I know I have not been posting lately but that will change now. I was preparing for my competitions. I did 3 contests, I did well in 2 and not so well in 1. LOL. Anyway, I am happy to let you know that I won the IFBB NPC Australasia 2009 Super Heavyweights. Here is a link with a couple of pics of me.
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* 14 January 2009 by Tom Simonite * The New Scientist Magazine issue 2691. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
Could this virtual body double be the future of exercise?
A SYSTEM that creates a virtual body double of a person’s skeleton and muscles could help fitness fanatics or people trying to regain movement after an illness by showing them how well they are exercising. The Human Body Model, developed by Motek Medical in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, uses a virtual double to show which muscles a person is using by highlighting them in green (see image). The force being generated is shown by the intensity of the colour.
"It allows you to see the muscle groups you are using in real time, and even the forces they are creating, which are usually invisible," says Motek’s founder Oshri Even-Zohar. The user’s on-screen output is not a direct measure of their muscle activity, but is based on existing models of the anatomy and physics of the human body and is intended as a tool to help the patient. Users carry out exercises, such as running on a treadmill, while wearing a suit with 47 reflective markers placed in the positions of specific muscles. While the person runs, infrared strobe lights, flashing several hundred times a second, help eight cameras to track the markers. Sensors on the floor of the treadmill can also be used to measure the force applied to the ground by the user’s feet to give more information on their muscle output and the load on their joints. The final stage is to feed this information into computer models, which help create the detailed on-screen display of the user.
The software used to help create the double was trained by directly measuring the force generated by people’s muscles while recording their motion and the electrical activity of their muscles. This could only be done for some movements and forces, though, such as pushing against weights.
"There is no tool in medical science that allows you to measure all the muscle forces in motion," says Even-Zohar. The system is being tested at Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, where it is helping people regain movement after a stroke. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio are also using the system to study gait and locomotion in healthy, active people.
Interesting article from IronMan Magazine, what do you think?
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TRY THIS AT YOUR NEXT WORKOUT ==========================================
Heat: The Magic Muscle Maker
Q: This is kind of an odd question, but does hot weather help grow muscle? I’ve noticed that in the summer, when it’s blazing outside, I make my best gains. In the winter, my gains are much slower, sometimes nonexistent.
A: While it could simply be more summer-time motivation–you train harder because you want to look good at the pool or lake–or it could be leanness and darkness–being more ripped and tan makes you look bigger and better–heat and/or sunshine may have something to do with it, along with sweating. Perspiring more sheds water from under the skin, and that means more vascularity more often, which adds to your bigger, more-shredded look. But heat may be the key… An animal study immobilized the subjects to force muscle shrinkage, then they divided them into groups and reloaded the leg muscles with weight plus heat or with weight alone. The animals that got heat showed approximately 30 percent greater soleus muscle regrowth, while oxidant damage was also lower. The researchers believe that heat, "improves the rate of skeletal muscle regrowth" and that heat-shock protein overexpression may increase muscle mass through a decrease in local oxidative stress and damage. Very interesting. That’s a recent study, but back in the days of Vince’s Gym in Hollywood, owner/trainer Vince Gironda refused to have an air conditioner–and it wasn’t because he was cheap. He swore that a hot gym created better, faster results. Apparently, he was onto something, considering the above study. It may be one reason he had some of the best bodybuilders in the world training there, and he had a ripped physique that was ahead of its time… And while heat appears to be a muscle maker, sunshine may also be an anabolic catalyst, aside from the fact that it raises body temperature. There’s new evidence that getting more sun exposure–at least 15 minutes every few days without sun block–helps boost testosterone, which may have something to do with triggering the body’s production of vitamin D. That vitamin is very important for immune function and optimal hormone levels. According to the latest data, one in three Americans is vitamin-D deficient, and those low levels are being linked to everything from cancer to heart disease (you need to be as healthy as possible to build muscle quickly). So what can you do to grow more during the winter when it’s cold outside?
Here are a few tips:
1) Take a vitamin D supplement; new data suggests about 1,000 milligrams a day is adequate.
2) Train in sweats–it’s like working out in a hot gym (like Vince’s) in the summer.
3) Do cardio, and be sure you perspire; that means you raised your body temp.
4) Crank up the hot tub or sauna often. Heat boosts muscle-building factors, as the study above indicates.
5) If the sun is out, sit in it for 30 to 45 minutes (rays are low intensity during the winter, so a longer exposure is necessary); if it’s cold, bundle up, but expose your head and neck. Till next time, train hard.
Rat Study Shows That Exercise Promotes Neuron Growth
By Sarah Graham
Regular exercise can benefit the body in a number of ways, from aiding weight loss to increasing energy levels and improving cardiovascular health. Findings published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences bolster the notion that the brain, too, can profit from physical activity. Results of rat studies indicate that exercise can stimulate the recovery of injured neurons.Previous research had linked physical exertion with higher levels of neuronal growth factors known as neurotrophins in the spinal cord and skeletal muscles. In the new work, a team of researchers led by Raffaella Molteni at the University of California at Los Angeles and Jun-Qi Zheng of the A. I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., tested whether these exercise-related changes affect the brain¿s ability to form new connections. The scientists gave rats access to a running wheel for periods ranging from zero to seven days. When they tested cultured cells taken from the animals, they found that those from the runners grew longer extensions known as neurites and that there was a direct correlation between how far the rats ran and how long the neurites became.
The team also tested whether exercise promoted regeneration in vivo. After damaging the nerves of rats, the researchers determined that significantly more axons recovered in those rats that had exercised for seven days prior to injury than in the sedentary animals. The authors further note that injecting a compound that inhibits neurotrophin receptors stopped the axon growth in the running rats, which suggests that neurotrophin signaling is responsible for the regenerative effect
A new genetic test claims to reveal a child’s athletic predispositions. But what do genes really tell us about sports talent?
From Scientific American
By Jordan Lite
What if sideline rage could be nipped in the bud with a quick genetic test that told Mom and Dad what sports – if any – Junior could master? The Boulder, Colo., company Atlas Sports Genetics today began selling just that sort of product: for $149, it says it will screen for variants of the gene ACTN3, which in elite-level athletes is associated with the presence of the muscle protein alpha-actinin-3. The protein helps muscles contract powerfully at high speeds, which may explain why the combination of ACTN3 variants that produce it has been found in Olympic sprinters.The company’s president, Kevin Reilly, tells ScientificAmerican.com that parents shouldn’t view the test as the final word on whether their child will excel at a particular sport. But, he says, it is more useful than physical tests in determining a child’s athletic abilities before age 9.
At that age, “they don’t have the physical maturity and motor skills to do well,” Reilly says. “That’s where the genetic test can come in [handy] for looking for early indicators of talent in performance areas.
“It’s a question of their motivation. This is a tool, not the tool,” he says of consumers. “If they’re relying on the genetic test as the only performance indicator to tell whether they will do good or bad in sports, they’re going to be disappointed, because it’s not for that purpose. If it’s a tool along with other components, you can use it to select what may be the best sport for you or for a child.”
It takes about three weeks to get the results of the saliva test, which looks for three combinations of ACTN3 genes, with a child getting one variant from his mother and one from his father. (Reilly says that the Atlas Genetics screen is the only one commercially available in the U.S. that tests for fitness-related genes.) Kids who have two copies of the X variant from both parents don’t make alpha-actinin-3, and might excel at endurance sports such as cross-country skiing, distance running or swimming, according to the company’s Web site. Those with one copy of the X variant and one of the R variant will make some protein, Reilly says, and may excel at endurance or “power” sports such as soccer or cycling. And children with two copies of the R variant will make more alpha-actinin-3, setting them up for possible achievement in power or endurance sports including football, weight-lifting or sprinting.
We asked Stephen Roth, an assistant professor of exercise physiology, aging and genetics at the University of Maryland in College Park, to explain what is and isn’t known about the relationship between DNA and sports performance. Roth is a co-author of the Human Gene Map for Performance and Health-Related Fitness Phenotypes, a catalog of genes associated with sports-related fitness. The map was last published in 2006 in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, part of the Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. The new edition will be available shortly.
This is an edited transcript.
To what extent do genes determine athletic ability?
Nobody knows the answer for sure and it depends on how specifically you define athletic ability. Most research suggests that genetics contribute significantly to sports performance, but it’s very hard to put a number on. It’s very hard to quantify football performance, for example. Most studies look at very specific endpoints: how much a gene contributes to muscle strength or maximal aerobic capacity, because those endpoints are very easy to measure from a research standpoint. If you try to parse it out, as much as 50 percent of muscle strength is determined by genetic factors.
The question is, what does that mean? To say there’s some sort of heritable component to a trait tells us something can be passed on in a family that can contribute to performance, but what are the specific genes? How important, how predictive are those genes? We have no idea what is going on when it comes down to it. Some people are just genetically gifted, but we have just scratched the surface in defining what we mean by genetic advantage.
How many genes play a role in sports talent?
We don’t know. I’m a co-author on a review published every few years where we catalog genes that have been studied in relation to performance. There are 200 genes we are cataloging as having some positive association with fitness-related performance … and there are 20,000 genes in the genome, so we’re scratching the surface in relation to those studied.
Are those genetic factors just related to muscle strength, or do they show a variety of factors that are related to athleticism?
A wide range of factors. Because sports performance is so complex, we find muscle strength measures to metabolism performance measures or cardiovascular performance measures.
Atlas Sports Genetics is marketing tests for variants of the ACTN3 gene. Are there tests that pick up whether a person has other fitness-related genes?
ACTN3 is probably the most convincing of the genes studied so far, the most consistently associated [with sports-related fitness]. People who are the XX genotype do not have alfa-actinin-3 in their muscles. The idea is that in people who are lacking this protein, their muscles won’t work as well and that will prevent them from reaching the upper echelon of power performance. That’s been indicated in a number of studies. But is the association about muscle fatigue? Contractile strength? As research starts to delve into these more refined traits, we don’t feel confident saying how the XX genotype is contributing to performance.
Another gene is ACE, which has been studied in relation to endurance performance. But the more these genes are studied, the messier the literature becomes. ACE is the most studied and is still a gene of interest, but we’re trying to figure out if it’s important and how — and the same question is reflected in ACTN3, but not reflected in ads for the test.
The ACE studies are more conflicting. It was originally argued that people with the II variant would be better at endurance and those with the DD variant would be better at strength. But the findings are not as consistent. When you break it down, we don’t see a clear story for how it would be working. If it does have a role, it’s a much smaller role than originally thought. There are larger question marks around ACE that would make it harder to sell as a test.
What can the results of the ACTN3 test tell us?
The results do tell you whether you have this protein in your muscle. That is clear. We have no idea if it contributes to performing at anything but an elite level. Even there, there are contradictions. We have very little information that it affects kids’ performance. You may have a disadvantage in sprint performance, but it’s likely you’ll never see it except at an Olympic level. What 6- or 8-year-old cares about that?
Besides genetic testing, is DNA being used in other ways to promote athleticism?
The major issues out there are gene screening and whether we can predict performance or somehow tailor workout or training programs to particular people or select the sports they participate in in advance. The other is whether we can alter a genetic profile to enhance their performance. It’s very similar to gene therapy in medicine. It hasn’t been successful in medicine and never studied in sports performance. It’s a real ethical dark zone, because there are medical concerns even pursuing it and no evidence that it would really work. Anti-doping societies have come out against it. It is definitely a concern. Technology is being developed in the medical arena. It won’t take long for someone to push it in the sports world.
Research shows that people who write down what they are grateful for may exercise more.
Thanksgiving is a time for, well, giving thanks—for juicy turkey, steaming mashed potatoes, and a cool slice of pie. Mmmm, what could be better? Well, remembering what you’re thankful for might have some less obvious advantages.
Psychologists writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people who kept weekly gratitude journals exercised an hour and a half per week longer than their grumbling peers. Imagine the benefits as we head into “eating season.”
Once a week for 10 weeks, participants noted up to five things they were grateful for, including anything from “waking up this morning” to “the Rolling Stones.” By the end of the study, they were working out an hour and a half more per week than a group that just wrote about life’s hassles, such as “stupid people driving” or “messy kitchen no one will clean.”
Robert Emmons, a psychologist at the University of California, Davis, said in a phone interview that gratitude may be a strategy people use to stay committed to exercise, based on his subsequent studies of self-described grateful people. They might remember that they are lucky to be able to move around pain-free, he said.
Participants in the gratitude group also reported feeling more enthusiastic and determined, which could help fuel exercise. Emmons calls it a not-so-vicious cycle.
This Thanksgiving, remember: You can have your pumpkin pie (and turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes) and eat them, too.
—Rachel Mahan
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Drug mimics low-cal diet to ward off weight gain, boost running endurance
A drug designed to specifically hit a protein linked to the life-extending benefits of a meager diet can essentially trick the body into believing food is scarce even when it isn’t, suggests a new report in the November Cell Metabolism.
The drug called SRT1720, which acts through the protein SIRT1, enhances running endurance in exercised mice and protects the animals against weight gain and insulin resistance even when they eat a high-fat diet, the researchers report. The drug works by shifting the metabolism to a fat-burning mode that normally takes over only when energy levels are low.
The findings bolster the notion that SIRT1 may be a useful target in the fight again metabolic disorders, including obesity and type 2 diabetes. It also helps lay to rest a long-standing controversy in the scientific world over the metabolic benefits of the red wine ingredient known as resveratrol. Resveratrol also acts on SIRT1, but its influence on other metabolic actors had left room to question exactly how it works.
” There has been a lot of controversy in the field about resveratrol action,” said Johan Auwerx of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. “We find that the majority of the biology of resveratrol can be ascribed to SIRT1.” While SIRT1 might not explain all of resveratrol’ s effects, the new results suggest that the central metabolic protein is responsible for about “80 percent of the picture,” he said.
The researchers had conducted earlier studies to demonstrate many of the benefits of resveratrol. To further explore the underlying pathways responsible in the new study, they ran essentially the same experiments with the more potent and specific SIRT1-activating compound SRT1720 developed by the company Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
The researchers found that a low dose of SRT1720 partially protected mice from gaining weight on a high-fat diet after 10 weeks of treatment. At higher doses, the drug completely prevented weight gain in the animals. SRT1720 also improved blood sugar tolerance and insulin sensitivity and endowed the animals with greater athletic ability.
” SIRT1720 made the animals run twice as long,” Auwerx said. That improvement was seen only when the researchers specifically exercised the animals. Their voluntary activity actually declined in the study as they hunkered down to save energy.
They found further evidence that the SIRT1 activator acts as a calorie-restriction mimetic that favors the use of fat stores by promoting the direct modification of multiple SIRT1 targets. It also induces chronic metabolic adaptations that involve the indirect activation of AMPK, an enzyme that regulates skeletal muscle glucose and the metabolism of fatty acids.
The major advantage of SRT1720 or any specific SIRT1 activator over resveratrol is that it is likely to come with fewer side effects, Auwerx said.
That said, SRT1720 does have some limitations, Auwerx noted, in that the effects they observed came only at fairly high doses. He speculates that SRT1720 derivatives might get around this potential stumbling block for the drug’s therapeutic promise.
While the researchers did not observe any significant side effects of the drug in their study, they said further studies are needed to adequately address that question.
Dr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center, says watermelon may have Viagra-like effects. (Credit: Image courtesy of Texas A&M University)
ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day. That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido.
“The more we study watermelons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is in providing natural enhancers to the human body,” said Dr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center in College Station.
“We’ve always known that watermelon is good for you, but the list of its very important healthful benefits grows longer with each study.”
Beneficial ingredients in watermelon and other fruits and vegetables are known as phyto-nutrients, naturally occurring compounds that are bioactive, or able to react with the human body to trigger healthy reactions, Patil said.
In watermelons, these include lycopene, beta carotene and the rising star among its phyto-nutrients – citrulline – whose beneficial functions are now being unraveled. Among them is the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does.
Scientists know that when watermelon is consumed, citrulline is converted to arginine through certain enzymes. Arginine is an amino acid that works wonders on the heart and circulation system and maintains a good immune system, Patil said.
“The citrulline-arginine relationship helps heart health, the immune system and may prove to be very helpful for those who suffer from obesity and type 2 diabetes,” said Patil. “Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it.”
While there are many psychological and physiological problems that can cause impotence, extra nitric oxide could help those who need increased blood flow, which would also help treat angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems.
“Watermelon may not be as organ specific as Viagra,” Patil said, “but it’s a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side-effects.”
The benefits of watermelon don’t end there, he said. Arginine also helps the urea cycle by removing ammonia and other toxic compounds from our bodies.
Citrulline, the precursor to arginine, is found in higher concentrations in the rind of watermelons than the flesh. As the rind is not commonly eaten, two of Patil’s fellow scientists, drs. Steve King and Hae Jeen Bang, are working to breed new varieties with higher concentrations in the flesh.
In addition to the research by Texas A&M, watermelon’s phyto-nutrients are being studied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Lane, Oklahoma.
As an added bonus, these studies have also shown that deep red varieties of watermelon have displaced the tomato as the lycopene king, Patil said. Almost 92 percent of watermelon is water, but the remaining 8 percent is loaded with lycopene, an anti-oxidant that protects the human heart, prostate and skin health.
“Lycopene, which is also found in red grapefruit, was historically thought to exist only in tomatoes,” he said. “But now we know that it’s found in higher concentrations in red watermelon varieties.”
Lycopene, however, is fat-soluble, meaning that it needs certain fats in the blood for better absorption by the body, Patil said.
“Previous tests have shown that lycopene is much better absorbed from tomatoes when mixed in a salad with oily vegetables like avocado or spinach,” Patil said. “That would also apply to the lycopene from watermelon, but I realize mixing watermelon with spinach or avocadoes is a very hard sell.”
No studies have been conducted to determine the timing of the consumption of oily vegetables to improve lycopene absorption, he said.
“One final bit of advice for those Fourth of July watermelons you buy,” Patil said. “They store much better uncut if you leave them at room temperature. Lycopene levels can be maintained even as it sits on your kitchen floor. But once you cut it, refrigerate. And enjoy.”
Well I suppose you might want to know what happened. At the state contest I did not do very well and only earned about 5th place, however I seem to have gotten my "act" together and improved for nationals where I earned 3rd place in the super heavy catagory. I was fairly happy with that and will focus for the next contest season where I will do better. I posted some backstage pics from the IFBB NPC Australian Nationals in the gallery.
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