low back training

Here is an interesting study - particularly in the light of the stuff I posted from Doug the other day:

The abstract is here

Here is the report:

"If you want to bring about physiological change to help the development and endurance of back muscles, you must focus your training on those specific muscles and not other muscular groups such as hip extensors," says Christian Larivière, a professor at the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST), who conducted the study with Université de Montréal researchers Bertrand Arsenault, Rubens A. Da Silva, Sylvie Nadeau, André Plamondon et Roger Vadeboncoeur.

The investigation requested that subjects aged 18 to 65 – some healthy and others with low back pain – complete various exercises. Electromyography (EMG) sensors were used to measure the level of activity and fatigue in various muscles during the routine. "Thanks to this technique, we can target tired muscles which aren't yet showing a decrease in strength," says Larivière.

Test subjects also used a machine designed for back exercises in a semi-sitting position. Results clearly showed that using this machine was beneficial. Using a cushion to stabilize the pelvis brought about a better response from the back muscles. In addition, extending the legs strengthened muscles. "Therefore, we can decrease the use of hip muscles and in turn increase the use of the back muscles," says Larivière.

Such exercises can only help reduce pain and disabilities caused by back pain, says Larivière. He recommends those who suffer severe hurt begin with stretches on the ground with low to medium effort. "Progressively, the individual will gain confidence and can use machines that require superior strength," he says.

Larivière highlights the fact that six out of 10 Quebecers will suffer from back pain in their lifetime. "Musculoskeletal disorders are a serious public health issue," says Larivière. "They're also an economic problem. In 2007, back pain cost Quebec's Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail $516 million in worker compensations."

Laughter is good for you.....

I thought this was an interesting study

Dr. Lee S. Berk, a preventive care specialist and psychoneuroimmunology researcher at Loma Linda University's Schools of Allied Health (SAHP) and Medicine, and director of the molecular research lab at SAHP, Loma Linda, CA, and Dr. Stanley Tan have picked up where Cousins left off. Since the 1980s, they have been studying the human body's response to mirthful laughter and have found that laughter helps optimize many of the functions of various body systems. Berk and his colleagues were the first to establish that laughter helps optimize the hormones in the endocrine system, including decreasing the levels of cortisol and epinephrine, which lead to stress reduction. They have also shown that laughter has a positive effect on modulating components of the immune system, including increased production of antibodies and activation of the body's protective cells, including T-cells and especially Natural Killer cells' killing activity of tumor cells. Their studies have shown that repetitious "mirthful laughter," which they call Laughercise©, causes the body to respond in a way similar to moderate physical exercise. Laughercise© enhances your mood, decreases stress hormones, enhances immune activity, lowers bad cholesterol and systolic blood pressure, and raises good cholesterol (HDL).

The Guardian also picked up on this.


We've pointed out before the various impacts that emotion can have on your well being. Strange to see the reports focus on appetite too.

Eat Cheese

Stan points out some implications from a recent study.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that dietary intake of menaquinones, which is highly determined by the consumption of cheese, is associated with a reduced risk of incident and fatal cancer.

Doug McGuff on Lower Back Training

A couple of videos from Dr Doug McGuff, on how to train the lower back:

First the physiology:



then the exercises:



hat tip

Busy

Work is very busy so I'm not going to be posting much for the next couple of weeks.

If I spot anything interesting I'll update the "What I'm reading" window to the right - >

Deadlift form and hamstring flexibility

I've been thinking about deadlift form and wanted to note down a few things.

There are some good points here, especially Mistake No 10 - Starting with the Hips Too LOW:

This is the king of all mistakes I see. Too many times lifters try to squat the weight up rather than pull the weight. Think back to the number of times you've seen a big deadlift and thought to yourself how much more the lifter could've pulled if he didn't damn near stiff-leg it. I see it all the time. Someone will say, "Did you see his deadlift?" Then the other guy will comment, "Yeah, and he stiff-legged the thing." Am I telling you to stiff leg all your deadlifts? No, not at all.

All I want you to do is look at your hip position at the start of the lift when you pull and watch how much your hips move up before the weight begins to break the floor. This is wasted movement and does nothing except wear you out before the pull. The closer you can keep your hips to the bar when you pull, the better the leverages are going to be.

Once again, next time you see a great deadlifter, stand off to the side and watch how close his or her hips stay to the bar throughout the pull. If you're putting your ass to the floor before you pull, your hips are about a mile from the bar. You're setting yourself up for disaster when the lever arm is this long. This is also the second reason why lifters can't get the bar off the floor. (The first reason is very simple: The bar is too heavy!)

That got me thinking about Pavel's advice on deadlifting:

Look up towards the ceiling, and *not* at the mirror. This will keep your back from "rounding".

Reach back with your butt, like you're trying to sit in a chair that's too far behind you.

In addition to this, try to imagine your spine stretching out. This will further straighten your back.

Tighten your abs as if bracing for a punch, and *then* inhale. This will protect your back.

Somewhere in Power to the People Pavel also talks about keeping your shins near vertical. So you hinge at the hips, pushing your butt way back.

It struck me that this is like the hamstring stretch position described in Relax into Stretch and which appears at about 1:35 in the video below:



Talking of high hips, Bob Peoples (best deadlifter ever!) lifted that style:

Consider then, Bob's following statement, made over 20 years ago. "On October 4 I finally made a new world record deadlift record of 700 pounds. At this time I was lifting on normally filled lungs. However, I then started lifting on empty lungs and with a round back - that is I would breathe out to normal, round my back, raise the hips, look down and begin the lift. I feel this is much safer than following the customary advice of the experts. By breathing out you lessen the internal pressure and by lifting with a round back you lessen the leverage - all of which adds many pounds to your lift. I have used the reverse grip and also the overhand hook grip but I have now changed to the palms up or curl grip (with hook) and will experiment with it for a while to see if it helps."

While I'm on deadlifts.....here is a video of Lamar Gant. If you have realy long arms it makes this easier!

An unreal lower back

Rif pointed this out. Look at this guy's lower back musculature. Absolutely amazing.

Fasting and balance

The full study is available for this one, not just this abstract (which is below) but this is interesting - the effects of a 12 hour fast on physical abilities, specifically balance.

What is not clear from either is whether the participants abstained from all liquids - even water. Anyway it seems that fasting diminished balance skills, which is a concern.

Fasting is always easier if you are on a low carb diet and running on ketones, so I wonder if that would be an issue - the average person running on sugars needs constant topping up or else blood sugar issues can have effects. I wonder if hypoglycemia affects balance?

In any case it is something to bear in mind if you are experimenting with intermittent fasting.

The effects of dietary fasting on physical balance among healthy young women.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The study examined the effects of dietary fasting on physical balance among young healthy women.
METHODS: This study undertaken involving 22 young healthy women (age=22+/- 1.5) using a within subject counterbalanced 2-week crossover study design. Participants were asked to refrain from consuming any food or beverage for 12 hours prior to the fasting trial and to maintain their regular diet for the non-fasting trial. Measures included: a background questionnaire, 24-hour dietary recall, and functional reach and timed single-limb stances. RESULTS: Fasting resulted in significant declines in functional reach (p<0.01), and ability to balance in a single limb stance with eyes open, on both the dominant and non-dominant legs (p<0.01 and p<0.01, respectively), and with eyes closed on the dominant leg (p<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The findings have implications for athletic performance in younger individuals as well as emphasizing the need for health education for young women to avoid skipping meals

Carbs and Heart attacks

Just spotted this:

Women Who Eat Foods With High Glycemic Index May Be at Greater Risk for Heart Disease

High-carbohydrate diets increase the levels of blood glucose and of harmful blood fats known as triglycerides while reducing levels of protective HDL or "good" cholesterol, thereby increasing heart disease risk, according to background information in the article.

Even the BBC picked up on it. They report:

The British Heart Foundation, said that for women, choosing lower GI foods could be useful in helping them to reduce their risk of coronary heart disease. She said: "They could try broadening the types of bread and cereals they eat to include granary, rye or oat; including more beans, pulses; and accompanying meals with a good helping of fruit and vegetables.

Of course the heresy would be to recommend that people - especially women - cut carbs of all sorts and eat more saturated fat and protein.


Here is the abstract

Dietary Glycemic Load and Index and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease in a Large Italian Cohort

Background Dietary glycemic load (GL) and glycemic index (GI) in relation to cardiovascular disease have been investigated in a few prospective studies with inconsistent results, particularly in men. The present EPICOR study investigated the association of GI and GL with coronary heart disease (CHD) in a large and heterogeneous cohort of Italian men and women originally recruited to the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study.

Methods We studied 47 749 volunteers (15 171 men and 32 578 women) who completed a dietary questionnaire. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards modeling estimated adjusted relative risks (RRs) of CHD and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).

Results During a median of 7.9 years of follow-up, 463 CHD cases (158 women and 305 men) were identified. Women in the highest carbohydrate intake quartile had a significantly greater risk of CHD than did those in the lowest quartile (RR, 2.00; 95% CI, 1.16-3.43), with no association found in men (P = .04 for interaction). Increasing carbohydrate intake from high-GI foods was also significantly associated with greater risk of CHD in women (RR, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.02-2.75), whereas increasing the intake of low-GI carbohydrates was not. Women in the highest GL quartile had a significantly greater risk of CHD than did those in the lowest quartile (RR, 2.24; 95% CI, 1.26-3.98), with no significant association in men (P = .03 for interaction).

Conclusion In this Italian cohort, high dietary GL and carbohydrate intake from high-GI foods increase the overall risk of CHD in women but not men.

Sleep in the dark

This is something that I've referred to before and frankly something that scares me. I've previously mentioned the importance of sleeping in the dark, but this report stresses how important it is:

Artificial light at night disrupts cell division

Just 1 'pulse' of artificial light at night disrupts the circadian mode of cell division -- 1 of the body's mechanisms that is damaged in the development of cancer

Good Parkour video - it is a primal thing.....

hat tip to Mark

All this for some crap food

Deadlift Form

Here is Gray Cook on deadlift form.



He writes about it here too.

Maintain the Squat - Train the Deadlift

Most of his focus is on the single leg version.

I'm interested that his basic motion is really a still legged / Romanian deadlift - the hips are doing the work, not the knees. It is also the same hip hinge movement that Esther Gokhale teaches as a basic safe way of bending over - thrust the hips back. It is also the key to the swing

Bradley J Steiner

Years ago in Iron Man magazine (the old Peary Rader one, not the soft pron thing it became) and latterly in McRobert's Hardgainer there was a great writer called Bradley J Steiner. He focussed on simple straightforward routines. No fluff, jsut progression the basics.

I recently found out that he is still writing, now on the web and lots of the material is also about reality based self defence.

It is good stuff. Check out Seattle Combatives

Interval Training and Blood Pressure

Interesting study - looks like interval training has specific benefits for people with high blood pressure

Continuous and interval exercise training were beneficial for blood pressure control, but only interval training reduced arterial stiffness in treated hypertensive subjects.

Effects of continuous vs. interval exercise training on blood pressure and arterial stiffness in treated hypertension.

Diverted by novelty....

This post follows on partly from the last one.

I keep getting diverted by novelty. It happened again this week. Thinking back over my training I was starting to realise a few things:

• I made my best progress in strength and gaining muscle years ago on very basic routines, from Hardgainer magazine. Stiff Leg deadlifts, Dips, Press, Row. Not to failure stuff, but just weekly adding tiny bits of weight.
• I am getting tired of being sore from exercise.
• I do not want to be put at risk of injury - I've a demanding job and can't afford to be out of action from training. So Bill DeSimone's ideas will influence my exercise choice and range of motion.
  
• I need to do some rehab / posture exercises - TGU, bridging, birddog, plank.
• I want to be fit for the things I enjoy - Hillwalking and Krav Maga (Krav is fun but for me it is about learning a self defence - I am not bothered about grading, and there are better ways of keeping fit)

So I'd decided to get back to something basic. Two major exercises - Stiff leg / Romanian deadlifts & Dumbbell Floor Press - for 2x5 each building up weight over time. Lots of rest between sessions

Day 1 - Deadlift, then some easy pushups
Day2 - Floor Press, then some easy pullups or curls and some wall sit.

With posture exercises thrown in almost daily and lots of walking. All using Bill De Simone's prescribed ranges of motion

Keep it simple.

Then John Little publishes his new protocol and I start to get diverted into wanting to try the new thing. I am not going to. I am sticking to the basics for a while.

An interesting new protocol

John Little - co-author of Body By Science - is developing a new training protocol that is based on some interesting ideas.



He has called it The Max Pyramid Protocol - blending isometric /static contractions , high intensity training and also the congruent exercise ideas of Bill DeSimone.

There is some discussion of the idea in the comments here

For some background I have previously interviewed John Little and Bill DeSimone.

I have some thoughts on this and may share later...

Eggs for breakfast

Eggs for breakfast......

Eating eggs for breakfast helps reduce calorie consumption throughout the day by 18 percent

A new study demonstrates that eating protein-rich eggs for breakfast reduces hunger and decreases calorie consumption at lunch and throughout the day. The study, published in the February issue of Nutrition Research, found that men who consumed an egg-based breakfast ate significantly fewer calories when offered an unlimited lunch buffet compared to when they ate a carbohydrate-rich bagel breakfast of equal calories.(1) This study supports previous research which revealed that eating eggs for breakfast as part of a reduced-calorie diet helped overweight dieters lose 65 percent more weight and feel more energetic than dieters who ate a bagel breakfast of equal calories and volume.(2)

"There is a growing body of evidence that supports the importance of high-quality protein in the diet for overall health and in particular the importance of protein at the breakfast meal," said Maria Luz Fernandez, Ph.D., study author and professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Connecticut. "We examined two typical American breakfasts, and the participants' self-reported appetite ratings reveal that a protein-rich breakfast helps keep hunger at bay."

I'd note that it does look like the research was sponsored by the America Egg Board!

Z health and Shoes

Another Z Health video. I've touched on the benefits of being barefoot before and the potential damage from running shoes. Here is another approach on why traditional running shoes can cause problems.



Z Health is worth looking at

Z health in 3 minutes....

I have mentioned z health before and the seminar I attended with mc

here is a video of the founder of z health talking about the concepts:



There are other interesting videos just posted too like this one on the arthrokinetic reflex

When you need a coach.....

I have been reading Never Let Go by Dan John. It is a great book. Down to earth advice and wisdom from someone who really knows his stuff.

One of the essays in the book talks about the value of a coach, having someone who can work out a programme and tell you what to do. You don't need to workout what you should do, you jsut do what you are told. You stop dotting from idea to idea and programme to programme. It takes the freedom away and sometimes that is good.

I am guilty of it myself. There is so much information out there as I was saying earlier - that I don't just stick to something simple and give it time. I remember years ago I would stick at a routine for months - just simple stuff - squats, dips, deadlift - and would grow and improve. Now I know more but do not stick to things....and I get nowhere. Injuries have something to do with it too, but I do get distracted by the new stuff.

Maybe I need to just commit to some programme for a while. Just a simple routine or deadlifts and press I think (while keeping my rehab stuff - TGU, bridge etc - going)

Maybe you just need to commit to a programme for a while. Even something as basic as the Turbulence Training programmes (some free workouts are below) can be useful - warm up, strength work and stretch, with intervals on another day.

Sample Workout

10 Minute Workouts

Bodyweight workouts.

Pick something and stick to it for a while.

Dumbbell Floor Press

I've been playing around with these

• Simple
• No equipment needed (just a db)
• Range of motion is consistent with a congruent exercise approach

By the way, I probably look more like the second guy than the first!

Paleo and dairy

Dairy is one of the controversial topics. I tend to agree with PaNu and Peter that dairy is (probably) OK.

Interesting to see this though:

Stone Age Scandinavians unable to digest milk

The hunter-gatherers who inhabited the southern coast of Scandinavia 4,000 years ago were lactose intolerant. This has been shown by a new study carried out by researchers at Uppsala University and Stockholm University. The study, which has been published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, supports the researchers' earlier conclusion that today's Scandinavians are not descended from the Stone Age people in question but from a group that arrived later.

I am not making too much of it, just noting it as an interesting bit of news.

Low cholesterol is bad.....

This isn't particularly new but Seth just pointed it out and I wanted to make a note of it

“Cholesterol levels in men with dementia and, in particular, those with Alzheimer disease had declined at least 15 years before the diagnosis and remained lower than cholesterol levels in men without dementia throughout that period.” Body weight also declines before the diagnosis.

The abstract is here.

CONCLUSION: A decline in serum total cholesterol levels may be associated with early stages in the development of dementia.

Yet everyone thinks that lowered cholesterol is a good thing.

The Goal

I saw this video linked to the other day via a friend on facebook.

It is Dan John - fantastic guy by the way....I'm reading through his book Never Let Go at the moment - and he kicks off the little extract with a statement:

The Goal is to keep The Goal as The Goal.

That resonates well with me on a number of levels. Why am I training in the first place ? What am I doing this for? To be honest, I am not training to be an elite athlete. I will never play football for Everton, never make the Olympics in anything.

My goal(s) - I think - needs to be defined a bit better

• I want to avoid injury: the old Do No Harm line keeps coming back to me. I am getting tired of hurting myself when training. Sometimes even the the standard DOMS is getting tiresome when I want to performa well at work. So whatever I do I want to feel better not worse as a result
• Prehab - I'm trying to keep my back right. I think there are some psychological roots to most pain, but there are also physical elements. I know that there are movement patterns in me that need work and things like the bridge and the TGU are helping to get the muscles firing in the right sequence.
• Health - this is related to the other two. I think 90% of your health comes from diet. A crap diet can't be salvaged by a perfect exercise routine. However there are still health benefits from exercise. McGuff/Little explain in their book.
• Improved performance. This is the one that leads us astray I think. Improved performance at what? We tend to take approaches from elite level athletics and apply it to amateur fitness enthusiasts. What do you really need in order to perform better at whatever you do? Everyday life - the normal lifting, carrying, sprinting for the bus? Hobbies? recreational sport - martial arts, five a side, hillwalking? I think ultimately it is probably a lot simpler than we try to make it.
  

It was easier when I was 17 and wanted to be a competetive bodybuilder! I realised eventually that without drugs I was going nowhere, but the goal then was clear - put on muscle. Now things are less defined. It is easy to get distracted. We are overloaded with information becasue of the internet so we do not stay committed to a simple goal. Our attention, our focus shifts. So we never hit any goal. What is the goal anyway? Health seems too broad.

So where does it take me? A simple resistance training routine, some prehab moves and some fun....I don't know.


I want to be healthy and to be able to perform well at things that I enjoy so that they are more fun. That means hillwalking and Krav Maga.

Calisthenic for the lats with no pull up bar

This is not intended to promote "AthleanX" - I know nothing about it (no affiliate payments or anything). What I thought was interesting in the video was the second exercise he demonstrates - a limited range sort of pullover / straight arm pulldown.

Interestingly the range of motion he uses on this to me looks similar to that prescribed by Bill De Simone in his Moment Arm Exercise book. I'll have to check

I am often on the look out for calisthenics for the lats - pushups, squats are fine but the rear of the body can be hard to hit. His hamstring move looks good too.

Fun in the hills

This is what it is all about!



Get out there and play

(more here)

A Fried Breakfast is Healthy

Interesting that the BBC picked up on this as a potential April Fool.

Tucking into a fried breakfast of sausages, eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, black pudding and tomatoes is a healthier way to start the day than a bowl of cereal, according to a study in the International Journal of Obesity.

I wasn't encouraged that the original linked to the Daily Star (a UK tabloid mainly about tits), but had a look at the abstract. It is in mice, but in raises some interesting ideas.

The Press Release is here

Studies have looked at the type and quantity of food intake, but nobody has undertaken the question of whether the timing of what you eat and when you eat it influences body weight, even though we know sleep and altered circadian rhythms influence body weight," said the study's lead author Molly Bray, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology in the UAB School of Public Health.

Bray said the research team found that fat intake at the time of waking seems to turn on fat metabolism very efficiently and also turns on the animal's ability to respond to different types of food later in the day. When the animals were fed carbohydrates upon waking, carbohydrate metabolism was turned on and seemed to stay on even when the animal was eating different kinds of food later in the day.

"The first meal you have appears to program your metabolism for the rest of the day," said study senior author Martin Young, Ph.D., associate professor of medicine in the UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease. "This study suggests that if you ate a carbohydrate-rich breakfast it would promote carbohydrate utilization throughout the rest of the day, whereas, if you have a fat-rich breakfast, you have metabolic plasticity to transfer your energy utilization between carbohydrate and fat."

Breakfast is not the time of day for carbs!

I usually have a fatty breakfast - eggs, bacon, omlette or whatever and usually a coffee made by pouring a fresh expresso into a mug of double cream. After that I am not usually hungry for the rest of the day....

Bacon or Bagels? Higher Fat at Breakfast May Be Healthier Than You Think, Says UAB Research from uabnews on Vimeo.

Time-of-day-dependent dietary fat consumption influences multiple cardiometabolic syndrome parameters in mice

Background:

Excess caloric intake is strongly associated with the development of increased adiposity, glucose intolerance, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, and hyperleptinemia (that is the cardiometabolic syndrome). Research efforts have focused attention primarily on the quality (that is nutritional content) and/or quantity of ingested calories as potential causes for diet-induced pathology. Despite growing acceptance that biological rhythms profoundly influence energy homeostasis, little is known regarding how the timing of nutrient ingestion influences development of common metabolic diseases.

Objective:

To test the hypothesis that the time of day at which dietary fat is consumed significantly influences multiple cardiometabolic syndrome parameters.

Results:

We report that mice fed either low- or high-fat diets in a contiguous manner during the 12 h awake/active period adjust both food intake and energy expenditure appropriately, such that metabolic parameters are maintained within a normal physiologic range. In contrast, fluctuation in dietary composition during the active period (as occurs in human beings) markedly influences whole body metabolic homeostasis. Mice fed a high-fat meal at the beginning of the active period retain metabolic flexibility in response to dietary challenges later in the active period (as revealed by indirect calorimetry). Conversely, consumption of high-fat meal at the end of the active phase leads to increased weight gain, adiposity, glucose intolerance, hyperinsulinemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and hyperleptinemia (that is cardiometabolic syndrome) in mice. The latter perturbations in energy/metabolic homeostasis are independent of daily total or fat-derived calories.

Conclusions:

The time of day at which carbohydrate versus fat is consumed markedly influences multiple cardiometabolic syndrome parameters.