My List of Product Recommendations!

My clients and friends often ask me what type of supplements/fitness products I use. Here's my list of product recommendations for you holiday wish list! Please note that, aside from GoMacro, I do not endorse any of these products, so I do not receive anything for writing these reviews. The items on this list are simply products I use myself and have found to be the most effective and helpful.

Supplements:

• RawFusion or PlantFusion are both delicious, dairy free, plant-based brands of protein powder. I've tried countless different protein powder brands. Whey has never been kind to my stomach. I was always left with bloating and cramping afterwards, so I decided to switch to dairy free alternatives. Both of these brands taste absolutely delicious, and have no artificial crap (which seems to be pretty uncommon for protein powder). Although I like all of their flavors, I recommend RawFusion Natural Chocolate and PlantFusion Cookies 'n' Cream. Some plant-based protein powders taste grainy and leaf-like. Both of these brands have an incredible taste and mix easily with water. You can buy 2 pound tubs of these brands on bodybuilding.com for around $26, which is about $0.87 per serving. Not bad!
• GoMacro bars are a clean alternative to many of the bars I've tried in supplement stores. All of the ingredients are organic, plus they're gluten free, dairy free, and refined sugar free. They have higher protein options as well! My favorite flavors are the Protein Pleasure and Protein Purity. You can buy them on Amazon for $38.99 for a box of 15 bars.
• NutriForce Glutamine is an excellent product to help expedite the recovery process. If you're training hard, glutamine should be a staple in your recovery arsenal. I prefer to mix mine right into my protein shake. Cost is about $20 for 10 ounces.
• BSN AminoX is another excellent product to speed up your recovery. The fruit punch flavor is the best, in my opinion. This product contains 6 essential BCAAs (branched chain amino acids) to aid in muscle repair and minimize catabolism. A tub is only $37.84 for 70 servings! Take these both before and after your workouts for maximal results.

Food:

• Daiya Cheese is a yummy alternative for those, like me, whose stomachs do not respond well to lactose. Daiya is also soy free, if you like to avoid soy! The cheese melts and stretches, just as real cheese does, and it comes in a ton of different flavors. You can buy it at most Whole Foods or other similar grocery stores.
• Feel Good Foods chicken dumplings are the bomb! They're gluten free with great ingredients, unlike many other frozen meals. I buy these from Whole Foods!
• I'm obsessed with Cashewtopia ice cream. Ice cream is my weakness, and I don't need to feel guilty about eating this brand, because it's made from organic, clean ingredients. The "cream" is made from cashews, and it's incredibly rich and decadent. If you have a sweet tooth like me, I recommend checking out this awesome dairy-free alternative. I love the vanilla bean and chocolate flavors!

Apparel:

• The Inov8 F-LITE shoes are great for anyone who's looking for a more minimal sneaker. I mentioned these shoes in my previous article on barefoot training. I think these sneakers are a great transition for someone who was wearing really bulky sneakers beforehand, and doesn't want to commit to the ridiculous-looking toe shoes. They're light (as the name dictates), comfortable, and they last a really long time! I'd say they're pretty well-fit for any activity, whether it's running, weight training, or just playing basketball in the park.
• Elite FTS  Heavy Knee sleeves are great for those (like me) who squat often and heavy. I chose these because the price is the best out of any other brand I've found and they're excellent quality. You can buy these on eliteFTS.net for $23 per pair! Most brands cost more than that for one!

Books:

• The Weightlifting Encyclopedia: A Guide to World Class Performance by Arthur Drechsler is a great text for anyone who's looking to get more into the sport of weightlifting! Lots of excellent cues and anecdotes for fixing common problems in the lifts! This book sells for around $56 on Amazon, and it's worth every penny!
• Original Strength by Tim Anderson is a short, but informative read on how to regain the strength you had as a child. He teaches you how to rock, roll, and crawl your way to an injury free lifestyle. I love his videos as well, and I'd recommend checking out OriginalStrength.net for more information from him. This book is one of several he's written, and it only costs $11 on Amazon.
• Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?: Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise by Alex Hutchinson is another easy read that looks to dispel common fitness myths and covers topics such as the effectiveness of compression gear, static stretching, and running sneakers. Also around $11 on Amazon!

The Muscles You're Forgetting to Train

Whether your training consists of a bodybuilding split-type schedule, you're training for a sport (basketball, weightlifting, powerlifting, etc.), or you're just doing total body workouts to get stronger, you might be forgetting some of the most important muscles in your body.

When you do any type of exercise, whether you're running, jumping, performing a deadlift, or throwing, it all starts with your point of contact to the ground. Your feet are your foundation, and, therefore, training your feet, or training barefoot, will build a rock solid base of support equipped to handle any task.

Let your feet breathe!

Barefoot training has slowly started to make its way back into the mainstream media. Five-finger toe shoes or other types of minimal shoes have been touted as the "optimal" footwear for runners everywhere. I'll be the first one to admit that those toe shoes look absolutely ridiculous. Despite their horribly unfashionable nature, I do believe that barefoot training is an excellent addition to any training protocol.

There are plenty of naysayers in the minimal footwear movement: many people say that barefoot training can actually cause more harm than good. First of all, humans have been performing great feats of athleticism long before Nike was telling us to "Just Do It." In fact, we were "just doing it" with no shoes or maybe thin sandals that would protect our feet from sharp objects or hot sand. We were climbing trees, running away from wild boars, walking back to camp with livestock slumped over our shoulders, and climbing mountains without buying specialized footwear for those tasks. There are numerous civilizations today who are still doing all of those aforementioned tasks without the help of sneakers. Instead, those people have learned to harness the power of their own feet.

Now, I'll step away from the more anthropological talk and shift more into physiology. First, let's discuss the term "proprioception." I've mentioned this term in my blog before, but for those of you who don't remember, proprioception refers to "the sense of the relative position of neighbouring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement," as per Wikipedia. Proprioception helps you adjust to uneven surfaces, understand how much pressure you're applying to said surface, among other things.

Shoes can limit the proprioceptors in our feet. Although your feet are proportionally small in comparison to other parts of the body, each foot has about 20 muscles, 26 bones (about 1/4 of the bones in the body), 33 joints, and over 7,500 nerve endings! Think about that: such a small part of your body includes a quarter of the bones in your body! Now, if you're cutting off the proprioceptors in your feet, you're cutting off a very sensitive and responsive area of your body.

One study done at the German Sport University of Cologne measured the activity of several muscles in and around the feet using Electomyography (EMG) while participants walked on grass barefoot, using minimal footwear and in traditional running shoes. They found that

"The use of minimal footwear was related to changes in muscle 

strength and morphology. It was demonstrated that the 

footwear increased mechanical stimuli on the tendon muscle 

units. The muscle strength capacity of those muscles which 

were more intensively used by the minimal shoe increased 

significantly. Muscles which were similar activated in both 

conditions did not respond. One can conclude that footwear 

technology impacts the mechanical loading as well as the 

biological response of the loaded tissues. "

 I have cited several other studies in the Works Cited below, if you're interested in reading more into these studies.

While many of these studies involve running/walking, I believe that barefoot training carries over into lifting as well. I will have my clients roll out their feet with a golf ball or lacrosse ball before exercise. This will improve the sensory input and also improve their range of motion. Try this: Stand with your feet together and try to touch your toes. Now roll your feet out for about 5 minutes and then retest. You will notice that you are more flexible afterwards.

I know, these look pretty freaking silly...

I will also have them do their activation/warm-ups barefoot; single leg RDLs, high skips, Bulgarian split squats, kettlebell swings, etc. can be done without shoes. Deadlifts are also an excellent exercise to try barefooted as well. You can see what you're doing with your toes: are you flexing your toes or "gripping the ground?" These actions are not ideal and should be corrected.

Now, if you want a great brand of minimal shoes that don't look absolutely obnoxious, I'd recommend the brand Inov8. Their shoes are comfortable and pretty sexy (in my opinion), and I'm absolutely obsessed with mine! There are several other minimal brands out on the market, so find a pair that you like!

If you're looking to get the most out of your training and avoid injury in the process, try taking your shoes off whenever you can. It feels pretty nice to let your feet spread out and breathe a little bit!