Survival Challenge 2: Negative Chin-Up
This week's challenge: Flexed arm hang into negative chin-up. Roger Lawson came up with this one, so thank him for the burn your biceps are gonna experience.
How to:
The clock starts as soon as you hop to the top of a chin-up (or pull-up) position; hold that position as long as you can, then lower your body as slowly as you can. The clock stops when your arms are fully straight.
Finer points:
- Once you move downward from the flexed-arm position with your chin over the bar, you cannot move back upward. This is a negative, eccentric contraction; we ain't playin' concentric here.
- You can place your hands in pull-up or chin-up position, but I pity the fool who chooses pull-up position.
For the full schedule of challenges, click here.
Survival of the Fittest Weekly Challenge Schedule
Here's the Dill: A couple weeks ago, fitness blogger and self-proclaimed "bro trainer" JC Deen challenged me via Twitter to a front-squat duel with a barbell loaded to the equivalent of our respective body weights. This is exactly the sort of thing I can't resist, so it was on. Roger Lawson and David Dellanave, also up for a challenge, joined the fun. We talked about our experiences on social media and posted videos of our results, and it grew from there. Strength coaches and fitness enthusiasts from all over took video of their own max-reps sets and posted them at my fitness page, Survival of the Fittest.
It was so fun we've decided to make it a weekly thing, and invite everybody. Wanna play?
The Rules:
1. If you want your video to be included in the weekly write-up, post it in the comments section of the appropriate challenge post at Survival of the Fittest the blog by Wednesday night Pacific Time. I'll post the details of that week's challenge every Monday; that means you have two days to slap your link up there.
Also:
-Put "Survival Challenge" in the video's title.
-Tag it with "Survival Challenge."
-If you use Twitter, use the hashtag #SurvivalChallenge
2. Don't be a jerk about other contestants' exercise form. This isn't an "anything goes" situation, but understand that people have different lifting styles, and the definition of "perfect form" isn't universal. That said, don't do anything dumb in the name of competition. If you aren't able to safely lift the weight ratios involved in that week's challenge, sit it out.
3. Or, if you're not one for sitting things out, scale it by using less weight! I'll still post your results in the weekly write-up even if you're not in the running to be crowned that week's winner. We're all about inclusion around here, anyone willing to post a video can play.
The Prize: Bragging rights and enjoyment. That's it. This is about having fun and finding out what you're capable of. It's not about proving who's the baddest a$$ of them all. (OK, it might be just a little bit about that, but it's mostly about having fun.)
Survival of the Fittest Challenge Schedule
Week of 1/23: Max reps of front squat with your body weight on the bar: Check! Already done; thank you to all who participated! (Of course, if you want to compete retroactively, feel free to post your video at the Survival of the Fittest Facebook page just for fun.)
Week of 1/30: Chin-up negative for time
Week of 2/6: Max reps of back squat with your body weight on the bar
Week of 2/13: Max reps of chin-ups
Week of 2/20: Deadlift 1.5 body weight for max reps
Week of 2/27: Bench press: body weight on bar
Week of 3/5: Barbell push press (1/2 body weight)
Week of 3/12: Swings: Men's weight 32 kg; women's weight 24 kg
Week of 3/19: Strict barbell curls (must hold a sheet of paper between your head and the wall and also your butt and a wall)
Beyond that: TBD
[photo credit: www.menshealth.com]
"Change The Way You Look at Things, And The Things You Look at Change"
Can you change your body with just your thoughts? This may sound wild, but there is evidence to support such a thing.
Some Research
First, a Harvard study by psychologist Ellen Langer, followed 84 hotel maids from seven different hotels. The idea was to look at whether or not the perception of exercise influenced the results. The maids were asked how much they exercise, to which 67 percent reported they didn't exercise regularly. And more than one-third of those reported they didn't get any exercise at all. They assessed the maids' body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure, weight and body mass index. The researchers found that all of these indicators matched the maids' perceived amount of exercise, rather than their actual amount of exercise. The maids were then split into two groups, one being told just how much exercise they were actually getting just by doing their jobs, and that it even exceeded the surgeon generals recommendation. The other group was told nothing.
Findings
One month later, Langer and her team returned to take physical measurements of the women and were surprised by what they found. In the group that had been told they were essentially already exercising at work, there was a decrease in their systolic blood pressure, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio -- and a 10 percent drop in blood pressure. When asked whether or not the maids had made any other lifestyle changes, they answered that they hadn't. This leaves only the change in perception of what they were already doing to be key. The important takeaway from this, to me, is not that the maids lost weight after changing their perception to their physical activity, but rather how their previous perception kept them from the changes in the first place -- even with the same activity level. Are you, or someone you know already putting in the work but deep down believing that you just can't get the body you want? Your perception may play a much larger role then you think.
Another Study Looking at Strength Gains
Another study done by Erin M. Shackell and Lionel G. Standing at Bishop's University demonstrates some correlating evidence, but rather than looking at weight loss, they analyzed the impact of thought training and strength gains. They randomly split 30 college student athletes into 3 groups of 10. One group mentally practiced a hip-strength exercise. One group physically practiced the exercise. And the control group did nothing. The mental training group was directed to imagine doing the exercise in extreme detail, including adding weight and performing four sets of eight repetitions.
More Interesting Findings
The group that did the physical exercises saw gains of 28.3 percent. The control group saw little to no gains. Both of these would be expected. What was unexpected was the mental training group saw gains of 23.7 percent -- almost as much the physical training group!
The Takeaway
Most people find no problem accepting the idea that things like stress, anxiety, depression, etc., can have a negative impact on our health. Or that visualization can help athletes performance. But the idea what we can physically change our bodies simply with our thoughts turns most conventional thinking on its head. The power of the placebo effect is impressive. But what is equally important is what is known as the "nocebo" effect. Just like positive thoughts can affect you with the placebo affect, the opposite can be true with the nocebo affect. Remember how they maids health markers correlated with their perspective of lack of exercise even when they were getting it?
I don't think it's good advice to say we don't need to take action, but rather sit around and think about taking action but rather, align both. Do what you believe will get you the results you want, and believe what you are doing will accomplish this. And remember, what can work for us, can also work against us. If you are putting in the time and work and not seeing the results you want, ask yourself what results you truly deep down believe you can achieve. Can you honestly see yourself in the body you want? Or do you have limiting beliefs telling yourself how you cannot get there? This may play a much bigger role in results than conventional thinking allows. It is possible your perspective and self-limiting beliefs may literally be hindering your progress.
"The energy of the mind is the essence of life." Aristotle
More Resources
If this kind of information interests you and you want to learn more about the effects your thoughts, beliefs, and intentions can have, here are a few more sources you can check out.
The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton
Upgrade Your Brain by Jon Spayde (Experience Life article)
The Intention Experiment and The Field by Lynn McTaggart
Spontaneous Healing of Belief and The Divine Matrix by Gregg Braden
The Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto
The Living Matrix: Film on the New Science of Healing
[photo via http://www.elec-intro.com/maid-of-ringtone]
To Look Like a Roman Warrior, Try Eating Like One
How often do you hear, or maybe say yourself, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day," or "Eating late at night before bed is the worst thing you can do!" It's repeated over and over as if it's a mantra integral in the human experience. But is it true?Not according to Ori Hofmekler. The idea behind his book, The Warrior Diet, flies in the face of all conventional thinking on diet, but it may be far more compatible with the way humans were meant to eat than conventional ideas on eating.
In the most basic sense, the warrior diet involves a long "undereating" phase lasting around 20 hours, followed by a shorter "overeating" phase at night, preferably following a workout. The main difference between the warrior diet and intermittent fasting (IF) is that you are not completely abstaining from food during the day.
Undereating Phase
During the undereating phase, Hofmekler recommends "live" foods such as vegetables, some fruits, and easily digestible proteins like yogurt, boiled egg or whey. The goal of the undereating phase is to detoxify the body, build up enzymes, stabilize blood sugar and insulin, and as Hofmekler calls it, "burn up the rubbish." Digestion also takes a huge amount of energy and if you're eating every two to three hours, you're constantly using up energy to break down and digest these foods. Also, proteins cannot be fully broken down and digested without proper enzymes, so the building up of enzymes by consuming live foods is key during the undereating phase to prepare for the overeating phase. He also says that no carbohydrates other then fresh fruits and vegetables should be eating during this phase.
Overeating Phase
As for the overeating phase, Hofmekler starts with three basic rules.
Rule 1. Always start with subtle-tasting foods and move to more aggressive flavors.
Rule 2. Include as many tastes, textures, colors and aromas as possible.
Rule 3. Stop eating when you feel more thirsty than hungry.
Following these three guidelines and ingesting clean, real foods, eat all you want and stop when you are satisfied. Pretty simple, right?
Athletes on The Warrior Diet
As for athletes, Hofmekler recommends a preworkout whey protein shake (if you can't sustain your energy in the fasted state) and another shake immediately postworkout, followed by your first big meal within the hour. This is usually the strategy I use and it works quite well for me. That said, there is a lot of evidence supporting the benefits of working out in a fasted state, so it's worth playing around with.
Like any diet, it's not for everyone, especially if you have other health problems to address first (like adrenal fatigue, for example). You may have to modify it to suit you, which is totally fine (it's your life, your body!). But once I implemented warrior diet concepts, I experienced a great sense of freedom: You aren't on a regimented schedule, and you don't have to stress about where to find decent food during the day. The hardest part is getting used to not eating much during the day, which is usually much more mental than it is physical.
Hofmekler points to the fact that if you keep feeding a caged animal, it will keep eating -- regardless of hunger. So I set myself free.
Other Info
Hofmeklar also goes into great length about the history of ancient warrior cultures like the Romans and how he came up with The Warrior Diet. He also covers dealing with stubborn fat and the role of hormones like estrogen, a Q&A section and a bunch of recipes at the end.
For more information on different types of intermittent fasting, including The Warrior Diet, see Nia Shanks' post in Experience Life's "Contributor's Corner" here.
There are plenty of interviews with Hofmeklar on YouTube; here's one on timing of meals:
[photo credit above] Nerdfitness.com/blog
Back to Deadlifting
Wanna hear my dirty little secret?
Even though I've long been a vocal proponent of deadlifting, posting plenty of links and love at this blog's sister page on Facebook, I haven't done much of it myself over the past couple years.
I'm completely on board with it being one of the best (and arguably the best) full-body lift you can do, but afterward I'd always feel like my sacroilliac (SI) joints had come apart at the seams, and I'd be out of commission for a week or more. (For more on SI Joint pain, see here and here [scroll to bottom].) In other words, not worth it (for me).
OK, sometimes worth it: I competed in the Tactical Strength Challenge (TSC) this September, and pulled a single rep at 285, but it absolutely wrecked my lower back for the following week.
Then, over the past few months, a couple things happened:
1) I got jealous: I kept seeing Beautiful Bada$$ founder Nia Shanks post more and more deadlift videos, and she always makes it look so fun and satisfying: Head to minute 2:20 to see 125-pound Nia nail a 330-pound sumo deadlift PR. I started to want to deadlift again.
2) I got smarter: The other thing that happened was that I started training differently, experimenting with variations such as sumo and Jefferson, and only pulling weight I knew I could pull without pain. And -- counterintuitively -- I also worked to achieve more motion in my lumbar spine (years of landing hard on my a$$ during rugby games had left it without even the little bit of bend it's supposed to have). 
Here I am demonstrating a Jefferson deadlift for Coach Dos.
As a result, I was deadlifting without lower-back pain for the first time in years, and I began to even look forward to deadlift nights. I still played it cautious, however: I hadn't ventured above 265 pounds since before the back-hurting TSC (my previous one-rep max was 303), but when Nia asked a few of us last night for deadlift videos (stay tuned for her post on the topic!), it seemed like a good time to assess where I was at. The video below is what happened: a triple at a little over twice my body weight.
Sweet Treats Plus Meat Treats: Discount!
Have you ever tried to find a convenient snack or meal you could take anywhere and eat anytime that was high quality, unprocessed and actually made of food? It can be rough, right? And it's especially difficult if you're are trying to follow a diet consistent of whole foods. Even in a pinch, a man (or woman) can only drink so many protein shakes.
The more convenient healthy options are, the easier it is to stick with them. Enter a solution by Steve's Original.
Jen and I returned to the office after our lunchtime kettlebell workout today to discover a box of goodies from Steve's Original. Considering I hadn't eaten yet, this was a pleasant surprise.
The first version of the PaleoKit, created in 2008, included free-range jerky, nuts and berries. The company now offers a wide range of options, including grass-fed jerky, berries, dried apples, a coconut recipe PaleoKit consisting of jerky, coconut and strawberries (which I am munching on as I write this), an apple pie PaleoKit consisting of jerky, pecans, almonds and dried apples, and a grainless cereal. Unlike most jerky, this one is high quality -- it's grass-fed and unprocessed with no added preservatives. All products are vacuum sealed, low-carb, gluten free. There is no need to refrigerate the packages, and they will last about 6 months. They are very low in sugar (with no added sugars), even in the grainless cereal, which is sweet and crunchy. These kits can make a good quick postworkout snack or a meal replacement on the go if needed.
In my opinion, these kits are as good as what most people would make in their kitchen with the added bonus of being able to take them anywhere and eat anytime. That's a great combo for the athlete on the go or anyone following a clean-eats lifestyle.
Community Impact
Discount for Survival of the Fittest Readers!
The company's founder, Steve Liberati, has offered the readers of Survival of the Fittest a 10 percent discount this week if you use the discount code "JenSinkler" when you're checking out. This deal ends Monday, December 5, so grab it while it's still fresh.
For another review of Steve's Original products check out Balancedbites.com
I SMELL BACON!
Let's talk about every Paleothic Diet follower's paradise....bacon!
Perhaps you've noticed that there seems to be some kind of weird bacon fetish online.
Now don't get me wrong, there are some very good reasons to love bacon in all of its deliciousness, but there are also some things to consider.
There is a plethora of information available out there about the negative consequences of processed meat. Studies have shown that processed meat consumption as little as one ounce a day increases stomach cancer risk by 38%.
But, as always, there are many other variables to consider when interpreting the conclusion of any study, especially one that analyzes a large group of people and finds correlations but doesn't study all the other areas to their daily lives.
But it's not necessarily the meat itself that's to blame, but how it's prepared that's of greatest concern. When it comes to processed meat, the main concern is the inclusion of nitrites and nitrates. Once you ingest nitrites, they turn into nitrosimes in your body, and there's evidence nitrosimes are a carcinogen. Unless the meat specifically states it is nitrite free, you can almost guarantee it has been preserved with nitrites. It's also thought that sodium nitrate may damage your blood vessels, making your arteries more likely to harden and narrow, leading to heart disease. Nitrates may also affect the way your body uses sugar, making you more likely to develop diabetes.
I'm not suggesting everyone stop eating meat, by any means (I'm a bacon man myself), but rather just be more informed about the meats they are consuming. This is especially important with the growing number of people following a Paleo diet and having meats as one of their primary foods. There are great benefits to eating this way, but if you are filling your body full of processed, chemical-ridden meats, you aren't a whole lot better off than you are eating grains and sugars. Our ancestors never had to deal with the onslaught of processing and chemicals in their foods that we currently do.
Some simple things to consider to greatly reduce any negative risks.
- Start with a clean source of meat. No pesticides, hormones or antibiotics, and preferably organically grown.
- Find meat that is nitrate free, nitrite free and uncured. There are many on the market now, but they might not be at your everyday large chain grocery store.
- No artificisl flavors, MSG, high fructose corn syrup or artificial colors.
- I'd also suggest getting a PFOA/PFOS-free frying pan; almost all nonstick (especially Teflon) pans leach toxic chemicals into your food (and even the air!). You can also just use cast iron or even glass, although that can be frustratingly sticky.
- Do not burn your bacon (or any meat), or cook it at too high a temperature. Cooking meats at high temperatures or for too long creates chemicals called Heterocyclic amines, which are a known carcinogen. It also increases nitromines.
- Lastly, just think of bacon (and all processed meats) like ice cream. Enjoy it when you choose to have it, but be cognizant that consistent consumption may have a negative long-term effect.
Bacon is definitely a topic of conversation.
Meet Nik Illies
Greetings all!
This is my first real experience doing any blogging so bear with me, it's an evolutionary experience! My name is Nik Illies, and I have been graciously awarded a position at Experience Life as Jen Sinkler's fitness editorial assistant. I'll be helping her with some online content, including blog posts, video editing, and whatever else she needs me to do to spread more Survival of the Fittest content!
A little bit about me: My current primary occupation is a cardiac sonographer, which in layperson terms means I ultrasound hearts. I get to see some interesting things in this field, including the end results of a lifetime of not-so-great health decisions. Sadly this result is showing up earlier and earlier in people's lives these days.
This brings me to my true passion: health and fitness with a great emphasis on nutrition and chronic disease prevention! To quote Edward Stanley, "Those who think they have no time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness." What really inspires me is not only learning how to obtain optimum health, but in helping others achieve this as well.
Ironically means you hopefully most likely will never have to see me at my other job -- quite the catch 22 huh? I'm one of those people that like to ask "why" about everything, and then find out how, almost to a fault. In my free time I love to learn new things. I'm not scared to admit I've spent Friday nights staying up until 2 a.m. watching videos on proper squat form. For me the best part about learning things is teaching them to others to help them achieve their goals. Hopefully I can do some of this for you fine readers! And learning, especially about health, is an always evolving process so hopefully we can all share information and thoughts to further our understand of fitness and optimum health! I look forward to hearing feedback.
I've been a huge fan of Experience Life since the first time I put my hands on one. The information within really resonates with what I'm all about and I'm very excited to now be a part of the community!
Until next time,
Nik
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Survival of the Fittest: Facebook Edition
This NYT article made me feel better about not having blogged since August (even if I am
lumped into the kids' group). I have a list of potential topics as long as my arm, but can't make any promises about when I'll be able to post again here...soon?
In the meantime, I'm posting lots of fitness content daily on my Survival of the Fittest page on Facebook.
Come talk to me there!
[image via econversemedia.com]
How Soft Drinks Impact Your Health
A scary little illustration.
Via: Term Life Insurance
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