Better Is Better

How To Avoid Going Crazy — And Other Benefits of Drinking Coffee

I got a very cool surprise in the mail this week. My buddy Chris, Toronto trainer and genius behind Fit & Busy Dads, shipped me a bag of gourmet organic espresso beans from his favorite coffee haunt.

One of the things I love about my job is getting to travel around the world and meet cool people like Chris. He took me to his coffee joint the last time I was in Toronto. It was an experience to be savored. And it was also an exercise in good health and continued sanity.

Coffee gets a pretty bum rap from conventional wisdom. It’s blamed for all sorts of evils. But most of the charges are pure malarky. Not only that, coffee is increasingly being identified as a downright healthy beverage.

Keep Your Wits About You

To get the ball rolling, consider the fact that regular coffee consumption may help us avoid dementia as we age (Eskelinen MH, et al.). That sounds good to me! And on a more anecdotal note, coffee can just plain make you happy. Enjoying a great cup of coffee with friends is a good way to wind down. And ditching stress through enjoyable activities is a sure way to encourage a long and healthy life.

I Take My Coffee To Heart

Coffee has also been credited with heart healthy benefits in a string of recent studies. Regular consumption of decaf has been associated with better blood flow (S Buscemi, et al.). Drinking 1-3 cups of regular coffee per day was shown to reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 24%. (Andersen LF, et al.)

Don’t Skimp On Your Cuppa Joe

If you want to reduce the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, don’t be stingy with your coffee consumption. One study showed that at least 6 or more cups of coffee a day reduced the risk in men by 20%. (Lopez-Garcia E, et al.)

Geez, even I don’t drink that much… It’s a bit easier for the ladies to make their quota. Women peaked out at 4-5 cups per day and a reduced risk of 24%.

A Stroke Of Luck

Guess I luck out again. It appears my love of coffee may even reduce my risk of stroke. When it comes to the most common type of stroke, cerebral infarction, “Compared to men drinking less than 2 cups of coffee a day, men drinking 8 or more cups of coffee a day were at a 23 per cent reduced risk of cerebral infarction.” (Larsson SC, et al.)

A Tonic For The Maladies Of Civilization

The SAD (Standard American Diet) and the accompanying low levels of physical activity prevalent in our society are bad news. They form the perfect storm for the creation of a host of metabolic disorders which eventually lead to diabetes.

Obviously, taking care of the cause should be our number one priority. But it seems coffee can even help keep us out of the metabolic madness to which our habits predispose us.  Six or seven cups a day could reduce risk of diabetes by as much as 35%. (Odegaard AO, et al.)

What's In The Other 98%

So what’s up with coffee. How is it that caffein is the new elixir of life. Well, you may not know that only 2% of coffee is comprised of caffein. And it may be the stuff that makes up the other 98% that’s so good for us.

For instance, it’s thought that the magnesium content of coffee may be responsible for some of it’s protective effects from diabetes.

Coffee is also chock full ‘o antioxidants. And the best news is, the roasting process — the very thing that makes coffee so delightful — actually increases the antioxidant effectiveness of these plant phenols!

Take It With A Grain Of Salt

No, I don’t mean your coffee. And if you want my opinion, take your coffee black, no sugar. That’s the only way to truly appreciate it’s wonders. But I do have a few words of caution…

Coffee is absolutely addictive and must be treated with the due respect that any such substance deserves.

Conventionally grown coffee is also one of the most sprayed crops on the planet, so endeavor to go organic as often as possible, especially if you consume large quantities.

But other than that, if you enjoy coffee — and if you don’t then you haven’t really given it a real chance — then by all means go ahead and enjoy your cuppa Joe.

So what's YOUR take? Do you like coffee? Do you believe coffee is bad for you? Can it be healthy, or do addicts like me just like to rationalize our love of the black nectar? Let us know your thoughts in the comments...

7 Things To Avoid In Your Halloween Chocolate

Time for another Fit Foodie Friday…

If you’re a Foodie like me, you like food too much to deny life’s great pleasures. And chocolate is definitely one of those things that most of us Foodies will never be able to abandon.

But when it comes to your health, there’s GOOD chocolate and there’s BAD chocolate. Personally, I enjoy the taste and texture of the good stuff more than the bad.

Enjoying organic dark chocolate can actually be quite beneficial to your health — in moderation of course. Did you know it's even a great source of antioxidants?

Chocolate is made from the beans of the cacao tree, Theobroma Cacao Plant. Cacao is full of flavanoids that are commonly known for their antioxidant activity. A small bar of dark chocolate can contain as many flavonoids as six apples, four and a half cups of tea, or two glasses of red wine. (Fat Burning Kitchen)

Mike Geary, author of Fat Burning Kitchen, lists seven more health benefits of this sinfully delicious treat in his most excellent treatise on healthy eatin'.

But to balance them out, there are also 7 dastardly sins which you must avoid if you want to make the best choice for you and your kids this Halloween.

• Trans fat -- An artery-clogging type of fat that forms when vegetable oils are hardened into margarine or shortening.
• High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) -- Contains no enzymes, vitamins or minerals, and leeches micronutrients from your body. Raises your blood sugar levels beyond acceptability, and leads to insulin resistance and weight gain. It really is a metabolic poison and, in many ways, acts identical to alcohol with chronic exposure when eaten in high amounts.
• Artificial sweeteners -- Never allow anything "artificial" in your chocolate.
• Soy proteins -- Unfermented soy can cause digestive distress and a weakened immune system.
• Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) -- An excitotoxin, which over-excites your cells to the point of damage or total destruction. Can potentially cause brain damage and other disabilities to varying degrees.
• Preservatives and stabilizers -- Avoid anything artificial and look for only organic ingredients.
• Milk or milk byproducts -- Could impact how well you absorb the healthy antioxidants in the chocolate.

(These 7 deadly chocolate sins are from Dr Mercola’s newsletter)

Milk chocolate is generally a source of most or all of the above no-no's. These aren’t easy things to avoid. Your standard Halloween fare is resplendent in these ingredients.

Making the right choice will make Halloween more difficult and expensive. But if you care about your health and the health of your family, isn't it worth it? Don't be tricked by your treats...

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More Fit Foodie Friday...

Butter Me Up…

What’s THE Most Evil “Health” Food?

Butter Me Up…

Time for another edition of FitFoodie Friday…

Last week we talked about the evils of margarine. This week is devoted to the original that it was modeled after — butter!

But not just any butter. After all, how’d you like to smear a nice pat of pus, injected hormones, chemicals and insecticides onto your toast? Thought not…

But that’s just what you’re getting when you use the run-of-the-mill grocery store butter. Remember your mom or your grandma telling you that you are what you eat? Well, the same holds true for cows.

Did you know that over 50% of the antibiotics produced in the US go into animal feed? Do you wonder why? It’s because the animals are kept in such retched conditions that they need to pump them with antibiotics to keep them alive.

Guess what else many of them are getting pumped with… Bovine Growth Hormone. We’re lucky here in Canada that it has been banned, but in many countries it’s still used. And it increases the rate of udder infection by 50-70%, which means more need for antibiotics.

But it also means pus gets into your dairy products! There’s actually an “allowable limit” of pus in commercial dairy… (yuk!)
 
Then there’s the actual food that the animals are eating. Conventional farming has no qualms about using feed that’s been sprayed by countless chemicals and insecticides. And just as with humans, all that lovely stuff is secreted through the cow’s milk.

And they aren’t eating their natural diet of grasses either. They’re being stuffed with grains and other things they would never it if they were left to their own devices. This means that the fatty acid profile of both the animals and the milk is terribly skewed towards the inflamatory omega-6s and away from the healthy omega-3s and Conjugated Linoleic Acid.

OK, so all that probably turned you off dairy — including butter — right? That’d be a shame, since what I’ve just described isn’t REAL butter in it’s natural state. It’s something akin to butter that we’ve gone and modified through our treatment of the animals.

The real thing is a wonder of nature full of myriad benefits. Plus, it tastes great. Have you ever tasted conventional butter side-by-side with organic butter from grass-fed cows? You’ll be amazed.

My new favorite book on nutrition, The Fat Burning Kitchen, rattles off almost a full page of benefits derived from butter. Here are a few of the highlights…

• Butter is rich in the most easily absorbable form of Vitamin A necessary for thyroid and adrenal health, both of which are essential to fat burning and energy
• Contains anti-oxidants that protect against free radical damage
• Is a great source of Vitamins E and K
• Butter contains conjugated linoleic acid, which is a potent fat burner, anti-cancer agent, muscle builder, and immunity booster
• Vitamin D found in butter is essential to absorption of calcium, the immune system and overall well being

(excerpt from The Fat Burning Kitchen)

So I hope I’ve buttered you up sufficiently to put butter back on the menu. But make sure it’s organic and preferably grass fed. (and we’ll talk about pasteurization some other time…)

What are your favorite uses for butter? Do you use butter at all? If not, will you?

Bodyweight Workout For Fat Loss

As summer wanes and winter creeps ever nearer, you may find something else is also creeping up on you. Autumn tends to be accompanied by a slow creep of girth around the mid-section.

And even if you manage to fend off this slow creep, you still have the upcoming holiday season to think of. How you eat is going to have a lot to do with how well you weather the storm. I strongly recommend you check out Fat Burning Kitchen to help you with that.

But I’ve got another secret weapon for you. Below is one of my favorite bodyweight workouts for fat loss. In one minute, do three reps of the three exercises below. Take the rest of the round to recover before starting again at the top of the next minute. Do that 20 times...

3 x CST Frogger


3 x Lunge Jump


3 x CST Swing Split


Be forewarned, this bodyweight workout is deceptively easy for the first couple rounds. Don’t be fooled...

And make sure you blast through your three exercises as quickly as possible. You may be tempted to dawdle through it and take your entire minute to get the exercises done. But if you go that route you’ll soon run out of gas. The only way to make it through is to go as fast as you can and then spend the rest of the minute on recovery.

If you are more into training with equipment right now, you can also click through to check out my colleague Craig’s super popular fat loss program.

The important thing is to synch up your nutrition and your exercise to come through the dark months in fighting form for Spring. Keeping yourself lean and healthy year round is a pursuit that will pay dividends in mood, energy, vitality and longevity.

So make, borrow or buy a plan and get to it…

***
You may also enjoy these bodyweight workouts:

Tough Bodyweight Workout (with video)

Bodyweight Workout for Fat Loss (with video)

What’s THE Most Evil “Health” Food?

This is the first in a series called FitFoodie Friday. We’ll be exploring a myriad of topics as they relate to food and fitness. And I’m sure you’ll find a healthy and delicious recipe here from time to time...

I recently spent time with relatives. Great people trying to make good choices for their family. So I was shocked when they reached for the margarine.

If you’re not shocked, we’ve got a problem. You should be...

Margarine is one of the biggest mistakes — turned into one of the greatest lies — in our modern history of food and medicine.

A handful of misguided scientists and doctors convinced the world that saturated fat was evil and that we’d all be better off eating man made super-processed fats like margarine and Crisco.

Not only were they wrong, they actually made the situation they were trying to fix — heart disease — worse. These fake fats are made from highly inflammatory vegetable oils like soy, canola and corn.

And if that weren’t bad enough, they need to be highly processed to make them stable and palatable. And that means things like hydrogenation, which is as good as turning it into a trans fat…

So what about cholesterol? Turns out it ain’t so bad after all. In fact, the only time it really causes much trouble is when you create inflammation with things like excess carbs and inflammatory oils!

Even if you DON’T care about your health — which would be crazy — and are only concerned about how you look, margarine will contribute to your weight gain and even give you wrinkles! Those trans fats mess you up right down to the cellular level, changing the make-up of your cell membranes.

Once they’re jammed up with trans fats, they no longer work the way they are supposed to. So nutrients and energy that SHOULD be shuttled into lean tissues is turned away. And guess where it all ends up — fat cells...

So ditch the margarine and eat the real thing: butter. It tastes so much better too! But get the organic pastured stuff, not the crap that’s readily available. I’ll tell you why in the next edition of FitFoodie Friday.

In the meantime, if you want even more detailed information on this topic and many other important questions relating to your health and physique, you really should check out an eBook I recently discovered called Fat Burning Kitchen.

I was surprised and delighted to discover this little gem of a book a few weeks back. If you’re like me and care about what goes in your mouth and how it affects you, this is a great resource. I’m pretty picky about this kind of thing and I can honestly say that I agree with 99% of what the author, Mike Geary, has to say.

Click this link to check out Fat Burning Kitchen.

Check back next week for another edition of FitFoodie Friday. We'll explore the health benefits of good old butter!

Cheers,
Adam  

Sonnon Kettlebell Video Library

I’m so jazzed up on kettlebells right now that I’ve been going back through everything Coach Sonnon has ever said about them. That includes my notes from private coaching, the Foundation DVDs and every clip he’s ever put up on YouTube.

Brilliant stuff! I wish I could share it all with you. But the notes are from private sessions, so that wouldn’t be right. And I can’t very well bootleg his DVDs for you. But I can make it easy for you to view all his KB videos on YouTube. You’ll find them all below.

And if you’re looking for exhaustive and innovative ways to put kettlebell exercises together into workouts for any goal, check out the new Kettlebell Revolution from Chris Lopez.

You can still grab it for 50% off (the sale ends tomorrow though—so if you’re interested don’t forget…).

And I’m still throwing in the three extra goodies I mentioned in this kettlebell post.

Kettlebell Revolution <= Check out Chris’s program in this link.

The Sonnon Kettlebell Video Library on YouTube

Scott Sonnon Kettlebell and Clubbell Yaw Press

Scott Sonnon's #2 Top Kettlebell Mobility Drills

Scott Sonnon's Official Kettlebell Foundation DVD Series

RMAX Kettlebell Push Press Pull Part I Scott Sonnon

RMAX Kettlebell Push Press Pull Part 2 Scott Sonnon

RMAX Kettlebell Push Press Pull Part 3 Scott Sonnon

The Best Kettlebell Exercise for Fighters

The Best Kettlebell Exercise for Groundfighters

Kettlebell Core — CST KB8 Exercise

In this recent kettlebell post, I pointed out some of the advantages of training with this time tested tool. A little imagination, and the help of a solid technical foundation, allow you to use your KBs for practically any goal.

The most no-nonsense and universally applicable approach to understanding KB mechanics is Circular Strength Training’s 7 Key Components of Structure…

1. Spinal Alignment
2. Shoulder Pack
3. Arm Lock
4. Grip Confirmation
5. Core Activation
6. Hip Recruitment
7. Leg Drive

All 7 keys are present in any movement. But every exercise requires particular attention to certain keys, and can be used to develop certain aspects of your structure.

In the following clip I present my current favorite kettlebell exercise—although my favorite exercises change constantly as my focus evolves. You’ll be able to see which of the 7 Key Components I concentrate on.

It’s also a great exercise for the core. And here’s an extra tip. The faster you try to get the KB around and back through the legs, the more your core is going to have to work. So forget boring—not to mention injurious—crunches and put the KB-8s to work on your six pack!

Kettlebell Workouts

 Kettlebells are a great tool.

It’s a perfect stepping stone. It leads away from the flat world perspective of conventional fitness towards the 6 Degrees Of Freedom attained with innovative equipment like the Clubbell®.

Kettlebell workouts can make us stronger, faster, leaner and sexier. But more importantly, if we use them right they can make us better, more coordinated and more healthy.

There are so many innovative ways that fitness pros around the world are using them. And I’ve got a really good one I’d like to share with you (and an awesome deal for you), but first I want to look a bit more at what it takes to get the most out of your kettlebell experience.

You can’t just pick up a bell and start swinging away. Like any training implement, you need to learn the fundamentals. This is true even of two-dimensional exercises like the bench press. But it’s even more crucial for tools like the kettlebell which add open chained variability to the mix.

I’m lucky. I was spoiled. My technical foundation comes straight from Coach Scott Sonnon. No one breaks kettlebell training down like he does. And that’s because he bases it all on the Circular Strength Training® 7 Key Components of Structure. I got to learn from him first hand in Bellingham, Washington, but his Official Kettlebell Foundation DVD series is the next best thing. I’ve gotten tons of useful reminders and nuances by going back through this material recently.

But don’t take my word for it. Check out this clip of him teaching a key CST kettlebell exercise. Pay attention to all the nuances…

The other thing I love about Coach Sonnon’s approach to kettlebell workouts is that he takes what works and makes the most out of the tool. He doesn’t rely on dogma or on superstition. He doesn’t limit himself to just one “school.” He relies on his Circular Strength Training® foundation and adapts the tool to his bidding.

By taking that approach, you’re free to explore what’s around you. As I said earlier, there are tons of very cool kettlebell workouts from innovative coaches all over the world.

And it just so happens that I met one of them this past winter in Toronto.  His name is Chris Lopez. He’s an awesome coach and the father of four beautiful girls. So obviously he’s all about finding effective ways to stay in shape with limited time. This means he’s been doing lots of experimenting with various kettlebell training methods.

He sent me a copy of his new Kettlebell Revolution program last week. (Hmm, did Ryan and I start something with the Bodyweight Exercise Revolution?) It’s full of great ideas on how to use kettlebells for various goals.

My only criticism is based on my earlier affirmation that my exposure to Coach Sonnon has made me a total technique snob. Some of the exercise descriptions and demonstrations lack the nuances that I look for. But if you apply your CST Kettlebell foundation knowledge to Chris’s programs I think you’ve got a real winner.

Kettlebell Revolution is going to be available starting on September 8th. And Chris told me he’ll be offering it at 50% off for the first few days, along with some other bonus gifts to get things rolling.

But because I want to help Chris get the word out, and because I want to add a little CST power to your kettlebell workouts, I’m going to throw in a few goodies of my own if you buy Chris’ stuff through the link below.

Here’s what I’m going to give you…

Kettlebell Compensation Flow -> Everything we do repeatedly causes an over specialization that we need to deal with. If not, our training leads to diminishing returns and eventually injury. I created this Prasara Yoga flow for some of the kettlebell swinging students in my online personal coaching program. This flow truly is exclusive, you’ll be the first to see it other than a handful of my private students.

Kettlebell Keys Primer -> This short clip will give you the basics of proper kettlebell mechanics. For the full deal you’ll have to pick up Coach Sonnon’s Foundation series.

Intu-Flow Joint Mobility Primer -> Kettlebells can be tough on your joints, and the only system I’ve EVER seen address this properly is Circular Strength Training®. This little primer runs you through some of the basic Intu-Flow movements that’ll keep your joints healthy even under the load of heavy kettlebell training.

There you are. Three valuable goodies that I’ll throw in with Chris’ Kettlebell Revolution package.

Kettlebell Revolution <= Click here to visit Chris’ site

You can register to receive an update as soon as the program goes live. And you’ll automatically get your extra goodies from me when you order (through some special computer voodoo magic that I don’t fully comprehend).

In the meantime, if I get 15 comments on this post I’ll be back next week with a video tutorial of my current favorite kettlebell exercise. It’s one I picked up from Coach Sonnon’s Tacfit program. And it’s lots of “fun.” But I’m only going to film it if we get those 15 comments.

Cheers,
Adam

Super Availability

 

There’s just TOO MUCH FOOD available.

I’m on my way back from the big Circular Strength Training® Certification event in Bellingham, WA. I’ve decided to fast on the voyage home. It’s just the easiest way to avoid eating a bunch of junk.

I’m one of those people that can easily plunge down slippery slopes. Give me one piece of somewhat junky food, and the next thing you know I’m eating an espresso brownie from Starbucks.

It was my buddy Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat, who first gave me the idea to fast while traveling. And I’ve had good success with it on many occasions. For me, it just seems easier to turn off the valve completely than to try regulating the flow of crappy travel food.

But the problem is the sheer volume of tasty, but empty, food that’s all around me. I’m not particularly hungry. But the lemon cranberry scone over in the Starbucks display is weighing on my will power with the heft of a Bruiser Clubbell®.

So I’m thinking, no wonder we’re having so much trouble maintaining the kind of health and physique that we’d like and we deserve! We were never meant to have so much abundance. This Super Availability of sheer calories is completely counter to the bodies that our evolution has provided us with.

So the next time you bow down to “just one” espresso brownie (and you will–so will I) just give a moments thought to how long it would take you to gather that many calories if you were dumped into the wild. Assuming you had the skills to do it, how much energy would you expend to gather that much “food energy”?

It’s an interesting experiment...

Dumbest Things I Saw In The Gym Today

Gyms aren't all bad. There are lots of useful things you could be doing in a health club. Of course, you know that I think the majority of your time would be best spent outdoors or at home with your bodyweight, a Clubbell, a kettlebell, a sandbag or any number of other exercise modalities that take you closer to the movements of life and sport. But that's for another time.

The point here is that there are some downright dumb things that happen in gyms. Some things are just sad because they represent so much wasted time. Others are just plain d-u-m-b!

Today was a beautiful day here in Quebec City. There were tons of people outside on bikes & rollerblades or just out for a stroll. It was great to see. I had to be in the gym for some clients for a while. The place was almost empty (bravo). But our number one dumbest thing I saw in the gym today was...

Somebody climbing steps!

For one thing, it was beautiful outside. For another, Quebec City has more flights of long steep steps than any other city I've ever seen. So if ya wanna climb steps, get out of the gym!

The other thing they were doing wrong is just climbing, climbing, climbing at the same slow pace the whole time. Why not hit them hard for a bit, then slow the pace for a while. Or better yet get off the climber between intervals and do some joint mobility or flow yoga (à la Intu-Flow and Prasara).

Training with intervals has been proven time and again to outperform steady state cardio for fat loss and cardiovascular benefits. Why do we insist on maintaining our clutch on the chronic cardio?

The prize for the second dumbest thing I saw in the gym today goes to someone who was confident in the "functionality" of what he was doing.

Heavy biceps curls with each foot on a balance disk.

It looked like a circus side show.

First off, I'm not too keen on biceps curls to begin with. They have their uses for certain people at certain times. But if I'm using them with someone, it's to specifically address certain concerns related to hypertrophy or strength of the elbow flexors. At that stage, we're a long way off from applying that strength functionally. So why would you add instability to such an isolated exercise? I thought about that all the way home in the car and couldn't come up with any decent reasons.

And even if I was trying to add functionality to an exercise, rarely would I add the balance challenge to the bottom of the feet. It is very rare to a apply force in real life or in sport from a position of instability at the contact point between the ground and the foot. Even in sliding sports like skiing we create a solid platform between the snow and the foot through the edges of the ski. In cutting during field sports the foot is planted solidly to allow the application of force.

Very rare are occasions when the foot is not in solid contact with something. So why are so many trainers using instability under the foot? Doesn't it make much more sense to apply instability from the other end of the chain? That's why I love Clubbells so much. They're the perfect tool to add instability and chaos to the structure while working through a solid foundation underneath.

Anyhow, those are the two dumbest things I saw in the gym today. What have you seen lately?