I'm getting ready to board a plane B&J to Atlanta after a week at our second home and just wanted to let you all know about a couple things we have going on right now.
First-we are doing an anti-resolutionist new member promotion for our Extreme-Fit Kettlebell Boot Camp class. New members may join for $89.00 for the month of December a $90.00 savings off the regular monthly rate.
Also, if any of you current members refer anyone who joins we will give you 50% off next months dues!
Second-for 2013 we will be hosting a transformation challenge open to all personal training clients and class members. Registration info will be posted soon. First prize will be an iPad mini, 3 free personal training sessions and a month of free classes. Second prize will be 3 free personal training sessions and a month of free classes. Third prize will be a month of free classes.
We hope you will take advantage of these great offers and make 2013 your healthiest year yet!
Also, I finally started hammering away at my next book while enjoying a great view of the Vegas strip. This book will be different from anything else I've done yet. It's time to bring health and fitness back together!
Time to board! I'll post more information about this and other upcoming programs once we're back in the ATL.
It's been a blog-free July, not that I didn't have anything exciting to write about, it was just a busy month for me. It's also the month my wife and I take a couple of weeks off and take a road trip through State College and Pittsburgh, PA for the PSU Arts Festival and to visit family.
In addition I've had a couple of business ventures pop up and have been busy working on those.
Since we have the 2012 GA State Kettlebell Championship (click here for info on the meet) coming up in a couple of weeks I figured I would write a blog on one of the biggest questions I get - how do you combine barbells and kettlebells in an effective training plan?
It's really not that difficult and was the major topic of my book, "Kettlebells for Sport, Strength and Fitness" (despite the fact that many who've never read my book claiming it is strictly a GS - or kettlebell sport - book). Click here for this and all of my other books and e-books.
I prefer to split up my barbell workouts by the main lifts over either a 3 or 4 day training plan. The lifts I focus on are the squat, bench press, deadlift and standing press and for the past 7 1/2 months I've been following Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 protocol exclusively for the barbell lifts. On the 4 day plan I have two upper and two lower days, one for each of the above lifts. Currently I'm experimenting with a 3-day plan in which I've put the press and squat together on day 1, bench on day 2 and deadlift on day 3. It's been working great so far and most of my supplementary work has been more of a higher volume bodybuilding approach, as I am trying to regain some of the size I lost during my near 50 lb weight loss adventure that began in the fall of last year.
Adding the kettlebells into the mix.
I know there are about a billion and three kettlebell exercises, but honestly only a handful have made it into my gym - I prefer swings, cleans, press/push press/jerk (as well as the long cycle variations of these) and snatches. Anything else to me is pointless and can usually be better performed with barbells and dumbbells. However, the traditional kettlebell lifts done for higher reps offer many benefits to the seeker of strength including GPP and strengthening weak points (shoulders, grip and lower back in particular).
I have found the best way to work the kettlebell lifts into the program is to pic 1 or 2 lifts and perform them after the primary strength work. I like to plug jerks, clean & jerks and swings in on squat and deadlift days and snatches, cleans and press exercises in on upper body days personally - although I suggest you experiment and see what works best for you.
Here is a plan I've had much success with in the past and continue to use it regularly in my programming:
Day 2 - bench, bench accessory work, kettlebell snatches or cleans
Day 3 - deadlift, deadlift accessory work, kettlebell clean and jerks (long cycle)
Day 4 - standing press, press accessory work, kettlebell snatches or cleans
As far as programming, experiment and find what works for you. For general conditioning I favor 5:00 + sets of the kettlebell exercises performed after strength work. I have also used more of a kettlebell sport training plan as well as the WKC Elite Fitness protocol with traditional strength training plans for myself and many of my clients and athletes.
Regardless of your goals combining kettlebells and barbells is a GREAT idea!
Last year for my 36th birthday I decided to do a fitness test. Joel Jamieson has an online assessment tool, Bioforce Testing Protocol, that he built to test the overall physical preparedness of combat athletes. While I certainly am not a combat athlete, I liked this tool as it measured the following things: strength, muscular endurance, aerobic fitness, anaerobic fitness, explosive power and gave you a total performance index, an upper body and lower body strength profile and an upper body and lower body power profile. In addition the tests were easy to implement.
Keeping with my plan I performed the same battery of tests one year later - this jived well with my eating raw vegan for 30 days plan!
-strength profile: lower body 2011 = 6; 2012 = 7 -- upper body 2011 = 4; 2012 = 6.5
-power profile: lower body 2011 = 5; 2012 = 5.5 -- upper body 2011 = 4.5; 2012 = 6.5
So, there you have it. Bodyweight went down 41 lbs and everything else improved, some better than others. While my strength certainly isn't anywhere near what it was when I was competing in powerlifting, I am happy to see that the numbers went up slightly in the squat and maintained in the bench - as these two lifts are very negatively affected by big drops in bodyweight.
Ultimately at 37 I'm happy with the results. My focus over the next year will be to maintain my lighter bodyweight and continue to build back the strength and power that I lost from my days as a fat, red-faced powerlifter and in addition keeping my new levels of health, mobility, flexibility and overall-fitness in check.
Alright - today was a big day. Aside from being 12 days away from my birthday, and today being the day we pulled the trigger on a sweet new business venture, I finished my 6th 4-week strength training cycle and had PRs in all lifts and today is day 1 of my Raw for 30 Days to ring in my 37th year on this planet!
The Strength Stuff
The ECF Gym - Atlanta, GA
Basically my strength has gone down the crapper since losing 30-40 pounds last September. Truth be told I don't care about competitions anymore. All I want now is to rebuild my strength while maintaining good levels of conditioning, flexibility and mobility. My main focus lately has been on my practice of internal martial arts. However, I do love lifting weights so I wanted a good, simple strength program to rebuild the strength I'd lost due to such rapid weight loss.
I decided to follow Jim Wendler's now legendary 5/3/1 supplemented with some kettlebell work and have made good, slow, steady progress.
When I weighed a sloppy 220-225 my best lifts were a 350 squat, 255 bench, 375 deadlift and a 135 overhead press. I had considerably better lifts in powerlifting competition with the use of powerlifting gear (squat suit and bench shirt) but that isn't important. Right now just basic, raw strength development is my goal. I may or may not compete again. Meets are a blast-but it's so far off my radar of interests right now I don't even care to think about it.
Last September I made a huge nutritional change and began eating about 80% raw vegan and about 20% cooked vegetarian or pescatarian food. Basically 80% raw fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds with about 20% beans, eggs, fish and a little bit of rice and sprouted breads. This resulted in a 40 lb drop in weight in about 3 months from 220-225 to 180-185. With this drop in weight came the equivalent drop in strength. I decided that since I was going to continue eating mostly raw vegan (I'm actually gravitating towards >80% - more on that in a second) that I wanted to do the impossible and rebuild my strength even though my weight is decreasing.
So I set the initial goal of regaining the numbers I had at 220-225. On 12/23/11 & 12/24/11 I tested my gym lifts and hit the following: squat x 245, bench x 185, deadlift x 275, overhead press x 115, and bodyweight was 186 lbs. Yes these numbers sucked and I know many women who warm up with these weights but honestly I don't care. With how good and healthy my body feels from the reduction in fat and clean nutrition I'm fine with it.
The following week, using these numbers as my baseline I began Wendler's 5/3/1.
This week marked the end of my 6th 4-week cycle (I did the program as laid out, 4 days per week, 3s in week 1, 5s in week 2, 5/3/1 in week 3 and deload in week 4-and didn't alter anything). My results this week were bodyweight at 184 lbs, squat x 275 x 1 rep (30 lb increase), bench x 205 x 1 rep (20 lb increase), deadlift x 315 x 1 rep (40 lb increase) and overhead press x 120 x 2 reps (only 5 lbs over my initial max but this was for a double not a single, so it's definitely an improvement).
While these numbers are nothing spectacular, it is improvement. The program is great, it's flexible and doesn't require a ton of time in the gym-it's perfect for me considering most of my interests are outside of the gym and the gym and training / coaching people is my business which consumes a considerable amount of my time.
Day 1 of 100% Raw Vegan
Breakfast
Alright, 30 days is underway! Today was great, it wasn't much of a challenge as I had been eating this way most of the time anyway, but today starts 100% total immersion in raw vegan eating! I just finished my last meal for the day as I type this and I feel great. Energy has been great all day, despite averaging 4-5 hours sleep at night. I thought coffee would be the toughest thing to cut out, but I feel good so far.
Here's a totally awesome video of Danny Dalton, a raw vegan bodybuilder - this is what inspired me to pursue raw instead of just vegetarian nutrition. Oh, don't forget to tell this guy he needs to eat tons of meat to build muscle!
I am not going to list my daily nutrition in detail every day, but I do want to give an overview.
bodyweight - 190 lbs (okay, pigged out a bit last night! Damn sprouted grain bread and raw almond butter!)
3:30am - wheatgrass juice + 2g blue green algae and chlorella
4:00am - fresh juice: kale, spinach, celery, cucumber, carrot, apple, pear, lime & raw apple cider vinegar
7:30pm - raw oatmeal (raw oats, almond milk, 1-apple, raisons and cinnamon - made in Vitamix)
*Also drank a LOT of water throughout the day
Supplements - vitamin C, vitamin D3, chlorella, blue green algae, bee pollen / propolis, zinc, magnesium
Training - early morning - meditation, qigong, tai gong, taiji practice; mid-morning - deadlift, 45 degree back raise, sit-ups, kettlebell swings.
So that's basically it. I plan to follow a similar approach for the 30 days. I probably won't be so detailed in future blog posts but I plan to try to post daily updates or at least 4-5 a week and discuss more that I learn following the raw vegan approach as well as the effects I'm experiencing. So far, so good!
"And the times have changed my friend, I'll be here til' the bitter end, and I'm here to make my stand, with a guitar in my hand." -Social Distortion, Still Alive
I'm not a recipe guy by any means, but I came across this simple way to make an extremely healthy raw dessert when I read a great e-book by Markus Rothkranz titled "Heal Yourself 101".
Markus is a big fan of durian fruit. Durians are extremely nutritious and often called king of the fruits. They hail from southeast Asia and are readily available in your local Asian markets. I regularly find them at a couple different Asian supermarkets and one farmer's market all very close to where I live.
The durian is a little bigger than a football and has a hard spikey outer shell. It also has a pretty distinct odor which is why it is better to buy the frozen durian, the smell isn't as strong. You'll just need to let it thaw overnight then prepare it the next day.
Durian is a fruit you either like or don't like. Some people say it "tastes like heaven but smells like hell".
The part of the durian you eat is the custard-like pods located inside the pockets of the fruit. There is a fairly large seed inside each custard pod you'll want to remove.
You can eat the durian straight, or blend it with coconut meat and water from a young Thai coconut to boost it's nutritional value and flavor. This is my favorite way to eat it!
Durian Custard
You'll need one durian and two young Thai coconuts and this will make enough for one or two people for a few days.
-cut open each pocket of the durian and extract all of the custard pods
-remove the seeds from each custard pod (there should be one seed per pod)
-extract the water from two young thai coconuts and put into a high power blender (I use a Vitamix)
-next split the cocounts and scrape the meat out of the inside (I like the young Thai coconuts for this, the meat is much easier to extract than the other coconuts)
-next place the coconut meat and durian fruit in the blender with the coconut water and blend on high, in the Vitamix I let it blend for about 30-45 seconds
-you're done! Pour into a storage container and seal to keep in your refrigerator
Total prep time is about 15-20 minutes. This makes for an awesome meal or snack! For a fruit, durians are pretty high in protein and fat and has high amounts of tryptophan as well as potassium and vitamin c.
Some other things I like to do is add a little raw honey and eat this after a workout or sometimes mix in other fruits like blueberries or goji berries.
Hopefully you give it a shot and enjoy the benefits the durian has to offer!
Man with all the food talk lately I felt like it was time to get back to what's important-training!
Last year my training was kind of up and down with the shift to running my gym full-time, plus all the other business deals, projects and products we had rolling this past year training took a bit of a backseat as did competing.
I managed to keep a fairly regular training schedule, but bounced around too much programming-wise which led me to do a lot of reflecting on the important qualities of training at this point in my life.
Right now my training business and the other ventures I have going on are the most important things, if I am focused on this I can't focus on training for competition - so a strict kettlebell sport or strict powerlifting program is out.
Since cleaning up my nutrition my weight is down tremendously - 35 lbs - and I began studying Qigong and Taiji, so I wanted to improve my flexibility and mobility as well as make sure I am practicing Qigong / Taiji and meditating daily.
Now for the weights. I gotta' say, I miss powerlifting competition-the intensity, training and focus plus there is NOTHING like a powerlifting meet! It's awesome. However I'm not into being fat, bloated and out of shape just to lift heavy weights anymore. On the flipside, I don't thing I need to pack up my barbells just yet. I have to keep the squat, bench, deadlift, overhead press, chins and rows-the basic lifts-in my training but balance it out with some non-linear forms of strength and conditioning - my favorites? Kettlebells and Indian clubs. I'm pretty convinced that the clubs and kettlebells are my favorite forms of training and sometime down the road I can see me doing my daily sessions with these two exclusively - my body feels like a million bucks after them; healthy and full of energy, not run into the ground. It's great for restoration too.
What's left? Conditioning. No treadmills. No ellipticals. Running, pushing the prowler and dragging the sled is where it's at-and will probably throw in some heavy bag and jump rope work in there too.
At the end of 2011 this is where I was at with my decision - no competitions, just a well rounded balance of strength, conditioning and energy work - bringing balance back to over all physical development-not just developing the body-but developing the body AND mind and spirit.
So end of December I tested my maxes on my main lifts to set my training %'s, set my training goals and got rolling! As of this week the first 4 week cycle is in the bag and I'm starting the 2nd - so far so good!
Here's the outline of the plan:
Every morning - Qigong, Taiji and meditation (works out to be 3-5 days a week)
Taiji class at the Shaolin school I belong to (Shi Deru Shaolin Institute): M & W nights and Sa mornings
Daily - LOTS of stretching and mobility work -- I have already seen HUGE improvements in my flexibility (but being down 35 lbs helps considerably too!)
Tu/Th/Su - running and / or other conditioning, about 20:00 - 45:00 total.
M/W/F - strength training; indian club swinging, primary barbell lift(s), accessory work, kettlebell conditioning and more club swinging. Monday is squat and accessory work, Wednesday is bench and accessory work, and Friday is deadlift + overhead press and accessory work. Starts out with 5:00 or so of club swinging; barbell work is Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program; kettlebell work is lighter weights-higher reps and generally not setting the bell down (usually 5:00-15:00 of work) and finish with another 5:00 or so of club swinging -- total training time is about 45:00.
That's it - simple, sweet and well-balanced; nothing extreme just some type of daily work, just as real physical culture should be.
You'll need one durian and two young Thai coconuts and this will make enough for one or two people for a few days.