Tips for Female Grapplers: When (Small) Girl Meets (Big) Boy
Squee! I got published on GrappleArts.com!
While more women are getting in to grappling, it’s still a sport dominated by males. And while in theory BJJ is a martial art developed with the premise that you’ll be smaller and weaker than your opponent, what do you do when you really ARE a lot smaller and weaker than most of your training partners?
Welcome to the situation faced by female grapplers.
Now, some of you ladies lucky enough to fight in heavier weight classes and those of you who’ve been going to kettlebell classes faithfully can often hold your own pretty well. But when you’re smaller and female, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself frustrated as all your best techniques seem worthless against a 200 lb white belt who can simply (it seems) sit on you and squash you.
What to do?
Tips for Female Grapplers: When (Small) Girl Meets (Big) Boy
Research Roundup: Focus on childhood obesity
Recent studies in the International Journal of Obesity:
Kids these days are getting fatter sooner and staying that way longer. In academese, reviewing data from 1976-2006, “Recent birth cohorts are becoming obese in greater proportions for a given age, and are experiencing a greater duration of obesity over their lifetime.” Lest we debate the measurement technique, obesity was defined as a body mass index greater than or equal to 95th percentile for individuals aged 2–16 years or greater than or equal to 30 kg/m–2 among individuals older than 16 years. This is quite unambiguously obese regardless of fitness.
Factors involved in childhood obesity are complex. In a study of over 11,000 children in the UK, researchers found a few, somewhat disparate, factors intersected:
- higher body mass index at age 3
- Bangladeshi or black ethnicity (“black” here not otherwise defined, which is a problem given the diverse somatotypes covered under this vague category)
- mother overweight during and/or after pregnancy
- father overweight
- smoking in proximity to child (either while mother was pregnant or in the household)
- being an only child
Interestingly, although I think we can all agree that tons of TeeVee isn’t good for anyone, lots of TV affects children who are already overweight more than normal-weight children, suggesting a cumulative cascade.
Oh, and piglets are considered a good methodological proxy for children. Draw your own conclusions.
All studies in the latest ish of International Journal of Obesity (April 2010) 34 no.4.
School lunches: Viva la revolutione!
No doubt some of you have been following Jamie Oliver’s New Food Revolution. Oh, the horror, the horror. (Somewhat mitigated by the quasi-erotic thrill of dorky-adorable Jamie in a green pea costume.)
I lie awake nights thinking of the pink milk with sugared cereal that the little sunken-eyed, cutlery-less Dickens-workhouse-looking tots are munching. I weep for Britney and her crumbling liver. My hand itches to slap the pointy-headed bureaucrats who decided that French fries were a vegetable and pizza equals two bread servings (and that two white bread servings are somehow good — certainly better than that shite brown rice that that dumbshit know-nothing chef suggests! who the hell does he think he is anyway, all fancypants funny talking? we kicked ur ass in 1776 so you can’t tell us nothing! *high fives*).
Now, from deep in the trenches comes our embedded warrior educator/journalist Ms. Q, who keeps it real and documents the child abuse that comes in a plastic bag, box, and handy snakpak on her blog Fed Up With Lunch.
Bodybuilding helped lift my spirits
From the Globe and Mail:
When a couple of guys at the gym suggested last year that I train for a bodybuilding competition, I laughed. I was 48 years old. It was ridiculous. Of course, I had to do it. I couldn’t walk away from such a challenge. To give up without trying would have been self-defeating. I hired a trainer, Vicki, a tough young woman. We talked about a schedule and a diet. “Nutrition is 90 per cent of bodybuilding” is a bodybuilder’s mantra. I kind of liked the diet, so that wasn’t a huge problem.
What really concerned me was my missing left breast, lost to cancer when I was 40. I wear a small, soft prosthesis on the street, but at the gym I am just me. One of the things I love about the gym is that I feel completely at ease there, such as I am. And completely accepted. But to stand on a stage in a minuscule bikini for the bodybuilding competition was a daunting prospect.
Rant 56 April 2010: What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Ask yourself: Do I even know what the hell “OK” looks like? Or am I drowing in fear, worry, anxiety, and “shoulds”? Let’s say you get those abs or that bench press. Let’s say that magical number appears. Then what?
Are you going to be happier than some nutty guy with a ukelele and 9 small dogs in grass skirts?
This just in: High rep, low-weight “toning” is crap
Lifting heavy weights makes you big and bulky — or at least that’s the conventional wisdom. It’s the reason many women (and some men) who want slim and “toned” physiques opt for lighter weights, lifted more times.
But the notion is not supported by science. Producing bulky muscles requires not just heavy weights but heavy calorie consumption as well, typically far above the 2,000 daily calories recommended for many adults. [Krista note: And for most women, testosterone “supplementation”.]
For people who lift weights to tone up and slim down, experts say, a regimen that includes a combination of challenging weights and fewer repetitions can help significantly. In a 2002 study, for example, scientists looked at what happened when women performed various resistance exercises at different weights and repetitions (85 percent of their maximum ability for 8 reps, versus 45 percent for 15). Subjects lifting more weight fewer times burned more energy and had a greater metabolic boost after exercise.
In another study published last year, scientists followed 122 women for six years. They found that those who were assigned to do resistance exercises three times a week — sets of 8 reps at 70 to 80 percent of their ability — lost the most weight and body fat. A similar two-year study of women who did strength training with challenging weight twice weekly found similar effects on body and “intra-abdominal” fat.
The raw vs the cooked
I’ve been reviewing a 2009 article on the significance of cooking in human development.
Many folks argue that eating a diet of exclusively raw foods improves health. While it’s certainly true that humans traditionally consumed a lot of food types raw (e.g. fruit, some types of fresh-caught meat), they also cooked many (e.g. starchy roots, many other types of meat). (Interestingly, few raw food advocates suggest eating sashimi or something like the Inuit delicacy of raw organ meats.)
The authors of this study review the evidence that supports or refutes the significance of cooking in human evolution and health. Some key findings…
Bodies Altered in Pursuit of Beauty
A compelling photoessay from the NYT.
“The worldwide pursuit of body improvement has become like a new religion,” says photographer Zed Nelson. “I imagined the project in some way like a body of evidence, perhaps for a future generation, to see a point in history where the abnormal became normal, or at least normalized.”
Collectively, Mr. Nelson’s photos show a small world, bound together by insecurity, with an almost pathological will to “improve.”
Best kettlebell lifter in the US?
From KataStrength.com, a brief profile on Lorna Kleidman, who “burst on the scene in 2007 at the IGSF Worlds where she became the first American (female or male) to be internationally recognized with the International Master of Sport ranking in kettlebell sport. Since then, she has competed with great success overseas, becoming World Champion in both her age group and open category.” Lorna’s also written Body Sculpting with Kettlebells for Women.
Check out the videos! She eats a 20 kg (44 lb) bell for breakfast and follows it up with a KB biathlon. Also notice how healthy and strong she looks. Just one more of the zillion reasons to lift heavy weights, ladies.
Another satisfied Stumptuous customer
From reader Katie M:
A couple years back you taught me how to do a pull-up and I sent you a video. You wouldn’t believe how my worldview changed after that first pull-up. I began to think there was nothing I couldn’t do, and I started acting accordingly — flipping tractor tires, climbing ropes, swinging sledge hammers.
Now, I have become a full-fledged, honest-to-goodness powerlifter. At a whopping 130 lbs and towering 5’3″, I squatted 308.5 lbs in competition last Saturday, breaking a state record for my age and weight. [Krista’s note: Holy SHIT!!]
Again, I offer you a video of my deeds.
I’m stronger and healthier than just about any woman I know. I plan, now, to live forever.
I just wanted you to know what you started. I still read your blog every day. You rawk.
Thank you for the years of inspiration,
Katie