by Mark Rippetoe
"[A] properly-designed strength training program constitutes a much better use of the same amount of time a “cardio” workout takes, and provides far more benefits to your quality of life. This is especially true if you’re older...Here’s why."
Read article
Is that the boards favorite mathematician in the picture?
Does anybody have a link to the BMJ meta-analysis Rip mentions? "A 2008 British Medical Journal meta-analysis showed that strength levels correlated better with longevity than any other parameter. "
Not "vs" - do both!
Priority depends on the individual, with most elderly people probably needing strength first or more of it.
Steady state endurance counters one of the very few negative consequences of strength training with high loads (in %1RM), arterial stiffness. And complements the interval nature of endurance that strength training comes with perfectly.
Hello Mark,
Thanks for another good article.
When strength training, does the Power Clean give the biggest bang for your buck out of the major whole body exercises in terms of cardio?
Russell
Source?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marenghi
I don't know.Quote:
Originally Posted by Russbowen
While we're at it, can we please see the reference that the "arterial stiffness" induced by weight lifting has ever been even correlated (much less causally linked) to any clinically relevant cardiovascular outcome (morbidity, mortality, organ dysfunction, cardiocerebrovascular events), in any population, anywhere, ever?
Cuz that would be super-interesting.
Please send that data. We'll wait.
Dear Mr. Sullivan,Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathon Sullivan
Slightly off piste with your comment above ... I bought a rowing machine on the weekend so that I can use it for conditioning as mentioned in your book and HIIT for the aging adult.
The rower, when it arrives, will have several programs including intervals. As a 53 year old in SS LP, it would be good if you could elaborate on what the HIIT work should entail to ensure proper conditioning and without disturbing the strength gains.
Thanks,
Russell
Anyone who thinks strength training has no value in terms of cardiovascular effects can check the last few months of my log entries. I've been wearing my Polar heart rate monitor again and even with 3-5 minute rest intervals between sets, the results are plain to see.
Summary of yesterday's lifting session.
Quote:
This session ran 77 minutes burning 729 calories. Average pulse was 121 bpm @ 78% of MHR with a peak of 136 bpm @ 88% of MHR.
No one's ever argued that you should strength train and then sit still. Except I've heard that Paul Anderson adapted this from Winston Churchill:Quote:
Originally Posted by Marenghi
Never run when you can walk.
Never walk when you can stand.
Never stand when you can sit.
Never sit when you can lay down.
Never lay down when you can sleep.
But leaving aside Anderson's extreme example, it's hard to neglect "endurance" since low level activity is the default state. Those who are even moderately active aren't undeveloped in this capacity with regard to health or performance.
There is apparently (I can't quite comprehend the levels of ass-siting that are reported. That is, I'm now quite sure how one can manage to be so still without a spinal cord injury) a large group of "sedentary" people who manage to barely move at all, ever, for any reason. Strength training addresses both their atrophy and inactivity to a greater degree than endurance work. Adding an active lifestyle or even additional conditioning (like the HIIT we favor) or traditional endurance work is easier to do and more effective once a bit of strength (and the endurance/cardio capacity that comes with it) has been developed.
@Mark and Jonathon:
For example,
+ art. stiffness by RT:
Aerobic, resistance and combined exercise training on arterial stiffness in normotensive and hypertensive adults: A review. - PubMed - NCBI
Relationship between muscle sympathetic nerve activity and aortic wave reflection characteristics in aerobic- and resistance-trained subjects. - PubMed - NCBI cross-sect
Arterial Stiffness and Autonomic Modulation After Free-Weight Resistance Exercises in Resistance Trained Individuals. - PubMed - NCBI short-term longit.
no change:
The effects of resistance exercise training on arterial stiffness in metabolic syndrome. - PubMed - NCBI
RT+ aerobic almost as beneficial as AT alone in AS:
Effect of combined aerobic and resistance training versus aerobic training on arterial stiffness. - PubMed - NCBI
Note there is also mixed evidence with a few studies reporting less arterial stiffness (AS) with RT. However, that mostly seems to be confounded with weight loss, aerobic exercise, and the kind of RT training done in those studies. As higher intensity RT (often defined as >75 or 80%1RM) increased AS whereas lower intensity RT may decrease it. Aerobic, resistance and combined exercise training on arterial stiffness in normotensive and hypertensive adults: A review. - PubMed - NCBI
The positive effects of aerobic exercise on AS are well-established and dont need to be demonstrated.
The effects of AS on outcome markers of health are also pretty clear. I am not aware of a particular longit. RTC of strength trainees, arterial stiffness and outcomes of health. For obvious reasons I dont think there will be any, either. That leaves us with the effects of RT on AS and the effects of AS on health outcomes in general. I dont see much difference in the latter relationship in a RT vs an aerobic trained, other sports trained or sedentary any other population. Save, of course, that other health factors always are at play when finally determining health outcomes, and sure youre better off being not obese and active. So RT may be favorable on AS when in the course of it you become less obese - but thats set apart from the discussion on RT or aerobic exercise on AE itself.
From what I understand its partly the heightened activity of the Sympathetic nervous system triggered by repeated RT (less n. vagus activity) that is responsible for chronic increases in arterial stiffness. One study that investigated cycled vs continued RT suggests that mechanism: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25734911 But certainly a cardiologist can explain that better than I can.
--------------------------------
@ stef: Yeah, the good ole man with the cigar. :)
Obviously, there is too little aerobic exercise for some people. Quite what you meant with "people who are moderately active" - the seem to be becoming less and less. I dont think we should be overly surprised about that when a good portion of the population in industrialized countries get up in the morning, get in the car, drive to work, sit there for 8hrs+, drive home, sit in front of the computer/TV for a total of 7hrs sleeping, 16.5hrs sitting and at most 30 out of 1440 minutes per day walking (that I even agree to count as very low intensity aerobic exercise for lack of another term :) ).
You also try bring up the "time constraint" argument. I understand that. "Time is of the essence" for everone nowadays. Well, you cant have everything in no time. If you want to reap the exclusive fruits of RT, you have to do strength training. You cant get the same effects with playing soccer. If you want to have aerobic exercise effects, you have to train that. Same with anaerobic exercise. These effects dont fight each other (save interference effects at higher levels), there is no "better". Plane is no better than car or vice versa. Different behavior have different effects, different advantages and disadvantages. The good thing is that you can do and reap of all these different activities (until high levels of specialization were not talking about when talking about health anyway).
Thats why I strongly think there is a "both and", not "either-or". Yes I know, we all love to fall in this dichotomy of reasons probably better explained by boring psychologists or sociologists. People did in the 80s when aerobic-only was the hype, they did with low-fat diets. No the pendulum has of course swung in the other direction, and even researchers are not unimpressed by fashions. [Of course I have to recommend (if you dont already know him) the godfather of criticizing and educating his own profession here, John Ioannidis. Hes done some very interesting work on analyzing research trends.] One was the savior, the other the devil. The mild form of it: "better vs worse", "high vs low efficiency".
The evidence still supports "both and". Dont (they) tell me you/they dont have time for it because LISS/aerobic exercise can be easliy incorporated in a lot of people´s daily life. Just say "I dont like doing X" - I can understand that. I could write exactly the same paragraphs in a runner´s forum where angry aerobic exercise enthusiasts demand absolute proof that HIIT or RT have certain advantages.
So lets try to avoid falsely rationalizing our personal preferences and dislikes for different activities, methods or sports. Or as Churchill put it: "I am trying to cut down on alcohol. I have knocked off brandy and take Cointreau instead." :)
You managed to miss the point again, Marenghi, as well as fantasize quite a bit about my activities and likes.
Strength is the foundation. It covers the spectrum. Additional aerobic training is secondary. Again, the point isn't to do only strength, but to prioritize strength in untrained and abnormal populations.
Yeah, that's exactly the response I thought I'd get.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marenghi
What part of this request did you completely, utterly, and obtusely fail to understand?
Or did you think you could just link to a few random sciency-sounding abstracts utterly lacking in any real-world clinical relevance and we'd all be so impressed with you, and hang our heads in shame and pull our forelocks and change our evil ways?Quote:
While we're at it, can we please see the reference that the "arterial stiffness" induced by weight lifting has ever been even correlated (much less causally linked) to any clinically relevant cardiovascular outcome (morbidity, mortality, organ dysfunction, cardiocerebrovascular events), in any population, anywhere, ever?
I used to think Rip was being too hard on you. As usual, he was right on the money.
Ha! :) First, your emotional furor seems to cloud your reading apprehension. Read again:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathon Sullivan
Second, you also seem to have unrealistic or naive illusions about what evidence has to look like or is available when youre against a stance. Do you really think there is or will be a RTC, longitudinal or or even CS data in strength trainees and their long term arterial stiffness outcomes in health? Given the likelihood of most cardio-vascular events correlating with age, you would need to have data to explore a cohort of 70yr old strength trainees that have trained for years. You also probably - as do other critics like you - wish to have a study with strength trainees that train following your expectations (in this case, SS-programming style-characteristics - the other critic wishes to see myoreps, the third aks for high repitition machine-based rest-pause block periodization schemes). How likely do you think such a study will ever happen, how probable would be funding?Quote:
"[...] I am not aware of a particular longit. RTC of strength trainees, arterial stiffness and outcomes of health. For obvious reasons I dont think there will be any, either. That leaves us with the effects of RT on AS and the effects of AS on health outcomes in general. I dont see much difference in the latter relationship in a RT vs an aerobic trained, other sports trained or sedentary any other population. Save, of course, that other health factors always are at play when finally determining health outcomes, and sure youre better off being not obese and active. So RT may be favorable on AS when in the course of it you become less obese - but thats set apart from the discussion on RT or aerobic exercise on AE itself.
From what I understand its partly the heightened activity of the Sympathetic nervous system triggered by repeated RT (less n. vagus activity) that is responsible for chronic increases in arterial stiffness. One study that investigated cycled vs continued RT suggests that mechanism: Repeated cessation and resumption of resistance training attenuates increases in arterial stiffness. - PubMed - NCBI But certainly a cardiologist can explain that better than I can."
Of course, people like you wont have those expectations at scientific evidence, when theyre in favour of a topic: Then "experience" - or just "common sense" - will suffice... :)
So I dont know if you use this common fallacies of discarding scientific evidence on purpose or automatically. In the latter case, you should just become aware of those discrepancies and honestly ask yourself if and when you would change your mind on a topic. "Cognitive dissonance" would be a helpful entry to learn about.
If you didnt know these studies or others, it shows you havent even researched a topic you nevertheless have strong unfounded opinions on. Lest have of course any scientific evidence in favour of your point that suffices the same expectations on evidence.
For me, there is a very probable cause, mechanism and evidence that
a) high load (in %1RM) RT causes increases of arterial stiffness
b) arterial stiffness has shown to have negative health outcomes in the general population and there is no evidence that in strength trainees, chronic arterial stiffness would be neurtral or even favorable
c) aerobic training can effectively counter this undesirable effect.
Readers can verify or research the (and further) evidence themselves and form an opinion of their own.
It works just fine in his ExFizz classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathon Sullivan
Fixed that for you. And just to be clear, this is an attitude that has led to an untold amount of fuckery, at least in medicine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marenghi
Wow. Gosh. Hadn't thought of that. But of course, we do have this same level of data in aerobic trainees, strongly correlated with their silky-smooth levels of arterial compliance, to show how much better off they are.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marenghi
Right?
The data we do have, limited as it is, shows that such people do better, not worse, with regard to health, mortality, and cardiovascular events.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marenghi
I don't know, but in the long run, I think it's more likely than you might suspect. But for now, of course, this means there's also no data to support your contentions that RT-induced "arterial stiffness" has any long-term negative health consequences in populations. And you seem to think you can somehow make this gaping hole in your rhetorical trollery our problem, by asserting that the burden is on US to compensate for this "arterial stiffness" epiphenomenon. An epiphenomenon which, I repeat, has NEVER BEEN SHOWN TO BE EVEN CORRELATED WITH MEANINGFUL NEGATIVE OUTCOMES IN ANY TRAINING POPULATION, or even a clinically meaningful increase chronic blood pressure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marenghi
The best argument that you can conjure is "we see arterial stiffness in some disease states, therefore arterial stiffness is always bad." Well, we see cardiac hypertrophy and bradycardia in some disease states, too--and also in well-trained, perfectly healthy subjects. We see disc protrusion in people with neurosurgical presentations....and in perfectly healthy people. We see PVCs as a premorbid condition in people having an acute cardiac event...and in perfectly healthy people having a cup of coffee. We see increased red cell mass in polycythemia...and also in pregnancy and in endurance athletes. We see dandruff in HIV disease...and also in people with...dandruff.
And so on. You see, the interpretation and significance of any particular biomarker depends heavily on context, and many can be markers for both health or disease, depending on that context. (Have you ever considered that the slight decreases in arterial compliance reported in the literature might be a salutary adaptation to resistance training, even though it's unhealthy in sedentary or diseased populations?)
So....the best you can do is, shall we say, unconvincing.
And all of this proceeds from your straw-man assumption that we are actually arguing against conditioning exercise, when in fact the opposite is true.
In short, you're just a moderately eloquent troll with some sort of axe to grind. Not for the first time, we asked you to back up your scribblings, and you came up with a bunch of irrelevant citations and a lot of empty rhetoric. I won't waste any more time on you.
Which, along with some aerobic hand waving, probably helps to diminish the cognitive stiffness (rigor) of his students.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe
Note: I was a paper-pusher and not a researcher so my knowledge of the science and terms will be rather pedestrian.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathon Sullivan
About 10 years ago I was working for a company that was researching ways of treating blood pressure without medication, particularly the way isometric contractions effect BP. The research indicated that an isometric hold with the hands (with a very hard squeeze) over a period of just two minutes (that is "squeeze" sessions and rest periods) created a net long-term effect of lowering BP. It appeared that the changes to blood pressure were due, in part, to an increase of flexibility/elasticity in the blood vessels. The research saw similar, though not as dramatic, results with a group that performed the leg press. None of the research was conclusive and none of it was conducted on populations that weight train (mostly sedentary on protocol vs. populations that performed traditional cardio exercises). However, it would seem, by the initial research we had access too, that the body responds to a stimulus, like weight training, by ordinarily adapting to the strain event and makes or allows those vessels to accommodate the stress.
I don't have access to the research right now, but I could find it if I dig around a bit. All the research was done on statistically significant populations, but from what I understand that only needs to be 15 or 20 people. However, last I heard this company was funding a major study at a university hospital system so the protocol could be tested on a major population over a longer period of time. I don't want to mention the name of the company, because, well, I can't.
Again, I don't have the medical background necessary to interpret these studies, but I gleaned a lot from the actual doctors and other researchers. Some of the results might have been interpreted more favorably towards the protocol and device they were developing ('cause hey, they had to get a product to market), but it still seems that the conventional wisdom regarding "arterial stiffness" had no basis in reality.
And had they used enough weight on the leg press, the isometric grip-squeeze effect would have been quite significant. But, of course, they'd have no way of knowing that.Quote:
Originally Posted by slhuckstead
If I remember correctly the leg press was something like 20% less than body weight for high reps and multiple sets. The research was conducted almost exclusively by exercise physiologists on test subjects that were pre-hypertensive. It also helps the former company for which I worked sell 600.00 dynamometers with a timing protocol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe
I'm not saying the research was logical or conducted optimally, but merely that the net-effect of isometric contractions over a period of time has a greater effect of lowering blood pressure than cardio. I would assume that weight training would involve similar if not identical isometric contractions, as well as getting your whole body stronger and increasing your metabolic efficiency (which I now remember was a comment one of the doctors on the study once said to me). All that is to say I'd rather lift and get strong, then squeeze a dynamometer for 120 seconds or run 5 to 10 miles a day.
It would be interesting, I guess, to see the mean BP of, lets say WFAC or Horn Strenght vs. your local YMCA or similarly trained population. That's if you think current BP guidlines are rational.
I'm a fatty (close to 300 lbs) and I know my BP is lower now, after two years of weight training at 39 years of age, then when I was in my 20's and on the cardio train--running 40 miles per week and riding my bike at around 120 miles per week and weighing in at 150.
Though not the specific paper you are referring to, this is one that Jordan and I came across showing similar effects to what you describe. Increased stiffness w/ RT versus aerobic exercise, but RT increased vasodilatory capacity to a greater extent than aerobic exercise. Of course, this is still not looking at important clinical endpoints.Quote:
Originally Posted by slhuckstead
https://www.nature.com/jhh/journal/v...jhh200836a.pdf
Quote:
... both AE and RE training can
decrease mean arterial pressure, without a concomitant
mean weight loss in either group. RE training,
however, produces increased central and peripheral
arterial stiffness in a population with pre- and stage-
1 essential hypertension, whereas AE training decreased
arterial stiffness, yet both forms of training
produced similar changes in BP. Although both
training modes produced an increase in RH, resistance
training produced greater increases in vasodilatory
capacity than aerobic training. This suggests
that although increases in arterial stiffness occur
with RE, it seems there is a compensatory increase in
flow in the microvasculature that may offset the
increases in arterial stiffness. Further, the increase in
vasodilatory capacity following short-term resistance
training may not be a compensatory response to
decreased central arterial distensibility but a local
microvascular phenomenon.
Yeah, here's something similar: Effect of unilateral resistance training on arterial compliance in elderly men. - PubMed - NCBIQuote:
Originally Posted by Austin Baraki
We saw localized vasodilation in trained limbs using the IHG therapy I mentioned before, but an overall effect was a reduction in blood pressure. My question is (probably poorly framed) so if we see no change or increase in stiffness but improvement in vasodilation, endothelial function, and increased peripheral vascular function--i.e. return to healthy levels of BP and/or normal biological markers in the endothelium--what's then is the problem? Couldn't arterial stiffness simply be a systemic response to the increased dynamic pressure induced during RT? An adaptation necessary to accommodate the stress?
Lastly, in know the studies below are results of isometric contractions for a hand-grip protocol, but I would imagine that there is significant isometric work being done during heavy RT with barbells.
Here are some of the articles (a few after I quit working for this company):
Isometric handgrip training improves local flow-mediated dilation in medicated hypertensives. - PubMed - NCBI
Effects of isometric handgrip training among people medicated for hypertension: a multilevel analysis. - PubMed - NCBI
Acute vascular responses to isometric handgrip exercise and effects of training in persons medicated for hypertension. - PubMed - NCBI
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22260503
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24174307
(This one is just here for laughs): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17999012
And these as interest:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15849230
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15677730
http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/59/4/e35
Why didn't I think of that? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by slhuckstead
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jonathon Sullivan
Reviving this thread since the new "study" I've just read the abstract of concludes that "endurance" training appears to be better for metabolic, and consequently cardiovascular, health, than lifting heavy weights. I'd be interested to see the experts on this forum comment upon (and maybe identify the weaknesses of) this study:
Associations of Aerobic Fitness and Maximal Muscular Strength With Metabolites in Young Men | Cardiology | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network
Full disclosure, it was the New York Times that drew my attention to the study.
How do they define and measure 'muscular strength'?Quote:
Originally Posted by Amy-in-PHX
"The maximal isometric leg extension was measured using a dynamometer, as a test of maximal strength.29 The repeatability has been reported to be high in maximal isometric strength tests (r, 0.98; coefficient of variation, 4.1%).30 Additional details are presented in eAppendix 1 in the Supplement."Quote:
Originally Posted by RJPinAZ
BTW, it also seems likely that there would be significant overlap between people with high muscular strength and people with high aerobic fitness. I'm not good enough at reading this kind of study to tell how they tried to separate out these factors, but their conclusion seems to be that aerobic fitness is "better," somehow, at optimizing the various markers in blood that are believed to impact cardiovascular health.
(I didn't read the study)Quote:
Originally Posted by Amy-in-PHX
That part I high-lighted above almost reads "cardio training is better for cardio". Which is kind of a no brainer.
I hope this study didn't cost someone a lot of money to run.
This study reflects much of what is wrong with medical science in general, and exercise and nutritional science to an even greater degree. The majority of the motivation to move a paper to publication comes from two groups:Quote:
Originally Posted by Amy-in-PHX
1. Career research scientists with faculty appointments. They need to publish or perish, to get the next grant, make tenure, or otherwise advance or survive in the cutthroat world of academia. 2. A mixture of post-docs, PHD students, undergrad students padding their resumes, for graduate school, medical students padding their resumes for residency application, resident physicians meeting their institutional requirement to publish before graduation, and resident physicians padding their resumes for fellowship application and academic careers. Note that the longest time horizon most of the first group can tolerate is 7 years, with most needing to get something accepted for publication much sooner than that. The second group has a maximal time frame of about 4 years, most more like 1-2 years.
Contrast this to the time needed to collect meaningful cardiac outcomes for lifestyle interventions, which in a college age population is 4-7 decades, or approximately 20 times longer than the average researcher can afford to wait for definitive results. The collision of these two realities results in health science by proxy: "since we cannot actually measure cardiac outcomes in healthy populations and also continue to eat/pay the mortgage/save for retirement/reach the next stage in our chosen careers, we will instead measure lab values in healthy populations which are known to correlate with cardiac disease in sick populations". The problem is that no one knows what those values mean in healthy populations. Fortunately all serious research departments have a statistician, so the paper can be filled with p-values and r-squared coefficients showing that the finding is significant.
There are minor quibbles I could raise with confounding variables which were not uniform between groups. but the more important issue is that the study did not actually measure anything of proven clinical significance in the study population.
Rip and Sully (and others) -
Rip’s excellent 2017 article linked at the beginning of this conversation includes the phrase “assuming you are not a heart patient”.
My question is, if I AM a 51 yo heart patient (my cardiac calcium test showed plaque; when unmediated my blood pressure is roughly 160/110; family cardiac history; etc) would your recommendations change?
FWIW, I lift 3x/week, do cardio 2-3x/week, and see my cardiologist 2x/year. 5’9”, 195 lbs. I don’t much enjoy cardio but I’ll do as much as necessary to fend off death.
Thanks in advance.
Glad this has come up. I used my HRM as a gauge to caloric burn each training session. After all, a heart beat is a heartbeat and a minute is a minute. But, I was disabused of this notion by one of the Gurus at the StrengthCon I in April 2018. Guru said there are too many 'intervals' in a weight training session for the HRM to provide an accurate output number.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark E. Hurling
Dr. Sullivan, and Gurus, please comment. This is important stuff.
Ken
