10-20-30 workout- Research flaws and Why there are no secret workouts.

10-20-30 workout- Research flaws and Why there are no secret workouts.

Every once in a while a scientific studies simple concept crosses over the main stream and explodes in the exercise world.  A decade ago it was Billat’s famous 30/30 which consisted of 30sec at supramaximal speeds with 30sec jogging.  It was supposed to be the secret workout that improved VO2max and lactate threshold at the same time.  A fewyears ago it was the famed Tabata exercise protocol which consisted of a series of short sprints with short recovery that was the new magic workout that was supposed to improve aerobic and anaerobic abilities at the same time.

There is about to be a new secret workout.  It’s called the 10-20-30.  It’s short, has a catchy name, and showed up in a recent research article in the Journal of Applied Physiology. 

The magic workout showed an increase in VO2max, 5k performance, and 1500m performance while reducing training by half!  What more could you ask for in America?  Quicker results with half as much training time and volume.

So what’s the problem?

The Actual workout:

Why timing matters

Why timing matters

Knowing what to do or what supplement to take doesn’t cut it anymore. Knowing what and why is great but there’s another dimension that is often neglected and that is to ask the question of when.  While it is easy to get lost in the minutia that is increased knowledge of genetic signaling pathways and training adaptations, this increased body of knowledge also provides us clues to that question of when to do things.

                Timing is critical for one simple reason; it can completely alter, boost or negate, the training effect that you are working so hard for.  Why spend so much work suffering through a workout or trying to do certain activities to maximize recovery, if by simply popping a pill or having the wrong order of exercise you can significantly negate the previous work.  We’ll delve into some of the examples of where timing matters, but more importantly I hope that you start to ask the question of when to do things and if it matters.  It’s a question that we don’t have all the answers to, but one that is overlooked and deserves investigation.

             

Stress, Caffeine, recovery, and the immune system

I just started writing articles for Competitor.com and the first one went up today.  In it I take a look at the negative side of taking Caffeine pre-race or workout.  Caffeine is generally thought of as only a performance enhancer, which it does well, but there are drawbacks if you chronically use it.  In the article I take a look at what happens to the CNS and the immune system when Caffeine is ingested all the time.

 Do The Performance Benefits Of Caffeine Come At A Cost?  

http://bit.ly/Hcoiim

Secondly, Alex Hutchinson, who now has his blog Sweat Science on runnersworld.com wrote an article for Outside magazine in which I give my take on why stress is a good thing.  Alex does a good job taking us through why sometimes we want damage to accumulate.  In the article you'll also get a take from one of my athletes, Jackie Areson, who changed some of her nutrition supplement strategies based on the theory.

Stress Tested

http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/recovery/Stress-Tested.

Enjoy!

Measuring Galvanic Skin Response….say what?

Galvanic Skin Response….say what?

If you read letsrun.com and look up anything about me I’ll be branded as some science only nut who relies on too much science and forgets the “old school” way.  If you were at my coaching presentation the Distance Summit put on at Queens University, after my “science” presentation you would probably label me as some anti-science guy, or at least anti-traditional science guy.  (Plug: If you want to watch me (and other excellent presenters) ramble on for 2+ hours you can buy the DVDs here.  I get no kickback; it was just one of the best conferences I’ve been to in terms of knowledge dropped: http://store.coachrunning.com/

The point I made at the conference is that you have to know HOW to use science.  Science isn’t evil and it isn’t a cure all.  But what it can do is provide some useful insight and data if you use it correctly.  One of the other things, you may have noticed if you read this blog, is that I’m a fan of what I call resourceful science.  Which means figuring out different ways to measure practical phenomenon. 

One of the recent things I’ve been experimenting around with is something called Galvanic skin response (GSR).  To make a long story short, GSR essentially is a way to look at sympathetic nervous system response.  It’s been used primarily in research related to arousal states and in combination with other metrics in traditional lie detector tests. In this case, I’ve been using the affective Q sensor, which is essentially a watch like device that allows us to measure GSR on the go, or in real time.

Crossfit endurance, Tabata sprints, and why people just don’t get it

Crossfit endurance, Tabata sprints, and why people just don’t get it

Not terribly long ago, I stopped dating a girl because she did crossfit.

Okay, it wasn’t the only reason, but it was a major factor. I mention this not to show how messed up my dating life/requirements may be, but to show how strongly I feel about the marketing scheme that is Crossfit.  I’ve always wanted to write a blog post about it, but the article in this months Runner’s World has finally pushed me over the edge.  I’m writing this blog to give a 2^nd opinion and to combat the marketing hype that surrounds crossfit.  I wouldn’t take much offense to crossfit and would let it do its own thing, except when you start telling people that this is the way of the future and that Ryan Hall would run faster if he did this stuff , then I have a problem (Yes, CFE founder has made this claim)

For this post, we’ll focus on Crossfit Endurance because it got some major publication in this month’s Runner’s World and has been getting some hype lately.  If you were at my presentation at the American Distance Summit in North Carolina, you got to hear me take a few jabs at crossfit (and Renato Canova even threw in a jab or two!).  Since it’s a question I get asked a lot, lets take a look at crossfit endurance.

The claim and exploitation:

Altitude babies, Rats, and Epigenetics

New born rats, altitude, and epigenetics:

Over the past few years, the term epigenetics has kind of exploded in the popular science world.  I’ve discussed it at length in this blog and how it might have implications with a wide range of topics from obesity to African running dominance to how we adapt to altitude.

One of the basic ideas is that what happens in the time period before and just after birth is when a newborn is kind of adapting to its adjustment.  So if we look at diet, if a mother is going through famine during this time frame, then the baby changes to be prepared for this environment.  So it’s response to certain foods or its insulin response is adjusted.  Similarly, there’s been some studies looking at mothers who have high stress loads during and right after pregnancy result in babies have altered stress hormone responses for the rest of their life.

I always joke with my friends that whenever I have kids, I’m going to stick them at altitude during pregnancy and right after just to develop super altitude adapted kids (and my friends always respond with you better find a wife who is crazy enough to let you do all this wonderful experimentation…and that you’re kids are gonna be messed up…but that’s besides the point…).  Which brings me to the point of this…

A study in the Journal of Applied Physiology was recently published that took a bunch of rats that were at high altitude in Bolivia and made a group of them live in a simulated sea level environment.  So you basically had an altitude group and a sea level group, but it was only from 1 day before birth to 15 days after birth when they were in these two different environments.  Then they were brought together and lived their normal rat lives together.  Well, they checked them periodically through their life and ultimately at 600 days post birth. 

What is interesting is that those 16 days during development affected parameters for the rest of their lives.  For example, the “normoxia/oxygen” group had lower hemoglobin and hematocrit for the rest of their lives.  They also had “reduced right ventricular hypertrophy (both sexes); lower air space-to-tissue ratio in the lungs (males only); reduced CO₂ production rate, but higher oxygen uptake (males only);”

It’s pretty interesting that 16 days in the rat lifecycle affected various parameters for the rest of their lives.  It just goes to show how important that development period actually is and it brings up some questions about altitude training and whether just copying altitude born athletes is the key or if we should attack it from a different way with sea level born athletes.

I’m not really sure what the practical importance of this is, except maybe my crazy joking of having high altitude babies might be on to something…

(study abstract here: http://jap.physiology.org/content/112/1/33.abstract?etoc )

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be at the Canadian athletics coaching symposium to speak with Alberto Salazar on a couple of different topics.  It was a great experience and I picked up a lot of interesting ideas from other presenters and those in the audience who I chatted afterwards with.  While there, Jay Johnson asked me to sit down and do a podcast covering a wide range of topics from HS training to sprinting to what I do now with elites.  So head on over to Jay's site and take a listen. 

http://www.coachjayjohnson.com/2011/12/podcast-003-steve-magness-interview/
Also, a couple articles I wrote or contributed to for Running Times are online now so if you haven't checked those out, there might be something useful in them:

When to pull the plug on your season:
http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=24550

How to do a hard workout after a race:
http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=24260