Squat: Why, and "How To"

http://robertsontrainingsystems.com/blog/squat/

This is a very detailed description of how to barbell squat, and well done.  The key elements:
-Torso tight!  No spinal deflection.  Unfortunately, this can take as much time to learn as any other part of the squat.  Fortunately, learning to sustain a rigid torso is fundamental to almost every human movement, so if you learn this in the squat, it will apply to many other athletic endeavors

-Knees out and hips back; that's how you start the movement.  Initiate the squat with the knees moving forward and that will create problems.  Unfortunately, most humans think of squats as a "leg" or "knee" movement.  It's all about the hips!

-At any point in the squat, you should be able to wiggle your toes; otherwise, you've leaned forward, vice staying rooted in the heels

-Knees out, knees out, knees out; top to bottom and back up; KNEES OUT!  That is a game changer for move folks learning to squat

Coaching yourself through a squat, with a barbell or without, repeat these things:

Head up chest up, hips back, knees out.  When you've squatted correctly 10,000 times, you won't have to say those things any longer.

If you really want to get this right, you will need feedback; iPhone video works fine, or better yet - find a good coach!

Boyle Rant, And A Good One

Choice quotes from Mike Boyle:

No one has ever gotten better lifting light weights. 

Light weight is an oxymoron. A weight should be appropriate to the 
goal but, rarely, if ever, intentionally light.

The reality is if you 
are lifting a weight ten times, numbers nine and ten should be 
difficult. If you can lift a weight 20 times but choose to do only 
ten, you are wasting your time. Period.



I go crazy when someone tells me about the routine they've been 
doing with their eight-lb hand weights.

Strive for perfect technique in all 
exercises AND progressively increase the resistance.  SportBlocks, 
from PowerBlock, are perfect for this as are the Bowflex Dumbbells. 
 SportBlocks are a small version of the popular PowerBlock dumbbells 
that increase in three-pound increments. If you don't want to buy 
SportBlocks, get a good selection of dumbbells.

Work on basic strength in basic exercises. If your trainer 
has you practicing your golf swing with a dumbbell in your hands, 
get a new trainer.

Learn to bodyweight squat, learn to do a push-up.

The secret is, there is no secret. If you want 
to hit a golf ball further, you need to get stronger. You will not 
get strong lifting a five-pound dumbbell.


www.FunctionalStrengthCoach4.com

If I had not found CrossFit, I hope I at least would have found Mike Boyle, he's head and shoulders over most of the fitness industry. 

However, he's getting too cute here.  Anything is better than nothing.  If you do the same 3 sets of 10 with 10 pound dumb bells from now until you croak, you'll be stronger than many of the purists or perfectionists or the disorganized or the too bored or the plain old apathetic folks who did nothing.  First rule in my book is - do something.  Build from there.  Refine from there.  Doing something Mike Boyle thinks is silly beats the snot out of being too busy to do the perfect workout.

My vote for world's best very simple workout?  Burpee pull-ups.  Lie on your belly.  Get up as fast as you can.  Jump up and grab a bar for a kind of jumping pull-up.  Repeat until you are as distressed as you want to be for that day.  Some days do short sessions of ten reps with 30s rest before doing another ten, as fast as you can move.  Other days, do max reps in ten minutes.  Find another couple of ways to do this, or just add a day of squats and pushups.  Then do a day of sit-ups and hill sprints, or box jumps, or tire drags, or car pushes, or kid carries, or ... whatever.  The sky's the limit and the bag of tricks is cheap, varied and full when it comes to using functional human movement for strength and metabolic conditioning.  

If nothing else, do ten squats that look like this every day:

photo.php

PS - neck brace and cast are optional.

A Good Use For Soy/Veggie Oils

But don't eat it!

Low-carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet in Type 2 Diabetes - "GOOD"

Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Effective diabetic management requires reasonable weight control. Previous studies from our laboratory have shown the beneficial effects of a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet (LCKD) in patients with type 2 diabetes after its long term administration. Furthermore, it favorably alters the cardiac risk factors even in hyperlipidemic obese subjects. These studies have indicated that, in addition to decreasing body weight and improving glycemia, LCKD can be effective in decreasing antidiabetic medication dosage. Similar to the LCKD, the conventional low-calorie, high nutritional value diet is also used for weight loss. The purpose of this study was to understand the beneficial effects of LCKD compared with the low-calorie diet (LCD) in improving glycemia.

METHODS: Three hundred and sixty-three overweight and obese participants were recruited from the Al-Shaab Clinic for a 24-wk diet intervention trial; 102 of them had type 2 diabetes. The participants were advised to choose LCD or LDKD, depending on their preference. Body weight, body mass index, changes in waist circumference, blood glucose level, changes in hemoglobin and glycosylated hemoglobin, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, uric acid, urea and creatinine were determined before and at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 wk after the administration of the LCD or LCKD. The initial dose of some antidiabetic medications was decreased to half and some were discontinued at the beginning of the dietary program in the LCKD group. Dietary counseling and further medication adjustment were done on a biweekly basis.

RESULTS: The LCD and LCKD had beneficial effects on all the parameters examined. Interestingly, these changes were more significant in subjects who were on the LCKD as compared with those on the LCD. Changes in the level of creatinine were not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION: This study shows the beneficial effects of a ketogenic diet over the conventional LCD in obese diabetic subjects. The ketogenic diet appears to improve glycemic control. Therefore, diabetic patients on a ketogenic diet should be under strict medical supervision because the LCKD can significantly lower blood glucose levels.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22673594      HT: @dreades

Emphasis above is mine.  The BLUF:  it was an intervention study (the best kind), it had a relatively large number of subjects, it lasted 24 weeks (not long but not too short), and the test variable was carb intake.  To be ketogenic, carb intake must remain below 50g/day, for most folks.

The underlying defect in obesity and illness is glycemic control, and the LCKD did best in restoring same.

Grass Based Health: Ignore the Evidence

If you saw this story in the paper would it surprise you?

A young German pediatrician, moved to America and settled in New York City. She was “startled” by the number of fat children she saw – “really fat ones, not only in clinics, but on the streets and subways, and in schools.”1 Indeed, fat children in New York “were so conspicuous that other European immigrants asked Bruch about it, assuming she would have an answer. What is the matter with American children? they would ask. Why are they so bloated and blown up? Many would say they’d never seen so many children in such a state.” 

http://grassbasedhealth.blogspot.com/2012/07/ignore-evidence.html?m=1

Would it surprise you to find that the pediatrician, Ms. Hilda Bruch, came to the US in 1934?

Gary Taubes (author of Good Calories Bad Calories and "Why We Get Fat") has pointed out in both of his books that any theory of obesity has to account for the phenomenon outside of the paradigm we see in our time; no McDonalds, no HFCS, limited industrial seed oils, and perhaps without low prices on sugar.  Further, these kids were not spending time on electronic devices, and many presumably walked anywhere they went.

The author's conclusion:

The observation that obesity and under-nourishment occur simultaneously in very poor populations is not limited to Bruch’s experience. This phenomenon has been repeatedly documented throughout the world. Obesity is a form of malnutrition. So how do the experts reconcile these observations with their opinions? They ignore the evidence. They have to. The evidence disproves their hypotheses. 

Peer Review

Dr. Yoshitaka Fujii seems well on his way to becoming the patron saint of scientific fraudsters, setting a record for the most extensive output of fake data. As near as anyone can work out, Fujii started making up data with abandon some time in the 1990s. By 2000, his fellow researchers were already on to him, publishing a comment in which they noted, "We became skeptical when we realized that side effects were almost always identical in all groups."


But you can't let such skepticism from your peers slow you down-and Fujii certainly didn't. Even after the comment was published, two different medical schools hired him as a faculty member. He continued to publish, generally using faked data, racking up an eventual record of 200+ bogus papers.




Nobody took any responsibility for investigating the prospect of fraud, despite requests made by other researchers who suspected something was amiss. It took until 2011 for the editors of several journals that were victimized by Fujii to band together and hire an outside investigator, who found extensive evidence that the data reported by Fujii was unlikely to have resulted from actual experiments.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/07/epic-fraud-how-to-succeed-in-science-without-doing-any/

The peer review process purported to be the basis of much of science's validation process is not what it should be - in the end, we all have to sort through the messy human-ness of science on our own.

Deep Nutrition: The Good Old Days

"According the John "Fire Lane" Deer, the eating of guts had evolved into  contest.  "In the old days we used to eat the guts of the buffalo, making a contest of it, two fellows getting hold of a long piece of intestines from opposite ends, starting chewing toward the middle, seeing who can get there first; that's eating.  Those buffalo guts, full of half-fermented, half digested grass and herbs, you didn't need any pills and vitamins when you swallowed those."

From Catherine Shanahan's "Deep Nutrition", available in my aStore.  I'm just starting this book, and so far it is informative and enjoyable.  I have yet to find THE book to recommend without hesitation for anyone who wants to know more about the idea of the paleo diet; perhaps this one will be it.  Of the many I've read, each has their flaw.

The above highlights a problem we have in replicating a paleo diet, and why I think of it as a "model".   No sense pretending I can eat like they ate.  In the sense of doing the one thing that gets 80% of the benefit - don't over consume carbohydrate.  Once that is under control, refinements can be made over time to improve upon that basic guidance.

Another quick anecdote:
"When asked how the indians know how to prevent scurvy, the old Indian described how when he kills a moose he opens it up and at the back of the moose just above the kidney there are what he described as two small balls in the fat [adrenal glands].  These he said the Indian would cut up into as many pieces as there were little and big Indians in the family and each one would eat his piece."

I'll admit - I'd rather just squeeze some lemon into my Norcal Margarita.  None the less, I find these stories fascinating and it makes me curious to see if I can find these kinds of organs on the next deer I kill.