Living with a Crack Dealer

Imagine for a moment that you are a recovering crack addict (work with me):

You arrive home to find your loving, supportive spouse making crack rock right on the kitchen counter! You want to resist but you just can't. "Just a little," you tell yourself. "I can stop whenever I want." But, you see, you can't. You tell yourself that you'll just smoke it all tonight then start fresh tommorrow when it's no longer there to call to you. That's the problem when living with a dealer, there is always more crack to smoke. Always!

In this case the dealer is my lovely wife Andrea, and the crack is her world class baking. Seriously, Andrea could bake a turd and make it taste like heaven. As someone with a sweet tooth, this makes being "good" nutritionally just a wee bit difficult. Sure there are times when I can go weeks without touching the stuff then BAM, I'm off the wagon. I can smell the aroma from the garage when I get out of my car and it only gets better (or worse) when I open the door. The kitchen counter tops are often full of cooling racks covered with warm cookies or brownies. For the love of God woman, give a brother a break!

Interestingly enough, Andrea doesn't eat sweets! She simply bakes because it brings her great pleasure and that is one way she shows love. Normally, she won't even taste them! She'll wait for the addict to get home and ask his opinion. Teachers, neighbors, friends and family all benefit from her favorite hobby. These same people often ask how I stay under 400 lbs. living with her. Good question!

I gotta run...I smell something cookin and I'd be wise to leave until the smoke clears.

Rick Mayo

No Pain- More Gain?

In a study reported by Men's Health, common pain relievers increased strength and muscle gains by up to 60% compared to those who did not take ibuprofen or acetaminophen. Check it out:

NO PAIN, MORE GAIN
The key to bigger muscles could be in your medicine cabinet

Here's one muscle-boosting drug no one's talking about: Tylenol.
A new study shows taking daily recommended doses of over-the-counter pain relievers ibuprofen and acetaminophen can increase muscle mass and strength by 40 to 60 percent .
Researchers tracked a group of 36 elderly men and women during a 3-month weight-training program. While the placebo group experienced a 7 percent growth in muscle mass and strength, those taking either acetaminophen or ibuprofen experienced up to 60 percent more muscle gains.
The reason behind the difference is unknown, but one theory is the two drugs could provoke the body to overcompensate for an initial blocking of the enzyme any muscle needs to grow —prompting muscles to send out powerful signals demanding even more enzyme than the body would normally produce.
While the results are striking, more research is needed to confirm these effects, and determine how exactly they translate to younger weight lifters—so in addition to stocking your medicine cabinet, try these other tactics to maximize muscle gain: Simplify your lifting plan , try a powerful new workout move , and eat like an NFL player .
And remember, even if popping pain pills does help you get big, be sure to listen to what your body's telling you when it's throbbing. Aches and pains can signal a more serious medical condition . Also, you can avoid that pounding head or creaky back altogether by drinking more water and exercising.
Because what good is a ripped body if you're hobbling around like an old man?

I knew that taking anti-inflammatory could have adverse affects on muscle building so it makes sense that over time our bodies would adapt and compensate.

I can see it now, "Advil banned from major league baseball!"

Rick Mayo

Bare Footin

I mentioned the funky Five Fingers shoes from Vibram in my previous post "Training in High Heels?"I found a local shoe store that stocks these guys so I had to check them out.

I ran 8 x 100 yds this morning with Andrea on a local athletic field and they felt great! I don't think they would work on a hard surface or for distance but they are perfect for sprinting, general weight lifting and balance training. The sales lady told me that the Red Sox train in these shoes in the off-season but I could find no evidence of this on the web. Who knows?

Barefoot training allows you to develop your entire support system (plantar fascia, Achilles and etc) more efficiently. I don't think it is wise to perform all of your training without shoes, but a little each week can do wonders for your strength and ability to remain injury free.

Plus, I forgot how much faster you feel without shoes! I was way faster than Andrea and I don't think it was only because she was laughing at what a nerd I looked like. If I can get over the dork factor, I may even wear these in the gym.

Rick Mayo

Stress Balance

I believe I first read the stress/tub analogy from Alwyn Cosgrove. I'm not sure, but since he gets credit for everything else in our industry, we'll go with him.

Let's imagine that your stress tolerance is a large (or small) tub with many faucets flowing into it. Each faucet represents a form of stress. Sleep deprivation, work, dietary habits, relationships and even exercise. Now imagine that your tub can only drain so fast. If you were to increase the flow from one faucet, you would need to decrease the flow from another to keep your tub from overflowing. Example: If you are sick, your physical stress faucet is on high and you'll need to reduce your flow from other areas like work or exercise. Makes sense right?

As an industry, I think we ignore this theory as it relates to weight loss. Think about it..the typical prescription for weight loss involves a reduction in calories and an increase in exercise. Both of which are stressful to our system.

We know that weight loss is 80% nutrition so we should first focus our efforts in this area. You can even lose weight without exercise! It is not ideal nor lasting but it works in the short term. At the same time we need to exercise but not too much. Yes, I am suggesting to NOT increase your total exercise time (stress) during a weight loss phase but to be smart and efficient.

We have already established that strength training is the most effective weight loss exercise. This means that we should spend the bulk of our exercise for weight loss on weights. 3 days of weight training and 2 days of short/intense cardio is plenty during a calorie restricted phase.

Some may argue that you can strike a balance between increased exercise and reduced energy intake and in an ideal world they would be correct. We just need to be aware of how all of the components interact with one another and how to best manage them all.

Don't let your tub overflow!

Rick Mayo

I Knew It!

We have long been touting the benefits of shorter more intense exercise sessions. According to this article, doing things faster can also work in the bedroom. Do I hear a collective cheer from the fellas?

Rick Mayo

Get your Ticket

You want to sell tickets to your own gun show? Well, guess what, you don't have to do one single bicep curl! Blasphemy, you say? Read on my muscle isolating friend.

According to a 2002 study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research , isolated arm training produced no increase in arm size compared to training with only compound movements.

Lou Schuler explained it this way in The New Rules of Lifting

"Chances are about 100 percent that any increase in arm size in a seasoned ironhead would be accomplished by increases in the size of all the muscles surrounding the shoulder joint-delts,pecs,lats,traps. Even then, the changes in size wouldn't be dramatic, unless the lifter had been starving himself before the program began (thus deliberately shrinking his muscles so that they would grow faster when he started eating again) or unless he had overeaten to the point that he had gained a lot of fat along with the muscle size. Bottom line: curls are mostly for newbies and juicers. Unless you have a specific reason for doing arm-isolating exercises, save your time and energy for other pursuits."

Still not convinced? We did a test study with our very own Joe Rummell. Joe is extremely consistent in his training and eating habits so he makes for a perfect test subject. He also has the physique that every guy aspires to build. He has worked at NPPT since 1993 and I have never known him to have more than 7% body fat with an ideal level of muscle mass.

For 6 weeks, Joe dropped all isolated arm work from his training program. This was not easy for him psychologically because, like a lot of us, he comes from a traditional bodybuilding background. Much to Joe's delight, after six weeks of no specific arm training, Joe's arms actually grew 1/4 of an inch! Why, you ask? Joe replaced curls and press downs with chin ups and push ups at the end of his workouts. Like Lou Schuler mentioned above, an experienced lifter like Joe is not likely to add mass to one specific part of his body without adding size to the surrounding musculature. The extra compound movements probably increased the size of Joe's back, chest and shoulders as well (he only measured his arms for this experiment).

So you want big guns fellas? Spend more time on rowing, chinning and pressing and skip the mirror time with the dumbbells.

Rick Mayo

New CPR Procedure

I have been certified in CPR since 1992. In that time I have seen the trends change from providing several breaths and chest compressions to practically eliminating the breaths all together.

The American Heart Association is now suggesting that hands-only or chest compressions are just as effective as the old breath/compression protocol. In this article from the Boston Herald, Dr Michael Sayre, an emergency medicine professor at Ohio State University who headed the committee that made the recommendation, states, "You only have to do two things. Call 911 and push hard and fast on the middle of the person’s chest."

Dr. Gordon Ewy, who’s been pushing for hands-only CPR for 15 years, said he was "dancing in the streets" over the heart association’s change even though he doesn’t think it goes far enough. Ewy (pronounced AY-vee) is director of the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center in Tucson, where the compression-only technique was pioneered.

Ewy said there’s no point to giving early breaths in the case of sudden cardiac arrest, and it takes too long to stop compressions to give two breaths — 16 seconds for the average person. He noted that victims often gasp periodically anyway, drawing in a little air on their own.

Anonymous surveys show that people are reluctant to do mouth-to-mouth, Ewy said, partly because of fear of infections.

"When people are honest, they’re not going to do it," he said. "It’s not only the yuck factor."

In recent years, emergency service dispatchers have been coaching callers in hands-only CPR rather than telling them how to alternate breaths and compressions.

"They love it. It’s less complicated and the outcomes are better," said Dallas emergency medical services chief Dr. Paul Pepe, who also chairs emergency medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

One person who’s been spreading the word about hands-only CPR is Temecula, Calif., chiropractor Jared Hjelmstad, who helped save the life of a fellow health club member in Southern California

Hjelmstad, 40, had read about it in a medical journal and used it on Garth Goodall, who collapsed while working out at their gym in February. Hjelmstad’s 15-year-old son Josh called 911 in the meantime.

Hjelmstad said he pumped on Goodall’s chest for more than 12 minutes — encouraged by Goodall’s intermittent gasps — until paramedics arrived. He was thrilled to find out the next day that Goodall had survived.

On Sunday, he visited Goodall in the hospital where he is recovering from triple bypass surgery.

"After this whole thing happened, I was on cloud nine," said Hjelmstad. "I was just fortunate enough to be there."

Goodall, a 49-year-old construction contractor, said he had been healthy and fit before the collapse, and there’d been no hint that he had clogged heart arteries.

"I was lucky," he said. Had the situation been reversed, "I would’t have known what to do."

"It’s a second lease on life," he added.

Hopefully, we will never have to use the new CPR or our defibrillator but it's nice to know that it is less complicated if we do.

Rick Mayo