Julio Accelerates!
We were monitoring his heart rate at the combine, and three minutes before he was to run his 40, he was at 125 beats per minute. So, he's ready — he's not laying around at 70 beats per minute, ready to fall asleep. Then, when he stepped up to the line, without warming up at all, boom — his heart rate shot up from 125 to 146. And what we learned in military testing from Special Forces guys is that you don't want to be below 140 beats per minute, and they don't want to be above 160. Above 160, your judgment goes down, your reaction time goes down, and your peripheral vision goes away, basically. But when you get in that zone, there's a heightened sense of reaction time, and you have optimal strength output. It really showed for him.


It would be fun to test this idea w CrossFit athletes on short WODs, and on powerlifters on max lifts.

Sleep, Seasonal Hormonal Varation, Genetic Adaptation

During sleep, you make another hormone called prolactin, When the nights are long, as in winter, your prolactin has come down by the time you wake up. But in the summer, when the nights are short, prolactin spills over into the daytime. This is a key point when considering WHY we overeat (specifically carbohydrates).
When prolactin spills over into the daytime, it suppresses a hormone called leptin. Leptin is your body’s fat monitor. [T]o make it simple, leptin goes to the brain and pushes the OFF button on your Neuropeptide Y (NPY). When NPY is turned on, you crave carbohydrates. This is why your ancestors loaded up on fruit and carbs as much as they could during the spring and summer. They were driven to do it by NPY! Why? Because the short nights gave them “prolactin spillover”, thus suppressing leptin, and leaving carb-craving NPY cranked up.
Of course, all of this “carbing-up” made them insulin resistant, which was actually a good thing back then. [Seasonal] insulin resistance and the fat it stores isn’t really a problem when your life depends on it.
Let’s fast-forward to the early 20th century and the invention of the light bulb. Now, with the flip of a switch (or the clap of our hands) we can manipulate the seasons. Long days. Short nights. Year round.
http://undergroundwellness.com/lights-out-is-lack-of-sleep-making-you-fat/

If you read the rest of this post from Sean at UW, you could just about skip the very tough to read but fascinating "Lights Out".  The short version?  If you think agriculture changed things 10,000 years ago (imagine your hunger gatherer ancestors getting six inches shorter and losing their teeth whilst getting fat and sick), and if you think the advent of the industrialized food chain changed things (imagine mass produced vegetable based "franken oils" followed up by reutilization of soy waste as "soy products", and shudder), you should also be concerned with what the advent of Thomas Edison's revolutionizing invention did also.  Yes, completely changing the sleep cycles of entire populations in very short order probably has had an impact!

Wolf Supplementation

The Paleolithic model incorporates the principle that most dieteary/performance supplements are unneeded if you eat food that humans evolved to benefit from.  However, in a world of industrial food chains in which each cow has a half a barrel of oil in it (as a result of the cow eating mountains of amonium nitrate fertilized corn), it isn't a walk in the park to fill one's plate with FOOD.  Those who have read Robb Wolf's book, or listened to his podcasts (http://www.robbwolf.com/) or scanned his blog know that in his clinical practice, he's found consistently good results with several very basic supplements.  Now, those are easy to find here:
http://astore.amazon.com/robwol-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=3

I use a magnesium/zinc supplement when I'm getting ready to sleep, and also want to experiment with the Super Enzymes, which seem to restore folks to a more optimal level of stomach acidity. 

On that note, one other supplement some clients have found helpful is glutamine powder (sold as a recovery product), which seems to help folks when transitioning to a low carb diet.  It can take as long as 30 days to get the body tuned up to run on fat, and glutamine seems to reduce the unpleasantness of being a sugar burner deprived of sugar. 

Vampire Myths

The following is a study abstract, which you should read only if you like that sort of thing.  Vampire myth, by the way, is a reference to myths that "just won't die." 

The BLUF: post-menopausal women who ate a high protein, high-potential renal acid load diet, did not show markers via this study's methodology of bone demineralization (which may lead to osteoporosis over time). 

Why is that important?  It has been thought by many that a diet which has a high net acid load at the kidney (IOW, a diet with higher protein and grain intake) might serve to stimulate the body to lose calcium to bring things to a more neutral PH.  Learning how to describe this topic in detail isn't a mountain I've climbed yet.  What I have learned so far is that amongst all the possible causes of osteoporosis - diet, activity type and amount, and sun exposure - the folks that present the worst cases of osteoporosis, archeologically and in clinical practice, are those who eat a lot of grains.  As cardiologist William Davis notes in his practice (granted, that's not a scientifically valid way to establish my conjecture), those who have all the other symptoms of metabolic syndrome and heart disease also have osteoporosis, so the link is possible, and squares well with the Paleolithic model of nutrition. The study cited below at least casts doubt on the "net renal acid load" conjecture as a cause of osteoporosis.  While thed "net acid  load" issue has long been viewed as a significant reason to practice the version of the paleo diet advocated in Loren Cordain's book, it always left me wondering how we were supposed to know how much veg/fruit was "enough" to balance the acid load, and how animal eating hunter gatherers did either.  In other words, it sounded like another unmeasurable, unverifiable, unpracticeable myth like counting calories.  Admittedly, omega 3 supplementation is a similar problem, which is why don't chase some pretense of precision in fish oil supplementation (but one day, AA/EPA ratio testing will be as cheap and common as glucose testing now is, and we'll all be able to balance omega 3/6 with more than heart felt belief).

What's interesting is the obvious link between remineralization of teeth and diet, the concept of grains and gut irritation interfering with absorbtion of minerals, the near universal observations that hunter gatherers had much better bones that agriculturalists (see link above), and the possible link between osteoporosis and calcification (see link above and this).  In other words, the same patterns that correllate with all of the diseases of the West likely result from the SAD (standard American diet), inadequate sun exposure and/or inadequate physical activity.  It wouldn't suprise many if all three of these factors have created the "perfect storm" for osteoporosis.  Given how essential bone health is to the survival of the organism, I tend to think it takes a "perfect storm" of conditions to compromise the body's ability to sustain bone health.   

What to do?  Eat meat and vegetables, some nuts, seeds and fruit, little starch and no sugar/wheat, supplement DHA/EPA via fish oil to balance your omega 3/6 ratio, and supplement vitamin D to reach a minimum of 30 ng/ml. Exercise intensely, for limited duration, including weight bearing and weightlifting (bikes and pools won't get it done alone).  Get smart on how to get sun exposure while optimizing your cancer risks.  Lastly, you can measure the outcome of your science experiment on yourself through bone scans.
____________________________________________________________________________
Our objective in this study was to determine the effects of a high-protein and high-potential renal acid load (PRAL) diet on calcium (Ca) absorption and retention and markers of bone metabolism. In a randomized crossover design, 16 postmenopausal women consumed 2 diets: 1 with low protein and low PRAL (LPLP; total protein: 61 g/d; PRAL: −48 mEq/d) and 1 with high protein and high PRAL (HPHP; total protein: 118 g/d; PRAL: 33 mEq/d) for 7 wk each separated by a 1-wk break. Ca absorption was measured by whole body scintillation counting of radio-labeled ⁴⁷Ca. Compared with the LPLP diet, the HPHP diet increased participants’ serum IGF-I concentrations (P < 0.0001), decreased serum intact PTH concentrations (P < 0.001), and increased fractional ⁴⁷Ca absorption (mean ± pooled SD: 22.3 vs. 26.5 ± 5.4%; P < 0.05) and urinary Ca excretion (156 vs. 203 ± 63 mg/d; P = 0.005). The net difference between the amount of Ca absorbed and excreted in urine did not differ between 2 diet periods (55 vs. 28 ± 51 mg/d). The dietary treatments did not affect other markers of bone metabolism. In summary, a diet high in protein and PRAL increases the fractional absorption of dietary Ca, which partially compensates for increased urinary Ca, in postmenopausal women. The increased IGF-I and decreased PTH concentrations in serum, with no change in biomarkers of bone resorption or formation, indicate a high-protein diet has no adverse effects on bone health.
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/141/3/391.abstract
HT:  @DrEades

Classic Quotes, Wendler

 If in doubt, squat and push a Prowler or run some hills. You will be strong and in shape. Keep that in mind next time you think you need “to cut.”

Making the Case for Low Fat Diets Causing Depression

http://undergroundwellness.com/is-your-low-fat-diet-making-you-depressed-anxious/
Interesting link in which the potential is discussed for how a low fat diet could make you mentally as well as physically ill.  Lierre Keith's book covers many similar points.  I don't know that this rises to any level of probability or certainty, but since there's no good reason to eat low fat, it hardly matters UNLESS you have to live with someone who's on a low fat diet and they are depressed.  In that case, make sure they are getting the zinc, vitamin D and long, branch chained omega 3 fatty acids (DHA/EPA) they need, try to get them to leave the vegetable oils alone, and see if you can tempt them with good vegetable fats like olive oil, macadamia nuts, avocados, and coconut oil/cream/milk/water.

POSE Run On Ice

http://completerunning.com/archives/2006/09/30/pose-method-running-on-ice/
Very cool video of Dr. Romanov, POSE inventor, running on hockey ice.  Look for the relatively small amount of his leg that gets in front of his center of gravity, how his foot lands under his body so as not to provide a decellerating vector, and how his primary activity is to pull his heel towards his glutes - while he falls forward off of his supporting leg.  In other words, his technique is to allow gravity to pull him forward (gravity is not optional) while he simply changes his supporting leg from one to the other. 

Mastering this technique is my hope for a future of pain free running, as my knee is short a significant amount of cartilage.