INTEGRATE Performance Fitness Presents: Healthy Holiday Recipes!

The biggest dilemma of the holiday season is, “Oh man that looks good! I want to eat it and then I want to eat it eight more times.” What if we could give you a few of your favorite holiday foods, but at a reduced calorie price? If you’re interested, please continue reading, if you aren’t, well then Santa Albert and Dev Dev The Trainee in Training have a special gift for you…EXTRA BLACK BANDS FOR YOU COME THE NEW YEAR!!!!!!

For The Sweet Tooth:

CITRUS GINGER CAKE with SPICED ORANGE COMPOTE

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup mild-flavored extra-virgin olive oil

2 large eggs, at room temperature, separated (see Tip)

2 tablespoons freshly grated orange or Meyer lemon zest

1/3 cup fresh orange or Meyer lemon juice

5 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger, divided

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar

Spiced Orange Compote

Calories: 280                                               Total Carbs: 52g

Total Fat: 7g                                                 Protein: 4g

Read full directions at: Citrus Ginger Cake

LAVA ROCK COOKIES

2 1/4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Generous pinch of sea salt

3 large egg whites

3/4 teaspoon vanilla paste, (see Ingredient Notes) or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

7 ounces (about 2 cups) pecans, chopped and toasted (see Tip)

1 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, grated

4 teaspoons cocoa nibs

Calories: 119                                               Total Carbs: 15g

Total Fat: 7g                                                 Protein: 2g

Read full directions at: Lava Rock Cookies

LUSCIOULSY NUTTY HOLIDAY LOGS

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

1/3 cup plus 5 teaspoons sugar, divided

1 tablespoon freshly grated orange zest

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

8 sheets phyllo dough, (9-by-14-inch), thawed

Canola oil cooking spray

TOPPING

1/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Calories: 76                                                  Total Carbs: 9g

Total Fat: 4g                                                 Protein: 1g

Read full directions at: Lusciously Nutty Holiday Logs

IMPRESS YOUR GUESTS UPON ARRIVAL:

MARINATED OLIVES & FETA

1 cup sliced pitted olives, such as Kalamata or mixed Greek

1/2 cup diced feta cheese, preferably reduced-fat

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves garlic, sliced

1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary

Pinch of crushed red pepper

Freshly ground pepper to taste

Calories: 73                                                  Total Carbs: 2g

Total Fat: 7g                                                 Protein: 1g

Read full directions at: Marinated Olives & Feta

SPINACH & BRIE TOPPED ARTICHOKE HEARTS

1 9-ounce box frozen artichoke hearts

2/3 cup cooked chopped spinach

1 teaspoon lemon pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

18 thin slices brie

Calories: 20                                                  Total Carbs: 1g

Total Fat: 1g                                                 Protein: 1g

Read full directions at: Spinach & Brie Topped Artichoke Hearts

FIVE-SPICE PISTACHIOS

6 tablespoons orange juice

6 tablespoons Chinese five-spice powder

4 teaspoons kosher salt

6 cups unsalted pistachios

Calories: 92                                                  Total Carbs: 5g

Total Fat: 7g                                                 Protein: 3g

Read full directions at: Five-Spice Pistachios

WASHING IT ALL DOWN:

SPICED HOT CIDER

4 cups apple cider

1 cinnamon stick

5 whole cloves

1/2 cup applejack, (apple brandy) optional

2 tablespoons cinnamon schnapps

Cinnamon sticks, for garnish

Calories: 143                                               Total Carbs: 23g

Total Fat: 0g                                                 Protein: 0g

Read full directions at: Spiced Hot Cider

EGGNOG

3 large eggs

3 large egg whites

5 1/2 cup(s) low-fat milk

1/2 cup(s) sugar

2 tablespoon(s) cornstarch

Salt

2 tablespoon(s) vanilla

1/2 teaspoon(s) (plus additional for sprinkling) ground nutmeg

1/3 cup(s) dark Jamaican rum (optional)

Calories: 105                                               Total Carbs: 14g

Total Fat: 2g                                                 Protein: 6g

Read full directions at: Eggnog Recipe

FROTHY HOT CHOCOLATE

4 1/2 cups low-fat milk

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup coffee liqueur, such as Kahlua or Tia Maria (optional)

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Calories: 149                                               Total Carbs: 22g

Total Fat: 4g                                                 Protein: 6g

Read full directions at: Frothy Hot Chocolate

Thanks for coming to the running seminar!!

On behalf of Vid, Jason, Carl, Coach B and Adam, I'd like to thank you all very much for coming to the "Minimal Training Maximum Results" seminar. We had a great time working with you, and hopefully you came away with some great information.

Also for those who aren't coming into the studio, you will get a complimentary week of our group strength training classes as well as two weeks of our running workout with Brigit Mon/Wed nights at Foothill College.

Next Seminar

We are also turning this into a progressive series where we send you away with homework for:

1) Ankle Mobility

2) Building single leg hip stability

We would put it on video so if you've got a wifi/3g/4g enabled device, you'd be able to take this information with you. So look for that in the not too distant future.

Presenter Information
The following will put you in touch with all seminar presenters. They are listed in order of appearance.
 

Vid Jindal, Spine & Sports Institute, Sunnyvaleemail: drvidjindal@gmail.com

Jason Agrella, JAKT Personal Training and Spine & Sport Institute

email: jasonagrella@hotmail.com

Al Painter, INTEGRATE Performance Fitness

email: al@integratefitness.com
Follow INTEGRATE on Facebook
twitter 
My Fitness Forum on VeloReviews.com
INTEGRATE Fitness411 Blog

I've got a 60 slide powerpoint that I can send you with more information on lower body strength training as well. 

Adam Kemist, On Your Mark, Los Altos

email: info@onyourmarkperformance.com

Follow On Your Mark on Facebook

Brigit Das, IPF Running Coach, IPF MVP Running Program
Mon/Wed Nights, Foothill College 6:00pm-7:30pm

email: dasbrigit@yahoo.com

Carl Canning, RKC, FMS, Z Health
email: canningpolo@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/SPINE-SPORTS-INSTITUTE

With all of that said, here are some great minimalist/barefoot shoe resources as well:

Merrell Barefoot Microsite

Features minimalist and barefoot-minded content. This includes blog posts focused on barefoot/minimalist running, videos on how to run with a barefoot style featuring barefoot running guru Jason Robillard, and more.


How to fit Vibram Five Finger Shoes 
Click here to help get the best fit for your Vibram Five Finger shoes from runnatural.org.

BirthdayShoes.comGreat website for all things minimalist shoe, including a pretty solid forum.

Tapering Information From Joel Friel email interview

When would you be available for a call on the topic of tapering? An email answer will also work, if your schedule doesn't permit a phone call.

Specifically I'm looking for answers to the following:

1) How far out from an event?

- Century

- XC MTB "A" race

- Time trial "A" race

- Something like the Race Across the West, Race Across America, the Death Ride (16000' and 120 miles)

- Double centuries

[Joe Friel] The key variable is the athlete. With that in mind, the longer and harder the event the longer the peak period. Another variable is how hard the training was leading up to the event. The harder the training (esp in terms of intensity) the longer the taper.

2) How much intensity do you leave in each week leading up to the event?

[Joe Friel] I can’t put a number on it. Peaking for an Ironman or double century is a lot different than training for a sprint tri or crit. Intensity is important to both but it isn’t the same.

3)How much of a factor is the fact that you get your body used to a certain level of activity, and it does its best when those levels remain constant?

[Joe Friel] The levels of stress cannot remain the same or there will be no improvement. Increased level of stress, in some form, must be a part of training up until the taper/peak.

4) I get "clever rest = performance improvement," but how much is too much?

[Joe Friel] Again, very dependent on the athlete, what they’ve been doing up to the start of the peak, and the nature of the event. There is no answer that works across the board. Too many variables.

5) How much fitness can someone lose if they taper too long?

[Joe Friel] can lose it all in a few weeks based on the WKO model. I try to have athletes no less than 10% in the peak period.

Power Meters Don't Actually Measure Power: Part I

I bet that got your attention didn't it? Well, its true and here's why: your nervous system will only allow you to exhibit the amount of power that your joint stability allows. So they should actually be called "stability meters."

While the cycling world, rooted deep in tradition, has yet to draw a definitive correlation between gym work and generating more power in the saddle, the only place to create joint stability and structural integrity is off the bike. There's a reason for this, and you'll get it in Part II.

Can you cheat the system through sprint workouts, intervals, etc? Yes to an extent, but if you want to fast track laying down more power, optimize your neuromuscular coordination (the way your muscles work together to move your bones) and you will drive your power, I mean stability output, through the roof.

This is why you aren't measuring watts on a power meter, you're measuring joint integrity. Another way to look at this is by asking what an activity's perceived threat to your skeletal system? The higher the perceived threat from a lack of joint stability, muscle imbalances, etc the less power your nervous system will allow your body to produce.

“You can’t fire a canon from a canoe,” says Dan Hellman, Physical Therapist, C.H.E.K Faculty member. "Your core and the canon your arms and legs and thus that you can’t have powerful arms and legs if you don’t have a powerful core."

Developing strong arms and legs without creating a stable movement base only increases your chance of injury, and generally will not enhances performance. I see this quite a bit with riders who have knee and back pain turning themselves inside out to get faster on the bikes when a more productive strategy may be to take the appropriate corrective measures to alleviate their pain prior to clipping in.

This is one of the principles of Z Health that Jason Agrella has introduced to the studio that will be rolled out more in the not too distant future, so stay tuned on that. Long story short, this technique dropped :40 off my time up Blandor Way to Olive Tree Rd in only four days.

The following variables were put into play to make sure the odds were stacked against me as much as possible:

• Four days in a row of 3-4 hours of sleep.
• Rode the climb on a Monday after crushing myself with weights on Friday, consecutive race pace 20 mile 2500' MTB rides on Saturday and Sunday.
• Dehydration
• Feeling like I was coming down with a cold
• Basically, I purposely tried to have a negative outcome.
  

This should've been a recipe for disaster, but it wasn't. Turning on as much muscle as possible can produce results that quickly under those conditions. Is it definitive iron clad proof? No, not at all, but the above mentioned variables would be hard to argue as anything that would enhance performance.

The good news is that cycling is a single plane activity that is very prone to deactivating the glutes, causing the above mentioned muscular misalignment as your legs move in a fixed range of motion.

In his article ”Pointing Out Gluteal Atrophy,” John Izzo states in regard to cycling and glute function that “the seated position also exacerbates the inactivity of the gluteals while riding and reinforces the degeneration of this muscle.”

And running is bad for you? Real quick, its not. Its the way someone runs that is bad for them. Ok, off the soap box, on with the article.

Awesome, right? Not really, because if the glutes are supposed to extend the hip to drive power, and they don't function correctly, the hamstrings and hip flexors become overactive and movement compensations will take place and injuries will occur.

You see this with riders who can big ring Old La Honda Rd (3.25 miles, avg 6%, 1700') but can't balance on a single leg. Strong legs on the bike? Without a doubt. Functionally strong in a real world setting which is actually more important? Hardly. The point? If you can't move correctly off the bike, then how you do on it is irrelevant if you can't perform basic human movement correctly.

"If muscle length is altered as a result of a postural misalignment, then tension development will be reduced and the muscle will be unable to generate proper force," Mike Clarke DPT, MS, PES, CES and Scott Lucett MS, PES, CES, NASM-CPT (NASM Essentials of Corrective ExerciseTraining).

Insert functional training: a cyclists best friend. In part two, I will get into what functional training is and why we need it.

MVP Off Season Strength Training Program Starts Monday Oct 3, 2011

Endurance athletes spend all of their time training and competing by producing power with one leg. The MVP off season core strength training program is specifically designed to exponentially improve your ability to do this.

"It's the application of functional anatomy to training. You do almost everything in sports in a split stance, or by pushing off one leg from a parallel stance, so it just makes sense to train your body that way." - Mike Boyle, "Build Bigger Legs, One at a Time"

Periodized Fitness for Performance Improvement
Our proven approach to training endurance athletes combines multiple strength phases with mastery of body weight movements for enhanced structural stability with free weights to build head to toe strength and power. This approach has drastically improved the way Bay Area endurance sports enthusiasts move in the water, in the saddle and on their feet.

To insure you not only meet, but exceed your fitness goals, we've designed our program in the following manner:

• October: you will increase your mobilty for better range of motion in your joints.
• November: you will gain better joint stability. This is a good thing because you can only exihibit the amount of power that your joint stability allows.
• December: now that your joints are more mobile with better stability, you will increase your total body strength.
• January: we'll put more hustle in your muscle through increased power.
• February: power endurance work, or simply put, this is where we kick yours so you will kick theirs.

Appropriate for All Levels of Fitness
Every exercise we have you do can be modified any level of fitness, or strength training experience. Since we are extremely stringent on form, you will only progress in weight/movement difficulty once you've shown us you're ready. Click here for more information on our off season strength training program.

INTEGRATE Fat TIre Fun Team Strikes Gold at Cyclebration

September 17, Folsom, CA - The INTEGRATE Performance Fitness Fat Tire Team took the Folsom Cyclebration Cycling Festival by storm this weekend as seven riders took the start line for the red, white and black. They brought home 17 medals as well as two first place finishes overall, two second place finishes overall and one third place finish over all. Last year, we had two riders and seven medals.

The riders competed in mountain bike short track cross country races (dubbed the "hurricane of pain") and time trial on Saturday as well as a cross country race on Sunday. Riders accumulated points based on how they finished in their races on a scale of 20 for 1st, 19 fo 2nd, 18 for 3rd, 17 fo 4th, etc. Overall standing were reached based on the total number of points accumulated.

The following riders and Maximum Velocity Program participants competed for Team IPF this weekend:

Cat 3 Women 34-
Jamie Hull, 1st STXC, 1st TT, 1st XC, 1st overall

Cat 3 Men 30-39
Paul Patangui, 2nd STXC, 1st TT, 2nd XC, 2nd overall after a 1st place tie breaker
Dan Lawson, 3rd STXC, 2nd TT, 3rd XC and 3rd overall
Eric PErkins, 6th XC

Cat 3 Men 40-49
Kevin Eck, 1st STXC, 1st XC

Cat 2 Men 50-59
Team Captain Gary Young, 1st STXC, 1st TT, 2nd XC, 1st overall

Cat 2 Men 40-49
Al Painter, 1st STXC, 4th TT, 4th XC, 2nd overall

The IPF Fat Tire Team had an incredible weekend, and I couldn't be happier with how they rode, represented themselves and how hard they trained to prepare for the event. It was an honor to have them race for the studio.

If you would like to ride with the IPF Fat Tire FUN group, please go to http://www.integratefitness.com/fattirefun.html. The group is aimed at getting new riders into the sport as well as helping knobby tired vets learn advanced skills and develop a higher level of fitness.

Riders of ALL fitness levels are always welcome on Fat Tire Fun Team rides.


Al Painter, NASM PES, CES, BA
President
INTEGRATE Performance Fitness
Northern California's Best Fitness Facility, Competitor Magazine
al@integratefitness.com

"Operation Pedalin' Pop" Week 1

Well, week one is in the books on LHP’s moving in. Hell of a ride to say the least! That said, there’s still another project I’ve got on my schedule: Folsom Cyclebration. Its where @garyyoung and I got our medal haul last September.

I’ve already gone over the path I’m taking to try and hold on to as much fitness as possible, and here’s what’s happened so far:

Monday Aug 22

Did a studio workout of 30 mins of corrective bodyweight, and one set of get ups to the tune of 10 consecutive on each side. Lighter weight, focused on form and pretty much getting back into the swing of things after a week off. Sleep issue wasn’t that bad, and I had a lot of rest between reps to make sure there was quality over quantity. Still feeling the effects of my crash on July 31, but getting better.

Gym workout 1: decent power, range of motion/mobility avg at best, strength reduced due to fatigue/

Tuesday Aug 23

MVP Workout + Deep Tissue Work, unfortunately not in that order. We were riding Altamont Rd in Los Altos Hills, which isn’t too bad except its a gradual climb that kicks up to about 15-20% in the most enjoyable spots. A climb I can do in 6-7:30mins, on good sleep, pre LHP with good legs.

Deep tissue work wasn’t as brutal as I thought it would be, and I felt a lot better afterward. Therapist said after all of the stress, lack of sleep, my body started to go where it wants to be, not where I had trained it to be.

Yesterday the intermediate rider building their fitness the most dropped me hard on the first trip up. This is with 26×1.5 slicks on my MTB so I could have the 22×34 combo. Knowing full well the cold wasn’t 100% kicked, and I was tired as heck. Well, I got dropped the first trip up yes, but I didn’t think I’d get shelled out the back of 15 riders.

I thought I could hang in the front of the group, but learned quickly it was all about technique/form work instead of trying to pummel myself. Last thing I want is to get sick and not be able to be a good dad. Tried rolling out last night, but LHP had other ideas so we hung together instead.

Bike workout 1: no power, bad legs, bad heart/lungs from cold, hips not engaged, zero power (not even for high cadence work in a low gear), this project could be a little trickier than I thought!

Wednesday Aug 24

Hoping to get to the studio for a workout, might just play it conservative and do some yoga. But I’m thinking some KB’s may just be what the Dr ordered. More to come!

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