Interview from the Land Down Under
11/06/1415:43
I participated in an interview with Christian Marchegiani from Sydney, Australia. First of all, I would like to thank all of the people from Australia and abroad that like our page. This truly humbles me. Australia is a country I have always wanted to visit. Thanks again and thank you, Christian for giving me the opportunity to participate in the interview.
Ryan
Ryan
I participated in an interview with Christian Marchegiani from Sydney, Australia. First of all, I would like to thank all of the people from Australia and abroad that like our page. This truly humbles me. Australia is a country I have always wanted to visit. Thanks again and thank you, Christian for giving me the opportunity to participate in the interview.
Ryan
The best advice I would give a personal trainer is to become as knowledgeable as possible about the field of exercise physiology. I would suggest starting with a few good textbooks: anatomy and physiology, biomechanics, exercise physiology, and muscle physiology. If they want to take it past that, I would suggest molecular biology and genetics. This is where most of the interesting research is being performed presently. After covering the basics with the text books, I highly suggests learning how to use Medline, the database for the National Library of Medicine, allowing one to search millions of medical, physiology, and scientific papers. Almost all of the abstracts are free as are many of the full text papers.
Learning to read and interpret the individual studies is most important, in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with reading books. However, realize that you are getting someone else's interpretation of the data. That's all well and good. I don't mind getting someone else's interpretation. Although, I tend to trust my own a little more.
When building a training protocol, I like to use building a house as an analogy. Each study or piece of data represents a brick. And, each study only tells us a limited amount of information. Trying to extrapolate the results of a study outside of the parameters of that particular study is often a mistake. The more bricks we have (studies / data), the bigger and stronger our house will be. We use logical mortar to attach these bricks. This is where we often make mistakes. The position of a true scientist is to be skeptical, especially regarding his or her own interpretation of the data. Hence, I constantly question my own understanding of the data and am always searching for new information.
2. What’s the biggest myth that you wish would just go away?
Crossfit! LOL. Just kidding. There are too many myths and ridiculous practices in the fitness industry. I honestly think that fitness practices have gotten worse over time. Where would I begin? Spot reduction, more exercise is better, functional exercises, balance exercises, plyometrics, one has to train fast in order to be fast, etc., etc., infinity.
3. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about strength & fitness training in your time as a professional?
After looking at the immensity of the genetics literature on exercise tolerance and adaptation, the main lesson I would like most to learn is that there is no one size fits all approach to exercise. We are all genetically different and have much variability in adaptability and tolerance to an exercise stimulus. Sure, there are some general principles that apply to exercise training. Although, we need to maintain the flexibility to modify those principles in order fit the individual.
The following is a frequency histogram examining the variation in muscle mass gain or loss (cross sectional area) from the study "Variability in Muscle Size and Strength Gain after Unilateral Resistance Training.” What we see is a positive skew. Only a few subjects have the genetic capacity to make large gains in muscle mass according to the parameters of the training protocol. Most subjects made moderate gains, some were non responders, while others actually lost muscle mass.
How could that happen? What would cause a group of subjects to lose muscle mass from participating in a resistance training program? More importantly, why would someone pay me to train them to get negative results? As trainers, we must alter the intensity, frequency, duration, volume, and other physiological factors in order for results from exercise to be forthcoming, based upon the individual.
Ryan A. Hall
Exercise Science, LLC
4521 Magazine St.
New Orleans, LA. 70115
504-669-0918
www.exercisesciencellc.com
exercisesciencellc@gmail.com
References:
HUBAL, M. J., H. GORDISH-DRESSMAN, P. D. THOMPSON, T. B. PRICE, E. P. HOFFMAN, T. J. ANGELOPOULOS, P. M. GORDON, N. M. MOYNA, L. S. PESCATELLO, P. S. VISICH, R. F. ZOELLER, R. L. SEIP, and P. M. CLARKSON. Variability in Muscle Size and Strength Gain after Unilateral Resistance Training. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 37, No. 6, pp. 964–972, 2005.
Older versions of Gray’s Anatomy can be found for free online:
http://www.bartleby.com/107/
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24780759M/Anatomy_descriptive_and_surgical
You can also find it at several other sites.
Recommended Exercise Physiology Text:
http://www.amazon.com/Exercise-Physiology-Human-Bioenergetics-Applications/dp/0072556420/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415043722&sr=1-7&keywords=exercise+physiology
Recommended Muscle Physiology Text:
http://www.amazon.com/Skeletal-Muscle-Structure-Function-Plasticity/dp/0781775930/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415043820&sr=1-1&keywords=skeletal+muscle+structure+function+and+plasticity
Ryan
- 1. What would be the one piece of advice you would give Personal Trainers?
The best advice I would give a personal trainer is to become as knowledgeable as possible about the field of exercise physiology. I would suggest starting with a few good textbooks: anatomy and physiology, biomechanics, exercise physiology, and muscle physiology. If they want to take it past that, I would suggest molecular biology and genetics. This is where most of the interesting research is being performed presently. After covering the basics with the text books, I highly suggests learning how to use Medline, the database for the National Library of Medicine, allowing one to search millions of medical, physiology, and scientific papers. Almost all of the abstracts are free as are many of the full text papers.
Learning to read and interpret the individual studies is most important, in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with reading books. However, realize that you are getting someone else's interpretation of the data. That's all well and good. I don't mind getting someone else's interpretation. Although, I tend to trust my own a little more.
When building a training protocol, I like to use building a house as an analogy. Each study or piece of data represents a brick. And, each study only tells us a limited amount of information. Trying to extrapolate the results of a study outside of the parameters of that particular study is often a mistake. The more bricks we have (studies / data), the bigger and stronger our house will be. We use logical mortar to attach these bricks. This is where we often make mistakes. The position of a true scientist is to be skeptical, especially regarding his or her own interpretation of the data. Hence, I constantly question my own understanding of the data and am always searching for new information.
2. What’s the biggest myth that you wish would just go away?
Crossfit! LOL. Just kidding. There are too many myths and ridiculous practices in the fitness industry. I honestly think that fitness practices have gotten worse over time. Where would I begin? Spot reduction, more exercise is better, functional exercises, balance exercises, plyometrics, one has to train fast in order to be fast, etc., etc., infinity.
3. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned about strength & fitness training in your time as a professional?
After looking at the immensity of the genetics literature on exercise tolerance and adaptation, the main lesson I would like most to learn is that there is no one size fits all approach to exercise. We are all genetically different and have much variability in adaptability and tolerance to an exercise stimulus. Sure, there are some general principles that apply to exercise training. Although, we need to maintain the flexibility to modify those principles in order fit the individual.
The following is a frequency histogram examining the variation in muscle mass gain or loss (cross sectional area) from the study "Variability in Muscle Size and Strength Gain after Unilateral Resistance Training.” What we see is a positive skew. Only a few subjects have the genetic capacity to make large gains in muscle mass according to the parameters of the training protocol. Most subjects made moderate gains, some were non responders, while others actually lost muscle mass.
How could that happen? What would cause a group of subjects to lose muscle mass from participating in a resistance training program? More importantly, why would someone pay me to train them to get negative results? As trainers, we must alter the intensity, frequency, duration, volume, and other physiological factors in order for results from exercise to be forthcoming, based upon the individual.
Ryan A. Hall
Exercise Science, LLC
4521 Magazine St.
New Orleans, LA. 70115
504-669-0918
www.exercisesciencellc.com
exercisesciencellc@gmail.com
References:
HUBAL, M. J., H. GORDISH-DRESSMAN, P. D. THOMPSON, T. B. PRICE, E. P. HOFFMAN, T. J. ANGELOPOULOS, P. M. GORDON, N. M. MOYNA, L. S. PESCATELLO, P. S. VISICH, R. F. ZOELLER, R. L. SEIP, and P. M. CLARKSON. Variability in Muscle Size and Strength Gain after Unilateral Resistance Training. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 37, No. 6, pp. 964–972, 2005.
Older versions of Gray’s Anatomy can be found for free online:
http://www.bartleby.com/107/
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24780759M/Anatomy_descriptive_and_surgical
You can also find it at several other sites.
Recommended Exercise Physiology Text:
http://www.amazon.com/Exercise-Physiology-Human-Bioenergetics-Applications/dp/0072556420/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415043722&sr=1-7&keywords=exercise+physiology
Recommended Muscle Physiology Text:
http://www.amazon.com/Skeletal-Muscle-Structure-Function-Plasticity/dp/0781775930/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415043820&sr=1-1&keywords=skeletal+muscle+structure+function+and+plasticity
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