The Perpetuation of Bro-Science in gyms

Bro Science: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Broscience

Broscience is a derogatory term for misconceptions and ideas of questionable scientific credibility, passed around among laymen by word-of-mouth as if factually true.

I have to post about this, because it is getting to the point that I have to vent a little. I have been going to a MMA gym for about 1.3 years at this point, and lifting weights for about 10 years before that, barring a few breaks. In that time, I have heard the constant spreading and perpetuation of bro-science. Some advice I've heard is bad, some is misguided, and some is dangerous. I'll list a few of the choice ones here, and just write about it for a bit.

If you asked me two years ago how to lose weight, before I started digging deeper than surface level about new-findings and published medical studies, I would have said some of the following:

• eat 6 small meals to stoke the metabolic fire
• eat chicken to lose weight, beef to gain
• no more than 30g of protein at each meal
• take up running if you want to lose weight
• avoid eating fats to avoid getting fat
• egg yolks will increase your blood cholesterol levels...

I really need to stop there, I'm making myself angry at myself...Not that everything I said above was totally wrong, but it was a bit misguided and misinformed mostly. Ignorance is bliss, and I had everything figured out. But, my results were non-congruent with my knowledge. The problem is, I never had the defined goals I needed to force myself to stick with the diet plans or weight lifting plans that I knew were supposed to work. I floated in a place where I had no defined goal, and therefore no drive to stick with a given 'common knowledge' method, and then prove or disprove it. I was in limbo.

However, thanks to guidance from my mentors, as well as doing a lot of reading by myself, I feel like I've got a handle on the crux of fat loss and conditioning, and I've implemented it for myself with good results over the last 1.75 years or so.

I said the previous stuff to say the next bit. I've heard some of these things passed to others as gospel. Some of them are old bro-science, and some are dangerous advice that could possibly cause health problems. I'll also just blab about them.

• Recommending crossfit style workouts to people trying to build strength. 

Building strength builds strength. The basic lifts. Maximal effort type stuff. Powerlifting stuff. See Dan John, 5/3/1 program, Starting Strength, and so forth. Sometimes I wonder if it's a confusion of terminology, or just that some elite athletes can do all different sorts of things, often wrong, but their drive and work ethic can give them satisfactory results. The common fight workout engages the same energy systems as crossfit does. Or it could be that some of them never realized their potential in a given area of conditioning, but who am I to say. For more info on these things, see http://www.8weeksout.com/

• mysticism in gaining 30 lbs after a weigh-in.

Cutting 'weight' and dieting down 8 weeks out from a fight can cause someone to lose massive amounts of weight. 30-40 lbs is pretty common it seems. Some guys walk around at 210, and fight at 170, for instance.   My bjj coach was shaking his head at how he gained 30-40 lbs 5 days after his fight. The combination of water depletion, carb depletion, and caloric restriction can easily yield these kinds of losses. I swing 5-8 lbs from sunday to tuesday because of weekend beer/pizza indulgence. Water depletion can lose you 15 lbs if done properly. Also, eating chicken and broccoli for 3 weeks leading up can cause you to drop some serious fat, given the amount of training these guys do. Then after a fight, you figure they gorge on sushi, pizza, sodium, whatever, and they bloat back up. The math is there.

• coming in bloated monday, having to work it off every week, and calling it fat.

Guys who come in 6 lbs heavier on Monday (like me) shouldn't be mystified if they had pizza and beer friday, and a hamburger on saturday. Carbohydrates and sodium cause you to retain water, period. You can't eat enough calories in 2 days to put on 6 lbs of fat. That's something like 24,000 Calories. Impossible. It's water, and limiting simple carbohydrate intake will shed this.

• running to lose weight

It is just 'common knowledge' that you have to run to lose weight. Except that's not true. Sure, you burn calories running (say 300 calories in an HOUR on top of your basal metabolic rate). But I, for instance, burn about 75 calories EVERY HOUR I'M ALIVE. Sleeping, pooping, watching TV. It just simply isn't worth trying to run to lose fat. Diet for fat loss, RUN for conditioning. You sort of need to convince yourself of that truth. People who run tend to have a calorically dense shake or meal after a run, often negating any caloric deficit they put themselves in during the run. It's just not worth it. It also helps when counting calories to not count the calories burned during exercise, lest you over estimate your total caloric expenditure for the day. It can cause frustration, "why the hell am I not losing weight, the elliptical machine said I burned 800 Calories..."

• meal composition for fat loss

Not that there isn't an ideal combination of carbohydrate/fat/protein for optimal performance (admittedly I'm  still escaping my bro-science phase of this topic), but for the most part, the fat loss problem should be one of Cals in vs Cals out. Period. Again, I use intermittent fasting for this, but caloric restriction is caloric restriction. My friend Larry L. uses IF, as well as a paleo-ish diet, and is super lean year round. I have yet to jump on a super strict diet plan, as I'm still getting results with simple IF. I intend to eat clean starting soon with my goal being sub 10% body fat for a period of my life.

• 6 meals a day, don't skip breakfast, other diet stuff.

I can't say any of this better or with more accuracy than leangains. http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

• A 14 year old kid saying he was going to use a sauna suit to 'cut weight'.

First of all, this is dangerous. Second, without a competition about 3-5 days out, there is NO NEED to try to sweat out weight (water). It will simply come back when you drink a glass of water tonight. It can cause organ failure, and should only be done with a good knowledge of what you're putting yourself through. The way this advice of "sweat it off" is thrown around makes me a bit angry. The best diuretic is water, so keep drinking water. Your body knows it's going to keep getting fluids, so it doesn't try to retain what it's got. This is why the starting phase of a big water cut is to drink 2-3 gallons of water a day. To wear a plastic bag for any other purpose but to meet a strict weight class is folly.

I know there's tons more, but that's all I could think of when I sat down to write. Any you have heard recently? Please share em.

Cheers guys,
M