Fit and Lean in 4 Min / Week: 1kg Fat Loss, +9% VO2Max, +13% Fat Oxidation - Men Lose Trunk, Women Leg Fat

No excuse: You don't need an ex-pensive spinning bike for the workout.

This is not an article for the hardcore trainees among you... unless, obviously you are a trainer or have friends and family who fall into the same "I just wannabe fit and healthy" category as the subjects of a recent study by scientists from the Manchester Metropolitan University and the Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine (Bagley. 2016),  24 men and 17 women with a mean age of 39 (±2) years, a normal weight (BMI 24.6 +/- 0.6) and average fitness levels.

In this group of "normal people", Bagley et al. aimed to examine the hypothesis that very short duration, very high-intensity sprinting exercise (on cycle ergometers) could not just improve their subjects fitness (as measured by VO2max), but also their ability to burn fat and to actually lose it.

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After baseline measurements on the DEXA scan (body fat and lean mass) and cycle ergometers (VO2max), the participants were told to do only one thing: A sprint-interval training (SIT) program on a standard cycle ergometer.

"The training consisted of a 2 min warm-up at a self-selected moderate intensity. This was followed by four bouts of 20 s ‘maximal effort’ sprints at a workload that was set at 175% of the workload attained in the VO2max test. Each of these intervals was separated by 2 min of very low intensity cycling (a workload of approximately 20% of that attained at VO2max). Thus, each training session lasted less than 10 min and only 80 s was completed at an inten sity that would be expected to improve physical fitness" (Bagley. 2016). 

The first training session for each participant, who were told to maintain their their usual dietary and exercise habits throughout the intervention, was fully supervised in the research laboratory. To ensure that the subjects would indeed do their three weekly workouts 80s-workouts, the participants were then provided with clear instructions on the use of the cycle ergometers and the training regimen.

But you said "fit in 4 minutes", now the subjects train for almost 10 minutes? Yes and no. They train for 20 minutes, but the actual "exercise", which is something I define as being significantly exerted is 80s per workout. With three workouts per week, that's 3x80s = 240s = 4 minutes! So, I don't want to hear complaints ;-)

The training work load was increased by 5% every 2 weeks. Gym staff were fully informed of the research and training protocols, they logged the training session and were available to offer advice to research participants if needed during training sessions. Participants maintained a training-log to record workloads during training sessions.

Figure 1: Maximal oxygen uptake and rates of fat oxidation measured during exercise in men and women before and after 12 weeks of SIT; all changes were stat. sign. p < 0.05 (Bagley. 2016).

As you can see in Figure 1, the effects these short, highly time-efficient, and absolutely manageable (everyone can workout at max intensity for 4x20s) had on the subjects' fitness were not just statistically significant, they were also practically relevant and, at least for VO2max, differed significantly for men and women.

But how did they lose weight without dieting? The secret is the proven lack of compensation for SIT sessions, which have been show to be as low as <50kcal/week - compared with endurance exercise where compensation is 10x higher, i.e. 500 kcal/week (Burgomaster. 2008). Still, the direct energy expenditure during the short SIT sessions cannot fully explain the fat loss. Therefore, Bageley et al. speculate that "[o]ther contributing factors might include an increase in post exercise energy expenditure [that's unlikely, learn why] or overall shift towards greater fatty acid oxidation during habitual activities throughout the day" (Bagley. 2016).

Overall, the increase in VO2max averages out at 9% - the reasons for the sex-differences is not clear. After all, the scientists point out that men have been shown to have higher gains in VO2max following conventional endurance exercise. The mixed results of previous studies into the effects of sprint interval training, however, are mixed and thus not necessarily contrary to the evidence from the study at hand. While Scalzo et al. (2014), for example, found that young women had similar gains in VO2max as young men, the results Allemeier et al. (1994) et al. presented in the Journal of Applied Physiology suggest that men don't see any increase in VO2max. What could be the reason? Well, this is what the scientists say:

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"A higher relative amount of lean mass in men compared to women, coupled with a higher relative body fat mass in women compared to men, may go some way in explaining the differences between men and women in maximal oxygen consumption. However, the supply of oxygen to the working skeletal muscles is thought to be a limiting factor in VO2max, so the higher VO2max response in women might point to higher adaptations of oxygen supply than those in men following SIT, but more focused studies examining cardiac output, blood volume, haematocrit and blood flow distribution are needed to clarify this finding.

Conversely, after regular endurance training, men had higher gains in VO2max compared with women. It is possible that the training volume (higher in endurance) and training intensity (higher in SIT) lead to disparate adaptations between men and women in the oxygen carrying capacity of blood (eg, total blood volume, haemoglobin or cardiac output) or local vasculature, but physiological mechanisms driving such responses are unclear" (Bagley. 2016).

No sex differences were observed for the measured health markers, namely glucose, insulin, HOMA, triglycerides, total cholesterol or LDL - only for HDL there was a significantly more pronounced increase in the female vs. male subjects. Eventually, the improvement of the total cholesterol to HDL ratio was yet similarly pronounced in both sexes (-16% in the men, -11% in the women).

Figure 2: Body composition before and after 12 weeks of SIT; * after the categories denotes p < 0.05 (Bagley. 2016).

The previously discussed changes were accompanied by a significant loss of total, leg and trunk fat, as well as significant increases in lean mass in both groups - with inter-sex-differences in total body mass, body fat %, leg fat, and lean mass. That's quite a result, if you take into account the total and actual exercise time the subjects had to invest.

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Bottom line: I am not sure how feasible this protocol would be for an obese person, but in the healthy normal-weight subjects in the study at hand, the 12x4 minutes of working out intensely made quite a change. Ok, you have to work out thrice a week, but 10 minutes on an exercise bike? That's something you could easily do every morning before showering or when you come home from work.

Ah, and before I forget to highlight that - even though the fat loss in the female subjects may have been smaller than in the male subjects, the women lost fat where many of them hate it the most: on their legs - not bad!? Comment!

References:

• Allemeier, CRAIG A., et al. "Effects of sprint cycle training on human skeletal muscle." Journal of Applied Physiology 77.5 (1994): 2385-2390.
• Bagley, Liam, et al. "Sex differences in the effects of 12 weeks sprint interval training on body fat mass and the rates of fatty acid oxidation and VO2max during exercise." BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine 2.1 (2016): e000056.
• Burgomaster, Kirsten A., et al. "Similar metabolic adaptations during exercise after low volume sprint interval and traditional endurance training in humans." The Journal of physiology 586.1 (2008): 151-160.
• Scalzo, Rebecca L., et al. "Greater muscle protein synthesis and mitochondrial biogenesis in males compared with females during sprint interval training." The FASEB Journal 28.6 (2014): 2705-2714.

Blood Flow Restriction in Athletes: Did We Get it All Wrong? Must BFR-Cuffs be Worn After, not During Each Set?

If that's you. It's well possible that you've done it all wrong. Wearing the cuffs after the set may be the way to go!

You may have followed up on my recent suggested read in the SuppVersity Facebook News and read up on the recent scientific debate on the (non-)usefulness of training with cuffs (BFR-style). Well, after reading the full text of a recent study by Conor W. Taylor et al. (2015), I have to say: Maybe we have only done it wrong.

In their study, the researchers from the Loughborough University in Leicestershire had their subjects, 28 healthy trained males who were cycling 120 ± 66 km per week, all cuffed up after each set of a standardized sprint training. That's very dufferent from trying to sprint with cuffs on your legs (and usually reduced intensity) and appears to be - that's at least what the study results suggest - a potential game-changer.

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Now, the good news is: The study involved both an acute and chronic exercise + BFR study of the effects of post-spring-training blood flow restriction.

• In Study 1, a between groups design determined whether 4 weeks (2 d/wk) of SIT (repeated 30 s maximal sprint cycling) combined with post-exercise blood flow restriction (BFR) enhanced maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and 15km cycling time trial performance (15km-TT) compared to SIT alone (CON) in trained individuals.
• In Study 2, using a repeated measures design, participants performed an acute bout of either BFR or CON. Muscle biopsies were taken before and after exercise to examine the activation of signalling pathways regulating angiogenesis and mitochondrial biogenesis.

As a science expert you'll know that study 2 probably wouldn't have been done if the results of Study 1 had not been encouraging.

Figure 1: Pre- to post-changes in VO2max (absolute, top-right), relative (top-left), MAP (bottom-left), 15k time trial (bottom-right) | I marked the individuals who saw positive and negative effects for you, the # on the buttons indicate the number of subjects who benefited (green) or saw no / detrimental effects (orange | original data from Taylor. 2015).

"Encouraging", in this case, means that the scientists observed a highly significant VO2max with post-workout BFR by 4.5% (P = 0.01) but was unchanged after CON.

So, does the increase in VO2 have anything to do with my gainz? Directly? No. But if there's an effect on hypertrophy it would - just as the effect on VO2 found in the study at hand - depend on increases in the stress response. Now, the more recent studies have shown that the necessary reduction in weight lifted when you do it with cuffs makes it practically useless for athletes. So, in conjunction with the study at hand, it's only logical to ASSUME that using the hypoxic stress after a set COULD provide an ADDITIVE stimulus (normal BFR training takes away from the regular stimulus, because it will.force athletes to refuce the weights and cannot fully compensate for that | see the results of this study.

The small advantage in the 15k time trial, on the other hand, did not reach statistical significance. That's "bad news", but the trend indicates that this might change with long(er) term studies.

Figure 2: Changes (%) in physiological and performance variables before and after CON and BFR training interventions (Taylor. 2015).

Whether that may change with a longer-term study will still have to be elucidated. What appears to be certain, though, is that the existing difference is not mediated by changes in PGC-1α, VEGF and VEGFR-2 mRNA expression between protocols. In fact, of all parameters the scientists tested to identify the underlying mechanism only the  mRNA levels of HIF-1α, the hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha, of which a recent paper by Lindholm and Rundquist (2015) highlights that it would be otherwise attenuated with long-term endurance exercise and thus lead to a blunted response to long-term exercise training (that's why rookies see fast results and pros only marginal results), differed significantly between groups (P = 0.04) 3 h after the cuffs were applied to the subject's legs.

Bottom line: While it is possible that the differences the scientists observed were triggered by BFR induced extra-stress (namely hypoxia, thus increases in Hypoxia-inducible factor 1-alpha), we will need additional (longer-term) studies to prove practically relevant improvements in time-trial performance and identify a definitive mechanism.

The benefits of blood flow restriction in healthy athletes may be less pronounced than the advocates would have it. If reversing the order of exercise and applying the cuff can solve that, this would be awesome!

With that being said, the results - although not fully convincing, yet - are quite exciting. After all, they really suggest that instead of training with cuffs, athletes who want to benefit from the additional low oxygen stress would have to copy the protocol of the study at hand and thus apply lower limb blood flow restriction within 15s of each sprint... or after each set of leg curls or squats? Well, that's a question we cannot answer based on the study at hand, but it would certainly be interesting to test what would happen if you applied the cuffs right after a set of biceps curls. Well, as you can see, there's still a lot of research to be done and as you know, the SuppVersity is going to be where you can learn about the results first ;-) | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Lindholm & Rundqist, et al. "Skeletal muscle HIF-1 and exercise." Experimental Physiology (2015): Accepted Article.
• Taylor, et al. "Acute and chronic effect of sprint interval training combined with post-exercise blood flow restriction in trained individuals." Experimental Physiology (2015): Accepted Article.

Strength & Conditioning Update - Sep '15: Reduced Rest, 200kcal Extra-EE (+30%) | Dehydration Turns Sprint to Jog | Knee Wraps More Power, Lower ROM & Vastus Activity

No, this is not the first time you read about "battling the rope" and how it could be an excellent form of fat burning and conditioning HIIT training. In my previous article "Want to Get Ripped & Strong? 'Battling the Rope' Could be THE Exercise to Do!" I've already discussed the proven long-term benefits of this intense conditioning exercise | learn more.

Usually, I handpick the three best studies for overviews like this, but with the Journal of Strength and Conditioning research, this is not always easy. With the September issue, only some studies are interesting, and there are no real "blockbuster" that would deserve an article on their own. Don't get me wrong. There's still interesting information, there but I guess what's most interesting is significantly more open to debate than usually.

Accordingly, today's research update contains my very personal favorites from September 2015 issue of this journal. Well, my favorites minus one study by Soares et al. (2015) about which I've written in my April 2015 article "Single- vs. Multi-Joint, Rookie vs. Gymrat - How Much Rest is Required in Trained Athletes if Noobs Need 72h or More?" (read it!), when the study was published initially as an online exclusive "ahead of print" print article five months ago.

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• Rest intervals and their effects on metabolism and velocity loss during battling the rope and ballistic bench press exercises - With the studies by Ratames, et al. (2015) and Garcia-Ramos et al. the latest issue of the JSC contains not one but two studies that deal with the effects of reducing the inter-set (rope) and inter-rep (ballistic bench press = "bench throws") times.
  

  

  Figure 1: Aerobic and anaerobic energy expenditure with 2 and 1 minute rest between 30s bouts of battling the rope in the welve men and 10 women (age = 20.8 6 1.3 years) who participanted in Ratamess study (ibid. 2015).

  While Ratames' study shows the expected increase in energy expenditure and fatty oxidation, as well as the lactate levels and heart rates of the female subjects, when the rest-time between the 8 sets of 30-second intervals (15 seconds of single-arm waves and 15 seconds of double-arm waves) of battling the rope were reduced from two to one minute, the results of the study by Garcia-Ramos (2015) require a correlation analysis to confirm that increasing the inter-set rest during "bench throws" (=ballistic bench presses) with 30%RM, 40%RM, or 50%RM from 6 to 12 seconds ameliorated the otherwise linear decrease in the maximal number of reps significantly.
  
  

  

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  In view of the effect that both outcomes where expected, it may be most intriguing that the 33% and 32% increases in total energy expenditure in the men and women (respectively) in Ratamess study were significantly more pronounced than what one may have expected from a mere reduction in rest times. Based on Ratamess previously discussed study that involved a full body resistance training workout and increases in energy expenditure of up to 37%, SuppVersity veterans should not be too surprised by the efficacy increase due to the reduction of the rest times. One thing you should keep in mind, however, is that any decrease in rest times will also lead to an increase in fatigue. In the Ratamess study, the increased in the rate of perceived exertion was 14% in the female and 21% in the male subjects.
• No, hydration doesn't matter for marathoners, only - While we usually think of endurance athletes when we talk about the effects of (de-)hydration on exercise performance, the reality is that everyone can experience the ergolytic (=performance decreasing) effects of dehydration. Against that background, it's sad that the number of studies that quantify these effects is very limited. With Davies et al.'s (2015) latest contribution we do now have the first detailed study on the effects of dehydration on repeated sprint performance which is highly relevant for almost every teamsport and may also give us insights into the effects of dehydration on high(er) rep strength training.
  
  In their study, the researchers from several universities had eight male collegiate baseball players complete intermittent sprints either dehydrated (DEHY) by 3% body mass or euhydrated (EU). To induce the state of dehydration the men were subjected to heat with controlled fluid restriction occurring 1 day before the trial. During the actual trial, which was repeated with appropriate time for recovery, the participants completed twenty-four 30-m sprints divided into 3 bouts of 8 sprints with 45 seconds of rest between each sprint and 3 minutes between each bout.
  

  

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  The study outcomes, perceived recovery status (PRS), heart rate (HR), ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) (0–10 OMNI scale), and perceived readiness (PR) scale, as well as the session RPE (SRPE), were recorded after every sprint, and 20 minutes after completing the entire session, respectively.
  

  

  Figure 2: Sprint times and rates of perceived exertion after each bout of exercise (Davies. 2015).

  The authors'  2 (condition) × 3 (bout of sprints) repeated-measures ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of condition on mean sprint time (p = 0.03), HR (p < 0.01), RPE (p = 0.01), and PR (p = 0.02).
  
  In addition, the scientists' post hoc tests showed significantly faster mean sprint times for EU vs. DEHY during the second (4.87 ± 0.29 vs. 5.03 ± 0.33 seconds; p = 0.01) and third bouts of sprints (4.91 ± 0.29 vs. 5.12 ± 0.44 seconds; p = 0.02). Heart rate was also significantly lower (p ≤ 0.05) for EU during the second and third bouts. Post hoc measures also showed significantly impaired (p ≤ 0.05) feelings of recovery (PRS) before exercise and increased (p ≤ 0.05) perceptual strain before each bout (PR) during the second and third bouts of repeated sprint work (i.e., RPE and PR) and after the total session (SRPE) in the DEHY condition.
  
  

  

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  It is thus hard to argue with Davis' conclusion that all three observed effects, i.e. the impaired sprint performance, the negatively altered perception of recovery status before exercise, and the increased RPE and HR response are reasonable arguments to make sure you're always staying well hydrated. Plus: If you think of the recently discussed study on the way hydration can help you avoid type II diabetes (read it again), this advise is just as relevant for non-athletes.
• Expected but often disclaimed reduction in vastus lateralis activity when squatting with knee wraps - Ok, ok... there's one thing that's missing here: The reduction occurs if the weight that's used with and without the knee wraps is identical. If, however, you are able to squat 10% more, which is very likely, since studies indicate increases of >20% in maximal isometric force during the squat exercise, independent of the level of stiffness of the knee wrap (Gomes. 2014), the results of Gomes' latest study (2015) are no real reason to worry about your gains.
  

  

  Figure 3: Changes in vastus lateralis (A), gluteus maximimus (B) EMG activity and knee and hip angles (C) when doing back squats with (KW) or without (NW) knee wraps (Gomes. 2015).

  Eventually it would just have been a reduction in vastus lateralis activity, anyway. For the gluteus the activity doesn't change, anyways; and that in spite of the fact that the range of motion (the knee angle | Figure 3, right, black bars) is reduced when you're squatting with knee wraps (KW) vs. without wraps (NW).

Bottom line? You don't really need one, do you? So, instead of giving you another summary of the already dicussed implications of the (in part unsurprising) results of the previously discussed studies, I am inclined to give you a second serving in form of an extra-study.

Figure 4: Hooper and his colleagues from the Ohio State University believe that the increased fast ball, and driving / approach shot accuracy in high-level baseball pitchers and golfers they observed when the athletes wore upper body compression garments is mediated by improved proprioceptive cues during upper-body movements (Hooper. 2015).

The study was conducted at the Ohio State and dealt with the effects of upper-body (!) compression garment on athletic performances. Now, while we do have ample evidence of often subtle, but significant benefits of lower body compression garments, the study at hand is the first one I have read that reports significant performance improvements in eleven Division I collegiate pitchers (age: 21.0 ± 2.9 years; height: 181.0 ± 4.6 cm; weight: 89.0 ± 13.0 kg; body fat: 12.0 ± 4.1%) and 10 Division I collegiate golfers (age: 20.0 ± 1.3 years; height: 178.1 ± 3.9 cm; weight: 76.4 ± 8.3 kg; body fat: 11.8 ± 2.6%) in terms of fastball accuracy (30% improvement) and driving (21%) as well as accuracy (17%), respectively. That's quite a significant benefit for high-level athletes - an effect of which the authors, Hooper et al. (2015), believe that it was "most likely mediated by improved proprioceptive cues during upper-body movements" (Hooper. 2015) | Comment on FB!

References:

• Davis, J.-K, Laurent, CM, Allen, KE, Green, JM, Stolworthy, NI, Welch, TR, and Nevett, ME. Influence of dehydration on intermittent sprint performance. J Strength Cond Res 29(9): 2586–2593, 2015
• García-Ramos, A, Padial, P, Haff, GG, Argüelles-Cienfuegos, J, García-Ramos, M, Conde-Pipó, J, and Feriche, B. Effect of different interrepetition rest periods on barbell velocity loss during the ballistic bench press exercise. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2015 
• Gomes, Willy Andrade, et al. "Acute effects on maximal isometric force with and without knee wrap during squat exercise." Int J Sports Sci 4.2 (2014): 47-49.
• Hooper, DR, Dulkis, LL, Secola, PJ, Holtzum, G, Harper, SP, Kalkowski, RJ, Comstock, BA, Szivak, TK, Flanagan, SD, Looney, DP, DuPont, WH, Maresh, CM, Volek, JS, Culley, KP, and Kraemer, WJ. Roles of an upper-body compression garment on athletic performances. J Strength Cond Res 29(9): 2655-2660, 2015
• Ratamess, NA, Smith, CR, Beller, NA, Kang, J, Faigenbaum, AD, and Bush, JA. Effects of rest interval length on acute battling rope exercise metabolism. J Strength Cond Res 29(9): 2375–2387, 201
• Soares, S, Ferreira-Junior, JB, Pereira, MC, Cleto, VA, Castanheira, RP, Cadore, EL, Brown, LE, Gentil, P, Bemben, MG, and Bottaro, M. Dissociated time course of muscle damage recovery between single- and multi-joint exercises in highly resistance-trained men. J Strength Cond Res 29(9): 2594–2599, 2015.