Holistic Fitness

Q&A Part 1

2010-07-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

So basically this past month and a half, I've been focusing mainly on lifting and getting stronger, and I must say that I've made some satisfactory gains. Right now I want to get back into the cardio shape that I was before, but at the same time I don't want to sacrifice too much strength along with it.

At this point I'm trying to add more definition with a "mini cut"...in other words cutting cals but not by that much while attempting to lift just as much (or as close to it as I can) as I am currently.

I'm sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering if there's any advice you could give me (i.e.-Program, approach, etc.). Thank you for your time!

-G

I have a couple of suggestions. If you can keep the intensity up, keep following your lifting program. Now, the main issue is recovering properly, so there are several things you can do to help that. First, make sure you're consuming tons of protein. You don't have to go crazy, but you want around 1.5g per lb of bodyweight.

There are several reasons why I recommend this much protein. First, the body needs protein to recover, especially on a cut, so it's better to be safe than sorry. Second, protein does two things in the body better than carbohydrates do: It suppresses the hormone Ghrelin (which makes you hungry) and stimulates PYY (which makes you feel full). Again, protein does this better than carbohydrate, so on a cut when you're more likely to feel hungry, eating some protein rather than carbohydrate (don't cut carbs out completely obviously, you need those to recover too) can help you feel fuller.

Second, of all the macronutrients, protein has the highest Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). This is essentially the calories that your body burns just to digest the macronutrient. Protein has the highest TEF, so it makes sense to eat a lot of it, to try and burn more calories. Now, it's not a huge part of the day (I think TEF accounts for like 5-10% of all calories burned) but every little bit helps.

So, now that that's covered, let's talk about recovery. You said you're wanting to get into better cardio shape as well. I suggest steady state cardio rather than HIIT. HIIT can be quite taxing on the nervous system, which reduces intensity in the weight room, where you need as much intensity as possible to reduce strength loss (or even gain strength).

I have no idea why, and this is pretty anecdotal, but I find that the nervous system recovers better when eating at a surplus. For this reason, HIIT while on a cut really batters the body, while SS cardio allows you to get the conditioning work in, burn some calories, and still recover.

Finally, if you find that you're still not able to keep intensity up in the weight room, cut some volume. For example, if you were doing 3x5 at 135 on the bench press earlier, drop it to 1x5 of 135, or maybe even (since there are fewer sets) 1x5 of 140 or 145. You have to keep the weight high to mitigate strength loss. That's because it's easier for the body to maintain than it is for the body to gain- so even if you're having issues, you can come out of the cut with the same level of strength.

Now, I think that you should be able to actually gain strength through the cut. As you know, you won't be able to build muscle, since that requires eating at a surplus, but there are other factors that serve to increase strength. Neurological factors play a huge role in increasing strength, and there are also microadaptions that occur. Both of those things can (and do) happen while eating at a deficit, so I'm fairly confident that you'll be able to keep gaining strength.

Basically, do steady state cardio on your off-days, keep lifting with a strength program, eat lots of protein, and if recovery is getting compromised, cut volume in the strength program while keeping intensity up.

Sorry that was so long, I got sidetracked and I enjoy talking about this stuff.

Constructing Training Sandbags of your Very Own!

2010-06-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

(The format editor on this website hates me, and I just can't get it to look all pretty. So please just ignore any weird spacing/font issues in this post. Thanks.)

Woohoo, summer! It's about time, honestly.

So yesterday night I was planning to go to the YMCA and lift (for the first time in a few days, unfortunately), but when I got there the DeskMan informed me that they had officially switched to summer hours, and they would be closing in about 15 minutes.

Irritated, I went home and finally assembled the materials I needed to construct my training sandbags (I had been putting it off, go figure). I built it, trained with it, and I'm quite pleased. Buying training sandbags online usually costs around $100, and I made these for like $15. Totally worth it.

They're very difficult to work with, and they'll be excellent Odd-Object Training for my clients and myself. I'll put up some sandbag routines and pictures in a later post.

Making The Bags
So the first step to make sandbags of your very own is to get the "ingredients," which are:

Some Sand-- I bought 3 bags, or around 100 pounds (estimate). That was too much, but whatever, I'll make 2.
Some Bags-- I highly recommend investing in these. I got the ZipLock Heavy Duty 1 Gallon Freezer Bags. Get the 1 gallon ones.
Some Duct Tape-- To seal the bags. Plus it's handy. (by the way, both "Duct" and "Duck" are correct)
A Trowel-- This isn't really required, per se, but it'll make the process a LOT easier
A Bag-- You want a heavy canvas bag, if possible. I'm using a duffel bag for traveling right now, but I'm going to buy a canvas bag off the internet.

So the second step is to actually make the lil' sanbags (so cute!). Tear open the first bag of sand, and use the trowel to fill a ziplock bag about 3/4 full. This is important- do NOT fill them more than about 3/4. They'll tear open, I guarantee it. Once you've filled a bunch of bags (only 3/4 full!), double bag them.

Again, worth it- and you only really need 1 package of ziplock bags. I used 2 of my big bags of sand to fill (3/4 full) about 10 one-gallon ziplock bags, which is more weight than I can really use anyway, so you don't need to buy too many ziplock bags. Once you've double-bagged them, use the duct tape to tape the end closed. Depending on how much tape you have and how much you care, you can tape around all the edges, or maybe even just make a giant wad of duct tape. Up to you.

Once you've made all the lil' bags, load them into your canvas bag. I have.. like 7, I think, in my bag right now, and that's plenty of weight. Zip/Click/Seal your canvas bag, and get started!

Random Thoughts
You want a minimal canvas bag if possible. You don't want a whole bunch of pockets or straps or anything flying all over the place, since they'll just get in your way. Also, I prefer not to use the straps at all. I feel that actually having to grab a fistful of bag helps build the grip, which is just an added benefit. However, I DID leave the straps on, since they can be useful for things like Sandbag Rows or Sandbag Swings.

Another nice thing, if you're using them for clients (like I am) is that you can adjust the weight quite easily. Just add or remove some of the lil' sandbags, and you're good to go! You can do a ton of fun things with sandbag(s), and I'll have another post that details some of them. Or I'll just edit this one. Whateva.

More fun training tools? (Answer: Yes)

Beat The Heat

2010-05-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a really long time (read: like 2 weeks) since I last wrote for BSM. I got caught up in all the ...responsibilities of summer. Like.. sleeping. And stuff.

Anyway, today's article is in commemoration of the ridiculous heat wave which is currently sweeping my hometown and making training absolutely miserable.

First: Recognize Symptoms

The first thing to know about exercising in hot weather is to pay attention to your body. You need to be on the alert for any of the symptoms of the heat disorders. The three heat disorders, in order of severity, are Heat Cramps, Heat Exhaustion, and Heat Stroke.

Heat Cramps is the most mild of the heat disorders, and is what it sounds- painful cramps or spasms brought on by exercise in the heat. Heat Exhaustion is a more total-body affliction, and this is what you need to look out for. The symptoms are headaches, fatigue, malaise, nausea, faintness, mental confusion. There's a fairly wide range of severity for Heat Exhaustion, starting with simple fatigue and excessive perspiration and ranging through the symptoms like mental confusion. If you cannot cool off, the body eventually enters Heat Stroke.

Heat Stroke is not something to mess around with- internal body temperature rises over 104 degrees fahrenheit, and the heart beats extremely rapidly, around 160-180 beats per minute. The patient frequently no longer sweats, and eventually unconsciousness, convulsions, and death result.

This is why it's so important to pay attention to your body- you need to recognize the symptoms of Heat Exhaustion before it becomes severe. If you have a headache, or if you're unusually fatigued, are feeling nauseous, you should stop exercising.

Knowing the symptoms is all well and good, but the important thing is prevention.

1. Exercise Closer to Home

Say you're doing a 5 mile run. Rather than do 2.5 miles out and 2.5 miles back, find a 1 mile loop and do that 5 times. Boring? Yes. Safer? You bet. Trust me, you do NOT want to be at the turnaround point when you realize that you're starting to get Heat Exhaustion and still have to run all the way back. If you're starting to feel the symptoms, you can just stop, rather than try and figure out if you're going to have to walk home.

If you can't or won't do this, carry a cell phone. You may well need to call somebody to come pick you up, or even call 911 if your symptoms get too severe. Bring the phone. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

2. Wear the Right Clothing

You should be wearing white, of course, but also wear any technical fabrics that you might have. They wick sweat away from your body, which keeps you cooler, and if you dump water on them it feels really nice.

Oh, and wear a brimmed hat, if possible. It keeps the sun off of your face and keeps sweat out of your eyes. You dissipate a lot of heat through your head though, so you should wear a very thin hat if possible. If you don't have a thin hat, it's better to go without.

I have a nice mesh hat that I got from a race that I use. It's white, mesh, and has a brim, so it's pretty much perfect. Looks stupid, though.

3. Lower Intensity

Don't work hard in the heat. Just don't. The heart beats faster in the heat, so you're already exercising harder than you would be otherwise, and it's harder to achieve any given speed.

Also, the harder you work the more your body temperature rises, so you get closer to risking heat exhaustion. If you have a hard training day planned, either try to swim instead or just lower the intensity. Training in the heat, even at low intensities, helps the body adapt to hot weather, so the more you train in the heat to better you'll be when you race. So don't worry, you're still getting a benefit, even though you're not going fast.

4. Ice.

If it's really hot, lay a bandanna out flat. Fill it with ice, roll it up, and tie it around your neck. It'll melt, trickle down, and keep you cool. It's a very effective method for very high temperatures.

Also, let's say you're doing that loop I mentioned earlier 5 times. You can put 4 cups of ice water on your porch beforehand, and each loop douse yourself with the water to keep cool. It'll take virtually no time, and it'll help you avoid any of the heat disorders.

5. If You Didn't Listen

Ok, so let's say you didn't follow any of these steps, you were out in the heat for a long time, and you manage to get home. You know that you don't require hospitalization (again, better safe than sorry-- if you think you need it, call 911) but you have heat exhaustion.

Get 3 bags of ice, frozen peas, or very cold washcloths and place 1 bag in each armpit and 1 bag in the general crotch area. These sites are where the body responds best to cooling, so that's where you need to get the ice. You can also put some on the forehead, neck, and abdomen, if you so desire.

Do not jump in an ice-cold shower right away. Going between very hot and very cold that quickly puts a lot of stress on the body, and you could go into shock. Instead, get into a lukewarm shower and then gradually decrease the temperature.

Stay safe!

Product Review: Muscle Gauge's Whey Protein Isolate (Cinnamon Bun)

2010-05-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since the last post- I've been studying for finals. My brain's a lil' burnt out and I have writer's block, so I'm just going to do a product review of MGN's delicious whey.

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I went on to this website to buy myself some protein, which is the cheapest place I could find on the internet. Their site is a little difficult to navigate, but I eventually found what I was looking for: the whey protein section. I selected "Isolate," which is the most pure form of whey protein available (in order of purity: concentrate, blend, isolate).

I picked Muscle Gauge Nutrition's brand, since it had been recommended to me by a friend, and a huge list of flavors and sizes popped up. I was hoping for the Cake Batter flavor, since I had been told that it was the best, but they were all out for every size that I could afford. I settled for my second choice, Cinnamon Bun. I paid around $35 for a 5lb container, which is an AWESOME price, and just one of the many reasons I recommend the MGN products. I paid with my credit card and closed out of the site.

The next day I received an email pretty early in the morning telling me that my product had shipped; I was actually pretty surprised that they moved that fast. I figured that it would be here in about 2 weeks, since a long history of compulsive internet shopping has taught me to be pessimistic.

2 days later, though, I was shocked to find the box in my mailbox. I grabbed it and ran back to my dorm. (I've heard that some people get the protein from MGN the next day). I cut the box open, pulled out the (massive) jug, and broke the seal. The first thing I noticed was the delicious smell of cinnamon. It sort of wafted up at me, and I got all excited, so I got a glass of water and mixed up a protein shake.

It tasted ok. It wasn't great, but it's important to remember that I hate the taste of protein powder, so mixing it with only water and not hating it is a pretty big deal. Since I realized that it might actually taste really good, I ran to the cafeteria and grabbed some milk, and I made a protein shake with skim milk and the protein.

It was delicious. It seriously tasted like a cinnamon milkshake, and I enjoyed drinking it. MGN + Milk = heaven.

I've still got quite a ways to go before I finish the container, but I want to try the Cake Batter flavor next. I'm not planning to switch brands any time soon.

Price: 5 stars. It was VERY cheap relative to competing brands of protein.
Quality: 4 and a half stars. No weird consistency or anything like that. Decent amounts of protein.
Taste: 4 and a half stars. I took off half a star because MGN + water isn't great.
Overall: 5 stars. This stuff is fantastic for the price and tastes pretty good. Get some.

Hopefully there won't be a week in between this post and the next.

Why Strength Train?

2010-05-04T12:02:00.000-07:00

"What I think a strength program should do is get the players so strong from working like demons in the weight room that the practice sessions and games are easy by comparison."

-Bill Starr

Americans love easy-- and quick. We invented the drive-through so that we didn't even have to get out of the car before stuffing ourselves with a burger that took less than a minute to unwrap, heat, and assemble. We drive faster, prepare (or buy) and eat food faster, work faster, live faster.

And slowly our culture became so obsessed with efficiency that the desire to make things easier and quicker crept into the weight room with the advent of Circuit Training: just 2 sets to failure on each shiny new machine and we were in and out in 30 minutes, including the shower.

And we loved it. Why wouldn't we? Such an quick, easy system- we could fit working out into our busy lives, and the nasty, hard weight training was no longer nasty nor hard.

And with this new system, we became weak. The circuit training on the machines failed to make us strong- because it was easy. Strength training is not easy- it is brutal. It is hard; it hurts. But through this pain we reach new heights of personal development, in body, spirit, and mind.

As an endurance athlete, I have become very familiar with the line of thought that says weightlifting is "worse than useless" for athletes like myself. The vast majority of my peers do not lift weights or do any other sort of strength training, for fear of "wasting time" that could be used to swim, bike, or run.

What these athletes (and many other people) are missing is that strength training does not have to be the means to an end. It does not have to be "to improve my sport" (though it will), but it must be done.

Strength training builds the body. Without a strong body, what are we, really? No matter how much we try to deny it, the human being is an animal, first and foremost. We need physical fitness to be truly healthy and happy.

Strength training builds the spirit. It takes a strong spirit to train when we are tired, sick, or don't feel like it. This spirit translates to every other aspect of life. The trainee who has disciplined himself or herself to work hard, regardless of anything else, is the trainee who will succeed in every other aspect of life.

And strength training builds the mind. The trainee who knows that he is strong through the work of his own hands is the trainee that is confident. He is a leader. He knows that he can work hard when called for, and this confidence will be easily visible to others.

Strength training is not easy- but if it was, there would be no point in doing it anyway.

A List for Program Programming, Case Study 1

2010-04-28T15:31:00.000-07:00

[Today's post is a mock program for a hypothetical athlete named "Kyle"]

Initial Assessment
"Kyle" is a 19 year old collegiate cross country and track athlete whose season just ended, so he has a period of time before heavy run training starts up again, and he wants to make the most of it.

"Kyle"is 6 feet, 0 inches tall and weighs 157 lbs, with an estimated body fat at around 7%. His resting heart rate is 55 bpm. He identifies as a beginning/intermediate lifter, with experience lifting weights. He has no problems with the weight room. He has some experience with plyometric drills.

He has some flexibility issues, especially tight hamstrings, which is common in runners.

Goals Analysis
Kyle wants to gain strength and definition in his upper body, and gain muscular endurance and strength in his lower body to help his sport performance. He wants to stay light and avoid becoming "bulky".

Needs Analysis
"Kyle" is running intermediate distance, varying from the 3200m (in track) to the 10k (in cross country). He generally runs shorter races in the Spring during track season than he does in the Fall during the cross country season.

Movement Analysis: Hip extension/flexion, Knee extension/flexion, Core (power transfer), Shoulder rotation.

Physiological/Sport Analysis: "Kyle" needs to improve his muscular endurance in both his upper and lower body. He also would be benefitted by building strength, especially for hilly cross country courses, and power, for kicks and accelerations.

Injury Considerations: Pelvic/Hip fracture on the left side ~6 months ago, cleared to exercise. Injury fully healed. Some susceptibility to tibial microfractures (shin splints).

Program Selection
"Kyle" will be assigned an upper/lower split. This will allow him to do Upper day whenever he has a hard running workout, and Lower day when he has more time for recovery. (Some would counsel to put Lower day concurrently with a hard running workout, and not risk compromising easy days with weightlifting sessions, but in my view it is far more important to insure that each session is of good quality. Supersetting Lower day with a hard running day would inevitably compromise the integrity of one or both workouts. )

For the pre-season period, "Kyle" will do a weight training session 4 times per week, since the main focus of the preseason is to build strength and muscular endurance that will be maintained for the remainder of the season.

Exercise Selection
Hip Flexion/Extension: Deadlift, Good Morning
Knee Flexion/Extension: Squat, Step-up, Lunge
Shoulder Rotation: Y-Lifts, Bench Press, Rows, Pullups, Dips
Core: Planks, Stability Exercises
Explosive: Power Clean, Push Press

Set/Repetition/Rest Selection
Because "Kyle" is working towards muscular endurance as a primary focus, he will be doing sets of 12-15 repetitions, which is in the proper range for building muscular endurance. He will preform 2 to 3 sets per exercise. The rest period for these sets will be 30 to 60 seconds.

In certain cases, "Kyle" will be doing exercises designed to build maximal strength, to build hill climbing power. For these exercises, he will do 3 to 5 sets of 5 to 3 repetitions. This repetition scheme is in the proper range for building strength. Furthermore, because "Kyle" wants to avoid building muscle, this repetition scheme is out of the optimal range for hypertrophy. The rest period for these sets will be 60 to 120 seconds.

In other cases, "Kyle" will be doing exercises to improve his power, to aid him in accelerating and kicking to the finish. For these exercises, he will do 3 to 5 sets of 3 repetitions. This lower repetition scheme is because it is nearly impossible to maintain proper form in explosive exercises with too many repetitions. The rest period for these sets will be 120 to 240 seconds, to facilitate the phosphagenic system's recovery.

Progression Determinant
"Kyle" will determine his progression with the "2 for 2" rule.

For 12-15 repetition sets, he will start with a weight that allows him to complete 12 repetitions for every set. He will keep using this weight until he can complete 15 repetitions for each set, after which he will increase the weight again.

For 3 or 5 repetition sets, he will start with a weight that allows him to complete every repetition, and in the final set will complete as many repetitions as possible. Once he can perform 2 repetitions beyond the assignment (e.g. complete 7 out of 5) for 2 training sessions in a row, he will increase the weight.

Load Determinant
"Kyle" will perform a 5-Repetition-Maximum (5RM) test and then use his projected 1RM to calculate subsequent loads. He will do this rather than perform an actual 1RM test because the potential for injury and extreme fatigue resulting from a true 1RM test are not worth the accuracy. Furthermore, because "Kyle" is a beginning/intermediate lifter, a true 1RM is not necessary.

Strength Training Program Design

[%C1RM = % of Calculated 1 Repetition Maximum]

Kyle will lift 4 times per week, until the season begins again, at which point he will either lift 3 times per week or change programs to a full-body routine and lift 2 times per week to maintain strength. During the competition period of the season, he will lift 1 time per week, and during his peak he will not lift.

I have avoided assigning specific days to do each day of the program, since "Kyle" will have to arrange the program around his running schedule. With an Upper/Lower split, it is possible to lift back-to-back days, so "Kyle" will be able to easily adjust his program to avoid high-intensity running workouts.

Day A: Horizontal Push/Pull (Upper)
Power Clean 2x3-5 @ 80%C1RM
Bench Press 3x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Bent-Over Row 3x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Y-L-J Lifts 2x12-15 (starting with 5lbs)
Optional: Biceps Curls 2x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Optional: Core-- Plank, Stability work

Day B: Knee-Dominant (Lower)
Squat 2x5 @ 85%C1RM
Squat 2x15 @ 70%C1RM
Static Lunge 2x15 @ 70%C1RM
Seated/Standing Calf Raise 2x15 @ 70%C1RM (Alternate seated/standing each week)

Day C: Vertical Push/Pull (Upper)
Overhead Press 2x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Pull ups 2x12-15 (Add weight for progression once necessary)
Dips 2x12-15 (Add weight for progression once necessary)
Shrug 2x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Optional: Skullcrushers, 2x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Core: Plank, Stability work

Day D: Hip-Dominant (Lower)
Deadlift 2x5 @85%C1RM
Deadlift 2x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Step-Up 2x12-15 @ 70%C1RM
Good Morning 2x12-15 @ 70%C1RM

Plyometric Program Design
"Kyle" will benefit greatly with a plyometrics program. He will perform this program once or twice per week, but not more, as plyometrics are very stressful on the body. Because of the high-stress nature of plyometrics, it will also be important for "Kyle" to warm up suitably, and furthermore, he should perform plyometrics barefoot on a soft surface, with a football or soccer field being ideal. He will do the plyometrics barefoot to strengthen the often-underdeveloped foot and ankle musculature and to improve his coordination and tactile feedback. He should try to avoid doing plyometrics on strength training days.

It is extremely important to immediately repeat each exercise. The purpose of plyometrics is to dynamically train the body, and this is not possible if rest is taken.

The range of numbers given is to prevent undue fatigue; "Kyle" will attempt to perform every repetition, but if his form begins to fail, or he experiences undue fatigue, he will stop. If he is experiencing any pain, especially pain in the shins or hips, he will not do plyometrics.

10-20 Tuck Jumps (Explosively jump upwards, grasp the knees with both hands, land)
10-20 Single Leg Zigzag Hops (Explode off of one leg, land on both, and zigzag back and forth as you hop forward, alternating which leg you hop with)
10-20 Power Skips
10-20 Bounds
10-20 Cycled Split Squat Jumps (Begin in a narrow lunge position, explode upwards, land with alternate leg forward)

Flexibility Program Design
"Kyle" will do a basic flexibility program after his plyometric routines, static stretching each major muscle group. He will static stretch each group 2 times for about 20 seconds each time. However, because of his tight hamstrings, he should stretch his hamstrings in this fashion nearly every night.

[So that's that! I would usually also design a cardiovascular program, but "Kyle" would already have one.]

A Basic Explanation of Lactic Acid, Blood Lactate, and Lactate Testing

2010-04-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

(For the best understanding of this article, you should understand the concepts presented in this one and that one.)

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"I ran. I ran until my muscles burned and my veins pumped battery acid. Then I ran some more."
-Fight Club

In this article, I'll talk about what lactic acid does, what it doesn't do, and why we should care.

Lactic Acid = Soreness?

For a long time, the buildup of lactic acid was thought to cause Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, or DOMS. Studies, however, have shown that the amount of lactic acid in the blood has no correlation with the amount of DOMS experienced.

Furthermore, once exercise slows or ceases and the body returns to an aerobic state, the body quickly metabolizes all of the lactic acid, and the buildup is gone within less than an hour.

Most people still think of lactic acid as an undesirable toxin, mostly because this belief that lactic acid caused muscle soreness. While lactic acid buildup IS a result of exercise, it is far from undesirable. Remember, it is during anaerobic metabolism that lactate is produced, and the lactic acid is a substance that the body converts into energy, restoring ATP.

Lactic Acid = Muscle Failure?
While lactic acid might not cause DOMS, it does contribute to muscle failure, and is most likely the prime factor in the burning sensation referenced in the quote above.

Although the mechanisms of muscle failure are multiple and not well understood, lactic acid's contribution is most likely an alteration of the pH of the muscle. pH, or Percent Hydrogen, is a scale used to measure the relative acidity or alkalinity of a substance. The pH scale ranges from 0 (maximally acidic) to 14 (maximally basic). Muscles, with some variance, normally have a pH of around 7, which is neutral. When lactic acid begins to build up, the muscle becomes more and more acidic until it eventually fails. Muscles tested at the point of failure have had pH's as low as 6.2, which is a significant difference from the baseline.

The acidic state causes failure because the body is extremely sensitive to changes in pH. Enzymes, or substances that exist to facilitate certain chemical reactions, are particularly easily disrupted. When these enzymes are disrupted, certain muscular functions grind to a halt, and the muscle eventually fails.

As lactic acid is "cleared" (metabolized and removed) by the body, the muscle returns to normal functioning without suffering any harm. It has been theorized that the body produces lactic acid as a "natural defense mechanism for the body; [lactic acid] prevents permanent damage during extreme exertion by slowing the key systems needed to maintain muscle contraction" (Scientific American). As always, nobody really knows.

Lactate Testing
I've talked about how lactic acid accumulates in the blood, so let's talk about measuring that accumulation.

Lactate (the salt that is produced from lactic acid) testing is a method of determining relative fitness. Not because lactate is bad, as was previously believed, but because lactate buildup is a useful indicator of the point at which the body has reached its tolerance of anaerobic metabolism (remember, it is during anaerobic metabolism that lactate is produced).

There are two markers for lactate testing. The first, and more commonly talked about, is the point at which lactate production notably increases, or the "lactate threshold." This point is discovered by having the athlete run or bike on a calibrated treadmill or ergometer while their finger is pricked and blood drawn every few minutes. This blood is tested for lactate concentration and correlated with the speed or power that the athlete is producing. With this method, the athlete can determine with relative accuracy at what speed or power lactate production increases.

The second point is determining at which speed or power the body is unable to clear lactate at the same rate that it is produced. This is known as the "onset of blood lactate accumulation," or OBLA. This is the point after which fatigue is imminent.

These two points are also known as Lactate Threshold 1 and 2, respectively, or LT1 and LT2. For the best measure of fitness, both points are plotted on a graph, like this: [graph taken from here]

To recap the article with references to the graph: In the green zone, lactic acid production is very low, and the body can easily deal with it. Efforts can continue for multiple hours, given no other limiting factor. Note the yellow section in between LT1 and LT2. In this section, the body is clearing lactate at the same rate as it is being produced, but lactate production is significant. Efforts in this zone can continue for 1 to 2 hours. In the red zone, lactate has begun to accumulate in the blood, and efforts cannot last longer than an hour, and usually last significantly less.

A Basic Explanation of the Body's Energy Pathways During Exercise

2010-04-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

(For the best understanding of this article, you should review the concepts presented in this one)

During exercise, the body gets energy through several pathways in varying amounts. There's not really ever any point during exercise in which the body is using only one pathway; rather, the body gets a different proportion of its energy from certain pathways. This is a short summary of each pathway.

The Phosphagenic Pathway
This is the energy pathway that's used during very brief, very intense periods of exercise (think a few seconds). It's stressed during 1 repetition maxes and any sort of intense burst of power.

The phosphagenic pathway derives its energy from molecules of creatine phosphate. (Hopefully you remember phosphate as one of the key components of ATP, or Adenosine Triphosphate). When ATP is stripped of one of its phosphate molecules to provide energy, it becomes ADP, or Adenosine Diphosphate. During very brief, very intense exercise, the creatine phosphate molecules donate their phosphates to the ADP without going through any of the metabolic energy systems, allowing for nearly instantaneous ATP regeneration without need of oxygen.

While the phosphagenic pathway provides more energy very quickly, it's limited to brief periods because the body does not store much creatine phosphate (CP). After CP is depleted, the body regenerates it oxidatively (with oxygen) in two phases. The first phase is quite rapid, with around half of the CP being regenerated in the first 20 seconds, and the rest regenerated over the following several minutes.

While CP is regenerating, the body needs to resort to the other two energy pathways, the first of which is the Anaerobic pathway.

The Anaerobic Pathway
For a more complete description of the actual mechanisms, check out the article linked at the top. This article will be more concerned with the Anaerobic pathway during exercise.

The Anaerobic pathway operates without oxygen, so it's the pathway that the body falls back on when it is oxygen-starved, or when the ability of the alveoli in the lungs to fill the bloodstream with oxygen is outstripped by the Aerobic pathway's need for oxygen. Keep in mind that at this point the body does not simply "switch over" to the Anaerobic pathway, it simply begins to use the Anaerobic pathway to deal with any ATP demand that the Aerobic pathway does not have oxygen for.

It's also the pathway that the body uses for longer efforts than the Phosphagenic system can tolerate. These two endpoints give the Anaerobic pathway a range of about 30 seconds to several minutes of effective use.

The Anaerobic pathway cannot be relied upon for more than a few minutes because of several factors. First, it absolutely tears through glycogen, the molecule that goes through glycolysis. With extended Anaerobic efforts, glycogen stores in the muscle can be quickly depleted. There are additional stores in the blood and the liver, but those take time to get to the muscles, so recovery is needed.

Second, extended Anaerobic efforts produce large amounts of hydrogen ions, which adversely affect the acid-base balance in the muscle- muscle pH can drop down as low as 6.2, where slightly above 7 is the normal resting level. When the anaerobic effort is ceased, these hydrogen ions are quickly cleared from the muscles and disposed of, but during the anaerobic effort, the accumulation quickly causes muscle failure (something that will be discussed in more detail in a later article).

The Aerobic Pathway
The Aerobic Pathway, or "with oxygen," is what the body uses for pretty much everything else. It's the pathway that the body uses at rest, and the pathway during light to moderate exercise. With training, the body is able to use the Aerobic pathway at higher intensities than it would be able to otherwise. This is from several adaptations: More mitochondria in the muscle cells, more capillaries taking oxygen to the muscle cells, and small chemical and physiological adaptations that allow each muscle cell to become more efficient.

Later, I'll describe the different ways to train each pathway. For now, though, this is another post in the "Basic Explanation" series.

"Saturated Fat Is Evil" and Other Dietary Myths

2010-04-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

One of the worst things about the field of nutrition is that it changes so frequently, and the changes are often the complete opposite of the advice given before.

One of the other problems with the field of nutrition is that it is extremely subject to bias by interest groups promoting certain products- the dairy industry, the corn industry, etc. These interest groups have a very large amount of control over government policy decisions, which is not at all good for us. Perhaps I'm being uncharitable, but the governmental policy to date has certainly not been ideal, in a word.

The first ill-advised dietary policy began in 1953, when one Dr. Keys compared rates of heart disease with fat consumption in the US, Canada, Australia, England, Italy, and Japan. He noted that Americans, which ate the most fat, also had the highest rate of heart disease. Since he had clearly never taken a statistics class, he immediately proclaimed that this correlation was a "remarkable relationship." Besides for the immediate flaw in his reasoning (correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation), he committed a massive fallacy: there were actually 22 countries in the original study. And when all 22 were analyzed, his "remarkable relationship" completely disappeared. [1]

The dissenting voices, however, were not loud enough to stop the wave of similarly flawed studies that "proved" the inverse correlation between dietary fat intake and heart health- a correlation that became known as the "diet-heart hypothesis." The American Heart Association quickly took up the cry, and in 1961 Keys appeared on the cover of Times Magazine for his "brilliant" discovery.

Fast forward to 1970. The brilliant Keys publishes another study, known as the "7-countries study," (the United States, Japan, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Finland, and the Netherlands) that correlates (though again, does not even hint at causation) animal fat intake -especially saturated fat- with heart disease. And again, the study was massively flawed. In this study, Finland, Greece, and Yugoslavia all did not support the hypothesis- or 43% of the subjects. Nearly half of the countries in the study did NOT support the hypothesis, but again it was hailed as a landmark study and touted heavily by the AHA.

In 1977, based on Keys' reports, the US Government established an official policy that touted reducing fat intake (especially saturated fat intake) to promote overall heart health. And the government "intervention" actually increased the rate of obesity, and increased the rate of heart disease.

The first blow to the health of Americans caused by this policy was when manufacturers immediately began to remove fats from products, and a massive line of "low-fat" products was created within about 6 months of the new policy. So that the food would still taste good, the fats were replaced with sugar. A lot of sugar.

Second, and more importantly, Americans began to replace fat with carbohydrate- they had to eat something, right? These extra carbohydrates were predominately highly refined, and because fat increases satiety (the feeling of fullness), they ate more than they otherwise would have, because they were hungry.

Furthermore, this influx of carbohydrates had multiple deleterious effects.

To better understand these effects and just how bad they were, let's take the common belief (and government recommendation) that to lose weight, you should eat less fat. After all, that's what all the low-fat products are for, right? And doesn't fat make you fat?

Some researchers thought the same way (this study was conducted in March of this year, so it's absolutely cutting-edge). So they took 2 groups of overweight men and fed them both moderate-fat diets. They then switched one group to an isocaloric (same amount of calories) low-fat and high-carbohydrate diet-- and the results were staggering. The men on the high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet experienced the following effects: lower HDL (good cholesterol), higher triglycerides (fat components, higher triglycerides = higher risk of stroke), and a decreased ratio of ok-LDL to very-bad-LDL. [2]

Now, because this study hasn't been published in full yet, there may be flaws that I can't currently see (I only have access to the abstract). If that's the case, I'll write another article expressing those flaws and what it means- but for now, these results are consistent with what's been seen in other studies.

So now hopefully it's clear that dietary fat is not the devil. It is good for you for a lot of reasons, including the following:

Improved heart health (yes, improved)
More satiety = fewer total calories consumed
It makes food taste better
Better hormone production

Etc.

But saturated fat is still bad, right? It clogs arteries!

Actually... not really. Almost every study linking saturated fat to poorer heart health has had major flaws (Similar to Keys'). Furthermore, a recent meta-analysis (grouping multiple related studies together and observing the results as a whole) of 21 studies shows no correlation between saturated fat intake and heart disease. [3] None. At all.

So to summarize, the "fats are bad" craze began with a very, very poorly done study and a stupid government policy; the saturated-fat-is-evil began with a similarly poor study done by the same guy, and proper research has completely debunked the saturated fat hypothesis and actually demonstrated that dietary fat is good for you.

Now, one last thing- it's important to note that while saturated fat is not bad for you, it's also probably not the best option. Mono- and polyunsaturated fats have a better beneficial effect than saturated fat does. This doesn't mean to get rid of all fats other than the mono- and poly- fats, because that's a terrible idea too, but it does mean not to go crazy with the saturated fats, because there are other fats that you need to be eating as well.

Moderation in all things. The more I learn, the more convinced I am that this is probably the best diet advice possible.

[1]Teicholz, Nina. "What if bad fat isn't so bad?." Men's Health 13 Dec 2007: Print.

[2]Exchanging Carbohydrate or Protein for Fat Improves Lipid-Related Cardiovascular Risk Profile in Overweight Men and Women When Consumed Ad Libitum. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20305576

[3]Saturated Fat Not Linked to Heart Disease, http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/news-458538-98.html

Stay the F'ing Course

2010-04-11T16:44:00.000-07:00

Seriously people, stop trying to find shortcuts, because with the exception of a cocktail of drugs, there aren't any .

I was talking to a few of my weightlifting acquaintances, and one of them was talking about his friend who has decided to lose weight-- which is awesome. But this friend had been convinced by another friend that going vegan is the best way to lose weight.

In my opinion, massive lifestyle changes like veganism are a horrible idea when you're trying to lose weight. They're too restrictive and too complicated, and studies have shown over and over that the more restrictive and more complicated a diet, the worse the chances of success are. It's as simple as calories in vs. calories out. You can lose weight eating McDonalds for every meal.

Unfortunately, the switch to veganism isn't the worst part of this guy's ill-advised plan.

This guy has been convinced that to kick off his drastically different new lifestyle (which will almost certainly fail before two weeks have gone by, statistically) he needs to do an "organic coffee enema."
Now, when I first heard that, I assumed that it meant to do nothing but drink coffee all day, spend the afternoon on the toilet, and presumably not sleep for a few days.

I was a little horrified (before I started laughing hysterically) when I discovered that the guy intended to do an actual enema- e.g. funnel coffee into his ass. (Here's the link. I am not making this shit up.)

Good God. If you read the whole article, you notice two main things, assuming you can stop laughing. First, they tell you not to add creamer or sugar to the coffee. I've never tried it, but I think it's safe to assume that one cannot taste things with one's buttocks. Of course, it's important to keep in mind that this article was written for people who have the intent of filling their rectum with [always organic] coffee, so maybe it's not quite as obvious as I thought.

Second, they say that "...[t]herefore, the use of coffee enemas or coffee colonics more than once a week should not be necessary." So you're supposed to do this fairly frequently. Ugh.

This would be a lot funnier if I didn't see similar things so often. Granted, it's not usually people pouring coffee into their asses, but people do all kinds of crazy things to try and lose weight without actually doing the work.

We're a nation that hates delayed gratification. Fast cars, fast food, fast lifestyles. We aren't even patient enough to keep watching the same channel when commercials come on- and all of this is reflected when we try to improve ourselves.

We see shows like "The Biggest Loser" (which I hate for so many reasons that it merits a post of its own), in which the contestants lose pounds and pounds each week (mostly water and muscle, by the way), and we want those results. But they aren't attainable while staying healthy, so we go back to the donuts and ice cream.

And we see steroid-inflated, photoshopped, dehydrated male models on the cover of magazines and try to look like them. And when we can't get that muscular in a month or so, we give up.

When we don't see results as quick as we wanted to, we stop trying, usually with one of the following excuses:
1) I don't have time
2) I have a slow metabolism
3) I'm just meant to be fat
4) I'm a "hardgainer"
5) It's too hard

The most recent studies have shown that 95% of people who try to lose weight gain it back, and they frequently gain back more than they lost in the first place. 95%.

I've been thinking, and I've realized the reason why all these people gain the weight back. I know the cause. It's because they don't have one vital thing that they need to lose the weight. It's being kept from them by a diverse group, and these people don't even realize that they're missing it.

Well, I'm going to give you that something that magazines, TV shows, ab-working contraptions, diet pills, and most personal trainers won't give you: the truth.

And the truth is that changing is really really damned hard for one single reason: It takes months and years, not weeks and days. It takes consistency. You do not wake up one day ripped and awesome. And yes, it can take hard work, too. The hard work to get in the gym and lift weights. The very different but equally difficult work it takes to be different, to defy the herd, to count calories and eat your broccoli.

But most of all it takes patience. Take it slow.

Now, I'm not trying to say that it's impossible to lose weight. It's really not. Honestly, when done correctly it's actually pretty easy. I'm going to do a few posts about the best way to lose weight soon (if I haven't already, I forget). There is an insane amount of resources out there to help you. If you can't find them, post in the comments and I can link you to some.

But now you're armed with the secret weapon. You know that it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is how you're going to live the rest of your life, so don't be in a hurry to get there.

Be the 5%.

A Basic Explanation of the Body's Metabolic Pathways

2010-04-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

So this post actually sprung from the upcoming post about fatigue. I was talking about lactic acid, and I started to get way too in-depth about metabolic processes for the original topic, so I cut that part out and turned it into a post of it's own (this one). And I can tell already that this is going to be very, very long and quite complicated.

Furthermore, I'd like to talk about the energy pathways of the body during exercise, because that'll be important knowledge to have when I talk about high intensity vs. low intensity exercise... and so on.

But before we can understand the energy pathways of the body, and what implications that has for training, we need to understand basic metabolism.

And with that-
Metabolism

Metabolism is defined by The Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning as the sum total of all catabolic (big molecules -> small molecules) and anabolic (small molecules -> big molecules) reactions in the body, but you're much more likely to hear the word used in an ad for some stupid product like Hydroxycut. The common usage of the word is referring to the sum total of calories burned over the day, and so to increase the metabolism is burn more calories and lose weight (in theory).

So what is this mystical metabolism? We have two definitions now, neither of which is very clear, so I'll add another definition for the purpose of this article: Metabolism is the way the body turns food into usable energy. Metabolism begins with the breakdown of food into usable molecules (where the Thermic Effect of Food comes from), and then these molecules are turned into energy.

And they become energy through metabolic pathways. And the first metabolic pathway is...

Glycolysis
Glycolysis is the most simple metabolic process, and it's also probably the only metabolic process that's shared amongst all living creatures, even bacteria. Those of you who paid attention in biology may recall that the human body uses glycolysis for two main functions: to produce a small amount of energy and to create the compounds that are used in the more advanced metabolic systems. So in humans, glycolysis is really a precursor process- it's most useful in preparing the materials for other processes.

Glycolysis begins with a molecule of glucose, the simplest of all sugars (and one of the molecules the body turns food into). This molecule of glucose is, though a 10 step chemical reaction, turned into: 2 molecules of pyruvate, some things that we're not concerned with right now, and 2 molecules of Adenosine Triphosphate, or ATP (which is the definitive end product that the body uses for energy).

So as you can see, glycolysis yields some energy (the 2 ATPs) but not much, and 2 molecules of pyruvate. Enter the other metabolic processes.

Aerobic Metabolism- "Oxidative"
Aerobic metabolism (also called "cellular respiration") is one of the two processes that continue from glycolysis. Aerobic metabolism is linked to glycolysis through the "oxidative decarboxylation of the pyruvate molecules," which is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that the pyruvate molecules are turned into two things: new molecules called Acetyl CoA and carbon dioxide.

These new Acetyl CoA's go through a chain of chemical reactions called the Citric Acid Cycle, at the end of which 28 to 30 new ATPs are synthesized, oxygen is consumed, and carbon dioxide is produced.

If you were ever wondering why humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, this is why. Oxygen is used up during the CAC and carbon dioxide produced.

The most important thing to take from this is that Aerobic metabolism 1) Is the most effective means of energy production for the body and 2) Requires oxygen.

So what happens when we don't have enough oxygen available? We don't just keel over and stiffen up obviously, so what gives?
Well...

Anaerobic Metabolism
Anaerobic metabolism (also known as "lactic acid fermentation") is the process that the body uses when it doesn't have sufficient oxygen to go through aerobic metabolism. Remember, anaerobic metabolism produces 19 times less energy than aerobic metabolism, so it's not favored by the body.

There are several different types of anaerobic metabolism, since the term only means "metabolism without oxygen." However, I'm only really concerned with lactic acid fermentation, which is the type of anaerobic metabolism that occurs in the muscle cells of the human body. In lactic acid fermentation, the pyruvate from glycolysis is reduced into lactic acid, and only a few ATPs are formed.
(Interesting side note- anaerobic metabolism is necessary for glycolysis to continue because it frees up the compound NAD+ which is required in glycolysis)

ATP
In all of these pathways, the end product is ATP, or the molecule that provides all energy for the body. ATP, or Adenosine Triphosphate, provides energy by losing one of its phosphate molecules. The energy released by this breaking of the chemical bonds is the energy that ATP provides. As the bond is broken and the phosphate molecule lost, the ATP becomes ADP, or Adenosine Diphosphate.

Through each of the 3 metabolic processes I've overviewed, these ADP molecules are bonded with a phosphate molecule, energy is stored, and the ADP becomes ATP once again.

So the body has 3 basic metabolic pathways- glycolysis, aerobic metabolism (cellular respiration) and anaerobic metabolism (lactic acid fermentation). All energy is produced from these metabolic pathways, but not all food goes into them equally.

Check back soon for some info about fatigue, energy pathways, and the metabolic responses to different types of macronutrient!

Spring Break!

2010-04-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

For spring break, rather than going and getting drunk in Mexico, I went with the UW Cycling club to North Carolina. We were on the border with Tennessee, right next to the Smoky Mountain National Park. We stayed in a group of 3 cabins at the Nantahala Outdoor Center, or NOC. The cabins were situated right on the bank of a river, and the NOC was in this gorge thing, so we had to climb to get anywhere.

The drive down took about 14 hours. We left at 3 p.m. on Friday, so we drove through most of the night, stopping at several Waffle Houses (they're not that good, don't go there) and got in at like 6 in the morning, then went to sleep until 11. At 11 we got up, ate sandwiches (which would quickly become a theme of the trip), and went for a ride on the road "Winding Stairs," which was about 30 miles. At this point, I was all "Oh shit, I have a 23 on the back." For you non-cyclists, that means that my gearing was really f-ing hard.

That night we pretty much went to sleep at like 8 or something. I have no idea what happened on Sunday. I suspect it's because I was still pretty tired, but we did some 40 miler or something, and I know I went for a run.

Monday we woke up, ate hot breakfast and rode again, this time to Junaluska Road, which was my first real taste of climbing mountains. It was raining through the whole ride, and we were soaked after a few miles. We rode about 20 miles out to the road itself, and I was with a fast group, so I was pushing. There was a preliminary 1 mile climb up to the "Confederate Gas Station", which was so named for the nice selection of Confederate flags that they had for sale. I got dropped on this climb, but two of the alumni that were on the trip hung back with me, and everyone was waiting at the top at the gas station. We descended and got to Junaluska, which was a 7 mile climb.

I died. I was the last one to the top by like 2 or 3 minutes, but they were all waiting for me again, and then we descended into some rollers. My legs were pretty fried, but I got the chance to rest when one of the guys got a flat and we waited for him. The rest of the ride wasn't that interesting. It ended up at about
50-60 miles.

Tuesday was an easy day, and I did like 40 miles again, but it was pouring the whole time, and it was freezing. Some of the people in the group I was with turned around short of the halfway mark, myself included. It was supposed to be a 50 miler, but it was just too cold. That night at dinner, James came back, who had gone for a solo ride by himself hours earlier. He had gotten lost, stuck at the top of a mountain, and flatted, which turned his 3 hour ride into 5 and a half hours, all in the pouring rain by himself. He looked like death, and he had frostnip on his fingers.

Wednesday was the first big climb, Cherohala. I was able to borrow a wheel with easier gears, so I wasn't reduced to tears at any point. Everybody in the group does this ride, so we made sandwiches (the record number of sandwiches is 13) and rolled out at 9 a.m. It's about 35 miles to get to Cherohala, which we did, and Cherohala itself is a 10 mile climb up the face of a mountain. The 10 miles took over an hour for the fastest of us, which should tell you how long it took for the slow people. At the top was a supply dump of sandwiches and water, and we hung out there until everyone was up, then descended as a group. Some people got in cars and drove back, but I went with the group that rode back, which left us at a 92 mile day.

Aside: I'm in quite a funny situation right now. For those who don't know, I'm a part of two training communities- the weightlifting community and the triathlete community. The differences in expectations are quite funny. On the Spring Break trip, I was one of the heaviest riders, and most people were very surprised to hear how much I weighed, because the lighter you are, the better. To other lifters, though, I'm comically light (170 at 5'11"), and I get told that I'm a stick. I honestly can't decide what I think- part of me wants to gain weight to be stronger and more muscled, but the other part wants to drop weight to be a better cyclist and climber. I think that my hard training may take the choice out of my hands, though.

Wednesday night, after the hard climb, we went to a Mexican restaurant called Guayabitos. It's a pretty big celebration, and everybody over 21 drank copious amounts of margaritas. It was a pretty funny night, and everybody told lots of cool stories and stuff. It was pretty awesome.

Thursday was an easy day, since we had just done this giant climb, so I did Winding Stairs again with a group of guys. Since we rode the climb easy, though, we ended up booking it back to the NOC, pace-lining at about 28 miles per hour through rolling hills, and got in a testosterone-fueled sprint. So much for easy day.

On Friday, we did the second hard climb(s), which was Blue Ridge Parkway. It's a 300 mile long rode without a single flat section on it. The first climb is 10 miles, then you descend 3 miles, then climb 8 miles, then descend like 6, then climb 6, and it goes on and on like that. I, personally, only did the first climb then descended the 3 before I turned around and rode back to the cars. It had been a hard week of climbing, and I was pretty tired.

So that was spring break! It was absolutely awesome; we had a lot of fun riding and telling stories and eating and stuff. I don't have space to talk about all that, but I figured I'd give a quick summary.

A List for Program Programming, Part 2

2010-03-23T11:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I talked in the last post about the importance of Goals, Sets/Reps, and Muscular Balance. There are a few more important principles, though. The first one is...

4. Splitting Your Routine

You can't do every exercise on every day. Not only will you be in the gym for hours, but you'll run out of energy and the lifts you do near the end will be weaker. So that's where splitting the routine comes in. There are several commonly recognized splits. I'll talk about each and the benefits and drawbacks.

The Full Body Split
The full body split is my number one recommendation to a lot of people. Both beginners and intermediate lifters should be using full body splits, and a lot more lifters are beginning or intermediate than they would like to think.

With this program, you work every muscle in the body each time you work out, and you work out two or three times a week. Working every muscle doesn't mean doing an isolation move for each muscle, but doing compound movements. For example, the bench press involves not only the pectorals, but also the deltoids and triceps. There are several ways to split up a Full Body routine. You can't emphasize every muscle each time you work out; you simply don't have the time or energy. The solution is to emphasize different things in each workout to provide good breadth across the whole week.

That leaves us with options like this:
Day A) 1 vertical push, 1 vertical pull, 1 knee-dom
Day B) 1 horizontal push, 1 horizontal pull, 1 hip-dom
Day C) 2 Limiters (whatever your personal weaknesses are), 1 explosive

And that would repeat. Remember, there are tons of ways to set this up, all focusing on different things. This is just an example. The most important thing to keep in mind is to use compound movements that will directly or indirectly work every muscle.

You can also do things like add some arm isolations (to get the sweet guns, bro) or core work (for teh abz) at the end of each day, but those things should be an add-on at the end, not an integral part of the routine. Not of a full body routine, anyway, which leads us to--

The Bodypart Split

The bodypart split is highly touted by all sorts of muscle and fitness magazines and commonly used by professional bodybuilders, but I don't like it at all. The purpose of the BP split is to provide maximum recovery for each muscle group by spacing out the rest intervals as much as possible. In a full body, every muscle will be worked directly or indirectly nearly every other day, but the body part split spaces the routine so that muscles can have upwards of 2 or 3 days to rest by working a different muscle(s) nearly every day. This is accomplished through the use of isolation exercises, or exercises that focus on working only 1 muscle and no others.

So why isn't the BP split the best choices for everyone? A few reasons. First is that the high volume of lifting on a BP split (usually 6 days a week) is extremely difficult to recover from. It's not just muscles that have to recover from lifting, remember- there are tendons involved as well, and even the Central Nervous System actually needs to recover, which is not well understood (at least by me). Lifting weights 6 days a week has a lot of adverse effects, and it's important to remember that bodybuilders are almost always under the influence of "Vitamin S," and they can recover better than unaltered humans.

Second, I don't like the concept of working with so much isolation. The body is a unit (holistic), and training muscles in ways that are never replicated in real life is stupid to me. In my opinion "functional" training is often overpromoted, but I still don't like isolation moves. My reason? Athletes who train using BP splits are more likely to be injured once they're on the field than athletes who train using full body splits. Full body takes into consideration the way the body works as a unit, and BP splits do not.

If you're set on it, though, here's an example of how a BP split would work (taken from a bodybuilding website):
Day 1: Biceps, Quads
Day 2: Chest, Calves
Day 3: Hamstrings, Back
Day 4: Shoulders, Trapezius, Triceps

Do you see how it's split up? I really don't like this one because it splits up the quadriceps and the hamstrings. That never happens in real life. The only way to work the quadriceps and hamstrings separately is with machines designed for that purpose. It's stupid to split them up. There are BP splits that account for that and just have a "legs" day, which are better, but I still don't like all the isolation.

The BP split is only for very advanced lifters who are looking to compete as a bodybuilder. What about advanced lifters who don't want to bodybuild?

The Push/Pull Split

As I hinted in the last sentence, the push-pull split is for advanced lifters who are still looking for functional strength. These advanced lifters need a P/P split because they've become so strong that a full body program is too exhausting for the CNS and anaerobic energy systems. A push/pull is set up as follows:

Day A) 1 or 2 horizontal push, 1 or 2 vertical push
Day B) 1 or 2 horizontal pull, 1 or 2 vertical pull
Day C) 1 or 2 knee-dom, 1 or 2 hip-dom

This allows for better recovery, muscular balance, and strength development. An intermediate lifter can absolutely use a P/P split, it'll serve them just as well as a full body split would. Beginners are advised against it for the simple reason that once the P/P split stops working, they'll have to do something weird.

5. Progression
Progression is complicated, but absolutely necessary. It can be as easy as adding weight to every lift each time you work out or as complicated as a variable dual-factor undulating periodization scheme (which I designed one time for fun). If you haven't planned for progression, the whole routine is pointless. Doing the same number of repetitions at the same weight does absolutely nothing for you. You have to stress your muscles by increasing either one or the other for them to grow.

For beginners, progression probably will be simple. I can't think of a good way to word this, so here's an example. Let's assume the program calls for 3 sets of 5 repetitions every single day you lift.

Say on Monday you bench press for 3 sets of 5 repetitions at 135 pounds. If Wednesday is your next bench pressing day, add 5 pounds total to the bar, because you can do 3x5 at 135, so you need to progress.

A) If you can still do 3x5 at 140, excellent, you're done for Wednesday and you can raise the weight again on Friday.

B) If you can only do 2x5 and then 1x3 (you failed on the last 2 reps) at 140, on Friday you'll keep the weight at 140 and try again for 3x5.

Whether you complete the 3x5 on Wednesday or not, you're still progressing on Friday, by either increasing the weight again or increasing the number of repetitions you can do. Hopefully that makes sense.

Progression for intermediate lifters is a bit more complicated, and progression for truly advanced lifters is nearly impossible (it can take over a year to gain 1 to 2 pounds of muscle). I like the undulating periodization model for intermediates, personally. I might write an article in greater depth about undulating periodization later, but for now, this basic summary will suffice. In undulating periodization, you alternate weeks of volume with weeks of intensity, so a sample 2 week training cycle might look like this:

Week 1
Work on volume: 4 or 5x8 for each lift in the P/P split, weight is around 10 or 12 repetition maximum (the maximum weight you can lift 10 or 12 times, respectively).
Week 2
Work on intensity: 4x2 or 5x3 for each lift in the P/P split, weight is around 3 repetition maximum.

So that's how undulating periodization works. Honestly, very few people are at the point where undulating periodization is necessary.

So that's the list of things you need to design your own program! Remember, it's an art, not a science. The next post(s) will probably be a case study or two to provide further examples. I think people learn best by seeing the reasons why.

Sorry if this post was scrambled, I'm in a bad mood and my writing is screwy.

A List for Program Programming, Part 1

2010-03-18T10:51:00.000-07:00

So you don't have enough money to afford a good personal trainer, or even a book like 5/3/1, Homegrown Muscle, or Starting Strength, but you want a good strength training routine. How will you ever get one?

Fortunately for you, this blog is totally FREE! Woohoo! So just in case you can't afford any of those things, I'm going to talk about the principles of building a solid strength training routine, so you can make one yourself.

Programming is an art, not a science, but these guidelines should help.

Ok, so first and most important, is:
1. Keep Your Goals in Mind
This is fairly obvious, but a lot of people completely forget about it. Are you trying to get a bigger squat? Then you're going to need to program for high-volume and high-intensity squatting. Working on a massive bench? Same thing. Too many people either A) Don't use a routine and just lift randomly, or B) Use a routine that doesn't really account for their goals, generally one that was handed out by a high school football coach a long time ago. Focus your routine on your goals so that you can actually achieve them.

Now, let's get into the actual details of designing a routine.

2. Pick a set and rep range
Here's the general guide to rep ranges:
Muscular Endurance: 12-20 repetitions
Muscular Strength/Hypertrophy (size): 8-12 repetitions
Muscular Strength: 1-8 repetitions.

Notice that I didn't say anything about a rep range for "toning." That's because "toning" does not exist. Muscle tone is a function of body fat only. Lower body fat percentage, more muscle tone. That's IT. Women, I notice, are most susceptible to this.  I see a lot of women doing endless reps with a tiny weight to try and get toned muscles. It doesn't work.

Aside: I know that most women are afraid of getting "bulky" muscles, but ladies, it doesn't work that way. If it were that easy, all guys would have them.

So anyway, now you have the rep range for your goals, whatever they may be. How many sets? Well, that depends. The number of sets generally depends on the amount of volume you want to do. This is where the "art not science" thing becomes more prominent.

The American College of Sports Medicine suggests that gains can be seen in most people with only 1 to 2 sets. I personally think that whatever your goals are merit more than 1 to 2 sets. So, for whichever lifts you're focusing on I recommend 3 to 5 sets, possibly more if you're doing 1 or 2 rep sets. The number of sets should generally be fairly inverse to the number of repetitions per set. You probably don't want to do 5 sets of 20 reps (notated 5x20), for example, since that would be 100 total repetitions. Similarly, you generally don't want to do 1 set of 3 repetitions, since that's only 3 total repetitions.

So you want sufficient volume to promote growth, but too much volume inhibits recovery and can lead to injury. In my experience, a range from 15 to 30 total repetitions seems to be optimal for general gains, powerlifters excepted.

Don't worry if this is a little confusing at first, I'm going to make a "Case Study" post as well, with what I would do and my explanations for why.

On to the third rule:

3. Keep Muscular Balance
This is important, and something that a lot of people and organizations (I'm looking at you, ACE) don't take into account. A well-made routine should balance push and pull in both the horizontal and vertical planes of movement. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to balance push/pull in every single workout, but if you look at the routine over a week, there should be an even number. Here's 3 examples of exercises in each category:

Horizontal Push: Pushing a load horizontally in the sagittal or transverse planes.
   Bench Press (and variations)
   Dips
   Standing Cable Press
Horizontal Pull: Pulling a load horizontally in the sagittal or transverse planes.
   Inverted Bodyweight Row
   Bent-Over Row
   Pretty Much Any Other Kind of Row.
Vertical Push: Pushing a load vertically in the sagittal or frontal planes.
   Overhead Press
   Seated Press
   Push Press
Vertical Pull: Pulling a load vertically in the sagittal or frontal planes.
   Pullup/Chinup
   Lat Pulldown
   Deadlift (sort of)

So you can see the general type of exercise for each. Remember, you want balance, or you'll start to screw up all sorts of stuff. Have you seen the "gorilla pose"? That's what happens when you do too much push and not enough pull. The pectoralis major and its counterparts become overstrong relative to the latissimus dorsi and its counterparts, and the shoulders are pulled forward. No good. You should aim for a relatively equal number of Horiz/Vert Push/Pull exercises each week. You should also aim to include Knee-Dominant and Hip-Dominant exercises each week.

Knee Dominant
   Squat (and all variations, including leg press)
   Step Up
   Lunge
Hip Dominant
   Deadlift (and variations, notice that I also consider the deadlift a vertical pull)
   Good Morning
   Any Glute-Hamstring thingy.
Explosive (Not necessary for balance, but good to include)
   Clean and Jerk/Clean and Press
   Jump Shrug
   Power Clean

So! Now you know how to balance the numbers of pushes and pulls and how to add Knee and Hip Dominant exercises. Honestly, though, this post has gone long enough, so I'll end here and save the rest for part 2.

Avoiding Trend Thinking in Fitness

2010-03-16T11:39:00.000-07:00

Life is full of trends, and naturally so. Everybody wants to be on top of the latest and greatest thing. Fashion, of course, is probably the trend that first leaps to mind. A fad lasts for about 10 years, and then dies off-- and the people who were part of it are left staring aghast at their old high school yearbook photos. (Think bell-bottom jeans or the mullet).

Later, the same trend that was denounced comes back as "retro," and somehow it becomes a marker of excellent taste to wear what was previously laughed at as hideous.

The same pattern is evident in the world of fitness, and in my opinion, it's even worse. People, especially athletes, are absolutely obsessed with getting the best results possible in the shortest amount of time-- and as they should be. And this very natural desire has led to an absolute explosion of ideas and methods created by trainers and coaches and magazine editors trying to attract business, because if you can advertise yourself as "Cutting Edge XXXX!!!!!!!!!" people will come to you. Some of these ideas are absolutely batshit crazy, like the trainer I saw who had 2 sets of 2 clients holding barbells and a fifth client doing pushups, in the air, while balancing on the barbells. I'm not planning to talk about things like that, because hopefully you can recognize something insane when you see it.

What about regular trends and ideas, though? There's nothing inherently wrong with them, of course. The problem comes with the mindset (again, propagated by trainers, coaches, and editors) that "if you're not doing it my way, you're doing it wrong and your muscles will fall off." A bit of an exaggeration, of course.. but not nearly as much hyperbole as it should be.

The example that comes to my mind right away is from the Men's Health forum: the book Starting Strength.

Starting Strength is a fantastic book that has is a few hundred pages of words and pictures that explains and illustrates the proper form for the Squat, Bench Press, Overhead Press, Deadlift, and Power Clean. It also contains a program designed for beginning lifters*. For a while, nearly every person who came to the forums with essentially any goal whatsoever was treated like this:

New Person: Hey guys, I'm trying to develop my upper body a bit better.
MH Forumites: Buy Starting Strength and do squats.
New Person: Are you sure? Because I asked about my upper b-
MH Forumites: BUY STARTING STRENGTH AND DO SQUATS.

Starting Strength is a great book and squats are my favorite exercise, but they aren't necessarily the right answer for everyone. And that's why I titled this "Avoiding Trend Thinking in Fitness." Innovation is a good thing, because it's through innovation that we make progress. But you should take care to avoid the all or nothing thinking that says "this is the new and only way to do it."

Magazines are the worst about that. A new "Fat-Blasting Ab-Making!!!! XX!!" routine comes out with every new issue, and trying to keep on top of the new routine leads to routine ADD, and you end up being unable to stick to a program, even one that works. Even further, doing only what the magazine suggests will not lead to great results, contrary to what they suggest. I've seen multiple workouts that have "The only workout you'll ever need!!X!" somewhere around the title.

Well, it never is. Very, very few of these routines are well balanced or even well-created, which is a little sad, considering they're usually made by people with fairly advanced certifications.

The biggest thing I want to impart with this article is that you should never fall pray to the "this one works better than all the others" thing. Read articles and books with a critical eye, especially if they claim to be the best, exclusive, the only workout you'll ever need, etc.

And honestly, that outlook will serve you well in a lot of areas outside of fitness.

*Day A Day B
Squat 3x5 Squat 3x5
Bench 3x5 Press 3x5
Deadlift 1x5 Clean 5x3

Solving the "Gain Muscle, Lose Fat" Dilemma

2010-03-14T16:48:00.000-07:00

The Dilemma

Ok, so a while ago I talked about how difficult it is to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, especially for athletes. To recap: Muscle gain requires a caloric surplus, fat loss requires a caloric deficit. Obviously you can't have both at the same time.

So what do we do?

Intermittent Fasting?

Well, there may be a way to trick the body. It's called "Intermittent Fasting," or IF. IF attempts to trick the body by cycling periods of either very low calories or no calories with "refeed" periods, where caloric intake is drastically increased. The "Leangains" method (linked on the side of this page) calls for a 18 hour fast with a 6 hour refeed period each day.

IF first began when researchers noticed that long-term caloric restriction (LTCR) leads to many health benefits. The causes for these health benefits are not well understood, but researchers have known of the benefits of LTCR for decades. LTCR, however, is miserable, and so it's very difficult to get people to actually do it, because it sucks.

This is where IF started. A few people began restricting calories for short periods of time, then overeating to make up for the deficit... and they showed the same benefits that were supposed to come from LTCR. Again, the reason for this is not well understood, but researchers think it may be due to a decrease in oxidation.

A few people are scared off from IF because they don't want to deal with hunger for 18 hours a day. However, the same hormones I talked about in this post (Ghrelin and PYY) adjust to the new eating schedule. Remember, Ghrelin and PYY regulate hunger, so after a few days, you no longer feel hungry during the fasting periods.

So IF offers health benefits, yay, woohoo. This article is about gaining muscle while losing fat. Fortunately, IF may offer a solution here, too. In this case, the fast/refeed periods are about 24 hours each, so a day off and a day on of eating. These fast/refeed periods should correspond to off days and training days, respectively. Essentially, on training days you're eating at a caloric surplus, so not only do you feel great and train hard, but there's a surplus of calories to repair and build muscle. On non-training days, you're eating at a caloric deficit, and so you lose fat.

A few caveats, however. First, no theory works perfectly. I can't guarantee that this will let you build muscle while losing fat at the same time- but it's a step closer. Even if you do accomplish fat loss concurrent with muscle gain, the rate will not be equal. You'll be gaining muscle much more slowly than you'll be losing fat. Secondly, this can be a bit difficult to do, especially if you're training more frequently than every other day, like I am.

So we have problems with IF, too. How will we ever gain muscle while losing fat at the same time?

What may help is to restructure the proportion of calories that you're getting from each macronutrient. I talked earlier about why high-protein is good, so let's eat protein.

Aside: The following section of this post is my own design. That doesn't mean that I pulled it out of my ass, because I didn't, I just made my own variation of a fairly common high-performance dieting technique. But you should be aware.

Solving the Dilemma: Cyclical Protein Fasting

Here's my plan for people who are training more frequently than once every other day and people who don't want to completely fast on fasting days. Now, it should be known: This is a drastic measure. It's difficult to do, and not for people who are just looking to lose a few pounds. This is for athletes and people who have very low body fat percentages (Think <12% for men, <19-20% for women) who are looking to shed the last few pounds of fat while maintaining or gaining muscle. For people who are already well trained and have a decent amount of muscle mass, maintaining is probably the best to hope for.

I suggest coupling a very high protein intake on fasting days with high-carbohydrate refeeds on training days. On fasting day, calories are cut by approximately 30-50%, depending on how much fat is to be lost and how long you have to lose it. Nearly ALL of these calories should come from protein, and to a lesser extent, fat. Carbohydrate intake should be as close to zero as reasonable, for a split of 10/60/30, carb/pro/fat. The massive amount of protein has been shown to minimize or eliminate Lean Body Mass (LBM) loss during weight loss, besides for the additional TEF and satiety effect that I talked about earlier.

However, a diet this high in protein and fat and this low in carbohydrate will quickly starve the muscles of glycogen and adversely affect training and performance, especially in high-intensity activities.

Enter the high-carbohydrate refeed.

On training days, a caloric surplus, high-carbohydrate diet should be eaten, preferably starting a few hours before training to allow for the replenishment of muscle glycogen. On these days, the macronutrient split should be about 60/25/15. This allows adequate protein and fat, but the focus is on carbohydrates to provide energy for training, along with extra calories to provide for muscle repair.

To sum up-

Fasting Day: Cut overall calories by 30-50%, carb/pro/fat split of 10/60/30.

Refeed Day: Slight surplus (15-25%), carb/pro/fat split of 60/25/15.

Staying Motivated

2010-03-13T10:26:00.000-08:00

The biggest problem we Personal Trainers face is keeping our clients motivated. Face it: Working out is hard. It hurts. It takes time, it makes you tired. A lot of the clients we get come to us and essentially say "Fix me." We don't get a whole ton of people who realize that it's a partnership- we can't help you unless you're willing to work with us. When we give you the program, you've gotta do it.

And that's why our challenge is motivation.

To some people, working out is natural. They feel like shit if they haven't worked out in a while, and a hiatus of 3 days seems like an eternity. Most of us, though, are not lucky enough to be those people, and we have to keep ourselves motivated through other means. Here's some of the ways that I keep myself going.

1. Keep a log, review it often.
Every time you work out, write down exactly what you did and how you felt about it. This has several benefits. The first one is that you can see progress. When you realize that you're improving it's MUCH easier to keep going. (Secret: we often start clients out very easy so that they can progress quickly and get excited about fitness). Besides for being able to see your progress in print, looking at the log when you're feeling demotivated can be the extra kick in the ass to get you out the door, because you have a plan, and you have to stick to it.

2. Bookmark inspirational videos on Youtube.
Even with the log, it can be hard to get going. Sometimes you need to get the adrenaline flowing just to muster up the energy to get out of your chair. Find a video (or videos) on Youtube that inspire and motivate you, and bookmark them. If you're having issues, watch them and then move quickly before you forget. I personally have the Nike "Break to Build" video and a montage of Ironman footage bookmarked. Whenever I watch those I instantly feel challenged to prove myself, and getting out the door is no problem.

3. Get a workout partner, make commitments.
This one doesn't work for everybody, but sometimes it can help to have somebody counting on you to be there. If you've promised a friend that you're going to show up and don't, you've let that friend down. Arranging to meet somebody to work out is a great way to motivate yourself. If for some reason you can't get a workout partner (you work out at weird times, you smell bad, etc.), make commitments to yourself. Promise yourself "By 3 I'm going to be out the door." This doesn't work as well as having a partner, but it can certainly help, because you don't want to let yourself down.

4. Find a hero, be like them.
In whatever activity you're doing to work out, find a hero. If you're running, it might be Usain Bolt or Ryan Hall. If you're cycling, it's probably Lance. If you're swimming, maybe Phelps, lifting weights, Dimas. It might even be a friend of yours who you admire. All that matters is that you pick a hero and then strive to be like them. When you don't feel like working out, ask yourself "Would [insert hero here] not train today?" After you tell yourself "No, they wouldn't", you'll want to work out too.

And finally...

5. The hardest part is getting out the door.
It really is. Even if you have to spend 30 minutes dragging around and putting on your shoes, just get out the door. You're not going to head back inside once you're out. If you're going to go lift, just start driving. The worst part is starting.

The "Gain Muscle Lose Fat" dilemma (for Regular People)

2010-03-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

I've heard this a LOT. Probably every other client that we get wants to "lose fat while gaining muscle" or "turn my fat into muscle." And we always have to explain that those goals are mutually opposing, at least in the vast majority of people. There are a few exceptions, but you're probably not one of them, as I'll explain.

The issue is, at heart, really fairly simple, though it quickly gets more complicated.

Muscle takes calories to be built. There are cells that need to be constructed, and calories need to be burned for that. Also, if the body is not in a hyperenergetic state, it will resist constructing new muscle, since the body is fiendishly efficient, and if it is short calories it won't construct tissues that are going to burn more calories.

To lose fat, on the other hand, requires a caloric deficit, or fewer calories than necessary. This, again, makes sense. The body is lacking some of the calories that it needs, so it takes fat out of the adipose tissue that stores it, and converts it into energy.

So already you can see that it's not really generally possible to lose fat while gaining muscle. To lose fat requires a caloric deficit, to gain muscle requires a caloric surplus. Now, let's talk about the exceptions.

The first exception is very overweight beginners. Each criterion has to be met for this to work, by the way. The client must be completely untrained, and they must be very overweight. Here's why.

When a client is very obese, they develop something called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is defined as "the condition in which normal amounts of insulin are inadequate to produce a normal insulin response from fat, muscle and liver cells." There are some very interesting effects linked to insulin resistance, but I'm concerned with insulin-resistant fat cells. When a fat cell becomes insulin resistant, it begins to effectively push calories away. Furthermore, it undergoes more hydrolysis, or the breaking apart of fat cells. So essentially, when you are overfat, your fat cells are pushing away calories, and trying very hard not to make any more fat cells.

This is essentially the perfect storm. Fat cells are attempting to shunt away calories, filling the blood with glucose and triglycerides (which, it should be noted, causes a lot of problems, but for muscle gain it's perfect). At the same time, the muscle is very untrained.

Now, when this untrained overweight client is eating at a deficit (less calories than necessary to maintain body composition) and training, the bloodstream is filled with energy because of the insulin resistance that I mentioned earlier, so there is ample fuel for building muscle, even though the client is eating at a deficit.

If the client is not very overweight, the insulin resistance isn't there, and if they're not untrained, it's much harder to build muscle, simply because it's harder for a trained anybody to build muscle.

While very overweight/untrained might be the perfect combination for gaining muscle and losing fat, it does occur in regular weight/untrained clients, just not as much. These clients can't expect to see anything close to the gains in muscle and loss in fat that obese/untrained clients will, but it does happen a bit.

Trained clients are pretty much screwed, and it doesn't take a whole ton of training to get the title of "trained." In almost all cases, it's better to pick a goal and stick with it. Gain muscle or lose fat, not both.

Eventually I'll talk about some ways that it may be possible to achieve the impossible. Remember, absolute statements are always wrong.

High Protein Dieting- Yea or Nay? Part 2.

2010-03-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

So in the last post, I talked about why a high-protein diet is a good choice for athletes, especially athletes who are looking to lose weight while minimizing muscle gain. But what about the regular joe? What about people who aren't looking to lose weight?

The government recommends a daily protein intake of about 15% of total calories. Is that really the most effective amount? Why would more be better? There are a couple reasons.

Let's talk about fat loss first.

There first reason involves something called the "Thermogenic effect of food", or "TEF". What is not commonly realized is that food does more than add calories, it also burns them. The body has to work to digest food, to break it apart and get the nutrients out of it. The calories that the body burns digesting food are the TEF. Each macronutrient (protein, carbohydrate, and fat) has a different TEF.

Protein's TEF happens to be much higher than either carbohydrate or fat, so much so that some scientists have called for protein to be valued at 3.2 calories/gram rather than the current rating, 4 calories/gram. The TEF is also higher in whole foods and decreases with processing, but that is, again, a discussion for a different post. In any case, the point is that eating more protein burns more calories.

Now, it's important to understand that TEF isn't the end-all of losing weight. It only accounts for a fairly small chunk (think around 10%) of daily energy expenditure. There are, however, several other benefits to eating a high protein diet, like the satiety effect. Satiety is the feeling of fullness. Protein makes you feel fuller for longer than carbohydrates (and to a lesser extent, fat) do.

This satiety effect is a result of the hormones Ghrelin and Peptide YY (PYY), two hormones that regulate hunger. Ghrelin signals hunger and PYY fullness, so when Ghrelin is low and PYY high, you feel full. When Ghrelin is high and PYY low, you're hungry.

Researchers have found that when a high-protein meal is eaten, Ghrelin declines slowly and PYY increases slowly, so the feeling of fullness (and lack of hunger) persists for a longer time, several hours. When a high-carbohydrate meal is eaten, Ghrelin drops rapidly, but after about an hour, begins to rebound quite quickly. Similarly, PYY spikes VERY quickly, but after 30 minutes begins to decrease. A high-fat meal lead to results in between.

Interestingly, these beneficial effects on satiety are even more pronounced for obese people. The researchers didn't suggest any reason for this, but I suspect it has something to do with the insulin resistance that obese people develop. Anyway.

So high protein not only burns more calories, but it makes you feel fuller for longer, leading to fewer total calories consumed. These effects compound for potent weight loss. Sounds good to be true, right?

Well, it isn't. There are a lot of people that think that high protein diets are unhealthy. The most often stated concerns are that high protein means high saturated fat, there is too much stress on the kidneys, and that high protein will make your bones crumble.

The calcium thing is just silly. As long as the body is getting enough calcium, a high protein diet promotes bone density. Yes, promotes. As in "the opposite of what people are talking about" promotes. The "high protein will make your bones fall apart" thing started when people saw a study that had found that, on a high protein diet, the subjects were excreting much more calcium in their urine, about 50% more. Obviously these people had never taken a statistics class, because they assumed that correlation must equal causation and starting freaking out.

Now, I won't refute that high protein makes you pee out more calcium, because it does. But it also (and this is what they missed) causes the bones to uptake calcium more efficiently, and, according to researchers, "provided improved calcium intake and attenuated bone loss." There are tons of studies refuting that ridiculous assumption*. So. Yeah. So much for that one.

On to the second "issue", that high protein puts stress on the kidneys. I could type something out, but I'm just going to let some scientists answer for me.

"A recent review by Bernstein and colleagues concluded that long-term consumption of high-protein diets by persons with normal kidney function may cause renal injury, but they were not able to provide any evidence supporting this biologically illogical hypothesis. Indeed, other reviewers have concluded otherwise. Dietary protein-induced changes in renal function are a normal adaptative mechanism well within the functional limits of a healthy kidney... Unfortunately, we can often hear statements like “a high-protein diet stresses kidneys.” Following the same “logic,” one could conclude that we should avoid running because it stresses lower limbs."

YES.

Scientists, I love you.

Finally, the whole "protein is often paired with saturated fat and is bad for your heart oh no!" thing. Again, research shows the opposite. A), saturated fat is not evil (again, a topic for another post), and B), High protein decreases blood pressure.

Yeah.

Now, it's important to note that I'm not advocating anything as drastic as the Atkins' diet. That's just foolish. Fruits and vegetables are insanely healthy and insanely good for you, and any diet that limits them is flawed, in my opinion. But while I might not be a proponent of Atkins', it's pretty clear to me that a diet higher in protein than the government recommends is absolutely beneficial. Eat lean meat, fruits, vegetables, a small amount of grains and dairy, and you'll be absolutely fine.

So, to sum up: The government recommends 15% of your calories come from protein, you're probably better off with 25-40%. Why would the government recommend so much of our calories come from carbohydrate?

Ever heard of interest groups?

*I don't feel like citing everything I look up because it's a hassle and this is not an official document, but I do my research, trust me. If you have some big issue with what I'm saying, comment and I'll provide my sources. For everyone else, just roll with me here.

High Protein Dieting- Yea or Nay? Part 1.

2010-03-09T13:03:00.000-08:00

So I was sitting in Personal Training class, and a case study was presented: Tim the Bodybuilder. Tim was 5'8, weighed 215 pounds, and had a body fat percentage of 10%. We were supposed to discuss ideas for evaluating Tim's goals (lose fat, gain muscle) and program. "Tim" told us that he ate approximately 3500-4000 calories per day, 40% of which came from protein.

This caused an absolute uproar amongst most of the members of the class. "4000 calories?! Why, that's almost double what the RDA is!" "40% from protein?! It's supposed to be only 15%! Good God!" This initially frustrated the hell out of me, since it is VERY common for strength training athletes (especially those looking for hypertrophy, or gains in muscle size) to consume 40% of total calories from protein each day. Also, he's a 215 pound guy at 10% bodyfat. Of course he's going to be eating 4000 calories. He'd waste away if not.

These thoughts, which came very quickly, made me think of two things. First, ACE (the organization certifying me) doesn't know jack about athletes. It really doesn't. It's very focused on people looking to simply lose weight and get in shape, which is absolutely fine, but they should admit it. Instead, they have half-assed recommendations about athletes that are pretty silly, which is why most of my classmates were losing it, because they follow the book. For example, ACE doesn't account for the higher calorie needs of athletes and just sort of mumbles about ...eat 2500 calories a day if you're male please and stuff like that. That's a topic for another post, though.

Anyway. (This is the point I was trying to get to).

My second thought was that everybody should stop freaking out about the whole 40% protein thing since everybody does that, but then I stopped and realized that, while I've heard everybody talking about high-protein diets for various purposes, I'd never actually read any primary research about whether eating above the government recommendation of 15% would help. I realized I had no idea if the whole concept of high protein dieting was just another invention of Bro Science.

So during my Psychology class I did some research on PubMed. The most relevant study I found on high-protein diets was titled "Increased protein intake reduces lean body mass loss during weight loss in athletes", so that pretty much answered my question right there. For the sake of posterity, though, I read the whole thing. The study was done on 20 trained (important because untrained people have very exceptional results) athletes, split into 2 groups, who dieted for weight loss. One group consumed approximately 35% of their calories from protein, the other consumed the federal recommendation, about 15%.

The high-protein group lost the same amount of fat as the control group, but lost significantly less muscle. Those results speak for themselves. "But," some of you may be asking, "Those were athletes. What about me? As a regular human being, should I be consuming a high protein diet to try and lose weight? And what about if I'm not trying to lose weight? What then?"

That'll be answered in Part 2.