Primal Pancakes: Breakfast for Dinner

Today I gave a little something a try that I stumbled on while surfing "teh interwebz." Making the transition to the Primal lifestyle is all well and good, but for many of us we have an emotional attachment to certain foods and don't want to give them up entirely. While I believe its perfectly fine to indulge yourself in a "cheat" meal every now and then, that isn't an option available to me during my 30-Day Challenge, and there is also something to be said for a non-Cheat alternative that satisfies the craving.

Enter the Primal Pancake!



Ingredients:

• 2 Organic free-range eggs
• 1/2 Cup Unsweetened Organic Apple Sauce
• 1/2 Cup Organic Nut Butter (anything other than Peanut...I used Sunflower)
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract

I heated up some coconut oil in a pan over medium-low heat and after mixing and beating together the above mixture, went about making a pancake the way everyone else does. One thing though...the consistancy is not quite the same, I found that they fell apart during flipping if I made the pancake too large, so stick to smaller pancakes. Also, they burn quickly! Don't wait too long before flipping. I made quite a few more pancakes than what ended up making it to my plate, whole and unburnt...however, I'm a bachelor living alone and my cooking skills are not what you would call exemplary.

Alongside the pan with the cakes, I was cooking up some nitrate-free bacon in a second pan with some butter. Once everything was ready, I scattered some blackberries and a SMALL amount of 100% pure maple syrup on the pancakes and had at them.

Review:

• Tasty, but you can really taste the sunflower butter
• The consistancy was not quite as firm as regular pancakes. It was a bit mushy
• I regret throwing out the burnt ones, because the more burnt ones were delightfully crispy and didn't taste bad
• I'm not 100% sure how well these would pass the "Kid Test." I have no children yet besides my dog, but I'm almost certain he'd gobble the whole plate down given half a chance.
• I"m not really sure I'll be rushing off to make this again in the near future. The total cost was fairly steep when you consider the sheer volume of nut butter! But it was tasty, fun, and its always good to have options.
  

Now, of course, my kitchen is a COMPLETE disaster. Maybe bachelors shouldn't be allowed to cook unsupervised.

For more on this recipe and for many others, check out the excellent site: www.performancemenu.com

Good News! You DON"T have to spend HOURS in The Gym!

The story of David and Goliath is the ultimate "Less is More" lesson, and there are many areas in our lives where we'd do well to apply this maxim. Michelangelo's depiction of David in deep contemplation before doing battle with Goliath also serves to illustrate an important concept in my training...imagine how much more worried he would look if he had just spent 2 hours working out before finding out he has to fight a giant?

Many of us put ourselves in this exact predicament several times a week, spending ourselves completely in the gym and then heading out into our regular lives to "recover" in time for the next gym session. If you are spending crazy amounts of time in the gym each week, can you satisfactorily answer the question, "why are you doing it?" I'd hazard a guess that for many it becomes circular...we work out so we can get better at working out and the time in between gym sessions is just recovery.

I was like that once. I knew I wanted to take my fitness and health to the next level, and I thought the answer was spending ever increasing hours at the local Globo Gym. I entered a contest held by a muscle mag in which I followed a cookie-cutter "mass building" program/diet for 3 months, submitting before and after photos holding the relevant month's issue of the magazine to verify the timeline. I can't speak for everyone's goals, and I don't mean to demean bodybuiding if that's your thing, but this approach was not for me! Volume-wise, I was doing an insane number of reps, sets, and exercises, and leaving the gym absolutely blasted. It was a four day a week split, and each gym session required a devotion of roughly 2 hours of my day. That isn't including the time spent sprawled out on my couch moaning about what a "great" workout that just was, haha.

I stuck with it for two months, and was seeing some results...but nothing to write home about. My results were far out of keeping with the amount of effort I was expending, and I realized I was really unhappy. My life had devolved into a cycle of working, rushing to the gym, sleeping, and repeating the cycle. And my workouts were leaving me feeling drained and worn out! What was the point? The goal of exercise and diet is to enhance your life and make it a more fulfilling experience isn't it? We workout so that we have energy, are free from frailty, and like what we see in the mirror. Some of us add goals of strength or athletic performance to these, but what point is all our effort if it doesn't allow us time to enjoy the benefits?

Since adopting a more Primal diet and lifestyle and using kettlebells to keep my workouts short, intense, and mentally engaging, I've spent much less time actually exercising and more time enjoying the results of those workouts. And the results have been better. A relatively minor, stress free adjustment to my eating habits, and a few relatively short intense kettlebell sessions has yielded me more strength, fitness, athleticism, and leanness than all those hours spent pumping iron and running on the treadmill. And after I finish a workout, I feel like roaring and beating my chest, not collapsing in a groaning heap.

I guess the point of this blog post is to keep the goal in mind in all things you do, and to scrutinize the steps you take towards that goal. If you joined the gym in order to get a great beach body...don't forget to go to the beach because you're too busy in the gym. Make sure whatever you are doing is enhancing your life and not dominating it.

So You Want To Be a Soviet Super Soldier? Part II

Two more weeks have passed and I have closed out week 7 in the AOS ETK workbook. I feel great, my strength has been improving steadily and surprisingly enough, I've continued to be able to pull myself up with the additional 30 lbs attached.

Clean and Press

Its amazing to me that I blow past 3 ladders of 3 rungs with no problem en route to finishing 5 ladders. When I first started the program just 3 weeks ago I was struggling on the third ladder, and now it seems extremely easy. Cleaning the bell on my right side continues to be more problematic due to my reduced range of motion in that wrist, but I'm managing. I'm looking forward to Week 8, in which I will begin to add rungs to the ladders, adding an entirely new facet to the pain.

Pullups

I've continued to do these with a 30 lbs kettlebell attached to a dip belt. I had assumed that at a certain volume I would need to drop the bell and use bodyweight only, but that has proven not to be the case. The final rung of 3 reps is fairly tough each ladder, so it will be interesting to see how I fair on a fourth rung. This portion of the training might be my favorite...there's something very pleasing and downright primal about hauling yourself up with the added weight from the weightbelt. It makes me want to beat my chest like a gorilla...and in the interest of full disclosure, I have from time to time.

Snatches

These are tough for me, and not so much because of the weight. I'm using a 20kg kettlebell for Snatches and for Swings, and I feel the weight is challenging, but the calluses on my palms just plain hurt after doing Clean and Press. The pain alone forces me to do 5 reps each side twice through before resting, instead of the 10 reps left, 10 reps right as prescribed. I believe this week in lieu of the Heavy Day I will give the SSST a try with the 20kg bell without Cleaning and Pressing beforehand. For those that don't know, the Secret Service Snatch Test is 200 Snatches in 10 minutes with a 24kg (53 lbs) kettlebell. I'm a little smaller than your average girevik at 5'5 and 135 lbs, so I will complete it with the 20kg, and then I WILL complete it with the 24kg afterwards...no excuses. My route there may just be a little longer than others.

Swings

What an amazing movement. This program has given me an all new appreciation for the efficiency of this one movement and its immense value. These swing sessions have my heart pounding, my breathing heavy, and my entire posterior chain smoked! Even my grip gets pushed to the limit, and my trapezius muscles feel like they are worked, possibly as stabilizers during the upper portion of the kettlebells arc.

I like to give these sessions my absolute max effort so that I feel like collapsing at the end of the workouts. I can definitely attest to a sharp increase in my ability to handle these long kettlebell swing intervals. They are still tough, but much easier than they once were.

Other notes

Day 10 on my strict no cheat meals Primal Challenge is in the books and it hasn't been as difficult as I imagined. I feel great, and it may be my imagination but I feel as though I'm already leaner than I had been. I will reserve judgement until Day 30 though.

Stay tuned...

Caveman Core Training!

I'm often asked what I do for my "six pack." I find this funny because I personally think I have a Four-and-a-half pack, haha. I also never sought out the six pack holy grail that is so en vogue in pop culture. Any definition in my midsection has come as a consequence of clean eating and hard training, not so much a direct goal. What follows are some ideas for cheap, at home training for the core that will be challenging and will result in strength gains for your core and a good looking midsection granted that your diet is also very clean.

The last statement is VERY important. Abs are made as much in the kitchen as in the gym. Having strong abs, obliques, etc is fantastic, but you won't SEE any difference if they're covered by a layer of fat. Seeing the muscle may not be all that important for everyone, however EVERYONE needs a strong and powerful core. The core (abs, obliques, back) support every other activity you'll do both in the gym, on the field, and out in the world.

The Basics

• A good workout program should include attention given to the abs, obliques, and lower back
• Your obliques allow you to bend your trunk to either side as well as twist from side to side
• Multi-joint, compound exercises exercise your core without being the focus. Strict pushups, heavy deadlifts, barbell squats, etc.
  
• I'm not convinced a crunch offers a great enough range of motion to provide gains in the abs
• I'm not convinced its possible to isolate the "upper" or "lower" abs. It's all one muscle!

The Exercises

Here are a few exercises that can be done with a minimum of equipment in the comfort of your home. Many of these exercises may be new to you, but then again everyone knows the common exercises. Note: backdrop this time around courtesy of my parents house :)

• L-Sit

Find yourself two stable chairs and hold yourself up with your legs stretched out in front of you, forming an "L" with your body. This is a isometric static hold...you'll want to hold the position for time. A good starting point is breaking it up into as many sets as necessary to reach 60 seconds.

• L-Pullup

When you feel strong enough in the L-Sit, you can up the complexity of the exercise by combining it with the pullup. Hang from a pullup bar as normal, raise your legs up into the L position, and then simply pull yourself up and lower yourself as usual while maintaining the L position. Tougher than it sounds! Do this for 3 quality sets, or 2 reps short of failure.

• Band Punches

This is a fun one for the obliques, and about as sport specific as you can get. Grab a sturdy workout band (I got mine from ihpcombat.com) and throw a technically sound straight punch with an emphasis on trunk rotation. Other punches can be thrown as long as they involve sufficient trunk rotation (probably not jabs for instance).

• Superman/Shaolin Pushup

This one goes by various names, but in any event its a good test of core strength. Lay flat on your belly with the balls of your feet touching the ground and your arms outstretched in front of you and your palms flat on the floor. Other than the balls of your feet, this should resemble what Superman looks like while flying...and if you are good at this movement you can share in his bulletproof body. From the lying down position press yourself up so that the only things touching the ground are your palms and your feet. You will feel your core activating to help you maintain this position.

If this movement is too hard for you, bring your arms in closer to your body so that you rest on your forearms in the bottom position of the movement. Do not bring your arms directly below your shoulders, because thats a normal pushup. The movement has more of a tricep extension type of action in the arms than the push in a pushup or benchpress.

Note in this picture how the position requires full body tension. Every muscle in the body must be tense to maintain strength. Read Pavel Tsatsouline's Naked Warrior and Power to the People for more info on total body tension.

Program Ideas

For a quick, effective program, you could do the following in circuit fashion. Do one exercise after the other with no rest, and repeat the entire sequence 3-5x with 1 min rest between rounds

Routine 1
L-Sit 30 seconds
Band Punches 10-15 reps
V-Ups (consult Youtube for this one) 10 reps

Routine 2
Superman Pushups 10 reps
L-Pullups for a Quality Set (your pulling strength will limit you here)
Band Punches 10-15 reps

I recommend checking out Pavel's book "Bullet-Proof Abs" for info on the Janda Situp. Pavel goes into detail on this fantastic movement that deactivates the hip flexors and allows you to concentrate solely on your core. I won't go into it here because the book is a real treat.

Thanks for reading!

The Caveman Experiment: A 30-Day Challenge

Today marks the first day of a 30-day experiment in Primal/Paleo eating and lifestyle. I already maintain a very strict diet and exercise regimen, but I will be the first to admit I cut loose a bit on weekends. I roughly stick to the 80/20 principal and strive for 80% compliance. For me that 20% translates to 3-5 cheat meals in which I pay NO attention whatsoever to what I'm eating.

I feel zero shame in these cheat meals because I feel it's good for my mental health to kick back with friends and to eat whatever I want. My lifestyle allows me to cheat to a certain extent because these meals average out with my usual diet resulting in no real difference in body composition, health, etc...I THINK. Hence the experiment. How much of a difference is that 20% making? My supposition is that the law of diminishing returns takes effect, and as you get closer and closer to 100% diet compliance your perceptible improvements become smaller and smaller.
However, there is a chance that my cheat meals have a more deleterious effect than I believe right now. What if my cheat meals are throwing off my bodies ability to cleanly switch to a preference for fat-burning for fuel versus carb-burning? We'll see 30 days from today.

The Rules

1. Meals will consist of mainly meat, fruit, vegetables, and nuts
2. I will allow myself dairy products in moderation, all from full-fat sources
3. I will implement Intermittent Fasting in a randomized/unplanned manner or in order to avoid a cheat meal when no alternative is available
4. The aim will be organic, all natural sources, however as a concession to modern day life this will not be an absolute rule. No non-Paleo food types, though.
5. Exercise-wise, I will continue working on the Enter The Kettlebell Rite of Passage
6. I will make sure to take at least 30 to 45 minutes to walk at a steady pace each day
7. I will make sure to get at least 7 hours of sleep each night.

Current Stats
Weight: 138 lbs
Height: 5'5 (yeah this isn't changing...but there's always hope!)
Before Pic: I've littered this blog with shirtless pics of myself, no need for even one more, haha. I will post an "After" pic in 30.

The inspiration for the 30 Day Challenge, and most of the info on the diet was sourced from Mark Sisson's work. Please visit his fantastic site at www.marksdailyapple.com for more info!

Variety Day Revisited

Prior to today, I've been using a scattershot approach to Variety Day. Basically whatever struck my fancy was what I would do! While this keeps things very interesting and indulges my curiosity and short attention span, the lack of consistency doesn't lend itself very well to measurable progress.

I thought about what ETK provides me, and I thought about what might be good to add. My approach is not to clutter things with too many extra exercises, but to take advantage of variety days to work on movements that I am not very strong in. I settled on including the two exercises featured in Pavel's excellent book: The Naked Warrior.

I have always struggled with the One Arm Pushup and the Pistol. Coincidentally, ETK does not include any motions that directly target the Pectoral or Quadricep muscles, so it fits in nicely. In the FAQ section of Pavel's Enter The Kettlebell book, Pavel suggests Greasing The Groove (more on this in The Naked Warrior by Pavel Tsatsouline) with Pistols but to SKIP One Arm Pushups. I am assuming this is because the overall volume of GTG would overstress the upper body what with all the pressing one does in ETK. Instead of GTG, I decided to do straight sets with both exercises. I also added in Janda Situps and will perform Turkish Getups in their stead during my NEXT variety day.

I feel as if ETK and Naked Warrior go together very well. The name of the game is STRENGTH.

Results from first try:

• Currently performing pistols down to a position where my thighs are parallel with the ground. My hamstring flexibility doesn't allow me to lower. Next time I may perform them on a low step in order to reach a greater range of motion while my flexibility catches up.

• One Arm Pushups are tough but doable. Once I reach a certain comfort level and volume, I will switch to one of the MANY challenging variations Pavel provides.

The numbers:

1. 3 x 5 reps Pistol (partial ROM)
2. 3 x 5 reps OAP (Nose touches floor on each rep)
3. 5 x 5 Janda Situp with hands in Boxer position

I plan to increase sets over time until I am doing 5 sets or more of the Pistols/OAP. Next session w/ the Jandas I will extend my arms overhead to increase the difficulty.

Below I have included the now ubiquitous shirtless bathroom self-pic. Readers of this blog please believe me, I DO own shirts. Problem is, at 5'5 and 135 lbs, when I wear shirts I just look scrawny...and then why would anyone care how I'm working out, Haha.

So You Want To Be a Soviet Super Soldier? (ETK Week 1 Debrief)

Today I completed my first week on ETK with my 50 lbs kettlebell. I'm still working out what I'm going to do during my variety days, but needless to say, I have plenty to keep me busy!

The program itself is super straightforward with Clean and Press paired with Pullups, and a secondary exercise of either Snatches or series of Swings.

Although the Program is set up to use one heavy kettlebell, I find that my pressing strength is greater than the rest of my body can keep up with. Perhaps its a mistake to keep plugging away at the Clean and Press, but I'm currently using my 50 lbs Kettlebell for Clean and Press, and my 44 lbs (20 KG) Kettlebell for Swings and Snatches. I am also using a dip belt to hang my 30 lbs kettlebell off of me during Pullups.

Observations:

- I am able to handle the Pullup Ladders + 30 lbs pretty easily. It will be interesting to see how this holds up as the ladders/rungs increase.

- My limited range of motion in my right arm doesn't allow me to properly execute a clean on that side, but the improvements in my form with the left side have made Clean and Press much easier! Improving my technique has made the motion more efficient, thereby reducing the amount it taxes my system.

- Even after dropping the weight to the 20 kilo bell, doing so many swings in a row is tough! Its interesting because my anaerobic conditioning is pretty solid, but these swings seem to kill me regardless.

- I think working with the Captains of Crush Gripper has made kettlebell work much easier...my grip doesn't get tired between Clean and Press, Weighted Pullups, and Swings.