NutritionTrainer

Aerobic Training

Not a big fan of Aerobic training.  Here is what I mean Aerobic training.  Cardio, long distance training, Long distance cycling etc…  Having seen hundreds of stressed people in my career I can say without a doubt that your body can tell the difference between Chemical stress, physical stress, mental stress, spiritual stress, etc…  All your body knows is that you are stressed.  The response is the same for all stress.  You will release cortisol and stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight system.  Well I do cardio so I can lose fat.  Really???  Lets analyze that: the following is a calculation that was done in a NSCA journal. 

 

Calories burned for 1 mile run @ 6 Miles per hour = Approximately 300 kcal/mile

Calories in one pound of fat = 4082kcal

If we take these 2 things into account we can easily calculate how many miles it would take to burn 1 lbs of fat.  Hear is the kicker, out of the 300 kcal/mile, not all of them are from fat calories.  About 10-15% is from fat.  But for the sake of this article lets round that number to 20%.  So out of the 300kcal you’ll burn about 60 kcal from fat. Lets calculate: 60kcal (fat)/mile / 4082kcal/lbs of fat = 68.03 miles for 1 pound of fat loss. 

 

My question is this, who the hell wants to run 68 miles to lose a pound of fat per week?

So, are we really exercising more efficient or are we doing what everyone else is doing and hoping that some day it will work?  I also hear this, I run 45 minutes to an hour a day for my heart.  Really?? After about 3 weeks of intensive cardiovascular exercise your cardio enzymes are at their optimal.  That means you can triple the amount of miles you run and your enzymes will still be at their max.  There is a point that your body become optimal at its efficiency, then it can’t do anymore.  What most people don’t take into account is that the body chemistry has more to do with cardio health than the exercise you can do.  What I mean is that if you’re doing intensive cardio for more than 30 minutes, you're doing if for some other reason than cardiovascular health.  Can it be done a different way?  Yes!  Just buy my book for $29.95 and it tells you what to do.  Just kidding I don’t have a book.  Yes, you can do more weight training with little or no rest.  The biggest difference being that you will stimulate your anabolic (tissue Building) hormones, and not beat down your body with all that cortisol. 

We are sprinters by nature.  We were hunter-gatherers, we didn’t chase a rabbit 26.2 miles until it died from exhaustion, we sprinted until we caught something or we didn’t eat.  That is still engrained in us today but we train the exact opposite of how we lived for the last 3000+ years. 

What should I do??  If your not sleeping to well you probably have an over exaggerated stress response.  You need to slow down and work in, instead of work out, a little bit. Try doing 15-20 minutes at a higher intensity for a few weeks and see if it makes a difference.  I don’t mean 15 -20 minutes on the bike and then an hour of weights, then 10 minutes of abs training and then you go get a sugary drink from the café.  15 to 20 minutes all out and then you are done.  You’re more likely to get a heart attack from eating like crap then not doing enough cardio training.  

 

Born to Run

This is a guy who is going against conventional wisdom and actually using the body how it's supposed to be used.  He is a runner who runs barefoot.  before you watch this you have to understand that there is not a single study done that says running shoes of any sort diminish or prevent any running injuries.  It's actually the opposite, In some cases the shoes actually cause the injuries.  Watch and enjoy. 

How to create a quality exercise program

This is an article done by a good friend of mine "Todd Stebleton".  I'm plagiarizing it from his website because I think it was brilliantly written and why reinvent the wheel.   His blog address is http://toddstebleton.wordpress.com,  Enjoy, and thanks Todd.  

Millions of programs out there….where to begin? Most people are wrapped up in details and miss the basics. When it comes to exercise, they make the little things the big things, and the big things the little things. Sounds like a bad marriage, doesn’t it?

In terms of priority:

1. Know your outcome. What is your desired goal? How specifically can you create it?

2. Learn to walk before you run. Here is a heirarchy of body function that will create positive changes fast and limit injuries.

a. Flexibility b. Stability c. Strength d. Power

Most people fault greatly on step two. You cannot have good stability (joint function, physical/athletic function, injury prevention) without proper flexibility. Additionally, you cannot have proper strength without proper stability. Get the point? This is why so many “athletes” are good in the weight room, but weak on the field. Think of a lineman in football. Yes, it’s important they have strong chest muscles. But how does increasing weight in a bench press help on a football field? The research shows that it doesn’t! Tell any high school or Division III football coach this and they’d laugh at you because their paradigm in still stuck in the 80s. Quite frankly, I’m tired of seeing low quality trainers working with athletes.

OK, so now you understand the heirarchy. Now, onto the program design.

3. Once you know your flexibility limitations and stability limitations, you can begin to fix them.Choose the right exercises. Once you get a proper and thorough fitness/function assessment, you’ll know what to stretch and what to strengthen.

4. Next, master your frequency. There is no reason to learn the right exercises if you only do them once a month.

5. Understand how long you should exercise. If you aren’t very fit, don’t overdo exercise with a 60 minute spin class. You might be able to mentally push through it, which has some psychological benefit, but physically you’ll create more acid than your body can deal with and thus, slow your metabolism, increase joint dysfunction, and generally disrupt homeostasis.

6. My Dad always said, “If you’re gonna do it, do it right.” Learn the proper technique and zealously seek to do every repetition of every exercise correctly.

Check Points for Spring

Here are some checkpoints for the sprint to make sure you have a healthy and happy spring and so you look good for summer. 

 

·      Sleep: Make sure you get at least 8-9 quality hours of sleep (you won’t lose fat if you don’t)

·      Hydration: 10 billion reactions per second going on in your body that are water dependent.  Drink ½ your body weigh in ounces per day, everyday.

·      Nutrition: Make sure your getting enough fat and protein in your diet.  Don’t be afraid of the fat, it’s good for you. 

·      Breathing: make sure your breathing from your diaphragm and not our chest; you’ll sleep a lot better if you practice diaphragmatic breathing. 

·      Movement:  You need to move everyday.  Working in and working out are different so make sure your doing the right exercise for you.  Walking is just as good as running.

·      Stinkin-thinkin:  If your thoughts are toxic your body will be toxic, so take heed. 

 

You can’t have a healthy mind without a healthy body and you can’t have an unhealthy mind with a healthy body.  They are one in the same so treat your body great and your mind will love it.  

Aerobic Training

I'm not a big fan of aerobic training.  Here is what I mean by aerobic training: cardio, long distance training, long distance cycling, etc.  Having seen hundreds of stressed people in my career, I can say without a doubt that your body can’t tell the difference between chemical stress, physical stress, mental stress, spiritual stress, etc.  All your body knows is that you are stressed. 

The response is the same for all stress.  You will release cortisol and stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight system.  Well, I do cardio so I can lose fat.  Really?  Let’s analyze that – the following is a calculation that was done in an NSCA journal. 

Calories burned for a 1 mile run @ 6 miles per hour = approximately 300 kcal/mile

Calories in one pound of fat = 4082 kcal

If we take these 2 things into account, we can easily calculate how many miles it would take to burn 1 pound of fat.  Here is the kicker, out of the 300 kcal/mile, not all of them are from fat calories.  About 10-15% is from fat.  But for the sake of this article, let’s round that number to 20%.  So out of the 300 kcal, you’ll burn about 60 kcal from fat.

Let’s calculate: 4082 kcal per pound of fat / 60 kcal of fat per mile = 68.03 miles for 1 pound of fat loss. 

My question is this, who the hell wants to run 68 miles to lose a pound of fat per week?

So, are we really exercising more efficiently or are we doing what everyone else is doing and hoping that someday it will work? 

I also hear this, I run 45 minutes to an hour a day for my heart.  Really?  After about 3 weeks of intensive cardiovascular exercise your cardio enzymes are at their optimum.  That means you can triple the amount of miles you run and your enzymes will still be at their max.  

There is a point that your body becomes optimal at its efficiency, when it can’t do anymore.  What most people don’t take into account is that the body chemistry has more to do with cardio health than the exercise you can do.  What I mean is that if you’re doing intensive cardio for more than 30 minutes, you’re doing if for some other reason than cardiovascular health. 

Can it be done a different way?  Yes!  Just buy my book for $29.95 and it tells you what to do.  Just kidding I don’t have a book.  Yes, you can do more weight training with little or no rest.  The biggest difference being that you will stimulate your anabolic (tissue building) hormones and not beat down your body with all that cortisol.

We are sprinters by nature.  We were hunter-gatherers, we didn’t chase a rabbit 26.2 miles until it died from exhaustion; we sprinted until we caught something or we didn’t eat.  That is still ingrained in us today but we train the exact opposite of how we lived for the last 3000+ years. 

What should I do?  If you’re not sleeping too well, you probably have an over exaggerated stress response.  You need to slow down and work in, instead of work out, a little bit.

Try doing 15-20 minutes at a higher intensity for a few weeks and see if it makes a difference.  I don’t mean 15-20 minutes on the bike, then an hour of weights, then 10 minutes of ab training, and then you go get a sugary drink from the café.  15-20 minutes all out and then you are done.  You’re more likely to get a heart attack from eating like crap than not doing enough cardio training.  

Working In or Working Out

How many of the people that you know still go and workout when they are dead tired?  If you’re one of those people, you need to really listen to what I’m saying when it comes to exercise.  I’m going to talk about energy, vitality, and the difference between working out and working in. 

If you go by the adage that your body never lies, what is your body telling you when you wake up and you’re grumpy and it takes about 45 minutes to feel normal?  What is your body telling you when you're just plain tired all the time?  Is it telling you that everything is fine and you need to work out really hard at the gym because your pants are tight?  Is it telling you that you’re just having an off day and should work out especially hard?

NO!  It’s telling you to pay attention because you’re tired.  We measure vitality by the perception people have about the way they feel and if they have an abundance of energy.  Working out is for people with an abundance of energy or a higher than normal sense of vitality.  Remember that you need to spend energy to get energy. However, when you work out your energy comes later when you body gets to repair from the hard, high intensity workout.   

You have to expend energy to break down muscle, stimulate the hormonal system, etc. When you follow the right principles after a workout (sleep, nutrition, hydration) you should recover stronger than before the initial workout.  Remember that you are always stronger when you are resting, not when you are working out. 

So what happens if you do a hard workout on day 1, then do another on day 2 and 3, take day 4 off, have a hard workout on days 5 and 6, and take day 7 off?  What happens when you continually break the body down and don’t give it what it needs to recover?  You start to over train, and the first signs of over-training are prolonged fatigue and muscle weakness.  That means your performance will actually drop, you will get weaker from working out. 

Remember, to work out you have to expend energy.  If you don’t have any to give, where does it come from - Ripped Fuel, Starbucks?  I joke, but this is the biggest problem I see with people who have exercised for years and have not seen the results they want.  I have no ego or doubt when I say that if you have been working out for the past 2-3 years and don’t have the body you want, there is something else going on.  You are not following the principles that it takes to change the body.  I say this to help people stop spinning their wheels and look into something different. 

Working in is just that, working in.  When you work in you are usually working at a very low intensity and moving very slow.  Anyone who has taken a beginner’s (not advanced) yoga class, a Tai Chi, or Qigong class will notice that you move very slowly and that after a while you can start shaking.  When you move slowly you are moving energy through the body very quickly and the inverse is also true; when you move fast, energy flow can almost stop. 

You want to move energy; you want it to flow to the organs and throughout the body.  Eastern medicine explains the blockage of energy in the body (or Chi) as the cause for disease.  I believe that if we are made of energy that it should flow where it needs to go.  In order to do that you have to move slowly, usually at the  pace of your breathing (inhale/exhale).

For those of you who have done a tai chi class, it’s almost like you get more energy out than you put in.  That’s because that’s exactly what’s going on.  Your fascia has properties like little crystals; when you move slowly, those crystals vibrate and produce electrical energy, which in turn can push and pull nutrients in and out of your cells.  It can also increase the parasympathetic nervous system like meditation or relaxation would.  When someone is spending a lot of time in the “fight or flight” stress response, this activity can be very beneficial. The problem is, knowing when to do slow moving exercises.

I would say if you’re an overall stressed person, you need to incorporate them into your weekly exercises.  If you are just a person who has ups and downs, you should do them when you either feel weak or are feeling tired. Some people who get enough rest and follow the right principles for sustained vitality don’t need to do them very often at all. 

You have to learn to know the difference between being tired all the time and just being tired because you stayed up late on a Sunday to watch the Vikings lose a nail biter to New Orleans in the NFC Championship.  I still think they gave that game away.   That means you have to listen more closely to your body.  It will tell you if it is fatigued all the time or just tired from a hard workout.   It will tell you when you are sick and when you are doing great. 

Remember you don’t get energy unless you deserve it.  I ask my clients every time I see them how they are feeling.  If they are tired or if they look really tired, we will switch our entire exercise routine and do zone exercises with some corrective stretching.

Here are examples of 2 that I use a lot.  Try them and see if you notice a difference.

Breathing Squat

Instructions:

Stand in a comfortable stance, arms at your side.

Inhale and then slowly lower into the squat as you are exhaling.

Go as low as you comfortably can, ideally to the full squat position, then inhale as you return to the start.

Breathe through the nose if you can. If you need to, exhale through your mouth.

Move slowly and try to complete 10-100 at a time.

Swiss Ball Crunch

Caution: If you get dizzy when looking overhead i.e. into cupboards overhead or at planes flying by, you may move a little forward on the ball to perform this exercise. Stop immediately if you feel dizzy. This indicates a decrease in blood supply to your brain and can be a sign of vertebral artery occlusion. Consult your medical professional or C.H.E.K practitioner.

Instructions:

Lie over a Swiss ball so your back is comfortably supported, your head should be extended and touching the ball.

With your tongue on the roof of your mouth, slowly roll – imagine rolling from your head to your spine.

Unwind slowly from the hips to your head one vertebrae at a time back to the start position.

Exhale on the way up, inhale on the way down.