Health and Strength Links - 14th November 2007

~ Non-Sexy Training and Nutrition – “Testosterone runs a lot of “sexy” new training articles. Trouble with that is the essential stuff, stuff like progression, energy system work, the 90% rule, and supplements, often gets forgotten. Not so with this article.”
~ Keith Wassung’s Strength Training Program: Timed Total Tonnage – ”Keith Wassung has a 710lbs Squat, 480lbs Bench Press, 700lbs Deadlift & 355lbs Overhead Press at 220lbs body-weight. He walks the talk.”
~ Eating Your Greens Could Prove Life-Saving If A Heart Attack Strikes – “A diet rich in leafy vegetables may minimize the tissue damage caused by heart attacks, according to researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Their findings, published in the November 12 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the chemical nitrite, found in many vegetables, could be the secret ingredient in the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet.”
~ Try Adding These Superfoods To Your Thanksgiving Dinner This Year – “Tired of spinach, bored with broccoli? Experts say there's a new generation of superfoods that promise to do double or triple-duty when it comes to preventing illness. At the top of the list kiwi. “In a recent study, kiwi was found to be one of the most nutritionally dense fruits out of 27 fruits,” says Stephanie Dean, R.D., dietitian with Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.”
~ The Important Role Of Natural Foods! – “There is a particular body of research by two nutritional pioneers which provides some amazing insight into just how import raw, unprocessed foods are to our overall health. Learn more about them right here!”
~ Spotlighting teen's weight fuels unhealthy eating – “Overweight adolescents may be more likely to continue practicing extreme eating or weight-control measures when their parents focus too much weight issues, study findings suggest.”
~ Personal Health: Chronic Pain: A Burden Often Shared – “When people experience unrelenting pain, everyone they live with and love is likely to suffer.”
~ Playing With Steroids – “Whenever a steroid story breaks, the first person they call is Dr. Charles Yesalis. Oddly enough, based on the interviews over the years, we've been led to believe that Dr. Yesalis is rabidly anti-steroid. We may have been wrong.”
~ Cancer Risks For Overweight Women – “Half of all cases of womb cancer and a type of oesophageal cancer in women are caused by being overweight or obese, according to a new report published online in the British Medical Journal . This study provides the first reliable evidence on the relevance of being overweight or obese for a wide range of cancers in women in the UK today.”
~ Fish And Omega 3 Linked To Mental Skills – “A Norwegian study has found a link between eating fish and improved mental skills in older people, a Dutch study found a link between higher omega 3 in the blood and lower mental decline, while a New Zealand study found a link between omega 3 levels in the blood and better physical health, although the link to better mental health was less convincing. All three studies are published in the November issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.”
~ Advice To Eat Complex Carbs And Avoid Sugar Supported By New Research – “Eating too much fructose and glucose can turn off the gene that regulates the levels of active testosterone and estrogen in the body, shows a new study in mice and human cell cultures that's published this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. This discovery reinforces public health advice to eat complex carbohydrates and avoid sugar. Table sugar is made of glucose and fructose, while fructose is also commonly used in sweetened beverages, syrups, and low-fat food products.”
~ Exercise found to ease chronic pain of fibromyalgia – “Regular walks and stretching exercises can help ease the chronic, depressing pain of fibromyalgia, a mysterious ailment with no obvious cure, researchers said on Monday.”
~ Beta carotene protects memory in study – “Beta carotene taken as a dietary supplement for many years may protect against declines in memory, thinking and learning skills that often precede Alzheimer's disease, researchers said on Monday.”
~ Easy Weight Loss by Dr John Berardi – “All day long, all across the web, folks are posting questions about why they're not losing weight, why they're not gaining weight, why their body comp isn't changing. They're frustrated, confused, and feeling helpless. However, I believe that for the majority of them, if they just made things simple, progress would follow.”
~ Beauty of BOSU – “Half a stability ball has the whole fitness world convinced. A wobbly sphere that was sliced in half, the BOSU® ball yields results—whether you jump, sit, step, get into plank pose or do pushups on it. Try these tips from Equinox trainer Kristen Gagne.”
~ Chronic pain: where does it come from and why? – “Often, injuries carry an aggravating side effect: pain. More and more frequently, pain is not just a temporary result that will go away, but becomes a permanent factor that affects people’s lives. Jane E. Brody of the New York Times reports that chronic pain often changes a person for the worst and can lead to anxiety, fear, anger, and depression.”
~ Dieters Who Eat In Response To Emotions Versus Social Situations, Lose Less And Regain More – “Just in time for the start of the holiday eating season – a new study finds that dieters who have the tendency to eat in response to external factors, such as at festive celebrations, have fewer problems with their weight loss than those who eat in response to emotions (internal factors).”
~ Boosting Vitamin D May Have Long-Term Benefits For Inflammation, Aging, New Study Suggests – “There is a new reason for the 76 million baby boomers to grab a glass of milk. Vitamin D, a key nutrient in milk, could have aging benefits linked to reduced inflammation, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.”
~ Taking Care Of Your Skin Starts From Within – “The old adage “you are what you eat” not only applies to our overall health and nutrition, but how our skin looks and feels as well. As the largest organ in the body, our skin can benefit from the same nutrition we get from foods that have a positive effect on our heart and other major organs. In fact, new research suggests that eating foods rich in protein and certain vitamins and minerals might provide valuable anti-aging effects.”
~ Strategies to curb your hunger while you lose – “Everything from stress to hormones to people, places, and situations can kick your appetite into overdrive. The good news: Whatever the cause, you can beat your hunger pangs. Health.com offers up the latest stay-full strategies from the experts.”
~ Do you know how many calories your workout burns? – “Find out if you're working as hard as you think you are with the Calories Burned Calculator.”
~ Sunshine 'helps to keep you young' – “A healthy dose of sunshine may be the secret to staying young, British scientists have revealed. Vitamin D is produced naturally by the skin in response to sunlight and may help to slow the ageing process and protect against disease, according to the study.”
~ The nature and nurture of muscles – “Some of the truly fascinating insights into talent and greatness emerge from the realm of human musculature – how our skeletal muscles are initially formed, the attributes of different muscle fibers, and the different ways muscles can be transformed by activity and training.”
~ A Beautiful Snatch – “Whether you're a bodybuilder, strength athlete, or football player, learning the snatch can take you to a whole new plane of development. This article is chock-full of helpful videos that will have you snatching in no time.”
~ Personal Best: Pregnant Exercisers Test Limits – “Advice on when, how long and how much to train is all over the map.” I've trained two women through eight months, and each was back to their pre-pregnancy weight within a couple of weeks of giving birth.
~ High Fat Diet Changes The Body Clock – “US researchers have discovered that a high fat diet can change a mammal's body clock and thereby disrupt a range of behavioural and physiological processes, including those controlled by genes that switch on and off at certain times to keep the body's metabolism, storage and use of energy in balance.”
~ Ostrich, and the 7 other foods you should be eating – “We've heard it all before — eat your spinach, your broccoli, your whole-grain pastas. But there are a whole host of other good-for-you foods that most of us aren't eating.”
~ Caveman diet found to be the best choice to control diabetes – “Now, in the first controlled study of a Paleolithic (stone age) diet in humans, Lund University, Sweden, heralds the simple diet of the caveman as the “best choice to control diabetes 2”.”
~ Exercise Away Heart Failure – “Exercise can spur the growth of new cells to mend weakened muscles and spur the growth of blood vessels in people with heart failure, according to two new studies.”
~ Experts play the heavy on news of chubby perks – “Being overweight may not kill you, but it could lead to obesity, U.S. health experts cautioned on Wednesday in response to research suggesting that being a bit heavy does not raise the risk of death.”
~ Stretches that can help sciatica pain – “According to an article from spine-health.com, most types of sciatica will benefit from a regular routine of hamstring exercise, especially hamstring stretching.”
~ Hell on Wheels – “'You're a worm — a gutless worm, with puny legs to boot.' And that's just Rob Fortney talkin' to his kids about their leg development! Imagine what he's going to say to you, you weak little douchebag.” Aside from the bad lede, this is a good leg training article.
~ Hesfit 30 minute muscle routine – “By altering load, rest periods, and movement selection, you can achieve the results you want in as little as 30 minutes per day. Fat loss, sure! Strength gains, you betcha! In this article, I’ll give you some ideas on packing on some lean muscle mass in 30 minutes or less.”
~ Antioxidants Abound In Ripe Fruit – “Fall, the season of colors: Leaves turn red, yellow, and brown. The disappearance of the color green and the simultaneous appearance of these other colors are also signs of ripening fruit. A team led by Bernhard Krautler at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) has now determined that the breakdown of chlorophyll in ripening apples and pears produces the same decomposition products as those in brightly colored leaves.”
~ Key To Good Health May Be Concentrating On Food Not Nutrients – “In a recent academic review, a University of Minnesota professor in the School of Public Health has concluded that food, as opposed to specific nutrients, may be key to having a healthy diet. This notion is contrary to popular practice in food industry and government, where marketers and regulators tend to focus on total fat, carbohydrate and protein and on specific vitamins and added supplements in food products, not the food items as a whole.”
~ Research Links Diet To Cognitive Decline And Dementia – “Research has shown convincing evidence that dietary patterns practiced during adulthood are important contributors to age-related cognitive decline and dementia risk. An article published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences highlights information on the benefits of diets high in fruit, vegetables, cereals and fish and low in saturated fats in reducing dementia risk.”
~ Cause Of Insulin Resistance Discovered By UCSD Researchers – “Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have discovered that inflammation provoked by immune cells called macrophages leads to insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. Their discovery may pave the way to novel drug development to fight the epidemic of Type 2 diabetes associated with obesity, the most prevalent metabolic disease worldwide.”