Conditioning Research

Z health - it is starting to make sense (thanks to mc)

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:22:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted an interview with mc, talking about the seminar that she was to do here in Edinburgh today.

Today's seminar was fascinating and I am really grateful to mc and to Rannoch for promoting it. What I found really interesting was the way in which the teaching pulled together a range of different threads of topics which I have been thinking about for years. I'll post some of these ideas in some additional posts.

I think I've been a bit dismissive of mobility work and z health in the past - I have done it and enjoyed the feeling, but was somewhat bemused by the way in which it was often presented as the solution....

This seminar did what the books and articles I've read previously have failed to do - it put the exercises into context, it explained the reasoning and the theory that justify the moves. It makes more sense now - it is about threat modulation...reassuring your nervous system that things are OK.

We went through a lot of theory and then applied it to some kettlebell moves.

I'll try to present the arguments here and develop some of the ideas in future posts:

The body is oriented on survival not performance (this links to some paleo/evolutionary fitness ideas. What are we designed for?....to survive, to escape danger, be it a predator or any other threat).
Take a neurological perspective - look at the nervous system as central - it is always "on", it is fast and it is plastic (malleable - you can learn things that stick). It is always active, always adapting to the demands that it is facing. Back to the old SAID principle - your body will adapt to what you do with it
Your neurology is binary - it recognises only 2 states - THREAT or NO THREAT
A THREAT state limits efficient movement in some way or other - there could be pain or tightness or weakness for example, or a limited range of motion.
A variety of things can induce a THREAT state - lack of movement, fear of falling, being unbalanced, stress.....even poor body position - the arthrokinetic reflex for example.
The challenge then is to reduce threat signals to improve movement and performance

So how do you do this?

Focus on Proprioception - this is more than balance, it is about you brain knowing where you are in space....but more it is about your state.
Mechanoreceptors - these are within muscles focussed around joints. They map movement. It is an active map of where we are and where we are moving....They send signals to the brain, the nervous system
Movement will send signals through the nervous system, activating these mechanoreceptors.
Lots of movement can "drown out" the pain signals
Movement will encourage the nervous system to see you as in a NO THREAT state
It is all about trying to maximise the stimulation of mechanoreceptors, to keep movement signals going through your neurology, keeping your proprioceptive system active and so to modulate your state.
Z Health is built around specific mobility drills to promote movement around each joint to promote a NO THREAT state.

In the interview mc explained this: (but it is only after the seminar today that things are making sense):

it turns out that there are some great ways to talk with the nervous system via movement. We’re designed to move. We have joints in our bodies for a reason. So by moving the joints actively we are sending loads of all clear/no threat signals to the nervous system. As we move joints, we are also sending a very rich map of where we are in space to give the body increased options about how it can respond to a threat: the more joints perceived as richly mobile, the more responses to avoid an incident.

There are other things you can do too to promote that state - careful breathing, go for a walk etc.

Anyway some interesting ideas that tie in to things like the ideas of Sarno and Monte, and also the idea of posture - like Esther Gokhale talks about.

In his Restoring Lost Physical Function DVD Rif draws on a related idea from Paul Chek. He says that we are basically always working into extension, against flexion. Flexion pulls you together, the flexors pull you into a foetal postions. Think about it - your abs, biceps etc, you curl up into a ball. This is how you start and also how you finish - old people gradually curl up again - there flexors get stiff and they are pulled over, stooped. As we are fit and healthy, we are extended - your back, triceps, glutes, and quads fire and you stand straight. Rif says:

It’s easy to forget that our bodies are under a constant source of pressure from gravity at all times. Gravity is always trying to bend us over, push us down and return us to the fetal position we started from. Many of the muscles in our body are all to happen to ‘go with the flow’ and bend us over into a ball. Our modern seated lives do not help this at all.It’s easy to go from bed, to chair, to car seat, to office seat, back to car seat to couch to bed every day. And then we wonder why our backs or necks hurt or why the exercise routine is not working as well as it should.

Posture is the beginning and end of movement and if our starting postures are not square, plumb and neutral at the start; especially movements that are weighted or done many thousands of times, chances are they will not be at the end.

Gravity, weighted exercises and the daily, repetitive movements we do all day long have very specific effects on our muscles .Certain muscles, referred to as ‘tonic’ ,respond to too much loading or too much inactivity by getting, and staying shorter. Examples of tonic muscles are the hamstrings, calves, the deep muscles in the glutes and the flexors of the upper arm. Tonic muscles are mostly postural ,slow twitch fibers that can get and stay tight very easily.

One the other side of the coin( and the joint) are ‘phasic’ muscles such as quadriceps, triceps, the muscles between the shoulder blades( rhomboids) that are prone to getting weak and stretched out with too much or too little use. The balance of tensions between these two types of muscles is known as a Length Tension relationship.

Where this fits in though....is that the foetal position is the threat response. All the flexors fire and you curl up. When threatened, your posture collapses.

Anyways....more to come....including - interestingly - some support for the Moment Arm approach

More on motor learning.....your brain is plastic

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:03:00 +0000

One of the things that this blog has recorded my thoughts about recently has been the idea of skill development vs strength development. Strength development is one thing, but in order to be good at your sport or activity you need to practice the specific skills involved. There has been a lot written on motor learning which is fascinating to study. Some of the interesting stuff is of how there is little transfer between similar movements.

This area of skill development came up in today's seminar with mc - which I will write more of soon (it was excellent) - but I also came across this today which is relevant to the discussions:

Study shows new brain connections form rapidly during motor learning

New connections begin to form between brain cells almost immediately as animals learn a new task, according to a study published this week in Nature. Led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the study involved detailed observations of the rewiring processes that take place in the brain during motor learning.

When you are learning a new physical skill, you are re-wiring your brain....and to some degree this is permanent.

"It's a remodeling process in which the synapses that form during learning become consolidated, while other synapses are lost," Zuo said. "Motor learning makes a permanent mark in the brain. When you learn to ride a bicycle, once the motor memory is formed, you don't forget. The same is true when a mouse learns a new motor skill; the animal learns how to do it and never forgets."

Interesting stuff. You need to learn the skill....but that learning gets hardwired into the brain and stays there. As mc said today, the nervous system is plastic.

Krav Maga Edinburgh

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 07:29:00 +0000

Normal Tuesday night fun.

That is my instructor. I am still crap at this but enjoy the training.

IF gets mainstream

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:25:00 +0000

Intermittent fasting hits the mainstream papers:

Feast or famine: The diet that won't just help you lose weight, you'll live longer and be brainier!

The article is referring mainly to the up Day Down Day diet that I mentioned here.

As ever I recommend Brad's writing's in Eat Stop Eat on this subject

Wisdom

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:26:00 +0000

I read this today:

complicated sells, simple works

Interesting thought to reflect on. There is a lot of cash in this field, a lot of people trying to make a living and a lot of them are trying to sell you something: a book, a course, a workshop.

There isn't much money in the simple stuff - but that is what works

Explosive moves don't make you explosive...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:22:00 +0000

This keeps coming up - for example in a comment on the last post from Dan:

Also, Olympic lifters traditionally have some of the highest vertical leaps recorded and they do mostly explosive movements. It would seem that Luke has an opinion that is not supported by much of the industry when he says that cleans are actually sending the body a signal to go slower to something like that. Everything I have read about explosive movements says that they help the body recruit more motor units and increase rate coding.

Some science actually says something different. For example:

EXPLOSIVE EXERCISES IN SPORTS TRAINING: A CRITICAL REVIEW

This paper reviews evidence relating to the effectiveness and safety of explosive exercises, such as Olympic style weight lifting, other weight training exercises performed at a fast cadence, and plyometric exercises, that are commonly used in the strength and conditioning training of athletes. Contrary to popular belief and the practices of many athletes, the peer-reviewed evidence does not support the view that such exercises are more effective than traditional, slow and heavy weight training in enhancing muscle power and athletic performance.

In fact, such exercises do not appear to be any more effective in this regard than weight training at a relatively slow cadence, and some evidence suggests they are less so.

Also, such explosive exercises do not transfer well (if at all) to athletic performance on the sports field, and present a significant injury risk. Therefore, such exercises should not be recommended in the strength and conditioning training of athletes, except those who need to learn the specific skill of lifting heavy weights fast, such as Olympic lifters and strongmen.

The whole paper is there for download.

See what it says:

explosive moves are no better than standard slow repetitions
they might actually be worse
they present an injury risk
the do not transfer over to the skill anyway.

There are other similar studies. For example this guy's thesis or this outstanding analysis and review of the literature:

After an extenive survey of the relevant studies the paper concludes:

In summary, there is very little evidence cited in the Position Stand to support the claim that explosive, multiple-set protocols are required to enhance the ability to produce power (Table 10), or enhance specific sport skills or functional ability.

Speed Development through strenghth training

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:03:00 +0000

I interviewed Luke a few months ago.

Congruent Exercise: An Interview with Bill DeSimone

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:26:00 +0000

A couple of times on this blog I have featured Bill DeSimone and his Moment Arm Exercise approach to training. Over the last few days I’ve been reading the book and it is fascinating – the product of incisive research and analysis from someone who thinks deeply about exercise, movement, anatomy and mechanics. This is not a review but I would seriously recommend the book to you if you are a bit of an exercise geek. It is not the easiest read – and Bill admits this – but it will repay some serious study and I understand that Bill is drafting a new more accessible text.

If you are new to the ideas I would recommend that you first of all watch the video I posted here.

There are already a couple of good interviews with Bill on the internet – from Doug and Anthony – but as I was reading the manual I kept on coming up with other questions and Bill has agreed to answer them…..so here we go:

Posture and deep muscles

The book looks at ideal (congruent) exercises for the superficial muscles. Indeed, you make the point that you should avoid loading the "deep" muscles in your exercises - once that happens you are no longer focussing on the target muscles.

What I wrote exactly was “Resistance that is challenging for the superficial muscles with their greater muscle torque is probably excessive for the deep muscles to try to move”.

Key word being “move”. You are loading the deep muscles [simply] by holding them steady while the superficial muscles move the load

An example of the point I was trying to make is, if you are doing a squat, hold your spine steady while the glutes and quads lift, compared to flexing and extending the spine under a squat weight. The primary concern is not straining the deep muscles,
secondary is to keep the superficial muscles loaded.

Do you think there is any need for exercise for the deep muscles, e.g. the postural muscles? I’d be thinking of something like the plank for example?

Interesting that you should pick up on that. I let that thread dangle, and you’re the first person in the five years to ask.

As I get older, and experience a much smaller margin of error when it comes to overuse injury, I’m tempted to unequivocally say “Yes”. But other guys my age seem to be able to continue to handle heavy weights in big movements at high intensities, so it may be an individual thing.

What about “posture”? Could we analyse healthy posture in terms of maintaining appropriate levers. I was thinking about someone who is hunched over – the spine is concave and there will be a whole series of additional axes through the vertebrae that could not be there with a more upright posture. Does that make sense?

Sure, but bad posture becomes problematic with the maintaining activities of daily living, much less weight training and sports.

Body By Science

I may be being unfair, but there seems to be an axiom in what you are proposing that we are focussing on muscles rather than movements? For example Doug McGuff’s "Big 5" seems to focus on moves – horizontal pull, horizontal push, vertical pull, vertical push and leg push. Your routines go through exercises for chest, shoulders, triceps, lats, traps, biceps, quads, hamstrings etc. individual muscles....Why the difference? Are all those moves necessary or could we consolidate?

John Little and Dr. McGuff have been extraordinarily gracious in allowing discussion of the Moment Arm Exercise material on their Body By Science board. Dr. McGuff was an early supporter of the manual back in 2004, and his referral gave me instant credibility with HIT guys at the time. John Little and I spent an hour on the phone this summer, and for someone with as many accomplishments in print as him, he also was very receptive and constructive.

Again, you have an interesting take here. Compared to the “functional” school of thought, neither Dr. McGuff’s nor my exercises would be characterized as movements.My take on a consolidated routine (e.g. leg press, chest press, pull down, press, row) is that if the trainee is satisfied with what they get from it, fine. If most non-trainees stayed with leg press-chest press-pulldown, they would probably get most of what they will [ever] get from weight training.

But my read of the biomechanics suggests that if you are trying to develop a particular muscle, you have to do at least one exercise for which that muscle is the prime mover. The body will select the largest muscle in a chain to bear the brunt of the work as an energy saving tactic; so if you are only doing chest presses and would like to try to develop more triceps, you have to do an elbow extension.

“Necessary” for what purpose is the key.

Relating to HIT

One of the moves that you recommend is the wall sit - a static squat. This got me thinking. That move is basically an isometric contraction of the thighs - in the position of maximum resistance movement arm and maximum muscle torque – but it is an isometric contraction. Could that principle be extended? How about a routine consisting of isomeric contractions – incidentally with no momentum - but ensuring that in each one the muscle is placed in the most appropriate position – i.e. maximum moment arm and maximum muscle torque?

A related idea - one thing that isn’t that clear from your book is the idea of the appropriate range of motion. Does it matter? Would it be appropriate to exercise with a very limited ROM as long as the move is around the point of maximum torque and maximum moment arm? Not isometrics....but very small movements around the ideal point? your videos seem to show quite a big range of motion.

Very perceptive questions. Theoretically, isometric or very limited range motions around the joint angle for peak muscle torque should be the most efficient way to load a muscle.

Practically, I do think there is a value to some range of motion, although not “full”.

Weight training, at its best, is hard on the joints. Due to the lever system, the internal forces are always dramatically higher than the weight in the hand, as I explain in the manual. My speculation is that by using as much range as is effective (i.e. no zero moment arm, not loading the joint at full stretch), you disperse that internal force over more of the joint articulation rather than at the same point all the time.

What is your view of negatives? As long as the move is a congruent exercise is negative accented or negative only exercise appropriate? For example if someone is not strong enough to do a chin up in the style that you recommend could they do it as a negative only move?

That would be an appropriate use of them. I’d be more inclined to do pulldowns or weight assisted chins, just to avoid undue soreness.

There is no magic to negatives; it [just] takes less energy to release cross-bridges than to create them, so your reps can last longer and you’ll have more by-products of fatigue to process. But you’ll always be “stronger” negatively than positively, whether you specifically do negatives or not.

What is your view as regards the appropriate cadence for exercises? Judging by your videos you move slowly – to eliminate momentum - but not “Superslowly”. TM?

Correct; the speed that minimizes momentum is the right speed. Specifying a specific number of seconds to perform the positive or negative is an interesting tool, but not definitive.

Would a long range movement like a squat be done for the same time as a short range one like a shrug?

Regardless of timing, it’s clear in biomechanics texts that slower speeds allow for greater force generation; if you’re using conventional weights, of course, the load has to be there.

The concept of failure for you seems a little different from that normally proposed by the HIT school. Could you explain more how you understand failure?

Failure apparently is more complex than we assumed, judging from the different interpretations by different HITters.

To one, the slightest form discrepancy terminates the set.

To the other, form discrepancy is something you work through to get to failure.

Where you fit in that continuum really depends on your motivation and preference.

Wherever you are in that, the trick is to balance effort with fatigue. Stopping the set because your muscles burn too much is not the same as a one-rep max; ideally your set is somewhere in between, maybe slightly more towards effort.

Personally, I prefer to start sets in strict form, and allow some extra effort towards the end of the set, depending on the motivation for that day, without letting it deteriorate into something dangerous. I don’t want to interfere too much with the trainee’s enthusiasm.

Moment Arm Exercise and the real world

Thinking about your principles – of trying to adopt movements which go through the most biomechanically correct joint motions – how do these ideas apply to everyday movements?

Do you see any daily movements – squats, bending, twisting etc as inherently risky due to their biomechanics?

One motion that interests me with respect to sports is “twisting”: rotation around the hips. It comes up in martial arts – punching – but also in things like the tennis serve, the golf swing etc. If I am to strengthen the muscles that are responsible for this motion, what do I do? Nautilus and others have rotational torso machines. What would you recommend as a congruent exercise?

I suppose the questions could be extended to sports – are some sports especially dangerous because of the biomechanics that they require?

Physical workers have two clichés: “Lift with your legs, not your back”, and “Turn, don’t twist”, both grounded in solid biomechanics. Sports coaches say “Get your hips into it”.

All three encourage keeping the hips and back in the same plane, and using the glutes and quads for power. The biomechanics are clear: the spine allows bending and twisting, for mobility, but flexing/extending/twisting the spine against load are steps in a risky direction.

A more congruent exercise than "twisting" would be a turn against resistance: standing, knees bent, pelvis and lower back kept in the same plane. Resistance (cable, tubing, medicine ball) held by the upper body, then pivot on your feet, maintaining the same pelvis/back position.

Quality sports technique actually utilizes proper biomechanics. Aside from the collision/contact/submission sports, the issue is that, with fatigue and competitive urges, technique gets sloppy and you end up using poor biomechanics.

Do you think you could have avoided your injuries if you had been aware of these principles earlier?

Absolutely yes, although it would have had to be 25 years earlier.

I’m absolutely convinced that if I had only done congruent exercises from the start I would have saved myself much time, effort, and later aches and pains. Rather than using every exercise and technique in the books and magazines, only to have to cut them back over time, I would have been better off doing what I do now all along.

What about the general population? Yours is quite a "geeky" text with some quite deep ideas.

Guilty about the geeky text! I’m not a writer, so this wasn’t an assignment. This was me, figuring out how to work around my injuries, writing for myself. Others like me picked up on it. The videos are an attempt at making the material more accessible, and hopefully that process will lead to a more mainstream presentation.

For the average Joe who is not interested in exercise but would benefit from doing something, what does your approach have to offer? How would you apply your stuff to the 99% who don’t train?

I apply it by separating the manual from the approach.

With clients, friends, relatives, my wife, my son, I simply instruct the exercises without explaining what they don’t need to know to do them. Take away the explanation of the science, and you have a sustainable routine that is perceived by the client as meaningful without being exhausting.

A related question – could a hypothetical guy (me for example!) – get a decent, effective workout at home with just a set of dumbbells?

An unintended benefit of the approach is that since your muscles and joints go with you, you can pretty much apply the principles to any equipment you have access to, including dumbbells.

Using the ranges shown in the manual, your routine would be:
chest press,
one arm row,
side raise,
split squat,
heel raise,
curl,
triceps,
deadlift,
hammer curl;
plus whatever posture/stabilization work you may need.

Bill, thanks so much for answering those questions.

There are other interviews with Bill here and here and if you are interested in his book you can order from his ebay store.

Here are two new videos he has just posted on applying his principles to Chest Training:

The reality

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:33:00 +0000

There is an excellent post by Brad Pilon here about Steroids and Muscle Growth

I do not think that we will progress in our understanding of the science behind muscle growth until we begin to openly discuss the use of anabolic steroids.

He is right.

So many people are taken in by absolute nonsense about diet and training when it is promoted by people who are on gear. On steroids anything works. I've seen it happen. Any sort of training or diet produces results.

There is a huge deception going on out there. Brad's books are unusual in that they are pretty honest.

Moment Arm Exercise...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:01:00 +0000

I had ordered this guy's book and it arrived in the post yesterday. It looks like a demanding read but I am looking forward to digging in to it. There are some interesting ideas.

There are a couple of interviews with Bill from Anthony and Doug.

What interests me is that he has developed this approach prompted by his injuries, in an effort to keep the muscles and joints in safe positions.

I may try to interview him myself too. You can get the book here if you are interested.

The world would be a better place if geekiness met physicalness and thoughtfulness regularly!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:46:00 +0000

Interview with dr mc schraefel - kettlebells, z health and more!

For quite a while now I have been reading the fascinating blog (begin 2 dig) of someone who was only identified as “mc”. mc (a he or she - for a while I wasn’t sure) addresses physical culture and movement issues with a depth that you rarely come across. With some tenacity she really researches in depth and then explains her findings clearly so you can apply them. It is a fantastic resource. I was very happy to find out that my friend Rannoch (whom I also interviewed here) is hosting mc for a seminar at the end of the month. Rannoch suggested that I do an interview to dig a little more into mc and her approach.

I think you will like this interview - we go through some interesting material and - as ever - mc puts things in a clear way with great enthusiasm.

mc, I’ve been reading your material for a while now and it will be great to be able to meet you. I’m looking forward to the seminar.

Me too on all those points.

Can you tell us something of your background, both athletically and academically?

Sure but it’s pretty boring. i grew up in a sports friendly family where learning to bike, throw a ball, swim and skate were considered basics (Canada, skating, eh?). This was pretty much the same with the kids I went to school with. I ran with the cross country team in grad school, and it’s only since being in the UK that I haven’t biked on roads at all. This place scares me to death. Toronto, New York, no problem. Rural England. No way. The bike is on a training stand. I ride or row in the safety of my living room.

Academically, I hold an interdisciplinary PhD supervised in Computer Science where my main areas are Human Computer Interaction & Web Science. A great honour and happiness for me is that about a year ago I was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship by the Royal Academy of Engineering to look at how designing to support quality of life might help scientists (and others) enhance creativity, innovation and discovery. A lot of the certifications I’ve been doing around health, fitness, nutrition, well-being, movement all feed into that research goal: how do we design our information systems to better support what we do so we spend less time managing information and more time making the world a better place?

If you had to summarise your key area of interest, what would it be?

Well being; quality of life

I started this blog to record and index bits and pieces of information that I came across that were interesting to me, but it has developed a bit from there.

Why do you blog? What is your blog there for?

I write stuff to try to make sense of things. I post the articles that result from this process because I reckon that there may be folks who have similar questions but not the time/inclination to do all the heavy lifting to get at some sense of an answer. This is why I rely on authors I trust in other areas to apply their knowledge to other things of interest to me and where I’ve trust they’ve put in the time to frame the thoughts they have.

Clarence Bass is an inspiration here. Clarence Bass is a lawyer by trade who got interested in health and fitness, seems always to have been a fitness geek, and who has been engaging with fitness experts and literature for a couple decades now. Since the earliest days of the Web almost, he’s had articles on line reflecting on everything from lean eating to whether or not creatine is a good idea.

His work is always based on blends of the research, experts, and research literature. He’s a model of inquiry and walking the talk. (CH - great stuff - I also first found out about a lot great stuff - from Art DeVany to kettlebells via Clarence Bass)

Your blog has a lot of material on Z Health. I have read a lot about Z Health over the last few years and it is often presented almost as a miracle panacea. I bought the basic Neural Warm Up Level 1 DVD and it just seemed to be a bunch of mobility drills. Must admit to a bit of cynicism. What am I missing?

Wow, that makes me sad. (CH:sorry!) All that stuff on the blog and you’re still feeling cynical? What do I need to revise? I’d like to know what you’ve read that makes z-health seem like a miracle, too.

And yet I can kinda see how one might get that impression of “incredible results” because of where Z-health is focused. The framing of z-health is to get as fundamental as we can with what happens inside of us. The nervous system/brain connection is at the leading edge of this understanding, so z-health asks how does the nervous system work? Knowing that how can we work with that?

In brief the nervous system works fundamentally as a governor of our survival, detecting threat or no threat, threat or no threat. As soon as there’s a detection of threat, the body starts a response process to enhance survival. That may be releasing stressor hormones for fight or flight, or starting up an inflammation process for healing, or simply shutting down full power to a muscle or setting up a pain cry so bad we have to go all foetal. The goal of z-health is therefore threat modulation.

Now as to those mobility drills, it turns out that there are some great ways to talk with the nervous system via movement. We’re designed to move. We have joints in our bodies for a reason. So by moving the joints actively we are sending loads of all clear/no threat signals to the nervous system. As we move joints, we are also sending a very rich map of where we are in space to give the body increased options about how it can respond to a threat: the more joints perceived as richly mobile, the more responses to avoid an incident. The internet is sort of like this process: if an email message can’t get through via one route because it’s busy, another one is used. More options are better.

To make this practical, let me take evil shoes as an example. A quarter of the joints in our bodies are in our feet. When we wear shoes their range of motion is reduced tremendously because many shoes have very thick and very rigid soles: they may only slightly bend at the ball of the foot, and not really twist easily. As a consequence, messages that would be coming to the brain about where our foot is in space at any given time goes down. There’s just not as many points of information firing back to the brain to say where every little joint is moving. Consequently there is less information the brain can use to keep us out of trouble if it senses we’re stumbling. If the only joints its getting rich signals from are the ankles as opposed to the tarsals, metatarsals, falanges, what’s it going to do? There was a study out this summer that said no kind of sneaker mitigated the incidence of foot injuries in the context of the army’s training.

No kidding: all these high tech sneakers do the same things: cut off our optimal signalling.

The foot is one common example of what happens at every joint in our body. One of the challenges for many people is moving the bones in their upper spine back and forth or side to side. This means the back that should move in segments acts like a unit that’s not functioning optimally, so some other body part that is takes up the slack. Eventually pain will result. RSI, carpal tunnel syndrome, tennis elbow are all examples more times than not of movement related compensations, joints that aren’t moving through their range of motion.

A lot of pain is movement based. Fix the movement, open up the signalling around the joints, give the body more of its options, and a way to map out where we are and what we’re doing in space, well being is enhanced.

So z-health can seem pretty miraculous in the context of someone who’s had say a lot of manual therapy for a back problem, or has had what feels like chronically tight hip flexors, and they do a simple drill with a z-health person and suddenly they feel ok; they can move again; pain’s gone. Our nervous system – some of the fibres – is sending signals at 300mph, and responds immediately and exactly to what we’re doing. So yes change can be that fast. When we do it for ourselves, we’re triggering off thousands more nervous systems signals than when someone manipulates us, so we also really amp up our body’s ability to learn and hold that new pattern.

Now as for that r-phase dvd seeming like a lot of mobility drills, what you find when getting together with a coach (even though this is all in the manual, sometimes it helps to be shown), is the precision of the movements is important. It’s sort of one of the things that’s distinct about z-health. Hitting the target is a big part of getting the benefit of this signalling. Moving the joints at different speeds comes into this process, too. And finally, R-phase is the movement fundamentals. It’s designed for folks to go into i-phase as soon as possible. I-phase gets out of r-phases neutral stance and into a more template approached to movement where we practice the drills in loaded positions, for example, in a lunge with both feet at 45 degrees, and the head titled – a la catching a ball while running. Again the focus is on precision of these core movements translated to more challenging, realistic planes of action. It’s why I call i-phase where we “train for the sprain” – prepping the bod for weird positions by practicing that mobility.

How did you first come across Z health?

When I was learning kettlebells, the trainer I went to started off class going through what I later learned was the Neural Warm Up 1. I’d seen something similar on a kettlebell DVD and thought well this is interesting. I asked what this stuff was, and then went to follow up on it online. I saw that there were no z-health certs in Europe and reached out with Rannoch to see if the z-health team would be interested in coming to Edinburgh to do a European cert. Happily, they were.

What are the major benefits it has brought you?

Personally, better performance.

In working with people I am making a difference with clients in a way I did not imagine possible before.

A lot of folks I see now are fed up. They come to see me with a hinky shoulder or sore back or painful knee as part of an issue inhibiting their athletic performance, and they have tried everything else – repeatedly – and so they’re about ready to try anything else rather than surgery. Some folks have already had surgery and are still not feeling great.

The thing is, they leave more mobile and more pain free than when they come in – and it sticks. It’s not something that stops a day later. They can keep using the tools they get with our sessions to take care of themselves better. I stand amazed. Our bodies, our nervous systems are just that amazing. It will be nice to get to a point of not being the last resort ☺

This is not something I ever imagined being able to do as a coach: help folks move better leading to hurting less or to hurting not at all.

Some of it seems like magic or voodoo – with prescriptions on which way to look etc. Is there a simple principle behind it all that you could summarise?

Threat modulation.

Once you get that we’re wired for survival and that everything in us is geared to survival – to perceiving and responding to threat, then the voodoo goes out and the “obvious” science comes in.

The eye position stuff, by the way, is related to the nervous system again with respect to our visual systems. We talk about joint mobility and awareness of where we are in space. That’s proprioception. And it’s third in our way of perceiving the world. First is visual, second is vestibular, third is proprioceptive. So by finding out by assessment if someone may have an issue with looking in a particular direction, and working with that, problems that seem intractable just treated with movement can suddenly open up. Z-Health really tries to respect how we’re designed. As an engineer, that’s appealing.

Turning away from Z health, what brought you to this whole physical training world? Those of use who spend a lot of time reading about this stuff can seem quite “geeky”!

We have bodies. They function better when they move.

As an engineer, I like to understand that function and how to enhance it. As a scientist, when something’s bust and there’s no principled hack to fix it, I like to be able to get fundamental enough to start looking for solutions. It’s geeky.

The world would be a better place if geekiness met physicalness and thoughtfulness regularly!

Why kettlebells? I find it amusing to watch the sectarian debates around kb lifting styles. It becomes almost theological. What do you think drives this? Science or business? What I mean is that there is cash in all this, the need to preserve market share.

cui bono, eh?

People have to make a living.

That said, I guess one of the most challenging things around any activity is getting information one can trust. Now I’m really interested in the fact that we’re these big brains creating worlds as if we don’t have bodies, but when we still have bodies. That’s part of my gig: how design computer information systems that have more respect for our physicality and how taking account of that may impact our creativity/quality of life and so on. But not everyone wants to spend big chunks of their time learning anatomy and physiology. We just want a workout program we can trust. So who do we trust? How do we assess trust-ful-ness when it comes to our bodies?

For me, as a science geek, I like to see assertions supported, claims backed up. That’s why I like Bass because that’s what he does, and since Bass respects Tsatsouline, I go see Tsatsouline’s work. And wow, how bout that, same thing: in all Tsatsouline’s texts, there’s practical experience of multiple experts, large cohorts who have field tested the work, and science that can be checked and validated as credible (not all folks who claim to use science pass that last check). So ok, I’m going to put some risk into trusting that there’s something solid here, give it a go. That’s what I’ve found with this approach to kettlebelling anyway.

Now this doesn’t mean that to say that I go for the “well it works for me so it’s good enough” as a sufficient rationale for something. How do we know that it’s working optimally as opposed to sufficiently or just ok? I used to think my hugely expensive high end hyper structured trainers were the absolute best thing in the world for me – especially when they had their custom orthotics in them. Did my back still hurt? Yes. Did I get faster or feel any different? No. My gait did look less ducky but was the core issue addressed? No. But man I was sold on those sneakers. Until I got some better information. And tested it. And got rid of all the squishy inflexible trainers I had. Do I feel better? Way. Now I’m not putting that down to just changing shoes. But it certainly seems to be part of a package of well being benefits.

Let me also say that one of the things I really like about z-health is the test it mentality. Check everything immediately. Z-health provides tools for a person to do these self-checks, too. Here’s an easy one: check the range of motion of your shoulder before you try something. Go do whatever it is you wanted to check. Check your range or motion again. Good? The Same? Worse? I like it. It’s science.

Do you have any views on the idea of functional training? There is quite a debate out there around the transferability of skill. Much of what I have been reading indicates that we should train muscles of strength then train the skills for our sport or particular movements, but not to confuse the two, i.e. punching while holding weights isn’t the best way to strengthen your punching muscles plus it will mess up the motor patterns / patterns involved in punching. Transfer seems quite limited. Then we have those who talk of functional moves – e.g. the hip snap of a kb swing will help your vertical jump. Where do you stand?

Let’s unpack this a bit. Modern functional training, like swiss balls, started in rehab to help people get back and up and running at whatever it was they had to do. Functional training for sport is more equated with sport specific training. And now functional training in general is something about training specifically to support “activities of daily life” if you look at Plisk of the NSCA or the ACE statement on same.

So on the one side there’s this training for every day life as part of so-called functional training, and then there’s the early gladiator drills seen as the first version of “functional training” or what’s previously been called “sport specific training” – like not asking pitchers to throw rocks as part of their training because yes indeed it will mess up their pitching. The activities of daily life version, however, sounds like celebrating compound movements with free weights to me, and may just be a way to communicate to more folks the value of getting a resistance program happening, and to think about things like “the core” rather than just bicep curls or jogging. It’s a model. Sometimes models are helpful. At least this one respects that we move.

I actually like the Russian model of athletic development divvying up General Physical Preparedness and Sport Specific Training (Sif’s Super Training is a great reference here). And indeed, sports Canada is going this way, too in terms of youth development with sport/athletics. Far more experienced and knowledgeable people than I have shown pretty compellingly that these distinct approaches have value. Most of us benefit from GPP work, which can include a lot of compound & dynamic work with free weights.

What’s crazy cool is to talk with some of the sport training coaches who have also certified in z-health and their prep work with their athletes now is not only muscular but visual and vestibular. For example one coach uses visual training drills for swimmers with them doing vision ( as opposed to eye sight) training drills in the pool with them, and these have a demonstrable impact on performance. You wouldn’t think that vision has a lot to do with swimming performance, but there’s that threat modulation thing again. That model seems to work every time. This approach gets to a different level than functional vs specific to say what let’s the athlete be as effective and as efficient as possible when we consider the whole athlete?

With respect to the KB and vertical jump: to my knowledge when I’ve seen the two discussed, it’s been about the plyometric effect of the overspeed eccentrics of using a lighter kb to whip the kb down and then power that up that’s been hypothesized as part of why swing work has done better than plyo depth jumps in one unpublished study. On the other hand, a lot of that effect may have to do with threat modulation, too: one can get in way more reps with a kb swing than repeatedly jumping off a box; far less taxing on our systems it seems.

In terms of diet you promote Precision Nutrition. Why?

I’ve written about this lately. Very few of us have any real baseline understanding of what works for us how in terms of the food we eat. We don’t really know ourselves with respect to food. Precision Nutrition is focused around eating habits first rather than calories. That’s used as a vehicle to get to a place where we can know that first and foremost we’re consistently getting a basic set of required foods into us for a good nutritional balance. From there, we can use that basis as a platform from which to test other things.

One of the big things tested for example is carb tolerance. So rather than saying starchy carbs bad, Berardi’s approach is: hold off starchy carbs to when we know they’re really needed – after workouts. Do this regularly for a month so we have a clean slate, and then see what happens after that if you have some starchy carbs at other times. It may be that Person A can totally handle them but Person B cannot. As a science geek, this get to a baseline then based on that knowledge, experiment makes so much sense. It’s a great way to get to know yourself with respect to food. I think we all deserve getting that self-knowledge around our nutrition. Otherwise, we’re simply lead by external proposals: starchy carbs bad; eat once a day, only eat fat from grass fed beef. Well ok, in what universe and for whom do these prescriptions make optimal sense?

So I used to be pretty religious about PN as a practice. Now, as said, it’s a really great way to get some core nutritional understanding about ourselves and to learn how to adjust foods for our goals. Another part of PN that I like is that it also spends quality time on how to monitor progress for body comp related goals. And likewise, as I’ve said in reviews, its forum is filled with experts who participate in discussions. I don’t know of a better place to get answers to nutrition queries based on science and experience without being dogmatic. A number of folks I respect there have been exploring intermittent fasting or eating only when hungry, and so on. But they’re all doing it from this fundamental base of knowing themselves around food, and PN has played a role there. Right now I’m going through my first ever bulking phase. Normally if I saw these numbers going up on the scale I’d panic. But (a) I know how to assess what of that is fat and what’s muscle progrees and (b) I know how to come back from this process. And that’s because of the approaches I’ve learned more at PN than doing various coaching/training certifications. It’s the full meal deal. And I haven’t even started about the expert training advice available there.

What is your take on all the primal / evolutionary fitness movements that have arisen recently? (MovNat for example)

Movement is good. It’s not about posture and being static it’s about being mobile. We’re designed to move. I’m not up on any claims in this space beyond seeing the vids that are lovely and make me think Hawaii must be a nice place to live if you can afford an ocean view. I get very wary of anyone trying to associate “primal” or “primitive” with anything we do. It’s like trying to find some authority in what we simply cannot know from the records we have. Yes we may have been stronger because of our hunter gatherer past; and sure Roman Soldiers hoofed it for eons. But so what? People in those cultures likely had about as much say in how their social infrastructure evolved as people today and so they adapted to the demands and resources of the People in Charge at the time.

We adapt to our environments, immediately and exactly.

Rather than looking at mystifying and reifying some romanticized version of the Noble Savage, it’s far more challenging to look at our current environments and say “how did we get to this place? Is this what we want? Is this what is good for us?” What is, to borrow again from Eric Cobb, the logical conclusion of this path?

Maybe it doesn’t matter if we’re weaker than a Neanderthal because we’re what we need to be for what we have designed now. But is what we have now what we want? I mean isn’t it silly that we have to invent routines and workouts, and set time aside to workout when we have a decreasing need for our embodiment? What does that tell us about what’s important to us and our voice in discussions about how we’re evolving? It seems so contradictory. At bottom, what’s the agenda in reaching back to our ancestors as faster or stronger?

You have embraced vibram five fingers. What difference have they made to your health?

As above.

Freeing my feet; getting with good mobility work to keep all my joints mobile and functioning, the consequence seems to be life is just easier. Seriously.

I am increasingly aware that there is more to fitness than movement. Where do you see other aspects of a well rounded life coming in? Things like social relationships, general outlook on life, stress management.

The question I ask my students is do you know what makes you happy? Do you know what is your heart’s desire? Is it what you’re doing right now? If not, why not? Where does what you’re doing right now fit in to that desire? How do you know this?

I wrote a lot over the spring about my experience with Getting Rid of Crap Around Goals. I’ve found, for myself, that letting go of stuff I supposedly “want” opens up a far wider field of view to enable better everything.

What can we expect at an mc seminar? What will I learn?

It’s the little things at the Z-KB one coming up with Rannoch. At the last seminar we did on z-health meets kettlebells, just about everyone had some experience with the basic kb moves we did: the swing, Turkish get up, and squats. But by doing some mobility work ahead of the kb work, and seeing how to apply some of the neurological principles that we cover at the start of the workshop, we tune up these familiar moves into something that at the very least will feel refreshed, better, stronger, smoother. Little things like eye movement we find can have a potent effect.

The idea is that while we model these techniques in some kb moves, folks will also see how they can apply this work and assess its benefit in the rest of their strength/health practice.

Finally, I know that there are a lot of people who read this blog who are not particularly gifted athletes – just average guys with jobs, worries and family responsibilities. How should we integrate training with everyday life?

Wow there are a lot of ways to answer that. My motivation to stay fit, since I have this body, goes back to Steven Covey’s discussion of why he works out every morning: it’s not about the reps; it’s about principles & what’s important. For me, being healthy, is fundamentally about being there for my family (and staying as far out of the ministrations of the NHS as possible). Consider the alternatives. We all know that there are huge costs on ourselves and families from health related problems, and that good nutrition, rest and exercise are pretty much the best defence for just about anything.

On the plus side, we’re incredibly robust. We don’t have to change everything in our lives at once. If we drink lots of carbonated beverages or juice we can say “four days from now” (it’s good to plan) “I am not going to have my 5pm juice. I shall have water instead.” Just that one change. One less can of stuff a week. We might try planning one less meal in the car a week or one less snack in front of the tv a week. A promise to chew the food in our mouths a few more times at least once today. See how it tastes then. By building up small changes we develop a platform for success.

Likewise, if a person can do nothing else today, we can move something. Our eyes move because of the 6 main muscles attached to them. Sitting reading this, one could pause and move their eyes as far to the left and as far to the right as possible. Likewise diagonally and up and down. We could take our hands off our keyboards and move each finger individually in circles as large as possible clockwise then counter clockwise. Sitting at a desk we can tilt our ankles to the outside and the inside. We can stand up and sit down. Several times. We can turn our heads side to side.

We don’t have to do it all at once. That we start to let ourselves get some actions towards these new habits is key. Getting with a good health coach can be time and money well spent to help build a plan that will work and sustain those goals.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to connect with Conditioning Research. I am a huge fan of your blog.

Thank you too! See you at the end of the month....

Solo drills

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:30:00 +0000

This is continuing my musings about functional training. All I am reading now - and this is beyond blogs into academic text books - explains that there is strength training and there is skill training. You must use appropriate moves and approaches to gain strength but you must also develop skills. Practice your specific movements for your sport.

You will also know that I am interested in self defence via Krav Maga. For me that means simple easy moves that need to be drilled, hard wired in. The simpler the better so they survive stress.

So there is strength training....and I am coming more and more to commit to the approach of Doug McGuff....and then there is skill training - repeated practice to program in the skills and moves that you need to get as automatic reactions. Don't mix the two....

Get strong....but then develop your movement skills.

It is like the idea in Gladwell's Outliers:

A common theme that appears throughout Outliers is the "10,000-Hour Rule". Gladwell claims that greatness requires enormous time, using the source of The Beatles' musical talents and Gates' computer savvy as examples.[3] The Beatles performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time, therefore meeting the 10,000-Hour Rule. Gladwell asserts that all of the time The Beatles spent performing shaped their talent, "so by the time they returned to England from Hamburg, Germany, 'they sounded like no one else. It was the making of them.'"[3] Gates met the 10,000-Hour Rule when he gained access to a high school computer in 1968 at the age of 13, and spent 10,000 hours programming on it. In Outliers, Gladwell interviews Gates, who says that unique access to a computer at a time when they were not commonplace helped him succeed. Without that access, Gladwell states that Gates would still be "a highly intelligent, driven, charming person and a successful professional", but that he might not be worth US$50 billion.[3] Gladwell explains that reaching the 10,000-Hour Rule, which he considers the key to success in any field, is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with 20 hours of work a week for 10 years. He also notes that he himself took exactly 10 years to meet the 10,000-Hour Rule, during his brief tenure at The American Spectator and his more recent job at The Washington Post.[2]

You have to put the hours in. Practice and practice.

Here is where the video comes in. I have bought this DVD and it is pretty good at stressing a very simple straight forward approach, a game plan for every fight. Simple pre-emptive stuff. bang bang bang. Yes there is more to it but if all else fails hit hard and run away. Simple drills to practice over and over.

I do a single one hour Krav Maga class a week....which is not enough to develop the skills, to embed them thoroughly....so I need to practice out of the class.

Apologies for the poor quality, but you will get the idea.

This is how Ritchie describes the clip:

The notion of a "Street Kata" would at first sound ridiculous but at the end of the day we need a way of training alone and sportive shadow boxing is not the right way to go about it.
You need to train in intense bursts of explosive violent energy with a degree of emotional intent that adhere to the restraints of combative ergonomics.

Posh way of saying you should train how you want to react. Efficiently, Aggressively and with maximum effect.

The term "creating structure for spontaneity" I stole from Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink"- he nicked the term I think from Military Tacticians.

More than ever when you are training alone the temptation to get greedy with potential threats is very strong.

The way to overcome that is to create a rigid structure to work within.
Of course we dont need to adhere to that structure, but you can only create interesting digressions from a path when you have a path to move away from.

Enjoy the clip.

Instead of dying I'm flying.....

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:34:00 +0000

scary....a guy free climbing the Eiger and falling off (with a parachute)

Hat tip Martin

Stop obsessing about your training

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:25:00 +0000

I read this in an article by Doug McGuff. It reminded me of something Skyler wrote the other day.

From THE GEEKS SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH

Several non-training circumstances seem to offer the millieu in which proper training can be most productive. While non-scientific and anecdotal at best, these factors were universally present during my own periods of rapid progress as well those of my clients. Personally, I was able to make these observations because my growth seems to occur all at once on a very intermittent basis. It usually occurs in the early morning and will actually awaken me from sleep because I can feel it occurring. It can best be described as “feeling like rice crispies sound when you pour milk on them”. I’ve had as much as 3/4 inch arm growth overnight. Such results never seemed to correlate to the previous workout, but several factors over time can be noted in my journals.

1. Happiness-in general I was not elated or extremely happy. Rather, I was simply contented with life in general and had a sense of peace. There was no current issue that was troubling me or occupying my mind.

2. Lack of preoccupation with training-universally I was involved in activities that precluded me from thinking about my training or progress. I hadn’t looked at a muscle magazine in months or read any books, articles or visited any internet sites related to training.

3. Busy Professional Life-usually I was fairly busy with my professional life and absorbed in it. However, I was not overly stressed by this absorption…it was truly immersion rather than anxious rumination.

4. Laziness-it seemed I retained the skill of being able to lay around and do nothing for at least an hour each day.

5. Sleep-in general I was getting about an hour and a half of extra sleep per night during a period when I was on the same shift rotation. In addition my sleep seemed to be filled with pleasant dreams.

6. Lack of body awareness-in general I had recently spent very little time assessing my appearance in the mirror or taking measurements. My only impetus to do so was after the sensation of sudden growth had occurred.

7. Season-gains seem to occur in early Spring and late Fall. I seem to be dressed in such a way that my body awareness is less, and I also think the lack of heat stress is more conducive to growth.

8. Hydration-this is without exception the strongest correlate I have found. I originally noted this when I tried Ellington Darden’s recommendation for superhydration (drinking at least a gallon of water a day). My largest growth spurt ever took place while superhydrating and every subsequent improvement has occurred during periods when I used this technique. Recently one of my clients began superhydrating and added an entire minute to her TUL’s for every set of her workout.

In general I think the best most concise advice (other than superhydration) that can be offered to most HIT enthusiasts is the following: First, stop obsessing about training. Stop spending hours on the internet discussing and debating training. Stop having arguments with people. Stop visiting all the web sites and calling the facilities around the country on a daily basis. Second, decrease your level of body awareness. Take some time off from tape measures, skin fold calipers and scales and wear clothing that conceals your body from your concern. There is truth in the old saying “a watched pot never boils”. Finally, be content and happy with the hand that nature has given you and achieve within your capabilities.

It is an important point. Sometimes I spend so much time reading crap on the internet that I do not get enough sleep. It is totally self defeating. Training is simple - push it hard, rest and recover. There is only so much to learn....

In Body by Science Doug talks about Training angst:

Ketogenic Diet as a cancer treatment

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:38:00 +0000

I've had stuff on this on the blog before - e.g. here.

Via facebook - thanks Richard - I learned that Jimmy Moore has posted an interview with

Dr. Thomas Seyfried, a researcher from Boston College who runs the Seyfried Laboratory dedicated specifically to taking a closer look at such diseases as epilepsy and brain cancer.

you can listen to the interview here - Definitely worth it.

I'd given up reading Jimmy's blog for a few reasons (his whole folksy style irritates me and his diet winds me up - lots of artificial sweeteners / low carb products and little real food) BUT he works hard on the blog and gives some great information for free.

Just wash your face in cold water......

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:22:00 +0000

An interesting study! Speed recovery by dunking your face in cold water

Influence of cold water face immersion on post-exercise parasympathetic reactivation

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cold water face immersion on post-exercise parasympathetic reactivation, inferred from heart rate (HR) recovery (HRR) and HR variability (HRV) indices. Thirteen men performed, on two different occasions, an intermittent exercise (i.e., an all-out 30-s Wingate test followed by a 5-min run at 45% of the speed reached at the end of the 30–15 Intermittent Fitness test, interspersed with 5 min of seated recovery), randomly followed by 5 min of passive (seated) recovery with either cold water face immersion (CWFI) or control (CON). HR was recorded beat-to-beat and vagal-related HRV indices (i.e., natural logarithm of the high-frequency band, LnHF, and natural logarithm of the square root of the mean sum of squared differences between adjacent normal R–R intervals, Ln rMSSD) and HRR (e.g., heart beats recovered in the first minute after exercise cessation) were calculated for both recovery conditions. Parasympathetic reactivation was faster for the CWFI condition, as indicated by higher LnHF (P = 0.004), Ln rMSSD (P = 0.026) and HRR (P = 0.002) values for the CWFI compared with the CON condition. Cold water face immersion appears to be a simple and efficient means of immediately accelerating post-exercise parasympathetic reactivation.

Pistols from an HIT guy

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:30:00 +0000

This is Patrick Diver - the trainer at Greyhound Fitness - doing pistols.

He is a proper HIT guy - just like Doug McGuff and John Little who were interviewed here - so it is interesting to see his training give him the strength for this.

sleep more or get fat?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:34:00 +0000

Basically short sleep is associated with obesity....

Sleep Duration and Obesity in Middle-aged Australian Adults

However....you can't just have a lie in on the weekend to catch up for late nights in the week:

THE FACTS Chronic sleep deprivation is a given for most Americans. But paying off a sleep debt is not as simple as sleeping late on a Saturday.......

......scientists examined the cognitive effects of a week of poor sleep, followed by three days of sleeping at least eight hours a night. The scientists found that the “recovery” sleep did not fully reverse declines in performance on a test of reaction times and other psychomotor tasks, especially for subjects who had been forced to sleep only three or five hours a night.

Patterns of performance degradation and restoration during sleep restriction and subsequent recovery: a sleep dose-response study.

Daytime performance changes were examined during chronic sleep restriction or augmentation and following subsequent recovery sleep. Sixty-six normal volunteers spent either 3 (n = 18), 5 (n= 16), 7 (n = 16), or 9 h (n = 16) daily time in bed (TIB) for 7 days (restriction/augmentation) followed by 3 days with 8 h daily TIB (recovery). In the 3-h group, speed (mean and fastest 10% of responses) on the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) declined, and PVT lapses (reaction times greater than 500 ms) increased steadily across the 7 days of sleep restriction. In the 7- and 5-h groups speed initially declined, then appeared to stabilize at a reduced level; lapses were increased only in the 5-h group. In the 9-h group, speed and lapses remained at baseline levels. During recovery, PVT speed in the 7- and 5-h groups (and lapses in the 5-h group) remained at the stable, but reduced levels seen during the last days of the experimental phase, with no evidence of recovery. Speed and lapses in the 3-h group recovered rapidly following the first night of recovery sleep; however, recovery was incomplete with speed and lapses stabilizing at a level comparable with the 7- and 5-h groups. Performance in the 9-h group remained at baseline levels during the recovery phase. These results suggest that the brain adapts to chronic sleep restriction. In mild to moderate sleep restriction this adaptation is sufficient to stabilize performance, although at a reduced level. These adaptive changes are hypothesized to restrict brain operational capacity and to persist for several days after normal sleep duration is restored, delaying recovery.

Getting older helps recovery

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:15:00 +0000

we old guys have some advantages....

Effects of Age and Rest Interval on Strength Recovery

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of two different rest intervals between sets of isokinetic knee extension exercise on peak torque (PT), and Total Work (TW) between untrained younger and older men. Seventeen young men (24.22±2.58 yrs) and 20 older men (66.85±4.02 yrs) performed 3 sets of 10 unilateral isokinetic knee extension repetitions at 60°/s. The rest intervals between sets were 1 and 2 min. There was a significant decline in PT when 1 and 2 min rest intervals were used for young men, but not when a 2 min rest interval was applied for old men. There was also a significant decline in TW among the 3 sets when 1 and 2 min rest intervals were applied for young men, whereas the decline in TW in older men occurred only between the 2nd and 3rd sets. PT and TW in the 3rd set were significant greater following a 2 min rest interval than a 1 min rest in both young and older men. The present study indicated that non-resistance trained young men may require longer rest interval to recover full PT and TW when compared to older men.

Fat kids

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:07:00 +0000

There was a bit of discussion on the radio this morning debating the "good news" that kids are not getting as fat as we thought they were.

Child obesity is levelling off - reports the BBC

Maybe they are drinking more full fat milk?

The thing is though that there is still a big problem, especially for kids from poorer families. A study I saw today concluded:

Childhood obesity and overweight prevalence among school-age children in England has stabilized in recent years, but children from lower socio-economic strata have not benefited from this trend. There is an urgent need to reduce socio-economic disparities in childhood overweight and obesity.

The Guardian had a good piece too:

If the calculations are correct, it is suggested that "only" about 30% of youngsters will be overweight or obese – and remarkably the government's revised target of reducing the scale of the problem to year 2000 levels by 2020 might well be achieved. That assumes no improvement in the situation over the next decade and still leaves obesity among young children at twice the level it was in 1990 – the baseline for all the calculations.

It is all about genetics - your toes are too short!

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:04:00 +0000

When it comes to sporting performance, you know ultimately it is all about genetics - the hand that you were dealt by your parents.

There is a lot of talk about how to train, how to eat etc but when it comes to it it is about things that you really cannot influence.....like the length of you toes!

Longer toes, unique ankle structure aid sprinters

Longer toes and a unique ankle structure provide sprinters with the burst of acceleration that separates them from other runners, according to biomechanists.

"At the start of a sprint the only way a runner can speed up is through the reaction force that results from the action of leg muscles pushing on the ground," said Stephen Piazza, associate professor of kinesiology, Penn State. "Long toes provide sprinters the advantage of maintaining maximum contact with the ground just a little bit longer than other runners."

Piazza and his colleague Sabrina S. M. Lee, former Penn State graduate student now a post-doctoral fellow at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, studied the muscle architecture of the foot and ankle to look at the differences between sprinters and non-sprinters.

Read the rest

Crap makes you depressed?

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Maybe.

The BBC reported this the other day

Here is the study

Dietary pattern and depressive symptoms in middle age.

BACKGROUND: Studies of diet and depression have focused primarily on individual nutrients. AIMS: To examine the association between dietary patterns and depression using an overall diet approach. METHOD: Analyses were carried on data from 3486 participants (26.2% women, mean age 55.6 years) from the Whitehall II prospective cohort, in which two dietary patterns were identified: 'whole food' (heavily loaded by vegetables, fruits and fish) and 'processed food' (heavily loaded by sweetened desserts, fried food, processed meat, refined grains and high-fat dairy products). Self-reported depression was assessed 5 years later using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies - Depression (CES-D) scale. RESULTS: After adjusting for potential confounders, participants in the highest tertile of the whole food pattern had lower odds of CES-D depression (OR = 0.74, 95% CI 0.56-0.99) than those in the lowest tertile. In contrast, high consumption of processed food was associated with an increased odds of CES-D depression (OR = 1.58, 95% CI 1.11-2.23). CONCLUSIONS: In middle-aged participants, a processed food dietary pattern is a risk factor for CES-D depression 5 years later, whereas a whole food pattern is protective.

I am not sure that I'd class full fat dairy as processed crap though. Especially in the light of news like this:

Children who often drink full-fat milk weigh less

Eight-year-old children who drink full-fat milk every day have a lower BMI than those who seldom drink milk. This is not the case for children who often drink medium-fat or low-fat milk. This is one conclusion of a thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The study showed that children who drink full-fat milk every day weigh on average just over 4 kg less.

Moment Arm Exercise

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:05:00 +0000

So what do the biceps do?

fasciating stuff from Bill DeSimone

Seth on Fat

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:36:00 +0000

Seth has some good thoughts on animal fat:

for best health I need much more animal fat than I usually get — is plausible:

1. As Spector said, butchers cut the fat off meat. The odds that our Stone-Age ancestors, living when food was sometimes scarce, did the same thing: Zero. Perhaps our meat is unnaturally low in fat. If for a long time in our evolutionary past we ate a lot of animal fat it makes sense that our bodies would be shaped to work best with that much fat.

2. Many video games, which boys enjoy, resemble hunting. I think this reflects an evolutionary past in which men hunted. If so, for a long time humans ate meat. That they ate a lot of meat is suggested by the fact that when big game went extinct (probably due to hunting) human health got worse.

3. American culture demonizes animal fat. The conclusion that animal fat is bad rests on epidemiology. Once something becomes heavily recommended or discouraged, a big problem for epidemiologists arises: the people who follow the advice are likely to be different (e.g., more disciplined, better off) than those that don’t (the healthy-user bias). As I blogged yesterday, an example is vaccine effectiveness: Those who get vaccinated are different than those who don’t.

4. Fat tastes good. Which implies we need it. We like whipped cream, butter on toast, milk in tea, and so on. Butter vastly improves toast even with my nose clipped. Long ago, when this fat-pleasure connection evolved, dietary fat was mostly animal fat and fish oil.

IF definitely works...

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:20:00 +0000

I had a post the other day saying that intermittent fasting works. I often point to scientific studies on IF but it is also interesting to see the results of the approach. Of course this proves nothing....but Martin has achieved some amazing results with his approach to IF (described in various bits here).

Great stuff.