What Are Tabata Sprints? | Mark's Daily Apple

What Are Tabata Sprints? | Mark's Daily Apple

As you probably already know, we’re big on sprinting around here for a number of reasons. First of all, sprints most closely emulate the type of activity Grok would have performed. You know – slowly stalking and hunting an animal for hours at a time (the constant, steady movement I prescribe) only to erupt with an intense burst of speed for the final kill (the sprint). Then he’d have to lug the thing back to camp (deadlifts, squats, and other high-intensity weight bearing training). Sprints are great because they are exactly the type of movement that man has been making for hundreds of thousands of years. Why mess with a good thing? Second, modern science has confirmed that Grok’s mode of exercise is actually the most efficient and effective. The chronic cardio crowd still has plenty of sway (as evidenced by the post-New-Year’s-eve legions of overweight joggers shambling down the streets with pained looks on their faces), but it’s getting difficult to ignore facts. We now know that...

Continue reading here.

The Forgotten Variable in the Work-Life Balance Equation: You

Are you suffering from work-life balance issues? Has your job overtaken your life? Do you find yourself working evenings, perhaps even weekends, to keep your head above the water at work? Are you struggling to find quality time with your family and friends?

If so, the challenge may not be the job or balance as much as knowing what quality really means to you: what matters, why it matters, and what your role is in producing what you truly seek.

As someone who consults regularly to organizations large and small, I can readily see the challenges you may be facing as you try to keep the job going while still maintaining a healthy personal or family life. However, the work-life balance question is one that has at least two faces to it, one obvious, the other not so obvious. Continue reading here.

Should You Eat like a Caveman?

By Jennifer Pinkowski

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2044343,00.html#ixzz1FMXen169

 Most New Year's resolutions have an awfully short shelf life. By the end of January, folks who swore they would lose weight and shape up may already be back on the Krispy Kremes. But that's not entirely our fault, claims Arthur De Vany, a former economics professor at the University of California, Irvine. In his new book, The New Evolution Diet, De Vany argues if we really want to get fit, we should follow the lead of our ancient ancestors, Paleolithic humans who lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers some 40,000 years ago.

For more than 25 years, De Vany has been an advocate of what he calls "evolutionary fitness": a regimen of low-carb eating and interval- or cross-training workouts (with periodic fasting) aimed at controlling insulin. But he has also become the grandfather of the growing Paleo movement, a health philosophy built around the belief that modern life — dating from the advent of agriculture 10,000 years ago — is simply alien to our genes.......

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2044343,00.html#ixzz1FMXuqdDX

Don't Just Sit There! --How bathroom posture affects your health.

Don't Just Sit There!
How bathroom posture affects your health.
By Daniel Lametti
Posted Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010, at 10:17 AM ET

Shortly before Christmas in 1978, the leader of the free world came down with a severe case of hemor! rhoids. The pain was so bad that President Carter had to take a day of f from work. A few weeks later, Time Magazine asked a proctologist named Michael Freilich to explain the president's ailment. "We were not meant to sit on toilets," he said, "we were meant to squat in the field." He's probably right.
Michael Freilich isn't the first doctor to suggest that sitting on toilets—a recent phenomenon, stemming from the invention of the flush toilet in 1591—might be unhealthy. By the 1960s and '70s, the idea was relatively commonplace. Architect Alexander Kira argued in his 1966 book The Bathroom that human physiology is better suited to the squat. According to Bockus's Gastroenterology, a standard medical text from 1964, "the ideal posture for defecation is the squatting position, with the thighs fixed upon the abdomen."
Modern-day squat evangelists make money off the claim that a "more natural" posture wards off all sorts of health problems, from Crohn's disease to colon cancer. Inventor Jonathan Isbit runs a modest online business selling Nature's Platform—a homemade, $150 device that fits over toilets to make them more lik! e holes in the ground.* (He also posted the Bockus quote above to the Wikipedia entry on defecation.) Other entrepreneurs peddle similar products, like the In-Lieu, the Lillipad, the Evaco toilet converter, and, for those who don't like explaining their squat platform to house guests, a $688 Singaporean toilet that lets users switch among different squatting and sitting postures, from the "East Asian squat" to the "aft sit."* (Confused? Watch the video.)
That may sound like a bunch of Internet quackery, but there's now some e! mpirical evidence for the claim that defecation posture affects your body. The more extreme assertions about squatting—that it prevents cancer, for example—remain untested. But when it comes to hemorrhoids—a painful swelling of the veins in the anal canal that affects half of all Americans—new research suggests that you may want to get your butt off the toilet.
Before we dive into the data, let's review the mechanics of going to the bathroom. People can control their defecation, to some extent, by contracting or releasing the anal sphincter. But that muscle can't maintain continence on its own. The body also relies on a bend between the rectum—where feces builds up—and the anus—where feces comes out. When we're standing up, the extent of this bend, called the anorectal angle, is about 90 degrees, which puts upward pressure on the rectum and keeps feces inside. In a squatti! ng posture, the bend straightens out, like a kink ringed out of a gard en hose, and defecation becomes easier.
Proponents of squatting argue that conventional toilets produce an anorectal angle that's ill-suited for defecation. By squatting, they say, we can achieve "complete evacuation" of the colon, ridding our bowels of disease-causing toxins. But there's no reason to think that getting into a squat will make defecation more complete, nor that most people are sickened by their colons. If squatting does provide a health benefit, just as Michael Freilich stated in Time, it comes in the form of hemorrhoid prevention.
Hemorrhoids may be brought on by pregnancy, obesity, and receiving anal sex. But the main cause is straining during bowel movement. Straining increases the pressure in your abdomen, causing the veins that line your anus to swell. In hemorrhoi! d patients, those veins stay swollen and sometimes bleed. In theory, squatting might stave off hemorrhoids by making defecation easier, reducing the need to strain and decreasing abdominal pressure.
An Israeli doctor named Dov Sikirov tested this idea for a 2003 study published in Digestive Diseases and Sciences. He had several dozen patients defecate in each of three positions: sitting on a 16-inch-high toilet, sitting on a 12-inch-high toilet, and squatting over a plastic container. He asked his subjects to record how long each bowel movement took and rate the effort required on a four-point scale ranging from effortless to difficult. Sikirov found that, when squatting, subjects averaged a mere 51 seconds to move their bowels, versus 130 seconds when sitting on a high toilet. And as they moved from a sit to a squat, subjects were more likely to rate the experience as easier! .
Then last year, a group of Japanese doctors extended Sikirov' s findings by looking at what happens inside the body while people squat and sit. For a study published in the medical journal Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms, six subjects had their rectums filled with a contrast solution and then released the fluid from a squatting or a sitting position while being filmed with X-ray video. Image analysis showed that the anorectal angle increased from 100 degrees to 126 degrees as the subjects moved from a sit to a squat. The researchers also recorded abdominal pressure, and found that the subjects were straining less when they squatted.
Of course, it's one thing to show that squatting streamlines defecation and reduces hemorrhoid risk. It's another to actually move your bowels while you squat. But how hard could it be? For most of human history—several hundred thousand years—we've squatted. Today, 1.2 billion people s! quat because they simply don't have a toilet, while many, many more in Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Europe use toilets designed specifically for squatting. And for 28 years—from his junior year at Yale in 1970 to the moment when he completed the first Nature's Platform prototype in 1998—Jonathan Isbit "perched," as he put it, squatting on the rim of toilet seats. So I decided to try it—each morning for a week, following a bowl of corn flakes and a cup of coffee.
Besides tipping over, there's little danger in squatting over a modern sit toilet. Both American Standard and Kohler say that floor-mounted toilets are designed to hold at least 1,000 pounds. (Still, neither company recommends perching.) The American Society for Engineers requires that wall-mounted toilets hold 500 pounds. But squatting on your toile t seat is not for everybody. Even when I was holding onto a towel rack, the situation felt precarious. A bedpan or a plastic container would have been easier, but I didn't have the former and the latter seemed gross. So I forged ahead, pushing through the week—or, as it turned out, not pushing: Bowel movements just seem to happen in a squat. My 10-minute routine dropped to a minute, two at the most, and within a few days my knees stopped complaining.
Although the week is now over, I'll probably squat again. At the very least, I gained an hour over seven days. It seems doubtful, though, that squatting, even if it helps hemorrhoids, will become the next back-to-nature craze—the new barefoot running shoe or caveman diet. Sit toilets, in the short term at lea! st, are more comfortable than the squat toilets you might find in Europe. In fact, since Jimmy Carter's bout of hemorrhoids sit toilets have actually grown in height, pushing the anorectal angle in the wrong direction. Standard models, 14 inches from floor to rim, now compete with "comfort height" toilets that tower more than 17 inches of the floor. Americans, now fatter than ever, are having trouble standing up from a sit, never mind a squat.
Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.
Correction, Aug. 27, 2010: This article originally misspelled the first name of Jonathan Isbit. (Return to the corrected senten! ce.)
Correction, Sept . 13, 2010: The original sentence described the $688 toilet as being Japanese. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
Daniel Lametti is a scientist and writer who lives in Brooklyn.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2264657/

© 2010 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Is Sugar Toxic?

Is Sugar Toxic?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=1&amp=&pagewanted=all

Sugar: The Bitter Truth<---You Tube video

Please watch this and learn something instead of watching trash tv!

Gorillas Going Green

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo are adjusting gorilla diets in an effort to understand and treat cardiac issues in the animals.

Look what happens when the gorillas are allowed to eat their natural diet! Now if we just can end this low-fat, high carbohydrate experiment in which we are the guinea pigs and get on with a proper omnivorous diet we should end up a lot better for it!

http://hunter-gatherer.com/blog/health-problems-disappear-when-captive-gorillas-fed-wild-diet

Reverse Magazine: Woman Are Wrong About Fat Loss and Fitness

Reverse Magazine: Woman Are Wrong About Fat Loss and Fitness: " The Dirty Dozen Mistakes Women Make The female population has tremendous leverage in the marketplace. Anyone in advertisin..."

Press Release-Highest Rates of Physical Inactivity

 CDC-Reports on Physical Inactivity

 "Areas where residents are most likely to be active in their free time are the West Coast, Colorado, Minnesota and parts of the Northeast."

"States where residents are the least likely to be physically active during leisure time are Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee. In those states, physical inactivity rates are 29.2 percent or greater for more than 70 percent of the counties."

 "Physical activity is crucial to managing diabetes and reducing serious complications of the disease,"


Interactive map: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(you can break it down by state and county to see how your area)

County Level Estimates of Leisure-Time Physical Inactivity — U.S. Maps 

2008 Age-Adjusted Estimates of the Percentage of Adults^† Who Are Physically Inactive

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Diabetes Surveillance System.
Available online at: http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/DDTSTRS/default.aspx. Retrieved 2/18/2011.

"Weightlifting can be helpful for obese kids" and “Hey, That’s Exercise!” (Actually, It Might Not Be.)

In-Your-Face Fitness: Weightlifting can be helpful for obese kids - latimes.com

I love how this article brings weightlifting into the light for obese kids.  It not only benefits obese children, but adults too!  

“Hey, That’s Exercise!” (Actually, It Might Not Be.)

Here is an article that discusses what you may think is exercise, but actually isn't. Yes, moving is something over nothing, but picking up heavy things is just better!

No More Crunches? Abs-olutely! | ThePostGame

No More Crunches? Abs-olutely! | ThePostGame

If you have trained with me, you may have noticed the minimal or zero amount of sit-ups or crunches we do. The bulk of my strength training revolves around spinal bracing using your abs and back to protect the spine from unwanted movement while the greater muscles of the hips are used to produce movement as in squats, lunges, and deadlifts. Even when pressing weight overhead, or doing push up, the spine needs to be braced and rigid.

Of course, maintaining a flexible spine is important. Having a flexible spine will keep you feeling youthful. The combination of strength and flexibility is amazing! Move when you want to move, and brace when you want to or need to brace.

Here is a perfectly healthy isometric hold that demonstrates spinal flexibility and bracing simultaneously.

This is Katie.

This is my pregnant sister, Dana.

Your Heart Health: 13 Numbers Everyone Should Know

Your Heart Health: 13 Numbers Everyone Should Know

16 Cardinal Rules for Snow Shovelling

16 Cardinal Rules for Snow Shovelling

I am a little late to post this, but regardless, take a look at this article.  It seems all pretty common sense, but maybe you didn't know these things about shoveling.


I can't say I agree entirely with this:

6. Maintain proper posture:

A. Use your leg muscles as much as possible - push snow when you can and use your legs to lift when you can't push it.
B. Keep your back straight as you move from the squat position to the upright position.
C. Use your shoulder muscles as much as possible.
D. Hold the snow shovel as close to your upper body as possible.
E. Keep one hand close to the shovel blade for better leverage.
F. Don't twist your upper body as you throw snow.

Mine recommendations is this:

A.  Use your hips and core as much as possible - push snow when you can and keep your core (back and stomach) tight as your use your legs to lift when you can't push it.
B.  Keep your back straight (neutral) as your move from the bent (at hips and knees) position to the upright position.
C.  Use your hips and core as much as possible as these will fatigue much less quickly than your shoulders.
D.  Hold the snow shovel as close to your hips as possible.
E.  Keep one hand in the middle of the stick for better leverage.
F.  Keep your core tight as your pivot your feet as your throw snow.

I came across this.  This is a good example:

150 years of dieting fads and still no quick fix

(Blue Cross Blue Shield) - 150 years of dieting fads and still no quick fix

(http://www.bcbs.com/news/wellness/150-years-of-dieting-fads-and-still-no-quick-fix.html)

8 Amazing Blogger Weight-Loss Transformations

8 Amazing Blogger Weight-Loss Transformations

There is a trend among these people for weight loss.   Diet and Exercise.  Read some of their tips.  Learn from someone who has gone through it all already.

Fructose Turns to Fat Faster Than Any Other Sugar

Fructose Turns to Fat Faster Than Any Other Sugar

The CURE for chronic diseases (diabetes, heart disease, obseity, HBP, HCHO)

If you are at all concerned about diabetes or health in general these videos are for you.


Even if you are not concerned..this is worth your time!  Learn something and share the knowledge.






The 7 keys:
1) Optimize nutrition (minimize sugar, eat more vegetables for fiber and nutrients)
2) Balance your hormones (with optimal nutrition, exercise and low stress)
3) Cool off your inflammation (with optimal nutrition and exercise)
4) Fix your gut (with optimal nutrition and exercise)
5) Enhance detoxification (with optimal nutrition and exercise)
6) Boost your energy metabolism (with optimal nutrition and exercise)
7) Calm your mind (breathe and let go)

5 Factors Behind Exercise Discomfort - Health Key

5 Factors Behind Exercise Discomfort - Health Key

5 Factors Behind Exercise Discomfort

Exercise can be uncomfortable when beginning any new type of training or when getting back in the saddle after a long break.

In last week's column I talked about the discomfort of exercise when starting out and also when competing at the elite level. It's universal; it happens to everyone, and it is not a sign that you are not cut out for exercise. On the contrary, everyone is cut out for exercise. And for the vast expanse of training levels between the two extremes, exercise is a feel-good experience - most of the time.

Even in the middle, however, a little discomfort now and then is not unusual or unexpected. And it's not a sign to quit your fitness program. Instead, I use it as an opportunity to get to know my body better. You can do so as well by breaking down any exercise discomfort you experience into its essential components.

Exercise physiology physician Massimo Testa, M.D., advises athletes to assess exercise discomfort as a combination of five factors:

• Your level of fitness
• The intensity of the exercise
• The degree to which you can tolerate the exercise
• Your motivation to keep exercising
• The degree to which you perceive you are suffering

The first factor comes into play when, say, walking three miles feels hard because it's way beyond your fitness level. The other four factors may all be negligible - the pace is not too intense, you can tolerate exercise well and feel motivated, and sunshine mutes any grumbling - but your newness to fitness alone can spike your feeling of discomfort. Once you are walking five miles at a pop regularly, however, walking three miles won't even register on your discomfort radar. The work your body does to walk three miles won't change, but your improved fitness will shrink your discomfort.

Meanwhile, if you exercise at an intensity that is 70 percent to 80 percent of the greatest intensity you could possibly do, you (or anyone) will be uncomfortable starting out. After you're experienced training at that intensity, though, you won't be uncomfortable with pushing yourself that hard. That's essentially the basis of interval training: You train at a higher intensity in short bursts (say, a few minutes) interspersed with rests (blocks of time at low-intensity) and soon higher-intensity exercise doesn't hurt quite so much, because your muscles and lungs are getting in better shape.

Your brain also gets in better shape, creating a greater tolerance for exercise. As it learns to manage greater fatigue, your brain will interpret the same signals from your body differently.

Likewise, the signals to your brain (or your interpretation of them) change with your level of motivation. As you exercise, the level of signals coming from your body has a value - a number from 1 to 10, say - but the message from your cerebral cortex modifies that value, given your motivation. A 7 today can feel like a 10 next week if it's raining and you don't want to be out there. Other days, it can feel like a 3, if you're with friends.

This is where the chatter going on in your cerebral cortex is cardinal to your fitness: It's responsible for telling you how long you want to push yourself, either I can't stand this another second! or I can hold this for another 30 seconds. You can control that chatter - and thus the impact of the motivation variable - very effectively.


( Eric Heiden, M.D., a five-time Olympic gold medalist speed skater, is now an orthopedic surgeon in Utah. He co-authored Faster, Better, Stronger: Your Exercise Bible, for a Leaner, Healthier Body in Just 12 Weeks (HarperCollins) with exercise performance physician Max Testa, M.D., and DeAnne Musolf. www.heidenothopaedics.com)

Copyright © 2010, Tribune Media Services

Omega-3s are incredibly potent anti-inflammatory supplements

Omega-3s are incredibly potent anti-inflammatory supplements

Omega 3 fats are essential fats found naturally in oily fish, with highest concentrations in salmon, herring, mackerel, and sardines.  A body of scientific evidence which suggests that they reduce cardiovascular disease risk, blood pressure, clot formations, and certain types of fat in the blood.

Why am I so damned hungry? Resting Metabolic Rate -by C. Gonzalez

 Here is a great little explanation of your increased hunger with increased strength training, courtesy of C. Gonzalez of CrossFit Hillsboro

As we're all approaching the end of our strength microcycle in our CrossFit classes, many of you by now have got the be thinking "why the hell am I so damed hungry? And how am I supposed to lose weight if I'm eating all of the time?"  Valid points.  let's hope I know what I'm talking about......


All of you have heard of the crazy buzz word "Metabolism" (MB).   What is the metabolism though and what does it mean when people have a "high or low" metabolism?  MB is the combination of two reactions  in your body: 1) The break down of food to store as fuel and; 2) The use of that same stored energy to use as fuel.  Without getting into the details of what affects the MB, like thyroid, hypothalamus, food intake, etc, I'll try to keep this as straight forward as possible.


Strength training places huge metabolic demands on the entire body like the muscles, bones, connective tissues, cardiovascular system, etc.  When the body is under the stress of external loads when weight training, it's screaming at you (louder than I do)  saying, "What the hell are you doing to me!"  Well, those screaming mus-kles are going to need quite a bit of energy to repair themselves.  If you were to look at those same mus-kles during a WOD, it would look literally like a war-zone with oozing, tearing, seeping & building going on.  Those cells need a load of energy & oxygen to repair themselves, but where do they get that energy from?   Like the plant in Little Shoppe of Horror man eating plant says, "FEED ME!"

For the body to build and repair the damaged tissues, it's first going to require lots of oxygen to keep the fire burning (a fire needs oxygen to burn, right?).  When your body is in the state of rebuilding itself after a WOD, you are usually at rest, or in active recovery (not working out).  During this time your are in what's called your "oxidative" or "aerobic" state where the majority of calories supplied for fuel come from stored, adipose (fat) tissue.  This fat has loads of calories and and is a great source of energy for the body to access as fuel, given it's location in and around the damaged muscle/cells.   While at rest after a WOD, the body is simply churning through body fat for fuel and this energy source can only be burned when enough oxygen is present.  Resting, recovering, sleeping is when you will burn the greatest amount of body fat as a result of your WODs.  You will however burn a BIT of body fat (not too much) during our WODs, but it just takes too long to break down fat for quick energy during "Kalsu",  "7's" or 300.  

When your body is constantly breaking down fat for fuel, repairing damaged cells and performing countless other metabolic reactions, the requirement for calories becomes even higher (double wammy).  Your heart beats a little faster to supply oxygen to your muscles, your body temperature rises slightly and your body fat starts singing taps.   You'll have to eat more to provide amino acids, carbohydrates most importantly, water to sustain body functions during repair.  This is the reason for the incredible success each of you have had as a result of a well designed, periodized, strength & conditioning program.

So, forget what those silly charts say on the treadmills at Globe-O-Gym that tell you to keep your heart rate at 100 BPM if you want to lose body fat.  Instead, pull the tether cord, get off the machine and pick up a barbell for some deadlifts, cleans and snatches.

So, don't be afraid to eat something even though you're trying to lose body fat.  If you want to lose more, eat more, and CrossFit too.

The 12 Types of Emotional Hunger

The 12 Types of Emotional Hunger

By: Dr. Roger Gould, M.D.

Below are the 12 types of emotional hunger that fuel emotional eating. In order to lose weight for life, you will have to conquer all 12 types. Look over the list -- which type of emotional hunger derails your diet?

Type 1. Dulling The Pain With The Food.

If you get really hungry when you feel angry, depressed, anxious, bored, or lonely, you suffer from Type 1 emotional hunger, and you use food to dull the pain that these emotions cause.

Type 2. Sticks And Stones May Break Your Bones, But Cake Won't Heal What Hurts You.

According to Dr. Gould and Mastering Food, if you react by getting hungry when others talk down to you, take advantage of you, belittle you or take you for granted, then you suffer from Type 2 emotional hunger. You eat to avoid confrontation.

Type 3. A Full Heart Fills An Empty Belly.

If you crave food when you have tension in your close relationships, you suffer from Type 3 emotional hunger. You eat to avoid feeling the pain of rejection or anger.

Type 4. Hate Yourself, Love Your Munchies.

If you tend to become hypercritical of yourself, if you label yourself "stupid," "lazy," or "a loser," you have Type 4 emotional hunger. You eat to "stuff down" self-doubts.

Type 5. Secret Desires Have No Calories.

If your hunger gets activated because your intimate relationships don't satisfy some basic need like trust or security, you suffer from Type 5 emotional hunger and you use food to try to fill the gap, according to Dr. Gould and Mastering Food,

Type 6. Forty Gulps And The Well Is Still Empty.

If you eat to make up for the deprivation you experienced as a child, you have Type 6 emotional eating.

Type 7. It's My Pastry, and I'll Eat If I Want To.

If you eat to assert your independence because you don't want anyone telling you what to do, you have Type 7 emotional hunger.

Type 8. I Can't Come To Work Today--I'm Eating

According to Dr. Gould and Mastering Food, if your appetite kicks in when you're faced with new challenges--if you use food to avoid rising to the test, or to insulate yourself from the fear of failure--you have Type 8 emotional hunger.

Type 9. Aroused by Aromas, Not by the Chef.

If you stuff your face in order to avoid your sexuality-either to stay overweight so that nobody desires you or to hide from intimate encounters--you suffer from Type 9 emotional hunger.

Type 10. I'll Beat You With this Éclair.

Emotional eaters often eat to pay back those who have hurt them, often in the distant past. They use their bodies as battlegrounds for working out old resentments. If you do this, you're really battling type 10 emotional hunger

Type 11. Peter Pan and the Peanut Butter Cookie.

If you eat to make yourself feel carefree, like a child, you have Type 11 emotional hunger. You eat to keep yourself from facing the challenges of growing up.

Type 12. That Stranger In Shorts Wearing Your Face.

If you overeat because you fear getting thin, either consciously or unconsciously, you have Type 12 emotional hunger.