This past Tuesday was my birthday, and I just turned 30. People asked me a lot how I felt about it and if I was depressed about leaving my 20s behind. To be honest other than the fact that I’m probably not where I imagined my life to be at 30 5-10 years ago, I really don’t care about a simple number.
Exactly how I celebrated my birthday…I guess I was a little depressed
So as usual I’ll celebrate on my blog by…….you guessed it…..A RANDOM THOUGHTS POST!! I could put a 30 thoughts for 30 years thing, but frankly I’m getting a bit old and lazy, so I’ll make it 10! Without further ado, here it is!
1. If you haven’t started re-training breathing patterns, you’re totally missing the boat. This is something that the more I learn about it the more I realized its importance and how it affects everything else in the body (movement patterns, muscle elasticity, muscle tone, etc). If you haven’t already, you should familiarize with PRI and/or DNS stuff; you’ll understand what I mean when I say breathing patterns control everything.
2. I went to the Foo Fighters concert 2 weeks ago. Most. Awesome. Concert. Ever.
3. Learn more about the FMS. This is the simplest, most effective tool for fitness and strength and conditioning professionals to identify movement pattern limitations and dysfunctions. When you find the a limitation, you simply apply the corrections and you magically decrease the risk of injury of your athletes and clients. One really doesn’t need to know everything about functional anatomy or be a rehab genius. And it just works. Period.
4. Periodization is not only about writing different training cycles that alternate qualities being worked on; it’s about training volume more than anything else. Once you understand you don’t need to run your athletes to the ground during every training sessions, they start to make huge progress. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, it’s alright (even favorable) to let your athletes leave the gym fresh sometimes. When you understand how to manipulate training volumes to create overload and overcompensation, you understand how powerful it is.
5. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by great people in my life. My bosses, friends and my girlfriend all took care of me so much for my birthday, and I am very thankful to them. A new pair of Nike Free’s and tickets for a Cowboys-Eagles game are just a few of the reasons that made my birthday so awesome.
6. Another thought on breathing; it should be trained in various positions (supine, prone, quadruped, etc) to make sure you “own the breath” in various postures. Also, to train breathing, a balloon might become your best friend.
My new best friend
7. Right now is the best time of year for sports. Football season is in full effect, hockey season just started and it’s playoff time in baseball. You couldn’t ask for anything more! ……oh, wait….maybe that your team would do better….
Not the best year to be a Red Sox fan…
8. One of the readers of my blog sent me a link to a 3D shoulder model. When people send me stuff like that I usually assume that they’re looking for some kind of financial benefit, but this one is a totally free website and I thought I’d share it with you because it’s pretty cool. You see the whole shoulder in 3D and spin it around, and click one button if you want to see the skin layer, only the muscles, the bones, etc. It’s pretty cool. Check it out HERE.
9. Next on my continuing education list for the next couple of months:
- USA Weightlifting certification
- The book Movement System Impairment Syndrome, by Shirley Sahrmann
- The Functional Training Handbook, by Craig Liebenson
- Muscle Imbalances Revealed 2.0 DVDs
- Both of Alwyn Cosgrove and Cressey, Robertson and Rigsby’s fitness business products
10. Yet another great post from my colleague and nutrition expert Brian St. Pierre on artificial sweeteners and stevia. Definitely a must read: The Stevia Story. I really enjoy Brian’s blog as he is as honest and objective as it gets with what he writes about on top of being incredibly smart.
That’s all for the celebratory randomness! See you next week with some new content!
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The most important thing that’s going to help you achieve your fitness/performance goals, besides your training itself, is your diet. Let’s face it, the way you eat on daily basis and all the foods you put in your body are going to affect your results. If you don’t eat the right things, it’s going to affect the way you feel, the way you perform and the way you look. When you think about it, there is not that many things that affect our whole life as much as the food we eat. I’ve discussed before how our nutritional habits today are shittier than ever (for lack of a stronger term). And I’m not exaggerating one bit; we get up in a hurry every morning and opt for the easiest, quickest breakfast option (muffin and a coffee, or something like that), and that’s if you’re one of the few who actually eat breakfast. Lunch time isn’t any better since we didn’t take the time to bring a lunch to school or the office, so we go out and get fast-food, eat quickly and get back to work. If you’re lucky, you’ll MAYBE eat a decent meal in at dinner with your family. We always go for the quick fix and we don’t treat nutrition the way it should; we eat just because we’re hungry (instead of doing it to fuel your body) and give little to no importance to the quality of foods we ingest everyday. But I digress.
The important thing to remember is that the way you fuel your body is THAT important in order to achieve your performance/fitness goals. The key to fueling your body the right way is: PREPARATION. You need to plan ahead. The first step in planning is cooking! The best way to plan is to cook in big batches so you have many meals prepared ahead for your week. That way you avoid going for the quick fix because you already have food prepared for almost all your meals. And if you don’t know how to cook…well, learn how to!
Eating healthy and foods that taste good at the same time is possible. Most people associate eating healthy with boring, tasteless foods. That couldn’t be further away from the truth. In the last couple of years there has been many healthy cookbooks that were published. One of my all-time favorite cookbook is Gourmet Nutrition, by John Berardi. It’s a great book that gives you over a hundred great tasting recipes that are, for most pretty easy to make.
More recently (this week actually), my colleague Dave Ruel launched his Metabolic Cookbook. I just took advantage of his launch price (which is 50% off, by the way!) to buy it, and honestly I haven’t tried any recipe yet, but I was completely blown away by the quality of this resource. The recipes in the e-book are classified by categories (types of meat, breakfast, sides, snacks, etc). It also includes over 10 bonuses going from strategies to use when eating out at the restaurant to a fat loss guide. But more important than anything else, you have over 100 different recipes that are all so easy to make that even a dog can cook them!
Guess who’s cooking for me this week?
Seriously, it’s healthy eating made simple….real simple. You just need to follow the instructions. As my colleague Brian St. Pierre put it, the only downfall to his product is that most recipes might be a little too low-fat because he uses egg whites and low-fat dairies, but this is a very simple problem to solve by simply substituting with whole eggs and whole-milk dairies. What’s really cool about this resource is that Dave is still offering Metabolic Cooking at the introductory price of 47$ (retail price is 97$!) If you’ve been struggling to plan ahead your meals and just eat healthy foods that actually taste good, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of Metabolic Cooking. If you hurry up and order it before Friday, you’ll still get the introductory price where you save 50$!
P.S. Friday I will have a special bonus included on my weekly newsletter! To make sure you get it, be sure to be subscribed to my newsletter (if you already signed up, no need to sign up again, you’ll receive my FREE bonus!)
We all know that nutrition is an essential part of any successful training program. Whether it’s for muscle gain, fat loss, increase your strength or improve your performance in your sport, good nutrition needs to be a part of your plan if you want to achieve the desired results. And nutrition like everything else is evolving, but maybe in a not so good way.
It just seems to me that the more we know about nutrition, the more we try to complicate things in order to achieve our goals; low carb, high carbs, low fat, cycling, vegetarian, ketogenic and all types of diets. We try to manipulate our protein/fat/carbs ratio perfectly to maximize our results and take all sorts of supplements to help give us an extra edge. We just try to do too much and most of the time we just fall off our over-complicated plan in as quickly as a couple of weeks. The truth is that it’s hard too keep up with a diet that requires you to calculate your macro-nutrient ratio, to count calories and weigh your food every meal and snack you eat.
How did we get there? I’m no nutritional expert, although I probably know more than the average person because of my background and because of what I do for a living, but why does nutrition need to be that complicated? Well, it doesn’t. Good nutrition, no matter what your goal is, should be to eat as much natural, unprocessed foods as possible. Our ancestors never had any weight or cholesterol problem because they were eating too much red meat or too many eggs! And I’m pretty damn sure they never EVER counted calories either. When did we lose the focus of eating foods that could be grown or hunted? When did we start making lunch meats, crackers and cookies staples in our diet? When did freakin’ cereals became the most popular breakfast?? Come on!
When did this become a healthy breakfast?
We count calories, carbs, fat and everything, but we eat incredible amounts of highly processed foods on a day-to-day basis. That just doesn’t make sense to me! Next time you’re going to have a granola bar or something like that, do me a favor and look on the label. Don’t even look at the protein, fat and carb content; just look at the list of ingredients. You’ll be surprised at the number of preservatives and chemicals with weird names there is in there.
We need to take a step back and look at our lifestyle as a whole; we move less, we eat more processed food, we’re always looking for the quick fix when we’re hungry (we don’t spend time cooking and actually sit down to enjoy our meal). And yet we’re counting calories, complaining about our obesity epidemic, arguing over what works best between low carb and low fat diets and wondering why there are more and more types of cancer and other types of disease that didn’t exist 100 years ago. Really?!
When you’re eating a good balance of real, natural foods that can be grown (fruits, vegetables, whole grains) and hunted (all sorts of meat) every piece of the puzzle will fall in place. Low-quality processed foods are nutrient-deficient and no matter how much you eat they never really fill you up, so it’s way too easy to over-eat and that’s when you need to start counting calories. Real food on the other hand will always fill you up because of the high nutrient content and it is be very hard to over-eat. Nutritionist Brian St. Pierre‘s recommendations has gone in that same direction for a long time; people need to start eating REAL food! (By the way guys, Brian’s blog is awesome and filled with great information about nutrition so make sure you check it out). Buy real food, cook more, prepare in advance, enjoy your meals and try to limit the amount of processed foods you eat, and I guarantee you everything will fall into place.
2010 is coming to an end, and I must say it has been an incredible year for me! In the spirit of the holidays and as we’re wrapping up 2010 by the end of the week, I’ve decided to do the first ever DavidLasnier.com Best of 2010 Awards. So without further ado, here it is:
Best Website: HockeyStrengthAndConditioning.com . This website contains all the information you need from the top guys in the business. If you train hockey players, or if you’re a hockey player yourself, the information on this website will be of great help.
Best New Exercise: Standing Belly-to-Overhead Press. I got this one from my colleague Tony Gentilcore, and I simply love it. The Standing Belly Press was already one of my favorite exercise, especially because it’s so functional and also because there are so many variations you can use. Here’s the latest variation; it adds an overhead/anti-lateral flexion component to an already great core stabilization exercise.
Best Blog Post (from me):Keep Your Goal in Mind. This was definitely one of my favorite blogpost, because I feel so many athletes are studying for the wrong test when it comes to training for sports peformance.
Best Blog Post (from someone else): The Case Against Conventional Dairy by Brian St. Pierre. Technically, Brian wrote it in 2009 (December 21st, to be more specific), but it is by far the blog post that had the most impact on my life in 2010. Brian raises many interesting facts on conventional dairy; the way it is produced, the way the cows are raised and how it affects the quality of dairy, and how low fat dairy products are linked to different types of cancer. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not just Brian’s opinion; there are enough scientific proofs to support his point. Simply put, if you are still consuming dairy products, you NEED to at least make the switch to the organic kind.
Best Quote: “We judge others by their behaviors. We judge ourselves by our intentions.” by Stephen Covey. I read that quote for the first time on Kevin Neeld‘s website a couple of weeks ago. Think about it for a second. We all judge people around us by the way they act, even if their intentions might be different, but NEVER will we ever judge ourselves by our actions; only by our intentions. This is a very powerful quote that impacts all of the relationships we have with other human beings.
Honorable Mention: On a funnier note, this is the most hysterical quote EVER: “Arguing over the internet is like the special Olympics; nobody wins and you’re still a retard” by Tony Gentilcore. Hahaha…I have nothing else to say!
Best Sport Moment of the Year:
Enough Said.
Best Training Related Product: Show And Go by Eric Cressey. If you have been reading my blog consistently this will come to no surprise for most of you. The Show and Go program have been tested and approved by the whole Endeavor staff; and the results speak for themselves. If you’re looking for a great training program that’s been proven effective without taking any guess on the results, Show and Go is what you need.
Best Song: Sitting on top of DavidLasnier.com’s Billboard for the past 3 months, none other than No Love, featuring Eminem and Lil’ Wayne:
Best Supplement: Vitamin D. I have blogged many times in the past HERE and HERE about the positive effects of supplementing with vitamin D, so I won’t go over all the benefits in details again. I will simply say this; with all the scientific proofs piling up, vitamin D is now considered an ESSENTIAL supplement. It has been proven to increase levels of awesomeness and decrease the risks of everything that doesn’t make you awesome.
Best Picture:
Best Conditioning Modality: Split Squat Iso-Holds Into Slideboard. I will admit that this is very hockey-specific type of conditioning, but 80% of our athletes at Endeavor are hockey players, so did you expect anything else?! My colleague Kevin Neeld came up with this idea this past summer, and I’m still amazed at how great that idea was! Hockey is exactly that; iso-holds positions (when just gliding on the ice) alternated with short powerful bursts of acceleration (when skating).
Best TV Show: Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the New York Jets. That show featured on HBO was simply awesome!
Rex Ryan is the freakin’ man!
2010 was a great year, and honestly I’m sure 2011 will be just as exciting, if not more! I wish to all of you nothing but the best for 2011; may this upcoming year bring you health, love and joy! I will see all of you in 2011!
P.S. I have postponed my special announcement and my surprise to you, my readers, after New Year’s day, as I’m sure most of you will have something more interesting to do than read strength and conditioning blogs on December 30th and 31st.
Just like I mentioned in my blog post 3 Things I Learned From Brian St. Pierre, conventional post-workout drinks that are sold by supplement companies are very convinient, but also very nutrient-empty and don’t contain much quality carbohydrates. I also mentioned that a protein and carb meal might be more optimal.
The problem is, a lot of people (myself included) literally can’t eat anything after an intense training. If you’re like me, you’re probably closer to getting something out rather than being able to get something in. A very good solution to that would to make a Super Smoothie.
When I started working with Brian, he actually gave me a list of different smoothie recipes that you can use post-workout or anytime for that matter as a snack. All of them are totally delicious and way easier to take after a training session than eating a solid meal.
After playing around a little bit with the ingredients, here is my favorite smoothie recipe to use post-workout:
- 1.5 cup organic whole milk (use almond milk if you want less calories)
- 1 scoop chocolate protein powder
- 1 frozen banana
- A handful of frozen strawberries
- 1 Table spoon of natural peanut butter
- 1 Table spoon of flax seeds
- 1 Table spoon of cacao nibs
- 1/2 cup of old-fashioned oats
You just need to throw everything in a blender and enjoy; it is totally delicious! And the best part is it provides you with good quality carbs, fibers, omega 3s, healthy fats and a load of vitamins and minerals! It is definitely one of the best options when it comes to post-workout nutrition.
For those of you who don’t know Brian St. Pierre, he is a sports nutritionist and strength coach. He just returned to Grad School to pursue his Master’s degree in nutrition. He actually left his job at Cressey Performance, with Eric Cressey, where he worked for the past couple of years. Throughout his career, Brian has been a nutrition consultant and strength coach for a wide variety of athletes of all levels. Brian is a very smart guy with a lot of knowledge from whom I learned a lot of things by reading his blog on a regular basis and most recently from working with him to improve my diet. That being said, here are 3 things I learned from him.
1. Organic dairy products are far superior to their conventional counterparts. The quality of conventional dairy products is actually pretty bad. You need to consider these facts about dairy:
Cows are milked almost year round (compared to only 6 weeks after birth about 100 years ago) which compromise their immune system and the quality of milk is greatly diminished. It also increases the pregnancy-triggered estrogens in milk which is associated with the growth of many tumors as well as prostate and breast cancer.
Cows, who are herbivorous animals, are fed with corn and other cheap grains which leads to stomach acidity, which in turn leads to infectious bacteria and E. coli in cows. That situation then forces the dairy producers to stuff cows with antibiotics.
Casein, a protein found in milk, is suspected to be linked to different forms of cancer namely thyroid cancer and prostate cancer.
That being said, it is easy to conclude that the way dairies are produced nowadays is less than optimal to a good diet. That is why, if you still want to consume dairies, you should definitely make the switch to organic products as the cows are raised more naturally, milked a lot less, fed with food actually suited for herbivorous and not stuffed with hormones and antibiotics.
While we’re at it, why don’t you make the switch to whole milk as studies have shown that low-fat milk was associated with larger waist circumference, while whole milk was associated with smaller waist circumference. For more info on that subject, make sure to check out Brian’s post on conventional dairy on his website.
2. Make the switch to sprouted grains. This would apply to flour-containing products like bread, wraps and the like. Sprouted grain products are generally less processed than traditional whole-grain products and contain less preservatives. The benefits of sprouted grains over whole-grain don’t stop there; they’re also more nutrient-dense with more vitamins and minerals, their content in fibers is higher and they contain more protein. Ezekiel products are totally awesome if you want to make the witch as they have a lot of variety in their products and they’re absolutely delicious!
3. A drink combining protein and simple carbs (read: sugar) post-workout might not be the best option. This might come as a shocker to most of you, and I have to say that I was very surprised to learn that myself. I learned that from Brian while he was working with me to help me improve my diet. I was actually taking a protein + simple carbs drink after every single training session, and apparently that was not optimal.
You may not agree with that, but at least take this information into consideration. It is true that protein and carbs are necessary to improve recovery, but there is actually no evidence out there that proves that a protein and simple carbs drink is more efficient at replenishing your glycogen stores and improving your recovery than a whole food meal containing both of these nutrients would. It really surprised me, as I’ve always been led to believe that a faster digesting protein and carbs drink would be more efficient at helping recovery. But if you take a closer look a recent research, you’ll find nothing supporting that.
Having that kind of drink post-workout is actually not bad; just be aware that it is not better. Knowing that, what would be optimal post-workout: taking a protein and simple carbs drink that is virtually nutrient-empty or having a whole food meal that will provide you with fibers and tons of vitamins and minerals?
I still think that simple carbs have their place in sport nutrition; taking simple carbs before and/or during workout (depending on the intensity of the workout) could be very beneficial as it will provide you with rapidly available energy.
To learn more about Brian, make sure you check out his blog as he has a ton of valuable information that he shares with his audience. And if you feel like your diet needs improvement, please note that Brian is available through on-line consultation. Just visit Brian’s website for more details.
I usually want to put original content on my website, but for today’s post I am just gonna simply put up 2 very interesting links you should definitely check out.
1. This is an interview my colleague Kevin Neeld did with me last week that he posted on his website. He asks me questions mainly on hockey development, but also on supplements and the personal training business versus the strength and conditioning business. When Kevin sent me his questions, I just answered them right away without asking myself any questions. But when I re-read it when it went on his website last Friday I was proud of the way it turned out; I realized that there is a lot of valuable information, especially on the development of hockey players at different levels, that is definitely worth the read. If you haven’t already checked it out, you can right now by clicking HERE.
2. The second one is a blog post written by Brian St. Pierre on conventional dairy products. I read that post just last week and to say it was an eye-opener for me would be an understatement. Brian presents some shocking facts about how dairy products are handled and produced. This is a MUST READ for anyone concerned about their nutrition. Since reading it last week, I am truly reconsidering my dairy intake on a daily basis and might just cut the majority of it from my diet sooner than later. make sure you check it out HERE.
Exactly how I celebrated my birthday…I guess I was a little depressed
My new best friend
Not the best year to be a Red Sox fan…
