Ben Bruno

Good Reads For the Week: 2/11/2012

Well, this is the first real weekend without football in a long time, and I’m already feeling lost. The good news is that without football, I have more time to get other stuff done on the weekends (i.e. more reading and writing), BUT, I miss football.

In any case, I’ve put together one of the best article compilations I’ve done in a while, so if you’re a fellow football like me and looking for something to take up your time, I’ve got you covered.

Before I get to the list, I want to remind you to join my new Facebook Fitness Page if you’ve yet to do so already. I’m shooting to do my first live “Q+A” on there sometime next week, so be on the lookout for that.

Also, my friends Adam Bornstein And John Romaniello have been nominated for a “Shorty Fitness Award,” and I’d appreciate it if you’d take an extra second to vote for them. It literally only takes a couple seconds. Their well-deserving of the award and I’d like to see them do well, but they’ve got some catch-up to do so he needs all the help he can get. You can vote for Adam HERE and Roman HERE. Muchas gracias.

Ok, now time for the list.

School is in session folks. Time to get mo’ smarter.

Here are some posts you may have missed during the week.

End of the Week Randomness

Single Leg Trap Bar Deadlifts

Intermittent Fasting: A Female Perspective

Thoughts on Intermittent Fasting

For Your Viewing Pleasure: Take 68

And here is the best of the rest. Enjoy!

6 Tips From 6 Coaches by Yours Truly and 5 Others

Exercises Saved from the Dumpster by Mike Boyle

All Things Thoracic Spine Part 1: Functional Anatomy by Dean Somerset

All Things Thoracic Spine Part 2: Assessments and Figuring It All Out by Dean Somerset

All Things Thoracic Spine Part 3: Corrective Strategies by Dean Somerset

What’s Your WHY? by Molly Galbraith

3 Simple Steps to Fix Your Hips by Smitty Diesel

Low Threshold Fatigue by Kevin Neeld

Survivor Challenge 3: Max Rep Back Squats by Jen Sinkler

Some Thoughts on Strength Training from Kevin Carr

Interview with Pavel (this is awesome)

A Guide to Your First Kettlebell by Marianne Kane

Interview with Cal Dietz

Manage Your Options by Dan John

Random Thoughts from Bret Contreras

Check Your Neck by Max Shank

Be Like Mike…Robertson?

Strength Coach Podcast Episode 97

Reaching Your Potential in the Big 3 by Lee Boyce and Todd Bumgardner

Should We Train People in Pain? by Mike Robertson

Core Training For Runners by Jeremy DuVall

Baseball Injuries: What to Expect by Eric Cressey

You Need Bilateral Training For the Anabolic Effect? Maybe Not by Mike Boyle

10 World Champ Training Tips from Jason Ferruggia

Research Approved Carb Cycling by Dr. Mike Roussell

The 6 Week Sprinting Solution by John Romaniello

Cardio: The Dirty Word by Neghar Fonooni

Scap Pushup Into Yoga Pushup by Matt Siniscalchi

Box Jump With 1 Leg Landing by Eric Cressey

Reverse Lunge to 1 Leg RDL by Tony Gentilcore

Advanced Bench Press Training by Smitty Diesel

4 Things Your Girlfriend Should Know by Tony Gentilcore

Airport Record by Mike Boyle (this is funny, especially if you know Boston)

12 Reasons You’re Not Losing Fat by Jason Ferruggia

Barbell Glute Bridge and Range of Motion by Kellie Davis

The Art of Consistency by Jen Comas Keck

Periworkout Nutrition by Kelsey Reed

Abs Snails by Nick Tumminello

Interview with Sean Skahan

What Is Functional Hypertrophy? by Charles Poliquin

Shoulder Shrug Secrets by Charles Poliquin

Improve Upper Body Power with Complex Training by Charles Poliquin

7 Lessons of a Transfer Athlete by BN Davidson

IT Band Syndrome by Joe Giandonato

Guide to Implementing and Troubleshooting the Hang Clean by Connor Flahive

Interview with Julia Ladewski by Trey Potter

JC Deen and Roger Lawson Podcast

Do This to Feel Better Fast by Nia Shanks

5/3/1 and MMA by Jim Wendler

Jen Grasso shares her training log

Marianne Kane completes the Sexy Challenge

Peanut Chicken Drumstick Recipe from Neghar Fonooni

Natural Sweetners For Your Desserts by Cara Lyons

1 Arm Rocky Style Pullups by Cortney Martin

3 Exercise Tri-sets by Harold Gibbons

Anti Cardio or Pro Strength Training? by Harold Gibbons

Random Thoughts by Harold Gibbons

Olympic Weightlifting Show Review by Nick Horton

Taking Care Of Your Pitching Arm by David Lasnier

Monday Morning of Zen by Nick Horton

All That Is Right In the World by Jordan Syatt

What Is Going On In Commercial? Gyms by Emily Socolinsky

Sort of Maxes by Stevo Reed

Zelda Plate Carry by Stevo Reed

A Tip on Programming by Ryan Wood

Everyone Can Get Better by Matt Siniscalchi

That’ll do it for this week. Please share this with your friends, have a great weekend!

End of the Week Randomness

It’s the end of the week and I’m feeling a little all over the place. Rather than fight it, I’ve embraced it with some end of the week randomness. It all made sense in my mind…sort of.

1. Ooops!

In my blog post yesterday (cool single leg trap bar deadlift if you want to check it out), I mentioned that it was the last day to buy John Romaniello’s Intermittent Fasting program on sale before the price went up. Well, yesterday afternoon I was informed that I was wrong and the sale actually goes through today (Friday) at midnight. My bad; I guess I never got the memo.

Sidenote: Literally every time I hear or even think of the word “memo,” I immediately think of Office Space. Man, what a great movie.

Anywho, the program is still on sale at more than half off until midnight, so I’d definitely jump on that. To check it out, go HERE.

2. The Chin-up Experiment Continued

In my last random thoughts post I mentioned how I’ve been doing a ton of chin-ups while I rehab my knee. I’ve always believed that when you’re hit with adversity, you can choose to focus on the positive or the negative. I choose the former. With that in mind, since my leg training is hampered drastically, it’s a perfect chance to get better at chins—another favorite of mine.

Last month was a high volume experiment and I did 3,500 over the course of the month. As can be expected, however, my lats started to hate me and revolt, so I was forced to revamp my plan. This month, I have still been using a high frequency (5-6 days a week), but I’ve dropped the volume considerably.

Instead, I’ve been working with two different techniques: eccentrics, and pauses. Here are the pauses. Basically, you pause half way up, then again at the top, then halfway down.

It’s too early for me to say how my changes are working because I’m only two weeks in, but so far it seems to be going great and my strength is going up. I plan on sharing my exact protocol after the testing is completed.

I’ll tell you this though: doing pauses and slow eccentrics friggin smokes the abs. Seriously.

3. Recovery Work???

What do you do for recovery work?
I’m going to do a recovery workout…
What do you do on your off days?

These are all questions I get on a regular basis, and they always make me chuckle. Recovery Work seems like a complete oxymoron.

Look, I’m not an idiot and I realize people are asking about foam rolling, stretching, light cardio, contrast baths, massage, and whatever else, but I just find the terminology to be funny.

In my eyes, recovery “work” is things like sleeping, going to the movies, crushing Chipotle, and just general chillaxing.

For the record, I don’t do any formalized exercise on my “off days.” If I did, then I wouldn’t really consider it an off day. Seriously though, I think it’s important to have days where you just don’t think of exercise. For me, off days are as much for the mind as they are for the body. If I’m busy worrying about recovery, then I’m missing the point.

It’s just semantics I know, but I guess we all have our little things that grind our gears. What are yours? I bet some of them are hilarious.

4. The Post-Football Crash

Now that football is over (I still don’t want to talk about the Super Bowl), I officially have nothing I like to watch on TV. I’ll get into basketball and hockey once it gets to the end of the season, but until then, I’m high and dry.

Any suggestions for good shows I can watch? Help a brotha out!

5. Knee Update

The knee continues to get better and better. I’ve cranked up the rehab a bit while still being smart and prudent, and it’s responding pretty well.

I’m also using the time to rethink my plan moving forward. Even though my injury was not directly lifting-related, it will clearly influence my lifting, so I’m developing a plan of attack that will allow me to keep moving forward without crushing myself. I’ll keep you posted as always.

Thanks again for all the well wishes. It really makes it easier to deal with.

6. Safe House

The new Denzel Washington movie—Safe House—comes out today and it looks SICK. I hope to hit it up this weekend. Here is the trailer.

Denzel is the man. Nuff’ said.

7. Feedback Wanted

I have about five articles I’m working on right now, but I wanted to reach out and see if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see from me. It’s been several months since I’ve asked, but if there’s anything you wish I was touching on that I’m on, let me know and I’ll do my best to accommodate.

That’s it for today. Finish the week strong!

Single Leg Trap Bar Deadlifts

Today I want to share an exercise with you that I started using as a means to train my “good” leg while I rehab my knee: 1 Leg Trap Bar Deadlifts. The name is pretty self-explanatory, so I’ll first show you what it looks like and then say why I like it.

This is a really a hybrid exercise in every sense. I consider it a mix between a trap bar deadlift, single leg squat, and skater squat.

Is it knee dominant or hip dominant? I think you could make a good case for either. In the end, I don’t care much about classification, but if I had to, I’d simply classify it as “awesome.”

It’s more knee friendly than single leg squat, but it’s more knee-dominant than something like a skater squat because you keep your torso more upright.

The other thing I like about it is that the “non-working” leg can easily tap down on the floor if you need assistance. I like to keep it in the air throughout the whole set, but if you wanted too you could even touch down better reps to help regain your wits and extend the set.

I also like to pause each rep for a second (not literally a second, but just a slight pause) on the floor, but you don’t necessarily have to do that if you don’t want to.

After a few sets of these, my entire legs are screaming: quads, hamstrings, and glutes.

I’ve tried using the low handles and found that I was unable to do it without rounding my back, but if you’re shorter or have better mobility than I do right now, you may want to try that out as well.

Give it a rip and let me know what you think.

You can also subscribe to my You Tube channel for more ideas and videos.

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Before I sign off, I want to remind you that today is the last day to purchase John Romaniello’s Fat Loss Forever guide to Intermittent Fasting on sale before the price more than doubles at midnight. It’s also the last chance to get the free bonus that is included if you buy today, so if it’s something you’re interested in, act fast.

You can find more HERE.

If you want to read more, you can read my thoughts about it, as well as Neghar Fonooni’s experiences with IF.

Over and out. Have a good one!

Intermittent Fasting: A Female Perspective

Yesterday I made a blog post sharing some of my thoughts about intermittent fasting and saying how I plan on giving it a try. I received a lot of great feedback from people who have done it or are currently doing it, and I am even more convinced than before that it’s worth a concerted try.

One thing I noticed, however, was that pretty much all of the feedback came from dudes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I thought it’d be cool from a dudet as well. With that in mind, I want to share a guest blog from my good friend Neghar Fonooni.

If you read my blog with any regularity then you already know Neghar because I regularly feature her videos and articles. Neghar is one of the strongest people I know. Note that I said “people” and not “chicks.” That was intentional because honestly, she puts most guys to shame.

Funny sidenote: Neghar was showing me how to do a bottoms-up kettlebell press one time with I think 16kg or 20kg and was just making it ridiculously easy. Since she weights about 120 pounds, I figured it must be a breeze, so I nonchalantly grabbed the kettlebell and tried to press it myself. Uh, not so much. Epic fail. I walked away with my tail between my legs and that was that. Neghar didn’t even seem phased, probably because she’s used to making guys feel like wusses.

Oh, and I forget to mention that she’s also a friggin’ knockout to boot.

Back to the point though, Neghar uses Intermittent Fasting herself, so I thought it’d be appropriate to share her thoughts. She originally wrote this for Strengthcoach.com, but it really applies to what I’ve been talking about, so I wanted to share it here too. I really like what she has to say, and she brings us things about Intermittent Fasting that I hadn’t even considered.

With that, I’ll turn it over to her. [Exits stage left]

[Neghar enters…]

Eat several times per day. Eat only small meals. Never go hungry. Keep your metabolism fueled. That is what I have been taught to think and what I have taught my clients for the past several years. That is how countless people have lost body fat (myself included) and created a new food paradigm. I was of the school of thought that fasting was “dangerous” for your metabolism and could slow or even halt your body’s ability to burn fat.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am in no way insinuating that eating this way is not a beneficial, safe and effective option. What I realized this year, however, is that there is another way (several, in fact) and that one method does not fit all, at all times in every circumstance. My preoccupation with food preparation, portioning and eating every few hours was starting to take its toll. I was food obsessed and it had to stop.

I had heard a lot about Intermittent Fasting through the community and always thought, “absolutely, no way, not for me, EVER.” It wasn’t until John Berardi of Precision Nutrition published a free e-book on his experiments with fasting, did I begin to give it any serious thought. I read the e-book and subsequently decided to self-experiment to see how my body and mind would react to fasting. I started with one 16 hour fast per week, and now I fast almost every day for 15-17 hours. I began by only fasting on my non-training days and now I train fasted almost exclusively. I have no way of knowing if this method of eating will work for me a year from now, but I am confident that it’s the best method for me NOW and here’s why:

1. I created a healthy relationship with food.

As long as I can remember I have been food obsessed. I would count down the hours, even minutes, until it was “time” for me to eat again. If I wanted to eat something outside of my schedule or my plan, I felt guilt and shame. This usually resulted in weekend binging on cookies and pizza only to start the same strict cycle again on Monday. I was tired of thinking about food, preparing so many meals and worst of all-watching the clock. Intermittent Fasting allows me to go about my day without the thought of eating. I typically eat my first meal between 1-2 and my last meal between 7-9. Most of the time I eat lots of protein, vegetables and healthy fats but every now and then I don’t. I also do not require myself to fast. Meaning, if I want to eat, I eat and if I want to fast I fast. This has rid me of the guilt and the unhealthy ties I have associated with eating. I think about food much less, and more importantly when I am thinking about it, I am most certainly not obsessing over it. I feel a mental and emotional freedom that I gained mostly as a result of my fasting experiment.

2. I eat more at once.

Although I have (mostly) shed the negative food relationships of my past, I still love eating. I love cooking, creating healthy recipes and most of all, I love enjoying food and feeling satiated. Fasting allows me to have bigger meals in a smaller feeding window instead of tiny meals all day long. At first, the small meals really worked for me. They held me accountable, kept me energized and controlled my caloric intake. After a while I began to feel deprived and wanted more. I had constant cravings and often overate as a coping mechanism. In one sitting I will often eat 3 eggs scrambled with veggies and cheese, ½ an avocado and 4 slices of nitrate free bacon. For a girl my size, that’s a lot of food-yet I maintain a very low body fat, a lean physique and I get to enjoy a larger meal.

3. I spend less money and time on food.

Although my caloric intake is probably about the same, I actually buy less food because eating less often allows me to buy fewer varieties of food. Since I only eat 2-3 times per day, I don’t mind eating the same thing every day for a week. I buy less, waste less and prepare less. Now I spend a fraction the money I used to on weekly groceries and have much more time to write, train and study without having to plan, prepare and pack so many meals. I’m more productive and I have more money in my pocket!

4. I have better training sessions.

Initially, I doubted my ability to train in a fasted state. In the past I have felt shaky and weak if I hadn’t eaten for a few hours and my training would suffer. I felt instant anxiety at the thought of training fasted, until I realized that there was a method, not an accidental starvation period. When I adhered to the method, I discovered that not only could I train fasted, I liked it. I had a greater mental clarity and focus, and felt much more alert and energized. Typically I eat at 8 or 9 the night before, train at 11:30 or 12 with a BCAA and beta-alanine supplement and then eat a large, clean meal around 2. My lifts have not suffered at all. In fact, I have hit several PRs, including a 20kg strict pullup and 72kg single leg deadlifts. I will say, however, that sprints or other intense conditioning work at the tail end of a fasted training session have proved more difficult, especially if I haven’t taken the supplements.

Editors Note: I think she’s sandbagging us a little here. From the looks of things, she is still busting out some pretty crazy conditioning work that would leave most of us gassed.

Ultimately, I don’t call myself an intermittent faster and I subscribe to no dogma. This is part of my journey towards a healthy nutrition paradigm. But, Intermittent Fasting is something that has given me new insight to my body and my relationship with food, as well as helped me develop a more open mind to concepts outside of my comfort zone.

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To find more from Neghar, you can go to her website at www.negharfonooni.com/.

Also be sure to join her Facebook page called Eat, Lift, and Be Happy and also subscribe to her awesome You Tube channel.

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Don’t forget, if you want to learn more about Intermittent Fasting, John Romaniello just released a great new comprehensive guide that also includes a full training program to go along with it. The program is on sale right now for more than half off, but the sale doesn’t last long. There are also some big bonuses if you act quickly, so now is the time to buy. You can check it out HERE.

Have a great day!

Thoughts On Intermittent Fasting

Two weeks ago, I made a blog post asking a simple question: What is the biggest thing holding you back from your fitness goals?

I received a ton of great responses, but by far the biggest answer was….DIET.

More specifically, it was CONSISTENCY with the diet.

A lot of people eat well for a little while only to undermine their efforts with an all-out binge fest that cancels out a lot of the progress you made. Sound familiar?

There are a ton of good diets out there that will help you to get lean, build muscle, and do whatever else it is you want to do. The key is to find one that works for your lifestyle so that you will stick to it over the long run. If you struggle to find the time to cook and prepare all of your meals ahead of time, the odds of sticking to your diet plan aren’t great.

With that in mind, you may be interested in the idea of Intermittent Fasting (IF). I am just getting into reading more about it myself and I don’t have a ton of experience with it yet, but the more I read, the more I like it. Lots of my friends have used it and/or are currently using it with good success, and I am seeing more and more believers by the day. At the end of the day, I’m a results-based guy, so any time I see a lot of people doing something that works, I pay close attention.

There are many variations of IF, but the basic idea is that you eat less frequently than on a standard 4-6 meals a day diet. Supposedly there are hormonal benefits to this style of eating, but to be perfectly honest, the most appealing thing to me is the CONVENIENCE factor.

I hate cooking, so the idea of eating fewer meals is very appealing. Plus, since you’re eating less frequently, you have a little more “wiggle room” to eat things that might not be 100% perfect without doing as much damage, which makes it easier during social gatherings, etc. I like that a lot, too.

I don’t necessarily think IF is better than other forms of dieting, but I do think it is a viable to get lean that works particularly well for people that struggle with nutritional consistency or for people with busy schedules that don’t want to cook all the time.

If that’s you, I’d definitely suggest looking into it more. My friend John Romaniello just came out with a really comprehensive guide to IF that I really enjoyed reading, so much so that I’m going to give it a shot myself. I suggest you give it a look and see if it’s something that you think could work for you as well. He also includes a very comprehensive training program to work synergistically with the diet to augment your results even more. You can find out more about the program