Month: March 2009

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A Look at the 5X5 Program

The 5x5 Program Ascending Ramp Examples

Training, like most things in the universe, tends to follow fads and trends.  Popular programs go out of style and others become the ‘next best thing’.   Sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s bad.

In recent years, people have gotten fairly fascinated with what is a truly classic program: the 5×5 program.  Since this system happens to be an excellent way of training, this is one of those cases where the fad isn’t a bad thing at all.

In this article I want to look briefly at the history of the 5×5 program as well as at some of the various interpretations that have been used over the years.  One source of confusion comes in that there are so many different ways to interpret 5×5 (depending on the goals and status of the lifter) and just saying that you’re doing “5×5” doesn’t really give all of the details.

So let’s look at the details.… Keep Reading

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Do Ketogenic Diets Have a Metabolic Advantage?

Without fail, every decade seems to see the resurgence of the idea that extremely low-carbohydrate/ketogenic diets diets have a “metabolic advantage” over carb-based diets.  By that I mean that advocates claim that more weight/fat will be lost at the same (or even a higher) calorie level.  But is it true?

In examining the issue, I will be looking at the following paper:

Johnston CS et. al. Ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets have no metabolic advantage over nonketogenic low-carbohydrate diets. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (2006) 83: 1055-1061

A Disclaimer about Ketogenic Diets

Before I continue let me say that I have nothing against low-carbohydrate/ketogenic diets.  My first book The Ketogenic Diet was about nothing that topic although nowhere in that book did I specifically recommend them.   At the same time, at least some of my books have included low- or lowered carbohydrate phases in them.  Either those low-carbohydrate phases generate specifically biological effects (i.e.… Keep Reading

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Squats vs. Leg Press for Big Legs

While many take it as an article of faith that all trainees must squat, the reality is far different.   Only a handful of athletes truly must squat and that’s because the movement is part of their competition.  But for everyone else, squats are an optional movement.  And factually, some simply are not built to squat well.  And if their goal is simply getting bigger legs, in many cases it may be better for them to avoid squatting and choose a movement such as the leg press instead.

A properly done leg press exposes the legs to a similar range of motion as your typical parallel squat.  Certainly squats “feel” harder but does this mean it’s automatically a superior movement for growing the legs?  At least some of that feel is the technical involvement, balance, and the increased use of stabilizer muscles.  But this has nothing to do with the legs per se.… Keep Reading

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The Energy Density of Foods

Today I want to cover another fundamental aspect of nutrition that is somewhat easy to confuse.  That concept is referred to as energy density.  Energy density integrates, in a fashion, the concepts of calories, nutrients and food intake.

First I want to define energy density before looking at some examples that will hopefully make the concept a bit more clear.  Finally, I’ll look at applications of the energy density concept in terms of dieting, weight gain, etc.

What is Energy Density?

Conceptually, energy density refers to how many calories are found in a given weight or volume or food.  Ok, what does that mean. Let’s say that you have 1 gram of each of the three macronutrients which are protein, carbohydrates and fat.

We know that these are given calorie values of 4 cal/g for protein and carbohydrate and 9 cal/g for fat.  Clearly, in this simple example, fat has over twice the energy density of either carbs or fat (9 cal in one gram vs.… Keep Reading

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Hormonal Responses to a Fast-Food Meal

For a couple of decades, there has been an ongoing argument regarding the issue of “is a calorie a calorie” in terms of changes on body composition and other parameters.     In that vein is the idea that the body will respond drastically differently to the intake of “fast food” compared to similar meal from organic foods.

To examine this, I want to look at a recent paper titled:

Bray GA et. al. Hormonal Responses to a Fast-Food Meal Compared with Nutritionally Comparable Meals of Different Composition. Ann Nutr Metab. (2007) 51(2):163-71

Which actually made the comparison.  Let’s see what happened.

Yeah, a Calorie is Pretty Much a Calorie

Fundamentally, my belief is that, given identical macro-nutrient intakes (in terms of protein, carbs, and fats) that there is going to be little difference in terms of bodily response to a given meal.  There may be small differences mind you (and of course research supports that) but, overall, they are not large.… Keep Reading