Save your life: build an exercise habit: next challenge starts 28th September

Pretty much everyone I know can produce a good list as to why you should exercise and maintain a healthy weight.

The benefits of regular exercise are frankly beyond doubt for most people*

You know you should exercise and you probably know how , either at a basic, or a super advanced level.

The issue is that you wont or can’t.

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DWF: A lovely workout, too much curry and a nose job.

A cute little workout: 10 dumbbell snatches left, 10 right, 1 turkish get up L, 1 turkish get up R, 10 toes to bar. Amrap 12 minutes. I discovered I could use the door frame of the security gate. which added a few interesting challenges. The square shape gave my fingers and hand a “novel grip experience” and because there are bars coming off it, you have to control where your fingers go, otherwise you can smash them up.

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The L Sit is your way to defeat stress!

Whilst everyone likes a rippling physique, there  are exercises that are simply good for you, sometimes, for reasons that are not immediately obvious.

The L sit can have an impact on your stress levels. It was recently established that there is a connection between your core, your brain, your adrenal glands and thus the release of the stress hormone cortisol. It’s only been tested on Monkeys, but it’s very interesting.

Classically it was thought that most of the body systems worked top down. You think it, and the brain  sends out the memo.

Basically, the primary cortex portion of your brain (or M1 for short) contains a map of your entire body including regions like your legs, arms, face, and your core. 

To everybody’s surprise, boffins have discovered a large number of neurons in the M1 that controlled the adrenal medulla. Plus, most of these neurons were located in the axial muscle region of the M1. Stated plainly: “Well, lo and behold, core muscles have an impact on stress,” says Peter Strick, PhD, a professor and chair of the department of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute. 

“One clear implication of this organization is that the sympathetic responses which occur during activities such as exercise, the performance of demanding cognitive tasks, and the experience of emotions are generated by neural activity from the same cortical areas that are responsible for these behaviors.” (The mind–body problem: Circuits that link the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla)

This isn’t that much of a surprise although as the mind body connection has been fairly known, or boringly worked to death, depending on your perspective. What we are beginning to see is the pathways for a body mind connection.

How you treat  your body has a direct impact on your emotions .

The psychologists, hippies and new age weirdos had always talked about this connection. I went to a charity fire walk in Liverpool Street, London several years ago, and we were made to power pose (stand there, legs astride, “being powerful”) o prepare us for the  rigours of the fire walk. to come  Without such preparations, we would clearly have died

Whilst power posing per se isn’t at all guaranteed (other studies found it to be utter tosh), its enough to understand  that:

  “specific multisynaptic circuits exist to link movement, cognition, and affect to the function of the adrenal medulla. This circuitry may mediate the effects of internal states like chronic stress and depression on organ function and, thus, provide a concrete neural substrate for some psychosomatic illness”.

All of which is a long winded rambling way of saying, do the L sit! ‘Cause your core sort of chats to your stress bits. Like”.

It’s OK.  I hang around with some really trashy people and have picked up some filthy phrasing habits.

To own the L sit, here are the stages! It’s vaguely abusive in places 

Stage 1. Notice the burger you are scoffing

Stage 2 put the burger down

The abusive thought behind stage 1 & 2 really is unnecessary. You can get good strong abs and still eat crap, you probably won’t be able to see them though. Although eating crap per se is bad for you.

Stage 3 grab the edge of the health and safety checked chair and push your ass off the seat, Notice how your bum is behind your hands. Find a balance. Practice for a few weeks (less if its easy)

Stage 4  Build on stage 3 , then stick one of your legs in front of you.Yikes. It’s hard for some, not so for others. You are lucky or you are not. Practice this and stage 5 together. One leg, then the other. Feel free to cry. Everyone likes people who can express emotional  weakness

Stage 5, is the other leg!

Stage 6. Hurrah, both legs out “purleez”

Stage 1-6  can be almost instant or its 6 weeks worth of work.

Then you can do it on the floor with paralletts

Then you start your disgusting journey to 2 minutes!

You’ll love the abs you get, the core control, and of course you’ll be calm and stress free!

Get L sitting, like you were born to it. It will soon become easy ( this is a lie: it will always suck. If you have Abs of steel,I can always put weight on your feet)

This is a PDF of this article  The L Sit

The sketches are from is.tatsuo@gmail.com

DWF:A feta salad and some timing issues

TODAY’S WORKOUT

You’ll need a watch in todays workout which is a fun 10 v sits, 50 meter sprint, 20 squat, rest 1 minute affair. Aim for 5 rounds. Try and keep it sharp and punchy. Sprint the sprin.

We train in our car park so we do a 30m fast run, turn around with a 30m all out sprint back to our exercise mat!

The sprint is useful as it’s short enough to actually build a different pace than the normal shuffle jogs people fall into.

TODAY’S FOOD

Thanks to Leanne for this veggie Feta salad meal: Not far off a 3 block zone meal

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DWF: Kate’s favourite and a nasty snatch session

The meal I’ll analyse today is my lovely Kate’s favourite meat which is roast lamb.

Voila

4 blocks of lamb, or 112g ( that’s the protein) , 3 blocks of potato (150g) and my hope that the odd bit of fat that I rubbed over the meat before roasting was about 4 x 1.5g . The zone diet assumes that all meat has some fat in it.

You’ll notice I’ve slung peas and green beans on my plate, but without really measuring them. I think “pile on the ( non starchy) veg”, but don’t let this take you away from measuring the more carb dense food!

POINTS TO NOTE: when you start to properly manage your weight 1) don’t hunt out weird exotic meals to make. Try and stick with stuff you know and can cook. 2) learn to portion control the important stuff. Dont obsess if you had too much spinach or 3 more fork fulls of cabbage! Learn to recognise the high calorie food. still include it! But manage it.

Todays car park workout was an ‘up down ladder”

Mark out a 10m shuttle run, get a suitably nice, or nasty dumbbell to snatch

On the way up dumbbell snatches 2-20 (2, 4, 6) , on the way down shuttle runs 10-1(10, 9, 8)

Disgusting

Ewww!

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DWF: rest day

On this basic regime, its work for 3 days, rest on the 4th: ( btw DWF means “daily workout and food”)

Repeat.

I set the workouts based on the assumption that you have some dumbbells, a kettlebell and a slipping rope. Ideally you need to add dedicated strength workouts and gymnastics to your regime, but this workout aims to sling together enough elements to do a high intensity session. Often it’s the intensity of the session that will drive fitness results.

To be obvious , this regime doesn’t include pull ups, dips , olympic or power lifts, so it’s not a complete regime, but it gives your lower half, heart and lungs a time.

Each day, I try and give you some eating guidance based on the zone diet. Today, its some general information, a lazy cut and paste, about the zone diet (from the Crossfit Journal, issue 21)

“A block is a unit of measure used to simplify the process of making balanced meals.

7 grams of protein = 1block of protein 9 grams of carbohydrate = 1 block of carbohydrate 1.5 grams of fat = 1 block of fat (There is an assumption that there is about 1.5 grams of fat in each block of protein, so the total amount of fat needed per 1 block meal is 3 grams.)

When a meal is composed of equal blocks of protein, carbohydrate, and fat, it is 40 % carbohydrate, 30 % protein and 30% fat.

Pages 3 and 4 of the attached document

lists common foods, their macronutrient category (protein, carbohydrate or fat), along with a conversion of measurements to blocks.

This “block chart” is a convenient tool for making balanced meals. Simply choose 1 item from the protein list, 1 item from the carbohydrate list, and 1 item from the fat list to compose a 1 block meal. Or choose 2 items from each column to compose a 2 block meal, etc.

Here is a sample 4 block meal:

4 oz. chicken breast 1 artichoke 1 cup of steamed vegetables w/ 24 crushed peanuts 1 sliced apple

This meals contains 28 grams of protein, 36 grams of carbohydrate, and 12 grams of fat. It is simpler, though, to think of it as 4 blocks of protein, 4 blocks of carbohydrate, and 4 blocks of fat.

Even if you are going to slop on the couch, see if you can sneak in a bit of better movement.

From bad to bridge: most positions can be tweaked so you can sneak in a bit of exercise.

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