The Biggest Loser Strength Kit. Are you kidding me?
By · CommentsSo today I was sitting on my bed jammin a little bit on my guitar because I couldn’t think of anything to write about on this here blog you are reading. As I am playing I am also glancing around the room searching for my muse and noticed that my t-shirt drawer was open. Standing out of my shirts was a shirt that some of my friends had given me as a present/joke which I sometimes where to fitness seminars just for a laugh. It said “I workout everyday” and has a picture of a WiiMote.
Then I realized “Wii have a problem.”
You see just as I saw that I had a bit of a flash back to when I was Christmas Shopping at Best Buy and found an ingenious item for sale called The Biggest Loser Strength Kit for the Nintendo Wii.
Biggest Loser Strength Kit, complete with 5lb dumbbells
Are you kidding me? First thing, if you want to be strong you have to do things that require strength. 5lb dumbbells won’t require strength unless you are just waking up from a hospital bed after a long time in a coma or are just getting out of a full body cast. Hopefully you aren’t.
Now second if you want to change your fitness levels and change your body don’t use video games to do that. Chances are video games are what got you there in the first place so don’t expect them to get you out no matter how bad you want them to. Get up off your ass and get outside train hard and train consistent and do things that require strength (even if strength isn’t your goal).
Now I know you got some thoughts floating around your head. Let me hear them.
The cold hard reality of one way thinking
By · CommentsA couple of weeks ago I received an email in my inbox that kind of set off an alarm. This “guy” (could be a he/she, the world will never know) emailed me and told me his name was Mr. Thadeus. For one thing having a name like Mr. Thadeus sounds kind of like a Bond villain name (Mr. Thadeus, show them what it is you do) but no the alarm didn’t go off because of an enemy of 007 but because I had seen similar scams in the past. What this guy would do was inquire about booking me for 50 sessions and for some reason its always his daughter or son or some relative coming from outside the country and wanting to learn how to train with kettlebells. They would send a check exceeding the price quote you give them and ask to be refunded the excess and then the check would bounce.
Mr. Thadeus, show them what it is you do.
Now I was venting to my friend and sometimes training partner about this because this really pisses me off. For one thing doing what I do for a living even though I love it is tough. I find myself running down my gas mileage, eating cold chicken in my car between appointments, dealing with cancellations and excuses in a down economy all while trying to earn an honest buck. So this douchebag tries to take my money by scamming me. Luckily my gut told me this guy was full of crap. Unfortunately not everybody can discern that.
As I am telling my friend about all this he was telling me about a guy that was on that show “intervention” who had sent money to scammers in another country over a similar scam. You have probably found out that you somehow had a relative in some African country that died and left you a big inheritance but they need your account number to wire you the funds. Well this guy had fallen for that, and kept paying these people even though his friends and family were telling them not to. He had to remortgage his house and sell a bunch of his valuables because somehow in his head he believed he was going to get a lot of money sent to him.
So in other words he had invested so much into his belief that he would profit from this that he was unable to face the reality that it was all a bunch of crap.
And yet I see the same thing all the time when it comes to people trying to transform themselves. They have been bombarded so much into believing that doing ab exercises will magically shrink the midsection and aerobics/cardio is the best way to lose fat, that confusing the muscle is necessary for change, and that they need to have thousands of dollars in different kinds of supplements to gain muscle that presenting them with the truth is to painful to face. They would rather waste their money and time staying in their comfort zone (because that is what they are used to.) then to buckle down to what really brings results because it might be different then what they took as gospel.
It’s sad really. I believe that people could be a lot better off if they just took a long hard look at what they are doing and assessing if it is really in their best interest to continue to do it.
So let me ask you something. Have you invested so much of your time and energy chasing results without them ever able to appear that it is impossible to bring you back to reality? Be honest now.
I just discovered this report but haven’t had much of a chance to look into it. Apparently some of the more popular protein and meal replacement supplements contain some heavy metals (not the cool stuff like Judas Priest, Ozzy, Overlorde, Iron Maiden and Metallica but lead and cadmium) and other toxic substances like arsenic. Admittedly the studies need to be checked out to make sure they were legit studies but in the mean time I would suggest laying off of Muscle Milk, Myoplex, Synthesix, Nitrotech and a couple others, at least until they have had a chance to clear their name. You want a little more info watch the video.
If you still need some protein supplements probably the cleanest one out there (at least that I have found) is called Prograde Nutrition. You can only buy it online since it is not sold in stores (maybe thats why it doesn’t contain all that crap thats bad for you)
Memorial Day
By · CommentsWell today is Memorial day.
Ya know just like anything people take something good, and slowly it becomes something it was never intended to be. In case you aren’t aware you have the freedom today to enjoy your 3 day weekend by boozing it up and partying your ass off but please try to remember why you are able to do these things. Memorial day is about remembering the soldiers that gave their lives (most of them younger then me and I am a mere 28 years old) to give you the freedom that we all share over here in the United States.
You are probably going to have a barbecue, or are going to a barbecue so you can eat some burned meat and drink beer and possibly go swimming. I will be but I know its the freedom I had given to me by our men in uniform. Not all of them can be here today…and for that I thank them.
Remember who gave you this day.
I stole this from Dave Whitley’s blog which he got from someone else.
“Today, in the United States of America, we celebrate the 142nd Annual Memorial Day. It is a day to reflect on the memory of those in our Armed Forces who, through their bravery, paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the true meaning and traditions of Memorial Day.
At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored or neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.
To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the National Moment of Remembrance resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans “To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to Taps.”
so yes enjoy your day but please remember who gave this day to you to enjoy.
Use it or lose it
By · CommentsEvery once in awhile I’ll get a comment on my YouTube vids that so and so exercise is bad for your joints. Most of the time this comes from well intended but ill informed personal trainers or whatever enthusiasts.
Joints need strength just like the rest of our body does…and the only way to make your joints strong isn’t to continue to baby them but to train them as one part of the whole picture.
Take a look at some of the people in the 3rd world countries where they have their genitals showing because they have nothing to cover them. They spend a good part of their day in a deep squat chipping away at a piece of wood or rock or arranging various pebbles on the ground for whatever they plan on doing with those. Is this squatting below parallel completely destroying their knees? So
why should ours be any different?
Not bad for their knees, why should yours be any different?
As the old saying goes “use it or lose it”. If you don’t use your full range of motion in your joints you will lose it and will cease to be flexible, and to have strength from that position. To put this into context lets think about that squatting position before that I was talking about before. Now think of a young child and how they reach down to pick something up. Do they ever fear going below parallel? And notice how perfect their form is. Now compare that to an adult….one that sits at a desk for the better part of a day. The adults I have seen when I teach them to squat have atrocious form, often leading with their knees and are unable to hinge at the hips. They have lost that range of motion because they stopped using it.
Now I’ll admit you shouldn’t do ass to ankle pistol squats unless your body is ready for it. If you haven’t squatted down in over 20 years it would be foolish to try to reach the same depth that I do. However if you took a progressive approach to bring strength into your exercises and into your joints then you can get it back. I can pistol low enough to actually sit on the floor and then go back up into the pistol squat (with a counterbalance) without using momentum. Thats deep enough…and guess what…my knees have never felt better…and that is on one that was reconstructed around the same time 9/11 took place.
On the same note you have to be able to lock out under load or you will lose it. I have heard people recommending that I not lock out my elbows when pushing. When I say “why not?” they’ll typically say its bad for my joints without having any kind of reasonable explanation why. I am not looking for some scientific sounding answer like the way the uvulus muscle connects to the upper dorcimi via the ligament whose name sounds like those little dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. I am looking for an answer that simply stems from common sense.
Funny because my elbows feel a lot more stable pushing my car out of the ditch then it did not locking out on a bench press.
The fact of the matter is our joints are supposed to lock out under load. Thats why our bodies naturally do that when we are trying to push something with max effort (like pushing a car)… and I’m not likely to take advice on joints from someone who is unable to lock out their arms.
So take your joints through the full ranges of motion, top to bottom, when your body is ready. Your joints will thank you, your muscles will thank your for being stimulated along their full length…and no you don’t need to thank me.
