NYE Throw down @ Crossfit performance, CT

What is the paleo diet?

Here's a definitive guide to what the paleo diet is, what it's not and what critics are saying.

By Judd HandlerTue, Nov 23 2010 at 5:04 PM EST 5 Comments

MEAT: The paleo diet encourages healthy portions of protein. (Photo: Tobyotter/Flickr)

Over the last few years, a diet that Homer Simpson would dream and drool over has become increasingly popular.

No, the diet doesn’t involve scarfing down mass quantities of donuts, but it does involve eating lots of meat. Mmmm, meat. (Insert Homer’s drooling noise here).

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While the “Donut Diet” hasn’t won any waistline-slimming converts yet, the Paleo diet has. Also known as the “Paleolithic” or “Caveman” diet, the Paleo diet consists of foods that many think didn’t exist before the advent of modern agriculture, which most historians say occurred around 10,000 years ago.

What’s on the Paleo diet menu? Basically, anything that flies, swims, runs and crawls, along with leafy vegetables, fruits and nuts.

Crawls? Yes, crawls. Insects were thought to be commonly eaten during the Paleolithic era, which began roughly 2.5 million years ago.

Don’t worry though, if you decide to go Paleo, you won’t have to eat any creepy-crawlies; the modern nutritional plan that is the Paleo diet allows for contemporary adaptations.

You won’t have to go hunting for a saber-tooth tiger or other wild game, although lean meats like venison and bison are highly encouraged, as is grass-fed beef.

2011 challenge!

 

The New Year is basically here, and we're ready to shed some of those holiday pounds! Starting January 10th, I will be having a Paleo/Zone competition. I'm upping the ante this time, as this challenge will run for 49 days (7 weeks). Prizes are on the line, but most importantly, this is an opportunity to incorporate healthier choices in your diet and set permanent habits for your lifestyle. Here are the details: From January 10th - February 28th, 2011 Based on before and after pictures (no one will see these until the final voting and if you decide you don't want yours show, that is cool.) Before pictures must be taken before January 10th, 2011, after pictures must be taken between February 27th & 28th. Men will go with no shirt and shirts, women will wear some sort of sports bra and shorts. Anyone can enter. Prizes: 1st place - 6 free partner training sessions 2nd place - 4 free partner training sessions 3rd place - 2 free partner training sessions Start planning now, and prepare to have your life changed...again! See me for questions and details. The Zone or Paleo styles are to be used.

I have a problem....

Exercise: The Fitness Paradox In America

Since the only other options are vegetable, mineral, and bacteria-like things, I trust we can all agree that we are animals. We have a tendency to speak about ourselves as if we are something else, apart from nature altogether -- but there is no place for us but the animal kingdom. And along with that comes an innate animal vitality. We are neglecting it to our collective detriment.

That, in essence, was the message conveyed by an article on physical activity in small increments in last Tuesday's New York Times (11/22/10). The article profiled the work of Dr. Toni Yancey, a colleague at the UCLA School of Public Health, whose new book, "Instant Recess," makes the case for brief periods of physical activity in diverse settings throughout the day.

I will return to Dr. Yancey's work before I'm done, but if you'll indulge me, I'll get there via a lament, a harangue, and a proposition.

I lament the loss of animal vitality I have seen over the years in so many of my patients. I believe my most wistful reflection on this particular topic came a few years ago, when my now 71-year-old father and I were hiking together in the winter woods (and lovely they were, though not dark on that occasion, and not quite so deep as we might have liked!).

My father is a cardiologist, and I am an internist -- so we have both cared for lots of people with serious chronic diseases. As we walked up a steep, snow-strewn incline; as our breathing quickened to accommodate the exertion; and as sunlight filtered through tree limbs crisply contrasted against the sky -- we both found ourselves thinking of them, and what they were missing.

Phys Ed: The Benefits of Weight Training for Children

NOVEMBER 24, 2010, 12:01 AM

Phys Ed: The Benefits of Weight Training for Children

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Trisha Cluck/Getty Images

Back in the 1970s, researchers in Japan studied child laborers and discovered that, among their many misfortunes, the juvenile workers tended to be abnormally short. Physical labor, the researchers concluded, with its hours of lifting and moving heavy weights, had stunted the children’s growth. Somewhat improbably, from that scientific finding and other similar reports, as well as from anecdotes and accreting myth, many people came to believe “that children and adolescents should not” practice weight training, said Avery Faigenbaum, a professor of exercise science at the College of New Jersey. That idea retains a sturdy hold in the popular imagination. As a recent position paper on the topic of children and resistance training points out, many parents, coaches and pediatricians remain convinced that weight training by children will “result in short stature, epiphyseal plate” — or growth plate — “damage, lack of strength increases due to a lack of testosterone and a variety of safety issues.”

Kids, in other words, many of us believe, won’t get stronger by lifting weights and will probably hurt themselves. But a major new review just published in Pediatrics, together with a growing body of other scientific reports, suggest that, in fact, weight training can be not only safe for young people, it can also be beneficial, even essential.

In the Pediatrics review, researchers with the Institute of Training Science and Sports Informatics in Cologne, Germany, analyzed 60 years’ worth of studies of children and weightlifting. The studies covered boys and girls from age 6 to 18. The researchers found that, almost without exception, children and adolescents benefited from weight training. They grew stronger. Older children, particularly teenagers, tended to add more strength than younger ones, as would be expected, but the difference was not enormous. Over all, strength gains were “linear,” the researchers found. They didn’t spike wildly after puberty for boys or girls, even though boys at that age are awash in testosterone, the sex hormone known to increase muscle mass in adults. That was something of a surprise. On the other hand, a reliable if predictable factor was consistency. Young people of any age who participated in resistance training at least twice a week for a month or more showed greater strength gains than those who worked out only once a week or for shorter periods.

Over all, the researchers concluded, “regardless of maturational age, children generally seem to be capable of increasing muscular strength.”

Zach Krych Injury & Comeback

Compound That Blocks Sugar Pathway Slows Cancer Cell Growth

Released: 11/18/2010 9:00 AM EST
Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine

Newswise — Scientists at Johns Hopkins have identified a compound that could be used to starve cancers of their sugar-based building blocks. The compound, called a glutaminase inhibitor, has been tested on laboratory-cultured, sugar-hungry brain cancer cells and, the scientists say, may have the potential to be used for many types of primary brain tumors.

The Johns Hopkins scientists, are inventors on patent applications related to the discovery, caution that glutaminase inhibitors have not been tested in animals or humans, but their findings may spark new interest in the glutaminase pathway as a target for new therapies.

Glutaminase is an enzyme that controls how glucose-based nutrients are converted into the carbon skeleton of a cell. Additional enzymes that help construct the so-called “bricks” of the carbon skeleton are controlled by a gene called IDH1. In some brain cancer cells, IDH1 is mutated and the resulting enzyme grinds up the bricks into nutrients that feed cancer cells.

“Cancer cells with mutated IDH1 become addicted to the glutaminase pathway, and this pathway may represent an Achilles’ heel of cancer cells,” says Chi Dang, M.D., Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins Family Professor in Oncology Research and Vice Dean for Research at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “To combat cancer, we might block the flow of materials that help create the bricks, starting with glutaminase.”

To establish proof of the principle, the Johns Hopkins scientists and a team of chemists and geneticists at Princeton University used a glutaminase-blocking agent on cells engineered to have IDH1 mutations. The compound, called BPTES, reduced growth of the cancer cells by 30 percent. Their findings were published online November 2 in Cancer Research.

CrossFit - Chris Spealler - The Difference

"This is not a big man’s event, this is not a small man’s event. This is my event.”

11.22.2010– Chris Spealler is one of the CrossFit Games’ most unique competitors. At 5’4”, 135 pounds, and 31 years of age, the odds are stacked against him in a sport where the average height and weight of the elite CrossFitter is 5 inches taller and 40 lb. heavier. Not to mention, competitors are ten years younger. As the only four-time veteran of the CrossFit Games, he’d seen enough to know that he had a few deficiencies to address. Prior to the 2010 CrossFit Games, the former Collegiate wrestler knew that he was aging, he was only recovering as quickly as his body would allow. And he still wasn’t as strong as he needed to compete with the highest levels of the CrossFit Games’ athlete.

As the years progressed, Spealler’s ability pushed him further and further away from the podium. The Inaugural 2007 Games was seen as his pinnacle of performance as he finished 4th in that small field of athletes. This, despite an event consisting of max lifts in the squat, the dead lift, and the shoulder press. Brute strength is an area that obviously isn’t Spealler’s forte. In 2008, he encountered a workout of 30 squat clean-to-presses (for time) that weighed in at 115% of his bodyweight. The winner of that event, Jason Khalipa, weighed well into his 220‘s and excelled in the same event. The weight used was only 60% of his bodyweight. With another disappointing finish in a strength event, Spealler finished 10th overall. In 2009, the Games would see a more strength-biased workout early on, in the form of a timed interval max weight dead lift. The opening weight was 315 lb.. and the final pull was 500 lb.. Spealler finished last in that event despite setting a personal PR in that lift. He finished 26th overall in 2009.

A Vegan No More

by TASHA on NOVEMBER 19, 2010 in A VEGAN NO MORE

***To read my follow up to this post where I address many of your questions and concerns please click here – Vegan Defector Talks Back***

UPDATE: Thank you all for your comments, I never expected this post to get so much attention. However, I do not have the time nor the desire to continue moderating comments. Some of you have been amazingly supportive and have shared many thought provoking ideas, and I really appreciate that. Unfortunately, others have made threats against me and my family and that I cannot tolerate. So, thank you all very much for reading my post but I am going to be turning off the comments. I hope you can understand.

***

Many of you know that I have recently been struggling for the first time in my life with health problems. When I discovered that my problems were a direct result of my vegan diet I was devastated.  2 months ago, after learning the hard way that not everyone is capable of maintaining their health as a vegan, I made one of the most difficult decisions of my life and gave up veganism and returned to eating an omnivorous diet. My health immediately returned. This experience has been humbling, eye-opening, and profoundly transformative. To hear the whole story just keep reading…

Part 1 – Health Shock

When the doctor first told me that I had numerous vitamin and mineral deficiencies, that I was almost anemic, and my B12 was so low she wanted to give me an injection immediately, I refused to believe her. I actually asked her to show me the blood test results because I thought there had to be some sort of mistake. But there was no mistake, it was right there in black and white; deficiencies and abnormalities across the board.

Before & after Santa

Merry Christmas!

A thought on Christmas.

All year long we strive for joy and happiness, to live our lives on a level well above our current circumstances.

This is only natural. It is the human condition.

To me, TODAY is the big benchmark for a life well-lived. Each Christmas I look back 4 or 5 years and think about how I felt on those past Christmas Eves. What was going on with the kids, grandkids and all my friends and associates. I try to measure how far I have come, emotionally, spiritually and physically.

I take a few minutes to really THINK about where I want to be NEXT Christmas.

Which really gets me thinking.

If Christmas is all about LOVE, then what must I do to demonstrate my love to everyone I know... not just a few times when the time is right, but every day... in every action I take and every thought I think?

What must I do to truly love my neighbor as myself?

What must I do to love myself even more... so I can increase my capacity to love others even more?

If love is the answer, how can I live my next 4-5 years so that, when I look back to today, I have the peace of mind that comes from knowing -- truly KNOWING -- that my life is being measured by my capacity to love?

Better.

I can do better each day, striving to achieve my personal best a bit more often.

And learn to love myself even when I fail.

Maybe that's the message of the season.

Unconditional love.

Learn to love others by learning to love yourself -- blemishes, failures and all.

Next Christmas I will look back on today and proclaim, Joy to The World... I have been given the gift of love.

What a beautiful idea.

I have received a gift 2 thousand years in the making.

Merry Christmas!

Look Familiar ?

Get ready for the 2011 challenge 

starting in January

No time????

Does a Head Injury Continue to Affect Cognitive Function?

Last week, a Chino Hills high school quarterback was taken to the hospital after being rendered unconscious from being hit while running with the ball. Fortunately, he woke up and was able to be discharged from the hospital without suffering major neurological damage. This is a reminder that football season is here, giving us the opportunity to watch the end zone antics, head butts ... and a player suffering an occasional concussion. One of the biggest problems with concussions is a simple lack of respect for the gravity of the condition. A concussion is an injury to the brain caused by a sudden impact to, or spin of the head during which the brain (a soft organ) is shaken so hard that the buffering cerebral spinal fluid surrounding it can't prevent it from banging against the hard skull. This trauma causes the brain to go into shock and temporarily stop working properly, affecting memory, judgment, coordination and other neurological functions.

The most common causes are motor vehicle accidents and contact sports, especially football, soccer, ice hockey and boxing. (In October, L.A. Kings defenseman Drew Doughty suffered a concussion that kept him off the ice for a few weeks.) Contrary to popular belief, a person does not have to lose consciousness to suffer a concussion. Concussions can often be incorrectly diagnosed, not diagnosed at all, or worse, even when they are diagnosed, can be dismissed with, "I just have a headache, it'll go away," or "I'm a little dizzy. No big deal." It is a big deal. It's a brain injury, and the effects can reach far beyond the next quarter, the next game or even the next decade. In fact, one study showed that former NFL players had a higher incidence of Alzheimer's disease and other conditions associated with cognitive impairment, and developed these problems at a younger age than the national average.

Why You Got Fat

"We hear the beating of wings over Bethlehem and a light that is not of the sun or of the stars shines in the midnight sky. Let the beauty of the story take away all narrowness, all thought of formal creeds. Let it be remembered as a story that has happened again and again, to men of many different races, that has been expressed through many religions, that has been called by many different names. Time and space and language lay no limitations upon human brotherhood." 

~ ~New York Times, 

25 December 1937

"THE LIFT"

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"Instead of being a time of unusual behavior, Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man/woman has to be himself."

 ~ Francis C. Farley

Weekly Wod's

Workout #1:
Complete three rounds for time:
25 push press
25 ring dips


Workout #2:
Complete five rounds of:
Client's choice of one metabolic & body weight  movement/ Coach's choice on reps
10 front squats


Workout #3:
"Angie"
For time:
100 pull ups
100 push ups
100 sit ups
100 air squats

Way back home

"Do what you are passionate about in life... 
Otherwise your not really living..."

Ray

The Push Press

The Push Press Greg Everett

November 13 2010 

An exercise I use very frequently both in training and teaching is the push press. The push press has tremendous utility in a multitude of senses and should definitely be a staple of any strength training program.

As an intermediary between the press and the jerk, the push press largely splits the difference and shares features of both the press and jerk. Interestingly (at least to me), I see the majority of people thinking of it strictly as an upper body movement, and being more closely related to the press than the jerk.

I like telling people to think of the push press as a leg exercise. Is it demanding of upper body pressing strength? If you're using appropriate weights for the exercise, yes. However, it often seems forgotten that the initial upward acceleration (and really, a great deal of the total upward movement) originates (or should) with the legs.

Unless athletes focus on forcing the legs to contribute maximally to the lift, they invariably get very little leg drive at all and the movement deteriorates into more of a partial squat with a press after recovering.

What I want to see in a push press is an extremely aggressive drive with the legs; this will cause the athlete to extend the ankles somewhat. If an athlete remains flat-footed throughout the push press, it's a clear indicator that he or she is either not driving hard enough with the legs, or is cutting that drive off prematurely.

Further, the press up with the arms should be fairly smooth. Although it will naturally slow as the arms near extension, the bar should not abruptly decelerate as the effort shifts from the legs to the arms. This indicates weak leg drive and/or poor timing with engaging the arms.

GLASSMAN PROMO

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Pole vaulting and tricks

Friday WOD...

Super six!

The Final Chapter
4 rounds of:
6 minute running clock/ one minute at each station for points

• Box jumps/ Step ups
• Pull ups
• Sit ups
• Air squats
• Push ups (parelettes)
• Dips (parelettes)
• Rest one minute

The rules

Thursday WOD...

Partner AMRAP 15 minutes:
5 DB snatch each arm wile partner does burpees until they finish/ switch (one round)


7 Minute AMRAP partner/TEAM strict press

Wednesday WOD.....

TABATA the following (12 rounds)
KB front squat
Double unders
Sit ups.

Tuesday WOD....

Buddy workout
5 rounds for points:
1 minute max effort one arm squat thrusts
1 minute max effort push ups
Rest 2 minutes after each round

Monday WOD...

Team tag

Complete three rounds of:

100 deadlifts (partner)

Rest 2 minutes after each round

Note: 2 women per barbell/ 1 man per barbell

Shoes

Shoes
November 22, 2010 in Blog, training


There are a lot of shoe companies poking there noses around CrossFit right now. It is no secret that I am a supporter of Inov-8 shoes. What I want to to address is what shoes are good for what. Contrary to popular belief shoes are not the primary culprit for our issues. Although since the shoe “revolution” (1970′s was when the shoe companies decided to develop a large heel) we have seen more and more issues with people running (83% of all runners are injured each year, 2005 ACSM). I personally run into folks who have “flat feet” more and more (although not as much in the last few years) or issues with their feet and cannot wear certain types of shoes due to the nature of their feet. First and foremost, you are responsible for you. So if you decided to buy a pair of Nike Shox or Vibram Five Fingers (Gawd have mercy on your sole for making either of those decisions… more on that later).


I contacted Inov-8 in 2008 because I felt they were the only running shoe company who really understood running shoes. After a few emails, and some talking, we invited some of the Inov-8 crew to a Cert and the rest is history. I believe 100% that Inov-8 is still the only running shoe company who “gets it”. While they all are trying to run a business (I get it, trust me) most have failed miserably at sticking to the true nature of what our feet do.


Move forward to the other half of what we do… CrossFit or Conditioning. I like most people who are going to read this post train most of the time in a gym and spend less time with sport specificity. In this case, running. I run maybe once or twice per week, and it is usually within a WOD (workout of the day). For the most part I am lifting something. It could be an olympic lift, powerlift, thrusters, push press, or whatever. The bottom line is it is going to require me to have a decent contact point with the ground so that I can either move a heavy load, jump, or run for a short distance.


Weightlifting shoes have a raised heel so that you can take dorsiflexion out of the game with squatting. It makes it easy for folks who have a limited range of dorsiflexion (tight calves) to squat deep. These are not ideal for anything other than weightlifting. In fact, they really are best suited for Olympic Weightlifting. You will not see Powerlifters using weightlifting shoes in most cases. I’ve yet to see any of the guys at SuperTraining Gym in Sacramento wear anything other than Converse All Stars or some form a Skateboarding shoes. Check!

I PERSEVERE

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End of the week WOD

Pet Rock concept

3 Person TEAM workout
Part #1:
Complete 3 rounds as a TEAM of:
Back/sandbag squats 30/50
Pull ups 60




Part #2:
Complete 3 rounds as a TEAM of:
KBS 90
Knees to elbows 60