DC does... Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

What is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

If any of you have glanced at my social media feeds or spoken to me for more than 5 minutes in the 9 months preceding this article, you will likely know that I am cultivating a slight obsession with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). To those with no interest in the various sub-genres under the general umbrella of 'hurting people', those words likely mean very little. BJJ is a solely grappling-based martial art (i.e. we aren't punching each other in the face) wherein the end goal is to get your opponent to submit, generally with the use of some form of choke or joint lock. However, reaching this end goal against an opponent who doesn't particularly want to be choked or joint-locked (and is similarly trying to choke or joint-lock you) is no easy task. Therefore, the use of strategy, proper leverage and position become key in BJJ battles, with the ability to maximise these factors significantly outweighing raw physicality. This allows smaller, skilled fighters to effectively best larger, less skilled opponents.
As such, BJJ has developed into an incredibly complex art consisting of countless techniques to take-down, control, gain favourable position on and eventually submit your foe. Put somewhat more concisely by one of the foremost coaches of the modern BJJ (and grappling for MMA) game, John Danaher:

"Jiu Jitsu is the science and art of control that leads to submission."

With BJJ being such a deep discipline, it takes serious time and dedication to develop proficiency. This is something which belt grading reflects, with BJJ black belts existing in rarefied air, earning this grade only after years (and years and years) of training. This incredibly long journey to the upper echelon can certainly put some people off. Especially combined with the fact that when you first start you will likely realise that you can't fight your way out of paper bag and some old guy that is half your weight will have absolutely no problem tying you in knots and choking you with your own arm. However, for those who stick with it, BJJ becomes an incredibly rewarding, fun and addictive past time with a whole bunch of benefits, speaking of...


The Benefits of BJJ

Physical - The most obvious and the basis for the vast majority of this blog, the physical benefits of BJJ are myriad. As mentioned, use of proper technique to maximise position and leverage are key in BJJ and a smaller fighter can regularly beat a larger one, however unless your skill significantly surpasses that of your opponent, being on cruise control is unlikely. Watch two equally matched fighters go at it or watch a less experienced fighter try to survive against a more experienced one and you will soon see that strength and cardio are pushed to the limit.

Sometimes this is less enjoyable than others.

Fighting another human being is very different to fighting a set of heavy bench presses or deadlifts. People make terrible barbells, especially when they are trying to kill you. As such, BJJ is incredibly good at building functional strength; strength at odd angles and unusual planes of movement, strength against active resistance and moving forces. The sort of strength your Grandad had, before people got soft. That sort of strength. While most high level practitioners will also weight train (and I would of course recommend weight training) BJJ in and of itself can develop some impressive strength.

One area where BJJ really excels is building grip strength. Whether in a gi (the classic martial arts pyjamas, which BJJ rules allow you to grip and utilise the material of) or no-gi (wearing minimal clothing, like in MMA, or tight fitting clothing which cannot be gripped), grips are a big part of BJJ. Strong grips on collars, sleeves, wrists, ankles and anywhere else that gives you control over your partner are necessary to gain leverage and win positional battles in BJJ. As such the gripping musculature is considerably challenged, leading to strong hands and Popeye forearms.

Strong people doing strong people things.

BJJ will also whip you into shape in terms of cardio fitness. Intense drilling and sparring involve many explosive, full body movements and in the case of sparring, the full resistance of another body. What you essentially have is aerobic exercise punctuated with frequent bursts of high intensity anaerobic efforts. What this means in practice is that BJJ is god-damn tiring. It will have your muscles, lungs and heart all working overtime and your sweat glands demanding a raise. However this also means it is incredible in terms of fitness development, energy expenditure and as such weight loss for many people. This fella reckons that a fairly intense hour long BJJ class will burn in the region of 700 calories for an 80 kg man, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me. Turns out grappling another human to the (simulated) death is hard work, who'd have thought?

Strength and fitness are the big attributes that most people care about when undertaking a physical endeavour, however the benefits don't stop there. BJJ requires a technical and accurate movements to be effective, which as a beginner, you almost certainly will not possess. However, you will soon find yourself going from being an ungainly, slow moving oaf to pulling off movements that to the untrained eye could almost be called graceful. Through your training you will make impressive improvements in bodily co-ordination and motor skills leading to a precision of movement seen in high level athletes that exists in very few other domains. A further attribute that is somewhat of an optional one, but will likely increase somewhat concurrently with BJJ training is flexibility. Flexibility is of great use in grappling arts and as such many choose to train this along with BJJ, however many such as myself also find that beginning as a not particularly bendy person, simply going through the motions of drills and training can bring about a significant increase in active range of motion. So now I can shave my whole back on my own, which is nice.

Bendy people doing bendy people things.

Psychological/Social - In my opinion, being able to fight in some capacity is probably a good idea for life. Now, I'm certainly not saying you should fight, it should generally be an absolute final option and never of your own initiation. However, there are times when all de-escalation options have been exhausted wherein fighting can become a necessity, and in these times, it is preferable to have some self-defence capabilities. I'm generally not a huge fan of promoting martial arts for their self defence credentials, however the nature of BJJ makes it ideal for subduing and neutralising a would be attacker without causing them too much harm. I think this is far from the primary reason to train BJJ, but it's a nice side benefit to know that after a year or so of good training, you can probably deal with the average untrained person fairly handily.

When you start BJJ, you will get beaten. Repeatedly. By pretty much everyone. The good news is that being beaten in BJJ doesn't really physically hurt due to the magic of tapping out, again and again. However, this can bruise the ego somewhat. Another great benefit of BJJ comes in the form of learning to move past this, learning humility and letting go of hubris are important steps in learning and ones that carry over tremendously to the rest of life. When you accept that you know essentially nothing and adopt a 'beginner mind', learning accelerates; if you remain arrogant and stubborn, insisting on trying to do things 'your way', learning stalls.

BJJ will teach you to see the loss as an opportunity for learning in a very clear way, at it's simplest it looks something like: "I stuck my arm out and they almost broke it in two, better not stick my arm out again". It also involves learning from those around you, when someone catches you in a choke, you ask them where you went wrong to eventually end up with no blood going to your brain, building up your knowledge. Over time you will see your knowledge coming together, forming plans and strategies, and solving the physical problem in front of you in real time.

Problem: solved

BJJ practice also seems to be an inherently social place; maybe it's the trying to kill each other, maybe it's the close physical contact, maybe it's the fact that people throw thousands of hours of their lives into the sport, but everyone likes to train hard then have a good friendly chat. This may be personal experience, but I have found BJJ clubs seem very amicable with a strong sense of camaraderie, in a way that surpasses other martial arts clubs. Take from that what you will, but in my time training, I find the people and team ethic of my BJJ club to be a significant factor in the enjoyment of the sport.

Another area where people report BJJ giving them benefit is in relaxation and staying calm. Although this might seem counter-intuitive in a sport based on pretend murdering each other, this is exactly how it teaches one to stay in control. Panicking and freaking out is not a particularly good defence strategy, something which will be soon learned in BJJ sparring; instead the way out of a dangerous situation requires a calm enough mind to accurately pin point the danger, plan and execute movements to escape. Doing this repeatedly in BJJ gives practice of staying calm in a stressful situation and thinking logically, not letting emotion or fear dominate, a practice which can have far reaching benefits. Many also report wider stress reduction from practising BJJ. It is a sport that is so physically and intellectually demanding during its practice (in addition to being enjoyable) that it is nigh-on impossible for your mind to spiral off and worry about any extraneous issues. This sense of being in an almost 'flow' state is what seems to get many people hooked on training BJJ.

The zen of knowing you can kill everyone around you.

Intellectual - As previously mentioned, there is a tremendous amount of tactics and strategy in the BJJ game, which is enough to exercise the sharpest of minds. There is a vast amount of techniques to learn, beneath which there is essentially endless potential for variation and subtle modifications. On top of this, the practice of BJJ essentially involves fast paced, high pressure problem solving; deciding which techniques to use at which times to overcome your opponent's defences and nullify or counter their offences. BJJ has been called 'physical chess' and despite this being somewhat cliché, it's somewhat true. In BJJ, as in chess, a master will potentially have thousands of ways to beat an opponent, but will regularly look to to ensnare their opponents in their preferred game through a plethora of pressure plays, baits and traps. All this combines to make BJJ a challenging mental exercise in addition to the physical side, which seems to increase the appeal to more analytical minded and studious athletes.

The Negatives of BJJ
I do a bloody ton of washing and my hands sometimes hurt. Boring and achy, respectively.



All in all, BJJ gives you a serious workout, toughens and sharpens you mentally and physically and is a fun way to spend time with a great bunch of people. I would be remiss not to mention the great club at which I train: CF//24 Jiu Jitsu. If you are Cardiff based (or near) and are interested, come down and join in the fun.

DC does... veganism

You read that correctly. I, Dave Crole, dedicated and unapologetic carnivore, went vegan. For a whole bloody month. Or a month that was not in any way bloody, as it goes.

I took a photo of my last steak because it was an emotional moment for me.

For those that are somehow unaware of veganism and have not heard it from the horse's mouth, they literally eat only plants. Much like horses. That means no animal flesh, no dairy, no eggs, no honey, no gelatin, no anything that may be pleasurable to consume and give you the satisfaction of existing at the top of the food pyramid. However, vegans get the warm glow of knowing that they aren't contributing to animal suffering and have a reduced carbon footprint so therefore are better than other people.

Although the level of smug emitted by vegans may be an environmental hazard in itself.

The health effects of vegan diets are often advertised, with proponents claiming an array of health benefits and detractors claiming a multitude of nutritional shortfalls and inadequacies. To some extent they are both correct, many vegans would have you believe that eliminating animal products is a panacea that will cure all ills, whilst that is demonstrably not true, there are generally some health benefits of switching to veganism. 

Calories from animal products will generally be replaced with grains, beans, fruits and vegetables, which means vegans generally have higher intakes of fibre, antioxidants and nutrients such as potassium, magnesium and vitamins A, C and E. Vegan diets tend to make people feel full at lower calorie intakes, with vegans also tending to have lower body weight, blood sugar levels and diabetes risk than non-vegans, perhaps due to the high fibre intake of the diet. There is likely also cancer protection properties; there is debated data over red meat and dairy both raising the risk of some cancers and consensus data on vegetables and legumes reducing the risk of some cancers, therefore replacing the former with the latter will likely lead to reduced cancer risks. The previous sentence also holds true if 'cancer' is replaced with 'heart disease and strokes'. So, there are demonstrably some positive effects associated with the elimination of animal products and/or eating more vegetables and legumes, but is it all one way traffic?

This is unambiguously good for you.

No. Here's why eating some animals is still good. Vegans are very commonly deficient in a number of important nutrients when compared to omnivores, these include vitamin B12, iron, vitamin D3, zinc and omega 3 fats. Going into detail on the roles of each of these would take quite some text, but suffice to say they play important roles in the healthy functioning of the body including development of red blood cells, nerve function, brain development, mitochondrial function and most importantly by far, muscle function and growth. Deficiencies in these nutrients will lead to reduced physical and mental performance, and chronic deficiency could lead to diseases such as Alzheimer's, heart disease, anemia and osteoporosis. You will find all of these nutrients in ample quantities in animal products and in the case of B12, heme iron (the easily absorbed kind) and long chain omega 3 fats, you will almost exclusively find them in animal products. There are ways of making up for these deficiencies on a vegan diet, if synthetic versions are available, supplementation is an obvious choice, but there is also the odd (stupidly expensive) plant food from a far flung place that contains a given nutrient in small amounts such as nori seaweed for B12 or microalgae oil for omega 3 acids.

This isn't necessarily bad for you.

Discussions on the philosophy and ethics of eating animals can be a very interesting, they also have been done to death by people far more invested in the subject than I, so I'll keep it brief. These sorts of discussions can also be an absolute minefield as people can get quite dogmatic over the issue. It's easy to get a load of information from some partisan website, convince yourself that your position is the unambiguously correct one and stay safely in your echo chamber. I'm not pointing fingers at either side, or saying that I am some even handed ethical arbiter, I've been as guilty as any of adopting a position (in this case "just eat some meat and have a shower you dirty hippie") and ignoring any counter arguments.

Sometimes, this was the correct position.

That being said, here are some basic questions and thoughts on the subject to have a little ponder on:

• Do we have the right to contribute to the suffering of and/or kill animals when we can demonstrably survive (but arguably thrive) without animal products?
• The eating of animals (and the dense source of calories and micro nutrients therein) was arguably a catalyst for the evolution of the human brain, is the total elimination of animal products form the diet a good idea?
• Eliminating animal products will greatly reduce one's environmental impact (mainly through reducing the inefficient land, energy and water use of meat farming), with a study showing that meat eaters contribute approximately 2.5 times as much carbon dioxide as vegans. However, there are many things we can do to reduce environmental impact, but don't due to inconvenience. We could walk everywhere, we could plant trees everyday, we could not heat our homes, use electrical devices or bathe, to go to the most extreme, we could just kill ourselves. To what point is it feasible to reduce our pleasure in life to benefit the environment?
• Are all feed stock animals' lives a net negative experience? If we buy ethically sourced, high welfare meat (and to a greater extent eggs), it may be the case that this animal, which may not even exist otherwise, has lived a net positive life. If an animal is freely roaming and eating, but with protection from predators and little to no stressors until the moment of slaughter, is the entire process tantamount to animal cruelty or benevolence?

Exhibit A: Happy cow

• At what point is it rational to draw the line on animal consumption? Most recoil at the prospect of eating dogs or dolphins (or cannibalism), yet eat cows and pigs. Do we rank by intelligence? Ability to feel pain? Cuteness? Similar can apply to vegans, how small is too small to care about? Most vegans won't eat insects, but also likely won't go to extreme Jainist levels of sweeping the path in front of themselves in case they were to step on one or worry about the insects that were inevitably killed in the harvesting of crops.

More vegan than you.

I'm not pretending to have answers on any of this. Extending universal ethics to all animals is a nice idea, but so is eating steak.

Anyway, on to my actual experiences of eating vegan. I've detailed my usual eating habits in a previous post; essentially lots of animal products and vegetables, some grains and fruit and a bit of junk when my sweet tooth needs a fix. This generally works out as a high protein, moderate carb, moderate fat intake (somewhere around 30:30:40 P:F:C) and I've found it works pretty well for maintaining physique and performance whilst providing satiety and ability to eat a flexible range of foods.

I still can't believe I survived a whole month on this sort of thing.

Cue veganism. Cue a large calorie, protein and fat deficit. Chief of concern among these is protein, which tends to be the main worry amongst active people considering a vegan diet. Vegan protein sources that don't come coupled with a significant portion of carbs or fat are relatively few, so analogously replacing meat with a direct macro-nutrient equivalent isn't always possible, but such sources do exist:

• Tofu and tempeh - I limited these due to the non conclusive evidence on soy's feminising effects and my current state of quite enjoying being a man.
• Seitan - essentially wheat meat, not good if you are gluten sensitive, but great otherwise, albeit hard to get hold of.
• Rice, pea and hemp powders - I had a big bag of pea protein that a friend rejected due to it tasting like a dusty barn, so I used this in small amounts throughout the month. Pea protein is among the cheapest protein powders and has a very high leucine content, which is arguably the most important amino acid to signal anabolism, so this might just be the vegan athlete's saviour.

Sources of protein which come bundled with a hefty whack of fat include:

The supermodel of the plant food world

• Nuts, seeds and nut butters - These are tasty and many contain beneficial micro-nutrients in addition to protein and fat, however too much consumption can be detrimental due to the high omega 6 content. Too much omega 6 can block omega 3 metabolism pathways and therefore lead to the same effects as omega 3 deficiency, which is already a potential issue on the vegan diet.
• Chia seeds - darling of Instagramistas world over, these little black seeds provide a decent amount of protein and nutrients but importantly also omega 3 fatty acids that are regularly lacking in a vegan diet.
• Flax seeds - These are chia's less glamorous cousins, slightly less nutritious but they do a good enough job.

Finally, sources of protein that come in a nice carby package include:

I don't think I can stress just how many of these goddamn things I ate over the past month.

• Lentils, beans and legumes - probably the most important food to vegans. Beans made up the bulk of my intake during this month due to their protein content, decent micro-nutrients, versatility, high fibre and low cost. If you want to eliminate meat from your diet, get friendly with beans.
• Grains - Though we generally think of grains as carb sources, many have a nice little bit of protein tucked away. Oats are about 17% protein when dry, wheat flour is about 10%, buckwheat 14% and if you want to get fancy, quinoa is about 15% protein. 
• Vegetables - okay, they are a crap source of protein in terms of density, however in terms of macro-nutrient ratios, vegetables like peas, bean sprouts, broccoli and green beans are pretty favourable as they are also low carb and practically zero fat. They aren't going to be a majority contributor to your protein needs, but the grams add up when you are getting your veggies in.

This list may lead you to the first realisation I had when eating vegan, that protein comes in small amounts from a large variety of sources. When eating an omnivorous diet, meal planning and tailoring of macro nutrients is easy: cook a lump of meat, that's protein sorted (and fat depending on choice). Add grains/potatoes for carbs. Add more fats if necessary. Add veggies for micro-nutrients and fibre. It's kids play. Tailoring macro-nutrients on a vegan diet is advanced algebra in comparison.

...Fuck it, just eat more beans

Firstly, unless only vegetables and nuts is appealing to you, a vegan diet is necessarily a high carbohydrate diet, as most readily available protein sources fall under the 'protein with carb' heading. When eating a high carbohydrate diet, in general we then want to bring fats down. Some fat is necessary for hormone synthesis (including the omega 3s that I have been banging on about at many points in this article), but in a high carb diet where there is sufficient fuel for the body, ingested fats are the most facile macro nutrient for the body to store as fat (perhaps unsurprisingly).

I decided to aim for a classic high carbohydrate macro nutrient split of approximately 25% Protein, 15% Fat, 60% Carbs, which for my maintenance calories ends up somewhere around 200 g protein, 55 g fat and 480 g carbs. I also tried to eat an almost entirely 'wholefood' diet, avoiding processed foods and limiting protein powders, which seems to be doing vegan on hard mode. This article is already running long, so here is a list of my thoughts, take-aways, general musings and advice to anyone thinking of trying a vegan diet:

• When eating vegan (albeit for only 30 days) I didn't feel any magical energy boost or alertness or ascend to a godly level of karmic bliss that many converts seem to talk of. However, I also didn't feel tired or weak like many avowed anti-vegans will talk of. I think a decent diet can come in a variety of forms. Try to eat a variety of whole foods, a good volume of vegetables and keep protein fairly high and you can't go too far wrong.
• A mechanism by which I think veganism helps people lose weight is also a mechanism by which I think no carb diets can help people lose weight. It's not a physiological one, but a psychological one. When entire families of foods are off limits, one has to think about almost everything that goes into their mouth. This promotes a mindfulness about what you are eating; quickly after "can I eat this?" come "should I eat this?", resulting in a more thoroughly thought out diet.
• It's hell of a lot of carbs. I'm fairly large, but a vegan diet will necessarily contain a lot of carbs for everyone. If you want to take in 0.5% of your body weight of carbs each day, its going to take some effort in both cooking and eating.
• This is especially true when those carbs need to encompass as much protein as possible and therefore also tend to contain a load of fibre. This meant the carbs came mainly in the form of various beans and lentils, buckwheat and whole wheat breads (I can't eat oats). Prepare for a lot of jaw work to get it in, and a lot of toilet time to get it back out.

The authentic vegan experience.

• I regularly undershot protein and total calories due to the sheer volume of food I had to eat. Sometimes I also went higher on the fat (in the form of nuts) to hit my calorie/protein goals with a much lower volume of food. Therefore it seems that 'long term' vegans with higher calorie requirements may have to opt for eating some more calorie dense foods and supplementing with protein shakes to avoid permanently eating.
• This leads to the second mechanism by which I think many people will lose weight on a vegan diet. Most unprocessed plant foods are full of fibre, this means the volume and satiety per calorie is huge, so when they make up the vast majority of your diet, prepare to be very full from not that many calories.
• If not supplementing with protein shakes, there is not a lot of room for 'junk' on a vegan diet if you are conscious of hitting protein targets. Various biscuits, crisps and sugary breakfast cereals are vegan, but eating these gives you carbs, possibly fat and not much else. That leaves protein (and micro nutrients) found wanting. As you don't have the option to eat a chicken breast and call it bulking like an average gym bro, filling up on junk calories can mean either overshooting daily calories to fulfil protein requirements, or undershooting protein.

Crap can be vegan too

• Vegan food requires planning unless you want to eat a plate of misery. Most of the best foods that I had fell in the family of bean stews, curries, chilli and the like. Meals like this can be incredibly tasty, satisfying and nutritionally complete. They also tend to take at least a few hours to make.
• In a pinch, some variant of hummus/bean dip made by blitzing 2 cans of chickpeas/butter beans with a load of spices and eating it by scooping it up with vegetables and pittas was a go-to meal for me. The macros are good (somewhere in the region of 60 g carbs and 30 g protein for 2 cans of butter beans) and pureeing the beans makes eating them a lot less effort. 
• I ate barely any soy and no Quorn during my month, making the whole thing much harder for myself. If you are a female or a male who doesn't mind rolling the dice on your ball health, have at it with the soy. If you like eating sponges posing as meat, get the Quorn in.

Yummmm.....

• Chia seed pudding is possibly the most wanky hipster food on the planet. It's also pretty awesome. As mentioned above, chia seeds are nutritional powerhouses. Soak them in some almond milk with stevia and add whatever else you feel like (cocoa, berries, nuts, granola), put it your prettiest jar, place it in the best lighting with a manicured background, take 18 photos, put the best one on Instagram and watch the likes roll in. Oh, also eat it.
• Soy sauce, miso, marmite, smoked paprika, sundried tomatoes and sesame oil can all give an umami flavour or 'meatiness' to your food; they are your friends.

Blessed flavour saviours.

• I don't think a vegan diet is ideal for athletes, especially those who weight train. Higher protein and calorie requirements are most easily met by animal products. A vegan diet can be done, but be prepared to spend a lot of time cooking and eating and make sure that you plan meals/supplements to cover potential gaps in micro nutrient intakes.
• For a more sedentary person or those who do light aerobic exercise, a vegan diet with a few additional supplements (B12, omega 3 and an iron/zinc would be a good idea) is definitely a feasible long term solution. Occasional blood tests and a monitoring of body weight would probably both be good ideas just to make sure that red blood cell counts and muscle mass stay at a healthy level.
• Ethically, it's very difficult not to concede that not eating meat beats eating meat in most cases. The 'happy cows' argument may have some merit, but outside of eating a small amount of very high welfare meat, just not eating meat is close to unarguably kinder. This led me to a bit of thinking and researching on the most ethical and environmentally friendly animal products to eat, for one who wishes to eat sustainably, but cover all the gaps that can arise in a vegan diet: 
• Number 1 would be high welfare, local eggs. Eggs are laid routinely by modern day chicken breeds and those from high welfare farms are likely to have a superior quality of life when compared to the majority of animals.
• Number 2 would be bivalves, including mussels, clams and oysters. There is debate in the vegan community on whether these can be eaten, because the extent of their central nervous system is such that they very likely cannot feel pain and they are arguably not even sentient. The farming of bivalves also has extremely low environmental impact compared to large animal farming. To top it all off, they are super nutritious and will plug all the gaps in a vegan diet incredibly well.

They have literally no idea what is going on.

• Number 3 would be small fish such as sardines, sprats and mackerel. These are some of the most nutritious animals you can eat, notably containing very high amounts of omega 3 fats. These are sentient animals that likely feel pain, however, they are very far down on the intelligence scale, highly abundant and can be fished with relatively low environmental impact.
• Bonus entry: When insects become a feasible food stock, I am all for them. If we collectively stop being squeamish little children and accept that a locusts are basically little flying shrimp, then we may be ready for the next food revolution. Insects such as crickets, meal worms and grasshoppers rival beef in terms of nutrition, but are some of the most efficient forms of animal protein to produce, requiring orders of magnitude less resource input than beef. Currently, farmed insects are pretty expensive due to low scales of operation and us still figuring out how best to farm a bunch of tiny flying things, but look for this to change in the not too distant future.
• One could essentially go on, ranking each animal product from most to least ethical based on research and the values that are most important to them, and this may be an interesting intellectual exercise for some. These are 3 of what I see as the least harmful animal products to welfare and the eco-system, but you may come up with a different order. Thinking about such things is probably a good first step.
• I am not going to completely give up animal products and I likely never will, however I think I will incorporate some of what I learned in this month.
• Beans are a great source of plant protein, fibre and nutrients and we should all probably be eating more of them.
• Getting 200 g of protein a day from plant sources was a struggle, but getting around 100 g is relatively easy (for me). Therefore I will try to start thinking of meat as more of a supplement and less of a cornerstone of my diet.
• I'll try replace a portion of intensively farmed meat in my diet with either the 3 foods listed above or higher welfare meat. On a PhD salary, cost is a concern here, as it is for many people, it would be nice to eat only cows that have roamed free on green pastures and been treated like gods, but we don't all have £30 for a ribeye everyday.

We can all dream.

• I'll replace some of the whey/casein protein I use with rice and pea proteins. The dairy industry is certainly not a shiny beacon of ethics and environmentalism so reducing demand there is a positive. Sure, rice and pea proteins taste like an old sandal, but with a bit of clever cooking they can be well hidden in savoury baked goods, stews and curries to add some nutrition without adding any unwanted funk.

That's my thoughts on the vegan diet for now. I'm sure I could keep going but this stream-of-consciousness ramble has gone on long enough, get in contact if you are a meat eater wanting to tell me I sound like a pussy, a vegan wanting to tell me I'm totally wrong and still an uncouth savage, or anyone else wanting a chat.

Do you smell what DC is cooking? pt. 3 - Vegetables that don't cause you to hate life

You should probably eat more vegetables. Yes, you. Unless you are a vegetarian, then you should probably eat more meat.

Vegetables provide almost the entire spectrum of essential vitamins and minerals that your body needs to function optimally. I'm sure you don't need to be told that vegetables are healthy, but just in case you believe man can live on bread alone, here is some evidence I found from a quick search of academic journals. Increased vegetable consumption is associated with:

Not being fat

Dying later in general

Decreased risk of type 2 diabetes

Decreased risk of heart disease

Decreased risk of stroke

Reduced risk of most cancers (breast, prostate, oral, gastric, bladder...)

Improved brain health

I could go on, but I'm sure you get the idea. If you don't then you in fact may be a vegetable.

Additional benefit: salad is evidently hilarious

The problem is that generally vegetables aren't all that fun to eat. At best they still tend to pale in comparison to sweet, fatty or sugary foods which light up all our brain's more primitive reward centres (this why candied bacon is so bizarrely delicious); at worst they literally taste like farts.

As such, here are some of my go-to vegetable variations and preparations to make eating your 5-a-day a bit less shit:

Coleslaw for people who aren't fat

Mayo is pretty gross. The wobbly white goop contains very little that you want to be putting in your body, but take mayo away and coleslaw is damn near a superfood.
Cabbage ranks pretty high up there on the list of the best vegetables to be putting in your face, with loads of vitamin C and K, potassium and manganese as well as some pretty interesting anti-carcinogenic compounds called glucosinolates. I eat this coleslaw pretty much every day and don't have cancer; what more evidence could you want? Carrots are also one of the best things you can eat, giving you tons of vitamin A and a decent amount of B vitamins for a vegetable. Finely shred them together and you are making music.

Basic Slaw:

• 3 parts cabbage (standard white or a mix of red and white works best), finely shredded
• 1 part carrot, grated

Basic Dressing:

• 1 part oil (Extra virgin olive, avocado, walnut, macadamia, hemp seed)
• 1-3 parts acid (Apple cider vinegar, red/white wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, rice vinegar, lemon juice)
• Sweetener (I use Stevia tabs) to taste

Variations:

• Add thinly sliced apple or bell peppers for extra crunch and sweetness, add raw onion if you hate yourself and everyone that you plan to talk to for the next few hours, add kale if you think you are better than everyone else.
• For a less obnoxious onion flavour, you can add some fresh chopped chives or spring onions and parsley. 
• Really any vegetable that is good to eat raw can be chucked in, but you should probably avoid anything too watery (I'm looking at you tomato and cucumber). Some surprisingly good additions that might otherwise end up in the bin are grated broccoli stalk or shredded cauliflower leaves, both under-utilised parts of their respective veg. 
• Throw in a handful of nuts or dried fruits if you want to add some calorie density.
• Use any oil with apple cider vinegar or lemon juice and add mustard for a classic sweet mustard slaw.
• Add finely chopped fresh chillies or a splash of hot sauce for an added zing. 
• Use a neutral tasting oil (eg. walnut) and swap half for toasted sesame oil, then add rice vinegar, soy sauce, ginger and garlic for a savoury Asian slaw.

The real key to good slaw that makes eating your vegetables a joy is fine shredding of the cabbage. For all its benefits, raw cabbage is a tough bugger and the jaw workout that you get munching through chunky cut raw cabbage may be more than you bargained for. The best tools for shredding are either a mandoline (watch your fingertips... trust me on that one), or a food processor with a shredder attachment; go as thin as possible on either and grate the carrot to a similar size.

When it comes to the dressing, there is loads of room for play, so experiment away. The classic recommendation for salad dressings is 3 parts oil to 1 part acid because it will hold an emulsion, here we don't care about that as everything will be intimately mixed anyway, so we've dropped the oil content right down to save calories and up the tang factor. I personally have a killer sweet tooth, so the couple of Stevia tabs are ever present, you my not find this to be the case, but I'd bet that once you have had low calorie, sweet, tangy slaw you will be a convert.

Picture absolutely not relevant. Just keeping the guys and lesbians interested.

Ratatouille is more than just an adorable movie

A staple of the (French) Mediterranean diet, this dish of stewed tomato, peppers, onions, courgette, aubergine, garlic, herbs and whatever else is hanging around is delicious, easy and full of good stuff. How good, you ask? Well, you'll get butt loads of vitamin C from the tomatoes, peppers and courgette, good amounts of potassium and manganese from peppers, courgette and aubergine, a whole smorgasbord of antioxidants and some super interesting compounds like allicin in garlic which has been shown to improve immune function.

If anyone can make anything as beautiful as the above video, I want to be your friend.

Expert French chefs argue over the correct way to make ratatouille; does one sauté each vegetable separately? Does one pre-sauté some vegetables and then layer and bake the whole mixture? Does one chuck it all in the slow cooker (with a cursory sauté if I'm feeling fancy)? Probably not. But that is easy. And easy is what I'm about (...ladies).

Ratatouille:

• 2 onions
• At least 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 aubergines
• 2-4 courgettes
• 2-3 peppers of any colour
• 2 tins of good quality tomatoes and (optional) a tube of tomato puree 
• Fresh or dried basil, thyme, marjoram and bay leaf
• Butter and/or Extra virgin olive oil 

First, chop everything. Keep it fairly chunky for everything except the onions and garlic. Sauté (that means fry in a bit of fat) the onions until they are softened and a bit brown, adding the chopped garlic for a couple of minutes at the end. Whack it in the slow cooker. If you are feeling lazy, put everything else in, switch to low and cook for about 4 hours or until everything is tender. If you are inclined to be a flashy bastard, keep your skillet hot and sauté the peppers until slightly blistered and browned and likewise with the aubergines and courgettes. This will give added flavour, but also added hassle, your call. When its all cooked, give it a taste, add some fresh herbs if you have them, a drizzle of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. You now have a pile of vegetables that are actually pleasant to eat and you get to pretend you know about French food. Tres fancy.

Picture absolutely not relevant. Just keeping the girls and gays interested.

Harness the umami

If you are asking 'What the hell is an umami?', you bout to get learned fool. Umami is one of the basic tastes (the others being sweet, salty, bitter, sour), literally translated from Japanese it means "delicious taste", but refers to the pleasant savoury flavours found in meats, fish and cheeses. The main compounds responsible for the tasty umami are called glutamates, guanylates and inosinates; fortunately we can find these compounds in other places, so my recommendation here isn't just to add meat or cheese to your veg (although that works as well).

Some vegetables such as tomatoes and mushrooms already have a decent level of umami, which is a large part of why cooked tomato based dishes are usually more pleasant to eat than a plate of spinach, however we can also use condiments to up the umami and make our vegetables a bit more tasty. Chief among these condiments is soy sauce (or other fermented soy products like miso), in fact soy sauce was reportedly originally made by Chinese monks who ate it to replace the flavour (and to some extent nutrition) of meat, which they were prohibited from eating. Some other foods and condiments which deliver an umami whack are fish sauce, smoked paprika, toasted sesame oil, sun dried tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce, dried mushrooms and Marmite.

"Oooommmmmmmmmushrooms with soy sauce for dinner"

If you are making any sort of sauce, soup or stew that can do with a bit of 'beefing up' in the flavour department, adding any combination of the soy sauce, fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce or Marmite will definitely help. Otherwise, to any boiled/steamed/roasted/sautéd/stir-fried veg add one or more of the above as part of a dressing to dramatically up the enjoyment of eating them. Some ideas:

• Mix 2 parts soy and 1 part Worcestershire sauce and lightly coat cooked cruciferous veg such as cabbage, broccoli or sprouts. Extra tasty points (although maybe not for everyday eating) if you cook them using a high heat and get a bit of char. This will form compounds like pyrroles, pyrazines and furans via the Maillard reaction, these compounds and similar are found in seared meat, toast and roasted coffee giving roasty, nutty flavours.
• Mix 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part toasted sesame oil, and 1 part vinegar and use as a stir fry sauce that tastes far more complex than it is. Optional, but recommended extras: Garlic, ginger and chilli (or even better a fermented chilli condiment like Gojuchang or Sriracha).
• Cook mushrooms with Marmite for a vegetable side dish that might as well just be meat. Add smoked paprika for this to pretty much taste like bacon. When I attempt to go vegan (stay tuned) this will likely be a large part of my diet.
• Roast a whole head of cauliflower (other brassicas work, but cauli works best) with some salt and a generous covering of smoked paprika. Extra spices like cumin, coriander, garlic powder and chilli can add a bit of fun, but the smoked paprika is the real star here.

Forget everything you know about cauliflower. Actually, remember most of it. But also remember that this is good way to cook it.

Fermented foods are delicious hippy shit

I have always loved sour foods, so I find the tang of fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi and classic style pickled cucumbers God-damn delicious. Feel free to skip this section if the mention of pickled or fermented foods makes you a little queasy, although I think you should reconsider. They likely won't make up a huge part of your diet, but lacto-fermented veg are basically on steroids when it comes to nutritional punch. Not only does fermentation make many nutrients more bio-available by pre-digestion (including aforementioned glucosinolates), digest anti-nutrients and in some cases create new nutrients (such as B vitamins - important for veggies and vegans), if the ferments are eaten uncooked, they provide live lactic acid bacteria, which can have profound positive effects of gut micro-fauna and as such, overall health.

Red and pink kraut, sweet and hot cucumber pickles, pickled radishes and aubergines. Don't worry, I haven't gone full hippy, I still shower and think communism is a terrible idea.

Going into depth about fermentation and fermented foods is a book in itself (and if you want to read that book, I highly recommend 'The Art of Fermentation' by Sandor Katz), instead I will share the most basic rules of thumb for fermenting vegetables and some suggestions of where to go from there.

How to ferment vegetables:

• Chop or grate the veg. Generally the harder the veg, the finer you will want to go.
• Dry salt method:

• Add 0.75-1.5% of the weight of the veg in salt. Use your taste to guide you (Adding salt also makes the environment less hospitable for moulds, but more hospitable for lactic acid bacteria, so we are giving the good guys a head start here). Get your hands involved and squish the veg to release some water from the cells.
• Pack the veg and resulting liquid into a jar or pot and squish them down tightly, making sure the veg is submerged beneath the liquid.
• Brine method:

• Alternatively make a 5% weight brine (i.e. 5g salt per 100ml water) optionally with a splash of vinegar to create an acidic environment, pack fresh chopped veg into a jar and pour over the brine.

• Leave for at least a couple of days, up to a couple of weeks. Have a look at the veg and taste regularly after a day or 2. There should be no signs of mould but there should be bubbles as the bacteria break carbohydrates down into lactic acid and carbon dioxide. The veg will develop a pleasant tangy acidity, once this is at a point you are happy with, put the whole thing in the fridge to slow any further fermentation.
• Enjoy

Rainbow kraut making my barbecued pork sandwich a thing of beauty.

Some ideas:

• Classic kraut - Finely shred white cabbage. Dry salt. Add mustard or caraway seeds for flavour. Ferment as above.
• Rainbow kraut - As above, but get some variety in there, adding a bit of red cabbage tastes pretty much the same but turns the whole thing pink, carrots or bell peppers add sweetness, radishes add a peppery bite, celery will add a savoury crunch. You can even add fruit. Go wild, experiment.
• Simplified kimchi - Chop Chinese cabbage (use bok choi or inner leaves of Savoy cabbage if you can't find Chinese). Dry salt, using less salt than usual. Add lots of chopped garlic and chilli, some ginger and spring onions, a good splash of fish sauce and a bit of sugar (this is art, not science). Ferment.
• Simple cucumber pickles - Use small pickling cucumbers whole if you have them, otherwise chop cucumber into chucks. Make a 5% brine with an added splash of vinegar and don't be afraid to get some extra flavour in there in the form of peppercorns, mustard seeds, dill, coriander seeds, chilli, garlic. Ferment for a few days as cucumber can go mushy if left for longer periods.

Eat your vegetables, kids.

Or just eat meat, take a fibre supplement and multi-vitamin, I'm not your Dad.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself: Part 1 -Warm-ups, mobility and flexibility

Let's sort one thing right from the off - I am hideously under-qualified to give specific injury or recovery advice. I am no sort of medical doctor, physiotherapist, osteopath or any other professionally certified muscle-knowing-person. If you have a genuine joint/muscle/tendon etc issue, you should go to see one of the aforementioned professionals, you should not look for answers from a guy who very occasionally likes to write silly/helpful shit on the internet in his spare time.

Ideally this medical professional

However, my body is a wonky, injury prone mess that feels like it was thrown together from left over parts that don't quite fit together right, so to keep myself somewhat functional and pain free, I've had to learn a little bit about how to keep one's body in something approaching good working order. As I seem to find myself noting in every article, to explore every aspect of this subject would require far more than one small article, this is simply my attempt at providing a bit of an overview and a few tips that hopefully you find useful.

Warm-ups

The Venn diagram of warm-ups, mobility and flexibility exercises overlaps largely, but I will attempt some distinction. Warm-ups are movements that are performed before a workout to prepare the muscles, joint and nervous system for exercise; while specific warm-ups where one performs a few sets of a given training exercise with successively heavier weights are encouraged by almost everyone in the S&C field, that is not what I'm covering here, rather more general warm-ups which can be performed first in a session to get one moving well. A general warm-up does not need to take a long time (and can in fact be worked in between sets of specific warm-ups) and will generally pay dividends in allowing for range of motion and quality of movement.

The ways in which you can warm up are myriad, google the phrase and you will see thousands of articles with the 'ultimate' warm up routine, so I will not try to add too much to the noise, below I will simply list some of what I have found to be the best bang-for-your-buck warm-up movements to get you maximally moving in a minimum of time.

This doesn't really show form, but it does show butt.

Deep lunges - get the legs and butt working and dynamically stretch the hip flexors all in one sexy movement.
You know how this works: with both feet pointing forward and your torso upright, step forward, then slowly lower your rear knee to the floor, keeping your front knee directly over your foot.  Add a slow twist of the torso towards the front leg in the bottom position and/or a forward lean for a greater stretch of the rear hip musculature. Push back to the start position and go again with the other foot, repeat as you see fit, try not to make eye contact with others.

Cossack squats - is there a better warm up for the entire leg musculature that also serves as a great groin and ankle stretch? is is it okay to call them that? no and probably not.
Get in a wide sumo stance with your hands held in front of your chest. Squat down towards one side, keeping that foot flat on the ground, whilst keeping the other leg straight, with the heel in contact with the floor. Try to keep the knee of the squatting leg in line with the toes, but let it move forward over the toes or you will likely fall backwards. If this is too difficult, keep your hands on the floor to maintain balance and make the movement easier or if you are a true Cossack warrior, hold your arms directly overhead for additional demands on the upper back and core. Descend as far as you can then reverse the motion and repeat on the opposite side. Feel the connection to your Eastern European brethren.

According to my scientific Google searching, this is a Cossack. Become the Cossack. 

Glute bridges - If you sit for most of the day, your glutes will likely need some activation for optimal athletic performance. I've talked about glute bridges before, refer there for more information, or watch the handy video provided. Basically, lie on your back with your legs bent, push through your heels, bridge up, squeeze butt. Repeat. If you are strong you can do alternating single leg bridges. Maintain eye contact with an attractive member of the opposite sex at all times.

Something for the upper back - another area that tends to get screwed over by sitting and working all day is the upper and mid back, also known as a thoracic or T-spine, correct hunched posture and improve performance by using the upper back muscles. As you can see, I've been super specific with my recommendations here as there are loads of possibilities, quadrupled t-spine rotation, band pull aparts, LYTPs and light row shrugs are all good ways to go about this, but to hit everything with one move, I find the face pull hard to beat. Grab a cable rope attachment/2 D-handles/a resistance band at shoulder height. Pull slowly towards the face (hence face pulls) keeping the elbows paralell to the floor or higher, externally rotate the arms and extend through the upper back, hold and reverse the motion. This exercise should be felt all through the upper back and rear delts, while also providing a bit of a stretch to the pecs.

Shoulder dislocations - these prepare the shoulder joints, surrounding muscles and scapulae for all of upper body movements. Personally, since putting these into most workouts, my shitty shoulders feel and move significantly better. To perform, grab a broomstick/PVC pipe/resistance band with an overhand grip at about twice shoulder width, more if you are made of wood, less if you are limber like a Russian gymnast. With your arms remaining straight throughout, move the broom/pipe/band in a controlled motion from in front of you in an arc over your head until it touches your back. Repeat, slowly moving the hands in if your flexibility allows it.

Push ups - an absolute bloody classic, warm up the arms, pecs, shoulders, serratus and core in one move. I'm not really sure how you managed to get here if you don't know what a push up is, but there are a few finer points to get the most out of them. Set up so your upper arms are at an approximately 45 degree angle to your torso in the bottom position, if viewed from above, you should look like an ↑, not a T; this allows for better utilisation of chest musculature and chance of shoulder discomfort. When performing push-ups, make sure the hips don't sag which will cause the lumbar spine to fall into a bad position, tense the abs and glutes as if you were doing a plank to maintain full body tension. Finally for added serratus activation and scapular movement, when the arms are locked at the top of the rep try to push your upper back further from the floor by 'sliding' the scapular and shoulders forward.

Mobility and flexibility

Onto mobility and flexibility exercises, which really overlap, but generally refer to movements which allow you to move comfortably through a normal range of motion (generally called mobility) and increase the available range of motion for a joint or series of joints (generally called flexibility). Splitting hairs and discussing semantics won't actually achieve anything so I'll just plow on with things that I find useful for mobility/flexibility and probably use the two terms interchangeably.

There is regularly confusion over when, relative to a training session, one should perform various mobility and flexibility movements; do you foam roll before a workout? what about static stretching? Whilst there isn't perfect agreement on this issue, most of the experts (and namely Dr. Kelly Starrett, the expertise of whom I will be calling upon throughout this section) agree that before a workout, some dynamic stretching, as in many of the above warm-up exercises, and maybe a small amount of myofacial release massage, is appropriate. Longer massage, myofacial release and static stretching sessions are best left to after a workout, or an entirely separate session on their own, ideally late at night as they will active the parasympathetic nervous system, putting you in a relaxed state.

For your flexibility and mobility practice, there are a few things tips that will help you get the most of it.

• Post workout massage of the muscle groups trained in a workout may have a small positive effect on recovery and reduction of muscle soreness, don't expect any miracles here though. 10 minutes of broad foam rolling of the muscle belly should be enough if you are eager to (maybe) experience a little less DOMS after leg day.
• When it comes to more specific mobility exercises, don't feel like you have to massage and stretch every single muscle in your body. After a while, you will likely know which of your joints get stiff or muscles get tight and knotted up, so need some TLC; focus on a few of these and don't waste your time on areas where you have good mobility.
• When stretching or performing myofacial release breathe deeply and slowly to further active the parasympathetic nervous system and facilitate relaxation of the muscles.
• If something feels tight or a little painful when you are massaging it, it likely means it needs attention. As cliche as it sounds, listen to your body, if something doesn't feel right, see to it. If you experience real pain (not just a bit of discomfort, don't be pusillanimous), stop what you are doing and see an expert.
• If you are doing a static stretch, it needs to be held for a long time to be of any use. No more quick counts to 10 and waltzing off like you achieved something - you didn't. 30 seconds is the minimum for stretches, 1-2 minutes is ideal.
• Mobility and flexibility are probably the most boring part of training, but try to work them in little and often, 15 minutes 3 times a week is probably better than an hour once a week.

Here are some of the movements that I have witnessed yield the greatest benefit for both myself an others:

Lacrosse/Hockey/Golf ball mashing - The smaller, yet meaner companion of the foam roller. The small size lets a ball hit some areas that a large roller can't and put an awful lot of pressure through your tissues and work out any knots or tightness in the muscles. Top places usually in need of some mashing are the glutes (in particular the piriformis, or the muscle that is underneath the side-ass dimple), upper back (everything around and and on top of your shoulder blades), chest (especially up near the shoulder) and feet.
As far as technique goes there isn't too much to say: get yourself in a position where the ball is between your muscle and a floor/wall. Support some of your weight with muscles that aren't being mashed (eg. if you are mashing your right pec, try to support yourself with your legs and left arm only) and put as much of your weight through the ball/muscle as is comfortable. Slowly move your body to lengthen/shorted the muscle being mashed as well as moving yourself around the ball to hit different areas of the muscle. Breathe deeply, try to relax, swear loudly as necessary.

Couch stretch - A Kelly Starret classic and probably the best way to balance out the ill-effects of sitting on hip mobility and leg muscle flexibility. Tight hip flexors are one of the biggest road block to optimal lifting performance; this should take care of that. It was called the couch stretch by Starrett but all you need is a floor and wall/chair/sofa at a right angle; get in a lunge and put you back foot up against the wall, get your knee right in the corner then move your butt back as close as you can to your foot (just look at the picture).
Now, it is crucial that you don't flex in the lower back, this isn't the time for booty popping; instead you should be flexing the abs and glutes hard to force posterior pelvic tilt and increase the stretch in your quads and hips of the back foot.

Hip capsule stretch - This one is a weird one, but everyone that I get to try it sees immediate improvement in their hip function. Our aim here is to give the ball and socket hip joint a little more wiggle room (technical term) so it can achieve greater range of motion and clear up and impingement which may be occurring. To perform, get on all fours (hey now), hands directly below shoulders, knees directly below hips. Now direct your weight entirely through one knee, leaning to that side and taking the weight off the other knee. You want the line of force to give you the somewhat grisly visual of the ball of your femur being forced back through your butt cheek, which should give you a nice deep stretch in the hip and piriformis. Move the shin of the leg being stretched across your body to further stretch the hip in external rotation. Repeat on the other side. Stand up and feel the amazement at how good your hips feel in a full squat. Write me adoring fan mail.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

Gymnast's/Wrestler's bridge - This one is a bit more of an isometric strength move than a stretch/mobility exercise per se, but it is an isometric strength move that will pay dividends in mobility benefits. Got that? Good. The bridge is a classic, also referred to as the crab by some, it essentially involves a tight back bend while supporting your weight on your hands and feet (gymnast's) or head and feet (wrestler's). To assume the gymnast's position, lie on your back, bring your feet towards your butt, keeping them flat on the floor and put your palms on the floor next to your head, fingers pointing to your shoulders and elbows up. Now push with your hands and feet, squeeze the glutes and upper back and pop yourself up. Walk your feet closer to your butt if it all feels a bit too easy and push your chest as high and towards your head as you can to really work your thoracic extension and open up the chest. You can simply hold the bridge at full extension for as long as possible, knock out inverted push ups from this position, or lower yourself onto your head and rock back and forth for the wrestler's bridge which will build up the neck muscles. WWE here I come.

Pike stretch - it's a classic for a reason. Hammies, calves and spinal erectors regularly get tight and short, this bad boy hits them all. You can do this seated or standing, I honestly don't know if one is inherently better, but I'd say probably only go for the standing version if you have decent flexibility and spinal health already. There isn't a lot to say for this one, sit/stand and reach for your toes in a controlled manner, be less shit than the people in the photo above. If you are standing, gravity does a lot of stretching work for you, otherwise, grab your feet or the backs of your legs and gentle pull yourself further into the stretch, if you are total weaksauce like the fella above, a rope or band around the bottom of the feet can be used to pull yourself towards a less shameful position.

Doorway stretch - The chest can get pretty tight on desk workers and the 'every-day-is-bench-day' brigade. If you fall into both then your chest is probably so tight that your knuckles face each other and you can't touch your own back. Open your chest up by standing in a doorway, holding your upper arm parallel to the floor and your elbow bent at 90 degrees and placing your forearm vertically along the frame. Pull your shoulder blades back and down to protect the shoulder and lean your weight forward, allowing the arm against the door to gently pull back on the pec, you can overdo this one so go easy. The stretch can be done on both sides at once, but that limits position; stretching one side at a time allows you more freedom to get the stretch hitting the right places, going single armed also allws you to turn your head away from the stretching side to increase the stretch. To bias the pec minor over the pec major, place your entire arm, shoulder to palm, down along the door frame and proceed in the same way, this has less of a stretching feeling, so take care not to force it.

Overhead lat stretch - Most people don't train back, so probably don't have to worry about the muscles being short, but for strange backwards people like me, lat smashing and stretches are a necessity to avoid tightness which leads to bad shoulder movement and anterior pelvic tilt (those aren't good). Anyway, the overhead lat stretch is a good 'un and is also pretty much unlimited in how you do it.
It basically works like this: grab something sturdy around shoulder height with one hand (a band also works nicely), keep your arms straight and hinge at the hips, sinking the torso down and leaning until you feel a stretch. You'll likely need to do some moving around to find the position in which the stretch is greatest, feel free to lean the hips towards the side being stretched and also rotate the torso to target different areas of those big bastards. Repeat for both sides. Stand straight and feel the amazement at how good your arms feel in overhead extension. Write me more adoring fan mail.