Matt Metzgar

The Lifelift

I think the deadlift is one of the most underrated exercises in the world.  Along with the squat, it is also one of the most productive exercises in the world.  It engages almost all the major muscle groups in the body.

At the local gym, I have only seen maybe one or two other people ever performing deadlifts.  For me, I find it invaluable.  I've noticed that if I stop deadlifting heavy, my weight will slowly start to creep up.  I'm betting this is because the amount a person can deadlift is highly correlated with the amount of muscle mass they have.  So without the deadlift, my body has less reason to hold onto lean mass, and the incoming calories are instead diverted to fat mass.

I think the name "deadlift" probably doesn't help with its appeal.  Hence, I propose that it should be called the "lifelift" instead.  This is because it can help a person retain lean mass as they age, which keeps their metabolism up and their body fat down. 

Exercise Motivation

I came across this very nice article on exercise motivation.  It points out how the "no pain, no gain" paradigm is essentially flawed as a long-run motivational tool.  It also chronicles the success of college football coach John Gagliardi, who uses a very autonomous system of coaching.

Gagliardi's program is essentially hands-off, removing all the external motivational techniques and instead relying on players' natural passion for the game.  He uses no whistles, no lap running, no tackling in practice, no mandatory weight-lifting.  Instead, the players line up and play touch football during practice, running plays until they are working smoothly.  As for the results, Gagliardi is college football's all-time leader in wins and hasn't had a losing season in 39 years.

So what's better for exercise motivation, cracking the whip or stoking the fire within?  Obviously, cracking the whip can work in the short-term, but exercise and health are lifetime concerns.  It's better to be nice to yourself if you want a long, healthy life.

Basic Instinct

This last Sunday, I went to the track to run some intervals.  On the very first run, something just didn't feel right.  My legs felt like cement and I was slower than usual. 

I was overcome with the feeling that I should just pack it in and skip the workout.  However, I was "scheduled" to run that day, so I proceeded and kept running.  I paid the price for this, feeling less-than-good over the next few days. 

My body was trying to tell me that it wasn't ready for that workout - but I chose not listen.  It's far too easy to fall into a robotic training program.  But the body isn't a machine; there are natural peaks and valleys, highs and lows in energy levels over the course of time. 

The idea of perioidization has been around for decades and has been shown to be more effective than consistent, high-level training.  Yet even scheduled periodization probably isn't as effective as listening to the body's natural instincts.  After all, the body is in charge - if you continually push it past its limits, it will rebel through injury, illness, or just general malaise.

In the future, I am going to try to listen to my body more and listen less to my "smart" ideas.

Frank Zane

Speaking of retaining lean mass through the aging process, I came across this recent photo of former three-time Mr. Olympia winner Frank Zane at age 64.  This picture shows how proper resistance training can stop the normal decline in muscle mass.

Retaining Lean Mass

I've been looking a little deeper into a landmark study that compared exercise volume, aging, and body composition.  The study showed that in older subjects who maintained a high exercise volume and consumed enough food, their resting metabolic rate did not decline.  This is quite extraordinary, but I was also struck by other parts of the study.

The study looked at sedentary and active men in two age groups, young and older.  What was noticeable to me is that young, sedentary men had a significantly higher metabolic rate than older, active men.  The difference added up to about 182 more calories per day being burned by the younger group at rest. 

To me, this says that the older active individuals start each day "in the hole", so to speak, by 182 calories.  And even given their high level of activity, they still only averaged 17% body fat in the study, the same amount as the young, sedentary group.

The key difference in the two groups was the amount of fat-free mass, as the younger men had almost 9 pounds more.  Fat-free mass is the primary determinant of resting metabolic rate, so this made the difference for these two groups.

All this points to the importance of retaining fat-free mass during the aging process.  Otherwise, a person has to keep doing more and more activity just to keep body fat from increasing.  Resistance training is the only method that can truly stop the age-related decline in fat-free mass, and the associated age-related decline in resting metabolism.

New Rules of Lifting

I picked up a new book the other day, "The New Rules of Lifting" by Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove.  I usually don't expect to find anything revolutionary in fitness books, but I always hope to learn something.

The book's main focus is to simplify weightlifting into essential movements.  The authors note Schmidt's theory of human movement and focus on six core movements:

• Squat
• Bend (deadlift)
• Lunge
• Push
• Pull
• Twist

The idea is that all these moves are functional, and represented important actions for hunter-gatherers.  They also advocate the use of free weights as compared to machines, as, of course, all hunter-gatherer movements were using something approximating "free weights."

I think focusing on these six movements is beneficial.  My usual workout consists of three movements: bend, push, and pull.  I've really never done much with lunging or twisting, but I will try to include these movements in future workouts.

Overall, the book was a pretty good read.  The authors know that there's no real "secret" to lifting, and they don't make such claims.  I felt this book did a good job of showing how simple weight workouts can really be.

Have It Your Way?

I saw in the news today that Burger King is being sued for not switching to a trans fat-free oil quick enough.  Apparently the chain has been testing replacement oils, but a nutrition advocacy group is seeking more immediate action.

I have zero sympathy for Burger King.  Researchers have been presenting evidence for years on how bad trans fat are.  And fast food chains were doing nothing until advocacy groups began to push the issue. 

You can look at it from the other perspective and say that consumers aren't being forced into eating fast foods and that they are at fault.  But what about a business's responsibility to the community?  If a business is putting out an unhealthy product, aren't they at fault? 

Last year, New York City voted to ban trans fat in their city.  The time has come for a federal, nationwide ban on trans fat.  And I'm sure if you put it up for a vote, Americans would like to have it this way: NO TRANS FAT!

Runners and Body Weight

Here's a recent study(pdf) by Weyand and Davis that looks at the relationship between running distance and body weight.  As I've mentioned previously, we know that distance runners and sprinters have similar amounts of body fat, but different total weights.  The Weyand study shows this to be true by looking at top performers at various track distances and recording their running weight.

Sprinters, covering distances of 100, 200, and 400 meters, all weighed roughly the same.  After that, there was a bid dropoff in weight for top 800 meter runners.  Weights continued to decline with distances through to 10,000 meters.

The authors conclude that greater running force is needed for the sprint distances, and hence a more muscular frame that can generate this force is necessary. 

Transformations

I stumbled upon this website that lists many stories on physical transformations.  A lot of the stories are really good; these people trained hard with weights and cardio and made some incredible changes.  This isn't like the normal junk you see in magazines with the supplement ads.

One thing I was surprised at was the how often these people trained.  The majority of them trained 6 times a week or more during the transformations.  I am usually in the "less is more" camp as far as high-intensity exercise, but this goes to show that there are many roads to getting into shape.

All The World's A Democracy

Recently I've noticed that the ESPN website, among others, has been allowing comments on most of their stories.  At first, I thought this was a pretty neat feature, but once I began to read through the comments, it was pretty disappointing.

Overall, the comments seem to be of little value to me.  A good number of the commenters can't spell, don't make any sense, and seem to be more concerned with battling other commenters than saying anything worthwhile.  How does this add any value to reader of these stories?  Isn't that point of having a professional news website, is that you hire professionals to write intelligently about events?

For any news organization or website, either the stories are worth reading or they're not.  Giving someone the opportunity to air their half-baked opinion doesn't make the stories any better.