I Love My Job!

I woke up very early today and found this email waiting in my inbox.

Rick:

I had an annual physical today and my internist was absolutely raving about my blood work (cholesterol), weight loss, echo cardiogram! I felt it was most appropriate to let you know how grateful I am to have my health and be feeling so good! Would be happy to share the numbers with you. Thanks again - I know how much you all have changed my life!


Karla

After over 20 years in the industry, this is the kind of message that reminds me why I love my job!

Rick Mayo

Supplements Gone Wild!

I was out and about last Saturday when I noticed a lot of buzz in and around a local supplement retailer. Naturally, my curiosity got the best of me and I ducked in to see what was up. Turns out the shop was hosting a health fair and all of the individual product vendors were set up to promote their products.

Unfortunately, I was wearing my logo shirt so the vendors were on me like flies on poo. By the time I left the shop, I had a bag chock full of free samples of everything from performance enhancers to anti-aging pills that I would never ingest in a million years.

You may or may not know that the FDA does not regulate supplements. As such, the manufactures can advertise just about any benefit they want on their packaging. Some of the claimed benefits are just plain laughable.

I had a good time reading them later during lunch and one in particular stood out. This shake features quite possibly the most ridiculous advertising I've ever read. Without naming the product, you be the judge:

Caution!! Highly sensitive to Atmoshereic Disperion. DO NOT SHAKE POUCH!

World's Strongest Vaso-Anabolic Psychoactive Experience

- Nanomolecular Vasular Expanders for Immediate Vaso-Muscular Pumps
- Psychoactive Pre-workout Matrix Ignites White-Hot Intensity and Explosive Strength
- Anabolic Factors Force Extreme Muscle Gains

Seriously?

Please use good judgement when buying any dietary supplement. Most folks can get all they need from a multivitamin, fish oil and maybe a vitamin D supplement.

RM

Knee Pain in Runners

I recently came across this article in the NY Times

Can Running Actually Help Your Knees?

Distance running has been vilified as of late by physiologists and fitness gurus alike. Perhaps without merit. Based on the research quoted in the article, runners can run well into their later years free of injury.

The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery that showed that by moving and loading your knee joint, as you do when walking or running, you “condition” your cartilage to the load. It grows accustomed to those particular movements. You can run for miles, decades, a lifetime, without harming it.

Why then do some 80% of runners suffer some time of injury annually?

So, the best way to ensure that your knees aren’t hurt by running is not to hurt them in the first place. “The biggest predictor of injury is previous injury,” Tucker says, and one of the best deterrents against a first (or subsequent) knee injury is targeted strength training. “The hip stabilizers, quads, hamstrings and core must all be strong enough. As soon as there is weakness, some other muscle or joint must take over, and that’s when injuries happen.”

Like I have mentioned before, if every potential runner were to start a strength/mobility program BEFORE they began a running program, we would see far fewer injuries in this population.

What about the 80% of you who have already suffered some type of injury? From our experience at NPPT, you can return to running pain free, if you identify and address the specific muscle/joint imbalances with an effective strength and mobility program.

Example: Andrea partially tore her ACL a few years ago. She chose not to have it repaired and has been able to continue her 3 day a week running schedule with no pain. How? By doing plenty of single leg exercises in her workouts and diligently foam rolling for recovery.

I'd say she's doing OK!



So, if you love to run, do yourself a favor and add some specific strength and mobility work to your routine.

“What struck me,” she says, “is that the runners we studied were still running, well into their 70s and 80s.” They weren’t running far, she says. They weren’t running frequently. They averaged perhaps 90 minutes a week. “But they were still running.”

If you live in or around the Atlanta area, come check out my 3rd presentation of Modern Mobility at Fleet Feet-Johns Creek on Saturday Sept 5th.

RM

Homemade Equipment

I thought of including a pic from the new GI Joe movie, but I couldn't resist. Only grown men and beer could have come up with this idea!

I think every guy in America owned a GI Joe when he was a kid. Being that my Dad is a gun toting modern day John Wayne, I owned several. My favorite was the GI Joe with the kung fu grip.

What can you do to build a grip like Joe? While most conventional training (pull-ups, dead lifts, etc) takes care of building adequate grip strength, you can add some specific grip training to your program.

In feeding my odd obsession with constructing my own exercise equipment, I came up with these guys.














Equipment list: 2 baseballs, 2 carabiners, 2 chains, 2 eye bolts


Have you ever wondered what is at the center of a baseball? No? Well, I can tell you that it takes more licks than a Tootsie Pop to get to the center (I recommend a power drill) and it tastes terrible.


Hang them from the ceiling














Hope they hold up!



These guys are actually very comfortable in your hands and very challenging for your grip. You could also use them for rows, farmer carries or anything that requires gripping. Easy, cheap, and effective! One of my favorite homemade tools to date.

Goooo.. Joe!

Dont' Get it Twisted! The Skinny on the Recent Time Magazine Article.

I've already received at least 20 questions and at least that many emails regarding the article, "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin", from Time Magazine. The author, John Cloud, presents some compelling research to support the theory that exercise may stimulate your appetite to the point where it is counterproductive to your weight loss efforts.

The basic problem is that while it's true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

This may come as a surprise, but I couldn't agree more! Now, before you banish me to blogger cyberspace or burn down my gym for suggesting that you train so hard the last few years, give me a minute to explain. If you follow my posts, you should already know that I suggest unequivocally that diet is THE determining factor in your fat loss success. Just read any of my previous posts for reference.

The studies quoted are a little skewed in that they mainly site one certain type of exercise as the culprit for increasing hunger. We call these type of workouts chronic cardio and I agree that they really don't do much for you physically other than make you hungry. These type of workouts could also be referred to as steady-state cardio. This involves gong out and performing the same 30-45 minutes of activity that you normally do at a pace that is challenging enough to induce hunger, but not challenging enough to really increase your level of fitness.

Church, who is 41 and has lived in Baton Rouge for nearly three years, has a theory. "I see this anecdotally amongst, like, my wife's friends," he says. "They're like, 'Ah, I'm running an hour a day, and I'm not losing any weight.'" He asks them, "What are you doing after you run?" It turns out one group of friends was stopping at Starbucks for muffins afterward. Says Church: "I don't think most people would appreciate that, wow, you only burned 200 or 300 calories, which you're going to neutralize with just half that muffin."

Maybe I'm wrong, but I find it hard to believe that most people really think that if they exercise a little that they can just throw caution to the wind when it comes to their nutrition.

So, what type of workout is best for weight loss? The ideal workout schedule should include some strength training, some high intensity cardio activity (this could also be your strength workout) and plenty of lifestyle activities. Structure your workouts to support your lifestyle. Lift heavy so that you will be strong! Run, jump and crawl because this is what your body was made to do. Get outdoors, play and live a little. Go for a walk or take an easy bike ride whenever possible. Like I asked in a previous post, "What are you building all of those gym muscles for anyhow?"

The author does concede:

If evolution didn't program us to lose weight through exercise, what did it program us to do? Doesn't exercise do anything?

Sure. It does plenty. In addition to enhancing heart health and helping prevent disease, exercise improves your mental health and cognitive ability. A study published in June in the journal Neurology found that older people who exercise at least once a week are 30% more likely to maintain cognitive function than those who exercise less. Another study, released by the University of Alberta a few weeks ago, found that people with chronic back pain who exercise four days a week have 36% less disability than those who exercise only two or three days a week.

In all, this article doesn't present any earth shattering research. As a matter of fact, it reveals absolutely nothing. Guess what? If you workout and then eat like a moron, you will not lose weight. For real? Wow! Good to know.

Eat less to lose weight- exercise to perform better.

Don't get it twisted!

NPPT Success

Congratulations to NPPT's own Warren Prehmus. Warren's basketball team won the national championship at the 2009 senior (over 50) games just a few days ago. The Georgia Boys won a hard fought game against the Burlington Players of Ohio. Warren scored 38 of his team's 58 point including two clutch free throws in the final minutes of the game.

Warren trains his butt off at the gym and it obviously pays off on the court.

Check out rest of the article. (see pic above)

Great job Warren!

My Top 5 Training Tools

I am definitely an advocate of the "less is more" approach when it comes to equipment. We have very few machines at NPPT and we actually make a lot of our own strength equipment out of necessity. That being said, here is the current list of my top 5 training tools.



Cool location!





1. Suspension Training- Upper body pulling movements (rows, pull-ups) are essential in designing a well rounded conditioning program. Suspension trainers let you turn virtually any playground, high beam or tree limb into workout. We currently use three different types of suspension trainers at NPPT. The TRX, Jungle Gym, and our homemade version (chain and row handles). The prices run roughly $150, $49 and $23. The most durable of these options is the chain/row handle. Simply purchase 6-8 feet of chain, 2 carabiners and a double row handle (used sporting goods store). Loop the chain over your anchor, lock it with the carabiner and you have a rock solid suspension trainer. A few weeks ago, I threw a suspension trainer in my backpack, rode my bike to a nearby playground and got a great workout. This is a must have tool!



Monkey Feet





2. Vibram Five Fingers- I have written about the benefits of barefoot training. Sprinting, lifting and just playing shoeless can do wonders for your balance and foot strength. While simply going barefoot is the obvious option, the Five Fingers protect your feet from heat, puncture wounds and general funk. I run sprints once a week on a local turf field. Without my Five Fingers, the field would cook my feet in the GA heat. If you can get over the nerd factor, try wearing them to the gym for your weight training workouts.



Even Lance does kettlebells





3. Kettlebells- I know these guys have been PLAYED lately. Everyone is using them (sometimes poorly) and they are THE hot fitness trend at the moment. That being said, I find them just plain fun. I don't get excited looking at the dumbbell rack, but when I see a KB my imagination runs wild with ideas. While they are relatively expensive, they are highly durable and portable. Check here for just a few ideas on what you can do with yours.




Use with your hands or feet







4. Power Wheel- What makes the Power Wheel so unique is it's ability to be used by your hands or your feet. Light, portable and versatile- at $49 this is a core destroyer. Check here for ideas on exercises.



5. Foam Roller- Remember that you make your fitness gains during the recovery phase. That means beating your body into submission without proper recovery will result in no gain in fitness or worse, injury. The Foam Roller is often described as the "Poor Man's Massage" because you can get deep tissue work everyday for free! Other than just pure rest, the roller is the most effective tool for tissue health and recovery. Plus, it's hurts so good! I am planning on including a foam roller video on our site soon.


Rick Mayo