Coach Ian – Week In Review: (10/04/2020)

Coach Ian – Week in Review:

Air Quality – Purple Air vs. AirNow: (REPOST)

Reposting this – because, unfortunately, it’s applicable again after about a week of fresh air.

I’ve often gone to both Airnow and Purple Air to track the air quality in the Bay Area, often confused by why the numbers were so different. This article gives a great description of the difference in the metrics. In short, PurpleAir’s data is much more timely (averaging the past 10 minutes vs the past few hours) and has many more sensors scattered throughout a region, but when you filter on PurpleAir, you should apply the LRAPA or AQandU filters.

What I’m Reading:

How to Be An Antiracist – Ibram X Kendi

President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 Supplementation:

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Wait… is President Trump really taking zinc, vitamin D, and melatonin for Covid? Yes, he is! Most people by now have seen my posts and those of many others from the very beginning of the pandemic, saying that vitamin D is really important to have a strong immune system. People have been censored for saying that, even though it’s accurate. It is important because D3 helps your immune system slow or stop almost all viruses when you have levels around 70. Now that President Trump is taking these, perhaps we can add those to the CDC standard recommendations. The reason we want to do this is that flattening the curve was always a horrible idea. When you flatten the curve, the same number of people die; you just stretch it out over a longer period. Isn’t it better that we lower the curve, which means that fewer people die overall? The way to lower the curve, and flatten it at the same time, is for us to become more resilient. Yes, increased levels of zinc and vitamin D will do that. Melatonin is a strong antioxidant that is useful to take any time you start to get sick. It also helps with sleep. Most people take up to 3 mg; some people will megadose up to 30 mg. For regular use, I prefer 0.5 mg. When I’m sick, I do 30. Most people will tell you that zinc is widely available in food, except that it isn’t. When you eat many of the so-called healthy plant foods, the ones in the danger zone on the Bulletproof Diet, you are consuming one of the four big categories of plant toxins called phytates. Those block your ability to absorb zinc. The best forms of zinc are zinc orotate and zinc carnosine. The other forms are better than nothing but not as good for absorption. Just eating oysters and liver is a stupid strategy if you are not feeling well. It is a great strategy if you are feeling well. I like to take 15 mg of zinc orotate when I am under normal stress, and twice that if I feel rundown. It is important to balance your copper and zinc ratios, as too much zinc with two little copper, or vice versa, can cause problems. That’s why I put the two of them together when I formulate supplements. (Read more in the comments section) ??

A post shared by Dave Asprey (@dave.asprey) on Oct 3, 2020 at 3:10pm PDT

A bunch of the health influencers (Rhonda Patrick, Dave Asprey, Max Lugavere, etc.) that I follow are adamant that Zinc and Vitamin D are protective against COVID-19. While I don’t think that it’s the miracle cure that they tout it to be, I find it telling that this was specifically recommended to President Donald Trump as a result of his diagnosis.

I wrote about my supplementation protocol to focus on my immune system during May, and also included Vitamin D and Zinc into my protocol.

I have been taking the following since March:

• SNAC’s ZMA (Zinc, Magnesium, and 5-HTP)
• Thorne’s Vitamin D3/K2

An interesting conversation I had:

Recently, I’ve been catching up with members of our boxing, running, and fitness community to see what they’re up to! I enjoy highlighting some of the members of our community and bridging different communities – boxing, running, and fitness, so people can see a little bit of what others do.

This week, I spoke with Chris Gaines the founder/owner of PerformanceGaines. PerformanceGaines is a functional fitness and wellness gym in Palo Alto, CA. You can learn more at www.performancegaines.com.

We talked about Chris’ background in Football, Rugby, and Bodybuilding, his training philosophies, him being part of the crew for John Tarlton a cyclist who biked in RAAM (Race Across America) to raise funds for the Stanford Cancer Center (as featured in the Netflix documentary), his thoughts in minimalist shoes, and various podcasts and books (Muscles and Meridians, Atomic Habits, Art of Possibility, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, etc.) that he’s reading today. 

What’s New at Dreamland Boxing

As you may know, I am currently donating my time to host virtual online boxing classes for the members of our 501c(3) non-profit boxing gym, Dreamland Boxing. As an active member of Dreamland, you will receive the materials and video recaps of each lesson through my website under the “Premium Drills” section. This week, our primary focus was the importance of shadowboxing as a tool to get better at the tactical aspects of boxing. A highlight of our week, was doing a “follow-the-leader” drill, shadowboxing to a Floyd Mayweather video and breaking down all of the subtle things he does when he’s in the ring.

On Friday, my drills focused on range, keeping your punches tight, and also generating power from the hips. Due to the air quality, we had a small indoor class of four people. You can view the full practice and related drills here.

Visit http://www.dreamlandboxing.org or email dreamlandboxing7@gmail.com for more information on how to sign up today!