Theory to Practice

The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything
–Anonymous

Want to render an S&C (Strength and Conditioning) coach speechless?  Just throw that question out to him.  It’s like asking a carpenter, “hey bud, what’s the best woodworking tool?”  Any answer you do get — if you get any at all — with either (1) be packed with lewd innuendo or, (2) laced with obscenities.  My guess is that’ll you’ll get the bonus two-for-one.  Lucky you!  Let’s see if I can save you from all that.

Whenever I’m asked something along these lines (and I’m asked it  frequently.  If I had a nickel for every…), I first hit them with the lewd innuendo.  No, not really; I’m too nice a guy for that.  The first thing I do is assess, either visually or by direct questioning, the person’s training history; namely, is there or ain’t there any?

Now, for those with a limited training history — or for those just getting in the game — I’ve got a little secret for you.  Just about any training method within reason will work.  Just keep the workouts brief (half an hour or so) and as intense as possible, and your body will respond favorably.  Progress past a mastery of basic bodyweight exercises — the pushup, pull-up, bodyweight squat (I prefer the lunge, though that’s a topic for another time) and the “praying man” plank hold (left & right sides and front) — and into something a tad more advanced.  Deadlifts, dips, overhead pressing, squat and lunge variations are some of my favorites for those new to the gym scene.  Oh, and add some sprints into the mix as well.  Art DeVany has a fantastic basic workout scheme mapped out on his subscription site.  And, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s no need for me to reiterate the work that he’s already so masterfully done.  I don’t wholeheartedly endorse many things — Art’s site, though, is an exception to that rule.  It’s well worth the money.

    Now, for those with some degree of training experience (let’s say, at least a year and a half, two years or so), my answer is, “the training method you’re not doing right now.”  That may sound flippant as all hell, but it’s not.  Not only that, it’s true.  And the reason for that is that the body, the miraculous mechanism that it is, adapts to a said stimulus quickly.  And the longer you’ve been in the game, the more quickly it adapts. 

First and foremost, someone with a decent training base and who’s looking for a “best training method” must assess his or her goals.   Without this knowledge it’s pretty damn tough to make any progress  Whatsoever.  Take a good look around your gym and you’ll see what I mean.  How many have of your fellow gym members have shown any true progress in the last year?  They’re few and far between I’m willing to bet. 

But let’s get back to goals themselves.  Now, some will say that their goal is simply to be healthy (or healthier) — and there’s nothing at all wrong with that — it’s a fine and admirable goal.  It’s just obviously a different  goal than, say, someone who wants to powerlift, play high school, collegiate or professional (fill in the blank), enter a strongman competition, bodybuild or be a better firefighter, policeman or Marine.  Different tasks require different skills that require an emphasis on different training methods and modalities.  About the only thing I can say that is universal across all disciplines is this: the most powerful athlete/competitor is, with all else equal (techniques, skill sets, etc.) the better, more successful athlete.  And although I can’t prove it scientifically, I know it in my heart of hearts — empirically and in my gut — that the pound-for-pound most powerful of specimens within the general population are also, by and large, the healthiest.

Now, my personal goals, and the goals I will devote most time to in this blog, are (1) to be as healthy as possible while, (2)excelling at what I would call a “Crossfit” prototype of athleticism; that is, the ability to display a high degree of power development across a wide range of motions and functions displayed primarily over a limited duration.  That is to say, my goals are more to go fast — and to go fast repeatedly — than to go slow, steady and long.  In the weight room, my goals are to emphasis improvements in  power development rather than placing an emphasis on strength and/or hypertrophy.  With full knowledge that — and this is very important — that the three — strength, power and hypertrophy — are inextricably linked.

And this is where the black art of advanced training comes into play, and why I find training at this level so damn fascinating.  Training here, at this level, is akin to thoroughbred training; it’s part science and part intuition, part future and part here-and-now.  It’s a balance of gut, heart and brain — which, most times, will be clamoring for, outright arguing over, which direction to take.  It’s the ability to accurately assess your (or your athlete’s) needs, strengths and weaknesses and possessing the knowledge of how to go about fixing them — both in the immediate and in the long term.  It’s knowing when to red-line and knowing when to idle.  It’s knowing whose advice to take, whose program to follow, because — and here’s the second secret for today — everybody’s program works.  With the caveat being — hey, you knew there had to be a caveat, right? — well, with the caveat being that every program “works” for its intended purpose and for those who happen to exhibit the particular weakness for which the program was designed to fix.  The problem is — ironically — that the better (more effective) the program is, the shorter a period of time the weakness will, in fact, remain a weakness, thereby rendering the program’s shelf-life that much shorter.  And now we’ve come full circle.  So, what’s the best training method for the advanced trainee?  The short answer is, “the training program you’re not currently on.”  Any answer beyond that must be conjured from the highly individualized, black-art caldron.  The caldron I love to stir!

A Word About Power

My goal, in each and every rep of each and every set of each and every exercise, is to produce as much power as possible.  In practical terms, at a given weight and with a given distance, that means I try to move the weight a fast as possible in each repetition.

Remember that, in the simplest of terms:

Power = Work/Time.  And that Work = Force x Distance

We’ll negate, for our purposes, the angle between the force and the resultant movement as it will remain constant (or near enough) throughout the given exercise.  Distance, too,will remain constant — unless we’re talking about throwing objects — in which case we will assume time to be the constant.  But for now let’s use the barbell squat as an example. We’ll also assume your basic, everyday movement, say, a simple squat — not a jump squat or some other variant thereof.

Now, what we want to find is the “sweet spot” between a heavy enough weight and adequate speed.  Too much speed and we’ve crossed into jump-squat territory — not enough weight for our purposes.  Too much weight and our power will plummet as speed decreases.  Something else we want to manage is the rep range (to get nit-picky, what we really want to manage is the total set time).  Sets of 3 is a good starting point, though.  From here, we can then nudge the weight up or down, or reps up or down as needed.

And now, class, anyone remember why we’re so interested in maximizing power production over a limited duration?  That’s right!  Because fast twitch fibers (both a and b types) are most responsible for producing this manner of power.  And what’s to love about fast twitch muscle fiber?  Right again!  Because plain and simply, they are inefficient, energy hogs.  The four-barrel, 454’s of human engines.  Which of course means, so long as our eating patterns remain Paleo-esk, we’ll be cooking away body fat, 24-7.

Really, the more I write on this subject, the more I find I can write on this subject.  Books could be written on each of these topics.  My hope is that, throughout the course of this blog, I can expound fully on each of these areas.  Again, feel free to drop me a line if there’s a particular area you’d like me to cover in more depth.  I’d be glad to.  But for now, suffice it to say, our goal in the gym is to improve upon our power production.  This is the heart and soul of the Paleo/Evolutionary Fitness style workout.   

In Health,

Keith

From the blog of Royce Kitts 

So I’ve had this hankering as of late for a good buffalo burger; something thick and juicy to sink my teeth into — the essential makings of a good, primal food, throw-down.  And with the long weekend here and a little extra time on my hands (whoo-hoo!), I figured I’d take a look around and see if I could find a unique recipe to try out, something a little different from the normal fare.  And boy did I find one.  Not only what looks to be a helluva recipe, but also a fantastic site!  Go take a peek at Cindalou’s Kitchen Blues and see what I mean.  I plan on giving the rosemary olive buffalo burgers a test drive this weekend (if the weather will cooperate), and I’ll offer my expert, Paleo-minded critique in a later post.  But really, do a little snooping around Cindy’s site for yourselves this weekend.  She’s got loads of fabulous recipes and some great ideas over there.  And although her site is primarily focused on meals for the celiac/gluten and lactose intolerant, eating this way closely parallels the dietary wants and needs of the Paleo/EF community.  Simple substitutions can be made for those meals — especially the vegetarian offerings — that fall short of Paleo/EF expectations.  Usually, the fix is as simple as add meat.   So easy a fix, even a caveman could do it.

A Pair of Workouts

So I hit the gym on Thursday and Friday mornings, a half an hour each day.  Saturday will be a much anticipated, relaxing, watch some college football, off day.  We all need one of those now and again, and I’m really looking forward to this one.  This past workweek was rather on the brutal side.

Let’s compare and contrast these two workouts:

Thursday

Whip Snatch x 2’s, at weight

Regular, Weighted Pull-Ups  x 2’s, at weight

Voyer Cable Shrug x 8’s, at weight

One exercise followed by the next, in succession, for 3 rounds.

You’ll notice that the Voyer Shrug is linked to the T-Nation site.  Now, at first glance, T-Nation may come across as just another bloated, steroid-infused, bodybuilding site.  And, to some extent, it is.  However, unlike most sites of the genre, it does have an intellectual undertone.  Not everywhere, not always and certainly not obvious, but it’s there.  Scattered throughout the site, you’ll find articles from the best in the S&C/Physique Training business — Thibaudeau, Waterbury, Cressey, Poliquin, John — one just has to be adept at sifting through all the “dude, I wanna get swole” crap to find the hidden gems.  The next step is manipulating that good information in order to make it fit a Paleo/EF/limited time system.  And that’s where your’s truly can help.

Ok, so here’s the following day’s workout fare:

Friday

DB Snatch x 4’s, at weight

Weighted Dips x 3’s + 10 sec. bottom isolation, each set

3 rounds of this pairing.

Now, the first thing you’ll notice is what seems to be a repeated movement on each day — the Whip Snatch and DB Snatch.  The differences between these two exercises, though, are enough to justify their back-to-back utilization.  Not what I would have done these two back-to-back in an ideal world mind you, but it is workable.  To help things out, I enhanced the difference between these two Snatch versions by beginning each rep. of my DB Snatches from the ground, whereas with the Whip Snatch, I’d began each rep. with the bar at the crook of my hip.  The overall theme for both of these workouts — as is the theme for the majority of my workouts — was fast-twitch muscle fiber enhancement.

Now, all things being equal and under a different set of circumstances, I probably would have opted for a different power movement from the DB Snatch on Friday; if nothing else, than to keep my mind fresh.  Maybe something along the lines of a Jump Squat or a Push-Press.  However, two things were at play in my decision making here, namely (1) the gym will be closed all of next week for renovations, so I won’t be able to weight train for that duration and, (2) the power rack was occupied when I initially hit the gym, and finally (3) I wasn’t about to spent too much of my limited workout time in self-debate over such a trivial issue.  Will my body really know that I hit two similar exercises back-to-back?  No.  I Just picked an exercise and got to work.

So there you have it, a little insight into the exercise selection decision making process.  At times it’s akin to being an ER surgeon — decisions have to be made on the spot and, in retrospect, they may not have been the best decisions.  But, in the end, as long as the ultimate question can be answered satisfactorily — did the patient survive? — then all can be considered a success. 

A quick word about the holiday: remember how crappy you feel shortly after ingesting all those simple carbohydrates?  Keep that feeling in mind when you make your holiday eating decisions this weekend.  A bite here, a nibble there — hey, no blood, no foul, live a little, right?  Yeah, that’s my attitude, too.  Just attempt to make the best eating decisions you can under each given circumstance — and don’t go overboard on the iffy decisions.  Employ a little willpower.  Maybe you can spread the Paleo/EF gospel a little while you’re at it, huh?  But whatever you do, have a great weekend and have fun doing it!

In Health,

Keith

Photo by Jon D’Amico 

Heap on wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned.

Ezikiel, 24:10

Hmm.  Now, I would have written it, “…spice it well and consume the flesh…”, but hey, that’s just me.  And what’s this?  Is he saying the spice is the drink that follows the flesh consumption maybe?  Ugh.  Just add it to the list of Biblical questions that will forever baffle Keith.  And I guess the dogs were left to bum, too, over the bones left smoldering there in the fire.  Poor pooches.  Oh well.

Anyway, today’s post is a quick hitter because — guess what? — I’m short on time.  I know, I know — say it ain’t so.

First, though, a quick aside: I guess we can call this the Wha-huh? Moment of the Week — So I received an email today at work from a (no doubt) well-intending coworker; actively soliciting candy sales, she was — to benefit, of all things — the American Heart Association.  Now understand, I’m all for raising money for a worthy cause, but daa-aamn, have we got a long way to go,or what?  Sugar for tickers, huh?  Wow.

Ok, back to what I wanted to talk about.  Now, next time you plan on grilling a streak — any kind of steak, it doesn’t matter — give this herb topping a shot.  It’s really, really easy to do, and it’ll add a nice kick to your steak — or any meat, for that matter.  Just gather-up first-fulls of fresh basil, rosemary, and thyme, and place it all in a food processor.  Don’t worry about making too much of the stuff as it only gets better as it sets in the fridge.  Blend (or is it called”processing”?) away.  Add a little olive oil and hit it again.  Repeat.  Do the Macarena.    Now, add garlic cloves and  coarse sea salt to taste.  Use as much olive oil as needed for whatever consistency you desire. 

Midway through; first Macarena pause

I can’t really give you a “recipe” for this concoction — it’s a feel thing.  But what you’re looking for in the end is a thick, and rather coarse,  paste — so, like I said, just use whatever amount of olive oil is needed to adjust the consistency.  Too watery for you?  Just throw in additional herbs, easy as that.  The secret is to check the consistency frequently as you’re blending (processing?) and adjust as necessary.   Feel free to experiment with other spices and herbs.

The final product

What’s good about concoctions like this (and I’d add things like wasabi to this list) — aside from the added nutritional benefit — is their inherent ability to stretch your portion size.  That is to say, the mouth-feel and strong flavor will extend the satisfaction of each and every bite.  Think of how something like wasabi can stretch was really is a smallish portion of sushi quite a long way.

 Spread it on like this, or — the way I prefer — with a little dab on the fork for each bite.

Give it a shot and let me know, via comment or email, how it turns out.  I’m always open for meal suggestions, too.  Help build the Paleo/EF meal base of the site!

In Health,

Keith

The person who is not hungry says that the coconut has a hard shell.
–African Tribal Saying

If you want it bad enough, you will  make it happen.  It may take some doing, but you’ll eventually find a way around any obstacle.

Take a look at the trunk of my car.  This is what it looks like at 5:30 AM on every workday morning that’ll find me, first, at the gym (or track, or whatever) prior to punching in for the day.

What you can’t see are the stylish, metrosexual threads, hanging in the back seat 

It ain’t the best of situations, but I make do as best I can.  Hey, there are plenty of people around who’d love to have my whiney-ass time-issue problems, right?  You’ll notice the ubiquitous, Lil’ Oscar cooler there in the trunk.  That’s the badge of a 21st century caveman.  

So all-in-all, this was a usual Tuesday morning.  Feet solid on the deck at about a quarter ‘til 5.  Out the door, coffee in hand, at 5:30.

And, once the circus finally hit the gym in Rocky Mount, this is what came down:

• Deadlift + Straight Leg Deadlift (on the negative) combo, (just like I did here) x 2 reps.
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Floor Press x 5reps, each arm
• Single-Arm Row x 4 reps, each arm

I Jumped from one exercise to the next, in the order you see above, with very little rest in between.  Three rounds, at weight.

This was a fabulous kick-start to a full day of my being an all-out, pharmaceutical validation ninja.

So, what are you waiting for?  Just get in the game.  Really, the initial psychological adjustment to the Paleo/EF lifestyle is the difficult part.  Once the habit is set, the whole thing is a breeze.   What’s left, then, is simply the day-to-day, real life juggles.  That’s where I can help.  Stay tuned, and we’ll get you on your way — and keep you on course once you’ve set sail.

In Health,

Keith

Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence.
–Hans Christian Andersen

In Five Reasons Not to Write Down Everything You Eat for a Week, I spelled-out my reasoning behind why I think it’s bad policy to food and/or meal journal.  My main contention being that I feel like that food journaling only serves to mask (or, more precisely, side-step) the root problem at hand — namely, the consumption of the wrong types of foods.  And that got me to thinking — do I really need to keep a workout journal, then?

I came to the conclusion that, true enough, a “by the book” practitioner of the Evolutionary Fitness lifestyle would really have little need to bother with keeping such a journal.  If one had the freedom to workout when they felt like it, and as hard or as easy as they were compelled, then quite naturally a plot of their workout sessions and power expenditure would fall nicely into a fractal pattern.  Such a person would naturally have all-out days, easy days, languid days, etc.  And I would be, quite naturally, jealous as all hell of this person.  For this lucky soul, maintaining a workout journal would be — like the food journal for us mere mortals — an unneeded waste of time. 

The challenge, of course, is finding that happy medium between the “ideal” and the “what’s possible”.  For the time being, at least, a huge swath of my day is planned out for me.  That, for most of us, is the real world that we have to deal with.  And this is where the workout journal fits in.  It’s a net time saver — and anything that’s a net time saver and adds value to boot — is a keeper in my book.

So, what information is good to keep track of?

First off, assess your goals.  My journal as of late contains none of the detail I’d carefully tracked back in my bodybuilding days (Uh.  I really can’t believe now that I was once into that scene) or back even further, in my football days.  Here’s a shot of the first section of my journal — what I call the “detail” page:

Just a cheap, college composition book.  And it doubles as a Frisbee, for shooing dogs away from things they oughtn’t chew

This details what I actually did in any given workout.  Exercises, set/rep schemes, weights used, rack/machine positions, and especially notes for how to adjust the next, similar workout.  And that’s the key with this page;

If I were to repeat this very same workout tomorrow, what would I do different to improve upon what I did today?  What would make this workout better, more intense or move along more rapidly?

Nothing elaborate, just a few notes.  Maybe I need to increase or decrease a weight used for a particular exercise, or maybe the exercise pairing is not optimum, whatever.  Maybe this workout is not effective, given a 30-minute time limit.  It’s short, sweet, and to the point, though.  I usually only have about a half an hour to spend on any given workout, and very little of that, I can tell you, is spent scribing. 

Now, the second section of my journal is something most people do not do, but that I’ve found to be very helpful:

These pictures are admittedly lame, so I’ll try best I can to spell-out the madness here.  I start from the bottom of the last notebook page, progressing, workout by workout, up and back towards the front of the journal — so that my last workout becomes the most recent entry as read from the “normal” direction.  I’m sure I’ve succeeding in making something so simple just as clear as friggin’ mud.  Anyway, this portion serves as my quick reference section.  And what I list here is the date, exercise(s) performed and the set/rep scheme.  That’s it.  Now, I can flip to this section and, with little more than a glance, determine what method, exercises, set/rep scheme, plane of motion, etc. that has not been recently worked.  If you look back over my past workouts, you’ll notice very little in the way of repetition, and this portion of the journal is what keeps me honest.

Now, sometimes I’ll purposely, and repeatedly, hit a method, plane of motion, exercise, body part, etc. in an attempt to better some perceived “weak-link”  Right now, that “weak-link” happens to be hamstrings and explosive strength.  Later on down the road, it’ll be something else, guaranteed.  And there’s always something else — it’s the nature of the beast.

But more on that another time.  For now, vow to keep a workout journal.  Unless, of course, you’re Tim Farriss.  Who is smugly, I’m sure, going about his workouts unencumbered by such frivolity.

And hey, Tim — I’m jealous!

In Health,

Keith 

There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
–William James

The above quote serves as a good segue into this blog post by Dr. Michael Eades.  This phenomena is especially prevalent in studies related to diet, weight gain, weight loss, etc.  Assessing the results of a study with a preconceived notion of what the results ought to be is a classic example of conformation bias.  Clear your mind, grasshopper.  See all things as they are, not how you would have them to be.  There is “comfort knowledge” (see my last post, here), just as there is “comfort food”, both of which impart a warm (although, quite possibly false) sense of stability in times of ill-ease.  Seek truth above comfort, and you’ll be all the better for it.

Please, don’t be like these guys.  THINK!

I dropped a line to Art DeVany Friday evening, to see if I could get his input on Usain Bolt’s record breaking performances as compared to the fastest 250 times ever posted — Art being the Power Law guru that he is.  See my blog entry about Bolt’s performance, and the comparison, here.  And Art delivered, just like I knew he would, with much clarity and insight.  The prior link is to Art’s free blog, so you don’t need a subscription to check this one out.   It’s an interesting read, and I highly recommend everyone skip on over there, when you’re done here, and check it out.

Meesus TTP and I had a wonderful Paleo/EF meal of ribs, avocado, tomato, broccoli and a smattering of mixed, in-season fruit.  Ribs, for us (on the grill at least), is a “weekend thing” because they take a good while to properly cook.  I prepared the ribs in the same way I doctored the steak in this post.   Then I grilled them for about 2 hours at a reduced heat — maybe 300 degrees F or so.  I also smoked the meat, using applewood chips doused with olive oil.  The smoke imparts a fantastic, though subtle, finishing touch.

 
A work in progress…

And the crowd cheers; Bravissimo!

And there you have it, the end result

Add a glass of my favorite — Cycles Gladiator cabernet sauvignon — and you’ve got one fabulous, Paleo/EF meal.

This morning, I got in a quick workout of barefooted sprints, 10 x 100 yards.  I altered a bit from my last sprint workout by doing the following: instead of concentrating on attempting to reach as close to a 100% top-end speed at each sprint, I concentrated on maintaining an approximate 80% top-end speed with repeatability.  That is to say, I cut my rest time between sprints significantly.  Just another wrinkle to keep it all fresh and keep the body guessing.

And now I’m off to the Raleigh Farmers Market to grab-up some good eats for the upcoming week.

In Health,

Keith

I came across this blog article the other day, and it instantly reminded me of all the crash-and-burn diet horrors I’ve heard of and/or read about over the years, or personally been a witness to.  And just let me say, their numbers are legion.  Remember Oprah, anybody?

From J. Winter’s, Slanderful

Now, my intent here is not to bash on Ali Hale, or on her above mentioned blog article.   She means well, no doubt.  She’s a good writer.  And I’m sure she’s a fantastic, otherwise intelligent person.  In my humble opinion, though, she is ill-informed and, unfortunately (and unbeknownst to her), perpetuating the type of wrong-mindedness that has put the “advanced” societies of the world in a fattened state of chronic ill-health.  Now, that’s a mouthful (pardon the pun).

But five reasons not to write down everything you eat for a week?  Couldn’t hurt, right?  Well, let’s give it a look, beginning with:

Keeping a food journal does not address the root problem

The root problem here is a chronic over-indulgence in (especially) simple carbohydrates.  Which fosters an insulin spike.  Which later results in a blood sugar drop.  Which has you feeling hungry again.  Then guess what you want to do?  That’s right — nosh-out — ravenously.  With a Paleo/EF-type diet, however, this rollercoaster is avoided completely.  You eat what you want, when you’re hungry and drop weight in the process.  So save a tree, huh?  Quit this food journaling for Chrissakes.  Just change what you eat and roll-on, brother.  Leave all the note making madness to the GTD freaks like myself.  And I’m not just some kind of anti-list zealot, by the way.  Hell, I’m to list culture what Dewey is to the friggin’ library, just ask my co-workers.  But I don’t keep a single note pertaining to what I eat.  Quite simply, it’s a waste of my time, and I suffer neither fools nor time-wasters gladly.

Cutting Calories is not the Answer, Ergo, Counting Calories is Futile

What, are you going to engage in this calorie-counting madness the rest of your natural-born days?  Go around hungry all the time?  Trash your metabolism and your overall health?  C’mon, let’s be realistic, shall we?  Here’s a hint: your ancestors were a muscular, powerful and svelte lot long before the advent of mathematics.  Hell, they were muscular, powerful and svelte right up until the advent of sustained agriculture (hmmm, methinks there just might be a correlation here ).   Thermodynamic energy balance (input = output) is not the proper diet model.  To purge this nonsense from your mind, once and for all, is to be set free.  Hormone response and gene triggering is the answer.

And…Well, hell, I don’t even need five reasons.  I’ve covered it in two.

All levity aside, here’s the deal: once the shift has been made to a Paleo/Evolutionary Fitness style diet, everything else will take care of itself.  No need to count calories, no need to time your meals, no weighing of food or any of the other inane gyrations invented to mask the elephant trundling about the living room.  You’re friggin’ hungry, ok? — and guess what — you’re hungry because you’re eating the wrong things to begin with. To lift a riff from Gary Taubes’s book, Good Calories, Bad Calories,

Good Calories, Bad Calories ISBN: 1400040787 ISBN-13: 9781400040780

you’re not overweight because you eat too much, you eat too much because you’re overweight.  Now, at first glance, this seems counter-intuitive — or at best, a play on words.  The reason for that, though, is because it’s so hard to shake the ingrained thermodynamic energy model of diet that we’ve all had — and, again, pardon the oh-so-weak pun — shoved down our throats.  No one in their right mind would chalk-up a teen’s growth spurt to an insatiable appetite.  The kid didn’t sprout another foot taller over the summer because of his ravenous eating; that ravenous eating is a result of his having, and continuing, to grow — a result of a hormone cascade, gene triggering, et al.  Quite naturally — and rightly — we never question that particular assertion.  Why is the other so hard to (and welcome, my friends, to pun city) swallow?

Really, though, get the book.  It’s the best science-based explanation of why the Paleo-like diets are successful and why other diets inevitably fail.

In Health,

Keith

Very simple, but highly effective.  Very quick but, again, highly effective.

DB Snatch x 4 reps each arm

~superset with~

Weighted Dips x 4 Reps

3 rounds of that combo, at weight.  Then:

Barbell Curls, one set, 15/5/3 reps, DeVany (i.e., hierarchical) method.

Now, it just so happens that, in my gym, I can perform my DB snatches in an open area located near the dip rack, so this exercise combination works out well for me — not much walking to and fro time wasted. 

Notice that I’m taking advantage, here, of the push-pull method along the vertical plane of motion; pulling the weight up in the DB Snatch, pushing the weight up in the Dip.  Curls are for vanity purposes, and I had a little extra time.  Really, though, I get plenty enough biceps work with all the pull-ups and chins I do. 

Evolution of a Meal

Not much prep involved with this at all.  Fire-up the grill and let ‘er preheat while you’re doing this the following: Tenderize the meat well, then rub with a liberal amount of olive oil.  Pepper heavily (I like to use freshly ground pepper as it imparts a much better taste), and dust with a little brisket rub.   Now, set the meat aside and let it absorb the flavors for a while.  Give the grill time to get hot, hot, hot. 

Is the cooking surface clean?  Take care of that now.  Turn the heat down a bit, so as to prevent an inferno when the meat hits the grates.  A little flame-up is what we want — this will give us that nice char look while keeping the center of the cut rare to med-rare.

My mouth is watering….

Add some avocado and tomato as a side.  A little fruit and a little wine.

Tasty.  And I’ll take the leftover meat to work as part of breakfast and lunch.  That much meat will last a couple of days at least.  Also, the meat will get used in a steak salad on another night.  Give eating this way a little time and the shopping, food prep, the eating itself and the overall planning will become second nature.  Hell, you’ll soon forget what the middle isles of your grocery store look like.  And you’ll be all the more healthy for it.

Whatever.  Where’s my bone?

In Health,

Keith

Another amazing performance.  Photo by Phil Hilliard of the HeraldSun on-line, http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun

This is an extremely interesting graphic breakdown of Usain Bolt’s 200 meter time as measured against the 250 best times in history.  Check out how far and away both he and Michael Johnson are from the rest of the distribution.  Just amazing, especially when you consider that fact that the other 248 times aren’t exactly sub-par performances.  I’d love to get Art Devany’s take on the fallout of this distribution, vis-a-vis Power Law Distribution.  Or Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s take vis-a-vis Black Swan theory.  These Olympics have really been a blessing for sprint-geeks  everywhere.  Use these performances to inspire you to get out and bust-off a few.  It doesn’t take long to get a fantastic workout doing some form or fashion of sprinting.  The hormone response and gene triggering a bout of sprints will unleash is really, to steal a cliche, the gift that keeps on giving.

And is Walter Dix a class act or what?  I love seeing an athlete who allows his performance to speak for itself.  Something I’d really love to see is Walter’s adoption of a Paleo/Evolutionary Fitness style diet.  I’d be curious to see what effect his loosing even a few pounds (he’s very muscular, though a tad smooth) would have on his sprint times.  The Paleo/EF-type diet would also foster a better hormone environment for the development of the all-important fast-twitch muscle fiber.  My feeling is, he’d be a much improved athlete — stronger and more powerful, at least — than he currently is.  Now, whether an increase in strength and power would actually translate into better sprint times in an already highly trained sprinter is debatable.  Many other factors, most notably “springiness/recoil” ability, reaction times, muscle insertion, mechanical leverage, etc., factor into sprint times.  It sure would be an interesting test-drive, though. 

Waddaya say, Walter?

In Health,

Keith

A fine demonstration of power and grace

One key element to an improved time efficiency in the weight room is the skillful grouping together of exercises so as to (1)minimize transition time between said exercises and, (2)minimize the exercise-to-exercise set-up/breakdown time.  Now obviously, ogling (or worse yet, chatting-up) the babe with the fab-o bod needs to be curtailed if we’re even going to attempt to bust one out in a half-hour or less.  Oh, I know.  It hurts.  But, hey — there’s a time and a place for everything, my friend; a time and a place.  Gotta keep your eye on the prize while in the gym.  So, as an example of what I mean (exercise wise), let’s look at the particular combo I cranked-out in just shy of a half-hour’s time this morning.  3 full rounds, at weight, of the following:

    (1) Behind the Neck Barbell Push-Press, X 4 reps

    (2) Weighted Regular-Grip Pull_ups, X 4 reps

    (3) Split-Squat Stance Jump Squats, x 5 reps (each leg)

Now this little jewel of a combo was a manifestation of equipment availability, time (or more specifically, a lack thereof) and micocycle “scheduling”.  I use the term “scheduling” loosely here.  What I mean by that is, I’ll take a quick look at my workout logbook to see what movements, plane of motion and methods I’ve utilized most recently, then I’ll attempt to cover what hasn’t been worked in a while. 

As an example, contrast this workout with my last weight session (DL/SLDL combo, BB Floor Presses and DeVany-style BB curls).  Look back to last weekend’s workouts (stadium running, biking, field sprints and more biking).  See the contrasts between these workouts?  See the difference in the planes of motion, in the methods?  I’ll talk more about mixing and matching methods in a later post, because this can become just a tad more complicated.  Most folks, though, don’t have to give this a second thought — but for the benefit of those who want to push the performance envelope just a bit more, we’ll give it a visit.

Back to this morning’s workout.  You’ll notice that I’m working primarily in a vertical plane of motion — an over-the-head push-press tagged-up with regular-grip pull-ups.  So, I’ve got a vertical push and a vertical pull thing going on.  Now, in my last weight room workout I did a horizontal push (the floor press) combined with — whoa, hold on a minute, pardner — a vertical pull.  But see, this vertical pull was from the floor.  Different animal altogether.

Now, all that said, the best laid plans of mice and men, of course, sometimes get f*%&@#-up.  There are times when I get in the gym with a plan in mind, only to find someone camped-out in the power rack (usually doing friggin’ curls; uhh!).  So, what to do if you have to — God forbid — repeat a plane of motion?  Meh, don’t worry about it.  First, change the exercise (from what was done last time out), if at all possible.  Change the method, change the tempo — find something to alter from the last time out and roll-on, brother, roll-on.  Life is way to short to worry about all the small stuff.  Power Law works like this sometimes; and it’s actually to our advantage.  Learn to embrace it.

And a little reminder: the intent of this blog is to demonstrate an ongoing, real-world application of, what I consider, the most productive, enlightened and “correct” ways and means of diet and fitness as I currently understand them.  There are a plethora of material — both on-line and traditional — that do a much better job than I ever could of explaining the “whys”.  Some of what I feel like are the best on-line sources of such information are listed to the right on my link roll.  Think of me as the implementation guy.  I am what Click and Clack, the Car Talk Brothers are to automotive engineers.

Having said that, I will toss out an endorsement to Art DeVany’s private blog.  In my humble opinion — and I don’t get a dime for saying it — this is the finest, one-stop clearing house for all the information you’ll ever need to go all-out primal — or Evolutionary Fitness, in Art’s terms.  Before you spend anything on a single supplement or workout-related toy — hell, I’d even say before you get a gym membership — do yourself a favor and sign up for Art’s site.  You’ll be so glad you did. 

In Health,

Keith