Posture

I have previously pointed to the works of Esther Gokhale and Kathleen Porter.  Here are a couple of new videos from Kathleen.  Good Stuff.

Train Less....

Bill pointed me to this really good piece by Paul Ingraham:

Less is Not Less
Go to the gym much less frequently and still gain strength just as quickly

This article thoroughly summarizes scientific research on the question of strength training frequency, and it is a rare example of consensus in exercise science. There is no controversy here: 20+ years of evidence is overwhelmingly clear that most people train more often than they need to.

Read the rest of the article here.

It is interesting in the light of what Doug McGuff wrote last week: The Adaptive Time-Course

This experience has got me thinking that we really have everything about the HIT approach well worked out, except our understanding of the time course of the adaptive process. Ed Garbe discussed his observations that clients always perform better when they come back from vacation and have been off for 14 days. His guess was that for hard-training clients every 9-10 days might be optimal. John Little’s BodPod data shows a range of 10-12 days as an average. In many ways I think that anabolic steroid use may increase the rate of DNA transcription and turnover to compress this time course to accommodate the higher training frequencies of the athletes that are prone to use performance-enhancing agents. It may be that a relatively small portion of their effect is related to supranormal adaptations. Stated differently, perhaps this kind of response could be experienced by natural trainees if we were just patient enough to wait.

Blogging benefits - reviewing boots

I've probably said before that I have another blog which mainly chronicles my adventures on the hills - usually in the Scottish mountains.  It is just my record of days out really and a place for my photos.  Anyway I got my first real material benefit of being a blogger recently when I was sent a pair of walking boots to review.  Now I am really a minimalist footwear guy as you will have picked up from this blog but I was happy to get a free pair of boots to try on the hill.

Boots I was sent to review!

The review is here if you are interested. 

Mobility - Get your 5 a day

Colin (of Edinburgh Deep Tissue Massage)  has a great post up on daily mobility moves:  Getting your 5-a-day

We all know the importance of getting our 5 portions of fruit and veg every day well this is my take  on the idea applied to some simple mobility/flexibilty work that we would all benefit form on a daily basis. Most people now have sedentary jobs and find themselves being in front of a computer either all day or a substantial part of  it. The effects of this sedentary lifestyle on the body are often create a more kyphotic posture, flattening the lumbar curve and exaggerating both the thoracic and cervical curves. The musculature of the back, as a generalisation, gets lengthened whilst that on the front gets shortened and the joints of the spine start to stiffen and lose their mobilty. Along with this the hips also stiffen and the glutes get over stretched and switch off. The hamstrings shorten and the quads lengthen and so on it goes through the body.

So what can we do to help alleviate the problems........

READ THE REST HERE

More Paleo Research

I saw on Facebook that Robb Wolf had pointed to this.  (Robb's new book is absolutely superb by the way)

Estimated macronutrient and fatty acid intakes from an East African Paleolithic diet

Abstract
Our genome adapts slowly to changing conditions of existence. Many diseases of civilisation result from mismatches between our Paleolithic genome and the rapidly changing environment, including our diet. The objective of the present study was to reconstruct multiple Paleolithic diets to estimate the ranges of nutrient intakes upon which humanity evolved. A database of, predominantly East African, plant and animal foods (meat/fish) was used to model multiple Paleolithic diets, using two pathophysiological constraints (i.e. protein < 35 energy % (en%) and linoleic acid (LA) >1·0 en%), at known hunter-gatherer plant/animal food intake ratios (range 70/30-30/70 en%/en%). We investigated selective and non-selective savannah, savannah/aquatic and aquatic hunter-gatherer/scavenger foraging strategies. We found (range of medians in en%) intakes of moderate-to-high protein (25-29), moderate-to-high fat (30-39) and moderate carbohydrates (39-40). The fatty acid composition was SFA (11·4-12·0), MUFA (5·6-18·5) and PUFA (8·6-15·2). The latter was high in α-linolenic acid (ALA) (3·7-4·7 en%), low in LA (2·3-3·6 en%), and high in long-chain PUFA (LCP; 4·75-25·8 g/d), LCP n-3 (2·26-17·0 g/d), LCP n-6 (2·54-8·84 g/d), ALA/LA ratio (1·12-1·64 g/g) and LCP n-3/LCP n-6 ratio (0·84-1·92 g/g). Consistent with the wide range of employed variables, nutrient intakes showed wide ranges. We conclude that compared with Western diets, Paleolithic diets contained consistently higher protein and LCP, and lower LA. These are likely to contribute to the known beneficial effects of Paleolithic-like diets, e.g. through increased satiety/satiation. Disparities between Paleolithic, contemporary and recommended intakes might be important factors underlying the aetiology of common Western diseases. Data on Paleolithic diets and lifestyle, rather than the investigation of single nutrients, might be useful for the rational design of clinical trials.

Hillwalking in Andalucia

Apologies that this is off topic....but indulge me on this one.  Normal service will be resumed.

Sorry that this blog has been quiet for a week - I've been on holiday, getting some sun, exercise and relaxation.  We went to Southern Spain, hillwalking in the mountains of Andalucia, mainly in the Sierras de Trajeda.  What a superb area.

We had a great week of walking in some stunning scenery - often up over 1200 meters round some amazing limestone peaks.  

It was an organised trip  with Pure High Walking Holidays - a really good company.  The accommodation was fantastic in a beautiful little village. Each walk was  challenging enough to make you feel you had achieved something at the end of the day while we had confidence from being with a guide who knew the area well and who was a qualified Mountain Leader.  I'd thoroughly recommend Pure High if you are looking for a walking holiday in Europe.

I'll write the trip up in detail on my other (hillwalking) blog  over the next week or so, but here are a couple of photos to make you jealous!

BBC picks up on the paleo diet

The BBC News has picked up on the paleo diet.

Our ancestors in the palaeolithic period, which covers 2.5 million years ago to 12,000 years ago, are thought to have had a diet based on vegetables, fruit, nuts, roots and meat.

Cereals, potatoes, bread and milk did not feature at all. It was only with the dawn of agriculture (around 10,000 years ago) that our diets evolved to include what we think of as staple foods now.

But why do they put meat at the bottom of that list?? 


Good quote though:

 "Palaeolithic man may have died earlier than we do now, but he didn't die of bad nutrition."

Big Jump

I haven't posted a big jump no here for a while.  How about this one:

Breathing to lose weight?

The "Senobi"

This one just looks weird!  It reckons that a basic breathing exercise can up regulate the output of certain hormones.

The whole paper is available as pdf

Here is the abstract:

The "Senobi" breathing exercise is recommended as first line treatment for obesity.
Sato K, Kawamura T, Yamagiwa S.

Neuroadrenergic abnormalities, including a predominant activity of parasympathetic nerve and blunted hormone secretion, are recognized in the overweight patients. This study aimed to examine whether the "Senobi" breathing method, a stretch-breathing exercise that we have developed, could activate or recover sympathetic nervous system activity that leads to the loss of body weight. Forty pre-menopausal women, aged 40 to 50 years, participated in this study. Twenty were healthy and the other 20 were overweight (body mass index > 25 and body fat > 30%). Sympathetic nerve activity was assessed using equipment that analyzes cardiac-beat variation, and several urinary hormone levels were examined before and 30 min after performing the "Senobi" breathing exercise. The average proportion of sympathetic nerve among healthy women during daytime hours (10 : 00 AM to 12 : 00 PM) was 62.6% ± 2.6%. On the other hand, that of overweight women was 33.5% ± 0.4%. After 1 min of the "Senobi" breathing, substantial up-regulation of sympathetic nerve activity and increased urinary hormone secretion were observed in the overweight women but not in the healthy controls. Moreover, after repeating the exercise for a month, the obese patients showed significant loss of body fat. The "Senobi" breathing exercise was found to be effective for weight loss in obesity possibly by regulating the autonomic nervous system and the hormone secretion.

Paleo Leadership

I am reading a book that would appeal to anyone with an interest in the paelo diet / evolutionary fitness.  It is called :

Selected: Why Some People Lead, Why Others Follow and Why It Matters; What Evolutionary Psychology Tells Us About Leadership

It is a really interesting read and well drafted as well (I like the way that there is an introduction that tells you chapter by chapter what is coming).

The ideas are familiar if you have read arond hte ideas of evolutioanry fitness.  Two of the  basic ideas  put across are :

• The savannah hypothesis - we are built as if we hunters living on the african savannah, living in tight tribes of 50-150 with really active life styles.
• The mismatch hypothesis -  modern life does not align with this "ideal" context - i.e. we don't live or eat like hunters, we don't have active lifestyles and we don't live in tight tribes of 50 - 150.  Hence we face obesity, depression, etc etc

That is all pretty familiar stuff if you have hung around the sort of blogs (like Kurt, Methuselah, Matt Metzgar or Asclepius)  that I point to or read the interviews with people like Keith Thomas or Frank Forencich, or of course Mark Sisson.

What makes this interesting is that these ideas are applied to leadership.

We are not just physically built for the life of the savannah, we are psychologically wired for it to.  Without rationally wanting to we follow leaders who look like the Big Man who could protect us from attack or who could lead us in battle.  We follow those who are tall and fit, we don't naturally gravitate towards women leaders.

Our minds have been mainly sculpted during the Pleistocene era, spanning from around two million years ago until about 12,000 years ago, when we lived in small, isolated communities of about 150 people. In the absence of CVs and other objective ways of measuring competence, a fit, healthy, manly appearance was synonymous with leadership potential. In hunter-gatherer societies, conflicts were primarily settled by force, so being strong and tall were prerequisites. And sure enough, the taller candidates routinely triumph in American elections (for example, Obama, 6’1”, beat McCain, 5’9”). Another study found that CEOs rated as “stronger-looking” by observers tended to run higher-ranked companies than weaker-looking individuals; while children confronted with photographs of electoral candidates generally favour the eventual winner.

Here is the author talking about the ideas:



It is a really fascinating book and highly recommended.

There are some extracts and interviews available at:

The New Scientist

The Daily Telegraph

Resistance exercise and appropriate nutrition to counteract muscle wasting and promote muscle hypertrophy.

This is an interesting study.  The context is clinical, treating people with conditions that lead to muscle wasting.  Anyway rather than just try to feed these patients up, they are realising that they need resistance exercise in order to promote growth and put the food to use.

Resistance exercise and appropriate nutrition to counteract muscle wasting and promote muscle hypertrophy.

Abstract
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Loss of skeletal muscle mass is a common feature of a number of clinical scenarios including limb casting, bed rest, and various disorders such as HIV-AIDS, sepsis, cancer cachexia, heart failure, and uremia. Commonly, muscle disuse (hypodynamia) is the sole reason, or a large part, of why muscle mass is lost. The reduction in strength, or dynapenia, that accompanies these conditions is also a function of the degree of hypodynamia and is related to muscle loss.

RECENT FINDINGS: The major and consistent finding in a number of human-based models of muscle wasting is a decline in the synthesis of new muscle proteins both in the postabsorptive and fed states. Thus, countermeasures are best suited to those that augment muscle protein synthesis and not those that attempt to counteract proteolysis. Our main thesis is that retention of muscle mass in wasting conditions will be achieved to the greatest extent by focussing on increased muscle use with moderate-to-high resistance loads as the primary countermeasure with a secondary countermeasure being to provide adequate nutritional support. Either intervention alone will alleviate some part of hypodynamia-induced muscle mass loss and dynapenia; however, together nutrition and muscular contraction will result in greater mitigation of muscle loss.

SUMMARY: Advances in our understanding of hypodynamia-induced muscle loss, a condition common to almost all syndromes of muscle wasting, has led to a focus on reduced basal and feeding-induced elevations in protein synthesis. Countermeasures for wasting should focus on stimulating anabolism rather than alleviating catabolism.

Is fat fattening?

Well, despite what you might have heard, the scientists are not sure:  


(abstract below - does anyone have the full paper?)

Is dietary fat "fattening"? A comprehensive research synthesis.

Abstract
The goal of this research synthesis was to separate and articulate questions that had clear meaning, were empirically addressable, and were germane to the broad question "Is fat fattening?" Four such questions addressing the effect of varying the proportion of dietary fat on body weight and body fat were formulated. A comprehensive review of electronic citation databases was conducted to identify studies that addressed each question. The results of the studies addressing each question were tabulated and summarized, and an answer for each question was formulated. The results indicated that whether "fat is fattening" depends on exactly what one means by the question. It is apparent that under conditions of energy deficit, high-fat diets lead to greater weight loss than low-fat diets, but under ad libitum feeding conditions, instructing persons to follow a low-fat diet promotes loss of body weight and body fat. For one question, studies were few but convincing that altering the proportion of energy from fat in daily snacks has no effect on weight, while for another there were not enough studies available to answer the question with confidence. General recommendations to reduce dietary fat to promote weight loss or maintenance in all circumstances may merit reconsideration.

Research on the double hip

LAst year I put up a post on the double hip in a punch, with a video from Peter Consterdine.



Anyway, i thought of that when I saw this piece of research.  It is about golf, but the principle is the same.

"Up until now, the evidence for 'loading the hips' has all been anecdotal," says Dr Su Stewart , who led the research. "Coaches emphasise it, and certainly any golfer can feel the tension the movement creates. What we have shown is how closely this relatively small movement correlates with increased angular velocity at the club head. A great golf drive is not simply about creating torque by rotating the body around the spine, it is also about creating torque within the hips by rotating the pelvis around the right hip joint itself."

In the study, eight right-handed male golfers with handicaps below five were tested in the laboratory with a variety of techniques including an array of 12 motion-capture cameras and 39 reflective markers (35 on the participants, four on the club).

When the results were analysed, significant correlations were found between club-head angular velocity at the moment of impact with the ball and left and right maximum hip moment. What's more right-hip torque was significantly correlated to swing intensity both at the top of the backswing and at mid-downswing showing that the right hip is instrumental in initiating and driving the downswings that achieve the greatest distance and so suggesting new avenues for both research and coaching.

Mobility Workouts

The blog of daily mobility routines by Kelly Starrett has been gaining some exposure across the internet recently.

You can check it out here.

Sleep in the dark

I've mentioned this before - the importance of sleeping in the dark to our health.

Here is more on the same idea:

Artificial Light Suppresses Melatonin, Boosts Cancer

University of Haifa researchers found evidence that Light At Night (LAN) has harmful health effects. Bright city lights might boost your risks of cancer by suppressing melatonin production.

Update - Michael has more on this here.

Busy....

I'm busy with work at the moment.  I'll be back posting more regulalrly when things quieten down a bit.