Recover and Grow

I believe I’m paraphrasing Mark Rippetoe when I say that you do not get bigger and stronger by lifting weights.  You get bigger and stronger by recovering from lifting weights.  The average trainee seeking size and strength will spend anywhere from 3-8 hours per week doing the work in the gym to achieve their goals.  But it’s the 160-165 hours outside of the gym that can make or break even the best written training program.  Without recovery there is no progress.  If you’ve put in smart work in the gym you come back just a bit stronger and bigger than you were last time.  These effects aren’t noticeable from one training session to the next, but the cumulative effects can be seen when looked at through the lens of time.  Here are some recovery methods that can help speed up your recovery so you can train harder for longer and reach your goals or bust through plateaus quicker.

Myofascial Release. 

Or rolling out, or foam rolling, or whatever you want to call it.  If you’re not doing it you should be.  The products necessary for myfascial release are extremely inexpensive.  All you really need are three tennis or lacrosse balls and an 18” section of 4” pvc pipe with or without some foam padding taped to the outside.  The techniques are all over the internet but some of the big ones to focus on are the iliotibial bands, ankles/calves, quads/hip flexors, upper back, and pectorals. 

Myofascial release does just what its name implies.  It releases the fascia surrounding your muscles.  Fascia is a thin filament that surrounds all your muscles and essentially connects everything to everything else.  Think of it like a balloon surrounding air.  When you compress one section the other sections are put under pressure to accommodate the decrease in area.  Myofascial release relieves these pressure points and decreases the overall pressure back to normal. 

It is also a great way to start and end a workout due to the increase in blood flow to the muscles.

Contrast Showers/ Cold Baths

The science investigating the efficacy of contrast showers and cold tubs is inconsistent.  Some say there is no physiological benefits to temperature change in regards to decreasing recovery time in muscles.  But the anecdotal evidence can’t be ignored.  Many athletes will report that cold tubs and contrast baths help them recover to a greater degree than nothing.  This may be a case of the placebo effect in action, but the placebo effect can be a powerful thing. 

Food

If you don’t eat, you don’t recover.  All nutrients are required for this.  Fats, carbohydrates, and proteins all play a significant role in the repair of bodily tissues after a training session.  Protein is important in that it is made up of amino acids which are the building blocks to new muscle.  Proteins are also the building blocks to many of the hormones that drive cell repair within the body.

Fats are needed for cell repair since most cell membranes are made up of lipids.  Fats also play a significant role in hormonal function and vitamin absorption.

The fish looks depressed.

Many believe that post-workout carbs are needed for the insulin response which drives amino acids into the muscle.  While insulin does do this it also does other things that promote protein synthesis.  What insulin does is to keep the protein synthesis (muscle building/repair) window open for longer.

Proteins are needed for the amino acids they provide which are the building blocks of new muscle.  Proteins also make up your skin, hair, nails, many hormones, and are vital to your immune system.

Water

When you go through a tough training session you break tissues down.  When they are broken down they are then built back up.  All of this creates waste products that need to be flushed from the body.  Having enough and sometimes more than enough is a great way to help flush these waste products out of your tissues.  As was stated in the walking section excess fluid and inflammation can cause pain.  Forcing your body to get those fluids and waste products moving out of your body by drinking a lot of water is a great way to reduce that inflammation.

A hydrated muscle cell is also a requirement to building new muscle.  No water, no new muscle.

Walking

Walking and any kind of light cardio is great for recovery due to the blood flow that it stimulates.  With blood flow comes nutrients needed for repair and a conduit for the removal of waste and inflammation.  There is evidence to suggest that some of the pain associated with soreness is due to swelling and inflammation that pushes on nerve ending causing them to send a pain signal to the brain.  Walking/light cardio is a great way to help flush the muscles and get excess fluid moving out of them.

Sleep

Besides food for obvious reasons getting more sleep is the most important on this list.  If you do only one thing on this list make it be getting more and better quality sleep.  7-9 hours per night with as much of that coming before midnight as possible will help you repair and recover and help keep your body’s natural rhythm of hormone release right where it should be.

Make sure the room you sleep in is as dark as possible and is a cool temperature.

Massage

Getting a massage is like rolling out on warp drive.  Massages help release trigger points, break up adhesions where the muscle is actually sticking to the bone, release toxins from your system. Many people will feel sick after a particularly vigorous massage.  That’s the toxins.  Drink lots of water to help flush them out.

Stress Management

Stress and its signature hormone, cortisol, are big hindrances to recovery and ultimately improvement.  In some cases you want cortisol and other stress hormones to be released but for those who have constant stress there is a constant supply of cortisol release.  Having elevated cortisol raises blood pressure, kills testosterone production, affects sleep, and long story short makes you very good at putting on fat and losing mouscle.

There are many stress management techniques out there and it may take some trial and error to find what works best for you but it will definitely go a long way to helping improve recovery and ultimately performance.

Deloading

Deloading in some strength circles is a four letter word.  In others it is the majority of the program with no one really pushing themselves.  The key is balance.  I feel it is beneficial to take a break from pushing yourself every now and again.  The “now and again” is important because it requires you to listen to your body.  I feel planned deloads every 4 weeks are overkill.  If I’m feeling good I don’t want to pull back.  But sometimes after a few months of heavy training I’m beat up and need a break.  So I take one.  I don’t plan a deload, my body basically tells me when to take one.

Deloading can take many different forms.  Some people avoid the gym altogether while others maintain the routine of showing up and just do some light work and leave.  My feeling is that during a deload you should stick to your training plan but just drop your intensity and volume.  It is also a great time to really hammer away on mobility issues and soft tissue work since that is probably the crux of why you need a deload. 

But like I said, listen to your body.  Don’t take a deload just because you’re having a bad day.  Everybody has those.  A string of bad workouts in a row would be a better justification to take a rest.  I’m also not a fan of the fixed time deload.  Some people need two weeks, others need two days away from the gym and they are back to where they need to be to hoist some iron.  This is going to sound like a broken record, but seriously, listen to your body.

Summary

One caveat to all of these recovery methods...If you're not putting in the work and busting ass in the gym then stop worrying about recovery.  You have to put in the work to get anything out of these.  

Finding the right method of recovery is more of an art than a science.  Start with the big picture methods like getting more and better sleep, cleaning up your diet, drinking more water and removing stress. After you get those down start adding in the other ones.  Some of the methods on the list work for some but not others.  Give each one a fair shake and if it doesn’t work move on.  

I would not try to do all of them at once.  If you do that you never really know what is working and what isn’t.  Then you are stuck in a recovery routine that takes up more of your day than training.  And we all know lifting heavy things is way more fun than recovery work, unless your recovery work is frequent massage by a buxom Swedish masseuse.  If that’s the case, recover away.

Related Posts:


9 Tips to Help Erase Back Pain

Exercise and Brain Health

Hard To Kill

Troy Dequaine's Top Ten Non-Steroidal Performance Enhancers, Part One

Troy Dequaine's Top Ten Non-Steroidal Performance Enhancer, Part Two

Training Update and Random Thoughts

To keep this short and sweet I'm only going to give you the major points from each day of training.  To paraphrase my friend Tim in the food line in college, "I'm just giving you the meatballs."

Monday
Strict Overhead Press:
150x5

Wednesday
Clean High Pull:
264x3, 264x five singles

Friday
Squat: 365x5
RDL: 286x6x3

For being deep into the diet and now weighing what I weighed my freshman year of high school I'm pretty happy with how this week went.  Many people will assume strength will plummet on a diet.  It will if you don't do it correctly.  Doing a diet correctly basically entails eating enough protein to maintain your muscle mass and losing the weight slowly.  Quick weight loss diets usually emphasize drastically cutting calories and lot's of cardiovascular work.  That is definitely not me.

There is one more week to go on the diet and this is how I'm feeling about it:


Once the diet is over I'll be switching back into mass gain mode.  I'm not going to do what I've done in the past though and just start indiscriminately shoveling calories down my throat.  I'm going to be taking my time with it.  It's the flip side of rapid fat loss leading to muscle loss.  Rapid weight gain, even with hard training, leads to fat gain.  I'm going to try to maintain as low a body fat as possible.  If I feel like it's creeping up a bit too much I'll readjust.  Same as always.

I'm also going to continue with the Intermittent Fasting.  I want to see how it works with mass gain.  Hopefully it will help me maintain relatively the same leanness.  If I take my time and don't get too lazy with the diet it should.

I just finished reading Michael Lewis' Boomerang.  It's about all of the factors that led to the global market crisis we are currently digging our way out of.  It basically boils down to a few people (mostly bankers and credit lenders) gaining access to lots of easy credit and borrowing a lot of money they couldn't pay back.  If you have any interest in the markets or finances I'd definitely recommend it.  Even if you have zero experience (me) with complex money situations it's still a good read as Lewis makes the material accessible to just about everyone.

On top of doing the clean high pulls I also did some acceleration sprints.  These made me sore from my glutes to my calves since it has been a long while since I've done them.  Excited to see what kind of progress I can make with them.

That's it for now.  Working tomorrow morning and then some treadmill incline sprints.  Can't wait.

9 Tips To Help Erase Back Pain

The statistics on back pain are pretty surprising.  On any given day it is estimated that 31 million people will deal with the symptoms of back pain.  The American Chiropractic Association estimates that four out of five people will report back pain issues to a health care provider at some point in their lifetime.  Hopefully, with these tips you'll get pain-free and stay pain-free

STRETCH YOUR HIP FLEXORS- The hip flexors are a group of muscles located along the front side of your hips just below your abdomen.  Their job is to bring the knees towards the chest and/or the chest to the knees.  Since many Americans spend a large portion of their day sitting these muscles become extremely tight over time leading to what is called an anterior tilt.  This is where the pelvis is tilted forward.  When the pelvis is tilted forward you will have what is called a lordotic curve.  Think of a lordotic curve as always being bent backwards a little bit.  This curve puts a lot of pressure on the structures (muscles, nerves, vertebral discs, supporting ligaments, etc.) of the low back and will lead to back pain over time.  Consistent rolling out and stretching will help reduce this.  Also, standing more in situations where you would normally sit- such as when you are at your desk/ work station- will help prevent this.

STRENGTHEN YOUR GLUTES- This is the other side of the coin to #1.  When you simultaneously open up your hip flexors and strengthen your glutes you will get a synergistic effect.  In fact, doing one without the other will not be anywhere near as effective as doing both.  Some great exercises include glute bridges, RDLs, and reverse lunges.

ROLL OUT YOUR PIRIFORMIS- Your piriformis is a muscle that sits across the upper and somewhat outside of your glute complex.  The piriformis also happens to sit across the sciatic nerve.  When the piriformis is irritated or tight it will cause irritation in the sciatic nerve which will send pain signals through your low back and occasionally down your leg. 

STOP DOING SPINAL FLEXION AB EXERCISES- Remember when the lordotic curve of #1 led to stress through the spinal column?  This is the same thing, just in the other direction.  Spinal flexion exercises include crunches and stability ball crunches.

PERFORM ANTI-ROTATIONAL ABDOMINAL MOVEMENTS- Your back is designed to be stable and resist movement while your limbs move freely.  In many people this is backwards where the hip and shoulder joints are extremely tight and as a result they compensate by using their low backs for movement.  To tighten up those abdominals and thusly, your back, you’ll want to perform exercises that resist movement.  These include (but are certainly not limited to) planks, pallof presses, bird dog series, V-sits and rope chops.

STRENGTHEN YOUR UPPER BACK- People with weak upper backs often develop what is called kyphosis.  This is when your shoulders are rolled forward and you have a rounding of the upper back, AKA slouching.  This slouching posture places stress on the musculature of the lower back, specifically the quadratus lumborum, or QL. 

SLEEP ON YOUR BACK- Sleeping on your back takes pressure off of your spine, especially if you tend to sleep on your stomach.  To help maintain the normal curvature of your back place a small pillow underneath you knees.  If you sleep on your side a pillow between your knees with prevent your top leg from sliding forward and twisting your lower spine.

LOSE YOUR GUT­- This is the one that no one really wants to admit to.  But if you are carrying extra weight, especially around your midsection, you are very susceptible to back pain.  The extra weight will pull your lower spine forward and cause painful compression of the vertebral discs due to the effects of gravity.  Losing and then maintaining a healthy weight will help alleviate this.

Training Update

Today was my first day back from my deload.  It felt good to know that I had some heavy stuff planned and didn't have to take it easy.  My next twelve weeks I've got planned out.  The program that I'm going to do incorporates heavy strength days, moderate repetition days, some Olympic style weightlifting, conditioning, and something that has been missing from my training for a while, sprints/moving like an athlete.

I've been putting all of my training eggs into the lifting basket for a while now that it's time I up my conditioning and movement training.  Like all things I'm going to ease into it with medicine ball work, jumps, and basic movement progressions.  I'll also have a day where all I do is conditioning work like hill sprints, prowler sprints, sled sprints and things of that nature.

Since I'll be doing something just about everyday I'm going to just throw out an end of the week training update instead of a bunch of small posts throughout the week.  During the week  I'll try to roll out 1-2 new articles instead.  Some will be motivational, some will be technical, and some will focus on different exercises I'm trying.  All will be stimulating to the highest degree.

In any case, here is what I did today:

Strict Fat Bar Press:
115x5
135x5
150x5
135x5
120x 3 sets of 5

Single Arm Row:
100x 2 sets of 10
110x 2 sets of 10
120x10

Wall Walk Up with a Press:
15 total reps

Fat Bar Single Arm Curls:
3 sets of 8
w/
Band Pull Aparts:
3 sets of 25

First article of the week coming tomorrow.

The Week So Far

I've been deloading pretty good this week.  Really hammering away on mobility issues namely my quads, hip flexors and TFLs.  My back has been jazzed up lately and is still giving me some static but it feels OK right now.  I attempted to do some heavier stuff today.  The back held up fine.  I just need to be conscious of it and give it time to heal up.

Safety Squat Bar: up to 275x1, 185x5x3

Front Lever Tuck Holds

Dip Bar Holds

Wall Walk Up and Overs x 5

Rather than me explain it, here's a video.  Sorry about it being sideways.  Not used to taking video with my phone.



Going to do some more mobility stuff this weekend.  Hope everyone has a good one!

Internet Thievery

Last week I ordered some new shoes from Zappos.com.  I got some Asics Onitsuka Tigers to be exact.  Decent shoe, for the most part flat heel, nothing too fancy.  This morning I was perusing my Twitter timeline and one of the news feeds I follow lets me know that lo and behold Zappos.com customer data was hacked and 24 million accounts had been compromised.  Needless to say I'll be watching my credit card balance like a hawk.

I've touched on this topic before but I'm going to rant again.  I have zero tolerance for thieves.  I'm not even too keen on dressed up foxes stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Douche.

The most cowardly form of thievery has to be internet thievery.  To sit behind a computer and steal someone else's credit card numbers and then use those cards to buy stretch pants to fit their 350 lb fat asses at Wal-Mart is an act that needs to be punished.  And I think I know just what that punishment should be.

I'm proposing a very Old World solution to a New World problem.  If you get caught hacking or buying credit card info you should get your hands chopped off.  Simple as that.  I'd like to see some fucking nerd with a neck beard and a Zelda t-shirt try to press ctrl+alt+F5 without any fingers.  No more tappity-tap for the self-proclaimed "world's best hacker".  Nope, you just sentenced yourself to a lifetime of typing with a pencil in your mouth and not being able to shovel Flamin' Hot Cheetos down your throat.

But that will never happen.  We've grown soft as a society when prisoners and criminals live better than half the free population.  Go to jail and live comfortably off the government's endless bank account.  We could save a lot of time and a lot of money and I'm sure some cavalier, young scientist can figure out some way to put all those extra hands to good use.  What do you think?

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

“Get comfortable being uncomfortable” is one of those catchy, turn-on-itself phrases that speaks volumes to a lot of people with a minimum of words.  Sort of like, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Get comfortable being uncomfortable was probably first uttered by some Navy SEAL drill instructor to some SEAL recruits that were entering their third hour in 50 degree ocean water.  I’m sure he called them maggots at some point too.

I can safely say I would not enjoy this.  Source: MSNBC

I had thought I was possibly to first to bring it to the strength and conditioning world while working with a client this past year.  But when I was reading through Zach Even-Esh’s blog a few months later I came across a few articles on the exact same subject, the first of which I think had been written in early 2010.  No matter.  Here is my take on the issue and how I came to discover this guiding principle.

As strength and conditioning coaches we all know not every client “gets it.”  That is, they don’t understand that in order to achieve any of the goals that they have set out for themselves they are going to have to work.  And get sweaty.  And sore.  And dirty.  It’s a simple fact of life in the strength world and goes back to the old saying, “To get something you don’t have you have to do something you haven’t done.”  And for many people that means pushing themselves beyond what they thought themselves capable.  It means being OK with your heart rate at or above its hypothetical maximum.  It means being OK with having fire in your lungs from Prowler sprints.  It means inwardly being afraid to get underneath a bar and squat it but outwardly displaying confidence and a steel reserve.  And it means getting under said bar and lifting the weight you previously thought yourself incapable of lifting.

Mark was a client that was not OK with any of those things.  He had some pretty lofty goals and it was going to take an extraordinary amount of work just to get him in the ball park of where he wanted to be.  He was totally detrained and had never played competitive sports in his life.  He would get winded and asked for water breaks DURING THE WARMUP.  He refused to take less than two minute rest periods in between all sets of lifts.  Movement work consisted mostly of him needing a minute to catch his breath.  He would consistently miss training sessions all together.  He even signed up with our nutritionist but wouldn’t eat what she had laid out for him.  Many times we sat him down and spelled out for him exactly what he needed to fix in regards to his attitude and effort and he just couldn’t or wouldn’t change.  And then, to boot, he would trash the training and eating principles that he refused to follow as the reason he wasn’t getting better.  But that’s not the point of the article.  The point is that he was starting from absolutely zero.  The bar for improvement was incredibly low.  The bar for where he wanted to be was miles above it.

Many times when we would be working together he’d ask questions like, “Do you think I can do it (achieve the goals he had in mind)?” or “Do you think it’s my cardio that’s lacking?”  I would respond to the first by saying, “I’ll never say something is impossible but unless you turn it around, it is going to be very improbable.”  It was the second question where I stumbled upon the concept of Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable.  In fact, those were essentially my exact words to him.

I could see plain as day what was continuously happening.  Mark would go through his sessions and as soon as his heart rate rose and his breathing became a bit more labored and he could feel the burn in his muscles he shut down.  He thought that he had approached his limits and no amount of encouragement would get him to push further.  I stopped the session and said to him, “Mark, it’s not your cardio that’s the problem.  It’s your effort.  The reason your cardio and work capacity suck is because you refuse to push yourself beyond your current limits.  You have no concept of what it is to work hard for something.  And unless you start listening to us when we tell you to do something you never will.  You have to GET COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE.  I promise you only good things will happen when you push past your limits.”

Mark didn’t turn it around.  Even though it’s frustrating to put effort into someone only to have them not take advantage of it there are still things to be learned.  On top of the concept of getting comfortable being uncomfortable I also realized that many aspects of physical fitness are simple concepts to grasp.  You want to get stronger?  Lift heavier.  Gain or lose weight?  Clean up your diet and then eat amounts that jive with your goals.  All are simple in theory but not easy in practice.  And it comes down to comfort.  

Are you comfortable lifting beyond your current strength levels?  

Are you comfortable being hungry for some parts of the day to lose body fat?  

Are you comfortable lifting and eating more volume than you thought you could to gain muscular body weight?  

Are you comfortable embracing THE PROCESS and taking it one training session at a time and one meal at a time?  

This applies in life as well.  

Are you comfortable doing something you hate like public speaking or working 60 hours a week to get the job done?  

Are you comfortable making the tough decisions?  

Are you comfortable with not taking the easy way out?  

Are you willing to GET COMFORTABLE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE?

Diet Update and Confessions Of a Former Fat Boy

Here is what my diet looks like on a daily basis.  Every few days I have a high carbohydrate day and drop the fat as much as possible.  In the next week or so I'll probably start cutting some protein out as well.

Meal 1: Preworkout and 10g BCAA (branch chain amino acids)
(workout)
Meal 2: 2 scoops protein, 10g BCAA, Apple, Orange

Meal 3: 2 whole eggs, 6 egg whites, handful of bell peppers

Meal 4: 1 chicken quarter (thigh and leg, skin removed), 5 oz. sirloin steak

Meal 5: 12 oz. chicken breast, 2 cups steamed broccoli

With the intermittent fast all the meals are eaten within a 6-8 hour window.  I'm liking this as it's keeping me full for a while and let's me get on with my day.

While the before picture on the left isn't a true before picture, it gives you a good idea of where I started.  About 13% body fat on the left.  If I had to guess I'm probably in the 8-9% range on the right.

With this diet I can safely say that right now I am at the leanest I've ever been in my life.  People at work have noticed and have said positive things and I appreciate them all.  Despite that I've always got this chip on my shoulder.  No matter how many times I see myself in the mirror I still feel like the fat, young kid that I was.  Let me explain.  This is not an eating disorder kind of thing.  There is no way in hell I will ever develop an eating disorder.  I like food too much.

Maybe saying I feel like that kid was wrong.  I should say I still remember what it was like to feel like him.  I was always over weight as a kid.  Even when I was little I was usually off the height and weight charts at the doctors office.  As I got older the height leveled off but I was still usually one of the heaviest kids in my class.  A few memories from my childhood...

Being the kid that wore his shirt in the swimming pool and being laughed at when I didn't.

 Asking my sister if she thought I was fat.

My very well meaning mother, trying as delicately as she could, to tell me different foods to eat to lose weight.

Hating looking at pictures of myself because I hated my chubby cheeks.

Praying to God to make me skinny before we went on the class field trip to the swimming pool.

Agreeing with one of the other chubby kids in class that the Presidential Fitness Test was just to embarrass us in front of everybody.

Getting a personal low of 2 seconds in the flexed arm hang.

I'm sure there are more but these ones stick out the most.

The reason that I'm telling you this is that I'll always have that chip on my shoulder.  I'll always have that burning desire to never go back to what I was.  I'll always have that whiny fat kid whispering in my ear, "Yes, that's it.  Eat the cupcake.  Come join us and be fat and happy."  No thanks, fatty.  I'm good right here.

Monday

Squat:
up to 315x5
275x5
225x5x5

Bulgarian Split Squats:
4x8 each leg

Reverse Hypers
4x10

Hanging Leg Raises:
15 total reps

Upper Body Body Weight Stuffs:
10 mins.

Stretching:
10 minutes

I've been reading a lot on body weight upper body work and experimenting with some things in my training.  Adding in a few exercises here and there I think has really helped me retain a lot of my pressing strength as I've dieted down.  Usually pressing strength is the first thing to drop off when losing fat.  A lot of the stuff I've been trying is done statically.  That is, I don't actually move.  I just try to hold myself in place for as long as I can.  I think this has given me a good amount of CNS improvement which will carry over in the form of more efficient motor unit recruitment.  This essentially means I've gotten stronger with what I've already got.  I haven't really added any new muscle per se, just made the muscle that I do have stronger.

Training: Last Few

Tuesday

Fat Bar Bench:

135x5

185x8

205x5

225x5

205x5

185x5x8

Handstand Push Ups:

4 sets of 3

w/

Pull Ups:

4 sets of 7

Single Arm Fat Bar Curls:

3 sets of 8

Wednesday

Lots of mobility and ab work.

Thursday

Trap Bar:

154x5

264x5

352x5

418x5

308x5x5

Bulgarian Split Squats:

4 sets of 8 each leg

Reverse and Regular Grip Fat Bar Curls:

3 sets of 8-Reverse

5 sets of 5-Regular

Sled Sprints:

30 yardsx6

The back and more specifically the prirformis muscles continue to be tight and give me a little pain.  Nothing too serious just need to focus on keeping my belly tight and not letting the weight pull me out of position.  The diet has been going good and I'm consistently in the high 190's.  There's about four weeks left and I hope to be about 6-7 pounds lighter than I am now.  That should put me in pretty good position to win.  I'm definitely feeling a little more run down and tired than normal, but that comes with the territory of being at a new lighter weight.  Getting lean is hard, hard work and takes sacrifice.  And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise they are trying to sell you something. 

Intermittent Fasting: A Few Talking Points

Intermittent fasting (IF) has become a popular subject in the nutrition world within the last few years.  In fact, some of the biggest names in the strength and physique training fields have been trumpeting its benefits for a while.  These include Martin Berkhan(website), Jason Ferruggia (website) and John Romaniello (website).  The main reason for this is not only because of its outstanding results and ease of use but because it has challenged a lot of long held “truths” of the fitness industry.  The biggest “truths” it has challenged have to do with meal frequency, meal timing and total metabolism.

                Intermittent fasting is alternating periods of not eating (fasting) with periods of eating.  Most forms of intermittent fasting have the fast range in time from 16 to 36 hours.  Usually the longer the fast the less frequent the fasting periods.  For example if you chose to fast for 16 hours and have an 8 hour eating window you could do this every day (which I have been doing).  On the flip side of that, if you fast for 24 hours or longer you would only do it 1-2 times every 7-10 days.

                The reasons more and more people are gravitating towards IF are both physiological and psychological.  When you chose to fast for 24 hours twice per week you are eliminating two days’ worth of eating and therefore eating less total calories.  If you have only a six hour window to get your daily calories in you will often feel fuller for longer.  When you eat smaller meals throughout the day you may never get that “full” feeling which is important for some people mental states when trying to lose weight.

                When going for longer periods of time without eating you are forcing your body to rely on other forms of energy other than the food you take in.  This means it will more rapidly break down fat stores and damaged proteins for use as energy sources.  The fat break down is what we are going for but the protein break down?  Really?  You want that?

                Every day our bodies go through cellular break down and regeneration and our muscle cells are no different.  Damaged or old proteins get broken down and new proteins are built back in their place.  Think of it like a herd of water buffalo.  Through the natural order of nature the old and weak buffalo either drop off and die when food and water get scarce or are the first ones targeted when a lion is on the hunt.  It may be sad to think about but it makes the herd stronger as a whole since the young calves don’t have to compete with the old and weak and can take their place in the herd.  When we limit nutrient intake and force the body to turn to these old proteins we keep our cells young and healthy since newer and stronger proteins are built back with the nutrients you take in once the fast is over.

Old, weak proteins making way for newer, stronger ones.  The cycle of life.

                This brings me to my next point: insulin sensitivity and breakfast.  Without going into a long scientific discussion, you want to be insulin sensitive.  The more insulin sensitive you are the better.  Breakfast has long been heralded as the most important meal of the day.  And studies have shown that we are insulin sensitive in the morning and should take advantage of this by eating a big, carbohydrate-filled breakfast.  They also say that you will probably pass out and die if you don’t eat breakfast due to a being hypoglycemic.  This is a bit misleading.  We aren’t insulin sensitive because it’s morning.  We are insulin sensitive because we’ve just fasted for 8-10 hours.  The time of day has nothing to do with it.   There is nothing inherently wrong with skipping breakfast as long as total calories are sufficient.

                Most proponents of IF skip breakfast every single day and most train in a fasted state.  Training in a fasted state further increases insulin sensitivity which will make your post workout carbohydrates that much more effective once you do eat.  And since you will be more sensitive to the insulin that the carbohydrates cause to be released you will probably need less of them leading to fewer calories consumed overall.

                This next point is going to go against what a lot of you believe and it flew right in the face of something that I had been doing for years.  Your metabolism is NOT dependent on how many meals you eat.  That’s right; meal frequency has absolutely no bearing on how many calories you burn in a day.  The thought behind the whole “eat six small meals through the day” theory was that your metabolism is elevated every time you eat.  Therefore the more frequent your feeds the more elevated your metabolism.  That’s not the whole truth.  The truth is that as long as total calories stay the same your metabolism will stay the same whether you eat one meal or ten.  I like to use this example:

                You’ve just opened a bank account that gives you ten percent interest on every deposit you make.  One person deposits one dollar every day for thirty days.  Another makes one thirty dollar deposit at the end of the month.  Each person ends up with thirty dollars deposited and three dollars earned in interest at the end of the month.  Same thing goes with your metabolism.  The increase in your metabolism is dependent on the amount of calories you take in.  So at the end of the day if your calories are the same so too will be the increase in metabolic rate.  This was a concept that was hard for me to let go.  It was something that I believed in and something that I had told many clients.  Don’t get me wrong, eating six meals a day isn’t wrong or bad, it just doesn’t make a difference.  For those of you sick of planning your entire day around your eating schedule the 2-3 meals in a short window may be the way to go.

My cupboard looks even worse.

                Those are the some of the major talking points on IF.  There are a lot more benefits and limitations that are beyond the scope of this article and a lot more research being done on its implications.  I just wanted to pinpoint some of the reasons why I’m giving it a shot.  IF is not for everyone.  For those seeking to gain lean mass but keep off fat it may be beneficial but will be slower moving due to the inability to eat sufficient calories for growth.  But for those looking to lose weight and/or maintain weight lost it may be a way to go not only from the physiological benefits but from a practicality standpoint as well. 

Weekend, Monday, and Some Thoughts

This weekend I was all over the place.  Up to Green Bay for my Mom's side family Christmas Celebration, down to Chicago to ring in the New Year with my girlfriend and her family, and then back to Stallis for some relaxing before the work week begins anew.

Here's how today's training broke down (literally)

Pin Squats (about a 1/3 squat so not very deep)
worked up to 485x1 and my back had enough

Barbell Split Squats:
3x8 each leg

45 degree Back Extensions:
3x10

Glute Ham Hypers:
4x12

The caloric deficit and my general laziness when it comes to recovery work is starting to take it's toll.  The biggest culprit I don't feel is my training however.  It's my sleep.  Friday and Saturday night were horrible in terms of amount and quality due to varying reasons.  Sleep is by far the most underrated recovery tool out there.  7-9 hours with as much of that coming before midnight as possible is the gold standard.  Less than that and you start running into problems.  And as I'm finding out right now it doesn't take more than a few days in a row to start seeing the negative side effects of a lack of sleep.  So get to bed on time.  It'll make a world of difference.

The diet has a little less than five weeks left to it.  I'm going to be dropping my intensity over the coming weeks.  With the drop in intensity will probably come a slight increase in volume and an increase in the volume of cardio work.  I hate walking on the treadmill and 20-25 minutes at a pop is about I'll I can stand outside with the dog so I'll put a little more effort into the sprint column.

Speaking of the diet, I've been experimenting with Intermittent Fasting (IF) and have been liking the results so far.  IF is essentially alternating periods of fasting and eating.  I've been doing mostly 16/8 fast/eat ratios but have sometimes gone into the 18-19 range with the fast.

This weekend I knew I was going to cheat so I gave myself a four hour window on Friday night from 6-10 pm to eat and drink whatever I wanted.  After 10pm it was just water until about 2pm the next day.  There was no drop in energy (crappy night of sleep not withstanding) and some coffee took care of any hunger pangs.  I stayed good the rest of the weekend and feel that I came back Monday a touch leaner but at about the same weight as I was on Thursday.

I'll have more info on this way of eating tomorrow but might become my standard way of eating in the future.

Until tomorrow, train hard.