GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

It is sad that these great movements hardly exist anymore in the training programs of the West. Those who are performing Olympic weightlifting still have a clear-cut advantage over those who are not in improving performance. How often do you walk into a gym and you see somebody snatching, or clean and jerking a barbell? Not often, if ever. Many people are dragged into fearing these lifts because of the words of a few. Over time these lifts have been credited as being the most dangerous form of exercise. What people don’t understand is that: exercises do not injure people, improper technique and loading beyond ones capability injure people. It’s the uneducated lifter using poor form and inadequate warm-up that results in injuries. The safety of Olympic lifting has been documented in several studies. One study has shown that Olympic lifting has the lowest number of injuries per 100hrs trained compared to both bodybuilding and powerlifting (1). Olympic lifting is often trained very intensely and with a much greater frequency than a bodybuilding routine. The Bulgarian’s train 4-6hrs a day in the gym spread over several sessions, working Olympic lifts for 6 days a week. (2). The Chinese also train in a similar manner. In the Eastern European countries Olympic lifting is virtually the national sport and being a weightlifter is a full time job, with bodybuilding a distant second. Far from being the safe option, traditional bodybuilding methods can be very hazardous to athletes in speed and strength sports such as American football or soccer. The reason for this is Olympic lifts use a much greater range of motion, which exposes the connective tissues, tendons, ligaments and muscle fibers to various angles and degrees of resistance. This helps the body become more functional, in that it can learn to cope with a variety of forces and activities without becoming injured. Whereas bodybuilding uses isolation movements that can often make the body imbalanced. In addition to this, bodybuilding exercises slows you down. Having a great deal of muscle mass does not necessarily make you slow, but if you gained that muscle mass through bodybuilding style training it is not functional. If you look at the best Athletes in the Olympic Games 90% of them will have one thing in common, ranging from pole vaulters to shot putters, they all have some form of Olympic weightlifting in their program. Even if that ranges from the traditional power clean to the much more complex snatch. These athletes understand the importance and benefits of these movements and the carry over to their sport. Olympic lifts train the athlete to explode and use the maximum possible force. They develop a high Rate of Force (RF), a key point in sports training. Olympic lifters train fast twitch muscle fibers, the fibers that are employed to give you speed, explosiveness and power. It has been shown that the percentage of fast twitch fibers in the body directly contributes to the vertical jump, the more you have the higher you are able to jump (3), and this is the best indicator for athletic ability in American football athletes (4). The jumping and running abilities of Olympic lifters were documented in the Mexico City Olympic Games where they out ran and out jumped the jumpers and sprinters in the vertical jump and 25m sprint! This is an amazing feat considering these men do not train specifically for jumping or running.There are also many other great benefits of Olympic lifts that help athletes. They develop great amounts of flexibility, a key factor in sports. They teach an athlete to coordinate their body. They teach discipline in studying and mastering the technical challenges of the lifts. They have also been used for helping athlete’s recover from older injuries. In a study done by Stone, Wilson, Blessing and Rozenek (5), athletes performed an Olympic lift for eight straight weeks, and it was found that the athletes’ resting heart rate decreased by 8%, systolic blood pressure decreased by 4%, lean body weight increased by 4% and body fat dropped by 6%. It is a very sad fact that there are only around 1,500 competing Olympic lifters in America today. If I could I would change that, but there is very little one can do but to open up people’s minds and help them realize the benefits. Perhaps one day we will walk into a gym and we will not see dumbbells or bench press machines, but we will see men on platforms moving huge amounts of weight from the ground to above their head like it was nothing. Hopefully I have shown you the benefits of the lifts and cleared out some of the negative factors that people use to knock down Olympic weightlifting.How should we train the Olympic lifts?In Olympic lifting there is no typical routine as there is in bodybuilding. We can’t use a training split because we are not attempting to work each muscle in isolation. We are working at developing power and speed, which requires a completely different training concept. Don’t be scared of training Olympic lifts more frequently than a typical bodybuilding routine allows, despite the level of effort involved in it is surprisingly hard to become over-trained. Although it does take a toll on the body’s fast twitch fibers, Olympic lifts are more concerned about developing the body’s central nervous system (CNS) than the musculature. Because there is no eccentric element to the lift, because the lifts are completed so rapidly, and because the few reps are performed in each set, there should be little soreness the next day (delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS). In training for Olympic lifts, break down training into core lifts and assistance lifts. You will notice in the above routine that core lifts (snatch/clean/jerk and variations) are first, in order to train them whilst you are fresh, and assistance lifts afterwards. Assistance lifts are in place to help the body deal with the strains imposed by the core lifts, to create a basic level of hypertrophy and to develop absolute strength. Hypertrophy does have a role to play in Olympic lifting, a larger muscle is a stronger muscle, if this wasn’t the case it wouldn’t be divided into weight divisions at the Olympics. But obviously training for CNS development is our main purpose. It is the central nervous system that inhibits us from using our full potential in sports. I’m sure you have heard of the old lady finding superhuman strength to lift a car off her child. This is an example of CNS inhibition being completely neutralized. The body’s musculature is actually capable of a great deal more strength than we can tap into, but if we constantly used our whole potential we would constantly injure ourselves. What Olympic weightlifting does is increase the strength of signals to our muscles, creates greater synchronization between muscle fibers and allows us to recruit more muscle fibers by reducing inhibition. References and Work Cited:

• (1)Source: Brian P. Hamill, “Relative Safety of Weightlifting and Weight Training,” _Journal of Strength Conditioning Research, Vol. 8, No. 1(1994): 53-57
• (2)Zatsisorsky, VM “Science and Practice of Strength Training” Human Kinetics, 1995
• (3)Bosco C & Komi (1979b) Mechanical characteristics and fiber composition of human leg extensor muscles Eur J Appl Physiol 41:275-284
• (4)Sawyer D, Ostarello J, Suess E, Dempsey M. (2002). Relationship Between Football Playing Ability and Selected Performance Measures. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: 16(4), pp. 611 - 616.

(5)Stone, M.H., et al. Cardiovascular Responses to Short-Term Olympic Style Weight-Training in Young Men. Can. J. Appl. Sport Sci. 8(3): 134-9.

Question:

I don’t feel like I eat a lot, why am I not losing weight?
I eat very healthy, why am I not losing weight?

There are several healthy diets and hundreds of healthy foods out there, but just because they are “healthy” or you know some skinny people who follow these diets (raw food, vegetarian, calorie restriction, high protein, food combining, etc.) does not mean that they promote or encourage weight loss/fat loss and are right for every body. A diet that promotes fat loss is one that provides the proper amount of calories for YOU, based on your age, sex, weight/lean tissue and activity level. It should be balanced and contain some form of protein, carbs and fat at every meal and these meals should be made up of REAL WHOLE FOOD. A meal plan or diet such as the above encourages fat loss by keeping your blood sugar and insulin levels steady and regular, by supporting the growth of lean tissue, and by supplying an abundance of fibrous watery vegetables and fruit which help to cleanse and nourish your body while removing excess waste. The protein and fat in the meal will slow down the digestion of and therefore lower the glycemic index of the carbs at that meal, the protein will also stimulate the release of glucagon, a hormone that helps to burn fat as opposed to insulin which tells the body to store sugar as fat. Many years of eating refined carbs have made us sensitive to them. It is crucial to our health that our blood glucose level does not get too high or low, our body uses insulin and glucagon to make sure of this. After years and years of your pancreas repeatedly pumping out insulin to control high blood glucose levels the cells in your body stop responding to insulin(insulin resistance) forcing your pancreas to work harder and secrete more(hyperinsulinemia). This is called insulin resistance. Most people that are overweight or struggling to lose weight have this to some degree. Your pancreas cannot keep up with this demand and will eventually burn out, producing inadequate amounts of insulin to bring your blood sugar down to a normal healthy range. So your blood sugar levels remain high. This is adult onset diabetes or Type II diabetes. Hormones work together with one another. Control your hormones, control your weight. Do this by eating meals and snacks frequently and consistently that contain protein, carbs and fat from real food and by doing high intensity circuits and interval training(I’ll show you how). If you are not eating enough cals, or you are eating too many cals, your body will store them. If you are sensitive to carbs, even if they are healthy your body will store them, unless properly combined with protein and fat and low glycemic. A print out of guidelines for proper eating are yours free with any number of sessions.

By Lee Crompton - CPT, RHN

THE MEALPLAN

By following my guidelines for proper eating and exceptional health you can expect to experience an increase in energy, an increase in lean muscle tissue, a gradual loss of body fat, improved mental clarity and decreased carbohydrate cravings.

The guidelines are based on the Zone and the Paleo Diet. The Zone was developed by Dr. Barry Sears and is used to balance blood sugar and insulin levels while facilitating weight loss. The Paleo diet is bacically our original hunter/gatherer diet before industrialisation and manufactured food. It has been used successfully for weight loss, lowering insulin leves, and managing many disease symptoms. You can read more here about it.

It is balanced in that it contains protien, unrefined carbs and healthy fat. Their are no food groups missing although as you will see there are many foods missing(fake foods). Your guidelines for healthy eating offer a lot of food choices and is rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber.

Freebies or foods that can be used freely are raw apple cider vinegar, fresh squeezed lemon or lime juice, garlic, spices, herbs and gound kelp or dulse is encouraged so long as though their is no known allergy to iodine. Use these foods to enhance the flavor and nutritional value of your meals.

For following your meal plan, sticking to the guidelines and having dicipline you should reward yourself with two cheat meals per week at any time of what ever it is that you have been craving, use this meal wisely. This will prevent binging and help you to stay on track during tough times. You can make up very tasty snacks that can do a good job of satisfying cravings without having to use your cheat meal. A sweet and delicious shake made of 1/3 of a ripe banana, 1 cup strawberries, 1 cup of plain whole yogurt(not typically paleo), and 1 tsp of flax, fish or olive oil should do the trick. Blend and enjoy as a shake or just mix in a bowl.

Use raw nuts and seeds (unroasted, unsalted), and add your fats to the meal at the end, after cooking when ever possible. An overly cooked or heated fat becomes unstable and more like a trans fat.

A good whole food multi vitamin/mineral may be taken to ensure that there are no deficiencies that could prevent optimum health. Eating the proper amount of nutrient dense foods and sprinkling ground kelp and dulse on your meals will help.

Do your best to drink half your body weight in ounces of water daily to ensure proper hydration and flush out waste.

You will find that there is a large amount of vegetables at your meals, do your best to eat as much of them as possible but be sure to eat all of your protein and fat as the latter two are what help to keep your insulin down.

GOOD LUCK, KEEP IT SIMPLE, TRAIN SMART, HAVE FUN

By Lee Crompton - CPT, RHN

How to Repair a Damaged Metabolism
By Tom Venuto

If you’ve caused metabolic damage as a result of following starvation diets or losing weight too rapidly in the past, it can be extremely difficult to achieve any further fat loss at all. The good news is, metabolic damage can be repaired. All it takes is the right combination of metabolism stimulating exercise and metabolism stimulating nutrition (NOT just a diet), all done consistently over time.
The big irony is that most of the diet programs that claim to help you get rid of excess weight, only end up making it harder for you in the long run because they use harsh metabolism-decreasing diets and not enough exercise (almost never any weight training).
It may take a little longer if you have really messed things up with severe starvation dieting in the past, especially if you’ve lost a lot of lean body mass, but it is never hopeless. Anyone can increase their metabolism.
Most people get an almost immediate boost in metabolic rate when they start the program. However, the results are not going to be “overnight.” Give it a little time…
Within 3 weeks your metabolism will already be more efficient. Within 6-8 weeks, it’s burning hot. Give me 12 weeks of consistent diligent effort, sticking with all the metabolism boosting strategies I teach, and your metabolism really will become like a turbo charged engine, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that.
What’s most important for upping your metabolism is CONSISTENCY in applying the Burn The Fat nutrition and training principles every single day.
That includes:
• Meal frequency: eat 5-6 small meals per day.
• Meal timing: eat approximately every 3 hours, with a substantial breakfast and a substantial post workout meal.
• Sufficient Caloric Intake: maintain a small calorie deficit and avoid starvation-level diets (suggested safe levels for fat loss: 2100-2500 calories per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for women; adjust as needed).
• Food choices: Select natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect (lean proteins like chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as are all green vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs).

* Cardio training: Push up the intensity a bit if you really want to get a metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio is fine, but higher intensity is more metabolism-stimulating.
• Weight training: The basic exercises that include the largest muscle groups or even call into play the entire body as a unit (squats, front squats, split squats, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts, overhead presses, all kinds of rows and core-activation exercises) will have a much greater metabolism stimulating effect than isolation exercises (concentration curls, calf raises, etc).
The weight training is extremely important in cases of “metabolic damage” because this is the stimulus to keep the muscle you have and begin rebuilding new muscle tissue, which is the engine that drives your metabolism.
The men don’t usually have a problem with the weight training, but I still hear women say they don’t want to lift weights as part of their fat loss programs. Well, people who wont lift weights can expect a very, very long metabolism “repair process” if they achieve it at all.
Consistency is the key.
Nothing will undermine the “re-building” of your metabolism like inconsistency. If you stop and start, or skip meals and workouts often, you will not even get off the ground.
After your metabolism is back up where it should be, it takes continued “stoking” of the metabolic furnace to keep it there. Once you get your metabolic engine running, you’ve got to keep feeding it fuel or the fire will die down.
Picture an old fashioned wood burning stove…
Imagine you’re in a cabin up in the mountains in the winter. It’s cold in there and you want to keep the cabin warm. Can you achieve this by feeding the fire once or twice per day? Nope. Not enough fuel to burn, so not much heat is generated.
What if you just toss an entire pile of wood in the stove all at once? Will that work? Nope. Lots of fuel, but can’t all be used at once… it just smothers the fire and the excess just sits there.
How about if you throw some tissue paper or crumpled newspaper in the stove, will that work? Nope - too quickly burning.
You have to keep putting small amounts of wood (the right type of fuel) on the fire at regular intervals or the fire burns out.
It’s also difficult to get the fire lit again. In the case of metabolism, it’s like going through that initial few weeks of overcoming inertia all over again.
Your goal is to get your metabolism burning hot and keep it burning and this cannot be achieved by missing meals, missing workouts or with sporadic, infrequent training.

I have only seen a handful of cases where all these things were done properly and there was still a longer “repair” process.
For example, one case was former ballet dancer. At 5′ 5″, she was previously 110 lbs and had increased to about 145 or so. She didn’t want to reach her previous 110, but find a happy medium of about 125 lbs.
I figured with 20 lbs to cut, this would be a simple and predictable process, but she had a challenging time (and I didn’t know why at first).
I later found out that she had been anorexic and bulimic for many years. This had caused a lot of damage, and although she did reach her goal, it took about twice as long as we had anticipated.
The good news is, even in this extreme case, the same nutrition and training principles worked! It just took a little longer. And by the way her program included some serious training with free weights and she ate a lot more (clean) food than she had ever eaten before. No “starvation!”
That’s the power of burning the fat and feeding the muscles.

About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder and author of the #1 best selling e-book, “Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to burn fat without drugs or supplements using the little-known secrets of the world’s best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and turbo-charge your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com.
If you’re interested in the healthy, sensible way to take off the fat, while keeping all your muscle and actually increasing your metabolism in the process, then my Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle program can teach you how. No gimmicks or false promises. Just the truth - you have to work at it and you have to be patient. www.burnthefat.com

So what we’re talking about here is the Mediterranean diet. Yeah, you’ve been hearing about it since the 60’s but there’s a reason; it’s great for you. Quality protein, healthy fat, fresh vegetables, good wine in moderation and an appreciation, not an obsession for food all make for good health. The discovery of the Mediterranean Diet was actually the byproduct of a seven country wide study on diet and disease patterns throughout the world.

It was narrowed down to the Greek islander’s. During the course of the study it was discovered that some of the longest life spans and lowest rates of heart disease were found in the people of Crete. Later studies confirmed that Cretans also had much lower rates of cancer as well as type 2 diabetes.

Now they call it the Mediterranean Diet but it’s really the whole lifestyle because in addition to the way they ate (which hadn’t changed much since ancient times), the hard working people of Crete, mainly farmers, got loads of physical activity. But what about their diet? Delicious meals full of vegetables and fruits, fish and meat and lots of healthy fats and no processed foods(refined grains). The Cretans regularly took in high amounts of fat-up to 40 percent of their daily calories-much of it coming from olive oil; their average saturated-fat intake was among the world’s lowest, most likely due to the fact that their meat was pastured/grass fed and therefore much leaner and healhier. This diet has also stood the clinical tests as well. Huge studies have shown that when people are put on a Mediterranean eating program, they tend to live longer and have lower rates of heart disease and some cancers.

Eat more whole foods and fewer processed foods; avoid trans fats and use non hydrogenated fats, particularly monounsaturated fats like olive oil, for cooking and flavoring foods, and for salad dressings; eat an abundance of vegetables, especially leafy greens every day; eat some fruit, sprouted or fermented whole grains and legumes unless diabetic or insulin resistant. Keep animal-based foods clean and lean (organic and grass fed) including raw unpasturized dairy products if possible; eat nuts and seeds, such as almonds, walnuts and pumpkin seeds regularly in moderate amounts and raw or sprouted, not roasted, blanched or salted. Excessive heating of any unsaturated fat will damage or alter its molecular structure turning it into a trans fat and making what could have been very healthy into something very unhealthy. Olive oil and coconut oil are best for cooking.

 For some examples you can check out my recipes page.

By Lee Crompton - CPT, RHN

The majority of women involved in fitness or trying to acheive weight loss are going about it all wrong. Sorry to break it to ya, but it comes from seeing a lot of failed efforts from women who are truly getting frustrated with their bodies and the information available to them.

Because of outdated stereotypes and myths, womens fitness has suffered  unnecessarily. The truth is that women who practice the same well-designed strength training programs as men benefit from bone and soft-tissue modeling, increased lean body mass, decreased fat and increased self esteem in exactly the same way as a man would. The only difference is that a man will put on muscle mass faster and easier because of hormonal differences, higher testosterone levels. Strength training for women should be the same as for men.

Women should strength train in the same ways as men, using the same program designs, exercises, intensities and volumes, relative to their body size and level of strength, so they can achieve the maximum change to their bodies in the shortest possible time.

It’s All About The Hormones - The role of testosterone and its effect on strength or power and size development is huge. This is why many men and athletes looking for an edge artificially increase there testosterone through the means of anabolic steroids. If a man artificially increased his testosterone to grow large muscles and the “normal” woman on average has about one tenth the testosterone of the “unassisted” man, then the theory that women in fitness shouldn’t lift hard because they will grow huge muscles has no merit. However the level of testosterone varies greatly among women. Women who have higher testosterone levels may have a greater potential for strength or power and size development than other women, but this is not a bad thing. The advantages of having muscle are numerous and if you ever do reach the point of not wanting any more size in a muscle group, then it is a simple matter of backing off in the intensity and load variables for that muscle and possibly reducing calories.

So what are the benefits of lifting some heavy weight once in a while and actually breaking a sweat?

- Enhanced bone modeling to increase bone strength and reduce the risk of osteoporosis.

- Stronger connective tissues to increase joint stability which helps prevent injury so that you can train hard, stay active and burn calories!

- Increased functional strength in women for sports and daily activity. It doesn’t matter if you’re sprinting across the finish line or picking up your little one, it always gets easier and more enjoyable with strength. “Train hard so you can play easily.”

- Increased lean body tissue and decreased body fat; that is, you get to look good in whatever you wear.

- Higher metabolic rate because of an increase in muscle that is metabolically active and requires fuel to survive. That fuel comes partly from fat oxidation and calorie consumption. Because of this, even when you’re watching TV, you’re going to burn more calories daily because of your new found muscle.

- Improved self-esteem and confidence. Don’t we all want this? Looking good feels good.

In order to reap the benefits of weight bearing exercises, you must do just that — bear weight. If you rely solely on weight training machines, lift so lightly that you’re barely out of breath or never increase your weight or intensity, then your body will not respond to your training.

Making changes to your body is going to require some work. It can be difficult to skip the temptation of buying into the latest exercise fad that looks effortless and quick. If you stick to the basics and base your training around large multi-joint exercises that turn your body into a calorie-burning machine the rewards will be much greater and long lasting.

Examples of some multi-joint exercises for the lower body are lunges, walking lunges, step-ups, squats and deadlifts. For the upper body use multiple muscle groups in exercises like the bench press, push ups, shoulder press, pull-ups or pull downs, and for even more intensity and metabolism boost try the more explosive multi-joint exercises such as the variations of cleans and clean and jerks. There are many more than the above. Form, technique, posture and body positioning are all extremely important with the more advanced exercises as well as the not so advanced exercises.

The purpose of strength training in your fitness schedule is to put a demand on your body that causes it to overcompensate (get stronger, leaner, faster, etc.) so it won’t be caught off guard again. This process of overcompensating not only makes you stronger, but also by default, makes you look great. This theory is called the SAID principle – specific adaptation to imposed demands, AND this will only continue to happen if another principle is adhered to – Progressive Overload. You must give your body a reason to get stronger/change, as 12 reps at a given weight gets easy and 16 or 18 becomes possible it is time to increase the weight, the speed, the reps or the exercise itself. Increase the intensity!

By Lee Crompton - CPT, RHN