Here’s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I’ve read over the past week.
Jim Stoppani’s 12-Week Shortcut To Size: Microcycles Explained
This workout routine sounds really interesting and it makes a lot of sense – I know based on my own experience with these types of routines. I’ve never done both styles of lifting at the same time, so this would be a great experiment. I wish I had a cable machine at home.
Consumers misunderstand ‘cruelty-free’ labeled products
It’s dissapointing that some product manufacturers care only about making the sale and not about the strong beliefs of their customers. I hope that a legal definition of cruelty-free is determined soon and that companies are forced to abide by laws of using that label. I’m really surprised something isn’t already in place to protect consumers from things like this.
Mobility Exercise of the Week: Bowler Squat
This is an exercise you might be familiar with if you’ve done P90X. It’ll really put the burn in your legs. I might have to throw this one back into my routine. The pictures in this article of the tennis player and baseball player are crazy!
More than half of all cancer is preventable, experts say
If Americans would quit smoking and clean up their diets, there wouldn’t be so many people suffering and dying from cancer. The researchers of this study mention that one of the problems they see is that people are skeptical of cancer prevention. Hopefully our doctors can drive that skepticism away in the upcoming years. There are some other interesting points in this article made about the obstacles of implementing cancer prevention strategies.
How to Get Your Broken, Neglected Bike Ready for Spring (and Keep It in Shape for Next Year)
Lucky for me, the bike shop where I purchased my road bike will do maintenance for free for the lifetime of my bike, but these are still some great tips for me to know. I only want to lug my bike to the shop 1-2 times a year, so these are great tips for keeping my bike in tip-top shape in between maintenance visits.
Less than 1 in 6 Americans frequently washes grocery totes increasing risk for food poisoning
I was actually just thinking about this a few days ago. I’ve never washed any of my grocery totes since I’ve owned them. I don’t purchase raw meat, but that doesn’t mean germs can’t exist on my vegetables either. Maybe I’ll make a habit of throwing my totes in the washer at the end of the week.
How I got past my spinach-in-protein-shakes fear (and why you should too)
I still haven’t tried making a green smoothie and I really don’t know why. The author of this article mentions that even two cups of spinach is detectable in their smoothie. I’m not really afraid of the taste, especially after having juiced spinach, kale, cilantro and parsley and drinking it straight. You will taste that by the way 😉 I think I’ll make a green smoothie this weekend.
Super Simple Beginner’s Green Smoothie
Speak of the devil! Right after reading the article above about making green smoothies, this one showed up in my feed reader. Looks like this is the one I’ll be trying this weekend 😀
Skip the Knife Set and Buy A La Carte to Save Money and Get Better Knives
I’ve made the mistake of purchasing a knife set that rarely gets used, mostly because the knives suck! High quality knives are so expensive, but I’m sure they are worth every penny. My current crappy knives will have to do for now, but I plan on buying a really nice butcher knife soon – something that can slice through tomatoes and onions like nothing.
Exercises You Should Be Doing: Zercher Goodmornings
I’ve never been comfortable doing goodmornings because I can tell immediately that if my form isn’t good, injury is very possible. I always hear about how good this exercise is though. I’ve only done goodmornings with the bar on my shoulders, so this style sounds interesting. As soon as I saw this video I thought about the pain of holding a heavy bar on my arms to do this move, but I suppose I can try to deal with the pain 😉
Bake Tortillas Into Hard Taco Shells on Your Oven Rack
This is such a great tip! I always have tortillas but I never feel like buying hard taco shells because I don’t eat them often. There’s always the occasion where I wish I had some though, and now I can simply make my own easily.
100 Greatest Cooking Tips (of all time!)
There are a lot of fun cooking tips and tricks here. I wish they would’ve put all of the tips on one page instead of spreading it out over 10 pages, but it’s still a great resource.
Big Time Bench: Want To Turn Every Head In Your Gym? Give Us 12 Weeks
Another really fun looking workout from Bodybuilding.com. The chest is one of the hardest parts of my body to build, so I’m really considering giving this one a shot. I was seeing some good progress on my strength when I was doing the Stronglifts plan, so I’d kind of like to do some more heavy bench pressing again.