Book Review: The Fungus Link

This was a book I heard Paul Chek recommend on the Underground Wellness Podcast show, which if you are not subscribed too, you need to subscribe NOW! Do it.....!!

This is a very interesting book by Doug Kaufmann. Kaufmann speaks about the role of fungal infections in human disease and illness, and makes that point that a fungal infection is nearly always in some way part of a chronic illness or allergies. He discusses the role if fungus in arthitis, digestion, respiratory disorders, depression, skin probloms, hearth health, allergies, womens health, and pain.

Kaufmann discusses the need for more doctors to study myocology (the study of fungus). He just like Dr. Hymann, and Dr. Liponis of Ultra-prevention believes the big pharmaceutical companies are destoying our health and are only concerned about keeping people sick for their profits. Healthy people are not profitable for pharmaceutical companies, remember that!! Kaufmann actual states that a lot of antibotics used by well meaning Doctors can indeed infect patients with a fungus. This then in turn can lead to a casade of other seemingly non-related health problems.

Kaufmann closes the book off with his Phase 1 and Phase 2 diet programs to eliminate a fungal infection. Fungus thrive on sugar, so Kaufmanns diet program is very similar to a Paleo type diet. Kaufmann states that for the most part, this diet had cured or at least relieved to a great degree his patients symptoms, and/or allegies.

This is a great book, and yet another I would highly recommed. I will be ordering his Vol 2 & 3 books soon.

Stay Strong,
RB

Book Review: Ultra-Prevention

This is a book all doctors should read. As it is written by two medical doctors, who have gone against the modern western model of medicine to treat chronic illness and long time health issues. Now in the opening of this book both Dr. Hyman and Liponis do admit that western medicine is excellent in times of acute life or death situations, but as a model for long term health they feel that a lot of things are severely lacking.

The book in broken up into three sections

Part 1: Modern Myths of Medicine
Part 2: The five forces of illness
Part 3: The 6 week Ultra-Prevention Plan

Part 1 would make for some very interesting reading to most lay people. For me I just found myself nodding my head in agreement with what both doc's had to say.

The Myths they dispelled were as follows:

1. Your Doctors know best - The doc's say they dont, and that most are heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.

2.If you have a diagnosis, you know what is wrong with you - They doc's say that this is bullshit! The doc's talk about a man who was diagnosized as having alzheimers disease, who really just had a case of lead and mercury poisoning. The doc's got this gentleman to stop drinking the tap water from his house (as it had a high lead content), and also told him not to eat fish that had been contaminated with mercury. This mans alzheimers disappeared. The man never had it to begin with. He just had the symptoms of alzheimers, but this was not his problem.

3. Drugs Cure disease - The doc's say bullshit yet again. They believe drugs only treat symptoms and not causes, and also believe that drugs designed to treat a certain illness can in fact make you even more ill due to the side effects that it may have. Like taking anti-inflammatory medication for back pain, but ending up with the development of stomach ulcers because of the side effects that this medicaton has on your G.I. track with excessive doses.

4.Your Genes determine your fate - The doc's say there is two types of genes. Genotype - your genetic blueprint. This cant be changed. But then there is a Phenotype. Phenotypes are the genes that are influenced by your diet, lifestyle, activity, enviroment, etc. These can most certainly be changed.

5.Getting old means aging - The doc's say with the proper nutrition plan, lifestyle habits, and mental clarity in place, getting old does not not mean aging. By this they mean just because you get older things like alzheimers, arthitis, and low sex drive do not and should not be accepted as just simply "getting old!"

6. Fat is a four letter word - The doc's dispell all the bullshit that most of us reading this already know about fat. Its not the fat people. Fat is good for you. The doc's are a bit cautious about fat from animal meat, but they dont specify their stance on organic grass fed/finished meet. Conventional meat I would be in full agreement with them. But again for the most part we would all agree with the doc's here.

7. You can get all the vitamins you need from your food - This chapter was the only one that suprised me. But the doc's did make a good arguement for the need and use of certain vitamins. They believe that with the enviroment we live in being so toxic that supplementing with some form of vitamins is probably needed in modern society.

In Part 2 the five forces of illness the doc's discussed were as follows:

1. Malnutrition (Sludge)
2. Impaired Metabolism (Burnout)
3. Inflammation (Heat)
4. Impaired detoxification (Waste)
5. Oxidative Stress (Rust)

Part 3 then discussed the doc's 6 week Ultra-Prevention plan.

Step 1: Remove

1. Clear the sludge
2. Elimanate Waste
3. Remove the rust
4. Cool the heat
5. End the burnout

Step 2: Repair:

1. Repair the digestive system and optimize nutrition
2. Repair and enhance detoxification
3. Repair the Rust: Oil the oxidative stress system
4. Repair immune function and reduce inflammation
5. Repair metabolism

Step 3: Recharge:

1. Restore normal sleep
2. Move your body
3. Stress management
4. Other Ultra-prevention techniques (keep a journal, etc)

Conclusion:

This is a book that I would highly recommend to anyone in the medical, health and fitness, nutrition, or psychology field. A very enjoyable and informative read.

Stay Strong,
RB

Trying to improve speed!

Ah! God bless their little hearts. With their weight vests, and bungee chords and whatever other gadgets they had.

A group of players the other day who do little to no gym work went out to do a "speed session". You know to get faster and all that jazz ;-)

Little do they know that if you want to get faster you need to get STRONGER first and foremost. And before you can get Stupid strong you better have some level of movement quality!

Speed and moreso improving acceleration as we know from Peter Weylands research is about the FORCE THAT YOU CAN PUT INTO THE GROUND. The STRONGER you are the MORE FORCE you can produce into the ground. Sir Issac Newtons 3rd law - " for ever action, there is an equal and opposite re-action". Good man Issac. Ive always said that your a sound man!

So lads listen up. Put your little gadgets and magic fairy dust aside, and get into the weightroom. You really want to know why you're slow. Its call "a severe case of weakness!" So get strong, AFTER you have the movement quality in place to do so.

So in summary - To improve your speed

1) Improve movement quality to at least the minimum of the industry standard which for me is the FMS
2) Get strong
3) Get more Powerful
4) Work Acceleration Techniques

The End!

Stay Strong,

RB

Concurrent Periodization for Gaelic Games

Last week one of my athletes asked me when are we going to do a power phase!

A coach she had had previously use to implement the old linear periodization model of Endurance phase, followed by a Hypertrophy phase, follow by a max strength phase, followed by a power phase. Given that this athlete is still a beginner in strength training terms, Im fairly sure that this coach wasnt implementing a block periodization scheme (which is a different kettle of fish), which is for very elite level athletes anyway.

I explained to her that what I implement for the most part with my athletes is a concurrent style of periodization where all qualities (max and sub max strength, power, speed, etc) are always been trained in each phase of training.

The disadvantages of a linear scheme have been well documented by a lot of coaches.

Some are as follows:

1) Only one quality is trained per phase. With this scheme one quaility may improve while others diminish. I say may as it also makes no sense to me that your power will improve with "just a power phase" as your Max strength will be diminishing during this phase. You need to be strong to produce power!

2) Endurance phase at the start. High reps for beginners is stupid in my book.


A concurrent method, or an emphasis concurrent method (basically a modified block periodization scheme for my more advantance athletes) to me is best scheme for dealing with most athletes, particularly team sports like Gaelic Games.

The benefits:

1) All quailites are improved, or a worst maintained while emphasizing one quality.

2) If a new member where to join the team during the season the concurrent model is a fair better system for the athlete to begin with. If we where to use a traditional linear model this athlete would have to start doing taxing hypertrophy work while the rest of the team would be on the power phase. Linear just makes no sense in this situation.

3) The fact that all qualities are being trained also gives you more flexibility with having to change the program on the fly. "Not feeling great today on the olympic lifts. Ok, how about we leave the olympic lift today, and just hit one set on our strength stuff and get out of here."

4) Less Boring!!

Anyway thats all I have to say on this for now. Im off to bed.

Stay Strong,
RB