Garage Gym Part 3 - The Rack

You've picked out your bar and plates, now you need a safe, solid, high quality rack (mind out of the gutter, people).

Do you absolutely need a rack? Well, not really. Pretty much every barbell exercise can be done by lifting the barbell directly from the floor. Unfortunately, that limits the amount of weight you can squat, because you'll only squat weight you can lift from the floor to your shoulders. That's called a clean.



Even the best Olympic weightlifters can only clean about 80% as much as they squat. And, as we know, if you want to get stronger, you have to move heavier weights. Lifting lighter weights lots of times won't make you nearly as strong as lifting heavier weights fewer times. Additionally, the squat is probably the most important strength training exercise you can do. That's why even the best Olympic weightlifters squat from a rack.



We non-genetic-freaks who train for health and recreation can usually clean about 50% - 60% as much as we can squat. That means that if you don't equip your garage gym with a squat rack, you'll severely limit the amount of weight you'll be able to squat. Considering the importance of the squat in your strength training program, training without a squat rack means leaving a lot of strength on the table.

So, my advice? Buy a rack.

If your budget is tight, you can buy the bar(s) and plates first, then save up for the squat rack and buy it later. You don't have to spend a fortune, but this is not a place to cheap out. A good quality rack will last a lifetime, so you'll only make this purchase once. I can't say that about a cheap rack. Again, I'll explain what I bought and why, then we'll go over some alternatives.

THE RACK

I don't have a lot of space, or an enormous budget. Consequently, I chose a rack that serves multiple purposes, Y-2 Rogue Yoke ($535). It serves as a squat rack, bench press rack, pull-up bar, storage rack, yoke, and sled.

I'm six feet tall, and the Y-2 Yoke is just tall enough (92 inches) for me to do dead hang pull-ups with full extension. However, that's the one part of my garage gym that I regret. I wish I'd bought a wall mounted pull-up bar instead, because the pull-up bar makes it a real pain to use the rack as a yoke.



I have to remove the pull-up bar to install the crossbar. That's no fun. Eventually, I'll buy a wall mounted pull-up bar, but for now I have other priorities.

I particularly like all the plate storage on my rack. It doesn't take up a whole lot of additional floor space, and saves me the hassle of having to build my own solution. The only problem I have with it is something I didn't anticipate, but should have. When you stack plates on top of each other, it's really difficult to get your fingers in between them to pick them up. Obviously! Fortunately, it was an easy fix. I just made spacers from scraps of 3/4 inch plywood I had laying around the garage.

So, what are your options? They're essentially infinite, so I'll only cover a few of the basics, and hopefully that'll serve as jumping-off point for you.

First, I do not recommend you buy the this kind of squat stand.

Notice that the two sides of the stand are not connected to each other. That makes them too unstable for my taste. They cost $350, but I'd rather err on the side of safety and spend a little more.

Here's a fairly basic, sturdy, high quality squat stand.

The bench, safety bars and weights aren't included, but at $365, it's only $15 more than the S-4 squat stands, which aren't connected with each other. And this SML-1 stand is much sturdier and safer. Chances are that a basic squat stand, like the SML-1, is all you'll ever need.

From Rogue's Facebook page

But, wait! There's more! So, please read on.

There are power racks. This one costs $725.

There are racks that mount to your wall. This one costs $650.

If your garage is tiny, there are racks that mount to your wall and fold. This one costs $495.

If your budget and square footage are unlimited, I'm jealous, and for you the sky's the limit.

And, accessories? You want accessories? You could spend all day browsing accessories for your squat rack. As with everything else in life, let your budget be your guide.

No matter which rack you choose, you absolutely, positively should buy some kind of safety spotter arms, or bars. Rogue power racks come from the factory equipped with safety bars, but the other racks in the photos above do not. Ensure you understand whether or not your rack includes safety bars. Mine didn't, so I bought a set of these ($162.75).

Note the chalk marks. I know exactly where to mount my safety arms for the squat and bench press. You can't do that at
Gold's Gym! 

Why are spotter safety arms so important? Safety. Duh. Sure, you can drop a bar from your back when squatting, but it's safer to set it down on a pair of safety arms that you mounted at a height just below the bottom of your squat before you started your workout.

But the real danger isn't the squat. It's the bench press. The bench press is the only lift that can kill you. In 2016, a 22-year-old man in Des Moines dropped a 315 lb barbell on his throat. In 2017, a 15-year-old boy in Brisbane, Australia dropped a 220 lb barbell on his throat. It's a rare, but very real risk, especially when training by yourself.

You can eliminate that risk by setting a pair of safety arms to a height just below the bottom of your bench press. Is your health and life worth at least $162.75? Mine is.

THE PLATFORM

A platform prevents your garage floor and your weights from damaging each other. You can buy a platform, but building one is so simple that I didn't see the need to buy one. I used three sheets of the least expensive 3/4 inch plywood I could find at Home Depot, and three sheets of 3/4 inch rubber horse stall matting from Tractor Supply. I used standard 1 inch wood screws to assemble it. I didn't bother to bolt it to the floor, because it's pretty stinkin' heavy. It ain't goin' nowhere.

Step 1: lay two sheets of plywood side-by-side on the floor.

Step 2: screw one sheet of plywood on top of the two you laid on the floor.

Step 3: cut the rubber mats to size, and screw them onto the plywood.

Dead simple, right? No need to get fancy, or spend a fortune. Although, if you want to, feel free to do so. On the other hand, you could go in the opposite direction and just set gym mats directly on your garage floor. I prefer the feel of plywood - rather than rubber - under my feet when I lift, but hey, it's your garage.

As always, I hope this has been helpful. If you have questions and/or suggestions, please feel free to comment. In the final installment, we'll talk conditioning equipment.

Garage Gym Part 1 - Overview
Garage Gym Part 2 - Bars & Plates

Garage Gym Part 2 - Bars & Plates

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at an overview of how I built my garage gym. I built my gym with three major factors in mind. In descending order of importance they are price, quality and space. I have limited resources and limited space, and I want my equipment to last a long, long time. Now we'll take a look at the two most important parts of the gym; the bars and the plates.

BARBELLS

First of all, this is not the place to save money in your gym. Let me say that again. This is not the place to cheap out. The barbell is the most versatile, most useful piece of strength training equipment you can buy. A good, quality barbell will last a lifetime with minimum maintenance. A cheap one will rust, bend, or the collars will stop spinning smoothly. Save money elsewhere.

How versatile is a barbell? Here's a non-exhaustive list of exercises one can perform with a standard barbell. Back squats, front squats, overhead squats, snatches, power snatches, muscle snatches, cleans, power cleans, muscle cleans, clean and jerks, push jerks, push presses, overhead presses, bench presses, thrusters, deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, curls, lunges, farmer's carries, barbell rows, and lots, lots more that I either don't know, or can't think of right now.

Additionally, a barbell allows you to move a lot more weight than with dumbbells, kettlebells or any other piece of equipment. If you want to get stronger, you have to move more weight. Again, this is not the place to cheap out.

So, a barbell is a barbell is a barbell, right? Not really. I'll explain which ones I bought and why, then I'll cover other options.

I bought the Rogue 2.0 bar (men's bar, $255) for myself, and Rogue Bella 2.0 bar (women's bar, $215) for Aimee. The first thing you'll notice is that the Bella bar has a smaller diameter shaft (25 mm) than the Rogue 2.0 bar (28.5 mm), to better fit women's smaller hands. The sleeve is also shorter, presumably because women don't need quite as much space on which to load plates. Consequently, the women's bar weighs 15 kg (about 35 lb), vs. the men's bar's 20 kg (about 45 lb).

The Rogue 2.0 and Bella 2.0 bars are excellent generalist's bars. They're great for Olympic weightlifting, power lifting and high-repetition, fast workouts, like CrossFit. They're high quality bars with a tensile strength of 190,000 lb/square inch. I'm an aerospace project engineer, and Rogue's workmanship is just as good as ours. They're also made in Ohio. Despite all that, they're still affordable.

What makes these bars great for recreational generalists like Aimee and me?

First, the knurling. Knurling is the checkered pattern pressed into the steel bar. Its purpose is to give you better grip. Power lifting bars have more aggressive knurling for better grip in the deadlift. These bars have less aggressive knurling (like Olympic weightlifting bars), so they don't tear up your hands when performing fast lifts like the clean and the snatch, or fast, high-rep workouts like CrossFit.

These bars lack center knurling. Center knurling is great from back squats, because it helps keep the bar more securely on your back. It's terrible for front squats and cleans, because it tears up the skin on your throat and clavicles.

These bars are also flexible, like Olympic weightlifting bars. When you perform a clean, you want the bar to flex a little. You can see what I mean in this slow motion video.

Olympic weightlifting bars have bearings that allow the sleeves to spin when performing fast lifts. That's great, but bearings that last when subjected to that kind of abuse are very, very expensive, which is why even "affordable" Eleiko Olympic weightlifting bars cost $829 new.

The Rogue 2.0 and Bella 2.0 bars use oiled brass bushings instead of bearings. No, they don't spin as nicely as bearings. Yes, you do have to oil them every couple months to keep them spinning nicely. But, they keep costs down, and unless you have a shot at qualifying for the USAW American Open, you really don't need to spend the money on a high-end bearing bar.

What about other options for recreational lifters? I'll cover Rogue bars only, but you can find equivalent bars at Again Faster.

If you're a generalist, like Aimee and I are, you could go with the Rogue Ohio Bar. It's more expensive than the Rogue 2.0 bar, but you can get it in several different finishes that are more rust-resistant than the black zinc coating on the Rogue 2.0 bar. You can even get them finished in multiple Cerakote colors. My favorite (of course) is the Operator bar ($325), which comes in O.D. green, or desert tan. It's cool, but my garage is nice and dry, so I don't anticipate needing the more protective coating.

If you plan to stick with the slow lifts (squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press), the Ohio Power Bar ($245 and up) is a better bet. It's a power lifting bar, so it has a larger diameter shaft (29 mm), and higher tensile strength (205,000 lb/square inch). That makes it much stiffer, which is better for the slow lifts. When performing squats, deadlifts and presses, you want the minimum flex possible. Additionally, the Ohio Power Bar has center knurling, which helps keep it on your back during the back squat, and all its knurling is more aggressive for better grip.

If you're willing to spend more, you could go with the Westside Power Bar ($325), which Rogue co-developed with Louie Simmons, head coach of Westside Barbell, which has produced more power lifting champions than any other gym. Honestly, I don't know what (if anything) makes it any better than the Ohio Power Bar, but if you want to spend the additional cash, go for it.

PLATES

HERE is where you can cheap out, if you want to.

I went with Rogue LB Training 2.0 bumper plates. They're color coded (55 lb, 45 lb, 35 lb and 25 lb), and made of high density rubber with a large steel disk in the middle.

I like them because you can drop them when performing the clean, clean and jerk, and the snatch.



Unfortunately, they're expensive - $883 for a 320 lb set. You can get cheaper bumper plates, but because they have smaller disks in the center, and they're made with lower density rubber, they don't last nearly as long.

But you don't have to spend nearly as much as I did.

Plates don't do a whole lot. They just rest on the bar's sleeves and provide resistance (weight). If you don't care about being able to drop the weights, go with cast iron plates, which are relatively inexpensive, and will last forever. In fact, you don't even have to buy them new. There's always someone on Craig's List or Facebook Marketplace selling plates they were too lazy to use.

Do not buy used bars. You never know how the previous owner abused his/her equipment, and bars do require maintenance. But there's very little one can do to damage cast iron plates.

Make sure you get some fractional plates. You're unlikely to find any used ones, because few people know about them. As your training progresses, you'll reach a point where you won't be able to increase the weight on the bar by five pounds at a time. With fractional plates, you'll be able to increase by 2 lb, 1 lb, or even 1/2 lb at a time, which is a lot better than zero. I got my fractional plates from Amazon, because they were cheaper, but I see that's no longer the case.

Fractional plates in 1 lb, 3/4 lb, 1/2 lb and 1/4 lb. Yes, my OSO collars are pink. Sue me.

Lastly, get some collars. Not everyone uses them, but they're important for safety. I prefer OSO collars. They're a lot more secure than the spring collars most gyms use, which means your plates
won't rattle, which means you won't have to stop and readjust your plates ten times per workout. They're a lot more expensive than spring collars, but unless you're running a commercial gym, you only need one pair.

Mini deadlift bar jack in action.

Bonus: a deadlift bar jack is unnecessary, but it sure is handy. It makes loading and unloading a bar on the floor a whole lot easier and faster. I bought the mini jack, because it's less expensive ($62.50) and takes up very little space. If you have the space and the budget, you might consider a full size jack, which is even more convenient, but also a lot more expensive ($165).

The jack makes changing plates a whole lot easier.

Again, I hope this was helpful. Please comment if you have questions and/or suggestions.

In part 3, we'll go over the second most important piece of garage gym equipment - the squat rack.

Garage Gym Part 1 - Overview
Garage Gym Part 3 - The Rack

Garage Gym Part 1 - Overview

No gym membership could ever be as convenient as rolling out of bed, dragging my lazy carcass into my garage, and - still in my PJs (I'm not exaggerating) - lifting weights. It's not for everyone. For some people, the gym is a big part of their social life. Or, they feel the need for the accountability of working out with a group of friends.

But, if - like me - you're a busy curmudgeon, you might benefit from the convenience of a home gym. Obviously, mine is not the only way to build a home gym. Far from it. Very far from it. But it's a good way, and it might give you some ideas that you can customize to your own situation.

THE THOUGHT PROCESS

I don't have a lot of room. I basically have most of one corner of the garage. Consequently, I decided to only use the most versatile equipment possible. Everything has multiple functions. I plan to add more equipment in the future, but - as sparse as this setup may look - I really don't need anything else, other than more plates (more weight). All the things I have in mind for phase 2 are nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves.

Equipment that has multiple uses also saves money.

THE SUPPLIERS

I bought most of my equipment from Rogue Fitness. Some of it I've had laying around for a while, like the bench, and the adjustable dumbbells in the corner. I don't even remember where I got those.

Rogue is one of my two favorite fitness equipment suppliers. The other is Again Faster Equipment. They're about equal in price and quality, but Rogue has gotten a lot bigger over the years, because they're the official equipment suppliers of the CrossFit Games. These days they sponsor strongman, Olympic weightlifting, and power lifting events.

You can't go wrong with either of them. The reason I chose Rogue is that I live a lot closer to Ohio than Florida, and that makes shipping from Rogue a lot less expensive. Either way, their equipment isn't cheap, but it isn't cheap, either. You get what you pay for.

In this case, Rogue's customer service was outstanding, their employees were knowledgeable and helpful, both on the phone and over email, and the delivery prompt. I have no complaints. I wish every company was that good.

The platform is made from plain, old 3/4" plywood from Home Depot and horse stall mats from Tractor Supply.

I made the bar hanger from scrap lumber I had laying around the garage.

The chalk bag hanging from the pull-up bar is for rock climbing. I bought it at a place called The Pathfinder in Manhattan, KS back when I was stationed at Fort Riley, but you can find one - and chalk - at REI or Amazon. You'll want chalk. Trust me.

The black-and-blue things are my knee sleeves, turned inside-out to dry. You may or may not want those.

In part 2, I'll cover the most important equipment in the gym, the bars and plates. Please commend with any questions or suggestions you may have.

Garage Gym Part 2 - Bars & Plates
Garage Gym Part 3 - The Rack

What is it About Iceland?

For the first time in its (admittedly short) 10-year history, the women's podium at the 2016 CrossFit Games looked exactly like it did the previous year.

2015 CrossFit Games women's podium
1st: Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir (Iceland)
2nd: Tia-Clair Toomey (Australia)
3rd: Ragnheiður Sara Sigmundsdottir (Iceland)

2016 CrossFit Games women's podium
1st: Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir (Iceland)
2nd: Tia-Clair Toomey (Australia)
3rd: Ragnheiður Sara Sigmundsdottir (Iceland)

A repeat like this has never happened before, so that was surprising, but it wasn't the least bit surprising to see Icelandic women on the podium. In fact, at least one Icelandic woman has stood on the podium every year since 2010, when Annie Thorisdottir (yes, that means Thor's Daughter) took second place, except for 2013, when Annie Thorisdottir took a year off due to injury.

Annie Torisdottir

Only American women have more podium finishes at the CrossFit Games that Icelandic women.

American women have two big advantages. First, CrossFit started in the US - Santa Cruz, CA, to be exact. When the Games began in 2007 all the podium finishers were Americans. The Games only started growing into an international event in 2009. Second, the US has an enormous population from which to draw competitors, and more CrossFit gyms than any other country.

As impressive as the Icelandic women's accomplishments are by themselves, they become mind-blowing when one considers that Iceland has a tiny population of 332,529. By comparison, Wichita, KS has a population of 389,965. That means that a tiny island country in the North Atlantic with a population smaller than that of a mid-sized city in the American Midwest has dominated the women's half of a grueling international multi-sport competition for the last six years. When I compared women's podium finishes to population size (podium finishes per 1 million of population), the other countries practically disappeared.

The Icelandic women's dominance has been a major topic of discussion among those who follow the CrossFit Games.



Icelandic men haven't been nearly as successful in CrossFit. The only Icelandic man to stand on the podium is Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson, who took 26th at the 2014 Games, 3rd in 2015 and 8th in 2016.

Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson

American men are far more dominant in CrossFit with only one non-American champion (Mikko Salo, of Finland, in 2009). Even so, when one considers population size, Iceland eclipses all other countries in podium finishes.

Why don't Icelandic men perform as well at the CrossFit Games as their female compatriots? Maybe because they're too busy with the World's Strongest Man competition.

A photo posted by Björgvin K. Guðmundsson (@bk_gudmundsson) on Jun 15, 2016 at 5:44am PDT

The giant on the right is Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson. Most people know him as The Mountain on Game of Thrones, but he first gained fame by placing 3rd in the 2012 World Strongest Man competition, 3rd in 2013, 2nd in 2014 and 3rd again in 2015. The 2016 competition will take place later this month in Botswana. As you can see from the video I posted above, and Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson's Instagram feed, Icelandic CrossFit athletes train with Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, in large part because the CrossFit Games typically include some Strongman events (though at much lower weights). And also because he's preternaturally strong, and training with someone who's stronger than you are is a great way to get stronger.

Like the CrossFit Games, the US has more podium finishers at the World Strongest Man competition than any other country.

Fortunately, the WSM has been around since 1977, so there is a lot more data to sift. Again, the US has the same advantages in WSM as it does in the CFG (yes, I'm tired of typing both those out), yet tiny Iceland isn't far behind. And when I compared podium finishes to population size...

... no other country even comes close. And, as with the CFG, others have noticed this phenomenon.


The WSM and CFG share a few similarities. They're both strength-based sports. They both feature different events each year, so they both require athletes to adapt to unknown and unknowable challenges. And, as I mentioned above, the CFG often feature events like yoke carries and weighted sled pushes, pulls and drags that are staples of the WSM. But the differences are much greater than the similarities.

So, why does Iceland produce great athletes for these two sports in numbers so wildly out of proportion with its population? Obviously, genetics have a lot to do with it. Every world class athlete is a genetic freak. No amount of hard work or great coaching will turn an ordinary person into a world class athlete.

But, why Iceland, specifically? No other Nordic country is nearly as disproportionately represented in these sports as Iceland. What is it about the Norse who colonized Iceland that makes them such outstanding athletes in these two sports? Is there a cultural component on top of the genetic component?

Unfortunately, I don't have answers to my questions, but maybe someone reading does. If so, please comment. Hopefully, I'll get to watch the WSM later this month and marvel at the near-super-human feats the athletes will perform.

PS: The current WSM champion is American Brian Shaw, who's been on a winning streak since 2009.

PPS: Australian Tia-Clair Toomey will compete in Olympic weightlifting at the XXXI Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro next week. This is the first time any athlete has qualified for both the CFG and the Olympics in the same year.  

Strength Training Beats "Cardio" for Fat Loss

We know that strength predicts health and longevity much more accurately than BMI.  And we know that - within a surprisingly broad range - body fat doesn't make much of a difference to health.  Now we have further evidence that strength training is more effective than "cardio" at keeping body fat within healthy levels. 

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition: Deadlift Ladder Event

...weight training is the most effective way of keeping abdominal fat in check, compared to other activities such as running or cycling. 

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health measured the activity levels of over 10,000 men aged 40-plus, monitoring their weight and waist circumference over a 12-year period.

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition

I'm glad that the researchers chose to conduct their study on men 40 and older, although I wish they'd conducted the study on women, too.  Most researchers conduct fitness studies on healthy young men - typically in their 20s.  People in their 20s don't need as much help staying healthy as people in their 40s.  And the kind of physical activity that produces improvement in a young, healthy 20-year-old may not work for an older person, because the older person can't recover as quickly as a younger person.  As a general rule, older people simply can't handle the kind of training volume younger people can.

They found that those men who spent an extra 20 minutes a day weight training gained less abdominal weight over the course of the study than men who increased the amount of time they spent doing aerobic exercise.

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition

 Guess what's even better than strength training alone.

Combining weight training with aerobic exerise led to even better results, the study found. 

Frank Hu of Harvard School of Public Health said: "This study underscores the importance of weight training in reducing abdominal obesity, especially among the elderly. 

"To maintain a healthy weight and waistline, it is critical to incorporate weight training with aerobic exercise."

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition

It seems intuitively obvious, doesn't it?  Our bodies are designed to move themselves slowly over long distances, quickly over short distances, and to move heavy external loads over even shorter distances.  It simply makes sense to train the body the way it's designed to work, as opposed to limiting the body to only one time domain and/or modality.

Now, guess which training program covers all those time domains and modalities.  That's right.  CrossFit.

2014 CrossFit Games Masters Competition: Sprint Sled Event.

Unfortunately, although the article's title is "Why weight training is better for your waistline than running", it doesn't actually explain why.  The following video does.  I encourage you to watch the whole thing, but you can skip to the actual explanation at 7:28.



The short version is that when you do "cardio", you burn fat during your training session.  So, if you do "cardio" for an hour, you burn fat for an hour.  When you train for strength, and even more so when you perform high intensity training like CrossFit, you burn sugar during the training session, but you burn fat for hours following the training session as you recover.

The photos I linked above are from the Masters Competition of the 2014 CrossFit Games.  All the athletes that compete in the Masters Division are in their 40s, 50s and 60s.  The video below is a good summary of the competition, and the kind of training these athletes do.


Stay healthy, my friends.

Vegetarians & Vegans Have Lower Sperm Counts

I'm sure you're as shocked at this confirmation of stereotypes as I am.

Researchers at Loma Linda University Medical School, in southern California, embarked on a four-year project to find out how diets affect sperm.

...

Vegetarians and vegans had significantly lower sperm counts compared with meat eaters, 50 million sperm per ml compared with 70 million per ml. 

They also had lower average sperm motility – the number of sperm which are active. Only one third of sperm were active for vegetarians and vegans compared with nearly 60 per cent for meat eaters. 

Those are significant differences.  The average vegetarian in this study produced 16.7 million viable sperm per ml, compared to 42.0 million for the meat eaters.  That means the vegetarians produced about 60% less viable sperm per ml when compared to the meat eaters.

Even if a man isn't interested in procreating, sperm counts and sperm motility are indicators of a man's overall health, especially his testosterone levels.  Why might vegetarians and vegans produce less viable sperm than their meat eating peers?

One factor could be diets rich in soy, the researchers hypothesis [sic.]. Soy contains phyto-oestrogens which have similar properties to the female hormone oestrogen. 

“The theory that we have come up with is that vegetarians are replacing meat with soy, which contains phytooestrogens and could be affecting fertility,” added Dr Orzylowska. 

“For children who have grown up with those kind of diets, it may have impacted on sperm quality from puberty. 

That seems like a terrible thing to do to a growing boy.  The researchers propose another possible reason.

The researchers also think that vegetarians and vegans may be deficient in vitamin b12. 

The article also references another possible reason from a separate Harvard study.

“We found men who had the highest intakes of fruit and vegetables high in pesticide residues tended to have lower sperm quality, specifically lower total normal count and mobile count” said Dr Chavarro.

My unscientific observation indicates that vegetarians and vegans tend to buy into the "organic" food (as opposed to inorganic food?) hype.  That might actually reduce the amount of pesticide residue they ingest, which would make the pesticide hypothesis invalid.

Every time I read about one of these studies comparing vegetarians to the general population, I wonder how they would compare to the strength training, paleo or primal eating segment of the population.  My unscientific observation also indicates that vegetarians and vegans tend to live healthier lifestyles than the overweight, sedentary majority of the population.  It seems more useful to compare them to other health-conscious people, rather than to people who place little to no emphasis on health and fitness.  I suspect that the differences referenced in the article would be even greater if the study compared vegans and vegetarians to paleo or primal men.

Humans are omnivores.  We're designed to eat a wide variety of foods from both vegetable and animal sources.  One can certainly live on a diet that deprives the body of one or the other, but it's far from optimum.

Meanwhile, back on the subject of stereotypes...


Heh!

Hand Grip Strength and Longevity

I wrote earlier that the Muscle Mass Index predicts longevity far more effectively than the far more commonly used Body Mass Index (BMI).  A couple days ago, the NYT published an interview in which Warren Sanderson, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Stony Brook University, explains that hand grip strength predicts longevity.

Hand-grip strength is an amazingly good predictor of future rates of mortality and morbidity, or sickness. It’s been measured for individuals in surveys across the world. We now have comparable data on about 50,000 people from the U.S., many European countries, Japan, South Korea, China. A substantial body of research suggests that this can be used as a reliable predictor of aging.

Here is the abstract from the study referenced in the NYT article.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: One use of clinical measures is the prediction of future outcomes. The purpose of this systematic review was to summarize the literature addressing the value of grip strength as a predictor of important outcomes. 

METHODS: Relevant literature was located using 4 bibliographic databases, searching article reference lists, and perusing personal files. 

RESULTS: Forty-five relevant research articles were found. The research involved both healthy subjects and patients; it tended to focus on middle-aged and older adults. The primary outcome addressed was mortality/survival (24 articles), but disability (9 articles), complications and/or increased length of stay (12 articles), and other outcomes were also examined. Low grip strength was shown consistently to be associated with a greater likelihood of premature mortality, the development of disability, and an increased risk of complications or prolonged length of stay after hospitalization or surgery. 

CONCLUSIONS: Given its predictive validity and simplicity, dynamometrically measured grip strength should be considered as a vital sign useful for screening middle-aged and older adults. 

It's frustrating that Prof Sanderson doesn't even bother to ask what seems to me an obvious question: why does hand grip strength predict longevity and morbidity so well?

Aren't researchers supposed to ask questions like that?  Isn't that a big part of research in any field?  And while we're at it; aren't such "why" questions a big part of journalism?  The interviewer didn't bother to ask the obvious question either!

635 lb deadlift at the 2014 CrossFit Games

Not that anyone asked me (when have I ever let that stop me?), but I think I know the answer, and it goes back to the Muscle Mass Index.

As a general rule, a person who is stronger overall will have more hand grip strength than a person who is weaker overall.

For example, a person with a 500 lb deadlift 1-rep-max has a far stronger grip than a person with a 200 lb deadlift 1-rep-max, because the deadlift requires the lifter to grip the bar to lift it off the ground.  But the 500 lb deadlifter's entire body is also stronger than that of the 200 lb deadlifter, because the deadlift employs pretty much every muscle in the body.  Consequently, the 500 lb deadlifter has greater muscle mass than the 200 lb deadlifter.

That's why hand grip strength predicts health and longevity.  It's not because fit, healthy people's hands are stronger than frail, sickly people's hands, it's because fit, healthy people's entire bodies are stronger than frail, sickly people's bodies.

Prof Sanderson, however, doesn't bother to ask the question, so he never arrives at the answer.  Instead, he makes the following silly - and potentially dangerous - statement.

Measuring hand-grip strength is very simple and cheap. We think every primary care doctor should have a dynamometer in their office. At every visit, the doctor could check grip strength for older patients. If someone was in the 45th percentile for their age and the measurements were stable, great. But if that person suddenly dropped to the 25th percentile, then that’s a sign that the doctor should look seriously at what might be going on. 

We view this in a larger context. There are going to be more measures than this one. We want to look next at measures of lower-body strength. It may very well be a measure that looks at how long it takes someone to rise from a chair. Then, we will have an upper-body measure and a lower-body measure, and we can compare the two in terms of how aging goes. We envision one day that physicians will have standard age-related tables for these measures and chart their patients’ progress, just as they do with height and weight for children.

Source

It's silly because there is no need to measure upper and lower body strength separately.  A full-body lift, like the deadlift, measures the strength of the entire body simultaneously.

It's dangerous, because if doctors really did follow Prof Sanderson's recommendation and started testing their aging patients' grip strength, they'd also require their patients to do dumb things like squeezing hand grip strengthening devices to improve their health and longevity.  Again, the point is not that stronger hands = longer life.  The point is that stronger body = longer life, and it just so happens that stronger body also = stronger hands.

A far better test would be the deadlift, because it actually measures what matters - the overall strength of the entire body.  An even better measuring tool would be the squat, because it requires more mobility and flexibility than the deadlift.  A person that can continue to squat to depth well into old age will likely be far more independent, and therefore have far better quality of life, than one who can't.

Ideally, the test would be the CrossFit total - squat, press and deadlift.  However, that much testing is probably not necessary.  The squat or deadlift alone would do.  And if doctors adopted that kind of test, it would encourage a lot more people to train for full-body strength, which is the most useful thing a person can do to improve health and fitness in the long run.

Some will protest that the elderly can't lift weights.  It's too dangerous for them, they'll claim.  To these critics I say, watch this 73-year-old grandmother with a deadlift PR of 181.5 lb.


You can bet Ms Sandra would crush the hand grip strength test.

Scott Panchick's 500 lb Back Squat

Scott Panchick, three-time CrossFit Games competitor and 5th-place finisher in 2014, recently posted a video of himself squatting 500 lb, a new PR for him.



When you film a squat from a relatively high angle, looking down at the athlete, it's often difficult to tell if the athlete lowered his/her hips below the top of the knee, as they should.  Scott Panchick's squat dropped so low that its below-parallel depth was easy to see even from the relatively high camera angle.

Mr Panchick lists his weight as 190 lb on the CrossFit Games website.  A 263% body weight back squat is an impressive accomplishment, but the reason I posted this here is that I think this example - along with many others - contradicts some criticisms commonly leveled at CrossFit as a training regimen.

The most obvious is that CrossFit keeps people weak.  Clearly, Scott Panchick and all other CrossFit Games athletes are far from weak.  Yes, they are elite athletes, and therefore not representative of all people who train using CrossFit.  However, their programming demonstrates how pretty much anyone can train with CrossFit and get a whole lot stronger.  Mr Panchick's training sessions, like those of most CrossFit Games athletes, typically start with a weightlifting movement, followed by some high intensity conditioning.  Obviously, few of us would want to employ the level of volume or intensity they do, but if a person scales that kind of program to his/her ability level and progressively increases the load over time, that person could continue to improve for years, just as all CrossFit Games athletes have.

That brings me to the second criticism often leveled at CrossFit.  Critics often claim CrossFit only helps novices improve, and that improvement ceases after a few weeks or months of training.  Mr Panchick and other CrossFit Games athletes are clearly far from novices, and yet they continue to improve year after year, just as ordinary athletes of all ages in CrossFit gyms all over the world continue to improve year after year.  That wouldn't be possible if CrossFit only worked for novices and only for a few weeks or months.

Finally, I'll address one criticism that is accurate, but misses the point.  Many who see Mr Panchick's squat will comment that if he focused exclusively on strength training, he'd be even stronger.  That is undoubtedly true.  It is also true that if a decathlete focused exclusively on the 100 m sprint, or the long jump, or the shot put, or the pole vault, or the 1500 m run, he'd be much better at sprinting, jumping, shot putting, pole vaulting or running 1500 m.  But then he could never hope to earn the title of "World's Greatest Athlete".

Likewise, the CrossFit Games does not claim to find the strongest on Earth, but "the fittest on Earth".  Fitness is a combination of ten components of which strength is only one.  It's the most important one, but it's still only one.  Were Mr Panchick to focus exclusively on strength, his competence in the other nine components would decrease.  That's fine for a power lifter who is chasing absolute strength exclusively, but not for an athlete who wishes to maximize fitness as a whole.

Mr Panchick comments on his Instagram video that he is also chasing a five minute mile.  Think about that.  Many people can run a five minute mile.  Many can squat 500 lb.  How many can do both?

As Rich Froning said upon winning his fourth straight CrossFit Games, "This stuff works".

Matt Chan Takes a Bad Spill

Talk about unknown and unknowable!  Multiple-time CrossFit Games athlete, Matt Chan, and his wife Cherie (one of the coaches at my Level 1 course) went on a seemingly benign mountain bike ride and Matt took a spill that almost killed him.


Check out the graphic scene at 4:15!

My favorite quotes from the video:

Cameraman: You're definitely the most jacked dude on Earth using a walker.
Cherie: That's what the nurses thought, too.

...

Cherie: My mother-in-law said, "This is why you guys do CrossFit, because when something like this happens - and you never know when it's going to happen - you can bounce right back, because you're so much stronger.  Look how much better he can support himself because his upper body is so strong."

You got it, Mama Chan.

Muscle Mass Predicts Longevity Better Than BMI

I'm on record stating that BMI is a crock.  I arrived at that conclusion through reasoning, not scientific research.  But now there is scientific research that demonstrates that BMI is a poor predictor of longevity, and that muscle mass is a better predictor of longevity.

Doctors routinely measure a patient's body mass index, or BMI. And if that weight-to-height ratio points to obesity, the doc might prescribe exercise, to shed the extra pounds. But when it comes to longevity, a focus on weight loss may be misplaced. Because BMI isn't actually a very reliable indicator of life span. A more useful measure, some physicians say, might be muscle mass. 

Researchers analyzed BMI and muscle mass data from more than 3,600 seniors in a long-term study. And they tracked which seniors had died, a decade later. Turns out BMI wasn't much good at predicting chance of death.

But muscle mass was: more muscle meant better odds of survival. The study appears in The American Journal of Medicine. [Preethi Srikanthan and Arun S. Karlamangla, Muscle Mass Index as a Predictor of Longevity in Older-Adults]

From the abstract:

Objective
Obesity (as defined by body mass index) has not been associated consistently with higher mortality in older adults. However, total body mass includes fat and muscle, which have different metabolic effects. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that greater muscle mass in older adults is associated with lower all-cause mortality. 

Methods
All-cause mortality was analyzed by the year 2004 in 3659 participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III who were aged 55 years or more (65 years if women) at the time of the survey (1988-1994). Individuals who were underweight or died in the first 2 years of follow-up were excluded to remove frail elders from the sample. Skeletal muscle mass was measured using bioelectrical impedance, and muscle mass index was defined as muscle mass divided by height squared. Modified Poisson regression and proportional hazards regression were used to examine the relationship of muscle mass index with all-cause mortality risk and rate, respectively, adjusted for central obesity (waist hip ratio) and other significant covariates. 

Results
In adjusted analyses, total mortality was significantly lower in the fourth quartile of muscle mass index compared with the first quartile: adjusted risk ratio 0.81 (95% confidence interval, 0.71-0.91) and adjusted hazard ratio 0.80 (95% confidence interval, 0.66-0.97). 

Conclusions
This study demonstrates the survival predication ability of relative muscle mass and highlights the need to look beyond total body mass in assessing the health of older adults.

I probably shouldn't have read the comments to the Scientific American article, but I did, and they are sadly typical of the kind of ignorance, laziness and plain stupidity one encounters on the internet.

Jerzy v. 3.0. March 21, 2014, 7:23 AM
Low muscle mass in elderly people may mean that all their systems are falling already. Questionnaire about exercise might be more meaningful. Correlation doesn't imply causation, sorry.

jtdwyer to Jerzy v. 3.0. March 21, 2014, 7:34 AM
Exactly! What's most important here is that BMI is a (loosely) quantifiable indicator of lifestyle health for children and young adults - for whom lifestyle factors contribute most greatly to long term health and survival.
Unfortunately, increasing muscle mass in the elderly is not likely to reduce morbidity! 

The responders obviously didn't read the abstract, because the answer to their objection about frailty in old age, near death is right there where I highlighted it in bold.  The researchers measured the subjects' muscle mass index when they were 55 (men) or 65 (women) years old between 1988 and 1994, not when they died.  They analyzed the causes of mortality in 2004.  They also eliminated all subjects who were underweight in the first two years after the survey to eliminate individuals whose "systems are failing already".

Worse still, the responders obviously didn't even bother to read the article to which they responded.

There's no cause-and-effect here—just correlation for now. But study author Preethi Srikanthan, of U.C.L.A., has this recommendation: "Get up and start moving. Focus on trying to maintain the maximum amount of resistance training that you can, and stop worrying so much about dropping calories." Which could take a little weight off your mind, too.

Jeeze.

Anyway, Dr Srikanthan's advice isn't all that helpful.  How exactly does one "get up and start moving" and "focus on trying to maintain the maximum amount of resistance training that you can"?

People gain muscle and strength most easily in their teens, twenties and thirties.  After that, a person's hormone profile makes it increasingly more difficult.  The solution then, is to increase ones muscle mass as much as healthfully possible while young and maintain it as much as possible as one ages.  But how?  And what if one is already past 50?  Is it too late?

One shouldn't expect a physician to have the answer (it's not their specialty) and Dr Srikanthan doesn't, but that's OK, because Mark Rippetoe does.

Strength — as well as a tolerance for childish nonsense — is the thing we all lose as we age. Squatting down, standing back up, putting things overhead, pulling things up the driveway, loading the groceries, wrestling with the grandkids, teaching the dog who’s boss, mowing the yard, putting the broken lawnmower in the truck again: simple physical tasks we took for granted years ago are often problems for older, weaker people, as well as a source of potential injury that can be expensive and debilitating. 

Source: PJ Media

For most of us, this happens because of inactivity. If you do not use your muscles to produce enough force to maintain their ability to do so, it shouldn’t be surprising that they become less capable of doing it. And walking, running, riding a bicycle — physical activities whose performance is not limited by strength for even moderately active people — cannot increase or even maintain strength.

So, how does one fix this problem?

The absence of skeletal loading is typical for older people, since we now hire the heavy work done instead of doing it ourselves. And just like muscles, bones adapt to the “stress” of being unloaded by getting thinner and less dense. Running is not a weight-bearing exercise in the sense that strength training is. It’s just a “you-bearing” exercise, and the impact of repeated footfalls affects only the legs. In fact, people sensitive to impact have far fewer problems with the static nature of barbell training than they do the repeated impacts of running. A barbell sitting on the shoulders or held overhead in the hands loads the skeleton in a way that other exercises cannot do, and a strength training program always results in the preservation of bone density. Coupled with the strength necessary to control your balance, this is the best insurance against the tragic and often fatal pelvic fracture that an older person can acquire. 

Source: PJ Media

But the loss of strength can be slowed down quite a bit, and for older people who have never trained before, a vast amount of improvement can take place in a relatively short span of time. I have trained many older competitive “masters” lifters who started out as disinterested gym members and then experienced a sudden change of attitude when their strength doubled with six months of lifting weights. These people will tell you about the difference strength training — not running — has made in their lives. 

Here's a quote from the 3rd edition of Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training.

Weight training is precisely scalable to the age and ability of the individual lifter... We have 11-pound bars - or even broomsticks - for kids to start lifting with... This logic also applies to every group of people who might be viewed as a "special population" - the frail elderly, people with skeletal and muscular disease, the completely sedentary, the morbidly obese... In fact, the adaptation to weight training is precisely the adaptation that these special populations need... (pages 322-323)

For further details, read the rest of Rippetoe's articles on PJ Media, then get the book.

Finally, the subject of BMI reminded me of this.

My life insurance policy went up $98 a month after my BMI was checked. Blood work, body fat, overall fitness.....not important. @CrossFit
— Jason Khalipa (@JasonKhalipa) December 14, 2013

This is Jason Khalipa.

Jason Khalipa BMI = 31 (obese)

See what I mean?  BMI is a crock.

Isolation Movements Waste Your Time

Hang around people in the fitness industry long enough, and you'll undoubtedly hear/read the term "muscle imbalance".  Muscles apply tension on joints, and that tension keeps joints operating like they're supposed to.  But some athletic pursuits strengthen the muscles that apply tension on one side of a joint more than their opposite counterparts.  That's an imbalance.

For example, long distance runners' hamstrings are often weaker than their quadriceps.  The difference in tension between the hamstrings and quads often results in knee injuries after years of running.

The conventional method of balancing the strength of muscle groups acting on opposite sides of a joint is to isolate the muscle groups and exercise them individually, often using machines.  Most physical therapists would advise a long distance runner with weak hamstrings to strengthen the quads and hamstrings separately with leg extensions and leg curls.

But that brings up a fairly obvious question.  Or, it should, anyway.  How does an athlete performing leg extensions and leg curls know if  his/her quads and hamstrings are balanced?  How does he/she know if they are operating as they are designed to?  Put simply, he/she can't know.  It's impossible.  Because the movements he/she is performing are movements his/her body is not designed to perform.  In fact, the human body can't perform those movements without the assistance of machines that were invented in the 1970s.

So, how can an athlete strengthen his/her quads and hamstrings evenly and help prevent knee injuries?

Simple.  Squat.

Unlike leg extensions and leg curls, the squat is a natural movement our bodies are designed to perform.  Because of that, when an athlete performs a squat correctly, all the muscles involved in the squat are automatically balanced.  The athlete doesn't need to think about which muscles to "fire" (I hate that term, by the way) because his/her nervous system does it instinctively.

You can find the following illustration on page 19 of the third edition of "Starting Strength".

Figure 2-11, page 19, Starting Strength Basic Barbell Training 3rd Edition

It demonstrates how the quads and hamstrings work together to help perform the squat.  As helpful as this illustration is, however, I recently ran across a video that I think makes this point much more effectively.



In the video clip above, CrossFit athlete Brooke Ence performs the squat with excellent technique, and you can watch the quads and hamstrings engage, contract and stretch in perfect concert with each other.  And it's not just her quads and hamstrings.  Her hip adductors, tensors, glutes, etc. work together to flex and extend her hips and keep her knees pointing over her toes.  Simultaneously, her abs and the muscles in her back maintain proper spine alignment and thus transfer force from the ground all the way to the bar.  And every muscle from the bar to her feet works to keep the weight balanced and centered over her feet.

That's why isolation movements waste your time.  It would take hours to train all those muscle groups by isolating each of them.  A 5x5 set of squats does it in minutes.  And even if you did manage to train all those muscle groups by isolating them, you'd never know if they were really in balance with each other.

Are there cases in which isolation movements are not a waste of time?  Sure.  Competitive body builders need isolation movements to compete in their sport.  Besides, they get judged on appearance, not performance.  Also, if an athlete is injured and can't perform compound movements like the squat, it's better to do something than nothing.

If, however, an athlete is not injured and wants to improve performance and prevent injury, compound movements - squats, deadlifts, presses, the Olympic lifts, etc. - are the way to go.  For such an athlete, isolation movements are an unnecessary, counterproductive waste of time.