medman

That must be the biggest POS "journal" if they're run on a drug company's dime. Using diet/weight loss/exercise to get diabetics off their medication is not news at all, it's every doctor's ultimate goal. This is one of the reasons peer-reviewed journals are the only credible ones...despite what some conspiracy theorists might think, they're not owned by drug companies.

I just had my first Krav maga test on Saturday, it was two hours of nonstop drills and exercises in a concrete-walled room with no windows in about 40 degree heat (that's 104 for you Americans ) and 100% humidity. I've never sweat so much in my life, and I got some nice bruises, but I passed! There are 5 "practitioner" levels, P1-P5, so I just got my P1 as they call it. Looks like I was the fastest P1 in the organization. My instructor is the director of the Canadian branch of the IKMF, and refuses to test anyone he thinks could fail. He normally tests after 6-12 months. A week before the test, he had a "mock test" where he ran through technique drills so he could see who was ready. He came up to me afterwards and said that he wasn't planning to test me (since I've only been there a couple of months), but that he was really impressed by my technique, and that I must have been practicing on my own between classes. Which is true, since I've recently replaced running with heavy bag work and krav drills for my cardio workouts. Long story short...I'm super stoked because I've put a lot of time and effort into my krav maga training these past couple of months, and can't believe he chose me to test, and that I passed!

In my first few months of doing stronglifts, I had a lot of mild-moderate pain in my hip flexors (the muscles in front of the hips near the groin). They were tight, so it made sense that the squatting motion, which repeatedly stretches them, would cause some pain. Fortunately, that ended around two months in. I have, however, moved on to a new type of pain. This one is toward the top of my left glutes, more lateral than medial. I feel it when I'm done squatting, but also to a lesser degree at rest, even when sitting, even on my days off lifting. I also really feel it when doing a right side kick. I'm sure it's an MSK issue and not piriformis syndrome or anything, but it's really annoying. It just feels like I've irritated some sort of tendon or something. Has this happened to anyone? Is there anything you did to help? It hasn't gotten any worse for quite a while, it's just always there, so I haven't stopped squatting (I would definitely stop if I felt it was getting worse/heading toward injury). Stretching and squatting were what loosened up my hip flexors, but this doesn't feel like an issue of flexibility, it feels more inflammatory to me (I say this as a former runner who is used to the pain of mild overuse injuries).

Read what the site says about progression. 5 lbs every workout, repeat the weight up to two more times after failing, deload 10% at that point and build back up. Once you stop being able to do this, move on to an intermediate program (adding weight weekly instead of each session). I added 100 lbs to my squat doing stronglifts strictly for 3 months, and am only now considering the intermediate approach.

And here I was, thinking the thread title meant you've gone nudist...

Keep in mind many people use bad form, or do bizarre exercises with high weights (like bosu ball squats). If you deadlifted improperly for years, I'd be shocked if you DIDN'T have neuropathies related to a herniated disc. Another one that springs to mind is behind-the-neck overhead presses. I see many people doing this, especially in smith machines (even worse from a joint perspective). I would NOT be surprised if that exercise caused brachial plexus injuries (the brachial plexus is a collection of nerves in near where your chest meets your shoulder, and is where the nerves in the arm originate). The brachial plexus is prone to injuries when the shoulder is externally rotated and the arms are pulled back - and this is the exact position that exercise puts you into (with lots of weight to boot). I've seen patients who have suffered injuries to those nerves simply from having their arms in that kind of position during a surgery...they woke up with permanent nerve injuries.

So, I switched gyms for the summer to the cheapest one available (because I'd have to pay more to use the uni gym during the summer) - it's at a community centre and despite being pretty ghetto, it has a power rack while the uni one only had squat racks, so that's nice. I decided to deload most exercises by about 10 lbs from my previous PRs because it had been a couple of weeks since I was consistent with lifting. Now I'm 100% back in the game, mentally and physically. Squat: 5x5 @ 165lbs Bench Press: 5x5 @ 125 lbs Pendlay Rows: 3x5 @ 110 lbs - PR Weighted Dips: 3x5 @ 30 lbs Overhead Press: 5x5 @ 80 lbs Deadlift: 1x5 @ 225 lbs Weighted pullups: 3x5 @ 20 lbs - PR So, as you can see, only 2 PRs this week on the pullups and Pendlays. Everything else was deloaded after realizing that being lazy with the lifting for a couple of weeks really did decondition me a bit. Squats are my recent focus. The new gym has a power rack in front of a mirrored wall (like...RIGHT in front of it). I never got a view of myself lifting. I never realized my stance was so wide! That wasn't a problem though. What was a problem was that I realized I wasn't going below parallel. I was hitting parallel sometimes, sometimes not quite getting there. I immediately deloaded 20 lbs (185 to 165) and focused on actually going below parallel. I'm MUCH happier now. However, as a side effect of squatting so deep with a pretty wide stance is that I've ripped the ass of 3 pairs of boxers. I'd get down to parallel and hear "rrrrrrip". Whoops! I think I need to invest in some boxer briefs for lifting or something... I'm ready to set new PRs and beyond on all my lifts this summer. I'm considering switching to an intermediate schedule (weekly increases instead of each session) for squat, overhead press, and possibly bench because I've hit a wall on each of those a couple of times already. It doesn't surprise me considering how far I've come in these past 4 months (I just looked through my notebook and realized I added 100 lbs to my squat in 3-4 months, which was an increase of over 100%).

I hope the creatine helps you. I'm trying to get into using it consistently myself.

Congrats on breaking 200 on the DL! You are amazing.

I am happy because I either lift or practice martial arts every day, and as a result, for the first time in my life, I don't feel like a weak skinny vegan

When talking about decreased stomach acidity, they're not talking about things like TUMS in isolation. They're talking about PPIs and H2 antagonists, medications that greatly decrease the amount of stomach acid you produce (by 70-90%). The acid is necessary for dissolving things like calcium carbonate. When someone takes TUMS (and isn't on PPIs or H2As), their stomach is highly acidic and the conditions for absorbing it exist.

IYM, I don't know where you get your information. The past two months, we have talked almost exclusively about "the importance of emotions, hygiene, rest, nutrition, stress, clean environment, physical activity" in our Integration unit before moving on to clerkship (in-hospital training). These things are NOT ignored by all doctors, and are especially not ignored by the new/good ones . Actually, it's most often the patient who neglects these things. We try to tell them to eat well and exercise, but they don't. We offer them resources to help manage their weight, but they don't follow through. But take a pill to lower your cholesterol? Sure! That they'll do. So we give them lipitor, and it helps prevent a heart attack. We tried to get them to do the rest, but they didn't. The pharmaceutical culture is probably perpetuated more by patients than by doctors...doctors just end up relying on meds because the patients refuse to do anything else. And it would be against our oath to say "Well, you're not putting in much effort, so no pills for you", so pills become the only way they manage their health issues. The other day, I was performing an invasive chronic pain treatment on a middle-aged woman (without going into detail, it involved a very large needle going into her spine). After her treatment, my staff tried to explain to her that doing gentle yoga regularly would provide her with better pain relief and functional improvement than the injections, and she basically laughed at how "out there" the suggestion was and said there was no way she would do that. I have seen this time and time again. So IYM, don't oversimplify and say that doctors are only about prescribing meds. Here was a case of us trying to prescribe yoga, and it was the patient who insisted on getting invasive injections instead. Patients have the right to refuse any medical treatment they want, so our only option is to stick with the injections because of our duty to try to help her. Also, small note: heart attacks aren't "mild" issues . And Lobster, I'm at U of O.

Wicked numbers! 120 kg is getting into the "Damn, I'm impressed" range. Congrats on the OHP, it's the bane of my existence. Good luck getting the squat, 109 kg is intense. How long has it been since you did pullups?

Firstly, what method has told you you're 9% bodyfat? 9% is basically a bodybuilder preparing for the final cut before a competition, or a walking bodyfat % for a lean, high level athlete. Bathroom scales are useless, bodyfat calipers are decent but depend on the skill of the person using them, and professional assessment is the only truly accurate way (like body pod, underwater weighing, etc). As I said in a previous post (might be that "bloated belly" one), a weak TVA can cause a rounded stomach even at low bodyfat % (there are organs and stuff in there, you know, so it doesn't have to be fat to be bulging out ). The bodyfat at which abs are prominent depends on the person. Also, if you strengthen your abs and cause them to hypertrophy, they'll be more prominent at low bodyfat %. 155 at 6'1 is extremely skinny if you have decent muscle mass, but it's also possible that you have less muscle and a higher bodyfat than you think. Also, just to give my personal experience, I still had a 4-pack when I had 15% bodyfat while bulking. So my guess is that either your bodyfat assessment is inaccurate, or you need to strengthen your core muscles.

Deadlifts have definitely helped improve my neck strength & thickness, but I still feel that it is a weak point. During a krav maga drill where you get pushed around a fair bit, I found I got a whiplash type of thing going way too easily, and it actually hurt. So, I'm looking to improve my neck strength. What do you recommend? Are neck developers useful, or ridiculous? If you don't like/use them, what exercises do you prefer?

They exist on a spectrum, if you could picture Cardio---------------------------------------------------------Mass Now, you can sit anywhere along there that you want. Go hardcore on cardio, and you will not gain much mass. Go hardcore on the weightlifting and you won't be able to train for a marathon. You can, however, strike a balance that you're comfortable with. For example, moderate cardio will mean you will not gain mass as fast as if you would with less cardio, but you'll have better endurance than if you focused purely on mass. That might be exactly what you're looking for. I went from one extreme (marathoning, no weightlifting) to the other recently (3X powerlifting weekly, very little cardio). I just started a cutting phase in order to increase my cardio fitness because having decent cardio is important to me. I do this understanding that this will slow my gains for the time being, but right now that is in line with my fitness goals.

Awesome that you're doing the axle deadlift already! With an injured back, you're warming up with a weight on the axle that would be a PR for me on the barbell

Ohhh ok, now I can picture it. I was thinking it was a barbell exercise, which made no sense to me. Interesting, I'll have to try it sometime. Your knee is a hinge joint (like the elbow) - it extends and flexes in a single plane of motion. The ligaments inside the joint (ACL, PCL, MCL, LCL) protect against things like hyperextension, and valgus and varus forces (moving the lower leg side to side without the hip/femur moving). In a regular squat, gravity is pulling the weight straight down. As you go through the range of motion, all the force is being transmitted through the knee joint in the same plane as its natural range of motion - gravity is pulling the hinge straight down, if you want to picture it that way. Now picture a bosu ball squat. Your feet are no longer flat on the ground. In fact, your soles of your feet are pointing slightly inward (your feet are supinated). This meant the plane of motion of the "hinge" in the knee is no longer straight up and down - it's on an angle. However, gravity is still pulling the weight straight down to the floor. What this means is that the angle at which the downward force of the weight is applied to the knee is no longer in line with the plane of motion of the knee joint (weight is pulling straight down, knee is on an angle). That means there's an angular component to the forces the weight place on the knee joint. That angular force is not counteracted by any muscle in the body - all the leg muscles do is move the knee in that one plane of motion. The angular force is only counteracted by producing tension in the 4 ligaments I mentioned (especially the MCL in this case). So the heavier the weight, the more force placed on these tiny ligaments instead of your big muscles and the big ligaments attached to them. Even worse is that, while you're on a bosu ball, you're constantly wiggling ffrom side to side as you try to keep your balance. Every time you wiggle back and forth, you're generating more forces on the internal knee ligaments, and bouncing the force back and forth between them as the angle is constantly shifting. The most common cause of knee ligament injury is angular force applied to the knee, like when you suddenly change direction while running (which is why football players always tear ACLs). A bosu ball squat causes nonstop, shifting strain on these same knee ligaments. Squats, like running in a straight line, keep the forces on the muscles and thick ligaments/tendons of the knee, while bosu ball squats, like football maneuvers, put the force on the tiny, damageable ones. Sorry for the overkill explanation - hopefully this will convince everyone on this forum to stay away from this incredibly dangerous exercise!!

Our lecture on "food as medicine" talked about the "new 4 food groups" : 1) vegetables 2) fruits 3) plant protein foods, and 4) animal protein foods, along with a suggestion that for health and environmental reasons, we should all consider going vegan. Just wanted to share that to show you that not all doctors are anti-veg, and that, in fact, we're being taught that vegetarianism and veganism are the best diets for our health. The lecture also included a step-by-step breakdown of all the different groups of plants/vegetables/seeds/nuts etc, and studies showing what the benefits of each were. There was also a step-by-step breakdown of animal foods, and studies showing why each one was bad for you.

Basically, every time you ovulate, your body has created a whole bunch of little cysts (developing follicles), and (typically) one wins out to become the "winner", with the others being reabsorbed. Certain kinds of cysts develop when your ovaries get a little over-enthusiastic and a whole bunch of developing follicles each try to win the race. Other kinds of cysts can form when certain cell types don't respond to the normal signals to stop growing (which happens once per cycle). That's why the pill is a good treatment for most types of ovarian cysts (especially those in PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome). Because you're not ovulating, your ovaries aren't getting that once-a-month go ahead to produce the little cysts that can accidentally turn into big ones. This applies to most, but not all types of ovarian cysts.

They will be completely and utterly crushed by Chicago. Chicago has about 3 times as much depth. Philly's only advantage is using their size to intimidate people from going for the puck aggressively. Chicago is also a big team, so Philly loses their size advantage, and Chicago has WAY more talent. My only question is whether it will be a sweep, or if Philly can manage to win one game at home.

Exactly my point. Hurley was left as the island's guardian with Ben helping, and the reunion meant they both died at some point. The whole point of the entire show was that the island needed to be protected; knowing that Hurley (at some point thereafter) died, means that the island either has no guardian after his death, or that he found a replacement that we know nothing about.

So, exam time + car in the garage + wanting to cut anyway = have been to the gym once since my last post. I've been doing my 4 hours of krav maga weekly plus 10 rounds of heavy bag work these last few days. I love taking out my study frustration on the heavy bag! I do combination drills, krav maga technique drills, practice my footwork, and finish it with a one-round punchout drill (punch as fast as you can nonstop for 3 minutes). It's a nice change from using running as my main source of cardio. I kinda burned out on running last year. I also started off the heavy bag session tonight with 15 knuckle pushups, and finished it off with 2x15 knuckle pushups. I did them on my hardwood floor, but with my handwraps on.

I agree that they left some important questions unanswered. For example, Hurley was there. Therefore, the Island must have been left either without a guardian, or with a new guardian that isn't even from the cast that we know. I didn't see the use of the church as promoting a christian overtone or anything. The point was that the "alternate timeline" (aka afterlife?) Jack was trying to track down his father's body to put him to rest. It was a pretty good bit of symbolism for the closure Jack was always chasing - like when he left the island, but became preoccupied with the idea that he had left the island before he was done doing what he was meant to do. So, having seen that real-life Jack finally lived out the destiny he had been chasing (saving the island), there was the parallel of afterlife-Jack finally getting the closure of holding his father's funeral. And everyone was there to attend - which was fitting both because it brought them all together in a sentimental way, and also because, obviously, they were all dead. Overall, I think it was pretty good.

Yeah, I was talking about proper form. To flex the spine means to bend it forward, i.e. rounding/arching your back (picture an angry cat). Doing so puts lots of pressure on the front part of the intervertebral discs, which can cause a disc herniation. Disc herniations (aka slipped discs) often cause nerve impingements. If you know what a "bad" deadlift looks like, THAT is a flexed spine, also known as an injury waiting to happen .