Walking often was a critical part of human evolution. Yet most of us don’t do it nearly enough. Instead, we sit for long periods of time, staring at the computer monitor, tv or smart phone. This is great video on how sitting for long periods of time effects your body — “Our bodies aren’t designed for being sedentary.” Recent research has revealed maintaining a regular fitness regimen cannot counteract the accumulated ill effects of sitting eight to 12 hours a day in between bouts of exercise. When you stop moving for extended periods of time, it’s like telling your body it’s time to shut down and prepare for death! Additionally, there is strong scientific evidence that walking can have long-term effects on serotonin levels and mood throughout the day.
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Fasting, Coffee, Bed of Nails and More
My Experiments – July Log:
I did another 5-day water-only fast (4th time in 2 years). Health benefits from fasting include a “house cleaning” of damaged/dead cells, reducing cancer risk and allowing the strong and healthy cells to thrive. It seems to get easier each time I do it and I’m actually looking forward to my next one in December. This time around I did a thorough blood work and microbiome analysis. I would recommend everyone try at least a one-day fast to, at the very least, re-sensitize yourself to the felling of hunger. When you fast, you quickly realize how much eating is just habit and not necessarily the need for more energy.
If you want to dig into fasting some more, check out my Step-byStep Guide to Start a Fasting Lifestyle.
Entertainment Of The Month — I’m Currently Testing Out:
Fitness Recovery 2.0
It accounts for almost 95% of fitness training results, yet most active adults don’t do it.
It’s clear. Athletes get injured or don’t see significant gains because they don’t know how to properly recover.
Whether you’re a CrossFitter, triathlete, and yes, even a weekend warrior – you need a system to incorporate recovery into your training. (And if you want to know how to start seamlessly incorporating recovery into your lifestyle, sign up to my free webinar.)
If you’re starting to feel a level of burnout or fatigue, if the motivation to push yourself is missing, or if you think you get results from working yourself to death in the gym, it’s time to rethink fitness…
Don’t let injury, overtraining or fatigue prevent you from reaching your goals.
Do any of these symptoms sound familiar to you?
- Persistently “meh” workouts, plateaus or a decrease in performance
- Difficulty losing fat especially around the midsection
- Minor, nagging injuries or feeling sore and achy all the time
- Not feeling 100% — catching minor bugs, feeling run-down
- Poor sleep, feeling restless on the nights you train or irregular sleep patterns
- Never feeling well-rested in the morning or low energy throughout the day
- Loss of sex drive
Sleep Smarter book review — Is $16 worth radically improved sleep?
I’ve been listening to Shawn Steveson’s podcast The Model Health Show for a few years now. He puts complex, researched-based health topics into easy to understand common folk lingo. And he keeps you engaged and laughing the entire time.
I just finished my advanced copy of his new book Sleep Smarter and the book reads just like his podcast. Before I knew it, I was half way through and had implemented several of the many sleep tips that he recommends – and feeling the difference!
I wrote a sleep hack post in 2013 in which I offered up various tips I had learned from his podcast. The book includes many of these hacks and much more.
I didn’t realize how bad my sleep quality was until I started implementing some of Shawn’s recommendations.
I literally went from falling asleep at the wheel on my morning commute to mornings being my most productive and energizing time of the day.
In Sleep Smarter, Shawn recommends several power tips at the end of each chapter — simple tactics that can be implemented right away. If you try just a fraction of the many power tips recommended, YOU WILL GET BETTER SLEEP, I promise. It’s an easy read with humor sprinkled throughout.
Shawn covers how important sleep is and everything you need to improve it, and it’s all based on the latest scientific research.
Best and most important of all, Shawn focuses on improving QUALITY, not necessarily increasing the quantity of sleep. Most of us get as much sleep as we can fit in, but it’s the quality of that sleep that counts. Shawn teaches us how to make the most of what sleep we CAN get. It’s a much more realistic approach.
The book even includes a 14-day sleep improvement plan.
Learn how to radically improve your sleep with Sleep Smarter -> SleepSmarterBook.com
Achieve your highest level of athletic performance every time with this routine
CrossFit’s missing a vital component of fitness, especially if you want to achieve peak athletic performance.
I’ve been doing it for a little over a year and I love it. They have identified exactly what fitness should be for long-term health and functional movement. I’ve even got CrossFit Level 1 Certified.
During Level 1 training, they cover the basic movements, nutrition, and the entire method to their madness — interesting stuff for a fitness nerd like me.
But I was surprised that there was almost no talk about recovery, especially with the intensity of workouts that come with Crossfit.
As I dug into what a great fitness routine should have, I found four essential components. They are:
- Visualization
- Warm-up
- Workout of the Day (WOD)
- Recovery (more important than the WOD itself)
If you want to get the most out of your body and your workout while achieving the highest level of athletic performance and reducing the possibility of injury, all four components are crucial.
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