When You Lose Count, the Answer Is Always One More..

The "Clean & Press Punisher" lived up to its name

Clean and Presses are the beeznees. Take a heavy object from the ground load it up to the chest level and hoist it overhead...rinse and repeat. Throw some pullups in there and you've got a effective method of getting strong and conditioned. So that's exactly what we did...in the strength portion of the workout we broke into partners and did 4 sets of 5 clean/presses coupled with pullups. After the heavy lifting we went into the "Punisher":

50 Clean and Presses each arm, but every minute on the minute you had to do 3 burpees. This workout forced you to do 2 things:

1) Be good at technique
2) Be good at math under stress, because you did not want to lose count.

Tayler lost count..so she just kept going...

And a special happy birthday to "Guns" Guilliams...this is her after her customary birthday burpees. A year ago she wouldn't have been able to complete the workout, let alone smile after burpees.

And finally we need to focus more on nutrition and eating clean. As a simple recommendation, the first step is to make better food quality choices...simplly eat all natural foods, nothing processed. Once you feel comfortable there the best route to go is eat like a caveman. Here is good quick article on the benefits of eating like a caveman:
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/paleo_nutrition_improved

This style of nutrition/lifestyle is a pretty simple commonsense approach based on these two quotes:

"If it doesn't swim, run, or fly, or isn't green and grow in the ground, don't eat it."

"If man made it; don't eat it" - Jack LaLanne

Pretty simple...you don't need to measure, you don't need to eat 6 meals a day. You eat foods that only a caveman would have ate...specficially meat, fish, fowl, eggs, vegetables, fruit, seeds, and nuts. If you're not eating these things, odds are you're engorged in the typical American diet based on staples of grain and processed foods. Which means you probably have hyperinsulism and your insides are super inflamed....all of which will lead to some nasty diseases in the not too distant future.

Which brings us to the next point....there's two mental connections you need to make that will help you eat better foods.

1) Think of food as your long term medicine/prescription plan. No bones about it, what you put in your mouth is going to have a direct affect on your health. Food is going to do one of two things; it's either going to make you healthier or it's possibly gonna make you sick and suspectible to disease. So it's best to be shoveling the good stuff in your mouth versus the processed poisonous chemicals, that the mega-food company giants want you to.

2) Performance...think of food as only a means to fuel for your body. Do you want rocket fuel or do you wanna piss in your gas tank? Speficially, ask yourself will what I'm about to eat help me become stronger, faster, quicker, etc...will it help kick my next workout's ass? Or will you be in the middle of a tough workout asking yourself.."why the hell did I eat like s#$t? I'm sucking big time, I'm an idiot" And trust me I've had that internal dialogue with myself several times...

So below are some key takeaways from the article to get you going down the right path...make the choice and stick to it, you will feel amazing...

•Take that grass-fed cow, cut its frickin' head off, and eat it – and don't feel bad about it either. That's what we're meant to do. Our mouths have incisors for an evolutionary reason, which is to tear flesh from the bone, not to separate the marshmallows from the cereal bits in Lucky Charms. Nature is savage – we're savage creatures. The further we move away from that, and eat fake factory foods to try to compensate, the sicker and fatter we become.

•Eliminate almost all processed foods. Most processed foods are just a random combination of the following six ingredients: (1) Sugar (and/or high fructose corn syrup), (2) Trans-fats/hydrogenated oil, (3) High omega-6 vegetable oils, (4) wheat or flour-based starch, (5) refined salt, (6) artificial ingredients/sweeteners. None of which are good for you.

•Make lean animal protein the foundation of your diet. A range for strength training athletes is 0.8g-2.0g/lb of lean body mass, depending on the composition of the rest of the diet.

•Eliminate concentrated sources of fructose from the diet. Ditch the high fructose corn syrup, any processed food with fructose as a sweetener, sugar (which is 1 molecule of fructose + 1 molecule of glucose), fruit juice/smoothies, and dried fruit. I'm personally not a huge fan of fruit, but 1-2 pieces of whole, unaltered fruit a day shouldn't be problematic. Just don't start inhaling bananas by the bushel. At that point, fructose adds up.

•Eliminate transfats/hydrogenated oils.

•Reduce omega-6 consumption by eliminating vegetable oils.

•Increase omega-3 consumption through wild fish, grass-fed and finishd beef, and FlameoutTM.

•Eliminate gluten-containing grains such as wheat, rye, and barley.

•While you're at it, eliminate most other cereal grains, including those damn, overrated whole grain products (breads and cereals).

•Eliminate dairy foods while cutting (milk, cream, cheese, yogurt). Isolated milk proteins are cool.