Conditioning Research

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 th...

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 t...

Normal Tuesday night fun. That is my instructor . I am still crap at this but enjoy the training.

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

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

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 ...

I interviewed Luke a few months ago.

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: [UPDATE-check out the video of Bill here and his DVD available here ] Posture and...

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.

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.

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 iden tified 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 resear ches 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...

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...

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

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 ...

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.

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) a...

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.

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...

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. Th...

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 ...

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 ...

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....