I’ve added in some glute-ham raises into my leg workout so that I can make better use of the time between sets of shrugs.  I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before.

***

Self experimentation

I started the following protocols after getting back from the Christmas holidays (so around 2 January):

• Vitamin D – 4,000IU in the morning - no significant changes noted, either from switching to the morning or from doubling the does from 2,000IU.  I am still considering trying increasing the dosage to 6,000IU to see what happens.
• No coffee – I am still drinking green tea constantly but I am starting to wonder how much longer I will keep this up.

I started the following protocols about two weeks later:

• Single set of higher reps after press workout – I have given up doing the higher rep presses after my main pressing workout because I keep forgetting and going straight into doing dips and chins.  I will persevere with doing a lighter set after my assistance presses on bench day but remembering to do it is proving challenging.  I am thinking about doing some higher rep dips and chins instead.
• Sledgehammer levering – I have found that the levering work does make my wrists sore on squats now so I am cutting them down to twice a week.  I may do a bit of gripper work instead but we will see.

***

Workouts plan for the week

Fri: Lower

• Back squat – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 166kg (1 x 3, 7 x 2)
• Shrugs – 8 sets of 3 reps – 240kg
• Glute-ham raises – blue and pink band – 8 sets of 3 reps
• Hip thrusts – 3 sets of 5 reps – 130kg

Sat: Upper (A)

• Incline bench – 8 sets of 2-3 reps –87kg (1 x 3, 7 x 2)
• Dumbbell incline bench rows – 8 sets of 9 reps – 80kg
• Overhead press – 6 sets of 3-5 reps – 56kg (2 x 5, 4 x 4)
• EZ bar curl – 6 sets of 5-8 reps – 50kg (2 x 7, 4 x 6)

Sun: Lower

• Back squat – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 166kg (2 x 3, 6 x 2)
• Rack pull from below knee – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 200kg (8 x 3)

Mon: Upper (B)

• Overhead press – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 66kg (8 x 2)
• Barbell row – 8 sets of 3 reps – 75kg
• Narrow grip chins – 6 sets of 3-6 reps – 30kg (1 x 4, 5 x 3)
• Dips – 6 sets of 3-6 reps – 35kg (1 x 4, 5 x 3)

Tues: Lower

• Back squat – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 166kg (3 x 3, 5 x 2)
• Shrugs – 8 sets of 3 reps – 240kg
• Glute-ham raises – blue and pink band – 8 sets of 3 reps
• Hip thrusts – 3 sets of 5 reps – 130kg

Weds: REST

Thurs: Upper (A)

• Incline bench – 8 sets of 2-3 reps –87kg (2 x 3, 6 x 2)
• Dumbbell incline bench rows – 8 sets of 9 reps – 80kg
• Overhead press – 6 sets of 4-5 reps – 56kg (3 x 4, 3 x 3)
• EZ bar curl – 6 sets of 5-8 reps -50kg (3 x 7, 3 x 6)

***

Pure and unadulterated lifting

• Sumoman explains his rate of strength gain over a four and a half year period, showing how the calculations work.  You have to remember that Sumoman is already very strong to begin with so you would not expect big improvements as you would with a beginner.  I will be interested to do the same calculation for myself at the end of this year, after two years on a Hepburn cycle.  My year one was clearly showing beginner gains on this lift.  Before starting, last year, my back squat was 124kg for 8 x 3 and at the end it was 165kg for 8 x 3, which is a 33% improvement.  Since I am aiming to put 30kg on the lift in 2012, I would hope to gain 18%.  After that, it will no doubt be a lot lower.
• Chad Waterbury proposes a paradoxical lift for shoulder health and strength.  It is dumbbell upright row to external rotation that is designed to develop proper strength in the external rotators.  I am not completely convinced by it myself but it looks interesting…

Personal training and coaching

• One of the things I really like about Rory at Chiron is the way that he thinks about everything that matters very carefully.  You should not miss this very thought-provoking post.  In it, he argues that people devote very little thinking time to actually making decisions and quite a lot of thinking time to justifying those decisions once they have been made.  I see this all the time both at work and socially and I would add that some people are much worse than others…
• And a perfect follow-on from this post is Lyle McDonald’s research review of a paper that investigates cognitive bias and the perception of healthy and unhealthy foods.  Paraphrasing a little, the study found that people tend to overestimate the calorie content of unhealthy foods when the foods are served alone and underestimate the calorie content of the same foods when the same foods are combined with a healthy option.  And this is the interesting bit.  The more people were concerned with dieting and losing weight, the bigger the difference was in their perceptions!  So the more you care about dieting, the more you will convince yourself that eating a biscuit is OK because you ate an apple at the same time! 
• If you’re interested in how the best endurance coaches work, it is probably worth checking out this article on Chris Carmichael.  Not interested?  If you’re a personal trainer interested in working with athletes, it might behove you to consider changing your mind.  The article notes how interest in endurance sports is booming (again) and popular marathons are selling out this year in minutes or hours, not days as last year.
• One of the interesting phenomena about the fitness industry is the continuum that runs from physiotherapy at one end to true strength and conditioning at the other.  My take is that there is a big difference between the point on that continuum where strength coaches need to operate and the point where personal trainers need to operate.  Generally, the people who I see come into my studio would be treated as candidates for quite serious rehabilitation if they were an athlete.  So I was very interested in Mike Reinold’s comments in this post about a kneeling glute bridge variation, as they rang completely true with me.  I do often find that my clients struggle with hip extension on a glute bridge.  However, cues about heel placement and pelvis alignment tend to help.      

Diet, paleo diet and evolutionary adaptations

• I find that I read quite a lot faster than other people can talk, so I dislike podcasts unless I am driving somewhere and need something to do on the way.  So I was delighted to see that Chris Kresser’s podcast is now being transcribed.  In this edition, he discusses why it is so hard to lose weight and then keep it off.
• If you need a reason to stop eating pretend foods, like margarine and other horrible concoctions, read this post from Healthy Diets and Science, which points to a study showing that margarine increases prostate cancer risk in men by 30%.

Sleep, stress and health

• You might think that this link would be better placed in the diet section but I think it sits best as a stress-related link.  Matt Metzgar points out a study that shows that people who ate at their desks suffered distractions from their meals and were less full as a result.  I think this line of questioning is a very fruitful one, as I suspect mindful eating will become something that is shown to improve health and body composition.  And if you need an incentive to get away from your desk, you could always be inspired by Jason’s lunchtime workouts!
• And more from Matt Metzgar, in this post, where he notes that recent research shows that the amount of television you watch is directly correlated with your life expectancy.  In an Australian study, it was found that for every hour of TV you watch, your life is reduced by 22 minutes.  I watch on average, one film a week, on a Sunday evening.  So I am reducing my lifespan by 38 hours every year, or roughly 1.5 days.  So over the next 50 years, I could reduce my lifespan by 75 days, or 2.5 months!  What is your calculation?
• Mad in America points out that a recent study shows that stress causes brain shrinkage in otherwise healthy people.    The study abstract reads: “Current results demonstrate that increasing cumulative exposure to adverse life events is associated with smaller gray matter volume in key prefrontal and limbic regions involved in stress, emotion and reward regulation, and impulse control. These differences found in community participants may serve to mediate vulnerability to depression, addiction, and other stress-related psychopathology.”  In my opinion, in the fitness industry, we need to get with the programme and stop obsessing so much about which type of oily fish is healthiest or which tubers paleolithic people might have eaten.  Stress is vastly more important than micromanaging already good nutrition.
• If you take as pessimistic a view of the UK healthcare system as I do, you won’t be surprised by this Telegraph article noting that more than half of healthcare professionals are unaware that high numbers of children and elderly people are Vitamin D deficient.  Interestingly (perhaps unsurprisingly) there is no comment about sun exposure or the fact that people don’t seem capable of going outside anymore.

***

That’s all folks.  More links next week.

Today, I’m going to carry on with the biomechanics of gait theme but move on from old people to talk about barefoot running.

I talked a bit about barefoot running a while back, when I reviewed an article called Running-related injury prevention through barefoot adaptations.

In that study, we found that millions are spent on developing running shoes with “better” shock absorption every year.  However, the more padding you apply to the shoe, the less well the foot uses its own internal shock absorbing capabilities and the more injuries you are likely to get.

Barefoot people passed this way (photo by Draenen)

***

This time, we’re just going to look at how barefoot running differs from shod running.  In other words, just the facts…

***

So what’s the study?

It’s called Biomechanical analysis of the stance phase during barefoot and shod running, by De Wit, De Clercq, and Peter Aerts, Journal of Biomechanics, 2000.

The aims of the study were to provide a comprehensive description of barefoot running and to compare barefoot with shod running.

***

What did they do?

The researchers took nine male long distance runners and tested them while running barefoot and shod at three different speeds.  The researchers used force plates and video cameras as in the study we looked at yesterday to take the various measurements.

As with yesterday’s study, the researchers put markers on the skin at the hip, the knee joint and at the ankle joint at the lateral malleolus. In this study, the researchers also put a marker at the shoulder, at the height of the acromion.

In the barefoot condition, foot markers were placed at the tuber calcaneum and at the fifth metatarsal joint.  In the shod condition, markers were placed on the shoe at the height of those landmarks.

***

So what happened?

The researchers noted the following key points:

Shorter strides - for all the tested speeds, the runners took significantly smaller step while running barefoot.

Higher cadence – for all the tested speeds, the runners ran using a higher cadence (strides per minute) for the barefoot condition.

Shorter contact time – for all the tested speeds, the runners feet were in contact with the ground for a shorter period of time when barefoot running.

Vertical ground reaction forces – barefoot running is characterised by a significantly larger loading rate than in shod running (but not greater forces at the maximum point) and, in general, more than one impact peak was found for the barefoot condition.  The following chart is taken from the study and shows the difference between the forces experienced barefoot and experienced using a running shoe.  You can see clearly how the barefoot runner gets a sharp shock immediately at the outset and then a secondary shock that is larger, whereas the shod runner gets his initial shock later and less sharply, followed by the same secondary shock.

Figure 3, taken from Biomechanical analysis of the stance phase during barefoot and shod running, by De Wit, De Clercq, and Peter Aerts, Journal of Biomechanics, 2000

***

Running kinematics – both the occurrence of the impact peak and the end of midstance are reached significantly faster for barefoot running than for shod running.  Looking at the diagrams of how the runners are hitting the ground, this is because the barefoot running strikes with a flatter foot rather than a heel strike, as the shod runner does.

***

So how do the researchers interpret their results?

Thinking about the loading rate

The researchers found that when the subjects were barefoot running, a significantly larger loading rate during impact was found.  They noted that this agreed with results of previous studies.

Previous studies had assumed that the initial sharp shock that runners felt when barefoot running was the driving force behind the change in gait.  In other words, the runners experienced the jolt and therefore modified their running pattern.  The running pattern caused a flatter foot placement, rather than a heel strike.

Using their video recordings, however, the researchers noted that the more horizontal foot placement of the runners  was prepared well before touchdown.  In the barefoot condition, the ankle was already significantly more plantar flexed at 0.03s before touchdown.  This seems a bit odd, as you would expect the initial shock to be the driver of the changed kinematics.

However, the researchers did some more work and realised that the flatter foot placement in barefoot running could be explained by the fact that previous research had found that heel striking creates forces that approach the maximum physiological deformation that is possible for the fatty heel tissue.  The theory then is that once you have done heel striking once, you don’t do it again.

And in this study, the researchers found that, in the barefoot running condition, the maximal local pressure underneath the heel is negatively correlated with the foot angle at touchdown.  Or, in other words, the more horizontal the foot, the smaller the maximum pressure acting on the heel.

***

Thinking about running kinematics

When the shod runner’s front foot hits the ground, it does so with much less initial knee flexion but as the body catches up with the foot that is placed on the ground, knee flexion in the shod condition becomes much greater than in the barefoot condition.  As the body passes the foot, the knee flexion is still greater in the shod condition and it only coincides again with the barefoot condition once take-off is achieved.

So, when subjects run barefoot, runners do not maintain similar running mechanics, which the researchers note contrasts to the findings of other studies for running on different resilient materials.  The point then, is that running with shoes on is not the same as running on a forgiving surface.  Your shoes are doing something that is changing the way you are running.

And what is that?  Well, the researchers conclude from the above that the adaptations in stride kinematics to barefoot running are primarily due to changes in touchdown geometry and the subsequent joint movements during initial ground contact.

***

So what did the researchers conclude?

The researchers made the following conclusions:

• Running pattern changes – the researchers found a change in running pattern between barefoot and shod running, mainly characterised by a larger external loading rate and a flatter foot placement at touchdown.
• Actively induced adaptation strategy – the researchers found that in barefoot running, the joint configuration of the leg is already prepared in free flight by a larger plantar flexion, by more knee flexion and a larger knee flexion velocity and that this must therefore be actively performed.  I would add that for the avoidance of doubt, barefoot running came first!  Therefore, it is surely more appropriate to say that it is the shoe that is causing an active adaptation and not the other way around.  Better to say that wearing running shoes substantially changes the way that people run, leading to more heel striking and greater knee flexion in the stance position.
• Heel pressure is greater in shod running – the researchers found that in the barefoot condition there is a correlatio between a flatter foot placement and lower peak heel pressures.  Therefore, they assumed that runners adopt a flatter foot placement in barefoot running in an attempt to limit the pressure on the heel.

So to sum up a different way:

• The researchers found that wearing shoes changes the way you run, which running on soft surfaces or uneven surfaces does not.  So running with shoes on is not the same, conceptually, as running on foam or grass or whatever.
• Wearing shoes makes people start heel striking, which is associated with amateur or beginner runners.

Firstly, I reviewed an article about the differences between hormone responses to resistance exercise in younger and older men.  And then, last week, I looked at a review article that covered a range of studies on how resistance exercise helps older people reduce the effects of wha they perceive as ageing (but may actually be primarily inactivity).

And while there are dozens of studies around that talk about how older people can help reduce the effects of inactivity, I have not seen much discussion of how actual their biomechanical walking patterns change.

***

So what’s the study today?

The study today takes us on a journey to look at how the biomechanical walking pattern of people changes as they get older.  See if you can spot why it happens…

The study is rather optimistically called Biomechanical walking pattern changes in the fit and healthy elderly, by Winter, Patia, Frank and Walt, in Physical Therapy, 1990.  I say optimistically because I think they may be making some incorrect assumptions about what “fit” means in the context of older people.

***

So what is the point of the study?

Well, the reason for the study, of course, is to enable the researchers to understand more about why old people seem to fall down a lot as they get older.

In general, the investigation into old people and falls is rewarding quest undertaken by many noble researchers.  In the various studies I have read, some of them seem to really understand the fact that the people they are testing are simply inactive and weak.  Others, unfortunately, do not comprehend this idea at all and from those parties we get somewhat involved hand-wringing about the possibility of balance being harshly affected by age and other strange notions.

So what’s the connection between falls and walking?

***

Walking is falling over

The important thing to note about walking is that the initiation of walking itself from a standing position is fundamentally a destabilising motion.  The body’s centre of gravity is made to fall forward and only the moving forward of a foot stops the body from falling onto the ground.

When a number of steps have been taken with a normal gait, and we are in motion, the body is frequently in an unstable position, in that one foot is in the air.  The researchers note that this takes place 80% of the time.

The only time that there are two feet on the ground, one foot is pushing off the ground with considerable force while the other foot is accepting the full weight of the body.  In the case where the rear foot is pushing off and the front foot is bearing the weight, neither foot is flat on the ground, as the force in the rear foot is on the ball of the foot and the front foot takes much of the weight on the heel.

So, during normal walking, the body is in an inherent state of instability.

***

So what is hard about walking?

Our researchers describe two basic challenges to balance when walking:

• The upper body - since the upper body comprises about two-thirds of the average person’s body mass, and it’s centre of mass is about two-thirds of body-height above the ground, this unstable mass or “odd object” needs to be controlled.
• The foot - the foot presents an interesting challenge during the swing phase of gait, firstly as it needs to pass the other foot safely without hitting it (or the ground).  How many people do you know who have tripped over their own feet?  Quite a few.  And secondly, there needs to be a gentle foot landing so avoid damage to the foot or shock to the body that throws it off balance.

***

So how does the body prevent the upper body from falling forwards?

Well, it’s not the muscles around the ankle

While research has shown that the muscles controlling movement at the ankle are involved to control the upright posture when standing, they do not perform a similar role when walking, as the strength requirement would be too great.  It would look like a free-standing glute-ham raise or something out of the Matrix.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgbOcSqfGJk

Dodging bullets or forgetting how to walk properly?

***

So rather than require the ankle to do any real work when the upper body tips forward and the hip angle starts to close, the ankle muscles produce a small dorsiflexor moment to lower the foot into the ground, followed by a small plantar-flexor movement to control the forward leg.

***

It must be the hip and knee muscles, then

Indeed, that is correct.  But remember what we said just now about doing a standing glute-ham raise?  It is (or should be) the hip extensor muscles that intervene to prevent the upper body from falling forwards.

The hip extensor muscles are the gluteus maximus and the hamstrings.

***

So how does the body prevent the foot from catching on things?

With difficulty, to be honest.  Our intrepid researchers note that in other studies, the swing phase of gait has been shown to be executed with considerable precision, with average toe clearances of just 1 cm, and this clearance occurs while the horizontal velocity of the foot is at its highest.

So any degeneration in the fine motor control of the foot would naturally result in quite serious problems, including stumbling during the swing of the foot.

***

So what did the researchers do?

To help them measure the exact walking pattern of older people to see if there was a comon theme, they took 15 elderly subjects and stuck reflective markers on the following joint centers and segments: toe, fifth metatarsal, heel, lateral malleolus (ankle), head of the fibula, lateral epicondyle of the femur (knee), and greater trochanter (hip).

Then they got each subject to walk at their natural cadence on a level walkway a minimum of 10 times.  A video camera recorded the marker trajectories over the stride period.  Also, each subject walked over a force platform.

They used a control group of younger people so that they had a standard to measure against.

***

What did they find?

 The researchers found that:

• Cadence (number of steps per minute) - the natural cadence of these fit and healthy elderly adults was no different than that of the young adults.  This differed from previous studies, in that cadence was found to be lower in older people.  The researchers put this down to the fact that they had screened to find only “healthy” older people.
• Stride length – the stride length of the older people was significantly shorter, independent of whether it was stated in absolute terms or as a fraction of body height.
• Stance time (time spent with both feet on the ground) - associated with the shorter stride length was an increase in the stance time.  This was not large in absolute terms but it was statistically significant.
• Toe clearance - interestingly, the toe clearance for the elderly subjects was not statistically different from that of the younger adults.
• Index of upper body balance – the researchers measured the covariance of the moments about the knee and the hip, which is an index of how able the subjects are to control the upper body.  Ideally, from a mechanical point of view, it should be fairly close to 100%.  They found that the young subjects scored an average of 67% but the elderly subjects only scored 57%.  The researchers suggested that this means that the elderly are less able to make the shifts in the moment patterns on a stride-to-stride basis to control the balance of the upper body in the sagittal plane and at the same time maintain the extensor support moment.  I would suggest it means that the older people had a weaker posterior chain.
• Push off force – the push-off generation of force from the rear foot by the elderly subjects was considerably less than that of the younger subjects, which explains why their cadence was similar but their stride length was much shorter.  The researchers suggest two possible reasons for this: firstly, that it might have been done deliberately to reduce the potential for instability; and secondly, that it might be caused by a decrease in leg strength.

***

So what are the conclusions?

The researchers conclude that the important discoveries here were:

• The natural walking speed of the elderly subjects was significantly reduced but not because of cadence, but rather because of a reduction in stride length.
• Toe clearance in the elderly subjects was not significantly different from that of the younger adults.
• The index of upper body balance was reduced slightly in the elderly subjects.
• The push-off force was lower in the elderly subjects.

The researchers don’t try to conlude anything further from their work so let me paint a picture…

• Toe clearance – the fact that there is no change to toe clearance supports my view that when elderly people trip over, it is for the same reason that a younger person falls over.  It happens from time to time because the clearance is small and the foot is travelling quickly and people are not naturally very co-ordinated any more because we lead sedentary and unathletic lives (even our non-sedentary pursuits tend to be unathletic).  So why do old people fall more often and hurt themselves?  Because they are not strong and athletic enough to recover once they do lose their balance.
• Upper body balance – this is reduced because the hip extensors (gluteus maximus and hamstrings) weaken faster than the hip flexors and knee muscles (old man butt syndrome).
• Fit and healthy subjects – I think the biggest error that these researchers made was to assume that “active” by today’s standards was sufficient to provide an indication of a healthy elderly person.  I don’t agree with that.  I think that the exercise requirements necessry to produce a healthy elderly person are much more stringent and involve resistance training, not just the treadmill.  I believe that these subjects were weak because of a lack of muscle mass and proper exercise and therefore demonstrated poor walking patterns because of this, not because they were old.

So far this year, I’ve looked at Exercise Physiology and Human Physiology and now I’m going to take a look at Basic Biomechanics (affiliate links: UK, US).  But don’t worry if this is all really familiar to you.  As we progress through the year, I’ll get more specific and more focused on strength and power training.

Basic biomechanics on a bicycle

***

So what is biomechanics all about?

Biomechanics is simply the application of mechanical (i.e. physics-related) principles to human beings.

Research into biomechanics can be applied to many different areas, including sport, medical rehabilitation, occupations, ageing and age-related illnesses such as osteoporosis.

***

And what does this textbook cover?

 This textbook starts at the very beginning and works through the following topics:

Kinematic concepts – kinematics is concerned with the appearance of human movement.  This chapter introduces the anatomical reference position and outlines the directional terms that specify how to describe parts of the body in relation to other parts of the body (i.e. superior, inferior, anterior, posterior, etc.).  It also explains the planes of movement (sagittal, frontal and transverse) and the terminology for joint movement (abduction, adduction, etc.).

Kinetic concepts – this is an introduction to basic physical mechanics, including F = ma, definitions of force, pressure etc.  If you have a background in engineering or maths or physics you won’t read this chapter but if you have no idea what I have just written then you really need to stop reading this article and buy this book.

Biomechanics of bone growth – you’d be amazed how few people (including a few medical doctors I’ve asked!) know the contents of this chapter, which is simple review of the principles of bone growth, how bone responds to mechanical stress, Wolff’s law and osteoporosis.

Biomechanics of joints – this chapter explains the different types of joint and how they work and then runs through the basic ideas of flexibility and stability in that context.

Biomechanics of skeletal muscle – this is where I go each time I need to remind myself of the properties of muscle and how it is made up.  It’s useful to refresh the basics before diving into something complication, like discussions of myosin or titin etc.

Biomechanics of the upper extremities – for a simple overview of what the scapulae, shoulders, arms, elbows, wrists, hands and fingers are doing when they move, this is the place to go.  Some good information on typical injuries and pathologies here too.

Biomechanics of the lower extremities – and the same applies for the pelvis, legs, knees, shins, ankles feet and toes.

Biomechanics of the spine – obviously, this is not Stuart McGill level material here, but the basics are covered, including lordosis, kyphosis and scoliosis, as well as typical injuries, such as disc herniations and stress fractures.

Movement – the latter half of the book comprises various chapters on different types of movement and the mathmatical equations for describing them.  This includes the equations for describing linear movement and angular movement, equations for describing the forces and work done in linear and angular movement, equations for describing equilibrium of forces, torque and travel through a fluid medium.

If you have a background in engineering, physics or maths then you shouldn’t need these chapters except as a reminder (e.g. in the UK, if you did Mechanics 1 and 2 as A-level maths modules you should be OK).  If you don’t have a clue what any of this means then you might need to read this book if you want to understand what any of the biomechanics research I’ll be reviewing means…

***

Wrapping up

This is a great one-stop shop for quite a few important elements of sports science.  However, there is a lot of mechanics in it that people with science or engineering degrees will simply not need.  If you are one of those, you’d be better off with a kinetic anatomy book to provide the first half of this book (in better detail).

However, if you’re an arts graduate or you are turning white with horror at the idea of using maths at all, you might want to get hold of a copy of this book, as it is a very gentle introduction to these ideas!

I have decided I am not working hard enough on my overhead press day so I will probably put in a barbell row.  Might not go in exactly as before (Pendlay c. 130kg 8 x 2-3)  but will have to see.

***

Self experimentation

I started the following protocols after getting back from the Christmas holidays (so around 2 January):

• Vitamin D – 4,000IU in the morning - I am starting to think that this is not having very much effect.  I am considering trying increasing the dosage to 6,000IU to see what happens.
• No coffee – I am still drinking green tea constantly.

I started the following protocols about two weeks later:

• Single set of higher reps after press workout – I have started doing a single set of higher reps after my presses (both the 8 sets x 2-3 reps workout and the 6 sets x 4-5 reps workout).  I was pleased that it didn’t seem to impact on my dips performance.  I haven’t managed it every time, however, because it hasn’t become a habit yet.
• Sledgehammer levering – typically, I do some simple rehab band exercises while resting between sets of presses or squats (like band pull-aparts).  However, I decided to try something different between sets of squats the other day and ended up doing some sledgehammer levers.  This was fun so I am going to give it a run for a couple of weeks and see whether it affects anything else (positively or negatively).

***

Workouts plan for the week

Fri: Lower

• Back squat – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 160kg (7 x 3, 1 x 2)
• Shrugs – 8 sets of 3 reps – 230kg
• Hip thrusts – 3 sets of 5 reps – 130kg

Sat: Upper (A)

• Incline bench – 8 sets of 2-3 reps –84kg (8 x 3)
• Dumbbell incline bench rows – 8 sets of 8 reps – 80kg
• Overhead press – 6 sets of 3-5 reps – 56kg (6 x 3)
• EZ bar curl – 6 sets of 5-8 reps – 50kg (6 x 6)

Sun: Lower

• Back squat – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 160kg (8 x 3)
• Rack pull from below knee – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 195kg (8 x 3)

Mon: Upper (B)

• Overhead press – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 66kg (8 x 2)
• Barbell row – TBC
• Narrow grip chins – 6 sets of 3-6 reps – 30kg (6 x 3)
• Dips – 6 sets of 3-6 reps – 35kg (6 x 3)

Tues: Lower

• Back squat – 8 sets of 2-3 reps – 166kg (8 x 2)
• Shrugs – 8 sets of 3 reps – 230kg
• Hip thrusts – 3 sets of 5 reps – 130kg

Weds: REST

Thurs: Upper (A)

• Incline bench – 8 sets of 2-3 reps –87kg (8 x 2)
• Dumbbell incline bench rows – 8 sets of 8 reps – 80kg
• Overhead press – 6 sets of 4-5 reps – 56kg (1 x 4, 5 x 3)
• EZ bar curl – 6 sets of 5-8 reps -50kg (1 x 7, 5 x 6)

***

Pure and unadulterated lifting

• Donny Shankle gives his view on glute bridging exercises for weightlifters.
• And The Tight Tan Slacks of Dezso Ban has a great article by the original creator of complexes, Istvan Javorek.  I was recently curious about complexes because of the effect that Vasily Alexeyev reported.  Vasily noted that complexes were effective for gaining muscular bodyweight that was useful for weightlifting.  So Javorek writes that complexes are designed to improve and stimulate neuro-muscular coordination, increase the workout load and intensity, stimulate the skeletal muscular system, increase the cardiovascular benefits of the free-weight program and make the program more dynamic and efficient.
• And here’s some amazing stuff on the Olympic press from Charles Poliquin, including lots of history and some great footage of Paul Anderson.

Diet, paleo diet and evolutionary adaptations

• The key posts to check out this week are the first two parts of the Randy Roach interview at Rheo Blair.  Here are parts one and two.  For those not in the know, Randy is possibly the world’s greatest fitness historian and author of the great tome, Muscle, Smoke and Mirrors, a history of physical culture in modern times.  One of the most interesting points he makes in the second part is why he doesn’t use protein powders any more.  This is definitely worth your time.
• And Dr Davis, writing at Wheat Belly, points out that there is an amazingly strong coincidence between the introduction of the modern high-yield, semi-dwarf wheat in 1985 and the explosion in diabetes incidence.  Certainly, the graph of diabetes incidence does rocket upwards from 1985.  So whether it is the wheat strain or something else (HFCS?), I don’t know, but something happened back then…

Personal training and coaching

• Charles Poliquin exhumes the old case of Jim Fixx, the famous fitness fanatic and marathon runner who died of heart attack caused by a blocked artery.  He notes that in the wake of this fascinating incident, various other doctors (including the famous Tim Noakes) noted similar cases.  Charles quotes Dr Solomon, who made the important comment that “cardiovascular health refers to the absence of disease of the heart and blood vessels, not to the ability of an individual to do a certain amount of physical work.”  So I guess we need to be cautious about equating what we might see as “cardiovascular fitness” with “cardiovascular health”.

Stress, sleep and health

Purely about statins, those horrible pharmaceuticals

• Lots on statins this week, starting with this short article from Healthy Diets and Science, explaining some recent research that shows how statins increase the risk of diabetes in post-menopausal women by 48%.
• And another article from Healthy Diets and Science reporting on some slightly older research that concludes that statins show no benefit to the elderly in that they do not extending the life-span of an elderly person by even one day.
• And the statin manufacturers are in the firing line, as this article from Healthy Diets and Science shows.  The famous Jupiter trial of statins has been criticised for having significant holes in it.  The critics note that there were significant conflicts of interest for those involved in the study and despite this, the results demonstrate that the statins did not work.
• And if that list of problems isn’t enough to convince you to have stern conversation with your GP, check out this study reported again by the tenacious Healthy Diets and Science, which notes that statins can cause errectile disfunction!  It’s a French study, it would seem, which is stereotypical…

How sleep, stress and diet are connected

• Conditioning Research has pointed out an interested stress-related study that shows that getting fat increases the stress response, which then makes you fatter through hormonal changes.
• And similar thoughts are contained in Scott Abel’s blog about the psychosomatic effects of dieting.  I liked his coining of a new French Paradox, suggesting that the French are healthier than other nations because they take time over food and enjoy it.  Stress really is much more important for your health than food.
• Scientific American reports on how lack of sleep makes you hungrier.
• And Core Performance suggests some ways to help reduce the effects of stress when your work or boss are responsible for that stress.

Other interesting stuff

• The more I read, the more I realise that there is a strong tendency for medical scientists and medical professionals make out that they know a lot more about the human body than they actually do.  This fascinating report explains how the chemical imbalance theory often quoted in psychiatry is completely torn to pieces in the medical journals but presented as fact to patients.  It ultimately asks what I was wondering the other day.  Why  do we tolerate this kind of behaviour?

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That’s all folks.  More links next week.

So here is an interesting little study on how muscle architecture affects muscular growth and strength changes following resistance training and ageing.

Not this kind of architecture (photo by CarbonNYC)

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So what’s the study?

The study is called Disproportionate changes in skeletal muscle strength and size with resistance training and ageing, by Degens, Erskine and Morse, in Journal of Musculoskeletal and Neuronal Interactions, 2009.

The study is concerned with trying to understand better what actually affects the ability of a muscle to contract.  What is it that determines strength?  In particular, the researchers are keen to understand how strength relates to size.  After all, as many people are fond of saying “a bigger muscle is a stronger muscle”.

However, as our intrepid researchers point out, there is a problem with connecting strength to size from the very beginning.  Let’s break it down:

• Short-term resistance training has been shown on several occasions to increase muscular strength disproportionately to size increases (and this is supported by similar observations made by gym rats)
• While it has been suggested that increases in neural activation are responsible for this short-term increase without corresponding size increases, studies have not always shown this (this was new to me!)
• Similarly, the idea that short-term resistance training teaches the body to co-contract antagonist muscles to increase the maximum voluntary contraction of the agonist muscle has not been supported by studies.
• Few studies have looked at whether muscle architecture contributes anything to this debtate.

So let’s have a look at muscle architecture, then.

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So what is muscle architecture, anyway?

A key aspect of muscle architecture is the pennation angle.  A pennate muscle is a muscle where the fascicles attach to the tendon at an oblique angle, rather than in parallel with the tendon.

In terms of physics, the fact that the fascicles are attaching to the tendon at an oblique angle means that the force they generate is not going to be as effective as if the same muscle were set in parallel.

So the pennation angle is simply the angle between the fascicle and the line coming through the centre of the muscle.  A high pennation angle of the fascicles means that the muscle is going to have to be a lot stronger than a muscle with parallel fascicles to create the same force output at the joint.

In addition, because the fibres are arranged obliquely across the muscle rather than parallel to the centre of the muscle, this means that they are shorter than they would be if they ran all the way through the centre.  In consequence, they have fewer sarcomeres in parallel within the fibres.

Since the speed at which a muscle fibre can shorten is dependent on the number of sarcomeres in parallel it contains, pennate muscles have a slower shortening velocity than parallel fibres.

Finally, it is important to note that there are good reasons that muscle fascicles are arranged in a pennate and not a parallel fashion.  Firstly, note that it is easier to cram more fibres into the muscle in a pennate fashion than in a parallel fashion.  Secondly, the smaller distances that the fascicles contract makes for finer movement control.

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So why do we care about pennation angle, anyway?

Well, bear in mind that the increase in muscle size in response to strength training is often given as a change in the cross-sectional area of the muscle.  However, the measurement of the muscle cross-sectional area does not take into account any change in the pennation angle of the fascicles.

So if the pennation angle changes as a result of strength training, which it does, then measuring cross-sectional area will underestimate the increase in muscular size and potentially lead to the relationship between strength and size being underestimated.  All other things being equal, this would lead to us seeing that size increases lagged behind strength increases.

However, as the pennation angle increases, strength will be slightly reduced because the angle at which the muscle fibres attach to the tendon is changed for the worse.  All other things being equal, this would have the opposite effect and would lead to us seeing strength increases lagging behind size increases!  However, this factor does not seem to be significant.

Our researchers note that in another study, it has been reported that the increase in pennation angle in the vastus lateralis muscle following resistance training is only 2.7 degrees and such a change would result in a 1% loss of the force at the tendon.  This change was thought to be insignificant in the context of strength inreasing by 16%.

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Resistance training shifts fast twitch fibres to slow twitch fibres!

Moving away from pennation angle issue, the researchers now note several studies that appear to show that resistance training induces a fast-to-slow fibre type transition, which is also reflected by a shift in myosin heavy chain isoform composition from type IIx to IIa.

(Interestingly, I looked at this from a different perspective a while back when looking at the relationships between muscle structure and running economy.  Back then, it appeared that runners with greater proportions of type IIa and type IIb fibres were more efficient at higher speeds than runners with more type I fibres.  Similarly, differences in titin forms appeared to have an impact on economy.)

I will look at the key study on resistance training and the change in fibre types soon, so don’t get too hung up about this right now.  The main point is that (for beginners) even sets of 3-5 reps lead to a shift from type IIb to type IIa fibres.

(Again, not wanting to get too bogged down in muscle fibre type changes, I will note that this change does not appear to occur with plyometrics, as my article on muscle fibre changes and plyometrics shows.)

So if you consider that fast-twitch fibres are stronger than slower-twitch fibres, then increases in muscular size would come with a decrease in muscle power per fibre, which would lead to strength increases lagging size increases (all other things being equal, which they are clearly not!).

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Muscle fibre density increases with strength training

The researchers note that some studies show that resistance training leads to a greater myofibrillar packing density of muscle fibres.  All other things being equal, this would lead to size increases lagging behind strength increases.

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Ageing also changes muscle architecture!

Our intrepid researchers report that there is a decrease in pennation angle and fascicle length during ageing.  This clearly results in a number of changes in size and strength!

The smaller pennation angle in the elderly appears to make very little difference to strength, although technically it should lead to a small increase for the same size of muscle fibres.

Overall, our researchers note that changes in muscle size, neural activation and muscle architecture do not entirely explain the loss of strength during ageing.  The researchers propose that tension in the muscle fibres themselves may be responsible for the reductions.  Again, this reminds me of the study I reviewed about running economy and muscle elasticity and Bret’s post on titin that I referred to in that article.

As an aside here, I did a lot of work last year on trying to understand plyometrics (see a comparison of different plyometrics and muscle fibre changes and plyometrics).  After a lot of study, I got to the point where I respectfully disagreed with the idea that tendons can be trained to store elastic energy in any meaningful way.  They almost certainly do store elastic energy but whether you can train an athlete to increase that storage I think is difficult to show.  However, it does seem that you can train muscles to fulfil that role instead, which is quite exciting.

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Ageing changes tendon properties

The researchers note that ageing is associated with a decrease in the stiffness of tendons, so the muscles need to contract further to create the same force, as some force is lost in the system.  This could explain the higher losses of strength over size in the elderly.  Fortunately, our researchers note that resistance training has been shown to increase tendon stiffness again (I wonder whether this challenges my idea about plyometrics!).

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Wrapping up

There is a lot here and probably more questions than answers but that can be good from time to time!  The interesting questions that have come out of this for me are:

• How are elastic properties of muscles changing with resistance training and ageing?  Is there anything we can do to maximise these properties?
• How are tendon properties of muscles changing with resistance training and ageing?  Can we manipulate these properties in any way?
• How do different modes of resistance training change fibre types in beginners and experienced athletes?  Is this different from plyometrics?  Can we do anything to generate more fast-twitch hypertrophy rather than slower-twitch hypertrophy?  Does speed of movement make a difference?

Please let me know if you have any thoughts…

So it seemed only right to look at resistance training and older people this week.

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OK, what’s the study?

It’s called Effects of exercise training in the elderly: impact of progressive-resistance training on skeletal muscle and whole-body protein metabolism, by Roger Fielding, Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 1995.

I think it’s a pretty good basic starting point for any discussion of what happens to people physically as they get older.

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What’s the background?

A couple of basic points that are raised in the introduction are:

• Age-related decreases in cardiovascular and muscular ability (fitness and strength, to you and me) are paralleled by decreases in the actual physical cardiovascular and muscular systems themselves.
• Age-related declines in fitness and strength impinge on the ability to perform activities of daily living.
• Age-related declines in fitness and strength resemble the change in the cardiovascular and muscular systems that occur with bedrest or reduced activity.

To put that into other words: as you get old, you get weaker and less fit and this happens because of changes to your body.  Your muscles get smaller and your heart and lungs get less efficient.  This makes it harder to do things like carry your shopping, lift things off shelves and open tins.

However, what is happening to you looks suspiciously just like what happens to people when they get ill and have to stay in bed for several weeks without moving.  This makes scientists wonder whether what is happening to you is not really age-related but inactivity related.  In other words, if you got off the couch and did something, you might find you got fitter, stronger and more able again.

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What typically happens as people get old?

Well, let’s brainstorm a bit and just throw a few random things out there:

• Their metabolism slows down
• Their cardiovascular fitness decreases
• They walk slower
• They can’t open jars very easily
• They suffer diseases, including cancer

These are all things that Fielding discusses and he notes that there is good research to suggest that muscle loss affects all of them, as follows:

• Their metabolism slows down – Fielding explains that the decline in metabolic rate is almost entirely explained by a loss of skeletal muscle mass (Longitudinal changes in basal metabolic rate in man, by Tzankoff and Norris, in Journal of Applied Physiology, 1978).
• Their cardiovascular fitness decreases - the decline in muscle mass observed with age, Fielding notes, can explain approximately 50% of the age-related decline in maximal oxygen uptake (Role of muscle loss in the age-associated reduction in V O2-max, by Flegg and Lakatta, in Journal of Applied Physiology, 1988).
• They walk slower - Fielding notes a study that shows how in a sample of men and women aged 65 years and older, there was a significant inverse relationship between the muscle strength of the foot and age.  Also, the customary walking speed was related to the muscle strength of the foot.  So decreases in strength led to decreases in walking speed (Muscle strength in the triceps surae and objectively measured customary walking activity in men and women over 65 years of age, Bassey, Bendall, Pearson, Clinical Science, 1988).
• They can’t open jars very easily – Fielding explains that the age-related decline in skeletal muscle mass has been shown to partially explain the age-related declines in isometric handgrip strength (The role of muscle loss in the age-related decline of grip strength: cross-sectional and longitudinal perspectives, Kallman, Plato, Tobin, Journal of Gerontology 1990).
• They suffer diseases, including cancer – Fielding is also slightly sheepish about the fact that the loss of lean body mass appears to affect disease outcome in patients with chronic illness.  It is interesting, though, that I was also a bit wary just reporting this, as it seemed somewhat hokey.  However, thinking about it, the more robust and healthy the body is, surely the better the chance it has of surviving something like cancer? (Prognostic effect of weight loss prior to chemotherapy in cancer patients, DeWyss, Begg, Lavin, American Journal of Medicine, 1980).

It’s surprising how much of it comes back to the loss of muscle mass, isn’t it?

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But does resistance training work on elderly people?

Fielding suggests that the loss of muscle mass and strength “may not be an inevitable part of the ageing process but may, in fact, be more related to changes in habitual activity patterns which accompany advancing age.”

Let’s look at some of the evidence that he has produced…

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Weightlifters better off than runners or swimmers

Fielding notes a study called Function, morphology and protein expression of ageing skeletal muscle: a cross-sectional study of elderly men with different training backgrounds, Klitgaard, Mantoni, Schiaffino, Ausoni, Gorza, Laurent-Winter, Schnohr, Saltin, Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 1990.

In this study, the researchers reported that 69-year old men who had been strength-training approximately 12-17 years had muscle mass that was significantly greater than swimmers or runners of the same age.

What’s more, the researchers were surprised to find that the muscle mass of the strength-trained 69-year olds was in fact similar to the muscle mass of the young controls… because that’s not supposed to happen…

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Muscle is harder to gain than strength for the elderly

Fielding notes that in a study called Potential for gross muscle hypertrophy in older men, by Moritani and DeVries, Journal of Gerontology, 1980 the researchers trained 5 healthy 70-year old men for 8 weeks using a weight that was 66% of their 1RM of their elbow flexors.

The 70-year old men enjoyed a 23% increase in the strength of their elbow flexors but were disappointed that their guns did not get any bigger…

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But muscle can definitely be gained

Fielding notes that in Strength conditioning in older men: skeletal muscle hypertrophy and improved function, by Frontera, Meredith, O’Reilly, Knuttgen, Evans, in Journal of Applied Physiology, 1988, researchers examined the effects of a high-intensity dynamic-resistance training programme in healthy 64-year old men.

The old men performed knee flexion and extension exercises 3 days a week at 80% of the 1RM, using 8-10 reps for 12 weeks.  The researchers saw that the old men experienced a 107% increase in knee extensor strength and a 226% increase in knee flexor strength.

In addition, the researchers observed an 11% increase in muscular cross-sectional area, clearly demonstrating muscular hypertrophy.

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Food intake key to muscular hypertrophy in the elderly 

In the same study by Frontera et al (cited above), half the subjects were given a nutritional supplement during the training programme which provided an additional 2343 kJ (c. 580 kcal) per day.

Interestingly, Fielding notes that there were no differences in strength gains between the old men who ate the extra food and those who did not.  However, the old men who ate the extra food had much greater increases in body weight and muscle cross-sectional area.  Fielding concludes that dietary intake may influence the magnitude of changes in body composition as a result of strength-training in the elderly.

I guess we would suggest that this is obvious but I would be intrigued to see a study done with both young and old men, with and without extra calories, to see whether the difference between groups was as great with young men as with the older men.

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And it works on women, too

Fielding points to the study Muscle hypertrophy response to resistance training in older women, Charette, McEvoy, Pyka, Snow-Harter, Guido, Weswell, Marcus, Journal of Applied Physiology, 1991, which confirmed that dynamic-resistance training in healthy elderly women of 69 years old resulted in significant increases in muscle strength (28-115%) and a 20% increase in muscle fibre cross-sectional area.

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Conclusions

Fielding says, “the capacity for senescent muscle to respond to overload persists and (resistance training) should be considered an effective strategy for restoring muscle function in the healthy elderly population.”

In other words, doctors should be prescribing resistance exercise to old people.  Why are they not doing?

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OK but what about really frail, old people?

So you think you’re too old?  Just how old are you?

Fielding is delighted to report on a study called High-intensity strength training in nonagenarians: effects on skeletal muscle. Fiatarone, Marks, Ryan, Meredith, Lipsitz, Evans, Journal of the American Medical Association, 1990.

This study examined 10 frail elderly men and women with an average age of 90 years!  The old men and women performed knee extension exercises for 8 weeks, 3 times a week, using 3 sets at 80% of their 1RM.

Following 8 weeks of training a 174% increase in the 1RM of the knee extensors was observed along with a 9% in muscle cross-sectional area.  The old men and women also improved their walking speed by 48%!

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That was a small sample size, it might be a chance result…

OK, if you think that 10 people is a poor sample size, let’s look at a bigger one…

Some of the same researchers worked on a bigger study, with 100 frail nursing home residents, called Exercise training and nutritional supplementation for physical frailty in very elderly people, Fiatarone, O’Neill, Ryan, Clements, Solares, Nelson, Roberts, Kehayias, Lipsitz, Evans, in New England Journal of Medicine, 1994.

In this study, the researchers reported a 113% increase in muscle strength and a 2.7% increase in muscle cross-sectional area in response to a 10-week programme of resistance training.

In a delightful, throwaway comment, the researchers noted that “in addition to the measured gains in musculoskeletal strength, spontaneous physical activity in the strength-trained group increased 35%.”  What a great thing to observe!

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Conclusions

Fielding asserts that these studies suggest that “even in frail elderly subjects, the capacity for muscle strength increases and hypertrophy is still maintained.”

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Wrapping up

While there will be nothing surprising to many regular readers here, it never ceases to amaze me how we can read reviews or studies like this on the one hand and yet on the other hand allow our parents and grandparents to slide gradually into dependence and inactivity.

At what point will we as a society realise that what we have come to describe as the “inevitable” effects of ageing are in fact simply the effects of inactivity?  At what point will doctors start agitating for their patients to use resistance training?  Why are they not reading the research?  Or are they reading it but they can’t see a reliable way of making it happen?

Conditioning Research is a blog that has become a mine of fascinating and useful information, covering the latest discoveries (and some quirky older ones) about strength, fitness and health.  It received the honour of being named Outside’s tenth fitness blog in its list of the Top Ten Fitness Blogs.

So without further ado, let’s get stuck in.

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It’s called Hillfit.  Why is that?

It’s all about getting fit in a way that enables you to spend more time in the hills.

Chris lives in Scotland and he is an avid walker.  Rarely a weekend goes by without him updating his other blog – Cairn-in-the-mist (a completely appropriate description for a blog about walking in Scotland, might I add) – with photos of the hills and mountains he explores while other, more sensible souls, are languishing in their beds.

He enjoys rooting around in the undergrowth of strength and conditioning science but his real passion is hillwalking.  His personal quest for greater fitness is driven by his desire to make his walking experiences easier and more fun.

The Cairngorms in May 2008 (my photo)

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So it’s about getting fit for walking?

Well, yes and no.

Chris doesn’t waste time talking about all the aspects of walking fitness that you can read anywhere else.  Ever since the 1980s jogging and aerobics phenomenon, everyone knows how to get their heart pumping and their lungs working.

Chris uses this book to make the very important point that strength is also a key aspect of fitness, even walking fitness.  He then develops this point by providing a very short, specific strength-training routine.

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So what’s in the book?

Just to give you a taste, here are the main section headings.  I have to say that Chris pitches his discussions of these subjects in a very clear and concise way.  When you are deep in your subject matter, like he is, it is very difficult to write accurately and in a way that lay-people can understand and Chris achieves it incredibly well.

• Why this booklet? – Chris explains why he wrote this booklet and why strength is important for walkers.
• Who is this programme for? – Chris discusses who his ideal audience is, which given that so few people do strength training, is probably pretty much everyone who gets out in the hills.
• Why strength for a walker? – Strength makes everything else easier, notes Chris.
• The health benefits of strength training – A welcome brief diversion in this chapter from the discussions of strength and hillwalking, Chris explains some of the advantages of strength training that few people outside of the strength and conditioning community know.
• How to get stronger – Chris explains the basic overload principle.
• Exercise vs. activity: you still need to walk! – Chris broaches the subject of movement skills and the specificity of fitness in movement.
• Performance principles – Chris runs through his recommendations for approaching strength training.
• Exercise selection – Chris explains why he has chosen the exercises he recommends in his Hillfit strength routine.  I will respect his intellectual property and won’t reveal all of the details!  However, I have to say that I think that the inclusion of the glute bridge is absolutely essential to help groove the hip hinge, to assist with the prevention of knee injury and to improve core stability.
• The hillfit strength routine – Chris details the routine for people to follow.
• Warming up or stretching the truth? – A common theme at Conditioning Research, Chris explains why he doesn’t like static stretching.  The key point, of course, is that strength allows muscles to provide joints with the stability they need and this often results in better mobility than before.
• Beyond strength – Chris suggests some other areas that a walker can improve, including gait, sleep and posture.
• References and resources – as you might imagine, I was particularly delighted with the references and resources section and I will very much enjoy diving into this chapter in more detail when I have the time.  Thanks for putting this section together, Chris, it is very much appreciated!

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Who will like it?

That’s a really interesting question that is more about the state of the public mindset when it comes to fitness and activity than anything else.  A better question might be: who would benefit from it?

The Cairngorms in May 2008 (my photo)

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Frankly, everyone who gets out regularly into the hills will benefit from including some strength training in their routines.  And Hillfit is the only product on the market that aims to persuade them to do just that.

Because of that, it has to come highly recommended.  So if you know someone who is a keen walker or hiker, please point them in the direction of Hillfit and let’s get strength training into the hillwalking community.