Men’s Health Power Training and Cardio Strength Training are great books by enviro douche Robert dos Remedios; lots of Olympic lifts.
Foam rolls and AIS rope stretching help with recovery, tightness.
Crossfit seems like it’d cause injuries.
What do you mean?
Funnily enough, I’ve bee strength training for the last six weeks because of the demands of my job (UPS package preloader), especially on the lower back. You’d be surprised how much easier such a job is after doing a few weeks worth of bentover rows even if I’m not at bodybuilding weight levels.
Crossfit doesn’t appear safe.
Yes, imo they are unrivaled as a tool for cardio and endurance-strength. But they can also be used to build size as well. Most of that is simply about upping your caloric intake. Mike Mahler has a DVD out called Kettlebell Solution for Size and Strength. Mike is one of the best that I’ve come across with regards to kettlebell stuff in general. There are a few others I could recommend as well.
That said, if you are simply going for the bodybuilding look, then dumbells and isometric lifts are probably just fine.
Personally, I have very little interest in putting on much mass or bodybuilding, and am far more interested in “functional strength and strength-endurance.” I’d like to keep a high strength-to-weight ratio and increase power. Kettlebells are perfect for that. As a side effect, though, simply from increasing general strength my muscle mass has increase to a degree.
When I was in highschool I did lots of breathing squats, which certainly helped expand my chest quite a bit. I may cycle in a period of those again one of these days.
“So that destroys the equal sign in the energy balance equation” - Snowflake
You can’t be that fucking dense. Or can you? If the energy never entered the fucking system, how does it ‘destroy’ the equal sign in the equation? Does the presence of a 5 or some other number on this page ‘destroy’ the equal sign in 2+2=4? This is exactly the kind of numbskull dipshittery that makes anyone with half an active brain cell not listen to Taubes or his followers.
“This is important because we typically count calories we eat.”
So because most people typically fuck up the application of the equation, it’s no valid? Let’s apply that to the laws of gravity and a few other equations, see how it works. After all, almost everyone agrees a pound of feathers should weigh less than a pound of lead, therefore instead of actually holding them to reality, let’s just fuck reality in the ass in favor of accomodating assininity.
“I’m actually not recommending the UD2. I’m saying people should do a low carb diet if they want to lose fat.”
And you would be wrong. What diet is best for what person to lose fat or gain muscle is entirely dependent on the person. Some people respond differently to different diets, and while low carb is an effective approach some people end up feeling way too lethargic. As such, and once more, the only sound advice without a history to associate with his particular would be: eat less. Recommending a diet approach without first knowing his current physical condition and whether he has any diseases like diabetes, his current eating patterns and calorie intake, his habits vis a vi resistance and cardio training, his schedule and how accomodative it is of training, his environment and what types of food are available, and a shitload more questions one could and should ask before recommending a diet, isn’t a good idea.
“Taubes, while not as detailed as McD, does discuss insulin’s role in fat storage. It is very important.”
Which is completely beside the point. Once more, there is no magical exception for insulin in the laws of thermodynamics. If there is, please pull down a standard text on the subject and show it to me.
“I’m aware of this.”
Not apparently in any way that makes sense with regard to, like, ya know, sanity and stuff like that.
“That’s a big asterisk to have on your energy balance equation. It would be much easier to write it as in - out + generation = accumulation, where in = energy of the food you eat, out = energy expenditures, excrement, generation = energy to break down proteins etc (negative), and accumulation = total energy remaining in the body. This way you can easily see the role of hormones, as well as thermic effects, etc etc in the energy balance.”
One, you can write it based on simple intake via eating because despite Taubes’ bullshit, the amount of calories that don’t enter the system for these reasons isn’t that big of a deal and it’s nothing that can’t be compensated for by… eating less. If you are one of those people for whome gut flora lead to a serious absorption of calories other people don’t get, this is not magic, it is not an exception to the laws of physics. It means you’re shit out of luck and need to eat half as much if not less pizza as other people, plain and simple.
Two, making things ‘simpler’ at the expense of being ‘correct’ and accomodating insanity like Taubes’ stuff isn’t a good idea.
“The way you make it sound, its just eat less, exercise more, and you’ll be golden.”
And you will be. How much less is the only issue.
“This is not true if your body changes the way it handles food. Hormonal changes could easily cause you to just absorb a greater % of the food you are eating. We have to be more sophisticated than this.”
Which just means you need to eat even less. This is the ONLY area where macro nutrient manipulation can give a bit of an advantage to some, but it IS NOT a violation of the energy balance equation. All it is is the body manipulating it’s energy stores/usage to accomodate new conditions, but this can only be done to a point, it doesn’t allow people to magically gain energy despite a calorie deficit or lose energy despite a calorie surplus. And no one is going to magically gain or maintain weight even on a high carb diet if you lower calories enough, plain and simple. There is no way to avoid that because it’s not up for debate, it’s a well settled law of physics which, if broken, would be so ground breaking as to warrant cover stories on every God damn science journal on the planet.
“I’m not saying energy is destroyed. I’m saying you can expell it as waste. I don’t know how to make this more clear.”
If you expel it as waste it was never a part of the energy equation except in as much energy as it took to process it as waste. Hence, calories that pass through your digestive system without being absorbed would not count as intake on the left side of the equation and would add energy expenditure to the right side of the equation in terms of thermic effect of food and BMR. So unless you have some direct, measured, evidence on a population of normal people with a control group to compare to and calorie intake controlled for that shows that unabsorbed calories can cause either a drop in conscious or unconscious energy expenditure, or some other affect on the right side of the energy equation with the ultimate result of lowering total calories needed to maintain equillibrium, then unabsorbed food would actually add to your calorie deficit because while it added no energy to your system it took energy from other intake or body stores to move it through your system. So, once more, you’re wrong.
“This is certainly possible. But then you deny the possibility that two people, the same in every way, including energy expenditures, could be of different weights?”
It’s impossible to measure if they are truly the same in every way, so it’s impossible to test. Even identical twins will show variations in energy expenditure vs stores vs intake. Only their genetic components of energy expenditure would have a chance of being the same, and environment and specifics can even affect those. So it is a GIVEN that two seemingly the same people will be of different weights, because they’re NOT the same, because your view of the energy balance equation is too damn simple.
“I’ve already outlined how Taubes logic is similar, albeit less rigorous, than McD’s. You don’t rebut this.”
And you are completely and totally wrong. If you don’t believe me, be my guest, go to McDonald’s measage boards and let him know how you love how similar his work and conclusions are to Taubes.
“A CKD is actually pretty easy to follow.”
Every diet is hard to follow, that’s why most people have trouble losing weight. A cyclical ketogenic one with refeeds and what not is even more difficult. And the primary reason people have problem with even garden variety diets is because they eat too God damn much because they vastly underestimate calorie intake. Which is why ‘eating less’ is always the first and best advice.
“Actually, ketosis blunts the appetite back.”
Not for everyone. And recommending low carb to someone you don’t know is, as stated above, not a good idea. Carbs are usually replaced with something, which has to be either protein or fat. What if he has gout or is prone to it? Sucking down a shitload of protein and fat might be a bad idea there. How about heart diesease? Sucking down shitloads of saturate fats, great idea for someone with a ticker that’s either blown or about to blow. Kidney stones? Etc. The advice is also belied by the success of other non low carb diets like Mediterranean. Plenty of plant food and dairy in that diet, and yet magically, people lose weight and lose fat on it. You know why? Because olive oil is magic.
Or maybe they’re just getting fewer calories relative to their daily energy needs.
“Cutting carbohydrates down to 30-50g/day is a much better recommendation, even if the overall calorie level stays the same. This has to do with insulin, which you’re probably aware of, but never reference.”
Because it’s irrelevant to the discussion. I could just as easily point out the unconsious ways in which people on low carb diets lower their calorie needs via lethargy, etc. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is keeping calories in lower than calories burned, which means you’re accessing your body’s stores. Insulin does not change this fact. It just contributes to making some approaches work better than others for some people. It’s like all of a sudden some fat guy’s calorie needs are going to go from 4000kCal a day to 1500kCal because of insulin. There are limits to the ‘adjustments’ your body can make. And if you’re obsessing over amounts of kCal within those limits, then you’re quite simply dieting wrong, because in terms of chronic application of a deficit it’s irrelevant.
“Anyway, I’m tired of repeating myself. You don’t seem to really understand other people’s arguments, or address them at their core.”
I understand your arguments fine. You’re wrong, or batshit crazy. Insulin does not violate the laws of thermodynamics. All it does is affect body composition to adjust for nutrition intake and allow the body to make small adjustments to maintain mass over a range of kCal intake. Those changes are not as significant as you claim, and they do not invalidate the Energy Balance Equation. The key to losing weight is always burning more energy than you take in, period. And you can do this with or without carbs.
“You can give a type I diabetic all the carbs you want, and without exogenous insulin they lose weight.” - Doctor Whatever via E. R. Olovetto
Did you have to catch this caveat in the Doc’s quote, and did you miss the point I made about idiots like Taube generalizing from case studies and diseased samples to normal human beings? Hey, guess what! NIH is loaded with shitloads of studies which show burn victims pack on the muscle mass when given IV glutamine! That MUST mean that crap is anabolic and would help normal people pack on muscle too, right! No, because guess what; burn victims getting IV amino acids respond differently to lunk heads sucking down powdered versions. As do diabetics respond differently to carbohydrate intake. That’s why they’re called diabetic, ya know?
And, perhaps if you’ve reviewed the good doc’s work, pray tell me, unless you shit it out or turn it into heat, where do all those excess calories go so long as you can stop your hormones from “driving fat storage”? Do they build muscle? That’d be kind of strange seeing as how nothing but normal protein turnover should be occurring absent physical labor of some kind. So where do they go? And more…
“Conversely, if I keep your caloric intake the same with zero carbs and you are not diabetic, and I give you extra insulin, you will start storing fat (stop releasing) and become ravenously hungry.”
All he’s talking about is CHANGING THE FUCKING CONDITIONS OF THE EQUATION. Insulin will drive a change in body composition which would generally lead to more fat and less lean mass respectively, unless you’re working out heavily, so the body can maintain mass and energy stores at a bit of a lower calorie level. This is not magic, it simply means your body has changed its response to food and what was once a deficit is now maintenance, or even a slight surplus, because the variables in the equation have changed. Taubes and other jackasses act like this is infinitely scalable, it’s not. There are limits to the way a normal human body will respond, and never are we ever able to put on mass without excess energy intake.
“I’ve seen body builders rage at Dr. Harris for saying that the occasional carb loading (or whatever it is called, and you were mentioning it) is pointless.”
They’re right. Carb loading is great… for aesthetics, which is their goal. Once they diet down a high carb meal leads to glycogen repletion which, for a few short hours to day, would make your muscles look great. For long term fat loss it’s irrelevant. Maintaining a calorie deficit is what matters, regardless of what your hormones are doing. All the hormone do is affect to a degree what tissue is being lost or gained in the end. A low carb diet would likely lead to preferentially burning a bit more fat than otherwise. However for a normal person who is already over weight this is largely irrelevant and unremarkable. Their real problem is much more likely to be portion control, which leads to… chronic calorie excess.
“Which still is addressing only the symptoms, still just hacking at the branches.” - I. Ryan
Energy excess IS the problem. It’s all the hormonal wanking about insulin and ghrelin and leptin that’s the branches.
“What I meant was, if you want to lose fat, you have to put on muscle.” - hayekianxyz
Which is impossible unless you’re in an adjustment period where your body composition is changing and finding a new equillibrium. Otherwise, to build muscle, you need a calorie excess. Saying otherwise means you are claiming to create mass out of nothing. Welcome to Harry Potterland. And to lose fat you need to have a calorie deficit. Which means unless you’re really fat to begin with and you have a prolonged adjustment period where you’re in a deficit relative to previous intake but still seeing a net energy surplus due to body stores being mobilized, gaining muscle and losing fat are opposing goals with opposite requirements.
“I’m surprising I haven’t seen anyone mention HIT training. This was once the standard for Objectivists, wasn’t it, as the most rational of all weightlifting routines and all that?” - JAlanKatz
HIT is just one effective protocol among many. When it comes to weight lifting there’s a myriad of programs out there all claiming to be great. The bottom line is as long as what you’re doing vis a vi weight lifting isn’t insanely moronic, it’ll probably ‘work’ to some extent. For weights, as with cardio, people should pick any non retarded program that fits their needs and just stick with it. 5X5 is classic and my favorite personally.
“Crossfit seems like it’d cause injuries.” - CoolUserName
Some of their workouts can, which is generally why a lot of people don’t like them.
Kettlebells are great. The swing is great for cardio, relaxing, and warming up/down. The Turkish get up is a killer; I have low core strength and one side is weaker than the other so I’m stuck on a 12Kg KB for now.
Xharx I don’t think you could possibly be any more antagonistic. It’s hard to tell if your interest here is generally to help people learn or to shout down at them and belittle them. Your definately not accomplishing anything positive here with such a tone.
Lets assume for a second your right, and Snowflake is wrong. How receptive do you think his learning is going to be when you say things like
Imagine if your instructor/professor/ or teacher addressed you like that everytime you were wrong(Or even right but had a disagreement in opinion.
Besides, do you have credentials to backup your heightened level of arrogance?
Amazing that even in a discussion not about politics you cannot be shown to control your emotions.
Like what workout specifically? I fail to see how it’s any more or any less dangerous then general weight lifting. Crossfit is just a form of HIT, incorporating weight lifting into it. They don’t do anything “New” or “different” from anyone else. They just do it really fast.
Incidently many “dangerous” exercises are actually good for you. Two examples one the Stiff Legged Deadlift which strengthens and keeps supple the hamstrings and lower back muscles (Erector Spinae) and Two the full squat actually strengthens the knees not damages them.
Your reading comprehension skills are very very low. I said that your interpretation does not allow the energy balance equation to have an equality sign in it. I then proceeded to correct you so that it could be salvaged.
You can’t give effective advice if you and your audience have a different understanding of what “energy in” means.
This is simply an intellectual cop-out. There might be some individuals out there who are so hypersensative to insulin that they wouldn’t be able to get their carbs low enough, but the majority of people are not in this category. Its a little rich that you rant about everyone else ignoring scientific laws when you can’t even discuss insulin. You have no argument.
During the first few days, sure. But once you get into Ketosis the majority of people feel just fine.
I’ve been over why this isn’t good advice. Again, you are just making baseless assertions. You have no argument.
Sorry. Let me clarify to all who are reading that if you have Diabetes, AIDS, or have had an operation to surgically remove your digestive track, a low carb diet may not be a good idea.
These would all help, but the basic advice would stay the same. Low carb.
Since your reading comprehension is so poor I will use your awkward energy balance: Insulin is 100% important because it determines the ‘in’ side of your equation. Insulin determines how many macronutrients go ‘in’.
Flametroll.
I already explained why eating less might not help. Your body could simply increase the % of dietary nutrients it absorbs.
Was my energy balance incorrect? I thought it made a lot more sense, because you can see all the dynamics we’re talking about in it. As opposed to yours where hormones are entirely hidden. 
Weren’t you the one who complained that a low carb diet might make people feel lethargic, and now you’re turning around and saying that you should just eat less untill you lose weight? And if that doesn’t work, eat even less?
No. You just walked into the conversation with all these preconceptions about your relative quality of knowledge on the subject, and are now suffering cognitive dissonance. The only thing you can say about a low carb diet is that people might get tired if they’re on it. You don’t have to reduce the amount that you eat because the amount ‘in’ is reduced by virtue of lower insulin.
You also completely ignore all my conciliatory remarks about how I support GOMAD if it works and etc… indicating that you’re just frothing at the mouth.
Indeed. xharx, cool it, or be temp-banned.
I followed the “bullshit” advice of Taubes and lost about 50 pounds of fat in 3 months. I stuffed my face twice a day with big meals. I was and still am a sloth with respect to exercise.
I’m not any stronger or weaker than what I was, but I’m a HELL of a lot healthier. I’ve followed this as closely as possible. http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/
Over that time, I went from around 240 pounds to 190 pounds and my rest heart rate went from 70 to about 60. At first, I could barely run 200 yards without getting tired. The other week, I tried to see how long I could run, and I almost made 2 miles. I think trying to control the O6’s and O3’s while staying away from every kind of oil is what really helped with respect to my circulatory system. I stuck with less than 50g of carbs a day, oftentimes getting close to 0g in a day.
So yes. You can sit on your fat ass and watch it shrink if you just eat the right foods. No starvation or exercise necessary.
In defense of Taubes, what he’s saying is that cutting down on carb consumption would lower insulin levels, thereby preventing fatty acids from entering your fat cells. That makes sense.
The problem with Taubes, I believe, is that you want insulin if you’re trying to mass gain. You want a bigger appetite and insulin is anabolic. Snowflake responded by claiming that greater insulin levels reduces GH and test. The funny thing is that the paper he posted refutes Taubes to a degree:
Insulin resistance and obesity‐25% of the population is insulin resistant, a condition where the
pancreas over secretes insulin to maintain normal blood levels of glucose after a
carbohydrate‐dense meal. This over secretion theoretically causes carbohydrate to be
stored as body fat. While this may be true for sedentary populations, it is not the case
with athletes and other active populations. Exercise makes cells more sensitive to
insulin and insulin triggers receptors to help glucose enter the cell and replenish
glycogen stores. (Kleiner 2007)
Moreover, the paper also has these little tidbits:
Insulin spikes following resistance
training do lead to lower levels of testosterone in the blood but it unclear why. It could be due in part to
increased testosterone uptake in active skeletal muscle. Recent work “Diet and hormonal
responses: potential impact on body composition” has shown that the meal‐induced decrease
in testosterone after resistance exercise corresponds with an increase in skeletal muscle
androgen receptor content. Insulin spikes also lead to increased levels of growth hormone
following resistance training and some studies have shown an increase in IGF‐I during insulin
spikes.
Nutrition supplements that create elevated levels of insulin in the blood, after resistance
training can produce a more favorable anabolic environment during recovery that may be
favorable to muscle growth by stimulating insulin and growth hormone elevations.
Also, this gem:
Carbohydrate‐protein led to an increase in
growth hormone 6 hours post exercise which was greater than protein and control.
Supplements had no effect on insulin‐like growth factor‐I but caused a significant decline in
testosterone. Testosterone levels fell below resting levels 30 minutes postexercise during all
supplement treatments compared to the control. The decline in testosterone was not
associated with a decline in luteinizing hormone, suggesting an increased clearance of
testosterone after supplementation. The results suggest that nutritive supplements after
weight‐training exercise can produce a hormonal environment during recovery that may be
favorable to muscle growth by stimulating insulin and growth hormone elevations.
So… if you want to gain muscle mass, then eat lots of fats, proteins, and yes, even carbs.
Let’s use the “King Kong” vid as an example. He says his “warmup” is ‘snatching 255, cleaning and jerking 355’ - way too much, would injure most people. See those cruches at 0:52 in the video? Not a good sign. Too low rep range, too much weight without any rest. A 10-12 rep range is better for a circuit for most people. I’m pretty sure those Olympic lifters get plenty of rest between sets in their training and don’t get injured much. Also the pullps with gym rings he did didn’t look safe. Some the the Cultfit stuff I’ve seen at the gym makes me wonder how safe it is (like some the the stuff they do on pullup bars). I haven’t seen them for a while. They must’ve got injured, burnt out, or changed programs.
Warming up is important. I do a combination of warmups from Core Performance by Mark Verstegen, Funtional Training for Sports by Mike Boyle, dos Remedios’s MHPT. It’s 5-10 min., light, uses bodyweight, and gets the blood pumping.
Then I do the strength workout from MHPT. It takes 45-90 mins. (higher range with cardio lifting circuits, Tabata’s) usually, 4 days. Some off days I do 15-30 mins. strength cardio (using weight lifting circuits or Tabata Protocal). No machines, no smith machines, free weights only. Lifts include power cleans, snatches, deadlifts, good mornings, lunges, push jerks, bench press, pullups, chinups and many more I cycle through. Core work like bridges - front, side; rotational core work like Kneeling Cable Wood Chops, etc. No mirror muscles worked like bicep curls, calf raises. Mostly muscles you can see in mirror like legs, glutes, upper back for better posture, athletism, and long-term health.
It is true if you eat right you will lose weight regardless of exercise. The right exercise and diet together will speed the rate of fat loss through the roof.
Well I am still not sure what video you are referring to and your argument doesn’t tell me specifically what is dangerous about crossfit. All y ou’ve done is cited an example of someone with poor form. That says nothing about crossfit in general.
In addition youtube video’s are a terrible representation of what crossfit(or any exercise) is all about. What your watching are a few show-offs who want everyone watch them do the most extreme types of work outs. Many crossfit workouts are little beyond pullup/situp/pushup/free squatting and standard weight lifting technique’s. Most all crossfit exercises are also widely used outside of crossfit. So again I am not sure specifically what you are referring to when you say it’s dangerous. Giving me a video of someone with poor form or doing some radical crossfit workout doesn’t necessarily say anything about crossfit at all.
In addition, the workout your citing is just one of possibly hundreds of different types of workouts in crossfit, and is not in anyway a representation of crossfit as a whole.
Those are called muscle-ups, and would you rather him have a helmet on? Again I don’t know what video your referring to but as far as I can tell muscle ups are no more dangerous than pull-ups.
What exactly about crossfit, in comparison to other methods of exercising, do you find that is exceedingly dangerous? Please don’t site examples of people with bad form. The only criticism I’ve ever heard of is that people who push themselves too far have gotten rhabdomyolysis. That is not the fault of crossfit, but again a risk of working out in general if you do not moderate your actions. People need to know their limits, the same applies to rock climbing, running, biking, weight lifting, skiing, or anything else under the sun. You can push yourself over the edge on just about everything.
No, that is just one of the symptoms. Eat only unprocessed, natural food, and see whether you eat excess amounts of food. Believe me; you will not.
@ filc
I didn’t say crossfit was dangerous. I don’t know much about it and don’t care to find out. I say it’s injury prone, especially for beginners and Average Joe’s. A workout regimen should have three goals:
-
Injury prevention.
-
Ache/Pain/Tightness elimination.
After these two are met then,
- Increase strength and stamina or workload capacity.
I’ve never heard Physical Therapists recommending crossfit. There are much better routines like those I’ve mentioned.
Taubes isn’t advocating an athlete’s diet, he’s just exploring how you lose fat. I don’t think he talks about insulin’s role in augmenting/supressing other hormones.
Anyway, so I’m not really sure about a lot of those studies’ conclusions… what you eat pre-workout is arguably much more important, and i’ve seen some advice which says if you want more GH, don’t eat carbs before a workout (recommended for cutting), but if you want more insulin go ahead.
And it really depends on what kind of workout you’re doing. If you’re doing a glycogen depletion workout (volume, pump) then yes. Your muscles will be set up for glycogen supercompensation after the workout, so insulin is your friend. However, if you a training for strength in a tension/power workout, your glycogen stores are still pretty full and your actual muscle tissues are damaged/stretched, in which case there’s no point replenishing glycogen stores, especially if its going to inhibt test, and possibly GH (not IGH-1).
shrug A lot of the wisdom that is bantered around is analytically pretty good. It just doesn’t seem like any trials are designed to really test it…
Anyway, the point of linking that article was to lend support to the idea that insulin might supress other hormones. Its a mixed bag.
That is ofcoarse the same thing as calling it dangerous. And ofcoarse as I stated before, most all forms of physical activities have various risks. Crossfit is not a risk prone exemplar, but is simply a risk prone technique just as marathon running is or olympic style weightlifting or anything else of higher intensity.
Your 3 points are legitimate though, thats why most crossfit gyms enforce the following.
-
Most crossfit gyms I am aware of have their members do all heavy lifting activities with no weight first to practice form. For example a class may do OHSquats as free weight first, then have people slowly and incrementally raise their weight untill they are comfortable. I’ve even had one of my coaches force me to lower weight in the middle of the WOD as my form was suffering. He did this as a precaution. You won’t get that type of attention in a 24 hour fitness. But t hen again, if your working out alone following your form is up to you and your discipline. This is not a fault of crossfit, but a fault of people not taking care to work out safely.
-
This ofcoarse is your warm-up period.
-
and ultimately the WOD.
Well the same could be said for Olympic style weightlifting, or marathon running. Crossfit is not a system specifically designed as any sort of physical therapy. I don’t know where thats coming from. I am wondering if you are making an apples to orange comparison. Not to say your style of working out is incorrect, but that it’s not suited for people looking for different results. IE, it’s not for everyone. If you want something easier and more forgiving then there are alternatives, like a nice slow jog around the park, or a few laps of swimming in the pool or yoga. Crossfit has a reason and a purpose, just as olympic style weightlifting does. It’s definitely no yoga 
Still the reason why I choose crossfit is because I want superior results at a fraction of the time. The worst injury I’ve gotten so far is broken skin from doing too many pullups.