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Sunday, October 30, 2016

Mobility Monday: Even the Best Need the Obvious


Even at the top your game you need people to help keep things working properly.  In fact it might bemore important at that point compared to any other time.  So if the best need the obvious what does that mean for everyone else?  Well simply we shouldn't be neglecting these areas either and need to focus on maintaining those basics in order to get ourselves moving as well as we can.


Things It Helps:
-Hip Mobility
-Low Back Pain
-Lower Extremity Tension


Friday, October 28, 2016

Friday Food: Buffalo Chicken Lettuce Wraps

By: Joel Luedke

Buffalo chicken is a fan favorite here and this is a great recipe in preparing it for lettuce wraps but can also be used however you'd like to add buffalo chicken anything else.  Enjoy this one this weekend.


Ingredients
-1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite size pieces
-1/2 cup buffalo sauce, plus a little more for drizzling over the finished chicken if you prefer
-2 cups plain panko bread crumbs
-4-6 large soft leaves of lettuce
-1 cup cooked quinoa
-1/2 cup diced tomatoes
-1/2 cup diced avocado
-Blue cheese (or ranch) dressing & scallions to garnish

The Game Plan
-Preheat the oven to 375 and lightly grease a baking sheet (I'd use coconut oil) or line it with parchment paper.
-Toss the chicken in the 1/2 cup buffalo sauce, cover, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes
-Pour the breadcrumbs into a shallow dish.  Coat each chicken piece evenly and place them on the prepared baking sheet.  The baking sheet will get pretty crowded--it's okay.
-Bake for 30 minutes.  You can toss the baked chicken with extra buffalo sauce if you want.
-To assemble the wraps, fill each leaf of lettuce with quinoa, tomatoes, and avocado.  Top with the crispy baked buffalo chicken, drizzle with the blue cheese, and sprinkle with the green onions.
-These are also a delicious cold lunch if you prepare the chicken ahead of time and refrigerate it before serving.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Just Breathe! Part 2

By: Kyle Boland

In part 1, we discussed a few of the many ways breathing affects us systemically. Hopefully it answered some of the “why” breathing is important. Let’s dive into some more “why”, this time looking at the musculoskeletal side of things.

If you have ever paid attention to how a healthy baby breathes, you will have noticed that it is entirely with their abdomen. If they are laying on their back in just a diaper, you will only see their belly move with each breath, not their neck or shoulders or even chest. If you look closely, you will also realize that their belly doesn’t solely expand forward with each inhalation, it also moves out to the sides and down into the floor with each breath as well. It’s as if their abdominopelvic cavity is a balloon, and they are filling it evenly all the way around, 360 degrees. Fullest expansion should occur about two inches below the belly button.


Try it. Lay on your back on the floor (preferably not in a diaper). Do you naturally breathe in this manner? Could you if you consciously tried? You should be able to. Believe it or not, we all started breathing in this way. However, we often develop improper motor patterns as we go through life. A motor pattern is the term that describes the order in which muscles are used to accomplish a particular task. For example, you want to take a drink of coffee. The brain sends the “drink coffee” message via the nerves to certain muscles in your arm to lift your cup of coffee to take a drink. Those muscles then respond by contracting in that particular sequence to lift the cup to your mouth. There are ideal and non-ideal muscles that get used for this pattern. The more we use a particular pattern, the more likely we are to use that pattern of muscles again in the future. This is why it is important to use the “proper” motor patterns, whether it be while drinking coffee or breathing or performing a back squat.

Again, we all started breathing properly if we were a healthy-developing infant. Then life happens. We sit in desks at school for a good portion of our childhood, we sit in the car with our head and shoulders rounded forward while holding the steering wheel, we spend too much time on the computer or cell phone or in our desk, and then we throw daily stressors of money, kids, relationships, and our jobs in the mix, and we have a perfect recipe for changing our ideal breathing patterns. You can observe adults and even children that don’t use their diaphragm (the muscle that we use with abdominal breathing) to breathe, but instead use their chest, upper traps, and neck muscles. This leads to chronic tightness from the overuse, one of the reasons people love getting massaged here so much. They also carry all of this stress as tension in these muscles, which is a vicious cycle and perpetuates these improper motor patterns unless something is done to correct it. This also frequently attributes to many headaches, as well as neck, shoulder, and upper back pain or discomfort. All from breathing.

It doesn’t stop there. Take two pop cans. One is opened and the other is not. If you stood on these cans, the unopened can would withstand much more weight before crushing. The only difference between the two is the amount of pressure that’s inside. If you think of your abdominopelvic cavity like this pop can, you will want it filled with more pressure so your core is more stable. This helps protect your low back, creates more strength for every movement you can conceive, and stabilizes everything all the while. How do you fill your “pop can” with pressure? You guessed it, breathing. Well, breathing with your diaphragm along with activating the abdominal wall and pelvic floor.
So, you’re telling me that proper breathing can help with neck, shoulder, upper back AND lower back pain?? Yes! Actually, it can help with a host of other ailments in both the upper and lower extremities too (think core stability). Basically, if the core isn’t stable, nothing else can be either, which puts distal joints and tissues at risk for injury.

Many muscles in the body follow this pattern. The body is very good at compensating and if the entire core and body isn’t stabilized as described above, the brain recruits other muscles to contract to help stabilize instead. Think: “if you don’t do it, somebody else will!” This isn’t the worst thing in the world, because even though these other muscles being used for stabilization is “non-ideal”, it’s better than nothing. They help protect the joints and connective tissues from acute injury or help us get from point A to point B. However, if this occurs for long enough, these improper motor patterns will lead to chronic, overuse injury.

You may be wondering what the purpose of these “other, non-ideal” muscles is. They have a purpose and specific function, but the primary function is not stabilization. Typically, they are larger muscles that are used more for movement than stabilization.

Next up is part 3, where we bring it all home. We’ve touched on a few things that can be done, but part 3 will be specifically geared toward the “how to” of breathing.

Monday, October 24, 2016

Mobility Monday: Don't Hang on Your Passive Tissues or Your Jeans

By: Joel Luedke

In this Mobility Monday we look at how your squat form makes a huge difference on the tissues that get stressed in you body.  If you set up in the wrong system you can put a phenomenal amount of stress and tension on your hip capsule and the associated ligaments that aren't meant to take that kind of stress. Simple changes in your position can load the right areas and tissues, i.e muscles to make sure you are maintaining power but also limiting your risk of injury.

You may say I don't squat heavy or olympic lift but this applies to basic movements in life and your set is important all the time.  Kelly has a great quote "make your battle stance your everyday stance". Utilize these ideas when working on projects or just getting up from sitting and standing.

Things It Helps:
-Low back pain
-Hip tightness and pain
-Knee pain


Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Study Spotlight: Training Volume and Muscle Hypertrophy: What is the Optimal Dose?

By: Andrew Jagim

Training for muscle hypertrophy (increasing muscle growth) typically includes a higher training volume.  But is there an optimal dose or training volume that is need to maximize muscle growth?

A recent review paper covered this topic in detail and tried to identify whether or not there was a dose-response relationship between training volume and muscle hypertrophy.

What did they do?
The investigators compiled various articles within the literature to identify a relationship between weekly training volume and changes in muscle mass over time using a meta-analysis approach. Specifically this included 34 different treatment groups from 15 separate publications that completed a structured training program and measured indices of muscle mass.

What did they find?
The researchers found a strength association between weekly training volume and increase in muscle size.  For example, they found that each additional set (of a particular exercise) resulted in a percentage gain in muscle of approximately 0.37%. As seen in the table below:


When weekly sets completed were categorized as either lower (<5 sets per muscle) or higher (10+ sets per muscle) there was a difference in lean muscle development of approximately 3.9% suggesting that there is in fact a dose-response relationship between training volume and muscle hypertrophy over time.

Take Home Message:
If your goal is to maximize muscle development it appears as though a higher training volume is the key.  From a physiological, neuromuscular and metabolic standpoint a higher training volume seems to create the "perfect storm" of an anabolic environment to facilitate increases in muscle growth over time.  Specifically, the combination of a moderate to heavy load, performed until near-failure (higher volume) appears to maximize the intracellular signaling mechanisms that are responsible to muscle growth. Further, a higher training volume will result in greater time under tension which creates a higher degree of mechanical tension on the muscle, ultimately leading to a higher degree of exercise induced muscle damage (Again a powerful anabolic stimulus).

This will also systematically recruit and fatigue multiple motor units and their corresponding muscle fibers.  Lastly, the higher volume will create a greater degree of metabolic stress which means an increased production of metabolic byproducts within the muscle that also serve to stimulate protein synthesis and lead to greater muscular development overt time.  So if you're looking to increase lean body mass, try ramping up the training volume. It's important to note that this is weekly training volume, so a greater training frequency would also provide this benefit, instead of just doing more sets in a single training session.

Full Article Here

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Just Breathe!

PART 1

I’m light as a feather, but the strongest person can’t hold me for much more than a minute. What am I?



Breath!

It’s something that most people don’t typically even think about… something so simple, yet so vital. We can control our respiration consciously, but a majority of the time it is controlled subconsciously by respiratory centers in the brain stem. Most individuals don’t even realize that this is an important skill that can be life-changing in a variety of ways. You may think, “I’m still alive, so I must be good enough at it.” Let’s take a look at a few of the many different ways our breathing can affect our bodies, and see if we can do better than “good enough”.

Our body is made up of trillions of cells. That’s what we’re made of. When we break it down and look at it like this, we can see that our overall health and wellbeing is a direct reflection of the health and wellbeing of our building blocks, our cells. What do our cells require for energy? Oxygen. So if we can acquire and transport oxygen more efficiently, the overall health of every single cell in our body is going to increase, which directly improves the overall health of our human body. Better breathing directly affects every single system of the body. This frequently does not get enough attention but when brought to the forefront, makes perfect sense. From the digestive to immune, lymphatic, nervous systems and more, better breathing equals better overall health.

For example, let’s take a look at the cardiovascular system, because hypertension alone is so prevalent. Proper breathing in general, but specifically deep breathing, decreases muscle tension and triggers the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). This allows the blood vessels to vasodilate (expand), which decreases blood pressure. The PNS also triggers the release of endorphins (our feel-good chemicals). Endorphins make us feel good by relieving stress and acting as pain killers by reducing our perception of pain. The decreased stress produces a calming effect, which increases our mental clarity. Decreased stress also has a profound impact on us, not just in terms of quality of life, but the effects that it has systemically with disease. 

The cycle goes around, showing us that breathing doesn’t impact every single system and organ and cell in the body solely via oxygen, but also with the stress chemicals that get (or don’t get) produced.

Whoa, all this just from breathing? That is only the tip of the iceberg, as we haven’t even mentioned the musculoskeletal system. Do you know anyone with tightness in their shoulders, upper traps, and neck? That’s the go-to spot when somebody asks for a massage. However, it doesn’t have to be. Stay tuned for part two, where we discuss the musculoskeletal aspects of breathing.

Sunday, October 16, 2016

Mobility Monday: Injury & Training Essentials

By: Joel Luedke


This is a great video to give you the basics of injury and training essentials to help you take care of yourself and to make sure that you can fix yourself and also prevent injury.  Now a quick disclaimer, at about 4 minutes they talk about icing and doing it twice a day (he has since taken a 180 turn on this topic).  We have gotten into this one a lot and there are different ways ice can be beneficial and also be detrimental.  Use cold therapy (i.e. ice baths) for recovery and be very careful on how you use ice for injury (Article: Can I have a bag of ice?  Can you tell me why?).


Enjoy the other recommendations in this video and make sure to let us know if you have any questions.

Things It Helps:
-Injury Prevention
-Workout Recovery
-General Maintenance


Sunday, October 9, 2016

Mobility Monday: A Word About Your Shoulder Health

By: Joel Luedke

Shoulder pain is right up there with low back pain along with hip and knee in terms of how common it occurs.  It can also be one of the most debilitating areas to have in pain because of how much mobility is within the joint.  If you have restricted motion in your shoulder everyday activities drop off considerably and get very painful in the process.  Check out this video on how to start correcting it.

What It Helps:
-Shoulder Pain
-Problems with overhead movement
-Poor posture



Friday, October 7, 2016

Friday Food: Grilled Honey Lime Chicken w/ Pineapple Salsa

Looking to spice up your chicken a little bit this weekend?  Here we have a great recipe for you that throws plenty of flavor at you but still keeps it as healthy as you can.  Great recipe to start a tropical themed dinner.

Ingredients:
-Juice of 4 Limes
-1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
-1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro
-2 tsp honey
-Salt
-1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts
-2 cup chopped pineapple
-1 avocado, diced
-1/4 red onion, diced
-Black Pepper

Game Plan: 
-Make Marinade: In a large bowl, whisk together juice of 3 limes, olive oil, 1/4 cup cilantro, and honey, season with salt.
-Add chicken to a large Ziplock bag or baking dish and pour over marinade.  Let marinate in the refrigerator at least 3 hours and up to overnight.
-When ready to grill, heat grill to high, oil grates and add chicken.  Grill until charred, 8 minutes per side.
-Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, stir together pineapple, avocado, red onion, juice of 1 lime, and remaining tablespoon cilantro.  Season with salt and pepper.
-Spoon salsa over chicken and serve.

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Study Spotlight: Fasted Cardio for Better Weight Loss?

By: Andrew Jagim

For a long time the idea of utilizing fasted cardio for better fat burning and weight loss was a common strategy among those seeking to improve body composition.  Body builders and physique competitors are notorious for choosing fasted cardio first thing in the morning to help maximize fat loss.

The rationale behind this strategy is based upon the assumption that when you are fasted, insulin levels are very low which helps you rely more on burning fat as a fuel versus carbohydrates. However, the question has always been, does acute fuel utilization or a greater reliance on fat lead to greater reductions in stored body fat over time. Well, in 2014 Schoenfeld et al. published an article that examined the benefits of doing fasted cardio compared to doing cardio in a fed state on weight loss and changes in body composition. They found that when total calories and macronutrients were controlled (the same between both groups) and both groups completed the same exercise protocol, there were no differences in weight loss or body composition over the course of 4 weeks.  In my opinion, this is kind of what I'd expect to see. In a well controlled environment, when someone is following a regimented diet created to help facilitate weight loss (a 24 hr caloric deficit) and following the same exercise program as someone else but they just happen to skip breakfast before their morning workout....you won't really see any differences long term, as the evidence is pretty clear in that weight loss is primarily determined by calories in vs. calories out and not whether or not you are exercising on an empty stomach.

But what happens when someone isn't really following a specific diet and they are just opting for fasted cardio as a way for them to help manage their weight?  In this study below, I examine maybe a more practical scenario and how fasted cardio may offer some advantages....

Recently an interesting study was published examining some of the acute differences in fuel utilization (over the course of a day) and how completing fasted cardio influenced caloric intake throughout the rest of the day when individuals were not following a regimented diet.

What did they do?
Researchers were trying to determine if there was a difference in rates of fat oxidation (fat burning) during exercise when completed in a fasted versus fed state. They were also trying to determine if fasted cardio had any kind of an impact on 24 hr. fat oxidation, food consumed (ad libitum), blood sugar levels and ratings of hunger throughout the day.  They had 20 male subjects (well trained) complete 2 experimental trials separated by one week. On one day, participants completed a fasted 60 minutes treadmill run at 60% of their VO2 Max. During the other experimental trial, the subjects were first provided with a standardized breakfast 2 hrs prior to their exercise test.  During the exercise trial and throughout the days, subjects were assessed for differences in energy expenditure, fuel utilization, blood glucose levels and hunger between each condition.  The researchers also monitored calorie intake over the next 24 hrs by evaluating the amount of food eaten at lunch (ad libitum at a lunch buffet) and provided all subjects with a bag of food to take home; instructing them to only eat items in the bag and return all uneaten food the next day for later analysis.

What did they find?
Interestingly, the researchers found that total calorie intake over the 24 hr period, and food eaten at dinner, was significantly greater in the group that ate breakfast prior to their exercise test as seen below:


They also found increased rates of fat oxidation (greater fat burning) during the exercise trial in the fasted cardio group. Hunger was significantly lower in the fed group compared to fasted, before exercise, after exercise, and before lunch however blood glucose and hunger did not appear to be associated with energy intake.

Take Home Message:
I have to be honest, I did not anticipate some of these results based upon related reports in the literature.  Based on these results, it definitely appears as though fasted cardio may offer certain benefits in terms of weight management strategies as it appears to reduce ad libitum calorie intake throughout the rest of the day, despite higher rates of hunger being reported.  So if you are someone who struggles to control portion sizes and maintain a certain calorie intake, fasted cardio may help you to manage the amount of calories eaten throughout the rest of the day. Not to mention, by doing fasted cardio you are also "skipping" a meal early in the day which also means you may be more likely to consume less calories throughout the day.  Is fasted cardio a guaranteed strategy to help burn more fat and improve body composition? In my opinion I don't really think so based upon the Schoenfeld article mentioned above but this acute study definitely shows some promise. Also, if you are like me you may not function very well in the morning without food, especially if you have to exercise. It would be interesting to see the long-term version of this ad libitum fasted cardio approach played out.  Until then, do whatever works best for you!



Click Here to Read the Full Article

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Not All Coffee Is Created Equal

By: Joel Luedke


Now, the title of this post might be one of the more obvious statements you would think we could make.  Obviously there are some much better tasting (key word) coffees compared to others but is that all there is to it?  When you really dig into it there are so many other things that go into making a great cup of coffee and it is impressive on how much of an impact it can have on your daily life.


Lets start off with a couple misnomers about coffee.  Often people talk about having to use the restroom more when drinking coffee and often that urge to go is blamed on the caffeine content.  While yes it is true that caffeine is a mild diuretic it is not strong enough to turn on that urge that quickly.  So why is that the case?  It all comes back to how coffee is produced and processed and this is where the story of mycotoxins comes into play.

What is a mycotoxin and where do they come from?  Without getting too much into the coffee producing process (because it is complicated and we don't fully follow either) it all starts with the drying and production of the beans.  If the process isn't tightly controlled and taken care of these mycotoxins (formed from fungus from a wet environment) are produced on the beans and they go from that processing early on to the production of your coffee that you take home.  When you ingest this coffee your body recognizes those toxins and immediately tries to get rid of them.  Ever had to go to the bathroom very quickly after coffee?  Yep, me too.  It's not always the caffeine's fault (intact it is only a mild diuretic) but it is the mycotoxins that your body is trying to get rid of as quickly as possible.

So what is the alternative?  Buying better coffee is a great place to start.  There are standards set throughout the world on the 'acceptable' level of these mycotoxins that can be present on the coffee.  Want to take a guess on a country that doesn't have any of these standards?  No no, not Russia, but the USA.  We actually as a country get the coffee that gets rejected from countries all around the world and we say it is ok.  No a good thing.

In a world where toxins are present everywhere and organic is a good way to go this is just one other thing that can affect your daily life.  Our co-host Kyle Boland actually had a real life experience with not up to par coffee.  Kyle was making kombucha (cold brew fermented drink) at home and did not have his better quality beans.  He followed the process as he has before and when it was time to take out the final product he was shocked to find a layer of mold on the top of his creation.  Literally a layer of mold that he could scrape off the top (which he didn't because he threw it away) that was the result of some bad coffee beans.

While sometimes paying for the good stuff hurts a little bit more than you would like it to it is good for you to do in the long run.  Those little things day to day that go unnoticed add up in the future.

Here are a couple options as well as a podcast on more of the specifics when it comes to this coffee topic that we think are worth checking out.  Keep enjoying the 'cup of joe' but do so in health.

Products: 
Caveman Coffee

Bulletproof Coffee

Podcast: Dan Cox-Caffeine, Coffee & Mycotoxins



Sunday, October 2, 2016

Mobility Monday: The 23:58 Rule-You've Got to Make Change

By: Joel Luedke

Kelly has a lot of big points in this video and he is spot on.  This one focuses on the hips and how important it is to get that area to open up and relieve so many aches and pains.  He also makes the important point of focusing on more than just the couple minutes you spend on mobility work and how you plan that in to the rest of your day is huge. Get after it everyone.

Things It Helps:
-Tight Hips
-General Knee Pain
-Tight Quads from Lots of Sitting
-Low Back Pain