Theory to Practice

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” – Albert Einstein

Amadika

Whew!  This weekend really had me performing something of a Paleo, bullet-dodge-dance, a specialized version of Neo’s crafty bullet dodging, from The Matrix.  

MorpheusBlade

The bullets I dodged, though, were rounds of bad food choice temptation.  A one after another, an entire weekend-long, salvo.  Friday started out easy enough, though, with the following morning workout:

1. Reverse Lunge + Behind-the-Neck Push-Press x 6 total, each set

2. Weighted, Regular-Grip Pullups x 3’s

4 rounds of this, at weight, took about 30 minutes.  The reverse lunge + BTN push-press was done thusly: complete a typical reverse (barbell) lunge.  Immediately upon reaching the upright position, and with the lead foot (the forward foot during the lunge) doing the majority of the “pushing”, perform a BTN push-press.  Recover, and repeat, then, with the alternate foot forward.  Attempt to maintain as much fluidity between the lunge and push-press portions of this combo as possible.  And try to limit the use of the trailing foot/leg to that of a balancer throughout each repetition.  Of course, as you tire, this will get harder and harder to do, as will maintaining fluidity between the lunge and push-press portions of the combo.  Done properly, this is a beautiful, full-body exercise.  Pairing the movement with  pullups completes the full body-ness of the experience.

Well, so far, so good.  And so, too, with Friday’s breakfast (2 softboiled eggs, a small portion of leftover meat and a smattering of fruit — as previously described in this post).  Lunch, then,  presented the first, albeit small, temptation: the dreaded “fund-raising” meal.  I bought in, of course, because I’m a sucker these things — it’s the empathy born of having brought up kids myself and thereby subjecting my workmates to all manner of manipulative “fundraising” propaganda.  Just “paying it backwards”, so to speak.  Anyway, from this meal, I gave away my bread and potatoes, and so was left with a roasted chicken quarter and a helping of greenbeans.

Friday night presented a whole other host of temptations.   This was a birthday celebration for a friend of ours.  Luckily, the “party” consisted of a wine tasting at a local eatery, then diner at the LA Lounge, in beautiful uptown, G-Vegas.  Easy going, a-la-cart ordering here, consisting of appetizer portions of shrimp, beef, scallops and veggies.  A couple of beers.  The toughest part of the night wound up being having to watch the Presidential debate surrounded by folks who’d had a few too many from Rush Limbauh’s Kool-Aid vat.  This was an agonizing ordeal for a Libertarian like myself.   I survived, though, Paleo diet intact and with only slight psychological scarring.  I should recover fully –  though I expect to suffer a full-on relapse on November 4th.  But I digress…

Flash-forward to the weekend’s real test: college football game day, and the preceding tailgate extravaganza. 

Enter the labyrinth –

Plenty to dodge, both out here and in the stadium:

Just say no –

No problem here, either.  Plenty of meat (a London broil, if you can believe it, cooked to perfection by a chef from Asheville!  Talk about serendipity!) and the gratuitous, though usually by-passed, cheese, veggie and fruit tray at the pre-game tailgate party.  The worst thing I had all day here was a couple of Coronas.  I never thought I’d use “worst” and “Coronas” in the same sentence, but there you go.  And although our mighty Pirates of ECU took a monumental thumpin’, we still had a fabulous time.

Saturday, college game day and a packed house.  Damn, I miss being on the field –

And so, it wound up being roughly 8 PM by the time we all finally got back to “headquarters”, where,  — and imagine this — everyone is famished.  Now, take a wild guess as to what everybody wants to have delivered?  Yeah, you guessed it — pizza.  Not to worry, though, as I ordered the old go-to for situations just like this: chicken wings.  The pizza and wings were delivered, I chowed-down on my wings, everyone else wolfed pizza, we all watched Alabama put a mean whoopin’ on Georgia, and everything was everything.

On to Sunday, and a little sprint action:

Sunday, my “game day”.  And the remains of a not so packed house.

Save for these guys.  They were cheering me on, though.

Here’s what was wound up being on tap for the day:

A fixie interval sprint from home to the stadium.  3 miles or so, if I had to guess.

6 full ramp, stadium sprints (check out the picture below for a feeling of what a “ramp” is).  These were done running — not to be confused with the fixie, biking sprints

8 rounds of the following, on the upper deck stadium steps: 2 x two-step sprint, 2 x two-step dual-foot hop, 2 x three-step hop, 2 x two-step sprint

Each of these 8 rounds was in super-set with elevated-feet, ballistic pushups, done done the stadium seats.  About 8 reps each set.  I exploded hard enough out of “the hole” on each rep to free my hands and feet from their platform.  The landing was stuck in the down position, with my chest about one inch from the pushing platform.  I kept the turn-around recovery between reps as minimal as possible.

Here’s a picture of the stadium’s outside ramps:

These are great for sprint “initial drive” work.  Think the first 15 or twenty yards out of the blocks for the 100 meters.

All-in all, success on the Paleo battlefront this weekend — even under adverse conditions.  It can be done, though it does require a little creativity and forethought.

And I’ll close-out with this link to Art DeVany’s public blog, Orcas in the ER.  No points for political correctness, here, but it is an eye-opening, motivating testimony.   The good doctor’s response originated from a comment that I’d made on Art’s pay site to this article, The Vicious Cycle: Brain Fade, Stress-driven Obesity, and Carb Craving.  For those not able to get to the pay site, here was my comment:

Stand by for the coming health care crisis bomb. The “mother of all implosions” is probably a better term. Have you taken a look around to see what the majority of the nation’s 30-and-under crowd consume (and do so quite happily, I might add)? A decade from now, we’ll look back on 30% obesity rates as being the good ol’ days. The only positive I see in this mess is that I work in the pharmaceutical industry. And from what I can see, that industry is going to be the last true bastion of job security. That, and maybe Sara Lee, Industries.

Let’s all have a happy and productive week.

In Health,

Keith

Sincerity is the highest compliment you can pay.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rusty Rail Action.  PhotoToasty

Yeah, sometimes getting up and rolling out into the dark pre-dawn is kinda like this (very cool, I might add) photo from PhotoToasty.  A little like trudging off into the abyss.  This morning it was even tougher to get motivated, being stormy as it was; I awoke to the sound rain pitter-pattering on the roof and a hard wind in the trees.  I’ve been here before, though — that extra hour in bed never quite feels as good as the satisfaction of completing an intense workout under difficult circumstances.  So at oh-five-twenty I hit the road with my trusty cup of Joe (a redeye, of course) for the fabulous G-Vegas to the City on the Rise commute.

Once I hit the Y, though, I was ready to do the fast-twitch, rock-and-roll.  I even dusted of an oldie but goodie exercise, having my memory of it brought back after seeing the movement here.  Anyway, this little jewel of a combo took roughly half an hour to complete, warm-up included.

1. DB Snatch.  Worked up to heavy singles with each arm
2. Reverse deadlift x 8’s (check out the link above) 

I performed this combo in a slightly different manner than the usual 1, 2…1, 2 routine.  I did maybe two or 3 DB snatch singles (in a rest-pause fashion, each arm) for each set of reverse deadlifts.  Be careful with the reverse deadlifts as you really have to to work up, over time — and by “over time”, I mean over many months — to a maximal stretch.  I wound up doing 4 sets of the reverse deads, interspersed throughout the rest-pause fashion, DB snatch singles.

In Health,

Keith

Happiness is not a reward — it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment — it is a result.
–Robert Green Ingersoll

mrtnk

Information Overload: I’ve alluded to this before, most recently in this post — but at some point you’ve got to convert that myriad of information you’ve gathered into action; put theory to practice, as it were.   Sooner or later it’s got to be you and 6 AM and the harsh clank of steel plates and the stench of stale sweat and a body that would just as soon crawl back in bed as to do a single rep of any damn thing at all. At some point, you’ve got to become comfortable ordering Paleo when out to eat with your buds.  This is where “your health” either gets done or simply remains stuck in the realm of conjecture.

In this presentation, Clay Shirky explains the dynamics of the information avalanche.  As Clay explains, the amount of available information won’t subside anytime soon; you’ve either got to learn to deal with (effectively filter) it, or be crushed (read, stupefied into inaction) by the sheer volume.  On top of that (and as I’ve stated before in this blog), the information is, for the most part (and, again, only if effectively filtered) credible, of high quality, and it’s cheap, too.  Hell, for the most part, it’s free for the asking.  It’s what you do with that information, though, that really matters.

The Day’s Workout

Very simple, very effective, and very, very quick.  4 full rounds of the following, at weight, in 25 minutes:

1. Front Squat + Front Push Press combo x 5’s
2. Ballistic Regular-grip Pullups x 5’s

A couple of notes: the front squat/front push-press combo is performed in the manner of a thruster (Crossfit style), albeit broken into two separate lifts — more along the lines of a clean and jerk — without the clean.  Whereas the Crossfit thruster is one, fluid movement,  I prefer to go much heavier than to allow (due to hand and elbow positioning, mostly) for the “Crossfit” thruster version.  However, I do appreciate the Crossfit intent — a full-body, ass-kickin’ workout from a well-designed exercise.

The ballistic pullups are done at body weight with the hands coming totally free from the bar at the completion of the explosive concentric phase of the lift, as if I were trying to launch myself up through the ceiling.  The free-fall “catch” is with the elbows at approximately 45° and with a “fast as possible” deceleration to the full extension, reset position.

And a very important note: be mindful not to clobber yourself with a self-inflicted, barbell uppercut to the jaw while performing the front push-press.  Or if you choose not to be mindful, at least wear a damn mouthpiece.  Or keep your yap shut tight, ya mouth-breather.  Suffering little humiliations like having the 6 AM geriatric crowd hover around you in a solace-circle as you “clear the cobwebs” and scan for the bits and jagged shards of teeth that you just know are scattered about the gym — things like this are what keep me humble, I suppose.   After 30-odd years in the game (30 years?????), you’d think I’d know better.  My aching jaw and sensitive teeth remind me that, nope, apparently not.

In Health,

Keith

Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a permanent attitude.
–Dr. Martin Luther King

Chicago Bike Messenger, Jeremyhughes

I started out the day with the intent to do some barefooted sprint work on the ECU soccer field.  Once I got saddled-up, though, I changed my mind and did about an hour’s worth of fixie intervals instead.   To be sure, G-Vegas is no Chicago  — still, though, it’s a really fun town to navigate via fixie.  The slack Sunday traffic made it all the more enjoyable.

And on the Intermittent Fasting Front: 

So, Sunday around the TTP headquarters was rather hectic.  We’re in the middle of trying so sell the house (downsizing at long last), and we had a couple of showings scheduled.  We also had a swank cocktail party to attend in the evening, meals to prepare and cook and, somewhere within all of that, I wanted to get in the workout I spoke of above.  Quiz time: what don’t you see on the day’s schedule?  If you answered “uh, eating, dude; friggin’ eatin’” you win…bragging rights.  Or, something…

Anyway, I wound up having nothing to eat until about 7 PM.   I did have some food cravings around 3 in the afternoon, but nothing terrible, and they quickly subsided when I got busy with some something or another.  And I did this on a workout day, too — and not an easy day, either — as I hit the intervals pretty damn hard.

I am curious, though, as to what my appetite will be like today (the day after).

In Health,

Keith

In life, as in chess, forethought wins.
–Charles Buxton

burton 188

So here’s the irony: An Evolutionary Fitness-styled workout “regimen” — and I’m loathe to use the term, but that’s the best approximation I can conjure at the moment — should emphasize the intense as well as the fractal.  To put this in layman’s terms, workouts should be short, taxing, and come about randomly.  And the workout itself should be random in nature, with modality and exercise selection changing from instance to instance.  Neither the short nor the taxing — nor modality or exercise selection, for that matter — is any real problem — this we can effectively plan for.  But it’s the random, the fractal nature that, if we have normal work-a-day commitments, can be difficult to achieve.  Difficult, but not impossible.  However, establishing a fractal (or random) pattern is even more difficult to pull-off, in my opinion, than establishing a routine schedule.  In other words, you’ll have to be even that much more committed than your “routine” brethren.  Why do I say this?  Because lumbering through a routine workout schedule — while being a definite improvement over nothing at all — requires only a small amount of commitment and willpower.  And once the habit is set, it’s pretty much there, ingrained and stable.  And it’s probably going to be something along the lines of a bodybuilding workout, or — even worse — a low-impact aerobic routine, like jogging.  Randomness, on the other hand, requires establishing the habit of doing something extremely difficult, in a non-habitual way.  It’s constantly putting your body in a state of having to adjust and overcome.  And to pull this off,you have to learn (if it’s not natural to you) to love the unknown.   

So, how do we fit random into a scheduled and routine existence?

   Chaos-theory, Vocisconnesse

Well, will you shoot me if I tell you to plan for it?

I’m really not trying to be at all flippant about this, but that’s exactly what must be done.  It can be as simple as keeping a workout journal and creating the habit of working on what you haven’t worked in the longest while.  This is mostly how I handle it.  And though I do place more emphasis on my perceived weaknesses, I don’t repeatedly hammer them.  I’ve also done things like, assigning a certain type (or modality) of workout to either numbers on a die, or playing cards.  Pick a card, roll the die, and hit it.  I’ve also done whatever Crossfit’s workout-of-the-day is.  And although Crossfit is just a tad bit endurance-heavy for my liking (appropriate, however, for its target base), it most closely resembles the Paleo template of any other mass workout site I’ve seen.  At those times when I need an inspirational kick-in-the-ass, I’ll use the Crossfit WOD as a muse to create my own, more Paleo-friendly workout.  The key is, quite simply, to cultivate and embrace a love of the unknown and the random; even as you have to plan for it.

Let’s Consider Friday’s Weight Circuit.  6:30 AM, September 19th, 2008

1. RDL + Shrug, low-pull fashion.  Wide PC grip (i.e., “narrow” snatch grip).  Quick, but controlled, to bar just clearing knees, then explode to finish, pin shoulders to ears and hold for a count before resetting to the floor.  x 4’s
2. Jump squat with safety bar.  No toe-off.  In other words, jump via a (mostly) heel push.  Start each rep with quads just above parallel. x 3’s
3. Weighted dips.  Explosive, try to lift hands free from the rack on each rep.  x 3’s
4. Feet elevated, clap pushups.  Stick landing at the bottom position, i.e., chest just about an inch from the floor.  x 7’s

4 total rounds at weight.  Approximately 35-minutes, warm-up included.

In Health,

Keith

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
–Mother Teresa

Wow, who knew mama T was a budding Paleo?  Right on –

From a photo collection by Jeremy Hughes

I stumbled across an eclectic weave of one on-line article and two video presentations this week that, all-in-all — separately and in conjunction with one another — reinforce my gut feeling that striving for the acquisition of athletic power is the way to proceed (workout-wise), if one would aspire to keep the body well steeped in a Paleo environment.  Now, presenting one’s body with a consistent  milieu of Paleo influences — especially within the confines of modern society — is, of course, one of the major challenges faced by Paleo/Evolutionary Fitness adherents.  With just a little day-to-day manipulation, though, this can — within reasonable limits — be accomplished.  And knowledge resources on this subject abound; I have a good many of them noted on my link roll.  Of what good, though, does this knowledge do us, if we can’t (or don’t — or won’t) apply it?

Enter the Paleo Workout

Let us then, for the sake of this post, narrow our focus to the proper manner of Paleo/Evolutionary Fitness-inspired physical stimulus.  Now, I might be a tad biased here (hell, let’s face it — I’m greatly biased), but I feel that American football — and rugby for that matter, too  — are pretty damn good, modern-day approximations of the ancient, hunter-gatherer life.  On the Micro level, consider how the game itself  is fractioned into multiple, varying periods (each play, for instance) of intense activity, followed by a (relatively) long period of rest.  At the Macro level, consider how games (football, at least) are spaced at roughly one-week intervals, over twenty or so weeks, out of the year.  Then off-season training enters the picture.  Now consider, as I’ve alluded to many times, that the best performers are (all else being equal — technique, game knowledge, etc.), the athletes with the better power-to-weight ratio.  Now ask yourself what attributes the prototypical “best hunter” (literally, the best equipped for survival) would have exhibited in ancient times.  All else being equal (weapon handling technique, knowledge, etc.), I’d bet my last lamb-chop on the hunter with the best power-to-weight ratio.  In my mind, this is the phenotype the body is primed (“blueprinted”, if you will) to exhibit.  And whether we like it or not, this is what evolution has wrought.  Our technology has advanced dramatically since the emergence of the flint tool; our bodies, though, have but just recently emerged from the primordial soup.  The brain, body and soul all require a different kind of “food”, so give ‘em all separately what they require, and get on with things.

The T-Nation Article

First up is an article from the site I hate to love.  I swear, it’s as if Will Ferrell were some kind of a cosmic oracle, but that you had to suffer through one of his brain-dead films for each small spurt of pontificated wisdom.  Painful doesn’t begin to describe the experience at times.  But, I do have to give credit where credit is due — at least the editors have fine taste in the female form.   At any rate, this article by Chad Waterbury discusses some of the benefits to explosive lifting.   And although Chad doesn’t mention it, sprinting and plyos qualify for explosive “lifting” as well.

Art DeVany, and Fast Twitch Muscle Fiber Training

Next at bat is a short video segment from Art DeVany’s recent seminar (and subsequent DVD set).   I wonder if the combination of both a Paleo diet and Paleo-like exertion/rest intervals are what might trigger a gene expression cascade triggering the formation of FTx-type fibers.  Hmmmm.

Now, as I envision it, the Paleolithic version of the Faustian Bargain played out thusly:

Pssst.  Hey, squirrel-brain, wanna rise to the top of the animal kingdom pecking order?  Yeah?  Well, check it — you’re gonna need a much bigger brain, dude.  Problem is, that big, new noodle of yours is gonna require a helluvalot more fuel than before.  Which means you’re going to have to develop a taste for the high octane stuff (fat), my friend.  And that means you’re going to have to become adept at hunting the biggest, fastest and most powerful of beasts.  What, you thought you could suck this stuff out of a Paleo carrot?  C’mon!  And if you’re to be a successful hunter, you better be (1) smart and, (2) an explosively powerful and agile, bad-ass.   And both power and explosion translate to the bodily requirement of a preponderance of fast twitch muscle fiber — which are, by their very nature anaerobic and, therefore, highly inefficient.  Which now means you not only gotta have high octane fuel for that big, new-fangled brain of yours, but also for that inefficient-as-all-hell life support system that hauls it around.  But, here’s the deal-sweetener –  if you and your kind make it, I’ll bless you sometime in the future with beer, football and Jessica Simpson.  Ya down for that deal, Paleo dude?

Well, hindsight reveals that our Paleolithic ancestors latched on to the deal with gusto — the promise of a future Jessica was probably the sealer — but then McDonald’s and Little Debbie snacks and the internal combustion engine came along and the whole kit’n-kaboodle went to hell in a handbasket.  And to make matters worse, this increasingly “Paleo-less-ness” society/attitudes we gladly pass on to our progeny; kinda like the price-tag attached to Bush’s war.  But I digress –

Third in the line-up might be considered a bit of an unusual inclusion in an exercise and diet themed blog. Really, though, for this blog, its inclusion makes perfect sense. 

Why we don’t understand as much as we think we do

This comes from the fabulous TED Talks series.  So, why include it here?  Because, just as in the video example of the MIT students’ inability to figure out how to light a bulb with a wire and a battery, there is a serious disconnect between diet and exercise “knowledge” and what is actually practiced in the real world.   Metaphorically-speaking, the vast preponderance of gym-goers — and, hell, fitness “professionals”, as well — can’t figure out how to “light the health bulb” under real-world constraints.  That, my friends, is what I hope to address, both in my “real” life and as depicted in this, my TTP blog.

In Health,

Keith

I did the following combination early this morning, just prior to the beginning of my workday. As is my usual, I worked-out on an empty stomach (I last ate at 7 PM the night before), save for my beloved morning redeye and hour-long dose of NPR via podcast (this morning was Terri Gross’s interview of Thomas Freidman — good stuff).  Anyway, the gym work looked like this:

1. Single-Arm DB Snatch + Single-Arm Split-Jerk combo x 3 combos, each side

(Like this: Right side — Snatch, recover, Split-Jerk, recover, Snatch… x 3, then repeat for the left side x 3).

2. Parallel-Grip Weighted Pullups x 3’s

4 rounds at weight. Total gym time, including warm-up — 30-minutes.

The Day’s Meals Were as Follows:

8 AM, approximately 1 hour following my workout

2 eggs, softboiled.  A half-palm sized cut of leftover ribeye.  Leftover broccoli (from the night before) and a few strawberries.

11 AM

A small ribeye, broccoli and a few strawberries

About 1 PM, and Again at 3 PM

A couple of handfuls of mixed nuts — walnuts, pecans, cashews, almonds.

6 PM

Attended a wine tasting event.  I drank approximately 10 oz’s total.  Well worth it.

9 PM

Highly, highly unusual — we went out to eat two nights in a row.  To make matters worse, the group we were with wanted Italian; notoriously one of the toughest places in the world to be Paleo.  I’m up for the challenge, though, and was able to piece together a salmon spinach salad.  A surprisingly, a very Paleo meal.  No croutons, no bread, and just a little cheese.  Oil and vinegar for dressing.  I think I just found a new restaurant!

One quick side note. Look at the time separation between my lunch and dinner.  In my former life, I would have been drooling and weak from hunger.  Tonight, I could have easily passed on dinner completely; not one hint of a hunger pang.

In Health,

Keith

I did the following combination yesterday morning before work, on an empty stomach, save for the redeye I drank on the way in:

1. Reverse Lunge with a Safety Squat bar, 5 reps each leg (alternating, i.,e., left, right, left…)

2. Reverse-Grip Weighted Pullups x 3’s

3. GHR x 4’s (explosive concentric followed by an approximately 5-count eccentric).  I also reposition the db to just under my chin for the eccentric portion so as to increase the effective resistance on my glutes/hams.

4 rounds in 35-minutes.

I thought I’d throw-in a what a typical day’s eating looks like.  It turned out to be not so typical because, due to the rainy weather, we went out to eat instead of what was planned — grilling-up a couple of T-bones.  Here’s what it looked like:

8 AM, approximately 1 hour following my workout

2 eggs, softboiled.  A half-palm sized cut of leftover ribeye.  5 or 6 strawberries.

11 AM

Approximately one-quarter of a rotisserie chicken with collards.  Gimmie a break with the collards — I’m from the South  

About 3 PM

A couple of handfuls of mixed nuts — walnuts, pecans, cashews, almonds.

8 PM

Dinner at the Red Lobster restaurant.  Blackened salmon and shrimp with a lemon butter sauce.  Cold slaw and broccoli.  A pint of Newcastle.  No bread of any sort.  No desert.

Now, my eating on days like this is much more structured than what I care for, but, due to work concerns/conditions, this is the way it shook-out.  And this represents a fairly typical day, too, save for the eating out.  But as you see, even while eating out, I was still able to manage Paleo eating habits.  I can’t speak for what seasoned the slaw or what all was in the lemon butter sauce — but, hey, whatever it was, it was minimal.

In Health,

Keith

Another article I read, shortly following the Lance Armstrong/Vanity Fair article I mentioned in part I of this two-part series,  came courtesy of Loren Cordain’s Paleo Diet site, and specifically the Paleo Diet Newsletter thereof.  I can’t recommend this site and the accompanying newsletter enough.  A good information clearinghouse for all things related to the practice of  Paleo-centric living; more centered, though, on the dietary aspects of the lifestyle.

For reasons unknown

The following article is from the September 12th newsletter, and it appears here courtesy of The Paleo Diet^®, scientifically researched information on the diet we evolved to eat. For more information on, and for complimentary subscription to The Paleo Diet Update, visit http://www.ThePaleoDiet.com.

Here’s the article:

Geologic Time, Magnitudes, and the Paleo Diet                         

By J R Lagoni

The reason the Paleo Diet leads to optimum health is because it is the diet we evolved to eat. Humans have only been eating grains for about 10,000 years, and eating dairy for even less time.

To understand and appreciate the basic premise of the Paleo Diet – that our genetic composition has not substantially changed since the geologically recent times of mass-agriculture and industrial age food – it is very helpful to have a clear perception of the magnitudes of time (both very large and very small) that we are talking about.
A change in magnitude (in math or science) is a number written in scientific notation that is at least one power of ten more or less. So, 20 and 40 (written scientifically as: 2 x 10¹ and 4 x 10¹) are actually of the same magnitude, or often stated as being the same “order of magnitude”. However, 20 and 400 (written scientifically as: 2 x 10¹ and 4 x 10²) are one power of ten different and therefore one order of magnitude different. It is much more than mere doubling or exponential change (it must be a change in exponents of ten versus any smaller base number), and it is not uncommon in the natural world or science.

The graph below illustrates the magnitudes of the time our ancestors ate a Hunters and Gatherers’ (H-G) Diet versus when our ancestors consumed a Mass-Agriculture Diet. The specific times used in this graph are 2,000,000 for the H-G Diet and 10,000 years for the geologically recent Mass-Agriculture Diet. Although exact dates and amounts can be argued, and would change some among different ethnic groups and regional histories, the graph would always look very much the same – because regardless of the specific dates you utilize, it always would very definitively involve magnitudes of change difference.

.

Figure 1: Bar graph illustrating a ratio of geologic time: 2,000,000 years vs. 10,000 years. These times are good representations of the magnitude of time of the Paleolithic Era foodstuffs of our ancestors as compared to the time our ancestral lineages have been on a Mass-Agriculture Diet.

It is startling to see the Mass-Agriculture Diet as a nearly flat, non-existent bar. In a mathematical sense one could almost say it is approaching the inverse of infinity … or that it is “infinitesimally small” in comparison to our earlier foodstuffs. It is more than a full 2 magnitudes smaller. As a decimal ratio of 2,000,000: it is .005.

While we can continue to debate (and we should) the exact amounts and rates of change in human physiology and the dietary amount of animal products vs. fruits/vegetables, etc. – an obvious fact is that the amount of time we and our ancestors have had mass agriculture and industrial era food is incredibly small indeed … and not debatable.

When we talk about “evolutionary discordance” in regard to our modern diet vs. the Paleo Diet, this is what it means in one very real sense. A diet based on the way humans ate for a couple million years will lead to optimum health and reduce the risk of degenerative disease.

This, then, leads me back to my original question: would Lance fair better, even as an endurance athlete, on a Paleo diet?  My gut instinct is that, after his body completed the transition phase (whereby his body completed “the shift” from being primarily a sugar-burner to being a fat/protein burner) he’d be able to significantly increase his power-to-weight ratio and, therefore, be able to perform at a higher level.  I also believe that his stamina would improve as well.  I know that I don’t experience a “bonk” (carb., i.e., fuel depletion) any more during long, hard rides since going Paleo.

Of course, this is all mere speculation — though I’d love to see a top-caliber endurance athlete like Armstrong take up the challenge of stepping into the “Paleo light”, as it were.  Athletes are prone not to change things though, that, in their minds at least, ain’t broke.  And I suppose you can’t blame them for that.  There is the question of tinkering (again, needlessly, in their minds) with what has been “proven” to work in the past, tradition and — here’s the biggie — superstition.  I understand, because I was once the same way.  Back in my competitive days, I’m sure I would have completely ignored the same advice that I myself would dispense today.  I predict, though, that a Paleo diet is the next wave of the sporting future, completely eclipsing the old carbohydrate-based mind-set.  Because one thing is for certain in the sporting world: winners will cling ferociously to what got them to the top of the heap, where all others will look for any edge possible to topple those standing atop that heap.  It’s just a matter of time before Paleo becomes the next “competitive edge”.

Weekend Workout Update

I moved more furniture over the weekend than I care to remember.  Big stuff, bulky stuff, heavy-heavy-heavy stuff.  In the heat and up and down stairs.  Why is this in any way significant?  Well, the significance is in the fact that I did not workout.  Not once.  Nothing, the entire weekend.  And I don’t intend to workout today (Monday), either.  “Huh,” you ask?  “Isn’t this kinda what this whole blog thing is about?” 

Yeah, it is.  But follow me here, for just a moment.

The old me — the non-Paleo, non-Evolutionary-Fitness-inspired, gym-rat me — would have never let anything get in the way of a workout.  Anything short of hospitalization would have been considered wussin’-out.  And just because I’d moved furniture all weekend would’ve meant nothing.

Now, though, I’ve come to see the power (pun intended) behind Power Law and fractals — nature’s organization method — and realize that my next workout (whenever that does end up being) will be much more productive if I (1) give my body some time to recuperate and, (2) don’t force square pegs into round holes.  The Puritan work ethic, command-and-control — what have you — does not work in this instance.  I’ll know when I’m ready to hit it again when I’m overcome with that “antsy” feeling.

I Health,

Keith

Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.
–Dr. E. Land

Lance Armstrong, photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the December 1999 issue of Vanity Fair.

This article in Vanity Fair magazine threw me into speculation overdrive: “what would happen”, I thought, “if endurance-athlete-extraordinaire, Lance Armstrong, shifted to an all-out Paleo diet?” What would be the affect upon his performance, of substituting fat and protein calories for calories derived from simple carbohydrates?

Now, I happen to side with Art DeVany in thinking that endurance athletics is not the way to go if you strive to be  an overall healthy individual.  However, very few competitive athletic events can be considered “healthy”.  Season-in and season-out gross, repetitive, bio-mechanical fatigue on the body (overuse) is the most obvious reason.  But add to that, too, a poor (from a Paleo point of view) diet and — in Lance’s case –  the bodily harm wrought by endurance endeavors.  However (and although I am not a practicing, endurance bicycle racer, nor do I train for such), I do enjoy following these events.  When I ride — and I do, quite often; both fixed-gear and mountain biking — I do so in sprint/glide interval fashion. Also, and above all else here, though, I do greatly admire Lance’s grit and determination as an athlete.

Lance is also a physiological freak, seemingly crafted by a “God” with an eye toward adapting a machine perfectly equipped to excel at such endeavors.   This inevitably begs the question, though, of gene expression; namely, what combination of “nature” and “nurture” has ultimately come together to comprise the end-product endurance machine that is Lance Armstrong? What if Lance had instead trained as a youth for an Olympic sprint cycling event?  How much of an affect has gene triggering/expression had on Lance’s physiology?  And what of his usual cyclist’s diet?  What affect has this had on his overall physiology and gene expression?

I know what my gut tells me — that nature and nurture must harmonize toward a common output for that output to be maximized.  What if Usain Bolt had been born somewhere other than Jamaica, and had been pushed (because of his physical build) toward endurance events?  What kind of an 800 meter athlete would he have become?  This, in my mind, is interesting, interesting stuff.  This is also why I have always had a fascination for the old East German athletic development program.

This book, by the way, is a fascinating peek inside the East German system, and I highly recommend it for those interested in the subject:

Faust’s Gold: Inside The East German Doping Machine: Steven Ungerleider: Books ISBN: 0312269773 ISBN-13: 9780312269777

It won’t be long before parents will be able to genetically test their progeny to determine the youngsters’ predisposition toward sprint or endurance events.  Too much money is available to top-notch athletes for it to be otherwise.

In Health,

Keith