Conditioning Research

Regular readers will have noticed that I often write about intermittent fasting (IF) . A new blog has just started which is looking at IF and you may want to check it out: The IF Life Mike has a good introductory post on how to start IF and also a collection of studies (a few of which are also scattered around this blog) on a useful resources page . It looks like it will be worh keeping an eye on his writings. If you want to read a bit more on the subject, I think that Fast 5 and East Stop Eat remain great introductions to the science and practice of IF. Or just check out some of the previous posts here .

We have looked at this before in the post " stretching doesn't prevent sore muscles " Now it appears that the New York Times has caught on...... The Claim: Stretching Can Prevent Soreness and Injury Stretching — long promoted as a way to prevent injury, to reduce soreness and to speed post-exercise recovery — may not fulfill its promise. Over the years, scientists have found that stretching before or after a workout has little effect on either risk of injury or what is commonly known as delayed onset of muscle soreness, the discomfort that comes a day or more after challenging physical activity. Of course readers of this blog now know how to prevent sore muscles ;-)

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) is the pain or discomfort often felt 24 to 72 hours after exercising and subsides generally within 2 to 3 days. Once thought to be caused by lactic acid buildup, a more recent theory is that it is caused by tiny tears in the muscle fibers caused by eccentric contraction , or unaccustomed training levels. Since lactic acid disperses fairly rapidly, it could not explain pain experienced days after exercise, and some concentric-only exercises produce lactic acid, but rarely produce DOMS Well that is what Wiki says. But we have all experienced it, even - dare I say it - enjoyed it. I used to feel that it was a sign that I had really trained hard and had stimulated growth.....masochist to the last. The thing is I am not sure that such soreness is necessarily good. Certainly for those of a less obsessive / masochistic tendency it can put them off exercise all together. Soreness itself is maybe a warning a sign of tissu...

Just spotted this on Science Daily Cases of esophageal cancer (adenocarcinoma) in the U.S. have risen in recent decades from 300,000 cases in 1973 to 2.1 million in 2001 at age-adjusted rates. A new study shows that these rates in the U.S. closely mirrored trends of increased carbohydrate intake and obesity from 1973-2001. Here are a couple of quotes that the orthodoxy may not like: Obesity is a risk factor for many types of cancer, and a diet that includes a high percentage of calories from refined carbohydrates is a common contributor to obesity. and Carbohydrates were also unique in that no other studied nutrients were found to correlate with esophageal cancer rates. The abstract is below if you want to learn more: Carbohydrate Consumption and Esophageal Cancer: An Ecological Assessment OBJECTIVES: The incidence of esophageal adenocarcinoma is on the rise in the United States. In this ecological study using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program (1973–2001) a...

If you live in the UK - and are a sports fan - you can hardly fail to be aware of the horrendous injury suffered by Eduardo de Silva this weekend. All I remember is when I looked down at my foot it had turned the other way.... The Arsenal player was tackled in the 3rd minute of a match against Birmingham on Saturday in what initially appeared to be a late but not a serious challenge. However, the reaction of all players on the pitch spoke volumes about the seriousness of the injury. They were all sickened by the severity of the broken leg which Eduardo suffered. If you have the stomach for it - and watching it on TV made me feel queasy - you can see a photo here which illustrates the severity of the injury. Thankfully, it looks like the player will recover and play again, but such injuries do not always heal: David Busst had to retire from the game after a compound fracture go infected with MRSA and he ended up with much tissue damage, as he explained in the Guardian today . I w...

Balance, as I've noted before , is a neglected skill for most recreational athletes but it is vitally important, especially as we get older. Proven to help prevent injuries to the knee and ankle some sort of balance training should be in the arsenal of every competitive athlete. However, to quote a cliché, everyone is an athlete even if your event is lifting your 90 year old body out of a chair . Balance often declines in the elderly and leads to damaging falls. We should all be working on our balance - even simple things like regularly standing on one leg when you comb your hair can help. That is the preamble to this interesting article I saw which says that elite athletes - Olympic level soccer players - do have better balance skills than the rest of us. Maybe one conclusion from this is that football playing and training improves balance (well the abstract suggests that these athletes may have better inherent balance, but other studies have shown benefits from training bala...

I sometimes get accused of pushing a paleo diet. I don' think I'm pushing anything, just giving you something to think about... Anyway Matt points to an article (pdf) which speculates on at what a paleo diet was.....

Here is just a quick couple of tit-bits for the weekend: Serious Dangers of Synthetic & Unnatural Vitamins (pdf) - Phil Maffetone looks at the same issue that I have pointed to recently. I really like Dr Maffetone . While I do not always agree with him, especially with respect to exercise, I think he was ahead of his time on things like shoes (simple, cheap and flat) and diet (low carb, higher fat). Animal foods linked with reduced risk of breast cancer, while starch found to be associated with enhanced risk - Dr Briffa highlights "a piece of research which supports the notion that animal foods, even those rich in saturated fat, are not the dietary spectres they are so often made out to be. In addition, and I do think this is very important, it again supports the notion that the oh-so-health starchy carbs we are generally encouraged to have are fill of may have serious negative consequences for our health."

There so many videos out there of impressive athletes performing some amazing feats of strength or skill. I have linked to one or two in the past, for example this jump . Great - I like those videos and am entertained and inspired by them. However, some things are better! I came across this video of some kids training for football (soccer for the americans). What I like about it is that it shows some great techniques and drills, yet the athletes are "normal". They are like the vast majority of us - not especially gifted, not hugely muscular or incredibly fast. They are just normal lads who are training to get better for their sport. In many ways I find this more inspiring that some of the elite athletes out there!

Preamble - by the way, all these posts are, as much as anything, me recording things that I find of which I want to keep track . Often it is about me "thinking out loud" around these things. I am not prescribing anything for anyone - you can make your own mind up! I have posted one or two things before that I have found interesting that - at first sight - seem to call into question the perceived wisdom of taking lots of supplemental antioxidants: Antioxidants - do more harm than good? Red wine is good....antioxidants are bad????? and from Emma's blog : Antioxidants may do you more harm than good Studies force new view on biology of flavonoids Here is another interesting one: Vitamin E May Increase Tuberculosis Risk In Male Smokers With High Vitamin C Intake Six-year vitamin E supplementation increased tuberculosis risk by 72% in male smokers who had high dietary vitamin C intake, but vitamin E had no effect on those who had low dietary vitamin C intake, according to a s...

If you have read previous posts (for example "Post Workout drinks are a waste of money" ) you may have picked up the idea that I think supplements are - by and large - a waste of money. Desperate athletes try anything to improve their performance but their purchases are often driven more by marketing than by any scientific research. This is something pointed out in the Intermittent Fasting book Eat Stop Eat. However that isn't to say that all supplements are useless. For example I keep hearing positive things about CoQ10 . Here is another study on this: Reducing exercise-induced muscular injury in kendo athletes with supplementation of coenzyme Q10. Intensive physical exercise may cause muscular injury and increase oxidative stress. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of an antioxidant, coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), on muscular injury and oxidative stress during exercise training. Eighteen male students, all elite Japanese kendo athletes, were randomly assig...

This is relevant for all of us hillwalkers...... zig-zagging is more efficient than a straight line We know this already of course, intuitively and also with support from the wonderful stalkers paths scattered round the Highlands (my favourite being on Gleouriach ). Well, scientists have now looked into this with a mathematical model, showing that a zigzag course provides the most efficient way for humans to go up or down steep slopes. "There is a point, or critical slope, where it becomes metabolically too costly to go straight ahead, so people move at an angle, cutting into the slope. Eventually they need to go back toward the direction they were originally headed and this creates zigzags. The steeper the slope, the more important it is that you tackle it at the right angle.” The abstract is available here Human and animal trails on steep hillsides often exhibit dramatic switchbacks and shortcuts. Helbing et al. have recently examined the emergence of human trail systems on fla...

Those eggs look delicious! Here is a study that came out today which, while confirming the health benefits of a low carbohydrate diet also indicates that such diets benefit from the inclusion of eggs. Eggs modulate the inflammatory response to carbohydrate restricted diets in overweight men The full article is available for free download, or you can just look at the abstract. Here is the background: Carbohydrate restricted diets (CRD) consistently lower glucose and insulin levels and improve atherogenic dyslipidemia [decreasing triglycerides and increasing HDL cholesterol (HDL-C)]. We have previously shown that male subjects following a CRD experienced significant increases in HDL-C only if they were consuming a higher intake of cholesterol provided by eggs compared to those individuals who were taking lower concentrations of dietary cholesterol. Here, as a follow up of our previous study, we examined the effects of eggs (a source of both dietary cholesterol and lutein) on adiponect...

A couple of new studies that again question the value of supplements: Effect of Glucosamine Sulfate on Hip Osteoarthritis - glucosamine sulfate is widely used by patients to treat osteoarthritis, despite inconclusive evidence of any benefit. The abstract is available here Background : The effectiveness of glucosamine sulfate as a symptom and disease modifier for osteoarthritis is still under debate. Objective : To assess whether glucosamine sulfate has an effect on the symptoms and structural progression of hip osteoarthritis during 2 years of treatment. Design : Randomized, controlled trial. Setting : Primary care in the Netherlands. Patients : 222 patients with hip osteoarthritis who were recruited by their general practitioner. Patients were eligible if they met the American College of Rheumatology clinical criteria for hip osteoarthritis. Intervention : 2 years of treatment with 1500 mg of oral glucosamine sulfate or placebo once daily. Measurements : Primary outcome measures were...

I just saw a great line in the comments at the Hyperlipid blog explaining why a high fat / low fibre diet helps prevent constipation. Great imagery: For constipation, it is difficult to make bricks out of butter at body temperature. Making bricks out of straw is easy at any temperature!

I have had posts previously about knee injuries, especially anterior cruciate ligament tears. Those posts noted that: injuries might be prevented through balance or proprioception training; women's knees are more prone to injury (also here ); s tretches should be avoided prior to exercise ; the inflammation associated with problem knees interferes with healing and stretching can actually promote knee stability ; I was reminded of all these posts earlier today when I read a story from the New York Times as it came through my RSS reader: Big-Time Injury Strikes Little Players In the article the journalist notes the incresing incidence of ACL injuries in children and the difficulties in treating them in those whose bones are still growing: The standard and effective treatment for such an injury in adults is surgery. But the operation poses a greater risk for children and adolescents who have not finished growing because it involves drilling into a growth plate, an area of still-d...

In case you haven't already seen this, Regina Wilshire and Jimmy Moore have both pointed to this new lecture by Gary Taubes. Excellent. I'm sure this will irritate those readers that dislike Taubes. Still, if you have a spare hour it is well worth watching.

I have posted about post workout nutrition before (where we saw that eating carbs after a workout can blunt the fat burning effect). Here is a new study that indicates that - despite all the marketing to the contrary - a post workout carbohydrate or protein/carbohydrate drink does not enhance recovery...so don't waste your money. Worth thinking through.... Carbohydrate-protein drinks do not enhance recovery from exercise-induced muscle injury. This study examined the effects of carbohydrate (CHO), carbohydrate-protein (CHO+PRO), or placebo (PLA) beverages on recovery from novel eccentric exercise. Female participants performed 30 min of downhill treadmill running (-12% grade, 8.0 mph), followed by consumption of a CHO, CHO+PRO, or PLA beverage immediately, 30, and 60 min after exercise. CHO and CHO+PRO groups (n = 6 per group) consumed 1.2 g . kg body weight-1 . hr-1 CHO, with the CHO+PRO group consuming an additional 0.3 g . kg body weight-1 . hr-1 PRO. The PLA group (n = 6) ...

Deception, conspiracy or just bad reporting? The more I think about the way that this study on fast food has been reported the more annoyed and puzzled I get. The scientists found one thing, yet the media have reported something quite different. Yesterday I only pointed to the abstract , but it is worth reading the whole study in Gut , which is freely available. Whatever questions you have about the method, the article says some straightforward things. As Dr Briffa points out in an excellent post: Over the course of the 4-week study, those on the fast-food regime put on an average of about 6.5 kg in weight. In particular, waist size increased significantly. The level of the liver enzyme known as ALT (alanine aminotransferase) went up from an average of 22.1 U/L (normal) to 97.0 U/L (abnormally raised). This would be taken, generally speaking, as a sign of liver damage. Not only that, but the fat level in the liver cells of these individuals increased by over 150 per cent. One of t...

I first saw this story when Peter over at the Hyperlipid blog pointed to it . He had seen the story reported on Yahoo News Fast-food binge harms liver, but boosts good cholesterol: study PARIS (AFP) - A month-long diet of fast food and no exercise led to dangerously high levels of enzymes linked to liver damage, in an unusual experiment inspired by the docu-movie "Supersize Me." But investigators, reporting their findings on Thursday, were also stunned to find that a relentless regimen of burgers, fries and soda also boosted so-called good cholesterol, seen as a key measure of cardiovascular health. Researchers in Sweden asked 12 men and six women in their twenties, all slim and in good health, to eat two meals per day at McDonalds, Burger King or other fast-food restaurants over four weeks. The study is reported in the Journal GUT : Fast food based hyper-alimentation can induce rapid and profound elevation of serum alanine aminotransferase in healthy subjects Objective ...

This is an interesting one. A study done to compare different pacing strategies for sprint / middle distance exercise (about 2 minute duration). The study compared an constant / even pace to two other options - one in which the exercisers started fast but then slowed down and one in which they went the other way - started slow and speeded up. The start fast and then slow down strategy was more effective than the other two. Influence of pacing strategy on O2 uptake and exercise tolerance Seven male subjects completed cycle exercise bouts to the limit of tolerance on three occasions: (1) at a constant work rate (340±57 W; even-pace strategy; ES); (2) at a work rate that was initially 10% lower than that in the ES trial but which then increased with time such that it was 10% above that in the ES trial after 120 s of exercise (slow-start strategy; SS); and, (3) at a work rate that was initially 10% higher than that in the ES trial but which then decreased with time such that it was 10% be...

This is getting posted all over the place, but it is inspirational and certainly makes you appreciate what you have.

It is funny how things suddenly become "fashionable" in this weird subculture of strength and conditioning..... All of a sudden it seems to be about ropes: You can also use a towel (to undulate?!), or use the ropes to train for wrestling ? Lots of people seems to be doing this: Or here Even the strange Primal Power guy has got into it...... how long before there are certifications in undulating ropes?!

Dr Eades has been pointing this ou t - even when there are studies or case histories demonstrating the effectiveness and safety of low carb diets , scientists and journalists do not like to admit it.... Just a few links to illustrate: A recent study compared the Atkins (extremely low carbohydrate), Zone (low-carbohydrate, high protein), Ornish (very low fat), or USDA / Food LEARN (high carbohydrate / moderate-low fat) diet for 1 year. At the completion of the study, the women assigned to follow the Atkins diet lost more weight (~10 pounds average weight lost in 1 year) and also experienced metabolic effects that were comparable with or more beneficial than the other participants. Now however, it seems like researchers are bending over backwards to say that it was not about the low carb nature of the diet but simply the fact that the successful dieters stuck to the diet. Well maybe that is good? Atkins is easier to stick to? I don't really know what to make of this one? Ma...

This post is more about joining up a couple of ideas - just me thinking out loud. The following abstract was pointed to to me over the weekend. It looks at some of the effects of resistance training and the role of various amino acids in controlling protein synthesis. Amino acids taken immediately before or immediately after exercise increase the post-exercise rate of protein synthesis. Therefore a protein that controls protein degradation and amino acid-sensitivity would be a potential candidate for controlling the activation of protein synthesis following resistance exercise. Ok, now what is interesting is that they then point out a particular protein: One such candidate is the class III PI3K (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) Vps34 (vacuolar protein sorting mutant 34). Vps34 controls both autophagy and amino acid signalling to mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin) and its downstream target p70 S6K1 (S6 kinase 1). The abstract goes on: We have identified a significant increase in mVps34 (...

Davie from Crossfit Central Scotland has posted this video of his performance at this weekend's competition here in Edinburgh. Well done Davie! I was off hillwalking , or I might have had a go myself....

This is nothing earth-shattering, but I thought that there were some interesting ideas in this video:

I just wanted to point to a few bits and pieces of research I'd spotted in the last couple of days. I don't have any real big insightful commentaries, only wanted to present them for you to take a peek at: Low-carbohydrate-diet score and risk of type 2 diabetes in women Objective : The objective was to examine the association between low-carbohydrate-diet score and risk of type 2 diabetes This was over 20 years and they found that diets lower in carbohydrate and higher in fat and protein do not increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. In fact - the higher the carb intake, the higher the risk of diabetes. So chalk one up for the low carb diet being healthy over the long term How we’ve come to believe that overeating causes obesity Decades of sound studies have continued to show that healthy obese people eat and behave no differently than anyone else to explain why their bodies are bigger. It’s not “overeating,” or eating “unhealthy” foods or not enough “healthy” foods, ...

A new study indicates why resistance training - more than endurance training - is good for you! The particular type of muscle growth prompted by resistance training counteracted the deleterious effects of a dodgy diet. Fast/Glycolytic Muscle Fiber Growth Reduces Fat Mass and Improves Metabolic Parameters in Obese Mice In contrast to the well-established role of oxidative muscle fibers in regulating whole-body metabolism, little is known about the function of fast/glycolytic muscle fibers in these processes. Here, we generated a skeletal muscle-specific, conditional transgenic mouse expressing a constitutively active form of Akt1. Transgene activation led to muscle hypertrophy due to the growth of type IIb muscle fibers, which was accompanied by an increase in strength. Akt1 transgene induction in diet-induced obese mice led to reductions in body weight and fat mass, resolution of hepatic steatosis, and improved metabolic parameters. Akt1-mediated skeletal muscle growth opposed the ef...

Put some..XXXXX..life into it! Superb 400lb C&J

I've posted a lot on Intermittent Fasting in the past. You may be interested in this article which looks at a particular mechanism by which fasting affects the metabolism. I do not pretend to understand all of this, but the conclusion is that fasting downregulates the HPT axis , which is assumed to be an energy-saving mechanism, allowing us to survive through famine and times of food shortage. As I said - I don't know how we apply all this, but it is interesting to think through some of the hormonal changes prompted by fasting. Exercise, diet....it all comes down to hormones and gene expression. Stress? I suppose what is also going through my head is that the HPT axis affected by stress - these hormones go up when you are stressed - fight or flight stuff. If fasting sends them the otehr way, I wonder if this is associated with some of the psychological effects - like mental clarity - that are reported with fasting? Fasting-Induced Changes in the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-...

The Kettlebell Bible I mentioned a few months ago that I had bough some Kettlebells from Stan Pike at Intense Fitness . They are well made and I am enjoying training with them. It was refreshing to be able to buy them from Stan as well, stopping off at his house on a trip down south, and have this great bear of a man explain a little bit of technique to me in his garage gym. If anyone in the UK (especially Scotland or northern England) is thinking of getting some kettlebells - or indeed any other toys - then check out Stan. Normally in the world of the interweb, kettlebells are associated with a certain Russian and to be fair - wherever you stand on Dragondoor's marketing - Pavel has been responsible for reintroducing this tool to the West in the last 10 years or so. And Pavel's books and DVDs are good - especially at teaching basic technique in detail, with lots of hints and cues to get you going. "Enter the Kettlebell" is an excellent and elegantly simple m...