More fitness new, info n stuff

Following on from my post earlier in the week, I've got some more fitness news and info that I've been reading and thought it was worth sharing with you.

So let's get to it:

• Want a bigger bench?

Sure ya do! Everyone seems to want a bigger bench! Thankfully for you, Dave Tate had an article published on T-Nation recently. As ever with Dave Tate, the information is solid and good to read.

• What's the deal with Saturated fats?

Here's an interesting video that sheds some light on the saturated fat debate. People are slowly learning that not all saturated fats are bad for you. That said, there are people who cast a big blanket statement on how all saturated fats are bad for you.

Well, to say that saturated fat found in animals are the same as saturated fat found in processed crap is the equivalent of saying that processed carbs are same as carbs in oats. i.e. not very.

• Low back issues?

John Izzo posted this article about some drills people can do to help with lower back pain. These drills can be especially good for people who spend long hours at a desk.

• ...And finally

For the more nerdy fitness peeps out there, I thought this would appeal to you - Free Course - Just go to the website and you'll see the sign up box at the top - it's for a 45 minute video course about evidence based practice. There's a lot of points to take away from it.

That'll do from me for now! Happy surfing.

Fitness news, info n stuff

It looks like it's been a busy past few weeks in the fitness world, either that or I'm just finding more and more fitness info of interest so I thought I'd give a round up of some of the highlights.

This might even turn into a 2 parter, will just need to see.

• The latest fat loss secret?

It seems that studies in mice with Curcumin (apparently a spice in turmeric) can be beneficial to losing body fat. To read more go here

If it proves to be successful in humans (and even if it's not successful in humans) I wonder how long it'll be before the supplement companies start selling it as the next best thing

• Excessive cola consumption can lead to problems

It appears that as people drink more and more cola, there is a high correlation to them suffering from muscle problems according to this article.

When you read through it, some of those people were drinking up to 10 litres of cola a day....10.....litres....a.....day.

Dear. God.

Seriously, what sort of chump do you have to be to drink that much cola? You're just asking for problems really. I'm actually impressed that they can drink that much. If I drink like 4 litres of water in one day I feel bloated, let alone trying to drink more.

• Finding out what matters to patients with low back pain

It's an interesting article, which, if read the right way, you can take another important message from it.

It looked at the feasibility of using a different type of questionnaire for people with low back pain - namely pin pointing what it is the patient would like to be able to get back to doing. Which, is sometimes different from what the specialist thinks they should be doing.

It's an important message that trainers can overlook - are you doing what your client actually wants or doing what you want them to do?

• Lastly for today, I want to give a shout out to Mike Reinold for a series he is currently writing on patellofemoral joint issues.
  

It will be a 7 part series when completed (i've read up to part 3 so far) looking at the causes, diagnosis and treatment of patellofemoral joint pain.

The reason why it's such a fascinating read is that "patellofemoral pain syndrome" is one of those generic conditions which can cover various problems - like if someone says they have shin splints, low back pain or shoulder issues - there's any number of underlying problems which just gets a generic term slapped on it so it's interesting to find out the why's of it.

You can get started with part one here

I think that'll do for now, I'll post some more interesting pieces from the fitness world later this week.

Should you count calories?

I wasn't aware of this but there seems to be some debate as to whether you should or need to count calories.

The reason I wasn't really aware of it was because it just always made sense to me that if you need to lose weight then you have to expend more calories than you consume.

This can be done through decreasing the calories you consume or increasing the calories you burn during the day - for most people it's usually a combination of the 2.

Apparently there are some corners of the fitness world that claim you don't need to count calories, just eat healthily or eat clean. Personally, I think combining the two ideas would give a good outcome.

For example, I can eat salad which is a clean, healthy food. But, if i was to consume 2500 calories of salad a day and my energy requirement for losing weight was 1850 calories, that's a 650 calories surplus (plus many hours sitting on the toilet probably). Alternatively, I could eat 1500 calories of junk food a day and my energy requirement for weight loss is 2000 calories, that's still a 500 calories deficit daily.

Admittedly, I don't advocate eating 1500 calories of junk food a day, unless you add a side order of salad :-) I know there are other factors to take into account when looking at the food consumed but I'm just using it as a general guide.

So where do I stand on calorie counting?

Leigh Peele pretty much nails it on the head for me when she says that people who are looking to lose weight but struggle - she always has them start measuring out their food intake. You'd be surprised how you can easily under estimate the amount of calories you're eating.

I think that complete beginners to dieting should always accurately track their food intake and count calories. The reason is that beginners don't usually have their "eye" in to judge portion sizes that well.

If you're quite used to weighing and tracking calories and can usually accurately eye up portion sizes or just looking to maintain your weight then I think you can start to shift away from measuring everything.

That said, I do think that even experienced people should occasionally go back to tracking their calories consumed. It's very easy to start letting portion sizes slip and before you know if you're heading back to square one.

I have a fairly good eye for portion sizes but I've recently been back weighing my food and tracking calories, even if it's just to show to myself that I'm not letting my portion sizes increase.

For anyone looking to track their calories, I always recommend www.fitday.com. It can take some playing with for a start but it's a useful tool.

Not just talking the talk

One of the big things for me is getting people to realise the importance of investing in themselves to learn more and become better at what they do.

It can be to help your business, to help move up the ranks in your office, just to make your own hobbies and interests more enjoyable.

For me personally, I love learning about fitness and nutrition mainly (all the books to the right of the dictionary), I also enjoy learning about business and people skills (most of the books to the left of the dictionary).

To show you that I do actually live by what I say and not just sprout what other gurus have said and pretend, I wanted to share this photo with you. This just shows the physical books and products on my shelf that I have purchased over the past couple of years. It doesn't include all the e-books, audios, podcasts, manuals etc that are on my computer as well.



I'm not saying that I can remember everything in all of the books but I have learned a hell of a lot from them and often use them as a reference when I'm looking to help people with their training.

When I look back at how much I have learned and where I am now compared to where I would be had I not read so much, I'm glad I invested in myself and continue to do so.

Help fight cancer - An open letter to all fitness pros / experts / gurus

A while ago Alwyn Cosgrove launched the liftstrong website and product. It is a CD that costs $24.99 and contains over 800 pages of fitness and nutrition information from a complete whose who of fitness experts (it was going to be a book but, because of the size of it, it had to be put on a CD). If you aren't familiar with Alwyn Cosgrove or why he has done this - shame on you, get googling!

100% of the proceeds (not just some) are donated to the leukemia and lymphoma society, so this isn't some shallow affiliate offer. It's a genuine chance to help make a difference.

Recently, it was the anniversary of the Liftstrong launch and that's why you are now reading this. Chances are you saw something intriguing on twitter / facebook / stumbleupon etc etc or I asked you to read this. I mean, chances are you or one or more of the people you know have been affected by cancer. I know I have and to be honest, it's shit.

Leigh Peele is putting a drive on to help spread the word for this awesome product. Below is an open letter she put up on one of her websites for people to send out.

The letter is written a bit tongue-in-cheek so please don't take it all seriously, just the message she is getting out. We are all able to reach a large number of people through e-mail lists, facebook, twitter - so let's use that for something good rather than just telling people about the last meal you ate.

“Dear (enter 6 pack ab toting guru name here)

I have been a member of your email list for a long time now. While I do enjoy all the daily emails about how to look massively sexy, I feel the need for a little more substance today.

Recently, I stumbled over to the Flzine site and read a blog post by the amazing (and might I say highly underrated and talented) Leigh Peele. It was discussing this great product, Liftstrong, in which all proceeds go to cancer. I hadn’t gotten any emails about that from you, and was wondering if you knew about? I think it would be great for you to send out to your list of readers, and also it will not lump you into a category of douches and vagina’s that shaft cancer research. Wouldn’t want that!

Here is the link to the Liftstrong site.

http://www.liftstrong.com/

Looking forward to seeing the email.

(Your Name Here)”

Random stuff on a Thursday

I know, it's almost unheard of for me to do more than one blog post a week. I must have been up day and night working on this, and trying to not feel scummy for stealing the misc roundup blog post used so well by Eric Cressey and Tony Gentilcore.

The truth is that I've had some downtime this week thanks to a neck injury I'm currently trying to deal with and so I've had more time to surf the web in search of random fitness related news stuff.

• Photoshopping mayhem

I've been on twitter a bit more this week and shared this article on from there FLzine.com - http://www.flzine.com/photo-retouch-for-magazine-like-beauty/ It shows you some of the before and after photos thanks to the wonders of photoshop and magazine editors needing all their covers to look artificially perfect.

It's been well known for a long time that photos are touched up, but sometimes the extent to which they are amended is quite surprising. A shout out to my friend Laura who gave me the link to this website http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/ which is exactly as it says on the URL. It's worth checking out, if only for a laugh.

This madness has finally cumulated in Kim Kardashian having unretouched photos published and it seems to have created a mini storm in a smaller teacup. I don't know whether she was doing it for genuine reasons or to be different and get her name out there but personally, I think she looks hawt in the unretouched photos. Check them out here.

• Cereal in the news again

Oh dear, once again the words "worrying" and "shocking" are appearing in conjunction with cereals. Seriously, are researchers and journalists the most naive people on the planet? They seem to be the only ones "shocked" by the amount of sugar and crap in supposed healthy cereal. Here's some news - It's not a shock to the rest of the world.

Most people already know that most cereals are crap for you. These people are split into two types - ones that avoid it and eat breakfasts like porridge, omelette's or freshly hunted bear steaks for that extra macho start to your day. Or the other type just don't give a shit and will continue to eat it anyway.

• Omnivore's dilemma

In my downtime, Ive been ploughing through a book called The Omnivore's Dilemma. The more I read of this book the more careful I am becoming with my food selection. Admittedly, being in the UK, we don't have the same issues with beef as in the US. Either that, or it's just easier to get hold of grass fed beef.

The one worrying thing I read, and this was news to me - In the US, cows used to take 4 - 5 years before they were ready for slaughter. During the 50's / 60's, this was reduced to 2 -3 years. Nowadays, thanks to the wonders of excess corn, protein, fat and enough drugs to make a professional bodybuilder jealous, cows are grown from 80lbs to 1100lbs in roughly 14 - 16 months.

That just can't be a good thing to want to eat. True it has meant that more people have access to the meat because it's cheaper but considering what the cows are pumped full off to reach that state and people are eating it - I'll stick to finding grass fed beef!

Are you still hip enough?

Continuing with the badly named blog posts, I wanted to let you know about one more stretch, courtesy of Dr Stuart McGill.

This time, it's all about stretching the psoas muscle.

Psoas: What is it n what does it do?

The psoas muscle is part of the hip flexor group of muscles. Ever try lifting your upper leg up to 90 degrees? Yep, the psoas helps to do that!

Without going too indepth on the anatomy side, it starts around the lower spine and goes across the pelvis and ends on the hip joint. The below diagram (in the interest of fair play, i took this from www.realbodywork.com) will help to illustrate.



So why stretch it?

Well, if like most people you sit for long periods at a time; either watching tv or working at a desk then the psoas can become shortened. This can play a roll in low back play and hip dysfunctions. So as you can imagine, it's a good thing to stretch it out.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't stretch out the psoas properly. I admit that I was guilty of this too until I watch Ultimate Low Back by Stuart McGill. The first time I tried this stretch there was a bit of "oooh sh*t" as I felt it!

Below is the closest video I could find that covers the stretching. Give this a go for 20 - 30 seconds on each side and be gentle for a start as I'm sure you'll feel it too.

Are you hip enough?

Wow, I can't believe that nearly a month has passed since my last post.

Time really does fly when you're working yourself into the ground! Working in an office for, what seems like, 25 hours a day 8 days a week can really take a toll on you.

One thing I really noticed from sitting a lot was that my hips were feeling really tight. I mean, really, really tight. I kept stretching them out and moving them about (insert weird hula hoop image here) but they were still feeling really tight.

Thankfully, a combination of reading the right blog posts and ordering the ultimate back dvd by Dr Stuart McGill I found some new stretches and movements for the hips and glutes (as well as a reminder of some forgotten ones) and I have really felt the difference.

Lying Hip Internal Rotations



Hip Hurdles



Hip Aeroplanes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra4ixkizd5U

(have to link it as embedding is disabled, gah!)

With regards to the hip aeroplanes, you should err on the side of caution for a start as the balancing part can be tricky when you start moving and I don't want you falling over and blaming me!

The other thing about the hip aeroplane is that whilst it looks fairly easy, to do it properly is a bit more tricky. You need to brace the obliques and concentrate on moving the hip and shoulder as one. A lot of people tend to lead with the shoulder or hip rather than together - this shows poor motor patterns and should be corrected if possible.

I promise I'll post sooner next time!

When work takes over your working out

It's been a long week at work and one that I am really glad to soon be seeing the back of!

Same again next week though...... crap!

Office jobs are so much fun at times, they seem to take up all your time when it gets busy. One of the first things people tend to skip on is their workouts and then their nutrition.

Well, I wanted to quickly address the workout aspect before I crash into bed for an early night.

Most people just feel as though they have to workout for at least an hour and so, when short on time they just don't workout. Or, if they're feeling tired, they don't feel like a hard workout.

Sometimes, neither do I!

But, instead of skipping the workouts altogether, you can still get a training effect from a good 10 - 20 mins of working out, you can keep the weight light or volume down if you're just not feeling in top form. Just doing something is better than nothing! I've made some previous posts giving out several ideas for quick 'n' effective workouts

Another suggestion is spend the time focusing more on stretching, foam rolling and mobility work - you know, that stuff you need to do more of but don't! You'll be amazed at how you can clear up some of those niggling aches and pains when you spend some time ditching the weights and focusing on improving your muscle quality.

That's pretty much what I've been doing this week - focusing on foam rolling the absolute hell out of some tight muscles groups, especially my left quad and IT band and doing lots of upper mobility work as the long hours really takes it out of your neck, upper back and shoulders.

So next time, before you think about ditching the workout altogether, do something a bit different. Just do something!

Training around achey knees

Quite a few people who train end up with either achey knees or worse, have to under go knee surgery.

Thankfully, I'm the former rather than the latter (not thankful I have a bum knee from time to time) and every now and then I'll get an ache in or around my knee which irritates the shit out of me. If you suffer from the same I'm sure you're nodding in agreement right now. It doesn't matter how careful I try to be with form etc, it will just ache. I blame it on my age.

When someone gets an ache in their knee they use it as an excuse to stop leg training altogether. For some people this can be a good thing i.e. if you're needing medical attention or physio treatment. If you're a regular person like me who gets the occasional ache, here are a few suggestions to be able to carry on training your legs.

1) Catch up on all that stretching and foam rolling you've been neglecting! In some cases this will actually help reduce the pain in the knee. I know that when I really target my quad with some myofascial work my knee feels better for it.

2) Work on hip and ankle mobility. In Mike Robertson's book Bulletproof knees, he talks about how the knee is a slave joint to the hip and ankle. When you have inadequate mobility in either your hip or ankle... or both, the body finds its mobility from your knee - not a good thing.

3) Really concentrate on lifting form. Sometimes the injuries occur from improper motor patterns and crappy lifting form and habits. Use this as a reason to go back to basics and really get your technique down.

4) Work your legs with posterior chain work. There's no reason why you can't work at least some of your legs - i.e. hamstrings, calves, glutes. Most people give up all leg work and fail to realise you can get a lot of benefit from rack pulls, RDL's, sumo RDL's, single leg RDL's, bridges, pull throughs to name a few. In fact, a lot of people don't work their posterior enough so another really good reason to concentrate on ironing out the imbalances caused from several hundred sets of leg extensions.

5) In a similar style to the above, work on glute activation exercises such as clams, hip bridges, x band walks to help use your glute muscles more when lifting.

6) Don't walk into solid, heavy objects like I just did putting bulletproof knees back on my shelf...ow motherfu****.