09/06/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
I think I’ve mentioned before the idea of brain maps. mc started wrote about this a while ago and pointed me towards the book – The Body has a Mind of its Own
There was a good discussion of the ideas at Paul’s Perfect Health Diet blog too recently, with something from Todd Hargrove and a good follow up discussion
It is also a topic on which the excellent Becoming Bulletproof is built.
Anyway, I spotted this interesting report on how brain maps – at least in rats – are pretty flat. They are not good at estimating their position with respect to height.
Read more here
Animal’s brains are only roughly aware of how high-up they are in space, meaning that in terms of altitude the brain’s ‘map’ of space is surprisingly flat, according to new research. In a study published online today in Nature Neuroscience, scientists studied cells in or near a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which forms the brain’s map of space, to see whether they were activated when rats climbed upwards.
The study, supported by the Wellcome Trust, looked at two types of cells known to be involved in the brain’s representation of space: grid cells, which measure distance, and place cells, which indicate location. Scientists found that only place cells were sensitive to the animal moving upwards in altitude, and even then only weakly so.
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09/06/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
….this will encourage Matt Stone.
Association between obesity and reduced body temperature in dogs
Conclusion: These findings document an association between obesity and reduced body temperature in dogs and support the hypothesis that obesity in this and other species of homeotherms may result from an increase in metabolic efficiency achieved by a regulated lowering of body temperature.
More commentary here
Most humans and most animals gain weight because they accumulate fat. That occurs when they take in more energy than they expend. The unused energy is stored as fat. “The way to reduce energy intake is to eat less, but that means you feel hungry, and a common way to increase energy expenditure is to exercise, but many people lack the motivation,” he said.
Refinetti’s study explored the theory that obesity may result from a less obvious reduction in energy expenditure: a reduction in body temperature. The idea is that warm-blooded animals spend much of their energy generating heat to keep the body warm. However, some animals have body temperatures that are naturally lower and therefore do not need to use as much energy to stay warm. The reduced body temperature would be sufficient to account for body weight gain over several months.
“Although not yet replicated in humans, these results suggest that human obesity may be caused by a small reduction in the temperature at which the body maintains itself,” he said.
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09/05/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
Fitness in today’s chaotic world This post is just a series of thoughts, bullet points so that I can get some ideas down for something that I might develop further…. We can hack the body with tricks to build muscle, strength and even enduranceThis can be done with minimal investment in timeHIT type training, even with bodyweight and static contractionsHIIT intervals, sprints to develop VO2 max and enduranceThat gives you capacity, potential
BUT WHAT IS THE POINT?We are facing a strange and challenging world that seems to be getting more chaotic and unpredicatablenatural disasterrioteconomic declinepeak oil…..To survive in such a world you need not only capacity but also relevant skills. You can be strong…..but that is only useful up to a pointWhat skills do you need? What will keep you alive in such a world?The paleo meme - look at the past to be fit for the future.Paleo is not just dietHunter Gatherer fitnessWe can use modern technology to build the capacity…..Safely…..What skills are needed?Fitness is specific – for tasks….You can hack strength, endurance….but are you “fit” if you can’twalk wellsprintcarryclimbcrawljumpfightDon’t neglect the skills……(even in pieces I am writing for a backpacking magazine just now I am stressing the skill of walking) Can you hack the skills? learn to walk, sprint, crawl, carry, climb and defend yourself
Key idea - Body hacking like in Ferris’ 4 Hour Body is short-sighted if it doesn’t produce real world skills. The world is falling apart or at least changing radically. Strength and conditioning will take you so far but without skills you will have capacity….and health…..but not useful ability. Learn to walk, sprint, carry, climb, fight and think to survive. (MovNat)
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09/05/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
I saw that someone on Facebook had linked to this and took a look. An interesting approach and nice design.
In an unhealthy society like ours, being healthy has become a revolutionary act.
The Manifesto is worth downloading and you should browse through the
101 ideas for being healthy. Nice and holistic.
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09/04/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
Paul Jaminet at the Perfect Health Diet has talked a bit about infection and the impact on the brain.
This is an interesting report of how:
a small amount of exercise shields older animals from memory loss following a bacterial infection, according to a study in the August 10 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest moderate exercise may lead to several changes in the brain that boost its ability to protect itself during aging — a period of increased vulnerability.
Here is the abstract
We have previously found that healthy aged rats are more likely to suffer profound memory impairments following a severe bacterial infection than are younger adult rats. Such a peripheral challenge is capable of producing a neuroinflammatory response, and in the aged brain this response is exaggerated and prolonged. Normal aging primes, or sensitizes, microglia, and this appears to be the source of this amplified inflammatory response. Among the outcomes of this exaggerated neuroinflammatory response are impairments in synaptic plasticity and reductions of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), both of which have been associated with cognitive impairments. Since it has been shown that physical exercise increases BDNF mRNA in the hippocampus, the present study examined voluntary exercise in 24-month-old F344×BN rats as a neuroprotective therapeutic in our bacterial infection model. Although aged rats ran only an average of 0.7 km per week, this small amount of exercise was sufficient to completely reverse infection-induced impairments in hippocampus-dependent long-term memory compared with sedentary animals. Strikingly, exercise prevented the infection-induced exaggerated neuroinflammatory response and the blunted BDNF mRNA induction seen in the hippocampus of sedentary rats. Moreover, voluntary exercise abrogated age-related microglial sensitization, suggesting a possible mechanism for exercise-induced neuroprotection in aging.
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09/04/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
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I train and eat well so that I can be fit enough to walk to places where I can have views like this. I train to have more fun…and when it is easy to walk for 8 hours and climb these tops it is more fun.
This was the view yesterday looking towards Knoydart from Sgurr Mor in Glen Kingie on a perfect day in the West Highlands
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09/04/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
James Steele has had a peer reviewed article published identifying what protocols can be recommended for resistance training based not on tradition or fashion but on evidence! How novel
The full article is available here and I’d recommend you to download it and have a read. It challenges some popular ideas that are out there – like plyometrics – and makes some recommendations based on what the science says.
It is good stuff – similar to the stufy here in fact!
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09/03/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
Well maybe not exactly mainstream but the hipster, IT crowd who read Lifehacker type stuff.
Eating Ancestrally: How To Start Eating and Living Like A Human
The whole basis of eating and living a Paleo lifestyle is to use “scientific evidence and evolutionary clues” to decide how we should eat, exercise, and play.
Which of course is a(n unattributed) quote from Angelo Copolla
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09/03/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
I’ve pointed to material like this before – e.g. the post on Ratey’s book Spark – but the post on Paul’s Perfect Health Diet blog on joint mobility got me thinking about it again. It is worth reading and I’ve put a few comments on the post
There was a good review paper recently about the evidence for the relationships between physical activity and exercise and the brain and cognition. The full paper is avalable. Interesting stuff.
It also links to the ideas of the excellent book The Body Has a Mind of Its Own which I might have mentioned previously, a superb book that mc pointed me towards.
I should also mention that Becoming Bulletproof provides a nice explanation of these ideas too.
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09/03/11 by Discoverer | Fitness | No Comments »
I’ve said that I am writing a series of articles on fitness for a UK hillwalking / backpacing magazine – TGO.
I am picking up on some of the things that I’ve covered here over the years, looking at fitness for the hills in terms of:
conditioning – intervals / sprints to improve VO2 max etcstrength – the importance of absolute strengthskill – i.e. how you walkI’m also picking up on things like posture
I’m working on a piece now which is looking at the dangers of sitting. I’ve posted some links before on this – e.g. this great infographic One of the ideas is that sitting has profound effects on your posture and structure which does not leave you in a fit state to walk. You are too tight in the wrong places, so we need to address the impact with corrective exercises – glute activation for example and stretching the hip flexors - and the cause by avoiding so much sitting.
Anyway, the other thing that is relevant is how inactive we are. Hunter-gatherers – paleo man / Grok etc – was very active. This paper says that
A large amount of background daily light-to-moderate activity such as walking was required. Although the distances covered would have varied widely, most estimates indicate average daily distances covered were in the range of 6 to 16 km.
How many of us are that active now? This is no hard exercise – there was that too – but jsut general movement as part of life.
A new study indicates that even regular exercise doesn’t help if you spend the rest of your time sat on your fat arse.
“If people spend the majority of their time sitting, even with regular periods of exercise, they are still at greater risk for chronic diseases,” Thyfault said. “If people can add some regular movement into their routines throughout the day, they will feel better and be less susceptible to health problems. In the long term, they may not see big changes in the mirror, but they will prevent further weight gain.”
Clarence Bass actually raised similar ideas a couple of years ago – Too Much Sitting Is Risky—Even for People Who Train
For me it is all about lots and lots of easy walking – staying aerobic – plus some occaisional sprints and resistance training. On top of that, some corrective exercise – stretches, glute activation etc.
Actually probably not far from Mark Sisson’s prescription or that of Art Devany or Taleb.
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