Tate: "I Hate The Deadlift"

The BLUF:
His answer, while classic Louie, just made me hate the deadlift more, “You were never strong enough to have a grip problem before.”

Great read from Dave Tate.  And if you are into learning how to deadlift, or to do it better, the videos at the end of the article are excellent.
There was ONE day where I almost liked the deadlift, but as usual with the deadlift, that got shot down. I have no idea why, but at a local Ohio meet back in 2002, I pulled my 650-pound opener and it was easy (it always was). I then jumped to 720 pounds for a PR total. Normally I would call it a day and pass the third, but the 720 was really easy. This isn’t “powerlifer talk” it was seriously really easy. I called for 770 pounds on my third attempt for  a 30 pound PR. The bar flew up and right before lockout without even slowing down, my right hand popped open and the bar hit the floor.
At this point, I did the infamous “hand stare.” You’ve seen it. You may have actually done it. This is when you drop a pull and look at your hands like WTF just happened.
I was totally confused and did the hand stare for what seemed to be 20 minutes until Louie finally walked over and said, “Your pulls looked really good.” I asked him what the hell happened to my grip. His answer, while classic Louie, just made me hate the deadlift more, “You were never strong enough to have a grip problem before.”
http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/powerlifting-articles/why-i-hate-the-deadlift/

In other words, weakness is relative - and yes, I just called a guy who couldn't hold onto a 770 pound bar "weak". 

NYT Shows You How To Run Wrong

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/11/06/magazine/06running-vertical.html?ref=magazine
Nope - check out the advice to extend the leg behind, and to have "drive" from the hips.

From the perspective I advocate, a leg extended behind is a guarantee of inefficiency, and there is no "drive" - there is only falling.  Either way, you will find little succes in improving your movement via only learning a new concept of running, although that is a good place to start.  What must follow, for success, is a process of learning accurate perception of where your body actually is in space.  My presecription:  Drills, video, coaching.

Running

We were once the greatest endurance runners on earth. We didn’t have fangs, claws, strength or speed, but the springiness of our legs and our unrivaled ability to cool our bodies by sweating rather than panting enabled humans to chase prey until it dropped from heat exhaustion. Some speculate that collaboration on such hunts led to language, then shared technology. Running arguably made us the masters of the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/magazine/running-christopher-mcdougall.html?_r=4

“The data suggests up to 79 percent of all runners are injured every year,” says Stephen Messier, the director of the J. B. Snow Biomechanics Laboratory at Wake Forest University. “What’s more, those figures have been consistent since the 1970s.” Messier is currently 11 months into a study for the U.S. Army and estimates that 40 percent of his 200 subjects will be hurt within a year. “It’s become a serious public health crisis.”
Nothing seems able to check it: not cross-training, not stretching, not $400 custom-molded orthotics, not even softer surfaces. And those special running shoes everyone thinks he needs? In 40 years, no study has ever shown that they do anything to reduce injuries. On the contrary, the U.S. Army’s Public Health Command concluded in a report in 2010, drawing on three large-scale studies of thousands of military personnel, that using shoes tailored to individual foot shapes had “little influence on injuries.”

How To Get Depressed

OK, perhaps the title is a bit excessive, but there's an interesting point in this write up:

Across all the studies, results showed that those who rated their own performance as much higher than it actually was were significantly more likely to feel dejected. “Distress following excessive self-praise is likely to occur when a person’s inadequacy is exposed, and because inaccurate self-assessments can prevent self-improvement,” said co-author Chi-Yue Chiu, of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/too-much-undeserved-self-praise-can-lead-to-depression

Obviously there's a causality question here - are people who are less secure more likely to be depressed, and avoid it by puffing themselves up?  Or, is the causality as stated - puffing oneself up is a set up for a fall? 

Interestingly, there are other variables - some people who are competent seem to thrive when they repeat negative messages to themselves.  No matter what they do, they still focus on what that fail at, or what they miss the mark at.  No self help guru, though, would advise that course of action.  They typically advise people to celebrate their accomplishments, to "anchor" in the feelings of success.  No one, however, would advocate self deception as the means to a fuller enjoyment of life, so perhaps this study only confirms what we all know anyway.

In my experience, for people to desire improvement, people need to perceive inadequacy, to a degree - or as Peter Senge termed it in The Fifth Discipline, awareness of a gap between the physical condition they would like to be in and the physical condition they perceive they are in.  They need to believe they can close the gap between where they are and where they "should" be.  They have to have a degree of hunger for improvement which exceeds their perception of how difficult it will be to improve.  Those are necessary preconditions, but they are not sufficient to cause changes in behavior.  There could be any number of other barriers which might inhibit a person's motive to become more fit.  If you are that person, trying to get started on getting fit, you must identify the barriers and find ways to remove them or diminish their impact. 

Consider, however, the person that is not in shape, but thinks that they are.  What happens when that person is confronted with the reality of their condition?  In other words, this article highlights the expression "the truth hurts." 

If you've been struck by an upleasant truth lately as regards your health or fitness, the obvious question is "what do I do about it?"

First, use objective measures of truth - for weight, that means a scale and a tape, either one alone tells you much less than when they are used together.  If you can only use one objective measure, use a tape of your waist. 

Two - establish a motivating goal, and identify what portion of that goal you are willing to attempt to accomplish.  For those in the throes of the full catastrophe of life, I do not recommend an attempt on Mount Everest.

Three - take action now towards accomplishing your goal

Four - mark and celebrate every accomplishment on the road to your goal

Five - continuously learn how to get yourself to work towards the outcomes you want.  Read on the subject of interest, at least weekly. Find others with the same interest and work together. 

Six - learn to identify and remove your unconscious inhibitions to change (like believing you cannot succeed based on prior attempts to change which were unsucessful). 

Seven - seek out help.  There is a burgeoning industry of what is termed a "life coach", and these are people who specialize in training the rest of us how to "manipulate ourselves."  Can't quit eating pizza?  Can't stop watching TV?  Can't get yourself to workout for any consistent length of time?  These folks help you deal with that sort of thing and more. 

A an example I've heard of that captures the idea behind this approach to change describes the conscious mind as the elephant rider and the unconscious mind as they elephant.  One has massive power but a dim perception of external reality.  The other has a clearer perception of reality, but virtually no power to force the other to do anything.  Learning how to guide the elephant with greater skill is worth learning for anyone that desires to be more than a passenger in life!

Classic Quote, Paterno

"What counts in sports is not the victory, but the magnificence of the struggle."

- Joe Paterno


HT:  www.crossfit.com

You Are What You Eat?

Interesting statistics! 
http://m.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/09/chart-this-is-what-you-eat-in-a-year-including-42-pounds-of-corn-syrup/244870/

Just remember, it's all that saturated fat that's making you fat and sick ...

Vitamin D, Asthema, Correlation

Children with severe therapy-resistant asthma (STRA) may have poorer lung function and worse symptoms compared to children with moderate asthma, due to lower levels of vitamin D in their blood, according to researchers in London. Lower levels of vitamin D may cause structural changes in the airway muscles of children with STRA, making breathing more difficult. The study provides important new evidence for possible treatments for the condition.
The findings were published online ahead of the print edition of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
“This study clearly demonstrates that low levels of vitamin D are associated with poorer lung function, increased use of medication, worse symptoms and an increase in the mass of airway smooth muscle in children with STRA,” said Atul Gupta, MRCPCH, M.D., a researcher from Royal Brompton Hospital and the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) at Imperial College and King’s College London. “It is therefore plausible that the link between airway smooth muscle mass and lung function in severe asthma may be partly explained by low levels of vitamin D.”
While most children with asthma can be successfully treated with low doses of corticosteroids, about 5 to 10 percent of asthmatic children do not respond to standard treatment. These children have severe therapy-resistant asthma, or STRA, experience more asthma episodes and asthma-related illnesses, and require more healthcare services, than their treatment-receptive peers.

The article concludes:
“The determination of the exact mechanism between low vitamin D and airway changes that occur in STRA will require intervention studies,” Dr. Gupta said. “Hopefully, the results of this and future studies will help determine a new course of therapy that will be effective in treating these children.”
Link to original article:  http://www.thoracic.org/media/press-releases/resources/blue-201107-1239oc.pdf
http://www.newswise.com/articles/vitamin-d-deficiency-linked-with-airway-changes-in-children-with-severe-asthma

This seems like another piece in the paleolithic perspective of human wellness.  Take an organism that adapted over a long, long time to the various climates of the planet, and drastically change that organism's living conditions in a relatively short period of time, and there will be consequences.  Since we generally don't get enough sun, it is estimated that 90% of us are vitamin D deficient. 

I did a summer experiment to see what my non-augmented D level will be after a summer's worth of exposure way down here in Tennessee.  Now that the sun's retreating and the days are short and my body will even more fully covered by clothese, it's time to supplement.