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February 25, 2007Too Buff for His Own GoodI'm old enough to remember the days when football coaches cautioned their players not to lift weights because they didn't want them to get musclebound. The idea was that too much muscle would make a player tight and slow, which of course explains why today's football players are twice as big than they were in the bad old days, and still manage to be a step or two faster. But there is one potentially serious side effect of being too buff, as Lisa Sanders, M.D., explains in this column in the New York Times Magazine:
When the patient undressed for the exam, Duffy was immediately struck by the highly developed muscles of his upper body. “He looked like one of those young men in a men’s fitness magazine,” he told me later. Otherwise his exam showed nothing abnormal.
Posted by LouSchuler at 06:27 AM | Comments (2)
January 05, 2007Goliath of NazarethLet's say you're a guy who's always been ... different. You realized this when you were 12, and lifted a piece of heavy farm equipment -- a Troybilt rototiller -- out of a pickup truck all by yourself. When you finally got around to strength training, you were just past 30, an age when most guys are already settled into a life on the sidelines. But something clicked, and you entered your first powerlifting meet just two months later. You benched 425 pounds and deadlifted 500. Barely seven years later, you would set a world record in the squat with 1,200 pounds on your back. Meanwhile, you were spreading the gospel of strength sports, first as a member of the Metal Militia, then as a gym owner in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. One important exercise you used with your clients at Nazareth Barbell is sled-dragging, a muscle- and endurance-building drill that involves pulling a weighted sled down a street or sidewalk. And that led to a few problems:
Nazareth's a small town where sitting on porches in warm weather to chat with neighbors has been a favorite pastime for a century. It's a place where newcomers are sometimes regarded with suspicion -- even when the newcomer is as famous inside some circles of the still-fringe sport of strength competitions as the Andrettis are in racing or the Martins are to guitars.
But one thing you realize when you've lived in small towns is that people often aren't what they seem. In our little township, Lower Macungie, a supervisor named Marge Szulborski stole $2.5 million in sewer-connection fees. She started stealing when she was an employee of the township, and then kept stealing as a supervisor, where her job included supervising herself. Marge is hardly sui generis -- according to this article in today's New York Times, there's a lot of this going around in the unlikeliest of places:
A survey by researchers at Villanova University has found that 85 percent of Roman Catholic dioceses that responded had discovered embezzlement of church money in the last five years, with 11 percent reporting that more than $500,000 had been stolen.
In October alone, three large cases of embezzlement surfaced, including one in Delray Beach, Fla., where two priests spent $8.6 million on trips to Las Vegas, dental work, property taxes and other expenses over four decades.
Posted by LouSchuler at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2006UnprecedentedMy friend and former colleague Matt Neumaier sent word this morning that the 1,000-pound barrier has been broken in the deadlift. Here's the video -- if you're watching it at work, turn the volume way down. I won't pretend I follow powerlifting closely, or that I'm any kind of expert on the subject. But I have been fascinated with the progression of powerlifting records. The advent of the bench shirt and squat suit have helped PLers pass the 1,000-pound barrier in those lifts. But a deadlift is still the same lift it's been since the beginning of powerlifting. Sure, the guys today probably take more drugs, but given that all of them have access to the same drugs, it's always struck me as significant that deadlift records fell so far behind the records for the other lifts. I think I qualify as a typical drug-free lifter (although I'm not particularly strong for a guy who lifts as much as I do and for as long as I have), and as such I find I can lift much more in the deadlift than in the squat or bench press. I've done one 300-pound squat in my life, and couldn't approach that today. But I've been able to deadlift over 300 pounds consistently for several years now. The guy who broke the record, Andy Bolton, says in this interview that he didn't start lifting until he was 18, and his first day in the gym he squatted 500 pounds and deadlifted 600. It won't make the news anywhere, but it's a hell of a feat nonetheless. Posted by LouSchuler at 09:50 AM | Comments (1)
January 18, 2005Nutritional Supplements Blah, Blah, BlahThe New York Times has a snoozer of a story on "muscles in a bottle" in today's editions. But I think it's worth commenting on for several reasons: 1. The story quotes physician and drug-testing expert Linn Goldberg, as well as attorney Rick Collins, both of whom I interviewed at length for a feature in the March issue of Men's Fitness. Since my story is about steroids in sports, and the Times story is about nutritional supplements you can buy at your local GNC, and in theory there's little crossover between the two subjects, I wonder why we ended up interviewing the same people. Weird. 2. The story makes yet another reference to Mark McGwire and androstenedione. I'm beginning to think the discovery of a bottle of andro in McGwire's locker may have been a real stroke of luck for him. As long as his name is linked to a useless prohormone -- as opposed to the high-powered steroids we now know were taken by guys like Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, and Gary Sheffield -- he's going to slide into the Hall of Fame with his reputation mostly intact. 3. The opening paragraphs of the story are a little strange: They describe a "martial arts practitioner and bodybuilder who can bench-press 215 pounds." This guy is "5-foot-10 and weighs 190 pounds, but he wants to be bigger." (You sense some editorial condemnation there, don't you? I know I do.) "He takes whey, a protein derived from milk, to bolster his daily caloric intake; branched-chain amino acids, said to help muscles recover from workouts; and creatine, a compound promoted as boosting energy levels and increasing the intensity of workouts." The story says he's "been taking them on and off for five years." With me so far? Okay, here's the strange thing: You have a guy who's basically my size, has been lifting at least 5 years, and using protein and creatine supplements during much of that time. And he still can bench just 215? That's an issue. Bad form, a bad overall training program, lingering injuries, something. I mean, back when I weighed 175, before I had ever taken a protein supplement or even heard of creatine, I could bench 215. And that was in my mid-30s. With protein and creatine supplements, with a serious and well-designed training program (courtesy of Craig Ballantyne), I got my bench up to 255 at a body weight of about 185. That was in my mid-40s. This guy, whoever he is, needs to make some adjustments. That level of strength, at his age, weight, and level of experience and dedication, is just not right. Posted by LouSchuler at 06:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 15, 2004Let There Be HeavyI think every guy who lifts, at some point, looks around the gym and wonders what the hell everyone else thinks they're accomplishing. They're using too much or too little weight, or doing useless or dangerous exercises, or have terrible form. A lot of times the person looking around doesn't have any better idea than the people he's wondering about. (I speak from experience; I felt much more superior before I knew what the f*** I was doing than I do now.) But now there's evidence that gym newbies really are clueless, at least when it comes to the weights they choose to lift. Key graphs: "A recent study showed that many inexperienced weightlifters don't come close to pumping enough iron to change the shape of their muscles, or really get any benefit at all. "The study, done by exercise physiology professor Stephen Glass of Grand Valley State University in Michigan, was based in part on previous research that said people must lift no less than 60 percent of the maximum weight they can lift to increase the size of their muscles." Glass took 30 newbies (17 men, 13 women), and told them to pick their own starting weights. Then he tested their one-repetition maximum (the most weight they can lift once with good form) and discovered that none of them had started off with 60 percent of their max. I'm not sure that Glass' research is anything more than a snapshot of a bunch of people their first day in the gym. I mean, would these people use the same weights in subsequent workouts? There's no way to know. Strength training is intimidating to a lot of people, and it takes a while to feel like you know what you're doing in a gym. I've been doing it almost 35 years now, and I still feel disoriented when I walk into a new gym. Still, I think it's important to get the word out there that the weights you lift have to be at least moderately heavy. I mean, there's nothing more pathetic than a guy feeling superior to everyone else in the gym when he isn't even lifting enough weight to get the results he wants. Trust me, I've been that guy. Posted by LouSchuler at 09:16 AM
August 24, 2004Nothing Gold Can StayI'm not much for press events--I've spent most of my two decades as a journalist avoiding them--but I sure wish I could've attended this one. (No one invited me, but that's beside the point.) Friends of the late Joe Gold, who died last month at 82, gathered for a commemorative service last Friday in Marina del Rey. Here's the opening of the story in the L.A. Times: "The first time Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into the original Gold's Gym in Venice, in 1968, its legendary proprietor greeted the young bodybuilder warmly: 'Arnold, anything you want, it's yours.' "But Joe Gold wasn't done. He quickly added: 'You're just a stupid farmer from Austria and you got a balloon belly. It will take us a year to work on that. "'Hey, you need an apartment? "'You need a car?'" How would you like to go back in time to hear someone call Schwarzenegger a "stupid farmer from Austria"? If you want to hear more stories about Schwarzenegger and some of the other legends of bodybuilding's golden age (a phrase I use without irony), I recommend The New High-Intensity Training, by Ellington Darden. Editing this book was one of my last projects for Rodale, and I can attest that it's fun to read. (That doesn't mean I believe in the one-set-to-failure strength-training methodology; I think, most of the time, it takes several sets of an exercise to get all the potential benefits.) Darden met all the major players back in the day, and has anecdotes about Schwarzenegger you won't read anywhere else. Posted by LouSchuler at 06:55 AM
Lactic Acid Is Your FriendFirst it was fat. The all-purpose dietary demon has been mostly rehabilitated into an important part of a healthy diet. Now it's lactic acid. When I first started lifting in commercial gyms, in the early '80s, the accepted wisdom was that lactic acid caused post-workout muscle soreness. Not only has that one been debunked, but new research from Australia and Denmark shows that lactic acid actually helps a muscle perform better. From The New York Times: "After a muscle fiber has worked intensely for a while, it begins to lose potassium, and that dampens the fiber's ability to contract. Lactic acid, by blocking the movement of chloride across the fiber's surface membrane, helps the muscle fiber recover its ability to work, said D. Thomas Pedersen, a doctoral student at the University of Aarhus who co-authored the study. "The fatigue an athlete feels is likely caused by the loss of potassium rather than the build-up of lactic acid, Mr. Pedersen said. "The finding may explain why some 100-meter runners find it beneficial to sprint a short distance 10 to 15 minutes before a race. 'You build up a little bit of lactic acid to prepare your muscles for the coming exertion,' Mr. Pedersen said." Posted by LouSchuler at 06:25 AM
August 23, 2004BALCO BingoSo now we know: The track coach who blew the whistle on BALCO--the guy who turned in the syringe that contained a trace of the "designer steroid" that turned out to be THG--is Trevor Graham. Graham is coach of Justin Gatlin, who won the 100-meter gold in the most competitive race ever. The open question is why Graham took it upon himself to ignite the greatest drug scandal in sports history. From the L.A. Times: "Speculation had long centered on Graham as the source of the syringe, though his motives remain unclear. At least six of Graham's athletes have tested positive for banned substances. "After Gatlin's victory Sunday, Graham confirmed to reporters his involvement in triggering the BALCO investigation. Asked if he believed Gatlin would have won if he, Graham, hadn't supplied the syringe that set off the investigation, Graham told the Baltimore Sun, 'I can't predict what would have happened. I don't know.' "His motivation, he said, was 'I was just a coach doing the right thing at that time.' He added that he had no regrets." I don't know what to think of Graham (I guess it would help if I followed track and field and knew more about him than what anyone can read in the linked story), but Gatlin seems to be a genuinely nice guy. Plus, he has ADD (as does swimmer Michael Phelps), which makes him just like me ... aside from a few superficial details like age, skin color, hairline, and foot speed. Posted by LouSchuler at 06:41 AM
August 18, 2004Has the Gold Standard Topped Out?Last night I watched a terrific special on the History Channel about how so many of the monsters of ancient Greek mythology were probably based on fossil remains. I'll confess I'm a total geek for Greek legends and lore. I got hooked on the classics in college, and have never really gotten over it. Say the words "Trojan war," and my mind fills with a hundred thoughts, not one of which involves condoms. One consistent belief you find in Homer's epics and elsewhere in classical mythology is that the ancient heroes were bigger than modern men. Literally bigger, two or three times the size of Homer and his contemporaries. The reason for this, according to the experts interviewed by the History Channel, is that certain areas of Greece contained a lot of fossilized mastodon bones that farmers regularly uncovered. Of course, they had no idea what a mastodon was, so when they found gigantic thigh or jaw bones, they just assumed they were human. And since they were two or three times the size of human bones, they assumed that Greece had once been populated by people much bigger than themselves. Americans, unlike the ancient Greeks, want our modern heroes to be a little bigger and stronger than the last generation of heroes. We don't imagine that George Washington would tower over Colin Powell, for instance. (Although, interestingly, Washington and Jefferson were among our tallest presidents ever, at six-two and six-two-and-a-half; Lincoln was the tallest, at six-four.) But some, according to this New York Times story, wonder if our athletes have gone as far as they can. The gist: "In some of the most basic ways imaginable - how fast people can run, how high they can jump, how far they can throw - the march of progress has stopped. The track and field athletes competing in Athens Olympic Stadium over the next week and a half may well struggle to match the performances of their predecessors. ... "In more than two-thirds of track and field events, in fact, the gold-medal performances in 1988 would have been good enough to win again in 2000. Just one result from 1976, by contrast, would have won in 1988, among the 32 events in which comparisons are possible, said Raymond Stefani, a professor of electrical engineering at California State University at Long Beach who studies the Olympics. "In more than a century of Olympic history, only world wars, by killing millions of people in their athletic prime, had previously caused this kind of stagnation." Now, if you're reading with the same jaundiced eyes I use (I got them on sale at Lenscrafters), your first thought is, "What about the steroids?" The Times had the same thought: "At least some of the record performances from the 1970s and '80s owe themselves to the miracle of drugs. Only now, after a decade of more effective drug testing, do athletes seem to be catching up to the steroid-aided results of the past, many Olympics watchers say." Another thought, not mentioned in the Times story, is that records tend to fall when bigger athletes compete in sports traditionally contested by smaller athletes. I'm not sure if I can back this up across all sports, but in swimming, it's instructive to note that Michael Phelps and Ian Thorpe are six-four and six-five, whereas Mark Spitz, if memory serves, was about six-one. Also, according to this, Phelps has some one-of-a-kind advantages: "His body is freakishly built for speed in the water. Although he is 6ft 4in, his legs are unusually short for his height and his arms unusually long. Most people’s wingspan is equal to their height; Phelps’s is three inches longer, giving him extra long levers with which to pull himself through the water while his short legs create less drag. All competitive swimmers learn how to use their bodies in the most efficient manner but Phelps is built to slice through water naturally." The Times sums it all up nicely: "The idea that no future generation will devise ways to top this one is as misplaced now as it has always been, say those who believe the stagnation has more to do with drugs than anything else. "'When I was competing in the early '60s, we thought our times were pretty close to the human limit,' said Phillip Whitten, the editor in chief of SwimInfo, a magazine that covers the sport. 'And now they're pretty good times for 13- and 14-year-old girls.'" Posted by LouSchuler at 06:29 AM
August 10, 2004It's the ShirtSlate has a terrific piece on the quest for the 1,000-pound bench press. Mostly, the article looks at the phenomenon of bench shirts, and how they've changed the sport of powerlifting: "High-end shirts are so taut that for the bar to even reach a bencher's chest, the fabric has to be compressed with incredible force. (At one meet, [world-record holder Gene] Rychlak had to abandon an 890-pound lift because it wasn't heavy enough to force the weight down to his pecs.)" Louie Simmons at Westside Barbell likes to say that it's not the shirts or the steroids that allow these mammoth lifts. But the shirts do add between 100 and 250 pounds to an elite lifter's max. (The record without a shirt is 713 pounds; with a shirt, it's 965.) It doesn't mean the race to a half-ton bench press isn't exciting, but it puts it into a different category of sports achievements, like the quest for 70 home runs back in the late '90s. Without steroids, we'd still marvel at guys who hit more than 50. As an aside, here's an article from 2003 that lends some perspective to the steroids-in-baseball debate. Deep in the story, it shows how strange it is to view the records of baseball's pre-steroids era as somehow more "pure." Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig didn't have to play against the best African-American athletes, and some of the ballparks were smaller than today's American Legion fields. Addendum: Dave Lewis sent along a little powerlifting humor. Click here, then on "Bench Shirt Dance." It's entertaining. Posted by LouSchuler at 10:01 AM
July 30, 2004News from East-Central BlogistanAfter a few more fits and starts, it looks like the training wheels have come off the weblog, so please check this space regularly for updates. If you have a question or comment, please use lou@louschuler.com for now. I'd thought I was getting email for asklou@louschuler.com, but now realize I haven't been. I'll figure that one out soon. Other features--particularly "Read Lou Schuler's Email"--will have to wait a couple more weeks, but I think you'll enjoy them when they're functional. I'll probably update RLSE multiple times a day with health, fitness, and nutrition advice. Also, I'm hanging around on the message board at JP Fitness, if you want to ask a question or join in a discussion of something exercise-related. Posted by LouSchuler at 02:13 AM
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