Conditioning Research

H/T to Mike via his Facebook It is pretty impressive, but 67 or not some of those moves  - like the plyos  or the roll outs or those burpee things at the end - would wreck me.  Survivorship bias I suppose and now people will think that this is how we should train to be like him.  If I did that at 42 I'd soon hurt myself...... Do no harm

Mike O'Donnel has been around the internet for a while writing about several things but particularly Intermittent Fasting.   A couple of years ago I bought his book - The IF Life - and enjoyed it very much as a good accessible introduction to the science and practice of intermittent fasting. He has spent a lot of time recently updating his book.  It is now called The 2 Meal Solution .   As a previous customer I got a free update. It is really a totally new book and I would really recommend that you check it our - definitely worth the money. What I like about the book is that it doesn't make IF the solution to all your problems - it is clear that there are times when it might not be a good idea.  Like Robb Wolf it emphasises that sometimes IF cold be an additional stressor that you don't need.  The idea of 2 meals is also a nice take on IF, stressing the eating not the fasting. The historical quotes are interesting too, putting a case forward that in many...

If you have any familiarity with the Scottish hills you may have heard of the Aonach Eagach - a long ridge that forms the northern wall of Glen Coe.  It is challenging enough to walk it.....let alone cycle. The question of course is....WHY?

This is a bit disturbing High doses or prolonged use of glucosamine causes the death of pancreatic cells and could increase the risk of developing diabetes,  So, all those people taking this for their sore joints need to exercise some caution "The key point of our work is that glucosamine can have effects that are far from harmless and should be used with great caution," concluded Professor Picard. The results obtained by Picard and his team coincide with recent studies that cast serious doubt on the effectiveness of glucosamine in treating joint problems.

Here is an interesting one.  I've watched a couple of important people in my life decline markedly through various types of dementia recently.  It is really sad to see once vibrant intelligent people so limited by changes in their brains. Insulin Sensitivity as a Mediator of the Relationship Between BMI and Working Memory-Related Brain Activation This study has a simple conclusions:  obesity in middle age was related to alterations in brain activation during a cognitive challenge and this association appeared to be mediated by insulin sensitivity. Insulin sensitivity again.  What can we do to maintain insulin sensitivity?  It is all the regular stuff - low carb/paleo diet, sensible exercise, adequate sleep, minimal chronic stress.....

I spotted this in a couple of places today: " Marathon runners can be a lot less fit than they think ," Dr. Eric Larose today told the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2010, co-hosted by the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. Lack of real aerobic fitness may directly impact the ways the heart organizes itself to survive the stress of marathon running, says Dr. Larose. His research found that the magnitude of abnormal heart segments was more widespread and significant in a group of less fit runners. During the marathon, they had signs the heart might be at greater risk of damage than that of runners who had better training or at least had better exercise capacity. "Without proper training, marathon running can damage your heart. Fortunately the exercise-induced injury is reversible over time," said Dr. Larose. "But it could take up to three months to completely recover." Read more at Future pundit

The other day I posted about the upcoming MovNat clinic here in Edinburgh.   I am really looking forward to it - I hope to see some readers there. I just spotted this blog post from someone who attended a clinic this weekend: My MovNat Experience.   Interesting reading.

In all the discussion of evolutionary fitness and paleo living there is a lot of focus on diet and - to a lesser degree - on exercise. Fair enough, but I think there are a range of other factors that often get left out of the argument, factors which if neglected can totally destroy other efforts. At the least I'd list: Sleep Stress Sociability / sex If we are talking about living as we are meant to there is more to it than diet and exercise, important though they are.  You need decent sleep.  You need to minimise chronic stress.  You need social contact. I just saw this study that stresses the importance of social contact. Loneliness and the Rate of Motor Decline in Old Age: Among community-dwelling older persons, both feeling alone and being alone are associated with more rapid motor decline, underscoring the importance of psychosocial factors and motor decline in old age. The whole study is available at this link. You need your tribe

This is a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT. Erwan Le Corre - the originator of the MovNat approach to fitness - is coming to do a special one day workshop in my city of Edinburgh here in Scotland .   I interviewed Erwan almost two years ago and that interview has been one of the most popular pages on my site ( the interview is here ).  Since then Erwan's profile has grown and grown and he is increasingly recognised as an innovative leader and thinker in the field of natural movement  (even being invited to speak at NASA ). Erwan talked alot about that and indeed about the philosophy behind his approach in my interview but suffice to say it is not about 10 reps of this or 100 reps of that but a way of thinking about how we live in this environment. Anyway, my friend Rannoch of Simple Strength (interviewed here ) has  managed to get Erwan to pay a visit to the UK for a one off, one day workshop in Edinburgh on Saturday 4 December 2010.   The event is being held in ...

....in rats at least: Influence of high-fat diet from differential dietary sources on bone mineral density, bone strength, and bone fatty acid composition in rats. Does anyone have the full study?  It would be interesting to see the different diets

Here is an interesting new study on lumbar disc disease - one cause of bad backs. The whole study is avalable here The results of this case-control study reveal a positive association between weight and lumbar disc herniation as well as lumbar disc narrowing among men and women. A medium amount of pack-years was associated with lumbar disc herniation and narrowing in men and women. A non-significantly lowered risk of lumbar disc disease was found in men with high levels of cumulative body building and strength training. interesting to see the potential proteciton from "bodybuilding"

Coffee is a bit of a two edged sword - there are clear benefits but you have to watch that you do not over do the stimulant. Anyway interesting study here on  coffee polyphenols and how they seem to minimise fat build up.  As ever it is in mice so it might mean lots or nothing at all. Coffee polyphenols suppress diet-induced body fat accumulation by downregulating SREBP-1c and related molecules in C57BL/6J mice. These findings indicate that CPP enhances energy metabolism and reduces lipogenesis by downregulating SREBP-1c and related molecules, which leads to the suppression of body fat accumulation.

Reading Robb Wolf's Paleo Solution has got me thinking more about lifestyle, in particular 2 areas: sleep and stress.   Stress messes with you hormonally. He has prompted me to do a couple of things: Totally black out my bedroom so I really sleep in total dark Aim for at least 8 hours sleep Ease back in general and take it easier. In some of his podcasts he really emphasises (stresses?) the danger of overtraining and fasting too.  Both can bump up your cortisol levels with a range  dodgy effects. Anyway, I spotted this abstract today: Sleep duration and body-weight development during puberty in a Dutch children cohort Conclusion : Changes in BMI during puberty were inversely related to changes in sleep duration, independent of possible confounders.

Steven Low has posted a great and exhaustive article on the feet. A Firm Foundation: Focusing on the Feet After some detailed analysis I like his conclusion: Barefoot is the best solution we can do to help counteract atrophy of the feet. While if you have pain or worse symptoms then specific work may be needed, barefoot helps rebuild the feet especially if agility and balance work are incorporated effectively.

I mentioned a book I was reading recently - The Shallows .   It is a really challenging book basically proposing that the tools we use alter how we think.  The key thesis is that the internet is making us less likely to think deeply - we skim read now and get easily distracted led astray by hyperlinks etc.  Here is the author talking about these ideas It is really interesting stuff. From a paleo point of view what I find intersting is the idea that the hunter gatherer brain is also a naturaly distacted one - it needs to be to spot prey or evade attack.  It would do not good to be too much of a dat dreamer.  Deep thinking is good though.

I saw this on Mark Sisson's site today -  an interesting research paper on Longevity among Hunter Gatherers. It makes the point the Hunter Gatherers actually lived for a long time - they didn't all die at 40. The data show that modal adult life span is 68–78 years, and that it was not uncommon for individuals to reach these ages, suggesting that inferences based on paleodemographic reconstruction are unreliable. One recent study that avoids several common problems  of skeletal aging used dental-wear seriation and relative macro-age categories (ratio of old to young) to demonstrate an increase in the relative presence of older adults from australopithecines to early Homo and, more strikingly, among Upper Paleolithic humans (Caspari and Lee 2004; but see Hawkes and O’Connell 2005). More compellingly, a recent re-estimation of several common paleo-mortality curves based on hazard analysis and maximum likelihood methods shows a life course pattern similar to that of our ...

I don't usually do food pron - others like Marc are much better.  This was a Turkey Breast salad from Subway with no dressing, plus a tin of anchovies and a tin of sardines with lots of olive oil and a few Macadamia nuts. Easy and quick.   By the way I'm trying to lose a bit of fat at the moment - my belly was getting a bit big with too much stress and alcohol.  Step 1 has been getting more sleep - which has cut into my internet time, but so be it.

I spotted this via Chris Masterjohn Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.

This is an interesting looking study. The plasticity of the brain is something that I've been thinking on a little bit recently after reading The Shallows which details how too much internet use can change the way in which you brain is wired. (Basically it sets you up to be more easily distracted and less of a deep reader/thinker) Anyway, this study sees exercise improving the brain's cognitive performance.  Basic walking is good for your brain. Plasticity of brain networks in a randomized intervention trial of exercise training in older adults. Abstract Research has shown the human brain is organized into separable functional networks during rest and varied states of cognition, and that aging is associated with specific network dysfunctions. The present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine low-frequency (0.008 < f < 0.08 Hz) coherence of cognitively relevant and sensory brain networks in older adults who participated in a 1-year in...

Future Pundit has an excellent post here: Saturated Fat Heart Harm Questioned For the past three decades, saturated fat has been considered a major culprit of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and as a result dietary advice persists in recommending reduced consumption of this macronutrient. However, new evidence shows that saturated fat intake has only a very limited impact on CVD risk -- causing many to rethink the "saturated fat is bad" paradigm.

Sadly someone died this weekend in a race in Edinburgh It reminded me of DeVany's Top Ten Reasons Not to Run Marathons It also made me think of this:  Should athletes undergo mandatory ECG screening?   Which I spotted today. "Screening of hundreds of thousands of athletes to save possibly one life a year, cannot be justified," he concludes.

I'd rather be a good walker than a bad runner. (actually I mean a bad jogger) Every day I seem to see people jogging past me with a really poor gait.  I'd rather they walked and sprinted.

interesting..... The Effects of Consuming Frequent, Higher Protein Meals on Appetite and Satiety During Weight Loss in Overweight/Obese Men The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of dietary protein and eating frequency on perceived appetite and satiety during weight loss. A total of 27 overweight/obese men (age 47 ± 3 years; BMI 31.5 ± 0.7 kg/m2) were randomized to groups that consumed an energy-restriction diet (i.e., 750 kcal/day below daily energy need) as either higher protein (HP, 25% of energy as protein, n = 14) or normal protein (NP, 14% of energy as protein, n = 13) for 12 weeks. Beginning on week 7, the participants consumed their respective diets as either 3 eating occasions/day (3-EO; every 5 h) or 6 eating occasions/day (6-EO; every 2 h), in randomized order, for 3 consecutive days. Indexes of appetite and satiety were assessed every waking hour on the third day of each pattern. Daily hunger, desire to eat, and preoccupation with thoughts of food were...

 Is your job making you fat?   Activity: From the 70's to now Juneau and his colleagues used several Statistics Canada databases on the health of Canadians that included 17,000 to 132,000 respondents. He concluded that the lack of physical activity during office hours could explain the fact that obesity has increased 10 percent between 1978 and 2004. A surprise findings was the increased healthy attitudes toward transportation. "As a result of urban sprawl we expected to see more car-dependant people," says Juneau. "Yet, both men and women increasingly adopted healthy behaviours such as walking and biking, which is definitely good news." Quick bursts of activity may be the solution Juneau suggests that to combat the inactivity and rise in obesity it would be best to integrate sport, work and transportation. For example, it may be more effective to exercise in smaller doses throughout the day rather than concentrate the effort. Therefore, walking at bre...

I think I am probably late to the party on this one, bu I have spent smoe time over the last few days listening to Robb Wolf's excellent podcasts - The Paleo Solution .    If you have not checked out these weekly programmes, please do  they are full of great information.  I like his style too although I imagine it might grate with some. His book is superb too and has challenged me to finally really clean up my diet dumping all grains.   I was occaisionally having some grains but they were increasinly irritating my gut.

Fred Fornicola was interviewed on this blog recently. He and Matt Brzycki recently finished creating an in-depth Youth Fitness Certification Course that covers all aspects of working with the young population of today. The 175 question exam is based on their book, "Youth Fitness: An Action Plan for Shaping America's Kids" and covers nutrition, cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training along with anatomy, program design and much, much more. Fred says "Even if you don't exclusively work with young people, this exam will challenge your working knowledge as a trainer and trainee."  Sounds like it is worth checking out. ===> Premiere Personal Fitness YouthFIT Certification <=== Tom Kelso had this to say about the exam: "This test is challenging, yet necessary for establishing the proper goals and direction for today's youth.  In a time when we are inflicted with child obesity, an abundance of poor food options, technology that...

I've had lots on here before abotu the importance of sleep to good health.  Here is another study which talks about the relationship between sleep and weightloss -  if you don't get enough sleep it is harder to lose weight: Insufficient Sleep Undermines Dietary Efforts to Reduce Adiposity Background : Sleep loss can modify energy intake and expenditure. Objective: To determine whether sleep restriction attenuates the effect of a reduced-calorie diet on excess adiposity. Design : Randomized, 2-period, 2-condition crossover study. Setting : University clinical research center and sleep laboratory. Patients : 10 overweight nonsmoking adults (3 women and 7 men) with a mean age of 41 years (SD, 5) and a mean body mass index of 27.4 kg/m2 (SD, 2.0). Intervention: 14 days of moderate caloric restriction with 8.5 or 5.5 hours of nighttime sleep opportunity. Measurements : The primary measure was loss of fat and fat-free body mass. Secondary measures were changes in substra...