Tip of the week Tip: Stop obsessively counting!

The over-quantification syndrome

One of the worst fitness trends is this ridiculous over-quantification of everything. The key word is "over" - repetition paces, macronutrients, calorie reduction, rest by the clock, FitPal, Fitbit, etc. I always remind people of the following Einstein quote, "Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted."

The human body will always be much more than a bunch of swanky math equations. Things like recovery needs, maximum vs. optimal work capacity, internal biochemical and hormonal environment, refeeds to replenish glycogen stores and optimize metabolism - these quantitative elements can't be put into numbers. They can only be estimated and observed.

Take a look at Pumping Iron

On the training front, check out Pumping Iron from the seventies. Pay attention to the training sequences. What do you see and what don't you see?

Back before the days of growth hormone and insulin bloated bellies, these world-class bodies were built with junky equipment and careful attention to biofeedback. What you won't see in Pumping Iron is anyone practicing repetition tempo nonsense, pausing by the clock or pausing between sets to write a bunch of numbers in their training log.

No more neurotic calorie counting?

As for dieting, the National Weight Control Registry monitors people who have lost a substantial amount of weight and have been able to maintain their new weight over an extended period of time. They are looking for common factors for success. It has been found that calorie counting is not a primary factor in losing weight and keeping it off. General lifestyle factors such as eating regular meals and breakfast play a bigger role.

Recently, a study from the University of Pittsburgh showed that tracking tools like Fitbit did not help people lose weight compared to other people who had not used these tools.

The fact is, wannabe gurus in the fitness industry love to dazzle people with fancy forms and math equations. They love to play doctor and they take it way too far. The truth? Most of these quantifiers don't offer real control - they give an illusion of control - often without any relevant context.

The wisdom of your own body

The problem is that the more effort you put into in-out regulations, the more you lose the ability to listen to your body's wisdom.

The over-quantification syndrome is the pretense of expertise. Real expertise is far more demanding. You can never put the path to a satisfying relationship with your body into numbers.

Tip: Avoid this stupid training trend

It's not CrossFit. It's not HIIT. It's an ugly mix of both. And it needs to go away.

By TC Luoma

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-avoid-this-dumb-workout-trend/

CrossShitty Workouts

A couple years ago, CrossFit and HIIT had a date and drank a lot of fermented paleo drinks. A month later - because CrossFit and HIIT make people do everything faster and sweatier - a bastard with webbed feet was born. He was so ugly and horrible that they didn't even give him a name.

It's neither CrossFit nor HIIT

I describe this offspring - or more accurately, what its offspring does - as "CrossShitty" workouts because they are neither CrossFit nor HIIT. You've probably never heard this term before, but you've almost certainly seen someone doing it at your gym.

CrossShitty workouts consist of short rest intervals, random exercises (which for some inexplicable reason always involve those stupid battle ropes), ass... pulled repetition ranges, heavy breathing, lots of sweat and an inexplicable flavor of smugness, as if heart palpitations and insane sweating are the only factors that make a good workout.

They rarely use significant weights and never do anything really heavy. It's kind of like CrossFit but without the Olympic weightlifting exercises or squats or deadlifts or any attempt to fulfill the ten recognized fitness domains. And it's also kind of like HIIT but there are no periods of active recovery. It's just frantic, neurosis-driven, non-stop activity with a bafflingly superior attitude.

Part of me understands these exercisers. It goes back to the early days of fitness, when millions of crazy Americans in the sixties were doing their naked push-ups and jumping jacks to get the old blood pumping.

Part of it was for health and part of it was because of guilt for being suits who didn't have calluses on their hands and made their money off the sweat of blue-jackets.

Maybe it's the same with these people today, but they annoy me because the weirdos who do CrossShitty workouts are blocking multiple machines in non-CrossFit gyms and occupying large territories like the Nazis in 1941. They blitzkriege from station to station, obstructing others and strangling women and children with their flailing Battling Ropes.

Get lost, you CrosShitty people

Open your own gyms or pick a discipline and stick with it - be it CrossFit, legit HIIT or science and technique based powerlifting or bodybuilding.

Tip: Train tabletop rows

Stop doing classic barbell rows with suboptimal form. Use this assistance exercise, find your mistakes in the form of the exercise execution and then go back to heavy rowing.

By Joel Seedman

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-do-the-tabletop-row/

Most exercisers perform barbell rowing with poor form. Use this exercise to correct this.

Tabletop Rows https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jj6_Jq_SEAA

Tabletop rows are like normal bent-over rowing with a barbell, with the difference being that a training partner places one or two weight plates on the middle of your back.

What are the benefits of tabletop rows?

• This variation helps you to assume a horizontal, almost parallel to the floor, bent-over position.
• It improves your exercise form as your back needs to maintain a natural, slightly convex position otherwise the weight plates will fall.
• Tabletop Rows eliminate jerky movements and excessive momentum as this would also cause the weight plates to fall.
• The proprioceptive feedback from the latissimus, middle back and upper back is increased. The weight plate resting on your body provides a sensory load, which helps you to have a better kinetic awareness of your back activation and correct posture.
• There is a greater direct overload on the entire posterior muscle chain including the upper back, lower back, gluteus and hamstrings without increasing fatigue in the arms and grip muscles. As a result, your back muscles will give up before your arm muscles.
• This exercise prevents you from using an excessive range of motion as the elbows and shoulder blades will bump against the weight plates, causing them to shift on your back if the movement is performed too far.
• There is an immediate improvement in lower back strength. This exercise represents a combination of Romanian deadlifts and Good-Mornings in terms of weight distribution with direct tension on the back extensors.

Tip: Do not take painkillers for sore muscles

Ibuprofen, aspirin and other common painkillers inhibit muscle growth. Here's what you should do instead.

By TC Luoma

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/supplements/tip-dont-take-advil-for-sore-muscles/

Are painkillers growth killers?

Everyone who trains hard is tempted from time to time to reach for the drugs in the medicine cabinet for some pharmaceutical pain relief. However, although many of these non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can prevent or reduce the onset of painful muscle soreness, they will also inhibit your muscle growth. They do this by interfering with the action of a couple of enzymes known as COX 1 and COX 2, which can negatively impact muscle protein synthesis, muscle protein metabolism and other cellular processes that are crucial for growth adaptations in response to your training.

What alternatives are there?

A compound called curcumin has pain-relieving effects and has no inhibitory effects on your muscle growth. As it turns out, curcumin is only a weak inhibitor of COX1 and COX2, with studies showing that 400mg of curcumin can be as effective as 1,000mg of the painkiller acetaminophen.

Curcumin acts via completely different pathways than non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. It inhibits inflammation and pain by inhibiting a number of molecules including phospholipase, lipooxygenase, leukotrienes, thromboxanes, prostaglandins, monocyte chemoattractant protein, interferon-inducible protein, tumor necrosis factor and interleukin-12. Regardless of all these inhibitory effects, curcumin does not impair muscle growth.

Does curcumin also help with other types of pain?

Curcumin is not only particularly effective when it comes to relieving muscle soreness, but it is also good for relieving arthritis pain and post-operative pain, and high doses can be taken over a long period of time.

A study of 25 volunteers found that 8,000 mg of curcumin per day for a period of 3 months produced no adverse side effects. Of course, you don't need doses in this range to relieve pain. The standard dosage is 500 mg. It can take 2 hours for curcumin to take effect and the maximum effect occurs after 4 hours, while the total duration of action is around 12 hours.

Tip: Stop playing around - eat for gains

Can you gain 30 pounds within 10 months. Here's what one expert did.

By Tony Gentilcore

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/tip-stop-messing-around-eat-for-gains/

What's the biggest mistake beginners make? Well, almost everyone makes the same mistake in the beginning: not understanding how much you REALLY need to eat to build mass.

Whenever I meet a beginner who whines about not being able to build muscle mass even though they "eat all day long", I ask them a simple question: "What did you eat for breakfast this morning?" I usually get nothing but crickets chirping in response. The first few weeks of training are a strange phenomenon, as it's not uncommon to see rapid strength gains. I've seen exercisers double their strength in squats and deadlifts within a few weeks due to neural adaptations.

Even though for some this means an increase from 40 to 80 kilos, it is still impressive to see how well the body can adapt. However, many are frustrated when they don't see immediate changes in the mirror.

10 months of real eating

I worked out with weights throughout my high school and college years and was still too shy to take my shirt off at the beach. It wasn't until I was 25 that I started to see changes in my body due to a massive change in my diet.

I decided to conduct an experiment and gave myself a 10 month window. My weight went from 82 to 95 kilos. During this phase, a typical day looked like this:

Breakfast:

• 1 to 2 cups of oatmeal
• An omelette of 5 eggs with cheese and spinach

Lunch snack:

• 200 to 250 grams of beef
• vegetables

Before training (early afternoon)

• EAAs

During training

• One EAA intra-workout supplement

First meal after training:

• 3 cups of cereal with a scoop of whey protein
• 1 cup of cottage cheese
• 1 apple

Second meal after training:

• 2 to 3 servings of pasta
• chicken

Third post-workout meal:

• 2 cups of oatmeal

Rest of the day:

• I forced myself to eat a little more at 7:00 or 8:00 pm.

My calorie intake differed depending on whether it was a training day or a non-training day to keep my body composition under control. It took me a while to work my way up to these amounts, but it was what needed to be done.

Every time I have a beginner tell me that they can't build muscle mass, it's almost always because they aren't having a serious conversation with themselves about their food intake. The body can't build muscle from nothing

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/tip-stop-it-with-the-obsessive-counting/

By Scott Abel