Kettlebell swings are one of the best exercises for firming your
buttocks, hamstrings, quads, abs and pretty much everything else. The
dynamic loading and unloading of the weight trains you to you your
entire body to generate the force necessary to move the bell from
between your legs to chest or shoulder height. Proper form is
imperative to keep from hurting yourself.
These tips will help you maximize the fat burning potential of the kettlebell swing!
The hips go BACK not down!
I can't tell you how many people have come to me saying swings hurt their back. Inevitably the reason is they are squatting down instead of pushing the hips back.
Try this - Place your hands on your hips with the forefinger of each hand in the hip crease and use the hands to tilt the pelvis. Let the knees unlock, but don't bend them, just unlock them.
Keep pushing the hips back. At the same time keep the chest lifted and shoulder blades pinched, chin up.
Pop the hips forward and straighten the knees. The
hamstrings, glutes, quads and abs should all be tight at the moment of
full expansion. The pelvis should be forward.
If you are
doing swings with 1 kb (2 handed or 1 handed) the forearm(s) should be
touching the inside of the upper thigh through the bottom portion of
the movement. If the forearm(s) go between the knees you are squatting
(or you have longer arms than me which is saying a lot )
Arthur Schopenhauer, a preeminent 19th century philosopher, once said
that truth isn’t always as easily accepted as we’d like
it to be. Specifically, he stated: "Truth always goes in 3 stages.
First it is ridiculed, then violently opposed, and finally accepted
as self-evident."
Now, in this article, I intend to introduce the Testosterone Nation
to a new
"truth." Well, maybe that’s not the best way of saying
it. But, since saying
that I intend to introduce the T-Nation to my best guess at a theoretical
model designed to explain and predict a natural phenomenon will leave
a few of you scratching your heads, let’s stick with calling it
a new truth.
The "new truth" that I want to introduce you to today is a
new view of the
concept of energy balance. Although the ideas in this article will suggest
that the current view of the energy balance equation offers limited
explanatory and predictive power and, as a result, needs revisions,
I don’t necessarily think that these ideas will stir uprisings,
violent or otherwise.
First of all, the concepts in this article are logical, supported by
research, and have appeared in bits and pieces, albeit fragmented, elsewhere
on this site in the work of myself and the Warrior Nerd, Dr Lonnie Lowery.
Second of all, I’m just not sure the concept of energy balance
has the power to rouse violence. It always makes me chuckle when "experts"
(in any field) parrot this Schopenhauer quotation, suggesting that the
ridicule of their ideas actually somehow makes the ideas true! Looking
back through history, many more ridiculed ideas have been shown to be
false than have shown to be true.
So rather than testing the ideas in this article against the barometer
of ridicule and violent upheaval, let’s just test them against
a much more objective standard—the available body of scientific
and clinical evidence.
The Current View of Energy Balance
Let’s start out with a few pictures illustrating the current view
of energy
balance, or, at least, how most people view the relationship between
"calories in" and "calories out."
So you think you are too busy to train, you have to deal with kids getting to school, getting yourself to work, the pressures of work. Then you have to come home and fix dinner, do laundry etc and by 7pm you are exhausted. No way you are going to the gym.
Well I'm sorry but there are no excuses. You make your health a priority over other things if you are serious about it. How can you possibly be any busier than President-elect Obama? He makes time every day to get in a workout, why can't you?
Obama has gone to the gym, for about 90 minutes a day, for at least 48
days in a row. He always has treated exercise less as recreation than
requirement, but his devotion has intensified during the past few
months. Between workouts during his Hawaii vacation this week, he was
photographed looking like the paradigm of a new kind of presidential
fitness, one geared less toward preventing heart attacks than winning
swimsuit competitions. The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted
during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by
regular treadmill runs and basketball games.
WASHINGTON - Even a little bit of extra weight
can raise the risk of heart failure, according to a U.S. study
published on Monday that calculated the heart hazards of being pudgy
but not obese.
It
comes as little surprise that obesity makes a person much more apt to
get heart failure, a deadly condition in which the heart is unable to
pump enough blood throughout the body.
But
researchers who tracked the health of 21,094 U.S. male doctors for two
decades found that even those who were only modestly overweight had a
higher risk — and it grew along with the amount of extra weight.
In men who are 5 feet 10 inches tall, for
every seven pounds (3.2 kg) of excess body weight, their risk of heart
failure rose on average by 11 percent over the next 20 years, the
researchers wrote in the journal Circulation.
The
average age of the men at the outset of the so-called Physicians'
Health Study was 53. During the study, 1,109 of them developed heart
failure.
Overall,
the risk of heart failure increased by 180 percent in men who met the
definition of obesity according to their body mass index (BMI of 30 and
higher), and by 49 percent in men who met the definition of overweight
(a BMI of 25 to 30).
Heart failure, also known as congestive heart failure, contributes to 300,000 deaths each year in the United States.
Conditions
such as coronary artery disease and high blood pressure can leave the
heart too weak or stiff to fill and pump blood efficiently.
Dr.
Satish Kenchaiah of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and
colleagues also looked at how physical activity affected heart failure
risk.
WASHINGTON - If you're looking for a little
help shedding extra pounds after the holidays, the government is
warning you to stay away from nearly 30 weight-loss products that
contain unlisted and possibly dangerous ingredients.
The
pills are advertised as "natural" fat busters and have intriguing names
like Imelda Perfect Slim and Zhen de Shou. Some suggest they are
innovative "herbal" remedies from Asia.
But
the Food and Drug Administration on Monday said the concoctions contain
unlisted ingredients, including powerful appetite-suppressing drugs and
a suspected carcinogen.
"These tainted weight loss products pose a
great risk to public health because they contain undeclared ingredients
and in some cases prescription drugs in amounts that greatly exceed
their maximum recommended dosages," said Dr. Janet Woodcock, who
directs the FDA's drug evaluation center.
FDA lab testing found 28 dietary supplements that could land unsuspecting users in the emergency room.
Many
contain sibutramine, a powerful appetite suppressant that's a chemical
cousin of amphetamines. It can cause heart attacks, strokes, heart
palpitations and other problems. Some contain phenolphthalein, a
chemical long used as a laxative, but which is now being withdrawn from
the market because of cancer risks.
None
of the supplements lists the dangerous ingredients on the label.
"Consumers have no way of knowing that these products contain powerful
drugs that can cause serious health consequences," Woodcock said.
The FDA is considering criminal charges against some of the companies, because they have not responded to requests for recalls.
The products are:
Fatloss
Slimming, 2 Day Diet, 3x Slimming Power, 5x Imelda Perfect Slimming, 3
Day Diet Japan Lingzhi, 24 Hours Diet, 7 Diet Day/Night Formula, 7 Day
Herbal Slim, 8 Factor Diet, 999 Fitness Essence, Extrim Plus and GMP.
Post exercise Carbohydrate – Protein supplements contain “fast”
protein and carbohydrates meaning quickly digested and absorbed proteins
(such as whey protein) and simple sugars (including glucose and/or glucose
polymers). Often these products also contain additional amino acids
and/or creatine.
What does it do?
While strength and endurance training and competition promote a host
of physiological benefits, both types of exercise stress the body to
a large degree. Not only are muscle substrates (stored carbohydrate/glycogen,
stored amino acids, and stored phosphagens like ATP and phosphocreatine)
depleted but also protein status becomes negative, muscles suffer structural
damage, blood cortisol rises, and immune function is compromised. Fortunately,
the body is designed to respond to these changes by providing a short
post exercise period in which all these negative effects can be remedied
as long as proper nutrition is provided, and fast. Well designed post-exercise
Carbohydrate – Protein supplements are designed to deal with each
of the aforementioned changes, rapidly replenishing muscle glycogen
and muscle phospagens, rapidly shifting the body from a catabolic state
to an anabolic one, managing blood cortisol, supporting immune function,
and protecting muscles from excessive structural damage.
What is
happening in the Fitness industry? Where is it going? This past year we have
seen the rise of kettlebells and the re-emergence of a health-first attitude to
fitness. We are moving away from mindless, boring “cardio” which gets you little
to no results and machine based resistance training, to a strength-endurance
regimen. Strength-endurance or work-capacity is where your training focus should
be. Get strong and build lean muscle with free weights including kettlebells,
clubbells and other non-traditional equipment you will look and feel better.
Here’s what to
expect in 2009
1- Boot Camps vs Personal Training
Boot Camps are
on the rise because they make more sense economically. You get personal
attention when you need it but without having to pay the exorbitant fees for
one-on-one training. Plus you get to train with others and build camaraderie
and accountability. All of which makes training much more fun and more likely
that you will keep it up.
2- Interval Training
Many studies
have shown that High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT (not to be confused
with HIT) brings results faster and more efficiently that endurance training.
Sprinting vs marathon running will burn fat faster and build muscle.
Beyond the initial
few weeks, endurance training does little to burn fat. In fact studies have
shown that endurance training burns more muscle than fat.
With interval
training, the focus is on the intensity of exercise (quality). Intervals
consist of alternating between shorts bouts of all out high-intensity effort
and active recovery periods for a much quicker and focused amount of time
(typically 10-20 minutes of intervals works best). This approach is
scientifically proven to burn nine times more fat AND lead to faster
improvements in fitness than the aerobic alternative.
Two landmark
scientific studies come to mind here:
The Tabata
study compared the effects of four minutes of high-intensity interval training
with 45-60 minutes of low to moderate intensity cardio. The interval training
group burned just as much fat as the endurance group and also had greater
improvement in both anaerobic (think sprinters) and aerobic (think distance runners)
fitness… in only four minutes!
The Gibala
study compared the effects of 20 minutes of interval training (30 second sprint
followed by four minutes of rest) with 90-120 minutes of endurance training in
the “heartrate zone.” The conclusions of the study were that both methods of
training lead to the same improvements in oxygen utilization (or aerobic
fitness). In other words, intervals accomplished what endurance training did
from a fitness standpoint in only a sixth of the time!
The time is now
to jump on the interval training bandwagon. Come 2009, do yourself and your
body a favor and start sprinting to look better naked.
3 - Lean Protein And Fiber For Improved
Health, Performance, and Body Composition
Americans are carb addicts. We devour candy,
sugary cereals, breads and pasta, sodas, beer and other alcoholic drinks. All
these carbs do is make us fat. Look around you, look at yourself and your
nutrition. Compare the amount of starch and sugar in your diet to the quantity
of fresh vegetables and fruits you eat everyday. My guess is your caloric
intake is 75% bad carbs with some fatty proteins thrown in a maybe 1% vegetables
and fruit.
If you want to lose fat, get rid of all the
bad carbs, look at the labels and don’t buy anything with added sugar or high
fructose corn syrup. Stay away from pasta, bread, chips, donuts etc. Instead
eat broccoli or carrots, apples, pears, bananas and other fresh produce. You
will lose weight and feel better from all the vitamins and minerals you will be
getting.
The
overwhelming scientific literature proving the fat burning benefits of a diet
high in lean protein and fiber is finally catching the eye of mainstream consumers.
Protein is the most important component of each and every meal or snack you
consume. It builds and maintains muscle, allows your body to preferentially
burn fat, increases metabolism through the thermic effect of feeding, and fills
you up. Fiber (ideally obtained from fruits and vegetables, specifically green
vegetables) helps slow digestion for a more steady supply of nutrients and
sustained energy, it prevents overeating at each meal, and it helps keep you
more full between meals. Thus by combining protein and fiber every two to four
hours, you provide your body with the optimal one-two belly fat burning punch
for a leaner, sexier you.]
Without a
doubt, people will be consuming more protein and fruits and veggies next year,
and their bodies will reap the rewards of this.
In addition, eating more green veggies helps
keep the bodies pH in balance. Too many starches and sugars coupled with a lot
of protein leads to an acidic condition in your body which among other things
kill off the beneficial bacteria in your gut. In fact, many cases of IBS can be
attributed to lack of intestinal flora. By eating lean protein and veggies you
will get your body back in balance and feel better.
Have a great Holiday and get ready to kick
your health and fitness to ever greater heights in 2009!
Balancing Out Those Dietary Acids
by Dr John M Berardi, CSCS
Simply put, the North American diet is very acidic. From most proteins
to many dairy products (especially cheese) to most grains, we take in
far more dietary acids than we do bases. And this imbalance between
acid and base can cause some serious long-term health and physique problems.
You see, when a food is ingested, digested, and absorbed, each component
of that food will present itself to the kidneys as either an acid-forming
compound or a base-forming one. And when the sum total of all the acid
producing and the base producing micro and macronutrients is tabulated
(at the end of a meal or at the end of a day), we're left with a calculated
acid-base load. If the diet provides more acidic components, it will
obviously manifest as a net-acid load on the body. And if it provides
more basic components, it will obviously manifest as a net-base load
on the body.
Since I already noted that a net acid load is bad, let’s discuss
why.
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