A
former member of SEAL Team 6, known by the pseudonym Mark Owen,
recounts the raid that killed the world's most wanted man: Osama bin
Laden. Scott Pelley reports.
domingo, 24 de fevereiro de 2013
The blonde and the great white shark
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50141524n
The
Feed compiles some of the week's best viral videos including a backflip
in Mini Cooper, SeaWorld San Antonio doing the Harlem Shake and a cat
that goes to war with a DVD player. Plus, the majestic tale of the
blonde free diver and the great white shark.
sábado, 23 de fevereiro de 2013
Using Google Zeitgeist To Create Content That Will Rank Better
To be technical I guess I should have used the word “organically”
in the title but someone once told me to say what I mean so there you
have it. There are 4 types of traffic that Your Online Business needs to
survive and then thrive.They are:
Referral |
Direct |
Search |
How can you beat stiff competition in a saturated market?The truth is everybody wants “easy” search engine traffic. The competition online seems infinite, with millions of websites in the results for almost anything you search for. How can you beat EVERYBODY?
By Knowing What People Will Search For In Advance
No, you don’t have be a clairvoyant mind reader to know what people will search for in Google or Yahoo before they do. All you have to do is study Google Zeitgeist.WTF is a Zeitgeist?
I know how you feel, I had the same reaction when I first heard about this.
You can search the word on Wikipedia but basically zeitgeist means
what’s on everyone’s mind. Google has taken this idea to the next level
with their annual report on search trends, they call it “Google Zeitgeist“. In this extremely valuable report important questions are answered before you can even ask like:- Who was the most talked about celebrity of the year?
- What was the hottest consumer electronic device?
- What was the most popular airline for travelers?
Here’s a quick presentation of Google Zeitgeist…
Yeah, But How Do You Do It?
I knew you would ask. Let’s say for example you have a blog that thankfully isn’t another blog about blogging, its about electronic gadgets.Not like there’s a shortage of gadget sites.
- You recently monetized your blog so now you’re making some money.
- You’ve realized it’s just a numbers game, the more targeted visitors you get the more money you make.
So, you create a plan to get more traffic from search engines:
- Write a series of blog posts on a popular product that you know everyone is searching for.
- Optimize the posts with SEO plugins.
- Focus the content on the key points missing from the discussion.
You feel like you’re doing everything exactly as the experts and “gurus” recommend but still it seems much harder than it should be.
How to use Google Zeitgeist to automatically rank #1 online:
Since your niche site is about consumer electronics you read Google Zeitgeist and you notice the top trending topics for the year are:- iPad 3
- Samsung Galaxy S3
- iPad Mini
Here are some example titles that you write:
- Is an iPad 4 Cyber Monday launch being planned for 2013?
- 3 reasons why Apple should offer a trade in program for iPad 4 buyers.
- How the iPad 4 creates major opportunities and problems for accessory makers.
- Who makes it back to Black Friday 2013 – Best Buy, the iPad 4, or neither?
- etc.
THIS IS THE KEY.While other posts discuss boring product specs, features, and benefits you make eyebrow raising comparisons using Google Zeitgeist and inject emotion that instigates interactivity. When you realize WHERE and WHAT has been covered you write about HOW and WHY. You write posts that people will share and actually want to read.
Blogging pros have been writing for years about how long tail keywords are much easier to rank for than shorter keyword phrases. Ranking #1 on Google for “iPad 3″ would cost millions of dollars but you could rank #1 for “iPad 3 productivity hacks for entrepreneurs” without spending a dime.
The moral of the story.
Google Zeitgeist could be your secret weapon if you use it right. Now it’s time to conduct some tests of your own so you can prove my theory. Remember, work WITH the search engines not FOR or AGAINST them. Understand Google’s core objective which is to simply display the most relevant content for whatever their users search. Google knows if they display low quality content and people don’t find what they need they’ll just switch to Yahoo or nah, nobody uses BING, but you get my point, they’ll find somewhere else to search the web maybe StartPage or DuckDuckGo? They key is to create content that you know search engines will be looking for using reports like Google Zeitgeist and techniques like forecasting and front running. For best results add common sense to fill in the blanks on the hottest keywords and before you know it you’ll be sitting on top ranked #1.
How To Find Products To Promote
It is that time of the year where online shopping starts to break the records and just about a good time as any to run experiments to test your various methods of promoting products online. Having been approached by some people within my circles as to what method I have been using to find products to promote, I thought it would be interesting if I shared it with you too.
The steps I will share with you today are by no means the only way to find and promote hot products, but it is a method I use often and has been working for me. It is not a very simple process, but it is highly effective. Even if you don’t implement exactly the same steps here, it should provide you with some ideas on how to improve your online sales.
Essentially, here are the steps that I apply to get me rolling…
- Find or identify products using Google Insights For Search or the real-time tool as mentioned below
- Build keywords “around” the product by using Google’s keyword tool
- With the help of Google Analytics or Clicky, use your top landing pages, or
- Create niche websites for the “product” or “group of products” identified on the research phase.
A good tool that you may not be aware of is Google Real Time Insights Finder: Marketing Tool. Take a look at it and play with it some (don’t forget to click on the “real time insights tool”). This tool lets you compare different search patterns so you can see how consumer interest and behavior is evolving. The real-time insights tool provides a “suite” of Google’s marketing tools that you can use for to improve your marketing campaigns. Try it and let me know what you think. Alternatively, you can find online marketing tools in Ana’s page.
Finding Products To Promote
What we really are interested in promoting is preferably what people are looking for to buy. One of the best ways to promote products are those that are hot and breaking out on search queries and knowing what users are looking for is a great way to start. Do remember that “these” things vary from time to time so don’t insist on products that were hot a year ago. That is not a good practice, unless they are evergreen products and have not been updated or replaced by something “newer”.Some quick ways to identify hot products is simply by going to popular and credible sites, such as eBay or Amazon. Look under the “best sellers” section and you should be able to see which ones are of interest and relevant to you. If you have a a niche site about Cameras, do find relevant products related to Cameras. If you have a travel related site or a deal site, cheap holidays, may be one way to go. If you have a blog about Books, Steve Jobs latest book is an example of what dominated the queries a while ago. I think you get the point..
Anyway, my favorite tool to assist my “product hunting” is Google’s Insight For Search. It may not be 100% accurate (are there any?), but it gives you a good amount of information, if you know what you are doing. This month (December 2011), Google Insights has updated the categorization taxonomy. The change provides a richer taxonomy for restricting the scope of the searches while improving the accuracy of the search classifications.
So here’s how to use Google insights… Let’s take the example of Cameras.
Use the dropdown menus and search for, “Product Search”, select the region you are targeting for, and the last xx days or years of search data. I like to use the 30 day data. In the category section go as “deep” as you can and select the item you are looking for, or just browse among the different categories if you are not certain about what you want. You can also type in directly in the search term box and give it a try..
Hit search and you will be presented with the results similar to this one below.
On the left column you will see the Top search terms and on the right the “rising searches”. For this example, I am going to try Nikon. Canon, although is the most searched, also indicates that it may be very competitive so, I 0ll go for the second one, and so on.. Clicking on “Nikon” returns…
Now that we are given a set of products to choose from. I am going to try Nikon Coolpix and Nikon Coolpix Reviews on use Google’s Keyword Tool… I usually add “reviews” as many people like to do searches this way. So here are the results…
Next step.. Create Niche Site or Use Top landing Pages
To market the products you identified, there are some ways you can do this. You can create a niche website about a group of products and add individual items as you see fit, or you can use the technique of Using Your Most Viewed Articles For Better Conversions. If you want to see an example of a niche site, here’s a site about Professional Cameras, I launched just last week.The technique about using your most viewed articles is essentially using Google Analytics or Clicky Website Analytics, to identify your top landing pages and use those pages to market the products you are interested in. It makes sense to do it this way because they are the pages that are generating you lots of traffic and are usually older post, so your loyal readers will not be bothered by it. Just do it wisely
.That’s it! I am assuming that you all are familiar with affiliate programs and that you know where to find the “actual” products to promote. Amazon Associates, Google’s Affiliate Network, Commission Junction, are just but a few you can source for products to promote.
quinta-feira, 21 de fevereiro de 2013
Matcha is special.
It’s not steeped. Most teas are either loose-leaf or bagged, and one steeps the tea and tosses the bag or leaves at the end. But matcha is different: it’s stoneground, using big granite wheels, into a fine powder that looks like a hallucinogenic green cocoa. One simply scoops out a half teaspoon or so of the electric-green powder into a bowl or cup, adds some hot (not boiling) water, whisks it up with a traditional bamboo whisk (or, for the more modern among us, a handheld electric milk frothing wand) into a frothy brew, and sips. If whisked well, the fine texture of the matcha crema resembles espresso. Great matcha can rival some of the most coveted wines in the world in terms of flavor complexity and pure enjoyment (and, some would say, price).
Matcha is old. The founder of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism, Eisai Myoan, is credited with bringing matcha (and zen; the two have a longstanding affinity with one another) to Japan from China, where powdered green tea arose during the 8th century, in the late 12th century. Somehow along the way, the use and enjoyment of matcha in China waned, but it was transmitted to Japan, where it developed independently, at first in zen monasteries, and then on to the general public in the form of chanoyu, or the tea ceremony.
Photo credit: Eric Gower
Matcha is healthy. It has more antioxidants by weight than all the popular superfoods – gojiberry, pomegranate, acai berry, wild blueberry, kale, and dark chocolate – combined. One key antioxidant is actually a flavanoid/catechin called EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate), and matcha is crazy full of EGCGs. It has roughly 140x the EGCGs of regular green tea, for the simple reason that matcha is consumed whole. The soluble and insoluble fiber in matcha work in synergy, something that can’t happen in tea that is steeped. It’s this synergistic effect that is responsible for its off-the-charts EGCG count.
There are studies that indicate matcha can be beneficial in treating a variety of cancers and other diseases, as well as assisting digestion and bolstering overall immunity. It’s also packed with an amino acid called L-theanine, which has been widely studied for its potential ability to reduce mental and physical stress and to elevate mood in a synergistic manner with caffeine (at 25 mg per serving, matcha has about a quarter the caffeine of brewed coffee).
A thick, creamy cup in the morning, perhaps with a couple of poached eggs dusted with matcha and sea salt, is my preferred way to start the day. It’s an epicurean AND phytonutrient experience unlike any other.
Editor’s note: Eric Gower is an author and founder of Breakaway Matcha, a specialty tea company focused squarely on sourcing the most exceptional matcha and educating people about how to best enjoy it. He has written four cookbooks, among them The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen and The Breakaway Cook. He blogs regularly here and also writes “The Breakaway Cook” column for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Matcha is old. The founder of the Rinzai sect of Zen Buddhism, Eisai Myoan, is credited with bringing matcha (and zen; the two have a longstanding affinity with one another) to Japan from China, where powdered green tea arose during the 8th century, in the late 12th century. Somehow along the way, the use and enjoyment of matcha in China waned, but it was transmitted to Japan, where it developed independently, at first in zen monasteries, and then on to the general public in the form of chanoyu, or the tea ceremony.
Photo credit: Eric Gower
Matcha is healthy. It has more antioxidants by weight than all the popular superfoods – gojiberry, pomegranate, acai berry, wild blueberry, kale, and dark chocolate – combined. One key antioxidant is actually a flavanoid/catechin called EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate), and matcha is crazy full of EGCGs. It has roughly 140x the EGCGs of regular green tea, for the simple reason that matcha is consumed whole. The soluble and insoluble fiber in matcha work in synergy, something that can’t happen in tea that is steeped. It’s this synergistic effect that is responsible for its off-the-charts EGCG count.
There are studies that indicate matcha can be beneficial in treating a variety of cancers and other diseases, as well as assisting digestion and bolstering overall immunity. It’s also packed with an amino acid called L-theanine, which has been widely studied for its potential ability to reduce mental and physical stress and to elevate mood in a synergistic manner with caffeine (at 25 mg per serving, matcha has about a quarter the caffeine of brewed coffee).
A thick, creamy cup in the morning, perhaps with a couple of poached eggs dusted with matcha and sea salt, is my preferred way to start the day. It’s an epicurean AND phytonutrient experience unlike any other.
Editor’s note: Eric Gower is an author and founder of Breakaway Matcha, a specialty tea company focused squarely on sourcing the most exceptional matcha and educating people about how to best enjoy it. He has written four cookbooks, among them The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen and The Breakaway Cook. He blogs regularly here and also writes “The Breakaway Cook” column for the San Francisco Chronicle.
sábado, 16 de fevereiro de 2013
Favorites of 2012: Why the eff didn’t you watch these TED Talks?
http://blog.ted.com/2012/12/28/11-talks-from-2012/
Love For Sale: The 8 Most Romantic Ads Ever
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1682407/love-for-sale-the-8-most-romantic-ads-ever#2
For simultaneously scaring and wooing universities into the future of education.
https://www.coursera.org/category/business
The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies 2013
http://www.fastcompany.com/section/most-innovative-companies-2013
The Cloud’s Dirty Little Secret
Image copyright Pakhnyushcha
Enterprises are obviously the first to accept such requirements. As long as this new solution offers a material benefit to their business, the smart companies will rapidly adopt it and put it to work. Conveniently, they are also quite willing to pay for such benefit, should it be real. This is critical, because consumers hate paying for things, so someone has to underwrite the commoditization of new technology. This is essential to understand because, contrary to what is marketed to consumers, the cloud is expensive.
People are buying and creating unbelievable amounts of content daily, driven by photos, personal videos, music and movie purchases. Movies and personal video have gone from standard definition to high definition — potentially going to ultra-high definition, if CES is any indication — and the trend is clearly moving more toward online purchasing. Music downloads surpassed CD sales two years ago and, even in light of successful streaming services; online music sales continue to grow year over year. Digital photography and videography have also surpassed their physical counterparts. Indeed, photos and videos are no longer things you take only on vacation or on special occasions. Smartphones have enabled us all to shoot photos and video all day long, for even the most mundane reasons. All these devices are continuously increasing resolution, and thus file size.
Gartner estimates that the average household had roughly one terabyte of files by the end of 2012, with that forecast to grow to approximately 3.3TB by 2016. At the same time, it is estimated that people will have, on average, 5.8 Internet-connected devices per person by 2015. There’s no doubt that people will continue to spread more and more data across more and more devices, based on these trends. If these predications are even somewhat accurate, the assumption that the cloud will be able to affordably accommodate all consumer data is difficult to accept.
Cloud storage is not built from hard drives bought off Amazon.com on the cheap. Indeed, whether it is the consumer cloud or the enterprise cloud, cloud storage services are enterprise-grade through and through. “Enterprise-grade” might as well be synonymous with “expensive.” That pricey storage is made up of enterprise-grade hardware, and kept in an enterprise-grade data center. Every step of the way, it is managed by an army of smart people, who are generally well paid. Let’s not forget local and geographic redundancy. The result is that while cloud storage is able to reduce its price slowly over time, consumers are increasing their storage demands on a near-geometric scale. Thus, while consumer cloud services may have a free tier to give consumers a taste of the benefits, virtually none of them offer enough storage to accommodate all the average person’s data. If some company were to cobble together all the necessary Web services to offer this, perhaps built off of Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure or something similar, it would cost nearly $1,000 per year in storage alone, and, of course, there is much more to all this than just storage.
The result is “cloud fragmentation” — users are putting subsets of their files into a litany of separate cloud services. Sometimes this is driven by the amount of free storage, and other times this is driven by an optimization of media type (e.g., documents versus videos). This fragmentation, however, increases complexity and becomes a burden to manage. I often have to think about whether a given document is in Dropbox, Google Drive or SkyDrive. My photos are spread across Flickr, Facebook and Instagram. Some videos are on Vimeo and others on YouTube. Of course, these are only a very tiny fraction of my more than 900 gigabytes of files. This complexity is something I refer to as “cloud overload,” where the number of cloud solutions I have has me scratching my head to remember which one I use for what, or to share with whom.
Why would consumers choose to do this? Price. The free tiers of most cloud services are indeed quite alluring. The marketing is great. The benefits are clear. It is the price that’s unacceptable. To mitigate that, consumers do all they can to extract benefit from the free tiers.
This is a clear divergence between consumer demand and technological reality. Cloud storage is too expensive for consumers to purchase for all their data, so they don’t. The result is user data getting spread across an array of primarily free solutions that fragment features by media type or value proposition (e.g., sharing, backup, etc.).
Occasionally, we see enterprises underwriting technological development that does not lead to the technological maturity and commoditization consumers require, at least not very quickly. This is, without exception, the case with the “consumer cloud.” Consumers require simplicity, convenience and affordability. The consumer cloud is built from services, including storage, sharing and device/platform interconnectivity. We’ve seen many companies emerge as tremendous successes; however, the products that define this space are themselves defined by their compromise in regard to consumer demand and expectations. Changes in user behavior (e.g., stop doing what you normally do, and do it a new way) are the friction that slows ubiquitous adoption. Furthermore, high cost ultimately makes such products, even when widely adopted, niche solutions.
Still, cloud services offer such unbelievable benefit that no one would argue that there is not demand. The question is less about what benefit can be derived from the consumer cloud; rather, it is how it should be delivered.
So, what solution have savvy startups begun to offer? It’s what is increasingly known as the “personal cloud”: A way for users to access all their files, on all their devices, all the time. And best of all, it’s affordable.
Personal cloud services for consumers give users the ability to have all their data on all their devices. While not a consumer platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides a good model, since it delivers truly groundbreaking cloud services within a fairly simple service approach. Personal clouds are somewhat analogous to AWS on a consumer level. New personal cloud services have started to build inter-device connectivity into the operating system of your devices, which is conceptually similar to AWS-like services being built into your own computing devices. The result is that instead of users conforming to some new product’s requirements for you to get value, it conforms to the user’s own behavior.
Products like this are technically challenging to build, because they must integrate deeply into some other platform/device; in fact, they often augment it so that the device or operating system itself works in a new way (e.g., as a part of a personal device ecosystem). The result, however, is that consumers are offered a solution that accommodates their demands — one that is simple, convenient and affordable. These services can be cheap or free for any amount of data, whether you have 2GB, 2TB or 2PB, because they are leveraging your own devices to create your cloud and not hardware located in and across multiple data centers.
We all can be overzealous about predicting the future at times, so it is important to take stock of the present. The cloud is producing some of the biggest benefits to enterprises and consumers since the inception of the Internet itself. It is shepherding a variety of services and products that enable content sharing, distribution and access. While enterprises may reap the most advanced benefits of this now, it is obvious that the consumer versions of these technologies are compelling and exciting. The opportunity for companies to innovate is often not measured in features, as much as user experience. This is the unrealized opportunity within the consumer cloud, and the direction so many companies are taking to build the next set of products to affect our lives.
Culture Is Not a Foosball Table
GUEST MENTOR, Maynard Webb, founder of Webb Investment Network: It’s often said that imitation is the highest form of flattery, but when it comes to startup culture, following the fad of the day is a recipe for failure. Cultures that simply emulate what someone else has built — whether it’s a me-too foosball table or giving everyone job titles with the word ninja in them — will never last.
The best way to build a strong culture is to start at the beginning by paying attention to the founders’ values and thinking about what types of practices will celebrate and extend them. A strong culture is a genuine culture. Authenticity matters.- Getty Images
- A foosball table
-How frugal are you? Josh James, the founder of Domo, wrote a great blog post about why he didn’t replace the stained carpet in his new office, saying it was a great reminder to stay “scrappy.”
-How do you show you care for/nurture your employees? When I was CEO at LiveOps the CFO wanted to cut free food, I couldn’t allow that to happen because it would send the wrong signal to employees.
-What does your office space look like? At eBay, I was shocked when I found out I’d be working in a cubicle, but then I realized Meg Whitman did, too, showing the open and collaborative style that defined the workplace.
-Do you have a learning environment? What are the opportunities to receive mentorship and personal growth? Some companies allow employees to spend time on the clock pursuing educational projects that they’re passionate about it.
-Do people have to come into the office, or can they work from home? At my investment network, WIN, where we value outcomes over face-time, people work from wherever they want.
-What kind of hours are expected? At Salesforce.com, employees get time off every month off to do volunteer work. This suggests that employees are encouraged to do more than their jobs, but to also think about their communities.
-How long are people supposed to stay in the office? Google’s on-site washing machines suggest that the company expects employees to spend more time at work than at home.
-How are deadlines managed? At WIN, deadlines are self-imposed and important. We have a mandate to respond within hours, not days.
-How do you manage departures? At eBay, we did not spend much time in the beginning acknowledging departures, but we eventually became more enlightened about supporting individuals chasing their dreams and we began to celebrate them on their way out.
-How do you deal with problems? Do you tell people about them early or do you wait? At eBay and LiveOps, we had post-mortems on each issue encountered. We did not make it a blame game, which encouraged people to ask for help early and learn from their mistakes.
Finally, how do you change and grow? It’s important to think about how you allow for evolution. We had to focus on this at eBay, where we had done well, but we knew there was more to do. We had to decide how to stay true to our core values while being open to changing some of our practices. We never lost the focus that we were a marketplace and making our sellers successful was job No. 1, but we did change processes. For example, I couldn’t make every final decision on new features or every budget line item when we got big.
Companies should check in every six months with the question: Do we still believe in this? What used to work won’t always work, so be ready to change. You have to ask yourself what do you take and what do you leave as you grow? Or, what about de-evolution? How do you make modifications now that you are 20 people instead of 30?
Perhaps the elasticity that comes with authenticity is the tenet of the strongest culture — one that is solid enough to provide a strong foundation, yet open enough to allow the organization to change direction and reach new heights. That will never come from copying someone else’s company — it comes from creating something you believe in.
quarta-feira, 13 de fevereiro de 2013
From Geek to Freak
|
Timothy was tired of being the
skinny kid on the block and decided to make great changes to his body.
Learn more about his training and how he gained 34 pounds of muscle,
while losing 3 pounds of fat. All in 28 days!
 Vital Stats
Name: Timothy Ferriss Age: 29 Weight Before: 146 lbs. Weight After: 177 lbs. (183 three days after last official weighing) Body Fat % Before: 16.72% Body Fat % After: 12.23% Total Muscle Gained: 34 lbs. Total Fat Loss: 3 lbs. Time Elapsed: 4 weeks Favorite Exercises:
Why Did I Decide To Do This?
I weighed 152 lbs. for four years of high school, and after training in tango in Buenos Aires in 2005, I had withered to 146 pounds. I was born premature and suffered bullying for the first 12 years of life, and I had no desire to once again be the skinniest person in the room. Hence the decision - upon returning the U.S. - to perform an exhaustive analysis of muscular hypertrophy (growth) research and exercise protocols, ignoring what was popular ... to examine the hard science. The end result? I gained 34 pounds of muscle, while losing 3 pounds of fat, in 28 days. 
  Click Image To Enlarge. Timothy Ferriss. Here are a few comparative shots. Oh, and I forgot to mention, all of this was done with two 30-minute workouts per week, for a total of 8 HOURS of gym time: How Did I Do It?
First, some select stats on the 4-week change (9/21-10/23):
 Click Image To Enlarge. Timothy Ferriss. 1. One-Set-To-Failure:
Here is one of the more effective sequences I've found ("+" = superset):
For the ladies not interested in becoming the Hulk, if you follow a "slow-carb" diet and reduce rest periods to 30 seconds between exercises, this exact workout protocol can help you lose 10-20 pounds of fat in the same 28-day time span. Questioning the basic assumptions about resistance training led me to a surprising conclusion: less is more. It just requires working out smarter instead of more often.
Diet
 Rule #1: Eat The Same Few Meals Over & Over Again:
Note To Vegetarians & Green Eaters: a 1/2 cup of rice is 300 calories, whereas a 1/2 cup of spinach is 15 calories. Vegetables are not calorically dense, so it is critical that you add legumes or starches for caloric load. Meals Per Day:
I found this unnecessarily inconvenient, particularly when you are on a regimen of supplements (chromium polynicotinate [not picolinate], ALA, etc.) that increase insulin sensitivity. I eat 4x per day: Favorite Meal:
Mix the macaroni with a can of tuna and as much chili as you like, microwave it for one minute on high, and have it for breakfast in a bowl. It actually tastes fantastic. I sometimes had that meal 2-or-3 times per day, as prep time was less than 3 minutes if you prepped the macaroni two times per week in volume. Breakfast:
Breakfast: Post-Workout Drink:
Additional Training Data
For exercise sequence, I recommend doing one or two exercises (upper body) to prep the nervous system, then move to legs. If you want an alternative to whole-body session, I have also experimented successfully with a 3-workout split:
My favorite movements for pure mass using this split are below. Don't forget at least 3-5 minutes between exercises and just one set to concentric failure for each exercise:
 Click Here For A Printable Log Of Push Workout.
Click Here For A Printable Log Of Pull Workout.
 Click Image To Enlarge. Timothy Ferriss.
Learn more about Timothy at his website http://www.fourhourworkweek.com. |
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John Lloyd: An animated tour of the invisible
http://bit.ly/SzQRwg
Gravity. The stars in day. Thoughts. The human genome. Time. Atoms. So much of what really matters in the world is impossible to see. A stunning animation of John Lloyd's classic TEDTalk from 2009, which will make you question what you actually know.
Gravity. The stars in day. Thoughts. The human genome. Time. Atoms. So much of what really matters in the world is impossible to see. A stunning animation of John Lloyd's classic TEDTalk from 2009, which will make you question what you actually know.
W Mitchell - World Renowned Inspirational Speaker
http://bit.ly/X46s73
http://bit.ly/X8Ffyb
http://bit.ly/X48oMP
Remember this life is short and every thing can happen. What's matter is how we react and give importance for what is really important.
http://bit.ly/X8Ffyb
http://bit.ly/X48oMP
Remember this life is short and every thing can happen. What's matter is how we react and give importance for what is really important.
segunda-feira, 11 de fevereiro de 2013
MAKE THE Eggplant Parmesan
YIELD
2 servings (plus leftover garlic oil and sauce)INGREDIENTS
SauceExtra-virgin olive oil, 1 cup
Garlic cloves, 15 (peeled and left whole)
Whole fennel seeds, 1½ teaspoons
Whole canned tomatoes (preferably San Marzano tomatoes), two 28-ounce cans (one can drained of juice, the juice from the other can reserved)
Dried red pepper flakes (preferably Calabrian chile flakes), ½ teaspoon
Kosher salt, ¾ teaspoon
Large basil sprig, 1
Eggplant Parmesan
Extra-virgin olive oil, 6 tablespoons
Japanese eggplant, 2 (sliced on a bias into ¼-inch-thick pieces)
Garlic clove, 1 (very thinly sliced)
Dried red pepper flakes (preferably Calabrian chile flakes), ½ teaspoon
Fresh mozzarella cheese, ⅓ pound (thinly sliced crosswise into 9 pieces)
Finely grated Pecorino cheese, ½ cup
Leaves of 2 marjoram sprigs
Breadcrumbs
Extra-virgin olive oil, 1½ teaspoons
Unsalted butter, ½ tablespoon
Fresh breadcrumbs, ½ cup
EQUIPMENT
Cutting boardChef’s knife
Measuring cups and spoons
Box grater
Small heavy-bottomed saucepan
Paring knife
Small skillet
Spice grinder
Mixing bowls
Medium saucepan
Wooden spoon
Medium skillet
Tongs
Paper towels
Baking sheet
1-quart baking dish
Small skillet
Plates
DIRECTIONS
1. Make the sauce: To a heavy-bottomed small saucepan set over low heat, add the:- 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 15 whole garlic cloves
While the garlic poaches in the oil, in a small skillet set over medium heat, add the:
- 1½ teaspoons fennel seeds
In a medium bowl, add the:
- Whole canned tomatoes
- Reserved tomato juice (from the can of whole tomatoes)
- Ground fennel seeds
- ½ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- Basil sprig
2. Make the eggplant Parm: Preheat the oven to 350°. To a medium skillet set over medium-high heat, add:
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- Half of the eggplant slices
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- Half of the sliced garlic
3. To the 1-quart baking dish, add 2 tablespoons of the tomato sauce and cover with one-third of the cooked eggplant. Top with one-third of the:
- Sliced mozzarella
- Finely grated Pecorino cheese
4. Bake the eggplant Parmesan until the cheese is melted, about 10 minutes. Adjust an oven rack to the uppermost position and heat the broiler to high. Move the baking dish to the top rack and broil the eggplant Parmesan until the cheese is browned and bubbling, 1 to 2 minutes (watch the cheese closely, as broiler intensities vary). Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes.
5. While the eggplant Parmesan cools, make the breadcrumbs. In a small skillet set over medium heat, add the:
- 1½ teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ tablespoon unsalted butter
- ½ cup breadcrumbs
Sprinkle the cooled eggplant Parmesan with the toasted breadcrumbs and the:
- Marjoram leaves
domingo, 10 de fevereiro de 2013
Good posture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze0ckQX-peo
Rarely is physical therapy funny. But with movement and mobility guru Kelly Starrett at the helm, laughs are guaranteed.
During the CrossFit Experience at the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games, the doctor of physical therapy talks about good posture and how it translates to athleticism.
"I want you to take a huge breath in your belly—big breath. Hold it. Now get tight. How's that workin' for ya?" he asks the crowd. "It's like putting a bounce house into a little duffle bag, isn't it? It's never gonna work."
The butt sets the pelvis, which is the body's source of power, says Starrett, founder of San Francisco CrossFit. The pelvis needs to be in a neutral position to avoid overextension.
"If you're disorganized or in a bad position, things don't turn on," he explains. "If you're in a good position, things turn on."
Starrett asks the group to put their arms straight overhead as if they were swinging a kettlebell.
"In order to control the spine, I have to think about what's happening at the pelvis," he says. "So if I have to control my shoulder-ribcage relationship, that's got to start at the pelvis."
Rarely is physical therapy funny. But with movement and mobility guru Kelly Starrett at the helm, laughs are guaranteed.
During the CrossFit Experience at the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games, the doctor of physical therapy talks about good posture and how it translates to athleticism.
"I want you to take a huge breath in your belly—big breath. Hold it. Now get tight. How's that workin' for ya?" he asks the crowd. "It's like putting a bounce house into a little duffle bag, isn't it? It's never gonna work."
The butt sets the pelvis, which is the body's source of power, says Starrett, founder of San Francisco CrossFit. The pelvis needs to be in a neutral position to avoid overextension.
"If you're disorganized or in a bad position, things don't turn on," he explains. "If you're in a good position, things turn on."
Starrett asks the group to put their arms straight overhead as if they were swinging a kettlebell.
"In order to control the spine, I have to think about what's happening at the pelvis," he says. "So if I have to control my shoulder-ribcage relationship, that's got to start at the pelvis."
sexta-feira, 8 de fevereiro de 2013
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OptimizePress: When launching my digital product Create Awesome Interviews, I asked all the top Internet marketers about what I should use to create the sales page and squeeze pages and all that jazz. Every single one recommended OptimizePress for its ease of use, easy templates and numerous other badass features. Simple wins. Check it out right here.
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Because hey, you should be into that too!Jet Set Body: This is the fitness program I used which got me into insanely good shape in 90 days. The folks behind it, Rob and Kim Murgatroyd, have been on the show multiple times and just rock at teaching. If you want to work hard and get genuine results, you’ve gotta do this. There is a step-by-step program for men, women and a special deal for couples. Check it out.
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Jeff Michelman: The best lawyer for entrepreneurs, small business and mediapreneurs. I’ve known Jeff for years (he is my attorney) and he is not only trustworthy and filled with expertise/knowledge, but he understands the entrepreneur because he is also one himself. Trust me, some lawyers are scary, and Jeff is not. He is one of the good guys. You can email him or (314) 889-7182 (and mention I sent you and you will get a free consultation…I know a TON of viewers have jumped on this opportunity).The Best Way to Build Muscle
I want to talk to you today about the best way to build muscle.If what you’re doing at the moment isn’t working, please pay attention.
What I have to say might be just what you need to get better, faster results.
Step one is to decide how many days a week you’re going to train.
The first option is to train your whole body three times a week on alternate days, normally Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday or Wednesday, Friday and Sunday will work just as well.
Monday: Whole Body
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Whole Body
Thursday: Off
Friday: Whole Body
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
Option two is to train four days a week using an upper/lower split.
You hit the upper body on Monday, lower body on Tuesday, then take
Wednesday off. Thursday is upper body, Friday is lower body and you have
the weekend off. Each muscle group is trained twice a week. Of all the
training splits I’ve used over the years, this one is my favorite.Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Whole Body
Thursday: Off
Friday: Whole Body
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
Monday: Lower Body
Tuesday: Upper Body
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Lower Body
Friday: Upper Body
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
The third option is something called the push/pull/legs split. You
train either four or five days a week, doing the pushing movements
(chest, shoulders, and triceps) on Monday, the pulling movements (back
and biceps) on Tuesday.Tuesday: Upper Body
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Lower Body
Friday: Upper Body
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
Then you take a day off before training legs on Thursday, followed by another day off on Friday. On Saturday you go back to the beginning and do the push workout again.
Week 1
Monday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Tuesday: Back, Biceps
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Legs
Friday: Off
Saturday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Sunday: Back, Biceps
Tuesday: Back, Biceps
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Legs
Friday: Off
Saturday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Sunday: Back, Biceps
Week 2
Monday: Off
Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Friday: Back, Biceps
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Legs
So you train for two days, take a day off, followed by one day of
training, followed by another day off. Each muscle group is trained
every fifth day. Because you don’t train on the same days each week,
you’ll need a very flexible schedule to pull this one off.Tuesday: Legs
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps
Friday: Back, Biceps
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Legs
While there are literally thousands of different routines available, these are the ones that will pack on the maximum amount of muscle in the shortest possible time.
It’s often said that beginners should avoid split routines and stick with full-body workouts that involve working each muscle group three times per week.
That’s mainly because they can’t recruit as many muscle fibers in each workout, don’t create as much muscle damage, and so can recover more quickly.
But as long as their training program and diet are set up correctly, beginners can still make good progress on split routines that involve training 4-5 days per week.
In this Baylor University study, a group of beginners gained 12 pounds of muscle in just 10 weeks using a 4-day split routine.
A 12-week trial, this time using untrained beginners on a 5-day split routine, shows that guys using milk as a post-exercise supplement gained almost nine pounds of muscle with no additional fat.
In much the same way that beginners can make impressive gains using a split routine, anyone who has moved past the beginner stages of training can still add a substantial amount of size by working their whole body three times a week.
University of Alabama researchers, for example, found that a group of men who had been lifting weights for several years gained almost 10 pounds of muscle on a full-body routine performed three days per week for three months.
As a rule, the heavier you train, the longer it will take to recover. So if you’re using a weight that limits you to 3-5 repetitions per set, you will need more rest between workouts for the same muscle group. With lighter weights and higher repetitions (10-15), you can often repeat a workout for that same body part 2-3 days later.
The next step is to train very hard and concentrate on getting strong at pressing, pulling and squatting.
Make sure to choose big, compound exercises. The best exercises for each movement category are as follows:
Horizontal push (flat/30-degree incline barbell bench press, flat/30-degree incline dumbbell bench press, suspension trainer push-ups)
Horizontal pull (seated row, dumbbell row, inverted bodyweight row)
Vertical pull (chin-up, close grip front lat pulldown, wide grip front lat pulldown )
Vertical push (standing barbell press, standing dumbbell press, seated dumbbell press)
Knee dominant (squat, split squat, leg press)
Hip dominant (deadlift, sumo deadlift, rack pulls)
If there is a secret to building muscle, it’s to keep on getting
stronger in the 5 to 15 repetition range on a few basic exercises for
each major body part. If you’re not getting stronger, there’s a good
chance you’re not getting bigger either.Horizontal pull (seated row, dumbbell row, inverted bodyweight row)
Vertical pull (chin-up, close grip front lat pulldown, wide grip front lat pulldown )
Vertical push (standing barbell press, standing dumbbell press, seated dumbbell press)
Knee dominant (squat, split squat, leg press)
Hip dominant (deadlift, sumo deadlift, rack pulls)
A total of 20-25 “work sets” per workout (excluding warm-up sets) is more than enough to trigger rapid gains in strength and size. That’s not 25 sets per muscle group, that’s 20 sets in total for the entire workout, divided across 1-3 exercises for each muscle group. There is rarely a need to do more.
Most of your training should be done using heavy weights in the 5-8 repetition range. For maximum muscle growth, you should also include some higher rep (10-15) sets in your workouts.
There are numerous different ways to do this, from higher rep sets (10-15) and short (30-60 seconds) inter-set rest periods to a couple of back-off sets at the end of a series of heavy sets. Even just using a light weight and slowing your reps right down will make your muscles grow.
Don’t get carried away with all the advanced techniques you read about in the magazines. Blitzing your muscles with lots of forced reps and descending sets might leave you feeling sore. It also leads to a greater stress on the neuromuscular system, which is going to extend your recovery time. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to grow any faster.
There’s no proven link between soreness and growth, and no rule that says you have to annihilate each muscle group in order to make it grow. And contrary to what you might think after watching this trailer for Pain and Gain, wearing a unitard or tank top is not a requirement for building muscle. So please don’t do it.
To repeat, building a decent amount of muscle means that you will need to get strong. There is no such thing as big without strong. Don’t let anyone try to kid you otherwise.
You will also need to get into the habit of planning your workouts in advance. Before you even set foot in the gym it’s vital that you know exactly what you’re doing when you get there. If you’re serious about gaining muscle, just “winging it” won’t be good enough anymore. That’s why I highly recommend keeping a training diary.
Probably the most important benefit of a training diary, and the single biggest reason why most people don’t use one, is that it will force you to face facts. Is what you’re doing delivering results? Or are you doing nothing more than simply repeating the same workout over and over again in the hope that it’ll suddenly start working?
It’s also a good idea to include some kind of deload or light week for every 3-9 weeks of hard training.
Yes, I know you’re worried that taking your foot off the gas will leave you smaller and weaker, especially if you’re the type who sees any amount of time off as a wasted opportunity for progress. But your body isn’t a machine and will benefit from a rest now and again, especially as you get older. I know it’s a cliché, but sometimes you do need to take a step back in order to take two steps forward.
What you do in the gym is only half the story when it comes to gaining muscle mass. Without enough food, much of your muscle-building efforts in the gym will go to waste. Here’s a quick and simple way to work out your calorie needs for building size:
- Firstly, calculate your lean bodyweight. For example, if you weigh 175 pounds at 20% body fat, you have 35 pounds of fat and a lean bodyweight of 140 pounds.
- Multiply your lean bodyweight by 20. Using a lean bodyweight of 140 pounds, that gives you 2800 calories per day.
I know that might not sound like much, especially when you compare it with some of the 5000 calorie “bulking” diets out there. But you can’t force your muscles to grow faster simply by stuffing yourself with food.
That’s because there’s an upper limit on the amount of nutrients you can take in and turn into muscle. If you’re currently eating below this upper limit, then you’ll build muscle faster by increasing your nutrient take.
But once you hit your maximal rate of muscle gain, simply adding more calories won’t automatically lead to a faster rate of growth. All that’ll happen is that you get fat.
Once you have a decent training and nutrition program set up, the key to building muscle as fast as humanly possible is to stick with it. Frequently I read that you should keep changing your routine every few weeks to “confuse” your muscles and make them grow.
For most people, this is a mistake. There is no point in variety for the sake of variety, and the best way to make absolutely no progress at all is to keep jumping around from one routine to the next.
Forget about your body type or your genetics. You can’t change them, so there’s no point even thinking about them. Set challenging but realistic goals for yourself and work as hard as you can towards achieving them.
SHAMELESS PLUG: Muscle Evo is a complete science-based training system that will turn you into a lean, mean strength machine with less than four hours a week in the gym. Click here now to learn more.
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About Christian Finn
Christian
Finn holds a master's degree in exercise science, is a certified
personal trainer and has been featured on BBC TV and radio, as well as
in Men's Health, Men's Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, Fit Pro, Zest and
other popular fitness magazines.
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