An angel returns to heaven: Goodbye Farrah----1947-2009

[JimHawkins]

Sure and that's why they have men (without iron) and women's formulas.. But I get the point, nothing is perfect, but we keep getting closer..

[mhosea]

I guess I take a fairly negative view towards "shotgun" supplementation. Given that supplements may be harmful as well as helpful, I'd take the time to get my diet analyzed (probably online-for free) and see what I might be missing. As for non-nutrient supplements, that's another ball of wax. I think of those as drugs, even when they are food-based. I take fish oil myself, for familial hypertriglyceridemia. I've taken it for decades on the advice of my physician. If I didn't take it, or if it didn't work well enough for me to keep my triglycerides down close to the normal range, I'd be taking some pharmaceutical instead.

[IJ]

As it's been pointed out, we have a lot of fortified foods. That's why we don't need to pour money in the toilet by getting a ton of extra supplements. Supplements can appear to have a lot of power because we expect things from them. Then when they meet expectations we have.... confirmation bias. When you have a cold on supplements, it's the exception that proves the rule. When you have one off supplements, it's the nail in the coffin of unsupplemented life. The reality is there is not any good evidence that supplements help us avoid squinting or colds or anything else. We should try a supplement trial with matched placebo and an N of one to see if you have a true correlation when you don't know if you're supplemented or not

Hypertriglyceridemia... here's a decent summary of the approach:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/532511_5

Minimizing dietary carbs and more obviously fats is the starting point, followed by exercise, and improving the LDL, if it's not at goal. After that, fish oils, niacin, and fibrates have roles. Niacin is an interesting drug to mention because its a vitamin... at low doses. At higher doses it becomes a drug that affects lipids, improving all 3 main categories. It has some side effects that take time to accomodate to but is otherwise pretty nifty. Worth pointing out that niacin the vitamin is not niacin the drug. Things really change with the dose. That's why supplementers really ought to stick to multiple vitamin preparations and stay well away from crazy doses especially of fat soluble vitamins. So their liver doesn't blow up or something.

[mhosea]

Great article. Thanks, Ian. It confirms the approach my doctor is taking with me. I suspect, though, that if we were to do anything more, we'd probably skip over niacin due to my gout. I know gemfibrozil works great and with only minor side effects because when I was first diagnosed, my levels were high enough to take me directly to that treatment. In hindsight many factors contributed to ratcheting the number up as high as it was (graduate school is not generally good for your health, at least not while it's going on).

[Van Canna]

This is interesting_ from George's newsletter regarding this year's camp

We teach techniques that conquer hypertension, develop strong hearts, reduce obesity, and strengthen joint, ligament, tendon and connective tissue. There is a nutritional and mental health component also built in to create the complete PROTECTORS program.

Protector's Seminars. . . .
Friday and Saturday session.s
For Dojo owners and Students!

We will be returning to camp this year to share with the attendees a portion of our PROTECTORS program which was developed over the past several years and is now being distributed throughout the USA in a TRAIN-THE-TRAINER model.The PROTECTORS fitness program was originally designed to condition members of select occupations for job readiness.

Our PROTECTORS are represented by police, military, fire services, EMS, Corrections and Private Security. Recently there has been a groundswell of support to change the culture of public safety by preparing and maintaining employee fitness standards.

[Van Canna]

We are happy to present this course to the martial arts community who will be interested in learning about the program for personal development as well as sharing with PROTECTORS members within their own communities.

Our techniques can be quickly integrated into an existing martial arts curriculum, or taught independently as a larger full fitness training program.

We will also show and demonstrate the ACTIGRAPH, our technology component which allows us to monitor and validate all of our exercise routines to gauge the desired effect. This component, along with the training program was recently introduced to the NAVY SEALS and is currently being explored by BUDS training coaches and mentors.

The program will be presented at SUMMERCAMP by Adam Faurot, President of TITUS fitness and Roy Bedard, V.P of the PROTECTORS program. You can go to www.protectorsperformance.com to see more.

Looking forward to seeing everyone!

Roy

[Van Canna]

http://tinyurl.com/n2gnd4

[Bill Glasheen]

Van

Severe calorie restricted diets have been shown to cause lab animals to live longer. But at what price? You won't be getting any strong athletes from such a diet regimen. And how do you walk the fine line between a bare minimum subsistence diet and one that compromises health? That's tougher than you think. Scientists in the lab can create the perfect, balanced, super-low-calorie diet. They can also isolate their animals so their risk of catching tissue-wasting communicable diseases (a bad bout of flu/pneumonia) is minimized. But the average consumer is going to find this tough.

The take-home message for Americans is that - on average - we eat too much. That's a big "Duh!" But I wouldn't take these laboratory results and attempt to reproduce them in the personal life.

- Bill

[Van Canna]

I agree Bill. The problem is people's addiction to junk food and lack of real exercise.

A couple times a week of half ass moves on the dojo floor doesn't qualify as minimum exercise to remain healthy.

[chef]

A couple times a week of half ass moves on the dojo floor doesn't qualify as minimum exercise to remain healthy.

Given this statement, what would be a good standard for a class regiment, in order not to fall into this type of training or to avoid this?

How many times a week of class and for how long per class?

Stretching? How much time?

Would it include some time of resistance training, pnf, isometric drills?

Would your class include X amount of time doing cardio related training? Would this be through kata, two-man drills, sparring?

What consitutes a 'full ass' workout, one that really burns calories?

If you have a late class, should you eat high GI foods to keep you fuller for longer? If you eat the low ones, will they prolong your physical endurance to make it through an intense class?

Ideas or suggestions anyone?


Vicki

[Van Canna]

Given this statement, what would be a good standard for a class regiment, in order not to fall into this type of training or to avoid this?

I was just thinking out loud, Vickie. The workout in class should be part of a well rounded exercise program that includes aerobics, weights, and impact training …taxing the body close to the max to burn out and tone.

I know Bill does much of this.

I go to the gym three times a week in addition to Uechi workouts, where I do forty minutes of Elliptical, set on random, level 15. Try that one at the gym; you will see what I mean.

Then I stretch at the ‘cage’…follow with abdominal work and finish with weight resistance, making the rounds of all the machines on the floor. The one thing I should do, but I don’t…is more free weights.

In Uechi class, after some minor warm ups…we make a circle_ we take a 15 lbs medicine ball _ lift it two handed over and behind the head, then slam it down as hard as possible in between the legs of the person next to us in a clockwise fashion, for 30 minutes straight, no break.

This develops explosive core power.

Then when almost out of breath, we close the circle, and, again clockwise, we slam the ball into our mid section as hard as we can, for body conditioning.

Immediately after _ we move into impact training against shields, pads, and bags, one on the floor held, in turn, upright, and the other hanging from a chain.

In between the bags, we have the rubber dummy ‘Bob’ _
We alternate one by one with all types of Uechi hand strikes and all types of kicks into the bags and onto ‘Bob’ _ for another 30 minutes.

At the end of this impact training, we are almost completely out of breath.

This is what I am looking for.

Without much of a break, we then move into the ‘big three’ followed by a Dan kumite, called in at random numbers in a circle, to mimic the confusion and the mistakes in your turn/my turn as one would find in a real fight_ so that people who should be blocking_ end up attacking and vice versa_ but then always trying to restore order to the sequence.

Then, without rest, I call out Seisan bunkai, the short version, and check ‘my list’ for choosing several habitual acts of street violence and see how our Uechi deals with them.

We take a break with arm/legs/body conditioning…then finish with the ‘big three’ _

Two hours will have passed.

There are many variations of this 'full ass' workout. You can substitute free style sparring for Dan Kumite, and ground work. We have a nice mat on one half of the dojo.

The only resting allowed is in the form of 'going to the sticks' and banging shins and forearms, followed by the rolling pins.

[jorvik]

Quote
"Given this statement, what would be a good standard for a class regiment, in order not to fall into this type of training or to avoid this? "

Well you have to look at a couple of things here. What type of fitness do you need for martial arts? Then also look at the folks that you are teaching
I don't think that many folks straight of the street could do the workout that Van mentions...and there are some like myself who are positively excluded ( by way of my artificial hip ).............I think that you have to aim for a middle ground.
My first karate teacher was excellent at this ....the classes were run so that nobody was excluded...and his blackbelts were awesome ..........a usual class was light warm ups, followed by about 30 pushups, 30 situps , 30 squat thrusts and then some mild stretching.then into basics done in lines of say 50 punches 50 kicks.all varieties.....and it must be emphasised that you could do the punches and kicks as you felt.if you had just got over a cold you would just extend your arm but if you wanted to really hit then you could do that also..we would then do simple combinations, then some light sparring.........then finish with kata and a cooldown.however at brown and blackbelt standard a lot more was expected of you..the blackbelt test was 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squat thrusts followed by sparring with every blackbelt in the club ( about 20 ) for 3 minutes..then you were tested on kata and kumite .............the thing about this club though was that you were drawn along at your own pace, with no pressure.even when you did the 30 pushups.you did as many as you could and there were three different types hands normal, far apart and close.10 of each..as you were using different muscle groups it was easier than normal pushups but psychologically it was great because right off a beginner could do more pushups than they ever imagined..and as role models they had some truly remarkable blackbelts.
Nowadays in my country there are a lot less Dojos and folks tend to train in small groups the Escima /wing chun group that I used to train with relied heavily on pad work and two man drills...the Wing-Chun group they I train with now don't do any workout at all, we are just shown the art.but as most of the folks there are experienced martial artists nobody complains ( we have two shotokan dan grades, two hung gar stylists and a former heavtweight amature boxer)