Good evening as friends, welcome to the hindu news analysis by Shankarai's academy for the date 2nd of June 2023. Displayed here are the list of news articles we will be going through today. Now let's start the discussion. Look at this news article. The crux of this article is that the ethnic Serbs in Zewakan town in Northern Kosovo gathered for protest. The town hall was sealed off with barbed wires and surrounded by NATO led peacekeepers in Riyadh gear. The United States security of state, Anthony Blinken called on both Pristina and Belgrade to ease tension. In this context, let us understand the story of conflict between Serbia and Kosovo. See, this is a map of Serbia and you can see Kosovo here. Serbia and Kosovo have a long-standing disagreement. This is because Kosovo used to be a province of Serbia, but later Kosovo declared its independence in 2008. However, Serbia does not recognize Kosovo as a separate country and considers Kosovo as a part of its own territory. But it has no formal control over there. However, as you can see from this map, there are Serb majority population in some areas of Kosovo. The rest of the areas have majority Albanian population. Also know that Kosovo's independence has been recognized by about 100 countries including the United States. And some countries like Russia, China and 5 European Union nations have sided with Serbia. So, how did the latest flare up or the latest conflict started? There was a recent election in Kosovo. The Serbs boycotted this local election. But the elections happened and the ethnic Albanian mayors who were newly elected moved into their office in the northern part of Kosovo. As you can see, this part has a Serbian majority. This led to clashes between the Serbs and the Kosovo riot police. But you should know that the ethnic conflict in Kosovo runs deep. Serbia sees Kosovo as an important part of its history and religion. This is because many Serbian Orthodox Christian monasteries are located in Kosovo. On the other hand, majority of Kosovo's population which is ethnic Albanian considers Kosovo their country. And they also accuse Serbia of occupation and repression. And if we see in the local context, there are ongoing tensions between central government of Kosovo and the Serbs living in the northern part of the country. The Serbs in the north have strong ties with Serbia and so they often resist attempt by the central government to exert control. For example, the town of Mitrovica is divided into ethnic Albanian and Serb-held parts. And there is little interaction between these two groups. As the conflicts were escalating, efforts have been made to find a resolution to the dispute. And here the European Union mediated negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo. However, reaching a final comprehensive agreement has been challenging. There has been some agreements, but their implementation has been very limited. So now, the main players in the conflict are the nationalist leaders of both sides. In Kosovo, Albin Kurti, a former student protest leader, leads the government and he is known for his strong stance of Kosovo's independence. Serbia is led by President Alexander Vjukic. He believes any solution must be based on compromise and long-lasting peace. So now, international officials are working towards the solution because normalizing the ties between Serbia and Kosovo is crucial. And this is more relevant now because both the countries are aspiring to become EU members. So, without a resolution, the region could face instability and economic decline. That is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw the short history of conflict between Kosovo and Serbia. With this, let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at this article here. Recently, the United States has announced sanctions on Sudanese leaders. Now, what is the reason behind this action? Last week, the United States and Saudi brokered a ceasefire agreement on the ongoing internal crisis in Sudan. However, the agreement was not successful. After the talks, the perpetrators conducted air strikes and killed 18 civilians at the Kartom market in Sudan. So, due to the failure of these ceasefire efforts, now the United States has announced sanctions on Sudanese leaders. This is about the news. In this context, let us understand why there is a crisis in Sudan. Let us start with the geography of Sudan. Sudan is a country in northeastern Africa which is bordered by the Red Sea on the east side. Sudan is one of the most populous nations in the African continent with a population of about 46 million. And geographically, Sudan is one of the largest countries in Africa and it is also one of the poorest countries in the world. Sudan shares its border with seven countries that includes Libya, Egypt, Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea. This is all about Sudan. Now, moving on, let us see some facts about the ongoing Sudan crisis. The current Sudan crisis revolves around the infighting between two rival groups such as the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary group called Rapid Support Force or RSF. The Sudan Army is headed by the Coupe leader General Abdul Fattak Buran, whereas the RSF is headed by General Mohammed Hamadan Dagalov. The root cause of the present crisis dates back to 2021. In October 2021, the Sudanese military led by General Buran took control over the civilian government of Sudan in a military coup. The term military coup refers to a sudden, violent and unlawful seizure of power from a government. Since the 2021 military coup, RSF leader General Dagalov has worked alongside the Sudanese Army, which significantly helped the Sudanese military to begin power. And since the military coup, Sudan has been run by a council of military generals. Subsequently, in July 2022, General Buran announced that he would withdraw from the political talks and he would support the formation of a civilian government by conducting elections in 2023. But the current crisis was sparked by a disagreement over the integration of Rapid Support Force into the Sudanese military as a part of the transition towards civilian rule. The RSF leader General Dagalov demands Buran to include RSF into the Sudanese Army. But Buran is not agreeing to the demands of Dagalov. So, both the leaders are now logged in a power struggle. Because of this only, now the crisis is happening in Sudan. The crisis started from April mid onwards and it is still ongoing. So, to put off the crisis, the US and Saudi brokered a ceasefire agreement between the two leaders. Despite these peace efforts, air strikes were conducted by the perpetrators and it killed around 18 civilians in Sudan. As a result, US has announced sanction on these two Sudanese leaders. That's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw the reason for the present crisis in Sudan and we also saw the geographical location of Sudan. Now, let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at this article from the editorial page. It talks about an important topic that often sparks debate and discussions in India. The topic is, should India prioritize manufacturing or services for its economic development? This question challenges the traditional model of economic development. Because in the traditional model, usually industrial expansion comes first and later comes the service expansion. The author of this article has gone into the details and explained why this is such a significant issue for India. So, in our discussion today, we will try to understand the key points from the editorial article. Before that, I have highlighted the syllabus regarding this discussion. You can go through it. Now, let's start. See, back in early 2000s, India's software exports were booming and there was one question, whether the service sector could jump over the manufacturing sector and drive the economy forward. This idea challenged the conventional approach to economic development. See, in the conventional approach, in any economy, primary sector booms first. Then the industrial sector takes precedence and in the final phase only, service sector boom takes place. But in the case of India, we skipped manufacturing altogether and entered the service sector phase directly. Which means, industrial expansion phase was missing in case of India. So, it is understandable that Indian policymaker felt frustrated by this dilemma. So, do you think it is because the government didn't take enough steps to support the manufacturing? Let's get to that story. We know that in 1991, India implemented economic reforms. And these reforms primarily focused on manufacturing only. Tariffs were significantly reduced and the world system of licenses and permits were dismantled. However, these reforms did not lead to substantial increase in the share of manufacturing. But there are two aspects we can consider here. The quantity and the quality of the growth in the manufacturing sector. With respect to the quantity, the size of the manufacturing sector in India post 1991 reforms did not see any improvement. But since 1991, there has been a qualitative change in the sector. The range and the quality of the products manufactured in India have improved impressively. However, this growth in product quality and variety has not been accompanied by proportional expansion in manufacturing. This is mainly due to the increased income inequality. See, post 1991, the income inequality in India started increasing. So, there were few number of rich people and large number of poor people. So, Indian manufacturing sector focused only on the quality and providing variety to satisfy the needs of the rich people. Since most of the people in India were poor, the quantity of the manufacturing sector did not increase. So, what I am trying to say is, post 1991 reforms, even though government took steps to increase the manufacturing production in India, the growth happened only in the quality of the manufactured products and the quantity of the manufactured products was lagging behind. This is how income inequality led to India skipping the manufacturing phase and entering the service sector phase. After the 1991 reforms, we don't know if government gave up on manufacturing. But manufacturing gained prominence again in 2014 only. This was the launch of the Make in India campaign. The Making India campaign emphasized on the foreign direct investment and more recently, government introduced the production linked incentive scheme. It is basically a subsidy for the production of specific products. Unfortunately, the performance of these initiatives has not been very impressive. So, this means the government has taken initiatives in 1991 as well as in 2014. But why didn't this work? Let us try to understand the truth here. The first estimates of the national income in 2022-23 showed that manufacturing growth was only 1.3 percentage for the year. This is slower than agriculture and all major segments of services combined. The data indicates the impact of the 2016 demonetization on the slowdown of the manufacturing sector. But this is not the sole reason for the slow growth of manufacturing. The author feels that there are some structural obstacles holding back the manufacturing sector in India. The government has implemented various policy initiatives favoring the corporate sector. This includes substantial tax rate reduction in 2019 and initiatives to improve the ease of doing business. Additionally, public investment has increased significantly and 18.5% raise in the capital expenditure in the last year in budget. This increase in public investment should boost aggregate demand and support private sector. However, the government cannot expect industry leaders to achieve manufacturing push on their own. We always have two sides for a coin. Here, we have supply side and the demand side. Supply side includes the industries and the demand side involves the people who buy the goods. So, we need actions on the demand side of the equation as well. We can see that the government actions are largely focused on the supply side actions. Now, you may wonder how we can improve the demand side. For that, you should first understand how demand side works. See, the household demand for manufacturing goods naturally follows the fulfillment of the basic needs like food, housing, health and education. Because these things cannot be postponed. This simply means only when my basic needs like food are fulfilled, I will think about buying other manufactured products. In India, many households allocate large share of their expenditure on food. This is because they earn less. Let me explain this as an example. If you earn only 3000 rupees a month, then obviously a major chunk of this will go into buying food, which is a basic need. You can't buy a smartphone. This limits the growth of demand for manufactured goods. Globally also, there is a strong negative relationship between per capita income and share of food in the household expenditure. The richest countries such as the United States and Singapore have a lower share of food expenditure because there people earn more. On the other hand, among the large economies of the world, India has the largest share of food expenditure and the lowest GDP per capita. So, we have to understand that industry leaders have no control over the demand side. So, what other options do we have? Yes, if demand in the Indian economy is very low, the option at hand is exports. Manufacturing sector can overcome the limited domestic demand by focusing on exports. Smaller countries in the eastern Asia like Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan successfully used this export-oriented approach to grow their manufacturing base. But again, exporting goods require a competitive edge in terms of two things. One is infrastructure and the other is skilled workforce. Infrastructure affects production cost and the skill of the workers determine the type of a product that a country can produce. Unfortunately, India faces challenges in both these areas. For example, a company located in northern India struggles to reach the sea ports for exporting goods. Moreover, India's ports have relatively poor infrastructure and practices compared to more efficient ports like that of Singapore. There are other factors such as inexpensive power, adequate space and efficient industrial waste disposal as well. These all can contribute to competitiveness. Another critical factor where India lacks is education. International assessment such as the program for international student assessment ranks India among the lowest in terms of educational outcomes. The reading ability and the numerous skills of Indian children are considerably lower than those of their peers in East Asian countries. This disparity continues into higher education as well and the employers express concern about the employability of the Indian graduates. Also, the neglect of the vocational training institutions in India has also resulted in significant shortages of skilled labour. So, in conclusion, the economic reforms of 1991 focused on manufacturing, but the subsequent development shifted the spotlight on the services sector. However, a balanced approach is necessary for sustainable economic growth. The government has implemented policies to support manufacturing, but the demand side constraints, infrastructure challenges and educational start comings pose significant obstacles. So, by understanding these complexities and taking appropriate actions, India can strive for a balanced and inclusive economic development model. And this is how India can fully use its upcoming demographic dividend. So, that's all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw why the 1999 manufacturing sector reforms failed to give boost to the manufacturing sector. Then we saw the challenges associated with the manufacturing sectors and finally the steps that the government can take to address the challenges. With this, let us conclude this discussion and take up the next news article. Look at this text and context article. This article is about lithium. Lithium has been frequently in use because the Geological Survey of India has found lithium reserves in Rassai district of Jammu and Kashmir and Degana in Rajasthan recently. In this context, let us learn some basic information regarding lithium, the status of Indian lithium industry, who owns these minerals, the distribution of lithium in the world and the issues regarding lithium mining. Let us start with the basics. Lithium is an alkali metal. The atomic number of lithium is 3. It is rarely found in earth's crust in its elemental form. Lithium is generally found as minerals and salts because of its high reactivity. Lithium has gained significance in recent times because it can be used in manufacturing of batteries. Lithium batteries have high power to weight ratio. High power to weight ratio here means it can provide large amount of power at the same time being not very heavy in weight. It can also perform in wide range of temperatures. Since the whole world is moving towards clean energy, lithium can be a great source of energy storage in the near future. Next, we will look at the status of Indian lithium industry. The electric vehicle market in India has been increasing steadily. India have also imported about 450 million units of lithium battery worth rupees 6600 crores in 2019-20 period. The new lithium resource which have been discovered can result in reduced lithium imports. Scholars have opinion that the countries which have access and control over rare metals like lithium and gobalt will have a upper hand in gobalt geopolitics because of the potential these minerals have in future technologies. India should use this leverage to its advantage. The next question which has been raised after the exploration of lithium resources who will own these minerals? A three-judge bench of supreme court has ruled that the owner of a land have rights over everything which is up to the center of the earth. But about 22% of India's land mass is under the control of the government. This land mass includes hills, mountains and even revenue wastelands. The apex court has also iterated that the union government can prevent the private players from engaging in mining of sensitive minerals. One best example for this is that the government till now has not allowed any private players for the mining of uranium. This is according to atomic energy at 1962. Lithium is also gaining prominence, so the government might do the similar arrangement to lithium also. But we can't be so sure about this, so let's wait and see what happens in the future. Moving on we will see about the lithium distribution in the world. Chile in South America has the world's largest lithium reserve. The total lithium reserve of Chile is estimated to be 9.3 million metric tons and this is followed by Australia whose lithium resource is about 6.2 million metric tons. This is as per 2022 data. But when it comes to lithium production, Australia stands first in the annual production of about 61,000 metric tons. Even though Chile has the largest lithium reserves, it ranks only second in the lithium production and Australia and Chile is followed by China. That is all regarding lithium distribution and lithium production. Now moving on let us see the issues associated with lithium mining. First and foremost issue when it comes to lithium mining is that this process requires huge amount of water. Lithium mining process is very water intensive because to extract one ton of lithium around 5 lakh litres of water is required. Lithium extraction can also result in water scarcity in areas where extraction has been carried out. For example, let us take the case of Chile's Salardi Atacama location. Lithium mining here has resulted in a loss of about 65% of the water in this region. The next issue is that lithium mining requires large amount of electricity. As of now, electricity has been majorly produced from non-radiable resources. So in this way, lithium mining can create adverse effect on environment indirectly. Lithium mining can result in pollution of air and water also. Lithium mining can result in potential increase in CO2 emission which affects the air quality. Similarly, water is contaminated with chemicals and heavy metals during lithium extraction. Then one of the important social issues of lithium mining will be the displacement of local communities. When a lithium reserve is discovered, the people dwelling in the particular place will be asked to migrate in order to carry out extraction process. During lithium extraction, large quantities of mineral waste are produced. The disposal of these mineral waste is also a big headache in regards to lithium extraction. So that is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw the basics about lithium, the lithium industry in India, the distribution of lithium in the world and finally the challenges with lithium extraction. Now let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Take a look at this article here. On May 28, Justice Sanjay Vijaykumar Gangapurwala was sworn in as the Chief Justice of Madras High Court. Previously, he served as the Acting Chief Justice of Bombay High Court. Yesterday, during a formal welcome meeting, the Chief Justice Sanjay Vijaykumar assured the bar council and the people of Tamil Nadu that he would adopt the traditions, conventions and the culture of Tamil Nadu state and he will live as one among the people. This is about the news. So in our discussion today, we will understand the appointment procedure of Chief Justice of High Court. Now let us start. The Chief Justice of High Court is the highest judicial authority in a state. Now talking about the qualification. The qualification for the appointment of High Court judge is provided under Article 217 Class II of the Constitution. As per this article, a person should be a citizen of India for appointment as a judge of High Court. Apart from this, there are two criteria provided in Article 217 Class II. Firstly, he or she should have held a judicial office in the territory of India for at least 10 years. Secondly, he or she should have been an advocate of a High Court or two or more such High Court in succession for at least 10 years. If any of the two criteria is met by a person, then he or she is qualified for the appointment of High Court judge. This is about the qualification. Now let us see the appointment procedure. The Article 217 Class I of the Constitution provides for the appointment of Chief Justice of High Court. It states that the judge of the High Court shall be appointed by the president in consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the governor of the state. Whereas in case of appointment of a judge other than the Chief Justice of the High Court, the Chief Justice of the concerned High Court is also consulted. Note one important point here. In the second judges case 1993, the Supreme Court ruled that the appointment of the judge of the High Court shall be made based on the opinion of the Chief Justice of India. And again, in the third judges case 1998, the Supreme Court opinion that in case of appointment of High Court judges, the Chief Justice of India should consult a collegium of two senior more judges of the Supreme Court. So, as per this Supreme Court direction, the sole opinion of CJA alone does not constitute consultation process. Now coming back to the appointment procedure. The proposal for the appointment of Chief Justice of a High Court would be initiated by the Chief Justice of India. After that, the CJA consults with two senior most judges of the Supreme Court. Then the CJA sends a proposal along with the views of the senior most Supreme Court judges to the Union Ministry of Law and Justice. After the receipt of the recommendation of the CJA, the Ministry of Law and Justice would obtain the views of the concerned state government. After the receipt of the views of the state government, the Ministry will submit the proposal to the Prime Minister, who will then advise the President on the selection. As soon as the appointment is approved by the President, the Department of Justice will announce the appointment and issue necessary notification in the Gazet of India. This is how the Chief Justice of High Court is appointed. That is all regarding this discussion. In this discussion, we saw about the basics regarding the appointment of Chief Justice of High Court. Now let us conclude this and take up the next news article. Look at this article. This article is about electricity sector in India. See, internationally, India has made a commitment to ensure that 50% of its electricity production comes from renewable energy as of 2030. But yesterday, the Central Electricity Authority has said that this target will be achieved as early as 2026-27. The Central Electricity Authority announced it as the part of National Electricity Plan. This is about the news article. In this discussion, we will learn about Central Electricity Authority and about the National Electricity Plan. Let us start with the CJA. The Central Electricity Authority is a statutory body constituted under Section 70 of the Electricity Act 2003. The main objective of the Central Electricity Authority is to ensure reliable 24-7 adequate quality of power supply to all the consumers in our country. Now let us see the composition of this body. The Central Electricity Authority consists of 14 members including the chairperson. Out of the total members, 8 members will be full-time members and they are appointed by the central government. The chairperson is the chief executive of the CJA who oversees the development of power sector in our country. Now we will see the important functions of the authority. Firstly, the authority advises the government on matters related to national electricity policy. Then, it formulates short-term and prospective plans for development of electricity systems in our country. Thirdly, the Central Electricity Authority specifies the technical standards and safety requirements for construction of electricity plants, electric lines and connectivity to the grid. And finally, the Central Electricity Authority assists in the timely completion of schemes and projects for improving and augmenting the electricity system in our country. See, I have mentioned the important points alone here. You can read the other functions by visiting the official website of the Central Electricity Authority. This is all about the Central Electricity Authority. Now we will see about the National Electricity Plan. Recently, the CEA has notified the National Electricity Plan for the period 2022-2032. The plan document includes the review of last 5 years, then the detailed plan for next 5 years and a prospective plan for the next 5 years that is from 2027-2032. The plan outlines the target and actions that are needed to be taken for the development of electricity systems in our country. The plan also provides for various targets. One among the targets is to increase India's installed electricity capacity that is being sourced from renewable resources. Now we will see the projections made in the National Electricity Plan. The plan projected all India peak electricity demand is going to be 277 gigawatts for the year 2026-2027 and 366 gigawatts for the year 2031-32. The energy requirement and peak demand are inclusive of the impact that arises due to increased adoption of electric vehicle, installation of solar rooftop, production of green hydrogen etc. Apart from this, the plan also says that the likely installed capacity for the year 2026-2027 is going to be 609,000 megawatts. And for the year 2031-32, the installed capacity is estimated to be around 900,000 megawatts. In addition to this, the plan also notes that the share of non-fossil based capacity is likely to increase to 57% by the end of the year 2026-2027 and may likely further increase to 68% by the end of 2031-32. Note one difference here, the installed capacity does not perfectly translate into generator power. This is because different sources of renewable energy have varying efficiency and they are not available at all times. For example, solar power is available only during the day and wind energy is dependent on climate condition. So accounting for these variations, the national electricity plan estimated that the available power from renewable energy will be around 35% of the total energy generated by 2026-27 and 43% by 2031-32. This is all about the projections made in the national electricity plan and that's all regarding this discussion. With this, let us conclude the news article discussion and take up the practice problems questions. We have four practice problems questions today. Let us see the Mumbai one. Let us take up the first question. It is a map based question. Six countries are given. We have to find how many of the given countries have bought us with Serbia. Now look at this map. From the map we know that Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzogomina and the Republic of Croatia share land border with Serbia. So of the given six countries, all countries have a land border with Serbia. So the correct answer here is option D all six. Now moving on to the next question. Here three statements are given. We have to find how many of the given statements are correct. The three statements given here are about the Central Electricity Authority. Let us take up the first statement. It is a statutory body constituted under the Electricity Act 2003. This statement is correct. This we saw in the discussion. Look at the second statement. It regulates the tariff of power generating companies that are owned or controlled by the central government. See this statement is actually incorrect. It is one of the functions of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission and it is not a function of Central Electricity Authority. Statement 2 is incorrect. Moving on to the third statement. It specifies the technical standards for the construction of electrical plants, electrical lines and connectivity to the grid. So this statement is also correct. Since two of the three statements given here are correct, the correct answer here is option B only two. Moving on to the third question. Here two statements about the Chief Justice of High Court is given. We have to find which of the following statements are correct. Look at the first statement. The Chief Justice of High Court is appointed by the President of India based on the recommendation of five member Collegium of the Supreme Court. This statement is actually incorrect. The Chief Justice of High Court is appointed by the President of India based on the recommendation of a three member Collegium of the Supreme Court. The three member Collegium consist of CJI and two senior most judges of the Supreme Court. This is according to the third judges case. So statement one is incorrect. Moving on to the second statement. A distinguished jurist in the opinion of the President can also be appointed as the judge of High Court. This statement is incorrect. It is one among the qualification to become a Supreme Court judge and not a High Court judge. This provision is not applicable to the judges of High Court. Since both the statements given here are incorrect, the correct answer here is option D neither one nor two. Moving on to the last question. This is also a map based question. This is a quiz question for you today. Interested aspirants can post the answer for this question in the comment section. The beans questions based on today's discussion are displayed here. Interested aspirants can write the answers and post it in the comment section. If you like today's video, like, comment and share it with your friends. For more updates regarding UPSC preparation, subscribe to Shankara IS Academy's YouTube channel. Thank you.


So the next speaker I want to introduce is a gentleman I met yesterday his name is James Steele and The title of his speech is there's no such thing as cardio I met James yesterday. We shared a cocktail together awesome, dude Really down to earth and I've been really looking forward to his talk. So I'm I'm excited. I I hate cardio So I can't wait to hear that. There's no such thing He's returning speaker to the 21 convention He's also an exercise scientist from South Hampton, Solent University He's getting his PhD and he's an associate lecturer specializing in exercise physiology and biomechanics He's also a published author with another excellent speaker here at the 21 convention You guys may have heard his talk online Doug McGuff. So he's a published speaker with Doug and some of his other colleagues In various peer-reviewed journals, so I'm really excited to hear what James has to say welcome them up I'm gonna set my stopwatch so I can try to stick to time. So there we go Okay Okay, guys What I'm gonna talk to you about today is a an unconventional topic Maybe not for some of you who have seen Doug's talk and are familiar with some of the Kind of thoughts in the area and but certainly for me In my sphere the academic world. This is a very unconventional topic And it's really exciting for me to come to talks like this where I'm used to talking at, you know Academic conferences lecturing to PhDs and MDs and whatnot and lots of scientists in the room going oh, yes That's very interesting. That's very interesting but it's good for me to come to these talks because I actually get to speak to the people who are going to take these ideas and Apply them and actually use them in practice Rather than just thinking about the theory and thinking yes, it's very interesting So what I want to do to start off with is just give you a bit of background as to how the idea Developed a bit of what I've done over the years that has brought me into the production of a this unconventional paper That I'll talk you through for the remainder of the talk. So I started off How many years ago now five years ago doing an undergraduate degree in sport and exercise science? at Southampton Southern University where I am now and about around that time I started to get introduced to the concepts of High-intensity resistance training up until that point I was a typical gym rat in the gym sort of five six days a week three hour sessions at the time, you know It was in there for so long that I couldn't train hard I was just training with a really high volume and I wasn't really Thinking about it in a logical or a scientific manner I was kind of going with what the muscle magazines told me to do, you know I was doing lifting loads of weights loads of sets loads of reps Doing my cardio, which we're going to talk through today And it wasn't until I actually came to the university that I started to think about these ideas What? Little bit louder All right It wasn't until I started to come to university and to study this Sports science and exercise science degree that I started to think about things in this way and around that time I got introduced to Arthur Jones's works and his ideas that resistance training was just as effective for improving your cardiovascular fitness as traditional cardio exercises are and so for, you know, the last five years I've been chewing the fat on that idea and his idea kind of made sense to me, you know Intuitively, but I hadn't really seen any of the kind of hard evidence of peer-reviewed research To support the idea. It just kind of kind of made sense so throughout my degree I You know, I can't kept that idea in mind and had the opportunity to work with various different athletes and try to apply the Idea and at the same time start to look at some of the research that had been done That actually either did or did not support the idea to see whether or you know I was actually applying an evidence-based practice to these athletes So during my second and third years of my degree. I got the chance to work with an Ironman triathlete An international athlete if those of you don't know what the Ironman is. It's a it's a ultra endurance event It's kind of one of those pinnacle events for endurance athletes And I got to work with him and start to apply these principles and it was a foreign concept to him, you know Minimal high intensity resistance training training once or twice a week single sets Taking to momentary muscular failure really intense stuff, but really low volume really low frequency And while I was doing that I had to write up reports and whatnot to hand into my lecturers to evidence what I was doing and You know show that I had an understanding of the research and that what I was doing was actually supported So I started looking for the research in the area And getting you know little bits here and there starting to piece them together Looking at different measurements that we take of cardiovascular fitness things like vo2 max And which is the maximum amount of oxygen your body can uptake and utilize during exercise Things like economy of movement, which is you know, how efficiently you actually perform exercise and absolute workload And things like lactate threshold, which is how well your body deals with the production of lactate and its removal And I started looking at studies and finding that You know some of them show that these things improved with resistance training and some of them didn't And it was really hard to kind of like gather, you know, what the consensus was there were various reviews done by you know prominent exercise physiologists in the area Which kind of you know made the suggestion that you know Strength training resistance training. It's good for cardiovascular fitness or measurements of cardiovascular fitness And it's useful for some athletes, but it's never going to be as good as traditional cardio training And so I kind of went through and finished my degree with that in mind thinking, you know, the Maybe the evidence is just lacking, you know, there's contradictory bits here and there and it's hard to kind of tease out What the real conclusion is so I kind of went along with that It wasn't until last year or the year before actually that my colleague who was going to be here today, but unfortunately he's not around James Fisher came to me and suggested that we start to put together a academic paper on resistance training recommendations So for any of you or any of you heard of the American College of Sports Medicine It's one of the kind of big sports medicine and exercise medicine exercise science organizations And they publish a position stand on resistance training, which is supposed to be a unbiased review of all the evidence in the area and give recommendations to athletes and the general public to apply Um, unfortunately that position stand over the years is it's come through various different Reviews and additions so to speak and it's received a lot of heavy criticism for falsifying information Misciting evidence citing evidence that doesn't support their beliefs etc etc and we had a look over all the evidence and Tended to agree with the criticisms. So we said to ourselves. Well, why don't we write a paper that acts as a position Stand because at that point all the criticisms didn't really nail everything down and give people a set of recommendations To actually take and apply. So we thought why don't we write our own kind of position stand on it? So last year we published this paper evidence-based resistance training recommendations, which You can get a hold of on my blog or which i'm sure anthony will put the link on the website on the 21 convention when the video is posted up And for those of you here, it's james steel ii.blogspot.com And I just write about all sorts of stuff on there when I've got the time to it's not just exercise And while we were writing this paper I Or when we started to plan out the paper I suggested, you know, why don't we if we're you know You're going to spend all this time reviewing all the research and looking at what, uh, you know The actual research findings suggest. Why don't we take this idea of you know, resistance training's effect on cardio and add it in And james and and my other the other authors on the paper who are my phd supervisors I thought it was a great idea. And so I said I took that task on board So I started writing that section of the paper. So I started searching all the databases and pub med and google scholar and whatnot finding all the evidence I could and Was really starting to get kind of blown away by it And the section grew and grew and grew and grew and grew until it was pretty much the same size as the Rest of the paper on its own. So we decided to pull it out and look at publishing it as its own independent article Well, one of the important things that came from taking both Papers was in our evidence-based resistance training recommendations paper. We tried to define exercise intensity or specifically resistance training intensity more appropriately because up until that time Most researchers and academics and practitioners in the area tended to miss define exercise intensity. They often use Does everyone know what a one repetition max is? Hands up, everyone know what that is? Yeah, okay So the most weight you can lift in in any particular exercise movement or resistance training movement for one repetition and no more so Most of the time people recommend resistance training loads as a percentage of that amount But often they misappropriately Define intensity as being a relative percentage of this load and really all it is is is load Someone could do one repetition at 80% of their one repetition max and someone could do 100 repetitions at 50% of their one repetition max the numbers don't really add up there, but But the assumption would be that if we were using percentage of repetition max as a definition of intensity The person doing 100 repetitions with 50% of their one rep max would be working at a lower intensity than the person who did one repetition 80% of their one repetition max louder so We felt that most authors were you know misusing this term and so we tried to more appropriately define it as being Intensity in exercise is more representative of the effort you put in so by definition There can only be two measurements really of exercise intensity Everything else in in the middle is is pretty hard to define objectively So you've got 100% you work as high as you can you perform as many repetitions Under the same conditions as you can and that's your 100% of your intensity And at the other end you've got nothing which is zero percent anything in the middle was really hard Certainly at the moment to actually measure and define and taking this idea I started to apply it to the research I was looking at in the area of resistance training in cardiovascular fitness and it became clear to me that the reason that it was really hard to kind of pinpoint a You know a consensus or or whether or not it was or wasn't beneficial was because most research had misappropriately defined intensity they had used load as a Measurement of in or as a definition of their intensity and that was why it was really hard to actually pull this out And the other reviews and recommendations Up until that point hadn't act appropriately accounted for that So I went back over the research and said to myself right the the most important thing is to make sure that I differentiate between the studies that have controlled intensity I had their participants perform resistance training to Momentary muscular failure to their maximum and those that haven't appropriately controlled for that And after doing that I started to realize that there was a trend in the In the results of those studies when you differentiate it between the two And that's what i'm going to go through today and talk to you about what you know, what what effects Controlling for intensity and and the fact that intensity is really the most important aspect of it so, you know, traditionally and for the last 30 years or so The concept of aerobic exercise, you know came about in the 70s when Ken Cooper came up with his aerobics idea with the the notion that One form of exercise could isolate aerobic metabolism and then And that would be beneficial for cardiovascular health and cardiovascular fitness and over the years It's really hard to pinpoint how it's kind of actually evolved But somehow aerobics has turned into, you know, cardio and most people think of what was traditionally labeled aerobic exercise long slow sessions on bikes, treadmills, rowing machines, whatever all these typical cardio machines that you see in the gym It kind of evolved into anything done on any of those machines or jogging outside swimming cycling, etc That was labeled as cardio and that was what you had to do to improve your cardiovascular fitness or cardiovascular health And there was this kind of false dichotomy that arose between cardiovascular training or cardio training and resistance training One was for your cardio and everyone Said that you have to do your cardio training to improve your cardiovascular fitness And if you want to improve your strength your power, etc. You had to do resistance training and you had to do two separate programs But as i'm going to show you that's not the case so We Is that on? Put it at that How do i move on? Do you want to skip it? The bottom one Ah, there we go. Cool. Okay so A couple of weeks ago, we finally had this paper published. So we've we myself James Fisher, Stuart Bruce Low and Dave Smith, my two phd colleagues And Doug McGuff who Robby's spoke about who presented a couple of years ago and is going to be speaking in Austin again We started putting together all this research and writing this paper with the idea that hopefully we can Introduce this idea to the academic world and start to get researchers actually Properly controlling variables and you know producing research that actually We can draw sensible conclusions from rather than trying to tease out all these different conclusions from really poorly controlled studies so What i'm going to do is i'm going to talk you through just two of the diagrams that we've put in the Paper i'm not going to go through all the individual studies that i've reviewed because there's a 150 odd Papers referenced in there and if you want to go through and actually look through my discussion of the Of the actual research and their methodologies and whatnot. You can get the paper. It's freely accessible online You can download a pdf and and have a read through the whole thing But what i'm going to talk through is the Diagrams which just kind of like conceptualize these ideas for you and allow you to think about it. So if i go back quickly Will i go back? There we go so what i tried to differentiate between in this was First of all, what effect does resistance training have on cardiovascular fitness measures So like vo2 max running economy, lactate threshold when intensity is properly controlled for um and then what actual physiological, uh, You know responses or adaptations actually produce those improvements in cardiovascular fitness So we broke the paper down into introducing the concept Defining intensity and then going through and looking at what happens in the body Whilst we're training intensely using resistance training And what adaptations happen over a period of time if we actually employ a training program using that Um, so we'll start off by looking at the Wrong way At the acute responses can everyone see the diagram that well the writing might be quite hard to read I'll talk you through it through it anyway. Okay, so to start off with We thought about muscular contraction and we appropriately applied The definition of intensity that we propose on there. So by its nature If you're going to appropriately control for intensity You have to perform resistance training to momentary muscular failure You have to perform as many reps as you can with whatever load it is you're using And we then broke down the responses we looked at into the metabolic responses the Molecular responses and the the actual cardiovascular responses as a whole when we think of the cardiovascular system The measurements of cardiovascular fitness that we get are a product of all these different things Um, but the cardiovascular system is inherently the heart and the Vascular system itself. So we broke down what was happening at the muscular level i.e. the metabolic and the molecular components and the cardiovascular components which were the vascular and the Myocardial or the heart responses so The first thing we started to look at was what is the oxygen cost of Resistance training to to momentary muscular failure. So Traditional recommendations are if an exercise is going to improve your cardiovascular fitness You need to achieve a certain percentage of your vo2 max during it So if we got you doing on a treadmill running at 80 percent of your vo2 max And measured the oxygen that you were using it should be roughly about 80 percent of what your measured vo2 max is And recommendations are usually anywhere from sort of 70 to 80 percent in most physiology textbooks and review papers that you'll look at On the contrary though more recent review has shown that actually the actual relative percentage of vo2 max is Is not important And one of the problems with that is if you look at the paper is that most people Measure whole body vo2 max instead of looking at the oxygen cost of the actual muscles that are working So what we did was we tried to Take the studies that have looked at resistance training to failure and those that have not controlled for it properly And one of the problems with the oxygen cost responses are is that most of the studies are all over the place so What we found was that most studies Didn't or included rest periods and all these other things and gave false impressions of a really low oxygen cost percentage During resistance training even when it was taken to fatigue because they hadn't controlled their methods properly So just eyeballing the research in that area You would get the impression that oh well if you take the assumption that you need a high Percentage of your vo2 max to improve your cardiovascular fitness Then resistance training provides a really poor stimulus to that But again, that's that's a huge assumption um So what we started to look at instead was to try and break it down into all what's actually happening metabolically when we train the muscle really intensely and The reason I got dug involved on the paper is because although I had kind of you know had these ideas brewing in my mind for a number of years and You know, I kind of had a basis for conceptualizing them dog's book body by science really kind of pinpointed it and Gave me a kind of framework to think about it in especially with regards to the actual metabolic responses that go on So most of the time when we think of metabolism during exercise You can roughly break it down into you've got your anaerobic metabolism, which is Energy production in the absence of oxygen and you've got your aerobic metabolism Which is any energy production in the presence of oxygen Now most exercise recommendations will again draw this kind of false dichotomy between the two They'll say there's a kind of Spectrum that if you're working at a very low intensity, you're working aerobically if you're working at a high intensity You're working anaerobically. So if you're working anaerobically you can't improve your aerobic or your cardiovascular fitness And if you're working somewhere in between then you might be able to get the best of both worlds But what that does is it avoids the fact that anaerobic metabolism actually feeds in to just broke my pointer Feeds into the anaerobic processes. So I would recommend actually Purchasing a copy of body by science and going through the diagrams in there because it presents it very well and the the paper um It goes into a lot more detail in terms of the biochemistry and or having a look at Doug's presentation next year but basically the by the end products of anaerobic metabolism have to enter the mitochondria Which is the part of the cell that does aerobic metabolism And that's how aerobic metabolism works anaerobic metabolism feeds into it So even at this other end when you're working predominantly aerobically as they say you've still got anaerobic processes going on At the other end of the spectrum when you're working maximally anaerobically Your aerobic system will be running maximally as well The only difference is the proportion of energy that each is providing so At the end of the spectrum both anaerobic and aerobic metabolism will be working maximally But anaerobic metabolism can ramp up and increase the amount of energy it provides exponentially compared to aerobic metabolism Aerobic metabolism has a a limiter on it. Basically There's an enzyme that limits the amount of this end product from aerobic anaerobic metabolism The rate at which it can enter the mitochondria and therefore the rate at which you can aerobically metabolize and produce energy so what you have is Working at maximal intensity you have a maximal stimulus to your anaerobic metabolism and a maximal stimulus to your aerobic metabolism And that seems to be limited by this enzyme. So as long as you're working the local muscles maximally So let's take for example You're performing a leg extension exercise Exercise physios just love leg extension exercises in research just because it's really easy to control and most labs have a leg extension machine So let's say you perform repetitions to failure Your if we were to measure your vo2 max i.e the amount of oxygen you're taking in and using for aerobic metabolism it would appear to be relatively low if we compared it to Your whole body vo2 max as let's say for example, we did a vo2 max test on a treadmill. We got you to run Until you pretty much collapsed and measured the maximal amount of oxygen you could take in problem is you're Comparing apples and oranges because in the leg extension exercise You're measuring the maximal aerobic metabolism of the maximal oxygen consumption Being used by the muscles in that exercise and you're then comparing it to the maximal amount of oxygen that you can take in and utilize When you're using loads of other muscles as well So what's actually happening is although relatively if you compare it to your vo2 max on say a treadmill or a bike It would appear you're using a very low percentage of oxygen You're actually working those muscles maximally in terms of their oxygen consumption So that provides a really strong stimulus to the aerobic components of of the muscle there What you've also got them Is as you start to work maximally The products of anaerobic metabolism can't enter the mitochondria as quickly as they would like to They start to stack up in the cell and something's got to be done with them So they get converted to lactate essentially for a variety of for a series of biochemical reactions And that lactate can start to interfere with Muscular performance and contraction So the body's got to try and deal with that otherwise it will start to inhibit the amount of work you can do And another thing that can start to improve your endurance performance and your cardiovascular performance Is an increase in your body's ability to deal with that Now this is one of the areas that has not actually been a great deal of research Being done on so some of the stuff we suggest in the paper is Speculative and does suggest that more research needs to be done on it But it does appear that you can start to improve Your lactate threshold as we call it the body's ability to take those byproducts and deal with them More efficiently through performing resistance training to momentary muscular failure again So all of these different things That we look at on the metabolic side of things Are all being maximally stimulated when we work a muscle to fatigue It doesn't matter what the mode of exercise is It doesn't matter whether you're doing you're on a bike and you're doing sprints until you can't move the pedals anymore Or if you're on a leg press and you're doing repetitions until you can't move the weight anymore It's all the same at the metabolic level at that physiological level One of the other really important findings that I came across was Some of the molecular goings on at that level Now this is a really interesting and recently emerging area of research In 2005 there was a study done Which came up with an idea of what they call the ampk pkb switch I'll try and avoid using too much jargon, but essentially What they found out was there are two different metabolic pathways that stimulate either improvements in the physiology that underpins your cardiovascular fitness Or the physiology that underpins your muscular strength and performance in that respect And this study was done on rats so great We can extrapolate those findings to humans as we all love rat studies, especially in exercise and nutrition But one of the problems was again, it wasn't properly controlled. They used really poor representations of exercise They didn't control for the intensity appropriately and they compared what they noted was cardio exercise and resistance training exercise And suggested that there was under resistance training exercise and increase in this pathway They call the m-tor that increases protein synthesis and increases the amount of muscle you have And in the cardio exercise there was an increase in this ampk activity, which Is supposed to increase the or Adapt your physiology to be able to you know induce aerobic adaptations and improvements in cardiovascular fitness um So this study was published in 2005 and as most organizations and prominent researchers do they jump on these new concepts and go Oh, look, this proves our preconceived notions that resistance training and cardiovascular training are dichotomized that you know Resistance training doesn't do anything for cardiovascular fitness so Predictably loads of review papers came out and they said oh look that you know this this further shows that you know You can't get the same adaptations from it had they waited a you know Few more months they would have realized that there was actually a paper done in humans That actually disproved that idea And what they found was that by performing resistance training Intensely to that point of failure where we're maximally stimulating these metabolic processes What happens is is uh, the body uses a molecule called Adenosine triphosphate or ATP As it's kind of universal currency for energy. So all the metabolic processes that go on are used to re-synthesize ATP so that we can then break it down and use it for muscular contraction and various other metabolic processes So what happens when we start to Work maximally is ATP Starts to get broken down used up quicker than we can produce it and what the body does is it breaks it down for ATP to a molecule called adp and then a molecule called amp And it's just try die m as it removes phosphate molecules um And what you get is if you work the muscle really intensely is the ratio of ATP to amp starts to change So what happens is is the amount of amp goes up significantly and the amount of ATP goes down considerably So you get this change in this ratio and this is what actually stimulates this amp k pathway which up until this point Researchers have been saying it's only associated with cardio exercise and it's what produces cardiovascular adaptations But what these researchers found was that as long as you perform intense resistance training amp k is actually activated Because what's happening is your amp to a ATP ratio is Increasing significantly. So it's stimulating that metabolic pathway, which is thought to To actually lead to changes in the physiology that will improve cardiovascular fitness Now what they also found was resistance training in the first Two three hours after intense resistance training amp k was up through the roof Comparable to cardiovascular exercise cardio exercise. I'll remember to keep using my quotation marks It went through the roof But then after about three hours it started to slowly come down And this m-tor pathway started to come up again So we saw that after a period of time both pathways were being stimulated through intense resistance training Which would suggest that actually there is the potential if we assume that these molecular pathways are actually responsible for those adaptations for resistance training to produce cardiovascular fitness improvements and strength improvements as well so That's kind of what goes on at the muscular level in terms of the responses What happens at the cardiovascular level though is thinking on more of a gross scale So it's what's happening in the in the vascular chair in the arteries and the veins and the capillaries and whatnot during exercise and what's actually happening in the heart now Some of the research in this area in the vascular area, sorry is is limited but what we do know is that Kind of intuitively you would expect it anyway The more intensely you start to work a muscle the more progressively intensely you contract it The more blood flow increases to that area Which seems reasonable because the body wants to get more oxygen there wants to remove waste products And it wants to you know try and support that area that's being used Intensely so what you see is there's an increase in blood flow Now what happens when we increase blood flow for a artery is that what we call the shear stress or the amount of stress that's being put on the walls of the artery increases significantly We get a huge increase in peripheral blood pressure So around the muscles that are being worked blood pressure goes through the roof because the muscles are contracting squeezing against the veins and arteries and What happens is is you've got this huge peripheral stimulus to this huge stress to the peripheral vasculature What actually happens though as the muscles start to contract intensely is although blood pressure significantly increases At the periphery at the muscles being worked We get an increase in what's called venous returns So your arteries take blood away from the heart and take it to the rest of the body and the veins return it back to the heart And what happens is as the muscles intensely contract it kind of pumps and squeezes The veins and returns that blood to the heart A lot more efficiently Now for years there's been a again another preconception that because of observational research where people have looked at bodybuilders and powerlifters and then looked at endurance athletes and found that there are differences in their heart physiology There's been the assumption that it's because of their training protocols as opposed to them selecting their sports because of their differences in physiology So the idea has always been that Resistance training increases the size of your heart It causes a kind of hypertrophy effect the same as it would do on your muscles to the actual heart muscle And the belief was because of the increased blood pressure that was Shown during resistance training problem is usually when we measure blood pressure We measure it at the periphery. So we'll measure it using a regular cuff on the arm In rare cases, they'll measure it using a A cuff on the leg but usually on the arm So it doesn't really give us a representation of what's actually going on in the heart during exercise Now there have been studies done which have actually measured the pressure in the heart during intense resistance exercise and surprise surprise There's little to no change. So the heart doesn't actually Experience that much in the way of stress as compared to the peripheral vasculature during intense resistance training And partly that seems to be because of the improved Return to the heart this improved venous return through that skeletal muscle pump and this shows up as There's no change in the vasculature Myocardial pressure the left ventricle which pumps out blood because it gets more returned into it The heart can then more efficiently pub blood out. So the heart's efficiency actually seems to increase The harder and harder we train Using resistance exercise. This doesn't seem to be the case in traditional cardio exercise though Probably because there's a lack of this skeletal muscle pump action But what we do get is obviously we get an increase in the amount of Blood that the heart's pumping out. So it pumps faster It pumps harder pumps more efficiently and we get an increase in heart rate and an increase in cardiac output now When I move on in a second to the adaptations that actually occur because of all these stimuli The adaptations in the heart are relatively poorly researched And one of the things we've got is we do know that this doesn't seem to have much of an effect on adaptations But there may be an effect of this increase in heart rate just by raising your heart rate There may be some sort of stimulus to the heart, but as we'll see that doesn't seem to necessarily be the case so That's generally what seems to happen when we're doing resistance training the actual physiological responses that occur at the muscular level and partly at the cardio at the gross cardiovascular level Are really not that much different than what happens when we do traditional cardio So the question is that may happen, you know during exercise But that doesn't necessarily imply that the adaptations will be the same because there are a host of other things that go on When you're doing resistance training compared to cardiovascular training or cardio training For example, you've got increased tension on the muscles because of the resistance you're using But we at least know that some of the responses are pretty similar and the responses that are similar are the ones that at the moment and what are predominantly evidence to induce those cardiovascular adaptations so This is the last slide that i'm going to go through just going to go through the adaptations that actually occur that Are shown to actually improve your cardiovascular fitness so We've taken the graph and let's assume that we're going to Perform a training program getting people to perform high-intensity resistance training and i.e. training to failure each time they perform their exercise What we're going to assume is happening is all those responses that we just spoke through They're going to be occurring whilst they're doing the resistance training when they get to failure They're going to have an increase in maximal anaerobic aerobic metabolism decrease increase in amp to atp amp k is going to be activated All these different things that are going to be stimulating cardiovascular fitness improvements So again, what we did is we took each of the components that are thought to improve measurements of cardiovascular fitness And had a look at what was actually happening in terms of the physiology because we had seen that All of these measurements of cardiovascular fitness were improved but a lot of different things actually Constitute to those improvements So if we take one measurement of say for example vo2 max, there's a whole host of different things going on Whilst we measure that that are contributing to that end result So what we wanted to do was work back a little bit and actually see what Is happening in the body what physiological adaptations are happening that are improving cardiovascular fitness So again, we looked at the wrong one So i'm going to go back Yeah, there we go So we looked at the metabolic the molecular and the cardiovascular adaptations now Again, what we did was we took the studies that had Controlled intensity and the studies that hadn't controlled intensity and compared the results of the two and consistently what we found was the studies that had controlled intensity Had their participants trained to failure as opposed to just training to some arbitrary number of reps Three sets of ten doesn't matter what weight you're using doesn't matter if you could have done ten more reps five more reps whatever We were looking at the studies that actually had their participants perform as many repetitions as they could they trained to their maximum And what we found interestingly was In terms of the metabolic responses There was an increase in every study In terms of the mitochondrial enzymes So the mitochondria as I said earlier That's the part of the cell that performs aerobic metabolism And there are various enzymes in that part of the cell which Perform all the biochemical processes that produce ATP in the presence of oxygen And what all these studies tended to find was that these enzymes started to significantly increase in the amount that were there So assuming they're not what we call rate limiting enzymes i.e. they don't have a maximum cycling rate The more we get the more efficiently we're going to be able to actually Perform aerobic metabolism and consistently Every time a study had the participants performed to momentary muscular failure Intense resistance training there was an increase in mitochondrial enzymes Which is traditionally believed to be associated with endurance activity and cardiovascular fitness In terms of the molecular things that went on We also found that Studies again that had performed resistance training to momentary muscular failure had an increase Potentially in the number of mitochondria they had now these studies had a bit of a problem in terms of methodologies again because there was You can have what's called measures of volume or measures of density when you're looking at cellular things And a lot of studies mistook density for volume and let's say for example you take an absolute volume And you measure the amount of stuff that's in it Well, if you look at it relative to the absolute volume, then you can say there's a density of If you then go to measure the density again And the absolute volume has increased But the amount of stuff inside it has stayed the same It'll give you the impression that The amount of stuff might have been reduced because the density the relative Measure of that stuff compared to the volume has decreased But what's actually happened is when you look at the resistance training studies at best or sorry at worst They have no effect on the number of mitochondria Some people suggest that resistance training reduces the number of mitochondria because they falsely Interpreted this density and volume measurements But other studies actually show that Mitochondria the number of mitochondria you have Increased so you get what's called mitochondrial proliferation, which is something that this ampk molecular pathway controls So and this is a big topic as well because there's a lot of stuff at the moment in terms of How important your mitochondria are to your health not only your fitness So the idea that you can increase the amount of mitochondria you have produced new mitochondria Will mean that you'll be working more efficiently And potentially, you know, you're improving your health through that as well You also get a change in fiber types So does everyone know that there are different types of muscle fibers? so on a Simple scale you've got your type one fibers and you've got your type two fibers You can go into more depth with that and say there are different types of type two fibers And you also have intermediary fibers which sit between the two But you can go on and on and on But essentially what you've got are your type one fibers are what you call your slow twitch fibers And your type two fibers are what you call your fast twitch fibers And your slow twitch fibers your type one fibers are generally more fatigue resistant So They'll be able to go for longer as compared to your type two fibers Now your type two fibers Again with a kind of simplified Change between them. You've got what are called type two x and type two a fibers and your type two a fibers kind of sit between the two So they're Powerful like the type two x fibers, but they're also more fatigue resistant. So they're like fatigue resistant type two fibers now what happens again with resistance training to failure is As you train to failure Over the course of a training program your type two x fibers start to change to type two a fibers. So The fatigue resistance of your type two fibers Increases and that's predominantly because there's an increase in the number of mitochondria in them So these type two x fibers, which typically are more fatiguing They decrease or increase their amp to atp ratio More drastically than the other fibers do and this is what stimulates an increase in mitochondria in them and eventually it gets to the point where they've become so fatigued and fatigued over a series of training sessions that That stimulus has induced an increase in the mitochondria in those muscle fibers So they end up looking like type two fibers. So you end up with a more fatigue resistant muscle as a whole as well as an increase in strength Okay, you also get an increase in type one fibers as well Which has been shown in a couple of studies Now the last thing to look at again is this gross Cardiovascular improvements because most people when they think of cardiovascular they think of the heart And they think of you know your arteries and your veins and your capillaries Now as we show there doesn't seem to be that much of a stimulus to the heart and the training studies Actually tend to support that There doesn't seem to be much In the way of an adaptation in the heart The problem is most of the training studies have been really poorly done really poorly controlled In fact, there are very few training studies being done. I was alerted to a recent one A couple of weeks ago, which I hadn't had the chance to look through yet To see whether or not they have appropriately controlled intensity because it's always the first thing I look at now when I look at the study So when we wrote this paper we weren't aware as to whether or not there were any adaptations and certainly looking at the acute responses in terms of the heart during exercise It didn't seem to be any stimulus to actually induce changes in the heart But what was happening was again more things were happening at the peripheral level so the muscles and The local support to the muscles was being improved significantly now What you've got coming from the heart are you've got main arteries Which lead out to the rest of the body and but as you get closer and closer to the individual cells They get smaller and smaller into capillaries and it's these capillaries that really actually allow for transport of Oxygen and various different products into and out of the cells And what happens is is if you get more capillaries, then you've got a greater Surface area for actually that transport to occur So what seems to actually happen and again it seems to be controlled maybe by this ampk Molecular pathway is you get an increase in the number of contacts of capillaries So you get what's called a capillari capillarization you get more capillaries being produced at that muscular level So not only is the muscle improving but the actual support structures to the muscle are being improved as well Which allows more oxygen to be delivered to that area So you're not only increasing your ability to utilize oxygen in the muscle But you're actually increasing the amount of oxygen that can be transported to it So you get an increase in the number of capillaries leading to all of these muscle fibers And you get an increase in the capillary to fiber ratio. So you get more capillaries to each fiber So not only do you have say for example one fiber and one little capillary just feeding that fiber you get loads of capillaries Just funneling products into that muscle Now all of these physiological adaptations we think are what's responsible for these improvements in cardiovascular fitness So To conclude what we kind of suggested in this paper is okay. Well for years and years and years there's been this dichotomy between strength training and endurance cardio aerobics whatever you want to call it and That seems to be false most people Like robby said don't enjoy cardio most people don't enjoy going out and running miles and miles and miles and miles But they're unaware that they can produce the same effects By training once twice a week for at most 10 15 minutes just working really hard by doing resistance training Now there are some people who enjoy running enjoy cycling enjoy swimming And that's fine. They can go out and do them. But the important thing for me is to convey the message that if The objective of you performing exercise is to improve a particular aspect to your fitness Your cardiovascular fitness say for example, then Would you not want to do that in the most efficient and time Time efficient way possible and also the safest way possible because intense resistance training when it's properly conducted Is safer then long slow high impact repetitive cardiovascular training as it's typically performed now That doesn't mean to say that athletes Who are endurance performers should exclusively be doing this type of training and it's something that we make very clear in the paper You know, if you're an athlete and you're running marathons Just doing resistance training doesn't mean you're going to be able to perform at your best in terms of that sport Because not only does all of this stuff contribute to your sport, but there are a whole host of other things The skill in terms of your efficiency of running Psychological factors various other things as well So by no means does this mean that doing this is the be all and end all in terms of sporting performance but It is the same as traditional cardio training in terms of the everyday joe Improving his cardiovascular fitness to make him be more fatigue resistant More and durable to deal with his day-to-day activities or the sport he plays at the weekends Or you know a couple of evenings during the week It's not going to make you an elite athlete But it's going to produce the same physiological adaptations in significantly less amount of time and improve your strength as well So That for me. I think is the most important factor. It's trying to get people to stop wasting their time when they could be doing something Far more effective or far more efficient and just as effective and improve other aspects of their fitness as well Thank you all for listening. I'll take any questions Now I think we've got uh, I think I finished a few minutes early. So I've got a little bit of time for questions if anyone's got any Um, I think we need a mic Hi, I've come across um high endurance training with um, sorry just speak up a little bit I've come across a high endurance training. Um with boxing. We're like a conditioning coach So I think I've read about it similar before so in terms of how I apply that in my training routine Um, are you saying that we just need to train to failure? For example I think you gave uh, uh, you mentioned something about leg extensions. Can you just go without again very quickly? Okay, so so are you are you a boxer then? Yeah, I do box in at the moment, right? Okay well, typically when I when I work with athletes, so I I tend to actually avoid working with athletes nowadays because I work with a lot of professional athletes and it's quite difficult Recondition them when they've been so indoctrinated by various coaching folklore. Um, but Typically what I the first thing I try to get people to do is recognize that there's a difference between skill conditioning and physical conditioning or improving your body improving your physiology and Improving your ability to perform certain movements that are associated with your sport So what I typically, uh tend to tend to do is as an example, I've not actually worked with boxers per se I've worked with Taikik boxers before But I always try and get them to plan their training Around their skill training their sports training around their physical training so instead of trying to do all this kind of like cross training stuff whereby you'll You'll go into a session doing boxing movements But the intention of the session is to improve your fitness improve your physiological fitness And you know improve will increase induce these adaptations that are then going to transfer into your sport There's a safer and more efficient way to do that. So what I try and get athletes to do is to differentiate between the two so once twice a week depending upon their individual recovery and what other activities they're doing that are involved with their sport is Go in and do a session that is specifically Dedicated to improving their physiological fitness. So doing it in the most efficient way possible doing it in a way that's measurable as well because That's one of the real benefits of doing simple high intensity training single sets to failure is it's very easy to control And measure your progress as you go through so you know if you're getting stronger And then you know Add in the specific sports conditioning you need to do So if there are specific skills that you need to work on then you have a session for that Ideally if you're going to be doing skill conditioning and kind of you know this idea of sport specific kind of physical conditioning Because let's face it that going 10 rounds in boxing or whatever, you know, that's You can be as fit as you like, but you may not be able to go 10 rounds You know with my Tyson or whatever Because your movements are inefficient because your skills very poor. So you're wasting energy Psychologically, you're not with it. So you will need to do those sorts of things in your training as well To improve the other variables. It just so happens that they also, you know induce a fitness effect as well But you're not doing them with the Explicit objective of improving that it just happens to be a byproduct Which allows you to then go into other training sessions And which are specifically dedicated to improving your physiological fitness And then at the end result is you've not tried to amalgamate the two and got a poor result from either You've done a program which is effective and efficient for this aspect You've done a program which is effective and efficient for this aspect and then When you come to actually perform your sport You take the best of both worlds and apply it then instead of trying to amalgamate them in a session Yeah, that's kind of the approach I'm taking at the moment like going to the gym Like say maybe twice a week. Yeah, and also doing start circuit training boxing. I'll probably work once or twice a week Yeah, perhaps I wouldn't necessarily a lot of the kind of boxing circuit training is Is in my opinion a little bit of a waste of time anyway, because it's kind of trying to amalgamate the two I would you know boxing is a difficult thing to train anyway because the The most specific you can get in terms of training boxing skill is getting in the ring And fighting someone You know sparring is is not the same as as fighting with someone So it's difficult to kind of fit that in When I was working with them, I was working with a coach and I would do the physical conditioning and Try to get him to kind of avoid going in with the idea of okay I'm going to do a circuit training session, you know get them to do some punches and kicks here They're little rotating round things instead. I would say right, you know, try and get them working on, you know Whatever it is, you know a specific movement A specific skill, you know in this session and don't try and mix things up because it only confuses the athletes Is that answer your question? Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. Hi Um I have more question of lower back questions a bit off-topic. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's fine. I guess you're the one to ask Yeah, yeah Well, I'm doing the high-intensity resistance training and I'm now at the moment when I do a leg press The weights I'm pushing away are twice and a half my body weight. So I'm Kind of asking what what what doesn't mean for the injury of my lower back of the risk of injury to the lower back On a leg press. Yes on a leg press. Okay. Well depending upon which leg press you're using and How it's set up and how you're actually performing it on there You should in theory be pushing the load or the load should be going through your your hips and not actually being put through your back so As opposed to for example, if you're doing a squat where you've got the load Atop your spine, which which means that there is a load being transmitted through there there will inevitably be some tension across the lower back because the The what we call the ferraca lumbar fascia which runs from the kind of hips up through the lower back um Any tension in the hamstrings or in the glutes from performing the leg press will induce a tension in there But there shouldn't be any direct load on there. So I mean, do you get back pain when you're doing the leg press at all? Or are you just concerned about whether or not there is any risk? While doing the leg press, but I do have like pain but not and I don't think it's a pain of injury but more of uh muscle stress After the training, you know like when you have that So it feels like there's been some tension and work work there. Yes. I'm a bit concerned from who I don't want to injure it um, if I always whenever I'm working with uh clients because obviously my research at the moment is uh I'm working with people with chronic lower back pain um, and I I try to get them to differentiate between The feelings of discomfort during and after exercise doms, which we could call a delayed onset of muscular soreness And whether or not there is actually any pain because most people's pain that they experience if they've got low back pain feels distinctly different to What they experienced during exercise? so If what what I would try to do is differentiate between the two also what you've got to consider is Some of the aches that you get during or after exercise may not be muscular Build this Simone's stuff on uh from moment on exercise and congruent exercise is really good On emphasizing loading the muscles as opposed to loading the passive ligaments, so the bones and the tendons and What not so sometimes what can happen is and a lot of people complain of you know aching the back during deadlifts or You know good mornings or other kind of lower back exercises Well the research actually shows that that any of those exercises are pretty poor at loading and increasing the strength of the lower back muscles specifically um, so It's partly speculative, but but my belief is it's probably more of a tension and an ache that you can feel across the The fascia the ferrachalumbar fascia across that area Which it potentially could in the long term turn into a kind of wear and tear injury But as there's no direct heavy loading going through it, I wouldn't I wouldn't be concerned with You know a severe injury going although that doesn't mean that it can't happen um But the more most important thing is looking at your setup on the leg press and making sure that the load is being transmitted through Your hips as opposed to be going going through your back And then you can be sure that any tension you feel in your lower back is most likely due to the contractions from the hamstrings and the glutes We've got time Hey, what are your views on training? With your own body weight versus training with using weights What are my views on body weight training versus say resistance machines or barbells, etc. Any any other methods? Yeah My views at the moment are the the tool you use is Far less important than what you do with it. So you I mean you can train effectively And produce essentially the same adaptations as you could do Using the most high-tech tool tool available, which I'm led to believe by anthony is the arcs fit at the moment. I've yet to try it and So but the adaptations that you produce the benefits you get from it as in produced from a train as a training effect are largely No different between methods as long as they're you follow the right recommendations and apply those methods to whatever tool that is you're using and that's something that we Highlight in our earlier paper from last year and the evidence-based resistance training recommendations is comparisons for example between free weights and machines show that there's no real difference in strength adaptations as long as you use the right sort of measures to look at that But there are obviously benefits from using There's benefits to using body weight exercises. I you don't need to go anywhere to do them special You don't need to pay for a gym membership or have any high-tech equipment So they're perfect for using, you know, if you're traveling or whatever in fact chris hycox Blogger from conditioning research has got a really good book hill fit which incorporates, you know, simple exercises and the importance is You know, how you apply those exercises But There are also benefits, you know from using resistance machines in terms of time efficiency as compared to free weights, for example And the greater ability to apply progressive protocol i.e. to increase the resistance you're using as you improve in strength And also to more accurately measure your progress And then, you know, that goes all the way to the other end of using, you know MedX medical testing equipment where you can, you know, very accurately measure your strength of an isolated musculature To, you know, the real-time feedback you get during an ox fit session But my my belief is is it doesn't matter if you don't have access to, you know, the most high-tech equipment The most important thing is what you how you use it If you've got access to really high-tech equipment that then, you know, use it It's a little bit for the novelty as well because i'm a bit of a geek and I like playing with new toys Just to kind of see what what they're like, but That's less important than what you actually do with it All right I think that's everything if anyone else has got any questions then i'm going to be around for the rest of the day Probably till five or six o'clock. So i'm happy to chat with anyone Throughout the rest of the day Thanks for listening guys