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I’ve been sneaking peeks at several celebrity kitchens lately. From Beyonce to Katy Perry, they’ve been totally over the top (in a good way). This time around I’m checking out Rachael Ray’s up-for-sale Hamptons home. The asking price is $4.9 million and it has not one, but two kitchens!

But before you start packing your bags, you may want to look closer. Do you see what I see?

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Oftentimes, people rush to lift heavy loads — sometimes too heavy loads! — without thinking about spending time building their stabilizers. It is important to strengthen your joints in static positions prior to adding heavy loads or a higher volume of ballistic movements for which your joints are not ready.

I prefer to approach my training as a journey to being strong for life, while proving that age is just a number or a mindset.

Treating our strength training as a journey or a practice will keep us safe and making gains well into our older years… whatever “older” means to you!

While there are many ways to strengthen our stabilizers, I personally enjoy using handstand progressions. If you fear the thought of being inverted, don’t worry: there are progressions for all fitness levels. For the purpose of this article, I will cover several handstand progressions; if any of these seem too advanced, remember that you can regress to headstands first.

Headstands are fabulous place to begin your journey to a handstand, as they allow you to get comfortable upside down while building your balance. Headstands might be the end goal for some, while others may want to advance to handstands. No matter the end goal, we need to make sure to build a strong core and strong shoulder stabilizers.

As expressed in my other articles, it is great to begin slowly, with usable progressions, to build a solid foundation of technique before jumping “head first” into the deep end of advanced skills. With this in mind, try each progression and see which is suitable for your current strength level.

Step 1 — Floor Holds: Set-Up a Solid Base of Support

Begin on the floor where you will try to stack your hips over your shoulders in either a pike or straddle leg position. (The straddle set-up will be a bit easier for those with tight hamstrings.) If you are familiar with yoga, think about the downward facing dog position, but then walk your hands and feet closer together for a better stacked position.

Spend time holding this position with locked out elbows to strengthen your wrist and shoulders. Slowly add more weight over the hands, eventually unloading the feet. Don’t rush — this takes time. I promise your wrists and shoulders will thank you!

Once you’ve built up time holding this position, another way to become more stable prior to moving on to Step 2 is to begin doing shoulder taps, to make it even more advanced. This will teach you to shift your bodyweight from side to side in a safe position before loading even more of your weight over your head and shoulders.

Step 2 — Bench Holds: Begin Loading More Weight over the Shoulders

After spending time on floor holds and shoulder taps, it is now time to move up to the bench holds. These allow you to begin loading even more weight onto your hands and stacking your hips on top of your shoulders. There are a few options:

• Kneeling on the bench
• Feet on the bench

Both options are demonstrated in the video and each option loads more weight over the hands, making your wrists stronger. After you have spent time on this progression, you can add shoulder taps as we did on the floor, or you can keep one foot on the bench and begin extending one leg straight overhead to get slowly closer to balancing in a full handstand.

Step 3 — Supported Handstand Holds: Begin Holding Full Bodyweight over Hands

Just as in Step 2, there are several options for doing supported handstands. In the video, I show you two that I personally like: the rack-supported being my favorite and the wall-supported as my next choice. If kicking up to either a rack or wall still makes you feel unsettled, you can face the wall and walk up the wall with your feet. The supported handstand will load 100 percent of your bodyweight over your hands, building great strength and stability while decreasing the fear of falling over.

Supported handstands may be the end goal for some, while others may want to eventually do freestanding handstands or handstand walking. If you should choose to continue advancing to either of those, the great thing is that you will have already built great stability and strength from the above progressions. And if you choose to stop at Step 3, you will have strengthened your joints and just might be surprised at how much stronger your pressing, pulling and squatting are when you return to practicing those skills again.

The post Handstand Training: Fun Progressions to Build Stability and Strength appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.

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CrossFit, SoulCycle, and many other group-class fitness brands have exploded in popularity over the last decade. Part of the success these brands have enjoyed is owed to the fact that each of them fulfill the fundamental needs people have for community and exercise.

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My heart goes out to everyone who has been affected by the California wildfires. We were on alert for a couple days in the Berkeley Hills where we live but were never really under serious threat. However, I have a few close friends whose homes burned or have been directly affected in other ways. The scale of this catastrophe and the number of people impacted are enormous.

But it’s not just the direct effects of the fire that are of concern; the indirect effects, particularly the decline in air quality throughout the Bay Area and parts of the Los Angeles area, are also significant.

Here are some steps you can take to protect yourself and your family from these effects:

Check the air quality daily (or even hourly)

You can do this on Air Now, Bay Area Air Quality Management District, or a weather website that includes the Air Quality Index (AQI) ratings, like Wunderground. For example, go to Wunderground.com, type in your zip code, and on the results page scroll down to where it says “air quality.”

Be aware that the AQI can change on an hourly basis, since it’s highly dependent on prevailing winds and other conditions. For example, the other day in Berkeley, where I live, the AQI went from “moderate” in the morning when I woke up to “unhealthy for sensitive groups” a couple of hours later to “unhealthy” by the afternoon.

Know someone near wildfires? Have them check their air quality.

In the Bay Area, you can sign up for Spare the Air email or text alerts, or download the Spare the Air app (iOS and Android). For other locations, the Air Quality app by AirVisual (iOS and Android) looks like a good one.

Here is a scale that explains the different AQI ratings:

I consider anything about 50 to be of concern, especially to those who are sensitive to PM_2.5, which are the tiny particulates that can travel deep into the respiratory tract and into the lungs. According to the New York Department of Health website:

Exposure to fine particles can cause short-term health effects such as eye, nose, throat, and lung irritation, coughing, sneezing, runny nose, and shortness of breath. Exposure to fine particles can also affect lung function and worsen medical conditions such as asthma and heart disease. Scientific studies have linked increases in daily PM_2.5 exposure with increased respiratory and cardiovascular hospital admissions, emergency department visits, and deaths. Studies also suggest that long-term exposure to fine particulate matter may be associated with increased rates of chronic bronchitis, reduced lung function, and increased mortality from lung cancer and heart disease. People with breathing and heart problems, children, and the elderly may be particularly sensitive to PM.

Limit exposure to outside air

If the AQI is at moderate or above, I believe it is prudent to take steps to protect yourself, especially if you have respiratory issues or other chronic health problems, including obesity and diabetes. Pregnant women, infants, children, and the elderly are also more susceptible. The higher the AQI, the more you should limit exposure. Steps could include:

• Staying indoors with windows and doors closed, preferably in an area with filtered air (see below).
• If you do spend some time outdoors, wear an N95 respirator. This is the only consumer-friendly mask that has been shown to filter out PM₅. They can be purchased at hardware stores or online. It’s important to wear the mask properly—see pages 18–22 on this document for instructions. Note that wearing an N95 is not a “free pass” to stay outdoors for as long as you like, even if it is worn properly. Think of it as something that can reduce or minimize, rather than eliminate, exposure.
• Use air filters. A high-quality HEPA filter will significantly reduce the levels of PM₅ indoors. The most effective portable home air filters, to my knowledge, are the IQAir HealthPro Plus and the Airgle AG500-800. However, the HealthPro Plus is around $900 and the Airgle units are $1,500 to $2,000. A much more affordable (and perhaps equally effective) option, according to this family doctor in Beijing who has been testing air filters for years, is the Xiaomi air filter. According to this doctor’s tests, it removed 95 percent of the most harmful PM_2.5 in Beijing air from his home. That’s impressive. (That said, it seems difficult to find this filter in the United States.) Note that you will need multiple portable filters for your home, depending on its square footage. Another option—which is the one we pursued in our home just after we bought it—is to install a whole-house air filter that is connected to your HVAC system. We chose the IQAir Perfect 16. If you can’t buy filters for your entire home, at the very least create a “clean room” for sleeping, with the doors/windows closed and an air filter in that room. For more on air filters, check out this guide from the CA Air Resources Board or this one from the EPA. Note: avoid air purifiers that emit ozone.
• Keep your outdoor activity (or indoor activity in non-filtered air) levels low. The faster your respiration rate, the more PM₅ you’ll be inhaling.
• Take additional steps to keep the air clean.
  • Keep the room clean, but don’t vacuum unless your device has a HEPA filter. Vacuuming stirs up particles that are already inside your house.
  • Leave your shoes outside or right at the door, and don’t wear them in the house.

Remember to continue checking the air quality levels on a regular basis, since they can change so quickly. Don’t rely on subjective indicators like the smell or appearance of the air—use the resources above to check the AQI in your local area.

I hope this helps to keep you and your family safe if you live in a wildfire-affected area.

Originally Posted At: https://breakingmuscle.com/feed/rss

Welcome back. In my first article, Hypertrophy for Long-Limbed Lifters, I covered the first five key training strategies to help long-limbed guys build muscle. In this article, I have another six tips for you to fine tune your training.

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Apple cinnamon toaster strudels, those super-sweet frozen pastries, were definitely a guilty pleasure growing up. I have to admit, it’s been years since I last enjoyed one — until this recipe came along.

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If you are way more into it being pumpkin spice season than Halloween, I’m going to show you how to put together a low-key party that celebrates the season more than the actual holiday of Halloween. You can pull it off with a three-ingredient cocktail and a batch of gooey pumpkin spice Rice Krispies treats. Here’s how to make it happen.

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Zucchini bread was one of the first things I learned how to bake from scratch. It was full of oil and topped with a mound of cream cheese frosting. My 20-year-old self was in love. Nowadays, especially since I bake so often, I try to look for healthier options. These apple-zucchini muffins are the perfect compromise — with their oat crumble topping and dollop of sweetened crème fraîche, that super-rich cream cheese frosting is hardly missed.

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You’ve seen them across the internet, flooding your Pinterest and Instagram feed: cakes finished with all hues of gorgeous drip frosting, pouring delicately down their sides. Want to know a secret? That beautiful drip detail is incredibly easy to make at home. Whether you want to upgrade a store-bought cake or really put a show-stopping finishing touch on a homemade layer cake, a pretty waterfall of frosting down the side of your cake is just a few steps away.

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The Neiman Marcus Christmas Book is here! If you’re unfamiliar, every year the company comes out with a mind-boggling list of wildly expensive, completely bonkers gift ideas, and the 2017 volume will not disappoint you. If you want to build your own Rolls Royce, take over an entire Times Square hotel on New Year’s Eve, the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book will let you do that. But the Neiman Marcus catalog is also full of gourmet food gifts, and some of them are actually within the realm of financial feasibility.

Here are 10 food gifts you can actually afford in the Neiman Marcus catalog — and one you absolutely can not afford.

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