No More Back Pain, Better abs & a Perfect Golf Swing

A few years ago, I added an exercise to every client's warm-up that I thought was incredibly essential for their success. It was called "the Scorpion". What it involved was having my client lay on his/her front, extend one leg in the air (while they were squeezing their butt) and then rotate their leg across their body to touch the floor on the opposite side.

I thought this was cutting edge. I thought I was doing stuff that nobody else was doing and that it could have been the missing link in getting my clients mobile, injury free and free of back pain.

Boy, was I wrong.

In fact, after reading Dr. Stuart McGill's "Ultimate Back Fitness And Performance" and attending one of his seminars, I realized that what I was doing was not only wrong, but dangerous. Needless to say that I changed things right away.

What I learned is that the vertibrae & discs in your lumbar spine (your lower back) are only meant to take 2-3 degrees of rotation. More than that is excessive, creates sheer force and could potentially harm your lower back later on in life.

OK, so what does this all mean?

It means that...

-We need to focus more on bracing our abs and keeping our lower back as stable and rotation free as possible.

-We should be using our abs the way they were meant to be used - for stability and as ANTI-rotators - not as a means to bring our chest to our hips (as in a crunch or sit-up).

-We should be focusing more on rotating through our UPPER BACK and HIPS as opposed to our fragile lower backs.

-And that a poorly executed golf swing is a chiropractor's and orthopedic surgeon's wet dream
(See above: Felxion & Rotation is a recipe for disaster. Stick to gambling & basketball, Charles.)


The solution?

First, do ab exercises like planks, side planks, and hip bridges to keep our abs strong and stable.

Second, work on the mobility in our hips.

Third, focus on keeping our upper backs - and the muscles surrounding and supporting them - knot free and mobile so that our lower backs don't make up for it.

Here are a couple of exercises that you can do to keep your upper back loose and mobile...

This one uses a foam roller and is great for posture...



This one teaches you how to rotate through your upper back while keep your lower back stable...




If you do anything to keep your low back healthy, make sure to let me and everyone else know and leave a comment below.

Enjoy your day!

Chris
The FitAndBusyDad

P.S. You can get rid of your low back pain, get ripped abs and get a better golf swing all with one program...

=>Get Started with FitAndBusyDad Workouts Today

June 2009 Workout - Day 2

It's been a dreary past few days here in Toronto. It's been cold and rainy...feels more like fall than it does spring.

Nonetheless, it's June and we've only got 31 days left until the July long weekend (Canada Day for my fellow Canadians, 4th of July for our American friends).

I'm putting together a full month's worth of FitAndBusyDad Workouts for you guys to do and get yourself in gear over the next 4 weeks (that's 4 workouts per week for 4 weeks...not 30 days of new workouts, sorry!). If you missed yesterday's workout, you can find it HERE.

=> FitAndBusyDad June Fat Loss Stimulus Package - Day 1

Have you written your GOALS down yet? Have you made 3 copies and put one copy each on your fridge, your dashboard and in your wallet?

If not, why not? Make sure you do it today!

Today, we've got a bodyweight based workout that will get your heart rate up and get your blood pumping. It's the perfect compliment to yesterday's strength/resistance based workout.

The beauty of bodyweight training is that it can be done ANYWHERE. At the park, in your basement, in the living room, at the office. All you need is an 8 x 8 area and the drive to work hard and get it done.

Our workout schedule for this week looks like this...

Monday - Strength Workout 1
Tuesday (today) - Bodyweight Workout 1 (see below)
Wednesday - optional foam rolling/mobility or DAY OFF
Thursday - Strength Workout 2
Friday - Bodyweight Workout 2
Saturday/Sunday - Active Family Lifestyle Days!!!

I filmed today's workout in the park with Joey (she's on the swing in the background) and AJ (she's holding the camera). I love doing anything active or exercise related and having my kids around to watch or to participate. I think that is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing to having an active family lifestyle - having your kids witness you and your healthy and active habits. Kids learn more through example than they do through verbal instruction.

Here's today's bodyweight circuit...




Enjoy your day and workout!

Chris
FitAndBusyDad

Do Cheat Meals Really Work?

My stomach is turning. Not because I'm nervous or anxious or anything like that...although, I have every reason to be freaking out.

No, my stomach is literally turning, because I had a cheat meal last night - Penne a la Vodka from a small Ma & Pa Italian eatery around the corner. They use really fresh ingredients - flavorful olive oil, ripe red tomatoes and fresh cream...YES, CREAM.

Big deal right? Well for me, yes it is a big deal. I'm lactose intolerant (so if you see me on the street today, it's best not to come within a 5ft radius...if you know what I'm sayin').

Anyway, back to my point...As far as cheat meals are concerned when it comes to getting a strong and lean body, I think they're very necessary.

There are physiological benefits to cheat/REWARD meals (which I'll get to in a second), but for me, it's all MENTAL. It's a HUGE mental strain for anybody to be dieting and cutting your calories for long periods of time (even the most pleasant of folks can get a little cranky on 12-weeks of calorie restriction). So allowing a cheat meal of some food that I enjoy once per week really allows me to mentally reset my efforts in staying clean with my diet. (And by clean, I mean fresh fruits & veggies, healthy fats, lean protein and minimal, if any, grains, dairy & crap food products).

Mind you after years & years of eating healthy fresh food - I was telling AJ this yesterday - my body can really tell when I'm eating crap by giving me really bad stomach pains and indigestion.

So even on my cheat meals, I still eat relatively well opting for a grass-fed beef burger & some fresh cut sweet potato fries from my favorite burger shop (ironically called "The Burger Shoppe"), rather than something from a big chain fast food restaurant.

As far as the physiological benefits go, I received an article from my buddy, Joel Marion, a nutrition expert in New Jersey, explaining the physiological benefits of cheat meals. Please take a few minutes to read on and listen to what Joel has to say about the benefits of cheat meals and how they affect your hormones...

*********************
The Most Important Hormone You Never Heard Of By Joel Marion, CISSN, NSCA-CPT
LEPTI-WHA??

It’s name is Leptin (derived from the Greek word leptos, meaning “thin”), and it’s without a doubt the most important hormone you probably never heard of.

You see, leptin was only first discovered just over 10 years ago, and as far as weight loss is concerned, that’s extremely recent.

Leptin’s function? To communicate your nutritional status to your body and brain.
Leptin levels are mediated by two things. One is your level of body fat. All else being equal, people with higher levels of body fat will have higher leptin levels than those with lower levels of body fat and vice versa.

Because leptin is secreted by fat cells, it makes sense that under normal conditions there is a direct correlation between leptin levels and the amount of fat you are carrying.

Unfortunately, when you’re attempting to lose fat and begin to restrict calories, conditions are anything but “normal” and the body responds accordingly by lowering leptin levels.

This is because the second mediator of blood leptin levels is your calorie intake. Lower your calorie intake and leptin will fall, independent of body fat.

So, yes, you can be overweight and still suffer from low leptin levels – just go on a diet.

So what happens when leptin levels fall and why the heck does it matter?

Again, under normal conditions leptin levels are normal and the brain gets the signal loud and clear that nutrition intake is adequate. Metabolism is high and the internal environment of the body is one very conducive to fat burning.

Until you start dieting.

Go on a diet and leptin levels quickly plummet (by 50% or more after only one week), sending a signal to the body that you’re semi-starved and not consuming enough calories.

This puts the breaks on metabolism and creates a hormonal environment extremely conducive to fat storage. Thyroid hormones (hormones extremely important to metabolism) respond by taking a dive and the abdominal fat-storing stress hormone cortisol skyrockets measurably.

HELLO belly fat.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the appetite stimulating hormones ghrelin, neuropeptide-Y, and anandamide all hop on board to make your life even more miserable.

You don’t have to remember any of those names, just remember that when leptin drops, you get seriously hungry.

Despite having a pretty good reason for its reaction, it’s pretty ironic that our bodies are primed for fat loss at every other time except when we are trying to burn fat.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could maintain high leptin levels and a body primed for fat burning while dieting? It would seemingly solve all of our problems.

But in order to do this, we’d have to somehow keep leptin levels high as we attempt to lose those extra pounds.


“HOW ABOUT “SUPPLEMENTING” WITH LEPTIN?”

A couple of problems here: First, leptin is a protein based hormone, which means that it can not be taken orally (otherwise, it would simply be digested). So that rules out a leptin pill.

This leaves the method of “supplemental” leptin administration to injection. And leptin injections DO indeed work, reversing the metabolic adaptations to dieting and “starvation” even while continuing to restrict calories.

In 1996, Ahima et al. used leptin injections to reverse starvation-induced neuroendrocrine adaptations in mice.

“Well, that’s nice and all, but I’m human.” Point taken; research with rodents doesn’t always correlate to similar findings in humans, however…

In 1999, Heymsfield et al. performed a double-blind placebo controlled study analyzing weight loss over a 24-week period in 73 obese humans. Subjects either injected daily with leptin or a placebo (i.e. bogus alternative). At the end of the 24-week period, the leptin group lost significantly more weight than the placebo and a higher percentage of fat vs. muscle.

In 2002, Rosenbaum et al. administered low-dose leptin to subjects (male and female) who had dieted to a 10% decrease in body weight. During the diet period, thyroid hormone levels, 24-hr energy expenditure, and other metabolic markers substantially decreased. The result of the leptin replacement therapy?

“All of these endocrine changes were reversed…”Thyroid output and daily calorie burn increased back to pre-diet levels.

In 2003, Fogteloo et al. showed that leptin injections “tended to reduce the decline of energy expenditure associated with energy restriction, whereas the tendency of energy intake to increase back to baseline levels in placebo-treated subjects was largely prevented in subjects treated with leptin.”

Yeah, that’s a mouthful. Let me put in simple terms: not only did the leptin group experience less of a decline in metabolism, but they were also less hungry, allowing them to more easily stick to the prescribed diet.

In 2004, Welt et al. reported that leptin given to a group of women with thyroid disorder immediately raised circulating concentrations of the thyroid hormones T3 and T4.

In 2005, Rosenbaum and company were at it again, again showing that energy expenditure and circulating concentrations of T3 and T4 all returned to pre-weight-loss levels with regular leptin injections.

So, as theorized, keeping leptin levels high during a diet does indeed solve our dilemma by avoiding the negative metabolic (and perhaps behavioral) adaptations that calorie restriction perpetuates.

The problem?

Daily leptin injections are far too expensive, costing thousands and thousands of dollars per week. So, we can pretty much forget about supplemental leptin as a solution (which is probably moot anyway considering that not too many people are going to voluntarily plunge a needle into their skin daily).


A REAL Solution

Now that we know that leptin injections aren’t going to save us, let’s talk about the possibility of manipulating your body’s natural leptin production.

And I’ve got good news – this can indeed be done, and without involving needles or thousands of dollars. In fact, we’ll swap the injections and mounds of cash out for two things I can guarantee you’re absolutely going to love: more calories and more carbs.

We know that leptin levels decrease by about 50% after only one week of dieting, but fortunately, it doesn’t take nearly that long for leptin to bump back up with a substantial increase in caloric intake.

In fact, research has shown that it only takes about 12-24 hours.

So, the answer to the fat loss catch-22? Strategic high-calorie, high-carb CHEATING.

By strategically cheating with high calorie foods (and yes, even stuff like pizza, ice cream, wings, cookies, burgers, fries, etc), you can give leptin and metabolism a major boost mid-diet which sets you up for plenty of subsequent fat loss when you resume your reduced calorie eating regimen.

This means greater net fat loss week after week, and ultimately, a much more realistic, maintainable way to bring you to the body you truly want and deserve.

So what’s so special about carbs?

Well, leptin, carbohydrate and insulin have been shown to have very strong ties.

Calories alone don’t get the job done, as research shows that overfeeding on protein and fat has little effect on leptin.

In order to get a strong leptin response from overfeeding, there needs to be plenty of carbs in the mix. In fact, the relationship is SO strong that research conducted by Boden et al. at the Temple University School of Medicine shows that leptin levels will not fall even in response to all-out fasting so long as insulin and blood sugar are maintained via IV drip. That’s CRAZY.

Because of this carbohydrate/insulin-leptin relationship, it makes sense that foods combining both carbs and fat (like pizza, burgers, cookies, ice cream, etc) work best for reversing the negative adaptations caused by dieting because of the BIG-TIME insulin response they produce.

THIS is why strategic cheating with your favorite foods is so powerful. THIS is why you truly can use your favorite foods to lose fat faster than you ever could with restrictive dieting. THIS is freedom.

Essentially, it’s everything “typical” dieting isn’t.

With regular dieting, come week two, you’re screwed.

With strategic cheating, you can literally use ANY food you want to *ensure* that you never go a single day without a body primed for fat loss.

The cheat or not to cheat? I think the choice is clear.
*************************************

To learn more about how to strategically use cheat/reward meals to your advantage and lose weight, you should DEFINITELY check out Joel's Cheat Your Way Thin program.

In fact, it's available for 1/2 price until tonight at midnight!

=>Joel Marion's Cheat Your Way Thin Program

If you haven't used cheat/reward meals yet, you may want to consider it.

Who knows? This could be the game changer in your quest to lose those last 10-15lbs.

-Chris
The FitAndBusyDad

The 3 Foods Busy Dads Should Never Eat. EVER.

I got into a heated discussion with some of my clients after one of my bootcamps last week. The topic of "discussion" was healthy food OR what one perceives to be healthy food.

Big business does a great job of running genius marketing campaigns telling you what you should eat and what you shouldn't eat. As a result, we've relied less on logic and more on commercialism to decide what we put in our bodies.

It makes you wonder if the goal of some of these food companies is to really provide us with the best quality nutrition (probably not) or to just push mass amounts of FOOD PRODUCT on us by telling us we need it so that we can pad the wallets of their share holders (most likely).

The next time I see a commercial that says that some boxed, preservative-laden, high-fructose-corn-syrup cereal has "7 Essential Nutrients" and is "part of a daily healthy diet", I think I'm going to puke!

In saying that, I've outlined below the 3 Foods that us Dads should NEVER, EVER consume. EVER. (Oh yeah, and DON'T feed your kids this stuff either!)

1. Soy. Soy is a phyto-estrogen ("phyto" meaning plant based) and can be found in pretty much EVERYTHING - hot dogs, breakfast cereal, processed cheese, cookies. In ancient Japan, soy was used as fertilizer before big business got a hold of the stuff and started turning it into food products. Now it's found everywhere and, next to coffee, is the most sprayed and chemically treated crop.

The problem with soy is that if consumed excessively, strapping virile men like you and I start to turn ESTROGENIC - both from the natural estrogen from the bean itself and from the reaction that our bodies go through when we consume the food products with all the chemicals it's been treated with.

And when I say ESTROGENIC, I mean Man-Boobs and Belly Fat and a prescription for little blue pills because certain things don't function properly.

Now I don't know about you, but with a wife and 4 daughters there's already enough estrogen in my house and I don't need any more.

Let me make a point here to emphasize that this isn't a knock against vegetarianism. Quite the contrary, I've recently been learning the benefits of consuming a plant-based protein diet and supplementing with animal protein here and there. However, many vegetarians believe that soy is one of the ONLY ways to get protein in their diets. Not true, as there are many legumes, vegetables & nuts that contain adequate amounts of protein for our diet.

Also, there has been some speculation as to HOW MUCH PROTEIN we actually really need...long story short...WE DON'T NEED AS MUCH AS SUPPLEMENT COMPANIES & BODYBUILDING MAGAZINES LEAD US TO BELIEVE (surprise, surprise).

2. Commercially raised meat. If you've been reading my blog, you probably know how and why I feel this way already, so let's look to Dr. Johnny Bowden, Author of "The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth", and see what he has to say....

"The hormones in factory-farmed (feedlot) meat can have all sorts of effects on the body, none of them fully understood and almost certainly none of them good. And it's not just the hormones. These miserably treated animals are shot full of antibiotics and fed an unnatural diet of grain, which makes them sick and tilts the balance of their fat towards inflammatory omega-6's."

OK, I understand that with the state of the economy more people than less are struggling financially and when regular meat goes on sale at your local supermarket you probably stock-up because it's cheap. Just remember, it's cheap for a reason.

Cheap meat = cheap (low quality, mass produced) meat.

Cows were meant to graze in a pasture and eat grass, not be cooped up in a barn and fed saw dust and grain fillers to fatten them up. Even beef that claims to be organic usually means that the cows were fed some type of organic grain/feed. When choosing your beef, choose GRASS-FED CATTLE.

Same goes for chicken & their eggs. Chicken were also meant to run around and get some exercise and lay their eggs wherever they darn-well please. When buying chicken or eggs, FREE RANGE is best.

For fish, go for the WILD/CAUGHT variety and not farmed fish that get fed grains and anti-biotics and live in closed tanks no larger than the size of my bathtub with 5000 other fish.

3. NON-organic Coffee. (You know I HAD to have coffee in here somewhere). As mentioned above, coffee is THE MOST COMMERCIALLY PRODUCED SPRAYED CROP in the world. The coffee industry is a booming business and the pressure is on for farmers to produce, produce, produce!!! But at what cost? Our health?

It's reality that 3 out of 5 North Amercians drink coffee daily. So for me to tell you to give up your daily cup of joe wouldn't be very realistic. Heck, I enjoy my daily double espresso more than most people.

My tips?

Try to get your coffee ORGANIC from a specialty shop where the baristas (the cool folks behind the bar who make the drinks) actually CARE about what they do. Have you ever tasted the difference between freshly pulled coffee that comes right from the bean and coffee from the corner store that's been sitting on a burner for 1/2 an hour? You can actually taste hints of caramel or blueberries in finely pulled espresso by people who know what they're doing.

OR

Buy ORGANIC coffee beans yourself and brew your own coffee at home. Everyone is trying to save money these days, so buying a 1/2lb bag of good organic coffee beans and then grinding them and brewing them at home will actually save you about $25-$35 a week if you usually indulge in a Venti-1/2 caf-no foam-2 raw sugar-latte at the local big chain coffee place.

My point to all of this is that we should be demanding better, high-QUALITY, REAL FOOD for ourselves and our families. I'm not saying that we shouldn't indulge here and there and be so anal about what we eat that we end up driving ourselves crazy...BUT, I just think that our primary focus should be on eating REAL FOOD the way Mother Nature intended...no preservative, no pesticides, no anti-biotics, no crap.

CL
The FitAndBusyDad

P.S. Are there any foods that you feel strongly about that I should have put on this list? Weigh-in, leave a comment and let me know please!

The First Guy To The Dessert Table

So I'm sitting in a conference and the facilitator calls for a lunch break.

I don't really know anyone, so I tag along with the only 3 other people that I know are Canadian (birds of the same feather, right?). One guy is a gentle giant trainer from St. Catherine's, one is a strength coach with my alma mater (the University of Guelph), and the other is a nutrition scientist in great shape.

So we all grab lunch and I'm quietly observing what these guys are eating - sandwiches, salads, greens, soup...nothing out of the ordinary.

But when you're at these "fitness industry" events, you always wonder if anyone is going to touch the dessert. Taking a look at my table, I think "OK, the trainer is jacked, so he'll hit the dessert first because he'll probably burn it off just by walking back to the conference room. Or will it be the strength coach with the traps the size of the Golden Gate Bridge?"

Then the nutrition guy pipes up, "This is ridiculous. Every time I come to these 'fitness events' there's a bunch of trainers staring at the dessert table but nobody has the stones to get up and grab a piece of cake. Why do I always have to be the first one?"

So Mr. Nutrition gets up and slaps not one but 3 pieces of various desserts on his plate.

"Now this is a guy I can hang with", I think to myself...and we've been friends ever since.

That 3-piece-of-cake-eating-nutrition-expert is none other than Brad Pilon, author of EatStopEat and the NEW controversial book "How Much Protein?".

I managed to track Brad down for an interview last week. Here's how it went down...

CL: Brad, since meeting you and reading your book over a year and a half ago, I've been living an ESE lifestyle. I still get a lot of questions about fasting and whether or not it's really healthy. How long after your first fast do you reap the actual benefits of living an ESE lifestyle?

BP: I think if done properly you should be able to 'see' benefits on the first day. By paying close attention to the cues to eat while you are fasting you are going to have a much better understanding of when and why you eat. This little thing can a have a huge effect on how you eat while you are eating.

CL: As busy dads who are slowly getting older, how does fasting benefit our production of growth hormone and do you think fasting may have anti-aging benefits?

BP: The aging thing is tricky. The only way you would ever be sure is to follow one diet for the rest of your life and see when you die...Obviously not a very fun study. That being said, I think the combined effects that fasting and resistance training have on your hormones can go a long way in preventing the typical age related declines in hormones like testosterone and GH. There are no miracles, but when you are battling age, every little bit helps.

CL: OK, let's shift our discussion onto protein. The mass media has led us to believe that protein is the new "wonder macronutrient" - thus the advent of Atkins, the Zone and South Beach. As busy dads can we ensure that we get enough protein without having to carry around a scale to measure our food? Without being Obsessive Compulsive Eaters?

BP: The easiest way is to realize exactly how much protein you need to eat. The second part is realizing that there is no such thing as a protein food.

Traditionally, we've been lead to believe in the idea of protein foods, like eggs as an example. However, a piece of 7 grain bread has roughly the same amount of protein as an egg. So does about 3/4 of a cup of pasta, even two tablespoons of Parmesan has an impressive amount of protein. Infact, 3/4 of a cup of pasta with a 1/2 cup of pasta sauce and some parmesian cheese has as much protein as a 3 egg omelette! So by eating a balanced diet with lots of variety, it's actually very difficult NOT to get enough protein in any given day.

CL: OK, so what about post-workout nutrition? Have you found any research supporting a specific amount of protein we need to ingest after a workout to get the maximum benefits? What about timing?

BP: The most important thing to remember is that if you are training consistently then EVERY SINGLE meal you eat is both pre and post workout nutrition.

The hormonal and structural changes caused by resistance training last for up to 48 hours, so every meal you eat while you are following a training program will have some sort of effect on your muscle recovery. That being said, I think the idea of a 'magical' period 1 hour after your workout where you make or break your muscle building is GREATLY over-exaggerated and is more marketing than science. It's an area of nutrition were we can definitely relax without seeing any noticeable change in our physique.

CL: Brad, thanks for dispelling a lot of common misconceptions about food, fasting and protein for us. Next time you're in town, dessert's on me!

Don't forget to pick-up a copy of EatStopEat and receive a FREE copy of Brad's new book "How Much Protein?"...

=>Get EatStopEat and receive "How Much Protein?" for FR*EE

See you at the dessert table!

CL
The FitAndBusyDad

P.S. Following an ESE Lifestyle in combination with consistent FitAndBusyDad Workouts has allowed me to eat whatever I want while staying consistently under 11% Body Fat. Could this killer combo do the same for you?

=>Get Started with FitAndBusyDad Workouts