When Size Matters

Here's an interesting article in Sports Illustrated about the size of NFL linemen, which is a nice reminder that everyone's goal should not be to look like a fitness cover model. Not that linemen will ever be the ideal for the next Michelangelo, unless the sculptor is an NFL quarterback, but it's a great look at how those who use their body as a tool for employment have vastly different goals than most of us.

Society tends to look at these guys at fat--which anyone starting in the NFL trenches' BMI would confirm--but can a fat guy do this?

"Johnson, a high school QB who played tight end and defensive end for the Sooners before moving to tackle two years ago. Johnson made a pile of money at the combine, deflecting attention from his lack of experience with a series of jaw-dropping efforts, recounted here by Mayock: "He ran 4.72 in the 40 -- at 303 pounds. That's as fast as [49ers wideout] Anquan Boldin ran. He jumped 34 inches, which is [a half inch less than Bengals wide receiver] A.J. Green jumped. And he broad-jumped 9-10, which is what [Patriots running back] Stevan Ridley jumped. That's the freakiest combine ever."


If those of you with power meters start running numbers and see the explosive force required to propel a 300-pound person 34 inches high or 40 years in 4.7 seconds you'll probably think your watch is broken. Exceptional results for a human being of any weight, adding that mass to gravity will yield stats that are off-the-charts.

They are, of course, tools of the trade. When your job is to move (or keep from being moved) a wall of massive humanity in a very small space your livelihood depends on four things: mass, strength, balance, and explosive power.

Warmack freely admits that his February and March weight -- 319 -- is temporary. He dipped into the teens to perform such tasks as the 40-yard dash, three-cone drill and shuttle runs. (About that vertical leap then. ...) By training camp in July he'll be crowding 330. "Right now," he said at pro day, "if I had to block a 370-pound nosetackle, I couldn't do it as efficiently as if I was 328."


There's not really much of a point of today's post, other than there should be more than one ideal of what the perfect human body looks like. Let's face it, those guys in the movie 300 might look good on Men's Health but if I could choose a team to lead me through an army of men I'm picking the "fat" guys with 30 inch verticals.

pic: not only is he big, he's probably faster than you. Michael J. LeBrecht II/1Deuce3 Photography/SI 

Attack of the Killer Chair

Quick, get out of that chair!

An article on the evils of sitting appeared recently in the NY Times that begins with the line “the chair is your enemy.” It goes on to state how sitting can lead to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and a premature death before concluding, “irrespective of whether you exercise vigorously, sitting for long periods is bad for you.”

With such a strong into I was left a little disappointed by the piece. I was hoping for, perhaps, a biomechanical analysis of how sitting shut down a critical function or put strain on something we hadn’t previously considered. But, alas, the findings were a bit more logical. The meat of the article simply showed the relationship between those who sat a lot compared to those who didn’t, which found that the former group was far less healthy. This was almost “duh files” stuff.

It finally bothered with some science, right near the end, by citing an example using lipoprotein lipase. The implication being that sitting shut down a large part of your metabolic processes that could, over time, lead to weight gain. And while this wasn’t the zinger I was hoping for it was still a nice reminder to take breaks at work and stop vegging out for hours in front of a TV or computer.

So while the chair might not be the demonic villain we were hoping for, it also shouldn’t be lionized in Al Bundyian fashion as the pinnacle of hedonism. The human body was designed for movement and use it or lose it is not just a cliché. But you knew that already, right?

Is The Obesity Trend Ending?

To keep with the India theme, here's a piece, called The Fattening of America, that I wrote en route to India in 2007. It’s still apropos, certainly, but this article from the New York Times hints that times are a changing. While this isn’t something to get overly enthusiastic about, it shows that all of our hard work is not going unrequited. We’ve made a dent, let’s keep it up.

Click the excerpt below the see where we where in 2007, at least in my rant-filled eyes at the time.

Not too many days go by when I don’t ponder, to some degree, the question of why America became so fat? We’re a country blessed with advantages, technology, information, equipment, and open space. Yet we continue to expand horizontally and our health continues to plummet, even with incredible advances being made in medicine. The capitalist in me tells me to stop questioning and enjoy the job security. The humanist in me would gladly change careers in order to help the planet. My competitive American spirit is simply pissed off. When did we become the problem rather than the solution?

Efficiency

Probably the most valuable thing I’ve learned in my long tenure at Beachbody is the importance of efficiency. As an athletic trainer it mattered but you always had leeway. Athletes want to win and care less about how much time and effort it takes to do it. Regular folks have more pressing matters than being fit and time is of the essence. Over the years we’ve gotten better and better at distilling the necessities for being fit into as little time as absolutely necessary. We have it down to a science, literally.

I love seeing articles like the one that popped up last week on Science Daily, showing how short exercise can be more effective than long exercise.

Instead of long stints in the gym and miles of running in the cold, the same results could be achieved in less than a third of the time, according to new research published February 1 in The Journal of Physiology.

It not only validates where we do it makes it easier for us to “prove” our results on TV. It’s funny—not in a ha-ha way—that we often can’t cite our actual results from our test groups because they’re beyond what the authorities have deemed “possible”. The fact is, if you train smart you don’t need to spend hours a day in the gym in order to keep your body at peak fitness. Sure, you can be fit using that model, but in my experience I’ve found that most people, including athletes, train more than they should.

On the basis of these novel and earlier findings from other laboratories, Professor Wagenmakers expects that HIT and SIT will turn out to be unique alternative exercise modes suitable to prevent blood vessel disease, hypertension, diabetes and most of the other ageing and obesity related chronic diseases.

We've been using both HIT and SIT for years, so the word unique seems a little strange, but that's probably why we run into issues with the FTC and such. Even though it’s not always “accepted”, we’ve proven that if you’re willing to make healthy lifestyle changes we can change your body composition from obese to healthy in as little as 10 minutes a day. With a 30-45 minute investment you can be down right fit, and an hour a day 6 days per week can have you as fit as people who use their bodies to make their living.

Another fact is that most of your super fit friends train more than they should. As your human lab rat I’ll be the first to plead guilty. I’m quite sure I spent most of my prime athletic years in an somewhat-overtrained and undiagnosed state. I now workout far less than I once did and, yet, since I’m smarter, my fitness stays high enough that I can get into competition shape for many different sports with a only few weeks of sports specific training. While I can say that wish I knew this years ago, I'm happy just to be able to pass on the knowledge so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes I did.

Look for a follow-up post, with examples and more in-depth analysis, later this week...

Back With A Video Chat

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By popular demand I'm posting again here on Blogger. The transfer to the new site's turning out to be more complex than expected so posts will henceforth resume here until the new site is deemed acceptable. If you comment and it doesn't come through please try again as I'm having a lot of trouble with spammers lately.

Business has been charging along as usual, with the somewhat major addition of a trip to India and Nepal that's effectively tossed a crazy wrench into what's already a filled-to-the-gills schedule. I've been keeping news items worthy of critical review, which I'll get to (most probably after my trip) once I've caught up on the backlogging what I've been up to.

The Yak Attack, catalyst for upcoming voyage, will also merit some attention and I'll try to do it justice. For now, let's re-conveine with Denis and I bantering for an hour. The chat opens with immune talk, given our entire office is currently sick, and then moves into standard q and a.

PS - you can access this blog via steveedwardsfitness now and, since the site will be moving there, you might as well get used to that being the home page.

Salt & Sugar: Video Chat

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Here's yesterday's chat, the more robust version of this article. The odd opening came to Keith in a dream, and who are we to deny such a vision? I'm sure there will be more chat dreams/themes in the future. If you have further questios, ask away here.

The Chill Pill: The One Drug You Should Be Taking

I review studies almost everyday. Most are on food, exercise, or supplements and how they might better your life. But there’s one topic, far less popular, that’s a constant theme running through many of these, which leads to better results 100% of the time: chilling out.

Today’s post highlights an article from Dan Buettner and NY Times on some of the longest living populations in the world. The main character left the US for his native home on an island in Greece to die when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer nearly four decades ago. The laid back agrarian lifestyle not only cured his cancer but allowed him to out live all of his doctors.

Six months came and went. Moraitis didn’t die. Instead, he reaped his garden and, feeling emboldened, cleaned up the family vineyard as well. Easing himself into the island routine, he woke up when he felt like it, worked in the vineyards until midafternoon, made himself lunch and then took a long nap. In the evenings, he often walked to the local tavern, where he played dominoes past midnight. The years passed. His health continued to improve. He added a couple of rooms to his parents’ home so his children could visit. He built up the vineyard until it produced 400 gallons of wine a year. Today, three and a half decades later, he’s 97 years old — according to an official document he disputes; he says he’s 102 — and cancer-free. He never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought therapy of any sort. All he did was move home to Ikaria.

It’s an amazing story that’s less unique that you might think. I can’t recall how many instances I’ve noticed the common theme of improvement in a study is linked more to a lifestyle change than whatever was being studied, especially when that change led to less stress.

Of course we can’t all move to an island. We can, however, chill out. It’s entirely within our scope, no matter what we do and where we live. Remember the Seinfeld (the show about nothing, aka everything) when George becomes the “opposite of every man you’ve ever met” and his casual dismissal of a car cutting him off turns on the woman he’s with? That was more than self-deprecating humor. It was a lesson.

We’ve become a nation of control freaks in the world that can’t be controlled. It’s a no win scenario. We look for distractions to ignore it but these things, like sports, TV, political nonsense et al, make it worse as they too are uncontrollable. We need to focus inward, on our day-to-day lives and what makes them rich, which is not money but our relationship with others around us. "It's not the end of the world," is a cliche we too often ignore. What are we in such a hurry to do, anyway?

In Samos, they care about money. Here, we don’t. For the many religious and cultural holidays, people pool their money and buy food and wine. If there is money left over, they give it to the poor. It’s not a ‘me’ place. It’s an ‘us’ place.”

You don’t need to move to an island to do this. All you need to do is find a way to relax. Exercise and diet, both major elements in the story, are the best place to start because they force your body into a more relaxed and healthy-functioning state. The rest is completely within your control and you can start right now, by reading the article, which sufficed as my daily dose of chill. Now maybe I'll unplug my clocks.

Seeking to learn more about the island’s reputation for long-lived residents, I called on Dr. Ilias Leriadis, one of Ikaria’s few physicians, in 2009. On an outdoor patio at his weekend house, he set a table with Kalamata olives, hummus, heavy Ikarian bread and wine. “People stay up late here,” Leriadis said. “We wake up late and always take naps. I don’t even open my office until 11 a.m. because no one comes before then.” He took a sip of his wine. “Have you noticed that no one wears a watch here? No clock is working correctly. When you invite someone to lunch, they might come at 10 a.m. or 6 p.m. We simply don’t care about the clock here.

stamatis moraitis tending his vineyard and olive grove on ikaria. andrea Frazzetta/LUZphoto for The New York Times

Salt & Sugar: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Silent killer or manna from Heaven? What’s the straight dope on the role of salt and sugar in your diet? These nutrients, so vital for sustaining life that historical lore could fill the History Channel for a month, are also the root of the world’s obesity epidemic. Next week, these two misunderstood nutrients will be the topic of my live video chat q & a with a longtime sidekick, or colleague if you will, Denis Faye.

Here’s a little teaser:

Most of us are aware of the evils of sugar. Modern food companies have been adding more and more of it into packaged foods to the point that they’ve created an imbalanced sweet tooth for many consumers. This has led to an overindulgence problem that is the spearhead of the obesity epidemic.

Sugar is a high-density food, meaning that it doesn’t give you a lot of bang for the buck in a nutritional sense because it has a lot of calories with few nutrients. In nature, where it exists only one part of a whole foods picture, it aids in transporting the other elements of those foods into your system efficiently, as well as providing energy on its own. The problem is that we’ve isolated and now put it into things where it serves no purpose than to fill you up and make you crave more of it.

Salt you’ve heard of too. Your doctor probably tells you to lighten up on it because overconsumption can lead to a myriad of diseases. It makes the news regularly, under the name of one of its ingredients, sodium (salt is sodium chloride), when we learn things like a single dinner entre at a food chain contains more sodium than the RDA states you need in a week.

Salt is nutrient dense as it’s a vital electrolyte with no calories. We can’t live without it. Because of this we tend to crave it, which food companies know so they chock food full of it in order to fuel our desire to buy more and more of their products.

If these stories sound similar it’s because they are, the net of which is to sell you more foods that cost little to make. These foods, both high in calories and low on nutrients, have the unique ability to make us both fat and malnourished at the same time. We’ve been swindled into terrible eating habits and, worse, created an epidemic addiction for two things that are clearly killing us. Yet...

These are two of the most important foods on the planet.

Try to perform at your highest level and you’ll quickly understand the marvels of sugar. Sugar turns to glucose in your blood and glycogen in you muscles and this fuels your body and brain far better than anything else. If you run out of sugar in a long athletic event your body will slow down and, at some point if you don’t stop, die. Used at the right time, sugar is the most powerful performance-enhancing substance known to man.

run out of sugar during a race and you'll quickly learn its merits

Salt is even more important and less understood. Most of us consume far too much of it but, oddly enough, the inverse is a big problem in healthy populations who can be too strict about limiting it. Salt is absolutely vital for life on any level but the more active you are the more you need. 500mg a day is enough for an average sedentary person but a cyclist racing on a 100-degree day can burn through 2,000mg in an hour! Those who eschew all salt find themselves at risk for hyponatremia, an electrolyte imbalance that will kill you swifter that a bite from a black mamba. There’s a good reason salt has been the catalyst of many wars throughout history.

gandhi used salt to thwart the british

Join us Thursday, October 25, and 2PST (5EST) and have your questions ready. Links will be posted on all of Beachbody’s social feeds and the chat page here.

The Map Of Athletic Performance

This is a great article for those who enjoy geeking out about fitness. For anyone interested in what I do for a living here’s a taste. I’m always evaluating the latest data and techniques looking for ideas we can incorporate into what we do. It’s from an elite climber and strength trainer Rob Miller and titled The Map of Athletic Performance.

Articles like this are what opens the door for training advancements. I can’t say that I learned anything new, exactly, but certainly helped my thought process. I mean, we’re all working off of the same science so new aspects about training tend to come from experience and trying to think outside the box. This is why breakthroughs in training rarely come from scientists and usually from athletes and trainers (Rob is both) who experiment outside of known templates--why we call exercise physiology an “applied science”. This is similar to what Charlie Francis was doing with runners and Paul Rogers is doing with cyclists.

Anyone interested in last week’s articles on customizing P90X should consider investing some time, so bookmark this article for reference. While techie, it summarized a lot junk you’re forced to learn in school and is much more fun to read than most text books. That’s because it stays focused on a subject, which is training for climbing, though its scope if far beyond that particular sport. The theories discussed here can be applied to any type of training.

I’m going to try and break this down a step further for the layman by adding notes and perspective on various sections. Miller begins with the climbing aspect and goes into the general exercise phys stuff later, which I’m reversing for readability in my analysis.

Getting “generally” strong is just smart. Whether it is to increase lean body mass for health reasons or to gain an edge at the sport you love. Full range of motion basic barbell movements performed well will have the farthest reaching impact in support of all athletic endeavors. Essentially, strength improves the body’s capacity to perform at a greater intensity. This is true for all developing athletes and remains true for even the most advanced.

This is a great paragraph but it needs to be noted that Rob is a barbell trainer (how he makes his living). Of course that are others ways to accomplish this, but barbell training is his bread and butter. He knows it very well and can teach is safely, which everyone cannot do. He addresses that fact but he doesn’t explain that there are other ways to safely do compound lifts (he has no reason to) that are easier to learn.

What became very obvious while dwelling on the ramifications of the Map (above) is that there are many trajectories from the inside ring toward the outside that can naturally be pursued over the course of an athlete’s career. But the closer an athlete is to expressing most of his genetic potential – the further out from the center of the Map – the greater the need for the effort to become more focused. Deliberate choices need to be made with regard to which, and how many, outward trajectories from the center will benefit the athlete most. Because training is a deliberate approach to systematically achieving one’s goal, after 5 years of “Elite” distraction the first deliberate thing I did for my training as a climber was to stop pushing out in all directions on the Map at the same time in the pursuit of “increased work capacity over broad time and model domains.”

This is a challenge faced by any athlete who practices many different sports (hence most weekend warriors). He’s specifically addressing Crossfit and its misguided emphasis when it comes to sports (he has a long history with CF’s founder, discussed at length) but the challenge he’s addressing—-efficient sports specific training to leave time for sports specific work—-is the meat of what all athletes are after.

The activities may be listed along the Map’s perimeter but the process of athletic development begins well within the Map’s interior. The activities being listed on the outside have to do with creating a trajectory for development. Reaching the outside limits of the Map means that you are up against your genetic potential in that sport. It is a rare individual that has exhausted all means to achieve greater abilities and capacities in his sport. But more importantly, an athlete on the outer reaches has developed other “supplemental” trajectories either by exploring other sports or deliberately pursuing physical qualities that his primary trajectory will directly benefit from. And this is one of the more significant implications of the Map.

He’s just defined the concept behind “muscle confusion” from P90X, which we’ve taken to a much deeper level in X2. What’s so important in this paragraph is that you can’t change your genetic potential but within your genetic make-up you can improve your capacity for improvement and efficiency. That is what any trainer’s goal is with an athlete, to maximize their genetic capacity for performance.

Prioritizing training time is weighed against the timeline of the upcoming season, event or competition in every stage of athletic development. Advanced training takes on a laser-like focus the further out on the Map one is, and it and becomes less tolerant of any superfluous training “noise.” Each training session has a clear purpose and all available resources go into achieving that purpose. The ratio of work to rest that productively drives adaptation no longer has a forgiving margin of error. The work is focused and deliberate, so that the body can be left alone to do its thing during recovery.

The single biggest challenge most of us face, especially when life (job, families, etc) enter the equation. Efficiency is king but, let’s face it, most of us would rather do what we enjoy. Sometimes, especially if you want to maximize your potential, you need to put that aside and make decisions about what is best for you to reach your goals and not just what you like to do.

There is no parallel to the barbell in its ability to meet an athlete exactly where they are now in terms of neuromuscular efficiency and begin the process of progressively applying higher demands on the entire system. The neglect the barbell receives from both regular folks and athletes is something of a mystery, given its potential. Still, given that we live in a culture that sells products offering quick fixes or a “silver bullet” for most everything people are interested in, it is understandable that training with the barbell is undervalued or ignored. It takes time, like anything worth doing thoroughly.

Obviously, as a barbell coach, this is his opinion. Almost nothing you do with a barbell can’t be done using something else—-though a barbell can be very efficient. What he hasn’t addressed is the injury potential when doing his exercises, which is very high. His angle is that if you learn the moves right they are safe but he also states it took him many years of devoted study and training to do this. Thus...

Because of the previous collective move away from barbell training in the fitness industry, few trainers have appropriate knowledge of its value or how to teach people to utilize it.

What’s he’s saying is to take his camps or train differently. I can’t argue. If I can find the time I’ll take one of his camps. If not I’ll train differently. I’ve been around these lifts my entire life but have never devoted near the time Rob has to learning about them, even though...

The squat is the single most important exercise there is. Nothing else recruits more tissue doing more work than this one movement. The full range of motion squat done properly is the most potent tool in the gym. The other four add balance and support to this central movement. The time it takes you to learn something in the gym has a lot to do with how long it will remain interesting and effective, no matter what your goals are. Correctly performed squats take some time to learn. Even if your sport does not require squatting, and most do not, there is enormous benefit from becoming fluent in this basic human movement.

...this paragraph sounds exactly like one of my mentors, Fred (Dr. Squat) Hatfield.

In an endurance setting, strength and power will always be expressed at a fraction of one’s overall potential due to the lower strength and power demands of endurance sports. Therefore, the increase in strength and power will directly benefit one’s endurance simply by increasing that overall potential, and thereby increasing the reservoir from which to pull that fraction.

This is very important. My biased definition as to why P90X2 is so important for all athletes, even endurance athletes.

Perhaps the misguided emphasis on cardio-respiratory endurance will shift when more people try alternatives to mainstream ‘trendy’ workouts. Maybe the idea that “more” is not better will begin to sink in.

Very true but he’s talking about elite athletes. The emphasis in their training has been moving this direction now for more than a decade. The exact point is discussed in the X2 guide when addressing why there is no “cardio” in that program.

This is a quick synopsis of a broad topic. In the article he provides a nice discussion of energy systems and how training them applies to everyone. It’s very important to understand that no matter what kind of sport you want to train for.

miller walking the talk on el capitan

Now off to more specific things...

I’m saying that if you’re training, then it’s time organize your climbing into a weekly period of work-to-rest for the best results. To get the most out of the climbing you are already doing, we’re going to organize your week around a primary session called the Heavy Day. This is the day, or a combination of days if you go climbing for the weekend, that will be driving your intermediate rate of adaptation. This is the stressor that your body will need a full week to recover from.

It doesn’t mean the intermediate climber takes a week off. He needs to engage those skills during the week of active rest. This way, skills stay sharp and are ready to ‘neurologically fire’ when fully recovered. To accomplish a full intermediate recovery, you’re going to follow the Heavy Day with one Medium Day and one Light Day during the remainder of the week.

The A,B,Cs of training. I’ve written on this a lot and it’s the focal point of my latest training article for DPM Climbing.

Your body is conditioned to climbing. So some climbing, even at your limit, won’t inhibit your recovery. It’s when you don’t understand how to actively recover, or that it’s necessary, that so many climbers eddy in a performance slump way longer than necessary.

Interesting in that this is what the Spanish do, and they have the most strong climbers in the world, by far. They call it tranquillo y a muerte (you mostly relax but when you do climb it’s “to the death”) and, I think, many traveling Americans have trouble with such a small volume of climbing—-myself included (we’re on limited holiday time fer crissakes)—-but those who do embrace it generally improve.

So why do climbers do the same thing as the example tennis player, and climb routes that don’t really challenge their abilities – a bunch of sub-maximal work that doesn’t challenge the skill set? Since there is no specific motor pathway being practiced – because the sport consists of myriad ways to climb any route – there is no point in the sub-maximal repetition. The worse case scenario is that the sub-maximal work at higher volume sets them up for injury when they do ramp up the intensity, like ‘junk’ miles on a bike for a cyclist.

This is key. Most of us waste a lot of time like this. It’s why you see people climbing for years and years and never really improving. Maybe they get slightly better when, say, they lose a few pounds for a redpoint but never by much. Focused systematic training out of your comfort zone is the only way to reach your body’s capacity for strength.

What he leaves out, which is important to less serious athletes (most of us) is that “junk miles” (or its sports equivalent) is important for season athletes as a way to condition the body when you haven’t practiced a sport in a while. Skin conditioning of the hands for climbers, feet for runners, and saddle area for cyclists are simple examples. Re-engaging neuromuscular patterns is another. This should not detract us from his main point, which is that creating a strong foundation of fitness minimizes our need for “junk” volume.

The difference at the advanced stages is that the athlete is so developed in his specific sport that it’s really difficult to apply enough of a stress that the body will have a hormonal response.

That stressor doesn’t have to come from the sport you’re training for. That’s what happened to me when I got into CrossFit. Not identifying the unfamiliar stimulus was unfortunate. I could have saved a lot of valuable training time.

Great point, but are different stresses the climbing causes that should be addressed individually depending upon the type of climbing you do, which he gets into...

Strength takes the longest to develop but it also sticks around the longest. Endurance comes and goes almost by the week. Strength is persistent and has the greatest training carryover, like in our bouldering example.

I think he’s underselling endurance. As any cyclist/triathlete knows it does take a while to bring all of your various “endurance” parameters up to speed. You improve by the week but it takes many weeks to have everything humming along perfectly.

However, his main point, that strength takes the longest to train (he means power or “absolutely strength” or muscular efficiency) is not only valid it’s the one essential key to improving performance even as an endurance athlete. It’s harder to train, takes both focus and specificity, and, mainly, to truly address it you must curtail your endurance training, which is a hard sell for most of us who are addicts, especially true of runners, cyclists, surfers, and climbers.

It’s really the key to the entire article: that we neglect full body strength training in favor of random volume. It’s not a coincidence that Francis and Rogers, who coached a stack of Olympic champions, were thinking along the same lines.

above: note no cyclists on the map. This is because those sports are hard to define this way. A road racer, for example, is an endurance athlete whose entire success is dependent on the anaerobic pathways, or the ability sprint or climb a hill at key points in an otherwise aerobic race. this means both areas must be trained with specific focus on the individual depending on the type of races they want to do well at.

Video of “To Beast Or Not To Beast”

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Here’s the follow up to last week’s post about our Body Beast program. Denis and I go over the questions I received and answer even more. If you’re not sure what Beast is, whether it’s the right program for you, or how to work it into your existing training plan you’ll want to check it out. We had over 700 viewers and got to all of their questions so we’re betting there’s a good chance you’re covered.

Is 30 Minutes of Exercise Better Than An Hour?

An article claiming less is more when it comes to weight loss and exercise hit the wires today. And while it’s decent if you read the entire thing it requires some explanation because the title is misleading. The details as to why are mainly left out, which come down to two physiological factors that I’ll go into today.

30 minutes exercise 'better than an hour of training' for weight loss

It’s important to first note that it’s not saying less exercise is better for weight loss for everyone. The title indicates this but the article shows it’s only better for the study’s demographic, which was both over weight and out of shape. So let’s look at why.

1. The first ten minutes of exercise is the key for most of us. This has been known for a long while but it’s been getting a ton of play lately. A recent study showed that 10 minutes of exercise can be better than an hour if it’s constructed correctly.

These 10 min studies highlight the importance of high intensity work and its effect on hormonal changes. While this study did not going into such depth, all exercise burns more calories in the first few minutes than when you settle in, no matter what you do. This means that you get the effect of high intensity training for a few minutes even when you aren’t exercising hard. This is because you burn muscle glycogen when you begin exercising until your body is warmed up. Once warm, your body starts to conserve; using fat stores for low intensity movements and saving glycogen for high intensity outputs.

A strong hormonal response (triggered by glycogen-sucking anaerobic work) is what you want in order to make the quickest adaptations to your body. You always get one at the beginning of a workout but it's harder to induce them once you’re warm and moving easily. However, high-level athletic training reverses this so the most important period becomes the push you make towards the end of the workout when you are tired, which can create an even greater hormonal response provided that you are fit enough to handle the workload. So, while short exercise is better than longer exercise by some measurements, there are also times, especially in conditioned populations, where the end of longer exercise is what matters most.

2. Exercise is only as effective as your ability to recover from it. Hence the cliché that you only get stronger at rest. If you overtax your body more than you can recover from you get worse before you get better. This is more than anything else the key to this study. By choosing a deconditioned population they were ensuring success because over the course of the study those doing more exercise became overtrained and had to recover from that state before they probably saw a lot of weight loss.

What this study doesn’t tell us is that if you lengthened it, at some point, those doing the longer workouts would outpace those doing the shorter ones. The laws of progressive overload mean that continual stress must be placed on the body in order to keep fitness progression moving forward. This is why if you run 5 miles everyday it will have less an effect as you get fitter. 30 minutes isn’t better than 60 for everybody, but it certainly is better for some. But in fitness is a moving target. As you get more fit you require more stress in order to continue to get fitter. This is why P90X is harder and longer than Power 90.



any excuse to post the 'torture test' works for me.

I’ve written on this subject before from many angles, such as how to choose the right exercise program , but important to address it from many sides. We don’t all need to be able to do Insanity in order to look great and call ourselves fit. For some of us Hip Hop Abs would be the better choice. Less can indeed be more. The only constant is that the human body needs exercise to function properly and some is almost always better than none.

Special thanks to Denis over at the Fitness Nerd for inspiring this post.

Do You Eat Like An Olympic Or Professional Athlete?

I had an interesting post in the works on the physiological differences between bodybuilder training (like Body Beast) and our other stuff (P90X et al) but don’t have time to do it justice so you’re getting a quick news hit instead. Newhope 360, a trade publication on natural products, presented this slide show on what Olympic athletes eat.

It’s mainly eye candy, as slide shows tend to be, but highlights a few trends that athletes seems to share with the rest of us. Kids tend to eat like crap—-Ryan Lochte lived on McDonald’s in Beijing—-and those who have long careers tend to clean up their act. And while not addressed in the slide show, professional athletes seem to follow similar patterns. "You be surprised how bad a lot of the guys we work with eat when they get here," said Dr. Marcus Elliott, owner of P3, an elite athlete training facility and head of Beachbody's scientific advisory board. "The ones who stick it out tend improve their diet a lot. We help but, really, the level of training we demand helps to dictate it too."

Beach volleyball’s Misty May-Treanor’s power food is Greek yogurt and honey, and pal Kerri Walsh Jennings describes her food philosophy as "the greener the better." The two won their third consecutive Olympic gold medal yesterday during their final match together.

Overall it’s probably not too shocking. Athletes, especially young ones, burn a ginormous number of calories (Michael Phelps’ 12,000 cal/days makes the list) and can pretty much eat all they want when their training volume is high. You can’t eat enough to replenish spending six hours above your anaerobic threshold no matter how old you are. But it is nice to see their human side. Even Phelps has had to cut back at the ripe old of age of 24 to “a three-egg omelet and three pieces of French toast and coffee this morning.” Aging is such a bitch.

Anyway, bottom line here is that the common theme sounds exactly like what we’ve been preaching forever. As ABC news reported, the now gold medal wearing Lochte has a new recipe for success.

“He stopped eating fast food, and adopted foods like lean protein, whole grains and healthy fats. A typical recovery meal includes grilled chicken, whole grain spaghetti and a green salad with lemon juice and olive oil,” a meal like very familiar to anyone who owns a Beachbody program. Congrats kids, you all eat like Olympians!

Tomorrow Newhope 360 is covering Olympian supplement regimens. This promises to be more revealing. I’ll report on it should that hold true.

The Problem(s) With CrossFit

“The Problem With...” has been used as a title three times this month. It wasn’t meant to be a theme but I’ve been tossed too many softballs lately not to swing away. The latest, sent by Tony Horton, would be virtual grand slam without any other commentary. But since y’all look to me for a critical eye I’ll add a little play by play to Hamilton Nolan’s inspired rant.



My friend Phil (in vid doing a one-finger one arm pull-up) re-posted this with the comment “I know that someone created CrossFit as a joke to anger me. Take the time to watch the video of the idiot doing 100 ‘pullups,’” which sums of the feeling of many of my friends, that the entire format is a bastardization of the principles of training we’ve been studying all our lives (not that Hitler is a friend but he sums up what most of us are thinking when he says, “What happened to the days when people actually wanted to be strong? When exercise was a science and not just trying to make people puke.”)

But I’m not as bothered as der Fuhrer. I see an upside. In fact I like doing CrossFit workouts. Sure, the WOD of often inane, based more on whims than physical assessment (what possible physical benefits could come from a max deadlift, sprinting around the block and then racing to 50 snatches anyway)? But who am I, once engaging in a race to 10,000 pull-ups, push-ups and Ab Rollers, to critique stupid physical acts? So when I’m not systematically targeting my training I’ll join in for shits and giggles. I’ve got a fast Fran time, even without kipping. Woo-hoo.

Look, I’m all for pushing your limits until you puke. I do it all the time. It’s when these perpetrators start taking themselves seriously, yammering on about “forging elite fitness” when what they’re actually doing is more like a child making up a game to keep busy, that it’s time lay down that law, which is precisely why Nolan’s piece is so entertaining.

“As far as workout fads go, Crossfit is absolutely outstanding,” he begins, weighing both sides objectively. “Because it features actual hard workouts with real exercises that will in fact get you in great shape, as opposed to, you know, fake kickboxing moves, or a glorified dance party, or an expensive contraption that does poorly what could be achieved better and cheaper elsewhere, or something that requires you to look at John Basedow's face for an extended period of time.”

Compare that to the more scientific example provided by Scott Abel, author of Metabolic Enhancement Training,

“As the name implies Crossfit wants to blend various training modalities to produce an effective workout. Certainly nothing wrong with that, as a general idea. However, Crossfit wants to use various training methods without obeying any of the principles behind these methods.”

Yeah, yeah yeah. Any egghead can make fun of group exercise. Its Nolan’s rapier-sharp wit turns the game into a blood bath. Like Hitler, he goes down the list of why CrossFit will likely be nothing but another exercise fad: group exercise, lack of specificity, too expensive, the whole cult thing, and, of course, the above-mentioned pull-ups...

One of Crossfit's trademark workouts is "Fran," which involves doing sets of 21, 15, and 9 pullups. Now: a very, very small percentage of the population is able to do a single set of 21 proper pullups, without stopping. I guarantee you that the majority of NFL football players cannot do this. But since it's so god damn important to make the numbers in the workout, Crossfit people do 21 kipping pullups instead, and then they're all, "Yeah, I just did 21 pullups right there." Yeah, and I can dunk a basketball as long as I'm jumping off a trampoline. Those are not pullups…(they are) like some undulating fish flopping from an iron bar.

But the big problem to me, as he deftly points out, is that you are going to get injured. Not if. When. A physical therapist asked me a few years back, “What the hell is CrossFit? I’ve been flooded with people every since a place opened down the street?” In the name of competition CrossFit promotes probably the three most dangerous things you can do during your training: one-rep max lifts, competition, and compromising form in the name of speed, again captured beautifully by Nolan.

All these timed workouts and competitive spirit and shit where they write your scores on a board and there is constant peer pressure to push yourself harder? You will get injured. You won't get an Olympic medal or a Super Bowl trophy for this. Just an injury. Enjoy that.

He finished by taking a shot at their elitism, again something that raises the ire of my friends. We’ve been circuit training for decades and if any of us ever uttered the word elite we’d be heaped with endless shame.

Doing burpees or overhead squats or 400 meter runs followed by handstand pushups does not mean you're "doing Crossfit." You're just working out. You don't own that shit. You bastards.

62,000 Bad Things and 6 Good Things

Dr. Mercola can be an alarmist wanker but he spins a plenty of good advice as well. And when I say spin I mean it in a myriad of ways. Two of those involve him trying to sell you stuff and ranting like a spinning top. But I love a good rant so, for today’s entertainment, I present his version of 62,000 bad things and 6 good things.

First, as his article is titled, we’ll look at the bad. Did you know that drugs were 62,000 times more likely to kill you than supplements? Well, it’s true, apparently, though I didn’t dig too deep into how he did the math. I mean, when every single drug ad on TV has a running list of possible side effects, often including death, that barely squeeze into the allotted time slot I don’t think bickering about numbers is necessary. But just in case you didn’t get the memo, our favorite hippy doctor hammers you with plenty of statistics, and enough conspiracy theories to make Robert Ludlum proud.

In striking contrast, drugs are known to cause well over 125,000 deaths per year in the US when taken correctly as prescribed – yet the FDA allows fast-track approvals and countless new additions of poorly tested drugs to the marketplace that must later be withdrawn due to their lethal consequences.

Obviously that statement is a little off the cuff since, well, we still have law enforcement in this county. But it’s worth reading, even with a skeptical eye, because much of what he’s saying makes too much sense not to be at least somewhat true.

He then leaves us with a shiny, happy ending so he can sell us some of his stuff. But, hey, a guy’s got to make a living and his 6-lifestyle recommendations to avoid meds are worth reiterating. I’m not sold they’ll mean that you’ll “never need medication” but they’ll certainly stack the odds in your favor. I’ve presented them here abridged but click anywhere for the full rant. I mean report.

1. Proper Food Choices Generally speaking, you should be looking to focus your diet on whole, unprocessed foods (vegetables, meats, raw dairy, nuts, and so forth) that come from healthy, sustainable, local sources, such as a small organic farm not far from your home....

2. Comprehensive Exercise Program, including High-Intensity Exercise High-intensity interval-type training boosts human growth hormone (HGH) production, which is essential for optimal health, strength and vigor...

3. Stress Reduction and Positive Thinking You cannot be optimally healthy if you avoid addressing the emotional component of your health and longevity, as your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease -- from heart disease and depression, to arthritis and cancer...

4. Proper Sun Exposure to Optimize Vitamin D We have long known that it is best to get your vitamin D from sun exposure, and if at all possible, I strongly urge you to make sure you're getting out in the sun on a daily basis...

5. Take High Quality Animal-Based Omega-3 Fats Animal-based omega-3 found helps fight and prevent heart disease, cancer, depression, Alzheimer's, arthritis, diabetes, hyperactivity and many other diseases...

6. Avoid as Many Chemicals, Toxins, and Pollutants as Possible This includes tossing out your toxic household cleaners, soaps, personal hygiene products, air fresheners, bug sprays, lawn pesticides, and insecticides, just to name a few, and replacing them with non-toxic alternatives...

Do You Need Milk? How About The USDA?

A pretty good article on milk came from the NY Times last week, that probably ended up hurting the credibility of the USDA as much as it did milk’s. Our government’s food police, as I’ve pointed out before, are the veritable Keystone Cops when it comes to overseeing the nation’s health. But you probably knew that, so let’s get into the scam over milk’s place in your diet.

Mark Bittman’s blog post titled Got Milk? You Don’t Need It, begins by informing us,

“Americans were encouraged not only by the lobbying group called the American Dairy Association but by parents, doctors and teachers to drink four 8-ounce glasses of milk, ‘nature’s perfect food,’ every day. That’s two pounds! We don’t consume two pounds a day of anything else; even our per capita soda consumption is 'only' a pound a day."

He then proceeds down the sordid history of milk recommendations while citing some interesting nutritional facts such as “Sugar — in the form of lactose — contributes about 55 percent of skim milk’s calories, giving it ounce for ounce the same calorie load as soda.”

The post then moves into storytelling, with his own history of growing up with an upset stomach that never really went away until he gave up milk. This anecdote is common. I’ve long ago given up keeping track of those I’ve worked with who’ve seen their health improve sans milk.

Then he comes back to our government, quoting the book Milk that explains how difficult it’s become to make money selling it, “The exceptions are the very largest dairy farms, factory operations with anything from 10,000 to 30,000 cows, which can exploit the system, and the few small farmers who can opt out of it and sell directly to an assured market, and who can afford the luxury of treating the animals decently.”

In fact, if you follow health news you’ve heard that it’s even worse, the FDA has actually targeted small dairy farms and collectives very aggressively over the last few years, spending millions of dollars trying to shut down the dairy farms that actually care about your health.

He closes, most appropriately, with the lobbying scam about milk, schools and osteoporosis, adding, “In fact, the rate of fractures is highest in milk-drinking countries, and it turns out that the keys to bone strength are lifelong exercise and vitamin D, which you can get from sunshine...”

“...The federal government not only supports the milk industry by spending more money on dairy than any other item in the school lunch program, but by contributing free propaganda as well as subsidies amounting to well over $4 billion in the last 10 years.”

It’s all pretty thorough and damning to an industry that’s continues to take well-deserved hits lately. He doesn’t get into the nefarious world of pasteurization, which has both ruined the would-be nutritional value of milk (it’s not really nature’s food anymore, much less “perfect”) as well as making it easy for Big Dairy to dominate the industry by using abhorrent animal raising and health practices, but it makes sense to keep the story targeted and there’s plenty of ammo.


As for the USDA, well, before you put any stock in any of their guidelines consider this line.

“To its credit, it now counts soy milk as ‘dairy.’”

Which, to me, confirms the USDA has no credit. How does soy count as dairy? The only similarity they share is a strong lobby. A soy bean is a legume. A cow is, well, a cow. Lumping the two together makes about as much sense as calling a French fry a vegetable. And who in their right mind would ever do that? Oh, wait...

Batter-coated french fries now a fresh vegetable on USDA list

I’ll shut up now.

The Problem With Reading

“I believe virtually everything I read and I think that is what make me more of a selective human.”

David St. Hubbins



I’m interrupting cycling month for a little rant. As one who’s spent most of their professional life as an educator I’m a huge proponent of reading. But when an “article” like the one published by MSN the other day gets thousands of shares and hundred of comments not stating “this is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in print” it makes me want to become a government sensor so I can ban crap like this. Because the fact that people—even if it’s only a fraction of the population—are swayed by such drivel is disgusting. May I present MSN's finest:

Don't envy skinny pals: You may live longer if you're fat

This might be a provocative title if it had any truth but the second sentence casually renders it useless, stating that according to a study being overweight doesn’t lead to early mortality “if you discount the folks with diabetes and hypertension” (in other words “people who are overweight”). That’s like saying a study showed fast food was perfectly healthy is you discount the people in the study who ate fast food.

I’m not exaggerating. Diabetes (type 2) is the fastest growing illness in the world and has been for over a decade. Its number one cause (basically its only cause) is obesity. The CDC states nearly 10% of the Americans have it but also claim the actual numbers are unknown and likely much higher because many poor and overweight people are undiagnosed. As for hypertension, the FDA estimates that number at 65 million with the same disclaimer. These numbers completely cover, with estimated room to spare, the national obesity rate, currently hovering between 30-40%.

MSN then states that the highest risk group for early mortality is the underweight, which when you throw out overweight only means underweight is worse than being the ideal weight. Whomever at MSN wrote and approved this headline should not only be fired, but banned from journalism for life. All of which reminds me of another classic film quote,

“Apes don’t read philosophy.”

“Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it.”



All of this coming full circle to the real lesson of today, which is just how much less funny the world would be without Christopher Guest’s friends and family.

The Problem With “Calories In, Calories Out”

One of my themes this year at Summit was “TMI” or too much information when it came to how to best educate coaches. Clichés can be helpful but, when the root is not understood, can also lead to stagnations or regressions in your fitness. One of the worst offenders is the saying “calories in, calories out”.

This is not an untrue statement. The problem is that no watch made records the information you need to know. People are constantly rattling off numbers to me that they’ve used to assess their training that are not only wrong, but crippling their ability to evaluate the program.

In the name of the free market, you can now purchase all sorts of training apparatus that provide TMI when it comes to evaluating your training program. There are many important physiological responses at work that aren’t recorded by your Polar. To ignore them in the name of numbers will lead to an exercise plateau or worse. A deeper explanation will help you understand why we create fitness programs the way that we do.

In order to keep this short and simple I’m going to gloss over some science in the name of clarity. “Calories in, calories out” is correct in that it’s how you calculate weight loss or gain. The issue is that your monitor can’t see most of the factors involved. It cannot assess hormonal and nervous system responses to training or nutritional factors that affect recovery and all three things are arguably the most important aspect of your training.

Nutritional factors are the easiest to understand. Proper foods and nutrient timing, as you’ve heard in any spiel about Recovery Formula or Shakeology, enhance the body’s recovery process. The faster you recover the harder you can train. As those of you who are P90X Certified know results are based on adaptation to stimulus, and the only place you might be able to gauge this on a watch is with morning resting heart rate.

just some of the stuff your watch doesn't understand

Even more important are hormonal factors. If you’ve read the guidebook for Turbo Fire you’ll see something that we call the AfterBurn Effect, which is your body’s metabolic adaptations to high intensity training. As our training programs get more advanced one of the main factors we’re targeting is hormonal response. In a nutshell, as we age our body shuts down its hormone production (eventually leading to death). Intense exercise is one of the few things that force you to keep producing these. Intensity is relative, of course, which is why we progress from say, squats to squat jumps to X jumps as you move up the Beachbody food chain of programs. But what’s called a “hormonal cascade” in response to training is even more important than what your heart is doing during exercise, and it’s something else you can’t see on your monitor.

adaptive stress that leads to overtraining that only can be guessed at by close evaluation of morning resting heart rate

Hormonal cascades are triggered by your central nervous system, which is the hardest training factor to gauge (why most overtraining comes from breakdown at this level). When you dissect a program like P90X2 or Asylum, one of the main things we focus on is nervous system function. All of those “weird” things like Holmsen Screamer Lunges or Shoulder Tap Push-ups work on something we call proprioceptive awareness. And while it might seem hard to understand, since it doesn’t lead directly to more sweat, the neuromuscular action of these movements force deep adaptations by your body. These changes can take a long time to register but force a massive adaptive response that lead to long-term increased changes in movement patterns that trigger hormonal responses and, thus, metabolic change. Needless to say that stuff ain’t getting registered by a chest strap or pedometer.

Sure, the cumulative effect of all these can be calculated and the number at the end would equate to calories in, calories out. But since there’s no way to measure these numbers without doing a ton of fancy testing in a lab setting you can see why doing one of our diet and exercise programs and trusting us is a better option than scarfing an “Extra Value Meal” and then walking around the neighborhood until your heart rate monitor says you’ve burned 1,500 calories.

No Meat? No Problem.

In the wake of last week’s post on vegan boxing champion Timothy Bradley comes an article from the NY Times asking the question Can Athletes Perform Well On A Vegan Diet? While the champ offers an anecdotal yes there are further considerations, which is where Gretchen Reynolds’ piece begins by questioning three nutrition experts about what might be missing should one go meatless. This, of course, begins with protein.

You do have to be diligent about protein intake if you’re vegan. I have clients, especially women, who say, ‘Oh, I put a few chickpeas in my salad.’ But that’s not going to do it. Women need about 60 to 90 grams of protein a day, and athletes are on the high end of that. That means you have to eat cupfuls of chickpeas. And you can’t eat a quarter of that cake of tofu. You need to eat the whole thing. It’s not that there aren’t good sources of vegan protein. But it’s not as bioavailable as meat. So you need to have more.

Most of you are already aware of the protein issue but other things, such as B12 weight loss, and creatine are also evaluated. It’s a quick read, and not all that earth shattering, but weighs the issue with a healthy dose of common sense.

I like to tell people that if we got most Americans to eat one less serving of meat every day, there would be far greater impact from that, in terms of improving overall public health and the health of the planet, than convincing a tiny group of endurance athletes to go full vegan.

And while the article focused on endurance parameters only, leaving Bradley alone as the torch bearer for power athletes, all experts agree that it’s possible to get all of your nutritional needs without meat and dairy, something that heavily-lobbied USDA isn’t ready to admit yet.

The Vegan Champion

Congratulations to Timothy Bradley for his victory over boxing legend Manny Pacquiao this weekend, making him the undisputed vegan world champion. While there are a number of celebrated endurance vegan athletes, notable vegan power athletes (like Mike Tyson and Carl Lewis) have up-until-now been retired. Power sports have long been a carnivore’s domain but there’s a new sheriff in town and, with him, a modern template for addressing performance nutrition.

“Dude, I swear it’s the most unbelievable feeling ever,” Bradley said, praising the diet he believes would give him a definite advantage in the ring.

“The reason I love it so much is I feel connected to the world. My thoughts are clearer, crisp. I am sharp. Everything is working perfectly. I feel clean. It’s a weird feeling, man, it’s just a weird feeling.”

Bradley was already a champion but moving up in weight and beating Pacquiao will make him a household name. He isn’t a full-time vegan but that shouldn’t discourage his testament to nutrition because he gets strict when he’s training for a fight, which is where most vegan detractors stake the foundations of their rationale; at the pinnacle of performance. In fact training is exactly where our diet should be tested because what works for the highest-levels of performance is the template we want to use as a base. In the below video he talks about where he gets protein, stating “I don’t really take that much protein,” busting a popular notion of what it takes to be ripped. In the great HBO 24/7 (top video) series he talks about having stores of excess energy, so much that he doesn’t need much sleep even though he’s training 5 or 6 hours per day.

bradley talking about getting protein as a vegan

The main knock on veganism and power sports has always been that you need animal proteins for absolute strength. And while it might be true that the amino acid profiles of meat make this easier to get the proper amino acid ratios the science isn't valid because you can do it without meat and dairy. All that’s been lacking for the public has been a real life role model.

If you’ve followed Beahbody’s diet plans you know we tend to begin with high protein (or low carbs) and graduate towards much less protein/more carbs as you get fitter. This is more as a personal training tool than anything else (though not totally as restricting carbs on an exercise program teaches your body to metabolize fat as fuel more efficiently) because most people eat too many bad carbs and once you learn the relationship with carbs and energy in your diet how to eat becomes much easier. The fact is that your body does not utilize protein very efficiently and beyond a certain amount you’re not utilizing it as protein anyway. It’s vital, and you absolutely need it all day long, but healthy vegans eat mainly whole foods and the beauty of nature is that in their natural state most foods have a solid balance of proteins, fats, and carbs. The more your diet is based on whole foods the less you need to worry about macronutrients because nature will do that for you. A whole food vegan would likely have little need for our basic plans, which is why you currently only find a vegan option to the high-end nutrition plans like P90X2.

The science-based detractors of veganism are losing steam all the time. In an article on Bradley’s diet the Philippine Daily Inquirer interviewed some professionals trying to poke holes in his plan. Nutrition coach Jeaneth Aro stated:

“A well-planned vegan diet can provide all the protein requirements of an athlete in much the same way as a regular diet. However, the major consideration for the vegan athlete is the availability of energy during high intensity exercise. Plant-based protein sources are also high in fiber. Fiber delays the digestion of food, hence the absorption of nutrients."

And while it sounds intriguing there’s not much logic to it unless Bradley is munching on carrots in between rounds, the only time when delaying the timing of nutrient delivery would be a hindrance. With modern food prepping, such as juicing (or vegan Shakeology), arguments like this hold virtually no meaning. Certainly there are nutritional considerations you must address when you’re vegan, especially if you eat a lot of packaged and convenience foods that are stripped of whole food nutrition. But that’s not as much a condemnation of veganism as it is about the Standard American Diet (SAD).

Granted, Bradley didn’t exactly mop the floor with Pacquiao. The result is one of the most disputed in boxing history and most observers seem to think Pacquiao won. But all that means is that they'll fight again, which is more focus, scientific scrutiny, and popularity for vegan eating. So all I have to say about the rematch is bring it on.

if you don’t watch to watch the entire series, the vegan clip is at 6:35 here in part 3

The Truth About Barefoot Running

A pretty good article appeared in USA Today about barefoot running. It’s a follow up to a recent American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) periodical that focused on this craze and analyzed all of the research that’s been done on the subject. And while the evidence isn’t clear the truth is actually quite simple to sort out looking at the data and consulting a bit of lore and logic.

It’s funny the way crazes work in America. For something to be truly popular it seems rationale must be chucked aside so views can become polarized and everyone can stand on different sides of a fence slinging shit each other. Barefoot running is one of the strangest examples of this because almost nothing about this movement makes much sense except for the fact that the book Born to Run was a great read and businesses are always looking for an angle to make money. Shoes that promise to mimic being barefoot now take up nearly half the space in the running shoe section and, fer crissakes, how many pairs of shoes do you need to mimic being barefoot?



The article is worth reading because it examines both sides of the issue without taking sides. Running barefoot supposedly has become popular because it reduces injury rates but according to the statistics, at least so far, this hasn’t been the case. Runners get hurt quite regularly and percentages haven’t changed much for as long as we’ve been keeping data. In some demographics it’s gotten worse:

Podiatrist Paul Langer used to see one or two barefoot running injuries a month at his Twin Cities Orthopedics practice in Minneapolis. Now he treats between three and four a week. "Most just jumped in a little too enthusiastically," said Langer, an experienced runner and triathlete who trains in his barefoot running shoes part of the week.

The article points out that 30-70% of runners have a stress-related injury each year, no matter how they run. The ACSM goes further stating that this number has remained constant for the last 40 years. Granted, this is a laughably-huge range but the fact is clear in that no matter what you do if you run regularly you will probably get injured at some point. I’ve been to Mexico and seen Tarahumara run and I’ve seen them injured, too. Yes, I would bet the farm that they get injured less but is that because they run in tire sandals or something more rational? I don’t think we need a study to find out the answer.

While not quoted in the article, most of the numbers used come back to Daniel Lieberman’s work published by the ACSM. Lieberman has done exhaustive research on the subject, much of it cataloged on this website. In the article, What We Can Learn About Running from Barefoot Running: An Evolutionary Medical Perspective he writes, “We have much to learn. However, if there is any one lesson we can draw already from the barefoot running movement it is that we should be less afraid of how the human body functions naturally.”

And while it’s inconclusive from a scientific standpoint, as most things are, a few observations are clear.

1. Shoes and inactivity have made us weak. As we’ve become more sedentary our feet (along with everything that’s attached to them) has become weaker. To combat this we’ve made shoes with support in an attempt to avoid injuries and this has exacerbated the issue.

2. Everyone should train their feet, especially runners. The solution to the above is that we need to train our feet. I mean, we need to train everything but we need to train our feet specifically, especially if we want to become runners. Feet should/need to be trained un-shod. Injuries like plantar fasciitis didn’t really exist until recently and are easily combated with simple exercises, like this. The Tarahumara don’t get injured less due to magic footwear but because they spend their lives running, some of it barefoot, and their feet are stronger. Running barefoot also forces us to move naturally and focus on proprioceptive awareness, both huge advantages for runners.

3. We are faster with shoes. There is no dispute that footwear can allow us to mash through the elements with a greater margin for error, meaning we can run faster. When the Tarahumara are given shoes they get faster. Born To Run claims that opposite but no science backs it up. Here is one example but you don’t really need statistics, just a functioning thought process. A barefoot runner is at the same disadvantage on uneven terrain as is a rigid mountain biker in a downhill competition against a rider with 7 inches of travel.

The facts are that you are faster using shoes unless you get injured running with shoes. This is not so much a testament for running barefoot as it is for strategically training barefoot. To take this to mean that you should run barefoot all the time is a major point of conjecture. Not that there’s anything wrong with running barefoot all the time. Certainly there is not if you don’t mind embracing the obvious limitations. Barefoot runners inevitable claim of improved times comes from getting less injured, a point worth considering. But to state that it makes you faster is a fallacy.

A combination of barefoot and shod training will help you adapt best to all conditions and racing with shoes will allow you to run faster. What type of footwear you should use is a different topic altogether. Barefoot running and training should become standard protocol but the barefoot running shoe craze is a trend.

In conclusion, here's what Born to Run's protagonist, the late Caballo Blanco, had to say on the topic. “The point: None of that crap really matters, what or not one wears on their feet. Run Happy...Run Free" Still, you'll want to get those neon pink Five Fingers while you can because they won't be around forever.