February's Great Fitness Experiment: Sandbags! [Plus Creatine Experiment results]

This pic amuses me because I found it on a site under the heading of "preschool crafts". It's titled "Build a sand castle with tin cans." Uh-huh, sure. You're going to write your kid's college admissions essay too aren't you?

"Why are you buying play sand in the middle of a blizzard?" The cashier at home depot looked at me suspiciously as if a mom with 4 kids in tow (and by "in tow" I mean "running in circles around the cart throwing paint cards at each other while the 4-year-old tantrumed next to the candy he couldn't have") would have ulterior motives. "You building them an indoor playground or something?" Ah, she thinks I've lost my mind!

"An indoor sandbox? Certainly not." I may be addled but I'm not insane. "Actually the sand is for a workout." She looked confused so I explained, "I have these canvas bags, see, and I fill them with sand to make them heavier. So I can lift them." I made a weak bicep curling motion.

"Why don't you just use dumbbells?"

Good question. Perfect question in fact. Back when we first Experimented with kettlebells we also got that question a lot. "Why are you swinging those things in here? Just use the weights like a normal non-freakish person already!" But we quickly learned that kettlebells are not just balls with handles. They're canon balls with handles. And it's that very swinging action that makes all the difference between a traditional free-weight workout and a kettlebell workout.

I grabbed my screaming toddler, scooping him up in my arms. Of course he did what he does best: he made a scene flailing and trying to toss himself out of my arms onto the hard concrete floor. Over the screaming I yelled, "The key is the sandbags are an unstable weight! So you have to work harder to lift and stabilize them, just like this..." I looked down at my suddenly still child. "What are you doing?" I hissed. He lay perfectly limp in my arms. The cashier peered over the counter curiously. I jiggled him. "Come on!" His eyes remained closed without a hint of flutter, his little mouth slack and drooling. Had he tantrumed himself into a seizure? I set him down on the bag of sand and we all stared at him. Never have I seen a 4-year-old so absolutely still.

"Should I call someone?" The cashier ventured. At which point he exploded.

"Stop wooking at me! Can't you see I'm invisible??" Mystery solved.

Which brings me to the main reason I am so excited to try sandbags for February's Great Fitness Experiment: sure they're an unstable weight that activates all kinds of smaller muscles and your core and makes weight lifting exponentially more difficult and therefore more rewarding. But the best part is the sandbag is an unstable weight that doesn't humiliate me in public. Yet.

Plus I'm a total fitness nerd and love to geek out over the latest fitness tools (word on the street has it that the krankcycle is coming to our Y!!) so when Josh Henkin contacted me about his Ultimate Sandbag Core Fitness System I tried to restrain my enthusiasm so I wouldn't scare him away. Okay, no I didn't. I squeeed. (Like peeing but with happy sound effects.) I'm professional like that. He sent me the whole package:

You fill up the two black pouches with sand and then place them inside the duffle bag with handles, allowing you to customize the weight. (Note to Y staff: if you see me lugging a heavy black duffle bag around, it is not a bomb.) It also comes with a strap, instructional videos and - my fave part - a poster of sandbag moves that even came with a little piece of masking tape stuck on the upper corner. It's like Josh tore his own poster down off his wall to send to me. Which only makes me treasure it more!

So this month the Gym Buddies and I will still be finishing the Fitblogger Competition for Charity with Lindsey of Lean Bodies but we'll be adding in some special sandbag moves and workouts. If you want to get an idea of what a sandbag workout looks like, here's one from Josh that incorporates the sandbag, the TRX and kettlebells (it's like I died and went to fit heaven!). We're going to try to use the sandbag in every way imaginable, including some workouts from Bodyrock.tv - Freddy and Zuzana are big sandbag fans.

Last Month's Results - Competition and Creatine

For those of you on Team GFE, you already know that we've swept every week and challenge so far (woot woot!) but we still have two more to go and every workout counts towards our final score! No slacking now - keep up the awesome work! For us, the most entertaining aspect of January's Fitblogger Challenge Experiment was the competition aspect. Usually we only have each other to compete with - Gym Buddy Allison and I are notorious for trying to one-up the other - but this month we had new people (strangers even!) to compete with. We were giddy like high schoolers on prom night. That is until Reader Taylor beat my mile time. (I'll catch up with you Taylor, just you wait!)

But the real experimental aspect of January was that both Gym Buddy Megan and I decided to try out creatine. Like I explained before, the monohydrate made me bloat like a pregnant woman (and made about as cranky as one too) so we used GNC's Pro Performance AMP Amplified Creatine 189, a form of creatine ethyl esterase. (Seriously GNC could you have picked a longer name? I think you missed a letter of the alphabet.) The results were unimpressive.

The good news: For those of you worried we were going to bulk out like men, that definitely didn't happen. In fact my high hip measurement went down a 1/2 inch and my low hip went down 1/4 inch.

The bad news: I took measurements of all my muscles and got zero hypertrophy. And before you get all righteously indignant with me, we do lift very heavy at least 3 times a week and yes we are both lean enough where a small change would have been noticeable. We weren't necessarily going for big guns but rather to lean out a little more and that didn't happen either. While I wasn't able to get my body fat percentage tested - the trainer wasn't available this morning - judging from the tape measure, my clothing and the way I look, I don't see a difference so I'm guessing there's not any change there either. Nor did Megan.

The weird news: We took the pills as prescribed, 2 a day on weight lifting days, and we both noticed that we got dizzy and light-headed about an hour after taking them. We both also think that perhaps we did recover from our weight workouts a little faster and had less soreness. Maybe.

My verdict? The bottle's going back to GNC. Yay for their generous return policy!

Anyone want in on the sandbag experiment this month? We'll be posting some more videos of the Gym Buddies and I (badly) doing the moves so you can try it out too. Even if you don't have a super high-tech bag like mine you can get started with a homemade one, a large bag of rice or flour or, if you can catch one, a small child.

Anyone else try the creatine? Have you ever been publicly humiliated by a child?

Creatine Supplementing for Women: The Good, The Bad and The Bloated

Proof that even the skinniest girl will look bloated if she stands wrong. And this is how 80% of Star magazine's headlines are born...

Increased muscle growth, faster recovery, increased endurance, less body fat, reversal of the beginning stages of heart failure and greater mental acuity (about a 10 point increase in IQ!) are just a few of the many benefits of the supplement creatine. Benefits, I might add, that are very well supported by reliable research as creatine is possibly the most researched athletic supplement out there. So why isn't everyone running to take this miracle in a powder? Indeed, it's estimated that upwards of 75% of professional athletes and Olympians take it so why aren't more of us average Janes taking it?

That's the question I found myself asking as I read about it in several fitness books this past week. It isn't that I've never heard of it before - you can't spend more than 10 minutes on a weight floor without somebody sprinkling white powder into their drink (note: if they're sprinkling white powder into your drink you are in one of the few situations in which it is totally appropriate to drop a weight on someone's foot) - I just figured it was one of those kooky things that bodybuilders did, you know like wrapping chains around their bench press bar and making sex noises during every rep. But after reading breathless reports of its amazing powers and virtual lack of side effects, I took it as a sign when I found a small canister on clearance at Target. I bought it.

Perhaps I should not buy supplements on clearance at a mega-grocery store but that's a discussion for another day. At any rate, I took my first dose yesterday. The white sparkly powder (seriously, Edward Cullen is jealous) didn't dissolve well in the recommended 8 oz of water but it also didn't taste like anything so I chugged it down and went about my business. An hour later this was me:

Okay so this isn't ME me but my belly was so swollen I pretty much looked 4-months pregnant like J.Lo. here (p.s. Elvis only wishes he could design a maternity line this awesome). While creatine doesn't have any serious side effects - anecdotal reports of severe cramping and dehydration have been disproven in studies - it does have one very uncomfortable side effect: Bloating. And not just "my period is imminent, hide the cookies" bloating but "holy crap, if you poke me with a pin I'll turn into an elephant sprinkler" bloating. While I peed like a racehorse for the rest of the day and the bloating was gone within a few hours, still, I was not happy. Before I tell you more about my little experiment, here are some FAQs about the supplement. (Read here for more info and hilarious answers.)

What is Creatine?

Creatine, an organic compound produced naturally from amino acids in our kidneys and liver and stored in our muscles, was first discovered in the 1800's. By the early 1900's it was already in use as a performance aid (and I mean that in the non-Levitra sense, egads marketing has warped me!). This extensive history has made it one of the most studied supplements on the planet.

There are several different types of creatine and prices range from pennies a serving to $120 for a small canister. Creatine monohydrate, the kind I took that made me inflate like a Macy's Parade float, is the cheapest and most common. Other types of creatine like creatine ethyl ester are supposed to not have the bloating/gas side effect but of course they cost more. And you don't find them on clearance at Target, precluding any "the universe made me buy it" arguments.

How do you use Creatine?

Most sources recommend "loading" for the first 4-5 days by taking 20-30 grams a day with afterwards taking 5-10 grams a day for maintenance. You maintain this load for about 6 weeks and then you stop the creatine for 2-6 weeks before starting a new cycle. Although I did read several recommendations that said to never stop taking it, just to repeat the loading every couple of months.

Most sites I read recommend taking one dose within a half hour of finishing your weight workout and a second right before bed (presumably so you go through the distended-whale stage in your sleep). Make sure that no matter when you take it, you are drinking a ton of water.

What are the effects of Creatine?

It works by drawing water into your muscles and because of this it has the dual effect of 1) making your "pump" or the visible size of your muscles look larger and 2) making you gain weight about 1.5-6 pounds during the first week as your body retains this extra water. The water weight is lost after stopping the creatine but you retain the extra muscle you built - in studies athletes on creatine gained about 5 pounds more of muscle than athletes not on creatine doing the same training program.

Should I be capitalizing Creatine?

I have no idea.

After doing all this research on it, I am super intrigued by the benefits but I have one main concern. It's the weight gain. Don't even pretend you are surprised. While I'm still not weighing myself (two months now scale free, yay me!!) the thought of doing something that could make me gain 5 pounds in one week makes me want to run and cry in my closet just for old time's sake. I don't care if it is water weight. When your pants don't fit, your pants don't fit. I also am not thrilled about my muscles getting "bigger." Yes, I love my new Rachel Cosgrove muscles and I love being strong but I don't necessarily want them any bigger. Less body fat? Higher metabolism? More energy? Yes, please! But I'd like those without the hypertrophy.

Unsurprisingly, when I threw this question out on Twitter, the only people who responded that they had taken it were men. I think a lot of women are scared away from creatine for the same reasons that I am: we don't want to gain weight and we don't want bigger muscles. But what about our lack of testosterone - wouldn't that inherently limit our muscle growth? (And since creatine is not a hormone it would not impact our testosterone or estrogen levels.) And if we're gaining weight but it's all muscle, isn't that a good thing? Plus: TEN IQ POINTS. Who doesn't want to be smarter? (Notice how the reversal of heart disease doesn't even make my top 3? Hahaha...)

I'm stymied. Help me out! Am I being an idiot and looking for a magic solution in a jar? Or does this fall in the "why WOULDN'T you?!" category like fish oil or vitamin D? Any of you take creatine? Anyone want to reach through their monitor and slap some sense into me?