Static Contraction Training

A really time efficient and worthwhile type of exercise to add to your arsenal is static contraction training.  Along with visualized resistance, which we have spoken of before, or with either weight training or, in my opinion the better option of bodyweight exercise, static contractions can increase your strength fast, conveniently, and effectively.

Although you will read elsewhere about using various apparatus to immobilize the muscle, all you really need to do is...use one limb to immobilize the other.  

That is what I am doing here.

Start (in this case a biceps curl), and when you get half-way up, keep pressing against the other arm, but resist strongly... and keep resisting while trying to curl upwards for several seconds.  

Simple, yet very effective.  

You can do this type of exercise for most of your body's muscular structures- military presses and lateral raises self-resisted, wrist curls are very effective for strengthening your wrists to prevent carpal tunnel syndrom, neck exercises self-resisted with your hands against your head...

The list goes on and on!

The point to remember is to resist strongly at one point in the movement, and to keep trying to move past the resistance strongly. And, don't always stop "half-way"- sometimes stop 1/4 or the way, sometimes 2/3- this takes the static strengthening effect into all the ranges of movement.

I like to do 1/3 one day, 1/2 the next, and 3/4 the next...

And, the real takeaway here is this: 

This style of training produces real-world, functional strength!

It strengthens not just the muscles, but the tendons and ligaments, making your joints more stable, not less, and preventing injury, not causing it, as is often the case when using weights or machines.  

And, you can do it anywhere, and you don't have to change clothes or drive to a gym to do it!

I will do a podcast on exercise soon- stay tuned!

J

Restricting calories IN, won't make you THIN! Just ask Hercules...

That's right- the whole notion of calorie restriction is founded on lies-

The lie that calories are all the same.


The lie that if only you eat less calories, just a few less each day, and exercise more- just a little, to create a deficit...


Over time, you will gradually lose weight, and become lean and fit!!

I think the simplicity of this notion is what makes it appealing!

But it is a big, FAT, LIE!! 


 Do you really think someone like Hercules restricted calories to be lean and defined???


The human body is a chemical factory, not a machine like a car.  Food has numerous hormonal responses, it doesn't just burn fuel like a car.

If you eat fat, it doesn't turn to fat on you- if it is a good, saturated fat, like coconut oil or grass fed butter, it triggers signals in your body-

Satiety!  You do not feel hungry!  You are not starving!  Your body says "Thank you very much!"
Your body does NOT signal an insulin "spike" from good fats; quite the contrary- happiness reigns!

If you eat calories from a processed food meal- say, pizza?  HUGE insulin spike, and your body scrambles to store those "precious" calories from the dough, in the form of bodyFAT.  


As Gary Taubes has stated in his excellent book:  "Good Calories Bad Calories", that is about it-

There are calories that are good, wonderful, eat-all-you-want calories...

And then there are Bad, Horrible, spike-your-insulin-and-make-you-fat-and-sick-calories...
and never the twain shall meet!

Trust me- Hercules/Herakles ate copius amounts of good, nutritious food to fuel his physique- LOTS of meat, lots of fat, loads of vegetables, and some fruits.

He did NOT eat buns, bagels, bread, donuts, and drink "big gulps" of sugary soft drinks!  Wine, sure...and, although he occasionally lifted heavy things, like when he cleaned the Elysian stables and carrried around draft horses, slayed a horrible giant lion, and killed the 9 headed serpent HYDRA, he mainly trained with bodyweight exercise!


How do I know this?


Because BODY WEIGHT exercises are timeless- they preserve the body like nothing else!


If Herk had trained with weights and machines, he would have looked really bulky and impressive, but his actual fighting, strength and real-world power would have been... lackluster.
Bodyweight exercise, or self-resisted and virtual, visualized resistance has the ability to transform your body; just as "calories in and calories our" does NOT define how the human body deposits fat, so too does "overload the muscle with weights or bodyweight" really actually does define how the body develops in response to exercise stimulus!


Weight training will stimulate bulk muscle gains, true.  But it will not trigger tendon and ligament strengthening, nor will it build the strength of your "core", your spinal muscles, abs, and the many unseen "minor" muscles that are foundational for our overall health and fitness.


There is an innate body "wisdom" that infers from bodyweight training-

"Hey"  says your body.  "We are working really hard, and weight, i.e. FAT is really getting in the way of our pushups and chins and situps...  I guess we'd better finally lean out big time so we can do this stuff!"

This is how our body's think!  Our bodies are still 100% Paleolithic, since that has worked forever.


If YOU want to be Paleolithic, and in tune with what your own body wants for you
-= maximum health:



Perfectly Paleo Exercise eBook