Baddest Motherfuckers Ever #25- Danny "The Ginger Badass" Bonaduce

How many people do you know who are former child mega-stars, bang Playboy models, have fought pro mma fighters and boxers, are best friends with A.C. Slater, has trained at the Incredible Hulk's house, wrestled professionally, is a restaurateur, gym owner, and radio disc jockey, and who smashed someone's face in at an awards show without getting arrested, all while being pretty well fucking jacked for no reason?  Let me answer that for you- one.  Danny "The Ginger Badass" Bonaduce.

Not bad for a 52 year old who was fat as shit at 43.

I realize that half of you are about to shit your pants over the fact that Bonaduce's not a strength athlete, but that half of my audience can go ahead and fuck themselves, as Bonaduce is the real deal.  In addition to being progressively more awesome as he gets older, I can virtually guarantee that not only does the Ginger Badass look better than you naked, he more than likely would whip your ass silly and then fuck it just for shits and giggles, because that's the kind of guy he is.  Still need convincing?

For the uninitiated among you, the guy who just broke that poofter's face is also one of the most accomplished fictional bass players of all time, as Bonaduce was the bass player in the Partridge Family.  After that show got canned, young Bonaduce went on a decades-long coke and crack bender, beat the living shit out of a transsexual prostitute and landed himself in rehab.  As is common, Bonaduce got fat after kicking his coke habit and becoming a morning show dj.  Unlike most morning show guys, Bonaduce was shamed into getting in shape after he was signed to work with none other than Mr. A.C. Slater of "Saved By the Bell" fame.

... clearly, not afraid to fuck someone up or fuck someone in front of a live audience.

Soon after he resolved to get his ass in shape, Bonaduce went fucking bananas lifting twice a day.  He dropped 50 lbs of bodyweight and got jacked at the same time, hitting the gym twice a day and doing a ridiculous amount of cardio.  As Dr. Atkins once stated, to become fat as shit you've done "something 'unbalanced'.  To get yourself back to sleek, lithe, firm and fantastic, you honestly can't do a balanced approach." (John)  The Ginger Badass must've taken this shit to heart, because in his own words,

"I'm obsessed with lifting and getting more cut up. I have a gym at work, at home and here. [Bonaduce is part owner of Groove Fitness in Hollywood.] I train from 3:30-4:30 a.m. every day. Then I meet my trainer at 11 a.m. almost every morning. And I often run home from work, which is 8 miles."(M&F)

Tireless in his pursuit of getting ever more ripped, Bonaduce has tried every goddamned thing under the sun- he's lifted with Lou Ferrigno many times, trained with the aforementioned prettyboy Mario Lopez, sparred with Chuck Liddell and Sugar Ray Leonard, and even does "Wii Zumba, the Michael Jackson dance game, and Dance Dance Revolution for cardio."(BB.com)  Amusingly, Bonaduce's been knocked out by the latter three people I mentioned in sparring, and had the shit kicked out of him on the radio by Tito Ortiz as a goof.

As if that shit wasn't enough, Bonaduce upped the insanity by fighting other celebs in charity boxing matches, and is undefeated in his ass-whippings of the Reverend Bob Levy, fellow child stars Donny Osmond and Barry Williams, and fought attorney Robert Shapiro and former baseball star Jose Canseco to draws.  Thereafter he dipped his toe into the muddy puddle of pro wrestling, where he's 1-1 against former child star Christopher Knight and actual pro wrestler Eric Young (who has 6 inches and 75 lbs on the the Ginger Badass).  Awesome?  I'd say so.  He also benches over double his bodyweight (though he never trains legs), which is a feat few of the people who're undoubtedly going to talk shit on this blog can match.

Did I mention he's the grand world champion of assholes, smokes like a fucking chimney, holds three black belts, and has banged a chick so hot you'd probably suffer first degree burns if you stood next to her?  Check this shit out:

Q Seems like you're also obsessed with smoking. Any plans to quit?

A No. I've quit so many other things! I have a stair-stepper at home with an ashtray welded to it, and my gym has a smoking section.

 

Q So it's safe to say you're not working out for your health?
A I have the desire to appear healthy. I want somebody to go, "Nice ass," not "Nice lungs." I have mirrors everywhere in my house, and I walk around with no shirt on constantly. I keep resistance bands in my car, and if I'm going into a situation in which I haven't met the people, I'll take the heaviest band out, lay my car seat back, put my feet up on the dashboard and curl until the veins pop up. If someone came out and saw it I'd explain, "I have this cool vein and I wanted all the secretaries to see it."

Bonaduce's ex.  Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus, in your golden, fleece diapers, with your curled-up, fat, balled-up little fists pawin' at the air...

If you're curious as to how he pulled it off, Bonaduce trains six days a week, rotating through rep ranges and workout structures as he sees fit.  "Some weeks it's push-pull, some weeks it's max reps, some weeks its max weight, and always cardio and abs." (BB.com)  He's also a big fan of training opposing muscle groups together, and does cardio everyday, as he's obsessed with never getting fat again.  Not a bad obsession, frankly.  His diet's pretty standard fare (save for the power bar) and generally looks like this:


Breakfast:
Gold Standard Whey Protein drink
Snack:
Power Bar
Lunch:
Skinless Chicken Breast or Fish, serving size no bigger than my hand
Another Healthy Snack
Dinner:
Lean Chicken or Tuna Steak and once or twice a week, a big fat juicy hunk of Red Meat

All meals supplemented with the appropriate amount of carbs/protein ratio, rice, brussel sprouts, etc., in addition to amino acids and whatever thermogenics on which he can lay hands.  (BB.com)

In short, if a former crackhead child star can go from 43% bodyfat to 3%, bang a gang of hot bitches, and compete in a shitload of combat sports after the age of 45, anyone can do it.  The key, it seems, is to be complete fucking insane.


Get insane.

Sources:
     Body Of Work: An Interview With Danny Bonaduce.  odybuilding.com.  http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/body-of-work-interview-with-danny-bonaduce.html
     Danny Bonaduce.  Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Bonaduce#Boxing
     Detz, Jeanine.  Little big guy.  Muscle and Fitness.  9/2005.  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0801/is_9_66/ai_n14922597/
     Not It.  Itthing.com. 10 Child Stars who Grew Up To Be Morons.  http://itthing.com/10-child-stars-who-grew-up-to-be-morons
     John, Dan. 40 Years of Insight, Part 1.  http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/40_years_of_insight_part_1

Shit You've Probably Never Tried- The Overhead Walk

To begin, I hold no illusions that this is in any way a novel exercise.  I'm sure a quick google search will reveal that 198,734,867 other videos detailing the manner in which other people do this.  I don't care how or why they do it, however, and figure you guys might like another take on how this exercise could be done.[ed.- After initially writing that, I actually bothered to look, and the results were hilarious.]  Before I get into the hows, let's deal with the wherefores.

For those of you who are foreign, non-native English speakers, or possibly retarded, "wherefore" doesn't mean "where"- it means "why".  The misuse of this word annoys the tits right off me, so stop doing it.

So, the wherefore for the Overhead Walk- it will probably boil down to boredom and curiosity.  I started doing them initially because my old roommate and I started taking a bunch of plates and a barbell to the park on Saturdays, grilling a shitload of steak, drinking a tremendous amount of liquor, and lifting for a few hours.  We ended up getting bored with cleans and snatches and the like, so one of us decided to snatch 135 and walk with it as far as they could.  When they ditched it, the other one of use would yank it out of the ground (where it would be deeply embedded) and then walk as far as they could.  We'd do this for an extraordinary period of time, and left us sore as a motherfucker the next day.  Given a preference, that's how I'd still do it, outdoors, over uneven ground, drunk, and to death, but I lack access to both a masochistic training partner and barbells and plates I can take outdoors, I'm forced to do it inside by myself (as will happen occasionally to the best of us).  Which means I go as heavy as I possibly can, because fuck cardio anyway.

For those of you who want a little more reason for the things you do in the gym, you'd do well to remember that many bodybuilding pontificators and some sports scientists (among them Dr., Charles Staley), emphasize the time during which one's muscles are under tension as a critical part of program design.  Clearly, as I spend the vast majority of my considerable time in the gym lifting as violently and briefly as possible, this is not a key component of my training.  I do, however, believe that it is a fairly good indicator of training volume, and thus should probably not be completely ignored.  This type of exercise will drastically increase your time under tension, as it's a sort of combination static-hold, microrep partials, and endurance exercise all rolled into one gigantic bag of awesome.

As to the how, it's fairly simple- you clean and press or jerk, or snatch, a weight overhead and then walk with it until you don't feel like it any longer or cannot.  I enjoy using a variety of rep ranges, weights, and techniques for this type of exercise because mixing this sort of thing into a workout is all about spicing shit up a bit.  Like just about every other facet of training, this is hardly rocket science- just figure out what you like and do it.  A lot of it.

As to the when, Overhead Walks are a nice way to mix it up, give you something to do on a day you want to train but have no idea what you want to do, or are spending the day in the park grilling, drinking, and lifting.  I do them very infrequently (like, once a year), but I always enjoy them when I do them.  If I did them more often, I'm certain I'd have no problem going heavier with them, but I'm far too focused on other lifts right now to get sidetracked with this silliness.  For those of you who are already winding up a nice cry about how I walk around with more weight than you overhead press and you could never do this and blah di fucking blah blah- suck it the fuck up and press more.  When you're pressing, make sure you lock out each rep and hold it.  If you do that, walking around with heavy weights overhead's easy as fucking on a dead bear.

SHAKE THAT BEAR.

To Cut Or Not To Cut #3- The End

Remember, lean doesn't mean weak.

For starters, let's back it up a second- let's take it back to two days out.  I left out something of note for Wednesday which interests the shit out of me, but happened to forget to include in the last installment.  Beginning Wednesday morning, no matter what diet you've been following, cut out starchy carbohydrates and red meat.  Both starch and the creatine in the red meat will cause you to hold water (3g of water per gram of glucose or creatine).(Ferriss, How To Lose)

Having gotten that out of the way, let's move onto the day before the weigh in.  Friday morning, you should begin limiting your liquids to 1/3 of what you normally drink, and it should consist of naught but purified or distilled water.  Your consumption of food and water will end with a light meal on Friday evening around 5, and that's when your water consumption for the day will likely end.  Prior to hitting the hay, however, you should weigh yourself to see where you stand.  Time Ferriss recommends using 2 scales twice each, and then averaging the results.  Additionally, he recommends consuming enough water that you're two to three pounds off from your desired weight before you hit the hay if you're close or under, and I can personally attest to the fact that going to sleep with horrible dry mouth makes for a terrible night's sleep.

Unless you're sleeping next to that, in which case you might have trouble getting your eyes closed.

Should you find yourself more than two or three pounds away from the promised land, you're not going to run. In fact, I strongly advise against doing cardio in a "sauna suit" for those of you who are familiar with them.  It'll leave your legs weak as shit, and it's far less effective than the method about which I'm about to tell you.  Additionally, you do not want to do this shit the day before your weigh-in- this is strictly day-of shit.  You need to limit the time you spend in a dehydrated state, as dehydration drastically impairs your performance.  According to one study, even mild weight loss from sweating (1-2% of pre-exercise weight) resulted in a significant degradation in performance.(Armstrong)  More extreme dehydration can reduce your endurance by about 55% (Sawka), and depending which of four separate studies you consult, can reduce maximal strength by up to 11%.(Maughan)  Additionally, Ferriss chimed in with a statistic of his own (unfortunately uncited, but I believe it's  Bosco et al (1968)), that dehydrating a muscle by 3% can result in a loss of 10% of contractile strength and an 8% loss of speed.(How To Lose) For those of you posting numbers that aren't world-changing, this means that dehydration can be the difference between first and last in a meet, and as such, you'll want to be at your weigh-in weight for as little time as humanly possible.

Though liquor is a diuretic, this is only ideal when the meet's either a ways off or in the past.

To get to that weigh in weight, however, you're going to use one of two things- hot baths or steam rooms.  Ferriss is a huge fan of the former, as a hot bath has 100% humidity, and the "higher the humidity, the less the evaporation, and the more your body must sweat to cool core body temperature."(How to Lose)  For this  you should use a bath containing water "that does not burn the hand but causes pain if the hand is moved underwater."(How to Lose)  For anyone who's been in an overly-heated jacuzzi, this can generally be a godawful experience.  Never fear, however, as Matt Kroczaleski has the solution for you- use a combination of hot bath and steam bath, in thirty minute intervals.  According to Matt:

I start by entering a bath with the water as hot as I can get it without scalding myself, and I submerse my entire body except for my mouth and nose. I prefer the hot bath because it facilitates raising my body temperature as fast as possible and being submersed in the water is somewhat more comfortable (at least for me) than sitting in a steam room, especially a dry heat type of sauna. After fifteen minutes, I get out of the bath. I leave the shower running though on pure hot to maintain the steam and heat in the room. I don’t know what the precise temperature gets up to, but it’s typically as hot as any steam sauna I’ve been in. Next, I either sit or stand in the steam for another fifteen minutes. At the 30-minute mark (bath and steam time combined), I exit the bathroom for five minutes. This allows me a break both physically and mentally and lets my core body temperature return to a more normal level. I’ll feel much better physically. After five minutes in the cool room, I return to the hot bath (I drain and refill the water each cycle to keep the water as hot as possible) and begin the process again. (Kroczaleski)

To make the steam room he mentions, Kroc has a pretty slick method- he just fills the tub by running the shower on full hot with a towel stuffed in the crack under the bathroom door.  Using this method, you'll just keep weighing yourself with your two scales until you're there.  To aid your loss at this time, you can use two over-the counter supplements- Dandelion Root and Caffeine.  The two work synergistically to help you shed water, and taken at the prescribed doses shouldn't have much of a negative impact on your helth, especially since dandelion root is potassium sparing, in addition to being high in Vitamin A and Choline.  Ferriss recommends 250-500 mg 3 times daily (preferably with food) of the Dandelion and 200-400 mg 2-3 times per day of the caffeine, and suggests they should be taken with a potassium supplement, though if you've taken my advice on Mrs. Dash, you're getting more than enough potassium.  For my last meet, I used a supplement called Cranker 2, which seemed to work pretty well, although it only contained caffeine of the aforementioned ingredients.  Instead of the Dandelion Root, it includes a variety of other herbs, so if you try that, it might not hurt to throw some Dandelion in on top.

Electroshock therapy for your nipples and tongue is unnecessary, and might be best reserved for the post-win orgy than the pre-weigh-in prep.

Obviously, if you're doing a same-day weigh in, this shit is not for you.  You could use some of these methods, but given the research I cited above, you might be too fucking drained, or lack the necessary rehydration time, to make hard cut feasible.  As such, I'd experiment with a few different cuts and test your strength thereafter.  More than a few pounds, however, is likely going to be way too much for you to recover.

Perhaps a better way to commence the carbohydrate consumption.

Rehydration and replenishment is even more important than the dehydration phase.  Yes, that should be an "is", as the two words are parts of a singular hole- there are some grammar nazis on Reddit who were going to get all up in my shit if I didn't make that apparent.  The first thing you're going to want to do is rehydrate- eating will come later.  For this, Kroc uses Gatoraide diluted 1:1 with water, but Ferriss recommends straight Pedialyte instead.  "Commercially available sports drinks" he contends, "and so called 'replacement fluids' contain much too high a concentration of sugars (high fructose, dextrose, glucose, sucrose, and maltodextrin) or other solutes to move efficiently from your stomach to the primary site of absorption in the small intestine."(Hot to Lose)  The key at this point is to achieve a state of hyperhydration, which differs considerably from what most housewives will tell you when they see you chugging water and tell you that "too much water can kill you."  This is true, but that condition is called hyponatremia (water intoxication), is caused by a sodium imbalance rather than a surfeit of water, and is characterized by "nausea and vomiting, headache, confusion, lethargy, fatigue, appetite loss, restlessness and irritability, muscle weakness, spasms, or cramps, seizures, and decreased consciousness or coma."(Wikipedia)  Hyperhydration, on the other hand, is awesome, as it can induce improve power output and oxygen delivery.  Endurance athletes use hyperhydration for this reason, and the way to ensure that you end up with the one rather than the other is to consume 75mg of sodium per 8oz of water.  Additionally, Tim Ferriss and Christian Thibaudeau recommend consuming hand moisturizer to increase the amount of water you hold intra-muscularly.  Before you start rummaging through your nightstand and eating your onanism lube, ensure that it's made of glyerol, which will be called glycerine on the cover label.  As the majority of you likely roll with something more along the lines of Lubriderm, your stash should remain at home, uneaten.  Glycerol has been shown to improve rates of hydration, and even if you don't give a shit about looking "full", "pumped", or "shredded", you should consider including .543g/lb LBM of glycerol and .3984 fluid ounces/lb. LBM.(Ferriss)

Ninety minutes to two hours after you've chugged a gallon of glycerol-infused Pedialyte, you've got two options.  Ferriss recommends using the time-tested endurance ratio of protein to carbs (4:1)- this is probably most easily accomplished with some Waxy Maize and a blended protein (not whey, as you don't want to go catabolic during your meet).  Throw on top of that 100mg of ALA per 75 lbs of bodyweight and 50 mcg of chromium polynicontinate (not picolinate) to increase your insulin sensitivity, in addition to a 15 minutes soak in an Epsom salt bath for magnesium supplementation and muscular reaction, and you're off to the races.  Ferriss, by the way, mentions that you can absorb a tremendous amount of water through the skin even in a shower, demonstrating that it is after the weigh-in that you should shower or bathe, rather than before.(How To Lose) Kroc, on the other hand, eats a real-food meal as soon as possible, and eats as much as he can possibly fit down his gullet.  He also recommends continuing to drink throughout the day, which I would think goes without saying if I didn't see so many people do so much stupid shit every day I leave the house.   

I was looking for a picture of some hot hippie broads with the intention of saying that they needn't ever shower and I will still smash the fucking granny out of that, and found this picture of Dirt Diva, where's she's hilariously referred to as a hippie by someone who cannot spell a simple six letter word.  

... and that's how it's done, motherfuckers.  If you'd like to read about how I did it before doing any research of any kind, check it out here.  Expect the posts to come fast and furious over the next couple of weeks, as I have been slacking.


Sources:
     Armstrong LE, Costill DL & Fink WJ (1985): Influence of diuretic-induced dehydration on competitive running performance. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 17, 456–461.
     Ferriss, Tim.  How to lose 30 pounds in 24 hours:  The definitive guide to cutting weight.  The Blog of Tim Ferriss.  http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/01/18/how-to-cut-weight/
     "Hyponatremia." Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia#Symptoms
     Kroczaleski, Matt. How to Cut Maximum Weight for Competitions with a 24-Hour Weigh In.  http://www.elitefts.com/documents/cut_max_weight_for_comp.htm
     Maughan RJ.  (2003): Impact of mild dehydration on wellness and on exercise performance.  Eur J Clin Nut.  57, Suppl 2, S19–S23.
     Sawka MN & Pandolf KB (1990): Effects of body water loss on physiological function and exercise performance. In Perspectives in Exercise Science and Sports Medicine. Vol. 3, ed. CV Gisolfi & DR Lamb, pp 1–38. Misc: Indianapolis: Benchmark Press.
     Thibaudeau, Christian, and Chris Shugart.  Shredded In Six Days.  http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_diet_mass/shredded_in_6_days
     Wingo JE, Casa DJ, Berger EM, Dellis WO, Knight JC, McClung JM.  nfluence of a Pre-Exercise Glycerol Hydration Beverage on Performance and Physiologic Function During Mountain-Bike Races in the Heat.  J Athl Train. 2004 Jun;39(2):169-175.

To Cut Or Not To Cut #2- Cutting Like You Listen To Texas Is The Reason

So, you've decided to do the meet and now you need to make weight, eh?  If you're one of the half dozen people who've emailed me that these blogs come just at the "right time" because you've got a meet this month, you're probably fucked.  Proper fucked.  Done correctly, weight cutting will require a decent amount of pre-competition experimentation to determine how your body will react, a shitload of dieting, and a hell of a lot of unpleasantness- there's a reason why cutting goes with emo music, as it fucking sucks.  Allow me to explain:

While strength athletics don't generally require bodybuilder levels of leanness, anyone this side of Ray Charles can see a trend emerging amonth the dominant elite in powerlifting and strongman- they're fucking lean.  Take a look at the guys who are dominating these days.Matt Kroczaleski, Derek Poundstone, Mariusz Pudzianowski, Konstantin Konstantinovs, and Stan Efferding are all shredded... I mean, fuck, even Phil Pfister's gotten lean in the last few years, and the world's strongest woman, Aneta Florczyk, is lean (and fucking hot).  This means that before you even bother cutting water weight, you're going to need to drop some fat.  I've outlined ways to do so here, here, and here, so you can check those out for some ideas.  As anyone who is familiar with this blog knows, I'm a big fan of ketogenic diets and I think they're even better when making weight is an issue, as you get some idea of bodyweight when you're not holding water and will thus have a better idea of what's feasible for a weight class.  My bodyweight fluctuates 5-15 pounds after a carb-up, so I'm especially keen on experimenting with a carb-free week, every now and again, just to know where I stand.

The chick on the left is 5 time World's Strongest Woman Aneta Florczyk- notice how she's actually pretty hot, and definitely not fat.

Though it's not necessary that you get ripped to the fucking bone to compete in strength sports, you might as well use a competition as an excuse to bring your abs out of hiding.  They're likely not Jewish, so there's no reason for them to be treating your abdominal fat like's it the fucking attic and their name is Anne Frank.  For those of you who want to remain fat, go read something else and try not to burn any calories doing so- I'd hate for you to develop vascularity or some other indication that a heart attack's not your idea of a normal Saturday afternoon.

Britney really wanted to drop ten pounds for her wedding day.

Skipping forward, crunch-time for a cut starts not a day or to out, but rather a week out.  Assuming a Saturday meet 9Friday weigh-in), as they're by far and away the most common, your immediate weigh-in prep is going to begin the preceding Sunday.  This will go like the standard glycogen supercompensation week, so no matter what diet you had been following, you're going to be low-carbing the shit out of this week like your last name was Atkins and you're a sorostitute the week before her wedding, only without the "fatloss" gangbangs.  Thus, you're going to avoid carbs like Robert Downey, Jr. used to avoid rehab and chug water all the live-long day Sunday through Wednesday.  During this time, I recommend keeping your carbs absolutely under 50 grams a day and preferably under 30 grams a day.  Remember that you hold 3 grams of water for every gram of carbohydrates (Thibaudeau and Shugart).  And try to do yourself a favor by letting your body shed water as easily as possible.  Before you ask, that includes post-workout carbs and carbs from shakes, as well.  As you'll find later, sugar alcohols will also make you hold water, so it's also advisable to skip protein bars.

From the proceeding, if you aren't under the impression that all you'll be eating this week is meat, you are dumber than you look.  Unfortunately for you and your taste buds however, you're going to be avoiding sodium with almost the same cock-fueled determination as the aforementioned sorostitite avoids carbs.  This means that Mrs. Dash is about to become your number one fuckbuddy - she'll take good care of you and the additional potassium should reduce any cramping you might get while shedding water.  Additionally, using Mrs. Dash should also fight feelings of hunger that would otherwise result from your cut if it included salt as the increased salivation and gastric acidity that comes from eating salt can make you hungry as shit (Dukan 35).

Another critical component of this week will be the inclusion of 2-3 gallons of water per day in your diet.  Your pansy-ass sensitive teeth can get fucked - this shit should be ice-cold.  Cold water is an ultra-easy way to burn calories as it takes 60 calories to raise the temperature of 39.2 degree water (that's Fahrenheit, fuck your Celsius nonsense) to body temperature (Dukan 118).  Additionally, cold bath immersion, application of cold packs, and the consumption of cold liquids all reduce core body temperature, which will necessitate an increase in metabolic rate to compensate and result in additional fat loss (Feriss 142).  If your teeth bother you when you drink cold shit, throw on Invasion USA and watch it with your teeth bared for a half hour.  They'll either toughen the fuck up or you will - either way, it's time to chug some fucking water.

Tim Feriss actually has some really interesting stuff in his book Four Hour Body about using cold application for fat loss, and here are a couple of points he made in that regard:

1. Short-term cold exposure (30 minutes) in humans leads to fatty acid release to provide fuel
for heat production through shivering. This same shivering could be suffcient to recruit GLUT-4
to the surface of muscle cells, contributing to increased lean muscle gain.
2. Even at shorter durations, cold exposure with shivering could increase adiponectin levels and
glucose uptake by muscle tissue. This effect could persist long after the cold exposure ends.
3. In the absence of shivering, it is still possible to capitalize on “fat-burning fat” through the
stimulation of BAT thermogenesis. Curiously, even without shivering, there are small but
unaccounted increases in lean muscle tissue when comparing underwater (superior) vs. land-
based exercise.
4. Cold water improves immunity. Acute cold exposure has immuno-stimulating effects, and
preheating with physical exercise or a warm shower can enhance this response. Increases in
levels of circulating norepinephrine may account for this.
5. Not germane to fat-loss, but another reason to use cold exposure: cold showers are an
effective treatment for depression. One study used showers at 68°F for two to three minutes,
preceded by a five-minute gradual adaptation to make the procedure less shocking.  (Feriss 142)

So, by this point, we're one day out from the weigh in.  In the next blog, I'll cover how to manipulate water for a weigh in both the day before and the day of the weigh in, and how to eat and drink after weigh ins to maximize your performance and avoid dying (which can result from a hard weight cut, as Andreas Munzer showed us a few years back).

He was, by all accounts, an exceptional-looking corpse.

Sources:

Dukan, Pierre.  The Dukan Diet.

Ferriss, Timothy.  The Four Hour Body.

Thibaudeau, Christian, and Chris Shugart.  Shredded In Six Days.  http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_diet_mass/shredded_in_6_days

What, Exactly, Is Ideal?- The "To Cut Or Not To Cut?" For Meets Edition

One of the most interesting online debates (from a topical perspective, rather than a content perspective) is that in which someone asks the shockingly weak online assemblage if they should cut for a meet.  Hilariously and predictably, the answer is almost invariably "no".

The negative response is derived entirely out of fear, though it's fear of the wrong thing.  Instead of lifters fearing embarrassment due to the fact that their numbers suck and they're fat, they're worried that they'll lose weight off of their generally unimpressive lifts.  This fear is compounded by the fact that they'll be unused to cutting, which will presumably cause their bodies to enter into some sort of shock from which they cannot recover.

Somehow, I don't think Li Hongli's losing any sleep over the fact that somewhere in the world a fat man outbenches him.

All of this is, of course, fucking nonsense.  One's primary concern when entering a strength competition is winning.  As such, you should be focused entirely on what it takes to win.  If you're already focused on what it would take to win, you should be focused on what you can do to fucking embarrass everyone around you for even showing up.  Thus, having the highest possible relative strength should be your primary concern, rather than the greatest absolute strength.  This, of course, flies in the face of the conventional online wisdom that "he who lifts the most wins", as anyone who's not a sloppy fucking mass of adipose tissue would be far more impressed with a stupendous lift by a guy with visable musculature than they would with a Louis Cyr lookalike's world-shattering lift.  This is why everyone shits their pants about Stan Efferding, Joe Ladnier, and Matt Kroczaleski when there's a new record broken in the squat by a different circus fat man every 45 minutes.  This is also the reason why most of you know who 170 lb Bulgarian Olympic Ivan Stoitsov is, and have seen his pic a thousand times, but have no idea who Tatiana Kashirina is, in spite of the fact that she probably clean and jerks what you deadlift.

Quick!  Someone email Lu Xiaojun and tell him he's a bitch because he's only 170!

If you're wondering why no one knows the name of a fat Russian chick who holds the world record in the clean and press and the snatch (a chick who probably outlifts the vast majority of us on just about everything), don't.  Fat people aren't really people- they're placeholders where people should be.  No one wants to look at them, strong or not, nor be around them long enough to locate their genitalia and fuck.  They look like shit, wheeze when they breathe, and are in mortal danger of stroking out when doing anything other than doing a single repetition on one of their pet exercises or eating.  This doesn't change much when a fat guy or girl picks up something heavy- we expect them to be able to do so when the object they're lifting is a fraction of their bodyweight, no matter how heavy that object is.

Jeff Lewis squats 1202 in a bulletproof squat suit.  Given that he's 525 lbs and has cellulite on his knees, I can tell you confidently that I don't give a flying fuck.

Thus, if really doesn't matter that a fat person is all that strong.  You might be thinking, however, that you're not necessarily morbidly obese, but just have a "powerful torso" or somesuch.  All that means is that you're leaving weight on the table by which you might be able to fuck up the competition.  For instance, if you're competing 235 and sitting on something around 20% bodyfat, you're doing yourself a fucking disservice if you're competing at 242 because you're too fucking lazy to diet a bit.  That extra bodyfat is doing nothing but holding you back from greatness, as you could ostensibly be crushing shit at 220, or dominating everyone and looking ridiculous (Chinese Olympic weightlifting style) at 198.

Cutting weight is not, as some people would have it, the death knell for a lifter's total.  Provided cutting is done sensibly and fairly slowly, one's strength can rather easily be maintained, and can even be increased slowly if the cut is managed correctly.  The added volume you'll probably implement to cut the weight will just contribute to your total workload in the gym, and you could see random lifts jump up as you increase your mobility and strength to weight ratio.  Additionally, you won't feel like you need a nap if you have to take the stairs one day when the power goes out.

Throw on top of that the fact that strength does not increase proportionally with bodyweight- the law of diminishing returns kicks in like a motherfucker.  This means endless weight gains to shut up the fat guys talking shit on some message board are probably pointless.  At some point, you're going to hit a wall where your body's pretty much at it's upper limit for maximizing strength for your bodyweight.  Thereafter, your strength gains will probably be incremental, while your bodyweight increases could be exponential.  There's no point in asking other people at what point that will occur, either- it's entirely individual and completely unpredictable.  Thus, you should experiment with your bodyweight to find your "sweet spot".

Not a bodyweight sweet spot.  Also, is anyone else wondering why the Special Ed kids loaded that bar?

All of this is of course heresy to the myriad fatasses of the world, who will likely hold aloft one person as the entire basis of their argument- Ed Coan.  Coan was a fucking freak of nature, however, and it's relatively certain that unless you've recently destroyed every record within reach, you're not fucking him.  So why, then, would they postulate something so absurd?  To justify the fact that they look like they do.  There's no other possible reason, as there will always be someone stronger than they are, which obliterates their supposition regarding absolute strength.  Additionally, I don't think you'll find any of them criticizing Coan for dropping to 242 after competing at 275 for a while, especially given the fact that he looked fucking awesome.

Laura Phelps is stronger, and probably leaner than you.  Food for thought.

So, when deciding whether or not to drop weight for a powerlifting meet, consider the following:

1. Should you bother competing at all?  This is the most critical, and usually the most overlooked question of all.  If you're not one of the strongest people you know, there's really no reason to do so.  That won't stop many people from doing so, however, which leads me to the following question.
2. Are there weight classes in this meet?  If so, you should probably think about cutting to make a lower class, thus ensuring the highest strength to weight ratio and thereby placing you further away from the possibility of embarrassing yourself, whether it be when you disrobe or when you lift in the meet.
3. Do you have weight to lose?  Chances are you do, unless you're already ripped to shreds.  Unless you're planning on smashing a superheavy record or sitting at 5% bodyfat, there's absolutely no conceivable reason why you shouldn't drop weight.
4. Can you see your genitalia without a mirror and a partner?  If the answer is no, it doesn't matter if you're going to smash a record in any weight class- you need to lose some fucking weight.  If the answer is yes, refer to question 3.

There you have it- a simple, easy to follow guide to whether or not you should cut weight for a meet.    In the next installment of this series, I'll fill you in on how I cut, and how other people cut.  Now, flame away, flamers.

None of this applies to chicks with big asses, as they should preserve the booty at all costs, strength to bodyweight ratio be damned.

The French Have Finally Given The World Something Of Value- The Dukan Diet

I am shocked and pleased to announce that the French have finally, after over a thousand years of nearly unmitigated suck, decided to give the world something useful.  That thing, as it happens, is a book about nutrition- The Dukan Diet.

I realize that the above statement makes about as much sense as an announcement to the effect that a  New Guinea tribesman has just made a breakthrough in quantum physics, but I am actually quite serious.  The French will surprise us from time to time, as they have over the course of the last 100 years produced Charles Rigolout, Rise of the Northstar's song "Protect Ya Chest", and the Dukan Diet.  In much the same way as the other two French products were excellent, the Dukan Diet is a damn fine nutrition book.

As a bit of background, the Pierre Dukan, progenitor of the Dukan Diet, is considered to be France's answer to Dr. Atkins.  Like Atkins, he's regarded as a saint by some (notable celebrities like the broad who married into British royalty, the ridiculously nicknamed J-Lo, and Gisele swear by the diet) and a devil by others (including another popular dieting author who essentially said that Dukan's poisoning the minds and bodies of the French).(Nazar, Pichi)  Additionally, Dukan is a legitimate doctor, and he seems to have developed his diet after years of receiving diet questions from his patients and combining what he found through research with what he saw working in real life.

Body by Dukan.

Though someone to whom I recently described the diet responded with something akin to horror at the perceived complexity of the diet, I think it's unbelievably simple.  The diet is broken down into four separate parts, all with very simple-to-follow rules:

• Attack Phase- this is a pure protein diet utilized to kickstart fat loss
• Cruise Phase- pure protein days alternated with quasi-paleo days on which you can add select vegetables
• Consolidation Phase- intended to prevent rebound, this phase is a bit looser than the cruise phase
• Permanent Stabilization Phase- basically, eat whatever the fuck you want, with one protein day

In my opinion, it hardly gets simpler than this.  Additionally, this appears to be the ultimate [effective] female diet (the ultimate female diets will be outlined in a soon-to-be-released "Dumbest Fucking Diets of All Time" blog series), as it eventually allows the women to eat their much sought-after carbs after training them and their brains how they should focus their dieting efforts.  

That's one of the most genius parts of the Dukan Diet, as it has built in game mechanics that essentially allow users to "level-up" and get access to tastier foods.  Additionally, this diet is far less draconian than anything I follow on a regular basis, requires little to no calculations, and keeps its food rules fairly simple.

Before I dive into the phases, I figure I'll give those of you who could give a fuck about this diet some interesting highlights:

• On determining one's ideal weight:  it's better to ask yourself what weight is realistic and at which you'd feel good than to fantasize about looking like a celebrity.  Abstractions in shit like this generally lead to failure.  
• Your body's biological memory of your most common bodyweight can never be erased.  As such, you should focus on losing weight gradually, rather than in big jumps- big jumps will waste the willpower you'll need to stabilize your weight at a reasonable level, rather than momentarily hitting a new high or low.
• The DD includes a true weight calculator, which is pretty interesting, and Dukan notes that a man's stable bodyweight increases 2.6 lbs per decade, and a woman's increases 1.8 lbs.
• On a diet, you should refrain from using too much salt- this will reduce water retention and help keep your appetite at bay.  Salt intake increases salivation and gastric acidity, which trigger feelings of hunger.  Also, Dukan mentions that an increase in water with a concomitant decrease in salt will reduce the appearance of cellulite.
• Fats are public enemy #1, and simple carbohydrates are #2.  I, of course, disagree with this sentiment for strength athletes (see last blog for more info).

Attack!!!

The attack phase of the Dukan Diet (heretofore D.D.) lasts 2-7 days, based on personal fatness, the average of which is 5 days.  During this phase, you limit yourself to foods that are as close to pure protein as possible- lean meats, skinless poultry, 90% lean ground beef or better, veal, pork, game meats, seafood, eggs, nonfat dairy... essentially, anything but duck, goose, and ribs.  This can be prepared any way you like, but without butter, oil, or cream.  As I mentioned, poultry has to be skinless, though it can be cooked with the skin on to preserve the meat's moisture as much as possible.  If you're eating eggs, you should limit yourself to two yolks during this phase, but you can eat unlimited portions of the rest.

Did I mention the dairy?  I found that to be the most interesting part of this diet, and especially to the fairer sex, who is forever fucking whining about the lack of cheese, milk, ice cream, cheese, and ice cream in their diets.  Also, ice cream.  Anyone who's ever tried to help chicks with a diet has suffered through this, as chicks tend to whine about ice cream a fucking lot.  In any event, no sugar added dairy is right at the top of the fucking list for Dukan, who somehow believes lactose to be more or less harmless.  As such, fat free cheese can be eaten in unlimited amounts, skim milk can be drunk, and sugar-free yogurt can be eaten.  This makes life fairly easy for most chicks, as they all seem to love cottage cheese, and you can pretty much make this phase the cottage cheese phase if you so choose.  In retrospect, I suppose it doesn't necessarily allow ice cream, but dairy is dairy in my mind, so all of you dairy aficionados can suck it the fuck up.  Also, there's an end around on the ice cream thing, as provided by the good people over at My Dukan Diet.

The only hard and fast rules on this bitch is that you must consume 1.5 tablespoons of oat bran every day (he recommends making it into a galette), drink 1.5Q of water per day, and eat as much of the allowed foods as you want.  Insofar as duration is concerned, he recommends a 3 day attack for people looking to lose less than 20 pounds (total), a 1 day attack for people looking to lose less than 10 lbs, and 7-10 days for Walmart fatties. Finally, he recommends 20 minutes of walking a day, but quite frankly if you think 20 minutes of walking constitutes exercise, then the series of odd decisions you've made in finding this site leads me to believe that you're probably here for the porn.  

Cruisin'

The cruise phase essentially takes the attack phase and adds veggies.  Like I stated earlier, this diet is so simple, the fucking book could have been written in crayon and Simple Jack could have understood it without  a problem.  This phase is continued without a break until the dieter hits their target weight, and just alternates pure protein days with protein and vegetable days, all in unlimited amounts.  The average length of the phase is three days per pound of bodyweight lost, which is actually pretty reasonable, and retains the same oat bran and water prescription from the previous phase.


Vegetables that are ok'd by Dukan for this phase: tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, spinach, lettuce, asparagus, leeks, green beans, cabbage, mushrooms, celery, fennel, eggplant, zuccchini, summer squash, peppers, and provided they're not at every meal, carrots and beets.  No amount of whining, pleading, cajoling, or other tomfoolery will make potatoes or corn vegetables.  They're not.  It's science.  Accept it and move on with your lives.

Consolidate Your Position

At this point, you've conquered your body like Hitler raped France, and you've got to install your own puppet regime.  Instead of enlisting the help of the Vichy, you've got to continue the Cruisin' diet with minor modifications, and add in some "celebration" meals.  This is where the diet gets "fun" in female parlance.  At this point, you get to add two slices of bread and a portion of fruit every day.  Additionally, you can have two portions of starchy carbohydrates a week, and two planned cheat meals.

At this point in the diet, you should have a pretty fucking good idea of what got you to where you are, a healthy respect for that knowledge, and a desire not to blow the whole goddamned thing because you've already broken your ass dieting for a month.  This phase takes that and rolls it into a ball with what regular (FAT *cough* FAT) people consider a "normal"/"balanced" diet.  The idea here is to train yourself to have portion control so you maintain your weight.  Your body's not taking that shit laying down, however, and will fight tooth and nail to regain its lost fat.  At this point, people find they're cold, tired, constantly hungry, and have increased caloric absorption... essentially, it's a big bag of bullshit.

Beat your body like this guy.

To get your body to fuck right off with that nonsense, Dukan reintroduces whole grain bread, certain fruits, and the wondrous cheat meal.  I've already outlined the myriad reasons why cheat meals are awesome (here and here), and Dukan agrees with my sentiments.  He does, however, add limitations I do not, and which might well prove useful to a lot of you who are struggling with fat loss:

• eat anything you want, but you only get a single portion, and your portion size should be moderated by reason
• eat one of every one of the haute-cuisine courses to provide yourself with a full  meal experience- 1 appetizer, 1 entree, 1 dessert, and 1 glass of wine.
• cannot have two celebration meals in a row

As I stated, this is in many ways similar to my suggestions about cheat meals, though my suggestions lack the effete trappings of that esteemed French gentleman's.  In any event, they're reasonable.  In addition to the above, he suggests that you have a single day of pure proteins per week, and recommends that the following fruit hierarchy to guide your decision making there:

Apples> Strawberries and Raspberries> Melon> Grapefruit> Kiwis, peaches, nectarines, mangoes.

You cannot have bananas, grapes, cherries, dried fruit, or nuts.  Additionally, you still cannot have starchy "vegetables" like corn, potatoes, or yams, unless it's one of your starch meals.

Speaking of which, the plan for the starchy meals is not too dissimilar from the cheat meal plan- it's governed by reason and common sense.  During the first half of the consolidation phase, you can only have one serving a week, and then you bump it up to two servings once you hit the halfway point.  As for what you can stuff down your gullet at these meals, you can have an 8 oz (cooked) serving of pasta, corn, breads, coucous, polenta, or lentils, 6 oz of white or 8oz of brown rice, or a baked potato without butter.  While it's not quite an evening at the Olive Garden, it's something for those of you who love their carbs.

At Least Your Weight Will Be Stable

The DD is structured so that you never have to return to a life of bulimia to manage your weight, and the Permanent Stabilization routine is the key to the whole shitteree, according to MM. Dukan.  This phase is actually simpler than the rest, as it involves eating whatever the fuck you want 6 days a week (provided you're still getting your 2TBSP of oat bran a day, eating the pure protein diet one day a week, and never using an escalator or elevator again in your life.  The latter recommendation only really works in sub-saharan Africa or a country that is bombed flat by its neighbor twice a century, but would likely be suicidal if you lived in the Burj Khalifa or wanted to stand at the top of the Empire State Building.  

Even Lance Armstrong would call bullshit on climbing the stairs in this motherfucker.

According to Dukan, however, this thing will keep you slender as a baguette-eater for the remainder of your days, and apparently does not require that you own a beret to do so.

Questions I Have Been Asked About This Diet Already

Q:  Is oat flour the same as oat bran?

A:  Nope.  Oat flour is entirely different from oat bran, and could be considered the yin to oat bran's yang, or the Skeletor to bran's He-Man.  On this diet you will have to eat oat bran, which is apparently hard as all fucking hell to find in some stores.  It should be located, however, in the cereal isle.  You can also get it cheap on amazon if you so choose.

Q:  I can't find sugar-free yogurt!!!  HELP!

A:  Yogurt, like all dairy foods, contains sugar.  This sugar is called lactose, and is the alleged culprit when any person shits their pants after drinking a glass of milk.  According to one study, "Approximately 70% of the world’s population has primary lactase deficiency", which means they are at least moderately lactose intolerant.  That fascinating sidebar aside, there's no way to get sugar-free yogurt.  What you want is "No sugar added" yogurt, which is sweetened with artificial sweeteners.  No honey, no agave, and no other hippie faux sugars are allowed either- you want good, old-fashioned chemical sweeteners if you're going to have yogurt, or just eat it unflavored.

Q: Where should I go to get recipes/more information/anything else because I'm too fucking lazy to read the book?

A:  My Dukan Diet seems to have some good recipes and breaks shit down a bit.  Thus, if you've got a member of the family with Down's syndrome but who wants to lose some weight (and when was the last time you saw someone with Down's who couldn't stand to get their ass around the block a couple of times?), or you want recipes, go here.

Q:  Is cum allowed on this diet? [Editor's note:  I very literally was asked this question.  Twice.]

A:  Yes, cum can be a very important part of any diet for anyone who wishes to partake (edited for the hyper literal readers out there).  This means that gays, bisexual guys, guys who like to eat their own cum, and straight or bisexual chicks can benefit greatly from the addition of cum to their diet.

"Although cum may look creamy and opaque, it contains very little fat, and few calories. One teaspoon of cum contains about 5 calories, and the average ejaculation produces about a tablespoon of semen, for a total of 15 calories. Because of the sugars in seminal fluid, we'd guess that it has a few carbohydrates, but considering the relatively small volume of semen per "serving" we'd guess the total amount to be negligible.Given that cum is a high-protein, low-carb snack, you'd think the Atkins Diet people would be all over it by now. Plus, when you factor in the calories expended in performing oral sex, chances are you're burning off much more than you're consuming. The only way that swallowing during a blow job will make you fat is if you cover your lover's dick with whipped cream and chocolate syrup." (Don't Spit)

Per Wikipedia: "Semen is primarily water, but contains trace amounts of almost every nutrient the human body uses.[citation needed] It has somewhat higher amounts of commonly deficient minerals, such as potassium, magnesium, and selenium. One typical ejaculation contains 150 mg of protein, 11 mg of carbohydrates, 6 mg fat, 3 mg cholesterol, 7% US RDA potassium and 3% US RDA copper and zinc." 

Dieting FTW.

Sources:

Don't Spit, Swallow.  Cum Nutrition Facts.  http://www.dontspitswallow.com/cum_nutrition.shtml

Dukan, Pierre.  The Dukan Diet.  New York:  Crown Archetype, 2010.
Nazar, Robyn.  Dukan Diet: New Weight Loss Fad for Celebs.  http://www.emaxhealth.com/4214/dukan-diet-new-weight-loss-fad-celebs 

Pichi, Chuan.  War Plans: Dukan Lost to Cohen.  http://ya20.com/2011/07/05/war-plans-dukan-lost-to-cohen-2/