Full Circle

After so much training ADD and too many months of wasted workouts doing things that seems more fun than productive, I've now come full-circle back to the style of training that got me into this field in the first place.

My early days of training started with a strong HIT influence. For those that are unaware, HIT training is about using fewer "work" sets for a given bodypart. And the sets that do count are taken to failure and beyond using various methods such as drop sets, partials, rest/pause (my favorite) and forced reps with a partner.

I had gone through phases where I tried out new theories and used several of the most common methods of strength training. I benefitted from a few such as Westside Barbell style powerlifting and tried other methods not to my benefit.

With the aches and pains that come from heavy lifting, I've taken up bodyweight exercises but not really long enough to make good use of them. Plus I get bored easy enough, let alone going weeks not lifting heavy stuff!

More to come...

Oooops! Change of plans!

Well, put this one in the S#!T happens catagory. My very first heavy box squatting session resulted in sciatic pain (again) which has made me lose more sleep than I'm wiling to accept.

So with that in mind, I'm changing course. I'm going to switch back to lots of bodyweight expercises, short rest, hitting the heavybag (highly recommended by the way) and higher reps.
I'm going to dip/chin/prisoner squat 3-4 days per week. I'm going to use my sandbags as well. The lighter ones for high rep clean and press and the medium and heavy ones for squats and shouldering.

Diet-wise, I'm going to do the fruit thing... Eat loads of fresh raw fruit and vegetables all day with one protein meal at night. It's been a great, healthy break from the normal diet and really helps my digestion/elimination and lose bodyfat as well.

2008!

New year, new ideas, new inspiration!

I'm not totally sold on making resolutions. They're often too vague to be achieved and many times they're not very well thought out. With that said here's mine and what I've done or will do to see them through!

1) To start powerlifting again. I already started box squatting.

2) To get my bodyweight up to 240 or so from my current 226 while maintaining bodyfat levels. I purposely lost about 30 lbs using my "Primal Diet". I've gotten so many "You're so thin" comments to last me a lifetime. Of course I then get asked how I did it. I then touch on my diet and almost invariable get told "That doesn't work" or "Isn't that exactly the oposite of what everyone else does?". Well it does work (you just told me how thin I looked) and yes it IS opposite of the current experts advice. "But Derek, I was told to eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day." Oh yeah? How's THAT workin' for ya?

3) To stop being so understanding and start handing out some tough love.

4) To continue thanking God for my great fortune with my family and friends.

New diet and workout evolution

I've been slowly modifying my fitness plan over the last few months. I've been very busy moving my gym to a new, bigger location AND moving my home back to my old home town of East Bridgewater. I'll post details and pictures later but I want to elaborate on the title of this entry.

Since I always like to keep an eye on our ancestral past and use it to give me clues on how to act NOW, I've been experimenting on myself with some interesting protocols pertaining to both exercise and nutrition. In my research, coupled with a little touch of logic, I've figured out that eating heavily throughout the day is anethema to being alert, aggressive and driven. We all know how we feel following a heavy meal no matter what food is eaten. A large meal slows us down. It HAS to! It's the old warning our mothers gave us to not swim on a full stomach because "you'll cramp up". They may not have known why they were right, but they were right nonethless.

The reason is that we have only so much blood in circulation at one time. When we eat anything substantial, our blood is diverted to our digestive organs (and away from our extremities) in order to facilitate digestion. Our muscles are not able to recieve enough oxygen etc. to sustain intense physical activity. On the flip side of the coin, when we exercise intensely, our blood is diverted to our musculature and brain and AWAY from our digestive organs. Quite often, our bodies reaction to us asking it to both digest and exercise simultaneously is to puke. Far better to throw up lunch and survive a battle than to cramp up, lose the battle and be killed.

How I've decided to use this new thinking is this: I've been doing is making my espresso (I love coffee, what can I say?) at 6:30am, Then another by 9 or 10. At some point before lunchtime, I'll have some melon, a banana or an apple and plenty of water. I may have a small amount of protein around lunchtime but very little else until I get home from work. And then it's go time! I usually consume three meals' worth of food in one sitting.

I'll get more into details of how much I eat, the order I eat etc. in my next few posts. I'll be honest though. I get quite a bit of inspiration from Art DeVany and Ori Hoffmekler. If you know either of these guys, you'll know what I mean. I do want to add however that I have a short book I wrote almost eight years ago about evolutionary eating and activity. Perhaps a full six years before I had heard of either of these fine gentlemen. That's all I got to say 'bout that.

New beginning

I've recently gotten down to business as far as training and diet are concerned. I am no longer very concerned with increases on the scale. I am concerned much more than ever with lean mass gain and/or fat loss. I've recently made the following changes which seem much more "radical" in print than in everyday practice;

1. No milk, beans, grains or cereals.

2. Focus on vegetables first, meat second and fruit last (not exactly the typical food pyramid huh?)

3. Made my gym workouts more random, condensed them to make them shorter and added in more sporting activity. I walk with a heavy pack, run hill sprints, hit the heavy bag and do bodyweight conditioning workouts using variations of squat-thrusts, jumps, chin-ups, dips etc. usually in a random "routine".

4. My diet has become more random in timing, size and content.

The effects I've felt thus far are the following;

1. Better, more sound sleep.

2. More usable energy.

3. Less aches and pains (probably due to less inflamation from the above excluded foods).

4) Reduction in bodyfat.

More to come...

I'm going to revise my last post. I thought about it and realized that naming specific sports and being proficient at them was a bit hasty. Instead, I'd like to keep the attribute of that "cross trainer" but substitue a new, more acurate definition. What would be more appropriate would be to say "I'm going to strive to be strong, fast, explosive, agile, flexible, tough and enduring all at the same time."

Care must be given and I must remember that when one tries do undertake too many training modes at one time, all of them can be severely compromised. For example, working toward extreme strength AND extreme leanness concommitantly is many times an exercise in frustration.

However, I believe one can be "quite" strong and "quite" lean at the same time. Perhaps the extreme ends of either or both will be compromised but I believe the uotcome will be well worth the effort and experimentation.

Cross Training

No, I'm not talking about being too skinny and too weak to do anything properly. That's what comes to mind when I see that term used. It's usually describing someone who jogs a little, hits the machines at the gym and plays softball once per month.

I'm talking about a new, improved definition of cross training. Maybe even a new name. The question is this; is it possible to be a fairly proficient olympic lifter, powerlifter, fast sprinter, tough fighter, high jumper and my true love; Highland Gamer?

I'm going to find out! Stay tuned.

Drinking & Driving

I wont go into details but I'll just say that an "aquaintance" of mine has had his 25 year-old son taken away from him by a f***ing drunk driver recently. He is survived by a wife, a son and a baby on the way.

I'll finish with this... If you drink and drive, you should be beaten to death, period. And if anyone has an issue with that statement, please respond by e-mail (strengthsystems@verizon.net) and give me your name and address, maybe we can set up a "meeting".

That's all.

See, deadlifting is fun!

Highland Games 4th overall

My recent post on T-Nation

My limited knowledge of the whole "cholesterol issue" is this... High carb/sugar diets are very inflamatory to the arteries (high blood glucose/high insulin response). The body uses cholesterol to create a "band-aid" over the inflamed areas within the arteries. If you cause enough inflamation by eating junk or even many "healthy" foods/sugars, you build up too many cholesterol "band-aids" and start to clog the artery with what SHOULD be a harmless protective response. It's kinda like running through a thicket of thorn bushes. You get cut to shreds right? So you apply several band-aids on your wounds so they can heal. The problem occurs when you keep on running through the thorns and keep piling up the band-aids. Soon enough you appear to have a "band-aid issue" but the truth is you need to quit running through the thorn bushes (quit eating junk carbs). Doctors who advise patients to cut/medically reduce cholesterol levels equals them telling you to cut your band-aid usage. It's merely a RESULT not the cause. And from what I can see, rather harmful. Make any sense?

Chris Shugart @ T-Nation.com

The root word of intoxication is "toxic," which means poisonous. So being drunk is basically the feeling you get from being poisoned to a point that causes physical damage but not death - which can happen when enough is consumed. Anyway, the more I think about it, the more I think, "I don't eat fried food and I don't smoke, so why should I drink?"

Lab rats

There was a study of rats I read about. A number of caged-since-birth rats were forced to hang from a wire. A number of wild, free rats were forced to do the same. The caged rats held on, hanging on for dear life until they dropped into thier cage. The wild rats held on for only a moment, pulled themselves up (like a chin-up)onto the wire and walked across the wire to freedom.

We can learn a lot from rats!

Art DeVany

If you are still doing cereal, grow up. It is better to skip breakfast than to eat that hazardous waste."

www.arthurdevany.com

Weekend carb-up bars

1 1/2 cups of rolled oates 5 scoops of potein powder 1 pinch of nutmeg 5 table spoons of dried raisins. 1 cup of apple sauce - no added sugar 1 teaspoon of vanilla disolved in applesauce Mix dry ingredients mix wet ingredients add wet to dry spray cake dish spread mix in dish cook at 375 for 30 mins let cool cut in 5 bars.

From a woman who lives in Quebec and calls herself "nlmain".

Quote

"You will never come up against a greater foe than your own potential."
( alluding to the "burden" of the effort involved in becoming your best)

Believe me, if it was easy, it wouldn't be worth your time.

A quick treat!

1-2 cups of HOOD Carb Countdown milk 3-6 carbs. 1-2 TBS of Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa powder 3-6 carbs, 1-2 packets of Sweet&Low or Equal. Microwave milk, stir in cocoa powder and sweetener. Enjoy this because it's got the benefits of dark chocolate without all the sugar of regualar hot cocoa mix. Sorry, no marshmallow in this one.

Strength Feat Compilation.

Pay particular attention to the second feat, a JUMP up to a platform topped with bumper plates. The whole thing is cool but that jump is right up my alley!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS0GGC_LD2U&mode=related&search=

Inspiring saying...

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you,Jesus Christ and the American G. I. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom

Dieting rules, the real deal.

Unless you are willing to follow these rules religiously, it's my educated opinion that your results will be sub-par in one form or another. One or more possible benefits will likely be sacrificed. Weight-loss will be slower than it could be, you will lose unacceptable muscle mass, blood-lipid profiles (HDL/LDL) will not improve or will worsen, you will GAIN fat mass, your insulin level will be chronically elevated (very bad) , you will have lower than acceptable mental and/or physical energy levels.

1) This first one is pretty simple. There are a few very minor exceptions which I will elucidate shortly. Protein; if it doesn't fly, walk or swim don't eat it. Possible exceptions; eggs. They don't fly, run or swim (yet) but they are on the "good" list. Another; some dairy. Cheddar cheese is a PRODUCT of a "walker"... close enough.

2) Eat 4-8 servings of fibrous veggies per weekday. High protein requires high fiber. You also need the vitamins and minerals as well as the phytonutrients to achieve optimum health. Leave out the greens and suffer the consequences. Broccoli, spinach, caulifower and aspargus are but a few examples.

3) Eat at least 1 gram of protein per pound of lean bodyweight. I am fairly lean so I make sure to get at least 250 grams of protien per day. You are kidding yourself if you don't think you need this amount. Many hormones are made from protein such as growth hormone. Protein and fat are what our bodies were and ARE designed to use for energy, growth and repair.

4) Plan a cheat meal every 5-6 days. Unless you need to lose a lot of weight or need to lose weight quickly, you can "cheat" for a period of 12-24 hours each weekend. This should include things you may be craving like breads, grains, pasta, sweet potatoes, fruit etc.

5) Use organic meats, veggies and dairy as often as you can afford to. Avoid all trans fats and minimize artificial sweeteners.

6) Vary your sources of protein and veggies at least every week to avoid developing allergies.

7) The average female trainee should eat 1,500-2,500 calories per day. This amount should be varied throughout the week. If you need 1,800 calories per day over a 5 day period, you want an AVERAGE of 1,800 calories. That may mean 400 calories less one day and 400 extra the next to balance it out. Do not get caught up in eating the same amount day-in-day-out. That's not not how we are designed to live. Practice the "art" of missing a meal once in a while. It'll allow growth hormone to do it's job. This is an idea I got from Art DeVany. I discovered him during my research on human evolution. Smart man. He deserves a lot of credit.

8) Instead of avoiding fats, you need to seek them out. I will elaborate on the many benefits of fish oil and other oils such as extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) in a later article. Just make sure you either eat a whole lot of cold-water fish, salmon etc. or take 6-12 grams of fish oil capsules per day. And make your salads with EVOO.

9) Make sugar-free Metamucil you friend. Take it at least two times per day unless you are eating HUGE amounts of fibrous veggies (from #2 above). And drink up to a gallon of fresh water per day. It's much easier than you think if you carry a 2 quart container around with you and sip it throughout the day.