Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles' Foe, It's Fuel(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Lactic Acid Is Not Muscles' Foe, It's Fuel
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/health/nutrition/16run.html
39 comments
After doing crossfit for a year, I think I knew this semi-consciously but it's interesting to read about it being backed by science. Short, highly intense training sessions lead to very large gains in fitness because most of your training is anaerobic.
Another crossfit hacker? Wow. (The first place I saw that article linked was from crossfit.com, around the time it first came out. )
I got good results with crossfit (dropped 40 pounds, now I'm "athletic" -- I'd never have imagined I could do 20 pullups before), but I'd do it even if it was only average, because it doesn't bore me.
Running? Unpleasant and boring. Weight lifting? Boring disciplinarian bullcrap ...
Crossfit? I check the website, burst out laughing, grit my teeth, and then do something that seems almost impossible yet takes 30 minutes or less. Awesome.
I got good results with crossfit (dropped 40 pounds, now I'm "athletic" -- I'd never have imagined I could do 20 pullups before), but I'd do it even if it was only average, because it doesn't bore me.
Running? Unpleasant and boring. Weight lifting? Boring disciplinarian bullcrap ...
Crossfit? I check the website, burst out laughing, grit my teeth, and then do something that seems almost impossible yet takes 30 minutes or less. Awesome.
It's good to hear from other CrossFiters outside the community. I spent the weekend at a level I cert and loved every minute of it. The highly intense workouts are both always interesting (and always painful) and highly results oriented.
Of course, that depends on how you measure fitness. Highly anaerobic activities will not prepare you well for a marathon, for instance. But they will make you more fit in weight-lifting and anaerobic sports.
Look at the training regimes for Olympic-class athletes in any given sport... they're a pretty good guide, considering the incentives involved.
Look at the training regimes for Olympic-class athletes in any given sport... they're a pretty good guide, considering the incentives involved.
I disagree that CrossFit doesn't train you for a marathon. It might not train you to be an elite marathoner but it does train you to be an adequate one. Greg Admundsen who is a fairly well known Crossfitter did nothing by main page workouts for preparation for a 100 mile race and he finished 80 miles.
There is solid data, described in the article and found elsewhere on the web that short, intense fitness sessions where most of your work anaerobically will in fact prepare you for aerobic activities. CrossFit is the empirical proof of that.
There is solid data, described in the article and found elsewhere on the web that short, intense fitness sessions where most of your work anaerobically will in fact prepare you for aerobic activities. CrossFit is the empirical proof of that.
Wow. This goes against everything I've ever been taught about how to manage your muscles during endurance activities (In my case hiking, cycling, and Nordic skiing), yet, jibes with my experience. And here I thought there was something seriously wrong with me.
Eh, he does say at the end that despite not knowing the mechanism, coaches still managed to get the best performance just by looking at outcomes. There are no new exercise tips in the article.
What will you do differently after reading this?
Spend more time outside the aerobic zone without worrying that I'm damaging muscle tissue.
It's strange that you hasn't done this before. Ever done interval training? Maybe your training is recreational in which case the risk of getting injured probably overshadows(?) the gains of intense interval training.
I mostly do interval training (when not just doing weights) - I wonder if it is a bad thing - but I just find it so fun and non-boring...
Its origins lie in a study by a Nobel laureate, Otto Meyerhof, who in the early years of the 20th century cut a frog in half and put its bottom half in a jar.
R.D. Laing once said (paraphrased): "I would hope that if someone wanted to get to know me, they would not cut me in half and put me in a jar."
R.D. Laing once said (paraphrased): "I would hope that if someone wanted to get to know me, they would not cut me in half and put me in a jar."
This is pretty old -- 2006 -- and has been discussed here in the past: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=586114
One comment does not a discussion make...
An excellent demonstration of how, sometimes, erroneous but entrenched beliefs take decades, generations, to overturn.
Next up in the list of stubborn myths people grew up with and find hard to set down: obesity is caused by excessive caloric intake.
Next up in the list of stubborn myths people grew up with and find hard to set down: obesity is caused by excessive caloric intake.
So I can eat all the cheeseburgers I want now? Totally ready to start, just give me the thumbs up.
I lost 20 lbs while eating two big macs almost everyday. It just so happened that I was probably burning near 5,000 calories a day when I happened to lose the weight.
You could sit down and eat a jar of sugar if you wanted, you'd just have to be burning that many calories.
You could sit down and eat a jar of sugar if you wanted, you'd just have to be burning that many calories.
Sure you can. But you can't have the buns, fries, or non-diet drink ..
Or the ketchup :)
Atkins? Seriously? 5 years later?
In theory, sure, we're with you. But in practice, Atkins is a diet for fat people. If you're 250 pounds and you want to get down to 230 and stay there, Atkins is your huckleberry. We all know plenty of fat people who are noticeably less fat thanks to low-carb diets, but I can't think of anybody I know who used to be fat and is now thin because of one.
If you're 250 pounds and you want to get down to 170 and stay there, it seems that "eat less and exercise" is still your best bet.
In theory, sure, we're with you. But in practice, Atkins is a diet for fat people. If you're 250 pounds and you want to get down to 230 and stay there, Atkins is your huckleberry. We all know plenty of fat people who are noticeably less fat thanks to low-carb diets, but I can't think of anybody I know who used to be fat and is now thin because of one.
If you're 250 pounds and you want to get down to 170 and stay there, it seems that "eat less and exercise" is still your best bet.
See Jimmy Moore: http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/?page_id=2464 and there are a lot more examples. Myself, I have gone down from 290 pounds to 225 low-carbing, and I am still losing weight.
Also, Atkins is just one type of low-carb diet, and a rather strict one at that. It is because of how strict it is that people tend to fail a little ways in
Also, Atkins is just one type of low-carb diet, and a rather strict one at that. It is because of how strict it is that people tend to fail a little ways in
Last time I checked the two weren't mutually exclusive. Going low sugar is good for you. Eating less is good for you and getting off your rear is good for you. One of them isn't the solution at the expense of the other two.
With a proper diet, you wouldn't be eating the burger to begin with...
Atkins is a diet for people who insist on eating the wrong foods. It attempts to minimize the harm of eating crap without actually encouraging the dieter to eat healthy stuff.
Atkins is a diet for people who insist on eating the wrong foods. It attempts to minimize the harm of eating crap without actually encouraging the dieter to eat healthy stuff.
Obesity is usually caused by excessive caloric intake of some sort; the energy used to generate the additional fat tissue has to come from somewhere.
Of course, the definition of excessive probably varies from person to person based on many factors...
Of course, the definition of excessive probably varies from person to person based on many factors...
In his defense, the composition of those calories by macronutrient, along with fiber and micronutrients, probably has a lot to do with how the body processes them. Popular and dare I say scientific understanding of the subject does seem rather simplistic.
Can you link to any academic papers that dispute that?
No, but if you ask this question on Hacker News you will get a muddled and slightly paranoid sounding synopsis of Gary Taubes' book on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diet_Delusion
Probably best to go straight to the source. I'm hoping it's a bit more naunced than the "biology is hard, nutrition is complex, therefore theories proposed by science journalists from outwith the field are more likely to be true" type stuff that you see bandied about online.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diet_Delusion
Probably best to go straight to the source. I'm hoping it's a bit more naunced than the "biology is hard, nutrition is complex, therefore theories proposed by science journalists from outwith the field are more likely to be true" type stuff that you see bandied about online.
a) known fact: insulin spikes cause more calories to be converted to fat, even when the same amounts of calories are consumed
b) even diet soda can cause insulin spikes, causing rats and calves to gain more weight on the same # of calories as rats/calves not consuming diet soda
There are links off the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_soda
There have also been lots of books written about the insulin response and weight gain, all citing studies, all pointing out that insulin resistance/syndrome x play roles in making some people fatter even if they do not overeat. Gary Taubes' is especially good.
I don't know why nerds seem to want to persist in believing that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, despite all the evidence.
In my mind, it's like a nasty twist on "tough love" -- people want to believe it because they want to believe that fat people are bad and weak, and therefore deserve what they get. By taking a hard line approach, they can feel... virtuous.
But the body is extremely complex, and a tightly-coupled system at that, with so many variables that it is vanishingly unlikely that we can categorically say that there is one simple, clear, clean fact that rules it all.
b) even diet soda can cause insulin spikes, causing rats and calves to gain more weight on the same # of calories as rats/calves not consuming diet soda
There are links off the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_soda
There have also been lots of books written about the insulin response and weight gain, all citing studies, all pointing out that insulin resistance/syndrome x play roles in making some people fatter even if they do not overeat. Gary Taubes' is especially good.
I don't know why nerds seem to want to persist in believing that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, despite all the evidence.
In my mind, it's like a nasty twist on "tough love" -- people want to believe it because they want to believe that fat people are bad and weak, and therefore deserve what they get. By taking a hard line approach, they can feel... virtuous.
But the body is extremely complex, and a tightly-coupled system at that, with so many variables that it is vanishingly unlikely that we can categorically say that there is one simple, clear, clean fact that rules it all.
A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Because a calorie is a measurement of the potential energy of a quantity of food.
The type of food is what makes a difference. Fatty foods are worse than the same caloric-quantity of fibrous foods (i.e., fruits and veggies).
And there's plenty of research to suggest that food in - food burned by activity (inc. exercise) - undigestable food = food stored as fat.
The type of food is what makes a difference. Fatty foods are worse than the same caloric-quantity of fibrous foods (i.e., fruits and veggies).
And there's plenty of research to suggest that food in - food burned by activity (inc. exercise) - undigestable food = food stored as fat.
There is so much contradicting evidence that it's not even funny. read Gary Taubes, Michel Cabanac, Seth Roberts.
Do you know how the magical "1g protein = 4kcal, 1g carbohydrate = 4kcal, 1g fat = 9kcal" numbers were reached? Hint: They were never measured in vivo, or in vitro cells -- the follow from a very fragile theory, which breaks in every way you look at it -- and yet, it's considered "science.
Do you know how the magical "1g protein = 4kcal, 1g carbohydrate = 4kcal, 1g fat = 9kcal" numbers were reached? Hint: They were never measured in vivo, or in vitro cells -- the follow from a very fragile theory, which breaks in every way you look at it -- and yet, it's considered "science.
How does Seth Roberts tie into the "calories aren't the whole story" theme?
I thought his theory was about tricking the body with taste-free calories in order to dampen hunger pangs. If so it fits neatly within that theory since less hunger means less eating means less calories.
In fact since it's billed as an "eat anything" diet, doesn't it contradict Taubes who targets refined carbs as the real villain?
I thought his theory was about tricking the body with taste-free calories in order to dampen hunger pangs. If so it fits neatly within that theory since less hunger means less eating means less calories.
In fact since it's billed as an "eat anything" diet, doesn't it contradict Taubes who targets refined carbs as the real villain?
His diet as presented doesn't, but if you read his research notes (specifically, read through "what makes food fattening?") you'll see his own personal evidence/anecdote for this, and how it sits with other results. (But basically, beyond his own anecdote and theory which does not imply or contradict anything about calories, he mostly channels and enhances Cabanac and Israel)
A calorie is a calorie in a beaker in a lab, but not in the human body.
You should read the things I've referenced.
You should read the things I've referenced.