Strength Training

Hi,

This week I want to get back on to my common thread about vibration training and strength. I want to talk a little about strength training from a nerve and brain perspective.

There is a lot of debate about what the best strength training programmes are such as high weight/low rep vs lower weight/high rep. It really depends upon what you are training for. To develop strength heavy weights have to be lifted at least some of the time. Your muscles now are capable of developing a lot more force than your brain and nerves will allow you to use. To increase your strength first you have to retrain the nerves, which you can only do by lifting almost all you can a small number of times.

If you lift lower weights more times then your nerves will adapt to do that very well, but it won't necessarily lead to large increases in strength. The key is training the nervous system the way you want it to work. But if you want to increase muscle mass then higher reps are advisable.

Some people may start worrying about injuries, but most injuries happen when the body is fatigued, high weight/low rep doesn't fatigue the body and concentration should be better. I think the risk of inury is less with higher weight training. The key to strength, like with vibration training is increasing the quality of the stimulus, and reduce the quantity.

This could be why vibration is so effective, the neural stimulus is much higher so the nervous system adapts giving you access to your unused strength.

Now combne this with youbreathe use to increase growth hormone and you should be on to a winner. Your training should also leave you energised, not exhausted, and should be done more often.

OK, I have been promising you a strength training manual for your youbreathe device, please click on the link below to download it. It is important that if you have high blood pressure or any cardio-respiratory disease to check with your doctor to make sure this is a safe form of training for you.

Strength Manual

See you next time.

Fit-flop

Hi,

Thought I would write about something different this week. Something called Fit-flop is gaining massive media attention and has even been shown on the Oprah Winfrey show. This is quite a good idea. It is the brainchild of Dr Dave Cook and Darren James both of London South Bank University.

Their idea was to take a flip-flop and make it ever so slightly unstable during the mid-phase of walking i.e. after the foot has made contact with the floor and before the foot pushes off floor for the next step.

The results are great, it really does make the legs work harder during walking and will also increase resistance to injury, similar to walking and running barefoot (actually wearing sports shoes is not very good for our health!).

I have spoken to Dave and Darren about these things and they are a really inspirational pair with lots more fantastic ideas for footwear and training devices.

I hope you enjoyed the variety to this weeks blog.

See you next time.

Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia cont.

Hi again,

This week I would like to show you some results we have been getting in our labs, specifically relating to respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Remember RSA is the variation in heart rate during inspiration and expiration, and shows the effect of breathing on cardiovascular control. Actually what RSA is showing is the level of parasympathetic control over the cardiovascular system. Sympathetic control should only be active in times of stress such as fight or flight, but because of the way we live our lives and more importantly because of the way we breathe, we can stay in a state of high stress demonstrated by low RSA.

I have been working in the lab with Dr Dave Green from Kings College London and we have been looking into the effects of youbreathe use on the cardiovascular system. If you look at the graphs below, the top one shows a fit guy, but his RSA is low (see there is no regular pattern in the bottom line relative to the top line).

Now compare that to the trace below. This guy is not as fit, but trains regularly with youbreathe, and you can see the high regularity between the two lines.

This is a very important finding and a sign of the long term benefits of youbreathe use on cardiovascular health.

We are continuing with this research which we will publish in due course. Please read my previous posts for a full description of the kinds of physical symptoms we are talking about today.

See you all next time.

Flexi-bar

Hi,

This week I want to talk a little bit about another vibration related training modality - Flexi-bar. I actually know the distributors of this product and the guy from all the videos, Steve Schiemer. Before we get on to the product, I would like to say that Steve is a really great guy and knows what he is talking about.


Flexi-bar is an interesting device and the theory behind it is sound. I tried one for a few weeks and found it to be challenging but also interesting. Maybe this is where it's real benefit lies, making training varied and fun. Some of my colleagues at London South Bank University, Drs Jo Bowtell and Katya Mileva did some testing and found that there were differences in muscle recruitment with Flexi-bar but the investigations were not deep enough to allow real conclusions to be drawn. It looked like Flexi-bar was doing something.

I haven't seen the athletic version yet, but I think for core stability training it could be an excellent addition to a training programme. I know Wayne Rooney's girlfriend Coleen McLoughlin has been seen using one plus I know a few sports teams use them especially in Germany.

Hope this helps

Best wishes

youbreathe vibration breathing training and Taekwondo

Hi,

This week I want to report on some youbreathe users who have had some great success. Jaguar Taekwondo are using youbreathe as part of their training regimes and as a recovery tool during competition. They report have faster recovery profiles and greater endurance during fights.

We decided to go along and watch their latest competition which was held at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre on Sunday 8th July. They had 7 fighters competing in total and they finished with 2 golds, 1 silver and 3 bronzes, which could have been higher if not for injury.

I always feel immensely proud when I see youbreathe users doing well. I am not saying that their success is down to youbreathe but that youbreathe has played even a small part in their success. This is immensely gratifying for me.

Watching these athletes was also incredible. Then speed, stamina and skill they demonstrated was exceptional. They are coached by Dr Dave Cook who is a biomechanist, and he has done a great job with his athletes.

Cystic Fibrosis

Tomorrow I have a meeting with a cystic fibrosis clinician who wants to use youbreathe for his patients. We have known for a long time now that as well as breathing improvements, we can also utilise youbreathe for clearing mucus in cystic fibrosis, asthma, cancer plus other diseases. This is why we created youbreathe, to solve problems like this, and I hope youbreathe can be available to everyone who needs it. After all youbreathe is for everyone who breathes!

Human Growth Hormone continued

Hi,

I am going to continue to talk a little more about human growth hormone responses, but this week I want to talk a little more about breathing. When we designed youbreathe we did so with neuromuscular and hormonal responses in mind. We knew that growth hormone responded very strongly to vibration with exercise, and we knew there were effects of breathing on growth hormone responses. We always had in mind to see if youbreathe would cause growth hormone responses as the theory predicted.

We have some prelim results and it certainly looks promising. We have a couple of elite sprinters and some strength and conditioning coaches trying programmes out with youbreathe use for strength, sprint and power training. All feedback so far has been very positive.

We have several programmes developed so far but we need to continue the research to see which gives the best responses. In the next couple of weeks I will provide here a beta version for you to try in your own training regime. It makes training harder but the potential benefits will be well worth it.

We hope to be able to apply this to many clinical situations were atrophy is a problem and also maybe to obesity.

See you next time

Human Growth Hormone

Hi,

I am going to get back onto my normal thread this week by talking more generally about vibration training. I would like to talk about hormonal responses to vibration training, specifically human growth hormone. Generally there are very conflicting responses to vibration training largely because of the variation in the methods used and protocols followed. But in growth hormone responses the situation seems a lot more clear. Vibration definitely affects growth hormone responses! There still does seem to be some variability in these responses depending upon the muscle chosen to be vibrated, some muscles such as the soleus (which is a more slow type muscle) can cause a depression in growth hormone release.

One point which does seem to clarify this whole situation is that vibration combined with strength training stimulates human growth hormone release more than either vibration or strength training alone. For a long time now I have never thought of vibration training as a replacement for conventional training, but as an adjunct to other forms of training. This info about human growth hormone release seems to support that view, which is bad news for the lazy amongst us.

Also in the treatment of many clinical conditions treatment of artificial growth hormone is prescribed, with signficant side effects, but encouraging the body to produce it's own growth hormone seems a much more sensible and safe idea.

These are the reasons we developed out vibration training solutions such as youbreathe and vibrex which superimpose the vibrations on to traditional exercise. And the results we get are excellent.

OK, I promised you a download for training yourself to perform abdominal breathing, and it is done and tested now.

Please click this link for the training manual.

http://www.youbreathe.com/general/pdf/abdominal%20breathing%20user%20manual.pdf

Thanks