Today May 15, is Bike To Work Day in the San Francisco Bay Area. A persistent rumor claims that riding a bike is actually less efficient than driving a car if you account for the energy that goes into producing the food/drink that "fuels" a cyclist. The Sierra Club's "Mr. Green" calls bullshit on that. From the Sierra Club: 

My biking experience 

"I ride all over New York City. I wear my helmet  when I ride now. Avoid brain damage. I am not sure about riding to work. I do not have to commute far. If I did, I would take the subway."

Even with pricier commodities like beef, the biker rides cheaper than the driver. A pound and a half of cheap, greasy hamburger, sans bun, could power the cruise in question, at a lower cost than gasoline.

The ethanol "alternative"? Well, not really. Instead of burning ethanol in engines, from a transportation standpoint we're far better off ingesting the stuff. Driving 48 miles takes more than two gallons of ethanol, whereas only eight ounces of liquor, a mere half-pint of vodka, can fuel a cyclist for the same distance. Happy trails! link

 

Not only is stretching important for flexibility, it is CRITICAL for massive, rapid muscle growth. I stretch everyday before I hit the gym.

When you think about gaining muscle, stretching is probably not the first thing that pops into o your head. But did you know that stretching plays a critical role in building muscle?

Every muscle in your body is enclosed in a bag of tough connective tissue known as fascia. Fascia is important for holding your muscles in their proper place in your body.

But your fascia may also be holding back your muscle growth. Think for a moment about your muscles. You train them and feed them properly. They want to grow and will grow but something is holding them back. They have no room to grow!

Because fascia is so tough, it doesn’t allow the muscle room to expand. It is like stuffing a large pillow into a small pillowcase. The size of the muscle won’t change regardless of how hard you train or how well you eat because the connective tissue around your muscles is constricting the muscles within.

The best example of this is the calf muscle. The lower leg is riddled with fascia because of its tremendous weight-bearing duties in the body. It is because of this fascia that many trainers have great difficulty developing their calves.

The solution: stretching.

Click to read more ...

Rising global temperatures could lead to an increase in kidney stones, according to research presented today at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA). Dehydration has been linked to stone disease, particularly in warmer climates, and global warming will exacerbate this effect. As a result, the prevalence of stone disease may increase, along with the costs of treating the condition.

 The southern United States is considered "the stone belt" because these states have higher incidences of kidney stones. Rising global temperatures could expand this region; the fraction of the U.S. population living in high-risk stone zones is predicted to grow from 40 percent in 2000 to 50 percent by 2050. This could lead to an increase of one to two million lifetime cases of stone disease.

"A post I found describing the pain from having  kidney stones. My advice is to drink tons of water with lemon. The lemon breaks down the stone or stones, before they deveop and cause intense pain.""Friday morning I woke up with fucking unbearable pain in the lower left side of my back. I could hardly breathe because of how much it hurt.

I call someone to take me to the ER and by the time I get there praying to god for someone to just knock me the fuck out.
But I've gotta answer some questions of course before I get some sweet sweet pain medication makng me want to grab a nurse a strangle them. I know they weren't doing anything other than their job, I was just in hella fucking pain.

I finally give them all the info they need and they stick that IV in my arm and proceed to give me something for the pain. After that I had a catscan showing them that I had a 6mm (not very big) kidney stone that I'm currently trying to pass.

They send me home with some pain pills and a "good luck on passing that stone!". Really wish that would have went in and crushed that fucker while I was there dammit because I was in the exact same amount of pain this morning as I was on friday.

Seriously after being attacked with a baseball bat that required staples in my head, breaking fingers ect. a kidney stone eclipses all pain that i've endured by far. So, um anyone else ever experienced the joy of a kidney stone? if so tell me how it rated compared to other physical pains you've endured."

 This was a great party at Wayne DeMilia's house. Wayne is one of the best guys and for a long time ran the IFBB.

During 9/11, I owed him money for advertising at one of his shows. Business took a dive for a few months and it was difficult for me to come up with the money that I owed him. I told Wayne I was having money issues. He said "pay me when you can, not a problem." He was extremely grateful that I paid him when business picked up again. In this sport things do not usually work this way.

I know my viewers do not like when I show photos of male bodybuilders. Not sure why. Sorry if I pissed anyone off again. 

Male bodybuilders love to show off. If you ask a guy bodybuilder to drop his pants before a bodybuilding competition, down they go. I over heard one of the guys saying he takes "stuff" that they add to explosives to get bigger and leaner along with some other really strange chemicals mixed together. Whatever works! I was worried that he might blow up while I was standing next to him. 

Last I heard he blew up. Sad story.

 

(photos taken by Joe)

Click to read more ...

Click to read more ...

I found this old photo gallery from  Bob Bonham's gym from May 20, 2001.

Bob used to have these great private parties each year for the top bodybuilders and people in the industry. It was called Champion Day. Bob's gym is named Strong & Shapely and is one of the last hard core bodybuilding gyms around still. Maybe I can talk him into having another one of these great parties where all the athletes train together for the day.  I was talking to Rob Wilkins in this photo.

Here are some of Robs very informative articles

Rob is married to Amy Yanagisawa Wilkins and they have the most beautiful baby boy whose name is  also Robert. I met him at the Arnold Classic last week for the first time.

 

What are hormones?

Hormones are chemical messengers produced by glands in the body and delivered via the bloodstream to act on other organs in the body.

What is testosterone?

(Pee Wee is just loaded with it)

Testosterone is the most important androgen or male hormone.  It circulates in the blood to act on a number of bodily functions and plays a vital role in reproductive and sexual function.  Testosterone is responsible for the general growth that happens in young boys at puberty including development of the genitals, beard and body hair, muscle gain and other characteristics of the adult male.  The equivalent sex steroid produced by women is oestradiol.
 
Where is testosterone produced?

Testosterone is mainly produced in the testes by cells (Leydig cells), which lie between the sperm-producing tubes (seminiferous tubules) that make the sperm.  Testosterone is carried in the blood to a number of organs throughout the body including the skin, hair and muscle.  Small amounts of testosterone are also made by the adrenal glands, which are walnut sized glands that sit on top of the kidneys.

‘Androgens’ is the collective term for all the male sex hormones, including testosterone, that play a key role in reproductive and sexual function.  Testosterone is responsible for producing physical characteristics of male puberty such as penis development, and for those features typical of adult men such as facial and body hair.  Testosterone also stimulates cells in the testes to produce sperm.

Testosterone is also very important for continuing good health in many non-reproductive tissues.  It is important for:

    * the growth of bones and muscles;
    * stimulates the bone marrow to make red blood cells;
    * mood, sex drive (libido) and certain aspects of mental ability.  

In summary, testosterone is needed for the best possible health in men.

 
What is androgen deficiency?

Click to read more ...

 Did you know that you can improve sexual performance without drugs? Recent studies suggest that exercise and appropriate weight loss are effective bedroom boosters. According to the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, regular physical activity appears to reduce impotence risk by nearly a third. When obese men lose weight, many regain their sexual functioning.

No surprise that running whittles your waistline, but it can also boost your sex drive. "Exercise is an incredible arousal mechanism," says Dr. Harry Fisch, Director, Male Reproductive Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia. He explains that exercise will increase blood flow to the lower half of the body, which is especially important in terms of desire and arousal.

Like Viagra, ginseng relaxes the muscles in the penis and allows it to fill with blood. In one study, nearly two-thirds of men with erectile dysfunction experienced improvement when using this herb. The trial was only preliminary -- it was fairly small and took place in Korea and Brazil, where strong scientific standards are not always in place -- but it's promising. Ginseng hasn't been subjected to long-term studies, but it appears relatively safe when taken for short periods of time.

Viagra works by enhancing the action of nitric oxide as it relaxes the muscles in the blood vessel walls in the penis, helping maintain erections. L-arginine, an amino acid that increases blood levels of nitric oxide, has been marketed to aid performance. It's too early to say whether L-arginine works and you need to ingest daily doses of L-arginine for any effect to continue. Amino acids can be powerful and their effects aren't well understood.

Chile peppers don't just add spice to meals, they can spice up your love life too. The key ingredient is the chemical capsaicin, which gives your mood a lift by triggering the release of endorphins. Coincidentally, it's also capsaicin that gives this food a hot, flavorful kick. 

Sleeping may seem counterintuitive to the goal at hand, but Dr. Fisch asserts, "REM cycle sleep is important to maintaining good blood flow to the penis." Also, the more rested you are, the more interested you are in having sex. Itall comes back to leading a healthy lifestyle. The more you can eliminate stress and improve blood flow, the higher your libido will climb.

 

Oysters have long been considered an aphrodisiac, even making an appearance in the story of the famous lover, Casanova. Oysters may foster passion because they contain high levels of zinc -- a mineral used to produce testosterone, a key ingredient in raising libido for both men and women. Learn to embrace the oyster and you'll soon be embracing each other.

Avocado Love In fact, the ancient Aztec name for avocado was "ahuacatl," or testicle. But the avocado has other things going for it, such as being high in omega-3 fatty acids and zinc. The omega-3 acids help to maintain your overall health and give you energy, while the zinc will up your testosterone levels.

Photo by amproshoot of flickr.com

Researchers are revealing hidden complexities behind the simple act of kissing, which relays powerful messages to your brain, body and partner
By Chip Walter

When passion takes a grip, a kiss locks two humans together in an exchange of scents, tastes, textures, secrets and emotions. We kiss furtively, lasciviously, gently, shyly, hungrily and exuberantly. We kiss in broad daylight and in the dead of night. We give ceremonial kisses, affectionate kisses, Hollywood air kisses, kisses of death and, at least in fairytales, pecks that revive princesses.

Lips may have evolved first for food and later applied themselves to speech, but in kissing they satisfy different kinds of hungers. In the body, a kiss triggers a cascade of neural messages and chemicals that transmit tactile sensations, sexual excitement, feelings of closeness, motivation and even euphoria.

Not all the messages are internal. After all, kissing is a communal affair. The fusion of two bodies dispatches communiqués to your partner as powerful as the data you stream to yourself. Kisses can convey important information about the status and future of a relationship. So much, in fact, that, according to recent research, if a first kiss goes bad, it can stop an otherwise promising relationship dead in its tracks.

Some scientists believe that the fusing of lips evolved because it facilitates mate selection. “Kissing,” said evolutionary psychologist Gordon G. Gallup of the University at Albany, State University of New York, last September in an interview with the BBC, “involves a very complicated exchange of information—olfactory information, tactile information and postural types of adjustments that may tap into underlying evolved and unconscious mechanisms that enable people to make determinations … about the degree to which they are genetically incompatible.” Kissing may even reveal the extent to which a partner is willing to commit to raising children, a central issue in long-term relationships and crucial to the survival of our species.

Satisfying Hunger
Whatever else is going on when we kiss, our evolutionary history is embedded within this tender, tempestuous act. In the 1960s British zoologist and author Desmond Morris first proposed that kissing might have evolved from the practice in which primate mothers chewed food for their young and then fed them mouth-to-mouth, lips puckered. Chimpanzees feed in this manner, so our hominid ancestors probably did, too. Pressing outturned lips against lips may have then later developed as a way to comfort hungry children when food was scarce and, in time, to express love and affection in general. The human species might eventually have taken these proto-parental kisses down other roads until we came up with the more passionate varieties we have today.

Silent chemical messengers called pheromones could have sped the evolution of the intimate kiss. Many animals and plants use pheromones to communicate with other members of the same species. Insects, in particular, are known to emit pheromones to signal alarm, for example, the presence of a food trail, or sexual attraction.

Whether humans sense pheromones is controversial. Unlike rats and pigs, people are not known to have a specialized pheromone de­tector, or vomeronasal organ, between their nose and mouth. Nevertheless, biologist Sarah Woodley of Duquesne University suggests that we might be able to sense pheromones with our nose. And chemical communication could explain such curious findings as a tendency of the menstrual cycles of female dormitory mates to synchronize or the attraction of women to the scents of T-shirts worn by men whose immune systems are genetically compatible with theirs. Human pheromones could include an­drostenol, a chemical component of male sweat that may boost sexual arousal in women, and female vaginal hormones called copulins that some researchers have found raise testosterone levels and increase sexual appetite in men.

Click to read more ...