Kevin Bass has a background in medical anthropology, is both a medical and a PhD student, a grappler, and a weightlifter who has been deep in the trenches of the diet wars. In this episode we discuss the evidence for keto, ancestral and carnivore diets, the seed oil controversy, LDL, and a tentative protocol to help minimize brain damage from concussive trauma The Dark Side of the Keto and … [Read more...]
Nutrition
About That Diet You Just Started
I write this a few days after New Year's, and that means that people are inevitably going to be starting new diets. I don't have a problem with cleaning up your diet but many people are also going to be trying out the more extreme diets (the Keto diet, the Paleo diet, the Carnivore diet, or whatever crazy diet the last kooky guy on some Spotify podcast endorsed). Here's the thing though: not … [Read more...]
The Balance Between Stress and Recovery in Training
Your health is like a credit card.. You can definitely put things onto your credit card once in a while. You can even use a credit card to help bridge the gap when you're short on funds. But sooner or later you need to pay it off. But if you keep on making withdrawals against your card without ever putting money back into it then you're going to end up in serious trouble. Your health is … [Read more...]
Top Five Diet Tips for BJJ
I often get questions about diet and nutrition from grapplers and martial artists. People want to eat correctly because they think it will make them more effective in BJJ class, allow them to recover faster after training, and provide them with better health overall. Well, it's true. What you eat can have a HUGE effect on your performance. Nutrition is a super-important piece of the … [Read more...]
Five Tips for Training During Coronavirus Lockdown
As I write this most clubs, dojos and training groups all over the world have shut down for a very noble cause; to flatten the coronavirus curve By shutting things down we're slowing (not stopping) community transmission of this virus, which in turn prevents the medical system from being overrun all at once and allows the system to manufacture and stockpile masks and other personal protective … [Read more...]
Measure Your Training To Improve Your Training
Peter Drucker, the godfather of modern business management, once said, “You can't manage what you can't measure.” Now I don't think that Peter Drucker did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (or any other form of martial arts) but the idea of measuring things in order to improve them applies to every field of athletic endeavour. So let's look at some concrete ways that we might quantify our training and … [Read more...]
My Experience With Keto for BJJ
The ketogenic diet is really hot right now for weight loss, health, disease prevention and longevity. And in early 2018 as I was getting ready for my 1000 mile solo trip in the Arctic I gave it a really serious try. (This is because on a per calorie basis fat weighs half as much as protein and carbohydrate. Which means that if keto had been successful for me then I would have been able to … [Read more...]
Contrarian Thinking About Nutrition, with Nick Hiebert (Strenuous Life Podcast Ep 244)
Proper nutrition is one of the absolute cornerstones of good training. Trying to train if your nutrition sucks is like trying to redline a sports car using cheap Tijuana gas - the entire system is going to fall apart. The problem is that there is so much bad advice out there about nutrition, ranging from bro science to diets that can have disastrously negative side effects. I recently had an … [Read more...]
Date-Almond Energy Balls
Yes I'm sharing a recipe today but don't worry, there's no danger of this turning into a cooking blog!!! It's just that I've been asked for this recipe so many times that it would be silly not to have a post I can point people to. Obviously do lot of jiu-jitsu and fitness stuff, but the outdoors are a big part of my life as well. For example, after my kidney transplant in 2015 a huge … [Read more...]
Endurance Sports and BJJ, with Paul Kindzia
Paul Kindzia was immersed in the world of marathon and triathalon for many years before immersing himself in BJJ, even going so far as to write a book on the topic called 'Master Jiu-Jitsu, Master Life'. He's got a really interesting story because he went from a fat 220 pound accountant living on soft drinks and fast food to a 13 time elite Ironman. And now he's a highly ranked BJJ masters … [Read more...]
A Weight Cutting Plan for BJJ, MMA, and No Gi Competition
Weight cutting is a fact of life in modern MMA and also in many jiu-jitsu and submission grappling competitions. And the person who does it correctly usually has an undeniable advantage. But it can also be very dangerous if done wrong - people have sabotaged their performance, gone into kidney failure, and even died after cutting weight badly. So if you're going to cut weight you need to do … [Read more...]
Podcast Episode 106 – Top 5 Nutrition Tips for Martial Arts
The Christmas binge is over and it's time to take control of your diet again! In this short episode I give you my top five pieces of advice for cleaning up your diet and not sabotaging your training with crappy nutrition. This podcast episode, along with all my others, are available on my Strenuous Life Podcast, which you can subscribe to with a few easy clicks! Choose your audio player below … [Read more...]
Staying Fit During a BJJ Training Layoff
BJJ is a marathon, not a sprint. The average Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt takes at least 10 years of hard training, so if you miss a week of training here or there it's not going to make a difference in the long run. But in some scenarios you're not looking at just missing a week of training. Let's say that you've got a sick kid at home, or that you have to recover from a surgery, or that … [Read more...]
A Hidden Danger When Martial Artists Get Injured…
If you're doing a 'real' martial art then it's going to involve some form of contact... And if you're doing any contact activity for long enough then, eventually, you're going to get injured. Now hopefully your injury won't be anything serious; maybe just a sprain, a bad bruise, or a tweak that will heal quickly. But in the worst case scenario - especially if it's a serious injury like an … [Read more...]
Pre-Workout Supplements for BJJ
Pre-workout supplements used to be mostly for weightlifters and bodybuilders. But now more and more jiu-jitsu practitioners are taking them before BJJ class in order to train longer and harder. Do they work? Sorta, kinda... Are they safe? Not at all. Is there a better alternative? Definitely! Let's look into pre-workout supplements, especially with regards to students of BJJ. In … [Read more...]
Bodybuilding, Jiu-Jitsu, and My Quest to Make 240 lbs with Abs…
In my late twenties I went through a phase that most young men go through - I wanted to get big. Maybe not as big as Dorian Yates and the other professional bodybuilders active at the time, but certainly bigger than most other men in my peer group. Yes, I admit that there was a certain element of vanity at work, but I also told myself that it would be good for my jiu-jitsu. The trouble was … [Read more...]
The Danger of All-Or-Nothing Thinking…
In life it's funny what ends up making a lasting impression on you. An offhand comment can stick with you for years and years, and have an effect way beyond anything the original person intended. There's a phrase like that that pops up in my mind often when I'm thinking about BJJ. But it originated in a very different place. In fact this comment got stuck in my brain more than 20 years ago … [Read more...]
The Truth about Supplements – Everyone is Lying to You
When it comes to supplements for BJJ, or any other sport for that matter, almost everybody giving you advice is lying to you. Or at the very least, deluded by wishful thinking... And just to alienate even more people, by the term 'supplements' I'm including most vitamins, minerals, ergogenic aids, pre-workout drinks, post-workout shakes, homeopathic medicine, herbal concoctions, chinese … [Read more...]
Getting Big And Strong On A Vegan Diet
by Mike Mahler, RKC I thought that this article was a nice counterpoint to the usual nutrition-for-bodybuilding articles one reads in magazines and on the internet. While I am not a vegetarian myself it IS something that I respect and aspire towards. … [Read more...]
The Six BJJ Supplements That Really Work
When it comes to supplements, most people either take nothing at all or far too many! And most serious grapplers go through a phase of taking tons of supplements in hopes of boosting their jiu-jitsu game. … [Read more...]