House Keeping…

Here are the articles that were published this month on my blog, Evolved to Exceed:

Exercise Is A Cultural Adaptation - By Greg Schmalzel

The Paleolithic Rhythm Part IV: Rest - By Greg Schmalzel

The Paleolithic Rhythm Part III: HIIT - By Greg Schmalzel

The Paleolithic Rhythm Part II: Resistance Training - by Greg Schmalzel

BIG NEWS

The Adaptive Scholar, my eBook on navigating academic research will officially be out and ready for purchase as of tomorrow, January 1st, 2024! It’s a quick, affordable, and easy-to-digest book that outlines my system for finding, reading, and comprehending academic literature. I’ve been developing the system since I was a graduate student, and have further refined it for my current independent studies. Here’s what to expect.

Whether you're a college student, an independent researcher, or you simply enjoy the pursuit of knowledge this eBook is your ultimate tool for academic mastery!

Who’s it for?

• College Students: Ace your papers with efficient research strategies.

• Independent Researchers: Unlock new dimensions in your field.

• Academia Enthusiasts: Dive deep into scholarly pursuits with ease.

Why Choose The Adaptive Scholar?

• Unmatched Efficacy: Streamline your research journey and uncover hidden gems in seconds.

• Simplified & Speedy: Navigate complex academic articles effortlessly with our user-friendly system.

• All-in-One Solution: From finding to comprehending, it's your go-to guide for scholarly success.

Join the evolution of learning! Embrace efficiency, simplicity, and speed with The Adaptive Scholar. Your scholarly adventure starts (tomorrow)!

You will find it at the link below:

The Adaptive Scholar

Book.

Title: The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance

Author: David Epstein

Published: 2013.

Summary/Analysis

Everyone had that one kid in high school; the one who played a sport per season; who was on the starting lineup of each of those teams; who excelled with rapid speed at whatever sport he or she tried next; who was simply a freak athlete. This book is an investigation into that kid. David Epstein wrote this book in a quest to find out why certain individuals gain extraordinary athletic abilities while others don’t. As implied by the title, the main suspect in the investigation is DNA. Are these people gifted with a genetic propensity to achieve athletic success? Or, is it the environments they were born and raised in that prepare them for such endeavors? A classic tale of nature vs. nurture. Unsurprisingly, the book poses that this is a false dichotomy.

The relationship between genes and athleticism is intricate and complicated. As is repeated throughout the book, there are hundreds of genes that code for an individual’s height alone, let alone their ability to navigate a football field, avoid getting tackled, and score a touchdown.

That being said researchers have made advances in terms of discovering certain genes (or genetically inherited traits) that provide physiological advantages to athletes who have them. For example, Kenyans along with Ethiopians, are widely acknowledged as being phenomenal endurance runners as evidenced by their marathon winning record. Scientists have discovered that an especially well-represented population of Kenyans in the running world are specifically from Kalenjin. They also found that the lower legs of these people are about 15 to 17 percent less thick than those of Europeans. This in turn provides an energetic advantage when running long distances - more weight that is more distally placed on the leg requires more energy to move.

Another interesting theory is that the gene that codes for sickle cell in populations who descend from malaria-prone areas (west African, Jamaican, etc.) is advantageous for attributes like power and speed. This gene modifies blood cells to defend against malaria, but it also reduces the amount of oxygen-delivering proteins in that cell. At its core, this is not optimal for things like distance running because it makes getting oxygen to the muscles less efficient. However, this theory suggests that populations with this disadvantage evolved a compensatory mechanism. Accordingly, they have physiological adaptations (like more type II muscle fibers) that make them more efficient at producing energy through pathways that don’t require oxygen. These more anaerobic pathways are thus better for fast-twitch, explosive movements than long-endurance work.  

While genetic endowments such as these are likely to be advantageous, they cannot be isolated from the environments in which people are raised. Nurture certainly plays a huge factor in athletic achievement. For example, that same population of elite Kalenjin runners stems from an environment wherein they have to run to school growing up (which has also been found to be true for many Ethiopian runners). The author also describes the account of a female softball pitcher striking out male professional baseball players. The male hitters had not built up the perceptual ability to predict the unique, underhand throw of a softball pitch. They had the hardware (eyes and visual acuity), but not the software (experience with softball pitching).

This book doesn’t so much produce new knowledge as it does confirm what most biologists and performance researchers have been concluding for some years now and just applies it specifically to sports: nature and nurture, or genes and environment, can not be isolated from one another. In fact, the human individual is at the intersection of these two phenomena and how they interact with each other is what will truly influence one’s athletic capabilities. For anyone looking into the relationship between genes, the environment, and athleticism, this book would make a great addition to your home library.

Quotes

Academic Paper.

Bathgate KE, Bagley JR, Jo E, Talmadge RJ, Tobias IS, Brown LE, Coburn JW, Arevalo JA, Segal NL, Galpin AJ. 2018. “Muscle health and performance in monozygotic twins with 30 years of discordant exercise habits.” European Journal of Applied Physiology 118(10):2097-2110.

Summary/Analysis

Continuing the genetics conversation, let’s take a look at a study performed on twins to get a glimpse into the long-term effects of exercise on one’s physiology. Monozygotic twins, those that look alike, are a great opportunity to examine this because they are genetically identical - one egg was fertilized by one sperm, which was then split in two after fertilization. This means that each twin holds the same copy of DNA from their mother’s egg and father’s sperm. In this study, Bathgate and colleagues got the unique chance to measure the physiological attributes of a set of monozygotic twins. The catch is that one twin spent 30 years training and competing in endurance sports, while the other reported no record of regular exercise. The results are astonishing.

What they found was that many physiological traits differed drastically between the two individuals. Some measures indicated better health in the endurance-trained twin, while others suggested reduced health markers. For example, The endurance-trained twin showed lower body fat %, resting heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol, as well as greater aerobic and anaerobic capacities. These all point to a healthier individual. On the contrary, the untrained twin showed superiority in terms of muscle size, strength, and quality.

As expected, the endurance-trained twin had the edge when it came to measures of cardiovascular health. But, if the endurance-trained twin was so much more committed to exercise, then how could he have tested lower than his untrained twin on other health metrics like muscle size and strength? Importantly, the authors claim that there is no clear answer as to why this is the case. Exercise specificity, though, surely played a factor. The endurance-trained twin was doing exactly that - he was training for endurance and his body adapted accordingly, making him cardiovascularly more fit. Muscle growth and strength were not prioritized in his 30 years of exercise, so the energy and resources that could have been allocated to improve these attributes were used to improve endurance adaptations instead. His body was optimized for triathlons and distance running.

What’s important about this study is how the differences between these two individuals can be entirely attributed to environmental factors, e.g. exercise. Their DNA is identical, which means that essentially any role of genetics in their differential health outcomes can be thrown out of the window. That the twin who spent more time engaged in endurance activities had significantly greater cardiovascular health says a lot about the potential for exercise to increase one’s health despite what genetic hand they’ve been dealt.

Quotes

Podcast.

Summary/Analysis

Mark van Vugt is an evolutionary psychologist whose main interests concern the modern workplace. Along with host Max Beibly, they unravel the concept of evolutionary mismatches as they relate to the working conditions of today. So, first off, what is an evolutionary mismatch?

An evolutionary mismatch occurs when an organism’s adaptations are poorly fitted to an environment because that environment is too new to that species. They offer diet as an example. Throughout most of human evolution, our species consumed natural, whole foods, which were scarce relative to the accessibility of food today. It became adaptive to be an opportunistic eater who consumed food when it was available. But now, food (especially unhealthy food) is always available, making opportunistic eating a path to obesity rather than an adaptation.

Van Vugt applies this same logic to business. First, he presents a model for the types of “work” and “workplaces” that were present in our ancestral past. To clarify, work for ancient hunter-gatherers was simply finding their next meal. That being said, it consisted of physical activity. It was often social and playful. There were very few “specialists” because most people had to know a wide range of skills. Only about 2-3 hours per day were spent working. Accordingly, these are the work conditions that shaped our DNA.

The modern workplace, though, does not look like this. Modern work typically lacks any physical activity. People often work in isolation from others on very specific tasks for very long periods. Not to mention that most work is done indoors today, but was outdoors for most of human history.

He goes on to describe how we are maladapted to many of these conditions, with one example in particular I found very interesting. He argues that ancestral societies were more egalitarian and less hierarchical. There were leaders in the sense that more competent individuals took on more important roles, but there weren’t “bosses” per se. He suggests that much of the work stress people experience today can be attributed to the competitive, hierarchical nature of modern business, and the pressures that bosses place on employees. Our evolved psychology is not aligned with large-scale, hierarchical organizations and stress is likely an outcome of this misalignment.

When considering solutions to evolutionary mismatches in the workplace, such as boss-employee-induced stress, he offers ideas on how to integrate ancestral conditions into modern business. He claims that businesses should incorporate things like incentives for physical activity and teamwork and increase the autonomy of the employees. Also, making workspaces greener either by bringing plants inside or providing access to nature will bring psychological benefits to employees.

Yet again, even in the workplace, we find reasons to believe that the optimal path forward as a species is not one of escaping our past, but one of integrating it into our future.

Quotes

Fitness Tip.

Humans and our human-like ancestors have been living solely terrestrial lives for at least 2 million years. But we were once an arboreal species, meaning we lived in the trees. Unlike today, we were navigating the tree canopy daily to find food or evade predators. Gymnasts are the closest modern humans to those earlier primate ancestors. Take note of their physiques and grand athleticism. Gymnasts spend vast amounts of time hanging swings and suspending themselves in the air with just their upper bodies.

Inspired by our arboreal origins, and by the phenomenal athleticism and physiques of gymnasts, this month’s challenge is a pull-up challenge. True gymnastics is complicated and requires training, but pull-ups can be a simple alternative for the average Joe. Do one set of as many pull-ups as possible. Whether it’s 1, 5, or 30, it doesn’t matter. This is your baseline. The goal is to improve that maximum within 30 days. For those of you at a lower baseline, like 1 or 2, try to double it. For those of you at a higher baseline of say 30, doubling may be extreme for just 30 days. Adding a few more reps, on the other hand, is certainly doable.

Of course, I could provide a templated workout regimen for you to abide by, but that wouldn’t make it much of a challenge. I want you to proactively do your own research and find a method that helps you achieve this goal on your own. Happy hunting.

Fit Fuel Song Suggestion.

If you’re new here, heed this warning:

The Fit Fuel song suggestions are hand-picked by yours truly to elicit the motivation (and possibly aggression) needed to initiate or persist through a grueling workout. They typically consist of heavy, brutal guitar riffs and gruesomely guttural vocals. Additionally, I timestamp what I believe to be the best riff of the song - one that will kick your nervous system into overdrive when approaching a personal record.

This song in particular is littered with killer riffs.

Title: The Afterbirth

Band: Invocator

Album: Weave The Apocalypse (1993)

PR Moment - 1:40