A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book. ~Irish Proverb

So at the beginning of the month, my brother-in-law was getting married.  Naturally, his sister and I would be going.  The catch was that we had busy work days before the wedding and we were taking the red eye into the mainland.  This is never the best option, but in our case offers the least number of layovers and lowest cost getting from here to the D.C. area.  Of course there was a delay, but we ultimately got to her parents’ place around dinner time the next day.  At this point, we had been up almost 36 hours and still had the festivities around meeting the bride’s parents and family, which was wonderful, and then going out for the rehearsal dinner.  By the time all the events were done, we were finally crawling into bed around 11:00pm, and we had now been awake for over 40 hours. With exception to grabbing an hour on the one flight from Puerto Rico into Ft. Lauderdale and another hour from Ft. Lauderdale into Baltimore, we honestly didn’t, by any means, get ‘a good night’s rest.’  But some interesting things were happening.  She, my lady, was falling apart.  I was, on the other hand, cruising!  I even was thinking of all those military training documentaries where they show all the sleep-deprived soldiers.  If it wasn’t for the whole 30-mile-forced marches-with-120-pounds-of-gear-on-my-back…I’d be a rock star with the lack of sleep.  I say this because going 40-plus hours without sleep is really extreme, by anybody’s standards, and is certainly something I do not advocate!  It just happened to help drive home the point, on a very personal level, the importance of sleep… especially to the fairer sex.

So this is now where this public service announcement comes into play.  In a Duke study done back in 2008, the researchers found:

Their study, appearing online in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity, “Found that poor sleep is associated with greater psychological distress and higher levels of biomarkers associated with elevated risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. They also found that these associations are significantly stronger in women than in men” (sciencedaily.com). Other risks and issues include a greater number of clotting factors in the blood, which increases the risk of stroke.

In the shorter term, women suffer to a much greater extent, both physically and mentally, and prolonged bouts of inadequate sleep, as Dr. Saurez, one of the authors of the study, puts it, “We found that for women, poor sleep is strongly associated with high levels of psychological distress, and greater feelings of hostility, depression and anger. In contrast, these feelings were not associated with the same degree of sleep disruption in men.”

Now, more research needs to be done on how our sleep requirements do change over time as we age from childhood all the way through to old age,  but more and more links are being made to good health and good sleep.  Another point of concern in this study was the length of time it took to fall asleep.  “Interestingly, it appears that it’s not so much the overall poor sleep quality that was associated with greater risk, but rather the length of time it takes a person to fall asleep that takes the highest toll,” says Suarez. “Women who reported taking a half an hour or more to fall asleep showed the worst risk profile.”

Your immune system also begins to fail when sleep becomes an issue.  We’ve all felt those effects: all-night weekend benders, which leave us, by the following Monday or Tuesday, just not feeling good.

When we were living in Korea, my light-sleeping partner and I were in a real conundrum. I was sleeping great! I am also allegedly a snorer—well, was back then, and moved more when trying to fall asleep. This proved to be rather disruptive to her patterns.  She pretty much went the whole year in Korea battling chronic colds, being short-tempered, and all and all, just not feeling pleasant.  Now, the scope of this blog post is not to come up with up ten different ways to solve these “sleeping together issues.”  Each couple is different and each couple can find those solutions that work best for them.  But this post is about stressing the point that women do need more sleep than men; it is not about a toughness thing, it is, however, a reality in the general population.  Are there exceptions to this? Of course, but the importance of regular quality sleep cannot be emphasized enough.  So for the lads, sleep is important, too!  Especially if you do strength training and other activities, but you will also have to share in the responsibility of making sure your partner is getting the sleep she needs as well.  You will both be happier if you do!  So, how did we solve our sleeping arrangements?  She wears earplugs, and since I tend to be more of a night-owl than her, I either go to be when she does, or I time it that I don’t come to bed until I know she is out.  This way I don’t disrupt her in that crucial transition phase of nodding off.

I also do not drink as much as I used to, and have lost 20 pounds, which has made a huge difference in reducing my alleged snoring.

“When you give your brain a problem, your brain will resolve that problem. Do you believe that? Yes or no?”

• Darren Shirlaw

This has something to do with goal-setting, but also putting down a real constrained time limit.  This comes up more than once if you follow any material Tim Ferris has put out.  Deadlines with rewards and punishments will go a long way and I can talk more about that in later posts, but what I really want to stress in this week’s post is this…  If you can’t see the end result.  You will never get there!  As this applies to your body and subsequent health.  I see too many people in and around town, at the mall, at the pubs.  I can guarantee that they would all want better bodies, better health, super human like capabilities,  but they have no idea what that would actually look like for them.  They see their flabby meager bodies and have just accepted it with what I see as benign resignation.  They are not happy, but they also don’t seem to want to, or be willing to, or know how to change.  I love the matrix when Morpheus is explaining to Neo about image constructs.  You look the way you do, in the way your mind expects you to look.  So you have to change what your brain or mind is seeing.  You have to be able to visualize how you will look and feel.  You will have to believe that that is how you are supposed to look or are meant to look.  Now as you really make that happen you will then be posing a problem to your brain.  When you look in the mirror, your eyes won’t be transmitting the image your brain is expecting to see.  Your brain will start working out the solution to make sure your body becomes what it expects to see.  Almost magically your google searches will take to blogs and websites (like mine) that will help.  You will make better food choices.  You will (as fast as you want yourself to) become the person your brain or mind’s eye has created and expected you to be.  Now lastly as one final trick to all of this.  Your brain doesn’t communicate in words.  It communicates in pictures and feelings.  It really works well when those images are attached to very powerful emotional states.

Now there is a boat load of free content on the internet from all the guru’s from Jack Canfield to Tony Robbins as well as a multitude of resources surrounding hypnosis and the power of your subconscious mind.  There are thousands of methods and techniques and everyone has their own angle, or way of doing it. Some will work great for you and others won’t.  There will be some trial and error finding an approach you like the most.  Just remember, the ultimate goal here is to communicate to your subconscious in very emotionally powerful images!

In other words, if you see yourself and feel yourself as being fat and weak.  You will be fat and weak!  If you instead put yourself into a state of seeing yourself and feeling yourself as being strong and sexy.  You will become strong and sexy! It really is as simple as that.  In the same way the body will turn and follow the head.  Yeah/ It’s a martial art/wrestling truth.  “Where the head goes, the body follows!” This is also true on the spiritual and mental plain.  Where your thoughts go, your physiology will follow.

Lastly I will finish with this.  As cliche as it is, Michelangelo always said of his famous statue of David that David already existed inside the block of marble.  He just had to remove the excess pieces.  He could say this because he already knew what this statue was going to look like.  He so strongly saw it in his mind’s eye, that the actual labour of sculpting was the easy part.

“…. and it was just right!” – Goldilocks

More protein in the diet.

But let us not go to extreme on this either!  You do not need to eat like a professional body builder to get some great benefit.  This article comes from Sciencedaily.com, and where trying to eat like a professional athlete may be a little extreme for the average weekend warrior, the reality is most North Americans, are not getting enough protein in their diet.  The article recommends approximately 1.2-1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight spread out evenly throughout the day.  So a little protein sourced food at each meal can have a tremendous impact on helping you feel full, lose fat, and preserve your hard earned lean tissue.  (All that rock solid muscle.)  Now most of us are getting plenty of protein at dinner time, so the article also suggests, as an option, splitting that piece of steak in half and saving the second half to eat with your morning meal or lunch, which is a great idea.  So let’s break this down into the nuts and bolts of what this can really look like.

So we got a lad who weighs 220 and he’s not too happy with his body composition, so how can this research and study summary help him out.  Well it recommends just over a gram per kilogram of body weight.  Okay so doing a some quick math (220/2.2) it turns out he weighs 100kg, so he’ll want to consume close to 120 grams of protein spread over his meals during the day.  Well that’s great, but how much food does that actually equal?  Well the good news is that it is not a huge amount. To say that it is totally doable.  For example 3 oz of Salman, Tuna, or Halibut has about 22grams of high quality protein.  An egg has 6-7g.  3 oz of steak has 19 grams.  3 oz of pork has 23grams (one slice of bacon has 3 grams of protein)  3 oz of chicken has 16 grams and 3 oz of turkey has 26g.  And 3 oz of tofu has about 6 grams of protein in it.  Okay so because I’m lazy, I’m going to say that on average for every 3 oz of meat, you’ll get about 20g of protein, so if our guy needs 120 grams.  That means he’ll want to eat 18 ounces of meat or fish a day.  Or only 6 oz per meal if he’s eating three times a day. At each meal the amount of meat he wouldd need would fit in his palm.  So in the morning he could have a couple eggs and a small can of salmon,  at lunch he could have a pork chop from last night’s leftovers and tonight have half of that 12 oz Ribeye and save the rest for lunch tomorrow.  The rest of his food for the day would come in the form of veggies and fruits and nuts. 1 oz of nuts can vary from 5 up to 9 grams of protein,  for this example he will eat almonds and could have a couple handfuls as a snack.  Now all of a sudden he’s getting plenty of protein. He feels full and doesn’t need to eat excess amounts of potato chips or cake.

So the last two things I wish to comment on is 1.  Meats, Fish, eggs etc. are considered “high-quality” proteins because they generally contain all the essential amino acids we need to make all the tissues of our bodies.  You will find protein in plants, but it is harder to find all the essentials. No single plant source contains all the essentials.  So being vegan, or vegetarian is possible, just harder, so be aware of this and make sure you are getting lots of variety of veggies in your diet to meet your needs.  Two this is exactly why Adkins’s famous diet worked so well for so many people who stuck with it.  When they finally broke it down.  They learned that even though he claimed, you could “eat as much as you want” Adkins followers in fact ate fewer overall calories than those who did not follow the Adkins/paleo diet.  The reason, was not the increased fat, but was the extra protein they were eating. It made them feel more satisfied and more full during the day resulting in smaller meals and eating less as often as the “pro-carb” folks.

Well how is this for some food for thought eh!?

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150430124835.htm

“When one considers that the dominant intellectual approach of the growing number of self-styled “experts” in the bodybuilding field is characterized by approximation, contradiction, equivocation and evasion, it is little wonder that an entire generation of bodybuilders – many of the top champions included – finds itself bewildered and without rational guidance. However, let me assure those who refuse to allow the flame of their passion for a more muscular body to die, who, having some awareness of the role of facts, logic and reason in their lives: There does exist a science of bodybuilding – and it can be understood by anyone willing to exercise the required mental effort.”

Mike Mentzer, The Science of Bodybuilding, HEAVY DUTY I

 

So what happened?  Well, this happens to coincide with another dilemma/problem I was trying to figure out.  Back in 2008 or so, Dan Carter was the undisputed best player in rugby!  When they showed his stats, (you know, height, weight, etc.), he and I are pretty close to the same size.  And don’t get me wrong, he’s fast!  But in a straight race,  I believed I could keep it close, so how was he the best rugby player in the world and I was just an OK player for a Division 2 club in the States? Could it be that he was a better “rugby” player?  I am ashamed to admit that I was very late to the party.  It is important to be strong enough and fast enough to play these sports, but after that, it’s skill, it’s knowing your sport in and out.  (Wayne Gretskzy was not the best athlete, but he’s the great one!)  I finally clued in, so I spent less time in the weight room and more time on the rugby field perfecting my lines and just learning the game.  I was also fresher getting to practice, and able to work harder at practice, which led to better “rugby” conditioning and I was much more refreshed going into the games on Saturdays.  I no longer felt like hammered… you know.  And to top it all off, I was the strongest I had ever been up to that point.  Finally, everything clicked!  Less was more.  Even in rugby training.   If we had to run a 400m, I didn’t pace myself, I ran the first 200 as hard as I could and then would dog it at the end (combination of being super tired from blasting the first 200m and wanting to recover before the repeat).  It worked though.  I am no world-class player by any stretch, but after the shift, I was now playing the best rugby I had ever played… and it felt great!

But the frequency was still something that troubled me.  I really believed that to miss more than a week would see a reduction in strength and a step back. That was all about to change the following summer.  I had a holiday planned where I would be in Canada, by myself, for almost three weeks. So when I got to the mother country, a day or two later I hit the gym at the local aquatic center and did my high-intensity workout (with some strip sets mixed in).  I went to the leg press machine they had and put it on the stack and went to lift.  I could only do three–no biggie. I continued on my strip sets and left my legs so exhausted that it was a few minutes before I could get out of the machine.  Then my road trip began.  Camping, fishing, drinking, more travelling, camping (did I mention the drinking?) and some water skiing.  Needless to say, I did not do much in the way of “working out” while on my two-week bender.  When I finally got back from the road trip, I went back to the gym for a training session before I left Canada to head back to the States.  When I got to the leg press, I put it on the stack to see if I could at least move it the previous best of 3 times, if at all…  I did it 20 times before my legs gave out!  Oh, and all my other lifts that day went up as well.  I had finally convinced myself that missing a week would not be the end of the world and, in fact, actually help!  So, now I train once a week, my workouts last about 25 minutes, and I spend most of my days feeling good and not beat-up–unless I tackle with my face, which is not the preferred tackling technique by any stretch of the imagination.

I hope this long-winded tale helps; hopefully many of the athletes who read this will be able to relate in some facet.  And for those starting out,  I will finish with this:  McMaster University has put out some great studies, which are easy to find online.  Some conclusions they have drawn: 3 sets seems to cause/allow more protein synthesis for a longer period of time, but it was not conclusive whether this led to overall greater hypertrophy or strength gains.  The university has found more conclusively that lifting heavy to failure or lifting lighter loads to failure have an equal effect in increasing muscle hypertrophy. The only difference was the heavy-loads group increased their 1-rep max greater than the light-load camp (who also increased their 1-rep max).  Likewise, both groups increased muscular endurance, but the light-load camp increased their endurance more.  So,  the take away in this case for me is if you have some joint concerns, using lighter loads will still–despite what the old guard has to say–trigger some great gains, but if you would like to get really strong, you might prefer going with the heavier loads and fewer reps for the 1-rep max increase.  And lastly, since the 1-set vs 3-set continually seems to battle it out, I will say this:  Even if three sets per body part get you stronger faster, is it as sustainable over the long run for the average working parent or weekend warrior?  I don’t think it is.  If you like it and prefer training with multiple sets, that’s fine, I won’t tell you not to, but if time is a concern or overtraining, then 1 set is a terrific option… and I’m speaking from experience.  And just so you know, Arnold won a lot of competitions and he did a lot of sets and spent a lot of time in the gym.  Dorian Yates won even more competition,s and he’s been in the 1-working set camp almost his entire career.  So someone might say one way is not “better” than the other, but I know what worked for me, and it has saved me a lot of time to write posts like this.

 

Recommended readings on this topic.

McGuff, Doug and John Little. (2009). Body by Science. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Anderson, Owen. Recovery training: too much hard training can devastate your muscles and implode your immune system. Retrieved from http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/recovery-training-too-much-hard-training-can-devastate-your-muscles-and-implode-your-immune-system-510

Bass, Clarence.  Intensity, What Is It? Intensity, Failure, Rep Range, Muscular Endurance, Specificity (web log article). Retrieved from http://www.cbass.com/IntensityResistanceTraining.htm

Bass, Clarence. Light Weights Build Muscle—Study Provides Proof

Complex Study, Simple Training (web log article). Retrieved from http://www.cbass.com/LightWeights.htm

Bass, Clarence. More Support for Effort-Based Training

Even Light Resistance Builds Muscle—If Lifted to Failure (web log article). Retrieved from http://www.cbass.com/Effortbasedtraining.htm

 

Christopher G.R. Perry, George J.F. Heigenhauser, Arend Bowen, and Lawerence L. Spriet. (2008). High intensity aerobic interval training increases fat and carbohydrate metabolic capacities in human skeletal muscle [Abstract]. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 33(6), 1112-23.