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- Get an extra 2 hours of sleep per night
- Eat no carbohydrates save for leafy, cruciferous veggies
- Watch comedies, read a good joke book and laugh with friends
- Drink cool water, water and more water and no other beverage
- Walk everywhere you go (this is NOT for calorie burning but for improving insulin sensitivity)
- Weight lift twice per week in an intense (but safe) manner (my book would help!)
- Eat a protein rich meal or drink a shake within 30 minutes after your workout
Go. Do. Start. Enjoy!
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I've been involved in exercise ever since I became a member of The Charles Atlas Club when I was 10 years old. In 1998, I founded and established Serious Strength on the Upper West Side of NYC. My clients include kids, seniors (and everyone in between), top CEOs, celebrities, bestselling authors, journalists and TV personalities.
Strong Kids Healthy Kids
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Gary Taubes: Good Calories Bad Calories
Michael & MaryDan Eades M.D.: Protein Power Lifeplan
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
So simple, yet so hard for some to comprehend. I love the homemade sauerkraut (fermented cabbage) in “Nourishing Traditions”. Great taste that gets better with age!
Fred, I was wondering what your take on coffee is. Does the caffeine have a negative impact on blood glucose levels or insulin sensitivity?
Thank you!
In health
Brandon
Coffee? Good question. I really don’t know. I don’t think coffee affects glucose levels as coffee has no calories – unless you have a lot of milk with it. I use heavy cream in my coffee. Zero carbs in cream and so yummy!
Hey Fred a couple questions. First I would like to point out what seems to be an inconsistency on your part, which I think could be attributed to an overstatement. In a more recent blog you advised that individuals eat fruit, in fact you included fruit in the list of nutrients in the “real breakfast of champions.” Considering that fruit is a carbohydrate, does number 2 on your list need further explaining? Maybe eat no carbs save for vegetables and fruit? And last (I presume that this question will not be answered, but I figured I’d give it a shot) in a recent post on the Body Recomposition website Lyle McDonald gave a brief overview on the physiology of the calves and how to train them. You responded with somewhat of a counterargument to the effect that he was essentially wrong and that there is only way to go about trainig any muscle group – the slow way. Doesn’t such a position violate the Principle of Individual Differences, the Specifity Principle, and simply ignore the complex physiological and anatomical properties of the musculoskeletal system? For instance when considering sport specific training isn’t it commonly acknowledged that certain types of athletes should train slow (e.g. distance runners) while others would profit more from training with short, explosive movements (e.g. shot putters, Olympic weightlifters, football linemen etc.)?
Fruit is a real food. And it contains a lot of sugar. You should not eat a lot of it, but athletes if they are looking for nutrient dense foods, which they should be, fruit is ok.
Athletes are already lean – usually. My blog above was about getting lean fast.
My question for Lyle was a genuine query looking for support of his recommendations for calf training. The burden of proof lies upon him to support his position. I am genuinely interested if he has the data. You can indeed use explosive movements and grow muscle. You can train slowly and grow muscle. This is beside the point.
Training as I advocate is designed to proliferate myofibrils – increase mass hence strength and endurance for anything you choose to do. But to be really good at something whether it’s chess, or sprinting, you have to practice.
You don’t train fast in the weight room to be a better sprinter. You train to become stronger as safely and as efficiently as possible in the weight room and then find the best sprinting coach on earth and practice sprinting as perfectly as possible. Sport specific training, as is commonly taught today to athletes, is primarily BS.
I hope this makes sense. I’ve blogged on this before but I am not good at finding old blogs and linking them.
To a certain degree, yes, it makes sense. In fact I’ve recently read that “sport-specific” training as is like you said, commonly taught, at best a misapplication of a generally good idea. I tend to believe that many things can come up under the banner of “sport-specific” e.g., acceleration/decelaration training in my case since I am a running back. Obviously Michael Phelps wouldn’t need the neuromuscular adapative benefits of repeatedly sprinting 5 yards and touching a cone as fast as possible. A sprinter may not train “fast” in a weight room, but I know that he/she might use both explosive training protocols to improve, for instance, starting strength (improving the q-angle) and isometric band training for improved muscular endurance. The point here is that there has been and never will be just one way to improving an individuals fitness ability.
But you don’t sprint 5 yards and touch cones as a running back – you sprint 5 yards with a football in your hand to get yardage. That’s what you should be practicing – actual plays instead. You already know how to run, sprint, pivot, etc. I assume you are already skilled at these techniques?
Practice makes perfect but only if the practice is perfect to begin with. This is not my opinion mind you. Read Schmidt’s work on motor learning. Your coach may not have if he has you sprinting to touch cones.
http://www.amazon.com/Motor-Learning-Performance-Richard-Schmidt/dp/0880115009
The following is from the book Motor Learning and Performance: From Principles to Practice
By Richard A. Schmidt
(Note: The comments in parenthesis are my additions.)
“A common misconception is that fundamental abilities can be trained through various drills or other activities. The thinking is that, with some stronger ability, the athlete will see gains in performance for tasks with this underlying ability.
For example, athletes are often given various “quickening” exercises, with the hope that these exercises would train some fundamental ability to be quick, allowing quicker response in their particular sports.
Coaches (as well as physical therapists) often use various balancing drills to increase general balancing ability, eye movement exercises to improve vision, and many others. Such attempts to train fundamental abilities may sound fine, but usually they simply do not work. Time, and often money, would be better spent practicing the eventual goal skills.
There are two correct ways to think of these principles. First, there is no general ability to be quick, to balance, or to use vision. Rather, quickness, balance, and vision are each based on many diverse abilities, so there is no single quickness or balance ability, for example, that can be trained.
Second, even if there were such general abilities, these are, by definition, genetic and not subject to modification through practice. Therefore, attempts to modify an ability with a nonspecific drill are ineffective. A learner may acquire additional skill at the drill which is, after all, a skill itself, but this learning does not transfer to the main skill of interest.”
Hope this helps!
Hi Fred! Why water and only water? How do non-aspartame sweetened soft drinks/sodas impede the quickest possible path to lean? Thanks, K.
Hi Kathleen –
There appears to be some evidence that if the body thinks the drink is sweet, insulin will be secreted even though there is no sugar. Sort of like the way stomach acids are released when gum is chewed.
Best,
Fred