Squatting A Whole New Perspective

I have been personal training for over 12 years and have been in gyms for over 18 years and have noticed a shift in the way we view exercises. One such exercise is the squat. When I first started working out with weights as a teenager,  a majority of people weren't gung ho on doing squats. The thinking at that time was that you only want to do squats to get bigger, stronger legs and the only people who really seemed to care about that were weightlifters, bodybuilders and athletes. Also, a lot of people didn't do them because there was this false pretense that squats were bad for your knees. Fast forward to the present, now squats are one of the most popular and utilized  functional training exercises that any personal trainer can have their clients do. A lot has to do with these two new viewpoints on squats. One, people in the fitness industry finally realized that "Hey, people squat all day in everyday life activites (i.e. to sit on the toilet, to sit in a chair  and to sit down in a car)"! Also, now fitness people are realizing that from our early predecesors (the hunter-gatherers that we started out as) there weren't any chairs so you were either standing, lying down or squatting. Now putting this all in perspective, you should squat because it is something that you do on a daily basis more than you know.  You don't have to do a ton of weights to get lean, toned legs, you just have to use a variety of different techniques (i.e. sets, rest periods, load and intensity) and different variations of squats to get the results that you want. Here are a few variations of squats.

BODYWEIGHT SQUAT                                                                     PISTOL SQUAT

                             





BARBELL OVERHEAD SQUAT                                                    BULGARIAN SPLIT SQUAT

                                                           

Are Carbohydrates Fattening?

Over the past 10 years, there has been a lot of new diets and information on restricting carbohydrates from your eating regimen.Personally, I never was a proponent of any of these "fad diets" or limited research on carbohydrates being part of the blame for the obseity epidemic that has grasped America. There are a lot of other factors to look at other than carbohydrates, but today, I'll only be addressing the role of carbohydrates inyour eating regimen. The notion that carbohydrates aren't good for you stems from the information that the glycemic index has produced about certain carbohydrates. The glycemic index is theoretically based on how 50 grams (200 calories) of carbohydrate (not counting fiber) in a food will affect blood sugar levels (Nancy Clark's Sports Nutriton Guidebook, 4th ed.pg.107). For example, sugar will have the highest rating supposedly because it causes a rapid spike in blood sugar while lentils will have a very low rating because it causes a more gradual increase in blood sugar levels. The problem with just looking at a particular food on the glycemic index, is that these foods are rarely eaten alone. The other foods will slow up the blood sugar response. For example, a sandwich consisting of white bread, turkey, lettuce, tomato and mustard, won't have such a rapid spike in blood sugar due to the added protein(turkey) and vegetables(lettuce and tomato) helping to slow down the blood sugar spike response time. The caloric intake of this sandwhich is determined by the serving size and the added fat,protein and condiments if any to the meal. Also, you have to remember that the body's main fuel source is carboydrates and not fat or protein. Eating excess protein or fat instead of carbohydrates will not supply your muscles with glycogen to provide your body with all the energy it needs to make it through a workout! Lets take a look at a typical dinner. You have an 8 ounce baked potato with butter, a 10 ounce ribeye steak, a house salad with ranch dressing and a glass of red wine. This looks like a healthy meal except for the butter,ranch dressing, the glass of red wine(alcohol is 9 calories per ounce just like fat regardless if it is wine, liquor, or beer) and all the fat that is in the ribeye steak. So you are going to say that the baked potato is the problem here! I think you obviously know that it is all the fat in the meal that is making this an unhealthy meal. Reduce the fat with leaner cuts of meat, eat more whole grain carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables. However, eating too much carbohydrates will end in weight gain and lead to excess bodyfat.