It is Science but not Rocket Science...a "manifesto" of sorts

The basics

It is science but not rocket science.  We need to stop trying to make all of this health and fitness stuff more complicated and difficult than it needs to be.  Be generally active, minimise sitting time, stand and walk whenever you can.  Do some resistance training and vigorous "aerobic" activity.  Work hard and progressively on both so that you stimulate adaptation.  Rest enough to grow and recover so that you improve.  Pay attention to safety. Stay mobile enough to squat and sit on the floor.  Diet is responsible for your  bodyweight, not exercise.

It is not about the tools

Not mentioned: the tools or the protocols.....because lots of things will work.  The tools: machines, bodyweight exercise,  barbells.  The protocols: one set to failure, 3x8-12,  5x5, Reverse Pyramid etc. intervals or a 400m run.  They are not the important concerns.   Lift stuff, sprint, recover.  Just make sure to pick safe and sensible exercises.

Listen to your Mother

Then there is all the stuff your mum told you:  stand up straight, get to bed early, eat your greens, don't snack between meals, stop worrying so much, wear sensible shoes, brush your teeth, get some sunshine and fresh air.

A distraction?

Yes there is science...but really all the focus on the science can be a distraction and an excuse for most of us.  The science actually says what I've recommended.  The search for the perfect becomes the enemy of the good enough.  As I've said before, most of us are not elite athletes either by genetic ability, or profession.  For most of us being elite is about maintaining function as we get older.  This is not defeatist.  Doing these things will get you fitter and looking better than most of those sitting next to you in your office, on the bus or at the pub.  Don't stress about the details so much.  Get on with your life.

On burning, storing and recomposing.

Burning

I couldn't resist!


On my adventures around the interwebs, I've noticed the following:- "Humans aren't Calorimeters. Therefore calories are irrelevant to humans." While I agree with the first sentence, I don't agree with the second one.

Calorimeters burn (oxidise) foods at high temperatures with a flame using oxygen, which produces carbon dioxide, water (depending on what's being burned) and heat energy.

Humans burn (oxidise) foods at 37ºC with enzymes , charge transporters etc using oxygen, which produces carbon dioxide, water (depending on what's being burned), mechanical energy and heat energy.

As both oxygen and carbon dioxide are gases, these can be measured by respiratory gas analysis to establish the rate of burning and what's being burned at any instant. See It's all in a day's work (as measured in Joules). When resting, burning occurs at a rate of ~1kcal/minute and as it's measured while fasted, ~0.11g/min of fat is burned and ~0.01g/min of carbs is burned. Also note that a lot of mechanical energy can be produced, which can increase the rate of burning by a factor of seventeen.

In conclusion, humans burn (oxidise) foods, though not with a flame and they can produce mechanical energy in addition to heat energy. The rate of burning and what's being burned at any instant can be measured.

Storing

When we eat food, it's digested and absorbed. As a digested meal is absorbed, it appears in the blood as glucose, triglycerides and amino acids. These then disappear from the blood due to burning and storage. See Extended effects of evening meal carbohydrate-to-fat ratio on fasting and postprandial substrate metabolism.

Figure 1 shows the effects of a 100g Oral Glucose load or a 40g Oral Fat load on blood glucose level over a period of 360 minutes. Note that subjects are resting during the 360 minutes. As the 100g Oral Glucose load produces a large blood insulin response (See Figure 2), fat-burning temporarily stops. Therefore, the ~1kcal/minute resting burning rate is derived from carbs. Therefore, the carb-burning rate is ~0.25g/min. At this rate, it would take ~400 minutes to burn 100g of glucose. However, it takes ~180 minutes for blood glucose level to fall from maximum to minimum. Therefore, some of the glucose from the Oral Glucose load is stored (mostly as glycogen in muscles and liver).

Figure 3B shows the effects of a 100g Oral Glucose load or a 40g Oral Fat load on blood triglyceride (fat) level over a period of 360 minutes. Note that subjects are resting during the 360 minutes. As the 40g Oral Fat load produces no significant blood insulin response (See Figure 2), fat-burning is unaffected. Therefore, the fat-burning rate is ~0.11g/min. At this rate, it would take ~364 minutes to burn 40g of fat. However, it takes 180 to 240 minutes for blood triglyceride (fat) level to fall from maximum to minimum. Therefore, some of the fat from the Oral Fat load is stored (as fat in adipocytes) even though there is no significant blood insulin response.

Therefore there are times when stuff is stored and there are other times when stuff is withdrawn from stores.

Recomposing

After doing intense exercise e.g. sprinting, resistance training with weights etc, muscles become very sensitive to insulin. Therefore, if intense exercise is done just before stuff is stored, stuff (amino acids and glucose) is preferentially stored in muscles rather than in adipocytes. This increases muscle mass relative to fat mass.

If non-intense exercise is done at times when stuff is withdrawn from stores, this maximises the amount of fat withdrawn from adipocytes and minimises the amount of stuff (amino acids) withdrawn from muscles. This decreases fat mass relative to muscle mass.

It's therefore possible to increase muscle mass at some times and decrease fat mass at other times while keeping overall mass relatively constant i.e. it's possible to gain muscle and lose body-fat without being in an overall caloric deficit. See Body Recomposition.

A head for heights

This gets pretty scary

The Cure for Anything

I've been reading The Cure for Everything by Timothy Caulfield, in which he examines myths about health and fitness and debunks a fair few of them.  I am enjoying it.  If you are knee deep in the blogosphere and the various research then not much will be new to you, but the guy writes well.  The establishment position - although not yet what is hitting the media - is pretty settled:

• You need to do resistance training
• High Intensity Interval Training is efficient and effecting
• Fat loss is about a calorie deficit

I liked this quote:

You should assess every fitness claim - whether it is about a new form of exercise or an amazing new product - by first asking yourself this question: does anyone benefit financially from creating the perception that this works? If the answer is yes, adopt an attitude of healthy scepticism. 

How did we get to where we are today? Part 2.

If the video is deleted due to copyright infringement and is irreplaceable, I will delete the post.

From Why the Industrial Revolution Happened Here:-
"Professor Jeremy Black examines one of the most extraordinary periods in British history: the Industrial Revolution. He explains the unique economic, social and political conditions that by the 19th century, led to Britain becoming the richest, most powerful nation on Earth. It was a time that transformed the way people think, work and play forever.

He traces the unprecedented explosion of new ideas and technological inventions that transformed Britain's agricultural society into an increasingly industrial and urbanised one. Why the Industrial Revolution Happened Here explores two fascinating questions - why did the industrial revolution happen when it did, and why did it happen in Britain?

Professor Black discusses the reasons behind this transformation; from Britain's coal reserves, which gave it a seemingly inexhaustible source of power, to the ascendency of political liberalism, with engineers and industrialists able to meet and share ideas and inventions. He explains the influence that geniuses like Josiah Wedgewood had on the consumer revolution and travels to Antigua to examine the impact Britain's empire had on this extraordinary period of growth."

Khan on Arthritis

Some interesting thoughts on running form

I just wanted to point to a couple of interesting things I'd come across today on running form.  It is weird how what was once a strange underground phenomenon in the darker recesses of the internet has become almost mainstream.  There are now loads of minimal / zero drop / barefoot shoes on the market, as the shoe manufacturers spotted a new market to exploit.

A colleague at work was out for a walk at lunchtime today and - remember it is the depths of a cold snowy winter - when he came back he said that he'd seen a guy out running on the street barefoot.  Then when I was on my own way home tonight, I saw a couple running towards me both with Vibram 5 fingers on.

All this minimal / barefoot stuff has hit the mainstream and those of us that were highlighting it years ago have been proved right.....or have we?

Nothing is ever as simple as that.  There is undoubtedly a marketing opportunity in minmal shoes - if that is where the demand is then supply will pop up to meet it....just as i did when people were being sold motion control shoes.  But there is more...with Born to Run and the research of Daniel Lieberman we thought that the biomechanical argument and the anthropological argument was over.

Now however up pops more research (Variation in Foot Strike Patterns during Running among Habitually Barefoot Populations) that muddies the waters.

These results indicate that not all habitually barefoot people prefer running with a forefoot strike, and suggest that other factors such as running speed, training level, substrate mechanical properties, running distance, and running frequency, influence the selection of foot strike patterns.

It is not as black and white as we always like to make it.  We get so dogmatic about everything!  It is not necessarily being barefoot that leads to a forefoot strike....but speed, cadence, distance etc.

The NY Times piece on the research makes a good conclusion:

“Mostly what we’ve learned” with the new study, he said, “is how much still needs to be learned.” 

I am sure that Socrates said something similar...

Anyway, all this ties in with a podcast I was listening to today on the way to work.  It includes an ultrarunner who regularly does the 95mile West Highland Way Race in Scotland and other 100+ miles events.  He talks about foot care, both shoes and how to prevent blisters.  He talk on shoes is really interesting as it brings together some of these ideas:

• shoe choice and depend on terrain
• shoe choice can depend on distance
• foot strike is more about cadence - shorter strides make a forefoot strike more natural
• some shoes prevent a fore foot strike and some styles of gait can make a fore foot strike harder to achieve

The podcast can be downloaded from West Highland Way Race Podcasts   and you want  no 30 which features Andy Cole on Foot Care.  

 

Not exactly rocket science, is it?

If Paul (astrophysicist) Jaminet met Jack (neurosurgeon) Kruse ;-)

The paleo diet was recently ridiculed as a food fad in Natural’s Not In It. It also came last in a US News Best Diets survey.

Ways of eating such as very-low-carbohydrate, low-carbohydrate, low-reward, paleo, primal, ancestral, just eat real food etc discourage the consumption of manufactured food products and encourage the consumption of produce. If a large percentage of the population stop filling their shopping baskets with manufactured food products and start filling them with produce, who suffers? Not exactly...

This is why the food manufacturing industry tries to ensure that the population gets the best nutritional and dietetic advice that money can buy. See also New study: Big Food’s ties to Registered Dietitians.

While libertarians and anarchists moan about freedom from government interference, the food manufacturing industry has the freedom to crap all over the aforementioned diets and influence people to buy manufactured food products. Morbidity is also very profitable for healthcare and drug companies.

I think that I've now flogged this particular horse to death!

Herd Immunity

This is good

We are not elite....

This blog has been getting a bit quieter of late.  My work has been taking a lot of my focus but also I've been reassessing what I post here and why.   I have been posting fewer of the scientific abstracts that I used to put up.  I have realised that I am not always familiar enough with the science to comment accurately on what I am reading.  There are others who do a great job - Adel at Suppversity or Chris Beardsley for example.  I may still put studies up here, but for the in depth analysis, you need to look elsewhere.

I suppose that one of the themes recently has been my own progress and experience.

Christmas and New Year saw me add about 7 lbs in weight - fat mostly - as I loosened up on my diet for a couple of weeks.   Back into a routine again, things are settling down and I am returning to where I was at the end of December.

My training stays the same:

• I walk for about 3 miles a day: either to or from work plus time at lunch;
• I train in the gym once a week - with weights and bodyweight exercises
• At the weekend I try to get a longer walk in, up in the hills.
• I try to play a little too - balance work, floor work, crawling, standing up in different ways, squatting etc - each day.

That is all.  

I am also increasingly aware that so much of the stuff that I read is focussed on elite athletes....yet so few of us are elite.  

What most of us need is something simple, straightforward, safe and achievable that fits in among the rest of life.  There are lots of competing priorities wanting our time....  First do no harm - try never to get injured....minimise the risk.

There is so much information out there now on the internet, so many different programmes, ideas and gurus.  So many rabbit holes to get sucked down.  For a while I was sucked deep into the Paleo thing....but I see some flaws in that now (Just Eat Real Food is one thing.... paleo takes it a little far in some respects).  At one point I was a committed low carber....no more.      Now I tend to be a bit more moderate in all things.  All of the interent gurus and cults are annoying me too.

I find myself coming back to training and eating how I used to 20 years ago....before I knew so much!

This is all a bit rambling and disconnected, but I wanted to get a few things out there.

Extreme Football Tennis

Some great tumbling.......  The hoop stuff from 3:00 is amazing

Weight Loss Shake Recipes - Delicious Healthy Smoothie

Weight Loss Shake Recipes

The Solution to Maximum Fat Reduction Utilizing Excess weight Loss Shakes. But the best portion about this smoothie is that it is by natural means sweet and delightfully tasty, so if you are the sort that has a sweet tooth craving each now and then, you'll enjoy this recipe. Filled with protein & nutritious intricate-crabs it is without a doubt powerhouse of the weight reduction shake recipes.

The elements in these fat loss smoothies are some of the most highly effective extra fat combating agents that you can consume. And when they are merged together in the correct combination they can accelerate the body weight loss method immensely! They are very filling which will make you experience satiated & avoid you from snacking among meals. In actuality, they are so nutrient-dense and entire filling that they can effortlessly exchange whole meals completely! So pull out your blender from the back of pantry, dust it off and spot it proper on your counter top rated. Simply because with these excess weights loss recipe you will acquire a good deal of use out of it.

Millions of individuals are hoping to lose body weight on any offered day. While there are a lot of different diet plans, one of the least difficult to comply with is employing excess weight reduction shakes. These shakes can be employed in supplementing one more diet or as a diet on their individual. In reality several of the well-known diets currently being utilized these days offer you eliminate weight shakes as an choice for when dieters do not have the time to get ready another meal.

Most of the greatest shakes for dropping unwanted lbs supply a diet program of their own. These very low calorie shakes are intended to consider the area of a couple of meals every single day. In addition, the dieter might choose to use a shake in spot of a healthy snack in among breakfast and lunch, lunch and dinner and as a bedtime snack. In most instances the meal strategy indicates that the dieter decide on a balanced and low calorie meal at dinnertime.

Body weight Loss Shakes: Ideas for Use

When employing the greatest meal substitute shakes, individuals trying to shed body weight need to also commence an exercise strategy. Even a couple of minute’s right here and there can speed up the loss of weight. 1 suggestion is for dieters to start off using coffee breaks for a time to consider a stroll close to the block or via the parking whole lot. This helps to prevent dieters from currently being tempted if somebody has brought doughnuts or other tasty treats to the place of work for break time. In addition, physical exercise can usually make a dieter experience significantly less hunger pains.

The very best body weight loss shakes are available in a assortment of flavors. Considering that dieters will be having from two to 4 of these shakes day-to-day, the taste variety can assist to avert boredom. In addition, serving the shakes nicely chilled aids to enhance the taste. Ready shakes can be saved in the fridge. When mixing a powdered shake, the dieter can create ice cubes to the shake blender to chill the concluded solution. If an electrical blender is used, the ice cubes can be shredded by the blender blades to give the shake an ice cream consistency for even higher flavor. If the shake is thick ample, dieters typically feel a lot more satiety by consuming it with a spoon rather than drinking the shake.

Aspect be aware: Before starting any diet program, it is often a excellent thought to communicate with your medical doctor. The medical doctor can examine the diet regime program and offer you tips to boost its usefulness. As a dieter finds results, it may possibly be necessary to adjust drugs. Dropping fat can reduce the two blood sugar and blood stress. As these numbers drop, the medical doctor may possibly require decreasing the sum of medication becoming utilized to maintain these important measurements in stability. Now for the entertaining things...

So How Can You Speed up Your Body weight Reduction Benefits from Fat Loss Shakes?

Meal Alternative Shakes are great simply because they're getting the caloric stability tipped in the route of 'deficit' indicating the body is burning more calories than it is taking in...Therefore kicking in the body's response to faucet into its stored energy.

The NHS blogs on Intermittent Fasting

Interesting to see the NHS Choices blog  - which helpfully examines those science stories that hit the headlines in the light of the science - look at intermittent fasting.

Does the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet work?

It is pretty sceptical about some of the purported health benefits.

Beware of false idols

This is a good post from Edinburgh Krav Maga.  It fits in with some of my recent thinking and disillusionment with all the the gurus and cult worship in the world of health fitness and diet.

The context of this is self defence and martial arts, but it applies to a lot of life

Beware of False Idols

No one way is best. Nobody has it all, no one has all the answers. You are smart enough to do your own research and work out what is the best course of action for you to achieve your goals. Seek quality advice from sources who will put you before themselves and their wallets. Just because something is worldwide and or originates in a foreign country it doesn't necessarily make it better.......

The world is full of amazing and interesting people with stories to share and things to teach. However, never overlook the local guy or the guy a few towns up from you who I'm sure can teach you so much without the need to travel to the ends of the earth. 

I think in the UK and Europe, we are very prone to look to the USA as if that country holds all of the expertise.  We see their athletes and assume that they have all of the best techniques and approaches.  They quickly assume guru status.  We need to be more confident in ourselves and our expertise, not only as individuals, but as a nation.

One Minute Medical School on the Flu

Paul Ingraham highlighted this great YouTube channel a few days ago:



That was the first time I've been told what the H and N mean in the flu classifications.

Floor Living

One of the topics that I fine fascinating is that of getting older.   More specifically the idea of getting older while maintaining physical function: it is one thing to be old but something totally different to be old and capable of doing things for yourself.  There was an interesting piece on the radio the other day about a Greek island which has a lot of very healthy and active old people.  They were trying to filter out what accounted for their health - it looked like a complex of things: good quality food, wine, physical activity, low stress and lots of social interaction.

Anyway, that is off topic.  Well a bit off topic.

The other day I posted about a study that linked mortality to how capable an individual was of sitting down and standing up.  A commenter there pointed me to Phillip Beach's Muscles and Meridians, in which he discusses several floor- or ground-based "archetypal postures," and recommends "erectorcises" to practice getting up from them.

Intrigued I bought the book (that is the beauty and temptation of an Amazon account and a Kindle).   It is a really interesting book.  I've not really got into the meridians or the contractile field stuff, but the centre section on archetypal postures is fascinating.

The book proposes that we can reduce the incidence of musculoskeletal distress cheaply and effectively by taking three steps:

• We need to spend more time on the floor - in the natural postures of sitting, squatting, kneeling
• We need to be good at standing erect from the floor - this is a basic skill requiring a host of muscles to coordinate in work together
• Our feet need functional rehabilitation - shoes are sensory deprivation chambers!

If you want to preserve your mobility, and that of your clients, start with simple exercises that involve the floor to standing transition.

LEARN TO RETUNE

The Contractile Field model helps us to understand movement. The opposite of movement is rest; one without the other is nonsensical. At rest we assume natural Archetypal Postures. The archetype is the original pattern or model from which copies are made; the best example or prototype of that class of objects. Archetype used in the context of human movement refers to postures that emerge from, and are embedded within, the interaction of many joints and many muscles. Losing access to our Archetypal Postures is a biomechanical peril.

We sit on the floor in many postures that are our birthright, postures that our modern society neglects to value, instead preferring chairs and sofas. Rising from these Archetypal Postures to our full upright bipedal posture uses deeply embedded patterns of movement.

LEARN THE METHODS OF ERECTORCISE

To stand up from the floor is a movement sequence we mastered as children. Regrettably, in our busy lives this mastery has lessened over time until the normal act of rising from the floor becomes awkward and uncomfortable. Our musculoskeletal system needs the exercise of erecting to stay in good moving health. I call these the Erectorcises and the ability to relearn and reintroduce these exercises into everyday life provides some protection from degeneration and dis-ease.

Archetypal Postures and the Erectorcises are key insights derived from my work in Contractile Fields. If you want to achieve your sporting ambitions or to age gracefully you need to include this concept in your life. Learning why and how to value floor based rest and erecting from the floor with grace and facility will be of lifelong value to you.

Note: Erectorcises are applicable to all but the most infirm but are not appropriate for those with joint replacements.

consistency

One concept that I keep coming back to at the moment is that of consistency.  I did a post last month in which I bemoaned our constant search for a secret or shortcut to muscle, health and fitness.  This quest leaves us open to being led astray by all sorts of gurus and marketing men each selling some new magic formula. If there is any secret it is consistency.  Just keeping going.  It isn't flash or sexy.  It is boring in some ways.

Identify the basics and just keep doing them.  Keep turning up.

At this time of year the gyms get full of new members and the pavements are thronged with new runners and powerwalkers.  The ones who will succeed in their goals are not those with special genetic gifts or those who have the best gear.  Those who will succeed will be those who are still in the gym, still on the streets 6 or 12 months from now.

Basic habits:

• sleep
• minimal stress
• good food (not too much)
• some resistance training
• daily activity
• rinse and repeat.

I post a lot of interesting things on here but I hope that they never distract from those boring basics.  Just keep turning up.


Similar thoughts from Amber

....................there is no magic to weight loss and fitness. I did this without gimmicks, without fad diets, without restricting foods or macronutrients, without spending hours in the gym, without starving myself, without pills and potions, without dicipling myself to any fitness or diet gurus. My results have been dramatic, but the steps I took to achieve them were not. The key to my success, and to yours, is consistency. Good habits, practiced consistently, over time. Its not low carb, or low fat, or crossfit, or clean eating, or raw vegan, or paleo, or zumba, or gluten free or any other fad-du-jour with promises of easy weight loss and ‘ripped abs in 30 days’. It’s consistency. If I could put consistency in a pill and sell it to you, I’d be a millionaire. Because consistency WORKS. The evidence is right there in my progression pics.

I think it throws some people for a loop that I’m showing you these pictures, but not using them as a marketing ploy to sell you a magic pill. People don’t quite know what to make of that. Before/after pics are almost always used as a marketing ploy to sell magic pills (or fad diets, or workout programs, etc). But there’s no magic pill here, no promise of fast and easy weight loss and ripped abs in 30 days. Just the truth: if you make healthy choices, consistently, over the course of several years, you will have results as dramatic as mine. You won’t look exactly like me, because you have different genetics, but you WILL have dramatic results. Your health will improve and your body will change. It’s true.

Interesting isometric for abs

from the article at Quick and Effective Ab Workouts, some of which I like:

“train as much as necessary (to improve, and to win), not as much as possible!” 

or

The Plank and Side Plank

One of the best isometric exercise is as follows.

For myself, I end a workout with a simple Ab-core torso exercise, called the plank and side plank (see image on left) I do a single 90 second hold for the plank, and 60 seconds each for the side plank.  Total time:  3.5 minutes.

 The average person can’t do the plank for 60 seconds!  So don’t settle for average!

and some of which I am not too keen on.

It’s the Calories, Stupid.

I thought I'd mark my return to blogging by taking the piss out of a certain Diet Doctor for his post It’s the Insulin, Stupid, who takes (and tweaks) Fig 7A from Hyperinsulinemia Drives Diet-Induced Obesity Independently of Brain Insulin Production.

At first glance, Fig 7A looks like a CIH believer's dream come true (apart from the words "High Fat Diet").

Hyperinsulinemia → Obesity.

Obesity is caused by too much insulin. Game, Set and Match to insulin.

Not so fast! Let's take a look at the rest of Fig 7.

Figure 7. Revisiting the Current Model of Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes(A) The most widely accepted model of the pathogenesis of obesity and type 2 diabetes posits that a high-fat diet leads to obesity and insulin resistance (there is debate about the relative order and causality of these). In this widely held view, insulin resistance then leads to hyperinsulinemia, which is followed by β cell exhaustion, and then type 2 diabetes. The accepted model is incompatible with our results that put the insulin hypersecretion genetically upstream of obesity.(B) Our data support a model whereby insulin levels must be kept low to maintain energy expenditure in white adipose tissue via the expression of Ucp1. Our data do not address the order of subsequent events after obesity (outside the yellow box), such as insulin resistance and/or type 2 diabetes, since they were not observed in our studies. In other words, the effects of insulin gene dosage on obesity are independent of sustained changes in glucose homeostasis or insulin resistance.

↑ Peripheral Hyperinsulinemia → ↓ Uncoupling Proteins (WAT) → ↓ Energy Expenditure → ↑ Obesity.

Obesity is caused by a reduction in energy expenditure. Game, Set and Match to The Energy Balance Equation. It’s the Calories, Stupid. In the mice in this study, energy expenditure is strongly influenced by insulin levels. In humans, not a lot. In humans, insulin can act as a stimulant and as a sedative.

I'm not an insulin denier as is obvious from my other blog posts. I'm still controlling my carbohydrate intake.
I'm not a food reward denier and I've been using food reward principles to lose some more weight.

The above post will probably annoy some people. Before wasting your time writing a comment, please note my Moderation Policy.

Andreas Cahling at 60

When I was at my mum's house at Christmas I found some of my old bodybuilding magazines from the mid 1980s.  Looking through them it is fascinating to see what has changed and what is still the same over that period.  The top pro physiques are much more massive now ( more/better drugs), but the average natural amateur is not much different.  Nutrition knowledge has been al over the place, but the consensus is still in general terms pretty much what it was then: get enough protein and then watch your calories...

Anyway Andreas Cahling was on the cover of one magazine:

Apologies for the quality of the photo - the paper was too shiny.   That is Cahling on the saddle, with Johnny Fuller riding pillion.

Cahling was never the top level but he was a good competitor in the 1980s.  Well he is still at it!  At the age of 60 he just competed in the Master's Olympia.  He didn't do that well in the placings - younger more massive physiques dominated - but for a 60 year old guy he looked pretty good.  Drugs may well still be involved however......

He has been posting videos of his condition on his blog

sit down and stand up to predict mortality

The Get Up?

No not the Turkish Get up......

This is an interesting one that I came across today, mentioned on a podcast.  When I got home from my walk I did a bit of searching to find out more about the study.

The idea is that some researchers have found that those who can sit down and get up using no hands are likely to live for longer.  The more that you have to use other parts of your body - elbows, knees etc to help you up then the more mortality is affected....

The study is

Ability to sit and rise from the floor as a predictor of all-cause mortality

Methods: 2002 adults aged 51–80 years (68% men) performed a sitting-rising test (SRT) to and from the floor, which was scored from 0 to 5, with one point being subtracted from 5 for each support used (hand/knee). Final SRT score, varying from 0 to 10, was obtained by adding sitting and rising scores and stratified in four categories for analysis: 0–3; 3.5–5.5, 6–7.5, and 8–10.
Results: Median follow up was 6.3 years and there were 159 deaths (7.9%). Lower SRT scores were associated with higher mortality (p < 0.001). A continuous trend for longer survival was reflected by multivariate-adjusted (age, sex, body mass index) hazard ratios of 5.44 (95% CI 3.1–9.5), 3.44 (95% CI 2.0–5.9), and 1.84 (95% CI 1.1–3.0) (p < 0.001) from lower to higher SRT scores. Each unit increase in SRT score conferred a 21% improvement in survival.

and the pdf of the whole paper is available. 

As functional as it gets

Thinking about it, in terms of longevity and mortality this movement is about as functional as it gets.  A fall is often the beginning of the end for old people.  If they break a bone it is bad but even if they do not, if they are struggling to get back on their feet then they can be in serious danger.

Here is a basic simple test of an essential skill.  Get onto the floor and get up again.  Can you do it?  Try it now.  It is an exercise in itself.

Try it using the minimum of bodyparts, without help from hands or elbows.  Yes it is a skill....but some skills are good to develop!

The way in which the test was applied in the study was as follows:

"Without worrying about the speed of movement, try to sit and then to rise from the floor, using the minimum support that you believe is needed."

Have a go at it now yourself.

Look beyond cardio

Offering an explanation for the close correlation between the test scores and survival, Dr Araújo said: "It is well known that aerobic fitness is strongly related to survival, but our study also shows that maintaining high levels of body flexibility, muscle strength, power-to-body weight ratio and co-ordination are not only good for performing daily activities but have a favourable influence on life expectancy.

Fitness is so much more than cardio / VO2 max.  Can you move well?  Can you stand and sit, lift, reach, carry, walk?  These require strength and coordination.  These skills need to be maintained as we age or else we are doomed to having people pick us up and wipe our behinds.

The video

A test or an exercise?

This was a test, but how about applying it as an exercise?  Or rather as a skill to develop and maintain as we age.   Treat this as part of your workout or at least part of your warm up.  Sit down on the floor and stand up a few times.

If you can't do this well then maybe you need to focus on some basics before you worry about the complexities of your exercise routine.

The TGU

Of course the TGU is perhaps a good move to practice as a skill, to help in this, although always skills are specific - in life you will not do this much....but you will always have to get up and get down.

Here Cotter would not score well because he uses his knee  ;-)