Bodyweight Workouts

I had an earlier post about prison fitness. That video focused on prisoners doing Olympic style powerlifting moves such as deadlifts, bench presses and squats. The prisoners were using basic equipment. Most prisoners can get even more ripped using only bodyweight exercises or moves.

In some ways bodyweight moves are superior to free weights. Compare the bench press and the pushup. The obvious benefit to the bench press is that it adds alot of weight to overload your muscles and increase not only muscle strength but size as well. The drawback to the bench is that it is not practical. How many times do you lie on your back and push something straight off your chest? Probably not often. Usually we are pushing things from a standing, kneeling, or sitting position but rarely lying down on a bench. We do however often push ourselves up off the ground, similarly to a push up.

But bodyweight exercises are not limited to simple squats, push ups and pull ups. I found this video online called the '44 Best Bodyweight Exercises Ever'. The guy doing all the exercises is named Tee Major and you can find out more about him at http://teemajor.com/. Watch the video and incorporate one or two of the moves in your current workout. See if you can do a clapping pull up.

 

 

 

SWAT Treadmill Workout

Here's a cardio workout I got from SWAT. It only requires a treadmill, a pair of light dumbbells and some determination. I will put out three versions of the workout: Newbie, Vet and BEAST mode.

 The workout is 60 min total time divided into six ten minute intervals or sets. After each 10 minutes increase the incline by 1 degree and the speed by 0.1 mph. During the workout you will be holding dumbbells. Alternate holding them at your sides and resting them on your shoulders every two minutes. Do this workout every other day.

Newb*: 5 lb dumbbells

0-10 min: 7 incline, 3.0 mph
10-20 min: 8 incline, 3.1 mph
20-30 min: 9 incline, 3.2 mph
30-40 min: 10 incline, 3.3 mph
40-50 min: 11 incline, 3.4 mph
50-60 min: 12 incline, 3.5 mph

Veteran: 10 lb dumbbells

0-10 min: 10 incline, 3.0 mph
10-20 min: 11 incline, 3.1 mph
20-30 min: 12 incline, 3.2 mph
30-40 min: 13 incline, 3.3 mph
40-50 min: 14 incline, 3.4 mph
50-60 min: 15 incline, 3.5 mph

Beast: 15 lb dumbbells

0-10 min: 10 incline, 3.2 mph
10-20 min: 11 incline, 3.3 mph
20-30 min: 12 incline, 3.4 mph
30-40 min: 13 incline, 3.5 mph
40-50 min: 14 incline, 3.6 mph
50-60 min: 15 incline, 3.7 mph

At first glance the workout looks fairly pedestrian, especially the first 30 minutes. Do me a favor. Take a mental picture of yourself at the beginning, confidently walking along saying to yourself how easy this is etc. Recall that image when you hit the 45-50 min mark and see if you recognize yourself.

* I did the 'Newb' workout yesterday and it's a bear. I think once I hit the 35 minute mark I said "This isn't fun anymore." At the 50 minute mark it was "C'mon baby you got this" while panting heavily, looking like Ted from Airplane.

Couple of reasons why I like this workout:

1) Low impact
Considering the fact you are walking for the entirety of this workout you really eliminate alot of risk for your typical running injuries. The walking is easy on your joints especially if you have bad knees and back. As a rule workouts should be challenging but they shouldn't 'hurt'. It doesn't do you any good to push yourself to a point where you injure yourself and then have to miss some training time and/or go only 50%-75% because you are ailing.

2) High heart rate, high calorie burn
Using the hand held heart rate readers on the treadmill I got my heart rate to the 175-180 bpm range at the end of the workout. Personally I'm not a big fan of the so called 'fat burning zone' propaganda out there and think that cardio training should actually challenge and subsequently improve your cardio system. Also the workout really burns alot of fat/calories while sparing muscle.

3) Simple and adaptable
Anyone who can walk can do this workout. The starting and ending inclines, speeds and dumbbell weights are just suggestions. You can play with them as fits your needs and limitations. As an example you can try the Veteran speeds/inclines with 5 lb weights. I'd say the only 'rule' is to increase your incline/speed each ten minutes.

The biggest drawback to this workout is the time factor. 60 minutes is a long time and can be mentally exhausting, but push through it. It takes discipline to hold on to those weights and stay on the treadmill for the full 60 minutes but if you do cheat you are only cheating yourself.

Lastly, if somebody wants to name this workout I'm all ears. For some reason 'SWAT Treadmill Workout' does not sound cool at all but I couldn't think of anything.

Eating Out On Duty Series: Runza

If you have ever met a  expatriate Nebraskan one of the first things they will complain about is how much they miss Runza.  Runza of course is the trademarked name for the chain of restaurants in Nebraska, although they have locations in Iowa and Colorado too.  The famous Runza sandwich is commonly referred to as a bierock, which like everything in Nebraska has it's origins in Germany.  For the uninitiated its just a bun stuffed with beef, cabbage, cheese, onions etc. In addition to the Runza sandwich the restaurant also has typical American fast food like hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, fries, ice cream etc.

Pulling into Runza I see there is a special sandwich out called the 'Spicy Jack Runza' which also comes in a 1/4# burger and a chicken sandwich. The Spicy Jack series adds pepper jack cheese, jalapenos, bacon and jalapeno ranch to your favorite sandwiches; it looks awesome. Problem is that looking over the nutritional values on the Runza website it's one of the worst things they offer.  The sandwich as 760 calories, 40 grams of fat, 2370mg of sodium, 68 grams of carbs and 28 grams of protein.  The number of calories and fat are overwhelming but the sodium numbers really jump out. To give you an idea the Mayo Clinic recommends keeping your sodium intake to under 2300mg per day.  Don't worry the Spicy Jack Runza takes care of that in one sandwich.  Let's put this information in the context of a whole meal; a Spicy Jack Runza, medium fries and a drink.

Spicy Jack Runza: 760 calories, 40g fat, 2370mg sodium, 68g carbs, 28g protein
Medium Fries: 320 calories, 15g fat, 430mg sodium, 41g carbs, 4g  protein
Medium Pepsi: 210 calories, 0g fat, 40mg sodium, 59g carbs, 0g protein
Meal Total: 1290 calories, 55g fat, 2840mg sodium, 168g carbs, 32g protein.

Instead let's have a deluxe grilled chicken sandwich, small fries and an iced tea.

Deluxe Grilled Chicken sandwich: 360 calories, 11g fat, 1420 mg sodium, 37g carbs, 30g protein
Small Fries: 220 calories, 11g fat, 310mg sodium, 29g carbs, 3g protein.
Medium Iced Tea: 0s across the board
Meal Total: 580 calories, 22g fat, 1730 mg sodium, 66g carbs, 33g protein.

What you'll be saving: 710 calories, 33g fat, 1110mg sodium and 102g carbs

One of the common themes you are going to find is that chicken sandwiches are gonna be usual substitutions.  Chicken is a leaner meat and has less calories, less fat and more protein.  If you can't stomach another grilled chicken sandwich then get a burger.

1/4# Burger: 360 calories, 18g fat, 730mg sodium, 25g carbs, 25g protein.
1/4# Cheeseburger: 410 calories, 22g fat, 1030mg sodium, 27g carbs, 28g protein.

1/4# Cheeseburger, Small Fries and Iced Tea

You can see that eating out doesn't mean and endless barrage of chicken sandwiches.  In fact hamburgers my actually be the better option for some.  It's in the same ballpark for calories and protein, has less carbs and sodium.  The big negative for the cheeseburger is it has twice the amount of fat as the chicken sandwich.  As far as the regular Runzas go they are not the best option on the menu.  If you have to get one though I would suggest getting the original Runza and avoid adding all the extra toppings and flavors as these things really pack on the sodium, fat and calories.  There are hundreds of menu combinations that you can search through online.

Nutritional info on back; does the grease say it all???

Heart Awareness Testing

 We got a couple of cool events coming up at LPD in May. On Thursday May 2, there will be a presentation by cardiologist Dr. Matt Johnson at noon at 575.  For two weeks after the presentation there will be an online assessment tool on the LPD website. During the week of May 20-24 there will be Bryan nurses available for 30 minute appointments in LPD classrooms B and D. All three of these events are free, well somebody pays but it ain't you.

 In June, dates TBA, Bryan will be bringing a semi truck to LPD with some more sophisticated testing available. The point of going through the online assessment and 30 min appointment with a heart nurse is to determine your risk factor. The number of tests you do on the truck is entirely up to you but will range in price from $10-$120. You don't 'have to' do the lunch presentation, appointment or online assessment to do the truck testing but it does help provide a better overall picture of your heart health.

 Here's a couple stats I got from the CDC website:
http://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/facts.htm

• First of all, heart disease is the #1 killer in the United States.
• 1 in every 4 deaths is due to heart disease, that's 600,000 deaths a year.
• Every year 715,000 Americans have heart attacks. 
• Heart disease costs $108.9 billion in health care expenses and lost productivity.

These are just numbers but what it fails to account for is the human cost.  Unfortunately, this is not a far fetched scenario or hypothetical for us but very much a reality.  I know I have said this before but you owe it to your families and friends to take your health seriously.  LFR recently did this training/testing and as a result at least two employees found out they had potentially life threatening conditions that were treated before they got out of hand.

 But we need LPD employees to show up so we don't waste Bryan's time.  If this still sounds like something you'd like to do please e-mail lpd1143 so we can gauge interest.

 Bonus points if you like this show ..............................

 

  

Eat This Not That

There is a police saying that if you want a boring night just bring a ride a long ("I swear I do more than just drive around") but if you want something exciting (read: reportable) then get something to eat.  Of course the more involved the meal the messier the call. Just eating a PB&J its just an accident.  You sit down someplace to eat and its a 3 car pile up with injuries, nobody speaks English and everbody is high on dope. Eating in peace is not guaranteed in this job. No wonder that cops are regularly eating out, particularly fast food.  We can drive a police cruiser, talk on the radio, listen to the 'other' radio, be on the cellphone, read the MDT etc. We want to be able to eat on the run too.

 So we're going to spend some time looking at eating out on duty. In the end I want to give people some basic knowledge to help them make the right choices when they have to eat out, particularly fast food.  This will include actual foods available in Lincoln.  Admittedly, I stole this idea from the editors of Eat This Not That. If you are not familiar, the ETNT books are fantastic resources from Men's Health magazine. The concept essentially is damage control or harm reduction. The books assume you are going to eat pizza, burgers, ice cream etc. so the books focus on swapping out unhealthy foods with their more healthy counterparts. It is as if the authors are saying 'if you are going to eat brownies eat this one instead of this other, more calorie laden version'.

                  Vs.






 I use the words 'more healthy' cautiously though.  Just because a food is listed as a 'eat this' food doesn't mean it's a health food.  As an example ETNT suggests  eating Twinkies are a better choice then Cosmic Brownies. It  saves you 130 calories and reduces the amount of sugar and fat you'd be taking in. This does not make Twinkies a food that you should be eating everyday.

 Restaurants are putting alot more information out there about the nutritional content of their food; either online or in brocures inside. If you eat someplace regularly you should take a look at what you are putting in your body. Despite all the resources and information available to help customers make better choices when eating out there is nothing that can beat preparing your own food and bringing it to work for two main reasons.

 1) You control and know what's going into your food

 2) Eating out is expensive

 Eating out on duty is often a matter of convenience and all of us from time to time are going to have to do it. It's much better to eat out then to starve yourself. But if you can make the healthier choice a couple a times week you'll probably be surprised how leaned out you can get. Stay tuned for more on your favorite restaurants.


  

Why do I think this is not an American magzine at all???