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The Way You Train Shapes Your Muscle Size and Function - Study in Powerlifters, Bodybuilders & Controls Suggests Effects Go Beyond Hypertrophy & MHC Fiber Composition

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Don't worry, this exercise is not going to reverse all the effects of your training. Still, in view of the intriguing results of the study at hand, it would be interesting if the fiber-type unspecific effects in powerlifters are reversed when you stop powerlifting / exercise altogether and/or start lifting with higher volumes and lower intensities (bodybuilding style volume training). There are visible and invisible differences between bodybuilders, powerlifters and normal men. The former ones are so obvious that it wouldn't be very interesting to address them in a study. The latter, on the other hand, are, other than you'd expect, hardly researched, but - as the results of a recent study from the Manchester Metropolitan University , and a bunch of other European Universities and research centers shows - more pronounced and significantly more fundamental than some of you may have thought. As Meijer et al. point out in the introduction to their soon-to-be-published pap...
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Moderate Alcohol Consumption Will NOT Impair Your Gains, Despite Non-Sign. Reductions in Protein Synthesis!?

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Athletes and alcohol don't mix, right? If we go by the results of a recent rodent study, this long-standing recommendation appears to be unwarranted for athletes whose main concern are increases in muscle size. You will remember that I have written about studies investigating the effects of alcohol consumption on skeletal muscle gains in response to resistance training before. While previous studies tried to pinpoint the effects by measuring the effects of alcohol consumption on post-exercise muscle protein synthesis and did thus produce questionable results, boozers, ... ah I mean, researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine have now performed the true litmus test - albeit in mice. In contrast to the previously discussed studies , Jennifer L. Steiner, Bradley S. Gordon & Charles H. Lang from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at the  Penn State College of Medicine in Pennsylvania investigated the semi-chronic effects of "moderate" alcoh...
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The Latest on Combined Training: 15% Increase in Muscle Size in 24 Weeks in Healthy Moderately Active Young Men Regardless of "Cardio First" or "Weights First" Training

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If you think even non-significant differences in "lean gains" are significant, "weights first" is for you. If you are about to embark on a combined strength + endurance training regimen in 2015, it does not matter if you do "cardio first" or "strength first"... well, almost. If you stick to the traditional exercise order, you may gain a non-significant 2% extra on your vastus lateralis (some people would wrongly say "quads") size. You've read evidence for both, the superiority of "cardio first" and "strength first" on the SuppVersity before and it may in fact be a matter of personal preference, whether you do your cardio or strength training first. You can learn more about the optimal exercise order at the SuppVersity Before, After or In-Between? Exercise Order & Leptin Cardio First for Anabolism? Large Muscle Groups First? How to Combine Cardio & Strength? Exercise Order Rel...
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Chicken Legs No More! Building Big Wheels By Walking on the Treadmill: Blood Flow-Restriction Does the Trick!

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Image 1:  One thing is certain, the squat, the "King of all Exercises" will never become obsolete. (image by verkinetic @Wikipedia) You have chicken legs, but are too lazy to squat? Well, I guess in this case you will be interested in the results of a recent study by Sakamaki et al. ( Sakamaki. 2011 ) who found that blood flow-restriction is all it takes to induce legs and trunk muscle hypertrophy by just walking the treadmill. For their study, which was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine the Mikako Sakamaki from the University of Tokyo and his colleagues from the University of Oklahama had 17 "healthy young" men [21.2 (±1.9) years, 1.74 (±0.07) m, and 65.8 (±9.6) kg] participate in 3 weeks of supervised walk training. Following a warm-up, the subjects performedwalking ( 50 m/minute for five 2-minute bouts, with a 1-minute rest between bouts ) on a motor-driven treadmill. The walking speed and duration remained cons...
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Want Bigger Guns? Train Legs Before Arms!

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It is quite obvious that an elevation of testosterone and growth hormone facilitates muscle gains by jacking up protein synthesis and ameliorating protein breakdown. Now, intense leg training is famous for increasing both, testosterone as well as growth hormone levels of trainees. It is thus quite logical that Ronnestad et al. found ( Ronnestad. 2011 ) that your arms grow faster, if you train them right after your legs. The study design the scientists used is quite awkward, but clever. They had 9 (unfortunately) untrained subjects perform 4 workouts per week. On two of the occasions the subjects trained legs + one arm (L + A) on the other two occasions they only trained the other arm. Thus, Ronnestad et al. made sure that "both conditions have the same nutritional and genetic environment". Figure 1: Plasma testosterone and growth hormone  measured before the strength training session (T-0), immediately after the leg exercises in the L ? A session (T-1), immediately after...
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