Ice Cream Sushi!

Great news for Athletes trying to pack on muscle mass.  A new study has shown that eating saturated fat can increase your appetite and trick you into thinking you need more food.

Since THE major factor holding back athletes who are looking to add large amounts of muscle (or even to maintain what they have–marathon runners, I’m looking at you!) is their inability to eat enough, this fact may come in handy.

My suggestion? Eat ice cream.  It’s high calorie and loaded with saturated fat which will apparently make you hungrier.  You get two for the price of one!

Of course, the article I found this tid-bit on was most worried about the implications of saturated fat on our overall health profiles.  But, that isn’t your problem.  You’re too skinny, and you need to muscle up.  That takes more calories than you can eat comfortably.   Science (and Ice Cream) to the rescue!

Below is the abstract to the  actual study (I hate that most articles don’t do this, especially when they are on the web).

Insulin signaling can be modulated by several isoforms of PKC in peripheral tissues. Here, we assessed whether one specific isoform, PKC-θ, was expressed in critical CNS regions that regulate energy balance and whether it mediated the deleterious effects of diets high in fat, specifically palmitic acid, on hypothalamic insulin activity in rats and mice. Using a combination of in situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry, we found that PKC-θ was expressed in discrete neuronal populations of the arcuate nucleus, specifically the neuropeptide Y/agouti-related protein neurons and the dorsal medial nucleus in the hypothalamus. CNS exposure to palmitic acid via direct infusion or by oral gavage increased the localization of PKC-θ to cell membranes in the hypothalamus, which was associated with impaired hypothalamic insulin and leptin signaling. This finding was specific for palmitic acid, as the monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid, neither increased membrane localization of PKC-θ nor induced insulin resistance. Finally, arcuate-specific knockdown of PKC-θ attenuated diet-induced obesity and improved insulin signaling. These results suggest that many of the deleterious effects of high-fat diets, specifically those enriched with palmitic acid, are CNS mediated via PKC-θ activation, resulting in reduced insulin activity.

Normally your bodies cells are told to stop demanding food by a couple of hormones, leptin and insulin. This study suggests that certain saturated fats, particularly palmitic acid tell your brain to send signals to your bodies cells instructing them to ignore leptin and insulin.  And therefore, you can be “objectively” full, but not feel like you are.  So, you keep eating.

Clearly, if you want to lose weight, this is bad news.  Keep your saturated fats down, and stick to unsaturated fats if you can like fish oils and olive oil.

But, if you are trying to gain size, this is GREAT.  More ice cream, fried chicken, bacon, and even more ice cream!

(The image above is from SushiGallery.net.  Very cool.)

References

Benoit, Stephen C, Christopher J Kemp, Carol F Elias, William Abplanalp, James P Herman, Stephanie Migrenne, Anne-Laure Lefevre, et al. 2009. Palmitic acid mediates hypothalamic insulin resistance by altering PKC-theta subcellular localization in rodents. The Journal of Clinical Investigation 119, no. 9 (September): 2577-2589. doi:10.1172/JCI36714.

This video shows Kendrick Ferris in a fun and playful way.  I like that.  I think we need to do everything we can to make our sport seem more accessible to young people.

Mighty Kat, a fellow Oregon Olympic Weightlifter (and current state champion in her weight class), has an article up at Weightlifting Exchange entitled, “Six Tips for the Overhead Squat.”

The overhead squat is a pain in the ass, literally!  But, it’s the first exercise that I tend to have people do in the gym.  I give them a stick, do a demonstration, then have them try and “repeat after me”.  I can learn a lot about where a person’s current level of fitness is by how well they are able to perform this exercise.

If they let the bar drift too far forward, or if their arms remain bent throughout, then I know they have shoulder flexibility issues.  If they let their heels come up off the floor, then I know they have ankle and calf flexibility issues.  Some times people will literally shake while performing an overhead squat.  This can be from a number of causes, but foremost among them is a lack of stability strength and balance.

You can find a ton of other writing by Mighty Kat at her website, www.MightyKat.net, and at her blog, mightymix.blogspot.com/

Olympic weightlifters make noise–a lot of noise.  And this really pisses off some people.  We’re like those guys driving by in decked out Honda’s blasting their bass-heavy music at a volume that would shake Atlas at his core.  Every time we dump a weight, the other patrons in the gym get a jolt, wince, and log it into their memories.   Eventually, they get fed up and go tell the owner that they just can’t take it anymore.  It’s them or us.  The gauntlet has been thrown.

Whether we like it or not, most of us are forced to train in commercial gyms.  If we’re lucky, they’ll have a platform.  But, that doesn’t mean they want us to use it like it was intended! The platform is there, they think, so that people can do deadlifts.  So, what the Hell are we doing dropping weights from overhead?

Bill Brian has an article at Weightlifting Exchange about how to build a quiet weightlifting platform.  And while it may seem odd to put a bunch of carpet down on it, it would help to mitigate the problem.

Here’s his list of reasons why a quieter platform could be a plus:

Gym owners, managers, trainers, and members often express irritation and fear as a result of the noise and vibration that results from controlled or uncontrolled dropping of Olympic weights from the overhead position.

Olympic weightlifting is sometimes perceived to be a violent sport because of the noise/vibration that results from controlled or uncontrolled dropping of weights.

Damage results to Olympic bumper plates and bars from weights dropped at an angle onto a solid surface or platform with insufficient padding and noise/vibration dampening ability. Some of this damage occurs because the bar quality is poor, the plates are not secured to the bar with clips or collars, or in some cases, abuse by lifters. In many cases, I have been in gyms that did not provide collars or clips, or did not replace them when they were stolen or damaged.

Olympic lifting is prohibited or discouraged by many gyms even though they have the basic lifting equipment and a rudimentary platform because of the above problems.

Olympic lifting is banned or prohibited by gyms by either removing the existing Olympic lifting equipment and platforms or not providing it in the first place because of the above problems.

Out of ignorance or inconsideration, or poorly placed platforms that invite foot traffic across them, gym members walk onto a platform while a lifter is performing a lift, inviting injury and irritation.

He hopes that measures like his quiet platform will help to restore Olympic weightlifting to some of it’s former prominence in gyms.  I’m not convinced.  In fact, I doubt there is any way commercial gyms will ever be amenable to what it is we do.  Bottom line, we mess up their bottom line!  They aren’t in business to help out our tiny sport.  They never will be.  Olympic weightlifting can only get so quiet and cuddly.  And it will never be good enough.

The quiet Olympic Weightlifting platform is still an interesting idea.  I’d love to try one out.  But, let’s face it, making noise is part of the fun!

Thanks to Barry Kinsella at Weightlifting Epiphanies for this 3 part interview with the great American weightlifting coach Jim Schmitz.

Part 1

Part 2, technique

Part 3, programming and competitions

Sumo Fan Magazine sat down with Nakamura Okamisan for a great interview published here.   For those who don’t follow Sumo, the word “Okamisan” is basically the honorific term for a female manager of a Sumo stable.

Yep, they call the gym where Sumo athletes train a “stable”.  But, hey, they really are as big as a horse!

quote:

Sumo is the condensation of Japanese culture; the beauty Japan contains within, and the way of thinking inherent in this beauty are one of the fascinating things about Ozumo. Thus, I would like to ‘offer’ these things (as representative of Japan and the sport) in order to let fans in foreign countries understand them well.

Check out this site written (in english) by a group of Malaysian Olympic Weightlifters called Lift Hard: The Asian Weightlifting Site. They’ve got a number of great articles, including this gem.

As many of you know, I lived in Japan for a number of years as a child (read about my odd food cravings here), and my parents lived there for close to 30 years.  I have a particular affinity for Asia.  My comfort foods growing up were not Mac and Cheese, but Sushi, Sukiyaki, and Yakiimo.

It’s great to see a well-run site by a group of dedicated lifters in Asia.  I wish them luck.

ExRx has an interview with Glenn Pendlay here. In it he covers all kinds of stuff including a discussion about some of his athletes (including a 60 year old masters world champion), his own history, and training philosophy.

Important quote:  “The quicker you are, the less strong you have to be to make the same lift.”

He also discusses how there is no such thing as any one exercise to measure how strong someone is.

When I was in High School there were 90 year old women who were bigger, stronger, and taller than I was.   I’ve since gained 60 pounds of muscle–though, I haven’t gotten any taller.  I’ve helped a lot of other skinny kids (and adults) pack on pounds of muscle over the years, and I’m here to tell you that it’s not as impossible as you’d think to gain upwards of 20 pounds of muscle a year throughout your High School and College career (until you start butting up against your genetic limit, of course).  If you’re determined to be as big and muscular as you can possibly be, read on.

[WARNING!  If you are NOT a skinny high school kid with a blazing fast metabolism, then for God's sake don't eat like I'm about to tell you to.  You'll just get fat.  If you ARE a skinny kid with a crazy fast metabolism who works out hard but can't gain weight, then read on.]

You’re in High School.  So, right now, your metabolism is fast–blindingly fast.  You’re constantly busy with a lot of home  and school work (you may even have a job).  And, up till now, you’ve let your parents do all the thinking for you regarding your diet.  I can’t do anything about the first two problems.  But, I can help you with the third.

I’m going to take a (not so) wild guess that you are making one (or more) of the following diet mistakes right now:

1. You don’t eat breakfast
2. You don’t eat right after your workouts
3. You don’t eat right before bed
4. You don’t eat more than 2 meals a day
5. You do eat at these time, but you are following the diet of your favorite Bodybuilder.

The first 4 of these are cardinal sins if you ever want to get big.  You can have the perfect weight training routine, but you’ll still be skinny if you don’t eat a lot. You have to eat a ton of food.  Period.  There is no breaking of that rule–ever.  Eat breakfast, eat post-workout, eat before bed. Those are the 3 most important meals of the day.

The last mistake (number 5) is more of a problem than you might think.  The trouble with bodybuilding diets is that they are too healthy.  I’ll repeat that.  They are TOO HEALTHY.

While bodybuilders are a frequent source of laughter among us strength coaches because of their ridiculous training programs that only work if you’re on steroids, they HAVE figured out diets that are great at getting you leaner and more ripped.  Bodybuilders are very good at that.  But, that is not your goal!!  You have to get big before you can diet down and show off your muscles.  I don’t mean you should get fat, of course, but you have to give up on your abs for at least a  year.

You need massive amounts of calories if you are going to put on 20 to 50 pounds of muscle.  You CAN do this.  I was a skinny kid too, and I did it.  And the way to do it is actually quite simple and enjoyable.

The Trick?  Eat crap all the time–yes, crap.  Mac and Cheese, ice cream, burgers and fries, fried chicken, pizza, etc.  Fun, right?  Get only as much protein as you need to feed the muscle rebuilding process (about 3/4 to 1 gram per pound of body weight), and focus the rest of your eating on carbs and fat (mostly carbs).   You see, your problem isn’t that you aren’t building muscle fast enough, it’s that your body is eating away all the muscle that you’ve build!!  But, if you give it enough calories (carbs) to fuel itself, then you’re protecting your newly built muscles from being devoured by your freaky-fast metabolism.

OK, OK, so what’s the diet already!  Below is a simple 5 meal a day diet (4 meals and 1 shake) that has worked for many skinny kids I’ve worked with over the years (again, if you ain’t a skinny young male, don’t do this!).

The Diet

Breakfast:
4 whole eggs
2 pieces of toast, each with peanut butter and jelly on them
16 oz of whole milk

You could instead eat Pancakes and eggs, or steak and eggs.  I used to eat a whole can of ready-make buiscuits with 4 eggs, syrup, butter, and a large glass of milk.

Lunch:
(you can easily pack this in tupperware and bring it to school)
1 whole box of mac and cheese, mixed with
1 whole can of tuna

You could use ground beef instead of tuna.  Mac and Cheese is great because it’s easy to make before school, easy to carry around, cheap as dirt, and very high in calories (one box has  over 1000).

Snack (an hour before working out):

Bagel, cream cheese, 160z Milk (you can add protein powder to the milk if you want)

During Workout:

Gatorade

After-workout:

32 oz. Chocolate milk

Dinner:
Whatever Mom makes (eat 2 servings), this is a good time to get vegetables.

Things like Burgers, pizza, etc are perfect.  But, it’s hard to say no to meat loaf, or Teriyaki chicken and rice!  Even better, YOU should start cooking dinner for your family (give your Mom a break, man!).  Some day you’ll be on your own, and if you don’t know how to cook, you’ll never reach your strength goals.

Before bed:
Large Bowl of ice-cream, or large bowl of cereal (always, always, always eat carbs before bed – till you get older and your metabolism slows, of course.)

Now just workout with weights 3-4 days a week on compound movements (squats, cleans, snatches, deadlifts), and do 2 days a week of cardio (cardio makes you hungry, this is very helpful–I hate cardio, too).  What are you waiting for?  Go eat!

Parents: I know that the above looks very unhealthy.  It is.  Especially for us adults.  WE can’t eat like that.  But, a young High School kid who is actively working out a lot and has a naturally high metabolism will thrive on the calories.  These kids are like aliens compared to us.

What you can do to mitigate any potentially negative effects would be to make sure they eat vegetables at dinner time, take a multi-vitamin every day, take extra vitamin C and E, and take Fish Oil capsules.  You combine that with the amount of training they are doing, and they’re fine.