Carbohydrate, the villain in the shadows....

I know for the most part I've already blogged about carbohydrates, and their harmful effects on weight gain and testosterone production, as well as the damaging effects of carbohydrate loading for athletes, etc. I've even previously blogged about the importance of meat consumption as well. I attach the links for reference and your perusal..

All that said, I read more about this and I feel the urge to share it. I spoke with someone today about this, and it slipped off my tongue to easily these days, and she nodded her head so reassuringly that she understood what I meant. She's a vegetarian. She doesn't have a good diet. It won't change.

But maybe 1 person reading this will understand, and will make changes and will improve their health because of it.

I don't have a great deal of time to write at this moment so I'm going to summarise everything into pretty abrupt points. If you have questions because I didn't give you enough detail then please ask.

Why carbohydrates make you fat.

Eat carbohydrates; become sumo.

To recap; carbohydrates are sugar, sugar causes a spike in your insulin, this spike essentially prevents your fat stores from being used as an energy substrate. Pretty simple right.

I read some fantastically supportive evidence for this.....Sumo wrestlers. We know they are fat right? It's a necessity for their sport. A 1976 study led by the University of Tokyo reported on their dietary habits. Their normal meal; chanko nabe (a pork stew). The upper group of sumo consume some 5500 calories per day, of which 780 grams were carbohydrates, 100 grams of fat, and 365 grams of protein. In perspective this constituted more than twice the calories and carbohydrates of the typical Japanese diet of the era, slightly less than half the fat, and four and a half times the amount of protein. (E.g. 57% of the calories came from carbohydrates, and only 16% from fat). The lower group of sumo who weighed the same but were considerably fatter with less muscle only ate 5120 calories of chanko nabe each day, but this time it consisted of 1,000 grams of carbohydrates, 165 grams of protein, and only 50 grams of fat. These sumo maintained their corpulence on a diet of nearly 80% carbohydrates and only 9% fat.

And they say fat is the evil in our diets.

But we need carbohydrates right?
Wrong! Evidence suggests that if the body consumes less than 130 grams of carbohydrates per day (I would suggest it needs to be even lower than this), the liver increases its synthesis of molecules called ketone bodies, and these supply the necessary fuel for the brain and the central nervous system. If a diet contains no carbohydrates at all, ketone bodies supply three-quarters of the energy to the brain. The rest comes from glucose synthesized from the amino acids in protein, and from glycerol that is released when triglycerides in the fat tissue are broken down into their component fatty acids.

All meat and no blank make Stefansson and Anderson healthy boys!
But we need a 'balanced' diet right; sufficient fruit, vegetables, etc. Well perhaps not. The inuit (the preferred name for Eskimos) spend extended periods of time eating nothing but meat with almost no reports of ill health. As a test to this in 1928, two scientists; Stefansson and Anderson became subjects in a year long study where they would consume only meat. The study was designed and managed by a dozen respected nutritionists, anthropologists and physicians. For the initial 3-weeks Stefansson and Anderson consumed a normal diet of fruit, vegetables, cereals and meat, and then switched entirely to meat for the remainder of the year. It was evident that they hadn't cheated throughout the year as "acetone (ketone) bodies were present in amounts so constant that fluctuations in the carbohydrate intake were practically ruled out". Both participants consumed on average 2600 calories per day (equating to about 2lbs of meat). This equated to a diet of 79% fat, 19% protein and only 2% carbohydrates. The surprising results were particularly unsurprising; both Stefansson and Anderson were in perfect health, with retained physical and mental vigour. They showed no mineral deficiencies and in fact the only change was that Stefansson began the experiment with mild gingivitis (inflammation of the gums), but this was cleared up entirely.

But what of dietary vitamins.....well for example it was often assumed that vitamin c was essential for sailors (and everyone) to prevent scurvy. In fact the evidence suggests that it is not that we do not consume enough vitamin c in meat. It is that carbohydrates and blood sugar block the absorption of vitamin c into our cells.

I realise that for many people who have read my blogs previously then this doesn't come as anything new. However, I also realise that for some (even those who have read previous blogs) then all of this is somewhat surprising to say the least. I promise you the evidence is there. I promise you that carbohydrates are the silent assassin that the government somehow chooses to ignore, instead guiding you to a 'balanced' diet.

Please explore the evidence given herein, please ask the right questions.

If you have any further questions or are looking for any more information on this area then I wholeheartedly recommend 'googling' "Gary Taubes". I think you'll find a list of videos and his books are excellent. Without question The Diet Delusion is a masterpiece, though be warned; it is lengthy.

Be Well

JF

A Story about value...

First of all I'm going to declare that this blog post is a replication of a short piece from within The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. It's a respectable email with greater application for some than others, but irrespectively will help anyone question what is important in their life and in their work and ultimately streamline both.

An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor's orders. Unable to sleep after urgent phone calls from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.

"How long did it take you to catch them?" The American asked.

"Only a little while," the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.

"Why don't you stay out longer and catch more fish?" the American then asked.

"I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends" the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.

"But...What do you do with the rest of your time?"

The Mexican looked up and smiled. "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each morning, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life señor."

The American laughed and stood tall. "Sir, I am a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In not time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats."

He continued, "Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, where you could run your expanding enterprise with proper management."

The Mexican fisherman asked, "But señor, how long will this take?"

To which the American replied, "15-20 years. 25 tops!"

"But what then señor?"

The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions."

"Millions, señor? Then what?"

"Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos..."

The effects of sleep deprivation....

I've blogged a couple of times previously about sleep; regarding sleep duration and weight gain and also the effects on hormone regulation (follow links to see previous blogs.

This one is going to be slightly different; I've just finished the book "Sleep Thieves" by Stanley Coren and there were fascinating parts that I wanted to discuss. And when I say discuss; I mean lecture you about.

Thomas Edison
I think I mentioned Edison in one of my previous blogs but it seems an obvious place to start. You might know (or recall from my earlier writing) that he invented the electric light bulb, what you might not know is that he genuinely had something against sleep, often calling it "unproductive" and the curse of the lazy, etc. Edison claimed that he only slept between 4 or 5 hours in any 24 hour period! That might be so, but this text is going to consider some of the potential effects with reducing or increasing our hours of slumber....

Sleep Debt
A term that shall pop up repeatedly is that of sleep debt. It is generally referring to if we have gone without adequate sleep and are in a state of fatigue. For example most people suggest that 8 hours sleep per night is appropriate for adults, so if someone were to only get 7 hours of sleep per night for 6 nights, then by the seventh night they would have incurred a sleep debt of 6 hours. Makes sense right? But before we go any further what of this 8 hours sleep.....

How much sleep should we really get?
....Well it's originally suggested that as palaeolithic man we slept for our own safety from predators we could not see and to protect ourselves from wandering over cliffs and the like in the dark. Where artificial light did not exist, the night was not a productive time for human beings, so many persons suggest that we should naturally sleep through the dark hours (e.g. sunset to sunrise). Indeed chimpanzees, our closest primate, are known to sleep for 10 hours per day (divided between an 8 hour night time sleep and a further 2 hours in the afternoon).

Indeed a study which took a series of volunteers to a Polar Psychology Project in Northern Canada reported some interesting findings. The study was controlled by the fact that at 79 degrees North (13 degrees above the arctic circle) at the time of year of the study, it was continuous daylight. The participants were not allowed watches or time keeping devices of any kind, and indeed pilots flying in and out with supplies were instructed to remove time pieces when leaving the aircraft. The group were told simply to carry on with the work they had to do (they were all scientists) and to sleep when they felt fatigued. Computer systems monitored their hours sleeping as well as hours working, etc. The data suggested that within a week the group had plateaued at an average of 10.3 hours of sleep for each 24 hour period. This continued throughout the rest of the study with some as low as 8.8 hours and some as high as 12.5 hours.

A second study by an officer in the US Army, considered soldiers on barracks throughout their training. As an officer he was assessed by his soldiers scores on mental and physical tasks, and he happened to read about the importance of sleep. Prior to the study the soldiers had lights out at 10pm and were woken at 5:30am for their first physical exercise. Assuming the went to sleep immediately at lights out and woke no earlier than required then each person would average 7.5 hours of sleep. Barrack by barrack he tried something; he forced them to go to sleep an hour earlier (lights out shifted to 9pm), and he allowed them to rise 30 minutes later (being woken at 6am). Thus they should now be getting 9 hours of sleep each night. By the next testing session the barracks under which he was trialling this process improved mental and physical test scores by 10%. As he continued this with different barracks they too improved by a similar margin. Alas his commanding officer upon finding out this disciplined him for being too soft on his troops. But the point being that 7.5 or even 8 hours of sleep might still be incurring a sleep debt, perhaps we are indeed programmed for somewhere closer to 10 hours of sleep?

Accidents, tragedies and Disasters
The book goes on to discuss sleep patterns of persons in high profile or important positions, including captains of oil tankers, scientists and technicians working on space shuttle launches, and those working in nuclear power plants. Indeed, the information given provides strong suggestion that the Challenger Space Shuttle, the Exxon Valdez and Chernobyl were all essentially caused by a high level of fatigue of the persons involved.

To attempt to test this in greater detail the author delved in to some old data concerning accidents. His thoughts are that we can apparently survive OK on 8 hours of sleep per night, even though this might be a minor sleep debt, but anything greater is likely to increase the potential for significant harm. As such he considered the start of summer time, and the start of winter time, where the clocks go forward one hour and backwards one hour respectively. If an extra loss of an hours sleep in the start of summer was significant then the data would support this idea. He considered the 4 day period prior to, 4 day period including and immediately following the clocks going back, and the 4 day period after that. Indeed, from 1986 through 1988 there was a 6% increase in accidental deaths immediately following the clocks going backwards and the likely increase in sleep debt. (He used 4-day blocks because accidents don't always cause immediate death, someone might be badly injured and die later in hospital!!). Unfortunately, following the same pattern he considered the start of winter time, where the clocks go back one hour, and everyone should get an additional hours sleep. There should be a decrease in accidental deaths through the same 4-day period right? Alas not, hypothesised that an hour increase was not enough to correct an already existent sleep debt.

However, he continued his data collection and analysis and found some interesting patterns in Canada. (Apart from the province of Saskatchewan, where they have not adopted this change in time). He found that the Monday immediately after the clocks going forward one hour there was a 7% increase in car accidents when compared to the Monday prior and the Monday following. Indeed, this time, he also found that there was around a 7% decrease in car accidents the Monday immediately after the clocks going back, when compared to the Monday prior and the Monday following. Thus, though there might not have been an immediate change in the number of accidental deaths, the patterns of car accidents supported his theories of existing and adding to or replenishing sleep debt.

Cave man protection
As a bit of a side-note and an interesting fact is his discussion around snoring. Of course he discusses severe cases and sleep apnea. But he also comments that at some point it must have served some evolutionary purpose. (Of course, it is likely that everything serves some evolutionary purpose). His thoughts; that whilst asleep the snoring sound, often like a growl (or a diesel engine/outboard motor depending on who we're talking about) likely served to warn potential predators that 'something big and dangerous is here, stay back'. Without knowing that you were asleep the sound would be enough to suggest to predators that you were awake and thus not were a potential threat in yourself. Brilliant.

And so hopefully this has perhaps enlightened you a little as to the importance of sleep in your livelihood, whether you are responsible for shuttle launches, flying aircraft or simply driving a car.

Oh and on a more whimsical note, the book commented towards the end about when Henry Ford went to visit Edison and was told he is taking a nap. Ford commented to the technician "I understood that Mr. Edison didn't sleep very much", to which the technician replied "Oh, that's true - he doesn't sleep much at all, he just naps a lot".

Be Well

J

Steroids, Snatches and Single Leg Squats; Sporting Variables Considered

This blog is perhaps a little overdue, but comes as a result of a conversation with a good friend of mine who works in the conditioning of athletes and also a physiotherapist. It is also derived as a product of something I recently read with regard to the effect of steroids on sports performance. I'm going to kind of build this blog around 3 stories, and then summarise. For the first I'm going to take you back a little.....

The (so-called) Expert

A few years back I was in a hotel in Orlando for Strength and Conditioning/Exercise Physiology Convention/Conference (it obviously wasn't that valuable to me!), and in the hotel bar I got chatting to a so-called expert about the strength and conditioning of athletes. He was heavily into Olympic lifting (O-lifting from here-on), and as the conversation developed he also advocated sports specificity as resistance exercises. The conversation became a little when I presented my stand-point on high intensity training, avoiding ballistic movements (including O-lifting), and stating that since there was no evidence for, and some evidence against it; I didn't use the concept of sports specificity in my exercises. He seemed horrified, and essentially questioned my abilities as a Strength and Conditioning coach. Needless to say the debate ended when I made a couple of simple statements and posed a couple of simple questions.

I'll to get to them.

Conditioned to play or Conditioned to pass Governing Body tests

The aforementioned colleague (whom I know best as an excellent physiotherapist and sports masseuse), recently asked my advice about training a young tennis player. When we discussed his existing workout I expressed that I wasn't a huge fan of TRX (although I have previously posted a blog that doesn't dismiss their use completely: http://jpfisheruk.blogspot.com/search/label/TRX) and instability exercises especially in young athletes, and as the conversation progressed it came out that she primarily uses them to assist in single leg squat exercises. I found this in itself quite interesting (having previously worked as an S&C coach with the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) I asked why their was an affiliation to single leg squats. She stated that the LTA use them as a functional testing assessment, which as part of a group of tests, assists in directing funding. My question back was simply that I would love the LTA to tell me how they can prove (or even intelligently suggest) that a single leg squat is in any way representative or indicative of current or potential tennis performance. For the record, her response was that she trains the athlete to play tennis, and she also trains him to pass their functional assessments. 

The Steroid perspective

I have recently finished another book about steroids (it's a fascination, what can I say!?) in which was an excellent piece by Dr. Roland Carlstedt; a Sports Psychologist. His comments were interesting in that he was discussing that ultimately the best athletes in the world can well be defined by their ability to make instinctive decisions in high pressure situations. (This might be true of other professions; think fireman, police officer, etc.) And he commented that with all of the media around the few athletes that have been hugely successful and then failed drug tests, can steroids or doping really be that big of a factor. As you think about this, try to count the number of Gold medalists/world champions/etc that won, and then were tested positive. (For a second also assume that testing is 100% accurate and that if they were 'dirty' they would have been caught). If you've got into double figures then you're doing better than me. You see his discussion was based around what doping/steroids might do for you; get you stronger (which in turn might enhance speed, vertical jump, etc), help you recover from injury (by building back muscle and connective tissue quicker), and perhaps a few other benefits. As a psychologist he was suggesting that perhaps those with the anxiety enough to feel that they need steroids or illegal performance enhancing supplements might simply not have the mental toughness to be successful at their sport irrespective of what they take; and hence the higher number of positive tests that aren't winners, and the lower number of tests from those who are at the top of their sport. He also argued that perhaps those that were successful with illegal measures might have been successful anyway!?

The point...(summary)

So to the point of this blog if you haven't arrived there already......the list of variables in a sport is huge. Essentially infinite. Think if you will the physical factors of a basketball player that could vary from one game to the next, not just an individual's but a teams, and then add the variables that could affect performance from the opposing team, and then the environment as well, and now add a few of Dr. Carlstedt's psychological issues, you might have something that looks like this; strength, hydration, fatigue, visual acuity, foot speed, heart rate variability, heart rate deceleration, cognitive processing, hypnotic susceptibility, subliminal attention, neuroticism, anxiety, arousal, repressive coping, body composition, team attribution of previous performance, social loafing, aggression, indigestion, minor aches/pains/injuries, agility, motivation, and arguably the most significant; skill level. (Of course, if the skill is Olympic lifting then a lot of what is coming is a little redundant). In the sense of training a skill, when did strength and conditioning coaches become experts or coaches for most sports. They train strength and they condition an athlete. Ultimately anyone worth their salt will tell that an athlete is best conditioned by performing their sport, but other attributes can be enhanced with proper resistance training.

1. You see, the point here is simply that when you do any strength and conditioning with an athlete the first thing you should do is not harm them (e.g. minimise any risk). If a football quarterback get's blindsided in a game and breaks his leg then so be it. If he gets a sacro-lumbar fracture from performing snatches (an Olympic lift) then the S&C coach is gonna get in a lot of trouble.

2. The second is to enhance the performance of measurable variables; strength (1RM or isometric/isokinetic testing), speed (10m, 40yd, etc; whatever is most appropriate), agility (illinois/sport specific agility test, etc), vertical jump (using a jump mat, force plate or whatever is available), and so forth. You see my point; measure the measurables. This was my question to the strength and conditioning coach at the top; how does O-lifting enhance performance? It is proven to not be optimal for strength/speed/vertical jump, etc. Essentially the answer to this question is a tenuous link discussing triple-extension (forced/explosive extension of hips, knees and ankles) in the idea that almost all sports have this. 

In this sense, train the athlete with what you know; with what science supports. Or even with strong anecdotal evidence of your own experiences. But let me ask; watching a basketball player one season, and then a season later seeing (through your eyes) that he is more explosive or performing better (rebounding, blocking shots, etc) and attributing it to O-lifting is absolutely ridiculous. Perhaps his timing increases, perhaps everyone else got worse, perhaps it was going to happen regardless of what he did!! I recently saw an article in a magazine by a friend of mine that showed an image suggesting that their training modality was wearing a gas mask doing deadlifts (or at least holding a heavy barbell) between their legs and being hit by a sledge hammer (forgive me if I am mistaken). Without question this is a phenomenally physically taxing act that will possibly cause intended physical changes. But do the risks out weight the evidence!? Generating a cause and effect relationship between things is at best very difficult and requires the control of all other variables. In reality we can't control these variables in any open sport.

Think how complex a regression or other statistical model would need to be to demonstrate that any single factor significantly affected an athletes performance.

Thus my summary is simply to stick with what we know; optimise body composition, make the athlete stronger and more resilient to injury/impact, make them faster, more agile. But do it properly, measure it. I am not stating that O-lifting and sports specific training does not enhance performance, but I'm saying that there is no evidence. Organisations are blindly and ignorantly advocating methods that are not proven. If O-lifting had all of these merits the evidence would be there. Drinking pork fat might make you see better but you wouldn't do it without evidence!!?

In that sense I would seriously love to see any support for O-lifting so if anyone has ANY then please send me the link or contact me via this blog and I will be in touch.

Be well

J

Evidence Based Resistance Training Recommendations

Forgive me for a little self promotion, but this is MY blog so I can write what I like.

Today I received congratulations from an esteemed colleague in the area for my most recent publication in Medicina Sportiva. It prompted me to write this blog about the article (see link)...

http://www.medicinasportiva.pl/new/pliki/ms_2011_03_08_Fisher.pdf

Essentially the article takes a long hard look at what the ACSM are churning out as a Position Stand and perhaps makes a step towards rectifying some of those errors. The article considers the research around strength training, including frequency, volume, speed of movement, training tools (e.g. free-weights and machines) as well as other methods such as unstable surfaces or vibration platforms.It finishes with a healthy but brief discussion regarding genetics; the most significant variable to your strength and size.

Fundamentally the article reiterates what we've heard from Arthur Jones, Mike Mentzer and the like regarding High Intensity Training. It shows that the evidence is still there. Anyway, enough from me, follow the link!

I hope you enjoy the article, and please feel free to leave any comments here or email me on the details given at the end of the article.

Some of you may know that this originally started out as a kind of manuscript whilst I was completing my MSc, so to everyone who's been there supporting me in one way or another, please accept my continued thanks, and best wishes in your own successes.

Be Well

J