A case for full body workouts

In light of my previous posts about training splits, I have recently come across this video by "The bearded beast of Duloc" Steve Shaw. It is most definitely worth taking the next 15 minutes to watch. Steve is a huge and powerful natural powerlifter who knows his stuff.

A quick search of his youtube channel reveals him moving some very impressive weights. He usually does so raw as well which means no bench shirt or squat suit. often without even a belt.

Steve goes into some science supporting the case for full body workouts and makes some great points.

So if you are still confused about what kind of training split to go with because you ain't no damn beginner anymore here is some food for thought. Maybe the best training split for your natty ass; ain't no split at all.

Handstand lessons learned the hard way from one who is not done making mistakes (and learning from them)

I love handstands

In that, there comes no surprise. To me standing on my hands is my yoga. The intense focus required makes it a wonderful form of meditation. In fact friends and family members have commented on the change in my mental state since I began practicing regularly about two years ago. 

Andre Moraru has described the feeling of hand balancing as being akin to flying and I have to agree. There in something about the feeling of inverting your body with such control that I haven't experienced since i was training capoeira regularly.

It wasn't an easy road. I may have advanced fairly quickly but there were many bumps along the way. To this day I still have never learned to kick up into a handstand. This is one of the preliminary steps to getting a freestanding handstand and I still haven't learned it (please don't tell my readers).

It seems somewhere down the road I decided it was easier to do a bent arm press and finally settle on straight arm pressing as my entry of choice. Maybe some day after I become a master I'll decide to finally learn to kick up.

Since pretty much everything I have learned about bodyweight training is self taught, I'd like to share some if the insights I gained about learning handstands the hard way. It seems every article I have ever read about learning to stand on your hands says pretty much the same thing. Never has I read an article that has helped me iron out the snags that I had to learn through personal A-Ha! moments.

If you are attempting to learn the freestanding handstand or are thinking about starting, I hope I can shed some helpful insights.

Rule #1: you have to learn to use your fingers the same way you would use your toes. Stand up for a moment and lean your weight forward just a bit. How do you stop yourself from falling forward? You dig your toes into the floor. Your fingers will have to learn to do the same. When you overbalance (fall too far forward) you have to dig your fingers into the floor with all your strength and fight to lush yourself back into balance. For a while it may feel like you have nothing. Then, one day your body will respond.  Congratulations, you are now learning control. While developing the strength in your hands to do this my hands were so sore for a few months. Bare with it. One day the soreness will be gone and you will have developed crazy grip and forearm strength.

Rule #2: Total body tension. If you have been doing calisthenic training for some time, this should be pretty much second nature. In the world of handstands your whole body has to be rigid. Think of balancing a piece of uncooked spaghetti on your hand versus a raw piece. If your whole body isn't rigid you'll be that raw spaghetti. Don't be raw spaghetti. Brace your abs, glutes, quads, hamstrings and point your toes. This will be mentally and physically taxing at first. With practice, it will come naturally.

Keep these two rules in mind through every step of the way and your development will come much faster.

Progressions



The bent arm frog stand.
This is where you begin to learn how to use your fingers and develop the strength to control you body. This is the foundation and you want to master this first step. Practice it until you can hold it for at least 30 seconds. Believe me when I say that mastering this first step will seriously set you up for success down the road.

Mike Fitch. Oh why don't you even know I exist?

Straight arm frog stand
Again this is where you learn strength and control. I can not overstate the importance of mastering this progression. I still practice this position before every handstand session. It further strengthens your wrists and hands, begins to strengthen your chest and shoulder girdle which are the key players in supporting your bodyweight in a handstand. Finally this pose will develop the flexibility in your wrists required to do some of the more advanced presses. 30 seconds is the minimum you want to be able to do here. But I'm sure you will use this pose regularly for the rest of your handstand career like I do.

Inversions

The headstand

This is where you begin to get comfortable being upside down. everything changes when you invert yourself. You can lose your bearings at first. Up becomes down, right becomes up. That's you you should be doing this as often as possible and you will adapt very quickly. Begin with the teddy bear headstand pictured above (Thank you blog.lululemon.com) and don't be afraid to hang out for a while. Don't be in a rush to extend your legs. Soon you will become more comfortable in this position and you will begin to straighten out.

One word of advice here is to make a nice big triangle with your head and hands. The bigger your base, the more stable you will be.

The wall handstand

Begin with your hands about six inches away from the wall and bend your dominant leg to 90 degrees. Keeping your leg bent kick up towards the wall. Don't be afraid of hurting yourself. If your  kicking leg is bent, the bottom of your foot will contact the wall first. I make my students practice kicking up to a wall handstand ad nauseum. You have to get uber comfortable doing this. Kicking up to a wall has to be second nature to you before you even think about trying to go freestanding. Make sure you keep your elbows straight. Locked elbows will support your bodyweight with very little muscular involvement. Don't worry about holding this position yet. Go Kick up, come back down, repeat a bazillion to the power of a bazillion times (That's scientific notation for all you math geeks).

Chest to wall

once you are super comfortable kicking up to the wall you really want to consider switching to chest to wall handstands. If you compare the two pictures above you'll notice that the top character in the top photo has a pronounced arch in his body while the other fella has his joints stacked on top of each other. The belly to wall handstand is not only more aesthetically pleasing but also easier to maintain a rigid body. Also having proper alignment makes the handstand much less fatiguing to the chest and shoulder girdle. Just set a mat up behind you at first until you learn to roll or cartwheel out if you lose balance. 

I recommend practicing both the frog stands and inversions together, they will only improve each other. Once you are comfortable enough in the headstand that you don't lose your bearings anymore, feel free to attack the wall.

No matter which handstand you choose (chest or back to the wall), you can begin to work the freestanding handstand by removing one foot from the wall first and then begin taking the other foot off the wall a tiny bit. Not enough to overbalance and fall over. Now dig your fingers into the floor and begin to feel for the control through your fingers that I spoke about at the beginning of the article. At first it will feel like you've got nothing but if you have been doing your frog stand work, it will start to come together.

Getting away from the wall

As I said before, I never really learned to do the traditional kick up to a freestanding handstand. If you want t learn that method youtube it there are currently about 25 000 videos dedicated to it.

The method I used was the bent arm press. It requires a bit more strength but it is really an extension of the bent arm frog stand. so if you really worked that position, this should be fairly natural. That might be why I gravitated to learning this entry.

Begin by setting up for  bent arm frog stand and kick your feet up together. You are really going to have to brace your core and shoulder girdle. Begin by moving slowly and really try to feel the control through your fingers.

I took the liberty of filming a video of myself doing this movement. Do try to ignore pink mess that is my daughter's toys

Grip the floor 

Look at her hands, they are not flat but they are gripping the floor. This tensions the tendons in the finders. Taking up the slack so you can transfer more strength to the floor. This will help you correct over balance.

If you under balance and begin to fall with your stomach towards the floor, correct by bending your elbows and moving your shoulders forward. This is harder than it seems and I find it to be easier to correct overbalance. But it does come with practice.

Final word

Patience. Learning to stand on my hands is one of the most difficult and frustrating things I have ever tried to pursue. Yet also the most gratifying. To get proficient you need to wrk at it almost every day yet know when to back off. At one point I took six weeks off of all other training and did two hour long handstand workouts a day. There is no need for you to do this. 20-30 minutes a day will bring great improvements and the benefits extend to almost every other aspect of your life. The focus, concentration and patience required will enhance all your mental faculties and clear your mind like meditation. The strength, balance and coordination translates to all your athletic pursuits. this is no exaggeration

Advanced Bodyweight Programming. AKA; following your own path

For my final entry in my programming series I'm going to talk about programming for advanced bodyweight athletes.

So when should you consider yourself to be advanced. Well, by the time you have put in enough dedication and hard work to get to an advanced level of bodyweight proficiency, you should have things pretty well figured out for yourself. So you don't need this article after all. Good Job! I'm going to go do handstands in the grass now.

Just kidding. But not really. The truth is if there are a million elite athletes in the world then there are a million different training plans all following their own individual path to greatness. No at that level no two programs are going to be exactly the same because everybody responds differently to stimulus. By the time you get to an advanced level you should know pretty well what works for you and where your strengths and weaknesses are.

"Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought" -Matsuo Basho

My good friend and Wbff Pro Bodybuilder Adrian Veinot didn't get to his level by following programs he got from muscle magazines or internet "fitness gurus". He dedicated his life to carving his own path and finding what works for him. Now he is truly a master of his craft.

By the time you reached an advanced level chances are you have applied almost every type of training philosophy from every idol you've had. Applied it, discarded some of it and kept what works for you.

Please bare with me here and don't think this article to be a cop out. The point i'm getting at is eventually you will have gained enough experience and wisdom that you will have developed your own training. Just don't be in a rush to get there, enjoy the process.

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own.” -Bruce Lee

Im my own unique journey in search of bodyweight mastery (I'm not there yet) I have spend countless hours studying the methods of my idols. The people I consider masters of my craft. Ido Portal, Steve atlas, Ryan Hurst, Hannibal for King, Frank Medrano This list is extensive. I have watched hundreds of hours of hand balancers, Encho Keryazov, Andre Moraru, Dima Shine, Yuval Ayalon, Yuri Marmerstein.  At some point or another I have tried to emulate each and every one of them. The more I learn form observing these masters, the more bits and pieces I have to apply to what is ultimately the evolution of my own creation.

Ido Portal is one of the greatest movement masters of our time

Now I can't leave you to go away empty handed. Hopefully I have inspired you to begin carving your own path to athletic greatness. But I promised some insight into advanced level programming so I am going to outline what my training currently looks like and explain some of the philosophy behind it.

I am no where near the levels of most of the people I described above, but I train hard. I have learned a lot in the past three years and every bit if it has been self taught. Every day I see the gap between us narrowing and I am elated to say that today, some of them have become my peers.

I have spent some time deliberating as to weather I would use my programming as an advanced template. I never really considered myself to be advanced at all. To be honest I really only consider there to be two levels, master and student but no matter how good we get, we are all still students. The more I learn and the better I become, the more I realize that I am only scratching the surface.

Well...

Without further Ado 

I train 6-7 days a week but usually take Sundays off. Three of those days are Strength days and three are skill days. I try not to be in the gym for more than an hour a session.

A typical week looks like this:

Monday: Handbalancing and flexibility. One handed handstand work followed by different entries and exits into and out of a handstand. One arm elbow lever

Tuesday: Push Day - Handstand push ups Planche push ups. Some advanced dip version such as Russian dips or Bulgarian ring dips. Straddle-L work

Wednesday: Movement and handbalancing work. One hand handstand work. Work on skills/Goals I have set (tiger bend push up)

Thursday: Legs/Core - Pistol squats, Bodyweight hamstring curl, V-sit, Side lever/Human flag

Friday: More Handbalancing preferably on handbalancing canes

Saturday: Pull work- one arm pull up, front lever, muscle ups, dragon flag

Sunday: Rest/Recovery (but probably handbalancing)

As you can see I train movements, not muscles. everything I do is geared towards improving my mastery of my own body.

I generally do five sets of each exercise on strength days usually 1-5 reps depending on the difficulty and amount of skill involved but sometimes go up as high as fifteen reps, Never going to failure. I strongly believe in keeping "one in the tank"

Handbalancing days, I pay no attention to sets or reps. I pay attention to my body and when my form begins to break down I move on to a different skill. These days are about enforcing proper movement patterns good habits.

Nothing about this is carved in stone. It varies slightly from week to week but the basic philosophy is this...

     Train movements not muscles, Three strength days a week, one push day, one leg day, one pull day. Train three movements on each day plus a core dominant movement.
     Three to four skill days. On these days don't pay attention to sets or reps, keep it fun.

 Yes I probably train too much. I try to take a deload week every couple of months ad do everything at 50% intensity.

This is my passion. 

Bodyweight Programming for Intermediate Athletes

What constitutes an intermediate level bodyweight athlete?

That is a difficult question to answer really. Is it time spent training? Not really. I have seen people that I would consider intermediate level within six months, yet, I have seen others that I would still consider to be a beginner after two years of training. Generally after six months of solid dedication to Progressive Calisthenic training, most people are getting ready to challenge themselves with something bigger.

Eventually the basic movements become easy. Even 5x5 pull ups offer little challenge and you have began to explore harder variations or have added repetitions to all your sets. To be honest, you could theoretically stick to this template indefinitely. Swapping movements out for harder progression as you improve and become stronger. Eventually pull ups become archer pull ups, then one arm pull ups. Push ups become dips, then handstand push ups. Leg raises become strict toes to bar or even Manna. Squats become pistols so forth and so forth.

This is where I would begin to work in some straight arm training. I'm talking about Planche, lever and Manna. These fundamental straight arm support positions will be very humbling at first. They tax the shoulder girdle, biceps tendons and triceps like you have never experienced before.

So let's begin

At this point I would recommend a split routine. No not like a bodybuilding split. We train movements not muscles. 

Day one: Front lever, Planche, Push movement, Pull Movement

Day Two: Pistol Squat, Bodyweight Glute ham raise, V-sit, Side Lever (human flag)

I'll admit it, this template is heavily influenced by the Foundations program from Gymnasticbodies.com. I used this template for quite some time with very good results.

Now that we are implementing static holds things become a little bit different. At the first progressions of the front lever and Planche I would recommend aiming for 5x30 second holds but as you progress to more difficult versions you will cut the hold time down. Advanced tuck would be 5x20 seconds Straddle would be 10 seconds and full lay Planche and Front Lever would be 5-10 seconds. If you ever progress to victorian or maltese on the rings then you are a god among men and you should really be writing this article.

The early versions of V-sit and side lever are really movements beginning with tuck V-Sit leg extensions and Tucked side lever lifts, Progressing until you can hold the tucked versions for 3 to five seconds then beginning to work on the hold slowly extending your body from there Until you can hold a full side lever and V-sit

In conclusion

This is not the only template, but it's a damn good one and anybody who puts in the work will see great improvements in strength and body control. Same as with the beginner template I greatly stress quality of movement. First by learning a movement and then striving to clean it up until you can do it consistently with proper form. Stay connected and never sacrifice form for another rep. This only establishes bad habits and poor movement.

I have written about these bodyweight progressions in more detail Here. In an article that I will also revise in the near future.

Programming for beginners

Hello again.

     It's been almost four months. Not going to let this happen again. The truth is, I have so much that I want to put into writing that it's actually giving me writers block. Every time I sit in front of my computer I can't think of where I want to begin. I have been dealing with this for years and every time I sit and actually get the first word down, things begin to flow. It always begins with a single step. Just ask Frodo Baggins. But the first step is the hardest (unless you fall and break your leg 10 steps in).

Anyway, lets talk about programming.  How do you put together an effective training program? Specifically a calisthenics program. First thing thing you have to do is ask yourself

Am I beginner, intermediate or advanced?

Well, if you have to ask yourself this question, chances you're a beginner. Easy enough. That leaves intermediate or advanced. Well, if you're advanced then you most likely already know more about calisthenics than I do so you probably aren't reading this article anyway. GOOD FOR YOU!

Well sir that only leaves intermediate.

I wish it were that easy

Ok so this is how I would group my own students.  Beginner is usually from day one to six months - one year of steady training. I personally would group you according to proficiency of movement no how many reps you can bang off.

Beginner: An beginner is someone who does scaled down versions of the most basic movements.
Pull ups, Push ups, Hanging leg raises and Squats. So until you can consistently perform these movements with full range of movement and proper form you are a beginner.

Programming for a beginner is a simple manner. Your goal is to master the basics and that is all. Don't over think it. Pull ups, Push ups, Hanging leg raise and Squat. Concentrate on range of motion with proper form. Quality and consistency. When learning a movement I aim for 5 sets of 5 reps. When I can do 5 repetitions of a movement for 5 sets I move on the the next harder progression. Again thats 5 sets of 5 reps all with proper form. There is no magic in 5x5, it's just a benchmark when I achieve it, I move on

But should I do sets of one movement at a time or do them all in a circuit?

That is a bit of a toughie. I have read literature that states that you should not train circuits if strength is your primary goal. Yet I have seen many truly strong athletes who do circuit style training. Personally, I develop strength better when I do all my sets on one movement before moving on and I find circuits are a bit better for aesthetics and conditioning. Decide which is more important to you and choose accordingly.

Chances are good that you will advance in some of the basics faster than others. 5x5 squats will probably come pretty quickly. Good job! Now you could should move on to the next progression. Think Bulgarian split squat. Sounds pretty badass doesn't it? Anything with another country in it's name instantly gets street cred. Bulgarian split squat, Korean dips, Russian mafia interrogation tactics (JK on that last one, it's not really an exercise).

Bulgarian split squat TAADAA!!

Why is it so hard to youtube an exercise video without getting some douche with his shirt off in a gym after hours demonstrating everything in a set of Nike Shocks? Thats it, from now on all my exercise videos are going to be me with my shirt off demonstrating in a pair of moon boots.

I wanna see you BodyRock in these Zuzanna Light!

But I digress. What I'm saying is that when a movement becomes easy enough that the basic 5x5 standard is reached then don't be afraid to move on. You could continue to do more reps but then we are starting to work more towards hypertrophy and I would consider that more of an intermediate training level.

Frequency

Three days a week. That's all you need. Heck I consider myself to be fairly advanced and I still only train strength three days a week. Train these fundamentals each strength day. Pull up, Push up, Hanging leg raise and squat. Preferably in that order.


Well that's The basics. Now you can take this article and file along with all the other beginner calisthenics blog articles on the Ntarwebzz and do with it what you will. Once you master these your basic movements, Contratulations! You're most likely still a beginner. Only now you have laid the foundation necessary to build up to intermediate movements. You have began to develop the muscular and tendon strength to be able to progress injury free and you are beginning to develop an appreciation for quality of movement.

Coach Summers says that in gymnastics, form follows function.

To me that means you first learn a move and then you must strive to perfect it.

And here we are, I initially set out to do an article on programming for beginner, intermediate and advanced athletes. But as usual I found I have too much to say and this would have became an obnoxiously longwinded article. Maybe tomorrow I'll put out an article on programming for intermediates. It's gonna be the shiz.

Another bodyweight training article

          This post is about my own experiences doing almost exclusively bodyweight training and calisthenics. I wrote a previous entry about how to incorporate bodyweight training which you can read here.....
http://caveman2point0.blogspot.ca/2010/07/body-weight-training.html
Or you can just say fuggit becaus I'm going to revise it and repost it in the near future anyhow.

     About a year and a half ago I decided to forego the entire Crossfit thing and dedicate myself entirely to training gymnastics strength elements. I have a spondylolysthesis which made every dead lifting session a frightening experience. Every time I would lift a heavy bar I would be waiting for the time I would throw my back out again.
Then it happened
I was doing the dreaded deadlift during a training session during the summer 2012 and I felt the all too familiar pop in my lower back.  I cursed my luck, dropped the bar and began doing some futile stretches in the hopes of maintaining some of the mobility which I knew I was going th lose for the next month or so. I wasn't even lifting that much. About 100 pounds or so less than my one rep max
Whyyyyyyyyyyy?!? Faced with the next few weeks of not being able  to stand fully straight, significant pain every time I try to put on socks or tie my shoes I said "enough. I can't go through this again". Even just the nerves involved every time I would get under a heavy bar aren't worth it anymore.
     From that moment on I decided I would give up Crossfit, never get under heavy weights again and dedicate myself to the pursuit of bodyweight mastery. Which is something I have been passionate about for many years. During my Crossfit competition years I always excelled particularly at the gymnastic elements and I already achieved pretty much all my powerlifting goals anyway. At the time I had achieved better than double bodyweight squat and better than triple bodyweight deadlift. I never got a 315 pound clean and jerk but that is something that would have required giving up all other forms of training in favour of specializing in the Olympic lifts. Not quite elite levels but I managed all the basic benchmarks to be considered competitive in powerlifting.
      Immediately I set forth intent on learning all there was to learn about calisthenics and bodyweight training and never looked back.
 Seek not to follow in the footsteps of the masters, instead seek what they sought.
       2013 was my first entire year dedicated to solely bodyweight exercise and I must say that I am very happy with my progress so far.  Though I have definitely made some mistakes along the way. At first I tried to hit the ground running at full sprint. I began reading blogs from the gurus of the intarwebz such as Ido Portal and Al Kavadlo. Read all the books I could get my hands on and began trying to mash it all together into one big convoluted training program that had me training six sessions a day twice a week.

       It was intense to say the least. Two push days, two pull days and two legs days a week combined with handstand work every evening. It worked for a while but with that kind of workload was very difficult to recover and I began to notice small nagging injuries in my biceps and slight drops in strength from time to time. Still I made gains and progressed. I learned a lot about programming outside of Crossfit and about my own workload tolerance. I learned about the importance of flexibility and mobility and about the different types of fatigue, be it muscular, CNS or mental, and how they affect performance.

        “Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.” -Bruce lee

          For 2014 I resolve to train less and play more. Such a massive workload was so hard to maintain that I wouldn't be able to do it indefinitely. If not the physical then the mental commitment to that kind of dedication was hard to not burn out from. I said a long time ago that I only want to do a workout if it is fun and something that I really enjoy doing. I absolutely love calisthenics but even that has a ceiling.  This year I have decided that I will back  down to three hard training sessions a week. One push day, one pull day and one legs day this leave three or four days which can be dedicated to handstands and movement. "Play" days more or less where I keep the workload light.  Only one session a day unless I really feel compelled to stand on my hands (and that happens often).  For me handbalancing is a passion. It's not work it's play and training less allows me to play more.

Train less, play more

I find the less I train, the better my handstands are....to a point, because the more I train, the better my handstands are. Sounds confusing doesn't it?  This brings me to the entire point of this article and the single biggest lesson I have learned in all my years of dedication to dealt and fitness.....

We train so that we can live more.

Don't live so that you can train more. Something that I have lost sight of time and time gain even though it has always been in the back of my mind. I have spent years of my life in an almost constant state of overtraining and the combination of a little bit of age and a little bit of wisdom has finally given me the insight to back off. Now I can enjoy doing what I love doing without being too fatigued or trying to work it in around my workouts. Now I can say that I'd rather miss a workout than not be able to play with some handbalancing. Ironically, since backing down to three sessions a week I have been much stronger during workouts, handbalancing sessions have been much better and I have no nagging little injuries that have been plaguing me for years.

These past couple of articles have been more of a memoire. Kind of a re-introduction. Now I can get back to writing more informative articles inthe future. Now I want to leave you with one of my favourite and most inspirational hand balancing videos

It's been so long!

Hello blog readers!

I know it's been seemingly forever. "Why has our beloved neo-caveman forsaken us so?" You may ask. We'll the truth is, I just burnt out in the whole blogging thing. My diet, nutrition and training were in such a constant state of  rapid evolution that it was hard to write about such constant change without appearing like I was constantly contradicting myself.

Thankfully I have settled into a groove training wise for about the last year and a half and nutrition wise for the past year. I have been experiencing some pretty wonderful improvements and making pretty impressive gains.

Let's talk nutrition

The biggest thing I have changed in the past year is that I can no longer advocate a paleo diet.

I KNOW RIGHT!

Here I am, formerly one of the earliest adopters and biggest advocates of the Paleo diet and I've turned my back on the while thing! What the eff!?!

Now before you dub me a radical and blow me off into the aether just gimme a moment.

When I turned to the Paleo diet I was already in pretty good shape . I had low body fat and tons of energy. My performance was great both in the gym and out of the gym (wink, nudge) during activities such as high speed cup stacking. (Editors note: I have never done high speed cup stacking. And I have no editor to be making notes). I had recently began doing Crossfit and was logging workout times comparable to some of Crossfit's early fire breathers.

Funny thing though is as soon as I made the switch my performance began to level off almost immediately then within a few months it began to drop off. I was becoming tired and cranky all the time and walking around in a brain fog. I thought it was just old age beginning to set in (I'm only 33) and my "high speed cup stacking" vas becoming less frequent and much less "high speed".  See, only my highly efficient, carb loaded brain could come up with such witty metaphors on the fly like that.

During the entire Paleo time of my life personal records while training were become much less frequent and hitting slower times or squatting less were becoming the norm. I was watching training partners catch up and pass my by. I was loosing muscle mass, always cold and barely motivated to train at all.

Another thing that constantly weighed on my mind was this. How come no Crossfit games champion ever ate Paleo? In fact, i did some research, and there has only been one Paleo eater to ever place in the top three. This being Matt chan who obsessively eats weighed and measured Paleo. Furthermore I have watched former games champions switch to Paleo and had their performances drop off in subsequent competitions (khalipa/salo) yet Rich Froning junior continues to eat whatever he wants and continues to smash competitions?

I digress, this is not a Crossfit article.

I began to do some research into the actual validity of the Crossfit diet and began to discovere a small army of former Paleophiles who we're experiencing many of the same experiences I have. The final nail in the coffin was a book called 12 Paleo myths by Matt Stone (not that Matt stone) and turned my back on the Paeo diet for good. I can honestly say it has been a completely 180 degree turn around since then. I am now stronger than I have ever been with better energy, recovery and focus. I thought the days of performing like I did in my twenties were over but I am experiencing a resurgence and continue to improve.

I still continue to fast and believe I always will. I did get off of that for a few months and began to put on weight and feel that I have so much better energy while fasting. Plus fasted training is the bees knees!


WHEW!

I'd love to get into what I've done with my training but I'm just getting back into this blogging thing....baby steps...