Showing posts with label aerobic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aerobic. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Optimising Fat Burning on Non-HIIT days
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We can't HIIT all the time, nor can we work steady state at the top end of our aerobic capacit all the time. Our central nervous system would come up and strangle us. That's another word for overtraining. But if we still want to make sure that we're optimizing our non-HIIT time for both endurance capacity and fat mobilization, can we do both at the same time? Outlook looks good that there's a sweet spot for such work in the 60-80% MaxHR zone.
Last week, we looked at a successful protocol for fat mobilization and showed fat loss when comparing steady state to HIIT. We might recall that of the two groups - steady state and HIIT - when there was no other change to regimen (no diet change for instance) only the HIIT group changed BF%, dropping 5 pounds plus of fat over 15 weeks. One would seem to see in this that HIIT is the best approach to get the fat off then, but there is a related question, as authors on a 2009 Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research paper puts it:
The authors also do a really nice job of saying what things impact on fat mobilization, too. Eg, eating carbs before exercise surpresses fat mobilization (hence the Precision Nutrition heuristic to say carb-dense foods for post-workout).
The nice thing is here, that while few of us have access to a metabolic cart (and using one isn't a lot of fun), we can use heart rate instead as a pretty good indicator of fuel type metabolized.
TO calculate Aerobic Zone, the authors used the ACSM measure: 50% of HRR (heart rate reserve) for the lower end, and anaerobic heat rate threshold for the upper end. While Anaerobic threshold is becoming an increasing question of debate (while lactate threshold has been totally toasted), the authors are just using points established by a Body, and testing against these. Good idea. There are known methods to determine AT in the lab - or what passes for tha threshold, so what the heck.
Fat burning zone was determined by watching the gas exchange readings on the cart: as soon as the ratio flipped beyond .7, one is beyond the FBZ.
Here's what the AZ/FBZ's look like:
To cut to the chase, the main result is that
The authors' discussion of these results describes the following observations and potential uses for the findings:
That's potentially great to know for endurance athletes. But what about strength athletes working on their body comp?
Recommendations:
HIIT is generally recommended only a few times a week. And from last week's studies we saw that the bouts are only 15 mins of work long. These ranges are for the benefit of one's central nervous system.
If you still want to do fat burning work on non-HIIT days, or just more work on your HIIT days, it seems that one has a wide range of efforts to play in: 60-80% of MaxHR. So for CARDIO days when you've HIIT yourself to death and your CNS is crying for mercy, you can still do cutting by working in the 60-80% zone. Likewise, if you still have more sauce on HIIT days after 15 mins of work, you might want to add on some effort of steady state at your optimal fat burning zone.
Caveat on 60-80%. That's a heck of a big range. In some interesting reflections on their results, the authors note that we still don't know WHY there is such a range. Dietary practices alone apparently don't account for it. And in this group, we're talking really fit people too, and even in such a closely matched cadre, there was still this rather large range of values for where the OPTIMAL fat mobilization occured.
In other words, there is a LOT we don't know yet about individual variation within fat mobilization. It's not a 1:1 relationship of work this hard and get these results. The best the authors can say is with a 90% result of participants in this range, there's a good probability that work in this range will have the best likelihood of fat mobilization.
Example: Combos Applied.
All caveats considered, I had a note from a person last week responding to the HIIT work saying that he does a similar interval protocol on his bike of the 24/36 protocol doing hills as hard as he can, and then finishes up with 30 mins of work at 70% max heart rate - for him, that's his sweet spot, and fat loss has never been so fast for him as when he hit this combo.
Personally i think this is really cool to see how we can mix and match various optimizations for our goals.
Related Posts
main ref:
Carey, DG (2009). Quantifying Differences in the "Fat Burning" Zone and the Aerobic Zone: Implications For Training Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: , 23 (7), 2090-2095 : 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181bac5c5 Tweet Follow @begin2dig
We can't HIIT all the time, nor can we work steady state at the top end of our aerobic capacit all the time. Our central nervous system would come up and strangle us. That's another word for overtraining. But if we still want to make sure that we're optimizing our non-HIIT time for both endurance capacity and fat mobilization, can we do both at the same time? Outlook looks good that there's a sweet spot for such work in the 60-80% MaxHR zone.Last week, we looked at a successful protocol for fat mobilization and showed fat loss when comparing steady state to HIIT. We might recall that of the two groups - steady state and HIIT - when there was no other change to regimen (no diet change for instance) only the HIIT group changed BF%, dropping 5 pounds plus of fat over 15 weeks. One would seem to see in this that HIIT is the best approach to get the fat off then, but there is a related question, as authors on a 2009 Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research paper puts it:
‘‘Should I exercise at a level that optimizes fat oxidation, or is total caloric expenditure the ultimate determinant of fat loss?’’Surprisingly, this fundamental question has not been answered to date, probably because of the difficulty of precisely controlling caloric intake and expenditure.From the HIIT work, we saw that pushing anaerobically for sprints, and then recovering aerobically was great for fat mobilization. The authors, without unfortunately citing any specifics, suggest that there may be some issues with this conclusion
I'm not sure about that and the authors get away without substantiating that claim that "no definitive conclusion could be reached". Indeed, they rather punt to say that they're not tring to figure out the optimal training intensity for fat loss. Ok, then what are they doing? They want to know
Those studies that have been completed generally have controlled for exercise dose, comparing highintensity, short-duration exercise with low-intensity, longduration exercise of equivalent caloric expenditure. However, nonexercise physical activity and caloric intake were not controlled, and no definitive conclusion could be reached.
Can improvement in aerobic capacity and optimization of fat oxidation be attainedIn other words if you're working out to be able to do more work at a level that is "glycogen spairing" - uses fat for fuel rather than precious muscle and blood sugar - can training to get that effect optimized also connect with fat burning? And so to get at this question, the authors say
simultaneously, or are these objectives distinctly different and require different intensities of training for their attainment?
The purpose of this study is to compare the FBZ [fat burning zone] and AZ [aerobic zone] in a group of competitive endurance athletes (runners). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to directly compare these 2 training zones in the same group of subjects. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to directly compare these 2 training zones in the same group of subjects.As a first step, the authors make clear that it's really straight ahead to see the points at which one goes from using fat as the primary fuel to using sugars. The calcutation looks at the respiratory exchange ratio (RER). For Carbs being 100% of fuel, the RER is 1. For fat, it's .7. This can be tested by hooking a person up to a cart that collects respiratory gasses. Cool.
The authors also do a really nice job of saying what things impact on fat mobilization, too. Eg, eating carbs before exercise surpresses fat mobilization (hence the Precision Nutrition heuristic to say carb-dense foods for post-workout).
The nice thing is here, that while few of us have access to a metabolic cart (and using one isn't a lot of fun), we can use heart rate instead as a pretty good indicator of fuel type metabolized.
TO calculate Aerobic Zone, the authors used the ACSM measure: 50% of HRR (heart rate reserve) for the lower end, and anaerobic heat rate threshold for the upper end. While Anaerobic threshold is becoming an increasing question of debate (while lactate threshold has been totally toasted), the authors are just using points established by a Body, and testing against these. Good idea. There are known methods to determine AT in the lab - or what passes for tha threshold, so what the heck.
Fat burning zone was determined by watching the gas exchange readings on the cart: as soon as the ratio flipped beyond .7, one is beyond the FBZ.
Here's what the AZ/FBZ's look like:
To cut to the chase, the main result is that
for Maximum Fat Oxidation, 32 of the 36 subjects (89.0%) fell in a range of 60.2–80.0% of maximal heart rate.And there is overlap between these two zones:
The authors' discussion of these results describes the following observations and potential uses for the findings:
the upper limit of exercise intensity for FBZ (80.0% max heart rate) is mid-range for the AZ (67.6–87.1% max heart rate). In addition, the upper limit for calories per minute (11.5) for FBZ is mid-range for AZ (9.15–-14.2 cal /min). The upper limit of fat calories per minute for FBZ (3.45) was not significantly different (t = 1.23, p = 0.225) from the lower limit of AZ (3.11). The biggest discrepancy between the 2 zones occurs when comparing fat calories expended at the upper limit of FBZ (3.45 fat cal/min) with the upper limit of AZ (1.68 fat cal/min).If the objective is metabolism of fat calories, training at the upper limits of AZ should not be recommended. If total caloric expenditure is the objective, the upper limits of AZ will be the most efficient.One might think, well there you go: fat mobilization is below the top of the AZ and so back off from that edge. Umm, no, apparently not so fast:
In addition to more calories being expended during exercise, caloric expenditure during recovery from high-intensity exercise is greater than recovery caloric expenditure from low-intensity exercise because of the additional energy requirement of ventilation, restoration of adenosine triphosphate phosphocreatine, replenishment of glycogen stores, and body temperature elevation. Also, prolonged exercise at high intensity, as in marathon running, has shown a gradual decrease in carbohydrate oxidation and gradual increase in fat oxidation as glycogen stores become depleted. If fat calories, and not total calories, were a better predictor of weight control, we would expect endurance athletes, who spend a rather large volume of training above FBZ, to have weight control problems. This is clearly not the case.In other words, almost as with hypertrophy training, volume has a pretty important role to play for fat mobilization, and volume here can be accrued by time. What's this mean: a few weeks ago, we looked at CoQ10's effect on endurance, and there we saw that after repeats of wingates that are pretty carb stealing, the oxidative system kicks in because those carb sources have been depleted. What this seems to suggest is that if you can stand it, working at the AZ top end for long enough will burn out the carbs and push into the fat as primary fuel source out of necessity.
That's potentially great to know for endurance athletes. But what about strength athletes working on their body comp?
Recommendations:
HIIT is generally recommended only a few times a week. And from last week's studies we saw that the bouts are only 15 mins of work long. These ranges are for the benefit of one's central nervous system.
If you still want to do fat burning work on non-HIIT days, or just more work on your HIIT days, it seems that one has a wide range of efforts to play in: 60-80% of MaxHR. So for CARDIO days when you've HIIT yourself to death and your CNS is crying for mercy, you can still do cutting by working in the 60-80% zone. Likewise, if you still have more sauce on HIIT days after 15 mins of work, you might want to add on some effort of steady state at your optimal fat burning zone.
Caveat on 60-80%. That's a heck of a big range. In some interesting reflections on their results, the authors note that we still don't know WHY there is such a range. Dietary practices alone apparently don't account for it. And in this group, we're talking really fit people too, and even in such a closely matched cadre, there was still this rather large range of values for where the OPTIMAL fat mobilization occured.
In other words, there is a LOT we don't know yet about individual variation within fat mobilization. It's not a 1:1 relationship of work this hard and get these results. The best the authors can say is with a 90% result of participants in this range, there's a good probability that work in this range will have the best likelihood of fat mobilization.
Example: Combos Applied.
All caveats considered, I had a note from a person last week responding to the HIIT work saying that he does a similar interval protocol on his bike of the 24/36 protocol doing hills as hard as he can, and then finishes up with 30 mins of work at 70% max heart rate - for him, that's his sweet spot, and fat loss has never been so fast for him as when he hit this combo.
Personally i think this is really cool to see how we can mix and match various optimizations for our goals.
Related Posts
main ref:
Carey, DG (2009). Quantifying Differences in the "Fat Burning" Zone and the Aerobic Zone: Implications For Training Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: , 23 (7), 2090-2095 : 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181bac5c5 Tweet Follow @begin2dig
PDF
Friday, January 15, 2010
CoQ10 (coenzyme q10)- is it worth it - from an athletic perspective
Follow @mcphoo
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In the world of alluring supplements, coq10 feels like a relative new comer. Is it worth considering adding to one's regimen? CoQ10 is being investigated in so many contexts, the following is a consideration of where it's been looked at in athletics to help make a determination as to whether or not it's worth considering for your own regimen. Shaking the magic 8 ball, signs point to Yes, especially as we age.
CoQ10 as a supplement has been around for awhile, has been heavily studied it seems in Japan in particular, where it became a legal food supplement in 2001. The first review on any toxicity seems to have been done only in 2008 (it's "highly safe"). In the west, it's mainly been used in the area of heart conditions, muscular dystrophy and some uses to combat effects of statins (cholesterol drugs). More generally it is being promoted as a free-radical buster (anti-ageing) and as something good for the skin. In Athletics, however, it's mainly been considered as to whether or not it does anything for aerobic power.
Coq10: What is it Where is it and Why is it
Co-enzyme Q10 is produced in the body - everywhere in the body. Hence it's other name: ubiquinone - ubi, latin, everywhere. It's in that amazing cell, the mitochondria. We develop increasing amounts of mitochondria when we do aerobic work over time. Aerobic work means pretty much everything where we aren't sucking wind as aerobic=predominantly oxygen based. Mitochondria is the fat burning engine of the bod y. We develop more of it from aerobic work to help better oxygenate our bodies' processes including energy production. Indeed, CoQ10 is involved in the electron transport chain - a key part of converting fuel into ATP, so it's essential to that conversion process.
The thing about exercise is that the harder the effort, the more free radicals and reactvie oxygen species are produced. There are questions in research right now about how these things contribute to muscle damage experienced as everything from fatigue to DOMS. Since 96, it's been hypothesized that ROS and muscle stress impact coq10 levels in muscle tissue, and somehow this has a negative effect on muscle performance. The complement to this observation of course is that well, let's bring the level of coq10 up with supplementation.
We see similar logic and results operating with creatine to be available for ATP conversion in the high effort early anaerobic short duration phosphagen energy system (discussed in this b2d article on creatine and beta-alanine for aerobic power).
The plus side also of keeping an aerobic system able to work more may also mean that aerobic threshold extends, putting off going anaerobic for fuel - to the speedily available but sparse glycolytic (think carbohydrate) energy system.
Overview of Research on coq10 and Aerobic Effort
Study results have been all over the map in terms of whether More is Better for athletes. The intriguing thing about such studies and results is how the protocols - the way the study was performed - differs. So we can't just say CoQ10 didn't effect aerobic power - we have to ask, under what conditions is the jury still out - where if anywhere is their promise?
Consider a way early study in 1997 of whom some might say are the ultimate aerobic athletes, cross country skiiers. 94% of these elite Finnish team athletes "felt" their performance and recovery was better compared with only 33% on placebo. Beyond the affect, there were also results that showed a not huge but still significant effect on both anaerobic and aerobic groups compared with placebo over 6 weeks of training.
In 2003, there was a 'systemic review' of CoQ10 in physical exercies (hypertension and heart failure, too). The finding was that "six showed a modest improvement in exercise capacity with CoQ10 supplementation [including the one above] but five showed no effect."
Here's an interesting finding about those papers:
In 2005, in what seems an even crappier study for population, took 6 people and over four weeks looked at whether their was an effect. There wasn't. I can't get at the actual study to see how it was run or whether these men with similar vo2max levels for their age (not great).
But here's something recent that seems really interesting. A new (2010) study spent 8 weeks with groups of sedentary guys.
Study Ref: Gökbel, Hakk; Gül, Ibrahim; Belviranl, Muaz; Okudan, Nilsel (2101). The Effects Of Coenzyme Q10 Supplementation on Performance During Repeated Bouts of Supramaximal Exercise in Sedentary Men Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24 (1), 97-102 : 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181a61a50
It's a randomized, double blind kinda set up. Fifteen guys. Here's what was found using wingate tests (those things elsewhere shown to be pretty good for developing mitochondria in 6 mins of effort). The measures are Peak Power, Mean Power and Fatigue index.
The cool thing that the researchers found is that the benefit of the coq10 didn't show up in the coq10 group until the fifth wingate (WT) test.
Let's put this in perspective. Wingates are pretty much your all out sprint for 30 secs. Doing one is hard. Doing 3, is absolutely no fun (what the blokes in the 6min a week trial did). Doing 5? With 2 mins of recovery between each? That's not really what you'd call full recovery. It's a break. And it's hard. Why they decided to do 5 of these gruelling sprints?
The rationale tells us about the hypothesis of what we might see with coq10.
In other words, the reason for the multiple bouts of wingates is, taking it from the top:
Wow. And guess what the researchers saw? See below:
Peak power across the trials continued to go down; fatigue goes up. This isn't particularly surprising. With only two minutes recovery between repeats, one is going to get pooped. But what is rather interiguing is mean power (shown above). Only in the coq10 group, does mean power go up, and this in the fifth trial, from 285.6 6 +/-47.7W to 331.5 +/- 84.3Wcompared
with the baseline exercise session (p less than 0.05).
More intriguingly, when considering that fifth trial peak power, they harken back to previous work. Let me give you the whole thing, because the use of related research to make the case is fascinating, and has implications for one's decision to take coq10 or not. For this, bear in mind the energy system hierarchy, simplified, of phophagen - burns out in about 30 secs; takes about 5 mins to recover. 2 mins recovery before going into another anaerobic interval is not going to recharge that, which means cutting into the glycolytic - sugar stores. Those have about a 3-10min shelf life and at supramaximal, we're talking the shorter end of the scale. Then there's the aerobic, fat burning system.
While these are cool results - especially because they map to the hypothesis of what should be shown in the trial if the model is in the zone of being correct, is that difference in power a really big deal? Maybe indirectly in terms of what it *might* be doing anti-oxidatively.
Here's what the authors say:
What Do these Results Portend?
The interesting thing, i find, about the results, is that, despite the limited effects, there may be especial benefit for athletes as we age. Coq10 levels go down with age - hence the other research that looks at heart disease and skin and anti-oxidation etc. If we see that the effect on aerobic power is from anti-oxidant processes, perhaps that's a good sign in general for enhancing recovery - one of the things that gets more challenging, again, as we age.
Another possibility here is that the coq10 is helping the body make use of fat oxidation longer rather than having to punt to the less abundant resources of the anaerobic system. This result also has benefits for effort and recovery.
One of the things to note is that unlike the previous study on sedentary men, this more recent study took 8 weeks to run, not four, and used a somewhat different (better reasoned) protocol for its supramaximal load reps - timing the effect to be seen when going long enough and hard enough to trigger a more aerobic response, the aerobic being where the mitochondria oxygen burners kick in. Again, the directly observed effect mayn't be great. But it's still statistically significant, and it may be, as one of the grocery chains in the UK claims that "every little helps"
Putting Together the Supplement Package
Last week, b2d presented a review of where creatine and beta-alanine may fit into benefitting aerobic effort by improving ventilatory threshold in particular at sub-maximal efforts and total work done, as well as time to exhaustion.
Coq10 is showing up as benefitting effort in supramaximal efforts - those intense wingates.
The obvious question would be what might the combined effect be for aerobic power across sub to supra efforts?
Dosing of CoQ10?
The usual doses on the shelf of coq10 are either 30 or 100mg. Natural coq10 being usually advised over synthetic for absorption etc. Most of the athletic research averages out around 100mg - none are anywhere as low as 30. In a way that's kind of too bad. I haven't seen in any of these pieces a rationale for the particular amounts of CoQ10 chosen, or for that matter why regular dietary sups are only 30. More is not always better, but all i can point to is that the *limited* effects/benefits shown in the CoQ10 work are all at the 100's-ish levels.
On a website by Dr Ray Shalen, MD, he reports the following personal experience after reviewing the usual uses of CoQ10:
Is it Worth It?
This supplement may be of interest for different reasons to different groups: for those wanting to eek out that wee bit more effort in their training, this may be a complement to that work. For those going off warranty (as a colleague calls hitting over forty) its value may be more in the potential recovery benefit than in direct work.
It's not a cheap supplement, especially at 100mg, and it seems reasonably to need about 2 months of regular use to judge effects. Based on the above toxicity we know harm is in the nil zone (but check with your doctor if you have ANY medical conditions if this is ok or not), so if you think these effects sound good to you, happy trialing. Let me know, please, what you find. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
In the world of alluring supplements, coq10 feels like a relative new comer. Is it worth considering adding to one's regimen? CoQ10 is being investigated in so many contexts, the following is a consideration of where it's been looked at in athletics to help make a determination as to whether or not it's worth considering for your own regimen. Shaking the magic 8 ball, signs point to Yes, especially as we age.CoQ10 as a supplement has been around for awhile, has been heavily studied it seems in Japan in particular, where it became a legal food supplement in 2001. The first review on any toxicity seems to have been done only in 2008 (it's "highly safe"). In the west, it's mainly been used in the area of heart conditions, muscular dystrophy and some uses to combat effects of statins (cholesterol drugs). More generally it is being promoted as a free-radical buster (anti-ageing) and as something good for the skin. In Athletics, however, it's mainly been considered as to whether or not it does anything for aerobic power.
Coq10: What is it Where is it and Why is it
Co-enzyme Q10 is produced in the body - everywhere in the body. Hence it's other name: ubiquinone - ubi, latin, everywhere. It's in that amazing cell, the mitochondria. We develop increasing amounts of mitochondria when we do aerobic work over time. Aerobic work means pretty much everything where we aren't sucking wind as aerobic=predominantly oxygen based. Mitochondria is the fat burning engine of the bod y. We develop more of it from aerobic work to help better oxygenate our bodies' processes including energy production. Indeed, CoQ10 is involved in the electron transport chain - a key part of converting fuel into ATP, so it's essential to that conversion process.
We see similar logic and results operating with creatine to be available for ATP conversion in the high effort early anaerobic short duration phosphagen energy system (discussed in this b2d article on creatine and beta-alanine for aerobic power).
The plus side also of keeping an aerobic system able to work more may also mean that aerobic threshold extends, putting off going anaerobic for fuel - to the speedily available but sparse glycolytic (think carbohydrate) energy system.
Overview of Research on coq10 and Aerobic Effort
Study results have been all over the map in terms of whether More is Better for athletes. The intriguing thing about such studies and results is how the protocols - the way the study was performed - differs. So we can't just say CoQ10 didn't effect aerobic power - we have to ask, under what conditions is the jury still out - where if anywhere is their promise?
Consider a way early study in 1997 of whom some might say are the ultimate aerobic athletes, cross country skiiers. 94% of these elite Finnish team athletes "felt" their performance and recovery was better compared with only 33% on placebo. Beyond the affect, there were also results that showed a not huge but still significant effect on both anaerobic and aerobic groups compared with placebo over 6 weeks of training.
In 2003, there was a 'systemic review' of CoQ10 in physical exercies (hypertension and heart failure, too). The finding was that "six showed a modest improvement in exercise capacity with CoQ10 supplementation [including the one above] but five showed no effect."
Here's an interesting finding about those papers:
Has anything changed since 2003?We identified eleven studies in which CoQ10 was tested for an effect on exercise capacity, six were positive and five showed no effect. Of the six positive trials (Table 1), four were in trained sports persons, athletes, cyclists and skiers, and two involved untrained individuals. Subjects (n = 18 to 28 per study) were given CoQ10, 90 to 100 mg per day for 4 to 8 weeks. Benefits were observed in terms of improved maximum oxygen consumption, averaging 8% (range 3% to 18%) and improved exercise capacity, averaging 13% (range 5% to 33%). Five trials failed to show any statistically significant benefit of CoQ10 (Table 2). Four of these were in trained sports persons and one in untrained individuals. Trials included 10 to 19 subjects and the duration of treatment was four to eight weeks. Dosage and duration of therapy were similar in the two groups of studies.
It is worth noting that whereas all the negative studies were published in peer-reviewed journals, only one of the six positive studies [our skier paper -mc] were published in this way, the other five being published as conference proceedings, probably not peer-reviewed and therefore carried less weight. In conclusion it appears that a modest improvement in exercise capacity may be observed with CoQ10 supplementation but this is not a consistent finding. Inconsistencies in trial results may be due to small numbers of subjects enrolled [in both the showing signs of effect and no signs - mc] and to differences in experimental design. In view of the indication of benefit in some studies, further larger randomised trials in this area are indicated.
In 2005, in what seems an even crappier study for population, took 6 people and over four weeks looked at whether their was an effect. There wasn't. I can't get at the actual study to see how it was run or whether these men with similar vo2max levels for their age (not great).
But here's something recent that seems really interesting. A new (2010) study spent 8 weeks with groups of sedentary guys.
Study Ref: Gökbel, Hakk; Gül, Ibrahim; Belviranl, Muaz; Okudan, Nilsel (2101). The Effects Of Coenzyme Q10 Supplementation on Performance During Repeated Bouts of Supramaximal Exercise in Sedentary Men Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 24 (1), 97-102 : 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181a61a50
It's a randomized, double blind kinda set up. Fifteen guys. Here's what was found using wingate tests (those things elsewhere shown to be pretty good for developing mitochondria in 6 mins of effort). The measures are Peak Power, Mean Power and Fatigue index.
The cool thing that the researchers found is that the benefit of the coq10 didn't show up in the coq10 group until the fifth wingate (WT) test.
Let's put this in perspective. Wingates are pretty much your all out sprint for 30 secs. Doing one is hard. Doing 3, is absolutely no fun (what the blokes in the 6min a week trial did). Doing 5? With 2 mins of recovery between each? That's not really what you'd call full recovery. It's a break. And it's hard. Why they decided to do 5 of these gruelling sprints?
The rationale tells us about the hypothesis of what we might see with coq10.
The WTs 30-second duration was chosen for being sufficiently long, not only for eliciting maximal glycolytic power but also for requiring a good measure of ‘‘glycolytic/anaerobic endurance’’ (10). The WT strongly stimulates both the adenosine triphosphate-phosphocreatine and glycolytic systems (26), and thus activates purine catabolism and lactic acid production (12). In addition, supramaximal anaerobic exercise has been associated with major increase in plasma catecholamine levels [catecholamines, by the way, are important for fat mobilization, and while any action spurs them, the greater the load the greater the release it seems -mc] (36). These factors are the cause of oxidative stress in supramaximal anaerobic exercise.
It has been shown that during WT, performance to be dependent on energy release from both anaerobic and aerobic processes (3,11). It has been suggested that the WT may be used as an exercise task that stimulates both aerobic and anaerobic processes (21). In the previous studies, it has been demonstrated that aerobic contribution in WT is between 19.5 (3) and 27% (28) but during the repeated supramaximal activities aerobic contribution might be increased.
Therefore, in this study, we are planning to investigate the effects of CoQ10, which has been known to effects on aerobic performance. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of oral CoQ10 supplementation on performance during repeated bouts of supramaximal exercise.
In other words, the reason for the multiple bouts of wingates is, taking it from the top:
- coq10 is found in mitochondria
- it is important for converting (oxidizing) fat (it's aerobic energy source) into ATP for energy
- there's some work that shows that repeated wingates start to push into the aerobic energy system more than the carb/sugar based glycolytic (fascinating!) and so
- if the extra coq10 in the mitochondria is going to show up, it will show up by being fatiuge busting in these more aerobic, later repeats, by being able to make more energy availabe when the system goes more oxidative.
Wow. And guess what the researchers saw? See below:
Peak power across the trials continued to go down; fatigue goes up. This isn't particularly surprising. With only two minutes recovery between repeats, one is going to get pooped. But what is rather interiguing is mean power (shown above). Only in the coq10 group, does mean power go up, and this in the fifth trial, from 285.6 6 +/-47.7W to 331.5 +/- 84.3Wcompared
with the baseline exercise session (p less than 0.05).
More intriguingly, when considering that fifth trial peak power, they harken back to previous work. Let me give you the whole thing, because the use of related research to make the case is fascinating, and has implications for one's decision to take coq10 or not. For this, bear in mind the energy system hierarchy, simplified, of phophagen - burns out in about 30 secs; takes about 5 mins to recover. 2 mins recovery before going into another anaerobic interval is not going to recharge that, which means cutting into the glycolytic - sugar stores. Those have about a 3-10min shelf life and at supramaximal, we're talking the shorter end of the scale. Then there's the aerobic, fat burning system.
Bonetti et al. (6) suggested that increase in muscle performance might be due to the antioxidant effect of CoQ10 supplementation and/or its probable action on the central nervous system. There is a direct relationship between the PP and MP: PP is based on the alactic (phosphagen) anaerobic processes and reflects to maximal anaerobic power and MP shows the anaerobic glycolysis rate in muscles (25,32).
[...] In conclusion, the most important effect of CoQ10 supplementation is an increase in MP during the WT5. Increase of the MP during WT5 suggested that contribution of aerobic metabolism was increased during the repeated supramaximal exercises and CoQ10 supplementation increased performance in this type of exercises. Therefore, we concluded that CoQ10 supplementation increases exercise performance, especially anaerobic capacity during repeated bouts of supramaximal exercises. This is the first study investigating the effects of CoQ10 on supramaximal exercises.
While these are cool results - especially because they map to the hypothesis of what should be shown in the trial if the model is in the zone of being correct, is that difference in power a really big deal? Maybe indirectly in terms of what it *might* be doing anti-oxidatively.
Here's what the authors say:
This study suggests that the effects of 8 weeks of CoQ10 supplementation on PP and FI during the 5WTs were limited. Of primary importance, our results demonstrate that CoQ10 supplementation increased MP during the repeated bouts of supramaximal exercise. This increase in MP might be due to antioxidant effect of CoQ10 or contribution of CoQ10 to the aerobic metabolism and increasing of the aerobic contribution caused to amelioration of performance during the repeated bouts of the supramaximal exercises. It means that CoQ10 might be used as an ergogenic aid to increase anaerobic power after its effect clearly exhibited with the further research.An ergogenic aid is just something that helps performance. But note the typical reserved speculativeness of the research claims. (1) The effect is limited and (2) we still don't know exactly what's causing the effect we see in the results.
What Do these Results Portend?
The interesting thing, i find, about the results, is that, despite the limited effects, there may be especial benefit for athletes as we age. Coq10 levels go down with age - hence the other research that looks at heart disease and skin and anti-oxidation etc. If we see that the effect on aerobic power is from anti-oxidant processes, perhaps that's a good sign in general for enhancing recovery - one of the things that gets more challenging, again, as we age.
Another possibility here is that the coq10 is helping the body make use of fat oxidation longer rather than having to punt to the less abundant resources of the anaerobic system. This result also has benefits for effort and recovery.
One of the things to note is that unlike the previous study on sedentary men, this more recent study took 8 weeks to run, not four, and used a somewhat different (better reasoned) protocol for its supramaximal load reps - timing the effect to be seen when going long enough and hard enough to trigger a more aerobic response, the aerobic being where the mitochondria oxygen burners kick in. Again, the directly observed effect mayn't be great. But it's still statistically significant, and it may be, as one of the grocery chains in the UK claims that "every little helps"
Putting Together the Supplement Package
Last week, b2d presented a review of where creatine and beta-alanine may fit into benefitting aerobic effort by improving ventilatory threshold in particular at sub-maximal efforts and total work done, as well as time to exhaustion.
Coq10 is showing up as benefitting effort in supramaximal efforts - those intense wingates.
The obvious question would be what might the combined effect be for aerobic power across sub to supra efforts?
Dosing of CoQ10?
The usual doses on the shelf of coq10 are either 30 or 100mg. Natural coq10 being usually advised over synthetic for absorption etc. Most of the athletic research averages out around 100mg - none are anywhere as low as 30. In a way that's kind of too bad. I haven't seen in any of these pieces a rationale for the particular amounts of CoQ10 chosen, or for that matter why regular dietary sups are only 30. More is not always better, but all i can point to is that the *limited* effects/benefits shown in the CoQ10 work are all at the 100's-ish levels.
On a website by Dr Ray Shalen, MD, he reports the following personal experience after reviewing the usual uses of CoQ10:
The effect from 30 mg is mild, mostly consisting of a slightly higher energy level. The effects become more noticeable with 50 mg. I have taken up to 100 mg in the morning. On this dose, I notice an increase in energy as the day goes on, with an urge to take a long walk or be physically active. There is enhanced focus, motivation, and productivity, along with the desire to talk to people. The 100-mg dose of CoQ10, though, is too much since I feel too energetic and alert even in late evening when I want to slow down and get ready for sleep. I usually do not recommend more than 10 to 50 mg of CoQ10 on a long term basis without medical supervision.Wow again. Personally i've been doing 30mg and haven't noticed a thing - not even mild. Perhaps i work out more than Dr. Shalen and so 30mg is still being attenuated by these training bouts? I may bump it up to 100 for a month or so and see if there's any perceivable effect.
Is it Worth It?
This supplement may be of interest for different reasons to different groups: for those wanting to eek out that wee bit more effort in their training, this may be a complement to that work. For those going off warranty (as a colleague calls hitting over forty) its value may be more in the potential recovery benefit than in direct work.
It's not a cheap supplement, especially at 100mg, and it seems reasonably to need about 2 months of regular use to judge effects. Based on the above toxicity we know harm is in the nil zone (but check with your doctor if you have ANY medical conditions if this is ok or not), so if you think these effects sound good to you, happy trialing. Let me know, please, what you find. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Cardio Workouts with Kettlebells vs VO2max KB workouts
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There's been some discussion on the DD forum of late of what constitutes Cardio workouts, and what are optimal KB routines for cardio. It may be that we need to get our terms agreed. There's a difference between high intensity interval work (like Kenneth Jay's VO2max Protocols, such as the
original, below
and now included in KJ's book, Viking Warrior Conditioning, reviewed here) that has great benefit for the cardio vascular system, and workouts that are considered "cardio" because they themselves work *in* an energy zone that is aerobic (like the Running the Bells routine that can work through a few energy systems)
The goal of this post is to go over
Going beyond that heart rate means that we go anaerobic (without oxygen - which is kinda a misnomer because we're always using oxygen while we're breathing, or we'd be dead in short order). Going anaerobic means that we're taxing other energy systems than the oxidative. Depending on the effort, this is either privileging the glycolytic (the value of carbohydrates) or phosphagen (think creatine as important in this mix).
Aerobic Test. Here's a test to see if you're in that kinda effort if you don't feel like wearing a monitor. Can you keep up a conversation without sucking for air? Why is this a test? If you can talk WHILE doing you're activity, you're in a zone using air predominantly for effort. And that's a state most athletes desire: more work from the oxidative system.
Glycogen Sparing. What all these energy systems have in common is producing energy to enable muscles to contract. Different intensities of effort call upon different systems, but all of them are working to create the compound ATP which enables muscle contractions. As said, the primary fuel for the oxidative system is fat; the primary/preferred fuel for the glycolytic is carbs (sugars). We have more stored fat in our bodies than carbs/sugars. Pinch an inch and you'll see this is so. Sugars get stored mainly in our muscles, blood and liver. Fat is well, everywhere: it surrounds us. So wouldn't it be great if we could push the threshold at which we had to use those precious carbs further off, if we could do more work in fat world than sugar world?
There's several ways that folks work to achieve this. Two are (a) doing cardio work (often also called endurance training) in the aerobic zone in order to build up mitochondria, and (b) doing anaerobic intervals at the VO2Max threshold to keep nudging that threshold further off - to enable the amount of work that can be done in Fat Burning world to be greater before flipping over to tapping into Sugar use. Note the distinction between these two approaches: cardio effort means staying in a heart rate that is aerobic; Vo2Max intervals is anaerobic, meaning we're working the anaerobic systems. *BOTH* have benefit for the cardio system, but only ONE is working out in the aerobic system.
VO2Max. Given the above distinction between anerobic and aerobic efforts, Kenneth Jay's VO2max protocol is NOT a cardio workout per se because its intervals are designed of necessity to be anaerobic (on a heart rate monitor this would look like 85% of maximum). It has great benefit to the CV system because it is working VO2max levels to improve how much work can happen aerobically. It is also focused (and used to be strongly tied with) Lactic Acid threshold work: the higher the VO2max capacity, the greater the ability to process lactic acid. If lactic acid builds up beyond the point it can be used, it gets in the way of ATP production, causing fatigue, cramps and any number of issues that affect performance.
But CV workouts - or workouts that ARE CV oriented usually mean workouts that keep a person in a cv region, 70-80% of MaxHR. That's work.
Aerobic Workouts - Workouts that stay using the Aerobic/Oxidative system. These kinds of workouts are particularly useful if you're goal is to lose weight since they're spending time and energy in the fat burning heart rate range (privileging fat for fuel rather than glucose/lactic acid/phosphates). It's also been argued by folks like Casandra Forsythe and Alwyn Cosgrove that they're also great to do *after* a HIIT session for both recovery and to burn off some of the fat that's been mobilized but not used by the HIIT session itself.
If weight loss is not your goal, some folks suggest you may not need to spend as much time doing CV, as there's a lot of value in HIIT work for endurance/cardio. Even if you are doing weight loss work, according to John Berardi, blending lower rates of cardio into high intensity work is good for balancing calls on our nervous system:
Also, as said above, another benefit of cardio work is to enhance mitochondria. These are the little elements of cells that DO that aerobic energy work with the O2. Going beyond 80% MaxHR - going outside the aerobic zone - has not been seen as optimal for mitochondria focus. My understanding is that there's an hypoxic effect on mitochondria when going anaerobic, and that impacts mitochonrdria hyperplasia (the reproduction of these cells).
Again, mitochondria are key tools for fat burning/fat loss, so developing them is a Good Idea. They're also great for endurance work: more mitochondria, it seems, less lactate production. More mitochondria doesn't mean much enhancement to V02Max. But better V02max doesn't mean necessarily better performance. Isn't that interesting. As George Brooks and Co. put it in Exercise Physiology, if better Vo2max meant better performance, competitions could just be held in labs.
To be as cutting edge as possible, there's some very recent work on SIT or Sprint Interval Training that's shown some interesting mitochondrial effects. I'm still parsing through the study, but the initial claim is that all out sprints against resistance for 30secs (Wingate Test), repeated 3 times (around 500watt power output) three times a week, was equivalent to 40-60 mins at around 120watts 5 days a week.
While this sounds very intriguing, it's important to remember that Wingates are *not* VO2max intervals. VO2max - especially as Kenneth Jay sets them up, are very cadence specific to keep you within the VO2max zone. 85% of MaxHR rather than 80%, for instance of that upper aerobic zone. Wingate/sprints are *all out* efforts that push to the real heart thumping, way past lactate threshold level. They are focused on testing anaerobic rather than aerobic capacity. That means they're hard. Brutal is a word often used to describe them, because they are at the edge of capacity. Folks doing three REPEATS of these three times a week would already need to be in Very Good shape. Incredible shape. I know athletes who after one of these tests are fried for the next day or two - understandably so.
Also, the authors acknowledge that they're not clear on what's going on at this extreme effort space that's causing this particular oxidative adaptation that's only been seen before in ET
So if you're thinking about oxidative benefit, and don't care about personally wanting/needing to burn more fuel to lose weight (the volume of work in this protocol was a tenth the KJoules (calories) burned in the trad ET protocol), and have the capacity to go extreme repeatedly and not collapse (spending the time you would on the bike on a faceplant in the carpet, for instance), this may be an approach for you, but that does seem to mean getting onto a stationary bike rather than swinging a kettlebell since thinking about form while thinking about intensity to get that level of heart pounding may be a bit of a challenge.
Who would want to do this extreme protocol? you may ask. Well, one scenario would be if you're an endurance athlete, putting miles on your body already, reducing time/volume on training may be a plus. Or another scenario: you want to begin competition as an endurance athlete and want to build up that oxidative capacity without putting in the usual training time to get that endurance effect. Right now, transfer of this experiment to practical training is likely largely speculation. The above is very much bleeding edge research. Other labs are looking at other protocols like shorter intervals (thank god), so this is a space to watch.
And just an aside about intervals - there's a real passion in some KB circles for Vo2Max intervals. I mention, just in passing, that some researchers working with elite athletes have shown that 1V02max Session/week is just as beneficial to performance as 3 (nice overview here). So far, to my knowledge, Vo2max KB intervals have not been equally evaluated. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them, or any lack of anecdotal praise, just that they haven't been peer reviewed, so we don't know how they compare with other V02Max methods, or with 1 vs three sessions per week, or or or. Likewise there's a very well sustained critique of intervals as the be-all-end-all of cardio at Lyle McDonald's blog (see this summary of these potsts), in particular how they will fit in with other training. There's also some interesting finds in cycling that show that for sport performance, intervals are great training for well, intervals. So maybe high level steady state has a role, too? Now i'm a passionate interval-er for fat loss and general perfomance, but i'm also open to less or other may be more, too. Just a thought.
Update: The McDonald work is largely a critique of the obsession with HIIT intervals as the main way to lose fat, not a critique of the benefit/effectiveness of intervals per se.
Also important to note that when we talk about "intervals" we aren't ALWAYS talking about VO2Max efforts. Indeed, it seems one doesn't have to work at 100% VO2max, like Kenneth's protocols do, to have an effect on VO2Max, nor are intervals the only way to impact VO2max. Over a 6 week period, people who worked out at 50% of their V02 reserve (a measure of VO2 capacity equivalent to Heart Rate Reserve) had a 10% increase in their VO2Max. This was with steady state and intervals at these intensities. Now, that said, the OPTIMAL impact on VO2Max was the interval group with "near maximal" (at 95% VO2R) effort. Here's the poop:
So HIIT, in any case, has a at least a few roles in heart health, though the benefit is not restricted to having to do super high intensity efforts. Which brings us to the roles of aerobic efforts.
KB's and Cardio
All the above has been pretty much by way of preamble to address the question: what's a great way to do CARDIO work with kettlebells?
By now, it's clear the answer to this question breaks down into two parts, stemming from "what do you mean by cardio?"
Snatches, Swings, Possible Overuse Considerations. On the DD forums, for Cardio (of the steady state/aerobic type) lots of folks have said either do lots of snatches or lots of swings.
Yes that will certainly break a sweat, but that's also very eccentric contraction focused. And if you're powering the down stroke on the swing/snatch, it's lots of overspeed eccentric focused work. That's where the money is, as KJ will tell you.
Now, too much of any one action has historically been shown eventually to lead to problems like RSI, arthritis, joint injury etc. The KB community in the US hasn't been going long enough to correlate such problems - but overuse is overuse - and we only get one body, and we see such overuse problems in other sports, and it might be folly to see KB'ing as any different. What's the equivalent of Tennis Elbow in the KB world?
With respect to eccentric-oriented exercise, a meta study of the research literature around eccentrics shows that they can actually increase insulin resistance. Whether this is the case in KB's overspeed eccentrics, well that hasn't been tested. BUT there are some interesting patterns out there. And just by way of background, again, to stay lean and mean and hormonally sound, insulin resistance is NOT a good thing.
As said, Kenneth maps Rowing and KB (snatching?) as biomechanically similar. I've asked if the overspeed eccentrics of KB snatching as described above mayn't be a distinguishing marker, so am keen to hear back, since if this is a difference, we can't assume rowing = kb'ing.
Variety is the Spice of KB Cardio. So, just a thought - why not think about ways to add a variety of moves for KB cardio rather than focusing on sessions that are eccentric dominant?
If you look at the vids on Tracy's blog, you'll see that as the Queen of Weight Loss with KB's, she goes for that kind of variety: swings, snatches, squats, presses - all mixed up getting good range of motion on the joints rather than over repetition of any one approach. Likewise Mike Mahler's High Octane Cardio (HOC) mixes up kettlebell moves with running, skipping, pull ups. Awesome.
If you feel like paying money to have a collection of some great Cardio/Strength KB routines put together in one nice package that you can follow along, here's a review of an Art of Strength workout, also lots of variety that will keep your heart pumping and give you a solid workout, too.
Update: there's a followup to this integrated intense cardio/resistance blend in a new blog post "does cardio intefere with strength training? how 'bout no?"
Combined of course with some joint mobility like ZHealth drills (what are these?) to balance out joint work for full ROM, add in some NEPA's, and you're rocking. BONUS: Indeed, the new post in the update above has research that shows ROM work supports/enhances strength training. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
There's been some discussion on the DD forum of late of what constitutes Cardio workouts, and what are optimal KB routines for cardio. It may be that we need to get our terms agreed. There's a difference between high intensity interval work (like Kenneth Jay's VO2max Protocols, such as the original, belowand now included in KJ's book, Viking Warrior Conditioning, reviewed here) that has great benefit for the cardio vascular system, and workouts that are considered "cardio" because they themselves work *in* an energy zone that is aerobic (like the Running the Bells routine that can work through a few energy systems)
The goal of this post is to go over
- what it means to be working IN the aerobic or anaerobic zones
- How VO2Max fits into this scheme
- Where aerobic efforts fit in
- where all out anaerobic efforts way beyond VO2max may fit in
- why variety rather than just swings or just snatches (eccentrics) may be important for routines
- some inspiration for rich cardio KB routines
Going beyond that heart rate means that we go anaerobic (without oxygen - which is kinda a misnomer because we're always using oxygen while we're breathing, or we'd be dead in short order). Going anaerobic means that we're taxing other energy systems than the oxidative. Depending on the effort, this is either privileging the glycolytic (the value of carbohydrates) or phosphagen (think creatine as important in this mix).
Aerobic Test. Here's a test to see if you're in that kinda effort if you don't feel like wearing a monitor. Can you keep up a conversation without sucking for air? Why is this a test? If you can talk WHILE doing you're activity, you're in a zone using air predominantly for effort. And that's a state most athletes desire: more work from the oxidative system.
Glycogen Sparing. What all these energy systems have in common is producing energy to enable muscles to contract. Different intensities of effort call upon different systems, but all of them are working to create the compound ATP which enables muscle contractions. As said, the primary fuel for the oxidative system is fat; the primary/preferred fuel for the glycolytic is carbs (sugars). We have more stored fat in our bodies than carbs/sugars. Pinch an inch and you'll see this is so. Sugars get stored mainly in our muscles, blood and liver. Fat is well, everywhere: it surrounds us. So wouldn't it be great if we could push the threshold at which we had to use those precious carbs further off, if we could do more work in fat world than sugar world?
There's several ways that folks work to achieve this. Two are (a) doing cardio work (often also called endurance training) in the aerobic zone in order to build up mitochondria, and (b) doing anaerobic intervals at the VO2Max threshold to keep nudging that threshold further off - to enable the amount of work that can be done in Fat Burning world to be greater before flipping over to tapping into Sugar use. Note the distinction between these two approaches: cardio effort means staying in a heart rate that is aerobic; Vo2Max intervals is anaerobic, meaning we're working the anaerobic systems. *BOTH* have benefit for the cardio system, but only ONE is working out in the aerobic system.
VO2Max. Given the above distinction between anerobic and aerobic efforts, Kenneth Jay's VO2max protocol is NOT a cardio workout per se because its intervals are designed of necessity to be anaerobic (on a heart rate monitor this would look like 85% of maximum). It has great benefit to the CV system because it is working VO2max levels to improve how much work can happen aerobically. It is also focused (and used to be strongly tied with) Lactic Acid threshold work: the higher the VO2max capacity, the greater the ability to process lactic acid. If lactic acid builds up beyond the point it can be used, it gets in the way of ATP production, causing fatigue, cramps and any number of issues that affect performance.
But CV workouts - or workouts that ARE CV oriented usually mean workouts that keep a person in a cv region, 70-80% of MaxHR. That's work.
Aerobic Workouts - Workouts that stay using the Aerobic/Oxidative system. These kinds of workouts are particularly useful if you're goal is to lose weight since they're spending time and energy in the fat burning heart rate range (privileging fat for fuel rather than glucose/lactic acid/phosphates). It's also been argued by folks like Casandra Forsythe and Alwyn Cosgrove that they're also great to do *after* a HIIT session for both recovery and to burn off some of the fat that's been mobilized but not used by the HIIT session itself.
If weight loss is not your goal, some folks suggest you may not need to spend as much time doing CV, as there's a lot of value in HIIT work for endurance/cardio. Even if you are doing weight loss work, according to John Berardi, blending lower rates of cardio into high intensity work is good for balancing calls on our nervous system:
high intensity work stimulates the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) while low intensity work stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).
Also, as said above, another benefit of cardio work is to enhance mitochondria. These are the little elements of cells that DO that aerobic energy work with the O2. Going beyond 80% MaxHR - going outside the aerobic zone - has not been seen as optimal for mitochondria focus. My understanding is that there's an hypoxic effect on mitochondria when going anaerobic, and that impacts mitochonrdria hyperplasia (the reproduction of these cells).Again, mitochondria are key tools for fat burning/fat loss, so developing them is a Good Idea. They're also great for endurance work: more mitochondria, it seems, less lactate production. More mitochondria doesn't mean much enhancement to V02Max. But better V02max doesn't mean necessarily better performance. Isn't that interesting. As George Brooks and Co. put it in Exercise Physiology, if better Vo2max meant better performance, competitions could just be held in labs.
To be as cutting edge as possible, there's some very recent work on SIT or Sprint Interval Training that's shown some interesting mitochondrial effects. I'm still parsing through the study, but the initial claim is that all out sprints against resistance for 30secs (Wingate Test), repeated 3 times (around 500watt power output) three times a week, was equivalent to 40-60 mins at around 120watts 5 days a week.
While this sounds very intriguing, it's important to remember that Wingates are *not* VO2max intervals. VO2max - especially as Kenneth Jay sets them up, are very cadence specific to keep you within the VO2max zone. 85% of MaxHR rather than 80%, for instance of that upper aerobic zone. Wingate/sprints are *all out* efforts that push to the real heart thumping, way past lactate threshold level. They are focused on testing anaerobic rather than aerobic capacity. That means they're hard. Brutal is a word often used to describe them, because they are at the edge of capacity. Folks doing three REPEATS of these three times a week would already need to be in Very Good shape. Incredible shape. I know athletes who after one of these tests are fried for the next day or two - understandably so.
Also, the authors acknowledge that they're not clear on what's going on at this extreme effort space that's causing this particular oxidative adaptation that's only been seen before in ET
While the present study demonstrates the potency of SIT to elicit changes in muscle oxidative capacity and selected metabolic adjustments during exercise that resemble ET, the underlying mechanisms are unclear. From a cell signalling perspective, exercise is typically classified as either 'strength' or 'endurance', with short-duration, high-intensity work usually associated with increased skeletal muscle mass, and prolonged, low- to moderate-intensity work associated with increased mitochondrial mass and oxidative enzyme activity (Baar, 2006). Given the oxidative phenotype that is rapidly up-regulated by SIT, it is possible that metabolic adaptations to this type of exercise could be mediated in part through signalling pathways normally associated with traditional ET.In other words the 02 deficit may be SO HIGH after this effort your body may up-regulate O2 consumption afterwards, which impacts the aerobic system. So it might be the rest intervals during and post the effort where the aerobic ET-like adaptation is occurring. Dunno. Speculation.
So if you're thinking about oxidative benefit, and don't care about personally wanting/needing to burn more fuel to lose weight (the volume of work in this protocol was a tenth the KJoules (calories) burned in the trad ET protocol), and have the capacity to go extreme repeatedly and not collapse (spending the time you would on the bike on a faceplant in the carpet, for instance), this may be an approach for you, but that does seem to mean getting onto a stationary bike rather than swinging a kettlebell since thinking about form while thinking about intensity to get that level of heart pounding may be a bit of a challenge.
Who would want to do this extreme protocol? you may ask. Well, one scenario would be if you're an endurance athlete, putting miles on your body already, reducing time/volume on training may be a plus. Or another scenario: you want to begin competition as an endurance athlete and want to build up that oxidative capacity without putting in the usual training time to get that endurance effect. Right now, transfer of this experiment to practical training is likely largely speculation. The above is very much bleeding edge research. Other labs are looking at other protocols like shorter intervals (thank god), so this is a space to watch.
And just an aside about intervals - there's a real passion in some KB circles for Vo2Max intervals. I mention, just in passing, that some researchers working with elite athletes have shown that 1V02max Session/week is just as beneficial to performance as 3 (nice overview here). So far, to my knowledge, Vo2max KB intervals have not been equally evaluated. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them, or any lack of anecdotal praise, just that they haven't been peer reviewed, so we don't know how they compare with other V02Max methods, or with 1 vs three sessions per week, or or or. Likewise there's a very well sustained critique of intervals as the be-all-end-all of cardio at Lyle McDonald's blog (see this summary of these potsts), in particular how they will fit in with other training. There's also some interesting finds in cycling that show that for sport performance, intervals are great training for well, intervals. So maybe high level steady state has a role, too? Now i'm a passionate interval-er for fat loss and general perfomance, but i'm also open to less or other may be more, too. Just a thought.
Update: The McDonald work is largely a critique of the obsession with HIIT intervals as the main way to lose fat, not a critique of the benefit/effectiveness of intervals per se.
Also important to note that when we talk about "intervals" we aren't ALWAYS talking about VO2Max efforts. Indeed, it seems one doesn't have to work at 100% VO2max, like Kenneth's protocols do, to have an effect on VO2Max, nor are intervals the only way to impact VO2max. Over a 6 week period, people who worked out at 50% of their V02 reserve (a measure of VO2 capacity equivalent to Heart Rate Reserve) had a 10% increase in their VO2Max. This was with steady state and intervals at these intensities. Now, that said, the OPTIMAL impact on VO2Max was the interval group with "near maximal" (at 95% VO2R) effort. Here's the poop:
It should be noted that although interval training groups spend some of their training time at a very high intensity, a similar amount of time is spent at a lower intensity, and therefore the mean intensity of training may not be any higher than that of a continuous training program. In the current study, the interval training group used 5 min each for the work and the recovery phases of the intervals and had an average intensity of 72% HRR, which is slightly less than the 75% HRR of the vigorous [the steady state -mc] group. The work-recovery periods of Helgerud et al.[16] were 4 min at ∼93% HRmax and 3 min at 70% HRmax, for a mean intensity of 83% HRmax in the interval group, whereas one of the continuous groups used 85% HRmax. Warburton et al.[37] used 2 min at 90% HRR and 2 min at 40% HRR for the work and the recovery phases, yielding a mean intensity of 65% HRR in the interval group, and had the continuous training group use 65% HRR. Wisloff et al.[38] used 4-min work phases at ∼93% HRmax and 3-min recovery phases at 60% HRmax, for a mean intensity of 79% HRmax in the interval group, and used ∼73% HRmax in the continuous training group. Despite the similarity of mean intensity between the interval and the continuous training groups, the interval groups in all of these studies experienced greater improvements in aerobic fitness after training. Therefore, although intensity is a key variable in cardiorespiratory training (as shown by comparing the two continuous training groups in this study), the mean intensity may not be as important as the highest intensity that is used for a significant portion of the training. A topic for future research is to determine what portion of training should be done at high intensities and using what work-recovery periods to obtain the greatest results [emphasis -mc].And another interesting find in support of high intensity intervals - though again not necessarily VO2max (no info in the study on that point), is a recent study on rowing (an activity that KJ argues is similar to KB'ing). It shows that doing endurance work is actually pretty important if doing resistance work for the heart - to keep it elastic (endurance benefit) rather than thickening it (effect of heavy resistance work). Their rowers, they said, did 65% of their work at "high-intensity" - though that's not further defined. The conclusion is, "Our results suggest that simultaneously performed endurance training may negate the stiffening effects of strength training."
So HIIT, in any case, has a at least a few roles in heart health, though the benefit is not restricted to having to do super high intensity efforts. Which brings us to the roles of aerobic efforts.
KB's and Cardio
All the above has been pretty much by way of preamble to address the question: what's a great way to do CARDIO work with kettlebells?By now, it's clear the answer to this question breaks down into two parts, stemming from "what do you mean by cardio?"
- If your goal is to improve the max amount of oxygen you can use before going anaerobic, you're likely doing ANAEROBIC intervals for VO2Max training to have the side effect of increasing AEROBIC work capacity by pushing out out the VO2Max threshold
- If your goal is to enhance mitochondrial density to improve oxidative capacity for energy/endurance and/or for fat burning, you'll likely want to be doing work in the CARDIO/AEROBIC zone throughout the workout
Snatches, Swings, Possible Overuse Considerations. On the DD forums, for Cardio (of the steady state/aerobic type) lots of folks have said either do lots of snatches or lots of swings.
Yes that will certainly break a sweat, but that's also very eccentric contraction focused. And if you're powering the down stroke on the swing/snatch, it's lots of overspeed eccentric focused work. That's where the money is, as KJ will tell you.
Now, too much of any one action has historically been shown eventually to lead to problems like RSI, arthritis, joint injury etc. The KB community in the US hasn't been going long enough to correlate such problems - but overuse is overuse - and we only get one body, and we see such overuse problems in other sports, and it might be folly to see KB'ing as any different. What's the equivalent of Tennis Elbow in the KB world?
With respect to eccentric-oriented exercise, a meta study of the research literature around eccentrics shows that they can actually increase insulin resistance. Whether this is the case in KB's overspeed eccentrics, well that hasn't been tested. BUT there are some interesting patterns out there. And just by way of background, again, to stay lean and mean and hormonally sound, insulin resistance is NOT a good thing.
As said, Kenneth maps Rowing and KB (snatching?) as biomechanically similar. I've asked if the overspeed eccentrics of KB snatching as described above mayn't be a distinguishing marker, so am keen to hear back, since if this is a difference, we can't assume rowing = kb'ing.
Variety is the Spice of KB Cardio. So, just a thought - why not think about ways to add a variety of moves for KB cardio rather than focusing on sessions that are eccentric dominant?
If you look at the vids on Tracy's blog, you'll see that as the Queen of Weight Loss with KB's, she goes for that kind of variety: swings, snatches, squats, presses - all mixed up getting good range of motion on the joints rather than over repetition of any one approach. Likewise Mike Mahler's High Octane Cardio (HOC) mixes up kettlebell moves with running, skipping, pull ups. Awesome.
If you feel like paying money to have a collection of some great Cardio/Strength KB routines put together in one nice package that you can follow along, here's a review of an Art of Strength workout, also lots of variety that will keep your heart pumping and give you a solid workout, too.
Update: there's a followup to this integrated intense cardio/resistance blend in a new blog post "does cardio intefere with strength training? how 'bout no?"
Combined of course with some joint mobility like ZHealth drills (what are these?) to balance out joint work for full ROM, add in some NEPA's, and you're rocking. BONUS: Indeed, the new post in the update above has research that shows ROM work supports/enhances strength training. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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