Matt Metzgar

Biological Basis

As has been noted elsewhere, children naturally enage in play activities that would have prepared them for adulthood in hunter-gatherer societies.  Given that, I wanted to list the high frequency physical activities I see in my children.  The most frequent activity is walking, though that is obvious.

The second most frequent activity would probably be running/sprinting in shorts burts.  This happens dozens and dozens of times on a daily basis.

Next up would be body weight squats to pick up something light or to move under something.

The next activity would be some sort of climbing, over objects (or people).

Deadlifts happen on a daily basis, but it is always to pick up light weight objects.  I don't really see a strong drive in either gender to pick up objects that weigh even a quarter as much as bodyweight.

So to summarize, the most frequent activities are:

1. Walking
2. Running/Sprinting
3. Body weight squats
4. Climbing
5. Light deadlifts

You could extend this line of thinking and say that there is a biological basis for performing these activities, no matter what the age.  If adults engaged in these particular activities, I think it would make a very nice fitness program.

Something to note from all this is that the activities are primarily geared towards mobility and locomotion, and not as much towards strength.  Though there is a desire to pick up light objects in children, the frequency is relatively low compared to the movement activities.

External Rotation of the Leg

This last week I had some low back pain creep in, so I reread Esther Gokhale's book to get to the bottom of it.  One of the more valuable things I found was the part on external leg rotation.  It is summarized here. 

The idea is that if the legs collapse inward, it can put stress all the way up the chain - on the knees, on the back, etc.  I started focusing on this external rotation again, and then voila, no more back pain.  It was a classic case of the problem not really being the back, but something earlier in the posture chain.

So if you went to a medical professional for low back pain, how many would ask to check your leg rotation?  Not that many I'm afraid.  And so go the problems in looking at physical problems in isolation from the whole unit.

Posture to Prevent Sarcopenia?

I was watching a clip from Esther Gokhale's new TV show:

and was interested in the part on muscle activiation.  In the video, a lady used to have a "flat butt", but now after better posture no longer does.  The posture approach is much different than what you would read about in a usual fitness magazine. 

I have even seen this referred to as "gluteal amnesia".  The prescription is often to due squats or different types of exercises.  But how about fixing posture instead as a simple approach to the problem?  If you begin to stand and walk correctly, then you are using your glutes (and other muscles) frequently on a daily basis.  If you do glute exercises but still have bad posture, then your glutes are still dormant most of the day.

I also wonder if this idea could be extended to sarcopenia in general.  Perhaps poor posture leads to lessened use of the muscles on a daily basis and thus contributes to sarcopenia in the long run. 

What's the Right Way to Squat?

I read this interesting question on the squat answered by Lee Saxby:

"Dear Lee,

I always thought with squats that you wanted to keep your knees behind your toes and weight on heels to protect your knees. Thoughts on the different approach? You feel it’s healthy for knees?

Thanks!  Ryan

Ryan,

Conventional squatting wisdom is as you describe. This is based on emg studies /muscle activation. Biomechanically the body is designed to absorb high loads through the ball of the foot. To illustrate my point just jump up and down in barefoot and feel what happens.

Regards,  Lee Saxby"

Saxby advocates body weight squats where the weight is balanced over the ball of the foot.  Some of what he is saying relates to my squat experiment the other month.  I learned a trick to doing the primal squat is to put the hands on the floor by the feet, and then squat down.  This keeps your hips from moving too far backwards when you start to squat.  In essence, when you squat your hips are coming down almost vertically.

This is in contrast to a barbell squat, where the advice is normally to move your hips backwards to create leverage.

I would also note that when I see when my children squat, the hips tend to go straight down instead of going backwards.

So what's the right way to squat?  First, you have the issue of whether heavy weighted squats are even a natural movement.  In any natural setting, a deadlift will be tend to more efficient for lifting than a squat.

So perhaps there are two ways to squat - have the hips go straight down if it's a bodyweight squat and have the hips go backwards if it's a weighted squat?  That seems like a stretch though. 

Or maybe the barbell squat with hips going backwards is just not a natural (or even safe) movement? Some would say this is blasphemy!

A video showing the difference (though her heels should be on the floor in the second squat which is too exaggerated):

Or the two are compared in this goofy video:

Is Close to Failure Close Enough?

I have been rereading Doug McGuff's book, "Body By Science", the last couple nights.  I think he makes a good case for his method of training and shows that it can work.  However, it did trigger some questions for me.

The first question is the exclusive use of going to positive failure in all exercises.  As a client gets bigger and stronger, advice is given to reduce frequency or to reduce the number of exercises.  But never is there any advice to stop short of failure.  This is strange in my view, as research shows not-to-failure training is effective.

I think the book makes a convincing case that if you train to failure each session, than training once a week is optimal for the majority of the population.  This is problematic for me since hunter-gatherers "exercised" 2 to 4 nonconsecutive days per week.  All this would then suggest that hunter-gatherers would not have trained to failure on a regular basis, and so therefore this exercise model doesn't line up with the evolutionary model.  Again, I'm not saying the model is flawed, just that it's not strictly Paleo.

Training to failure provides a clear sign that there is muscular fatigue.  If you stop short of failure, then you can never be sure if the person would have failed on the next rep, or the rep after that, etc.  So what other marker can be used to quantify muscular fatigue?

A new study suggests that loss of velocity is one such indicator.  It shows the loss of velocity on a movement correlates with markers of metabolic stress and fatigue.

Therefore, a more Paleo type of lifting routine could consist of training not to failure, multiple times per week, and using loss of speed as a marker of when to stop a set.

Fetal Programming II

I should point out as a followup to the previous post that I don't think fetal programming is all doom and gloom.  I just think a better approach is needed: exercise in a fasted state.

Intermittent fasting by itself has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity.  But I believe the real benefits kick in when you combine exercise with fasting, as was shown in a study last year.  A recent study in rats also showed that the combination of exercise and fasting improved insulin sensitivity more than exercise or fasting alone.  Then you have the case studies over at Leangains showing that this can indeed work in people.

I would also add that I think low-carb diets are send a fasting-like signal to the body, but they are not as efficient as plain fasting.  I think when the body gets low on glucose, it is interpreted as a signal that food is scarce.  In Paleolithic times, this happened when there was no food available.  Today, this may happen after following a low-carb diet for a while.

If you're fasting and then exercising, you are putting your body in more of a short-term calorie deficit than if you are eating a low-carb diet and then exercising.  By this alone, I think a fasted exercise session would be superior to a low-carb exercise session.

Fetal Programming

I just came across a great new study that shows how exercise benefits some people much more than others.  The study compared people born to mothers with type 2 diabetes versus controls.  After 9 days of intense exercise training, both groups had improvement in mitochondrial function.  However, only the control group showed a large decrease in insulin levels and an improvement in insulin sensitivity.

All this shows the importance of fetal programming in my mind.  As I wrote about last year, metabolic issues are being passed on to future generations, and this can be tough to overcome with exercise alone.

Squat Recap

In April, I set a goal to achieve a deep, flat-footed barefoot squat.  I said I would report back in May, so this is my report.  My goal was to able be to hold the squat for one minute.

The first two weeks of April is where I gave it the most attention and also made the most progress.  By mid-April, I had acheived my goal.  My only remaining issue was that my feet and knees had a tendency to cave in due to limited flexibility (in other words, it was very difficult to do with feet pointed straight ahead).  I tried some solutions on that, but honestly I got busy with other things.

The good news is that the improvement in mobility appears to be permanent.  I purposely took a couple days off and then tried the deep squat again.  It was no problem.  So two weeks of dedicated practice seems to have produced a permanent increase in mobility - that seems like a good deal to me.

At some point, I will work on the squat again and try to get that last area of flexibility straightened out.  Overall, this was a successful experiment.  Putting a timeline on it, and also making the goal public helped me get it done.

The photographic evidence is below.  (I would put up a video of me holding the squat for one minute, but that would have to be the world's most boring video.)

 

Outdoor Weight Lifting

I planned on lifting weights yesterday, but it was just a beautiful day outside.  So I had a choice: either do some deadlifts in the garage, or try something creative outdoors.  Doing deadlifts in the garage (by yourself) is kind of like taking a vitamin: you do it for health reasons but it's not that exciting.

After writing about the weight training disconnect the other week, I decided to take my own advice.  I carried some barbell plates to a grassy area.  There I did the farmers walk (barefoot), carrying the plates for a bit and then throwing them down.  After that, I would sprint over to a tree and back.  Then repeat the whole cycle.

It turned out to be a great workout.  I felt great afterwards and also today.  There is something about lifting outdoors that is very energizing.

Arnold did a lot of outdoor lifting at Muscle Beach in the 70s.  I also read where they would cart free weights to the woods and lift there as well.  I will continue with the outdoor lifting this summer.

 

A Barefoot Question II

I was just reading through a new paper, "Organic Fitness: Physical Activity Patterns Compatible with our Hunter Gatherer Genetic Legacy", by O'Keefe et al. I found this section interesting:

"Individuals walked or ran on natural surfaces, such as grass and dirt, and often on uneven ground; our ancient ancestors almost never walked or ran on solid flat rock. The combination of softer natural walking/running surfaces and less biomechanically restrictive shoes is a more evolutionarily congruent strategy to reduce impact loading of the joints."

This looks like another vote for running barefoot on trails instead of pavement.