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Bodybuilding lore has long preached that you should reduce carb intake in the evening. This is based on the theory that starches are more readily transformed to fat when eaten before bedtime. The reason goes something like this: The primary function of carbohydrates is to supply short-term energy for your daily activities. If carbs are not used immediately for fuel, they have two possible fates; they either are stored as glycogen in your liver and muscles or are indirectly (or in some cases directly) converted into fatty acids and stored in adipose tissue as body fat . Since activity levels usually are lowest during the evening hours, there is a diminished use of carbs for fuel. This would seem to set up an environment where the body is more inclined to convert carbs into fat. Sounds logical, right?

In the past, I had given the theory some credence based on the diurnal nature of insulin sensitivity. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, insulin sensitivity is highest in the morning (1, 2). Hypothetically, this means your body is better able to assimilate carbs at this time, thereby keeping blood sugar levels stable. As the day wears on, insulin sensitivity gradually diminishes and, by evening, it’s at its nadir. Hence, carbs eaten at night would evoke a greater insulin response, fueling the processes that facilitate fat storage and suppress fat burning.

In addition, there is some research showing that consuming starches at night has a carry over effect to the next day. Specifically, eating a carbohydrate-rich dinner was found to increase the insulin response of the following morning’s meal (3). So not only are insulin levels elevated after dinner, but they apparently remain that way through breakfast if carbs are consumed in the evening.

While all this makes theoretical sense, it doesn’t seem to translate into practice. There is scant evidence that reducing carb intake in the evening has any negative effect on body composition. In fact, a recent study (4) suggests that evening carb intake may even have a beneficial impact! The study evaluated 78 obese police officers randomly assigning them to either an experimental diet where carbs were eaten mostly at dinner or a control group where carbs were spread out over the day. The study lasted 6 months–a good length of time to determine nutrition-related changes. The results? The subjects who ate most of their carbs at night displayed a greater weight loss, reduced abdominal circumference, and lower body fat compared to controls. The carbs-at-night group also had better satiety (as determined by lower hunger scores) and showed greater improvements in a variety of other metabolic parameters. The authors went on to conclude that “a simple dietary manipulation of carbohydrate distribution appears to have additional benefits when compared to a conventional weight loss diet in individuals suffering from obesity.” Whether these results will apply to leaner individuals who want to diet down to very low body fat levels isn’t clear, but it at least raises the possibility of a potential benefit.

Take home message: Theory doesn’t necessarily translate into practice. Just because something seems to make intuitive sense doesn’t mean it will work in the real world. It’s yet another reason to make sure you stay abreast of current research and use it to shape your approach to fitness.

Stay Fit!

Brad

1) Lee A, et al, Diurnal variation in glucose tolerance. Cyclic suppression of insulin action and insulin secretion in normal-weight, but not obese, subjects. Diabetes. 1992 Jun;41(6):742-9.

2) Morgan LM, et al, Diurnal variations in peripheral insulin resistance and plasma non-esterified fatty acid concentrations: a possible link? Ann Clin Biochem. 1999 Jul;36 ( Pt 4):447-50.

3) Wolever TM , et al, Second-meal effect: low-glycemic-index foods eaten at dinner improve subsequent breakfast glycemic response. Am J Clin Nutr 1988 Oct;48(4):1041-7

4) Sofer S, Eliraz A, Kaplan S, Voet H, Fink G, Kima T, Madar Z. Greater Weight Loss and Hormonal Changes After 6 Months Diet With Carbohydrates Eaten Mostly at Dinner. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 Apr 7. [Epub ahead of print]

Mark Young is a up and coming fitness pro who is noted for his researched-based approach to fitness. I’ve known Mark Young for some time now, and have enjoyed discussing and debating the application of current research on a variety of fitness topics. Mark has recently released a new audio series that deals with how to read fitness research. It’s a great product, and I wanted to give him the opportunity to share his knowledge about some of the issues involved in interpreting and extrapolating the results of peer-reviewed studies to everyday life. I think you’ll find it an interesting read.

BJS: Thanks for consenting to this interview, Mark. Let’s begin by having you tell us a little about your background.

Mark Young:: Basically I am just a strength coach with a fascination (read: obsession) with research. I’ve spent the last 11 years training people to look great naked and my my writing has been featured on T-Nation.com, StrengthCoach.com, WannaBeBig.com, and in magazines like Muscle & Fitness, and Experience Life. I’ve also had the opportunity to do some research myself in one of the leading muscle protein metabolism labs in the world and hope to be defending my Masters in the fall.

BJS: You’ve recently come out with a new product called, “How to Read Fitness Research.” What motivated you to create this product?

Mark Young:: To be totally honest, I’ve been thinking about creating this product for a long time but a lot of my good friends have discouraged me from doing because they feel that it won’t be a big seller (it isn’t as sexy as losing 20 pounds of fat in 46 seconds) and it might offend some other big names in the fitness world (the ones selling the aforementioned products) as it will shine a great big spotlight on the BS that they’re selling.

Of course, I’ve never been one for sticking to the rules and, quite frankly, I really don’t care whether I make a great deal of money off of this product or not. As a result I decided to finally pull this product together to give fitness professionals and serious exercise enthusiasts the power to cut through the marketing hype and widespread misinformation to create the very best fat loss, muscle gain, and sports performance programs for themselves.

BJS: You mention that there is a lot of misinformation out there about fitness. Can you give some examples?

Mark Young:: I could probably go on about this all day, but I think one of the best examples is the widespread use of the Tabata protocol for fat loss. While they are certainly challenging, the studies from which these workouts were derived were not intended to measure fat loss at all! In fact, there is no evidence to date that the Tabata protocol is any better than any other exercise program for fat loss.

And up until recently, there was a very popular theory that eating more frequently was associated with a higher metabolic rate and that not eating would force the body to go into “starvation mode” which we now know is totally bogus.

There are probably hundreds of examples I could give, but the point is that they are EVERYWHERE and it is easy to get swept away in the excitement and follow the herd if you’re not careful.

BJS: Why shouldn’t a person simply rely on their favorite fitness expert for interpreting research on exercise and nutrition?

Mark Young:: Honestly, I’m all for listening to what other bright minds have to say. I even subscribe to a couple research review services myself. However, I think it is important to know that when you listen to someone else’s interpretation it is subject to their biases, experiences, and understanding of that particular area of research.

I often chat with others and later review the research for myself only to come up with a totally different conclusion (based on my own biases, of course). This process breeds more discussion and ultimately I’m more able to create better fat loss, muscle gain, and performance programs because of it.

BJS: Why can’t a person just read an abstract of a research paper and get the main points?

Mark Young:: Great question! The abstract is basically a summary of a whole paper and the results of the study. Or more correctly, the abstract is a summary of the paper and the author’s interpretation of the results of the study. As a result, you have no idea what methods the author used to complete the study and whether the results actually say what the author believes they do.

For example, an author could put people on two different diets and say in the abstract that the fat loss associated with one diet is greater than the other. If you didn’t read the methods within the paper you might have missed that the author only recorded changes in body weight to measure the effectiveness of the two diets. In this case, making a leap from weight loss to fat loss isn’t warranted as there was no way in the study to determine if the weight actually lost was muscle or fat. If you only read the abstract, you wouldn’t know any of this.

BJS: Why does it matter if a study is funded by a particular company?

Mark Young:: I have to admit that the lab that I had experience with did a really good job at dissociating itself from any funding agencies. However, when studies are funded by supplement companies, you have to watch for potential bias of the researchers as companies can sometimes lean on them to publish positive results. Of course, I’m not saying that this is always the case, but you certainly have to keep your eyes out for this. Authors have to declare their sources of funding at the end of the paper (which is yet another reason to read the whole thing).

I recently read a meta-analysis (a study of studies so to speak) of the research on glucosamine and it turned out that the bulk of the studies showing a positive effect on joint pain were those funded by companies selling a glucosamine product. Those not funded by a glucosamine selling company were less likely to show the product was useful.

So again…you have to have your eyes open. I think a lot of people are using glucosamine that might not otherwise be if these results were well known.

BJS: Does it make a difference what journal a study is published in?

Mark Young:: Well…If you see a study published in the Journal of Hyooge Musclez then you can pretty much disregard anything written there.

Journals are very different in their criteria for acceptance and the best articles will only make it into the most stringent journals. Journals like Nature and Science are probably two of the hardest to get a publication in. Some people use something called Impact Factor to determine the value of a journal which is something I don’t do, but you have to know the good from the bad.

In my product I’ve included a list of over 20 journals worth looking at. Just sayin’.

BJS: You have a couple of bonuses included with the product. Can you tell us a little about what they are?

Mark Young:: One of the bonuses is an interview with my Masters thesis advisor Dr. Stuart Phillips who talks extensively about anabolic signalling, protein synthesis, and hypertrophy. If you’re into understanding how research on muscle growth is done, you can’t do much better than interviewing someone from one of the best labs in the world for doing exactly that. I’ve done a ton of interviews in my day…and I think this is one of the best.

Another bonus I’ve included is a short video tour through the online research search tool called PubMed. I talk extensively about how to use search keywords, limits, and different properties of the site to find exactly what you want when it comes to training and nutrition research.

And finally, since podcasts are very popular these days (and because a lot of people love to listen while driving) I’ve included the MP3s of all of the seminars in the product so people can listen on the go.

BJS: Any final thoughts, Mark?

Mark Young:: Ultimately, I guess the take home point of this whole interview is that you can either put your faith in someone else’s opinion or form your own. With all of the misinformation out there (and personal biases of those reading the good information) I think that the best way to have power over your situation is to read the information yourself.

Thanks a ton for doing the interview Brad! I really appreciate it!

You can check out more about Mark at :Mark Young Training Systems
You can read more about Mark’s product at: How to Read Fitness Research

It’s well-known that if you place a muscle in a chronically shortened position, the muscle will adapt by shortening (i.e. losing sarcomeres in series) over time. This is one of the theories as to the genesis of lower back pain (LBP), where long periods of sitting cause the hip flexors to tighten, pulling the pelvis forward and thereby increasing strain on the lumbar region. While it should be noted that some researcher dispute whether this actually does lead to LBP, nevertheless the change in muscular structure does result in imbalances between core muscles, and that’s never a good thing.

With this in mind, a recent study caught my eye. Researchers from Manchester, UK (1) investigated whether wearing high heels cause the gastrocnemius (one of the calf muscles) and the Achilles tendon to shorten, thereby compromising lower body function. The study included 20 women, 11 of whom wore high heels on a regular basis (the other 9 served as a control group). As might be expected, results showed that the gastrocnemius muscles of the women who wore high heels were in fact shortened, and their Achilles tendons displayed increased stiffness. The researchers speculated that the combination of factors might reduce the active range of motion in the ankles of those who wear high heels, possibly explaining why these women experience discomfort when walking in flat shoes. Interestingly, however, there was no loss of force production at the ankle joint, as apparently the increased tendon stiffness compensated for the reduced force capacity of the muscle.

The take home message here is that chronically placing a muscle in a shortened position will have negative effects on that muscle. And since every muscle is counterbalanced by an antagonist muscle, this ultimately leads to imbalances in your body that may have detrimental effects. Bottom line: try to limit the amount of time you spend in heels; they may look good at the time, but their long-term effects might not be worth the short-term satisfaction.

Stay Fit!

Brad

1) Csapo R, Maganaris CN, Seynnes OR, Narici MV. On muscle, tendon and high heels. J Exp Biol. 2010 Aug 1;213(Pt 15):2582-8.

I’ve agreed to be a regular contributor to bodybuilding.com–the Internet’s largest bodybuilding site. My first article for the site critically analyzes the strategy to perform cardio on an empty stomach. It’s a less technical version of the research review I did for the NSCA Strength and Conditioning Journal. You can read the article at the link below:

The Myth of Cardio Before Breakfast–Debunked!

I’ll keep you posted on future articles…

Stay Fit!

Brad

Nick Tumminello is one of the most respected fitness professionals in the industry – and for good reason. In addition to owning a successful training company (a facility he calls “Performance University”), Nick also is a noted fitness blogger and author, and a coveted professional speaker. I’ve had the opportunity to speak with Nick at length and found him to be an extremely knowledgeable and astute pro, someone who shuns fads and hype in favor of sound training principles. In short, he gets it. As such, I’m happy to provide him with a forum to share some of his opinions and thoughts on exercise training. As I’m sure you’ll see, he’s very passionate about what he does and isn’t afraid to express his views – a combination that always makes for an interesting read.

BJS: First, I’d like to thank you for consenting to this interview. Let’s start by having you tell us a little about your background as a fitness professional.

Nick: Sure. Here are some of my professional career highlights:

• Current presenter for IDEA.

• Past presenter for AFPA and ECA

• Taught workshops at international fitness conferences in Canada, China and Iceland

• A regular contributor to several major magazines such as Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health and Women’s Health, Maximum Fitness, Muscle Mag, FIGHT, Train Hard – Fight Easy and Oxygen magazine.

• Contributing author to two New York Times best selling books – The Men’s Health Big Book of Exercises and The Women’s Health Big Book of Exercises.

• Referenced twice in the ACE Personal Trainer Manual, Forth Edition

• Produced 10 instructional DVDs

• Produced 5 Live DVD, CEC courses through Healthy Learning videos

• “Best of the best” trainer by Men’s health.

• Men’s health expert blogger

• Inventor of the Core Bar

• Hybrid Fitness expert coach for Team Jaco clothing

• Featured on the front page of Yahoo.com and YouTube.com

• I write a popular fitness training blog (directed toward fitness professionals) at Nicktumminello.com

BJS: How would you characterize your training philosophy?

Nick: At Performance U our philosophy is simple – Get results by using any means necessary! We use a hybrid style of training, which incorporates everything under the sun from bodybuilding to yoga to powerlifting to kettlebells to body weight training, etc: I have zero emotional attachment or personal bias toward any specific training style or system. Instead, I’m emotionally attached to getting my clients the result their after and keeping them having fun in the process!

BJS: In your view, what are some of the biggest mistakes trainers make when developing programs for their clients?

Nick: Several come to mind:

- Not using valuable training time as wisely as possible! My clients almost never stop moving during a workout. But, that doesn’t mean that everyone is doing “circuit training”. We give a primary (big rock) strength exercise. Then, during the rest period between sets of that strength exercise, we’ll throw in stuff like mobility drills, balance drills, rehab drill (if recommended by a PT), sports specific actions (like shadow boxing for a boxer), diverting exercise (lighter loaded movements using the opposing muscle involved in the primary strength exercise.

Here’s a great article I wrote about active recovery, Performance U style! – Big Gains with Active Recovery.

- Over use of unstable surfaces.There are certainly motor control benefits to using unstable base training. And there are benefits to ankle and knee rehab for using unstable base training. But, beyond that, standing on an unstable surface limits your ability to produce force and therefore overload your muscle enough to make any sort of gains in strength both physiologically (add muscle mass) and neurologically (increase motor unit recruitment and power).

Plus, there could be some serious dangers to using weight while on a stability ball. I covered these topics and the research in this blog post – Swiss Ball Training

At Performance U, we like to use unstable base training to overload the upper-body since the upper-body primarily functions in an open chain. So, we use moves like Swiss ball push-ups and various Swiss ball perturbation drills where the athlete tries to hold the ball still (prevent from moving) while we (the trainer) tap it in different directions. But, we rarely stand on an unstable base unless it’s part of a specific motor control re-training program that’s recommend by a PT.

- Not involving their client enough in the workout. We all like to be empowered. So, what we have found to be very valuable is to ask your client at the beginning of the workout “anything particular you’d like to do today?” You’ll certainly not throw off your entire game plan if you added in the one little thing that your client requested. Or, tell your client that the last 5 minutes of each session is up to them what they do. Now, that doesn’t mean sit and rest if they say so. But, if they say something like “let’s do some arm work,” then you pick what arm work they do. Not only will they love you for it, but involving your client in their workout shows you respect them, which is very empowering! Plus, those 5 minutes you give them are worth way more in the way it makes them feel then what you may feel that it takes away from your 60min game plan. They gave you 55min – You can certainly give them 5min – Especially if it make your client enjoy coming in more and feeling encouraged!

BJS: Do you implement periodization into your routines?

Nick: Yes! Put simply, periodization means “a plan”. That said, for athletes and physique athlete’s, we really emphasize a training plan that’s progressive and well documented. This plan also involves performance markers (PRs) quite often. But, for the average fitness client, we don’t emphasize this as much because this type of client usually doesn’t care about setting PRs and things like that. They just want to have fun, move their body and get a good seat! For some folks, we just keep them moving and give them a different workout each time. The whole “do programs, not workouts’ is great trainer talk. But, in the real world, some clients don’t want to “train using program”. Instead, they just want a fun workout that kicks their butt! Since personal trainers are in the customer service business, not the protocols business (like a strength coach or PT), we must deliver what the client asks for. Otherwise, we didn’t do our job! But, we must do it in such a way that we still have some sort of plan, we just don’t emphasize that to he client as much. Nor do we stay as strict with it as we would if it were an athlete.

Think about it like this: Trainers are like the custom car shop and Strength Coaches and PT’s are more like car mechanics. When you co into a car mechanic, you say “My car is not working right, please do whatever you need to do to fix it”. N other words, we don’t tell they mechanic what we want other than the desired outcome. But, when we go to the custom car shop, its very different. We tell them exactly what we want them to do to our car. We say “paint it bright red, put ground effects on it and a fancy front grill”. You better not return that car to the owner painted Blue with a spoiler and new bumper on it because you said “that’s what the car really needed”. I hope you understand my analogy.

BJS: What are your views on the claims by some fitness pros that spinal flexion exercises (i.e. crunches) are injurious to the spine and shouldn’t be used in core training?

Nick: I’ve read the research and I’ve heard the opinions extrapolated from specific individual’s personal interpretations of the research. My personal interpretations of the available information out there hasn’t convinced me to think that performing trunk flexion exercises (in good form) is dangerous, either in the short or long term. I’m not scared of a few mid-range trunk flexion exercises performed at normal doses, like any other exercise protocol. Doing 300+ crunches a day may be an issue. But, what movement wouldn’t be an issue if you did it 300+ per day, everyday?

At Performance U, we use dynamic trunk exercises to build trunk strength (i.e. controlled movement) along with static stability trunk exercises (to resist unwanted movement). That said, we don’t use crunches because I think it’s just too damn easy of an exercise. Almost anybody, even if you’ve never exercised before in your life, can usually bang out 50+ crunches before even getting remotely fatigued. So, the flexion exercises I choose to use are more difficult exercises. Therefore they’re performed at lower volumes as you would use to strengthen any other muscle group / movement pattern. The flexion movements I’ll use (with specific clients) are Swiss ball plate crunches, straight leg sit ups and Swiss ball pikes.

Speaking of Swiss Ball pikes – Here’s the toughest and coolest Fitness Ball Pike exercise variation you’ll ever try! The Single Best Abs Exercise. I’ve put lots of time into looking at the research on lumbar flexion and believe me, if I thought there was some concrete, conclusive evidence that it was “bad”, I’d cut it out yesterday! But, the only thing the research “proves” is that we still really don’t know a damn thing about back pain/degeneration. Everything else you hear out there on flexion is purely opinion. And, we all know what they say about opinions…

Most of our training at Performance U is geared toward reversing the sitting position. So, we don’t put a huge emphasis on trunk flexion movements. But, we still use them when and where we feel the client/athlete will benefit from it.

One major thing I’ve learned in that with the human body, there are no absolutes. There’s no black and white, just lots of grey area. With that tid-bit of common sense in mind, it’s important that we avoid speaking in absolutes when discussing exercise. I feel our industry will have much less confusion and much more camaraderie, when we get away from using cookie-cutter statements and over-generalizations.
It hit me the other day that “No flexion” is the new “TvA Draw in”! The current state of the fitness industry on trunk flexion exercises strangely reminds me of the industry’s TVA craze. Up until about 3yrs ago – if you weren’t “drawing in”, you were killing your back because you were leaving it “unstable” and without deep core muscle activation. We felt the TVA was magic solution to saving folks from back pain. We’ve now learned how off base we were and how much we overreacted and misinterpreted the TvA research. It will be interesting to see what we are saying about trunk flexion in 5 or 10yrs from now.

BJS: Are there any exercises you feel are better than others to optimize core development?

Nick: Any standing exercise, which forces you to use your torso to transfer force vertically, horizontally or diagonally from head to toe or vice versa! I’m a big fan of heavy loaded, unilateral exercises, where your torso has to work over-time in order to maintain optimal position while dealing with the off-set load.

At Performance U, we train the body from the center out. In other words, we prioritize standing exercises over seated or lying exercises. This way, we always make sure our torso can control the forces that our extremities can create.

BJS: The term “functional fitness” has become a real buzzword in the industry. What’s your view on the application of functional training?

Nick: Anything that helps you achieve your desired goal is functional in my book. There are really two ways to look at what’s “functional”:
One way is to look at the level of CNS demand. The higher the CNS demand, the more “functional” you could say the exercise is. An example of this would be a single leg squat, which is much more demanding on your CNS than a seated leg extension.
The other way to look at what’s “functional” is to compare how much carryover or how similar a specific exercise is to the given activity in which you’re training for. For example: A seated leg extension may be very functional for anyone looking to increase muscle size (hypertrophy) in thier quad muscles. But that same leg extension may not be considered highly functional for a rock climber. Here’s an interesting post I wrote called What Is Functional Training?

Here at Performance U, we use high CNS demand moves and lower CNS demand moves to ensure our clients software (CNS) is as up to date a possible. We also use exercises that look a lot like the activity we’re training for (this increases motor learning, bio-motor carryover), along with other exercises that don’t look anything like the given activity. This way we also ensure our clients hardware (their muscles) can do anything they ask of them through generalize strength work. Basically, all kinds of training have been shown to have benefits. So, we simply do it all!

BJS: Tell us a little about your new DVD called MAPS.

Nick: I can say with confidence that the MAPS DVD represents the most effective, cutting-edge training system ever designed for achieving increased joint mobility, pain-free movement and improved functional performance.

BJS: I assume MAPS is an acronym?

Nick: Yes. MAPS stands for Mobility Activation Paired Sets, and it was developed to increase the effectiveness of our mobility and muscle activation drills. Traditionally, coaches place mobility and muscle activation in two separate sections of their programs; but hundreds of clients and thousands of hours of practical experience have taught me that mobility and activation drills are both more effective when paired together as supersets.

BJS: What do you feel makes MAPS so effective?

Nick:After performing a mobility drill, its crucial to activate immediately after mobility work. Why? – because after doing mobility training, you’ll have gained new range of motion (DUH!) The problem is that you still haven’t taught your body how to control that new range; your central nervous system (CNS) hasn’t developed the motor control needed to keep that mobility and safely use it during functional movement. This is where the activation drill comes in: Performing muscle activation within the newly acquired range of motion allows you to build that necessary motor control and keep that new range, and your CNS can then “functionalize” your new-found mobility into active movement patterns.

BJS: Any final words?

Nick: If you’re a trainer/coach and you took the time out of your day to read this entire interview – You’re obviously passionate about your education and about being the best fitness professional you can be. Your clients are lucky to have you!

For more about Nick and his MAPS program check out Nicktumminello.com