Boxing training has become a popular mode of exercise for people wanting body recompositioning and physical conditioning. It makes sense given top boxers - both men and women, particularly in the lighter weight classes - often have great figures/physiques and tremendous endurance, speed, power and conditioning.
Unfortunately, Personal Trainers have jumped on the boxing band wagon despite knowing absolutely nothing about the activity. Many have recognised that boxing gloves, focus mits and pads are some of the cheapest equipment they can buy and therefore offer a huge return on investment. So mock boxing training for 'fitness' is now offered by Personal Trainers in virtually every public park in the country.
As you might expect, nobody seeing a Personal Trainer in the park is coming away looking like a lean, mean boxing machine. Neither do any of the people doing boxing 'classes'. The reason is simple: they don't look like any sort of boxing champion because they haven't become any sort of boxing champion! If you really want to look like a top level boxer then you need to develop the skills and abilities of a top level boxer! And that means training like a top level boxer. Not farting around in the park or gym with someone who has never stepped in a boxing ring in their lives!
For the same or even less money than a PT, people can achieve a massively better workout, skills development and conditioning just by going to a real boxing gym. Such gyms are not necessarily seedy, smelly dungeons. Just check out corporateboxgym.com.au for an example of a top quality, modern facility run by World Champion Boxers and Thai Boxers.
Shaggy, Preacher, Aaron, Shane and the rest of the crew at Corporate Box Gym know their stuff and will give you the workout of your life. If its boxing you want to do, that is the place to do it!
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Gymerexia????
Here we go again. Check out this report from the NBC warning that going to the gym TOO much is now a big problem.
It is incredible to think that in our society where the majority of people are going to die of obesity and inactivity related illnesses, anyone would warn people away from exercise!? But they are. And yet, unlike being too sedentary, nobody is dying of gymerexia. In fact, from the report, there is no mention of anybody getting harmed in any significant way. The only sited concern of gymerexia is the effect on work and relationships; I imagine much the same sort of work and relationship problems faced by people who don't go to the gym too.
With more than 1/2 the population dying by not going to the gym, we should not be worrying about the people who go to the gym too much! A fight with your spouse is better than costing all of society millions and then dying! People worrying about other peoples exercise and good-health habits need to get some perspective!
It is incredible to think that in our society where the majority of people are going to die of obesity and inactivity related illnesses, anyone would warn people away from exercise!? But they are. And yet, unlike being too sedentary, nobody is dying of gymerexia. In fact, from the report, there is no mention of anybody getting harmed in any significant way. The only sited concern of gymerexia is the effect on work and relationships; I imagine much the same sort of work and relationship problems faced by people who don't go to the gym too.
With more than 1/2 the population dying by not going to the gym, we should not be worrying about the people who go to the gym too much! A fight with your spouse is better than costing all of society millions and then dying! People worrying about other peoples exercise and good-health habits need to get some perspective!
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Personal Trainers & Fitness: Not What You Think!
The Fitness Industry caters to a massive market! Around 2/3rds of Australians are obese, overweight and unfit. They need to get fit AND they need to lose weight (fat). The issue is: fitness has virtually nothing to do with fat loss!
Despite their target market being so big, the Fitness Industry is happy to profit from the misconception that ‘fitness’ actually means a 'good body'. As such, they promote heavily to people who are already 'fit'. Fortunately for the Fitness Industry, the misinterpretation of what 'fit' means goes so deep that they do not even need to hide what they are really about. Just check out these commercials for Fitness Australia on YouTube..
One of the ads shows a girl bragging about how she can paint a wall - yes, paint a wall - because she jogs in the park with a Personal Trainer! Another shows a lady bragging about being able to cruise through a park on a bike because she does gym classes. This is what ‘fit’ really means. Its not about looking good or becoming athletic. It is about having the lowest level of physical ability necessary for a normal human existence. It is about being the least you could possibly be. Even the Fitness Industry itself advertises as such. Unfortunately, most people still think 'fit' means looking good. It simply does not!
Personal Trainers prescribe exercises to make people ‘fit’ to perform the simplest human functions - like painting a wall. Mostly they are the exact same activities that teachers give 6 year olds for Physical Education classes and Physiotherapists give to rehabilitation patients. They throw balls in the park, do burpees and sit-ups, run on treadmills, balance on bosu balls, do twisty things with giant rubber-bands, squat with a ball against the wall etc etc. If you can throw a ball and squat your own weight then you are ‘fit’ and your Personal Trainer has delivered what they should have promised. If they promised more, then they misled you.
None of the exercises you see Personal Trainers doing with their clients in parks or gyms is designed to make a persons body look better. Ball skills, stretching and balance are completely irrelevant to substantial changes in body composition. And 'burning calories' is something every mammal does simply as a function of living. So do not believe any person who is qualified in 'Fitness' and suggests that 'fitness' training is going to result in a better-than-average body. Also, there is no skill or valuable 'expertise' behind any 'weight loss' regime based on less food and more exercise. Any schmuck can design such a plan.
The truth is, 'Fitness' is mediocrity. If you are unfit - like 2/3rds of the country is - you DO need to get fit! But 'fitness' will happen as a result of body recompositioning exercise anyway. Very little body recompositioning (fat loss and muscle gain) will result from 'fitness' exercise.
And if you are already ‘average’ there is no more ‘getting fit’; you already are. So if you want better than average, do not hire a Personal Fitness Trainer. They are not qualified to help you. If you want a good or great body, you need to find a Body Recompositioning specialist and/or a Strength Coach; like Biologic Labs!
PS:
If Biologic Labs is not an option, look for a Trainer or Strength Coach who:
1) looks the part
2) writes detailed, personalised diets and
3) trains their clients exactly as they train themselves!
That third point is critical! Many trainers tell their clients to train in a manner they would never waste their time on themselves. Do not let them scam you too. As with Fitness Trainers: KNOW WHAT YOU ARE REALLY BUYING!!!
Despite their target market being so big, the Fitness Industry is happy to profit from the misconception that ‘fitness’ actually means a 'good body'. As such, they promote heavily to people who are already 'fit'. Fortunately for the Fitness Industry, the misinterpretation of what 'fit' means goes so deep that they do not even need to hide what they are really about. Just check out these commercials for Fitness Australia on YouTube..
One of the ads shows a girl bragging about how she can paint a wall - yes, paint a wall - because she jogs in the park with a Personal Trainer! Another shows a lady bragging about being able to cruise through a park on a bike because she does gym classes. This is what ‘fit’ really means. Its not about looking good or becoming athletic. It is about having the lowest level of physical ability necessary for a normal human existence. It is about being the least you could possibly be. Even the Fitness Industry itself advertises as such. Unfortunately, most people still think 'fit' means looking good. It simply does not!
Personal Trainers prescribe exercises to make people ‘fit’ to perform the simplest human functions - like painting a wall. Mostly they are the exact same activities that teachers give 6 year olds for Physical Education classes and Physiotherapists give to rehabilitation patients. They throw balls in the park, do burpees and sit-ups, run on treadmills, balance on bosu balls, do twisty things with giant rubber-bands, squat with a ball against the wall etc etc. If you can throw a ball and squat your own weight then you are ‘fit’ and your Personal Trainer has delivered what they should have promised. If they promised more, then they misled you.
None of the exercises you see Personal Trainers doing with their clients in parks or gyms is designed to make a persons body look better. Ball skills, stretching and balance are completely irrelevant to substantial changes in body composition. And 'burning calories' is something every mammal does simply as a function of living. So do not believe any person who is qualified in 'Fitness' and suggests that 'fitness' training is going to result in a better-than-average body. Also, there is no skill or valuable 'expertise' behind any 'weight loss' regime based on less food and more exercise. Any schmuck can design such a plan.
The truth is, 'Fitness' is mediocrity. If you are unfit - like 2/3rds of the country is - you DO need to get fit! But 'fitness' will happen as a result of body recompositioning exercise anyway. Very little body recompositioning (fat loss and muscle gain) will result from 'fitness' exercise.
And if you are already ‘average’ there is no more ‘getting fit’; you already are. So if you want better than average, do not hire a Personal Fitness Trainer. They are not qualified to help you. If you want a good or great body, you need to find a Body Recompositioning specialist and/or a Strength Coach; like Biologic Labs!
PS:
If Biologic Labs is not an option, look for a Trainer or Strength Coach who:
1) looks the part
2) writes detailed, personalised diets and
3) trains their clients exactly as they train themselves!
That third point is critical! Many trainers tell their clients to train in a manner they would never waste their time on themselves. Do not let them scam you too. As with Fitness Trainers: KNOW WHAT YOU ARE REALLY BUYING!!!
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Another Dr Explains the Cholesterol Lie
The following is from a viral email currently doing the rounds. It reiterates and expands upon what I've written previously about Cholesterol.
By Dwight Lundell, MD
We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries,today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
Inflammation is not complicated -- it is quite simply your body's natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process,a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, Stroke, diabetes and obesity.
Let me repeat that. The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.
Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. You kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.
Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.
While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.
How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?
Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.
When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking Sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels. While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator — inflammation in their arteries.
Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential –they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell — they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.
If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.
Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.
To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.
There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.
There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.
One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butterfrom grass-fed beef.
Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.
The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation.
Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.
What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.
[Ed. Note: Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is the author of "The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie"] .
By Dwight Lundell, MD
We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries,today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
Inflammation is not complicated -- it is quite simply your body's natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process,a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, Stroke, diabetes and obesity.
Let me repeat that. The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.
Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. You kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.
Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.
While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.
How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?
Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.
When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking Sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels. While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator — inflammation in their arteries.
Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential –they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell — they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.
If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.
Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.
To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.
There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.
There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.
One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butterfrom grass-fed beef.
Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labelled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.
The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation.
Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.
What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.
[Ed. Note: Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is the author of "The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie"] .
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