Wanna See Something Cool?

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Icelandic powerlifter Benedikt Magnússon (You’ve GOT to be strong with a name like that) recently recorded a world-record deadlift 1015 lbs!  He did this “raw,” meaning he wasn’t wearing a powerlifting suit. (In a nutshell, these suits are incredibly tight things that actually aid the effort of the lifter.  Lifting raw means someone is wearing something like a t-shirt and shorts.)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4jO21-a2W0

Okay, so I find this effort simply astonishing.  I love to deadlift so watching this is fun for me personally.  But what else do we see?  This large lad is graceful.  Elegant!  Look at the ease with which he performs the lift.  He makes it look easy.  He even gives a big grin to the crowd while he’s locked out at the top of the lift.  If you’re a Z-Health person, then this is exactly the sort of thing we want to strive for whether it’s during our joint mobility drills or our conventional “workout.”  Or for that matter, during your golf swing, tennis serve, swim stroke–whatever activity we’re doing.  To become excellent at something, we must establish precise command of all of our joints in every position at all speeds.

For further reading on creating excellent movement, I suggest you have a look at this article, Making the Hard Possible and the Easy Elegant from Todd Hargrove’s blog Better Movement.  He does a superb job at explaining concepts of movement, central nervous system function, proprioception and lots of other similar stuff.

Follow-up to Is Sugar Toxic?

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If you found the previous post interesting then you should read the following articles from the L.A. TimesSugar: The toxicity question and what to do about it cites the NY Times article on sugar and discusses the issue further.  Also from the L.A. Times is Food technology has been bad for human health since long before the invention of high-fructose corn syrup.  Bottom line, modern food technology and refinement aren’t doing the human race much good.  If it ain’t pulled off of a tree our out of the ground, or if it wasn’t recently running or swimming free, then you should reconsider eating it.

Must Read: Is Sugar Toxic?

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“High-fructose corn syrup, sugar — no difference.  The point is they’re each bad — equally bad, equally poisonous.” – Robert Lustig, MD, Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, UC San Francisco

The New York Times Magazine has a remarkably in-depth piece on sugar called Is Sugar Toxic? We get a lot of information on the sweet stuff from the history of sweeteners to the differences between sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup (There seem to be no differences.) to some of the unique physiological effects of sugar. Dr. Robert Lustig of the University of California San Francisco is a source for much of the information of the article.  He’s an endocrinologist who recently has focused on preventing obesity in children.  He contends that sugar calories are different from other sources of calories, and that sugar is genuinely poisonous to human beings.  (You can watch Lustig’s lecture,Sugar: the Bitter Truth on Youtube.)

Buyer beware...

Among the evils ascribed to sugar in the article: obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and atherosclerosis caused by elevated blood triglycerides (fat) which often results in heart disease. This idea that sugar causes blocked arteries is somewhat controversial and runs counter to several decades of “conventional wisdom.”  The article also suggest that in fact sugars may play a strong role in developing cancer. For years it’s been dietary fat that’s been the bad guy in the heart disease fight.  And to this point, the article does a good job of dissecting the various theories and evidence either in support of and/or against both sugar and fat as the edible evils in our lives.  I won’t go into all the fine details here but the discussion should remind us that one theory doesn’t necessarily cancel out another (Could be that both sugar AND dietary fat aren’t that great for us.), and that science is indeed a human endeavor which is subject to human emotion and judgment. The discussion on sugar and cancer is one that I’ve not heard before.  There is evidence to suggest that chronically elevated insulin plays a strong role here much as it does with diabetes.  Researcher Lewis Cantley, director of the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School, says:

“I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possibly can, because I believe ultimately it’s something I can do to decrease my risk of cancer.” Cantley put it this way: “Sugar scares me.”

That’s a strong statement by someone with what seems to be a thorough knowledge of his subject.  It certainly has me thinking about this stuff more than I have.  I love dessert and so does my wife.  We devote just one day a week to indulging in something genuinely tasty and fantastic.  I think that’s a fairly low level of consumption but now I wonder if sugar is like cocaine or meth.  Perhaps there is no such thing as a “moderate” amount of sugar. What is clear to me is that less is best.

Avoid Cramping This Spring

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The warm weather is trying to break through to us and we’re all itching to run and/or bike. You may be at particularly at risk for cramping at this time of year though. Why? First some background on salts, muscles and muscular contractions.

Salts (aka electrolytes) specifically potassium, sodium, and especially calcium are key components of muscular contractions. Without them we may either experience muscular weakness or uncontrolled muscular contractions–cramping. We get these salts through our food and drink. We tend to lose these salts through sweating. Prolonged exercise and/or exercise in the heat typically requires us to consume more salts than we would during short bouts of exercise or exercise in the cold. Now, on to the particulars of cold-to-warm weather issues.

As it turns from cold to warm weather, our bodies are also adjusting the degree to which we sweat out our salts.  During the cold, our bodies will fork over the salt quite readily. We retain more salts during the warm weather.  So let’s say we get a nice warm day and we decide to get in a long run or ride.  We may be exercising like it’s warm but we may be sweating out salts like it’s cold. This is prime time for cramping.

Here are some ideas to avoid cramps:

  • Salt your food. You’re an exercising athlete and you need salt. Unless you have high blood pressure, you should be fine.
  • Keep a sports drink with you. Drink when thirsty and stop when you’re satiated.
  • Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.  These contain electrolytes.
  • Don’t overhydrate. Too much water will dilute the salts in your body.
  • Consume dairy products. Calcium is important for bones but it’s also massively important for muscular contractions. It’s rarely found in sports drinks though.
  • Ease into warm weather activities. Your body will adjust to retain salts if given some time.

Bench Press Instruction continued

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The previous post consisted of the first three videos of a seven-part series on the bench press.  Here are the final four videos.  It’s pretty detailed stuff that you might find quite useful.  It all comes from the powerlifters at EliteFTS.

Key points to remember are:

  1. The bench press is a total body lift, not just an upper body lift.
  2. Keep the shoulder blades pinched back and pressed into the bench.
  3. Keep a tight arch in the low back.
  4. Keep the legs and glutes tight while pressing the feet firmly into the ground.
  5. Hold the breath during the upward push.
  6. Think of pulling the bar apart, or think of pulling the wrists apart.
  7. Keep the entire body tight and tense the whole time you’re under the bar.  Don’t relax.