I was thinking more about the intensity and effort and their effect on muscle growth. I do tend to agree with Doug McGuff (Body By Science) - it's more about Time Under Load than anything that defines the impact in terms of level of stress (stimulus) applied to the muscle. Plus of course load itself (resistance). Other parameters (speed, number of reps, type of resistance) seem to be of less importance. Another thing I was pondering upon is what they call level of Perceived Effort. Despite the fact that it may be deemed as somewhat subjective by some people I believe that when used properly it can be a powerful measure of workout efficiency.
I use a simple system based on a few concepts I found in Stuart McRobert's Beyond Brawn to measure my effort on a set. Here's how it goes: I estimate the effort on a scale 1 to 10 like this -
10 - all-out effort, to absolute and unconditional flat-out failure (I only use positive part of the movement), the final rep cannot be completed no matter how hard you try without messing up the form;
9 - very tough effort; the final rep is completed but one more full rep would be impossible (again, with the correct form);
8 - hard effort; I completed all the planned reps with good form and could probably do one or maybe even two more if my life depended on it. But that would be it.
7 - solid effort; The weight is heavy enough but you could probably do 3-4 more if you were to go all-out.
I don't usually do anything below 7.
Here's why I like this system no matter how subjective it may appear. It allows me to keep track of my effort and intensity which adds one more dimension to help me measure the efficiency of my workouts besides weight alone. Let's say for my lat pulldown I increased poundage by 5 lbs and attempted the same 12 reps that I did last time with smaller weight. I want to make sure that I not only complete my target 12 reps but also do it with the same form, speed and effort! Let's say I did it with PE (perceived effort) of 8 (had a couple more reps left in me) last time but this time the weight felt very heavy and I ground out that final rep with extreme effort and strain and after much huffing and puffing decided that it was an honest 9, almost 10 then - no matter what the weight is - I may have not been as successful as last time. It could either be too much of an increase in resistance or my recovery has been insufficient for some reason (either too short or otherwise compromised).
One other thing. I've read a lot of discussions in bodybuilding community on whether or not training to failure is "the way to go". There's a variety of opinions and from what I read it's not a clear cut solution. My feeling is that although going to failure does indeed exemplify an all-out balls-to-the-wall effort when it comes to training intensity but it appears that it may also be too much of a burden on the CNS. Seems like its taxing into our body's recovery capability could be way too severe - to an extent where its negative side outweigh its benefits - for an average trainee, anyway. I feel that going to 8 or 9 (vs 10) might represent a "less is more" approach still providing enough stimuli for the body to grow without overtaxing it. I found for myself that when I was taking almost every working set to failure I would be tired and low of energy pretty much all the time.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Friday, November 13, 2009
Progressive overload: more thoughts (recovery)
So how long does it take for the body to fully recover from resistance training?
The funny part is that I don't think there is a definite answer to that question. The best one I can come up with is: it depends. There are numerous studies that provide such a wide variety of - not even answers - suggestions that it makes it extremely difficult to come to a complete and definite answer. I wonder if it's even possible. Different bodyparts require different amounts of time. It also vastly varies depending on the intensity and volume of training. Easy gainers and younger people with fast metabolism may require less time to fully recover than more senior "hardgainers". Traditional recommendations maintain that 2-3 days is enough for recovery, which is why most traditional programs are built around 3-4 sessions per week. "Hardgainer" pioneer Stuart McRobert, on the other hand, provides extensive evidence that 4-5 days is an absolute minimum for a typical genetically average trainee, and that some may even become overtrained on once-a-week programs.
There's another question relevant to it: how long does it take before the body becomes deconditioned, i.e. starts losing the gains after the last training session. Our body, like a well-managed team is not going to keep additional resources on the payroll unless they are used. It's been long thought that the muscle starts losing its strength after only 3-4 days unless trained again however there are other opinions claiming that the body remains "supercompensated" for 3 and even 4 weeks. It is a well known fact that some athletes take a month completely off training and come back stronger than before knocking their personal bests right off on the very first day after the break. Many HIT people train once a week and sometimes find that they grow even if they do big lifts (like squats or deadlifts) once every 10 days. Doug McGuff, father of Body For Science, claims that many of his clients maintain gains while training once every two weeks!
So where does it leave us? A range of opinions is so wide that the only choice we really have left is a good old trial and error approach.
Let's say you try working out twice a week, which gives you 3-4 days of rest between sessions. Theoretically, if your recovery time is sufficient you should be able to increase your poundage a little (say, 2-2.5 pounds) every week. The important thing is: you should be able to handle increased weight with roughly the same amount of effort and correct form. If you have to grind it out, cheating and compromising the form for the sake of making that last rep - it doesn't count! If you stall (can't handle the 2 lb increase no matter how hard you try) for more than two weeks it means your recovery is either compromised or insufficient. Whichever the case, the key is to focus on recovery - not exercise (unless there's an injury; in which case some exercise adjustments may be in order)! If that happens, it might be good time to review your eating regime, nutritional and caloric value of the food you eat, sleeping pattern (total hours of sleep per day), and possibly extend recovery time (by switching to once-a-week or 3-times-every-2-weeks mode, for example).
Again, the basic principle to remember is: if you eat well, sleep well and rest enough - you should be able to handle small weekly increases with no perceivable increase in effort! If you can't - it might be time for adjustments. Of course, there's more to it, but that's the basics.
The funny part is that I don't think there is a definite answer to that question. The best one I can come up with is: it depends. There are numerous studies that provide such a wide variety of - not even answers - suggestions that it makes it extremely difficult to come to a complete and definite answer. I wonder if it's even possible. Different bodyparts require different amounts of time. It also vastly varies depending on the intensity and volume of training. Easy gainers and younger people with fast metabolism may require less time to fully recover than more senior "hardgainers". Traditional recommendations maintain that 2-3 days is enough for recovery, which is why most traditional programs are built around 3-4 sessions per week. "Hardgainer" pioneer Stuart McRobert, on the other hand, provides extensive evidence that 4-5 days is an absolute minimum for a typical genetically average trainee, and that some may even become overtrained on once-a-week programs.
There's another question relevant to it: how long does it take before the body becomes deconditioned, i.e. starts losing the gains after the last training session. Our body, like a well-managed team is not going to keep additional resources on the payroll unless they are used. It's been long thought that the muscle starts losing its strength after only 3-4 days unless trained again however there are other opinions claiming that the body remains "supercompensated" for 3 and even 4 weeks. It is a well known fact that some athletes take a month completely off training and come back stronger than before knocking their personal bests right off on the very first day after the break. Many HIT people train once a week and sometimes find that they grow even if they do big lifts (like squats or deadlifts) once every 10 days. Doug McGuff, father of Body For Science, claims that many of his clients maintain gains while training once every two weeks!
So where does it leave us? A range of opinions is so wide that the only choice we really have left is a good old trial and error approach.
Let's say you try working out twice a week, which gives you 3-4 days of rest between sessions. Theoretically, if your recovery time is sufficient you should be able to increase your poundage a little (say, 2-2.5 pounds) every week. The important thing is: you should be able to handle increased weight with roughly the same amount of effort and correct form. If you have to grind it out, cheating and compromising the form for the sake of making that last rep - it doesn't count! If you stall (can't handle the 2 lb increase no matter how hard you try) for more than two weeks it means your recovery is either compromised or insufficient. Whichever the case, the key is to focus on recovery - not exercise (unless there's an injury; in which case some exercise adjustments may be in order)! If that happens, it might be good time to review your eating regime, nutritional and caloric value of the food you eat, sleeping pattern (total hours of sleep per day), and possibly extend recovery time (by switching to once-a-week or 3-times-every-2-weeks mode, for example).
Again, the basic principle to remember is: if you eat well, sleep well and rest enough - you should be able to handle small weekly increases with no perceivable increase in effort! If you can't - it might be time for adjustments. Of course, there's more to it, but that's the basics.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Progressive overload: more thoughts...
When I was younger the only way to train was to train heavy. Heavy was the key word and experience driven "pedal-to-the-metal" by overinflated young egos. When I stepped into the gym I would see my peers loading up the bar - which was an experience in itself - to the very limit of their abilities. And often times beyond. "Cheating" (which translates swinging and jerking up the weight to complete the set when you can't simply admit that the weight is too heavy) was a common thing to do. Of course it would be - it was promoted by the Trainer of Champions himself as a way to break through a plateau - how could he be wrong?! The correct form was more of an "old fart's" advice than a necessity. Plateau was also a mysterious thing - kinda like flu - everyone experienced it but no one really knew what caused it.
But I digress. Ok, maybe not. Back to the principle of progressive overload. One thing that I think was forgotten back in those days (and even more so today) is the fact that it is not the heavier poundage itself that causes the growth - not directly anyways - it's the growth that results in increased ability to lift heavier poundage! Again, let me rephrase it, because I think it's important. It is widely believed that constantly adding weight to your lifts is what causes body to grow (I mean growing muscle, of course). It's not. It may appear this way, yes, but it's not. Not directly anyway. It's a very simplistic way of looking at it whereas the process is more complex. The problem is, it shifts the emphasis from growth to weights whereas in fact it should be the other way around!
Here's what I think happens. Weight simply exemplifies resistance, a stimulus, which - when applied against the muscle triggers certain metabolic processes in the body, which are mostly of catabolic nature - including breakdown of muscle cells and release of certain hormones. That's where the role of the weight is pretty much complete! The nature and mode of the lift and amount of weight only affect the intensity of the breakdown and a relative combination of hormones released into the blood - that's it! The rest has nothing to do with the amount of weight you lifted in the last session - outside, like I said, the intensity of "damage" sustained by the body from working to overcome resistance.
What happens next is quite simple (without going into much detail). The hormones flooding the body trigger a set of chemical and physiological reactions that aim to repair the damage. This is where nutrition comes into play. Just like with a construction team materials (concrete, cement, limestone, bituminous mix, paint, etc.) are required to do the job certain nutrients are needed to provide the body with proper elements to do the repair. No matter how skilled and efficient your building team is insufficient or poor quality materials can hinder the process and adversely affect the outcome. Usually a certain combination of protein, carbohydrates and fats is needed to make repair efforts more efficient.
Now that your building team is engaged all you need to do is to provide sufficient supply of materials and allow enough time for the team to complete their job. If you don't supply materials - it will affect the team's dedication; they are going to get frustrated, lazy and eventually have people transfered to other projects. If you don't allow enough time - team will become overwhelmed, overstressed and will not be able to deliver at full capacity. In terms of physical training it means rest and recuperation. Eat well, sleep well and let the body take care of itself. Simple, huh? Well, from my own experience, it's much easier said than done.
So why is that? Why is it so difficult to simply rest and eat and let your "building team" take care of the repair? Well, the biggest challenge - as surprising as it is logical - is our mind. Our mind functions within the paradigm of rules. Statements and beliefs that we grew up with, learned at school, read in the books, heard in the media, etc., become rules by which we choose to live by. Often self-imposed (actually always self-imposed), although usually those are notions adopted from external sources (media, parents, friends, internet, religion).
Let's say, you come to the gym for the first time and a big guy on a bench next to you shows you a biceps curl. He also says that it's the best way ever to build big guns. Hmm, this guy is so big - he could be on to something. You take a mental note. But so far it's simply an opinion. Then you hear it again from someone else and you say "yeah! that's the way to train!"; now two people said the same thing. Then again. And again. Then you read a book or an article in a popular muscle building magazine that says that you should be training every other day and sometimes two out of three days your - and this is when your mind makes a conclusion that this is the way it should be. It's written in a book, after all, isn't it? And what if it comes from, say, Arnold the Governor or Joe the Trainer of Champions since 1936! People who made bodybuilding the sport it is today. And if the statement is souped up by a glossy image of a model with ripped abs? Chances are you not only will take it as an opinion - it may well become your truth, i.e. the rule you decide to live by without questioning its validity. It becomes one of the ten commandments to you. That's why advertising is such a powerful tool...
If for years and years you have been hearing that unless you train every other day - 3-4 times a week - you are not doing it right - even if your body is screaming "I'm tired! Give me a break!" what are the chances that you will listen to its plea? That's right: next to nothing! Why? Because your mind is conditioned to stick to the rules. Rules are the framework within which it operates.
Now back to training. I'll talk about the philosophy of rules in one of my other posts.
So we have established that rest and recuperation are a step critical to ensure that muscle is not only repaired but repaired exceedingly. In exercise physiology this is called supercompensation. Not only the body repairs the damage caused by stress in the form of resistance but it strengthens existing fibers and builds some extra ones in "anticipation" of an increased demand. This results in increased ability of the body to overcome resistance. This is a temporary condition, in a sense that unless this increased demand is imposed to the body the recruited fibers will gradually lose their ability to work against load. And it makes sense, the construction manager is not going to keep his entire team on the job unless there's enough work for them simply because the costs of keeping them there will not be justified. However, if the higher demand is applied again within that timeframe it will trigger the same processes and the body's ability to withstand higher resistance will increase yet again. There you have it. It's the theory of training.
To sum it up:
Step 1. Resistance is applied to the muscle (stress phase).
Step 2. Muscle is forced to work against resistance it is not accustomed to (overload), which results in temporary disruption of normal muscle cell metabolism and causes certain damage to the fibers (catabolic phase).
Step 3. A chain of chemical and physiological reactions is triggered and certain hormones are released into the blood to repair the damage and promote the healing process (anabolic phase).
Step 4. Damaged fibers are repaired with excess which means they attain a temporary state of higher capacity that allows them to handle higher levels of stress (adaptation and supercompensation).
Or put it simply:
Train well.
Eat well, sleep well and rest well until supercompensation occurs and you feel stronger than before.
Increase your working resistance a little.
Repeat steps 1 to 3 over and over again until you grow as strong and muscular as you want.
Of course there's more to it, but that's it in a nutshell.
So the key to progressive overload is to apply increased resistance (stress) but ONLY when the body has recovered enough to be able to handle it! Not until then. Consistently pushing yourself harder before your body is fully recovered from the previous session is the reason why there's much less muscle in the world than it is called for! So if everyone had focused more on growth than on the amount of weight lifted the world would have been a more muscular place in just a few short months.
Now, having said that, the question still remains: how long does it take for the body to repair the damage and supercompensate? And that's a million dollar question.
(...to be continued)
But I digress. Ok, maybe not. Back to the principle of progressive overload. One thing that I think was forgotten back in those days (and even more so today) is the fact that it is not the heavier poundage itself that causes the growth - not directly anyways - it's the growth that results in increased ability to lift heavier poundage! Again, let me rephrase it, because I think it's important. It is widely believed that constantly adding weight to your lifts is what causes body to grow (I mean growing muscle, of course). It's not. It may appear this way, yes, but it's not. Not directly anyway. It's a very simplistic way of looking at it whereas the process is more complex. The problem is, it shifts the emphasis from growth to weights whereas in fact it should be the other way around!
Here's what I think happens. Weight simply exemplifies resistance, a stimulus, which - when applied against the muscle triggers certain metabolic processes in the body, which are mostly of catabolic nature - including breakdown of muscle cells and release of certain hormones. That's where the role of the weight is pretty much complete! The nature and mode of the lift and amount of weight only affect the intensity of the breakdown and a relative combination of hormones released into the blood - that's it! The rest has nothing to do with the amount of weight you lifted in the last session - outside, like I said, the intensity of "damage" sustained by the body from working to overcome resistance.
What happens next is quite simple (without going into much detail). The hormones flooding the body trigger a set of chemical and physiological reactions that aim to repair the damage. This is where nutrition comes into play. Just like with a construction team materials (concrete, cement, limestone, bituminous mix, paint, etc.) are required to do the job certain nutrients are needed to provide the body with proper elements to do the repair. No matter how skilled and efficient your building team is insufficient or poor quality materials can hinder the process and adversely affect the outcome. Usually a certain combination of protein, carbohydrates and fats is needed to make repair efforts more efficient.
Now that your building team is engaged all you need to do is to provide sufficient supply of materials and allow enough time for the team to complete their job. If you don't supply materials - it will affect the team's dedication; they are going to get frustrated, lazy and eventually have people transfered to other projects. If you don't allow enough time - team will become overwhelmed, overstressed and will not be able to deliver at full capacity. In terms of physical training it means rest and recuperation. Eat well, sleep well and let the body take care of itself. Simple, huh? Well, from my own experience, it's much easier said than done.
So why is that? Why is it so difficult to simply rest and eat and let your "building team" take care of the repair? Well, the biggest challenge - as surprising as it is logical - is our mind. Our mind functions within the paradigm of rules. Statements and beliefs that we grew up with, learned at school, read in the books, heard in the media, etc., become rules by which we choose to live by. Often self-imposed (actually always self-imposed), although usually those are notions adopted from external sources (media, parents, friends, internet, religion).
Let's say, you come to the gym for the first time and a big guy on a bench next to you shows you a biceps curl. He also says that it's the best way ever to build big guns. Hmm, this guy is so big - he could be on to something. You take a mental note. But so far it's simply an opinion. Then you hear it again from someone else and you say "yeah! that's the way to train!"; now two people said the same thing. Then again. And again. Then you read a book or an article in a popular muscle building magazine that says that you should be training every other day and sometimes two out of three days your - and this is when your mind makes a conclusion that this is the way it should be. It's written in a book, after all, isn't it? And what if it comes from, say, Arnold the Governor or Joe the Trainer of Champions since 1936! People who made bodybuilding the sport it is today. And if the statement is souped up by a glossy image of a model with ripped abs? Chances are you not only will take it as an opinion - it may well become your truth, i.e. the rule you decide to live by without questioning its validity. It becomes one of the ten commandments to you. That's why advertising is such a powerful tool...
If for years and years you have been hearing that unless you train every other day - 3-4 times a week - you are not doing it right - even if your body is screaming "I'm tired! Give me a break!" what are the chances that you will listen to its plea? That's right: next to nothing! Why? Because your mind is conditioned to stick to the rules. Rules are the framework within which it operates.
Now back to training. I'll talk about the philosophy of rules in one of my other posts.
So we have established that rest and recuperation are a step critical to ensure that muscle is not only repaired but repaired exceedingly. In exercise physiology this is called supercompensation. Not only the body repairs the damage caused by stress in the form of resistance but it strengthens existing fibers and builds some extra ones in "anticipation" of an increased demand. This results in increased ability of the body to overcome resistance. This is a temporary condition, in a sense that unless this increased demand is imposed to the body the recruited fibers will gradually lose their ability to work against load. And it makes sense, the construction manager is not going to keep his entire team on the job unless there's enough work for them simply because the costs of keeping them there will not be justified. However, if the higher demand is applied again within that timeframe it will trigger the same processes and the body's ability to withstand higher resistance will increase yet again. There you have it. It's the theory of training.
To sum it up:
Step 1. Resistance is applied to the muscle (stress phase).
Step 2. Muscle is forced to work against resistance it is not accustomed to (overload), which results in temporary disruption of normal muscle cell metabolism and causes certain damage to the fibers (catabolic phase).
Step 3. A chain of chemical and physiological reactions is triggered and certain hormones are released into the blood to repair the damage and promote the healing process (anabolic phase).
Step 4. Damaged fibers are repaired with excess which means they attain a temporary state of higher capacity that allows them to handle higher levels of stress (adaptation and supercompensation).
Or put it simply:
Train well.
Eat well, sleep well and rest well until supercompensation occurs and you feel stronger than before.
Increase your working resistance a little.
Repeat steps 1 to 3 over and over again until you grow as strong and muscular as you want.
Of course there's more to it, but that's it in a nutshell.
So the key to progressive overload is to apply increased resistance (stress) but ONLY when the body has recovered enough to be able to handle it! Not until then. Consistently pushing yourself harder before your body is fully recovered from the previous session is the reason why there's much less muscle in the world than it is called for! So if everyone had focused more on growth than on the amount of weight lifted the world would have been a more muscular place in just a few short months.
Now, having said that, the question still remains: how long does it take for the body to repair the damage and supercompensate? And that's a million dollar question.
(...to be continued)
Monday, November 9, 2009
Principle of progressive overload: my thoughts
Reading Stuart McRobert's books made me think and re-think the principle of progressive overload, which seems to be one of the key principles behind weight training. Unfortunately enough this principle seems to have become almost buried under a host of programs and training techniques and marred to an extent where everyone knew that it existed but nobody really cared for it. The essense of the principle is that for a muscle to grow it needs to be stimulated with gradually increasing resistance.
However, looking back at my years of training I realized that except for the first few months of training I never really consciously used the principle - not successfully anyways. In hindsight I realize why it happened the way it did. The thing is that in the initial few months back in 1987 when I first started I didn't really know my body and didn't have the feeling for the weights. However after 6 or so months I apparently was able to build some muscle (although back in those days I didn't really bother weighing myself so I can't even tell how much muscle I actually built) and learned a bit about weights. So after those few months whenever I would start a new program or exercise I would immediately jump into heaviest weights I could handle at the recommended number of reps and go full-bore into training right off the bat. I would follow it religiously burning my muscle and - now I realize - my CNS to a point of overtraining (sometime very severe) very quickly. But I didn't know it was overtraining. I was diligently trying to add pounds to my lifts every time - pretty much grinding every set to failure but to no avail. I didn't know why I wasn't growing, why I was constantly feeling tired and sluggish despite eating everything in sight. There was no one around to knock some senses into me - everyone was working out hard, hard, and harder. There was no internet back then - I was turning to Joe Weider's and Arnold's books for answers - but all I could find was "train more, train harder, train till you puke", shock your body, surprise your body. And I was doing forced reps, cheating, fighting for those last reps like crazy. I couldn't understand why nothing was happening. Except that I was feeling more and more tired and hating the guts of that gym. That seemed to be the only way to do it. I was doing it for 20 years. Up and down with none to marginal growth, I kept pushing and pushing. Madness...
Stuart's books were the first ones that made me realize a few things. First, that it wasn't lack of training that kept me away from the body I wanted. On the contrary, it was TOO much and TOO frequent. For the first time in my life the light came on and I realized that 3-4 times a week with 30 sets done to failure was a road to Hell. Maybe not for Arnold, not for Haney, not for Coleman - but for me it certainly was. My body was trying to tell me, heck, scream at me at the top of its lungs "give me a goddamn break!!" - but I wouldn't listen. Heck, no! I was under a spell. Arnold and Joe and all the glossy magazines he published couldn't be wrong - my body was. I thought. In all my years of training I can count days when I felt energized! If that's not madness, then I don't know what is.
Working to failure. Now I don't believe that working to failure is necessary. Stuart introduced a concept that was new to me: small weekly increments - 1 to 2.5 lbs depending on the exercise. The key is to allow your body to adapt to a point where new increased poundage feels no heavier than the one from last week! That's it!! Instead of forcing your body to lift more through compromised form and cheating how about ALLOWING it to grow into it naturall? Literally! If you can't handle the expected weight without compromising the form, if the weight feels too heavy, it means that your body isn't ready yet. Give it a few more days and let this new weight feel as light as previous one!
Another great eye-opening notion was momentum gaining cycles. Its gist is as follows: when you start a new cycle DO NOT start with the same weight as the one you finished previous cycle with! Drop the weight by 25-30 % and build back gradually. Let the body gain the momentum. That was my most critical mistake all along. Whenever I started a new program I would immediately jump into heaviest weights possible, whatever the target rep was. Ultimately I was always working at a RM level be it 10RM, 8RM or 12RM. That means I was always working against maximum resistance forcing myself to the gym 3-4 times a week.
(...to be continued)
However, looking back at my years of training I realized that except for the first few months of training I never really consciously used the principle - not successfully anyways. In hindsight I realize why it happened the way it did. The thing is that in the initial few months back in 1987 when I first started I didn't really know my body and didn't have the feeling for the weights. However after 6 or so months I apparently was able to build some muscle (although back in those days I didn't really bother weighing myself so I can't even tell how much muscle I actually built) and learned a bit about weights. So after those few months whenever I would start a new program or exercise I would immediately jump into heaviest weights I could handle at the recommended number of reps and go full-bore into training right off the bat. I would follow it religiously burning my muscle and - now I realize - my CNS to a point of overtraining (sometime very severe) very quickly. But I didn't know it was overtraining. I was diligently trying to add pounds to my lifts every time - pretty much grinding every set to failure but to no avail. I didn't know why I wasn't growing, why I was constantly feeling tired and sluggish despite eating everything in sight. There was no one around to knock some senses into me - everyone was working out hard, hard, and harder. There was no internet back then - I was turning to Joe Weider's and Arnold's books for answers - but all I could find was "train more, train harder, train till you puke", shock your body, surprise your body. And I was doing forced reps, cheating, fighting for those last reps like crazy. I couldn't understand why nothing was happening. Except that I was feeling more and more tired and hating the guts of that gym. That seemed to be the only way to do it. I was doing it for 20 years. Up and down with none to marginal growth, I kept pushing and pushing. Madness...
Stuart's books were the first ones that made me realize a few things. First, that it wasn't lack of training that kept me away from the body I wanted. On the contrary, it was TOO much and TOO frequent. For the first time in my life the light came on and I realized that 3-4 times a week with 30 sets done to failure was a road to Hell. Maybe not for Arnold, not for Haney, not for Coleman - but for me it certainly was. My body was trying to tell me, heck, scream at me at the top of its lungs "give me a goddamn break!!" - but I wouldn't listen. Heck, no! I was under a spell. Arnold and Joe and all the glossy magazines he published couldn't be wrong - my body was. I thought. In all my years of training I can count days when I felt energized! If that's not madness, then I don't know what is.
Working to failure. Now I don't believe that working to failure is necessary. Stuart introduced a concept that was new to me: small weekly increments - 1 to 2.5 lbs depending on the exercise. The key is to allow your body to adapt to a point where new increased poundage feels no heavier than the one from last week! That's it!! Instead of forcing your body to lift more through compromised form and cheating how about ALLOWING it to grow into it naturall? Literally! If you can't handle the expected weight without compromising the form, if the weight feels too heavy, it means that your body isn't ready yet. Give it a few more days and let this new weight feel as light as previous one!
Another great eye-opening notion was momentum gaining cycles. Its gist is as follows: when you start a new cycle DO NOT start with the same weight as the one you finished previous cycle with! Drop the weight by 25-30 % and build back gradually. Let the body gain the momentum. That was my most critical mistake all along. Whenever I started a new program I would immediately jump into heaviest weights possible, whatever the target rep was. Ultimately I was always working at a RM level be it 10RM, 8RM or 12RM. That means I was always working against maximum resistance forcing myself to the gym 3-4 times a week.
(...to be continued)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Stuart McRobert: bodybuilding for hardgainers
Those who know my philosophy about fitness, diet and bodybuilding (in a large sense - not just building muscle) know that I've been on a "mission" - my quest for a healthier body, search for an approach that would be based not on violence, but on "invitation". To coax, not coerce. Which means methods and practices designed to invite the body to change in the direction we want, rather than trying to violently force it to. Years of studying and practicing bodybuilding (mostly unsuccessfully - in a sense that I did not succeed in or even get close enough to building the body I wanted - even though I have always been in a fairly decent shape compared to many of my peers) and nutritional approaches made me realize that most conventional methods and techniques of altering your body are based on an ongoing fight against our bodies - usually by subjecting it to various forms of deprivation, over-exertion, extreme stress, etc.
When I first heard about Stuart McRobert I was in the process of arriving to a simple but painful realization that years of battering my body and following conventional and some less than routines (nutrition and training) in an attempt to make it change the way I wanted did not produce the results I wanted - no matter how hard I tried. I would always end up pretty much at the same weight (give or take), percentage of fat (give or take) and not any closer to where I wanted to be.
Stuart appears to be one of the pioneers who - through his own painful experience - first came to conclusion that a rate in which our body can grow muscle depends primarily on its ability to recuperate, when subjected to physical training. Second, he concluded that routines presented in most muscle-building magazines and books only apply to a relative minority of people blessed with favourable genetics - in terms of their ability to respond to exercise and speed of recovery. The rest of the population (which is most of us), he contended, are those whose bodies are less genetically blessed therefore take longer to recover and grow and can only handle a much smaller amount of training that they can respond to without becoming overtrained than is widely believed. He's the one who coined a term "hardgainer" and ran Hardgainer magazine for several years. I read four of his books. The one I liked best is "Beyond Brawn" simply because it - in my opinion - is more suited to a more experienced lifter. I found more answers to my questions in this book than in the other three combined.
His main philosophy revolves around several key points:
When I first heard about Stuart McRobert I was in the process of arriving to a simple but painful realization that years of battering my body and following conventional and some less than routines (nutrition and training) in an attempt to make it change the way I wanted did not produce the results I wanted - no matter how hard I tried. I would always end up pretty much at the same weight (give or take), percentage of fat (give or take) and not any closer to where I wanted to be.
Stuart appears to be one of the pioneers who - through his own painful experience - first came to conclusion that a rate in which our body can grow muscle depends primarily on its ability to recuperate, when subjected to physical training. Second, he concluded that routines presented in most muscle-building magazines and books only apply to a relative minority of people blessed with favourable genetics - in terms of their ability to respond to exercise and speed of recovery. The rest of the population (which is most of us), he contended, are those whose bodies are less genetically blessed therefore take longer to recover and grow and can only handle a much smaller amount of training that they can respond to without becoming overtrained than is widely believed. He's the one who coined a term "hardgainer" and ran Hardgainer magazine for several years. I read four of his books. The one I liked best is "Beyond Brawn" simply because it - in my opinion - is more suited to a more experienced lifter. I found more answers to my questions in this book than in the other three combined.
His main philosophy revolves around several key points:
- A genetically average trainee should not copy training routines of more genetically blessed. Ironically those are the ones most magazines and books present to the public as the way to train. He believes that many trainees overtrain themselves badly when they try following those. In that sense I absolutely agree that, in a way, Joe Weider - although played a major role in popularization of bodybuilding in the last 40 years - may have caused a lot of damage to the training population by promoting champions' routines as the only way to train.
- Training frequency. He believes that 3 and 4 times of hard training a week is a definite overkill for an average trainee simply because it stretches their bodies' recuperative abilities too far.
- Correct form of exercise. Stuart preaches it with passion putting quite a heavy emphasis on it. Although I understand that it, in itself, is not going to grow more muscle but it goes a long way in terms of preventing injuries.
- Progressive overload. A principle of progressive load - which seems to have been a cornerstone of training since the beginning of times - surprisingly is not given enough justice in popular magazines. It often comes almost as a side-note as does "recuperation" by the way.
Although I certainly agree with Stuart on many accounts, some things still don't ring the truth to me. Too much emphasis is on genetic limitations, in my opinion - almost to a point where it becomes a negative mantra ("I can't grow as much muscle as I want because chances are I'm genetically challenged"). Thing is - you don't know until you try...
(...to be continued... possibly :)))
Monday, October 26, 2009
Cholesterol is bad for you: myths and facts
I believe this is a somewhat inaccurate and often misinterpreted statement.I assume that by "bad" people mean that it will (or may) cause health issues in your body. My mom always used to say: Beware of eggs, especially yolks, because they contain too much cholesterol. Here's what my investigation revealed.
Exhibit A. Cholesterol is an essential component of cell membranes for mammals (and, therefore, humans). It is an important precursor for the bionsynthesis of bile acids, steroid hormones (including androgen and estrogen) and some fat soluble vitamins. Bottom line: In itself and by itself cholesterol does not cause disease or malfunction in a normal body under normal metabolic conditions.
Exhibit B. Dietary cholesterol is only responsible for approximately 20% of all cholesterol circulating in human body. New cholesterol is produced by liver (and also recycled) every day in addition to the amount consumed with food to replace what was excreted from the body (which is about 1.2 g/day). So the body will produce about 2 g of cholesterol in addition to the daily amount of dietary cholesterol (0.4 g) every day. If the intake is higher on a specific day it simply means that the body will produce less cholesterol IN ADDITION to it. If the intake is less, it will produce more to keep the level fairly stable. Bottom line: the amount of cholesterol we consume with diet has little impact on cholesterol level in our blood.
Exhibit C. Now there appears to be a link between high level of cholesterol and progression of atherosclerosis. It is believed to be due to the fact that the fatty build-up that thickens arteries (which in turn causes narrowing of the artery and may lead to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular conditions) consists largely of cholesterol. It also appears that elevated cholesterol is not the "cause" but rather a result of a protective reaction of the body to a certain process (namely, when artery walls become damaged by LDL molecules that were oxidized by free radicals). Why it happens or, rather, what is the underlying cause for this abnormal elevation of cholesterol levels still seems to remain unclear.
Bottom line: elevated cholesterol is not the culprit; but rather a result of a body response to some other process. To use an analogy: a problem with a flat tire is that it does not contain enough air to keep the rims from hitting the road, although it's not the cause of the problem; therefore constantly adding air into the tire may provide a temporary relief but it is not going to resolve the issue because the leak is caused by a punctured tire.
Exhibit A. Cholesterol is an essential component of cell membranes for mammals (and, therefore, humans). It is an important precursor for the bionsynthesis of bile acids, steroid hormones (including androgen and estrogen) and some fat soluble vitamins. Bottom line: In itself and by itself cholesterol does not cause disease or malfunction in a normal body under normal metabolic conditions.
Exhibit B. Dietary cholesterol is only responsible for approximately 20% of all cholesterol circulating in human body. New cholesterol is produced by liver (and also recycled) every day in addition to the amount consumed with food to replace what was excreted from the body (which is about 1.2 g/day). So the body will produce about 2 g of cholesterol in addition to the daily amount of dietary cholesterol (0.4 g) every day. If the intake is higher on a specific day it simply means that the body will produce less cholesterol IN ADDITION to it. If the intake is less, it will produce more to keep the level fairly stable. Bottom line: the amount of cholesterol we consume with diet has little impact on cholesterol level in our blood.
Exhibit C. Now there appears to be a link between high level of cholesterol and progression of atherosclerosis. It is believed to be due to the fact that the fatty build-up that thickens arteries (which in turn causes narrowing of the artery and may lead to high blood pressure and other cardiovascular conditions) consists largely of cholesterol. It also appears that elevated cholesterol is not the "cause" but rather a result of a protective reaction of the body to a certain process (namely, when artery walls become damaged by LDL molecules that were oxidized by free radicals). Why it happens or, rather, what is the underlying cause for this abnormal elevation of cholesterol levels still seems to remain unclear.
Bottom line: elevated cholesterol is not the culprit; but rather a result of a body response to some other process. To use an analogy: a problem with a flat tire is that it does not contain enough air to keep the rims from hitting the road, although it's not the cause of the problem; therefore constantly adding air into the tire may provide a temporary relief but it is not going to resolve the issue because the leak is caused by a punctured tire.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Strength-For-Life by Shawn Phillips: my thoughts (part 2)
Ok, as I was reading on - more thoughts popped up...
Some other concepts and notions that I liked:
Some other concepts and notions that I liked:
- I like the emphasis on focus and mental concentration - that rings truth to me. I think it's one of the best characteristics of the book.
- Goal setting is one other part that I found extremely powerful.
- The training program is sound, in general and nutrition plan makes sense and is easy to follow.
- The program is laid out with great degree of detail, which should make it easy to digest for a beginner.
- I liked that the author's ego doesn't seem to be running the show (he also doesn't refer to himself as an expert or "Trainer of Champions" or "Coach Ilg" or anything like that). The material is served in a clear systematic way.
- The book covers pretty much all bases. Some of them may be arguable but I think for a beginner it can provide a pretty good structure and a lot of guidance.
At the same time I ran into some things I do not agree with:
- some concepts are served as facts whereas they often are opinions at best and unsubstantiated claims at worst.
- some notions are presented in an overly simplistic, sometimes somewhat dogmatic, way.
- the part explaining why three meals per day are inferior to 5-6 meals per day and especially why skipping breakfast is a mortal sin doesn't quite hold the water. There is sufficient evidence that skipped breakfast is not going to bring metabolism down to a screeching halt. The notion of breakfast being a critical meal of the day is a popular belief and in my opinion is nothing but.
- I believe that a program that consists of 18 intensive sets per workout three times a week with at least 4-5 sets going to failure in addition to intensive interval training another three times for a total of 6 times a week can be too much for an average trainee and cannot be maintained without burning out and overtaxing your body's recovery capabilities for longer than a few weeks. Same applies to Body-For-Life program as well, which I believe can be overly intensive and lead to overtraining for many people with average genetics (that's what happened to me).
- In a section for women (p.112) he states that "you won't get big on 15 reps, but you won't get anything else either", which I think is a statement that is not entirely correct and somewhat misleading. You absolutely CAN get big on 15 reps and even 20 (there's even a famous "20 squats" program on which people have been known to grow muscle like crazy), although only if the weight is heavy enough; i.e. intensity and amount of resistance are the key. So women don't get big doing 15 reps not because of some magic number of reps that somehow prevents them from growing muscle but because of low intensity and very light weights that are typically used by them, which simply does not provide enough stimulus for the muscle to grow.
Overall I'd give the book four stars. It is very similar to Body-For-Life (with only a few modifications) and overall is a sound program (although certainly not a miracle pill) based on traditional principles (nothing revolutionary about it) of strength training and cardiovascular fitness and I believe that it can certainly serve as a good headstart to a typical out-of-shape sedentary person with little knowledge of exercise science who decided to finally take control of his body.
P.S. Well, what do you know... Just when I was about to put away the book thinking that I pretty much got the gist of it I suddenly realized there were two more chapters - 14 and 15. After reading those my entire opinion about this book changed dramatically! Let me tell you, the part about Mastering Motivation (chapter 14) is nothing short of brilliant! Stages of motivation described in it didn't simply ring the truth to me - they were tolling a 500 lbs bell from the top tower of the cathedral! That chapter alone made me want to own this book! This chapter alone lifted this book into a completely different category - way above all other fitness books I ever read. A ubiquitous Body-For-Life doesn't even hold a candle to this one in terms of understanding mental and spiritual depth of transformation (physical or otherwise). This guy totally gets it! He is one of a very few who seem to be capable of looking past the weights, sets and reps! Wow! Thanks, Nicole, for recommending this book!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Strength-For-Life by Shawn Phillips: my thoughts
A friend suggested this book. It's brilliant, she said, and it is talking about physical transformation based on principles that are exactly what you seem to be looking for: a holistic, goal oriented approach targeting both mind and body, unlike many other "get fit quick" books.
First thing I did, what I always do in situations like that, I Googled it. Often I find myself looking not just at readers' average rating (like the one you find at Amazon.com) but also critical feedback - usually those will be reviews from readers who gave the book 1 or 2 stars. Not always objective they, nevertheless, often give the gist of what the book is not. I often find that 5-star reviews can be excessively enthusiastic, sometimes to obsession point and therefore even more misleading.
So I googled author's name and the first book that popped up was one of his other ones - something about getting fabulous abs quick. Negative reviews on that one were REALLY negative, blasting the book for excessive narcissism and it being nothing but a re-hashed collection of those same age-old training ideas that have been around for decades glamoured up by photo images of the author sporting his perfect six-pack along with attractive models. There were also comments of the author being a less lucky shadow of his more successful brother Bill - creator of Body-For-Life program (I'll publish my thoughts on it later). Not a good image.
Despite the negative feedback on that other book I still decided to give this one a try. Plus I found it in the library so I figured - what do I have to lose? And I'm glad I did. I found it may be lacking some philosophical depth and scientific backup but it doesn't matter. It has good intentions and honest attitude. I had a feeling that Shawn truly believes in what he preaches. And like with almost any book I've read in the last year or two I discovered certain points that I do not agree with but it also gave me a lot of good hints and plenty of food for my inquisitive mind.
A couple of things that really got me thinking. One thing that really struck me was an excellent metaphor in the goal setting section of the book. He used Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation to illistrate why we sometimes fail to reach the goal. He compared the magnitude (importance, desirability) of the goal to the mass of the object and its remoteness (how far away this goal is) to distance in a physical sense. So, he concedes, if the goal is too far away in the future (distance) the gravitational pull may just not be strong enough to bring the goal to you even if it very desirable and important (mass)! Isn't that brilliant? I think it is.
The second point has nothing to do with the book per se but, like I said, it fed my mind with some valuable pointers. For instance, he suggests that goals should be ambitious but realistic. For a long time - since I was first exposed to ideas of the Law of Attraction - I was developing a tendency to scorn this whole "setting a realistic goal" thingy. Ha! - I was thinking - "realistic goals" are for those unenlightened souls who do not dare to dream big, aim high enough. It's simply selling themselves cheap - my Ego was arrogant and quick to judge. And when I was just reading that section of the book all of a sudden I heard this voice in my head. It quietly said literally this: "Vlad, it's all a matter of interpetation. Setting realistic goals doesn't have to mean short-changing yourself. It may simply mean making sure that the goals you are setting are deemed achievable by you! What good would it do you if you set a goal you don't believe you could achieve?" This is where the light flashed in my head. But of course!! It's so simple. It's not about how big the goal is it's about what YOU believe you can or cannot achieve within a certain timeframe!! It's about FAITH! So limitations are in what you believe is and isn't possible - not in the magnitude of the goal! If you - in full conviction and unshakeable faith - can concieve that 10 pounds of fat can be lost overnight - you will be able to wake up 10 pounds lighter the very next morning! The thing is not that it's impossible - it's that you believe it is!! A typical self-talk would probably go like this: "10 pounds overnight? No way! Totally impossible! How about - in a week? Nahh, I don't think so! Ok, do you think you could do it in three months? Well, I guess I could; I think it's possible." That's it!!!
(...to be continued... haven't finished the book yet)
First thing I did, what I always do in situations like that, I Googled it. Often I find myself looking not just at readers' average rating (like the one you find at Amazon.com) but also critical feedback - usually those will be reviews from readers who gave the book 1 or 2 stars. Not always objective they, nevertheless, often give the gist of what the book is not. I often find that 5-star reviews can be excessively enthusiastic, sometimes to obsession point and therefore even more misleading.
So I googled author's name and the first book that popped up was one of his other ones - something about getting fabulous abs quick. Negative reviews on that one were REALLY negative, blasting the book for excessive narcissism and it being nothing but a re-hashed collection of those same age-old training ideas that have been around for decades glamoured up by photo images of the author sporting his perfect six-pack along with attractive models. There were also comments of the author being a less lucky shadow of his more successful brother Bill - creator of Body-For-Life program (I'll publish my thoughts on it later). Not a good image.
Despite the negative feedback on that other book I still decided to give this one a try. Plus I found it in the library so I figured - what do I have to lose? And I'm glad I did. I found it may be lacking some philosophical depth and scientific backup but it doesn't matter. It has good intentions and honest attitude. I had a feeling that Shawn truly believes in what he preaches. And like with almost any book I've read in the last year or two I discovered certain points that I do not agree with but it also gave me a lot of good hints and plenty of food for my inquisitive mind.
A couple of things that really got me thinking. One thing that really struck me was an excellent metaphor in the goal setting section of the book. He used Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation to illistrate why we sometimes fail to reach the goal. He compared the magnitude (importance, desirability) of the goal to the mass of the object and its remoteness (how far away this goal is) to distance in a physical sense. So, he concedes, if the goal is too far away in the future (distance) the gravitational pull may just not be strong enough to bring the goal to you even if it very desirable and important (mass)! Isn't that brilliant? I think it is.
The second point has nothing to do with the book per se but, like I said, it fed my mind with some valuable pointers. For instance, he suggests that goals should be ambitious but realistic. For a long time - since I was first exposed to ideas of the Law of Attraction - I was developing a tendency to scorn this whole "setting a realistic goal" thingy. Ha! - I was thinking - "realistic goals" are for those unenlightened souls who do not dare to dream big, aim high enough. It's simply selling themselves cheap - my Ego was arrogant and quick to judge. And when I was just reading that section of the book all of a sudden I heard this voice in my head. It quietly said literally this: "Vlad, it's all a matter of interpetation. Setting realistic goals doesn't have to mean short-changing yourself. It may simply mean making sure that the goals you are setting are deemed achievable by you! What good would it do you if you set a goal you don't believe you could achieve?" This is where the light flashed in my head. But of course!! It's so simple. It's not about how big the goal is it's about what YOU believe you can or cannot achieve within a certain timeframe!! It's about FAITH! So limitations are in what you believe is and isn't possible - not in the magnitude of the goal! If you - in full conviction and unshakeable faith - can concieve that 10 pounds of fat can be lost overnight - you will be able to wake up 10 pounds lighter the very next morning! The thing is not that it's impossible - it's that you believe it is!! A typical self-talk would probably go like this: "10 pounds overnight? No way! Totally impossible! How about - in a week? Nahh, I don't think so! Ok, do you think you could do it in three months? Well, I guess I could; I think it's possible." That's it!!!
(...to be continued... haven't finished the book yet)
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thoughts on DC's (Doggcrap) blog
I never heard of the guy before and I ran into his forum while looking for answers of my own. He seems to have become a big name in online bodybuilding community and is being referenced all over the place. He seems like a dedicated and - more importantly - thinking guy who has done his fare share of research and, of course, lifting. On the pictures of him that I found on the net he looks like a pretty big guy too. Besides writing on the net he does personal training and apparently works with clients online. I didn't do a lot of reading on it so I can't comment on his approach with full authority but I picked up a few bits and pieces of his philosophy by reading some of the threads.
For those few things that I picked up I do not necessarily agree with all of them but all provided some valuable food for thought - even those I didn't agree with. Again, these are thoughts based on my personal interpretation of what I think I understood about his philosophy.
For those few things that I picked up I do not necessarily agree with all of them but all provided some valuable food for thought - even those I didn't agree with. Again, these are thoughts based on my personal interpretation of what I think I understood about his philosophy.
- Lift with high intensity high enough but keep sessions short enough. In that way it is very similar to HIT ideas. Either way the point here is that sessions should be intense enough to trigger anabolic response as much as possible at the same time without unduly taxing your body - mostly CNS. Length of a session and frequency depends on personal metabolic capabilities (body's ability to adapt and heal). Ultimately, as I understand, there's a relationship between intensity, length and frequency. The more intense the session is, the shorter it will be in length and the longer it will take for the body to fully recover from it. Also, I think, what happens is - muscle itself recovers fairly quickly to its original state (in terms of its ability to overcome load) - most estimates range from 24 to 72 hours - it's central nervous system that takes longer to recover and for supercompensation to occur.
- Progressive overload. Weights should increase progressively - expectedly at every session. That I've been hearing all my life as one of the key bodybuilding principles. It does make sense however I have a feeling that it is often misinterpreted - in a seemingly strange but perfectly logical way if you think about it. My experience is: I would start a training program - I would increase weight (or reps) next time - or at least try to. I'm pretty diligent and dedicated so I would try to do it on all exercises, would keep a log, push myself harder, get mad at myself when I can't squeeze out another rep on those same movements, only to get stuck and burnt out 3 or 4 weeks later and realize that I just can't go on like this any longer! It wasn't until recently when I suddenly discovered that all this time I was apparently missing a key point here. Namely, that weight increase in a progressive overload principle should not be just a result of conscious decision to increase weight but it must also be a result of increased capability!!! In other words, besides you conscously trying to push yourself harder every time you body has to tell you that it's recovered enough to handle the increased load! The trick is to be able to tell when it happens...
- Paying your dues. In one of his posts DC (whose real name is Dante Trudel) vents about people who often approach him for training advice who seem to have been lifting for years but barely gained an ounce of muscle despite the effort and who still look like they haven't been lifting at all. I can understand his frustration as he probably feels that they haven't paid their dues - i.e. - haven't been working hard enough and eating enough - in other words - haven't put in their due diligence and dedication - otherwise they would have been big already. Plus he feels that many of them may be overanalyzing and overthinking, which I believe may well be true - for me anyways, because I'm one of those guys. He says something like: go lift heavy every time till you puke, eat like an animal, pack on some serious muscle, become a 300 lb big fat front linebacker and then you come back and work with me; until then quit worrying about subtleties like 'what's the best way to hit the top head of the biceps during concentration curls'. Now being one of those guys here's what I think. I think the fact that they haven't reached their goal is not because they are necessarily lazy or stupid or messed up. They may well have been honestly trying what they thought was their best to become what they thought they wanted to become. Following every book, every training and nutrition program they could get their hands on they hoped would get them where they wanted to be. I did anyways. I would try, I would push, then I would get overtrained and frustrated only to start over and over again. If the fact that I've been trying for 20 years, as hard as I thought I can, without giving up - if that fact is not a proof of ultimate dedication - then I don't know what is! I just need to find what works for me. That's why I'm here searching for answers.
- Not everyone wants to get really big. I don't and I'm sure there are thousands of those who don't want to be 250 lbs - even if it's shredded! I do not believe that Ronnie Coleman is everyone's idea of a perfect body. If I think of my ideal body - it will be a lot closer to Frank Zane or Serge Nubret than Dorian Yates. Great definition - yes, big - not necessarily...
- The ideal routine. I haven't found it yet but I'm getting there. So how do I visualize my ideal routine?
- Sessions are intense but not insanely so. I do not believe that you have to bring yourself to life-and-death match point to get the body you're looking for. There's gotta be another way...
- Sessions are short. I do not believe you have to spend hours at a gym to get where you want. I'm tired of being tired. I believe when people say: you have to feel stronger at the end of each workout - not weaker. If it means 1 set of 1 exercise only per session - so be it!
- Sessions are spaced apart far enough for full recovery to occur. I won't be going back to the gym until I'm fully recovered and feel stronger than I was before.
(...to be continued)
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
My thoughts on Ego games
I originally wrote them down and put into my Google Documents online folder so instead of copy-and-pasting I decided to simply add the link here -->
My thoughts on Ego games
These are some thoughts I had on ego, the games it plays and how it affects us in various aspects of our life.
My thoughts on Ego games
These are some thoughts I had on ego, the games it plays and how it affects us in various aspects of our life.
Enticing, not forcing...
I don't believe that torturing your body physically into something it inherently resists is a natural way to attain an ultimate physical shape. It may be the most obvious way or a way people were led to believe was true through centuries or what an official science believes is true - but I feel that there must be a better or more efficient way.
My explanation of why I think this self-torture approach sometimes works is because sometimes it brings you to a change of lifestyle or the entire mental attitude or frame of mind and that's what makes it successful - not extreme self-annihilating training by itself. In my opinion the very idea about hard, intense and merciless training being the only tool to transform your body is a major misconception (or rather misattribution) that we were blindfolded by for decades.
My feeling is that the body resists the changes we want to see not because it is inherently lazy or inert, but because it reflects our inner state of mind and energy balance. I believe that at each specific moment we have a body that fully corresponds to our current mental state - whether we realize it or not. When our body craves something that is not considered "healthy" I think it should not be treated as a bad habit - but rather as a signal that something may be out of balance in our inner energy field. In my opinion the problem often lies in the fact that when we discover a craving (for instance, for potato chips or french fries) we start treating it as a "bad habit" and then our response ranges from total acceptance and letting ourselves "balloon" to a shape we do not want to desperate attempts to "fix" it by employing willpower and trying to resist the craving.
But if we look in the mirror and discover that there's something we don't like about the reflection we see we don't go trying to change the reflection or fix the mirror, do we? We know that image in the mirror is merely a reflection of what we are (or what we look like for that matter) - and the mirror simply provides us with honest feedback about the way we look.
As it has been said many times in many ways: What you resist to, persists. To me often times the approach that we apply to our body is that same violent approach which mankind has been using to address many other problems for centuries. If you don't like what you see - simply use the most obvious way - through violence. If you don't like the cat hanging around your backyard - force it out of your yard (or sometimes even kill it). If you don't like that your child watches too much TV or plays computer games - ground them or deny their access to the computer. If you don't like that your body is getting flabby - starve it or put it on a restrictive diet. Seems so easy, doesn't it? Except that the method often appears inefficient and the results often prove to be short-lived, so we press even harder only to discover that the problem manifests itself in a different form later.
I think that there has to be a non-violent way of changing this "reflection in the mirror". A way that encourages or invites a positive change rather than forcing it. In the "cat" example: instead of forcing the cat out of your yard, try making it feel LIKE going elsewhere, make it more attractive to the cat to stay outside of your yard. Instead of denying your child of computer games or TV, try to understand what it is that drvies them to it and then try to make it more attractive for them to be "away" from it without manipulating them through the use of guilt or fear.
I believe that when we bring our inner energy field to balance and adjust our mental state we will discover that our body has stopped craving food that we consider "unhealthy" - it will simply be enjoying other types of food. Instead of craving "Doritos" we may soon find that our body wants an orange or an apple and feels happy with it just as much as it once craved chips. I feel that the same applies to getting rid of "love handles", unwanted fat deposits in the abdominal area, etc.
My explanation of why I think this self-torture approach sometimes works is because sometimes it brings you to a change of lifestyle or the entire mental attitude or frame of mind and that's what makes it successful - not extreme self-annihilating training by itself. In my opinion the very idea about hard, intense and merciless training being the only tool to transform your body is a major misconception (or rather misattribution) that we were blindfolded by for decades.
My feeling is that the body resists the changes we want to see not because it is inherently lazy or inert, but because it reflects our inner state of mind and energy balance. I believe that at each specific moment we have a body that fully corresponds to our current mental state - whether we realize it or not. When our body craves something that is not considered "healthy" I think it should not be treated as a bad habit - but rather as a signal that something may be out of balance in our inner energy field. In my opinion the problem often lies in the fact that when we discover a craving (for instance, for potato chips or french fries) we start treating it as a "bad habit" and then our response ranges from total acceptance and letting ourselves "balloon" to a shape we do not want to desperate attempts to "fix" it by employing willpower and trying to resist the craving.
But if we look in the mirror and discover that there's something we don't like about the reflection we see we don't go trying to change the reflection or fix the mirror, do we? We know that image in the mirror is merely a reflection of what we are (or what we look like for that matter) - and the mirror simply provides us with honest feedback about the way we look.
As it has been said many times in many ways: What you resist to, persists. To me often times the approach that we apply to our body is that same violent approach which mankind has been using to address many other problems for centuries. If you don't like what you see - simply use the most obvious way - through violence. If you don't like the cat hanging around your backyard - force it out of your yard (or sometimes even kill it). If you don't like that your child watches too much TV or plays computer games - ground them or deny their access to the computer. If you don't like that your body is getting flabby - starve it or put it on a restrictive diet. Seems so easy, doesn't it? Except that the method often appears inefficient and the results often prove to be short-lived, so we press even harder only to discover that the problem manifests itself in a different form later.
I think that there has to be a non-violent way of changing this "reflection in the mirror". A way that encourages or invites a positive change rather than forcing it. In the "cat" example: instead of forcing the cat out of your yard, try making it feel LIKE going elsewhere, make it more attractive to the cat to stay outside of your yard. Instead of denying your child of computer games or TV, try to understand what it is that drvies them to it and then try to make it more attractive for them to be "away" from it without manipulating them through the use of guilt or fear.
I believe that when we bring our inner energy field to balance and adjust our mental state we will discover that our body has stopped craving food that we consider "unhealthy" - it will simply be enjoying other types of food. Instead of craving "Doritos" we may soon find that our body wants an orange or an apple and feels happy with it just as much as it once craved chips. I feel that the same applies to getting rid of "love handles", unwanted fat deposits in the abdominal area, etc.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thoughts on training frequency
Reading through some articles on HST (hypertrophy specific training) website got me thinking about training frequency. That is, how many times per week is it optimal to have resistance training sessions. Of course, "optimal" assumes certain criteria. In other words, optimal in what sense.
So I went on a quest to find out how often is too often and where the golden optimum lies. I ran into a couple of articles on that very topic. The first one suggests that 3 times a week sessions produce more strength and lean mass gains than 1 time a week in trained subjects - with the SAME total volume of exercise! In other words, they claim that if you split the same training volume (# sets X reps X weight) into 3 separate sessions you will get better gains than if you do them all in a single weekly session. It makes sense to me although the key here appears to be the same weekly volume, which I think is extremely important and adds a lot of value to the study.
At the same time there was another article I stumbled onto with a similar setup. The only difference was they used two groups of untrained individuals (both men and women) and had 2 sessions per week vs 3 sessions. The volume (sets * reps * weight) was the same, again. At the end of 6 week training period no distinct differences were observed between the two groups. I.e. the results appeared very similar in terms of strength and lean mass gains. They suggested that it's the total weekly volume that matters - not so much the frequency per week.
The take-away message... Frequency is great but let's not forget that the most critical part here was, again, the controlled overall volume, which was kept constant for both tested groups! It's just that the post on the HST blog (written by the HST founder Bryan Haycock, who I deeply respect) that quoted the first article made it sound as if working out 3 times a week is better than once a week, period. But it may create a false impression that frequency is the single critical factor without much regard for overall volume, which can be a dangerous conclusion. Yes, the study suggests that working out 3 times proved to be more efficient than 1 single session, but each of those 3 sessions was only 1/3 of the volume of that single session!! I'm sure that's what Brian had in mind but somehow it wasn't made very clear in the post - well, not to me anyway. So if I were to summarize the main idea of the study it would sound something like: Weekly training volume (# of sets X reps X exercises) split into several smaller sessions (2 or 3) proves to be more effective than when done in one single session a week. Now that goes well along with the idea of HST, which makes a lot of sense to me.
The trick is, in my opinion, to find such weekly volume that doesn't lead to overtraining and yet provides enough stimuli to make body grow. Once we found it - then we can tweak the frequency till our heart's content - for instance, split the volume in two, three or even four smaller sessions a week. And then see what works best for you.
P.S. Btw, training volumes in both studies were different. In study 1 (1 vs 3) they used 3 sets to failure for each exercise - either done in one session or split into three. In the second study the weekly volume was 6 sets to fatigue for 9 exercises, split into two or three sessions respectively...
So I went on a quest to find out how often is too often and where the golden optimum lies. I ran into a couple of articles on that very topic. The first one suggests that 3 times a week sessions produce more strength and lean mass gains than 1 time a week in trained subjects - with the SAME total volume of exercise! In other words, they claim that if you split the same training volume (# sets X reps X weight) into 3 separate sessions you will get better gains than if you do them all in a single weekly session. It makes sense to me although the key here appears to be the same weekly volume, which I think is extremely important and adds a lot of value to the study.
At the same time there was another article I stumbled onto with a similar setup. The only difference was they used two groups of untrained individuals (both men and women) and had 2 sessions per week vs 3 sessions. The volume (sets * reps * weight) was the same, again. At the end of 6 week training period no distinct differences were observed between the two groups. I.e. the results appeared very similar in terms of strength and lean mass gains. They suggested that it's the total weekly volume that matters - not so much the frequency per week.
Now, of course there were differences in the initial setup - trained vs untrained so that could be a factor as well. Plus no two environments are absolutely identical. However, those results still carry some value and may contain important clues.
Namely, it seems natural to conclude that there indeed is such a thing as optimal frequency given the same total weekly volume under certain criteria (for instance, maximum lean mass gains or strength with minimum sessions per week, etc.) and of course it would vary from person to person.
Let's compare three programs: P1, where weekly volume is done in one session; P2 (where it's split into two sessions) and P3 (when it's split into three smaller sessions - 1/3 volume each). Now if we assume that for a given person P1 turns out to be less efficient than P3 and there's no apparent difference between the results produced by P2 and P3, then we will have to conclude that P2 is the optimal program based on our set criteria simply because it produces higher gains with fewer sessions per week.
So does it mean that 2 sessions a week is a magic number? Well, not necessarily. First, everyone is different. I am sure that among the tested individuals there were fast gainers (those who gained more on P1 than most on P3) and slow gainers (those who had low or no gains regardless of the program). Secondly, it would be nice to see if an even higher frequency (say, 4 or 5 smaller sessions a week) would produce higher or lower gains - again, under the same volume. Also, it would be really interesting to see if higher volume would produce even greater gains and to what degree (clearly there would be a limit to the volume after which overtraining will set in and hinder the progress).
Now the question remains: why is it that 3 smaller sessions a week turn out to be more effective than a single big session in terms of muscle gains and strength even if total volume stays the same? The mechanism is not quite clear to me, however, I could see a couple of possible reasons. First, possibly because of the body's limited ability to recover and supercompensate for damaged fibers after a single higher volume session. Second, possibly because of some muscle loss due to several days of deconditioning, although I doubt that 7 days of relative inactivity is a period long enough to cause any significant loss in lean mass. One other thing, we don't know if nutrition and rest pattern could be a factor. Hypothetically, it is easy to imagine that a higher nutritional and caloric intake might be required for the body to promote optimal post-exercise recovery and ensure growth after a very intense single session compared to a smaller session, especially in the first 24-48 hours, so I wonder if that was taken into consideration or not.The take-away message... Frequency is great but let's not forget that the most critical part here was, again, the controlled overall volume, which was kept constant for both tested groups! It's just that the post on the HST blog (written by the HST founder Bryan Haycock, who I deeply respect) that quoted the first article made it sound as if working out 3 times a week is better than once a week, period. But it may create a false impression that frequency is the single critical factor without much regard for overall volume, which can be a dangerous conclusion. Yes, the study suggests that working out 3 times proved to be more efficient than 1 single session, but each of those 3 sessions was only 1/3 of the volume of that single session!! I'm sure that's what Brian had in mind but somehow it wasn't made very clear in the post - well, not to me anyway. So if I were to summarize the main idea of the study it would sound something like: Weekly training volume (# of sets X reps X exercises) split into several smaller sessions (2 or 3) proves to be more effective than when done in one single session a week. Now that goes well along with the idea of HST, which makes a lot of sense to me.
The trick is, in my opinion, to find such weekly volume that doesn't lead to overtraining and yet provides enough stimuli to make body grow. Once we found it - then we can tweak the frequency till our heart's content - for instance, split the volume in two, three or even four smaller sessions a week. And then see what works best for you.
P.S. Btw, training volumes in both studies were different. In study 1 (1 vs 3) they used 3 sets to failure for each exercise - either done in one session or split into three. In the second study the weekly volume was 6 sets to fatigue for 9 exercises, split into two or three sessions respectively...
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat (cycles). Continued
So... cycles. From what I understand building tissue (muscle) and burning fat are two separate processes - opposite to each other in a way. I am not totally sure why but apparently because they require completely diffirent hormonal environments; backgrounds, if you will. Insulin plays a key role in creating/promoting anabolic environment for the new tissue to be built, however at the same time it effectively shuts down fat burning cycle as it inhibits lypolisis. Additionally, it seems that lypolisis runs most efficiently when the glycogene pool is depleted, which makes sense because it forces the body to switch from carbs to fats as the main fuel. At the same time, lack of carbs appears to slow down protein synthesis. So in theory even if it is possible for synthesis and glycolisis to run in parallel it will definitely be far from optimal.
That logically brings us to the cycling concept. Namely, that processes of building new tissue and breaking down fats for energy take place - at most optimal level - at different times.
Now I don't really believe that the only way to do that (or most efficient way for that matter) is to phase it like professional bodybuilders have been doing for years. I.e. you go muscle building in the off-season for months on end and then cut your calories drastically to trim down in pre-season for another 2 or 3 months (and those seem to be months from hell). I do believe that there is a way to utilize much smaller cycles - like 48-72 hour cycles, for example. The rates of muscle gain (as well as fat loss) will probably be smaller as you won't be able to exercise 5-6 times a week with high intensity but I feel that this can be a milder alternative which will also allow you to stay lean and still build muscle throughout the year.
For example I could imagine a cycle consisting of a 48 hour muscle building phase following an intensive resistance training session with muscle building type of diet/nutrition (proper combination of carbs, protein and calories); then switching to fat loss phase for the next 48-72 hours and so on.
...to be continued
That logically brings us to the cycling concept. Namely, that processes of building new tissue and breaking down fats for energy take place - at most optimal level - at different times.
Now I don't really believe that the only way to do that (or most efficient way for that matter) is to phase it like professional bodybuilders have been doing for years. I.e. you go muscle building in the off-season for months on end and then cut your calories drastically to trim down in pre-season for another 2 or 3 months (and those seem to be months from hell). I do believe that there is a way to utilize much smaller cycles - like 48-72 hour cycles, for example. The rates of muscle gain (as well as fat loss) will probably be smaller as you won't be able to exercise 5-6 times a week with high intensity but I feel that this can be a milder alternative which will also allow you to stay lean and still build muscle throughout the year.
For example I could imagine a cycle consisting of a 48 hour muscle building phase following an intensive resistance training session with muscle building type of diet/nutrition (proper combination of carbs, protein and calories); then switching to fat loss phase for the next 48-72 hours and so on.
...to be continued
Diet/Training (five weeks in) - Aug 22, 2009
Ok, now 5 weeks into IF. I am sticking to 16/8 regime, which means 16 hours of undereating and 8 hours of overeating, which is really eating - I don't think I overdo it. During undereating phase, which usually lasts from 11pm till 3pm the next day all I eat is fresh veggies throughout the morning and early afternoon. It usually totals to about 2 servings of veggies - those include broccoli, cauliflower, celery, cherry tomatoes and - of course - pickles. I may have an occasional cup of coffee (although I'm not huge on coffee) to stimulate adrenaline just a tad bit - to add fuel into fat burning furnace. I am not afraid to overdo it because I'm not really a coffee fan - so two cups a day would be rare.
Last Saturday caliper measurements showed 9 mm vs. 10 mm the week before. It was great! Other measurements also slightly improved last week. However this Saturday caliper showed 10mm again which was a little disappointing as I thought I was sticking to my regime pretty strictly. On a bright side my waist shrunk by 1/2" and the weight went down to 204.6 from 205.2 last week. So I decided to not let the subtle increase in caliper readings set me back. Let's see what happens in the next couple of weeks. People keep commenting on me looking leaner so that's a good sign no matter what caliper says.
Monday through Wednesday I spent with friends at a cabin they rented on Clear Lake - absolutely gorgeous and peaceful place - a true sanctuary of tranquility. Didn't exercise much - but we walked a lot - on average 3-4 hours daily.
This Saturday I had a great workout at the gym. My weights went slightly up. I still do mostly legs (squats, leg presses and leg extensions) and back (pullovers, cable rows and cable pulldowns) plus I throw in a couple of other exercises. Usually DB curls, and cable crossovers or dumbell flyes. I don't do bench and I avoid any presses that involve shoulders because my LC joints are still bothering me - although not as much as a couple weeks before.
I make sure to take in simple carbs before and during workout. I find that it keeps me energized throughout my routine (which does not exceed 45-60 min). I also eat a protein bar right after my workout, followed by a hearty protein/complex carb meal about 30-40 min later. One thing I noticed since I had started the program is that I feel GREAT after my Saturday workouts. I no longer feel exhausted, sleepy and fatigued the way I used to and I LOVE this feeling!!
I chant my "lean body" mantra every day as well plus I use Frank Zane's images on my desktop for motivation. I also have his little quarterly magazines laying all over the place so I run into his extremely balanced and lean physique wherever I go around the house. His physique (as it was in early 80's) is the type I visualize myself developing.
So, another great day and off to a leaner and more muscular body!!
Last Saturday caliper measurements showed 9 mm vs. 10 mm the week before. It was great! Other measurements also slightly improved last week. However this Saturday caliper showed 10mm again which was a little disappointing as I thought I was sticking to my regime pretty strictly. On a bright side my waist shrunk by 1/2" and the weight went down to 204.6 from 205.2 last week. So I decided to not let the subtle increase in caliper readings set me back. Let's see what happens in the next couple of weeks. People keep commenting on me looking leaner so that's a good sign no matter what caliper says.
Monday through Wednesday I spent with friends at a cabin they rented on Clear Lake - absolutely gorgeous and peaceful place - a true sanctuary of tranquility. Didn't exercise much - but we walked a lot - on average 3-4 hours daily.
This Saturday I had a great workout at the gym. My weights went slightly up. I still do mostly legs (squats, leg presses and leg extensions) and back (pullovers, cable rows and cable pulldowns) plus I throw in a couple of other exercises. Usually DB curls, and cable crossovers or dumbell flyes. I don't do bench and I avoid any presses that involve shoulders because my LC joints are still bothering me - although not as much as a couple weeks before.
I make sure to take in simple carbs before and during workout. I find that it keeps me energized throughout my routine (which does not exceed 45-60 min). I also eat a protein bar right after my workout, followed by a hearty protein/complex carb meal about 30-40 min later. One thing I noticed since I had started the program is that I feel GREAT after my Saturday workouts. I no longer feel exhausted, sleepy and fatigued the way I used to and I LOVE this feeling!!
I chant my "lean body" mantra every day as well plus I use Frank Zane's images on my desktop for motivation. I also have his little quarterly magazines laying all over the place so I run into his extremely balanced and lean physique wherever I go around the house. His physique (as it was in early 80's) is the type I visualize myself developing.
So, another great day and off to a leaner and more muscular body!!
Friday, August 14, 2009
Maximum Muscle, Minimum Fat (cycles)
I have been reading Ori Hofmekler's "Maximum Muscle - Minimum Fat". What can I say - I love this book! It's a little deep into biochemistry and physiological terminology, so I can see how it may scare off some readers. Most important thing for me is that it "rings my truth" meaning that reading this book makes me feel that I'm getting somewhere, that I'm on the right track in my quest. It makes sense to me. To a significant degree.
I've been getting increasingly tired and frustrated from hearing things and rules served as ultimate truths over the last few years. They are usually referred to as "myths", although in truth I wouldn't always call them that. I believe that all they are is partial truths, or opinions/beliefs based on partial truths. The funny part about partial truths is that they can even seemingly contradict to each other and still be valid to a point. Partial point, that is. A few simple examples:
So why was I getting tired of those? Because, like many of us, I, too, had been conditioned to following the rules. There was always some authority figure (parent, teacher, government, supervisor, fitness guru) to tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing - what to eat, how to study, who to marry. And of course how to exercise. I was religiously following advices abundantly given away in many bodybuilding and fitness books. Listening to my own body wasn't really one of them. So I kept ignoring my body's cry for help until I could no longer ignore it. Linear mindset made me keep pushing. "The more - the better", "The harder the better", "No pain - no gain". I thought the reason I wasn't getting results was because I wasn't trying hard enough, so I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Until one day I finally realized that years of pushing and following different advices didn't really get me any closer to the body of my dreams. Fatigue and frustration seemed to be the only things that I was left with at the end of the day - after 20 years of trying. Time came to face a painful question: WHAT TO DO NOW?
Why can't I get the body I want? By that time I pretty much realized that systems and approaches I had used didn't yield the results I wanted. Not because they didn't work in general. Most of them had some partial truths behind them. But because they didn't work for me. So it was time to start my own quest...
That's some long intro now, isn't it? :-))
Now back to Ori's book. He's a big supporter of what is now known as Intermittent Fasting (IF). I read his "The Warrior Diet" before and it makes a lot of sense to me. The main idea that really appeals to me is that there is cycle to any physiological process in our body. We sleep - we are awake, we feel full - we feel hungry, we feel tired - we feel rested, and so on. Everything fluctuates in our bodies, pretty much like in all of nature. Heart beat, blood pressure, hormonal levels, etc. What if linearity is not inherent to our bodies? Would it make sense that body loses fat and builds muscle in cycles rather than at a steady pace?
What if the fact that many women fail to drop weight despite very restricted daily calories (sometimes down to 800-1000) has something to do with this "linearity issue"? What if body simply adjusts to living off a very "fixed income"? Think about it. Let's say you live in a big house with a wife, two kids, two dogs and two cars. You make $5000 a month between you and your spouse. Then all of a sudden she loses her job. You income drops to, say, $3500 a month. What do you do? Well for the first couple of weeks you may try to maintain the same lifestyle. However, after a while you realize that something has to change. What? Well, first you cut back on some expenditures. Most likely you won't go cutting grocery list - not in the first place anyway. First to go will likely be your son's soccer class, your daughter's dance studio, and your weekly dining at a local steak house. Along follows high-speed internet (you switch to "light"), second phone line and 1000 channels satelite package (you can get away with "basic" plan). Then you switch to lower premiums on your second car and your wife starts using email instead of spending hours on the phone with her girlfriend in Europe. Then your Hawaiian vacation may be put on hold. But even now, you still live in the same house, you don't give up on your kids or your dogs. You don't go renting out your wife either (just joking). You don't cut back on food or health - at least not for awhile and not until it gets worse. Well, you get the picture.
So in comes premise #1. I suspect that something like that happens to our body when put under caloric restriction. It strives to live on reduced "income" while maintaining as much of its functionality as it can.
Premise #2. Non-linearity. The book contains some indication that fat-burning (lipolytic) and muscle-building (anabolic) processes do not occur simultaneously. In fact they seem to be almost antagonistic in nature. For instance, insulin - known as an anabolic precursor - is also known to severely reduce lipolysis (the main fat-burning process). In other words, when insulin level raises (usually after food, especially rich in carbohydrates) it effectively shuts down the fat burning factory. And it makes sense if you think about it. Carbs appear to be the "fastest" fuel for the body to metabolize because they require fewer steps to convert them into energy compared to proteins or lipids. So body prefers them whenever they become available. However (fortunately or unfortunately) body can only store this much glycogen (up to 400 g on average) which doesn't last very long. When the body runs low of glycogene it is forced to switch to two of the other sources: stored fat and proteins. This is apparently where the fat-burning furnace gets to work. I am not 100% sure how exactly body decides which source to use when it runs out of glycogen. There is some evidence that when subjected to low-to-moderate intensity exercise body uses fat acids as a primary source (when glycogen is not available), whereas under a heavy load more protein starts breaking down for energy.
The important part is that in order to make the body switch from glycogen to fat acids as a primary source of energy (which seems to be the main process behind fat loss) it is reasonable to suggest that two conditions must be met:
I've been getting increasingly tired and frustrated from hearing things and rules served as ultimate truths over the last few years. They are usually referred to as "myths", although in truth I wouldn't always call them that. I believe that all they are is partial truths, or opinions/beliefs based on partial truths. The funny part about partial truths is that they can even seemingly contradict to each other and still be valid to a point. Partial point, that is. A few simple examples:
- "To build muscle you should eat plenty of protein, otherwise you body will not grow". It certainly makes sense, since protein is a critical tissue building component, however the key questions to ask are "How much is 'plenty'?", "How much is 'too little'?" and "How much is 'too much'?". I remember seeing studies where much smaller amounts of protein intake than those widely accepted in bodybuilding community (1 g per lb) were found sufficient to sustain muscle and stimulate growth.
- "When you're hungry - your body is already losing muscle". Although it is true that long periods of fasting may indeed lead to some muscle proteins being metabolized for energy, there is sufficient evidence that such breakdown does not happen until after 24-48 hours of fasting.
- "To burn fat you need to do lots of cardio". This has been around for years as well. It too makes certain sense and is based on a well supported claim that low-to-moderate intensity aerobic exercise indeed uses fat as fuel in a higher degree than higher intensity (anaerobic) exercises. That doesn't mean though that, say, resistance training is totally useless for fat burning purposes. There is also evidence that high intensity exercise triggers certain hormonal response that raises metabolic rate for up to 24 hours, which means that the body tends to use more energy in post-exercise period. That's why interval training has become very popular in the recent years.
- "You have to work your body at least 3 times a week, otherwise you start losing muscle". This rule caused me a lot of grief. As obsessed as I was overtraining almost became my constant companion for years. I realize that for an average person three times a week with fairly light weights might be a good enough starting point. But I was never able to maintain heavy workouts three times a week for any extensive periods of time. After a few weeks fatigue would start setting in and I remember cutting my training short simply because I couldn't maintain the intensity I thought I needed to maintain. There is evidence of people working out twice or even once a week (for some HIT supporters, for instance) and still growing muscle and getting amazing results.
- "Free weights are the way to go. Machines are for wussies." vs "Machines allow you to hit your muscles from various angles better than free weights can." Both ar partial truths and/or opinions.
So why was I getting tired of those? Because, like many of us, I, too, had been conditioned to following the rules. There was always some authority figure (parent, teacher, government, supervisor, fitness guru) to tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing - what to eat, how to study, who to marry. And of course how to exercise. I was religiously following advices abundantly given away in many bodybuilding and fitness books. Listening to my own body wasn't really one of them. So I kept ignoring my body's cry for help until I could no longer ignore it. Linear mindset made me keep pushing. "The more - the better", "The harder the better", "No pain - no gain". I thought the reason I wasn't getting results was because I wasn't trying hard enough, so I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Until one day I finally realized that years of pushing and following different advices didn't really get me any closer to the body of my dreams. Fatigue and frustration seemed to be the only things that I was left with at the end of the day - after 20 years of trying. Time came to face a painful question: WHAT TO DO NOW?
Why can't I get the body I want? By that time I pretty much realized that systems and approaches I had used didn't yield the results I wanted. Not because they didn't work in general. Most of them had some partial truths behind them. But because they didn't work for me. So it was time to start my own quest...
That's some long intro now, isn't it? :-))
Now back to Ori's book. He's a big supporter of what is now known as Intermittent Fasting (IF). I read his "The Warrior Diet" before and it makes a lot of sense to me. The main idea that really appeals to me is that there is cycle to any physiological process in our body. We sleep - we are awake, we feel full - we feel hungry, we feel tired - we feel rested, and so on. Everything fluctuates in our bodies, pretty much like in all of nature. Heart beat, blood pressure, hormonal levels, etc. What if linearity is not inherent to our bodies? Would it make sense that body loses fat and builds muscle in cycles rather than at a steady pace?
What if the fact that many women fail to drop weight despite very restricted daily calories (sometimes down to 800-1000) has something to do with this "linearity issue"? What if body simply adjusts to living off a very "fixed income"? Think about it. Let's say you live in a big house with a wife, two kids, two dogs and two cars. You make $5000 a month between you and your spouse. Then all of a sudden she loses her job. You income drops to, say, $3500 a month. What do you do? Well for the first couple of weeks you may try to maintain the same lifestyle. However, after a while you realize that something has to change. What? Well, first you cut back on some expenditures. Most likely you won't go cutting grocery list - not in the first place anyway. First to go will likely be your son's soccer class, your daughter's dance studio, and your weekly dining at a local steak house. Along follows high-speed internet (you switch to "light"), second phone line and 1000 channels satelite package (you can get away with "basic" plan). Then you switch to lower premiums on your second car and your wife starts using email instead of spending hours on the phone with her girlfriend in Europe. Then your Hawaiian vacation may be put on hold. But even now, you still live in the same house, you don't give up on your kids or your dogs. You don't go renting out your wife either (just joking). You don't cut back on food or health - at least not for awhile and not until it gets worse. Well, you get the picture.
So in comes premise #1. I suspect that something like that happens to our body when put under caloric restriction. It strives to live on reduced "income" while maintaining as much of its functionality as it can.
Premise #2. Non-linearity. The book contains some indication that fat-burning (lipolytic) and muscle-building (anabolic) processes do not occur simultaneously. In fact they seem to be almost antagonistic in nature. For instance, insulin - known as an anabolic precursor - is also known to severely reduce lipolysis (the main fat-burning process). In other words, when insulin level raises (usually after food, especially rich in carbohydrates) it effectively shuts down the fat burning factory. And it makes sense if you think about it. Carbs appear to be the "fastest" fuel for the body to metabolize because they require fewer steps to convert them into energy compared to proteins or lipids. So body prefers them whenever they become available. However (fortunately or unfortunately) body can only store this much glycogen (up to 400 g on average) which doesn't last very long. When the body runs low of glycogene it is forced to switch to two of the other sources: stored fat and proteins. This is apparently where the fat-burning furnace gets to work. I am not 100% sure how exactly body decides which source to use when it runs out of glycogen. There is some evidence that when subjected to low-to-moderate intensity exercise body uses fat acids as a primary source (when glycogen is not available), whereas under a heavy load more protein starts breaking down for energy.
The important part is that in order to make the body switch from glycogen to fat acids as a primary source of energy (which seems to be the main process behind fat loss) it is reasonable to suggest that two conditions must be met:
- Glycogene pool must be depleted (at least to some degree)
- Exercise (if any) has to be kept at low-to-moderate intensity (to minimize muscle breakdown)
So, in theory, if you engage in low-to-moderate intensity exercise when your body is in the fasting or near-fasting state (glycogene depleted) it will be forced to burn fat for fuel as a primary source.
But if that's the case then let's take it to the extreme and ask ourselves: why can't we simply stop eating for a week and go on a treadmill for 3 hours a day and burn 7 lbs of fat in a week - clean and simple?
Here's my take on it. Aforementioned conditions must be met but it's not enough. I suspect that two things prevent it from happening. First, it seems like fat cells in our body are not only used as a convenient energy deposit boxes but also as containers for toxins. When toxins enter our body and when it can't neutralize and dispose of them immediately it will wrap them in fat and put them away. Much like criminals frozen in cryocells in futuristic movies. When a fat cell gets pulled off the shelf and broken down for energy it may also release toxins into the blood stream. Too many of those can overwhelm the immune system and cause mild-to-severe poisoning (symptoms of poisoning occurring after 3-4 days of fasting are very well documented - I actually experienced it myself about 20 years ago) so the body will try to wrap them back in fat in a desperate attempt to keep the system clean. At which time I would assume it would trigger some mechanism that would start breaking down more and more of muscle protein to provide energy.
Secondly, it appears, that there's some kind of regulatory mechanism that is dependent on a level of ketones in the blood...
Therefore, timing-wise it makes sense to separate those two processes - building muscle and cutting fat. So the idea of cycles makes a lot of sense to me. Or I should mini-cycles...
(to be continued)
Monday, August 10, 2009
Diet/Training (three weeks in)
Here's what happened. I have effectively switched to a slightly different variation of IF (intermittent fasting) after the first week of being on a Warrior Diet. I found it difficult for me to fit enough calories into one huge meal a day so I decided to switch to a 16/8 schema (see Martin Berkhan's site for more info on it) which means 16 hours of underfeeding/fasting and 8 hours (feeding phase). Actually with my work schedule it works out more like 17/7 or even 18/6, where I eat my first meal of the day when I get home at 5pm and I'm usually done eating before 11pm anyway as I go to bed around 11:30.
I also slightly diverted from Martin's original plan (he assumes complete fasting during those 16 hours - no food, only drinks with no calories). I do eat during the underfeeding phase - only I limit myself to fresh veggies, which includes broccoli, califlower, celery, cherry tomatoes (yumm! love those) and, of course, pickles - up to a total of 1-1.5 portions (one Ziploc container) spread throughout the morning and afternoon. Whenever I feel hungry I just open my Ziploc container and pop a piece of celery, a little bit of cauliflower or broccoli, a cherry tomato and half a pickle and I'm good to go again. I have to say that bouts of hunger are a lot less severe now and I usually don't put anything in my mouth till about 9-9:15am and then I spread the rest over remaining hours till about 4pm which is just before I leave the office. Plus, every now and then I would mix some whey protein - about half a scoop - with hot water (tastes like hot chocolate) and sometimes add a bit of coffee as well. So it totals to a 1-1.5 scoops which gives me about 24-36 g of additional protein. I would estimate the total caloric intake during the underfeeding phase somewhere between ~80-100 (veggies only) and ~200-280 (veggies + protein).
After the first week I estimated my weight loss at about 2 lbs (I wasn't thoughtful enough to weigh in right before I started), which sounds about right for me, as I plan on maintaining my lean muscle mass as much as possible and going over 2 lbs per week usually means that more muscle is metabolized for energy along with fat. So the weigh-in was at 206.8.
After the second week I was down to 204.8, which meant another 2 lbs off. Also, sadly enough, I didn't even measure myself which I usually do quite religiously. But judging by the fact that I started using the next hole on my belt that I hadn't used for a loooooong while looks like I made some progress since those holes are about 2/3 of an inch apart so it's safe to assume that my waistline shrunk by about that much as well.
Half way through week 3 I pulled out my old caliper and measured the IC (iliac crest) fold - why didn't I think about it sooner? It measured at 10mm and I plan on doing it from this point on.
As far as exercise goes: I do my kung fu classes 3 times a week (2 times during summer) and I do my 4-minute Tabata cycles twice a week and I decided to do weights once a week as well. So I went to the "Y" on Saturday afternoon for a full body workout. I enjoyed it a lot - especially because Saturday afternoon is not the busiest time - so I had all the racks and machines readily available. I focused on major groups: did squats, pullovers, rows, pulldowns. My shoulder joints were really sore last week so I had to take it easy on them this last Saturday. I avoided any pressing movements that put a lot of stress on my joints and did more pulls and flyes instead.
To my surprise, my muscles were not as sore as I could have expected. Usually they are very sore the second next day but these last two times they weren't - only slightly. And I like that feeling!
The not so inspiring news - week 3 weigh-in was 205.4 - which means I gained about half a pound compared to a week before. Although I decided that it may have been due to some added lean mass. So I'll wait to see week 4 results before I go and make adjustments.
I feel energized and not nearly as lethargic as I used to be. So on to new hights - towards that lean and shining muscular physique!!
I also slightly diverted from Martin's original plan (he assumes complete fasting during those 16 hours - no food, only drinks with no calories). I do eat during the underfeeding phase - only I limit myself to fresh veggies, which includes broccoli, califlower, celery, cherry tomatoes (yumm! love those) and, of course, pickles - up to a total of 1-1.5 portions (one Ziploc container) spread throughout the morning and afternoon. Whenever I feel hungry I just open my Ziploc container and pop a piece of celery, a little bit of cauliflower or broccoli, a cherry tomato and half a pickle and I'm good to go again. I have to say that bouts of hunger are a lot less severe now and I usually don't put anything in my mouth till about 9-9:15am and then I spread the rest over remaining hours till about 4pm which is just before I leave the office. Plus, every now and then I would mix some whey protein - about half a scoop - with hot water (tastes like hot chocolate) and sometimes add a bit of coffee as well. So it totals to a 1-1.5 scoops which gives me about 24-36 g of additional protein. I would estimate the total caloric intake during the underfeeding phase somewhere between ~80-100 (veggies only) and ~200-280 (veggies + protein).
After the first week I estimated my weight loss at about 2 lbs (I wasn't thoughtful enough to weigh in right before I started), which sounds about right for me, as I plan on maintaining my lean muscle mass as much as possible and going over 2 lbs per week usually means that more muscle is metabolized for energy along with fat. So the weigh-in was at 206.8.
After the second week I was down to 204.8, which meant another 2 lbs off. Also, sadly enough, I didn't even measure myself which I usually do quite religiously. But judging by the fact that I started using the next hole on my belt that I hadn't used for a loooooong while looks like I made some progress since those holes are about 2/3 of an inch apart so it's safe to assume that my waistline shrunk by about that much as well.
Half way through week 3 I pulled out my old caliper and measured the IC (iliac crest) fold - why didn't I think about it sooner? It measured at 10mm and I plan on doing it from this point on.
As far as exercise goes: I do my kung fu classes 3 times a week (2 times during summer) and I do my 4-minute Tabata cycles twice a week and I decided to do weights once a week as well. So I went to the "Y" on Saturday afternoon for a full body workout. I enjoyed it a lot - especially because Saturday afternoon is not the busiest time - so I had all the racks and machines readily available. I focused on major groups: did squats, pullovers, rows, pulldowns. My shoulder joints were really sore last week so I had to take it easy on them this last Saturday. I avoided any pressing movements that put a lot of stress on my joints and did more pulls and flyes instead.
To my surprise, my muscles were not as sore as I could have expected. Usually they are very sore the second next day but these last two times they weren't - only slightly. And I like that feeling!
The not so inspiring news - week 3 weigh-in was 205.4 - which means I gained about half a pound compared to a week before. Although I decided that it may have been due to some added lean mass. So I'll wait to see week 4 results before I go and make adjustments.
I feel energized and not nearly as lethargic as I used to be. So on to new hights - towards that lean and shining muscular physique!!
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Diet/Training Program (start)
After browsing through a great website of Lyle McDonald's, reading a book called Warrior Diet and checking out Leangain blog by Martin Berkhan I decided to give Intermittent Fasting (IF) a try.
So...
I started on Monday, July 20, 2009 with the Warrior Diet - one big meal once in 24 hours (around 8-9 pm) with undereating/fasting phase inbetween (with minimum veggies, fruits and some protein).
In the first three days undereating was hard. I felt kind of disoriented, in a way. Bouts of hunger were not overly intense but they were nonetheless quite annoying. Surprisingly I wasn't feeling too hungry by the time of the big meal and I ended up eating less than I had expected. I felt less tired although I had short periods of subtle sleepiness during the day. One other thing I noticed is that I felt very good after a meal even though it was pretty big - I felt energetic and not tired at all - which was quite different from my experience before.
So what are my goals?
My intent is to bring my bodyfat % down to single digits (let's say 9%). With that I'd like to maintain my bodyweight at around 195-200 lbs, which I think will look good on my 5'11" frame. Which means I'll need to add about 10 lbs of muscle and shed 17 lbs of fat.
I also intend to find a nutrition/training combination which will feel natural, without subjecting my body to heavy abuse or severe deprivation. I intend to go all natural without any artificial supplements, other than possibly protein powder and some vitamins/minerals. I intend to avoid overtraining which - as I understand now - used to be my curse for years (I tend to overdo things more often than not). I intend to make my exercise program feel natural and fun without having to spend half of my life at the gym and without turning my nutrition program into a chore. I intend to make it into a lifestyle that I will be able to enjoy and that will not turn me into a social pariah. I intend to have my energy levels high and feel healthy and radiant both in the gym and outside it.
I intend to discover an "intuitive" approach to health and fitness and I believe that it exists if you only learn to listen to your body a little more than you listen to loud fitness gurus and "Ten things you should know"-type articles in popular fitness magazines. I understand that it may not be "the ultimate truth" but it will be true for me and possibly some other people. I intend to attain a great six-pack without killing myself with hundreds of sit-ups each and every day.
So...
I started on Monday, July 20, 2009 with the Warrior Diet - one big meal once in 24 hours (around 8-9 pm) with undereating/fasting phase inbetween (with minimum veggies, fruits and some protein).
In the first three days undereating was hard. I felt kind of disoriented, in a way. Bouts of hunger were not overly intense but they were nonetheless quite annoying. Surprisingly I wasn't feeling too hungry by the time of the big meal and I ended up eating less than I had expected. I felt less tired although I had short periods of subtle sleepiness during the day. One other thing I noticed is that I felt very good after a meal even though it was pretty big - I felt energetic and not tired at all - which was quite different from my experience before.
So what are my goals?
My intent is to bring my bodyfat % down to single digits (let's say 9%). With that I'd like to maintain my bodyweight at around 195-200 lbs, which I think will look good on my 5'11" frame. Which means I'll need to add about 10 lbs of muscle and shed 17 lbs of fat.
I also intend to find a nutrition/training combination which will feel natural, without subjecting my body to heavy abuse or severe deprivation. I intend to go all natural without any artificial supplements, other than possibly protein powder and some vitamins/minerals. I intend to avoid overtraining which - as I understand now - used to be my curse for years (I tend to overdo things more often than not). I intend to make my exercise program feel natural and fun without having to spend half of my life at the gym and without turning my nutrition program into a chore. I intend to make it into a lifestyle that I will be able to enjoy and that will not turn me into a social pariah. I intend to have my energy levels high and feel healthy and radiant both in the gym and outside it.
I intend to discover an "intuitive" approach to health and fitness and I believe that it exists if you only learn to listen to your body a little more than you listen to loud fitness gurus and "Ten things you should know"-type articles in popular fitness magazines. I understand that it may not be "the ultimate truth" but it will be true for me and possibly some other people. I intend to attain a great six-pack without killing myself with hundreds of sit-ups each and every day.
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