From Pez Dispenser To Bobblehead – The Chiro Episode

cat-massageSo for years I have not only avoided Chiropractors, I have actively discouraged people from going to them. My belief was that the processes of the neck and back were too dangerous to mess with and it’s easy to find anti-chiro sentiments online to support this. In the back of my mind however I was never specifically against the practice of alignment. When it comes to shoulders, ankles wrists etc. I was sure that chiropractic care had it right in the fact that without proper alignment of the bones any other therapy would not be effective. That seed was what grew into my first ever chiropractic appointment yesterday.

For about 3 weeks now I have had shoulder problems. It’s something that I have experienced before and went for almost 6 months of physio to have it fixed without success. The interesting thing is that eventually it resolved itself after a day of heavy deadlifting and I was so excited by this fact I wrote about it at the time. At that point I had finally discovered that the problem wasn’t soft tissue but was rather a misalignment of the joint itself. Now I don’t claim to know how or why this happens at the moment but I do know that for me the correct alignment of that joint left me pain free until recently. That’s about 18 months of great shoulder mobility. Unfortunately I can’t find exactly when I hurt my shoulder this time, and I can’t for the life of me remember it going out but I would bet dollars to donuts it was either dips or bench without enough warmup.

So I finally decided after trying heavy deadlifts and several attacks on my first and second ribs to try and force the joint back into place that I would go to see if a chiropractor would be able to assist. Believe me when I say that I went in with the most cynical of eyes but open to a manipulation of my ball and socket. First, she was 20 minutes late. Not a good sign, however that 20 minutes was spent under a warming blanket which was fine by me. Next the assistance asked me if I would like some thumper. Now, for me, when someone asks you something like that it’s always best just to say yes. I wasn’t sure if it was an illicit drug or a cup of herbal tea but I was pleasantly surprised when she brought out a huge massage device and proceeded to massage my entire back and neck with it. By this time I was thinking chiropractic was alright… I was also falling asleep!

Finally the doc showed up and we had a frank chat about my long history of partial shoulder separations, back surgeries, herniated discs, degenerative disc disease and so on. She then proceeded to tell me about why she became a chiropractor which was probably the best thing she could have done given my skepticism. We discussed mobility theory, joint manipulation, physiotherapy and as we spoke I understood that her theories of human performance were close to my own. Had she not done this, the next part of the show would have gone significantly differently.

I should say that I had watched extensive videos online of “Dr. Nelson Vetanze, Chiropractor at Omni Chiropractic, in Aurora, Colorado” who has a channel on YouTube. The most significant of which is of a boxer with the same problem I had. I was very happy to see that my doc did exactly the same testing as he did, which should not be a surprise but when someone does things the same was as the very successful you can bet it’s for a reason. His results were astonishing and as you will read later, so were mine. As she tested she explained that the shoulder often has issues that start in the neck and that for any treatment to be successful it would have to start at the root of the problem. I had been prepared for this as I often tell my gym kids that to fix a muscular issue you need to address issues above and below to make sure the fix sticks. After the conversation we had and her detailed explanation of the process I was comfortable enough to have her do some light adjustment to my neck and that was when the real action began. To be honest, it was very quick, she only adjusted my C1 and C2 having determined that my neck mobility was only about 60% of what it should be at the most. Her manipulation showed me where the alignment was out, she palpitated it before and after to actually demonstrate what happened and the whole adjustment was over in a couple of minutes.

Now during that two minutes several things happened. She attempted to pull my head off upwards without success. She pushed fairly gently I admit against my neck with my head turned provoking several quite disturbing cracking sounds that to me felt like a bee in an empty tin can. At no point did I feel in danger, and at no time did I feel any pain but once I sat up it was immediately apparent that my neck was far better than before. I had maybe a 70% improvement in my head mobility. For those of you who can’t math that means I went in unable to see behind me, now I can see my kids roll their eyes behind my back… In fact, the 3 times I had noticed my sore neck while driving to the appointment (shoulder check, putting seatbelt on and reversing) I had absolutely no pain at all doing the same thing on the way home.

There was a problem though. In freeing up my neck she had also inadvertently (or completely on purpose I’m sure she would claim) completely freed my shoulder blades to move in their proper fashion which immediately made me about 6″ wider. I didn’t really notice until I got to the gym but as I worked my back there was a massive difference in the degree of travel of my lats and scapula compared to the last workout, it was absolutely amazing.

I am not a convert as yet since my shoulder is still painful and I will wait to see that result before making my decision. For now, chiropractic care is no longer the devils work, it’s now been promoted to simple magic.

Motivation. Grab What’s Inside You And Beat Your Fears With It.

This is truly the information age and the wonderful thing about places like YouTube is that there is an unlimited amount of motivation out there. You should search YouTube for motivational videos, sign up for Instagram and follow people who motivate you, you don’t have to do this alone. Having a trainer is great but they can’t be with you 24/7, the only person present in your life 24/7 is you. You may as well make sure that person is on your side. If you are a fan of movies, watch some of these: Forever Strong, Pursuit of Happyness, Miracle, Any Given Sunday, Friday Night Lights, Rocky, Gladiator, Shawshank Redemption or find something else that will grab you by the soul and shake you.

Here are a few of my favourites. You didn’t come here for tears, but they are coming…

Cowards do that, and that ain’t you. You’re better than that.

You don’t have to be perfect to get what you want, it’s a lie

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy8VIwdCOFY

If you put as much time and effort into success as you do worrying about failure, you’d already be a champion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Coast, Thanks To LA Fitness

snatch-5215c14f11168I have been out of the gym for literally years, at home doing barbell related and bootcamp / HIIT / WOD style workouts.

I loved having enough equipment at home that I could easily do my deadlifting, squatting and other Oly lifting stuff and that I was creative enough to make wallballs, parallettes and other items to help with the stuff I needed. Also building what eventually turned out to be 6 pullup stations around the house was a help since pullups revolutionized my workouts ever since P90X. However, there is nothing like the variety of a gym. It’s like goin gto a buffet when you have been home cooking for a year, there is so much variety and the access is so easy it’s really hard not to get addicted to it. LA Fitness gave us a great deal as I wrote earlier and I have been going quite regularly recently because I find that I am able to do more fo what I need to more easily. I still like to to my deadlifting and my oly lifting at home, I don’t usually enjoy seeing people doing cleans or snatches at the gym so I don’t do it. Also there are no appropriately sized kettlebells at the gym so if I am wanting to do a KB workout I have to stay home.

So that brings me to my current workout scheme that has settled into a smooth groove for the time being. Although there have been only 2 days off in the last 45 I did have a week vacation in there too. My philosophy for the next month or so now that I have come off my cut and am taking some time to stabilize is to keep the workouts a bit lighter and to watch what my weight does. I will probably do another strength push towards the end of the year to get my lifts back up as long as my shoulder stops bothering me. But here is my current deal, not including the bootcamp workouts I occasionally do with the kids and also not taking into account the KB or Oly lifting days. (At home version in brackets for reference)

Chest – Bench and Flys (Same at home, but add pushups and DB pullovers)
Back – Deadlifts (light), Pullups (Same at home but more DL and weighted vest pullups)
Legs – Squats (light), leg press, extensions, hamstring machine (Squats, weighted lunges, extensions.)
Shoulders / traps – Military press, flys, barbell shrugs, cleans (Cleans, snatch, Power clean and KB at home due to ceiling height)
Arms – Curls and close grip bench, dips and preacher curls (close bench and dip station dips plus Oly bar curls.)

It’s super basic, my rep counts are somewhere in the region of 12-15 sets of each pyramiding up in weight and down in reps. I do tend to do quite high rep counts compared to most people, it’s just how I have always done things. For bench for instance it’s not unusual for me to do 120+ reps for a session and for arms and shoulders it can go a lot higher. Unless I am specifically doing 1RM or very low rep high weight counts my workouts are usually like this.

So that’s it for now. For the next 4 week or so things may be a bit boring, I will keep posting my WOD workouts for the girls at gym and also any off plan work I do that’s interesting. And for what it’s worth, it has been 3 weeks since I stopped cutting and went to Cuba and my weight is almost identical. I posted a 224 @ 17.0% this morning.

Frosh Week Is Over. The Punishment Never Ends…

your-missionWhat now?
Frosh Week is over, there will be a maximum of 3 workouts posted here each week from gym so what do you do in the mean time? In other words, how do I build my own workout.

Here’s a quick method.

How many workouts a week? Should be 6 so I will go with that. If you can only manage 4 then welcome to the Frosh 15. Again.

1. Upper body
2. Lower body and abs
3. Cardio
4. Upper body
5. Lower body and abs
6. Cardio
7. Rest

If you really only want to do a 4 day split you can do a push / pull approach but there is no getting away from cardio.

1. Pushups and Squats
2. Pullups and Abs
3. Bootcamp full body
4. Cardio

I suggest the 6 day workouts, you can make it a heavy 3 and a light 3 if you like, just stay active. Here is a list of just some of the exercises you can try. Also there are about 170 entries tagged with bootcamp of one sort or another, just click on the word in the tag cloud to see them.

Upper Body

Pushups – Military, Spider, Clap, Plyo, Sphinx to plank, side hold
Pullups – Narrow, wide, reverse, chin to hand
Dips – Chair, chair and feet, free dips on bars
Shoulder press – Down dog, feet on chair, feet on stairs, handstand (top of head touches ground)

Lower body

Squats, pop squats, squat tuck jump, squat 180, squat 360, Pistols (1 leg squat)
Lunge front, lunge back , walking lunge, side lunge, foot on chair lunge
Box step up, double stair walk, sissy squat (on toes)
Calf raises, calf raise on stairs, calf raise on stairs one foot alternate

Abs

Vsnaps, crunch, leg up toe touch, full sit up, sit up double twist
Hanging leg raise, tucked leg raise
In and out, crunchy frog, bicycles front and back, flutters all 3 levels
Side crunch, russian twists, roll to boat hold

Cardio

I recommend Tabata for cardio, 20 minutes and done, but work as fast as possible (20s on 10s off x8 = 4 minutes x5 rounds)

Jacks, squats, tuck jumps, lunges, knees up, heels up, burpees (all variations)
Mary Katherine lunge switch, long jumps or ski jumps (side to side)

How much? For everything except cardio try for anything from 200-800 total reps. Take something from each line or two from each and do anything from 3 to 50 of each. Here are a couple of examples of super easy workouts that you can put together for yourself with other items:

Mandy:
20-15-10-5

Pullups
Double Block Jumps
Pushups
v snaps

Pick a poison:
5x each one

5 chin up
10 push up
15 air squat

5 hip pullover
10 beam jumps
15 lunge switch

5 skin cat recover
10 leg lifts
15 vsnaps

5 ring inversions
10 dips
15 handstand shoulder touch

Barbara:
Five rounds, each for time of:
20 Pull-ups
30 Push-ups
40 Sit-ups
50 Squats

And everyone’s favourite:

Chelsea / Cindy (Sub Burpees for Pullups if you have to)

Chelsea:
Each minute on the minute for 30 minutes

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats

Cindy:
AMRAP – As Many Rounds As Possible in 20 minutes.

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats

Nerd Alert – The Science Of Ketosis Based Diets

ketoI came across this exceptional explanation of the science behind why the keto diet (restricting carbs to under 25g a day) is so successful. In fact, when you look at the processes by which your body uses energy and how it creates that energy from stored fat or ingested food it’s incredibly complex. However it fits with such bumper sticker quotes as Keto diets burn fat not muscle or low carb is the only way to lose weight efficiently. If you are actually interested in the mechanism and want to know more about ketosis than 95% of the population then read THIS. That’s right, science comes to the rescue once again.

If you can’t make the link work, here is a cut and paste: http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/ketosis-advantaged-or-misunderstood-state-part-i

For those of you looking for something a little easier to digest, here you go: http://www.ruled.me/guide-keto-diet/

And as an added bonus for all the fat logic people out there who say they are eating nothing and gaining weight, here is a 382 day FAST (ZERO FOOD) that proves otherwise. Again, science FTW. This is why people need to stay in school. And eat bacon.

Snip for the lazy:

One extreme case stands out. In 1965, one Scotsman, who chose to remain anonymous, was tired of being morbidly obese. So he decided to just stop eating until he came down to a reasonable weight. Wisely, he had doctors monitor his progress.

In 1965-1966, this man went from 207kg (456lb) to 82kg (181lb) by not eating for 382 days. A total weight loss of 125kg (275lb). Apart from “non-caloric fluids” (e.g. water, tea and coffee), all he ingested was some yeast and vitamin supplements. Five years later, he was still under 90kg (199lb). There were no apparent ill effects from this diet but he was under the close supervision of physicians.

For those of you who read this far, here’s an ice cream recipe for you 😉

How do you make that ice cream you keep talking about?

We’re still working on the nuances, but the current version is composed of 3.5 cups of whole fat (i.e., heavy, 35% fat) cream, 1 cup of zero sugar almond milk, 1 tbsp vanilla extract, 2 tbsp almond extract, 3 tbsp ground espresso powder, and 2 tbsp xylitol. This makes enough to feed about 8 normal people, or me in one sitting.

You’ll need an ice cream maker, obviously, to mix it at freezing temperatures.

Frosh Week Day 6 – The Last Day (Be A Gymnast)


straddle holdtuck plancheSince most of the people who this is aimed at are previous gymnasts this should be easy. For the rest of the world you need to start working on your gymnastics skills. It’s a tough sport to compete in but the skills you develop as a gymnast are valuable for all aspects of sport and fitness. So if you don’t have a handstand or a bridge or splits, get to work.

Day 6 – Memories of Gymnastics

5-10-15 for warmup

Pushups
Situps
Chair or free dips
Squats

Workout:

30s plank on hands
5 wall handstands @ 10 seconds
30s Bridge hold
10s straddle hold (hands only)

2 minute rest

60s plank on hands
10 wall handstand shoulder touches each side
10 fall to bridge recover or back walkover
20s Tuck planche hold

2 minute rest

90s plank on hands
10 Handstand half or full turn
10 Handstand bridge or front walkover
10 Free handstands hold as long as possible

2 minute rest

20 pushup side hold
20 free handstand shoulder touches (as many attempts to do 20 total)
20 pushup shoulder touch (40 touches total)
5 30s handstands assisted or against the wall

2 minutes rest and cry because you miss gymnastics so much…

Frosh Week Day 4 – Tabata Cardio. Who doesn’t love cardio amirite?

elf tabataFrosh Week Workouts Day 4
Cardio… because beer is carbs

Tabata protocol:
20 SECONDS WORK
10 SECONDS REST
X 8
THAT’S JUST 4 MINUTES OF ALL OUT WORK

5 rounds is a total of 20 minutes of effort. SO WORK!!!

Jumping jacks
VSNAPS
Mary Katherine lunge switches
Pushups
Burpees

Frosh Week Day 3 – Warmup and Stretch

perfect-split-leapTime for a rest, of course only if you have done the previous 2 days. This is not so much a day off as a chance to work back into your flexibility and is something that, if you don’t do yoga at the Student Gym, you are going to need to do twice a week. Those legs aren’t going to stretch themselves!

Frosh Week Workouts Day 3
Short workout plus stretching

3 rounds:
50 jumping jacks
25 Pushups
25 Double twist situps
60 second plank

3 rounds:
90s right split
90s left split
90s middle split
30s bridge
30s wall handstand