All if my athletes go through a progression of training. The program cycles things for a number of reasons, the most important for sport is to avoid accommodation. Accommodation is when the exercise no longer does anything to make them better. Happens all the time, if you keep doing curls and bench everyday, eventually they don't make your chest or your arms any bigger or stronger. Things have to change, often, but not too often.
The cycles can be any number of things; hypertrophy, strength, power, speed, agility, power-endurance, endurance, strength-speed, speed-strength, corrective, just to name a few. The trick is to pick a logical sequence that fits what the athlete needs to make them better as an individual. The easy thing to do would be to force everyone, regardless of goals, previous workout history, and current state, into the same program. It would be easy to say; high intensity intervals for everyone, everyday, for every sport. The hard thing would be to assess the individual, make a real honest self assessment, triage the situation and focus on fixing the problems first. It's hard because no one, no one, wants to spend time doing things they suck at. That sucks. It's a constant cycling of things that suck!
That's athletes though. General physical fitness is different (also known as General Physical Preparedness or GPP). For the GPP athlete, constantly varried, functional movements, done at high intensity, 3x/week plus some recovery days and a steady state endurance day in there, is the absolute best thing they could be doing! So where do you want to be? GPP or athlete participating in a specific sport (that includes "CrossFit" as a sport too!)? There is no wrong answer here. It just depends on how much time you have to spend on this thing. Spend some here, you don't have some there.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Endurance
I take the definition of endurance to mean an event lasting greater than 90 min. This could be a single movement, like running, or it could include a few different movements like triathlons. I am not sure where this definition comes from, but I like it because usually at 90 min. the "rules" change. Fuel and hydration become bigger concerns, you can't just use the stores on-board anymore.
There is really only one way to train true endurance, long distance. Not necessarily slow, but long. In general, I like to train my athletes with specific power output numbers for them to hit. In the case of steady state work, I prefer to use heart rate. Heart rate based training has been around for a long time, I'm by no means adding to the knowledge base or conversation, I'm simply stating my preference to train endurance.
Steady state is the foundation, the base. Once this base has been laid you can sharpen things up with intervals, but you can not avoid this base. There is just no way around it. Sometime I hear stories of endurance coaches teaching methods of only intervals to increase "endurance." There's a lot of problems with this. Success will come quick, but will usually fade with time over a long endurance career. Intervals will not prepare the body for the time under tension come race day. There is something you just can't avoid when doing an Ironman, sitting in that damn seat for 100 miles! That hurts if you're not used to it. In those stories, what is usually not included, is how long this "newbie" has been doing steady state training before the intervals. These stories make me cringe, every time. The worst is when I hear about a high school athlete who has potential to be a great endurance athlete start doing only intervals at high intensity for their training. Great, poor kid is now doomed to be a good high school athlete...and then their career is over. Instead they should be building for their senior year of college by building a huge base, like a 7 year base! Intervals have their place, they are useful but they are not the basis of success in endurance events.
There are 3 fundamental aspects of endurance training. 1. Aerobic training, which is done at low intensity for long duration. Aerobic training is volume based, not intensity based, and a majority of training time should be spent here. 2. Anaerobic training, which is done ad high intensity, intervals. There are different energy systems in the body so there are different interval structures to elicit specific responses. Manipulating the work to rest ratios will target specific things. Generally, this is going to improve speed, buffering capacity (tolerance to lactic acid), and anaerobic threshold. 3. Maximum aerobic capacity, which is MaxV02. This is done at really high intensity. This will increase maximum oxygen uptake, major importance.
Good endurance comes from the proper dose of all three aspects, not any one over the other two. The biggest problem is the avoidance of aerobic training, the steady state stuff. It's really, really boring and long...really long. In the end, if you want to be good, you have to do it.
If you can only fit in a limited amount of time to train, understand that you are going to sacrifice how good you are at the sport, there is no single person standing on a podium, in any sport, who uses ONLY intervals, but, if you just want to do something for fun on your weekends the biggest bang for your buck is going to be doing steady state 1x/week, think 2-3 hours at 75% max heart rate, (usually most normal people have Saturday's open for this) and 1x/week a MV02 session. This will get most people into pretty good condition. Add to this 1-2x/week CrossFit workouts for the next 3 months and presto, you'll finish that marathon no problem.
There is really only one way to train true endurance, long distance. Not necessarily slow, but long. In general, I like to train my athletes with specific power output numbers for them to hit. In the case of steady state work, I prefer to use heart rate. Heart rate based training has been around for a long time, I'm by no means adding to the knowledge base or conversation, I'm simply stating my preference to train endurance.
Steady state is the foundation, the base. Once this base has been laid you can sharpen things up with intervals, but you can not avoid this base. There is just no way around it. Sometime I hear stories of endurance coaches teaching methods of only intervals to increase "endurance." There's a lot of problems with this. Success will come quick, but will usually fade with time over a long endurance career. Intervals will not prepare the body for the time under tension come race day. There is something you just can't avoid when doing an Ironman, sitting in that damn seat for 100 miles! That hurts if you're not used to it. In those stories, what is usually not included, is how long this "newbie" has been doing steady state training before the intervals. These stories make me cringe, every time. The worst is when I hear about a high school athlete who has potential to be a great endurance athlete start doing only intervals at high intensity for their training. Great, poor kid is now doomed to be a good high school athlete...and then their career is over. Instead they should be building for their senior year of college by building a huge base, like a 7 year base! Intervals have their place, they are useful but they are not the basis of success in endurance events.
There are 3 fundamental aspects of endurance training. 1. Aerobic training, which is done at low intensity for long duration. Aerobic training is volume based, not intensity based, and a majority of training time should be spent here. 2. Anaerobic training, which is done ad high intensity, intervals. There are different energy systems in the body so there are different interval structures to elicit specific responses. Manipulating the work to rest ratios will target specific things. Generally, this is going to improve speed, buffering capacity (tolerance to lactic acid), and anaerobic threshold. 3. Maximum aerobic capacity, which is MaxV02. This is done at really high intensity. This will increase maximum oxygen uptake, major importance.
Good endurance comes from the proper dose of all three aspects, not any one over the other two. The biggest problem is the avoidance of aerobic training, the steady state stuff. It's really, really boring and long...really long. In the end, if you want to be good, you have to do it.
If you can only fit in a limited amount of time to train, understand that you are going to sacrifice how good you are at the sport, there is no single person standing on a podium, in any sport, who uses ONLY intervals, but, if you just want to do something for fun on your weekends the biggest bang for your buck is going to be doing steady state 1x/week, think 2-3 hours at 75% max heart rate, (usually most normal people have Saturday's open for this) and 1x/week a MV02 session. This will get most people into pretty good condition. Add to this 1-2x/week CrossFit workouts for the next 3 months and presto, you'll finish that marathon no problem.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Stress
I'm not sure how I'd do if I were back in college with today's technology. It wasn't even that long ago too! My point is, Wikipedia has changed things for me. My mind works in similar ways wiki is organized so I can really loose myself in it. Writing a paper today would be a lot of cut and paste, a lot. I guess if it's cited properly, no worries.
If you look up stress in Wikipedia, drill down to biological/psychological stress, you will find lots of useful stuff about stress, early history and biological effects, etc.
The basics:
General Adaptation Syndrome
In the suntan example the alarm stage is when you lay in the sun. This stage starts the process by putting stress on the body, it will start to respond to this stimulation which is the second stage Resistance. In the resistance stage your body will try to adapt to the situation it's in, hormones are released, chemicals move about, things start happening on a cellular level to try and deal with the stress we are under. At the exhaustion stage the body has spent all the resources available trying to adapt and if the stress continues they system breaks down, think blisters, if it continues long enough, death will ensue.
This system is our best friend and worst enemy at the same time. Our best friend because without it we wouldn't be able to live unless the environment was constant. People can adapt to amazing situations, freezing cold environments, very high altitudes, very hot, limited food and water, the list goes on. It's out worst enemy because our 21st century lives allow for greater and greater amounts of low level constant stress. The body cannot tell the difference between good stress or bad stress, between emotional stress or physical stress so we put ourselves in extended periods of the exhaustion stage which can lead to major health problems.
In the initial stage of the adaptation process one of the major things that happens is the release of cortisol. You might hear this hanging around a CrossFit gym a lot, but since everyone seems to already know what this hormone is, what it does, why we try to mitigate it, no one is asking these questions. I'm pretty sure not very many people know the answers to these questions so I wanted to lay them out here.
Cortisol is a hormone that comes from the adrenal gland and is released in response to stress (good and bad stress/emotional and physical) or low blood sugar. It aids us in the flight or flight response. It suppresses the immune system and helps break down fat, protein, and carbs for quick energy.
The reason we tend to vilify this important and necessary hormone is because our days are filled with stress, we never give the system enough time to adapt and lower all the fight or flight responses (check out Adrenal Fatigue). Our personal life is stressful, work is stressful, working out is stressful.
In extreme cases hypercortisol levels is called Cushing Syndrome. Not that we have this from a clinical level, but noting how cortisol impacts us is important.
OK, so what do I do about it? Here is what Wiki says about reducing cortisol:
I'm going to leave you with these for now and talk more in depth about Mindfulness in another post.
For now the take away is this, you need less stress in your life. Less emotional/mental stress, a proper dose of physical stress and you need to manage the effects of stress by eating clean (zone/paleo), practice your recovery stuff from the physical stress, and start trying to reduce the amount of "other" stress in your life.
If you look up stress in Wikipedia, drill down to biological/psychological stress, you will find lots of useful stuff about stress, early history and biological effects, etc.
The basics:
General Adaptation Syndrome
Physiologists define stress as how the body reacts to a stressor, real or imagined, a stimulus that causes stress. Acute stressors affect an organism in the short term; chronic stressors over the longer term.
Selye researched the effects of stress.
Alarm is the first stage. When the threat or stressor is identified or realized, the body's stress response is a state of alarm. During this stage, adrenaline will be produced in order to bring about the fight-or-flight response. There is also some activation of the HPA axis, producing cortisol.
Resistance is the second stage. If the stressor persists, it becomes necessary to attempt some means of coping with the stress. Although the body begins to try to adapt to the strains or demands of the environment, the body cannot keep this up indefinitely, so its resources are gradually depleted.
Exhaustion is the third and final stage in the GAS model. At this point, all of the body's resources are eventually depleted and the body is unable to maintain normal function. The initial autonomic nervous system symptoms may reappear (sweating, raised heart rate, etc.). If stage three is extended, long-term damage may result, as the body's immune system becomes exhausted, and bodily functions become impaired, resulting in decompensation.
The result can manifest itself in obvious illnesses such as ulcers, depression, diabetes, trouble with the digestive system, or even cardiovascular problems, along with other mental illnesses.Mike Mentzer used the example of a sun tan, which I now use and like as a great example of this process.
In the suntan example the alarm stage is when you lay in the sun. This stage starts the process by putting stress on the body, it will start to respond to this stimulation which is the second stage Resistance. In the resistance stage your body will try to adapt to the situation it's in, hormones are released, chemicals move about, things start happening on a cellular level to try and deal with the stress we are under. At the exhaustion stage the body has spent all the resources available trying to adapt and if the stress continues they system breaks down, think blisters, if it continues long enough, death will ensue.
This system is our best friend and worst enemy at the same time. Our best friend because without it we wouldn't be able to live unless the environment was constant. People can adapt to amazing situations, freezing cold environments, very high altitudes, very hot, limited food and water, the list goes on. It's out worst enemy because our 21st century lives allow for greater and greater amounts of low level constant stress. The body cannot tell the difference between good stress or bad stress, between emotional stress or physical stress so we put ourselves in extended periods of the exhaustion stage which can lead to major health problems.
In the initial stage of the adaptation process one of the major things that happens is the release of cortisol. You might hear this hanging around a CrossFit gym a lot, but since everyone seems to already know what this hormone is, what it does, why we try to mitigate it, no one is asking these questions. I'm pretty sure not very many people know the answers to these questions so I wanted to lay them out here.
Cortisol is a hormone that comes from the adrenal gland and is released in response to stress (good and bad stress/emotional and physical) or low blood sugar. It aids us in the flight or flight response. It suppresses the immune system and helps break down fat, protein, and carbs for quick energy.
The reason we tend to vilify this important and necessary hormone is because our days are filled with stress, we never give the system enough time to adapt and lower all the fight or flight responses (check out Adrenal Fatigue). Our personal life is stressful, work is stressful, working out is stressful.
In extreme cases hypercortisol levels is called Cushing Syndrome. Not that we have this from a clinical level, but noting how cortisol impacts us is important.
Factors generally increasing cortisol levels
- Intense (high VO2 max) or prolonged physical exercise stimulates cortisol release to increase gluconeogenesis and maintain blood glucose.[74] Proper nutrition[75] and high-level conditioning[76] can help stabilize cortisol release.
- The Val/Val variation of the BDNF gene in men, and the Val/Met variation in women, are associated with increased salivary cortisol in a stressful situation.[77]
- Hypoestrogenism
and melatonin supplementation increase cortisol levels in postmenopausal women.[78]
- Severe trauma or stressful events can elevate cortisol levels in the blood for prolonged periods.[80]
- Anorexia nervosa
may be associated with increased cortisol levels.[82]
- Some formulations of combined oral contraceptive pills increase cortisol levels in young women who perform whole-body-resistance exercise training.[84]
- Commuting
increases cortisol levels relative to the length of the trip, its predictability and the amount of effort involved.[85]
- Stimuli associated with sexual intercourse can increase cortisol levels.[86
OK, so what do I do about it? Here is what Wiki says about reducing cortisol:
Factors generally reducing cortisol levelsThis should come as no surprise to you. Our recommendation for everyone is to first and foremost eat a zone/paleo(ish) diet as often as possible, take fish oil/omega-3's, workout hard and infrequent, rest, recover often (massage, sleep more, ice). I want to add to this Mindfulness.
- Magnesium
supplementation decreases serum cortisol levels after aerobic exercise,[58][59] but not after resistance training.[60]
- Omega 3
fatty acids have a dose-dependent effect [61] in slightly reducing cortisol release influenced by mental stress,[62] suppressing the synthesis of interleukin-1 and -6 and enhancing the synthesis of interleukin-2; the former promotes higher CRH release. Omega 6 fatty acids, on the other hand, have an inverse effect on interleukin synthesis.[citation needed]
- Music therapy
can reduce cortisol levels in certain situations.[63]
- Massage therapy
can reduce cortisol.[64]
- Laughing, and the experience of humour, can lower cortisol levels.[65]
- Crying
can reduce cortisol levels. William H. Frey II, a biochemist at the University of Minnesota, proposed that people feel "better" after crying, due to the elimination of hormones associated with stress, specifically adrenocorticotropic hormone.[66] This, paired with increased mucosal secretion during crying, could lead to a theory that crying is a mechanism developed in humans to dispose of this stress hormone when levels grow too high.
- Soy-derived phosphatidylserine interacts with cortisol; the correct dose, however, is unclear.[67][68]
I'm going to leave you with these for now and talk more in depth about Mindfulness in another post.
For now the take away is this, you need less stress in your life. Less emotional/mental stress, a proper dose of physical stress and you need to manage the effects of stress by eating clean (zone/paleo), practice your recovery stuff from the physical stress, and start trying to reduce the amount of "other" stress in your life.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Food
We give a food "lecture" every couple weeks in our Onboarding process. Here is a list of books and links we base it all on.
Links (in no particular order):
http://www.robbwolf.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
http://paleodiet.com/
http://www.whole9life.com/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/
body fat calc (registration req.)
Zone Diet
Books:
Primal Blue Print
Good Calories Bad Calories
Enter the Zone
Mastering the Zone
The Paleo Diet
Books I have not read, but trust the source:
Paleo Solution
Protein Power
Fat and Cholesterol are Good for you
Lights out Sleep, Sugar, Survival
At the end of the day; if you can eat lean meat, veggies, a little berries or fruit, some nuts and seeds, and mostly water 80% of the time you be well on your way to optimum health and nutrition. Remember though if you eat 5 times a day that means there is 35 meals in a week. That means 28 meals must be spot on to get a "B." That's 7 meals through the week. That "one-bite-wont-hurt" mentality is OVER. You get 7 "bites" a week. Spend them well.
No one is saying you have to be perfect. Just realize the cost of what you do. If you are ok with it, then fine, if not, then change something. Simple is NOT easy, but it's still that simple. If something is non-negotiable, that's fine, just realize that your "grade" is going to be showing on your abs. A students get to see their abs, B students kind of, C students, not so much. You get the idea. It's up to you. Attention and time is all it takes. You get to choose where you spend those.
Links (in no particular order):
http://www.robbwolf.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
http://paleodiet.com/
http://www.whole9life.com/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/
body fat calc (registration req.)
Zone Diet
Books:
Primal Blue Print
Good Calories Bad Calories
Enter the Zone
Mastering the Zone
The Paleo Diet
Books I have not read, but trust the source:
Paleo Solution
Protein Power
Fat and Cholesterol are Good for you
Lights out Sleep, Sugar, Survival
At the end of the day; if you can eat lean meat, veggies, a little berries or fruit, some nuts and seeds, and mostly water 80% of the time you be well on your way to optimum health and nutrition. Remember though if you eat 5 times a day that means there is 35 meals in a week. That means 28 meals must be spot on to get a "B." That's 7 meals through the week. That "one-bite-wont-hurt" mentality is OVER. You get 7 "bites" a week. Spend them well.
No one is saying you have to be perfect. Just realize the cost of what you do. If you are ok with it, then fine, if not, then change something. Simple is NOT easy, but it's still that simple. If something is non-negotiable, that's fine, just realize that your "grade" is going to be showing on your abs. A students get to see their abs, B students kind of, C students, not so much. You get the idea. It's up to you. Attention and time is all it takes. You get to choose where you spend those.
Power-Endurance
Power-Endurance workouts are mostly cardio but as the name implies the work is something between power and endurance. Another way to look at it would be repeated bursts of power for a moderate amount of time. I tend to side with Mark Twight's definition of "endurance," being greater than 90 min. So based on that, anything less than 90 min. and more than our "power" definition falls into the power-endurance category.
You will find that almost all of CrossFit falls here. Nothing wrong with that either. This is going to offer the biggest bang for your buck. For the average person this is really all they might need to do, especially if they are only working out 2-3x a week for 3 weeks a month. Most people fall into this pattern. Every month there is a reason to take a week off. Some holiday or social event lands on a Thursday - Tuesday and takes the person out of training hard for a full work week or more. So for this person, doing this mixed mode type power-endurance stuff is pure gold.
For the athlete, this period needs to be cycled just like the others. 4-6 weeks in this cycle is generally the most you'd want to spend here. This can also be used to peak the athlete depending on the intensity and load of the sessions.
These workouts can be sub-divided into a couple categories; short, long, and intermittent. I am really partial to Pat O'Shea's IWT's too. IWT looks exactly like a typical CrossFit workout, only there are prescribed rest periods to keep the intensity as high as possible. Another concept here would be cluster training, something like 2-3 reps at max intesity, 10-15 sec rest for 10 rounds or so. The idea of all of these is the same. Power. Max intensity.
If you find yourself working out 2-3x week for most of the month, like my example above, then you are going to want to really, really push hard on these workouts! A common mistake is not hitting these with the "proper" intensity.
Train hard, eat clean, and stay consistent.
You will find that almost all of CrossFit falls here. Nothing wrong with that either. This is going to offer the biggest bang for your buck. For the average person this is really all they might need to do, especially if they are only working out 2-3x a week for 3 weeks a month. Most people fall into this pattern. Every month there is a reason to take a week off. Some holiday or social event lands on a Thursday - Tuesday and takes the person out of training hard for a full work week or more. So for this person, doing this mixed mode type power-endurance stuff is pure gold.
For the athlete, this period needs to be cycled just like the others. 4-6 weeks in this cycle is generally the most you'd want to spend here. This can also be used to peak the athlete depending on the intensity and load of the sessions.
These workouts can be sub-divided into a couple categories; short, long, and intermittent. I am really partial to Pat O'Shea's IWT's too. IWT looks exactly like a typical CrossFit workout, only there are prescribed rest periods to keep the intensity as high as possible. Another concept here would be cluster training, something like 2-3 reps at max intesity, 10-15 sec rest for 10 rounds or so. The idea of all of these is the same. Power. Max intensity.
If you find yourself working out 2-3x week for most of the month, like my example above, then you are going to want to really, really push hard on these workouts! A common mistake is not hitting these with the "proper" intensity.
Train hard, eat clean, and stay consistent.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Power Training
Simply put, power is related to time. How much work can be done in the lest amount of time. If I run for 45 min. my power output is low compared to throwing a baseball. Time to complete the task. Work is basically applying force over a distance. Like moving a barbell from the ground to hips (deadlift) or from ground to shoulders (clean).
In comparing a deadlift and clean we can directly compare the power output of two top level lifters. This comes from Pat O'Shea's book Quantum Fitness II page 92.
Kenady (deadlift)
140kg (body mass)
405kg (mass lifted)
.40m (distance)
2 sec. to execute
work=Force X Distance
For Kenady the work =1587.6
Power = Work/time to execute lift
Kenaday's power output was 793.8 watts
793.8 watts /140 kg = 5.67 watts/kg body mass
Pisarenko (clean):
120kg body mass
265kg mass lifted
.90m distance
.9 sec time to execute
Work for Pisarenko is 2337.3
power is 2597 watts
or 21.63 watts/kg body mass
Directly Kenady is putting out 5.67 watts/kg while Pisarenko is putting out 21.64 watts/kg
This is a massive difference. The biggest component to power output, again, is time. It takes Kenady 2 seconds while Pisarenko moves it further and in only .9 seconds!
Power can be seen in other ways too. "Cardiovasular power," like the 100m dash, or 50m freestyle swim. The 100m is 10 seconds or so and the 50yrd swim is 19 or so. Obviously the run is significantly higher output, the mass is moving further and faster!
Power can be trained by focusing on a couple different areas. Explosive lifts (olympic lifting), plyometrics or "shock training," and sprints. The key thing is, like strength training, intensity must exceed 80-85% of maximum "speed." This can only be done a couple times a week so dosing it is again key.
In comparing a deadlift and clean we can directly compare the power output of two top level lifters. This comes from Pat O'Shea's book Quantum Fitness II page 92.
Kenady (deadlift)
140kg (body mass)
405kg (mass lifted)
.40m (distance)
2 sec. to execute
work=Force X Distance
For Kenady the work =1587.6
Power = Work/time to execute lift
Kenaday's power output was 793.8 watts
793.8 watts /140 kg = 5.67 watts/kg body mass
Pisarenko (clean):
120kg body mass
265kg mass lifted
.90m distance
.9 sec time to execute
Work for Pisarenko is 2337.3
power is 2597 watts
or 21.63 watts/kg body mass
Directly Kenady is putting out 5.67 watts/kg while Pisarenko is putting out 21.64 watts/kg
This is a massive difference. The biggest component to power output, again, is time. It takes Kenady 2 seconds while Pisarenko moves it further and in only .9 seconds!
Power can be seen in other ways too. "Cardiovasular power," like the 100m dash, or 50m freestyle swim. The 100m is 10 seconds or so and the 50yrd swim is 19 or so. Obviously the run is significantly higher output, the mass is moving further and faster!
Power can be trained by focusing on a couple different areas. Explosive lifts (olympic lifting), plyometrics or "shock training," and sprints. The key thing is, like strength training, intensity must exceed 80-85% of maximum "speed." This can only be done a couple times a week so dosing it is again key.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Strength training
It comes down to this; Force = Mass x acceleration. So in order to increase force, I can either increase the mass, or increase the acceleration. Applied to strength training, I can either train at maximal loads, like going for a 1 rep max, or I can use a light(er) weight and move the bar at peak velocity. Generally speaking the weight should be between 45-60% 1 rep max for peak speed.
It would become quickly impossible to continue to try and hit 1 rep max's everyday so the obvious question is, how often should one be doing Max Efforts? This depends on the persons fitness. Safe answer, I know. The more conditioned the athlete, the more often, but, the more conditioned the heavy they can usually lift. Imagine if your 1 rep max was 800 lb squat. How often could someone try to hit that? Not very often. Westside uses a 4 day split, 2 for Max Efforts, 2 for Dynamic days. Seems to work for them and they might be the strongest gym on the planet. That says a lot. I'd error on the side Louie is on. 2 max effort days per week is plenty.
Strength training is only 1 part of the puzzle though. To focus on it exclusively at the expense of all other attributes will create holes in athletic abilities. A "good" program therefore addresses all of these attributes.
I typically have my athletes cycle through 4 or 5 cycles. Foundation period or a Preparatory phase where a little bit of everything is touched on. This cycle and arguable last for years until the athlete is ready for more. Generally speaking 2 months is enough to get something meaningful done. Then the cycle is possibly hypertrophy or strength endurance, then it's on to maximum strength, then power, then Power-Endurance or Metabolic Conditioning, mixed-mode, CrossFit, what ever you want to call it, it's all the same stuff, lastly an endurance phase.
The dosing of intensity, duration, rest, and exercise selection is the magic. The art. The science is given, every good coach out there knows the periodization basics, but I see most of them making the same mistakes; more is not necessarily better. It's not economics where $1,000 is better than $1; 4 workouts a day is not better then 1.
Train hard, rest, and eat clean. Do this for 10 years consistently, you're great-grand kids will thank you.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Recent Questions
I posted on the website asking for feedback and questions you guys have. Here is Jason's questions and my attempt to answer them. Enjoy, and if you have any questions let em fly. Thanks for reading.
Couple questions:
What’s the difference between strength and hypertrophy?
Muscular endurance: what does it take?
Conditioning metabolic pathways: How to get the most bang for the buck?
Strength: neural efficiency vs. myofibril hypertrophy.
Let’s define the terms; strength is the ability to exert force against antagonistic forces. For example, to lift a barbell off the ground is to produce greater force then gravity. There are the forces that keep the barbell on the ground and to lift it, we must exert greater force or it will not move, basically.
Hypertrophy is generally an enlargement of the muscle.
The two relate because there is a positive relationship between Cross-Sectional Area and strength, so usually, bigger muscles mean stronger muscles (potentially).
Basically, there are two different types of muscular hypertrophy: sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar. In sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, the volume of sarcoplasmic fluid in the muscle cell increases with no accompanying increase in muscular strength. So the muscle is bigger because of the increase in fluid. During myofibrillar hypertrophy, actin and myosin contractile proteins increase in number and add to muscular strength as well as a small increase in the size of the muscle. A generalization is that sarcoplasmic hypertrophy is seen in bodybuilders while myofibrillar hypertrophy is seen in Olympic weightlifters (lightweights) and a combo is seen in powerlifters and heavy weight Olympic weightlifters.
Neural Efficiency is basically recruiting more fibers to the task of lifting the barbell off the floor. More alpha neurons. In a deconditioned state we don't recruit very many fibers to the task, but after training we get some more fibers involved. Fibers are all-or-nothing, kind of like Alec Hanson :). They are either on, or they are off, no in between. When we talk about neural efficiency we are talking about getting more fibers to turn on, help do some work.
Generally speaking, the training is different between strength training and hypertrophy. Although there is some cross-over. According to Mel Siff, to get stronger you need to be operating in the 85%-100%+ of your 1RM range at 1-5 reps/set and 4-7 sets. To get mass you need to be training at 60-80% of 1RM, 8-15 reps/set and 4-8 sets per exercise. Michael Yessis wrote that:
1-4 reps increase pure strength no increase in mass
4-9 reps increase strength and mass
10-15 reps increase strength, muscle endurance, and mass
16-30 reps increase endurance with little or no effect on mass
31-50 reps increase endurance with no effect on mass
50-100 reps increase muscle endurance, cardio-respiratory endurance, and possible loss of mass (or fat) and absolutely no increase in strength.
So you could train both if you wanted to. Like a workout of 5x5 at 80-85% 1RM is a great example. 5x5 squats @ 80-85%, 3x a week would do the trick quite nicely and has for countless athletes for probably longer than any other training scheme.
There are of course alternatives. HIIT says 1 set to absolute muscle failure is the best method. After a couple warm up sets,1 set of 6-8 or so with a weight that at 6 with perfect form and tempo you find muscle failure. Then add maybe a few cheaters, forced reps, partials.
According to Ben Tabachnik the USSR
- slow 10-12 reps @ 70-80%, 2-3 sets, 2 min rests, 2-3 muscle groups
- 5-10 reps, 3-5 sets, @ 80%, 2-3 min rest between
- Etc. etc.
Basically the same stuff as I said above.
Muscular endurance: what does it take?
Based on some of the above info, to train muscular endurance you are looking at 40-60% 1RM for 25-60 reps, 2-4 sets.
Conditioning metabolic pathways: How to get the most bang for the buck?
Not totally sure what this means.
Basically there are 4 energy pathways (and a couple in-betweeners)
- Phosphagen
- Gycolysis
- Fast glycolysis
- Slow glycolysis
- Oxidative
- Lactic Acid
In simple terms you want to build a base of aerobic endurance (oxidative) and go short(er) and hard(er) to build the others (anaerobic). So 3x/week you are looking at 60-180 min. at 70-80% (shoot for 75%) max heart rate. Think of trying to accumulate 5-6 hours per week in the 75% HR range. (I like HR work because it’s something you can use when you don’t have a machine giving you immediate feedback, like a treadmill or rowing machine)
To train the other systems you need use intervals, the rest period is important:
Work duration – intensity level – energy system used
0-6 seconds work – extremely high intensity – Phosphagen system
6-30 seconds – very High intensity – phosphagen and fast glycolysis
30 seconds to 2 min. – high intensity – fast glycolysis
2-3 min. – moderate intensity – fast glycolysis and oxidative system
Or if you wanted to do all of this with other people, you could just come train at CrossFit Costa Mesa, because it's all in the programming.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Resolve
Once again, there have been a few comments, posts, questions or what not revolving around a similar subject. When this happens, I believe it a good indicator that it's important, at least to the circle of people I'm around.
The topic of resolve. I had to think of the topic quite a bit before deciding on resolve as the word of choice. There are lots of words or short phrases that could fit the concept, i.e. will, decide, focus, wanting "it," choose, determined, bent (on or upon), bound, decisive, do-or-die, firm, hell-bent (on or upon), intent, out, purposeful, determined, resolved, set, single-minded. You get the idea.
This first came up when I posted on our main blog page a video of Chuck V. from Westside Barbell doing a deadlift of 835# on his way to a total of 2,565 lbs. The total is the combined total of a squat, bench press, and deadlift. The comments that started to come in were things like, I don't want to look like him, to, what's his Karen time? I get it and while I agree with the commentators here, I'm not saying they are wrong, just that they missed the point. The point of my posting Chuck lift an amazing amount of weight is to understand that, he among other things, is supremely resolute about his goals. There is no wavering for Chuck, there couldn't be, or he'd never have been able to do what he has done. That's the nature of success. It demands ALL. He is a man, who made the choice(s) to sacrifice ANYTHING that compromised his goal of lifting more weight in a powerlifting meet. That's what being elite is all about. The black belt is elite, the white belt is not.
The second was a post by our friend Chaz. She posted a video of a guy talking to a group of people about what it takes to be successful, his example was monetary, but it transcends the object. He told a story about a man who went to the guru and said,"I want to be successful and wealthy like you." To which the wealthy man said, "ok, meet me at the beach at 4am." The young man shows up eager and ready to learn how to be rich, and the old man says "follow me into the water." They get about shoulder deep and the old man suddenly grabs the young man by the throat and violently shoves the young man's head underwater. The old man holds him there while the young man struggle. After a moment he says to the young man, "what were you thinking about when I was holding your head under the water?" The young man says without hesitation, "I wanted to breath more than anything." The old man smiles and says, "when you want to be wealthy (and here you can fill in the blank) as much as you wanted to breath, you will have it, and you don't need me.
Here is the video if you want to watch it.
I love this story. I heard it in a different form years ago, but the idea is all still there and the presenter, Sean is a good story teller.
This reminded me of another, one about a samurai. The story goes, a young man asked a samurai, "what does it take to be a samurai?" The Samurai responds, "you must be willing to cut down anything that stand opposed to you, even the gods." Or something like that. Most people focus on the wrong part. Cut down the gods? What does that mean? It means, NOTHING, even the most powerful of oppositions, will NOT stop me from exerting my will.
The topic of resolve. I had to think of the topic quite a bit before deciding on resolve as the word of choice. There are lots of words or short phrases that could fit the concept, i.e. will, decide, focus, wanting "it," choose, determined, bent (on or upon), bound, decisive, do-or-die, firm, hell-bent (on or upon), intent, out, purposeful, determined, resolved, set, single-minded. You get the idea.
This first came up when I posted on our main blog page a video of Chuck V. from Westside Barbell doing a deadlift of 835# on his way to a total of 2,565 lbs. The total is the combined total of a squat, bench press, and deadlift. The comments that started to come in were things like, I don't want to look like him, to, what's his Karen time? I get it and while I agree with the commentators here, I'm not saying they are wrong, just that they missed the point. The point of my posting Chuck lift an amazing amount of weight is to understand that, he among other things, is supremely resolute about his goals. There is no wavering for Chuck, there couldn't be, or he'd never have been able to do what he has done. That's the nature of success. It demands ALL. He is a man, who made the choice(s) to sacrifice ANYTHING that compromised his goal of lifting more weight in a powerlifting meet. That's what being elite is all about. The black belt is elite, the white belt is not.
The second was a post by our friend Chaz. She posted a video of a guy talking to a group of people about what it takes to be successful, his example was monetary, but it transcends the object. He told a story about a man who went to the guru and said,"I want to be successful and wealthy like you." To which the wealthy man said, "ok, meet me at the beach at 4am." The young man shows up eager and ready to learn how to be rich, and the old man says "follow me into the water." They get about shoulder deep and the old man suddenly grabs the young man by the throat and violently shoves the young man's head underwater. The old man holds him there while the young man struggle. After a moment he says to the young man, "what were you thinking about when I was holding your head under the water?" The young man says without hesitation, "I wanted to breath more than anything." The old man smiles and says, "when you want to be wealthy (and here you can fill in the blank) as much as you wanted to breath, you will have it, and you don't need me.
Here is the video if you want to watch it.
I love this story. I heard it in a different form years ago, but the idea is all still there and the presenter, Sean is a good story teller.
This reminded me of another, one about a samurai. The story goes, a young man asked a samurai, "what does it take to be a samurai?" The Samurai responds, "you must be willing to cut down anything that stand opposed to you, even the gods." Or something like that. Most people focus on the wrong part. Cut down the gods? What does that mean? It means, NOTHING, even the most powerful of oppositions, will NOT stop me from exerting my will.
Burn the bridge. Nuke the foundation. Back yourself up against a wall. Have an opinion one way or the other, get off the fence and rip it up. Cut yourself off so there is no going back. Once you're committed the truth will come out. You ask about security? What you need is uncertainty. What you need is confusion; something that forces you to reinvent yourself, a whip to drive you harder.
"I never try anything - I just do it. Want to try me?
White Zombie, "Thunder Kiss"
Quote from Gymjones.comDeclare war, on yourself, on your thoughts, on your inner-demons. Cut away all distractions. Place yourself on "deathground," where your back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out or die.
Learn something new. Do something different. Test yourself. Confront your true capacities. Instill dedication by threatening yourself with a penalty for failure. Take away the safety net to compel better performance. One of Brad Lewis' mentors suggested it is, "better to work without a net, or a saw guard. The intensity [is] greater, more concentration, total commitment, better results." This is the ideal of the solo climber, and the man with his back is against the wall, with nothing to lose.Here's the deal. In the end, there is a finite amount of "greatness" available in you. How are you going to spend it? You can spend it any way you want, but you have to sleep in the bed you make. You get to look at yourself in the mirror each day and live with your own consequences. Are you going to spend it on your job? Being the best parent? Being the best student? Being the best powerlifter in the world? Or, you can always chose to be pretty good at a lot of stuff, and spread all the potential around to a lot of things. But know that you are in-fact doing that. What I'm saying is that if you spend your potential on things you don't want to be really good at, stop. Resolve. Decide, and cut yourself off from the alternatives and focus your efforts. You want to compete in the CF Games? EVERYTHING you do should be directed towards that effort. Vegas trips don't matter, the amount of time you have to ice your body to make sure it's ready for tomorrow doesn't matter, there is no question about what to eat, what to drink, there is no question. Do you want it bad enough, like the young man wanted to breath, like the samurai willing to cut down the gods if they stand the way of his goals? You can't be scattered to reach elite.
You have to be willing to bite off more than you can chew, to overdose, and to fail. If you won't risk the answer you won't ask the question. If you lack the will to ask then consciousness will not unite with muscle and bone. I criticize such a lack of will (especially in myself) and ask, "What's the worst that can happen?" The fearful part of me replies, "I may fall short of my expectations. I may not be who I pretend to others. My perception of self may be proven wrong, very wrong." The confident part of me says, "So what ... only after breaking myself apart may rebuilding begin." So go ahead, break stuff. Break yourself on the once-hard edges of yourself. And recycle the debris into the foundation of your future. From Gymjones.com
Thursday, August 5, 2010
CrossFit Acronyms and Abbreviations
- AMRAP: As Many Reps (sometimes Rounds)as Possible
- ATG: Ass to Grass
- BP: Bench press
- BS: Back squat
- BW (or BWT): Body weight
- CFT:CrossFit Total - consisting of max squat, press, and deadlift.
- CFSB: CrossFit Strength Bias. A program developed by Jeff Martin and Darrell White, explained here. You'll need a CFJ subscription.
- CFWU:CrossFit Warm-up
- CLN: Clean
- C&J: Clean and jerk
- C2: Concept II rowing machine
- DL: Deadlift
- FS: Front squat
- GHR(D): Glute ham raise (developer). Posterior chain exercise, like a back extension. Also, the device that allows for the proper performance of a GHR.
- GHR(D) Situp: Situp done on the GHR(D) bench.
- GPP: General physical preparedness, aka "fitness."
- GTG: Grease the Groove, a protocol of doing many sub-maximal sets of an exercise throughtout the day
- H2H: Hand to hand; refers to Jeff Martone's kettlebell "juggling" techniques (or to combat).
- HSPU: Hand stand push up. Kick up into a handstand (use wall for balance, if needed) bend arms until nose touches floor and push back up.
- HSQ: Hang squat (clean or snatch). Start with bar "at the hang," about knee height. Initiate pull. As the bar rises drop into a full squat and catch the bar in the racked position. From there, rise to a standing position
- IF: Intermittent Fasting
- KB: Kettlebell
- MEBBMaximum Effort Black box, term coined by Mike Rutherford. Search the forum for it. Originally laid out in one of the early Performance Menu issues.
- KTE: Knees to elbows. Similar to TTBs described below.
- MetCon: Metabolic Conditioning workout
- MP: Military press
- MU: Muscle ups. Hanging from rings you do a combination pull-up and dip so you end in an upright support.
- OHS: Overhead squat. Full-depth squat performed while arms are locked out in a wide grip press position above (and usually behind) the head.
- PC: Power clean
- Pd: Pood, weight measure for kettlebells
- PR: Personal record
- PP: Push press
- PSN: Power snatch
- PU: Pull-ups, possibly push ups depending on the context
- Rep: Repetition. One performance of an exercise.
- Rx'd; as Rx'd: As prescribed; as written. WOD done without any adjustments.
- RM: Repetition maximum. Your 1RM is your max lift for one rep. Your 10 RM is the most you can lift 10 times.
- SDHP: Sumo deadlift high pull (see exercise section)
- Set: A number of repetitions. e.g., 3 sets of 10 reps, often seen as 3x10, means do 10 reps, rest, repeat, rest, repeat.
- SPP: Specific physical preparednesss, aka skill training.
- SN: Snatch
- SQ: Squat
- SS: Starting Strength; Mark Rippetoe's great book on strength training basics. Available right here.
- Subbed: Substituted. The CORRECT use of "subbed," as in "substituted," is, "I subbed an exercise I can do for one I can't," For example,if you can't do HSPU, you subbed regular pushups.
Sadly, many illiterate posters get this bass-ackward, and claim that since they can't do HSPU, they subbed HSPU for pushups. D'oh! - TGU: Turkish get-up (See exercise section)
- TTB: Toes to bar. Hang from bar. Bending only at waist raise your toes to touch the bar, slowly lower them and repeat.
- WO, sometimes W/O: Workout
- WOD: Workout of the day
- YBF: You'll Be Fine (liberally applied in spray form)
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Calories
When the conversation turns to diet and nutrition one of the first things to untangle is the oversimplified question: "how many calories should I eat?"
Let's clear the air and establish some definitions of the two basic elements here. (Definitions from Wikipedia.)
Calorie - "Food energy is the amount of energy obtained from food that is available through cellular respiration."
The technical term for this idea that calories in minus calories out equals body mass is the"1st Law of Thermodynamics" - "an expression of the principle of conservation of energy, states that energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but cannot be created or destroyed. It is usually formulated by saying that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of heat supplied to the system, minus the amount of work done by the system on its surroundings."
According to mainstream nutritionists these two ideas are all you need to know about nutrition to come to the conclusion that if you eat more calories than you burn, you get fat. If you reduce the calories in and increase the calories out, you get lean and sexy. Oh if it were so simple.
Let's break this down a bit. Here are two links to similar posts about similar things. The first is from Dr. Eades, whom I look to for lots of great information regarding diet and nutrition. The second is one of his sources for his post. It's written by Robert McLeod, a physicist (one who would know very well the complexities of our second concept definition, Thermodynamics.)
Dr. Eades post here. http://tinyurl.com/363ld8s
Dr. McLeod's post here: http://tinyurl.com/afled9
I would like to just re-post them on here, because quite honestly there is not much to add. What I'm going to try and do is add my comments to the discussion.
So let's look at the basics again. Calorie is the amount of energy obtained from food that's available through cellular respiration. A good question to ask, What's "cellular respiration" then? "Cellular respiration, also known as 'oxidative metabolism', is one of the key ways a cell gains useful energy. It is the set of the metabolic reactions and processes that take place in organisms' cells to convert biochemical energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and then release waste products. The reactions involved in respiration are catabolic reactions that involve the oxidation of one molecule and the reduction of another."
Meaning, it's a set of chemical reactions that food goes through in order to be converted into useful forms, mostly in the form of ATP since that is the most efficient fuel source of our bodies.
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics says; energy (calories are energy from food) can not be destroyed only moved. This is where most nutritional experts get the idea that it's basically the same as calories in-calories out = body mass. But even on this surface this oversimplified equation misses. In this equation we have energy minus energy = mass. hahahaha. They don't even have the same units. It would have to be energy minus energy = energy. You can't just switch the units from energy to mass!
Ok moving past that, if you have to, this equation does nothing to describe the process breaking down the food into useful energy for us to use. We are summing up incredibly complex processes into simple arithmetic. That's not even funny.
Ok, I just can't resist anymore. Here is a copy of a large chunk from Robert's post regarding the thermodynamic argument or the calories in calories out argument. I'm going to add some italics here where I see fit.
1. It only applies to closed systems, of which the body and humans are not. A closed system would mean our body temps would be the same as the environment around us. Like the example of the room above, our body temperature would be the same as the room temp, which it is clearly not. This is why Robert makes the mocking statement that according to the thermodynamics argument, wearing a sweater would make you increase your fat storage, because if you increase the heat of your body, in order to balance out the equation your body would store fat. This is not the case which means that we are not a closed system and the calorie argument is garbage.
2. The math is oversimplifying complex movements of heat and energy and does nothing to explain how the metabolic process actually works in real life.
So why does it work for some people?
Any ideas? See my next post for an attempt at a simplified explanation of the metabolic process and my own theory of why a reduction in calories will reduce body fat levels.
Let's clear the air and establish some definitions of the two basic elements here. (Definitions from Wikipedia.)
Calorie - "Food energy is the amount of energy obtained from food that is available through cellular respiration."
The technical term for this idea that calories in minus calories out equals body mass is the"1st Law of Thermodynamics" - "an expression of the principle of conservation of energy, states that energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but cannot be created or destroyed. It is usually formulated by saying that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of heat supplied to the system, minus the amount of work done by the system on its surroundings."
According to mainstream nutritionists these two ideas are all you need to know about nutrition to come to the conclusion that if you eat more calories than you burn, you get fat. If you reduce the calories in and increase the calories out, you get lean and sexy. Oh if it were so simple.
Let's break this down a bit. Here are two links to similar posts about similar things. The first is from Dr. Eades, whom I look to for lots of great information regarding diet and nutrition. The second is one of his sources for his post. It's written by Robert McLeod, a physicist (one who would know very well the complexities of our second concept definition, Thermodynamics.)
Dr. Eades post here. http://tinyurl.com/363ld8s
Dr. McLeod's post here: http://tinyurl.com/afled9
I would like to just re-post them on here, because quite honestly there is not much to add. What I'm going to try and do is add my comments to the discussion.
So let's look at the basics again. Calorie is the amount of energy obtained from food that's available through cellular respiration. A good question to ask, What's "cellular respiration" then? "Cellular respiration, also known as 'oxidative metabolism', is one of the key ways a cell gains useful energy. It is the set of the metabolic reactions and processes that take place in organisms' cells to convert biochemical energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and then release waste products. The reactions involved in respiration are catabolic reactions that involve the oxidation of one molecule and the reduction of another."
Meaning, it's a set of chemical reactions that food goes through in order to be converted into useful forms, mostly in the form of ATP since that is the most efficient fuel source of our bodies.
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics says; energy (calories are energy from food) can not be destroyed only moved. This is where most nutritional experts get the idea that it's basically the same as calories in-calories out = body mass. But even on this surface this oversimplified equation misses. In this equation we have energy minus energy = mass. hahahaha. They don't even have the same units. It would have to be energy minus energy = energy. You can't just switch the units from energy to mass!
Ok moving past that, if you have to, this equation does nothing to describe the process breaking down the food into useful energy for us to use. We are summing up incredibly complex processes into simple arithmetic. That's not even funny.
Applying the 1st Law to living organisms is Proof by Tautology. Yes, 1 + 1 = 2, but this tells us absolutely nothing about the underlying mechanics. The 1st Law does not (I repeat N-O-T) tell us whether you store excess energy in the form of fat, or bleed it off into the atmosphere by dilating blood vessels next to the skin, sweating, etc. To do so would require an accounting of entropy. - Robert McLeodAgain, the mechanics of energy use. He goes on to demonstrate that the mathematics to account for all of this would be very, very difficult and the simple arithmetic of calories in minus calories out, just doesn't cut it.
Ok, I just can't resist anymore. Here is a copy of a large chunk from Robert's post regarding the thermodynamic argument or the calories in calories out argument. I'm going to add some italics here where I see fit.
One of Taubes' chapters deals with the idea that energy balance in humans can be reduced to the First Law of Thermodynamics:Let me try and make all of this more simple. At the end of the day, calories in minus calories out can't be true, because of these two glaring facts:
ΔE = Ein - EoutI was somewhat confused to see this Surely the nutritional scientists did not not really believe this, right? I mean, any idiot undergraduate students knows that the 1st Law is only useful in a closed system, and humans live on the planet Earth, not in an insulated box. Right?
Enter a rebuttal by G. Bray in the journal Obesity Reviews. Bray is a to be a major obesity researcher and one of the 2nd tier villains in the book. Taubes relates a story of Bray excising a section of a British report on obesity, where Bray removed the material pertaining to the relationship between insulin and obesity. He clearly has editorial support to make his case. Bray is one of the second-tier villains in Taubes' book. Taubes has a footnote (p. 421), which suggests that Bray actively suppressed the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis.
* According to Novin, when he wrote up his presentation for the conference proceedings Bray removed the last four pages, all of which were on the link between carbohydrates, insulin, hunger, and weight gain. "I couldn't believe he would make that kind of arbitrary decision," Novin said.Unfortunately, to a physicist this energy balance hypothesis looks like a silly hand-waving exercise, not a serious argument. Frankly I was flabbergasted when I first read this article. This conservation of energy argument is on the same scientific level as the ridiculous "drink cold water to lose weight" idiocy. A human organism is:
Is wearing a sweater fattening (by insulating you from your environment)? Here's a quote from the rebuttal,
- Not in thermal equilibrium with their environment. Last time I checked I have a body temperature around 38 °C and spend most of my time in 21 °C rooms.
- Capable of significant mass flows (e.g. respiration).
- Capable of sequestering entropy (e.g. protein synthesis).
Let me make my position very clear. Obesity is the result of a prolonged small positive energy surplus with fat storage as the result. An energy deficit produces weight loss and tips the balance in the opposite direction from overeating.According Bray's thermodynamics argument, wearing sweaters makes you fat. This illustrates the greatest fallacy of trying to apply the 1st Law to a human: it makes the implication that living organisms consume kilocalories for the purpose of generating heat rather than perform useful work (italics original to author) (i.e. breathing, contracting cardio and skeletal muscle, generating nervous action pulses, etc.). In reality heat is the waste product of basal metabolism. The first law does not distinguish between different types of energy. Heat, work are all equal under the First Law of Thermodynamics.
1. It only applies to closed systems, of which the body and humans are not. A closed system would mean our body temps would be the same as the environment around us. Like the example of the room above, our body temperature would be the same as the room temp, which it is clearly not. This is why Robert makes the mocking statement that according to the thermodynamics argument, wearing a sweater would make you increase your fat storage, because if you increase the heat of your body, in order to balance out the equation your body would store fat. This is not the case which means that we are not a closed system and the calorie argument is garbage.
2. The math is oversimplifying complex movements of heat and energy and does nothing to explain how the metabolic process actually works in real life.
So why does it work for some people?
Any ideas? See my next post for an attempt at a simplified explanation of the metabolic process and my own theory of why a reduction in calories will reduce body fat levels.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Unloaded
When was the last time you took a week off from your workouts? I mean a planned week of recuperation, not the unexpected binge eating, drinking, vacation kind. I bet if you did, you'd come back and the gym would still be there, you'd lift a little more, you'd feel better, and maybe even set a new PR.
In the last month, I've talked to a few people about this, and if you are paying attention, usually that's a good indicator to go with it. So here goes. The unloaded week.
The first person I talked to approached me and said, "I haven't hit a new PR in months." To which I responded quickly and confidently, "take a week completely off of training, then try again." This came a such a shock, there was an awkward moment of us staring at each other. I'm more comfortable in these situations than most people so i just kept staring until they started to tell me about how much they LOVE CrossFit and could never take a week off.
"That's fine. But until you rest, you probably wont progress or hit new PR's. You're tired and you need to rest." They didn't like that.
I got this from Mike Mentzer; most people make the mistake of thinking in economic terms. $1,000 is better then $1, so more workouts are better then less. But fitness is NOT economics. They have different rules, or as Mike and Ayn Rand would say, they have a different Identity. Muscles have to act like muscles, and muscles need cycles of stimulation then recuperation to progress.
If you find yourself sleeping terrible, irritable, stagnating on your fitness progress, take an active rest week, go for a walk each night for 30 min. (that is your workout programming for the week, that's $39.99 please. I'll invoice you.) I promise the gym will still be there when you get back. You will feel better, you will progress better, look better naked, 6 pack abs shooting through all because you took a week to recuperate. Single best test to know if what you are doing is working or not...is it actually working? I mean are you progressing? If you're not, then your current method is not good, ditch it for what does work. I'm telling you; workouts + rest/recovery = progress
You're annual programming should look something like this: 4-6 weeks of hard workouts (I like to focus on a single attribute), then 1 week active rest (easy walks each night or unloaded bars). Repeat. Progress. Remember; workouts + rest/recovery = progress. They are both equally important to your progress. Here is an interesting caveat to leave you with. What takes more disciple, to walk into the gym and do your unloaded work and not get sucked up into the competition, or to keep going hard and seeing no progress? Think you're tough? Prove it. Do the unloaded work with the rest of the gym racing each other, that's tough.
In the last month, I've talked to a few people about this, and if you are paying attention, usually that's a good indicator to go with it. So here goes. The unloaded week.
The first person I talked to approached me and said, "I haven't hit a new PR in months." To which I responded quickly and confidently, "take a week completely off of training, then try again." This came a such a shock, there was an awkward moment of us staring at each other. I'm more comfortable in these situations than most people so i just kept staring until they started to tell me about how much they LOVE CrossFit and could never take a week off.
"That's fine. But until you rest, you probably wont progress or hit new PR's. You're tired and you need to rest." They didn't like that.
I got this from Mike Mentzer; most people make the mistake of thinking in economic terms. $1,000 is better then $1, so more workouts are better then less. But fitness is NOT economics. They have different rules, or as Mike and Ayn Rand would say, they have a different Identity. Muscles have to act like muscles, and muscles need cycles of stimulation then recuperation to progress.
If you find yourself sleeping terrible, irritable, stagnating on your fitness progress, take an active rest week, go for a walk each night for 30 min. (that is your workout programming for the week, that's $39.99 please. I'll invoice you.) I promise the gym will still be there when you get back. You will feel better, you will progress better, look better naked, 6 pack abs shooting through all because you took a week to recuperate. Single best test to know if what you are doing is working or not...is it actually working? I mean are you progressing? If you're not, then your current method is not good, ditch it for what does work. I'm telling you; workouts + rest/recovery = progress
You're annual programming should look something like this: 4-6 weeks of hard workouts (I like to focus on a single attribute), then 1 week active rest (easy walks each night or unloaded bars). Repeat. Progress. Remember; workouts + rest/recovery = progress. They are both equally important to your progress. Here is an interesting caveat to leave you with. What takes more disciple, to walk into the gym and do your unloaded work and not get sucked up into the competition, or to keep going hard and seeing no progress? Think you're tough? Prove it. Do the unloaded work with the rest of the gym racing each other, that's tough.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
"you're looking big, what have you been doing?"
Recently, I seem to be hearing this from a lot of people and I thought I'd lay out what I do, and If anyone wants to know more detail about why I structure things this way, then you can contact me and I'd be happy to talk about it.
First and foremost I don't feel "big." I have a bit of a self image thing that I'm smaller than I really am. Right now I'm 6"1" 215# and about 15-18% body fat. To give you an idea of my current strength; my max deadlift was 500# and back squat 380# according to the charts (meaning it's not an actual lift, just based on 14 reps at 115kg yesterday). So to me, that's not really that big. Then again, I'm comparing myself to guys like Dave Tate, Jim Wendler, Doug Young, etc. Those guys are big, and strong.
Secondly, it's hard for me to describe what I do in simple terms but I'll try.
My focus is on Endurance, Strength and Power. In that order actually. I thought my strength was most lacking, so that has been my focus for a while now. Then I will switch gears to fix what ever is most lacking and so on. I started doing 5x5 basic strength progressions, found the volume too high, then I started playing with incorporating a more "west-side barbell" style into the routine. What's interesting about Westside, Dave Tate, et al, is it's all based on Soviet Dynamo Club training methods which I feel like I have a pretty good general understanding, so there were already elements in the training, but recently I read through Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program and instantly saw how I could incorporate it. So I started doing Wendler's 5/3/1 program, or at least my variation of it. So for 2 months at a time, I do 3x/week strength training and 3x/week Steady state endurance training. Both are based on simple principles like progressively overloading and max efforts, then an unloaded week at the end of 7 weeks to recover before changing to 4 weeks of 3x/week Met-Con style, or CrossFit, or Mixed-Mode, or Power-endurance, or what ever you want to call it and 3x/week of MV02 endurance training.
That's pretty much it in the most simple terms. 2 months of 3x/week strength, 3x/week steady state; then 1 month 3x/week P/E, 3/week MVO2 training.
The details are quite complex though and even more complex is the why I do it this way. To keep it short though; strength training goes like this (percentages are percentage of 1 rep max - the max weight I can lift for 1 rep, max reps means as many reps as possible to absolute failure, and maybe even try for a few more):
week 1 - 5x@65%, 3x@75%, max reps@85% (goal of 6+ reps)
week 2 - 5x@70%, 3x@80%, max reps@90% (goal of >4 reps)
week 3 - 5x@75%, 3x@85%, max reps@95% (goal of >2 reps)
week 4 - 5x@40%, 3x@50%, max reps@60% (goal of >16 reps)
Each week, I lift 3x/week. So it looks like this:
Mon - Back squat, Press, Deadlift, Power Clean with 5 min. rest between each lift
Wed - Front Squat, Push Press, Weighted Chin, Snatch (5 min rests)
Fri - Overhead Squat, Weighted Dip, Jerk (5 min rest between)
The endurance training is simple enough too:
Steady state for 60-180 min at 70-80% Max HR. Well, I'm building up to that. Yeah, that's 3 hours! WTF. I don't need to go that far into the endurance training, so my goal is to build up to 90 min at 80% MHR. There is all kinds of garbage out there about HR training, but it's possible to figure it out. I like to look at Phil Mafatone's ideas for this piece and Mark Twight, although, I'm pretty sure it's based on Mafatone's work and Stephen Seiler's. Although his progression suggestions are way beyond my capabilities so I have to adjust those. I just don't adapt that fast to endurance training.
So there it is. 9 months out of the year, Strength/Endurance, 3 months; Power-Endurance/MV02. I might change it up though, because the weight is starting to get heavy and it makes it hard to do all those lifts in the same session. The volume is starting to get really high. And I'm concerned that I'm trying to do too many lifts during the week. I might kick it down to just Squat, Press, Deadlift, Power Clean for 1 month at 3x/week, then move to Front Squat, Push Press, Chin, Snatches for month 2 at 3x/week.
In the Power-Endurance phase my focus is on speed. All weight on the bar is reduced to 60% max at most and emphasis is on speed. High intensity Max V02 sessions or Tabata Protocol sessions running or rowing. Mvo2 is trained in 30 second intervals with 30 seconds of rest building up to 60 min in duration. Pure torture. Tabata protocol is 20 seconds at 170% vo2 max followed by 10 sec of rest for 6-8 rounds. Tabata might be worse in my opinion. 4 min. is all it takes to completely kick my ass, especially at 170% V02max pace. Most people will just go "all out" for the 20/10 deal but they obviously didn't read Dr. Tabata's work. It's very specific. 170% is not all out on the first few rounds. Rounds 6-8 however, are horrible. 4 weeks of this 3x/week and by the end, my 2k row, 5k run what ever, will be significantly improved due to my O2 efficiency improvement. Then the shitty part is, I test a new v02 max (and I like the concept 2 website calc based on my 2k row time for this), it's gone up, and now I have to do the tabata sets at a faster pace! WTF?! Oh well. Right now I'm working on tabata sets at 1:27/500m splits. Not avg, just get there and hold on!
At this writing, I'm too heavy to be a real competitor in CrossFit, but it's certainly a lot quicker to lose 10-15 lbs of fat, than to gain strength. I figure if I can keep this up for another 2 years, I'll be ready to compete. We will see. Follow along as I make my way.
That's pretty much it. I guess I just have the genes to get big pretty quick even though my intention is strength. And like I said above, if you want to know why this vs other options out there, just ask. Be prepared for a very, very long answer though. :)
First and foremost I don't feel "big." I have a bit of a self image thing that I'm smaller than I really am. Right now I'm 6"1" 215# and about 15-18% body fat. To give you an idea of my current strength; my max deadlift was 500# and back squat 380# according to the charts (meaning it's not an actual lift, just based on 14 reps at 115kg yesterday). So to me, that's not really that big. Then again, I'm comparing myself to guys like Dave Tate, Jim Wendler, Doug Young, etc. Those guys are big, and strong.
Secondly, it's hard for me to describe what I do in simple terms but I'll try.
My focus is on Endurance, Strength and Power. In that order actually. I thought my strength was most lacking, so that has been my focus for a while now. Then I will switch gears to fix what ever is most lacking and so on. I started doing 5x5 basic strength progressions, found the volume too high, then I started playing with incorporating a more "west-side barbell" style into the routine. What's interesting about Westside, Dave Tate, et al, is it's all based on Soviet Dynamo Club training methods which I feel like I have a pretty good general understanding, so there were already elements in the training, but recently I read through Jim Wendler's 5/3/1 program and instantly saw how I could incorporate it. So I started doing Wendler's 5/3/1 program, or at least my variation of it. So for 2 months at a time, I do 3x/week strength training and 3x/week Steady state endurance training. Both are based on simple principles like progressively overloading and max efforts, then an unloaded week at the end of 7 weeks to recover before changing to 4 weeks of 3x/week Met-Con style, or CrossFit, or Mixed-Mode, or Power-endurance, or what ever you want to call it and 3x/week of MV02 endurance training.
That's pretty much it in the most simple terms. 2 months of 3x/week strength, 3x/week steady state; then 1 month 3x/week P/E, 3/week MVO2 training.
The details are quite complex though and even more complex is the why I do it this way. To keep it short though; strength training goes like this (percentages are percentage of 1 rep max - the max weight I can lift for 1 rep, max reps means as many reps as possible to absolute failure, and maybe even try for a few more):
week 1 - 5x@65%, 3x@75%, max reps@85% (goal of 6+ reps)
week 2 - 5x@70%, 3x@80%, max reps@90% (goal of >4 reps)
week 3 - 5x@75%, 3x@85%, max reps@95% (goal of >2 reps)
week 4 - 5x@40%, 3x@50%, max reps@60% (goal of >16 reps)
Each week, I lift 3x/week. So it looks like this:
Mon - Back squat, Press, Deadlift, Power Clean with 5 min. rest between each lift
Wed - Front Squat, Push Press, Weighted Chin, Snatch (5 min rests)
Fri - Overhead Squat, Weighted Dip, Jerk (5 min rest between)
The endurance training is simple enough too:
Steady state for 60-180 min at 70-80% Max HR. Well, I'm building up to that. Yeah, that's 3 hours! WTF. I don't need to go that far into the endurance training, so my goal is to build up to 90 min at 80% MHR. There is all kinds of garbage out there about HR training, but it's possible to figure it out. I like to look at Phil Mafatone's ideas for this piece and Mark Twight, although, I'm pretty sure it's based on Mafatone's work and Stephen Seiler's. Although his progression suggestions are way beyond my capabilities so I have to adjust those. I just don't adapt that fast to endurance training.
So there it is. 9 months out of the year, Strength/Endurance, 3 months; Power-Endurance/MV02. I might change it up though, because the weight is starting to get heavy and it makes it hard to do all those lifts in the same session. The volume is starting to get really high. And I'm concerned that I'm trying to do too many lifts during the week. I might kick it down to just Squat, Press, Deadlift, Power Clean for 1 month at 3x/week, then move to Front Squat, Push Press, Chin, Snatches for month 2 at 3x/week.
In the Power-Endurance phase my focus is on speed. All weight on the bar is reduced to 60% max at most and emphasis is on speed. High intensity Max V02 sessions or Tabata Protocol sessions running or rowing. Mvo2 is trained in 30 second intervals with 30 seconds of rest building up to 60 min in duration. Pure torture. Tabata protocol is 20 seconds at 170% vo2 max followed by 10 sec of rest for 6-8 rounds. Tabata might be worse in my opinion. 4 min. is all it takes to completely kick my ass, especially at 170% V02max pace. Most people will just go "all out" for the 20/10 deal but they obviously didn't read Dr. Tabata's work. It's very specific. 170% is not all out on the first few rounds. Rounds 6-8 however, are horrible. 4 weeks of this 3x/week and by the end, my 2k row, 5k run what ever, will be significantly improved due to my O2 efficiency improvement. Then the shitty part is, I test a new v02 max (and I like the concept 2 website calc based on my 2k row time for this), it's gone up, and now I have to do the tabata sets at a faster pace! WTF?! Oh well. Right now I'm working on tabata sets at 1:27/500m splits. Not avg, just get there and hold on!
At this writing, I'm too heavy to be a real competitor in CrossFit, but it's certainly a lot quicker to lose 10-15 lbs of fat, than to gain strength. I figure if I can keep this up for another 2 years, I'll be ready to compete. We will see. Follow along as I make my way.
That's pretty much it. I guess I just have the genes to get big pretty quick even though my intention is strength. And like I said above, if you want to know why this vs other options out there, just ask. Be prepared for a very, very long answer though. :)
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