I worked out Sunday at 6am before going in to work a day shift in the ER. It was a good workout at my favorite time of day to work out. I did a “little 6” routine.

Calf Raise
MedX abdominal
Thick bar bicep curl
Nautilus Tricep extension
Thick bar wrist flexion
Thick bar wrist extension

After a busy day at the ER I had a dinner of stuffed Bell Pepper (with grass fed beef) and settled in for some channel-flipping. I came across a show on the Discovery Health Channel about the boy who was the first documented case of a spontaneous myostatin deletion in humans (the same child featured in the New England Journal of Medicine article that broke the story 3 years ago). I was particularly struck (as were the child’s parents, and the show’s producers) by how much the child enjoyed lifting weights and performing pull-ups. This activity was selected spontaneously by the child, as opposed to being pushed by the adults in his life. There were endless video clips of him lifting dumbbells, doing pull-ups, and carrying heavy objects. It was very clear that this 3 year-old was “lifting weights” because he was muscular. He was NOT muscular because he lifted weights. It struck me as a very clear representation of the cause/effect reversal that we discussed in the introduction of BBS.

After the show was over I went to the computer to peruse PubMed for an interesting article that I might post with this week’s WOW and found this:

Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2010 Feb;42(2):314-25.
Resistance training at eight-repetition maximum reduces the inflammatory milieu in elderly women.
Phillips MD, Flynn MG, McFarlin BK, Stewart LK, Timmerman KL.
Texas Christian University, Exercise Physiology Laboratory, Fort Worth, TX 76123, USA. m.phillips@tcu.edu
INTRODUCTION/PURPOSE: Inflammatory cytokines are associated with age- and inactivity-related diseases. We examined the influence of moderate- to high-intensity resistance trainings (RT) on inflammatory cytokines (interleukin 6 (IL-6) and 1beta (IL-1beta) and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha)) in circulation and lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated whole blood in elderly women. METHOD: Previously sedentary women (72 +/- 6.1 yr) were grouped according to their hormone replacement regimen: traditional estrogen/progesterone (HRT, n = 12), selective estrogen receptor modulator (SER, n = 7), no hormone replacement (NHR, n = 9), or nonexercise control group taking no hormone replacement (CON, n = 7). Participants in the HRT, SER, and NHR groups trained (three sets, 10 exercises at eight-repetition maximum (8RM)) 3 d x wk(-1), whereas participants in the CON group maintained their “normal” activity for 10 wk. Participants performed a bout of resistance exercise (RE at 8RM; HRT, SER, and NHR groups) or sat quietly (CON) before (BT) and after (AT) RT to assess the influence of training on the acute responses to RE. Blood samples were obtained preexercise (PR), postexercise (PO), and 2 h postexercise (2H; same time points for resting CON). RESULTS: Hormone status had no influence on dependent variables, so HRT, SER, and NHR groups were collapsed into one exercise group (EX, n = 28) and compared with CON. RT significantly reduced resting serum TNF-alpha level by 37%. RT also reduced LPS-stimulated production of IL-6, IL-1beta, and TNF-alpha at all time points (PR, PO, and 2H; per monocyte). Acute RE transiently increased plasma TNF-alpha, but blunted the circadian increase in LPS-stimulated inflammatory cytokines observed in CON. The blunting effect in EX was significantly greater AT compared with BT. RE also resulted in an increase in plasma IL-6, which was significantly reduced AT (BT: PR = 1.6 +/- 0.5, PO = 2.8 +/- 0.5; AT: PR = 1.8 +/- 0.3, PO = 2.4 +/- 0.3). CONCLUSIONS: We found that 10 wk of moderate- to high-intensity RT 1) reduced the systemic inflammatory milieu and 2) abrogated exercise-induced circulating IL-6 in previously sedentary elderly women.
This article demonstrated a very substantial decrease in the systemic inflammation of elderly women that was independent of their hormone replacement status. Here was a great demonstration of the profound benefit to be derived from high intensity strength training that is not immediately visible to the human eye.

My mind then returned to our 3 year old demonstration of cause/effect reversal. How many times do we seek advice from someone with a muscular physique who has self-selected weight training because of their muscularity? How many times have we seen someone give up strength training because they have not produced “P90-X” before and after type results? This is a very important concept that is discussed in great detail by Nassim Taleb in The Black Swan …sometimes that which is not visible to us is the most important thing. Many times we only realize the importance of something after the fact of it becoming visible (like the hassle of decanting tiny amounts of toiletries into zip lock bags, removing my shoes, and now having my underwear x-rayed and my wife ogled at by high school drop-outs), while we miss out on the more important fact that a vigilant citizenry will beat your ass down if you try to light your underwear or shoe on a plane, or that someone wearing a funny hat who checks no luggage on a transoceanic flight might be a problem. So what is the point of my rant? It is simply this: we in the field of high intensity exercise need to work hard to make the invisible visible. The people who don’t self-select for strength training are those who may stand to benefit the most. Arthur Jones was right when he said “it is too bad that bodybuilding is wasted on bodybuilders”.

Post your WOW’s…and your thoughts.

For my 48th birthday I decided to treat myself to a Doug Holland flourish to my WOW by inserting my leg press in the middle of my workout. I typically start with leg press because I like to get a big metabolic hit right out of the gate and then try to sustain it through the remainder of the workout. I thought the different approach may actually prove harder…I mean, why else would Doug Holland do it?

Pullover
Chest Press
Leg Press
Compound Row
Overhead Press

I must say that by the time I hit the Row, I was sucking wind. I traded 12 minutes of workout time for 15 minutes of carpet time. I was surprised how demanding placing the leg press mid workout was. I wonder if our metabolic adaptations are not also very specific, as this minor change in order produced a major change in metabolic effect. Perhaps it was the birthday effect, as I always want to do it better than the year before. One thing’s for certain, if you held my birthday cake in front of the compound row during this workout, I would have blown out all 48 candles.

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I did my WOW 1 day early on Saturday January 9th. I was meeting paleo blogger and BBS friend Jeff Erno at Ultimate Exercise to put him through a workout. I knocked out the following “little 6” at about 10am before Jeff showed up.

Calf Raise- Resistance increased by an unknown but significant amount. I was using the entire stack on the MedX Leg Press but the TUL was getting too long. I gapped the weight stack by 2 holes which significantly reduces the leverage of the movement arm. TUL now has plenty of room to grow.
MedX abdominal- stable weight and TUL
Nautilus plateloader bicep- stable weight and TUL
Triceps pushdown-stable weight and TUL
Formulator wrist flexion
Formulator wrist extension

It wasn’t until today (Sunday January 10th) that I realized my WOW was done on the 1 year anniversary of BBS’s release date. It has been a fantastic year. I shudder to think that I almost did not agree to John Little’s offer to collaborate on this book. At the time I had not written an article in 3 years and was hesitant to jump back in to swimming against the tide. I was also a little fearful of trying to put out our knowledge, knowing how much readers want “the truth” and how the evolution of facts and the development of new knowledge can make you look foolish or waffling. I did not want to enter into the realm of the expert (whose mascot should be a weasel sitting on a hedge eating a waffle).

The night after my WOW, Wendy and I went to dinner with friends, one of whom was a 70 year old woman who had recently lost her husband. Discussing her recent loss, she spoke to the importance of not passing up opportunities to enjoy what we love. She told of a bottle of Chanel perfume called Chance that her husband had given her as a gift. Because it was such expensive perfume, she had saved it for a long time and used it only on very special occasions. She admitted to wanting to use it more often, but remembering the cost, she would always resist the temptation. Recently, while trying to retrieve something off the shelf where she stored her treasure, she knocked it off the shelf. It fell into the sink and shattered. She watched the contents of the bottle swirl down the drain. All she had left was what was in the tube of the spritzer. As I heard the conclusion of this story, I was overcome by goose bumps. After hearing this story, I am even more glad I took John’s offer, and that I get to spray a little of my “Chance” every week with a WOW posting.

One of the elements of BBS that I am most proud of is a definition of health that John and I worked out that included “an appropriate balance between an anabolic and catabolic state”. There is an amazing technical discussion of this at www.nephropal.blogspot.com . It is a very technical discussion of the mTOR and Sirt1 receptors and how they relate to diet and exercise. If you can find some quiet time and a strong cup of coffee, I highly recommend it

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It was COLD today with temperatures in the 20’s. Ultimate Exercise is a building that was built in the 1800’s and the walls are old brick that is not insulated. Even with my high capacity air conditioning system, it took a while to get the temperature up to 61 degrees. I progressed the weight on all 5 movements today and broke even or a couple seconds down on all TUL’s. The workout was very tough from an effort and discomfort standpoint, but was only moderately hard from the metabolic standpoint. The Big 5 I did today was the following:

Leg Press
Compound Row
Chest Press
Pullover
Overhead Press

It is always fun to do the first workout of the New Year. Looking back over 2009, I am very happy with my progress. My main resolution for 2010 is to focus on form while blinding myself to my previous performance. I will project the resistance for my next workout well ahead of time and not look at my prior performance before performing the workout. Form and intensity should trump performance “on paper”. Also, I am going to try to wean off my only non-paleo indulgence…diet sodas.

I reviewed my diet DVD this morning and am happy with its content and quality. I made a few misstatements here and there, but nothing that would stop me from distributing it as-is. I have an initial run of 25 copies that I will sell through UE, and am trying to set up an Amazon store account for the remainder. I am setting the price at $45.00. If anyone is interested in getting the early copies you can leave your purchase information at UE by calling (864)886-0200 and following the prompts. I will make notification when the Amazon option is available or if we will offer additional copies through UE. For right now we are set up to process the first 25 orders.

Post your WOW’s and your resolutions