Do something, anything because I said so

If it seems like I'm a little random today, I'm blaming it on the fact that I slammed my head hard playing softball last night. Today my head hurts, I have the brightness of the screen turned down, loud noises really suck and the only thing that is making the pain behind my left eye go away is coffee. There are probably a host of other homeopathic remedies I could try and I plan on trying some of them later in the day, but as of now, crack in the form of coffee is doing just fine.

Just don't hold me to any sort of coherent thoughts and/or statements.

Let's begin.

I've really been thinking about life activities lately and the role the play in the life of individuals who are fit and healthy. There is a key acronym floating around our industry called NEPA, or Non Exercise Physical Activity. Basically NEPA is anything you can do to get some sort of extra exercise without actually doing any exercise. Confused perhaps? Let me provide you with some examples: parking far away from the entry to any sort of shopping store, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, disabling the automatic pull function on your lawn mower, walking a round of golf instead of using a cart and my favorite of them all…..surfing.

I am lucky to live in a place where it's sunny 330 days a year, so the option of being outside and doing something is always there and it show's with the people who inhabit this city. As I type, its blue sky and sunny with temperatures climbing up into the 70's. Yet there are people who aren't so lucky. The Eastern seaboard is getting hammered right now with horrible weather and odds are it's going to drive people in doors and on their couches. It's these times where you need to get creative. Can't get out of your house because you are snowed in? Here's a suggestion: during the next commercial break, do walking lunges across the room. Got a set of stairs? Do reverse lunges off the bottom step before you go to the bathroom (or after if you can't hold it). Got little kids? PLAY WITH THEM! Set the example that even though the weather sucks worse that Jake Gyllenhaal's acting, you can still stay active inside your house.

For those that CAN get outside during the winter, there is really no excuse not to do something active. Walk on the beach, take a hike into the hills (urban hikes are fun too if you have no wilderness), take your kids to the park and teach them a new game or sport. Whatever you do, don't waste the opportunity to get outside away from the monotony that is the television and video games.

Take in some much needed Vitamin D from the sun (if it is available), start a snowball fight with your neighbor or shovel their driveway. Do something to take your non-gym activity level up a notch. It's during these times of winter where you can set the foundation for a newer, healthier you come spring time.

Only One Body

Guest post today courtesy of Mike Boyle:

Imagine you are sixteen years old and your parents give you your first car. They also give you simple instructions. There is one small hitch, you only get one car, you can never get another. Never. No trade-ins, no trade-ups. Nothing

Ask your self how would you maintain that car? My guess is you would be meticulous. Frequent oil changes, proper fuel, etc. Now imagine if your parents also told you that none of the replacement parts for this car would ever work as well as the original parts. Not only that, the replacement parts would be expensive to install and cause you to have decreased use of your car for the rest of the cars useful life? In other words, the car would continue to run but, not at the same speed and with the efficiency you were used to.

Wow, now would we ever put a lot of time and effort into maintenance if that were the case.

After reading the above example ask yourself another question. Why is the human body different? Why do we act as if we don’t care about the one body we were given. Same deal. You only get one body. No returns or trade-ins. Sure, we can replace parts but boy it’s a lot of work and it hurts. Besides, the stuff they put in never works as well as the original “factory” parts. The replacement knee or hip doesn’t give you the same feel and performance as the original part.

Think about it. One body. You determine the mileage? You set the maintenance plan?

No refunds, no warranties, no do-overs?

How about this perspective? One of my clients is a very successful businessman. He often is asked to speak to various groups. One thing he tells every group is that you are going to spend time and money on your health. The truth is the process can be a proactive one or a reactive one. Money spent on your health can take the form of a personal trainer, massage therapist and a gym membership or, it can be money spent on cardiologists, anesthesiologists, and plastic surgeons. Either way, you will spend money.

Same goes for time. You can go to the gym or, to the doctors office. It’s up to you. Either way, you will spend time. Some people say things like “I hate to work out”. Try sitting in the emergency room for a few hours and then get back to me. Working out may not seem so bad. Much like a car, a little preventative maintenance can go a long way. However, in so many ways the body is better than a car. With some good hard work you can turn back the odometer on the body. I wrote an article a while back ( Strength Training- The Fountain of Youth) that discussed a study done by McMaster University which showed that muscle tissue of older subjects actually changed at the cellular level and looked more like the younger control subjects after strength training.

Do me a favor, spend some time on preventative maintenance, it beats the heck out of the alternative. Just remember, you will spend both time and money.

You down with GPP? Ya you know me!

Okay, I might have dated myself with a little Naughty by Nature, but what the hell, it’s the holidays.

What exactly is GPP and what purpose does it serve in today’s training world?
GPP stands for General Physical Preparedness. Long winded? Yup. Hard to understand? Not really. Absolutely necessary? You bet your skinny ass it is. According to fitness journalist extraordinare and soon to be CSCS Roger Lawson, GPP is essentially one’s general conditioning level. You are “essentially using it as a measure of how ready they are to meet the tasks that they might face in an everyday situation.”

Nik Herold, CSCS also thinks along those same lines. “Personally, my definition of General Physical Preparedness is any type of training that helps you do what you're supposed to do in everyday life--squat, lunge, twist, bend, push and pull. It promotes being better balanced”

In the midst of pulling heavy weight off the floor while trying not to spray your colon everywhere or trying to stand up with the weight of a mini-cooper on your back, GPP does play a critical role in the development of even the most undertrained individual. It not only re-enforces movements and muscle patterns, but it also helps you prep your body for the one battle that not many people think about: getting old.

Most of us don’t fear getting old, mainly because we spend all of our time eating and promoting eating a healthy lifestyle. We are also doing some form of resistance training to make sure our bone density is good, we have the strength to move our body through any situation and most importantly, to look good nekkid.

So if GPP helps me do everyday things, how does one add it into a resistance training program? According to Herold, it’s added to help create balance. “I like doing metabolic circuits in between strength training days. They involve all the basic movement patterns that I talked about above yet they are done with lighter weights and higher reps and the sessions reinforce a balanced strength program.”

Lawson also has a plan to include GPP in his clients programs. “I would include some kind of brief interval based strength training circuit 2-3x a week after each workout, I.E. Barbell complexes, bodyweight circuits, etc”.

Either route you go, if you don’t have some sort of GPP added into your program, now’s about time to start adding it in. After all, the year isn’t over yet, so why not start to create that new healthy habit now, just in time for the new year!

Microsoft does suck

So I've been trying to use Microsoft Word for my new posts and it's pretty evident that it sucks considering none of the added pictures are showing and neither are my quotes. So I apologize for the crappy blogs lately.

So, as a gift to you, I'm going to give you an amazing recipe from diet plan I'm following courtesy of Naked Nutrition:

7.5 oz chopped chicken breast (I pre-cook this)
2 C low sodium chicken broth
1 C chopped celery
1/3 C chopped onion
1/3 C chopped tomato
3 t oil (I prefer Almond Oil but EVOO works as well)
3 T parmesan cheese

Lightly sautee all the veggies in oil. Add chicken and heat until warm. At same time, warm chicken broth and season. I used salt, pepper, basil and parsley. Add cooked chicken and veggies, and sprinkle with cheese on top and eat like soup.

Enjoy

Taking a vacation: is it really a bad thing?

For those of us who take this whole concept of healthy living seriously, we know how hard the rigors of strict eating and lifting heavy amounts of iron can be. We also know that without such dedication, we would most likely all look like Fat Bastard; and I personally don't want to look like that again.

So what do we do to prevent us from turning into complete sloths? Well, we train and we train hard, probably harder than anyone else; and we eat. We eat copious amounts of dead animals, we graze on fruits and veggies like the dinosaurs did and we train, but I might have already said that.

The one thing we also know and understand is that taking a much needed vacation is actually a good thing. Now I don't mean a vacation where you over stuff yourself silly at Old Country Buffet or decide that pizza and beer will be your new breakfast lunch and dinner. I am talking about a vacation from training; from eating healthy 90% of the time. I am talking about doing nothing and liking it!

In his manual "Muscle Building Secrets", Jason Ferruggia talks about the importance of taking a break:

"Taking a week off will actually allow you to get stronger and come back fresh and ready to train hard again. You simply cannot train balls to the wall for 52 weeks per year and expect to make progress. You will get too beat up and burnt out. Injuries will start to accumulate and your desire to be in the gym and work hard will start to dwindle. One thing that I have noticed is that people get very nervous about taking a week off because they think they are going to get small and weak. You are going to have to trust me here when I promise you it's not going to happen. Every single time I have forced a client to take a week off they have come back bigger and stronger, without fail."

The ironic thing is, I experienced this first hand recently. I had been training for 2 years without taking a week off, that's 104 days if you didn't know, and I absolutely dreaded going into the gym; I loathed it. I wasn't having fun anymore, my body didn't feel right doing any movements or exercises and I (admittedly so) slacked off on how hard I was training. So I forced myself to take last week off and I can already tell a difference as I hit the gym with reckless abandon this past Monday. The thought of lifting heavy gave me goose bumps and I have never felt better under the bar.

I also gave one of my clients the week off as well. His lower back was starting to bother him and he had been training for 6 straight months. When he came in on Monday night, he said his back felt 100%, his energy was high and he also had a monster lifting session.

So, if you feel like you are stuck in a rut, it might be time for a vacation. Take a look at your training; take a look at your nutrition and take a week off if need be. It will give you a chance to recharge your internal batteries. Your body will thank you for it.

A reason to be thankful

Two years ago, someone I knew was dying.

The signs weren't significant but the fact of the matter was this person was killing himself.

Every day he would wake up and make decisions that were slowly but surely draining the life from his body. The devil inside him was winning every battle and the rabbit hole he was falling down had no end. He was consumed by everything that he knew was wrong but had no control over how to stop it.

Just one more beer, what's it gonna hurt?

Just one more cigarette, you know you want it.

C'mon, just one more line, you can always get higher.

Such negativity rain down on him like a monsoon and the depression was starting to wear on his psyche. He would look at himself in the mirror and want to put his fist through the face of the person that was staring back at him. All the while, he was putting on a happy face for his friends and his family; he didn't want anyone to know what was going on.

Like every defining moment in life, an opportunity was laid before him and he was giving a choice – live or die. It was literally that simple.

Take this opportunity to break free of the strangle hold of addiction and start building a better, healthier life……..or continue down the path of self-destruction, into a darkness that most people don't have the strength to break free from.

After deciding to rebuild, a war broke out; a good old fashioned battle of good versus evil, with life on one side and the devil from within on the other. While everyday was a struggle, he fought his battle one day, one hour, one minute at a time. Just like watching paint dry, the process of recovery was slow and boring. Every day he would wake up and measure the food he was going to consume that day. He would re-read a life changing article as his motivation and stare at pictures of his out of shape body as a reminder of what he was trying to change. He would go to the gym and lift weights from upwards of two and a half hours, just to help make sure he would be strong enough to fight the demons that would surely come back to haunt him.

He walked away from everything that was comfortable: drugs and nicotine.

Then people started to notice something was different. A mental toughness was coming through that nobody knew he had hidden deep inside. The way he talked about life changed, hell the way he viewed life changed and the appearance of his body was changing as well.

Two years later my friend is not the same person he once was. His life is full of positive daily adventures; he hasn't had a cigarette since he went cold turkey two years ago this Sunday. He has been clean and sober from the drugs that once were a mainstay in his blood stream. He has a whole new life in front of him and there is no negative end in sight

It's amazing the power of change and it's amazing what happens when given a second chance at life.

This person was me two years ago and every year at this time I become more and more thankful for my second chance at making my life better. I am thankful to the two coaches who, with a ton of resistance from me, wouldn't let me stray from the course and kept me focused on what I was trying to do. I am thankful for my friends who stood by me and encouraged me along the way and I am thankful to my family who I never let know how bad it really was but only showered me with love and praise when I came clean with them.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!