I worked out this Saturday with 7 days respite from my last WOW. Given the metabolic devastation from my last Big 5, I decided it was time to rotate onto the 3-way split in order to accommodate recovery at the every 7 day frequency. For those not familiar the split will be: shoulders/arms, back/chest, legs/abs/neck. This workout was the shoulders/arms. It felt odd to have such a deep local fatigue without the major systemic effect, but I definitely felt much better after the workout and was not wiped out the next day. This definitely fits the “more days above the baseline than below the baseline” rule.

Barbell Military Press
DB Lateral Raise facing forward on the MedX row’s chest pad (hat tip to Bill De Simone)
DB rear delt fly
EZ Barbell Curl
Triceps pushdown
Formulator wrist flexion/extension

I plan to do a few rotations of this split and intersperse some consolidated whole body routines on an intermittent basis. No major revelations this week, so I will leave it to you guys to drive the discussion

Doug and I have just added a new link (above) for those seeking to locate facilities that utilize high-intensity training protocols along the lines of what Doug and I advocate in Body By Science. While we do not know each of the individual trainers or their facilities, they all will be at least familiar with (and many experts at employing) the protocols underlying a scientific, research-based approach to exercise. We would both very much like to thank John Tatore (www.ExerciseSolution.com) for all of his work in compiling this list, which should be of immense help to those seeking out such facilities and trainers.

Due to some last minute shift trading at the ER, I ended up doing my WOW on Saturday morning. I used a somewhat lighter weight and longer TUL on the Med-X Leg Press and then went directly into the dreaded SuperSlow Systems Pulldown. I did the remainder of the WOW at a blistering pace and broke records on all movements but the Pulldown. The metabolic effect was brutal. I was strongly in need of some “carpet time” when I realized I was running late because I had done some paperwork and cleanup before starting my workout. Because my family and I were supposed to meet our former babysitter/nanny for lunch I had to head straight out without any recovery. The result was being totally wiped for the next 3 hours. I learned that 10 minutes of carpet time really makes a difference for short-term recovery…especially after a Doug Holland-inspired, record-breaking workout.

Med-X Leg Press
SuperSlow Systems camless pulldown from Hell
Med-X Overhead Press
Nautilus Pullover
Med-X Chest Press

Later we met up with our friend at Moe’s Southwestern Grill near the Clemson University campus. After we got our food I noticed something unusual about the long line of college students who were waiting in the serving line. I was looking at about 10-12 students all standing in a row when I noticed something striking about their body habitus. All of their necks were protruding from their torso at a 45 degree angle. The neck itself was straight, but at the C7-T1 juncture there was just an abrupt forward flexion. This position was evident despite an otherwise upright posture, and it appeared to be a fixed deformity. This positioning did not appear to be well-adapted for anything physiologically useful. The only thing that this appeared to possibly helpful for was text-messaging, staring at a laptop, or playing hand-held video games, and this is what I suspect has resulted in this bizarre anthropologic adaptation. If you take some time to look about, I am sure you can see lots of strange postures that result from forcing our Fred Flintstone bodies into this George Jetson world. I was just shocked to see it so prominently displayed in people so young.

Post your WOW’s …and your thoughts.

I performed this week’s WOW at the irregular time of 5:30pm. I had just returned from a family trip to the mountains. We stayed in a mountain cabin and took the kids to see an Outdoor Native American Drama at the Indian Reservation in Cherokee, N.C. Despite the fact this was a Little 6 workout, it felt tough because this is not my peak time of day.
I increased TUL in the Bicep, Triceps and wrist flexion, everything else was stable.

Calf Raise on MedX leg press
MedX abdominal
EZ bar bicep curl
Triceps pushdown
Thick Bar Wrist Flexion
Thick Bar Wrist Extension

While in Cherokee I noted the incredible incidence of obesity and the metabolic syndrome amongst the Native Americans. This has always made me think that the closer in proximity you are to your hunter-gatherer past, the worse the effect of a Neolithic diet is for you. This is not to say that the tourists looked much better; it just seemed that the effects were worse with the Native Americans. I even saw a toddler in diapers who suffered from morbid obesity and likely type II diabetes. The flip-side of this coin is the suggestion that we have made some evolutionary adaptations to the Neolithic diet in just a few short generations….adaptations that I’m sure we would be much better without. I must admit that proximity to their hunter-gatherer past is not the only factor in play here. One cannot discount the effects of poverty, poor education and welfare dependency in this equation.

The pictures on postcards of 19th and early 20th century Native Americans show what a tragedy the Neolithic diet and lifestyle has been for these people. Imagine the transformation that could occur if someone made a public health based effort to return these people to a hunter-gatherer inspired diet and BBS exercise program.

Post your WOW’s and your thoughts.

I did my WOW at 6am on Sunday 8/8/10 before going in to work a day shift. I had contemplated skipping it because it had been a very bad week. As many of you know “Breakthrough with Tony Robbins” was cancelled after only two episodes. With only 3.1 million viewers, producers decided to pull the plug even before the remaining four shows aired. Needless to say, John and I were very disappointed after coming so close with a positive black swan that may have produced massive exposure for BBS/HIT training. While the segment did not demonstrate a classic BBS workout, it offered potential massive exposure for the book. We are holding out hope that the show will be picked up by one of the cable channels.

While I was wallowing in self-pity, I was given the most shocking kind of perspective (one of the main themes in Tony Robbins’ show)…my dear partner and friend Dr. Howard Leslie finally lost his battle with metastatic melanoma and died Saturday night. Howard was one of the most exceptional men I have ever known. He was a heroic figure in the emergency department, a captain who was always in control of the ship and who made all of his co-workers feel secure even during the worst of storms. Despite having every reason in the world to whine or indulge in self-pity, he never did. Howard took the miracle of life on this earth and added to it by making it a better place and saving thousands of lives during his career. Oh…he was also the strongest client UE has ever had. Howard was the only client to ever use the entire stack on every machine (including the camless beast of a SuperSlow pulldown)…in perfect form.

After receiving the dreaded news late Saturday night, I decided that I would indeed perform my weekly WOW. I need the exertion and pain to release the pent up anger and grief. Needless to say it helped. My renewed perspective also gave me a new appreciation for the WOW. It is another way in which we can take the incalculable miracle of being alive on this earth…in this period of time…on the most free and wealthy place on earth…and make it even better.

Nautilus Pullover
MedX Chest Press
MedX Leg Press
MedX compound row
MedX overhead press

R.I.P. Howard M. Leslie, MD, FACEP

Post your WOW’s

Yesterday I did my “little” WOW. It was great to be in my own facility where I now exactly what weights and setup to use for maximal effect. It went down as follows:

Calf raise on MedX leg press
MedX abdominal
Thick bar bicep curl
Nautilus Plate loader Triceps extension
Formulator Wrist Flexion/Extension

Extended my fast to 18 hours then gorged on my friend Jeff’s (not Erno) “mojo chicken wings”. Today I feel great with a pleasant background of soreness and not a hint of that “run over by a truck” feeling.

A couple of days ago I was listening to one of my continuing medical education tapes where they were discussing the merits of double-blind trials relative to single blind trials. They were trashing a paper because it was only single-blinded. In a single blinded trial the patient is blinded as to whether they are receiving an actual medicine or a placebo, but the doctor is aware. In a double-blinded trial, neither the patient nor the doctor knows if the test medication or placebo is being given. The point of the discussion is how much bias is interjected by the treating doctor being aware of what is being given. Even when the doctor tries to conceal when placebo is being given, subtle signals are given that undermine the patient’s confidence in the treatment (even when they truly believe they are getting real medicine).

This got me thinking about the importance of having confidence in your training. To quote Nassim Taleb (and Brent Pottenger)… “We all have faith”. If you are not doing a form of training that you have confidence in, it will most certainly undermine your results. The same goes for trainers. Trainers are like treating physicians in the double-blind trial, if they do not believe in their protocol, that will be telegraphed to the client and results will not be forthcoming. That is why I like to hire my instructors “off the street” rather than from a pool of fitness experts with experience. From the perspective of both trainee and trainer, it requires some n=1 experimentation to find the protocol that allows you to project the most confidence.

That is what I like about the WOW postings…it allows you a window into each person’s n=1 experience. If you have not yet found your best permutation of BBS/HIT, read over past and current WOWs; if you see one that resonates with you this is likely a good starting point for your own n=1 experiment.

Post your WOW’s and thoughts.

I did my WOW on Saturday July 24th at Greyhound fitness under the supervision of owner Patrick Diver. Patrick is a Category I road cyclist who is an amazing athlete and a great instructor. He has recently returned to competitive cycling using BBS/HIT/SuperSlow as the backbone of his training. He has placed 2nd at some recent events using a fraction of his former training mileage. Take it from me…this is very hard to do at the Category I level. Patrick is also ripped to shreds (I would guess 5% body fat).

My workout was done with only a few hours sleep as my late night flight the night prior had been cancelled and I had to find a local hotel to stay overnight, and then wake by 4am to fly out Saturday morning by 5am. I arrived at the hotel in Orlando at 10am and Patrick picked me up for my workout at 11am. Despite my sleep-deprived state I had an awesome WOW under Patrick’s watchful eye and camera.

Nautilus Nitro Leg Press
Nautilus Nitro Chest Press
Nautilus Nitro Pulldown
Nautilus Nitro Overhead Press
Dumbbell Curls on incline bench
Dumbbell Skull crushers

After my workout Patrick drove me back to the hotel where I set up for my lecture at the 21 Convention. Anthony did a fantastic job and had an impressive (and humbling) lineup of speakers. Mark Sisson spoke the day prior, so the audience was already well-versed in the concepts of the Primal diet and high intensity exercise. As a consequence they were well-prepared for the technical aspects of my lecture and asked lots of great questions.

It is not often that I get to interact with this demographic (young men in their early 20’s) but I must say this group of young people has given me hope for the future. Their motivation to improve their lives in all realms was truly inspiring. Their knowledge of science, philosophy, economics, diet and exercise are amazing. I did not even begin to be aware of most of these topics at the level these guys are until I was in my late 30’s. I now feel like their may be some hope that this generation can be instrumental in pulling us from the brink of economic and societal collapse. Thanks to Anthony for putting together such a great event and such an impressive group of young people.

I woke at 5am Sunday morning to do my WOW before going in to work at 7am. The workout itself occurred around 6:15am.

Med-X leg press
SuperSlow Systems pulldown
Med-X overhead press
Nautilus Pullover (with SS retrofits)
Med-X chest press

A good workout with a massive metabolic effect. I had minimal progression in weight on the overhead press and TUL on chest press. I then went to work for a quite thorough ER beat-down. No grand thoughts for this WOW as I’ve simply been too busy. Currently I am prepping my talk for the 21 Convention this weekend in Orlando. If you are in the area you should definitely attend, Anthony has arranged some amazing speakers. Hopefully I can meet some of them and pick their brains.

Post your WOW’s

I went down to UE before going to the ER to work an 11am-7pm shift and did the following “Little 5” workout. Because of the small movements, the metabolic effect was not too great, and I was able to perform OK at work (which was fortunate because it was so busy).

Calf raise on Med-X leg press
Bicep Curl (standing with EZ bar done MAE style)
Tricep pushdown
Thick Bar wrist flexion
Thick bar wrist extension

I was looking through PubMed and found another article that shows how body composition is more about the hormonal environment and less about calories in-calories out. Of particular note is HIT’s effect on the hormone adiponectin. Adiponectin is largely secreted from fat cells and is deeply involved in suppressing the components of the metabolic syndrome (poor insulin sensitivity, poor triglyceride metabolism and development of fatty liver, as well as coronary artery and cerebral artery disease). The article is listed below. Note that at a lower energy cost relative to the other forms of exercise, HIT was the only group that elevated adiponectin and resting energy expenditure in an intensity dependent fashion.

Diabetes Care. 2009 Dec;32(12):2161-7. Epub 2009 Sep 3.
Intensity of resistance exercise determines adipokine and resting energy expenditure responses in overweight elderly adults.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE :To evaluate the time course of leptin, adiponectin, and resting energy expenditure (REE) responses in overweight elderly males after acute resistance exercise protocols of various intensity configurations. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Forty inactive men (65-82 years) were randomly assigned to one of four groups (n = 10/group): control, low-intensity resistance exercise, moderate-intensity resistance exercise, and high-intensity resistance exercise. Exercise energy cost, REE, leptin, adiponectin, cortisol, insulin, lactate, glucose, nonesterified fatty acids (NEFAs), and glycerol were determined at baseline, immediately after exercise, and during a 72-h recovery period. RESULTS: Exercise energy cost was lower in high-intensity than in low-intensity and moderate-intensity groups (221.6 +/- 8.8 vs. 295.6 +/- 10.7 and 281.6 +/- 9.8 kcal, P < 0.001). Lactate, glucose, NEFAs, and glycerol concentrations increased (P < 0.001) after exercise and returned to baseline thereafter in all groups. REE increased (P < 0.001) in all groups at 12 h in an intensity-dependent manner (P < 0.05). REE reached baseline after 48 h in the low- and moderate-intensity groups and after 72 h in the high-intensity group. Cortisol peaked in all active groups after exercise (P < 0.001) and remained elevated (P < 0.001) for 12 h. After adjustment for plasma volume shifts, leptin remained unaltered. Adiponectin concentration increased after 12 h and remained elevated for 24 h only in the high-intensity group (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Resistance exercise does not alter circulating leptin concentration but does increase REE and adiponectin in an intensity-dependent manner for as long as 48 and 24 h, respectively, in overweight elderly individuals. It appears that resistance exercise may represent an effective approach for weight management and metabolic control in overweight elderly individuals.

I woke at 6am and walked down to the lake with an armful of floating chairs, noodles and toys. I uncovered the boat and loaded everything up. I walked back up and drove to UE for the following Big 5 WOW.

Nautilus Pullover (with SuperSlow retrofits)
Med-X chest press
Med-X leg press
Med-X compound row (with SuperSlow retrofits)
Med-X overhead press

I had small progressions in weight and/or TUL on all movements except the pullover. Once again I was impressed by the metabolic effect that occurred as a result of sandwiching the leg press in the middle of the workout. After I recovered I drove back home and linked up with the family and some friends and spent the entire day on the lake celebrating my favorite holiday.

Post your WOW’s, then read the Declaration of Independence and think about where we are today in relation to the situation at that time. Things that make you go “hmmm”.

Doug McGuff