I approached the Chipotle counter to grab a burrito for my son. His order is simple, carnitas and rice. My young man is certainly consistent with his tastes.
Here comes the query – brown or white rice? I’m guessing you think you know my answer. Brown rice is the easy choice, right? Everyone knows it’s the healthier selection. Not so fast.
Y’all know the theme of this blog. We challenge conventional wisdom at every turn. We won’t be right all the time, and we will change course as frequently as we need to.
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” -Lao Tzu
Now that a brilliant philosopher has offered us permission, we can challenge some good ol’ fashion rice dogma. Brown rice is better for you because it has the bran and the germ intact and hence has more fiber. Do we need the fiber in brown rice? From butterbeliever.com:
Many people eat way, way too much fiber, which can lead to serious digestive disorders, and even colon cancer…So, everyone choking down their Fiber-One cereals and psyllium husks really aren’t doing themselves any favors at all…Healthy people don’t need tons of fiber, and they generally don’t need to go out of their way looking for it.
You might determine that your diet does in fact need more fiber. You get about 3 extra grams per cup by eating brown rice. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come without a cost. The fiber in brown rice comes from the bran, which…well, you can decide how to digest (see?) this.
Yeah, so, that other thing that the rice bran has to bestow upon our righteously-healthy-whole-grain-eating selves? Phytic acid! Yes. The primary anti-nutrient we traditional foodies work so hard to negate by soaking, sprouting, or fermenting our grains.
Phytic acid stores phosphorus in plants. This phosphorus isn’t bioavailable to most omnivores (humans included). Because of the shape of the molecule, it tends to bind with other important minerals, like calcium, iron, manganese and zinc, leaving less of these for our bodies. So while brown does have more vitamins and minerals than white, our bodies can’t use them particularly well.
Granted, brown rice is less processed and refined than white rice. That doesn’t make white rice bad; it’s just a fact. I consistently and proudly trumpet eating food in its most original form, but in this case, it may not be an important consideration.
It’s always my aim to provide you with options. Rice is a food that I suggest in moderation in whichever form you choose (crispies not included). You could do a hell of a lot worse than a pile of brown rice and veggies, that’s for sure. If you decide to down a couple of pieces of fresh, raw tuna and white rice tightly wrapped in seaweed, I won’t be mad at’cha. In either event, make sure you have a spork nearby to scoop the last few morsels.
If you’re trying to kick the energy drink habit, punt on the Red Bull and take a cold shower instead.
This afternoon, I found myself at the ballpark, short on time and not in the mood to be patient. I was in no mood to twiddle my thumbs while the finicky shower slowly warmed. I bit my lip and hopped in. There is no need to illuminate the details related to loss of breath (and size). You get it.
I emerged refreshed and ready to get back to work. No coffee, no BS canned sugar, just cold water on my skin. Better blood circulation rules. Don’t take my word for it. From medicaldaily.com:
Cold water can improve circulation by encouraging blood to surround our organs, which can then help combat some problems of the skin and heart. As cold water hits the body, it’s ability to get blood circulating leads the arteries to more efficiently pump blood, therefore boosting our overall heart health, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola, a natural health expert. It can also lower blood pressure, clear blocked arteries, and improve our immune system.
C’mon, you know we don’t take action around here based on the suggestion of a single doctor (particularly that one). However, we do work a process of upside potential versus downside risk. We also love the science of trial and error. If the only downside of the cold shower is shivering for a bit, and the upside is potentially increased immunity and energy, I like the affirmative step in that direction.
Pissed off about something? Upset about your 0 for 4? Somebody on your nerves? Hop in a cold shower. Be brave. It’s worth it. From fastcompany.com:
A 2007 study published by a molecular biologist named Nikolai Shevchuk found evidence that cold showers can help treat depression symptoms, and, if used regularly, might even be more effective than prescription antidepressants. “The mechanism that can probably explain the immediate mood-lifting effect of immersion in cold water or cold shower is probably the stimulation of the dopaminergic transmission in the mesocorticolimbic and nigrostriatal pathway,” Shevchuk said in a 2008 podcast with Neuroscene. “These dopaminergic pathways are known to be involved in the regulation of emotions. There is a lot of research linking these brain areas to depression.
During my playing career, I was definitely a pack a day guy. I might go through 10-15 during every nine inning game. Cigarettes? No. Chewing gum.
I wasn’t alone. Look around the league and you’ll see endless examples of dudes chomping while manning their respective positions. It’s just habit for us. For me, it actually goes back even farther. I was thumbing through an old yearbook the other day while cleaning out my storage room and came across a girl who signed my yearbook (sigh) busting my chops for snapping and popping my gum at my desk. It wasn’t allowed in class, but perhaps I was crazy like a fox.
There’s no question that chewing gum is a lot better for you than some of the other traditional vices like chewing tobacco. It certainly offers some benefits. From wired.com
Gum is an effective booster of mental performance, conferring all sorts of benefits without any side effects. The latest investigation of gum chewing comes from a team of psychologists at St. Lawrence University. The experiment went like this: 159 students were given a battery of demanding cognitive tasks, such as repeating random numbers backward and solving difficult logic puzzles. Half of the subjects chewed gum (sugar-free and sugar-added) while the other half were given nothing… Those randomly assigned to the gum-chewing condition significantly outperformed those in the control condition on five out of six tests.
That was me. Up to the plate I roll, chewing like a horse. You think I became a .268 career hitter through sheer pitch recognition? Not a chance. I believe wholeheartedly that chewing gum improved my concentration. That “without any negative side effects” bit though? Not so much.
We know that gum generally has either loads of sugar (say it with me: fat doesn’t make you fat, sugar makes you fat) or, if you get the sugar-free kind, artificial sweeteners. Don’t think that those sweeteners aren’t getting into your system. From Mensjournal.com:
Even though you don’t swallow gum as you do food, you still ingest whatever ingredients come with the wad. “While chewing a piece of gum, you swallow your saliva several times,” Shelke says. “That saliva is a solution of all of the soluble ingredients in the gum.
There are those who trumpet the dental benefits of xylitol and swear by sweeteners like stevia as alternatives to aspartame, sorbitol and countless others. However, these additives may be impacting your waistline more than you would like. From USNews:
In a world without artificial sweeteners, a taste of something sweet preps the brain and the gut for digestion of incoming calories. When the calories don’t show, as happens with artificial sweeteners, those metabolic responses don’t fire the way they should. Insulin doesn’t increase; hormones that increase the feeling of fullness and satisfaction aren’t triggered; and the brain doesn’t get a feeling of reward from the dopamine that sugars release. After a while, Swithers said, it’s like the mouth keeps crying wolf, and the brain and gut stop listening. As a result, when real sugar and real calories come along, the body doesn’t respond to them as strongly as it normally might. Calories don’t end up making you feel as full as they should. They aren’t as rewarding. So you don’t get the signals that might stop you from eating when you should.
You know me. I get something in my head and I end up going mad scientist on y’all. I still adore chewing gum, and I couldn’t stop thinking that there had to be a way to get the mental benefits from chewing gum without putting a lot of artificial stuff into my body. I’m going to try out this recipe and see how it goes.
You’ll want to start with some natural beeswax.
Place 6 oz of beeswax into a double boiler (or a bowl set on top of a pot filled with about an inch of water) and turn the stove to medium high.
Melt the wax until it is soft and mostly liquid.
Add your flavorings. Try peppermint, cinnamon, lemon, or licorice. 5 drops of extract should be enough. Alternatively, you can use fresh, finely chopped herbs (rosemary, mint).
Pour the wax into small molds (candy molds or ice cube trays work well)
Refrigerate until hardened, then remove and chew.
I’m going to try this with zero sweeteners, artificial or otherwise, and will likely use fresh peppermint or spearmint for flavor and nutrition. From Harvard Health Publications:
Peppermint is also an age-old herbal medicine that has been used to treat a wide range of abdominal woes, from flatulence to stomach cancer to gallbladder disease. But does it really work? Peppermint has fared a bit better than many herbal medicines in clinical trials. Several studies have shown that peppermint oil seems to be fairly effective at relieving irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a collection of symptoms that includes abdominal cramping and pain, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea.
I’ll get the mental and dental benefits of gum, no sugar or artificial sweeteners, and some helpful benefits for my digestive system. I don’t need sweet, I just need to chew. Boom. You with me?
The bench press is not dangerous for baseball players. It’s not dangerous for pitchers, either. If your goal is to add strength, power and athletic function, the move is highly valuable and should not be pushed to the side by ballplayers (or anyone) brainwashed by dogmatic, antiquated thinking.
I can remember a major league trainer telling me that I shouldn’t do traditional bench presses because they were “bad for my shoulders,” or would make me “tight through my chest.” These misguided narratives seemed to be especially (and egregiously) spread by pitchers who, to this day, roll their eyes at the sight of a teammate doing any aggressive pushing exercise like the bench or overhead press. Here’s one example of the unreasonable fear mongering out there:
Your hands are free to move during the Bench Press, but your shoulder blades are glued down against the bench by possibly hundreds of pounds of weight.
But your shoulder blade must move when you throw, especially when your arm is overhead. To see what I mean, take your shirt off, stand with your back to a mirror and raise your arm straight overhead. You can clearly see how much your shoulder blade moves.
If you develop your upper body with your shoulder blades locked down, as in the Bench, you will reduce mobility and shoulder range of motion. Not exactly an ideal scenario for an athlete who relies on the ability to get his arms overhead and throw a baseball.
First, your shoulder blades are not “locked down” when we bench, particularly if we are benching explosively. They may not be flying all over the place, but they are not immobile. Unless you’re uber-focused on it, there will be plenty of contorting going on back there. Plenty of machine exercises lock the body into one plane of motion, but using a bar isn’t going to cement your shoulder blades to the bench.
Second, reduction of mobility isn’t a result of what we do as much as what we don’t do. So sure, if all we ever did was bench press, we would create a lack of balance and potentially limit our flexibility. This is true whether we’re discussing bench presses, squats, or any other singular exercise. This isn’t a real world scenario though. Humans, and baseball players in specific, do many other activities. It may be balancing our weight training with yoga, pull-ups or explosive running, or with more sport-specific endeavors like throwing and swinging. The bench press is but a single exercise in our vast group of options, and it’s a particularly powerful one.
for the goals of improved strength, increased muscle size, improved athletic function, and improved general fitness, the bench press is the best exercise for the upper body.
Specifically, the bench press has direct impact on bat speed:
The relationships between bat swing speed and upper-body strength values were examined. Additionally, the t-test was used to reveal the mean differences between 14 home run hitters (group A) and 16 mediocre hitters (group B) for each measurement value. The bat swing speed showed significant and middle correlations with the 1RM BP (r = 0.59), bench power (0.41), and isokinetic chest press (0.48-0.55). Group A had significantly higher values in bench power and isokinetic chest press (high-speed) per kilogram of body weight than did group B.
and throwing velocity:
The results indicate that throwing velocity of elite team-handball players is related to maximal dynamic strength, peak power, and peak bar velocity. Thus, a training regimen designed to improve ball-throwing velocity in elite male team-handball players should include exercises that are aimed at increasing both strength and power in the upper body.
Many baseball strength coaches have removed their benches and their straight bars in favor of bosu balls and dumbbells or balance boards. While unbalanced and isolated training is undoubtedly valuable, it’s not a substitute for the compound lifts. The bench, the squat, the deadlift and the row still reign supreme over isolation exercises when it comes to power production. For athletes, power rules.
You may have read our posts about dietary supplements and already be familiar with our strong support of real, whole foods over pills. In previous writings, I advised moderation for folks who mine for shortcuts in the form of vitamins, bars and powders. Today, I read something that is causing me to make the same suggestion more emphatically. From sciencedaily.com:
While dietary supplements may be advertised to promote health, new research shows a link between consumption of over the counter supplements and increased cancer risk if the supplements are taken in excess of the daily recommended amount.
Overdoing most consumables causes something, but you’d be hard pressed to eat enough blackberries or spinach to induce bodily harm.
Athletes are constantly looking to boost performance and gain a competitive edge. I remember a product still used in clubhouses around the country called Fast Twitch. The supplement, according to GNC, promotes “Explosive Strength Performance,” “Total Body Pumps,” and “Protection of Lean Muscle.”
If I’m a young, naive athlete, I may read those claims and think if one scoop is good, four is outstanding. Mixing more rather than less would be my default in an effort to derive as many of the benefits of this product as possible. Moreover, it’s a caffeinated mix. So, as my body becomes accustomed to the energy boosting properties, I need more to feel its effects. Sound like drugs? Right.
As a Brewer in Milwaukee in 2008, I experimented with this product. I drank it during workouts and before games for a while. It was fluorescent pink. I do not need Science Daily to know that only powerful artificial colors can create that look. Supplement makers know that often times, their powders and pills’ active ingredients has been degraded by exposure to the elements and adding color protects the look. After long shelf lives and truck travel, that baby blue powder still looks “fun.” From Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food:
One of the problems with the products of food science is that, as Joan Gussow has pointed out, they lie to your body; their artificial colors and flavors and synthetic sweeteners and novel fats confound the senses we rely on to assess new foods and prepare our bodies to deal with them. Foods that lie leave us with little choice but to eat by the numbers, consulting labels rather than our senses.
We are consistently educating and being educated around here. We are perpetually hunting for marginal value and discovering new information about what we put into our bodies. But what about the 18 year old making his first foray into the Midwest League, looking for a boost to get through the first month of cold weather? He’s undoubtedly searching for some liquid courage to help him remove the parka and go run his sprints down the first base line. Fast Twitch makes you want to press play when you’re sluggish. That 18 year old may not be reading the label and carefully measuring. Over the years, he may be putting himself at risk.
Fast Twitch (and most dietary supplements) is filled with ingredients both foreign and potentially detrimental to your body’s complex system, particularly if taken in large quantities and over a longer period of time. The following is a long, alarming passage. I’m including it, not to monger fear, but to provide the athlete readers of this blog with an alternative view to the one promoted by some nutritionists, teammates and other folks believing they are providing innocuous advice.
“We are not sure why this is happening at the molecular level but evidence shows that people who take more dietary supplements than needed tend to have a higher risk of developing cancer,” explains Byers, associate director for cancer prevention and control at the CU Cancer Center.
The line of research started 20 years ago with the observation that people who ate more fruits and vegetables tended to have less cancer. Researchers including Byers wanted to see if taking extra vitamins and minerals would reduce cancer risk even further.
“When we first tested dietary supplements in animal models we found that the results were promising,” says Byers. “Eventually we were able to move on to the human populations. We studied thousands of patients for ten years who were taking dietary supplements and placebos.”
The results were not what they expected.
“We found that the supplements were actually not beneficial for their health. In fact, some people actually got more cancer while on the vitamins,” explains Byers.”
Avoiding the shortcuts may seem daunting. The vivid colors are attractive. Act powerfully, examine the motives of the supplement companies and hunt quality food instead.
Peer into the locker of most professional athletes, and you’ll find a plethora of legal powders and pills promising larger muscles, speedier recovery and increased energy. Some of these magic elixirs even claim to improve reaction time and memory. Supplement companies make equally empty suggestions to the general public that may be even more egregious.
The supplement industry is estimated at a $30 billion per year. Because of their popularity in athletic circles, I’m asked which of these products I recommend more than any other question. My advice, as you might have come to expect, is to skip the manufactured, chemically enhanced, bottled and packaged substances in favor of real, whole foods.
In addition to being a major expense, supplements carry little proven benefit and sometimes side effects. For example the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate dietary supplements the same way they do over the counter drug, Essentially, the products we find at GNC and the like are not properly tested for safety and effectiveness before they’re placed on the shelves.
From the New York Times, “The FDA estimates that approximately 50,000 adverse reactions to dietary supplements occur every year.”
Even the most seemingly innocuous supplement, multi- or single-vitamins, isn’t needed by healthy adults. An article in the Annals of Internal Medicine summarized several studies:
Other reviews and guidelines that have appraised the role of vitamin and mineral supplements in primary or secondary prevention of chronic disease have consistently found null results or possible harms. Evidence involving tens of thousands of people randomly assigned in many clinical trials shows that β-carotene, vitamin E, and possibly high doses of vitamin A supplements increase mortality and that other antioxidants, folic acid and B vitamins, and multivitamin supplements have no clear benefit.
I fully comprehend that people love shortcuts. In the end, however, taking the time to eat appropriate quantities of foods rich in nutritional content like colorful fruits and veggies, organic, naturally-fed protein sources, and food from our oceans will provide all the vitamins and minerals our bodies need. Our systems recognize this nourishment as they have for ages.
That being said, cutting out all supplements is a difficult journey. I have cut out all supplements from my diet – except one. Meal-replacement bars are my easiest, most convenient way to find protein and calories on the go. I still travel with them at times.
During my teenage years, my father introduced me to the Clif Bar. This became a major dietary staple for me for many years during my baseball career. I’d eat 3 or 4 a day when I was looking to ingest as many calories as possible.
Today, I recognize how inflammatory sugar is and try to avoid it unless it’s naturally found in my food. Clif Bars have 23 grams of sugar and I no longer eat them for that reason. They are certainly better than grabbing a Snickers or Twix bar out of the vending machine, but that’s about it.
These days, the bar I eat is from a company called Advanced Athletics. It’s an acquired taste and they only come in two flavors, pumpkin and chocolate. These bars taste nothing like candy. In fact, they are not really sweet at all. They’re nutritionally dense, have no artificial flavors and are incredibly low in sugar.
If you’re looking to compare bars, they provide a helpful chart.
I know that even once we make the decision to transition to healthier eating habits, sometimes life gets in the way. During those times, I try to make the best decision I can within those constraints. My ultimate goal, however, is to find my way back to whole, unprocessed, real food. Let me know in the comments if you’re taking steps on this journey with me.
When I was in Minneapolis this past summer working the All-Star game for FOX, Brandon Warne waited patiently through our post-game coverage to say hello. I knew through twitter that he followed the blog, but his desire to shake hands made the interaction human. It was this same humanness that has made his nutritional adjustments a challenge, despite his best efforts. It’s also what makes his most recent step and achievement especially inspiring. The mic is yours.
I hopped out of bed this morning. I ran around the apartment last night. My wife had to remind me not to do that because, after all, I’m still a pretty big dude.
But I wasn’t doing these things last year – or last month, even. It’s all because of how I’m feeling lately. In short: phenomenal.
I’ve been somewhat health conscious for pretty much my entire adult life. When I left home some 10 years ago, I wanted to make sure I took care of my body, even though I wasn’t exactly sure how. I figured a good multivitamin was a good start, and maybe some fish oil and a few other things.
What does a healthy person eat? I don’t know. Or I didn’t know. My first year of college, I stuck with a ton of vegetables. I worked out semi-religiously (which is funny, because I was at a Bible school) and subconsciously did other things I didn’t know I was doing that made me healthier.
I spent that summer running three mile intervals and playing my last season of Legion baseball, and the last time I looked at a scale before heading back to school it said 212 lbs. WOW! I played (read: watched) high school football at about 225-230, but this was something else. I looked and felt great.
Back at school for my second year, I let it slip a bit. Instead of running, I rode a bike. Sometimes at the gym, I’d just sit down and watch Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn and head back to my dorm without setting foot on the fitness floor.
My fitness level slipped a bit over the following years, save for a brief spell playing college baseball in 2008. I put in a season behind an All-Conference first baseman, and I was perhaps on my way to some playing time. I couldn’t make it work financially though, and that will forever bug me. During this time, I never did step on a scale though, so I didn’t have much of a baseline to work with here.
I drifted further and further from my glory days, and so too did I drift from my ideal body weight. I thought I held it together pretty well, but looking back at pictures…no, not really. A lot of things played a role in me drifting away from fitness. I’ve worked a few jobs prior to my current one that I simply abhorred, including ones at a fitness center (ha) and as a manager of a shipping outlet.
Hating your job plus having a physical issue can really hamper your workouts. I broke my spine when I was eight, so I’ve always had small issues with that. Couple that with a history of diabetes in my family, and it’s surprising my wake-up call didn’t come sooner.
It should have. Three years ago on New Year’s Eve I went into the emergency room. I had been feeling lousy in my southern hemisphere for about two weeks, and was legitimately worried I had either a hernia or some other malady, to put it delicately. down there. When they took my blood pressure, it was 174/111. I’m pretty sure only steam comes out if you tap into a vein at that rate.
I made some small changes – most notably, kicking my soda habit – and managed to get the blood pressure down. Still, I wasn’t making any meaningful progress physically, not even by visiting my gym and honest-to-goodness working out 12-15 times a month. I know this, because our insurance pays back half of the gym membership if we get there 12 times or more a month. February makes two years at Anytime Fitness, and I haven’t missed it once.
I was running, doing some lifting and doing some cardio as well — what was I missing?
As I gorged myself on Thanksgiving dinner, I prepared myself for the stomach pains I knew would come soon thereafter. It was nothing too serious, but there was always some discomfort that would subside before too long. Still, that’s kind of scary to have happening on a regular basis. As I sat on the couch during a brief reprieve from working that weekend, I was reminded of something I had read on this website that suddenly made a ton of sense: Gabe’s grain fast from November.
I had long known the difference between complex and simple carbs and had done my best to go with complex as often as possible. But when it comes to food, I’ve always had a tough relationship. Think of it as a reward mentality co-mingled with an addictive personality. I love food.
But if what Gabe’s post said about grains as irritants of the stomach was true, maybe that’s what I was feeling? Admittedly hastily, I threw together an idea and ran it by my wife. True to form, she told me she was worried and to make sure it was safe.
I read her both grain-free posts, and she begrudgingly said “OK,” but with a couple conditions. I had to have a regular cheat meal, and I had to be willing to still drink the Isagenix shakes she has in the house. “Fine,” I relented.
We returned from the weekend on Sunday; on Monday I started my hastily-designed plan. Incidentally, that’s Dec. 1, and I had promised my wife I’d just “try it for a month” — akin to Gabe’s plan.
Amanda was worried I wouldn’t get carbohydrates, which I assured to her I would be from all the fruit I’d be eating. As far as a simple breakdown of what I’ve been eating, well, it’s not terribly difficult. I’ve eaten multitudes of meat, and all different varieties. Fish, chicken, turkey and, of course, beef. I’ve had steaks, rainbow trout, turkey burgers and even veggie burgers. I’ve been generous with my portions and the condiments. I prefer a good honey mustard or Trader Joe’s ketchup.
I’ve eaten fruits and vegetables by the truckload. Strawberries, apples and the occasional banana have been the fruit fare at the Warne’s place, and any time I’m feeling hungry I just run my apple slicer over an apple or a pear or crack open a flat of strawberries. Trader Joe’s string cheese has been a life saver, too.
I have also become a salad fiend — hold the croutons. You can get a salad just about anywhere. As this plan evolves and I look to get something other than just “not heavy,” I suspect I’ll find more nutritional, sustainable ways to get my salad fix. I know that’s what Kap would suggest, too.
Cutting out breads has been even easier than I expected it to be. If you ask my wife, it is because I had a somewhat silly vision in my head to begin with. I’m a bit of a dreamer, and I fall in love with my ideas and pursue them really hard at first before tailing off. She was convinced this would be the same, but if results are any indication, I think this will be an aberration. She’s still right most of the time, though.
When I hopped on the scale today, I was down 10.2 pounds from Dec. 1 — a span of 18 days. That was with an alteration in my diet — I refuse to call it ‘being on a diet’ — and an altered fitness routine that finds me going to the gym nearly every day. And if that sounds daunting, it shouldn’t. I’m very much an express fitness guy. I prefer to be in and out in half an hour, so I’ve taken to running two miles at 5.0 mph on the treadmill. I didn’t even know I could do that without stopping until a few weeks ago.
I’m not sure what to do for a conclusion here. I will say this: I was pretty carb addicted and still have found the strength to do this. Yesterday, in the break room, I stared down the barrel of a fully loaded cookie from Cookie Cart and said no. That felt really empowering. I knew eating that cookie would taste good for about two minutes, but the guilt would stick with me the rest of the day. I opted for a Chipotle salad — double chicken, extra black beans — and a big bottle of water (a serious must – drink more water people!), allowing me to hop on the scale and see two completely new numbers today.
I’ve had extraordinary success with my current weight lifting routine because it is one I can maintain with regularity. There is no substitute for consistency as it relates to workouts. A few sit-ups, pushups and pull-ups done several times a week invariably beat the most intricate, elaborate exercise program done on and off. A slow and steady climb like the one you take to the top of a roller coaster is the aim. If you start and stop with your programs, the big scary drop is inevitable.
I’ve always loved the feeling of having weights in my hands. Something about the way the metal starts cold and warms up as you train just does it for me. From my teenage years on, more days of lifting was merrier. I split up my routines and broke them into muscle groups in an effort to spend more days in the gym.
During this time, my routine would be broken down to one muscle group a day. Chest on Mondays, back on Tuesdays, legs on Wednesdays, etc.; you feel me, the classic bodybuilder workout. The theory here is that you break each muscle down individually through isolation.
I certainly had my share of success with this routine, but it was due to my consistency, not my efficiency. I was spending 11 hours in the gym a week, but I was working harder, not necessarily smarter.
Now, I spend 4 hours a week getting after it (a little over an hour, three times a week.) Instead of isolating specific muscle groups, I focus on compound lifts that work several muscle groups at a time. I fill those extra hours reading a good book or sharing a meal with my loved ones instead.
Here’s my routine. The moves are completed with as much weight as I can handle safely. Each exercise is linked to a video to help you learn proper form. If you’re just starting, try these with just the weight of the bar and slowly increase the weight over time.
Monday
Warm up
Squats
Overhead presses
Deadlifts
Wednesday
Warm up
Squats
Bench presses
Bent over rows
Friday
Warm up
Squats
Overhead presses
Deadlifts
I love weighted pull-ups as an alternative to the bent over rows. They give me a nice change of pace from time to time while still involving multiple muscle groups with one exercise.
I alternate from week to week performing these lifts, so the following week will see me doing one day of deadlifts and two days of bench presses and bent over rows.
Research has suggested that 4-6 repetitions of 4-6 sets, increasing weight on each successive set, resulted in the largest gains as the weeks and months pass. I do five sets of five repetitions each, building up to my working weight.
Here’s a great link to discover more detail about the virtues of implementing the 5×5 workout.
Strength often, though not always, correlates with muscle. In order to handle a larger, heavier load, our bodies develop more solid mass.
For me, a side benefit was getting leaner as I executed this training regimen. Whether or not this will be your end result will be highly dependent on the work you put into your nutrition program. I’m a big believer that changing body composition is more dependent on the food we ingest than our workouts.
I’ll hold back from guarantees but dare you to try this workout for a month and not come out on the other side stronger and with a significantly higher level of confidence. You know where to find me – let me know how you’re progressing.
Salmon is one of my favorite proteins. When a recent trip to the grocery store yielded more options than I was expecting, I had to do a taste test.
If you remember my salmon recipe from earlier this year, you know one option you should never choose. Always purchase wild-caught salmon, please. If fish is brought to adulthood or even swims through a farm, don’t eat it.
In addition to the plain weirdness of the idea of fish raised anywhere but in the open water, many farms use jam-packed pens where the slimy beings are easily infected with lice, often receive unnecessary and excessive antibiotics and spread disease to wild fish. Alaska has banned salmon farms in part for this reason. Bottom line, fish born and bred in their natural habitat are healthier, more delicious and nutritious for us land folk. As a general rule, choose wild caught.
Now that we have that out of the way, we can move on to the interesting stuff. The other day, I waltzed into my local supermarket (no name recognition by design) and into the seafood section to select a pound of salmon for my lunch and a few subsequent meals. I’m no salmon rookie, but I’m not a connoisseur either. When I had to make a selection between the “King” and “Sockeye” varieties, I didn’t want to do it based on price alone (the King was nearly twice as costly). I figured a conversation with the fishmonger (I use this term loosely) was in order. He turned out to be quite knowledgeable and explained some of the differences.
He told me that the salmon season generally opens with King and that these bad boys are huge (as the name implies).
“These guys run between 11-18 pounds, typically,” he said.
He mentioned when cooked well, King salmon have a buttery flavor and texture. The fishmonger then closed with a word of advice. “It’s a short and limited season so pick up your King when you can.”
Okay, I grabbed a half pound and felt confident in my selection. On to the Sockeye.
“The Sockeye is more abundant and we scoop most of this type of salmon from Alaskan waters where they are managed in a sustainable fashion.”
He doesn’t know me or my preferences, but he just nailed the sales pitch. He continued.
“Most people prefer the taste of King, but I like Sockeye for it’s smoky, flavorful flesh.”
I absolutely noticed the color difference and could almost see the smoke he spoke of. It was brighter and reddish-orangeish versus the subdued pink of the King.
“The Sockeye is more plentiful.”
After some quick research, I found that the yearly harvest on the Copper River in Alaska alone is over 1 million.
Got it. A half pound of the SES and I was on my way. Thanks, fish guy.
“This couldn’t be simpler,” I thought. I’ll just go home, season them in the exact same fashion (sea salt, freshly ground pepper, lemon and paprika) and throw them on the grill, side by side. I did precisely that and performed a quick eyeball and texture test to see if they needed more cooking.
To check the doneness, I gently press the filets with a wooden spoon. I’m looking for just a little resistance. If I have to press hard, it means I’ve gone too far. Not enough resistance and another minute or two on the grill is needed.
My SES was perfectly grilled. The King was a little thicker and naturally needed a bit more time on the heat.
After some resting time and the confidence that both were cooked well, I dove in.
The SES had a dense, steak like texture yet flaked perfectly. I could taste the rich smoky flavor that fish guy mentioned. The King was pure butter. It was much softer and creamier, but without the intense pop of the SES.
I loved them both, but if I had to choose, I’d go with the SES. I’ll always err on the side of richness over subtlety. You can’t go wrong with either, though.
Which side are you on? Straight smoke or pretty in pink?
Cardiovascular training is not the easiest path to achieve your leanest, firmest physique. One of the best fitness decisions I ever made was to stop doing cardio.
There was a point in 2007 when I was pounding the pavement for many miles weekly. Throwing on a hoodie and headphones and getting lost in a long run is pure freedom for me. I embrace the trance, the intense sweat and, of course, the endorphin release. My dad ran a few marathons; I fight the urge to do the same.
Personal trainer Mike Donavanik, C.S.C.S., C.P.T.:
Minute per minute, cardio indisputably burns more calories than strength training, which could explain why compared to strength trainers, aerobic exercisers lose more weight in less time, according to a recent Duke University study.
I wasn’t trying to lose weight when I was doing the running and biking. If you’ve been following this blog you know where I stand on the scale.
I enjoyed the workout and the ability to run anywhere, but the most noticeable body change was a loss of muscle mass. My body wasn’t recovering as well and I felt stiffer the day after long runs than with my current program of weight training sessions with adequate rest.
To test if another form of cardio would have a more palatable end result, I spent a year doing long uphill climbs on a mountain bike. It was quite effective in giving me a sweat drenching and a cool buzz, but I lost more mass.
To this day, I’ve been unable to put back on the muscle I had prior to experimenting with cardiovascular training.
Donavanik continues:
Still, cardio doesn’t do much for your muscles. Case in point: In one Penn State study, dieters lost 21 pounds whether they performed cardio or strength training. But for the cardio group, six of those pounds came from muscle, while the lifters lost almost pure fat—and probably fit into their skinny jeans better because of it.
When I backed off the cardio and refocused on strength training, the muscle definition came back. While I haven’t added the mass back, I might be equipped to if I decided to add ample calories to go along with my workouts.
Training with heavy weights is the key to the tone and density desired by most in the fitness community. You may not lose weight as quickly, but you’ll be more likely to stay lean.
“Strength training is the number-one way to build more muscle. And for every three pounds of muscle you gain, you can expect to burn an extra 120 calories a day without moving a single one of those muscles,” says Donavanik.
In place of cardio, I run sprints. In doing so, I’m more likely to maintain lean muscle, gain or maintain my speed and burn more fat.
Fitday.com:
Sprinting, unlike mild jogging or using elliptical machinery, releases and increases certain enzymes and natural factors within each cell that greatly enforces the oxidation of fats in the body. Blood glucose levels work in a controlled manner through sprinting, which serves as another fat burning promoter. Too much or too little glucose causes insulin level fluctuations, which trigger either fat storage or fat burning. Sprinting provides the body with a higher tolerance to the consumption of starchy and sugary carbohydrates, since more energy becomes used by muscles rather than stored as fat.
Everybody has different training goals. If your goal is simply to exercise your heart, by all means, go for a jog. If you want to feel strong, be lean, and keep or add muscle, you had better find your way to a weight pile.
enough resistance and another minute or two on the grill is needed.