Doug Kelsey's Blog

Where You Can Find Me

Hi everyone....

As you may have noticed, Exerciseology has been very quiet lately.

That's because I've moved and am now writing here.

I'll keep this site up for a while but you can find most of this content and a bunch of new stuff by clicking here.

I even have a cool, new, free download for you too!

So, please hop over to fusionperformancetraining.com, sign up for my newsletter and get my new posts by email or rss.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you over at Fusion!

DK

 

Question about P90X

"Recently, I’ve begun doing P90X. I’m 57 and a former distance runner who has stayed in relatively good shape, although I now have osteoporosis. I’m seeing good results from this new regimen—more muscle, firming—however, I’m having what appears to be psoas problems, resulting in pain from mid-back around the pelvic area down to the inside of the knee.  P90X is intense and the plyometrics requires much jumping etc. This should help with the osteoporosis but not sure it’s good for the joints, psoas etc. What are your thoughts on this program?"

K

Thanks for your question. P90X seems to have been a hot topic lately.

P90X is advertised as an "extreme home fitness system" and I agree. The workouts are very demanding for a beginner and tough even for the more experienced and fit individual. I've done some of the program as part of my research into fitness and I had to modify parts and I skipped other parts because the drills were too risky. One, for example is lying on your back with your legs and arms straight(arms overhead) and off the ground a few inches; then you roll over onto your stomach while still holding the arms and legs up - a "superman" pose. Then, you roll back and forth. Super risky for the spine.

I wonder if your symptoms are actually from the psoas muscle or perhaps from the lumbar spine and / or hip. The plyometric series carries a high impact load to the body and if you're not careful, you could easily damage joints. If you've not seen anyone for your symptoms, you may want to do that first before continuing with the program.

The average consumer simply doesn't have enough knowledge about the degree of difficulty of drills nor how to train properly and reduce risk of injury. It's compounded by such easy access to all sorts of theories, methods, approaches, and programs on fitness. While something like P90X seems simple enough, for most people, it's hard to make the drills / routines fit them. In other words, you have to fit the system; the system doesn't really fit you.

One more thing, you don't need plyometrics to address osteoporosis. Just weight bearing exercise will help - like walking or lower risk resistive exercise. This lowers the impact, reduces risk of joint injury but helps the bone stay healthier.

Thanks again for your question and I hope you can get your back and knee pain solved soon.

Lindsey Vonn's Workout Makes Me Want to Quit My Job

"What's your goal? What are you hoping to achieve? my golf teacher asked.

"I just want to be consistent; be in the fairway and not splaying the ball all over the place," I replied.

A short grin grew across her face as she said, "Well, then, you better quit your day job."

********

I like to think that I'm reasonably committed to my health and fitness. I train often and usually fairly hard. I've been doing that for a while and have been feeling pretty good about my frequency and duration of sessions. Even now while my right shoulder is in rehab, I still train. Usually 4 days per week and an hour or so per session.

But, what I do pales in comparison to competitive athletes.

If you're inspired by what world class, elite level, competitive athletes can do or what they look like, and think you might like to perform like they do or have the bodies they have, you had better quit your day job. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on the workout of Lindsey Vonn, the highly decorated US skier: "Red Bull provides Vonn with two trainers who travel with her around the world ensuring she sticks to her regimen. Vonn trains six to eight hours a day, six days a week. Most days she gets in three hours of cardio, usually on a bike."

And, she follows a very rigid diet and deviates from it very little. That's a job. 

And most other athletes at her level train the same way. Hours per day.

It comes down to what you want, knowing what it takes to get there, and what you're willing to do to get it.

Me? I had two brownies last night after dinner.

If what you're after is the body image of an athlete, remember this - athletes don't train to get the bodies they have. They train to compete and their bodies develop as a result. It's a fringe benefit. 

So, give your self a break and a reality check.

Now, if I could just quit my job.....

:-)

You Can Be Thin and Fat

In today's Wall Street Journal, Ron Winslow reports that just because you look thin doesn't mean you're not over fat. in fact, scientists have a new term that describes this situation: normal weight obesity. For your height, gender and age, you can be within a "normal" weight range yet still carry too much body fat.

How is this possible?

The fat replaces muscle.

You then look relatively thin but have a lower muscle mass. 

And you run the same risk of health-related disorders as someone who is both overweight and obese.

Check the article out here.

It's Easy, Portable, and Burns Calories. Why Not Do It?

My client with a knee injury was finishing a joint strength training session with me when he asked me a question. Over the prior three weeks, he had increased his single leg squat load tolerance from 69 lbs. to 168 lbs and was rapidly closing in on his body weight of 210 lbs (meaning he would be able to squat on one leg with only body weight force). When this happens, people sometimes experience what I call "expanding expectations". 

"So, what do you think of running for me? I mean I want to play squash, but I was thinking of maybe taking up running? Do you think my legs can take that?" he asked. "I never have run really but I need something that I can do easily and I figured that running would be a good choice. I can do it just about anywhere and it's quick."

"Well, what are you trying to achieve with the running exactly?" I asked.

"I just thought it would be convenient, you know, a simple way to sort of stay in shape," he replied.

"So, the goal is to burn calories, help manage your weight, and generally stay in shape for squash?" I asked.

"Yeah, exactly," he replied.

"Well, I can think of some other options for you that give you a better return on your investment. Running burns calories but not a lot and it has very little post-exercise burn, " I explained. "And, with your condition if that's all you're going to do, you'll likely re-injure your knees. You have to maintain a broad spectrum of fitness for your knees to stay healthy and up for the demand of a game like squash."

"Huh. I guess I thought running was one of the better ways to keep your weight under control and get in shape. I run in squash - sort of. So, what do I do then?" he asked.

****

Running for fat loss and enhanced conditioning is a sacred cow of fitness in the minds of many. A lot of people believe that if they jog 45 minutes or more several days a week that they will lose weight and get in shape. Some people do lose weight but if you consider that being fit means being suitably adapted for the demands you face, unless you need to run a lot, running is a poor choice for overall fitness.

The body adapts very precisely to demand. A long time ago, I trained daily on a cross country ski machine - 45 to 60 minutes. After about six months, I thought I was in pretty good shape. Later that year, I ran into some friends at a convention and after one of the lectures, they asked me to go for a jog. I thought I was going to die. And they weren't running fast at all. I just had no fitness for running even though I had used the same joints and muscles on the ski machine. So, in my client's case, where he wants to play squash which is quick, stop and start, highly anaerobic activity, he will build very little fitness jogging for 30 or 40 minutes three to five days a week. When he goes back into the squash court, he'll feel like he's moving in molasses.

Perhaps a better choice for him would be to put together a drill set that requires him to move his body though gravity and through a variety of motions quickly. For example, he could perform a circuit of push ups, followed by single leg squats, a side to side shuffle run, a round of pull ups, a round of sprints in place and then lateral hops. Then repeat this several times. The dosage - rep counts, loads, speeds, depend on his capability. If he does this with little to no rest between drills, the demand will be very high - similar to playing squash - and the whole routine would take about 30 minutes. Post-exercise caloric burn would be higher than jogging because of the anaerobic demand.

Running is easy, portable, and burns calories and it has a place in fitness but by itself, it's not going to make you fit.

Photo source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertoberlim/512963321/

Swiss Balls and Iron: Do They Mix?

A friend of mine asked me to look over his training routine a while ago so I met up with him at his gym and walked through the drills he was doing. His main goal was what I call "image building". He wanted to look good. Muscled. Ripped. Toned.

One of the drills that was suggested by a trainer was a dumbbell chest press while lying on a swiss ball. He knocked out about 15 reps using 35 lb dumbbells. I asked him why he used the swiss ball and he said his trainer told him that it would make him work harder and make the exercise more effective.

Does it? Do drills like a chest press or an overhead press become more effective if performed on a Swiss ball?

Swiss balls made their way into rehab a long time ago. They create perturbation by being an unstable surface. The idea was to challenge balance, proprioception, and spinal muscle endurance. And they work well for those things.

Stuart McGill, a spine researcher form Canada, has measured the work loads of the spine during various exercises. His research shows that just sitting on a swiss ball increases the muscle activation of the lower back substantially. He argues that the use of a swiss ball as an office chair should be used carefully in people who have chronic low back pain because their stabilizer muscles will fatigue rapidly.

Along the way, therapists and trainers let their creative side run wild with the use of the swiss ball and began doing all sorts of exercise on it. I've even seen people perform squats standing on a swiss ball. 

But, Wall and Behm demonstrated in their research using swiss balls as an unstable surface while performing various exercises that the unstable surface reduces the muscle activation of prime movers. In other words, your body spends more energy and recruits other muscles trying to stay on the ball and reduces the amount of muscle activation used in the main movement.

To improve muscle size and tone you have to overload the muscle. That means a progressive increase in training loads and speeds. A swiss ball will limit how much you can increase the load and speed simply due to the unstable nature of it. And, at some point, the instability raises the risk of injury as you try to overload the muscle with increasing levels of resistance.

Bottom line - if your goal is to increase strength, improve muscle tone, and look better, swiss balls are not the best choice.

Swiss balls and iron don't mix well.

***

Wahl, M. J. and D. G. Behm (2008). "Not all instability training devices enhance muscle activation in highly resistance-trained individuals." J Strength Cond Res 22(4): 1360-70. 

You Don't Need Much to Feel Better

About this time each year, people make resolutions that involve exercise. To lose weight or improve muscle tone or just generally improve health. But, happiness and fighting the blues is usually not on the exercise list. I've not found very many people who say, "I'm going to increase my happiness and avoid the blues and I'm going to use exercise to do it."

But, researchers have found that exercise does make you feel better - mentally and emotionally. Exercise helps you manage stress and will boost your general sense of well being. But, until recently, no one seemed to know exactly how much exercise you needed to feel brighter.

It turns out, it's not very much. Twenty minutes per week is all you need to boost your mood and it's just activity really. Twenty minutes of doing anything physical - gardening, house cleaning, walking your dogs - was shown to improve mental well-being.

Considering that a lot of people live sedentary lives (one that is defined by fewer than 5000 steps per day), twenty minutes a week is a good place to start. Of course, twenty minutes per week of activity (and my opinion is that exercise and activity are different things - you can read about it here) won't do much for your overall fitness but it's a lot easier to do when you're in a better mood.

****

Hamer, M., E. Stamatakis, et al. (2009). "Dose-response relationship between physical activity and mental health: the Scottish Health Survey." Br J Sports Med 43(14): 1111-4.

Exercise Degree of Difficulty: Side Bridge with Hip Abduction

My wife Elle came home from the gym the other day and described the routine she went through in an exercise class. As she described one of the drills that she had trouble doing, in fact enough that she bailed on the drill, I wondered why an instructor would include this drill in a group setting. Then I realized that the instructor probably hadn't analyzed the degree of difficulty of the drill but had included it because it's a new, hip, current core drill and core drills seem to be really popular.

But degree of difficulty is an important thing to understand when it comes to exercise and there are certain elements of a drill that help you figure out if one is more difficult than another.

So, let's look at the drill Elle was faced with and sort it out.

The drills is a side bridge with hip abduction (photo from womenshealthmag.com):
Why is this drill hard? Well, the first thing is that you have only two points of support - your foot and forearm - over which you have to disperse your entire body weight. Your body acts as a long lever on your shoulder and hip so if you have any weakness in these areas, you'll feel a lot of stress in the joints.

Notice that the head and neck have to be maintained in a neutral position against gravity. But, the muscles that attach to the neck and shoulder - levator scapula and upper trapezius for example - are also working on maintaining the shoulder position. This creates extra load on the neck and for people who have underlying disc or joint disease, the position can create pain in the neck or shoulder.

Finally, the leg moves up and down while you're perched on one foot and a forearm. For most people, hip abduction, done properly, is tough at first because of weakness in the gluteus medius and the rotators of the hip. It's always easier to lift something when the base upon which you lift is stable and secure. In this case, the base is not very secure so the lifting of the leg becomes just that much more difficult.

If you find this drill too difficult, try a forearm plank or a side bridge with knees as the distal contact  point instead of one foot.

For best results from training, match the degree of difficulty of the drill with your capability.

Why the "How" of Exercise Matters

You can go to a gym, sit on a machine and push or pull weight.

It will help you. No question.

It creates a metabolic event in your body, alters hormone production, increases muscle and other soft tissue strength. It might even change the way you look.

But, it doesn't do a lot for your brain.

Your brain is amazingly plastic. The connections in your brain change based on what you do and this happens over your entire life. Exercise that challenges your balance and increases blood flow has been shown to improve the "wiring" in your brain. And, recently, juggling has been shown to do the same thing.

Now, I'm not suggesting you take up juggling but if you're going to take the time to go to a gym or even just to carve out 30 or 45 minutes a day to exercise, then why not perform drills and movements that will help your brain?

For example, you can sit at a chest press machine and push the weight or you could do a push up. In the chest press machine, you're relatively static and stable. The push up involves more muscles, more coordination and if you add one more thing to the push up - stand up - it becomes a cardiovascular challenge as well. You start in a standing position, then move into the push up position, perform a push up, then return to standing and repeat. The movement of your body mass transforms this drill from a muscle training drill to one that includes coordination, balance, and a cardiovascular event.

Or, you could perform a push up using a suspension training device like the TRX. You anchor the TRX to something stable, a door or even outside to a tree limb, and then perform the push up. You can see a sample of this drill here. This movement is much more challenging to your brain because of the instability created by the suspension device.

When you train, train your brain too.

---

"Training induces changes in white-matter architecture."
Jan Scholz, Miriam C Klein, Timothy E J Behrens & Heidi Johansen-Berg.
Nature Neuroscience, Published online ahead of print 11 October 2009.  DOI:10.1038/nn.2412

"Aerobic exercise training increases brain volume in aging humans."                                                    Colcombe SJ, Erickson KI, Scalf PE, Kim JS, Prakash R, McAuley E, Elavsky S, Marquez DX, Hu L, Kramer AF.    J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2006 Nov;61(11):1166-70.

New Device Monitors Sleep, Steps, Calories

Here's a cool new device that tracks calories spent, steps taken, and how soundly you sleep all for about $100. It's called the FitBit.

The downside to devices that calculate your caloric expenditure, like the treadmill or bike at the gym, is that the results tend to overstate the actual amount of calories your burned. The formulas use your body weight to estimate your basal metabolic rate and then return a total calories burned figure. But, you have to subtract the amount of calories that you burn just to be alive (also referred to as Basal Metabolic Rate). The difference is usually around 20%. The Fitbit group claims that their device is very accurate. I haven't seen the proof yet though. 

One of the interesting features of the device is the monitoring of sleep. It does this by detecting motion of your arm. The assumption is that deep sleep renders you motionless and when you sleep fitfully you move around- roll, turn, get up, etc., and the device detects this using the same type of sensor in the Wii system. 

I'm curious how well this thing works and being the early adopter type, may give it a go. If I do, I'll let you know what I think.

5 Reasons Time Magazine Got it Wrong

John Cloud wrote an article for Time Magazine recently, "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin" in which he wonders why he can't get rid of the "fat gut that hangs over my belt when I sit" even though he has exercised regularly for several years. He concludes that you simply can't lose weight by exercising.

So, Lance Armstrong and Usain Bolt are just lean and muscular by eating the right foods? I doubt it. It seems to me that John and Time missed a few things:

1. Just because you're thin doesn't mean you're fit. Equating your body shape with your degree of fitness is like comparing the size of your wallet to your financial health. It really depends on what's inside. Our society is overly obsessed with "thin" to the extent that some people who are thin are actually over fat. They have little muscle mass.
2. One way to control appetite following exercise is to burn fat during the exercise. Fat contains a lot of energy but it's hard to use it. Your body has to break it down which takes time. To do this, you'll use glycogen and a little fat during the exercise until gradually more and more of your fat stores are mobilized. When you finish exercising and you feel like you want to gnaw off your arm, you probably used up your glycogen stores. So, you eat something which adds back the calories you just spent or at least most of them.
3. All exercise is not the same. "Cardio" is a relatively poor way to mobilize fat unless you exercise for a very long time like Lance or Michael Phelps or Haile Gebrselassie. Most of us don't have that kind of time or motivation. Spending 40 minutes on an elliptical is good for you but has a relatively low caloric demand and very low post-exercise energy consumption compared with high speed intervals done on the same machine. Of course, 40 minutes of high speed intervals will tend to make you swear off elliptical machines for ever. It's very demanding.
4. Not all calories are the same. 100 calories from a Snickers Bar and 100 calories from 2 apples will have drastically different hormonal effects in the body causing a series of reactions that when repeated (not literally of course) can make you fat in a hurry.
5. The fact that you don't lose weight is NOT an excuse to quit exercising. Exercise is good for you even if you don't lose much or any weight. Your heart, lungs, bones, connective tissues all benefit from the activity. You can lower your blood pressure, cholesterol, improve your bone density whether you lose weight or not.

So how does John get rid of his fat gut? Here's a starter list:

1. Find your percentage of body fat and determine the safe level for your age and gender. Recognize that to see your abdominal muscles (which by the way is what you'll need in order to sit down and have no fat hang over your belt), your body fat levels will need to be in the athletic range. Unless this is your day job, be prepared to have some fat over your belt.
2. Eat four to five meals a day of 400-500 calories and make sure each meal is a blend of complex carbohydrates, moderate amount of protein and fat, and fiber. This will help stabilize your blood sugar and keep your muscles well fed while reducing the need for something quick when all of a sudden you feel starved. Eliminate sugar, alcohol, and anything with high fructose corn syrup.
3. Exercise using high speed intervals several days per week for 20-30 minutes. Scientifically proven to mobilize fat.
4. Use intense, short duration resistive exercise that requires many muscles to work at once (like squatting, pushing, pulling, etc.) and vary the routines, intensity, duration frequently. This creates an inefficient exercise program which is what you want. Efficiency in exercise means fewer calories burned.
5. Take 5-7 days off from #4 above every 4-6 weeks. Spend your time on flexibility, Yoga, steady-state aerobics (like cycling, walking, jogging).
6. Expect to lose between 1-2 pounds of fat per month on average. This is when most people give up. It's too hard, takes too long, etc. But, it's the truth. When you lose fat at this pace, you can create the lifestyle changes you need to keep it off. Otherwise, you'll backslide.

Unfortunately, most people don't know anything about the above so they buy the line that exercise is a waste of time in helping you lose fat and then they short change themselves over the long-term by not exercising at all.