A Couple of Interesting Finds

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”

- Benjamin Franklin

I know many people are intrigued (as am I) by the protocol, and the science behind the protocol, underpinning Doug McGuff’s Body By Science methodology.  During my travels over the past couple of weeks, and, in rather serendipitous fashion, I came across both a podcast and a book which offer complementary information to Doug’s work, so I thought I’d pass them along to you.

First up is a Super Human Radio Show podcast.  In this episode (#325), host Carl  Lanore interviews Joshua Trentine of Overload Fitness.  The subject is Super Slow/one-set-to-failure training.  If you’re curious as to how this methodology plays-out in someone with a favorable genetic hand, check out both the interview and Joshua’s website.  Of course, you can always consider Mike Mentzer as the genetically gifted, one-set-to-failure gold standard.  I would suspect that Dorian Yates leans toward this methodology as well.  One thing to keep in mind here is that we’re talking about enhanced hypertrophy, and not necessarilly improving sproting prowess.  But here is where it all gets very interesting to me.

If you look at the Long duration Isolation methodology proposed by Jay Schroeder (here’s a nice encapsulation of the method, thanks to Kelly Baggett of Higer-Faster-Sports.com).    You’ll see that there’s not a whole lot of real world difference between it and the super-slow (or HIT) methodology.  I feel like there’s definitely something to these methods, but, just like any other method out there, neither is a “one size fits all” or holy grail of training.  For a specific time and for a specific purpose, though, one (or a combination) of these methods might just be the best fit.

I will give Schroeder this — if in fact he was responsible for Adam Archuleta’s training leading up to the 2001 draft, he did a marvelous job.  Archuleta was, in my opinion, someone of (only) decent natural ability who trained/pushed/willed himself into a professional career.  How much credit Jay Schroeder can take for this is anybody’s guess.  It does, though, make for interesting speculation and conversation.   I can say that having personally experimented with a Long Duration Isolation protocol, that performance of the methodology is, in fact, brutal.  Was I a better athlete for having performed the methodology?  Hard to tell.  To be honest, though, I didn’t perform this methodology in a vacuum, nor did I keep to it for long (it’s boring as all hell for one thing).  I can report that I didn’t loose anything, though, with my strength, power and speed having not slipped any that I could tell.

Schroeder contends that a muscle in isolation is not static, but is actually in a rapid fire/release pattern, and that it’s precisely the fast-twitch fibers that are targeted during the set.  Now it’s difficult to tell (because Schroeder never lets on, and, to be frank, he’s a bit evasive) whether he means from the get-go, or after the slow-twitch fibers have dropped out.  In either case, I do think that there is at least some overlap between these two methodologies that I’d love to see explored.

My next find is a book by the publishers of Scientific American titled, Building the Elite Athlete.   The book is actually a collection of past articles, but still, it’s an intriguing read.  I found the couple of articles on gene doping especially interesting.  And by the way, you can pick up used copies of this book cheap — I don’t think I paid more than 5 bucks for mine, postage included.  It’s a 5 bucks well spent.

In health,

Keith

Of Changing Seasons and Natural Ebb and Flow

“There is no great genius without a tincture of madness.”

- Seneca

Texas “Stonehenge”, near Hunt

I’ve been under the hyper-crunch of an impending project deadline, and working so damn much lately, that this year’s summer solstice nearly passed me by, completely unnoticed.  That’s not like me, as I’m apt to wax Pagan come solstice and equinox time.  One thing I have noticed though — and this happens every year — that more and more of my workouts are occurring outdoors.  Sprints (both of the running and biking variety), bodyweight exercises, and outdoor kettlebell routines (for example) are showing up at a greater frequency in my workout journal.  And it just makes sense, huh?  Warmer and longer-lasting days bring that out in all of us.  This is, of course, a good and very Paleo occurrence.  Relatively few and far between now are the very heavy, strength-oriented loadings that tend to dominate my dead-of-winter (and mostly indoor) weight routines.  The speed-strength end of the weight spectrum dominates what indoor sessions I do perform time of year — sessions that might occur as few as once/week.  As an example of this, consider the last indoor session I managed to squeeze in prior to one of my (all to frequently now) long and drawn-out work days:

1. Low Pulls x 4
2. Bradford Press x 6
3. Bodyweight, ballistic Pull-ups x 6

I performed 5 rounds of this complex, with an emphasis on single-event power production.  I emphasize single event here because I’ve found that some folks confuse overall workout completion speed with single rep. speed with an eye toward power production.  Two different animals here, with the latter leaning more toward that of an Oly lift format, and the former being indicative of a Crossfit-style workout.  Another way to think of this is that if I were performing this workout in a Crossfit-style manner, I’d do so with an eye toward maximizing a longer-duration power output — attempting to finish the workout in, say, 10 minutes or so.  Of course, this would necessitate dropping the poundages used and radically reducing the between rep. and between exercise rest periods.  Same workout components with a totally different set of performance guidelines and expected results.  And neither of these modalities is any “better” than the other; about the only thing that can be said is one might be better when considered in light of what your goals happen to be.

Anyway, if you’re north of the equator, get out and enjoy the summer weather while you can.  And get in some extra outdoor time for me while you’re at it, as I may end up resembling a pink-eyed lab rat by September with the way my work is going.  Such is life.  Oh well, this too shall pass, right?  Just more opportunity to adapt and overcome.  By the way, there’s just something about sprinting in the dead of night that accentuates the activity’s “primalness”.

In Health,

Keith

Of Tiger, Mere Mortals, and Travel

“Cynicism is the intellectual cripple’s substitute for intelligence. It is the dishonest businessman’s sub writer, for self-respect.”

- Russell Lynes

I wonder by what age he'd clocked his 10,000th hour of practice --

Malcolm Gladwell, in his very interesting book, Outliers (if you haven’t yet read it, I highly recommend you do), posits the notion that the combination of inherent talent, timing (luck of circumstance), and persistent skills training are the three crucial components to “superstardom” in any endeavor, beit intellectual, physical, or a combination thereof.  Copious in its absence — for athletic prowess, at least (power/Oly lifting not withstanding) — was strength and conditioning training.  And for good reason.

I’ve discussed the mental mindfield of causation/correlation a few times prior (here and here, for instance), but it was brought to the forefront again recently for me in the form of a Facebook message I recieved from a good friend of mine.   My buddy has been wading into the Paleo waters over the last 4 months or so, shedding some significant weight and 4 inches (an inch per month!) off his waistline in the process; and this while being a slapshot — at best — paleo practitioner.  In any event, my friend has shed enough weight to not only get back into pusuing his passion — golf — but to try his hand at some form of strength and conditioning as well.  The strength and conditioning, he says, will go along way toward improving his golf game.  And to some extent, he’s correct; but not to the degree, or even the form, for that matter, that’s held in his mind’s eye.

Weight training for a golfer, even more so than for a baseball player, is tricky business.  Performed correctly, and within the correct dose/response window, and if performed as an adjunct to maintaining skills, I believe, of course, that it can be a boon to one’s game.

Lest you think I’ve slipped off the deep end here, let me assure you that I still believe in the athletic enhancement benefits of a properly designed and executed strength and conditioning program.  I believe in the heath benefits, and the whole host of other positives derived from “physical culture”, writ large.  All that I am saying is — well, let me show you what I wrote to my buddy, in response to the purported, “Tiger’s workout plan” that he sent me:

“One thing I would say about what you sent is to make sure that you don’t fall into the “false correlation” trap. That is to say, correlation does not imply causation. Tiger is not Tiger because of his workout, but because of inherent talent, natural athleticism and focused practice. He may be a slightly better golfer b/c of his workout regimen; there is always the chance however (though I doubt it in this case), that he’s actually being hindered b/c of his workout regimen. That said, if I were you, and an improved golf game were my goal, I’d focus first and foremost on gaining strength in the basic moves (deadlift, overhead press, squat), then moving on to improving explosive power. I’d also work up to doing short sprint intervals. Note that whatever workout you choose to follow, you MUST continue to practice your golf game, as the fine motor skills must keep pace w/ your added strength and power.”

And don’t get me wrong — to emulate the actions, techniques and attitudes of the best and the brightest of any given endeavor is a wothwhile and, I believe, even a healthy and highly intelligent thing to do.  To gain the most from this practice, though, we must take into consideration both our inherant weaknesses and the “emulatee’s” inherant gifts, and adjust, in both our mirroring of these actions and our expectations, accordingly.

Gone to Texas

I’ll be out of pocket for a few day while Meesus TTP and I travel down to Hunt, Texas for a family reunion.  Though, due to Brittani’s absence, it will be bittersweet get-together, we are looking forward to seeing friends and family, lazing about in the Gaudalupe, and raisin’ a little hell out at Crider’s (the site of much of my misspent youth).  If you happen to be out that way — maybe checking out the Stonehenge replica, or the dinosaur tracks, or the indian pictographs, stop by and say hey — or beter yet, meet us out at Crider’s for a great Friday and Saturday night.

Following that trip, we’ll head out to Georgia to tie up some remaining loose ends from B’s passing.  I don’t know how much posting I’ll get in between now and until after the 4th — posting or not, though, my mind is always reeling with thought, and I’m sure I’ll return chock-full of  posting ideas.  One thing I know I want to address is the old axom of , “lift on your heels, play on your toes”.  I’ve got some ideas about that, and I’ll address them when I get back.

By the way, Congratulations to the University of Texas baseball team for such a fine run this year.  Close, so very close guys.  And, though it pains me to say it a special congratulations to the boys out at LSU.  Fine job, guys.

In health,

Keith

Time Under Load

“Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Question; would you train this athlete…

That's my boy, shorin' up the hot corner

…the same as this knucklehead?

Well, the fact is, that in many ways science tells us that they should train the same.  The rub comes from the fact that empirically speaking (and this is where the art of training comes into play), there are some subtle, yet very important ways in which they should never be on the same page.  Let’s consider just one aspect of training for a moment: time under load (or, if you prefer, time under tension).  We’re taking about muscular gains, here; gettin’ swole — hypertrophy.

From the Wow, that sounds a lot like Dr. McGuff files…

So I came across an interesting T-Nation article recently; interesting, not so much for the training protocol information it provided, but in that who the author was endorsing this particular protocol — namely, Dave Tate.  The subject of this particular article is hypertrophy, and how best to train for that end; the interesting thing is, once you break down the science behind what Dave Tate is endorsing here, it becomes clear that both he and Doug McGuff (and anyone seeking pure hypertrophy, for that matter) are preaching from the same pulpit.  The delivery methods are different, and the delivery men might as well be from different planets, but when broken-down to the bare essentials, the message is strikingly similar.  The total time under tension between the two protocols each endorses are, well, nearly identical.  Why?; because it’s been shown both scientifically, and (most importantly), empirically to work.

Now remember, we’re speaking strictly of hypertrophy gains here.  If you’re a seasoned athlete who’s primarily concerned with strength, power and speed gains, such a protocol is likely (at least during the protocol itself, and for the near future thereafter) to negatively affect those aspects.  This is why when I go on a hypertrophy bender (25 for a bigger engine), I prefer to shade a little more toward the strength end of the spectrum.  Sometimes, though, an athlete has to take a step back in order to take two forward.  Just a little something to keep in mind.  For those new to the iron game, though, it’s a different story.  But hell, newbies can perform repeated sets of — hell, I dunno — carrying  dumbbells from one end of the gym to the other, and make gains in both strength and size.  As always, keep in mind the cardinal dictate: Know thyself, know thy weakness(es) and know thy goals.

Back, though, to time under tension.  In the article, Dave Tate points out (correctly, in my experience), that the best hypertrophy gains are made — regardless of the specifics of the protocol, so long as the muscle(s) in question is/are placed under a constant tension with a load sufficient to induce temporary failure within a time period of 30 – 45 seconds, with a total time under tension not to exceed 90 to 135 seconds.  Again, we’re speaking about an emphasis on hypertrophy here.  Why these time brackets?  Because we want to hit that sweet-spot balance between exhausting all fibers (time and load dependent), and not allowing the slow twitch fibers enough time to sufficiently recover.  Now, there’s lots of room to maneuver within these two requisite time brackets — sets, reps, tempo, method — but just remember with the goal being hypertrophy, we want to aim for exhaustion of all muscle fiber types affected by the applicable exercise.

Something I’d like to quickly point out before we move on: a physiological response to induced stress (in our case, the body’s response to an exercise bout), cannot be isolated, nor can it be segmented.  That is to say, it is impossible to classify one modality as purely hypertrophy-inducing, strength-inducing, or otherwise.  And to convolute matters a bit more, we’ve got the variances in each individual’s genetic “hand” to deal with.  Personally, I rarely lift with a hypertrophy response as my aim, and yet I’m fairly well hypertrophied.  And conversely, I’ve run across athletes who rarely perform other than hypertrophy-leaning protocols, and who yet maintain an explosive, power-producing ability.  The latter case is much more rare in my experience, and yet I have run across it.  My point is that it is very important to think of exercise in the same way as, say,  insulin response to food ingestion, or the body’s energy system contribution in the face of various energy requirements.  We’re speaking in terms of shades here, not clearly defined cubby-holes.  There are no absolutes, only leanings.

Anyway, what’s interesting, when considering “Tate” protocol as compared to Dr. McGuff’s, is that we see the same, overall, time under tension prescription.  Tate breaks his up between three sets of 30 -45 seconds in length, per exercise, and he’ll perform 6 exercises in a workout.  That’s between 90 and 135 seconds of TUT per exercise, and, at 6 exercises per workout, we’re at a grand total of between 9 and 13.5 minutes of overall TUT in a single outing.  Looks rather familiar, huh?   What is different, though, is the prescribed dose.  Tate will perform his routine 4 times per week, whereas McGuff (in most instances) prescibes once/week.  Both methods, though, can be easily fine tuned by tracking the progress of one’s does-response.  Tate’s protocol splits the workouts so as to work roughly half the body in each workout, whereas McGuff takes an all-in-one view.  Stress is stress, though, as far as the body is concerned; that stress may be concentrated in one zone, but the overall response will still be additive on a whole body scale.  Keep that in mind.  What would be very interesting would be to put Tate on a McGuff protocol for a while and chart his dose-response curve.  I’d bet the farm that Tate would be a recovery “freak” and be able not only to tolerate, but make his best gains under 2 McGuff sessions per week.

By the way, I guess it’s TMuscle now, instead of T-Nation.  My bad; old habits die hard.  Different name, same chock- full-of-great-information site, though, that I love to hate.

Have a great weekend!

In health,

Keith

Where to Begin with Healthcare Reform (Hint: Look in the Mirror)

“Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.”

John Wayne

Brent Pottenger (aka, Epistemocrat) served-up a great post last week about the illusion of the best-fix for the nation’s healthcare woes (writ large) being a purely individual, free-market enterprise.  Now I am as free-market as any social-liberal, financial -conservative Libertarian out there; and initially, my position here may seem at odds both with what I am politically, and with what I am implying by this post’s title; it’s not, though.  Let me explain.  Better yet, let me expound just a bit on what Brent has already so thoroughly opined.

Now, if it’s one thing I utterly despise about politics in general (and this coming from a PoliSci major well versed in the art of debate), and of this particular issue specifically, it’s that neither the right nor the left political centers of gravity will “cave” and tell you the truth. And the truth is that the only real and lasting fix for this issue is a mix of both personal and social responsibility.  Yes, you are most certainly accountable for your own health and your own heath choices.  And yes, too — if we are to be a vibrant and progressive society, we are responsible (at least to some extent) to each other for those catastrophic illnesses/accidents that are (depending on your take) acts of God, or luck of the draw.

Of course, some ideas are best left to the ether-world realm of theory and debate, as the real world tends to make so much confetti of of such clean, neatly-packaged thought.  And the same applies here.  What to make, for example, of diabetes?  Is it a preventable disease?  In my opinion, yes.  So should we, as a society, absorb the resultant costs of someone’s poor dietary choices?  What about the 80 year old who now requires a knee replacement due to the cumulative trauma of a youth spent training for and playing rugby?  What if the diabetic was not the stereotypical obese, averse-to-exercise, slovenly individual, but a former endurance athlete?  What then?

I guess the truth of the matter is that, just as in many of the most important issues in life, there is no “right” answer, and we’re likely, as a nation, to tilt too far one way or the other.  Personally, I try not to worry about those things I can’t affect.  What I can affect, though, is the state of my own health.  I’m of the notion that it’s not only a personal and societal responsibility, but a spiritual responsibility to take care of my health to the best of my ability and knowledge.  And part of this responsibility is to never become stagnent — either physically or mentally.  Times change and science progresses, and it’s imperative that each of us continually measure the “new” against a counter-balance of healthy skepticism in order to discern the good and useful from the dead-ends.

TTP is an extention of my “healthy skepticism”, and I hope we can all learn a little about taking care of our health through the continuing give-and-take on these pages.

In health,

Keith

Today’s Workout, and Some New Video Clips

“Haste makes waste; speed takes pace.”

Quote found on the ECU throwers’ WOD board

Well, I finally got around to getting these 7 or so new clips posted.  Check ‘em out, here.  This is from the same session that the first 7 came from.  Just a little feel for the kinds of things I do outside of the gym.

And in fact I headed out to the playground today for some pull-up bar muscle-ups, ring flyes, reverse ring flyes, ballistic push-ups and (the only thing that I can quantify for the day) 6×100 yard barefooted sprints.  I finished-up with some fixie interval sprints around the ECU campus and G-Vegas in general.  Made a stealth pass by my son’s new place, a little rental house a few blocks of the main ECU campus.  Yup, little boy is growin’ up and out on his “own” now.  He’s not out of reach from his old man bombin’ by on the old fix, though.  Poor, mentally scarred for life kid

Enjoy the new week.  Make it yours.

In health,

Keith

The “Go-To” Workouts

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

It’s been nothing short of a continual tempest around the TTP household for the last 6 weeks or so; an emotional roller-coaster consisting of sharply peaked highs and and the lowest of lows.  Couple this storm with a hellish increase in work load (great timing, huh?), and a fruitless attempt at trying to sell a house into a crippled market, spousal unemployment, an anemic economy and, well…you get the point.  This all would, in most cases (in a great many of the people that I’ve had dealings with) portend of a blown diet and a tossed-to-the-wayside workout regimen.  Not so with me, though, and for the plain and simple fact that my diet and workouts, along with my intellectual pursuits, spirituality, and the support of friends and family (and I include the TTP community here), keep me centered — even in the midst of some of the worst times I’ve ever experienced.

Maintaining a Paleo diet during trying times is actually a fairly easy thing to do, as long as you have an established “Paleo history” under your belt.  It’s simply an auto-pilot thing; a simple continuation of “doing that thing you do”.  Strange circumstances and environments will certainly feather into the mix, though, and one will have to maintain a Bruce Lee-like defensive posture and attitude during these circumstances, but all-in-all, these situations are not all that difficult to navigate.  I can tell all of you, though, that I have fasted more in the last 6 weeks or so than I ever have in my Paleo career, and, as a result, I’m the leanest that I’ve ever been in my entire adult life (including during my short bodybuilding career).

One of the highs -- Graduation night; 3 generations of Norris men and one beautiful daughter

But back to the theme of this post, though: the “go-to” workout.

If you’ve been keeping up with my workouts as of late (checkout the Twitter side bar), you’ve probably noticed a pronounced lack of creativity and a noticeable recycling of the same modalities and themes.  Guilty as charged.  I maintain a set of four or five core, whole-body workouts that I’ll revert to in periods like this; periods where I have neither the time nor the creative energy to consistently come up with fresh, innovative and challenging gym-oriented schemes.  What I need in periods like this are workouts that (1) I know will offer an ass-kicking challenge, (2) are whole-body in nature (i.e., multi-joint), (3) don’t take long to execute in their entirety and, (4) consist of exercises that are easily manipulated via weight and/or rep scheme.  That is to say, the exercises that comprise these workouts can be morphed into raw strength or straight-up power versions depending on my want at the time.  Think of these workouts as the nucleus of the modality atom, with variants of these workouts comprising that atom’s electron cloud.  Simple, huh?

Here’s one example, and one of my favorite got-to workouts — a 7-round superset consisting of:

1. Clean-Grip low pulls x 3
2. Weighted dips x 3

It doesn’t get much easier (on paper, that is) than this.  Jack the weight up and slash your recovery time between sets and between exercises to nil.  Throw your body to wolves and let your mind zero in with laser focus on something other than your worldly problems.  I can’t tell you exactly how much aggression rage and sorrow I’ve spilled out in the course of performing this particular superset, but it’s been quite a bit.  And I’ll let you in on a little trade secret: do you think my body has any inkling that this is one of the most basic in design and easiest to set-up (in an equipment/space sense) in my modality tool box?  Well, if it does, it’s maintaining a hell of a poker face.  And sometimes I’ll go ahead and do power cleans instead of low pulls, or high pulls.  Want some on-the-fly dip variations?  Try a ballistic version, or maybe the ol’ Gironda dip; muscle-ups are always a popular, ass-kicking option.  Now, this workout would do nothing, of course, to pad my bank account if I were trying to sell it to the masses.  Why?  Hell, there’s no flash, nothing gimmicky, and *gasp* it’s hard-ass  friggin’ work to perform.  But if you want an effective, no bullshit way to push your body to its limit in the weight room, this one is the gold standard.  Here’s another from the “go-to” files.

1. front squats
2. behind the neck push-press

Look at all the press options that can be generated on the fly out of this initial, basic set-up.  One bar, one rack, and a multitude of possibilities.  Again, do you think your body will think it’s getting off easy for having to “only” perform this little superset?  Throw in some weighted pull-ups if you’re feeling especially froggy.

And another

The Cred x 3 + single arm DB press/push-press/push jerk.  Alternate arms, cut your rest between sets to nil, and keep going until you either hallucinate or your form deteriorates into the unacceptable realm.  I’ve also been known to add a weighted pull-up version to this combo as well.  I invite you to do the same

You don’t have to copy my go-to exercises, of course; I would suggest, though, that you come up with a collection of your own favorites to sustain you through whatever trying times you might have to navigate yourself.   Once you make it to the other side of the river, so to speak, you can return to more creative options.  Many times, though, I’ve seen people’s physical culture sink in the middle of the traverse for lack of the basic “life support” I’ve described here.  Don’t let that happen to you.

In health,

Keith

The Relationship of Fitness to Overall Health

“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.”

- Henri-Frederic Amiel

Recent discussions resulting from this post got me pondering the relationship of fitness and/or competitive athletic endeavors to one’s overall health.  It occurred to me that overall “health” could be broken down into multiple constituent parts, in much the same way that Greg Glassman reduced fitness to (and thereby defining it by) its constituent parts.  Furthermore, in assessing one’s overall health, fitness would be but one of multiple defining constituents.  The definition of “health” then, might look a little something like this:

1. An overall fitness assessment (from Greg Glassman’s 10 aspects of fitness).  This might better be summarized by the DeVany/McGuff notion of Physiological Headroom (i.e., the difference between idle and the “most” you can do).  I would assume “most”, here to mean power output per selected activity over a given period of time.  This leads us into the debatable question, though, of what activity would be considered the benchmark for such an assessment.
2. Body Fat percentage
3. Circulating insulin level
4. C Reactive Protein level
5. Circulating Vitamin D level
6. Psychiatric “centeredness”
7. Spiritual well-being
8. Dental well being
9. Sensory acumen

I’m sure we can come up with many other attributes here, but you get the point.  Just as overcompensation in too narrow a focus can negatively affect one’s overall fitness level, so too can overcompensation in fitness, as a whole, negatively affect one overall health assessment.  To illustrate this point, think of the competitive athlete – or one who trains like a competitive athlete.  This, of course, is not to say that competitive athletes are by the very nature of their lifestyles, unheathy, but to point out that that the competitive environment forces an athlete to continually redline the risk/trauma tachometer.   This is where we get into the notion, posited by Nassim Taleb (and cited often by Dr. Doug McGuff), of the graveyard survivors (here and here).

As in all other aspects in life, one should strive for balance between overall health and fitness level.  I prefer Art Devany’s idea of a highly compressed, accelerated “end of days”, that is to say, not a long and decrepit, disease-riddled crawl toward death, but a sudden drop-off from high-health to sudden, natural death.  We could all hope to reach the end like the bird in D.H Lawrence’s poem:

“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself”

In health,

Keith

The Genetic Profile Meets Greg Glassman’s 10 Attributes of Fitness

“There are people who believe everything is sane and sensible that is done with a solemn face.”

- Georg Lichtenberg

I can think of no better lead-in for this post than this abstract, from Human Heredity.  Its being an oldie-but-goody in no way diminishes the power in its message.  In layman’s terms, what went on here was that 5 sets of identical(monozygotic) twins were put on an identical, 10-week, isokinetic (i.e., force delivered over a consistent velocity) training protocol.  The end results?  Well, between sets of twins there was a wide range of response — however, the response within each twin pair was…you guessed it…identical.  And here’s another study which shows basically the same thing.  Now, we can obviously go way off the deep end in discussing this, with lots of resultant handwringing about “shitty genetic draws”.  Where the rubber meets the road, though, is this: one’s response to any particular training regimen is largely, though not entirely, genetically driven.  The magic, of course, is in finding that particular protocol that plays to your particular genetic hand.  The other part of the magic is more spiritual in nature, and is centered in embracing your particular genetic gifts.  Now, there’s a balance here as well, of course.  As Greg Glassman (the founder of CrossFit ) points out — and quite correctly, in my opinion — an athlete is made better by becoming more competent at those things they are not naturally inclined to excel at than they are by honing their natural gifts.  The one caveat I’d interject here, though, is that this is true in an already well conditioned athlete, who is, by the time he is well conditioned, well aware of his/her natural attributes and shortcomings.  But what if you’re still unaware of your genetic leanings?  What then?

Everyone's Favorite Twins

First, let’s have a look at the roll genetics plays in determining one’s strengths and weaknesses within this list (credit Greg Glassman, again) of overall fitness indicators:

• cardio-respiratory endurance
• flexibility
• speed
• power
• agility
• balance
• strength
• accuracy
• stamina (i.e., repeatability or “prime” endurance)
• coordination

I really, really like this list, as I think Greg’s got all the physical attribute bases nicely covered.  And two things immediately jump out.  Number one, an athlete who is accomplished across the board here would be considered a pretty damn good all-around athlete (think decathlete) in anyone’s book, and (2) very very few individuals would even come close to being accomplished at all of these endeavors simultaneously.  At best, we could hope to be “really good” at one or two, do ok at a couple, and just hope to “not totally suck” at what’s left.

I’ll give a quick two examples of (1) assessing strengths and weaknesses using Greg’s list as a template, and (2) targeting workouts according to those defined strengths and weaknesses (and I’ll add to this goals, as well) using a pair of athletes I’m intimately familiar with — myself and my son.

It’s all about me

My strong suit has always been, from as far back as I can remember, “prime” endurance, followed closely by speed and power.  My strength, agility, balance and flexibility have always been pretty good — probably better than average.  Coordination, and accuracy?  Uhh, not so much (ever seen me dance?  It’s not pretty).   Cardio endurance?  Uhhh, yeah; pretty much off the scale low.

Which brings up a good point.  Before we move on, it might behoove us to define the difference between “prime” endurance (or Greg’s stamina, if I understand his definition correctly) and cardio endurance.  I think everyone has a good feel for what cardio endurance looks like; the rail-thin miler, the marathoner, the riders in the Tour de France — all examples of the cardio-fit club.  So what about “prime” endurance?  Well, let’s use an example that’s near and dear to my heart, the 40-yard sprint.  And let’s go a step further and say that we’ve identified, say, the top 10% or so from a group of randomly selected athletes; not so difficult to identify the athletes with good speed at this distance, right?  just put a stopwatch to them.  But once we begin vetting and ranking this upper echelon, things get interesting in a hurry.

The breakdown of the “speed” athletes usually (and I do say usually — there’s always the freak/outlier lurking about) looks a little something like this:

1. the ultra-fast in a single sprint; jaw-dropping, freaks-of-nature kind of speed.  Long recovery required between sprints, though, and a large drop-off (relatively speaking) between the fastest time and “prime”, or repeat times.  These athletes also tend to be one sneeze away from flying apart at the seams; the Ferraris of the athletic world.
2. those with good (remember, this is relative — good within a sub-group of top performers) , but not the fastest top-end speed.  This sub-group’s strength lay though, in their ability to repeat at or very near (very little drop off) this speed time and time again.  This, by definition, then, is stamina, or (a term I prefer) “prime endurance”.  This happens to be the group in which I fall (or fell, back in my competitive days).  Actually, my genetics haven’t changed, and I’d consider this ability my strong suit still.  This carries over to the weight room as well, and defines how I structure my workouts, both on a macro and micro-cycle level.
3. those with decent top-end speed, but lacking adequate prime endurance.  The athletes from group #2 who,  after the nth sprint with little between-sprint recovery, unceremoniously hack-up a lung.

Now, you can see that stamina is an objective measurement; it’s also highly event-specific.  So a starting baseball pitcher’s definition of stamina is different from a closer’s definition is different from the stamina required of an American football defensive back.  And some sports require very little (again, relatively) in the way of stamina at all (think power lifting, or Oly lifting).

Doug McGuff touches on this notion a bit in Body by Science.  If you have a copy, check out pg. 171 and the section on Myosin light chain Kinase.  For those who don’t have a copy (you’re missing out; get one!), Doug relays a story of Arthur Jones (of Nautilus fame) testing a man who exhibited phenominal strength — for one or two reps — followed by a preciptous drop-off from that peak strength.  That is to say, although the guy possessed great strength, he exhibited very little in the way of stamina.  Arthur Jones figured the guy was just dogging it, and sent him away.  In retrospect, Jones realized that he had unwittingly dismissed potentially the strongest power lifter he’d ever seen.  The lesson here being not to confuse and/or dismiss particular atletic attributes out of hand; for every attribute there is a correct and appropriate athletic application.

Moving on.  So now we have a kid (me) genetically-inclined toward endeavors requiring speed, power and a good bit of short burst stamina, and we place that kid in the epicenter of (American) football-leaning culture.  What we have here is the athletic equivalent of an alignment of the moon and stars, the perfect mix of genetics and expressive outlet on our hands; ability feeding off of an outlet in a nice, symbiotic relationship.  Other good outlets for my particular genetic profile might have been rugby, wrestling, possibly a combat sport; maybe with proper training, a track & field throwing event (esp., discus, hammer, javelin), though these are relatively low on the stamina requirement.  But what if you’d have placed this kid in a culture where distance swimming ruled?  Long distance skiing, running or biking?

A chip off the old block?

Let’s look at another athlete, and a totally different set of inherent abilities; a kid who is truly his mother’s child.  In fact, the on-going family joke is, if he didn’t resemble me so much in the face we’d all have to wonder   Tall, solid and lanky (in the south, we label this particular build “raw-boned”), with hand-eye coordination (and general, body coordination), accuracy, balance, and agility that are off the charts high.  The kind of kid that you only have to demonstrate a skill to once and he’s got it down pat; after a few attempts, he’ll school you on the finer points you might not have noticed in your 30-odd years of practicing the skill.  He’s a freak that way, an outlier.  Better than average ability the short sprints.  Now, drop this kid into a culture where baseball is religion, and you’ve got that genetic/expressive outlet, moon-and-stars thing all over again.  Is there a glaring kink in the kid’s armor?  There sure is (cue Alanis Morissette’s Isn’t it Ironic) — Strength…and stamina.

First, do no harm

So, in order to more effectively build a better (already conditioned) athlete, we need to remove the kinks in that athlete’s armor while at the same time not letting the inherint attributes slide.   This, in fact, is much easier said than done.  Most have probably already experienced this phenomenon.  Improved stamina leads to reduced strength; increased strength leads to a decrease in accuracy, and so it goes.  This is where the art of training comes into play, along with the realization that each athlete is as unique as, not only his individual genetic makeup, but as his phenotype at this particular moment in time. Constant assessment, both in the 10 physical attributes (or at least those that are relavent to the athlete’s particular situation), and in the athlete’s required skills base, are a must.  For what good is it to have improved a short stop’s 60 meter sprint time only to have boogered his bat speed so as to hose his batting average in the process?

More on assessment and targeted training in an upcoming post.

And by the way, what if neither Ottow nor Ewald trained properly for their genetic makeup?  I would love to have had a 3rd, here, with the exact same genetic makeup (is that even remotely possible, naturally?), who was trained according to his identified strengths, using the 10 attributes identified above.  What would that phenotype have resembled, as compared to the other two?

In health,

Keith

New Exercise Demo Clips Up

“A neurosis is a secret that you don’t know you are keeping.”

- Kenneth Tynan

Just a quick note to let everyone know that I’ve begun posting some exercise demo clips over at the Theory to Practice YouTube site.  This is a little project (and I assume one that will be a continual work-in-progress) that I started just before Brittani’s accident: a project that I’m just now getting back around to.  Nothing elaborate here, just some very short clips demonstrating some of the functional exercises I like to keep in the ol’ toolbox.  I’ll use these to refer to when describing this workout or that, exercises within a mash-up, etc.  Hopefully this collection will continue to grow as I have time to add to it.  Feel free to leave any questions/comments/concerns/complaints — and, hey, compliments, too, while you’re at it! — that you think will be constructive.  I hope that these clips serve to educate, and maybe give a little glimpse into the types of functional exercises that I find beneficial.  I’ll attempt to concentrate on the more obscure movements at first, then progress toward some of the more common/well known.  We’ll see how it goes.  If you want to see something in particular, let me know.

Anyway, I’m open for critique, so let it fly!

In health,

Keith