69kg Snatch 2009 Weightlifting Worlds

How is this for some weight bearing exercises for osteoporosis week...

These people weigh 69kg (151.8 pounds) and they are lifting over 300 pounds over their head!  Take note of their flexibility and of course their power and speed.  It is the movement that is important for the general public not the weight.  I teach my clients/patients to perform scaled versions of these movement because of their therapeutic benefits.  The benefits include strength, power, speed, flexibility, coordination, accuracy, and balance.  Do these lifts, gain these elements of fitness.

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

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!

RKC Snatch Test 1 3 13 11

The goal is 100 reps within 5 minutes. This is 24kg (~53#).  My first attempt.

An Apple a Day is Not Enough - A Poem by Taylor Mali

Are Carbs More Addictive Than Cocaine? The Body: Details.com

Are Carbs More Addictive Than Cocaine?

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..."

How To Find Real Food At The Supermarket [Flowchart]

How To Find Real Food At The Supermarket [Flowchart]

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!

The Nitty Gritty on Calorie Burn

Learning a little science will help you understand your body better and help you achieve your desired goals.
 First learn our different types of muscle and their role: 
We have three muscle types:
1.  skeletal muscle
2.  cardiac muscle
3.  smooth muscle

Smooth muscle (digestive muscles and arteries) and cardiac muscle (heart pumping) are involuntary, meaning that we do not have think and concentrate to make these muscles move.

Skeletal muscle (muscles for movement) is controlled voluntarily, meaning that we have control over these muscle when we want use them.

Muscles perform four essential functions: They maintain body posture, stabilize joints, produce movement and generate heat we need to survive.

Second, learn about body heat.

Your body heats up when muscles contract.  So when you move and exercise, when your heart pumps, and when we digest food, our bodies are using energy to produce heat.  Sometimes we feel cold after eating, but that is just because blood is rushing to your gastrointestinal tract and away from your skin.  ...And you are probably sitting there in a food coma after eating too much!   

Working muscle produces heat in two ways:

• The chemical energy used in muscles contracting is not efficiently turned into mechanical energy. (It is about 20 to 25 percent efficient.) The excess energy is lost as heat.
• The various metabolic reactions (anaerobic, aerobic) also produce heat. 

Your body needs to remove this excess heat. The heat produced by exercising muscle causes blood vessels in the skin to dilate, which increases the blood flow to the skin. This elevated blood flow to the skin and the large surface area of the skin allows the excess heat to be lost to the surrounding air. Also, receptors carry the message of excess heat to your body's thermostat, the hypothalamus in the brain. Nerve impulses from the hypothalamus stimulate sweat glands in the skin to produce sweat. The fluid for the sweat also comes from the increased skin blood flow. The sweat evaporates from the skin, removing heat and cooling the body.

Third, understand that it takes a lot of energy to move your body, to move food through your body, to pump blood to your organs, muscle, to and away from the skin and just keep you functioning.  So where does all this energy come from?  Energy comes from food we eat, and stored food (fat). 

When you are trying to lose weight there are bunch of things you can do to use energy (burn calories/create heat).

Use your muscles!
Get your heart pumping to a greater degree than normal.
Use your skeletal muscles (which also gets your heart pumping)
Contrast baths (hot and cold contrasts, so your body has to heat up when cold and cool down when hot)
Now how do you get the smooth muscle to contract even when they are involuntary?
Eat more food!  Eat more often in smaller quantities to keep the smooth muscle constantly working.

To lose weight you must use all three muscle types to burn large amounts of calories.  This is how you do it:

Exercise:  Strength train.  Stress the muscles to a greater degree than they are used to.  I am talking about the big muscles that cross many joints like the legs, core and arms (yes, total body strength training, not just your bi's and tri's)

Eat:  Eat fiber, mostly plants (vegetables) for energy.  Plants take a long time to grow, they take a long time to digest, they fill lots of space in your guts, they are low in calories, they require smooth muscle to move through your body, they are cheap, they look good, they taste good, and they are full of vitamins.  Eat meat.  You need some building materials for all that muscle you are breaking down lifting weights and sprinting.  Eat fat.  If you eat meat, you are probably are getting decent amount of fat.  Fat gives you a full feeling, keeps you full, and tastes so good!


Get your heart pumping:  Eating and exercising are both going to get your heart rate up.  Exercise is definitely going to get your heart rate up higher than eating.  'Cardio' is fine, but high intensity strength training is going to keep your heart rate elevated even after you are through exercising.


Sample Breakfast:
-2-4 eggs with 2-4 cups green peppers, onion, zucchini, mushrooms (1 serving of protein source to ~1+ cup of vegetables)
-water

Sample snack:
protein shake
1/2 banana

Sample Lunch:
-3-6 oz. meat, 3-6 cups of vegetables
-water

Sample snack:
-carrots+hummus
-water

Sample Dinner:
-3-6 oz. lb meat, 3-6 cups of vegetables
-water

Sample Workouts:
1.  20 squats, 10 push ups (six rounds as fast as possible)
2.  8 lunges, 8 sit ups, 8 overhead presses (repeat for 20 minutes)

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.

Therapeutic Movements for Everyone

Everyone will benefit from these movements and holds, but as a person who sits at a desk for many hours, or spends prolonged periods in a car, performing these will help prevent or ease pain in problem areas.

Simple healthy meal-spaghetti squash

It is all pretty easy.

Heat tomato puree with cut veggies.
Cook beef with garlic, onions, and seasonings. I added garlic, pepper, salt, oregano, and italian seasoning.
Microwave a squash for about 12 min. Scoop out the seeds. Scrape.

Serve meat sauce over noodle like squash.

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)

Holidays are Over!

Well nearly over.  You should have already thought about your health plans for the new year.  I am NOT talking about 'I am going to get in shape' type of plan.  You need something more concrete!  SMART goals.  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timed.

A SMART goal is:
Who/What/When:  I am going to lose at least 5 pounds in three months and keep that weight off for the remainder of my life.

Why:  I want to maintain and/or improve my health through self management and not have to rely on prescriptions and doctors to fix preventable issues before they become problems.  I want to live independently.  I want to have confidence, feel younger, move more freely, reduce pain, prevent injury, and reduce illness.


How:  I am going to incorporate more physical activity into my life everyday by either parking further, taking the stairs, doing 20 squats a day, dedicating time to strengthening my body or seeing a personal trainer.


Stop waiting around until you are sick and in pain.  Manage your life responsibly.  Move more, eat healthier, sleep enough, and start feeling better.

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.