Conditioning Research

Acute cardiovascular response in anabolic androgenic steroid users performing maximal treadmill exercise testing . chronic administration of high doses of Anabolic Androgeic Steroids (355.4 +/- 59.47 mg.wk) lead to hemodynamic and metabolic response impairment. In conclusion, the chronotropic significant incompetence in the current study was reflected by an exaggerated hemodynamic response to exercise. Furthermore, the findings suggest that nonusers of AAS showed increases in VO2max when compared to the AAS group. Therefore, this study provides a contraindication to AAS use, especially in those at increased risk of cardiovascular events. So, they make you more prone to heart attacks plus they stop you improving your VO2mx.

here is one for the HIT boys: "only 30 min of eccentric exercise per week for eight weeks was sufficient to improve health risk factors". A Weekly Bout of Eccentric Exercise Is Sufficient To Induce Health-Promoting Effects Abstract PURPOSE:: The effects of chronic eccentric-only versus concentric-only exercise on muscle physiology and blood biochemistry were investigated. METHODS:: Twenty women performed on an isokinetic dynamometer a concentric (n = 10, age 21.0+/-0.4 years, body fat 22.0+/-0.9%) or an eccentric (n = 10, age 20.0+/-0.3 years, body fat 23.2+/-0.7%) exercise session using the knee extensors of both lower limbs once a week for eight subsequent weeks. Muscle function (isometric, concentric and eccentric peak torque, range of movement and soreness) was evaluated before, immediately after and 48h postexercise in each one of the eight training weeks. Body fat, resting energy expenditure (REE), lipid and carbohydrate oxidation rate as well as blood chemistry measur...

This raised a smile ( more here ) This is certainly true in the fitness / health world. Especially among the blogs. It made me think of something I read on the Moynihan Institute recently which was riffing on how divorced this subculture is from the rest of the world. The things we obsess about are just off the radar to most people: Are you a member of the fitness glitterati? 05/11/10 Chances are that if you reading this that you are a member of the fitness glitterati. It’s kind of like being a new ager. New agers never admit to being new age or even liking things of a new age nature. Their lives are simply so intertwined with new age mumbo jumbo that they can’t distinguish otherwise. It’s called denial. You most likely fancy yourself as a regular guy that just likes to train and doesn’t want to deal with all the bullshit that goes on in modern day gyms. This may be true but this is the standard prerequisite to becoming a member of the fitness glitterati. I realized that I was in...

mc points to this video - competitive rope climbing ( full article here )

Andy Bolton pulling 432.5 kg

Krav Maga sessions usually start with skipping, so I though I'd point to some resources on skipping: Here is a basic intro But the master - as usual is Ross. Check out these videos and the articles here and here .

I've pointed to research in the past on the effect of different types of exercise on cell aging, as measured by telomere length( for example - Marathons make your muscles old ). As usual, things are quite complex . Anyway, there is some new research just published that Vigorous physical activity appears to protect those experiencing high stress by buffering its relationship with telomere length. Chronic psychological stress is responsible for a range of health problems, but it seems that it even has an effect at a cellular level right in the DNA. Exercise however can reduce its negative impacts: In the study, 62 post-menopausal women – many of whom were caring for spouses or parents with dementia -- reported at the end of each day over three days the number of minutes of vigorous physical activity in which they had engaged. Vigorous activity in the study was defined as "increased heart rate and/or sweating.'' They also reported separately their perceptions of life ...

I regularly take fish oil having read a lot of material about its benefits over the years. The New Scientist has an article this week that indicates that it might not be all it is cracked up to be.... .Omega-3: Fishy claims for fish oil Brain boosting Claim : fish oil supplements significantly improve reading, spelling and behaviour Current thinking : a systematic review of all studies found insufficient evidence to identify any effect. The largest study to date reported no effect on cognitive function in later life Then again, the New Scientist is notorious for supporting whatever is the Conventional Wisdom.

This one caught my eye! Google knows everything, so we tried ‘What is the health cost of a week of physical inactivity compared with the health cost of cigarette smoking?’ 915 000 results provided no clear answer. PubMed, on the other hand, was concise. Two results but no help. What is your guess? Does a day of physical inactivity affect your health like just a couple of smokes (no big deal), or like a packet of 20? How much physical inactivity damages health as much as a carton of cigarettes? Personal Healthcare utilisation attributable to physical inactivity=US$300 annually Given Google's lack of help, we reused some backs of envelopes. It is really not hard. The US population in 1999 was 272 million. The percentage inactive ranged from 29% to 48%, depending on your source. You could use both of these numbers for a sensitivity analysis, but let's be optimistic: 29%=79 million inactive Americans in 1999. These folks racked up $24 billion in healthcare costs in 1999.1 So, the ...

International Powerlifting Federation promotion video

This one caught my eye today. If you pick up any packet of cereal you find it is enriched with vitamins: Ingredients Maize, Brown Sugar (Sugar, Molasses), Peanuts (7%), Sugar, Honey (2%), Barley Malt Flavouring, Salt, Niacin , Iron, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (B2), Thiamin (B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12. Some Chinese scientists have just done a study indicating that Niacin can mess up insulin sensitivity....and make you fat A research team from China examined the role of excess nicotinamide in glucose metabolism using co-loading of glucose and nicotinamide test. They proved that excess niacin intake-induced biphasic response, i.e., insulin resistance in the early phase and hypoglycemia in the late phase, may be a primary cause for the increased appetite in obesity. Their study will be published on May 21, 2010 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology. The study also revealed for the first time that the obesity prevalence among US children and adolescents increased in parallel with the incr...

In a comment on a recent post , Pieter pointed to this video : Very thought provoking.

This study has hit the news today. Interestingly the element that is being focussed on is that preserved meat may be a problem rather than the finding that Red meat intake was not associated with CHD or diabetes! Despite what we keep getting told....there is no problem with red meat. Abstract: Red and Processed Meat Consumption and Risk of Incident Coronary Heart Disease, Stroke, and Diabetes Mellitus. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Background—Meat consumption is inconsistently associated with development of coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke, and diabetes mellitus, limiting quantitative recommendations for consumption levels. Effects of meat intake on these different outcomes, as well as of red versus processed meat, may also vary. Methods and Results—We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of evidence for relationships of red (unprocessed), processed, and total meat consumption with incident CHD, stroke, and diabetes mellitus. We searched for any cohort study,...

I've had material on here before about the relationship between sugar and cancer . Cancer cells apparently rely on sugar to survive, so remove the sugar and you starve the cells. There have been experiments using ketogenic diets to treat cancer and other approaches using drugs to intervene down similar pathways. I saw this in the New Scientist yesterday: Cancer's sweet tooth becomes a target It is intersesting stuff. Most of these efforts stem from an observation dating back to the 1930s - that cancer cells generate energy via glycolysis. This is different to the way cells normally make energy, through aerobic respiration in specialised chambers called mitochondria. Ordinary cells do use glycolysis but only if they are short of oxygen, as it is hugely inefficient, gobbling up large amounts of glucose for very little energy . The focus is all on drugs though rather than diet

I wish I was in Florida.... If you have followed this blog for any length of time you will have noticed certain names popping a few times. I have interviewed Doug McGuff and Bill DeSimone and have a great respect for them and their writings. I have pointed to Drew Baye's materials often and he is a great trainer and writer. Mark Sisson has done a lot to promote the sort of approach with which I sympathise on thios blog - especially in his primal blueprint and he often sends visitors this way. Well Anthony has done an amazing job in pulling together those speakers for a small conference he is putting on in Orlando Florida July 22nd-25th. There are more details here and you can sign up through this link

Having carbs in your mouth even if you can't taste them or even if you don't swallow improves exercise performance. Oral carbohydrate sensing and exercise performance. Weird.

I've had stuff previously on sugar and cancer Interesting to spot this abstract which - as far as I read it - indicates that intakes of available carbohydrate, glycemic load and sucrose are associated with elevated risks for pancreatic cancer, while fat - particularly saturated fat - intake is associated with diminished risks. Available Carbohydrates, Glycemic Load, and Pancreatic Cancer: Is There a Link? I haven't seen the full study (does anyone have it?) so I am not sure why the abstract finishes with the statement: Rather than being causal, the short-term increase in pancreatic cancer risk associated with high available carbohydrate and low fat intake may be capturing dietary changes associated with subclinical disease. So they are saying that subclinical pancreatic cancer makes you eat more carbs and less fat!

I am increasingly aware of how poor (according to my standards) the diet of lots of old people is. The ones I know seem to take in too much cake, bread, pasta, biscuits, sweets, soups and too little meat, eggs and dairy. They have been brainwashed by too much conventional wisdom to avoid fat and therefore they are getting too little protein and fat. There is an interesting report here that old people who consume a higher level of dietary protein are less likely to suffer hip fractures than those whose daily dietary protein intake is less. In addition to increased dietary protein, Dr. Hannan says regular exercise to build stronger muscles and better balance, as well as other falls prevention strategies, such as reducing hazards in the home, can help protect seniors against falls and hip fractures.

I think I've had something up about this before ( just checked and it was a couple of years ago ....). OK - few of us will cycle at the levels of a professional in terms of the hours in the saddle, still it is interesting to bear in mind if you are thinking about exercising to maintain bone density. Cycling is not the best choice. Then again....of course it isn't: we were designed to move around on two feet not on a bike. (Another one for the paleo concept? ) Bone Status in Professional Cyclists Professional cycling combines extensive endurance training with non weight-bearing exercise, two factors often associated with lower bone mineral density (BMD). Therefore BMD was measured with dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry in 30 professional road cyclists (mean (SD) age: 29.1 (3.4) years; height: 178.5 (6.7) cm; weight: 71.3 (6.1) kg; %fat mass: 9.7 (3.2)%; V˙O2max: 70.5 (5.5) ml·kg−1·min−1) and in 30 young healthy males used as reference (28.6 (4.5) years; 176.5 (6.3) cm; 73.4 (...

Both aerobic and strength training, seem to lead to lower levels of systemic inflammation, apparently due to strength increases and loss of fat. The effect of aerobic versus strength-based training on high-sensitivity C-reactive protein in older adults Increased levels of inflammatory markers, namely, high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), have been associated with several chronic diseases including atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Forty-five women and men aged >64 years participated in the study and were randomly assigned to two exercise intervention groups and a non-exercising control group. The participants assigned to the exercising groups followed a 16-week exercise protocol based either on aerobic training (AT) or strength training (ST) followed by a further 16 weeks off-training period. The control group (C) remained sedentary throughout the study. Evaluation of body mass, BMI, waist circumference, aerobic endurance, lower-body strength, upper-body str...

Nothing earth-shattering here - another study that indicates that sprint training has broad benefits: 10 or 30-s sprint interval training bouts enhance both aerobic and anaerobic performance These data indicate that 10-s (with either 2 or 4 min recovery) and 30-s SIT bouts are effective for increasing anaerobic and aerobic performance .

Well the election is over. It has been absorbing me for the last few months and I am exhausted. The count went on until about 5am in Edinburgh and I'd been up for 24 hours at that stage. I hope there will now be a bit more time for normal life - rest, training, these blogs. (I am in both photos above by the way.....the crowded one shows the recount in Edinburgh South. By that time - about 4:15am - my back was killing me.) This idea of overnight counts is not rational.....

Hat tip to Mike Nelson

I had a post on this a little while ago ( Get your greens ). Interesting to see another similar study reported in the BBC . It all makes a lot of sense. This is what we are built for - movement in a real outdoor, stimulating environment makes you happier. There is a good press release here : “You get a very substantial benefit from the first five minutes. We should be encouraging people in busy and stressed environments to get outside regularly, even for short bits of time,” says Pretty. After that, increased green exercise continues to add benefit, but with decreasing returns. However, a full day of activity causes another spike in the level of benefit. Both healthy people and those with mental health disorders benefited, with the mentally ill showing the strongest improvement in self-esteem. What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis Green exercise is activity in the presence of nature. Evidence shows it leads to positiv...