SmartyPants Gummy Vitamins for Adults. Seriously?

from http://blog.fooducate.com

First there came the gummy bear candy that kids loved so much. Then came the gummy bear multivitamin for kids. And now, a gummy multivitamin for adults. Because, you know, we don’t eat healthy enough.
We’ve been approached several times by the SmartyPants PR firm to write about their product, and recently noticed many esteemed members of the nutrition community write about this product as well. The PR firm is certainly earning its retainer.
So what’s so special about this product?

• It’s novel – they combined the fun of a gummy bear with the multivitamin content for an adult
• It’s got all the buzzword nutrients wrapped into one (actually six) gummy droplets – multivitamin, omega 3, and vitamin D
• No bad ingredients that some other supplements have such as HFCS or artificial colors
• Gluten free and eco-friendly (omega 3 sourced from sardines, not tuna or salmon)

All the above are great, once you’ve decided to take a multivitamin.

But should you?

Probably not.

You see, nutrients are best absorbed by the body when they come in their natural package – leafy greens, fresh glass of milk, a salmon steak, or fresh berries. The fact that a multivitamin contains over 100% of your daily value of a nutrient does not guarantee your body will absorb those nutrients completely.
So why is the supplement industry raking in billions of dollars in revenue every year? For the same reason the insurance industry is – fear. People are scared that they are not eating healthy, that their bodies are not getting enough ____________ (fill in the blank). A multivitamin is like an insurance policy for my health, you may say.
A daily dose of Smartypants will cost you about one dollar. $7 a week. If you’re a couple – $14 a week. How many more fruits and vegetables can you buy with $14?

The Neuromuscular Component To Speed Work

• By Caitlin Chock

Did you know that becoming a faster runner involves working your nervous system?If you want to get faster, there’s more to it than just trying to run faster. Without your synapses and nerves being conditioned to fire at a quicker rate, you’ll never be able to employ those stronger, more powerful muscles. Your legs need to be told to turn over by the brain.
Developing your neuromuscular reaction time involves working on your reactivity. This kind of work is done with drills, footwork ladders and foot-firing exercises. The premise is to condition your feet to snap off the group faster so you’re spending less time on the ground. That translates to faster times.
In tandem with speed intervals, reactivity drills will prove their worth rather quickly.

“Typical time-course for moving the needle on speed can be as little as a few weeks, where noted changes in stride length can be seen,” said Lance Walker, the director of performance at Michael Johnson Performance labs. “Stride frequency and overall running performances can take longer to show major change, but micro-level improvements should be noted within the first month of an effective speed program.”

Precision First

Walker said he’d prefer that people not do any of these drills over doing them wrong because the latter reinforces bad habits. Aim for precision over quantity.
For runners drawn to the sport because of their gawky nature, drills and footwork may leave them feeling out of their element.

“At first it felt very awkward to do these types of drills and intervals, but I was determined to practice and learn the skill,” said Morgan Gonzales of the Saucony Hurricane Team. She avoided frustration by adjusting her perspective. “So often in distance running we focus on getting fitter, but I thought it was fun to switch my mindset to learning a new skill set.”

Between last season and this season, Gonzales lowered her 1500m PR from 4:47 to 4:38. Remarkably, she did so in her opening race of the year.
RELATED: What Distance Runners Can Learn From Sprinters

Taxing The Nervous System

It’s important to realize how taxing this work is on the body. Don’t balk at the fewer repetitions or distances; in order for this to work, the key is not to overload the central and peripheral nervous systems.
Similarly, it’s crucial to do this work in a rather fresh state. Don’t just tack some strides and agility drills at the end of your tempo drills; you need to think in the reverse. On your day dedicated to true speed work, your prime focus is on running as fast as possible with a nearly full recovery. Same goes for when you do your reactivity drills — aim for precision and take as much time to recover as you need. If you need to add extra miles, do it after all of this work has taken place.

Footwork Drills

“One of our favorites is box tappings,” Walker said. “This drill was probably stolen from some of our soccer athletes, who were actually doing the drill for footwork quickness on, or around, the ball.”
- Box Taps: Standing 6-12 inches behind a box or riser (4-6 inches high), bend slightly forward (10-15 degrees at the ankle), and alternate tapping the box with the balls of your feet. Work on proper positioning (center-of-mass over box, dorsiflexion of ankle, long spine angle, and reciprocating arms) before trying to increase frequency. “Use this in buildups of 10-40 seconds, resting five times as long as the set to ensure you are working for speed and not endurance,” Walker said. Perform twice a week. Check your progress by counting taps every third week.
- Ladder drills: Move through the ladder by firing both feet into each rung, doing two sets. Then move to single-leg drills by passing through while firing only your left foot, keeping the right foot outside the ladder. Repeat with right foot firing. Once you’ve mastered this, start adding accelerations coming out of the ladder.
- Starts And Sprints: “I practiced my reaction time and race starts with repeats as short as 50 meters; this taught my muscles and my brain to fire and react more quickly, as opposed to just running faster,” Gonzales said. Repeats below 50 meters work too, as Walker is a fan of fly-in 20’s.
RELATED: Speed Training For Beginners

Program Implementation

Tell a distance runner to reduce their interval lengths and you may get a balking response. However, if you want to run faster for your 5Ks and beyond, you have to start thinking of working from the bottom up. Increasing speed makes your eventual race paces feel relatively easier and will allow you to dig into that second gear to accelerate at the end.
Walker prescribes a “tier-conjugated” system. “This incorporates elements of speed, power, strength, stamina, and corrective training all in a weekly plan,” he said.
This system places your speed and power-focused workout in the beginning, “when the central and peripheral nervous system is freshest and most recovered,” Walker added. The next days are recovery, strength training and endurance/tempo work. The mini-cycle would then repeat with your next speed-focused workout.
Walker advises runners just starting or who require longer recovery between workouts to extend their training week to 10-days.
“The key is to keep the body ‘stimulated’ every 72-hours with some form of speed training stimulus,” he said.
You still need to do those 200s, 400s, and even shorter sprints to get faster, but in order to truly reap the rewards of speed work and increased power you need to train the nervous system to keep pace.

The Neuromuscular Component To Speed Work

• By Caitlin Chock

Did you know that becoming a faster runner involves working your nervous system?If you want to get faster, there’s more to it than just trying to run faster. Without your synapses and nerves being conditioned to fire at a quicker rate, you’ll never be able to employ those stronger, more powerful muscles. Your legs need to be told to turn over by the brain.

Developing your neuromuscular reaction time involves working on your reactivity. This kind of work is done with drills, footwork ladders and foot-firing exercises. The premise is to condition your feet to snap off the group faster so you’re spending less time on the ground. That translates to faster times.
In tandem with speed intervals, reactivity drills will prove their worth rather quickly.

“Typical time-course for moving the needle on speed can be as little as a few weeks, where noted changes in stride length can be seen,” said Lance Walker, the director of performance at Michael Johnson Performance labs. “Stride frequency and overall running performances can take longer to show major change, but micro-level improvements should be noted within the first month of an effective speed program.”

Precision First

Walker said he’d prefer that people not do any of these drills over doing them wrong because the latter reinforces bad habits. Aim for precision over quantity.
For runners drawn to the sport because of their gawky nature, drills and footwork may leave them feeling out of their element.

“At first it felt very awkward to do these types of drills and intervals, but I was determined to practice and learn the skill,” said Morgan Gonzales of the Saucony Hurricane Team. She avoided frustration by adjusting her perspective. “So often in distance running we focus on getting fitter, but I thought it was fun to switch my mindset to learning a new skill set.”

Between last season and this season, Gonzales lowered her 1500m PR from 4:47 to 4:38. Remarkably, she did so in her opening race of the year.
RELATED: What Distance Runners Can Learn From Sprinters

Taxing The Nervous System

It’s important to realize how taxing this work is on the body. Don’t balk at the fewer repetitions or distances; in order for this to work, the key is not to overload the central and peripheral nervous systems.
Similarly, it’s crucial to do this work in a rather fresh state. Don’t just tack some strides and agility drills at the end of your tempo drills; you need to think in the reverse. On your day dedicated to true speed work, your prime focus is on running as fast as possible with a nearly full recovery. Same goes for when you do your reactivity drills — aim for precision and take as much time to recover as you need. If you need to add extra miles, do it after all of this work has taken place.

Footwork Drills

“One of our favorites is box tappings,” Walker said. “This drill was probably stolen from some of our soccer athletes, who were actually doing the drill for footwork quickness on, or around, the ball.”
- Box Taps: Standing 6-12 inches behind a box or riser (4-6 inches high), bend slightly forward (10-15 degrees at the ankle), and alternate tapping the box with the balls of your feet. Work on proper positioning (center-of-mass over box, dorsiflexion of ankle, long spine angle, and reciprocating arms) before trying to increase frequency. “Use this in buildups of 10-40 seconds, resting five times as long as the set to ensure you are working for speed and not endurance,” Walker said. Perform twice a week. Check your progress by counting taps every third week.
- Ladder drills: Move through the ladder by firing both feet into each rung, doing two sets. Then move to single-leg drills by passing through while firing only your left foot, keeping the right foot outside the ladder. Repeat with right foot firing. Once you’ve mastered this, start adding accelerations coming out of the ladder.
- Starts And Sprints: “I practiced my reaction time and race starts with repeats as short as 50 meters; this taught my muscles and my brain to fire and react more quickly, as opposed to just running faster,” Gonzales said. Repeats below 50 meters work too, as Walker is a fan of fly-in 20’s.
RELATED: Speed Training For Beginners

Program Implementation

Tell a distance runner to reduce their interval lengths and you may get a balking response. However, if you want to run faster for your 5Ks and beyond, you have to start thinking of working from the bottom up. Increasing speed makes your eventual race paces feel relatively easier and will allow you to dig into that second gear to accelerate at the end.
Walker prescribes a “tier-conjugated” system. “This incorporates elements of speed, power, strength, stamina, and corrective training all in a weekly plan,” he said.
This system places your speed and power-focused workout in the beginning, “when the central and peripheral nervous system is freshest and most recovered,” Walker added. The next days are recovery, strength training and endurance/tempo work. The mini-cycle would then repeat with your next speed-focused workout.
Walker advises runners just starting or who require longer recovery between workouts to extend their training week to 10-days.
“The key is to keep the body ‘stimulated’ every 72-hours with some form of speed training stimulus,” he said.
You still need to do those 200s, 400s, and even shorter sprints to get faster, but in order to truly reap the rewards of speed work and increased power you need to train the nervous system to keep pace.

Are Eggs Good for You? 30 Reasons to Eat Eggs

from http://www.healthextremist.com

 By Lori, Health Extremist 

Eggs have gotten a bad rap in the past and unfortunately, many today still believe the wide spread misinformation.

Are eggs good for you? Do they cause heart disease? Do they raise cholesterol? Should I avoid them?

Depending on who you ask, you may get very different answers to these questions. Many traditional doctors still would answer that eggs increase  cholesterol and should be avoided. Some are adamant that only the egg white should be used because of the cholesterol in the yolk. Even when trying to research this topic, some articles still push the idea that eggs are harmful and in order to prevent health problems, one should avoid them.

I have to admit that I once believed the propaganda spread in the media and by drug pushing corporations. It wasn’t until I first began seeing a naturopath that I heard that eggs are good for you and the doctors are the ones who have it wrong. Sure, the first time my naturopath said that, I thought he must be crazy, how could doctors be wrong? Sadly, they are and not just about eggs.

Eggs are actually a super-food, they are packed with nutrients vitamins and health benefits!

But don’t eggs raise your cholesterol?

One of the main reasons eggs are avoided is due to fear of them increasing cholesterol. However, several studies have shown that not only do eggs not raise LDL cholesterol, but lower it. According to a recent study, those consuming 3 eggs per day over 12 weeks were found to have lower LDL cholesterol and raised  HDL. Another study showed that those who consumed 4 or more eggs per week had lower cholesterol than those who only ate one egg per week.

READ MORE

Another Dreadful Low-Fat Product

from http://www.dietdoctor.com/


Now I’m back in Sweden again, with good access to the internet, after three weeks of travelling in America. Thus there’ll be more regular updates again.
Here’s a quick example of how bad low-fat products can be for your health. It’s nothing new, but even worse than what I’ve seen back home.
Here’s yogurt served at breakfast on the cruise last week. Notice that all of them except the plain one have the words “low fat” on the top. It sounds healthy – but it’s not. Have a look:

The low-fat yogurt contains almost no fat. Instead it’s filled with sugar and modified starch, rapidly absorbed bad carbs. And not a little: 22 grams per 113 gram serving.
About 70 percent of the energy in the yogurt is pure sugar. And it’s very noticable: it tastes like eating candy for breakfast.
The reality is that the manufacturers have removed 2 grams of fat from the container of yogurt. Then they’ve added about 15 grams of sugar, seven times more, and they sell it implying that it’s healthy for you.
Is anyone surprised that there are three times more obese Americans today, compared to when the fat of fear took hold back in the 1980′s?
Earlier about failed low-fat diets

The 20-Rep Squat Routine: Old School Strength Training

Tom Kelso
http://breakingmuscle.com


For all neophytes who have no clue how to train hard, I suggest you heed some practical lore from the past. Back in the day when they had no sophisticated equipment, no Internet recommendations, and no super-duper nutritional supplements, those who sought to get stronger and grow muscle had to bust their butts with plain old hard work to achieve strength and size gains. They had only the basic means of stimulating muscle tissue - known as barbells and dumbbells - and the smarts to allow for proper rest and recovery following their training.

Surprise! They achieved results. And it still works today in this information-overload environment in which we reside. But the simplicity of hard work has either been blurred or completely lost from all the fancy stuff that pervades our current training culture. So, if it still works, why don't you try "old school" and give it a go? Working hard is still the way to go, no matter how you slice it.

With credit given to Randall Strossen outlining John McCallum's 20-rep squat routine in his book Super Squats, let me tell you about a simple but very difficult program for increasing lower body strength and facilitating weight gain. The 20-rep barbell squat routine. It works. It truly does. But it is brutally difficult.

It goes like this:

Train your lower body twice per week. One session is the 20-rep squat routine and the other is something different like deadlifts, leg presses, or whatever blows your skirt up.

For the 20-rep assault, select a resistance that you would normally use for a tough set of 12 repetitions. With that resistance, perform 20 repetitions. Yes, it's going to be challenging but find a way to squeeze out 8 more reps to get to the 20-rep goal. You can do it if you focus on the task at hand. Hang in there. Catch your breath between reps. Concentrate on getting one rep at a time.

Once you achieve 20 repetitions, it's mission accomplished.

Now that you have gutted it out to achieve the 20-rep goal, rejoice in the moment, and then it's time to move forward. It's now time to do more. Given proper recovery time, your body will have adapted to the previous 20-rep overload stress and can now tolerate more. It is the biological phenomena called the principle of recovery-adaptation. You did it, your body adapted to it, now you are physically able to do even more.

For the next 20-rep squat workout add at least five pounds to the bar (10 pounds maximum). Your goal again is 20-repetitions. You're stronger as a result of the previous 20-rep "death march," so you are capable of achieving 20-repetitions with slightly more resistance.

If you attack it with all-out effort you'll accomplish it. Remember, you only added a few more pounds from the previous successful session so be confident you will achieve the 20-rep goal. Yes, it will be physically and mentally disgusting, but if you want to improve you'll find a way to get it done.

Why am I so confident you can do this? I did it back in the day. In the summer of 1990 at a body weight of 185 pounds, I took the 20-rep squat challenge.

My initial squat session was a demanding (for me) 245 pounds for 20 repetitions a la NO-NO-NO (no belt, no wraps, and no lifting suit). It was simply body against the resistance with zero help from supporting equipment, but I did it.

Each week I added ten pounds to the bar and achieved 20 reps as follows:

• Week 2 = 255 x 20 (ouch!)
• Week 3 = 265 x 20 (yikes!)
• Week 4 = 275 x 20 (ugh!)
• Week 5 = 285 x 20 (yowza!)
• Week 6 = 295 x 20 (!%$@*!)
• Week 7 = 305 x 16 (I couldn't go further. I was done!)

The inevitable wall was hit and so it will be for you, too. Eventually you will reach a point where you cannot keep progressing. At that point you will have pushed it to the limit both physically and mentally. But savor the moment because you obviously moved up. In my case, I went from 245 pounds x 20 reps to 295 pounds x 20 reps. For me - being a genetic trash bag - that was outstanding progress.

If you have the intestinal fortitude to attempt a new challenge to for the purpose of improving your strength and/or weight gain, try the 20-rep squat routine. Understand it will be both physically and mentally demanding, yet it will be simple to implement.

The 20-rep squat routine in review:

1. Train the lower body twice per week, once with the 20-rep barbell squat routine and the other with something without squats.
2. With the 20-rep squat routine, perform the first workout with a resistance that normally challenges you for 12 repetitions. Get 20 reps.
3. For each succeeding 20-rep squat workout add five to 10 pounds on the bar and find a way to accomplish 20 reps.
4. Make sure you are completely recovered prior to attempting the 20-rep workout. It will take everything you have to achieve the 20-rep goal.
5. When you inevitably hit the wall and are unable to achieve 20 reps after weeks of progressive training, at that point you should have made exceptional progress and achieved measurable results.

The 20-rep squat routine is a time-proven means of becoming stronger and larger (all other factors being equal). It should be used sparingly because it is extremely demanding. Old school works if you are willing to work.