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‘Tis the season for those impressive displays of matzo boxes to grace the ends of grocery store aisles. If you’re celebrating Passover, you may already have your boxes purchased and are ready to go. Sure, a slather of cream cheese and a bit of lox is all well and good, but you can take your matzo game further. Here are 10 of our favorite ways to use the unleavened flatbread.
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Whether your goal is to improve your performance or your body composition, the squat is an essential tool for success. Don’t be fooled! Though typically considered a lower body exercise, this “bang for your buck” move offers total-body benefits.
Squatting not only strengthens and develops your leg muscles (most notably your quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings), but also the muscles of your anterior core, lower legs, and even your feet. In terms of performance, the squat has a positive carryover to sports performance, your performance in the gym, and your ability to conquer basic daily tasks. And because you’re working with your whole body, squats are also a key element of any fat loss-oriented strength training program.
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The barbell back squat is often seen as the king of all squat exercises, but it isn’t always the best option for every individual. Due to limitations in mobility, strength, technical ability, structural differences (for instance, longer femurs), or perhaps a history of injuries, some people are better off skipping the back squat, and opting for variations that align better with their unique requirements.
If this is the case for you (or if you’re an avid barbell back squatter and just want to mix things up), below are three of my favorite squat variations you probably have tried yet. These variations can feel just as empowering as the back squat and will also deliver results.
The Landmine squat is a fantastic bilateral squat variation that strengthens and develops your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and anterior core, and to a lesser degree, your upper body. This is a great option if you’re not able to perform back or front squats with a barbell. If you’re working on improving explosiveness, this set-up is much safer and less technically demanding for performing jump squats than performing them with a barbell on your back. It also allows you to use significantly more weight than holding dumbbells.
Equipment Needed:
Coaching Tips:
Regression:
You can make this exercise easier by using less resistance, or by performing a box squat variation in which you sit down to a box or bench.
Progression:
You can make this exercise more challenging by adding more weight plates, chains, or by using band resistance. You can also perform negative reps and take three to five seconds to lower yourself down, or you can perform jump squats.
The band-resisted negative 1.5-rep goblet squat strengthens and develops your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and anterior core. This double squat variation is a great option when you have minimal equipment, or want to give your glutes a little extra work. While the 1.5 rep negative goblet squat is tough enough, add some more resistance with a band and you will be blown away by how much more you feel your quads and glutes working.
Equipment Needed:
You will need a dumbbell or kettlebell and a resistance band to perform this exercise.
Coaching Tips:
Regression:
You can make this exercise easier by performing it as a bodyweight squat with no resistance band, or by using a lighter resistance band. You can also perform regular goblet squats without the negative half-rep.
Progression:
You can make this exercise more challenging by using a thicker resistance band, or by using a heavier kettlebell or dumbbell.
This exercise strengthens your lower body, most notably your quadriceps, glutes, and hamstrings. The single-leg squat is a fantastic option if you are working out at home or in a hotel and don’t have access to a gym. While the single-leg squat is a challenging exercise itself, adding the band resistance ups the ante in a major way, lighting your quads and glutes on fire.
Equipment:
You will need a resistance band to perform this exercise. The thicker the band, the more challenging the exercise will be. You can perform this exercise in a squat rack or in a doorway.
Coaching Tips:
Regression:
You can make this exercise easier by using no band resistance, and by using more upper body assistance.
Progression:
You can make this exercise more challenging by using less upper body assistance, or using a thicker band. You can also perform negative reps taking three to five seconds to descend into the squat, or you can perform a pause squat variation pausing at the bottom three to five seconds. Lastly, you can perform 1.5 repetitions by squatting all the way down, standing halfway up, squatting back down and then returning to a full standing position.
The post Beyond The Back Squat: 3 Squat Variations To Mix It Up appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.
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You may think those squeezable fruit and veggie pouches you see popping up everywhere are just kid stuff, but they’re actually more useful in the kitchen than you might realize. My colleagues Meghan and Christine started off buying them for their littles ones, but now continue to reach for them for unconventional uses — and so should you.
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(Image credit: Devon Jarvis)
Ah, spring. We’ve been waiting not-so-patiently for it all winter! Know what we haven’t been so pumped for? Spring cleaning. While other sites will shame you for not being all, “Yay, spring cleaning!” we get it. Even if you enjoy cleaning, no one wants to spend this finally nice weather inside scrubbing every nook and cranny in sight.
We give you permission not to! You do not have to spend the month oiling your wood cutting boards or wiping down your light switch plates. (Of course you can! We just won’t make you!) There are, however three cleaning projects that you really should tackle in the next few weeks. Because if you don’t do them now, chances are you may never get around to them.
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I get a lot of industry news. I eat out a fair bit. I talk to people whose job it is to spot and track health trends. I’m privy to some of the greatest, most innovative minds in the alternative health community—my readers. And you guys are always sending me interesting links. Today, I’m going to discuss some trends of Primal interest. I might poke fun at some of them, and others might be relatively small-scale, but even the silly or minor ones point to interesting movements in the health and fitness zeitgeist.
So, what are the 9 I’m highlighting today?
In 2015, I wrote about the dichotomy of value between experiences and things, pointing to research suggesting that buying experiences brings more joy and meaning to a person’s life than buying material objects. I explained how our hunter-gatherer evolution probably wired us to get more out of experiences, and I dug a bit into my own opinion on the matter.
People appear to be agreeing with me. Millennials in particular are choosing things like travel and dining out over gear and gadgets. And the material objects people are consuming enable experiential living—smartphones, fitness trackers, and such. Even media consumption is shifting away from ownership of music and movies to on-demand services like Spotify and Netflix.
Nose-to-tail eating has taken off. Previously arcane bits like sweetbreads, liver, tripe, marrow, and kidney are on menus everywhere, and few people bat an eye anymore. It’s normal.
Eating root-to-leaf means considering the edibility of the entire plant. More often than not, we’re throwing away a large amount of digestible, nutrient-dense flora.
Broccoli crowns are amazing, but did you know you can eat the leaves? Broccoli leaves are some of my favorite. This also works for Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and celery.
It means eating roots and their greens, whether it’s a carrot, a beet, a rutabaga, or a turnip. When the guy at the farmer’s market asks if you want him to “twist off the leaves,” say “absolutely not.”
Even things like lemon, orange, or grapefruit rinds can be grated, pickled, or processed to extract the flavonoids.
Outfits are taking young professionals on carefully curated excursions into the wild. Check out this video from Wilderness Collective documenting their maiden trip. Yes, it’s overwrought. Yes, it’s a bit silly and a little too perfect. But it’s satisfying a real need people have: spending unbroken days immersed in natural settings.
Walking the dog in the park before work is better than nothing. Putting up a Yosemite wallpaper on your laptop is nice (and may even have an effect). Actually spending 5 nights camping out and trekking through Yosemite is nicer and far more real, even if you’ve got a Michelin-starred chef flambéing flat iron steaks for you at dinnertime.
There’s growing awareness of the importance and primacy of frequent—constant, if you can—low-level movement. Developments like fitness trackers, walking clubs at the workplace, the rise of standing workstations (pun intended), the bi-monthly article railing against the dangers of sitting too much, the concept of “exercise snacks,” (mini workouts done throughout the day) and the constant recommendations that people walk at least 10,000 steps a day suggest that the word has gotten out. Folks like Katy Bowman (of Don’t Just Sit There fame) have played a huge role in furthering, explicating, and refining the message.
Formal, dedicated training isn’t going anywhere. Nor should it. The stuff plain works. But it works better atop a foundation of constant low-level movement.
I’m not talking about jetting off to Costa Rica for dental work, or Thailand for a sex change operation. I’m talking about hiking the Pacific Coast Trail, or maybe the Appalachian Trail, or even flying to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago, or to Turkey to do the Lycian Way. Kickboxing camps in Chiang Mai, Inca Trail maintenance at Machu Picchu, WWOOFing.
Right now, we know a few things about the interactions between specific genetic variants and certain foods, activities, and environmental inputs. But biology is probably the most complex system in the universe. We’re missing a ton.
It’s also getting better. Scientists continue to unmask, identify, and catalogue new variants and their effects—and how what you eat and how you train affects them. A product I used and enjoyed, DNA Fit, and similar ones will only get better, more accurate, and more comprehensive.
With all the CrossFitting, Tough Muddering, Olympic lifting, and other training people are doing, they’re finally beginning to wise up to the role recovery days play in fitness. But rather than only rely on time off and sleep, they’re spending big bucks on the best recovery money can buy. Float tanks (rich in magnesium sulfate epsom salts; the sensory deprivation activates but ultimately helps you tame the monkey mind), cryotherapy chambers (ultra-cold therapy), mobility tools that help you stretch and perform self-myofascial release.
Yes, this can get expensive. This isn’t a bad thing. I’ve always argued for more rest and relaxation and recovery, and the consensual exchange of money for services indicates that consumers of cryotherapy, float tanks, mobility/self-myofascial-release products are clearly getting something out of the exchange.
Used to be you could only get a big whack of the all-important purple anthocyanins from a cup of blueberries. That’s changing. There’s purple carrots, purple cauliflower, purple sweet potatoes, purple regular potato, purple asparagus, purple corn, black rice. These aren’t recent creations. Purple/black varieties of produce have been around for decades. They’re becoming more prominent though. All that purple doesn’t make up for the loss of Prince, but it’s probably good for our insulin sensitivity and cognitive function.
Tech companies’ recent forays into food haven’t gone very well, but cellular agriculture could be a game changer. To grow a piece of beef in the lab, they culture stem cells taken from a piece of beef off an actual living cow. Tender cuts (filets) are harvested earlier, tougher cuts (chuck) are harvested later.
The most prominent cellular agriculture company, Memphis Meats, hopes to have its stem cell-grown “clean” chicken and pork on store shelves by 2021. They’ve already got a working meatball for people to taste.
Will it save us?
That remains to be seen. The “cultured meat” evangelists who decry the climactic impact of ruminants always overlook the vital role holistically-grazed livestock play in maintaining soil health, re-greening land, and building carbon sinks. What other “alternative” benefits of eating and raising traditional will they miss? If they try to “optimize” the fatty acid content of a stem-cell ribeye by excising the saturated fat and bumping up the linoleic acid, I will be very upset (but not very surprised).
If the technology gets cheap enough, we’ll probably be able to grow our own at home to whichever specifications we like. Bump up the vitamin K2, omega-3, collagen, zinc, and so on. That could be cool. Whatever the supposed benefits, if it doesn’t taste and behave just like good meat I’m not interested.
That’s it for me, folks. What about you? What are the trends you’re watching for? Which are the trends you’ve adopted? Let me know down below, and thanks for reading!
The post 9 Trends of Primal Interest appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.
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Cupcakes may no longer be the trendiest dessert around, but they still deserve some respect. An entire cake takes lots of dedication, but cupcakes? Cupcakes are easy. Cupcakes require a cheap pan, some ingredients, and lots and lots of frosting. You can cut a recipe in a half and it won’t be a big deal.
Ready to get baking? Good, I have just the thing you need. The internet has spoken and this is the most popular cupcake recipe on Pinterest right now. Have you tried it?
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When people think of leeks, they think of the supporting role leeks take in recipes — blended in soups and stews, infused into sauces, or paired with potatoes in what might be an otherwise bland dish. But leeks can be the star of the show. This dish of braised leeks and lentils allows leeks to shine by embracing their flavor and leaving them whole. By braising them, you get the true taste of a leek, which is far more mellow than one might expect. Pairing the creamy leeks with the toothsome green lentils is an excellent contrast of textures and brings a nutty taste to the dish.
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Cleaning your kitchen is a never-ending job — especially if you actually use it. There are your everyday messes (those breadcrumbs that got all over while you were packing up lunch) and there are the ones that build up over time while you’re busy doing other things (how’d that backsplash get so greasy?). Staying on top of all of it could end up being a full-time job. But you already have one of those!
While everyone has spring cleaning on their minds, we thought we’d leave you with this list, detailing what you should clean and how often you should clean it. It’s not here to stress you out (we swear!), but rather to serve as a gentle reminder.
Here are all the things you should clean — and when.
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When I was in Italy, living alone and on a student budget, pasta for dinner was basically my go-to. To be honest, now that I think back, I can’t really remember what I made for myself in the evening other than pasta. Given the great crusade against carbs, you’d think this splurge of sorts caused me to gain weight, feel sluggish, or confirm once and for all that pasta is basically evil.
But guess what? I felt as healthy as ever on my strict pasta diet — and my wallet felt pretty healthy too. Before you get too excited, I wasn’t feasting on fettuccine Alfredo. My pasta dinners were balanced meals that gave me the energy I needed as a busy student. It wasn’t hard — I promise.
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