Showing posts with label occlusion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label occlusion. Show all posts
Monday, May 3, 2010
Occlusion Training: Tightening up everything we don't know about Hypertrophy
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If we asked someone "what should i do to build muscle" probably not a lot of people would say "cut off the blood flow to a working limb." Turns out though, that this latter kind of work - called occlusion training, or blood flow restriction (BFR) - has proven a powerful technique for inducing hypertrophy at very low loads (10-30% of a 1RM). While it's mainly been explored as a rehab technique to help accelerate recovery, some researchers have been looking at it as an approach in regular training. What, then, are the pro's and con's of this technique for training? And what are we learning about the mystery that is hypertrophy from studying the phenomena of occlusion for hypertrohhy strength?
These questions are addressed in an excellent review of occlusion research from 2008 called " Ischemic strength training: a low-load alternative to heavy resistance exercise?"
Two of the highlights of the paper (at least for me) -the review of hypertrophy models such as they are and a possible rationale for the Pump in bodybuilding circles.
Overview on the (un)Known of Muscle Building
The authors go through an amazing job of investigating the known models of hypertrophy - and all that we dont know about it - to see where occlusion training may fit in with existing models. Heck, in order to understand what role occlusion plays, we need to have some sense of the depth and breadth of the puddle it's playing in.
Unaccustomed as i am to being brief, i'm actually not going to go through these models in detail here. Suffice it to say though that what we have often thought of as the biggie thing to boost in order to super charge hypertrophy may not hold. The authors do a lovely job of showing for instance that heh, post occlusion training, yes Growth Hormone (GH) is up and IGF-1 is up, but according to all this other research, we really don't know if the presence of these hormone levels is really what's upping protein synthesis at all.
Not just hormones, the reviewers look at other factors too - like mechano checmical. THat means that maybe the calcium involved in the actin/myosin bridge that enables contractions is a key to what's really important for hypertrophy - but so far there aren't studies looking at these responses in occlusion, so we have no comparison.
This review is great for myth busting. In other words, its review of what we can actually point to and say "that's what casues muscle growth" shows us what we know is so small, it's really exciting. Why is being able to say "but we don't know if that's what's doing it" exciting? One, it means we're starting to know what's going on in more detail to be able to say we don't know and two, it means in any discussion about somebody saying this is WHY this works (like why the pump "works") we can be pretty confident in knowing they maybe shouldn't be so confident.
It may seem a fine point, but work like this also lets us continue to say that "if you do this protocol, you'll get big" - assuming it's been tested on lots of athletes of various types. What we cannot say with the same confidence is WHY if we follow that protocol we're getting big.
I recommend the full first half of the article just for this review of the state of the art (as of 2008) on hypertrophy.
SO where does this get us then with occlusion and hypertrophy?
First a few words about occlusion training - what is it?
Occlusion training goes by a bunch of names: kaatsu training, occlusion, Blood Flow Restriction (BFR), ishemic training. Occlusion generally means to obstruct or block or even hide something (from view). In the case of muscle work, the blood flow is obstructed, usually by a tournequette of some kind. Ischemia is sort of the technical term for blood flow restriction - to the heart or other body tissue -as a result of some type of block (or occlusion).
Protocols - often seem to involve tournequetting the working limb, then using loads of 10-30% of a 1RM, usually lots of reps, very low rest, until fatigue hits. The results in strength gains are similar to working sets with 80% 1RMs.
The main benefit has been seen in rehab, getting a person who's too weak to work at heavy levels, back on their feet again. There's even been consideration of the use of this kind of training for astraunauts who, following Woolfs' and Davis's law do tend to lose it from not using it - their muscle that is.
So, we can start to see with results like this, it would be interesting to understand how low loads with a cuff can cause strength gains equivalent to 80% of a 1RM
Is It Safe?
One of the biggie first questions people have about occlusion is (well, what was yours>) - is - is it safe? The authors respond that by saying they looked at 13 studies with thousands of trials - and even in the one where the forearm was completely occluded for 20mins, there were no measurable ill effects.
Most sessions last only 5-10 mins, and are not full, but partial occlusion.
Likewise, i was reading a 2010 study that wanted to see if thrombosis symptoms would occur in healthy participants - another concern about occlusion - and nothing close to that effect was measured. So from these typical kinds of fears, no such effects it seems have been measured.
The one side effect "acute muscle pain" - i think this means similar to the burn sensation some folks get when going too far in a set. That's common with the "to fatigue" type training used in occlusion. DOMS is also common in the first few bouts. The authors suggest that with these cautions in mind "training combined with ischemia clearly requires a high degree of motivation from the trainee, especially if performed with a high level of effort."
Will that be Wide or Narrow?
The consensus is it seems that wide cuffs have the advantage: lower pressures can be used with wider cuffs. Likewise there are fewer shear force issues with wider cuff and one can stay away from complete occlusion with more control.
Last year i looked at a study that just tied up the lower limbs with wide wraps. Important to note that the cuffs these folks are describing in the research reviews can have the pressure adjusted with the cuff to exact mmHg, similar to a blood pressure cuff.
I make no recommendations about whether it's better to use a proper occlusion cuff or just wrap up a limb; i only note that the places in Japan that have the most experience with this approach use Katsu cuffs - cuffs that enable control of pressure.
Is a Tournequette Even Necessary?
This is my favorite part of the paper because i think there's a link between what is described here, and what is discussed with the Pump (b2d overview here). See what you think.
First the authors point out that studies show the effect of an occlusion cuff is erased once loads get up to 40-60% load. What's interesting is that work using research's favorite - the leg extension - showed that even without a cuff, loads as low as 20% could induce "ischemic pain" - like that's a good thing.
The authors hypothesize that there are ways to get a low load ischemic effect without a cuff by doing the following: partials
So this is where my Pump query comes in: the Pump - if one is not overtraining and under nourished - is easy to achieve by using lots of reps with light loads, until one's arms or related feel like they're so full of blood they can't move. Sounds like kaatsu work.
Now there's been an ongoing debate about whether or not the Pump really leads to hypertrophy. Some of the vigerous come backs are "i never train for the pump and i still get big" - while true not really a defence. And actually, what hasn't been directly tested it seems is post ishemia self-induced, does hypertrophy occur? A lot of body builders will say yes.
What i'm intrigued by is that there seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence to say that ishemia induced with low loads develops hypertrophy - but if anyone tries to say "and here's why that is" - and they start talking about NO supplements and flushing and who knows what all - you can pretty confidently say, well, based on what research?
In other words, there's a relationship it looks like, but what the actual mechanism is, we don't entirely know. Mybe it's fatiguing out type one and bringing on type II, maybe its IGF-1 goes up and myostatin goes down. Maybe it's mTOR levels. They're all in the soup. But what's cause and what's conincidence - ain't clear. But i sure as heck ain't gonna say the pump is a myth - just the explanations for it so far are pretty mythical.
To Cuff or Not to Cuff
One might think that just going for this kind of non-cuff'd based ischemia (blood pooling; can't flow back) is better than cuff based. Here's what the authors think:
What about the Dose?
To summarise a great long section of this paper, the results are not in for normal training about what the optimal frequence, volume, intensity is for optimal hypertrophic effect using occlusion.
The authors make a great note that not all ischemic training results in strength gains. For some reason, cycling isn't great for occlusion and strength development. On the other hand walk training is one of the big successes of occlusion work, and of course stength training - the short bursts of activity - is where the biggest benefit seems to be. Whether therefore the ratio between ischemia and reperfusion is key here, we just don't know but it seems to be a factor.
Will it Blend
So if we're not rehabbing, and with all the unknowns about dose, is it appropriate to put occlusion training into the mix of a regular strength program with "heavy" resistance.
I dunno.
The authors focus on work that's looked at two great benefits of heavy resistance training: bone mineral density and tendon stiffness.
In both cases lighter load work has been shown to have less of an effect on these factors. So - for ones bones, heavy resistance is a bonus - but then, so is stop and start action. For tendons, however, it seems that volume is also a key factor in enhancing stiffness (MTC descibed here - doesn't mean anything about flexibility, but about load, really)
In other words, while occlusion may not bring on the benefits of heavy resistance, there are other ways than heavy work to enhance these benefits so playing with ischemia may be useful for strength development.
High Volume towards Ischemia? Again, to take another page from bodybuilding and powerlifting practice, mechanisms to increase volume without killing form or inducing failure can be awesome. 
Trainer par excellance Roland Fisher introduced me to the timed sets of Huge in a Hurry
's Chad Waterbury. Very simple: get a weight at the end of a session where you can do 20 reps, and as soon as the fast tempo drops to complete the set, drop the weight, go for another 20. By using time as the marker, there's no way to get to fatigue and form failure. One heck of a pump, too. Thus, one has done their heavy work, and uses the occlusion level sets for a finisher. I love it. Your mileage may vary. See what you find.
Wrap UP - sans wraps even
And speaking of finisher, the authors wrap up with the following. The first sentence for me is key:
Meanwhile, if you wish to try occlusion training yourself, there's only about 4 uni's in the US using it; most work is in Japan. Here's an intereting PDF that talks about a specific Kaatsu cuff system, too.
The point is, i guess, that as this article started, just when we think we know something who'd a thought that strength can be aided by counter-intuitive actions like restricting blood supply? where does that map to evolution?
If nothing else, occlusion work shows us that we are complex systems with more than one path to create an effect.
Related Resources
Citations:
If we asked someone "what should i do to build muscle" probably not a lot of people would say "cut off the blood flow to a working limb." Turns out though, that this latter kind of work - called occlusion training, or blood flow restriction (BFR) - has proven a powerful technique for inducing hypertrophy at very low loads (10-30% of a 1RM). While it's mainly been explored as a rehab technique to help accelerate recovery, some researchers have been looking at it as an approach in regular training. What, then, are the pro's and con's of this technique for training? And what are we learning about the mystery that is hypertrophy from studying the phenomena of occlusion for hypertrohhy strength?These questions are addressed in an excellent review of occlusion research from 2008 called " Ischemic strength training: a low-load alternative to heavy resistance exercise?"
Two of the highlights of the paper (at least for me) -the review of hypertrophy models such as they are and a possible rationale for the Pump in bodybuilding circles.
Overview on the (un)Known of Muscle Building
The authors go through an amazing job of investigating the known models of hypertrophy - and all that we dont know about it - to see where occlusion training may fit in with existing models. Heck, in order to understand what role occlusion plays, we need to have some sense of the depth and breadth of the puddle it's playing in.
Unaccustomed as i am to being brief, i'm actually not going to go through these models in detail here. Suffice it to say though that what we have often thought of as the biggie thing to boost in order to super charge hypertrophy may not hold. The authors do a lovely job of showing for instance that heh, post occlusion training, yes Growth Hormone (GH) is up and IGF-1 is up, but according to all this other research, we really don't know if the presence of these hormone levels is really what's upping protein synthesis at all. Not just hormones, the reviewers look at other factors too - like mechano checmical. THat means that maybe the calcium involved in the actin/myosin bridge that enables contractions is a key to what's really important for hypertrophy - but so far there aren't studies looking at these responses in occlusion, so we have no comparison.
This review is great for myth busting. In other words, its review of what we can actually point to and say "that's what casues muscle growth" shows us what we know is so small, it's really exciting. Why is being able to say "but we don't know if that's what's doing it" exciting? One, it means we're starting to know what's going on in more detail to be able to say we don't know and two, it means in any discussion about somebody saying this is WHY this works (like why the pump "works") we can be pretty confident in knowing they maybe shouldn't be so confident.
It may seem a fine point, but work like this also lets us continue to say that "if you do this protocol, you'll get big" - assuming it's been tested on lots of athletes of various types. What we cannot say with the same confidence is WHY if we follow that protocol we're getting big.
I recommend the full first half of the article just for this review of the state of the art (as of 2008) on hypertrophy.
SO where does this get us then with occlusion and hypertrophy?
First a few words about occlusion training - what is it?
Occlusion training goes by a bunch of names: kaatsu training, occlusion, Blood Flow Restriction (BFR), ishemic training. Occlusion generally means to obstruct or block or even hide something (from view). In the case of muscle work, the blood flow is obstructed, usually by a tournequette of some kind. Ischemia is sort of the technical term for blood flow restriction - to the heart or other body tissue -as a result of some type of block (or occlusion).
Protocols - often seem to involve tournequetting the working limb, then using loads of 10-30% of a 1RM, usually lots of reps, very low rest, until fatigue hits. The results in strength gains are similar to working sets with 80% 1RMs.
The main benefit has been seen in rehab, getting a person who's too weak to work at heavy levels, back on their feet again. There's even been consideration of the use of this kind of training for astraunauts who, following Woolfs' and Davis's law do tend to lose it from not using it - their muscle that is.
So, we can start to see with results like this, it would be interesting to understand how low loads with a cuff can cause strength gains equivalent to 80% of a 1RM
Is It Safe?
One of the biggie first questions people have about occlusion is (well, what was yours>) - is - is it safe? The authors respond that by saying they looked at 13 studies with thousands of trials - and even in the one where the forearm was completely occluded for 20mins, there were no measurable ill effects.
Most sessions last only 5-10 mins, and are not full, but partial occlusion.
Likewise, i was reading a 2010 study that wanted to see if thrombosis symptoms would occur in healthy participants - another concern about occlusion - and nothing close to that effect was measured. So from these typical kinds of fears, no such effects it seems have been measured.
The one side effect "acute muscle pain" - i think this means similar to the burn sensation some folks get when going too far in a set. That's common with the "to fatigue" type training used in occlusion. DOMS is also common in the first few bouts. The authors suggest that with these cautions in mind "training combined with ischemia clearly requires a high degree of motivation from the trainee, especially if performed with a high level of effort."
Will that be Wide or Narrow?
The consensus is it seems that wide cuffs have the advantage: lower pressures can be used with wider cuffs. Likewise there are fewer shear force issues with wider cuff and one can stay away from complete occlusion with more control.Last year i looked at a study that just tied up the lower limbs with wide wraps. Important to note that the cuffs these folks are describing in the research reviews can have the pressure adjusted with the cuff to exact mmHg, similar to a blood pressure cuff.
I make no recommendations about whether it's better to use a proper occlusion cuff or just wrap up a limb; i only note that the places in Japan that have the most experience with this approach use Katsu cuffs - cuffs that enable control of pressure.
Is a Tournequette Even Necessary?
This is my favorite part of the paper because i think there's a link between what is described here, and what is discussed with the Pump (b2d overview here). See what you think.
First the authors point out that studies show the effect of an occlusion cuff is erased once loads get up to 40-60% load. What's interesting is that work using research's favorite - the leg extension - showed that even without a cuff, loads as low as 20% could induce "ischemic pain" - like that's a good thing.
The authors hypothesize that there are ways to get a low load ischemic effect without a cuff by doing the following: partials
Other quadriceps exercises can also be modified to achieve intramuscular restriction of blood flow. During closed kinetic chain exercises such as the squat and the leg press, the force demands of the movement dictate that the electrical activity of the quadriceps is high at flexed knee angles (90°–100°) and low near full-knee extension (Andersen et al., 2006). If the range of motion instead is limited to between ∼50° and 100° of flexion, the muscle activity remains fairly high throughout the movement and intramuscular occlusion is thus more likely to occur.The goal of going for ischemia with low loads is to get the benefit of heavier loads without having to use heavier loads that perhaps could not be taken to the given rep level.
So this is where my Pump query comes in: the Pump - if one is not overtraining and under nourished - is easy to achieve by using lots of reps with light loads, until one's arms or related feel like they're so full of blood they can't move. Sounds like kaatsu work.
Now there's been an ongoing debate about whether or not the Pump really leads to hypertrophy. Some of the vigerous come backs are "i never train for the pump and i still get big" - while true not really a defence. And actually, what hasn't been directly tested it seems is post ishemia self-induced, does hypertrophy occur? A lot of body builders will say yes. What i'm intrigued by is that there seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence to say that ishemia induced with low loads develops hypertrophy - but if anyone tries to say "and here's why that is" - and they start talking about NO supplements and flushing and who knows what all - you can pretty confidently say, well, based on what research?
In other words, there's a relationship it looks like, but what the actual mechanism is, we don't entirely know. Mybe it's fatiguing out type one and bringing on type II, maybe its IGF-1 goes up and myostatin goes down. Maybe it's mTOR levels. They're all in the soup. But what's cause and what's conincidence - ain't clear. But i sure as heck ain't gonna say the pump is a myth - just the explanations for it so far are pretty mythical.
To Cuff or Not to Cuff
One might think that just going for this kind of non-cuff'd based ischemia (blood pooling; can't flow back) is better than cuff based. Here's what the authors think:
Intuitively, a training model which is based on the muscles own internal restriction of blood flow would have advantages both from a safety point of view and from a practical point of view. On the other hand, in certain muscle groups and in some individuals, it may be difficult to induce relative ischemia at low loads by exercise alone, due to factors such as insufficient intramuscular pressures developed during exercise. Furthermore, it is possible that there are differences between the muscle ischemia resulting from exercise alone and the ischemia induced with a tourniquet in combination with exercise (e.g., a greater build-up of metabolites in the cuff-occluded muscle), which in turn could lead to differences in the stimulation of hypertrophic pathways. Future studies should compare the effects of ischemic training with and without cuff occlusion at the same level of effort.Another great "we don't know" but a great question: is cuffing the same kind of physiological response as non-cuffing occlusion effect?
What about the Dose?
To summarise a great long section of this paper, the results are not in for normal training about what the optimal frequence, volume, intensity is for optimal hypertrophic effect using occlusion.
The authors make a great note that not all ischemic training results in strength gains. For some reason, cycling isn't great for occlusion and strength development. On the other hand walk training is one of the big successes of occlusion work, and of course stength training - the short bursts of activity - is where the biggest benefit seems to be. Whether therefore the ratio between ischemia and reperfusion is key here, we just don't know but it seems to be a factor.
Will it Blend
So if we're not rehabbing, and with all the unknowns about dose, is it appropriate to put occlusion training into the mix of a regular strength program with "heavy" resistance.
I dunno.
The authors focus on work that's looked at two great benefits of heavy resistance training: bone mineral density and tendon stiffness.
In both cases lighter load work has been shown to have less of an effect on these factors. So - for ones bones, heavy resistance is a bonus - but then, so is stop and start action. For tendons, however, it seems that volume is also a key factor in enhancing stiffness (MTC descibed here - doesn't mean anything about flexibility, but about load, really)
In other words, while occlusion may not bring on the benefits of heavy resistance, there are other ways than heavy work to enhance these benefits so playing with ischemia may be useful for strength development.
High Volume towards Ischemia? Again, to take another page from bodybuilding and powerlifting practice, mechanisms to increase volume without killing form or inducing failure can be awesome. Trainer par excellance Roland Fisher introduced me to the timed sets of Huge in a Hurry's Chad Waterbury. Very simple: get a weight at the end of a session where you can do 20 reps, and as soon as the fast tempo drops to complete the set, drop the weight, go for another 20. By using time as the marker, there's no way to get to fatigue and form failure. One heck of a pump, too. Thus, one has done their heavy work, and uses the occlusion level sets for a finisher. I love it. Your mileage may vary. See what you find.Wrap UP - sans wraps even
And speaking of finisher, the authors wrap up with the following. The first sentence for me is key:
By seeing an interesting strength effect from occlusion, that raises the question how is this working in terms of what we know about hypertrophy? Turns out that in asking what we know about hypertrophy, it's surprisingly still very little. Lots about what's happening in the soup with strength training, but not lots of clear A therefore B. Having occlusion in the mix gives us a great point of comparison to be able to say at least what's different with the following factors (or the same) when blood flow is restricted? what's going on that this is happening? That's cool.
The research on resistance exercise performed during ischemic conditions has so far provided important new insights into the physiology of strength training. In addition to being a possible alternative or complement to conventional high-load resistance training in certain situations, ischemic strength training may also have a place in sports training. Because relative ischemia can be induced at rather low loads in certain exercises even without tourniquets, external pressure may not always be necessary to achieve significant training effects. Also, any unique effects of cuff occlusion per se during exercise have yet to be determined because the increased training effects observed in the studies published to date may simply have been due to greater effort. With reference to training combined with cuff occlusion, current evidence suggests that this mode of exercise is relatively safe, but more research is needed especially regarding the potential adverse effects on soft tissues.
Meanwhile, if you wish to try occlusion training yourself, there's only about 4 uni's in the US using it; most work is in Japan. Here's an intereting PDF that talks about a specific Kaatsu cuff system, too. The point is, i guess, that as this article started, just when we think we know something who'd a thought that strength can be aided by counter-intuitive actions like restricting blood supply? where does that map to evolution?
If nothing else, occlusion work shows us that we are complex systems with more than one path to create an effect.
Related Resources
- Occlusion Training
- Get Huge or Die
- Protein Ingestion and Protein Sythesis
- Nutrient Timing for muscle building
- Creatine and Beta Alanine
- Does this stuff work?
- the Pump
Citations:
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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
Madarame, H., Kurano, M., Takano, H., Iida, H., Sato, Y., Ohshima, H., Abe, T., Ishii, N., Morita, T., & Nakajima, T. (2010). Effects of low-intensity resistance exercise with blood flow restriction on coagulation system in healthy subjects Clinical Physiology and Functional Imaging, 30 (3), 210-213 DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-097X.2010.00927.x
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
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
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