Words I use often with my clients are optimal health, efficient movement, and keeping a neutral spine. These are keys to becoming an effective athlete.
The way most people work out is not only ineffective, but problematic. And they are working themselves in a way where they are weakest, not where they are most optimal. You have a certain amount of strength potential to begin with, you lose a lot of the potential due to energy leakage. So you don't want to work out in a way where you are exacerbating the way you leak energy and promote injury. Good training is about progression, not about exercising randomly until you feel as bad as humanly possible and feeling proud of yourself that you got through it. It's why I have problems with a lot of bootcamp, or random style group fitness classes. Let's see how quickly we can make you feel nauseated from this work out, and throw away exercise science and effective and optimal training methods. Let's see how many athletes that produces. Let's see how many injuries that produces.
Areas where people are weak, neutral spine. Ability to hinge at the hips. Ability to rotate shoulders. We are designed to generate power through the whole system. For example even if you are doing an overhead press, your body was designed to do it by stabilizing off of the hips. Doing it seated or on a machine moves you out of that optimal movement range and creates an unnatural movement pattern. Energy will eventually leak into an injury.
Only reason you would use machines like that is if you were physically incapable in some way, or you are temporarily injured. Even then there are so many ways to work around your injury without use of machines. Machines are great for robots maybe, machine movements are not good for human beings who are used to human movements.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
CAN YOU CURE SOMETHING WITHOUT A PROFIT?
DCA as a possible cure for cancer brings up a good question. Can you get funding for a drug that is not profitable? DCA is not patent-able and it's very cheap. It costs around 100 million to get it through all the phases of testing.
1O EXERCISE MACHINES TO AVOID
When it comes to working out, exercise machines aren’t always effective--or even safe. Here are the machines to skip next time you hit the gym, plus some alternative exercises to help you train smarter. Source: Yahoo News.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
RESTORATIVE YOGA
Sometimes you push your athletes to the limit. Sometimes you need to restore them if they are injured. This is a great example of using restorative yoga to relieve pressure on the back.
Friday, March 23, 2012
COACH SAM IS A MARTIAL ARTS NERD
According to Dan Faggella. Who is Dan Fagella? He's a martial artist, public speaker, business owner, and grad student. He seems to be one of those people who get it. What martial arts is about. It's not just about being good at your specific martial art, it's about using your martial art to be great at life. There are thousands of people who train BJJ (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu), and possibly only a handful who understand that.
Dan has a great site at www.ScienceOfSkill.com. According to Dan , The Science of Skill's goal is:
Top BJJ Nerd: Inner BJJ. It's a great write up that delves into what my goals are as a martial artist as well as for my site Inner BJJ. We have a lot of similar ambitions with our art. Obvious differences are, Dan is a much more accomplished competitor than I. Actually I don't even bother competing anymore. Dan's a brown belt, owns his own MMA/BJJ school called Black Diamond, and has won No Gi Pan Ams as well as getting third in the IBJJF Pan Am Championships back in 2009.
BJJ is all about efficiency. He owns his own business, goes to school, trains, works out, speaks, and wins. So what's your excuse?
Dan has a great site at www.ScienceOfSkill.com. According to Dan , The Science of Skill's goal is:
- To Revolutionize The Effectiveness of Combat Sport Training Worldwide
- To Encourage Athletes to Become More Engaged with Their Training Methods, and so Get Better Results, Faster – and More Personal Satisfaction and Grown from their Sport
Top BJJ Nerd: Inner BJJ. It's a great write up that delves into what my goals are as a martial artist as well as for my site Inner BJJ. We have a lot of similar ambitions with our art. Obvious differences are, Dan is a much more accomplished competitor than I. Actually I don't even bother competing anymore. Dan's a brown belt, owns his own MMA/BJJ school called Black Diamond, and has won No Gi Pan Ams as well as getting third in the IBJJF Pan Am Championships back in 2009.
BJJ is all about efficiency. He owns his own business, goes to school, trains, works out, speaks, and wins. So what's your excuse?
Thursday, March 22, 2012
EAST MEETS WEST
Before you go and think the east has it all figured out as far as alternative medicine and treating the body, take a look at this picture.
This is one of many types of products that are popular in the east, and among Asian Americans here in the US. This particular product is not cheap either. I have friends, family members, and acquaintances that have every conceivable product and pill that just masks symptoms. This one you basically submerge your whole body into it and it massages every inch of you. There are machines where it covers you all the way to your neck.
Before you think Asians are mystical and their philosophy is about treating the disease or prevention and not the symptom, think again. They have the same problems as everyone else and a lot of the same mindset.
Asian spas are famous for treating symptoms and getting quite popular here in Los Angeles. We have so many names for every condition now. In the past we used to label most of it as just being feeble. And what was the remedy? Good old fashion strength. Being "strong" will cure most of these problems.
Then again why would I do that when I can buy a piece of junk like this. I wonder if you're used to being treated like this all the time, from spas, massage, acupuncture, machines, and so forth, and your body gets so used to it, I wonder how much pain just being in the real world will cause you. It's like going from zero gravity to Earth's gravity. It must suck. The solution? Not getting stronger of course. Just buy a better gadget or find some newer alternative, maybe this time it will be a cleanse. If they call it "holistic" it must be treating the condition not the symptoms right? But no, that's not true that's not true. I work out too. I do the elliptical. And I also spin, and do yoga flow, and pilates! Yes now you are as strong as an ox. With such "intense" work outs, you must be totally counteracting all the pampering you are doing to yourself.
All doctors tell you, the worst thing for a back injury is not moving and trying to rest it all the time. But that's what people will do, try to coddle it. If movement is the best answer to keeping it from getting worse, I wonder what being strong will do?
Before you think Asians are mystical and their philosophy is about treating the disease or prevention and not the symptom, think again. They have the same problems as everyone else and a lot of the same mindset.
Asian spas are famous for treating symptoms and getting quite popular here in Los Angeles. We have so many names for every condition now. In the past we used to label most of it as just being feeble. And what was the remedy? Good old fashion strength. Being "strong" will cure most of these problems.
Then again why would I do that when I can buy a piece of junk like this. I wonder if you're used to being treated like this all the time, from spas, massage, acupuncture, machines, and so forth, and your body gets so used to it, I wonder how much pain just being in the real world will cause you. It's like going from zero gravity to Earth's gravity. It must suck. The solution? Not getting stronger of course. Just buy a better gadget or find some newer alternative, maybe this time it will be a cleanse. If they call it "holistic" it must be treating the condition not the symptoms right? But no, that's not true that's not true. I work out too. I do the elliptical. And I also spin, and do yoga flow, and pilates! Yes now you are as strong as an ox. With such "intense" work outs, you must be totally counteracting all the pampering you are doing to yourself.
All doctors tell you, the worst thing for a back injury is not moving and trying to rest it all the time. But that's what people will do, try to coddle it. If movement is the best answer to keeping it from getting worse, I wonder what being strong will do?
Can being as strong as an ox really be that bad for you? And how bad is it to pamper yourself all the time?
Before you waste your money, try the best cure of all. It's called being STRONG. From chronic pain, cancer, HIV, arthritis, there is no one who's quality of life would not improve from being stronger.
(With that said, I know some of you will still want one.)
(With that said, I know some of you will still want one.)
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
CONTROVERSIAL CROSSFIT AD
Crossfit and Reebok have partnered together and here is one of their new ads. This ad lasted exactly one day before it got pulled. It states, "cheat on your girlriend, not on your workout. The sport of fitness has arrived." More at the Huffington Post.
DIFFERENT AILMENTS
Whenever I think I know how to treat every injury and ailment in the book, a client will come in with a new one and I obsessively research everything I can about it. And sometimes they are misdiagnosed. One client has sciatic nerve issues but the symptoms tell me she has piriformis syndrome!
Now when they come in and injuries and pain may all be in their head, that's the tough one...
Now when they come in and injuries and pain may all be in their head, that's the tough one...
YUPPIES AND PICKY EATERS
It's hard to help picky eaters with their diets. Let's say for instance (and this comes up quite often), you are a vegetarian but there's so many vegetables that you hate to eat because it's too crunchy, too chewy, it's from the sea, it looks weird, etc. Then there's people who hate eating anything other than meat and processed carbs or potatoes. I know some people who actually hate the taste of water.
There's a lot of poor diets and poor eating habits out there. But one note: just because you happen to drink wine with every meal does not make the crap you ate any more refined or sophisticated or healthier. I eat healthy, I usually wine and dine. First of all wine with every meal is not healthy. Secondly just because you ate wine with it doesn't make what you ate any more healthy. That has more to do with people's sense of class or elitism than health. It's basically saying, Sam, I don't eat cheap stuff, so it has to be pretty healthy. No it doesn't. But your classicism is showing.
Even in my own life, I hang out with friends who want to go out and eat. They eat stuff like wine and cheesy nachos. Yeah real upscale and healthy.
About the Author:
Coach Sam Y. is a Master Personal Trainer, Coach, Certified Nutritionist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, Pilates and Yoga instructor, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook and Pinterests.
There's a lot of poor diets and poor eating habits out there. But one note: just because you happen to drink wine with every meal does not make the crap you ate any more refined or sophisticated or healthier. I eat healthy, I usually wine and dine. First of all wine with every meal is not healthy. Secondly just because you ate wine with it doesn't make what you ate any more healthy. That has more to do with people's sense of class or elitism than health. It's basically saying, Sam, I don't eat cheap stuff, so it has to be pretty healthy. No it doesn't. But your classicism is showing.
Even in my own life, I hang out with friends who want to go out and eat. They eat stuff like wine and cheesy nachos. Yeah real upscale and healthy.
About the Author:
Coach Sam Y. is a Master Personal Trainer, Coach, Certified Nutritionist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, Pilates and Yoga instructor, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook and Pinterests.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
STRANGE EXERCISE RESEARCH ON WOMEN
Study finds women can orgasm through exercise. Too strange not to share. Read more.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
AFFIRMATION STATEMENT
I make all my client/athletes declare something about themselves. Here is one of the better ones.
SPRINKLES CUPCAKE ATM
In Los Angeles, there is a popular cupcake shop called Sprinkles. Now people are lining up around the block in the middle of the night to get access to it through an ATM. Has convenience gone too far? The battle against the bulge just got that much harder.
Friday, March 16, 2012
MY MARATHON ATHLETES
To my clients running in the DC and LA marathon this weekend. Good luck, this will not be your toughest test.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
HOW EXERCISE CAN CHANGE YOUR DNA
Scientists discover that physical activity leads to beneficial changes in gene activity, even after a single workout. Read More.
PROTEIN SHAKES
Whether you're trying to lose weight or gain weight, everyone tells you to drink protein shakes. Well everyone is wrong.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
WHY ALL OUT EFFORT
So why train with us?
You already know you want personal training. That's why you're here. That's why you're browsing the web, reading reviews, looking at sites like this one.
So I'm going to make it easier by telling you why us. Because that's what you really want to know right? Why train with us?
So to answer why us, we have to answer why we became trainers in the first place. There's a lot of trainers, lots of people who say they are the best. But why should you believe any of us?
A website can't convince you of that. What it can do is tell you why we got into this in the first place.
I used to work in finance. I graduated from UC Irvine with Suma Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and was Dean's Honor List every quarter of college, graduating in the top 98 percentile. Did very well in finance. Top of the region and all that. I was also competing a lot in an art called Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So I was training myself a lot, and managing my weight for my brackets. I loved that. So I quit, got my in car and took a 4 month sabbatical, training in every martial arts, MMA, and big name training center across the country.
I had it with the corporate life and I had money saved up so I was going to figure this happiness thing out. While on my trip I blogged about it extensively. Its half the reason why you're here. A lot of people followed my journey and that got my name out there later when I became a trainer.
Cindy went to UC Berkeley. She had a double major in Rhetoric and Legal Studies. Really smart girl. She decided law wasn't for her. So she went back to school to become an EMT. She was always involved with the Russian Kettlebell Challenge and on the side she personal trained people. As an EMT she works in the ER. She lamented to me that she felt like she was trying to save people on the way out a lot of times. Frequently she saw the same patients over and over again. A lot of it could have been prevented. She said it would be so much easier to prevent than to cure.
So why did we become trainers?
We both wanted to help people. Really help people. We worked in finance, law, emergency rooms, and though we made money, we didn't feel like this was the best way to affect people. As a financial advisor, I saw a lot of clients who had outlived their money and their health. They never bothered planning this far ahead because they didn't think they would live this long. Their health was completely gone but modern medicine kept them chugging along and they had to take whatever money they had left and try to live off of it. A lot of times that's where I came in, to try to create some form of income stream for them. Commission checks were good but I felt like this was not the most effective way to help people, and that's what I really wanted to do. I was treating the symptom, their real problem was their quality of life. The real problem for most people is their health. Some people end up spending all their wealth trying to buy back their health or the health of their loved ones.
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:
The methods were out there, athletes had them and not celebrities believe it or not. We just needed to share this information with the rest of the world.
A lot of people do it backwards.
They know WHAT they want, which is to be high profile rich celebrity trainers. Then they try to figure out HOW they can get there. They don't know WHY they are doing it though. Apple knows WHY they are Apple, they want to challenge the status quo, they believe their products can change the world. HOW they do this is they make the Ipod, Iphone, and computers. WHAT happens is they become the top computer company in the world because we can't wait for their products.
What everyone else does is this:
They WANT to be as rich as Apple. HOW they try is to make computers, mp3 players, and phones. Then they tell us to buy it and tell us how cool it is and everything it does, and you know what they want, your money. But we don't know WHY we should so we don't.
Cindy and I
Both had good jobs after college, made great money. And if money was what we were after, we wouldn't be doing this and we would've stayed in our previous lives.
But we know WHY we're doing this. We want to make a change. We really believe we can change the world one person at a time. It's why we don't offer classes, because we feel one on one training is the best way to maintain quality. We knew HOW we were going to do it. We became trainers. We became coaches.
It just turns out that we happen to be damn good ones. This is why we'll succeed. This is why you should train with us.
"If you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money, but if you hire people who believe what you believe, they'll work for you with blood and sweat and tears."
You want to change your life. We want to help. We believe in the same thing you believe. That somehow getting healthier will positively change your life for the better.
Why YOU will succeed
Don't work backwards. We know what you want. To be fit. We get that. It's not about what. It's about why. Why do you want it? See what it is that really drives you. Why you really want this. How you'll get there is by making all the right choices. Changing your diet. Organizing your life. Picking the right trainer. All pieces of your plan. What will then happen is; you won't have to chase fitness, fitness will come find you.
Call us to schedule your free no obligation consultation and assessment.
To take control of your health once and for all simply call (323) 397 - 6671 or e-mail us at: allouteffortpt@gmail.com. No Strings, No Expectations...
So I'm going to make it easier by telling you why us. Because that's what you really want to know right? Why train with us?
So to answer why us, we have to answer why we became trainers in the first place. There's a lot of trainers, lots of people who say they are the best. But why should you believe any of us?
A website can't convince you of that. What it can do is tell you why we got into this in the first place.
I had it with the corporate life and I had money saved up so I was going to figure this happiness thing out. While on my trip I blogged about it extensively. Its half the reason why you're here. A lot of people followed my journey and that got my name out there later when I became a trainer.
So why did we become trainers?
We both wanted to help people. Really help people. We worked in finance, law, emergency rooms, and though we made money, we didn't feel like this was the best way to affect people. As a financial advisor, I saw a lot of clients who had outlived their money and their health. They never bothered planning this far ahead because they didn't think they would live this long. Their health was completely gone but modern medicine kept them chugging along and they had to take whatever money they had left and try to live off of it. A lot of times that's where I came in, to try to create some form of income stream for them. Commission checks were good but I felt like this was not the most effective way to help people, and that's what I really wanted to do. I was treating the symptom, their real problem was their quality of life. The real problem for most people is their health. Some people end up spending all their wealth trying to buy back their health or the health of their loved ones.
The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, he said:
“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”So how can we change people's lives for the better? Our passion has always been about helping people. Why not make our passion our careers? So we decided, let's do this. Let's change the world and get people healthy. Then we went and figured out the best methods to train the regular population. We knew what we wanted, it was now just about refining the methods.
The methods were out there, athletes had them and not celebrities believe it or not. We just needed to share this information with the rest of the world.
A lot of people do it backwards.
They know WHAT they want, which is to be high profile rich celebrity trainers. Then they try to figure out HOW they can get there. They don't know WHY they are doing it though. Apple knows WHY they are Apple, they want to challenge the status quo, they believe their products can change the world. HOW they do this is they make the Ipod, Iphone, and computers. WHAT happens is they become the top computer company in the world because we can't wait for their products.
What everyone else does is this:
They WANT to be as rich as Apple. HOW they try is to make computers, mp3 players, and phones. Then they tell us to buy it and tell us how cool it is and everything it does, and you know what they want, your money. But we don't know WHY we should so we don't.
Cindy and I
Both had good jobs after college, made great money. And if money was what we were after, we wouldn't be doing this and we would've stayed in our previous lives.
But we know WHY we're doing this. We want to make a change. We really believe we can change the world one person at a time. It's why we don't offer classes, because we feel one on one training is the best way to maintain quality. We knew HOW we were going to do it. We became trainers. We became coaches.
It just turns out that we happen to be damn good ones. This is why we'll succeed. This is why you should train with us.
"If you hire people just because they can do a job, they'll work for your money, but if you hire people who believe what you believe, they'll work for you with blood and sweat and tears."
You want to change your life. We want to help. We believe in the same thing you believe. That somehow getting healthier will positively change your life for the better.
Why YOU will succeed
Don't work backwards. We know what you want. To be fit. We get that. It's not about what. It's about why. Why do you want it? See what it is that really drives you. Why you really want this. How you'll get there is by making all the right choices. Changing your diet. Organizing your life. Picking the right trainer. All pieces of your plan. What will then happen is; you won't have to chase fitness, fitness will come find you.
Call us to schedule your free no obligation consultation and assessment.
To take control of your health once and for all simply call (323) 397 - 6671 or e-mail us at: allouteffortpt@gmail.com. No Strings, No Expectations...
SOMETIMES PARENTS JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND
I had a mother and daughter get into a fight during training. Same day a father and a son. I told the kids this: You have a lot more time in your life to be right. Their time to be right is limited. Just apologize. And we got a good work out in!
WHY YOU WILL FAIL
I have all my clients write down their goal, declare it, and post it on the gym wall. But the catch is, they don't write it as a goal, they write it in the present tense, as "I AM."
This is about passion and fulfilling your goals. But most will fail.
WHY YOU SHOULD BE WEIRD
Every successful person I've ever met was kind of weird...maybe it's time to be weird.
Monday, March 12, 2012
THINGS PERSONAL TRAINERS ALWAYS GET WRONG #2
What weighs more, muscle or fat? And does lifting heavy make me gain weight? If I gain weight because I started to work out, does that mean I gained muscle?
Sunday, March 11, 2012
HEART SURGEON SPEAKS OUT ON WHAT REALLY CAUSES HEART DISEASE
World Renown Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease
We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
Inflammation is not complicated -- it is quite simply your body's natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well,smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.
Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.
Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.
Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.
While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.
How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?
Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.
When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.
While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator -- inflammation in their arteries.
Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell -- they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.
If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.
Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.
To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.
There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.
There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.
One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef.
Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.
The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.
What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.
Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is also the author of The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
Inflammation is not complicated -- it is quite simply your body's natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well,smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.
Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.
Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.
Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.
While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.
How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?
Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.
When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.
While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator -- inflammation in their arteries.
Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell -- they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.
If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.
Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.
To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.
There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.
There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.
One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef.
Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.
The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.
What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.
Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is also the author of The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
ALL OUT STRONG
So many clients come in more than injured or overweight, they come in wounded. By a lot of things. If you can overcome this, no one will call you lucky, but everyone will call you strong.
HOW MUCH IS YOUR HEALTH HEREDITY AND HOW MUCH IS IT LIFESTYLE
If somehow they are overweight or sick or get an illness, it was because they inherited that gene.
This doesn't explain certain things. Like why incidence of things such as childhood cancer or PCOS are going up dramatically when it was almost unheard of years ago. Or why certain races (that are also in certain economic ranges) have a high incidence of heart disease when there isn't the same problem in their country of origin?
Or when an adopted person develops lung cancer or diabetes, the same as their adoptive parents did. In the instance of lung cancer, is it genetics? Or was it that their adoptive parent passed on the habit of smoking to their child. Or with diabetes was it that the parent passed down their love of sweets to their children? Genes are not the only things that are passed down. Just like nature vs. nurture in personality building, environment plays a huge role in health as well.
We can control the expression of our genes. Gene expression basically means, deciding which genes turn on or off. Dr. Arjun Raj (Molecular Biologist, University of Pennsylvania) says this is done through RNA. We can express our genes throughout our life, and then pass down these genes to our children. This is how identical twins are not truly identical.
Just the simple act of controlling how we breathe can affect gene expression according to Harvard Researcher Herbert Benson.
Exercise does an even better job.
Genes are not our destiny and we can constantly reprogram them. So while your genes are fixed, the expression of them, meaning the amount of protein they cause to be made or whether its turned on or off is dependent on the environment and circumstances surrounding those genes.
From Mark's Daily Apple:
"Diet, exercise, exposure to toxic chemicals (or fresh air), medicines, even the thoughts you think (which generate actual chemical signals) all influence gene expression – positively and/or negatively, depending on the choice. Eat a diet that is high in sugar, and gene expression moves in a direction that produces more insulin, that shuts off insulin receptors, that down-regulates lipase and other enzymes involved in fat-burning, that increases pro-inflammatory cytokines, etc. When you change to a diet low in sugars and rich in healthy fats, those or other genes are directed to reduce inflammatory expression, down-regulate insulin-producing metabolic machinery, up-regulate insulin receptors and rebuild cell membranes to reflect the presence of better building materials (omega 3 fatty acids, etc.). Research in gene expression is exploding right now and is examining both the impact of environmental factors and the promise of epigenetic therapies. The connection between insulin resistance and genetic expression (particularly in relation to exercise) was raised in last week’s comments. Diet and toxin exposure have been shown to influence gene expression in laboratory studies."Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence. Duke University’s Randy Jirtle, Ph.D says, "the epigenome would be like the software that tells the computer when to work, how to work and how much." The computer being our genes.
The interaction between lifestyle choices and gene expression goes on every second of every day you’re alive. You are literally rebuilding yourself all the time. That’s the message of hope that the Primal Blueprint offers. Even if you have so-called markers for “defective” genes, that doesn’t mean they will be expressed. Gene interaction is such that environmental factors can potentially allow for someone with BRCA1 and BRCA2 (associated with a very high risk for breast cancer) to never get breast cancer if those and related genes are properly controlled through environment. On the other hand, a woman with no risk factors can still get breast cancer if she directs gene expression towards pro-inflammatory pathways, then down-regulates other parts of her immune system.
As I mentioned last week, most of today’s genome investigation centers on SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that predispose the possessor to a particular condition (cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, etc). I’ve always said that a predisposition is not your final destiny. Even aging itself is highly influenced by gene expression over time. In the course of a lifetime, stem cells divide to repair injury (e.g. inflammation). In doing so, the cells are continually aged. The more the cells have to repair, the faster a person ages. This, of course, is a manifestation of gene expression."
Ultimately no matter how well we live and how much we exercise, bad things can and will happen. Does that mean we shouldn't try? No. If we can't prevent, at least we can increase our health and life so that no matter what illnesses may strike, we are healthy enough to overcome them. Think of your life in terms of points. Exercise, diet, positive thinking, and a healthy lifestyle increase your life points. Surgeries and things such as chemotherapy diminish your health points in an effort to cure you. The more life points you have, the better chance you have of surviving, or just living longer. I've known several martial artists who were in and still in incredible health who had cancer come over and over again in their life. Each time they did chemo and survived and revived their health. I don't many people who could survive that many bouts with cancer or that many rounds of chemo. They were in that incredible of a shape and their life points were that high. If they never had cancer, they may live to be over a hundred. They may still yet.
I know people who from routine surgery are out and about after a week. I also know people who could have the same surgery and be in bed for months. I have my own family members who take such poor care of themselves, if any major illness or surgery is required, I don't know if they have the starting health to survive it. I'm sure you know people like that in your own family as well, you look at them and you worry if they can even walk away from a mild car accident. My own father was diagnosed with cancer over a year ago and it was found at stage 4. He is still alive. In that same time two of his friends (my dad is in his late 80s) got diagnosed with cancer after he did, they had stage 1, and are already dead. Every day my father is alive, is a miracle to me.
People blame their genetics for a lot, but 99% of us have great genetics. Through evolution and natural selection, most of the weak human genes died off and we the modern humans are the best versions of our family's genetics and bloodline. If you fed any other animal the stuff you have eaten, put in your body, smoked, drank, stress, lack of sleep, and everything else, it would be dead by now. The fact that most of us are still alive and continue to be alive after putting ourselves through so much is a testament to our genes. If you did all that, and all that happened to you is that you got fat, and your body continues to get fat to make sure you stay alive and don't die of toxic blood sugar, you have pretty damn good genes.
About the Author:
Sam Y. is a Master Personal Trainer, Coach, Certified Nutritionist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, Pilates and Yoga instructor, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook and Pinterests.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
INSULIN, HORMONES, AND WEIGHT GAIN
What you thought about weight gain is probably wrong. Yes calories is one side of the picture but not the whole picture itself. What tells the body to let's say keep the calories and in others tells them to get rid of it as waste? What tells the body to use it, what tells the body to store it? Calories does not explain that. Why do the obese get diabetes so often? Calories does not explain that. Hormones and insulin response does. So why did you really get fat?
THOUGHTS ON LIFESTYLE
Thought of the day: What if everything you thought about diet and exercise was wrong? I will expand on this idea over the course of this blog.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
EPIC BABY YOGA FAIL
One of the most dangerous things I have seen with a child. I can't believe people from Europe fly to her seminars to learn how to do this. She even swings the baby between her legs like a kettlebell. It is not a doll but a real baby. This is not a joke.
WHAT IS SEXY AND WHAT IS SKINNY
Is skinny and sexy one and the same?
I post a lot of pictures, some sexy, some may be deemed insensitive. Some that seems to make fun of obesity. I felt compelled to post this pic because to me this picture is a loaded. Representing a lot of things. Societal views on femininity, sexuality, etc. This is what a lot of people want, what a lot of girls want, what some guys want. A skinny chick. But to me she seems too skinny and shapeless. Almost like a skinny boy. But media and print like this is telling us, this is what our ideal is and that shapes us. I've heard my guy friends tell me the reason they like Asian girls is because they perceive them to be stick skinny, formless.
It reminds me of ads I've seen in the past where they hire young looking models and sort of shoot it in a way where it looks like kiddie porn. This kind of brought on a similar feeling. Like forbidden sexy or something.
If a large women has a waist the same size as her hips, shes deemed unattractive. If a skinny women has a waist same size as her hips, shes hot. But usually when the hip and waist are same size, that is classically a man's square build. But if she is large, you say she looks like a man. If she is skinny how come she doesn't look like a boy? A boy is a smaller version of a man right?
Yes it is not healthy to be too large. But being small doesn't necessarily define femininity either. And sometimes women try to get too small and risk their health.
Skinny looks good with clothes on. FIT LOOKS GREAT WITHOUT IT.
Just a thought. What are your thoughts?
SALTED SALAD
Saw someone dump 2 packets of salt then the whole container of ranch into their salad. What was the point of ordering salad then? And who puts salt on salad?
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
MY INTERVIEW FOR A NEW PERSONAL TRAINING AND FITNESS BOOK
An excerpt from my interview for the upcoming book "The Cutting Edge of Fitness."
FULL NAME: Sam Yang
COMPANY NAME: All Out Effort
TITLE/POSITION WITH COMPANY: Owner and Founder
Please tell us about your company:
Taking the best from the elite levels of athletics and martial arts, to train the regular public.
Selecting a trainer without personal recommendations is difficult. What should people look out for when choosing their trainer?
Check to see what their reputation is, if there are any testimonials. Also check to see the substance of their approach. Look through all the glamorous pictures and hype and see if there is any concrete approach and principles the trainer is using. Also see if they offer an assessment. Do not choose any trainer who will train you from day one. Make sure they assess you first. If not, it's like trying to get somewhere without a map, and without knowing where your starting point is. If they can get you in shape, I assure you it's purely by accident. For me it is something I offer for free because I benefit from it as well. It's a chance to gauge if we get a long or not. A good trainer won't just train anyone. The trainer has a right to be choosy because they are about to go into a collaboration with you to get you to your goals. Both parties need to feel good about it. Why take your money if you or the trainer aren't sure yet if this is going to work? If not, it may be a sign of desperation or a hunt for sales.
Do your homework and take your time and try multiple trainers out and compare and see who made the most sense and who's approach fit what you were looking for. Also go into each meeting with a precise goal. Make sure the trainer completely understands your goal and even tries to help you flesh it out more. The difference between people who succeed and people who don't is the difference between abstract goals and clearly defined goals.
Another insider tip, see if the trainer says anything about your shoes or recommends a certain shoe to you. I know it sounds odd but the top fitness professionals will likely recommend minimalist shoes. Strength starts from the feet up and in Chinese medicine there is also another saying, "you die from the feet up." There is a lot of truth to that and a lot of good trainers will want you to feel the ground. Imagine trying to lift anything or create any power with padded gloves on your hands? Also how can you ever maintain a neutral spine or maintain posture if your always on a lift (AKA big shoes). If they have no opinion or tell you big bulky shoes are good for you, they know just as much as you do.
Are bodybuilding titles or numerous certification letters after the trainer’s name proof that they are a good choice to help a person lose weight and get healthier?
Body building titles only matter if you are specifically looking to train for a body building competition. If not, it's not important. What is important are certifications. See if it's from a reputable certifying body like NSCA or NASM (or any certification that requires a college degree). See if they have duplicate certifications or have moved on to specific certifications. If they have a personal training certification from 3 different organizations then it is a bit redundant. Specialized certifications such as strength and conditioning, USAW, nutrition, corrective exercise, Russian kettlebell, and many others. Also degrees in physiology or kinesiology are a plus. Make sure you look up what the letters stand for. Some people will list things that are not certifications but are classes they took, or conferences they've been to, or list the name of organization they belong to as if they were letters to a certification. Sometimes people will list designations or degrees they have, look it up to see if it's in the world of fitness. People will list a designation in an unrelated field, but your assumption will be that their degree is related to fitness.
Some will tell you it's not about certifications but experience. There is some truth to that but at the same time would you trust your doctor if they only had 2 years of schooling total, never got their MD but has a lot of experience? If fitness truly is a science, than education does matter. Also a lack of seeking further accreditation is a sign that they are no longer up to date on current trends nor are they really curious or interested in learning more. This is when you get into people making up their own training science. Just because I don't like physics and no longer want to learn about it, doesn't mean I can go make up my own physics system. Experience though is very important in the trainer's ability to coach and motivate.
What is the "fat burning zone" that trainers often refer to?
Fat burning zone means nothing. It's often used because of the misunderstanding of the term. There's a lot of things trainers say that are based on myth, this being one. People think that when you are in this "zone," you burn more fat. This is not true. The fat burning zone relies on extended periods of low intensity exercise. The energy you use will be a form of carbs and fats, measure by calories. Well in the fat burning zone, you burn very little total calories. In the ratio of carbs and fat burned, you may have a high ratio of fat burned at this zone in comparison to high intensity exercise. In higher intensities, you burn more calories, and you also burn more fat. The ratio of fat compared to carbs burned though will be lower than in the fat burning zone. So for example in the fat burning zone, I can burn let's say 1 apple and 1 orange. 50% of the energy I burned was an orange. If I did a higher intensity work out, I would have burned 5 apples and 3 oranges. Which is 38% but I burned 2 more oranges than I did in the fat burning zone. So I burn more fat in higher intensity work outs. Fact. Not only that but you are burning more carbs, which may also later on turn into fat if left unchecked.
Best analogy is hibernation in animals. They live off their fat reserves. Get fat in the summer and sleep in winter. The reason they can survive so long without food is, they burn very little energy during this time because they are sleeping. Epitome of fat burning zone. Would you recommend sleeping as the best form of weight loss though?
Is there a difference between "cardio" and "aerobic"? If there is, what's the difference?
A term often used interchangeably but can sometimes mean 2 different things. Aerobic means you are expending energy in the presence of oxygen. Oxygen being the key factor. Cardio could mean cardiorespiratory, meaning the same thing as aerobic and based on the health of your lungs and your body's ability to send oxygen through its system. But most often they mean cardiovascular, meaning increasing your heart rate and the health of your vascular system.
How can people tell if they're doing enough exercise or exercising intensely enough?
You will see it in the results. If you train with intensity and frequency, then you are doing your job in the gym. You may however not be doing your job with your diet and your sleep. Especially on the weekends.
Why is it that, no matter how much cardio some people do, they still can't lose weight?
Weight loss has 3 factors, hormonal response, caloric burn, and metabolism. Your body's ability to burn calories is directly linked to how much muscle mass you have. If you have very little muscle mass, what are you really using to burn the calories? Just doing cardio would not be the most efficient method. Creating muscle mass first would be the better investment. Muscle burns calories just existing. It's why people who have a higher muscle mass percentage just burn more calories doing nothing. Muscle burns more calories than fat, you would be wise to take the extra time to build it up. It's why often times men have an easier time losing weight, because they have more muscle mass so it's easier to burn the calories. They are also more apt to lift weights than women are.
Hormones also signal your body to use fat as a fuel, and tells your body to speed up it's metabolism. This will be affected by sleep, mood, stress, diet, exercise, and frequency of exercise.
Is there an "ideal" time of day to work out?
It's really based on preference, but morning would be the most optimal time. It is prior to any stress, loss of energy, and a morning work out will keep your metabolism up for the rest of the day.
Is there any true benefit to warming up, cooling down, or stretching before or after exercising? If there is, why are these things important?
The benefits of those things are mainly in injury prevention and to minimize shock to your body. It may also help to get your mind ready for the work out to come. You should never static stretch prior to a work out but only after, instead opt for dynamic stretches or mobility drills. Never make your warm up too intense as well, it may ruin your strength for the actual work out and make your overall work out less productive. Why is injury prevention important? Well it's only important if you are planning to work out for an extended period of your life. If you don't mind hurting yourself by week 2, then go ahead and forget the mobility and stretches.
If you are training with a professional, is your diet still important?
Yes. Always. There is never a time your fuel source is not important.
It seems like there is a constant stream of conflicting nutrition information. How can we simplify our diet and move towards our health and fitness goals?
Start asking yourself, how were we genetically designed to eat? Humans survived and thrived better than every other species not because we are the fittest or strongest, but because we are the most efficient. So are you eating efficiently? For your stomach or blood or immune system or hormone? It's not good enough to eat with moderation or balance, you must be efficient. So what does that mean? I think that's a lifelong journey in discovery. But start with this, before you put anything in your mouth, even if it's a sports bar, ask yourself this, your genetics that took thousands of years to develop, does it know what this sports bar is? Is it even adapted to eat it? How long has that bar been around? How long have humans been around?
How important are the mental aspects in improving health and fitness?
Exercise is part of it, diet is a lot of it, lifestyle a huge part of it. Your mental approach is what brings it all together. Without a good mental game, it will all fall apart. Do you want to be the captain of your destiny or the pawn of fate? So where is your mental game then, is it strong or have you never thought about it?
About Coach Sam:
Sam Y. is a Master Personal Trainer, Coach, Certified Nutritionist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, Pilates and Yoga instructor, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook and Pinterests.
COMPANY NAME: All Out Effort
TITLE/POSITION WITH COMPANY: Owner and Founder
Please tell us about your company:
Taking the best from the elite levels of athletics and martial arts, to train the regular public.
Selecting a trainer without personal recommendations is difficult. What should people look out for when choosing their trainer?
Check to see what their reputation is, if there are any testimonials. Also check to see the substance of their approach. Look through all the glamorous pictures and hype and see if there is any concrete approach and principles the trainer is using. Also see if they offer an assessment. Do not choose any trainer who will train you from day one. Make sure they assess you first. If not, it's like trying to get somewhere without a map, and without knowing where your starting point is. If they can get you in shape, I assure you it's purely by accident. For me it is something I offer for free because I benefit from it as well. It's a chance to gauge if we get a long or not. A good trainer won't just train anyone. The trainer has a right to be choosy because they are about to go into a collaboration with you to get you to your goals. Both parties need to feel good about it. Why take your money if you or the trainer aren't sure yet if this is going to work? If not, it may be a sign of desperation or a hunt for sales.
Do your homework and take your time and try multiple trainers out and compare and see who made the most sense and who's approach fit what you were looking for. Also go into each meeting with a precise goal. Make sure the trainer completely understands your goal and even tries to help you flesh it out more. The difference between people who succeed and people who don't is the difference between abstract goals and clearly defined goals.
Another insider tip, see if the trainer says anything about your shoes or recommends a certain shoe to you. I know it sounds odd but the top fitness professionals will likely recommend minimalist shoes. Strength starts from the feet up and in Chinese medicine there is also another saying, "you die from the feet up." There is a lot of truth to that and a lot of good trainers will want you to feel the ground. Imagine trying to lift anything or create any power with padded gloves on your hands? Also how can you ever maintain a neutral spine or maintain posture if your always on a lift (AKA big shoes). If they have no opinion or tell you big bulky shoes are good for you, they know just as much as you do.
Are bodybuilding titles or numerous certification letters after the trainer’s name proof that they are a good choice to help a person lose weight and get healthier?
Body building titles only matter if you are specifically looking to train for a body building competition. If not, it's not important. What is important are certifications. See if it's from a reputable certifying body like NSCA or NASM (or any certification that requires a college degree). See if they have duplicate certifications or have moved on to specific certifications. If they have a personal training certification from 3 different organizations then it is a bit redundant. Specialized certifications such as strength and conditioning, USAW, nutrition, corrective exercise, Russian kettlebell, and many others. Also degrees in physiology or kinesiology are a plus. Make sure you look up what the letters stand for. Some people will list things that are not certifications but are classes they took, or conferences they've been to, or list the name of organization they belong to as if they were letters to a certification. Sometimes people will list designations or degrees they have, look it up to see if it's in the world of fitness. People will list a designation in an unrelated field, but your assumption will be that their degree is related to fitness.
Some will tell you it's not about certifications but experience. There is some truth to that but at the same time would you trust your doctor if they only had 2 years of schooling total, never got their MD but has a lot of experience? If fitness truly is a science, than education does matter. Also a lack of seeking further accreditation is a sign that they are no longer up to date on current trends nor are they really curious or interested in learning more. This is when you get into people making up their own training science. Just because I don't like physics and no longer want to learn about it, doesn't mean I can go make up my own physics system. Experience though is very important in the trainer's ability to coach and motivate.
What is the "fat burning zone" that trainers often refer to?
Fat burning zone means nothing. It's often used because of the misunderstanding of the term. There's a lot of things trainers say that are based on myth, this being one. People think that when you are in this "zone," you burn more fat. This is not true. The fat burning zone relies on extended periods of low intensity exercise. The energy you use will be a form of carbs and fats, measure by calories. Well in the fat burning zone, you burn very little total calories. In the ratio of carbs and fat burned, you may have a high ratio of fat burned at this zone in comparison to high intensity exercise. In higher intensities, you burn more calories, and you also burn more fat. The ratio of fat compared to carbs burned though will be lower than in the fat burning zone. So for example in the fat burning zone, I can burn let's say 1 apple and 1 orange. 50% of the energy I burned was an orange. If I did a higher intensity work out, I would have burned 5 apples and 3 oranges. Which is 38% but I burned 2 more oranges than I did in the fat burning zone. So I burn more fat in higher intensity work outs. Fact. Not only that but you are burning more carbs, which may also later on turn into fat if left unchecked.
Best analogy is hibernation in animals. They live off their fat reserves. Get fat in the summer and sleep in winter. The reason they can survive so long without food is, they burn very little energy during this time because they are sleeping. Epitome of fat burning zone. Would you recommend sleeping as the best form of weight loss though?
Is there a difference between "cardio" and "aerobic"? If there is, what's the difference?
A term often used interchangeably but can sometimes mean 2 different things. Aerobic means you are expending energy in the presence of oxygen. Oxygen being the key factor. Cardio could mean cardiorespiratory, meaning the same thing as aerobic and based on the health of your lungs and your body's ability to send oxygen through its system. But most often they mean cardiovascular, meaning increasing your heart rate and the health of your vascular system.
How can people tell if they're doing enough exercise or exercising intensely enough?
You will see it in the results. If you train with intensity and frequency, then you are doing your job in the gym. You may however not be doing your job with your diet and your sleep. Especially on the weekends.
Why is it that, no matter how much cardio some people do, they still can't lose weight?
Weight loss has 3 factors, hormonal response, caloric burn, and metabolism. Your body's ability to burn calories is directly linked to how much muscle mass you have. If you have very little muscle mass, what are you really using to burn the calories? Just doing cardio would not be the most efficient method. Creating muscle mass first would be the better investment. Muscle burns calories just existing. It's why people who have a higher muscle mass percentage just burn more calories doing nothing. Muscle burns more calories than fat, you would be wise to take the extra time to build it up. It's why often times men have an easier time losing weight, because they have more muscle mass so it's easier to burn the calories. They are also more apt to lift weights than women are.
Hormones also signal your body to use fat as a fuel, and tells your body to speed up it's metabolism. This will be affected by sleep, mood, stress, diet, exercise, and frequency of exercise.
Is there an "ideal" time of day to work out?
It's really based on preference, but morning would be the most optimal time. It is prior to any stress, loss of energy, and a morning work out will keep your metabolism up for the rest of the day.
Is there any true benefit to warming up, cooling down, or stretching before or after exercising? If there is, why are these things important?
The benefits of those things are mainly in injury prevention and to minimize shock to your body. It may also help to get your mind ready for the work out to come. You should never static stretch prior to a work out but only after, instead opt for dynamic stretches or mobility drills. Never make your warm up too intense as well, it may ruin your strength for the actual work out and make your overall work out less productive. Why is injury prevention important? Well it's only important if you are planning to work out for an extended period of your life. If you don't mind hurting yourself by week 2, then go ahead and forget the mobility and stretches.
If you are training with a professional, is your diet still important?
Yes. Always. There is never a time your fuel source is not important.
It seems like there is a constant stream of conflicting nutrition information. How can we simplify our diet and move towards our health and fitness goals?
Start asking yourself, how were we genetically designed to eat? Humans survived and thrived better than every other species not because we are the fittest or strongest, but because we are the most efficient. So are you eating efficiently? For your stomach or blood or immune system or hormone? It's not good enough to eat with moderation or balance, you must be efficient. So what does that mean? I think that's a lifelong journey in discovery. But start with this, before you put anything in your mouth, even if it's a sports bar, ask yourself this, your genetics that took thousands of years to develop, does it know what this sports bar is? Is it even adapted to eat it? How long has that bar been around? How long have humans been around?
How important are the mental aspects in improving health and fitness?
Exercise is part of it, diet is a lot of it, lifestyle a huge part of it. Your mental approach is what brings it all together. Without a good mental game, it will all fall apart. Do you want to be the captain of your destiny or the pawn of fate? So where is your mental game then, is it strong or have you never thought about it?
About Coach Sam:
Sam Y. is a Master Personal Trainer, Coach, Certified Nutritionist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, Pilates and Yoga instructor, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook and Pinterests.
WALK LIKE A COACH
Walking to my car, guy asked me where I train. I wasn't wearing any training paraphernalia. He said I carried myself like a coach.
HORMONAL VS. CALORIC WEIGHT LOSS
An article by Metabolic Effect on hormones, calorie loss, and the science behind it. Do not be caught in the caloric based trap!
"The problem with caloric weight loss is that it is indiscriminant. Cutting calories out of the diet and burning up energy on a treadmill may lead to weight loss, but there is no guarantee those pounds will be fat. After all, it is fat loss we want. So what determines whether we lose muscle or fat? The answer is our hormones." Read more.
Monday, March 5, 2012
WHY I DON'T LIKE GROUP TRAINING OR CLASSES
Saw this video and I wanted to like it because I am a martial artist but I don't. I love circuits but the forms are terrible, the likelihood of injury high, knee caving in during box jumps, that is not a proper power clean, nor is it even on bumper plates to do a power clean, and whats with all the bicep curls? You don't get hurt during competition, you get hurt before it. It just sometimes happens to get inflamed during competition.
WHY ARE LEGUMES NOT GOOD FOR US?
An article from Livestrong about the Paleo and legumes.
One problem with legumes just like with grains is they have lectin and other compounds that were produced by plants to fight off insects.
They also contain protease inhibitors and anti-nutrients which can prevent you from getting enough nutrients from your food.
Soy in particular has phytoestrogens which may affect estrogen levels in male and females.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
DOES FOOT FORM EXPLAIN RUNNING INJURIES?
The members of Harvard University’s men’s and women’s distance running squads are young, fast, fit, skinny, bright, disciplined and, without exception, dutiful. Every day during the cross-country and track seasons, they enter their mileage and pace into an online training Web site overseen by the team’s coaches and trainers.
They also, like most serious runners, get hurt with distressing frequency, often missing practice due to aching muscles or over-stressed bones. Each of those injuries, no matter how niggling, also gets duly reported and entered into the computer.
Meaning that these student athletes, in their high-achieving way, fashioned an excellent database through which to examine running-related injuries, as evidenced by a study published online last month in Medicine; Science in Sports; Exercise.
The study, for which researchers combed through four years’ worth of data about the Harvard runners, has produced the surprisingly controversial finding that how a person runs may affect whether he or she winds up hurt.
Running injuries are a topic of considerable interest to scientists in many disciplines, from biomechanics to evolutionary biology, as well as, of course, to runners. By most estimates, more than half of all runners, whether male or female, collegiate or long past, become injured every year.
But no one knows why so many runners get hurt, although a number of theories have been advanced, including the possibility that hard asphalt roads, lousy Western diets, too many miles, too few miles or high-tech running shoes cause or contribute to the problem.
But Adam I. Daoud, a graduate student in the Skeletal Biology Laboratory at Harvard and the lab’s director, Daniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist who co-wrote an influential 2004 paper suggesting that distance running guided the evolution of early man — with better runners earning more food and sex than plodders and passing along their genes — wondered if something simpler might be at work. They wondered whether how your foot hits the ground affects your injury risk.
Most of us who run nowadays strike the ground first with our heels, a pattern promoted by today’s well-cushioned running shoes. There’s suggestive evidence, however, including from Dr. Lieberman’s work, that early, unshod hunter-gatherers landed first on the balls of their feet. So, in recent years, some runners have decided that forefoot striking must be more “natural” and less likely to cause injuries.
But there has been no science to support that idea.
To look into the issue, Mr. Daoud, who had been on the cross-country team as an undergraduate, and Dr. Lieberman not only gained access to the team’s training database, they also gathered the team members and videotaped them.
No one is always a forefoot striker or a heel striker. Your form depends on many factors, including your speed, the terrain, whether you’re tired and so on. But most of us have a predominant strike pattern, and so it was with the 52 Harvard runners. Thirty-six, or 69 percent of them, were heel strikers, while 16, or 31 percent, were forefoot strikers. The proportions were similar regardless of gender.
More interesting was the distribution of injuries. About two-thirds of the group wound up hurt seriously enough each year to miss two or more training days. But the heel strikers were much more prone to injury, with a twofold greater risk than the forefoot strikers.
This finding, the first to associate heel striking with injury, is likely to fuel the continuing and not-always civil debate about whether barefoot running is better. (It hurts to hit the ground with your heel if you’re not wearing shoes.) But both Dr. Lieberman and Mr. Daoud, now a medical student at Stanford University, are quick to point out that their study did not in any way address the merits of going barefoot.
All of the Harvard runners wore shoes, and most, as Dr. Lieberman says, “wore different shoes every day of the week.” Some ran in well-cushioned shoes and became injured, while others did not. Likewise for those who usually ran in minimal racing flats. Some got hurt; some did not. And forefoot striking, over all, was not a panacea. Many of the forefoot strikers were felled by injuries.
But in general, those runners who landed on their heels were considerably more likely to get hurt, often multiple times during a year.
Does this mean that those of us who habitually heel-strike, as I do, should change our form? “If you’re not getting hurt,” Dr. Lieberman says, “then absolutely not. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”
But, says Mr. Daoud, who was himself an oft-injured heel-striker during his cross-country racing days, “if you have experienced injury after injury and you’re a heel-striker, it might be worth considering a change.” (If you’re unsure of your strike pattern, have a friend videotape you from the side as you run, he suggests, then use slow motion to watch how your foot hits the ground.)
If you do decide to reshape your stride, proceed slowly, he cautions. Many people who abruptly switch to barefoot running or a forefoot running form get hurt in the process, he says. The body’s tissues adapt to the forces generated by long-term heel striking. Change your form, and the forces will affect different parts of the leg, leading to soreness and, potentially, injury.
Try landing on the ball of your foot “for five minutes at first at the end of a run,” Mr. Daoud suggests. Work up to longer periods of forefoot landings as your body adjusts and only if you do not notice significant, continuing soreness.
In his own case, Mr. Daoud now runs consistently with a forefoot landing style, but the transition was not seamless. “I broke a metatarsal while running my first marathon after transitioning a bit too quickly and expecting a bit too much from my body too soon,” he says. So fair warning to those considering making the transition to forefoot landings: “Give your body time!” Read more.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
ANDREA TESTIMONIAL
"I did one on one training and boxing lessons with Coach Sam. It was by far the best experience I've ever had working out. He's a great person - not just a trainer but easily someone you come to really like and admire.
So, for those of you with the desire to get fit and the means (he's actually not that expensive, relatively speaking), I highly, highly recommend him."
So, for those of you with the desire to get fit and the means (he's actually not that expensive, relatively speaking), I highly, highly recommend him."
Friday, March 2, 2012
HYUN'S TESTIMONIAL
"In the past year, I have made a life decision to be healthier and happier. My goal started out small -it was to jog a mile nonstop. You might laugh at this, but for me it was a big deal and you can not imagine my pride and surprise when I did it." Read more.
HOW PIG PARTS MAKE THE WORLD TURN
HOW TRULY HARD IS IT TO BE VEGAN
Is it truly possible to live in a way where you harm no animals whatsoever? Just because you don't consume meat for consumption, does that mean you avoid any animal use? Here is an illustration on uses of cattle.
HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH ARSENIC IN RICE
FREE PERSONAL TRAINING ASSESSMENT
The reason most people fail during exercise is because they don't assess prior to beginning a work out program. That's like trying to get in shape accidentally, or trying to get somewhere specific without any directions. A consultation and assessment most of the time is free, so take advantage of them.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
DISNEY CLOSES NEW ATTRACTION, OFFENDS OVERWEIGHT KIDS
"It's not exactly a secret that America's children are getting fatter, so Disney's Epcot theme park in Orlando decided to help tackle the problem head-on with a new attraction called Habit Heroes. Kids were invited to partake in activities like shooting hot dogs with broccoli spears, and defeating an obese villain named Leadbottom in a dance off". Read more.
PERSONAL TRAINING CONSULTATION
The reason most people fail during exercise is because they don't assess prior to beginning a work out program. That's like trying to get in shape accidentally, or trying to get somewhere specific without any directions. A consultation and assessment most of the time is free, so take advantage of them.
REVIEW FROM ANDREW L.
"Coach Cindy is an incredibly motivational instructor both inside and outside of class. I work out almost daily and thought I was in shape, but after one kettlebell session with Cindy I knew I had a long way to go. Cindy's kettlebell method focuses on core strength, flexibility and balance - things I had little of. However, even after the first class I noticed my posture was improving - or rather I noticed how hunched over I must have been before Cindy's techniques set me straight.
Coach Cindy is of course not just limited to kettlebells, she'll customize the training experience to your needs. This means not only a focus on proper strength and balance, but nutritional advice too. She has taught me ways to change my workout and diet that I still use every day.
No matter what your fitness goals are, Cindy will make sure you get there". READ IT ON YELP.
Coach Cindy is of course not just limited to kettlebells, she'll customize the training experience to your needs. This means not only a focus on proper strength and balance, but nutritional advice too. She has taught me ways to change my workout and diet that I still use every day.
No matter what your fitness goals are, Cindy will make sure you get there". READ IT ON YELP.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
DO I NEED PERSONAL TRAINING
Let me flip it around and ask you this question: Professional athletes need trainers, why don't you? In fact if you look at our results and numbers and record breakers, our athletes keep getting better and better yet the general population keeps getting worse. So why don't you need some form of professional training?
You might say, well the athlete has a lot loftier goals than I. Well that is true, but the athlete is already in the top 1% of the world and every athlete he competes against has the same goal. Your goals might be lower but you are also not in the same starting shape as the athlete. So it almost becomes a wash.
Now not every professional athlete will hire a trainer. Some try to go at it alone. A very small minority, and never in a team sport but usually in professional fighting. What happens to these fighters? They lose. A lot. Manny Pacquiao was not the pound for pound king until he hired Freddie Roach and Alex Ariza.
When you have no goals and want to work out to just work out or don't want to work out at all, then you really don't need a trainer. If you can't financially afford one, that is a different matter. Need and ability are two different issues but personal training prices can range from $20-$200 a session (higher the rate doesn't always indicate good training, they may use that because of their celebrity clientele and status as opposed to being a good fitness coach).
There is something called cognitive dissonance. This is where you have a belief but evidence shows you another truth and this causes incongruence and discomfort. So psychology people will avoid this by having a preconceived notion then finding information or interpreting information to back up their current belief instead of letting the evidence shape their belief. It's backwards and illogical.
So you can tell yourself you don't need a personal trainer, that you can do it on your own but the statistics, the evidence, and frankly for most of you, your own health says otherwise.
Not only that your trainers are your number 1 advocate and the only other person besides yourself who share in your goal.
About the Author:
Sam Y. is a Master Personal Trainer, Coach, Certified Nutritionist, Performance Enhancement Specialist, Corrective Enhancement Specialist, Pilates and Yoga instructor, and holds multiple certifications. He is also an avid Martial Artist, training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Kickboxing, Boxing, and MMA. He is also the author of the popular fitness blog All Out Effort as well as the popular martial arts blog Inner BJJ. You can find him in the Los Angeles area personal training his clients, or at home annoying his wife, or on Facebook and Pinterests.
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