Debut of the Stonebell

It's done and it works great!

My experiment in creating the perfect Stonebell was a success. It's got the shape of a regular iron kettlebell (for the most part anyway), but you can make it at home with some concrete and a few other materials. Here's a couple of photos:



Here's the short version of how I made it:

1. Cover a children's play ball with plaster of paris, leaving holes to insert ends of the handle into and a way to divide the plaster shell to get the handle in.


2. Once plaster is dry, deflate the ball and remove it.


3. Make the handle out of stiff 1-inch diameter rubber tubing over a 24" piece of re-bar.


4. Place the handle between the two halves of the mold and tape the mold together.


5. Mix up and pour concrete into mold.


6. Let stand until concrete is hardened; remove mold and allow to cure for about a week.


7. To make it adjustable with barbell plates, before pouring concrete screw a 1/2-inch diameter bolt about 3/8 of an inch into a threaded-bar coupler and suspend the bolt end of it in the center of the mold. The open end of the coupler should be flush with the top of the mold so that, in the end, it looks like this:

Use another bolt and a washer to bolt barbell plates onto the bottom. I use a 25-pound plate in the photo above, but 10 and 5-pound plates work just as well.

I haven't had a chance to write up the detailed instructions, but will do so before too long and make them available to you all. For now, take a look at my video using the Stonebell.

2 Ways to Build Endurance

When it comes to training the endurance of your body, the body adapts and increases capacity in the same way that it becomes stronger or adapts to other physiological needs. The body likes to keep capacity one step ahead of whatever demands are placed on it as part of its regular routine. So, someone who regularly doesn’t get more exercise than walking from the parking lot to his office only has enough endurance capacity to do that and a little more.

By staying just ahead of needs, the body reduces the chance of becoming damaged when occasionally pressed a little beyond what it’s used to, but doesn’t waste resources maintaining systems that have more capacity than is needed. It’s like choosing what kind of car to drive. If the vast majority of the driving you do is by yourself on city streets with lots of traffic, then (ego aside) all you need is a small, compact car that gets great gas mileage. You don’t need a gas-guzzling SUV or 4-wheel-drive truck with tires the size of a Buick. However, if you work on a ranch or construction crew and do lots of heavy hauling over rough terrain, then a Honda Civic just isn’t going to cut it and you’ll have to trade up to the big truck.

If your routine suggests to your body that a Honda Civic endurance capacity is all that is needed, it’s not going waste resources maintaining a monster truck endurance capacity. However, when your body perceives that it is more often being required to do more work, it automatically upgrades to the next level of vehicle. So the key to increasing your endurance capacity is to do enough extra work on a regular basis that your body decides it’s time for an upgrade.

There are two ways to trigger this adaptation. The first way, which I call the Slow & Easy method, is to make small increases in your daily activity. For example, if you don’t get any exercise beyond walking to and from your car each day, start by going for a stroll around the block each day. After a month, increase the distance or add a set of 20 jumping jacks before heading out on your stroll. Every couple of weeks, add a little more exercise or do the same exercise in a little less time. Make very small increases because you are getting this exercise on a daily basis; if the increases are too large, your body won’t be able to adapt quick enough and you’ll actually damage your body rather than make it stronger.

The second way, which I call the Hard & Sweaty method, is to periodically press your body to its physical limits and give it time to recover before stressing it again. For example, once a week you might jog or do calisthenics to the point of total exhaustion and maybe another workout once or twice a week that is about half of that big workout. This routine creates an immediate demand for growth and adaptation, but supplies sufficient downtime for the body to recover and meet that demand.

If you are someone who doesn’t get a lot of regular exercise or are just starting to add endurance training to your routine, I recommend you use the Slow & Easy method for at least the first six months. This will allow you to acclimate your body to a new type of conditioning. If you exercise regularly, especially if your training already involves an aerobic'>aerobic component, I suggest using the Hard & Sweaty method to increase your endurance.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll discuss how to apply these training principles to the two kinds of endurance that I discussed in the last installment. Until then . . .

Stay strong,
Live well.

John Fike

Two Kinds of Endurance

Most of the time on this blog I talk about strength and power. That's because I believe that the first element of truly functional fitness is strength and power. Strong, powerful muscles stabilize your skeletal structure, correct muscle imbalances and posture, and decrease the risk of injury in your daily activities and recreation.

The second element of functional fitness is endurance. In my book there are two kinds of endurance:

1. High-intensity endurance
2. Low-intensity endurance

I differentiate them based on the kind of nutrient utilized as feul and the purpose which they serve. I'm sure exercise physiologists have different, more-scientiffic names these two kinds of endurance, but these labels make sense to me. Today I'm just going to hit on the primary differences and why they're important. In upcoming posts, I'll tell you how to train to increase both kinds of endurance.

High-intensity endurance is a matter of how long can you engage in vigorous activity like swinging lifting weights or sprinting. This kind of high-intensity activity primarily utilizes the anaerobic energy system, which is feuled strictly by carbohydrates. All muscular contractions depend on a chemical known as ATP. In high-intensity exercise the muscles first consume ATP already available in the muscle fibers. Then the mitochondria in the fibers turn on its energy systems to make more ATP. The Anaerobic systems are the first to be utilized because ATP is produced more quickly and doesn't require the high quantity of oxygen that the aerobic energy system requires. However, the anaerobic systems do not create ATP in as much abundance as the aerobic system and the byproduct is lactic acid, the build up of which leads to muscle failure.

Increasing your high-intensity endurance increases the amount of time you can engage in high-intensity activity before muscle failure due to decreased availability of ATP and build-up of lactic acid. A real-world appliction might be a self-defense situtation in which you either need to fight off an attacker or sprint to escape one. High-intensity endurance keeps your fighting stronger and more accurately long enough to finish the job and enables you to sprint far enough to outrun the attacker. High-intensity endurance will also help you catch that bus when you're running late to work.

Low-intensity endurance is about how long you can engage in a less-intense activity before exhausting your energy systems. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about a marathon run or playing outside with your kids. Low-intensity endurance lets you engage in activity for longer. It also determines how long before you can engage in the next bout of high-intensity activity, because the ATP produced can be used for any sort of activity. That's why you rest between sets of weightlifting; the aerobic energy systems supplement the anaerobic systems to provide enough energy for that next set.

Low-intensity endurance is primarily feuled by the aerobic energy systems, which consume fat, carbohydrates and protein to manufacture ATP. The less intense the activity, the higher the ratio of fat is being burned. That's why jogging, aerobics and similar activities are so popular for weight loss--they increase the number of calories being burned and, because of the low intensity, burn more fat calories than anything else. However, the aerobic systems are also utilized to replace the ATP consumed during high-intensity of exercise and the highest ratio of fat is burned during periods of rest. Since high-intensity exercise burns more ATP and calories in less time, it may be more efficient to burn calories with high-intensity exercise and let the aerobic system burn fat to replace that energy during recovery.

Anyway, in my estimation, the greatest reason for increasing low-intensity endurance is that it increases your energy levels and endurance for ALL activities--even sitting in your office typing on the computer. By training your low-intensity endurance capacity, you increase your energy levels for daily actitivities and increase your overall metabolism, which results in more energy, more fat burn, yada yada yada.

Next time we'll discuss how to increase your endurance capacity.

Live strong, live well

John Fike

Low Budget Warrior: DIY gym equipment

Yo, warriors:

Straight to the Bar located some awesome resources on building your own gym equipment. Check it out: DIY: Home-made gym equipment

1,000 Kettlebell Swing Challenge

If you're looking for a simple way to get cardio without running, cycling, etc. the 10,000 Kettlebell Swing Challenge is a great way to go. Check it out on the Inner Grr blog by Kerry Kriener-Althen: 10,000 Kettlebell Swing Challenge. I started mine this week, but since I've not been doing as many swings and snatches during the winter (no room overhead in the basement) I'm starting out at 200 swings every day or two instead of the 300 per day Kerry's client started with.

Remember, if you don't own a kettlebell you can substitute a dumbbell or even a barbell plate with built-in grip handle. If you want to buy one, the best place to get an authentic Russian Kettlebell is http://301url.com/kettlebells

By the way, Kerry's site is an excellent one for you Amazon warrior women. Lot's of good fitness and strength tips catered to your needs.

Low Budget Warrior Tip No. 102: No Bench Required

When the subject of lifting weights for exercise comes up, one of the first exercises people think of is the bench press. The bench press is one of the signature exercises of the modern bodybuilding culture. To be fair, the bench press is an efficient way to build strength and size in the pectoralis muscles of the chest. However, it is not the only way to do so and other exercises build functional chest strength better. After all, how often do you find yourself lying on your back and pressing something off your chest?

The pectoralis muscles are important to functional strength. They play a key role in punching, overhead lifting, holding and carrying large objects and similar motions. They also assist in maintaining structure and alignment of the shoulders, providing counter force to the trapezius and other muscles of the upper back. Because of the importance of the pectoralis muscles, we want to be sure to include them in our strength training program. But if you don’t want to spend money on a bench or don’t want to clutter your home with exercise equipment, we need to have ways to train those muscles without a weightlifting bench.

Obviously, pushups are the simplest substitute for the bench press, but it won’t be long before you have stopped gaining strength and are just increasing muscular endurance by doing more and more repetitions. Some solutions to this are to increase resistance by doing one of the following:

1. Incline pushups—elevate your feet. The higher your feet, the more difficult the pushup becomes.
   Drawback: eventually you’ll get your feet high enough that you are working the anterior deltoid (shoulder muscle) more than the pectoralis muscles.
   
2. One-arm pushups—Not only are you lifting the same weight with one hand that you previously did with two, but the leverage of the exercise effectively multiplies the weight. It is unlikely that you will be able to do one-arm pushups from the floor correctly the first time you attempt them. Start by placing your hand on an elevated surface with your feet on the floor. This shifts your center of gravity toward your feet and effectively reduces the weight you are pushing up. Work your way toward the floor over weeks and months until you can pushup off the floor.
   Drawbacks: Requires tremendous muscular control and balance to execute and thoroughly exhausts the Central Nervous System.
   Resource: Best instruction I’ve ever seen on performing a one-arm pushup is in Pavel Tsatsouline's book The Naked Warrior. Check it out.
   
3. Add resistance with bands—stretch them across your shoulders and upper back and pin the ends to the floor with your hands.
   Drawback: resistance increases as the bands are stretched and decreases as the bands contract. To apply more resistance on the bottom of the pushup, shorten the bands and do half pushups.
   
4. Add resistance with weights—put weights (either barbell plates, sand bags or other heavy objects) in a backpack and put the backpack on. Do pushups as usual.
   Drawbacks: You can only get so much weight in a back pack and it can be awkward to get on and off when its heavy.
   
5. Have a partner add resistance—partner stands either in front of you or straddles your waist and places hands on the trapezius between the shoulder blades. Partner applies just enough resistance to make the pushups challenging. Drawbacks: Requires a partner, so you can’t do it alone, and the partner must be attuned to your needs so that the resistance applied is neither too great nor too little.
   
   Next week we’ll discuss several ways to use dumbbells, kettlebells and barbells to exercise the chest without a bench.
   
   Stay strong, live well.
   
   John Fike

Engage the Lats for a Better Bench Press

Use back muscles to exercise the chest?

Yes.

By tensing up the lats, along with the pectoral and arm muscles, you bring into effect the phenomenon known as hyperirradiation. In hyperirradiation, muscles other than the targeted muscles are tensed and hardened to give support to the targeted muscles and stabilize the joints. In this case, the tense lats (Latissimus dorsi) stabilize the shoulder and support the action of the pectoralis major. The end result is a stronger lift and, perhaps more importantly, a safer lift that is less prone to injury.

Think of it this way: Imagine a ladder lying on the ground and you have to lift it to a vertical position by pulling on one of the rungs. If you just heave on the rung without bracing it, the ladder will be very difficult to control and you will use most of your strength to keep the ladder from swinging out of control. But if you brace the ends of the ladder with your feet or have an assistant steady the ladder, you can focus your strength on raising the ladder into place. Hyperirradiation works the same way, the assisting muscles stabilize the joint and supply a firm foundation for the movement so that the pectoralis major can focus its strength on pressing, rather than stabilizing.

In addition to stabilizing the joints, the additional muscular activity of hyperirradiation also stimulates more neural activity in the targeted muscle, i.e. pecs.

In Power to the People, Pavel Tsatsouline says this about the effects of hyperirradiation:
“Powerlifters (to) whom I taught this deceptively simple move report a typical increase of ten pounds on their bench press the first time they try it!”

To engage the lats from the bottom position of the bench press, prior to pressing tense up the lats by making an inward twisting motion with the arms as if you were attempting to bend the barbell. Maintain tension on the lats throughout the press. You can do the same thing starting from the top position and maintaining the tension through the eccentric (lowering) motion.

Another way to employ hyperirradiation to improve your bench press is to crush the bar with your grip. The forearm muscles activated by the grip will stabilize the elbow and wrist and lend strength to the triceps. With solid, tense muscles all the way up the arm, the force generated by the pecs and lats goes right to the bar instead of being absorbed by the shoulder, elbow and wrist.

Stay strong, live well.

John Fike

Low Budget Warrior Tip #101: Hindu Squat

Hindu squats are a great stationary exercise for cardiovascular training and building endurance. They are a bodyweight exercise, so no equipment is necessary. I first learned about them from Matt Furey at www.combatconditioning.com.

I use Hindu squats mostly to warm up for a workout, because they quickly elevate body temperature and get the blood flowing. They are not so much a strength exercise, as there is no really good way to increase the resistance, but the do increase muscular endurance in the legs, hips and buttocks. At high repetitions (over 300), Hindu squats can also train you to a higher lactate threshold, which means you will be able to exercise longer before your performance begins to suffer due to the high levels of lactic acid in your muscles and blood.

1. Start by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart and your arms arms at your sides.
2. While keeping your back relatively straight back and looking straight ahead, bend at your knees and hips to drop into a squatting position. Let your heels come off the floor and touch your buttocks to your heels or back of your calves, if you can.
3. As you descend, your arms hang straight and slightly behind you. As you reach the bottom of your squat, begin swinging them out in front of you.
4. Press through your toes and stand up again.
5. As you stand, continue swinging your arms up in front of you until they are parallel to the floor.
6. When you are standing again, let your heels return to the floor and pull your hands into your armpits with a forceful motion.
   The arm motions should be circular and the whole exercise should be performed in a fluid motion. Exhale on the downward motion and inhale during the standing phase.
   

Swing Your Way to Power, Strength & Health

I recently wrote an article for KSuccess.com on how to use kettlebell or dumbbell swings to improve your physical health. An excerpt from it is below, but you can read the whole article here: Swing Your Way to Power, Strength & Health

EXCERPT:
. . . The beauty of this exercise is that it strengthens and develops all the core muscles, especially those associated with the hips, back, buttocks and thighs, because it is a full-body movement. You’ll also use muscles in your arms, legs and just about everything in between.

Swings are fast-paced, explosive movements that quickly elevate the heart rate and breathing. They will quickly wake you from whatever daze you may be in and, once you get used to them, will energize you for the rest of the day.

As a full-body exercise, swings burn incredible quantities of calories and, since you can perform them at an aerobic pace, they are a good choice for burning fat and raising your metabolism.

If you only have time for one exercise in your routine, the versatility and broad range of development provided by swings, makes them hands-down the exercise of choice. Swings are not technically difficult, so nearly anyone can do them and you can combine them with many other exercises.

Read the rest of the article at KSuccess.com

Here's a video demonstration of kettlebell swings from my Low Budget Warrior site:





If the YouTube link isn't working, you can also view it on my site: www.low-budget-warrior.com/free_videos

Strong stomach and glutes eliminate lower back pain

For my first post to this new blog, I want to share an e-mail conversation about lower back pain that I recently had with a relative. He was sharing with me how he has dealt with pain in the lumbar region over the years and I explained why that worked and how to further relieve and prevent lumbar pain:

HIM: I've always found, ever since I was in the furniture business, that when I have back pain or even discomfort, the first thing I do is start a regimen of sit-ups. Even the first 20 or 30 help things considerably, but if I do that for several days, that back pain just disappears completely. I think those muscles and bones in there need to be moved around and strained to help them get back into activity. I remember one time (my wife) and I were in New York City at the SOFA show, it was May. We'd been walking around this huge exhibition center all day. My back started giving me a problem, and it got worse as the day progressed. So when we got back to the room, I just laid down on the floor and went to work with about 30 situps, and that took care of the issue.

ME: What those situps are doing is pulling the front of your pelvis up, which straightens escessive curvature in the lower spine and provides relief to the overworked lumbar muscles. However, situps can also strengthen the psoas muscles, which attach to the inside of the lumbar, run through the pelvis and attach to the upper leg bones (femoris) which flex the hip joints. The psoas doesn't get stretched much, so it can pull excessively on the lumbar, thus contributing to excessive curvature and more lower back pain, especially when standing a lot. Strong muscles in the butt and hamstrings counteract the pull of the psoas by pulling down on the back of the pelvis and having the same effect as strong abdominal muscles. That's why I like deadlifts so much, they strengthen butt and hamstrings--and provide some real shapeliness in those areas for the female population!

Try this next time your lower back hurts from standing or walking: contract the stomach muscles and squeeze your buttocks so that the front of the pelvis tilts upward and straightens out the spine. The motion of the pelvis is similar to certain movements during sex, but is subtle enough that you won't get strange looks from those around you. You should experience some immediate relief.

For more information on how to relieve back pain related to muscle imbalances like the situations described above, look up this resource from the Healthy Back Institute:


Back Pain Relief Guide











John E. Fike, Fitness Writer
www.jawbone.biz
www.low-budget-warrior.com
www.johnefike.com