Q & A Friday - The slap that brings you back to reality.

Q: Have a question regarding strongman training.  I recently bought a Prowler and Rickshaw from Elite Fitness and am currently looking for a large tire for “flipping.”  I have been performing 4 sets of both Prowler and Richshaw each, but am looking for new ways to combine the 2 exercises.  Any ideas?

Bryan – East Moriches, NY

A: Bryan, my favorite method for performing strongman events is to combine multiple exercises together into a “series” or “medley.”  Depending on the nature of the exercise, I might perform an exercise for reps, tire flips and sledge hammer strikes, or for distance, sled, prowler and rickshaw.  Additionally, I vary the reps performed, depending on the desired effect.  For instance, for an accumulation phase, I might push the prowler for 50 yards, whereas during an intensification phase, I might go only 20 yards.

One other consideration, is to ensure you perform 1-2 warm up sets with the implements you’re using.  I often see people warming up for their strongman workout, by performing barbell squats, which won’t help prepare your muscles and nervous system for the work they’re about to perform.

My favorite series for strongman training: tire flip, prowler push and rickshaw carry, for 8 sets.  I normally rest 2 minutes between each set, with the first 2 being warm up sets.

This was my first warm up set for the workout and worked up to heavier weights for the last 6 sets.  Distances used: tire flip 6 reps, prowler 20 yards, richshaw 40 yards.  Notice I had my stop watch around my neck, to keep my rest periods honest

Give this workout a try and I’m certain it’ll come to be one of your favorites as well.

Question for Jess?  Email info@Jessbanda.com

Greetings to all fellow S.W.A.T Magazine readers. Since the September 2010 issue hit the newsstands, I have received numerous emails from readers in appreciation of my article on building grip strength for defensive purposes.

I have been an avid S.W.A.T. Magazine reader from the first issue, and an honored to have my work featured in a publication read by the finest law enforcement and military personnel from around the world.

Starting within the next few days, I will begin to regularly post articles and videos on topics of interest to those that place themselves in harms way.  My goal is to provide you with the best information and techniques to maximize your time in the gym, which will keep you safe on the “streets” and in the “field.”

If there are any topics you’d like to for me to tackle, or have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me through this blog.

A sincere “thank you” goes to Denny Hansen, for giving me an opportunity to share my knowledge with his dedicated readers.

What could possibly be better than organic twinkies?  Apparently, you can have your cake and eat it too…but only if it’s organic.  After all, calories from organic foods don’t “count,” do they?

Personally, I believe one day out of the year, is hardly sufficient.  The reason you and I sleep well at night, is because of the men and women out there…watching over us.  So the next time you see one of out military personnel, shake their hand, buy them a beer, and thank them for their service.  Allow me to introduce to you to one such hero, Sgt. Christopher Ramirez.

If you are able,
save for them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O’Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

Here in the US, it’s Memorial Day weekend, which signals the official kick-off to the outdoor grilling season.  This year, if you want to spare your family one more year of eating hotdogs and hamburgers which resemble charcoal briquettes, watch the video.  I’m in the process of BBQing a prime rib right now.  So if you excuse me…it’s time for a beer.  “What kind” you ask?  Click here to find out…

RIP Dennis Hopper

 For the next 8 months, Brooke ingested nothing but 10 to 14 Red Bull energy drinks per day, and a handful of dry cereal, going from 231 pounds to 132 pounds.

 Saying the expensive Red Bull diet ($20-28 per day) was not a conscious decision at first, the reckless Brooke Robertson said.

“I just started drinking it. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating – I was exhausted.  I just continued to drink it because it’s an appetite suppressant and I noticed I was losing weight so stuck with it.”

Despite the piling up of Red Bull empty cans, Brooke said that she somehow managed to keep her Red Bull energy drink addiction secret from family and friends.

The Red Bull diet sage ended when Brooke Robertson, with her body obviously overwhelmed with the high caffeine and sugar intake, suffered from a heart attack.

“I managed to wean myself off it by being in hospital for that long but I had severe withdrawals – sweating, nausea, shaking. It was an addiction

Discovering a Red Bull energy drink diet might actually kill her, Brooke Robertson now says she maintains her weight through real life conventional exercise and a healthy eating diet.

But the long-term heath problems for Brooke persist, she still suffers from heart problems, gets severe pain and cramping in her stomach and bowel, and suffers anxiety attacks from the caffeine and sugar Red Bull addiction, all at the youthful age of 23…but at least she lost weight, right?

A striking new study says almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly a third of them obese. Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age. Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests.

Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites.

The lead author said that rate is worrisome among children so young, even in a population at higher risk for obesity because of other health problems and economic disadvantages.

“The magnitude of these differences was larger than we expected, and it is surprising to see differences by racial groups present so early in childhood,” said Sarah Anderson, an Ohio State University public health researcher. She conducted the research with Temple University’s Dr. Robert Whitaker.

Dr. Glenn Flores, a pediatrics and public health professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, said the research is an important contribution to studies documenting racial and ethnic disparities in children’s weight.

“The cumulative evidence is alarming because within just a few decades, America will become a ‘minority majority’ nation,” he said. Without interventions, the next generation “will be at very high risk” for heart disease, high blood pressure, cancers, joint diseases and other problems connected with obesity, said Flores, who was not involved in the new research.

The study is an analysis of nationally representative height and weight data on 8,550 preschoolers born in 2001. Children were measured in their homes and were part of a study conducted by the government’s National Center on Educational Statistics. The results appear in Monday’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Almost 13 percent of Asian children were obese, along with 16 percent of whites, almost 21 percent of blacks, 22 percent of Hispanics, and 31 percent of American Indians.

Some previous studies of young children did not distinguish between kids who were merely overweight versus obese, or they examined fewer racial groups.

The current study looked only at obesity and a specific age group. Anderson called it the first analysis of national obesity rates in preschool kids in the five ethnic or racial groups.

The researchers did not examine reasons for the disparities, but others offered several theories.

Flores cited higher rates of diabetes in American Indians, and also Hispanics, which scientists believe may be due to genetic differences.

Also, other factors that can increase obesity risks tend to be more common among minorities, including poverty, less educated parents, and diets high in fat and calories, Flores said.

Jessica Burger, a member of the Little River Ottawa tribe and health director of a tribal clinic in Manistee, Mich., said many children at her clinic are overweight or obese, including preschoolers.

Burger, a nurse, said one culprit is gestational diabetes, which occurs during a mother’s pregnancy. That increases children’s chances of becoming overweight and is almost twice as common in American Indian women, compared with whites.

She also blamed the federal commodity program for low-income people that many American Indian families receive. The offerings include lots of pastas, rice and other high-carbohydrate foods that contribute to what Burger said is often called a “commod bod.”

“When that’s the predominant dietary base in a household without access to fresh fruits and vegetables, that really creates a better chance of a person becoming obese,” she said.

Also, Burger noted that exercise is not a priority in many American Indian families struggling to make ends meet, with parents feeling stressed just to provide basic necessities.

To address the problem, her clinic has created activities for young Indian children, including summer camps and a winter break “outdoor day” that had kids braving 8-degree temperatures to play games including “snowsnake.” That’s a traditional American Indian contest in which players throw long, carved wooden “snakes” along a snow or ice trail to see whose lands the farthest.

The hope is that giving kids used to modern sedentary ways a taste of a more active traditional American Indian lifestyle will help them adopt healthier habits, she said.

This song was a sleeper hit in ’96…before most of you were born.  “Portable phone”…yep, this song is old!  Next…

I think this is Young MC’s best song…yes, even better than “Bust a move.”  Coming up next:

Come on guys, haven’t we all felt like this at least once?! Don’t leave me hangin’…

These last two are to introduce more class in your life, I mean other than the box of wine and Zimas you keep in your refrigerator…Adam.

Watch the 3:00-3:20 mark, you’ll thank me later.  I know what you’re thinking “You lift weights AND like opera?”  That’s right ladies, I’m the total package…the line starts on the left.

Paul is confined to his bed…he cannot prepare his own meals, which means someone continues to feed his addiction.  I prefer to call these people “enablers.”  Enablers, whether family or friends, always take the path of least resistance, the path that is easier for them.  It is easier for them to cook your favorite dish and watch you drown it with a gallon of gravy, than it is to get you to eat a nutrient-rich meal. 

Change is not an event, it is a process.  No one wakes up one morning and finds themselves weighting 1,000 pounds.  It happens over the course of many years…10 pounds here, becomes 20 pounds next year, and 40 pounds the year after that.  Until one day, you wake up and realize you no longer possess the strength to get out of your bed, which  ultimtely becomes your coffin.

When combating addictions, the first step is to change your environment.  It requires the addicted to get rid of the people who fueled and excused their addiction….yes, that includes family members who loved you so much, they willingly and readily provided you with your vice. 

Paul, unfortunately, will choose the “easiest” method to gain control of his weight…bariatric surgery.  The surgery will give him the quick fix he wants, but eventually, he’ll begin to re-gain whatever weight he loses.  I’m not being pessimistic, I’m being realistic…numerous studies support my view.  People who depend on “quick fixes” for weight loss, will go back to their unhealthy eating habits because they did not learn the benefits and requirements of healthy eating.  They did not learn the proper way to plan, prepare and structure a healthy eating lifestyle…in short, they did not learn discipline and control, they only learned to make excuses.

What about you?  Do you make excuses?  Are you an enabler? Do you look for quick-fixes?  How long before I watch a documentary about your life?

A daily diet of more than two pounds of raw bok choy, a vegetable often used in Thai and other Asian dishes, sent an 88-year-old Chinese woman into a coma — and doctors determined an enzyme in the uncooked produce was the culprit.

The woman, who wasn’t identified in the “New England Journal of Medicine” report about her case, was rushed to the emergency room of New York University’s hospital in New York City last summer by her family after she became lethargic and lost her ability to walk and swallow for a period of three days.

She had been eating between 2 and 3 pounds of raw bok choy, or Chinese white cabbage, each day for several months in the belief that it would help manage symptoms of her diabetes.

But when she arrived at the hospital, the woman was suffering from extreme hypothyroidism, respiratory failure and a thyroid-linked, potentially life-threatening type of coma, according to the NEJM study and NYU’s Dr. Michael Chu, a resident who helped treat her with endocrinologist Dr. Terry F. Seltzer.

The patient, who also had coarse hair, dry skin and other symptoms, was admitted to the intensive care unit. Chu said she ate about two to three large heads of the bitter-tasting cabbage without any seasonings, salt or dressing.

“The patient was eating large amounts of raw bok choy, and the majority she was eating plain,” Chu told AOL Health. “It didn’t really ever come across that it was burdensome for her. … At one point when she was in the hospital, her family was asking if she could continue eating it. We recommended that she did not.”

But though she thought she could stomach it, her body couldn’t process so many stalks of the leafy vegetable, which along with other types of cabbage contains an enzyme called myrosinase that, in excess, can shut down the thyroid. Cooking the bok choy would have taken the dangerous enzyme out. The woman had no history of thyroid disease.

“Certain food types within the cabbage family are known to cause the thyroid to stop producing or increase production of the thyroid hormone,” said Chu. “The enzyme decreases the uptake of iodine into the thyroid, and iodine is necessary for production of the thyroid hormone.”

Hypothyroidism happens when the butterfly-shaped thyroid gland in the throat, which controls metabolism, becomes underactive and produces abnormally low levels of the thyroid hormone — causing fatigue, weight gain, problems breathing, thinning and brittle hair, dry skin and a slowed heart rate. A complete shut-down of the gland, as experienced by this patient, can be deadly.

“It’s kind of a unique thing — you really have to have the intention to eat so much in order for it to have such effects,” Chu told AOL Health, adding that the doctors weren’t able to determine exactly how much raw bok choy is too much. “She was pretty sick when she came into the ER.”

Though her condition was described as a myxedema coma, Chu said the term can be misleading because the patient didn’t slip into unconsciousness.

Doctors intravenously administered significant amounts of a synthetic thyroid hormone and a strong anti-inflammatory medication in order to save the elderly woman’s life, according to Chu. After four to six weeks in the hospital, she got better and was transferred to a nursing rehabilitation facility.