Conditioning Research

I've been thinking more about glutes after some chats with Colin and also while reading Tim Ferris's new Four Hour Body book .   I am realising more and more that under activated glutes are a big issue for me and lead to a bit of back pain. A couple of good resources on this in addition to those I've pointed to previously: This video and the explanation and video here of the Cook Hip Lift.   That one identifies something that really applies to me - when I do a one legged glute bridge with the right leg, it is my hamstring that cramps. Stuart McGill calls this inability to use the glutes "gluteal amnesia". The brain has literally lost touch with the glutes, so to speak. It could be that the psoas are "tight" and so it is a case of reciprocal inhibition. Or, the glutes are weak and so the psoas are tight. Heres the thing: It doesn't matter. Turn on the glues and solve the problem.

I spotted this nice little ebook on barefoot running, from TERRA PLANA Vivo Barefoot.  The PDF is here  Very detailed and well written

This should be good - Dr Briffa is starting to do podcasts.....

While part of me agrees with Rant that the social damage done by booz e is way worse than that from cigarettes, smoking is still stupid. This abstract caught my eye, noting that even at the level of mitochondria (the fascinating parts of cells responsible for energy production) smoking messes up your response to exercise. Cigarette Smoke Inhibits Brain Mitochondrial Adaptations of Exercised Mice

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.

..of course n=1   (there is a bit of paleo in here too) he explains more at his blog: ....... I described some of the things I’ve discovered by self-experimentation. Then I tried to say why it had been successful — why I had managed to discover such useful stuff. My conclusion is that my success came from the combination of four things: 1. Self-experimentation. Much faster, more flexible than ordinary research. 2. The Stone Age = good idea. I used the idea that our bodies were shaped to work well under Stone-Age conditions to choose what experiments to do. 3. Subject-matter knowledge. My knowledge of psychology, experimental design, and data analysis helped a lot. My weight-control theory, for example, was based on ideas from animal learning. 4. Freedom. I could do and say what I wanted. Most scientists cannot. They fear career damage. The combination of these four things is why my work was effective. After my talk, a few people asked: Were you serious?

I liked watching this .  Never mind the specifics of what he is saying, the whole video reminded me of things I been learning, particularly in chatting to Colin .  Everything is connected to everything else.   You can't look at one muscle in isolation from the rest of the body.  Of course this ties in to the Anatomy Trains / Fascia approach that I have pointed to before