Nutrition Tip of the Week: Some Worthwhile Supplements

Before considering any supplement, take a look at your overall nutrition. If you are guilty of such things as skipping breakfast, not ingesting protein at each feeding or routinely passing on fruits and vegetables, supplementation may not be the answer to your nutrition issues. Aim to improve your nutrition before you search out for supplements. With that being said, people who are pretty good with their nutrition and are active on a regular basis may be lacking essential macro- and micro-nutrients. Or maybe they want to accelerate their fat loss, enhance recovery or bolster their overall health. In these cases you may want to consider one or more of the following supplements:

• Fish Oil: can help with cardiovascular health, joint health, cognitive function and fat loss.
• Protein Supplement: can help bring up your overall protein intake, which should be around 1g/lb of body weight for an active individual. Will also help speed up recovery.
• Multivitamin: can help bring up micro-nutrient deficiencies for optimal overall health.
• Greens Supplement: provides antioxidant support especially when regular fruit and vegetable intake is not optimal.
• Green Tea Extract: provides anti-oxidants along with the benefit of stimulating your metabolism.

To pick up one or more of these supplements check out Prograde.com.

Exercise of the Week: Side Plank w/Low Pulley Row

My Top Five....

....coaching cues that I repeat on a daily basis.

1. "Butt back". Too many people break at the knees first when attempting to squat. When squatting you have to get your butt back in order to get those glutes working to generate any amount of decent strength. That and pushing your butt back is going to take some stress off your knees. If you're having a hard time with this concept go to box squats where you're actually trying to sit back on the box.
2. "Shoulders back". The effectiveness of any pulling exercise is going to rely on your ability to bring your shoulders back as you bring your arms closer to your torso. From a posture standpoint your shoulders should sit back. When doing any rowing exercises think about driving your blades together. When doing any vertical pulling exercises think about bringing your shoulders down towards your back pockets...if you have back pockets in your shorts or sweats.
3. "Get tall". This phrase is probably the most repeated one throughout the day. This one doesn't even apply to any specific exercises but is more of just self awareness. Getting tall puts your spine in the alginment it wants to be in. Plus it looks a hell of a lot better and exudes confidence. I hear people say, "Strong is sexy". I might start using "Tall is sexy".
4. "Glutes tight". Everyone has glutes, but you would never know it by the way people do not use them. Again, this is another cue that is just going to make an exercise more effective. If you're in a half kneeling position tightening up your glutes is going to increase your stabilization. If you're doing a deadlift or kettlebell swing, tightening up the glutes is going to help you finish off the lift. Being a tight ass in some parts of your life isn't such a bad thing.
5. "That ain't it". This usually occurs after I've told someone what exercise they are going to do, show them that same exercise and then I have them go do it. The problem is that when they go do it, it looks nothing like anything the exercise they are supposed to be doing. A split squat turns into a standing single leg hamstring curl with an overhead press. That's when I know someone is not really tuned in and instead thinking of who is about to get voted off of Idol that night. So sorry to see you go, Pia.

Nutrition Tip of the Week: Cut Back on Calorie Containing Beverages

With fat loss in mind, all of your fluid intake should come from non-calorie containing beverages such as water and green tea. Eliminate the fruit juices, alcoholic drinks and sodas. In the average American diet beverage consumption accounts for about 22% of daily calorie intake with most of that 22% coming from added sugars. Some popular beverages and their calorie and sugar content are:

• Minute Maid Apple Juice (8oz.): 118 calories, 26g of sugar
• Fresh orange juice (8oz.): 107 calories, 20g of sugar
• 20oz. bottle of Coke: 239 calories, 66g of sugar• 1 Budweiser: 145 calories
• 1 glass of red wine: 127 calories• 1 12oz. margarita: 556 calories, 16g of sugar


Aim for about eight cups of water a day as well as 1-2 cups of green tea a day. In addition to green tea’s anti-oxidant benefits it has been shown to have a positive effect your body’s metabolism.

Exercise of the Week: Goblet Single Leg Deadlift

The Wrap

Got to have some fun with the girls on The Wrap Yesterday. You can check out the show here: The Wrap: Episode 15

Nutrition Tip of the Week: Time up Your Carbs

When it comes to fat loss, your carbohydrate intake must be earned unless those carbohydrates are coming from fruits and veggies. In other words you have to exercise if you want those other carbohydrates and you have to do two things:

1) Focus on whole grain, unprocessed carbohydrates.

2) Save those carbohydrates for within 1-2 hours after exercise.

When it does come time for you to ingest those carbohydrates try to minimize your intake of carbohydrates sources such as sports drinks, soda, cereals, muffins and bagels. Basically all the junk. Some preferred sources of carbohydrates outside of fruits and vegetables are:

• Beans/legumes
• Sweet potatoes
• Steel cut or whole rolled oats
• Oat bran
• Sprouted grain breads, English muffins or tortilla’s
• Quinoa

Exercise of the Week: Staggered Push Up Walks w/Val Slides

Here's another hand walking variation that I finished off a workout with the other day.

Nutrition Tip of the Week: Eat Healthy Fats on a Daily Basis

Do not fear fat. About 30% of your daily caloric intake should come from fat with an equal balance of saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. To achieve this balance focus on adding healthy monounsaturated fats (extra virgin olive oil, nuts, avocados) and polyunsaturated fats (nuts, some vegetable oils, fish) to your daily food intake. Your saturated fats will come from animal proteins, eggs and dairy.

To make sure you’re meeting your suggested amount of healthy fats a fish oil supplement is suggested. The suggested amount to supplement with is about 2-3 grams per day. For those looking to accelerated their fat loss, 5-6 grams of a high quality fish oil is suggested on a daily basis. Taking a fish oil capsule with each each meal will get you to those dosages.

Exercise of the Week: Val Slide Alligator Walks

I saw this Exercise of the Week done by strength coach Jason Ferruggia and just saw it recently performed by strength coach Tony Gentilcore. It's a great core stability exercise, a great shoulder stability exercise and a great exercise to finish off your workout with. A couple of different ways to use it as part of your program:

1. You can go for a set distance forward as one set.


2. You can go for a set distance forward and back, trying to make a couple trips.


3. You can go for time in one direction or both directions


4. You can go for reps. Take 3-4 steps forward with each hand and then reverse direction for 3-4 steps. Continue back and forth.

If you don't have a pair of Valslides around, no big deal. Just place your feet on anything that would slide along the floor.

Random Thoughts...

• I've seen quite a few workouts lately that call for 50 chin ups? Really? 50 chin ups? I know a handful of people who can do five good chin ups. I would like to know how many chin ups the people writing up these workouts can actually do. Maybe it's not so unrealistic if you have 30 minutes to put aside to knock out 50 chin ups. Then I saw another workout yesterday that called for fifteen 400-meter runs...hard. That's a world class 800-meter runner workout. Not for someone who's trying to get ready for a 5k or lose 5-10 pounds.
• Sometimes I think it would be less painful to drop a 100lb dumbbell on my foot then to hear people ask me to do "abs" or to do some crunches "to get rid of this" while pointing at their midsection. Last week, right after I had someone do a set of Valslide Body Saws, which comes as close to a "core" exercise as possible, they asked me, "Can we do some abs?". Where's that dumbbell? Make it 120lbs.
  
• I think a good majority of the time it's not the training or nutrition program to blame for not getting results. It's the adherence to the program that is the problem. When a program calls for four sets of reverse lunges with 8 reps in each set, 3 sets of 15 reps of machine leg curls is not the same thing. Or when a nutrition program calls for eating breakfast each day, eating breakfast only three days of the week is not the same thing. Stop blaming the programs and start blaming yourself. If you really want to achieve success you're going to have to comply, most of the time. A little cheat here and there is fine, but the less and less you start complyng the less and less your chances of success are.
• In regards to programs, one thing I never do is write up my own program. If I did it would consist of things I like to do or things I'm pretty good at and long rest periods between exercises. It probably wouldn't consist of things that I need to work on, set/rep schemes that I hate or some type of interval training that is going to crush me. So as a trainer if I am not writing up my own program, why is someone who doesn't have a good grasp on program design writing up his or her own programs? Yes, I'm speaking to you Bobby Bench Press.
• One simple quick fix to getting leaner? Give up the booze. You want a beer or a glass of wine here and there. Fine. But if you're really looking to shed that body fat the alcohol has got to go. A couple things happen with frequent alcohol consumption. One, it's just empty calories. Two, when you're out crushing beers the fat burning process is turned down. Your body will metabolize those frosty brews before it metabolizes anything else. Third, if you are Harry Hangover chronic alcohol consumption is going to suppress your testosterone levels. I'm not saying to give it up forever. But try giving it up for a month and see what happens.
• Strength coach Dan John has an approach on fat loss that I particularly like. He suggests attacking it for 28 days. Go all out. Get strict for 28 days. Step your training up. Cut all the crap out of your diet. Dial in for 28 days. Hell, it's only a month. Once that 28 days is up, just go back to some type of maintenance plan.
• I don't care how much you sweat, how sore you are, how winded you are after a workout or how many calories you burned. None of these three things will necessarily result in getting stronger, getting leaner or improving performance. The funny thing is that the people who desire to sweat or be sore are usually the ones who are not getting anywhere with their workouts. It's easy to sweat or get so sore that it's painful to sit on the john. Do jumping jacks in a sauna for 5 minutes or jump off a 20 foot roof a couple of times. Show me you can go from doing zero to a couple chin ups. Now I'm impressed and you're probably leaner and stronger.
• Remember, we're hosting Warrior Workouts every Sunday @10am.

Oh yeah, one final thought. The Red Sox are what they are: not very good.

Nutrition Tip of the Week: More Fruits and Vegetables

Just like your mother said, "Eat your vegetables". And you can throw in some fruit to. Seems like a pretty basic tip, but I know few people who actually get in the suggested amount of 7-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. Actually I know few people who get in 3-5 servings a day. 7-1o servings may sound like a lot, but it really is not if you're eating every 2-4 hours and include 1-2 fruit or vegetable sources each time.

So what are the benefits of all this fruit and vegetable consumption? One they are an excellent source of all those vitamins and minerals that some of us tend to be deficient in. Two, they help balance your blood pH. Proteins and grains tend to be acidic whereas fruits and vegetables are more alkaline. Being in an acidic state can mean the loss of bone strength and muscle mass which can further compromise your fat loss or weight loss goals.

So do what your mother told you....and probably continues to tell you.