Rob’s First Post: Greetings and Summaries of Good Articles I’ve Read

Hi, all. Before I get to the content of today’s post, I’ll briefly introduce myself, Peter and our vision for Integrative Human Performance. I’m Rob Palmer, co-founder of Integrative Human Performance. Previously, Peter and I collaborated on a blog, “Health Heralds,” in which we (rather infrequently) wrote articles about topics concerning human performance ranging from strength training to dental health. We enjoyed that blog and I believe we wrote some good articles, but we decided to leave that website for this website, which, for technical reasons that I, who am unskilled with technology, don’t understand, allows us to better apply our skills and thus do more for our followers.

 

Since the golden days of Health Heralds, Peter and I have gotten older and (hopefully) wiser. Between us, we’ve completed several internships at some of the best privately-owned strength and conditioning facilities in the world, as well as worked with the strength and conditioning staffs of Division I NCAA teams in the university setting. This summer, both of us interned at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson, Massachusetts, which was an experience from which we learned much and about which we have plenty to write. Now that summer is over and I’ve returned to school at the University of Southern California, I’m a strength and conditioning coach intern mostly working with the school’s baseball team. And all of the above doesn’t even cover the things that we’ve done that might qualify as “continuing education”  that have also improved our knowledge and skills (e.g., attending courses and workshops, spending an embarrassing amount of time reading research, etc).

 

Though we’ll always have more to learn and more room for improvement, we’ve made a lot of progress in our understanding of what contributes to health and performance (or at least that’s what we tell ourselves). What we’ve always tried to do is evolve our understanding of these subjects so that our understanding is as accurate and informed as possible. Doing so sometimes requires amending previous beliefs, overhauling philosophies and admitting that what you said might have been true before is now seemingly not. This approach isn’t for the lazy or arrogant, since it requires diligence and humility, but it means that we can be more confident that we’re not doing a disservice to anyone who reads our writing, watches our videos, or asks us for help. The content that we share on this snazzy blog is a manifestation of that guiding philosophy and we hope that our efforts will help you achieve your goals. With that in mind, don’t hesitate to ask us to write about topics you want to learn about, or to simply ask us what our opinion on something is. In fact, people have already requested that we write about certain topics and we expect to share some of those posts in the coming days and weeks.

 

On the topic of sharing valuable information, I’ll stop rambling and share some valuable information.  While Peter and I plan to regularly post original content, we also expect that a portion of our blog posts will consist of summaries of great articles that we read. These posts will not only give you an idea of what we’re reading and help you find great authors and research (for better or worse, we’re far from the only people whose ideas and opinions are worth reading), but also distill complex and valuable information for you. Some people allege that “knowledge is power,” so these posts might, at least in theory, make you more powerful; unfortunately we currently lack the technology to test this claim. Today’s post (minus the preamble), is an example of such a piece. Without further delay, what follows are a series of articles I enjoyed and my summaries of them.

 

Aerobic Work for Strength Athletes, by Dr. Pat Davidson

  • In this article, Dr. Davidson coherently discusses an enormous amount of information–it may not be reading for the faint-hearted or science-phobic. His contention is that strength athletes, such as strongmen and weightlifters, can benefit from doing aerobic exercise. This contention may seem counterintuitive, since many people consider aerobic exercise to be detrimental to performance in strength activities, but Dr. Davidson makes a compelling argument. He first argues that the great power athletes are the ones who can inhibit (i.e., relax) their muscles the fastest rather than the ones who can activate muscles the quickest. Dr. Davidson then tries to answer the question “How do we improve muscle inhibition?” His answer (or at least as I understand it) is that you need to improve the oxidative capacity of your muscle cells, which is something that is influenced by, among other things, blood flow to the muscles (more is generally better), the pH of the blood, and the autonomic nervous system. While there may be many ways to affect those variables, Pat offers a few solutions that I’ve dumbed-down for the sake of brevity, since Peter and I will discuss them in greater detail soon: exhale more and better (Peter and I can provide details about what that means in another post), and do some aerobic exercise. The former can, among other things, increase blood flow to the muscles by influencing the autonomic nervous system. Aerobic exercise, as the title suggests, can also benefit strength athletes: by increasing the number of capillaries delivering blood to muscles and the number of mitochondria in the muscle cells, muscle cells can have a higher oxidative metabolism. Another benefit of aerobic exercise, Dr. Davidson contends, is that the increase in capillarization enables muscles to warm up faster, since more blood, which carries heat, is passing by the muscle cells. Here’s my attempt to make the takeaway as simple as possible: doing twenty or thirty minutes of low-intensity cardio a few times per week can help you if your goal is to perform better in strength sports.

 

How Long Should You Rest Between Sets for Hypertrophy?, by Dr. Brad Schoenfeld

  • In this article, Dr. Schoenfeld summarizes his recent meta-analysis on the effect of rest intervals on hypertrophy. Many people claim that shorter rest intervals between sets (e.g., 60 seconds) maximizes hypertrophy and that has been the “conventional wisdom” for awhile. In his meta-analysis, though, Schoenfeld found that there is relatively little evidence to support the superiority of shorter rest periods. To quote the article, “it seems highly doubtful that rest interval length has a substantial effect on muscle growth.” In other words, whether you time your rest periods or rest as much as you want may have no significant impact on your hypertrophy. That being said, there is relatively little good research on this topic, so there aren’t any concrete conclusions yet.

 

Long Lever Posterior Pelvic Tilt Planks Kick the Shit Out of Traditional Planks, by Bret Contreras

  • In this post, Bret Contreras discusses the EMG research he did comparing front plank variations. Though front planks are a popular exercise and challenging for beginners, they are often too easy and boring for intermediate and advanced lifters. Contreras’ research illuminated the differences between four plank variations: the traditional front plank, the long lever front plank, the posterior pelvic tilt front plank and the long lever posterior pelvic tilt plank (LLPPTP). The EMG results showed that the LLPPTP elicited the greatest activation of the anterior core muscles, followed by the long lever front plank, then the posterior pelvic tilt front plank, and, lastly, the traditional front plank. If you’re an intermediate or advanced lifter who wants new exercises to challenge their anterior core, then watch Bret’s video for the LLPPTP below and try it.

 

As always, don’t hesitate to give feedback, ask a question, or make fun of Peter in the comments.

 

Skip to toolbar