Train Raw!

Remember the scene from “Major League” when Charlie Sheen’s character put on his horn rimmed glasses for the 1^st time?  Well if you don’t, you missed a great scene from a great movie.  After realizing that his character had eyesight problems that were keeping him from being a successful big league pitcher, his manager rushed out and got him a ridiculously hideous set of horn rimmed glasses.  One teammate responded “Don’t worry about it kid, seeing is the most important thing.”  Another teammate, looking at the glasses says, “It ain’t that important…”

That was how I felt the 1^st time I saw minimalist training sneakers.  I didn’t care if or how they worked – they just looked too stupid to wear.

Lately, the proliferation of barefoot training or training wearing “minimalist” sneakers has become increasingly popular.  We’re here today so I can give you the basic rationale behind minimalist footwear, and to tell you I was 100% wrong about it.  I made a mistake that I criticize other people for making all the time: judging something, or someone, simply based on how it looks.

Yes, you heard me, I was 100% wrong.  Stop smirking, I actually admit being wrong quite often, smarty pants.

First, the rationale behind minimalist footwear:

A quick lesson on bio-mechanics: remember that song in kindergarten? Your shin bone is connected to your thigh bone, etc etc?  Well it’s 100% accurate.  And since our feet are what’s in contact with the ground when we’re moving the positioning of our foot is crucial.  If our foot is not in an optimal position, our ankle will not be in the correct position.  If our ankle is not in the correct position, our knee won’t be in the correct position, and so on and so on.  Therefore, the correct bio-mechanical positioning of the foot is crucial to the rest of our body being in the correct position.  If joints such as the knees, hips, spine and shoulders are out of position, this is deleterious to both our joint health and our performance in the gym.

The problem with traditional sneakers is that they automatically put your foot in the wrong anatomical position. Your heel is instantly placed higher than your toes and your toes are squished together.  To optimize function, your heel needs to be on the ground (not on a 1” high wedge) and your toes need to be separated and spread out, as opposed to being in the perpetual vice grip of your cross trainers.

Problem #2: Every single thing about the way you move is reliant on sensory information from your feet.  Doesn’t make sense to you?  OK, here’s the short version then: we’re going to revisit 6^th grade science class.

When you are walking, or doing anything for that matter, when your foot hits the ground nerves in your foot send messages to your brain.  Your brain then interprets these messages and quickly sends messages to every muscle in your body, telling them how to respond so you can stay upright and keep moving.  For example, during normal walking, your brain would get one set of messages, if you slipped on a banana peel, it would get a different set, if you saw a car coming right at you, a different set, and so on and so on.  The rest of your body would move differently in each one of these situations depending on what messages the nerves in your feet gave to your brain, and then the subsequent messages your brain gave to every other muscle in your body.

It is impossible for your brain to receive accurate information about your movement and therefore impossible for it to respond optimally if your feet are on pillows with your toes squished together.

Your movement, and therefore your exercise program, is solely reliant on good information reaching your central nervous system.  If it receives shitty information, it doesn’t really matter what kinds of muscles are running the show and making you move.  This is why there are people who look fantastic, but may be the most uncoordinated injury prone people on the planet.  Conversely, there are people who don’t “look” athletic, but actually are pretty coordinated and catch on to workouts quickly.  It’s simply because their brains work better when it comes to movement.

It’s like 2 people driving the same model car: both cars have the same engine, the same brakes, handling, etc.  But one is driven by Jeff Gordon and the other by a little old lady.  Which one is going to get better more accurate information about starting, stopping, turning, accelerating, etc.?

And more importantly, from practical, personal experience and observations, I can see a difference since switching to minimalist footwear.  I’ve done it and a good chunk of the TR membership has as well with great results.  Not one of us who has switched to minimalist or barefoot training has returned to wearing regular sneakers when exercising.

Since trying out the Adidas Adipure, I can tell you I will never exercise in regular sneakers ever again.  Frankly, I wouldn’t limit it to exercise: if it weren’t winter in the northeast I’d be wearing them 24/7.

And before I go on, I must be clear I receive no compensation to endorse Adidas or the Adipure.  (Although for the record, I must admit I like the fact that Adidas DOES NOT give $100 million to quarterbacks who torture dogs, like some other brand name sneaker company.  Sorry, had to get that in…)

Does working out barefoot work? Sure.  You may have a problem with traction and stepping on things can be uncomfortable, but it’ll work.  The Adipure have a thin rubber sole so if you do step on something like a pebble or tack you won’t be injured.

And for those of you who still say “Well, don’t your feet need some support?” My response is this:  Following your logic, you should be wearing knee braces, back braces, shoulder braces and neck braces too when you work out because those areas need support as well.  

But I know you won’t do that because THAT would be stupid. J

Jon

Have Muscle, Burn Fat!

You’ve heard me say countless times by now that long duration cardio is one of the LEAST effective ways to lose body fat.

One thing that perhaps I haven’t emphasized enough however, is this: one of the BEST ways to lose body fat is to increase or maintain muscle tissue.

Let’s be clear about this: I did NOT say go get big muscles.  I said increase or maintain your muscle tissue and strength.  Subtle, yet very important difference.

Far too often, people associate strength and muscle increases with big, inflated biceps, deltoids, pecs, etc.  (like this guy…who doesn’t do drugs…really…)

Because most women have a phobia about increasing size and getting “bulky”, and because most men figure out in their early 20’s that big muscles are useless as a general rule, they de-prioritize or avoid strength training.

This is where some confusion comes in because this may seem like a conundrum to many: increase lean muscle tissue without getting “big muscles”?   Let me address some common questions/areas of confusion as to how increasing muscle tissue sheds fat and how increasing muscle doesn’t mean “big muscles”:

·        

          Strength training is NOT what people think it is

People get confused as to what strength training is.  Let me clear up what it is NOT:  Strength training is NOT sitting on benches.  It is NOT sitting on machines.  Strength training is NOT training one muscle at a time.

Those training methodologies were born from people trying to sell you gym memberships and from people trying to convince themselves, and you, that they actually work hard.  (Yeah, that last set of reverse grip tricep pushdowns looked pretty grueling.  Definitely justified the noise you made and the “tough guy” look you shot into the mirror…)

Real strength training, that is to say strength training that actually improves strength and quality of muscle tissue, involves total body movements, not the one muscle at a time approach.  Real strength training involves you supporting your own body weight, not a machine or bench supporting all the weight while you use leverage to move it.

Real strength training that involves your entire body without the aid of benches and machines and is done with limited rest periods burns a boat load of calories and kicks your metabolism in the ass.

·         The intensity of a total body strength workout in and of itself will raise your metabolism:

A workout that increases muscle tissue requires enough intensity within the workout that your resting metabolic rate will be raised as a result.  This is a good thing: this means you will be burning more calories the other 23 hours of the day after a strength workout than from something lower in intensity like traditional cardio training.  This is the biggest problem with cardio training – it simply isn’t as intense as strength training and therefore can’t impact your metabolism positively.

·        

Maintaining the muscle requires an increase in RMR

Your body has to work pretty hard just to maintain muscle.  The processing of calories becomes more efficient as you body goes into overdrive to be sure that any calories you do ingest go directly to muscle repair or energy replacement.  And if calories and energy are being used to be sure that muscles are maintained and energy is being replaced, then guess where calories AREN’T going…

·         There are 700 muscles in the body.

The reality is this:  If you utilize total body strength training – NOT isolated muscle strength training – you will have a small increase in muscle size, if there is any increase at all.  This is due to the fact that the weight you’re lifting, which should be pretty substantial if you’re using your whole body, is spread out evenly over every muscle in your body.  Because you’re never isolating and/or overloading one muscle, there will never be any substantial increase in any one muscle.  If you know me, Dina, or any of the regulars at the TR, you know two things: 1. we’ve been doing total body strength training with the heaviest things we can find for a long time, and 2. “Bulky” is the LAST thing that people would call us.

Here’s the issue that most people overlook:  There are about 700 muscles in the human body.  If each one increases in size .001% from total body strength training, that’s negligible from a visual standpoint.  (As opposed to if you only trained your arms with curls and extensions, your arms would get noticeably bigger.  And you’d look like an ass because nothing else on your body would.)  However, that minor increase adds up as far as your metabolism is concerned.  .001% times 700 is enough of an increase to put your metabolism to work as mentioned above.

Bottom line: if you do intense total body strength training, you will increase and/or maintain your strength and muscle tissue.  You will positively impact your RMR.  You will lose body fat.  You will feel better and look better.

Think about the people at Globo gym right now: most do what they think is strength training followed by low intensity cardio.  In other words, two things that a) are time consuming and b) do not burn a significant number of calories, and c) have little impact on the metabolism, so there’s very little calorie burning, if any, when the workout is over.

And even though you may not get big muscles in the traditional sense doing total body strength training, you will be able to see your muscles because the body fat will be reduced.  And who among us doesn’t want that?

Be strong, have some muscle, have very little fat.  Sounds like a plan.