Tag Archives: biofeedback

Interview: Mike T Nelson

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Mike Nelson runs ExtremeHumanPerformance.com and has some great insights on metabolic flexibility and health in general. Here’s an interview I did with him:

Background

Mike is a PHD Candidate for Exercise Science and Kinesiology. His research topic is metabolic flexibility.

He was working for a BA of Natural Science and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN. He only got the BA of Natural Science before moving on to Michigan Tech, where he did two years of post graduate work in Mechanical Engineering. He later went to graduate school there and received a Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering after 8 years. Most of his classwork was in biomechanics engineering.

From college he went to work for a medical device company, which would pay for additional college courses after he was there a couple years. Mike took classes in exercise physiology because it was interesting to him (even his vacations). He ended up joining their PhD program about 6 years ago in bio-mechanical engineering.

Metabolic Flexibility

Your metabolism should be flexible. Certain people may be flexible or inflexible to certain nutrients like carbohydrates or fats.  When you’re flexible towards carbohydrates, you’re more likely to consume carbohydrates more easily as an energy source.  The same goes for fats. Outside of a lab, you can test your flexibility with carbohydrates by consuming large amounts of carbohydrates and seeing how you feel afterward.  You can do the same with fats.

Great Questions

Minimal Effective Amount: What is the minimal amount you can do to get the maximum effect?

If you’re really healthy, shouldn’t you be able to take more abuse in terms of foods, odors, and germs instead of the other way around?

Working with Pain

Make minor movements in the injured part of your body to where you feel resistance, but not pain.  Pay attention to your range of motion and gains over time. Your brain will learn again over time that moving in that way shouldn’t be painful, and it won’t be. When you start getting a larger range of motion back without pain, start adding speed and weight to the motion to increase the intensity of the movement.

Biofeedback

The most common way of biofeedback during exercise is the range of motion test where you reach for your knees and stop when you feel strain. I’ve done a post on that here. High quality movement will allow your body to move better. Doing exercises that improve your mobility, in general, will perform better and give you better gains.  You should test your range of motion between each exercise every day because your body changes every day.

Personal Records Every Day (#PREveryDay)

There are three metrics affected by exercise.  Those are: volume, density, and intensity. Volume is the total number of pounds you pushed during your workout. Density is just that volume divided by the amount of time you spent doing it. Intensity is the percentage of your one rep maximum. You should strive to set a personal record in your exercises every day.

Measuring Body Fat

The most accurate way to test your body fat is using a Bod Pod. There are other ways to measure your body fat like skin caliper readings, hydrostatic weight, waist/arm measurements, and taking pictures. Taking pictures and waist/arm are the most effective for people trying to casually lose weight or look better because those are more in line with their actual goals anyways.  You’d be surprised at the changes you’ll see in your physique when you actually document it.

Thank You

Thank you for reading or listening, or both. What did you think? If you enjoyed this interview, show your support by subscribing via email or RSS. You can leave a comment below as well.

11 Simple Tips to be More Fit

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Looking back at what’s been done so far, I thought I’d give you ten easy tips that will help you be more fit:

  1. Be in the right mindset. Getting your mental game together will go a long way in improving your physical performance.  If you’re not where you need to be, identify the problem and neutralize it.  You mind can be the biggest hurdle in making yourself better.
  2. Drink enough water. Water is the thing that gives all things life.  It cleanses your system of toxins and allows you to extract energy from your food.  If you’re dehydrated, you’ll feel horrible and perform even worse.
  3. Work out. Really? Exercise is the basis of being fit coupled with a good diet. Get into a routine of working out at least three times a week for at least a half hour.  That’s a minimum.  If you can do more, do it. If you don’t exercise, you’ll never gain muscle and always be low on energy.  Don’t just exercise your body either.  Make sure you exercise your mind daily.
  4. Only eat carbs for energy and don’t over-do it. Having too many carbs will promote fat growth, but having too little will leave you starved for energy during your workouts.  You need carbs to build muscle.
  5. Use biofeedback to get the most out of your workout. Listening to your body is the best way to increase gains when you’re working out. Do range of motion tests before each exercise in your workout and you’ll get maximum results.
  6. Pick a diet that works for you. I’m talking about vegan, vegetarian, and omnivorous diets here. That whole South Beach, Atkins, Peanuts Only thing is just a gimmick.  Pick the one that fits your lifestyle and is the easiest for you.  I’m an omnivore myself.
  7. Eat high protein foods before and after you work out to build muscle. Get those proteins three hours before you work out and three to four hours afterward.  You’ll get maximum synthesis then and see excellent gains in muscle growth.  Of course only do it if that’s what you’re going for.
  8. Vary your workout to give tired muscles time to rest. If you give tired muscle groups that time to rest you can keep your heart rate up and give them some R&R at the same time. That will maximize your time to gain ratio.
  9. Don’t just worry about weight loss. Keep your mind on fitness, not weight loss.  Unhealthy weight loss can cause health problems later. Don’t sweat it out or starve it out.  Earn it.
  10. Cut out the alcohol. This is the single easiest way to lose weight and feel better. Alcohol dehydrates you and adds a ton of extra carbs and calories to you body that you don’t need.
  11. Strive for perfection and perpetual progress. This is the most important point.  Striving for daily perfection is what will keep you going forever. This will keep you from slipping back into your old habits. When applied to other facets of your life, you’ll only see positive things.

If you exercise (hah, see what I did there) those ten tips every day you will be well on your way to becoming more fit.  What tips do you have?

Biofeedback: An Interesting Take on Human Performance

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Biofeedback isn’t a new idea, but some high performance weight trainers have taken a new spin on it.  The idea is that if you want to get the maximum gain for your weight training efforts, you need to listen to your body and do what it is going to perform best at during that specific workout.

What does that mean?

If you’re going to work out, but your body isn’t going to respond well to bicep curls, you won’t do them in favor of another exercise your body will respond well to.  maybe you’ll end up doing bench presses today instead of curls, and because you’re listening to your body the muscle you build as a result of the bench presses will be dramatically better than if you forced yourself into doing curls.

How do I do it?

There is a simple method for testing your body’s response to any given exercise.  You just stand with your legs straight and reach for your toes.  As soon as you feel your body resist the action, stop and make a mental note of how far you stretched.  Do a couple of test exercises at a minimal intensity and then do the stretch again.  Not how far you stretched again, but this time compare it to your original.  Is it better or worse?  Rinse and repeat this method for a few exercises.

Now that you know which exercises your body is responding to the best, you can focus on doing those exercises for that workout.  You’ll find that you have an easier time doing those exercises and you aren’t forcing your body to do something it didn’t want to.  You’ll want to stop and do biofeedback tests a few times during your routine to make sure nothing has changed.

I’ve included a video of they guys from AthleteCreator.com and Extreme Human Performance using biofeedback to do Bench Presses below:

This is a second video from GymJunkies.com doing much of the same:

The Science

Your body responds to every movement you make by restricting or increasing range of motion.  This is a defensive reflex that kicks in when you’re making movements you shouldn’t.  It’s function is to keep you from injuring yourself.  When you’re working out, doing range of motion tests for each exercise will tell your body whether that specific motion is going to be helpful or not.

The whole biofeedback system is based on your body’s innate ability to contract muscles to prevent range of motion when you’re not moving the way you should.  Think about when you break a bone and all of the muscles around that area contract to restrict movement.  It’s the same feedback system.  Utilizing range of motion tests during your workout give you a noticeable physical response to what your body wants to do.

Using Biofeedback to your Benefit

Utilizing biofeedback to find out what positive motions will get the best results during your workout will help you build muscle and burn fat.  When you’re doing exercise that don’t test well, you won’t see noticeable gains in your overall fitness, whereas when you do, you’ll feel better working out and see excellent results fairly quickly.  Biofeedback and range of motion testing seem to really give great results.  It will be interesting to see how this type of exercise evolves.