Reverse Patterning the Squat

I’ve gotten some great ideas from reading Gray Cook’s Movement and Athletic Body in Balance. (I’ve written several times recently about the information in these books. I don’t want to sound like I’ve joined the latest UFO cult or anything, but it’s what I’m into right now. I’m seeing very interesting results, so that’s what I’m talking about.) One concept in particular I’m finding very useful and exciting. It’s known as reverse patterning. Reverse patterning is discussed in chapter 14 of Movement. Though it’s not called “reverse patterning” in Athletic Body in Balance, a very similar process is explored in chapter 6 of that book.

I’ve applied this concept to the squat and I think I’ve discovered a much better way to teach the squat. It’s simple to teach, safe, and similar to the half-kneeling position, there’s pretty much only one way to do it correctly, that is the only way to do it in any form is to do it correctly. If you do it wrong you basically won’t go anywhere at all.

Problems with teaching the squat

Most of us teach and learn the squat from the top down. That means we start in the standing position, lower ourselves down low in a sitting-type of maneuver, then we stand back up. It’s a fairly complex movement. Coordinated movement must occur at the ankles, knees and hips. Meanwhile stability must occur through all these structures plus the spine. All the while the squatter must stay balanced. Teaching this process can be quite challenging.

Very often a client has no idea at all how to do this: Their knees shoot forward, heels pop up, knees cave in, spine rounds forward, pelvis tucks way under–all kinds of movement faults occur. Then I have to teach this funny movement by using all sorts of language and cues that may or may not resonate with the client. So now it’s almost like learning to juggle, ride a bike and recite the Gettysburg Address all at once. Sometimes it goes very well. Sometimes it can be a real hair-pulling sort of event for both parties.

(The funny thing is, if you watch any number of young children, you can see superb squat technique done over and over and over. No one taught them. They figured it out for themselves! How did they figure this out? Must be some simpler way to do this, no?)

Squatting from the bottom up

Gray Cook talks about primitive patterns. These are movement patterns such as crawling, rolling, squatting and other movements that precede activities like walking and running. These are fundamental patterns to humans. (Modern living tends to rob us of these patterns. We sit too much. We hunch over keyboards and steering wheels too much. We don’t get down on the ground and move in funny ways enough.) In the case of the squat, we all did our very first squat a long time ago. I don’t remember my first squat and neither do you. That first squat actually started at ground level as we were trying to emulate the people around us who were standing and walking. At some point probably after several attempts, we stood up.

Typically when teaching the squat the difficulty comes from our trying to get to the bottom of the thing. As I said previously, we often do it all wrong and it takes a bunch of work to do it right. So instead of making it difficult to get down, why not make it as easy as possible to get into the bottom of the squat position? This is very easy to do. Watch the video to see the process.

Awareness: Half-Kneeling

I’m very much into the idea of awareness so I’m going to continue the conversation. I feel like many of us aren’t fully aware of how to do a lot of things and as a result we’re weak, slow, and/or in pain. We aren’t aware of our spinal position and stability (or lack there of) as we move. We’re not aware of our scapulas as we use our arms. We’re not aware of our glutes as we do all kinds of things. We’re not aware of our pelvic position… In general, we’re not aware of our inabilities, our instabilities, and our weaknesses. So if we think we’re going to function well, be strong, and move fast without awareness then we are very mistaken.

More specifically, I’ve become very keen on improving the rotary stability portion of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS.) I’ve realized that rotational stability is sort of a hidden weakness and an under-appreciated ability. Rotational forces are acting on us all the time and we often don’t know it. If we don’t control rotational forces correctly then we’re at risk of injury and poor performance.

Part of this process includes the half-kneeling position. You can use this position as both a test and an exercise. The interesting thing about this process is either you do it correctly and you succeed or you do it wrong and you fail. Unlike say, a bench press where you can make the bar move up and down in a multitude of ways that may or may not be safe and effective, staying upright in the half-kneeling position equates to the one and only way to do the exercise correctly. Thus, the test is the exercise and the exercise is the test.

I discussed the half-kneeling position with Denver-area PT Mike Kohm. He’s worked with a lot of runners and cyclists including some pros. He says it’s not uncommon to put a strong, capable athlete into a half-kneeling position and they instantly become an unbalanced clod with no idea how to stabilize his or her body.

Why is this and why does it happen?

By going into the half-kneeling position we’re taking the legs out of the equation and putting a lot more work into the hips and trunk–aka the core. Mike suggests that many athletes have very strong legs that can compensate for an inefficient core. Why not go ahead and get a competent core? Gain awareness. Shore up the weakness. Get really fast/strong/mobile, etc.

The first video goes into the half-kneeling process. The second video is from Gray Cook; it covers the lift and chop which are often done in the half-kneeling position. Finally, if you’re interested in expanding on exercises to improve rotary stability, check out Can’t Turn This by Brett Contreras at TNation.com. It’s full of several very effective exercises that should help you improve the very under-appreciated ability to resist rotational forces.

Gray Cook, FMS & Dry Needling

The true champion will spend more time working on weakness than showing off strength.
– Gray Cook, Athletic Body in Balance

Gray Cook

I’ve taken great interest recently in Gray Cook’s material including the FMS or Functional Movement Screen as well as two books by Gray, Movement and Athletic Body in Balance. Gray is a physical therapist, strength coach and kettlebell instructor. Much of his work focuses on identifying our weaknesses and improving our poor movement patterns. He’s been in the fitness/rehab world for a while and I’ve known of his work for a while but just recently have I really dug into it and I’m finding it very fascinating.

Functional Movement Screen

The FMS consists of several movement patterns: the overhead squat, inline lunge, hurdle step, shoulder mobility reaching, straight-leg raise, trunk stability pushup, and rotary stability pattern. These movements are fundamental to the way we move. They combine elements of stability and mobility. The purpose of the screen is to identify deficient movement patterns, asymmetries (this is a potentially HUGE issue) and pain. If someone test poorly on any of these tests then we know what areas need corrective exercise. This is a process of identifying weaknesses and making them strong.

Visit to PT Mike Kohm & dry needling

I wanted to get a first-hand exposure to the FMS and the clinical companion to the FMS which is known as the Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA). (The SFMA is used by physical therapists, chiropractors, osteopaths, etc. to further investigate painful and dysfunctional movement.) I looked up FMS/SFMA certified practitioners in the Denver area and I selected Mike Kohm of Neuromuscular Strategies. Mike is a PT and a yoga instructor who has experience with runners and cyclists. When I made my appointment I had nothing much wrong with me. I’ve had a little bit of right shoulder pain which has improved recently, but mainly I just wanted to see if there were any odd movement issues that I might want to take care of. A few days prior to my appointment I strained my right hip flexor while running sprints. Perfect time to see a PT.

I won’t go into every aspect of the assessment but it was a very thorough examination that did indeed expose some less-than-optimal movement patterns. He ID’d some funny movement at my right tibia and we figured out more about my right shoulder. We looked at some exercises to improve both areas. Just a couple of days later and both areas are moving much better.

As for my hip flexor, he did some dry needling on the strained area. This procedure is similar to acupuncture but it doesn’t rely on quite the same method. It involves inserting an acupuncture needle into a tight, spasming muscle. Sound like fun? It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, though it wasn’t any party either. I felt a stick and then a sudden but very brief cramp and then the muscle relaxed. Mike used the needle in three spots. It definitely felt better afterward. Mike said he thought dry needling could cut down by half the healing time for strained muscles. Sounds good to me.

FMS Self-Assessment & the Bretzel

Finally, there are a lot of interesting and informative Youtube videos discussing the FMS and corrective strategies. Here are a couple. The first is an abbreviated version of the FMS that you can use to evaluate your own movement patterns. The second is a very useful thoracic spine mobility drill known as the Bretzel. There are two versions of the Bretzel. These drills can be quite useful in addressing shoulder pain among other things. Try some of this stuff out and see what happens.

Running Awareness: Cadence, Foot Placement, Lean

I just started the new year with a run in the cold with my dog. It was a good run and I can report that I’ve tuned into something(s) important. I was aware of several gait-related details that I adjusted and played with, those being cadence, foot placement and the degree to which I lean while running. Why was any of this on my mind?

Cadence

First, upon reading the excellent Anatomy for Runners I’ve become more aware of my running cadence aka how often my feet hit the ground. The author Jay Dicharry discusses a popular notion that the ideal cadence is about 170-180 RPM. I’ve run with a metronome a few times to investigate this idea and compare this range to my normal cadence. Turns out my cadence was quite a bit slower. The problem I found when running at this higher cadence is that my cardiovascular system felt overwhelmed! Maintaining even the low end of that cadence was very challenging. Seems that I may have found a simple solution. Before I get to that, let’s discuss why a quick cadence may be beneficial.

Changing cadence to prevent overstriding

I mentioned in my last post that where your foot lands is very important in running. You want the foot to land as near to your center of mass as possible, not way out in front of you, a situation also known as overstriding. Several elite-level running coaches have discussed cadence and foot strike position. I’ll let their words do my talking. First, Steve Magness at Science of Running says:

“Then why is everyone in a rage over increasing stride rate? Because as I’ve pointed out before, most recreational runners simply overstride, which artificially creates a very low stride rate. Why? Because the foot lands so far out in front of the Center of Mass that it takes a while for your body to be over it and ready to push off. So, when some running form coach says to increase stride rate to X, what ends up happening is the runner is trying so hard to increase stride rate, he chops his stride a bunch by putting his foot down earlier and landing closer to his center of mass, thus decreasing the overstriding. Nothing particularly wrong with that.

Where we go wrong is in the logic that the stride rate increase is the key. No, it’s not. It’s the elimination of the overstriding. Using the cue to increase stride rate is a way for coaches/runners to reduce the heel striking overstride.”

The key concept here is that it’s not cadence in and of itself that’s so important, but rather by manipulating cadence we can improve the location of where the foot lands. Pete Larson at Runblogger puts it well when he says:

“In other words, reaching with the leg is bad, and increasing cadence can help us avoid doing that. Let me repeat – overstriding is what we are trying to prevent by manipulating cadence. If you don’t overstride, manipulating cadence might not be wise or necessary.”

Now, you may be asking why is overstriding an issue? Essentially overstriding is harder on the body. In contrast, keeping the foot closer to you won’t beat you up so much. I won’t go into the details but if you’re interested, then please check out Jay Dicharry’s posts on Loading Rate Part 1: What Does it Mean for You and Part 2. (Part 2 is a very interesting discussion as to why a forefoot, midfoot or heel strike may not matter at all.)

Leaning forward

I’m obviously on the lookout for gait and running mechanics information. I recently discovered a very good site called Kinetic Revolution. There’s all sorts of very useful science-based information there for runners and triathletes. Among all this wealth of good stuff, I came across the post titled Essentials of Running Mechanics. That post features a video from a South African running coach named Bobby McGee. (Insert whatever obvious Janis Joplin joke you’d like.) Leaning forward is the first thing McGee discusses. Through leaning we can go faster or slower: more forward = faster, more upright = slower.

Remember earlier I mentioned that this faster cadence was overwhelming my heart and lungs? At the 1:34 minute of the video McGee discusses this issue. He says to simply get a bit more upright (don’t lean so far forward) to slow down and control the cardiovascular exertion. I tried it today and it worked perfectly! I was able to a) maintain proper foot placement under my center of mass by b) speeding up my cadence and c) adjusting my lean so that I was more upright. The overall result is that I maintained a quick pace and felt good doing it. I felt my glutes working well. Foot placement felt ideal. All-and-all I was very pleased with what this small adjustment did for me.

Awareness

When it comes to either pain or performance issues, we’re often told that we need to get stronger. We need to strengthen our core to help back pain. We need to strengthen our legs to pedal or run faster. We need stronger arms to swim better. Strength is important for sure. There’s no substitute for it. It’s money in the bank.

Awareness and pain

Here’s something slightly different to consider: Awareness. A lot of pain and poor performance issues aren’t so much strength-related as they are awareness-related. By this I mean we need to know how to use our muscles to control our limbs and a lot of us don’t have the awareness we need to accomplish the task. Here’s a common example:

A client complains of knee pain. I watch them squat, walk up and down stairs, and maybe do some one-leg mini-squats.

The glutes aren't doing their job and the knees suffer for it.

I observe a valgus collapse–the knee or knees cave in as he or she moves.

What are the consequences?

This type of movement pattern sets us up for knee ligament damage, meniscus damage, IT band pain, patella pain, and possibly back pain. Even if the person isn’t in pain, this is a very inefficient movement pattern. Whether running or walking, this valgus pattern makes for poor shock absorption and energy transfer into the ground. We’re slow and weak when our knees collapse like this.

Why is it happening?

Back to the “A” word, awareness. Very commonly we can’t use our glutes correctly–and we’re not aware that we’re not using them. We have what Thomas Hanna calls “sensory motor amnesia.” We’ve forgotten how to move. (Modern living is a killer. We sit too much!!)

Why do glutes matter to knees?

The glutes (glute maximus, medius and minimus) along with the tensor fasciae latae start up in the pelvis and feed into the IT band. The IT band then attaches to the top of the tibia right below the knee. In this arrangement, if we tighten or squeeze the glutes the knee will rotate outwards. If we release tension from the glutes then the knee will tend to collapse in. Control of the knee largely resides at the hip with the glutes. (By the way, we could discuss awareness of the foot as it pertains to a valgus knee too. If the big toe isn’t firm to the ground and we don’t have competent arches then the knee may collapse in.)

The keys to the knees.

What’s the solution?

Often someone with knee pain has been told they need to strengthen muscles around the knees namely the quadriceps. This was the thinking for years. So people did knee extensions. The muscles near the knee definitely got stronger but that didn’t improve the walking, running, or stepping pattern that was causing the pain. Now we understand that the glutes have more influence over the knee than the muscles surrounding the knee. The pattern of movement is the key factor. It’s how we use our muscles! We must become aware of how we move, and aware of how we employ our muscles during movement. If we gain awareness of the glutes then we can start to control the knee. Strength isn’t the main issue. (The same can be said for the deep core muscles and back pain.)

We need awareness before we can get strong, fast or powerful. In fact, if we’re not moving well–if we’re not aware of how we’re moving–and we add weight or speed to the scenario then we’re marching headlong into dysfunction, pain, and poor performance. It’s analogous to hammering a bent nail. The harder we pound the more it bends and we’re headed for trouble.

Awareness for performance: the bench press

I spoke with a friend and former client of mine who’s learning to bench press. (My ego demands that I tell you he lives in another state which is why he’s working with a different trainer.) He told me he learned to use his lats for the bench press. (Think of trying to bend the bar into a horseshoe.) Now, with the lats engaged he’s got a stronger foundation from which to press. He’s called in more muscles to help disperse the work. His shoulders are more stable. Now he can get stronger and likely avoid injury. Awareness should come first. (I wish I were aware of all this stuff when I was training him!)

Beyond this example, Louie Simmons in the Westside Barbell Squat and Deadlift Manual directs lifters to identify their weakness–become aware of them in other words–and work to shore them up. He says don’t necessarily do the exercises you like. Do the exercises that work for you.

Awareness for performance: running

First, all the stuff above about glutes and knees pertains very much to running. Remember that. What else should we be aware of while running? Think about where your foot lands. Does it land way out in front? It shouldn’t. If it does you’ll likely have problems. Rather, the foot should land just barely out in front of your center of mass and the foot should land right below the knee, not out in front. If you watch recreational runners you’ll often see the foot land out in front. Watch elite runners and that foot lands very close to right underneath. Think of your leg as a swinging pendulum. If the pendulum swings wide then a) your foot lands out in front, b) your cadence is slower and c) it’ll take more energy to run. In a better situation you’ll swing your pendulum/leg in a shorter arc. The foot will land closer to you which will result in a faster cadence and you’ll be more efficient. You’ll be faster and you’ll be in a better position to avoid injury. For more on this and further awareness of how you should run, check out this very informative article by Jay Dicharry, author of Anatomy for Runners.

Awareness for weight loss

So we’ve discussed awareness as it pertains to pain and performance. Where else does it matter? Do you want to get leaner and generally healthier? Then you better be aware of your eating habits. Very similar to poor movement patterns, poor eating habits will over the course of time do great damage to our physique and overall health. The problem is a habit is an unconscious thing. We’re not aware of our habits! We eat mindlessly in front of the TV. We’re caught without healthy food to eat so we resort to fast food or packaged frozen dinners. We take nibbles of junk snacks thinking that we’re not eating that much garbage, but by the end of the week we’ve consumed a lot of crapola. The result? We look and feel like a sick, sluggish mess. What can we do?

Keeping a food journal is by far one of the most effective and cheapest things you can do to help become aware of your eating habits. You can use any notebook. Or you can use an online program such as MyFitnessPal.com.

Does this sound inconvenient? Writing out 1/2 cups, tablespoons, grams, etc. can be a hassle. Guess what. You don’t have to employ painstaking detail to get the benefits of keeping a food journal. You don’t even have to track every meal every day. If you eat some M&Ms, write “M&Ms.” If you eat a salad write “salad.” If you can only manage to track breakfast three days a week then that’s better than tracking nothing at all. The point is to start to become aware of your eating habits. Any progress at all is progress. Awareness must come before you can expect to see change.

Awareness elsewhere in life

How are you handling stress? What time do you go to bed? If you’re trying to get in shape or you’re training to compete, you better know these things. If you’re aware of your workouts but your not aware of how you’re resting then you’re compromising your ability to lose weight and compete.

Hard exercise is stress. So is work. So are some of our interpersonal relationships. Alcohol and sugary foods cause stress. The winter holidays are full of stressors. If stress goes up in one or more areas then it must come down in others. Otherwise you’re courting illness, injury or at the very least extreme fatigue. If you’re feeling pulled in 100 directions then it may be a good idea to scale back your workouts a little. Don’t give up though! Recognize that more/harder exercise won’t help you if you’re highly stressed. Finding some way to decrease some of your stress is critical to good mental and physical health. Take stock of these things. Be aware of what’s going on in your life. Then you can take measures to manage things.

Book Review: Anatomy for Runners

Are you a runner? Do you know a runner? If yes, then I HIGHLY recommend Anatomy for Runners by Jay Dicharry. MPT, CSCS. It’s simply a fantastic book on the hows and whys of overcoming running injuries and increasing your performance.

Dicharry hits numerous nails very solidly on the head. He doesn’t just talk about treating the symptoms of our injuries. Rather, he gets at the true causes of our injuries–namely we don’t know how to stabilize our spine, hips, knees, ankles and feet appropriately. We’ve forgotten how to move! The book covers anatomy, gait mechanics, soft tissue maintenance, corrective exercises, footwear, orthotics, stretching, strength. Chapter 9 is a self-assessment process to help you figure out if you’re both mobile and stable enough to run. If you’re lacking in those departments, he presents strategies and exercises to shore up your weak areas. Impressively, he presents all this fairly technical information in a very easy-to-read kind of way. This isn’t a dry, boring textbook.

Dicharry is a physical therapist, strength coach, running coach and a cycling coach; so he knows his science. But, I think one of the most important aspects of Anatomy for Runners is that Dicharry writes from the perspective of a formerly often-injured runner. This point-of-view is one with which I and probably a lot of other people will identify. He cites numerous conversations with doctors that told him to rest and he’d get better. He’d rest, run again, then he’d be injured again. (Guess what, resting doesn’t fix anything! If you’ve got a flat tire and you quit driving the car, the flat won’t fix itself.) Other docs told him him he should probably quit running. If you’ve heard that then you know how maddening and disheartening that advice is! He didn’t quit. He did the good work of figuring out how to run properly. I think his words will give hope to people who may have arthritis, worn cartilage, worn menisci (that’s plural for miniscus) and other “injuries” that may have lead physicians to tell you to quit running.

So it’s almost Christmas. People are asking you what you want and you’re wondering what to buy for them. Click the link below and get this book!

New Developments: Changing Exercises & Squat/Deadlift Reading

The New Workout

A couple of posts ago I outlined my new strength program which I adapted from a Mike Mahler program. I stayed with those exercises for six weeks. Now I’m rotating most of those exercises out for new exercises that are as Pavel Tsatsouline says, the “same but different.” This means that the new exercises should look like and require similar movement patterns as the previous exercises. Here are my changes:

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I’m still doing barbell cleans but now each week I’m either doing cleans 2x/week and barbell snatches 1x/week or vice versa. I’m trying to learn to snatch the barbell and I’m pretty new to it. I’m still doing Renegade Rows and I’m trying to find time to do Turkish Get-ups 2x/week instead of just once. The TGU is very difficult so I figure I need to work on it more. (If you’re not good at something, you don’t like doing it and it’s real hard–then you should probably do a lot of it.) Similarly, I’m keeping the kettlebell windmills.

I plan to stay with this new scheme for four weeks and change it up again. I’ve also added weighted 45 degree back extensions 1x/week. I believe this plus the good morning will help my deadlift and squat numbers go up.

Why have I rotated the exercises? I’ll let powerlifting expert Louie Simmons of the Westside Barbell Club explain:

“Science has proven that training at a 90% or above for 3 weeks will cause physical and mental fatigue. With the Westside conjugate method we switch a core barbell exercise each week to avoid accommodation. “

Further, from a mental viewpoint, changing exercises keeps things interesting. I like doing new things. There are a ton of useful exercises out there. By cycling the exercises I get to stimulate the mind.

(BTW, Louie also says they at Westside “live on the good morning.” Seems that it’s essential for improving the squat and deadlift. Thus I’ll likely do some version of it for a long time to come.)

My sets & reps scheme is a variation on the Windler 5-3-1 protocol. It looks like this:

Week 1: 3 sets x 5 reps. I work up to a 5RM and do three sets

Week 2: 3 sets x 3 reps done in similar to the 3×5

Week 3: 5 reps – 3 reps – 1 rep

Week 4: Back off. I may skip lifting altogether or do something alone the lines of 1×10 reps at 50% of my 1 RM. The point is to take it easy and RECOVER.

Westside Barbell Squat & Deadlift Manual

Speaking of Louie Simmons and Westside, I recently got the Westside Barbell Squat & Deadlift Manual. There’s a wealth of fantastic info in there from literally the strongest group of people on the planet. (I look forward to reading the Westside Barbell Book of Methods and the Bench Press Manual as well.)

Most interestingly, I learned that those guys change their main exercises every week–but they very rarely do the standard issue competition powerlifts: the squat, bench press, and deadlift. They do variations on those exercises: box squats, board bench presses, good mornings and a billion other variations on the competition lifts. They use bands and chains to vary the nature of the resistance on the bar. Different bars are used and different speeds are used when lifting. Why? It goes to the concept Louie mentioned up above. All these variables are changed in order to prevent accommodation. If you’ve accommodated to the exercise then you’ve essentially gotten used to it and progress will slow.

Pre-Workout Mobilizations

Mobilizing your joints and preparing for your workout is a fairly important process. If you’re like most modern Americans then you sit too much, hunch too much and stay in these positions for hours. The result is stiff, immobile tissue and bad positioning of your parts such as your shoulders, hips, neck, etc. Further, It’s a good idea to get into the positions required of your workout without any weight before you get into those positions with weight so as to prepare those joints and tissues for the work to come.

Several areas of the body need to be mobilized: ankles, hips, spine (especially the thoracic spine) shoulders, and possibly wrists. Here’s a mobilization process that I use with myself and virtually all my clients. I may vary it some from person to person and workout to workout but this is the basic template. I’ve borrowed (okay, stolen directly from Eric Cobb and Z-Health and Kelly Starrett at MobilityWOD.) Remember: STOP IF YOU FEEL PAIN.

Feet & Ankles

I tend to work from the ground up, so feet and ankles come first. I think a lot of people walk into the gym with no mind toward their feet and ankles. It’s only every single step that we need those things to work correctly. The first video covers ankle tilts and toe pulls. The second video looks at a improving dorsiflexion (very important that dorsiflexion) by way of a 3-way calf stretch.

Hips

As I’ve said before, you sit too much. This is a repeat of the hip drills found in that previous post, plus another general mobility drill–all 4s rocking–that I think is very valuable. The last video is specifically for the hip flexors. It’s very easy to go right into the hip flexor drill as part of the other hip drills.

Thoracic spine

Now we get into the spine and shoulders. The first video looks at mobilizing the thoracic spine. The t-spine is very often stiff and tight as a result of sitting behind desks, steering wheels, over bike handlebars, etc. The consequence is that the the neck, shoulders and low back may have to make up for the t-spine’s lack of movement. This will be a problem at some point. Here you can see a saggital plane mobilization. Look here for mobilizations in two other planes of movement.

Shoulders

The shoulders are the most mobile part of the body. They can move in many directions and thus there are many drills available for the shoulders. Here are a few:

Remember, there are a lot of other joint mobility methods and drills out there. These are just a few that I like. I’ll probably refine and add to this list soon.

Health & Fitness News: Cooked Food Grows the Brain; High-Carb Diet Contributes to Alzheimer’s; Lifting Weights Helps the Brain and Protects Against Metabolic Syndrome; Lactose Tolerance & Evolution; Tighten Your Left Fist to Perform Better

A wide range of interesting things have popped up in health-and-fitness news. You should know about this stuff!

Cooked Food Grows the Brain:

“If you eat only raw food, there are not enough hours in the day to get enough calories to build such a large brain. We can afford more neurons, thanks to cooking.”
– Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, neuroscientist, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil

The human brain has far more neurons than our primate relatives such as apes and chimps. Relative to our body weight, we carry far more brain mass than our ape relatives, and we use far more energy to run our neurology than apes. Why? And how have we managed to acquire all the energy to manage this process over the past several hundred thousand years? It seems that the answers lie in humans cooking their food. An article from the Guardian titled Invention of cooking made having a bigger brain an asset for humans discusses the issue further. The article is informed by a study from the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

High-Carb Diets May Contribute to Alzheimer’s:

“Older people who load up their plates with carbohydrates have nearly four times the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment, a study out Tuesday finds.”
– USA Today

There’s more news regarding food and neurological function. USA Today reports on a recent study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease indicates that a high-carbohydrate diet (as is suggested by the FDA) may contribute to early-onset dementia. Medline also reported on the study saying:

“Those who reported the highest carbohydrate intake were 1.9 times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest carbohydrate intake. Those with the highest sugar intake were 1.5 times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest intake.

Those whose diets had the highest levels of fat and protein were 42 percent and 21 percent less likely, respectively, to develop mild cognitive impairment than those with the lowest intake of fat and protein.”

The Medline report also makes the following important observation saying, “While the researchers found an association between sugar-laden, high-carb diets and mental decline, they did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.”

I personally have lost weight by cutting carbs–particularly processed carbs such as cereal, bread, crackers, tortillas, muffins, etc–and replacing those calories with fibrous vegetables, fat and protein. I’ve become convinced that an FDA-type high-carb diet is probably not the ideal way to eat for most people.

Lifting Weights Helps the Brain:

“Where previously we had seen positive associations between aerobic activity, particularly walking, and cognitive health, these latest studies show that resistance training is emerging as particularly valuable for older adults,”
– Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer’s Association

Of course I love any evidence that suggests lifting weights is good for you. I have particular interest in evidence that weights help us beyond simply building muscle and bone mass. Mind Your Reps: Exercise, Especially Weight Lifting, Helps Keep the Brain Sharp comes from Time. The article reports on four studies presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Vancouver.

I’d like to know what loads are best used in preventing Alzheimer’s. Does any type of strength training prevent Alzheimers or are certain exercises better than others? What’s the minimal effective dose to derive the benefits? I hope someone is looking into these questions.

Lifting Weights Protects Against Metabolic Syndrome:

“Research has linked greater muscle strength and muscle mass to lower rates of metabolic syndrome. Since lifting weights increases muscle strength and mass, it might also help to decrease the development of metabolic syndrome.”
– Sciencedaily.com

Such a wonderful thing this weight training! Science Daily discusses research by the National Strength & Conditioning Association that indicates lifting weights protects against metabolic syndrome. What is metabolic syndrome? The article says:

“Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors linked to increased rates risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. People with at least three out of five risk factors — large waist circumference (more than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women), high triglyceride levels, reduced levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL, or “good” cholesterol), elevated blood pressure, and high glucose levels — are considered to have metabolic syndrome.”

The proof keeps on stacking up. Lifting weights is a staple of healthy living. Are you currently on a strength training program? If not, why?

Lactose Tolerance & Evolution:

“Everywhere that agriculture and civilization went, lactose tolerance came along. Agriculture-plus-dairying became the backbone of Western civilization.”
– Slate

Humans are the only animals that consume milk beyond the age of infancy. (Not all humans actually. Two-thirds of us are lactose intolerant. Still, there are a lot more humans that drink milk in their adulthood compared to other mammals.) Why is this? What makes so many of us so different from other mammals? Are there advantages to lactose tolerance? The Most Spectacular Mutation in Recent Human History is from Slate Magazine. The article discusses the speed with which this genetic mutation spread and possible theories on why it ever happened at all. There are no solid answers to the questions here, but it seems that in much of the world, civilization and lactose tolerance have gone hand-in-hand:

“The plot is still fuzzy, but we know a few things: The rise of civilization coincided with a strange twist in our evolutionary history. We became, in the coinage of one paleoanthropologist, ‘mampires’ who feed on the fluids of other animals. Western civilization, which is twinned with agriculture, seems to have required milk to begin functioning.”

There clearly seem to be some advantages to a lot of people in consuming milk and/or other dairy products. There also appear to be some real disadvantages. Read the New York Times article Got Milk? You Don’t Need It for another view of milk consumption. The article states:

“Osteoporosis? You don’t need milk, or large amounts of calcium, for bone integrity. In fact, the rate of fractures is highest in milk-drinking countries, and it turns out that the keys to bone strength are lifelong exercise and vitamin D, which you can get from sunshine. Most humans never tasted fresh milk from any source other than their mother for almost all of human history, and fresh cow’s milk could not be routinely available to urbanites without industrial production. The federal government not only supports the milk industry by spending more money on dairy than any other item in the school lunch program, but by contributing free propaganda as well as subsidies amounting to well over $4 billion in the last 10 years.”

I think the Times article raises some valid points. Clearly many of our fellow humans do fine without consuming milk as adults. The FDA guidelines insisting that we drink milk are a bit bogus, and completely influenced by the dairy industry. However, in lactose tolerant adults, I’m not sure milk is a bad thing. I haven’t been completely convinced one way or the other. I drink milk sometimes but not often. More often I consume cheese and yogurt which are fermented versions of milk.

Make a Fist to Perform Better:

“Athletes who made a fist with their left hand did better under pressure than when they made a fist with their right hand…”
– “Preventing Motor Skill Failure Through Hemisphere-Specific Priming: Cases From Choking Under Pressure,” Journal of Experimental Psychology

I find this article from the Atlantic enormously interesting. The results are in the quote above. In this study, right-handed athletes (Righties only were tested.) performed better when they made a fist in the left hand. What’s going on here? The article states:

“According to the researchers, freaking out is primarily associated with the left hemisphere of the brain, while the right hemisphere deals more with mechanical actions. Meanwhile the cortex of the right hemisphere controls movements of the left side of the body, and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body. So they figured that if you can purposely activate the right hemisphere — in this case, by making a fist or squeezing a ball with your left hand — it will improve physical performance and draw focus away from the ruminating left hemisphere.”

Interestingly, anyone who’s learned the RKC Hard Style of pressing has learned to make a fist in the opposite non-pressing hand. The effect is powerful. You get stronger when you do this! Maybe this study indicates why.

New Strength Program: Kettlebells & Barbells

Out of necessity, I greatly reduced my strength training as I was preparing for the marathon. As the stress of running went up, the stress of lifting had to go down. It was a bit tough to give up the weights, but it had to be done. Now I’m back to lifting and I’m loving it. It’s definitely refreshing to let the pendulum swing from the endurance end of the spectrum back to the strength & power end. My main goals are to see my numbers go up in the clean, press, deadlift, and squat.

I’m a big fan of both kettlebells and barbells. They’re quite different implements but both are very enjoyable to use. Used correctly, both tools can make you big, strong, and powerful. My current workout comes from RKC Mike Mahler and it’s called the Kettlebell and Barbell Solution for Size and Strength Part II. (Part I can be found here. I had to choose one. I picked Part II.) It’s a 4x/week workout with two days on/one day off/two days on/two days off. I like the workout 1) because I get to lift most days of the week and 2) because I get to use kettlebells and barbells in all workouts.

Each workout has one or two of the big lifts (squat, bench press, overhead press, deadlift) as the focus with other supplemental lifts included such as pull-ups, renegade rows, bent barbell rows, kettlebell swings and snatches, and core exercises such as the Turkish get-up, hanging leg raises, and windmills. I’ve modified the workout slightly to include barbell cleans, barbell presses, a one-arm dumbbell press, and pistol squats. Ballistic exercises like the kettlebell snatch and swings come at the front of the workout. The ballistic exercises help fire up the nervous system. The big-bang exercises come next, followed by pulling exercises, core exercises, and a finishing metabolic exercises that gets the heart rate up. I plan to cycle various exercises in and out over the course of several four-week blocks.

The scheme

The volume/intensity scheme is a version of Wendler’s 5-3-1 program. In essence, it looks like this: Each workout is centered around one core lift: squat, bench press, deadlift, and standing shoulder press. Each training cycle lasts four weeks, with these set-rep goals for each major lift:

Week 1: 3 x 5
Week2: 3×3
Week 3: 1×5, 1×3, 1×1
Week 4: deload

Then you start the next cycle, using heavier weights on the core lifts. Again, the Mahler program is a variation of this, and I’ve modified it further. Here’s my version:

Monday:

Double kettlebell swing: 5×5
Barbell deadlift: 2×5, 3×3, 6×1
Barbell overhead press: 3×5, 3×3, 5-3-1
Kettlebell Renegade Row: 3×6+ I’ll add weight once I get 10 reps on each side.
Kettlebell swings: 3×15, one- and/or two-arm swings. I’ve also used the rower.

Tuesday:

One-arm kettlebell snatch: 2-3×5-10 each side
Barbell cleans: 3×3, 5×2, 6×1
Pull-ups: 3×5. I’ll add weight once I get eight reps on the final set. (I’m bad at pull-ups. The cost of being tall….)
Bench Press: as per the 5-3-1 program
Kettlebell windmill: 3×5
Kettlebell front squat: 3×8+ I’m keeping this somewhat light.
Kettlebell swings 3×15 or farmer’s walks.

Wednesday: Off

Thursday:

Double kettlebell snatch: 3-5×5
Barbell hang clean: 3×3, 5×2
Back squat: as per the 5-3-1 program
One-arm dumbbell press: as per the 5-3-1 program. I clean the dumbbell from the ground and then press all my reps.
Barbell bent-over row: as per the 5-3-1 program, except I don’t do a 1-rep max in the 3rd week.
Hanging leg raise: 3×5. Mahler’s workout calls for 3×10 but I’m not up to 10 reps yet.
One-arm kettlebell swings, rower or farmer’s walks

Friday:

Double kettlebell swings: 5×5
Barbell cleans: lighter than Thursday
Barbell floor press: as per the 5-3-1 program
Weighted pull-ups: 3×3
Kettlebell Turkish get-up: 3×3. These are really tough at this point in the workout.
Pistol squats: 3×3, 2 or 1 depending how I’m feeling.
Kettlebell swings: I’m often smoked by this point so I may only do 1×10 or I may go as high as 3×15-20

Saturday/Sunday: Off

Observations

I’m on my third week of the program. I’ve made good progress. I think that since I was away from lifting for several weeks I have a lot of room to move forward. Plus, I’m eating more and I’ve recently started taking creatine which I haven’t used in a while. All of this should contribute to some decent increases in size and strength.

During the workouts I keep a mind to staying within my limitations. I don’t need to push to the red line during these workouts. I’ve written here and here about the risks of going too hard too often. I intend to work hard but I’ll stop well before the failure point.

I intend to cycle exercises in and out as this program moves along. I’m not sure when I’ll change them out though. Since I’m hitting most of these exercises only once per week that should mean I’ll be able to stick with them for a while. I know I need to change exercises when I start to plateau on a particular exercise. Likely substitutions are as follows:

Barbell snatch for barbell clean
Front squat for back squat
Good morning for deadlift
Weighted dips for bench press and floor press
Push press for barbell press

Depending on how things go and how I’m feeling, I may focus more closely on the deadlift. I still want to pull 500 lbs. some day. Maybe that day is sooner than I know.

Denver Fitness Journal

All Things Health and Fitness by Kyle Norman, MS, CSCS, FMS, RRCA Running Coach