Want to gain muscle, lose fat, boost energy, and slow the effects of aging? Want to do it with minimal time in the gym? And want to do it while eating copious amounts of saturated fat?

No problem.

Back in December, I began a test drive of Mark Sisson’s diet and exercise program, The Primal Blueprint. In mid April, I swapped out the strength training portion for Medhi Hadim’s Stronglifts 5×5.

The diet part of the Primal Blueprint is based on eating the foods that our Paleolithic ancestors ate, and what we evolved to thrive on: plants and animals. In other words, the Caveman diet. No grains, legumes, sugar, or processed foods, but also no fear of natural fat. As the French have demonstrated, fat is not evil.

The exercise portion is also based on imitating cavemen. Contrary to popular belief, they did not spend hours a day on a treadmill. But they did a lot of moving around, lifted heavy things, and occasionally had to run for their life. So this program involves a good amount of easy cardio, bodyweight resistance exercises, and occasional sprints.

However, I didn’t really love the idea of doing very high reps with very light resistance. Going by the book, I would have been doing pushups on my knees, which didn’t seem very effective. I started out by skipping a few levels within the program (e.g., decline pushups instead of knee pushups), but then I joined a gym so I could follow the Stronglifts program.

Medhi has a free ebook explaining Stronglifts, which involves compound lifts with barbells three times a week, 5 sets of 5 reps, for 3 exercises per session. Unfortunately, the 5 pages of actual information is buried between 295 pages of testimonials and sales pitches. Blink and you’ll miss it, but it’s worth finding.

The results? Dramatic, though somewhat less than the optimist in me had hoped for. However, I think I might be able to get the results I want with a few tweaks.

Anyway, Mark’s claim of “effortless weight loss” is almost an understatement. I lost 15 pounds in the first month while stuffing myself (up to 4,000 calories a day, for muscle gain). I had to go out and buy smaller pants, which are now getting loose. Meanwhile, some of my shirts feel like they’re going to rip in the back and shoulders.

Sure, I miss carbs, but I was surprised at how easy it was to completely ditch pizza and lasagna. Apparently these foods are a lot less tempting when you’re not hungry. And a high-fat, low-carb diet doesn’t leave you hungry.

Unfortunately, my weight loss completely stalled after that first month. Of course, if some fat loss was offset by muscle gain, that’s great. But I’d still need to lose another 15 pounds of fat to look like an Abercrombie model. When I did some searching, I found that almond butter and yogurt, two foods that tend to be overeaten by the newly primal, are often culprits in stalled fat loss.

My consumption of almond butter (2 jars a week) is extraordinarily high compared to what people are recommending, so I’ve cut that out completely. I’ve dropped yogurt too, and I’m trying to keep carbs as low as I can for a while. I lost 2 pounds in the week since I made these changes, but I’ll need more time to see if this is going to work.

As for the strength training, that was an unqualified success. Here are my progressions in workout weights for my first three months:

Deadlifts: 185 -> 265
Squats: 135 -> 235 (that’s 100 pounds!)
Bench press: 55s -> 75s (dumbbells)
Rows: 95 -> 155
Overhead press: 85 -> 110

Not bad for a 37 year old who had been stuck on the same weights for the last 15 years.

I can’t really tell you what actions caused what results, because I changed a whole bunch of variables at once. But there’s no denying that something here works. I suspect that ditching grains and sugar is the most important thing. Give it a try; the results may surprise you.

“There is simply no other exercise, and certainly no machine, that produces the level of central nervous system activity, improved balance and coordination, skeletal loading and bone density enhancement, muscular stimulation and growth, connective tissue stress and strength, psychological demand and toughness, and overall systemic conditioning as the correctly performed full squat.”

- Mark Rippetoe

So, you want to do squats. Maybe everyone’s been telling you to do them. Maybe you think they look so cool. Maybe you’re curious why people call them “the king of all exercises.”

But maybe you’re not sure how deep to go, or whether you’re supposed to lean forward, or whether they’re bad for your knees. Read on, and learn all the basics you need to know.

Do you need a squat rack?

Yes, you really do. Free weight barbells are the only way to do squats. You’ll need a rack to get the bar onto your back, and you’ll need safety bars to catch the weight if you can’t make it up.

The Smith machine forces you to move through an unnatural path, putting unnecessary strain on your back and joints. It also isolates certain muscles, thereby preventing you from developing core strength and producing the maximal hormonal response. Dumbbbells might be OK if you’re just starting out, but soon you’ll need ones too heavy to lift.

If you really can’t get access to a squat rack, your best option might be pistol squats (one-legged squats using bodyweight resistance).

What’s the difference between high bar and low bar squats?

These are the two main back squat variations. Both are good, but it’s important to know the differences and pick one rather than combining elements of both at the same time.

High bar means resting the bar on your upper trapezius, just below the neck. This is where anyone would naturally put the bar if they weren’t told otherwise. You take a narrow stance and wear shoes with raised heels to keep your balance when you squat deep (e.g., Adidas Adistar, Do-Win). Arnold is barefoot but propping up his heels in the picture above.

Low bar means resting the bar a couple of inches lower, on your rear deltoids. The mechanics are complicated, but this video gives a very detailed illustration of low bar squat grip. You take a wider stance, wear shoes with flat heels (e.g., Chuck Taylor’s, Vibram FiveFingers, bare feet), and you don’t squat as deep, but you can lift more weight because of the better leverage.

The difference in bar placement is only a few inches, but it has important implications. See this page about high bar vs. low bar squatting. Expand the first bullet point to see a picture that will clear up a lot.

To keep your balance, you want the bar to be above the middle of your feet. As you can see in the picture, this means leaning slightly forward in the high bar position, and leaning forward to a greater extent in the low bar position. This impacts the muscles involved (high bar – emphasis on quads and glutes; low bar – emphasis on the posterior chain, particularly the hamstrings). It also affects how deep you can squat (see next section).

Debates rage over which bar position is better. If you want to compete, then powerlifters have to do low bar and Olympic weightlifters have to do high bar (or front squats). Other than that, it doesn’t matter too much.

How deep should you squat?

When high bar squatting, the upright torso position allows you to go ATG (“ass to grass”), to the point where your hamstrings are resting on your calves. A lot of people like to do this.

With low bar squatting, you can’t get this deep. But at a minimum, you need to go just past parallel. “Parallel” means that your thighs are parallel to the floor. When you go past parallel, your hip joint is lower than your knee joint.

The most common squatting mistake is not going past parallel. But you need to get this low in order to recruit your hamstrings and avoid knee problems.

Partial squats develop muscle imbalances and put a lot of stress on your knees when they’re not in a stable position. If you’re currently doing partial squats, stop that, and drop the weight however much you need to in order to do full squats.

When you were a toddler, you naturally squatted deep to pick up things on the ground. But years of sitting in chairs rather than squatting has shortened your Achilles tendons and weakened your supporting muscles. To regain lost balance and mobility, try the Grok squat (0:44 in that video).

If you just squat down to what feels like a reasonable depth, even if you’re making a good faith effort, you probably won’t get close to parallel. You have to find out exactly where parallel is rather than winging it.

Put an empty bar on your back and squat down until just below parallel (use a mirror or ask someone), and note the bar height. Set the safety bars just below this, and now you know how far down to go.

Are squats bad for your knees?

Generally not, as long as you go past parallel. In fact, squats have been known to fix existing knee problems by strengthening connective tissue. However, you can hurt your knees with bad form.

When you crouch down to pick something up, you probably let your hips come straight down while your knees move out in front of your toes. Don’t ever do that with a barbell on your back. You need to descend by pushing your hips back while your knees stay over your feet.

Some people with knee problems have experienced pain when squatting just past parallel, which vanished when they started squatting ATG.

Are squats bad for your back?

Usually not, if you’re doing them right. Your back takes on a lot of stress to support your core when doing squats, but it can take it. You probably shouldn’t even wear a lifting belt.

If your back hurts from squatting, bad form is likely the culprit. You’re probably putting the bar too high, or leaning too far forward, or rounding your back at the bottom.

How often should you squat? How many sets and reps?

The conventional wisdom used to be that you can only squat once a week, but now more and more people are saying to squat three times a week. You’ll feel sore in the very beginning, but get used to it within a couple of weeks.

Several programs, such as Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength and Medhi Hadim’s Stronglifts, start beginners at 5 sets of 5 reps. Pick a program and stick with it.

Anything I left out? Let me know.

Some of you may have read Jason Calacanis’ recent post The Age of Excellence, about how there’s no longer room for average or good, but rather it’s five stars or nothing. And if you did, maybe you’re wondering if your desire for life balance is putting your career at risk. Jason explained how he handled an average employee, what he refers to as “startup kryptonite:”

“If you have someone who is average, I suggest you do what I’ve started doing: offer to give them a reference to work at your competitors. I seriously did that recently. I liked someone a lot, they were really cool and really smart, but they set their target in life at doing ‘good work’ and having balance in their life…The person left and is happier in their life, and I am happy to open the seat for someone excellent.”

He predicts that unemployment will get worse, and merely good contributors will find their work outsourced to countries offering cheap labor.

Yikes! Do we really have to render ourselves unemployable in the name of a little life balance? Say it’s not so!

Well, this is where I have to disagree with some of his conclusions. Maybe he’s right if he’s just talking about startups. Maybe it’s so hard to hit a home run today that you need everyone on your team to be obsessed with doing just that.

But outside the startup world, I know plenty of people who have gotten by with good, average, mediocre, or even poor performance for years, and I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t continue to do so. While it can be hard to get a job, it’s usually very easy to keep one.

Now, I’m not suggesting that people coast through their careers, doing the least they can get away with. I think that anything worth doing is worth doing well. But this doesn’t mean that performing well enough to exceed expectations has to mean putting in more hours or raising your stress levels. Just a few ideas:

- Don’t waste time. Tackling things with a mild sense of urgency makes them more interesting than just watching the grass grow. If you finish what you’re working on, find something else to do instead of waiting for it to come to you. Skip useless meetings, with the excuse of the big important thing you’re working on.

- Get more experience. This is largely a matter of just keeping your eyes open as things happen. More depth means getting better at what you’ve been doing. More breadth means getting better at more things. Either way, things will tend to get easier over time, if you’re paying attention.

- Communicate better. Ask people if you’re doing what they want instead of assuming. Ask if someone has a better idea than what you’re planning to do. Make suggestions if you see options that might work better.

- Care. If you wouldn’t show up at work with a rumpled shirt and unkempt hair, don’t allow your work to look like that either. Small things can make a big difference. Take that extra step to make sure that your spreadsheet isn’t ugly, your email doesn’t contain random apostrophes, or your program won’t break if someone tries to divide by zero.

Do things like this, and you’ll be far above the line of minimum employability (though perhaps not at a startup), while still having room for that coveted life balance. Excellence optional, not required.

It’s time for another installment of “I can’t believe I never heard of this until now.” Today’s topic: the Neti pot.

The concept of nasal irrigation originated in ancient India, but it’s starting to catch on in the West (apparently it’s already hugely popular in California). The idea is to take a small pot (the Neti pot being the most popular brand) filled with salt water, pour it in one nostril, and let mucus and debris flow out the other.

It’s been shown to be effective for relieving headaches, congestion, coughs, and various sinus conditions, and I think the shock of using it for the first time is something everyone needs to experience. It’s a pretty creepy feeling, taking a breath and feeling like the air is going straight into your brain. For me, the real test will be allergy season. I’m curious if the Neti pot can make antihistamines obsolete.

What I don’t understand is why people feel the need to use it every day, or even multiple times per day. The nose is for the most part self-cleaning, and I think it just needs a jump-start now and then (getting rid of excess mucus lets your cilia do a better job of expelling it). I think I could go for months or years without feeling the need to do it again.

A few words of warning though. While your tap water is probably safe, you don’t want to risk pouring infected water into your sinuses, as it could kill you. Use distilled, sterile, or boiled water. People with ear problems or certain other medical conditions may not want to use a Neti pot. And there may be some dangers in using one too much.

Overall though, I think the benefits of occasional use greatly outweigh the risks. Now that I know about the Neti pot, I have no idea why we’re still using so many drugs to treat the same symptoms. Have any of you used a Neti pot?

In my review of Screw Business As Usual, I mentioned that something else I was reading looked like a much better book on a similar topic. But somewhere along the way, I forgot to review that other book.

So here it is: Shake the World: It’s Not About Finding a Job, It’s About Creating a Life by James Marshall Reilly. I found it hard to put down, mainly because of all the great interviews with Tony Hsieh, Shawn Fanning, Jessica Jackley, and many others (including Rafe Furst, who is now a defendant in the DoJ’s case against Full Tilt Poker — oops!).

It’s about breaking the corporate mold, ignoring the rules, and creating your own opportunities. For people who seek fulfillment and happiness in addition to money and titles, this book will definitely provide some ideas.

What do Leonardo da Vinci, Bruce Lee, and Steve Jobs have in common? Find out in my new free ebook, Personal Development for Polymaths.

This is the ebook I should have written a long time ago, when I refocused my blog on…well, personal development for polymaths. When everyone and their grandmother expects you to pick a niche, it can be hard to meet expectations and also feel like a complete human being.

So what is the aspiring polymath to do? Everything they want, but you have to be smart about it, and not just chase every shiny object.

Whether your interests include reading, writing, drawing, running, dancing, swimming, cooking, singing, gardening, or underwater basket weaving, this ebook will give you tips for getting the most from a world of infinite possibilities.

Free your feet, and your mind will follow. That’s a marketing slogan for the Vibram FiveFingers shoes, but it also happens to be the truth.

I first heard about these minimalist shoes when Tim Ferriss wrote about them. I always get ticked when I learn that a product has been designed to screw me over, whether it be the QWERTY keyboard, chairs, or in this case, shoes. But I still wasn’t motivated enough to go out and get them.

Later, when I developed shin splints that made it painful to even walk, I figured it was time to try them out. I got the KSOs, one of three styles available at the time, though today there are many more. They cured me pretty much instantly, and I’ve been wearing them on and off for a year and a half since.

The idea behind them is to offer some protection while coming as close as possible to the barefoot experience, letting the foot work the way it was meant to. Normal shoes have a raised heel that throws off your posture, arch support that prevents your arches from working as springs, and thick padding that deprives your nerves of all sensory input.

I love these shoes, and I wish I never had to burden my feet with the traditional clodhoppers we’re expected to wear. They just make walking fun, particularly on soft surfaces or uneven terrain.

There are some downsides though.

One, they’re not exactly office-appropriate. See the Vivo Barefoot Dharma for a compromise you can actually wear to work. They’re very comfortable compared to normal shoes, but no match for the FiveFingers, and I don’t know why they’re so expensive.

Two, you’ll be about a half inch shorter without the raised heel. But then you’ll feel like a giant in normal shoes.

Three, big rocks hurt, so you have to watch your step. They’re certainly not great in the snow, since the freezing water soaks right through.

Four, there’s definitely a risk of injury. Your feet have a lot of joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons that have become very weak over the years, and you can’t expect them to return to full function without a break-in period (which will take a lot longer than you think). Just take it as easy as you possibly can, and stop if you feel the slightest pain.

Finally, some people think that wearing gloves on your foot is not all that fashionable, perhaps calling them “frog feet.” Mine are black/grey so they can escape the peripheral vision of most passersby, but whenever someone noticed them, I used to get prepared to give a long explanation. Today, it seems that most people already know what they are, so they just say they like them or ask if they’re comfortable.

I wish Vibram had an affiliate program, because they’ve certainly gotten enough free advertising from me. Do any of you have them, and how do you like them?

Richard Branson has a new book out called Screw Business As Usual, about how it’s time for businesses to shift from being purely profit-driven to caring about people, communities, and the planet.

Sounds good in theory, but a better title for this book would have been “Richard Branson’s Résumé.” At least that’s the feeling I had in the beginning.

About a third of the way through, it gets better, and you think, “Wow, Virgin Unite really is doing good things.” But it’s an awful lot of stories, and not a lot you can really put to use.

Great message, but not such a great book. The book I’m reading now, Shake the World, looks like a much better book on a similar topic.

Dirk de Bruin (perhaps better known on the internet as Diggy) has released his Confidence Black Book, a complete 30-day guide to becoming a more confident person in all areas of life.

I had initially assumed that it was about dating, but it really has a much broader scope, covering diet, exercise, relationships, career, and other things. In short, it’s about conquering limiting beliefs that stand in the way of increased happiness, success, and goal achievement.

I appreciate that he based the book on his own personal experiences, as he spent seven years learning how to build confidence and the kind of life he wants to live. That’s how he can say for certain that his stuff works, because he used it all himself.

While I thought he had a lot of good insights in the book, I cheated by skipping the 30 daily tasks he gives. (Tip: don’t do this!) I also skipped over the bonuses (12 motivational videos and an NLP visualization method video, so there’s even more value than meets the eye.

He’s set up an opt-in page to a series of free videos with tips and insight into becoming more confident. I haven’t seen them, but if you want the secret to indestructible confidence, you know what to do.

I want to try a little experiment, if you have a minute.

Think of a two digit number between 1 and 50. Both digits should be odd, but not the same number. Don’t scroll down until you’ve picked a number.

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I’m starting to see it now…
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Is your number 37?

I saw this on a TV magic show a long time ago. A guy was doing this to random people on the street, and there were only two different reactions. Either he’d be wrong, and they’d wonder why anyone would even try such a dumb trick, or he’d be right, and they’d be amazed.

Although it might seem that there are many possible numbers that fit the given conditions, there are only eight (13, 15, 17, 19, 31, 35, 37, 39). And for whatever reason, people pick 37 far more than its fair share – the show claimed it was more than half the time.

So the trick doesn’t always work, but when you guess someone’s number with complete confidence, it’s hard for them not to be impressed.

We know that “people don’t do random,” even when it comes to meaningless things like picking a number. I’d wager that 35 is a common choice and 13 is not, though I couldn’t really tell you why. I actually picked 37 the first time, and changed it to 39 only because I realized that 37 was too obvious.

People have wonderful abilities of intuition and pattern recognition, but a downside of this is the tendency to see meaning when it’s not there. Sometimes a random number really is 19, despite our desire for it to be 37.

Oswin Craton has a nice article about extrasensory perception, and how he was able to make many people think they had some degree of ESP with a test involving questions like the 37 thing.

(However, beware of the straw man argument – out of all the people I know who say they’re psychic, none of them claim to be mind readers.)

Please leave a comment with the number you picked – I just want to see how often this works.