Self discovery through Athletics: Strength
Very honest writing - will help many people on their journey into Heavy Duty Training. Good Job - FittLives. Also, love the theme of your Blog, "Self Discovery Through Athletics," Brilliant!
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Dieter: Know Thy Posture
An informative and interesting guest post by Tim Collins - Thanks Tim!
You might be wondering what posture has to do with dieting and weight loss. The answer is simply everything. When you are walking straight and tall, with your shoulders down and back, chest forward, tummy held tight and bum tucked under, you look taller and thinner. People will comment on this and make you feel great. Maybe you really have lost weight, you will think to yourself. Invigorated, you will forego a second helping and take a walk after your evening meal. Real weight loss is just around the corner. Your posture influences more than the way that you look to other people, however; it can influence how you feel.
Sitting Straight at the Table
How do you eat your meals? Hunched over plastic tray on the couch is a common answer to that question. When you are finished with this meal, how do you feel? Do you feel gassy, bloated and uncomfortable? Do you have to get up and walk around to start feeling better again? For your next meal, go back to the kitchen or dining room table. Sit in the chair, straight and tall. Put your feet on the floor right in front of you. Now finish your meal and see how you feel. Slumping forward, while you are eating pinches your stomach and does not allow it to do its job at all. Making sure that you are giving your stomach room to expand while you are eating will keep food from backing up during the meal.
Walking With a Slump
Now go to a room with a full length mirror. Watch yourself walk in. Do you see how you slump forward, shoulders hunched over and belly rolling over your waistband? Now imagine a string on your head, pulling it up toward the ceiling. Roll back your shoulders and drop them away from your ears. Tuck in your bottom and hold your tummy firm. Walk toward yourself again. Do you see how much better you look? Now think of how much better you feel as well. When you are slumping over, you are not getting the full deep breaths that your body needs to work at its best. Not getting enough oxygen can cause your brain to be sluggish and make poor decisions. No one is suggesting that a few deep breaths will stop you from wolfing down a piece of chocolate cake, but it might help you to think more carefully about whether you should or not.
Posture Perfect
While you are working on your posture, you are also working on your core muscles, the ones that make up your abdominals and hold your tummy in. The more you work these muscles, the more toned they will become. Imagine you are zipping up some very tight jeans as you pull your tummy up and in without holding your breath in any way. Getting used to engaging your ab muscles will allow you to have better posture and will also get you ready for the next step which is abdominal training exercises.
Written by Tim Collins of Ultimate Fitness Gear, Get Insanity Workout and begin the process for getting ripped.
You might be wondering what posture has to do with dieting and weight loss. The answer is simply everything. When you are walking straight and tall, with your shoulders down and back, chest forward, tummy held tight and bum tucked under, you look taller and thinner. People will comment on this and make you feel great. Maybe you really have lost weight, you will think to yourself. Invigorated, you will forego a second helping and take a walk after your evening meal. Real weight loss is just around the corner. Your posture influences more than the way that you look to other people, however; it can influence how you feel.
Sitting Straight at the Table
How do you eat your meals? Hunched over plastic tray on the couch is a common answer to that question. When you are finished with this meal, how do you feel? Do you feel gassy, bloated and uncomfortable? Do you have to get up and walk around to start feeling better again? For your next meal, go back to the kitchen or dining room table. Sit in the chair, straight and tall. Put your feet on the floor right in front of you. Now finish your meal and see how you feel. Slumping forward, while you are eating pinches your stomach and does not allow it to do its job at all. Making sure that you are giving your stomach room to expand while you are eating will keep food from backing up during the meal.
Walking With a Slump
Now go to a room with a full length mirror. Watch yourself walk in. Do you see how you slump forward, shoulders hunched over and belly rolling over your waistband? Now imagine a string on your head, pulling it up toward the ceiling. Roll back your shoulders and drop them away from your ears. Tuck in your bottom and hold your tummy firm. Walk toward yourself again. Do you see how much better you look? Now think of how much better you feel as well. When you are slumping over, you are not getting the full deep breaths that your body needs to work at its best. Not getting enough oxygen can cause your brain to be sluggish and make poor decisions. No one is suggesting that a few deep breaths will stop you from wolfing down a piece of chocolate cake, but it might help you to think more carefully about whether you should or not.
Posture Perfect
While you are working on your posture, you are also working on your core muscles, the ones that make up your abdominals and hold your tummy in. The more you work these muscles, the more toned they will become. Imagine you are zipping up some very tight jeans as you pull your tummy up and in without holding your breath in any way. Getting used to engaging your ab muscles will allow you to have better posture and will also get you ready for the next step which is abdominal training exercises.
Written by Tim Collins of Ultimate Fitness Gear, Get Insanity Workout and begin the process for getting ripped.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Reconnecting Body to Brain
Hey Everyone - Great guest post by Dan Francis from Ultimate Fitness Gear
Enjoy y'all!
A.G.
Finding the body/brain connection is vital to weight loss. Your brain controls the systems that trigger the need to eat as well as the sensation that you are full so that you stop eating. Without these sensations and triggers you would either never get the urge to eat and would starve to death or you would never receive the message that you have had enough and you would eat until your stomach explodes. Once you are able to reconnect the two systems back to each other, controlling the amount of food that you eat will become much simpler.
Did you know that it takes twenty minutes from the start of a meal to the point that you are full for the brain to get that message? Now, think about how long it takes you to finish a meal of any size. The faster you eat, the more you will eat before your brain finally sends down the message that you have had enough. Eat slowly, chewing each bite carefully and putting your fork down between bites will allow your brain to catch up and stop you from cleaning your plate.
Music influences the speed at which you eat, as does dinner conversation. Have you ever noticed that you eat more in the restaurants that feature peppy, upbeat music or when you are out dining with your rowdier friends? The music is not a coincidence. They choose the upbeat music so that they can get you to shovel down more food in less time, get you out and get the next set of diners to that table so the calorie carnival can start all over. Restaurants do not really care about your waistline, only their bottom line. The more food they can get you to shove down your gullet, the better. If they can get you to waddle to the door faster, even better for them!
We are tricked by our serving-ware as well. The size of dinner plates both at home and out has become enormous. We put the average sized dollop of food on these plates and we seriously become convinced that we are practically starving ourselves. In order to convince our brain that the serving is the proper proportion, we double or even triple what we should have in the first place. We supersize our plates and it is supersizing us as well.
Finally, our sense of smell tricks our brains as well. Certain food smells are proven to make us feel as if we are hungry, even when we are not. One of the most common is the smell of baking bread. Grocery stores that have in-store bakeries will vent the exhaust so that it wafts through the store knowing that many people will be unable to resist the powerful smell. Helplessly, we head to the bakery section of the store and select a loaf of bread, even though we do not need it. The brain is flooded with the sensations that there is hunger, all triggered by one scent.
Knowing all of this, we have to be able to make an effort to slow down, choose slower music when we can or block out what we are hearing when we can not. We need to opt for smaller plates when we are at home and split portions with our friends when we are out. And we need to wear nose plugs when we are grocery shopping!
Article written by Dan Francis of Ultimate Fitness Gear, your top source for the Insanity Workout on the internet.
Enjoy y'all!
A.G.
Finding the body/brain connection is vital to weight loss. Your brain controls the systems that trigger the need to eat as well as the sensation that you are full so that you stop eating. Without these sensations and triggers you would either never get the urge to eat and would starve to death or you would never receive the message that you have had enough and you would eat until your stomach explodes. Once you are able to reconnect the two systems back to each other, controlling the amount of food that you eat will become much simpler.
Did you know that it takes twenty minutes from the start of a meal to the point that you are full for the brain to get that message? Now, think about how long it takes you to finish a meal of any size. The faster you eat, the more you will eat before your brain finally sends down the message that you have had enough. Eat slowly, chewing each bite carefully and putting your fork down between bites will allow your brain to catch up and stop you from cleaning your plate.
Music influences the speed at which you eat, as does dinner conversation. Have you ever noticed that you eat more in the restaurants that feature peppy, upbeat music or when you are out dining with your rowdier friends? The music is not a coincidence. They choose the upbeat music so that they can get you to shovel down more food in less time, get you out and get the next set of diners to that table so the calorie carnival can start all over. Restaurants do not really care about your waistline, only their bottom line. The more food they can get you to shove down your gullet, the better. If they can get you to waddle to the door faster, even better for them!
We are tricked by our serving-ware as well. The size of dinner plates both at home and out has become enormous. We put the average sized dollop of food on these plates and we seriously become convinced that we are practically starving ourselves. In order to convince our brain that the serving is the proper proportion, we double or even triple what we should have in the first place. We supersize our plates and it is supersizing us as well.
Finally, our sense of smell tricks our brains as well. Certain food smells are proven to make us feel as if we are hungry, even when we are not. One of the most common is the smell of baking bread. Grocery stores that have in-store bakeries will vent the exhaust so that it wafts through the store knowing that many people will be unable to resist the powerful smell. Helplessly, we head to the bakery section of the store and select a loaf of bread, even though we do not need it. The brain is flooded with the sensations that there is hunger, all triggered by one scent.
Knowing all of this, we have to be able to make an effort to slow down, choose slower music when we can or block out what we are hearing when we can not. We need to opt for smaller plates when we are at home and split portions with our friends when we are out. And we need to wear nose plugs when we are grocery shopping!
Article written by Dan Francis of Ultimate Fitness Gear, your top source for the Insanity Workout on the internet.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Vatican to Finance Adult Stem Cell Research
Vatican to Finance Adult Stem Cell Research
This is a very unusual position for the Catholic Church - highly recommended reading!
AGS
This is a very unusual position for the Catholic Church - highly recommended reading!
AGS
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Heavy Duty Bodybuilding - The Thinking Person's Guide to Physical Training - PART 3
A Sane Voice In The Wilderness
So just as Howard Moscowitz turned the world of spaghetti sauce upside down (in Part 1), Mike Mentzer gave a mighty roar of reason and logic, forcing the worm to poke his head out of the horseradish, and bathe in a new, glorious world of SANITY. Mentzer, like Moscowitz, was about to challenge the orthodoxy, BIG TIME!
A Little History
In 1978, Mentzer did what most thought impossible, won the Mr. Universe in Acapulco, Mexico with the first and (thus far) only perfect score of 300; this after having won the North American Championships the previous year and the Mr. America the year before that. He repeated his perfect score miracle at the 1979 Mr. Olympia (the grand poobah of all bodybuilding events)by winning the heavyweight class, but alas lost the overall to Frank Zane.
These accomplishments would have been endough to propel the young Mentzer to stardom, but something else set him apart - his mind!
A Philosopher, An Intellectual and A Bodybuilder?
I am sure that many of you have read fitness articles from various sources, and typically they are not the prose of intellectuals, rather the writings (some might even say ramblings) of the average Joe. Not that there is anything wrong with the average Joe. Well crafted well thought out musings are, after all, well done, regardless of their source. And when Mike wrote, there was no question that he fit this bill BUT he also set himself apart. Here was a former medical school student determined to be a psychiatrist turned philosopher, devotee/disciple of Ayn Rand, student of politics, art, business AND a bodybuilder. Not your average author of bodybuilding articles in the 1970's - far from it in fact.
Part 3 Continued Next Post
So just as Howard Moscowitz turned the world of spaghetti sauce upside down (in Part 1), Mike Mentzer gave a mighty roar of reason and logic, forcing the worm to poke his head out of the horseradish, and bathe in a new, glorious world of SANITY. Mentzer, like Moscowitz, was about to challenge the orthodoxy, BIG TIME!
A Little History
In 1978, Mentzer did what most thought impossible, won the Mr. Universe in Acapulco, Mexico with the first and (thus far) only perfect score of 300; this after having won the North American Championships the previous year and the Mr. America the year before that. He repeated his perfect score miracle at the 1979 Mr. Olympia (the grand poobah of all bodybuilding events)by winning the heavyweight class, but alas lost the overall to Frank Zane.
These accomplishments would have been endough to propel the young Mentzer to stardom, but something else set him apart - his mind!
A Philosopher, An Intellectual and A Bodybuilder?
I am sure that many of you have read fitness articles from various sources, and typically they are not the prose of intellectuals, rather the writings (some might even say ramblings) of the average Joe. Not that there is anything wrong with the average Joe. Well crafted well thought out musings are, after all, well done, regardless of their source. And when Mike wrote, there was no question that he fit this bill BUT he also set himself apart. Here was a former medical school student determined to be a psychiatrist turned philosopher, devotee/disciple of Ayn Rand, student of politics, art, business AND a bodybuilder. Not your average author of bodybuilding articles in the 1970's - far from it in fact.
Part 3 Continued Next Post
Monday, April 12, 2010
Heavy Duty Bodybuilding - The Thinking Person's Guide to Physical Training - PART 2
"For best gains, they recommend two and even three sessions per day six days a week, with the seventh day off - for sabbath, I suppose. Very scientific." - Mike Mentzer, Heavy Duty I
If you have viewed Malcolm Gladwell's video which I embedded in my last post (and I sincerely hope that you have, since it is both funny AND thought provoking) you would have gleaned an insight into human behaviour, which while not always true, is too often the case, and therefore rather sad; too many of us often think and behave like the stereotypical LEMMING!
Of Lemmings and Men
You are no doubt familiar with the rodent of which I speak. This is the same small, furry creature that is believed (unsubstantiated however) to commit mass suicide as part of their migration. The ole, "Well everybody was else was doing it," philosophy.
Like the "worm in horseradish" mentioned in Part 1, too many of us (and I certainly have been guilty on occassion) have succumbed to this "group thinking" approach. We get caught up in the mob mentality, getting seduced by what seemingly everyone else (of course it is not really everyone, it just feels that way) is thinking and begin to take on their beliefs. Once this occurs, then we are really in the horseradish, we start to make decisions, and worse, take action based on erroneous truths - and down the rabbit hole we go!
Sanity is Not Statistical
Years ago, I heard a speaker deliberate on this concept, "Sanity is not Statistical" as it relates to business and life. He cited the example of the Wright Brothers, those two lone voices of their time who fervently believed that man could fly. The very interesting part of this conversation, that truly gave me cause to ponder, was a statistic that he offered. The speaker said that at the time of the Wright Brothers, the absolute overwhelming opinion, AROUND THE WORLD, was that men could not fly. Literally hundreds of thousands of individuals believed this; people opined this belief in town halls, churches, newspapers, and wherever they gathered. Learned men gave explanations: if man moved past a certain speed his internal organs would implode/explode; if man was meant to fly he would have been born with wings (with accompanying anatomical/biological charts and theories, I understand), just to name two. However, time has borne who was correct; the two versus the countless, regardless of how many voices they had.
Context Switching
And so Mentzer noticed about bodybuilders, their teachers, gurus, and their elder statesmen. A little like Lemmings (OK that may be a little harsh), but certainly within the realm of sanity is not statistical, the aforementioned clung to the old axiom of "everyone is unique so everyone's training must be differnt" with a little of the ole "if one aspirin is good, 12 must be better" context switching (if training once per day, three days per week is good, then 3 times per day 6 days per week must be better)thrown in for good measure. After these ingredients were all included in the stew, what was the result? A veritable den of confustion for the young and novice trainees; since each "expert" had their own version of the above,bewilderment, chaos and desperation filled the hearts of young bodbuilders everywhere.
A Sane Voice In The Wilderness
Part 3 ties it all together - I PROMISE!
AG Spinelli
If you have viewed Malcolm Gladwell's video which I embedded in my last post (and I sincerely hope that you have, since it is both funny AND thought provoking) you would have gleaned an insight into human behaviour, which while not always true, is too often the case, and therefore rather sad; too many of us often think and behave like the stereotypical LEMMING!
Of Lemmings and Men
You are no doubt familiar with the rodent of which I speak. This is the same small, furry creature that is believed (unsubstantiated however) to commit mass suicide as part of their migration. The ole, "Well everybody was else was doing it," philosophy.
Like the "worm in horseradish" mentioned in Part 1, too many of us (and I certainly have been guilty on occassion) have succumbed to this "group thinking" approach. We get caught up in the mob mentality, getting seduced by what seemingly everyone else (of course it is not really everyone, it just feels that way) is thinking and begin to take on their beliefs. Once this occurs, then we are really in the horseradish, we start to make decisions, and worse, take action based on erroneous truths - and down the rabbit hole we go!
Sanity is Not Statistical
Years ago, I heard a speaker deliberate on this concept, "Sanity is not Statistical" as it relates to business and life. He cited the example of the Wright Brothers, those two lone voices of their time who fervently believed that man could fly. The very interesting part of this conversation, that truly gave me cause to ponder, was a statistic that he offered. The speaker said that at the time of the Wright Brothers, the absolute overwhelming opinion, AROUND THE WORLD, was that men could not fly. Literally hundreds of thousands of individuals believed this; people opined this belief in town halls, churches, newspapers, and wherever they gathered. Learned men gave explanations: if man moved past a certain speed his internal organs would implode/explode; if man was meant to fly he would have been born with wings (with accompanying anatomical/biological charts and theories, I understand), just to name two. However, time has borne who was correct; the two versus the countless, regardless of how many voices they had.
Context Switching
And so Mentzer noticed about bodybuilders, their teachers, gurus, and their elder statesmen. A little like Lemmings (OK that may be a little harsh), but certainly within the realm of sanity is not statistical, the aforementioned clung to the old axiom of "everyone is unique so everyone's training must be differnt" with a little of the ole "if one aspirin is good, 12 must be better" context switching (if training once per day, three days per week is good, then 3 times per day 6 days per week must be better)thrown in for good measure. After these ingredients were all included in the stew, what was the result? A veritable den of confustion for the young and novice trainees; since each "expert" had their own version of the above,bewilderment, chaos and desperation filled the hearts of young bodbuilders everywhere.
A Sane Voice In The Wilderness
Part 3 ties it all together - I PROMISE!
AG Spinelli
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Heavy Duty Bodybuilding - The Thinking Person's Guide to Physical Training - PART 1
"To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish." - Yiddish Proverb
As I was reading a blog earlier today,Kelly Diels' CLEAVAGE (not what you think), Ms. Diels was excited about an upcoming presentation being given by author, intellectual, and generally all around interesting dude, Malcolm Gladwell. So excited was she about his upcoming visit to her fair city, that she posted the following YouTube video on her site (I have done the same here for you, in case you have yet to experience Mr. Gladwell's wit and charm).
I had seen this video before, and since I too am a fan, I watched the video again, and it struck me as to the parallels between this subject matter and Heavy Duty Bodybuilding training.
In a nutshell, Gladwell talks about his hero, and from the sounds of it, good friend Howard Moscowitz who is a famous (infamous?) market researcher, responsible for revolutionizing the spaghetti sauce business (the stuff in jars sold in grocery stores), amongst other accomplishments.
SPAGHETTI SAUCE CHANGES THE WORLD (SORT OF):
In a nutshell, before Moscowitz' research, essentially all of the spaghetti sauce at retail patterned itself after what Gladwell refers to as "culturally authentic." That is to say, the overriding belief was that all Americans wanted a tomato sauce patterned after a more traditional Italian sauce, which was by its nature thinner, was not meant to sit on top of or "adhere" to pasta, but rather to lightly flavour the past as it sank to the bottom. As the video explores, Moscowitz determined that fully 1/3 of all Americans preferred a "chunky" version of tomato sauce; one that was was able to sit on top of the pasta and become a more integral part of the meal. 1/3 is a large number - and over 10 years Prego (whom Moscowitz was consulting for) made over $600 million based on this revelation alone and changed the way the food industry thought about what they offered to their customers.
So how does this apply to fitness training, especially bodybuilding? Stay tuned.
8NR9YC7BY865
AG Spinelli
As I was reading a blog earlier today,Kelly Diels' CLEAVAGE (not what you think), Ms. Diels was excited about an upcoming presentation being given by author, intellectual, and generally all around interesting dude, Malcolm Gladwell. So excited was she about his upcoming visit to her fair city, that she posted the following YouTube video on her site (I have done the same here for you, in case you have yet to experience Mr. Gladwell's wit and charm).
I had seen this video before, and since I too am a fan, I watched the video again, and it struck me as to the parallels between this subject matter and Heavy Duty Bodybuilding training.
In a nutshell, Gladwell talks about his hero, and from the sounds of it, good friend Howard Moscowitz who is a famous (infamous?) market researcher, responsible for revolutionizing the spaghetti sauce business (the stuff in jars sold in grocery stores), amongst other accomplishments.
SPAGHETTI SAUCE CHANGES THE WORLD (SORT OF):
In a nutshell, before Moscowitz' research, essentially all of the spaghetti sauce at retail patterned itself after what Gladwell refers to as "culturally authentic." That is to say, the overriding belief was that all Americans wanted a tomato sauce patterned after a more traditional Italian sauce, which was by its nature thinner, was not meant to sit on top of or "adhere" to pasta, but rather to lightly flavour the past as it sank to the bottom. As the video explores, Moscowitz determined that fully 1/3 of all Americans preferred a "chunky" version of tomato sauce; one that was was able to sit on top of the pasta and become a more integral part of the meal. 1/3 is a large number - and over 10 years Prego (whom Moscowitz was consulting for) made over $600 million based on this revelation alone and changed the way the food industry thought about what they offered to their customers.
So how does this apply to fitness training, especially bodybuilding? Stay tuned.
8NR9YC7BY865
AG Spinelli
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