Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Hydration, Food Porn, and International Hits

First things first: A solid video on hydration. I'll go into why I like after. Grab a java and watch, it's only a few minutes long.  The embedding of the video cuts the right-border off, but it's still watchable.





So Max makes a couple of really great statements in this clip:
  • Half your BW (pounds) in ounces of water.  I LIKE this equation.  Why?  It works, it's EASY, and it's not overboard.  So, for me, 165lbs BW * 0.5 = 82.5 ounces; so, if 1 US fluid ounce = 29.5735296 ml, then I'm drinking roughly 2400mL a day.  Yup, 2.4L.
Is that a lot? Might be more than YOU are used to drinking, but let's make a clear distinction on WHAT. I'm fairly sure Max is talking straight H20, but I'm of the mindset that total body hydration comes from total fluid intake---be it from water or food. Food? Yeah. Worth trying to calculate? Nope. But it's there.

Back to the 2400ml: I drain a 1L bottle before noon, usually. Dehydration is pretty evident, especially in our dry northern climate, first thing in the morning, secondary to insensible water loss. Throughout the day I'm drinking coffee (I'll bust that myth in a second), and then I'm onto my second liter usually before I workout by mid-afternoon.  So honestly, 2400mls is *NOT* that much.
  • Training = 16-20 ounces per HOUR.  At 20ounces, that's 500ml.  Half a liter?  Are you f*cking kidding me?  Um, no, I'm not.  Ever actually track how much you drain right after a killer workout?  I'm betting it's more than you think.  Since most Crossfit workouts entail a max of one hour(warmup, instruction, workout, peel yourself off the floor) start to finish, adding an extra 500ml is no big deal.  Neither is 500ml/hour for endurance athletes.

Also, if you've trained that day, your body is in a state of increased metabolic activity as it frantically tries to repair the damage you've done by beating the shit out of it in the gym, like any worthy Crossfitter should.  Along the same lines, most folks will have an increase protein intake in the PWO period; protein is a metabolically expensive macronutrient to metabolize (say that fast 10 times after 10 NorCal margaritas!) and requires increased hydration to do so.
  • Take your "caffeine is a diuretic" and go f*ck your hat.  I like how Max points out that plain 'ol water is just as much a diuretic as caffeine; I tell people this, but I get the deer-in-the-headlights look just like when I tell folks eating fat is good for them.  I know this, Max knows this, and much smarter folks, like Larry Armstrong, know this also: (I've pointed this out previously in my definitive caffeine guide)
Fluid, electrolyte, and renal indices of hydration during 11 days of controlled caffeine consumption.
Armstrong LE, Pumerantz AC, Roti MW, Judelson DA, Watson G, Dias JC, Sokmen B, Casa DJ, Maresh CM, Lieberman H, Kellogg M.

This investigation determined if 3 levels of controlled caffeine consumption affected fluid-electrolyte balance and renal function differently. Healthy males (mean +/- standard deviation; age, 21.6 +/- 3.3 y) consumed 3 mg caffeine . kg(-1) . d(-1). on days 1 to 6 (equilibration phase). On days 7 to 11 (treatment phase), subjects consumed either 0 mg (C0; placebo; n= 20), 3 mg (C3; n = 20), or 6 mg (C6; n = 19) caffeine . kg(-1) . d(-1) in capsules, with no other dietary caffeine intake. The following variables were unaffected (P > 0.05) by different caffeine doses on days 1, 3, 6, 9, and 11 and were within normal clinical ranges: body mass, urine osmolality, urine specific gravity, urine color, 24-h urine volume, 24-h Na+ and K+ excretion, 24-h creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, serum Na+ and K+, serum osmolality, hematocrit, and total plasma protein. Therefore, C0, C3, and C6 exhibited no evidence of hypohydration. These findings question the widely accepted notion that caffeine consumption acts chronically as a diuretic.
PMID: 16131696 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

--->Just for reference, the C6 group took in 6mg per kg; for me, that'd be roughly 450mg.  A typical cup o' joe has about 125mg, (give or take), and a standard caffeine tab is 200mg.

***So how much fluid are YOU taking in per day?  Have you ever calculated?  How many times are you filling your water bottle up?  How clear, or dark, is your urine?  These are questions that YOU need to find answers to.

Props to David for shooting me the email about the CFE hydration video; I have about 1000 blogs/websites on my Google reader I subscribe to, and when I get my Firefox Tabs just a-blazin', I'm kind of like a kid with a really, REALLY bad case of ADHD in front of 47 TV screens. I see a lot, but absorb little.

 Food Porn.  Giddyup!



Image and video hosting by TinyPic Two omega-3 eggs, poached, leftover spiced pork tenderloin medallions over spinach.  Side dish of chopped apple and two mini-cukes.
And of course, organic fresh ground coffee.










Ginger-Lime Salmon with a mixed green salad, glass of organic Argentina malbec.
Special Pre-Valentine Meal! King crab, organic, grass-fed beef strip loin topped with garlic mushrooms, steamed spinach, and stuffed tomato.  Organic Chilean cab sauv. 
And of course, dessert: one square of 90% cacao dark chocolate!  One square  = 6g fat, <1g carb, 1g protein.  Plus kick-ass antioxidants and epic dopamine release!
 





International Hits
Ok, no big mystery topic here, but just a call-out: If you look on the right, I have a Feedjit widget map that tracks where I'm getting page hits from; I seem to get some pretty cool international hits, and I'm always curious as to why people are coming to this page and how. If you're not from my neck of the woods, give a shout-out in the comments!

CFLA, Friday, Feb 12th, 1PM
Snatch Tech Work
75#x1,1,1
95#x1,1,1
115#x1,0,1 Missed the 2nd "in the hole", power snatched the 3rd with ease.  Hmm.
125#x0,1,1 Missed 1st in the hole, 2nd and 3rd power snatched with ease.  Hmm.  Hmm!
Did dowel work for speed between all sets.
Overhead Squat
95#x5
115#x5
135#x5
145#x5
Haven't snatched in a million years, and I figured since Heather and Cory were heading down to Cali for a Burgener Oly seminar (Woo!), I better brush up.  The missing-in-the-hole (the overhead squat the bottom of the snatch) is interesting, as the weights I used were stupid easy to power snatch.  Core stabilization?  I dunno.  The OHS felt solid.
MetCon
3 Rounds For Time:
45 Double Unders
30 Kettle-bell swings (24kg/53lbs)
15 Pullups
9:34.  Did this one Jan 14, 2009, for a brutal time of 13:43.  That same day, Coach Brandt did this for 6:52.  I'm damn happy with my improvement, but Chad's time always puts things into perspective for me.

Allison Creek, Crowsnest Pass, Feb 14th, 12PM
Cross Country Ski, 15km.
FUBAR'd my back about 7km in as I slipped on some ice; "sprung rib" is the layman's term, technical term is a subluxation of the posterior rib at the joint articulation.  Yeah.  Result?  Massive back spasm.  Uncool when you're 7km into the backcountry.  Nice day, though.  Tam and I crushed a couple of pizzas about 7PM that night.  Damn well earned it.

Firehall #1, Feb 15th, 11AM
"Only Women's" Metcon
3 Rounds, each exercise 30sec on/30 sec off
Goblet Squats
Dumbbell Swings
Mountain Climbers
Push Press
Side-to-side lunge
Dumbbell-T pushups
Lunge-twist
Push-up Dumbell Row
Plyometric Lunge Jumps

After icing my back all night, it felt pretty good in the A.M, so I decided to join in with the guys while on-shift; this is actually a workout out of a Men's Health mag, and one of the guy said "Pfft, only WOMEN would do THAT!".  Needless to say buddy got his ass handed to him.  We had about 10 guys doing this, 5 on, five off, timing, and a whole assortment of dumbells from 20's to 45's, so guys could grab what they could handle based on their ability.  I'd been itching to try this out after hearing about it.  It's decent!  It's a helluva lot more rest than I'm used to, so I didn't feel "warm" until the 2nd round.  45on/15off would work well for this.

Firehall #1, Feb 16th, 11AM
"300"
Did the infamous "300" workout that Mark Twight from Gym Jones put together; 300 reps of various movements:
  • 25 pull-ups
  • 50 deadlifts at 135 pounds
  • 50 push-ups
  • 50 box jumps with a 24-inch box
  • 50 "floor wipers" (a core and shoulders exercise at 135 pounds)
  • 50 "clean and press" at 36 pounds (a weight-lifting exercise)
  • 25 more pull-ups -- for a total of 300 reps
Had to mod a crapload of stuff since our equipment blows at the firehall; only had 65# dumbells for deadlifts and floor wipers, and had to jump to the back bumper of the fire engine for box jumps, which is tight for face-space.  I like my teeth the way they are.  Clocked in at about 18 minutes or so, but no reference since it's so modded. Ran some sprints in the parking lot after, about 6 sets at roughly 100m or so.

Saw Dr. Chelsea Layden-Power of Power Health that night, and she 1) fixed my back up just fine, and 2) gave me shit, rightfully so, for continuing to work out. Also gave me the red light to rock climb that night, so no WOD today, either. Back is pretty tender. On a postive note my shoulder and knees are fine, Ha!