The Amazing Kettlebell!

Is kettlebelling a fad exercise or something that works?

Russian Kettlebell Weight Training has been around for years, but has just finally seen the light in America a mere 7 years ago. Kettlebells are basically cannon balls with handles on them. They are built to be swung around. It sounds very simple, but when training with the correct regimen, your workouts will be intense and will yield great results.

Benefits of Kettlebelling:

Work multiple muscle groups: Swinging around the weights makes you use your entire core just to keep your balance.

Burn fat: For every minute of swinging a kettlebell, one can burn up to 20 calories. Also, because all different muscle groups are working out simultaneously, your body needs to fuel itself some more energy.

Build lean muscle: With the resistance of the weights, lean muscle will form.

Cardio endurance: When doing a regimen, you typically do intervals that really get your heat rate to accelerate.

Muscle endurance: Muscles can work longer without getting fatigued

Flexibility: Since all of the moves are ballistic, this give you a better range of motion over a period of time.

Coordination/Concentration: Swinging around a weight from one hand to another requires full concentration and coordination.

With all of those benefits, who can argue that you are not getting a good work out with kettle bells?

From the first time I tried kettlebells, I instantly was addicted. I went out and bought Kettlebel guides so that I could make sure my form was correct, and so I could get ideas of how my workout plan could be built. Ever since then, Kettlebells have been incorporated in my exercise plan.

If you are interested or have more questions, feel free to ask.

matthew.morgan47@gmail.com

Source:
Kettlebell RX: THe Complete Guide for Athletes and Coaches.

HELP!

I need some help with an idea I have. I want to make a Facebook page where people can coordinate group workout time/partners while they are out here. I have a lot of people tell me that they would love to work out in a group and it provides great motivation for them but they don't know anyone who can workout at the same time. The Facebook page can be a means to find someone. It can also be an extention of this blog and we can share tips of the trade with each other.

My question is: Is this an OPSEC violation, and if so how can we still do it and avoid releasing anything damaging? Can we put the location in the page name? Is it even possible?

If anyone sits next to an OPSEC monitor or knows the answer to these, please let me know! You can comment below or email me :)

Thank you!!

Barrier Bash Workout

When all of us think of exercising the following terms come to mind: The gym, treadmills, weights, bench press, cardio room, elliptical machine, bicycle machine, and last but not least the basketball court.    While all these things are indoors....what about the outdoors? Some places we are stationed in the military can be quite cold for us to go outside, or perhaps too wet trying to avoid getting sick. Here we must brave the heat and decide to go indoors. For those of you naysayers who prefer the outdoors, this workout is for you. It's called: Barrier Bash. 

No, I am not talking about breaking up bits of concrete. I speak of all those barriers, small, medium, and large that exist everywhere here: 

These barriers carry a multitude of creative workout routines that can charge your aerobic and anaerobic workout to the outer limits. The smaller ones can be used for the following:

Tricep dips, incline pushups, box jumps (on top and then off of).

The medium sized barriers with the metal "handles" on them are perfect for a FULL range of motion bicycle exercise. While sitting on top and holding onto the "handles" move your legs in a circular motion as far out as you can. There is no ground restriction so you can move those legs of yours to workout the whole hamstring and quadricep while keeping your abdominals tight at the same time. Lastly, please leave those larger barriers alone, one cannot perform any exercise with those apparatus.

The advantage of the Barrier Bash exercise is you can run or jog from one barrier to the next to perform a different exercise. This keeps you from being in the same spot all the time and maintains your heart rate as you move from one barrier to the next. This exercise will work out muscles you thought never existed. Stay tuned for more Barrier Bash exercise techniques...Be Well!

Remember: Use Safety when moving to each barrier and lifting your body up on those medium sized barriers. Only do what you know is comfortable for your body. Safety is the best performance supplement to utilize during an energetic workout. Enjoy the outdoors!

In...2,3,4 Out...2,3,4

The 1.5 mile run for some may be a short distance, for others it's a long way to victory. The title above states the actions to take while running and breathing using the diaphragm. Controlled breathing will assist you, the runner, to have a "relaxed" feeling during the run. A run should feel relaxed, unless you are sprinting 1/4 mile. While running, feel how your feet touch the ground. Mirror your breathing with each step you take. The 4-count method is the way to measure how fast or how slow you breathe with your diaphragm. If your running steps are short, then your breathing count will be quicker. If your steps are larger, then your breathing count will be slower. No matter if your breathing is quicker or slower, it should feel natural to you and comfortable. Try just one lap around a track. Breathe with the diaphragm to gauge a good marriage between your footsteps and breathing count...In...2,3,4 Out...2,3,4. If one lap feels comfortable, do another. The more practice one does while using their diaphragm to breathe while running, the better and quicker they will become. Now, put on that PT gear, lace up those shoes, and practice, practice, practice. Stay tuned for more. Be Well!!

Body Beast - Team Beachbody's newest program

From the people that brought you Insanity, P90X, Slim In 6, and about a kazillion other awesome at home workout programs, I present to you ladies and gentlemen, their new body building workout program: Body Beast:

"If you want to get big—we mean really, really big—Body Beast™ is the program for you. Here's how you can transform your body over the next three months.

Body Beast is the brainchild of former Israeli army vet and bodybuilder Sagi Kalev. Kalev, a bodybuilder since the age of 16, relied upon his years of personal trial and error, as well as his degree in physical education and nutrition to develop the Body Beast program that will help you get results beyond what you've ever imagined possible.

Are you ready to awaken that Beast inside you?

With Dynamic Set Training™

We took the best of old-school bodybuilding and combined it with cutting-edge sports science to develop Dynamic Set Training™ that will fatigue your muscles more than you ever thought possible with Single Sets, Super Set, Giant Sets, Progressive Sets, Drop Sets, Tempo Sets, and more. In return, your muscles reward you by getting huge.

With an Intense Training Schedule

So that you can follow the program that fits your needs, we've carved out two different training schedules. If you only care about getting big, follow the Huge Beast schedule.

If you have fat to lose, follow the Lean Beast schedule. This schedule incorporates more cardio workouts so you can shed the fat covering your growing muscles. Just know that both 12-week schedules are hard, so don't feel like you're taking the easy way out if you go through "Lean Beast" first.

By Eating Like a Beast

If you really want to see results, you need to eat right. Within the Book of Beast, we'll walk you through a nutrition plan that combines healthy meals with key supplements so you can build big, strong muscles.

"The harder your work, the faster your muscles will grow."—Sagi Kalev      "

You can find more info at BeachbodyCoach.com/CoachChelseaW

Aerobic Stamina

One of the ways to gain Aerobic Stamina is to breathe not from your lungs, but from your diaphragm. I know what all of you are thinking: "What is and where is my diaphragm??". The diaphragm is a parachute shaped muscle located just underneath the lungs. The diaphragm is used to take in and out oxygen as an alternate use. If you never used your diaphragm, try this helpful method to initially understand how the breathing works. Lay on your back and place one hand over your belly button. Take in a deep breath so that you feel your belly rise with your hand. Now exhale so your belly lowers. This is breathing with your diaphragm.  Running is the easiest way to practice this method. It will take time to practice this and shaving off those 5 minutes from your run time won't happen overnight. Another benefit to diaphragm breathing is it tones your abdominal muscles and you can even do it while sitting down :-) If you are ready to try something new, this is it! Now ready? set, Breathe!!

As with any type of exercise, consult your doctor or physician prior to performing actions.

http://www.acefitness.org/certifiednewsarticle/633/want-to-improve-your-performance-breathe/



http://www.health.com/health/library/mdp/0,,zm6336,00.html

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/what-causes-the-pain-in-your-side-you-may-occasionally-feel-while-running/

Chow Hall Recipe: Chicken Parm Sandwich

All at the chow hall!!

Thanks to Cynthia for giving us this recipe!! I'm definitely going to try this one!

Coach,

I love pasta, but the chow hall doesn’t offer a whole grain variety.  The next best thing?  “Chicken parm” sandwich! 

2 slices whole grain bread (toasted or grilled)

1-2 slices of swiss cheese (critical for keeping bread from deteriorating)

Grilled chicken breast

Veggies of choice (I like cucumber, nice crunch)

Vegetarian marinara sauce

If you want to cut more calories you can do without the cheese, but serve the marinara on the side and dip the sandwich; otherwise the bread disintegrates completely.  This can be messy, but it’s surprisingly good.  Not quite a revolutionary recipe, but it satisfies the drive for pasta, and the flavor is very fulfilling!

Marine's advice to someone who wants to pass his PFT test. (strong language!!)

!!WARNING: Strong language... proceed at your own risk!!

Thank you R. Welles for sending me this!

 

Run man, there's literally no secret to this. Just fucking run.

I hate running more than anything. I have never been much of a runner at all. As an officer candidate, my initial PFT run (3 miles) was like 30 minutes and dying. What did I do? I just ran my nutsack into the ground. It sucks, but the more you do, the less it starts to suck. Rather quickly, I could run 3 miles in 21 minutes and feel pretty good.

30 days is a decent amount of time to at least get that score to where it needs to be to pass (you minimalist lazy shithead). Focus purely on endurance right now, not speed. In your initial training, speed will come naturally with endurance. Here's what I recommend -

Run every other day, for the next 4 weeks.

Week 1 - Run 1 mile, every other day, at a comfortable pace (for you, that's probably 10 minute miles)

Week 2 - Run 1.5 miles, every other day, at a decent pace (for you, that's probably 9 minute miles)

Week 3 - Run 2 miles, every other day, at a comfortable pace (again, 10 minute miles)

Week 4 - Run 2.5 miles, every other day, at a decent pace (9 minute miles)

This is a really basic plan, but it's designed to slowly build up your weekly mileage and endurance(with the 1.5 miler goal in mind). Once you're done with week 4, and you pass your IST (and you will if you follow this plan), keep doing this by upping your next week by half a mile. Do this until you reach 4 miles. At this point, you should be running 12-16 miles a week, with a decent base amount of endurance in you. Then you can start doing some speed work and really training for your actual PFT.

DON'T GO TO FUCKING BOOT CAMP WITH THE MENTALITY THAT IT WILL GET YOU IN SHAPE. YOU WILL SUFFER WAY MORE THAN YOU HAVE TO.

Don't miss a run, just go out and do it. Don't think about it while you're running. I find for me, that after 1-1.5 miles in, my body sort of goes on auto pilot and running becomes easy. At that point, I can run miles on end and it just feels the same.

While you're running, focus on controlling your breathing. Take nice deep breaths the moment you start running. It's called "pre-oxygenating", and it will allow your cardiovascular system to start delivering optimal amounts of oxygen to all muscles involved in your movements. This allows your body to sort of get ahead of the impeding shitsuck, and keeps you a hell of a lot less winded as you run.

As far as form goes, keep your head up at all times, even when you're tired. Try to relax your upper body as much as you can, and focus on just moving your legs. When you feel yourself really slowing down, and you want to maintain a fast pace, start pumping your arms a little bit because your legs will follow.

Nutrition is important, stop stuffing your cockhole with bacon cheeseburgers and lonely ass tv dinners. Eat a little cleaner. You can still indulge yourself, but within moderation. Drink less, and if you're a smoker, smoke less (or really just stop smoking or switch to chew).

Drink water, all day. Keeping yourself hydrated is so goddamn important that I want to punch you in the face just thinking about it.

Stretch lightly before your run if you want. Look up dynamic stretches in google, and do that. Definitely spend some time stretching AFTER your run. This is important, don't neglect this.

Now go out there, starting fucking today, and run. Keep in mind, the 1.5 mile IST run is fucking ten gallons of gayness. That's the same distance as the air force run. If you can't pass that, then that means you can't pass the easiest run requirements that the entire United States Military demands from it's recruits.

So knowing that you fucking suck right now, use that motivation to get out there and run. Marines didn't come out of the womb ready to bust out 300 PFTs (although some of them like to think they did), they worked at it. Put in your share.

Write for the Active Avocado!

Looking for writers! I want other's to share your viewpoints, advice, and opinions on my blog. Do you have something that really grinds your gears? Do you have the BEST workout that you want to share with people? Know something that might help or motivate someone else while they're out here? As long as it won't get anyone arrested it is free to go up. And of course it needs to be related to the main topic here: deployment fitness and wellness. This can be a one time thing or on the reg. Get at me if you're interested!!

Eating healthy at the chow hall?

Eating healthy at the chow hall? Isn’t that an oxymoron?? Depending on how much self control you can muster. There are healthier options. Like Tony says, always choose the best option available. The Air Force is offering a simple stoplight system to simplify our nutritional thinking process. Whether or not this is the best way to go about it, at least something is being done about our healthy eating choices at dining facilities.

When you see the red, yellow and green light signs above the foods at the chow hall serving line, they are part of the Go for Green Program. This Air Force wide nutrition program helps Airmen make healthy meal choices. The menu items are labeled green (eat often), yellow (eat occasionally), and red (eat rarely) based on the impact the food can have on an Airman's performance.

First Lady Michelle Obama herself has called notice to the lack of nutritional and healthy choices that we are given when she visited the chow hall at Little Rock AFB. She explained that it’s not just a matter of our svelte profiles. This is an issue of national budget and national security. DoD spends over $1.1 billion on medical bills related to excess weight and obesity a year. About a quarter of first-termers are too overweight to make through their first enlistment, according to the Pentagon. After this visit, she called for an upgrade to our menus.

This upgrade to our menus will be first program to improve nutritional standards in chow halls in over 20 years. 20 years?! WTF took so long?

Still don’t wanna commit yourself to eating healthy? If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for your kids (or future ones). This is the first generation that will have a shorter life expectancy than their parents because of the 'American diet'. A good diet can reverse diseases and conditions, and so as follows, a poor one will fuel them. Making healthy habits for yourself will transfer to your kids. There is such a thing as 'second-hand obesity.' Google it.

- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/09/ST2008050900425.html

- http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2012/02/ap-first-lady-military-bases-need-healthier-foods-020912/

- http://www.jble.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123294544

Shakeology Week Two

After two weeks of drinking Shakeology six days a week, I have noticed a few things: 1) My hangover has finally met it's match. I got a hangover from my three servings of wine the other day (wth). I had my shake the day after and it went away within an hour or so. Amazing. 2) I lost my "tired in the eyes" feeling. It's not like downing a red bull and I wanna jump off the walls, it's more like I lost that feeling that I wanna close my eyes and put my head down all the time. 3) I have a noticable difference in food cravings. I have noticed, numerous times in the last week, I don't have the same food cravings as I used to. Since being here it seemed like I was hungry all the time, but lately not so much. Which is Awesome!

I usually just mix it with water, frozen strawberries, along flax seeds and coconut oil that I ordered online. YUM!

Insanity Challenge Group! starting 2 July 12

An Insanity Challenge Group is when you and a group of people agree and commit to the Insanity Program together. You all start on the same day together, and you all finish on the same day together. You help each other along with group workouts (depending on schedules), constant support and updates on a group Facebook page, and support from your Team Beachbody Coach (Me). It lasts 60 days and will give you awesome results if you fully commit, whether you commit yourself, or include some coworkers or friends.

It's not too late to join!! I am adding people up through the first week. You have five more days to decide how serious you are xD

Let me know if you're interested by emailing me at chelsea.n.whitworth@gmail.com.

60 days to Awesome! Do you have 60 days?!