The range of muscle types from fast twitch to intermediate and slow twitch muscles, plus different compositions of muscle motor units (groups of muscles), forms the foundation for your ideal workout strategies. Fortunately, weightlifting is the core of the most advanced approach based on recent scientific research.
An overwhelming amount of scientific research shows how the Body by Science method yields the most efficient results for strength and conditioning through weightlifting. Researchers Dr. Doug McGuff and John Little have a book at Amazon by that name as well as a set of videos on YouTube.
Role Of Creatine
Creatine is an energy storage molecule in muscle tissue. Workout intensity and duration depend on creatine. Maximum workout quality and workout recovery are possible only when muscles are saturated with creatine. Although your body makes it in liver and kidney, the amount in muscle is almost always less than saturation.
The combination of creatine-saturated muscles and weightlifting exercise via a Body by Science workout program give you the best foundation for getting good results for building muscle. The key is to get muscle tissue saturated with creatine most efficiently. Doing so entails paying attention to recent research on the critical factors for supplementing with creatine.
Choosing A Creatine Supplement
Fundamental research on creatine for exercise derives from studies using creatine monohydrate. Other forms of creatine (citrate, etc.) may be as effective as the monohydrate form, although they are not backed by research to the extent that creatine monohydrate is. This form is also the easiest to find and the least expensive.
Creatine Dosage And Boosting
Early research shows that an initial loading phase is important for getting muscle creatine levels to saturation quickly, followed by long term maintenance. The loading phase is typically 20 grams per day (taken 5 grams at a time over the day) for 5 to 6 days. After loading, long term maintenance is 3 to 5 grams per day.
Using a loading phase gives the fastest results from exercise because it saturates muscle tissue more quickly. However, such a high dose of creatine often leads to stomach upset and diarrhea. Research shows that skipping the loading phase and starting with 3 to 5 grams per day is equally effective although it takes longer to get significant results (4 or 5 weeks instead of 5 to 10 days). Skipping the loading phase has the advantage of avoiding stomach distress caused by high dosage.
Research on boosting the impact of creatine takes advantage of the anabolic effects of insulin. This just means that the right dose of carbohydrate, which stimulates insulin release, drives the import of creatine into muscle cells. The most effective carbohydrate is normal blood sugar, otherwise known as glucose or dextrose. The dosage is about 5 to 1, glucose to creatine monohydrate. Each gram of creatine monohydrate is best taken with 5 grams of glucose.
Lots of commercial creatine formulas contain carbohydrate because of this well-known boosting effect. However, your best bet is to buy creatine monohydrate and glucose (dextrose) separately and mix them together in the desired amounts in a glass of water just before taking them. Too many commercial formulas offer extra boosting ingredients or other carbohydrates, none of which is as well-supported by scientific research as the simple mixture of creatine monohydrate and glucose.
Creatine Safety
Creatine may increase the need for extra fluid intake, since it drives muscle cells to become more hydrated. However, creatine has not been shown to increase dehydration.
Medical doctors often repeat the mistaken notion that the production of creatinine by creatine supplementation is a sign of kidney problems. Indeed, creatinine levels do increase when taking creatine, although this increase is not toxic to the kidneys. Creatine has been well-researched for decades, and dozens of studies clearly show it to be safe and effective for long term use. Claims to the contrary are unscientific and ignore this vast body of research. Creatine clearly offers tremendous benefits for muscle building exercises.
The best protein supplement is hard to find among all the advertising and marketing hype. Besides everyday foods, very few protein sources are available commercially. Here is an excellent suggestion about how to choose from the wide array of products that all seem to be the same.
When it comes to muscle supplement, protein is the best to gain lean muscle mass and get in shape. The body needs protein supplements for most of the activities it does. The protein diet that the body needs is abundant in fish, meat, …
I would love to hear about your personal experiences with protein supplements. My own journey to finding the best one for me entailed looking for one with the fewest additives. Sweeteners of all kinds are the worst for me.
Fast twitch workouts build speed, quickness, and jumping ability. Specific exercises build fast twitch muscles. Strength is not the issue. Speed is. Here is an excellent list of how to get more of it quickly.
Increasing the volume of fast-twitch muscle fibers should be your greatest emphasis, as they’re the muscle fibers that enable you to explode over a moments notice. The best exercises to leap greater will improve this muscle type. …
In soccer today players are looking to get, or their parents are looking for them to get that edge on speed on the field. Regardless if it is national,
Speed is influenced by an athlete’s agility (mobility), fast twitch muscle strength, strength endurance and technique. Being quick and having fast muscles is very different to having strong muscles as you simply will not get faster …
Some of the above advice is better than the rest. The key is to realize that fast twitch muscles are fast to fatigue and slow to recover. If you are not concerned with slow twitch, endurance muscles, then quick and heavy lifting, jumping, or sprinting (especially to oxygen deprivation of fast twitch muscles) will recruit your fast twitch muscle motor units more effectively. Just keep that in mind, and keep close track of how well your progress goes.
CLA is a natural product that helps improve fat metabolism, blood lipids, and overall health. It is found in some meat and dairy products and in numerous supplements. Athletes benefit by enhancing body fat composition and muscle building, while also getting positive benefits for immune function. Read more here.
The main dietary sources are beef and dairy products from grass-fed cows. This does not mean cows that were raised in a pasture then fattened up on grains for a month or two before slaughter. It means grass-fed all the way to the end! Fortunately, scads of companies offer CLA in supplement form, all of which is derived from plant oils that are modified into CLA.
Fitness overtraining is rampant. The worst examples are represented by those poor folks on The Biggest Loser. Here is a scientific peek into the lunacy of this program.
Last night at work I went into our office/locker area for a mental health break and The Biggest Loser was on TV. I came in right at the introduction. I have never watched this show, as I assumed it would be ridiculous. I was shocked how much I had underestimated. I could not believe the amount and types of exercise these poor people were being put through. [READ MORE]
Death by Fitness
The point is that the human body is not a machine. Unfortunately, this 16th century concept pervades modern medicine, fitness, and health. You absolutely must train right and allow for proper recovery!
Glycogen depletion is an important component of successful aerobic and anaerobic exercise. The key is sufficient exercise intensity to deplete glycogen and, if possible, stimulate growth hormone release. Here are some details on how to benefit from this strategy.
I think that the best cardio for weight loss combines various HIIT training routines to give you all of the benefits, a strong HGH release, fatty acid release, calorie burning and glycogen depletion. Your workout should start with the …
Aerobic activities normally do not elevate growth hormone levels, even though they are healthy, unless they lead to a significant degree of glycogen depletion. Glycogen is stored in the liver and muscle, with muscle storing about 5 …
The simplest personal fitness exercise program may involve the kettlebell combination. This brief video shows you what it looks like and how you can make it part of your personal fitness system. The equipment is inexpensive, too. Take a look and see what I mean.
Emily performs a combination of the kettlebell pull, clean, clean-to-press, and swing with kettlebell instructor Richard Lehman of Compliment Fitness, NYC. Email compliment.fitness@gmail.com for kettlebell class information and personal training.
Real Difference Between Fast And Slow Twitch Muscles
Slow twitch muscles are the simplest to describe. They are powerful aerobically, meaning good at using oxygen. They are called slow twitch because they are slow to fatigue, not because they are slow to contract. Being slow to fatigue makes this type of muscle fiber important for endurance. These fibers recover fast after being fatigued. Slow twitch muscle fibers are useful to long distance runners and other endurance athletes.
Fast twitch muscles are more complicated, because they are classified into three subgroups. One is the Fast Oxidative fibers, which are good aerobically and are resistant to fatigue. Another type is Fast Glycolytic, which includes fibers that are more effective anaerobically (without oxygen transfer). They are the easiest to fatigue and the slowest to recover. The third type is intermediate, referred to as Fast Oxidative Glycolytic. The fast twitch muscles are so called because they fatigue fast. However, they recover slowly after being fatigued.
These are simplified descriptions of how muscle fibers are classified based on their ability to use oxygen and on the speed at which they fatigue and recover from fatigue. Slow twitch muscles actually twitch faster and recover faster from exercise than do fast twitch muscles.
Engaging Each Muscle Fiber Type
Your brain recruits muscle fibers for force rather than speed of contraction. For this reason, slow twitch muscles are the easiest fiber type to engage. They also require the least amount of energy. In fact, if you lift weights too quickly, you primarily engage your slow twitch muscles.
Slightly more energy is required to engage the Fast Oxidative muscle fibers, and still more for the Fast Oxidative Glycolytic fibers. The highest amount of energy is required to engage the Fast Glycolytic fibers.
The key for an optimum workout, therefore, is to take advantage of what physiologists call orderly recruitment. This means engaging each type of muscle fiber in sequence, from low energy and fast recovery to high energy and slow recovery. The important factors for accomplishing this in the same workout are: 1) sufficient weight for bringing on muscle failure (i.e., the point at which you can no longer lift the weight); 2) the right lifting speed for engaging all types of muscle fibers in sequence; and, 3) the total time under load (TUL) for a particular set or muscle group.
The optimum strategy for accomplishing all of the above entails a very slow lift rate and an equally slow return rate. One extra advantage of such super slow movements is that it is easier to use good form. Fast lifting leads to jerking weights rather than lifting them, which recruits some slow twitch muscles and leaves other fiber types unchallenged.
Scientific Research
All the recommendations in this article are backed by numerous scientific studies over the past few decades. The best summary of this research is now available in a book, Body by Science, by Dr. Doug McGuff, M.D., and John Little. It is the best and most recent book on this topic. By the way, the subtitle of this book is, A Research-Based Program for Strength Training, Body Building, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week.
On a personal note based on my experience, 12 minutes a week may even be more than you need. My own muscle building improvements have accrued very effectively on about 10 minutes a week.
Protein powders and proteins shakes are a favorite subject of thousands of so-called experts in nutrition and bodybuilding. They treat this food group as if it is a miracle for muscle building. The reasoning is that muscle is made out of protein, so you have to eat protein to build more muscle.
This is only partly true.
All-Important Ingredients List
The key point that I’m going to make rests on the ingredients that protein supplements normally contain. To keep things simple, just consider the amount of each food group: protein, fat, carbohydrate (as sugars). This will be an eye opener if you have never read labels before.
Supplement Facts Labels of Three Protein Powders
Product 1: Serving size (34.6 g), Protein (20 g), Sugars (4 g), Total Fat (1 g)
Product 2: Serving size (29 g), Protein (24 g), Sugars (1 g), Total Fat (1 g)
Product 3: Serving size (30 g), Protein (22 g), Sugars (0 g), Total Fat (0 g)
These products all contain plenty of protein per serving. They also offer lots of fodder for me to write about regarding the folly of protein shakes as bodybuilding supplements or meal replacements. However, I just want to focus on one glaring item at the moment, which is:
…NOT ENOUGH FAT!
Key Missing Ingredient for Muscle Building
Fat.
Why is This So Important?
Everything you eat or drink is absorbed and used better in the presence of fat. Just today a research article appeared that showed the importance of using oil-based dressings for optimizing the antioxidant benefits of spinach salad. (By the way, we chemists classify fats and oils as the same kind of food group, the only difference being whether they are solids or liquids at room temperature.)
Here is the flip side of that comment: The low-fat craze and all of the low-fat diet plans are a plague on human health. There is no way you can be healthy without substantial amounts of fat in your diet, regardless of how much you weigh. Two hundred years of clinical and scientific research backs me up on this.
How to Make Protein Work for You
The easy advice is to get some fat or oil with your protein shake. Lots of it. Also keep in mind that carbs will undermine your effort, so keep them to a minimum. The products above are just fine in that regard. Some products will contain higher amounts of sugars, sometimes as much as 10 g per serving (!), so avoid those.
Products that are artificially sweetened pose too many threats to mention, especially if they contain aspartame. Ideally, protein supplements should contain no sugars or sweeteners or flavoring at all. These are hard to find.
Recommended Types of Fat
Of all the written nonsense about fats, you only need to follow these two rules for choosing dietary fats:
1. Eat all of the fats you want if they are made by Mother Nature.
Saturated, unsaturated, polyunsaturated, plant or animal – none of this matters. Eat them all.
2. Don’t put a single molecule in your mouth if it is synthetic or processed in any way.
Trans fats or partially hydrogenated oils are obvious no-nos. Margarine and other fake butters are awful, too. Not so obvious are the vast majority of vegetable oils on the market. The worst of the worst are corn oil, canola oil, soybean oil, and cottonseed oil. If an oil is not cold-pressed, it is most likely processed by heat and clarifying agents. It is probably solvent-extracted, too.
Best Fats and Oils to Take With Protein Supplements
Flax oil (cold-pressed and kept refrigerated).
Coconut oil (solidifies below 75 degrees). Best for cooking, too.
Butter.
Fish oil (preferably from sources low on the food chain, such as krill).
CLA supplements.
The Latest Story on Eggs
Egg whites are widely acknowledged as a great source of protein. Egg yolks, on the other hand, have a Jekyll and Hyde history that is rather idiotic.
Egg yolks contain cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol is not the evil danger that the brainwashed masses (including medical doctors) believe it is. It is just part of the cholesterol myth that supports the multibillion dollar cholesterol drug industry. No judgment here – drug companies have invested billions of dollars into getting you to believe that cholesterol is a problem and that it can be solved by drugs.
More importantly, egg yolks contain a high level of a particular fatty acid, called arachidonic acid, that your body uses to make certain kinds of hormones. Some of these hormones regulate blood pressure and other cardiovascular functions. Others are highly inflammatory. Too much of them will cause a lot of pain.
The bottom line is that your basic health determines how much of the arachidonic acid from egg yolks goes into the synthesis of inflammatory, pain-causing hormones. It is not the amount of arachidonic acid that you get from egg yolks.
If you want to have a steak and four eggs for breakfast, go ahead. I do so on a regular basis.
Muscle Building vs. Fat Gain
Although this article may seem a little wordy to get the main point across, the information here is important so you can understand how to best use protein supplements for bodybuilding and for just staying lean.
If you want something simple to post on your billboard as a reminder, here are the keys to success:
1. Eat fat and/or oil with your protein shakes.
2. Avoid carbs when you have your protein drinks.
Look very carefully at how the key ingredient from a popular ephedra diet pill product appears on the supplement facts label:
Ephedra extract (25 mg)
This has become a common way for this ingredient to be listed ever since the FDA got involved in regulating the availability of ephedrine. However, this ingredient does not tell you whether it contains ephedrine. Otherwise it would clearly state how much the product actually contains in milligrams. In fact, an ingredient listed this way almost certainly contains no ephedrine at all. The ephedra extract is probably from a species that does not contain actual ephedrine.
The main reason that this is so misleading is that ephedra is a botanical name for about 40 different species of plants. They naturally produce a specific class of natural products called alkaloids. Most of them contain very low levels of alkaloids and little or no ephedrine. This includes all American species.
How to Tell Whether a Product Contains Ephedrine
Of course, one way is to see the amount alkaloid itself, listed in milligrams.
Another way is to see the correct species name, Ephedra sinica, on the ingredients label. This is Chinese ephedra, which is also known as ma huang. Just the word ephedra by itself is not informative.
You may also see Pakastani ephedra (Ephedra gerardiana), which also contains ephedrine. For comparison, the concentration in ma huang can range from 7,300 to more than 16,000 ppm in the green tissues, whereas Pakastani ephedra may get as high as 7,000 ppm.
These data are summarized in the Phytochemical Database by James Duke at the USDA. If you visit his site, you will also notice that Ephedra nevadensis, which is an American species, contains no detectable amount of ephedrine.
How Much Ephedrine Are You Getting?
Aside from the products that contain none, how can you tell the amount of active ingredient in the real thing? The best products will state the amount clearly. If not, then you can estimate the natural concentration. Green tissue (no such thing as typical leaves) will contain about 0.8 percent alkaloids by dry weight. Ephedrine can be as much as 90 percent of the total alkaloids.
As an example, one product states that it contains 167 mg of the aerial parts of Ephedra sinica per capsule. The total alkaloid content would be about 0.8 percent of 167 mg, or 1.34 mg, of which 1.20 mg would be ephedrine itself. The label on this particular product also states that each dose is standardized to contain 10 mg of ephedrine, which is clearly incorrect.
What About Weight Loss Results?
Clinical studies typically used 72 mg or more of total ephedra alkaloids (meaning as much as 65 mg of ephedrine) to induce significant weight loss. Currently it is almost impossible to get such high dosages in the U.S. For this reason, weight loss products offer additional ingredients for increasing metabolism.
The most common metabolism booster is caffeine, which works fine. However, when green tea extract is the source, it offers the added benefit of a compound called EGCG. Research shows that EGCG is a highly active antioxidant that is better for reducing weight than the caffeine itself.
And the Bottom Line Is…
People have successfully used a wide variety of ephedra-containing products for weight reduction. Some of them contain ephedrine and some do not. This just means that no general recommendation will be the best for everyone. Although this may seem unsatisfying, the best advice is simply to experiment to find what works for you.
The range of muscle types from fast twitch to intermediate and slow twitch muscles, plus different compositions of muscle motor units (groups of muscles), forms the foundation for your ideal workout strategies. Fortunately, weightlifting is the core of the most advanced approach based on recent scientific research.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4ad16f40-9b07-46e2-a652-5129959d69b0)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=619bc1b9-fd67-46f0-8f7e-a6bda383471e)
