In this podcast (download iPod compatible, 38MB), Dave Liepman gives us an introduction to how he performs in strong man events. This podcast kicks off a short series on the mechanics of performing in strong man competitions. We'll see Dave perform the tire flip and a keg carry in later episodes.

Dave has been performing in strong man competitions since he was 20 and saw an advertisement for one at the gym where he was working out. He then had a layoff of 7 years and decided to compete again when he saw that they had a weight class that fit his size (200 lbs. and under). When I asked him what initially piqued his interest, he mentioned how, growing up on a farm, he had always wanted to perform feats of strength.

For me, the key takeaway from this conversation was the amount of strategizing that goes into the strong man competition. As Dave points out, it's not just brute force. That will only get you so far. To lift really heavy weights, you have to understand your body's leverage points and how to capitalize on them. To get a good sense of how he can best use these leverage points, Dave attempts to train with the competition implements themselves (kegs, tires, etc.)

Additional Links

• This wikipedia article gives a good account of the World's Strongest Man Competitions. Of note, Iceland is the country with the most winners, notable given its small population of under one-half million.

In this podcast (download ipod compatible, 47MB), Troy Garver and I discuss something he calls the third law of thermodynamics in dieting. It's actually a contradiction because while you may believe that cutting calories (energy intake) will lead to weight loss, it frequently just does not. That's because the body is itself a dynamic system that tries to conserve energy as you cut intake.

After I mention to him what I like about the atkins diet: hunger remains after control and after induction energy is manageable if not bountiful, Troy mentions that "satiety" is one of the key factors he looks for when helping people manage their diets. He basically looks to give people foods from the groups they like but cleaned up, meaning without processed foods, and of course, reduced in calories.

We're going to switch topics in future podcasts. We have a strong man who is going to provide a couple of exercise analyses and some upcoming interviews with Paul Wright about his gym expansion plans.

Additional Links

• This site provides an interesting perspective on calorie needs and how they change with age and activity.

In this podcast (download ipod compatible, 53MB), Troy Garver and I (Bud) discuss the role that protein plays in the diet. We start off by noting that Troy did make his goal of fitting in the XL size shirt for his wedding, now almost two weeks ago. We then come to the topic of diet.

Protein helps prevent muscle loss while dieting

I've been following a low carb diet. Working out on low carbs is hard because carbs are your primary fuel source. When your body is deprived of carbs, it first turns toward protein as a fuel source and then towards fat. Since muscles are composed of protein, the first phase of weight loss for most people actually consists of muscle loss. If you maintain a high protein intake, it can help spare your muscles at the outset because it is easier to just convert the protein vs. destroying muscle tissue to get it. Protein is also a less efficient source of fuel than carbs, so you wind up getting less bang per protein gram of fuel than you do per gram of carbs. Eventually, your body moves primarily toward fat burning.

Protein helps with post-workout recovery

Protein consumption also helps with recovery after weight training by providing the body with the building blocks for muscle regeneration. It can also help to consume carbs at this time because because the resulting insulin spike helps nutrients cross the cell wall into the muscle.

Additional Links

• Mauro di Pasquale suggests that upping your insulin levels post workout without carbs leads to higher fat burning. The way to do this is with proteins.

In this podcast (download for ipod, 40MB), Troy Garver and I discuss the importance of goals in any fitness program. The goal should be tangible and have a time frame attached. We discuss my goal of losing 15 lbs. Well, what time frame should I do that in?

Troy also notes that restrictive diets and disciplined goal regimens are hard to maintain over time.

We then discuss Troy's goal of shrinking down to fit in an XL shirt by the time of his wedding this Saturday. Many revelations ensue. It turns out that Troy is given to eating massive quantities of kids' snacks. To lose weight, he's dropped those items from his diet and started to do cardio. As a former bodybuilder who likes to focus on weight training, this is quite the sacrifice. He also has not tried on the shirt since he and his fiance chose it. The wedding day will be the moment of truth. We'll hear how that went in a couple of weeks.

For the record, Troy is one of the most physically fit appearing people I know.  His desire to shrink down is based purely on fitting into a specific shirt on his wedding day.

Additional Links

• US Government guidelines on setting weight loss goals stress the BMI which accounts for both weight and height.  The problem with BMI is that it does not account for muscle.

Troy Garver makes a cameo appearance at the end of the video. I'll be using him as a sounding board. He's produced some interesting insights in the past and has agreed to contribute to this series.

In Troy's view it's been a fantastic year but one where they have faced some challenges. When I ask him to name one of those challenges, he mentions their shakes bar, which always seems to be busy. They are now using higher quality materials than when they started but still charging the same prices. They have also switched to frozen fruit, which is more readily available and easier to store. Given, the typical profit margin on beverages in the food industry, my guess is that they are probably still doing well. It's just not the profit center they want it to be.

Gold's Ann Arbor is now running at about 1750 members. A year ago, when I first spoke with Troy, he mentioned that they wanted somewhere around 2300 members while maintaining the customer experience. Now, he is putting more emphasis on the customer experience. When I ask whether the local economy is holding them down, Troy mentions that the economy's impact has been mixed and that they have picked up members from some failing gyms.

Next, Troy drops a big bombshell. He and Paul are looking to expand to a new location with 62,000 square feet (as confirmed by Paul a little later), close to four times the size of the current location. The new location will have a full size basketball court, a swimming pool, two handball courts, and three group exercise rooms. They should be signing a lease in the next two weeks.

I suspect we will do a series on design and construction of the facility.

Additional Links

• Cost of goods and labor typically account for 50 to 75% of non-alcoholic drink revenues. However, drinks with special ingredients, like the protein shakes at Gold's, can have much higher margins.

Troy, general manager of Gold's Gym in Ann Arbor had hinted to me that Gold's had a Chinese location, possibly in Beijing. Unfortunately, the only reference I could find for Gold's in China was about one going bankrupt in Shanghai. So, Powerhouse it was.

The video is short. I wanted to interview a manager, but the general manager was not available until afternoon. Frankly, I think videotaping the gym just blew the staff's mind. Things are different here. So, I wound up with just a short introductory piece where I give a brief show of the landscape and discuss where I think a place like Powerhouse fits into China. There are 9 locations, all in large cities. Tianjin, where we are headed, has three. Nine may sound like a lot, but Southeast Michigan has over 30 by itself. China has over 1300 times the population of Southeast Michigan.

I suspect the concept is slow to take off in China mainly because of cost. Basically, you have be rich here to afford Powerhouse. For less than the cost of a day pass at Powerhouse, I can take 6 people to dinner at a decent neighborhood restaurant. Further, I think the whole concept of the fitness lifestyle is foreign to people here. There's not a weight problem, and there's not a muscle aesthetic.

Additional Links

• Follow my travels in China here.

In short, Troy's conclusion is that puking during a workout is frequently a relief and that you can go on training afterwards. He bases this assertion on the analysis that during intense physical exercise, the body has to prioritize its blood flow. The main area that draws blood during the workout is the muscle group affected. Obviously, the brain also needs blood. However, the body places a lower priority on the digestive track during intense periods of physical activity. The easiest way to minimize this area's blood flow is to vomit out any food that may be in the process of digestion.

However, as I note in the links below, you need to consider why you may be vomiting before coming to this conclusion. Vomiting during a workout can be a a sign of a serious underlying problem. It's just that in the vast majority of cases it is not.

This analysis also raises a further reason that I might have found the initial stages of the mitochondrial regimen that Nancy and I started a few months ago difficult. During the supersets, we start with one muscle group and then immediately move to another. This change requires blood flow to move to a new muscle group while the original muscle group is still recovering. One further adaptation that might be occurring is that the number of red blood cells is increasing as more demands are placed on the vascular system to replenish different muscular groups.

Additional Links

• Ultra cyclists find vomiting during races to be a common issue. The consensus approach seems to be to slow down for a bit and slowly rebuild intensity. Bill Mayer's 24 hour races we reported on in a previous podcast series are an example of ultra cycling.
• In general, high intensity training in the weight room can lead to vomiting. One reason may be an over full stomach, but an alternative is low blood sugar. Strangely, in both cases, the explanation may be the same. The body is shutting down non-essential functions for the stress at hand.
• Recurrent nausea during training can be a sign of much more serious vascular problems like atrioventricular block.

In this podcast (Quicktime ipod compatible, 22MB; Google streaming flash video), Troy Garver and I begin a discussion of endurance training with a focus on the role of the mitochondria in supplying energy to muscles.  As shown in the second picture at left, Troy explains that the mitochondria are sub-cellular structures where chemical reactions that power muscle contractions take place.  High rep endurance training increases the number of mitochondria in muscle cells in order to continue supplying energy over longer periods of time.

I start the podcast by telling Troy that I am doing the high rep muscle definition workouts described in the book Serious Strength Training.  Several months ago, Nancy Arnold and I started with 30 reps per exercise and no supersets and have now progressed to 50 reps per exercise with four exercises grouped together in a superset.  According to Serious Strength Training, the goal of such high repetitions is to get the muscle's mitochondria to exhaust their normal ATP/CP and glycogen energy stores so that they burn fat, preferably near the muscle.

Howevever, as Troy notes, the body adapts.  In a normal person, mitochondria occupy about 25% of cell volume.  During mitochondrial training, the number of mitochondria can dramatically increase (for instance by 50 to 60% in 12 weeks).  Further, in high repetition, low weight mitochondrial training, only a portion of each muscle's fibres are recruited for each repetition.  Given these two facts, it takes longer and longer to exhaust the non-fat energy systems as you continue to perform mitochondrial workouts. 

As presented in Serious Strength Training, mitochondrial muscle definition training is oriented towards bodybuilders trying to drive body fat as low as possible so that they get that chiseled, striated look.  The tendency of the body to adapt to training stimulus means that bodybuilders have to constantly increase reps and intensity during muscle definition training to stay on track toward achieving their goals. 

One thing that has fascinated me in the periodization scheme that Nancy and I began a year ago is the extent to which the body is a changing, dynamic system.  What worked at the the start of a training regimen quickly loses its impact, so you must adapt your methods to continue pushing adaptation.

Additional Links

• The image of the mitochondrion was supplied by the Public Library of Science.
• This article discusses the time frames over which different energy sources are tapped over the duration of an exercise.  As the table clearly shows, if an exercise endures from four to 10 minutes, the primary energy supply for muscular activity switches to fatty acids.  I estimate that my supersets are taking from six to 10 minutes.
  

In this podcast (Quicktime ipod compatible, 35MB; Google streaming flash video), I work through a 1200 rep uppper body endurance (mitochondrial) training session.  Nancy and I (Bud) originally put together this series in the Fall to coincide with her diet phase for a competition she had planned for this month.  When she decided not to compete last January, we decided to complete the series anyhow.

As explained in Serious Strength Training, the mitochondria provide one of the muscle's energy systems.  They are the only place in the muscle where you can convert carbohydrate, fat, and oxygen into energy.  The more you increase the mitochondria in your muscle, the higher your workout capacity.  You tap the mitochondrial energy system when you go into high repetition endurance workouts, and we'll talk more about the exact mechanism in the next episode in this series. 

It's really quite an adaptation to go through.  Nancy and I started at 30 repetitions per exercise without combining any of the exercises into supersets.  Now, we are doing 50 reps per exercise and supersetting at least 4 exercises in a row before taking a minute's rest.

As I explain in the podcast, this particular mitochondrial workout is focused on the upper body with the exercises grouped into sets of four:

• First set of exercises (60 seconds rest at end of 4 exercises)
  • Hammerstrength decline chest press:  132 lbs. for 50 reps (I typically have to drop substantially as this goes on).
  • Hammerstrength hack squat calf raises: 180 lbs. for 50 reps (I drop a lot less on this one).
  • Dumbbell shrugs: 45 lbs. for 50 reps.
  • Inclined laterals: 12.5 lbs. for 50 reps.
• Second set of exercises (60 seconds rest at end of 4 exercises)
  • Hammerstrength seated calf raise: 130 lbs. for 50 reps.
  • Life Fitness preacher curl: 50 lbs. for 50 reps.
  • Life Fitness pec flyes: 70 lbs. for 50 reps.
  • Life Fitness military press: 40 lbs. for 50 reps (I typically have to substantially drop).

As you can see at the end of the workout, I'm pretty wiped out.  As I mentioned to Nancy when doing this kind of workout a year ago, it's like cardio with teeth.

Additional Links

• This article presents a good summary of exercise strategies for increasing your mitochondrial density and therefore workout capacity.
  

Nancy and I started Muscle Ventures in February 2006 after we had been training together for a bit over a year. She was in the midst of dieting and preparing for a bodybuilding competition, and we were doing exercise analyses. We had started on my now suspended Michigan Muscle Boy blog and wanted to share the credit.

We didn't really kick into high gear though until April when we chronicled the last month of her competition preparation. If you look in that month, you'll see some things that are similar and some that are different from what had become our recent posting pattern. There was an intense focus on bodybuilding and many interviews with different players. It was a fun, focused, intense time. You might have thought the site was dedicated to bodybuilding competition. Since, we kept up the interviews but diversified the focus covering things like the gym business and the Michigan Mountain Biking Association.

Nancy's recent trip to Northern Kentucky was a continuation of that diversification. Unfortunately, we won't be able to continue that series at this time but may be able to complete it in the future. The last episode, which we won't show now, goes into her indecision on whether or not to compete in Kentucky. She liked the venue, but the show was long.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention how close Nancy and I became personally. All of this fitness blogging business started around the time of my mother's death, and Nancy was a tremendous support. I enjoyed working out with her immensely. She will be missed from this site and from our gym sessions together.

As I mention in the podcast, the site will continue. I have several ideas planned at Gold's Gym, Ann Arbor as well as other gyms in the Southeast Michigan area.

Additional Links

• We started the exercise analysis series on Michigan Muscle Boy with this gem.
• Here, I reviewed Nancy's hometown gym, the Outback, in Dexter.
• Nancy continues at NCAFitness, her business that we discussed in this series.

The first interview is with Rich Lurow.  He is from Columbus, Ohio and  competed in the Men's Open Welterweight Division.   At the time of this interview Rich was still waiting to get on stage for the prejudging. He was kind enough to share his thoughts about the show and give a bit of background on himself.  He had competed in two shows approximately a year and a half ago.  After those shows he felt that he wanted to put on more muscle so he could move up a weight class.  During his time off he was able to make gains in the gym and decided that he would compete in the Northern this year.

The next interview is with Carrie Walend.  Carrie has competed many times but never in the Northern Kentucky show.  Carrie and I actually competed against one another in the Flint Mid Michingan in 2006.  She won her weight class and the overall title (beating me in the posedown!) at that show.  Carrie states that she changed a couple of things preparing for this show.  First of all she made an adjustment to her diet.  She changed her last meal from chicken to beef and really felt that this helped her come in leaner for the show.  She also kept her training heavy through her entire prep phase.  Although she was tired from the heavy training she believes this also contributed to her being leaner for this show.

This video concludes with commentary from both Jim and I about the prejudging and if he thinks I would do well here next year.  We both thought the judging was quite thorough.  Evidenced by the fact that the women were asked to perform a most muscular pose.  This is usually a pose only the men are asked to perform.  We also noted that the judges were asking for side triceps and side chest from both sides rather than having the competitors chose their best side. Jim's final thought was that I could compete with the women that were at this show.  Something to think about!!

Additional Links

• Here are professional photos of the female heavy weight prejudging.
• Why is nutrition important in bodybuilding?  Here are some basics.

Also on this video you will see 2005 Mr Indiana, Michael Barnes. He was supposed to compete in the show but due to some confusion with the check in time was told by show officials that he could not compete. He was gracious enough to explain his story to me and also performed his routine. Check out his routine-he looks like he would have done quite well in Kentucky. He will next compete in the Junior Nationals in Charleston, South Carolina.

Additional Links

• Check out photo's of all the competitors at the NPC Northern Kentucky 2007

The conversation begins with Bud asking why we wanted to build a pole barn in the first place.  Jim  responds by explaining that  he has always been interested in building things, restoring his 1931 Model A and woodworking.  He never had a place that was dedicated to his hobbies but always wanted one.  When the opportunity to build the pole barn surfaced we decided to take it.  In August 2003 we began to build the barn.  After many hot days and long hours we finished the building.  Jim then divided the barn into two rooms and we decided to make the smaller area a fitness center for me.  

Bud next asks about how Jim knew how to finish the inside of the barn.  Jim says that he learned alot from his father.  His dad was a carpenter and taught Jim quite a bit about the trade.  He learned everything from the initial  steps of "roughing in" a room to the finising steps of drywall, trim and paint.  Jim also points out that he enjoys working with his hands so this is really not "work" to him.

Bud then asks what work is left to complete in the fitness room.  Jim states that we are thinking of installing a suspended ceiling to decrease the echo in the room.  We are also contemplating adding a bit more lighting to make the room a little brighter.

ADDITIONAL LINKS

• Not sure what a pole barn is?  Find out here.
• Read more about NCA Fitness