Showing posts with label 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5. Show all posts

Saturday, April 30, 2016

HTML Tutorial 5 Basic Elements on An HTML Form Part 1



Basic Elements on An HTML From


Few months ago, I started writing about HTML. There are already 4 tutorials published on HTML. I know this is not sufficient for an HTML learner. Because learning HTML requires much resources and practice. However I will try to write about HTML whenever Im able to manage time. 

You can also read the previously published HTML Tutorial:
  • Tutorial 1
  • Tutorial 2
  • Tutorial 3
  • Tutorial 4

Todays HTML tutorial is very easy, funny and useful. Today I will discuss about the basic elements of an HTML form. This is the part 1 that includes Text Fields, Password Field, Radio Buttons & Checkboxes. 



How to Start: 

You can practice using notepad. Press Start + R > Type Notepad > Enter. Now copy or type the code from here. And save them as form.htm or use any other name. But the name should end with either .htm or .html. Then open the file in a browser. 


Lets begin - 

Usually an HTML form contains input elements like text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, submit buttons etc. To create an HTML form you must use the <form> tag. Look at the structure below:

<form>

input elements

</form> 

Though you skip the <form> tag, modern browsers can identify your form. But this is a basic rule for creating html forms. So you should start with <form> and end with </form>. 




Text Fields:

<input type="text"> indicates a one-line input field to enter text. 

<form>
First name: <input type=text><br>
Last name: <input type=text>
</form>
The result will be as below: 


First name:

Last name:
Note: <br> tag is used to create line break. Otherwise both fields will appear in a single line. The default width of a text field is 20 character. You can increase it as below: 


<form>Name: <input type=text size = 40><form>

The result will be: 

Name:




Password Field:

<input type="password"> defines a password field. Whenever someone types in a password field, the characters are shown as circles. 

<form>
Password: <input type=password>
</form>

The result will be: 

Password:


Radio Buttons:

<input type="radio"> refers to a radio button. Radio button allows user to choose a single item. After selecting an item, you can change it. But once selected, you cant undone it. 

<form>Which one do you like most?<input type=radio name=Mobile>Nokia<br><input type=radio name=Mobile>Samsung<br><input type=radio name=Mobile>Apple</form>

You will get:  

Which one do you like most?

Nokia

Samsung

Apple



Checkboxes:

<input type="checkbox"> defines a checkbox. Somewhat similar to radio buttons. But here an user can choose multiple items. And he can deselect the item any time! 

<form>

What is your Favorite Browser?

<input type=checkbox>Google Chrome<br>
<input type=checkbox>Firefox<br>
<input type=checkbox>Internet Explorer<br>
<input type=checkbox>Opera<br>
<input type=checkbox>Other<br>
</form>
Your browser will show: 

What is your Favorite Browser?

Google Chrome

Firefox

Internet Explorer

Opera

Other

These are some important elements of an HTML form. There are few other elements remaining. I will try to write about those elements in the next post. And then Ill put these all together and show you how to prepare an HTML form. Till then, stay with us . . . 


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Sunday, April 24, 2016

Dot Net Framework 3 5 Not Installing on Windows 8 Fix it Now!





You may face a common problem while using Windows 8. Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 is not installed with Windows 8. And several programs may ask you install this. And you cant install this from your PC. It will ask you to connect to the net and use Windows Update. 

By default Windows 8 comes with .Net Framework 4.5 and it doesnt include 3.5. When you try to install .Net 3.5 that you previously downloaded from web the you will see the following message. 





And you will get the same message while installing some some programs that is developed using .Net 3.5 platform. And you will not able to run those programs on your PC! This is a very bad job by Microsoft. A great trouble for Windows 8 users. 

But today you will get the solution. Youve install this using command line. I mean you have to use Command Prompt. And surprisingly you Windows 8 DVD includes the .Net Framework 3.5! 


Method 1 (Offline Installation using cmd):
  1. Enter your Windows 8 Installation Disk on DVD Drive.
  2. Now run Command Prompt as Administrator. (Hint: Start > Type cmd > Now right click on Command Prompt and hit on Run as Administrator from the bottom)
  3. Now copy the following command and paste it in the command prompt window. Or type the following line in command prompt. Press Enter (To paste the command in command prompt, click the right button of mouse and select paste)
  4. Now .Net Framework will be installed within few minutes. 
DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:NetFx3 /All /LimitAccess /Source:h:sourcessxs


Remember: h is the drive letter of DVD drive. Change it with your DVD drive letter. 


Method 2 (Online Method using Windows Update): 

If you follow all the instructions of method 1 you will be able to install .net 3.5 properly. But if there is any problem for example- you dont have DVD drive, or your Windows DVD doesnt contain it then you can install it directly from Windows Update option. More or less youve to download 200 MB data from internet. 


Follow the instruction below: 

Control Panel > Programs and Features > Turn Windows Features on or off > Mark the option .NET Framework 3.5 (includes .NET 2.0 and 3.0) > OK. 
Now you will see a window like the image above. Hit on Install This Feature. And make sure youre connected to the net. Thats it.  


Secret Tips: If you upgrade to Windows 8 from Windows 7, then you get .Net Framework 3.5 automatically enabled !!


Installing a Windows language pack on Windows 8 before installing the .NET Framework 3.5 will cause the .NET Framework 3.5 installation to fail. Install the .NET Framework 3.5 before installing any Windows language packs.


Dont forget to share this troubleshooting tips with your friends. 

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Thursday, April 14, 2016

0 3g kg Bicarbonate Will Make Trained Cyclists Last 4 5 Min Longer 9 During Std High Intensity Cycling Tests

Dont forget that cyclists are not the only group of athletes who can benefit from bicarbonate supplementation. Strength trainees who spend hours in the gym and train at high intensities will also benefit!
I know that most of you are into resistance not endurance training. So, before I even get into the discussion of the experimental procedures and the results of the latest study from the Institute of Sports and Preventive Medicine at the Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany, I would like to point you to an older SuppVersity article which indicates that bicarbonate supplementation is able to Up Your Squat (+27%) & Bench Press (+6%) Within 60 Min" (read more).

Now that youve hopefully put away your prejudices against "that endurance supplement", lets get to the previously mentioned study by Florian Egger, Tim Meyer, Ulf Such, and Anne Hecksteden (thanks to Conrad P. Earnest for bringing this to my attention).
You can learn more about bicarbonate and pH-buffers at the SuppVersity

The Hazards of Acidosis

Build Bigger Legs W/ Bicarbonate

HIIT it Hard W/ NaCHO3

HIIT + Bicarb = Perfect Match

Bicarb Buffers Creatine

Beta Alanine Fails to HIIT Back
To investigate the effects of BICA supplementation on performance during prolonged, high-intensity cycling to exhaustion in well-trained athletes, the scientists from the Saarland University recruited 6 male and 5 female "well-trained" cyclists (mean ± SD: age 24±8 y, BMI 21.3±1.7, VO2peak 67.3±9.8 ml/kg/min - the VO2peak value tells you that they were fit ;-).

In a double-blind, randomized cross-over design, the subjects underwent two stepwise incremental exercise tests and two constant load tests (with two phases) on an electrically braked cycle ergometer (Excalibur Sport, Lode, Groningen, The Netherlands).
Figure 1: Schematic representation of the general design.Time interval between tests is specified in days (d). Data are presented as means ± standard deviation respectively, with minimum (min) and maximum (max) values (Egger. 2014).
As the overview of the study design in Figure 1 tells you, each test type was completed twice. Once after the ingestion of 0.3 g/kg sodium bicarbonate (yes, thats roughly 24g for someone who weighs 80g and should not be consumed too fast, because otherwise it may trigger diarrhea) or a placebo supplement in form of 4 g sodium chloride that was chosen to make sure that any benefits that were observed were due to the natrium, not the bicarbonate content of sodium bicarbonate.
There is relatively little sodium in NaHCO3: Sodium bicarbonate, baking soda or NaHCO3, as a chemist would say is a molecule that contains natrium (or sodium as the Americans say) and bicarbonate. It has a total molar mass of 84.007 g/mol. This means that ~73% of the sodium bicarbonate powder you ingest are actually bicarbonate and only ~27% are sodium. The whopping dose of 20-30g of bicarbonate that is usually used in studies will thus deliver "only" 5.4g-8.1g of sodium. Thats still plenty, but as you know for a trained athlete whos sweating like a pig during his workouts and may be losing up to 30g of sodium in his sweat, its not a problem and can in fact be a performance enhancing blessing (see previous article on the dangers of low sodium diets in athletes).
Both the plain salt and the sodium bicarbonate were solved in 0.7 l water. The outcome measures were simple: Only if the subjects were able to pedal significantly longer until they were exhausted in the standardized constant load test, sodium bicarbonate could be considered to have practically relevant performance enhancing effects (maximum performance in the stepwise incremental exercise test, i.e. maximal workload and VO2peak were used as secondary outcomes).

Figure 2: Blood lactate (BLa) concentrations after ingestion (post drink) and during constant load tests (mean ± SD) for the BICA and placebo trials (Egger. 2014)
The other parameters the scientists measured, i.e. the blood lactate [BLa], pH, and bicarbonate concentration, were merely used determine the mechanisms for the potential improvements in exercise performance.

Speaking of auxiliary measures, if you take a look at Figure 2 you will see that the blood pH dropped significantly right after the ingestion of the bicarbonate supplement and remained "low" throughout the trial and afterwards. An observation that does not come unexpected. Previous trials have after all shown that its the ability of bicarbonate to blunt the high-intensity exercise related perturbations in both blood and muscle acid-base that keeps the maximal work rate up and leads to performance increases compared to placebo supplements.
Bicarbonate Serial Loading! Dont forget that you can reduce the side effects by repeatedly using smaller quantities of sodium bicarbonate aka "serial loading" (read more). Personally, I would expect that this procotol turns the acute performance enhancer into a permanent ergogenic you can use on both on and off days. Unfortunately, a corresponding study that would prove my hypothesis has not yet been conducted.
These performance decrements are caused by the accumulation of hydrogen ions (H+) in the myoplasm and their detrimental effects on myofilament interaction, glycolytic flux and sarcoplasmatic reticulum function. As Egger et al. point out
"[t]he ability of the body to prevent or delay these force limiting processes is determined by the capacity of its intrinsic buffering systems, which counteract the accumulation of H+ both inside and outside the cell," (Egger. 2014)
which explains why the benefits of both beta alanine (which increases the intra-cellular buffering capacity) and bicarbonate are most pronounced in athletes competing in high intensity sports.
Figure 3: Time to exhaustion and maximal workload (total) and maximal workload at the individual anaerobic threshold (IAT) during the bicarbonate and placebo trials (Egger. 2014).
Apropos ergogenic effects: I already gave it away in the headline. The consumption of the bicarbonate supplement lead to immediate increases in the time to exhaustion with 49.5 ±11.5 min being the maximum in the bicarbonate and 45.0±9.5 min being the maximum in the placebo condition.

The maximal workload in the stepwise incremental tests (BICA: 341±66 W; placebo: 339±67 W) and workload at IAT (BICA: 234±5.5 W; placebo 233±5.7 W), on the other hand, did not differ significantly.
Bottom line: In the end, the study at hand confirms what we already knew. Sodium bicarbonate is one of the few supplements with instant ergogenic effects. In that, these benefits are particularly pronounced, when it comes to high volume + high intensity exercises (in this case high volume means cycling for a comparatively long time).

Dont forget that serial loading, i.e. taking smaller amounts of NaHCO3 spread repeatedly, can reduce the side effects without compromising the benefits of sodium bicarbonate supplementation | learn more
Both of these qualities distinguish sodium bicarbonate from beta alanine which acts as an intra-cellular buffer, only, has to be taken for at least two, better four weeks and provides significant performance benefits of 2.85% on average only on exercises that last for 60-240s (Hobson. 2012).

Thus, in spite of the fact that you can obviously use both (see "Beta Alanine and Baking Soda (NaHCO3), a Synergistic Duo for 4-min All-Out Sprints Even in Highly Trained Athletes?" | read more), I personally think that sodium bicarbonate is the more powerful acid buffer for athletes... but as you know, I am willing to accept if you have a different opinion - as long as it is substantiated | Make yourselves heard on Facebook!
References:
  • Egger F, Meyer T, Such U, Hecksteden A. "Effects of Sodium Bicarbonate on High-Intensity Endurance Performance in Cyclists: A Double-Blind, Randomized Cross-Over Trial". PLoS ONE 9.12 (2014): e114729.
  • Hobson, Ruth M., et al. "Effects of ?-alanine supplementation on exercise performance: a meta-analysis." Amino acids 43.1 (2012): 25-37.


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Friday, March 18, 2016

Who Wants To Live Forever 5 Survival Techniques That Will Help You Make it Past the 100 Year Margin Healthily!

This article will teach you how to make sure youll see your great, great grand children.
This is one of the many things I have learned from my good friend Carl Lanore, whose radio show, Super Human Radio, I have been following for years before I became what Carl once called "semi-famous": We, that is humans in general and researchers in particular, tend to focus way too much on the sophisticated, the innovative and the revolutionary stuff, when oftentimes the answer to ostensibly open question is lying openly before our eyes. Athletics and bodybuilding, is one of these areas, where practitioners have been doing everything right for decades... and what was their reward? World-records and mind-boggling physiques, for example.

This is yet by no means the only example. The "paleo movement", as bizarre and disfigured as it may have become does still exemplify that the same can be said of "healthy eating", as well.
You can learn more about the secrets of longevity at the SuppVersity

Are You Stressed Enough to Live Forever?

Suffocated Mitochondria Live Longer

Get Lean & Live Longer With I. Fasting

Can You add 9 Years to your Life W/ Glucosamine?

The Soccer Molecule - C60 Fullerene

Is a Latent Acidosis Killing You Softly?
There have always been people who (instinctively?) knew how to do it - hell, even the hailed Mediterranean Diet is no invention of brainy scientists (certainly not of dumb dietitians). And when we are honest, we dont need websites like Longecity and tons of useless supplements to make the most of our genetic longevity potential: We all know what we should do, but unfortunately, many of us tend to forget that we dont do what it takes to join the ranks of those people about whom Marilynn Larkin wrote in ther 1999 paper "Centenarians point the way to healthy ageing" (Larkin. 1999).

Todays SuppVersity article is an homage to these people and the well-known but often overlooked research on what helps and hinders us from joining the ranks of people like Betsy Baker (supposedly 113, when she died in 1955), Marie-Louise Meilleur (supposedly 117, when she died in 1988) or Jiroemon Kimura (supposedly 116, when he died last year). I mean, they must have done many things right and only few things wrong, right? Based on the contemporary evidence, Ive compiled a list of rules. I guess, neither Betsy or Marie-Louise, nor Jiroemon will have followed all of them to the "T", but hey, this leaves room for you to decide whether youd rather indulge in one or another passion or stick to all of them to the "T" top Marie-Louises 117 or Jiroemons 116 years of age :-)
  • Use the available medical care to your advantage: Within the health and fitness community, the things our regular doctors can do for us have gotten a surprisingly bad rep. It does however stand out of question that the availability and use of modern medicine is one of the cornerstones of the ever-increasing longevity in centennials and other healthy elderly. From basic treatments to complicated operations, all these things the availability of which we usually take for granted has helped us (and the living centenarians) to do what Thomas Perls calls "to ‘compress morbidity’ and live most of our lives in good health, with only a short period of ill health at the end." (Perls. 1999)
    Figure 1: Luckily, your place of birth is not the only determinant of life expectancy; map depicts life expectancy (in years) at birth (created by Panagiotis V. Lazaridis based on WHO & CIA data in 2008)
    At first this may contradict findings Engberg et al. present in a paper with data from a 29-year follow-up of hospitalizations among 40 000 Danes born in 1905, but in the end, it should be obvious that the low hospitalization rates, the Danish researchers observed in centenarians and almost centenarians were rather a consequence than a cause of their longevity and probably also due to timely non-stationary medical interventions, when one of them actually got sick (Engberg. 2009)
  • Dont smoke, or quit smoking: I know this should be obvious, but I guess too many people still believe that they must belong to the lucky few Lewin and Crimmins, the authors of a recent paper with the intruiging title "Not All Smokers Die Young: A Model for Hidden Heterogeneity within the Human Population." (Lewin. 2014) are interested in. Contrary to these (allegedly) genetic outliers, the majority of us will suffer a significant reduction in life expectancy. Estimations of the number of years youll lose range from a handful of years to up to 25% (Rogers. 1991). For a US citizen the latter would equal almost 16 years! Years, of which Susan T. Stewart et al. (2009) say that the average 18-year-old may reclaim 3.76 life-years and, more importantly, 5.16 quality-adjusted years, in which he or she is not hospitalized and wasting away, if they managed to avoid the getting overweight / obese instead.
Eat fish, if you cant stop smoking: The -50% reduction in mortality risk for fish eating heavy smokers vs. people who smoke and have a low fish consumption as it was reported by Rodriguez et al. in 1996, actually raises the question whether it wouldnt make more sense to put images of deliciously prepared salmon on cigarette packets - instead of the tar-black lungs and foul body parts, obviously.
  • In fact, the increase in BMI after smoking sessation "overwhelmed the positive effects of declines in smoking in multiple scenarios" Stewart et al. calculated and reduced the benefits for an 18-year old to 0.71 years or 0.91 (Stewart. 2009).

    But dont worry, other studies report much more beneficial effects. Taylor et al. (2002), for example, estimate that the life expectancy among smokers who quit at age 35 will exceeded that of continuing smokers by 6.9 to 8.5 years for men and 6.1 to 7.7 years for women. And in spite of the fact that early smokers will obviously realize greater gains in life expectancy, even those even those who quit much later in life gained some benefits: among smokers who quit at age 65 years, men gained 1.4 to 2.0 years of life, and women gained 2.7 to 3.7 years.
  • Avoid drinking alcohol in amounts >0.5 glasses of wine per day: Notwithstanding the overcited epidemiological evidence which suggests that a moderate alcohol consumption will have beneficial effects on your life-expectancy, the margin between "just enough" and "already too much" is simply too narrow for me to suggest you drink more than the literal half glass of wine thats supposed to lower the all-cause mortality risk of women by ~20-25% (Streppel. 2009).

    Table 1: Relative Risk for Major Chronic Disease Categories, by Gender and Average Drinking Category (Rehm. 2002)
    A high(er) level of alcohol consumption, on the other hand, has been found to be associated with a higher risk of hypertension, alcoholic cardiomyopathy, cancer, cerebrovascular events and dementia (Kloner. 2007) - a fact that should remind you that (a) the evidence regarding the possible health benefits of alcohol is uncertain, and that (b) alcohol may not benefit everyone who drink. Theoretically, genetic polymorphisms that make alcohol the panacea for one, could turn an in innocent glass of wine into a deadly poison for someone else (Hashimoto. 2002).

    And just in case the ambiguity of data aint reason enough for you to let go of all alcoholic beverages on at least360 of 365 days of the year, the data in Table 1 may convince you.

    If you take a closer look at "Drinking Category I", where youll find all the women who consume 0–19.99 g pure alcohol and all the men who consume 0–39.99 g pure alcohol every day (a glass of wine has ~13g), you will see that alcohol increases the risk of liver cirrhosis by 26%, hypertensive diseases and other CVD by 40% and 50%, is associated with 34% and 23% higher risk of epilepsy for women and men, respectively and increases the risk of all cancers esp. those of the esophagus (+80%) significantly.

    I am not sure about you, but for me this alone would be enough to get my sleep, diet and exercise regimen in check instead of trying to use alcohol as a means to reduce my CVD risk.
  • Attend to relationships and friends: Individuality has become on of the / the (choose for yourself) highest good(s) of Western civilization and few people are aware that we are paying a very high price for that. The influence of social relations on mortality is, after all, well documented. A meta-analysis of 148 studies (308,849 participants followed for an average of 7.5 years) confirms that the quality of our social networks significantly predicts mortality (Holt-Lunstad. 2010).
    Figure 2: Weighted avg. effect sizes across different measures of social relationships (Holt-Lunstad. 2010).
    People with social relationships defined as adequate are 50% more likely to survive than older adults with social relationships defined as poor or insufficient. The overall effect remains consistent across age (see Figure 2).

    It is yet still unclear whether specific types of relationships are more advantageous than others. Giles et al. (2005) showed that the beneficial association between social networks and survival among elderly people may be restricted to relationships with friends and confidants rather than with children and relatives. In a meta-analysis of 53 prospective observational studies on older adults, marriage or support from a partner was found be a significant independent predictor of survival; the overall reduction in mortality risk was 9–15%. However, this association was statistically significant in only half of the studies (Manzoli. 2007).
  • As Rizzuto & Fratiglioni (2014) point out, one hypothesis suggests that strong social connec tions can buffer significant stress and protect against ne ative stress-related outcomes:
    "People might be protected from adopting stress-related lifestyle choices that are detrimental to health, such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption and sleep loss." (Rizzuto. 2014)
    The main-effect hypothesis postulates that social support is beneficial regardless of the stress level a person is experiencing; in other words, social support can act protectively even before a stressor is experienced. For instance, persons with social support could be influenced to engage in protective be haviors such as exercise.

    Moreover, having a wide range of social ties also provides multiple sources of information that could result in more effective use of available health care and services (Cohen. 2004). No wonder, you have, after all, read only a couple of days ago that education is what protects "poor women from fattening effects of rising wealth" in the SuppVersity Facebook News (read more).
  • Stay lean and be avtive, God damnit! There is this unfortunate and die-hard myth of something scientists refer to as the obesity paradox. A term that is misrepresented by overweight journalists and doctors and misunderstood by the ever-increasing number of obese average Joes, for whom the misleading connotations of terms such as "healthy obese" are downright life-threatening. 

    And this is not an exaggeration, by the way. If you look at the 30% increase in mortality risk Whitlock et al. (2009) calculated based on a meta-analysis of data from 57 prospective studies that included almost 900,000 adults for every 5-point increase in BMI the attribute "life-threatening" is by no means an exaggeration.
Ladies, listen up! Being underweight is unhealthier than being obese. Trying to equal the anorexic Hollywood "stars" could cost your life! It sounds drastic, but with a 47% increase in mortality risks being underweight underweight women (BMI <18.4) have a higher mortality risk than obese ones (+44% for BMI 30.0 to 34.9; see Berrington de Gonzalez. 2010)
  • Although the proportional increase was greater at younger ages (35–59 years), the corresponding increase in mortality for those in their 70s was nearly 30%, and for those in their 80s, it was still 15% - the notion that older people would benefit from being fat is thus simply hilarious.

    Whats not hilarious, though, is that a certain amount of healthy, well-distributed body fat thats complemented by a decent amount of life-extending muscle mass (20% reduction in all cause-mortality for men >55years w/ a decent amount of lean mass; see  SuppVersity Facebook News | learn more) and a corresponding BMI between 20-27 offers enough energy reserves to draw on, when youre sick and old. It is thus also not surprising that being slightly overweight (obesity starts with BMI >30) is not a risk factor for people aged ? 65 years (Heiat. 2001) and certainly better than being what scientists call "underweight", when its actually only "undermuscled" for the vast majority of elderly individuals who are affected.
Sleep! Enough, but not too long. What you should never forget, is to stick to a regular sleep rhythm - and this means not tho short, but not to long either. While short sleepers, defined as people who get "commonly < 7 h per night, often < 5 h per night," have a 12% higher all-cause mortality than people who sleep 7-8h on a regular basis, lying around in bed too long could eventually cost you more than just your job. According to a recent meta-analysis of data from 27 independent cohort samples, sleeping "commonly > 8 or 9 h per night" is even more dangerous and will increase your risk of dying prematurely by 30% compared to a 7-8h sleeper (Cappuccio. 2010).
  • As a SuppVersity reader you know: The risk for both, being underweight and overweight can be reduced if not nullified by a high amount of daily physical activity (the 10,000 steps mantra) and working out regularly. Being moderately active, alone, for example, was found to be associated with a 3.6x higher chance of "successful [=healthy] aging" in a recent study from the University of Ibadan - for regular vigorous activity, the chance of aging healthily increased by 711% (Gureje. 2014)!
  • Miscellaneous, but worth mentioning: This is where I will list everything that popped up on my radar while doing the research, but did not really appear to make a good standalone item in the list. Things like having sex, for example. At least twice a week, to make sure that you dont increase your risk of  fatal coronary heart disease by 180%, guys (Ebrahim. 2002). And ther results Smith et al. presented 5 years before are even more promising: According to their study, each increase of 100 orgasms per year is associated with a 46% reduction in all-cause mortality risk (Smith. 1997)!
It is obviously true that some of the things that determine healthy aging are (still) out of your reach. Most prominently, your sex! Scientists are yet struggling to explain the underlying reasons of the sex-specific "longevity bias", but contemporary research would suggest that...
"[...]female centenarians likely exploited a healthier life-style and more favorable environmental conditions, owing to gender-specific cultural and anthropological characteristics" (Franceschi. 2000) 
... and do thus depend to a lesser extend on having the right mtDNA haplogroups, Thyrosine Hydroxilase, and IL-6 genes than men.

Figure 5: Yes, genes matter, but there is more (Franceschi. 2003)
Apropos genes, the "typically male" aka sex–dependent genetic predisposition to produce high levels of IL?6 is about as detrimental to your goal of making it past the "100+ years finish line" healthily, as being born with the nasty "?4" variety of the apolipoprotein E gene and the corresponding lifelong problems with high blood lipids and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimers & co (Panza. 1999; Bonafè. 2001).

Other genes that have been highlighted as factors that contribute to exceptional longevity are certain variants of the FOXO3A gene (Flachsbart. 2009), ...
You are stronger than your genes: Thats a good thing, because it means that you can attenuate if not nullify the increased disease / obesity risk you may be born to (Kilpeläinen. 2011). For far more of us, its yet rather a bad thing, because they are deliberately throw- ing away their chance to lead a long and above all healthy life by the way they eat, dont exercise and wake all night.
Bottom line: I guess I could list at least a dozen of additional gene of which researchers believe that they were linked to extraordinary longevity (see Sebastiani. 2010), but that would hardly be useful. It could even contradict the message of this article which is "NOT to go to 23andme.com and get tested!".
Its a matter of fact that the most important reason people die fat and sick before their time is because they dont take responsibility for their health ...[deliberate pause] ...and trying to find the cause for your health problems in your genome is the #1 strategy to dig up an excuse that will allow you to put the blame on your parents and grand parents. And this just one day before mothers day! Shame on You! You really think someone blaming his mother deserves to live forever?
References: 
  • Berrington de Gonzalez, Amy, et al. "Body-mass index and mortality among 1.46 million white adults." New England Journal of Medicine 363.23 (2010): 2211-2219.
  • Bonafè, Massimiliano, et al. "A gender–dependent genetic predisposition to produce high levels of IL?6 is detrimental for longevity." European journal of immunology 31.8 (2001): 2357-2361. 
  • Cohen, Sheldon. "Social relationships and health." American psychologist 59.8 (2004): 676.
  • Ebrahim, S., et al. "Sexual intercourse and risk of ischaemic stroke and coronary heart disease: the Caerphilly study." Journal of epidemiology and community health 56.2 (2002): 99-102.
  • Flachsbart, Friederike, et al. "Association of FOXO3A variation with human longevity confirmed in German centenarians." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106.8 (2009): 2700-2705.
  • Franceschi, C., et al. "Do men and women follow different trajectories to reach extreme longevity?." Aging Clinical and Experimental Research 12.2 (2000): 77-84. 
  • Franceschi, C., and M. Bonafe. "Centenarians as a model for healthy aging." Biochemical Society Transactions 31.2 (2003): 457-461. 
  • Giles, Lynne C., et al. "Effect of social networks on 10 year survival in very old Australians: the Australian longitudinal study of aging." Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 59.7 (2005): 574-579. 
  • Gureje, Oye, et al. "Profile and Determinants of Successful Aging in the Ibadan Study of Ageing." Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2014).
  • Heiat, Asefeh, Viola Vaccarino, and Harlan M. Krumholz. "An evidence-based assessment of federal guidelines for overweight and obesity as they apply to elderly persons." Archives of internal medicine 161.9 (2001): 1194-1203.
  • Holt-Lunstad, Julianne, Timothy B. Smith, and J. Bradley Layton. "Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review." PLoS medicine 7.7 (2010): e1000316. 
  • Kilpeläinen, Tuomas O., et al. "Physical activity attenuates the influence of FTO variants on obesity risk: a meta-analysis of 218,166 adults and 19,268 children." PLoS medicine 8.11 (2011): e1001116.
  • Kloner, Robert A., and Shereif H. Rezkalla. "To drink or not to drink? That is the question." Circulation 116.11 (2007): 1306-1317.
  • Larkin, Marilynn. "Centenarians point the way to healthy ageing." The Lancet 353.9158 (1999): 1074.
  • Manzoli, Lamberto, et al. "Marital status and mortality in the elderly: a systematic review and meta-analysis." Social science & medicine 64.1 (2007): 77-94. 
  • Oliveira, Aldair J., et al. "The influence of social relationships on obesity: sex differences in a longitudinal study." Obesity 21.8 (2013): 1540-1547.
  • Panza, Francesco, et al. "Decreased frequency of apolipoprotein E ?4 allele from Northern to Southern Europe in Alzheimers disease patients and centenarians." Neuroscience letters 277.1 (1999): 53-56.
  • Perls, Thomas T., Margery Hutter Silver, and John F. Lauerman. Living to 100: Lessons in living to your maximum potential at any age. 1st ed. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
  • Rehm, Jürgen, et al. "Alcohol-related morbidity and mortality." Mouth 140.208 (2002): C00-C97. 
  • Rizzuto, D., and L. Fratiglioni. "Lifestyle Factors Related to Mortality and Survival: A Mini-Review." Gerontology (2014).
  • Rodriguez, Beatriz L., et al. "Fish Intake May Limit the Increase in Risk of Coronary Heart Disease Morbidity and Mortality Among Heavy Smokers The Honolulu Heart Program." Circulation 94.5 (1996): 952-956. 
  • Rogers, Richard G., and Eve Powell-Griner. "Life expectancies of cigarette smokers and nonsmokers in the United States." Social science & medicine 32.10 (1991): 1151-1159.
  • Sebastiani, Paola, et al. "Genetic signatures of exceptional longevity in humans." Science 10 (2010): 1126. 
  • Smith, George Davey, Stephen Frankel, and John Yarnell. "Sex and death: are they related? Findings from the Caerphilly cohort study." Bmj 315.7123 (1997): 1641-1644.
  • Stewart, Susan T., David M. Cutler, and Allison B. Rosen. "Forecasting the effects of obesity and smoking on US life expectancy." New England Journal of Medicine 361.23 (2009): 2252-2260.
  • Streppel, Martinette T., et al. "Long-term wine consumption is related to cardiovascular mortality and life expectancy independently of moderate alcohol intake: the Zutphen Study." Journal of epidemiology and community health 63.7 (2009): 534-540.


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Monday, March 14, 2016

Intensity or Exercises Switching Whats More Effective to Build Muscle And Strength Switching Exercises Yields 20 Higher Strength 5 Higher Balanced Muscle Gains!

Intensity or exercises switching whats more effective to build muscle and strength - or is it best to do both?
Lets be honest: When was the last time youve switched up your exercise regimen? Kicked out the old boring bench presses and squats and did something totally different? You dont remember? Well, what if I tell you that the latest study from the University of São Paulo, the University of Tampa and Delboni Auriemo Diagnostic Imaging Sector shows that not switching up your exercises is whats keeping you from making the gains you deserve?

Shocker? Well in that case I highly suggest you read the rest of todays article, before you go back to the drawing board and revamp your training regimen.
Learn more about building muscle at www.suppversity.com

Tri- or Multi-Set Training for Body Recomp.?

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Pre-Exhaustion Exhausts Your Growth Potential

Full ROM ? Full Gains - Form Counts!

Battle the Rope to Get Ripped & Strong

Study Indicates Cut the Volume Make the Gains!
The actual purpose of the study, the results of which are soon going to be published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research was...
"to investigate the effects of different combinations of training intensities and exercises selection, as well as the combination of both, on muscle strength and CSA." (Fonseca. 2014)
Base on the authors previous findings (Lamas. 2012; Laurentino. 2012; Wallerstein. 2012), Fonseca et al. hypothesized that muscle hypertrophy would not be affected by the different loading schemes and exercise variation; however, the differences in motor unit recruitment provided by the exercise variation would produce superior gains in muscle strength.

A secondary purpose of the present study was thus to identify if the loading scheme and exercises variation would produce differences in the hypertrophy response of the quadriceps muscle heads.
Figure 1:  Vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM), vastus intermedius (VI), and rectus femoris (RF) cross sectional area (mm²) for the constant exercise-constant intensity (CICE), constant intensity-varied exercise (CIVE), varied intensity-constant exercise (VICE), and varied intensity-varied exercise (VIVE) groups, pre- and post-training (Fonseca. 2014)
Speaking of muscle heads, the two letter acronyms in Figure 1 represent vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM), vastus intermedius (VI), and rectus femoris (RF) and as you can see the hypertrophy response was affected by the different loading schemes and exercise variation.
ChestBicepsBackCoreLegsTricepsShoulders
Navigate the SuppVersity EMG Series - Click on the desired body part to see the optimal exercises.
Based on the caption of Figure 1 you will already have gathered that the study protocol involved 4 different conditions (+ control; not shown in Figure 1).
Maybe its not just about the exercises, but also about which exercises you rotate in... This is something you should keep in mind, when you look aat the results of the study at hand. Ok, squats may be the best exercise for legs, but is it surprising that adding in some leg presses and deadlifts will yield even better results? I dont think so - do you?
Table 1: Overview of the Training protocols; CICE= constant intensity and constant exercise, CIVE= constant int. varying exercise, VICE= varying int. and constant ex. VIVE= varying int. and varying ex (Fonseca. 2014).
I would have to waste a thousand words to explain exactly how the exercise regimen differed.

Therefore I decided to simply give you the overview of the 12 training weeks from the original paper in which you can see that there were two parameters Fonseca et al. varied, i.e.
  • intensity as in higher reps, lower weight vs. lower reps, higher weight and 
  • exercise, i.e. did the subjects to the same stuff all the time or did they switch from one exercise to the next,
And eventually, both of them influenced the training outcome, with varying exercises producing a "more homogeneous muscle hypertrophy response" (Fonseca. 2014). 
In terms of strength gains, its ~20% less efficient to vary only the intensity on the same exercise (Fonseca. 2014).
Bottom line: As the scientists point out, future studies will have to elucidate,"whether highly trained individuals would be able to handle a high degree of training variations (i.e. intensity and exercises) and achieve greater strength gains when compared to a program that only varies the exercises." (Fonseca. 2014)

In the mean time, the Brazilian / US research team is yet spot on, when they say that "variations in training intensity are not critical to produce strength and muscle hypertrophy gains in the initial phase of a ST program." (Fonseca. 2014).

Specifically for rapid mass and even more so strength gains beginners and early advanced trainees (instead of trainees who hadnt touched a weight regular for at least 6 months, as it was the case in the study at hand), varying the the exercises and thus the stimulus mode instead of its intensity will yield significant gains and "seems to produce a more  complete  muscle  activation  hypertrophying  all  of  the  heads  of  multi-pennate muscles." (Fonseca. 2014)
References:
  • Fonseca, RM, et al. "Changes in exercises are more effective than in loading schemes to improve muscle strength." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2014). Published Ahead of Print.
  • Lamas, Leonardo, et al. "Effects of strength and power training on neuromuscular adaptations and jumping movement pattern and performance." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 26.12 (2012): 3335-3344.
  • Laurentino, Gilberto Candido, et al. "Strength training with blood flow restriction diminishes myostatin gene expression." Med Sci Sports Exerc 44.3 (2012): 406-412.
  • Wallerstein, Lilian França, et al. "Effects of strength and power training on neuromuscular variables in older adults." Journal of aging and physical activity 20.2 (2012): 171-85.


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