Ken Thorpe, professor at Emory University’s public health school, has authored a study that looked at the medical costs of treating obesity over a 15-year period.
Between 1987 and 2002, private spending on obesity-linked medical problems mushroomed from $3.6 billion, or 2 percent of all health spending, to $36.5 billion or 11.6 percent of spending, the study, published in the journal Health Affairs, found.
To read the rest of the story on MSNBC, click here.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Rheumatoid Arthritis Increases the Risk of Heart Disease
A news item on Time magazine's website reveals a link between rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and heart disease. The link seems obvious when one thinks about it, since both are inflammatory diseases, but this is the first time I've read any research supporting the link.
The Mayo Clinic study looked at "75 rheumatoid arthritis patients recently diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, and then assembled a control group of 128 cardiovascular patients matched with the first group by sex, age and traditional cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking, but free of rheumatoid arthritis. A comparison of the two groups’ coronary angiograms (specialized X-ray scans used to diagnose blocked coronary arteries) found that patients with rheumatoid arthritis also had more clogging of the arteries at the time of their initial diagnosis with heart disease than those without. Equally alarming, the Mayo team calculated that the rheumatoid arthritis group had twice the risk of dying from cardiac disease as the control group."
To read the whole article, click here.
For a long time, alternative health advocates have promoted fish oil as part of a treatment plan for those suffering from RA. One of the many benefits offered by fish oil is a reduction of risk for heart disease due to its ability to reduce cholesterol and arterial plaque. Fish oil is also a first class anti-inflammatory, with none of the side effects of pharmaceutical anti-inflammatories.
Before adding fish oil to your treatment plan for RA, please talk to your doctor. The recommended dose of fish oil for anti-inflammatory effect is between 6 and 24 capsules (1000 milligrams each) a day, taken in divided doses with meals.
The Mayo Clinic study looked at "75 rheumatoid arthritis patients recently diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, and then assembled a control group of 128 cardiovascular patients matched with the first group by sex, age and traditional cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and smoking, but free of rheumatoid arthritis. A comparison of the two groups’ coronary angiograms (specialized X-ray scans used to diagnose blocked coronary arteries) found that patients with rheumatoid arthritis also had more clogging of the arteries at the time of their initial diagnosis with heart disease than those without. Equally alarming, the Mayo team calculated that the rheumatoid arthritis group had twice the risk of dying from cardiac disease as the control group."
To read the whole article, click here.
For a long time, alternative health advocates have promoted fish oil as part of a treatment plan for those suffering from RA. One of the many benefits offered by fish oil is a reduction of risk for heart disease due to its ability to reduce cholesterol and arterial plaque. Fish oil is also a first class anti-inflammatory, with none of the side effects of pharmaceutical anti-inflammatories.
Before adding fish oil to your treatment plan for RA, please talk to your doctor. The recommended dose of fish oil for anti-inflammatory effect is between 6 and 24 capsules (1000 milligrams each) a day, taken in divided doses with meals.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Protect Your Right to Use Safe Supplements
The Feds, in their never-ending quest to remove all our personal freedoms, have now targeted DHEA as an anabolic hormone to be regulated and available only through prescription. A similar bill to restrict creatine is also in the works. They have already taken ephedra and prohormones, both of which are safe and effective when used properly, but now they want to deny us two of the most widely studied and effective -- and SAFE -- supplements on the market.
It's time to take a stand. Go here. Put your ZIP code in the designated box in the top left corner and click "Go" to compose an e-mail to your representative and senators that lets them know you oppose the legislation that would make DHEA illegal. In fact, here is a sample letter written by TC Luoma, editor of T-Nation and owner of Biotest supplements. By the way, Biotest doesn't even sell DHEA or creatine.
As your constituent, I'm asking you to stop the erosion of our personal freedoms. I'm asking you to oppose S, 1137 and any similar legislation in the House that would classify the benign supplement DHEA as an anabolic steroid and remove it from the market.
Maybe you don't know this, but DHEA is a naturally occurring hormone with a wide range of benefits ranging from boosting immunity to improving mood and sleep patterns. Additional research shows that it might be a valuable tool in fighting obesity, cancer, and even Alzheimer's disease.
The legislation in question claims to prevent abuse of this supplement by athletes, reasoning that since it's a chemical precursor to androstenedione and testosterone, it could be used to build muscle or enhance performance.
Frankly, this is ludicrous. As an athlete myself, I can tell you that I've yet to hear of anyone who thinks they can build muscle with this supplement! However, I have many elderly relatives and friends who rely on DHEA.
Americans are the strongest and healthiest people in the world, and we've achieved this status partly by taking charge of our own health, by supplementing those things that our diets can't always provide, or that time robs us of. I know it's in the pharmaceutical companies' interest that they control these substances, but it's important not to give the American people fewer choices to maintain and improve their health.
Please, stop this now. Oppose S. 1137 and any similar legislation in the House.
Sign your name and you're done. If you want to compose your own letter, then do it -- but be rational, calm, and succinct.
It's time to take a stand. Go here. Put your ZIP code in the designated box in the top left corner and click "Go" to compose an e-mail to your representative and senators that lets them know you oppose the legislation that would make DHEA illegal. In fact, here is a sample letter written by TC Luoma, editor of T-Nation and owner of Biotest supplements. By the way, Biotest doesn't even sell DHEA or creatine.
As your constituent, I'm asking you to stop the erosion of our personal freedoms. I'm asking you to oppose S, 1137 and any similar legislation in the House that would classify the benign supplement DHEA as an anabolic steroid and remove it from the market.
Maybe you don't know this, but DHEA is a naturally occurring hormone with a wide range of benefits ranging from boosting immunity to improving mood and sleep patterns. Additional research shows that it might be a valuable tool in fighting obesity, cancer, and even Alzheimer's disease.
The legislation in question claims to prevent abuse of this supplement by athletes, reasoning that since it's a chemical precursor to androstenedione and testosterone, it could be used to build muscle or enhance performance.
Frankly, this is ludicrous. As an athlete myself, I can tell you that I've yet to hear of anyone who thinks they can build muscle with this supplement! However, I have many elderly relatives and friends who rely on DHEA.
Americans are the strongest and healthiest people in the world, and we've achieved this status partly by taking charge of our own health, by supplementing those things that our diets can't always provide, or that time robs us of. I know it's in the pharmaceutical companies' interest that they control these substances, but it's important not to give the American people fewer choices to maintain and improve their health.
Please, stop this now. Oppose S. 1137 and any similar legislation in the House.
Sign your name and you're done. If you want to compose your own letter, then do it -- but be rational, calm, and succinct.
Monday, June 20, 2005
News You Can Use: Training
Train Large Muscles First: When training full-body, or even in muscle-specific training, it is generally best to train larger muscles first using compound movements (more than one joint involved). If you train smaller muscles first using isolation exercises (single-joint movements), the muscles become fatigued quickly and are unable to handle the larger weights that are beneficial for building size and strength with compound movements. For example, do squats before doing leg press or leg extensions, do close-grip chins before doing concentration curls, and so on. Most trainees who have been in the gym for a while already know this, but some geeks in a laboratory decided to do a study to see if it is true. [J Strength Cond Res, 19:152-156, 2005]
Do Squats on the Bosu Ball to Build Core Strength: A group of Canadian scientists decided to see if instability exercises would increase core strength (abdominals, obliques, and lower back). Using EMG to measure muscle activation (electrical activity of the muscles is measured in this approach), they determined that core muscles are activiated more while doing squats on a Bosu ball than while doing free-bar squats or Smith machine squats. [Can J Appl Physiol, 30:33-45, 2005]
Interesting study, but the results don't have much use for those of us who train heavy. Doing free-bar squats with large weights works the core muscles more than anything you can do safely on a Bosu ball. However, for older or weaker trainees, the Bosu ball is an excellent tool for developing core strength -- as long as the trainee has no serious knee problems.
Doing Heavy Negatives Impairs Muscle Performance: Greek researchers found that doing heavy negatives (eccentric contractions) impairs muscle performance more than doing light eccentric exercise, but that damage to the muscle was the same. Many lifters do negatives to inflict more damage on the muscle with the thought that increased soreness (common with heavy negatives) indicates a better workout. While it is true that increases in strength result largely from the eccentric portion of the exercise -- when done under control -- this study seems to indicate that we can get the same benefit without going as heavy. [J Strength Cond Res, 19:184-188, 2005]
Instead of doing negatives at the end of your bench workout, try using your eight-rep max and doing a two-second negative on each repetition (for four sets of six reps). Make tempo a part of all your lifts, aiming for an explosive concentric motion (under control) and a two-second eccentric motion. Try different lengths of time for the eccentric -- but be aware that the number of reps you can get with a weight will decrease as the length of the eccentric contraction increases.
Do Squats on the Bosu Ball to Build Core Strength: A group of Canadian scientists decided to see if instability exercises would increase core strength (abdominals, obliques, and lower back). Using EMG to measure muscle activation (electrical activity of the muscles is measured in this approach), they determined that core muscles are activiated more while doing squats on a Bosu ball than while doing free-bar squats or Smith machine squats. [Can J Appl Physiol, 30:33-45, 2005]
Interesting study, but the results don't have much use for those of us who train heavy. Doing free-bar squats with large weights works the core muscles more than anything you can do safely on a Bosu ball. However, for older or weaker trainees, the Bosu ball is an excellent tool for developing core strength -- as long as the trainee has no serious knee problems.
Doing Heavy Negatives Impairs Muscle Performance: Greek researchers found that doing heavy negatives (eccentric contractions) impairs muscle performance more than doing light eccentric exercise, but that damage to the muscle was the same. Many lifters do negatives to inflict more damage on the muscle with the thought that increased soreness (common with heavy negatives) indicates a better workout. While it is true that increases in strength result largely from the eccentric portion of the exercise -- when done under control -- this study seems to indicate that we can get the same benefit without going as heavy. [J Strength Cond Res, 19:184-188, 2005]
Instead of doing negatives at the end of your bench workout, try using your eight-rep max and doing a two-second negative on each repetition (for four sets of six reps). Make tempo a part of all your lifts, aiming for an explosive concentric motion (under control) and a two-second eccentric motion. Try different lengths of time for the eccentric -- but be aware that the number of reps you can get with a weight will decrease as the length of the eccentric contraction increases.
Diets High in Red and Processed Meats Increase Cancer Risk
Put down the hot dog and step away from the grill. Further proof that a diet high in red meat and processed meats (hot dogs, sausages, and so on) significantly increases the risk of colorectal cancer -- the second most prevalent cancer killer -- has emerged from a broad-based European study.
A report in U.S. News & World Report provides the results of the study:
"Researchers in Europe have confirmed that a diet loaded with red and processed meats increases the risk of developing cancers of the colon and rectum by 35 percent. Likewise, a diet high in fish–a serving once a day rather than once a week–cuts the risk by 31 percent. Eating lots of red meat and almost no fish bumped the risk of developing these lethal cancers up to 63 percent."
The study involved 500,000 men and women between the ages of 25 and 70.
The study does not mention the fat content of the meats consumed in the study, nor does it mention the fiber intake of those who developed the cancer. Still, we can make a few assumptions based on the results:
* Do not eat processed meats -- they contain high levels of saturated fats and nitrates, both of which are linked to cancer. This includes hot dogs, bologna, and other forms of pre-packaged processed meats.
* Reduce your intake of red meat -- and if you do eat red meat, select extra-lean ground beef (at least 94 percent lean), select lean cuts of steak (top round and sirloin are often among the leanest), and limit intake to twice a week.
* Increase your fiber intake -- the daily intake should be around 25 to 35 grams, but most people are getting less than 15 grams a day.
I've been telling my clients to stay away from red meat, even those who do not have much fat to lose or are trying to bulk up. This study (and the previous 1990 Nurses Health Study) is why I make that recommendation.
A report in U.S. News & World Report provides the results of the study:
"Researchers in Europe have confirmed that a diet loaded with red and processed meats increases the risk of developing cancers of the colon and rectum by 35 percent. Likewise, a diet high in fish–a serving once a day rather than once a week–cuts the risk by 31 percent. Eating lots of red meat and almost no fish bumped the risk of developing these lethal cancers up to 63 percent."
The study involved 500,000 men and women between the ages of 25 and 70.
The study does not mention the fat content of the meats consumed in the study, nor does it mention the fiber intake of those who developed the cancer. Still, we can make a few assumptions based on the results:
* Do not eat processed meats -- they contain high levels of saturated fats and nitrates, both of which are linked to cancer. This includes hot dogs, bologna, and other forms of pre-packaged processed meats.
* Reduce your intake of red meat -- and if you do eat red meat, select extra-lean ground beef (at least 94 percent lean), select lean cuts of steak (top round and sirloin are often among the leanest), and limit intake to twice a week.
* Increase your fiber intake -- the daily intake should be around 25 to 35 grams, but most people are getting less than 15 grams a day.
I've been telling my clients to stay away from red meat, even those who do not have much fat to lose or are trying to bulk up. This study (and the previous 1990 Nurses Health Study) is why I make that recommendation.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Exercise Eases Arthritis Pain
(HealthDayNews) -- If you have arthritis, weight training can strengthen the muscles that cushion sore joints, according to Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center. Stronger muscles mean less pressure on the joints, and therefore less pain.
This falls into the "keen sense of the obvious" category. I've been telling clients for years -- and watching their excitement when it happens -- that strengthening the muscles will ease arthritis pain, especially in the knees and back.
It's important to go slow, however. Using heavy weights or prolonged workouts can actually have a negative effect at the beginning of a new program. Start with smaller weights that can be lifted for 12 to 15 repetitions and build some muscular endurance. Do not take any sets to muscular failure (the inability to lift the weight again).
Finally, don't do the silly 3-pound dumbbell exercises often recommended for arthritis patients unless that is literally all you can lift. If you have never lifted weights before, hire a trainer or talk to someone who can teach you good, safe form. Don't be afraid of the weights -- as many as 80 percent of the people working out in gyms are not lifting enough weight to see any benefits. Take your time, learn good form, and increase the weight over time.
This falls into the "keen sense of the obvious" category. I've been telling clients for years -- and watching their excitement when it happens -- that strengthening the muscles will ease arthritis pain, especially in the knees and back.
It's important to go slow, however. Using heavy weights or prolonged workouts can actually have a negative effect at the beginning of a new program. Start with smaller weights that can be lifted for 12 to 15 repetitions and build some muscular endurance. Do not take any sets to muscular failure (the inability to lift the weight again).
Finally, don't do the silly 3-pound dumbbell exercises often recommended for arthritis patients unless that is literally all you can lift. If you have never lifted weights before, hire a trainer or talk to someone who can teach you good, safe form. Don't be afraid of the weights -- as many as 80 percent of the people working out in gyms are not lifting enough weight to see any benefits. Take your time, learn good form, and increase the weight over time.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Candy Industry Targets Fitness Buffs
ABC News is running a story about how the candy industry is trying to infiltrate the fitness supplement market. With only so many options for creating candy, and with consumers shying away from sugar-laden confections, the industry is trying make health-conscious consumers buy candy by adding healthy supplements to their diabetes-causing, obesity-inducing, and teeth-rotting drugs, er, I mean, candies.
At the All Candy Expo in Chicago, Jelly Belly Candy Co. of Fairfield, Calif., introduced "Sports Beans." Each one-ounce serving has Vitamins C and E plus 120 milligrams of electrolytes to boost energy and prevent dehydration.
I can just see gym members popping Jelly Belly beans while on the treadmill.
BestSweet Inc. of Mooresville, N.C., signed up stock-car racing star Dale Earnhardt Jr. to endorse its new XLR8 Energy Chews made with caffeine, ginseng, and guarana.
"Over time, more and more candy will contain something of additional value, vitamins or additives," said BestSweet's Steve Berkowitz. He said three of the taffy-like candies provide a boost equivalent to drinking one can of the immensely popular Red Bull energy drink.
Like Red Bull is good for you -- it's a cup of coffee with ten packs of sugar. Next thing you know they'll be making a coffee-spiked beer to keep drunks awake -- oh wait, they already did that.
A (somewhat) rational point-of-view:
"I don't think that (the new products) belong in the candy aisle," said Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "I'd like to see some research that shows they do what they claim to do, a track record. A lot of these products may not have that."
Sass said many people, from serious athletes to couch potatoes, don't really need the stimulants and other substances found in many energy products.
"People need to realize if they haven't been sweating and need to replace electrolytes, you don't really need these products," she said. The use of stimulants is an even greater concern because they can cause dangerous increases in a person's heart rate and blood pressure, she added.
The ADA is a bunch of idiots, but she is right -- people don't need this stuff in their candy. In fact, people don't need candy at all.
Don't eat this crap.
At the All Candy Expo in Chicago, Jelly Belly Candy Co. of Fairfield, Calif., introduced "Sports Beans." Each one-ounce serving has Vitamins C and E plus 120 milligrams of electrolytes to boost energy and prevent dehydration.
I can just see gym members popping Jelly Belly beans while on the treadmill.
BestSweet Inc. of Mooresville, N.C., signed up stock-car racing star Dale Earnhardt Jr. to endorse its new XLR8 Energy Chews made with caffeine, ginseng, and guarana.
"Over time, more and more candy will contain something of additional value, vitamins or additives," said BestSweet's Steve Berkowitz. He said three of the taffy-like candies provide a boost equivalent to drinking one can of the immensely popular Red Bull energy drink.
Like Red Bull is good for you -- it's a cup of coffee with ten packs of sugar. Next thing you know they'll be making a coffee-spiked beer to keep drunks awake -- oh wait, they already did that.
A (somewhat) rational point-of-view:
"I don't think that (the new products) belong in the candy aisle," said Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. "I'd like to see some research that shows they do what they claim to do, a track record. A lot of these products may not have that."
Sass said many people, from serious athletes to couch potatoes, don't really need the stimulants and other substances found in many energy products.
"People need to realize if they haven't been sweating and need to replace electrolytes, you don't really need these products," she said. The use of stimulants is an even greater concern because they can cause dangerous increases in a person's heart rate and blood pressure, she added.
The ADA is a bunch of idiots, but she is right -- people don't need this stuff in their candy. In fact, people don't need candy at all.
Don't eat this crap.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
New Blog Announcement
I have launched the Integral Options Cafe as a venue for all things integral. Integral Fitness Solutions does not allow for an exploration of higher truths, so I need an outlet for topics of more depth and meaning.
Integral Options will cover topics related to living an integral life within a fragmented world. Everything from theory to parables, quotes to news items will find a home on the new blog. I will attempt to talk about religion and spirituality from a stance that proposes all views hold some element of truth, no matter how narrow the viewpoint.
I welcome comments, critiques, and constructive dialogue.
Integral Options will cover topics related to living an integral life within a fragmented world. Everything from theory to parables, quotes to news items will find a home on the new blog. I will attempt to talk about religion and spirituality from a stance that proposes all views hold some element of truth, no matter how narrow the viewpoint.
I welcome comments, critiques, and constructive dialogue.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
The Power of Will
[The following article appeared in Equilibrium Magazine in August 2003. The material still seems relevant, especially considering the difficulties some of my clients have in adhering to their diets.]
Recently, two very disturbing reports about type II diabetes have appeared in the press. Since insulin control and function are among my priorities, both as an individual concerned with my own health and as a professional helping others to lead healthier lives, these articles were of interest to me.
The first article reported an incredible rise among teens in the incidence of type II diabetes (non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus), a disease once seldom seen in people younger than 40. While poor food choices certainly play a role in this development, the researchers identified lack of exercise as the primary cause of the increase of the disease among the young.
The second article was a report from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) suggesting that if current patterns continue, one in three children born in the year 2000 will develop type II diabetes in their lifetime. That is an increase of 300 to 500 percent over current rates (the current rate is 6 to 12 percent of the population). For African-Americans and Hispanics, the numbers will be nearly one in two. Right now, many Native American tribes are facing rates of one in two members with diabetes, so it can only get worse.
Diabetes Prevention
Three primary factors contribute to the development of type II diabetes: heredity, diet, and activity level. There's not a lot we can do about the genes we inherit, but we are not bound by our heredity. Biology is not destiny. The other two factors, however, are completely within our control. In fact, most of us already know everything we need to know to avoid insulin resistance (often referred to as syndrome X, or metabolic syndrome) and diabetes.
As a reminder, here is a brief list of habits to cultivate in order to avoid diabetes.
· Exercise. Even as little as two hours of walking a week has been shown to have a positive impact on glucose disposal. Even better, get moderate exercise several times a week and lift weights in at least two of those sessions.
· Avoid sugar. As much as possible, stop eating sugars of all sorts. When buying packaged foods, if an ingredient ends is the suffix -ose, it's a sugar. Packaged foods contain many forms of sugar (corn syrup, sucrose, fructose, dextrose, maltodextrin, molasses, and many others).
· Avoid white flour. White flour contains only empty calories that raise insulin levels while providing no nutritional value. In fact, white flour has been stripped of whatever goodness it had in its natural state and is absolutely worthless as a nutrient.
· Limit saturated fat and avoid trans-fatty acids. Both of these forms of fat have been shown to increase the risk of diabetes.
· Lose weight. If you are overweight, and more than 60 percent of Americans are, getting down to a healthy weight can reduce the risk of diabetes. In fact, if one is overweight and has diabetes, losing weight can return blood glucose levels to normal and reduce insulin resistance, often eliminating the need for medication.
These are all pretty simple goals to set and accomplish. One thought may help. Holistic health and exercise coach Paul Chek advocates the 80/20 rule. If we can adhere to these goals 80 percent of the time, the other 20 percent isn't likely to cause much harm. Obviously, more than 80 percent compliance is better, but we shouldn't beat ourselves up for those times when we slip or it just isn't possible to eat perfectly clean meals.
The Hidden Variable
If most of us know how to avoid diabetes, and yet more than 60 percent of us are overweight, there must be a variable here that the medical establishment is missing in its attempts to help people live healthier lives. The hidden variable is willpower. Before you accuse me of simplistic thinking, let me explain.
According to psychosynthesis founder Roberto Assagioli (a student of Freud and contemporary of Jung), there are three types of will: strong will, skillful will, and good will. Good will refers to aligning our will with what we know to be good and true. Skillful will refers to using our will to achieve a goal in the most efficient way possible (like using 20-minute sessions of high-intensity interval cardio instead of spending an agonizing hour walking on a treadmill). Strong will refers to having the inner strength to carry through on something we want to accomplish.
Most of us can work with skillful will and good will when it comes to our health. For many, it seems the strong will is more difficult. Consider the following exercise from psychosynthesis:
Choose one of the following pointless behaviors and do it for ten minutes. Use a timer or a stopwatch, or keep an eye on the clock, but make sure you do it for ten minutes.
1. Untie and retie your shoes.
2. Stack a few coins, unstack them, repeat.
3. Stand on a chair, or facing the wall, doing absolutely nothing.
4. Pour a bottle of vitamins on the table, put them back in the bottle, repeat.
Not so bad, right? Try doing this once a day for seven days. If that is easy, try doing it four times a week for a month. I encourage you to try this exercise and record in a journal any thoughts or feelings that come up for you, including how those feelings relate to any problems you might have with the strong will.
If you can do this exercise, you can exercise enough to avoid diabetes. You can also adopt one dietary goal at a time, make it a habit, then add a new one. Within a year or two, your risk of diabetes will have fallen dramatically.
I'm not saying this is easy. The psychosynthesis exercise is a place to start, but many of us have to overcome inner wounding, bad conditioning, and/or social pressures if we want to live healthier lives. A good therapist (or the exercises in a good book, like Molly Young Brown's Growing Whole) can be of great help for some of the work. A personal trainer or a nutrition and fitness consultant also can help.
At the bottom line, it's just you inside your skin, and only you have the strength of will to choose the life you want to live.
Developing Willpower
Recently, two very disturbing reports about type II diabetes have appeared in the press. Since insulin control and function are among my priorities, both as an individual concerned with my own health and as a professional helping others to lead healthier lives, these articles were of interest to me.
The first article reported an incredible rise among teens in the incidence of type II diabetes (non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus), a disease once seldom seen in people younger than 40. While poor food choices certainly play a role in this development, the researchers identified lack of exercise as the primary cause of the increase of the disease among the young.
The second article was a report from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) suggesting that if current patterns continue, one in three children born in the year 2000 will develop type II diabetes in their lifetime. That is an increase of 300 to 500 percent over current rates (the current rate is 6 to 12 percent of the population). For African-Americans and Hispanics, the numbers will be nearly one in two. Right now, many Native American tribes are facing rates of one in two members with diabetes, so it can only get worse.
Diabetes Prevention
Three primary factors contribute to the development of type II diabetes: heredity, diet, and activity level. There's not a lot we can do about the genes we inherit, but we are not bound by our heredity. Biology is not destiny. The other two factors, however, are completely within our control. In fact, most of us already know everything we need to know to avoid insulin resistance (often referred to as syndrome X, or metabolic syndrome) and diabetes.
As a reminder, here is a brief list of habits to cultivate in order to avoid diabetes.
· Exercise. Even as little as two hours of walking a week has been shown to have a positive impact on glucose disposal. Even better, get moderate exercise several times a week and lift weights in at least two of those sessions.
· Avoid sugar. As much as possible, stop eating sugars of all sorts. When buying packaged foods, if an ingredient ends is the suffix -ose, it's a sugar. Packaged foods contain many forms of sugar (corn syrup, sucrose, fructose, dextrose, maltodextrin, molasses, and many others).
· Avoid white flour. White flour contains only empty calories that raise insulin levels while providing no nutritional value. In fact, white flour has been stripped of whatever goodness it had in its natural state and is absolutely worthless as a nutrient.
· Limit saturated fat and avoid trans-fatty acids. Both of these forms of fat have been shown to increase the risk of diabetes.
· Lose weight. If you are overweight, and more than 60 percent of Americans are, getting down to a healthy weight can reduce the risk of diabetes. In fact, if one is overweight and has diabetes, losing weight can return blood glucose levels to normal and reduce insulin resistance, often eliminating the need for medication.
These are all pretty simple goals to set and accomplish. One thought may help. Holistic health and exercise coach Paul Chek advocates the 80/20 rule. If we can adhere to these goals 80 percent of the time, the other 20 percent isn't likely to cause much harm. Obviously, more than 80 percent compliance is better, but we shouldn't beat ourselves up for those times when we slip or it just isn't possible to eat perfectly clean meals.
The Hidden Variable
If most of us know how to avoid diabetes, and yet more than 60 percent of us are overweight, there must be a variable here that the medical establishment is missing in its attempts to help people live healthier lives. The hidden variable is willpower. Before you accuse me of simplistic thinking, let me explain.
According to psychosynthesis founder Roberto Assagioli (a student of Freud and contemporary of Jung), there are three types of will: strong will, skillful will, and good will. Good will refers to aligning our will with what we know to be good and true. Skillful will refers to using our will to achieve a goal in the most efficient way possible (like using 20-minute sessions of high-intensity interval cardio instead of spending an agonizing hour walking on a treadmill). Strong will refers to having the inner strength to carry through on something we want to accomplish.
Most of us can work with skillful will and good will when it comes to our health. For many, it seems the strong will is more difficult. Consider the following exercise from psychosynthesis:
Choose one of the following pointless behaviors and do it for ten minutes. Use a timer or a stopwatch, or keep an eye on the clock, but make sure you do it for ten minutes.
1. Untie and retie your shoes.
2. Stack a few coins, unstack them, repeat.
3. Stand on a chair, or facing the wall, doing absolutely nothing.
4. Pour a bottle of vitamins on the table, put them back in the bottle, repeat.
Not so bad, right? Try doing this once a day for seven days. If that is easy, try doing it four times a week for a month. I encourage you to try this exercise and record in a journal any thoughts or feelings that come up for you, including how those feelings relate to any problems you might have with the strong will.
If you can do this exercise, you can exercise enough to avoid diabetes. You can also adopt one dietary goal at a time, make it a habit, then add a new one. Within a year or two, your risk of diabetes will have fallen dramatically.
I'm not saying this is easy. The psychosynthesis exercise is a place to start, but many of us have to overcome inner wounding, bad conditioning, and/or social pressures if we want to live healthier lives. A good therapist (or the exercises in a good book, like Molly Young Brown's Growing Whole) can be of great help for some of the work. A personal trainer or a nutrition and fitness consultant also can help.
At the bottom line, it's just you inside your skin, and only you have the strength of will to choose the life you want to live.
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Eight Mistakes Preventing Muscle Growth
[I wrote this article a couple of years ago for a body-building website. It's a little informal, but the information is good and all the observations remain true. If you need help with a training routine, drop me a note -- I do email consultations.]
Back in the mid-1990s, there was a lot of media coverage devoted to the fact that literacy was down. The major book (and subsequently, the popular tag line on these stories) was called Why Johnny Can't Read.
Well, it appears from the advice columns in most bodybuilding magazines and websites that Johnny can't grow muscle either. With the wealth of information available, it seems strange that guys are having a hard time gaining muscle. I was sheltered from reality for a long time since I worked out at home and wasn't witness to what passes for training in most gyms. Now that I am a personal trainer, it is no longer a mystery to me why Johnny can't grow.
Over the past several months, I've been watching gym members, both male and female, and noticing how they train. For the purposes of this article, we must assume they are eating correctly to support muscle growth. So the problem must be how they train. I have identified eight common mistakes that prevent muscle growth for the majority of trainees. I wanted to list ten mistakes, just for the beauty of a round number, but I only found eight that really stuck with me. I'm sure other trainers and coaches could easily add to the list.
So, without further ado, here are the top eight mistakes I've witnessed in the gym.
1) No one does squats. I never have to wait to use the squat cage, while I might have to wait half an hour to get a bench, usually on Mondays (Universal Chest Day). Those who do squats use the Smith Machine, seldom get anywhere near parallel (see #5), or don't work with enough weight to really stress the muscles. These practices render the squat worthless, rather than the best all-around muscle builder available.
For reasons no one can adequately explain, the squat is the master movement, creating a powerfully anabolic environment in the body. Dr. Randall Strossen created the Super Squats program around the idea of a single set of squats, albeit a 20-rep set with a weight at which you can only do 10 reps. These are also known as breathing squats because you will have to take two or three deep breaths between reps when you get past the tenth or twelfth rep. The only other exercises added to this workout are a set of pullovers, two sets of flat bench presses, and two sets of bent rows. This program has added as much as 30 pounds to some trainees in a period of 6 to 8 weeks.
A correctly performed squat directly works the quadriceps, the hamstrings, and the glutes; the squat also stresses the calves (for stability), the lower back, the abdominals (your built-in lifting belt), the shoulders, the forearms (a tight grip is essential), and a host of smaller stabilizer and synergistic muscles. With all these muscle groups activated simultaneously, it's obvious why the squat produces such amazing growth.
In the words of Dr. Fred Hatfield (a.k.a., Dr. Squat): "If you don't have squats in your program, you don't have a program."
2) No one does deadlifts. This could really be 1b -- it's that important. I have only seen a couple of people perform deadlifts at my gym. After the squat, there is no more effective exercise for working several major muscle groups at the same time. Every muscle from the base of your skull to the back of your ankles -- the whole posterior chain is activated by the deadlift. You also work your shoulders, biceps, and forearms, the latter in particular if you don't use lifting straps.
The deadlift hits so many muscles that there is some disagreement as to whether it's a leg exercise or a back exercise. You've likely seen bodybuilders list it as one or the other in their "championship" programs. The truth is that it is both. Few exercises better work the lower back, upper back, and posterior deltoids in one motion. At the same time, the deadlift effectively works the hamstrings, the glutes, and the quads.
Many strength coaches consider the deadlift a hip-dominant movement. Ian King structures a hip-dominant day around this lift, with squat day being a quad-dominant day. If leg day focuses on squats, with leg curls or straight-leg deadlifts for hamstrings, then the conventional deadlift can be a very solid foundation for back day, pre-fatiguing the lats before hitting chins and bent rows.
3) Few people employ any intensity in their workouts. Most people seem to use weights with which it is "kind of hard" to get 10 repetitions in a set. I seldom see anyone straining to get one last rep, especially in any kind of low-rep training (less than 6 reps per set). Those people who push each set to a high level of intensity are often guilty of always pushing their sets to failure, or even employing drop sets, strip sets, or forced reps (see #7).
If people worked each set very hard and used the maximum weight possible for the desired number of reps, they could have more productive workouts and spend less time in the gym. When I first started lifting weights, I used to do 4 or 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps, and although I gained a little muscle in the first few months, I quickly stalled and began losing strength. Few of us can withstand 4 or 5 sets per exercise and 3 or 4 exercises per muscle group. Those who can are either genetically gifted or using pharmaceutical aids, or both.
One of the more popular strength routines is the traditional 5x5. If properly performed, this protocol is effective for building both strength and size. The combination of lower reps and higher intensity is the perfect antidote to high-volume routines.
4) A lot of trainees perform partial reps instead of using a full range of motion. How many times have you seen some stick figure of a guy load the leg press with plate after plate, groaning and grunting through each set, until he has loaded up 700 to 800 pounds? Ignoring your frustration at not being able to find any plates to use yourself, the laughable part of this whole scenario is his 2-inch range of motion. If he is really tough, he might actually have a 6-inch range of motion.
If you look around the gym, you might see the same basic problem with those few people who do squats, overhead presses, chins, or dips (and the rarely seen weighted dips). It's easier, obviously, to use a shorter range of motion, and you can use a lot more weight, but the muscle is only being worked through part of its movement range. For the muscle to grow properly and become stronger, it needs to be worked through its full range of motion.
The opposite of the 6-inch range of motion for leg press or squats is the bench presser who bounces the bar off his chest. He can't move the weight, under control, through the full range, being weakest at the bottom where the triceps really need to help reverse the movement of the weight. So he bounces the weight off his chest to get a little extra "help" with the lift. The cure for this is a controlled negative and a one-second pause with the bar just touching the chest. Of course, he'll have to reduce the weight on the bar, which could injure his ego (Bench Press is also the Universal Measure of Masculinity; see #8), but better an injured ego than a cracked sternum.
5) Most people perform isolation movements instead of using compound movements. Just today, I noticed someone doing upright rows with about 60 pounds or so -- in the squat rack, of all places. He was a skinny guy, maybe 150 pounds soaking wet. If he ever wants to be BIG, he'll need to learn about compound movements. The upright row isn't a pure isolation movement, but compare it to the high pull, the hang clean, or the power clean, and it looks more like an isolation movement than not.
Somehow, back in the history of bodybuilding, someone created the myth that you need to isolate a muscle to train it effectively. This may be the source of more stagnant training routines than any other foolishness ever presented as truth. Look at power lifters, or especially Olympic lifters, and you will see the size and strength that compound movements can create. Obviously, these guys aren't training to be pretty on a stage, but they are strong and their muscles are huge.
Isolation movements can keep you in the gym two hours a day just to work a couple of muscle groups. I like training, but I also have a life outside the gym. For anyone who isn't competing as a bodybuilder, I will always recommend compound movements. And whenever possible, I will recommend full-body workouts rather than split routines, but that's a different article.
6) Too many people use sloppy form. The cliché for this mistake is the guy doing barbell curls who looks like he's doing some hybrid of a barbell curl, shrug, and upright row in a single movement. Although sloppy form can be harmless when it comes to barbell curls, sloppy form in the squat or deadlift can end a lifting career.
The single greatest cause of sloppy form is using too much weight. For guys, this is an ego thing bordering on a disease. The cardinal rule should be that if you can't lift the weight in good, strict form, then it's too heavy. Of course, an experienced lifter knows when and how to use a "cheat" form to get one or two last reps, but this is a situation where you shouldn't break the rules until you actually know them.
When form breaks down, not only are you at greater risk of injury, you also cease to work the target muscle(s). If you are leaning too far forward in the squat, the tension is less on the quads and glutes and more on the lower back -- a great recipe for herniated discs or severe muscle strains.
This article isn't the forum for teaching proper form. If you have questions or doubt that your form is as tight as it should be, find a professional who can teach you proper, safe form. Learning proper form will aid in muscle growth and strength acquisition, as well as preventing injuries.
7) The people who take a set to failure do so on every set for every exercise. This is the opposite extreme of the people who can't muster any intensity in their workouts. I have been guilty of this one in my lifting career. Working to failure is good and should be a part of every workout, but should not be employed in every set in every workout.
Going to failure, arguably, is necessary for maximum muscle growth. But if every set of every exercise is taken to failure, the stress on the muscles and on the central nervous system eventually will cause over-training -- sooner or later, depending on your recovery capabilities or supplement use. This is where the idea of periodization should come in for most trainees, though few use it or even know what it is. If you design a 12-week program so that you begin working with 70 to 75 percent of your 1RM and slowly build to 90 or 95 percent by the end of the cycle, you are slowly increasing intensity over a period of time (thus the term periodization). During the first couple of weeks, few sets, if any, should be taken to failure. By the last week, you might be working with heavy doubles or triples, taking each set to complete failure.
Even if you don't periodize, take a rest week or a light week every 8 to 10 weeks. During an "active rest" week, work light sets for higher reps and stop two or three reps short of failure. A complete rest week, or even a light week, will provide much needed rest for your muscles and CNS, and will aid muscle growth. Likewise, you can structure each workout so that only the last set of each exercise reaches failure. Either way, allow your body some rest here and there to ensure adequate energy to fuel recovery and growth.
8) Every day seems to be chest and biceps day for some people. You've seen these guys in the gym. They have huge chests, big biceps, and toothpick legs. Most of them have shoulders that are rounded forward, and they look slightly hunchbacked. They never train their legs, rarely train their backs, and have a lot of useless, non-functional size in two muscle groups.
The biceps and chest are known as "beach muscles," the male show-off muscles -- roughly equivalent to a woman with big breasts or a perfectly rounded ass. It's mostly young guys who fall into the trap of focusing on these two muscle groups. Bench press is the Universal Measure of Masculinity, the final measure of male virility. No one asks, "How much do you squat?" The question is always, "How much do you bench?" Hormones, ego, and youth can make the brain slow and dull.
Once this imbalance is created, the only way to fix it is to stop working those muscles and focus all your energy on working the back and legs. For maintenance purposes, you can perform one work set for the dominant muscle groups each week. Once balance is established, you can begin working chest and biceps again, but only as part of a balanced program. The rule should be one or two sets of back work for each set of chest work. And legwork should always be a foundation of your program (see #1).
Conclusion
Those are the eight most common mistakes I see in the gym. None of them are fatal, and if any of them apply to you, take heart -- you can be saved. At some point most trainees who study the science and art of strength training will begin to value functional health and strength over "looking good naked." On the bright side, if you pursue functional strength, you will look good naked, and you'll be healthy, as well.
Why Johnny Can't Grow
Back in the mid-1990s, there was a lot of media coverage devoted to the fact that literacy was down. The major book (and subsequently, the popular tag line on these stories) was called Why Johnny Can't Read.
Well, it appears from the advice columns in most bodybuilding magazines and websites that Johnny can't grow muscle either. With the wealth of information available, it seems strange that guys are having a hard time gaining muscle. I was sheltered from reality for a long time since I worked out at home and wasn't witness to what passes for training in most gyms. Now that I am a personal trainer, it is no longer a mystery to me why Johnny can't grow.
Over the past several months, I've been watching gym members, both male and female, and noticing how they train. For the purposes of this article, we must assume they are eating correctly to support muscle growth. So the problem must be how they train. I have identified eight common mistakes that prevent muscle growth for the majority of trainees. I wanted to list ten mistakes, just for the beauty of a round number, but I only found eight that really stuck with me. I'm sure other trainers and coaches could easily add to the list.
So, without further ado, here are the top eight mistakes I've witnessed in the gym.
1) No one does squats. I never have to wait to use the squat cage, while I might have to wait half an hour to get a bench, usually on Mondays (Universal Chest Day). Those who do squats use the Smith Machine, seldom get anywhere near parallel (see #5), or don't work with enough weight to really stress the muscles. These practices render the squat worthless, rather than the best all-around muscle builder available.
For reasons no one can adequately explain, the squat is the master movement, creating a powerfully anabolic environment in the body. Dr. Randall Strossen created the Super Squats program around the idea of a single set of squats, albeit a 20-rep set with a weight at which you can only do 10 reps. These are also known as breathing squats because you will have to take two or three deep breaths between reps when you get past the tenth or twelfth rep. The only other exercises added to this workout are a set of pullovers, two sets of flat bench presses, and two sets of bent rows. This program has added as much as 30 pounds to some trainees in a period of 6 to 8 weeks.
A correctly performed squat directly works the quadriceps, the hamstrings, and the glutes; the squat also stresses the calves (for stability), the lower back, the abdominals (your built-in lifting belt), the shoulders, the forearms (a tight grip is essential), and a host of smaller stabilizer and synergistic muscles. With all these muscle groups activated simultaneously, it's obvious why the squat produces such amazing growth.
In the words of Dr. Fred Hatfield (a.k.a., Dr. Squat): "If you don't have squats in your program, you don't have a program."
2) No one does deadlifts. This could really be 1b -- it's that important. I have only seen a couple of people perform deadlifts at my gym. After the squat, there is no more effective exercise for working several major muscle groups at the same time. Every muscle from the base of your skull to the back of your ankles -- the whole posterior chain is activated by the deadlift. You also work your shoulders, biceps, and forearms, the latter in particular if you don't use lifting straps.
The deadlift hits so many muscles that there is some disagreement as to whether it's a leg exercise or a back exercise. You've likely seen bodybuilders list it as one or the other in their "championship" programs. The truth is that it is both. Few exercises better work the lower back, upper back, and posterior deltoids in one motion. At the same time, the deadlift effectively works the hamstrings, the glutes, and the quads.
Many strength coaches consider the deadlift a hip-dominant movement. Ian King structures a hip-dominant day around this lift, with squat day being a quad-dominant day. If leg day focuses on squats, with leg curls or straight-leg deadlifts for hamstrings, then the conventional deadlift can be a very solid foundation for back day, pre-fatiguing the lats before hitting chins and bent rows.
3) Few people employ any intensity in their workouts. Most people seem to use weights with which it is "kind of hard" to get 10 repetitions in a set. I seldom see anyone straining to get one last rep, especially in any kind of low-rep training (less than 6 reps per set). Those people who push each set to a high level of intensity are often guilty of always pushing their sets to failure, or even employing drop sets, strip sets, or forced reps (see #7).
If people worked each set very hard and used the maximum weight possible for the desired number of reps, they could have more productive workouts and spend less time in the gym. When I first started lifting weights, I used to do 4 or 5 sets of 10 to 12 reps, and although I gained a little muscle in the first few months, I quickly stalled and began losing strength. Few of us can withstand 4 or 5 sets per exercise and 3 or 4 exercises per muscle group. Those who can are either genetically gifted or using pharmaceutical aids, or both.
One of the more popular strength routines is the traditional 5x5. If properly performed, this protocol is effective for building both strength and size. The combination of lower reps and higher intensity is the perfect antidote to high-volume routines.
4) A lot of trainees perform partial reps instead of using a full range of motion. How many times have you seen some stick figure of a guy load the leg press with plate after plate, groaning and grunting through each set, until he has loaded up 700 to 800 pounds? Ignoring your frustration at not being able to find any plates to use yourself, the laughable part of this whole scenario is his 2-inch range of motion. If he is really tough, he might actually have a 6-inch range of motion.
If you look around the gym, you might see the same basic problem with those few people who do squats, overhead presses, chins, or dips (and the rarely seen weighted dips). It's easier, obviously, to use a shorter range of motion, and you can use a lot more weight, but the muscle is only being worked through part of its movement range. For the muscle to grow properly and become stronger, it needs to be worked through its full range of motion.
The opposite of the 6-inch range of motion for leg press or squats is the bench presser who bounces the bar off his chest. He can't move the weight, under control, through the full range, being weakest at the bottom where the triceps really need to help reverse the movement of the weight. So he bounces the weight off his chest to get a little extra "help" with the lift. The cure for this is a controlled negative and a one-second pause with the bar just touching the chest. Of course, he'll have to reduce the weight on the bar, which could injure his ego (Bench Press is also the Universal Measure of Masculinity; see #8), but better an injured ego than a cracked sternum.
5) Most people perform isolation movements instead of using compound movements. Just today, I noticed someone doing upright rows with about 60 pounds or so -- in the squat rack, of all places. He was a skinny guy, maybe 150 pounds soaking wet. If he ever wants to be BIG, he'll need to learn about compound movements. The upright row isn't a pure isolation movement, but compare it to the high pull, the hang clean, or the power clean, and it looks more like an isolation movement than not.
Somehow, back in the history of bodybuilding, someone created the myth that you need to isolate a muscle to train it effectively. This may be the source of more stagnant training routines than any other foolishness ever presented as truth. Look at power lifters, or especially Olympic lifters, and you will see the size and strength that compound movements can create. Obviously, these guys aren't training to be pretty on a stage, but they are strong and their muscles are huge.
Isolation movements can keep you in the gym two hours a day just to work a couple of muscle groups. I like training, but I also have a life outside the gym. For anyone who isn't competing as a bodybuilder, I will always recommend compound movements. And whenever possible, I will recommend full-body workouts rather than split routines, but that's a different article.
6) Too many people use sloppy form. The cliché for this mistake is the guy doing barbell curls who looks like he's doing some hybrid of a barbell curl, shrug, and upright row in a single movement. Although sloppy form can be harmless when it comes to barbell curls, sloppy form in the squat or deadlift can end a lifting career.
The single greatest cause of sloppy form is using too much weight. For guys, this is an ego thing bordering on a disease. The cardinal rule should be that if you can't lift the weight in good, strict form, then it's too heavy. Of course, an experienced lifter knows when and how to use a "cheat" form to get one or two last reps, but this is a situation where you shouldn't break the rules until you actually know them.
When form breaks down, not only are you at greater risk of injury, you also cease to work the target muscle(s). If you are leaning too far forward in the squat, the tension is less on the quads and glutes and more on the lower back -- a great recipe for herniated discs or severe muscle strains.
This article isn't the forum for teaching proper form. If you have questions or doubt that your form is as tight as it should be, find a professional who can teach you proper, safe form. Learning proper form will aid in muscle growth and strength acquisition, as well as preventing injuries.
7) The people who take a set to failure do so on every set for every exercise. This is the opposite extreme of the people who can't muster any intensity in their workouts. I have been guilty of this one in my lifting career. Working to failure is good and should be a part of every workout, but should not be employed in every set in every workout.
Going to failure, arguably, is necessary for maximum muscle growth. But if every set of every exercise is taken to failure, the stress on the muscles and on the central nervous system eventually will cause over-training -- sooner or later, depending on your recovery capabilities or supplement use. This is where the idea of periodization should come in for most trainees, though few use it or even know what it is. If you design a 12-week program so that you begin working with 70 to 75 percent of your 1RM and slowly build to 90 or 95 percent by the end of the cycle, you are slowly increasing intensity over a period of time (thus the term periodization). During the first couple of weeks, few sets, if any, should be taken to failure. By the last week, you might be working with heavy doubles or triples, taking each set to complete failure.
Even if you don't periodize, take a rest week or a light week every 8 to 10 weeks. During an "active rest" week, work light sets for higher reps and stop two or three reps short of failure. A complete rest week, or even a light week, will provide much needed rest for your muscles and CNS, and will aid muscle growth. Likewise, you can structure each workout so that only the last set of each exercise reaches failure. Either way, allow your body some rest here and there to ensure adequate energy to fuel recovery and growth.
8) Every day seems to be chest and biceps day for some people. You've seen these guys in the gym. They have huge chests, big biceps, and toothpick legs. Most of them have shoulders that are rounded forward, and they look slightly hunchbacked. They never train their legs, rarely train their backs, and have a lot of useless, non-functional size in two muscle groups.
The biceps and chest are known as "beach muscles," the male show-off muscles -- roughly equivalent to a woman with big breasts or a perfectly rounded ass. It's mostly young guys who fall into the trap of focusing on these two muscle groups. Bench press is the Universal Measure of Masculinity, the final measure of male virility. No one asks, "How much do you squat?" The question is always, "How much do you bench?" Hormones, ego, and youth can make the brain slow and dull.
Once this imbalance is created, the only way to fix it is to stop working those muscles and focus all your energy on working the back and legs. For maintenance purposes, you can perform one work set for the dominant muscle groups each week. Once balance is established, you can begin working chest and biceps again, but only as part of a balanced program. The rule should be one or two sets of back work for each set of chest work. And legwork should always be a foundation of your program (see #1).
Conclusion
Those are the eight most common mistakes I see in the gym. None of them are fatal, and if any of them apply to you, take heart -- you can be saved. At some point most trainees who study the science and art of strength training will begin to value functional health and strength over "looking good naked." On the bright side, if you pursue functional strength, you will look good naked, and you'll be healthy, as well.
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