Kid training

Have you ever watched an 18 month old kid pick up a piece of food they just dropped on the floor and put it into their mouth? They might not understand the point that things covered with dirt and dog hair do not belong in their mouth, but they do seem to understand good biomechanics.

Flat back. Knees bent. Bending at the hips. Stand straight back up.

If you really watch a toddler walk, they look like drunk college kids after a beer pong tournament. They need to be zealots when it comes to maintaining their center of gravity, or they will fall over. By the way, I am referring to the toddlers.

Why do adults seem to lose their ability to execute proper form when they get older? I believe that they are compensating for neuromuscular deficiencies or they are lazy. Lazy is something I cannot fix, but anyone can correct their weak spots.

Read this article FIRST. It talks about the basic exercises and movements all young athletes should be able to master BEFORE specialized skill development. I think all adults should do the same. If you can do the basics like jumping rope, push ups and a couple of pull ups, you can build a solid program on top of it. If you can’t, there are some corrective exercises you need to work on before adding another Zumba class or exercise machine to your program. More to come on this topic…

Learn more at www.rainmakerfitness.com

100 less per day

I read today that in order to lose 10 pounds of fat per year, you need to eat 100 calories less per day. This is a nice, simple way of reinforcing a methodical and rational method of weight loss. However, there are a few assumptions/issues/problems that must be addressed:

1. It means 100 calories less than you NEED to eat every day. If you are eating 300 calories too much per day, it will just slow the rate of fat gain. This could be called the government budget model.
2. It means EVERY DAY. Don’t forget that holiday called Thanksgiving where most Americans overeat by as much as 2000 calories in one meal. That is three weeks of “just eat 100 calories less per day”.
3. See above and make sure you do not forget to count the Super Bowl party you attend, Christmas, Halloween candy, anniversary dinner with your sweetiepie, and so on…
4. It assumes you know how many calories are in what you are eating (portions, hidden ingredients, etc.).

I could go on, but I think you get the general drift. A 100 calorie per day goal on a 1800-2500 calorie diet is a very small margin of error. It may end up what you averaged for the year, but I do not think it is a realistic way of planning to lose weight. I would argue that 100 calories is a rounding error on a daily basis.

The answer is to engage in vigorous exercise a minimum of 4 times per week as well as banish junk from your eating habits. The average person should strive to cut 3500 calories per week through diet modifications and burn 3500 calories per week through exercise. This will result in two pounds of fat loss per week.

Make goals and plans on a weekly calendar. Measure results on an annual calendar. Do the work daily.

Just for fun

No real commentary needed for this link. It shows that fitness has a sense of humor.

http://www.clickorlando.com/slideshow/lifestyle/28109861/detail.html

When you are trying to be seen as inspirational, you don’t get a day off. Sorry.

Kudos to Michelle Obama. She has taken up a cause that is near and dear to my heart: fighting childhood obesity. She has spoken across the nation about the need for activity, healthy school lunches and the acceptance of personal responsibility when it comes to nutritional choices.

And, then she did something stupid: she went into the middle of Washington, D.C. and ordered an over 1500 calorie lunch at a burger joint.

The First Lady admits to an obsession to french fries. I am part of that cursed tribe as well. However, I am not on TV every day talking about the evils of fast food and being sedentary. Yes, all things are allowed in moderation , even for the President’s wife. But, couldn’t she have satisfied her cravings at home? You know, the big white mansion that has its own private chef? I bet he or she knows how to cook french fries, and they wouldn’t have let the press in.

Leaders lead, and they lead all the time once they have followers. Some people might think I am being too harsh, but this is the equivalent of a staunch anti-smoking advocate having an occasional cigar or two. In public.

Sorry, Mrs. Obama. If you want to lead from the front, you need to remember that everyone behind you can see what you are doing. You shouldn’t be showing that there is always some leeway when it comes to discipline. If you don’t think that is fair, I suggest to find another cause to champion.

This rules applies to ALL business leaders, too. Everything you do defines how those you lead should act. Are principles optional? Isn’t taking an occasional break from the “good fight” just being human? Sure it is. But, you gave up a little bit of that right when you chose to lead.

If you think the top of the mountain is lonely, remember that you chose to climb it.

Some civility, please.

It has been a long day at work. Clients were complaining. The boss was being difficult. And, Jim, who has no business being in the job he has, got yet another mention in a company wide email. At least I can take some comfort in my time at the gym after work.

Or, so I thought.

There are days when going to the gym is like a cross between Lord of the Flies and the basement of my old fraternity house on a Sunday morning. Ick with a side of, “Oh God, what the hell is that?!?”

There are basic rules of etiquette that you would think would be a given when using a public facility. Since they obviously are up for debate, let me give the animals some basic lessons in manners.

1. Wow, you really worked up a sweat. Impressive. However, I don’t need to discover it after I put my hands on the handrails of the elliptical machine when my hands now feel like I just ate 2 dozen blue crabs. Wipe it up please.
2. To the gentleman in the bathroom stall: how is it that everyone here knows you need to go see a gastroenterologist, and you don’t? You are killing my motivation.
3. I respect my elders. However, I lose a little of that respect when Merle insists on sitting down naked on the bench for 15 minutes while powdering his feet. And, put those toenail clippers away until you get home. The bench looking like a Rorschach Test after he stands up is creeping me out.
4. Howdy, pardner! Miss Kitty will be down in a few minutes, so why don’t you get yourself some Red Eye while you are waiting? Oh, but do us all a favor and refrain from using the water fountain as a spittoon while you are here. Don’t let the saloon doors hit you in the butt on the way out.
5. There are several places for gum. I prefer it stays in your mouth. I certainly bet the clean up crew does not prefer it to be left in the urinal.
6. As a corollary of the above, urinals have a singular purpose. So do the showers. Do not get efficient on me. Please do not let both of them having a drain confuse you.
7. You got the dumbbells from a rack. I know they are heavy. That is why they work so well. Put them back in a not so random fashion.
8. For all you frustrated NY Deli owners out there: stop making “plate sandwiches”. Putting them back on the weight tree in a “big plate, small plate, big plate” fashion make it hard to get what I need. It’s a pretty simple concept.
9. No eating in the the locker please. See rules 2-7 for the reasons why.
10. Finally, when I am buck naked, this is not the time to start a conversation about how my workout was, what I do for a living, and certainly not what I am doing this weekend. To each his own, but leave me alone.

I don’t mean to be persnickety, but I am just trying to get out of here without catching cholera.

Fire them. Hire me.

This is the extremely simplified version of what you are saying when trying to gain business from a client who is already using a competitor for the same services you provide. Some people do not like the first part because it seems crass, combative and a great deal like negative campaigning. Too bad. It is the decision that you are asking the client to make, so you need to take responsibility for putting them in this tough spot.

I have found that most pitches/beauty contests/dog and pony shows/etc. go something like this:

1. Thank you for giving us the opportunity


2. Since 1938, we have been dedicated to…


3. We have 4 locations and here are all the logos of our clients we stole off their web sites


4. Let us read you out loud all our capabilities of all our departments/practice areas


5. Biography parade


6. Conclusion: you should hire us because we are great and will offer some “value add” something or other

Change some of the details, and that is exactly what your competitors can say. You must differentiate yourself to a point where they don’t want to just hire you. They want to fire their current provider (in a nice way, I am sure).

When trying to unseat or take a share away from the incumbent, you have a few choices:

1. Say we are great and wait for the incumbent to fumble one day


2. Do the same work and charge discount prices (at little profit) to buy their business


3. Offer a new approach or new services that makes them think they are doing something NEW

Ideas? OK, here are a few:

• Cross sell in advance. Don’t sell Mergers & Acquisition services without employment, real estate and IP protection bundled in. When these issues are ignored in favor of “doing the deal”, mergers always seem to disappoint.


• Follow the client. Is the client going somewhere new? Expanding in China? New Jersey? Go there for the first time with them. By the way, you need to know this BEFORE their current firm does, so do your research and go ask them questions. Often.


• Alternative Fee Arrangements. What would happen if you walked in and proposed a flat fee for all their services? You would need to investigate and control your costs, but so does every business. Can you offer transparency and predictability in addition to your services?

It may very noble to perform the charge down the “we are great and will charge less” hill like a scene out of Braveheart and take the enemy head on. It is just not very smart.

Figure out a new approach that makes it easier for them to have that difficult conversation with their present provider instead of you.

Want to feel relaxed more often? Go for a run.

My favorite, most brilliant therapist I know, Renee Branson, wrote a great article on her attempt to relax over the weekend by running through barbed wire, fire and mud. This was not an audition for a Mad Max sequel. She was a contestant in the Warrior Dash: an arduous, 3.5 mile race through the woods with obstacles galore. I am sure she is still sore and cleaning mud out of her car. And, she is more relaxed.

Her article talked about the importance of managing the stress hormone, cortisol, that is part of everyone’s lives. It is a necessary, life preserving hormone. When a bear appears in your campground, it is what allows your fat little butt to run a five-minute mile. However, it takes a toll on the body. No free lunch, folks. You have heard that many times from me before.

Cortisol is a steroid. Like other steroids, it can produce a benefit from inhibiting certain body responses, but it comes with a cost. Increased cortisol levels are associated with lowered immune system efficiency, decreased libido and accumulation of belly fat. Lovely. By the way, you may have noticed that cortisone, as in cortisone injections, sounds very similar. And, it has similar effects.

Our daily lives are filled with stress. Unexpected stress that we are not used to handling makes our bodies start pumping cortisol into the bloodstream by the shovelful. However, after we become accustomed to stress that is part of our routine, cortisol production is decreased. That is why an military pilot can handle the stress of landing on an aircraft carrier at night (over and over and over again), which is something that would make most people paralyzed with fear.

Research has also shown the same to be true with exercise. I found a great article that addressed this on livestrong.com. Cortisol levels will be elevated in response to new stress on the body. The first time you attempt a 3 mile run, you can expect a hormone party. Once you can easily do 8 miles, the shorter run has almost no effect on producing cortisol.

Interestingly, the benefits from managing cortisol production through exercise seems to have an effect on keeping hormone levels lower during times of emotional upheaval.

Rest when your body needs it. However, your mind may need to go for a run.

Women Sometimes Don’t Ask for Directions, Either

Please hold the hate mail. It was just an attempt at a catchy headline.

This is a great article about how women, and men, try to take shortcuts and overthink what is the best way to lose weight. I have a great plan for you, so go get a pencil:

1. Stop eating crappy food. Stop eating so much.
2. For a period of time, you will need to eat less than you normally do.
3. Exercise 5-6 days a week. Just do something.
4. After you get to your target weight, don’t eat crappy food and don’t eat too much.

Read the article and ask yourself if you have fallen into these traps. Then go back to my diet “plan” and see if it makes more sense.

Poison fat

Why does training with a weight vest, ankle weights or doing exercises like a farmer’s walk make your body build more muscle while being fatter does not? In all these examples, your body is carrying around extra weight all day. However, overweight and obese people do not seem to gain extra muscle to compensate for it. What is going on here?

In a study detailed in the NY Times, it was found that extra fat may be inhibiting muscle development. This was a great study that involved attaching lead weights to moths and making rats chubby. I would have loved to have been involved in this one.

Fat is not a passive tissue. It actually secrets hormones and affects how the body works. The initial findings suggest that the extra fat weight is not only an anchor you are dragging behind you. It is also a “anesthetic” for muscle development.

One of the best theories for why this is the case was found in the comments section of the article:

…in nature, there was no need to correct or compensate for this... If an animal was this obese, it would be easy prey for a carnivore since it could not move effectively. At the same time, nutrition is more scarce in the wild, and obese animals do not exist on the whole.

Therefore, nature never had to come up with a mechanism for dealing with "what happens when we get too fat for our muscles to compensate." It is simply a scenario that nature never encountered. As a result, there was no evolutionary pressure to develop a compensatory response.

Moral: stop working so hard at the gym or on the road if you are not going to address the extra junk that is holding you back. Check your cabinets and plates. That might be what is holding you back from your next personal performance record.

I Do Not Care If You Had a Bad Year

A good friend of mine who consults law firms on business development, David Freeman, asked a group of us for best practices in helping lawyers respond to rate pressures from clients.

Here was my answer:

A lack of transparency into why bills go up is the real problem. Are they going up 5% just to give everyone a raise? Did they have a bad year? That is not the client’s problem, so they do not want to pay for it. Here are a few ideas:

1. The Big TV philosophy: People will spend a little more each year for a big screen, but it better have new features (3D) and a bigger screen. Law firms need to find a way to couple higher prices with extra services (quarterly reviews, free seminars, etc). By the way, “being attentive to your needs” and “quick response” is not an extra. It is a given at your real damn high rates.

2. This or That: have a talk with them and show them different ways to staff projects and matters. If THEY choose to save money due to a different mix of associates and partners, it is their choice.

3. Open the books: why is there a price increase? Show them how your costs are going up and link it to the increase in rates. They are not expecting you to be a non-profit.

Give it a try.

Managing the top line

When I first started this blog SIX YEARS AGO (wow, that is a little shocking), it was meant to illustrate how the principles of successful business development and fitness were closely related. Hence, I gave it the name Rainmaker Fitness. The key to success is found in applying discipline and intensity to basic, commonsense practices to better yourself.

It has been a while since I wrote a true article on bettering your business development skills, so I plan to start alternating the two topics. Please let me know what you think.

I hope you will notice how closely related the subjects are—and how you get better at both of them by applying astonishingly similar methods.

Gym hares

Back in January, you made a commitment that THIS was the year you were going to be in the best shape of your life. How is it going so far? Did I just make you grown and roll your eyes at me (I saw that, young lady/man!)

I have been saving this article by a writer who talked about the concept of gym hares: people who furiously adopt a workout program only to burn out quickly. Notice that it was written back in January…

Here is an idea: get out a piece of paper and map out the next 90 days of workouts. Yes, right now.

It is not a contract. You can make changes when life gets a little crazy. However, it is a commitment, which is what you started with back in January.

Is cardio the path to a better day at the beach?

“Ugh. It is Summer in just a few weeks, and I have got to lose 15 pounds. Time to hit the elliptical.”

For those of you scoring at home, that is 52,500 calories (3500 calories times 15 pounds). That will take you about 70 hours on that lovely machine: two hours a day for over a month. Good luck with that.

Cardio is great if you are training for an event that requires cardiovascular endurance. It is also great as a supplemental exercise when you are trying to shed pounds. However, it is NOT a great tool for getting rid of weight. Why? I am glad you asked.

1. Anything you can do for an hour straight is, by definition, low intensity
2. Once you stop, calorie burning is over. All of that stuff you have read about the continuing burn after your workout has been debunked
3. An hour straight of repetitive motion of anything leads to overuse injuries
4. You do not build lean muscle tissue or “tone up” your legs from cardiovascular exercise. It is not high intensity enough to build muscle, which DOES burn more calories after you stop exercising

Read this article about some tips for using cardio properly as part of your program, not AS the program.

The ability to take it easy is something you earn

If you sat around and did absolutely no physical activity, how quickly would it affect your fitness level? Most people would correctly say, “A whole bunch, Darryl.” Thank you for playing. Now, tell me specifically how quickly and how severely your fitness level would suffer?

You can stop saying “um”. I have some answers.

First, if you are a gold medal winning, Olympic athlete who trains for 20 years, you would think you have bought yourself some anti-fatty insurance. Sorry. Studies of this group show that if they stop all physical activity in their later years, they are at the same risk as other mortals. Enjoy your medal—and your bypass surgery.

Second, it happens quickly. People who perform high intensity activity start to lose their gains in strength and endurance in a matter of weeks (about 10-12% in the first month). This includes 20-somethings who have been training hard their entire life. This is your body’s reaction to you telling it that you don’t “need this stuff” anymore.

Third, loss in proficiency, strength and endurance can be maintained relatively well with a tapered, maintenance program. You will not stay at the top of the summit, but you will remain close to the top of the mountain. Since you enjoyed this view before, I suggest you try staying there.

Exercising at a moderate level as little as once per week has been shown to maintain most of the strength and endurance gains you have worked hard to achieve. However, that is the catch: you have to get into great shape FIRST. You have to earn the right to keep your gains with less work.

No shortcut. Sorry.

Keep one more thing in mind: this does not mean you get to eat the same. Michael Phelps famously brags about his caloric intake that exceeds 12,000 calories a day when he is training. That is not a typo. That is what his body needs to fuel that level of performance. When he lowers his level of effort one day, I hope he divides that number by six and devotes himself to maintenance programs. Otherwise, he is going to start looking less like a swimmer and more like something you see while you are swimming.

But, it’s just a mini cupcake

Back in 2008, the New York City Board of Health started requiring all food establishments with more than 15 locations to start prominently listing calorie counts on all food items for all the world to see. I am quite sure the next morning, many waiters and cashiers were a bit tired of hearing people scream, “WHAT? How many is in that?!?” the day after  the curtain came up.

Interestingly enough, it did not have the effect they had hoped for. A study conducted a year later concluded that while it made people more aware what they were eating, it did not change what they chose to buy.

In fact, it seems that people are more price elastic than calorie elastic (almost a pun, but not quite). People, especially those in lower income classes, tend to decide what’s for lunch based on their wallet instead of their daily grease quota .

Food establishments saw this as an opportunity: what if we made the portions smaller and charged more for the “low calorie” option? The per calorie profit goes up. This was the genesis of the “mini-cupcake” you see in the display case at Starbucks.

However, just because you can place this cute little thing  in your mouth with two fingers instead of cramming it in with your whole hand does not make it a good option. Check out the facts: it is 190 calories and looks like it is about 10 feet away even when you hold it in your palm. You really need to decide if that is worth 10% of your daily caloric intake.

Chomp. Chomp. Gone.

There goes a tenth of the food you get to have today. No thanks. In case you were wondering, chomp chomp gone equals 25-30 minutes of work on a stationary bike.

Foods like this are calorie dense. It is OK for a treat every once and a while, but do not fool yourself that they are a better choice because they are “cute”.

Thinking about taking a day off?

This vet can’t.

I saw this at my gym yesterday at almost the exact moment I was deciding whether or not I was too tired to do some cardio after a heavy weight lifting workout.

I did an extra 30 minutes. So can you.

Drinking: things you may not have thought of

Drinking two beers per hour is the equivalent of eating a McDonald’s cheeseburger per hour. Enjoy.

Well, that was dumb

I am a big fan of antagonistic supersets. In English, this means doing two exercises, back-to-back, that use opposing muscle groups with no rest in between. An example of this would be to do a set of 8-10 repetitions of bench press followed immediately by a set of lat pulldowns (chest-back). This allows you to complete a workout in a shorter period of time, and the antagonistic muscles MUST rest when the opposing muscle group is being used. Basic biomechanics.

Sometimes, they overlap. That is how I got injured.

I tried a combination of 45 degree leg presses followed by traditional barbell deadlifts. The leg press is primarily for the glutes and quads (butt and front of thighs). Deadlift is a hamstring exercise—except that it is also a glute exercise. Oops.

So, after killing myself on my second set of the leg press, I went over and picked up the bar. That is when the erector spinae in my back gave out.

You see, when you wipe out certain muscles through fatigue, they lose the ability to stabilize you. So, I compensated using the thing that wasn’t tired: my lower back. I have been in pain for a few days now, and it is going to take a while to get better.

Your lower back is most at risk when you tire out your abs, glutes and hamstrings. That is why people tell you to use them when you squat down to pick up a heavy box.

Know what the impact of your exercise choices will be. Obviously, even the professionals need to be reminded of this sometimes.