7/31/12 UFC WOD

Nine rounds for time of:
155(Men)/85(Women) pound Squat clean, 7 reps
8 Burpee box jumps

LiveStrong Running Series #4

Use of Weighted Vests in Endurance Sports

Endurance athletes are always looking for ways to improve performance. Adding more weight to your body would seem to make your body work harder during exercise so that your muscles and respiratory system becomes more efficient, thus improving your endurance. Gaining weight for the purposes of training is not practical, but adding weight in the form of a weighted vest might be.

About Endurance Sports

Endurance sports involve performing prolonged aerobic activity over an extended period. Examples of endurance sports include cross-country skiing, road cycling, marathon running and long-distance triathlons. When you train for endurance sports, you seek to adapt your muscles to working for long periods of repetitive activity. You also seek to improve the efficiency of your oxygen use so you can go longer with less effort. Adding load through a weighted vest might help with these training goals.

Research

A study in the “European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology” published in 1987 found that athletes who trained with a weighted vest for four weeks experienced lower levels of lactate in the blood during nonweighted runs than athletes who did not train with one. High levels of lactate in the blood hasten fatigue. Wearing a weighted vest also increased athletes’ VO2 max -- or ability to use oxygen during exercise. A January 2012 study in the “Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research” found that training with a weighted vest can improve running time and agility slightly, which can also help with endurance sports such as skiing and trail running.

Safe Weight

Although a weighted vest can offer some training benefits, you don’t want one that is too heavy. Too much weight can increase your risk of injury and make you too uncomfortable to complete your activity. Stick to one that is just 5 percent to 10 percent of your body weight, recommends the American Council on Exercise.

Concerns

Adding a weighted vest to already strenuous activities can be harmful. Weight vests can increase body temperature in warmer environments, putting you at risk for heat-related complications. A weighted vest worn during extreme training sessions such as 20-mile or longer runs could hasten fatigue and make you more vulnerable to injury.

References

• American Council on Exercise: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Risks if Individuals Hold Dumbbells in Their Hands While Doing Step Aerobics or Other Cardio Activities?
• European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology:Metabolic Response of Endurance Athletes to Training With Added Load
• Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: Effect of Weighted Vest Suit Worn During Daily Activities on Running Speed, Jumping Power and Agility in Young Men

Article reviewed by Kirk Ericson Last updated on: Apr 10, 2012

From: LiveStrong

 

7/26/12 UWLC Solo Workout

PEAK 8

It is much more taxing than it appears

7/25/12 UFC Solo Workout

From CrossFit Football

10,000 lbs

Complete 10 rounds for time of:

1 Squat - 365 lbs
1 Press - 180 lbs
1 Deadlift - 455 lbs

*The goal is to lift 10,000 lbs as fast as possible. 

*If you must scale, adjust the weights so you can complete the 10,000 lbs in the least amount of the sets. You still can only do one rep at a time and must cycle through all three lifts to complete a single round.

LiveStrong Running Series #3

Weight vests are popular fitness tools used for increasing the amount of work required of an athlete over a distance or set of repetitions in exercises that cannot easily be loaded with traditional means like dumbbells and barbells. Maximum speed sprinting can be loaded with a weighted vest if a few key principles are followed, according to track coach Ken Jakalski.

Appropriate Loading

Appropriate loading is essential for sprint speed development. Legendary sprint coach Charlie Francis suggests using resistance only heavy enough so as not to disturb running mechanics and ground contact times. Francis suggests using a load only between 5 and 10 percent of bodyweight to improve sprinting acceleration performance. For the average male sprinter this is between 8 to 20 pounds. Younger sprinters with less overall strength will require lighter loading.

Appropriate Strength

Strength developed in the weight room can be transitioned to improved sprinting performance using loaded sprints, according to strength and conditioning specialist Josh Bryant. However, adding extra load to an already jarring exercise in sprinting can be risky if appropriate background conditioning has not been done. Protect yourself by improving your squat ability in the weight room and performing a build up of unweighted sprinting, says Francis.

Appropriate Duration

Russian exercise physiologist and training theorist Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky advocates using weighted vests during sprinting for only two to three weeks at a time and often intermixed with unweighted sprinting for maximum results. Any longer than three weeks, according to Verkhoshansky, and the athlete risks developing less than ideal sprinting technique changes.

Caution

High-intensity sprinting, especially under load, carries with it an increased risk of musculoskeletal trauma. Work with a qualified track and field professional to ensure that your use of weighted vests is done with high movement quality to ensure the best conditions for maximum safety and performance.

References

• "The Pros and Cons of Using Resisted and Assisted Sprinting"; Ken Jakalski; 1998
• "Key Concepts in Elite Sprinting"; Charlie Francis, 2008
• "Bridge the Gap: Sprint-Resisted Training"; Josh Bryant, CSCS; 2009
• "Supertraining"; Mel Siff, PhD and Yuri Verkhoshansky, PhD; 2009

Article reviewed by Greg Duran Last updated on: Jun 14, 2011

LiveStrong Running Series #2

How to Develop Top Sprinting Speed

Step 1

Fasten a weighted vest to your body when you do sprint workouts. This will adapt your body to added resistance and make you feel lighter once you take it off and play a sport. Wear the vest throughout the course of the day as well during your nontraining hours.

Step 2

Perform heavy weight training exercises to strengthen the muscles involved with sprinting. Target the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings and calves with exercises like squats, leg presses, lunges, dead lifts, stepups and calf raises. Use a resistance that is so heavy you can lift it only eight to 12 times in a set.

Step 3

Incorporate plyometric exercises into your routines. Plyometrics involve a slow lowering movement followed by a fast movement. These exercises can help improve your explosive power during sprints. Do exercises like squat jumps, leaping lunges, tuck jumps, side hops and bounding. Bounding is a form of running where you take extra high and long strides.

Step 4

Run down hills to do overspeed training. Spend five to 10 minutes jogging at a light pace to warm up, then finish at the top of a hill. Sprint down the hill as fast as you can, walk back to the top and repeat. This type of drill causes you to take longer than normal strides, which will translate to faster sprinting speed.

Step 5

Stretch before and after your workouts and sport activities. Perform dynamic stretches before and static stretches after. Dynamic stretches move your body through a range of motion, which acclimates you to the movements involved with sprinting. Do stretches like ankle bounces, leg swings, arm crossovers, spinal rotations, shoulder shrugs and alternating toe touches. Static stretches are held for a given amount of time and they can help reduce soreness and keep your muscles lengthened. Do stretches that target the quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves, which are all involved with sprints.

References

• ShapeFit: Sprinting, Sprinters and Speed Training
• Sports Fitness Advisor: Lower Body Plyometric Exercises
• "Stack"; Speed Drills from Champ Bailey's Trainer; Nick Palazzo; February 2005
• Brian Mac: Dynamic Stretching Exercises

Article reviewed by John Hagemann Last updated on: May 26, 2011

From: LiveStrong

7/24/12 UFC Solo Workout

Instructions: 

Start timing

Row: 2000m

Complete 21-15-9 reps of each exercise in order as fast as possible.

Push-Ups

Deadlift

Front Squat

Sit-Ups

Finish with a 2000m Row

Record your time.

7/24/12 UWLC Solo Workout

Back + Biceps

Cardio: 25 Minutes

Reverse-Grip Pulldowns: 4 sets of 10-12

Wide-Grip Lat Pulldowns: 3 sets of 12-15

Bent over Two-Dumbbell Row: 3 sets to failure in 15-17 reps

V-Bar Pullup, use bands or L-Sit to elevate legs: 3 sets of 10-12

Dumbbell Alternate Bicep Curl: 4 sets of 12-14

One Arm Dumbbell Preacher Curl: 4 sets to failure in 12-14 reps

Spider Curl: 3 sets to failure in 15-20 reps

Cardio: 25 Minutes

7/23/12 UWLC Solo Workout

LEGS

 Cardio: 20 Minutes

SUPERSET

 Leg Extensions: 3 sets to failure in 18-20 reps

Seated Leg Curl: 3 sets to failure in 12-15 reps

SUPERSET

Hack Squat: 4 sets to failure in 50 reps

Air Squats: 4 sets of 50 reps

Cardio: 20 Minutes

LiveStrong Running Series #1

How to Improve Sprinting Times

Sprinting is found in many sports such as track and field, football and soccer. Sprint speed can make or break your game. Speed does not come without practice and discipline. To increase sprinting speed, certain exercises are required to prepare your muscles. It is important to set aside time two to three times weekly to work on your sprinting speed. This helps your body become accustomed to the physical demands sprinting requires.

Basics

Step 1

Position yourself at the starting line with your strongest leg in front. This is known as your dominant leg and provides much of your speed and stride. Practicing a good starting stance helps your body become accustomed to it.

Step 2

Align your back and legs. Body alignment will increase your stride throughout your race. Don't slouch or lower your buttocks to the ground. This will only slow you down when you start off. The slow start pace affects the rest of your sprint.

Step 3

Maintain your body alignment as you start off at the starting line. Breaking this alignment will not only slow you down but will also cause your body to become tired easily. Poor body position also raises risk of injury throughout the race. Push off from the starting line with your back leg, bringing your front out to set your stride in one fluid motion.

Step 4

Relax your muscles while you are in mid-sprint. When your muscles are tensed your body tends to slow down, causing you to take shorter strides. Do not clench your fists or squint your eyes. These are tell-tale signs that you must relax. Breathing deeply as you sprint will help ease muscles and help you work with them.

Drills

Step 1

Run up steps to increase stride length. Stair running improves your stride by increasing the distance your legs must move to make a step. Stadium stairs are best when using this training technique.

Step 2

Stand in front of a mirror and place your feet and legs shoulder width apart. Lean forward onto the balls of your feet without bending your toes, heels slightly elevated. Bend your right arm at your side to a 90 degree angle. Bend your left arm behind you at a 90 degree angle. Switch arm positions by pumping your arms back and forth as you would during a sprint. Keep your arms close to your body and at a 90 degree angle for two sets of 20 repetitions each.

Step 3

Count your steps as you sprint. Counting steps will help you increase your stride. The easiest way to do this is counting every other step, starting with the first. Your step count will go from one to three to five to seven, for example.

Step 4

Stand straight with your legs and feet shoulder width apart. Slowly lift your right leg, bending your knee at a 90 degree angle. Lift the heel of your left foot until you are standing on the ball of your foot, without bending your toes. As you lift, increase the angle of your right leg and push out. Repeat with your other leg for two sets of 20 repetitions each.

References

• BodyBuilding.com: "Four Easy Steps to Improving 10 Yard and 40 Yard Dash"; Roger White
• Brian Mac Sports Coach: How to Improve Your Sprinting Speed; Patrick Beth

Article reviewed by Linda Tarr Kent Last updated on: Jun 14, 2011

From: LiveStrong

 

7/20/12 UWLC Solo Workout

Calves and Abs Workout

Cardio: 20 Minutes

Standing Calf Raises: 2 warm up sets of 8-10, 4 sets to failure in 12-15 reps

Seated Calf Raises:  4 sets to failure in 12-15 Reps

One-Legged Standing Calf Raise: 4 sets to failure in 12-15 reps

Hanging Leg Raise: 3 sets to failure in 20 reps

Cardio: 20 Minutes

7/20/12 UFC Solo Workout

AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, COMPLETE:

Reps: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 , 3 , 2, 1.

Barbell Thrusters

Pull-Ups

Weighted Sit-Ups

Cumulative Damage and Repair

The Body Heretic: It Scorns Our Efforts

By GINA KOLATA
HE promises are everywhere. Sure, you smoked. But you can erase all those years of abusing your lungs if you just throw away the cigarettes. Eating a lot of junk food? Change your diet, lose even 5 or 10 pounds and rid yourself of those extra risks of heart disease and diabetes. Stay out of the sun - who cares if you spent your youth in a state of bronzed bliss? If you protect yourself now, skin cancer will never get you.
Maybe it should be no surprise that America's popular and commercial cultures promote the idea of an inexhaustible capacity for self-rejuvenation and self-repair. After all, if America as an idea has meant anything, it has meant just that - the possibility of continual transformation - becoming wealthier, more spiritual, more beautiful, happier and feeling younger.
That optimism has helped create a society of unmatched vitality - a source of bewilderment, alarm and envy to the rest of the world. But Americans often forget, or aren't aware, of how unusual they are in this respect, notes Dr. Daniel Haber, director of the cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"I grew up in Europe and I travel in Europe," he said. "And there's an amazing contrast." Europeans are far more fatalistic about their lives, he said. They believe "you need to enjoy life," so they smoke, they bask in a sun, they take pleasure in a leisurely, indulgent meal and they don't feel compelled to go to a gym.
Americans, Dr. Haber says, believe in control - of their bodies, their mental faculties and their futures. So shedding some pounds or some unhealthy habits is not merely sensible. It suggests a new beginning, being born again.
Maybe that is why people may feel betrayed when Peter Jennings explains that he stopped smoking, at least for a while, and still got lung cancer. Or why, two decades after his death, people still talk about Jim Fixx, the running guru who lost weight, stopped smoking, ran every day and dropped dead of a heart attack.
In fact, science is pretty clear on all of this: There are real limits to what can be done to reverse the damage caused by a lifetime of unhealthy living. Other than lung cancer, which is mostly a disease of smokers, there are few diseases that are preventable by changing behavior in midlife.
But that is not what most people think, said Dr. Barnett Kramer, the associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. Instead, they believe that if you reform you'll erase the damage, in part because public health messages often give that impression. "It is easy to overestimate based on the strength of the messages," Dr. Kramer said. "But we're not as confident as the messages state."
Eating five servings of vegetables and fruit has not been shown to prevent cancer. Melanoma, the deadly skin cancer, occurs whether or not you go out in the sun. Gobbling calcium pills has not been found to prevent osteoporosis. Switching to a low-fat diet in adulthood does not prevent breast cancer.
At most, Dr. Kramer said, the effect of changing one's diet or lifestyle might amount to "a matter of changing probabilities," slightly improving the odds. But health science is so at odds with the American ethos of self-renewal that it has a hard time being heard. Here, where people believe anything is possible if you really want it, even aging is viewed as a choice.
"It's hard to find an American who doesn't believe that, with enough will, he or she can achieve anything - we've been brought up to believe that," said Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California. Health, he emphasized, is no exception: "It's the same whether you're 40, 50 or 80. It doesn't matter whether you are male or female, black or white. "
But in matters of health, the strongest willed person simply cannot wipe the slate of life clean and begin again. This is true even with lung cancer and smoking. Those who quit may greatly reduce their risk of lung cancer. But they cannot eliminate it.
"The best you can be is a former smoker - you can't be a 'never smoker,' " said Dr. Kramer. "It's not all or none. It's a matter of changing probabilities."
In fact, in every area of desired physical self-renewal, the probabilities make it hard to argue that life allows one to start over.
At health clubs, pear-shaped people in their 40's and 50's obsessively lift weights, trying for those defined muscles that, even in youth, come only to those with a certain genetic predisposition. But by middle age, the overweight tend to stay that way, and the body has a harder time increasing muscle mass. So even the greatest personal trainer will not produce rippling abs.
At the cardiologist's office, middle-age men, learning that their arteries are starting to clog, swear they'll never eat chips and hamburgers again, and that they will take up jogging. Some do and a small percentage even stick with it. But no amount of exercise or diet change will make the plaque in their arteries disappear. Despite common public health recommendations, walking for half an hour a day, five days a week probably won't make most people lose weight. And while a regular regimen of walking or running will likely improve your stamina and cardiovascular fitness, there is no guarantee that it will reverse heart disease, prevent or forestall a heart attack or in any way extend your life.
The effects of other measures, like changing lifestyle or switching to a diet rich in raw vegetables, are even less clear when it comes to preventing cancer, said Dr. Kramer. "Even if they do affect the cancer," he said, " it may be that it's over an entire lifetime."
So what are Americans, with their faith in starting over, to do? When it comes to making oneself over, said Dr. Glassner, they have two options. One, he said, "is that you can consider yourself inadequate or inferior" for failing to force the years to melt away. The other is to shift the definition of rejuvenation from a arduous restructuring of the self to a paint job.
"Now, instead of losing the weight you're going to go for cosmetic surgery," Dr. Glassner said.
That is not really an answer. Collagen injections or surgery may give people more youthful looking faces, but only for a while. And liposuction won't help for long if the body restores the fat that was suctioned off the patient's arms or buttocks.
Then there is a third possibility for the resourceful, Dr. Glassner said. An overweight person can simply redefine himself as a "food adventurer."
There is one group, however, for whom a strong sense of control over the future may be an unalloyed good: the sick.
"Protective illusions," says Dr. Shelley Taylor, a psychology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, can be a good thing. In her research, she found that among people with serious diseases, those who felt they still had control over their lives coped better with their illnesses.
The optimists fared better psychologically even when they became more ill - shattering the illusion of control. "What you often see is people use something like cancer as an opportunity to discover value in their lives, and meaning," Dr. Taylor said. "They reorder their priorities. They focus on relationships more. Control and optimism shift to things that can be dealt with."
For those in good health, there is still another option, though it is decidedly a minority position. This is simply to scale back on one's self-engineering and take more pleasure in simply getting from day to day.
The American essayist Joseph Epstein nicely expressed this view in an essay, written when he hit the age of 60, which he gave the mordant title, "Will You Still Feed Me?" In it, Mr. Epstein expresses the virtue of just enjoying the ride.
"At 60," he writes, "one probably does well not to expect wild changes, at least not for the better. Probably best not even to expect a lot in the way of self-improvement. Not a good idea, I think, at this point to attempt to build the body beautiful. Be happy-immensely happy, in fact-with the body still functional."
Of course, many in midlife will still decide to hit the gym, to eat better, drink less, relax more. And that's a good thing, if only because they will feel better for being fitter. But they shouldn't expect it to erase the effects of all those years that came before.

FROM: THE NEW YORK TIMES

7/18/12 UFC Solo Workout

  Warm Up: 1200m Row

 

5 Rounds

10-push press (115 Men, 65 Women)

10-burpee pull-ups

 

Cardio: 1.5 Mile Run

Cool Down: 10 minute jump rope.

7/18/12 UWLC Solo Workout

FOR YOUR SHOULDERS ONLY

Cardio: 20 Minutes

Smith Machine Overhead Shoulder Press: 5 sets of 8-10 (Behind the head, to base of skull, no lower)

Cybex Shoulder Press: 3 sets of 8-10, 1 drop set to failure

SUPERSET

Side Lateral Raise: 4 sets of 10-15

Front Raise: 4 sets of 10-15

Dumbbell Shrug: 4 sets of 12-20

Reverse Machine Flyes: 1 warm-up set of 8-10, 7 working sets of 12-15

Cardio: 20 minutes

Gym Lies

From: LIES in the gym

The great objection to women exercising—namely, the fear of becoming muscular—is quite without foundation. It cannot be too often repeated that woman is not simply a weaker man: she is physically an entirely different being … In women the muscles simply become firm, close-knit, and well-rounded, and show under the layer of fatty tissue intervening between muscle and skin only in soft, hardly discernible masses, just sufficiently to give a delicate moulding to the form.
Eugen Sandow, Sydney Mail, October 22, 1902.

You don’t have to go far in the average gym to find someone willing to give you bad information. People are full of ideas and advice about women and weights. The other day I heard the most ludicrous thing yet: that cardio work was bad for you because it built muscle that pushed the fat out farther. Yep, I guess that’s why marathon runners are all so obese—duh. Some of the worst offenders are fitness magazines and personal trainers. This is somewhat distressing, considering that people look to such sources for help and information. The other day, reading a fitness magazine, I learned that yoga will firm my breasts (it won’t, unless they meant to write “plastic surgeon” instead of “yoga”), and that over 90% of all long term exercisers exercise in the morning (oops, I guess all the evening regulars at the gym are just fooling themselves).
Anyway I’ve compiled a list of some of the most common myths floating around like the alligator in the sewer stories. The difference is, of course, that there really ARE alligators in the sewer. And snakes that pop out of your toilet, heh heh.

LIE: Weight training will make you huge and masculine.

Probably the worst lie ever. People look at women bodybuilders and say, “Ohmigawd, they’re huge and if I lift anything heavy I’ll look like that too.” Nope. In general, women are not able to build monstrous muscle mass in the same manner as men, due to a number of physiological factors. It’s a rare woman that can become a competitive bodybuilder, and to get that big she has to combine genetics, extensive long-term training, strict diet, and supplementation (legal or otherwise).
If you enjoy watching bodybuilding, have a look at the tested (natural, i.e. steroid free) shows versus the untested (anything goes) shows. You will notice a great difference in the builds of the women onstage. A natural female bodybuilder is lean, almost wiry, and certainly not the mythical monsters whom exercising women fear resembling (have a look at my reader letters page to see some examples). Also, women bodybuilders do not normally have the low levels of bodyfat that they do while in competition. Low bodyfat makes muscles stand out, and it changes the contours of the face, making jawlines and cheekbones prominent, which contributes to a rather unnatural look. Bodybuilders about to go on stage for a competition look quite odd, actually, due to dehydration, extremely low bodyfat, and deep tans. During the offseason, competitors’ bodyfat is higher, and in clothing, most wouldn’t stand out as unusual in any way.
The average woman (that’s you) cannot achieve a masculine monster look simply through strength training. You’re not going to wake up after a workout and be huge. You don’t believe me? OK, then, try to get huge. Just try. And see how far you get. If you don’t believe me, check out what happened in my before and after photos. I’ve had people tell me that they think my legs are “too big” (too big for what?) but the old gams were a whole lot bigger before I started training.

LIE: Men train, women tone.

To be serious about strength training, eliminate the T-word-”tone”-from your vocabulary. Lifting a tiny weight for a hundred reps is a waste of time and energy, plus it never really stresses your muscles enough to make them much stronger. As the good Sgt. Robo says, “More isn’t better, better is better.” In fact, according to one study in which men and women trained the same muscle group 3 days a week for 20 weeks, “the women made significantly greater relative increases than men in strength.” (MacDougall et al, McMaster University)
Women and men have exactly the same skeletal muscle composition. It would not be possible to tell biological sex from muscle tissue alone. But more importantly, there is no such thing as “toning”. There is muscle mass and strength gain, and fat loss, and that’s it. In purely technical terms, “tone” refers to the ability of the central nervous system to provide passive muscular resistance to being stretched. What you probably think of as “toned” muscles are merely muscles which are not hidden by a lot of bodyfat. In other words, there is no reason why you should waste your time on the stupid little weights when you could be getting tough and strong.

LIE: There is a difference between toning, sculpting, and firming.

Please don’t write me asking how you can tone but not sculpt, or firm but not tone, or whatever. There is no such thing (see the next lie). There is only building muscle mass and losing bodyfat, nothing else.

LIE: Muscles grow different ways depending on how you work them.

This school of thought says that if you lift heavy, you’ll get huge, and if you lift light weights with high reps, you’ll just “tone”. AAACK! The T-word again! Muscles only know how to grow one way, and just how big they get depends on gender and genetics.
Okay, this isn’t exactly the whole picture. A helpful reader emailed me recently, encouraging me to clarify this point. We have several different types of muscle fibres which respond to different types of training. BUT nevertheless you won’t be able to get freaky big unless you try very, very hard and you have one-in-a-zillion genetics. And ultrahigh rep training is a complete waste of your time.

LIE: You can change the shape of your muscles.

You hear a lot from nimrods at the gym about which exercise is better for reshaping your muscles, or for building big peaks on your biceps, etc. Sorry, but the shape of your muscles is genetic. Muscles are attached to bones and joints in a way that is specific to each person’s body. As an example of this, look at the bump of people’s outer thigh muscles above the knee. You will notice that some people’s quads make a bump almost right at the knee, while other people have their quad bump higher up, sometimes quite high above the knee. This is merely an individual variation in muscle attachments. So, no matter what exercises you do, you’re not going to change where your muscles attach, and you’re not going to change their individual shape. You can, however, make them bigger and stronger.

LIE: Women shouldn’t work their leg and butt muscles, otherwise they’ll get too big.

Once again we have the fallacy of the “big muscles”. Have a look at women bodybuilders’ butts and you’ll see this isn’t the case. The truth is this: by building muscle, we can speed up our metabolism, resulting in more effective fuel (calorie) consumption. In other words, more muscle means less fat in the long run. And where do we find the largest group of muscles in a woman’s body? Why, her legs and butt, of course! Neglecting these means neglecting the best area for building calorie-burning muscle. In addition, women tend to have much better lower-body than upper-body strength, so it’s very satisfying to work the lower body and see some great results!

LIE: Women should stick to machines and stay away from free weights.

This is another heinous myth. In fact the opposite is true for a variety of reasons. Have a look at the article called “Don’t Fear the Free Weights.”

LIE: If you build muscle, it will just push the fat out more and make you look bulky.

Sorry to burst the bubble girls, but you’re not going to wind up like the Incredible Hulk, ripping through your shirt with the massive expansion of your muscles. The amount that muscle contributes to visible size is negligible compared to the bodyfat.

Salt and a Paleo Diet

The lunacy of the low-fat craze has taught most Paleo dieters to look at public health campaigns with a healthy dose of skepticism. We don’t blindly accept established medical wisdom just because the doctor said so, or reflexively adjust our diet to every new recommendation that comes along. But that doesn’t mean that the medical establishment is always wrong – and the campaign to reduce sodium seems to be one of its potentially useful recommendations. After all, if the average sodium intake in the Paleolithic was 768 mg, and the average American consumes 3,436 mg per day, couldn’t excessive salt intake be another harmful part of the modern diet? It sounds logical, but governmental recommendations for sodium restriction are actually based on seriously flawed data and have the potential to do much more harm than good.

Sodium Basics

Sodium is a naturally-occurring element found in everything from milk to beets to celery sticks. Most people’s main source of dietary sodium is table salt (sodium chloride), which is 40% sodium; fancier sea salts contain roughly the same amount of sodium, although they also contain several other trace minerals that are stripped from table salt during processing. Sodium is crucial for maintaining proper muscle and nerve function and electrolyte balance. It helps maintain the volume of blood plasma, an important balance for heart health. Salt also aids in digestion by providing chloride to the hydrochloric acid (HCL) in your stomach.
The body processes salt and maintains body fluid homeostasis primarily through a system called the RAAS (renin-angiotensin-aldosterone hormonal system). The kidney is the primary organ involved – and in a healthy adult, it can adapt without a problem to a wide variety of dietary salt levels. If you eat a large amount of salt, your kidneys excrete more sodium, to reduce your blood plasma volume to normal levels. If you eat very little salt, your body produces more of two hormones called renin and aldosterone, causing you to retain more sodium and maintain adequate fluid balance and blood pressure. While renin can help regulate your sodium levels, chronically high renin levels are inflammatory.
We lose salt every day through urination and sweating, and the human body has no way of synthesizing sodium from other dietary elements, so some salt consumption is clearly necessary. The specific amount, however, is much less clear.

The INTERSALT Study

Citing a correlation between sodium intake and high blood pressure, public health officials constantly encourage Americans to reduce our consumption of salt. But salt wasn’t always this demonized. Throughout history, humans have sought it out, prized it – and, until very recently, preserved most of our food with it. The modern saltphobia started in 1972, when a study done on genetically hypertensive rats claimed to show that dietary sodium produced hypertension, while dietary potassium reduced it. The rats in this study, however, consumed an amount of sodium completely outside the realm of plausibility for anyone with a choice in the matter. To reach the same level of sodium intake relative to his body weight, a human would have to eat over 500 grams of sodium – compared to an average intake of around 3.5 grams a day in the US. To get 500 grams of sodium, you’d have to eat 4.5 cups of table salt. Anything would be harmful in such extreme amounts, even water. This study proves nothing about the effects of sodium consumption at a level that anyone but a force-fed lab rat would eat.
The 1972 study started off the campaign against salt, but most of the dire public health warnings are based on the Intersalt study, conducted in 1988, which measured average salt consumption and blood pressure levels in 52 groups randomly chosen from 32 countries. The study measured sodium intake against two things: the increase of blood pressure with age, and the median blood pressure of the group. The results overwhelmingly showed no particular correlation between salt intake and blood pressure: the graphs below, taken from INTERSALT’S conclusions, show the measured relationships between median blood pressure and sodium consumption.

In each graph, notice that four data points (circled in red) are very far below the general cluster. According to the principles of scientific research, these data points are outliers, and ought to be excluded from the analysis. Outliers simply aren’t statistically significant, but they do skew the trend line. For example, if you drew a graph relating your consumption of spinach and the number of inches rained on any given day, chances are that on one or two days you would coincidentally eat very little spinach and observe very little rainfall. This doesn’t mean that your spinach consumption has any influence on the weather, but if you graphed your conclusions and drew a line through the data, these coincidental days would pull the end of the line down, showing a correlation that doesn’t actually exist.
This is what happened with the INTERSALT data. In the graphs shown, the solid lines are the trend lines when the outliers are included; the dotted lines show the observed trends with the outliers excluded. When the outliers don’t influence the trend lines, the correlation between salt intake and blood pressure disappears – even the Intersalt study itself admitted that without the four outliers, “both regression analyses showed no significant associations of sodium with median systolic pressure” (324). Like supporters of the theory that Paleolithic humans died young, however, advocates of salt restriction have manipulated the evidence by including the outliers.
These outliers are not only statistically insignificant, but also potentially indicative of factors completely unrelated to salt consumption. The Yanomami Indians, for example, were one of the groups represented by the outlier dots. They have very low salt intake, but they also have a relatively low BMI and almost no obesity or alcohol ingestion, low levels of dietary saturated fat, high levels of dietary fiber, a physically active lifestyle, and none of the chronic stressors of the modern lifestyle – all potentially confounding factors that could contribute to low blood pressure.
INTERSALT did appear to find a relationship between sodium intake and blood pressure increase with age, but other scientists have criticized this conclusion because it was not a hypothesis the study was designed to test, but rather an retroactive observation included because it proved what the researchers wanted to see. Also, without the outliers, even this relationship drops down to a “borderline level of significance” (322).

The Evidence Since INTERSALT

The inclusion of these outliers in the data set distorted the trend line, making the INTERSALT study appear to prove that salt restriction would lower blood pressure – a false correlation that only measured one potential effect of salt consumption. Despite the inadequacy of the data, the US government used it to set its official dietary recommendations. Based on this research, official NIH guidelines recommend no more than 2.4 grams of sodium a day for a healthy adult (equal to a little over a teaspoon of table salt). The American Heart Association goes even further, advising an upper limit of 1.5 grams a day.
These recommendations have spawned a rash of low-sodium products – canned soups, instant noodles, hot dogs, breakfast cereals, nut butters – most of which have very little relevance to anyone following the Paleo diet in the first place (reduced-sodium ramen noodles aren’t any more Paleo than their ordinary counterparts). Even conventional medical wisdom is willing to acknowledge that “Fat in the diet doesn’t make you fat!” as long as that dietary fat is replacing the new public health menace, sodium. But since the drive to reduce sodium consumption is based on such faulty data, the NIH recommendations beg the questions, is this preoccupation with dietary salt necessary? Could it even be harmful?
By1998, studies were increasingly finding fewer and fewer benefits of salt reduction, even at a public health level undetectable to individual subjects. In August of that year, Gary Taubes wrote an article summarizing the controversy and explaining why the link between salt and blood pressure (if it exists) is so difficult to determine. First of all, blood pressure is regulated by a complex homeostatic system: sodium affects it, but so do potassium, calcium, caloric intake, sex, age, and race. This introduces numerous complications to any study claiming that salt intake alone is responsible for high blood pressure.
Second, the early studies such as INTERSALT are all “ecologic” studies, comparing members of different populations (Yanomami Indians compared to Finns compared to Vietnamese compared to Americans). These studies appear to show that societies with a low salt intake have lower blood pressure, but they can’t account for the results of intrapopulation studies, which compare individuals within a certain population (white middle-aged men in Toronto). Within more homogenous population groups, researchers could find no direct relationship between dietary salt and higher blood pressure. Taking out the confounding factors that plague ecologic studies seemed to also reduce or eliminate the correlation between salt intake and blood pressure.
Further evidence that sodium is not directly responsible for high blood pressure arrived with the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) study in 1997. The DASH study held salt intake constant but found that a diet high in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy produced a benefit for blood pressure much clearer than anything the salt restriction studies had been able to find.
In a more recent article in the New York Times, Taubes surveys the research since 1998. In 2001, the DASH-Sodium study seemed to prove that large reductions in salt intake would slightly lower blood pressure, but not necessarily result in any positive benefits like longer life or a lower risk of heart disease. The data from the DASH-Sodium study also showed that a DASH diet consistently outperformed a standard American diet, even at the same level of sodium intake, suggesting that sodium intake is far from the only dietary factor influencing blood pressure.
Not only does the evidence linking salt restriction to lower blood pressure seem increasingly inconclusive, but the corresponding assertion – higher blood pressure must be due to increased sodium intake – is also under fire. A study from 2003 found no significant change in dietary sodium levels since 1957. Despite dire public health warnings about the menace of sodium, American salt consumption has remained markedly stable: the recent rise in hypertension must therefore be attributable to some other cause. Another study from 2009 reached the same conclusion, and argued that humans naturally seek out a certain baseline level of sodium ingestion based on an inborn biological need that cannot be modified by governmental warnings.
This seems to show that sodium is particularly vital to the human diet: public health campaigns have successfully reduced consumption of fat, for example, but have so far had no similar effect on consumption of sodium. It might also indicate that sodium restriction, far from promoting health, could actually exacerbate the obesity epidemic. If sodium is such an important element of the diet that we evolved a failsafe method of getting enough of it, then reduced-sodium foods will simply prompt consumers to eat more of them in an attempt to meet their body’s sodium needs. Instead of eating 300 calories of ordinary bacon, they might need 500 calories of reduced-salt bacon to obtain the same amount of sodium.
The benefits of salt restriction and the capacity of public health officials to achieve that restriction, therefore, seem unclear at best. Lately, however, several studies have proven that long-term salt restriction not only does no measurable good, it can also be downright dangerous. Like glucose consumption, salt intake appears to show a U-shaped curve of benefits, with serious danger at the very low end and the very high end of the spectrum.
Especially for certain types of people, salt restriction can cause serious health problems very quickly. Athletes need salt to replace the electrolytes they lose through sweat – hence the salt in this Paleo “Gatorade” recipe. For Type 2 Diabetics, salt restriction can increase the risk of cardiac-related death and even for healthy people, a low-salt diet can promote insulin resistance. For the elderly, salt restriction can cause serious health problems, as it influences the body’s response to other medications. Recent research, therefore, increasingly shows no significant benefit – and serious potential danger – from excessive salt restriction.

Salt and a Paleo Diet

While no studies have been done specifically tracking the effects of salt intake on the Paleo diet, the research on the DASH diet provides valuable evidence. The DASH diet is not a perfect Paleo eating plan by any means (the sample menu advises dieters to “center your meal around carbohydrates”), but it does come much closer than the standard American diet. In both the 1997 and 2001 studies, the benefits commonly attributed to salt restriction (especially lower blood pressure) seemed to follow more from the diet itself, which emphasized fresh, whole foods with lots of fruits and vegetables. Something more complicated than salt intake was clearly influencing participants’ results in these studies – and that “something” was most likely the huge array of other vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients that influence blood pressure levels.
One of the most important of these nutrients was potassium. Potassium, which is found all kinds of fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and meats, seems to reduce the risk of hypertension – in a sense, it balances out any detrimental effects of sodium consumption. The ratio of sodium to potassium in the diet is particularly significant, especially for anyone interested in an evolutionary eating plan: one of the changes brought by the Agricultural Revolution was a drastic reversal of the ratio of dietary sodium to potassium. One NIH study even found that the ratio of sodium to potassium more strongly correlated with risk of cardiovascular disease than the absolute levels of sodium or potassium alone. Other studies found that the balance between the two elements is so important because a high ratio of sodium to potassium disturbs the body’s natural acid levels, slowing growth in children, and decreasing bone and muscle mass in adults, as well as contributing to the formation of kidney stones. The higher levels of potassium in the DASH diet probably produced much of the benefit to blood pressure levels.
Magnesium, another micronutrient available on the DASH diet but commonly deficient in the general population, also significantly reduced blood pressure in several studies. Other studies show that calcium may also have an effect. While these studies differ widely as to their findings about specific micronutrients and blood pressure, sodium is clearly not the only dietary factor at work.
This makes the Paleo diet ideal from a blood pressure standpoint, since, like the DASH diet, it provides high doses of all the important nutrients that help maintain fluid homeostasis. The Paleo lifestyle also imitates several of the factors that made populations like the Yanomami Indians outliers in the INTERSALT study: low levels of stress, regular exercise, adequate sleep, and lowered intake of stimulants like caffeine.
In other words, without directly restricting salt, the Paleo diet gets at the root causes of the lowered blood pressure touted by salt-reduction champions. This makes salt restriction itself not only unnecessary, but problematic. Human consumption of salt has shown a remarkable resistance to public health campaigns, suggesting that we’re physiologically designed for a certain level of salt intake and probably shouldn’t fight our bodies’ needs. Reviewing the available data suggests that a diet based on evolutionary science most closely meets human requirements for all of the many micronutrients regulating healthy blood pressure. The Paleo diet might be naturally lower in salt than the standard American diet, due to the exclusion of sodium-rich processed foods, but there’s no need to artificially restrict sodium intake.
As well as worrying about the amount of salt they eat, many people wonder about the best kind of salt – pink Himalayan sea salt? Danish Viking-Smoked Sea Salt? Hiwa Kai Hawaiian Black Lava Salt? These specialty salts may have additional trace nutrients, and add an exciting flavor to your food; if you enjoy them, there’s certainly nothing harmful about them. They aren’t necessary, however: you can meet your sodium needs with ordinary table salt. The only danger of consuming sea salt is a potential iodine deficiency. While sea salt does contain other trace minerals, it does not have any iodine, as regular table salt does. If you choose to replace your table salt with sea salt, make sure to get enough iodine by eating kelp, seafood, or egg yolks, or by taking an iodine supplement.

Conclusion

Salt is not the enemy. Even though public health officials continue to scold us for enjoying it, their recommendations are based on faulty data and ignore the potential health problems of universal salt restriction. People with certain kidney problems may see some benefits from reducing salt consumption, but it’s not necessary or even healthy for most people. The historical stability of salt consumption suggests that our bodies know better than we do how much salt they need: on a Paleo diet rich in other important micronutrients like potassium, there’s nothing harmful about eating as much salt as you have a taste for.

From Paleo Diet Lifestyle

7/17/12 UFC Solo Workout

No Weights, No Care.

100 Pull Ups

100 Push Ups

100 Sit Ups

100 Squats

Run 1.5 Miles

7/17/12 UWLC Solo Workout

Active Recovery

Row 4k

Run 5k

7/16/12 UWLC Solo Workout

Chest + Triceps

 Cardio: 20 Minutes

Decline Bench Press: 4 sets of 8-10

Flat Bench Flys: 4 sets of 8-10

Incline Cable Flyes: 2 warm up sets 8-10, 2 sets to failure

Cable Crossover: 2 warm-up set of 8-10 reps, 2 sets to failure

Tricep Pushdown: 1 warm up set of 8-10 reps, 2 sets to failure 16-20 reps

Reverse Tricep Pulldowns: 1 warm-up set of 8-10 reps, 2 sets to failure 16-20 reps

SkullCrushers: 7 sets of 7

 Cardio: 20 minutes

 

Award Ceremony

Attention Ultimate Weight Loss and Ultimate Fitness Challenge participants: the awards ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow at 11AM.

7/13/12 UWLC Solo Workout

Back + Biceps

 Cardio: 15 minutes

GIANT SET

Chin-up: 4 sets of 15

Seated Cable Rows: 4 sets of 15 reps

Wide-Grip Pulldown Behind the Neck: 4 sets of 15

Bent Over Row: (Use the Smith machine or power rack) 4 sets of 8-10

Hammer Curls: 2 sets of 8-10, 3 sets of 20 reps

Barbell Curl: 2 light sets of 8-10 reps, 3 heavy sets of 10-12

Cable Hammer Curls: (Use the rope attachment) 3 sets of 20 reps

Cardio: 20 Minutes

7/13/12 UFC Solo WOD

A CrossFit classic. Get in the gym and get out.

“Fran”

Reps: 21-15-9

Thrusters 95/65

Pull Ups

7/5/12 UWLC Solo Workout

Shoulders, Calves, and Abs

 Cardio: 25 Minutes (Your choice, get warmed up)

Russian Twist: 150 touches.

Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 2 warm-up sets of 8-10 reps, 2 sets of 6-10 reps

Side Lateral Raise: 2 warm-up sets of 8-10 reps, 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Front Dumbbell Raise: 1 warm-up set of 8-10 reps, 3 sets of 10-12 reps

Standing Low-Pulley Deltoid Raise: 3 sets of 8-10 reps + 1 slow/controlled negative on each set

Upright Barbell Row: 7 sets of 12-15 reps

SUPERSET:

Calf-Raises: 3 sets of 20 reps

Crunches/Sit-Ups: 3 sets of 20-30 reps

Cardio: 20 Minutes choice

Note: I don't care if you do seated calf or standing calf-raises. Just make sure you hit the full range of motion. Ask staff if you are unfamiliar with an exercise or post here and I'll add a video to the video section.

Weigh Outs/Final Workout Competition

I have not received packets from the following members:

John Blust

Kim Crawford

Leslie Tucker

Sheryl Gibson

Lisa Bristel

Tamara Burrel

Christina Drake (I have your test out info)

Susanne Fox

Talia Johnson

Priscilla Miller

Edna Ruiz-Vega

Susanne Steffensen

Eileen Weidner

I will update this until I get all of your books. Come in and speak to fitness staff to schedule a weigh out or leave a comment on here and I'll get your evaluation completed ASAP

7/5/12 UFC Solo Workout

Warm-Up: Run 400m (5 times around indoor track, 1.5 Outdoor)

50 Lunges (25 each leg)

Run 400m

50 Lunges (25 each leg)

The Business: 

4 rounds for time of:

15 Burpees

25 Squats

35 Sit-ups

Hiatus

The webmaster is no longer missing in action; updates will continue for UWLC and UFC. Check back for daily workout RXs and links to scintillating reading material.