decreased strength in athlete’s who were only using it for a very small percentage of their training.
Bosu for the Core?
Well, many people argue, these exercises are not about strength, they are about increasing the activity of your core and improving balance. However, Spanish researchers recently tested this theory and they found that performing total-body movements on an unstable surface (Bosu in this case) actually worked the core muscles less than doing the exercises on the floor. This was due to the fact that doing the exercises on the Bosu ball forced the exercisers to use less weight, requiring the core to work less hard.
If you want to read more about this, check out EC’s Truth About Unstable Surface Training.
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Filed under: Nutrition, Training
EC sent me a Pubmed link to a pretty interesting study recently performed at the Human Performance Laboratory at The University of Alabama.
In this study they took six highly trained endurance athletes and had them carb load for several days prior to testing.
First the group was given its extra carbs for the loading from Gatorade. Then a few weeks later they were given half of their loading carbs form chia seeds, and the other half from Gatorade. Both of the treatments had their carb-loading based on subject bodyweight, so that their intakes were isocaloric.
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Posted on May 25th, 2011 by Brian St. Pierre
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