Hi everyone. I know Swole was marked as a Malware spammer for the last couple of days. I promise you, there was no Malware. Google seems to have been freaked out by a JavaScript file that’s used for localization. I replaced all those files anyway and now I think we’re in the clear. Real content posts will be published just shortly.
Camping in the White Mountains
Posted August 21, 2011 in Healthy Lifestyle 2 Comments »
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Seeing as how I post personal comments now and then, just wanted all the regular readers to know that I went camping in the NH White Mountains. Went to Jigger Johnson campground. Did some swimming in the Swift River. Ended the trip with a visit to Clarks Trading Post and the infamous Wolfman. This is why I haven’t posted in a week.
It was good times, and now I’ll get back to blogging about fitness.
Be sure you take care of yourself by scheduling in some down time. This could include watching a movie, playing a game, or going on vacation. Your vacation might include camping in a tent, RV, or lean-to; staying in a cabin, motel, or hotel; a cruise, a visit to your local theme park, or back packing across Europe.
Taking a vacation can rejuvenate your spirit, decrease stress and cortisol, and help your muscles to recover from months of endless resistance training. Taking one full week off every year, or even every 6 months, will do wonders to help your body recover from the rigors of intense fitness.
10 Reasons You Are Not Gaining Weight Part 2
Eat Right, Train Right and You Can Have it All
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A couple days ago I posted the first 5 reasons you are not gaining weight. Here are 5 more reasons you are not gaining weight. Check out the first article if you missed it: 10 Reasons You Are Not Gaining Weight Part 1
Peep these second 5 five items in my list of 10 possible ways you could be sabotaging your muscle building plan.
Too Much Cardio
To lose fat while maintaining muscle, you’ll want to stick to 2, thirty minute HIIT sessions; and 1, forty five minute endurance session in a week. Adding HIIT like that will help you to elevate your metabolism, which increases fat loss, and will keep cortisol levels in check to preserve existing muscle mass. The HIIT should be a max sprint for an interval of 30-60 seconds, followed by a light jog interval for twice the length of your sprint interval (60-120 seconds).
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10 Reasons You Are Not Gaining Weight Part 1
Attention Hard Gainers and Dudes Who Want to Gain 10 lbs of Solid Muscle!
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You use protein shakes. You eat lots of food. You workout like a maniac. Yet you still weigh 50 pounds less than your goal weight. Sick of skinny wrists and stick figure calves? Stop making the mistakes that compromise your weight gain strategies.
There are several components that go into a proper weight gain cycle. Nutrition is most important, exercise is next, and lifestyle can make or break you. Today we will cover some nutrition mistakes you might be making. Fix them today so you can gain muscle tomorrow!
Here are the first 5 points in my list of 10 mistakes you could be making to sabotage your weight gain.
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10 Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight Part 2
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A couple days ago I posted the first 5 reasons you are not losing weight. Here are 5 more reasons you are not losing weight. Check out the first article if you missed it: 10 Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight Part 1
Peep these second 5 five items in my list of 10 possible ways you could be sabotaging your diet.
Read the rest of this entry »
10 Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight Part 1
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A Simple Diet Reminder
Everyone likes a good diet post once in a while. Something to remind us about those small dietary habits that ultimately sabotage our efforts to look good naked. This is one of those posts.
You want to drop a couple dozen stubborn pounds of fat. You know what to do and how to do it. You figure in about 2 months you can complete your transformation by eating healthy foods but fewer calories, and adding an extra hour of exercise each week. On paper and in your brain it all makes sense. But how’s that working for you?
Typical Diet Progress
Let me guess. After two months of eating fruits and veggies, and hitting the treadmill with fierce dedication, you step on the scale and find that you’ve lost a whopping… 2 pounds. What could possibly have happened? Would could have gone wrong?
“Gluten-Free” Does Not Always Mean Gluten-Free
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Foods that claim to be gluten-free are not always gluten-free. Many of those foods actually have enough gluten to cause gastrointestinal distress in those who are intolerant to wheat protein, also known as celiac disease. Gluten is actually defined as the protein contained in wheat, barley, rye, and other similar grains.
How can food manufacturers get away with this? It’s actually not entirely their fault, as there has never been an established US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation to define just how much gluten can be in gluten-free foods.
What is the Standard for Gluten-Free?
As of this writing, manufacturers can decide how much gluten they put in their gluten-free foods. However, the FDA is now planning to push through a standard for gluten-free food, that manufacturers will be required to meet before they can put gluten-free labels on their packaging.
The Feds are proposing that gluten-free food – usually wheat products like cookies, cakes, and breads – should contain no more than 20 parts per million of gluten. At those levels lab tests are unable to detect the presence of gluten, thus meeting the label claim of “gluten-free”.
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How to Mix HIIT and Endurance Cardio
How to Effectively Combine HIIT Sessions with Endurance Cardio
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Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please: walking or jogging for hours on the treadmill, peddling for hours on the stationary bike, climbing a mountain on the StairMaster, and plodding away on the elliptical trainer is NOT the best way to burn calories!
We’ve seen a hundred studies telling us that high intensity interval training (HIIT) burns more calories and fat, speeds up your metabolism, and is less catabolic than hours of endurance cardio. HIIT can also be far less boring, will actually help you build more muscle tissue, and increases your resting metabolic rate.
HIIT: Twenty minutes of HIIT cardio improves your VO2 max, burns a ton of calories, increases your metabolism, and maintains or builds muscle tissue all at once.
vs.
Endurance Cardio: Sixty minutes of endurance cardio is not only boring as hell, it also increases cortisol, burns muscle tissue (protein) for energy, and halts protein synthesis.
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Swole 101 – 10 Core Strength Tips
It’s not this easy, but these 10 basic tips will get you started in your quest to accomplish your strength and bodybuilding goals.
- The basics have always and will always work best. You can build a core workout routine with just squats, deads, bench, overhead press, pull ups / chin ups, dips, and situps. Rows and curls can be added as needed.
- Find what works best for you and keep doing it until it no longer works. Start with the basics, optimize for your personal needs, repeat until you plateau.
- As long as you are making progress, stick with your routine. No need to change workout routines every month just because you don’t want to plateau. If your routine is working, stick with it UNTIL you plateau.
- Strength is greater than bulk. If you are strong you have nothing to prove and it is easy to get bigger. If you are big it’s tough to get stronger and strong guys will tell you “well, at least you LOOK strong.”
- Three months is the minimum trial length before you can pass judgement. Six months is even better. What I’m saying is, you need to stick with a plan for 3-6 months before you can say it does or doesn’t work.
- Free weights rule.
- Excuses will hold you back for your entire life if you let them. Stop making excuses, stop reading and researching, stop thinking. Just do it!
- You will become your environment. If you want to be weak and small, surround yourself with weak and small. If you want to be big and strong, hang with those guys, ask questions, and take advice from those who have accomplished what you want to accomplish.
- You have to really want what you think you want. If you REALLY wanted to be strong, you’d be strong by now. So change your mindset today. If you really want to be something, you have to want it more than anything else.
- Eat to grow. You have to eat if you want to get stronger. You have to eat if you want to get bigger. If you’re not getting bigger or stronger, eat more food. Especially protein.
How to do Windshield Wipers for Ripped Abs
I’ll get around to writing up a more detailed explanation shortly. For now, here’s a great video showing you how to do windshield wipers. It’s not an easy exercise but it will pay off with wonderous results.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvN7uGX5QP4If Your Goal is to Build Muscle or Gain Strength, Then Prehab is a Necessity
Posted July 26, 2011 in Injuries 3 Comments »
 Rick Kaselj |
Rick Kaselj is a personal trainer that focuses on helping clients overcome their injuries. Rick’s specialization is the shoulder and did his Masters’ degree project on designing effective exercises for the rotator cuff. He shares with rotator cuff injury suffers and fitness professionals what he has learned in school and from his clients and has put it all into the Effective Rotator Cuff Exercise Program.
Exercises for Injuries Feedback
This is the first of what will hopefully be a series of posts by Rick about injury prevention and rehabilitation. Although you won’t learn about the finer details of effective rotator cuff exercises or knee injury prevention in this post, I do hope it will encourage you to think about your own aches and pains.
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Xtend Amino Acid Supplement Helps You Build Muscle and Lose Fat
History of amino acid supplements
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The evolution of amino acid supplements have generally been well pronounced since the ancient times. From as early as 1960’s, ancient body builders are known to eat a diet rich in essential amino acids. Wine and meat were the most essential foods used for natural nutrients such as proteins and vitamins.
Nowadays, amino acid supplements are generally used by bodybuilders and other athletes for building muscle, losing fat, and enhancing performance. There are a lot of amino acid supplements that one can choose from, if you are interested in building your muscles, but it’s always advisable to go for the best. In my opinion, based on 17 years of weight training and supplement use, XTEND is the most effective, best tasting, and least expensive amino acid supplement on the market.
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3 Common Summer Fitness Mistakes
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How to Workout in 100+ Degree Heat
Weather experts have predicted that it’s going to get up to 105 degrees today, where I live in southern NH. Those crazy temperatures have prompted me to write this quick note about exercising in the summer heat.
If you are dedicated to fitness, that means you are exercising even when it’s 110 degrees outside in the middle of summer. Unfortunately, that level of dedication can get you into trouble if you don’t make safe decisions. The kind of trouble that can put you in the hospital or worse.
Here are 3 mistakes that people commonly make when they exercise in the dead heat of summer.
Wear proper clothing
Cotton is your summer nemesis. When you exercise, cotton clothing will hold sweaty moisture, which can cause chaffing and rashes. Cotton socks swell with moisture, causing them to lose their shape, which can lead to blisters – the deadly enemy of lower body training. Sweaty clothing also weighs you down, making exercise harder, which causes you to sweat more. It is a dangerous cycle.
Married Men are Healthier Than Bachelors
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A study by Canadian researchers has deflated the hopes of lifetime bachelors every where. 4400 subjects; some single, some married, some widowed; participated in the study, so it is seems pretty legit. The researchers determined that the married men are officially healthier than single men. Why?
When asked why, male participants in the study gave credit to their wives. Wives are really good at reminding us about doctor appointments, making sure we take medicine, resting when we are exhausted, getting medical help when we are hurt, and don’t forget that sex is a major anti-stress technique.
Faster Emergency Medical Treatment
On average, married men who are victims of a sudden heart attack, arrive at the hospital 30 minutes quicker than their single counterparts. Not only can that fact explain why men are healthier, it could explain why married men have a longer lifespan than bachelors. A 30 minute delay in treatment for a heart attack, quite often means the difference between life and death.
Interestingly, the wives don’t even have to be present to elicit this caregiving effect. Some study participants noted that even if their wives were not present, they would hear the female voice of reason telling them to seek medical attention immediately.
It is unfortunate to note that there is no difference in the time it takes women to get to the hospital, whether they are married or not. Come on guys! Pick up the slack!
Women Will Find the Answers
Wives also ask lots of questions. You would know this if you ever got ‘lost’ on a road trip with a female. Married women reportedly ask their own doctors for advice on behalf of their husbands. After all, isn’t pretty much every wife also a nurse? You kind of have to be a nurse when you have a pack of young children and one really big really hairy ‘kid’ to take care of on a daily basis.
This post is an excuse to post a picture of a super sexy wedding dress (yes, obviously it is the dress that is sexy), which you can see at the top of the page. But I also want to take a moment to say, “Thanks!” to all the wives out there who remind us that good health is sometimes more than benching and squatting triple bodyweight.
3 More Back Training Mistakes
I am not going to get into a long detailed post today. Instead I am going to supplement my top 6 back training mistakes post with another guest post about back training by expert Mike Robertson. I’m not cool enough to get Mike to post on my website though, so I have to link to the post from another blog entirely.
Find it here: 3 back training mistakes you could be making.
Mike tells you how people go wrong by training without a neutral spine, without a neutral pelvis, and without paying attention to detail. This is just another example of how every aspect of your physiology has to be healthy and aligned, or you risk injury.
About Mike Robertson
Mike Robertson received his Masters Degree in Sports Biomechanics from the world-renowned Human Performance Lab at Ball State University. He is also the president of Robertson Training Systems and the co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training, which has been named one of America’s Top 10 Gyms by Men’s Health magazine in 2009 and 2010.
About Rick Kaselj
Since the guest post is actually posted on his site, this is a lead in to another awesome fitness blogger, a guy named Rick Kaselj who is an expert on sports injuries. Hopefully he will write a couple guest posts for Project Swole soon. I’ve requested some serious rehab / prehab articles and I know if he can find the time to write them, you will be amazed.
The Problem With Cookie-Cutter Diet Plans
Why You Can’t Stay Lean When You Get Off Your Structured Diet
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We have all heard of The Atkins diet, The Warrior Diet, The Paleo Diet and every other nutritional plan that promises to burn fat, build muscle, and allow you to achieve your physique related goals with minimal effort.
They make big promises, sound good in practice, but fail to deliver. Even if you do reach your goal, after you discontinue the diet, the fat piles right back on and you are back where you started.
What a waste of time.
Why does this happen?
It’s really simple. The proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” comes to mind…
To Build More Power Train Your Antagonists Eccentrically
Plyos, Olympic Lifts, and Dynamic Efforts are not the Only Ways to Increase Speed and Power
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Strength coaches around the world prescribe plyometrics and Olympic lifts to increase force production – to build speed and power. Powerlifters around the world utilize dynamic effort lifts – box squats, speed deads, board presses – to increase their speed and power.
We can all learn A LOT from those methods, but there is one constituent of force development that the above methods don’t take into account. Consider reversal and/or starting strength, acceleration, and stretch reflex actions of the muscles that act as the antagonists to the primary sports movement.
Powerzone Fitness: The Best Gym in New Hampshire
I finally joined a gym that’s worth blogging about. It is called Powerzone Fitness and it’s located in Hooksett, NH.
Check out their website here: Powerzone Fitness and their Yahoo Local page with a 5 star rating and 4 glorious reviews here: Powerzone in Hooksett, NH
Why is Powerzone Fitness the best gym in NH?
- It is open 24×7. You get in after hours with an access card.
- No one is ever there. Turn the lights and fans on, crank your own music on the radio.
- No crazy meat heads taking up all the machines. It’s like the opposite of Gold’s Gym in Manchester, NH. If you ever go there you’ll know what I mean.
- It is owned by a former powerlifter. That means you can deadlift, lift over your head, and grunt without getting in trouble.
- They supply the chalk. Like using chalk when you deadlift or do Olympic lifts? They have a box of chalk beside the power rack.
- The have a power rack. They have a smith machine too, but they only use it for shrugs.
- Dumbbells up to 120 lbs. Not bad.
- They have a reverse hyper machine! It’s old, but it works.
- Training at Powerzone is like working out in your own personal basement gym, except they actually have all the equipment you could need.
You Have to Train Heavy to Grow
Posted July 6, 2011 in Bodybuilding Myths 2 Comments »
Do Bodybuilders Have to “Max Out” to Gain Muscle?
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You may have seen or heard cliche slogans like “Go heavy or go home.” You may have been asked “How much do you bench?” You may even be impressed by Olympic lifters, powerlifters, and professional strongmen, all of whom regularly use maximum effort triples and singles to prepare for competition, to try to set a personal record, or just as a component of their regular training routines.
Well guess what? None of those sports are like bodybuilding. Sure, Olympic lifters are typically pretty jacked, powerlifters and strongmen are just plain “big”, but very few of them could compete in a bodybuilding competition and hope to win, without first dieting and training like a bodybuilder for several months.
This brings us to the question – do bodybuilders ever actually have to test their 1 or 3 rep max on any exercise? Do they have to lift super-heavy?
You Shouldn’t Train When You Are Sore
Posted July 4, 2011 in Bodybuilding Myths No Comments »
Should Bodybuilders Train When They Are Sore?
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This is one of the top offending bodybuilding myths. Have you ever canceled a workout or skipped training a body part because it felt sore, even though at least 48 hours had passed since you trained it? If you said “Yes”, then after reading this post you will never make that mistake again.
Your muscles will get sore when you use:
- heavy weights
- slow negatives
- forced negatives
- assisted negatives
- drop sets
- high volume
Do you need to avoid these training methods completely in order to prevent soreness, so that you can train again in two days? Not necessarily.
