Extreme body weight exercises: the dragon flag

So it's winter time here in Canberra. It's pretty damn cold, so lots of layers makes it a great time to bulk! It traditionally means it's time to go and lift lots of heavy weights at the expense of more finessed exercises, like those body weight ones. But I think crossfit may have a thing or two to teach us on this angle. While I have my gripes against crossfit (don't even get me started on my rant on why box jumps are a bad idea)  it's focus on whole body movements has some merits. Here is one of my favourite body weight exercises!

About a year ago I discovered the dragon flag. This exercise is crazy. It was Bruce Lee's kind of signature ab exercise, so you know it's gunna be hard... And winter is the perfect time to start working on it! It took me a good six months to be able to do the properly and is the best core exercise I've come across and as the I true above shows, it's not simple! But if you want your abs to 'pop' this is one for the books. 

So here is my suggestion of how to work up to it. It assumes though that you can already do a straight leg lift when lying on the ground. Progress down the list when you can comfortably do 3 sets of 5. With all of these you keep your shoulder blades on the bench. 

1) lay on a bench and do a straight leg raise, holding onto the bench above your head (like in the picture above). Just before your legs get to 90 degrees, lift you're butt off the bench, using your upper abs, rather than momentum if you can. Then place your butt back on the bench, before you lower your legs. To make this harder, lift your butt off the bench earlier in the movement. 

2) use momentum to get your butt and lower back off the bench, then with bent legs bring your body back down, keeping the rest of your body as straight as possible. Your lower back and butt should hit the bench at the same time. Basically this is a negative rep with bent legs. 

3) do number 2, but with straight legs. This one will hurt your abs! Don't push it and you may like to get a friend to help you maintain form by helping you as you lower yourself down. 

4) with bent legs, try to pull your lower body up of the bench then lower it. Make sure your butt gets back to the bench every time when you're starting. Don't be a hero, you will need the rest.

5) number 4 with straight legs! Again you might like to get a friend to help.

6) a full dragon flag! Pull your whole straight body off the bench, then lower it back down keeping your core engaged and your legs straight, but don't let your butt touch the bench between reps.

The dragon flag changed my core workout. It took a lot of months to get there, but nothing else gave me similar results. Start now, build up that core strength and with the right diet, that core will be looking great for summer. 

What other body weight exercises do you use during winter? Or in summer? Share your secrets!  

Weird kitchen conversations

So someone at work the other day overheard me talking about rowing in the lunch room, then saw my lunch and remarked 'hey you look fit. What advice would you say I should give to my kids as I'm not good with getting fit?' 

I'm sorry, what?! We'll I was pretty blown away but this and simultaneously weirded out. First of all, what authority am I on raising children?! I mumbled something about teaching them how to cook, as I thought my lunch was boring. But it got me thinking. What would I want to pass on and given what I know now, what would I want to know. They're things I'm still trying to work out as an adult. It the. Got me thinking, what do I want my more talented friends to teach me, but I never ask. (Ps if you're a family member, don't take this as a criticism, as it's most certainly not!)

So here it is. The things I'm still researching and trying to figure out:

Teach them how to cook. Like actually cook. Right from the basics. What goes with what, get them involved and make them take charge. I still remember the day I googled how to cook a steak.

Teach them what to cook. And not just that, teach them why. Talk to them about carbs, fat and protein and what they do. Teach them to match this to what they do. Don't just tell them this food is healthy and this food isn't, tell them why. Sugar isn't in and of itself bad for us. But in large quantities it can have undesired effects. Fats and carbs aren't evil. 

Teach them how to train. It doesn't have to be serious, but talk to them about what they'd like to do or what they want to do better. Sit down with them and work out what they can do to improve. As they get older, research how to do this with them. I was a painfully shy kid and always wanted to play rugby union and put on muscle, but I didn't have the confidence to ask to do this. Even more recently, when my PT asks what my goals were, I sometimes don't give the full picture. Create an environment where they are happy to talk about how to improve and can be helped to become what they want to be. 

But this isn't just for parents. Talk to your friends about it. If you're a PT, talk to your clients about it. Know someone who isn't a great cook and complains? Show them how. Found a cool new exercise or way to train, share it with your friends who have a similar interest. 

What advice do you have to pass on to kids? Or friends?

My meal plan

So I am a creature of habit. And I like simple. I’ve had a couple of people ask after my meal plans, so here it is! This is my bulking plan, refined by myself after talking to several nutritionists, trainers and a sneaky session with some people at the Australian Institute of Sport a while back. It assumes I go to the gym after work. On days I row early morning, I switch dinner and lunch, move the protein powder to breakfast and eat more cereal than gym days. If I want to cut, rather than bulk, I mainly pull back on the carbs and then scale back everything slightly.

 

Nutrition is a lot of refining things to make them work for yourself, though. I have added, subtracted and tweaked from this over time to see what works. It is my plan, and therefore works for me with my training load, height, weight, activity levels. Etc. Please don’t think that if you pick it up and follow it religiously it will work for you! We are all different, but it might help you structure your own plan.

 

Now I also don't claim to be the expert on this. This is just the result of a regular guy's attempt to understand the food he eats a little better.

Breakfast:

1-2 Cups Cereal (100-150g), Banana or other piece of fruit, Calcium Enriched Soy Milk (workout days)

OR

2-3 poached eggs, 2x rye toast with margarine, spinach/tomato (rest day)

 

 

Snack:

20 unsalted nuts

175 g soy yoghurt

 

 

Lunch:

200g lean meat (raw weight)

Mixed Salad

½ cup lentils/beans (eg red kidney beans/chick peas)

 

 

Snack:

20 unsalted nuts

250g low fat Cottage cheese or 150g of Lean Meat or 2x95g tins of low fat tuna

100g Berries

 

 

Post Weights:a

1 scoop protein powder (40g p, 60g c)

 

 

Dinner:

300g lean meat (raw weight) (70g p)

100g pasta or rice or noodles (raw weight) (74g c)

200g mixed vegetables

Sauces

 

 

Totals: ~3170 calories, 245 protein, 400g carbs

Eating...some basics

So on Friday I gave you some of my favourite snacks. And I want to expand on that and write a little on the way I eat. You will be able to find thousands and thousands of meal plans out there in the internet land, and that's not really what I want to get to today. What I want to cover is what your meal plan should look like, based around a few principles that I have found to work.

The first is you need to eat regularly. I generally eat 5-6 meals a day. This way you are constantly 'topping yourself up.' This helps keep you feeling full, means you are less likely to end up with that starving feeling, which can lead you to then go and over eat. If you're anything like me this tends to be with whatever is most convenient and therefore not very healthy. 

The next is to work towards a solid balance between you fats, carbs and protein. This is what will keep you feeling full and ensure you get the right balance of nutrients and such. I've written about the myfitnesspal app before and if you don't have it, I encourage you to get it! This will work out, based on your details and goals, how much of what you need to eat.  You then put in what you eat through the day and it tracks how much of each of the macros you have left! From this, you can then work out what you need to eat more and less of in your day. If you're like me it's a message to eat more carbs, but let the app guide you. 

What the app will tell you is, you want to have a fair amount of protein. I think it tends to underestimate this amount for me, so always beef it up a little. But you should centre you meals around protein, if you're active. Firstly, this way you're giving your body constant hits of protein to help with muscle growth and repair. so tends to take more energy for your body to process than fats and carbs, so it provides good nutritional value without the extraneous calories high fat foods give you. Research also shows having several protein rich meals through the day give you the same muscle building effects as taking protein powders after a workout!

I guess the last thing I want to say is more psychological than anything else. You should not think of any of this as dieting. The saying that has stuck with me is that you should eat and train, not diet and exercise. Diets are temporary things to achieve a short term goal. We should aim to build good habits that we can maintain, rather than just look for a quick fix, just like what we do physically should be towards a larger goal to help maintain motivation, rather than just something we do.

What're your tips? How do you structure you eating to ensure you achieve your goals?

Snacking. It's not a dirty word

So after some prodding and poking from some friends, I am back! I have a few things planned, but as always, let me know what you want to hear. I have some posts coming up on nutrition and eating, but wanted to throw something out there to begin!

 

Snacking. It’s not a dirty word. As someone who is always hungry and never full, it’s something I encourage, as long as you do it with the right kind of foods.  I will talk about the importance or regular eating soon, but wanted to throw out there my favourite go to snacks:

 

Tuna: This is every day for me. It comes in a convenient can (which you can even fashion the lid into a spoon, if you are careful!) so it can bounce around in the bottom of your bag without fear of mess. Put it on vitawheats, corn thins, whatever you like! Flavoured, unflavoured, it makes the core of so many things I eat. It’s also filling!

 

Almonds: These are filling, high in protein, full of good fats and again convenient to carry around in a snap lock bag as they don’t bruise. I always have a container of these at my desk at work to grab a handful when I’ve forgotten other things to eat. Other nuts, like walnuts work too, but almonds have more nutrition value than others.

 

Cottage cheese and berries: I have written about cottage cheese before. It has phenomenal amounts of protein and very little fat. Berries are packed with nutritious value. Combined they make a tasty snack. Don’t be afraid to go frozen berries either. They are cheaper, but just as good for you. For those of you like me who aren’t so good with the dairy, swap the cottage cheese for soy yoghurt.

 

Milk: Yup good old milk. Protein, calcium and it can be mixed with anything. Throw in some banana or berries, a little honey or a little of anything healthy. Low fat or soy varieties work as well. Just look at how it fits your macros to decide what one you drink. If you are a soy drinker, try and get a calcium enriched variety. 

 

What snacks do you keep on hand?

 

Nooo I missed my post workout window!! Is that a bad thing?

So I want to talk about something incredibly controversial, and that is when to take your supplements. In particular, protein. Now this is controversial, as everyone has their own routine, passed down from that massive guy at the supplement store or their best mate or their trainer. Closely guarded secrets, like how to build an arch was back in the day. Bro-science rules when it comes to what people will tell you about this in the gym. But I read an interesting article on this the other day and wanted to share it with you.

For years, there has been a prevailing idea of the ‘anabolic window’. In this period, your bodies main concern is repair and reconstruction of muscle so that it comes back bigger. If you didn’t chug down some fast acting protein and carbs in this 30 minute ‘window’ you missed your opportunity, went into a catabolic state where food consumed was put away for other purposes and your gym effort was wasted. Researched seemed to back this up, those who took protein in the window got bigger. 

The study I read was what’s know as a meta-analysis. That is, they took the results of a large number of studies and put them all together to see what picture it painted. These studies looked at the effect of nutrition timing on strength and hypertrophy (the building in size of something, in this case muscles). At first pass, it noted that taking a good quality, fast acting protein within 30 minutes of completing exercise had about the same effect as having it within 4 hours of finishing exercise in terms of increase in strength and only a slightly increased, but still significant, effect on hypertrophy. That is it didn't make you stronger, but made you a little bit bigger. What they did from there is drilled into it all a little bit deeper to look at why this was the case.

What they found was that it wasn’t the act of taking quick acting protein in that ‘window’ that was the key factor. They found that the same effect could be received if you had a good quality, high protein meal just before heading to the gym. In continuing to dig they worked out that a quality high protein meal just after the gym seemed to work too. As they kept digging they started to build a picture. The real reason the protein supplement seemed to increase hypertrophy was that people who took it tended to space their meals and intake of protein consistently throughout the day. These people had several meals, well spaced throughout the day, giving your body constant hits of protein and this was the key to the results. The protein shake straight after the gym was just a part of the picture. It just was another of their meals, just taken at a convenient 3-4 hour gap after their previous one. But of you had a good quality high protein meal just before the gym, you could get the same effect, if it was part of 5-6 well spaced meals throughout the day.

So the big conclusion was, if hypertrophy is your goal and you want to gain size, the key is (as I mentioned in previous posts) first of all eating enough to you are in a caloric surplus. But you also need to have several meals throughout the day (5-6) and your protein supplement is just a piece of the puzzle. Your protein powder wont, in and of itself, make you big if the rest of your nutrition isn't set. But if you get the rest of your nutrition in place, it can be a easy to make part of the bigger solution. 

So if you want to bulk up, go and get an app like myfitnesspal (see my previous post on the it). Make sure you hit your protein, carb and fats requirements for the day. Eat 5-6 small meals per day and factor in your protein shake so it is part of your bigger nutritional picture. While the protein shake may help it's not the key. 

Squatting with your shoes off

So I am one of those people who loves legs day. I genuinely do. And like all legs day lovers I am a fan of the squats.  This may be because I am fairly new to them. I avoided them for the longest time due to a supposed back injury (which turned out to actually be a shoulder issue, but that’s a whole other blog post) but now I cant get enough of them.

Squats are an awesome exercise. They engage a lot of large muscles, so are great for those wanting to lose weight. For those wanting to gain it, they are essential, because if you skip legs day, you end up looking all out of proportion.

One thing I quickly learnt was that technique with these is really, really important. You need to keep tall, push through your heels and go deep. I don’t want to go through all the pointers of technique, but if you are new to squats check out this video. Ignore his lack of shirt, as he shows some great technique.

What I do want to talk about is something controversial, that is squatting with no shoes on. People generally sit on one side of the fence or another. I am firmly on the no shoes fence for both squats and deadlifts.

One of the muscle groups you want to work in a squat is the glutes. To do this effectively you want to push up through your heels through the whole motion. This will make sure your glutes stay engaged through the lift. The alternative is you end up on your toes, which is not as stable and doesn’t engage the muscle groups you want as effectively as they could be.

But why do it without shoes, you may ask?! Well most running or gym shoes tend to have an uneven base, with more padding under your heels than your toes. This tilts you slightly forward. They do this to help cushion your heels when you are running, but it doesn’t really help you squat. In fact, it can cause the unsuspecting person to end up pushing more through the front of their foot than the heel when they are coming back up. Squatting without shoes on stops this tendency to end up on your toes. I find having my feet flat on the floor makes it easier for me to make sure I push through my heels and keep my glutes engages through the whole motion. It also stops me from rocking forward and becoming unstable.

Before you try this, just double check your gym is ok with you slipping off your shoes and squatting in your socks, as some don’t like people not wearing shoes. Also, if you wear some kind of orthotic insert, it might be good to check with your podiatrist they’re cool with it (I have no idea on that one, sorry!). If they don’t mind, I challenge you to have a go. Let me know if you are a fan or not.