Hard To Kill

These days you can’t watch TV or listen to the radio for more than a couple of minutes without hearing about the latest thing that causes this or that chronic disease such as cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. All you really ever hear is about how this or that environmental factor or dietary practice or supplement reduces or increases your chances of acquiring said disease. The list of things goes on and on ad infinitum. But the real message is essentially, “Do this and not that so that you don’t die earlier than you were supposed to.” But maybe there is something simple you can do that reduces your chances of early death without all the contradictory evidence of environmental factors and food choices. There is. It’s called being strong.

Many studies have been performed on the old (age 65-80) and the very old (85+) that look at strength levels and mortality rates. What the researchers basically do is test the old people’s strength levels (most often hand-grip or leg extension maximal efforts) and then follow them around for a specified period of time and see who dies and who doesn’t. This is science at its most complex, folks. What they’ve found a lot of the time is that the people that were the strongest at the beginning were more likely to still be alive at the end. These studies are compelling but do have their drawbacks. First of all are the confounders. Are people stronger because they happen to be in good health or are they in good health because they are stronger? And on the flip side, are older people weak because of their failing health or is their failing health due to them being weak. It’s hard to separate and show causality of the strength level from the health level. But the proof is still in the pudding. The strong survive.

So that’s the old people. But what about young, robust characters that are in the prime of life? A huge study was performed at The Cooper Clinic in Dallas, Texas in the 80’s. If you ever had to do the Pacer (beep) test in gym class you can thank the Cooper Clinic. This study was a longitudinal study like the ones done on the elderly, but on a much bigger scale. When it was all said and done there were over 8,000 participants. And when the researchers controlled for variables that would skew data they found much the same thing. Those that were in the strongest third of study participants lived longer. For all the runners out there they even controlled against cardiovascular fitness and found the same thing.

In fact, muscular strength has been shown to be a great predictor of risk of cardiovascular disease in young adulthood. In two studies done on younger Swedish men, baseline levels of strength were assessed and were then followed up on later in life. Researchers found that muscular strength was inversely associated with risk of fatal and nonfatal heart disease and stroke, meaning that the stronger you were the less likely you were to have incidents of fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular disease or stroke. But why is that?

The studies, to my knowledge, didn’t take into account current levels of physical activity. They just made the association between current health statuses and where they end up. This means that someone who is just naturally strong has more protection against these diseases than someone else. This is my theory and I may be off, but it makes sense to me. In order to lift a heavy weight you must have a high tolerance to elevated blood pressures. Normal resting blood pressure is around 120/80. When lifting weights, that pressure can sometimes get to around 200/75. This is dependent on the weight lifted and the intensity of the weight relative to the trainee’s strength level, but that’s a lot either way. The same goes for heart rate. I was once working with a client who was wearing a watch with a heart rate monitor on it. During her squat workout I would glance at the watch to see how much her heart rate had climbed and at one point it had gone up about 45 points in a span of about 15 seconds.

What the studies seem to indicate is that it’s not so much that you do this on a regular basis, but that you have the ability to do it. They only measured strength levels at the beginning, waited a specific amount of time, and checked to see who was alive, who was dead, and who had had any instances of heart disease or stroke. The protective effects lie in the ability, not so much the doing. Now this is not to say that if you belong to the strongest third of the population you can put things on cruise control and ride in the easy lane until you kick the bucket at a robust 112 years old. It doesn’t work that way. Very few people have the ability to maintain a lot of strength and cardiovascular fitness if they all of a sudden stop doing the things that got them strong and fit in the first place. You still need to train and you need to maintain some type of cardiovascular fitness. Because if those things aren’t a big part of your life then what’s the point of living anyway?

Sources:
Association of body size and muscle strength with incidence of coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular diseases: a population-based cohort study of one million Swedish men. Silventoinen K, Magnusson PK, Tynelius P, Batty GD, Rasmussen F. Int J Epidemiol. 2009 Feb;38(1):110-8.

Muscle strength and body size and later cerebrovascular and coronary heart disease. Shrier I. Clin J Sport Med. 2010 Mar;20(2):131.

Physical fitness and 6.5-year mortality in an 85-year-old community-dwelling population. Y. Takata, et al. Arch Gerontol Geriatr. 2011 May 16.

Objectively measured physical capability levels and mortality: systematic review and meta-analysis. Cooper R, Kuh D, Hardy R; Mortality Review Group; FALCon and HALCyon Study Teams. BMJ. 2010 Sep 9;341:c4467.

Association between muscular strength and mortality in men: prospective cohort study. Ruiz, J.R. et al. BMJ 2008;337:a439

Tuesday- Lower

Squat:
135x5
225x4
315x3
405x2
455x1

395x3 Paused
420x3 Paused
435x3 Paused

Speed Dead Lift:
340x3
360x2
380x2x3

Single Leg Step Down:
4x8
w/
45` Back Extension
3x12

Glute Ham Hypers:
3x12
w/
Leg Press Calf Raises:
4x10

Not sure what it was, but squats felt pretty awesome today. Everything felt strong and explosive out of the bottom, nothing hurt, and my technique didn't break down at all. Just got to keep it going.

"Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second." -William James

Thursday- Upper

Bench:
85x5
145x4
184x3
150x2
275x2 singles

225x8

DB Low Incline Bench:
55x8x8

Pendlay Rows:
154x8
242x5x3

Swimmer Lat Pull Downs:
3x12

Push Ups:
3x12

Arms

Finisher:
Log Clean and Press x10
Farmer's Carry x60 yards
Tire Hits x15 each side
all x3

Bench felt ok. The first single at 275 was pretty awful. I came back and got mentally in the game and the second one went much better. That's always been my problem on bench, not being intense and attacking the rep.

"I never did anything worth doing by accident." -Plato

Tuesday- Lower

Squat:
160x5
265x4
340x3
455x2 singles
490x1

Speed Dead Lift
340x3
360x2
380x2x3

Leg Press:
4 plates x8x4
4 plates +25 x8x4
:30s rest on all sets

Single Leg Step Downs:
3x10

Leg Curls:
3x15

Ok session. 490 was a grinder. Felt like the up part of it took 20 seconds. Still got it though. Need to get stronger.

"Only the mediocre are always at the top of their game. -Anonymous

Saturday

Squat:
225x8x8 w/ :30s rest

Chain Bench:
145x3x6

Single Arm Row:
110x8x6

Decent session today. I think I've figured out why my right side is so tight and gives me so much pain. I have a feeling that my glute medius (smaller glute muscle to the top and outside of your buttcheek) on my right is weak and relatively inactive. When I walk and palpate at the same time my left side is much more developed than the right. So today and the last week I've been focusing on using it more. Today on the squats I really focused on pushing through my left heel to squeeze my glute medius. I'm hoping as this muscle develops more the pain and tightness on my right side will go away. Only time will tell.

Song of the Day: Smoke or Fire- Goodbye to Boston

"Human behavior flows from three sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge." -Plato

Thursday- Upper

Bench:
85x5
145x4
185x3
245x2
265x1

225x9

BTNPP:
135x5x3
155x5x2

DB Low Incline:
50sx8x8

Chins:
BWx6x5

Lat Pull Downs:
3x15

Dips Plus:
3x15

If I had to use one word to describe this session it would be, "Meh". That is all.

Tuesday- Lower

Squat:
160x5
265x4
340x3
445x2
475x1

340x10

Pin Pull (#34, just below knee)
245x5
425x4
510x3
540x2
630x1

Leg Press:
4 plates x8x8

DB RDL:
110's x 8,12,15

Leg Press Calf Raise:
8x8

Pretty good session. Squats felt good. Deadlift felt heavy, but 630 lbs. is always going to feel heavy.

Song of the Day: The Flatliners- Mastering the World's Smallest Violin

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
-Dylan Thomas

Never Forget 9.11.01

In an Age of Fops and Toys
Raplh Waldo Emerson

In an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom’s fight,—
Break sharply off their jolly games,
Forsake their comrades gay
And quit proud homes and youthful dames
For famine, toil and fray?
Yet on the nimble air benign
Speed nimbler messages,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

Thank you to the men and women who run towards danger when everyone else is running away.

Tuesday- Wheels

Squat:
160x5
265x4
340x3
435x2
455x1

330x14
225x20

Dead Lift:
300x3
330x3
360x3

Leg Press:
2 plates x10
4 plates x8x5 (30 second rest between sets)

Single Leg Step Down:
3x10 each leg

Ham Killers:
3x8

Decent session despite feeling like garbage. I think the coffee got me. My head felt foggy and I had the scooties which doesn't bode well for heavy lower body lifts. Despite the ailments I made it through to fight another day.

I hope everyone's Labor Day weekend was as fun and relaxing as mine was.

Song of the Day: NOFX- The Decline

"Without continual growth and progress such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning." -Benjamin Franklin

Why Am I A Jerk? Part 2B: Bringing It All Together

In the first part of this series (here) I reported on the fact that a few of my coworkers had taken to saying that I had become more of a "jerk" in the time since I had lost some body fat and gained some muscle. I also reported that the same thing had happened to a client of the gym. I went on to outline a number of possible reasons for my increased, we'll say for the sake of brevity, "aggressive" behavior and some possible reasons for my coworkers increased, again we'll say for the sake of brevity, "sensitivity".

The second part of the series (here) was devoted to the rebuttals of said coworkers and my responses to those rebuttals. That part of the series was a joke more than anything. The coworkers in question are great friends of mine and I have a lot of respect for their opinions on a lot of things. But when someone lobs you a softball right down the middle sometimes you just gotta hit that fucker out of the park and stare down the pitcher as you slowly round the bases and then defiantly stomp on home plate. But on the the third part, Bringing It All Together.

In the first part of the series I led people to believe that testosterone influences aggressive behavior. This is a stereotype that a lot of people and a lot of scientists assume to be true. It is actually murky at best. While there are many studies showing a correlation between testosterone and aggressive behavior, causality has never been proven.

If you break down aggressive behavior further into hostility and sensation seeking you are more likely to see a direct effect of testosterone levels and people who like to skydive and race cars than people who get into fights and mock their coworker.

Another factor is that testosterone is just one hormone. There are dozens doing an intricate dance in your body at any given time. It is very difficult to study the behavioral effects of one thing (hormones, stress levels, societal influences, etc.) while controlling for all the others. To say that when ABC happens with testosterone then XYZ happens with behavior shows a correlation at best but is flat out wrong at worst.

Digging deeper is the fact that some people are more responsive to certain rises and falls in their hormones than others. A study that looked at a modulator of androgen receptivity found that there were significant interactions between CAG repeat length (the modulator for androgen receptor sensitivity) and testosterone. There were signs that a longer repeat length led to certain behavior and a shorter led to others. To make this clearer it wasn't the hormone itself, or even the receptor for the hormone that influenced behavior, but the modulator for the androgen receptor sensitivity. That's three link down the chain of command if you think about it.

Now let's take a look at how the actual levels of androgens themselves effect behavior. In Dr. Robert Sapolsky's excellent book, The Trouble With Testosterone he did exactly that. In the title essay he looked at a number of studies done on humans and animals that led to some interesting conclusions that have been missed by much of the lay public.

Instead of rewriting what Dr. Sapolsky has already written I'll just get to the main points. Many studies have shown that when males are placed in a group together basal testosterone levels predict nothing about who is going to be aggressive. It's behavior that drive the hormone secretion rather than the other way around. Let that sink in. Testosterone secretion doesn't drive aggressive behavior. Aggressive behavior drives testosterone secretion.

In studies (I only hope on animals) where the testes are removed aggressive behavior drops. But when testosterone is readministered to only 20% of precastration levels the same amount of aggressive behavior occurs. The same thing happens when testosterone is administered to 200% of precastration levels. The brain can't tell the difference. There is more to this argument, but the proof is right there in the pudding. There is no way I've increased my testosterone production to twice what it used to be. I don't know because I've never had them checked but I'm fairly certain that the things that I've done have made a difference, but not even that big of one.

Now, for the sake of the argument let's say that I did. And let's say that I did in a big kind of way. A study was done where a group of monkeys were placed together and given time to sort out a social hierarchy. The researchers then took the number three monkey (He was number three out of five. This meant he could boss around numbers four and five, but took marching orders from numbers one and two.) and gave him four times the amount of testosterone he had at normal levels. This monkey was probably pissing testosterone. A very interesting thing occurred. Instead of making power plays and going beast mode on numbers one and two he ended up just being a colossal prick to numbers four and five. He still ate crow when it came to numbers one and two. What does that mean? Testosterone exaggerates aggressiveness not cause it.

This is where you get into the tricky business of mixing behavioral biology and outside environmental and societal influences. To say that a biological ABC causes a behavioral XYZ means nothing if those other factors aren't taken into account.

So what does this mean for me and why I'm a jerk? To put it simply I am, always have been, and always will be a jerk. Especially to Lance and Jake. Those guys are total jerks.

Sources:

The Trouble With Testosterone. Robert M. Sapolsky. 1998.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16136009
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15179027
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20479013
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20816841
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18505319
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10097017
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15795710
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19054624
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21382439

Saturday

SSB Squat:
135x10
185x10
225x15x3

Close Grip Bench:
95x10
135x10
185x8x4

Cambered Bar Good Morning:
135x10
185x8x4

Rope Lat Pull Downs:
3x20
w/
Hammer Curls:
2x10
2x8

Pretty solid day. The squats felt kind of weird. I've got some pretty decent adhesions in my right IT band/vastus lateralis. Going to have to get those out of there.

Song of the Day: Propagandhi- The Banger's Embrace

"Never mistake motion for action." -Ernest Hemmingway

Why Am I A Jerk? Part 2A: The Rebuttals

In my previous installment I outlined a few reasons why I may have become a jerk and/or the people accusing me of becoming a jerk are just oversensitive babies. The big on had to do with me dropping some body fat and living alone. My accusers on the other hand live with significant others and are, well, fat. The kid gloves have come off. Here's what they had to say.

Accuser #1

Accuser #1 took immediately to Facebook to voice his displeasure with this to say. "So i read the article and here is what i pulled away from it. now that you have changed your body your t levels are higher making you more competitive and less sensitive. on the other hand your so called accusers are in commited relationships lowering their t levels making them overly sensitve. sounds like your in trouble now that your "offically in a relationship". one might also say that dedicating a two part article to prove a point to your accusers is an overly sensitive thing to do. thats just my opinion and every one is entitled to there opinion without being accused of being a jerk"

(Between bites) Where's (hrumph) the dislike (hrumph) button? Ha! (hrumph)

That's copy and pasted right from his comment on the article link and probably what he looked like when he was posting it. You'll notice it's riddled with spelling and grammar errors making it almost indecipherable, but that's beside the point. I am now in a relationship but I don't think it will have any effect on my endocrine system since we don't live together. I can shit with the door open, walk around in my undies, blast metal and punk, and pretty much do whatever the hell else I feel like doing.

His other argument is that writing an article is "an overly sensitive thing to do." Ha. What am I supposed to do? Just accept his criticisms of how I carry myself with a smile and say, "You're right (Accuser #1). I am being a jerk. I'll change." Screw that. I'm coming out with guns blazing. Only a slacked-jawed eff would sit back and take those kinds of criticisms. And only a slack-jawed eff would use a Facebook comment section to argue something with someone he sees every day.

Accuser #2

It took accuser #2 a while to actually read the article. He's a technophobe so that's understandable. He didn't really have much to say initially besides parroting a joke that a couple of our friends made about being "fat as hell but with higher T levels than everybody." At this point he didn't have a rebuttal because he knew that everything I said was true. But inside the mouse was turning the wheel that produces his thoughts.

A little bit later he came to me with this.

If this dog had a voice it's what Accuser #2 would sound like.

Accuser #2: I was, uh, thinking. And you may have raised your T and dropped your estrogen but me and (Accuser#2) have way higher T levels regardless.
Me: How do you know that?
Accuser#2: I just do.
Me: Have you had your endocrine levels checked?
Accuser #2: No, but just look at us.
Me: Whatever you say, Marmaduke. (I didn't really say that, but I should have because that's what a jerk would have done.)

Sounds like some solid evidence. Really outstanding detective work Accuser #2. If you go back and read the article I never said that my T levels were higher and my estrogen levels were lower than those of my accusers. I also never said that either of those hormones were outside of normal levels for myself or my accusers. I merely stated that, based on scientific research, I may have experienced a raise in T and a drop in estrogen and vice versa for Accusers #1 and #2. They obviously interpreted it in the worst way possible.

Part 2B: Bringing It All Together is going to finally put this issue to rest. There's a lot of interesting subtleties to this issue that have been studied and written about by people much smarter than me. The end result will probably surprise a lot of people.

Thursday

Bench:
95x5
145x4
185x3
230x2
245x1

200x13
135x20

Pendlay Row:
132x10
176x8
220x5x4

Neutral Grip Chins:
4x6

DB Lateral Raises:
4x10

Fat Bar Clean and Jerk:
3x5
w/
DB Single Arm Push Press:
3x10 each arm
Push Ups:
3x15

This was done with all the exercises paired for three sets.

Pretty decent session. I haven't really pushed my numbers on bench in a while so I'm excited to see what I can do. The rest was just basic stuff. Nothing too exciting.

Song of the Day: Ruiner- When the Mourning Ends

“Take care of your body with steadfast fidelity. The soul must see through these eyes alone, and if they are dim, the whole world is clouded.” -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe