Two Max. Isometric Contractions Reduce Muscle Damage and Promote Regeneration Before You Even Hit the Gym! Plus: How to Add 0.5 Inch to Your Biceps in 6 Minutes!

Image 1: Believe it or not, Arnold is just "pre-regenerating" ;-)

If you have not taken a mental health day for your gray matter the past two days and skipped your obligatory daily visit at the SuppVersity, you will probably have noticed that the last posts on the overtraining induced shift in the ratio of pro- to anti-inflammatory signals (cf. "Overtraining, Inflammation, Insufficient Repair") and yesterday's hot bath "pre-regeneration" post (cf. "Speed Up Your Regeneration and Propel Your Gains by Taking a HOT Bath Bath 2-Days Before Arduous Workouts"), share a common motif: He who recovers the fastest spends the least time on repairing and the most time on building muscle! Today you are going to learn about yet another pre-regeneration technique...

Muscle preconditioning by maximal isometric contractions

Similar to the hot bath, of which I know that it's probably not for everyone, a recently published paper by Hsin-Lian Chen and his colleagues from the National Chiayi University in Taiwan, the Edith Cowan and the Deakin University in Australia (Chen. 2012), the execution of only no more than 2 isometric maximal contractions (duration 3s, 45s rest between contractions) at an elbow-flexor angle of 20° (where 0° would indicate a straight arm / stretch position) on something a bodybuilder would probably call a "preacher bench" can have statistically significant effects your curl performance and muscle damage during an eccentric biceps workout 48h later.

Figure 1: Relative peak maximal torque and change in biceps circumference 0-10 days after an eccentric exercise bout with and without 2 or 10 maximum isokinetic contractions 48h before (data adapted from Chen. 2012)

The decrease in peak torque (cf. figure 1), the increase in peak torque angle (indicating that you cannot apply full force right from the beginning of the movement; not shown) and the change in the range of motion (not shown) were profoundly attenuated in the 26 of the 39 young previously untrained men who had undergone the isometric preconditioning protocol. As the data in figure 1 shows, the same was true for the so change in muscle circumference - and no this does not mean that preconditioning will diminish your gains, but rather that it will reduce the muscle damage, the (micro-)trauma and subsequent edema!

Figure 2: Creatine kinase and muscle soreness 0-10 days after an eccentric exercise bout with and without 2 or 10 maximum isokinetic contractions 48h before (data adapted from Chen. 2012)

The decreased creatine kinase, muscle soreness, and plasma myoglobin concentration in the pre-conditioned vs. the control subjects confirms (figure 2). We are dealing with less damage and thus less swelling, and not with decreased "growth".

Practical implications & suggestions

You don't add 0.5 inch of muscle in 6 minutes. In a way it's a pitty, wouldn't it be great to be able to add 0.5inch to your biceps within 14 minutes of which you actually trained for 6 minutes, only? It certainly would, but let's be realistic, if that worked, you would soon have to stop training because Popeye would look like a shrimp next to you and Jay Cutler would ask himself, why on earth nobody had told him about that before the last Mr. Olympia ;-)

Image 2: A slightly more bend arm and a cable pulley - otherwise that's your position for the isometric contractions. Hold them for 3s, squeeze to make your bis explode, rest 10s repeat & go home!

How can I mimic the protocol and what's the use? Go to the gym, grab a preacher bench / scott bench, put it in front of a low cable pulley, attach a grip to the pulley, perform 2-10 isokinetic contractions at an elbow angle of 20°, go home. Come back 2 days later, use the same equipment, crank out 5 sets of six maximal eccentric contractions at an angular velocity of 90°/s from a half-flexed position (elbow angle 90°) to a fully extended position. Rest 10s between reps (use your other hand to get back to the starting position), repeat. After 65 sets you drop everything, go home and wait. If you did the preconditioning you will be sore for 3-4 days, if you didn't for the rest of the week and your creatine kinase (indicator of "leaky" = damaged muscle) wont be back to normal before day 10!

But seriously, unless you like to suffer from muscle soreness or are in dire need of the bragging rights, the 0.5 inch of edema under your skin have to offer, pre-recovery strategies like hot water baths (see yesterday's news) and isometric maximal contractions could actually be a valuable tool to decrease excessive muscle damage, increase regeneration and improve your gains!

Guess what: Arnold knew it all along!

Image 3: Austrian Wisdom ;-)

With posing being not much different from "maximal isokinetic contractions", I do - once again - have to credit the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger for his intuitive knowledge of what would help you build slaps of muscle. And despite the fact Arnold's rationale for holding his poses for "hours and hours" (if possible), in order to "make the muscle harder and more defined" was somewhat different, the absence of edema (and water retention as a result of inflammation) and an improved growth of real muscle tissue in the workouts which followed sessions like that could in fact have produced those exact results harder a harder and more defined look, many pros call "muscle maturity" also because it takes time to build real muscle that will not just pop, when it's full of water.

Further evidence and alternatives

If neither posing, nor bathing, nor going to the gym to perform no more than 2-10 isometric contractions is something you could imagine to do, you may be happy to hear that this is not the first study by Chen et al. In their previous work the researchers that

• "low-intensity eccentric contractions (ECC) of the elbow flexors with a dumbbell set at 10% of maximal isometric strength (10%-ECC) either 2 days, 7 days (1 week), 14 days (2 weeks) or 21 days (3 weeks) before 30 maximal eccentric contractions (Max-ECC)" (Chen. 2011) elicited similar protective effects, and that
• "repeating submaximal eccentric exercise confers the same magnitude of protective effect as one bout of maximal eccentric exercise against the subsequent maximal eccentric exercise" (Chen. 2010)

In other words, no matter what you do - as long as it does not already hurt the muscle, it will elicit protective effects in a subsequent workout; effects, which can last for up to 3 week (I don't think that this will be the case in trained athletes) and are present after only two days. Don't you agree that "light days" (light must be defined against your current conditioning, the "light" day of a pro-athlete would probably already overtax the non-trained subjects in the study at hand) - as long as you got the willpower to actually keep them light - could have their merits, just as posing intensely on a rest day has? No? Well, then go ahead "Mr. +0.5 inch edema arms" ;-)

References:

1. Chen HL, Nosaka K, Pearce AJ, Chen TC. Two maximal isometric contractions attenuate the magnitude of eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2012 May 11. [Epub ahead of print] 
2. Chen HL, Nosaka K, Chen TC. Muscle damage protection by low-intensity eccentric contractions remains for 2 weeks but not 3 weeks. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2012 Feb;112(2):555-65. Epub 2011 May 25.
3. Chen TC, Chen HL, Lin MJ, Wu CJ, Nosaka K. Potent protective effect conferred by four bouts of low-intensity eccentric exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2010 May;42(5):1004-12.

Combinations that Work: HMB & Isometric Training for Lean Mass, Creatine & Powerlifting for Leaning Out and Carnitine & Bodybuilding for Powerlifting?

Image 1: Jacek Spychala - I must admit, I don't know if he was one of the subjects, but 38 of his colleagues from the Polish National Powerlifting Team were (powerlifting.pl)

As an athlete and even as a regular fitness enthusiast, you got to chose your training and supplementation modalities according to your professional or personal goals (in fact, the failure to do so is, in my mind, one of the main causes why so many trainees do not get the desired results at the gym). A very recent study from the Department of Combat Sports and Weightlifting at the Józef Pilsudski University School of Physical Education (I wish every University had such a department ;-) in Warsaw, Poland, sheds some light onto combinations which work, and combinations which don't... and trust me you will be surprised by the results of Dr. Marek Kruszewski's controlled intervention study (Kruszewski. 2011).

Kruszewski recruited recruited a total of 170 (! that alone is noteworthy !) subjects who participated in a three-tier placebo-controlled study on the effects dietary supplementation of l-carnitine, creatine and HMB combined with different modes of strength training (bodybuilding type circuit training, powerlifting and isometric training) had on muscle strength, lifting performance and body composition (for a graphical overview of the study design see figure 1).

Figure 1: Graphical illustration of the three tiers (l-carnitine, creatine, HMB), general information and detailed information on the exact exercise protocol of the isometric workout of the HMB group

Not only the sheer size of the study with active and placebo groups of ~30 previously untrained subjects, each, in the l-carnitine and HMB tier of the study are impressive, the participation of 38 powerlifters from the Polish National Team (cf. video of Daniel Grabowski, with a 2254lbs total) is, as well. If each group had received all three of the supplements subsequently and body composition had not been measured with an expensive but still not 100% accurate body impedance device, this study would have been the equivalent of the egg-laying-wool-milk-sow of the Natural Rythmicity for Maximum Fat & Minimal Muscle Loss episode of the Intermittent Thoughts, but I guess we cannot have it all ;-)

2g HMB + isometric training for lean muscle gains!

Image 2: HMB is getting
cheaper, lately

I thought, I'd give the most "exotic" training variety (isometric training) the advantage and tell you about the effects 2g of HMB per day (4 servings of 500mg; one with breakfast, one before, one after the workout and one in the evening; for 5 weeks = 20 training sessions) had on the strength performance and body composition of 69 previously untrained, strength trainees -  not only to raise the awareness that isometric contractions could be a valuable addition to everyones regime (something my friend Rob Regish also advocates in his Blueprint), but also because the effects observed in this tier of the study were, as Kruszewski points out, "[t]he most distinctive and desirable" ones:

Although this type of supplementation [HMB] was used in the group of subjects who trained using the isometric method, regarded as a training system not associated with increases in lean body mass (LBM), the obtained results indicate that HMB may also affect LBM. In view of the fact that LBM involves mainly muscles containing about 70% water, the demonstrated significant elevation of LBM accompanied by the reduced water content in the bodies of the examined competitors is difficult to explain.

Now, I've got you listening my iron-friends, don't I? Increased lean mass (+1.31kg), decreased (as the author points out, later) "presumably extracellular" water - sounds like it was coming from a competitive bodybuilder's "dry dreams", doesn't it? Well, the one thing that would be missing now, is a way to get rid of the fat - but wait, weren't there other supplements in the study, as well?

10g Creatine (+10g dextrose) + powerlifting for fat loss!

Image 3: Creatine monohydrate
for fat loss? That's a surprise.

Yes, there were, and believe it or not, not l-carnitine and circuit training, but creatine and powerlifting will shed the fat - even in elite level powerlifters! By continuing their regular (pyramid style, cf. figure 1) powerlifting training, the 16 power lifters from the Polish National Team, who received the 20g/day creatine + dextrose combination did not only improve their powerlifting performance by a statistically significant +15.6kg over the placebo group, they also and, as Kruszewski points out, "surprisingly" lost a significant amount of body fat in the course of the 20 training sessions they completed within the 5 week study period:

[...] the present results indicate that supplementation with this compound [creatine] led to a significant reduction in the fat content and increase in the water content of the organisms of powerlifters from the Polish National Team.

In view of the results, the author observed in the last group, the one which did a bodybuilding-type circuit training that was supplemented with 900mg of l-carnitine l-tartrate per day (cf. figure 1), I find it pretty amusing that according to Kruszwski the "effect of creatine may be much more far-reaching than that indicated in the manufacturers’ leaflets", which is something, he certainly would not say of l-carnitine.

900mg l-carnitine l-tartrate + "bodybuilding-type" circuit training for powerlifting? 

Image 4: L-carnitine alone will not transform your physique like this magic mirror - no matter what the advertisement leaflet in the latest muscle mag says ;-)

The results in the l-carnitine supplemented group (3x300mg l-carnitine l-tartrate) were mixed. While the previously untrained subjects obviously gained strength in the course of the 15 workouts they performed in the 5 week study period, there were huge intergroup differences - meaning that a few subjects appeared to benefit from carnitine, while the majority didn't. Moreover, fat loss or beneficial changes of body composition, which is what l-carnitine is marketed for, were completely absent in the l-carnitine group. And while the training intensity was pretty low (although the trainees had to perform the 3rd of their three training circles to complete failure) this does not really surprise me, as the "fat burning" effect of oral carnitine supplementation has been debunked by more than a dozen well-designed studies, so that you better follow Kruszewski's advice and "treat advertisements of this compound [l-carnitine] with reserve" ;-) He goes on to explain that...

[...i]t is possible that individuals with inherited or acquired L-carnitine deficiency manifested by increased deposition of fat in the body may benefit from such supplementation and improve their body composition by consuming appropriate amounts of this substance accompanied by proper (predominantly aerobic) exercising. However, additional L-carnitine supplementation in individuals with normal production and concentration of this substance in the body is superfluous.

On the other hand, Kruszewski admits that despite the absence of significant improvements in muscle torque, the powerlifting performance of the subjects in the l-carnitine group increased statistically significantly more than the one in the placebo group (+13.7kg) which is ...

surprising in view of the fact that such an effect [increase in powerlifting performance] of L-carnitine has very rarely been reported and emphasized.

He goes on to suggest that these improvements may be related to l-carnitines impact "on the general physical fitness of the organism". Yet, whatever the reasons may be - out of this triumvirate, l-carnitine would certainly be the least effective addition to your regimen - whatever your goals may be.

Isometric training and HMB supplementation, on the other hand, emerge as as surprise winner. With statistically significant (+17.7kg) increases in power-lifting performance, significant increases in muscle torque, and a +1,31kg increase in body mass (predominantly lean muscle) that was accompanied by a likewise significant reduction in extracellular water, it may be a good idea to take advantage of the falling HMB prices (buy in bulk!) and to incorporate some isometric exercises into your workout regimen ... what do you say?