FOOD!!!

I just put this together for the monthly newsletter here at West River and figured I'd share it here. I don't normally spend time looking at nutritional tips, but summer is, in fact, coming and I know quite a few people looking to shed their winter bellies, so here you go.

5 Steps to Sustainably Better Nutrition.

1. Know where your food comes from. Apples grow on trees. Grapes grow on vines. Excellent. Where does a Pop Tart come from? If you look at the ingredients panel on the packaging and the list looks like a definition in the glossary of a chemistry text book, chances that food is highly processed and preserved. Stay away! The fewer and more simple the ingredients, the fresher and better the food.

2. Make it Easy! Keep small (or cut up) pieces of fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator for snacks or for making fast and easy bag lunches.

3. Kill The Clean Plate Club. Food portions in this day and age have gotten completely out of control. One dinner entrée at a restaurant like The Cheesecake Factory has can have the same caloric value as a reasonable dinner for 4 adults. Remember, one serving of protein is 3 ounces. That’s roughly the size of your palm.

4. Think Locally. Because it requires less transportation, local food is fresher, and better for the environment.

5. Eat in season. Eating seasonal selections, such as strawberries in the summer and sweet potatoes in the fall, ensures a greater variety of foods will be found on your plate. Check out your local farmers' market for the freshest in-season fruits and vegetables.

Workout of the Week

Practice the DB Snatches. They'll show up soon, but I want you to have time to get it right before we jump in with that.

If you do not have access to a concept 2 rowing machine for the following workout, substitute in SumoDeadliftHighPulls. 10m = 1 SDHP. Advanced men, 45# barbell or kb. Advanced women 30# bb or kb.

for time:

4 rounds. Row 250 less meters each round.

1km row (conecpt 2 rower)

10 pullups

20 burpees

30 squat jumps

Technique Video: Dumbbell Snatch

Now You've Gone and Gotten Me Started...

See, this is what happens when you give me free reign enough to tell you what really pisses me off about my industry. And now you & whoever else is unlucky enough to bump into this blog today are going to have to sit through this little diatribe because of it.

When blessed with the machines, the beautifully efficient kinetic systems that God and evolution bestowed on us, what have we done as professionals? The human body is a singularly elegant machine. It has evolved over the entire course of human existance on this planet to be a streamlined and smoothly integrated series of energy supply, motors, levers and receptors tk meet the challenges of our every day. While we may not be done growing yet, right now we are at the momentary pinnacle of our evutionary journey. When given a task, we instinctually find the most efficient way to accomplish that task. If we can't accomplish it, the body grows, learns and adapts to be able to accomplish it next time. The whole working together to accomplish the singular.

So what have we done? We've clogged the very spaces meant to develop our physical selves into their utmost with machines of inefficiency, machines that break our beautifully efficient and inteligent system into parts that are forced to function unnaturally independant of each other. We take nature's greatest, smartest creation and shackle it. We make sure that the body is as comfortable and relaxed as possible to move one joint or one combination of joints in isolation of all else in order to get stronger. We deconstruct a system meant to function in harmony with its self, train the parts to move in isolation and then expect the total machine to work better when we put the whole thing back together again. What the hell?

This is why MOVE. This is why kettlebells, interval training, olympic lifting and all those damn burpees. Sitting in cars, offices Cybex, and Nautilus machines has created such a disonnect that we've forgotten what the last umpteen million years have taught us. We have to learn to function in our own bodies, in the real world again. Stand up, pick something with some heft to it and get moving!

Here's a thought: How long have you been doing the same arm curls and leg press machines? How long have you been trying to lose that last 5lbs or get rid of tht back pain?

How's that working out for you?

Workout of the Week

10 rounds of 10

Record loads and times

Knee Jumps

Burpees (most difficult variant possible for you)

Vertical Choppers

Box Jumps

DB High Pulls

Technique Video: Jump Variants

Explosive is the word my friend.

How you feeling after the deck squat pushpress rounds? Fun right?

At any rate, one thing I didn't mention in the captions on this next video, but is mentioned in my previous jump videos is the importance of the landing. No matter what kind of jumping you're doing at what intensity, land softly. You shouldn't feel jarring or a big impact in your joints when you hit the ground. If you do, practice your depth drops to hammer in proper landing before moving on to jumping of any kind.

Holy Hella Allergies!

So according to the channel 4 weather guy, we're somewhere around the order of 15 times the number of histamines and allergens floating around than we do in a normal spring. Not 15% more, mind you. 15 times.

So I did a little homework to find out how, besides overdosing on decongestant to the point the DEA puts you on a meth watch list, to scoot through this spring a little easier. Here's what I found.

1. Limit your alcohol intake on low air quality days. Turns out that the yeast and bacteria in alcohol can actually product more histamines that will aggravate stuffiness, swollen eyes etc. Who knew?

2. HOT WASH: Turns out that hot enough water actually does kill dust mites. So when you're doing your laundry, especially your sheets, turn your washer up to "hot" or to the sanitize setting if it has one.

3. Take your medicine before bed. Turns out that allergy symptoms tend to peak in the morning, so take your medicine before bed at night so they're circulating through your blood stream already when you wake.

4. Stub it out. Cigarette smoke and its residue have a horrible effect on allergy sufferers, inflaming any and all of your allergic reactions. They're so potent in fact that even if you don't smoke or hang around smokers, the particles sticking to a friend or roommates clothing are still enough to set you off.

I hope it helps guys. We'll make it through this season if we all stick together on this one.

Reference: MSN.com

Workout of the Week

10 Rounds

10 reps each, 9 reps each, 8 reps each...1 rep each.

Record loads and time.

Deck Squat Pushpress

DB High Pull (bilateral performed w/ same db's as above)

Burpee BB Clean

Ball Slams

Technique Video: Deck Squat Progressions

There's really nothing else to say about this one other than this. Practice, because you know what's coming.

To view the video unobstructed, follow this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA-T889vhow

Give it where it's due

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with Rob Russell over at
Kettlebell-training-for-sport.blogspot.com
but I highly recommend adding him into your Google Reader. Rob is a British strongman and kettlebell lifter with a lot of good things to say.

Today isn't about Rob saying anything, rather doing. I just love this. Big time props and credit for this.

Being fascinated as I am with heavy KB lifting, this video quickly shot up to be one of my favorites. This is Rob with an 80kg kb. 80kg, that's 176lbs. Merely swinging anything that heavy is a feat unto its self. This is rob flipping that kind of a load.

Props Rob.

Workout ofthe Week

5 rounds. 50 reps of all in the first round. 10 less in each
subsiquent round.

Choppers
Sumo deadlift high pull
Box jumps

Record time and loads.

Sweet.

Technique Video: Choppers

Who doesn't need a little more rotational training in their program? I mean come on!!

Long Cycle Championships

Well, 2nd in my weight class and a personal best. What did we learn on Saturday?
You know, after being to a number of these things, I just can't say how much I love the people I run into at each one. If you're in the New York area and haven't plugged into the GS community here yet, then you really need to get your arse in gear. You're missing the party.

At any rate, what did I learn? To take absolutely nothing away from my fellow competitors, I learned that I am the first person to defeat myself. Lost a few reps there all on my own. Didn't need any help there. Why? How? Where did those reps go wrong?

1. Fixate the bell immediately in lockout.
2. Wait for the judges count no matter how long my lactic acid drunk brain thinks he/she is taking to make the call. In truth, they're probably right on it, it just seems like an eternity in my own brain.

Ok, so I need to adjust my training. Fault 1 is that I wasn't training with someone counting, so my ear wasn't attuned to waiting for the count before going on to the next. Utilize a training partner. Check.

Fault 2. Fixation was a little slow in coming at times. That's a little harder to train. But you know what's interesting, both points boil down to one thing. Patience. Patience on the platform, under 100+lbs of load, especially in the second half of the set is hard. But then again, isn't that the point?

Looking forward to seeing everyone in August at the Worlds.