Jimmy Combat Secrets

http://www.carbsmart.com/10-healthy-high-fat-foods-perfect-for-nutrition
al-ketosis.html

The cheat sheet for high fat, low carb paleo eaters (like I am)!

Tips and Tricks from Protein Power

This is an outstanding summary of Dr. Eades tips and tricks for starting low carb, it's a must read!!  I've linked to it before, and finally had a chance to summarize his wisdom.

I highly recommend you read the whole post to realize what a gift it is to those of us starting, or helping others start, a low carb diet.

Also in his post - a recipe for bone broth and another for Tinto de Verano, his interesting formula for hydration on vacation!

Enjoy.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/saturated-fat/tips-tricks-for-starting-or-restarting-low-carb-pt-ii/

Tips and tricks for starting low carb:

**Crank up the fat intake!

**If you don’t like fatty cuts of meat, you can add a little medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) to your diet.

**MCT and/or coconut oil are absorbed more like carbohydrates and are used quickly by the body, are almost never incorporated into the fat cells, burn quickly, and easily convert to ketones

**The most common symptoms associated w low-carb diets are: fatigue, headaches, light-headedness or dizziness, and cramping
**Following a low-carb diet results in a rapid lowering of insulin levels, which – though a good thing – can create electrolyte imbalance
**Low carb helps to lower insulin levels, and increase insulin sensitivity, which signals the kidneys, and all cells, to stop retaining water
**It is great to get rid of the excess fluid but it comes at a cost, which is lost sodium; when sodium levels fall below a critical threshold you may suffer fatigue, headache, cramps and postural hypotension.
**Take more sodium and drink more water.  Salt your food more.  Do not fail to get enough sodium!
**An easy way to get extra sodium along with magnesium and potassium (a couple of other electrolytes we’ll discuss in a bit) is by consuming bone broth. 
**Short of making your own bone broth, you can use commercially available bouillon, which contains plenty of sodium and makes a nice hot drink. 
**Get some Celtic Sea Salt, Himalayan Salt or one of the other grayish, pinkish kind of grungy looking salts and replace your normal salt with these.  And don’t use them sparingly.  These salts have been harvested either from ancient sea beds or obtained by evaporation of sea water with high mineral content and contain about 70 percent of the sodium of regular salt (which has been refined, bleached and processed until it is pretty much pure sodium chloride, often with anti-caking agents added).  The other 30 percent of the volume is other minerals and micronutrients (including iodine) found in mineral-rich seas.  Consuming these salts is not just following a Paleolithic diet using modern food, but, depending upon the origin of the salt, it is consuming the same food your Paleolithic ancestors ate. 
**Most people are deficient in magnesium.  Good magnesium levels help regulate potassium as well, so keeping your magnesium adequate helps with your potassium as well.  Nature has designed us so that approximately 300 plus of our enzymes require magnesium as a co-factor to make them work properly.  I would bet most of it came from the water. 
**One of the most common signs of magnesium deficiency is an increase in cravings.  Often simply replenishing magnesium gets rid of many of the food cravings people have. 
**Get a good chelated magnesium supplement and take 300-400 mg per day, take them in the evening
**If you get the "Milk of Magnesia" effect, simply reduce your dosage until your stools normalize
**Get a supplement of magnesium that ends in "ate" - aspartate or magnesium citrate or magnesium citrimate. 
**About the only way you can really tell how much actual magnesium your getting is to look on the label on the back and see how much of the RDI (Recommended Daily Intake) the dose is.  The RDI for magnesium is 400 mg per day so if you find the dose of the supplement you are considering contains 50 percent of the RDI, then you know each dose contains 200 mg of magnesium irrespective of what the dosage is on the front of the bottle.  As I say, I recommend 300 to 400 mg of magnesium per day.  Magnesium is natures relaxant.  It makes many people sleepy, so we always recommend taking it at bedtime.
**If you lose a lot of sodium through the diuretic effect of the low-carb diet, you’ll ultimately lose a lot of potassium as well.  Keeping your sodium intake up as mentioned above will help preserve your potassium as well.  And keeping your potassium levels up helps to ensure that you don’t lose a lot of lean muscle mass during your weight loss.  Plus, just as with sodium, adequate potassium prevents cramping and fatigue.
**Take four to five of the over-the-counter 99 mg potassium supplements you can purchase at any health food or natural grocery store
**Don't get dehydrated, and it's easier than you think! You can lose a couple of pounds during sleep simply by breathing water vapor away.  I now drink anywhere from 16 to 32 ounces of remineralized water first thing in the morning.  Then I head to the espresso maker and start my daily Americano regimen.  But I consume at least 8 ounces of sparkling water after each cup of coffee.  And I drink water after each shot of Jameson and/or glass of wine (or any other alcoholic libation)*
**Water has a lipolytic effect (fat burning)
**Those starting a low-carb diet are prone to dehydration because excess ketones are gotten rid of via the kidneys along with a lot of fluid
**Always remineralize my water by adding a pinch of Celtic Sea Salt or one of the other such salts to each bottle.  I add enough so that the water just barely hints of a salty taste.

**We gave lipoic acid, CoQ10, Vitamin E, magnesium, a good multi-vitamin and a prescription for potassium, and now recommend vitamin D3. I see a good multi-vitamin (no iron) as the same thing – cheap insurance against any kind of deficiency

**ALA is, 300 mg per day, is a favorite supplement.  It acts as both a fat-soluble and water-soluble anti-oxidant so it can pretty much weasel its way in anywhere in the body and stamp out inflammation.  It protects fatty membranes and even acts as a cellular nutrient.  It also helps the body deal with blood sugar, which helps the whole low-carb adaptation process along

**I recommend the more potent r-alpha lipoic acid, 100 mg a day

**COQ10 is a superstar supplement. If you’ve been taking a statin, I would take 300 mg per day of CoQ10.  If you haven’t, 100 mg per day should do.

**Vitamin D3: 1000 IU per day of this nutrient

**People who tend to have carb cravings late in the day do well with 50-100 mg of 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP). It also helps with sleep.  Best time to take it seems to be about 4 or 5 PM for those who go to bed at the standard 10-12 PM.

**It’s important to defat your liver to help you lose weight more quickly because the liver breaks down insulin.  Avoid – or at least limit – coffee, tea, alcohol and OTC meds as able. 

EFS Long Band Calibrations

Good to know if you are using these for accommodating resistance training.
http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/training-articles/long-band-calibrations/

Eades: Low Carb Transition Tips

Summary of part one:
In the last post we discussed ramping up the fat intake as the single best way to hurry the low-carb or keto adaptation along.  I didn’t mention it in the previous post, but another little secret is to keep an eye on the protein intake. Too much protein will prevent the shift into ketoses because the liver will convert some of the protein into glucose – this glucose will then be used first and slow down the ketogenic process.  Which, if course, prompts the question, how much protein is too much?  As long as you’re getting your protein from meat, especially fatty cuts of meat, you’re probably okay.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/saturated-fat/tips-tricks-for-starting-or-restarting-low-carb-pt-ii/

"Money" tip two: 
As I said, you need to really crank up the fat intake to push yourself over the adaptation divide as quickly as possible.  If you don’t like fatty cuts of meat, you can add a little medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) to your diet.  MCT are absorbed more like carbohydrates and are used quickly by the body.  They are almost never incorporated into the fat cells, so they burn quickly, and any extra that might be hanging around are converted to ketones.  So, MCT will drive the ketone production process.  And so will coconut oil if you prefer that.

You can find MCT oil at most health food or natural grocery stores.  It has never bothered me, but some people can get a little nauseated if they take too much of it, so if you decide to give it a try, start out slowly.  Or go with the coconut oil.

The rest of this post is a gold mine of information, and I recommend you read and re-read it.  Electrolytes, bone broth, the criticality of magnesium, why it is great to lose water weight, and a host of other topics - Dr. Eades covers them and makes them "digestible" and directly applicable to your own or a loved one's low carb transition. 

Magnesium Supplementation = Good

http://www.ajcn.org/content/93/2/463.abstract
BLUF:  Either due to leaky gut or the effect of anti-nutrients like phytates in grains, or due to the natural deficiencies in the unnatural industrial food chain, we're likely all a bit short on magnesium.  This study shows a number of benefits from supplementation.  The question is 'how'?

Natural Calm is a good choice, but any magnesium citrate or oxide will do.  You'll know when you are taking too much when your guts let you know with a certain amount of urgency to get to a restroom.  So, start small, work up the dose slowly.

Gmap - Measure Routes

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/
Need to gauge a run distance for those 200s, 400s and 800s?  How about finding a mile for your "Murph"?

This is a very usable tool!  I just checked it against my calculations for various intervals, and it's certainly close enough for an opportunity to cultivate your relationship with pain.

Type I Diabetic Experiment with The Zone

Take a look at this article posted by my friend, Kirez Reynolds.  Amongst his many talents, he has prior military experience, can lift some very large weights in the slow lifts, and delivers some of the fastest times I see on METCON WODs, even though he's laden down with and enviable amount of muscle mass and ... is an insulin dependent diabetic.  He's also as smart as anyone I know, which a shared passion for liberty, understanding human behavior from an economics perspective, and and feeds his family by leading others to elite fitness.
 
What's the BLUF on this article?  Kirez has been eating paleo, but decided to see for himself if some of the benefits of the Zone Diet (*description below) would be of benefit to him.  I was skeptical, but his discoveries were very interesting, especially if you are insulin dependent, or live with, train with or coach folks who are.  In particular, this article provides and example of how to conduct a 'self experiment.'

As will be illustrated in a post coming soon, glycemic control is a HUGE issue for diabetics and very, very controversial amongst the medical profession.  It is also literally a matter of life and death for all of us.  Diabetics on average age about ten years ahead of non-diabetics, and those who don't stay on top of their game don't just die sooner, they die in ways that are predictably unpleasant, as they die after losing sensation in extremities, with years of vascular issues, sometimes with loss of limbs from the vascular issues, and often loss of vision as well.  In short, they suffer aggravated versions of all of the diseases of the West, and have much less room for error.  You won't find many who are more aggressively treating their disease than is Kirez. 
http://hammercrossfit.com/2011/02/personal-experience-of-the-zone-diet/#comments

*What is the Zone Diet?  The primary distinction in the Zone Diet is the recommendation that you eat each meal according to a 40% carb, 30% protein, 30% fat macronutrient ratio (percentages based on kcal of each macronutrient).  The Zone provides a formula for establishing how much protein one needs based on lean body mass and activity level.  If, for example, I determined my lean body mass to be 180 pounds (which it is, roughly), and a moderate activity level, I could determine the needed amount of protein by mulitiplying 180 by .7 (conversion factor) which is 126.  I would eat 126 grams of protein, 168g of carbohydrate, and 56g of fat daily, divided into something like three meals and two snacks, ideally leaving no period of greater than 6 hours without eating.  I have utilized The Zone and it works, but I find I'm only willing to do the requisite weighing and measuring for a limited time.

Note:  The most likely cause of Type I diabetes is autoimmune based failure of pancreatic beta cells, whereas most Type II diabetics eat themselves into high carb hell, passing through metabolic syndrome on their way to glycemic control system failure.  This latter type is one of the most significant drivers of the increase in costs of the socialized parts of the US medical care system.   

How To Take Super Enzymes

Robb Wolf (and we) recommend Now Food Super Enzymes. (Robb talks about this in his PSS Podcast #28, at 20:00.) Always take with food - start with two capsules at each meal, and see if you notice any heat in your stomach after ingesting. If not, after a day or two, work up to three capsules with each meal, see if you notice heat. If not, try four with each meal. As soon as you start to feel some heat in your stomach, back off by one pill per meal and stay at that level for 2-4 weeks. At that point, you may be able to dial back down towards one (or zero) pills with meals.
http://whole9life.com/2011/02/eating-meat-a-primer-for-the-meat-challenged/

This is part of a post from Dallas and Melissa at Whole9, which addresses how to return to meat if you've been on a vegetarian or vegan diet.

Shun Kak Do

I trained in Mr. Alan S. Gardner's martial arts school from 1993 until his death in 2006.  We called him "Sensei Al", which of course means "Teacher or Instructor."  He was a 2nd generation Armenian (Bardezbanian was the Armenian name from which "Gardner" was translated), a virtuoso oud and clarinet player, and way too smart for his own good.  I was lucky enough, despite a Naval career, to be able to stay in Maine for six years, training with him many times per week.  Somehow I managed to be both student and friend with Al.  I made a lot of sweat in his dojo, many friends, and many, many memories.  Flash forward to last week, when I was listening to a nutrition podcast, and a caller asked the guest, Robb Wolf, what his qualifications were to write a book and give nutritional advice.  Robb's the author of a best selling book but more importantly, a ten plus year clinician who's put quite a lot of what he learned on the web (http://www.robbwolf.com/).  The question brought to mind a couple of Al's stories. 

Al was "certified" in many levels of "black belt" (and the Chinese equivalents) in a bunch of traditional martial arts.  I never knew anyone to question or criticize his rank, as he could discuss any topic of the martial arts intelligently, he could demonstrate and teach innumerable forms, and his students always shined when in a group of martial arts students.  But when he was young, he ordered a black belt certificate from a company advertising in the back of a martial arts magazine - the deal was, you could order a certificate of any rank or any style you named.  His later aspiration was to be proclaimed Master of Time and Space, but feeling a bit more humble back in the day, he ordered a certificate for a mere 8th degree black belt.  The style?  He called it (phonetically) "Shun Kak Do."   When asked, he said "That's Armenian for 'The Way of Dogshit.'"  Perhaps it will give you an idea of what kind of person he was that he would take the time, effort and expense to order such a certification, but use it only as a joke.

Another story revolved around one of his Japanese instructors, who went through a rough patch in life ("He lost his freaking mind"), and stripped all of the black belts in the dojo of their ranks.  Al's thought: "Wow, this is great, I don't have to teach now, I get to train like any other student!"  In other words, he didn't care what belt he wore, because his knowledge and ability was neither reflected by nor dependent upon a belt.  He knew what he knew, and it was a body of knowledge earned in years of training and teaching, and more than a few beatings given and received.  His teacher could not take away what he knew, only a symbol of that knowledge.

As regards immature sciences in particular, the certifications, qualifications and credentials mean very little.  Many folks who spent 8-10 years of their lives getting a health care credential know frightfully little about the science of diet (but it's hardly their fault as Gary Taubes documents thoroughly in Good Calories Bad Calories).  The only standard that matters is "what effect will a practicioner have in the life of a person that needs help getting healthy and lean?"  Some certifications may help in that pursuit, but most will not.  Lucky for you and moreso for me, the knowledge that the certifications should represent is available for free on the internet, and it can be had by anyone who's sufficiently motivated to get it. 
That leaves you, dear reader, with a problem, to wit, how to sift through mountains of nonsense to get control of your health and weight??  Whenever you consider dietary advice, I recommend that you think in terms of verification (this is why I post about glucose meters repeatedly).  For example, if someone says that "(fill in the dietary criminal du jour)" is making you fat, one conversation you should have with yourself is "How could that be proved?" and "How could I, or can I, test that idea for myself?"  In many cases you can test it for yourself, and when you  can, you should, unless you have some reason to trust the advice based on experience or a special relationship with the advice giver. 

Some examples of the bad info we've been subjected to:  "many small meals throughout the day will help you lose weight by increasing your basal metabolic rate", "fat has more calories per gram, so eating less fat will help you lose weight", "red meat causes cancer", and perhaps the whopper of all time, "Saturated fat is proven to cause heart disease, eat grains instead."  How could these assertions be verified?  How could you test them for yourself?

Once you start to think this way habitually, you will find that virtually everything you hear about science and nutrition from the mass media is both unverified and unverifiable - you will probably start to see that it is much harder to prove any particular assertion to be true than it is to disprove it (in science, the burden of proof is always on the one making the assertion of truth).  You will also start to realize there's a good reason why the science of diet is so immature and poor - it's incredibly difficult and expensive to study health and diet in humans - the variables are innumerable, we live a relatively long time (much easier to study rats and fruits flies for that reason), and we're not keen on being cooped up in lab cages for years on end making control of variables at best problematic.

In particular, be wary when you hear anyone appeal to authority:  "Scientists say" or "Scientists think" or "Studies show" or "Studies link" should be heard as code language for "this person doesn't really know what they are talking about" - unless the person making the report has already qualified their pronouncement with a 'statement of uncertainty.'  This is because virtually nothing is PROVEN in the science of diet.  Unfortunately, that means there's a fair amount of money and significance that can be obtained even if what one says they know isn't so.  The diet and health arena is a "buyer beware" market - many of the most loudly heard voices are qualified only in Shun Kak Do.

Ferriss BFO

My basic approach: take before-and-after blood tests (30 days and 60 days later) and see what actually happens. The research papers hold up surprisingly infrequently on a person-by-person basis.  Test smart and track yourself and you’ll be just fine.  Tim Ferriss

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/19/paleo-diet-solution/

I think this blinding flash of the obvious (BFO) that will change the entire diet discussion within a year or two.  Instead of relying on obscure statistics inappropriately applied to large populations, we can perform experiments with a population of ONE, the only ONE that matters to us, since we are responsible for and benefit from our own health.

Ten years ago, I don't think anyone could get reasonably priced blood work monthly, but one practitioner I've met has a deal for his clients which allows a full set of blood tests for under $40.  

There's also this approach from heartscan blog:  Measurement  BLUF: you can measure a half dozen key variables in your own home.

Compare that to having to go through an MD filter to get the blood work or the interpretation - these changes will make it possible for us all to raise the BS flag when we're given some limp wristed advice from some well meaning but under-informed scientist/writer/advocate.

Garlic Cures Athlete's Foot

Tinea pedis seems to be just as vulnerable. In 2000, one team of researchers published a study in The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatologythat compared a week of twice-daily applications of mild garlic solutions with topical applications of the popular drug Lamisil in about 50 people with diagnoses of athlete’s foot. Two months later, the scientists found that a garlic solution that contained about 1 percent ajoene had a 100 percent cure rate, compared with a 94 percent cure rate for 1 percent Lamisil. Other studies have found similar results.

Ajoene creams and solutions are not available commercially. But some experts recommend simply adding a few finely crushed cloves of garlic to a foot bath and soaking the affected foot for 30 minutes, or mincing a few garlic cloves, mixing the minced garlic with olive oil, and then using a cotton ball to rub some of the solution on the affected area.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/remedies-garlic-for-athletes-foot/

Warm Feet, Better Sleep

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/01/02/warm-feet.aspx
If like me you believe that a lot of good quality sleep is essential for health, feeling good, and living well, this is worth a thought.  I've always known that cold feet kept me up - this is an interesting confirmation.

Eades: Tips and Tricks for Starting Low Carb

"The symptoms you report – dizziness and leg cramps – are probably the two most common symptoms people experience when they switch from high-carb to low-carb diets. Insulin drives the kidneys to retain fluid – when insulin levels drop quickly, as they do on low-carb diets, the kidney releases fluid. This is a good thing because most people on higher carb diets tend to retain fluids; but it can also be an annoying thing because the fluid that goes out takes potassium with it. Lowered levels of potassium often cause leg cramps and feelings of fatigue. Plus, losing a lot of fluid quickly can lead to a lowered blood pressure, especially when going from sitting to standing, and feelings of dizziness. I ALWAYS put my own patients on a potassium supplement when they start the program to replace the potassium I’m sure they are going to lose. I give them a prescription supplement that contains about five times more potassium than they can get from over-the-counter potassium supplements, which max out at 99 mg. Five of these OTC potassium supplements will work as well as the prescription dose. Also, I recommend that my patients starting low-carb diets increase their salt intake so that they don’t lose so much fluid and don’t experience the dizziness. They can do this by eating a dill pickle a couple of times per day, consuming some bouillon a time or two a day or even by drinking some pickle juice. The potassium supplementation and increasing salt intake eliminate probably 90 percent of symptoms people experience when starting low-carb diets."
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ketones-and-ketosis/metabolism-and-ketosis/ (Note - look for this comment on 11 Dec 2010)

Stuck on the Wrong Model

http://www.self.com/fooddiet/blogs/nutritiondata-dieting-weight-loss/2010/07/quick-tip-on-intervals-vs-stea.html
The evidence that exercise contributes to weight loss is contradictory, as is the concept.  I think that if exercise contributed to weight loss, all lumberjacks would have died.  In other words, we know that the body includes many feedback mechanisms that help keep a person who's eating 'food' (not to be confused with bread, rice, pasta, and the processed products of the undustrial food chain) from eating too little or too much.  If you eat non-food and try to work it off, fine, go ahead but I can guarantee you'll get a better result if you eat the right food, and exercise for the physical capacities that will serve you best in sport, life and combat. 

That said, this is an interesting quote:
"It's often said that the best program you could be doing right now is the one you're not currently on... What that means is that once your body adapts to certain stimulus it is time to switch up your routine.

This is why my quick tip for you today would be to take your current cardio program and turn it on its head. If you're doing mostly longer distance, steady state cardio then switch over the majority of these workouts to interval based routines. Likewise, if you're big into interval based sprints I would try adding in a few longer endurance based sessions."

This idea is embodied in CrossFit's prescription:  "Constantly varied functional movements, executed at high intensity."  There's almost no case for which the variation does not make sense.  One exception - some people will exercise more if all they are doing is putting on some shoes and going outside to walk/run.  They don't want to think about what they will do, they just want a routine to escape to, the benefits are often a meditative process as much as anything else.  For those folks, variation by result in less activity.

Magnesium Anyone?

Magical Magnesium, Healthy Alcohol, 24 Hours of Fun and a Few Notes

Good read/summary of a study on magnesium levels in athletes.  BLUF:  you'll probably need to take some as a supplement.  This stuff is the rage lately, Robb Wolf's talking about it every podcast in the same breath as fish oil and vitamin (and Now Foods Superenzymes).

Mini Band Tension

http://www.elitefts.com/documents/band_strength.htm

If you are using mini bands for Westside barbell training, the estimated band tensions are at the link above.

Kinesiologoy Tape or "What's with the Pretty Colors?"

Two recent studies on Kinesio Tex showed some short-term effect. A study of 42 patients with shoulder pain, published in 2008 in the Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy, found that range of motion improved immediately after application of kinesiology tape, compared with a sham taping using no tension. But the study found no significant difference in pain or overall disability scores.

Last year, a study on 41 patients with whiplash after car accidents found statistically significant pain relief and improvements in range of motion with kinesiology taping compared with a sham tape. The effects were seen immediately and continued a day later. In the paper, published last year in the same journal, the Spanish-led research team said the changes were so small they "may not be clinically meaningful." Kinesio Holding, which didn't fund either study, says a limitation of the shoulder study is that the kinesiology taping wasn't customized to each patient's injury.

Even if taping does work in the hands of a trained clinician, it isn't clear it will work when used by consumers. Taping can sometimes cause skin rashes, which can be minimized by not overstretching the ends, clinicians say. Baby oil can be used to remove any sticky residue.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703465204575208193178227952.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

Jerk Box Plans

http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~simonrl/wl/jerkboxes/

Found this, wanted to put somewhere that others could get access also.

How To Be Able To Fast

This is a magnificent description by Dr. Davis about why most overweight folk cannot fast, how they could change their diets so that they can fast, and why they (and we) should do so. Note also the impact of wheat on the process.

Speaking from experience, this is one of my favorite aspects of carb restriction. If you wake and either cannot or don't want to eat, it is not a big deal. Your protein and fat fueled body makes plenty of ketones to fuel your brain, and your metabolism will liberate as much body fat as needed to fuel the rest of you.
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/what-to-eat-diet-is-defined-by-small.html

See With Your Feet

See with your feet
"Rob Roy, the veteran coach who oversees Chris Klug's training, uses an obstacle course to teach snowboarders to look ahead instead of down at their feet. If you play basketball or soccer, you can benefit, too. Try the sidewinder, from plyometrics expert Donald Chu, Ph.D. Line up three cones 3 to 4 feet apart. Set up a fourth cone 20 yards away. Keeping your eyes ahead, shuffle sideways, weaving through the first three cones from left to right, and then back from right to left. Now pivot and sprint 20 yards to the fourth cone. Return to the obstacle course using a quick, sideways shuffle. Repeat 3 times."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35239197/ns/health-fitness/?ns=health-fitness&pg=3#Health_MH_GoldStandard
Also a good summary of plank variants for someone who's looking for an unloaded approach to building or rebuilding core strength.