Conditioning Research

Good stuff form Phil Maffetone Seeing the natural light of the sun helps the brain work better. No, not staring into the sun, but allowing the eyes to be exposed to natural outdoor light—contact lenses, eyeglasses, sunglasses and windows block the helpful sun rays. Read "Sunlight Is Also Good For Eyes and Brain."

Just a quick note that Kurt Harris is back blogging with some quality stuff.  His PaNu blog had been dormant for a while but it is going again now with excellent material.  Try: N=1?  or There is No Such Thing as a Macronutrient Part I - Fats

A while back I had a post prompted by my clinic with Erwan Le Corre - Fight for your life .  Erwan stresses moves, skills that will save your life - running, climbing, swimming, fighting etc. I was reminded of this by one of the aphorisms in Nassim Taleb's excellent new book:  The Bed of Procrustes : Skills that tranfer: street fights, off path hiking, seduction, broad erudition.  Skills that don't: school, games, sports, laboratory - what's reduced and organised.

Sleep Duration, Sleep Regularity, Body Weight, and Metabolic Homeostasis in School-aged Children. Objective: The goal was to explore the effects of duration and regularity of sleep schedules on BMI and the impact on metabolic regulation in children. Methods: Sleep patterns of 308 community-recruited children 4 to 10 years of age were assessed with wrist actigraphs for 1 week in a cross-sectional study, along with BMI assessment. Fasting morning plasma levels of glucose, insulin, lipids, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein also were measured for a subsample. Results: Children slept 8 hours per night, on average, regardless of their weight categorization. A nonlinear trend between sleep and weight emerged. For obese children, sleep duration was shorter and showed more variability on weekends, compared with school days.  For overweight children, a mixed sleep pattern emerged. The presence of high variance in sleep duration or short sleep duration was more likely associated w...

My current reading matter.

She is good.  ( via Brad of Eat Stop Eat fame)

BBC radio 4 news this morning is reporting a story featured in the Telegraph - throwing doubt on the efficacy of statin drugs .  The BBC is stating that there is little evidence that statins do anything for people who do not alread have heart problems. Well welcome to the party guys!  The bloggers have been saying this for years and years and years. Check out Dr Briffa for example:  Do statins save lives in essentially healthy people? (No) or Dr Stephan Guyenet or many others - such as Peter .   I even featured somethin on t his way back .

I was thinking about expanding this blog a bit so that I also recorded - sometimes - my training.  That might show how I put into practice - or try to - some of the things that I discuss here.  I really like what Keith does at Theory to Practice - thinking out loud and showing how he trains. One of the things that's holding me back is the fact that I am about to enter a really busy few months at work so that my training will be a bit sporadic.  (Although the more busy I end up  - putting in the 12 + hour days  etc and getting more stressed - the more I reevaluate my life and just want to chuck it all in and find something less hectic.  It is hard though.  It is nice to earn good money and there is a certain amount of reward in other ways - status and  achievement.) Another thing is that some of the stuff that I learn and try to apply is beyond training - it is diet, sleep, stress management, social life, posture etc and I'm not sure that I co...

Spotted this one this morning: Big Breakfast Generally Doesn't Help Weight Loss Dr Volker Schusdziarra, from the Else-Kröner-Fresenius Center of Nutritional Medicine, conducted a study on over 300 people who were asked to keep a journal of what they usually ate. Within the group sometimes people ate a big breakfast, sometimes small, and sometimes skipped it all together. Schusdziarra said that "the results of the study showed that people ate the same at lunch and dinner, regardless of what they had for breakfast," this means that a big breakfast (on average 400kcal greater than a small breakfast) resulted in a total increase in calories eaten over the day of about 400kcal. The only difference seen was the skipping of a mid morning snack when someone ate a really big breakfast, however this was not enough to offset the extra calories they had already eaten.  Interesting stuff....but nothing new.  Time to check out Leangains or the 2 Meal Solution .... Mike's 2 ...

I don't know whether to post this.....but as ever, this blog basically records thigns I find that are interesting to me.  You can take it or leave it and if i am posting something it doesn't necessarily mean I support it. Anyway with all that bollocks out of the way, I enjoyed reading Matt Stone's piece:  Can Hiking Make you Fat? Matt is always controversial - I think he takes some pleasure in being so - but much of what he says here is not particularly new.  If you hang around the blogs I do then you will have heard similar arguments from others, the idea that if you train in such as ways as to be reliant on fat then you body will respond by storing fat so that you have the fuel you need. Tips for endurance exercisers and recreational hikers/cyclists/runners etc. frequently engaged in physical activity that lasts 2 or more hours in duration… Do some form of cross-training at least once per week at a high intensity level while engaged in a heavy endurance exercise ...

Balance is something that I find absolutely fascinating.    It is a really complex sense with a number of different elements: vestibular (equilibrium) proprioception (body position awareness), and  vision.  These elements work together: sometimes all 3 contributing equally, sometimes we rely more on one system or two, to keep us stable.   A couple of years back I read a fascinating book on the topic: Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense :  highly recommended. Anyway, SueC has had a couple of good posts recently which are worth reading on the subject of balance: Martial arts - a balancing act -  I needed to understand a little more about what balance actually is and how the body controls it and Balance exercises - Intrinsic balance can be improved by doing exercises that focus on improving the senses important in detecting a loss of balance - Sue describes some good exercises to play with Great stuff

Jim is always good value:

Michael Allen Smith  has an interesting post on his back pain

here is another interesting one for the #sleep discussions. "On a daily basis, millions of people choose to keep the lights on prior to bedtime and during the usual hours of sleep," said Joshua Gooley, PhD, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. and lead author of the study. "Our study shows that this exposure to indoor light has a strong suppressive effect on the hormone melatonin. This could, in turn, have effects on sleep quality and the body's ability to regulate body temperature, blood pressure and glucose levels." The study is reported here and the abstract is below.  It gets a bit scary: "Given that chronic light suppression of melatonin has been hypothesized to increase relative risk for some types of cancer and that melatonin receptor genes have been linked to type 2 diabetes, our findings could have important health implications for shift workers who are exposed to indoor light at night over the cou...

I've been re-reading the post I put up yesterday from Bill DeSimmone and there are some elements that have been prompting some reflection.  I think it is worth re posting part of that post alone to highlight the particular issues that he got me thinking around: ...... being obsessed with “progression”  (is no good if it)  leads to injury or makes you dread training. For me, “progress” in terms of amount of weight lifted is an obsolete standard.  As we age, “normal” is to decline; so, if the weights I handle stay the same, I’m ahead of normal.  The only way to maintain is to train regularly, and the way to train regularly is to avoid injury.  In the early stages of training, weight and reps are perfectly valid standards.  But once you are strong enough and big enough, you have to weigh the possible marginal benefits of increasing weight and reps vs. the additional discomfort and strain .  For me, I find it a lot more useful to “progress” i...

Balance is fascinating.  This is an interesting study that indicates that martial arts training can improve your balance.......although there may be one of those causation vs correlation things going on here ;-)   I don't think it is specifically the taekwando by the way...... Low-level Taekwondo practitioners have better somatosensory organisation in standing balance than sedentary people. I'm always intersted in balance - it is something that I think we need to maintain and train both for general functional ability and also for injury prevention.

Possibly...... Heat stress enhances mTOR signaling after resistance exercise in human skeletal muscle These results indicate that HS enhances mTOR signaling after resistance exercise in human skeletal muscle.

Here is an interesting one.  Again I read these knowing that I really should get more sleep! Energy expenditure during sleep, sleep deprivation and sleep following sleep deprivation in adult humans One of the proposed functions of sleep is to conserve energy. We determined the amount of energy conserved by sleep in humans, how much more energy is expended when missing a night of sleep, and how much energy is conserved during recovery sleep. Findings support the hypothesis that a function of sleep is to conserve energy in humans. Sleep deprivation increased energy expenditure indicating that maintaining wakefulness under bed-rest conditions is energetically costly. Recovery sleep after sleep deprivation reduced energy use compared to baseline sleep suggesting that human metabolic physiology has the capacity to make adjustments to respond to the energetic cost of sleep deprivation. The finding that sleep deprivation increases energy expenditure should not be interpreted that slee...

Well that's what it seems to say in the results...... Oral implications of the vegan diet: observational study. RESULTS : The study revealed greater incidence of demineralization and white spots in the vegan subjects compared to the omnivorous ones localized at the neck of the teeth and on the vestibular surfaces of dental elements

More from Bill DeSimone .  I had an interview with Bill back in 2009 and his approach has always fascinated and impressed me.  ( Anthony is another fan and he had Bill speak at his 21convention last year).  Anyway, since that interview i've remained in touch with Bill and he has shared with me some of his developing thinking.  One of the things we corresponded about was prompted by the Max Pyramid Protocol that John Little developed and wrote about last year - that particular protocol is designed to maximally and safely stress the muscles....at their strongest points when the most fibres are engaged.  A static contraction, or series of them, at the point of maximum moment arm is (are) used to deliver a deep inroad.  I've played with it a bit and it is really useful. I chatted to Bill about this and he explained that he was looking at other ways of challenging peak muscle torque while both not stressing the joints and actually working the postural ...

Kurt Harris is a legend.  PaNu is an awesome resource.   The more I read and learn the closer I get to stuff that Kurt was writing in the first place - the key is always to minimise or eliminate the 3 neolithic agents: wheat excess frutose  excess linoleic acid. Anyway, Jimmy Moore has put up a new interview with Kurt.  Do yourself a favour - download it and listen to it!

Anthony (Dream) Johnson introduces Bill DeSimone to talk about the Leg Press and Squat......we are not built to barbell squat......  UPDATE - 13 January - Check out Bill's new manual, with an extract here You will remember that I did an interview with Bill here , and I have something special coming from him shortly......

Great headline on this New Scientist piece! A fat tummy shrivels your brain Obesity is linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, which is known to be associated with cognitive impairment. So Antonio Convit at the New York University School of Medicine wanted to see what impact obesity had on the physical structure of the brain. He used magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brains of 44 obese individuals with those of 19 lean people of similar age and background. He found that obese individuals had more water in the amygdala - a part of the brain involved in eating behaviour. He also saw smaller orbitofrontal cortices in obese individuals, important for impulse control and also involved in feeding behaviour (Brain Research, in press). "It could mean that there are less neurons, or that those neurons are shrunken," says Convit. Eric Stice at Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, thinks that the findings strengthen the "slippery slope" theory of obesity....

Thought this was an interesting abstract: Intermittent-Sprint Performance and Muscle Glycogen Following 30 H Sleep Deprivation. Looks like missing a night's sleep: reduced muscle glycogen levels the force that could be applied through the quads the activation of the quads worsened sprint performance worsened mood CONCLUSION : Sleep loss and associated reductions in muscle glycogen and perceptual stress reduced sprint performance and slowed pacing strategies during intermittent-sprint exercise for male team-sport athletes. Not a surprise I suppose, but interesting.  Losing a night's sleep wrecks you!

Earlier today I participated in a 5Km fun run in Edinburgh - the Great Winter Run .  About 1300 were there for a snowy run around  Holyrood Park. I don't run very often and in preparation for this just did 2 interval sessions over the past 2 weeks and while I did not post a great time (I was 31 minutes) I got around comfortably with no problems on a snowy and hilly course. But that is not the point of this post....At the end of the race - as it usual at these events - we were given a goody bag.  The contents are below.  I laid them out on the floor when I got home. A medal - thanks A space blanket - handy.  Will go in my hillwalking kit A nice cotton long sleeved T shirt - fine it is good and I will wear it Fajita seasoning - ??? eh? WT Heck? Andrex toilet roll - why? Powerade - yuck.  I will pour it down the toilet and perhaps use the empty bottle Powerbar - yuck...throw away or maybe emergency rations in the bottom of my rucksack...but I'd...

 It is really only relevant to UK readers, but I've had an article published in a hillwalking / backpacking magazine  - TGO - this month.  The article is called "Hillfit" and I have tried to synthesise some of the things I have been learning over the years and featuring in this blog - if you were to read the article you would spot the influences!  Frank Forencich , Doug McGuff , Erwan Le Corre and others. An idea I was trying ot get across was of walking being a skill that we can develop and get better at.  We need to practice the skills of being a biped, key to which is balance on one leg.....because most walking is tie on one leg.  So I recommend simple balance work. Then there is the HIT influence - you need to develop strength too.  So I recommend what are essentially superslow air squats (with more space in th article  I'd have had a pushup and a back bridge or body row in there too).   Then I also - for metabolic conditioning...

Gus Diamantopoulos has a fascinating post at Renaissance Exercise.    He touches on a lot of things but manly at the end he is talking about how you there is a great skill element even in basic bodyweight exercises: the pushup, squat and chin.  As such high skill moves, the need for skill can often get in the way of the exercise and the "inroad" of the muscles - i.e., form breaks down befor the muscles reach failure. When you ask an instructor to show you how to push-up or squat, you’re asking him to show you how to perform upper level martial arts , or how to play music on a new  instrument, or how to ride a motorcycle. These are not activities that one can learn quickly. They require study, theory, practice, and ongoing, repeated practice. This will be sobering and perhaps even disheartening to some but to suggest otherwise is not only overly optimistic, it’s downright irresponsible. Having said this, I do believe that the burden of such skills is not insurmount...

A really interesting article in the Scientific American: Can sitting too much kill you? What is the take-home message? There is a rapidly accumulating body of evidence which suggests that prolonged sitting is very bad for our health, even for lean and otherwise physically active individuals. The good news? Animal research suggests that simply walking at a leisurely pace may be enough to rapidly undo the metabolic damage associated with prolonged sitting, a finding which is supported by epidemiological work in humans. So, while there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered (e.g. Is there a “safe” amount of daily sedentary time?), the evidence seems clear that we should strive to limit the amount of time we spend sitting. And when we do have to sit for extended periods of time (which, let’s face it, is pretty much every single day for many of us) we should take short breaks whenever possible. Finally, if you take only one thing from this post, let it be this—sitting too muc...

Anthony (Dream) Johnson has posted this excellent video from Doug (I interviewed him here ) He makes some interesting points which relate to the issue I mentioned yesterday  -   skills vs strength.  Skill based movements are inappropriate for developing strength.    For strength you need effort not technique.  However, there is still value in developing appropriate skills....which gets me back to MovNat .....and developing useful survival skills - running, climbing, fighting etc  Doug explains that fighting, self defence is a skill set.....best trained fresh to best train the skills.   Which interestingly is the opposite of the Krav classes where we get beasted first and then train the skills! The talks from Mark Sisson and Drew Baye are also worth watching.....

Rannoch pointed to this article over on Facebook - How You Can Become More Powerful by Literally Standing Tall More impressively, expansive postures also altered the participants’ hormone levels. Using salivary samples, Carney and colleagues found that expansive postures led individuals to experience elevated testosterone (T) and decreased cortisol (C). This neuroendocrine profile of High T and Low C has been consistently linked to such outcomes as disease resistance and leadership abilities. Although past research has found that occupying a powerful role leads to expansive postures, Carney et al.’s paper is the first to investigate the reciprocal relationship – the causal effect of posture on the mental experience of power.  We talk a lot about hormones and the importance of minimising chronically high cortisol.  The implication of this is that you can consciously have an impact on limiting this hormone simply by adopting a more confident posture.   Make yours...

I can't embed this one, but there is a great video of Art speaking in Zurich recently (at ZurichMinds ) Arthur de Vany: "Evolutionary Fitness" There are some nice quotes: You are not what you eat.....you are what your metabolism does with what you eat.   Every cell has only its own agenda to fulfill  Food and action are signals to your DNA

Erwan Le Corre had a quote on Twitter the other day: "Run for your life". Could be jump, crawl, climb, swim, fight etc,... for your life. Moving naturally will make you feel strongly ALIVE. That was an idea that he brought up in the clinic in Edinburgh   last month - that there are certain skills you need to develop, not for any reason other than for survival .  You may have to run for your life, jump for your life or crawl for your life. You might also need to fight for your life.    Self defence / combatives are important skills in movnat which a lot of the people involved in the movement seem to forget.  In any case it is simple fun.   So I was back to Krav Maga tonight.   I've not been training much there for a while.  Last year was busy with work and various family problems.  This year though I want to be more regular in my attendance. I could tell that I had been missing for a while.  In the warm up I had my ass kicked ...

Thanks to Fitbomb for posting this

Erwan Le Corre ( interview here and review of clinic here ) has been putting some great quotes up via twitter: "Paleo"-fitness sounds backward to me. All my ancestors are gone. What matters is my life, here and now. I am a human of today's world. "Run for your life". Could be jump, crawl, climb, swim, fight etc,... for your life. Moving naturally will make you feel strongly ALIVE. On the subject of MovNat etc, Naeem , in a testimonial from one of his clients, has some excellent thoughts on movement :  Testimonial - Iron Man Cédric Hénaux

There has been a theme in a few things I've been reading and listening too recently about the dangers of over-exercising.  It is an issue that comes up fairly regularly in Robb Wolf's podcasts where they warn of the dangers of overtraining, especially on "Crossfit" style routines where there are no planned back off weeks or periodisation. Anyway, crashed out yesterday reading the Guardian magazine in one of those New Year sort your life out articles , these paragraphs caught my eye: Exercise only in moderation The two key terms for energy researchers in 2010 have been BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) and VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor): BDNF stimulates the formation of new connections between brain cells; and VEGF produces new blood vessel-lining cells, potentially keeping the arteries free of flaws that are the potential sites of clots, and therefore preventing heart attacks and strokes. Regular exercise increases levels of both, so it sho...

In the comments to yesterday's post, someone pointed to a video of them doing another big leap:

I went through a phase of posting videos on this blog of impressive jumps.....here is another one I came across today while poking around

One blog I am reading a lot of at the moment is Paul's Perfect Health Diet.  I have bought his book and it is excellent, really explaining some of the science behind food in a very accessible way. It has been steering me more towards a different approach to eating, not paleo as such but simply avoiding toxic foods:  grains and beans mainly, but also vegetable oils and excess fructose. There is a lot of good discussion on the blog too including around autophagy which I've mentioned here before.