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| That's (hopefully) not the way you want to "kick off" your year 2013, is it? So keep the booze at bay and party away, tonight ;-) |
There are three things of which I would hope that they are on the top ranks in the things you are planning to do in 2013. And aside from proposing to your girlfriend, becoming a parent, graduating from whatever you are currently studying and keeping or, in the unfortunate case you don't have one, getting a job no other goals should be ranked in this
must to in 2013 category: Work out, eat health and sleep deep and sufficiently. Against that background today's exercise round-up, which comprises all the few newsworthy papers that have been published during or shortly before the holiday season can actually be regarded as a means of orientation as far as practical realization of your best intentions for 2013 are concerned.
- HIIT in the evening will keeps the heart attack away (Morikowa. 2012) -- Having a mild angina (coronary spasm was documented and no severe organic lesions were found) is not just no excuse for not working out, the 26 patients in a recent study that was conducted by a team of researchers from Kashiwara City, Japan, clearly shows that the number of spasms (=perceived heart attacks) was reduced from 2 to ZERO (average numbers) per 5 days in the men and women who performed an aerobic interval exercise training in the afternoon.
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| Figure 1: Selected significantly improved health markers before and after the 3x workout short-term intervention involving 19 male and 7 suffering from angina (Morikawa. 2012) |
The protocol was performed on three consecutive days. After warming up thoroughly (10min), all subjects performed four sets of 3 min intervals at 75-85% of their heart rate reserve. The work to rest ratio was 1:1. In other words each of the intervals was followed by a phase of 3 minutes of active recovery. The whole session was concluded by a 5-10 minutes cool down.
In conjunction with the initially mentioned benefits in terms of the recurrence of angina attacks the data in figure 1 should actually suffice to motivate you and lazy relatives to invest this small amount of time into the length and quality of your life- don't you think so?
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| Figure 2: The group of recreational trained young men (~29 years) that did no stretching at all had slightly, but significantly elevated IGF-1 levels (µg/L) after the workout (Borges. 2012). |
Stretching blunts acute IGF-1 response and 10 week strength gains (8RM test) (Borges. 2012) -- Now, hormonal responses to exercise are certainly not everything, the fact that the non-stretchers (OST) did yet also gain significantly more strength on the bench (19% vs. 7% and 5% in the static stretching during warm-up (SBST) and the stretching before each set (SDST) groups, respectively), the leg press, leg extensions and leg curls should yet call your attention, Mr. and Mrs. "I am so freaking professional that I stretch in between every set" maniacs - after 10 weeks of training the guy next to you who sticks to a handful of warm-up sets for injury prevention is going to outperform you.
Remember this is not about not warming up and making sure that you don't hurt yourself, it's just even more more evidence that the die-hard belief that static stretches are beneficial (which was btw. also the research hypothesis of the Portuguese and Brazilian scientists) is dated text book knowledge.
- Again: Not strength or, but strength and aerobics is the way to go (Ho. 2012) -- While the medical establishment is still reluctant to accept the notion that strength and aerobic training must go hand in hand and many muscle heads still plead, they would lose muscle or hamper their gains, when they hopped onto a treadmill from time to time. The evidence is clear: The advantages are simply non-negligible - for the gymbro trying to look muscular (which requires a low body fat percentage if you don't want to look simply ludicrous), and the average Australian (pre-)obese in a recently published study by Ho, Dhaliwal, Hills, and Pal who found that ...
"Twelve weeks of moderate-intensity aerobic, resistance, but mainly combination exercise training decreased TNF-α in overweight and obese individuals compared to no exercise. Therefore, combination exercise training may be physiologically relevant in decreasing the risk of developing chronic diseases." (Ho. 2012)
The exercise interventions were either 30 min of aerobic exercise on a treadmill (60 % heart rate reserve; HRR estimated using the Karvonen equation: 220 - age - resting heart rate), 30 min of resistance exercise (four sets of 8–12 repetitions at 10-RMlevel of leg press, leg curl, leg extension, bench press, and rear deltoid row, with each set completed in approximately 30 s with 1-min rest) or a combination of 15 min of aerobic exercise and 15 min of resistance exercise (two sets of the above exercises).
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| Figure 3: The combined training did not only result in a maximal suppression of TNF-alpha, the latter was also highly correlated with the reduction in body fat (esp. in the belly area; cf. Ho. 2012) |
"Starting workload levels for each piece of equipment were tested by participants and if more than 10 repetitions were achieved, the weight was increased and after a short rest participants tried again. Likewise, if less than eight repetitions were achieved, the weight was decreased and after a short rest participants tried again. Participants reported to the Curtin Fitness Centre 3 days a week to complete the required exercise and either exercised at home the other 2 days or at the fitness center.
If exercises were completed at home, dumbbells (adjustable weight 1.5–10.5 kg) were provided for resistance exercises (three sets of 10 repetitions for biceps curls, lunges, dumbbell raise, calf lift, and triceps extension for resistance group while the combination group did two sets of biceps curls and lunges and one set for dumbbell raise, calf lift, and triceps extension; back extension, push ups, and sit ups exercises were also included). Treadmills were equipped with heart rate sensors and participants were instructed to increase weight loads by 2.5-kg increments when they could complete more than 12 repetitions." (Ho. 2012)
Maybe not the perfect program for you, but I bet you know someone who "wants" to make room for 30 min of exercise in 2013, don't you? Ah,... don't tell them that 67-74% compliance was enough to elicit a 30%+ decrease in TNF-alpha and finally allow the participants to drop body fat, though ;-)
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You can have your peri-workout protein even if you want to exploit the AMPK & PGC-1 bonus of training glycogen depleted (Taylor. 2012) -- Actually I have discussed that in the Intermittent Thoughts more than a year ago, but since the debate just goes on forever, I thought it may be worth posting the results of a recent study pertaining to the issue of peri-workout protein ingestion and its purported (yet non-existent!) negative side effects on the beneficial AMPK response to glycogen depleting exercises (note: that's not the AMPK that's increased in your brain, when you starve yourself for longer time periods, the "bad" one that will make you ravenously hungry, induce overeating and shut down your metabolism).
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| As long as you remain glycogen depleted protein has no effect on the beneficial part of the exercise induced AMPK expression (read more) |
"After performing a glycogen-depleting protocol the evening before, the
subsequent morning ten active men performed 45 min steady-state cycling
at 50 % of peak power output (PPO) followed by an exercise
capacity test (1-min intervals at 80 % PPO interspersed with 1-min
periods at 40 % PPO).
In a repeated measures design, subjects consumed
20 g of a casein hydrolysate solution (PRO) 45 min before exercise, 10 g during and a further 20 g immediately post-exercise,
or an equivalent volume of a non-calorie taste matched placebo (PLA)." (Taylor. 2012)
In view of the fact that the post-exercise muscle glycogen was not different between the protein supplementation and the "on empty" trial, it is not exactly surprising that the p-AMPK levels increased threefold and the PGC-1mRNA increased sixfold in the 3h after the workout. And even the blunted increase in eEF2 activation is probably only a sign that the muscle started taking up protein right away and thus did not have ask for more after the workout - That said,Taylor et al. are right to point out that
"athletes who deliberately incorporate training phases with reduced muscle glycogen into their training programmes may consume protein before, during and after exercise without negating signalling through the AMPK cascade." (Taylor. 2012)
Ah, don't overlook the words "training phases" - remember what I wrote about training glycogen depleted in the context of the PGC-1 a-4 post and doing cardio before a workout? It's an intensity technique and not a necessity for everyone on every training day in 2013. Plus, glycogen depletion does require repletion! Running around 24/7/365 is not an option for 2013.
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| Aside "polarization" your cycling performance can also benefit from baking soda & beta alanine (read more) |
Polarize your training and optimize your gains (Neall. 2012) -- What makes HIIT so effective? The cyclicity of high and low intensity, right! It's the same cycle of ups and downs you find everywhere in nature. Against that background it should actually not surprise you that Neal et al. have now found male cyclist record greater training improvements on a polarised model exercise regimen (6.4/hrs per week; 80%, 0%, 20% of training time in low, moderate and high intensity zones) than on a threshold model (7.5hrs per week; 57%, 43%, 0% training intensity distribution).
According to the researchers from the University of Stirling, both groups recorded performance improvements, yet those in the group that followed the polarized regimen saw 5% greater increases in peak power output, 7% greater increases in lactate threshold, and
48% greater increases in high-intensity exercise capacity.
Thats it for today and in fact for the year 2012. The last one of 365 new posts here at the
SuppVersity and probably twice or thrice as many on the
SuppVersity Facebook Wall (it would be ~5-6x more on Facebook, if I had started posting short news on Facebook in January already)... Apropos, if you want some additional news before the turn of the year you should make sure to visit
www.facebook.com/SuppVersity, today, to read and learn more about.
A brief history of anti-hangover cures: The ancient Assyrians swore by Ground birds' beaks and myrrh. Raw eel and bitter almonds is a recipe from Europe that was popular during the Middle Ages. The Mongolians were more into sheep's eyes, while the Chinese must have listened to Thursday's installment of On Short Notice and went with green tea. Us Germans like it traditional (not me though) and eat "Tom's breakfast" (Katerfrühstück),
a postbinge breakfast with Bismark Herring, pickles, rollmops and/or sauerkraut (this stuff does work, by the way, 'cause it helps replenish the lost electrolytes).
Harvard Health Letters headline: "The new medicine: muscle strength. It's not just for bodybuilders. Strength training is critical for all of us." (read more)- Creatine reduces total antioxidant defenses? Scientists confirm for the 1012532x that creatine works and to make sure somebody even reads their study they overemphasis an increase in uric acid and decreases in TAS in the creatine supplementation group - a reason for concern? (read more)
- Case report: Type I diabetes remission without insulin therapy on gluten-free diet in a 6-year old boy with type 1 diabetes mellitus. (read more)
- Got Acne? Insulin resistance makes men break out. You better don't rely on fasted values, but get an OGGT ASAP(!) cause it turned out to be the most accurate independent predictor of acne at multivariate analysis. (read more)
I guess the one thing that remains to be said now is:
HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!
Don't party too wild, and if you do, drink your green tea before the binge - this is (contrary to the historical advice in the box above) indicated by the latest science you should remember from
Thursday's Science Round Up on Super Human Radio ;-)
References:
- Borges Bastos CL, Miranda H, Gomes de Souza Vale R, de Nazaré Dias Portal M, Gomes TM, da Silva Novaes J, Winchester JB. Chronic Effect Of Static Stretching On Strength Performance And Basal Serum Igf-1 Levels. J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Dec 18.
- Ho SS, Dhaliwal SS, Hills AP, Pal S. Effects of Chronic Exercise Training on Inflammatory Markers in Australian Overweight and Obese Individuals in a Randomized Controlled Trial. Inflammation. 2012 Dec 19.
- Morikawa Y, Mizuno Y, Harada E, Katoh D, Kashiwagi Y, Morita S, Yoshimura M, Uemura S, Saito Y, Yasue H. Aerobic interval exercise training in the afternoon reduces attacks of coronary spastic angina in conjunction with improvement in endothelial function, oxidative stress, and inflammation. Coron Artery Dis. 2012 Dec 14.
- Neal CM, Hunter AM, Brennan L, O'Sullivan A, Hamilton DL, De Vito G, Galloway SD. Six Weeks Of A Polarised Training Intensity Distribution Leads To Greater Physiological And Performance Adaptations Than A Threshold Model In Trained Cyclists. J Appl Physiol. 2012 Dec 20.
- Taylor C, Bartlett JD, van de Graaf CS, Louhelainen J, Coyne V, Iqbal Z, Maclaren DP, Gregson W, Close GL, Morton JP. Protein ingestion does not impair exercise-induced AMPK signalling when in a glycogen-depleted state: implications for train-low compete-high. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 Dec 23.
