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Strong Medicine

Exploring the Science, Art and Practice of Sustainable Health and Strength

Cardiovascular training

Strong Medicine Questions and Answers

December 1, 2016 By Dr. Chris Hardy 2 Comments

Chris Hardy Strong Medicine Questions and Answers

This is the fifth and final post in a series of articles developed from Dr. Chris Hardy’s live presentation at Dragon Door’s Inaugural Health and Strength Conference. Click here to read the first article of the series. These questions were from the coaches, trainers, and fitness instructors in attendance.

 

Q: How do I measure HRV (heart rate variability) if I have eight people coming in for a group fitness class?

A: You would set this up with your clients beforehand. They would measure it first thing in the morning. In the back of Strong Medicine, I discuss how the optimum time to measure HRV is at first waking, before anything has an opportunity to fill the stress cup. This measurement will give them a baseline. Most HRV apps require two and a half minutes to measure and will use data from a chest strap like a Polar Bluetooth heart rate monitor. The app will determine the HRV as a number. It’s important to measure it first thing in the morning, because if you measure it throughout the day, even someone angering you in traffic will change it.

Measuring HRV is not perfect, but if you measure it the same time every day before anything else has effected your stress cup then it will be a good reference. It will also reflect if you’ve been up all night tossing and turning.

 

Q: I have a client who has a lap-band, so she’s only eating 200 calories a day. If she eats more she vomits yet she wants intense exercise. She’s stressed and thin but with a huge belly. How would we work with her if we can’t get her to eat more? Do we just take down the intensity?

A: First, it sounds like she’s protein deficient. And you won’t be able to workout with her—you can’t—it will hurt her. It’s like when people come to me and want antibiotics for a viral infection. Then, when I don’t prescribe the antibiotics, they just go to someone else who will. But you should not be training that person, because she could go off the rails in a second.

She’s protein deficient and malnourished. That large belly is basically a bunch of fluid because there’s so little protein in her bloodstream that an osmosis effect happens and draws water from the bloodstream, then it goes into the tissues. It’s called ascites, and patients will sometimes develop huge protuberant bellies. We see it happen in sub-Saharan Africa, and other places where people are malnourished. You need to say no, and she needs medical attention.

 

Q: We lead boot camps and have workouts on the board, what do you think about having our clients do their self reported health scale on the 1-5 range (will link to article) then adjust the workout accordingly?

A: Or they can monitor their own heart rates. This is also where you can use your creativity and find your own opportunities. You can stratify the workouts. Educate them to let them know that if they’re lower on their rating scale to be smart and that “this isn’t a punishment”. They need to know to be smart because they won’t do themselves any good by crushing themselves on that day—they’re just end up with a lot of cortisol. You’ve seen the ultra-skinny marathon runners that still have a little bit of a belly? It’s because of a cortisol response.

 

Q: You said that you have your clients measure their heart rates in the morning. My training classes usually take place at 8PM after they come from work and have done finished their day. How will the HRV measurement from the morning reflect how they are when they walk into my gym at 8PM?

A: It’s true that it isn’t perfect, and that’s the problem. But, as long as they’re not doing intense physical training before they get to you, if they measure their HRV in the morning, the biggest thing they will be affected by is sleep. Since HRV is the variability of the heart rate as measured on an app, it gives you an idea of where you were that morning. If your HRV is already low that morning, it will just get worse throughout the day. So, if they come in with a low HRV recorded in the morning, by the time they see you—especially if they have had other stresses during the day—then their HRV will be even lower.

HRV and Stress diagram

The morning measurement will give you a baseline, but that’s why you’ll also want to use the self-reporting scale. There’s too much that can happen during the day, and you’re trying to work with a consistent baseline. So, let’s say I usually run an “80” I’m picking an arbitrary number for my HRV, but that’s pretty high. But, this morning I measured my HRV and it was 62. When I come to train with you later that night I’ll tell you that my HRV was 62 this morning. Since I usually run in the 80s you would drop my workout down some. So in other words we are discounting what happened through the day unless a client did some other kind of training. It’s not a perfect system.

 

Q: What your favorite strategies for sleep? How do you feel about the different amounts of melatonin in supplements?

A: Sleep might be the same thing as attacking the circadian rhythm first. I hate to keep referring back to the book, but I do have a whole chapter on how to give your brain the right signals. So 2-3 hours before bedtime, no blue light from broad-spectrum sources. You can either use the goggles or my wife and I put yellow lights in the rooms where we spend our evening hours. We also follow basic sleep hygiene ideas—no electronics in the room. In the mornings we make sure to get bright, broad-spectrum light exposure, since most of us go to an office with poor lighting.

As for supplements, I am not a huge fan of melatonin, though I think it is very valuable for getting yourself back into another rhythm in the case of jet lag. The problem is most of the doses are supra-physiological. The pineal gland in the brain actually secretes melatonin on a pulse, about every 40 minutes since it has a very short half-life. Your body metabolizes melatonin supplements quickly, so it may help you fall asleep, but then you’re going to be back up again if you haven’t fixed your circadian rhythm. And it may also suppress your endogenous (internal) melatonin secretion.

 

Q: On Saturday and Sunday, 25-30 people come in to our gym for group classes. Either myself or the other trainer will greet the people as they are coming in and ask them how they are doing and how they are feeling. If they come in and say that they slept badly, just came home from an intense two-day conference, or they are still sore from working out, then we will then tell them that we will scale the workout of the day. We put up the workout and a scaled version in terms of volume or intensity and say that if we spoke to you and said you should do the scaled version, we can now train 20-30 people together.

A: I love it, but would say from a psychological point of view I would have them self-label.

Q: That was my follow up question. This is a physical/psychological assessment based on how they feel about today themselves that day, etc.

A: If a client comes in and says that they are feeling kind of cruddy, and then you say, “well we are going to do this to you” that takes some of the control from them. Instead you could have them self-label and say “I’m a 3 right now”. Since they put themselves in that category, it will be easier for them to understand that it’s not a punishment. They will just be doing the #3 workout today. It’s part of the psychology of getting them to buy in more because they have self-labeled.

 

Q: My question is goes back to using heart rate. How would you use the heart rate protocol with someone on beta-blockers?

A: That can be very inconvenient! Beta-blockers basically stick a wrench in the system, and prevent the heart rate from going up. It depends on why the client is on a beta-blocker—and if it is for arrhythmia then you don’t want to mess with it. But if someone is on a beta-blocker because their doctor is trying to use it as an inappropriate way to control high blood pressure, then you might suggest that they ask their doctor about alternatives. When someone is on beta-blockers, they will not be able to get their heart rate up, so rate of perceived exertion may be a better indicator for them.

 

Q: Melatonin was already discussed as a supplement for sleep, but how would you say performance supplements like pre-workout or protein supplements would affect allostatic load?

A: That’s a great question and, they do affect the allostatic load. It goes back to the idea of feeding your activity. We need the proper amount of protein so that amino acids hit our anabolic pathways—mTOR, the anabolic pathway where certain branched chain amino acids will hit. It can give the body fuel for activity. You need to fuel your body and give it the precursors of what it needs—whole regular food is always the best, but that is not always possible. So, supplementing something like whey protein, or a post-workout combination of protein and some glucose sources can work well, but be sure to tailor it to your activity. Do you really need to load up with a huge serving of starch or glucose for strength training? Probably not. You’ll want to use amino acids instead.

Q: But in regards to pre-workout energy supplements, I’ve tried some that just made me feel extremely crazy and full of false energy…

A: Honestly, if you are going to do one, the supplement I think is best for pre-workout is creatine. It hits the phosphogen energy pathway. But I am not a fan of the supplements that “jack up the nervous system” they can work for younger people, but in the older population it can affect the stress cup.

 

Q: What are your recommendations for determining optimal heart rates for training and interval training? Do you have any recommendations for estimating or determining maximum heart rate? What if someone is on a beta-blocker? Is a VO2Max test, a stress test, or a simple calculation the best?

A: It depends on your client. If you are working with an elite athlete, then you should probably do one of the more clinical assessments. This is because we all know that the samples for calculating max heart rate are estimates and they’re for a general population. They aren’t necessarily appropriate for everyone because they can be underestimated. If you used the formula on an athletic 50-year-old, it may underestimate their max heart rate. Some of the formulas are better than others—certainly better than 220 minus age.

trainingprescription

Q: When working with individuals who are nurses, police officers, fire fighters, and other shift workers, how do you help them make improve the sleep they are getting?

A: Shift work is actually classified as a carcinogen by large governing agencies. But they have done studies with shift workers and found that their environmental clues are the most important. Your circadian system is free running—they’ve done studies in caves in isolation—and will advance itself without external cues. Another study with police officers and nurses exposed them to maximum bright lights during their shifts at night—which was their mornings. Even though they are coming to their shift at night, they should get maximum bright light exposure. When they are coming home, they should use amber glasses or something to block out blue spectrum light. When they sleep, blackout curtains can make their environment as dark as possible. Are they getting perfect sleep? No, but these environmental cues can make a big improvement.

 

***

Chris Hardy, D.O., M.P.H., CSCS, is the author of Strong Medicine: How to Conquer Chronic Disease and Achieve Your Full Genetic Potential. He is a public-health physician, personal trainer, mountain biker, rock climber and guitarist. His passion is communicating science-based lifestyle information and recommendations in an easy-to-understand manner to empower the public in the fight against preventable chronic disease.

 

Filed Under: Cardiovascular training, Motivation, Strength Tagged With: Dr. Chris Hardy, importance of sleep, Q+A, recovery, sleep, Strong Medicine

HRV and the Self-Rated Health Scale

September 8, 2016 By Dr. Chris Hardy Leave a Comment

HRV and Self-Rated Health

This is the fourth in a series of articles developed from Dr. Chris Hardy’s live presentation at Dragon Door’s Inaugural Health and Strength Conference. Click here to read the first article of the series.

In the previous posts of this series we were estimating the size of the stress cup. But, there’s a more reliable way to measure it. We’ll use the interrelationship of the brain, the cardiovascular system, and the musculo-skeletal system for another window into the stress cup. The first window is heart rate variability, the beat to beat variation of the heart rate.

We will use HRV as a window into the autonomic nervous system and how it relates to the heart. This will show us the stress load on a given day. On a high stress day, the sympathetic nervous system is dominant—the fight or flight system will drive the heart with a machine-like precision (low variability). This indicates a state of allostatic overload, poor health, and an overflowing stress cup.

Caption: In this chart, the beats are the same distance apart. That machine-like precision is not good. It's a sign of bad health and stress to the system.
In this chart, the beats are the same distance apart. That machine-like precision is not good. It’s a sign of bad health and stress to the system.

Now, in the normal state—when you have good readiness and a manageable stress cup—you’re in parasympathetic dominance and will have that good, high variability.

In this chart, the time between each beat is slightly different. That's how a healthy heart and nervous system actually works. It's imperceptible, but if you measure it accurately you'll see the variability between beats.
In this chart, the time between each beat is slightly different. That’s how a healthy heart and nervous system actually works. It’s imperceptible, but if you measure it accurately you’ll see the variability between beats.

There are several apps that calculate HRV and will give you a score. There’s also a section in Strong Medicine that shows you how to do that in training. It’s a very simplistic approach, but its good for our purposes.

Joel Jamieson, a Seattle area MMA trainer uses HRV in training in a very sophisticated way so definitely look him up if you want to learn even more. But, I prefer a more simplistic and intuitive approach. But, before I show you my approach I want to quickly review another simple way to assess the state of the nervous system.

MiniHomuncDiagA homunculus is a representation of what we would look like if we were physically configured according to the proportion of brain required to operate our body parts. Do you see how big the hands are? A huge portion of the brain is involved with the sensation and motor control of the hands. For example, grip training has a huge impact on the nervous system. Grip strength is also a good way to tell the status of the nervous system. This idea has been used in the former Eastern bloc countries for a long time, and Charles Poliquin wrote about it pretty recently.

Charles Poliquin’s protocol starts with recording a baseline using a Dynamometer. You can get them pretty cheaply on Amazon. Be sure to measure grip strength in kilos when you (or your client, if you are training others) are feeling good. Then on the morning of training, measure it again, and if you drop 2kg, then you may want to reconsider training. If you drop 4kg from the baseline, then you might even consider taking a rest day. it’s a simple way to do it. Do you have to continually measure grip strength or HRV with all your clients? No, that would be ridiculous, fortunately there’s another method.

 

The Self-Rated Health Scale

In terms of predictors of who will develop chronic diseases, and who is at risk of dying, what is the best marker to use? We’ve used all kinds of blood tests, and every other imaginable test, but the best predictor we’ve found is to ask this one question:

“In general, would you say your health is on a one to five scale? With one being the best and five being the worst?”

Believe it or not, that self-rated health question was more accurate than any medical test in predicting if someone would develop a chronic disease in the next 5-10 years. There’s a new area of neuroscience intensely studying interoception, the brain’s subconscious awareness of our organ systems. Many of you who read Strong Medicine know that our gut and intestinal tract has just as many neurons and nerve cells as the spinal cord. Some even call it the “second brain”. When you have a gut feeling about something or butterflies in your stomach, that’s the brain actually monitoring the state of our organ systems on a subconscious level. It can also induce stress responses, which is why diabetics have an on-going low-level “fight or flight response” due to this interceptive process monitoring the state of the internal organs and immune system. The brain knows something bad is happening and that we need to be on alert. This system also gives you an intuitive sense of how you are doing.

A new study came out about HRV and focused on measuring what correlated best to Self-Rated Health. We already know the question predicts disease very well—they measured every blood test, cholesterol, inflammatory monitors, and many other tests, but what correlated best with Self-Graded Health was heart rate variability. People with high HRV (good) usually said that their health was about 4-5 on the scale (the highest health scores). So, how you intuitively feel physically and mentally is very predictive of your stress cup. This is why an intuitive approach to a given day’s training could be very valid. Even though there are some really sophisticated tools such as the Recovery Stress Questionnaire For Athletes—which is a validated tool—I guarantee that none of your clients will want to sit down and answer 76 questions.

If you’re training elite athletes, it’s great, but it is not practical for those of us in the trenches. My next suggestion is not validated, and I haven’t tried it out—so you can be the test group—what if we replaced the Self-Rated Health question with the following:

“In general, would you say your readiness to train is… excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?”

I would also suggest verifying it by testing grip strength and heart rate variability first before asking the question to see how they correlate. Over time it will help them get an intuitive sense of how they are and fine tune their conscious awareness of interoception. So, when they give you a rating, you can also look at the data (grip strength and HRV), and over time this will be a pretty good window into how they’re doing.

 

Getting Your Clients Onboard with Smart Programming and Recovery

How do you convince your client that this stuff really matters? It’s essential. If you want to train hard, you’ve got to recover harder. You need to tell your clients that they need to reduce their stress cup and earn the ability to train hard. The results they want will only happen with a proper balance of training and recovery.

The first thing they have to fix is their sleep, and there’s a whole chapter in Strong Medicine about doing that. Stress management, meditation, yoga, whatever you want to do is fantastic. Massage and acupuncture are unbelievable for helping to reduce stress and enhance the parasympathetic nervous system. If you like qigong, tai chi, all that stuff is fantastic as well to achieve the same goal.

Obviously, cleaning up the nutrition is a whole lecture into itself. As is feeding your activity levels. If you are going to crush yourself with high intensity training, you need to replace that muscle glycogen. If you’re only doing a walking and strength-based program, you can go very low carb and be fine. But if you want to push that anaerobic threshold, then you will need to feed that activity or you will overtrain.

 

Summary:

First, estimate their stress cup size. Then, estimate what is filling it today, since it will be different that what fills it tomorrow. Then, we will prescribe an appropriate exercise volume and intensity—and that’s what you guys as trainers know how to do well already. Now, you have the extra information to help you adjust the sets and reps, intervals and modalities. And while you don’t have to assess the stress cup every time you train your clients, I think you should always ask the self-report scale question and then prescribe the appropriate amount of training.

I don’t think you need to use HRV on the average client. But, if you are working with elite athletes, you will need to cover all those bases. The most important thing for everyone is to always emphasize the importance of recovery.

Now, using this approach is very simple, and I provided the scientific foundation for how we came up with this very easy system. If you train someone this way, they will meet their goals. It will be sustainable, unlike those three or four weeks crash diets and radical exercise routines. With this method, every New Year, instead of starting over with a resolution, they can just continue building on the success of the previous year. This is just a framework, so use your expertise as a trainer to customize your programs.

The final post in this series will be the best of the question and answer portion of Dr. Chris Hardy’s presentation.

 

***

Chris Hardy, D.O., M.P.H., CSCS, is the author of Strong Medicine: How to Conquer Chronic Disease and Achieve Your Full Genetic Potential. He is a public-health physician, personal trainer, mountain biker, rock climber and guitarist. His passion is communicating science-based lifestyle information and recommendations in an easy-to-understand manner to empower the public in the fight against preventable chronic disease.

Filed Under: Cardiovascular training, Rest and Recovery Tagged With: Dr. Chris Hardy, exercise programming, exercise recovery, grip strength, Heart Rate Variability, HRV, Self Rated Health, Self-Rated Health Scale, Strong Medicine, training others

How to use the Burst Cardio Protocol for Accurate Exercise Dose

August 18, 2016 By Dr. Chris Hardy 8 Comments

Strong Medicine: Burst Cardio Protocol

This is the third in a series of articles developed from Dr. Chris Hardy’s live presentation at Dragon Door’s Inaugural Health and Strength Conference. Click here to read the first article of the series.

The Stress Cup dictates the beneficial, hormetic exercise dose. To apply this concept to our training, we need a scientific foundation—but it’s also an art. Elite coaches like Marty Gallagher—who has coached for over fifty years—have intuitively figured it out. In this article I will try to give you a foundation so that you won’t need all those years of trial and error to figure it out. Applying this science to your clients is the art of training. Since you already know how to adjust sets, reps, intensity, and volume, you’re already ahead of the game. We will try to hone your art with these concepts.

First, there are no hard and fast rules, this is more a conceptual thing. Remember that all of your clients are individuals and can’t all train the same way. Plus, their environments and stresses change from day to day. Our approach will allow for this day to day individualization.

Case Studies:

Our first example is someone with a “tall” stress cup. What’s filling his stress cup? On new client intakes, do you ask about their health problems? How about their stress levels and how they sleep? It’s really important that they tell you about these issues. This client has a small stress cup and a large amount of lifestyle stress will put him in allostatic overload. We will know that he’s been in this state for a long time if he has a disease resulting from a failure to adapt. Diabetes can be thought of as a failure to adapt to a lack of exercise, poor sleep, and/or terrible nutrition. The body will try to adapt to those stresses, and even though it does bad things for the body, diabetes is actually an adaptive condition.

Stress Cup Size Chart

So, how would we train this client? What would we do for strength training and for cardio? Like many other people, our client also doesn’t have a lot of spare time. One approach to consider for a guy like this is a stripped-down linear progression with a bit of a hypertrophy bias, in the 5-10 rep range. Diabetics and people with metabolic diseases work very well in that range and it helps clear out some muscle glycogen too. It’s beneficial, but it’s not the only way.

Let’s assume for example that he has diabetes and high blood pressure. Of course he could be walking but we could also try high intensity interval training—even low amounts of it can have incredible results for diabetics. Basically, it bypasses the normal insulin signaling mechanisms and gets some of the glucose from the blood stream back into the muscles. Emptying those glycogen tanks is really beneficial too, because lower glucose in the muscles will pull a lot more glucose from the blood. This process will increase insulin sensitivity for at least 24-36 hours.

Burst Cardio Protocol Chart

But, while high intensity interval training is a really good approach for the diabetics, our example client also has a small, and nearly full stress cup. We need to figure out how much exercise is too much. With our example client it would be very easy to overdo it, so we need to remove the guesswork. We will use the Burst Cardio Protocol we describe in Strong Medicine. You don’t have to use it with all of your clients, but it is a fail-safe. When working with a client who is at risk of exercise overdose, but who could really benefit from high intensity training, the Burst Cardio Protocol is a very good choice.

This protocol uses heart rate to set both the interval duration and recovery times. Depending on the state of the client’s stress cup, they will respond to the same exercise differently from one day to the next. Heart rate response will be our window to the state of their stress cup. We will start with heart rate max, which is not the most scientifically accurate, but will be a close enough estimate for most of you clients. So, we’ll start by leading them to warm up, then we will start their interval exercises as hard as possible. The goal is for them to reach 95% of max heart rate, though 90% is the requirement. Once the client reaches the heart rate goal, they stop and recover until their heart rate is back down to 70%, then they begin another interval. This works well for a 20 minute session and can be done with kettlebell swings or snatches, or other modalities like the hand bike, elliptical machine, medicine ball slams or even burpees. You can choose anything anaerobic that will rapidly increate the client’s heart rate.

The key point of this whole protocol is that on the day when the stress cup’s load is low, there’s room for a higher exercise dose. Since a low stress cup equals parasympathetic dominance, this means the client will recover faster because the parasympathetic system will lower the elevated heart rate from the exercise. Faster recovery times will also allow the client to do more intervals during the set period of 20 minutes. If they are recovering more quickly, they’ll be able to start the next interval more quickly, too. When the stress cup is nearly full, there’s less room for exercise, and the sympathetic system is dominant. Recovery will be slower. If the client gets up to 95% and they have slept poorly, they will recovery more slowly since the parasympathetic system won’t be able to bring the heart rate down as quickly. The client will not be able to do as many intervals in the allotted time.

I’ve tested the protocol myself for a few years. One workout I tried a couple of years ago used the twenty minute time period. I did a hideous alternating combination of kettlebell snatches and medicine ball slams. It was rough. You can see on the chart below that I spiked up to 95% pretty quickly. I recovered and managed to get six intervals in 20 minutes—and that was on a day when I was feeling great.

BurstCardioExampleChart1

I waited a week later and tried the same workout when I had had a night of poor sleep. When I did the exact same workout with the same time period, look what happened on the chart below! I spiked up to 95% again, but then it kept taking me longer and longer to recover. After the 4th interval, it took me so long to recover that I never dropped below 70% before the 20 minute session was over.

BurstCardioExampleChart2

So, even though I had fewer intervals, the protocol allowed me to exercise but not overdo it. My heart rate was a window into the state of my stress cup and adjusted the number of intervals for me.

The Burst Cardio Protocol automatically adjusts to the correct dose on a given day. As another example, let’s say that I’ve done a strength training session before my burst cardio. The strength training will affect the nervous system, along with my recovery time and the interval itself.

You can also use the Burst Cardio Protocol to train multiple clients with different stress cups. One client may end up doing more intervals during the time period, but since they will be regulating their own intensity you can concentrate more on watching and coaching their exercise techniques. When one client wants to know why they are not able to do as many intervals as someone else you can also explain how recovery itself is a trainable event. Between the intervals we can also coach our clients with breathing exercises and techniques to help them recover. A simple breathing technique such as breathing in, filling up the diaphragm, then slowly exhaling while watching their heart rate on a biofeedback device will allow a client to feel like they’re still training while they are resting. This technique will help them recover faster, too.

The protocol also works for mixed modalities—clients can do kettlebell swings for one round, the elliptical machine for the next, etc. I’ve tested it and found that when someone gets to 95% with kettlebell swings, it takes a lot longer to get back down to 70% as opposed to getting to 95% on the elliptical. The Burst Protocol also adjusts for the given modality. While it’s not necessary to use the Burst Protocol all the time, it is very useful if you are worried about overflowing someone’s stress cup.

The next post in this series will cover another common training scenario and how to use HRV and the Self-Rated Health Scale.

 

***

Chris Hardy, D.O., M.P.H., CSCS, is the author of Strong Medicine: How to Conquer Chronic Disease and Achieve Your Full Genetic Potential. He is a public-health physician, personal trainer, mountain biker, rock climber and guitarist. His passion is communicating science-based lifestyle information and recommendations in an easy-to-understand manner to empower the public in the fight against preventable chronic disease.

Filed Under: Cardiovascular training Tagged With: allostatic load, burst cardio, Burst Cardio Protocol, Chris Hardy, Dr. Chris Hardy, stress management, Strong Medicine

Cardio Revolution: Part III

June 11, 2015 By Dr. Chris Hardy 2 Comments

Cardio Revolution Part Three

In this final installment of the Cardio Revolution trilogy, I will give you some of the basic scientific principles behind the benefits of 4-limb exercise. The best way to do this is to break down the techniques and tactics that Marty outlined in his Fan Bike protocol.

Marty’s Fan Bike protocol is very similar in concept to the high intensity “Burst Cardio” protocol described in Strong Medicine (SM p.424). Both protocols generate periods of very high intensity that shift us squarely into anaerobic metabolism (burning glucose for energy without oxygen). The high intensity anaerobic bursts are incredibly beneficial for metabolic health and promote a strong positive adaptive response in the body.

Metabolic Health

Intermittent anaerobic bursts are the best way to clear out muscle glycogen (glucose) stores.

Muscle Glucose Container Diagram

As discussed in Strong Medicine, emptying the glucose stored in muscle creates an “empty container” to deposit circulating blood glucose. This is one of the reasons why high intensity training is so valuable to Type 2 diabetics.   Traditional “moderate” intensity exercise doesn’t do as good of a job of emptying the muscle glucose (glycogen) “containers”.

As many of us know, glucose that is not stored in the liver or in muscle will be eventually stored as fat in adipose tissue. This is a protective mechanism to keep glucose from building up to toxic levels in the blood. Emptying the muscle glycogen “containers” gives excess blood glucose somewhere to be safely deposited without contributing to increased body fat or causing damage to the body by creating “Advanced Glycation End-products (AGE)” (SM p. 244).

Four-limbed anaerobic cardio such as Marty’s Fan Bike protocol maximally empties total body muscle glycogen “containers” by rotating and distributing effort to all four limbs instead of just the legs.

Glycogen Depletion With Fan Bike workout
Lucas is low on muscle glycogen after a high intensity Fan Bike workout

 

Four-limb high intensity anaerobic exercise is also one of the most powerful interventions for restoring insulin sensitivity in a diabetic. The adaptive response of muscle to clearing out glycogen is to try to “fill up” the glycogen tank. A main function of muscle glycogen is to provide a rapid source of energy for flight or fight situations. From a survival perspective it makes sense for the body to have mechanisms to make it easy to replenish lost muscle glycogen. Your body can’t distinguish between a Fan Bike protocol and running away from a bear. It wants to prepare you for another flight or fight situation as soon as possible so it bypasses the normal mechanisms for getting glucose back into the muscle (glycogen is the storage form of glucose in the muscle).

This bypass mechanism is very powerful for normalizing blood sugar in a Type 2 diabetic. Insulin is required under resting circumstances to pull glucose from the blood into the muscle cells for use in energy production. A Type 2 diabetic has insulin resistance, in other words, the signal insulin gives to open the muscle cell to allow glucose in is not working well (illustrated below in a graphic from Strong Medicine).

Insulin resistance: inflammation (in this case from enlarged fat cells) in diabetes short-circuits the insulin receptor, preventing glucose from entering the muscle cell.
Insulin resistance: inflammation (in this case from enlarged fat cells) in diabetes short-circuits the insulin receptor, preventing glucose from entering the muscle cell.

 

Bypassing Insulin Resistance Diagram
Bypassing insulin resistance: high intensity anaerobic exercise opens the muscle cell to allow glucose in without a signal from insulin. This is why protocols such as Marty’s Fan Bike routine are so beneficial to diabetics. As the muscle glycogen (glucose) stores are emptied by exercise, excess blood sugar can be transported into the muscle cells despite insulin resistance via the bypass mechanism. This can help tremendously to normalize blood sugar for the diabetic. Over time insulin sensitivity can be restored.

In addition to being a superior form of exercise to normalize blood sugar and maintain insulin sensitivity, intermittent high intensity exercise promotes a favorable adaptive response after the exercise is complete. The night after a high intensity exercise session, growth hormone secretion is maximized during slow wave (deep) sleep. Growth hormone is one of the most potent “fat-burning” triggers in our body’s arsenal. This is another way four-limb anaerobic exercise protocols help us lose more body fat after the exercise session (another reason why calories burned during exercise are not as important as the after effects).

Additional Benefits

Marty’s four-limb high intensity cardio protocol for the fan bike makes strategic use of alternating motor patterns. Switching from pedaling forward to pedaling backwards, using different arm positions, and alternating pulling and pushing, all challenge the nervous system, preventing us from becoming too efficient during the exercise session. Using myself as example: as a mountain biker for many years, I can generate fairly high power outputs with traditional forward pedaling for a substantial length of time.   Backwards pedaling is very foreign to my brain and is hugely challenging. I am only fractionally as efficient backwards as I am pedaling forwards. This inefficiency with movement translates into much more effort overall to generate the same amount of power output as a movement that is “hard-wired” from years of repetition.

Marty’s protocol makes use of these shifting motor patterns to minimize efficiency and maximize the adaptive response for exercise. People training for a specific sport such as cycling or swimming want to maximize efficiency to get the most performance out of the least amount of effort. We are trying to do the opposite, maximize our effort (and resulting adaptive response) by minimizing efficiency.   Whether it is with the kettlebell or the Fan-Bike, challenging the brain with new movement patterns is good for both your neurological and metabolic health.

Brain Heart Workout Benefits

The Fan Bike is a great option for four-limbed high intensity cardio, but certainly not the only way to go. The principles of Marty’s protocol can be adapted to many implements and in myriad systems. Use your imagination and have fun!

 

****

Chris Hardy, D.O., M.P.H., CSCS, is the author of Strong Medicine: How to Conquer Chronic Disease and Achieve Your Full Genetic Potential. He is a public-health physician, personal trainer, mountain biker, rock climber and guitarist. His passion is communicating science-based lifestyle information and recommendations in an easy-to-understand manner to empower the public in the fight against preventable chronic disease.

Filed Under: Cardiovascular training Tagged With: 4 limb cardio, burst cardio, cardio, cardiovascular training, Dr. Chris Hardy, four limb exercise, full body cardio, glycogen, high intensity exercise, insulin resistance, insulin sensitivity, intermittant high intensity exercise, normalizing blood sugar, Strong Medicine

Cardio Revolution: Melding an Old Protocol with a New Tool – Part II

June 4, 2015 By Marty Gallagher 6 Comments

Strong Medicine Cardio Revolution Part Two

The Fan Bike has been around for decades. All mechanical, this cardio push/pull device has stood the test of time. It is the technological equivalent of a diesel locomotive engine and has the obvious advantage of making the arms equal partners in creating the sum total of the aerobic/anaerobic effort. The Fan Bike also allows the trainee to encounter the requisite resistance as they go backwards, this effectively doubles the number of Fan Bike exercises. One can pedal using ‘legs only’ forward, or push using ‘arms only.’ We can even use a single limb at a time. Pace possibilities are endless: we can push, we can pull, we can push and pull. We can pedal forward and backward, with and without the arms. We can vary our speed, duration and pace. The modern fan bike has the ability to monitor rpms (at any given instant) and watts generated. These two readouts make it possible for the user to create cardio categories and establish performance benchmarks.

When we are able to categorize and establish performance personal bests we can periodize our cardio efforts. Using the watts readout, the Fan Bike user can have personal best efforts (expressed in watts generated) in each of the various exercise drills. For example, while pedaling forward, arms and legs together, work up to 100% all-out effort–then make note of the highest watts reading you are able to generate. You now have a personal record for that particular drill, something you can seek to improve upon.

Once you have a concrete benchmark, a number expressing watts or RPMs (or heart rate, or all of them) the gains lie in attempting to equal or exceed these current personal bests. You can establish numeric benchmarks in over a dozen separate and distinct Fan Bike arm or leg possibilities.

Over time, this continual striving to exceed current limits has proven to be the true path for obtaining real results. Long-term adherence to a serious Len Schwartz-inspired aerobic protocol, wedded to a Fan Bike, has proven to be an inspired pairing, a “long strength” marriage-made-in-heaven.

fan bikes Airdyne and Assault Air Bike
The original Schwinn Airdyne was the forerunner to the modern Fan Bike. It was the model of simplicity and a brutally effective cardio tool. Unfortunately the classic Airdyne is no longer made. We are currently using the Assault Air Bike for our protocols. It is an updated industrial-grade cardio monster inspired by the original Airdyne.

We can use the Fan Bike in every imaginable way, establish mathematical benchmarks in every imaginable category; and then seek to continually approach, equal or exceed these benchmarks in some way. We will go 100% in every training session. Adhere to this protocol for a protracted period and reap radical increases and improvements in endurance and sustained strength. Cardio capacity will improve dramatically; the metabolism will accelerate.

If your nutrition is in sync with the exercise, body fat will be mobilized and oxidized at an astounding rate. The body, through skillful blending of nutrition and exercise will “relearn” how to use stored body fat as fuel, and drain the various fat storage areas of the human body.

Muscles subjected to intense cardio for protracted periods will reconfigure themselves in response to the intense and continual self-inflicted stress. Mitochondria are cellular blast furnaces that live within every muscle. Nature allots us a certain “mitochondrial density” at birth. Over time, as we age and abuse ourselves, the mitochondria will start to “flame out” and die. Science indicates that sedentary individuals experience premature mitochondrial flame out. Conversely, those who engage in intense physical exertion, profound and prolonged, forestall burnout. Further, if the exercise is intense, prolonged and consistent, new mitochondria are actually created to deal with the continual stresses. New cellular blast furnaces are constructed within the muscles that are constantly worked and stressed.

Mitochondria: cellular energy factories
Mitochondria: cellular energy factories

Mild and moderate cardio efforts are insufficiently intense to cause the creation of new mitochondria and the resulting muscle reconfiguration. When we exceed capacities and establish new performance levels when we train with intensity and consistency, the body is compelled to construct new cellular blast furnaces. Nature intended and designed the human body to possess strong, powerful muscles with a high mitochondrial density to enable a muscle to operate at optimal physiological efficiency. We can really get after “it” when we use the Fan Bike. By going fast and in multiple directions with all our limbs, we derive maximum benefit from our cardio efforts.

Why This Tool?

The Len Schwartz HeavyHands-inspired protocol was as dead as Sanskrit scrolls–it was an ancient, long forgotten strategy. Now, we will resurrect his approach and match it up with a “modern” tool. The venerable Fan Bike is not really modern, but it is the perfect cardio tool for reenacting and reviving the defunct (yet still potent) HeavyHands strategies. Like HeavyHands, the Fan Bike allows and enables the trainee to stress one, two, three or all four limbs, individually or together, forwards or backwards. The cardio effort can be “shuttled” around the body in a very strategic and calculated fashion.

The underlying, unifying concept is to work up to 100% of exertion max in a wide range of aerobic exercises and drills, all done on the Fan Bike. We will work the arms and legs separately, or together, we can alternate cardio “zones,” we can be clever and innovative in our exercise sequencing. Once they grasp the fundamental concepts, the athlete is then able to create their own exercise templates. Once the techniques and tactics are mastered, the trainee then purposefully modulate the exercise intensity to create the desired cardio inroad and achieve the overall desired physiological effect.

Quad-Limb Fan Bike Core Protocol

For each Fan Bike exercise, the procedure is the same, regardless of the drill:

  • Warm-up gradually: pedal and/or push-pull, light and easy…
  • Gradually pick up the pace: warm-up to and maintain 50% of capacity…
  • Allow the body to acclimate at each subsequent intensity level
  • Move to 70% of capacity: the body is now completely awake and alert
  • Move to 85%
  • Move to 100% of what you are currently capable of–today, at this time
  • Hold 100% for as long as is comfortable
  • Be cognizant that capacity is a shifting target and will shift, session to session
  • Gains occur when we equal or exceed these (diminished or enhanced) capacities
  • Log the watts, RPMs, and, if possible, heart rate, when attaining 100% max

Once we achieve a 100% all-out max effort in an exercise, we relax and go into the slowest, easiest warm-up iteration of the next sequenced exercise in the cardio chain. Our procedure is to hit 100% of capacity in each exercise, and then immediately shift into the easiest version of the next exercise. We sequence exercises in such a fashion that whatever muscle or muscle-groups are taxed to 100% are rested as another “section” of the body takes over the cardio effort. We again and again hit a 100% effort. Our report card is the watts, the RPMs and the heart rate monitor reading.

  • 100% means that you go as fast as you can go, at that instant of time. Your capacities might be diminished, normal, or enhanced. After a thorough warm-up, exert to 100% in each of the selected exercises.
  • We can continually assault our limits, safely and effectively if we train smart. All 100% efforts need to be preceded by a comprehensive warm-up. We do all that we can do (safely and sanely) on this particular day at this time.
  • The gains we seek (improved endurance, increased athletic performance, better body fat percentile, quicker, lighter and healthier, a radically improved physique) are attained by equaling or exceeding current limits.

Specific body parts are taxed maximally, then rested while other body parts are bought online and taxed maximally in turn; the rotation goes on and on without repeating. This strategy allows us to repeatedly exert maximally. Over the course of the entire cycle, this particular Fan Bike protocol requires the trainee hit a 100% maximum twenty times in a row.

Fan Bike Training Template: The 20-Exercise “Cycle”

  1. Arms and legs forward
  2. Legs only forward
  3. Legs only backwards
  4. Arms only push (bench press the handles)
  5. Arms only pull (over-grip row)
  6. Arms only pull (under-grip row)
  7. Arms only push and pull (burn it out, fast as possible)
  8. Legs only forward
  9. Legs only backward
  10. Legs & arms forward (standing up)
  11. Legs & arms backwards (standing up)
  12. Left leg forward
  13. Right leg forward
  14. Left leg backwards
  15. Right leg backwards
  16. Right arm forward (push)
  17. Left arm forward
  18. Right arm backwards (pull)
  19. Arms & legs forward
  20. Arms & legs forward (stand)

Cool Down: arms & legs forward

Work up to a 100% push or pull max on every exercise. This cycle will take between 10-15 minutes to complete. In each instance we seek to go as fast as we can go (within safe, sane and rational limits) then immediately shift into the next exercise. Use the slow ramp up in each exercise. Starting a new exercise is the recovery period from the previous exercise. In about the time the athlete fully recovers, it is time to push the accelerator to the floorboard for the current exercise: twenty times we “max out”, cool down, recover, then hit it again.

Check out the video below as Chris demonstrates a portion of the Fan Bike protocol.

“Cardio zone” training strategically rotates training stress: sometimes we work all four limbs, sometime we work them in pairs or singly–we “spread out” the cardio effort. We rotate the exercises in an effort to keep the intensity high for an extended period of time. We can attack all four limbs simultaneously, we can blast the legs while resting the arms, we can blast the rested arms while resting the blasted legs. Further, we can attack one limb at a time while purposefully resting the other three. Finally we can do all of this magical stuff backwards–doubling our exercise universe. The sheer number of possibilities is positively mind-blowing.

Compelling and Persuasive

Knowing what you now know, why would anyone remotely interested in purchasing a cardio training device select an aerobic tool that could only go in one direction, forward, and that only uses the legs to generate 100% of the cardio effort?

Aerobic tools that depend on legs alone to create the totality of the exercise effort are woefully inadequate when compared to the astounding possibilities of quad-limbed cardio. Single-limb cardio and reverse-direction cardio are exciting new avenues of potential progress.

Consistent and intense cardio, cardio with a purposeful muscular effort included, builds locomotive-like endurance while infusing muscles with new mitochondria. The quality of the aerobic and anaerobic effort generated (using a multitude of exercise variations combined with the 100% effort) is designed to exponentially magnify endurance, release endorphins, build mitochondria and burn off stored body fat. That is a mighty list of highly desirable benefits!

Intense cardio triggers the release of endorphins, a telltale precursor of the adaptive response. The appearance of endorphins is a positive indicator that the training effort was productive. Intense cardio improves internal plumbing, flushes arterial walls, power-washes clinging plaque and sludge as torrents of blood rip through veins in a supercharged circulatory rush. The heart muscle accelerates, and toxins are removed as nutrients are carried to the muscle while the athlete achieves Len’s ideal of “optimal aerobic efficiency”.

Cardio exercise is a critical component in the eternal quest to physically transform. The need for cardio exercise is not in question–what is in question is the optimal tool, mode, and method. We feel the Fan Bike is a fabulous tool (not the only tool, but a valid tool for our fitness toolbox) and when paired with Len’s particular and unique protocols, we can create an exceedingly effective way to obtain optimal results from our cardio efforts.

Comparing a contemporary stationary bike, a standard treadmill or any “legs only” cardio device to a Fan Bike is akin to comparing checkers to chess. Why be purposefully stuck with a one-dimensional workout tool when you can explore four dimensions and open up an exciting new cardio universe?

 

Editor’s Note:

The Fan Bike will give you all that you can handle as a cardio tool. Marty’s protocol can be very taxing. Keep in mind the daily state of your “Stress Cup” (see Strong Medicine for more on this) and feel free to alter the order of exercise and volume to suit your daily needs. Adequate recovery is just as important as exercise intensity.   I filmed the above video the day after a hard jiu jitsu session. Five minutes was about all that I needed (and could handle) to get a beneficial adaptive response while also avoiding overtraining. In Part III, I am going to discuss some of the science behind the benefits of four-limb cardio and specific advantages of using the Fan Bike.

***

Marty Gallagher is the author of Strong Medicine, The Purposeful Primitive and Coan: The Man, The Myth, The Method.  Gallagher coached the United States team that won the IPF powerlifting world team title in 1991. He is a 6-time national masters champion and national record holder.  He was the IFF world master powerlifting champion in 1992.  He currently works with elite athletes, spec ops military and governmental agencies.

Filed Under: Cardiovascular training Tagged With: 4 limb cardio, airdyne, cardio, cardiovascular training, Dr. Len Schwartz, exercise, exercise system, fan bike, fitness, fitness system, full body cardio, full body training, HeavyHands, Marty Gallagher

Cardio Revolution: Melding an Old Protocol with a New Tool – Part I

May 28, 2015 By Marty Gallagher 19 Comments

Cardio Revolution by Marty Gallagher Part I

During the 1990s, I had the great fortune to become an aerobic disciple of Dr. Leonard Schwartz, medical doctor, psychiatrist and exercise genius. Len was in his sixties when we met. His “mission” was to devise a new fitness exercise system, one that suited his personality and psychology, one capable of transforming the human body in new and unique ways. Len came onto the scene in the 1980s and found the state of exercise and fitness sadly lacking; the bodybuilder/weight trainer contingent ignored cardio considerations while the joggers, distance runners and Jane Fonda exercise class types ignored any and all strength considerations. Len wanted both and decided to devise a system that would inject a purposeful element of strength into a decidedly cardio format. He called his endurance/strength approach “long strength,” which he described as the ability to perform light to moderate muscular exertions over extended periods of time: muscular contractions of various intensities were placed into an aerobic format.

Doctor Len Schwartz, MD, psychiatrist, fitness visionary
Doctor Len Schwartz, MD, psychiatrist, fitness visionary

With one foot in the cardio camp and another in the muscle and strength camp, Len sought to devise a fitness training system that paid homage to both. Len wanted his cardio/strength regimen to utilize all of the limbs—not just legs—to generate the totality of the effort. Using Sherlock Holmes-like powers of logic and deductive reasoning, Len reverse-engineered an entire fitness system within his massive brain. Len took his philosophic musings to the University of Pittsburgh’s Sports Performance Laboratory where he put theory into practice. Len approached fitness with no preconceptions: he would go wherever his research results took him. Len found conventional fitness thinking dogmatic, overly commercialized and one-dimensional; he filled a vacuum with his outside-the-box thinking.

I interviewed him repeatedly for cutting-edge articles about aerobics for use in bodybuilding when I was the lead training writer at Muscle & Fitness magazine. We talked for many years and I repeatedly quizzed the hell out of Len on all things cardio, medical, scientific and what we collectively called “brain-train”. We talked at length about the optimal psychological mindset for sports and training. He and I would talk several times a week and did so for years. I quizzed him mercilessly about his approach; he loved talking with someone that “got it.” We talked as two theoretical scientists would, and his ideas were so scientifically grounded that they blew everything else out of the water from an exercise/philosophic standpoint. His reasoning and science were irrefutable—and his conclusions and solutions were unique. In response to his experimentation, he devised a new method of exercise and training.

Len was a fascinating dude. In addition to being a top-flight psychiatrist, he wrote poetry, played classical guitar extremely well and sculpted. He lived in a beautiful old section of Pittsburgh, right across the street from Steeler’s owner Art Rooney. When Len turned his undivided attention towards “fitness,” his conclusions proved to be as as unique as the man. He began with a stated goal, to remake and rebuild the human body—starting with his. He sought to create a healthy, functional body: lean and fat-free, yet strong, flexible, capable and athletic. He sought to create the optimal body. To build the optimal body he saw in his mind’s eye, Len needed a system that built both endurance and strength.

Len felt the ideal body should be lean and muscled—but lightly muscled—like Michelangelo’s David. I argued the ideal male should look like the thickly muscled Farnese Hercules. I championed a heavier, thicker, more powerful man, a rhino to Len’s gazelle. “The Farnese Hercules would kick David’s ass!” I would taunt him. “That presupposes Herc could catch David before gassing out.” Len would counter. Touché Len! He was a physician, a healer, a mentor and a life coach. Philosophical by nature, he would muse and debate with me about “the ultimate goal of fitness.” He wanted a fit and muscled body—but had qualified this with the provision, “a lightly muscled body.” I was a big-muscle guy from M&F magazine and a “short strength expert,” as he labeled my 800-pound squat ability. He was the master of “long strength” and by dubbing me as a master of “short strength” we had lots to talk about. He wanted to know all about our pure power methods and I wanted to understand this “power cardio” approach which was at odds with the super popular steady-state, low intensity, leg-only cardio modes and methods so prevalent back then (and now).

His cardio/strength feats were incredible. At age 70, he could pump a pair of ten-pound hand weights to forehead height (on every rep) for a solid hour—while power walking and squatting every ten paces. Small at 145 pounds, Len possessed a 3% walking around body-fat percentile—despite eating like a starved prisoner let loose at a buffet. His long strength cardio training built his metabolism into a blast furnace and he was the best possible example of the benefits of his “HeavyHands” system.

His light bulb moment came when he was comparing all-time best athletic VO2 max readings. He could not help but notice how far ahead the cross-country skiers were from the rest of the pack. What differentiated the skiers from the runners? The skiers used their arms; they pumped hard and exerted mightily with their arms using their ski poles as they propelled forward on every stride stroke. The cross-country skier will use legs and arms for propulsion and often amp up the effort with a dramatic folding forward at the waist—further increasing the degree of difficulty. The sport creates the physique of the athlete and to a man, the elite cross-country skiers have off-the-chart aerobic capacities and lean, muscled-up physiques. Len pondered the possibility of creating a fitness protocol that replicated results achieved by cross-country skiing—but without skiing.

Nordic (Cross Country) Skiing—the archetype of four-limb cardio
Nordic (Cross Country) Skiing—the archetype of four-limb cardio

He needed a tool that could load the arms, like the arms of a cross-country skier. He needed a tool would enable quad-limb cardio. Len wanted the totality of aerobic effort spread, semi-equally across all four limbs. At the end of a Len-protocol training session, all four limbs, arms and legs, will have performed the same amount of work. During the total training time in his cardio session, each limb will receive approximately 25% of the session allotment. The vast majority of aerobic machines and devices only use the legs—two limbs—to generate 100% of the aerobic effort. By distributing the cardio effort and working all four limbs, the body benefits to a far greater degree on a multitude of levels. “Leg only” cardio was and is decidedly and demonstrably inferior to quad-limbed cardio. Yet, virtually every aerobic format used (and uses) the legs, exclusively, to generate 100% of the cardio effort.

For Len, the goal was to create a new type of training that would create a new archetypical physique: lean and light, yet muscular and strong. His “ideal human” would be light in bodyweight, yet extremely fit, they would possess incredible endurance and have shapely, functional muscles chock full of mitochondria. Tight adherence to the embryonic “Heavy Hands” tools and protocols transformed Len’s own physique to a dramatic degree and extremely quickly. He was his own test lab and achieved incredible results even though he began at the advanced age of 54.

Len “loaded” his hands; he made them “heavy.” Once he made his hands heavy, he began creating drills by improvising and experimenting with different training modalities and ideas. He checked his results with blood work and the VO2 scientific monitoring he used at the Pitt Sports Lab. He was testing his theories with his new type of training and logging actual results. Could he replicate the VO2 Max readings generated by the Finnish, Norwegian and Russian cross-country skiers without skiing? Could he create a new fitness system that used all four limbs and built strength and endurance?

Len sought a system in which both cardio inefficiency and cardio efficiency could coexist. Efficient steady-state cardio, had its place as a valid tactic in Len’s HeavyHands arsenal; but so did purposefully inefficient, burst or interval cardio, with its extreme demands on the body. Len wanted to create a system that would allow the athlete to effortlessly modulate the degree and type of aerobic intensity using an arsenal of variables. He created “intensity enhancers” that included how high the weighted hands were raised on each stride-step; Len could modulate the pace of the exercise, he could alter the type and kind of movement pattern selected. The effects of each exercise would change when paired with heavier or lighter poundage. The tweaking, modulation and intensity amping possibilities were virtually limitless.

Len’s magus opus was his seminal book, HeavyHands, which is still available on Amazon and still worthy of a read. In his book, he explains the science behind HH. He talks about METs and mitochondrial density; he lays out exacting techniques and shares precise protocols. HeavyHands, at its popular peak, was available in every major sporting goods store in every mall in the county. Women’s aerobic dance classes, the biggest fitness craze in the history of fitness, began using HeavyHands. Sales shot through the roof.

Unfortunately, HeavyHands died. Sales plummeted when it became unfairly categorized as just another bad 80s fad, like parachute pants, head bands, the Miami Vice look, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Pintos and pet rocks. HeavyHands got washed out to sea, considered faddish, ineffectual and passé.

Old Wine in New Bottles; the Son of HeavyHands

HeavyHands went from pop fad to premature death. There were a lot of reasons for its demise, but first and foremost, HeavyHands never caught on with the male population. I was Len’s true friend, but there was no way I would perform any of his dance routine protocols. If you look at commercial cardio protocols, the cardio system most successful in enticing males to participate was Billy Blanks’s Tae Bo. Men flocked to Tae Bo classes to take part in the martial art katas; the punches and kicks. The clenched fists and exertion grunts made Tae Bo a cardio dance class acceptable for men. Plus, Billy was a real man; his Alpha credentials were beyond reproach. The martial core of Tae Bo made it hip for guys to perform. True men could now go to cardio class, heads held high.

Not so with HeavyHands. Group HeavyHands classes were more akin to the cardio dance class format. Real men were not going to be involved in anything vaguely resembling a Jane Fonda/Richard Simmons style aerobic dance class. Unfortunately, HeavyHands group protocols definitely resembled dance class cardio, so men opted out. Ironically, in the 1990s a new cardio tool emerged that captured the hearts and minds of alpha male worldwide: the kettlebell. Isn’t the kettlebell yet another way to load the hands and make them “heavier”? Indeed, classical and current kettlebell protocols favor heavier payloads and shorter durations; still I maintain the gruesome orb, the kettlebell, is the only begotten son of HeavyHands.

The kettlebell: a potent cardio tool
The kettlebell: a potent cardio tool

Most kettlebell experts would balk at the iron orb being labeled as an “aerobic” tool. Yet, when it comes to creating the deepest possible cardio inroad, creating strength/endurance, and adhering to “long strength” philosophies, the kettlebell—properly used—sets the Gold Standard.   The unwieldy device can create the optimal cardio effect: a perfect balance can be struck between pure endurance and sustained strength. A kettlebell, in the hands of a true expert, is the optimal tool for inducing the deepest possible cardio inroad and triggering the maximal adaptive response.

The final deathblow for HeavyHands occurred when the public ignored Len’s protocols. It was critically important that the little hand weights, regardless the poundage, be raised to predetermined heights: low, medium or high. The height selected was used to create the cardio intensity needed to achieve the desired training effect. The public turned HeavyHands into “CarryHands”. The red-handled dumbbells were seen everywhere, yet despite their popularity, no one got the promised gains. The lack of results was directly attributable to the total disregard of Len’s protocols: instead of pumping the arms to any height, the public speed-walked or jogged with HHs, carrying them like heavy suitcases at the end of a long trip or clutched to the chest of the jogger/runner in a death-grip.

The “CarryHands” protocol actually reduced arm motion and diminished results. Now, the immobile and frozen arms actually contributed less then if walker/jogger was empty handed, swinging their un-weighted arms normally. Naturally, no one got results from “CarryHands” and it killed HeavyHands.

In 2015, we’re resurrecting Len’s “old wine” theories, strategies and protocols. The first order of business was to select a new tool. We found a retro tool, the Fan Bike, that allowed us to invoke Schwartz’s strategies in a manner and fashion that could equal or exceed results derived from HeavyHands or kettlebells. The retro Fan Bike allows the user to tax both arms and legs in two directions: forward and backward. We place old wine (Schwartz’s philosophies and protocols) into a new bottle (a modern retro tool that enables us to maximally tax ourselves to the desired degree.) The end result is an exciting new avenue of progress for the informed and enlightened fitness seeker.

The Fan Bike: the successor to HeavyHands for 4-limb cardio
The Fan Bike: the successor to HeavyHands for 4-limb cardio

End of Part I

Editor’s comment:

After many discussions, Marty and I decided that the Fan Bike would be our tool of choice for our “cardio” protocols. It meets the requirement for capability of delivering high intensity workouts involving all four limbs, but also allows those with orthopedic limitations/conditions to fully participate in the protocols.   In Part II, Marty will outline an excellent protocol for metabolic conditioning using the Fan Bike. I will follow up in Part III delving into some of the foundational science supporting high intensity 4-limb cardio for health and performance, as well as specific benefits found exclusively with the Fan Bike.

***

Marty Gallagher is the author of Strong Medicine, The Purposeful Primitive and Coan: The Man, The Myth, The Method.  Gallagher coached the United States team that won the IPF powerlifting world team title in 1991. He is a 6-time national masters champion and national record holder.  He was the IFF world master powerlifting champion in 1992.  He currently works with elite athletes, spec ops military and governmental agencies.

Filed Under: Cardiovascular training Tagged With: 4 limb cardio, cardio, cardiovascular training, Dr. Len Schwartz, exercise, exercise system, fitness, fitness system, full body cardio, full body training, HeavyHands, Marty Gallagher

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