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Master of the Basics

Squats! Everyone knows how to do it right? Just load the bar on your shoulders and start going up and down with your legs. Deadlifts are just picking the bar off the floor. Its so easy that anyone can do it! Its also functional for strength and muscle mass building, surely everyone should do them!

Are Squat and Deadlift All That Simple?

This person was lifting the bar in a bad form while being coached by a bad trainer

Fact is, improper technique for either squat and deadlift will cause injury when its not done properly. Back when I only had an NASM personal training certification, I didn’t realize that my poor squat and deadlift form was harmful to my back. My knee dominant squat movement was damaging my knee. Now that I have properly applied the McGill techniques described in Ultimate Back Fitness and cleaned up my techniques, none of the old injuries became problematic anymore.

Can Anyone Do Standard Squat and Deadlift?

You have probably heard the news floating around on the internet. Some old grandma was having problem simply climbing up the stairs, started deadlifting, and ended up having no problems climbing up the stairs while being super strong in the process. If a grandma can do it, surely anyone can do it too right?

What is the problem with this line of thinking?

There’s a reason why femur head replacement came in different sizes and shapes. Source: The San Antonio Orthopaedic Group

Different hips and spine angle results in different movement range. This is something determined by your DNA and training will not change it. Depending on the depth of your hip socket and your lumbar spine curvature, you might not be able to pick the bar off the floor without flexing your back. Same thing can be said about achieving a deep squat. Hence not everyone can do the standard squat and deadlift movements without high risk of injury. This may sound contradictory to my post on why you should try powerlifting. Just because you can’t do standard deadlift with a perfect form doesn’t mean that you can’t reap the benefits of deadlift exercise.

How You Should Train

Move Well

You must first learn how to move properly. When I was young, the ligaments and spine disks still have the capacity to perform even with faulty movement. But as I age, those injuries pile up and causes pain. Even if you are not in pain now, its not an excuse for you not to learn how to move properly. If your back hurts the day after every leg day, your leg day is definitely breaking your back. If you are unsure, get a proper trainer that actually knows how to coach proper movement.

Move Accordingly

If you are born with hips that will not allow you to pick the bar off the floor with a straight back, you could try using a trap bar or by lifting from a higher position. You won’t be able to compete in a powerlifting meet but you can still reap the benefit of lower body posterior chain strengthening from modified deadlifts. Having said this, it could also be a movement engram i.e. software issue but this is a topic for another day.

Ultimately these “basic moves” are not as simple as it seems and unless you want to experience spine and knee injuries by your mid 30’s (like the author of this article), you should focus on the right way to move for your body. Just like in martial arts, mastering the basics is no simple matter.

Mind and Body

Modern people are poor on time and rich on distraction.  We are all about multi-tasking and it would be great if exercise can be one of those things you can multi-task away, say while watching TV and playing with your phone.

Our muscles contracts and relaxes due to electro-chemical signals from our nervous system to our muscle.  This is the reason why our body twitch uncontrollably when we accidentally get electrocuted.  This mechanism is useful in physiotherapy.  Muscles that are not used tend to shrink. When our joints are injured, we cannot do regular exercise.  Pulsed electric frequency can be used to stimulate the muscles and prevent them from shrinking while our joints are recovering.

These days, these mechanism are being used, such as by a product that sounded like “sixpack” to promote a method of gaining muscles without breaking a sweat, allowing you to finally multi-task while gaining muscle!

What is the Problem?

Electrocuting yourself while binge watching netflix might seemed to be a good idea to get six pack abs.  But what exactly are you missing when you skipped the squat rack for electric pad?

Movement Proficiency

People that are properly trained in functional movement patterns (not to be confused with a misguided youtuber with similar handle) will learn how to  move in a joint conserving way.  For example, when they squat, they will know how to engage both the posterior and anterior chain of movement, using power from the hips and how to align the knees.  This skill will enable them to move in a joint conservative way while generating high power.  You will not learn this skill if you simply zap your legs.

My main bread and butter right now is training 70-80 year old grannies proper functional movement patterns as described in Prof. McGill’s Ultimate Back Fitness. These people are people with early knee osteoarthritis issues that have been to the best orthopedic surgeons, acupuncturist and physiotherapist money can buy in Hong Kong and still find it painful to walk, sit and climb stairs. The reliefs they are getting after several sessions with me are caused by their increased movement skills and this cannot be earned by simple muscle electrocution.

Neuromuscular Connectivity

Your skeletal muscles are connected with neurons to your brain.  This connection is what enables you to consciously move your body.  The more you train, the more refined would your connection be.  Think of martial arts masters, olympic weightlifters and powerlifters that are able to recruit high proportion of their muscle fibers at multiple joints to execute a single movement in harmony.  This is connection cannot be built when your training method doesn’t even involve your conscious mind.

Bone Density

It costs USD 22,000 / kg of items shipped to ISS. NASA and CSA is definitely spending way more money sending a glorified treadmill and squat rack into space when they could save a tonne of money in the short term simply sending those muscle electrocuting pads.

Your bone is actually alive.  It has blood vessels and neural network inside.  This is why your bone can heal after fracture.  Your bone can also increase in density with repeated loading-unloading such as squats and deadlifts.  Athletes, farmers and construction workers have high bone density due to this mechanism.  Just don’t expect this benefit if you are a couch athlete.

Conclusion

By all means, if your goal is simple cosmetics, then these type of devices can definitely help you. Unlike training with improper movement, this method of training have no risk of harming your joints.  But proper exercise have far more benefit than simply looking buffed.  You will not get those benefits without putting the actual work.

Painkillers and the Gift of Pain

Nobody likes pain.  This is why we invented painkillers.  Are painkillers useful?  Of course they are.  People entering surgeries, just experiencing major trauma and and mothers about to deliver babies are just a few of many justified uses of painkillers.  But how about in the field of rehabilitation and chronic pain?

Trauma and Painkillers

Recently I experienced grade 2 ankle sprain caused by my own carelessness.  It was painful for me to simply put my feet down, let alone walk.  What follows was a merry go round of 2 X-Rays and one MRI.  Three ligaments were torn severely but not completely.  Some foot tarsal bones were also severely bruised but none were broken.  The orthopedic surgeon happily prescribed me a list of prescription medicine that includes strong painkillers up to the third week after the incident.

My case may not be typical.  However, it cannot be denied that when a patient just experienced trauma, painkillers would be on the top list of drugs the doctor will prescribe.

Why This is Good and Bad

Traumas cause pain.  Of course painkillers would be useful to help the patient get a decent rest that helps in recovery.  However, every sane doctor will admit that painkillers have side effects.  And painkiller dependency is not something any patient would want.  In my case, the injured ankle was no longer causing any pain when it is in neutral position and not bearing any weight within 3 days after the incident.  Continued dosage of painkillers in my bloodstream at that stage can cause more harm than good

Why Painkillers Could Interfere With Rehab

Believe it or not, pain actually has a function in our body.  We even have specific tissues called pain receptors simply to perform this function.  In the case of ankle and knee rehabilitation, it actually helps tells you which particular position, movement or loading that will worsen your injury.  I was able to tell which particular ligaments were injured before the MRI result came in.  Skilled physiotherapists can use pain as information to devise a training regimen that will best suit the situation.  The training regiment can help improve your recovery and prevent repeated injury in the future.  If you are on a heavy painkiller, your sense would simply get dulled, and it will interfere with your proprioception and rehab work. Proprioception is the muscle and ligament’s capability to sens its surrounding without the aid of vision.

In many cases such as mine, the general consensus by the American Orthopedic Association is that the patient should start basic physiotherapy once it becomes pain free to a certain range of motions.  Keep in mind that rehab and gradual pain free motion and weight bearing is essential to your recovery.  The keyword here is being gradual and pain free.

Chronic Pain and Painkillers

By definition, chronic pain is a type of pain that you experience either continuously, or on and off over an extended period of time.  As Dr. McGill lamented in his book, Back Mechanics, the problem is that too many doctors are using painkillers to simply stop you complaining.  If you are only getting painkillers without any treatment to address the underlying pain, then over time you will only become increasingly dependent on an ever increasing dosage of painkillers.

Conclusion

As Dr. McGill mentioned, whenever a doctor started prescribing you painkillers, you should ask the following questions:

  1. Why?  What is the underlying problem that is causing the pain that needs to be addressed
  2. How long?  What is the action plan to taper the usage of these painkillers.

Ultimately, pain in itself can be a gift even among elite athletes.  You should not simply bury your pain in painkillers without understanding the cause and how to deal with the pain.

The next time you feel pain, don’t think of it as something bad.  Your body is actually telling you what is wrong.  Treat it as a gift.

Super Healthy Ingredients That Are Not So Super (3 of 4)[:id]Bahan Alami Super Sehat yang Tidak Super (3 dari 4)

So tea tree oil is not a super cornucopia to cure all your ailments. And chia seeds have its limits. Surely soy milk is a great dairy milk replacement right? After all the Chinese has been drinking this for over 3000 years right?

Soy Milk

Alleged benefits: healthier alternative to dairy milk that is low in saturated fat.

So what if dairy milk is high in saturated fat? Coconut oil has far greater saturated fat content than soybean oil but it’s been proven to be far healthier.  In fact, based on a study done by Soochow University di China, 40 grams of cheese consumption per day actually reduce the risk of stroke by 14%!  Have you ever tasted plain soy milk processed traditionally with no added sugar?  It tastes horrible!  This is why manufacturers dumped truckloads of sugar in soy milk to make it drinkable.  And although milk naturally has sugar in it, this is at far lower concentration, and the presence of fat in milk slows down the sugar absorption into the body.  The same cannot be said on soy milk.  Not to mention the fact that children fed exclusively on soy milk later develop abnormal secondary sex organs.

Conclusion: soy milk can be part of the occasional cold sugary beverage treat healthier than coca-cola, but is NOT a healthy substitute for dairy milk.

Super Healthy Ingredients That Are Not So Super (2 of 4)

So we are done with the reason why tea tree oil is not so much of a super ingredient t all. Perhaps we should be refering to it as standard oil instead of essential oil. Now we move on to Chia seeds. This wonderful food was first dubbed as the perfect food by some foodies and now, some claim that they are “intolerant” to them. Lets learn more on why its not so perfect and why it causes problems to some people

Chia Seeds

Alleged benefits: Other than being a great source of fiber and protein, chia seeds are also a great source of vegan Omega-3.  The perfect food replacement.

Browse any wellness blog promoted by anorexic looking Instagram model and you will see no shortage of chia seeds infused meal replacements.  Yes, the high fiber content of chia seeds makes it longer to digest, suppressing a person’s appetite.  This is great for people who want to lose weight.  This is why they are incorporated as one of the ingredients of Magnus Breakfast Mix.  However, this high fiber content can be problematic if you simply ingest too many, and not leaving the seeds enough time beforehand in adequate drinking water for it to absorb water, i.e. it can cause constipation or being bloated if consumed excessively.  Another thing is that the Omega-3 content in Chia seeds are in the form of Alpha Linolenic Acid (ALA), instead of DHA or EPA that is abundant in seafood, free range chicken and beef.  ALA conversion to EPA and DHA in the human body is under 1%, the rest are just thrown away.

Conclusion:  Chia seeds are not suitable Omega-3 supplement for vegans, contrary to most marketing materials.  Consumed sparingly combined with plenty of water can help relieve constipation.  Consumed excessively with inadequate water will cause bloating and constipation.

The Latest is Always The Greatest?

We always prefer the best for ourselves and our loved ones.  The best money can buy!  Think about the latest iPhone or Samsung Galaxy.  Or perhaps the latest car, TV, or sneakers.  Surely the latest, with the best advances in technology, will always be the better option for us.  But what about nutrition and exercise?

Latest in Supplements and Nutrition

Here’s something interesting.  If something has been available and consumed for generations, then you cannot patent it.  So in the field of Nutrition, just like in any other business, you need to create a “barrier of entry” to prevent others from eating your market share.  The easiest way to create a barrier of entry is simply to incorporate a patented new compound in the product and claim this new compound will help you become leaner, stronger or more muscular.

Why You Should Not Get The Latest

The human body is incredibly complicated.  What might show up as something positive in the near term could be negative in the long term.  Think of steroids and how it was commonly used throughout the 1960’s through 1970’s legally by professional athletes.  The drug makes you leaner, stronger and more muscular.  However, google search on the fate of the top 10 bodybuilders in that era and you will find that over 50% of them later developed coronary heart diseases.  We only know of steroid’s side effect on artery plaque build up many years after it became popular.

The same can be said about soybean oil, once hailed as a wonderful healthy oil over three decades ago, only to recently been discovered as being incredibly bad for your waistline.  Beta-Alanine first came out over a decade ago and is still being marketed to this day as bodybuilding supplement, despite the fact that its a proven Taurine inhibitor, another supplement we commonly see in energy drinks.  Hence consuming a new compound that has not been available on the market over the past 3 decades simply means being part of the said compound’s test experiment.

The Best Type of Supplements

The difference between supplements and medicine is that supplements are not used to heal any disease.  Another thing is that supplements are meant to be taken continually over a long period of time, unlike medicine that is only taken over very a short period.  People take supplements to become better version of themselves.  Unless you are a professional athlete that must be better than the competition to earn an income, it is simply best to use supplements that has been proven to have no harmful side effects over long term consumption.  This is why Magnus Whey only uses ingredients that have been proven to be beneficial at the proven dosage.

Training for the Ages

Nobody Likes Aging! But just as surely as the time ticks, our bodies will start to slow down once we past a certain age.

In my younger days, I could cycle for hours on end but I had to stop over five years ago due to Sciatica where my L5/S1 spine disk was pinching my right foot nerve.  I only realized the relationship between cycling and sciatica through Dr. McGill whose research can be read on Back Mechanics.

For some of us, it might be one of the knees starting to act up after walking for a certain distance.  Others might be having problems with shoulder pain after a typical benchpress session.  The easiest solution seems to be to stop training all together.  If you do, your strength will surely recede, followed by your mobility and lifestyle.  Is this how you are supposed to spend your golden years?  Below are some training trips to ensure you can extend your strength and mobility further down the road.

1. Train Movement Patterns, Not Individual Muscles

When you train the muscles individually, you are training your body in separate parts, and this will create unequal loading on your joints especially the knees. Train in movement patterns instead where all the muscles in the joint can work in concert.   Think of a proper squat training that trains both your posterior and anterior chain of movement on the legs versus a knee extension exercise. Movement pattern training will allow you to train in a more joint conserving way.

2. Train With No Pain

In the old days, its fine for you to say “No Pain, No Gain!”  The fact is, once you reached a certain stage of your life, your joint collagen has been rubbed off from decades of moving improperly and your recovery rate has simply dropped.  No amount of miracle pills can change that.  Training with the same principles will only cause increased pain the next day.  A better way is to ensure the movement patterns are done correctly. You can learn more of movement pattern training in Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance. This means knees should not cave inward during squats, etc. As Dr. McGill said, “practice does not makes perfect, practice makes permanent!” There is a difference between muscle pain after training and joint pain during and after training.  The former is good, the latter is bad and if your personal trainer can’t tell the difference, then you should probably get a better one.

3. Cycle Your Training

This is something powerlifters and other strength athletes have known for decades.  Basically if you keep on training the exact same way day in and day out, you will get injured.  The best way to avoid it is to cycle between training methods.  Perhaps there are days where you train with kettlebells, other days when you train with TRX, and another with classic barbells.

4. More Frequency, Less Intensity

When we train, we are actually destroying muscle tissues. These tissues would then be rebuild stronger than before.  Hence we become stronger over time.  In our younger days, the further down we “dip”, the further we would “bounce back”.  Unfortunately, as we age, the less we are able to “bounce back” from a “dip”.  Hence a person might be able to do a two hour session three times a week in his twenties to maintain his strength.  Once this person hits his fifties, a one hour session, six times a week would be far more prudent.  Then in his eighties, half hour each morning and evening, six days a week.  This way, this person will experience less “dips” without straining the recovery too much.

Conclusion

Just because things are starting to slow down, it doesn’t mean that you should just give up and resign to a walking stick or wheel chair.  Instead, what you need to do is to adjust your training matching your current health to ensure that you maintain your strength and mobility without harming your joints.

How Seniors Can Lose Weight in a Healthy Way

Dieting is unhealthy. At least the way most people diet is unhealthy. According to Precision Nutrition, four of the most popular dieting regimes can lead people to be deficient in over half of the nutrients they need. On top of that, you get new dieters going all out in exercise programs, putting themselves at risk of injuries. However, it is possible to actually improve your health while dieting; you just need to approach it in a certain way. Here’s what you need to keep in mind.

Make Changes Gradually

It’s good to be enthusiastic, but be wary of making radical changes to your lifestyle very quickly. Your digestive system adapts to the food you regularly eat, and if you change your diet too quickly, you might experience diarrhea, constipation, or stomach pains. Likewise with exercise, if you’ve been very sedentary, the tendons in your joins will have become weaker, and they may not be able to handle regular, vigorous exercise. So, adopt the gradual approach to dieting. Make changes slowly, week by week. One week you could swap out pasta for vegetables. The next week, take a 30-minute walk. After that, switch to low-fat cuts of meat, and so on.

Lose Weight Slowly

The quickest way to lose weight is not the best way. As LiveStrong explains, rapid weight loss can lead to problems like gallstones, liver disease, and fluid imbalance. As seniors are at higher risk of these issues to begin with, it’s even more important to lose weight slowly. On top of that, rapid weight loss can slow your metabolism so that you’ll need to diet harder and harder over time to keep the weight off. This is one reason why diets fail. Aim to lose between one and two pounds each week. If you’re losing more weight than that, you’ve probably cut your food intake back by too much, or you’re exercising too much. Try to add a little extra food to your diet or reduce your activity level a bit.

Make Sure You Get Enough Nutrients

As you learned earlier, people who diet are often deficient in the nutrients they need to be fully healthy. This is because people focus on reducing the quantity of food they eat, but don’t increase the quality. Don’t make this same mistake. Make sure you increase your consumption of healthy whole foods like vegetables, fruit, and nuts. Some people will struggle with this, perhaps because they don’t like vegetables or don’t know how to cook with them. If this sounds like you, use a meal replacement shake. This is your insurance policy because it helps you get a balanced range of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals in a single shake.

Set Up a Home Gym

As we age, our body loses muscle mass in a process that doctors call sarcopenia. Less muscle tissue means a slower metabolism and higher risk of injuries from falls. This makes it harder to go about your normal daily activities. However, dieting also tends to reduce muscle tissue. That’s why for seniors, it’s very important to do some strength training while dieting, which will help you maintain your muscle tissue. The best way to do this is with a home gym. With some dumbbells, resistance bands, and a yoga mat, you’ll be able to perform a range of strength exercises in the comfort of your own home and build up the resistance as your strength improves. Two days a week will be enough; although you might want to start off doing one day a week, to give your body a chance to adapt.

These days everyone is in a hurry. When people start diets, they want to lose weight yesterday with no changes to their lifestyle. Not only is this unrealistic, it can also be unhealthy. If you take a slower, more measured approach to weight loss, you can shed the pounds and keep them off, while actually improving your overall health. What small change can you make today?

Resources:

Photo: Pexels

Is Plant Protein Better than Animal Protein?

Many people avoid animal products for a variety of reasons including religion, empathy towards animals, or desire to be more environmental friendly. And it is perfectly acceptable for everyone to exercise their own personal conviction in this issue. What is unacceptable using false pretenses and fake science to push a certain agenda.

As an avid reader of Popular Science, I was quite intrigued when they recently publish an article stating that plant protein is healthier than animal protein. After all, any highschool biology student should know that there are 9 essential amino acids that the human body cannot produce. Amino Acids is the building blocks of protein used to build our muscles, joints and internal organ repair. All animal sourced protein contains all 9 essential amino acids while excluding soy, all plant derived protein do not have all 9 essential amino acids. Latest research indicated that children on a soy protein diet will develop abnormal secondary sexual organs. Another fact is that in comparative study between casein, soy and whey protein, soy simply came dead last in terms of efficiency in building muscle and strength. So what is the argument that plant protein is better than animal protein? Let us dwell deeper:

1. Plant Protein Has More Nutrients and Fiber

This is the first argument put forth by Popular Science. Interesting as the article writer agreed that plant based protein sources lacks Vitamin B complex, Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Thiamine, and Niacin. Last time I checked, these are all considered nutrients. And if you order a grass fed rib eye meal set, it usually comes with a salad bowl appetizer and some more veggies on the side of the steak. Hence I consider this point to be invalid.

2. People Who Eat Plant Protein in Part Have Healthier Habits

No actual study was cited for this. It is simply a meta-study that does not factor in geography, demography or even smoking habits, all which are significant contributing factor. Let me explain why. In West Java, Indonesia, majority of the locals are vegans. Compared to Okinawa, Japan, majority of the locals consume seafood regularly. If we simply compare these two the meat eater will simply comes ahead. We can also compare the Dalit population in new Delhi, India, poorest of the poor, living in one of the most polluted city in the world and majority vegan with the Amish in Pennsylvania, USA, majority omnivore. Both population have no access to modern medicine. And the Amish population are far healthier. This is why controlling factors are very important. There was even a study that correlates being vegetarian with increased risk of getting colon cancer.

3. Meat Has More Saturated Fats

What kind of meat? What kind of saturated fats? And why is it necessarily bad? After all, many people believed that extra virgin coconut oil is healthy regardless the fact that its mostly made of saturated fat. I recently had a meal with a vegetarian friend that insisted we ate in a vegetarian restaurant. Most of the food were rich in refined carbohydrate or deep fried. Unlike saturated fats in which there is still ongoing debate how some of the naturally sourced saturated fat are healthy, all dietitians now agreed that refined carbohydrate and deep fried food are bad for you. What is statistically proven in USA is that animal fat consumption is not correlated with heart attack.

4. Processed Red Meat is Carcinogenic

So what about non-processed red meat, i.e. medium rare, grass fed rib eye steak? The WHO classified processed meat as being carcinogenic due to increased risk of getting cancer in their study. What is most often not mentioned is the actual percentage of risk increase of eating processed red meat and what it all meant. And the answer is 0.0072% if you belong to the high risk population bracket. The risk of getting hit by a lightning is 0.0083%, which means you have higher chance of getting hit by a lightning.

Conclusion

When it comes to the diet and nutrition world, always maintain a healthy skepticism. When it said “research shows”, always try to find the source research, how it was done, who done it, and how it was funded. Fact is, nutrition industry is just like the cosmetic industry, mostly using “in house research” that was never proven objectively. And if you are a meat eater, just have a balanced diet to stay healthy!

Why Magnus Whey?

Currently there’s so many protein supplement product on the market. Do they actually do anything? Are they all the same?

Of course every brand will claim that their “patented mix” of protein is the best available on the market. But do they have independent research to prove that is actually the case?

5 Reasons To Choose Magnus Whey

  1. Helps Protects The Heart

Research done by University of Reading UK, showed that whey protein consumption lowers your risk of heart disease.

  1. Can Be Used for Fat Loss and Maintenance

Increased protein consumption has been proven to help people in achieving their ideal body weight and maintaining them via different mechanisms, all scientifically proven by different leading universities.

  1. Better Than Leading Vegan Proteins

Consumer Research recently did a study on over 150 leading protein brands globally and found that that using whey protein actually contains the lowest amount of heavy metal contaminants while those from vegetable sources had the highest heavy metal contamination.

  1. Free from Artificial Sweeteners

Browse the whey protein rows on your favorite supplement store and look at the ingredients label. You will find exotic names like Sucralose, Ace-K, Aspartame etc that are all artificial sweeteners and have been linked to Obesity, Type-2 Diabetes, even Stroke and Dementia. The latest research shedding these horrendous side effects being done by Boston University. This is why Magnus Whey is free of artificial sweeteners.

  1. Best To Grow Strength

If it’s one thing both young men and seniors both want, it is more strength, especially for seniors where loss of strength leads to less mobility and hence quality of life.  Northern Illinois University has proven that Whey protein is the best supplement to enhance strength and lean muscle mass.

Hence why you should choose Magnus Whey to help you achieve your healthy ideal body.