Ever since I started getting really into the power and olympic lifts, I am constantly reminded that no joint is more important than the other in terms of improving full body mobility. The frustrating part is that once you put forth all the focus on one area, (let’s just say the hip), the lack of attention on another area may cause some problems down the road. My most neglected area are my wrists. Considering all the pounding it takes from heavy overhead lifts like the snatch, press, and jerk, combined with other wrist intensive gymnastics movements, mobility in the wrist is a must. Although there is not enough time in the day to do mobility exercise for every joint, here’s a video from Kelly Starret that shows some wrist mobility exercises that you can do to prevent or treat any problems you run into.

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Wednesday’s WOD:

“Halloween Buddy Chipper”

In 2 person teams with only one person working at a time:
403 m Run
20 Squat Snatches 135/95
70 Pull-ups
20 Clean & Jerks 135/95 
70 Barbell Lunges 135/95
200 Double Unders
70 Wall Balls 20/14
200 m Partner Carry

Last week I posted a video entitled People, We’ve Got to Stop Icing. We Were Wrong, Sooo Wrong. suggesting that the use of ice to combat pain and inflammation after an injury would best be avoided. However, Jonathan Sullivan, MD, an emergency room physician who also wrote Barbell Training is Big Medicine took issue with some of Starrett’s points and brought up an interesting argument which gives caution to saying “We were so wrong” on an issue regarding medicine. It is important to remember that before taking a side on a specific issue, it is best to hear another side by an informed professional. The article is pretty “sciency” but I’ve included the basic points that he touches upon. Go forth and decide yourself. 

From the article:

Inflammation is the body’s natural-and therefore correct-response to injury. Your body knows what it’s doing, and interfering with the inflammatory response is therefore ill-considered.

This is the easiest argument to dispense with, because it’s just silly-not to mention selectively applied. For example, in the video it is made clear that ice and NSAIDs are bad because they interfere with inflammation, but compression, which suppresses post-inflammatory edema, is not. In any event, this argument proceeds from the assumption that pristine natural processes are always optimal to the realization of human ends, which is clearly not the case; and that the human body is a “perfect machine,” which is just so much bullshit.

Here’s a reality check: Mother Nature doesn’t give a rat’s ass about your program, your WOD time, your 1RM bench press, or even your survival as an individual. She designed you to make new primate gene replicators, and then croak. Let’s not even talk about the design of the low back, the exquisite suicidal sensitivity of neural and cardiac tissue to brief ischemia, or the deplorable shortcomings of cartilage. Inflammation is not an ideal adaptation just because it’s the “natural” response to insult. Pain, scarring, functional impairment, tissue loss and cancer are also natural responses to insult-and all can result from inflammation. On the logic of the AAI (Anti-anti-inflamation) crowd, analgesia, wound repair by primary intention, tissue debridement, abscess drainage and tissue salvage are also bad ideas. If that’s what you really think, it’s unlikely we’re going to have a meeting of the minds. God help you if you ever get anaphylaxis or appendicitis.

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Monday’s WOD

Rene’s Dirty DT

3 rounds
400m run
12 deadlifts 135/95 (ADV:155/105)
8 hang power cleans 135/95 (ADV:155/105)
4 push press 135/95 (ADV:155/105)

Here’s a good post from Mark’s Daily Apple on the popular topic of “why women have more fat than men”. For some time, this was looked upon in a negative light towards women in the assumption that because women have more fat, they are less healthy and more at risk. Mark Sisson summarizes some research that explains why its not the case.

From the post.

As you may know, women and men store and metabolize fat differently from each other, and a 2008 paper (PDF) reviewed the evolutionary reasons for these differences. Here’s a summary of their findings and few other noteworthy factoids:

Women carry more fat than men. They are better at storing fat than men. Moreover, when women store fat, they do so in different places than men. They’ll preferentially store fat in in the hips, butt, and legs, whereas when men gain weight, it usually goes to the upper body (hence why you see massive beer bellies atop stick legs). Furthermore, when both men and women store upper body fat, men are more likely to develop visceral fat – the abdominal fat associated with metabolic syndrome – while women are more likely to develop subcutaneous fat.

On women, body fat seems to be healthier and less problematic. The characteristically female lower body “gluteofemoral fat” is actually a strong sign of metabolic health, whereas abdominal fat is not. In men, high body fat levels correlate strongly with insulin resistance, while this relationship is much weaker in women (probably because of their lower tendency to store visceral fat).

Women burn fat differently than men. Upper body fat goes first, while lower body fat tends to stay put. Except during pregnancy and lactation, when the lower body begins to give up lower fat stores far more readily. Interestingly (and not by coincidence), women tend to preferentially store the long chain omega-3 fatty acid DHA – the one that’s so important to the baby’s development during and pregnancy – in their thighs.

Women make more triglycerides than men do, but their serum levels are similar. This indicates that the fat is being taken back up into adipose tissue at a higher rate in women than in men.

Women are better at burning fat in response to exercise. During endurance exercise, they exhibit lower respiratory exchange ratios than men, which indicates more fat burning and less carb burning.

Women are better at converting ALA into DHA, and they also tend to have more DHA and AA circulating throughout their serum than men, who have more saturated and monounsaturated fat.

These differences in fat metabolism aren’t seen in isolated muscle cells of men and women, which isn’t really surprising. We’re made with the same basic building blocks; we just run on different software. The differences are systemic and hormonal.

Read full post here.