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As a test, I bought some pullup bars to sell at the gym but as it turns out, i can't use them at home. It's the iron Gym model that fits in your doorway and allows you to do stable pullups.

Here's the thing I did NOT know: your doorframe MUST stick out of the wall for this to work! My doorframe at hoem does not stick out of the wall as you can see below:

doorframe.JPG  

And I'm guessing that some doorframes in houses around here won't either, meaning the pullup bar will slide down as there is nothing to stop it when you do pullups.

My loss, your gain. If you have a door that can hold these (with a frame that sticks out) then I'll sell you one at cost: NT400. I'm not making any money on this and I only have 3 for sale. No returns, no execptions. These are new in the box. Call me today if you want one!

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vegan protein.jpg

We just got the Biochem vegan protein in yesterday and all I can say is WOW! This is a great tasting protein. It really caught me off guard. The vanilla flavor is good and there's some fiber to the protein (unlike whey) but the taste is really good. Because of the fiber, you can get a thicker shake with the same amount of protein, too. I highly recommend this one! We have two canisters and I'm very reluctantly offering them for sale (I'd like to use it myself), so if you want one, you'll have to hurry before I drink it. :)

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Programs like P90X and Insanity get ripped apart on trainer forums, probably out of professional jealousy. These programs have been used by tens of thousands of people who positively RAVE about them, and that makes trainers green with envy. When that many people say a fitness program is good, I consider it my job to get a hold of them and try them out. I want to know WHY people consider them that good. It's just good market research. IMO other trainers ignore that at their peril.

Another reason for me to try this stuff out is that I want to try something new occasionally. Imagine you're a chef and you cook something pretty well. You cook it all day long and people say they enjoy it a lot. Great. But when you go home at night, do you want to cook that exact same thing for yourself every day? Probably not. You want to eat something made by someone else because you're tired and want some variety. Training is the same way. I eat my own "cooking" all the time. Sometimes I want to eat what someone else cooks. So I pop one of these DVDs in and turn myself over to them for a while.

Beachbody Insanity gives a great, hardcore workout. It's not a beginner or IMO even an intermediate workout. It's in the advanced category. The pace is way up there. LOTS of jumping and fast tempo work. No equipment needed. I like the no equipment format, although I did get the version that has a weight workout in it.

The exercises are a bit more atheltic/plyometric and a bit less aerobics-class type as compared to P90X. Tony Horton is too much an aerobics teacher for me with all that "look at the hands" stuff. The Insanity guy is a bit less goofy and I can see myself not getting so tired of him.

I haven't done even half the discs yet. There are a LOT of them. This program might get a bit redundant doing it six days a week as the program calls for. But if you did it, I can see people dropping a ton of fat along the way.

The nutrition guide is surprisingly good and mostly in alignment with the Precision Nutrition guidelines that I follow. The recipes are very simple and use mostly common ingredients. Combined with the program, I can see folks making a lot of progress with it.

If you're looking for an at-home workout that pushes the limits, Insanity is for you.

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Short review: absolutely essential material

This video by Scott Sonnon was the most talked about so far on my blog. There's obviously interest in his kettlebell material so here's a review of his Kettlebell Foundation DVD set. The set is comprised of three DVDs: one for KB techniques, one for warmup, and one for cool down.

The first disc is dedicated to competition techniques -- making it the only DVD set to my knowledge to cover this material. Starting to see why I say this set is essential? The competition methodology is growing ever popular but no one has bothered to put anything out on it until now. So if this style appeals to you, this is your only resource so far. Lucky for us, it's a really good one.

The second disc is warmup material but honestly it's more open kinetic chain compensatory movement rather than actual warmup material. In other words, you would benefit from doing some of it to warmup in the form of joint mobility, but you'd still need other movements to raise your core temperature -- a key component of a warmup, obviously.

This disc is based on Intu-flow and I thought that since I had the Intu-flow DVD, I didn't need this one. But I was very wrong. The material is about 75% new, although you can tell it's based on that type of movement. The cool thing is that you can really tell Sonnon adapted the material to meet the specific needs of kettlebellers. This is not a haphazard mish-mash of various joint mobility drills. They really are the movements you'd need to compensate for the rigors of kettlebell training. I found it much more useful material than the generic Intu-flow set for my kettlebell class.

The same applies to the Prasara yoga inspired third disc. I thought that since I also have the stand alone Prasara DVD, I didn't need this one. Wrong again. He doesn't give you a full blown series of flows as in Prasara yoga, but takes single movements from that system and uses them to compensate for the physical rigors of the KB training. The fact that they aren't flows makes this type of movement much more accessible, although some complexity is there on some moves. Also, as with the warmup DVD, what's shown isn't as much a cool down as closed kinetic chain compensatory movements. But that's fine for a cool down. No need to add anything here.

All the techniques are clear and the material well filmed. Repeat viewings should be no problem.

This set is really a complete system. The fact that it's self-contained and complete makes it a great bargain.

I feel that this style of lifting would greatly appeal to all IMA guys and gals out there. Sonnon is super smooth in execution and the inclusion of sections on breathing and two DVDs dedicated to joint mobility reinforce that aspect.

Even if you're more inclined to a harder style, the compensatory movements will be critical to your use of the kettlebell. I'm finding that I must have them in my training to avoid overuse injuries, specifically to elbows in my case. You only find this stuff here.

Highly recommended.

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Wow. What a book. This is the most solid buy I've made yet for personal training. It's the bible for programming in the 21st century. I lost over 1okg last year doing circuits that I put together. But I didn't know how to really program beyond what I was doing already. It worked but there was not enough variety nor was I stressing enough attributes. I got certed with NASM but their programming is circa 1990. Crossfit programming with more of a plan is the way to go. But how to do it?

Infinite Intensity is the key.

Ross makes this kind of programming clear by showing you the functional exercises he uses and then how to put them together in various ways. He even gives you a 50 day plan to follow if you just want to follow along. For us trainers, looking at his examples can give you tons of ideas for your own classes.

Highly recommended.

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