Health-Related Reasons To Get Jacked And Lean

health-related reasons to get jacked and leanÂ

I was bored at this symposium today and some of the presentations got me to thinking about this topic.  no, I’m not talking about well-known reasons like lowering your LDL’s and increasing your HDL’s to stave off heart disease.

I’m talking about:

  • improved vascularity.  many times I’ve had to start IV’s on patients that are either so fat that their veins are invisible, or so cachectic that their veins roll because there is no surrounding fat or muscle to anchor them.  that means I’m starting IV’s blind.  it’s as painful as it sounds, and that’s only with a 16 gauge needle at worst.  the needles used for central lines are MUCH bigger.

  • improved healing related to improved vascularity and accelerated metabolism.   the longer you stay in the hospital, the more you expose yourself to wee beasties like E.coli, various Psuedomonae, MRSA, hep C and HIV.  if you’re ever admitted as an inpatient, it would behoove you to gtfo asap before you catch something.Â

  • increased activity tolerance.  this helps get you out faster post-op, and the sooner you’re out, the better.  it helps you withstand a heart rate of 160bpm or higher sustained over several hours while the docs wait for your heart to respond to medications.  if you weren’t in shape, you might arrest at hour 3 instead of making it to the end of that amiodarone load at hour 16 and converting to sinus rhythm.

  • improved skeletal integrity.  some studies have shown bones in lifters are denser than the rest of the general population.  this becomes important after you’ve had your chest cracked open from heart surgery and six stainless steel wires are the only things holding your rib cage closed.  I’ve seen obese patients with diabetes rip their wires clean through the sternum because they’re fat, heavy, and have poor healing and brittle bones.

  • improved muscle activation and strength.  this means all those squats you did can help you stand up from a sitting position without using your arms, the excessive use of which would stress your chest, which would lead to wire rippage as mentioned above.

  • you know how to force-feed.  surgery is injurious to the body and you need calories in order to heal.  however, chances are you won’t be hungry post-op for a week or so because the GI system is the last system to return to normal.  good thing you know how to eat even when you aren’t hungry.

that’s all I could think of off the top of my head.  hopefully more come to mind after the lunch break so I can stay awake…

Nice list, thanks for the food for thought.

And how about mental health? Deep squats are fucking great for seratonin release no doubt.

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
And how about mental health? Deep squats are fucking great for seratonin release no doubt.[/quote]

haha I was thinking more of improved sleep quality from repeated heavy vasovagal stimulation, ie that woozy feeling you get right after and also from being totally wiped out.

I remember reading somewhere that leaner people have better cortisol reactions to stress and stress is a killer with numerous documented ill effects.

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
And how about mental health? Deep squats are fucking great for seratonin release no doubt.[/quote]

haha I was thinking more of improved sleep quality from repeated heavy vasovagal stimulation, ie that woozy feeling you get right after and also from being totally wiped out.[/quote]

I sleep very bad the nights I do squats and deadlifts.

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/y98-044

I found that about it.

[quote]Edevus wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
And how about mental health? Deep squats are fucking great for seratonin release no doubt.[/quote]

haha I was thinking more of improved sleep quality from repeated heavy vasovagal stimulation, ie that woozy feeling you get right after and also from being totally wiped out.[/quote]

I sleep very bad the nights I do squats and deadlifts.

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/y98-044

I found that about it.[/quote]

huh. no kidding.

do you train close to the time you sleep?

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]Edevus wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
And how about mental health? Deep squats are fucking great for seratonin release no doubt.[/quote]

haha I was thinking more of improved sleep quality from repeated heavy vasovagal stimulation, ie that woozy feeling you get right after and also from being totally wiped out.[/quote]

I sleep very bad the nights I do squats and deadlifts.

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/y98-044

I found that about it.[/quote]

huh. no kidding.

do you train close to the time you sleep?
[/quote]

Nope. Even if I deadlift in the morning I got a bad sleep guaranteed. I have tried with fish oil, ibuprofeine, etc. but it doesn’t seem to help.

EDIT : What did help, since I tried it on holidays, was to have a nap few hours after I had done deadlifts.

I remember hearing that for every week of cardio you do your resting heart rate will go down my one beat per minute.

Likely not entirely true as by now my resting heart rate, as well many others, would be zero by now.
This may explain my hunger for brains.

[quote]Nards wrote:
I remember hearing that for every week of cardio you do your resting heart rate will go down my one beat per minute.

Likely not entirely true as by now my resting heart rate, as well many others, would be zero by now.
This may explain my hunger for brains.[/quote]
Surely there are unaccounted for parameters and an inevitable baseline.

Oh wait, was this some nardscasm? I NEED VOICE TONE!

No, I really read that somewhere, but yeah, it sounds untrue. Sure your resting heart rate would drop, but just saying “a week” of cardio needs defining.

[quote]Edevus wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]Edevus wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
And how about mental health? Deep squats are fucking great for seratonin release no doubt.[/quote]

haha I was thinking more of improved sleep quality from repeated heavy vasovagal stimulation, ie that woozy feeling you get right after and also from being totally wiped out.[/quote]

I sleep very bad the nights I do squats and deadlifts.

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/y98-044

I found that about it.[/quote]

huh. no kidding.

do you train close to the time you sleep?
[/quote]

Nope. Even if I deadlift in the morning I got a bad sleep guaranteed. I have tried with fish oil, ibuprofeine, etc. but it doesn’t seem to help.

EDIT : What did help, since I tried it on holidays, was to have a nap few hours after I had done deadlifts.
[/quote]
That is interesting. I find that training, or doing anything stimulating late in the day keeps me up. Even a single cup of coffee after two pm will have me tossing and turning.

I do like lifting early, like 5:30 am, because it wakes me up like no other. By the time night rolls around I’m good to go though. In fact I pass out most nights.

Try a hot bath followed by a cold shower after training. Helps me keep my soreness down and supposedly good for the nervous system too. Make the bath a magnesium soak if at night. Sleepy time, every time.

[quote]Nards wrote:
No, I really read that somewhere, but yeah, it sounds untrue. Sure your resting heart rate would drop, but just saying “a week” of cardio needs defining.[/quote]
Yeah. Athletes do have very low resting heart rates in general though. Their bodies are just uber efficient after all that training.

I remember a conditioning coach in college whose baseline was 35 bpm. Dude was basically dead but actually he literally could do anything physical for miles.

Interesting list OP.

I’m also with Edevus… usually sleep pretty shitty after squat and dead days, even if I feel like falling asleep where I stand in the gym.

didnt read anything more than the first line of this thread (cant stand when things are copied and pasted and show up all whacked off)

but the best health reason for being jacked and lean is that you’ll have more sex. Everyone knows that more sex = a happier and healthier man

/thread

[quote]gregron wrote:
didnt read anything more than the first line of this thread (cant stand when things are copied and pasted and show up all whacked off)

but the best health reason for being jacked and lean is that you’ll have more sex. Everyone knows that more sex = a happier and healthier man

/thread[/quote]
Bing, bang, boom. Done.

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:

[quote]Edevus wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]Edevus wrote:

[quote]fr0IVIan wrote:

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
And how about mental health? Deep squats are fucking great for seratonin release no doubt.[/quote]

haha I was thinking more of improved sleep quality from repeated heavy vasovagal stimulation, ie that woozy feeling you get right after and also from being totally wiped out.[/quote]

I sleep very bad the nights I do squats and deadlifts.

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/y98-044

I found that about it.[/quote]

huh. no kidding.

do you train close to the time you sleep?
[/quote]

Nope. Even if I deadlift in the morning I got a bad sleep guaranteed. I have tried with fish oil, ibuprofeine, etc. but it doesn’t seem to help.

EDIT : What did help, since I tried it on holidays, was to have a nap few hours after I had done deadlifts.
[/quote]
That is interesting. I find that training, or doing anything stimulating late in the day keeps me up. Even a single cup of coffee after two pm will have me tossing and turning.

I do like lifting early, like 5:30 am, because it wakes me up like no other. By the time night rolls around I’m good to go though. In fact I pass out most nights.

Try a hot bath followed by a cold shower after training. Helps me keep my soreness down and supposedly good for the nervous system too. Make the bath a magnesium soak if at night. Sleepy time, every time.[/quote]

I’ve tried lifting very early as well, but I wasn’t lifting that heavy back then. Not sure how it’d go then.

[quote]gregron wrote:
didnt read anything more than the first line of this thread (cant stand when things are copied and pasted and show up all whacked off)

but the best health reason for being jacked and lean is that you’ll have more sex. Everyone knows that more sex = a happier and healthier man

/thread[/quote]

yea go figure. I copy and paste from my iPhone because if I write the post on here, sometimes long posts get lost.

you should read it though greg. nobody knows these things except for cardiac surgery nurses.

Well i was thinking…

That if suddenly overnight the population of the USA and the Uk went health mad and all started walking/running and lifting weights then we would have an immediate health crisis when most of them have MI’s, the ones that don’t will be lined up outside the A&E dept with every orthopaedic problem known to medicine !!.

About 10 years after that then you and me both would be out of a job !!.

Actually we could then be the old farts that sit on the porch reminiscing about the good old days of post pump psychosis, sternal breakdowns and that cute junior doctor !!.

Where the benefits would really be (aside from the approximately £500 milion saved fro our ‘health’ budget would be an older generation that dien’t fall over as much-and when they did that they wouldn’t injure themselves as badly.

Just imagine–actual disease preventive exercise that actually worked and an entirely healthy population !.

[quote]grettiron wrote:
Interesting list OP.

I’m also with Edevus… usually sleep pretty shitty after squat and dead days, even if I feel like falling asleep where I stand in the gym.[/quote]

Maybe you are not eating enough.

Just a thought not being an ass or you know like Greg