“If you’ve never had a messy kitchen, you’ve probably never had a home-cooked meal.”–Rabbi Irwin Kula.

Real life is inherently messy, and yet we live in a society obsessed with cleanliness and tidiness.  This is in-spite of the fact that the research suggests that those who are more successful, more intelligent, and better parents are by nature more messy, have more clutter in their closets, and more papers strewn on their desks.

I don’t mean “hobo” messy, but I do mean SEEMINGLY disorganized.  Think of Einstein.  For that matter, think of ANY Genius of renown.     The above picture is of Francis Bacon’s Studio.  He is without doubt one of the greatest Painters of the 20th Century and his place of creation is anything but tidy.

Part of what it means to be healthy, is accepting life as it is.  Try to Control ONLY those things that are controllable, no more.  Any attempt to do so will only lead to failure, and failure causes undue stress.  Stress causes Cancer, Heart Disease, and a whole myriad of other problems.

So get in the kitchen, make a mess, and have a good meal.  Your heart and mind will thank you.

Check out this video of a morning training session for Sumo at a training Stable in Tokyo.

Apparently, there’s a new Fitness DVD on the market … A sumo fitness DVD. Now, I love Sumo. And I’m a Fitness Trainer. So, the idea certainly peeks my interest. Here’s the article from the Gaurdian.

If I can find a copy in English, I’ll buy it. I’ve always felt that Sumo is a far underrated Sport in the west. And the modern training techniques are far underrated in Sumo.

I think the marraige of Western Weightlifting, modern sports science, and traditional Sumo technique would make for a tremendous Sumo Wrestler. It would be interesting to see their take on using traditional Sumo to help the average person gain a fitness edge.

“For their size, many wrestlers have a low fat ratio. They’re professional athletes, after all,” said Hideki Yazaki, of the Japan Sumo Association, and added that the exercises are “fun, so we hope parents can get kids to do them instead of playing computer games all day.”

Amen Brother. Amen.

The first was earlier in 2006.  The Second was recent … revenge.

Then …

Man, I love this stuff.

I’m convinced that going through an extreme period of fat loss causes cellular changes that make it easier to get lean with each subsequent diet. I think of this as the body’s “fat loss memory.” So, I make sure that every two years my body gets reminded of its ability to drop fat successfully by dieting down really low. That way, in the future, I’ll always be able to successfully manipulate my body composition without the typical complaint: “It’s just harder to get lean as you get older.” It doesn’t have to be that way!-Dr. John Berardi

Remember — it doesn’t matter what you eat or how you exercise between Christmas and New Years. It matters how you eat and exercise between New Year’s and Christmas !–Alwyn Cosgrove

Holiday Diet Tip:

On Christmas Day … eat ANYTHING you want.  Really.

Then, when the 26th comes, get back on the horse.  I am a big believer in one day a week of cheating … just let Christmas day be that day.

So long as you are good about your diet durring the week lead up, and the week after … you’re golden.

Dieting isn’t supposed to replace your life, but rather, help you structure it for the better.

Merry Christmas,

enjoy.

Here is a page from the Weightlifting Encyclopedia:

The truly remarkable abilities of Olympic style weightlifters are certainly due in part to genetic qualities of these athletes and to their outstanding physical condition. However, they’re also due in no small measure to the kind of training that weightlifters do: performing the snatch and the clean and jerk (C&J).

Almost any form of resistance training can improve an athlete’s strength, but the snatch and C&J are unique in their ability to develop strength and explosive power at the same time. And the benefits of practicing the Olympic lifts are hardly limited to developing strength and power. Here’s a partial list of other added benefits:

1. The mere practice of the Olympic lifts teaches an athlete how to explode (to activate a maximum number of muscle units rapidly and simultaneously). Part of the extraordinary abilities of the Olympic lifters arises out of their having learned how to effectively activate more of their muscle fibers more rapidly than others who are not so trained (in addition to having developed stronger muscles).

2. The practice of proper technique in the Olympic lifts teaches an athlete to apply force with his or her muscle groups in the proper sequences (i.e., from the center of the body to its extremities). This is a valuable technical lesson that can be of benefit to any athlete who needs to impart force to another person or object (a necessity in virtually every sport).

3. In mastering the Olympic lifts, the athlete learns how to accelerate objects under varying degrees of resistance. This is because the body experiences differing degrees of perceived resistance as it attempts to move a bar with maximum speed through a full range of motion. These kinds of changes in resistance are much more likely to resemble those encountered in athletic events than similar exercises performed on an isokinetic machine (which has a fixed level of resistance or speed of resistance throughout the range of motion).

4. The athlete learns to receive force from another moving body effectively and becomes conditioned to accept such forces.

5. The athlete learns to move effectively from an eccentric contraction to a concentric one (through the stretch-shortening cycle, which is the cycle that is activated and trained through exercises that are often referred to as plyometrics).

6. The actual movements performed while executing the Olympic lifts are among the most common and fundamental in sports. Therefore, training the specific muscle groups in motor patterns that resemble those used in an athlete’s events is often a byproduct of practicing the snatch and C&J.

7. Practicing the Olympic lifts trains an athlete’s explosive capabilities, and the lifts themselves measure the effectiveness of the athlete in generating explosive power to a greater degree than most other exercises they can practice.

8. Finally, the Olympic lifts are simply fun to do. I have yet to meet an athlete who has mastered them who does not enjoy doing the Olympic lifts. While making workouts enjoyable may not be the primary objective of a strength coach, it is not an unimportant consideration in workout planning. Athletes who enjoy what they are doing are likely to practice more consistently and to be more highly motivated than athletes who do not enjoy their workouts as much.

(Excerpted from The Weightlifting Encyclopedia by Arthur Drechsler. For more info see: http://www.wlinfo.com)