What’s the Proper Way to Squat – Q&A
The high-bar/Olympic squat is done with the bar held high on the traps and the goal is generally to keep the torso as vertical as possible; this is usually facilitated by wearing shoes with a slight ‘heel’ on them as this lets the lifter get the knees further forward. The focus is generally more on squatting ‘down’ than ‘back’ in this style of squat and it’s critical to push the knees way out and squat ‘between the knees’ (as Dan John puts it so simply). A slightly narrower stance is also usually used (as this tends to have more carryover to pulling and the jerk in Olympic lifting).
Bodypart Frequency and Soreness – Q&A
You have discussed training frequency on your site and suggest that training a body part twice a week to every 5th day, what would you say if on that fifth day my legs are still sore and I’m generally fatigued, would you recommend waiting an additional day or so? Or just work through the soreness?
Moving to Morning Training – Q&A
For reasons beyond my control, I have to change my lifting to mornings, rather than evenings. Not really pumped about it, but it’s either change, or don’t lift at all. I’ve been looking on the Internet for credible information about morning lifitng (what to do, what not to do, in terms of nutrtion, supplements, volume, etc). It’s one of those subject where I FEEL like I know what would/wouldn’t inhibit my progress; but there’s a reason I’ve not chosen to do it in the past and it had nothing to do with the alarm – I just wasn’t getting anything out of it. Do you have any recommendations for my situation?
10 Tips to Deal with Holiday Weight Gain
For the body obsessed or even normal dieters, the holiday period from around October through to January can be a true minefield. Between the specific holidays of Halloween (mercifully passed), Thanksgiving and Christmas, along with endless goody baskets and parties, folks can run into problems maintaining the habits they strive to follow the rest of the year.
NORMAN! Part 4
So finishing up (for now) from NORMAN! Part 3, I’m going to talk today about some of the issues I’ve dealt with (or am still dealing with) in terms of training not only NORMAN but also in working with the two of them. As I mentioned on Tuesday, dealing with a two dog household was pretty much more than a doubling of effort in terms of training because I had to deal not only with them individually but in terms of their various interactions.
NORMAN! Part 3
So following up from last time, I had gotten a crate and other stuff to prepare for fostering NORMAN! at home. I went back to the shelter and picked him up for the short ride home. He was acting a little bit stressed in his crate but that’s fairly normal. The one thing I should have done in hindsight was kenneled ALFIE! so that I could let NORMAN! run around the house and sniff a bit.
NORMAN! Part 2
So in NORMAN! Part 1 I wrote up an introduction that you can probably guess the punchline to but I’m still walking you through this the long way. In short, by sheer accident I had been in the clinic when we got a new puppy named NORMAN! with a messed up back leg. We all sort of fell in love with him and I was the first to walk him. I had been considering getting ALFIE! a playmate as it was and NORMAN! seemed like a good choice.
NORMAN! Part 1
So I’ve been sort of sitting on something for about the, oh, last 10 weeks or so. Something that I had sort of wanted to write about but got distracted by the absurdity that was Why the US Sucks at Olympic Lifting and then I needed a break to just run short, non-serial types of articles. But since we’re entering the holidays and nobody cares about diet or training advice anyhow (anybody but me notice that the Halloween candy was out 6 weeks ago and Christmas stuff is already out?) it’s time to run this. Yes, you can probably guess what this is about by the title and topic but, well…I’ll just get to it.
Ammonia Smell During Exercise on Ketogenic Diet – Q&A
This is a fairly common report on very low-carbohydrate/ketogenic diet (defined, once again, as any diet containing less than 100 grams of carbohydrate per day), a report of a fairly strong ammonia smell in the sweat during exercise. As I discuss in detail in my first book The Ketogenic Diet this ammonia is produced due to the ultimate breakdown of ATP to ADP to AMP and ammonia.
Rapid Fat Loss Without Weight Training – Q&A
An additional factor, also discussed in the book is that there is often an increase in lean body mass (and this represents both muscle mass and connective tissue) when people gain body fat. From the standpoint of obtaining a ‘normal’ body weight (whatever ‘normal’ means here) losing that ‘extra’ LBM is thought to be beneficial or necessary by some obesity experts.
