Why I don't "Lift Heavy Things" for exercise...

This is why I recommend my book, Perfectly Paleo Exercise!

Within its pages you will find bodyweight, self-resisted, and isometric types of exercise, along with sprinting and heavyhands and ski pole forest walking.  Plenty of stretching, too... the sort of exercise that suits you for a long, functional, and healthy life.  And gives you an aesthetic type of build, not the bulky, blocky form of a troglodyte.

Beware of heavy weight lifting- it does not build total health!

PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe #90 Very Best exercise equipment, and the ONLY way to deadlift!

I know, I generally say you don’t need equipment to work out- after all, if you are doing virtual resistance training (flexing as you move through a muscles range of motion) and then holding isometrically...  your own body is the resistance.  And this is the most efficient and safe of all forms of exercise!  It should be your warmup, and the core of your fitness regimen for the rest of your life.  Nothing else even comes close in terms of totally working your entire physique!

But it is also great to include other tools in your bodyweight arsenal.  The first one I would recommend to you is the rebounder, or mini-trampoline.

I have mentioned this piece of equipment before in a podcast, and it is a wonderful addition to virtual resistance training- I often do my virtual moving “poses” on the rebounder, usually in front of the TV...This kind of “doubles your pleasure, doubles your fun” in a good kind of way- you are working aerobically and your musculature at the same time.  A really time efficient way to work out!

I am also a great fan of the pushup!  And while the “hands flat on the floor” version is good, using a perfect pushup type of revolving handle is even better- not only does it raise your hands up off the floor, giving you a greater range of motion and more muscle engagement, it also protects your wrists and shoulders from damage by rotating along with the motion.  This protects your joints even as it makes the exercise more productive.

Ab Roller

Perfect Pushup

P bars, or parallette bars are another great option for pushups, giving you a VERY low extension below parallel.  They are also great for L sits, a top notch ab exercise you can

My homemade P bars!

do.  In a pinch, the perfect pushup device mentioned before can also be used for L sits!  Just make sure you get the heavy duty version of the perfect pushup, as the other lesser version will wear out quickly supporting your body weight in the L sit, and doing pushups with your feet raised off the floor and resting on the back of a couch or chair while you do your leg raised of “Atlas 3” pushups.

An ab roller is wonderful, and actually another kind of pushup!  Wonderful ab exercise, and it also simultaneously works the arms, chest, back and shoulders- also, it’s a great party trick, as most men cannot do even one without gradually working up to it.  To begin, get an ab roller (they are quite cheap!) and do them from your knees.  Next, you can do them from the top as a negative, going as slowly as you can downwards, and just stop at the bottom.  Eventually you will get one full, top to bottom and back up again rep, and then you will add another, and another until you get to a set of 6 or 7.  That’s all you really need in terms of reps- then, just do multiple sets for a very high level of fitness!  I like to “superset” ab roll outs with my sets of pushups.

Of course, a pullup/chinup bar is a necessity, but a tree branch of piece of pipe will do in a pinch.  I use my old power rack in the basement for this, back from my old weight lifting days of long ago, and a power rack or “cage” is a very versatile piece of equipment indeed- it is much more productive without weights, as it is ideal for isometric work, utilizing its pins to press against with empty bars or wooden dowels.  It is also great to use the power rack for squat variations- you can use the side supports to hold on to as you do a one legged or “pistol” squat.  It helps to lean back as you do this, because that really takes the strain off of the knee joint and puts it right over the quadricep muscle where you want it.  You can duplicate this upstairs, too, by doing these pistols in a door frame!

Another wonderful training adjunct is a set of gymnastic rings!

Now they are mounted on the ceiling joists!

very advanced!

Mount these in your basement as I have, and you will find them to be among the most satisfying, versatile and productive pieces of equipment you could possibly own.  They are wonderful to do pushups on!  You can do Atlas 1,2,and 3 pushups quickly and conveniently, just by moving a little forwards or backwards to adjust the grips to be parallel to the floor (Atlas 1), angles halfway up (Atlas 2), or angled up high (Atlas 3).

They are also great for pullups, L sits, and dips; also rows, and as assists for pistols!

Really- find a place for rings in your house, garage, basement or yard!  They are just fantastic to train on.

I am saving the most crucial for last- an Exergenie is the ONLY way I recommend to do a deadlift, or a heavy squat!

Exergenie

I know, this is controversial within Paleo Land, but it is also undeniable when you really look into it- just as gluten, and the other anti-nutrients in wheat and other grains are undeniably very harmful to human beings in their nutrition- so is lifting a heavy bar from the ground and standing up in a dead lift harmful to your back and other joints.

Also, putting a heavy barbell across your shoulders, and squatting, will compress your spine, inevitably damage your knees, and set you up for serious, long-term injury.

Also, it just gives you a fat butt, bulging abdomen, and blocky thighs- avoid these exercises!

High rep hindu squats, the aforementioned pistols, and the exergenie can give you anything these exercises can, BETTER!  I have an old exergenie that I bought off of Ebay- it has wooden handles, but they sell new ones too,  and you can use it to do maximum effort deadlifts, squats, military presses, curls, and many other exercises.  You feed the rope (that supplies the resistance) out with your fingers, and you can make the resistance as hard as you want throughout the whole range of motion.  You can make it so hard that 3 reps is all you need for the squat and deadlift.

The best thing about the Exergenie is what you can do for your shoulders!  You can mount it in a door frame, closing the door on it 1/2 way up or so, and really lean into it, stretching out your shoulder girdle in every way possible.  Then, you can pull back using just enough resistance to really work the entire shoulder region in every way- this is the very best way that I have found to really work the shoulders and protect the joint by strengthening both the muscles, tendons and ligaments gradually, from the inside out!

Along with a proper diet, and adequate sleep, these small pieces of training equipment can do far more for your health, strength, and physique than any gym membership you can name.  And, you will have them forever, right in your living room or basement or garage, and can make maximum  use of them for a lifetime!

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

Paleo diet to lose fat!

The Paleo Diet has shown remarkable success in helping people to lose fat/weight, and achieve a much better "body composition".   The amazing thing is that it can bring these changes about without:

1. Hunger
2.  Long sessions of exercise
3.  Injury from those long, boring exercise sessions you thought were necessary


Really!  But how can this be?

It's really just simple, proven science!

Our bodies are not designed to eat grains, particularly wheat, which has become a mainstay of virtually every processed food in America.  Wheat is now completely genetically modified to the point where it has no similarity to the ancient wheat of the Bible, or even to the wheat from the 1960's!!
This is a huge point: if you wish to research the topic in depth, I refer you to the book Wheat Belly by William Davis-  Wheat Belly the blog

But, since all carbohydrates,  like wheat, corn, white potatoes, etc. turns to sugar in the body, that is more than enough reason alone to severely limit them in the diet.


The other thing to limit greatly in your diet is SUGAR.


When you eat sugar, or its twin- carbohydrates- your body responds to the rise in blood sugar, (which is actually an emergency situation for your body!), by producing massive quantities of insulin.  Insulin, which as we know is what Type 2 (self-induced) Diabetics lose the ability to produce, after many years of ingesting so much sugar/carbohydrates that their body has become overwhelmed by the bodily insult!  Don't let this happen to you- it is becoming EPIDEMIC in modern America, largely due to the fact that now- 90% of food sold in the USA is PROCESSED: (Comes in a bag, or a box, and is not real food anymore, but industrial food.


Industrial food is loaded with sugar/corn syrup/wheat/soy and the other thing you need to get rid of on the Paleo Diet- industrial seed (grain!) oils!
Corn, Soybean, Crisco- these are all rancid, harmful oils that are not really food.


The Food Industry uses all of this stuff, in processed and fast foods (another no-no!), because it is CHEAP!  That is the only reason- nutritional value is not even on their radar!

So, bottom line, what do you need to do to-

Regain your health and lose fat?

It's really rather simple, and if you think about it, you probably already intuitively know this stuff-

You've just been brainwashed into the "low fat, high carb Standard American Diet"

for your whole life!

So, here is what you get rid of:

1. Eliminate fast food
2. Eliminate bread, pasta, anything made with flour
3. Eliminate Industrial oils- margarine, soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil- any chemically processed oil
4. Eliminate Legumes- dried beans- irritate the gut lining, just as does wheat- this is a huge problem
5. Get long, painful, CARDIO/AEROBIC workouts out of your life (They lead to injury, burn very little in the way of fat/calories/, and do not build muscle, which is what you really want)
6. Stop Staying up late at night- (This interferes with your body in a minor way, stimulating the stress hormone "cortisol", which causes you to store fat, among other negatives).

 And here is what you replace the above with:

1. Whole eggs (free range is the best) 
2. Real, PASTURED butter (Kerrygold is the best)
3. All varieties of meat, and seafood  (Grass fed beef is best, but all of it is good- just be sure to include seafood, especially fatty fish like salmon and sardines)
4. Vegetables and fruits  (Berries are the best fruit!)  Don't go wild on fruit, but include it.  Eat LOTS of green vegetables.
5. Get on an intense, brief exercise program!  (Body weight exercise is best- pushups, pull-ups, sit-ups, brief sessions of sprinting and/or stationery bike "sprints" of 30 seconds or less, done for several "sets" lasting 20 minutes or less)
6. Get LOTS of sleep!  8 hours minimum (This is really crucial for health and fat loss- stress, like lack of sleep, causes your body to want to hang onto fat)

That's it!  Follow the above subtractions and additions in your life, and sooner than you think, you will look and feel better than you would believe!  This is a promise!!


I hear you asking:   "But how do I eat this way??

Simple:

1. Eggs and fruit for breakfast
2. Salad with meat or seafood for lunch
3. Grilled meat and vegetables for supper
4. Snacks- if you eat enough at meals, you probably won't get too hungry. But it you do:

Almonds,  dark chocolate, coffee with real whipped cream, macadamia nuts, olives, full fat cheeses, or again- meat, vegetables, sardines, etc. are all fair game


Or, you could make it easy, and make the Paleo Quick Start Smoothie!

It really makes the nutrition part almost effortless, and actually more "available" to your body, since it is all "broken down" and ready to assimilate, raw food enzymes and all!!

But anyway, there you go- try it for 3 weeks!  If you do, I guarantee you will not go back-
the benefits are that amazing!

I will leave you with this testimonial from an Australian farmer, who has transformed his own health, using the book by Nora Gedgaudus of Primal Body Primal Mind

J

Sunday Workout

As regular readers of Paleo Quick Start already know, I mainly do a body-weight workout routine each morning, usually in front of the TV (blasphemy!), watching streaming Netflix movies.  The beauty of Netflix is that it keeps your place; when you resume watching the next morning, you pick up right where you left off!  Beauty...

On Sundays, though, I do something different:  I go into the basement dungeon/workout room, and go through a routine utilizing my dip bars, power rack/chinning bars, and other weight lifting accoutrements...
But sans weights!

I do regular chins and dips (my goal is 20 strict chin-ups by my 60th birthday next April, 2012.  Currently at 16 reps... BUT, after my regular chins and dips, I do the "Aerobic Isometric" version-

For chinups- I grasp the bar, but rest my feet on a small stool.  I slowly pull myself up through the chin, whilst keeping my eye on the clock.  I help myself just enough with my feet to barely make the rep happen, in strict slow motion!  I probably do 3 or 4 reps, max, in a minute's time.  That is my chin set!

Then, for dips, I do similarly: I help myself just enough, with my feet on the stool, to do the same 3 or 4 reps, throughout a very slow, full range of motion.  This technique enables totally loading the muscle in all positions- there is no "heaving" through some parts of the movement- for instance, at the bottom of the dip, where you are weakest, you can fully load the muscle, without fear of injury, with the help of your legs.

I do other exercises, such as hack squats, leaning way BACK whilst grasping the sides of the rack.  This takes the strain totally off of the knees!  And I similarly do one-legged squats, holding onto the sides yet again of the rack. (Helpful little power rack it is!)

My latest addition, however, is doing the kettle bell swing.  I'll do 20 reps, do another exercise, 20 more, another exercise, etc.  The kettle bell swing is a killer, but totally safe!

I'll have to list these exercises, with photos, for anyone who is interested.  Trust me- they are very effective, and get at the muscle fibers in a deeper fashion than body weight or even Visualized resistance exercises.  They just don't (and shouldn't!) be done very often!

Jay

Visualized resistance.  Most of us have never, or only briefly heard of, or understood the term.  Charles Atlas, and the old "kick sand in the skinny guy's face" comes to mind...

The truth is, this is the best, simplest, and most natural way to get and stay in shape!

You simply FLEX, just like those comic-book like bodybuilders do, but you do it in motion, for instance you do a slow biceps curl, without weights, but supply the resistance internally, as you slowly curl your arm up towards your shoulder, you flex really hard every inch of the way!

This is actually harder, believe it or not, than actually curling a barbell of dumb bell!  (If you do it correctly!)  Because you supply the resistance, there is no cheating- you work to the max every inch of the way up, and down!!

Try a few reps this way- I usually do 6 or 7, curling both arms at once...

I guarantee you will feel every inch of the exercise, and there will be NO danger of cheating, or of back injury from "swinging" and cheating the weight up - only pure, productive effort!

This manner of exercise can be repeated, easily, anywhere you choose, to great productive effect!

Just do exercises for each muscle group, and your total body will be energized, exercised to the max, and stimulated to greater strength and hypertrophy!

I will add exercises soon, in a sequence that I follow, that can be easily incorporated into your daily routine.  I promise!!

For now, just go to www.transformetrics.com

The exercises are all there, and discussed, dissected, and just plain Done!