Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is present in very few modern day foods.  We can receive  vitamin D from foods fortified with D, as well as from vitamin D synthesis from the sun’s UV rays.  Most people know that Vitamin D (VD) is important in maintaining healthy bones, however, our stores of VD have a profound effect on a number of areas pertaining to health and longevity.  The prevention of certain cancers, the regulation of immune function, cardiovascular health, and insulin sensitivity are all effected by chronically low VD stores.  Below are some guidlines related to  VD concentrations:

<12 ng/ml assasiated with VD deficiency leading to rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults

12-20  Generally considered inadequite for bone and overall health in individuals

>20 Generally considered adequite for bone health

>60  Generally though to present upper limit although individuals supplementing with 100,000IU’s of VD failed to develop any upper limit toxisity

All of us get at least some of our VD from exposure to the sun.  However, season, time of day, skin melanin content, and sunscreen all efect the amount that our bodies obsorb through the synthesis of the suns rays.  However, a half hour exposure during mid day to 25% of the body can produce as much VD as 4000IU of VD.

Some things that can effect lead to VD deficiencies:

1.  People with limited exposure to the sun.

2.  People with dark skin.  Greater skin pigment reduces the skins ability to produce vitamin D from sun light.  For these folks studies are showing that they need on average 6x’s the sun exposure to synthesis the same amount of D3.  This may lead to lower VD stores and may have links to certain cancers.

3.  People with autoimmune issues.  The malabsorption associated with leaky gut syndrome can effect people with a variety of aliments (cystic fibrosis, crohn’s disease) which can limit the amount of usable VD.

What Brand/type of Vitamin D3 should I take?

The good news is that even with the diminishing light of fall it is easy to bump up your Vitamin D stores in a cheap and easy way.  A good high quality D3 supplement will cost in the neighborhood of just 7 cents per day!  I personally like Now Foods D3 (here) it is a small gel cap packaged with olive oil which ensures that your body is absorbing the contents to the best of your bodies ability. A good baseline dosage going into winter would be to take 5000IU’s of D3 perday (I personally take 10,000IU’s based on my darker skin)  However, the only way to know for certain what your proper dose is is to take a complete blood panel.

Avocado-Tuna Mash Up

1 soft avocado

1 can of tuna (drained)

Red onion, diced

Tomato, diced

Celery, diced

Purple cabbage, diced

1 ½ tsp lemon juice

Granulated garlic

Sea salt and pepper

Mash the avocado, add lemon juice and tuna and mix well.  Mix in all other ingredients and you have lunch.

Random Pic

Brett Post Filthy-Fifty

PALEO CHICKEN CORDON BLEU
3 medium-large, skinless, boneless chicken breasts
9 canadian bacon rounds
3 garlic cloves
1/3 red bell pepper
1 Tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 cup almond meal
2 Tbsp dried parsley flakes
1 tsp black pepper
Sea salt
Paprika
3 Tbsp olive oil
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Pound chicken breasts until thin. In a food processor, chop the garlic, parsley, and red bell pepper.
Sprinkle chicken with sea salt and pepper. Spread the chopped mixture onto the chicken breasts and top with the Canadian bacon slices. Roll the chicken breasts as tightly as possible and secure with toothpicks.
Mix the almond meal, parsley flakes, pepper and sea salt. Dredge the rolled chicken breasts in the almond meal mixture.
Heat olive oil over medium – high heat and brown the chicken breasts on all sides.
Place in oven and bake for approximately 30-40 minutes.

*Thanks Tammy for sending us this yummy Paleo Creation!

Abmber took home second place with an impressive 15.5lbs lost. She showed determination by consistently showing up for our 6am class, as well as by keeping a sharp focus on eating only quality paleo foods.

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GYM CLOSED DECEMBER 18th-25th

With the gym closed next week I have been asked to provide some “No (or little) equipment necessary workouts” to get folks through until we return on Monday December 27th. As always remember to get a proper warm-up with movement specific mobility work prior to saying “3-2-1…GO!!!!”

“Annie’s evil Twin”

50,40,30,20,10 of….
Lunges and sit-ups

This workout has been completed with body-weight lunges, as well as weighted lunges. If you are accustomed to weight, and don’t have access to dumbbells, get creative. 2.5 gallon water jugs work well in a pinch.

“10-1 Burpee Bear Crawl”

First, Mark out 50ft for your bear crawl distance. This distance represents the width our our gym. Then complete 10 burpees followed by one 50ft bear crawl; followed by 9 burpees and another 50ft bear crawl. The burpees will decent until you complete one burpee.

*Note that the bear crawl distance will stay at 50ft per round. Do not make the mistake of performing 10 bear crawl lengths; followed by 9 bear crawl lengths etc etc. This will make for a very long and miserable workout!

“Jog/Run”

Jog for one minute
Run hard for one minute

10 rounds

“Double Under Ladder”

If you have access to a jumprope this is an excellent way to quantify your double-under prowess. In seven minutes work your way as high up the “ladder” as possible. With a running clock perform 5 unbroken double-unders, you can have single jumprope jumps between doubles, however, you can’t miss either a singe jumprope jump or double-under. Once you complete 5 unbroken double-unders, stop! Then complete 10 unbroken double-unders. Continue to climb up the ladder by adding 5 unbroken double-unders after each successful attempt. Once the seven minutes are over your score is your last completed set.

*Note: The gym record is 45. That is 225 unbroken double-unders in 7 minutes!

“Run Squat Repeat”

400m run
30 air squats
5 rounds

Find yourself a high school track and go to town! This is simple but devastating workout. Only complete this workout if you are free for a few days and don’t mind feeling like you have been beaten with a baseball bat.

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Here is Bob performing a pretty solid overhead squat. What you don’t see in this picture is the back-end work required for Bob to complete a proper overhead squat. For many folks the over head squat is a woefully difficult exercise which simultaneously requires shoulder, hip, and ankle flexibility. If your having flexibility issue related to the any movements commonly seen in crossfit visit www.mobilitywod.blogspot.com (here) and let Kelly Starrett, DPT straighten you out!

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February Mid Month “On Ramp” Class

February will mark our first mid month “On Ramp” class.  This class will meet on Tuesday and Thursday at 7 pm, as well as on Saturday at 2 in the afternoon.  The class will begin on Tuesday February 16th at 7 pm.  Our “On Ramp” program is geared towards healthy individuals who are new to our training methods.  This is a 4-week series of 12 classes that will focus on teaching you the movements most necessary for entry into our ongoing group class system.  Each class will include a warm up, new exercise orientation, exercise/skill review, and a workout.  Space is limited to 8 individuals, so sign up soon to ensure your spot.  Drop by the gym, call or email us today to register.

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Congratulation to our gold medal girls who competed in the Sacramento High Open last weekend.  You Girls Rock!!!

Shianne and Sofia collecting the hardware!

Sofia good elbows

Stand up, Shianne!

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Before and after pictures of the top three will be posted shortly.  Congratulate these folks when you see them in the gym…They earned it!

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M.V.C (most valuable caveman/cavewoman)

Tammy is our most valuable cavewoman.  Tammy was rock solid on her weekly food logs, spent a ton of time educating her family on Paleo eating, and has had a huge jump in strength and performance.  One of her 2010 goals is to complete every workout as RX’d.  Great work, Tammy!

Cari setting up for a 3 rep max

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Level 3 Classes

Starting in February individuals wishing to attend our level 3 classes (5pm & 6pm) will be required to “test in.” This will be done to ensure that proper fitness and movement proficiency be established in order to attend our most physically demanding class times.  Those currently attending these classes will have proper time to work on any area’s that require attention.  Additionally, newly implemented testing measures will coincide with our new 4pm class that will be starting in February.

Details on testing will be coming soon!

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The Paleo Diet in the news: The Washington Post: Paleolithic Diet is so easy, Caveman actually did it

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Top 10 most genetically modified foods

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Autism and dietary intervention: One family’s story

“As parents of autistic children, we don’t need scientifically tested hawsers. We’ll throw our children any piece of string or straw that offers hope. The GFCF diet is such an option. Our experience tells us that it will work for some. We believe that it will work for many. It is likely to work better the earlier you start.”

Hopefully the last nine days have been a time for recuperation from your hard charging crossfit life.  However, now is the time to rejoin us at L10XF as we Re-Opening with normal class schedule this Monday December 7th.

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Below is an excerpt from a Dan John article about the importance of rest.

I’ve been there. I hadn’t missed a workout in five years. I trained on Christmas day, heavy and hard. I worried over finding a gym on family vacations so I wouldn’t miss a single front squat or heavy clean. I swallowed gag-filled soy protein shakes that probably did more hormonal damage than good, and, when mixed with whole milk, turned slight acne into a burn unit case. I did “everything right.” No alcohol or marijuana passed these lips, and, sadly, few female lips, too.

And, then, I melted down. Fortunately, it was such an epic meltdown that when my wife first met her current boss, he mentioned being from Montana. My wife laughed and said, “The only thing I know about Montana is that my husband got hit in the head by a discus there.” Tiff’s boss stiffened, “Oh my God, that was your husband?”

If the above except describes you (minus the discus I hope) then read this article (here) from Dan John as posted on T-Nation

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“Perhaps the development of atherosclerosis is a part of being human.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1940212,00.html#ixzz0XKrNDViH

Turns out the mummies of ancient Egypt are giving us insight into their exceedingly high rates of obesity, heard disease, and diabetes. Guess we can (like the researcher who is quoted above) close up shop and concede that we are all destined to be sickly and fat!

Well, Dr. Eades from “Protein Power life Plan” shows that the Egyptian’s could have fit right in with out typical “low-fat-high-carb-low-protein-prescription-for-a-short-life” American diet!

Read more: http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/obesity-in-ancient-egypt/

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Vacation in Maui…L10XF style!!!

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Poke around the fitness industry and you will find endless debate as to what the single best exercise is.  The debate usually start of like this, “So, your stranded on an Island with only a Wilson volleyball (here), and the equipment to perform one single single exercise to help pass the time. What movement are you going to choose?” In thinking over this grand exercise experiment I deveated from the norm and expanded our options slightly.  I decided to put forth a full body and upper body movement. Now admittedly these movements are making their appearance because they have been absent from our training and are therefore requiring a specific adaptation to the demands imposed by the newly introduced exercise (specific adaptation to imposed demands).  However, these movements are fun (relatively!) and challenging…So give them a shot and report back!

The Sled

The first time I tried this thing I wanted to hide it in my basement and not let anyone know about this spectacularly painful exercise. Seriously, it may be the single most taxing exercise this side of the high rep clean and jerk!  However, its primitive nature makes it such a great exercise.  It takes zero coordination (good for me!) which means you can get to work in about a second after showing the movement to someone.  And because the sled can be pushed empty or with a ton of weight  scaleability is exceptionally straight forward.  So, if you’re board and got just a few minutes to shuttle all the blood in your body to your legs, get on the sled and cancel whatever you had planned for the rest of your day!

The ab wheel

I am not sure if there is an upper-body exercise that can so thoroughly destroy your shoulders, triceps, lats, chest…and oh yeah, your abs!

I vaguely remember seeing this exercise tool from the 70′s and 80′s next to my father’s old plastic barbell set when I was a kid.  The thing collected dust, and now I know why…The movement is flipp’n hard!  Few people do this exercise because few people can.  Greg (pictured above) provided a great example of the range of motion required for a properly executed Ab wheel/roll out.  Once fully laid-out try to “dig a ditch” with you arms so as to bring your chest, triceps, and abs into the movement.  The biggest mistake people make with this movement is backing their hips out rather than pulling through with their hands.  In this instance the arms will stay parallel with the upper body, essentially cheating the movement by taking the emphasis off the upper-body.  100 Ab wheel/rollouts in as few sets as possible is a fun little challenge that will leave a mark.  If you looking for even more excitement try pausing at the bottom, or better yet slap on a weighted vest and see where that gets ya!

Oh, did I mention the thing costs about $6 and can be toted anywhere?  Another reason this marvel from the infomercial world is worth a reunion.

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At this point there are four workouts planned.  More details will follow as a date for our event is picked and the rules are made clear. Rest assured the workouts will involve movements that have never before been programed here at L10XF.

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