Conditioning Research

It is no secret that I am a big fan of Doug McGuff.  I interviewed him here a couple of years ago and he was kind enough to give me a very good review for Hillfit . There is an excellent interview with Doug at the Bulletproof Executive site that is very well worth listening to. Podcast #26: Body By Science with Dr. Doug McGuff, MD

Anthony has put together a great line up of speakers for this year's conventions.  Click here to visit The 21 Convention LLC. I don't know about the pick up guys, but on the exercise front he has managed to bring together some innovative  thinkers and writers: In London he has:   Dr John Briffa , Simon Whyatt , Simon Shawcross and James Steele II . Austin Texas will feature: Doug McGuff , Robb Wolf , Drew Baye , Dave Asprey and Keith Norris   I've interviewed a few of these guys, follow all of them through their blogs, twitter etc and think that these events will be like my RSS dumping its contents into a conference suite.  Anthony always does high quality video of the events, so even if you can't make it look forward to some excellent presentations.

We've had material up here before on the way in which exercise can promote insulin sensitivity - even brief intense exercise . I spotted this new study that highlights that both endurance and resistance training can have an impact, but on different elements of that sensitivity: Insulin Sensitivity After Maximal and Endurance Resistance Training Maximum Resistance Training (MRT) led to a greater increase in glucose uptake capacity (in muscles), whereas Endurance Resistance Training (ERT) led to greater insulin sensitivity, supporting the recommendation of both MRT and ERT as primary intervention approaches for individuals at a risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It is something that I point to in Hillfit - intense exercise to failure that can tap into all the muscle fibres - slow, intermediate and fast twitch - lets you drain them of glucose in a way in which endurance exercise does not allow....and endurance exercise does have some benefits. Actually it is pretty much si...

Hillfit.com Doug McGuff is an MD, co-author of Body by Science and a leading thinker in the world of physical training.  I interviewed him on this blog a couple of years ago and have previously pointed to videos of him speaking.  Doug has been good enough to review Hillfit:Strength and offer his comments.  I am humbled by what he says: Chris has knocked it out of the ballpark with Hillfit ! Although the book is oriented to those who hike or climb, it is applicable to any sport, or even just activities of daily life.  In Hillfit Chris has effectively distilled physical conditioning and strength training down to its essential elements.  The "why" and hows" are presented more clearly and precisely than I have ever seen .  This book will not just be another conditioning book for a specific sport;  it will serve to demonstrate for all sports the appropriate separation between physical conditioning and skill conditioning.  Bravo Chris! Doug Mc...

A few months ago I had an interview here with Drew Baye . There is a great new interview / podcast up now with Drew over on Jimmy Moore's blog.   Drew makes some great points about the nature of real exercise as opposed to activity or recreation.  Definitely worth listening to (although as with any Jimmy Moore interview I tend to fast forward through the first few minutes of commercials and folksy DJ stuff) Check it out here

Keith Norris should not be a new name to you - his Theory to Practice blog is superb.  Anyway, here is Keith (physical culturalist, author, and general manager at Efficient Exercise (Austin Texas)), giving the world premiere of the ARX Fit Omni at The 21 Convention 2011 of Orlando, Florida, united States of America. The video notes explain: The ARX Fit Omni © is a revolutionary new home-exercise machine that employs motorized resistance across a wide range of movements, providing a perfectly (and uniquely) matched strength curve across a complete -- or limited -- range of motion. Called "the bowflex killer" by 21 Convention architect and founder Anthony Dream Johnson, the ARX Fit Omni © machine is making waves in the universe of proper exercise, strength training, and sport performance. Supplying a level of effectiveness, efficiency, safety, and intensity found in no other machine in the world, the ARX Fit Omni may just be the machine to put the nail ...

More from Drew (whom I interviewed here)   I like the quotes around 25:00.  Marketing bullshit to make money is the standard thing in much of the fitness industry. A DVD featuring an extensive lecture from Drew on proper exercise is available here.

This study seems to support the basic workout frequency prescribed by Doug McGuff and John Little in Body by Science - once a week (and less frequently if necessary). Recovery after Heavy Resistance Exercise And Skeletal Muscle Androgen Receptor And Insulin-Like Growth Factor-I Isoform Expression In Strength Trained Men. The effects of heavy resistance exercise on skeletal muscle androgen receptor (AR) protein concentration and mRNAs of AR, insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF)-IEa, and mechano growth factor (MGF) expression were examined from biopsies of vastus lateralis (VL) muscle before and 48 hours after heavy resistance exercise (5 × 10 repetition maximum [RM] leg press and 4 × 10RM squats) in 8 adult strength trained men. The present exercise induced an acute decrease in maximal isometric force and increased serum total testosterone (T) and free testosterone (FT) concentrations. During 2 recovery days, maximal isometric force and subjective perception of physical fitness rema...

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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...

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.....

I first came across Patrick Diver via the Body By Science Blog where he was commenting regularly and posting some videos of his training.  I was intrigued at a high level endurance athlete training with  short HIT style sessions.  That led to this interview.  I hope you enjoy it and get as much from it as I have.  There is some great material in here! Patrick , normally in these interviews I start off by asking a little about your background: how you got into training and how you developed your particular approach.  Who are you? Pushing Hard on the bike Hi Chris, my name is Patrick Diver and I’ve had a personal training business, Greyhound Fitness , for nearly 9 years now in Orlando, Florida. I also have a couple other websites including patrickdiver.com a nd fitnessgod.com.  The latter, funny URL and all, has a new weblog I just started (also to be found at patrickdiver.blogspot.com ).   As far as philosophy is concerned, first ...

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 sh...

Here is an interesting report, for those of us with an interest in High Intensity Training (HIT). Building muscle doesn't require lifting heavy weights: study "Rather than grunting and straining to lift heavy weights, you can grab something much lighter but you have to lift it until you can't lift it anymore," says Stuart Phillips, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University. "We're convinced that growing muscle means stimulating your muscle to make new muscle proteins, a process in the body that over time accumulates into bigger muscles." The report points to a recent study: Low-Load High Volume Resistance Exercise Stimulates Muscle Protein Synthesis More Than High-Load Low Volume Resistance Exercise in Young Men The study used light weights that represented a percentage of what the subjects could lift. The heavier weights were set to 90% of a person's best lift and the light weights at a mere 30% of what people could lift. "It...