Conditioning Research

This one is fascinating. I heard this discussed on a radio programme last night (31/7): Endurance-enhancing drugs Scientists at Salk Institute in San Diego have created what they believe is the world's first endurance-enhancing drug. Here is the abstract: The benefits of endurance exercise on general health make it desirable to identify orally active agents that would mimic or potentiate the effects of exercise to treat metabolic diseases. Although certain natural compounds, such as reseveratrol, have endurance-enhancing activities, their exact metabolic targets remain elusive. We therefore tested the effect of pathway-specific drugs on endurance capacities of mice in a treadmill running test. We found that PPARβ/δ agonist and exercise training synergistically increase oxidative myofibers and running endurance in adult mice. Because training activates AMPK and PGC1α, we then tested whether the orally active AMPK agonist AICAR might be sufficient to overcome the exercise requiremen...

(be warned this is about 6 minutes )

I generally tend to loosen up a bit on the weekend regarding diet. I don't go mad...but I'll maybe have some bread with breakfast, or a chinese take away. Maybe some beers. And to be honest I think that is Ok, given that the obsessive focus that I sometimes give to diet and exercise is not really healthy. it is good to loosen up a bit. However, this is a new study that would indicate that you need to be aware of the danger of getting too loose on the weekend.....folks tend to eat more the weekend....and do less exercise and that can accumulate. This is from the latest issue of Obesity Influence of Weekend Lifestyle Patterns on Body Weight Objective: To determine whether alterations in diet and/or activity patterns during weekends contribute to weight gain or hinder weight loss. Methods and Procedures: Randomized, controlled trial comparing 1 year of caloric restriction (CR) with 1 year of daily exercise (EX). Subjects included 48 healthy adults (30F, 18M) aged 50–60 years ...

At Monday 's Combat Ready Class , we were doing these as part of a pushup circuit. (Although Marcus called them mountain climbers..which I think are something different.) Here they are demonstrated by Craig Ballantyne . They are tough, especially after Burpee ladders.....

There seems to be increasing evidence - incidentally detail in Lyle McDonald's Protein book - that ingesting protein around a workout has benefits. This is a new study indicating that some protein immediately before and immediately after a workout increase muscle growth and "turn on" the genes related to muscle growth. I've recently begun to pay more attention to proper pre and post-workout nutrition after consulting with Martin Acute and long-term effects of resistance exercise with or without protein ingestion on muscle hypertrophy and gene expression. .......Protein intake increased ........ Resistance Training -induced muscle cross-sectional area enlargement and cell-cycle kinase cdk2 mRNA expression in the vastus lateralis muscle suggesting higher proliferating cell activation response with protein supplementation. Moreover, protein intake seemed to prevent 1 h post-RE decrease in myostatin and myogenin mRNA expression but did not affect activin receptor IIb, p2...

Product Review In the past I've pointed to various resources on intermittent fasting, including Eat Stop Eat and Leangains . I've also pointed to Dr Johnson's Up day Down Day diet . Well, James Johnson has now written a book about his diet. What is the diet? The doctor's website explains the diet. It is a modified alternate day fast, as Matt recently explained . Here is how Johnson describes the diet: It is an adaptation of an experimental model used in animal research. For 70 years scientist have recognized that animals fed 30 – 40% less calories than normal live 40% longer. In May 2003, an article was published showing that mice fed every other day had profound health effects which exceeded those seen in mice fed 40% less than normal every day. Dr. Johnson invented a method which achieved these results in humans with the UpDayDownDay Diet™. Humans are generally unable to restrict their caloric intake even a modest amount on a daily basis. However, most motivated ...

This one is quite thought provoking.... Standard recommendations for 30 minutes of exercise five days a week won't cut it to sustain weight loss, researchers said. There is a good commentary here , but the idea is that people often think that they can get by with diet alone. You need exercise - it is a package deal! Effect of Exercise on 24-Month Weight Loss Maintenance in Overweight Women Background Debate remains regarding the amount of physical activity that will facilitate weight loss maintenance. Methods Between December 1, 1999, and January 31, 2003, 201 overweight and obese women (body mass index [calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared], 27 to 40; age range, 21-45 years) with no contraindications to weight loss or physical activity were recruited from a hospital-based weight loss research center. Participants were assigned to 1 of 4 behavioural weight loss intervention groups. They were randomly assigned to groups based on physical activit...