Author: kylegarner3

We Are So Messed Up (Movement VS. Aesthetics)

Human Performance Discussion, Injury Prevention

Aesthetics, not athletics.

It is important to make the distinction and not allow your eyes to trick you.  Why?  Because true athletes know how to move and care very little about aesthetics.

However, have you ever noticed that most athletes are about the leanest people on the planet?  The leaness  that an athlete has is simply a by-product of their training efforts, and the demands of their sport.  Sport is movement.  Athletes move more than average people.  You get it, right?  Movement and being lean have a strong connection.

Ahemmm… and nutrition.

There is a massive shift coming in the way that we look at fitness.  In fact, this shift has been going on in the “underground” for quite some time.  The shift is this:

Get people moving at a higher level.

By higher level, I am talking about a higher level of quality.  Pouring high volumes of exercise onto low quality movement is like driving your car until your oil is depleted and your engine blows up.  Trust me, it is going to happen.  Injury lurks around us all day everyday.  Some is accidental, but most is completely preventable.  Taking the proactive approach keeps your healthy.  Injury will show its ugly face to those who ignore their aches/pains and poor movement quality.

Nice introduction, right? Ha.  My mind is a blender of thoughts, so as always, be patient with me as we waddle through another article.

Let’s see if I can’t make some kind of point to you all…

Movement versus Aesthetics.

I have slowly watched as the fitness industry takes a turn for the better.  Fixing movement before fixing body fat (aka: aesthetics)

If you want to talk about sustainability, this is a sustainable model to follow, and I encourage all of you to drop your current habits and follow it.  Movement first, exercise second.

Gray Cook led the charge, years ago.  Mike Boyle helped to bring his theories to other trainers who believe Coach Boyle is sub-human (he really is a pioneer) in this training industry.  And Boyle is sub-human, he is the perfect blend of common sense, reality and knowledge.

The basics are this:  Don’t put fitness (exercise) on top of pre-existing movement dysfunction.  

In even simpler terms:  Don’t ignore your poor functioning hips, ankles, knees, back and shoulders while still attempting to force an intense workout, just for the sake of aesthetics (aka:  looking good in the mirror).

Because that is why most of us workout right?  Aesthetics?  I mean, we have piles and piles of research showing the internal and external health benefits of exercise, but come on… get real… are you actually running to increase your body’s rapid circulation for disease prevention?

Or are you running to keep yourself fitting in those jeans you’ve had since entering college?

I really don’t care why you choose to exercise, whatever is going to get you to take action is what I am interested in.  If you have a solid “why” behind your daily training regimen, keep it.  I like it.

But, now that you have the motivation to take action, let’s shift your thinking to quality of movement over just… exercise.

Let’s get your movement patterns dialed in, THEN AND ONLY THEN… let’s go and have one hell of a workout.

You see, our view of fitness is skewed these days.  We have come to associate someone with low body fat and six-pack abs as someone who is truly fit.  Sure, it is definitely aesthetically appealing to be lean and muscular.  To have that athletic look so to speak.

But at what cost?  How are you achieving those results?  Are you piling tons and tons of dysfunction on top of your movement quality?

Are you 2 weeks into Insanity with your anterior knee pain at a 10 out of 10? (anterior=front)  What are you really achieving at that point?  Pain?  Should exercising hurt?

I am getting you to think here.  I will even answer my last question for you.  No, exercising should not hurt.

(Note that the burn felt from a muscular contraction and pain are quite different sensations)

Working hard and working smart are very different.  

We need to start looking for sustainable, life long methods for maintaining physical and mental health.  Maintaining physical health requires a person to stay active and remain injury free.  Injuries crush people in this life.  One bad injury can set a person off course for years, maybe even for a lifetime.  It is a sad occurrence that happens all too often.  We all know someone who is virtually disabled due to injury (think lower back here).  Do I even need to talk about the $$$cost$$$ of an injury?  Yikes.

The shift to the movement based model is the solution.  I believe this.  I have listened and read enough work from guys like Gray Cook and Mike Boyle. Cleaning up your joint mobility, improving the balance and  function between your left and right sides, your front and back, along with the upper and lower parts of your body is the ticket.  Every. Single. Time.

Balance.

The elimination (“improvement” might be a better choice of word) of asymmetries (differences) between these halves of the body will catapult your performance, I guarantee it.  Most folks don’t know they are operating a body at about 75% of their potential.

The difficult part about all of you to start assessing and correcting your movement patterns is that it has very little entertainment value.  I know this.

Humans these days need entertainment or we become bored.  We enjoy complex over simple.  We have adult ADD.

It isn’t as fun to roll around on a foam roller or lacrosse ball to smash your hip musculature, mobilize your thoracic (mid-spine) or perform cable chops and lifts until you’re blue in the face.

I’m no dummy.  I know that you would rather pay your sign up fee at a Cross-Fit gym and have someone put you through a puke producing training session.  That is what your friends are doing, and they are dropping pant sizes, right?  I know the influence of peers on decision-making.  I get that.

But, trust in me, just invest that 10-15minutes to find the information about why you can’t perform a body weight squat, or step over a hurdle, or reach your arms overhead without going into dangerous lumbar extension.  Then, invest 10-15 minutes more daily to work through your corrective movements, and re-test your problem areas.  Re-test your squat.  Re-test your lunge.  Re-test.

Just take a few minutes, that’s all.

In closing, make your movement last a lifetime.  Yes, age is inevitable.  But we have the choice to continue moving freely and without restriction well into our life.  Don’t be fooled by the instant gratification that some programs and people are promising.

—> Healthy movement for a lifetime is more important than a six-pack for next summer.

KG

***  Today is 9/11.  I hang my hat to everyone that has given me the chance to sit at my computer in peace and write something like this.  You are true heroes in every sense of the word. Thank you. ***

3 Methods I Don’t Recommend for Interval Training

Pressed for Time, Pure Fat Loss

Interval training is definitely worth the time and energy.

I will just get that out in the open right away.

But, also remember that there is a lot more to building a lean body capable of quality movement, then well, interval training.

It’s not the end all be all, but when it is organized in an intelligent manner, it is effective as hell.

I often think about all of the possibilities available for organizing a solid interval training session.  I have tested them all, or nearly all of them.  I really am my own testing lab.  I take pride in that.  I would NEVER ask anyone to do something physically that I haven’t done myself.  That would make me uncomfortable and would be unprofessional in my opinion.

In my own experience, the magic of interval training comes when there is little technique skill involved in the exercises be used for that session.

I have talked about the golden rule of “first do no harm” to oneself (injury) in during a workout in the past.  Well, that same rule will hold true throughout the remainder of this article.

Let’s get to it.

Here are 3 Methods that I don’t recommend for interval training:

 

1)  Olympic Lifting

If you want my number one beef with a fitness brand that rhymes with “boss-knit”, here it is.  Using HIGHLY TECHNICAL lifts such as cleans and snatches to elicit a work capacity based effect, or “metabolic” as they refer to it now (it’s a catchy marketing term), it dumb.  It’s mindless.  Olympic lifts were never intended to be used to “burn fat” and “create athleticism” by being placed 3 movements into a 6 movement circuit.  I don’t care what your justification is or what Kool-Aid watering hole you are drinking from, olympic lifting will never be ok to perform for anything other than strict power development and rapid force production.  True sets of olympic lifts are organized early in a training session and surrounded by plenty of rest between sets, heavy loading and strict attention to technique and body position.

In my opinion, high rep sets of cleans used for developing work capacity and a training effect is making a complete mockery of a movement that is even in the Olympics as its own sport!  Guys and gals train daily for years to execute a lift with a load that can win them a gold medal, so what makes YOU (the 34 year old mother of two) think you can just walk into a gym and grind out a long set of 20 hang cleans?

If you want injury, this is your best route to it.  Risk vs. Reward.  Run your own evaluation.  End rant.

 

2)  Sprinting

I know this is going to piss some people off, but most of you physically cannot sprint and interval train at the same time.  Sprinting is a fast twitch, short duration, short distance sport that the average person just cannot execute in most cases.  If you are in fact sprinting, it is probably only for the first couple of work sets, followed by an up-tempo gallop (or limp in some cases).

Call it high tempo running instead, and we can meet in the middle.  What you are actually doing is running, and as your energy reserves deplete, you are now probably jogging.

What scares me about people announcing that they are sprinting for their interval training is the fact that a true sprint for any individual requires massive contraction from the musculature on the back of the legs (hamstrings, glutes).  For people who sit all day, your glutes are effectively “turned off”.  I guarantee it.  Your pelvis is probably tilted forward and your back is consistently stiff, right?  Are you hips tight too?  Your hamstrings are long and weak and now you are calling about both of those muscles to exert a large amount of force over a distance that is far to long.

Dessert:  Hamstring pull anyone?

 

3)  “Tabata” anything (other than on a stationary bike)

I touched on this in an older post, but cranking out a true Tabata is impossible.  Most will never know what it is like to hover around 170% effort and have your lungs and heart feel like it is going to explode.  But this is just human nature.  We will shut it down before we ever reach that point for some fear of high exertion? (just a guess)

Anyways, please please please do not fall into the Tabata pit.  Don’t believe the bullshit that your trainer is feeding you about this protocol being the greatest fat loss and conditioning method on the planet.

It’s not.  It’s fatiguing and grueling, but at the end of the day, it is just negative work to rest ratios with a high effort.

Most of all, if you are going to give this protocol a solid effort, don’t use anything other than a stationary bike.  Squatting, kettlebell swings, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, bench press, etc are all loaded movements that should be avoided at all costs using this method.

I know Dan John talked about ripping out a Tabata Protocol with front squats on T-Nation but I am here to tell you, don’t.  Loaded movement + high level fatigue is not for average folk.  If you have a high training age (years of training) I would still caution you.

Please take my advice here.  Injury may await you.

 

So there you have it.  3 methods that I am not very high on for interval training.  Remember, interval training can be effective and safe at the same time.  It doesn’t have to involve circus like movement coupled with heavy resistance.  It’s important to know your limits.  Just because a fitness author writes something crazy in a book as their “fat burning”, “performance enhancing” program, that doesn’t mean that you should do it.

David Blaine (the magician) held his breath for 17 minutes underwater in a giant glass egg in front of the world.  If he wrote about doing that, would you do it?

Probably not.

 

Cheers…

 

KG

Flip the Switch

Food/Eating

I don’t think that there is anything more:

  • Controllable
  • Manageable (is this the same as Controllable?)
  • Predictable

… then movement, eating and transitioning your lifestyle into the positive category.

Think about it.

What other area in your life do you have so much control over?  You are in the driver’s seat throughout your entire life.  You determine your general health.

What other area in your life can you map out and say, “If I do this, then I am going to get the reward of that”, especially with such subtle adjustments.  There really isn’t any real effort involved, it’s more of perceived effort.  Your brain is holding you back.

Improving your overall health is certainly a choice, but once you flip the switch and make the decision to be healthy by  executing consistent bouts of physical activity paired with rock solid nutritional habits, you are GUARANTEED to get results.

Be the switch on the left

It’s tough to guarantee a lot of things in this life.

Again, stop and think about it for a quick second…

Can a person guarantee by achieving a Master’s Degree that they are going to be successful?  Is your life going to be that much better by going through another 2 years of school and thousands of dollars of school loans?  No.

(I am not hating on all of you that went for your Master’s… kudos to you)

My point, again, is this:  What other area of your life has such an obvious step by step procedure to attain desired results outside of choosing to eat well and move more?

I cannot think of anything.  If you can, please leave a comment below.  

My job is to create awareness.  Actually, that is my mission.  If you’re aware of the exact steps that you need to take to achieve lasting positive change by improving your body and mind, you are that much closer to success.

Once you’re consciously aware of what you should be doing, you’re screwed.  

Why?  Because now you know.  Now you are aware.  Now you’re emotional invested in executing what’s right.  Anything negative or toxic is now just moving you further from your goals.

Yes, my aim is to get at your conscious thought process, absolutely.  If I can create enough of an emotional justification in your head for you to break your current habits and reach for better habits, then I have won.  That is my goal.

I say it all of the time it seems like, but people who are currently living in an unhealthy state really don’t realize how close they are to being able to change it all for the better.  It is so simple.  Not easy… simple.

A tweak in your eating here… a tweak in your beverage consumption there… sprinkle that with some movement instead of sitting…

You viewed this on an older post, but, watch it again because it’s that good…

2.7 million people have watched this video.  That means that 2.7 million people now know what even just the smallest adjustment of moving more throughout the day can have a life.

That’s awareness.  That’s my aim, my goal and my mission.

Stop wasting time and flip the switch before it’s too late.

-KG-

Concept: Training When You’re Pressed for Time

20 minute Workouts

You’ll never have more focused, productive workout than you will when you are pressed for time.

I’m serious.

Sure, 45-60min is probably the best case scenario for a complete workout, but hot damn if some of my best workouts have come when I look at the clock and realize I have no time to waste.

Yesterday I had 20 minutes to get a workout in.  I adapted my regularly schedule training session into a complex format.  I used two kettlebells, both 53lb (24kg) and I got to work.

Warming up with authority, especially when pressed for time, should provide some aerobic benefit as a by-product.  Yes, a warm up should be more than arm circles, head rolls and leg swings.  Prepare your body for 3-dimensional movement and the demands of the training session ahead.

When there is no time to waste, you’ll find that you will only execute the activities that matter.  There is nothing to contemplate, no over-thinking, no procrastination.

In my case yesterday, this is what I worked through in this exact order:

 

  • Foam Roll:  Glutes, back, lats.
  • Band assisted Mobility/Stretch:  Tall Kneeling Hip Flexor (I have tight hip flexors)
  • Activation:  Glute bridging, band walks and wall slides.
  • Movement Prep:  Elbow to instep, sumo squat, lunge matrix, eccentric focused bodyweight push ups, hand walks.
  • Movement Warm Up Circuit:  Bodyweight squats, pushups, jumping jacks, reverse lunges.
  • Workout:  Kettlebell Complex (5 rounds, 60sec rest, 6 reps per movement)

Shower and out the door.

 

If you were to stand on the sideline and watch a training session like the one I describe above, you would notice that there is no separation between each of the different components.  Everything flows.  It is non-stop movement from the beginning to the end.  There is no time to waste.

Is this ideal?  No, probably not.  I would have like to focus more time on correcting my problem areas and had the workout be less of a work capacity style event and more of a strength based session.

Is this better than sitting on my ass for 20 minutes?   Absolutely.  Movement matters in any way you can get it.

Don’t make the excuse of lack of time.  Things are rarely “ideal” in life, so find a way to get the work done.  Work through a fast paced session when you are pressed for time.  You’ll probably never have a better training session.  You’ll feel better that you did it, that is for sure…

 

Cheers,

 

-KG-

Canadian Outreach: Delivering What Needs to Be Delivered

Supplemental Nutrition

The Canadian outreach program is in full effect.

I first met my next contributor at a convention in Miami, FL.  We got talking about each other’s backgrounds, experiences and reasoning for attending the convention and we hit it off instantly.  Again, I was like a kid in a candy store asking her all kinds of questions, and I actually had more to ask but I decided to control myself.

One of the takeaway points from chatting it up with Julie was her comments about the female population and effectively treating osteoporosis by supplementing calcium, especially if it is consumed in an isotonic capable form.  Isotonic?  Think liquid form supplementation that is absorbed ridiculously fast by the body, delivering what needs to be delivered.

Calcium deficiency is interesting to me because the most obvious (and well-known) source of calcium is milk.  However, as I have harped on this blog in past posts, you’d cry yourself to sleep if you knew the quality of the milk that you’re probably buying and drinking.  I’ll save the heart ache for another post.

You’re welcome.

Besides the low quality of mass-produced milk, we also face the issue of inflammation and dairy sensitivities in a lot of people, IBS, etc.  Now, you could turn to other foods like kale, which is a rich source of calcium that a lot of people don’t know about, but kale quite frankly is a pain in the ass to prepare.  Eating it raw is like chewing on laminate flooring.  Most people won’t take the time to execute that gourmet kale recipe, so let’s just deliver the damn calcium and get it over with, ok?

*** Oh, if you want some interesting information about bone health go here for some notes I took while attending a recent webinar.  Knowledge is power.

I’ll let Julie share her opinion…

When any of us are looking for solutions to address our personal health concerns, we look for solutions that are safe and effective.  Safety and efficacy comes from research and experience with the products and this is one of the best parts about selling Isotonix. 

As consumers, we all know there are some friends we trust more than others regarding health advice.  

As I become more familiar with using the Isotonix products, I find that my customers and friends come to me more and more for this kind of advice, and I always want to have a well-researched answer for them.  The best part about distributing Isotonix products is that the MarketAmerica science team has done a lot of the leg work for me in terms of gathering the scientific research ensuring that safety and efficacy that I am looking for, in the entire product line.  

Having Isotonix as a research-backed product line, provides me as a distributor with peace of mind that what I’m selling to customers is a great supplement and the best option for those who are looking.

  • Why Isotonix?

–  It is affordable, and it is better value due to the enhanced bioavailability of the products.
–  There is a range of products that make it possible to help reach a more diverse customer base of people with a tool to help them take control of their health.
–  It is based on the most current research, so everything is always up to date to ensure the best customer satisfaction and results from taking nutraceuticals.

  • Why is it so great for practitioners?

–  The products are effective and backed by scientific research on design and combination, so all you need to do is ensure your research on indication and dosage. 
–  You are never alone in recommending the products. Doctors and health care practitioners have been benefiting from being able to provide their clients and patients with access to a dependable product line.
–  There is access to the products online so that customers can order products from the comfort of their home or work with the autoship program.  The method of distribution adds a convenience factor for you and your customers.  

There are always a number of reasons to prefer one type of product over another, but from my experience, of all the nutraceutical products out there, the enhanced bioavailbility of the Isotonix line and the diversity of products and applications makes it an easy decision for me. I feel fortunate to be able to provide these supplemental options to my customers, and it has tremendously benefited my personal health and the growth of my business. 

– Julie Hwang, BSc, ND (cand. 2014)

Dr. DV: Pharmaceuticals, Nutraceuticals and the Proactive Approach

Supplemental Nutrition

Ladies and gentleman,

I have been raving that I have surrounded myself with professionals who are A LOT smarter than I am, and this guest post holds true to that statement.

Over the last 8 months, I have had the opportunity to truly submerge myself into environments where positivity and personal growth is the only topic of discussion.  Do you know how powerful that is?  I think we often are blind to how toxic our daily environments can be, so my new direction for this website (soon to be) and business endeavors is to allocate as much of my time as possible to spending time with successful individuals.  Content is sure to improve with this game plan in place.

What do I mean by “successful”…

  • Successful with regard to money.
  • Successful with regard to their profession (business, medicine, rehab, chiro, etc)
  • Successful with regard to their thought process and outlook on life.
  • Successful with regard to their relationships (business, life, etc)

One of these successful individuals I actually had the pleasure of sitting down to a deli lunch with this two weekends ago in Greensboro, NC.  We talked about a wide variety of topics, and I got the opportunity to have a serious question and answer session which allowed me to get the doctor’s perspective.

In any given profession, who has more credibility than an M.D.?

Enter:  Dr. DV…

Dr. DV is a unique individual, especially given his outlook on medicine and health.  He is almost what I would call the “hybrid” doctor, meaning he has been able to conduct himself and move his practice forward based on timeless health principles, common sense, and integrative techniques all with little to no influence from any of the “corrupt” governing bodies (ahemmm… FDA).

Yes, the FDA is corrupt.

We often seek a doctor’s expert opinion with the thought that they are going to give us the best care possible, yet many of us walk out of the clinic with a written prescription for some medication that is a temporary solution to a permanent problem.  To me, this is like kicking dirt underneath a rug.  The dirt is still there, you just feel better because you can no longer see it.

As a doctor of internal/integrative medicine, it was obvious within the initial 10 minutes of discussion that Dr. DV is a profession who I definitely want to keep in my inner circle.  We see eye to eye on just about everything, except for the fact that he is waaaaayyyy smarter than I am.

For me personally, it provided a level of credibility to what I have been preaching (yes I know that I preach) for years.  It echoed my thought process with regard to health.

I have been looking for an individual with his credentials to get on board and bring some information and value to my readers and…

… poof.  He’s arrived, and I am thankful that he did.

I asked Dr. DV to start off with a simple explanation of how nutritional supplements (nutraceuticals) can have such an incredible impact on a person’s health.  Gone are the days of prescriptions.  We have a new proactive defense against disease and controlling ailments that doesn’t creating further complications.  I am a HUGE advocate of supplements for filling nutritional gaps.  The quality of our food continues to get worse and worse, and even those who do eat healthfully struggle to absorb the nutrients from food.  Malnutrition is as prevalent as it has ever been.

People don’t even know that they are operating on a sub-par level.   

We have a solution that isn’t regulated in a corruptly by the government.  The pharma industry is corrupt.  Just google “corrupt” and “pharmaceuticals” and you are sure to find an endless amount of articles regarding how horrible this industry is, and why doctors continue to turn a blind eye to the problem.  Why would you wait until you have an ailment to treat it?  Why not be proactive and give yourself the best opportunity at living a life free of preventable ailments?

We have to stop sweeping the dirt under the rug.  We need solutions.

So without further ado, here is Dr. DV weighing in on the topic (I asked him to start light for all of you)…

8/14/12
“Wellness is a trillion dollar industry these days, one of the few American industries not seeing a recession. Furthermore it is an unregulated industry, leading to countless products flooding the market. We at ALWAYSPEACEOFMIND.COM have done twelve years of research into the nutriceutical industry, and have discovered the absolute highest quality nutriceutical medicines on the market. Our patients experience the benefits of the medicines, and do not experience side effects. One of the major advantages of nutriceuticals compared to pharmaceuticals are the distinct safety profile of the former. However there are plenty of nutriceuticals on the market which quite simply should not be taken. For example CENTRUM SILVER contains aluminum and talc, both extremely toxic compounds. Centrum should never be taken under any circumstances.
 
The laboratories and companies we contract with to make our Nutrametrix medicines and supplements have articulated specifications for the products, with scientific analyses of all raw materials used in the manufacturing process. There are documented “Certificates of Analyses” which are available for public inspection as well. After manufacture, products are inspected at the warehouses for damage, label accuracy, appearance, taste, and odor. If some criteria is not satisfied, the product is quarantined. Then the isotonic medicines undergo scientific assay in independent labs for isotonicity, contamination, and potency. All of our Nutrametrix manufacturing facilities are audited regularly for GMP compliance. GMP means “good manufacturing practice regulations” established by the FDA.
 
Check out any of the Isotonic products in our nutriceutical pharmacy at: www.nutrametrix.com/drdv. There is a tab you can click on for “science” which lists scientific articles corroborating the efficacy and benefit of the medicines”.
–Dushyant Viswanathan, MD
-KG-

My Hero: Gray Cook + Movement Pattern Stretching/Mobility

How-To, Injury Prevention

Gray Cook is an icon in the movement and physical therapy realm.

Quite honestly, he is one of my heroes and has been since I first pick up his book “Athletic Body in Balance”.

Gray sees things years before they are fully adopted by the mainstream.  His landmark body of work, The Functional Movement Screen is the best assessment system being used in gyms across the world.

Movement pattern training is here to stay, and will be the future of quality movement and performance for years to come.  It really is landmark work.

As I often mention on a couple of my Facebook pages related to personal growth and success, it is so important to submerge yourself into networks of people who make you feel uncomfortable.  This feeling of being uncomfortable often causes an acceleration in positive change in your own life.  It motivates a person to be better at what they do.  I feel this way whenever I read Gray Cook’s work.

I would say that a lot of professionals feel this when they read or watch Gray speak.  He is on another level when it comes to professionalism and pioneering methods for improving or assessing human movement.  He really is world-class.

Let’s get into it…

 

Mobility in the thoracic spine…

The thoracic spine needs mobility.  It needs mobility in all three planes of movement, and is often one of the main culprits for influencing poor movement.  When the T-Spine’s mobility is limited, other areas of the body begin to pick up the slack and move.  This is rarely a good thing.  Think low back pain here.  The lumbar spine (lower spine) begins to over-compensate due to the lack of mobility in the T-Spine.  Shoulder range of motion goes to hell and then everything snow balls.

Just like smoking increases your risk of lung cancer, inadequate mid-spine mobility increases your risk of injury.  It’s a slow death in a lot of cases.  It may not be a situation where injury happens over night, but rather a cascade of events that lead to the grand explosion.  Your body will inevitably reach it’s breaking point and then…  boom.  Injury.

Everyone could use a little more thoracic mobility it seems.  This is a generalized statement, but we often see more people will thoracic restrictions than we do people with adequate motion at the T-Spine.  Another generalization, but sitting is toxic to spine health, especially core activation and T-Spine mobility.  Keeping a crunched posture all day leaves does little for your movement quality.

Take a proactive approach to regaining some motion.  Your body will thank you for it.

 

A quick word about joints…

The joint by joint approach is still methodology that I follow.  I think that the thought process of acknowledging that some joints in the body need stability and some need mobility is genius.  Obviously, this is a simplification, but simple is effect.  Simple can get results because we are avoiding the ever common over-complication of things.

In my experience, when things get complicated, little to no action is typically taken.  But when things are clear-cut and made simple, there is little confusion as to what needs to get done to see results.  This is what the joint by joint approach means to me.  Simple and effective.

So, in my continual effort to avoid re-inventing the wheel, I give you an extremely valuable video of Gray Cook teaching and explaining the Brettzel and the Brettzel 2.0.  I always figure that if someone else can say it better than I can, all credit to that person.  Whatever gives my reading audience the greatest return is the route that I will take every single time.

Here are two fantastic movements for not just improving thoracic spine mobility, but movement pattern range of motion.

 

 

 

Watch the video a few times and follow along.  I can assure you that you will get something out of these drills should you be diligent about implementing them.

 

Drinking the Kool-Aid: Egg Yolks versus Smoking?

Angry Rants

By now many of you have either read this study or heard about it through the news media or a friend.

I am going to be blunt here…

If you are crazy enough to believe that egg yolks can even be put in the same universe as something like smoking, you’re insane.  You are truly drinking the Kool-Aid.  Drinking may not be an appropriate description, how about Kool-Aid keg stand?  That’s probably a better description.

I won’t reinvent the wheel on this post, there is no need to.  I, along with many other professionals won’t waste my time on justifying why this comparison is utter bullshit.

Luckily, I found another professional who had already taken the time to blog post a great article about how to take a practical approach to sniffing out the trash when it appears…

Follow the link to a crash course in identifying bullshit when it makes it way to the public…

 

—–>  5 Steps to Crack a Headline and Fry a Study

 

All credit to the author for teeing off so I didn’t have to.

 

Happy Sunday and enjoy your egg yolks!

 

 

KG

Do You Know What You’re Eating? Is All “Healthy” Food Healthy?

Food/Eating

After watching yet ANOTHER news story about the recall of the Apple Dippers served at McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants around the country.

Deep breath here…

Do you know what you’re eating?

Not all apples are created equal.  Not all oranges are created equal.  Not all beef is created equal.  Not all lettuce and spinach is created equal.  Not all peanut butter is created equal…

Do you see where I am going with this?

Just because you are buying a “bag of apple slices” from McDonald’s doesn’t mean that they are nutritious or non-toxic.  The red flag should be the fact that they are packaged in a bag and last for months they go rotten.

How long does a pesticide free grown apple last?  A week at the most probably?

You see, you cannot classify all food in the same categories.  I can buy meat from Wal-Mart, but is it the same ground beef that I can buy from a local farm that raises their cows on a free range grass-fed diet?

Absolutely not.

We have to smarten up as consumers.  I know that you want to believe that the cheapest yogurt at the grocery store is just as beneficial as the full fat greek yogurt… but it isn’t.  It’s not even close.

Please make an effort to learn something about what you are putting in your mouth.  I cannot stand to hear the excuse, “The food industry is just so big!  My vote won’t count!”.  Give me a break.  We bitch about so many other pointless issues that we don’t know what we are bitching about anymore.

Food sustains life and if you are eating toxic food, your risk for disease and early death sky rockets.

Try this for a 4 week time period:  Cut out bread and sugar.

The tough part about this challenge is going to be that bread is a habit food and sugar is addictive like cigarettes (this has been studied and proven).  Check my hyper-palatibility post for more information on that craziness.

Alright everyone, I had to write up a quick post before heading to a nutritional conference in Greensboro, NC.  Great things happening down here.  I will share later on…

 

 

KG