Art De Vany: November 2005 Archives

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An Interesting Day

November 29, 2005 07:15 PM

I got a call from a Scottish newpaper today, the Sun something, about the latest spate of remakes of old films. King Kong was on the reporter's mind, but another fact was that more than 15 remakes of old movies are slated for release. This is an increase, according to the reporter, over last year's production of about 10 remakes, and slightly less the year before. It seems there is a pattern here. Has Hollywood discovered that remakes are profitable? Maybe, according to some perceptions of studio executives.

If one remake was profitable a few years ago does that mean that 15 this year will be? Or are producers and studios hoping to ride on their perceptions of what King Kong might make? Who knows. Certainly they don't know. Don't expect some kind of model or analysis to indicate that remakes are profitable and that 15 in the market will pan out. It can't be true and there is no model. If one was highly profitable a few years ago, when it was the lone remake, how could it follow that more than one or two of 15 remakes will be?

Most of them will not succeed. What this pattern shows is an old pattern of Hollywood grasping at previous successes with no knowledge of how they will turn out in the future. We saw this recently after the success of Shakespeare in Love which was followed by serious pronouncements by Hollywood and media reporters that the next big thing for the studios is to make character-based movies with slightly flawed characters. Virginia Postrel wrote a great column for the New York Times about the "Next formula" that year using my research to show it was a faint hope for managing the profound uncertainly that the movies must always live with. There is no formula.

It now appears that Hollywood has run out of creative ideas that can be marketed in the blockbuster manner and is reaching for past successes for a repeat. It can't happen. Even a remake is a completely different movie in a different time and place. Nobody knows how it will do.

I also got a letter from Bud Selig, Commissioner of Baseball...

LINK · Everything ~ · Sports ~ · The Movie Business · Comments (2)

Work

November 25, 2005 07:50 AM

De Solla Price found that half the work done in scientific publishing is done by the square root of the number of scientists. Try that in your own organization doing other kinds of work; according to the law half the work in an organization of 100 people is done by 10 workers.

Pope John Paul had his own version of the law. When asked how many people worked at the Vatican, he replied "About half."

And producer Robert Evans had his own version for the movie business. He said that at any time most of the people in Hollywood are not working.

Now a guy named Jim has come up with a version of the law for the United States. It goes like this;

"The population of this country is 237 million. 104 million are retired. That leaves 133 million to do the work. There are 85 million in school, which leaves 48 million to do the work. Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government, leaving 19 million to do the work. 2.8 million are in the Armed Forces, which leaves 16.2 million to do the work. Take from the total the 14,800,000 people who work for State and City Governments and that leaves 1.4 million to do the work. At any given time there are 188,000 people in hospitals, leaving 1,212,000 to do the work. Now, there are 1,211,998 people in prisons. That leaves just two people to do the work. You and me.

And you're sitting at your computer reading jokes."

LINK · Everything ~ · The Movie Business ~ · Uncertainty · Comments (2)

Are You Mr. Olympia?

November 21, 2005 07:56 PM

Just a charming moment in the gym today. Sorry if it seems boastful. It is true and I enjoyed it. I couldn't make this up.

It was about 10am and I had finished deep knee bends and had just put the weights away. The upstairs aerobics or whatever class had just ended and the girls and ladies came flooding down the stairs. One of them walked into the free weight room and turned to me and said, "Are you Mr. Olympia?" I laughed and said no. She said you look like him. I said thanks but I didn't think I was that muscular. She just smiled and left.

In fact, I am far from that muscular. I have seen Boyer Coe, Shawn Robinson, and other big guys in the gym when I worked out in Orange County. One of the muscle mags used to do shoots in the gym and Boyer worked out there. There is no confusing me with these guys.

Yet, I have a look these guys don't have. The sculptress who wanted me to pose for her (I never did) told me it was my symmetry, definition, and a "line" that had a flow to it that was athletic and graceful. No weak angles. I think she was hitting on me, a nearly 70 year old with 10 grandchildren (I never told her). She was a fabulous artist whose works sell for big prices. Maybe I should have posed and been memorialized in bronze, but not for me. She worked in Laguna Beach and I might have ended up as pidgeon roost in the patio of one of the many gay bars there.

So, after the Mr. Olympia comment, I looked around the gym. A couple of fairly big guys who were way too fat. Everyone had smooth skin and was a bit distorted; you know, hunched upper back, flaired out elbows, feet splayed out, tiny calves, a bench presser look if you know what I mean.

So, what did I do in the gym that was so different from the guys doing cable curls for an hour or doing benches and inclines?

LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (2)

Comments

I fixed the comments part of the blog. It was broken and I didn't notice though I did miss the usually excellent comments.

Still no progress on the search function. It lists the results, but clicking on the title doesn't take you where it should.

Ah, the life of a blogger. At least it pays well.

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There is a Finite Supply of Fools

November 18, 2005 08:09 PM

As usual, Richard Miniter's reporting is far ahead of the pack. In this article, he puts together a picture of the loss of Al Qaeda in Iraq's ranks in the past few weeks: Zarqawi May be Running out of Fools.

Only a few people will kill themselves to kill others. Al Qaeda has much experience with this and uses:

1. bribes, saying the family of the bomber will be cared for just as Saddam spent his country's resources in the Intifada.

2. coercion, chaining bombers to vehicles and threatening their family.

3. commitment, filming a bomber before the act so they lose face if they back out.

4. misleading the young and mentally disabled.

5. peer pressure, using friends and mentors to develop a bomber over time through small, irreversible commitments and loss of face of those who turn back at an earlier stage.

6. glorification, using conspicuous banners and memorials to show the living that the dead bombers gain some kind of perverse status.

7. dehumanizing the victims.

8. teaching hate in the schools and mosques.

9. deliberately placing individuals at risk so that if they are killed family members will want to "retaliate" (against whom? they ought to retaliate against those who put them in harm's way deliberately).

10. it wouldn't work without lots of media attention and the "press" is a willing participant.

But, it is hitting diminishing returns as Miniter's article suggests. It has to, there are only so many fools and the costs are rising while the gains (if such there be in some fool's mind) are limited.

LINK · Uncertainty · Comments (3)

The Caving Senate

November 15, 2005 07:21 PM

Now the Senate has caved to criticism of the Iraq War and passed a resolution urging more reporting from the Pentagon (of reports few senators seem to read or understand) and if not a timetable a sense of when the US would pull out.

I think this is a big mistake and few seem to sense the nature of this war as retired Major General Vong in this post This War is For Real.

No more incumbents. Or at least term limits in the Senate.

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Hormones, Strength, and Fat

A lot of people who are serious about being strong and lean eat high protein/low fat diets. They then must make up the calories from low fat intake by eating carbohydrate. They are taught that carbs are protein-sparing and release insulin, an anabolic hormone.

There are a lot of problems with this model in my view.

1. Most important, a diet of this kind was never part of the evolutionary past, nor is it seen in hunter-gatherers. Their diets are fairly high in fat and protein. What carbohydrate they eat is very complex and slow digesting and unlikely to promote an insulin response of any magnitude.

2. Insulin reduces GH response, so eating carbs reduces the rate of protein synthesis in the muscles. How can carbs be protein sparing when this is true? And protein is capable of eliciting its own insulin response, so why is it recommended to ingest the simple carbs that abound in protein supplements in order to elevate insulin? Elevated insulin is the last thing you want as it is the precursor to the metabolic cascade leading to ROS damage, obesity, high blood pressure, and accelerated aging.

3. It gets worse, at least from an evolutionary and systems perspective. A low fat diet combined with elevated carbs can deplete the pools of anabolic hormones and their substrates. These hormones are made from fats so a low fat diet may lead to reduced levels of anabolic hormones.

4. The three substance, macro model of nutrition is hopelessly oversimple and a poor guide to nutrition. Good nutrition covers the micronutrients that abound in natural foods and their interactions cannot be captured in a macro model.

5. A low fat diet promotes protein wastage because the body is put in a hormonal state where it becomes a poor metabolizer of fat and thus must resort to protein catabolism as a source of glucose. Eat a lot of carbohydrate and you become a carb burner, leaving all those triglycerides floating free in your blood stream and piling the fat onto your mid section from your high insulin level. You can't access this fat for energy and burn up your muscles instead.

6. I know you are looking for a study of this and there aren't that many. One that gets at these issues is in Int. J. Sports Med 2004 Nov: 25(8): 627-33. The researchers had five athletes and five non-athletes keep diet diaries before they began a high volume, high-intensity work out. Before the workout, the individuals with the higher fat intake had higher levels of anabolic hormones. After the workout, only the athletes showed this association of higher fat intake and higher anabolic hormones.

Not hard to see how this might be. High intensity exercise releases GH and makes you a fat burner. In the post exercise phase you replentish muscle glycogen through fat metabolism. Only the athletes had trained long enough to be conditioned to this reponse from hard exercise. And the ones who consumed more fat had a stronger anabolic response to the workout. Why not, they have adapted their GH response to the diet and activity and become good fat burners. They live nearer the hunter gatherer lifeway.

LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (1)

Trade Offs

November 13, 2005 08:58 PM

Economists are found of pointing out trade offs, but they seldom venture into the trade offs between aging, mortality, and reproduction. It interests me a lot and a fascinating hypothesis has come forth by Takahashi and colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (November 7, 2000) about the information structures in the genes, sexual reproduction, and aging.

We humans have linear chromosones with pieces on both ends called telomeres. These are the aging clocks; each time a cell divides a telomere is knocked off. Free radical damage breaks off telomeres and makes them fragile so she fall off more easily. When all the telomeres are gone, the cell can no longer divide and it dies. It hits the so-called Hayflick limit.

So, why not have circular chromosones that have no ends that fall off with each cell division? The telomeres, or ends of the chromosones, are needed to match up the linear components when fusion of chromosones occurs in sexual mating.

Human genetic information is complex and without this matching process, or one like it to be further elucidated, this complex information could not be mixed and matched in such a way to create a viable organism. The evolutionary trade off is sexual reproduction's ability to create new information through mixing and matching to make new gene combinations for selection to work on. So, aging or senescence is part of sexual reproduction.

This is not a trade-off you have to worry about; it happened millions of years ago...

LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (2)

Steroids: The NEJM Study

November 11, 2005 08:36 AM

Most steroid users are males who are appearance conscious. They are not pro or amateur athletes or illicit drug users. And they aren't high school kids trying to become better athletes. In fact, they could be called excessively appearance conscious males, who live very healthful lifes. Male steroid use has been called the male equivalent of female plastic surgery.

It is certainly likely to be less harmful than plastic surgery, but for the strange laws passed by our Congress that put users too easily into the legal category of drug-pushers.

How effective and how harmful is steroid use? It is hard to find good studies, but I came upon this 1996 New England Journal of Medicine study of steroids and exercise.

So, where are all the ill effects of steroids that proponents of laws governing their use claim? The study shows no ill effects of steroid use, but for a very slight increase in acne in three users, while one non-user had the same experience. Two steroid users experienced some pain in their breasts. Total cholesterol, LDL, HDL and triglycerides did not change for any group with the exception of a decrease in HDL in the exercise plus placebo group. What was in the placebo? This is contrary to most studies that show an increase in HDL from exercise. There were no differences in liver enzymes or related measures. There were no differences in mood or anger This was only a 6 week trial, longer term steroid use may or may not differ in consequences.

LINK · Evolutionary Fitness ~ · Sports · Comments (1)

Do Directors Have Tangible Value?

November 10, 2005 09:02 AM

Sometimes my research takes me into strange areas. I was an expert witness in the divorce of John McTiernan (director of the movies Die Hard2, Hunt for Red October, and The Thomas Crown Affair among others) and his wife of 8 years Donna Dubrow, a producer. How did this happen?

Well, the issue was how significant were John McTiernan's reputation and earnings as a director. Dubrow's attorneys argued that he had gained reputation during the years of the marriage and that his wife should get some of the gain in the value of his human capital as part of the settlement.

Whether she should get part of his gain in human capital was not my position or topic even. I dealt with estimating his earnings and the probabilities of his making future movies, with allowance for the uncertainties of the movie business. Both the Superior Court which first decided the case, calculating that McTiernan's gain in "goodwill" was $1.5 million, and the California Court of Appeals decision, which overturned this part of the decision, cited my testimony. The decision can be obtained through many sources and is part of the public record. It is available Court of Appeals Decision.

The Court of Appeals overturned the "goodwill" part of Judge Montes decision on the grounds...

LINK · The Movie Business · Comments (1)

Senate Arrogance

November 9, 2005 07:58 AM

Senators McCain and Bunning, respectively, the would-be President and the former big league pitcher, have toned down their bill mandating steroid testing in professional sports and expect to get it through the Senate soon, according to the AP (they probably got this right, but failed to note any opposition to the bill of which there must be some).

The evidence before the Senate consists mainly of the farcical hearings titled "Restoring Faith in America's Pastime." The opening statements made by Bunning and the committee chair are empty repetitions of rumor and innuendo. There isn't a shred of evidence that steroids have had any effect on major league home run hitting in the Hearings. In fact, there has been no change and I document that evidence in my paper on home run hitting which you can read under the research link at the top of my page.

If this thin gruel of opinion, rumor, and outright ignorance of the statistics of home run hitting is a sufficient basis for the bill to go through, then we can only hope the courts will overturn this flawed bill. And, we have a view of the junk legislation based on junk science that suffices for a grandstanding Senate. McCain has lost any chance that I would ever vote for him both on the serious nature of this flawed legislation and on grounds of his clear disregard for personal freedom. And just plain arrogance.

LINK · Everything ~ · Sports · Comments (1)

Flu Season

A touch of flu just ran through my 4 grandchildren. So, time to prepare.

Should you do the vacine? Your choice, but not for me. Why not? Well there is this:

"In a February 2005 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases compared flu-related mortality among older people to rates of immunization. Their finding: During the past quarter century, immunization rates for the elderly have climbed substantially while the elderly flu-related mortality rate has stayed the same." Qouted from a health email I get from Health Sciences Institute e-Alert.

Then there is the point that the virus that may get you may not be the one the vaccine is designed to prevent. They have to guess and the virus mutates so rapidly, they may not get it right. But, again, it is a choice you should make and you may want to talk it over with your doctor. Guess what the doctor will say?

For my own part, I take ample Vitamin C, about 2 to 4 grams a day of pure, high quality C. And I don't eat the sugary substances that block the entry of Vitamin C into your immune system cells. Vitamin C and glucose are similar molecules and both compete for entry into your immune system killer cells. So, fill them with glucose and the C can't get in and they become ineffective.

I have plenty of muscle that my immune system can draw upon to mount an immune system response to a viral infection. Think of muscle as part of your immune system, as a reservoir of ammunition.

And then I take plenty of glutathione, the prime antioxidant in your body. This helps to regenerate E and C and to quench inflammation. But, it has other functions that have been documented in many research papers that aid the immune system.

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Some guys will do anything to avoid housework

November 8, 2005 07:45 PM

I don't know how Darylrimple does what he does. He is a British physician (under his real name) when he isn't writing this incisive and insightful stuff. Even though I am not blogging now, I had to put up this link to his City Journal article Dalrymple: The Suicide Bombers Among Us.

He exposes the hypocracy of the jihadist males rioting in France. Living a hip hop, utterly Western lifestyle, free to do as they wish outside the marriage, but confining females to the home and denying them an education even in a country such as France. They are phony and take refuge in their weakness in a violent form of Islam when they are almost utterly powerless in a modern society with no education.

The French surely have, through their central planning and protected labor markets, denied opportunities to many Muslim immigrants. But, the current, second and third generation male French, German, and Dutch immigrants are a kept population living on welfare and crime. We have our own such male-dominated, welfare fraud group of fundamentalist Mormons living just south of town. But they at least throw the young males out so they can't make trouble for the elders and compete for women who can't leave because they are denied an education and threatened.

It is time to see fundamentalist religions for what they are: older males dominating younger males and controlling sexual access to females, who have little choice in the matter. My mother fled just such a community in the 1930s in Iowa.

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Some Guys will do anything to avoid housework

I don't know how Darylrimple does what he does. He is a physician when he isn't writing this incisive and insightful stuff. Even though I am not blogging now, I had to put up this link to his City Journal article http://www.city-journal.org/printable.php?id=1885

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In Spite of it All

November 7, 2005 02:38 PM

I have fixed the archive function, but the search isn't working quite yet. Right now it just brings you back to the home page, even though it shows you all the entries on the topic. That soon will be fixed.

No news on my computer, the first Apple I have had die in some 20 years of using them. OS X is so like Unix that I used so many years on NexT and Sun Sparcstations that all my software works on it and the OS is pretty bullet-proof. In fact, NextStep was Unix with a nice window feature and so is Mac OS X.

I thought I had better finally check in with a local doctor; its been more than three years since I have seen one and there are many reasons I could be stressed, though I am not. My attitude that you can only make good choices, not control the outcomes helps a lot. It empowers you to do the research and ask the questions and then to make good decisions. The rest is out of your control, or anyone else's.

So, in spite of all that has happened I am more than fine. Blood pressure was 105/67. I am on zero medications and have zero problems. The doctor and I talked, he checked a couple of things, and sent me home. But, now I have a local doctor.

I was just under 200 pounds. That is a fair drop for me from 208. When I come back I plan to be closer to 215, strong, quick, and ripped.

I'll use one heavy workout a week and one core/balance/dynamics workout. And a lot of play.

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I'll Be Back

November 4, 2005 07:58 PM

My computer is down and I am using my back up. The archive function on the blog is not working (I have someone working on it). My wife is sick. I can't work on the book right now because those files are on the other computer, which has a possibly fatal flaw. And, I gotta ride, play with my grandson and deal with my wife's health problems.

So, that is it for now. But, I'll be back.

I leave the comments open so that you can continue the discussion my posts and Parker's comment has started. When my computer is back up I will work on the book and finish it quickly.

For me, it the evolutionary perspective is a model that, along with my complexity vision, brings everything together that I need to know and practice. I think the Ache are one of many models that may shed light on the ancestral lifeway, but not for me. Theirs is a purely local adaptation that is a relatively narrow lifeway that doesn't inspire or instruct me very well.

I am a Northern European by ancestry and, in my generation was, a large person more adapted to a northern climate. A large body is an adaptation to cold since it has less surface area relative to mass. My model is the Cro-Magnon; tall, heavily muscled, thoroughly modern humans that brought culture and art to the human lifeway. Each of you will have your own model whether it be the Masaii (one of my favorites), the Ache, or Hazda.

But, there is no universal model. Humans are highly adaptable and thrive in even harsh and strange settings. And, their physiology shows it, even though the essential features are shared by all humans. It even goes farther than that: not only are we all descended from a single female (or alternately a single male) of the distant past. We are also descended from a single creature billions of years ago. That is why all living things share certain primal features of metabolism and organization.

I want to be quick, powerful, tireless and lean. I use evolutionary and complexity theory to achieve that. And I have to my full satisfaction. I am never sick and never tired and that has served me well in these difficult times.

LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (1)

A Great Comment

Parker, in commenting on my post about ST and FT fibers had much of value to say and I want to make sure everyone has a chance to see it. I don't think we disagree over any of this.

Intermittency is a known feature of hunter-gatherer life and the mix of strength and endurance pathways is similarly established. It was interesting to read of endurance athletes who operate without the carb-loading, poor diets that always seem to be in favor among runners and cyclists. They still have a carbo-loading dinner here for the St. George Marathon participants. Loren Cordain is writing a new book on the evolutionary diet for endurance athletes. And I know of at least one runner who relies on the Atkins Diet.

Here it is:

"Hi Art,

A few comments on this [my post on FT and ST muscle]:

1. First, Dorian Yates, I suspect, was most likely taking a number of substances that created that monster physique he possessed. And I don't say "monster" in a complimentary way. (http://www.treningsforum.no/article/images/musklerogmat.jpg) In this photo, he almost looks as if he has a "blow up" costume on—nothing healthy or tough about that “look”. Second, Yates was an orthopedic mess when he retired, similar to his mentor, Mike Mentzer. Yates had torn or ruptured his pectoral as well as bicep muscles (which was the reason for the short/flat appearance of his biceps during his final Mr. Olympias). He, and many other high intensity trainers, end up with chronic injuries as the body, in my opinion, simply isn’t designed for that type of exercise. Just like in the last 10,000 years, where our dietary genetics haven’t changed, so too with training—we didn’t become high intensity trainees overnight.

2. Second, even though we evolved from an anaerobic species, we’re now aerobic “animals” for the most part. And research has shown our ancestors were pretty much aerobic in nature (ref my previous post citing the article on running and ancient man).

3. And thinking about it, the paleo diet of our ancestors was ideal for early endurance-based humans: high in fat, moderate in protein and rich in vegetables, nuts and fruits. No carb loading or consuming piles of pasta, bread or crackers. Fat was the perfect energy source and as these aerobic “animals” could utilize, in an efficient manner, fat in their diet along with bodyfat, their small stomachs evolved to hold the ideal amount of fuel at a sitting so they could continue their hunt, foraging for foods or other activities. No plates of spaghetti…a rabbit or fish, some nuts or berries, and, off again.

4. Also, the prime “fuel” for anaerobic activity is carbohydrates. During anaerobic activities, the dominant glycolytic product is lactate and the process is known as anaerobic glycolysis. So, with our aerobic energy system being based on fat and our paleo diet being high in fat, humans had evolved into endurance animals.

5. As our ancestors were probably aerobic “gods”…able to cover long distances with little effort, their fuel for the ST muscles—fat burning engines—would be the various fats they consumed. They wouldn’t have enough fuel from the high fiber carbs they ate to cover the distances in their hunting and gathering.

6. Also, regarding bodybuilders and powerlifters avoiding walking, etc., you learn quite quickly as a lifter your body is looking for any reason possible not to rebuild those muscles you trained. It isn’t the ST vs. FT as much as the body has limited recovery ability: what should it repair? Does it fight a pending cold, heal a cut, generate new hair, etc. My belief, after much reading and personal study, is the body is simply seeking to restore its normal balance—and as you note in the article on the death of the NFL lineman, that balance doesn’t include unnecessary, as Dr. Leonard Schwartz would observe, bulk or muslce. The struggle is not to lose muscle, as most of us find we begin to atrophy within days or if we pursue aerobic activities…the struggle is to gain muscle as this is not our normal biological homeostasis. If it were, people desperate for muscle size and strength would not be seeking various means through supplements, overeating or drugs to build and retain muscle. That is, stay anabolic.

If you were to consider triathlete supertars Mark Allen, Mike Pigg and Wendy Ingraham, when they converted from a high carb diet to a diet centered on healthy fats as fuels, moderate protein and good carbs, all three began dominating in their distances (Pigg in the sprint distance, Allen in the Ironman and Ingraham at all distances). And looking at the physique of Allen before and after he started on a higher fat diet, you notice—as Dr. Ron Rosedale writes—that he is maintaining more muscle mass vs. burning muscle. Somewhat like our paleo ancestors.

And while our paleo ancestors unquestionably engaged in short periods of anaerobic effort—self defense, killing an animal or moving an obstacle—my bet is they were superb “middle distance” animals who had functional amounts of strength suitable for their needs.

Best - "

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A Little Secret about ST and FT Muscle

November 3, 2005 04:36 PM

So what about this FT and ST business? How should you work out to max the FT? Is that good? Or do you want some ST, FTa and FTb/x?

First, FT is the default setting for the human body. Why? It is based on anaerobic metabolism which is all there was for early life. Mud dwelling creatures had no access to oxygen and, by the way, there wasn't any for a few billion years. And then it was a crisis because the free radicals poisoned the existing forms of life that could not resist. Aerobic metabolism came later.

I say that FT is the default setting and much research shows this. Put your leg in a cast for a month and a lot of the muscle fiber will turn into FT fibers, lacking in mitochondrial density (the stuff that makes ST muscle look dark like a turkey leg rather than the white meat or FT fiber in the breast).

Power lifters are sometimes reluctant even to walk a block or two because they don't want to convert their FT into ST fibers.

Body builders do so much volume and work out so often that they actually manage to enlarge their ST fibers. They also convert their FTb/x fibers to FTa fibers and maybe FTa fibers to ST fibers. Many sets and many reps and working out often never gives the body a chance to go into default mode and convert muscle to FT. But it does produce hypertrophy of the ST and FTa fibers. You won't have a lot of FT fibers though. One reason I think that Dorian Yate looked so tough is that he worked out infrequently and likely had more FT fiber than many body builders who work out daily or even twice daily.

So, if you want to be a FT sort of athlete, work out twice a week pretty hard and focus on hierachical and negative exercises. Also, lift quickly but safely to maximize muscle recruitment so that close to all your muscles are contracting.

If you are thinking it is only how you work out that alters the ST/FT composition, not so. It also depends on rest. I happen to rest a lot. What this does is to convert the FTa fibers that result from training into FTb/x fibers through overexpression of the genes that control heavy myosin chain production.

LINK · Evolutionary Fitness · Comments (4)

Indian Reservations

November 2, 2005 07:17 PM

The New England Journal of Medicine contains a brief article, The Crisis in Indian Health Care by a doctor who practiced on a reservation for three years. I have in the past been in touch with another doctor who practiced on a reservation. Their stories are the same. My own trip through Navajo country some years ago, summarized in my post Chinle Dialysis Center, was a similar experience.

Things are bad in the reservations and for the indians who live there. But, why are things so bad?

1. Look at the housing and how the land is cared for. Why is the land littered and devoid of plants and gardens? Why aren't there any simple clean homes with lawns or plants of some kind?

Nobody owns anything. You see the same problem in the Ejidos of Mexico (I wrote two papers on this in the 1970s), where land reform put campesinos on land they can neither own nor could sell. It isn't theirs and they treat it as such.

You see the same problem in the Fundamentalist Mormon communities south of where I live that have been in the news lately in Colorado City, AZ and Hilldale, UT. There, the church (read elder males) own everything. The homes look trashy. The Indian Reservation, Piute I think, near where I live has the same Reservation Look---undermaintained homes and trash everywhere.

In the reservation, the land is held by all and owned by no one. No indian is permitted to sell his/her land or to protect the investments they put into it. You will find no fruit trees in Ejidos or Reservations, these long investments are not made unless one has assurance of reaping the returns. If you don't own the land, there is none of this assurance and investments are not made.

I saw the same thing in the squatter residences in Jamaica Bay, New York...

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Response to Comments on Staying Lean

Thanks for both those comments.

I have no craving for junk foods, but in the attempt to add calories I knew I was not getting, I sometimes ate things, such as protein supplements, I usually would not. It didn't work and I find that a bit less body weight is fine for me at this point in my life.

Stress tends to increase the hunger for carbs, probably because the cortisol makes you a bit insulin resistant. Carbs induce release of "feel good" hormones, serotonin in particular, but in the end depletes them. This is a problem to which women seem more sensitive because they tend not to get enough protein and tryptophan and leucine.

Serotonin is also involved in the production of melatonin, which regulates sleep. Carbs and glucose in particular cause a release of insulin which induces serotonin, and indirectly, melatonin. So, the stress, carb craving and lack of sleep are all tied together. And, they are driven by insulin, that central hormone that is a billion years old.

I tend to gain appetite in the winter when thermogenesis and shivering, something I always try to do to work out the brown adipose tissues and uncouple the mitochondria, those free radical generating energy furnaces, increase my appetite.

My motorcycle rides in the winter always induce some shivering from the cold and the wind chill. This is good. I plan to do some local walks and climbs near my home with light clothing and a back pack, slung low, or scuba weights around my waist. A brisk pace with a low weight cycles the load on the spine, which is less stressful and, yet, is good exercise for the stabilizers. The low weight changes the trust angle and unloads the low stabilizers.

Push ups are an absolutely great exercise. They require good core stability and train all the stabilizers from the shoulders right on down the trunk. They are in the core of my new routine, which I will post soon. The problem is getting enough weight or speed in the more intense versions.

The Tabata protocol,

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