Very clever video from Ted-Ed the power of food and the brain. The human body and what it can achieve fascinates me, let me know what you think.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Friday, 27 January 2017
Thursday, 5 January 2017
The Science of Developing Punching Power
There are many legends in the sport of boxing
The ones who get the most attention are usually the big hitters: Tyson, Foreman, Marciano, Hearns, Durán, and most recently Golovkin. Some sports writers and coaches would say that devastating punching power is a gift. Yes, talent does prevail, but the fact is that punching power can be developed, much more than you might believe.
Surprisingly few boxing coaches and trainers know the most effective ways to develop this power beyond hitting a heavy bag. Lifting weights is an obvious solution, but often the strength developed from heavy bench pressing doesn’t translate into knockout power.
1 – One reason for disappointing results with strength training to improve punching power is a lack of understanding of the concept of sport specificity. Using bands in simulated punching movements is a terrible idea, invented/promoted by people who have no clue on how to train.
Bands provide the most tension at the end of a movement, and as such they will affect coordination patterns. More precisely, the bands decelerate the arms towards the end of a movement rather than the biceps; when the fighter goes back to trying to punch without the bands, often they decelerate too late or too early. Decelerating too late cause harmful hyperextension of the elbow, and decelerating too early reduces punching power, and give the opportunity to the opponent to serve you a McGregor special.
2 – Another type of sport specific issue is shadow boxing with 1-to- 2-kilo dumbbells. Yes, I realize Mayweather does this, but my opinion is he has become a champion despite using these weights rather than because of it. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who will back up this statement. Let me explain.
In the 1970s, walking and running with dumbbells was a fitness fad. Due to a physics principle commonly referred to as Newton’s Second Law of Motion, the dumbbells increase the momentum of the arms and therefore force the joints beyond their range of motion. The fad faded away as people discovered that the ballistic exercise caused overuse injuries in their shoulders and elbows. So this exercise makes no sense for a boxer; using dumbbells in this manner increases the stress on the upper body (and on the lumbar spine as well, from the excessive torque such training causes) and adversely affects the fine-movement patterns of a boxer’s punches.
3 – What about spending extra time on the heavy bag to develop “Hands of Stone” like Durán? Yes the heavy bag does improve punching power, but it has to be used intelligently. First, a fighter shouldn’t use the heavy bag every day, as it places extremely high levels of stress on the shoulders. Here is scientific support from a review of research studies on boxing injuries published in the sports medicine textbook Epidemiology of Sports Injuries (Human Kinetics, 1996): “The second most common site of upper extremity injuries [the first being the hand and wrist] involves the shoulders. As expected, the repetitive and forceful delivery of punches is responsible for the relatively high frequency of extremity injury.”
4 – I prefer to focus on heavy bag training in the early stages of training, in what strength coaches would refer to as the preparatory phase. As a fighter’s competition approaches, I prefer that they focus more on double-end bags (which are attached to both the ceiling and the floor with tight coils). This type of bag snaps back rapidly when punched, simulating the action of an opponent and thus enabling the fighter to practice counterstriking and defensive movement skills. It also has less impact on the shoulder. In contrast, standing bags – although convenient because they don’t take up much space and can be moved – are generally heavy and stiff and convey too much impact to the shoulder. I must also mention that the week before the fight I like to stop all heavy bag work so that the athlete is fresh for the fight.
5 – Another mistaken practice is trying to develop punching power by training like a bodybuilder. Bodybuilders often perform their exercises with 12-15 reps, which not only gives them a “pump” in their muscles but also prolongs the time the muscles are under tension, which is critical to muscle growth. Research shows, however, that this increase in muscle bulk does not transfer well to boxing.
Support for this phenomenon can be found in a study by Dr. Andrew Fry published in Sports Medicine in August 2004, which looked at the muscle fiber types of bodybuilders, powerlifters, and Olympic-style weightlifters. Powerlifters in the study performed the bench press, squat, and deadlift in competition; weightlifters performed the snatch and clean and jerk. Dr. Fry found that the predominant muscle fiber type in bodybuilders is the slower and weaker Type 1, whereas the more powerful Type II fibers are predominant in the powerlifters and weightlifters. How do weightlifters and powerlifters train? Heavy weights and lower reps – in fact, weightlifters (the group that had the highest percentage of fast-twitch fibers) seldom performed more than three reps per set!
6 – In terms of what types of weight training exercises a boxer should perform…
… I believe squats are a great exercise, but full squats tend to add too much bodyweight and could move a boxer up a weight class. So what types of leg exercises are best for a boxer?
7 – For training the legs, I prefer to do split squats and lunges, as they better recreate the movement patterns that are used in a fight. I also like Romanian rhythm squats to develop explosiveness. With this exercise you alternate between 10 reps of the regular quarter squat and 10 reps in a quarter squat where you come up on the balls of your feet – you continue in this manner until you have performed a total of 50 reps.
8 – As for Olympic lifting movements, power cleans and jerks are great exercises for developing the muscle fibers used in boxing.However, these exercises are complex and should be taught by someone experienced in coaching these lifts; when beginners learn these exercises incorrectly, it is difficult to correct these errors as they get older.
9 – Although bands are not a good idea to use for simulating punching, they can be used with good results in many weight training exercises for boxers; likewise chains. For example, one of the best upper body exercises to increase punching power is the incline bench press. I would use chains on this exercise in the preparatory phase, and then switch to bands as a competition neared because their effect on the barbell in increasing eccentric (lowering) load is more sport specific to boxing.
10 – I would also combine incline presses with medicine ball work, a training method called contrast training, which is based upon the neurological phenomenon called post-tetanic facilitation (PTF). PTF refers to the training concept that a more powerful muscular contraction can be achieved if that contraction is preceded by a strong muscular contraction. For example, a boxer might perform a heavy set of three reps in the incline bench press with bands, followed immediately by about a dozen medicine ball chest passes. I find that although medicine ball training is overrated as a single training method, it becomes much more effective when preceded by heavy weight training exercises. I learned this from Charles R. Poliquin back in 2002 and applied it with excellent results since then.
11 – Another valuable exercise for boxers is the chin-up. Just as it’s important to train the primary muscle groups used in punching, such as by performing incline presses and dips to strengthen the pectorals, anterior deltoids, and triceps, it’s equally important to train the opposing (antagonist) muscles. I do several variations of chin-ups, but the key is to make the exercise progressively more difficult by performing them with additional resistance. Take, for example, Yuriorkis Gamboa, the 2004 flyweight Olympic champion and WBA super featherweight champion, with a professional record of 23-1 that included 16 knockouts. I got his upper body strength to the level where he was able to perform chin-ups with 55 kilos (121 pounds) attached to his waist!
12 – It’s best to outfit your gym with thick-grip barbells and dumbbells rather than conventional weight training equipment. You can’t punch hard with injured wrists and hands, and working with thick-grip equipment is one of the best ways to strengthen these areas.
13 – Finally, it’s important for fighters to avoid long duration steady state aerobic work because this type of training will cause fast-twitch muscle fibers to behave like slow-twitch fibers. Energy system training is important, but the type of endurance a fighter needs is best developed with interval training, not steady-state aerobics.
A powerful punch is essential in boxing. By using the ideas in this article you will ensure that your training programs help fighters achieve the highest levels of physical superiority in the ring.
http://www.strengthsensei.com/the-science-of-developing-punching-power/
Thursday, 22 December 2016
Hormones in Food: Should You Worry?
A salmon that grows to market size twice as fast as normal. Dairy cows that produce 15% more milk. Beef cows that grow 20% faster.
What do these hyper-productive animals have in common? Thanks to injections and implants (in the case of cows) or genetic engineering (in the case of salmon), they contain artificially high levels of sex or growth hormones.
The food industry says no—and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agrees, at least when it comes to cows.
The FDA, which regulates the use of hormones in livestock, hasn't yet decided whether it will approve the sale of a genetically engineered salmon patented by the biotech company AquaBounty. If the salmon—which is wired to produce growth hormone year-round, instead of just in the spring and summer—gets an OK from the agency, it will be the first genetically engineered animal to wind up on your dinner plate. (Genetically engineered fruits and vegetables have been around for years.)
The FDA's stamp of approval isn't likely to reassure those who worry that excess hormones in the food supply are contributing to cancer, early puberty in girls, and other health problems in humans. For years, consumer advocates and public health experts have fought to limit the use of hormones in cows, and some support a ban on the practice similar to the one in place in Europe, where food regulations are generally more stringent than in the U.S.
But it's not clear if such hormones truly are bad for our health. Surprisingly little research has been done on the health effects of these hormones in humans, in part because it's difficult to separate the effects of added hormones from the mixture of natural hormones, proteins, and other components found in milk and meat. Buying organic may reassure shoppers, but there's little proof these products are indeed safer.
In 1993, the FDA approved recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a synthetic cow hormone that spurs milk production when injected into dairy cows, and consumer groups have been concerned about it ever since. The manipulation of growth hormone in the AquaBounty salmon has sparked similar concerns.
By itself, rBGH has no discernible effect in humans and is of little concern to your health, and the growth hormone in AquaBounty's salmon is expected to be inconsequential to your health as well. The actual fear is that manipulating growth hormones in cows—or salmon—may increase another hormone, insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which could mimic the effects of human growth hormone in harmful ways. In fact, research has found that milk from rBGH-treated cows contains up to 10 times more IGF than other milk.
Higher blood levels of IGF (regardless of what causes them) have been associated with an increased risk of breast, prostate, and other cancers in humans. In a 2004 study, patients with above-average IGF levels had nearly a 50% higher risk of prostate cancer and a 65% higher risk of hormone-dependent premenopausal breast cancer than people with below-average levels.
Many factors—including genes, smoking, and fat intake—contribute to these cancers, but "it's very likely that at least part of that [risk] is related to IGF levels," especially where prostate cancer is concerned, says Walter Willett, MD, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston.
While consuming lots of milk and other dairy has been shown to raise blood levels of human IGF, the increase is probably not a direct effect of the animal's IGF level or the IGF found in these foods. That's because the amount of IGF in dairy products—whether or not it's from rBGH-treated cows—pales in comparison to what is naturally in your body.
"Just [to get] the amount of IGF secreted in your saliva and digestive tract in a day, you'd have to drink about 95 quarts of milk," says Terry Etherton, PhD, a professor of dairy and animal science at Pennsylvania State University and the author of a blog about food biotechnology.
And you'd have to eat at least 170 three-ounce servings of genetically modified salmon. (The IGF levels in the AquaBounty salmon and regular salmon are comparable, although consumer advocates say the studies that determined this are too small to be reliable.)
So if the amount of IGF in milk is negligible, how does milk consumption increase our IGF levels? Milk in general—and the proteins, sugar, minerals, and non-IGF hormones it contains—may somehow cause the human body to make more of its own IGF, Dr. Willett says.
IGF isn't the only hormone found in the food supply. Ranchers have been fattening up cattle with sex hormones—most notably estrogen—since the 1950s. Today most beef cows in the U.S.—except those labeled "organic"—receive an implant in their ear that delivers a hormone, usually a form of estrogen (estradiol) in some combination with five other hormones. (These hormones are not given to chicken and pigs because they don't have the same growth-promoting effect in these animals, although antibiotics are given to all three species for similar growth-promoting reasons.)
One concern is that such hormones may spur earlier puberty in children, who are, on average, entering puberty at a younger age than they did a generation or two ago, for reasons that are unclear.
But Ann Macrina, PhD, a researcher in the Department of Dairy and Animal Science at Pennsylvania State University, says that the amount of estrogen found in meat is vanishingly small compared to the level in our bodies. A three-ounce serving of beef from an estrogen-treated cow contains less than a billionth of a gram of estrogen, a level around 400,000 times lower than estrogen in women and nearly 100,000 times lower than that in men.
However, even minuscule amounts of oestrogen could affect prepubescent girls and boys, says Dr. Willett. "[For] a girl who's not producing hormones herself, they could be quite substantial."
A 2009 study found that children who consumed the most protein from animal sources entered puberty about seven months earlier than those who consumed the least. "It doesn't matter so much if it's milk, cheese, or meat—all these animal proteins have a clear impact on [our] IGF system," says Thomas Remer, PhD, one of the authors of the study and a professor at the Research Institute of Child Nutrition, in Germany.
Still, hormones added to the food supply are probably not the biggest culprit behind early puberty. It's more likely that meat, milk, and similar foods help trigger earlier puberty because they are rich in protein, calories, and nutrients, says Marcia Herman-Giddens, an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, in Chapel Hill, and the lead author of an influential 1997 study on early puberty in girls.
However, Herman-Giddens cautions that more research is needed to untangle the many factors involved. For instance, she says, rising rates of overweight and obesity—and the processed foods, high-calorie drinks, and lack of exercise driving them—are "probably the biggest reason" for the trend toward earlier puberty. (Fat cells stimulate the body to produce estrogen.) Pesticides, flame-retardants, plastics, and other chemicals in the environment that can disrupt hormones may also be partly to blame.
Organic beef and dairy products certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) come with the guarantee that the cows were not treated with rBGH or sex hormones. They also come with a much heftier price. Is the peace of mind worth the extra cash?
Dr. Willett offers similar advice regarding organic dairy. On the other hand, experts like Herman-Giddens urge consumers to stay away from rBGH-treated milk because of its potentially higher IGF levels, and the fact that it does not have any added health benefits over regular milk. Instead of switching to organic milk, Dr. Willett recommends cutting back on dairy altogether, despite USDA recommendations that call for three servings a day of dairy.
Bruce Chassy, PhD, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says "propaganda" from organic farming groups has created misconceptions about—and resistance to—rBGH among consumers. In fact, Chassy argues that manipulating growth hormones has benefits: rBGH-treated cows are better for the environment, not just the bottom line, since farmers can get the same amount of milk with fewer cows. Similarly, the AquaBounty salmon consumes 10% less feed during its lifecycle than a regular farmed salmon.
The most lasting effect of the fears surrounding hormones in the food supply may be the value of "organic" or "hormone free" as selling points, Chassy says.
"I think there are a lot of farms that are not using [rBGH] because they perceive that consumers do not want [rBGH]-treated milk," he says. He predicts that the AquaBounty salmon will likely inspire "marketing campaigns for 'hormone-free' fish." It's a ridiculous claim, he argues, since all fish—and all meat and milk—has hormones.
Carina Storrs
http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20458816,00.html
What do these hyper-productive animals have in common? Thanks to injections and implants (in the case of cows) or genetic engineering (in the case of salmon), they contain artificially high levels of sex or growth hormones.
Are these hormones dangerous to the humans who eat the food or drink the milk?
The food industry says no—and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agrees, at least when it comes to cows.
The FDA's stamp of approval isn't likely to reassure those who worry that excess hormones in the food supply are contributing to cancer, early puberty in girls, and other health problems in humans. For years, consumer advocates and public health experts have fought to limit the use of hormones in cows, and some support a ban on the practice similar to the one in place in Europe, where food regulations are generally more stringent than in the U.S.
But it's not clear if such hormones truly are bad for our health. Surprisingly little research has been done on the health effects of these hormones in humans, in part because it's difficult to separate the effects of added hormones from the mixture of natural hormones, proteins, and other components found in milk and meat. Buying organic may reassure shoppers, but there's little proof these products are indeed safer.
Growth hormones
In 1993, the FDA approved recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), a synthetic cow hormone that spurs milk production when injected into dairy cows, and consumer groups have been concerned about it ever since. The manipulation of growth hormone in the AquaBounty salmon has sparked similar concerns.
By itself, rBGH has no discernible effect in humans and is of little concern to your health, and the growth hormone in AquaBounty's salmon is expected to be inconsequential to your health as well. The actual fear is that manipulating growth hormones in cows—or salmon—may increase another hormone, insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which could mimic the effects of human growth hormone in harmful ways. In fact, research has found that milk from rBGH-treated cows contains up to 10 times more IGF than other milk.
Higher blood levels of IGF (regardless of what causes them) have been associated with an increased risk of breast, prostate, and other cancers in humans. In a 2004 study, patients with above-average IGF levels had nearly a 50% higher risk of prostate cancer and a 65% higher risk of hormone-dependent premenopausal breast cancer than people with below-average levels. Many factors—including genes, smoking, and fat intake—contribute to these cancers, but "it's very likely that at least part of that [risk] is related to IGF levels," especially where prostate cancer is concerned, says Walter Willett, MD, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston.
While consuming lots of milk and other dairy has been shown to raise blood levels of human IGF, the increase is probably not a direct effect of the animal's IGF level or the IGF found in these foods. That's because the amount of IGF in dairy products—whether or not it's from rBGH-treated cows—pales in comparison to what is naturally in your body.
"Just [to get] the amount of IGF secreted in your saliva and digestive tract in a day, you'd have to drink about 95 quarts of milk," says Terry Etherton, PhD, a professor of dairy and animal science at Pennsylvania State University and the author of a blog about food biotechnology.
And you'd have to eat at least 170 three-ounce servings of genetically modified salmon. (The IGF levels in the AquaBounty salmon and regular salmon are comparable, although consumer advocates say the studies that determined this are too small to be reliable.)
So if the amount of IGF in milk is negligible, how does milk consumption increase our IGF levels? Milk in general—and the proteins, sugar, minerals, and non-IGF hormones it contains—may somehow cause the human body to make more of its own IGF, Dr. Willett says.
Sex hormones and early puberty
IGF isn't the only hormone found in the food supply. Ranchers have been fattening up cattle with sex hormones—most notably estrogen—since the 1950s. Today most beef cows in the U.S.—except those labeled "organic"—receive an implant in their ear that delivers a hormone, usually a form of estrogen (estradiol) in some combination with five other hormones. (These hormones are not given to chicken and pigs because they don't have the same growth-promoting effect in these animals, although antibiotics are given to all three species for similar growth-promoting reasons.)One concern is that such hormones may spur earlier puberty in children, who are, on average, entering puberty at a younger age than they did a generation or two ago, for reasons that are unclear.
But Ann Macrina, PhD, a researcher in the Department of Dairy and Animal Science at Pennsylvania State University, says that the amount of estrogen found in meat is vanishingly small compared to the level in our bodies. A three-ounce serving of beef from an estrogen-treated cow contains less than a billionth of a gram of estrogen, a level around 400,000 times lower than estrogen in women and nearly 100,000 times lower than that in men.
However, even minuscule amounts of oestrogen could affect prepubescent girls and boys, says Dr. Willett. "[For] a girl who's not producing hormones herself, they could be quite substantial."
A 2009 study found that children who consumed the most protein from animal sources entered puberty about seven months earlier than those who consumed the least. "It doesn't matter so much if it's milk, cheese, or meat—all these animal proteins have a clear impact on [our] IGF system," says Thomas Remer, PhD, one of the authors of the study and a professor at the Research Institute of Child Nutrition, in Germany.
Still, hormones added to the food supply are probably not the biggest culprit behind early puberty. It's more likely that meat, milk, and similar foods help trigger earlier puberty because they are rich in protein, calories, and nutrients, says Marcia Herman-Giddens, an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, in Chapel Hill, and the lead author of an influential 1997 study on early puberty in girls.
However, Herman-Giddens cautions that more research is needed to untangle the many factors involved. For instance, she says, rising rates of overweight and obesity—and the processed foods, high-calorie drinks, and lack of exercise driving them—are "probably the biggest reason" for the trend toward earlier puberty. (Fat cells stimulate the body to produce estrogen.) Pesticides, flame-retardants, plastics, and other chemicals in the environment that can disrupt hormones may also be partly to blame.
Organic or no?
Organic beef and dairy products certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) come with the guarantee that the cows were not treated with rBGH or sex hormones. They also come with a much heftier price. Is the peace of mind worth the extra cash?
Probably not, says Dr. Willett, who advocates cutting back on meat in general. Most people should eat no more than two servings of red meat per week, Dr. Willett says, and "if you're [only] having a couple of servings a week, it doesn't make much difference whether it's organic or not."
Dr. Willett offers similar advice regarding organic dairy. On the other hand, experts like Herman-Giddens urge consumers to stay away from rBGH-treated milk because of its potentially higher IGF levels, and the fact that it does not have any added health benefits over regular milk. Instead of switching to organic milk, Dr. Willett recommends cutting back on dairy altogether, despite USDA recommendations that call for three servings a day of dairy.
Bruce Chassy, PhD, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says "propaganda" from organic farming groups has created misconceptions about—and resistance to—rBGH among consumers. In fact, Chassy argues that manipulating growth hormones has benefits: rBGH-treated cows are better for the environment, not just the bottom line, since farmers can get the same amount of milk with fewer cows. Similarly, the AquaBounty salmon consumes 10% less feed during its lifecycle than a regular farmed salmon.
The most lasting effect of the fears surrounding hormones in the food supply may be the value of "organic" or "hormone free" as selling points, Chassy says.
"I think there are a lot of farms that are not using [rBGH] because they perceive that consumers do not want [rBGH]-treated milk," he says. He predicts that the AquaBounty salmon will likely inspire "marketing campaigns for 'hormone-free' fish." It's a ridiculous claim, he argues, since all fish—and all meat and milk—has hormones.
Carina Storrs
http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20458816,00.html
Monday, 19 December 2016
The secret slimming effect of sweet potato waste
Proteins in wastewater from sweet potato processing reduce fat levels, weight in mice
The sweet potato pie you eat during the holidays might not be good for your waistline, but according to a new study published in the journal Heliyon, the starchy water left over from cooking the sweet potato could have slimming effects -- at least in mice.
In the new study, mice on a high fat diet had significantly lower body weight after one month if they were also fed sweet potato peptide, which was produced by enzyme digestion of proteins in the water wasted during processing. This suggests the peptide plays a role in digesting fats, but more research is needed to determine whether this also happens in humans.
More than 105 million metric tons of sweet potato are produced globally every year, according to the International Potato Center (CIP), making it the world's fifth most important crop. About 15 percent of sweet potato is used to produce starch materials, processed foods, and distilled spirits in Japan. The resulting wastewater is usually discarded, potentially causing serious environmental problems.
In the new study, Dr. Koji Ishiguro from National Agriculture and Food Research Organization in Japan and colleagues wanted to find a new way to use this waste, so they investigated the effect of proteins found in the water on digestion in mice.
"We throw out huge volumes of wastewater that contains sweet potato proteins -- we hypothesized that these could affect body weight, fat tissue and other factors," explained Dr. Ishiguro. "Finding alternative uses for the sweet potato proteins in wastewater could be good for the environment and industry, and also potentially for health."
The researchers fed three groups of mice high fat diets, giving one group the protein digest -- sweet potato peptide (SPP) -- at a high concentration and one group at a lower concentration. After 28 days they weighed the mice and measured their liver mass and fatty tissue. They also measured the levels of the fats cholesterol and triglyceride, as well as leptin, which controls hunger, and adiponectin, which regulates metabolic syndrome.
Mice that were given SPP had significantly lower body weight and liver mass. Mice fed SPP also had lower cholesterol and triglycerides, and higher levels of the hunger and lipid-controlling hormones. The results suggest that SPP helps activate appetite suppression and control lipid metabolism in mice fed high fat diets.
"We were surprised that SPP reduced the levels of fat molecules in the mice and that it appears to be involved controlling appetite suppression molecules," commented Dr. Ishiguro. "These results are very promising, providing new options for using this wastewater instead of discarding it. We hope SPP is used for the functional food material in future."
Story Source:
Materials provided by Elsevier. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
- Koji Ishiguro, Rie Kurata, Yoshikazu Shimada, Yoto Sameshima, Takashi Kume. Effects of a sweetpotato protein digest on lipid metabolism in mice administered a high-fat diet. Heliyon, 2016; 2 (12): e00201 DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2016.e00201
Saturday, 3 December 2016
Scientific Weight Loss Tips
What do you guys think? Simple and with over 5 million views tell me your opinions.
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