March Archives

I’m going to keep this simple. Never (read: ever) skip a meal to “save” calories. How many of you skip out on breakfast everyday thinking that by doing so, you’ll burn more body fat? Yeah I thought so. One of the worst things you can do is to go for prolonged periods of time without eating. Second on that list is listening to what celebrities have to say on anything related to fitness. Case in point: Mariah Carey.

When asked how she was able to slim down, she was quoted as saying, “water aerobics is actually three times more effective than other workouts.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Mariah Carey isn’t 70 years old, right? Water aerobics? Really? She also mentioned that she typically has her trainer move in with her so that she can’t sneak food.

Note to self: assassinate Mariah Carey’s current trainer. Send resume to www.IheartMariahCarey.com.

Getting back on track, a great rule I like to give my clients is that you should eat to prevent hunger, not because you’re hungry.

Strive for five to eight “feedings” per day (this is individual and depends on one’s goals) and never skip out on breakfast. Doing so will go a long ways in keeping blood glucose levels in check and providing some arbitrary improvements in overall metabolism. I say “arbitrary” because there is no evidence that suggests that if you skip meals, your metabolism will plummet faster than Eliot Spitzer’s career. Skipping out on one meal isn’t that big of a deal, I just wouldn’t make it a habit. The whole notion that it’s best to eat several meals per day has more to do with controlling blood-glucose levels (and thus appetite) than it has to do with overall metabolism. I could go into more detail on this, but frankly I have some business to take care of. *Grabs samurai sword and copy of “Emotions” cd to have a certain someone sign.

According to Wikipedia (the best thing ever invented) an urban legend or an urban myth is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories thought to be factual by those circulating them. The term is often used to mean something akin to an “apocryphal story”. Like all folklore, urban legends are not necessarily false, but they are often distorted, exaggerated, or sensationalized over time.

A few prime examples include:

1. Boycotting the major gasoline corporations for a day (like Mobil) to bring down gas prices. (False)

2. Bill Gates sending out a chain letter saying he’ll pay you “x” amount to pass it along to your friends. (False)

3. Young man discovers pharmacist who sold him condoms was his date’s father. (True……and he totally didn’t appreciate the high five I gave him afterwards).

Needless to say, I thought it would be fun to discuss some urban legends in the fitness world. Lets start with this one; bench pressing with your back arched is bad.

Your lumbar spine (lower back) has a natural curve to it anyways, also called a lordotic curve. How is it that this “curve” is considered optimal while standing, but all of a sudden bad while laying down on a bench? You would think I told someone to go home and kill some kittens based upon some of the reactions I get from other trainers and trainees when I tell them that arching their back while benching is perfectly fine.

As Craig Rasmussen stated in his article, “Common Exercise Misconceptions,” many people are under the impression that keeping their back flat on the bench will keep their back “safer.” Firstly I, like Craig, will challenge anyone to prove to me that maintaining an arch while benching places any added stress on the lumbar spine in healthy individuals. Secondly, as Craig noted in his article, “I believe that many people simply confuse the (correct) advice of keeping your butt on the bench with the bogus advice of keeping the lumbar spine on the bench. You need to keep your spinal column locked and your shoulder blades retracted and depressed.” I couldn’t agree more with this assertion.

If you’re one of those people who brings his/her butt off the bench then all you’re doing is turning the movement into an unsupported decline bench press (ouch) while at the same taking away most of your stability, which will hamper how much weight you’ll be able to lift anyways. Not to mention it looks dumb.

Bonus Section: I was talking with an athlete yesterday as he was warming up and our conversation is what really spurned today’s blog post. I don’t know how we got on the topic, but he asked whether or not it was true that gum stays in your digestive track for seven years when you swallow it.

From Snopes.com:

Although chewing gum is designed to be chewed and not swallowed, it isn’t harmful if swallowed. An old wives’ tale suggests that swallowed gum sits in your stomach for seven years before it can be digested. But this isn’t true. If you swallow gum, it’s true that your body can’t digest it. But the gum doesn’t sit in your stomach. It progresses relatively intact through your digestive system and is excreted in your stool.

Which leads to an obvious question. How long before I pass all those Legos I swallowed when I was five years old? Wait a minute (or ten), I’ll be right back. *grabs magazine* Holy cow you’re not going to believe this. I just poo’d an X-Wing Fighter!

I’m totally going to sell it on e-Bay. Along with my dignity.

It’s readily apparent that slow pitch softball season is right around the corner based upon the fact that there’s been a steady increase in the number of middle aged men taking their whacks in the batting cages recently. Typically, these are men who spend the majority of their day in front of a computer at work checking out chicks on Myspace instead of actually working. Note to Stud4Life: me thinks you’re going to have to change your profile name to SleepingOnTheCouch4Life once your wife finds out about this. These are also the same men who haven’t seen much (if any) physical activity in the past eight months. Sorry fellas, but playing Guitar Hero with your kid doesn’t count.

Besides it’s totally not cool when you yell “suck it, I own you” after out scoring him/her playing “Welcome to the Jungle”. I mean how immature can you be? **Pulls own finger** Hey Ma! MA! Do you smell that? Oh, can you make sure my GI Joe bed sheets are washed today?

Suffice it to say, it’s no coincidence that the rate of groin pulls and hamstring injuries correlates with the beginning of softball season. In an ideal world these guys would be training year round in an attempt to stay in shape and to prevent these nagging injuries from happening in the first place. But since this is definitely not the case I can offer one piece of important advice. Include more dynamic warm-up drills before practices and games. In doing so you will better prepare the body for the more dynamic nature of the game; sprinting around the bases, diving catches, and of course making out with your choice of chicks after hitting the game winning home run. A few simple examples include:

Split Stance Dynamic Adductor Mobilization

Walking Spidermans

This blog post is dedicated to the personal trainer who works weekends at my sister’s gym near Albany, NY.

First a little back story: Cliff Notes Version

1. My sister calls me not too long ago and mentions that she wants to get into shape; in her words, “for real this time.” As you can guess, we’ve been down this road before…..(wink wink, nudge nudge).

2. As a mother of two, her days are typically filled with fake light saber battles with my nephew (Jedi Name: Harza Genis for your information) and playing “Pretty Pretty Princess” with my little niece. All of this on top of making sure the house is clean, laundry is done, and that dinner is on the table every night. Honestly, I don’t know how she does it. Suffice it to say, the last thing on the “to do” list is go to the gym.

3. I finally convinced her that following recorded episodes off of Fit TV were about as useful as used a tampon and she joined a local gym a few weeks ago.

4. Of course as a new member of the gym, she was offered a free session with a trainer. Beforehand I had her buy a copy of “New Rules of Lifting for Women,” so she had a general idea of what types of things she should be focusing on. Namely, lifting free weights, steering clear of the treadmill, etc.

5. What does the trainer do? Shows her how to use the machine circuit and then demonstrates how to press the buttons on the treadmill to increase the speed. All of this despite the fact that my sister asked if he could show her the free weights. Mind you this was a personal trainer, not some person involved with a general orientation to the facility.

Anyone with the intelligence of I don’t know, a bowling ball can show someone how to use a chest press machine. I wouldn’t be surprised if this trainer’s certification is made out of Scooby-Doo stationary and said, “World’s Greatest Personal Trainer. Love Mom” in glitter paint. The whole experience just turned my sister off to personal trainers all together. Can you blame her?

Needless to say, I made the trip out to Albany this past weekend to help my sister out. We went over simple foam rolling drills, a proper dynamic flexibility warm-up and I even showed her how to deadlift in less than five minutes. I also caught a glimpse of the trainer that worked with my sister a few weeks ago. Right on cue, he was busy showing a new member how to perform leg curls. Brilliant! Why didn’t I ever think of that?

Special Side Note: to all personal trainers who read this blog (especially new trainers), don’t be a stereotype. There’s a reason why we’re often seen as uneducated, meat heads. Do yourself a favor and read Jimi Varner’s book “A Trainer’s Dozen: 13 Principles for Personal Training Success.” Don’t be like the nimrod above, you’re better than that.

In recent years there has been some debate over whether or not it’s a good idea to microwave your vegetables. I decided to nip this nasty rumor in the bud and asked my friend Cassandra Forsythe for her insight on the matter. Apparently the source of this tomfoolery stems from a study published in 2003 in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture where Spanish researchers claimed that microwaves killed the nutrients in broccoli and presumably in other vegetables as well.

From the Washington Post, 2006:

The researchers cooked broccoli florets in four ways: microwaved, steamed, boiled and pressure-cooked. Among other things, they measured the percentage of healthful flavonoids removed from the vegetable by each cooking method. Flavonoids are phenolic compounds that are widely distributed in fruits and vegetables. In addition to giving these foods their colors, they behave as antioxidants; that is, they destroy the free radicals that can damage our DNA, possibly leading to cancer, stroke and other diseases. Flavonoids are therefore among the “good guys” in our foods.

The Spanish researchers reported that microwaving broccoli removed 97.2 percent of its flavonoids, boiling removed 66.0 percent, steaming removed 11.1 percent and pressure-cooking removed 8.8 percent.

A more thorough look at the actual study done by Robert L. Wolke, professor of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh revealed the following:

1. The researchers only measured the before and after totals of total flavonoids, as well as two flavonoid derivatives while totally neglecting the plethora of other antioxidants and vitamins and minerals found in broccoli. Generalizing these results to ALL nutrients is unfair.

2. During microwaving, the broccoli was immersed in water, while the steamed broccoli was placed on a rack above water. Flavonoids are water soluble, so it stands to reason that many of the flavonoids would be “lost” during the microwaving process and would explain the huge discrepancy between the two.

3. Microwaving was done at 1000 watts for five minutes; an arbitrary “scenario” that was chosen for the study. Whatever that means.

4. Cooking causes nutrient loss no matter what the mechanism. In other words, cooking (ie: heating) food changes its properties in ways we call “cooking.” As Wolke noted, the more heat — that is, the higher the temperature and the longer the food is held at that temperature — the more cooking changes take place. And all cooking inevitably causes a certain amount of nutrient loss.

All in all, Wolke suggested we should cook our veggies with as little heat and with as little water as possible. We can’t do away with heat while cooking, but we can control the amount of water used. Fear not people, microwaving your vegetables is totally safe and it wont cause as much nutrient loss as you think. In other words, TV Dinners are still a viable way to romance your woman. Rest assured gentlemen, nothing says “I love you” more than microwaved meatloaf with brussel sprouts (and all their “mostly” flavonoidally intact glory). Don’t forget the boxed wine. P to the IMP, son!

Normally I’m not the type of guy that will go out of his way to “call people out,” but today is a rare exception. I just learned this past weekend that the Olsen twins were asked by Hugh Hefner to pose for Playboy Magazine.

What tha……..what?!?! Shame on you Hugh! Yeah, you’re right, nothing in this world would be more sexy than to see two emaciated waifs naked. And by “sexy,” what I really mean is “make me want to throw up.” Why not just ask Paris Hilton to join them? Wait a second. You could totally stage a pillow fight between the three. Except instead of pillows, you can use a brick, a lead pipe, and an AK-47. Sign me up!

Needless to say, that news put me in a fowl mood and there just so happens to be another person I feel the urge to “call out.” Last week a reader of my blog (thanks for reading by the way) made a comment in regards to an old post I made on “5 Exercises You DO NOT Need To Be Doing.” Apparently he didn’t agree with me. I’ll just let him do the talking and post what he wrote word for word.

certified personal trainer…

heres a real life example where you use leg press…any time you jump in the air you idiot, eg a basketball player, aerobics class, etc…not only are your principles rediculous, but your assuming that there is only one way to “skin the cat” with training. Which you are completely wrong, the body adapts to many different types of stressors, if you stress it the same way every workout, your body becomes resistant to that type of exercise meaning you cant make any progress. Working at a college and a gym where bosu balls, leg presses, and arm curls are all implemented in many programs…i think i’ll stick with our training type and you can be a neanderthal in terms of training.

 

Dear “Random Gym Guy” from Bloomsburg University (in Pennsylvania),

Dude, come on! If you’re going to call me an idiot, at least have the common decency to practice proper grammar. Pssst, here’s a hint: chicks prefer guys who know how to differentiate between your/you’re. The sooner you learn that, the sooner they’ll actually want to hang out with you. You can thank me later.

To make things easier, lets break this down sentence by sentence:

“heres a real life example where you use leg press…any time you jump in the air you idiot, eg a basketball player, aerobics class, etc…not only are your principles rediculous, but your assuming that there is only one way to “skin the cat” with training.”

So this must be the reason why your men’s basketball program hasn’t won a conference title in over 25+ years; not enough leg pressing, right? I’m not even going to broach the topic of aerobic classes, because it’s clear that you’re about as intelligent as a ham sandwich.

“Which you are completely wrong, the body adapts to many different types of stressors, if you stress it the same way every workout, your body becomes resistant to that type of exercise meaning you cant make any progress.”

How many ways can you alter the leg press? What, change an individual’s foot position from a narrow stance to a wide stance? Wow, I really think you’re on to something. Never mind the fact that you’re completely ignoring basic functional anatomy and forcing one to lift a weight in a fixed plane of motion while at the same time placing tons of compressive and shear force on their lower back. I thought the main goal as fitness professionals was to keep people healthy?

Now lets look at the squat and all the various ways we can alter it so as not to, as you would say, “become resistant to it.”

Free Back Squats: using various bars (olympic bar, safety squat bar, cambered bar, etc).

Box Squats: again using various bars and now we can add varying box heights.

Front Squats: with varying bars and boxes.

Single Leg Squat variations: Split Squats, Bulgarian Split Squats, Pistols, etc.

We can also add chains, bands, etc which undoubtedly place a different stress on the movement. We can also change foot positions on certain forms of squats to “tweak” the stress. Not to mention I haven’t even discussed the plethora of different set/rep schemes we can use, or tempos for that matter. There are endless ways to train the squat compared to a leg press. An athlete could go all four years through college and never have the same squat variation programmed twice in a row. Leg presses will do nothing but make them great at pushing a weight up an incline and messing up their back. Point. Blank. Period.

“Working at a college and a gym where bosu balls, leg presses, and arm curls are all implemented in many programs…i think i’ll stick with our training type and you can be a neanderthal in terms of training.”

1. Wow, you actually work in a college gym? We all know that people who work at college gyms are highly trained (special note: I’m being sarcastic here). They get hired because they don’t have class at a particular time – and they spend their days wiping down equipment. Congrats.

2. Arm curls are great. It gives you and your frat boy friends an opportunity to cut the sleeves off all those shirts you bought at Baby Gap and show off those 14 inch guns.

3. Outside of rehabilitation, BOSU balls are useless. Unless of course you’re in the the business of producing inferior athletes.

Kind Personal Regards,

Tony