Food of the week

Hi all,

Gotta say, fave thing to drink at the moment, especially in the Aussie summer heat, is a frozen berry smoothie.

I pack it full of berries (fresh or frozen) for their low-GI and high-antioxidant goodness: ideal after a hard workout or before a long work day. With some yoghurt, icecubes, splash of juice and some protein, it packs a world of nutrients into one cool, satisfying drink :)

This morning's shake post-cardio was:
* 3 tbsp probiotic yoghurt (low fat and low sugar)
* 1 dessertspoon of organic coconut oil
* 1/2 cup organic low-fat milk
* 1 cup frozen mixed berries (strawberries, blackberries, rasperries and blueberries)
* 10 ice cubes
* banana
* 2 tsp honey
* 1/2 cup water
* handful of dried Goji berries
* 1/2 scoop unflavoured Whey protein powder (myopure brand)
Blend on high for a minute to mix in all the ice and berries.

Not just packed with goodness and tissue-repairing vitamins and anthocyanins (the potent antioxidants that give berries their colour), the iciness helps you burn off a few extra calories too!

German researchers found that drinking 1/2 litre cold water could potentially use 24 cal, in raising the water's temperature to match the body's. Imagine what a few icecubes in your shake could do!

TV Presenting course

Wow what a week!! 

It's been a crazy time since my last post, with my TV Presenter's short course at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts) here in Sydney. And what a course it was !

The idea of the course was to introduce us to the practice of presenting for screen. I'm interested in taking the message of health to people through all sorts of means, so jumped at the chance to be pushed outside my comfort zone (something NIDA is famous for!) and getting used to the camera!

With a brilliant tutor, Faye deLanty from Channel 10's Totally Wild, and some lovely classmates, we spent the week getting over any shyness in front of the camera. Within the first hour of the first day, it was time to present to camera about ourselves, for 1-2 minutes! Talk about baptism of fire!

Through voice usage, being aware of body language and even working with live animals (!) I've now had the chance to record interviews, vox pops, spoken commercials, 4-min info segments, and improv pieces to camera ... an amazing set of experiences! Thanks Faye, Ro and Jo!

Fitting in work and my own training along with the full time class hours was a bit of a challenge .. for over 60 hours this week I've had to drop most socialising and writing - but back to it this week with a vengeance :-)

All in all, an amazing week and well worthwhile - check out NIDA's short courses if you are keen :) 

http://www.nida.com.au/

Now to get me a video camera so I can keep practicing and get some video blogs going !!

Workout format - January 2010

Hi guys!

This month I'll be putting to the test a new workout format I was at work developing in December - and the results so far have been great!!

I came up with this plan for working each body part by thinking how to best annihilate as many different muscle fibres as possible. Let's start with the exercise format - it's simple, straightforward but tough. It can be used with just about any major machine or exercise (with a few exceptions) and better with compound exercises than isolation.


1. Warm up set - 15 reps on your 15-20 RM (rep max - eg a 15RM is the weight that you can do 15 times with proper form, and not a rep more)
2. Add about 10% to the weight and do 12-15 reps to failure
3. Rest 60 sec
4. Select a weight about 40-50% of your 1RM (ie a bit under half what you could possibly lift once and once only). You will do about 15-20 reps with NO pauses or rests, over a 2 minute period. Yes, that's right : 2 minutes. Non stop. Keep the tension on, keep form up all the way. (this is the tricky part and will need some fine-tuning of your weight selection. The best effect is when you've picked just the right weight to only just be able to complete a rep at the 2 minute mark. Other than that your muscles should be screaming by then!)
5. Rest about 30 sec
6. Double the weight (or in the case of shoulders, a little less than double)
7. Fire through as many reps to failure as you can, using <1 sec concentric and about 2-3 sec eccentric (ie. a "power" rep). You should be able to do no more than about 6-8 if you've picked the right weights for steps 2 and 4 above.


The concept here is to fatigue all muscle fibre types, and get growth throughout the whole muscle.


In skeletal muscle we have three main types of muscle fibres - Type I, Type IIA and Type IIB. 


Type I tends to be burnt out with step 2 above, whilst the first set, then the power set at the end, target the Type II fibre types (the biggest and most powerful ones). Burning out all your weaker Type I fibres first allows you to just target the big guns and really hammer the big weight home, wreaking havoc inside the muscle.


Start off experimenting on machine weights till you get a clear understanding of what you can tolerate in the 2 minute sets.


There are a few exercises I wouldn't suggest doing this with - like a deadlift, bent over row or possibly squats - as you might end up fatiguing your back muscles before the target ones.


Control of weights over these times and at these intensities requires a lot of skill and commitment to form so only attempt a tri-set like this if you have the nerve and the experience.


Good luck!!

Welcome to my new blog!

Hi and welcome to my first blog!

The purpose of this blog is to encourage and share my ideas on living your best life ever!

Strip a person of all that they own and all that their station in life says that they are, and what do you have left? The person's health!

You can live the best life, and an active one, no matter what age or situation you are in. All it takes is the right knowledge, commitment and ongoing motivation.

My life is pretty much dedicated to evolving the health of myself and others, and this blog records the journey.

I will be updating the LifeActive blog with the latest on:


* Revolutionary ideas about becoming the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be
* Training and exercise advice
* What's working with my own and clients' training
* Nutrition advice
* Opinions about exercise, supplement and nutrition fads and trends
* Preventative health and medicine research.

I hope you follow the journey, take on some of the new ideas and use them to create your own best, life active.

Andrew