Eat with Friends!

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Our blog post today will deal with how we eat more than what we eat.  Keeping in theme with our chili cook-off this week, we’ll discuss how eating socially with friends and family can affect our eating habits.

1) Getting kids involved in cooking and teaching them about food

It’s a little scary how many people I met in college who didn’t know how to cook anything past ramen noodles, mac & cheese and microwave meals – if it wasn’t for dining halls I don’t know if any vegetables would have been in anyone’s diets (and even then it’s questionable).  When time is taken to have a family meal, use it as an opportunity to show your children what you are doing and why.  Don’t take for granted that over time they will learn to cook on their own!  As well, this can be a time to teach children what their food is and where it comes from.  Just take a look at this clip from Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and see why this is important:

Identifying Tomatos (Click for Link to Video)

Help your kids become self-sufficient when they leave the house by giving them the tools they need to cook healthy and delicious meals on their own – get them involved in the cooking process when you make dinner!  (And maybe…just maybe…they’ll be more appreciative the time and effort you put in!)

2) Strengthen relationships

There is a plethora of studies and research out there that show the benefits of family meal time.  Teens who eat meals with their family four or more times a week have higher academic performance, less substance abuse, decreased chance of disordered eating, lower depression and lower incidence of getting into fights than those who do not – even after research is controlled for other factors such as socio-economic status and family connectedness.  European countries, in general, tend to place a higher emphasis on family meals, and research has been done to see how this affects youth:

“Data <on percentage of students whose parents eat their main meal with them around a table several times a week> were collected for 15-year-olds, with Italy at 93.8% (no surprise), followed by Iceland, France, and Netherlands. The US ranked near the bottom of the list at 22nd of 25 countries. The report analyzed six dimensions to see how well children and teens fare in various countries. These included material well-being, health and safety, education, family and peer relationships, behaviors and risks, and sense of being loved, valued, and included in families and societies into which they were born…The US and UK ranked lowest.”

<From http://nutrition.wsu.edu/take5/07/200711.pdf>

These benefits don’t just exist for children either – adults benefit from social meals as well.  Adults studied in residential homes who ate meals in groups were shown to have better health, more energy, stable weight and were more likely to participate in recreational activities.

3) Eating Slower!!

Here’s one way that social eating affects everyone in a beneficial way: Controlled eating!  When we get together around a table, a meal can take up much more time than when we sit around a television or eat on our own.  Taking more time in between bites to listen and talk can make your plate last longer, which can cause you to eat less.  It takes around 20 minutes for your stomach to know that it’s full, so taking more time to eat the same amount of food can cause you to feel fuller.  As well, taking more time improves ease of digestion, preventing indigestion.

So, stop by this week to sample some chili with friends at Empower!  If you can’t get a chance to stop by, here’s a link for a healthy chili recipe to try on your own:

White Bean and Turkey Chili                                   

As well, here are some more links about the benefits of family and social meals and educating children about food:

• Food Education for Kids
• Family and Social Meals Information and Help
• Family Meal Statistics
• Family Meal Research and Ideas

Exercise of the Week: The Box Squat

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This week we’ll take an in-depth look at a great precursor to a full barbell back squat, and a very difficult exercise in its own right, the box squat.  The box squat is a compound, total body lift that works your hamstrings, glutes, hips, spinal erectors, and core hard.

So why should you box squat?  Aside from being a very efficient exercise, working several large muscle groups at once, here are a couple more good reasons:

1) Safely and correctly learn proper squat form.

The squat can be a very difficult move to master and requires a lot of practice.  Learning to bend from the hip instead of from the knee on the descent can be hard to do, and often times the glutes and hamstrings are not strong enough initially to squat all the way to proper depth without bending too far forward at the knee.  Setting up a box higher than parallel and over time slowly lowering it can help.  Many people have a difficult time hitting proper depth for the squat, not only from inflexibility but from simply not knowing what proper depth feels like.  If a box is set up at the proper height, hitting depth can be practiced and guaranteed every time.  As well, it is a great way to make sure that you are sitting back at the hips instead of the knees, putting a lot of pressure off of the knee joint, and also it is easier to focus on pushing through your heels on the way back up.

2) Building explosive strength

For someone like me who is not very fast in my lifts, box squats are very beneficial.  Doing a box squat with a lighter weight helps build up speed and power, which can translate into greater force generation on my other lifts, faster times on the field or quicker cuts.

3) Increase flexibility

It may seem counter-intuitive, but squatting, making sure to sit back far with your hips, with a heavy weight on your back can actually stretch your muscles past where they would normally be able to in a bodyweight squat.  This stretch can also help with your ascent off the box – this is called a “stretch reflex.”   Essentially, when you stretch your muscles past where they are accustomed to, the body wants to try and protect them from straining by forcing them to contract and resist the stretch.

So, then how do we box squat?

Step 1: Setting up Under the Bar

It is important when performing any type of squat that we keep the entire body tight – that includes the back.  The bar needs to be tightly gripped the entire duration of the lift.  Think about splitting it apart with your hands, this will flex your rhomboids, traps and lats, making a nice ‘shelf’ of muscle for the bar to rest on, as well as helping keep you upright during the squat itself.  The bar itself should rest on your traps or right below (like I have it positioned in the picture).  We want to avoid placing it on top of the shoulders – this will load the cervical vertebrae and place them under unnecessary pressure, which is best avoided.

Step 2: Stand up and Step Back

After you’ve positioned yourself correctly under the bar, stand up straight, unracking the barbell.  To get back to the box, we want to take efficient steps and avoid any unnecessary shuffling of the feet.  When the weight gets heavy, it’s best not to use up a lot of energy just walking the bar back.  So take 3 easy, steps back: With your right foot place it backwards in front of the middle of the box.  Follow with your left foot, placing it on the outside of the left side of the box.  Mirror the movement with your right foot.  This is illustrated in my kindergarten-level MS Paint diagram as follows:

Step 3: Bending at the Hip

More often than not, when told to squat most people will begin their descent at the knee, pushing it over the toes and compressing the knee joint, causing pain in the long run.  To avoid this, we want to begin by sitting back with our hips – essentially sticking your butt out!  After this we want to think about sinking into our hips so that the knees don’t drift over the toes.  This can be a hard thing to judge by yourself – make sure to get your trainer to tell if this is being done correctly.  One way to imagine it is to think about sitting back into a chair.  You’ll need to keep your glutes and hamstrings flexed the whole way down – no plopping!

Step 4: Lean Back

Leaning back is not the same thing as rolling back.  It is also not relaxing on top of the box – you want to keep your core and back taught the entire time!

Step 5: Explode off of the Box

Keeping your chest up, push through your heels and using your glutes and hamstrings explode quickly off of the box.  The amount of weight you have on the bar will determine whether this is a quick or slow motion, but you always want to think about contracting as quickly as possible.

Putting it all together – Take a look at the video HERE, and give this exercise a try!  You’ll feel the burn after just a couple of reps if done correctly with the right weight.  As always, thanks for reading!

Kat Whitfield

BS, NASM-CPT

How do Trainers Train?

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Chris Lathrop

Fitness Goals: To get stronger and gain muscle mass.

Frequency: 3 days per week of weights for about an hour.

How do you train: Each day focuses on one main exercise such as squat or bench press with other exercises incorporated to assist progression of the main exercise. I use three set for every exercise because this has been shown to be optimal for strength gains.

Paul Piracci

Goal: To get stronger!

Frequency: Three days per week

How I train: I just started the 5/3/1 program by Jim Wendler which is designed to increase your strength in four lifts- the back squat, deadlift, bench press, and military press.  I just finished doing CrossFit for a year and a half and felt small and weak so wanted to get back into some basic lifts.

Come to Empower in the afternoons or early evenings and you may see Chris and Paul training together!  To get more details on 5/3/1, the program they follow, check it out here:

http://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/hardcore-look-at-jim-wendlers-5-3-1-powerlifting-system.html

Women on Weights Workshop Recap

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First of all a big thank-you to everyone who attended!  We had a much higher than expected turnout, and got a lot done.  (Special thanks to Tom for helping me out in coaching some of the lifts, wouldn’t have been able to get around to everyone without you!)

If you didn’t get a chance to make it out, fear not!  Below we’ll recap some of what we went over in the workshop.

Perception of Female Lifters – We went over what primarily comes to mind when most people imagine female weight lifters – female bodybuilders.  We then went over various types of female lifters: Not only bodybuilders, but also powerlifters, olympic lifters, general athletes and those who lift just to maintain their strength and bone density, as well as explained how very normal all of these types of women looked.  Some specific examples were given were Sarah Bertram from USA Weightlifting and Jennifer Thompson, a competitive Powerlifter who lives in North Carolina herself!

Weight Class – 152lbs, Best Competition Snatch & Clean and Jerk – 193 & 235lbs, respectively

Weight Class – 132lbs, Best Competition Squat, Bench and Deadlift – 315lbs, 293lbs and 419lbs, respectively

How Women’s Fitness is portrayed and marketed – How did the “weightlifting makes women bulky” myth come around in the first place?  We went over examples of how fitness is marketed to women, such as in fitness magazines and commercials for fitness products.  What do the terms that you see on magazine covers (tone, sculpt, firm, lift) really mean?  They’re all the same thing – losing fat and gaining muscle; exactly what men do when they work out, except men’s magazines use different terms: ripped, cut, bulk, swole, etc.

Benefits of Weightlifting – Not only the physical benefits, but the mental ones as well!  Lifting HEAVY weights is the best way to prevent osteoporosis, build up bone density and build or prevent the muscle loss that both men and women see in their later years.  As well, we talked about the kind of confidence that becoming strong can build – the kind that can only come from knowing that you are capable of much more than you may have thought before and don’t need to depend on anyone to get things done for you.

Warm-Ups for Heavy Lifting – As all Empower clients should know, warm-ups are very important to do before a workout!  We did a series of lower-body dynamic stretches to help open up the hips and loosen the quads, calves and hamstrings.  This is imperative before performing moves such as squat or deadlift!

Practical Demonstrations – We went over 4 different basic strength training moves:

1) Box Squat

2)Deadlift

3)Bench Press

4) Overhead Press

And spent the rest of the workshop practicing each of these!  Tom and myself were on hand to answer questions and correct form.

I had a GREAT time working with everyone who attended.  Thanks again to all of you, and feel free to email me with any questions! (katwhitfield@becomepowerful.com)

Kat Whitfield

BS, NASM-CPT

Exercise of the Week: The Farmer’s Walk

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This week we’re going to highlight an often misunderstood exercise – the farmer’s walk.  This exercise is a staple in Strongman competition and training, having been an event in the World’s Stongest Man competition for more than 25 years.  It can also be used as a great warm-up or added on to the end of a workout as some extra conditioning work.

The farmer’s walk is frequently underestimated – it just seems too easy.  Pick up a couple of dumbbells or kettlebells or random heavy objects and walk.

Just walk.

That’s it!  You’ve mastered the exercise.  So how can something so simple be worthwhile?  Consider the muscles that are involved in trying to keep yourself upright when you’re carrying heavy objects in both of your hands.  Your core must be active, stable and contracted in order to prevent yourself from crumpling over.  The shoulders and scapula must be retracted and tight, working the rhomboids, lats, spinal erectors and traps.  The neck muscles that keep your cervical vertebrae straight and in line, such as the sternocleidomastoid, must stay active.  Any forward protrusion of the head and neck put much more force on your vertebrae, which is certainly best avoided:

Forearm and grip strength definitely get a workout simply in trying to keep hold of the weight!  Your glutes, hamstrings, quads, hips and calves will also certainly feel the effort of trying to take quick steps while being weighed down.  When we don’t focus on keeping all of these muscles tight and in the correct position, the tendency when the weight is really heavy is to walk like this:

Instead of this:

How to Perform the Farmer’s Walk:

1) Deadlift the weight up from the ground.  Even if this isn’t the main part of the exercise, it is important that we don’t give ourselves a chance to either 1) Throw out our back and/or 2) Develop poor movement patterns for future deadlifting endeavors.

(Relatively) Good:

Bad:

2) Pull your shoulder blades flat against your back and tucked down.  This will help keep you upright while performing the movement as well as preventing the weights from drifting forward.

3) Keep your neck tall. Remember we don’t want to add any excess force onto the neck and cervical vertebrae.

Good:

Bad:

4) Walk!  Maintain the straight posture throughout the entire exercise. 

Video HERE

5) Adjust the difficulty as needed.  There are several variables you can change for this exercise: 1) Time / Distance walking, 2) Weight used, 3) Obstacles or Incline of path walked.  Try changing just one variable at a time as needed to make the walk challenging.

Variations on the Farmer’s Walk

1) 1-Hand Farmer’s Walk.  The same as outlined above, except with the added challenge of only having weight on one side.  This will make your core have to work harder to keep your torso balanced and upright.  Make sure to do both hands when performing this variation.

2) Walking over hurdles.  Add some more challenge by placing small hurdles on the ground that must be stepped over while maintaining proper posture.

3) Waiter’s Walk.  Similar to the 1-Hand Farmer’s Walk, except holding the weight straight above your head instead of by your side.

Video HERE

So, give these exercises a chance sometime.  As long as you are using an actually challenging weight and walking a good distance, you may find yourself re-evaluating the farmer’s walk!

Kat Whitfield

BS, NASM-CPT