Sebastian Strobl

Tag: Wellness

  • Most things in life are like a marathon..

    Most things in life are like a marathon..

    ..they say at least.

    But I think that’s fundamentally wrong. Sure to everything that has some kind of outcome worthwhile, consistency is key. There is no doubt bout that. Even coming back to the marathon, how good will you be, if you did it once in a lifetime, unprepared?

    For sure you have to train consistently. But how do you train? Low intensity every day for an endless amount of time? I‘m not big on running but I suggest there is some kind of periodization, starting low volume low effort and peaking with maximum effort and huge volume, before some days of rest towards your competition.

    So I would argue everything worthwhile in life is like training for the 100m dash. High intensity, for short total daily duration over the course of a lifetime. Take rest before burning out, the ease back into the grind and give it your all every day for extended amounts of time.

    Be it a FIY project at home, crammed into a weekend or over the course of a vacation week. Be it the big project at work, the presentation you have to give to a customer, your sales pitch, that you have to deliver. You take spurts of deep focused work on the topic for some limited amount of time. Then your competition, evaluation, talk or whatever rolls around, you perform to the best of your abilities and your done, decompressing and resting before taking on the next major thing.

    This applies to mostly everything, think relationships, what’s more sustainable and will foster the deeper relationships? Small daily bursts of complete focus on the other person, or some shallow clinging to each other, while mindlessly scrolling the gram oder watching Netflix?

    And of course, more is oftentimes better, until it stops working or even backfires. Think minimum effective dose in training. Same principle can be used with everything you do. The meal you prepare will not be tasting better if you cram too much sophisticated sounding ingredients in it. Have some fat in it to carry the taste, some protein for being satiated and some seasoning/ spices and your good.

    Next time you start doing something, think of the sprint vs marathon analogy and then give it your all for a pre defined period. Afterwards give it your all to recover, rest or selfcare and then start refreshed into the next task.

    And please, don‘t take things too seriously!

  • On training down or how to get shredded for the summer

    On training down or how to get shredded for the summer

    With nearly endless information on the topic floating around the internet, why exactly should you bother reading yet another article on losing weight for the summer body and acquiring outstanding definition?

    Since there is nothing new under the sun, I want to recap a training regime that not only worked for hundreds of people including famous movie actors of several decades, but also worked quite well for me in different decades of my life. So let‘s start of with paying respects to the man who told Arnold the following straight to the face, right after Joe Weider brought him over to the US.

    You look like a at fuck to me

    I‘m obviously talking about the iron guru himself, Vince Gironda, how not only trained the first Mr. Olympia ever but a boatload of other bodybuilders and Hollywood actors and didn‘t look to shabby himself up till old age.

    So what’s the method, to get into shape the fastet way possible? Easy: train one exercise for every body part you want to improve with 8 repetitions for a total amount of 8 sets and repeat 3 times a week.

    There are nearly as many split schedules and exercise selections for 8by8 out there as there are fad diets, but I think the original schedule had you workout 5 days in a row, alternating upper and lower body days.

    Below is my selection of exercises, that is different from what Vince was prescribing, since I have limited choice (training from home) and I don‘t quite like the trap-less, v-shape look he was after.

    What to do

    Upper Body days (Monday, Wednesday and Friday)

    • Behind the neck press with a wide grip for triceps & shoulder girdle
    • Barbell Bicep Curls
    • Barbell Upright row with a very narrow grip (really feeling those in the traps during peak contraction)
    • Barbell Bench Press (narrower grip, arms nearly parallel to the torso, since wide grip is bothering my rotator cuffs)
    • Barbell Bent over Row (narrow or even underhand grip, try to feel it in the lower last, when the barbell hits your stomach)

    Lower body days (Tuesday and Thursday)

    • Barbell Squat (I‘m using front squats, since I don‘t have a squatrack in our new home yet)
    • Stiff-legged Deadlifts (try standing on a block for better stretch)
    • Standing Barbell Calf raises
    • Hanging Leg Raises

    How to do it

    As mentioned earlier , you will be doing 8 sets of every exercise for 8 reps, except for lower body days. Here Vince was suggesting 8 total sets per muscle group for 20 repetitions each.

    Choose a weight you can handle for 3 sets of 8 pretty comfortably. Move quickly and try to feel the muscles contracting, that you are working. No need for extreme yanking the weights, controlled movements with a full range of motion. But no need to think about timing or cadences. This isn‘t an overly scientific HIT workout!

    If you never trained some high volume program like 8×8, German Volume Training (10×10) or even a CrossFitesque schedule, I recommend easing into the workout by starting with 3 sets per exercise and moving up one set in each per workout for the first weeks.

    Once you are getting all the 8 reps in all the 8 sets, it‘s time to increase the weight slightly.

    Nutrition

    As for nutrition, you want to aim for maintenance calories or slightly less, stay active overall and maybe just reduce portion sizes a bit, or have less side dishes. You will need a whole lot of protein to really melt the fat but not overly loose the muscles you built during your personal winter arc. If you are over 30, I would recommend you do two easy runs a week, just for overall health benefits.

    And of course go easy on the drinking and partying, unless you are as legendary as Zabo Koszewski was in his days.

    Enjoy your lifting & enjoy your days, one never knows how many are left. Find bliss & happiness in the hardworking.

  • Nutrition for the busy adult

    Nutrition for the busy adult

    Who wants to look great, not only wearing a suit but also when hitting the beach.

    Where to start..?

    It‘s easy to dig yourself into a never ending rabbithole, when researching diet and nutrition. There are more diets and successful reviews of those, than anybody ever could count and even nutrition-styles are never ending, circling around with ever changing popularities and oftentimes contradicting dogmas.

    So as with clothes and exercise, simple always trumps complexity and moderation might be the right approach in the long run on any given day. Don‘t go for extremes, don’t take what sounds too good to be true for a real shortcut, just apply common sense and be consistent with it.

    After all, human are omnivores, no buzzwords will ever change that.

    Start with a balanced diet, eating a bit of everything, just skip heavily processed foods and sweets.

    I really like the French approach, of eating till you are around 80% full.

    What to eat..?

    As mentioned above, you should eat a very balanced diet, that fits your local customs and habits, don’t try to copy a Mediterranean diet, if you are Japanese and vice versa. Local food might be the right for you, genetically speaking. But don‘t condemn adding olive oil or coconut milk either. Please, just try not being dogmatic about anything.

    So what’s a balanced diet, as you might be aware of, there are mainly 4 different macronutrients, where your calories can come from. Protein, from meat, fish and every other food category derived from livestock, like cheese, milk, cottage cheese, skyr and so on. Then there are carbohydrates, from vegetables, rice potatoes, pasta, fruit and every other sugary treat you can think of. Fats, which are really good for you by the way, again meets and fish, butter, nuts and so on. Lastly there fourth and most important macro nutrient, alcohol, preferably consume through red wine, added to each meal, after working hours, or even before, if tolerated in your workplace of course. This is the only one positively affecting your soul and outlook on your day to day life. Hope you got that I‘m joking, but coming back to that dogmatic comments before, a glass of wine from time to time won’t hurt, and might be beneficial for longevity.

    Try to have a even distribution of macronutrients in every meal and throughout the day, maybe slightly in favor of protein, won‘t hurt, if you want to build some muscle, or carbohydrates, since you won’t overeat as easily and portion sizes can be bigger compared with fat (4kcal vs 9kcal per gram). I would suggest, your calories should come from 40% carbs, 30% protein and 30% fat, or the other way round for protein & carbs.

    How to put it all together

    Try to have a protein source with every meal, add some kind of carbohydrates and some vegetables or salat & fat will mostly take care of itself. Eat two to three times a day, with balanced portion sizes, if you are older, you might want to aim for 2 and skip either supper or breakfast, just to have less calorie intake in total and maybe benefit a bit from the addition to your natural fasting window. If you don‘t trust the French 80% rule or really want to build muscle, use some kind of tracking app for a while, just to get a feeling of how many calories you are eating. After several weeks you should be able to eyeball the portion sizes and still make progress.

    If you are a parent like me, working a demanding full time job, logging your food can push you right over the cliff of burnout.

    To find out how much you should be eating, there are great calculators on the interwebs, go for the easiest ones, the results will be good enough.

    I really like this one.

    Perfect combination of the four macronutrients
    Looks like 40%/40%/30% and 12.5% to me