Cosgrove's Five Ah-Ha! Moments

In my career I've had several moments of clarity when I learned something
new, or when something I had believed was either verified, brought into
question, or flat out disproved.

These mini-epiphanies are what I call my "ah-ha!" moments. In every
case, these "ah-ha!" moments allowed my thought processes to take a significant
step forward, which in turn brought me to a new level in my training
education.

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An Ah-ha moment.

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I was talking to Mike Boyle ("the Barbara Walters of the fitness industry")
at a recent seminar and I shared this idea of the
"ah-ha!" moment with him. He suggested that it would make a good article,
which I guess was another "ah-ha!" for me.

Anyway, here are a few things that I became aware of at some point over
the past couple of decades that made a significant change in how I do
things.

Ah-ha! #1: Poor range of motion may actually be an issue of stability,
not of mobility.

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This was from a Gray Cook presentation. Look at the two guys pictured
above performing an overhead squat. The guy on the right can't get the
depth. He's well above parallel with angles of above 90 degrees at the
hip and knee.

So obviously, he has a problem with mobility, right? Now, is his problem
tight lats, tight hip flexors, or maybe a restriction at the ankle?

The answer is maybe none of the above, because when we put these guys
on their backs and remove the load, look what happens:

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The mobility issue seems to resolve itself. Not completely, but very
considerably. The person who couldn't get below 90 degrees has achieved
a range well beyond 90 degrees.

So the difference in squat form and depth was not a mobility
issue, it was a stability issue. Essentially, the body is shutting
down the range of motion. Not because of tightness or a restriction,
but because it perceives a threat due to the lack of stability.

Up until this point, I'd used a Vladimir Janda approach to movement
dysfunction: if hip flexors are tight, we stretch them and strengthen
the antagonist. Gray opened my eyes to this.

Conclusion: a range of motion deficit or asymmetry may not be related
to tissue length or tension at all, but rather to core stability.

Ah-ha! #2: For fat loss, the post-workout period is where the most important "something" happens.

Here's a study that I came across about ten years ago (about 4 or 5
years after it was published, I'm embarrassed to admit):

Tremblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C.

Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle
metabolism.

Metabolism. 1994 Jul; 43(7):814-8.

The premise of the study was to compare twenty (20) weeks of steady
state endurance training and fifteen (15) weeks of interval training.

When comparing total calories burned from exercise, the researchers
found the endurance training burned 28,661 calories, while the interval
training group burned 13,614 calories. In other words, the interval-training
group burned less than half the calories of the endurance-training group.

However, when the researchers adjusted the results to correct for the
difference in energy cost, the interval-training group showed a 900%
greater loss in subcutaneous fat than the endurance group. In other words,
calorie for calorie, interval training was nine times more effective than
steady state exercise.

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Interval training is nine times more effective than steady-state
cardio for burning fat.

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Additionally, the researchers noted the metabolic adaptations taking
place in the skeletal muscle in response to the interval training program
appear to favor the process of fat oxidation.

This piqued my interest because until this point we'd been told
that it's all about "calories in versus calories out." So we assumed
(or at least I assumed) that burning more calories in training
would result in greater fat loss. This study (and several others since)
have shown that to be completely incorrect.

So the "ah-ha!" moment showed me that we can't ignore the post workout
period. That's where the adaptations happen. That's where the results
are.

Why did this occur? I've hypothesized that it's related to EPOC, a post
exercise elevation of metabolism, but some studies have shown that EPOC
isn't as big of a contributor to caloric burn as we originally thought:
calories burned during the exercise period is the biggest factor.

And it still doesn't explain the very significant difference
in real world fat loss.

Simply put, the subjects doing interval training lost more fat by burning
fewer calories than the steady state group. So maybe, as the study showed,
total body fat oxidation seems to increase as a result of the adaptations
to interval training.

But that still doesn't explain it. An increase in fat oxidation
doesn't necessarily mean an increase in total caloric burn or fat lost
(as other studies have shown that fuel source during exercise appears
to be irrelevant, so fuel source at rest shouldn't matter either unless
there is a total caloric deficit).

The bottom line is that perhaps we don't know why. But we do know that
it's more effective because of something that happens post workout.
And that something is beneficial.

Looking at aerobics for fat loss and ignoring the post workout period
is short-sighted. If we studied weight training the same way, looking
only at what happens during the workout and ignoring the post-workout
adaptations, we'd have to conclude that weight training destroys muscle
tissue, making you smaller and weaker. And we know that's not
true.

Conclusion: the workout is the stimulus. The adaptation is the goal.

Ah-ha! #3: Cardiovascular programming is an ass-backward concept.

I don't know when I first thought this, but it was confirmed to me when
viewing Lance Armstrong's performance in the New York Marathon.

Throughout my college education, countless training certification programs
and seminars, I'd been taught the same thing: that cardiovascular exercise
was necessary to improve the cardiovascular system and subsequently aerobic
performance. But there seemed to be an inherent flaw in that argument.

Let's say I tested your aerobic fitness through a treadmill test.

Then let's say that for the next sixteen weeks, we developed a five-day
per week aerobic training program that involved you running at various
heart rates and for various lengths of times. The program would progressively
increase in difficulty and duration, and the end result was a very significant
improvement in your aerobic fitness.

At the end of this sixteen-week period, how much do you expect your swimming times
to have improved? Marginally, if at all, right? It seems almost stupid
to ask. But wait a second. If you have one cardiovascular system, why
doesn't your cardiovascular system improve across the board regardless
of the activity?

More to the point, why didn't Lance Armstrong, with perhaps the highest
recorded VO2 max in history, win the New York Marathon? Or beat people
with lesser aerobic levels than himself?

The seven-time winner of the Tour de France, the greatest endurance
cyclist, quite possibly the greatest endurance athlete in the
world, finished the Marathon in 868th place, and described the event
as the "hardest physical thing" he'd ever done.

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"I'd rather be cycling."

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The flaw in this thinking was looking solely at VO2 max: the
"engine," as it were. It's fair to say that Lance had a "Formula One" engine,
but his wheels and chassis were built for a different kind of race. In
other words, he just didn't have the structural development for running.

Lance was a cyclist: his body had adapted to the demands of cycling,
but not to the specific demands of running. In fact, the longest
distance he'd ever run prior to the Marathon was 16 miles.
Lance had developed strength, postural endurance, and flexibility in
the correct "cycling muscles," but it didn't transfer to running the
way his VO2 max did.

The muscles don't move because of cardiovascular demand. It's the reverse.
The cardio system is elevated because of muscular demand. We need to
program the body based on the movements it's going to perform, not based
on the cardiovascular system.

Basically, if that muscular system can't handle the stress of performing
thousands of repetitions (which is what you're doing, after all, when
running or cycling), then we have to condition that muscular system first.
And by doing so, we automatically improve cardiovascular conditioning.

The only reason there's any demand on the cardiovascular
system is because the muscular system places that demand: the muscles
require oxygen in order to continue to work. In fact, cardiovascular
exercise is impossible without moving the muscle first.

I've seen this across various sports. The cardio conditioning required
to run a 10K won't transfer to motocross or jujitsu.

Conclusion: If cardio training doesn't transfer well from one activity
to another, and it only 'kicks' in because of muscular demand, we should
program muscular activity first in order to create a cardiovascular response.

A-ha! #4: Strength is the single greatest equalizer in sport; therefore
strength training is the most important physical preparation quality

While in college we were in the midst of the aerobic training and endurance
activity focused period. Strength training studies were few and far between,
to be honest. And any strength training studies were rarely performed
on the more advanced programs we have available today. It was as if strength
development was ignored completely, as all "training programs" for sport
were based around various cardiovascular improvement programs.

While competing in various martial arts systems it struck me that all
combat sports exist in a weight category system. The idea was not to
prevent a fighter from facing a heavier fighter; it was based on the
idea that the heavier fighter was stronger and therefore more dangerous.

Also, men and women (even of the same weight) didn't face each other
in fighting sports. Incidentally, Lucia Rijker, the female boxer and
kickboxer, lost only one kickboxing match ever.

By knockout.

In the second round.

In a match against the male world champion at the same weight.

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She fights like a girl. A really strong girl.

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So matching athletes up had nothing to do with weight or sex; it had
to do with the idea that males were stronger than females, and
heavier athletes were stronger than lighter athletes.

And when I thought about it more, even looking at activities such as
marathon running, long distance cycling or figure skating, activities
where excess weight may be a disadvantage, males still tended
to perform better than females.

Conclusion: Being stronger is the single biggest advantage in most sports.
Obviously not the only advantage, but definitely a serious difference
maker. It was at this point (when I was still in college) that I started
to realize that improving strength had to be a primary objective in any
sports training program, despite what my professors were saying.

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"...and may the strongest man win."

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Ah-ha! #5: Hypertrophy is a systemic response and effect, not a localized
one.

All the talk about bodypart training versus full body routines, isolation
exercise versus compound exercise, etc. is based upon a fundamentally
flawed concept: that hypertrophy is somehow completely regional-specific.

Here's a study that examines this in a bit more detail:

Rogers et al

The Effect of Supplemental Isolated Weight-Training Exercises on
Upper-Arm Size and Upper-Body Strength

Human Performance Laboratory, Ball State University, Muncie,
IN.
NSCA Conference Abstract (2000)

The researchers compared the effects of a weight training program on
5RM strength and arm circumference and divided the subjects into two
groups. Group 1 performed four compound upper body exercises, while Group
2 used the same program but included biceps curls and triceps extensions.

The results showed that both groups significantly increased strength
and arm size

However, the addition of direct arm training to group two produced no
additional effect on strength or arm circumference after 10 weeks
of training.

The additional localized training did not result in anything that the
bigger compound exercises didn't provide.

Let me present a hypothetical example:

Twin brothers eating the same diet, working at the same job. Three times
a week for the next 52 weeks, both brothers undertake a progressive resistance-training
program, each adding weight, sets, or reps in a logical manner over the
whole year. One difference: the first brother does deadlifts only. The
second brother does arm curls only.

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Guess which twin did deadlifts?

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After a year, who do you think will have bigger arms? Obviously it will
be the first brother, who put more overall stress and load through his
system. Even though he didn't bend his elbow at all.

Charles Poliquin is fond of saying in order to gain an inch on your
arm, you'd have to gain 10 pounds of muscle mass. If that's true, it'll
happen a lot faster with an exercise like the deadlift than it will with
the dumbbell curl.

The bottom line is that muscle growth is a systemic issue, not
a localized one. If you put a stress on the forearm only, of course it
would grow, but that growth would be limited because the systemic load
is small. If you did deadlifts, on the other hand, the systemic load
would be so big, everything would grow.

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He'd be much better off doing deadlifts.

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And when we think about anabolics or anything that can enhance muscle
growth, they're injected or consumed into the system. You don't
inject steroids in equal amounts into every muscle group, just as you
don't rub Surge on your arms. Increased protein synthesis is a systemic
phenomenon.

Conclusion: If hypertrophy is what you want, develop training strategies
that target the entire system at once.

Summary

Learning is rarely linear: it tends to come in jumps. These were just
a few events that significantly advanced my understanding of the training
process, and shaped how I design programs.