Supplementing vs Good Eating

I get a lot of talk on how people drink protein supplementing drinks and shakes and talk about how it gives them so much energy and how it makes them feel better. There's an issue I have with people who heavily use protein supplements, because I would say about ninety nine percent of the time, they're eating beefy meals that are rich in protein but lack in vitamins and minerals that you just can't get from meat eggs and potatoes.

Do eat your meat and potatoes on the occasion. Chicken, fish, baked potatoes, eggs, they're all excellent work out foods that keep you powered and working, but you can't get the full benefits if you don't eat those crunchy veggies. And besides, your potatoes don't have to be deep fried, bake them and mash them use gravy, and make a side dish of your pee scented asparagus and those fantastic red peppers.

   Juicing is good too, but you must eat those heavy solids with that extra valuable fiber that will scrub you clean and make your muscles like steel cables.

   Besides, protein shakes are proven to not be the best for you. If you feel like putting them in to a veggie mix of sorts, go ahead, it's not going to kill you, it's just bad for your insides, I think it's amusing to see somebodies inner workings turn blue and pink. But I'm not saying that you should do it.

   So it's important to know about your protein supplements if you're taking them. I go by what the food and health scientists say, and it turns out, synthetic protein supplements, are bad for you. Very bad. So when you look at something, and its meant to go into your body and it's not medication, and it says, ahem, "Latest in Technology!" Let me just single out that one word you should never see on the label of something you're eating, "Technology". I mean, really people! Why would do that to yourself? Technology? That's like eating a bunch of acids and engine oil!

   So your supplements should be plant based if you like to put them in your smoothies and juices, or just take them straight up. Since they're plant based, you shouldn't be seeing the word, "Technology". That naughty horrible disgusting good tasting aromatic- you get the idea.

   So no to synthetic protein supplements, yes to good eating, because if you eat right, you won't need protein supplements, and everybody will still be saying you look great! So eat your greens and oranges and yellows and reds and all of that other good stuff, that mixed together with a heavy diet of other foods will be great for getting in shape and also for better strength and power in body movements and weight lifting.

Exercise No. 16 One Handed Handstand

This is one of my favorite things to do, hand balancing is like pie. I can't get enough of it, but the difference is that it keeps me skinny and doesn't make me fat... Moving on!

To begin with, you should know how to do a handstand, a few handstand push ups, Y plank, and it helps if you can straddle press into a handstand.

   Now, to get into a one handed handstand, your balancing arm should be strengthened prior to your attempts by doing air freezes, and jumping onto your hand. Now also, a Y plank is a handstand with a triangular placement of your hands and you lean to the side. It's like the picture I have up above but with both hands. Or you could arch your back instead and lean everything sideways. All that matters, is you developing substantial core stability before moving on.

   To start, go onto your hands, finger tips on the other hand or a full palm to the ground is your decision, I find using my finger tips offers more of a lean and makes it easier to enter so I don't have to push off with my palm instead which throws you off a bit when you're learning, but is good for forcing your body to respond with stability. So do that how you feel necessary, there's no "right way" into the one handed handstand. In fact, you could just step into it on one hand, but practice pike steps which are something I'll give you later on for getting this down. That should be in the October 2014 posts.

   So once you're on your hands, and you're lifting the one up, push your chest out. Not like you're sucking a bunch of air in, but like you're standing up as straight as possible, with a slight arch in your back. The pushing your chest out is a large factor in this, because it's very awkward to hold your body as straight as possible.

   Now we're going to have what I call an aim leg. The one that points up and is your center of gravity. That leg should be the opposite of your standing hand. Right or left, whichever is the opposite, straighten it and align it best as you can with your standing arm.

   Your leg that hangs down will be the weight that counterbalances your other side equalizing your weight distribution.

   Now your head placement, hand placement, whichever is more comfortable for you. Although I discourage learning this with a bent elbow because in the beginning, your tricep is nowhere near strong enough to support your entire body weight alone. But, after time, you can learn variations such as I have such as the pike stall, jumping into the handstand, flag freeze, pike freeze, if you're a nut go ahead and learn the one handed planche, as well as you have the real flag freeze where every part of your body is facing the ground sideways. That's very challenging and awkward to learn from experience. One handed handstand push ups are a beginning to all of this as well.

   There's a lot you can do with all of this. Hand balancing is a world of opportunity and there are so many ways you can do it. I may very create a hand balancing list, I find it quite fascinating and I love talking about it on here because there's so much to share, and it promotes healthy living because to hand balance, the toxins and such you take into your body must be minimal to remain light to your arms, and be strong enough to hold the positions and such as taught

   Good luck!

-The Fitness Cookie

   

The Handstand Challenge

I set up this challenge for my self a while back and thought I would share with all of you. Since I love handstands so much, and I want more people to do them and understand them, this will cause you to want to challenge your balancing skills and do even more.

Challenge one, walking on your hands for ten steps with legs straight. Challenging, fun, strength requiring. Next, handstand push ups. Requires more balance, a lot more strength, and is quite impressive. Three, handstand lean to both sides. Can you lean your legs to one side? Now lean to the other side. Four, hop. You gotta hop off your hands and it has to legit. Five, clap push up. Push up once and clap, you have to land on your hands. Six, one handed handstand, stand on one hand, for more than five seconds. Seven, hollow back. Lean backwards, stick your head behind your arms, and go back. Hard I know, but hey, I can do it, so why can't you?

Strength Training Times

Yeah yeah, "I don't have time to do any kind of strength training." I hear that a lot, and it's a bunch of crap! If you can't thirty minutes out of your evening away from the doughnut box and the Desperate Housewives marathon, you have no understanding on how to spend your free time.

There's a lot of time you can spend getting in shape. Office's have orders for their employees that they have to get up and walk around, do a few squats or something every few hours after sitting in their chairs. That's good, you could be the one employee that everybody sticks around your office because you're the one person there that likes to do backwards handstands instead of fat person push ups against a wall.

   This blog can be a little offensive, can it not? Well I'm not sorry, you'll just have to deal with it.

   We all have time on our hands. And we can take just a little bit of that time to stay in shape instead of being all jiggly. You can set up specific times to get your exercise, or you can just go about your day and at random intervals take some time to do something that makes you sweat.

   You don't have to have completely specific times, it's ok to actually be unspecific, you can do a workout any time of day as long as you do it. It really doesn't matter whether or not your late to a workout, if you do it that day, you're good.

Stretching Tips

For any of you who like to have stretching routines, I've got some good tips for you I've gathered over experience and talking to other people as well as watching tutorials and conversing with more fitness professionals.

So seriously, don't stretch before you work out when you're cold because your muscles won't stretch as well and you also are putting yourself up to risk of injury. So, go for a run, lift weights, do some body weight exercises for a few minutes, top rock, ride your bike, do something, so that way everything will be warm and ready.

   Once all of those flexibility juices are flowing, stretch! But yeah, definitely stretch after a workout and not before. From personal experience, I've done the splits after a work out and had no issue, but before I felt like I was going to split in half myself. Those wonderful muscles you have, warm them up, and they serve you well once stretching.

   It's also better for your tendons and ligaments. Because when you stretch cold, everything is contracted, and when you're contracted on the inside, it's going to hurt and cause issues if you stretch when everything is tight and not ready for strenuous movement of the like.      

   Your muscles are like a water balloon, you stretch a water balloon before you fill it with water, so that way it holds it a little better and there's less chance of popping it. I really don't think you want your muscles to pop, I've seen it happen and I'm sure you have, so stretch when your warm, it's less painful and if you're aiming for flexibility you'll reach your goals a little faster.

Cardiovascular Power

There's a big deal on this kind of thing. Cardiovascular work outs are what keep us thin and full of endurance as well as strong hearts. We all have our ways of getting in the cardio work out. Running, dancing, cycling, swimming, cheer leading, walking, hiking, I could go make a big list of things people do to keep their heart rate up.

I'll be honest with you and tell that I far prefer cycling and dancing from running. I could make a big list of things I hate about running even though I do it four times a week. I would say the only things I'm liking about running, is that my resting heart rate is now fifty one beats per minute, and my calves a little bigger than they last were.

   Cardio workouts in large amounts help get rid of the middle that a good deal of the american society has. I'll just say it right now, it's your fault if you are fat. So, you have cardio work outs! A lot of people who do sports complain to me after summer time about how they're out of shape and need to get back to working out so they can make the team. Both adults and teenagers. I always ask the same question, why not exercise during the summer?

   Since that question usually leads to a long awkward silence, I'll go back to the topic of how much cardio you should get.

   You need at least an a hour a week to stay somewhat healthy. If you want to be healthy, or very healthy, get anywhere from two to six hours a week.

   I personally get about eight hours of cardio a week. Between the unicycle, the bike, running, dancing, doing flips, it all cracks down to a super low heart rate and a lot of exercise endurance in a lot of different places.

   Your diet also depends on your heart health. So avoid salt and grease and cholesterol in overly large amounts. If you do far too much of those things, your heart is going to not do so well in a lot of places. So, don't take up one of those meaty fast foods diets if you're going to get fit. Ever.

   Heart health is the best thing in the line of fitness you can do. A powerful healthy heart is what keeps you strong and living a long time. So don't underestimate a cardio work out, those help a lot.

Skin Health

So to have a strong body, you need to have strong skin. Weak skin will not be able to hold up to barbells, pull ups bars, a lot of push ups, handstands, and running distances. So when you exercise, as a natural result of becoming stronger, your skin strengthens along with you.

You should maintain healthy skin in the case of working out. Don't do things to dry it out and make it weak, don't let it be overly soft and vulnerable. If your skin is smooth and strong, you're doing something right. Sure it's good to have calluses, those help your skin to not split in the case of a strenuous exercise and keep your live layers of skin safe from damaging things.

   So if you have naturally dry skin, moisturize once a day. If you work out with the barbell, nobody will be able to tell. 

   Also, smoking, drinking, drugs, those things, they make your skin get all nasty and wrinkly. If you want to keep your skin nice looking for all of your life, don't do those things for the sake of your heart health, and your beloved skin health. Chances are, if you're skin is healthy, your insides are healthy. Healthy on the outside, and healthy on the inside. 

Neck Health

Your neck it pretty important, it carries all signals from your brain to everywhere in your body so you can make controlled movement and be able to discern certain things like pain and feeling good. Without your neck, you wouldn't be able to do anything but think. So that's why it's important that you keep your neck strong and safe and free of injury.

You don't need a muscle bound neck to keep it strong and safe, but you do need some strength to keep it from being push out easily or twisted the wrong way. There are many neck exercises that you can do to keep it strong.

   Behind the head military press is one way to make your neck stronger, handstand push ups, and whatever those weird floor exercises in yoga are called where you hold your body up with your neck facing upwards or towards the floor. Those help a lot and keep your neck powerful and more resistant to quick forced movements and other dangers. You really will be thankful if your neck is strong and resistant to things that would normally inure it.

   First off, keep your neck healthy by not doing things that will cause it injury. For example, unless you've been working your way slowly into things, head spins are a perfect example of what not to do for your neck health. Headstands when not having a properly strong neck and arms are not advised as well. 

   If you are strong and have trained for those kinds of things to do them properly, go right on ahead because that is great strength practice as well as balance.

   Keeping your neck strong is far more important than making sure that your biceps or calves are sizing up to your desired proportions. People do neglect neck strength, now I will say that with upper body strength comes strength in the neck.

   

Neck Cracking:

You have no idea how irritating it is to me when I see people cracking their necks in a rough forceful way. Yeah sure, a little turn every now and then to see if it goes back in is fine, you're turning your head with the muscles in your neck instead of the muscles in your arms which are a whole lot stronger!

   You have a limitation with your neck muscles as to how far you turn your head and far you go back as well as forward and how hard you can turn it. Your arms however do not. So when you twist your head to the side, you are over stretching the muscles, over stretching the ligaments, anything that is vital in there, is being over stretched. And it causes more pain to go with the pain you are currently experiencing.

   Now if it's a bad habit, stop it right now, unless you want to be some cranky old person because you're neck hurts. The issue with a messed up neck is, is that it usually goes on to other places like your back, and if your neck hurts, it's also a signal from your body that you should take a rest to let it heal.

I'll tell you about how recently I did an exercise challenge and did too much of one exercise that required the trapezius. When I had done too much of it by the end of the day, I noticed that from my trapezius flexing so much,  it happened to have pushed the vertebrae had been pushed out of place and resulted in neck irritation. I felt oddly like a shirt tag was beneath my skin, and every time I did some kind of upper body exercise, handstands, handstand push ups, break dancing, handsprings, round offs, pull ups, weight lifting, it hurt. So I stopped for six days and didn't do anything until it didn't hurt any more.

   Now if it hurts really bad, your injury that is, you might very well need to see a chiropractor. If you are one of those idiots lost in your ignorance for concern of your health and say you don't have time for a chiropractic visit and you're going around in pain, well you're still an idiot and you need to see a doctor about that injury. If you don't I'll come over there and kick your butt into doing it! Well said? I think so.

   So to all who enjoy life and are in need of keeping a healthy neck, study neck exercises, learn about them, keep that neck healthy and it will serve you well and you'll be happy and feeling good.