Save Time by working out Twice per day podcast!

 I know, working out twice per day sure doesn’t sound like a way to save time…But bear with me.  This scheme has been working wonderfully well for me for months now.

Months ago, I started incorporating Ben Patrick’s ‘Knees Over Toes’ exercises into my routine.  If you haven’t started doing his revolutionary exercises of strengthening throughout the entire range of motion to restore and enhance function, it’s time to start!

I have worked out religiously since about age 20 for my entire life.  I have no back or joint issues, despite working out heavily and having turned 70 recently.  Then, I watched some of Ben’s amazing videos on YouTube, about how he almost destroyed his body playing basketball in his youth.  He could barely hobble around, and after various surgeries he was told he would never play basketball competitively again- not good news for someone in his early 20’s!

But Ben persisted, and with the guidance of mentor Charles Polaquin the strength coach, rebuilt himself from the ground up.  It is inspiring, to say the least to watch what he can do in terms of jumping and flexibility after having rebuilt himself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a6nfG69c9g

I have already made significant progress in lower body flexibility and functional strength.  For me, as I suspect it is for most, it’s not about increasing jumping ability and sprint speeds so much, as it is about dramatically strengthening my knees, ankles and other joints, along with greatly enhanced flexibility.

And in this I am being very successful.

Using tibialis raises, which I actually discovered long ago, I cured my plantar fascitis completely.  I have always stretched, but now, by stretching under load I am greatly strengthening my weak points- I work my hamstrings with ‘reverse squats’, attaching dumbbells to my feet and lifting upwards for high reps, one leg at a time.  

Sled drags, done backwards, are his preeminent overall lower body exercise, as they work the feet and toes, along with the entire lower body and joints, very protectively.  If you do nothing else of his, do backwards walking!  Sled or not, this is the number one way to avoid knee surgery.

Lately, the idea of walking backwards against the resistance of a band was recommended- this works amazingly well!  Just loop a long resistance band around your power rack support, or a post or other strong point of resistance.  Step inside it, and walk backwards with it about your hips, feeling each step and its resistance.  Walk forward, and repeat for a few minutes- you are done!  Make it your daily workout warmup, and your joints and the many tendons of your lower body will thank you for your entire life.

I slowly worked the ATG (ass to grass) split squat- for now with only body weight, but gradually adding resistance.  This is a very protective and productive movement; one which I needed to progress with assistance within a power rack to fully achieve at first, even though I had squatted my whole life!  This ability is probably the single most protective and powerful thing you can do to transform your entire lower body!

Jefferson curls, done from a platform and slowly lowering a weighted bar as low as you can below your toes, coupled with nordic curls; where you curl your upper body up backwards with your legs held down, work your hamstrings and lower back better than anything.  I suggest you watch the ‘Knees over toes guy’ videos repeatedly- subscribe on YouTube, as he is always refining what he does.  Ben Patrick is an excellent coach.

In fact, you can hire him to coach you for a monthly fee.  But frankly: he puts it all on line for free, so you can simply copy what he offers!  

And so- that is how my workouts have changed.  The knees over toes workouts come in the afternoon, and only take 20 or 30 minutes.  (They are that intense). 

Monday, in the morning- first thing in the morning- I do my mainstay workout, which is stretching, along with virtual resistance (resisting within my own body’s musculature as I flex dynamically), and using calisthenics and isometrics as well.  I do this as I watch TV.  I often do rebounding as well.  The whole process is invigorating, and works my body from head to toe.

Then I will do lower body in the afternoon.  All my lower body Knees over Toes work.

Then, (and here is how I save time and central nervous system energy)- I take the next day off!  Well, I usually do the morning workout since I enjoy it and profit so much from it, but I take the afternoon OFF!

Then, the next day, I do the morning workout as always, and do the afternoon UPPER BODY workout for 30 minutes or less.  Nowadays, it is mostly gymnastics rings that dominate the workout, since I believe that gymnastic rings, suspended from the rafters in my basement, afford a far better, more protective workout for the upper body than barbells or dumbbells.

The rings are like Ben’s lower body exercises, in that they strengthen the tendons and ligaments of the upper body throughout their full range of motion, as well as the musculature.  The resistance is also infinitely variable; step forward and a pushup is easier; step back, and even onto an elevation- infinitely more difficult!

And then- I take the next afternoon OFF!

Sometimes, I’ll take two afternoons off.  When you are 70, you need to ‘feel’ your body- your recovery is not as bulletproof as it was in your 20’s!  

But, it’s still all there, pardner.  You just need to pay attention.  As you do your daily “greet the day” workout, stretching on your mat on the floor and flexing on your rebounder; pay attention to your body.  Do you need deep muscle stimulation this afternoon?  Or is your body still recovering?  

Remember, it’s not a race.  This is lifelong improvement. Getting ahead of yourself, or reaching a high state of fitness is just momentary.  Keep it up.  Keep getting better, slowly.  

Victory is in the steady ascent.  Not in momentary greatness, and then slacking…

That is defeat.

Paleo Diet is Dead- Long Live the Paleo Diet! podcast

 

Ok- the paleo diet was ground breaking in every way!  It was actually started by a man named Walter Voegtlin, who was a gastroenterologist.  He called it the ‘Stone Age Diet’, a diet that eliminated most all foods that came after the agricultural revolution approximately 10,000 years ago.

After him, Loren Cordain is the one who revived it around 2005.  This is when I discovered it, and even wrote to Cordain about a health problem of my wife, and he graciously responded.  We adopted his diet, and her health problem resolved completely, and quickly!  That is when PaleoJay was born…

Other Paleo gurus emerged, all of which had a lot to offer in different ways.  As in most other things, the approach evolved as more was discovered.  Trial and error, along with lots of research, caused the theory to evolve.  The one thing that remained constant was the ever-present knowledge, revealed by archeological records, that health and overall wellness had been far better for ancient humans when they consumed an evolutionarily correct diet: only sourdough and otherwise processed grains allowed, if consumed at all, in minimal amounts.  The same with sweeteners like sugar, which were largely unknown to our ancestors.

My health, and that of my family, improved dramatically from around 2005 to today.  My body fat dropped quickly, which revealed my long-exercising body that was buried beneath it.  My migraine headaches went away quickly and completely,    and I largely stopped cardio or ‘aerobic’ types of training for long periods, going only for sprints or ‘heavy hands’ walking while swinging dumbbells energetically.    I worked way more on flexibility, and began running and walking barefoot- voila- my feet problems also disappeared!

Robb Wolf, Loren Cordain’s student, emerged as a guru, and led lots of folks on the evolving path of paleo.  Chris Kresser was a voice of reason throughout, as were Beverly Meyer and Mark Sisson.  I took ideas from each one, tested them in my own life, and either kept or discarded them as I learned and experienced more.  Jimmy Moore was a voice of cheerful reason, and his many, many guests kept me informed and enlightened over the years, primarily about proper nutrition.

But my ideas about exercise also continually kept evolving, with the lifting of really heavy weights being revealed as problematic, and unnecessary, just as had aerobics and cardio earlier on.  The importance of sleep kept rearing its head, as did ancillary practices like forest bathing and the importance of sunlight  and then true darkness to maintain our circadian rhythm.

A couple of years ago or so, the term Paleo itself kind of disappeared!  Now, magazines at the supermarket checkout and the new bestseller books were all about KETO.  It was very similar to paleo, but instead of being about a totality of lifestyle being reached through diet and other practices- now it was just consume lots and lots of fat!  This, coupled with zero carbs, resulted in fast fat loss; and it appears that, overall: this is basically all the majority of people care about.

Keto is, therefore, very one dimensional; focussing on fat loss almost entirely.  It is really more, to me, of a therapeutic, short term view of how to live.  If you force your body to live off of ketones, of basically FAT, you become, as Mark Sisson puts it: a fat burner.  So, your body is running off of the cleanest fuel it can.  This way, it can avoid seizures in epileptics, for instance, which has been known about for a very long time.

CARNIVORE is the latest form of evolutionary nutritional diets.  Shawn Baker, Paul Saladino, and a host of others now tout this living only on animal products, mostly meat and organs.  I think this is an excellent reduction of human needs, and points out that we have gotten evolutionarily far off track!  Think about it: during the Ice Age approximately 20,000 years ago, what else could our ancestors have eaten?  Meat was it: and we thrived on it, growing brain mass and the ability to cope with our environment as a byproduct.  

We even learned to hunt the huge mastodons of those days, making dwellings of their bones and skins, and evolving into Cro-Magnon man, the epitome of modern man.  In Nietche’s words: ‘what did not kill us, made us stronger’.  So did the Ice Age make us strong, healthy problem solvers with tight knit nuclear families and tribes.

If you have intractable health problems, like any autoimmune disease, I would not go Keto as so many do today.  I would skip over that oversimplification, and go full carnivore.  Like Jordan Peterson and his daughter have done, internet truth-tellers both.  A carnivore diet is the purest diet you can have, with no complicating side effects like those that come from consuming any plant material.  

By definition, it is ketogenic, containing no carbs whatsoever, but is animal based, meaning it has no chemical compounds devised by plants to poison mammals that might consume them!  For rest assured, all plants, (which are far more ancient than animals like us), have spent eons evolving chemical compounds to injure and/or kill us and other animals as a form of self-protection.  They had to- they cannot run away, or fight back in any other way.

So, there we are today in evolutionary based diet and lifestyle.  I have spent the past 17 years or so watching my friends and acquaintances fall prey to disease and illness, all of which I knew how to fix!  But of course, no one wants to hear advice from someone they know, especially when that person has no qualifications… nothing like St. Fauci, who has all kinds of qualifications, but has led us into a quagmire of ill health and bad advice…

But enough of that- it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Covid scare is a politically motivated bunch of authoritarian nonsense, but let us stick with paleo for now:

If you are sick and fat and nearly dead- or just on that long road- I would go carnivore for an emergency reset!  OR I would just go true paleo diet and lifestyle, circa 2022.

Go lower carbs (much lower than the US average of 300 grams per day, perhaps about 80 or so).  Medical pros will say now ‘you need at least 130 grams per day’, but that is nonsense.  You don’t.

Eat vegetables, but not those with high oxalates, which are a potent plant poison which is loaded into so-called wonderful foods like kale, spinach, and beets.  They are not healthy foods, not at all.  For many, tomatoes and peppers are also harmful, and should be avoided for the most part.

Be “carnivorish” as termed by Paul Saladino the carnivore doctor.  Don’t only eat animal products; but make them the centerpiece of your diet!  Be like every generation from before about 1900 or so.  They knew!  

And- the last best word in exercise is www.kneesovertoesguy.com

Ben Patrick.  He can tell you how to avoid the scourge of our age- hip and knee replacement surgery- by doing simple exercises like walking backwards, pulling a weighted sled, and more!  Total fitness for life, with simple prophylactic exercises that deny medical professional tons of dollar-generating gruesome surgeries.  

Just do it.

In other words: Go Paleo!  Real foods from nature, no processed crap foods, natural exercise that makes you stronger from your ligaments and tendons to your joints, and doesn’t damage you like sports training does.  Eat some nuts, some vegetables, but do your research.  Seek to nourish your body, not just entertain your brain with raising your blood sugar.  And above all?

Get out of major cities!  Western cities have become magnets for criminal parasites from around our nation, and now the world.  The only solution is to avoid them, as suicidal altruism in now the norm in the Western World, and our own systems are poisoned against us, the originators of civilization itself.  To live in these places is the most dangerous thing you can do, and the most toxic by far.

Live in small communities, with people like yourself as much as possible.  Rural is ideal, and the Midwest is best.  North beats south; it best mimics our northern european heritage and climate.  Live from whence you evolved.