Maximizing the Health-Span

The Stress Cup and Training

September 10, 2015 By Paul Britt 9 Comments

Paul Britt, RKC Team Leader with Dynamometer

How full is your stress cup? For those that have not read the incredible book, Strong Medicine, the stress cup is a great way to view your overall stress levels. The cup can only hold so much before it overfills and starts to spill. If your cup is running over then you are not able to train effectively and other areas of your life will suffer also.

As Dr. Hardy writes, there are a lot of ways to check on your stress and oxidative inflammation levels. You need to know what your cholesterol is, the levels of associated lipid profiles, and markers of inflammation. If you do not know your levels, you do not know where to go and what your end goal should be. But, you cannot check these numbers on a daily basis. I personally chose to have lab work done about every 4 months or so. That time frame corresponds with the 120 day life cycle of the typical red blood cell. I have found that any changes I have made will be detected and quantifiable in that time frame.

But, you also need to use something that will allow a daily check of your stress cup. A little background before I go any further. My stress cup is pretty full most days. I have three kids, run my gym and training business and I am a full time student in Parker University’s Doctor of Chiropractic program. I leave my house at 5:15am and often return home at 7pm. My days are long, and at 47, tend to be pretty stressful. My school goal is to maintain a 3.2GPA and my current training goal has me training for the Beast Tamer, 48kg kettlebell pistol, press and pullup. I had to find something that would allow me to check my stress level on a daily basis to maximize my training and not add any extra stress or lengthy procedures.

Dr. Hardy spoke about Heart Rate Variability at the Dragon Door Health and Strength Conference as an indicator of the health of our autonomic nervous system. To live the Strong Medicine way we want the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) to be the main operating system in our daily life. It is the “rest and digest” system. However, in today’s society, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is often running at a low volume in the background. The everyday stresses that we allow to affect us keep the SNS pump primed and stress hormones continually trickling into the body. The SNS keeps the stress cup filling all day long and that affects training.

I looked into Heart Rate Variability (HRV) as a method to measure my stress levels for training. A quick, easy explanation of Heart Rate Variability looks at the spacing between heart beats. The more regular the space is between beats, the more the sympathetic nervous system is piloting the ship. You want there to be some variability between beats as that means the parasympathetic nervous system is in charge of everything. The drawback for me was the need to wear a chest strap to measure pulse rate during sleep as HRV is measured upon waking and prior to getting out of bed. It added a little to my stress cup as I did not sleep well with the monitor strap around my chest at night. Sleep is one of my cup fillers that I am working on as it is, but that is for another article.

Dr. Hardy mentioned grip strength as a possible tool to measure the stress cup on a daily basis. There are studies that have shown that a decrease in grip strength is correlated with strokes, heart attacks and overall longevity—it made sense that it would also be an indicator of Central Nervous System health. I also liked the fact that it was a quick and easy check that I could do daily before I trained.

I did some research on the subject and found some others had used grip strength for the same purpose with pretty good results. What I did not find was a consensus on numbers. Everything I read indicated that you need your baseline number, but everything else was across the board in regards to what constituted having a full stress cup. Dynamometers are pretty cheap online, so I bought one and began to play with it.

My initial baseline was an average of three different readings after two days of rest. I measured, waited five minutes, measured and repeated one more time to develop my numbers. The first training session using the dynamometer was the next day. My grip strength was dead-on my baseline and it was a great session, my press and pistol were really strong that day. I monitored my grip strength on a daily basis while using a program based on Easy Strength to train. My testing procedure is the same every time, I perform it in the same position and close to the same time that I initially tested. I try to keep the outside variables at a minimum. I feel that this is the best way to get an accurate reading.

I found on days that grip strength was at baseline or higher, I had incredible training sessions. In fact on days that it was higher, I was using a 44kg kettlebell for my lifts. But what about those days below the baseline? I tried to push through a few of those days to see what the result would be. The days that I tried to push hard, even though my grip strength was not at baseline, were rough. I did not make my numbers and I would lose a few days of training.

I looked at my daily numbers and came up with a guide that works pretty well.

Baseline: Green light to train heavy
3-5% decrease: Yellow light, medium day
6-8% decrease: Light or recovery day
10% or more decrease: Take a break and rest

Remember, this is a quick test to determine how full your stress cup is—it is just a piece of the puzzle. You need to know your numbers on blood work, body composition, and determine as many other numbers as possible (such as amount of sleep) to help you maximize your health and avoid overfilling your stress cup.

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RKC Team Leader Paul Britt has been an RKC kettlebell instructor since 2006. He is currently earning his Doctor of Chiropractic, while still training clients at Britt’s Training Systems, his award-winning Hardstyle Kettlebell Training Facility in Rockwall, Texas. Paul is a Certified Kettlebell Functional Movement Specialist (CK-FMS) and PCC Instructor and has worked with the top Chiropractors in North Texas. Please visit his website brittstrainingsystems.com or Britt’s Training Systems on Facebook for more information.

Finding a Balance Between Building and Repair: Part 1

July 2, 2015 By Dr. Chris Hardy 3 Comments

Strong Medicine Maximizing Health-Span: Introduction

For the second MHS (Maximizing the Health-Span) post, I set out to write an article focused on intermittent fasting (IF). But, I quickly realized we needed a “first principles” foundation for context first. We need to understand the underlying physiological systems that are affected by intermittent fasting instead of taking a reductionist approach. A very simplistic way of thinking about the two major body systems most affected by intermittent fasting (and also training and other lifestyle choices) is categorizing them as systems of building and repair respectively.

The body has to achieve a balance between building and repair at a cellular level. This balance will necessarily change depending on environmental demands such as physical activity and nutrition as well the aging process. Finding the right balance between building and repair at the right time is key to maximizing the health span.

Building and Repair Diagram

At the center of the building and repair systems is a protein complex known as mTOR. The technical name for mTOR is the mechanistic target of rapamycin (formerly known as the mammalian target of rapamycin). mTOR functions as a molecular switch between building and repair.

Turning mTOR on promotes building. Turning mTOR off promotes repair.

BUILDING

Building (growth) is an anabolic process that happens when mTOR is turned on. Stimuli such as resistance training and eating protein (especially the branched-chain amino acid leucine) turn the mTOR switch on. The hormone insulin also turns on the mTOR building pathway. This effect of insulin should come as no surprise to readers of Strong Medicine (SM pages 107-108) as we discussed insulin as a hormone of growth and storage.

As Dan Cenidoza covered in his Strength after Sixty post, the anabolic pathways of building are crucial to grow and maintain muscle mass especially as we age. Not enough of “turning on” the mTOR switch can lead to sarcopenia and frailty in old age.

At the extreme end of the mTOR building pathway is cancer. By the simplest definition, cancer is uncontrolled cell growth. Recent science has shown that many cancer cells have abnormally high mTOR signaling, putting them is a perpetual state of growth. People with insulin resistance (SM p. 180) have higher levels of insulin in their bloodstream at all times which keeps the mTOR switch activated. Thus, it is no surprise that those with insulin resistance/diabetes are known to have increase risk of cancer.

We also now know that high levels of sustained mTOR activation can lead to accelerating aging in many species, including humans. With this information in mind, it becomes evident that getting the proper “dose” of mTOR activation is key.

We need enough “turning on” the mTOR building (growth) switch to prevent the loss of muscle mass so crucial for healthy aging, but no so much that we accelerate the aging process and become at increased risk for diseases such as cancer.

mTOR Activation

REPAIR (AND RECYCLING)

The opposite side of the mTOR coin is the repair and recycling system. This system is activated with the mTOR switch is turned off. The main process that carries out repair and recycling in our cells is called autophagy.

Autophagy literally means “self-eating.” Autophagy is the mechanism our cells use to recycle damaged proteins and cell machinery (including mitochondria) and use their parts to make new machinery and new sources of energy. Recycling old cellular machinery helps protect a cell from premature aging. This is similar to replacing a roof or hot water heater in your house to keep it functional as a dwelling longer. We can replace some of the parts for quite a while before having to buy a new house. Autophagy does the same thing for cells.

Autophagy is a cell-survival mechanism during times of stress. Fasting is one of the most common sources of cell stress that activates autophagy. Low protein intake and low insulin levels create a perfect environment for the mTOR switch to be turned off and autophagy to take over. Autophagy allows your cells to recycle used material for use as energy during stresses such as fasting, instead of breaking down valuable things such as muscle. Preventing catabolism (breaking down) of muscle is always a good thing!

By allowing recycling and repair within the cell, autophagy effectively extends the life span of the cell. This is one of the reasons why we seen increased lifespan with fasting and calorie restriction in animal such as mice and worms (it has not worked as well in humans as we will discuss in subsequent posts).

FINDING THE BALANCE

We know that turning on the mTOR building pathway in the right doses is crucial to maintaining muscle mass through the lifespan, a key to healthy aging. We also know that autophagy is a valuable process to extend the life and health of your cells. Finding the right balance between these two processes is where it can get tricky. This balance is also a moving target throughout our lifespan. We are going to use the concept of balancing mTOR activation (building) and mTOR deactivation (repair/recycle) to discuss training, eating, fasting, and lifestyle modification in upcoming posts. We will couple this with the concepts of hormesis and allostatic load (the Stress Cup) from Strong Medicine to create a framework to form a foundation from which to decide if practices like intermittent fasting have potential to maximize the health span.

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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.

Maximizing the Health-Span: Introduction

April 16, 2015 By Dr. Chris Hardy 36 Comments

Strong Medicine Maximizing Health-Span: Introduction

Mortality is the great equalizer. It is the single characteristic all human life has in common. As Jim Morrison said, “No one here gets out alive.” Although some embrace our mortality as a defining aspect of what it means to be human, the specter of death has haunted many since the origin of our species. We are now at a point in our technological development that some think that the ability to cheat death will soon be within our reach.

Over the past couple of years, Silicon Valley billionaires have collectively invested billions of dollars toward the quest for immortality. Research into finding the molecular equivalent of the fountain of youth is proceeding at a feverish pitch fueled by this massive influx of funding. Whether you agree with this goal from a moral or philosophical perspective, the scientific pursuit of extending the human life-span will likely result in new medical advances with carryover benefit to the treatment of devastating afflictions such as cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. On the other side of the coin, there would be significant downstream effects on world-wide society by extending the human life-span, including problems with overpopulation and dwindling natural resources just to name a few.

I am not posing the question for whether we should pursue life-span extension or not. That is a philosophical argument with many valid points of view. I do question the amount of money and resources that are being allocated for life extension research when most of us are not living even a normal human life span in good health. The majority of us have not maximized our health-span. This is readily apparent by even a cursory examination of the current state of public health with respect to chronic disease. Two-thirds of us are obese or overweight and preventable diseases such as diabetes have become the equivalent of modern plagues, spreading despite our best attempts at intervention. Our children are the most at risk, as the current generation is projected to be the first not to outlive their parents.

The Strong Medicine book was written with the aim of increasing the health-span of the general public through prevention. We aimed to empower people to live a life largely free of disease and with high physical function into old age. Even with the level of detail and breadth of subject matter in the book, they were still broad brush strokes and certainly not the end of the story for maximizing the human health-span.

There are many challenges to implementing an individualized program of “health-span optimization.” It is easy to tell someone to eat more locally-sourced organic fruits and vegetables, but hard for them to implement if they live in the “food deserts” found in many of our major cities. Regular intense exercise can be difficult for those with limited time due to seemingly endless demands of daily modern life, or for those impaired by injury or disability. There are also countless “techniques and tactics” on the Internet purported to be the magic bullet for achieving your health and fitness goals.

We will use the Maximizing the Health-Span (MHS) series to address challenges in individualized health-span optimization. We will also use the MHS series to put some of the latest and most popular health/fitness techniques and tactics to the test by looking under the hood and uncovering biologically plausible mechanisms and evidence of effectiveness.

In keeping with the mission of this blog, I not only welcome your comments, but encourage you to submit potential subjects of interest for future posts in the Maximizing the Health-Span series.

Stay tuned for the first post in the MHS series when we will examine the practice of intermittent fasting as a potential tactic for increasing the health-span. Start doing your own research on intermittent fasting now so we can have an informed discussion about the potential benefits and risks when the post goes live…

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