Favorite blog posts from the past week

Here is a new installment that I hope to keep up with: Favorite blog posts!

I read, scan, and scoff at close to a hundred blog posts a week. It's tiring, I'm sure I miss a lot, and unless you're a fanatic about fitness and nutrition the way I am, who has time for it all?

So each week, I'm going to collect 5-8 posts that I think would do everyone some good to read through. I'm going to try to keep it towards the 5 posts side, because everyone leads busy lives.

To start things off, rather than limit myself to the past week, I'm going to throw up a few that I think highlight some recent favorites about rehab, nutrition, and training.

To Ice or Not To Ice?

In this blog and vido combo from Physical Therapist to the (Athletic) Stars, Kelly Starrett follows his long slog from telling people to go ahead and ice their injuries to where he now stands firmly in the DO NOT ICE YOUR SHIT team. To quote him quoting someone else, "Do you think your inflammatory response is a mistake?"

Counter Argument of the Ice-capades

From the very intelligent Justin over at 70's Big, we get the counter argument in the icing issue. He emphasizes how you can find research to support any viewpoint in the health industry, and that it also matters the "when" and "what type of injury" of each situation. This is the first post in his two post series on the topic, and I'd encourage you to read both before making conclusions either way.

Breakfast is for Losers

Kiefer is kind of a dick. He'll admit it. But he's brilliant. In this (research heavy and dry) article, he outlines why breakfast is actually detrimental to your swole-ness. Don't worry, it's not all boring stuff, he acts dick-ish enough to keep things interesting through to the end.

Finding Peace in Life

This isn't a particular blog post shout out, it's a shout out to an entire blog. While it's not directly about fitness, your level of general happiness does have a huge impact on quality of life. So I highly recommend following Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. I think her book is really amazing as well, perfect if you're the long term book club type.

Paleo Brownies: Newman Approved

Here at the United Barbell website, Andrea Seabaum agreed to let us publish her crowd favorited Paleo brownie recipe. Take note in the comments about how she also modifies them to be less sweet.

Getting into Powerlifting

Hi, everyone! I'm back!

Miss me?

I know it's been about two months since my last post. First, the summer saw a lot of people interested in getting ramped up with CrossFit. So in an effort to get these people moving through, I was working hard teaching people the ropes, then getting home exhausted. The blog fell by the way side.

Then, I decided to participate in a "life training" course with some people very close to me. The classes each lasted five days, and took up a lot of my time. I was exhausted feeling for about a week after they were done.

So here I am, trying to get back into my normal swing of things, which now included... POWERLIFTING!

The awesomes:
- I'm getting stronger
- Muscles that atrophied from O lifting are starting to show again
- My right shoulder feels better than ever
- I'm meeting new people
- I'm learning nuances about the slow lifts that I never would have otherwise

The annoyances:
- My schedule only allows for group training twice a week, it's hard to train alone.
- Each max effort day is a different form of a competition lift. After a couple months, and I have no idea what my actual numbers are.
- The best coach in the Bay Area is still a 45 minute drive away. Luckily, it fits my current schedule.

So I'm certainly going to compete at a SPF meet in November in Sacramento. If I want to wow people, I'm going to have to find a way to make training along more enjoyable AND get my damn diet back under control. Small steps.

Take care and keep picking up heavy things!