So my treadmill almost killed me yesterday...

(maybe killed is a bit of exagerration, but it could have easily broken both my legs and probably my back, too...but this story will also show you why it's important to train ALL your different muscle fibers...I needed endurance, power and speed for this one!)

Let me set the stage for you...(and I can look back on it and laugh now, but MAN, that was scary at the time)

Picture this...I have a treadmill in my basement...commercial grade, not a "Walmart Home Gym Special". This thing is HEAVY...the deck alone weighs at least 250-300 lbs.

Last week, I decided I don't need it anymore...I've used it maybe once or twice in the last 3 years and it's just got other equipment piled on it now....sandbags, Swiss ball, cable attachments, etc.

And it's a NICE treadmill (like I said, commercial grade, heavy duty, like you'd find in a gym). It's built to take constant pounding.

So I asked my nephew, Jonah, who's also a trainer, if he wanted it for free. He said "sure"...he trains clients who could really make use of the treadmill.

Yesterday, we decided it was time to move the thing out of my basement.

I took the uprights and electronics section off so it was just the deck. I cleared a path so we could carry it from the corner where it sat to stairs, then up and out to my SUV.

Should be pretty straightforward, right?

This is where we made our first mistake...thinking we could go ALL the way up without a rest.

We actually did have good endurance, which is what led to the mistake. We COULD have made it, however...

We picked it up and carried it to the stairs in the horizontal position, with the deck flat, then started right up...as it turned out, there is a bend in my basement steps that the deck couldn't get around in that flat position.

Halfway up the stairs, the thing wedged and stopped dead. No more forward progress possible.

Well, at that point, we were both gassed. Jonah was almost at the top of the stairs and had almost no leverage and hardly anywhere to grip. I wedged my leg under the end of it to keep it from sliding back. It's hot and humid and I was sweating buckets by then, so my grip was sliding around.

Time for a rest, then we'll go again, right?

Sure...

Time for the second mistake...and this was the BIG one...we tilted the deck on it's side to get enough clearance to get around the corner.

Well, if you're familiar with the concept of sledding (apparently, I'm not)...that's what happened to the deck of this 300 lb treadmill with me directly below it...

I didn't have enough leverage to brace myself and there was nothing but smooth plastic frame on carpeted stairs...

...you see where this is going.

I knew immediately this was bad...

I instantly dropped it and, I swear, I have never ran down a set of stairs that fast in my life, even as gassed as I was. Time to use those Type 2b Fast Twitch explosive muscle fibers...

Picture this scene from the first Indiana Jones movie...only with a giant treadmill coming down the stairs after me.

I ripped down the stairs as this 300 lb treadmill deck is sliding down the stairs behind me, nothing slowing it down.

Then CRASH!

I was clear and fine...but there are few cans of dog food at the bottom of the stairs that will never be the same...and now I have a nice big new gouge in the concrete at the bottom of the stairs.

I looked at pileup...then at the treadmill to see if there was any major damage.

Plastic was a bit bent on part of it but otherwise completely fine. This thing took the impact like a beast.

Now for the next problem...we still had to get this stupid thing up the stairs (preferably without killing ourselves).

After taking about 10 minutes rest...and sorting out what we did wrong, it was time to go again...and put those fast twitch fibers to the test (and the slow twitch ones for strength/endurance).

We put the deck on it's side at the BOTTOM of the stairs then, with a MASSIVE effort (and this was literally one of the biggest efforts I've ever had to put in on anything), we heaved, pushed and pulled the thing, around the corner, then set it down at the top.

This was TOTAL body effort...legs, shoulders, back, arms, chest...it took everything I had.

But we did it.

Got it loaded in the car, and ready for transport.

No death.

The Moral Of the Story...

THIS is the kind of thing it's important to train for...the ability to put in maximum sustained effort in a constantly changing environment over a prolonged period of time...then the ability to run like hell when it all goes to crap :).

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Now, that story didn't really have anything to do with the next thing I've got for you...but I hope it's instructive in terms of how dangerous machines can be for you...(more the moving, not so much the training with).

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Everything You Need To Know About The Science Behind Lactic Acid

(The past few days, I've been talking a lot about lacate and how powerful it is for building muscle. This is a short article from my friend and colleague, Vince Del Monte, author of the new Gene Expression Training program, regarding the science of how lacate can help you build muscle. Really good info

This is a book I HIGHLY recommend picking up, especially for the dirt cheap price of 10 bucks that is is right now. You'll learn a lot about lactate and how to specifically train for your predominant muscle fiber type.)

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When you train, you have mechanical stress (i.e., muscle tension) and metabolic stress—the infamous painful, burning sensation you experience (especially from relatively longer sets with constant tension on the target muscles).

The burning sensation is a result of increasing acidity in the muscles due to hydrogen (H+) ions (and while not technically correct, this is commonly referred to as lactic acid, and we’ll use that terminology for the remainder of this article) that are produced by your body’s glycolytic energy system (1).

The longer we sustain exercise, especially with constant tension on the target muscle, the more lactic acid accumulates in the muscle cells, and the cells become increasingly acidic. In the gym, we experience this as an increasingly intense burning, painful sensation that eventually makes it impossible to continue working.

So why do we care about lactic acid? Well, as it turns out, the old saying “no pain, no gain” is quite accurate. In fact, high levels of lactic acid can lead to increases in muscle size and strength as well as fat metabolism.

The graphs below—from a study where researchers measured muscle growth and strength in response to increasing acidity in muscle cells—provide a great visual to drive this point home.

As we can see, there is a very strong relationship between acidity and the change in participants’ muscle cross sectional area (i.e., increased muscle size), and a fairly strong relationship between acidity and the change in participants’ one-rep max (i.e., maximal strength) (2).

In addition to this correlational study, we have direct evidence which shows lactic acid plays a key role in muscle growth. In an in vitro study, researchers took muscle cells and added lactic acid to them. As a result, protein synthesis (the major process that makes muscle grow) increased (3). In short, more lactic acid equals more muscle!

So what’s going on here? How does that massive burning sensation you experience lead to better gains? As it turns out, there is a high correlation between lactic acid and growth hormone (i.e., more lactic acid means more growth hormone), thus lactic acid plays a major role in the exercise-induced growth hormone response in humans (4).   

Growth hormone is a powerful chemical that helps build muscle and strength (5) in addition to releasing greater amount of free fatty acids for energy (6) (thus increasing your fat-burning potential). Lactic acid, then, rather than being directly responsible for boosting your gains, is simply a means to an end, playing a supporting role to growth hormone.

Even so, we can’t have growth hormone without lactic acid, and lactic acid gives us a powerful feedback system to determine how much growth hormone we’re producing. Specifically, if your muscles are burning like a five-alarm fire, you know you’re skyrocketing growth hormone.

What’s more, growth hormone doesn’t just assist the specific muscles you’re working, but has a systemic (total-body) effect (7). It circulates through your bloodstream to all of your muscles, boosting the muscle-building and fat-burning potential of your entire body.

Armed with the knowledge about the power of growth hormone for promoting favorable body composition changes, I couldn’t help but wonder—how can I harness this phenomenon to get more out of every workout? Specifically, I wanted to find a way to flood my muscle cells with growth hormone BEFORE the workout even begins.

Enter:

The Ultimate Single Set Pre Workout Lactate Protocol To Increase Growth Hormone, Leanness and Mass!

This pre-workout set will kick-start the muscle-buildling process with a massive shot of lacate and GH. You'll get this when you pick up the main program.

Here are links to all the studies referenced above so you can verify everything said in this email yourself…

1. https://books.google.com/books?id=rk3SX8G5Qp0C
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22628373
3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15947720
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18184755
5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22628373
6. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19240267
7. http://jap.physiology.org/content/88/1/61.long

Mad Scientist Lactic Acid Training

Mad Scientist Lactic Acid Training is book that I put together specifically as a bonus to go with Vince Del Monte's new "No Nonsense Muscle Building 2.0: Gene Expression Training" program, in which Lactate (i.e. lactic acid) accumulation figures heavily.

Lactate is a "master" chemical in your body...when you produce it via training, there is a substantial "downstream" effect on the anbolic hormones in your body (like Growth Hormone and Testosterone).

Producing a large volume of Lactic Acid can give you a MASSIVE anabolic kick in the pants, so to speak. It might be just what you need to get growing again.

That's what Vince's program focuses on...specific training for your predominant muscle fiber type to maximize that hormonal response to lacate accumulation.

It's fantastic info, scientifcally referenced to the hilt, and the program design itself is right on the money.

My book is a collection of all the information I've put out on Lactic Acid Training over the past few years.

This stuff is killer...and will help you not die getting run over by a treadmill...

And right now, the ONLY way to get it is by picking up a copy of Vince's "NNMB 2.0 Gene Expression" program for just 10 bucks...then it goes back in the vault.

(after you order, or if you've already ordered, just forward your receipt to support@fitstep.com and we'll hook you up)

Order now get Vince's full program AND my book together for just 10 bucks...