Bad Science, Shrinking Brains, and Open (Yet Questioning) Minds

“The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another”

– Richard Feynman

So when we put all of our eggs in one basket — say, judging a particular question solely by the outcome of the published “science” related to that question, rather than approaching the question from multiple disciplines (intuition, common sense, empirical evidence, etc.) — we severely limit the possibility of finding the essential truth of the matter.  For example, “established science” held firm — and is yet holding firm —  to the notion that weight management is simply an extension of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, namely the “calories-in/calories-out” idea.  Those of us who allow ourselves to think without restraint now realize how ridiculously flawed this reductionist thinking is.  In fact, to the extent that I did, at one time, believe this to be true is…shocking to me.

We currently have battles raging withing the Physical Culture arena — gladiator “absolutists”, if you will — representing various training methods as being the end-all, be-all.  Is it really as easy as finding the lone “correct” answer?  Well, I say that all we need do is take a good look around to see how ridiculous this notion is.  For every Dorian Yates, I can offer a Bill Pearl; for every Mentzer, a Gironda.  The list goes on and on; for every fabulous athlete employing a certain training method, we can find examples of similarly proficient athletes doing something entirely different.  All methods work for some, no method works for all, and the method that currently works wonders for an individual likely won’t produce results in that same individual 6 months from now.  Some see training as purely science, I see it as more analogous to the culinary arts; replete with scientific underpinnings to be sure, but the creation of a great meal is a hell of a lot more complex than the simple co-mingling of those simple, disparate, underpinnings.  Just call me the Alton Brown, then, of Physical Culture.

A slight diversion: now I’m no linguist by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s my understanding that there is no single Sanskrit word for “truth”, but rather a number of words that hint at the truth of  an idea as colored by the strengths and limitations of the approach.  In other words, ideas can have “truths” revealed in a philosophical/emotional sense, a spiritual sense, and, yes, a scientific sense.  We in the west tend to put a premium on the scientific “truth” behind and idea at the exclusion of all else.  This, of course, leads to a dead-end trap of stagnant thought.  Again, quoting Richard Feynman: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Good words to live by, from a brilliant man.

And so with that “question authority” mindset nicely stoked, let’s reconsider, for example, the vaccine-autism link that was all the rage not so long ago.  Again, my point here is not to imply that all science is shoddy — far from it — my point is simply to maintain a questioning attitude even in the face of supposed scientific “proof”.

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The notion of a continual decline in humanoid brain volume over the past 20 kyrs or so is not exactly earth-shattering news to those of us who make it a habit to keep up with the musings Art DeVany or John Hawks; it is interesting, though, to reconsider this phenomenon through a more conventional lens.  Was the advent of the agricultural revolution a cause, correlate, or just a simple coincidence to the onset of this pattern?  For me, the evidence clearly indicates causation; always the epistemocrat, though, I remain open-minded to alternative theories.

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Much thanks to Robb Wolf (and his merry band of pseudo-science co-conspirators) for creation of the all-things-Paleo Forum, which will be a great resource for everyone dedicated to this Paleo/Primal/EvFit/Ancestral Fit journey.  We at Efficient Exercise intend to use this valuable resource as another educational tool (along with the Paleo Solution Quick Start Guide)  for those involved in our 10-week Project Transformation: the Efficient Exercise Solution.  And needless to say, we always recommend The Paleo Solution as the definitive go-to source for clients interested in pursuing the Paleo way.   Between Robb’s wesite, forum, podcasts, blog and book, anyone who has a mind to can accumulate a PhD-level education in the Paleo way from this single, convenient, root source.  Thanks again, guys, for all the free, selflessly-given, information.  Stunningly generous.

By the way, if you’d like to check-in on the happenings with Project Transformation, be sure to “friend us up” over at our Facebook page.  We’ll be kicking the program off on January 18th, with a wide-ranging demographic of “subjects”.

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My workouts this past week were all of the organic, non-documented type save for yesterday’s (1/8/11) heavy T-bar swing and weighted dip combo.  Ahhhhh, T-bar swings; Tim Ferriss would be proud 🙂

T-bar swings: 100 lbs x 20, 20, 20, 20, 20

weighted dips: bw+90 lbs x 6, 6, 6, 6, 4

Kept the rest between exercises and between rounds to a minimum here.  Just out of curiosity, I checked my pulse immediately following the 2nd round of swings — 165 bpm.  Pushing fairly hard, but certainly not a red-liner by any means.

An all-day squat-fest:

Okay, so here’s an example of an impromptu, situationally-driven “workout”: on Thursday (1/6/11), it occurred to me that I hadn’t performed a bread-and-butter, bilateral back squat in quite some time, as usually, if I’m going to squat at all, I’ll opt for a unilateral version — a RFESS, say — or maybe a front squat.   Anyway, I also saw in the day’s hand the (sweet!) opportunity to get quite a bit of short-burst fixie-huckin in.  What better to mix with that quick-burst leg burn than some good old back squats?  Yeah, I thought so, too — so I repeated this basic set-up time and again throughout the day.  And hey — shouldn’t I get credit as well, for all the plate loading and unloading?

(A1) full ATG squats: 135 x 12, 225 x 6

(A2) thighs parallel to the ground: 315 x 4, 4, 3, 3

(A3) quarter squats to full ankle extension (explosive): 405 x 8, 8, 8

(A4) fixie sprint

This is just an example of one round.  Sometimes I did much less volume between rides (diving right into the quarter squats, for example), and other times I just bounced around with the ATG stuff.  The point is, I did whatever the hell I felt like doing with no “need” to hit a pre-determined number of sets or reps at a calculated load.  The lone constant here was intensity — when I went at it, I friggin’ went at it.  At times there was a full 3 hours between rounds, and other times maybe a half-hour.  Again, no rhyme or reason.   So was this “play”, “physical activity”, a “workout”…or what exactly?  I definitely pushed myself, especially in the later rounds — and I certainly felt the results the next day (soreness, off-the-charts hunger, etc.) — but how would something like this be classified?  More to the point (and from my body’s prospective) does it even need to be classifiable to be productive?  Well, of course not.  The only problem with this scenario, from a “guru”prospective, is that I can’t sell you a cookie-cutter programming guide for this — you’ve got to figure it out for yourself mt friend, n=1 fashion.  Not much of a business model, I know — but hey, what the hell do you expect from a guy who dropped (like a fracking rock, no less!) his only business-related college class (accounting…ugh) after 3 sessions due to total and utter (drooling!) disinterest? 🙂  I mean, why waste time with that nonsense, especially when I had a whole Howard Zinn-inspired Poli Sci department full of courses to choose from?  🙂

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And last, but certainly not least — introducing the newest arrow to my quiver:

That makes 3 bikes now — and I still have but one ass  (as Meesus TTP has deftly pointed out)   🙂  All you cycling aficionados out there understand, though — I’m sure of it! …right??  🙂

In health,

Keith

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A couple of Workouts, and Gut Health

Look at the contrast between these (my latest) two workouts; this is what I consider to be “Conjugate for the masses”.  I do think it’s possible to blend power emphasis work with HIT/strength work and the more MetCon-ish/HIIT sessions as well — all within the same overall plan.  Add a dash of some bodybuilding-like volume work and, well, we’ve got all the bases just about covered.  For most folks, I’d place a premium (and therefore more emphasis) on strength, work which can be effectively and efficiently accomplished using various HIT methods.  Work on these other physical aspects (or “strengths” as Louie Simmons tends to term them) can be feathered-in, though, quite nicely and, in my experience at least, without undo fear of overtraining.

Monday’s workout:  a short and sweet superset here, followed by a little CZT work –

*Gunthor-style clean and jerks: 115 x 10; 135 x 7, 7, 7, 7, 7

rev grip pull-ups: bodyweight x 7; 45# x 7, 6, 6, 5, 5

No rest between sets or between exercises in the above superset.  Then it was on to:

CZT horizontal  chest press: 3 hyper-reps (a max negative followed immediately by a max positive effort; 3 reps in rest-pause fashion)

CZT horozontal leg press: 3 hyper- reps

*Werner Gunthor; Swiss shot puttin’ bad ass from back in the day.  Possessed with the work ethic of a single-minded madman, and with a penchant for hellish training regimens.  Cast from the same mold as  Soviet Hammer-man Sergey Litvinov.  These two exemplify the term “power personified”.   Now, for what I call “Gunthor clean & presses”, check out the man himself demonstrating them at the 1:05 mark in this impressive clip.  The clean and jerk is a great movement, no doubt — however, I like Gunthor’s method a bit better, due to the incorporation of a reactive catch/pressing motion.  The Olys are great, but sometimes a derivative works better for athletic applications apart from the sport of Oly lifting itself.  And yeah, the audio is in French (note to self: I should have paid a little more attention in school) — but damn, do you really need much of a narrative, here?  Look out!  Heavy duty explosive work ahead:

I followed that beauty up with a HIT beat-down on Wednesday at the Efficient Exercise downtown studio.  Bouncing between the various Efficient Exercise studios allows me to pretty much do it all, in a weightlifting sense.  The fact that I now live about 1 mile from Lehman high school (nice outdoor track!), and work in central Austin (with an abundance of parks) allows me to get my sprint on whenever I want…and the fact that I’m now in Austin means that, yes, I am smack-dab in the middle of fixie heaven 🙂  Needless to say, I’m never at a loss for a workout outlet.  Here’s Wednesday’s dates with a HIT session:

Tru squat: (weight – 100, counter weight – 115, wide stance, 3rd pin, 4010 tempo) 15, approx. 15 secs rest, 15 – then immediately to:

Super-slow leg curl: 160 lbs x 10, approx. 15 secs  rest, 12 –  4040 tempo

Nautilus Pec Dec: 110 x 10 ( 4040 tempo), then immediately to:

Nautilus chest press/crunch: 170 x 8 ( 4040 tempo)

Nautilus pull-over: 215 x 9 (4020 tempo), then immediately to:

X-Ccentric pull-downs: (20# midline add), 9 reps @ 5010 tempo

Nautilus shoulder lateral raise: 170 x 9 (2040 tempo), then immediately to:

X-Ccentric upright press: (no counter weight, no added weight) x 7 resp-pause singles (40×0 tempo)

Notice that a pre-exhaust methodology prevailed here.  And yeah, so I preceded and followed that little jewel with a 5-mile, hard fixie jaunt.  Needless to say, I slept well Wednesday night  🙂   …and I’m still feeling it a bit today.

A couple of items to check out:

Gut health, from NPR’s Fresh Air, with Terry Gross.  We in the Paleo community are hip to the idea of maintaining an active an healthy gut flora, and the benefits of a Paleo diet toward that end.  The mainstream is just starting to come around to the healthy gut flora concept, though they’re still years away (or so it seems) from connecting the dots between a Paleo diet and a rockin’, healthy gut.  Can body fat levels be altered simply by altering gut flora?  You bet; check it out.

…and Skyler Tanner waxes poetic on the notion of “easy” results.  Workouts that are short in duration?  You bet; short on intensity, though?  Not on your life.

Paleo 101, Workin’ the Groove, and Settling In

Since Monday was a holiday (here in the US, at least), I figured it would be a great time to ease into the Austin fixie scene, get a feel for traffic patterns and, well, just the overall vibe and such.  And what I found was this: Austin is definitely a bike-friendly town; courteous drivers, plentiful bike lanes, fabulous rolling hills, too many ultra-cool coffee shops to count…wow, fixie paradise!  I went into the Efficient Exercise Rosedale studio and did a little bit of prep work for my Tuesday clients, then saddled-up and hit a series of sprints over to our downtown ATX studio to do some prep work for those clients (see my route, here).  Five miles of hard intermittent sprinting each way was a nice, bodily reintroduction to the biking experience.   How’s that for mixing business with pleasure, huh?  Yeah, to say the least, I’m lovin’ this new gig  🙂

So today following my client sessions I decided to ease back into the weightlifting scene by hitting some power cleans and close-grip high pulls.  Nothing real radical or too strenuous, just climbing back onto the on-ramp, so to speak.

power cleans: 135 x 10; 165 x 7; 185 x 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2

close-grip high pulls: 185 x 5, 5, 5, 5

Now, the Efficient Exercise downtown facility is chock-full of Nautilus MedEx equipment (along with a ton of other really cool play toys!), and so following my client sessions tomorrow (I train clients at the downtown facility on Wednesdays), I plan on hitting a Mentzer-inspired HIT session.   Again, more so to ease into things here.  As I’ll have to take substantial training time off in order to move into my new house in about a week (way excited about this!  Moving that is — not the missed workouts part  🙂  ), I’ll have to repeat this phase-in process once more.  And I don’t look at this as a setback, either — rather, I take the long view, and see this as a necessity to remain in the game for the long-haul.  It’s a great time to focus on technique flaws, form alterations (and abominations!)…small things that tend to get glossed-over when the training focus is on “hard, heavy and fast”.  Everything under the sun has its season. 

Oh, and I heard this yesterday on NPR’s “The Human Edge” series; a little bit of Paleo 101, if you will.  If you’re looking for a tidy intro, of sorts, for friends and family who want to now the most basis of all questions that we get asked in relation to our diet selections — why the overt avoidance of neolithic foods?  — this piece is a nice, concise reference.  It’s an easy answer, of course — but sometimes, though, it’s good for people to hear that same answer from multiple sources.

Iron, Speed, Paleo…and the Magic of HIIT

I get plenty of questions – and understandably so – one way or another related to my fascination with the fixed-speed (or fixed-gear) bicycle.  Well, one aspect of the fixie experience that I covet — aside from the cycling purist’s love of the unbroken convergence of body, machine and pavement – is the ability to absolutely thrash a high intensity interval training (HIIT) session on each and every fixie ride.  The fixed-speed machine lends itself well to HIIT sessions due to the fact that an all-out effort can be achieved virtually right out of the blocks, and for the fact that this effort can be maintained for the duration of the sprint – whether that sprint lasts 5 seconds, or as long as a full minute – which happens to be the top end of the range, for my particular purposes/goals.  On a fixie machine, if the wheels are spinning, your legs are humping – coasting is not an option – and slowing down requires a direct opposition to the momentum you’ve previously established.  The legs, in other words, are under constant assault.  “Huckin it fixed” imparts a huge overall energy expenditure coupled with a very fast power output/energy ramp-up requirement (if one so chooses to push the ride in this direction) that is unique to a fixed-gear set-up.  By way of analogy, I think you could look at the difference between a fixed-gear ride and a single/multi-speed ride as being the difference between a stadium step sprint session and a long, slow jog.

The spill-over efficacy of HIIT-like training, into the more endurance-ended demands of cycling, have been born out to me time and time again.  I never train for endurance per se, yet when I engage in endurance rides, my conditioning is more than equal to the task.  The link cited above references many of the most informative university studies on the efficacy of HIIT training.  If you’re endurance minded, looking for a conditioning boost (great preparation for the upcoming football season!), or if you simply want to kick-start (or maintain) some serious fat-burning potential, do yourself a favor and don’t overlook this method of training.  Of course sprinting is the easiest way to implement a HIIT-like protocol, but any exercise modality can be modified to work – weight training, biking, rowing – the possibilities are truly endless.

This I can tell you: a short HIIT session – whether that session involves riding, sprinting or weights — will leave your body in metabolic hyper-drive for many, many hours following the session – much, much more so than any prolonged-slog or plodding trudge will ever do.  For instance, on Monday I did a short series of sprints totaling approximately 8 miles and 30 minutes – approximately 4 miles/15 minutes to the coffee shop, 4 miles/15 minutes on the return.  Now, 8 miles is no big deal on a bike – especially since I kick back with a red-eye and a good read for an hour or so in the middle of it all — however, each leg of the trip was marked by a series of hard sprints and easy “spins” (“spins” being at a light, recovery cadence).  What was the sprint-to-spin ratio?  Well, it varied – hey, this is real life! —  the key is that I sprint until I have to stop due to exhaustion or traffic obstacle, and I spin until I recover “adequately”, or until I have another opportunity to sprint.  In this way, the sprint/spin ratio is highly fractal/variable, and that’s the way I like it.  Sometimes I’m fully recovered from the previous sprint before diving into the next, sometimes I’m still heaving like a freight train.  The bottom line is that little bit of work jacks my metabolism for the remainder of the evening and into the night.  The buzz in the legs, the elevated body temperature, the ravenous appetite – yep, those are the signs of a metabolism in high-gear; the same prolonged indicators you’ll never enjoy following a long, slow and excruciating dull session.

Of course, endurance types attempting to better performance in a particular event – or modality, for that matter — can always combine more precise and directed HIIT training together with heart rate monitoring/tracking in order to maximize training effect.  For example, check out Dr. Mike Nichols’ take on heart rate training, here (note: this is part 5 of the series, which is, as of this writing, the final installment on the topic.  Make sure you check out all the installments, though.  Very, very informative stuff indeed!).  It’s a little more than I care to manage at the moment, but hey, there may come a time when I’ll want to train in a more directed manner.  It’s always good to have options, and to understand the science behind those options.

Tuesday’s Iron Works –

Basic? You bet.  Effective?  No friggin’ doubt.  Remember, the mind might require novelty, but the body doesn’t give a damn.  The body’s job is to overcome a stress, and be better prepared to face that stress next time around.  Simple as that.

Beating the coming rain acted as added incentive, both in busting out a fast fixie sprint session heading into the gym, and getting my ass home following.

Kicked things off with the following superset:

front “military” press (strict, no “push”): 115 x 5; 135 x 5; 155 x 3; 165 x 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2

straight bar muscle-up (pull-up variety): bodyweight x 2 reps each round.

then,

good mornings (wide stance, slight knee bend): used red bands on all sets – 135 x 6; 155 x 6, 185 x 4, 4, 4

then a quick superset of –

db triceps roll-out extensions (from floor): 50 x 10, 9

ez bar bicep curl: bar + 80 x 12, 12

then, as a finisher –

Nautilus 4-way neck: front and each side – 50 lbs x 10; back – 65 lbs x 10 (last 4 reps rest-pause)

A cool front is punching its way down south tonight.  Sweet relief  🙂

Hey, Don’t (Fill in the Blank), It’ll Wreck Your Knees!

TTP reader Matt asks the following question:

Hi Keith,
I’ve been enjoying your blog for quite some time, so thank you for providing such a fantastic resource. I eat, workout, etc., in a similar fashion as you and also happen to love riding fixed. But I’ve recently gotten a bit concerned about possible long term knee damage from grinding up hills, bigger gears, and fixed in general (I want to still be sprinting 20 yrs. from now!). Have you read about or explored this at all? Just wanted to get your take. Thanks in advance, I truly appreciate your time.
Best,
Matt

Oh yeah; my God, have I ever heard this one.  This “dude, fixie kills your knees” thing kinda falls into the same bro-science department as “full squats will blow-up your knees”….or hack squats, or Zercher squats, or Oly squats, or plyometrics, (or hell, name your poison of choice) will damn your knees to friggin’ hell.  The thing is, if there were any merit to any of these arguments, I should be a friggin’ cripple by now, as I’ve been riding fixed for well over a decade, and I’ve been hitting every squat and plyo variation imaginable for — well, I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeonly ol’ dinosaur, but it has been some 30+ years.  And before that what was I doing?  Riding single-speed bikes, skateboarding (without a helmet and pads!!), jumping off of roofs, climbing ropes, and generally being a little body-bashing hellion.  And yeah, at one point I did blow up a knee.  But what my ACL and MCL finally gave into was the result of a freak, instantaneous commingling of speed, cleats, natural turf, and force x mass x acceleration delivered  at a “perfect” angle and point-of-impact.  But hey, that’s another story for another time…

…the point is, I still I have no knee pain at all, and none as a result of any hard-and-heavy fixie riding or squatting, or whatever else, for that matter.  Of course, I am an experiment of only one.  In all seriousness though, Matt, I have no doubt that some people do experience knee pain that results from huckin’ it fixed and that some people do suffer knee pain from squatting and other “questionable” forms of exercise.  What these folks fail to realize, though, is the difference between cause and correlation.

In short, what huckin’ it fixed, squatting, plyometrics and all other “knee destroyers” are actually doing is (1) exposing an underlying muscular weaknesses and/or imbalance, and/or (2) serving as an indicator of crappy/sloppy form.  And, if truth be told, in most instance we’re dealing with both — as one condition inevitably leads to the other, in a kind of self-perpetuating death spiral.

Now, this should not be interpreted as me implying that if your are suffering knee pain as a result of these “villainous” activities that you should just suck it up and endeavor to persevere.  No, what I’m saying is that the resultant knee pain in these cases is simply a correlate, or indicator of another underlying, root problem.  In other words, banning fire engines from responding to fires will do nothing to prevent fires in the first place.  Address the underlying weaknesses and imbalances, and practice proper form.  Once a solid base of strength has been established in the body’s basic movement patterns (push, pull, squat, deadlift, press overhead), any potential knee problems will be avoided.  Know, too, that the “base” level of strength required to inoculate one from knee pain is relative.  For pain-free fixie riding, we’re not talking about much; for a 900 lb squat, we’ve got a bit of work to do.

In short, Matt, get strong, stay strong, and huck-on with no fear of wrecking your peg hinges.

And hey, speaking of the ol’ fire/fire truck analogy, there’s this recent Mother Jones article, Death by Hamburger to deal with. I twittered about this yesterday, but this damn thing has the feel to me of — I dunno — Cliff Notes for the China Study?  I mean, how many ways can it be said that correlation does not imply causation, that just because fire trucks are frequently seen near raging fires does not imply that they cause those same fires?  For every article the mainstream knocks outta the park, we have to endure tenfold of these.  Sheesh.  And I like Mother Jones, if for no other reason than they force me to think outside of my comfort zone.  I appreciate that in a publication.  Anyway, good ol’ MJ missed the mark on this one.  In fact, in honor of that piece, this is what I had for dinner last night –

That’s a nice porterhouse, brother — with some locally grown, fresh beets.  Eatin’ my way to an early grave, no doubt 😉

Discretion Being the Better part of Valor…

…I decided the pull the plug early on this morning’s workout.

First, let’s back up to yesterday afternoon and a near-miss wipe-out on the ol’ fixie.  Speed, heavy traffic, potholes, and the dreaded flung-open car door (i.e., being “doored” in cyclist parlance) — individually, these hazards make riding in the city…uhh…I dunno…shall we just say “interesting”, and leave it at that?  What about when these things happen to coincide within a unique singularity?  Well, we have on our hands then is  a major rut-ro moment.  Long story short, I didn’t go all the way to the ground — how, I don’t know.  Skills, maybe? (smug grin, pats self on back).  Heh, right.  Anyway, so I wound-up not leaving behind any valuable paleo hide on the asphalt, however, I did manage to tweak my lower back.  At the time it didn’t feel so bad (what an amazing painkiller adrenalin can be!), and I continued riding for a good bit longer.  In fact, I didn’t give it a second thought until…

…until I hit the gym this morning, with the intent of doing some heavy, black-banded Good Mornings.  Wrong answer.  Warm-ups and the lower-loaded/build-up sets felt fine.  Any appreciable loading, though, was a definite no-go.  Now back in my not-so-distant younger days, I would have pushed on through — and probably ended-up on the injured reserve for a few weeks following.  Not now though (older and wiser!), and not today.

Quick interlude: I just realized that I commented on my self-proclaimed “older and wiser” status immediately subsequent to a paragraph where I speak of willingly (wantonly, even!) traversing the hazards of fixie riding in the city.  Go figure.  Anyway, back to our tale…

So the moral of the story?  I pulled the plug on the workout, hit the showers early, and left the gym with my only real injury being a bruised ego.  Being active brings with it the distinct possibility of getting hurt now and again.  I’m fine with those odds, and with the risk to benefit ratio associated with my lifestyle choices.  No need to compound problems when they do occurr, though.  I’ll sacrifice today’s battle for success in the overall campaign.

But damn I was so looking forward to that heavy Good Morning session!  Ugh…

10 minutes ’till full-on fight-or-flight response…

Paleo in the Mainstream

This might be old news by now, but NPR’s The People’s Pharmacy devoted a recent show to a discussion of low carbohydrate diets in general, and  “The New Atkins” diet in particular.  Now, I enjoy listening to The People’s Pharmacy, even if it is a bit pedestrian for my taste.  For a certain mainstream demographic, though (think older, wealthier, intelligent, well-connected– and either very busy, or with plenty of time on their hands), this show is “cutting edge”; any air time, then, that low carbohydrate diets get in a venue such as this is, my opinion, a plus.  The Paleo tribe is, of course, light years ahead of the rest when it comes to diet sense — but remember — we’re talking about mainstream influence here, and more importantly, influencing a mainstream demographic with the money, clout and wherewithal to affect public policy.  Was Michelle Obama listening to this episode?  Jesus, let’s hope so — maybe she’ll rethink her dietary suggestions to the nation’s youth.

From The People’s Pharmacy show notes:

Losing weight is a challenge for many of us, and dietary advice is often contradictory. Which diet will work best? Would it be a low-fat vegetarian diet like the one Dr. Dean Ornish promotes? Or might it be a low-carb diet similar to the one espoused by the late Dr. Robert Atkins? Many fear that a diet low in carbohydrates and therefore heavier on protein and fat will push cholesterol to unhealthy levels. New data on the low-carb approach don’t support that concern, though. We’ll get the low-down on the science behind the NEW Atkins diet.

Guest: Eric Westman, MD, MHS, is an associate professor of medicine at the Duke University Health System and director of the Duke Lifestyle Medicine Clinic. He is the author of The New Atkins for a New You, with Dr. Jeff Volek and Dr. Stephen Phinney.

A couple of topics came up during the discussion; the notorious China Study for one (see Richard’s thorough dismantling of this “study” over at Free the Animal ), “Vegetarian” Atkins (rice and beans make for a lousy sirloin, folks).  Loren Cordain and the Paleo diet even make an appearance (we need more studies, says the good doctor Westman.  Right…) .

All-in-all, though, I’ll take it — a pretty fair airing of the low carbohydrate (though certainly not Paleo) mindset — even with the rather incredulous tone that host Terry Greadon takes with Dr. Westman for much of the show, and with Dr. Westman’s condoning the “vegetarian” Atkins version of the diet.  Oh well…let’s keep in mind the greater, long-term good.

One small step for Paleo man, one giant step (hopefully) toward altering the nation’s relationship with food and diet.

In health,
Keith

The Fixie Allure and, A Weekend’s Worth of HIIT

“Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you’ve hung around the ol’ TTP blog for long, you’ve inevitably heard me drone-on (and on and on…) about my beloved fixie.  What’s the allure, you ask — I mean, Chrissakes, it’s just a friggin’ bicycle, right?

Au contraire, my good friend; the fixie is to cycling, as Vibrams are to running.  You don’t so much ride a fixie as you tango with it; jockey, machine, and environment all inextricably connected in the dance.  And as an added bonus, the fixie, by it’s very nature, screams of mixed-intensity bursts of exertion — commonly referred to in the parlance of physical culture as High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).   Looking for a primal cycling experience?  Look no further than the fixed-speed bicycle.  Short, intermittent bursts of high power output interspersed with longer bursts of moderate-level power output, starts, stops; all chaos, all fractal in nature.  Very primal.

So that’s an experienced rider’s take.  Want a newbie’s impression of the fixie experience?  Here’s an informative fixie article, from Mary Buckheit, of ESPN.com.

“…for those keeping score at home, that’s one bike, one gear, one brake (if any)…”
– Mary Buckheit, ESPN.com

And hey, check this out — it’s so much fun, even Lance Armstrong loves a fixie  🙂  Saddle one up, and you’ll be forever changed.

Nothing can really impart to you the unique fixie feel, short of actually climbing on board and taking one for a spin.  The following clip, though, does a good job of portraying the essence and fun-loving spirit of the fixie experience.  Notice the plug near the end (beneath the bill of one of the rider’s cap) for Mellow Johnny’s — is it safe yet to call Mellow Johnny’s an Austin institution?  Well, how ’bout we just say that it’s my favorite Austin bike shop, and leave it at that?

Oh yeah, and one of my favorite fixie porn sites, here.

A Weekend’s Worth of HIIT

Fixie, Vibrams, a sled and an open field; this is gonna be good!

So the theme for this past weekend was many, many, many short HIIT bursts, from Friday evening until Sunday night.  Friday after work I sprinted (fixie, that is — Vibram sprints came later in the weekend) to the coffee shop, read for a while (Einstein’s God — fantastic read, by the way), then from there to a friend’s house for dinner (low country boil!), then from there, back home again (night time riding!).  Saturday and Sunday was much the same — I dare say I racked-up a good 15 rides (15 to 30 minutes or so a pop).  I also performed plenty of barefooted sprints and variety of of sled pulls and drags over the weekend as well.  I can’t really quantify any of this other than to say, again, it was all done in short bursts of high-intensity effort, followed by full recovery.  It was a weekend full of high-intensity, active play.

The one thing I can quantify was a Saturday gym session (following a barefooted sprint session) that shaped-up like this:

behind the neck (barbell) push-press: 135 x 5; 165 x 4; 185 x 3; 195 x 1, 1, 1, 1
straight bar muscle-ups: x 3, each of 7 total rounds

Couple of notes: all that lower body work really put the hurt on my push-press numbers.  Think the push-press is a shoulder dominant exercise?  Think again.  See what your push-press (jerks, too) numbers look like following a hip-dominant blitz.  It’ll feel like you’re pushing/jerking out of loose-packed sand.  Also, if you’re planning a bike-to-sprint (running) combo, remember to properly transition by doing some hip mobility and glute-activating movements prior to running.  Get that posterior chain revved-up or you’ll end-up running like a drunk initially — or worse yet, pull a ham string.  Biking is a highly quad-dominant endeavor and in no way prepares one for PC dominant work.  Biking will rev your core temperature, no doubt — so in that respect, it is a good “warm-up” activity — biking does nothing, however, to prime the PC for running sprints.

Today is most definitely a rest day 🙂

…ok, maybe a little bit of riding 🙂  Gotta feed the fixie jones.  Be forewarned, fixie riding is a serious addiction.

In health,
Keith

25 Miles in the Saddle, Sled Pulls, and Lamb — It’s What’s for Dinner

Began the day with 18+ miles of mixed-intensity, fixie riding, culminating at the Rocky Mount High School football field for some serious sled dragging.   A single-man tackling sled is a little too heavy to use for glute-dominant, goose-step pulls — which I would prefer, as this exercise more closely hits/resembles the at-speed sprinting (pawing) motion — but still, some very effective drive phase work can be done with a heavier implement.

Here’s what a single-man tackling sled looks like, courtesy of George at Coaching for Pizza.  Heh, not very Paleo, but a very cool site none the less.  Coaching football in Europe — what a trip that must be.

I used my gymnastic rings and straps for leads.  I have no way of quantifying how much or how many pulls I did, other than to say I did a friggin bunch — alternating between both forward and backward pulls — in approximately 30 yard bursts.

I followed the pull-fest up with a another 6+ miles in the saddle.  Got a nice workout, along with a little more sun on my pale self than I’d bargained for; ramping-up the ol’ vitamin D generator, I suppose.

Refueled from the day’s activities with some grilled lamb and a simple salad.

I also had another round of the leftover concoction from yesterday.   Notice that my carb intake, even during periods of extended exercise volume, is still pretty damn minimal.

Tomorrow will be a planned day off.  Maybe some light fixie riding out to the coffee shop to keep the legs loose, but noting more than that.

4/10/10; Today’s Workout, and Paleo Chow on the Fly

Actually, let’s back up just a moment and look at last night’s dinner.  Now remember, I absolutely LOVE to eat skillfully prepared, intricate and exquisite meals; thank goodness, then, for Meesus TTP’s kitchen skills, and for the talents of my favorite restaurant’s fine chefs.  Making such meals myself, though?  Meh, I’ve neither the time nor the inclination for that.  I can pull off a pretty good Paleo kitchen improv, though; case in point: after returning from an evening fixie spin, I found I had the following on hand (and not much else, by the way):

1 lb ground sausage
1 lb ground buffalo
1 large sweet onion
2 medium sweet potatoes

Hmmmm, what to do.  OK, so I sliced, seasoned, buttered and roasted roasted the sweet potatoes in the oven, chopped and sauteed the entire onion in a butter/coconut oil mix in a cast iron skillet.  Then, once the onion was done, I added the sausage and buffalo to the skillet mix (along with a sundry of spices…whatever looked like it might work), and cooked that until done.  The result?  A pretty damn good, on the fly meal — even it it wouldn’t win too many creative points.  So, waddaya think?  Am I Iron Chef material?  Heh…

OK, so flash forward to today, and today’s workout:

• 30 minute intermittent-intensity fixie ride
• barefooted sprints — 8 x 100 yds @ <13 secs/sprint, approx. 1 minute between runs.
• 20 minute intermittent-intensity fixie ride

Then it was in the gym for the following:

• clean grip low pull (out of the rack): 135 x 7; 225 x 5; 315 x 5; 365 x 3, 3, 3, 3, 3,
• elevated feet ballistic push-ups x 7 — or —
• elevated feet medicine ball push-up x 6 each arm

So 7 total rounds here.  I alternated between “normal” dual-arm ballistic push-ups, and the medicine ball, single-arm variety.  The single-arm variety was done as explosively as possible while minimizing the contribution from the “off” arm.  Minimized hand-to-ground contact time on both varieties, maximized “air” time.  The bar was set just above the knee for the rack pulls.  Full triple extension (and up to full tip-toe), full shrug, and explosive on each rep.

Pretty good demonstration of med. ball push-ups here.  Now, I performed mine with feet elevated (about 18″), and I performed 6 reps with one arm, then shifted to the other for another 6.  Just another variant of this fine exercise.  One thing to keep in mind is to not let your hips sag while doing any manner of push-up — no saddle-back horse look-alikes aloud!

Another 15 minutes worth of fixie huckin’ to get home.  By this time I’ve been fasted for 18 hours; I won’t eat for another 2.  And when I do eat, it’s this:

Remember last night’s dinner?  Well, here’s part of the left overs —

Me thinks a couple of free-range eggs will go well to top that off; here’s the end product:

Check out those yokes!  By the way, the egg on the right is a duck egg.  This concoction doesn’t look like much, but it sure tasted good!

Back from the Mini-Break, and Back in the Saddle

“Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.” – Sir Arthur Wing Pinero

Ahh, and what a nice break it was.  After flying-in and spending the night in downtown Houston, Meesus TTP and I drove out her to father’s place in Chappell Hill.  A scene right from the pages of City Mouse, Country Mouse — 60-odd miles and a world away; what a juxtaposition.

It’s in Chappell Hill that Meesus TTP’s father, Mort Curtis — along with his wife, Val — own and operate the the Magic Gypsy Ranch, where they are keepers, breeders, and absolutely passionate connoisseurs, of the  Gypsy Vanner horse breed.  And so it was that I traded my fixie saddle for one of a horse riding kind this past weekend, and loved every minute of it.  The only thing I didn’t get a chance to do that I’d wished I’d done is to huck the ol’ fix around downtown Houston.

Next time.  And maybe both in the same day?

Seeing these majestic animals, though, up-close and personal, reminds one of just how powerful a force proper environmental stimulus is to exquisite phenotypical expression.  These animals — in addition to being bred for certain, genetic particulars (and the exclusion of “imperfection”) — are raised under what could be considered ideal conditions (i.e., stimulus) from a horse’s point of view.  Plenty of grass/hay to eat, plenty of exercise, top-of-the-line “health care”, the works.  And lo and behold they grow to be incredibly fit, strong (and muscular!), healthy and lean.  The more I consider this, the more I realize that the true impediment to human health and fitness is the one-two punch of a faulty ego and misguided “intelligence”, and that these disconnects operate on an individual, as well as societal, level.  I’m not otherwise a Chairman Mao fan, however, he did drive home the profundity nail with his “civilize the mind, make savage the body” , quote.  So very true.

And having a vast financial tie associated with an organism’s (be it athlete or animal) prevailing health has the effect of illuminating that organism’s health/fitness in a very bright light.  Hmmmmm…….maybe John Q Public should consider this?  Just a thought…

Long flights and extended layovers eventually exhausted my brought-along reading material, and so on the return to NC, I was forced to wonder Nashville International in search of intellectual nourishment.  I came away with the April issue of the Atlantic and, in particular, found this article concerning the “edibility” of kangaroo and camel to be especially thought-provoking.  Having just spent the weekend surrounded by miles and miles (literally) of open pastureland, my mind automatically went into overdrive with the possibility of putting kangaroo and camel into “crop rotation” along with chickens, goats, cattle, and the (pick your own) favorite veggie/berry crop-of-the-month.  Now, as a natural-born carnivore, I’d have no problem at all cutting into a nice, medium rare, camel sirloin, or Qin’-up some tasty ‘roo — but I wonder if that’s just me.  The culinary dictates of a culture are peculiar things to be sure.  I wonder what it is about the Paleo crowd that enables us to be more tolerant of out-of-the-box (pun intended) cuisine?  What causes us to bypass the “eeeww, yuck, ick” factor, and head straight right for a nutritional value, and taste-test break-down?  “A superior intelligence” would be my reflexive response — but really, is that it?  The ability to reason, to parse facts and to squelch the idiot “noise”?  Just attempting to connect the dots, here, attempting to formulate a “theory of everything” that prevents the general public’s Paleo buy-in.  I refuse to believe this is a dead-end road  🙂

And speaking of “dead-end roads”, how about the NSCA’s decision to shun Mike Boyle at this summer’s NSCA National Conference?  My comment on Mike’s blog, in reference to the shun, was…

…Stick to your guns, Mike. Any organization that acts to stifle the innovativeness of its members is looking to go the way of the dinosaur. These organizations ought to act as incubators of cutting-edge ideas; not that all of these ideas will necessarily wind-up panning out — but some, undoubtedly, will. Evolve or die, NSCA; nothing remains in homeostasis forever…

I realize these organizations are under a good deal of pressure to project solid, standardized “group think” — yet, there has to be provisions made for innovation.  This lack of an “innovative branch” within the fitness/S & C certification organizations is the primary reason behind my refusal to become “certified” by any of them.  “Certified”, it seems, is tantamount to “obligated to yesterday’s thought”.  Food pyramid, anyone?  USDA?  I refuse to be willfully dumbed-down.

Not very epistemocratic, and in no way is this exemplary of an n=1 mindset; and, therefore, not at all for me.

In health,
Keith