Excermacize
On the recommendation of Aretae, I went and downloaded Body by Science. Damn. Another consensus wisdom bites the big one. Doug McGuff and John Little show through the magic of science, that most of what you've been told about exercise is wrong.
The basic idea is that only by exercising to failure do you actually convince the body that it needs to be stronger. They go into rather more detail than that - and convincing detail, backed by studies™ - but that's the essential take-away. Constant low-energy exercise is just wasted time and energy because you do not fully test your muscles, and you are interfering with the body's efforts to heal after exercise. Also, you put yourself at risk for injury, and you are adding wear and tear that isn't necessary if your goal is increased strength or cardio-vascular fitness. They go on to say that the distinction between aerobic and other types of exercise is bogus - if you build the infrastructure of greater strength, you are building cardio-vascular fitness. Separating out cardio merely benefits one aspect of fitness, at the expense of others, and at the great waste of time and effort.
Ten minutes a week, five exercises. That's a program that I can get behind, and the fact that the authors totally diss on running is a plus point in my book. Looking back, I was at my strongest after a long summer breaking up concrete. I think I became strong and fit because I was unconsciously following elements of this program that I never did in earlier exercise programs. A lot of what I did, day to day, was relatively low intensity effort. But every so often, I'd have to really exert myself all-out to do something - move a huge-ass chunk of concrete, whatever. And according to the theories in Body by Science, it was probably that that made me strong. I had never exerted myself all-out in the gym, and the results were always limited.
Cool. I am going to add this to my my paleo diet. I go into work a couple days a week, and there's a gym there, so that will be just perfect.
For those of you without a program and wanting to keep score, here's a short list of consensus views that I now think are largely bullshit:
- Exercise physiology and methodology: exercise to exhaustion with five distinct exercises once a week is more effective in building strength and endurance than any number of hours running, weight lifting, biking or whatnot done in the traditional manner, and reinforces positively with the next item.
- Diet and Nutrition: fat is good and carbs are bad - high consumption of carbohydrates relative to protein and fat is the direct cause of fat people and the associated metabolic syndrome diseases of diabetes, heart attacks, hypertension; and possibly acne in teenagers and who knows what else. We aren't evolved to deal with carbs, full stop. Paleo or something like it is therefore the answer. Best book on this is Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Taubes.
- Modern Cosmology: dark matter is clearly a fudge factor, and modern astrophysicists are clearly ignorant or flat out wrong on the behavior of electromagnetism and plasma. Magnetic field lines do not and cannot "reconnect," this alone invalidates much of solar and astrophysics.
- Democracy: in the small sense, I think that the explosion of bureaucracy is undermining what good we had here. In the bigger sense, I'm convinced that the Formalist ideas are on the right track. If it weren't for a few key problems, I'd be with Aretae on his anarchist pleasure island - my ideal state would be a small monarchy that implemented libertarian policies.
- History: from the idea that the founding fathers were a bunch of whiny crybabies (a view I held long before Moldbug) I moved on. I think that Velikovsky may have been right, or at least on to something - our understanding of history might be very different from what really happened - and if that's the case, then the geologists and paleontologists might be tragically wrong, too. Thing is, the sciences take as gospel what other sciences say. If the astrophysicists say it's been steady state for billions of years in the Solar System, the geologists will believe it, and that influences size of the idea space for their own theories. They will automatically disregard any theory that conflicts with other theories. So if the astrophysicists are wrong - which I firmly believe - then everything else can be wrong. Not necessarily - but what have we ignored because of what we believe?
on
| § 10
§ 10 Comments
[ You're too late, comments are closed ]
I've heard a lot about 5-fingers as novelty items, but I'm getting more and more good info from the moccasin camp now.
FreeTheAnimal likes the Runamocs instead.
And look at this also
I forgot...now that you're thinking right on physiology...are you taking the next step: shoes cause most knee/exercise problems?
I guess I'm a little hazy on…
I guess I'm a little hazy on the distinction between superslow and HIT - am I right in thinking that superslow is a subset of HIT? In any event, I will be exploring the links you provided, and starting with superslow. I can always fiddle later, and from what I'm getting from the book, what some people call specific endurance training is what McGuff is calling skill training. Semantics, perhaps. For now, a short workout fits well with my needs.
As for shoes, for once, the public schools didn't fail me. My high school cross country coach had nothing but contempt for padded shoes. We never wore them, and i didn't geet screwed up knees despite the cube-square law's implications for someone my size.
I am barefoot 90% of the time, for the most of the last three years, and my back and feet have never felt better. Working at home has it's benefits. I was looking at the vibram five fingers, but i don't know if that's the way I want to go.
Buckethead,
Far be it from me to argue with McGuff. He's simply an exercise expert, and since I've been reading him (starting 2001-2, IIRC), I have come to the conclusion he just knows more than I do. If we disagree, I'm wrong.
OTOH, there's a LOT of other super-smart folks focused on exercise. My buddy (competitive college weightlifter/Microsoft Game Developer Tech Lead/College Game Design teacher) was very happy when I introduced him to superslow, but was unhappy with the explosiveness.
My most fit (distant) friend has a real critique of superslow in the it's mostly a strength technique, and not a fitness technique.
Greg Glassman is apparently the crossfit guru.
And there's some work going on pushing some of the crossfit thinking into the HIT world. Try Drew Baye.
I'm personally fully committed to HIT, and less fully committed to superslow. AT the same time, Endurance is real...and superslow doesn't teach it...and it can be important.
Of course, crossfit is mostly (seemingly) enjoyed by folks who are effectively HIT-ers, but who want endurance as well. Cops, MMA folks, etc.
Still, love your direction. And citing your quote.
Hmmm... If I didn't know…
Hmmm... If I didn't know better, I'd swear someone's been reading Aretae's recommended "Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense", then extended it to the wider world outside of business, and changed the final descriptor to "...Unprovable Bullshit That You Believe Only Because, Well, You're Lazy".
If done, it should sell well, and I'd be a buyer.
From my reading of the book,…
From my reading of the book, the entire point of their program is to sequentially push slow, intermediate and fast-twitch muscles. The point of their high intensity, short duration workout is to fatigue the slow-twitch (but fast recovering) muscles and quickly bring on and load the fast twitch.
So, you get the all around workout, and time between workouts to recover and allow your strength to improve. All of which makes sense to me.
One of the interesting things in the book was their definition of fitness - "The bodily state of being physiologically capable of handling challenges that exist above a resting threshold of activity." They also comment that the ability to build large muscles is not common in people at large - only a small percentage of the populace is actually genetically capable of doing so. One of my oldest friends is about 5'10", wiry - he spent years and lots of money on protein supplements and rigorous weight training. The end result was a great increase in strength (and fitness - in the cardio sense) but he gained maybe ten pounds.
Me, I'm probably going to get big muscles. I'm 6'4" and built that way. The authors of Body by Science argue that increasing muscle mass - at least, their way, will necessarily increase cardio because the body is a homeostatic system, and your organs will increase their capacity to match the increase in muscle. The infrastructure will expand to meet needs. My friend could probably do this program for years with no bulky, Popeye-style musckles.
They also comment on the difference between strength training and sports training. Training for a specific sport - like biking, or running, or whatever - is skill training, and teaching your body how to accomodate itself to the demands expected of it in that sport. They argue that their program does increase cardio-fitness, and more to the point, separating cardio fitness out doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense.
So...I like to be well thought on issues...and so I''d suggest that the best response to the Doug McGuff line is Crossfit.
Summarizing a friend who's one of the most fit people I've ever met:
Superslow is for bodybuilding/getting big muscles. NOT for being fit. Make sure you know which one you want to do. To be fit, you not only need strong, but you also need to push fast-twitch muscles.
So Crossfit also does high intensity stuff, but more impact (+ corresponding higher chance of injury), fast twitch, explosiveness.
They don't do distance running. But they do sprint.
Essentially...Crossfit is MUCH higher effort, with greater across-the-board fitness as a goal. Superslow is about building muscle mass and strength (which helps with bone mass) on effort that is 90% psychological for 1/2 hour a week.
Also, if you do try superslow...look up a superslow studio in your area and see if you can't do 1 lesson with a real trainer to show you what they really mean. I restarted last week, and expect to take 2-3 months to get back into proper form/psychological pain tolerance.
I had missed that…
I had missed that recommendation - but your suggestion has merit as a stand-alone title:
Just think how much of your potential audience you could scare off if your book said in large type right there on the front:
"Unprovable Bullshit That You Believe Only Because, Well, You’re Lazy"
If you would like to learn about the science of exercise, I would recommend — wait for it — a textbook on the science of exercise — perhaps a used copy of Physiology of Sport and Exercise by Wilmore and Costill.