Hey Dave!

 

I was wondering what happened to Justin Harris? I haven’t seen very much of him on the logs. I’d been following Justin and his training partner Tom’s progress. It seemed from the logs that they were getting ready for a meet, and I just want to follow their success I hope all is well with them, and I hope to read more soon!

Thanks.

Justin is alive and well. I just got an email from him last week. He just came back from a two week vacation and has been catching up on work. If you don't know Justin, he’s always working on 100,000,000,000,000,000 things with 1,000,000,000,000 clients and 1,000,000,000,000,000 new product ideas and 100,000,000,000,000 business ventures and then does all this after spending time with his wife and kids. Oh, he also gets his own training, chicken breast and rice in there, too.

The latest from Justin Harris:

We recently launched a new version of our website, www.TroponinNutrition.com.  We have much more available on the site than we did with our previous version.  It took a number of months to get everything put together, but I'm happy with how it came out. We have many videos and articles available for your viewing pleasure on the site and people have been enjoying that. 

We've also officially started our product line with our "Motor City Squat Yoke."  It is a combination front squat, Zercher squat, belt squat harness that has a unique upper back cross-bar that distributes the weight better through your whole body.  I've had it loaded up into the 600 pound range, and it still feels relatively comfortable. Actually, it’s much more comfortable than a back squat with that amount of weight. 

We've also released a new DVD.  It’s a sports-specific training and nutrition DVD that was presented to the athletes at Loras College in Iowa this past winter. Anyone that’s involved in athletics or plans to participate in college athletics will enjoy it.  We spent a decent amount of time talking about how to eat for performance while limited to "dorm food."

I'm currently training for the APF Wolverine in Kalamazoo, Michigan this October. I'm hoping to bring my numbers up quite a bit for this meet, as it's the first meet I've been able to focus totally on powerlifting for. I don't have any definite goals to quote, but I think I have a shot at a pretty decent total at 275 lbs.

Q&A:

I was thinking about buying some Anatrop and some waxy maize, but I have Celiac disease and can’t have any gluten. Are your products gluten-free?

Anatrop should be fine. There is nothing really risky to Celiac disease. Waxy Maize can potentially cause problems for those with Celiac disease, although I wouldn't expect you to see a ton of trouble. Corn is generally considered pretty safe for those with Celiac disease, but a derivative of corn such as waxy maize could have some potential for problems.

The good news is that trueprotein.com carries an HMW carb that is based from rice. This is most likely safe for you. There is also a HMW carb that is oat based, but that could pose some difficulties. Be careful of other forms of HMW carbs, as many of them are barley based, which will cause you problems.

A good list for HMW carb safety for those with Celiac disease is this, with the top being the safest and the bottom being the most risky:

 

• Rice starch (trueprotein.com is the only company I know that carries this)
• Waxy maize
• Oat starch
• Barley based HMW carbs (I won't list names of companies due to not having lab assays in front of me)

Our Static Strength line that will be launched soon will have products that use a mix of the top three there. I would try the rice starch first. If you tolerate that well, you may want to try the Static Strength products when they're released. They will contain a mix of the HMW carbs so you won't get a mega-dose of any one kind. If you end up being sensitive to any of them, this mix will help prevent you from getting hit too hard.

Can you tell me something about stinging nettle?

Stinging nettle helps to lower SHBG. SHBG is Steroid Hormone Binding Globulin. When steroid hormones (testosterone, estrogen, prolactin, etc) are present in the body, the body attempts to "bind" the excess and make it ineffective at binding to receptors. SHBG is the product that does this for the steroid hormones. By lowering SHBG, you keep more of your testosterone "free" and able to exert its effects at the receptor.

Imagine testosterone as a 427 Cammer carryin' Shelby Cobra. SHBG would be the garage door. When the garage door is closed, you're not able to piss on any cheese-dick ricers at the track. When SHBG is lowered, the garage door is open and you can put those 600+ horses to use.

What are your thoughts on natural testosterone boosters?

I've seen people's test levels as high as 1200 ng/dl after taking Novadex. The average male's test level is 250-750. Even HIGH average tops out at about 1000. Novadex is VERY effective.

Novadex is 1,4,6-Androstatriene-3,17-dione (3,17-keto-etiochol-triene). It is often abbreviated ADT. ADT is an anti-aromatase. Testosterone aromatizes into estrogen in males. There is a level of testosterone to estrogen the body likes to keep (which is why feds often test for test-epitest or similar ratios instead of just test levels. Of course, people caught on to this and took something to raise those levels ALONG WITH test levels).

By blocking the conversion to estrogen, the body senses a lack of estrogen. To increase the estrogen, the body will make more testosterone to be converted to estrogen...which doesn't happen very efficiently with ADT. The effect is higher levels of testosterone. 1200 is actually as high as some low dose anabolic steroid drugs will create.

ADT is banned by the WNBF, a natural bodybuilding federation. It is perfectly legal to buy and use in America. It isn't controlled, scheduled, or labeled a prescription drug in any way.

I don't know what, or if any, PL federations would test for this. A test specific for the ADT molecule would be very expensive to make. There are also many options for analogues to ADT that would pass the test, but still work on some level. Most feds will test for test levels. Since some men (lucky bastards) will have test levels as high as 1100 to 1200 naturally, you are very unlikely to fail a test with this.

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