RKC Wrap Up

Update
I've been buried in analysis and proposal writing this past week, hence the delays. If all goes well I will be presenting an abstract at ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) this May; so keep those fingers crossed. If anyone else is going to be there (talk about planning ahead) please drop me a line and we can talk "shop".

I am off to Z Heath Level 4 in AZ this coming Wed for some more Z Kool Aid. Whooo ha! Can't wait. I am looking forward to seeing everyone there again and learning some great new information.

RKC Wrap Up
Overall, the RKC was awesome!

Honestly, I went into it knowing that I would learn a lot, but figure some of it may go against what I believed (it is good to challenge beliefs). The main reason I signed up was that ALL of the RKCs I have met were top notch and excellent people in all respects; so I knew it must be good! I also have been reading Pavel's work for a long time and I always learned something new from him every time.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I agreed with almost all of it, and the parts I am still trying to piece together in my mind I will be thinking, experimenting long and hard on for awhile.

From the outside, it would appear that Z Health and RKC are polar opposite, but I don't believe so and I found both of the systems discussing the same thing! Now, since I just did the RKC my experience with the RKC system is extremely limited at this point, but I found the similarities were

both talk about APPROPRIATE tension
relaxation when not lifting
breathing techniques (anatomical vs biomechanical match)
strength is a skill that must be practiced
long spine and proper alignment
the nervous system holds the keys to all of it!

I used to think that RKC was always about high tension and no relaxation, which is not true. Think of tension as a big dial. The closer you are to a 1 RM (rep max), the more tension you will need to lift the weight in a safe manner. Powerlifters are on this end of the spectrum, since the entire goal is to lift as much weight as possible within the confines of the rules. Now if you are doing an exercise with 50% of your max, you will need less tension. Yes, this is an over simplificiation. I think most people would be better off practicing BOTH ends of the spectrum and everything in between. If you lift in a commercial gym, you will know what I mean. Most there (none of the readers of this blog though of course) use too much tension with horrible alignment. Again, it is all about APPROPRIATE tension.

I want to give a shout out to the team leader of our group Brett Jones as he did an amazing job and it was great to be on his team. The assistants for our group Sandy and Brian were outstanding also. Everyone there was highly motivated from the team leaders and everyone participating. A special shout out to all team Jones members and each one of them gave it their all during the entire weekend. It was a grueling weekend with tons of work. I did more KB work in 3 days than I think I've done in the past month. The graduation training session was brutal, but it was nice to know it was the last one!

I highly recommend the RKC system to anyone that is interested.

Please post any comments below about Z and RKC as I think that would be an interesting discussion. I know Geoff Neupert had a few entries on his blog on this topic also. I believe both are talking about the same thing, but how they go about an end result is different.

Rock on
Mike N

RKC Completed!

Just a quick note that I passed the RKC (Russian Kettlebell Certification)! Whoooo ha! Thanks to all for their encouragement.

It was a crazy and grueling 3 days, but overall it was an excellent experience and EVERYONE there was top notch all the way.

Special thanks to Brett Jones our group's RKC Team Leader and his assistants Brian and Sandy--excellent job!

I will post the full details soon! And look, another blog post from me without references (don't get too used to it though).

Rock on
Mike N

RKC Day 1 Completed

I made it through day 1 of the RKC here in MN and getting ready for day 2 right now.

I was so excited that I passed the snatch test and got 74 reps with the 24 kg with one hand switch. I did not keep the best long spine, but I still passed.

Day 1 had us working on swings and TGUs primarily. It was very good and I learned tons of new stuff and met lots of great people.

Full wrap up coming next week. Off to day 2 and then the final day 3.

Rock on
Mike N

RKC in Minnesota coming right up!

This one will be super short this week since I am off to the RKC here in MN starting with the meet and greet Thurs night and then the pain starts Friday through Sunday. Unfortunately I got blasted with a horrible cold starting about a week ago so training as been not the best to say the least. Before that, my best in training for the 24kg snatch RKC style was 66 reps with one arm switch only. For the RKC I need 76 total reps with the 24kg with only one arm switch. I figure I should be able to add 10% with an all out performance when it counts, so I will be close. I did my last training session last night, so tonight will be some very light work (if at all), some Z Health and attempt to get some more sleep for a change. Extra sessions wil only hurt me at this point, so it is time to rest up and show up heathly and then anything is possible. My plan is to pass the snatch test on day 1 in the AM so I can concentrate on all the other tasks at hand without having to worry about it. Wish me luck!

I am super excited to meet everyone, so if you will be here in MN for the RKC please introduce yourself. I should be easy to find--look for the 6'3" blond guy!

I will have more updates after the RKC on the experience.

Blog updates will be shorter until after Z Health Level 4 in AZ in early Nov due to class, labs, possible abstract due to ACSM (if the results looks good), research funding proposal and pilot research study protocol all due before the Goblins come on Halloween. Tons of great stuff though!

Rock on
Mike N

Stop looking at averages, it's not that simple!

I've often said that physiology is messy (click here for an older post on it). I am sure I am not the first person to say that and I can't even remember who I stole it from.

I was having a conversation with Dr. Biltz at the U of the MN the other day (the really cool part about hanging out there is that I can pick the brains of super smart people) about the "thingification" of physiology. Open any text book and even in exercise physiology--which I tell people is basically physiology "in motion" (at rest it is pretty boring anyway), the descriptions still make it sounds like it is at rest. Sure, they say it is not at a steady state, but the quantities they use and words make it seem "fixed'

Dr. Biltz argues that ALL of it is in motion and prefers to think of it in terms of "different flow rates' which makes perfect sense to me since my primary background the first 8 years in college and beyond was engineering (I actually switched from the PhD program in Biomedical Engineering here to Kinesiology when I only had 2 more biomed classes left to take--ugh!) In engineering, we use rate calcs all the time, although I still think Newton invented Calculus just to torture students.

We should also stop looking at the means of data. We are past gaining a ton of new info that way and who the heck is "normal" anyway? (Sure as heck it's not me!) As I've stated before (check out the link here), physiology is associated with every "bad" engineering word--non linear, anisotropic, dynamic, highly variable, etc.

There are more data emerging within the last few years that is not only using the means/averages. One area is Heart Rate Variability (HRV) that uses the variability of the HR on a super small scale to get at the ratio of sympathetic to parasympathetic stimulation.

Analogy time. Think of sympathetic stimulation as an accelerator and parasympathetic as a brake. If you pull out a heart and let it beat on its own (click here to see the post about the visible heart experiments where they did just that), it will go to a rate of 100 beats per minute.

So under most conditions the heart is mainly under parasympathetic stimulation (aka braking) to DECREASE the heart rate (HR). When you start to exercise, the body with start to WITHDRAW parasympathetic stimulation up to about a rate of 100. Now, it is really never all parasympathetic or sympathetic and HRV can be used as tool to look at the percentage of each one at any given rate. This gives us clues as to how the nervous system maintains control.

Even new implantable defibrillators will give you a picture of HRV! See the picture at the top here.

This non linear, dynamic analysis can be applied to many areas! Here is a link to a study looking at GH levels. Many times you will see the word "entropy" or a newer method is "sample entropy" which appears to be better (I will save you the math but if you want to know how to calculate sample entropy see the list below for some good late night reading if you can't sleep).


Rant over and off my soapbox I go.
Rock on
Mike N

General references on the topics above

1. Bornas X., J. Llabres, M. Noguera, A. Pez. Sample entropy of ECG time series of fearful flyers: preliminary results. Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci. 10(3):301-318, 2006.

2. Cao H., D. E. Lake, M. P. Griffin, J. R. Moorman. Increased nonstationarity of neonatal heart rate before the clinical diagnosis of sepsis. Ann Biomed Eng. 32(2):233-244, 2004.

3. Javorka M., J. Javorkova, I. Tonhajzerova, A. Calkovska, K. Javorka. Heart rate variability in young patients with diabetes mellitus and healthy subjects explored by Poincare and sequence plots. Clin Physiol Funct Imaging. 25(2):119-127, 2005.

4. Kaplan D. T., M. I. Furman, S. M. Pincus, S. M. Ryan, L. A. Lipsitz, A. L. Goldberger. Aging and the complexity of cardiovascular dynamics. Biophys J. 59(4):945-949, 1991.

5. Maestri R., G. D. Pinna, A. Porta, et al. Assessing nonlinear properties of heart rate variability from short-term recordings: are these measurements reliable? Physiol Meas. 28(9):1067-1077, 2007.

6. Nagai N., T. Matsumoto, H. Kita, T. Moritani. Autonomic nervous system activity and the state and development of obesity in Japanese school children. Obes Res. 11(1):25-32, 2003.

7. Nagai N., T. Moritani. Effect of physical activity on autonomic nervous system function in lean and obese children. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 28(1):27-33, 2004.

8. Pincus S. Approximate entropy (ApEn) as a complexity measure. Chaos. 5(1):110-117, 1995.

9. Pincus S., R. E. Kalman. Not all (possibly) "random" sequences are created equal. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 94(8):3513-3518, 1997.

10. Pincus S. M. Orderliness of hormone release. Novartis Found Symp. 227:82-96; discussion 96-104, 2000.

11. Pincus S. M., J. D. Veldhuis, A. D. Rogol. Longitudinal changes in growth hormone secretory process irregularity assessed transpubertally in healthy boys. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 279(2):E417-24, 2000.

12. Platisa M. M., V. Gal. Reflection of heart rate regulation on linear and nonlinear heart rate variability measures. Physiol Meas. 27(2):145-154, 2006.

13. Richman J. S., J. R. Moorman. Physiological time-series analysis using approximate entropy and sample entropy. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 278(6):H2039-49, 2000.

14. Ryan S. M., A. L. Goldberger, S. M. Pincus, J. Mietus, L. A. Lipsitz. Gender- and age-related differences in heart rate dynamics: are women more complex than men? J Am Coll Cardiol. 24(7):1700-1707, 1994.

15. Tulppo M. P., T. H. Makikallio, T. E. Takala, T. Seppanen, H. V. Huikuri. Quantitative beat-to-beat analysis of heart rate dynamics during exercise. Am J Physiol. 271(1 Pt 2):H244-52, 1996.

16. Veldhuis J. D., M. L. Johnson, O. L. Veldhuis, M. Straume, S. M. Pincus. Impact of pulsatility on the ensemble orderliness (approximate entropy) of neurohormone secretion. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 281(6):R1975-85, 2001.

17. Veldman R. G., M. Frolich, S. M. Pincus, J. D. Veldhuis, F. Roelfsema. Growth hormone and prolactin are secreted more irregularly in patients with Cushing's disease. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 52(5):625-632, 2000.

Z Health and Weight Loss, Caffeine Power Nap, Neural Chunking and more!

Delays
I apologize for the longer than usual gaps in blog posts, but in the future they will be about one per week since I like to go more in depth on some and that takes a fair amount of time to track down the research. My virtual assistant should be up and running any time now, so that will be a big help.

December 18 is my last final for classes this quarter and it will be my last quarter of full time classes! Whoo ha! My research proposal should gets some funding (fingers crossed), so I will be able to start my dissertation research in January of 2008, so I am super excited! I just need to publish 3 papers and then I am done--ha!

I am also working 24 hours a week, TA for Exercise Physiology all day every Friday, pilot research, funding proposal due Oct 25 and training myself and some Z Health appointments along the way. I try to get out and have fun too! It is all good though and no complaints.

I have the RKC in Oct here coming up and then Z Health Level 4 training in AZ in early November, so that will be a blast.Neuro Chunking Experience
I was able to get out 2 weekends ago kiteboarding on Friday, wakeboarding on Sat and more kiteboarding on Sunday, so that was awesome!

My first pull wakeboarding on that Sat was horrible! I was having an "off" day and everything seemed hard and nothing was going right. I was trying to clear the wake and not making it and slamming into the opposite wake--youch.

So before my second pull, I just said I was going to have fun and if I never clear the wake, so be it. As I got back there, the driver (Mike "Supersize") cranked up a killer Seether tune and I realized that this is supposed to be FUN! I relaxed and had a blast and cleared the wake most of the time no problem!

I realized that music profoundly affects my mood and although I can't prove it yet, I feel that mood influences performance too! There is some evidence to suggest that the release of dopamine (a "feel good" neurotransmitter) aids in strengthen neuro connections(actually it was shown that dopamine depletion disrupts skillful performance of sequential movements if you want to be picky (1)). Add to this that I have nuerally chunked music into almost everything that I do; so in my case good music=good times=improved performance.

I would be interested if others have had similar experiences, so please post them in the comments section.

Z Health for Fat Loss?
Now I know this sounds too good to be true!

Awhile back I did a Z Health appointment on an athlete and it went well. In short, we were able to get her glutes and hams to fire much better and this drastically improved her KB swing almost instantly! I was excited and so was she.

A week later I checked in and she said the KB swing felt worse and she was getting tightness in her lower back. I asked if she had been doing the Z drills and she said "no". So I explained to her that if her glutes and hams were not working correctly that more of the force would be transferred to her low back and she should do the Z drills more.

Fast forward to another week later and same thing--low back tightness and she had not been doing the Z Health drills and even stopped doing the KB work.
Since her goal was primarily fat loss, I explained that if some of the biggest muscles in her body (glutes and hams) were not firing correctly, that in addition to causing some low back tightness she was actually hindering her fat loss efforts since the most metabolically active muscles were still asleep! Her eyes lit up and that made sense to her. Bingo!

She began doing the Z Health drills before each session and reported that she felt great and even had some soreness in her glutes and hams for the first time in recent memory. She was all excited because she could feel it "targeting" the glutes and hams.

Now you can argue about whether soreness is needed, but in the real world most athletes (at least initially) like to feel like they have done some work; so by explaining it in terms she could understand AND fit her goals, her compliance went way up.

Caffeine power nap
Here is a cool trick I picked up about a year ago called the caffeine power nap. Right before you take a short (30-45 minute) nap, drink some coffee or use anhydrous caffeine like No Doz (or my favorite Biotest Spike which has caffeine and thiamine di(2-methylpropionate) disulfide in case you were wondering), lay down ideally in a quiet, dark room, for some shut eye. I like to set a kitchen timer since I can then turn off my cell phone as for the alarm to work the cell phone has to be on. The caffeine will start to kick in within about 30-60 minutes, so once you wake up the caffeine is going and you had the benefit of some extra shut eye. Sweet!

I don't recommend this practice all the time as there is nothing that can replace a good nights sleep, but lets face it--sometimes you have deadlines to meet and stuff that has to get done and this works great. I view caffeine as living on "borrowed time" as you will have to repay this temporary sleep debt at some point. The half life of caffeine is about 3-9 hours (2,3) and feel free to adjust the amount based on your tolerance for caffeine and how close you do this near your estimated bed time.

Let me know if anyone has tried this and your thoughts. I will save you a diatribe on caffeine for now.

Personally I really like Biotest Spike since it helps my concentration quite a bit and the time release provides a nice and smooth no crash feeling. Again, use in moderation.

Amazing new band for all you music fans!
It is a pretty well know fact that you find a higher percentage of metal heads in the "gym crowd" than in other places. One of the best things I love about training in my garage is the loud metal music. Most people probably don't know that I was a metal DJ at a college radio station for 4.5 year and was also the Director of Loud Rock music there for 4 years--amazing time.

I just saw the band Five Finger Death Punch here in MN last night and they were AMAZING! All of the members are amazing and very passionate musicians. Old school metal guitar solos, amazing vocals from Ivan Moody (former singer of Motogrator) that go from clean and clear to angry and screaming, double bass and crazy hooks. Their debut CD is my favorite CD of this entire year--highly highly recommended. Check out two videos below from them.





Random studies I found interesting

leucine study

The molecular bases of training adaptation

Muscle mechanics: adaptations with exercise training

Shoterning velocity and ATPase activity of rat skeletal muscle fibers: effects of endurance exerercise training

The determinants fo skeletal muscle force and power: their adaptability with change in activity pattern

That should keep you busy!
Rock on!
Mike N

References

1. Blanchard J., S. J. Sawers. The absolute bioavailability of caffeine in man. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 24(1):93-98, 1983.

2. Matsumoto N., T. Hanakawa, S. Maki, A. M. Graybiel, M. Kimura. Role of [corrected] nigrostriatal dopamine system in learning to perform sequential motor tasks in a predictive manner. J Neurophysiol. 82(2):978-998, 1999.

3. Newton R., L. J. Broughton, M. J. Lind, P. J. Morrison, H. J. Rogers, I. D. Bradbrook. Plasma and salivary pharmacokinetics of caffeine in man. Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 21(1):45-52, 1981.