I can’t think of a better way to kick-off my 45th year than a fast and furious romp with brother iron.  Age is a societal tag that means nothing to me.

Sleep: 6 hours, like a rock.  Rise-and-shine 4:30AM, Gym 6:30 – 7:15.  Fasted + coffee.  Steak salad for last night’s dinner, 7:30 PM.

Warm up: bounds and 50 meter sprints, push-ups and pull-ups to break sweat.  Ballistic stretching.

Strength-speed emphasis on all:

RDLs: worked up to 3 sets of 3 @275 (explosive out of the hole, 5-count eccentric).

Weighted Dips: 70lbs (3 mini-sets rest-pause x 2 reps ea. mini set, i.e., 6 total reps per set) x 5 total “sets”.  2 reps, pause; 2 reps, pause…

RDL + Snatch grip high pulls: 175 x 5 reps x 3 sets.  Explosive RDL to high hang, pause, snatch grip high pull out of RDL foot base.

RDLs super-setted w/ dips, then RDL + high pulls supper setted with dips.  B/T set cns prime: drop squat + reflex vert x 3, ballistic dips x 3.

“Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives.”

- Abba Eban

Inundate yourself with Paleo-minded information long enough, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that insulin is the consummate “bad guy” hormone.  That’s a little too simplistic a way to look at insulin, though — even for those of us who, though not trained specifically in the medical sciences, choose to enhance our lives through proper diet, exercise and well-rounded knowledge.  Insulin is, of course, critical for life and optimal health, and it’s not the hormone per se that is inherently evil, but the gross tilting of that hormone level beyond anything that the human body has evolved to handle that defines the problem.

In this clip (alternatively, you can jump to the Nov. 8th, 2009 WOD from the CrossFit home site), Robb Wolf discusses a case study in obesity, metabolic syndrome, and (though he doesn’t get into it here), the classic indicators of carbohydrate addiction.   If you’re a member of the CrossFit Journal (I highly recommend it, though I’m certainly no shill for CrossFit, nor do I fully endorse all of CrossFit’s ideologies), you can view a much larger portion of this video (over 7 minutes worth).

The take-away message here — and what we, as Paleo-minded, physical culturalists need to keep in mind — is that, within the body, insulin’s dictate (when excessively elevated) is to is promote/accelerate energy storage, maturation, reproduction and decline (death).  And from an evolutionary prospective, of course, this all makes perfect sense.  Quicker turnover equates to a more nimble and adaptive species.  In your grandma’s day, young girls matured in their later teens.  Nowadays, girls as young as 9 have reached reproductive maturity.  I’m not saying all of this can be laid at the feet of a hyper-insulin environment — there are plenty of other notable suspects lurking about in our diets — but I’d be willing to bet that an out-of-control insulin level has a big hand in this.

And just as Robb alluded to in the clip, the body can’t be fooled by artificial sweeteners.  The key is to successfully break the desire for the sweet taste (and thus eliminate the carb jonze), not placate that need by the use of artificial sweeteners — the equivalent of handing out methadone to heroin addicts.

Though we use the metaphor frequently, the body is not a simple furnace that serves solely to liberate energy from raw material.   There are complex storage and release components at work as well; hence the truth of a calorie not being a calorie.  The amount of energy contained in a calorie is, of course constant; what’s not constant is the hormonal impact that calorie source will have upon its host.  The first law of thermodynamics works fine for a closed system (the “furnace model”), but not for an open system, i.e., a living being.

In health,

Keith

9+ hours deep sleep.  Last meal 7:30 PM, workout @ 12 PM – 2 PM.  Post w/o at 4:30 PM

Nothing fancy about this one.  Started off with approximately 40 minutes of interval bursts on the fixie, then on to the ECU soccer field for sprints x9 secs each.  Lost count of total number (15 or so?) – not that the total mattered for what I was targeting.  Ran each 9-sec. sprint to max overall best distance, then continued reps until drop-off of > 1 full stride.

More on drop-offs here, and auto-regulation, here.

“Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.”

- John Galsworthy

H1N1 is killing me. No, not literally — and not the virus itself — but all the extended hours I’m having to put in as a result of readying a manufacturing plant for the full-scale filling and packaging operations associated with putting the vaccine on the street.  Whether the threat of this virus is real or manufactured I’ll leave to your own personal conclusions (for what it’s worth, I’m passing on the vaccine) — what I do know for a fact, though, is that I’m working my damn ass off as of late.  Unfortunately, the only drawback to the Paleo way is its inability to put more actual hours in my day.

Before I move on, though,to the topics at hand, allow me a quick rant.  This, my friends, is what American-style, hyper-capitalism business has come to: work the few people you’ve retained till they drop, then reload from the ranks of the over-educated and marginalized, who (and this is the full-circleness of the issue) are inclined (due to a sputtering economy) to accept less-than-adequate wages/working conditions/benefits.  Why not carry a little extra fat in the ranks?  Wouldn’t that be prudent, from a business (not to mention, humanistic) point of view?  Hey, are you friggin kidding me?  Have you seen the price-tag associated with a benefits package as of late (I’ll forgo the health care reform rant here)?  Not to mention that the fat cats on Wall Street want quarterly results, Jack, and the issue of any additional headcount — over and above the overworked zombies required to produce a satisfactory profit margin — is a non-starter.   How’s this for irony: scrambling through the business corridors in your work-induced brain fog, you’re forced to dodge impromptu hallway gatherings of upper-level management, and representatives from the notorious McKinsey Group.  A pretty innocuous looking bunch from the looks of their site, eh?  Just what the hell do they do, you ask?  Slash and burn, my friend.  Headcount elimination.  The “do more with less” (and we all know what that means) specialists.  Ah, but here’s irony x2: isn’t it odd that 90% of the group’s representatives are of Indian decent?  Seems as if the group that specializes in outsourcing has taken the notion to heart and outsourced itself.  Can’t label them as hypocrites, I suppose.  Pure contrived fiction, I tell you, could not be steeped in such irony.  Such is life as a member of the American workforce…what’s left of it, anyway.

So, just a couple of things you may not have run across this week:

Common ground with a vegetarian?

Well, if the issue is limited to the protest of the horrid conditions found in Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), it would seem so.  Now I can certainly appreciate a vegetarian who leads that particular lifestyle purely as a statement against needless animal cruelty.  I’m not so sure, though, that Jonathan Foer, has considered the optimization of his own health in this “go veggie” decision — but hey, to each his own.  I just wish that the author of Everything is Illuminated would study the virtues of the free-range/grass-fed experience — both from the animal’s point of view, and from that of the consumer (and of the earth, for that matter) — and tweak his stance accordingly.  And although I loath the very idea of CAFOs, and how they’ve totally adulterated the mainstream protein supply, I find it hard to believe that they are as heavy a greenhouse gas producer as say, what’s produced from world’s combined coal-fired power plants.  Now, I don’t know this for fact — and I’m certainly not defending CAFOs in any way, shape or form — I’m just sayin’… if you’re interested, there’s another quickie-interview with Jonathan, here.  He does come across as an intelligent and affable enough fellow.  If you’ve read Jonathan’s new book, Eating Animals, drop a comment and let us know what you thought.  To be quite honest, I’ve not placed it high enough on my “to read” list to ever realistically get to it — I’m currently engrossed in two Gandhi-related works (here and here) — so if you’ve already read — or plan to read — Jonathan’s work, give us the run-down.

Health Care Reform

Wow, Dr. Kurt G. Harris, of the wonderful blog, PaNu, nails this essay on health care reform — a copy of which ought to be tacked to the doors of congress, Martin Luther style.  Make sure you read Dr. Harris’s essay, and while you’re over there, peruse the balance of the PaNu blog as well.  Plenty of great Paleo-minded information can be had, there, of the type that I take and integrate into workable, real-life scenarios — putting Theory to Practice, if you will.

Becoming Human

I hope that the next two installments of this NOVA presentation are as fascinating as episode #1.  What a show; TV at its finest!   Part 2 is coming up November 10 (my birthday, by the way).  Be sure to catch it.

In health,

Keith

Last meal 7:30 PM (~1/2 of a free range chicken, cauliflower sauteed in raw butter).  6.5 hours sleep (deep, high quality).  Up at 4:30, w/o 6:30 – 7:30 AM.

Warm up: Lunges, bounds, high kicks, 40 yd sprints (work up to 5x 90%)

• High Box step-Ups (x4, each leg): 115, 165, 175, 185, 185.  Between set ballistics = 3x low box drop (“stuck” landing in full squat position, weight on heels).
• Front Push-Press (from full shoulder rack position, x3): 115, 165, 175, 185, 185.  1 final set @ 185 x 2, 2, 2 (rest-pause).  B/t set ballistics = elevated feet ballistic push-ups x 3.
• Rev Grip Pull-Ups (no straps): 45 x 3, 70 x 3, 80 x 3, 85 x 3, 3.  Rev. Grip ballistic pull-ups b/t sets.

Emphasis on concentric speed of execution.  Terminated sets on noticeable decrease in execution speed.  Felt strong on Push-press, therefore additional rest-pause set to noticeable speed degradation.

Post workout meal at 11AM (free range ground beef & pork sausage + small sweet potato & raw butter).

No clearly defined boundary between speed-strength and strength-speed.  Both are power-emphasis modalities.  As an example, I’d call sprints “speed-strength” and heavily-weighted Russian speed lunges “strength-speed”.

Note: This will more than likely morph into a bit of a self-serving component of the TTP blog; be that as it may, though, I’d like to begin cataloging my workout journal in a convenient, electronic format.  I can’t begin to tell you how many paper journals I’ve lost over the years (decades, now) — too, too many, let’s just say.  Blood, sweat, snot, elements;  I once thought that keeping my journal in a Moleskin would help prod me to keep a better handle on the thing, but alas, that wasn’t the answer either.  Since I gravitate to this page quite often throughout the day, it only makes sense to keep up with my workout journaling here.  I can only hope that this little self-serving indulgence won’t put a collective bad taste in the mouths of my readers.  I’ll be given to abbreviations and jargon for the most part, here, as I’m writing this as a journal for myself.  Feel free, though to ask any questions you have, as I’m an open book — quite literally, now.  Oh yeah, and the titles will be constructed not to grab attention, but for ease in cataloging and recovery.  And away we go:

11/02/09 (Monday), MetCon, speed-strength emphasis. 6:15 AM w/o, awake at 4:30, 6 hours sleep (good quality)

Last meal approx 8pm, gf pot roast (high fat content), sweet pot, raw butter, green beans, fish oil (1 tbs.).  CNS primed; jazzed, coffeed and ready to bust it.

• 40 yd sprint (Vibrams, indoor track)
• db snatch (the cred) x 3 each arm @ 90lbs
• 40 yd sprint
• single-leg deadlift w/db’s (180lbs total, 2 90’s, w/straps) x 3 each leg
• 40 yd sprint
• farmers walk, 2 90lb dbs x 20 yds
• Dips x 3, 3, 3, 3 (7 sec rest between “sets”).  Ballistic, got “air” on each rep.  BW+45lbs
• farmers walk w/ 2 90lb dbs x 20 yds

5 rounds.  Overall time as a secondary concern, emphasis on each individual explosive rep.

Post w/o meal (1 hour post w/o): 2 egg omelet with raw goat cheese, 2 slices of pear.

“Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you may disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the truth of the matter.”

- Ibn al-Arabi

It’s not often that I fully agree with strength and conditioning coach Mike Boyle (here’s one example) — but then again, I don’t fully follow any single coach’s path, preferring, instead, to blaze my own n=1 trail.  On the subject of the back squat, however, I have to give the man his due; I believe he is spot on in his critique of the exercise and with his assertion that most trainees would be better off (subsequent to building a solid, base level of squatting strength)  migrating from the back squat to the various forms of split squats, especially the rear foot elevated split squat.  And I would add to this, variations of the high-box step-up.

A Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat (RFESS)…Huh?

Just so we’re all on the same page, here an example of the RFESS:

…and the step-up:

Why would I champion the idea of most trainees phasing out the back squat in preference to split squat variations and step-ups?  Well, a couple of reasons.  To begin with, most all athletic endeavors, as well as life itself, requires lower-body strength in a unilateral environment.  A second reason is that most trainees will fail in the squat, not due to leg failure, but due to lower back failure; quite simply, the lower back cannot support the load required to push the legs, in a bilateral environment, to failure.  Ah, you say — so would the leg press be a better option?  Well, in some trainees it might be, but for the most part I’d rather work in the real-world of an unstable environment.

Built for Traditional Squats?

Check out my little whiteboard sketch below.  Really, this is no more than a statement of the obvious — if a load is teetering on a narrow base, and if that load must be pushed a greater distance and if the load/lever combination is at a mechanical disadvantage with respect to gravity — well, you get the picture…What all this boils down to, in my experience and my empirical evidence, is a simple waist/inseam ratio.  The lesser the ratio, the lesser the benefit a trainee will realize from conventional back squatting, and the sooner in his lifting career he probably ought to transition to a unilateral environment.

Personally, I have a hell of a time trying to fully tax my legs in a full back squat with a 33-inch waist sitting high atop a 35-inch inseam.  But here are a couple of other interesting pieces of the puzzle that I’ve yet to get a handle on: (1) power generation out of the jump squat, and (2) glute/hamstring contribution, and how that figures into the mix.  Notice that at a 33-inch waist and 40-inches around the  hips, I do carry quite a bit of junk in the trunk.  Now follow me here just for a moment, while I “think” aloud: (1) When I fail in the squat, it’s never “in the hole”, where the glutes are fully engaged — it’s about midway up, where that lower back lever is at its worst mechanical advantage, and where glute activation has been (relatively) removed from the picture, (2) I can wreck my Dachshund-built, squatting-machine brethren in the high step up, which is mostly a glute-driven exercise (see this TMuscle article), and (3) I can’t prove this, but I would be willing to bet that I can also generate more power from (and posses a greater power/bw ratio) in the jump squat than my Dachshund-built, squatting-machine brethren.   My point with all of this?  The notion of  “training what you suck at” — which I agree with, to a point — must not be followed blindly, but must be leveraged against what stands to make the athlete a better athlete, or the mere mortal, better at life.

So that’s my take on the matter.  For what it’s worth, the vast majority of my bilateral squatting (which is pretty infrequent, when compared to my unilateral work) is done as a front squat — I’ve just always felt like I reaped more benefit out of this movement as compared to the back squat.   You can check out coach Boyle’s reasoning for moving away from the bilateral squat, in a pair of  TMuscle articles, this one from 2007, and most recently, here.  And you can see a clip of coach Boyle discussing the matter here, as a plug for his Functional Strength Coach 3.0 video series, and you can check out his blog posts on the subject, here.

And there’s plenty of ongoing discussion on the subject at this string, at the JP Fitness Forums site.

Remember, as always, the real answer to this question can only be answered by an objective survey of your own n=1 results as they relate to your goals.  Don’t be afraid, though, to test, tinker and adjust.  Remember, to, that there are no failures, only feedback.

In health,

Keith

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”

- Bertrand Russell

The following video is of a lecture given in January 2008 by Christopher Gardner, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, and focuses on the largest and longest-ever comparison (as of that time) of a selection of  four popular diets studied under real-world conditions.  The diets in question were the Ornish, Zone, LEARN (i.e., the diet recommended by most academics and the USDA — the food pyramid we all know and love), and, last but not least, the Atkins diet.  The 311 participants, (all pre-menopausal, overweight women) were divided into 4 groups, with each group having been provided 8 weeks of  “in-depth” nutritional training using the representative flagship book for each diet.  Training was led by a dietitian who preached the magnificence and utter superiority of each group’s assigned diet.  All of this makes for an interesting study because of the real-worldliness of having these participants attempt to “follow the book” for themselves (subsequent to the 8 weeks of brainwashing, that is).

An additional interesting twist here is that Professor Gardner is (was?) a twenty-five year vegetarian, who, having come into the study with a heavy, pre-conceived bias, admits (and you have to give him kudos for this), that his long-standing notions of the efficacy of a vegetarian diet may have been completely unfounded.

Of course, we in the Paleo community would’ve loved to have seen the Paleo way represented in this study — but hey, the fact that Atkins was included is a monumental step in itself.  In fact, Dr Gardner does bring up the subject of the Paleo diet toward the end of the lecture — to the hoots of snorts and laughter from what I can only assume was a very learned and open-minded audience (really, no sarcasm intended).  Whatever; I’m in the pharmaceutical business — all those snorts and all that laughter sounds like job security to me.

Anyway, I do think this lecture is well worth the time investment.  You may not learn anything new about diet, per se, but you’ll certainly pick up quit a bit in the way of diet psychology.  Keep in mind as you watch just how well a Paleo diet would have fared in this trial.  Remember, you’d have had 8 weeks to teach someone the whys and hows of the Paleo way; 8 weeks to stage for, and transition through, the carb Jones; 8 weeks of social re-conditioning and n=1 individualization tinkering.  What book would I have “preached”?  Well, personally I’d have opted for Primal Body, Primal Mind, by Nora Gedgaudas.  For homework, I’d have assigned selections from Taubes’s GCBC.

A few interesting things to keep in mind as you watch:

Dr. Gardner’s chart presentation on the spread of obesity throughout he US is powerful.  We all know these facts, yes — seeing it presented in this fashion, though, brings this static information “alive” in a profound way.

Notice as well all the maddening, tunnel-visioned viewing of the study’s statistical results data through the old “calories in, calories out” prism.  It’ll make you want to jump through the screen and remove the good doctor’s blinders.  It reminds me of the story of the two fish, wherein one fish asks the other, “what’s this stuff water I keep hearing about?”

Interesting, too, is the behind the scenes view of what it required to land a study grant, and how painfully long the wait is between grant acquisition and the release of actual study findings.  And add to this all of the Political wrangling — both in academia and in the government realm — that must be traversed.  It’s mind numbing.   If it were not for the internet allowing the immediate connection of like-minded folks, all of whom are actively engaged in n=1 studies of “Paleo science”, Paleo would yet to even have a fair hearing in the world of nutritional science.

Kudos, then, to us — for actively advancing the Paleo science.

And a big round of thanks are in order to the Balanced Existence website for having re-excavated this find.   You can read their interesting commentary on the lecture, here.

Sit back and enjoy.

In health,

Keith

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

- Abraham Lincoln

A little insight into how I develop some of my ideas; tease the few, substantial and practical take-away messages out of the bombardment of daily information.  Metaphorically, I think of it as panning for gold.  Anyway, I have a small “office” in my home where I do the majority of my reading and writing, and in that office is the whiteboard seen here.  Now I’d prefer to be surrounded by an old-school blackboard and chalk (for tactile reasons — and sentimentality as well, I suppose), and I’d prefer that every wall of the room be covered likewise.  Not a good decorating decision, (or so I’m told), so for the time being I’ll have to muddle through with my one little whiteboard.

What I’d sketched-up a few days ago is an encapsulation of my thoughts on the intersection of Power Production/Bodyweight Ratio, MetCon Modality, and Exercise Selection.  From that 3-way intersection, then, we can tease-out the comparison graph of Relative Power Production as it relates to Exercise Duration (in seconds, logarithmic scale).  You see here that an Olympic lift requires about 1 second to complete, and produces the most  power output/duration of any exercise.  Then on to the 100 meter sprint, a 2km row, and an 80km bike race (these are just examples within a wide-ranging spectrum, of course).  What you don’t see here (you would, if I had another board — hint, hint, Mrs. TTP   are the relative percentage contributions from each of the bodies three (or four, if you really want to split hairs) energy systems to support each endeavor.  This template, if super-imposed upon the Relative Power Production/Duration graph, would depict an almost exclusively Phosphagen energy system contribution to the far left of the duration scale (the Oly lift end), phasing into a mostly glycolytic contribution at roughly the 100 meter sprint point, then ever-increasingly aerobic at about the 2km row point.  The 80 km bike ride would be almost 100% aerobic.  And remember, this overlay wouldn’t be depicted as a hard shift, but rather a gradual phasing, such as would be seen in a gradually darkening color wheel, for example.

What this sketch really depicts, though, is the fact that the exercise itself is only a means to an end, if our workout focus is is centered upon a MetCon modality. What should truly be the emphasis of any MetCon-oriented workout, is a directed attempt to push the work capacity limits of the targeted energy system.  Having to grapple with exercise technique as one fatigues ought to be the least of concerns, unless of course, maintaining proper technique under fatigue is an inherent (and adjusted for) part of the equation.  One example of this would be training a starting pitcher; another might be conditioning an American football quarterback for efficient 2-minute drill play.  For the vast majority of trainees, though, the desire is to increase broadly defined work capacity under particular energy systems.  It is my opinion, then, that (for instance) a session of appropriately weighted farmer’s walk repeats is a much more efficient exercise selection option for building work capacity of the glycolytic energy system that an equal amount of time spent on power clean repeats.  And as well, one can push themselves to the brink fatigue-wise with a farmer’s walk repeat session as not have to be concerned with the potential of technique-related injury.

In health,

Keith

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

- William Shakespeare

A while back, the site Straight to the Bar featured this clip of Scott Jackson bustin’ off some phenomenal, Parkour-inspired moves.  Seeing this clip again recently got me to thinking about a few of things.  First, I wonder if each individual is limited by some inherent power/bodyweight ratio?  Actually, I know a mechanical limit exists — structurally, our bones, ligaments, tendons and musculature can only handle so much stress — I’m referring here to practical limits.  And how would one go about figuring that limitation?  Would we even want, in a psychological sense, to know that limitation?  And second, this got me to thinking about the intersection of power generation and MetCon work; specifically, exercise selection.  And not just exercise selection alone, but exercise selection with an eye toward targeting an identified energy system.  Most sporting endeavors require a highly tuned and efficient combination of energy systems to “fuel” the participant through the event.  Identifying and training these systems properly is, or should be, the lone goal of MetCon work.  You might want to read this post first, if you haven’t already.  Then come back here and check out some of Scott’s unreal moves.  As you watch, ask yourself (1) what energy systems does Scott rely on mostly, and (2) how would you go about training him without diminishing, in any way, his form, technique and skill?  Just a few things to ponder while you watch:

Another thought that bubbled-up in my mind while watching this clip is just how “springy” Scott is.  What do I mean by that?  Well, there’s a subtle, but huge, difference between the body’s levers acting as a spring, as those same levers acting in the manner of a piston.  Good sprinters quickly transition from the “piston” action of the start, to the “spring” action of the stride; good jumpers come off the floor like a spring, jumpers who need work “piston” themselves up and airborne.  But more on that in a later post.

In health,

Keith