Our Challenge, Shoulder Strength and What to Eat for Maximum Goodness

 

Happy Monday Everyone! Hope you had a great weekend. We are now on day 7 of the nutritional plan and have survived with no dairy, gluten, sugar including maple syrup and honey, along with no alcohol. Energy levels are feeling good, and overall, the challenge is feeling achievable for the 30 days (some of our other challenges feel like each day is a year)!!!

We have been loading up on plenty of fresh organic vegetables, meat and good fats. No snacking, just three meals (Krystie) and four meals (Paul). Drinking plenty of water and herbal teas. It is amazing when you do cut out foods that have little to no nourishment and replace with high nutrient dense foods, how well your body feels. Bloating has gone and the mind feels clear.

I think the best bit is being conscious about what is going into our bodies. How many treats we actually have each week that we justify as being ok. How many foods have hidden sugars that you would not expect to have. Have we snacking unconsciously? All these little things that slowly add up and add to our toxic load… definitely food for thought!

Anyway on to the newsletter 🙂

For this week’s movement we are going to look at the press. 

The press is an incredible exercise that can transform how you look, feel and perform. However the press isn’t quite as simple as throwing a weight up overhead. Let’s take a deeper dive into the press and why it’s such a good movement 

Survival of the fittest 

The press is something we have been doing since the beginnings of our time. We pressed to lift heavy rocks, stones and fallen trees in order to build shelter. When herding animals we would have pushed and pressed them to move in a given direction 

Every muscle 

When performed correctly the overhead press fires up nearly every single muscle in your body. Your toes and feet drive into the ground, you zip up your quads, squeeze your glutes, brace your abs, lock down your shoulders activating your back muscles and from this solid base you then drive the weight up overhead while wedging yourself under it. 

Pressing red flags 

Pressing requires great shoulder and thoracic spine mobility. Lack of required mobility will likely result in injury. Having a Functional Movement Screen done is a great way to see if you have adequate shoulder mobility for pressing. 

Our bodies are strongest when all our joints stack on top of one another. The press demands perfect alignment from heel to head and beyond. But when we lack mobility we compensate, this can often be seen in arching of the lumbar spine in order to get the weight overhead. A big no no if you want to avoid lower back pain

It feels good to feel good 

There are certain innate movements that make up our evolutionary blueprint. For example rocking back and forth is a wonderful calming movement that we often associate with trying to relax babies. Another is throwing our hands in the air when we win at something. This innate movement hardwiring has the power to make us feel good. And it feels good to feel good. 

The press mimics throwing our hands up in the air like we have just won and is just another reason why pressing is cool 🙂 

 

Each meal over the challenge we have been finding ways to add more vegetables in and one way we have enjoyed is micro greens. We purchased some broccoli and cabbage micro greens. Micro greens are full of nutrients, let’s take broccoli for instance. Did you know the micro green contains up to 40 times the levels of nutrients by weight compared to normal broccoli?

Micro greens are a phase in a plants life when it is between 10-14 days old. During this stage, sulforaphane, one of the plants natural compounds peaks. Sulforaphane has been shown to have anti-cancer properties, it is important for cardiovascular health with it’s anti-inflammatory properties, along with being anti-aging, and great  for brain health.

You can either grow your own, or pick some up at an organic food store.

That is it for today.

Paul “pressing” and Krystie “micro-greening” Miller