Acai Berry Hype

I'm sure a lot of you of heard of the new super food, acai berry. How could you not have heard of it? Oprah was raving about it on one of her shows a couple months back and since then the magical powers of acai berry have been touted every where. Wait, you mean you don't watgh Oprah. Doesn't everyone watch Oprah? Anyways, I had clients asking me about it. I had my mom asking me about. I had a friend asking me if he should sell it as some type of pyramid marketing scheme. I knew the hype was too good to be true. So I did a bit of reading and found just that. Yes, acai is everything that it claims to be. But what most people are not getting is acai berry in it's true form. What they're getting is basically a watered down processed form of it. And they're paying a good buck for it. Take a look at this article and read Dr. Mercola's comments at the bottom of the article and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/12/30/is-the-superfood-acai-worth-the-price.aspx

Don't believe the hype. And definitely don't fall under the magical whim of Oprah.

RichRuff Training Exercise of the Week: Blast Strap Inverted Row

Technically, my client is actually not using the Blast Straps in the following video. The Blast Straps are a nice piece of training equipment put out by Elite FTS. What my client is using in the video is a piece of equipment called the Jungle Gym put out by Perform Better. Basically the same two pieces of equipment, with a couple of differences, put out by two different companies. But Blasts Straps sounds a lot cooler than the Jungle Gym, hence the Blast Strap Inverted Row.

Merry Christmas

Me and the staff...wait. I don't have a staff. Well may be next year if I have a staff they'll wish you a Merry Christmas. So this year, me and Fenway want to wish every one a Merry Christmas. Have a safe and happy holiday.

Fenway

RichRuff Training Exercise of the Week: Low Cable Pull Through

You're sure to get a couple of stares from people if you add this exercise into your arsenal. But I hope you do add this exercise in because it's great for a couple of reasons:

1. It hits the posterior chain (hamstrings, glutes and lower back). Nothing looks better than a nice posterior chain, right? Plus posterior chain strength and development is a is must for any type of performance and maintaining low back and knee health.
2. This a great exercise to use a in order to teach someone how to deadlift correctly. Proper deadlifitng should be about driving the force through your heels and powerful hip extension. The way load is set up, behind you, with this exercise will re-enforce these movement patterns.

In order to perform, just find a triceps rope and attach it to a low pulley. Straddle the rope. Grab the rope so that it is between your legs and take a couple steps out away from the pulley. Starting tall, flex your hips and get your butt back. Allow a bit of bend in the knees. Keep a neutral spine and allow your hands to come back through your legs. You should almost feel like you're going to fall backwards in the bottom position. From here, keeping that neutral spine, extend your hips and forcefully squeeze those glutes to get back to that tall position.



A great exercise that a lot of people don't know about.

Random Thoughts....

• Hard to believe that the Patriots could go 11-5 and miss the playoffs. When Brady went down a couple of plays into the first game of the year, I'm sure many Pats fans thought the season was going to be a disaster. I honestly thought they'd go 12-4, because I'm such a homer. But there's no way I thought they go 11-5 and miss the playoffs. If the football gods are looking down on New England this Christmas, they will make sure the Ravens and Dolphins lose their final two games. Go Pats!
• A push up should be a pretty simple exercise, right? But it's amazing to me when I watch how horrendous some people look doing push ups. And these are people who would probably consider themselves to be strong. I saw a high school boys soccer team earlier this year doing push ups and couldn't believe what I saw. Butts in the air. Hips sagging. They looked like they were breakdancing. Even a few kids doing them from their knees!! These are high school boys who are supposed to be in terrific shape. How can it be that they can not do a correct push up?
• Does anyone believe the average American gains 5-7lbs between Thanksgiving and New Years? If that's the average American, I'd like to see the people who are putting on more than the 5-7lbs. Actually, may be I wouldn't.

• New years Resolutions are a joke. I'd say 95% of people do not carry through on their New Years resolutions. I bet by the second or third week of January, most people have given up on their New Years resolutions. If you want to be successful with your New Years resolutions, sit down and take the time to to do some goal setting. Be more specific with your goals, re-enforce your goals every single day and set a time frame for your goals. You'll be far more successful.
• I used to hate deadlifitng. Now I'd rather deadlift than squat.
  
• If you spent 45-60 minutes a day working on a particular goal, wouldn't you expect to get somewhere with that goal? Yet, I still see people moving mindlessly on the treadmills or ellipticals, expecting the weight to just melt off. And it's not. Sorry, people, but there are more effective ways to lose weight.
• Please do not join the gym in January and just go in and use the cardio equipment. If you just want to do cardio, go invest in a piece of cardio equipment for your home. Think about it. The average gym membership is about $75/month in the Boston area. That equates out to $900/year. Over three years that's $2700. You could go out and get a pretty nice piece of cardio equipment for that much. And it's probably going to last you more than three years.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Getting Hurt Staring At Your Computer

I'm certainly not one to read the Wall Street Journal. I'd rather brush up on my knowledge of what's going on with A-Rod and Madonna in the latest issue of People magazine. But this morning as I was waiting for a client and skimming through the wall Street Journal, an article caught my eye:

When Your Laptop Is a Big Pain In the Neck

Funny thing is if you're currently reading this blog post, you're probably sitting in front of your computer. But take a look at how you're set up right now. Where's your keyboard and mouse pad? At what height is your screen? How are you sitting in your chair? Now, how long have you been in that chair? If you don't think about these things, you're just setting yourself up for problems down the road. Most of that back or neck pain you're suffering from is an accumulation of daily stresses, not just one isolated incident.

RichRuff Training Exercise of the Week: DB Hammer Curl & Press

This exercise could almost be categorized as a low level Olympic lift. Take a look:

Why Wait?

I should have written this post a couple of weeks ago, but hopefully it's not to late. Why do people wait until New Years to carry out their resolutions? Why wait until January 1 to start out on your weight loss or health and fitness goals? Why not start now and get a head start out on it. Even better, you counter act all that damage you're about to do to your waistline by downing quarts of egg nog and plates of gingerbread cookies in one sitting. You'll probably tell me you don't have time. Poor excuse. If your health is a priority you have time. If you're serious about your weight loss goals, you have time. I am not asking you to get in 6-8 hours a week. I'm asking you to get in 2-3. That's about 2% of your week!! If you're not serious about losing weight three weeks before New Years, I find it hard to believe you're going to be serious about losing weight when New Years strikes. Get started now. If you can get through the next couple of weeks by not drowning yourself in mixed drinks, not have to roll yourself out of the holiday Christmas party and get a couple of hours of exercise in each week leading up to new years, then I'll know you're serious.

RichRuff Training Exercise of the Week: 45 Degree Back Extension

This is a pretty simple exercise that I see done wrong a good portion of the time. First, it's a back "extension", not a back "hyperextension". There's no need to force your lumbar spine into hyperextension. I don't like it and neither does your lower back. In the video below, you'll see my client getting too much hyperextension early on in the set, but as I coach him up, there's less hyperextenison. Second, the speed at which I see some people do this exercise is ridiculous. You're not bobbing for apples here. You're trying to strengthen your lower back. Use a nice controlled tempo. The third thing I tend to see a lot is too much rounding of the upper back. Set the pad adjusted to the right height, so that you have freedom to move and can hinge at the hips. Then try to keep a relatively neutral spine throughout the movement.



Another point to make here is hand placement. I'd usually start a client off with hands placed across their chest, progress to hands behind their head, may be progress to hands overhead at arms length and then add in some external load by having them hold a weight across their chest. Don't hold the weight behind your head!!

Knee Pain

problem is going on. Two places to check if you're suffering from knee pain: your calves and your glutes. Remember, pain is a symptom. It's not the cause. Too many times we look at the pain site to fix whateverStudies have shown that tight calves can result in knee pain. Not only that, but tight calves can result in knee injuries. Some foam rolling, ankle mobility drills and static stretching out to do the trick. As far as your glutes go, check your glute medius area for a trigger point. This to could be the source of your knee pain. If you have a real tender area in your glute medius, chances are you've developed a trigger point. Do some foam rolling or self myofacial release with a tennis ball to take care of this issue.

foam rolling for glute medius

Visit Perform Better Training Zones for the best ideas in equipment and training for functional training, full body training, and rehabilitation.

My Top 5....

...ways to improve your chin up performance:

1. Drop your body fat. Having fat hanging around your waistline is certainly not going to help you get up to the bar. In fact, fat is not going to help you move in any direction except down. Drop your body fat percentage a few points and watch your chin up numbers go up.
2. Improve your grip strength and endurance. Hanging onto the bar by your finger tips is certainly not going to help you get up to the bar. A stronger grip is going to signal more motor units to be recruited allowing you to exert more force. Improved grip endurance is going to help you add more reps on to the end of your sets.
3. Strengthen your external rotators. Your external rotators might be your weakest link and you're only going to be as strong as your weakest link. Add in some side lying, shoulder horn or cable external rotation training into your upper body work.
4. Strengthen your scapula retractors. The ability to do a chin up is not just a function of arm strength. It's also a function of being able to retract those shoulders blades. This past summer I added about 5 reps to my max number of body weight chin ups with out doing a single chin or pull up for four weeks. Instead the focus was on more horizontal pulling work. I went from doing 50 to 55....not bad huh?
5. Count down. Whatever exercises you're having a hard time with, and from what I see everyone has a hard time with chin ups, count down from the goal. For example if your set calls for 10 reps, or in my case 55, count down from 10. The mind-muscle connection here is amazing. When you're counting up in a set, as you get towards the end all you're thinking about is how much work you've done and how good that meat lovers pizza is going to taste post workout. When you're counting down, all you're thinking about is how much work you have left. Much more motivating.

There you go. Five tips to send your chin up numbers through the roof, literally. And no, I can not do 55 chin ups.