Flux Capacitor Friday (3/4/10)
What to hear something original? I am going to do a random thoughts post on a Friday. Can you believe it? Now hold on to your butts while we light this candle.
1. Here are a few sites you should be checking out on a regular basis. They have tons of great content and some even have a little humor as well to brighten your day.
- Mike Boyle’s Blog (Mike is always reading new stuff and writing about it. He just had a great post about goals recently, I recommend you check it out if you have a hard time with completing tasks and reaching your potential.
- LeighPeele.com (Since Leigh and I are sleeping together I guess I should give her a plug as well. Her recent post on body fat was pretty bad ass. Check it out)
- RobertsonTrainingSystem.com (Another Mike. He had a great post on Young Coaches the other day. A must read for anyone who wants to get into this industry. I kept my mouth shut for about 4 years while learning from the best and brightest in the industry before I was even able to have my own opinions and not just steal from others.)
Yeah, I left some people out, that is just what caught my eye this week.
2. Get Your Sh*T Together and Have a Plan
Do you have a plan? We only have a few months left until beach season, are you 8 weeks to being beach ready? No? Then write out a gameplan and stick to it. Don’t want to do that? Let someone else do it like with Leigh Peele’s Body By Eats or Bodyfat Troubleshoot. You can even drop $15 on a book that will get your ass into gear. Check out Tom Venuto’s “The Body Fat Solution” if you want to go the Amazon route.
3. Laugh Your Ass Off Sometimes
I think that we work TOO HARD sometimes and never take a second and relax. That is why I am going to post the following video for your enjoyment:
I laugh every…single…time.
4. Bioshock 2 is Fantastic
Yep, I am talking about a video game. When I have a few spare hours on the weekend I like to get in some gaming. To be honest I am just as passionate about video games as I am about the fitness and nutrition world. Does that make me a nerd? Yeah, sure. But I am sure some of you are just as into fishing, or gardening, or American Idol, or cars. I like video games and the video game industry.
This week I want to talk about Bioshock 2, the follow up to one of the best games (if not the best) of 2007. The sequel is not being made by the original developers (2K Boston/Irrational Games), but instead 2K Marin. This was cause for concern when gamers first heard about this, especially when the first game seemed like it didn’t need a follow up. I consider myself an ADD gamer and can only play for 30-60 minutes at a time before checking e-mail or watching a movie instead, but I was hooked! It took just about 9 or 10 hours to finish. Bioshock 2 delivered in every way including the story, the gameplay, and the fantastic soundtrack. If you were a fan of the first I highly recommend you check this one out. Next week I will talk about my favorite dead console, the Sega Dreamcast…
That is all for this week! Thanks for stopping by and checking out the random Friday content!
Random Tips of the Week: Desk Jobs and Fat Loss Methods
Sometimes I have some cool things to talk about, but they wouldn’t justify a whole blog post. That is where the random tips posts come in. I am not going to go too in depth on these, just some thoughts on diet, nutrition, training, and rehab.
1. If You Work a Desk Job, Do 2:1 Pull to Press.
This one should be pretty obvious. A large majority of people today have desk jobs, and for the guys, still tend to do too much horizontal pressing. You know the whole “Bench Monday” thing? And this is not just a postural thing. Many people wonder why their bench never goes up while their back and lats are proportionally weak compared to their chest. So, maybe do your barbell bench in the beginning, but throw in two row variations later on in the workout. Push ups are great too as it promotes scapular retraction and you can do some many progressions (coming up on Monday I will have an article on it). You can even super set the BB bench with a 1-arm DB row or a facepull. BONUS: A little thoracic mobility work wouldn’t hurt either.
2. Fat Loss: Train More to Eat More? Or Train Less, But Eat Less?
I don’t think we discuss this subject enough. Yeah, you have heard that, “you can’t out train a bad diet” a thousand times, but what about what is optimal for fat loss? A program where you are lifting 3-4 days a week with high intensity interval training along with a calorie deficit around 3500 cals/week? What about a 3-day full body program with some steady state walking on off days and a 7,000-8,000 Calorie deficit? Would we be able to retain most if not all of our muscle mass?
Do we have the answer? Has it been researched? Personally, I think it depends:
- How quickly do you want to lose weight?
- How important is it to train at a high intensity when it comes to your enjoyment?
- How much time do you have to dedicate to training each week?
- What have you done in the past and has it worked?
It is just a case of different strokes for different folks. Both will work if you have the calories, workout nutrition, macronutrient partitioning, and training down. Does one work better all things equal? In my experience with clients and personally, I would go with the lower calories, 3 day lift, and some steady state work on off days if they have their nutrition locked in. BUT!!! Remember, it does depend on their goals. I am just talking about looking good naked. Not deadlifting 400 pounds, or doing 40 pull ups, or having a 30 inch vert, or the ability to run a 6-minute mile.
Some of my clients just don’t want to eat protein at every meal and count calories. For them I take a little harder approach with the lifting and conditioning because I know they are fueling themselves to recover from it. For some of my male clients at least I can promise that they will put some muscle mass on and drop some bodyfat, it is just going to be a little slower.
I understand that everyone has their own different training and body composition philosophies. There is more than one ways to skin a cat, I guess I think we need to evaluate our clients and ourselves to determine which method will garner the best results.
My New Hotness: Good Earth Tea
I Love this tea. Seriously, I sleep with a box in my arms every single night, excited that in 6 or 7 hours I will get to drink it’s sweet and spicy, energy injecting goodness. I have never had a better tasting tea in my life. Green tea? I can live without it. Black tea is my new hotness…literally… Specifically Good Earth Original.
Brian St. Pierre actually turned me onto this stuff when I was visiting Cressey Performance a while back. When I smelled it I immediately asked what kind of tea it was. Brian went into the trash and got the wrapper for me so I could track the tea down and try it myself. He said that he bought his from Whole Foods, unfortunately, there isn’t a whole foods near my house so I tried four separate stores before ordering mine off Amazon.com. Amazon has a 6 box pack for under $20. Whole Foods sells the tea for $4/box. A pretty nice savings if I do say so myself. It is even cheaper if you subscribe (I have for 1 case/month).
Each serving is 3 calories and has about 50mg of caffeine. If you want to replace that morning cup of coffee with something different this would be a great alternative. Black tea has been shown to work as an anti-inflammatory in some studies as well . No sweetener is needed, trust me! Black tea is jam packed with antioxidants as well, like it’s green brother.
Good Earth also has a Caffeine Free version which tastes just as good. I am drinking a cup right now at 8:30pm. I really love this stuff. And please don’t stress out about 3 freakin’ calories.
Buy some, you won’t regret it.
