Why (most) Personal Trainers Suck

WARNING: The following post is hostile. (I have been out with an injury for 6 weeks....no jiu-jitsu for me)

10 Nutrition Rules

Here are 10 tips from "nutrition know it all", Dr. John Berardi. Check out his site: www.precisionnutrition.com

So here are the 10 rules:

1. Eat every 2-3 hours.
Are you doing this – no matter what? Now, you don’t need to eat a full meal every 2-3 hours but you do need to eat 6-8 meals and snacks that conform to the other rules below.

2. Eat complete, lean protein each time you eat.
Are you eating something that was an animal or comes from an animal – every time you feed yourself? If not, make the change. Note: If you’re a vegetarian, this rule still applies – you need complete protein and need to find non-animal sources.

3. Eat vegetables every time you eat.
That’s right, in addition to a complete, lean protein source, you need to eat some vegetables every time you eat (every 2-3 hours, right?). You can toss in a piece of fruit here and there as well. But don’t skip the veggies.

4. Eat carbs only when you deserve to.
Well, not ALL carbs – eat fruits and veggies whenever you want. And if want to eat a carbohydrate that’s not a fruit or a vegetable (this includes things like simple sugars, rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, etc), you can – but you’ll need to save it until after you’ve exercised. Yes, these often heavily processed grains are dietary staples in North America, but heart disease, diabetes and cancer are medical staples – and there’s a relationship between the two! To stop heading down the heart disease highway, reward yourself for a good workout with a good carbohydrate meal right after (your body best tolerates these carbohydrates after exercise). For the rest of the day, eat your lean protein and a delicious selection of fruits and veggies.

5. Learn to love healthy fats.
There are 3 types of fat – saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. Forget about that old “eating fat makes you fat” maxim. Eating all three kinds of fat in a healthy balance (about equal parts of each) can dramatically improve your health, and even help you lose fat. Your saturated fat should come from your animal products and you can even toss in some butter or coconut oil for cooking. Your monounsaturated fat should come from mixed nuts, olives, and olive oil. And your polyunsaturated fat should from flaxseed oil, fish oil, and mixed nuts.

6. Ditch the calorie containing drinks (including fruit juice).
In fact, all of your drinks should come from non-calorie containing beverages. Fruit juice, alcoholic drinks, and sodas – these are all to be removed from your daily fare. Your best choices are water and green tea.

7. Focus on whole foods.
Most of your dietary intake should come from whole foods. There are a few times where supplement drinks and shakes are useful. But most of the time, you’ll do best with whole, largely unprocessed foods.

8. Have 10% foods.
I know you cringed at a few of the rules above. But here’s the thing: 100% nutritional discipline is never required for optimal progress. The difference, in results, between 90% adherence to your nutrition program and 100% adherence is negligible. So you can allow yourself “10% foods” – foods that break rules, but which you’ll allow yourself to eat (or drink, if it’s a beverage) 10% of the time. Just make sure you do the math and determine what 10% of the time really means. For example, if you’re eating 6 meals per day for 7 days of the week – that’s 42 meals. 10% of 42 is about 4. Therefore you’re allowed to “break the rules” on about 4 meals each week.

9. Develop food preparation strategies.
The hardest part about eating well is making sure you can follow the 8 rules above consistently. And this is where preparation comes in. You might know what to eat, but if isn’t available, you’ll blow it when it’s time for a meal.

10. Balance daily food choices with healthy variety.
Let’s face it, when you’re busy during the week, you’re not going to be spending a ton of time whipping up gourmet meals. During these times you’re going to need a set of tasty, easy to make foods that you can eat day in and day out. However, once every day or a few times a week, you need to eat something different, something unique and tasty to stave off boredom and stagnation.

DN

Myth Buster: Endless Amounts of Crunches Will Get You a Six Pack

Sorry! There is no such thing as spot reduction!

Put the fork down!

DN

Kicking Morning Rituals

It’s time to kick that morning ritual yoga or stretching routine! Spinal flexion (bending) exercises first thing in the morning puts a lot of stress on the discs in your back.

Here’s why:

You’re taller when you wake up in the morning than when you go to bed at night.
The discs in your back are hydrophilic. In other words, they suck up water while you sleep, thus making you taller.

These discs are like a balloon full of water first thing in the morning. And, if you do a lot of bending (toe touches, situps, etc..), there's a lot of stress on those discs. In fact, the stresses are three times higher than when you perform the same exercise two or three hours later.


"Researchers have documented the increased annulus stresses after a bout of bed rest," says Professor Stuart McGill, an expert in spine function and injury prevention and rehabilitation at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
"Yet many athletes and laypeople alike get up in the morning and perform spine stretches, sit-ups, and so on. This is the most dangerous time of day to undertake such activities."

Some evidence for this comes from research published in the journal Spine [1]. The study shows that controlling lumbar flexion in the morning is an effective way to reduce back pain.

A group of 85 subjects with persistent or recurring low back pain was assigned to one of two groups.

One group was told to restrict the amount of bending they did in the early morning. The control group received a "fake" treatment consisting of six exercises shown to be ineffective in reducing low back pain.

After six months, back pain was reduced in the group told to restrict bending activities in the early morning.

A follow-up study shows that participants who continued to restrict bending activities in the early morning enjoyed a further reduction in back pain.

The bottom line is that doing your ab, yoga, pilates and spinal stretching workouts is one of the worst things you can do for your back first thing in the morning. You should also wait a couple hours to do your heavy squats and deadlifts.

DN

Myth Buster: Don’t Squat Past Parallel

You here this one being preached by the personal trainer that got certified over the weekend. If he sees you squatting to deep, he starts crying and pulling his hair out. Question: Do babies squat past parallel? Don’t they play with their toys in a full ass-to-grass deep squat?

"I guess we better not let her play anymore...
Well, maybe we should just have her play video games and watch TV?"

Most of the American-general population cannot deep squat. Most of the third world countries can. We have countless amounts of ankle, knee, hip and low back problems. Yet tribe’s men don’t. In fact, a deep squat is the position that many tribal people sit in for school and socializing. Hmmmmmmm?

"Let's give this guy a desk job! He is gonna hurt himself!!"

When I see someone that cannot squat past parallel, all that I see is a train wreck waiting to happen. The ability to deep squat represents great ankle and hip mobility.So don't believe everything you read or what you have always heard, because most of it is BS. And ask that trainer if he got his certification out of a Cracker Jack box.

DN

Oh Shoes!

Got pain? Take a look at the type of footwear you have. Check out the heels. You too guys!! It’s not only women that wear high heels (well, drag queens too). Men also wear them. Look at all of the crazy so called athletic shoes like Shox!!

One of the first things that I do with my clients is to talk them into better foot wear and try to go bare footed more often. Elevated heels really destroy your ankle mobility and puts you into hyperextension which places a lot of stress on your lumbar spine. This stress on the lumbar also leads to kyphosis posture(rounded back) and nagging cervical spine problems including headaches.

High heels can lead to a number of things like corns, callouses, bunions, stress fractures, joint pain, Achilles tendon tightness, degenerative changes in the spine, and SO ON!!

So do yourself a favor and limit the use of high heels. And try training in some Nike Free’s, Chuck Taylors or even barefoot.

DN

Myth Buster: You Must Do Aerobic Training to Lose Fat

This is that age old myth that you must do a half hour to an hour of that stuff they call cardio. Not only is this a waste of time but it hardly yields a significant calorie burn (don’t even try to give me the old, “it burns more fat calories”! That is BS and a half truth). If you want to rip the fat off, you are going to have to kick the intensity up and work! Try to incorporate some interval training sessions in your week. Start with a 30 second sprint and 1:30 rest. Repeat it 4-5 times. Not only will you burn more calories in a 15 minute session of intervals than you would in 60 minutes of steady state aerobics, but you will continue to burn calories throughout the day! This is due to EPOC (excess post oxygen consumption), or what Alwyn Cosgrove calls "The Afterburn". Try keeping your work the same (30 sec) and shorten the rest periods over the weeks. Save that boring half hour stuff for your recovery days. And oh yeah........its called "energy system training", not "cardio".



DN

Are You Insane?

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The following is a check list to see if you are indeed insane :)

Do you do 30-60 minutes of steady state aerobics and wonder why aren’t losing fat?
__Yes __No

Do you read a magazine or talk on your cell phone while you are on the treadmill?
__Yes __No

Are you trying to lose body fat and drink a sports drink while you are on the treadmill?
__Yes __No

Do you still do 4 sets of flat, incline and decline bench press and wonder why you are not getting stronger?
__Yes __No

Are you an athlete splitting your workouts into body parts? Ex. Mon: Chest, Tues: Back, Wed: Legs, Thurs: Arms, etc…
__Yes __No

Do you have a 40 inch gut and split you workouts into body parts?
__Yes __No

Do you skip breakfast and wonder why you are still fat?
__Yes __No

Do you eat the old “3 square meals a day” and wonder why you are still fat?
__Yes __No

Do you wait until you are hungry (and even longer) and wonder why you are still fat?
__Yes __No

Do you do you do crunches to lose belly fat?
__Yes __No

Bottom line is: If you are not getting the results you want, CHANGE what you are doing! Stop eating like crap, kick up the intensity on you energy system work (cardio), and get on a different lifting program. Mike Boyle frequently uses the quote, “The best program is the one you are not on”. I couldn’t agree more.

DN

Sleeping and Postural Adaptations

You always hear Coaches and Trainers talking about posture with their athletes and clients. You here them cueing to keep your chest up during a squat, pull the shoulder blades back during a row or to stand up tall during the day. It is well known what slouching and being in a seated position can do to your overall posture. But an area that is often looked past is the positions we put ourselves into during a night of sleep. How can this lead to postural distortions, muscle imbalances, pain and discomfort, and even repetitive stress injuries? In Shirley Sahrmann’s book, “Diagnosis and Treatment of Movement Impairment Syndromes,” she states that the body will adapt to a position that is held for over an hour. Depending on how sound a person sleeps through the night, these positions can be held for up to 10 hours! Let’s take a look at some common sleeping positions and some solutions that can help:

Common Sleeping Positions:

Sleeping on your side
This will cause the top leg to go into adduction, flexion and internal rotation, and the bottom shoulder to be flexed and externally rotated. This is usually accompanied by mild trunk flexion and plantar flexion of the ankles. This position can lead to a shortening of the hip internal rotators, the TFL, and the abdominals. Long term effects can include hip impingement syndromes, back pain, and injury due to movement compensation. Also, if you do not have a pillow to support a neutral neck, you will tend to use your arm for support. This can lead to shoulder problems

Solution: Sleep on your side with your legs drawn up slightly toward your chest and a pillow between your legs. Use a full-length body pillow if you prefer. This position may be particularly helpful if you have osteoarthritis in the spine, spinal stenosis — a narrowing in the spine — or hip pain.

Sleeping on your abdomen
Sleeping on your abdomen can be hard on your back. This puts your hips in an excessive anterior pelvic tilt, leading to excessive stress at the lumbar spine and shortening of the abdominals, hip flexors and erector spinae. Experts recommend to try and sleep another way.

Solution: If you can't sleep any other way, reduce the strain on your back by placing a pillow under your pelvis and lower abdomen. Use a pillow under your head if it doesn't place too much strain on your back. If it does cause strain, try sleeping without a pillow under your head.

Sleeping on your back
Again this can be hard to maintain the normal curve of the low back.

Solution: If you sleep on your back, place a pillow under your knees to help maintain the normal curve of your lower back. You might try a small, rolled towel under the small of your back for additional support. Support your neck with a pillow. This position may be helpful if you have low back pain. This position may be helpful if you have degenerative disease or a herniated disk in the central portion of your spine.

Choose a sleeping position that feels most comfortable to you, and it would be wise to select a mattress, reclining chair or adjustable bed that supports you. Note that I am not a sleep expert and there are many other sleep positions, strategies and tools that can help.

DN

Myth Buster: "Don't Let Your Knees Go Past Your Toes"

This is the one that you hear blaring through the microphone in the group exercise room. I’m not sure where this one got started but it falls right smack under the ridiculous category.

Do your knees ever go past your toes when you walk up or down the stairs? Or when you get down on the floor? Or when you get up off of the floor? Or when you walk up a hill? You get the point. I can hear the Group Fitness folk now: “But it is bad for your knees!!!” Seriously, next time somebody says that, ask them WHY. They won’t be able to tell you because they have always been told that. In reality, if I see someone’s knee go past their toes and their heels are still on the ground (we would cue them to distribute weight through the heels), I would be excited!! That’s right Excited!! (that gasp is an army of Body Pump and Step Aerobics instructors). This would mean that they are demonstrating some great dorsiflexion (ankle mobility). And guess what else? Its actually good for you!! A lack of ankle mobility is a huge reason for knee problems in the first place.

You can't tell me this squat looks right? (I just threw up in my mouth)

DN

Damn Those Knees!!!

It is all to common to hear individuals complaining of consistent knee pain. Medial, lateral and anterior knee pain can be the result of many things, contact and non-contact injury related. But two commonalities among 95% of the athletes and clients that I work with is the lack of mobility in the ankles and hips.

The knees are really just slaves to the ankle and hip! The main function of the ankles and hips are primarily of a mobile nature. The knees are that of a stability nature. So you can see, if the ankles and hips are stiff, the knee takes the abuse by having to a job that it was not designed for. My good friend Frank Baumholtz uses a great analogy for the lack of ankle mobility: "Not having adequate mobility in the ankles is like driving a car without shocks".....You can imagine how that would feel. That is the torture your knees are going through on every step, jump, etc..
It is amazing to see the pain literally disappear when gaining mobility in these areas!


By incorporating some ankle mobility drills (http://youtube.com/watch?v=RPa9-fpqnUE) and doing some self-soft tissue work (foam roller, tennis balls, etc....) on the hips and glutes, you will find yourself with pain free knees.

You can also compliment the soft tissue work that you do on your hips with some lunges, lateral lunges and other active/dynamic type stretches.


So....stop being a wuss and get to work!!



DN