Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Doing crossfit and looking like a bodybuilder?

Health Correlator: Doing crossfit and looking like a bodybuilder?

Monday, January 6, 2014





Top crossfit athletes like Annie Thorisdottir and Rich Froning Jr.
(pictured below; photos from Crossfitthestables.com and List09.com) look
like bodybuilders even though their training practices are markedly
different from those of most top natural bodybuilders. It is
instructive, from a human physiology perspective, to try to understand
why.











First of all we should make it clear that what makes Annie Thorisdottir
and Rich Froning Jr. look the way they do is not only crossfit training.
Genetics plays a key role here. Some people don’t accept this argument
at all. Can you imagine someone arguing that top basketball players are
generally tall because the stretching and reaching moves inherent in
playing basketball make them tall? Top basketball players are not tall
because they play basketball; the causality is stronger in the opposite
direction: they play basketball because they are tall. The situation is
not all that different with top crossfit competitors.



Often people will point at before and after photos as evidence that
anyone can achieve the level of muscularity of a champion natural
bodybuilder, if they do the right things. The problem with these before
and after photos is that one can “go down” in terms of muscularity and
definition quite a lot, but there is a clear ceiling in terms of “going
up”. For example, if one goes from competitive marathon running to
competitive bodybuilding, after a few years the difference will be
dramatic if the person has the genetics necessary to gain a lot of
muscle.



In other words, those who have the genetics to become very muscular can
lose muscle and/or gain body fat to the point that they would look like
they don’t have much genetic potential for muscle gain. Someone who
doesn’t have the required genetics, on the other hand, will also be very
effective at losing muscle and/or gaining body fat, but will be much
more limited at the upper end of the scale.



The table below is from a widely cited and classic study by Fryburg and
colleagues on the effects of growth hormone, insulin, and amino acid
infusion on muscle accretion of protein. The article is available online
as a PDF file (1).
The measurements shown on the table were taken basally (BAS) and at 3 h
and 6 h after the start of the infusions, one of which was of a
balanced amino acid mixture that raised arterial phenylalanine
concentration to about twice what it was before the infusion.
Phenylalanine is one of the essential amino acids present in muscle (2).







There were four experimental conditions, two with only amino acid
infusion, one with insulin and amino acid infusions, and one with
insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and amino acid infusions. Protein
synthesis and breakdown numbers are based on phenylalanine kinetics
inferences. The balance number is based on the synthesis and breakdown
numbers; the former minus the latter. Note that at BAS the balance is
always negative; this implies a net amino acid loss from muscle. At BAS
the measurements were taken after a 12 h fast.



All infusions – of insulin, IGF-1, and amino acids – were continuously
applied during the 6 h period. There was no exercise involved in this
infusion study, and the amino acid mixture was balanced; as opposed to
focused on certain amino acids, such as BCAAs.



The numbers in the table suggest that insulin infusion brings the
balance to positive territory at the 3-h mark, with the effect wearing
down at 6 h. IGF-1 infusion brings the balance to positive territory at 3
h, with the effect increasing and almost doubling at 6 h. Amino acid
infusion alone brings the balance to positive territory a bit at 3 h and
6 h, and much less than when it is combined with insulin or IGF-1
infusions.



The effects of these infusions were due to both reductions in breakdown
(amino acid loss) and increases in synthesis. We see that insulin exerts
its effect on the balance primarily by suppressing breakdown. IGF-1
exerts its effect on the balance primarily by increasing synthesis. The
effect of IGF-1 on the balance is significantly stronger than those of
insulin and amino acid infusions, even when these latter two are taken
together.



While this is an infusion study, one can derive conclusions about what
would happen in response to different types of exercise and nutrients.
Under real life conditions, insulin will increase in response to
ingestion of carbohydrates and/or protein. IGF-1 will increase in
response to growth hormone (GH) elevation, of which a major trigger is
intense exercise.



The type of exercise that leads to the highest elevation of GH levels is
intense exercise that raises heart rate significantly and rapidly.
Examples are sprints, large-muscle resistance exercise, and resistance
exercise involving multiple muscles at the same time. At the very high
end of GH secretion are exercises that use large upper and lower body
muscles at the same time, such as the deadlift. At the low end of GH
secretion are localized small-muscle exercises, such as calf raises and
isolated curls.



Anecdotally it seems that, at least for beginners, those exercises that
lead to the highest GH secretion are the least “comfortable” for them.
That is, those are the exercises that cause the most “huffing and
puffing”. So next time you do an exercise like that, use this as a
motivator: these are the exercises with the biggest return on
investment; whether you are looking for health improvement, muscle gain,
or both.



Competitive crossfit practitioners tend to favor variations of
high-intensity interval training (HIIT), with an emphasis on a blend of
endurance and strength exercises. Endurance and strength are both needed
in crossfit competition. Competitive bodybuilders tend to focus more on
strength, often exercising with more resistance or weight than
competitive crossfit practitioners.



Extrapolating from the infusion study, one could argue that high GH
secretion exercises are critical for amino acid accretion in muscle.
Both groups mentioned above – competitive crossfit practitioners and
competitive bodybuilders – exercise in ways that lead to high GH
secretion. Surprising as this may sound (to some), if you do chin-ups,
you’ll probably have better results in terms of biceps hypertrophy than
if you do isolated bicep curls. This will happen even though the overall
load on the bicep muscles will be lower with the chin-ups. The reason
is that the GH secretion will be significantly higher with the chin-ups,
because more muscles are involved at the same time, including large
ones (e.g. the lats).



It is interesting to see competitive crossfit practitioners talking about needing to lose some weight but not being able to (3).
The reason is that they do not have much body fat to lose, and the
types of exercise that they do create such a powerful stimulus toward
positive nitrogen balance (4) that they end up gaining weight even as they restrict calorie intake.



Carbohydrate ingestion prior to exercise may raise insulin levels, but
will blunt GH secretion; protein without carbohydrate, on the other
hand, will raise insulin levels without blunting GH secretion (5).
Whether ingesting protein immediately before exercising is necessarily
good in the long run is an open question, however, because GH secretion
is likely to be greater for someone who is exercising in the fasted
state, as GH secretion is in part a response to glycogen depletion (6, 7).
And, as we have seen from the infusion study, GH secretion is
disproportionately important as a positive nitrogen balance factor.



Compensatory adaptation applied to human biology (8)
suggests that the body responds to challenges over time, in a
compensatory way. Which scenario poses the bigger challenge: (a) high GH
exercise with more amino acid loss during the exercise, or (b) high GH
exercise with less amino acid loss during the exercise? I think it is
(a), because the message being sent to the body is that “we need more
muscle to do all of this and still compensate for the loss during
exercise”.



Maybe this is why top crossfit practitioners end up looking like
bodybuilders, and cannot lose muscle even when a slightly lighter frame
would make them more competitive in crossfit games. Their bodies are
just responding to the stimuli they are getting.




21 comments:



Sam Knox
said...
Ned:

I think it's misleading to use Crossfit Games competitors as examples of the effects of Crossfit-style training. They don't train for the games by doing WODs, they train in the same way that anyone would for that kind of competition: lifting weights and doing high-intensity intervals.




js290
said...
Ned,

Nassim Taleb talks about the "Swimmer's Body" in Fooled by Randomness. Also, I think it was George Hackenschmidt (inventor of the 'Hack squat') that said health cannot be divorced from strength.

http://youtu.be/y-ufSYBcZa0?t=3m54s

Thorisdottir and Froning could probably be competitive bodybuilders if they chose to do that instead. Most people probably just have unrealistic expectations of what their own bodies.


john
said...
Most elite crossfitters are coming from a healthy background, with lots of training and athletic activity. The average crossfitter is usually somewhat unmotivated, unfit, and overweight.

I think almost anyone can achieve a good physique, but maybe crossfit is not the optimal way. Hard work in the weight room combined with careful dieting will probably be better than doing WODs.


john
said...
Oh, also we should consider the naivety of the public to think tested athletes are not using illegal drugs. Those physiques are certainly achievable without gear, but the level of performance is maybe not. Froning gained considerable muscle since starting competitive crossfit.




Anonymous
said...
These guys - the CF athletes that are actually strong - long ago stopped doing CF work outs and use standard strength/lifting programming. This is fairly well known.

Cf doesn't make people strong. It makes them less weak.




johnnyv
said...
The elite cross fitters got and maintain their physiques via standard body building hypertrophy work. On its own cross fit makes woman look good and men look weak as it is mostly endurance and poor form.
A structured resistance training regimen in combination with HIIT is VASTLY superior in terms of promoting hypertrophy.




Martin
said...
Is the recommendation of eating high carb and protein postworkout meal wrong? Is it reducing the GH response?


goodwinnihon
said...
cross-fit or not, but i'm doing HIIT push-ups to heat up and to save on heating)...:

http://youtu.be/aBx7sKkjklo




Anonymous
said...
Nobody in my crossfit gym looks remotely like Annie or Froning, even the super studs that finish minutes before everyone else or lift 25-50% more. They work out 5-6 times per week and are religious about diet, calories, pre and post workout nutrition etc.

Frankly I have no idea how the crossfit competitors achieve these physiques. Froning supposedly eats primarily peanut butter and whole milk and then whatever he wants whenever he wants. This is so obviously BS that we probably have no idea what he really does.

I don't want to say that they are all juicing, but gaining 25-50 pounds of lean muscle is nearly impossible under normal circumstances.


Ned Kock
said...
Hi Martin. Carbohydrate ingestion PRIOR to exercise is a problem; it may raise insulin levels, but will blunt GH secretion.




rs711
said...
Hi Ned,

Fasted training for a superlative all-round stimulus makes a lot of sense to me but I'm missing a piece...I wonder about our gluconeogenic capacity: how capable is it for fuelling HIIT style workouts on a ketogenic diet? A lot of the anecdotal evidence one hears about suggests a disadvantage in this state when attempting this sort of exercising...however, on the other hand, glycogen stores don't ever really get totally depleted as far as I understand (except in starvation scenarios of course). How does this all fit together (theoretically at least)?


Matthew Green
said...
Awesome ideas!


Ned Kock
said...
Hi rs711. Muscle holds on to glycogen greedily, releasing it only during glycogen-depleting exercise such as sprints and weight training. Liver glycogen is another story; it is there to supply the needs of the brain, so the liver releases it as glucose regularly.

The average body, mostly the brain, consumes about 5 g of glucose per hour. Most of it comes from the liver glycogen tank. Pregnant women are the main exception; they have two (or more) brains to feed.

If liver glycogen reserves are low, the body uses amino acids from muscle for GN, to supply the needs of the brain. Muscle cells are not lost in this case, and those amino acids that are lost are recovered when nitrogen balance becomes positive.

As I’ve said here before, the main stimulus for amino acid loss in muscle is not lack of protein ingestion, it is lack of muscle use (but, of course, dietary protein is important). If one’s arm is immobilized, its muscles will atrophy regardless of how much protein is ingested.


Ned Kock
said...
There is always a limit to everything, including stimuli for compensatory adaptation. When it comes to exercising in a fasted state, I would argue that the limit is reached (or is very close to being reached) when one starts experiencing orthostatic hypotension; i.e., feeling dizzy when going from a sitting to a standing position. See this post for more details on this and suggestions on how to address the problem:

http://bit.ly/u0QVd8


raphi
said...
Thanks for the info Ned. I went back and read http://bit.ly/u0QVd8 - the only time I experienced orthostatic hypotension is in my pre-Paleo days always after long bouts of TV-watching, something I don't experience anymore (the ortho.-hyp. or the long TV-watching).

Just for info: 2 days ago, after 15-16h of fasting + coffee + green tea, I did a short but relatively intense workout (~15min) and took some blood sugar readings. 147 mg/dl (20min after), 124 mg/dl (45min after), 102 mg/dl (1hr after)...and 20min after I ate my typical high-fat, quite low-carb meal my blood sugar was down to 70 mg/dl !

How typical is this? For info I am definitely fat-adapted, 24yrs old, male, and my fasting blood sugars are usually in the mid 70s-80s.


Simba Lion
said...
Hi Dear.

Your blog is really a Million dollars sharing.
It really helpful for people and always seams a motivational blog for them.
I would like to add one thing more in your blog from my experience.
I tried a Beachbody product named as P90X Challenge Pack by TOny Horton. Its basically a Fitness workout and really it works just within 90 days.
I suggest you all to try it at least one time you'll absolutely love this P90X product.


Gexton
said...
Great article Lot's of information to Read... Great Man Keep Posting and update to People..Thanks
Buy Peptides


William Read
said...
Hi Ned

Always enjoy your discussions. I agree with you that genetics are key. I remeber back in my competitive running days in school that we all did the same workouts at the same intensity but the results were wildly different suggesting that some people simply respond better to the training. Speaking of myself, my family has a tendency to become diabetic at a low weight ie become skinny fat. My sister died at 63 years old from complications from diabetes and she was not that heavy and father became prediabetic at 170 lbs which is not that heavy. My distance running I think has kept me getting diabetes but I am fairly thin and under muscled. Then about four years ago I started adding strength training to my training. Today I mostly strength train with my running which is very intermittent being about one third what I used to do. I have gained about 15 lbs with no change in my waist which I think is really good. I still only weigh 162-165 lbs at 5-10. I have noticed significant improvement in my health also except I get orthostatic hypotension often when I get up from a laying or sitting position, sometimes rather severe, sometimes during the workout also. I am 56 years old and I am wondering if I should be having more protien before the workout might help?


Ned Kock
said...
Hi raphi. You may want to take a look at this:

http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2010/07/our-bodys-priority-is-preventing.html


Ned Kock
said...
Hi William. OH is associated with an abnormal elevation of stress hormones; sometimes people push themselves too far in their workouts.

You remind me a bit of Jeff O’Connell, Editor-in-Chief for Bodybuilding.com. I reviewed his book, which I think you’d find very relevant to your case:

http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2011/08/book-review-sugar-nation.html


Leroy DAvis
said...
wow!! that was an awesome result! i wanna try it!.. http://preserveyoursexyhealth.com/blog/

Friday, 14 March 2014

Getting Ripped Slowly – My New High Intensity Fitness Plan

Getting Ripped Slowly – My New High Intensity Fitness Plan

 rambo first blood part ii

A New Theory

I stumbled across MAS’s article on high intensity training (HIT) a couple weeks ago and was very much intrigued by the notion.

Ever since I started doing resistance exercise, my only objectives have either been to hit a certain number of reps, or pump out reps until fatigue sets in and another repetition isn’t possible.
Over time I’ve become more and more convinced that performing (three) sets until fatigue or failure with low repetitions (in the 6-ish range) is key for gaining muscle mass and strength. But I never really considered any different ways in which one could reach exhaustion while keeping repetitions to a minimum. My only thoughts (and conventional wisdom) were to use weights to increase the opposing load. Throw more plates on the barbell your maximum number of repetitions will naturally be decreased.

An alternative to this is increasing tension. For example, wide-grip chin-ups are much more difficult to perform than standard shoulder-width chin-ups. No extra weight has been added (the load is still the same), but the angle between the grip points and your dangling body is greater, thus requiring more work to pull your body upward.

See this PDF for a simple mathematical explanation. Let’s say you weigh 75 kg (about 165 lbs). By placing your chin-up grip at shoulder width, a 0° (or 180°) angle between your hands and shoulders, each arm is bearing a tension of 367.5 N. Slide your grip out 15° and the tension on each arm becomes 380.5 N. At 30°, the force becomes 424.4 N, and at 45° it escalates to 519.7 N. As you can see, the tension quickly increases as you widen your group.
At a 45° angle, this would be the equivalent of doing a standard shoulder-width chin-up with 31 kg or 68.3 lbs of weight strapped to you. And the beautiful thing is as you gain mass, the difficulty will naturally increase as well.
This same theory can be applied for push-ups and dips as well. Push-up tension can be controlled by planting your hands varying distances apart, or with elevated feet. Dip tension can be controlled using two moveable sawhorses as anchors rather than dip bars which are usually unadjustable.

A final way to increase the intensity of a movement is to perform it slowly. It’s much more difficult to perform 1 pull-up for 1 minute than to perform 1 pull-up for 1 second. Try it if you are skeptical, or watch this video. The load is being more evenly applied to all moments of the movement, rather than predominantly at the top and bottom.

With these two realization in hand, that increasing tension and controlling movement are tools that essentially mimic the intensity of heavier loads, yet can be performed with more reckless abandon and less risk of injury, I theorized a new workout plan.

The Plan

Before I delve into the nitty-gritty, I think it’s important to mention that a commonality you may notice throughout this plan is that I prefer to do the most challenging movements first, then transition into the easier ones. My rationale behind this goes back to the idea that heavy lifts lead to the biggest gains. My goal here is to build strength and put on muscle, hence I want to be able to perform each movement, especially the difficult ones, as intensely as possible.

Another thing to note is that I only target one section of my body each time I exercise. I have tried doing all-around body workouts but have found it more effective to focus on one muscle group at a time, and I will only do each workout about once a week with rare days of successive resistance training.

(Cardio on the other hand I’ll throw in whenever I feel like it. Fatigued muscles need time to recover though.)

In the name of HIT, all movements are performed slowly unless otherwise noted.

Upper Body Workout

I perform these three exercises in succession about once a week (whenever I feel I have sufficiently absorbed the previous session).
1. Towel Pull-Ups
I begin with towel pull-ups which I picked up from this guy. It’s taken a couple months of practice to get my grip strength where it needs to be, but I’m glad I’ve stuck with it. Towel pull-ups work your grip, wrists, and forearms much more than normal pull-ups or chin-ups, which improves the efficiency of the movement (in my opinion). More muscles are worked and all are worked more intensely (the instability of the towel adds a degree of difficulty).

I use a set of monkey bars and first position two towels as far apart to the point where I can at least hang for a few seconds (but I am incapable of doing a pull-up). I’m mainly trying to start engaging and burning out my arms. I then drop once I can hang no longer, catch my breath, maybe take a sip of water or slurp of honey, move one of the towels inward one rung, then start again, this time going for as many controlled pull-ups as possible (which might only be like two or three). Once again, I hang as long as possible (after I become too fatigued to perform another repetition), then drop.

I repeat this, moving the towels closer and closer together until I am left gripping 1 towel with both hands. When on 1 towel, I alternate sticking my head to the left and right of the bar on ascension.
That whole progression is done once, then I am on to the next movement: dips.
Note: If you are a newbie, I’d practice doing regular chin-ups or pull-ups first, then work your way to the towel. When beginning with the towel, it’s probably smart to just grab and hold on as long as possible. Don’t even worry about doing the pull-up motion; you need to improve your grip strength first.
2. Dips
I’m still experimenting with dips to find the right chain of difficulty (the towel pull-up sequence has felt quite effective thus far), but here is what I will likely try the next time I work my upper body.
Similarly to the towel pull-ups, I’ll position two sawhorses as far apart but to the point where I can safely do controlled dips, hold as long as possible once I hit the bottom of the movement and am too fatigued to force myself back up, then drop. Catch my breath, move the sawhorses slightly closer together, and repeat.

On the last go, when the sawhorses can no longer be moved closer together, I will let my feet touch the ground to bear some of my weight, allowing myself to do a few bonus reps.

Previously I had tried a series of ring dips to bar dips to bar dips with my feet touching the ground, and also a weird progression of sawhorse dips where I had them spread apart and worked each arm separately, but I wasn’t all that happy with either of those experiments.

The only issue is that the sawhorses I have aren’t that tall, so I have to be careful to keep my feet from touching the ground, which takes away my concentration from the important parts of the movement. I have parallel bars at my disposal which are higher off the ground and remove the problem of height, but they can’t be adjusted further apart (which I am doing to increase tension).
Weighted dips would be another option (and might be safer than the widened dips).
3. Push-Ups
I conclude my upper body workout with the old standby, push-ups. I actually refrained from performing push-ups for a number of years due to an elbow injury. I can do them safely for the most part now, but do need to be careful with my positioning.

Anyway, I start by elevating my feet on a bench and performing as many slow, controlled push-ups as I can (which is only a few after doing the pull-ups and dips). I hold at the bottom of the push-up once I cannot go up again, then collapse.

I catch my breath, position my feet ground-level this time, and repeat. Finally, I then do a set with my knees on the ground (i.e. non-male push-ups), duplicating the same aforementioned technique.
This has been a challenging movement to perform at the end of the workout and has always given me a good burn. Still, I may experiment with hand positioning in the future (as I have been keeping my hands in a fixed position).

Lower Body Workout

To be honest, I’m still tinkering with the following movements to see what works best for me. I haven’t yet found a combination of exercises and techniques that I feel are all safe and sufficiently challenge my leg muscles.

I target my legs on average every 7 days.
1. Hill Sprints
I find a steep hill (preferably grass and about a tenth of a mile long), sprint up, and walk down. I repeat the up and down part until I’m too exhausted.

This is one of my favorite exercises because it’s safe and challenging. There really isn’t much more to say about hill sprints; just be sure to walk down!
2. Wall Sits
This movement was recently added to my repertoire after reading MAS’s low risk alternatives to the squat. I’ve only done it a few times now, and though it has yielded a strong burn mid-exercise, I haven’t felt much soreness post-exercise (which I associate with muscle growth) and coincidentally have experienced some knee pain in the days afterwards. I am not sure if the discomfort can be attributed to this or another movement performed during those same workout routines.

Anyway, what I have been doing is sitting with my back flat against a wall and my knees at a 90° angle while holding a pair of dumbbells by my side. I try to keep the weight toward my heels and hold the position as long as I can.

Once I burn out, I catch my breath, then switch to a pair of dumbbells that are about half the weight of the previous ones. Again, I hold until failure. Finally, I repeat with no dumbbells.
The first time I attempted wall sits I used no added weight and it took forever to feel anything in my legs. It got to the point where it become tortuous to wait so long to feel anything, so that’s why I added weights. I want all my sets to be fairly quick.
What I will likely try next time is sitting at different angles and sticking with the heavier dumbbells the entire time. Instead of sitting at 90° the whole time, I’ll start off at 60°, then initialize at 75°, then 90°, 105°, and finally 120°.

(Can someone send me a protractor?)
3. Goblet Squats
I’ve experimented with these in similar manner to the wall sits (by starting off holding a dumbbell and transitioning to no dumbbell by the third set), but results have been iffy. I have been performing them under a very controlled and deliberate manner, as described here.

I will say there have been times when I have felt some real tension in my legs, but it is hard to pinpoint the moments when I feel the burn. Much of the movement feels wasted to me. What I may do is try limiting the range of motion. A wider stance and heavier dumbbells (throughout) might help as well.

Abdominal Workout

I specifically target my abs in efforts of maintaining a six-pack. Many sources will tell you that getting visible abs is all about maintaining a low body fat percentage, but I feel it’s also important to pump up your abdominal muscles as well if you want them to show with any gusto.
Like the other two workouts, I target my abs about once per week.
1. Hanging Leg Raises
I’ve been doing a variation of these for several months now that has been pretty good to me. I hang from a bar, grab a dumbbell with my feet, then raise my knees up towards my chest, touch my left knee to my right elbow, lower my legs, then raise them again and touch my right knee to my left elbow. Repeat ad nauseam, dropping the weight as needed mid-set, for three sets.

This worked pretty well doing herky-jerky movements, but I’ve noticed an issue trying to slow down the movement: my arms tire out before my abs.

I’m not sure if there is a fix to this other than keeping at it and seeing if my arms get used to hanging that long. Also, I can try to schedule my ab workouts midway between my upper body workouts so my arms are fresher and don’t fatigue so quickly.

Otherwise I may skip the HIT protocol for these. I think hanging leg raises are great and I want to keep doing them.
2. L-Sits
Typically I hold myself up with either rings or parallel bars and again secure a dumbbell with my feet to provide extra resistance. I try to maintain an L (or some semblance of one) for as long as possible, three times (with breaks in-between).

This has worked to some success, though I need to experiment with pulling my knees to my chest and freezing them there. Essentially I am looking for static abdominal holds.

Other than those two exercises, that’s all I do ab-wise. I used to do rollouts with an EZ curl bar (and then an ab wheel once I bought one), but I feel rollout devices are kind of dangerous as the movement can put a lot of strain on your body. Variations of hanging leg raises are where it’s at in my opinion. I don’t like crunches because they are too easy (it’s like comparing light jogging to sprinting).

Supplementary Exercises

My primary goal right now is to put on muscle, which requires special attention as an ectomorph. However, I do other activities such as jumping rope, biking, running, playing tennis, and trampolining when I feel like it.

Stretching is also important to me; after a strenuous workout (especially one that involves cardio) I make sure to do a full body stretch, which takes about 20 minutes. Pre-workout I only do warmup movements (no static stretches), but afterwards I feel stretching is great to increase flexibility and prevent future injuries.

Conclusion

I have no idea how long I will continue with this regiment or whether it will even be effective, but the logic behind it all excites me and I will definitely give it a fair shake. As long as I listen to my body and make tweaks to the blueprint along the way, the experiment should be successful.

Thursday, 13 March 2014

Survivorship Bias , Fitness Professionals Fail to Understand it - Critical MAS

Fitness Professionals Fail to Understand Survivorship Bias - Critical MAS



So many fitness bloggers and professionals fail to understand survivorship bias. They
model their advice around what they see working best for a handful of
outliers with little regard to safety, recoverability or sustainability.
In their minds, willpower is the limiting factor and that any failures
rest with the individual and not their training protocol. They look for
successes as proof their training advice is solid and never question if a
safer path would have yielded the same or similar results.



Things get real confusing when some of these fitness professionals
demonstrate signs of brilliance with their understanding of nutrition or
other health topics. But when it comes to resistance training, they
fail to question the failures of conventional wisdom as anything more
than a failure of the individual.



Squat


Photo by Marco Crupi Visual Artist. My readers already know what I think of the “Must Squat” mentality.



How the mind of a fitness professional gets warped is understandable.
Those that get results stick around, those that don’t go away and are
replaced with new clients. Over time, the trainer sees more and more
successes, which they believe are in part a result of their expertise.
The failures are hidden. The successes are now financially supporting
the trainer. Those that can train more often and recover faster are the
best customers.



I could go on and on, but I think this is root of many problems in fitness. Fitness advice is geared towards survivors, not towards reducing the failure rate.
Instead of seeking the minimal sustainable dose, the industry pushes
recommendations to higher than necessary volumes of exercise. When you
question their recommendations, their defense is to point to a handful
of survivors as evidence their way works. Failures be damned.

Towel pull ups & bicept triggering - by Justin_P

Powerful Home Chest Workout Ever : Build a Big Chest Fast!





Published on 17 Oct 2013

http://www.6weeksixpack.com
This is one of the most powerful home chest workout we have ever
created. In this video home fitness expert Peter Carvell shows 3
powerful home chest exercises that you can do without using any
equipment to help you build a big chest at home fast.

So if you
are looking to build your chest at home without any equipment other
than your own bodyweight then you will want to start doing this push-up
chest workout ASAP!

Wide Grip Chin Ups Technique









Uploaded on 29 Sep 2011

http://www.mrsupplement.com.au
- Wide Grip Chin Ups technique demonstrated by Zoran Lekic -
bodybuilder & Nick Jones - world bodybuilding champion. This
exercise effectively targets the upper back when performed correctly. To
view hundreds of exercise videos & workout programs for technique,
muscular endurance, strength, muscle hypertrophy & advanced training
got to: http://www.mrsupplement.com.au/wide-g...

Can Bodyweight Exercises Pack on Muscle and Add Strength? | Mark's Daily Apple

Can Bodyweight Exercises Pack on Muscle and Add Strength? | Mark's Daily Apple



I promote a bodyweight training program. Though it can be modified with
weight vests, at its core it is comprised entirely of exercises that
use your own bodyweight as resistance – pushups, pullups, planks, rows, squats, and sprints.
For the majority of people who try it, it works great because PBF is a
basic program designed to appeal to people from every fitness
background. People who’ve never lifted a weight in their lives can jump
right in with the beginning progressions, move on up through the more
difficult variants, and get quite fit in the process. It’s not the end
all, be all of training – and I make that pretty clear in the eBook –
but it’s a foundation for solid, all around fitness. Some choose to move
beyond it or incorporate weighted movements, some are content.



Still, some people are skeptical about the efficacy of a bodyweight
training program. Is it truly enough, or just “good enough”? Can you
really get big and strong without slinging heavy weights around?

It depends on what you mean by “enough,” of course, but the answer is
generally “yes.” Bodyweight training is a legitimate option for anyone
interested in building an impressive physique, increasing their strength, improving their athletic performance, mobility, and flexibility,
and establishing excellent mind-body-space awareness. Plus, the ability
to bust out some ridiculous moves on the pullup bars at the local park
has to count for something.



Don’t take my word for it, though. Check out some of the people
getting and staying very, very strong using primarily bodyweight
exercises:



Al Kavadlo

Beastskills

Gymnastics Bodies

Eat Move Improve

Hannibal



So yes, a smart bodyweight program can rival the best barbell
training, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. These guys aren’t just
mindlessly doing progressively greater numbers of pushups, pullups, and
air squats. If you want to get as strong as possible, just doing more reps won’t cut it. You need intelligent progression.



Progression isn’t just adding reps. Eventually, you have to make the
exercises harder to keep getting stronger, either by adding weight,
increasing the degree of stabilization required, or decreasing the
amount of leverage you have. Normal dips
too easy? Move onto ring dips, and then weighted ring dips. Doing
twenty pullups in a row without much issue? Try wearing a weight vest or
work your way toward a one arm pullup. Bodyweight rows with your feet
up on blocks a cinch? Try taking one foot off, then both, then trying
front levers.



And that’s part of the reason why most people opt for barbells over
bodyweight training: it’s easier and far less humbling to add weights to
a bar than remove leverage from a bodyweight movement. In many cases,
to progress in bodyweight means learning an entirely new movement from
scratch. Starting over from zero. It’s harder to quantify than weight
training and easier to get stuck.



But that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. In fact, the degree of
difficulty required to perform some of the more intermediate and
advanced bodyweight exercises implies their effectiveness.

What kind of exercises qualify as “bodyweight training”?

There are three primary categories, and the most successful people draw on exercises from all three.

Calisthenics are the basic bodyweight exercises like
pullups, pushups, squats, jumping jacks, lunges, dips, planks, and
rows. They have the broadest appeal, attracting elderly Chinese ladies
wearing windbreakers and impossibly muscled guys wearing jeans and
Jordans.



Plyometrics consist of explosive bodyweight
exercises, like depth jumps, box jumps, broad jumps, jump squats,
Russian lunges, burpees, and jumping pushups.



Gymnastics describes the highly technical movements
those amazingly compact, muscular people perform during every summer
Olympics. Most people probably won’t ever reach that level, but they can
still get really strong using the rings to work on the earlier
progressions that precede the expert-level movements, like levers,
planches, muscle-ups, rows, pullups, and dips.

How does bodyweight training measure up to weight training?

There’s not a ton of research, but it seemed to fare well in the one study I
found. Athletes were placed on one of three training programs:
traditional resistance training, “complex training” (an undulating mix
of high and low intensity weight training), or plyometrics training. By
the end of the study, all groups had experienced identical gains in back
squat, Romanian deadlift, and calf raise strength.

There may be little research directly comparing bodyweight training
to barbell training or other forms of strength and conditioning, but my
intent is not to claim one is better than the other. They’re all
different, and they’re all effective. We do have research
showing the beneficial effects of bodyweight exercises on the same types
of performance markers we traditionally target with weight training,
however, and there may even be a few unique effects.



Bodyweight exercises require activation of more muscles.



Bodyweight exercises are closed kinetic chain movements; rather than
moving an object toward or away from your body, you are moving your body
toward or away from the ground. This requires cooperation between all
the muscles that form the kinetic chain and provides an arguably more
complete stimulus of the musculature. For instance, in a bench press,
your core is supported by the bench; in a pushup, your core is supported
by the core musculature.



Bodyweight exercises develop proprioceptive awareness.



Bodyweight training refers to moving your body through space, and
this movement provides additional feedback to your body and brain when
compared to lifting a weight with your arms. Neuromuscular activation is
highest during exercises that move the body.



Bodyweight exercises can’t be replicated by weight training.



Many people avoid bodyweight exercises because they can’t figure out
how to replicate some of their favorite barbell exercises, like overhead
press (try handstand pushups), bench press (try ring pushups), or
barbell rows (try tuck front lever rows), but what about the inability
of barbell exercises to replace many bodyweight movements? You can’t
replicate swinging on monkey bars, climbing a rope, doing a muscle-up,
crawling on your hands, or performing an L-sit with weights, just to
name a few. Even the weight training exercises that seem to replicate
bodyweight exercises have different effects; compare your lat pulldown
machine performance with your deadhang pullup performance for a perfect
example.



A recent review spanning
several decades of research summed up the effects of lower body
plyometrics training on neuromuscular, performance, and health
adaptations in healthy people:

  • Increased neuromuscular activation.
  • Increased strength and power.
  • Faster stretch-shortening cycle of muscles, leading to improved performance.
  • Improved coordination between muscles involved in the movements.
  • Enhancement of general athletic capability, including jumping, sprinting, agility, and endurance.
  • Reduced risk of lower body injuries in susceptible populations.
  • Increased bone mass.
The one area where bodyweight training probably falls short is the
lower body. For the most part, our legs and glutes are just way too
strong to reach their full potential through air squats – and most
bodyweight proponents will agree. However, a program consisting of
plyometrics (jumping lunges/squats, broad jumps, depth jumps), single
leg squats, and sprinting, especially hill sprints, can produce a strong
lower body. You may not get the same degree of hypertrophy without
adding weights to your lower body work, but you can certainly get
stronger.



Am I suggesting that everyone ditch the weights, cancel the gym
membership, and invest in a set of Perfect Pushups? No. The two can
coexist quite happily. In fact, if I’m designing the optimal program for
strength and mass, I’m going with a fusion of bodyweight training
(gymnastics, ring work, pullups, dips) for the upper body and weight
training (lunges, squats, deadlifts) for the lower body.



My point is simple. If you have no access to quality gym equipment,
if you live next door to a park with an awesome outdoor workout station,
if you hate weight training, if you fear weight training, or even if
just prefer bodyweight exercises, fear not: you can build an awesome
body and get incredibly strong by emphasizing bodyweight training.



What about you? Do you prefer bodyweight exercises to weight
training? What kind of results have you seen doing one or the other?




Monday, 10 March 2014

Can you get faster as you get older? - health | fitness

running | exercise | sport | health | fitness





Advancing years don't necessarily mean slowing to a stop.
Advancing years doesn't necessarily mean slowing to a stop. Photo: Colleen Petch


I grew up in an age when once you reached a certain age (30
or 40, perhaps?), you scaled back your exercise regimen. You took up
golf, tennis or bowls, not running. My parents called our neighbour mad
because he ran every day. He was probably all of, what, 45?



Haven’t times changed. Now not only are more people
running than ever before, but they are running into their later years
and in greater numbers. And many are only taking up the sport in middle age. Not only that, runners are often holding their times - and sometimes getting faster as the years progress.
However this can be hard to pull off. And hard to
accept when you just aren’t clocking the times that you used to, despite
disciplined training.

A running friend in his late 50s asked recently
whether it’s possible for him to get faster rather than slower, which is
what’s happening. He’s training for a comeback marathon, having
completed more than a dozen over his lifetime with a sub-3 hour PB. And
while he’s not expecting to relive those glory days, it’s frustrating
him that training isn’t delivering the pace rewards it used to.
Generally if you want to run faster and farther,
you've got to improve your running economy, or how efficiently your body
uses oxygen. The less oxygen and energy you need to run at a certain
pace, the longer you can go.

But according to athletics coach and owner of runnersconnect.com
Jeff Gaudette, running economy doesn’t change much in older runners and
in fact can be maintained into your 60s if training is targeted
properly.

“Some decrease in performance is probably
inevitable with increasing age,” he says. “But the drop in race times is
much slower than you might think: about 1-2 seconds per mile per year
for medium-distance races (10-15km) and 4-6 seconds per mile per year in
the marathon.

“Much of the decrease in race performance with age
can be explained by decreases in oxygen uptake, upper and lower body
strength, flexibility, and muscular [explosive] power,” says Gaudette.

Therefore, older runners should adapt their training to focus on these areas.

Interval workouts will improve oxygen uptake,
weights training and strength exercises will improve muscular strength
and power, and flexibility will be enhanced through quality stretching
and/or yoga.
“It makes sense to shift your focus from racking up
big mileage as a younger runner to getting in and recovering from
high-quality workouts and ancillary training sessions as a masters
runner,” Gaudette says. “Incorporating more weight lifting and
stretching into your routine will guard against the effects of ageing on
your muscles.”

Gaudette also advises marathoners to do shorter
races, as studies show you might “age” slower at 10-15km than you do in
the marathon.

“Take heart that all runners tend to age slower, biologically speaking, than their sedentary counterparts.”

Sydney sprint and strength coach Rod Clarke (runfasthq.com)  believes improvement can be made in all events for all ages, depending on an athlete’s background.

“If we are talking about untrained athletes then
improvement should take place at any age especially with a good training
program.

“If you’re a trained athlete then improvement could
be more difficult, especially if you have a good training background.
However, it’s not impossible,” Clarke says.

“When applied to 10km - marathon distance runners,
you can't go past classic interval training methods. Try 10 x 400m with a
1 min rest or 1-3km intervals off 3 mins rest. You can then play around
with the variables of distance, speed and recovery.

“With the above methods you need to be kept
accountable by getting yourself are good coach or keeping accurate rest
times with a watch.”

Saturday, 1 March 2014

marathon runners = body fat % from 11 to 14%, while 400- 800 meter runners have 4 - 6%

T NATION | Question of Strength: Vol 36


Fasted Morning Cardio: The Final Word?

A:
I don't agree with any of them. We're made to throw a rock at the
rabbit, not to chase it. We're basically anaerobic animals. The
quickest way to get lean is through diet. 




If you look in the
world of sports, triathletes and marathon runners have body fat
percentages ranging from between 11 and 14%. Four-hundred to 800
meter runners have body fat between 4 and 6%. Exercise intensity is
the key, not duration.



Take a picture of all the fat cows on the
bikes at Gold's or World Gym. Go back next year and compare: they're
all still fat or more likely: fatter!




The problem with
exercise physiology is that many people look at the world through a
straw. If you look at the fuel burned during exercise that's one
thing, but you also have to look at the fuel burned to recover from exercise. That's where most people screw up. All morning cardio does is fatigue the adrenal glands.

Just two primary exercises per workout using multiple sets (like ten) - T NATION | Question of Strength: Vol 36

T NATION | Question of Strength: Vol 36

I've always found that when you get to the elite level, most athletes do best just doing two primary exercises per workout using multiple sets (like ten), and then training again six hours later.

Total Body vs. Body Part Splits... Again

Question:Some T-Nation coaches advocate training the whole body in one session; others usually use a body part split of some sort. The debate is endless, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
Answer:
I'm the first one to want to improve on any training system, but I do not know anyone successful in the strength coaching business who uses full body routines exclusively.
I've trained Olympic medalists in sixteen different sports, from energy system sports such as swimming to short-term explosive power sports such as shot put.
For almost every single one of them, 70% of the time, I've used split routines and switched to whole body routines as their competition was nearing. Whether it's Adam Nelson who won the World Championship in the shot put or Dwight Phillips who won it in the long jump, they all trained with split routines.
Workouts have to be short and effective, and when you train for relative strength you have to do a lot of sets. If you do a lot of sets, you can't do a lot of exercises. Athletes need split training to get adequate recovery.
Adam Nelson's split looked like this:
Day 1: Chest/back
Day 2: Legs
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Rotator cuff and arms
Day 5: Off
Adam, by the way, incline benches 525 pounds using a fat, three inch bar. bodybuilding, I don't think Ronnie Coleman trains whole body three in days a week. I've never known a successful bodybuilder, even the low set guys like Dorian Yates, to do whole body training.
The key is to recruit as many motor units as possible, and you have to think about the law of exercise order. There have been a few good studies done on this, but here's the Reader's Digest version:
If you have a group of lifters who do exercises A, B, C, and D in a workout, and you have a group do the same exercises in the reverse order (D, C, B, and A), what you find is that the first group makes the most progress on exercise A and the second group makes the most progress on exercise D. Basically, you'll make the most progress on whatever you do first.
I've always found that when you get to the elite level, most athletes do best just doing two primary exercises per workout using multiple sets (like ten), and then training again six hours later.
Every single Olympian I've trained used split routines. I've been in this profession for 26 years and no one has ever convinced me, by their results, that full body routines are the only way to go.
Having coached at three different Olympics, I've had the opportunity to talk shop with many successful colleagues. Whether they were from Norway, Germany, or Finland, they all came to the conclusion that split routines were far more advantageous than total body routines.






The Best Exercise There Is, Hands Down | Mark's Daily Apple

The Best Exercise There Is, Hands Down

"If you ask the AARP, it’s the plank"
equipment

Throw reality out the window for a second and entertain a hypothetical.
Imagine you can only do one exercise for the rest of your life. If you
had to choose a single exercise to do for the rest of your life, right
here today, what would it be? It’s a popular question with a divergent
set of answers depending on who’s being asked, and for the most part I
see where everyone’s coming from.

If you ask the AARP, it’s the plank, which is easy on the joints,
involves every body part, strengthens the
core which can help prevent falls, is very safe for seniors (the
intended audience of AARP), and you can do them anywhere without
equipment. I have no fault with the plank.

If you ask the NY Times to ask various experts, it’s the squat, or maybe the burpee, or maybe sprinting uphill. These are all exercises that stress the entire body, that can
be performed with high intensity to elicit the highest possible training
effect in the least amount of time. You could do a lot worse than
squatting, doing burpees, or sprinting.

If you were to ask Mark Rippetoe, I’d imagine you’d hear “the low-bar
back squat” because it supposedly elicits the greatest hormonal
response, builds oft-neglected posterior chain strength, makes your
entire body stronger, and simply “makes a man outta ya.”

If you ask Rich Froning (top CrossFit athlete), it’s the barbell thruster, a fairly simple to learn “two in one” exercise combining a squat with an overhead press.

If you ask Charles Poliquin, it’s the snatch grip deadlift done on a platform, which increases the range of motion over the regular deadlift and builds overall strength and size better than any other exercise he’s seen.

Those are good candidates. A person could get and stay very strong,
fit, fast, and healthy doing any one of those exercises for perpetuity,
even to the exclusion of all others. But a thruster isn’t the best
exercise there is, hands down. Nor are squats (of any kind), deadlifts
(of any kind), or planks. Sprints are cool, but they aren’t the best.

The single best exercise there is, hands down, is the one you’ll do.

If I were giving a talk, this is where I’d pause until the
eye-rolling, scoffing, and guffawing stopped. Go on, I know you’re
thinking it. “The best exercise is the one you’ll stick with!” is a
cheesy, cliche answer that you’ve heard a thousand times before.

But it’s true. By the most objective definition, the most effective
exercise is the one you’ll do. Because heavy squats are fantastic for
strength, unless you don’t do them. Because sprinting makes you lean and
fast, unless you’re not sprinting. The same is true for everything. It only works if you do it.

One reason is consistency: adherence begets success. You don’t get
stronger or fitter or leaner because of a single workout. You get
stronger or fitter or leaner because of the cumulative effect of many,
many workouts done on a consistent basis. Search the literature
for research on exercise adherence and you won’t find much about the
“benefits of exercise adherence” because the benefits are accepted as
basic law. They’re implicit. You will instead find dozens of studies
that seek to figure out the best way to promote adherence in various
populations, because adherence is the most important factor in an
exercise program’s effectiveness.

The key is figuring out which exercise you’ll actually do. And I
don’t need scientific references for the notion that you’re more likely
to do a physical activity that you actually enjoy doing. It’s a
fundamental law of nature.

To me, the reason doing something you like is the best exercise isn’t
only because it’ll promote consistency in your workouts. It’s also
because doing things that you legitimately enjoy doing benefit you in
other ways. This is called voluntary exercise – physical activity in
which you willingly and readily engage. Certain animal studies confirm
that voluntary exercise is more beneficial than forced exercise:
While some research has found forced exercise
to be more beneficial in certain conditions like Parkinson’s disease,
that’s probably because those conditions are
inhibiting or preventing any meaningful amount of voluntary exercise. A
mouse with Parkinson’s disease isn’t going to use the treadmill much at
all unless you force him to. He needs forced exercise because
voluntary exercise isn’t good enough due to his condition. In healthy
people, though, without physiological impairments that directly impede
the initiation of voluntary movement, doing exercise that you
legitimately enjoy doing will be more beneficial.

Consequently, what many people do “voluntarily” for exercise looks
pretty forced to me. Forcing a hamster to run on its wheel for a couple
hours by using the threat of electric zaps isn’t so different from
willing yourself to the gym, the influence of those break room donuts on your waistline hanging over your head.

Most animals (and certainly not lab rats) can’t and won’t perform
unpleasant tasks unless they absolutely have to; they won’t decide to do
them because “it’s good for them.” Humans however can act as
authoritative enforcers looming over their meat bodies, directly
overriding the natural inclinations for the “greater good” of the
organism.

When you’re summoning the willpower to grimace your way through a
miserable workout routine, you’re not doing “voluntary exercise.”

When you dread your workout and feel physically ill at the prospect of going to the gym, you’re not doing voluntary exercise.

When you either love what you’re doing or feel a powerful calling to
it – even if it’s physically grueling and not exactly “pleasurable” –
you are doing voluntary exercise and the benefits will likely be greater
than if the reverse were true.

I submit my non-peer reviewed N=1 experiment: when I started doing what I actually enjoyed, like playing Ultimate, going on hikes, stand-up paddling, running the occasional sprint, and lifting weights for about an hour a week, my health, fitness, strength, and body composition improved immensely. This jibes with the current research showing
that finding an activity you enjoy doing and doing it consistently
likely promotes adherence to other forms of general physical activity, too.

There’s just something about fully committing to an activity with
every fiber of your being that elevates it above other activities and
even makes it more effective.

You see this in the Olympic weight lifter that lives and bleeds for
the sport, who’s really only at home and at peace with a cloud of gym
chalk dust swirling around his head. You see it in the dancer making the
immaterial material, the basketball player pulling off impossible moves
even she didn’t see coming to weave through the lane, and the cyclist
reaching the summit just as the sun comes up. You see it in  the
bodybuilder who can trigger and engage specific muscle fibers by angling
the weights a little differently and who likens the post-workout pump
to really good sex. And you see it in the elderly but sprightly woman you see walking her elderly but sprightly dog every morning, noon, and night like clockwork by your house.

Would the cyclist be better off in a spin class doing intervals set to Lady Gaga songs (that happens, right?)?

Should the bodybuilder lay off the isolation exercises and focus on “real strength”?

Would I be better off doing CrossFit instead of playing Ultimate on the weekend?

No. These are people doing their thing. These are people who have chosen wisely, who’ve found it. And it doesn’t matter what it looks like, or what it involves, as long as you’re doing the thing. Even if, according to gym lore or the latest research, the exercise isn’t quite as “effective” as another one.

Of course, this is a hypothetical. A thought experiment to help you
take stock of your fitness life. Are you currently mired in an
involuntary workout routine that you read about on a legitimate training
blog? If so, consider switching gears. Try something else, something
fun, something you’ve always wanted to do or maybe once did but for
various reasons (“growing up”?) stopped doing. Try it for a month and
deemphasize your previous routine. Find your thing.

Once you do find it, you won’t look back.

Thanks for reading, everyone. What do you think?