Monday, November 23, 2009

Thanksgiving- some thoughts to chew on

The more fat a meat has, the better natural flavoring it has, right? That is why deer meat needs a lot of seasoning and can be pretty tough most of the time... it is a very lean meat.




Where am I going with this? If some ridiculously diesel cannibal overpowered me and cooked me, I would want to be the toughest, most-meaty meal he/she ever had. I wouldn't want to be a squishy, enjoyable dinner. I would want him/her to have to use all kinds of ketchup, seasoning, and milk to get me down.



On what I am eating for Turkey day:

I am going to focus on meat and veggies... I can get all of those carbs every other day. If you eat a ton of carbs AND desert, well, any gains you made the last couple weeks you just flushed out with your mass overeating. I am not going to quote a study, but I guarrantee people eat more when they are around other people overeating... large family dinner anyone?

Enjoy yourself, but don't hate yourself the next day.

Make time to workout, even if it is a bunch of sprints early one morning before a shower, do something. Don't use a holiday weekend as an excuse to be another sedentary American.

Today's workout:

incline bench press

flat cable flies

DB shoulder press

straight arm front raises SS with cable lateral raises

dips, pushups, and pushdowns

I'll let you know weights, sets, and reps afterwards

Chew on that

Friday, November 20, 2009

New Energy Drink?

As I was dirnking my Rip It energy drink last night before working, my buddy pulled up this energy drink spoof video... hilarious



Have a good weekend

Thursday, November 19, 2009

STTB.com thanks

Thanks to Scott Bird and every one that came out to talk squat on last night's twitter chat. You can find a recap here. Check out the forums at http://www.straighttothebar.com/ , there are tons of videos, articles, and topics that you can learn from and comment about.

My workout today:
warm up
DB shoulder press
*only set standing 65's x 10
90's x 6
95's 2x6

superset 1
lateral cable raise 40 2x12 50 3x 12 60 2x6
straight bar front raise 80 6x8

superset 2
face pulls 140 2x12 130 2x12
rope tricep pushdown (easy on cable) 120 4x12

superset 3
bodyweight dips 3x12
straight bar pushdowns 75 3x12

let me know what you did today in the comments, be easy...
enjoy the weekend.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Realizing you aren't where you think you are...

I had a true confession by a client yesterday. She said that weighing her in last week was one of the best things we have done recently... and not because she saw some super low number. She was motivated by the number because it wasn't where she thought she should be.

To give you a quick background on this particular doc, she met with me last fall and spring semester and got down to 132lbs for a vacation trip she was taking. She was very pleased with how she looked, felt, and how her clothes fit. Between my transition to a full-time job from full-time grad student she worked with another trainer this past summer. She also got into a rut of poor eating habits and a skewed view of her actual weight, mostly from never weighing in.

I wanted her at a certain weight that I know is possible since it is just three pounds less than the previous weight we got her to in the spring. She was squeemish about weighing in. The entire previous month she had gone on trips on weekends and would come to me Monday morning with so-so nutrition stories so I pushed for it and got her on the scale. She was 8 pounds heavier than she had perceived herself to weigh.

At first there was disbelief.
"Is that scale right?" Yes, I calibrated it this summer.

"I don't feel like (insert weight here)." But then came true motivation: Knowing exactly where you are so you can properly go to where you wish to go. She told me after that weekend that she was very strict with her diet and cardio and even thoughing weighing in for her "sucked," as she put it, it was a true marker of exactly where she is.

Now, I am also not for obsessive scale stalking, because weight it just a number in a lot of cases. I would never recommend some one to weigh in more than one every two weeks. You need to stay focused, eat right, be held accountable, and train hard. Everything else will fall into place and you will be knocked out of any rut that you might have fallen into.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Randomness Updates

Some updates to read while you listen to this song:





  1. Congrats to Luke Beggs on his second place finish in the novice middleweight class at the kentucky muscle extravangaza this past Saturday in Louisville. He looked freaky lean to say the least
  2. Congrats to his little brother, Jake Beggs, who got his second first place finish in a month in the teen division. (Freak in the middle).

All of the guys that have competed recently are now in the off-season so I am looking forward to seeing their ridiculous strength gains.

3. I am going to be the guest speaker on Scott Bird's twitter chat this week. We are going to focus on "Fixing your Squat," check out more details at http://twurl.nl/1p4y18 and also check out Scott's website http://www.straighttothebar.com/ , there are a ton of forums and articles to read up on. If you are on twitter, my name is StayKYStrong and you can include #sbgym in your tweets to participate.

4. I am going to do an experiment for the first two weeks of December... We have a weighted vest here... weighs about 40lbs... and I am going to wear it for two weeks straight, any wear I go, aside from the shower and sleep. This will automatically make my bodyweight 260ish pounds and will constantly load my body, hopefully causing hypertrophy.

I got the idea from the avian muscle study that hypothesized hyperplasia of skeletal muscle(growth of muscle fibers) is possible. For those unfamiliar, in this study researchers strapped weight on one of a bird's wings for consecutive weeks and then examined muscle fiber number afterwards. Now there are obvious red flags in that the aformentioned study:

-They examined avian muscle, which is different than human muscle

- the reserachers killed the bird and counted muscle fiber number and compared it to the other wing. I will not be commiting suicide after the two weeks in which I wear the vest.

-There will be no way to prove hyperplasia with this, but I will be taking bodyweight, circumference measurements, and body fat percent measurements before and after. I will also have another gym employee participating in the two weeks prior to see his results. This is what I think of when I am bored.

I will definitely tell you all about any and all results.

Let me know any comments in the the comment section, talk at ya later.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Exercises I don't like... Vol 1

I am going to try to have one of these a month and am open to any suggestions of exercises at any time. I have told my personal training staff that if they ever read, see, hear about, or make up in their mind a "new" exercise, we can go over it and I would tell them if I thought it was worth anything or not. I will be watching for and going over exercises that I don't like and my reasons... rarely will I ever not like an exercise without any reason whatsoever... take from it what you want.

Behind the Neck Shoulder Press (BNSP)
This exercise is pretty popular in bodybuilding pics and magazines. You almost always see a huge guy with all kinds of vascularity in his shoulders pushing heavy weight from behind his neck to above his head. I realize these guys have diesel shoulders that make doorways always look too narrow.
BUT if you want to build up your shoulders, you need to focus on barbell shoulder press (in front of your face), dumbell shoulder press, straight arms raises, arnold press, and hit your other pressing movements, like those that involve your chest, hard. I am against BNSP because it is not a natural range of motion for the body to bring heavy weight behind the head while not keeping a neutral spine (i.e. ducking your head).

For beginners that have a low sense of proprioception (knowing what position your body is in without having to look and see it), moving a loaded barbell behind their head adds a huge risk to having them drill their cervical spine with the bar. Even with an experienced lifter, if you are pushing with all you have and miss a barbell shoulder press in front of your face (assuming your spotter blows), you can bring it down to your chest or rest it on your anterior delts like a front squat. If you miss a rep on BNSP and your spotter blows you aren't going to be able to sit far enough up fast enough to let it land on your traps like a back squat... the weight it going to hit your neck!

There are a ton of other shoulder exercises to hit that will give you the same gerthiness (said like EARTH-iness but with a GUH) and turn those shoulders into boulders without the risk of injury to your spine. Let me know what you think in the comments and go get huge(r).

Monday, November 9, 2009

There are times to ask questions, and times to SHUT UP AND TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the fitness/health and wellness field you constantly have to stay aware because there is all kinds of research going on. I consistently read at least 10 blogs daily and follow their important links to others. I check articles through twitter, check out new video ideas on youtube, email knowledgeable people with questions.... sometimes I get answers and sometimes i just ask someone else.

I never want to be a fitness professional left in the dark or has to say, "oh, I don't kow about that" very often.

I have a staff member that asks a lot of questions about lifting, technique, methods, everything... and I love it that my mind can constantly be tested. I also try not to waste time with a onslaught of compliments and try to get straight to the point with any one I talk to... people are busy.

there are also time to crank up the ipod and move weight around. So what, you were going for 6 reps, if it is your last set go until you can't anymore. You need that animal mentality to destroy something.

As I finish my day I know that I literally attacked my lift today. Those blocks of weight, round or rectangular, test me to my limit. It is the best love-hate relationship to have. You hate the weight until you can't move it any more and then you love the weight for making you stronger.
 
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