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Kettlebell AGT & Longevity

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Hello Nate,
Thanks for sharing the Cell article. AMPK seems to be one of the key indicators for mitochondrial functioning. We haven't tested it directly, but we might infer that Strong Endurance style training would increase mitochondrial functioning and biogenesis.
Here are some more great articles:
Zong, H., Ren, J. M., Young, L. H., Pypaert, M., Mu, J., Birnbaum, M. J., & Shulman, G. I. (2002). AMP kinase is required for mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle in response to chronic energy deprivation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99(25), 15983–15987. AMP kinase is required for mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle in response to chronic energy deprivation

Chilibeck, P. D., Syrotuik, D. G., & Bell, G. J. (1999). The effect of strength training on estimates of mitochondrial density and distribution throughout muscle fibres. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 80(6), 604–609. The effect of strength training on estimates of mitochondrial density and distribution throughout muscle fibres

Dreyer, H. C., Fujita, S., Cadenas, J. G., Chinkes, D. L., Volpi, E., & Rasmussen, B. B. (2006). Resistance exercise increases AMPK activity and reduces 4E-BP1 phosphorylation and protein synthesis in human skeletal muscle. The Journal of Physiology, 576(Pt 2), 613–624. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2006.113175

Daussin, F. N., Zoll, J., Ponsot, E., Dufour, S. P., Doutreleau, S., Lonsdorfer, E., … Richard, R. (2008). Training at high exercise intensity promotes qualitative adaptations of mitochondrial function in human skeletal muscle. Journal of Applied Physiology, 104(5), 1436–1441. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.01135.2007

Gibala, M. J., McGee, S. L., Garnham, A. P., Howlett, K. F., Snow, R. J., & Hargreaves, M. (2009). Brief intense interval exercise activates AMPK and p38 MAPK signaling and increases the expression of PGC-1α in human skeletal muscle. Journal of Applied Physiology, 106(3), 929–934. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.90880.2008

Little, J. P., Safdar, A., Bishop, D., Tarnopolsky, M. A., & Gibala, M. J. (2011). An acute bout of high-intensity interval training increases the nuclear abundance of PGC-1α and activates mitochondrial biogenesis in human skeletal muscle. American Journal of Physiology. Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 300(6), R1303-1310. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00538.2010

Wang, L., Mascher, H., Psilander, N., Blomstrand, E., & Sahlin, K. (2011). Resistance exercise enhances the molecular signaling of mitochondrial biogenesis induced by endurance exercise in human skeletal muscle. Journal of Applied Physiology (Bethesda, Md.: 1985), 111(5), 1335–1344. https://doi.org/10.1152/japplphysiol.00086.2011

Sriwijitkamol, A., Coletta, D. K., Wajcberg, E., Balbontin, G. B., Reyna, S. M., Barrientes, J., … Musi, N. (2007). Effect of acute exercise on AMPK signaling in skeletal muscle of subjects with type 2 diabetes: a time-course and dose-response study. Diabetes, 56(3), 836–848. https://doi.org/10.2337/db06-1119
 
Here is another (dense) article that is one of my favorites on how NAD relates to anti-aging.
Verdin, E. (2015). NAD+ in aging, metabolism, and neurodegeneration. Science, 350(6265), 1208–1213. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4854

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Good grief!

Pavel wrote something in Simple and Sinister which I like a lot. He wrote about how in the distant past, people simply accepted that weight lifting was healthy and made you stronger. Then, in the more recent past, people started talking about "micro tears" and even more recently about hormones, and in the future it will be something else. Really no one truly understands this stuff, not that it isn't worth trying to figure out scientifically of course. In any case, we know from thousands of years of recorded experience that lifting weights generally speaking makes you remarkably healthier, stronger, and longer lived.

As a classicist, I remember reading ancient medical texts such as those by Galen - ever wondered why a "medicine ball" is so named? Because the ancients knew that throwing around a heavy ball was good for your health. They termed such exercises "violent" and were considered the pinnacle of exercise because they combined the effects of slow "strong" exercises with heavy weight and the fast exercises done without weights.

I think our collective wisdom makes it clear that a mixture of "strong" and "fast" exercises is necessary for the full benefits of exercise, and that exercise has magical rejuvenating effects on our bodies and minds. When I look at my collection of weights, I see them as magical medicine balls.

Last time in Korea I overheard a group of old shopkeepers in the market discussing one of their friends who recently lost some of his physical mobility and had to close up shop. They all attributed it to him not "moving" enough to stay healthy. This stuff is even folk wisdom in Korea. Every culture in the world probably knows this from practical experience and observation.

To get more practical with this, if you are only doing straight "strength" moves, you're probably missing the important benefits of "cardio" training. I can deadlift and press without sweating or getting my heart rate up much, nor for very long. Kettlebell swings definitely hit a kind of compromise between strength and cardio. Somehow, we need both strength and cardio training to be healthy.
 
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We need to see Pavel’s take on “research” with nuance. What makes him stand out is partly his vast and expansive understanding of decades of Soviet (but also American and other) research into training stimuli and their effects. Not only that, StrongFirst rigorously uses the scientific method to present us with their content. Pavel is the antithesis of “lift weighs, its healthy.” He breaks things down to the nervous system and the musculoskeletal system for the common person to understand and stop “just lifting weights and running a bit.”

I really appreciate Craig’s knowledge and research and also that StrongFirst distills this stuff, so that as you succinctly expressed (good grief!), we will never need to learn everything if we arent inclined and can still reap the benefit. Also, this forum is so brilliant and generous that those who like to know the research can be pointed in the right direction.

"Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick.
After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick.
Now that I
understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick."
-- Bruce Lee
 
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Beware of accepting "Science" over practical experience. For example, there was a famous book written in the 80s called "The Exercise Myth", and if you google it, you can see a little bit written about it:

"While working on The Potbelly Syndrome, I found lots of evidence that exercise could not prevent or cure obesity, diabetes, or heart disease. When I read Dr. Solomon's excellent book The Exercise Myth, I learned that exercise was not only useless, it could be dangerous."

HAHAHA!

Lots of dangerous things have been justified with "science". "Social Science" in my opinion is one of the most nefarious examples of this. I remember even milk being declared by "Science" to be bad for your health - it "produces mucus and nothing else". Because of this nonsense, I stopped drinking milk for 3 years.
 
Beware of accepting "Science" over practical experience. For example, there was a famous book written in the 80s called "The Exercise Myth", and if you google it, you can see a little bit written about it:

"While working on The Potbelly Syndrome, I found lots of evidence that exercise could not prevent or cure obesity, diabetes, or heart disease. When I read Dr. Solomon's excellent book The Exercise Myth, I learned that exercise was not only useless, it could be dangerous."

HAHAHA!

Lots of dangerous things have been justified with "science". "Social Science" in my opinion is one of the most nefarious examples of this. I remember even milk being declared by "Science" to be bad for your health - it "produces mucus and nothing else". Because of this nonsense, I stopped drinking milk for 3 years.

Well...for some people milk IS bad for their health.

The best thing about well conducted science is it can make sense of practical experience where the two overlap. This is important if you want to extrapolate, otherwise the practical experience will be pretty specific in how it can be applied with confidence.

Either one on its own is prone to errors in assumption.
 
Beware of accepting "Science" over practical experience.
Sorry, I see this too often not to react. :)
Practical experience is a part of science, not the opposite.
Science is a mix of theory and practice. Observation (or should we call it practical experience) to build hypothesis, model design, then experience in a controlled environment to confirm or infirm the model.
A real scientist also never accepts a theory as final: science is doubt.
See how mechanics, thermodynamics, medicine, etc have evolved over the centuries.

But I understand your point. In fitness and nutrition, most "science" is not real science, as most studies do not respect the basics of a controlled and repeatable study.
 
4*4 minutes > 90% with 3 minutes rest. For anyone knowledgeable in the biology, would AGT provide similar results? 4 min sounds brutal.

I think this study must be based on the Trondheim Protocol from Norway. The Dept of Sports Science there has been working on 4*4 mins with 3 mins rests for a good number of years, on regular people, and the obese, and has a good number of studies on it.

It's not quite a brutal as it sounds. For the first few weeks you are only doing 1x4 min session, then 2x4 min session, then three min session, then you work up to doing 4x4 mins session, with 3 mins rest.

Even the >90% of max is a little misleading. In the first few weeks, you hit >90% only in the final minute of the 4 mins. In the last few weeks, you only hit >90% of max for the last two mins or each 4 mins interval. Challenging, but doable and sustainable. Not as hard as you might think.

I've done the program in the past for 16 weeks on the treadmill. It's not super arduous. It led to significant gains in my 1 mile time, my 1.5 mile time (per the US Secret Service fitness standards, placing me in the top 'Excellent' category for my age -- FYI, I'm not in the Secret Service). My 5 k time also improved, despite not running for a continuous 5 k for the 16 week period.

One of the key benefits of the program was that people who don't like to exercise enjoyed it, as it felt quick and invigorating, and stuck to it. There was also a two day a week, mild, strength training component.
 
Beware of accepting "Science" over practical experience. For example, there was a famous book written in the 80s called "The Exercise Myth", and if you google it, you can see a little bit written about it:

"While working on The Potbelly Syndrome, I found lots of evidence that exercise could not prevent or cure obesity, diabetes, or heart disease. When I read Dr. Solomon's excellent book The Exercise Myth, I learned that exercise was not only useless, it could be dangerous."

HAHAHA!

Lots of dangerous things have been justified with "science". "Social Science" in my opinion is one of the most nefarious examples of this. I remember even milk being declared by "Science" to be bad for your health - it "produces mucus and nothing else". Because of this nonsense, I stopped drinking milk for 3 years.

I largely agree - with some reservations.

Practical experience out of the labaratory and traditional wisdom can only take you so far. Who knows what effect HIIT vs AGT has on aging, when one has only been popular for a decade or so and the other for much less time? Can we really say 'years of experience tells us one is a better stimulus for producing this adaptation'? Scientific experiments can help plug that knowledge gap.

Our own personal experience also suffers its own shortfalls. We have our own prejudices. We believe what we want to believe. Our feelings colour our thoughts. I may feel one way of training is more productive than another. But that doesn't matter. What matters is what in fact is more effective for a particular goal. Again proper scientific experiments can help to right our course.

Understanding or theorizing about 'the why' for many of us is in itself interesting and worthwhile. It scratches an itch which just slinging iron cannot.

(To go off topic, social science is nothing more than a convenient yet clumsy label, an umbrella for a whole host of disciplines. I'm not sure you could describe law, archaeology, anthropology, and linguistics, to name a few, as all being "nefarious".)
 
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I differentiate between "Science" and science.

"Social Science" gets quotation marks around it. I've seen some pretty ridiculous claims come out of those faculties. I remember one study that went around the world asking people in various cultures to rate "how bad" incest is in their culture, on a scale of 1 to 10. The major conclusion of the study was that incest is taboo in most cultures of the world. This is ridiculous on many levels, but especially so since they did not allow a zero, nor negatives (in other words, in cultures that don't look down on it, why can't they vote that it's okay?) Also, no definition of "incest" in the question - which can vary greatly from one culture to another. Social science without quotation marks would ridicule this "study", but sadly a lot of this rubbish gets published and accepted by lickspittles and then works its way into public policy. (Not that I'm an advocate for incest here, hahahaha!!!!)

Back to the question at hand. I would be very interested in finding out exactly why and for exactly how long on average a certain level of exercise prolongs life. But were someone to "do a study" and come back with the results that exercise had little effect on longevity or health, I would not believe it. I don't need figures or test tubes to know that such a conclusion is laughable rubbish.

Also, a lot of "science" is either politically or financially motivated and is inherently biased, a LOT of it!
 
Perhaps because of the time in which I grew up, but I remain jaded about much "science" - when it's funded by commercial interests, it's no longer science. "They" told us butter was bad for us and lots of refined carbs were good. "They" also put both my parents on various medicines towards the end of their lives that I'm convinced worsened, not helped, both their longevity and their quality of life. And I have my own - my long-term asthma "required" medicines, one of which I'm quite convinced was the cause of a case of pneumonia that came within a few days of killing me. "They" also tried to get me to take cholesterol-lowering medicines for years until they realized my cholesterol levels were actually very healthy in the last few years.

Just my opinion, of course, and I do realize that much good has come from science and medical research. I think my disagreements stem more from the questions they ask than from the answers they find. Again, just my opinion.

-S-
 
I differentiate between "Science" and science.

"Social Science" gets quotation marks around it. I've seen some pretty ridiculous claims come out of those faculties. I remember one study that went around the world asking people in various cultures to rate "how bad" incest is in their culture, on a scale of 1 to 10. The major conclusion of the study was that incest is taboo in most cultures of the world. This is ridiculous on many levels, but especially so since they did not allow a zero, nor negatives (in other words, in cultures that don't look down on it, why can't they vote that it's okay?) Also, no definition of "incest" in the question - which can vary greatly from one culture to another. Social science without quotation marks would ridicule this "study", but sadly a lot of this rubbish gets published and accepted by lickspittles and then works its way into public policy. (Not that I'm an advocate for incest here, hahahaha!!!!)

Back to the question at hand. I would be very interested in finding out exactly why and for exactly how long on average a certain level of exercise prolongs life. But were someone to "do a study" and come back with the results that exercise had little effect on longevity or health, I would not believe it. I don't need figures or test tubes to know that such a conclusion is laughable rubbish.

Also, a lot of "science" is either politically or financially motivated and is inherently biased, a LOT of it!



Mike Prevost was part of very interesting discussion awhile back.
Are we over thinking antiglycolic training?


---"It is all relative. The data shows that a person with an aerobic capacity of 4-5 METs is about 4.5 times more likely to die prematurely than a person with an aerobic capacity of 10 METs. Beyond 10 METs there are diminishing returns."---



And then I stumbled across this recently:
Biomarkers

---"Evan and Rosenberg say that the first biomarker, muscle mass, is responsible for the vitality of your whole physiological apparatus. Muscle mass and strength, the second signpost, are our primary biomarkers. They’re the lead dominoes, so to speak. When they start to topple, the other biomarkers soon follow. On the other hand, when muscle mass and strength are maintained, the other indicia are likewise maintained. That is where strength training comes to our aid. Aerobic exercise and diet are important, but strength training, according to the authors, is pivotal if you want to stay young longer."--
 
I agree with @Kozushi in the sense that many things in exercise science that are presented as new are actually known for a long time. Charles Poliquin told the story of cluster training. Cluster training means you perform one rep, wait 15 seconds, perform another rep, wait 15 seconds, and perform the final rep. Each rep is a lot more explosive this way.
Apparently there was a paper in 2008 presenting cluster training as a new discovery. Poliquin had learned it in the 1970s from his coach and they could date it back to an Hungarian coach from 1954. So if he had waited for science, there would've been many missed Olympics.
And frankly cluster training naturally happens when you perform snatches and cleans as you set up again and try to make it easier by taking a short break.

I suppose this is what Kozushi is referring to that many discoveries in terms of exercise protocols aren't really discoveries as coaches have done them for years without necessarily understanding why they work.
 
I agree with @Kozushi in the sense that many things in exercise science that are presented as new are actually known for a long time. Charles Poliquin told the story of cluster training. Cluster training means you perform one rep, wait 15 seconds, perform another rep, wait 15 seconds, and perform the final rep. Each rep is a lot more explosive this way.
Apparently there was a paper in 2008 presenting cluster training as a new discovery. Poliquin had learned it in the 1970s from his coach and they could date it back to an Hungarian coach from 1954. So if he had waited for science, there would've been many missed Olympics.
And frankly cluster training naturally happens when you perform snatches and cleans as you set up again and try to make it easier by taking a short break.

I suppose this is what Kozushi is referring to that many discoveries in terms of exercise protocols aren't really discoveries as coaches have done them for years without necessarily understanding why they work.
Yes, and let's extrapolate to other realms. It has been well known forever that the only way you're going to learn a language is by putting the new words in meaningful context and not trying to memorize lists. This is why all the old textbooks are filled with "easy stories" and such. Good luck to anyone trying to remember new words when they aren't a part of a story or something like one.
 
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