Day 5: Bodyweight Exercises Workout Challenge

via Fitness Spotlight by Mike OD on 1/7/10

Day 5 of our 30 day challenge is already here. My how time does fly (well maybe not for all especially since we took coffee off the list). Great job everyone who is sticking with it, and don’t worry in phase II we will let you start to work foods/drinks back in again (that includes coffee, after all we are not sadists here!). The benefit about routinely cycling off things like caffeine for a bit, is it should increase your sensitivity when you go back to it (so you will need less than before). Also you are proving right now to yourself how strong you really are mentally!

Today we are laying out a bodyweight exercises workout challenge for you to accomplish at some point this weekend.

Exercise Should Not be Seen as Such a Task

In our time management exercise on Day 3, we talked about making time for daily exercise. I know everyone has different schedules in life, but the one thing we shouldn’t think is that a fitness program has to be complicated or time consuming. It doesn’t! Daily movement can come with just simple steps and you don’t need an expensive gym to be able to challenge your muscles. In fact you can get a great workout in your own home in as little as 15min a day!

Do you actually dread trying to make time to exercise? Are you overcomplicating your plan? It shouldn't be a burden on you, it should be enjoyable.

Remember that there are many benefits to exercising/moving daily including better glucose management (blood sugar), reduction of disease risks, lowered fasting insulin (the biggest marker in health), keeping your muscles (use it or lose it afterall…which are also your fat burning factories), better moods, stress reduction, and the list goes on and on.

Proper strength training will also build strong muscles (not necessarily huge ones, so don’t worry if that is not your goal), help you look more defined and raise your resting energy expenditure (burn more calories).

Using Your Own Bodyweight

Who said you need an expensive gym? You have nature’s gym with you at all times, your own body!

Many people are healthy and fit just using bodyweight movements and exercises. Look at many martial artists, gymnasts, military, and others who may not have access to equipment and still can make do.

All it takes is a plan of action, and then making it happen. So I’m giving you the challenge, but are you going to take action on it?

The Workout Challenge

Seriously, how awesome is this picture of a group of people doing burpees outside. It gets me a little pumped and makes me want to go join them!

This is the challenge I am throwing down, and see if you can come thru for me. I understand that people are of different levels of ability, and all I ask is that you just do your best and report back.

The Challenge:

• Warmup for 5 minutes (get the blood going, do some jumping jacks, few pushups, few squats, walk/jog in place, jumprope, etc)
• Get the clock ready/nearby (so you can see when your time is up)
• In 15 minutes see how many circuits (or rounds) you can do of the following
• For more Beginners: 10 squats, 5 pushups, 20 jumping jacks
• For more Advanced: 20 lunges (10 each leg), 10 pushups, 10 burpees (oh you knew they were coming)
• Come back and report in the comments how many circuits/rounds you got!

Remember to scale for your needs and ability (it’s about being smart and safe too). Beginner squats can be done by getting up and down out of a chair, or even using something to hold on to for balance (without chair). Pushups can be done at an angle for easier use (like leaning against a higher step on the staircase or side/back of couch). Keep your movements in control and challenge yourself to how much you can do in 15 min.

This is just a basic and very simple setup, but keep that in mind when you think you don’t have time for a workout (or have to always get to the gym for one). Doing this simple progression 2-3x a week may give the added boost you need to burn some extra fat. You can add in more advanced programming with resistance bands, bodyweight straps/rings, pullup bar, and even a set of dummbells/kettlebells. I’ll have more advanced challenges coming soon.

But for now….you have as many times as you want to try this challenge over the weekend. Come back and report how well you did and let’s see those impressive scores that I know are out there!

The Best Muscle Building Exercise…If You Had to Pick One

via Fitness Spotlight by Mike OD on 7/23/09

What if there can be only one?

What if you could only pick one exercise, one to build the most muscle mass….one to stimulate the most hormonal responses….one to just master and progress with as the gains keep coming. So what would it be? The squat? Bench press? Tricep kickbacks? (I kid….I kid)

So let’s first define what it does take to increase muscle. How about exercises that do the following:

• Use the major prime movers (compound lifts for the big muscles)
• Stimulating those muscles with enough resistance (keeping reps lower and weights higher)
• Increasing the time under tension of work (greater ROM/slower reps)
• Maximum signaling of muscle building hormones (Testosterone, GH, IGF-1) and limiting the muscle breakdown ones (Cortisol)
• Progression over time with workout (add weight/reps/volume)
• Rest, nutrients and recovery (especially sleep)

So taking all those into account, we are looking for an exercise that uses the most (and biggest muscle), able to lift heavy, bigger ROM (more time under tension) and generates a positive muscle building hormonal response….sounds like that would be a winner!

The best exercise is….

I am going to send this one over the the strength and conditioning expert Charles Poloquin as he talked about his #1 exercise in an interview a couple years back

The snatch-grip deadlift, specifically a snatch deadlift on a four inch platform. The idea here is to get a large range of motion by standing on the platform and using the wide grip.

If you told me you were going to jail and only had a barbell and didn’t want to get raped in the showers and could only do one exercise to put mass and strength on, then I’d tell you to do the snatch deadlift on a platform.

This exercise alone makes people gain weight like crazy. Any time I have someone who needs to gain weight fast and doesn’t have a whole lot of time, I have them do snatch deadlifts. And with the snatch grip deadlift, straps are okay because you’ll be doing reps above three, but don’t use them until you get to your working weight.

If you think about it, this is the opposite of the sumo deadlift, which shortens the range of motion. Likewise, some powerlifters will lift in ballet shoes to shorten the ROM. What we want to do here is lengthen it. The snatch grip and platform will take care of that.

interview from tnation.com

How to perform: In the starting position, feet are shoulder width apart. Grip is wider than usual like done with a snatch lift, except that you can use standard or over-under hook style (above). Knees, chest and shoulders over bar and retracted shoulder blades. Lower back is always kept arched. Eyes forward (not down). Now with the upper body tight, start the lift with your legs/back and pull upward. You can go as fast as you like on the way up (explode depending on weight) and then use a slow and controlled movement on the way down to increase the time under tension. Repeat with 3-5 sets of 4-8 reps for optimal size gains (those numbers and sets can also be changed up of course depending on the weight used).

Make it harder: do while standing (just your feet, not the weights) on a 2-4″ elevated platform (talk about an evil exercise that will humble you).

Weights: Start light and progress up till you know your “working” weight for your sets. Charles mentions about using straps, and I suggest you avoid using it until you find your grip failing and want to continue with more sets (as a weak grip will not help to maximally stimulate all your other muscles)

Other Resources: For more info on how to perform deadlift properly check out these resources with a tutorial over at strong lifts on how to perform the deadlift and these videos by Mark Rippetoe (author of Starting Strength)

More bang for your effort

The great thing about the snatch grip deadlift is how it incorporates so many muscles/movements all in one exercise. Look at the benefits:

• 

  Use a small platform and feel all those muscles work even harder!

  Just as deep if not deeper than a squat (especially for those that don’t even get deep enough or have weaker hamstrings)

• Excellent stimulator of posterior chain (power and speed)

• Uses all the back muscles (erectors, lower, lats, traps)

• Increases grip strength

• Provides more ROM and time under tension (growth) than a standard squat or deadlift (especially if you get on a small platform as seen to the right)

• Can also do explosive versions (a full snatch movement - weight lifted overhead)

• Help attack those weaknesses and sticking points (which are usually in the low starting position) for other lifts, while also preventing muscle imbalances (especially the quad:ham ratio that could injure many)

All in all this exercise brings most everything to the table (except maybe more chest/shoulder/pressing strength). While most people may stick to a squat (or their limited movement version) or a less than optimal deadlift form….getting nice and low with the snatch grip DL will ensure full ROM, working/blasting through sticking points (that will carry to other movements) and the most “bang for your buck” in a full body movement.

Reminder that hormones DO matter

Here’s an additional thing to remember in your muscle building quest, about how important your hormones are. If you think it’s just about isolating muscles and drinking lots of protein shakes, you have been sadly mislead by mainstream media (and all the supplement companies). Hormones play a vital role in the building (and maintaining) of muscle.

Here’s a great example in a study in which groups of men ages 19-40 years old were given either 600mg testosterone or a placebo each week, and then those groups were also divided up into ones that did no exercise and those that trained 3x a week.  The results may surprise you:

The men treated with testosterone but no exercise had an increase of 3.2 kg in fat-free mass, and those in the placebo-plus-exercise group had an increase of 1.9 kg.

from: The Effects of Supraphysiologic Doses of Testosterone on Muscle Size and Strength in Normal Men; Shalender Bhasin, M.D., Thomas W. Storer, Ph.D.

The group that was sedentary and had testosterone had almost DOUBLE the lean mass gain than the placebo group that worked out! So still think it’s all about working out or are hormones a bit more important now?

Take home point….the snatch grip DL is going to be a great natural stimulator of testosterone, unlike those people on the machines isolating muscles all the time.

Burn Fat as Well!

If your goal is more weight loss than bulk, this exercise is also a great addition to ramp up those fat burning hormones. Yes women….don’t worry about bulking up and add this exercise into your workouts as well. Get the reps a little higher (8-10), keep the volume high (add a superset with another exercise), go explosive, slow and controlled on the way down, and enjoy that full body lactic burn that is increasing your GH output with every lift! (and we all know GH is a vital hormone in signaling the release of fat from storage).

Now go try it…and enjoy the pain, I mean results!

So there you have it….the one exercise I (and a little known guy named Charles Poloquin) recommend you add in to your workout programming. Whether you do it more often with varied reps and speed, or work it into an EDT based programming style…it’s all your choice. Of course there are other exercises you can add in after to hit the areas not covered or add in secondary exercises for muscles already used….but this is a true muscle builder.

When it comes to building muscle….know that there is so much more at play as well (hormones), so make sure your lifestyle (nutrition, stress, sleep) supports muscle building and doesn’t take away from your efforts. (If you want more details into all the hormones at play again, I suggest re-reading the muscle building 101 article here.)

Finally Hardgainers, See How to Build Big Muscles Quick. The Secret Revealed!

via Fitness Spotlight by Mike OD on 12/7/09

Attention all you “hardgainers” out there, are you ready to learn how to build lots of muscle in a short amount of time? Ready to find out the secrets professionals have been using for decades? Want to learn the one essential supplement that will boost muscle gains and give you an unbelievable muscle pump?

Here it is…..

The keys to success…..

Normally just 4 easy payments of $69.95 but yours today FREE!

Muscle Gain = Enough Food + “Progressive Overload” + Recovery

Wow and I mean WoW!

Ok, so I played it up a bit, but were you excited or actually let down to learn that is the secret? What exactly were you expecting to hear? Sadly this is the mainstream culture we live in today promising unbelievable results in no time at all. The old saying always holds true, “if it is too good to be true it usually is”.

But have no worries, as I am going to give you the real story of how people are putting on muscle (well at least the ones not using any additional anabolic hormones).

Can You Handle the Truth? There is No Quick Fix.

Ok, that was done in my best Jack Nicholson voice impression (thank goodness you couldn’t hear that over the web). But that is the honest answer, there is no “quick” fix to put on lots of real muscle.

Sadly I don’t think people want to hear that, some may actually keep looking for a quick fix while doing nothing right now. We overlook people who have spent years (and I mean lots of years) building up muscle and expect to just find it in a can or something. A person who keeps looking for the magic answer is just wasting their time.

It is time for people to get realistic about their muscle gains. First step is to realize how much muscle they can really put on, what their real weight is going to be and the time it is going to take. Here is a good part from an article by Lyle McDonald on how much muscle one can genetically gain.

Now I think part of this has to do with exceedingly skewed ideas about what’s achievable, a problem driven by pro-bodybuilding.  After seeing a pro-bodybuilder stepping on stage at 260 pounds or more and shredded, the idea that a natural may top out at 180-190 pounds of lean body mass (if that) can be disheartening.

Of course, to the general public, an individual at a lean 180-190 pounds is still pretty enormous.  It’s just that compared to the absurd size of a pro bodybuilder, it seems absolutely tiny.  But it is reality.

People forget that Arnold Schwarzenegger competed at perhaps 230 pounds (assuming 5% body fat, that’s only 220 pounds of lean body mass) and that was with (admittedly low doses) of anabolic steroids in the mixture.

The simple real-world fact, which can be verified by going to any natural bodybuilding show is that you simply don’t see naturals coming into contest shape much above 200 pounds (the exceptions can usually be counted on one hand) and few even achieve that level of size.  It’s always the lighter classes (e.g. 165 lb class) that have the most competitors at natural shows with fewer and fewer coming in at the heavier weights, especially in contest shape.

Even when people point to large natural strength athletes who might be 270-280 lbs. natural, by the time you figure in 28-30% body fat, that still puts them right back at a maximum lean body mass of 189-196 lbs.  Certainly near the higher end of things but not by that much.

I have often thrown out the following values for rates of muscle gain.

Year of Proper Training	Potential Rate of Muscle Gain per Year
1	20-25 pounds (2 pounds per month)
2	10-12 pounds (1 pound per month)
3	5-6 pounds (0.5 pound per month)
4+	2-3 pounds (not worth calculating)

Again, these values are for males, females would use roughly half of those values (e.g. 10-12 pounds in the first year of proper training).

So as you can see from above, a real novice (one who has not really put on much muscle yet) can make some great gains of 2+ pounds of muscle (not just weight, which includes fat) per month. After that it will tend to slow down and become harder as the body will resist putting too much on.

Also another good point is about how much a person really should weigh. I’ve heard people say that they want to be 220 lbs and ripped, and yet they are 180lbs and a bit chubby. Time for a little math. Say you are 180lbs at 20%BF, that means you have 144lbs of lean mass. If you think you can be 220lb and 6% BF, that means you will need 207lbs of lean mass. So we are talking about gaining 60+lbs of muscle? Well that may take a long while.

The reality is that while people want to weigh more, they usually neglect to think about actual muscle gain. That and most bodybuilders/athletes/actors (or whoever you are comparing yourself to) are probably alot lighter than you think they are, or also have more bodyfat than you realize.

So understand that your journey for building muscle is a slow and steady one, and that you should be in it for the long haul. I mean imagine if you had this attitude 2 years ago with steady training and eating, what you could be today. So being in it for the long run mentally is the first step to getting there, otherwise you can be like all the others out there spending lots of money on things advertised for quick gains….and we know how that turns out.

Eat More…and more…

So you are skinny right now, so what? I’ve heard too many people wear the “hardgainer” badge with honor. Well if you ever plan on really adding muscle, time to throw the badge away and just get to work (namely with a fork). Ask many “bigger” people and they may tell you at some point they were also a skinny lad, but then did what it took.

You are not lacking more protein powders, nitric-oxide, or any other fancy supplement. Real food has been doing the job for ages so no reason to think it still doesn’t work. Just take a look at this outtake from an article entitled “Complicated” at Elite Lifts.

Whenever I’ve spoken with a group of up and comers—the local guys just starting to do competitions—the conversation always revolves around the “secret” cycles, the exotic compounds, the rare products, the combination of supplements that only the “top guys” must know about. That’s always what the conversation turns to.

Whenever I’ve talked to the “top guys” in bodybuilding or powerlifting, the discussion is never about rare compounds or exotic products. It’s always about eating—how much, how often, what to eat, when, the time they spent $120 on breakfast at Bob Evans. That’s the difference.

When a I meet a local guy at a show or at the gym, they never ask about food. It’s always about some exotic compound. The funny thing is nine times out of 10, I’ve never ever heard about the “magic” compound they’re talking about. I’m sure most of the top guys in the sport haven’t either probably because they were either in the process of chewing a big chunk of steak or their ears were ringing from the set of deadlifts they just finished.

If you really want more insight into the nutritional background of strongmen and bodybuilders, I strongly suggest also reading this article at Weston Price on it all.

Remember, the fork is your greatest tool to use outside the gym (or you can eat with your hands if you like too). If you do not eat enough, you will not gain real muscle even with tough workouts. Plain and simple. Stick to real foods and stay away from the all those overhyped muscle building supplements (as you don’t need them!).

Don’t Make it Complicated or Look for the “Holy Grail” of Workouts

Above we talked about the key to building muscle as being “progressive overload”. What does this mean? Simply that you are continually putting your body under a stress over time that is progressing and overloading your body with increasing volume/weights/tension. Your workouts are going to signal for your body to continually adapt to the ongoing stress and build more and more muscle. If you keep the same workout with the same weights, your body has no reason to adapt any further.

Here is the key, there isn’t just one way to achieve this. Ask 10 bodybuilders what kind of workouts they do, and you will probably get 10 different answers. Maybe one does HIT style, or German Volume Training, or 5×5s, or 20 Rep Squats…and the list goes on and on. What they will have in common is somehow they are adding weights/volume/tension over time. This is what is signaling the new muscle growth.

It is a simple concept that gets lost out there in the search for the perfect workout program. Too many are suffering from a severe case of information overload, and information is easy to come by nowadays. People are reading new workouts every month, week or maybe even every day. Whether it be on the internet or with the latest monthly issue of Flex. People are getting sidetracked and never sticking with one program long enough to allow the golden rule to apply of progressive overload.

So find a workout you will enjoy (as enjoying your workouts is important for consistency) and stick with it for at least 12 weeks. No changing it, no adding things, just stick with the plan and progress with either more reps or weight each workout. I don’t care if it is a simple 3×5 or 3×10 plan, it will work if you really challenge yourself and progress over time! Don’t make this more complicated as it needs to be, all you need is a plan, a pen and a book to write down your weights/reps. Then next time in, you beat it by a rep or with an additional 5lbs….and continue onward and upward.

Here are some additional basic tips on workouts:

• If you want to train more for strength (with size), reps should be around 3-5
• If you want to train more for size (with strength), reps should be around 8-10
• Do mostly compound movements using biggest muscles first (chest, back, legs)
• Do not focus on isolation workouts (like most BB magazines would have you doing)
• Keep workouts about 45min at most and 2-3x a week
• Keep track of weights and reps and make sure they are progressing (progressive overload)
• If you see you are not progressing (or going in the opposite direction), take a couple days off to recover some more

Stay Healthy and Don’t Get Injured

Smart training means knowing how to take it slow and steady and not put yourself in worse condition. That means keeping optimal health for the immune system and your muscles/joints.

Staying healthy means a strong immune system and making sure you are not suppressing it. Eating real foods and staying away from sugar and processed crap is a good start. Also making sure to get plenty of sleep it vital as well.

Being smart in your workouts also matters. As once you do something to injure yourself, everything comes to a halt (I’ve been there and know what it is like). So instead of continually making progress on your gains you are now on the sidelines waiting to heal up. You will only set yourself back and depending on the injury, it could be for a while.

Remember that part of growing muscle means being consistent (and progressively overloading), which is hard to do if you aren’t able to lift any weights for the next 6-12 weeks.

Forget the Post Workout Insulin Spike

“The first law of nutrient timing is: hitting your daily macronutrient targets is FAR more important than nutrient timing…..the second law of nutrient timing is: hitting your daily macronutrient targets is FAR more important than nutrient timing.” - Unknown from internet forums

Great quote from somewhere on the net, and it is so true. What is means is that what you eat in a day (total macronutrients, calories) is more important that the “science” of nutrient timing. Namely the “post workout” window and insulin spiking.

But what about restoring muscle glycogen you may ask? Well unless you are a full time athlete in training or need to go again with muscle glycogen in the next 6-12 hours, it is not needed. Your muscles will be fully restored within 24-48 hours anyways with a proper diet.

In fact in a study (The effect of high carbohydrate meals with different glycemic indices on recovery of performance during prolonged intermittent high-intensity shuttle running; Erith S)  with professional soccer players, it was found that there was NO difference in performance on 2 consecutive days with one group consuming high GI carbs and another low GI carbs after their workout.

So insulin sensitivity and muscle glycogen is not a factor really anymore, what about a certain window for more protein synthesis? What we do find is that increased protein synthesis lasts much longer than some immediate post workout window (so no need to chug down that sugar/whey shake right in the gym).

The response to the amino acid-carbohydrate drink produced similar anabolic responses at 1 and 3 h. Muscle protein breakdown did not change in response to the drink. We conclude that essential amino acids with carbohydrates stimulate muscle protein anabolism by increasing muscle protein synthesis when ingested 1 or 3 h after resistance exercise.

An oral essential amino acid-carbohydrate supplement enhances muscle protein anabolism after resistance exercise;Blake B. Rasmussen; J Appl Physiol 88: 386-392, 2000;

It has been shown that muscle protein synthetic rate (MPS) is elevated in humans by 50% at 4 hrs following a bout of heavy resistance training, and by 109% at 24 hrs following training.

Resistance training alters the response of fed state mixed muscle protein synthesis in young men; Tang JE; Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2008 Jan;294(1):R172-8. Epub 2007 Nov 21.

We conclude that exercise resulted in an increase in muscle net protein balance that persisted for up to 48 h after the exercise bout and was unrelated to the type of muscle contraction performed.

Mixed muscle protein synthesis and breakdown after resistance exercise in humans; S. M. Phillips; Endocrinology and Metabolism, Vol 273, Issue 1 E99-107

So what is the end result?

• There is NO need to spike insulin after a workout
• You don’t have to immediately worry about replenishing muscle glycogen after a workout (unless you need it later that day again)
• It is more important to make sure you are eating enough calories and protein during the whole day (not just windows after a workout)

Focus More on Your Lifestyle

Muscles do NOT nor will they EVER grow in the gym. Not possible, as you are there creating a muscle catabolism environment, just so they will respond by growing over the next 48+ hours. Which can mean only one thing, you grow muscles only when you are not in the gym.

So this means your lifestyle outside of when you train will either help or hurt your muscle growth potential. If your lifestyle is full of stress, alcohol, little sleep and excessive/intense activity you can bet you will be wasing more muscle than building. But if you get plenty of sleep, control your stress, keep inflammation low and keep activity lower intensity, then you can allow your body to build more muscle (not too mention help reduce chances of any injuries as we have seen above being important).

One of my favorite activities nowadays is just walking (outside, inside, anywhere) as I covered the benefits to it in a previous article on how to get bigger muscles by walking.

So If You are Still Not Gaining, Do the Checklist

Whenever things look like they are not working, just go over the things below and ask yourself:

• Have I given it at least 6-12 weeks to progress in weights? (or are you hopping around to different programs and not allowing any “progressive overload” to happen?)
• Do I eat enough (not just protein, but all calories)? How much is enough? Well most people can start at about 15-20x their lean mass (lbs) in calories and go from there. If you want to know how much protein you really need, then read this past article.
• Am I getting enough sleep? Don’t overlook this powerful anabolic event at night!
• Is there too much additional stress or activity getting in the way (are you running around too much while increasing stress on your off days and not allowing your body to relax and grow)?

There is your simple checklist. Most people fail to make progress because of those 4 things. That is where most all of your gains will come from, not from different grips on the bar while you curl.

Coming Soon, New IF Muscle Building Plan

Right now I am in the process of tweaking a new IF plan for building muscle that will be released sometime early next year. If you want more inside scoop on using IF to also add some muscle, make sure you are on the IF Life mailing list at the site here (as that is where I will be giving the updates from). Just enter your email and you will be good to go (plus you get all the free ebooks now and access to other mini-courses I have planned for early 2010).

In Vitro Meat

via Mark's Daily Apple by Mark Sisson on 12/3/09

When Winston Churchill, in the 1932 essay “Fifty Years Hence,” mused that “we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium,” he may have been more prescient than credited. Alexis Carrel had already been keeping a cultured chunk of chicken heart “alive” in a Pyrex flask for the past twenty years by feeding it nutrients (though Carrel was only interested in whether cell death was inevitable, not whether meat could be grown in a lab for human consumption). Sci-fi author Frederik Pohl was one man who took the idea of in vitro meat seriously enough to write about it – in the novel The Space Merchants, where cultured meat is the primary source of protein. That was science fiction, sure, but most good sci-fi is borne of the author’s honest opinion of what the future might hold and it’s usually inspired by the scientific advancements of the day. And sometimes, science fiction comes true. Like this time.

Dutch scientists were able to grow pork in a lab test tube. They extracted myoblast cells from the muscle of a living pig, incubated them in a piglet fetus-blood-nutrient solution, and got “a soggy form of pork.” No one’s tried the “pork” due to lab rules, but it’s derived from the same myoblast cells that generate muscle in response to tissue damage in an actual animal – ideally, this would taste exactly like pork muscle meat. They’ve even got plans to “exercise” the tissue, which could conceivably do away with the sogginess and provide a meatier chewing experience.

The Dutch scientists weren’t the first; four years ago, a research paper detailed plans to engineer in vitro meat on a massive, industrial scale, and others have been trying in vain for years to produce a decent lab-grown steak. The soggy pork is perhaps the closest they’ve gotten. Every researcher runs into a couple basic issues. First, there are generally two accepted methods for growing in vitro meat: the generation of either loose muscle cells or structured, “real” muscle. The latter is the ideal path, because it might make cohesive cuts of meat possible, but it’s also the most challenging. Real muscle growth depends on perfusion, or the delivery of arterial blood bearing nutrients to biological tissue, and a similar system might be required for “real” lab grown muscle. Until then, only thin sheets of muscle meat have been grown. These can be compressed into meat sheets or ground up, but a three-dimensional, juicy rare steak is still far off. The easy way out is to grow loose muscle cells, but unless you’re prepared for a future of unrecognizable meat products, you might want to wait for that soggy pork to firm up.

Where do I stand on the idea of in vitro meat? Well, I’m more than a little skeptical as you might imagine. Natural animal reproduction already does a pretty good job at growing meat, and major deviations from the natural order have a spotty track record. Big Pharma, for example, represents one big attempt after another to replace the natural order. It gets things right from time to time – I won’t argue against that – but it also creates unnecessary products that purport to protect patients from conditions that could otherwise be handled through lifestyle modifications. Both Big Pharma and the in vitro meat researchers are trying to understand incredibly complicated physiological processes that took millions of years to develop naturally. The vast interplay between hormones, nutrients, and environmental factors (including exercise, diet, and drugs) in the human body is difficult – if not impossible – to parse, but that’s exactly what medicine tries to do. When you take a drug, you’ve got to hope pharmacists took every possible factor into account. They can make educated guesses, and they’re often right, but not always. Statins, as prescribed, do a helluva job at lowering cholesterol (a pretty pointless gesture, but they do what they say they’ll do – note that they don’t promise reductions in actual heart disease), but they do so by interrupting the same passages used by other important bodily players – like CoQ10. It’s a complex thing, the human body.

Animal bodies are no different, and a steak isn’t just a matrix of muscle cells. It’s got fat (several kinds!), blood vessels, collagen, and different textures (which depend on the activity level of the animal; the lab meat cubes better have access to treadmills). Nutrients have to be shuttled in and waste out (grass-fed in vitro meat?). If you want a real steak with a bloody center, how is that achieved in the lab? Blood pockets? What’s the blood made of? What if I want a cowboy ribeye, bone-in – are they trying to grow bone, too? And I worry about the saturated fat content. One scientist mentioned replacing the Omega 6s with Omega 3s, which sounds promising, but I can only think the next step is to replace the saturated fats with even more Omega 3s (or, shudder, canola oil). Will it even taste the same?

At the same time, I remain open-minded. If they’re able to grow meat with perfect Omega 3/Omega 6 ratios, no hormones, no antibiotics, on a “diet” that recreates real grassy pasture, that tastes like meat, has the same texture as meat, the same saturated fat content as meat – I might be convinced to give it a shot. And if it’s cheaper than grass-fed meat, easier on the environment than industrial farming, and easy to produce on a mass scale without sacrificing quality, why wouldn’t I support it? Remember: I don’t glorify the ancestral, natural ways because they are ancestral and natural. It’s just that paying attention to evolution and being wary of modern “improvements” has paid off. The Primal Blueprint works. If in vitro meat works (and it’s proven beyond a doubt that it’s identical to real meat – a tall order, I grant you), why shouldn’t we give it a shot?

Still, I can’t help but doubt it. It’s not so much that I’m wary of processed food, because perfect in vitro meat that recreates actual meat is theoretically different than HFCS, boxed goods, and industrial vegetable oils, and it has the potential to revolutionize food (you mean I get to eat a black panther steak? Sign me up!); it’s that following the natural order has been so good to me. I eat according to human evolution, I exercise in accordance with my body’s design, and things have generally worked out well. Eating real steak raised the way it was intended to live has also worked out okay. I’ll keep my real meat for now and watch warily from the sidelines, curious and always skeptical.

Both Pohl and Churchill were undoubtedly inspired by Carrel’s experiment, but the prevailing public opinion was that the decades-old chicken heart was an abomination. It still lived when Carrel died, 28 years later, but the experiment was soon halted. If it weren’t for the negative public reaction, that chicken heart might still be pumping today. I suspect the initial public reaction to in vitro meat would be pretty similar, but what do you think?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If no, what would it take to convince you? Anything? Is there any possible scenario in which in vitro meat is a good thing for this world? Share your thoughts in the comment section!

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Related posts:

1. Meat Lover’s Guide to Marinating Meat (plus 10 Primal Marinades)
2. Raw Meat
3. Did Grok Really Eat That Much Meat?

Get Healthy Now: Eight Ways To Look Better, Feel Better, And Have Fun

via Fitness Spotlight by skustes on 11/29/09

It’s nearly Jan 1st, time for the dreaded “New Year’s Resolution” (a topic for another day). That means lots of people you know, and possibly you yourself, are going to be making a commitment to making positive health changes. So today is going to be one of those high-level posts that brings together lots of disparate pieces of information to build a complete view of what we really propose around here. I’m going to link to several of our old posts for you to use to dig a bit deeper. Pass this along to anyone you know that is looking to make a change.

Why It Matters

But first, let’s take a look at why it even matters. Check out this article I came across a couple days ago: U.S. diabetes cases to double, costs triple by 2034

By 2034, nearly twice as many Americans will have diabetes and spending on the disease will triple, further straining the U.S. health system and testing the viability of Medicare and other government health insurance programs, U.S. researchers said on Friday. …. will rise from approximately 24 million people to 44 million people by the year 2034 …. “We anticipate that the cost of taking care of those people — and these are direct medical costs — will triple over the same period of time, going from $113 billion today to $336 billion (per year),” Huang said in a telephone interview.

Ouch! Today about 11% of Americans are diabetic, about 95% of those being Type II diabetic, the kind that comes from your lifestyle. That means it’s preventable. And even if you aren’t full-blown diabetic, there are plenty of other issues that come from an unhealthy lifestyle. You could say that this is my proposal to fix the healthcare system by keeping you from needing it.

So here are eight tips that will accomplish two goals for you: they’ll make you healthier. You’ll be sick less often. You’ll feel better. And more importantly, what we all really care about, you’ll look better. Your bulges will bulge less. Your clothes will fit better and you’ll need less of them to look great. Your confidence will go up. You’ll have fun in the process instead of trudging through more flavorless “healthy” meals and another boring workout.

1. Eat Real Food 90% Of The Time

To beat a dead horse once again, the cornerstone of your health is what you eat (and what you don’t eat). Most of your results come from what you eat. So start with just eating real food. What is real food? As I discussed before,

• Food grows and dies. It isn’t created.
• Food rots, wilts, and becomes generally unappetizing, typically rather quickly.
• Food doesn’t need an ingredient label (and probably isn’t in a package either).
• Food doesn’t have celebrity endorsements.
• Food doesn’t make health claims.

You might be thinking that eliminates a lot of foods, but really all it eliminates are food imposters, things designed to look, taste, and smell like food, but that destroy your body. Here’s a not-so-brief list of the foods you’re left with:

beef, chicken, turkey, pork, salmon, shrimp, crab, lobster, eggs, cheese. Spinach, kale, cucumbers, carrots, turnips, squash (spaghetti, butternut, and acorn to name a few), sweet potatoes, collard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, onions, radishes, bok choi, olives, cabbage. (Deep breath.) Apples, bananas, cherries, melons, berries (straw, black, rasp, and blue), pears. Almonds, walnuts, pistachios, Brazil nuts. Coconut oil, palm oil, butter, olive oil. And let’s not forget herbs and spices like parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme (thank you Simon and Garfunkel), garam masala, curry powder, paprika, cumin, cinnamon, garlic, ginger, and nutmeg.

Inevitably, there are a few gray areas like packaged bulk products, such as nuts and olives. I think you can probably figure these out on your own. If it is a natural product, something that doesn’t come from a laboratory, it’s fair game. Olives are fruits and nuts are…well, nuts. Don’t over-think things. You know what foods will make you healthier and what won’t.

If you need some help figuring out how to cook all of these new foods that have probably never been in your kitchen before, check out Nikki Young’s Paleo Cookbooks or Antonio Valladares’ Healthy Urban Kitchen.

2. Eat What You Want 10% Of The Time

I touched on how I handle treat meals a few weeks ago. Basically, I don’t schedule them, but just allow them to happen, knowing that the way I live the rest of the time pretty much keeps them from being any big deal.

But pick vices that you really enjoy. If chocolate cake isn’t your thing, don’t eat it. Wait for the pumpkin pie or whatever really tickles your fancy. Don’t eat junk just because it’s there. On that note, pick smart vices, like good dark chocolate or high-quality ice cream. Limit caffeine and alcohol, but you don’t have to completely eliminate them.

3. Train Hard, But Short

Next up, be active. Make movement a normal part of your lifestyle. You don’t have to train like you’re in the Olympics to be healthy and active. However, I do recommend some level of short-duration, high-intensity training. There are any number of things you can do. Ross Enamait has quite a few books for intense home-based exercise. I really like his old-school style, complete with sledgehammers, kegs, sandbags, and tires. Vic Magary at Gym Junkies has a site jam-packed with good info.

Charles Staley is another old-school guy that has lots of good material out there. Escalating Density Training is one of his books on building muscle and losing fat. I was actually watching a few of his videos yesterday morning from a talk he gave called Your Workout Sucks. If you have 45 minutes or so, it’s worth a watch/listen.

It can even be as simple as bodyweight exercises that you do in your living room or hotel room. Mike and I have a random workout generator that’ll get your heart pumping and help burn some calories. You can be completely done with an intense workout in less than thirty minutes. There’s really no more needed for just being healthy. I like all of these workouts here because they are short, intense, and fun.

4. Have An Active Lifestyle

The 45 minutes every day or two that you spend intensely training doesn’t mean you should sit around the rest of the time. Take a walk, go for a hike, ride a bike, throw a Frisbee or football, ski or snowboard…the possibilities are endless. Just turn off the TV and get outside for some fresh air and sunshine (see #6).

I think this is a key difference between people that struggle to make their life health-oriented and those that don’t. If you enjoy getting outside, enjoy walking around in nature, enjoy a bike ride (whether a leisurely ride or tearing it up on some trails), you won’t need to worry too much about whether you’re active enough. You’ll find reasons to get up and move just because it feels good.

5. Compete

I bet there are a lot of people that are going to disagree with me outright on this one. Competing often takes on a negative connotation and some seem to think we should avoid it for the most part. There’s no reason that it needs to be a negative. Competition can be quite the motivator and increase your enjoyment as long as it doesn’t become an obsession or keep you from enjoying what you’re doing.

Recreational sports leagues are great for getting a bit of competition, but keeping it fun. In the past 6 months, I’ve been in a co-ed softball league, a kickball league (yes, kickball!), and a flag football league. It’s not “exercise”…it’s being active without feeling like you’re “working out”. It’s competing, but it’s just for fun. There’s nothing on the line. I had a blast playing in all three of these leagues, though I think we only won 4 softball games, 3 or 4 kickball games, and 2 football games, which just shows that you don’t have to be great and win to have a great time.

Along with rec league sports, you can join any number of Master’s sports, from Track and Field to swimming, from Olympic weightlifting to powerlifting. I can vouch for Master’s Track and Field…it’s fun and there’s a competitive, but supportive, spirit of people with similar interests and camaraderie.

6. Embrace The Great Outdoors

I’m not talking about the John Candy movie. Anyone that’s been around here for more than a month has already been beat over the head with this information a few times. For the newcomers, here’s a tip: you need sunlight to be healthy. That’s not sunlight while slathered in chemicals to “protect your skin,” but sunlight on exposed skin.

Your body needs sunlight to make vitamin D. It drives your immune system. It staves off dementia. It helps your body fight off cancer. It looks like it might even improve muscle power. Read more in-depth on my previous posts about vitamin D here and here.

That doesn’t mean to go sit in the sun for 8 hours with no clothes on. Just get some sun on exposed skin.

7. Sleep More

In today’s hard-charging, get-ahead, “success-oriented” society, sleep is one of the first things to go. It’s funny that sleeping less is viewed as a hallmark of success. Nutrition may be #1, but sleep is a close second place when it comes to how healthy you are.

How much should you sleep? 7.5 to 9 hours per night. Unfortunately, most of us have to get up early to get to work. That means you need to go to bed earlier. In the winter especially, when the sun is down early, you should be going to bed earlier. Rise and fall with the sun…okay, maybe not at 6pm, but try to be in bed by 10:30.

8. Relax

My final tip is to find simple ways to relax. We spend most of our time very wound up and stressed. Jobs, commutes, crazy bosses and coworkers, running to and from soccer and cheerleading practice…the list goes on. Add in a recession, possible money issues, “flu pandemics”, and the nightly news full of worldwide stressors and it’s no wonder we’re always so tense. With all that we have going on, few of us actually take the time to just chill out.

In the past couple years, I’ve come up with several things that help me to relax and unwind.

• Playing Drums - I’ve talked before about the importance of having a hobby. Find a hobby that is both challenging and stress-relieving.
• Reading Fiction - As much as I love reading and researching nutrition, fitness, and health, a good novel really helps me fall asleep. I’m currently about 1/3 of the way through The Count Of Monte Cristo. It’s always great to find a good page-turner.
• Crossword Puzzles - It’s a challenge, it works my mind, and it’s fun.

Your relaxation may be different, but I think it’s key to come up with something that works for you. It might be yoga or cooking or knitting sweaters for your dogs. Stamp collecting, wood working, building marble rollercoasters (I had this when I was young and it was uber-cool!)…the possibilities are limited only by what you find fun.

I’ll tell you something else that I’ve done in the past few years…simplifying my life. I got rid of the superfluous items and kept only what I need and use. I don’t own a TV (which thoroughly confused the guy that showed up at my door to try to upsell me cable to go with my net connection) because I don’t watch it and don’t see a need to pay for cable TV that I don’t use. I don’t necessarily advise that for you, but it works for me. My residence is very uncluttered…enough furniture, a drum set, a few pictures that I really like, a well-stocked kitchen, and plenty of open space. It’s not all feng shui or anything, but it’s simple, yet sufficient.

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits is the king of simplicity. There’s a lot that we can all learn from him. I recommend checking out his three books on learning to live simply and get more enjoyment out of living.

(The link takes you to the special purchase page for a package Leo put together for Fitness Spotlight readers, which includes instant downloads to all three of his ebooks in a single discounted package: The Simple Guide To A Minimalist Life, Zen To Done, and The Handbook For Life.)

Keeping “The Stool” Upright

I came up with an analogy awhile back that, while not perfect, works to illustrate how the various puzzle pieces fit together. I like to view health as standing on a stool and sickness as falling off the stool. The four legs are the major categories of Nutrition, Lifestyle (sleep, sunlight exposure), Environment (toxin exposure), and Activity (training and general active lifestyle).

If you think about the stool, it’s obviously easy to stay on top of it if all four areas are in place. If three areas are solid, you can probably stay upright most of the time. For instance, maybe you are a firefighter or doctor or EMT that works a non-traditional schedule. Your sleep is probably disrupted, so focusing on the other elements is even more important. You might get sick now and again, but for the most part, you’ll be healthy. Neglect two areas and that stool is very wobbly. Neglect three or more and you can forget about it.

Like I said, it’s not a perfect analogy. For one, I think the Nutrition “leg” is the most important one. Second, I find the various categories to be interdependent. The better I eat, the better I sleep. The more I sleep, the easier I find it to eat well. The better I eat and sleep, the better I recover from exercise. Regardless, it’s illustrative enough to work for me. Thoughts?

Let’s round out a full ten tips. I gave 8. If a friend asked you for ten tips to help them look and feel better, what would you add to this list? What would you drop?