April 2022

What happened to March? I’ve been a bit buried in my day job so I’ve spent little time learning and synthesizing a wide range of info the past month. Nevertheless, here’s what’s on my mind this month (and last):

• Not all body fat is created equal. Fat is actually an active organ in your body, even though most people consider it an inert, if inconvenient, tissue. It is nothing of the sort. The worst kind of fat is that stored around your organs, known as visceral (as opposed to subcutaneous) adipose tissue (VAT). Although not the most accurate way to measure, DEXA scans are the most accurate of the highly accessible methods (MRI & CT scan are more accurate + specific but much less accessible, as discussed here) to measure VAT. If you have never had yours measured, you can do so for about $50. In the Bay area I use this service.

• I’ve been meaning to get back into a routine of breath training (“inspiratory muscle training”, or IMT, to be more specific) and this paper gave me a nudge. I have a POWERbreathe and it definitely “feels like” it helps. Nice to see some more thorough analysis of it.

• Alex Hutchinson does some of the best writing in the business in terms of making science and cutting edge studies accessible. In this article he reviews recent studies on the need to personalize training plans and the nuances in interpreting large population studies in the context of setting individual training programs. If you’ve not read his book Endure, I highly recommend it.

Early morning at the Skyline Ridge trailhead. Not many things are better than early morning solitary miles on the trail.