“Constantly expose your
athlete to what they can’t do, then fix it.”–Dan John

Alwyn  Cosgrove posted a list compiled by Jimmy Smith of the 25 best reasons to drink Green tea.

Here’s my favorite:

21. Green Tea and Herpes
Green tea increases the effectiveness of topical interferon treatment of herpes. First green tea compress is applied, and then let the skin dry before the interferon treatment.

 ”Tofi”:

An acronymn for “thin outside, fat inside”; a person who doesn’t eat enough to be overweight but has excessive levels of internal fat.   –Jimmy Bell, Ph.D., Imperial College, London

Intramuscular body fat is highly correlated with diseases such as type-II diabetes and insulin resistance.  Luckily, regular weight training is one of the best ways to get rid of it.

Another term, that I like to use instead of Tofi, is “Skinny Fat.”

“Fat loss is not under the control of the magic fat loss fairies. It’s based on simple changes in behavior.”–Alwyn Cosgrove

Here is a wonderful article on Florida Highschool Weightlifting.  I have to tell you, I was suprised at first.  But I’ve discovered that women LOVE the Olympic lifts (the Snatch, and Clean and Jerk).

These lifts are Graceful and build a womans body in the way that women want their bodies to look:  Lean, muscular, with strong athletic legs, and defined arms … all without getting too “big”.

 “A lot of girls think if you do it you’re going to get all beefy,” said Alexa DeCristofaro, a senior at New Smyrna Beach High School who won first place in the 199-pound weight class. “Well, you really don’t. If you do it, you get toned, which is different from getting totally muscular.”

US scientists discovered a brain structure involved with memory and emotion had shrunk in children with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A withered hippocampus may make a child less able to deal with stress and raise anxiety, Pediatrics journal reports.

More often than not, if a kid is stressed out, it’s the parents fault.  Children pick up on their parents stress levels.  And everything a parent does can have a lasting, permenant effect on the child.

Exercise is one of the greatest anti-stress tools we have at our disposal.   If you have kids, then you have no excuse.  Your health is your childs health.  They’ll follow your lead.

“Before you begin your workouts sit down for a few minutes and think about your body. Let your mind get in touch with your muscles. During the day you probably think about everything but training your body. You shouldn’t just hurry from a business deal and start doing a bench press…You should allow it (your mind) a few minutes to adjust to the idea of training…feel the control you have, get in touch mentally with all those body parts.”–Arnold Schwarzenegger.

We all know (even if we don’t do it) that exercising the body is important, vital. But, too often we neglect to take the time to work that little lump in our heads. And that is a shame. The truth is that our minds are a powerful tool that can we can harness to achieve great success, not just in our careers or in school, but in our physical development.

Whether your goal is to lose 100 lbs of fat, or to become a Nationally ranked Olympic Weightlifter, or if you want to be a Bulgarian Sumo Champion (yes, one exists!), then you MUST take mental training seriously.

The world is full of temptation. (And I don’t just mean the wonderful temptation of ice-cream). I mean the temptation to be lazy, to say, “I’ll start my diet tomorrow … next week … next month,” or, “I KNOW it’s time for me to hire a personal trainer, but …” (can you guess that I’ve heard that one?)

The Japanese, and Zen monks of old, knew that to take your life by the horns, you must follow the 4 techniques of Mindfulness:

1. Decide on what course of action you are going to take, “What am I going to do?”.
2. Pause to truly consider WHY you are doing it. “Why am I doing this?”
3. Do it with focus and attention, staying in the moment. ” … “
4. Once you’ve accomplished it, pause again, and consider what you’ve learned from the experience, “What have I learned?”

(I realize that “…” from 3 is a bit silly, but what would you have written?)
The point is that you do have some modicum of control, if you are willing to use it. Start putting these 4 Mindfulness Techniques into practice, and your life will thank you.

Sucking in the gut has become ubiquitous with looking more fit.  But it’s not just the image conscious who engage in such activies.  Coaches, Personal Trainers (including myself), and Physical Therapists have been telling people for years that sucking in your gut durring exercise will activate the transverse abdominals, and thereby decrease spinal loading.

Apparently, we may have been wrong. (Reuters)

“If you hollow in, you bring the muscles closer to the spine, and you reduce the stability of the spine,” said Stuart McGill, a professor of spine biomechanics in the department of kinesiology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Try rising from a chair with a hollowed out stomach; not only are you “weak,” he said, but “it’s very difficult.”

Dr. McGill, who has treated patients with back disorders for 25 years, has measured spinal loading forces and their effects on spinal stability with computer models and in test subjects wired to computers.

His findings dispute not only the validity of drawing in, but also the very notion that the transverse abdominus plays a pivotal role in stability. All abdominal and back muscles are important, not just this one, Dr. McGill said.

And

Dr. McGill said there is a better way than drawing in to protect the spine and build the core. For those about to lift something heavy or, say, leap for a rebound, he recommends bracing all the abdominal muscles — something he said the body does more naturally during exertion.

“Bracing is stiffening the abdominal wall,” he said, explaining the difference. It’s a neutral position. “It’s not sucking in and it’s not pushing your belly out,” he said.

Alright.  Lets all BRACE those abs!

Here’s Mike Roussell on why you should be very carefull when you buy protein bars. Not all are created equal. In fact some are just worthless (eg. Power bars, etc) and are no better than a candy bar.

Money Quote:

The first ingredient was a protein blend but the next three ingredients were corn syrup, brown rice syrup, and high fructose corn syrup. The bar had 51 grams of carbs, 25 of which came from sugar. Oh yeah it also contained partially hydrogenated soybean oil. Total crap.

The moral of the story is that reading labels is important. Just because a protein bar is called a “protein bar” doesn’t make it good for you. Odds are, it isn’t.

A study that appeared in the July issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, said:

Overweight or obese adolescents may lower their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by doing strength training exercises at least twice a week, a recent study showed. The study was conducted by researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). 

And

The results showed that 91 percent of the study participants considerably improved their insulin sensitivity. Although there was no change in the boys’ total body fat mass, their percentages of body fat significantly decreased and lean muscle mass increased.

“This shows that lifting weights is a good form of exercise that overweight teens can excel at and benefit from. Whether they lose weight or not is not important—they still benefit by increasing muscle mass,” Dr. Michael Goran, the study’s leader and USC professor of preventive medicine, said in a press release.