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The latest in kettlebell sport, health, fitness, strength, aerobics, nutrition, lifestyle

Nanaimo Kettlebell Club improves to 5th in the world!

11/27/2020

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Needless to say, 2020 has been a whirlwind of uncertainty.  From concern about what this new virus was and even where it was, to hard decisions about how or whether to keep our home businesses open, and of course how long the initial lock-down would ultimately last.  Kettlebell events in particular seemed untouchable at first, after all our sport doesn't require close interaction or contact between athletes.  However, one-by-one our beloved destination competitions met the chopping block - OKC Vancouver International, Crazy Monkey, Seattle WAKSC Worlds... 
Of course, our friends managed to "pivot", and so did we.  ZOOM Video Communications became all the rage and their stock skyrocketed, resulting in a revenue spike of almost 4-fold by Q2 of 2020!  It really is no surprise because the whole kettlebell community bought in and defaulted to the ZOOM  platform.  Talk about a lifesaver.  The NKC managed to salvage the year, participating in 5 competitions - our yearly average.  It's a shame we didn't get to see many of our kettlebell friends in person, but we demonstrated exactly what it means to be part of a team, as well as a community - we showed up, we put in the effort, and we gave each other strength in a time of struggle.
Nice work team.
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HOW TO TURKISH GET UP WITH 100lbs

8/30/2020

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This exercise has been used as a quick assessment tool for movement quality because the parameters for both joint mobility and system stability lie at the upper boundaries of what is considered functional.  When performed with increasingly heavier weights, there is a high neural demand on cognition and motor control.  Thus, this exercise can neither be rushed nor performed without 100% focus.

As renowned physiotherapist and FMS founder Gray Cook remarked, symmetry, bodyweight management, strength, and stability can all be addressed with the Turkish Get Up because despite not working many prime-movers, "[it] really blasts your stabilizers" and "stabilizers are what give you the mechanical advantage to be stronger".

As the legend goes, if you wanted to learn how to lift you would find your local, village strongman and ask him to teach you.  The strongman, knowledgeable in such matters understood that not everyone had the focus, determination, coordination or even physical well-being it takes to begin much less endure years of brutal training.  In order to separate the wishers from the workers, the strongman would decree:
"This is the Get-Up.  You must perform it on both the left and right sides equally.  When you can do it with 100lbs I will show you how to lift."
The Turkish Get-Up truly is one of the most accessible ways to assess both quantitative and qualitative parameters of physical fitness.  Not only will a TGU performed with light-to-moderately heavy weight keep you in the best shape of your life, but it also a mighty feat of strength when attempted with a maximal load.

The Turkish Get Up includes both an ASCENT and a DESCENT.

TGU: ASCENT

STEP 1: FLOOR PRESS
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With KB on the floor, insert deep into the handle. Pull hand into chest and roll to back. Press bell from shoulder to a vertical lockout. Use both hands if necessary.
STEP 2: ROLL TO ELBOW
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With one leg bent and one straight, drive through the foot of the bent leg to turn the hips over and provide inertia for the roll. Simultaneously pull your elbow underneath you by digging it into the floor. This is the only step when speed is your friend.
STEP 3: POST TO HAND
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Keep your eyes on the bell and maintain upward pressure through the elevated arm. Keep bottom shoulder packed tight, press the base of your palm into the floor and pull your hand underneath your torso while maintaining active pressure into the floor.
STEP 4: HIGH BRIDGE
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Keep eyes on the bell and maintain pressure through both arms. Drive through your foot to lift your hips into a fully extended hip position.
STEP 5: BRIDGE TO KNEE
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You are about to support yourself and the bell on only two points of contact - so be ready! Most of your weight is in your bottom arm here so take it slow and DO NOT take your eyes off the bell! Pull your foot underneath your body, slightly turning your hips to clear the floor with your knee. Plant the knee directly underneath your torso. If you have trouble running your knee into the floor, it's usually due to not turning the hips.
STEP 6: HIP SHIFT
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Keep your trunk stiff, eyes on bell, and simultaneously pull your hips under your shoulders as you lift your torso off from horizontal to vertical.
STEP 7: ADJUST YOUR FEET
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The geometry of the TGU (and your body) is imperfect. Thus, some adjustments may be required in order to take a proper lunge step.
STEP 8: KNEELING TO STANDING
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Don't get cocky! Keep your eyes on the bell, maintain active lockout, keep shoulder blade anchored, and PULL FORWARD into a bilateral stance. DO NOT push back into split squat stance and then step forward. The former utilizes your glute/ham strength and hip stability to ascend, the latter your quad strength and knee stability.

TGU: DESCENT

STEP 1: REVERSE LUNGE
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Keep your front heel down on the lunge! Feel the bell's weight in your hip. Guide yourself down slow. No shortcuts here.
STEP 2: HIP SHIFT / POST
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Maintain active lockout, keep eyes on the bell, shift hips out to lower your torso towards the floor. Don't just fall over. Try not to reach behind your knee. Your foot-knee-hand placement should create at least a modest angle.
STEP 3: SHOOT
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This is where many failed attempts end - take this step slow. Remember you are only on two points of contact as you shoot your leg through. Do not overreach as it will shift your center-of-mass too far resulting in destabilization. This step ends when the heel touches the floor.
STEP 4: PLANT YOUR BUTT
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Get your butt on the floor as soon as you can following the previous step.
STEP 5: SLIDE TO YOUR SIDE
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I have found this technique to be more reliable and predictable than simply reversing the ascending steps. Dropping to the elbow is not usually the issue, but rather getting to the back without dropping awkwardly or directly loading a flexed thoracic spine. Maintaining a stiff arm while sliding out allows a controlled descent at constant speed. People with poor shoulder ROM may have trouble with this step, but then again those people probably cannot TGU without a bent bell arm.
STEP 6: ROLL TO YOUR BACK
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After your lat/side makes contact with the floor you can safely and smoothly roll to your back. Get to your back before unloacking your arm. Many rush this step. Achieve stability in the lying position, and then lower the bell with both arms. Congrats! Now repeat it on the other side!
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Let's Simplify Calories in VS. Calories Out (CICO)

5/19/2020

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So what forms the basis - what are the necessary conditions for us to lose fat?  To lose fat you must create a calorie deficit.  Simply put, a calorie deficit refers to consuming less energy (i.e. food) than your body requires or expends in a given period of time (typically measured within a 24 hour period).  Now, the common MISTAKE made by dieters and CICO “deniers” is assuming that CALORIES IN literally refers only to the total (known) numerical value of calories eaten/drank and that CALORIES OUT literally refers only to calories “burned” through exercise - and for some slightly more acquainted with bioenergetics, resting metabolic rate.

CALORIES IN
Calories-In is relatively simple: it’s the food you digest.  However, the calorie content of food is imperfectly determined and calorie availability can vary between species/variety/source and even due to the degree of processing involved.  These are small inconsistencies, but inconsistencies nonetheless.  For example, dietary fiber cannot be digested through typical enzymatic action in our small intestine (we do not produce cellulase).  So even though fiber HAS calories, it doesn't mean we "absorb" those calories.  However, gut flora in our large intestine can - through fermentation - convert fiber into short-chain fatty acids.  Those SCFA can translocate from the intestinal lumen into circulation, yielding calories.  Thus, the composition of your gut flora influences your CALORIES IN, and that composition differs between people, and across your lifespan.

CALORIES OUT 
This gets more complicated.  CALORIES OUT is not simply represented by what the treadmill tells you.  You inhabit a living body that, whether you are conscious of the fact or not, is perpetually dependent on energy availability.  In short, CALORIES OUT may be summed up as:
  • Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
  • Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)
  • Exercise Activity (EA)
  • Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)
Most people only consider EA when calculating their calorie expenditure, but this is only a fraction of it.  BMR refers to the energy required to “keep the lights on” - the energy needed to keep your organs functioning, while conscious, but not including activity.  This accounts for most of your daily energy needs (~1200 kcals).  NEAT refers to all the low-level or general activities you may perform that don’t include deliberate acts of exercise or sports, such as chores, walking, fidgeting, errands, etc.  Lastly, TEF represents the energy demands of digestion, and these demands can change based on your food choices.  How much do each of these things contribute to your energy expenditure?
  • BMR - ~60%
  • TEF - ~10%
  • NEAT (~20-30% if EA is low)
  • EA (~20-30% if NEAT is low; you exercise, but are otherwise sedentary)

IMPORTANT CAVEATS:
  • As you lose weight, your BMR decreases
  • The longer you stay in a deficit or below your “bodyweight set-point”, the more your NEAT decreases
  • Two people with identical genetics can demonstrate a difference in NEAT by up to 2000 kcals!
All of the above caveats make your “target calories” a moving target!  Embarking on a weight-loss journey without considering the marvel of your metabolism - which is designed to keep you alive in times of food scarcity - is possibly the greatest oversight in nutrition.  Now, despite all the underlying complexity of metabolism, the process of determining and narrowing down what YOUR calorie needs are is actually quite straightforward:
  1. For 1-2 weeks gather the following data:
    1. daily bodyweight
    2. all foods eaten or drank daily
    3. daily activity (time, type, and intensity)
      1. "All foods" not only refers to the what, but specifically how much (e.g. 1 cup of cooked rice, 200g of raw chicken breast, etc.)
  2. Use a reliable reference database for caloric values of common foods (e.g. USDA database, appendices of a nutrition textbook, MyFitnessPal, etc.) to calculate your daily caloric intake.
  3. Is your weight decreasing, maintaining, or increasing?  Also take note whether the first 7 day average is within 100kcals or less as the last 7 days.  Generally, most people put on weight over the Fall/Winter holiday season.  In other words, you are likely maintaining weight on your current intake.
  4. If maintaining, you are neither in a deficit nor a surplus for your CURRENT weight AND activity level.  Sometimes people's eating habits don't really change all that much from age 20 to age 30.  However, their activity level can reduce drastically upon leaving house league or varsity sports and entering a sedentary workplace.  People buy cars, start families, and ultimately begin to rely on the daily conveniences of fast-food, snack-foods, delivery options, and of-course... get-thin-quick schemes.
  5. Now in order to lose fat, you must induce a caloric deficit, which if you'll recall has several moving parts: Calories-In & Calories-Out (and all its divisions).  So if you consume less calories but maintain your activity level and lifestyle, or conversely maintain calorie intake but become more active - a calorie deficit can be achieved.  Ideally, a combination of the two major determinants is best, however that may depend on the specific scenario. 
E.g. A previous client came to me with a markedly low-energy intake (according to the Harris-Benedict equation, she was already in a caloric deficit), yet was still 20-30lbs overweight.  The calories weren't adding up!  Clearly this meant the calorie model didn't fit!  YES!  CICO debunked! ..... or maybe something is being overlooked?  - what jumped out at me was her remarkably low-activity level.  SOLUTION: we kept her calorie intake where it was while increasing her protein intake moderately, but our ace-in-the-hole was getting her started with a progressive, resistance training program for home.  Without changing her calorie intake she lost over 20lbs and was her lightest since high school! 

So was this client actually in a caloric deficit when she came to me?  According to the equation, yes - according to real-life, NO!  By definition, because she was not losing weight she was NOT in a caloric deficit.  It's important to remember that equations are crude estimations of calorie needs, and just exactly how efficiently individuals digest and utilize/partition the food molecules they eat is unique to them.  Activities like resistance training stimulate muscle protein synthesis (MPS) to a large enough degree that we can actually see its effect in 1-2 months - which is pretty amazing to think about!  The food you eat literally forms the essential elements of contractile muscle!  Because we created a demand for protein and energy (in the molecular form of ATP), we robbed her adipose (fat cells) to maintain, build, and repair actively trained muscles.  Training created the deficit, but it also told her body what to do with her food: Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle!

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Reasons your weight can change

5/8/2020

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If you are human and live somewhere on the blue planet, you have at some point been either interested in losing fat, gaining muscle, or both.  Both of these contribute to your total body-weight, and most people tend to assume that when their weight changes they are either losing or gaining fat, or losing or gaining muscle.  Is this factually accurate?

The truth is, most of the fluctuations in your bodyweight, at least in the short term (day to day; week to week), are a result of fluid dynamics.  Your body is 65-90% water depending on your body composition, and as such where that water goes can really affect your bodyweight!  You’ve probably noticed that if you weigh yourself before bed, then again in the morning, you will typically weigh in excess of a pound less after a night of sleep.  Is this because you were a fat burning machine while sleeping?  Not likely…

Your body is an incredible factory that runs all day, and all night.  Do you burn energy while sleeping?  Not a lot, but yes you do - and the byproducts of cellular respiration include carbon dioxide (exhaled), and H2O.  H2O (water) is a molecule that is used for numerous chemical reactions in the body.  “Dehydration” reactions occur when two molecules form in the body, and H2O is released as a byproduct.  Where does that water go?  Well, quite a bit of water escapes your body during the night through exhalation, and evaporation as part of the natural process of body temperature regulation.  Yes, it’s true, you can lose several pounds of water overnight, especially the larger or more metabolically active you are.

Sometimes you “retain” water in the intracellular space, or even in the bowel.  This can certainly add to your normal bodyweight.

If you are particularly active, especially in endurance sports or if you perform intense exercise at least 1 hour in length, you can deplete your muscle tissue of a macromolecule called Glycogen.  Glycogen is basically stored complex sugars in the muscle tissue that is used to fuel that muscle’s activity.  The average amount of whole-body glycogen is 300-400g (for women and men respectively), with some people having as much as 1kg.  As much as 65% of glycogen is water, so when you exercise and use up glycogen, you are actually dehydrating.  Even higher levels of whole-body glycogen are possible by following a carb-depletion and carb-loading protocol.  This possible consequence being that the more fit your are, the more glycogen/weight you can store.  This may be partially why weight-loss can slow as a training regimen progresses, as you may be getting better at storing glycogen.  Then again, if training frequently but without eating 300-400g of carbohydrate per day to reload glycogen stores, this is not likely the case.

Here's where you really see these fluid dynamics at work: fasting, and low-carb diets.  Now to be clear, if you start any diet that creates a calorie deficit (whether explicitly stated or disguised as magic) you will typically begin to lose muscle glycogen if the deficit is large enough (and remember a deficit is the negative balance between energy required and energy spent - in other words a combination of diet induced and activity induced deficit).  So in the honeymoon phase of any diet (first month) you could reasonably expect up to 10lbs or more of weight loss.  That sounds pretty great right?!  Sure it is!  And the amazing thing is that pretty well any diet can do that in month one.  But unfortunately that's the easy weight loss - the low hanging fruit as we sometimes call it.  After that initial loss, reality sets in and true rate of fat loss is revealed as something closer to 0.5% - 1% of your bodyweight per week (e.g. 0.5%-1% x 140lb female = 0.7lbs - 1.4lbs per week).  That's only 2.8lbs - 5.6lbs per month.  Now let's be clear - 5.6lbs loss in a month for a 140lb female is awesome!  For larger individuals their weight-loss will be greater (because they have a higher proportion of adipose tissue (fat mass) to lose, and for smaller, leaner individuals that weight loss will be on the lower side.

More aggressive weight-loss efforts like crash diets, tea "detoxes", and other get-thin-quick schemes can result in much faster weight-loss.  Unfortunately, the faster the weight-loss the higher the proportion of lean mass that makes up that weight (especially in the absence of resistance training).  This is problematic because even though total body-weight decreases (for a time) body-fat percentage remains unchanged, or perhaps worsens if this cycle is repeated.

The challenge that the average dieter faces after month one is that not only does weight loss slow, thus necessitating a greater deficit, but it can stall and perhaps even increase as a consequence of the fluid dynamics we just discussed.  After a month of "clean eating" (i.e. low-sodium, low-carb, and high-protein - makes you urinate more) you are typically glycogen and water depleted. If you have a cheat day or meal, or perhaps have a moment of weakness and scarf down a bag of Doritos for example, you start to drive carbohydrates into your muscle, along with it's associated water component, and the extra sodium will drive water into your extracellular space and lower bowel.  This sudden influx can really be seen on the scale, and have a negative effect on your mental fortitude.  Frankly, it can be pretty defeating, and unsurprisingly this is where most people fall of the wagon.  It is unfortunate because this is where a nutrition coach is worth their weight in gold (OK, perhaps not gold but maybe protein powder?).  Not only is a qualified coach educated in the science of weight loss, but many are uniquely equipped to identify and address the mental struggle with weight loss, and work with clients to create practical strategies for staying on track, staying focused, and breaking through barriers.

Coach Solly is a Precision Nutrition Certified Level 1 coach who sees nutrition and weight-loss from dual perspectives: not only has he lost 60lbs and kept it off for 15 years, but he has also coached athletes to Pro level physique status, in addition to stepping on a bodybuilding stage himself.

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Designing a Weight Training Program for home (BASIC)

3/26/2020

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Start Somewhere, Start Now
  • Don’t wait around for someone to tell you WHICH exercises to do, or HOW MANY reps to do, or HOW MUCH weight to use
  • Making something a sustainable part of your lifestyle involves acting on intrinsic motivations: do the exercises you LIKE to do, do the number of reps you CAN do, and lift the amount of weight that FEELS good for you
    • The Gym: the benefit of machines is that they guide your exercise selection (you don’t have a choice), while at the same time allowing you the freedom to choose which machines you want, and explore which exercises and muscles you ENJOY training
    • Classes: make note of exercises you enjoyed in class.  Maybe they are a good fit for your own home program
    • From Scratch: look for a program online and give it a try at home - if you like it, keep it, or make minor adjustments to make it a ‘best fit’
Training Specificity
  • Some sources indicate the human body has over 800 muscles, while some indicate there are 700 named muscles, of which only 300 may be of practical relevance to specialists who deal directly with anatomy
  • Some strength athletes exclusively train Bench Press, Deadlift, and Squat, with maybe some accessory sled dragging, shoulder shrugs, crunches, and cardio thrown in
  • These athletes tend to be the ‘strongest’ in the world (think powerlifters, strongmen, and olympic weightlifters)
  • The more complex an athlete’s routine, the further down the strength ladder they tend to be, but the higher on the athletic ladder they are - this is representative of the ‘specificity of training’
  • If you train a specific thing, you get better at it: practicing piano makes you a better piano player, but just because both a piano and a guitar make music doesn’t mean playing piano makes you a better guitar player
    • Complementary Carryover: However, becoming a better musician gives you an ear for music and dexterity for picking up other instruments
    • In training, all exercises can be complementary.  However, excelling at an exercise requires training that movement specifically

Cover Your Bases
  • Identify all the muscle areas you want to develop; identify exercises you want to get better at
  • Consult a resource that has organized exercises by muscle group
  • Choose 1 exercises for each muscle group YOU want to develop
  • Make time for practicing exercises/movements YOU want to get better at (i.e. sports, yoga poses, supplementary activity)
  • Perform 1-2 sets of each exercise to a level of fatigue YOU are satisfied with
  • Log your session, make a note of anything relevant (e.g. “I felt really weak today”, “I could hardly finish the second set of these”, “My back feels funny on these”, “I don’t think I do these right”, “This felt too easy/hard, increase/decrease the weight next session”, “This was awkward with my home set up - find an alternative”, etc.)

  • Follow the principle of progressive overload

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