Broscience Friday Digest: New Podcast Episode, Mitochondria, Preacher Curls
Whats up friends,
Today is Friday.
1. Last Call for the Mega Program Package Get all of my legacy programs for one absurdly low price
2. Mitochondrial Testing is next on the docket
After getting the fitness gene testing, the next testing I’ll be doing will Mitochondrial Function. Your mitochondria have their own entirely separate DNA, which you inherit from your MOTHER. The healthier and fitter your mother, the better.
Assessing the function of mitochondria was historically very challenging, but ONE exceptional scientist has pioneered mitochondrial testing, Chris Masterjohn.
Chris has become a good friend of mine (he lives in Austin), and will be a forthcoming guest on the podcast.
He has developed a method of testing the individual complexes in the mitochondria, Complexes 1-5, scoring them based on their efficiency, and then metabolic bottlenecks to be addressed, identifying key cofactors that could be supplemented, and nutritional and lifestyle changes that can be made.
The result will take a few weeks to receive, I’ll do a deep dive on them when they arrive.
3. Next Episode of Broscience Podcast with “Biohacker”
In this episode with Biohacker we dive into his amazing journey of overcoming his chronic health issiues, competitive BJJ, developing an unconquerable mindset after a string of losses, and the possibilities of what can be accomplished through self study and experimentation to improve function and quality of life.
Listen Here
4. Why Your “Optimal” Zone 2 Training Might Be Holding You Back
Zone 2 cardio has exploded in popularity the past few years. The premise is simple, Zone is low intensity, your heart rate is mildly elevated, and you sweat a little bit. You can do an infinite amount of zone 2 essentially, and its good for you.
HOWEVER, theres been a nagging question over zone is the best use of TIME, given its a low level stimulus.
Michael Easter posed this exact question to an exercise physiologist recently who specializes in cardiovascular research, and his meta analysis was a needle pop to the Zone 2 bubble
TL;DR-Zone 2 is NOT a good use of time if you have limited time to train
Zone 2 is a practice that is popular in endurance training world because endurance athletes can only devote so many hours per week to higher intensity training.
But for “average joes” doing less than 2.5 total hours of exercise per week (of ANY kind), it simply makes no sense to spend time on it. All the health benefits of cardio, such as mitochondrial adaptation, fat oxidaton, capillary formation, you get MORE from higher intensities. If youre doing cardio for less than 3 hours a week, keep the intensity higher, Zone 3+, and make sure one of the workouts is a dedicated HIIT workout.
4. Preacher Curls
This was one of those fun X conversations that took on a life of its own The preacher curl was popularized by the first Mr. Olympia Larry Scott back in the 1960s, and he was famous for his bicep development, and credited this exercise as a staple in training. It was often called the Scott Curl not so long ago. Regardless of the exericse, he had fantastic bicep genetics. The basic premise of a preacher is anchoring the arm (which is great) and getting the arm into this position in front of the shoulder. This naturally puts more stress on the bicep muscle, and also the bicep tendon.
This is where the problems start; if you do this exercise with a straight bar, unless you naturally have a great external rotation, which is structural, it puts a lot of torsional stress on the bicep tendon.
Over time, this can lead to bicep tendinitis and increased risk of a tear. I had few older guys commenting that they tore their bicep in this exact fashion. To be clear, the machine versions of preacher curls do NOT have the exact same resistance curve as the free weight version. They put more stress in the bicep muscle, but reduce the stress in the bicep tendon (they’re designed to overload the middle of the rep, not the bottom). Machine versions are excellent for this reason. If you’re built like Larry Scott, who naturally had excellent external rotation in his shoulders and elbow and wrist, you might love the exercise. As I say often, anyone can argue for N=1 experience. But when you train enough people, and you see patterns arise of pain and injury probabilities, and thats why I’ve suggested for a long time that people use dumbbells or ez bars (more ergonomic) or cables for preachers, or machines for their preacher curls. One bicep tendinitis develops, it can be a headache and last for months. And theres the risk factor of an outright biceps tear. Like all isolation exercises, Preachers are not Not a movement to go heavy and do low reps on. Keep it 8+ for your working sets. Training intelligence and consistency and results should always align.
5. Home Gym 3.0 is coming
I’ll be doing a longer write up on how to design an ideal home gym, and what criteria you should use when selecting equipment and maximizing space.