Here’s a quick update of some of the things that have been going on at TLA. I could even call this the M3 post. M-cubed items are as follows:
Muscles
In Episode 183 of The Lifetime Athlete Podcast, PK & I took a deep dive into Understanding Your Muscle Physiology. We explored the science of muscle fiber types, the athletic and functional applications of muscle fibers, and ways that you can utilize to determine your own fiber type profile. Detailed information on how you can leverage your knowledge of your own muscles into better health and performance are available in my book, AnimalFIT.
Here are just a few highlights regarding your muscles:
- In the most general terms, all humans have a mix of slow-twitch (ST) and fast-twitch (FT) muscle fibers.
- Very basically, the ST fibers are gifted with regard to endurance activity and the FT cells trend more toward strength, power, and speed.
- You have a genetic blueprint for your approximate ratio of ST/FT fibers and this can help you to select the sport or exercise program that best fits your nature.
- But…you can influence your fiber ratio with training and, up to a probable genetic ceiling, you can change your fiber percentages and performance.
- Exercise and training programs can be made more effective when you use this knowledge.
Metabolics
I recently had the pleasure of visiting with Dr. Mike T. Nelson (he’s the third “M” in this update). Mike is an expert in metabolic flexibility (among other things) and is the creator of the Flex Diet Certification. In Episode 184 of the pod, Dr. Mike and I discussed some of the characteristics of metabolic flexibility.
You may find it interesting that:
- Humans are unique organisms who are designed to be efficient at utilizing both fats and carbs for fuel.
- No macro is evil, but they all have their place and context is king.
- Ketogenic diets and fasting can have a place in flexible dieting, although it should probably be a temporary one.
- The ability to use carbs efficiently, especially in the presence of high athletic output, and not suffer undesirable blood glucose responses, is the mark of the metabolically flexible athlete.
Mike T. Nelson, PhD
Dr. Mike also shared a few other pearls of wisdom:
- Physiologic flexibility (or robustness and durability) is another hallmark of the well-adapted human beast.
- The body incessantly strives to maintain narrow homeostatic limits with temperature, blood glucose, pH, and O2-CO2 balance.
- We can use training, environmental stressors, lifestyle, and other mechanisms to improve our physiologic flexibility…and thus become more Hard to Kill.
- Online coaching is revolutionizing both access to experts and results that folks like you and I are obtaining in 2021.
That’s it for this update. Stay tuned as I’ve got some great topics coming out such as running performance, the personality of program design, and movement pattern optimization. I hope you are setting up for a great summer!