What about those enzymes?

Today's post will be one part nutrition lesson, one part common sense lesson, and eight parts rant. 

One of the popular arguments in favor of certain diets has to do with the enzyme content of various foods.  Some advocates of eating raw foods, for example, argue that raw foods are better because they contain more enzymes, and that ingesting those enzymes can help us maintain a youthful, healthful body.  Now there may be many benefits to eating foods raw but the enzyme content is not one of them except in a limited situation.  It cannot be, and anybody with a middle school understanding of biology and chemistry should be able to understand why not.

Let's do this step by step.

What are enzymes?  Enzymes are proteins that act as catalysts for various chemical reactions in the body.  This is a fancy way of saying that enzymes basically allow, or make, those reactions occur.  Pretty much every step in every chemical reaction that goes on in your body would happen too slowly to support life unless there were enzymes around to speed them up.  Since you're basically nothing more than a big, complicated bundle of chemical reactions, enzymes re pretty important.  Incidentally, this is why you feel like crap when you generate a fever - enzymes work optimally within a narrow range of temperatures, and once your body temp goes above that range all the chemical processes that your body depends on slow down.

There are different enzymes in every part of every cell in your body.  There are digestive enzymes that break down proteins, for example.  Guess where you'll find them?  In your gut!  There are other enzymes that form melanin when exposed to sun.  Guess where you'll find those?  On your skin.  If they switched places you could digest meat on your chest and get a tan inside your stomach, but luckily we have a complex web of control mechanisms to keep that from happening.

When you eat proteins four things can happen to them:  they are either digested or not digested (most of which happens in the stomach) and either absorbed into the bloodstream or not absorbed into the bloodstream (most of which happens in the small intestine).

Proteins that aren't absorbed aren't a worry for us right now - you poop them out, which might be a waste of protein but isn't otherwise of consequence.  Let's think about the proteins that are absorbed.  Ideally, do you want whole (undigested) proteins passing from your small intestine into your bloodstream?  Of course not.  Sure, some of those proteins might be beneficial, but most won't be - you don't want digestive enzymes in your blood - they'd digest stuff that you need, like pretty much anything in your body that's made out of protein.  So your body is usually careful about what it lets into the blood from your intestine.  It will let amino acids through - that's what you get when a protein is broken down into small, small pieces.  But unless you have a seriously leaky gut big proteins - like enzymes - can't make it into the blood.  If they can't get into the blood, they can't get anywhere else, either.

So when somebody tells you that you can regain youthful levels of enzymes by eating raw meat or whatever they're crazy.  If enzymes are getting from your food to your blood undigested then you have serious health problems - lots of allergens and other crap are getting into your system from your gut.  The only exception is digestive enzymes.  Enzymes that help with digestion - which occurs in the mouth and stomach - will obviously make it to the mouth and stomach if you swallow them.  What they won't do is pass through the wall of the small intestine to get to your blood, which is fine - you don't want them in your blood!

If somebody tells you to eat Food X because it has beneficial enzyme Y (like, say, telomerase) which will do Z for you, they have absolutely no understanding of human physiology.  Unless Z is "help you digest food." 

Now there are lots of other nutrients that might get absorbed and do whatever for you, and they might be denatured by heat, which might turn out to be a good reason to eat raw foods.  Just because a position is supported by bad arguments doesn't mean the position is wrong.  There are bad reasons to eat a Paleo diet, too.  So eating raw foods might be beneficial.  But the talk about re-stocking your supply of enzymes from raw foods is... simply ignorant (again, unless we're talking about digestive enzymes that act in the stomach - those don't have to cross into the blood to work, so they're an entirely different story).

Osu.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So today is a holiday, at least if you live in the US and aren't Native American.  I like the basic idea - to give thanks for all the cool stuff we have, like hi def TV's and dark chocolate (and family and friends, of course), but this holiday seems to be more about watching football and eating ourselves into insulin comas than anything.

The insidious thing about holidays (to us compulsive overeaters) is that they seem like an excuse to blow our diets.  "Go ahead and pig out, it's Thanksgiving!"  Which is fine, as Thanksgiving comes once a year, but it all too easily turns into "Go ahead and pig out...

• It's your birthday!
• It's Christmas!
• It's New Year's!
• You got a promotion at work!
• Your brother/ best friend/ cousin/ sister is in town!
• It's your wedding anniversary!
• It's the anniversary of your first date!
• It's the anniversary of your first kiss!"

And so on.

Remember my tips from before - if you're going to overeat, do a nicely brutal strength training session beforehand (I've already done mine).  Don't try to do seven hours of cardio to make up for the calories - a huge shot of cortisol isn't going to help you as much as you think.  Make sure to get some protein in with your food - don't skip the turkey for sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.

I'm thankful for a lot of things, but also for this blog, which is an opportunity to share my thoughts with a bunch of people, some of whom I don't even know.  Frankly, none of the people I interact with on a daily basis care even a little bit about karate or fitness, and there are only so many times I can start talking to my wife about suspension training while her eyes glaze over before I take pity on her and shut up.  So, thank you for reading and giving me an outlet for discussing all this stuff!

Fitness tip of the day:  if you can't do one arm pushups well, try building up to them by doing them with your legs spread as far as they can go, then build up to real ones by bringing your legs closer to each other.  This eases the load on your arm/ shoulder without really changing the angle (at your shoulder joint) or range of motion.  I like this a lot more than doing partial reps (only going down part of the way) or using the other arm for assistance (which I find really hard to measure, so I can't tell if I'm making progress).  

I plan to post some videos of this stuff in the next couple of months as soon as I get the tablet I've been wanting...  I have my eye on a NotionInk Adam, but it's not out yet.  :(

Enjoy your holiday and don't let it be an excuse for a five week break from training or eating well!

Osu.

You should be watching combat sports

If you're a martial artist and you aren't watching combat sports fairly regularly, you should be.  There are two reasons:  

First, you can learn from combat sports.  Now I know that MMA isn't the same as an actual fight, but it's closer than most of what I have access to - I haven't seen a "real fight" (no rules) since the third grade, if you can count a couple of eight year olds fighting as a streetfight.  Watching MMA has taught me a few things about combat, like the fact that head kicks can be effective (just don't lead with them or throw them alone) or that "knockout points" along the jaw that my teacher used to talk about are very, very real.  Don't think that you're learning a lot, because MMA does have a bunch of rules and fighting with gloves is not the same as without, but you can get something out of it.

Second, watching good combat sports can be very motivational.  If you can watch Giorgio Petrosyan fight or see Glaube Feitosa throw a Brazilian kick for a knockout and not be overwhelmed by the urge to go out and train then... I have nothing to say to you.  

Obviously, many non-martial artists have no interest in combat sports, and I have no argument with them - it's a matter of taste.  I don't watch golf.  If I played golf I'd probably get more out of watching it.  But if you are a martial artist and you enjoy the intricacies of combat, then I bet you don't watch MMA for one of two reasons:  either you've never tried it, or you watched a match where the fighters spent interminable lengths of time hugging each other either pressed up against the cage or lying on the floor, doing nothing.

If you've never tried it, watch something on Spike or HDNet - there's a ton of free fight sports on tv.  If you don't want to wait, you can always YouTube a bunch of fights, also for free.

A less widely available alternative to MMA is professional kickboxing.  I can't recommend K-1 highly enough.  It's available on HDNet for free, and it's tons of fun.  They call it (correctly) the highest level striking on the planet.  If you can catch a K-1 MAX show, that's even better.  MAX is the middleweight division - 154 lbs. and under - and the energy level and technical ability of the lighter fighters is amazing to see.  Best part?  No hugging.

Osu.

Pistols, Advertising, and the Rodeo

Check out this week's Paleo Rodeo for a ton of Thanksgiving related posts.  Apparently holidays are a problem for everybody - which makes me wonder.

Look over to the right and you'll see a banner for Pro MMA Radio.  You 'll be able to click on it and listen to the most recent show while reading this blog, once we get the code fixed.  It's the best source for MMA analysis, interviews, and discussions that I've come across, and I'm not just saying this now.  I've listened to every episode, I linked to it with the first podcasts I put on this site, and I'm pretty sure I've written this before on this blog.

I get no money from Pro MMA Radio, though I'll apparently end up with my site listed on a page of Broadcast Members on their site, which might direct some traffic my way.  Just so you know I haven't sold out yet (though I'm totally willing to, given the opportunity!)

I'm thinking about setting up Google Adsense and putting up some affiliate type links.  I imagine I could make almost no money by doing so, but maybe it will amount to a non-trivial amount over time (I'm hoping to fund some book or DVD buying or light equipment purchase, not quit my day job).  If anyone has an objection to me enabling ads please let me know, it's more important that I not alienate readers than make a couple of bucks. 

I've been working on pistols and one arm pushups for a while now, on and off, for vanity reasons, and I finally did a sort of unassisted pistol the other day.  I've done various different assisted versions - usually limiting depth by sitting back to a step or short box, then more recently holding onto a doorframe.  There's one tip I'd read about but forgotten for a while, which is to do pistols while holding some kind of weight in your hands out in front of you.  It sounds a little bit crazy, as the more weight you hold the harder it will be for that supporting leg to lift you out of the bottom position, but if your problem is keeping balance in the bottom, meaning you tend to fall backwards at the bottom, then the counterbalance might be enough to enable the pistol.  I tried this with just two five pound dumbells and... voila... pistols accomplished (my butt touched my ankle at the bottom, which as far as I'm concerned is a full range pistol).

Is this a true pistol?  I guess not.  Here's where we get back to the vanity thing, though.  Am I doing pistols to be cool at parties or to improve my leg and hip drive for kicks and such?  If vanity, then all I've done is found another progression to use to work toward "real" pistols.  But I'm not sure that learning to balance in the bottom position has anything to do with improving my strength for kicks.  I might just work on using more weight instead of building up to a naked pistol and see where that takes me.

I got my first spam comment, which for reasons of hubris I don't want to delete (I'll delete spam when the problem gets more serious).  It was a link to the most ridiculous looking ab building device I've ever seen.  Check it out iff you're looking for a good laugh (iff is philosophy-class short for if and only if - I suddenly can't remember if that's common knowledge or not).  I can't even begin to figure out how anyone thinks that rocking around in that thing will build up your abs - where's the resistance coming from?  What's the point?  The nicest thing I can think to say is that while it doesn't seem like it would do anything at all it doesn't seem particularly dangerous either - though I could be wrong about that.

I'm planning a few posts.  I want to talk about rank, contrast bands and dumbells, and discuss some dietary supplements in a little more detail.  If there's anything specific you, the reader, are curious about, let me know by e-mail or comments and I'll see if I can help. 

Osu.

Hero of the Month: Bruce Lee

First of all, I apologize for the lapses in this series.  I have no excuse, really, other than laziness.

If you haven't heard of this month's hero, Bruce Lee...  Actually, I don't even know how to finish that statement.  Crawl out from under the rock you've been living under?  Carefully reach down and remove your head from your colon?  I'm not sure...

I will admit that many people might not understand how far reaching Lee's influence was.  Lee is probably best known for being one of the most charismatic and visually impressive martial arts movie stars in history - his popularity was extraordinary, and was partially responsible for the explosion of martial arts awareness in the US in the 70's.  He was not only popular but innovative as a film star.  His action scenes and even the structure of his films were vastly different from the work that had gone on before.  But even if he hadn't made a single movie Lee would still be an important figure in martial arts history:

1. He was one of the first to popularize cross training.  Lee studied not only different Asian martial arts but also Western boxing and fencing to try to cull out the best techniques for his own system.  He's been called the first mixed martial artist.  I can't say he was the first to do that, but he was certainly the most influential.
2. Lee was an early adoptee of weight training and cutting edge (for the time) fitness and nutrition ideas - remember, this was at a time when most people thought weightlifting would make you "musclebound" and inflexible.
3. He rigorously tested his ideas in combat, rather than accepting the old "my master taught me this way so this is the right way" ideology so prevalent in martial arts.  Lee was famous for taking on all challengers in no holds barred streetfights even while his fame grew as a movie star.

Bruce Lee was a scientist, a self-experimenter who constantly sought out new ideas in training and in fighting, tested them, and ruthlessly discarded the things that didn't work.  You can argue with some of his conclusions but you can't fault his methodology. 

There's a ton of material about Lee - movies about his life, biographies, and his own writings.  You can read inspiring stories - one after another - about his wife finding him on the floor in front of the television with a boxing match on while in a full split working a hand gripper in one hand with a book open in front of him.  He trained constantly - not jogging mile after mile, but working on his speed, his precision, and his art.  That combination of intellectual openness, work ethic, and intelligence made him a powerful force for change.

Lee's movies changed my life.  I was a kid during the kung fu explosion of the 70's, and the central theme of the martial arts film (which to me was always that with hard work and correct training a person could overcome literally anything) might never have trickled into my consciousness if Lee's films hadn't pushed so far into the public awareness.  Now what's interesting about this is that we can imagine that someone like Jackie Chan or Jet Li, had they been around earlier, might have had the same cultural impact if kung fu films hadn't been popularized by others before them.  But neither of those individuals were anywhere near as accomplished or innovative as actual martial artists.  Lee was, in that sense, an awesome talent.

And my hero.  This month.

Performance Vanity: Gymnastics for Martial Artists

There is a trend in fitness today to incorporate gymnastics training into one's strength routine.  As far as I know (and I could be wrong, though it's not that important a point) this was mostly popularized by Crossfit, but they're certainly not the only ones advocating it, and historically gymnastics training was always a key part of physical culture. 

It's easy to see the appeal of gymnastics training.  It usually requires little or no equipment - mostly bodyweight exercises and maybe a set of rings or paralettes - builds impressive physiques (check out the body on any high level gymnast) and looks impressive as hell.  Watch someone knock out a handstand pushup or hold a full planche and you can't help but be wowed, even if you aren't an athlete yourself.

There are roughly three reasons a martial artists should or could incorporate gymnastics moves into a strength routine:

1. Build strength in a movement to balance force production around a joint (for injury prevention).  For example, you should so some kind of pullup or body row regularly because most martial artists do a lot of pushing (pushups, punches, etc.) and if your strength in one direction is too much greater than the other direction you set yourself up for injury (in this case, at the shoulder joint).
2. For functional/ tactical reasons.  The best example of this is the muscle-up (start hanging from a bar or rings; pull up high enough that you end up above the bar or rings, like the top of a dip).  The movement in a muscle-up is a lot like what you have to do to climb over a wall or ledge or high fence.  This has clear self defense implications - imagine you're trying to escape from some attackers and come up on a low wall or fence.  Strength developed from muscle-ups could help you get over that wall or fence very quickly to escape.
3. For performance vanity.  Performance vanity is my term for feeling proud of yourself not for looking good but for being able to do something you think is cool.  I'm sure we've all felt this - the first time you made your gi snap while kicking, your first knuckle pushup, your first board break.  There's nothing wrong with this - I'm not against vanity as long as it motivates you to do good things (vanity that makes you exercise and eat right is good; vanity that makes you shoot botox into your head is bad).  But you should recognize why you're doing what you're doing. 

The fact is that gymnastics moves are rarely, if ever, going to directly improve your karate.  They're done at the wrong speed and in the wrong positions.  Take the planche.  It requires tremendous shoulder and core strength - which is good.  But it's a static position.  Karateka don't need to hold their arms stiffly out in front of them against tremendous resistance - they need to move, explosively.  Handstand pushups are fantastic, but if you're in a fight and both hands are on the floor and your feet are in the air something has already gone horribly wrong.

Look, if mastering some new, esoteric movement jazzes you up and gets you excited about training (that's performance vanity), then there's nothing wrong with that.  But if your training routine is already full and you're out of time to add to it don't feel bad about skipping the work on pistols, handstands, and planches in favor of movements that directly improve your art.

Let me dissect the pistol for another good example of this.  The pistol is a one legged squat - you hold one leg straight out in front of you and squat down until your butt touches your heel, then stand back up.  Fantastic exercise, right?  Most people can't do one.  I'm sure it impresses people at the beach.  But why can't most people do one?  It's because of either their balance or strength down in the hole - in the bottom position where the hip and knee are both fully flexed.

If you want to be able to do a pistol you can add a bunch of work in a deep squat - building up your strength in that bottom position - and spend time developing your balance in that position.  But I doubt you ever have to get into that position in your art - I know I don't.  Even if you do, most of us have to do our pistols so slowly that the strength won't carry over well to fighting speed.  You'd be better off doing deep two legged squats and working at a faster speed - you'll get better carryover.

Take home message:  practice gymnastics moves or weird bodyweight exercises if it gets you motivated to train (I do this myself).  But don't sacrifice the kind of work that will directly improve your art for the sake of being able to do flashy stuff that's peripheral to your karate.

More caveats:  I don't mean to disparage people who incorporate gymnastics into their martial art - who do tricking or extreme martial arts.  I love watching that sort of stuff - I don't do it myself and I object to people who think that it makes for good self defense, but that's another story.  If you do practice that then by all means gymnastics should take a central role in your training!

Let me say also that I have the highest respect for gymnasts - they're fantastic athletes, and if you're interested in a physical activity other than martial arts you could certainly do a lot worse.  In fact, if you want to be fit and don't want to do martial arts you should seriously consider a program of mastering gymnastics moves.  Just remember the whole thing about chasing two rabbits...

Osu.

Combat Sports: How to fix MMA

Check out Modern Paleo for this week's Paleo Rodeo.  I remembered to submit a post this time!  Now on to business...

Ever watch a UFC match that turns into two guys holding each other against the cage for long periods of time or holding each other on the floor, doing not much of anything?  If not, then I bet you've never watched the UFC.  I'm a fan of MMA, but the fact is that a good percentage of MMA fights are boring to watch.  We can fix this.

There are two layers to the problem with MMA's ground game and clinch game.  The first is that good ground fighting can be hard to understand.  Someone without a background in ground sports might see good ground fighting but just not get what's going on.  Imagine someone watching the NFL for the first time - all they see is a bunch of guys running around, they won't appreciate what went into a great play because they don't get what's going on.  It's like when I watch soccer - instant tears of boredom.  The cure for that is knowledge - learning about what goes on in a good ground match.  It helps to watch great ground fighters with good commentary.  You can't see a lot of Dustin Hazelett or Demian Maia without gaining love for what they do.  See, I'm not against the ground game - I'm against bad ground game.

The bigger problem in MMA is boring groundfighting and boring clinchwork.  Many UFC fights turn into bad wrestling matches.  Basically, good wrestlers can win fights by grabbing their opponents and holding them - "controlling them" - for large portions of the match.  Grab a guy, drag him to the ground, and lay on top for three rounds.  This strategy is often called "lay and pray."  See Jon Fitch, George St. Pierre (the current version, not the pre-Serra knockout version), Efraim Escudero, and a ton of other guys.

Why do fighters do this?  Well, it's effective - it wins fights.  It's hard to get out from under a good wrestler.  If you have control and you really try to damage your opponent or go for a submission, you open yourself up to being swept or counterstruck or submitted (see Chael Sonnen v. Anderson Silva).  If you just hold on and move just enough that the ref doesn't stand you up you can sweep the scorecards and notch a victory.

See, the scoring is the problem.  It is popular to blame the judges for this.  Sometimes that's justified - we've all seen some horrible decisions rendered, often because the judges are boxing people and not MMA people and don't understand what they're watching.  But the judges give St. Pierre wins for lying on his opponents because that's what the rules say to do, not because they're bad judges.

The rules say that a fighter should win the round for landing strikes, attempting submissions, or controlling the opponent (I'm paraphrasing).  In other words, if you can lie on top of someone for 15 minutes you're supposed to win - that's what the rules say.  And it is easier to do than to stand and trade with someone or try to finish them, especially if you're an experienced wrestler and your opponent isn't.

How can we solve this problem?  Defenders of wrestling in MMA say that guys should learn to get out from under a wrestler, not complain about it.  I say that the rules should be changed in as organic a way as possible to prevent lay and pray.

This has been tried before - having the ref stand fighters after short periods of inactivity on the ground is a common approach.  I don't like that.  Any time the ref interferes in a fight it's artificial - it stops the flow of the fight, and therefore of the entertainment.  Referee involvement needs to be minimized to protecting the safety of the fighters, not splitting the ref's attention between protecting safety and protecting entertainment value.

Instead, the scoring criteria should be changed.  Follow my logic here:  What's the most natural way to win a fight?  To finish the opponent.  Clearly, knockouts and submissions should win fights.  What if the fight goes the distance?  Then it should come down to who came closest to finishing the fight or had the best chance to finish.  Only those two things.  How do you finish?  Strikes or submissions.  So you should be rewarded for landing hard strikes or attempting submissions - ONLY.  Which should count more?  That's a harder question, and it really will come down to the judges'... judgment.

How would this work?  Well, think about takedowns.  A slam - where a guy is picked up and really driven into the mat - would score points because it damages the opponent - effectively it's a kind of strike.  A soft takedown, though, where someone is tripped to the mat but isn't hurt in the process - wouldn't score any points.  Laying on top of someone and controlling them wouldn't score.  Putting some ground and pound on someone or going for submissions from the top would score.  Improving position - getting into mount or side control from the guard - wouldn't score on its own at all.  Fighters would only get points (in the judges' eyes) by doing damage or beginning submissions.

In this situation, laying on top of someone for a long time wouldn't get you the victory.  If fighters couldn't lay and pray and expect to win, you can bet fighters would stop doing it.  They'd start making riskier moves from the top, dishing out strikes and going for kimuras and armbars, giving the guy on bottom a chance to escape and providing entertainment for the fans.  This will make for better fights.

Does this put wrestlers out of business?  Absolutely not.  Top position is an advantage - it's easier to finish someone from the top, but you have to try to do so.  Good wrestlers who could take their opponents down could get on top and ground and pound or submit people - I'm okay with that, it would be fun to watch.  This change would only end lay and pray, not the ground game in its entirety.

Summary:  MMA would be better if decisions weren't based on control but only on damage done and submission attempts.  Controlling your opponent and maintaining a position should not in themselves contribute to victory.

Postscript:  If you don't like watching guys hug each other in the middle of a fight, you could always switch from the UFC to K-1.  There's never, or at least very rarely, a dull moment in K-1.   (By the way, I'm opposed to men hugging during a spectator fighting event, I'm not a homophobe - if two guys want to hug each other for romantic reasons I couldn't care less.  I just don't want them to interrupt a slugfest to do it, and I'm not particularly interested in watching.)