Conditioning Research

I'm not sure what to make of this and without the full paper it is always hard to know what it really says.  However, from the abstract they seem to be claiming that a protocol that avoids failure achieves maximum recruitment of motor units.  What is interesting is that muscle fibre recruitment was higher towards the end of the 15 rep set  - which was going to failure - than the heavy 3 rep max set.   This is the size principle at work! The thing about failure though is that you know that you are there.  Stopping 3 reps short of failure is one thing...but unless you fail how do you know when you were 3 reps away from failure?!  Fail and then you are certain you were there. UPDATE James Steele has now analysed this paper and offers some very insightful comments on his blog: To Failure or Not to Failure - That is the Question....  Doug McGuff's comments are also very helpful on the Body by Science blog   Muscl...

What time of day is best for training.  From this study it looks like the answer is .....whenever you usually train....although in general it looks like late afternoon is best for strength training.  That will be just after work then. The Effect of Training at a Specific Time of Day: A Review Abstract :  This article focuses on physical performances after training at a specific time of day. To date, although the effect of time of day on aerobic performances appears to be equivocal, during anaerobic exercises, the effect of time of day has been well established with early morning nadirs and peak performances in the late afternoon. These diurnal rhythms can be influenced by several factors such as the regular training at a specific time of day. Indeed, regular training in the morning hours may increase the lower morning performances to the same or even higher level as their normal diurnal peak typically observed in the late afternoon by a greate...

If you have a couple of hours (!) you might like to watch this.   i haven't had a chance yet, but if you have let me know what you think in the comments. This is from Obesity Panacea .

These two came out last week and I thought I'd pop them up here for your interest.  Incidentally I suspect that most of the benefits of HIIT could be attained more quickly and with less risk, through proper resistance training .....but that is a different issue. Anyway, the studies: The effect of high-intensity intermittent exercise on body composition of overweight young males. Twelve weeks of HIIE resulted in significant reductions in total, abdominal, trunk, and visceral fat and significant increases in fat free mass and aerobic power. The actual protocol was quite tough by the look of it: Subjects in the exercise group completed supervised exercise (8 s sprint, 12 s recovery) continuously throughout each 20-min session. The HIIE workload was set at 80–90% of each subject’s heart rate (HR) peak at a cadence between 120 and 130 r.p.m and recovery was set at the same amount of resistance but at a cadence of 40 r.p.m. Subjects were instructe...

Leo Babauta has a good post today on his Zen habits blog: The Zen of the Barbell The barbell sits there, inert, not wanting anything, not expecting anything of me. It becomes a simple tool, one that must only be lifted up, against the forces created by a massive Earth, and put back down. A simple tool that is practice for a way of living — a bell of mindfulness.

Some great feats of strength and skill here from Ross

Some of these infographics can get a bit dodgy  but I thought this was challenging Via: OnlineUniversities.com

Just what we all need, another cookbook!  Everyone seems to be publishing books at the moment, particularly in the "Paleo" niche.  Most don't add much to the sum of human knowledge. I wanted to call your attention to this one though. It comes from a couple of British writers - Melanie Dobromylskyj and Karla Rohde - two school-friends who have pulled together a superb compendium of gluten free recipes in The Incidentally Gluten Free Cookbook.   This is a real paper book, not a cheap pdf (although cheap pdfs are not all bad ) which through its 12 chapters presents a mouthwatering array of food that you can eat if you are avoiding gluten. As an aside here I better mention that I am - as far as I can manage - gluten free.  A couple of years ago I was getting more and more IBS .  Stomach cramps, poor digestion and diarrhoea were regular companions which went when I cut out wheat.  No beer, bread or pasta.  No pastry..... thats it really.  As ...

I think I tweeted one of the press reports of this yesterday,  but as the whole paper is available as an Open Access pdf I thought I'd point to it formally on the blog. The paper is Associations of exercise-induced hormone profiles and gains in strength and hypertrophy in a large cohort after weight training The purpose of this study was to investigate associations between acute exercise-induced hormone responses and adaptations to high intensity resistance training in a large cohort (n = 56) of young men. Acute post-exercise serum growth hormone (GH), free testosterone (fT), insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) and cortisol responses were determined following an acute intense leg resistance exercise routine at the midpoint of a 12-week resistance exercise training study. Acute hormonal responses were correlated with gains in lean body mass (LBM), muscle fibre cross-sectional area (CSA) and leg press strength. There were no significant correlations between the exercise-induc...

In all the discussions about how different diets may or may not promote insulin resistance, one thing that often gets missed out of the discussion is the role of the muscles.  Empty the muscles of glycogen through hard exercise and they will get more insulin sensitive to suck up the sugar out of the blood.  ( Nigel has been trying to explain this but that is a different topic) It is something that I talk about in Hillfit as a side benefit of strength training and an issue that Doug McGuff and John Little go into in Body by Science .  Anyway, interesting to see this study come through this morning - at least some association between strength levels and markers of insulin sensitivity Muscular strength and markers of insulin resistance in European adolescents: the HELENA Study The aim of the study was to examine the association of muscular strength with markers of insulin resistance in European adolescents. The study comprised a total of 1,053 adolescents (499 mal...

Phillips lab at  McMaster university churns these studies out! Concurrent resistance and aerobic exercise stimulates both myofibrillar and mitochondrial protein synthesis in sedentary middle-aged men Here they look at the impact of : resistance training alone; aerobic exercise alone; and resistance exercise and aerobic exercise together; in sedentary middle-aged men.  (I'm 44.  Am I middle aged yet?) The way that I read it is that doing both together is equivalent in effect  - in most measures they were looking at, protein synthesis in the muscles mainly) to doing either resistance exercise or aerobic exercise. Questions for discussion.... Why was the resistance exercise 8 sets of 8 reps?  Why not something simpler? What is more time efficient? Why do they always pick leg extensions?

In the last couple of days I was interviewed by the boys at Slimkicker .  The interview focuses on my book Hillfit:Strength and it was good to have a chance to explain more about the philosophy and the rationale behind the programme and the exercises that were chosen. Slimkicker have been pulling together interviews with some great guys so I am in good company!   Appearing in the Nutrition section immediately after Paul Jaminet is an honour! Anyway, please check out the interview and have a look round the rest of Slimkicker too - it looks like a fun community and useful approach to tracking your diet.

This one popped across my screen today.  Stress is always an issue with all sorts of impacts on health.  Interesting to see this study of its impact on the muscles and how they react to training: Psychological Stress Impairs Short-Term Muscular Recovery From Resistance Exercise PURPOSE : The primary aim of this study was to determine whether chronic mental stress moderates recovery of muscular function, perceived energy, fatigue and soreness in the first hour following a bout of strenuous resistance exercise. METHODS : 31 undergraduate resistance training students (age = 20.26 ± 1.34 y) completed the perceived stress scale (PSS) and Undergraduate Stress Questionnaire (USQ; a measure of life event stress) and completed fitness testing. Following 5 to 14 days of recovery, they performed an acute heavy-resistance exercise protocol (10-RM leg press test plus six sets: 80-100% of 10-RM). Maximal isometric force (MIF) was assessed prior to, following, and at 20, 40, and 60 min...

Following on from the paper last week from James Steele , here is another study which says that strength training improves cardio fitness: Effects of two different quadriceps strengthening exercise approaches on cardiovascular fitness in healthy female subjects: A single blind randomized study. Objective : There are limited number of documents showing the relations between cardiovascular fitness and muscle strength. This study aimed to determine the effects of two different quadriceps strengthening exercise approaches on cardiovascular fitness in healthy female subjects. Methods : Forty female university students participated in this study on a voluntary basis. The participants were randomly assigned to do either isokinetic exercise (IE) or progressive resistive exercise (PRE) in two different groups. Both training schemes were performed three times a week for a period of two weeks. The subjects were given a maximum symptom limited exercise test on a treadmill before and after (ea...

I thought this was interesting. Walking Speed May Signal Thinking Problems Ahead A new study shows that changes in walking speed in late life may signal the early stages of dementia known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI) Here is the abstract: In-home walking speeds and variability trajectories associated with mild cognitive impairment Objective : To determine whether unobtrusive long-term in-home assessment of walking speed and its variability can distinguish those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from those with intact cognition. Methods : Walking speed was assessed using passive infrared sensors fixed in series on the ceiling of the homes of elderly individuals participating in the Intelligent Systems for Assessing Aging Change (ISAAC) cohort study. Latent trajectory models were used to analyze weekly mean speed and walking speed variability (coefficient of variation [COV]). Results : ISAAC participants living alone included 54 participants with intact cognition, 31...

I was re-reading Hillfit last night.   It is hard to come back to something that you wrote a few months before -  I keep thinking of ways it could be improved or things that could be expressed better.  I am going to revise it over the next few weeks and maybe also send all those that have bought it a few free bonus chapters and FAQs, but one area in particular that I thought was not expressed well was the idea of the sequential recruitment of muscle fibres / motor units and how the "size principle" leads to the way in which I recommend that you train. SEQUENTIAL RECRUITMENT OF MOTOR UNITS - A PARABLE In this post I am going to try out another way of explaining the ideas.  Let me know if this makes sense. (For background reading on this I'd point towards Body by Science , this article by Carpinelli - THE SIZE PRINCIPLE AND A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE UNSUBSTANTIATED HEAVIER-IS-BETTER RECOMMENDATION FOR RESISTANCE TRAINING or Clarence Bass' thoughts on the ...

This is a superb video.  If you follow Todd Hargrove's blog this will not be new, but it is well presented. via BSMPG

There has been some internet drama over the last few days with Anthony criticising the barbell squat and then MAS following up with I No Longer Give a Squat About The Squat and a follow up Lower Risk Alternatives to the Barbell Back Squat I commented on that last post explaining why I chose the Wall Sit as a key exercise in Hillfit   Here is what I said: I chose the Wall Sit / Air Bench / Wall Sit for Hillfit for a number of reasons. First of all it is simple to learn . Too many trainers or internet personalities present exercises that may be fine but are actually complex motor skills. Kettlebell snatches and swings for example may or may not be good exercises but they are not easy to learn without decent coaching and a lot of practice. The Wall sit is different – it is a very simple move. Once in position your task is simple – hold that position until you can’t hold it anymore, sequentially recruiting the muscle fibres. Secondly it is a congruent exercise (in terms o...

I've previously pointed to the research of Dr Marcora with his psychobiological theories of fatigue.  I also highlighted Noakes paper on the role of the brain in fatigue.  All that research seemed to focus on endurance exercise but it was interesting to see Alex point to new research that indicates that there are similar ideas at play with respect to lifting weights.  What I thought was neat about the study was the distinction between "peripheral" and "central" fatigue: the former is the reduced ability of your muscle itself to contract, and the latter is a reduction in the signal from your brain to your muscle demanding contraction. If you pick up a heavy (above critical torque) dumbbell and lift it until you can't anymore, the limiting factor appears to be peripheral fatigue. Your muscles are simply no longer capable of contracting powerfully enough to lift the weight. In contrast, if you lift a lighter (below critical torque) dumbbell to failure, ...

I launched Hillfit on the world about 5 months ago now in the middle of January.  It is a short ebook aimed at hikers/hillwalkers with the idea that getting a little stronger, through simple safe exercise will bring a host of benefits:  walks will be easier, safer and more fun. I've had some good feedback from the readers of the book and it has been interesting to see the recent discussions around alternatives to the squat for safely strengthening the lower body. Dave Riley has been posting his thoughts on his training, inspired by Hillfit: How much weight do you lift when performing HillFit ? I reckon the weight issue is subjective in context as you have a few variables you can play around with: (1) the angle of your movements (2) the pace you do the movements and (3) then you can consider what weight to add if any. For the pelvic lift I lay a dumbbell on each thigh and rest my upper back on a bench — a fantastic experience esp if done really really slowly. T...