When Jamie was in the beginning stages of writing Knowledge & Nonsense, I encouraged him to cover as many misunderstood & uninvestigated topics as possible. What resulted was an amazing brainstorm of ideas that could barely be contained within a manuscript more lengthy than many college texts. Read More...
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Everything and everyone has fitness or nutrition advice to offer these days-websites, television, newspapers, your best friend, college professors, barbers, mechanics, personal trainers, dietitians, and so on. The debate rages on between low carbohydrate and high carbohydrate fanatics. Advocates of high reps or low reps swear by their methods. I could go on forever citing examples of the various arguments running rampant in the fitness industry. All of this conflicting information makes it difficult for people to figure out what's right or wrong.
This website takes the work out of figuring out what's right and what's wrong by combining "in the trenches" knowledge (28 years of experience) with scientific data. Some will be surprised to learn that what they've believed about nutrition and exercise all of these years has been dead wrong. A statement isn't necessarily correct just because your fitness coach, college professor, or favorite magazine said it. How many times have you heard "well they say" or "everybody says"?
When someone tells you something or everybody says something, you accept it is as gospel without any question, especially when it came from someone with a highly respected degree or certificate, a reputation for always being right, or any other trusted source. I highly recommend that you change your way of thinking. If you're worried about offending people or possibly upsetting some of your heroes, you should probably stick to a robotic style of thinking and accept that you most likely will never find the truth. Like everyone else, I once assumed that certain statements were correct without really scratching the surface. When writing Knowledge and Nonsense: the science of nutrition and exercise, my views changed on many topics. Once you read the material on this site and in that book, I'm sure yours will too.
A question on a popular fitness forum recently caught my eye. The question was, "What makes an expert?" There were numerous replies to the topic. Some of the fitness gurus (as they and others like to call them) were highly offended and vowed to no longer post on the forum because their guru status was questioned. Have you ever wondered why the fitness industry seems to have more gurus and experts than any other industry? I don't think you need me to answer for you, but in case you need some help, the answer is because there is a potential to make big money if you're an expert in a world full of people who are looking for an easy way to get fit. Ask yourself, what makes an expert? My answer is that there are no true experts. There are too many different topics related to fitness and nutrition (no one can know it all or possibly look at all of the research). The other way to answer this question is by realizing that everything is relative. A person may be an expert on exercise relative to someone who has minimal interest or little knowledge. You might be a protein expert according to the fitness magazine that you write for, but compared to KD Tipton, you are probably ignorant on the subject. Expert status changes as the people you are discussing a topic with changes. Do I consider myself an expert? I don't consider myself a true expert because I don't believe there are any true experts. I do consider myself a person with a fair amount of experience and a substantial amount of knowledge (relative to most people I have came in contact with in the industry- read more about me). I can back up my statements with analytical reasoning and/or references to scientific data. I'm not one of those people who like to use the "so and so said," "I have a degree in," or "I have always done it that way" arguments. Those statements are ways to disguise the fact that they have no clue of what they are talking about. At the same time, I learn new things on a daily basis. I also speak with people from time to time that have fitness and nutrition knowledge far more extensive than mine. Those are the people that make me feel like I need to study and experiment more. Those are the people that motivate me to educate myself further.
This website is not a collection of my opinions. Rather, a compilation of thousands of hours of investigating, and analyzing Scientific Research and over two decades of real world experience. This site covers many uninvestigated and misunderstood topics. This site is a great educational tool for anyone interested in nutrition, exercise and critical thinking. The site also features information on outdoor skills, and the science of wilderness survival. But don't take everything said on this site (or any other site or source for that matter) with blind faith learn to be critical. Investigate all claims.
Note: Maxcondition has a NO-REFUND POLICY. ALL SALES ARE FINAL.
ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS THAT INCREASE THE FOOD INTAKE AND CONSUMPTION VOLUME OF UNKNOWING CONSUMERS
Brian Wansink. Annu. Rev. Nutr. 2004. 24:455–79 Abstract: Package size, plate shape, lighting, socializing, and variety are only a few of the environmental factors that can influence the consumption volume of food far more than most people realize. Although such environmental factors appear unrelated, they generally influence consumption volume by inhibiting consumption monitoring and by suggesting alternative consumption norms. For researchers, this reviewsuggests that redirecting the focus of investigations to the psychological mechanisms behind consumption will raise the profile and impact of research. For health professionals, this review underscores how small structural changes in personal environments can reduce the unknowing overconsumption of food.
An impressive amount of time, intelligence, money and resources have been invested in understanding the physiological mechanisms and their affect on eating behavior. However, research on the psychological aspects of food consumption pales in comparison to that of the physiolgical aspects. "Yet environmental factors (such as package size, plate shape, lighting, variety, or the presence of others) can increase food consumption volume far more than people may realize" (Wansink, 2004).
Most people are not aware of the influence the environment has on food consumption . "Understanding these drivers of consumption volume has immediate implications for research, nutrition education, and consumer welfare" (Wansink, 2004). Wansink's Review (2004) examines the environmental factors that influence consumption and why they influence consumption.
Research on eating should be an interdisciplinary activity, although most of the research is not. It is imminent that the future of nutrition research is interdisciplinary and covers psychological, and sociological areas as well as physiological areas.
Excerpt below- from Knowledge and Nonsense Purchase the book (http://maxcondition.com/page.php?103)
Chapter 8, Training for Muscular Growth Basics There are four key training elements to consider when training for muscular growth. These elements include load (weight on the bar), work (load multiplied by total repetitions), frequency (how often training is performed), and duration (time involved in seeing significant changes). Dan Moore has done an excellent job discussing these factors in a series of articles he wrote for hypertrophy-research.com. Below are some key points from Dan’s articles.
Load “Much of the debate over loading strategies really hasn’t been settled and the commonly held belief that hypertrophy is stimulated higher in low loading protocols than high loading protocols hasn’t really been proven.
In most cases, it goes something like this. High volumes and moderate intensities (e.g. 8–12 sets of 6–12RMs) with short rest intervals are thought to encourage hypertrophy whereas those with low volumes and high intensities are expected to achieve strength gains without hypertrophy (1-5).
As far back as the mid 1960s, O’Shea (6) compared a low-volume protocol (three sets of 2–3RM squats) with a high volume protocol (three sets of 9–10RM squats) over six weeks and found significant increases in thigh girth in both groups, but there was no significant difference between the groups…..”
