Tomorrow will be the 1 year mark of me throwing in the Highland Games. I LOVE the Northeast Florida Highland Games. They were my first Games when I threw the first time at 20 years old and they were my first Games back after my accident. Now I say it is my first year throwing in the Highland Games because when you have to learn how to throw all over again, I consider it a new start.
These Highland Games are huge. We throw at the Clay County Fairgrounds in Green Cove Springs, FL. The venue is big, the Masters and the A's get to throw indoors for the height events and the Caber, and there are always a ton of spectators. I love the crowd. There is nothing better than hearing the crowd after a big caber is turned or a weight for height is made. It just makes you feel good. Last time I threw I had a partial tear to my Achilles Tendon, so I didn't hit most of my goals, so here are my new goals for these games:
Stone of Strength: 40'
56# Weight for Distance: 27'
28# Weight for Distance: 60'
Hammer: 70'
Sheaf: 24' (pathetic, I know)
56# Weight for Height: 13'
Caber: Looking for one turn
I need to look at my form for the caber. I'm turning them and turning them easily, but I always end up between 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock. I think I am pulling from the shoulder, but I'll try to get my wife to shoot some video for me.
I had the opportunity to work with Andy Vince this past weekend. Andy Vince is a throws coach based out of Clermont, Florida and is a phenomenal teacher. Here is part of his resume:
Former British Director of Throws
Great Britain Under 23 National Team Head Coach
Scottish Team National Coach
Senior United Kingdom Shot Put Champion
Record Holder, Indoor Shot Put/Outdoor Shot and Discus throw at Murray State University USA
This guy made sense of the throws. He was able to explain it practically as well as biomechanically. In fact, at one point during the clinic he was talking about the biomechanics and physiology of some of the throws, one of the other throwers looked at me and said, "I bet this is really turning you on, huh."
We had about 6-7 hours of coaching which included drills for hand, body, and foot position as well as foot speed and throws techniques
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Some Thoughts on Nutrition Part II
Let's talk about me, for instance. My goal is to stay 285-305, sure that gives me quite a bit of wiggle room, but that is where I feel the best. I've walked around heavier than that and I feel like a slob. I've also walked around at 240 and I just don't feel as strong or powerful, not to mention that my lean mass is in the high 230s right now. So how do I eat? I try to eat as clean as possible. I found out while giving speeches at a local high school that my co-presenter (a figure/bikini IFBB pro competitor and marathon runner) and I both ate relatively the same. Both of our nutritional profiles were very similar. The big difference, portion size and types. We both eat tons of chicken, beans, green leafy vegetables, etc..., but I will eat everything on the entire chicken, while she sticks with the tenders or the breasts. Where she may eat 1/2 a cup of beans with her meal I'll eat the whole can. You can see where this is going, but we have totally different goals and the "technical profile" is the same.
Now, can I eat completely clean all the time? No. {INSERT HORRIFIC GASP HERE} I'll be the first to admit that I do not eat clean 100% of the time. When I lose my appetite and can't eat as often as I should, I have to make up for it with pretty calorically dense stuff. This isn't saying I sit down with gallons of ice cream, I will however, pick fattier cuts of meat(dark poultry, chuck beef, etc...) or add extra oils to my meals like olive, flax, and grapeseed. Remember that my goal is to maintain a certain weight that is 100+ lbs over that of your average male. When my training gets really intense and I feel my body "shutting down" to the stimulus, I have to eat more. In my personal opinion there is no such thing as over-training in non-elite athletes. There is only under-eating and under-resting.
If you are trying to lose weight is this a good protocol to follow? NO!!! If you want to lose weight you have to eat clean and be consistent. Consistency is the key for dropping weight. Not, "I did well the past three days, so I can take it easy today". IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY! If I said, "I got in 5500 cals for the past week, I think I'll only eat 2200 today", would I stay at my desired weight? There is not a snowball's chance in hell I would. Match your nutrition to the goals you want to accomplish.
To be frank: You eat like shit...You're gonna look like shit! Garbage in = garbage out.
"Ma!!! Where's muh proteeen?!
My opinion: the more you get the better. It helps with satiety(feeling of being full) and ensures you have all the building blocks you need to make all the necessary repairs. Remember that fat and protein are the building blocks for everything in the body. The biggest key is knowing when you need to get certain types.
After Training:
Whey Protein Isolate by far is the best for post-workout. It is the fastest absorbing, most biologically available form of protein. This is what you want to pump your body full of post-workout. Get the protein in the system as fast as possible so that you can stay anabolic. Pair this with a high Glycemic Load carbohydrate (Vitargo, Turbinado sugar, Honey), no fat and you have the perfect post workout shake. Fruit is so-so to use but remember that there is also fructose in fruit, so the glycogen produced from fructose will be most likely stored in the liver, not the muscles. Fat will slow down the digestion and absorption, so leave it out here.
For Meals:
Turkey and eggs are king here. Both are extremely biologically available and absorb well. Eggs are also full of great fats and other nutrients you need like cholesterol. OOHHH NOOO NOT CHOLESTEROL. Different post for a different time, but cholesterol is the main building block for your sex hormones, like testosterone. Turkey breast has less than half of the fat of the leanest cut of beef. Now this means Thanksgiving type turkey breast, not the chopped, boiled, formed crap you get in the deli and on sandwiches.
Don't be afraid to eat red meat either. Red meat had tons of things that are phenomenal for you like: creatine, B-vitamins, iron, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, selenium, zinc, and the list goes on and on. Choose the leaner cuts like: meat from the Round, Loin, Sirloin, and Flank. Stay away from the Chuck, Rib, Shoulder and Brisket as they are very fatty. Expand you horizons and try other sources of red meat like Buffalo and Lamb. Mmmmmmm, Laaaaaammmmmb.
Chicken is a staple for most people trying to get lean. Stick with the breast and the tender when trying to lean out, but eat everything if you are trying to maintain or gain. Consider yourself a "hardgainer"??? Eat a whole chicken every day and you'll not longer have "hardgainer" issues. Its cheap, easy to cook and you can make it taste like anything you want.
Slow absorbing protein:
Micellar Casein rules the roost. Remember when Met-Rx protein first came out and it was phenomenal? Everyone saw great results and it was the best thing on the market. Then they reformulated it and left out the Micellar Casein because it was too expensive to keep in the product. Met-Rx protein got crappier and most of it was due to the exclusion of Micellar Casein. Get it in shake form or from cottage cheese for slow absorption. Casein form a gel in the stomach and has been shown to release amino acids into the blood stream for up to 6-7 hours after ingestion. Pair it with some soluble fiber and some fish or flax oil for an even more drawn out release. Those "old-people fiber powders" actually work well for this. Just be sure to mix it and SLAM it down. If you let it sit in the glass too long it is gonna get gross, quick.
That is all for today. If you want to hear about a specific topic write a comment and I'll do something up for you.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Some Thoughts on Nutrition
First do something simple; think about foods that upset your stomach in any way, shape, or form. Does it make you nauseous after you eat it? Do you get gassy? Does it make you feel bloated? Chances are that you have a insensitivity to a food. Now, insensitivities are not full-blown allergies, but they can be just as detrimental to your nutrition. Lets take wheat(and other cereal grains) into consideration.
People that are insensitive to wheat have absorption issues. When they eat wheat and it is introduced into the small intestine the villi(small finger-like projections) in the small intestine will lay down. Now the purpose of these villi is to increase the amount of surface area in the small intestine to increase chances of absorption of nutrients. They lay down and you are not absorbing the nutrients that you need.
I hate that "Paleo" has become a fad, but there is some merit to it. If you could not go out and pick it or kill it yourself, don't eat it. What does this do? It just eliminates processed foods. The exception that I make to this is supplementation. You have to think like this. We have been around for 1.2-2 million years, depending on who you ask. We have only had agriculture for the past 10,000 years and most of that was centered around Northern Europe. That is a flash in the pan when you think about the grand scheme of things. You can't go out and take wheat off of the stalk, throw it in your mouth and digest it. You have to process the ever-loving bejeezus out of it to be able to digest it. With that processing comes extra crap that does not need to be put in your body.
Chances are, unless you are of 100% northern European descent you will have an intolerance or an insensitivity to agricultural products like wheat or milk. It is more uncommon to be able to digest milk properly than it is to be lactose intolerant. Why is this? Milk has not been in the human diet long enough to elicit an adaptation. A great example is Native Americans. Dairy has never been in their diet so intolerance is 100% in adults.
Next point...Eat things in their natural state. Wheat grows in nature, but we have turn it into something else before we can use it. Same thing with corn. Not to be crude, but you can always tell when the last time you ate corn was. If it looks the same way coming out, as it did going in, you are getting no benefit from it. Chicken grows naturally, but a chicken nugget isn't natural. There are 38 different ingredients in a single chicken nugget. Pretty gross right? Now look at a box of Cheerios, there are over 20 ingredients in a single Cheerio. They beat the crap out of the grains they are using and process them so much they have to add back vitamins and minerals that were already in the original grain. Plus, the more you pulverize something, then more the surface area is increased. Why is this important? Surface area affects the Glycemic Load of a food. The higher the Glycemic Load, the more it affects your blood sugar levels, which in turn affects insulin response.
I'll go into more depth a little later, but if you got nothing else out of this, remember the bold points. When you shop, ask yourself these two things when you pick up an item. Next time we'll talk about portion sizes and protein selection. Trust me...I worked my way through college as a Meat Cutter/Butcher.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Goals
What are your goals?
Pretty simple question right? If it took you longer than half a second to start rattling off answers you are doing a pretty crappy job of setting goals. I know that it tends to be a loaded question, but if you have to think about your goals to be able to verbalize them you have already started off on the wrong foot.
The first question you need to ask yourself is, "What do I want?". This does not have to exclusively apply to training, you can apply it to any part of your life. Ex. "Matt what do you want?", to which I would reply, "A 600 lb raw Deadlift by the end of 2011".
The next important question to ask yourself is, "Why do I want it?". This is a crucial part of the goal setting process. If you want to do something because your old lady thinks you should, it is a bad choice. Make sure that the thing that you want is something YOU want, not what someone else wants for you. You have to be intrinsically motivated, which means the source of motivation has to come from within you.
Now, I know that acronyms end up being cheesy most of the time, but this one works and has been effective for a long time. Make your goals S.M.A.R.T.
S-Specific. Your goals need to be specific. Not, "I want to lose weight", or "I want a heavier Deadlift". Go take a leak, congratulations, you just lost weight. Put a napkin over your plates and lift it, good job chief, you just lifted a heavier amount of weight. Are those significant improvements? Hell no. "I want to lose 10 lbs". Now we are getting somewhere, you just listed what you want to do in a specific manner.
M-Measurable. You need to be able to measure to track your results. "I don't keep track of my lifting." You sir, are a friggin' idiot. How do you know you are making progress? Keep a log of some sort, even if you jot it down in a notebook that is enough to help keep you accountable. Now when you are tracking your weight, don’t weigh in every day, especially if you are a female. Hormones, water, salt, etc... All these things affect your weight from day to day. Hell, you give me two hours, a wet sauna, a hoodie and sweat pants and I can shed 5 lbs. Did I really lose 5 lbs? No, I just manipulated fluid levels.
A-Attainable- Can you get to the goal? What if my goal was to Deadlift 800lbs by the end of 2011? Or, I want to have a PhD by the end of this month. It is just not attainable. If we changed that up to something more attainable the goal has the opportunity to be met. Which feeds right into the next point...
R-Realistic. Is your goal realistic? This ties right in with attainable. This one should be common sense, but you would be surprised at some of the unrealistic goals I've seen before. Say it is February, and I'm training some frat boy (yes, they are boys) and he wants to gain 10lbs of lean mass and lose 5% body fat by Spring Break in 30-some-odd days. It is just not realistic.
T-Time Restricted. Have a cap on when you want to achieve your goal. If your goal is to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? 5 weeks? 12 weeks? 3 years? Give yourself a time-frame and make it challenging. Don;t make your goals too soft on the time restriction. Chances are you'll slack off and not reach them in the end anyway.
Make short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. Make sure your short-term goals are getting you to your mid-term goals and your mid-term goals are getting you to your long-term goals. Set a "big picture" goal and make sure that you have a step by step process to get yourself to place you want to be. If you have to sit down and re-assess the goals you have set somewhere down the line, which is no problem. In fact, that is a good thing, it means you have the goal setting process down.
Now go out, make some goals, and work your way towards them.
Pretty simple question right? If it took you longer than half a second to start rattling off answers you are doing a pretty crappy job of setting goals. I know that it tends to be a loaded question, but if you have to think about your goals to be able to verbalize them you have already started off on the wrong foot.
The first question you need to ask yourself is, "What do I want?". This does not have to exclusively apply to training, you can apply it to any part of your life. Ex. "Matt what do you want?", to which I would reply, "A 600 lb raw Deadlift by the end of 2011".
The next important question to ask yourself is, "Why do I want it?". This is a crucial part of the goal setting process. If you want to do something because your old lady thinks you should, it is a bad choice. Make sure that the thing that you want is something YOU want, not what someone else wants for you. You have to be intrinsically motivated, which means the source of motivation has to come from within you.
Now, I know that acronyms end up being cheesy most of the time, but this one works and has been effective for a long time. Make your goals S.M.A.R.T.
S-Specific. Your goals need to be specific. Not, "I want to lose weight", or "I want a heavier Deadlift". Go take a leak, congratulations, you just lost weight. Put a napkin over your plates and lift it, good job chief, you just lifted a heavier amount of weight. Are those significant improvements? Hell no. "I want to lose 10 lbs". Now we are getting somewhere, you just listed what you want to do in a specific manner.
M-Measurable. You need to be able to measure to track your results. "I don't keep track of my lifting." You sir, are a friggin' idiot. How do you know you are making progress? Keep a log of some sort, even if you jot it down in a notebook that is enough to help keep you accountable. Now when you are tracking your weight, don’t weigh in every day, especially if you are a female. Hormones, water, salt, etc... All these things affect your weight from day to day. Hell, you give me two hours, a wet sauna, a hoodie and sweat pants and I can shed 5 lbs. Did I really lose 5 lbs? No, I just manipulated fluid levels.
A-Attainable- Can you get to the goal? What if my goal was to Deadlift 800lbs by the end of 2011? Or, I want to have a PhD by the end of this month. It is just not attainable. If we changed that up to something more attainable the goal has the opportunity to be met. Which feeds right into the next point...
R-Realistic. Is your goal realistic? This ties right in with attainable. This one should be common sense, but you would be surprised at some of the unrealistic goals I've seen before. Say it is February, and I'm training some frat boy (yes, they are boys) and he wants to gain 10lbs of lean mass and lose 5% body fat by Spring Break in 30-some-odd days. It is just not realistic.
T-Time Restricted. Have a cap on when you want to achieve your goal. If your goal is to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? 5 weeks? 12 weeks? 3 years? Give yourself a time-frame and make it challenging. Don;t make your goals too soft on the time restriction. Chances are you'll slack off and not reach them in the end anyway.
Make short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals. Make sure your short-term goals are getting you to your mid-term goals and your mid-term goals are getting you to your long-term goals. Set a "big picture" goal and make sure that you have a step by step process to get yourself to place you want to be. If you have to sit down and re-assess the goals you have set somewhere down the line, which is no problem. In fact, that is a good thing, it means you have the goal setting process down.
Now go out, make some goals, and work your way towards them.
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