Tag: kipping pull-ups

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #97 – 40+ Best Bodyweight Exercises, How to Balance Hormones and The Science Behind Exercise

pike-roll-out

Here’s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I’ve read over the past week.


44 Best Bodyweight Exercises Ever! (High Def) – YouTube

I can do some of these, but most of these exercises require more strength than I’ll every possess, like the triple clap pushups, one arm hanging leg lifts or the archer pull ups. My favorite from this video is the ab crunch shredder dips.


High fructose corn syrup–another overhyped study

Here’s an excellent example of why you should review the research yourself before taking the popular opinion of the internet and media sources. Whether or not HFCS is any worse for you than other sweeteners, everyone just needs to cut back on sweeteners of all kinds.


How To Balance Your Hormones

Christopher Walker had a brain tumor that pressed against his pituitary gland that prevented production of testosterone, resulting in hormone imbalances and health issues. His case is extreme, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us aren’t suffering some sort of hormonal imbalance as well. Check out this article for some great advice on getting your hormones in check.


Do Not Kip your Pull Ups before reading this

Another article against the kipping pull up exercise. If you really want to do kipping pull ups, at least make sure you have the strength to do a good number of slow, proper-form pull ups first. Check out the funny video at the end of the article about “kipping everything.” Now that was funny!


No Grains Equals No Migraines

I wouldn’t say that I feel crappy, but I do believe I could feel even better, especially after reading success stories like this. If it were easier to remove grains in a vegan diet I would definitely love to try it, but that doesn’t leave a whole lot left for me to eat. It’s something I’m still working on figuring out though.


How Do I Know if I Have a Glute Imbalance?

This article and the accompanying link to the article on how to fix glute imbalances is awesome! I haven’t noticed a glute imbalance on myself but who knows, it might be there. I’m definitely going to start incorporating glute exercises into my regular routine.


Content marketing tips from the world of cycling

How could I not mention an article that discusses my two favorite things – marketing and cycling? I always see articles like this comparing some niche topic to marketing, for example I regularly see comparisons on Star Wars, Harry Potter and Monty Python. I usually skip those because I have no interest in those topics, but cycling is finally one that fits me and I had a lot of fun reading it.


Tim Ferriss: How to Make the Perfect Cup of Coffee

As a newbie in the world of coffee geekery, I really enjoyed the tips in this post. Here’s a quick summary – buy high quality beans and use within a month of the roast date, grind in single proportions with a burr grinder, and use 2 grams of coffee per 30 ml/g of water (roughly 1 oz of water). I’ve been wanting an Aeropress and I just remembered that I got some Amazon gift cards for Christmas, so it looks like I’ll have this fun coffee gadget soon!


The Best PB & J Protein Shake Recipe You’ll Ever Try

When I saw the title of this article I expected to see a recipe for a really unhealthy shake, but to my pleasure, it’s actually all natural healthy ingredients! I’ve already made it and it’s awesome. It really tastes like PB&J.


The Truth About Exercise

This is a documentary that follows Michael Mosley, a medical researcher and reporter for the BBC, as he learns that most people’s knowledge of health, including his own knowledge, is outdated and sometimes wrong. This was an awesome documentary. I saw some of this stuff when I went to the 2012 Fitness and Health Bloggers Conference at the The Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, CO and I was in awe. You need to have a U.K. IP address to access this documentary, but you can follow these tips provided by Lifehacker to get around that. Now to try to find some “fidget pants.”

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The Best Health and Fitness Articles of the Week #91 – Is Coconut Milk Bad, Setting Proper Bike Fit and Office Chair Advice

organic coconut milk

Here’s a recap of the best health and fitness articles I’ve read over the past week.

3 reasons why coconut milk may not be your friend

Can we eat anything without worrying about the side-effects these days? Just when I thought consuming canned coconut milk was safe, I find out that there are only two commercial brands that don’t contain BPA and neither of those two come without guar gum. So the only good way to consume coconut milk is by making it yourself. For now, I’m just not going to worry about guar gum and I’ll buy Native Forest and Arroy-D brands.

Another Look at a Drink Ingredient, Brominated Vegetable Oil – NYTimes.com

I stopped drinking Gatorade a long time ago because of all the chemicals it contains. I’d much rather fuel my body with more natural sources, like coconut water. Now I know not to ever drink Gatorade again (or lots of other soft drinks) unless they remove brominated vegetable oil from their formulas. B.V.O has possible side effects of neurological disorders, altered thyroid hormones and a whole bunch of other crazy issues. More reason to eat mostly whole foods, that way you know what you’re putting into your body.

DIY Doggie Treats – with your leftover juicing pulp!

I throw my leftover juicing pulp into my compost bin, but I’ve always wanted to find a more useful purpose for it, so I was excited to come across this post. It’s more work thank simply dumping into my compost bin, but it doesn’t sound like much work at all and I’m sure my dogs will love it. Remember that some foods can be toxic for pets. Here’s a list of known food toxins for dogs.

All the Hype Behind Kipping Pull-Ups

It takes some time for the author to get to the point of the article, but when you finally get to it, he makes some great points. Ever since learning about kipping pull-ups, and trying them out several times, my own opinion has been that regular pull-ups are better and safer. Check out the comments on this post for more intelligent discussion. Oh! And check out that fail video of CrossFitters doing clean and jerks. My heart was beating so fast waiting for someone to get an injury. I couldn’t even finish it. Wow…

Vegan Weight Gainer Shake

A bean shake doesn’t sound very tasty, but I haven’t tried this so I’m not going to judge just yet. I was thinking about putting on a little more weight to help me increase my squat gains back to where they were last year when I was 15 lbs. heavier. On a side note, I also learned of a new protein powder after seeing it mentioned in the comments – Omega Nutrition Pumpkin Seed Protein Powder. I’ll have to give that a try too.

Bike Fit: Set Your Saddle Height

It’s too cold to commute by bike to the office now, so I’ll probably get my bike on the trainer soon. I’ll use this article to set my bike fit then.

Dorian Yates demonstrating bent over Barbell Row – YouTube

This is interesting because I’ve always heard the best way to perform barbell rows is by pulling the weight to your chest, or just under the nipple line, but Dorian Yates says that works out the upper back. He recommends pulling them to the abs instead, which works the lats, allows you to control form, protect your back and lift heavier weight.

Nine Fascinating Health Benefits of Basil

Basil can help reduce digestive problems, reduce inflammation in the body, relieve stress, protect against cancer and plenty of other great things. I don’t know how much basil it takes to get these benefits, but the more you eat, the more likely you are to reap the rewards.

Beetroot Juice and Tart Cherry Juice for a Fitness Boost

I learned about the anti-inflammatory and recovery benefits of tart cherry juice at the 2012 Fitness and Health Bloggers Conference, but I never made it a regular part of my diet. I mentioned to friend recently that I’ve been having problems with staying asleep at night and she told me that tart cherry juice can help with sleep issues (link to Pubmed study) because of the melatonin it contains. Two 8 or 12-ounce bottles of tart cherry juice per day should be enough to see all of these benefits.

Body Hacks for a Longer Life (Infographic)

There are a lot of good tips here, but the two that I like the most are that 1.5 oz. of dark chocolate per day can reduce blood pressure by 3 points and a glass of wine per day works similarly. Those two go perfect together! I’m going to try to start doing a daily crossword puzzle from now on too.

The Greatest Workout Ever Created

You can’t go wrong with a workout designed around the world-famous extra lives code for Contra – Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A start. I wonder how many rounds I can do? I’m in the middle of a routine that I don’t want to interrupt so I’ll have to remember to try this out later.

Office Chair Advice

I really like the tip in this article to place two tennis balls on each side of the spine as you’re sitting in an office chair. It keeps you an ergonomic position, provides an acupuncture effect and if you lose position, the balls fall and remind you to move back into proper posture.

Pressing Charges: 7 Bench-Press Crimes, Solved

Everyone makes these mistakes when starting out – sadly many never learn better. The one about the “crazy legs” is funny because I hate to admit it, but it actually happened to me a few days ago. I was doing floor presses (which I’ve never done before) so I had no leverage, no place to plant my feet and I did one too many reps. Since I was on the floor, I didn’t have my squat rack to protect me and in came crazy legs. I think that was the first time I’ve ever done that. I laughed at myself for that one… No more floor presses.

12 Weeks to Ridiculous Wheels

Ahh, now here’s a worthwhile routine, as opposed to the “4 weeks to bigger arms” routine I’m currently doing. What can I say, I’m a typical guy that want’s big arms 😉 Anyway, this leg routine looks tough and the progression is interesting – you alternate weeks of doing heavy weights with weeks of higher volume.

France Bans BPA in Food Packaging

If only the U.S. was anywhere near as progressive as other countries when it comes to their citizens health and nutrition. We have to take charge of our own health and help each other as much as we can.