I did my little 6 workout around noon on Sunday. I forgot that I was into a new workout log, so I did not have my prior workouts for measuring benchmarks. I selected my resistance based on memory and made my focus using the most demanding form possible. This made for a very demanding workout, even for a little 6. With attention totally focused on perfect form rather than progression, TUL’s were shortened due to a more rapid rate of fatigue. I think I will continue this blinded approach for a while.

There has been some discussion of HIT and BBS on the excellent blog of Dr. Kurt Harris (www.paleonu.com). Dr. Harris was very conservative with regard to his exercise knowledge and advice citing the old adage that half of what we know is wrong…we just don’t know which half. This adage is even more true for exercise, because the human body is an adaptive organism and will make adaptations to almost any kind of exercise stressor. If we make the adaptation the measure of our success, then almost anything appears to work. This being the case, I think it is very important that we make these adaptations without damaging or destroying the organism in the process. This is why BBS has a greater emphasis on safety than many other exercise philosophies.

Another thing that I think exercise should do is augment changes that can be brought about by a proper diet that avoids Neolithic food agents. In the same blog post, Dr. Harris endorsed the concept that 80% of health and longevity is accounted for by diet, and that health benefits can be achieved with Paleolithic dietary modifications, even if someone is sedentary. I agree to some extent with this 80/20 notion (although the percentage is really just a gestalt assessment). However, exercise can slide this percentage (80%?) up or down depending on whether it is properly done or not. If you are doing a proper HIT workout, you will be aggressively emptying the largest sugar reservoir in your body and restoring insulin sensitivity. As your muscles grow larger and more metabolically capable, the size of your glucose reservoir will increase-which means you will tip into the metabolic syndrome later in the game. Proper recovery will insure that you do not produce excessive oxidative damage and systemic inflammation. These facts can diminish the necessary contribution of diet down to (for arguments sake) 60%, allowing a little more latitude for behavioral slips in our environment of constant temptation from Neolithic foods. My involvement with HIT is probably why I came out of the low fat 90’s and Entemen’s fat-free cookies with a coronary calcium score of zero.

Improper exercise can have an opposite effect. If you are doing large volumes of steady state exercise, you are rarely tapping your fast twitch muscle fibers, which will stimulate an adaptation that interprets them as “dead weight” and results in atrophy of these motor units. This results in a reduction in size of your largest sugar reservoir, which means tipping into the metabolic syndrome sooner. Combine this with an increase in oxidative damage and systemic inflammation you will now have a scenario where a proper diet becomes even more critical to good health. You will have less latitude for behavior with the temptations of the standard American diet. Instead of carrying an 80% weighting of importance, your diet may now approach a 95% level of importance. I’m not just picking on steady state exercise here. HIT done improperly (too little recovery, too much volume, and especially to many intensity extenders) can be even worse.

In conclusion, I support the idea that diet has a dominant position in health and longevity issues, but do not mistake that the type of exercise you choose is unimportant. The type of exercise you select can be very synergistic or detrimental to the contributions of a proper diet.

My WOW:

Calf Raise- I am using the entire MedX stack, I progressed the resistance by gapping out 1 hole. This really made it heavier and shifted the strength curve to load up at the mid-point.
MedX Abdominal- dropped the weight back to 70lbs, did 1 and 1/3 reps at SS cadence-ouch!
Plateloader Bicep
Tricep Pushdown
Thick Bar Wrist Flexion
Thick Bar Wrist Extension

Post Your WOW’s (and your thoughts).