How to have a bullet proof morning!

How you start your day usually determines if you will be set up to win or set up to fail for that day. Before haters start to hate, yes I realise events beyond our control can occur in the day that will swing it one way or another but hey, why not get your day started by setting yourself up for success. If you can get up feeling rested, take care of your body first thing in the morning then you can head out for the day with a positive outlook feeling good about yourself. Short of waking up to find out you have won a division 1 lotto prize the night before, not much could beat that, you have given yourself the best possible start to the day.  

So here is what I have put together that will give you a bulletproof morning, some of these are essential and must be done whilst others are optional. Of course the optional ones will be the things that supercharge your morning so should be done where possible.

Step 1: HYDRATE!

Step 2: HYDRATE!

  
Yep, I had to go all Fight Club on you there for a second. Lets assume you get 6 (bare minimum) to 8 (optimal) hours sleep a night, that is a long time in a day to go without any fluids. Keeping ourselves well hydrated is the most crucial thing we must do for our bodies as affects of even a 2% drop from optimal hydration causes:

• Increased Fatigue
•  This includes a feeling of drowsiness or feeling low on energy
•  Decrease in muscular strength and endurance
• Slower recovery from exercise  

• Low blood pressure
•  As blood plasma is mostly water, dehydration will thicken your blood and reduce the stroke volume of blood pumped around the body lowering blood pressure. 
•  This results in amongst other risk factors associated with low blood pressure, a decrease in the amount of nutrients that are transported around the body
• Impacts on Mental aptitude

•   Confusion, memory issues, dizziness, are all affects of dehydration

• Impedes weight control
•  Dehydration has been shown to increase appetite so you will be inclined to eat more
•  Dehydration will cause the body to hold onto fat stores and prevent mobilisation of stored body fat for use as energy 

So when you get up in the morning the first thing you should be doing is drinking 2 glasses of water. If you do nothing else for yourself in the morning except begin rehydrating than you are on the right track. So drink water!

Step 3: High protein breakfast

There are a ton of reasons why a protein-rich breakfast is the best way to kick-start your body into working for the day. Firstly, when we eat protein the pancreas responds by releasing glucagon, a hormone that promotes the mobilisation of fatty acids stored in adipose tissue (body fat). Your body uses fatty acids for energy when you do not have an excessive amounts of glucose in your blood from too many carbohydrates. A protein rich breakfast will also increase your feeling of satiety and will keep you feeling fuller for longer. This is something that does not happen when eating starchy carbs for breakfast such as toast or cereals as the associated insulin spike from starch carbs at breakfast will block your brains Leptin receptors. Leptin is a hormone released by adipose tissue and tells your brain that you have enough energy in your body, stop eating and go be active.

Numerous studies have been published that show eating a breakfast high in protein and fat was far more beneficial to health when compared to eating a high carbohydrate breakfast or skipping breakfast all  together. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that a high protein breakfast had a better impact on appetite control, satiety, hormone production, maintaining stable blood glucose levels and reducing snacking on sugary substances later in the day than compared to a breakfast based mainly on cereals and grains. This was supported by another study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition showing that a diet high in protein and low in refined carbohydrates produced greater thermogenic effect on the body which increases the basal metabolic rate, increased satiety after meals and reduced overall caloric intake throughout the day. 

The evidence supporting a high protein/high fat/low carbohydrate breakfast was further demonstrated by Sport Scientist Professor Tim Noakes when he conducted his Twin Noakes Study where a pair of twins with genetically high cholesterol where each given different diets where the total caloric intake was the same but the ratio's of macro-nutrients were different. The one who ate a diet based on conventional doctrine of high carbohydrate/moderate protein/low fat had put on body fat by the end of the study, became anaemic and suffered from allergies and exhaustion. The other twin who was on a low carb/high fat/high protein diet dropped to her optimal weight, had no allergies and overall felt better as well as having a better blood profile (including cholesterol, glucose, triglycerides and hormones) and had a greater feeling of well being by the end of the study when compared to her twin sister and her own baseline measurements. 

I will add in here that if you exercise in the morning before breakfast then it would be worth adding carbohydrates to your morning meal to replenish muscle and liver glycogen stores, but still plenty of protein and healthy fats. These should be good quality whole food carbohydrates from vegetables, not grains or grain derivatives.

Step 4: Move!

Some people exercise in the morning and that is awesome. Personally after being a swimmer for many of my teens, having to get up at 0430 to go jump in a swimming pool, the idea of training early morning is now the furthest thing from my mind. However, we should move!
Consider you have been laying still for 6-8 hours while sleeping, you are then most likely going to go sit at a desk or in a car for how many hours. This just adds to the shortening of hip flexors and hamstrings, tightening of hip capsules and stiffening the back. So you need to move in the morning! 

Do some yoga or gentle stretching, maybe some pilates, or take the dog out for a walk. I am very lucky to have a job where I get to move most of the day however I still like to start my morning off right by drinking coffee in a full squat. 

 

That is right, I will make a cup of Bulletproof Coffee, hit the bottom of my squat position and not get up till I have finished that cup. Yeah the first minute or two is kind of tight and uncomfortable but by around the 5 minute mark I am pretty comfortable and at 10 minutes I have found good posture that sets me up for the rest of the day. As my friend and mentor Tracey Cooper, owner of West Coast CrossFit and Level 1 Seminar Staff member says;

 "Everyone should squat well and squat daily. If you are having a bad day then squat. If you are having a good day then squat, it does not matter what is going on, you need to squat every day"

Step 5: Bullet Proof Coffee

I had heard about this for a while but only started drinking it in the last few weeks and the effects are not only awesome but have been very noticeable. After people read the recipe for Bulletproof Coffee they trip out slightly at the idea of adding butter to coffee, but you have to try it! It is like a creamy coffee milkshake in for your morning! Taste aside, the benefits of this delicious cup of caffeine that is loaded with good fats are not to be missed. 

Fat is a crucial nutrient and according to many top nutritionists should account for a minimum of 30% of total caloric intake (read the article). Of that 30% it should be an equal mix of saturated, mono and polyunsaturated fat. Trans fats should be avoided like the plague they are! I am a strong believer in eating fat as nature intended so lots of animal fat from healthy animals (grass fed and free range), or where a chemical free cold process can produce the fat (olive oil, coconut oil, coconut milk etc), or no process at all (avocado, nuts etc). This means that for me, seed or vegetable oils (except olive as per rule above) should also be completely avoided.

Many vitamins needed for a healthy body are fat soluble, meaning there needs to be fat in the diet in order for the body to take up the vitamins. Research demonstrates the importance of fat as it is used for cellular repair including internal organs and the brain. So without fat in the diet we are robbing all cells in the body of the building blocks for growth, repair and proper functionality. Think about it, 9 calories per gram of fat (compared to protein and carbs at only 4 calories per gram), making it a rich and abundant source of energy! Nature is pretty clever; she would not have engineered a food that dense in energy if it were not supposed to be used as such. 

And before haters come out with the old tag line of "high saturated fat increases risk of heart disease", please go and read the methodology of Ancel Keys' Lipid Hypothesis and realise that his theory, which has been doctrine for nearly 60 years is flawed in its research analysis. Further to this a resent meta-analysis study showed that there is no significant evidence linking high intake of saturated fat to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease or associated symptoms. 

I am going to keep the discussion of how the body processes carbohydrates and why fat should be the preferred fuel source for the for another day. But long story short Bulletproof Coffee is loaded with Medium Chain Triglycerides from the MCT oil which the body will burn like a carbohydrate without the insulin spike and at the same time will train the body into becoming more efficient at using fats for energy. Additionally there is a ton of health benefits from using organic butter from grass fed cows, including anti-inflammatory properties, tons of essential vitamins and omega 3 fats. 

My personal experience from having Bulletproof Coffee every morning for the last few weeks has been better appetite control throughout the day, I am more mentally alert and have better mood throughout the day, I feel stronger, I am recovering from workouts faster and sleeping better. Friends and clients who have also started adding a cup every morning have had similar experiences to me. Try it for yourself!

You are injured.... not dead! Part 2

So this week's post is a follow on from You are injured, not dead! Part 1 where I spoke about the need to make your movements functional, but more importantly reduce your risk of injury through better movement mechanics. And I want to focus on this specifically because this is a lesson I am currently experiencing myself. 

Quick overview, I currently have a herniated disk at L5/S1 (yep pretty much the same injury as Annie Thorisdottir) and the bulging disk is pressing on my sciatic nerve that has been causing me pain and discomfort going on 5 months now. I originally got this injury about June or July 2012 when I was deadlifting to get ready for a strongman comp, and yes I was deadlifting with poor mechanics and poor technique. At the time I had no one to coach me on how to move better and what I should be doing, however I am not passing the buck as I should not have been lifting the weight, reps and sets I was at the time plain and simple. I never took the time to get this injury fixed properly so this became a weakness that finally put me down for good just before the end of last year. Yet without having ever sustained this chronic injury I would not have found a level maturity in my own approach to being a better athlete that is necessary to go to the next level, or the foresight to give athletes and clients that I coach the right words to avoid or deal with chronic injuries and mobility issues.

So 5 months on I am glad to say that after finding a really good physio who introduced me to McKenzie Method, being mature about my approach to recovery for once, refocused my training efforts and even taking up pilates to strengthen my core, things are looking very positive. I was told last week by my physio last week that I am doing far better than he expected someone with my injury to be doing at this point, and I will be back to where I was sooner than expected. In this time I have learned a number of lessons: 

1. CrossFitters like to blow themselves apart, no matter the cost
2. Fitness is not a short term focus, but a life long event
3. Taking the time to build the right foundations will be the difference between building a skyscraper, or becoming a statistic of failure.
4. Patience and maturity are your best friends when it comes to getting over long term injuries or chronic mobility problems.

The first lesson is pretty self explanatory. Be it ripped hands from pull ups that stop you from holding onto a barbell for the next week, a shoulder impingement from attempting to go that last set of unbroken snatches in a WOD, or pinching a nerve in your lower back trying to do a big set of heavy deadlifts when you are already fatigued. CrossFitters will race the clock and each other to win today even if it means an injury rather than taking the focus of trying to be better tomorrow. If you cannot train tomorrow because you hurt yourself today then you are not fitter tomorrow, you are weaker tomorrow.

This leads into the second lesson

CrossFit is supposed to build capacity as we age and restore functional movement. Our hierarchy of development means good movement mechanics first and intensity last; not "that'll do" mechanics second and intensity first. For those who have done the Level 1 Seminar will remember the Sickness - Wellness - Fitness continuum, that decrepitude is a symptom of sickness and fitness means more than just low body fat and high Vo2 capacity. If you want to continue to play in life well into old age, to still be able to go out to run or swim, jump and play then one must avoid injuries. So if that means not finishing a WOD, or not going for that new PR today, that is fine it is just not your day; the weights will still be there next week and you can try again, but if you are injured than you have no option to try again. 

This leads into lesson 3 in that if early on you take the time to ensure your movement and positions are correct you will not only be better in your training and in life, but you will bulletproof yourself against injury rather than making yourself a prime candidate for injury. This includes mobility issues and flexibility issues, for example if you have really tight shoulders and cannot keep a neutral spinal position and have your arm straight up in the air so there is one straight line between your fingers, elbow, shoulder, hip and ankle, then you should not be overhead pressing yet, and definitely not snatching. Yeah snatching is really fun, but trust me in that having functional range of motion in your shoulders as you age is far more useful than attempting one heavy snatch and your shoulder not working properly again.

And this is where lesson 4 comes into play.

Be mature in your approach to training and be patient in recovering injuries or rehabilitating mobility and flexibility problems. The weights will be there when you get better so rather use this time to work on weaknesses you might have in other areas that you can work (we both know they exist), you will be better in the long run for it. Blowing yourself apart for one workout or one competition is just not worth it if you will lose the ability to have functional movement in life where daily tasks or recreational activities are no more.

I have used my time away from heavy lifting to work on my core strength through finding a good pilates instructor (click here to like Pilates Bodies) who understands my needs as an athlete, I have taken a larger focus on building upper body strength and muscular endurance which has always been a weakness of mine, and I have worked on my positions and movements to the point that my air squat is looking the best it ever has for me. I know that when I can do all the movements and weights again that the weaknesses I had that facilitated my injury the first time or held me back during workouts will no longer be an issue.

When you do have that chronic injury or mobility issue that doesn't allow you to train at full capacity, it is sort of like going to prison for a little while; rather than staring at the bars on the windows feeling sorry for yourself, it is time to pump some iron so to speak. Be honest and decide what you suck at, is it your core strength? Shoulder stability and strength? Perhaps it is even a mobility and flexibility issue that you now have the forced time to work on.

This time will be difficult when you see all the kids playing on the other size of the cyclone fencing and razor wire, you just need to bide your time and focus on working what you can work on so that once your injury is healed or your mobility issue is a thing of the past, just know that you will have ultimately lifted your game to make you a better version of yourself both in life and as an athlete.    

Eat clean, Train hard, Stay Strong 

You are injured...... not dead! Part 1

So hands up who has had an injury that has stopped them from training? Or how about a mobility issue that is limiting you in what movements you can do? Or maybe putting you at risk of injury due to a reduction in mobility and range of motion?

Yep just as a thought, everyone has their hands up for one or all of those reasons!

This can be an extremely frustrating time for an individual and also a potentially very dangerous time. Everyone is alright taking a bit of time to rest and recover in order for pain to subside, and then return to full training. Alternatively if it is a mobility issue they will do modified movements for a period of time, however in both instances it is very rare for the individual to really focus and address the root cause of their injury or mobility issue before returning to full movement. Typically frustration will set in and pain will be gone so they will return to doing the movements that caused injury or pain in the first place without changing why they got injured or why the have limited range of motion in the first place

I want to bring this back to what CrossFit is: Constantly varied functional movements, performed at high intensity. And focus on the high lighted part, functional movements.

For those who have done the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar will remember this chain:

Mechanics > Consistency > Intensity

Meaning that we must first get the mechanics of the movement right, we must then show consistency of moving with good mechanics again and again, then lastly we add in intensity. Intensity is achieved either through adding weight or moving faster, so I am not going to even worry about that part today. I want to look at only mechanics and consistency as they pertain to functional movements.

Remembering what Functional Movements are, they have the ability to move large loads, long distances and do so quickly; Functional Movements are natural movements of universal motor recruitment; and Functional Movements are SAFE

However there is more to just saying that the squat or deadlift is a functional movement, and as a general term they absolutely are. However if you squat with a rounded back and your knees falling in while you are on your toes with a massive forward inclination, well sorry bro but that is not functional. Likewise if you deadlift with a rounded back with weight in your toes then you probably will not be lifting with your posterior chain and as a consolation prize you will most likely win a herniated or blown disc.

It is good that you are going for a full range movement but squatting or deadlifting with those faults is not functional as you cannot move large loads long distances at any speed while avoiding injury if you are in a mechanically and anatomically weak position. If you want your squat to be functional then you need to be in an anatomically safe and strong position, which for the squat as an example means the following:
  

• Have a strong and stable mid-line; so a neutral spine is maintained throughout the movement supported by all core muscles
• Weight is centered through the heels with a flat foot
• Knees pushed out to engage the hip external rotators and ensure your knees track over your feet to avoid pressure on the cruciate ligaments of the knee
• And the strength to maintain all these structures again and again to make this movement consistent 

Once your squat is proficient then you can add weight or speed for intensity. In short, the squat is not a functional movement until your squat has the ability perform the function of moving an external load  without putting you at high risk of injury.

I am going to insert a small caveat here, in that no program that is effective in increasing your capacity to do work in a reasonable time frame is 100% safe. Life and training has inherent risk involved so when pushing yourself to move more weight or move faster there is an element of risk involved. The idea is to reduce this risk as much as possible by moving better and training smarter.

So this is part 1 of this series as I wanted to set up a chain of thought for two posts to follow this one. With so many people focused on increase work capacity, many forget that before we can increase work capacity we must first improve human movement. For those who listen to Kelly 'K-Star' Starrett will know that loading in a weak position with no mechanical advantage will ultimately and quickly lead to injury. Final thought for this first part is as follows: 

Look at the way you move, is it functional and is it safe? Great, you are ready for intensity. 

Do you have a mobility issue that is preventing you from being able to move in a way that is functional and safe? Then you need to fix how you move first. 

Have you got an acute or chronic injury due to poor movement patterns? Then you need to firstly recover the injured structures and then retrain your movement to prevent future injuries.

Stay tuned for the next parts that will deal with how to train with mobility issues or injuries, and the mental aspect of working through that whilst staying motivated. 

Thanks for reading guys, like and share on Facebook. Send me questions or comments, always happy to talk shop! 

Gav

Are you working on the right movements?

So how is your 2013 CrossFit Games Open season going?
There have been some great workouts already and I am sure many will agree, the workouts this year are very much within what CrossFit should be. After the first workout, and for those who forgot (how that is even possible I am not sure) we saw descending reps of burpees paired with ascending weight of the Olympic Snatch. A gymnastics movement to gas you, and a weightlifting movement to test your strength, power and speed. It does not get much more CrossFit than that. For the most part in this WOD the limiting factor for all were the snatches, in particular the ability to move the weight from the ground and even more evident was receiving the weight overhead and standing the bar! What followed was a steady stream of "I really need to work on my snatching, I just couldn't get the weight up" or "I really need to work on my snatching, I just couldn't get under that bar and stand it up". However for most people they are focusing in on the wrong corner of the picture; they are right that they need to work on some things, yet for the majority of individuals they should be looking at the basic movement patterns first before saying that they need to work on the complex movement patterns. So here is what I mean by all this.

I do not want this post to turn into a "how to" of Olympic Weightlifting as all lifters have an individual way of lifting, however there are common characteristics of the lift that you will see across all proficient lifters, whether you use triple extension in your lift, or more of a catapult style of lift, or if you are Jon North and use a 'superman pull' there will still be the same characteristics of movement even if the specifics are different. So to do this I am going to break the movement into the first and second pull, or pulling the weight from the ground to a fully extended position (hips and knees fully extended, body open, the microsecond before receiving the bar), and the third pull which is pulling under to receive the bar and the subsequent standing up to finish the lift.

So for those who made the comment after the workout, "Man, I really need to work on getting the weight up when I snatch, I just can't get the bar high enough" (it is ok you can admit it, we have all been there), this section is for you.
If you think that you need to work on snatching in order to get the bar higher I want you to ask yourself this question first; what does your deadlift look like? And I ask this because majority of the time after an athlete in the gym attempts a snatch and comes out with that line the problem isn't the 'snatch' as a movement but how they pull the weight off the ground which brings in the first list of common faults. Most commonly as a coach you will see the following either single fault or multiple faults:
- A soft rounded back on the set up
- Initiating the pull with the hips below the knees and shoulder behind the line of the bar
- The knees not pulling back to clear a path for the bar
- Weight not staying back in the heels
- The knees pulling back, but the shoulders staying down (hips and shoulders not rising together)
- Getting to the front of the knee's and pushing knees forward to get the torso vertical
       - This shifts the weight forward into the toes and usually prevents the use of the strong and powerful posterior chain to finish the movement
        - As a coach you would normally see the athlete try bounce the bar off the mid quad through this motion, pushing the bar forward of its vertical line
- A soft rounded back throughout the first and second pull

So how many of those things do you do when you attempt a snatch? and be honest here, this is a safe place. What to take away from this is that these are also the common faults for the deadlift. So when these things are constantly going wrong in the worlds fastest lift when you have so many other things to worry about, namely receiving the bar, the snatch itself is not the movement to fix your issues in the first and second pull; just keep it simple and deadlift!
Look at working your dead lift perfectly! Using a snatch grip or clean grip (talking hand width on the bar) it wont matter as you want to get used to pulling perfectly and consistently from the ground where the following points of performance are met:
- Back is in a neutral posture, with all the muscles of the back, abdominal's, obliques and the rest of the core muscles engaged and super ridged (Otherwise known as a strong mid line)
- Setting up with weight mostly in the heels with feet under hips, hips higher than the knee, shoulder slightly over the bar
- Movement is initiated by the knees pulling back at the same time that the hips and shoulders rise together.
- The angle of the back relative to the ground remains unchanged initially as the bar begins to rise
         - This will ensure you are using your hamstrings to begin the lift, and the knees clear a path for the bar to rise vertically
- Once the bar passes the knees, the shins now stay vertical and the glutes (your butt) is engaged to extend the hip open and you finish standing
Get your dead lift right with heavy weight and you will be able to snatch the weight, so just go work on a perfect dead lift and we will then talk about how you do with getting the bar up on your snatch

If you were on the other side of the coin and you struggle to receive the bar, then this part is for you. I won't talking about how you go standing the bar up as if you receive in the right body position with the right muscles activated then all the hard work is done and standing is the easy part, so lets talk about what happens in the receive..
But I am not actually going to talk receiving, I am not even going to talk overhead squatting, I am going to talk just squatting. Taking the common squat faults, if any of these are seen in your squat than the likely hood of receiving and standing a heavy snatch are slim to none. so typical faults are this:
- Complete loss of lumbar curve at the bottom of a squat
- Knees collapsing in at the bottom of a squat
- Weight shifting into the toes at the bottom of the squat, or at any point of the squat really
- Knees not pushing out during the squat
- Musculature of the back and rest of the mid line not engaged throughout the squat
- Excessive forward inclination of the chest during the squat (this one plays specifically to receiving overhead)

Yes there are limitations in terms of shoulder range of motion when trying to receive the bar which could be your limiting factor despite an otherwise good squat position, and yes it is possible to receive a snatch if one or several of these faults are present, you will however risk shoulder and back injury and ultimately be limited by the amount of weight you can snatch.

If we look at the position needed to receive a maximum weight snatch (see below), and this is an exceptionally good representation of the receive position so I don't expect everyone to be able to receive this way however we should know what we are striving for. We can see that his butt is slightly behind his heel line, almost between his heels, the knees are pushed out to the side and are not forward of his toe line, his lumbar curve is maintained, arm pits are forward and pressing up into the bar to turn on all the musculature of the shoulders and there is a near vertical torso angle, with the bar directly over his feet.

What I can promise you is this, his air squat will be effortless and look very similar (minus the bar of course) to what he has going on in that photo. So if you have tight hamstrings or hip flexors, maybe jammed up hip capsules, or weak ad-ductors or ab-ductors, or a weak back, it does not matter, if you cannot squat you cannot snatch heavy, it is really that simple.

So the final take away is this. The Olympic lifts are greater than the sum of their separate parts, meaning that a weak deadlift or weak squat is going to dramatically hinder your ability to clean or snatch, so what I would like you to do is video yourself performing these lifts and break the movement up to what is letting you down then work on that basic movement pattern, learn to squat better and be able to squat the weight before you try clean it or snatch it, be sure you can deadlift the weight with the correct body position and using the correct muscles before you try clean it or snatch it. Fix the basics and the dividends pay off dramatically when attempting complex movements.

Eat clean, Train hard, Be awesome.