Can we buy these Cheese Puffs?

My wife asked me this a few weeks ago when we were grocery shopping. She's trying to make an effort to eat better. She pointed out these things and asked if they were good for her to eat. I looked over the nutrition label with her. They had little calories or fat, not a lot of salt, and they didn't have any of the ingredients that tipped me off as unhealthy (like MSG, corn syrup, or trans fats). Still, looking at the label further, they didn't really have anything to offer nutritionally. I said that they weren't the smartest choice for healthy eating and she declined to get them.

Granted they didn't have any truly bad ingredients in them, the also didn't have much nutrient content either. If you think that doesn't matter, think again. If I could make changes to people's way of thinking about diet, this is one of them. I'd have them thinking of eating as an investment.

It's not brought up in any diet or nutrition books and many don't realize it but your body has to make an investment in the food that you're eating. It has to give things up in order to digest them. The salivary glands must produce saliva to initiate the digestion process. The stomach has to produce pepsin and hydrochloric acid. The liver and the gall bladder secret bile to break down fat. The pancreas secretes insulin to break down sugar. The whole digestive track burns calories to keep the food moving. I've only scratched the surface here of the materials that the body has to give up to get that food digested. There's more, believe me.

So, looking at this from the investment standpoint, the body has to get MORE out of what it's digesting than its giving up in order to maintain good health. At the very least, it should break even. Going back to the baked cheese puffs, is the body going to get out of them what it put in? Doubtful as hell. Think about that when you choose what you eat. Get yourself a book that details the nutritional breakdown of foods. Choose nutrition-dense foods. Get more on your bodily investment.

How I made those Rings

I used the following:

3/4" Schedule 40 Pipe
3/4" Schedule 40 couplings (2)
3/4" cap
Pipe glue and primer
sand paper
A turkey fryer
Dutch oven
candy thermometer
metal funnel that fits in the pipe
wood ash
sand
vise
Something round to form the pipe around (a large coffee can would work)

Make sure that you wear all natural fiber clothing. Have some eye protection and some gloves that can take heat. Oh, get something that you can scoop hot sand with.

Start by measuring the circumference around the round object. Cut the pipes to this length. Next, glue one coupling onto each end of the pipe. Scuff the inside of the coupling and the outside of the pipe (make sure that the pipe is clean of all burrs from the cut) lightly, prime and glue. Hold the coupling to the pipe; some glues will push the pieces apart.

Once the pipe with the coupling is dry, cap the other end. DON'T GLUE IT. put a small amount of ash down the pipe. Place this gently in the vice and tighten around the coupling. Don't tighten it too much; just enough to hold the pipe.

Place some dry sand into the dutch oven and heat it over the turkey fryer. Monitor the temperature of the sand with the thermometer. When it gets to 375 deg, it's ready.

Make sure that your work area is organized so you can move quickly at this point without dropping shit.

Once the sand is ready, place the funnel into the coupling and scoop the sand into the pipe CAREFULLY. Once the pipe is full, wait a couple of minutes. The pipe will become malleable and should move as easily as a piece of rope. Don't keep it in too long though. Once you've gotten to this point, dump the sand, take the cap off, clean, prime and glue the end of the pipe, form it around the round object, and slip the other end of the pipe into the coupling. Hold it there for a few minutes. Repeat for the second pipe.

The pipe may buckle a little but it doesn't hurt anything. It just won't be pretty. The bigger diameter the object you form the pipe around, the less buckling will occur.

Playing with Pullups

I love doing pullups. They're probably my favorite exercises. They hit the back, the biceps, the forearms and even the core muscles are required to stabilize the movement. You'd be hard-pressed to find an exercise that works so much in a single move. That's probably why they're staple of any training worth mentioning. Unfortunately I see a lot of sloppiness out there when doing pullups.

I see people who try to use lower body momentum in order to get themselves above the bar. Even worse, I see people letting themselves drop back down to starting position. The first one doesn't help train the target muscles and the latter could lead to an injury. Burn this into your memory: EXERCISING WITHOUT CONTROL OF THE MOVEMENT IS AN INVITATION FOR INJURY.

I've been craving some rings to do pullups on for a while. When I saw the price, I decided I was going to make my own. So, after some research and chat with a friend, I came up with some homemade pullup rings (I'll tell you how next post). While I was sinking some hooks in my ceiling studs to hang the rings, I peered over at my towels and though to myself, "I bet that pullups off those would be a lot of fun.". So I tried both variations and I made some interesting finds.

Pullups off either the towels or the rings really helped me clean up my form when doing them. The reason is very simple: You can't use momentum either upwards or downwards while doing the pullups. These are both unstable and the momentum will cause you to swing around like an idiot. Proper form without cheating is mandatory exercising like this.

I learned this on the towel variation above too. When I pullup, Iwill actually pull harder with my dominant side (In my case, my left side). The reason I know this is because when doing the towel pullup, I started twisting in mid-air. The only way to stop this was to force my right side to exert more pulling force. As a result, these are harder than the ring or bar pullups and it develops equal strength on both sides.

Both of these pullup variations are far more difficult than working out on a standard bar. They require more forearm strength as well as shoulder strength in order to keep your body steady while chinning. I can do 18 pullups on the bar. I can manage 15 on the rings and 13 on the towel. I started experimenting with two towels the other day. I'll keep you all posted. I'll also let you know when I am chinning on kite string.

One last thing that I'd like to comment on is the thumb issue. I've heard and seen people doing pullups with an open grip, no thumb involved. The rationale is that they require less grip strength and they allow more reps. I personally use my thumb whenever possible because I believe it is important to strengthen the grip and I don't think that reps are the most important point of exercising. If your grip is weak, strengthen it! That being said, if your grip is weak and you still want to do pullups, then go ahead. It's still a good exercise. Or, if you can't get your hands around the bar (or roof rafter or tree limb) then use an open grip. Just my two cents. Do what works for you.

Isometric Power Revolution: A review

I've said this to others previously about this book: It was a book that NEEDED to be written. It's odd but it seems like isometric contraction has been a part of exercise for a long, long time but so few have mentioned it by name, if they even knew the name of the exercise that they were doing. Most of those who did mention it by name didn't really give it a good name. Bob Hoffman gets a lot of credit for bringing isometrics into fashion in the 60's by teaching it to his guys... along with giving them steroids. Others who wrote books about isometrics wrote about it as if it were a lazy man's method of exercise. Besides, doesn't it seem strange that you can exercise with no movement whatsoever? It does seem like lazy man's exercise since most of our exercises involve movement. So, this book needed to get written just for the sake of clearing up the validity of isometrics as a method of training. If Isometric Power Revolution does anything (IPR), it accomplishes this with flying colors. It does much more though. It's a great way to learn about this known-yet-forgotten method of strength training.

The beginning of the book devotes a considerable amount of time detailing the long history of isometric exercise. I love to study the history of anything, including exercise so was a real treat for me. He includes previous scientific studies of isometrics as well as recommendations for proper breathing which so few have ever brought up while doing these exercises. I read these sections several times.

The exercises themselves are overall very good. He divides them up between what he called Classic isometric contractions (CIC) and Powerflexes. Overall, the exercises are very good. The descriptions are very clear and they correspond very well to the pictures, which are of good quality. I do have gripes though. I'm not very fond of some of the isometrics that he gives for the abdominals and there is one for the legs which involves using the upper body for resistance. I think it would work for someone who has as much upper body strength as lower body strength. I'm not one of those people. Still, this amounts to maybe four or five exercises in the whole book that has dozens. This isn't bad at all.

John also did a fantastic job by giving the reader isometrics that exercsie EVERY part of the body. He even hits the neck, a body part most forget to train. Plus, he puts it front and center at the beginning. Plus, every major body part has several exercises. He gives a sound method for proper breathing with isometrics which really makes a huge difference in the quality of the exercises.

John's honesty about the limitations of isometrics is also appreciated. Even he admits that they aren't enough for all-around functional strength and I agree. Still, they serve a valuable purpose and should be included in any serious BW strength trainer, just like this book belongs in any BW-oriented library.

http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_book_info&products_id=98&zenid=86e56d415567f3c7c1c86286779a2c2d

Inspiration and Instruction

I would be a liar to declare myself some sort of expert. Truth is, I'm not. I'm certainly experienced and knowledgable. Otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this or finding what I have to say useful. I've scrounged around for information for BW strength training for a while now and I thought I'd use this opportunity to let you know where I go for information and why.

Http://www.sandowplus.co.uk You're not going to find another place on the web that has so much information for FREE. They could charge $20 a month and not be ripping you off.

Http://www.Bronzebowpublishing.com John Peterson's web site. Simple: He writes the best BW-only books out there. Great guy, great products, honest and fair. What more could you ask for?

Http://www.gymjones.com This is a private gym that I wish I could train at. Read Mark Twights words, then re-read them. He has some great insight as to what training should be.

Http://www.mattfurey.com If you don't have Combat Conditioning, BUY IT. Matt got the world to notice BW in the past 6 or so years.

Http://www.charlesatlas.com Do you have the Dynamic Tension Course? You don't? BUY IT! You can download it from here, english or espagnol.

Here's two great Characters who train like I do and are living proof of the effectiveness of our methods.

Http://www.powerandmight.blogspot.com
http://thebodymindsouljournals.blogspot.com/

Have fun!

What Really Makes Muscle?

Okay, class, please open to this web page and begin studying:

http://www.sandowplus.co.uk/Competition/Pandour/pandour.htm

Okay, class, now what did Bobby Pandour refuse to train with?

That's right, he didn't train with heavy weights. He used only light dumbbell's and he was constantly tensing and flexing his muscles. By modern standards, this is an impossibility. A build like this isn't supposed to be possible without heavy weight training and, ah-HEM, supplementation. Still, Bobby Pandour did it. The pictures are there for anyone to see.

Still, the question is, HOW????

The answer can be found in the writings of the great strongman George Jowett. According to Jowett in his book, "Unrevealed Secrets of Man", the weight was never supposed to be the source of the tension upon the muscles. It is merely supposed to be a tool to focus your CONCENTRATION upon the muscle. If anything, the development of the muscle was coming from the mental concentration upon powerfully flexing the muscle.

That's where so many get it wrong when they're exercising. To exercise without complete mental concentration upon the movement that you're doing will not get the results that you would get if you were devoting all of your mental powers to your workout. Take the ubiquitous pushup: We've all met that guy who said he could do 100 pushups. Then, when he drops down, he's not putting any real effort into them. He's letting his weight drop on the down movement rather than controlling it on the way down. He lets his back go crooked or has his ass in the air. He's not putting any mental focus into his movements and as a result he gets no benefit from them.

That lack of mental concentration is where so many miss out on when they're exercising. Sandow mused about why the more thought he puts into his muscles, the bigger that they get? Modern Science is beginning to realize that when the mind is thinking about a muscle in particular, it sends extra nerve signals to it. These stimuli actually make the muscle grow quicker than if there was no thought of the muscle being worked.

So, when you're working out, be conscious of which muscles are being worked. Once you have realized which muscles are doing the work, focus all of your mental energy on them. Make them work harder. This will make the difference between an effective pushup and a blowhard dumb-ass moving his arms in a pointless waste of motion. You will be doing the impossible: Making muscle without heavy weights.

How Muscles Make Energy and Why it Matters to the Structure of Your Workout

One reason that I've always loved George Jowett's books is because he would take the time in his writing to explain how the body works. It's surprising how much he knew about human anatomy and physiology. Knowing how the body works is absolutely critical to being effective with your exercising because if you don't know how it works, you won't know for sure if what you're doing in your exercise is even doing you any good.

Now, Jowett didn't know what caused our muscles contract and how they create the contractions (neither did anyone else for that matter). We now know and studying the chemical reactions that cause our muscles to move can teach us a great deal about how we should be exercising. I'll try to keep this as simple and underwhelming as possible.

The molecule that causes the muscles to move is known as as Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). As the name implies, the molecule contains three phosphorus atoms. When this molecule blows (converting it to Adenosine Diphosphate or ADP) off one phosphorus atom, we get muscular movement. The muscles have to make these ATP molecules and it does it two ways. The first way that the muscles create ATP is by Aerobic Respiration. This method is done in the muscle cell's mitochondria (look it up if you want to know), requires oxygen and either glycogen (a sugar) or fat to make ATP. It takes more time to make ATP like this but it also yields a lot of ATP. The other method is known as Anaerobic Respiration. As the name implies, it doesn't use oxygen to make ATP and it can only use glycogen. It is produced in the muscle cell's cytoplasm and it makes ATP much more quickly. Trouble is, it also makes lactic acid, which causes the muscles to cramp up so this method doesn't last long.

Now, each muscle cell specializes in one or the other forms of ATP production. Aerobic muscle fibers are known as slow twitch fiber and they are used when the muscles need long term physical activity, such as jumping rope or running, where the physical effort is modest. The Anaerobic muscles are known as fast twitch fiber and they are used for quick, powerful, or explosive efforts, such as wrestling, isometrics, or weight lifting. Now, these cells are laid out next to one another. They exist in varying ratios and there are hybrids of the two types of fibers. In some animals, such as chickens, the fibers are strictly divided. The breast and wing muscles (meat) are almost all fast twitch fiber used for quick flights as opposed to the thighs and legs which are used for walking and are slow twitch fibers.

We don't have that kind of separation between fast and slow twitch fibers so what we can learn from this is that our exercise should condition BOTH of these fibers in our muscles. When we see weight lifters and marathon runners, we are looking at two extremes of the athletic field who overdevelop their muscle's ability to do one kind of activity but are almost incapable of doing another. Since we have both types of fiber coexisting together in the same bunch of muscle, it's true strength lies in being able to run 3 miles as easily as we could lift a heavy object with equal ease. We are the animal version of the SUV or all-terrain vehicle. So, when you're doing your routine, make sure that you are doing exercises that work the muscles in both manners. Do some exercises that require modest efforts over a longer period of time as well as exercises that require intense but brief physical contraction.