In The Gluten Connection Shari Lieberman surveys the gluten sensitivity issue. Celiac Disease is the most severe form of gluten sensitivity and once thought to be rare, is now known to be rather common with an estimated global occurrence of almost 1% of the population. Celiac is not curable, but symptoms are relieved by avoiding gluten from wheat, barley, and rye.

Less serious sensitivity seems to be more common, but the data is ambiguous. It's been associated with many gastrointestinal and autoimmune ailments and there are many anecdotal accounts of such ailments improving once the sufferer adopted a gluten free diet. Research provides some support for this but looks inconclusive. Still, a gluten free diet may be worth trying for those suffering from chronic ailments which have been associated with gluten.

A startup is hawking a custom artificial knee. Sounds interesting.

Never Let Go is a collection of Dan John's writings on strength and conditioning training. Subtitled "A Philosophy of Lifting, Living, and Learning", it provides a pragmatic approach to navigating the tangled web of information about health, fitness, and athletic training. A certain amount of strength and conditioning is necessary for good health and is fundamental to fitness and athletic performance. How much and what kind depends on your goals, and Dan emphasizes that you need to need to stay focused on your goals.

The main points of Dan's strength and conditioning philosophy are:

1. The Body is One Piece.
2. There are three kinds of strength training:
   • Putting weight overhead
   • Picking it off the ground
   • Carrying it for time and distance
3. All training is complementary.

Each chapter is a lesson in the guise of an entertaining and enlightening story told by a master practitioner of the strength arts. Reading and rereading these stories will help you in your own strength practice, whether as a coach, athlete, or fitness enthusiast. As you read it you will sometimes think "I knew that", while realizing that you've just reached a better understanding. Dan teaches movements rather than muscles and you need to train the full spectrum of normal movement. However, if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing, so he recommends a warm up that works a variety of movements which allows you to focus on specific goals in the main workout.

Since the body adapts to novel stresses, everything works but nothing works forever. Combined with everyone's unique genetics and history, this implies that you should try different things long enough to see how they work for you. If they don't work, move on to something else. If they do, continue with them until you stop progressing, then try something else. Keep a training log so you'll know what has worked in the past and can profitably be repeated.

"Never Let Go" is a worthwhile and enjoyable read for just about anyone. It's a great book on the pursuit of althleticism that should be read and re-read by anyone with more than a passing interest in health, fitness, and/or sports performance.

A friend recently founded ElderThink, a site devoted to Living longer, Living Well for elders and those who care for them. While I still have a hard time thinking of myself as an elder, my beard has become pretty gray. The site is a good source for information on dealing with aging on a day-to-day basis, unlike Fight Aging which focuses on cutting edge longevity research.

I just got back from a road trip to San Francisco to visit the Stone Clinic for an evaluation of my knees. Bad news is that the right knee is toast, beyond 2008 technology for biologic joint repair. Good news is that the left knee is a good candidate for a meniscus transplant. I need to think about where to go from here.

On the way there, I stopped to train at the Murray Institute for Lifelong Fitness, aka Dan John's garage gym. I got a good workout, some technique pointers, and advice for training with my knee issues. Dan suggested that I work on my gait and forward head posture to mitigate the effects of arthritis. To that end he had me doing kettlebell and ring work: farmer walks, swings, presses, reverse rows, lawn mowers, and pull-ups. We finished with some 56# weight for distance throws.

Dan's "rings" are simple 5" lengths of 1" PVC tubing with rope threaded through them. They are cheap and effective and I think I have suitable material around the house to make my own.

It was a good trip. The weather was great and I had the top down most of the way. I really enjoy driving across the great American West. I find it relaxing and invigorating. Traffic from the eastern side of Sacramento to San Francisco was heavy on the way out Sunday afternoon, and took me longer than I expected. I planned on two nights in San Francisco, but after experiencing Sunday's traffic I decided to start back Monday afternoon following my visit at the Stone Clinic. I threw a kettlebell in the trunk before leaving home so I wouldn't have to rely on hotel fitness centers.

A hydrogel will soon be used to assist in articular cartilage repair. It promises to make micro-fracture techniques more effective.

In Defense of Self: How the Immune System Really Works is a thorough introduction to current scientific thought on immunology. The immune system is a wonderfully sophisticated protective shield against the innumerable microbes that would make us lunch in short order given half a chance.

Protecting against both foreign invaders and our own cells that threaten us in the form of cancer, the immune system has evolved to deal with a diverse and constantly changing threat. This book explains the various ways that the immune system works, and how it sometimes fails. In addition to infectious disease, cancer and auto-immune diseases such as arthritis and allergies get coverage.

My orthopedist told me nine years ago that I was candidate for a double knee replacement and I've worked at preserving my knees. My mother just had here second knee replacement with mixed results, definite improvement, but sub-optimal. Like most knee replacements it was bionic, metal and plastic. The Stone Clinic is doing biologic knee replacements with a claimed 85% success rate. This is an interesting option, though I think it's more like knee reconstruction. It promises unrestricted athletic activity, and that's a good thing, but I'm not ready to go there yet.

Since my blood sugar got high enough to be a concern, I've limited my consumption of foods with high glycemic index. This has lowered my blood sugar and I find that the dietary choices satisfying. The Paleolithic Diet proposed by Professor Loren Cordain offers an evolutionary explanation of why this works. A long history of hunter-gatherer living has adapted us to a diet of mostly meat, leaves, nuts, and berries.

The Paleo diet contrasts with the low fat, high carb diets advocated in the last half of the 20th century. A number of arguments have been raised against Dr Cordain's theory which he addresses in this paper.

Just got back from a trip to Houston. My mother had her second knee replacement and I went down to help her when she got out of the hospital. She's doing fine, though she does say that the operation is like having a baby, if you remembered how bad the firs one was, you'd never have another.

I drove the S2000 down, which worked out well considering the issues that the airlines have had the past couple of weeks. I had one nice day of top down driving on the the down and two days coming back.

The ancient Greek philosophy of a sound mind in a sound body has been validated by recent research. Clarence Bass writes about studies of exercise and brain function that indicate that exercise improves brain function.

Good news for arthritis sufferers. Researchers at NIST and Hokkaido University are investigating the potential of double network hydrogels as synthetic cartilage. They hope to develop a cartilage replacement that lasts many years.

09:30 Evaluation/Treatment @ Lyons Physical Therapy

• Right knee range of motion showed some improvement.

10:30 workout @Home

• Warm-up
• Kettlebell Swings, 12 kg (10/10)
• Kettlebell Halo, 12 kg (5/5)
• Kettlebell Snatch, 12 kg (10/10)
• Kettlebell Get-up, 12 kg (0.75/1.5)
• Kettlebell Snatch, 16 kg (5/5)
• Kettlebell Snatch, 24 kg (0/5), (0/5), (0/5), (0/5), (0/5), (0/5)
• Half Quad Extension, 120#/80# (30/30)
• Side Lying External Rotator 5 kg (20+5+5/30)
• Air Force Sit-ups 40

We all have good genes and bad genes. How good and how bad they are, and even whether they're good or bad, depends upon the challenges we face and the choices we make. You have to play the hand that you're dealt. I'm prone to arthritis and over active stomach acid production, and I find this annoying, but it could be much worse.

We got a new family physician at the Lyons clinic last year, and on my first visit with Dr. Matt Brett he gave me hell about my weight, blood pressure, and blood sugar. They weren't at dangerous levels, but high enough to warrant his concern. This irked me a little, as I'd made some progress in the previous six months. However, it did prompt me to be get more serious about diet and exercise. I adopted the South Beach diet and began working out more religiously.

I had blood work done last week and saw Matt today to go over the results. My blood pressure, PSA, and cholesterol are now excellent, and my blood sugar in the normal range. I was feeling a little proud of myself until he pointed out that I hadn't lost as much weight as I should, and that cholesterol numbers as good as mine didn't come just from diet and exercise. You have to be blessed with good genes as well. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Art DeVany's essay on human physical fitness from an evolutionary perspective is an interesting read. He argues that modeling physical fitness programs on the activity patterns of our paleolithic ancestors is the most effective way to maintain healthy bodies. Our hunter gatherer ancestors were more active over all, with highly varied intensity, including relatively long periods of walking and resting, interspersed with short bursts of intense activity.

The extreme inactivity common in modern industrial society is largely responsible for many chronic illness that plague us, including heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis. Popular exercise programs relying on high volume, low intensity exercises, don't give our bodies the stimuli they need. The modern diet heavy in highly refined carbohydrates exacerbates this. We need more sprinting, lifting, and throwing, and we need to eat largely meat, leaves, and berries.

From the Ground Up sumarizes Dan John's thoughts on weight lifting for fitness and athletic training. He presents a simple program with a bar and some weights as the only equipment required. This he believes is sufficient for for fitness, health, or athletic pursuits to the national level. He presents a "Rapid Ascent Program" suitable for beginners consisting of a warm-up and three sets of three whole body exercises (power clean, standing press, and front squat). He then goes on to the Olympic lifts, the Snatch and the Clea and Jerk, which develop the strength, speed, and coordination essential to many athletic endeavors. Later chapters cover nutrition, rest, and training for lifting and throwing competition. Whether you just want to improve your fitness and health, or are interested in competing in sports, this free e-book is a valuable resource.

I saw my orthopedist and he's pleased with the progress my knee has made. I need to keep exercising it and working to increase the range of motion. I've been thinking of entering Highland Games competition this year to provide some focus for my training. The doc pointed out that this could stress the knees, but said I should go for it if it's something I want to do.

Yesterday I selected 16# and 28# throwing stones from out behind the house. I'll continue to use CrossFit for conditioning, but begin biasing it towards strength in a month or so.

Strong Women and Men Beat Arthritis by Miriam E. Nelson, Ph.D., Kristin R. Baker, Ph.D., and Ronenn Roubenoff, M.D., M.H.S., with Lawrence Lindner, M.A. is a book that everyone with arthritis should read. This New York Times best seller provides sound advice for managing arthritis. The primary focus is on strength training to stabilize and cushion the joints, but aerobics and stretching are also part of the recommended exercise program. Diet, medication, and surgery are also discussed.

I'm back weight lifting again after a long layoff. I've lifted on and off most of my life, including some competetive powerlifting, but haven't done much since moving to Colorado in 2003.

I have arthritis, and have decided that a more regorous strength training regimen was in order. My mother had a knee replacement last month, and I'm probably a candiate one of these days if an effective way to replace cartilege isn't developed. Muscle stabilizes and cushions the joints, so maintaining muscle mass and strenth is one of the best ways to mitigate the effects of arthritis.

I've completed the first week of the beginners program in Challenge Yourself. It looks like a good plan for reentry, starting light and progressing over two six week cycles. We'll see how it goes, but so far my knees and shoulders are feeling better.

Clarence Bass has a good article on Weights and Arthritis. It's a good place to start if you have arthritis and are cosidering a strength training program.