There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Why We Don't Need More Research to Get in Shape
Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name there is a method to the madness. Before I get to today's show, I want to thank Jonathan and Lynn Gildan of the Gildan Group at Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody, rob here, it is Sunday, may 4th for me when I'm making this. I think this is supposed to launch on Monday. I just did a little bit of life cycle, did some intervals for about 20 minutes and then I did a full body strength training routine, made the email for tomorrow, did some other things to prepare for a nice busy week. It's kind of rainy here in central Florida, which is kind of ironically funny because we haven't had really any rain for what seems like a month and I was going to mow the lawn when I got home from the gym. So that is now not going to happen. But I understand that I'll just have to be inconvenienced because we need the rain. But anyway, I find it kind of ironic. I was actually looking forward to doing the lawn because I think it looks like crap, but that's neither here nor there. So let's talk a little bit about fitness. This morning I'm going to talk to you about how some things really appear to be complicated in exercise science, but when you really get down to it it's not.
Speaker 1:I get a lot of the different journals. Of course I'm a member of the American College of Sports Medicine. I have one of my certifications through them and I'm also one of their members, meaning that I get their periodicals and get discounts on their continuing education and all that good stuff. And you know, I think that that's worth it. And I'm also a member of the NSCA National Strength and Conditioning Association. Their version of it's not really a club, but it's a membership that goes along with my CSCS certification I have, which is a certified strength conditioning specialist. So I get their periodicals and all that good stuff too. And I know everything is like well-meaning, like the research that comes out the, you know, the American College of Sports Medicine journal that I get monthly, one of them that I get, I should say the one I actually get in the mail.
Speaker 1:Don't you all like really miss magazines and things like that? I mean, I know they still have them, but they're not really magazines anymore. They're like these, you know, life covers of the Beatles instead of like Life Magazine Monthly or whatever. But anyway, I really I like kind of the hold in your hand form of a magazine versus being online. So this is one that I like because it comes in the mail and you know I can open it up and read it, versus my other ones that are sent via email. And the American College of Sports Medicine one that is and it's pretty good, it's got some real applicable articles in it. It at least gives me things to think about, talk about, write about and go over with you. But some of the other deeper ones, the ones that are, you know, really research-based for academics, you know I get as well. Just honestly, I probably wouldn't if it didn't come with being part of the membership and that's why those I get via email, because I really don't want them to waste the paper and cut down trees for what I see is very needless information. But I get them in my email and I definitely will open the email and I will read through the articles and click on ones that seem sort of relevant.
Speaker 1:But you know, we're not reinventing the wheel here with these things and I can remember a buddy of mine shout out to Greg this is going to force him to listen to this podcast. He was in my master's program with me in exercise physiology and we used to joke back then. It's like some of these studies, it's like what are we looking at here? Like seriously, and this was in the early 90s, so it's gotten even more carried away now and it's really hard to come up with anything new.
Speaker 1:As I've spoken about before, there has been some new research on rate of perceived exertion and endurance training, meaning that the biggest cause of fatigue is mental. When a person feels like they're tired, they're going to become tired. So there's been some new interesting stuff on that. But other than that, we've known how to improve our VO2 max and lactate threshold and onset of blood lactate gaseous accumulation in the endurance world and we've known how to increase our hypertrophy and our strength and muscle mass, which is hypertrophy in the strength world like we've known how. So I'm bringing all this up because in some of the latest things I've been reading it happens all the time. But this week I took even extra note and I just kind of chuckled and I started laughing and you know, showing Ellen, I'm like look, I mean they're kind of like trying to look at the muscle damage done within the muscle cell.
Speaker 1:For years there was always this common belief that DOMS, which is delayed onset muscle soreness, is coming from slight microscopic tears in the muscle, coming from slight microscopic tears in the muscle, and that leads to some inflammation, which leads to the soreness we all feel after working out, and then in time that repairs itself like it's not an injury. It's slight microscopic tears, which is okay Because if we don't stress something it doesn't grow. But that was the belief of what DOMS is and ultimately that's still the belief. But now they're looking at like, what part of the muscle cell is it? And are individuals feeling that or are they feeling the inflammation? And so there's been stuff on that. And then, along the exact same lines, they're looking at that.
Speaker 1:We know there has to be structural damage to the muscle fiber, so the muscle itself is made up of a lot of motor neurons which are made up of muscle fibers. So we know that there has to be damage to the muscle cells, which is what a muscle fiber is. It's a muscle cell. So we know there has to be damage to the muscle, damage to the muscle cells, which is what a muscle fiber is. It's a muscle cell. So we know there has to be damage to the muscle, damage to the cells. We also know that there has to be metabolic stress to the system. So muscle cell damage will bring about only the change in morphology to the cell, but it doesn't bring changes to the endocrine system per se.
Speaker 1:So there has to be both, which is why we can't just do one rep all the time on things and expect to get stronger. There has to be a certain length to the set and all that. So we've known that for a very long time that both systems need to be stressed. And you could argue the bone, the structural system, needs to be stressed, all the soft tissue area of tendons need to be stressed. You can stress central nervous system. So like we can get into every system other than skin and say most likely there has to be stress for adaptations to occur. Most likely there has to be stress for adaptations to occur, and adaptations are what we call semi-permanent change. So that's what we want. We want the adaptation to occur. That's how we get stronger.
Speaker 1:But now they're looking at, like, exactly what part of the muscle itself is getting damaged.
Speaker 1:Muscle itself is getting damaged, whether it be part of the myofibrils, of the actin and or myosin, and is it due to the response itself or is it due to the inflammation, to the response within the muscle fiber? So, like that was one of the studies I was looking at and I was like literally reading this and you know, like, oh, my goodness, like who cares? It absolutely doesn't change what we have to do. Like, I mean, I get it If you're, if you've got to write your dissertation, you got to write your thesis, you've got to come up with things. I mean, I was in college once too, I worked on my master's degree once too, and so we do have to look at things that we have to either do a thesis on and study it and break it down and come up with the conclusion of the research, you know, or we have to do our own studies if we're working on a PhD, and get it published and all those good things.
Speaker 1:I get it, you know, for academic purposes. I mean I get it, but I don't get it. I mean it's not like we're, at least in this area, you know, changing what we do or changing how we're going to work out. Like it's still going to come down to the principles of what we've known and many people know. It's going to come down to the fact that, yes, we have to create both physiological and metabolic stress, or structural stress on the muscle and metabolic stress on the endocrine system. Like we know that, we've known that for a very long time, and All of this is going to occur if we follow the principles that we also know that we're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:We have to show up number one Like none of this research does anybody any good if we can't get people to go to the gym and only 20% of the population of the United States is even meeting their 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. That's not even the strength training, that's just any form of moderate activity. Only 28% of the people are meeting that. So that information doesn't do us a lot of good because the majority of our population isn't listening or doing it, and maybe this is part of the reason why, like overcomplication, I'm wrapping up my third book and I talk about a lot of these different issues.
Speaker 1:You know people's reasons for not going to the gym, people's reasons for not exercising, and disinformation and confusion has been one of the big reasons. So this could be it. I mean, I don't know that the general population are reading these types of studies, but it is getting passed along to the posers out there who pretend to be personal trainers and physiologists and all that strength coaches online and start talking about these types of things. And yes, they do. I see it on social media all the time Somebody trying to look smart and talk about the breakdown of the muscle fibers and the actinomycin and the microfilaments and all these types of things. And I'm looking at them going. You don't have a clue as to what you're talking about, but it sounds good. It sounds good to a lot of their followers, but this isn't leading people into the gym.
Speaker 1:So we have to get to the gym, which people aren't. The next thing we have to do is we have to be on an effective exercise program for us, meaning we need to be doing the right exercises for us, and that takes some, of course. That takes education. That takes the takes education. That takes the important education. That takes the important education of knowing who to select and listen to. So you are doing the right exercises for you. And again, you can go online and you're going to have a lot of the bro science people telling you that you should be doing ass to grass, squats and all these types of things, and then you not realizing that that's not meant for you because you should be doing ass to grass, squats and all these types of things. And then you not realizing that that's not meant for you, because you tore your meniscus back in 1998 and anything below 70 degrees is going to cause that little bad boy to pop again. So you know, but you're listening to them. And whose fault is that? Probably a little bit of both, but you know that doesn't have to happen.
Speaker 1:You can get with somebody that knows what they're talking about. Or, honestly, there's a lot of good books out there. You can pull up and say you know different exercises for different conditions or whatever I mean. In this case I would say go right to the horse's mouth and find out the right exercises for you, because it does vary for each individual based on your age, based on your level of activity, based on your experience, based on your injuries, based on a lot of different things. I shouldn't say age, you know it's more on your level of injuries through the years, and there are 80 year olds that have great joints and there are 22 year olds that have horrible joints. So it's really comes down to that. So it's it's really the uh, you know the, the mileage, not the make, so to say, the mileage on the joints versus you know how old you are, but anyway, that's getting a little off topic.
Speaker 1:Um, and then, once you've selected the exercises and you're getting there, I mean now it comes down to doing it right and then working with intensity. So making sure that you're keeping proper form as I always say, form is everything so you're making sure you're doing it right and you make sure you're getting close to muscular failure. I mean that's how we bring about metabolic and structural stress. We do it right. So that means we're targeting the right muscles so you can work real intensely and be doing it all wrong. For example, like some of the videos, I was who's. I don't even remember, it doesn't matter, I mean I'm just going to like say who I was talking to. Like who cares? I was talking to somebody the other day. We're joking around about different videos that we see online and people doing exercises and man, like some of these NFL and collegiate football programs, I follow their strength and conditioning sites because it's, you know, fun. I guess their squats are horrible.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what team it was and it doesn't matter, but there was a guy, big, strong kid, and he was doing 600 pounds squat. I can't remember if he did a single or if he did two or three reps. I mean, in any event, 600 pounds is a lot of weight and he's strong. Even if we took 300 pounds off of that and he did it correctly, he's still strong. But man, his form sucked. I mean, he was bent all the way over with his spine and really that wasn't a squat.
Speaker 1:That was what we would call a good morning exercise, meaning that was all stress on the lower back. He couldn't keep his chest up to put the muscles on his glutes. There's no way he had the weight on his heels because of how bent down he was, so they were on his toes. Meaning number one if anything was getting worked in the legs, it was the quads, but most likely it was all on the erector spinae, the lower back. He's lucky he didn't rupture a disc and he probably will if he trains this way. But anyway, that's intensity, there's no question he went to failure. He had two guys on the side holding and then a guy behind him, thank God. So he was working to the point where he went to failure, no doubt. So that's the intensity part is hit, but the form sucked. So he was not engaging his glutes, quads and hamstrings.
Speaker 1:So we have to do it right, to make sure that we are stressing the right muscle groups, stressing the area. We're supposed to, all right. So we have to show up. We're supposed to All right, so we have to show up. We have to do the right exercises. We have to do the right exercises correctly and we have to work with intensity and approach failure. Why do we need to know what happens within the muscle when we do that, when it all equates to the same thing?
Speaker 1:I mean we could change that to. You know, the damage is done to the actin filament versus the myosin filament, and I'm just throwing that out there like they're not really looking at that. We could change it to that and then say, ok, so now, like, do we now do something different? Do we now like not go to failure? Well, no, no, no, you'd still go to failure. It's just there's a different part of the muscle that's being disrupted. Oh, okay, okay. So then do we do different exercises? Like, do we now like not train the chest because we figured something out? Or do we do a cable fly versus a dumbbell fly because we've learned that this is a different part of the microfilament than we thought it was? Well, no, no, no, no, no, you still can do either cable or dumbbell. It's like oh, ok.
Speaker 1:So I mean obviously being facetious here, it doesn't matter, man, like we're not learning anything new about that. Like we need to focus on the human side of fundamentals. Like all this stuff is great. Is it going to get you to the gym and get you to do what you're supposed to do correctly? Because I have a feeling it is nothing to do what you're supposed to do correctly, because I have a feeling it has nothing to do with the human physiology that's either causing you not to go or causing you not to do it right. I have a feeling it has nothing to do with that. One final note on that.
Speaker 1:On a similar subject, I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about how liberal arts degrees are on the rise, or at least, well, they're not on the rise yet, but they will be and should be, because forecasters are learning that, like we've had it all wrong in the scientific degrees for the past 10 years, so like everybody was going towards programming and formatting and all these types of things, and now they're finding out that, like, ai is going to replace all that but it's going to take humans to run the system, so to say. So now they're finding out that, like, just like Ivo's believed and just like a lot of experts of those believe, that it's going to come down to the human touch. Like you can learn all you want, but you're going to have to know how to talk to people. You're going to have to know how to think for yourself. You're going to have to, like the people that are going to get promoted are going to have the best overall general knowledge of many things and have good people skills. So I thought that was kind of cool, because I've always been a defender of liberal arts degrees personally and, who knows, this could switch again in a week, but I do like where they're at least going with this and I 100% agree that in my world of human performance and personal training, like it comes down to the relationships with people, it comes down to human touch, human contact and talking to people about what the real problems are and having real people solve problems with the other real people which are the customers.
Speaker 1:All right, hope you have a great day and get out and exercise. Thank you for listening to today's program. I ask you to please follow the show wherever you get your podcasts and please select automatic download, because that really helps the show. Now I want to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the area's premier garage door company. They have the best product. They have the best service. They have the best service. I personally vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people with a great company. If you have any garage door needs, please give them a shout at 386-222-3165.
