Question of Strength: January
by Charles Poliquin

Delusional Fat Guys, Calipers, and Laser Guns
Q: How low does your body fat percentage generally need to be in order to start seeing abs? A:
The magic number is 9.8%. Now, there are a lot of people who see
imaginary abs, but one row doesn't count. The upper row of the
abdominals can show up at 15%. If you can see the linea alba
(which means the "white line" ) — the vertical line in the middle of
the rectus abdominis — that's at least 9.8%. In other words, you'd see
all the rows. I remember one professional baseball player in Sports Illustrated
claiming to be 6% body fat. There was a picture of him in the article
and he was more like 17%. At 6% you'd be able to see the guy's pancreas
make insulin. People like this are either delusional, using
poor body fat measuring devices, or using a sloppy testing protocol.
Those electrical impedance devices, the Bod Pod, etc. all tend to be
quite inaccurate. If you're skilled with a pair of good calipers, you
can be within a half a percent of a DEXA scan, which is now the
industry standard. The
research and my experience shows that it takes about 4000 subjects
before you're accurate with a pair of calipers. You just have to do a
lot of them to develop the skill. When we teach Biosignature, we harp
on the students all day on how to do it properly. By the way,
we're evaluating what could be the future of body fat testing right
now: laser guns. Basically, a monkey could test body fat with this
method. The only limiting factor is if the person can find the
anatomical markers, but that's not that complicated. You point the gun
and the laser measures the skinfold. One of the problems with
skinfold calipers is, how much do you pinch? This is especially true
when dealing with the obese. People I deal with want to go from 12% to
5%, but some people are starting out at 40%! They're morbidly obese. And
here's something else to think about: ingesting a lot of trans fat
changes the composition of body fat — it's harder to pinch. Ask any
experienced tester. If you pinch test someone who eats a lot of French
fries and chicken nuggets, his fat feels a lot different. So in that
case, the tester has to be very skilled and have a kung-fu grip worthy
of one leaving the Shaolin temple. There's a reason why the
medical division of the National Academy of Science says that the only
safe level of trans fat is zero: it actually changes the cell
structure. Our body doesn't know what to do with it. Now, as far as what calipers are best, you need to spend $400 to $600. I like the Harpenden Skinfold Caliper.

Neglected Arm Muscles
Q: My triceps suck no matter how many rope pulldowns I do. Help! A: You need to stimulate every muscle in the triceps. Most people neglect the lateral head, which is often called the "lazy head" of the triceps. The
lateral head needs heavier loads to respond. The two exercises that
have been shown to cause the most motor unit recruitment are dips and
decline close-grip bench press with the elbows out (elbows under the
bar, like you're doing the chicken dance). The
biceps also have a neglected muscle: the long head. The long head is
stimulated by any form of curl where the elbows are behind the torso,
so that means incline dumbbell curls. Most
people avoid this exercise because they have to lower the load in the
incline position. The result of this inability to leave their ego in
the locker room? Incomplete arm development.

The Best Books
Q: What's the best book you've read for personal improvement that wasn't diet or training related? A: There are a lot of good ones. The Greatness Guide by Robin Sharma is one. He
gets to the point in this book with short chapters and not a lot of
fluff. This guy's books have been translated into hundreds of
languages, and he's lectured all over the world. One I've read recently is The Success Principles by Jack Canfield. The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss is also good.
Muffin Tops and Insulin Load Index
Q:
I'm a female who stores all her body fat in her middle. No fat legs, no
fat butt, just belly and "muffin top." What does this say about my
hormonal profile? How should I eat? A:
Based on our Biosignature Modulation data, you're most likely
pre-diabetic. Therefore, you need to go on a low-carb diet and take
supplements that increase your insulin sensitivity: alpha lipoic acid,
fenugreek, and omega-3s to name a few. Don't
eat foods past 50 on the Glycemic Index. More importantly, avoid high
insulin loading foods. For example, dairy products are low-glycemic but
high insulin load, so obviously stay away from dairy. Fat people
shouldn't drink milk! Insulin load index (or Glycemic Load)
is a better barometer than the Glycemic Index. For example, carrots
have a high glycemic index, but you'd have to eat a field of them to
get that effect. The insulin load is actually small. Now, for females, waist size should be 70% of the hip size. If it's 85% — which isn't a big difference — she's nine times more likely to get diabetes. Dr.
Mark Houston from the Hypertension Institute in Nashville has a paper
on this coming out soon. We'll be introducing new cardiovascular risk
factors. Basically, it's waist divided by height. If you have a big
waist for your height, you're more likely to get the big three:
hypertension, dyslipidemia, and diabetes. For more information on how body fat stores relate to hormonal make-up, and what to do about it, check out my Biosignature Modulation seminars.

The Cortisol Cure?
Q: Should we really be worried about cortisol? If so, how can we decrease it? A:
We should be worried about cortisol, and not just because of its
catabolic effects on muscle. For one thing, the overproduction of
cortisol has been linked to brain aging. If you run on
cortisol for too long, it will actually shrink the hypothalamus, the
vital part of the brain for memory. By the way, athletes who produce
the highest amount of cortisol — which are rowers and cross country
skiers — also have a high incidence of Alzheimer's. Cortisol
is a double-edged sword of a hormone. You need it for energy, but if
you have too much it can break down tissue. Morning is a good time to
have cortisol; it's basically what wakes you up and gets you going. But
people who've been stressed for too long have what they call "low
morning energy." They push the snooze button fifty times. That can be a
sign of low cortisol. Your cortisol should be high in the
morning and low at night. When people get stressed this tends to
reverse: low in the morning and high at night. After a while it's low
all the time; they have low energy and depression. But it's
well documented in the literature that the less cortisol you have and
the more anabolic hormones you have, the more progress in the gym
you'll make. Is cortisol controllable? Yes. The post-workout drink is your basic tool to control cortisol produced by training. Anything
that will mitigate how much cortisol you produce in a day will make a
big difference. For example, just seven grams of fish oil a day has
been shown in a French study to mitigate the amount of stress hormones
a person produces. Rhodiola rosea and Siberian ginseng, which are known
as adaptogens, can help mitigate cortisol as well. Interesting
note: Wales, Ireland, and England have the highest rates of depression
in the world, and they also have the highest levels of omega-3
deficiency. Omega-3 raises serotonin in the brain. There have been over
600 studies coming out on depression and omega-3s in the last two years
alone. So, yet another good reason to use fish oil. If
you're serious, you can get an Adrenal Stress Index test done. Some
people claim it takes up to a year and a half to pull someone out of
serious adrenal fatigue, but I've done it in eight weeks. You just have
to do the right things.