Showing posts with label hypertrophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hypertrophy. Show all posts
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Hypoxia for Muscle Growth: Get Huge or Die?
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A recently accepted paper shows that working in an oxygen deprived environment can gosh darn it, build muscle when doing resistance work. WHile jokes might start about the variety of ways that one could replicate a near-asphyxiated space - from smoking to putting a plastic bag (with some holes) over one's head - i'm thinking that in the case of resistance training (as opposed to altitude/endurance where there's a definite blood/muscle adaptation), based on the findings, we're maybe seeing predictably heightened threat response brought on by 02 deprivation. Here's a look at the study in detail:
What is it with Japanese research and oxygen deprivation? They bring us the most amazing results of occlusion training (b2d discussion here). Now, how about whole body oxygen occlusion?
Some may argue that this seems to be similar to training at altitude, where the benefits are known. Indeed, the authors use a system that's used to generate Everest-like conditions, funnily enough called an "everest generator" and for 5K you can have one, too (shown left).
Thing is, this technique is most often used for endurance athletes (and we've also seen in cycling for instance blood doping associated cases of EPO enriched/adapted blood), and apparently the usual oxygen depletion levels are 20.9% o2 - with associated increased risks of overtraining. Here, in this resistance training study, the researchers use 13ish% o2.
Another unique aspect of this hypoxia study is it's the first time (to my knowledge anyway) researchers have formally looked at effects on resistance training - anaerobic effort as opposed to aerobic effort.
The Rationale: it IS occlusion training. The authors do indeed say yup well, LOW INTENSITY resistance training and partial occlusion has great effect, so how about "systemic hypoxia" - It's the next logical step, isn't it?
Set Up. 10 reps of bench and squat at 70% of tested 1RM in either normal room air or 13% O2. I'm only able to guess that 13% is some standard definition of "acute hypoxia" conditions that are still safe.
The authors alas don't formally justify either why they were going for this percentage or why this definitely NOT low resistance level (like occlusion training uses) was used.
All sorts of Measures. The purpose of the trials were so the researchers will have
And what all the lads love to hear: serum GH - significantly higher in the hypoxia case (potentially triggered, the researchers suppose by increased catecholamine release) Likewise IGF and of course yes the big T, testosterone. But so does cortisol.
And for those trying to burn fat? Not surprisingly to folks who see the world through the nervous system threat/no threat lense, those wonderful fight or flight catecholamines are of course elevated, too. These are the things that help fat mobilisation (discussed here in this b2d piece on HIIT). So gosh, let's see - challenge trying to breath - i'd say that's going to be perceived as a threat to one's system?
So What's Different (than occlusion training)?
The authors suggest that while occlusion training has shown greater muscle growth, they haven't really known why. They put it down to the increased levels of GH noted in occlusion training at LOW REPS. Here they're saying
What they say their specific results also suggest is that IGF-1 may be indedpendent of GH levels. In other words, something else is going on to get a boost in IGF-1 than the presence of GH.
Likewise, they suggest that increases in serum testosterone may have more to do with intensity and muscle mass than "metabolic stress" - like hypoxia.
As for cortisol, another fight or flight hormone, that's also a known biproduct of resistance training. The researchers say they just don't know what the mechanism is such that these levels are particularly higher in this trial. Well heck, again, threat-related hormone; gonna asphixiate. Dunno. seems predictable when seen from that vantage?
Not Normal. The threat hormones did not return to normal levels within an hour after the trials either. Is that good? Not clear, but if overtraining is related to stressing they system, threatening it more than it can handle perhaps, then it's reasonable to see why this kind of training may need to be far more closely monitored for overtraining effects.
Openning New Doors. The biggest outcome it seems right now is the possible relationship of hypoxia to GH - at least in the authors' view:
hypoxic environment in anaerobic work like resistance training - hence the term anaerobic - so it's interesting to see therefore that the hypoxic effect seems to be perhaps on the recovery - where we usually pause between sets to catch our breath and re-oxygenate. Here, in this o2 deprived envrionment, that can't happen. Hence lactate it seems to me goes up. And GH switches in.
Why, when the nervous system might be percieved to be under threat, would the nervous system/brain see this as a good time to, er, grow? (For a review of the systems that get shut down under stress, see this overview of Zebras and Baboons and Stress.)
Again, what these researchers don't seem to clue into is that growth hormone is apparently known to be triggered by stress (and here's a pdf from 76 about how kind of cool this is, where only 1/3 of the sample group was shown to have this particular stress/GH release response). It's role this work shows, is not just to grow the body, but the brain. Is that what's going on? I'm about to die; i suddenly need a bigger brain?
Ramdoc, over at the dragondoor forum (thank you), made the intriguing connexion that GH is related to insulin. Here's 2005 paper outlining the human GH/insulin homeostasis, and that bigger hits of GH lead to a hyperinsulinism - elevated levels of insulin in the bloodstream. That's gonna trigger a temporary blood glucose surge. So if increased GH relates to a rush of glucose to the bloodstream, that certainly would have a survival effect. More fast energy, that means more ATP, more muscle can be recruited, more speed, steve. Cool.
We're about to Die; Let's get Huge?
Well who'd have thought even to test the effects of cutting off c
irculation to see what would happen to our bodies?
I suppose it's an interesting idea - take a process like anaerobic metabolism and string it out to see if by seeing what happens in a less natural environment, we get some better view into a natural environment. And heck, some folks might turn that practice into a way to rehab and train folks.
The responses seen in this environment - a big fat rush of fight or flight related responses - seem pretty predictable. That there's a positive payoff FROM that stress after the event is interesting: survive and get faster, stronger. Recovery means anabolism: more muscle, continued performance improvement. And who knows? Maybe a bigger smarter brain?
But in terms of pushing this principle that's being expressed in the large in this oxygen deprived space? The biggie that those stress levels don't go back to normal in normal time is a reminder that hypoxia work may just be super stressful to our CNS even if we mayn't perceive that directly ourselve - and this study doesn't tell us if it collected any of the athletes' responses to the protocol.
In the meantime, for those who are curious, how would one try this at home without an Hypoxia Generator? The mind reels at the possibilities.
Related Posts
A recently accepted paper shows that working in an oxygen deprived environment can gosh darn it, build muscle when doing resistance work. WHile jokes might start about the variety of ways that one could replicate a near-asphyxiated space - from smoking to putting a plastic bag (with some holes) over one's head - i'm thinking that in the case of resistance training (as opposed to altitude/endurance where there's a definite blood/muscle adaptation), based on the findings, we're maybe seeing predictably heightened threat response brought on by 02 deprivation. Here's a look at the study in detail:
Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2009 Dec 14. [Epub ahead of print]
Effects of Acute Hypoxia on Metabolic and Hormonal Responses to Resistance Exercise.
Kon M, Ikeda T, Homma T, Akimoto T, Suzuki Y, Kawahara T.
1Department of Sports Sciences, Japan Institute of Sports Sciences, 3-15-1 Nishigaoka, Kita, Tokyo, 115-0056, Japan; 2Laboratory of Regenerative Medical Engineering, Center for Disease Biology and Integrative Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
INTRODUCTION:: Several recent studies have shown that resistance exercise combined with vascular occlusion effectively causes increases in muscular size and strength. Researchers speculated that the vascular occlusion-induced local hypoxia may contribute to the adaptations via promoting anabolic hormone secretions stimulated by local accumulation of metabolic subproducts. Here we examined whether acute systemic hypoxia affects metabolic and hormonal responses to resistance exercise. METHODS:: Twelve male subjects participated in two experimental trials: 1) resistance exercise while breathing normoxic air [normoxic resistance exercise (NR)], 2) resistance exercise while breathing 13 % oxygen [hypoxic resistance exercise (HR)]. The resistance exercises (bench-press and leg-press) consisted of 10 repetitions for five sets at 70 % of maximum strength with 1-min rest between sets. Blood lactate, serum growth hormone (GH), epinephrine (E), norepinephrine (NE), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), testosterone, and cortisol concentrations were measured before normoxia and hypoxia exposures, 15-min after the exposures, and at 0, 15, 30, 60 min after the exercises. RESULTS:: Lactate significantly increased after exercises in both trials (p < style="color: rgb(153, 51, 0);">These findings suggest that resistance exercise in hypoxic condition caused greater accumulation of metabolites, and strong anabolic hormone response.
What is it with Japanese research and oxygen deprivation? They bring us the most amazing results of occlusion training (b2d discussion here). Now, how about whole body oxygen occlusion?
Some may argue that this seems to be similar to training at altitude, where the benefits are known. Indeed, the authors use a system that's used to generate Everest-like conditions, funnily enough called an "everest generator" and for 5K you can have one, too (shown left).Thing is, this technique is most often used for endurance athletes (and we've also seen in cycling for instance blood doping associated cases of EPO enriched/adapted blood), and apparently the usual oxygen depletion levels are 20.9% o2 - with associated increased risks of overtraining. Here, in this resistance training study, the researchers use 13ish% o2.
Another unique aspect of this hypoxia study is it's the first time (to my knowledge anyway) researchers have formally looked at effects on resistance training - anaerobic effort as opposed to aerobic effort.
The Rationale: it IS occlusion training. The authors do indeed say yup well, LOW INTENSITY resistance training and partial occlusion has great effect, so how about "systemic hypoxia" - It's the next logical step, isn't it?
Set Up. 10 reps of bench and squat at 70% of tested 1RM in either normal room air or 13% O2. I'm only able to guess that 13% is some standard definition of "acute hypoxia" conditions that are still safe.
The authors alas don't formally justify either why they were going for this percentage or why this definitely NOT low resistance level (like occlusion training uses) was used.
All sorts of Measures. The purpose of the trials were so the researchers will have
examined the effects of resistance exercise on metabolic and hormonal responses under acute systemic hypoxia. We hypothesized that the resistance exercise in hypoxic condition would cause greater accumulation of metabolic subproducts, and greater responses of anabolic hormones.To this end, a lot of measures were taken of muscle oxidation, hormones, fuel produced (like lactate). As the abstract says, blood lactate levels were significantly higher in the hypoxia trial than in the normal air trial. This isn't much of a surprise, given that lactate tends to kick in as it gets harder for the body to oxidize fuel in the mitochondria. A goal of Vo2max training (like viking warrior conditioning, reviewed here) is to increase the lactate threshold - the level of effort and time before which bi products of lactate production (H+ ions) can no longer be buffered out of the blood.
And what all the lads love to hear: serum GH - significantly higher in the hypoxia case (potentially triggered, the researchers suppose by increased catecholamine release) Likewise IGF and of course yes the big T, testosterone. But so does cortisol.
And for those trying to burn fat? Not surprisingly to folks who see the world through the nervous system threat/no threat lense, those wonderful fight or flight catecholamines are of course elevated, too. These are the things that help fat mobilisation (discussed here in this b2d piece on HIIT). So gosh, let's see - challenge trying to breath - i'd say that's going to be perceived as a threat to one's system?
So What's Different (than occlusion training)?
The authors suggest that while occlusion training has shown greater muscle growth, they haven't really known why. They put it down to the increased levels of GH noted in occlusion training at LOW REPS. Here they're saying
In the present study, we revealed that systemic hypoxia was actually associated with greater GH response to resistance exercise for the first time. The hypoxia may play a key role in the low intensity resistance training with vascularInteresting that systemic hypoxia is being used to understand the mechanisms of a more local phenomena like Kaatsu cuffing.
occlusion-induced muscular hypertrophy
What they say their specific results also suggest is that IGF-1 may be indedpendent of GH levels. In other words, something else is going on to get a boost in IGF-1 than the presence of GH.
Likewise, they suggest that increases in serum testosterone may have more to do with intensity and muscle mass than "metabolic stress" - like hypoxia.
As for cortisol, another fight or flight hormone, that's also a known biproduct of resistance training. The researchers say they just don't know what the mechanism is such that these levels are particularly higher in this trial. Well heck, again, threat-related hormone; gonna asphixiate. Dunno. seems predictable when seen from that vantage?
Not Normal. The threat hormones did not return to normal levels within an hour after the trials either. Is that good? Not clear, but if overtraining is related to stressing they system, threatening it more than it can handle perhaps, then it's reasonable to see why this kind of training may need to be far more closely monitored for overtraining effects.
Openning New Doors. The biggest outcome it seems right now is the possible relationship of hypoxia to GH - at least in the authors' view:
... it is necessary to investigate whether hypoxic exposure plays an important role for the expressions of genes involving muscular hypertrophy in the future...Our data suggest that hypoxia is a potent factor for the enhancements of anabolic hormone (GH) response to resistanceWhy when fleeing the Tiger does GH turn on? Intriguingly, we already induce a kind of
hypoxic environment in anaerobic work like resistance training - hence the term anaerobic - so it's interesting to see therefore that the hypoxic effect seems to be perhaps on the recovery - where we usually pause between sets to catch our breath and re-oxygenate. Here, in this o2 deprived envrionment, that can't happen. Hence lactate it seems to me goes up. And GH switches in.Why, when the nervous system might be percieved to be under threat, would the nervous system/brain see this as a good time to, er, grow? (For a review of the systems that get shut down under stress, see this overview of Zebras and Baboons and Stress.)
Again, what these researchers don't seem to clue into is that growth hormone is apparently known to be triggered by stress (and here's a pdf from 76 about how kind of cool this is, where only 1/3 of the sample group was shown to have this particular stress/GH release response). It's role this work shows, is not just to grow the body, but the brain. Is that what's going on? I'm about to die; i suddenly need a bigger brain?
Ramdoc, over at the dragondoor forum (thank you), made the intriguing connexion that GH is related to insulin. Here's 2005 paper outlining the human GH/insulin homeostasis, and that bigger hits of GH lead to a hyperinsulinism - elevated levels of insulin in the bloodstream. That's gonna trigger a temporary blood glucose surge. So if increased GH relates to a rush of glucose to the bloodstream, that certainly would have a survival effect. More fast energy, that means more ATP, more muscle can be recruited, more speed, steve. Cool.
We're about to Die; Let's get Huge?
Well who'd have thought even to test the effects of cutting off c
irculation to see what would happen to our bodies?I suppose it's an interesting idea - take a process like anaerobic metabolism and string it out to see if by seeing what happens in a less natural environment, we get some better view into a natural environment. And heck, some folks might turn that practice into a way to rehab and train folks.
The responses seen in this environment - a big fat rush of fight or flight related responses - seem pretty predictable. That there's a positive payoff FROM that stress after the event is interesting: survive and get faster, stronger. Recovery means anabolism: more muscle, continued performance improvement. And who knows? Maybe a bigger smarter brain?
But in terms of pushing this principle that's being expressed in the large in this oxygen deprived space? The biggie that those stress levels don't go back to normal in normal time is a reminder that hypoxia work may just be super stressful to our CNS even if we mayn't perceive that directly ourselve - and this study doesn't tell us if it collected any of the athletes' responses to the protocol.
In the meantime, for those who are curious, how would one try this at home without an Hypoxia Generator? The mind reels at the possibilities.
Related Posts
- Threat response - movement
- Catecholamines release in HIIT
PDF
Saturday, October 17, 2009
The Pump: What is it, Does it Work and if so How and for What Kind of Muscle Growth?
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Ahnold reportedly loved "the pump" but what is the "pump" really in terms of muscle building? While it's easy to explain both what happens in 
generating a pump, and how to create a pump - it's delightfully easy - it's hard to find any evidence behind the incredible claims about why this effect is said to be "essential" to achieving growth.
What is the Pump and How Get One?
Generally speaking the pump is the feeling one gets when pushing more blood into the muscle faster than it will flow out, so for a short time, until it does flow back out to a normal level, the muscle is all "pumped" up, and feels HUGE. This is also where a lot of folks get into nitric oxide products in an effort to extend the effects of the pump. Intriguingly, nitric oxide in studies has only been shown to preserver muscle not help it grow. But that's an aside.
Getting a pump is fun. It's something i've been playing with on my arms after a hard strength workout. I drop the weight to the 12RM weight and do a couple of fast sets (perfect form of course), and then, i'll go to a 20RM for one or two sets of different curls and may only do partials to really get the sweet spot. Bi's one way; tri's the other. What fun! And whip out that measuring tape. Goodness, isn't that remarkable! Strike the pose and take the picture, you bet.
Lack of Pump = Fatigue?
Now all the above does sound easy, but apparently there are times when the pump doesn't seem to be happening. Lonnie Lowery talks about this and suggests, beyond a few high rep 20 sets, making sure the potassium levels are good, and that you're warm not cold (easier vasodilation perhaps) is a good thing. Back off periods and basic carb availability are all good too. Carbs afterall help hold fluid. In fact Lowery has a whole diet here.
Interestingly, Lowery's not making any claims it seems about whether the pump actually helps muscle building or not; he's just saying it's a really nice motivating thing to have: to be able to get HUGE. What's more interesting is Lowery's correlation to lack of getting a pump as a sign of fatigue. Hence his mainly recovery and dietary advice to get that pump back. interesting.
So is this wonderful feeling contributing to muscle growth?
Muscle Hypertrophy 101: the types of muscle hypertrophy
So let's back up a bit. What is muscle growth? We
know that there are usually two kinds discussed: sarcoplasmic - the tissue/fluids surrounding muscle fibers - and myofibral - the fibers of the muscles themselves getting bigger due to myofibral growth around the fibers.
It has been argued that power type training privileges myofibril hypertrophy and "hypertrophy" strength training privileges sarcoplasmic - what some folks see as fake hypertrophy because it is non-strength aiding growth of the sarcoplasm of the muscle. This assessment may be a bit cruel. It's actually very hard to get one kind of growth without the other occurring as well. All i'm saying is that different types of strength training may privilege one form over the other, but both will occur. And a good thing too. Myofibral growth demands some adaptation of the sarcomers to support them, too.
Ok, in either case, to the best of our knowledge (because there's a LOT we don't know about hypertrophy) what causes muscles to grow? Forcing them to respond to new demands. If there's no need to adapt do they adapt? well, no.
And this is why if one does the same routine forever, the body doesn't change. Folks talk about plateaus. So, we usually use load or volume or a combination of both to create the conditions for adaptation.
Occlusion
Now interestingly, there is work on muscle growth (the strength kind) that has been shown to occur from something called occlusion training. This is where bloodflow is restricted around a limb, and far lighter weights are then used for reps. Intriguingly growth happens.
Ok, so now that we have some background on muscle growth, let's look at how The Pump has been described to help muscle growth
The Pump - per se.
Let's take a look at how the Pump is described to contribute to muscle growth first. An un-cited article on bodybuilding.com by "muscleTech" puts it this way:
Alas, no sources in the article to support these assertions.
Another theory of the pump expressed by Jeff Anderson is that the pump actually privileges slow twitch muscle fibers. That makes sense for two reasons: lots of low weight reps is moving into endurance world, which means oxidative capacity, aerobic energy rather than anaerobic capacity/ernergy. So Mr. Anderson says that by constantly pushing blood into these fibers, the fibers themseleves adapt to hold more blood. That means more capillaries in the fibers to help shunt the blood more effectively, and they're going to be rather densely packed as their numbers go up.
So you get the sense from this explanation that size noticed to hold more blood more of the time is going to make the muscle appear larger. Sarcoplasmic kind of growth?
Here's why i go more for Mr. Anderson's than MuscleTech's explanation. Our tissues are always adapting. If you squish more into them, they'll start to enlarge. So that's kinda funny - it's adding fluid (blood etc) into the muscle, but not increasing the number of myofibrils. So that doesn't sound like a strength gain; sounds more sarcoplasmic.
The Pump: can we get some science in here? Not easily.
The pump seems to work with two sides of something called hyperemia - active and reactive. The active one is caused by muscle contraction - do that a lot in exercise, eh? - which causes blood to congest in an area. Then there's reactive hyperemia - where blood that's supposed to get out is blocked - like there's a tourniquet causing yup, occlusion.
So, if there's occlusion, that means that blood is kinda stuck somewhere. That doesn't sound like blood is getting forced through to clear out "muscle toxins" or to induce the other popular concept of "muscle flushing" - sounds like it's getting stuck and stale.
If we look at "hyperemia" & "resistance training" in the science literature, we don't find stuff about muscle building. The kind of literature that's there is about the degree to which different kinds of training enhance the flow of blood or the dilation of the arteries. In other words, we generally apparently want to reduce reactive hyperemia.
Now while i've seen claims that moderate rep schemes are "are optimal to build muscle mass " because in part they "Enhances cellular hydration — greater muscle pump (called "reactive hyperemia") drives plasma and water to muscle which stimulates protein synthesis and inhibits proteolysis (protein breakdown)." i can't find any sources that explain that plasma and water driven to a muscle stimulates protein synthesis. We do know is that protein stimulates muscle synthesis. And we know that insulin stimulates protein synthesis and glucose stimulates protein synthesis. So maybe if there's all that stuff in plasma, yes we have protein synthesis stimulation. But that seems to happen whether we have high or low rep training. But again, is more more?
An Idea: the Pump Works Like Occlusion?
Mr. Anderson above proposes that the pump mainly effects slow twitch oxidative fibers because of capilarization (no strength; just mass). Dr. Lowery suggests that not being able to get a pump is a sign of fatigue - this i think is important. BUT if we look at occlusion training (which reactive hyperemia seems to be a type), then the pump should also be affecting both fast and slow twitch fibers' myofibral growth. Occlulusion, it seems, may indeed get fast twitch fibers involved more directly than without occlusion - that's a theory. Since we also see in low load occlusion training effects on strength: it goes up. SO is this kind of self-occlusion with self-selected low resistance weights to induce the effect having the same effect as a cuff? Could be - as per this review.
So, what about that pump?
Proposal 1: more is more: As far as i can tell, the suggestions are that it's supposed to help circulate good stuff in by vasodilateion, and then get the stale stuff out. Now for me - based on what i know - this seems the weakest case since we're not talking about steady blood flow in and out with the pump, but "reactive hyperemia" which means that blood is pumped in, and it can't get out again for a good half hour. There's no "flushing" if that's the case is there? Dave Barr talks about the "anabolic pump" - but again, i can't find this in the literature.
Proposal 2: bulking up with fluid. The other proposal that anderson suggests - and i'm not sure where he gets it from, but seems to make sense, is that pushing a lot of blood into the veins - especially of slow twitch fibers - is going to cause the fibers that hold the blood to adapt - get thicker, more and denser capillaries (the little gates that open for blood to flow in but not back out). SO that's just bulking up - what most folks talk about as sarcoplasmic type hypertrophy - but this seems even more particular as it's strictly related to blood volume taking up more room.
Proposal 3: occlusion causing real muscle fiber change - or not. What makes more sense to me is a combo of this adaptation of capillaries AND actual fiber change potentially caused by self-occlusion. BUT folks like Chad Waterbury, respected strength coach, are very skeptical of the pump and any correlation to muscle gain.
Maybe, Maybe Not, It depends
As said, there's a lot that remains unknown about the whys and hows of hypertrophy. The role of the pump seems to be just as really clearly ambiguous as to whether or not it aids hypertrophy or not.
I like the correlation Lowery seems to make implicitly between achieving the pump and fatigue. That seems useful.
For myself, right now, it's fun to play with a pump well after i've completed the hard work of the strength workouts i'm doing. Whether it's doing anything functional or not, i dunno, but since there seems *some* sense to it, i'm willing to give it a bit of a go - for now.
And so... The above is not meant as an exhaustive overview of all things to do with the pump - it's just what i could find by a couple day's digging. IF there are studies that you know of that support or study the pump with respect to muscle hypertrophy, please add a comment. Will be keen to hear.
I wonder too if a study that took the same kind of athletes and one did a regular routine and the other finished with pump sets and the other didn't if that would be conclusive or that one would just say - well they other group did a bit more volume. I suppose one could vary the loads or reps. But it would be interesting to see some kind of work.
Also, i do know that just because it hasn't been researched doesn't mean there's not an effect, but as per that first "explanation" of why the pump works - supposedly - for hypertrophy - if one is going to provide physiological rationales for an effect, please just point to the mechanisms that have been shown to result in these effects - it has to be sourced somewhere. And if not, well, the best we can say is that, in some cases, there seems to be a strong correlation between pumping and hypertrophy - either sarcoplasmic or myofibral - what that mechanism is - pretty much unknown at the moment.
Again - this is just the best i can do right now to make sense of this concept. If you have more information/sources, please share.
Thanks
Related Posts:
Citations:
Wernbom M, Augustsson J, & Raastad T (2008). Ischemic strength training: a low-load alternative to heavy resistance exercise? Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 18 (4), 401-16 PMID: 18466185
Loenneke, J., & Pujol, T. (2009). The Use of Occlusion Training to Produce Muscle Hypertrophy Strength and Conditioning Journal, 31 (3), 77-84 DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0b013e3181a5a352 Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Ahnold reportedly loved "the pump" but what is the "pump" really in terms of muscle building? While it's easy to explain both what happens in generating a pump, and how to create a pump - it's delightfully easy - it's hard to find any evidence behind the incredible claims about why this effect is said to be "essential" to achieving growth.What is the Pump and How Get One?
Generally speaking the pump is the feeling one gets when pushing more blood into the muscle faster than it will flow out, so for a short time, until it does flow back out to a normal level, the muscle is all "pumped" up, and feels HUGE. This is also where a lot of folks get into nitric oxide products in an effort to extend the effects of the pump. Intriguingly, nitric oxide in studies has only been shown to preserver muscle not help it grow. But that's an aside.
Getting a pump is fun. It's something i've been playing with on my arms after a hard strength workout. I drop the weight to the 12RM weight and do a couple of fast sets (perfect form of course), and then, i'll go to a 20RM for one or two sets of different curls and may only do partials to really get the sweet spot. Bi's one way; tri's the other. What fun! And whip out that measuring tape. Goodness, isn't that remarkable! Strike the pose and take the picture, you bet.
Lack of Pump = Fatigue?
Now all the above does sound easy, but apparently there are times when the pump doesn't seem to be happening. Lonnie Lowery talks about this and suggests, beyond a few high rep 20 sets, making sure the potassium levels are good, and that you're warm not cold (easier vasodilation perhaps) is a good thing. Back off periods and basic carb availability are all good too. Carbs afterall help hold fluid. In fact Lowery has a whole diet here.
Interestingly, Lowery's not making any claims it seems about whether the pump actually helps muscle building or not; he's just saying it's a really nice motivating thing to have: to be able to get HUGE. What's more interesting is Lowery's correlation to lack of getting a pump as a sign of fatigue. Hence his mainly recovery and dietary advice to get that pump back. interesting.
So is this wonderful feeling contributing to muscle growth?
Muscle Hypertrophy 101: the types of muscle hypertrophy
So let's back up a bit. What is muscle growth? We
know that there are usually two kinds discussed: sarcoplasmic - the tissue/fluids surrounding muscle fibers - and myofibral - the fibers of the muscles themselves getting bigger due to myofibral growth around the fibers.It has been argued that power type training privileges myofibril hypertrophy and "hypertrophy" strength training privileges sarcoplasmic - what some folks see as fake hypertrophy because it is non-strength aiding growth of the sarcoplasm of the muscle. This assessment may be a bit cruel. It's actually very hard to get one kind of growth without the other occurring as well. All i'm saying is that different types of strength training may privilege one form over the other, but both will occur. And a good thing too. Myofibral growth demands some adaptation of the sarcomers to support them, too.
Ok, in either case, to the best of our knowledge (because there's a LOT we don't know about hypertrophy) what causes muscles to grow? Forcing them to respond to new demands. If there's no need to adapt do they adapt? well, no.
And this is why if one does the same routine forever, the body doesn't change. Folks talk about plateaus. So, we usually use load or volume or a combination of both to create the conditions for adaptation.Occlusion
Now interestingly, there is work on muscle growth (the strength kind) that has been shown to occur from something called occlusion training. This is where bloodflow is restricted around a limb, and far lighter weights are then used for reps. Intriguingly growth happens.
Ok, so now that we have some background on muscle growth, let's look at how The Pump has been described to help muscle growth
The Pump - per se.
Let's take a look at how the Pump is described to contribute to muscle growth first. An un-cited article on bodybuilding.com by "muscleTech" puts it this way:
The release of nitric oxide facilitates the relaxation of the endothelial cells — smooth muscles that line the blood vessels — thereby expanding the lumen of the blood vessel (the middle space of a blood vessel where blood flows through). As the lumen expands, blood flow is enhanced, resulting in peak vasodilation. Blood plasma is the primary channel through which nutrients, amino acids, testosterone, growth hormone (GH) and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) are delivered to your starving muscles. Therefore, by feeding your system more blood, you transport elevated amounts of the various musclebuilding catalysts directly to your hard-working muscle cells.Wow. There's a lot going on in there. What it really seems to say is that more is better. Open a Bigger Pipe to let More Stuff through. Push through more blood with more protein, growth factor, testosterone all pushed into to muscles. That must be good right? Really? And even more fresh blood to push out "muscle toxins" would be great too, right? Hmm.
Another example of how the pump powers growth is through the role of oxygen. Increasing the delivery of oxygen-rich red blood cells to your starving muscles accelerates the speed at which your system is able to cleanse itself of muscle toxins such as ammonia.
Achieving maximum vasodilation also allows your body to quickly deliver metabolized amino acids and nutrients that are derived from your pre- and post-workout nutrition, and shuttle them directly to your hypertrophying muscles — allowing for enhanced muscle recovery and growth
Alas, no sources in the article to support these assertions.
Another theory of the pump expressed by Jeff Anderson is that the pump actually privileges slow twitch muscle fibers. That makes sense for two reasons: lots of low weight reps is moving into endurance world, which means oxidative capacity, aerobic energy rather than anaerobic capacity/ernergy. So Mr. Anderson says that by constantly pushing blood into these fibers, the fibers themseleves adapt to hold more blood. That means more capillaries in the fibers to help shunt the blood more effectively, and they're going to be rather densely packed as their numbers go up.
So you get the sense from this explanation that size noticed to hold more blood more of the time is going to make the muscle appear larger. Sarcoplasmic kind of growth?
Here's why i go more for Mr. Anderson's than MuscleTech's explanation. Our tissues are always adapting. If you squish more into them, they'll start to enlarge. So that's kinda funny - it's adding fluid (blood etc) into the muscle, but not increasing the number of myofibrils. So that doesn't sound like a strength gain; sounds more sarcoplasmic.
The Pump: can we get some science in here? Not easily.
The pump seems to work with two sides of something called hyperemia - active and reactive. The active one is caused by muscle contraction - do that a lot in exercise, eh? - which causes blood to congest in an area. Then there's reactive hyperemia - where blood that's supposed to get out is blocked - like there's a tourniquet causing yup, occlusion.
So, if there's occlusion, that means that blood is kinda stuck somewhere. That doesn't sound like blood is getting forced through to clear out "muscle toxins" or to induce the other popular concept of "muscle flushing" - sounds like it's getting stuck and stale.
If we look at "hyperemia" & "resistance training" in the science literature, we don't find stuff about muscle building. The kind of literature that's there is about the degree to which different kinds of training enhance the flow of blood or the dilation of the arteries. In other words, we generally apparently want to reduce reactive hyperemia.
Now while i've seen claims that moderate rep schemes are "are optimal to build muscle mass " because in part they "Enhances cellular hydration — greater muscle pump (called "reactive hyperemia") drives plasma and water to muscle which stimulates protein synthesis and inhibits proteolysis (protein breakdown)." i can't find any sources that explain that plasma and water driven to a muscle stimulates protein synthesis. We do know is that protein stimulates muscle synthesis. And we know that insulin stimulates protein synthesis and glucose stimulates protein synthesis. So maybe if there's all that stuff in plasma, yes we have protein synthesis stimulation. But that seems to happen whether we have high or low rep training. But again, is more more?
An Idea: the Pump Works Like Occlusion?
Mr. Anderson above proposes that the pump mainly effects slow twitch oxidative fibers because of capilarization (no strength; just mass). Dr. Lowery suggests that not being able to get a pump is a sign of fatigue - this i think is important. BUT if we look at occlusion training (which reactive hyperemia seems to be a type), then the pump should also be affecting both fast and slow twitch fibers' myofibral growth. Occlulusion, it seems, may indeed get fast twitch fibers involved more directly than without occlusion - that's a theory. Since we also see in low load occlusion training effects on strength: it goes up. SO is this kind of self-occlusion with self-selected low resistance weights to induce the effect having the same effect as a cuff? Could be - as per this review.
So, what about that pump?
Proposal 1: more is more: As far as i can tell, the suggestions are that it's supposed to help circulate good stuff in by vasodilateion, and then get the stale stuff out. Now for me - based on what i know - this seems the weakest case since we're not talking about steady blood flow in and out with the pump, but "reactive hyperemia" which means that blood is pumped in, and it can't get out again for a good half hour. There's no "flushing" if that's the case is there? Dave Barr talks about the "anabolic pump" - but again, i can't find this in the literature.
Proposal 2: bulking up with fluid. The other proposal that anderson suggests - and i'm not sure where he gets it from, but seems to make sense, is that pushing a lot of blood into the veins - especially of slow twitch fibers - is going to cause the fibers that hold the blood to adapt - get thicker, more and denser capillaries (the little gates that open for blood to flow in but not back out). SO that's just bulking up - what most folks talk about as sarcoplasmic type hypertrophy - but this seems even more particular as it's strictly related to blood volume taking up more room.
Proposal 3: occlusion causing real muscle fiber change - or not. What makes more sense to me is a combo of this adaptation of capillaries AND actual fiber change potentially caused by self-occlusion. BUT folks like Chad Waterbury, respected strength coach, are very skeptical of the pump and any correlation to muscle gain.
No, look, lots of things give you a pump but don't make your muscles bigger. One of the best exercises I know for making your calves bigger is the jump squat, which doesn't cause a pump. But if you do a set of 50 calf raises, you'll get one hell of a pump, but it won't make your calves bigger.SO perhaps 50 calf raises aren't causing occlusion but then how could they cause a pump? I don't understand. Perhaps those calf raises do add muscle fiber but not mass? perhaps calves like abs are different? dunno. Interesting though.
Maybe, Maybe Not, It depends
As said, there's a lot that remains unknown about the whys and hows of hypertrophy. The role of the pump seems to be just as really clearly ambiguous as to whether or not it aids hypertrophy or not.
I like the correlation Lowery seems to make implicitly between achieving the pump and fatigue. That seems useful.
For myself, right now, it's fun to play with a pump well after i've completed the hard work of the strength workouts i'm doing. Whether it's doing anything functional or not, i dunno, but since there seems *some* sense to it, i'm willing to give it a bit of a go - for now.
And so... The above is not meant as an exhaustive overview of all things to do with the pump - it's just what i could find by a couple day's digging. IF there are studies that you know of that support or study the pump with respect to muscle hypertrophy, please add a comment. Will be keen to hear.
I wonder too if a study that took the same kind of athletes and one did a regular routine and the other finished with pump sets and the other didn't if that would be conclusive or that one would just say - well they other group did a bit more volume. I suppose one could vary the loads or reps. But it would be interesting to see some kind of work.
Also, i do know that just because it hasn't been researched doesn't mean there's not an effect, but as per that first "explanation" of why the pump works - supposedly - for hypertrophy - if one is going to provide physiological rationales for an effect, please just point to the mechanisms that have been shown to result in these effects - it has to be sourced somewhere. And if not, well, the best we can say is that, in some cases, there seems to be a strong correlation between pumping and hypertrophy - either sarcoplasmic or myofibral - what that mechanism is - pretty much unknown at the moment.
Again - this is just the best i can do right now to make sense of this concept. If you have more information/sources, please share.
Thanks
Related Posts:
- a gal deliberately trying to gain mass - eating for hypertrophy
- some recent work on occlusion training.
- general fitness practice b2d index
Citations:
Wernbom M, Augustsson J, & Raastad T (2008). Ischemic strength training: a low-load alternative to heavy resistance exercise? Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 18 (4), 401-16 PMID: 18466185
Loenneke, J., & Pujol, T. (2009). The Use of Occlusion Training to Produce Muscle Hypertrophy Strength and Conditioning Journal, 31 (3), 77-84 DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0b013e3181a5a352 Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
A gal DELIBERATELY gaining "mass" (not weight). How can this be?
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So, i'm female, like to be lean and ripped AND i'm trying to gain mass - a new way to say "gain weight." What is that about? If awhile ago someone had told me i'd be looking at mass going up rather than down i would have paled, horrified. So what's happened?
Two things:
So, with the release of Pavel's Return of the Kettlebell (start of a review series here)- geared at hypertrophy strength in particular- i thought i'm in a good enough place now to push on this strength side with RTK's double KB work and investigate the mass side promised with it. And i know for my NSCA CSCS text book - and every other sentient knowledgeable person on mass tells me so - this means eating to achieve a caloric surplus not a deficit. I have never eaten for caloric surplus deliberately in my life.
The result so far is a strange thing. Over the past 6-8 weeks i have been watching the scale go up AND i have not freaked out, i have not panicked, i have not broken into a sweat of fear.
Don't Panic
Part of the reason for this lack of panic is perhaps knowledge and control. I know something about what's going on, and i am doing it cautiously and deliberately. Whether it's optimally remains to be seen, but i'm ok with that, too, as the weight going up is not huge leaps and bounds.
Part of the ok'ness is also that in the knowledge side, i know how to evaluate the number on the scale from a few metrics. One of the most powerful ones is girth and the other is skin fold testing.
With Girth i whip out a wonderful gadget called a myotape, and cuff it around my biceps. Not
a ton of change, but it's an honest 1/8th of an inch. And after a workout the measure is considerably greater. But we're talking post rest not post workout measures. the real stuff. I can also keep an eye on more sensitive areas like hips and waist with girth and see if this is beyond my mental tolerances or not. The best check there however is still feeling comfy in my clothes.
With skin fold measures i track what i really want to track here: improvements in lean mass. These are slower to grow than fat to be sure, but seeing weekly progress is a good thing. So far i haven't seen bigger jumps than when i've been trying to lean out and work out at the same time, but it's only been a short trial so far. The main thing is the trends are going in the right direction, and the BF% is still well within tolerable limits.
Why else am i doing this?
I want to see if i can "get arms" (and maybe some other body parts too, but arms has always been the one for me). As far as i know there's no genetic reason why my arms shouldn't respond approriately to appropriate forces for hypertrophic adaptation. However, i also want to walk the walk.
I confer with lots of folks who are more into bodybuilding than strength. The interesting demographic is young lads and post 30's gals - in my experience anyway. So while i'm giving council like "eat more to gain" where have i been on that continuum? Strength and leanness.
So i figure now is the time to fish or cut bait. I'm not going into body building, but i am experimenting with how muscle mass growth can be stimulated, fed, supported, with what one might see as the *minimal* set of moves to achieve that goal, and where RTK right now is my main mission.
For now, part of the experiment is just figuring out how to be cool like a little fonzy with this weight gain thing while the mass gain thing comes along.
The basics: how one reacts to food.
The far more challenging part at least for me and perhaps for other women too who may want more mass (as opposed to weight, dam it. weight bad; mass good - we know what we mean) - is feeling ok about seeing the scale go in the usually dreaded direction.
The take away from this for me so far thinking about it is that it's been my work in nutrition that's let me feel comfortable exploring this uncharted territory in strength and mass (mass. ha! so far i say ha! we'll see. an eighth of an inch for pete's sake! ), not the workouts.
The workouts psychologically seem the eas(ier) part. There are certain principles to which muscle reacts when stimulated appropriately. Check. But the scale? Really, i think if i didn't have those other measures, and a faith that i know how to reduce the weight again, i couldn't do this.
The Way i've Found Thinner Peace.
I'm stealing thinner peace from a fabulous book on how we react to change and how to make habits successful called the Four day Win by Martha Beck (US || UK ) - recommended. If you want to see why, i talk about habits, and the change of pain that is changing one's dietary ways and how to do this with as little brain pain as possible over here. That's potentially a first place: to know how change can work safely. And whence from there?
For me, how i got to a place of really knowing my body in terms of nutrition is with Precision Nutrition that i've reviewed over time, and have been using now, literally for years. The thing i'd like to draw attention to here are three parts of that approach that i think are relevant to this weight going up mental safety zone.
We're complex systems. Why wouldn't it take that kind of time to get to know how these complex mechanisms interact with complex inputs?
So i think it's great that there's a base case from which adjustments can be made. Second, once the base case is established, time to look at parameters for individualizing to get on with one's body comp goals: where start sensibly to work towards losing weight or gaining mass? how tweak either calories or macronutrients? why? how do that again in the spirit of change one thing, maintain the change for two weeks, assess.
The third part is actually having guidance on how to do girth and skinfold measures and make sense of those measures. A lot of that material is in the PN guides that come with the huge amount of material available in the program. Much more comes from the feedback of folks on the PN forum. The experts there from a diversity of backgrounds are awesome. A breakthrough for me, for instance, happened when i'd seemingly hit a plateua doing everything i thought right, and a power lifter trainer from London, Alex Gold, said, that happened to me: i hate calorie counting, but why not check in with fitday for a couple weeks to get a reality check and see what happens?
Wow. super. Did it for a month, actually, and, combined with what i knew at that point, and advice on tuning my workouts (also from PN) i had it nailed - the light turned on and i got what it took to tune my intake for that particular goal. Now i might not always choose to do that of course, but i know what it is - at least in that direction. I am so grateful for that collision of practice, reading, and the space in which to consult with knowledgeable and simply more experienced people. The photo on the left is from a time just after this tuning process.
Whither Voyager?
My modus operandi now seems to be figuring out how to use that knowledge from leaning up to muscling up (and then leaning again, leaving the mass in tact, more or less ).
What some folks may notice is that the above getting to know my physiology for food was a month here, two week tests at a time there - easily adding up to more than a 12 week body transformation. You bet. But, the point is, do it once, do it right, and the knowledge is there for well, so far, my life since then.
Diets suck. they're about temporary deprivation for the most part. They're not about skills or about self-knowledge to have confidence to take knowledge gained to new places.
With ETK (review) and the RKC cert (review), i learned a lot about single kettlebell work. Not everything, but a great foundation with solid moves that will also last a life time. Likewise i'm using that to transfer to the different beast (but related cousin) of double kettlebell work. I'm looking forward to the RKC II in feb 2010 to develop the vocabulary a bit further.
I guess the big thing here is foundations establishing a base of trust, and that trust comes from self-knowledge, and that the way to get that self-knowledge could be to hack around on one's own and hope to fall into it. Or it could be to get some good guidance, do some research, and find a space to ask questions to improve that practice.
With kettlebells it's been ETK and the RKC. With nutrition, it's been Precision Nutrition. In each case, i've gotten to a point where i'm gaining the confidence to fool around within the parameters of the space - play with a pump post the double pressing in RTK and explore IF that wiser people than I keep saying is cool.
The results of the good foundation and trust it perhaps this boldly going to a territory - weight gain - that previously would have devestated me and is now a new and if not undiscovered then potentially dangerous but with now acceptable levels of risk attached. That's likely a long winded way of saying it feels safe enough to have fun.
Does this process make sense to anyone else? hope if so, it helps :)
best
mc
Related Posts
So, i'm female, like to be lean and ripped AND i'm trying to gain mass - a new way to say "gain weight." What is that about? If awhile ago someone had told me i'd be looking at mass going up rather than down i would have paled, horrified. So what's happened?Two things:
- i've for a long time wanted defined strong and strong looking arms.
- But perhaps more importantly, over the past few years, i've learned how to do lean for me: i know what it takes to get lean dialed in, and have done it a couple of times - getting to the ideal weight, letting that slide a few pounds, going back. For me this has meant my weight has been consistently between 57 point something and 60k. Happy days.
So, with the release of Pavel's Return of the Kettlebell (start of a review series here)- geared at hypertrophy strength in particular- i thought i'm in a good enough place now to push on this strength side with RTK's double KB work and investigate the mass side promised with it. And i know for my NSCA CSCS text book - and every other sentient knowledgeable person on mass tells me so - this means eating to achieve a caloric surplus not a deficit. I have never eaten for caloric surplus deliberately in my life.
The result so far is a strange thing. Over the past 6-8 weeks i have been watching the scale go up AND i have not freaked out, i have not panicked, i have not broken into a sweat of fear.
Don't Panic
Part of the reason for this lack of panic is perhaps knowledge and control. I know something about what's going on, and i am doing it cautiously and deliberately. Whether it's optimally remains to be seen, but i'm ok with that, too, as the weight going up is not huge leaps and bounds.
Part of the ok'ness is also that in the knowledge side, i know how to evaluate the number on the scale from a few metrics. One of the most powerful ones is girth and the other is skin fold testing.
With Girth i whip out a wonderful gadget called a myotape, and cuff it around my biceps. Not
a ton of change, but it's an honest 1/8th of an inch. And after a workout the measure is considerably greater. But we're talking post rest not post workout measures. the real stuff. I can also keep an eye on more sensitive areas like hips and waist with girth and see if this is beyond my mental tolerances or not. The best check there however is still feeling comfy in my clothes.With skin fold measures i track what i really want to track here: improvements in lean mass. These are slower to grow than fat to be sure, but seeing weekly progress is a good thing. So far i haven't seen bigger jumps than when i've been trying to lean out and work out at the same time, but it's only been a short trial so far. The main thing is the trends are going in the right direction, and the BF% is still well within tolerable limits.
Why else am i doing this?
I want to see if i can "get arms" (and maybe some other body parts too, but arms has always been the one for me). As far as i know there's no genetic reason why my arms shouldn't respond approriately to appropriate forces for hypertrophic adaptation. However, i also want to walk the walk.I confer with lots of folks who are more into bodybuilding than strength. The interesting demographic is young lads and post 30's gals - in my experience anyway. So while i'm giving council like "eat more to gain" where have i been on that continuum? Strength and leanness.
So i figure now is the time to fish or cut bait. I'm not going into body building, but i am experimenting with how muscle mass growth can be stimulated, fed, supported, with what one might see as the *minimal* set of moves to achieve that goal, and where RTK right now is my main mission.
For now, part of the experiment is just figuring out how to be cool like a little fonzy with this weight gain thing while the mass gain thing comes along.
The basics: how one reacts to food.
The far more challenging part at least for me and perhaps for other women too who may want more mass (as opposed to weight, dam it. weight bad; mass good - we know what we mean) - is feeling ok about seeing the scale go in the usually dreaded direction.
The take away from this for me so far thinking about it is that it's been my work in nutrition that's let me feel comfortable exploring this uncharted territory in strength and mass (mass. ha! so far i say ha! we'll see. an eighth of an inch for pete's sake! ), not the workouts.
The workouts psychologically seem the eas(ier) part. There are certain principles to which muscle reacts when stimulated appropriately. Check. But the scale? Really, i think if i didn't have those other measures, and a faith that i know how to reduce the weight again, i couldn't do this.
The Way i've Found Thinner Peace.
I'm stealing thinner peace from a fabulous book on how we react to change and how to make habits successful called the Four day Win by Martha Beck (US || UK ) - recommended. If you want to see why, i talk about habits, and the change of pain that is changing one's dietary ways and how to do this with as little brain pain as possible over here. That's potentially a first place: to know how change can work safely. And whence from there?
For me, how i got to a place of really knowing my body in terms of nutrition is with Precision Nutrition that i've reviewed over time, and have been using now, literally for years. The thing i'd like to draw attention to here are three parts of that approach that i think are relevant to this weight going up mental safety zone.
- - the basic baselining
- - the individualization plan
- - learning about measures
We're complex systems. Why wouldn't it take that kind of time to get to know how these complex mechanisms interact with complex inputs?
So i think it's great that there's a base case from which adjustments can be made. Second, once the base case is established, time to look at parameters for individualizing to get on with one's body comp goals: where start sensibly to work towards losing weight or gaining mass? how tweak either calories or macronutrients? why? how do that again in the spirit of change one thing, maintain the change for two weeks, assess.
The third part is actually having guidance on how to do girth and skinfold measures and make sense of those measures. A lot of that material is in the PN guides that come with the huge amount of material available in the program. Much more comes from the feedback of folks on the PN forum. The experts there from a diversity of backgrounds are awesome. A breakthrough for me, for instance, happened when i'd seemingly hit a plateua doing everything i thought right, and a power lifter trainer from London, Alex Gold, said, that happened to me: i hate calorie counting, but why not check in with fitday for a couple weeks to get a reality check and see what happens?
Wow. super. Did it for a month, actually, and, combined with what i knew at that point, and advice on tuning my workouts (also from PN) i had it nailed - the light turned on and i got what it took to tune my intake for that particular goal. Now i might not always choose to do that of course, but i know what it is - at least in that direction. I am so grateful for that collision of practice, reading, and the space in which to consult with knowledgeable and simply more experienced people. The photo on the left is from a time just after this tuning process.Whither Voyager?
My modus operandi now seems to be figuring out how to use that knowledge from leaning up to muscling up (and then leaning again, leaving the mass in tact, more or less ).
What some folks may notice is that the above getting to know my physiology for food was a month here, two week tests at a time there - easily adding up to more than a 12 week body transformation. You bet. But, the point is, do it once, do it right, and the knowledge is there for well, so far, my life since then.
Diets suck. they're about temporary deprivation for the most part. They're not about skills or about self-knowledge to have confidence to take knowledge gained to new places.
With ETK (review) and the RKC cert (review), i learned a lot about single kettlebell work. Not everything, but a great foundation with solid moves that will also last a life time. Likewise i'm using that to transfer to the different beast (but related cousin) of double kettlebell work. I'm looking forward to the RKC II in feb 2010 to develop the vocabulary a bit further.
I guess the big thing here is foundations establishing a base of trust, and that trust comes from self-knowledge, and that the way to get that self-knowledge could be to hack around on one's own and hope to fall into it. Or it could be to get some good guidance, do some research, and find a space to ask questions to improve that practice.
With kettlebells it's been ETK and the RKC. With nutrition, it's been Precision Nutrition. In each case, i've gotten to a point where i'm gaining the confidence to fool around within the parameters of the space - play with a pump post the double pressing in RTK and explore IF that wiser people than I keep saying is cool.
The results of the good foundation and trust it perhaps this boldly going to a territory - weight gain - that previously would have devestated me and is now a new and if not undiscovered then potentially dangerous but with now acceptable levels of risk attached. That's likely a long winded way of saying it feels safe enough to have fun.
Does this process make sense to anyone else? hope if so, it helps :)
best
mc
Related Posts
- Return of the Kettlebell - double kb work prelim review
- the complete list of all the updates related to RTK at the b2d kb index
- exercise doesn't work without diet. - either way the weight goes, it seems.
- Myth busting: women are afraid to bulk up.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
P90X Critique Part 2 0f 3 - WIll you really "get ripped"?
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Does P90x work - when measured against its own claimes: does P90x get one "ripped" in 90 days? This article reviews the exercise and diet plan of P90X to get at that question - but really it's about providing a way to assess any "body transformation" or "12 week" program to see (a) if what's on the label is what's in the tin and (b) if what's in the tin matches what your goals for a program. You'll find criteria about two key components of such programs, diet, and nutrition, and how to assess the degree to which each of these components is likely to deliver the claims a program promises to deliver, and for whom.
The following therefore is more or less a worked example of applying/deriving this assessment via a critique of P90x - a program billed as an "extreme" workout (+ diet) specifically designed for practitioners to 'get ripped.' It's pretty detailed, so long. It looks at the exercise program first and then the nutrition program in the context of its promised results.
Context
In Part 1 of this reflection/critique of P90x we looked at the core P90x concept of "muscle confusion". We also poked at the rationale behind a few of the "bring it" program's routines within this "muscle confusion" context. The conclusion was, based on what's known about physiological adaptations that occur in a 12 week program by novices/deconditioned athletes - P90X's target market - muscle confusion is basically a marketing gimmick.
In this second of this three part series, i'd like to look at the concept of "getting ripped" that is a key part of the P90X delivery promise.
In Part 3 we'll look at alternatives to the two core parts of P90X, but in the right order (a) diet (from places one doesn't usually think about diet - it's not just about the food) and (b) workout practices (they're both practices)
As i said in part 1 and will say so again here, there's nothing wrong with anyone wanting to do - or actually doing - P90X or similar- the routines are "not considered harmful," to draw on a computer science trope (at least not too harmful - we'll see more in part 3b).
What we might ask about P90X is does it deliver what's on the tin? Will anyone who passes the P90X fit test and is therefore deemed "ready" to do P90X "get ripped"? - and in P90X's definition, that pretty much means, at a minimum, have a six pack.
P90X suggests that if you follow it's program, you will be "transformed" from "regular to ripped" in 90 days. That's its formula: do the workouts; follow the diet. So we're going to look at each part of that formula against some objective criteria for ripped-ness.
Basic necessities of Getting Ripped by which to assess P90X capacity to deliver:
There are fortunately only two things involved in getting ripped, level of importance listed here:
RECIPE/FORMULA ASIDE for 6 Pack
If you want to skip the rest of the article here's the recipe for 6 pack abs:
As to why this is the recipe, well that's in the rest of this article.
Results from this article:
First, there are tons of 12 week programs out there, all promising grand things. Where do we get our information about what works in these programs? Usually from the programs themselves. But we saw in the first part of this series that P90X's key concept "muscle confusion" is more marketing than fact, especially in the context of deconditioned or novice trainees. So are the before and after shots for P90X's amazing transformations that seem to be portrayed also a gimmick? How can we make this assessment.
Second, i'm guessing that folks who choose to do P90X or other 12 week transformations may know about as much about how fat loss and hypertrophy really work as i did when i started the program: less than i thought i did, and so pretty accepting of the way P90X presents each of these: exercise first, diet second, bf% is just a measure of progress.
The reality, as we'll see, is very much different: diet has to be first, exercise is second and bf% is, in the context of "getting ripped" a very specific target, and one that can be reasonably calculated to determine the length and intensity of a program to deliver desired results.
So to begin, let's begin with where P90X puts its energy first: exercise.
o Muscle Building Very Basic Basics.
P90X doesn't come out and say that it's a muscle building program - and that's good, cuz it's not (more on that in a moment) - but most of us think that the term "getting ripped" implies building muscle.
Likewise, those men's before and after pictures in P90X (like the ones fo JonC, left) seem to imply that muscle mass will accompany the program. Hmm.
There's a lot we don't know about how muscle growth works, but there's a couple of things we do know: to build muscle we need two things: caloric surplus and appropriate muscular stimulation to force an adaptation. In this case, that adaptation means laying down new muscle fiber and so getting some muscle growth. Muscle growth also pretty much requires eating more rather than less: we want more body mass - in these case muscle tissue - the resources for that tissue have to come from somewhere. For us, that's the right nutrients - i.e. food.
Muscle in Two Parts:
That said, here's a factoid from Christian Thibaudeau's excellent and recommended discussion of mass building: with someone (read male in this case) totally committed to muscle building, getting diet and workouts just so, the range of muscle building to expect is .25 to .5lbs of *dry* muscle per week. In the real world that non-fat weight would show up with an additional 40% from additional water/gylcogen. So ten pounds of muscle shows up more like 14lbs on the scale. But whether 10 or 14 pounds of fat free mass let's call it, at .5+ pounds a week, 2 pounds a month, that also means five to ten perfect months to get that 14 pounds.
Here's another factoid from that article - a person sitting at say 120lbs of lean mass (weight minus fat) would need to eat 2440 calories a day to start growing mass with those optimized workouts.
Even before we get to the type of workouts, a basic question we might ask is, is the diet in the program one of caloric surplus or caloric deficit? So whether you gain muscle on P90X or not will largely depend on how much of a caloric deficit - or not - you're in during the program. That discussion is below.
Generally, P90X aims to have a person in caloric deficit - without which fat loss will not occur. Period. So here's a potential contradiction, not unique to P90X, but certainly rather brushed under the carpet in this case: if muscle mass building requires caloric surplus, but the program keeps someone in caloric deficit throughout, how can muscle be built? This isn't a Zen Koan. The inverse may help: if one is eating enough for muscle building, what kind of caloric deficit is going on and what kind of fat loss is occurring?
Another question: if P90X runs a person into caloric deficit, how explain those before and after pictures that *seem* to show more muscle mass at the end of 90 days?We'll come back to these questions. First, let's look at how we might understand what kinds of muscular adaptations P90X promotes.
Kind of Strength Foregrounds Kind of Muscle
Another part of the muscle building adaptation is type of load, rest, volume and recovery. As we said above, to get new muscle fibers to be laid down, there has to be a demand for that kind of growth. As we saw in part 1, also, the type of adaptation in the first 8 - 12 weeks of a resistance program for a neophyte is mainly neurological. That means muscle that already exists is learning how to support the loads. Only once the challenge goes beyond that initial adaptation, effectively, does new muscle get laid down IF the challenge requires that adaptation. Does P90X require that hypertrophy adaptation?
o P90X: endurance training disguised with weights.
In the P90X program, 3 out of the 6 days a week are "resistance" oriented workouts (the other three are "cardio" oriented). But what kind of resistance training are we talking about? Turns out they're something known as circuits.
Circuits in general are usually about putting several exercises together, doing one set of each exercise with little rest between moves. The weights used in each of these sets has to be sufficiently light to be able to move between exercises with limited rest.
Indeed, in P90X resistance workouts, the rep ranges are anywhere from 7 to 12. The only instruction on how to pick a weight is so that one will "feel the burn" in the last couple of reps.
Based on the above template, we get the following in the resistance routines: 20+ minute circuits, 1 set per move, mid to high reps, critically: no rest between sets. At most, there is 60 seconds active recovery between circuits 2-3 circuits.
We've said these workouts are circuits but when rest between sets is taken out of the equation for this kind of period, we're looking at endurance or stamina training rather than muscular strength.
Let's look at how "strong" is used as a term in P90X. "Stronger" throughout the P90X program is largely defined by being able to endure, keep up, do as many reps of a move as Horton and Co perform with as little rest as possible over the course of the hour. That's endurance strength. The adaptations developed in the muscles are mainly aerobic in nature, which means that the muscles get,
Foundational. Basic. Upping oxidative capacity. Not building mass, but improving the muscle's capacity to use oxygen which means greater work capacity for longer. That sounds great for health but doesn't sound like a "getting ripped" program, though, does it? And saying that, are circuits the best way to build this capacity?
Here's an assessment of the kinds of circuits P90X uses for training:
The above Goal 3 Sounds like P90X's "resistnace" workouts (and all the other P90X workouts, too, for that matter). That latter point then is as close as P90X comes to having an effect, and it's not strength per se or muscle building. It's endurance: keep the movement going to keep the heart rate up for periods longer than 4 minutes; improve oxidative capacity (ability to burn fat).
Recap on P90X Circuits
SO what have we learned? Circuits are, at best, novice routines, or for sick or rehabbing, or obese. THis doesn't sound like the deconditioned x-jock population P90X is supposedly targeting. So, P90X, as point 3 above, has tuned the workouts for what? Fat burning. Not muscle building.
Our question at this point might be, are these kinds of circuits the best way to burn fat for a deconditioned jock AND add "lean muscle" that the diet guide says will make up for not seeing much of a change on the scale?
Consider this: in a 24 week program study designed specifically to look at the effects of single set style circuit training vs periodized multi-set program, the lean mass changes for women were 2% lean mass gain over that 6 month period vs 8% gain with the alternative protocol. Likewise percentage body fat went down by 10% in 6 months (eg, someone at 24% went to 21.6%) vs 25% with the alternative protocol (that 24% person wend to 18%).
So, these workouts are *mainly* fat burners/endurance builders, and don't seem to be necessarily the best approach to optimize fat burning or lean mass building. In part 3 we'll look at some of these alternatives in more detail.
Aside: P90X+ Let me cue up here that the P90X+ program is very similar in kind to P90X: 5 more P90X style workouts, but with fewer people on the set. These workouts are to mix into P90X. So one effectively re-does P90X, swapping out some P90X routines for the new ones. So, once more into the breach: more circuits, more little rest between moves. So, effectively, more of the P90X endurance same.
P90X - resisting muscle growth?
We now have a sense of what it takes to build muscle: caloric surplus - we need more to build more; and we need specific types of load/recovery/volume for muscles to grow. In looking at P90X, we see that the type of strength it's geared to building is endurance, not hypertrophy. The muscular adaptations are around fuel consumption - better oxidative/fat burning capacity - rather than mass building.
In sum, based on their design, P90X workouts - including the "resistance" workouts - are circuits, tuned for fat burning rather than muscle building.
Questions a person considering P90X might have at this point are therefore
Another question might be "but what about getting ripped? doesn't P90X deliver at least on that?"
At the top of this article we looked at getting ripped as body fat percentage first and muscle growth second. Ok, it's not delivering on muscle growth per se, so time to look at the diet side of P90X and we'll come back to its fat burning disguised as resistance training.
o The simple formula for a 6 pack? Body Fat Percentage
While i don't think he coined the term, colleague Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength may often be heard to say "there are no secrets." So here's a big non-secret to 6 pack abs: body fat percentage.
What P90X does not come out and say ever, anywhere, is that for a guy to begin to see his abs, he has to be at about 10% BF (in my experience of the guys i've worked with, it's actually below 10%); for gals, we have to be at about 15% or less. It's really that simple.
I wish i had known this at the time i was doing P90X. Rather than focusing on dropping 10 pounds, i might have looked into how feasible/healthy it would be to drop 10% body fat in 90 days, and how to optimize that. That *might* have helped me figure out right there if Kenpo-X and Plyo-X were the best ways to achieve that goal, or if maybe looking into diet-x might have been more profitable.
Indeed, what more and more research shows is that the only way to get to that ripped level BF% is calorie restriction. Calorie restriction (ie, diet) comes first; exercise is second. P90X of course doesn't say this fact either. It's selling "muscle confusion" first; nutrition way second.
o P90X Diet Math
This is not to say that PN doesn't get diet. PN has a diet book. And it's a corker.
What the Nutrition Plan for P90X says about the role of nutrition in getting ripped is as follows:
Please let me note again that one can gain lean mass while in caloric deficit. It's just not a lot. If one is gaining .25 lbs by eating for gain, and working out for muscular growth, how much fiber can be built when eating for loss and doing endurance not hypertrophy workouts? It's a real challenge.
So what's the P90X diet advice?
IT's amazing. Every 4 weeks, the macronutrient ratio changes - to match the demands of this incredible program:
Phase I: Fat Shredder - Days 1-28
Phase II: Energy Booster - Days 29-56
Phase III: Endurance Maximizer - Days 57-90
The above phases map to the following macronutrient ratios:
Macronutrient Goals in Each Phase
Phase I - Protein 50%, Carbs 30%, Fat 20%
Phase II - Protein 40%, Carbs 40%, Fat 20%
Phase III - Protein 20%, Carbs 60%, Fat 20%
How are these ratios achieved? By one of two ways: either follow the portion suggestions of how many portions of each type of macro nutrient to have, or by following the meal plans so even less to think about. Just eat exactly what it in the book, when it says to eat it.
Indeed, the portion approach is not unique to P90X but it is complex: Have X portions from the Protein group; Y portions from the Carbs and Z from fats.
This number of portions approach is to help avoid calorie counting. But the result also means that there are only three "sizes" of menu to fit everyone. Not exactly optimized for fat loss. Consider the following.
Calories Per Day - Three Sizes fits All
Here's how a person determines how many calories they're going to eat a day - what their Total X+Y+Z portions will equal.
Nutrition Level Chart
EA = 1800-2399 = Level I 1800 calories per day
EA = 2400-2999 = Level II 2400 calories per day
EA = 3000+ = Level III 3000 calories per day
Who is losing anything here and by how much? Hmm. This means someone who requires 2399 calories for maintenance in Level 1 will suddenly be on a 600 calorie a day deficit. In 6 days of workouts, that's 3600 calories - a little better than a fat pound. Someone who's closer to 1800 cals for maintenance will be losing far less in that week. Maybe nothing following this meal plan. And indeed, there's a real potential Achilles heal to this approach. IT's how one's Level is calculated: it assumes that ALL P90X workouts burn 600 calories.
Let's look quickly at how one figures out their energy level.
Determining Your Nutrition Level
1. Calculate your RMR
Your Body Weight x 10 = RMR
2. Calculate your Daily Activity Burn
RMR x 20% = DAB
3. Calculate your Energy Amount
RMR + DAB +600 CALS for p90x workouts = EA
Now, RMR stands for resting metabolic rate, and i have yet to find anywhere where it is simplified to body weight times 10, since it regularly takes into account height and other constants, etc, but let's set that aside and just go with this formula.
Here's an example:
1. a 140 lb gal of unknown height has an "RMR" of 1400
2. 20% is 280
3. 1400 + 280 + 600 = 2280 calories.
So that puts the person in EA of Level 1, 1800 calories a day. That would be, all things being equal, a 480 calorie a day deficit, which over 6 days, is 2880 calories, not quite a pound.
A gal at 130 is also in EA Level 1, and also told to eat 1800 calories, and that's only
1300+260+600= 2160, a difference of 360 cals a day, which in 6 days is 2160 - even further away from a pound a week.
A smaller gal at 120, 1200+240+600 = 2040 calories now at 1800, is eating only a 200 calorie a day deficit.
That's 1200 in a week, three weeks to lose a pound.
And that's IF those workouts are really 600kcals a piece. They are not. Or let's put it this way: it depends. Yoga X at about 80-90 mins is 200 calories; Kenpo-X, at 45 mins, is maybe 275 - 435. If you're totally "bringing it" maybe a bit more. So your heart rate is pushing it's aerobic envelop.
This math begins to explain the 6 pounds total i took off during my religious observation of P90X doubles - where i was keenly going for 600 cals a day from double workouts.
Special Case:
If someone is in the EA Level 3 of "3000+" of course potentially coming down from say 4250 a day to 3000, the possibility is that, all things being equal, one will be losing 2.5 ish pounds a week, 30 pounds over the 12 weeks.
o Body Fat X
P90X says that weight of course is "relatively meaningless" since a better measure is body fat percentage. Why? P90X doesn't explain in this guide why body fat percentage is more important than what's on the scale. We're simply told body fat % is the measure of progress.
So how does P90X use body fat %?
In the "relatively meaningless" way one uses weight? that it goes down? That's pretty much it. With one sweetener. It provides three body fat ranges for folks to feel really successful after completing the program:
But there's no correlation between Body Fat % and ripped. It does not come out and say that unless you hit that "Elite Athlete" bf% range, you will not be seeing that 6 pack. It's that simple.
BF% - supposedly important to P90X, but based on who and what army? A few questions a person may have at this point about a program claiming that bf% change is critical may be:
Other than just maybe/maybe not caloric restriction, the P90X diet guide seems to reflect Nutrition Confusion, perhaps to match the exercise program's muscle confusion, discussed in part 1. Over the course of 12 weeks, as said, the macronutrient ratio of the program changes 3 times. There are arguments in the data about why a person would want to start with higher protein and lower carbs and then by the end of the program invert this, but not really.
Here, the idea seems to be (it's not explicit), is that to kick starting the diet, bringing up protein and reducing carbs, will fire up fat loss. Hmm. But after that first month, because people will have been working so hard, they'll need to keep brining up the carb level to have the energy to survive it. There's a few notices about extending a given phase if one wishes, but the guidance is pretty much stick to the plan, stan.
Haven't seen the studies to support this kind of short term mix-it-up. Nutrition is complex. But a higher level fact we do have the resources to say is that fat loss happens with caloric deficit. Is that really achieved in the P90X diet plan?
And let's look at those figures again: the predicted weight loss on this program is 6-12 pounds. A half pound to a full pound a week. That's it. Unless you're in the 3000+ a day with a serious + a day. Honey, i can get you on a diet tomorrow with NO exercise involved that will guarantee to meet or double those numbers. No sweat. Literally. So what is someone doing on P90X if the goal is to get lean, to "get ripped"?
o Is What's on the Label What's in the Tin? Is this a Getting Ripped Diet?
P90X promises "getting ripped" as part of its objective.
If we can accept the premise that caloric deficit is required to reduce fat in order to see one's 6 pack, a key part of the "getting ripped" concept, we have to ask if P90X will really deliver this result?
Based on looking at the differences in caloric deficits to be achieved of just a few points of the Level I scale, for instance, it's pretty clear that the amount of caloric deficit to be achieved in following this program is likely to be highly variable, and likely at most about a pound a week for the people at the outside of the Level, and likely considerably less given that the caloric burn calculated for each workout is exaggerated.
Who will get Ripped on P90X?
Knowing that we need to get to a low body fat % to get the "get ripped" look, and knowing how much caloric deficit we need to burn FAT (as opposed to just lose weight), and knowing that there's such variation of caloric deficit with P90X and that at the most it's calculated to drop about a pound a week of fat for anyone who starts at eating 2999kcals a day, AT BEST, what does this tell us about the likelihood of getting ripped on P90X?
IF all the person needs to lose is 6-12 pounds to achieve the ripeed body fat percentage, then it's possible to get to the Ripped Place in the 90 days.
Otherwise, how can it happen?
Now, we know that *if* one gains lean mass and doesn't lose ANY body fat, their BF% goes down. True enough. But how much lean mass can one reasonably gain in 12 weeks with P90X such that it will effectively overwhelm X% of fat? So let's just put that one to bed.
Effectively, unless you're already close to that goal percentage can P90X deliver "ripped" or just the "getting" part of getting ripped?
And if the best it can deliver for the majority is the "getting" towards ripped, again, a person might ask, is P90X the best way to do it?
o Those Before and After Pictures
Given everything we've looked at above, let's come back to a few of those before and after pictures.
For Women, let's take Amanda for example.
We don't know her stats. That is we don't know her starting BF% or her final one, but what's changed in this photo? What don't we see? A six pack. The abs are angled. Is there less fat? yes. Is there more definition. Yes. Does it look like she's lost more than the 6-12 pounds? No. Has anything else, beside the expression on her face, and the sucking in of the gut changed visibly? No.
Then there is KatieV. Again, what's changed?
IS katie sucking in her gut in the day 1 photo? How about on day 90? Is she already pretty lean? Look at the waist circumference at the hips. Much change? So while the photo looks really cool, the *actual* change is not incredible. And since the arms haven't seemed to have changed, i'm guessing weight loss, a good base of fitness already, and with three days a week of endurance abs on top of all the rest of the workouts, the abs will show. Congratulations! This participant hit the sweet spot.
Is this result what any gal who passes the P90X fit test can expect? As we've seen, realistically, that would depend on a number of factors, particularly starting BF% and realistic expectation of caloric deficit over the 12 weeks. If one starts at 24% bodyfat, will P90X take a person to 14%? No. Remember in the research above 6 months of a slightly more intense workout regimen than P90X net 2% lean mass improvement, 10% bf% reduction. That's 21.4% in 24 weeks, not 12.
And with the guys?
What about their before and after photos?
Really look at the photos. From angle, to lighting, to mass, what's going on? Mainly body fat changes?
Without having access to the actual measurements from before an after we don't really have anything concrete to go on about the degree of change. What we can see is that most of the guys posted as P90X success stories already have some muscular definition in their before shots, even though pose and lighting is not optimized to show this before aspect. Look at the second gentleman in the picture above. He's plainly experienced at workouts and is already at a lower body fat %; he will likely be building lean mass out of the gate, and trimming body fat by the little he needs for the lighting in the after photo to create an effect. Nice lat flare.
The above photo crit is not to take away from anyone's accomplishments on P90X, but to put the results - and expected results - in context, and to look at these photos with a greater reality lens, based on the little detail we actually have.
Not that there aren't some rather wild whoppers on the P90x site.
"Lost 30% body fat" sounds fabulous in this picture, doesn't it? But let's put it in context. We can see some of DavidC's abs - so there's a fat level of 10% or a bit less. That means that a guy who is already skinny, as he seems to be - say at 12% minus 30% of that = 8.4 percent. Definitely in ab-seeing zone. That seems like a very high result to me for someone who's already skinny, but let's take it as true. The point is that he begins the program already close to a Ripped bf%. All the guys in the success stories seem to do so. Well they have to, don't they?
So what's going on with his shoulders that do look bigger? Gotta love all those pull ups.
As we've seen, based on what we know about muscle building, it usually requires caloric surplus AND it requires a program designed to facilitate muscle building adaptation and P90X is mainly an endurance program with a wee bit of hypertrophy-oriented training thrown in.
Since what we see is mainly in the shoulder and arms, and some fat off the waist, well, the diet might also just be at that right place where the caloric deficit was minimal to support muscular growth from the most repeated moves in the "resistance" section: pull ups and push ups (we'll come back to this in part 3). Again, well done. Unusual, but well done. Why do we so rarely see people's legs in these shots, hmm?
In general, what we do know, when we really look at these photos is that we are not seeing people make super weight loss changes OR muscle mass changes. These are relatively close to lean people, getting more lean.
Another question might be: if one is in this happy position of being within sight of lean-ness, is P90x the best way to get there?
o Summing Up: P90X and getting Ripped.
If we start with the simple premise that the main ingredient of of "getting ripped" - signified by 6 pack abs - is first to achieve a particular bodyfat% and second to have some hypertrophy of muscles to show through the skin, then we can assess P90X.
We've seen that P90X is *primarily* a circuit training program that's been tuned for fat burning, not hypertrophy - even it's Ab Ripper X program is endurance rather than hypertrophy. As such, despite the X and extreme labels, P90X workouts are conservative: rehab, novice, obese friendly. Surprising, isn't it? The very stuff of fat fit boot camps.
We've also seen that its diet plan is *very* conservative in terms of weight loss. 6-12 pounds total in 12 weeks.
Thus, we might ask,
To the first question we already have the answer: people already close to that target body fat percentage.
To the second question, we've already had some sense that P90X may not be the best way to get the results in promises. Part three will look at alternatives, which will include nutrition alternatives, as the short answer is yes, there are other what one may even call more balanced alternatives to P90X.
To the third question, well, answer two does here as well.
So what do we have?
Program assessments:
My hope is that with the above information, folks are better able not only to assess the claims and supposed results of P90X with a critical eye, but ANY workout program.
So, next time an infomercial promises you'll lose fat in just a few weeks and it's promoting a device or an exercise routine, look at where the diet plan is hiding. It's usually something like "combined with diet and rest" or something similar.
If the device or program promises muscle gains, again, look for the diet plan AND look at the type of routines being promoted. Are they hypertophy inducing, strength and power or are they, like P90X, safe, novice, fat burners, dressed up as hypertrophy or strength or power?
o Alternatives?
At the end of the day, while P90X is fine for what it is - a novice boot camp type endurance/foundation workout - it's a 12 week program. It's a package that uses bells and whistles around marketing illusions like muscle confusion, nutrition confusion, lots of moves, lots of workouts, and lots of diet changes. It seems it's got all these components to keep us busy, entertained, and hooked enough to buy the product: there's a lot of stuff in here; it must be great.
And then if we actually use the program (most people buy health dvds and don't use them, apparently), that variety is there, perhaps not only to keep us engaged but again to think we must be doing something great to achieve our goals.
As we've seen however, P90X, despite all the hoopla, is actually a conservative program. Circuits are safe; the nutrition program is safe. No major changes; no law suits from health risks. Is it the optimla approach to achieve "getting ripped" - safely?
Let's put it this way, if after looking at what's on the label and comparing it with what's in the tin, and you decide you might not want to do P90X but you still want to get lean, add some muscle, get strong etc, you may want to consider some alternatives.
In part three, i'll go over a few examples of programs and approaches both for workouts (part 3b) and nutrition (part 3a let me know what you think of this one - i'm kinda happy about it) so again, a person looking for an approach will have more information with which to assess whether a program is right for them.
See ya next time.
Related Posts:
The following therefore is more or less a worked example of applying/deriving this assessment via a critique of P90x - a program billed as an "extreme" workout (+ diet) specifically designed for practitioners to 'get ripped.' It's pretty detailed, so long. It looks at the exercise program first and then the nutrition program in the context of its promised results.
ContextIn Part 1 of this reflection/critique of P90x we looked at the core P90x concept of "muscle confusion". We also poked at the rationale behind a few of the "bring it" program's routines within this "muscle confusion" context. The conclusion was, based on what's known about physiological adaptations that occur in a 12 week program by novices/deconditioned athletes - P90X's target market - muscle confusion is basically a marketing gimmick.
In this second of this three part series, i'd like to look at the concept of "getting ripped" that is a key part of the P90X delivery promise.
In Part 3 we'll look at alternatives to the two core parts of P90X, but in the right order (a) diet (from places one doesn't usually think about diet - it's not just about the food) and (b) workout practices (they're both practices)
As i said in part 1 and will say so again here, there's nothing wrong with anyone wanting to do - or actually doing - P90X or similar- the routines are "not considered harmful," to draw on a computer science trope (at least not too harmful - we'll see more in part 3b).
What we might ask about P90X is does it deliver what's on the tin? Will anyone who passes the P90X fit test and is therefore deemed "ready" to do P90X "get ripped"? - and in P90X's definition, that pretty much means, at a minimum, have a six pack.
P90X suggests that if you follow it's program, you will be "transformed" from "regular to ripped" in 90 days. That's its formula: do the workouts; follow the diet. So we're going to look at each part of that formula against some objective criteria for ripped-ness.
Basic necessities of Getting Ripped by which to assess P90X capacity to deliver:
There are fortunately only two things involved in getting ripped, level of importance listed here:
- bodyfat percentage - known bf% level for being able to see muscle definition
- muscle density/mass - what will be seen beneath the skin once at that bf%
RECIPE/FORMULA ASIDE for 6 Pack
If you want to skip the rest of the article here's the recipe for 6 pack abs:
- Get a diet that will get you below 10% body fat if a guy and below 15% if you're a gal. See part 3a for nutrition approach suggestions
- Do either this abs hypertrophy routine as prescribed, or get this book, bullet proof abs, and do its routines. Both have been tested. But NOTHING will show without getting down to that bodyfat %.
As to why this is the recipe, well that's in the rest of this article.
Results from this article:
- Based on this assessment criteria, at the end of this article a person will have some tools with which to assess the claims of an exercise / diet program to deliver the promised results.
- With these tools the person will be able to make an informed choice about whether that program suits their goals.
First, there are tons of 12 week programs out there, all promising grand things. Where do we get our information about what works in these programs? Usually from the programs themselves. But we saw in the first part of this series that P90X's key concept "muscle confusion" is more marketing than fact, especially in the context of deconditioned or novice trainees. So are the before and after shots for P90X's amazing transformations that seem to be portrayed also a gimmick? How can we make this assessment.
Second, i'm guessing that folks who choose to do P90X or other 12 week transformations may know about as much about how fat loss and hypertrophy really work as i did when i started the program: less than i thought i did, and so pretty accepting of the way P90X presents each of these: exercise first, diet second, bf% is just a measure of progress.
The reality, as we'll see, is very much different: diet has to be first, exercise is second and bf% is, in the context of "getting ripped" a very specific target, and one that can be reasonably calculated to determine the length and intensity of a program to deliver desired results.
So to begin, let's begin with where P90X puts its energy first: exercise.
o Muscle Building Very Basic Basics.
P90X doesn't come out and say that it's a muscle building program - and that's good, cuz it's not (more on that in a moment) - but most of us think that the term "getting ripped" implies building muscle.Likewise, those men's before and after pictures in P90X (like the ones fo JonC, left) seem to imply that muscle mass will accompany the program. Hmm.
There's a lot we don't know about how muscle growth works, but there's a couple of things we do know: to build muscle we need two things: caloric surplus and appropriate muscular stimulation to force an adaptation. In this case, that adaptation means laying down new muscle fiber and so getting some muscle growth. Muscle growth also pretty much requires eating more rather than less: we want more body mass - in these case muscle tissue - the resources for that tissue have to come from somewhere. For us, that's the right nutrients - i.e. food.
Muscle in Two Parts:
- We create a demand for adaptation (more myofibrils) by the right type of stimulus: hypertrophy inducing effort.
- We then need to provide the the building blocks to support the adaptation.
- we can eat all we want to support muscular adaptation, but if we're not pushing our muscles appropriately to adapt, then they have no reason to change (grow/get bigger). The result is we'd just get fat.
- The converse is also true: even with the best hypertrophy program going, if we're not providing the right material to feed the growth, muscle building will be stymied.
That said, here's a factoid from Christian Thibaudeau's excellent and recommended discussion of mass building: with someone (read male in this case) totally committed to muscle building, getting diet and workouts just so, the range of muscle building to expect is .25 to .5lbs of *dry* muscle per week. In the real world that non-fat weight would show up with an additional 40% from additional water/gylcogen. So ten pounds of muscle shows up more like 14lbs on the scale. But whether 10 or 14 pounds of fat free mass let's call it, at .5+ pounds a week, 2 pounds a month, that also means five to ten perfect months to get that 14 pounds.
Here's another factoid from that article - a person sitting at say 120lbs of lean mass (weight minus fat) would need to eat 2440 calories a day to start growing mass with those optimized workouts.
UPDATE Sept 28 '09 - Dustin in the comments below asks why does one have to be in caloric surplus? Let me bring the reply up here. First, read Thibadeau's article above with the reference to a construction analogy for how muscle gets built.Assuming that P90X was designed to promote muscle mass gains (it isn't), at the best, a normal guy would put on 3-6 lbs of muscle plus another 1-2 ish of water/glycogen. So 5-8'ish pounds. And that's in a program where one is eating to GAIN mass combined with workouts to produce mass. Is that P90X? No.
Again, a lot about muscle building is still being worked out, but there are some basics: doing sufficient work to cause hypertrophy of whatever kind means that muscle fiber is getting damaged - torn down in the body building lexicon. That damage triggers muscle cells to signal to related cells to say we need to expand the capacity of some of these muscle fibers cuz they're being asked to do more. Without the right fuel in the system for that growth to happen, it doesn't happen. So let me continue Thibaudeau's analogy now:
Perhaps you just decide you want a bigger garage, so step 1, you knock down a wall of your garage (like what workouts do to muscle - they really do wreak havoc with muscle fibers). Now what? Perhaps that wasn't the best first step, but now you need more bricks (protein) and you need some funds (carbs) to hire workers and expertise to get the space rebuilt.
Turns out, perhaps without the best planning, you only have a set amount of bricks to do do the job - and you only have a set amount of cash right now to pay for the labour.
So effectively, you're short on cash and your short on bricks, so your project manager says "this is the best i can do" and rebuilds the wall more or less to its former level and gives you a bit more room at one end of the shed with clever use of storage and a few extra bricks it was able to scrounge.
Please NOTE. I'm not saying one can't build SOME muscle in caloric deficit. I'm saying it's NOT OPTIMAL. All things being equal it is sometimes possible to build lean mass when in a caloric deficit but it is really sub optimal.
Why should be clearer now: if our focus is to burn fat, we're going into caloric deficit, and our system is working to maintain energy levels and keep systems going. It's not going to have the resource to give over to a big construction job at the same time, when a lot of those resources that would in surplus be used for building are being used for maintenance and fuel.
Even before we get to the type of workouts, a basic question we might ask is, is the diet in the program one of caloric surplus or caloric deficit? So whether you gain muscle on P90X or not will largely depend on how much of a caloric deficit - or not - you're in during the program. That discussion is below.
Generally, P90X aims to have a person in caloric deficit - without which fat loss will not occur. Period. So here's a potential contradiction, not unique to P90X, but certainly rather brushed under the carpet in this case: if muscle mass building requires caloric surplus, but the program keeps someone in caloric deficit throughout, how can muscle be built? This isn't a Zen Koan. The inverse may help: if one is eating enough for muscle building, what kind of caloric deficit is going on and what kind of fat loss is occurring?
Another question: if P90X runs a person into caloric deficit, how explain those before and after pictures that *seem* to show more muscle mass at the end of 90 days?We'll come back to these questions. First, let's look at how we might understand what kinds of muscular adaptations P90X promotes.
Kind of Strength Foregrounds Kind of Muscle
Another part of the muscle building adaptation is type of load, rest, volume and recovery. As we said above, to get new muscle fibers to be laid down, there has to be a demand for that kind of growth. As we saw in part 1, also, the type of adaptation in the first 8 - 12 weeks of a resistance program for a neophyte is mainly neurological. That means muscle that already exists is learning how to support the loads. Only once the challenge goes beyond that initial adaptation, effectively, does new muscle get laid down IF the challenge requires that adaptation. Does P90X require that hypertrophy adaptation?
o P90X: endurance training disguised with weights.
In the P90X program, 3 out of the 6 days a week are "resistance" oriented workouts (the other three are "cardio" oriented). But what kind of resistance training are we talking about? Turns out they're something known as circuits.
Circuits in general are usually about putting several exercises together, doing one set of each exercise with little rest between moves. The weights used in each of these sets has to be sufficiently light to be able to move between exercises with limited rest.
Indeed, in P90X resistance workouts, the rep ranges are anywhere from 7 to 12. The only instruction on how to pick a weight is so that one will "feel the burn" in the last couple of reps.
Based on the above template, we get the following in the resistance routines: 20+ minute circuits, 1 set per move, mid to high reps, critically: no rest between sets. At most, there is 60 seconds active recovery between circuits 2-3 circuits.
We've said these workouts are circuits but when rest between sets is taken out of the equation for this kind of period, we're looking at endurance or stamina training rather than muscular strength.
Let's look at how "strong" is used as a term in P90X. "Stronger" throughout the P90X program is largely defined by being able to endure, keep up, do as many reps of a move as Horton and Co perform with as little rest as possible over the course of the hour. That's endurance strength. The adaptations developed in the muscles are mainly aerobic in nature, which means that the muscles get,
Endurance is an important capacity for an athlete - the ability to keep going in an activity is pretty critical. Indeed, for someone just starting out on an exercise program, endurance strength is often the first phase of a program that will eventually get to other kinds of strength, like hypertrophy, speed and power. It's foundational.
* Increased aerobic enzymes
* Increased mitochondrial density
* Increased capillaries
* More efficient contractions
* Possible changes in fiber type (e.g., fast twitch to slow twitch.
Foundational. Basic. Upping oxidative capacity. Not building mass, but improving the muscle's capacity to use oxygen which means greater work capacity for longer. That sounds great for health but doesn't sound like a "getting ripped" program, though, does it? And saying that, are circuits the best way to build this capacity?
Here's an assessment of the kinds of circuits P90X uses for training:
We can draw several conclusions from the analysis of groups of individuals who have participated in studies involving prescribed circuit training for a prolonged period of time.
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing cardiovascular fitness when compared to High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing cardiovascular fitness when compared to cardiovascular training when the heart rate is at the target heart rate
* Circuit training is not optimal for forcing anaerobic adaptation when compared to a strength training program
* Circuit training is not optimal for forcing aerobic adaptation when compared to an aerobic training program
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing muscle size when compared to a hypertrophy-based training program
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing strength when compared to HIIT or a regular resistance training program
* Circuit training is useful for burning additional calories and stimulating blood flow to the limbs
* Circuit training is useful for squeezing lots of exercise into a short time frame
In light of everything you just read, can anyone actually benefit from circuit training? The answer is yes, but obviously the benefits are not optimal for experienced athletes. Subgroups of trainees such as the elderly, young, rehabbing, novice, or obese athletes might do well circuit training optimized in the following ways:...
# Goal #3: burning calories and fat.
Since we are not able to burn fat unless we are working aerobically, most circuit training programs will not suffice unless each exercise is performed for a duration of at least 4 minutes. In this case we can only hope to burn calories, and possibly a little fat, by moving rapidly to each exercise station and maintaining a steady rhythm. Ultimately the client will be exercising not at, but close to, the anaerobic threshold.
The above Goal 3 Sounds like P90X's "resistnace" workouts (and all the other P90X workouts, too, for that matter). That latter point then is as close as P90X comes to having an effect, and it's not strength per se or muscle building. It's endurance: keep the movement going to keep the heart rate up for periods longer than 4 minutes; improve oxidative capacity (ability to burn fat).
Recap on P90X Circuits
SO what have we learned? Circuits are, at best, novice routines, or for sick or rehabbing, or obese. THis doesn't sound like the deconditioned x-jock population P90X is supposedly targeting. So, P90X, as point 3 above, has tuned the workouts for what? Fat burning. Not muscle building.
Our question at this point might be, are these kinds of circuits the best way to burn fat for a deconditioned jock AND add "lean muscle" that the diet guide says will make up for not seeing much of a change on the scale?
Consider this: in a 24 week program study designed specifically to look at the effects of single set style circuit training vs periodized multi-set program, the lean mass changes for women were 2% lean mass gain over that 6 month period vs 8% gain with the alternative protocol. Likewise percentage body fat went down by 10% in 6 months (eg, someone at 24% went to 21.6%) vs 25% with the alternative protocol (that 24% person wend to 18%).
So, these workouts are *mainly* fat burners/endurance builders, and don't seem to be necessarily the best approach to optimize fat burning or lean mass building. In part 3 we'll look at some of these alternatives in more detail.
Aside: P90X+ Let me cue up here that the P90X+ program is very similar in kind to P90X: 5 more P90X style workouts, but with fewer people on the set. These workouts are to mix into P90X. So one effectively re-does P90X, swapping out some P90X routines for the new ones. So, once more into the breach: more circuits, more little rest between moves. So, effectively, more of the P90X endurance same.
P90X - resisting muscle growth?
We now have a sense of what it takes to build muscle: caloric surplus - we need more to build more; and we need specific types of load/recovery/volume for muscles to grow. In looking at P90X, we see that the type of strength it's geared to building is endurance, not hypertrophy. The muscular adaptations are around fuel consumption - better oxidative/fat burning capacity - rather than mass building.
In sum, based on their design, P90X workouts - including the "resistance" workouts - are circuits, tuned for fat burning rather than muscle building.
Questions a person considering P90X might have at this point are therefore
- a) does the P90X workout focus on fat burning match one's goals?
- b) if so, is the P90X circuit approach the best way to achieve these goals?
Another question might be "but what about getting ripped? doesn't P90X deliver at least on that?"
At the top of this article we looked at getting ripped as body fat percentage first and muscle growth second. Ok, it's not delivering on muscle growth per se, so time to look at the diet side of P90X and we'll come back to its fat burning disguised as resistance training.
o The simple formula for a 6 pack? Body Fat Percentage
While i don't think he coined the term, colleague Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength may often be heard to say "there are no secrets." So here's a big non-secret to 6 pack abs: body fat percentage.
What P90X does not come out and say ever, anywhere, is that for a guy to begin to see his abs, he has to be at about 10% BF (in my experience of the guys i've worked with, it's actually below 10%); for gals, we have to be at about 15% or less. It's really that simple.
I wish i had known this at the time i was doing P90X. Rather than focusing on dropping 10 pounds, i might have looked into how feasible/healthy it would be to drop 10% body fat in 90 days, and how to optimize that. That *might* have helped me figure out right there if Kenpo-X and Plyo-X were the best ways to achieve that goal, or if maybe looking into diet-x might have been more profitable.
Indeed, what more and more research shows is that the only way to get to that ripped level BF% is calorie restriction. Calorie restriction (ie, diet) comes first; exercise is second. P90X of course doesn't say this fact either. It's selling "muscle confusion" first; nutrition way second.
o P90X Diet Math
This is not to say that PN doesn't get diet. PN has a diet book. And it's a corker.
What the Nutrition Plan for P90X says about the role of nutrition in getting ripped is as follows:
Why Diet Matters P90X® Nutrition Plan A large body of scientific evidence shows that diet and exercise work hand-in-hand to promote fitness and physical performance. One reason for this symbiotic relationship is the energy equation. When you expend more calories than you consume, you burn body fat (aka "stored energy") and build lean body mass—but because you need energy to exercise, every calorie you eat must be of the highest quality to get you over the hump.:Well, as we've seen, ya don't always build lean body mass just because you're burning more calories than you consume; and as we've seen, ya don't always build lean body mass when you're working out and reducing caloric intake, either. .25 - .5 pounds a week if EATING to gain that muscle.
Please let me note again that one can gain lean mass while in caloric deficit. It's just not a lot. If one is gaining .25 lbs by eating for gain, and working out for muscular growth, how much fiber can be built when eating for loss and doing endurance not hypertrophy workouts? It's a real challenge.
So what's the P90X diet advice?
IT's amazing. Every 4 weeks, the macronutrient ratio changes - to match the demands of this incredible program:
Phase I: Fat Shredder - Days 1-28
Phase II: Energy Booster - Days 29-56
Phase III: Endurance Maximizer - Days 57-90
The above phases map to the following macronutrient ratios:
Macronutrient Goals in Each Phase
Phase I - Protein 50%, Carbs 30%, Fat 20%
Phase II - Protein 40%, Carbs 40%, Fat 20%
Phase III - Protein 20%, Carbs 60%, Fat 20%
How are these ratios achieved? By one of two ways: either follow the portion suggestions of how many portions of each type of macro nutrient to have, or by following the meal plans so even less to think about. Just eat exactly what it in the book, when it says to eat it.
Indeed, the portion approach is not unique to P90X but it is complex: Have X portions from the Protein group; Y portions from the Carbs and Z from fats.
This number of portions approach is to help avoid calorie counting. But the result also means that there are only three "sizes" of menu to fit everyone. Not exactly optimized for fat loss. Consider the following.
Calories Per Day - Three Sizes fits All
Here's how a person determines how many calories they're going to eat a day - what their Total X+Y+Z portions will equal.
Nutrition Level Chart
EA = 1800-2399 = Level I 1800 calories per day
EA = 2400-2999 = Level II 2400 calories per day
EA = 3000+ = Level III 3000 calories per day
Who is losing anything here and by how much? Hmm. This means someone who requires 2399 calories for maintenance in Level 1 will suddenly be on a 600 calorie a day deficit. In 6 days of workouts, that's 3600 calories - a little better than a fat pound. Someone who's closer to 1800 cals for maintenance will be losing far less in that week. Maybe nothing following this meal plan. And indeed, there's a real potential Achilles heal to this approach. IT's how one's Level is calculated: it assumes that ALL P90X workouts burn 600 calories.
Let's look quickly at how one figures out their energy level.
Determining Your Nutrition Level
1. Calculate your RMR
Your Body Weight x 10 = RMR
2. Calculate your Daily Activity Burn
RMR x 20% = DAB
3. Calculate your Energy Amount
RMR + DAB +600 CALS for p90x workouts = EA
Now, RMR stands for resting metabolic rate, and i have yet to find anywhere where it is simplified to body weight times 10, since it regularly takes into account height and other constants, etc, but let's set that aside and just go with this formula.
Here's an example:
1. a 140 lb gal of unknown height has an "RMR" of 1400
2. 20% is 280
3. 1400 + 280 + 600 = 2280 calories.
So that puts the person in EA of Level 1, 1800 calories a day. That would be, all things being equal, a 480 calorie a day deficit, which over 6 days, is 2880 calories, not quite a pound.
A gal at 130 is also in EA Level 1, and also told to eat 1800 calories, and that's only
1300+260+600= 2160, a difference of 360 cals a day, which in 6 days is 2160 - even further away from a pound a week.
A smaller gal at 120, 1200+240+600 = 2040 calories now at 1800, is eating only a 200 calorie a day deficit.
That's 1200 in a week, three weeks to lose a pound.
And that's IF those workouts are really 600kcals a piece. They are not. Or let's put it this way: it depends. Yoga X at about 80-90 mins is 200 calories; Kenpo-X, at 45 mins, is maybe 275 - 435. If you're totally "bringing it" maybe a bit more. So your heart rate is pushing it's aerobic envelop.
This math begins to explain the 6 pounds total i took off during my religious observation of P90X doubles - where i was keenly going for 600 cals a day from double workouts.
Special Case:
If someone is in the EA Level 3 of "3000+" of course potentially coming down from say 4250 a day to 3000, the possibility is that, all things being equal, one will be losing 2.5 ish pounds a week, 30 pounds over the 12 weeks.
o Body Fat X
P90X says that weight of course is "relatively meaningless" since a better measure is body fat percentage. Why? P90X doesn't explain in this guide why body fat percentage is more important than what's on the scale. We're simply told body fat % is the measure of progress.
So how does P90X use body fat %?
In the "relatively meaningless" way one uses weight? that it goes down? That's pretty much it. With one sweetener. It provides three body fat ranges for folks to feel really successful after completing the program:
Fit, Athlete, Elite Athlete.Nice correlation implied: if you have a BF% at the third level, maybe you're an "elite athlete" (No question asked of course that if you have that BF% and you're not an elite athlete what else might you be?)
But there's no correlation between Body Fat % and ripped. It does not come out and say that unless you hit that "Elite Athlete" bf% range, you will not be seeing that 6 pack. It's that simple.
BF% - supposedly important to P90X, but based on who and what army? A few questions a person may have at this point about a program claiming that bf% change is critical may be:
- If body fat percentage is so important, and the meaningful way to measure progress, what are the expected body fat % changes on this program for men and women?
- IF it is that important why is it so cavalier about how to take these measures? The guides don't actually tell anyone how to do this - the closest it comes is to say "get a caliper"from their web site.
Other than just maybe/maybe not caloric restriction, the P90X diet guide seems to reflect Nutrition Confusion, perhaps to match the exercise program's muscle confusion, discussed in part 1. Over the course of 12 weeks, as said, the macronutrient ratio of the program changes 3 times. There are arguments in the data about why a person would want to start with higher protein and lower carbs and then by the end of the program invert this, but not really.
- Fact: we know that if you're in caloric deficit, you will lose weight.
- Fact: we know that in short term programs (8-12 weeks) that higher protein diets *throughout* the program tend to have slightly faster higher initial weight loss than other programs, but that after that period, loses level out.
Here, the idea seems to be (it's not explicit), is that to kick starting the diet, bringing up protein and reducing carbs, will fire up fat loss. Hmm. But after that first month, because people will have been working so hard, they'll need to keep brining up the carb level to have the energy to survive it. There's a few notices about extending a given phase if one wishes, but the guidance is pretty much stick to the plan, stan.
Haven't seen the studies to support this kind of short term mix-it-up. Nutrition is complex. But a higher level fact we do have the resources to say is that fat loss happens with caloric deficit. Is that really achieved in the P90X diet plan?
And let's look at those figures again: the predicted weight loss on this program is 6-12 pounds. A half pound to a full pound a week. That's it. Unless you're in the 3000+ a day with a serious + a day. Honey, i can get you on a diet tomorrow with NO exercise involved that will guarantee to meet or double those numbers. No sweat. Literally. So what is someone doing on P90X if the goal is to get lean, to "get ripped"?
o Is What's on the Label What's in the Tin? Is this a Getting Ripped Diet?
P90X promises "getting ripped" as part of its objective.
If we can accept the premise that caloric deficit is required to reduce fat in order to see one's 6 pack, a key part of the "getting ripped" concept, we have to ask if P90X will really deliver this result?
Based on looking at the differences in caloric deficits to be achieved of just a few points of the Level I scale, for instance, it's pretty clear that the amount of caloric deficit to be achieved in following this program is likely to be highly variable, and likely at most about a pound a week for the people at the outside of the Level, and likely considerably less given that the caloric burn calculated for each workout is exaggerated.
Who will get Ripped on P90X?
Knowing that we need to get to a low body fat % to get the "get ripped" look, and knowing how much caloric deficit we need to burn FAT (as opposed to just lose weight), and knowing that there's such variation of caloric deficit with P90X and that at the most it's calculated to drop about a pound a week of fat for anyone who starts at eating 2999kcals a day, AT BEST, what does this tell us about the likelihood of getting ripped on P90X?
IF all the person needs to lose is 6-12 pounds to achieve the ripeed body fat percentage, then it's possible to get to the Ripped Place in the 90 days.
Otherwise, how can it happen?
Now, we know that *if* one gains lean mass and doesn't lose ANY body fat, their BF% goes down. True enough. But how much lean mass can one reasonably gain in 12 weeks with P90X such that it will effectively overwhelm X% of fat? So let's just put that one to bed.
Effectively, unless you're already close to that goal percentage can P90X deliver "ripped" or just the "getting" part of getting ripped?
And if the best it can deliver for the majority is the "getting" towards ripped, again, a person might ask, is P90X the best way to do it?
o Those Before and After Pictures
Given everything we've looked at above, let's come back to a few of those before and after pictures.
For Women, let's take Amanda for example.
We don't know her stats. That is we don't know her starting BF% or her final one, but what's changed in this photo? What don't we see? A six pack. The abs are angled. Is there less fat? yes. Is there more definition. Yes. Does it look like she's lost more than the 6-12 pounds? No. Has anything else, beside the expression on her face, and the sucking in of the gut changed visibly? No.
Then there is KatieV. Again, what's changed?
IS katie sucking in her gut in the day 1 photo? How about on day 90? Is she already pretty lean? Look at the waist circumference at the hips. Much change? So while the photo looks really cool, the *actual* change is not incredible. And since the arms haven't seemed to have changed, i'm guessing weight loss, a good base of fitness already, and with three days a week of endurance abs on top of all the rest of the workouts, the abs will show. Congratulations! This participant hit the sweet spot.Is this result what any gal who passes the P90X fit test can expect? As we've seen, realistically, that would depend on a number of factors, particularly starting BF% and realistic expectation of caloric deficit over the 12 weeks. If one starts at 24% bodyfat, will P90X take a person to 14%? No. Remember in the research above 6 months of a slightly more intense workout regimen than P90X net 2% lean mass improvement, 10% bf% reduction. That's 21.4% in 24 weeks, not 12.
And with the guys?
What about their before and after photos?
Really look at the photos. From angle, to lighting, to mass, what's going on? Mainly body fat changes?
Without having access to the actual measurements from before an after we don't really have anything concrete to go on about the degree of change. What we can see is that most of the guys posted as P90X success stories already have some muscular definition in their before shots, even though pose and lighting is not optimized to show this before aspect. Look at the second gentleman in the picture above. He's plainly experienced at workouts and is already at a lower body fat %; he will likely be building lean mass out of the gate, and trimming body fat by the little he needs for the lighting in the after photo to create an effect. Nice lat flare.
The above photo crit is not to take away from anyone's accomplishments on P90X, but to put the results - and expected results - in context, and to look at these photos with a greater reality lens, based on the little detail we actually have.
Not that there aren't some rather wild whoppers on the P90x site.
"Lost 30% body fat" sounds fabulous in this picture, doesn't it? But let's put it in context. We can see some of DavidC's abs - so there's a fat level of 10% or a bit less. That means that a guy who is already skinny, as he seems to be - say at 12% minus 30% of that = 8.4 percent. Definitely in ab-seeing zone. That seems like a very high result to me for someone who's already skinny, but let's take it as true. The point is that he begins the program already close to a Ripped bf%. All the guys in the success stories seem to do so. Well they have to, don't they?
So what's going on with his shoulders that do look bigger? Gotta love all those pull ups.
As we've seen, based on what we know about muscle building, it usually requires caloric surplus AND it requires a program designed to facilitate muscle building adaptation and P90X is mainly an endurance program with a wee bit of hypertrophy-oriented training thrown in.
Since what we see is mainly in the shoulder and arms, and some fat off the waist, well, the diet might also just be at that right place where the caloric deficit was minimal to support muscular growth from the most repeated moves in the "resistance" section: pull ups and push ups (we'll come back to this in part 3). Again, well done. Unusual, but well done. Why do we so rarely see people's legs in these shots, hmm?
In general, what we do know, when we really look at these photos is that we are not seeing people make super weight loss changes OR muscle mass changes. These are relatively close to lean people, getting more lean.
Another question might be: if one is in this happy position of being within sight of lean-ness, is P90x the best way to get there?
o Summing Up: P90X and getting Ripped.
If we start with the simple premise that the main ingredient of of "getting ripped" - signified by 6 pack abs - is first to achieve a particular bodyfat% and second to have some hypertrophy of muscles to show through the skin, then we can assess P90X.
We've seen that P90X is *primarily* a circuit training program that's been tuned for fat burning, not hypertrophy - even it's Ab Ripper X program is endurance rather than hypertrophy. As such, despite the X and extreme labels, P90X workouts are conservative: rehab, novice, obese friendly. Surprising, isn't it? The very stuff of fat fit boot camps.
We've also seen that its diet plan is *very* conservative in terms of weight loss. 6-12 pounds total in 12 weeks.
Thus, we might ask,
- for whom is P90X likely to be a "get ripped" success story?
- is P90X the best way to achieve this result for this group?
- what are other people supposed to do who want to 'get ripped'
To the first question we already have the answer: people already close to that target body fat percentage.
To the second question, we've already had some sense that P90X may not be the best way to get the results in promises. Part three will look at alternatives, which will include nutrition alternatives, as the short answer is yes, there are other what one may even call more balanced alternatives to P90X.
To the third question, well, answer two does here as well.
So what do we have?
Program assessments:
- - Where is the Diet plan? what are its predicted deliverables?
- - how is progress measured?
- - what are the predicted changes in these measures over what period?
- - what kind of workouts/rest periods are being presented? - endurance/power/hypertrophy
- - what kind of transformations are predicted from these workouts? what are the measures?
My hope is that with the above information, folks are better able not only to assess the claims and supposed results of P90X with a critical eye, but ANY workout program.
So, next time an infomercial promises you'll lose fat in just a few weeks and it's promoting a device or an exercise routine, look at where the diet plan is hiding. It's usually something like "combined with diet and rest" or something similar.
If the device or program promises muscle gains, again, look for the diet plan AND look at the type of routines being promoted. Are they hypertophy inducing, strength and power or are they, like P90X, safe, novice, fat burners, dressed up as hypertrophy or strength or power?
o Alternatives?
At the end of the day, while P90X is fine for what it is - a novice boot camp type endurance/foundation workout - it's a 12 week program. It's a package that uses bells and whistles around marketing illusions like muscle confusion, nutrition confusion, lots of moves, lots of workouts, and lots of diet changes. It seems it's got all these components to keep us busy, entertained, and hooked enough to buy the product: there's a lot of stuff in here; it must be great.
And then if we actually use the program (most people buy health dvds and don't use them, apparently), that variety is there, perhaps not only to keep us engaged but again to think we must be doing something great to achieve our goals.
As we've seen however, P90X, despite all the hoopla, is actually a conservative program. Circuits are safe; the nutrition program is safe. No major changes; no law suits from health risks. Is it the optimla approach to achieve "getting ripped" - safely?
Let's put it this way, if after looking at what's on the label and comparing it with what's in the tin, and you decide you might not want to do P90X but you still want to get lean, add some muscle, get strong etc, you may want to consider some alternatives.
In part three, i'll go over a few examples of programs and approaches both for workouts (part 3b) and nutrition (part 3a let me know what you think of this one - i'm kinda happy about it) so again, a person looking for an approach will have more information with which to assess whether a program is right for them.
See ya next time.
Related Posts:
- P90X critique, part 1: "muscle confusion" real? yoga-x or plyo-x to be x'd out?
- P90X alternatives: part 3a: nutrition for fat burning, ripping and building
- p90X alternatives: part 3b: workout alternatives for time, variety of systems and quality
- MAKE PULL UPS FUN - rings review - they're a gas
- Athletic Bodies: what do athletes in different sports look like under their shirts?
- Cardio and Strength work: research showing they complement each other.
- Nutrition: ten habits for better eating (pdf download)
- perfect reps: not exactly a P90X concept - but huge benefit from thinking about each rep
- shorter workouts: six minutes to fitness part 1 and part 2
- help putting it together? - online training/nutrition consulting available with mc
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