Category Archives: endurance

Sarcopenia has little to do with aging

It has to do with the duration of time spent being sedentary.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but luckily enough today you get both.

Sarcopenia: “poverty of flesh,” or the age-induced loss of skeletal muscle mass, strength, and function = reduced quality of life.  Sorry old-timers, but I hereby officially revise the definition from “aging-induced” to “sedentary-induced.”  Herein, I present evidence that sarcopenia is not a phenomenon of aging per se, but rather of disuse atrophy.  Dear Webster’s & Britannica, please revise accordingly.

Skeletal muscles: use ‘em or lose ‘em #TPMC

Thanks to Julianne Taylor & Skyler Tanner for directing me to these images.

divide and conquer

Exhibit A. Chronic exercise preserves lean muscle mass in masters athletes (Wroblewski et al., 2011)

This study evaluated “high-level recreational athletes.”  “Masters” just means they were over 40.  And “high-level” doesn’t mean “elite,” it just means they exercised 4-5 times per week.  These weren’t super-obsessed gym rats… it’s probably who I’ll be in 7 years [sigh].

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Westside Barbell, Hormesis, and Antifragility

Some people think Westside makes some of the strongest athletes in the world because unlike most other training regimes, they are constantly lifting very heavy weight.  Other protocols restrict heavy lifting to certain times of the year, in-season / off-season, etc.  At Westside, you’re going heavy on an exercise that changes very frequently (every 1 – 3 weeks).  And it’s this latter point that provides the basis for why other people think Westside works.  By constantly changing which exercise is lifted at maximal intensity, the body never fully adapts, or gets into a rut – this is part of Westside’s ‘Conjugate Method.’

The principle is embraced by Crossfit, as per their random workouts-of-the-day, and also follows a tangent of the Hormesis theory: small doses of individual exercises, eg, conventional deadlifts one week, good mornings the next, sumo deads the next week, and so on and so forth – will improve your squats; the body never knows what’s coming (even though you might have planned it weeks in advance, or at least planned to check The WOD Shop).  Also discussed albeit briefly, in Taleb’s Antifragile, wherein being prepared for “random” shocks seem to benefit the system as a whole, or make it stronger.  Sedentary makes you fragile, weak, and soft; exercise makes you robust; Westside is Antifragile.

Antifragile

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Ketoadaptation

Athletes who drop carbs cold turkey suddenly suck.  It is known.  

But with a smidge of stick-to-it-iveness, performance completely recovers, in virtually every.  measurable.  aspect.  

This was shown years and years ago, in a seminal study by Drs Phinney, Bistrian, Evans, Gervino, and Blackburn.

The human metabolic response to chronic ketosis without caloric restriction: preservation of submaximal exercise capability with reduced carbohydrate oxidation (1983)

Normally, fatty acids fuel low intensity exercise and carbs fuel high.  This is because high intensity exercise requires a high rate of ATP production, and glycogen to lactate generates ATP faster than a speeding bullet.  This is what makes power.  Getting ATP from fatty acids is like draining maple syrup from trees [at first].

mito pic

However, go low carb for long enough and the syrup begins to flow like water.  I lack the time to show what “long enough” entails, but  4 out of 5 studies on low carb diets and performance that only last a few days will show this.  Ketoadaptation takes time; ~3 weeks.

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Milo of Croton vs. concurrent training

Lesson 1.  Milo of Croton

Every day since a very young age, Milo would drape his calf over his shoulders and do his daily exercises.  As his calf grew, so did Milo’s strength.  Many years passed and by the time of the Olympic games, Milo’s calf had become a full-grown bull and Milo’s strength became unparalleled in all the land (or so the story goes).

This is how strength-training works.  Increasing the amount of weight you lift progressively, consistently, and frequently makes you stronger.

Lesson 2.  Concurrent training

Resistance training builds muscle and strength.  Endurance exercise is good for the heart, burns fat and muscle, but doesn’t make you stronger.  Endurance exercise hinders the gains reaped from resistance exercise, not vice versa.  Interpretation: runners should lift; lifters shouldn’t run (sprints don’t count).

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