Friday, July 31, 2009
Fitness in 6 minutes of effort *a week* or Less? What does that mean? (Part I)
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If in a training session, we can hurl ourselves into short blasts of all out 
effort (without hurling), we may just be able to get ourselves fit in 6 (to 9) mins of effort a week. Fit, to the same level and kind of strength capacity if we were doing 2-3 hours traditional endurance work/week. While this sounds cool, what does 6 mins of fitness give us, especially, relative to any body comp and strength desires? This is part one of a two part article. Part I (what you're reading now): research review. Part II: plain language take aways form the research.
Background:
Last year when talking about the difference between cradio and vo2max training and the benefits thereof, especially for enhancing mitochondrial density, the stuff that makes fat burn in the cells, i mentioned this pretty new research out of (happiness and joy) Canada:
Here's the abstract
Now some folks may say ya ya, we know intervals are more efficient at burning calories than lower intensity steady state: more effort you burn more. Duh. But calories burned is not the big exciting part of this story. It's the mitochondria and the carbohydrates that are kinda amazing.
Getting Endurance Effects from Resistance Like Training?
One of the big reasons people blend HIIT with steady state lower intensity (65%) cardio training is both for (1) elasticity of heart muscle health that say resistance training alone doesn't give (pick up Kenneth Jay's Viking Warrior
Conditioning for more on this) and/or (2) creating cells that are better fat burners. Aerobic workouts both privilege fat as the fuel of choice AND they enhance the qualities of cells (mitochondria) that get fat oxidized (burned) for fuel.
Folks in the house who use kettlebells may be getting all smug here by saying that doing lots of swings with a mid sized bell does the endurance work, while all their presses, pulls and snatches takes care of the power/resistance stuff. Yes, it's a magic ball!
The thing is, again, the powerful finding of this work, is that it shows that that all important, highly sought-after mitochondria proliferation is occurring in super intense work in a way comparable to that 65% endurance work. That's not what we're doing in a ten minute swing set with a kb. And that's just not what would be predicted in the normal model of our metabolism. And here's why i love good science: the authors admit as much by saying they don't know why they are getting these results, citing that traditional and current understanding of strength/endurance
bodies work, these results shouldn't happen (and this is the second time the authors have repeated these results - in fact that they're getting similar effects in this 6 week trial as they did in their 2 week trial is provocative in itself).
In other words the 02 deficit may be SO HIGH after this effort your body may up-regulate O2 consumption afterwards, which impacts the aerobic system. So it might be the rest intervals during and post the effort where the aerobic ET-like adaptation is occurring.
What does that mean? Time to update the model - and consider all the variables that may play a role, from the brevity of the interval (longer may be counter-productive) to an understanding of the recovery period processes. The authors speculate that part of the answer is that the intensity of effort turns on a particular gene expression PGC-1α due to a whole bunch of upregulated muscular related fuel events that we'll skip here but that are triggered by this kind of intensity burst.
Indeed, in a study by Gibala that came out just this past June, 2009, the author came back to some of these questions. And that transcripter seems to be a winner. The abstract reads, in part,
Carbohydrate AND Phosphocreatine Sparing? What's new?
But let's come back to the other big finding of this study - less sensational, but good to confirm:
The usual model is that, going anaerobic - which an all out sprint effort does - means that we burn fuel from the phosphagen system in the initial blast and then we hit carbs. Phosphagen gives us a small burn of 10-30secs. After that, carbs kick in for about another three minutes of burn. Important to note is that we mean these are the primary fuel systems - oxygen (and so some fat burning) is always working too or we'd croak.
Part of the reason folks do vo2max training is to be carbohydrate sparing - we want to make the body able to use oxygen for greater levels of work, so that it turns to carbs at only higher and higher demands for fuel. Why would we want to do this? Two reasons: we have way more fat available for fuel than we do carbs, and fat gives way more energy bang for the buck than do carbs. In other words we can go longer on a gram of fat than we can a gram of carbs.
If you're doing weight loss work, naturally getting fat burning optimized is a good thing. This effect is again why folks traditionally do lower intensity cardio: it privileges fat burning for fuel.
Likewise in the strength training space, the reason we supplement with creatine is to help keep the phosphagen system topped up - so we can get a few more reps in at that higher phosphogen level fuel system going.
Now here's a protocol that says it's both beneficial for phosphocreatine and carbohydrate sparing. THat's not surprising for interval training to claim. That's part of the reason, as said, we do that with resistance work to develop power, and with vo2max work for higher endurance. The kicker here is the achievement of same with very low volume.
Here's how they tested it: they tested their SIT and ET groups prior to the study commencing with a 65% of pre-training v02peak effort of cycling for an hour. They did the same thing after 6 weeks. The researchers found again comparable changes in fuel usage in both groups so there were both carb and phosocreatine benefits from super low volume training.
The results may not be cost free, but the cost may be minimal or negligible. The amount of ATP at rest in the SIT group was lower; it didn't change in the ET group. This means that amount of available material to be used for muscle contraction was lower in the SIT group. The researchers aren't sure why this was the case: it takes awhile to reamp ATP and it may just be from residual effects of the last excercise bout before the samples were taken, or it may be an effect of the chronic excercise protocol. Not sure. Dunno. Watch that space.
So finally we can dump aerobics/cardio training?
If we get all the tasty goodness of aerobic trad endurance training from these brief moments of vomitus activity, can we skip cardio entirely? Answer: we don't know (did i say i love science yet?)
Is Even Less Even More?
Likewise, the current study measured 30s intervals for 6 mins of work. In a recent interview, Gibala said an upcoming study for fall 2009 will look at how low those intervals can go for benefit. Could a single two or three minute bout be as effective as those six minutes? Dunno!
A few Points on Gear.
I sense the kettlebeller within immediately wanting to give this protocol a go with kb snatching or some such. An important note, then.
The study was carried out on a stationary bike. That's the typical device for a wingate test. It's safe. Swimming is another safe place (no pounding for all those repeats) where one can get one's heart and system up to that intensity - though swimming is harder to gate. Easier on a bike.
The wingate test is a precisely set load on the individual: from .075kg/kg of athlete to 1.3kg/kg of athlete. It would be interesting to think about how to translate this kind of resistance to a *safe* kettlebell routine.
Of course the disadvantage of thinking about such a rep set might be that one's form goes to hell, and that's totally wrong, engraining poor rep quality is rather problematic neurologically not always to be going for a perfect rep.
A few questions about fitness and body comp
Most of us workout because we want to be strong and look half decent half dressed. What this study did not measure is what these results mean for the technical body comp (bf%, say) and the visual body comp (dress size, look in the mirror, buff-ness).
For instance, in a study from 2007, it seemed that for folks to maintain their desired body look and feel, they needed to workout for 5 hours a week, mixing up cardio, intervals and strength work.
Now while this study protocol hasn't been put forward as a training program that's sorta where the NYT interview, cited above, was coming from, and it's certaininly an interest of the folks doing the studies.
But the question might be, given body comp and strength goals, what would this 6 mins a week fitness regine get those of us who are, well, already fit enough to contemplate it?
Part II: What does this all really mean for our actual real workouts? 6 plain language take aways, next.
Burgomaster, K., Howarth, K., Phillips, S., Rakobowchuk, M., MacDonald, M., McGee, S., & Gibala, M. (2007). Similar metabolic adaptations during exercise after low volume sprint interval and traditional endurance training in humans The Journal of Physiology, 586 (1), 151-160 DOI: 10.1113/jphysiol.2007.142109 Tweet Follow @begin2dig
If in a training session, we can hurl ourselves into short blasts of all out effort (without hurling), we may just be able to get ourselves fit in 6 (to 9) mins of effort a week. Fit, to the same level and kind of strength capacity if we were doing 2-3 hours traditional endurance work/week. While this sounds cool, what does 6 mins of fitness give us, especially, relative to any body comp and strength desires? This is part one of a two part article. Part I (what you're reading now): research review. Part II: plain language take aways form the research.Background:
Last year when talking about the difference between cradio and vo2max training and the benefits thereof, especially for enhancing mitochondrial density, the stuff that makes fat burn in the cells, i mentioned this pretty new research out of (happiness and joy) Canada:
Here's the abstract
Low-volume 'sprint' interval training (SIT) stimulates rapid improvements in muscle oxidative capacity that are comparable to levels reached following traditional endurance training (ET) but no study has examined metabolic adaptations during exercise after these different training strategies. We hypothesized that SIT and ET would induce similar adaptations in markers of skeletal muscle carbohydrate (CHO) and lipid metabolism and metabolic control during exercise despite large differences in training volume and time commitment. Active but untrained subjects (23 ± 1 years) performed a constant-load cycling challenge (1 h at 65% of peak oxygen uptakeOn the face of it, the big take away from the study, as the authors say themselves in the Discussion part of the article: the effect on carbs in the muscle and fat metabolism were comparable to the endurance training protocols, and here's the kickerbefore and after 6 weeks of either SIT or ET (n= 5 men and 5 women per group). SIT consisted of four to six repeats of a 30 s 'all out' Wingate Test (mean power output ∼500 W) with 4.5 min recovery between repeats, 3 days per week. ET consisted of 40–60 min of continuous cycling at a workload that elicited ∼65%
(mean power output ∼150 W) per day, 5 days per week. Weekly time commitment (∼1.5 versus∼4.5 h) and total training volume (∼225 versus∼2250 kJ week
−1 ) were substantially lower in SIT versus ET. Despite these differences, both protocols induced similar increases
Similar metabolic adaptations during exercise after low volume sprint interval and traditional endurance training in humans
Pages: 151–160
Kirsten A. Burgomaster, Krista R. Howarth, Stuart M. Phillips, Mark Rakobowchuk, Maureen J. MacDonald, Sean L. McGee, Martin J. Gibala
Published Online: Jan 2 2008 12:00AM
DOI: 10.1113/jphysiol.2007.142109
quick note on terms: vo2peak is highest VO2 elicited in test to exhaustion; the more familiar vo2max which is the plateau hit for V02 when adding progressive load. So you can readily hit vo2max before exhaustion.
despite a much lower training volume and time commitment. By design, weekly training volume was ∼90% lower in the SIT group (∼225 versus∼2250 kJ week90% lower! in terms of time and effort. So, low volume (few repeats) of maximal effort with good recovery has the same effect as high volume mid intenstity.−1 for ET) and necessitated a training time commitment that was only ∼one-third of that of the ET group (∼1.5 versus 4.5 h [over 6 weeks -mc]).
Now some folks may say ya ya, we know intervals are more efficient at burning calories than lower intensity steady state: more effort you burn more. Duh. But calories burned is not the big exciting part of this story. It's the mitochondria and the carbohydrates that are kinda amazing.
Getting Endurance Effects from Resistance Like Training?
One of the big reasons people blend HIIT with steady state lower intensity (65%) cardio training is both for (1) elasticity of heart muscle health that say resistance training alone doesn't give (pick up Kenneth Jay's Viking Warrior
Conditioning for more on this) and/or (2) creating cells that are better fat burners. Aerobic workouts both privilege fat as the fuel of choice AND they enhance the qualities of cells (mitochondria) that get fat oxidized (burned) for fuel.Folks in the house who use kettlebells may be getting all smug here by saying that doing lots of swings with a mid sized bell does the endurance work, while all their presses, pulls and snatches takes care of the power/resistance stuff. Yes, it's a magic ball!
The thing is, again, the powerful finding of this work, is that it shows that that all important, highly sought-after mitochondria proliferation is occurring in super intense work in a way comparable to that 65% endurance work. That's not what we're doing in a ten minute swing set with a kb. And that's just not what would be predicted in the normal model of our metabolism. And here's why i love good science: the authors admit as much by saying they don't know why they are getting these results, citing that traditional and current understanding of strength/endurance
In other words (i love good science, did i say that?) given what we've understood about how our
While the present study demonstrates the potency of SIT [sprint interval training -mc] to elicit changes in muscle oxidative capacity and selected metabolic adjustments during exercise that resemble ET [endurance training -mc], the underlying mechanisms are unclear. From a cell signalling perspective, exercise is typically classified as either 'strength' or 'endurance', with short-duration, high-intensity work usually associated with increased skeletal muscle mass, and prolonged, low- to moderate-intensity work associated with increased mitochondrial mass and oxidative enzyme activity (Baar, 2006).
bodies work, these results shouldn't happen (and this is the second time the authors have repeated these results - in fact that they're getting similar effects in this 6 week trial as they did in their 2 week trial is provocative in itself).In other words the 02 deficit may be SO HIGH after this effort your body may up-regulate O2 consumption afterwards, which impacts the aerobic system. So it might be the rest intervals during and post the effort where the aerobic ET-like adaptation is occurring.
What does that mean? Time to update the model - and consider all the variables that may play a role, from the brevity of the interval (longer may be counter-productive) to an understanding of the recovery period processes. The authors speculate that part of the answer is that the intensity of effort turns on a particular gene expression PGC-1α due to a whole bunch of upregulated muscular related fuel events that we'll skip here but that are triggered by this kind of intensity burst.
Indeed, in a study by Gibala that came out just this past June, 2009, the author came back to some of these questions. And that transcripter seems to be a winner. The abstract reads, in part,
A key controller of oxidative enzyme expression in skeletal muscle is peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1alpha (PGC-1alpha), a transcriptional coactivator that serves to coordinate mitochondrial biogenesis...Signaling through AMP-activated protein kinase and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase to PGC-1alpha may therefore explain, in part, the metabolic remodeling induced by HIT, including mitochondrial biogenesis and an increased capacity for glucose and fatty acid oxidation.The conclusion comes away saying that this KIND (and potentially duration) of interval has magical properties that blend endurance benefits for mitochondria building while being what looks like resistance training:
High-intensity interval exercise represents a unique and understudied model for examining the molecular regulation of skeletal muscle remodeling. Like strength or resistance training, interval exercise is characterized by brief intermit- tent bouts of relatively intense muscle contraction. However, interval exercise training induces phenotypic changes that resemble those elicited after traditional endurance training. Preliminary evidence suggests that signaling through AMPK and p38 MAPK to PGC-1a may explain, in part, the meta- bolic adaptations induced by HIT, including mitochondrial biogenesis and an increased capacity for glucose and fatty acid oxidation.In other words, turning on PGC-1a is a big deal to generating this remodeling. And we know from the other studies - or at least strongly suspect - that it's hitting high intensity for these short blasts that does the turning on.
Carbohydrate AND Phosphocreatine Sparing? What's new?
But let's come back to the other big finding of this study - less sensational, but good to confirm:
The usual model is that, going anaerobic - which an all out sprint effort does - means that we burn fuel from the phosphagen system in the initial blast and then we hit carbs. Phosphagen gives us a small burn of 10-30secs. After that, carbs kick in for about another three minutes of burn. Important to note is that we mean these are the primary fuel systems - oxygen (and so some fat burning) is always working too or we'd croak.
Part of the reason folks do vo2max training is to be carbohydrate sparing - we want to make the body able to use oxygen for greater levels of work, so that it turns to carbs at only higher and higher demands for fuel. Why would we want to do this? Two reasons: we have way more fat available for fuel than we do carbs, and fat gives way more energy bang for the buck than do carbs. In other words we can go longer on a gram of fat than we can a gram of carbs.
If you're doing weight loss work, naturally getting fat burning optimized is a good thing. This effect is again why folks traditionally do lower intensity cardio: it privileges fat burning for fuel.
Likewise in the strength training space, the reason we supplement with creatine is to help keep the phosphagen system topped up - so we can get a few more reps in at that higher phosphogen level fuel system going.Now here's a protocol that says it's both beneficial for phosphocreatine and carbohydrate sparing. THat's not surprising for interval training to claim. That's part of the reason, as said, we do that with resistance work to develop power, and with vo2max work for higher endurance. The kicker here is the achievement of same with very low volume.
Here's how they tested it: they tested their SIT and ET groups prior to the study commencing with a 65% of pre-training v02peak effort of cycling for an hour. They did the same thing after 6 weeks. The researchers found again comparable changes in fuel usage in both groups so there were both carb and phosocreatine benefits from super low volume training.
The results may not be cost free, but the cost may be minimal or negligible. The amount of ATP at rest in the SIT group was lower; it didn't change in the ET group. This means that amount of available material to be used for muscle contraction was lower in the SIT group. The researchers aren't sure why this was the case: it takes awhile to reamp ATP and it may just be from residual effects of the last excercise bout before the samples were taken, or it may be an effect of the chronic excercise protocol. Not sure. Dunno. Watch that space.
So finally we can dump aerobics/cardio training?
If we get all the tasty goodness of aerobic trad endurance training from these brief moments of vomitus activity, can we skip cardio entirely? Answer: we don't know (did i say i love science yet?)
It is also important to stress that the relatively limited array of metabolic measurements performed in the present study may not be representative of other physiological adaptations normally associated with ET. For example, SIT may differ from ET with respect to changes induced in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, metabolic control in other organs (e.g. liver or adipose tissue) and protection from various factors associated with chronic inactivity (e.g. insulin resistance or lipid dysregulation).Indeed, with respect to the all important insulin, and the goal of building insulin sensitivity, in another June 09 publication, Hawley and Gibala look at insulin intensity and exercise intensity and ask "how low can you go?" The authors wanted to get as close as current research findings, when synthesized, might suggest, how *intense* does exercise need to be to have a beneficial effect on insulin sensitivity. Conclusions so far?
It remains to be determined whether high-intensity, low-volume interval training protocols can confer all of the health-related benefits associated with less intense, more prolonged traditional endurance training programmes. [Based on the review of literature to date, however -mc] it seems prudent to recommend that, for patients with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes, the minimal dose of physical activity needed to maintain or improve health is equivalent to ~4,000 kJ/week of low- to moderate-intensity exercise. However, for patients who only show modest improvements in clinical and metabolic outcomes at this level of activity-induced energy expenditure, an increase in the intensity of exercise may be considered because of the potential additional benefits in both metabolic control and cardiorespiratory fitness.In other words going all out with sprint intervals is not for everyone or all conditions.
Is Even Less Even More?
Likewise, the current study measured 30s intervals for 6 mins of work. In a recent interview, Gibala said an upcoming study for fall 2009 will look at how low those intervals can go for benefit. Could a single two or three minute bout be as effective as those six minutes? Dunno!
A few Points on Gear.
I sense the kettlebeller within immediately wanting to give this protocol a go with kb snatching or some such. An important note, then.
The study was carried out on a stationary bike. That's the typical device for a wingate test. It's safe. Swimming is another safe place (no pounding for all those repeats) where one can get one's heart and system up to that intensity - though swimming is harder to gate. Easier on a bike.
The wingate test is a precisely set load on the individual: from .075kg/kg of athlete to 1.3kg/kg of athlete. It would be interesting to think about how to translate this kind of resistance to a *safe* kettlebell routine.Of course the disadvantage of thinking about such a rep set might be that one's form goes to hell, and that's totally wrong, engraining poor rep quality is rather problematic neurologically not always to be going for a perfect rep.
A few questions about fitness and body comp
Most of us workout because we want to be strong and look half decent half dressed. What this study did not measure is what these results mean for the technical body comp (bf%, say) and the visual body comp (dress size, look in the mirror, buff-ness).
For instance, in a study from 2007, it seemed that for folks to maintain their desired body look and feel, they needed to workout for 5 hours a week, mixing up cardio, intervals and strength work.
Now while this study protocol hasn't been put forward as a training program that's sorta where the NYT interview, cited above, was coming from, and it's certaininly an interest of the folks doing the studies.But the question might be, given body comp and strength goals, what would this 6 mins a week fitness regine get those of us who are, well, already fit enough to contemplate it?
Part II: What does this all really mean for our actual real workouts? 6 plain language take aways, next.
Burgomaster, K., Howarth, K., Phillips, S., Rakobowchuk, M., MacDonald, M., McGee, S., & Gibala, M. (2007). Similar metabolic adaptations during exercise after low volume sprint interval and traditional endurance training in humans The Journal of Physiology, 586 (1), 151-160 DOI: 10.1113/jphysiol.2007.142109 Tweet Follow @begin2dig
PDF
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
More on Exercise without Diet doesn't produce Weight Loss and the Ethics of Research
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Despite the promising title, Eight weeks of resistance training can significantly alter body composition in children who are overweight or obese, the results don't offer what one might expect from it.
Most of us would say "body comp" means weight, girth measures, bmi changes. But no. It doesn't. In this case, it seems to mean fat kids who worked out got stronger, added lean mass, but didn't lose weight or overall fat. This is consistent with other studies of working out without diet to go with it:
First off, the main goal of the study was to explore resistance training rather than aerobic intervals training for obese kids. As far as i can tell, they are simply hypothesizing that some kids who are obese may prefer lifting to running type activities, and if that's the case, let's see what that does. That's not much of an hypothesis to test in a research environment is it?
Not surprisingly, since other research has shown this too, obese kids in an 8 week program make super strength and power gains too. Just like non-obese kids. And like adults of all ages who are new to lifting. Neural adaptations are taking place, and new tissue is being laid down.
Now the authors claim that their findings are great. They say
It's really great to see BMC going up too - that's something to keep for life.
But where does this take us? IF absolute fat doesn't go down, weight goes up, how does bf% go down? There's more new lean mass. as opposed to more (or less) fat. That's kinda fudging, isn't it?
These results (gaining lean mass; not losing weight overall) are consistent with both non-obese kids and adults. It tells us that muscle building mechanisms for the first 8 weeks of a program have an impact. That's good. What about the next 8 weeks and then the next 48 weeks?
When we work with adults who are overweight, we know that after 8-12 weeks, if their girth, weight, and fat - nothing on these measures seems to change - they are not feeling a whole lot of love and success or seeing it in their mirrors.
We know that the study reports here that eating habits didn't change throughout the study. They weren't logged too religiously, though, and unless an observer is making those logs, we know from other work that we ALL misreport food logs.
We know that folks may feel zippier from working out - and that's fabulous - but we also know with obese adults that without nutrition, all the jumping and pumping in the world will not shed the excess weight which is having the biggest negative impact on overall health.
What's the Point? In fairness, one might say, this study was *just* looking at effects of resistance training over 8weeks on obese kids. Is that good enough? These are real kids with real problems. Is this fair to them or the best we can do?
Consider this: the study doesn't explicitly state an hypothesis, eg: we postulate that fat kids who do resistance will have the same benefits as non-fat kids who start resistance.
Hypothesis Testing
Is that poor science not to have an explicit hypothesis? Generally speaking, in most fields, yes.
Because you have to defend why you hypothesize your position and show value of the study: why on earth would you think you'd need to see if fat kids respond to resistance training differently than skinny kids? When that's said outloud, kinda makes one go "hmm" no?
Without that rationale for the study being clear, what's the point of the work? It's rather gratuitous. The authors as said only suggest that some fat kids might not like aerobics or intervals so they need alternatives. Right! so the next point would be again to say, we have lots of results to show the benefits of resistance training for kids. What's the special thing you think you need to test in this population not covered by these other studies?
Well, these kids are obese.
Ok, so what? are you asserting that because of that, the effects of a resistance program may be different? if so why? what's the basis for that assertion and how will you test it? Are there special fat kid risk factors to test that one might think fat kids shouldn't do resistance? No? So what's the point?
The authors just show what we already know from a zillion ways past sunday: resistance training builds lean muscle. And even if absolute fat doesn't go down, because lean muscle goes up, the bf% ratio changes. And as we see in the charts, kids did gain weight - from the lean muscle.
That's why these kind of studies seem gratuitous to me. And heh, not every paper an academic writes is earth shattering. But something leaves me edgy here. Obesity is a real problem. This study is dealing with clinically overweight and obese kids (over 23-43% body fat in the study).
So we've confirmed that yet one more population benefits from resistance training. Was there any doubt, however, that that would be the case? Any hypothesis to test? No? then what's the study contributed, really? For 8 weeks kids got no nutritional counseling when the authors KNOW that obesity programs combine nutrition and exercise. "It is clear that, along with nutrition and lifestyle, exercise plays a significant role in overcoming obesity in children."
But if the authors had provided that counseling, that would have screwed up their results: they wouldn't know what was down to resistance vs what was down to diet.
Now ethically, we can say the children weren't harmed; in fact they are healthier than when they started. And still obese. And if they stick with their current training and their current activity they'll still be obese a year from now.
What's actually been proven here? hypothesis testing two. In the realm of statistics, one can simply set an alpha or confidence level - a percentage - by which if the results fall within that percentage, the results happened because of the intervention, not by chance. The way the authors set up this study, their signficance values don't claim that the body comp change is significant, but that the reason for the change is down to the intervention. That's right. Just that what change occurred is not because of chance but because of the progam. In other words they have an above 95% certainty that that body comp change is because of the training. Shocking.
Ok, that's not shocking but it means the title is: Eight weeks of resistance training can significantly alter body composition in children who are overweight or obese. All that can be claimed, surely, is that we know within the realm of probability, literally, that resistance training has an effect at changing body comp. To say a "significant" effect - again means kinda weasel words. In stats, significance just means there's a treatment effect. To normal human beings significant means "wow that was a big deal."
So the authors are being technically accurate, but less clear that perhaps saying "Resistance training does induce body comp changes in fat kids in 8 week protocol, really really"
So, bottom line, did we learn anything new from this study that we didn't know before? Are the results surprising in any way? Was a bold hypothesis demonstrated? Did researchers who know that nutrition and lifestyle along with exercise is a big part of dealing with obesity provide that information to their participants' families as part of the study or just say good bye to the participants at the end of the 8-weeks?
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Most of us would say "body comp" means weight, girth measures, bmi changes. But no. It doesn't. In this case, it seems to mean fat kids who worked out got stronger, added lean mass, but didn't lose weight or overall fat. This is consistent with other studies of working out without diet to go with it:
McGuigan, MR, Tatasciore, M, Newton, RU, and Pettigrew, S. Eight weeks of resistance training can significantly alter body composition in children who are overweight or obese. J Strength Cond Res 23(1): 80-85, 2009-Update: as R.M. Koske rightly points out in the comments below, body comp is technically changes in fat/muscle/bone ratios. And it's not entirely fair to conflate a scientific definition of a concept used in a research journal with popular understanding. But i DO take issue with the term SIGNIFICANT body comp alteration. more on that below.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of an 8-week resistance training program on children who were overweight or obese. Forty-eight children (n = 26 girls and 22 boys; mean age = 9.7 years) participated in an 8-week undulating periodized resistance training program for 3 d[middle dot]wk-1. Measures of body composition via dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, anthropometry, strength, and power were made before and after the training intervention. There was a significant decrease in absolute percent body fat of 2.6% (p = 0.003) and a significant increase in lean body mass of 5.3% (p = 0.07). There were no significant changes in height, weight, body mass index, total fat mass, or bone mineral content. There were significant increases in 1-repetition maximum squat (74%), number of push-ups (85%), countermovement jump height (8%), static jump height (4%), and power (16%). These results demonstrate that the resistance training program implemented produces significant changes in body composition and strength and power measures, as well as being well tolerated by the participants. An undulating periodized program provides variation and significantly increases lean body mass, decreases percent body fat, and increases strength and power in children who are overweight and obese.
First off, the main goal of the study was to explore resistance training rather than aerobic intervals training for obese kids. As far as i can tell, they are simply hypothesizing that some kids who are obese may prefer lifting to running type activities, and if that's the case, let's see what that does. That's not much of an hypothesis to test in a research environment is it?
Not surprisingly, since other research has shown this too, obese kids in an 8 week program make super strength and power gains too. Just like non-obese kids. And like adults of all ages who are new to lifting. Neural adaptations are taking place, and new tissue is being laid down.
Now the authors claim that their findings are great. They say
An undulating periodized program provides variation and results in significant increases in lean body mass, decreased percent body fat, and increased strength and power.
It's really great to see BMC going up too - that's something to keep for life.
But where does this take us? IF absolute fat doesn't go down, weight goes up, how does bf% go down? There's more new lean mass. as opposed to more (or less) fat. That's kinda fudging, isn't it?
These results (gaining lean mass; not losing weight overall) are consistent with both non-obese kids and adults. It tells us that muscle building mechanisms for the first 8 weeks of a program have an impact. That's good. What about the next 8 weeks and then the next 48 weeks?
When we work with adults who are overweight, we know that after 8-12 weeks, if their girth, weight, and fat - nothing on these measures seems to change - they are not feeling a whole lot of love and success or seeing it in their mirrors.
We know that the study reports here that eating habits didn't change throughout the study. They weren't logged too religiously, though, and unless an observer is making those logs, we know from other work that we ALL misreport food logs.
We know that folks may feel zippier from working out - and that's fabulous - but we also know with obese adults that without nutrition, all the jumping and pumping in the world will not shed the excess weight which is having the biggest negative impact on overall health.
What's the Point? In fairness, one might say, this study was *just* looking at effects of resistance training over 8weeks on obese kids. Is that good enough? These are real kids with real problems. Is this fair to them or the best we can do?
Consider this: the study doesn't explicitly state an hypothesis, eg: we postulate that fat kids who do resistance will have the same benefits as non-fat kids who start resistance.
Hypothesis Testing
Is that poor science not to have an explicit hypothesis? Generally speaking, in most fields, yes.
Because you have to defend why you hypothesize your position and show value of the study: why on earth would you think you'd need to see if fat kids respond to resistance training differently than skinny kids? When that's said outloud, kinda makes one go "hmm" no?
Without that rationale for the study being clear, what's the point of the work? It's rather gratuitous. The authors as said only suggest that some fat kids might not like aerobics or intervals so they need alternatives. Right! so the next point would be again to say, we have lots of results to show the benefits of resistance training for kids. What's the special thing you think you need to test in this population not covered by these other studies?
Well, these kids are obese.
Ok, so what? are you asserting that because of that, the effects of a resistance program may be different? if so why? what's the basis for that assertion and how will you test it? Are there special fat kid risk factors to test that one might think fat kids shouldn't do resistance? No? So what's the point?
The authors just show what we already know from a zillion ways past sunday: resistance training builds lean muscle. And even if absolute fat doesn't go down, because lean muscle goes up, the bf% ratio changes. And as we see in the charts, kids did gain weight - from the lean muscle.
That's why these kind of studies seem gratuitous to me. And heh, not every paper an academic writes is earth shattering. But something leaves me edgy here. Obesity is a real problem. This study is dealing with clinically overweight and obese kids (over 23-43% body fat in the study).
So we've confirmed that yet one more population benefits from resistance training. Was there any doubt, however, that that would be the case? Any hypothesis to test? No? then what's the study contributed, really? For 8 weeks kids got no nutritional counseling when the authors KNOW that obesity programs combine nutrition and exercise. "It is clear that, along with nutrition and lifestyle, exercise plays a significant role in overcoming obesity in children."
But if the authors had provided that counseling, that would have screwed up their results: they wouldn't know what was down to resistance vs what was down to diet.
Now ethically, we can say the children weren't harmed; in fact they are healthier than when they started. And still obese. And if they stick with their current training and their current activity they'll still be obese a year from now.
What's actually been proven here? hypothesis testing two. In the realm of statistics, one can simply set an alpha or confidence level - a percentage - by which if the results fall within that percentage, the results happened because of the intervention, not by chance. The way the authors set up this study, their signficance values don't claim that the body comp change is significant, but that the reason for the change is down to the intervention. That's right. Just that what change occurred is not because of chance but because of the progam. In other words they have an above 95% certainty that that body comp change is because of the training. Shocking.
Ok, that's not shocking but it means the title is: Eight weeks of resistance training can significantly alter body composition in children who are overweight or obese. All that can be claimed, surely, is that we know within the realm of probability, literally, that resistance training has an effect at changing body comp. To say a "significant" effect - again means kinda weasel words. In stats, significance just means there's a treatment effect. To normal human beings significant means "wow that was a big deal."
So the authors are being technically accurate, but less clear that perhaps saying "Resistance training does induce body comp changes in fat kids in 8 week protocol, really really"
So, bottom line, did we learn anything new from this study that we didn't know before? Are the results surprising in any way? Was a bold hypothesis demonstrated? Did researchers who know that nutrition and lifestyle along with exercise is a big part of dealing with obesity provide that information to their participants' families as part of the study or just say good bye to the participants at the end of the 8-weeks?
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If you're in an arm cast consider creatine to keep up your muscle
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Here's a very simple find that seems intriguing. Say your arm is in a cast and you can't work 
out. The old saw in muscle work is use it or lose it.
Turns out, at least for young men who haven't done creatine before, that doing *some* creatine supplementation makes a difference in terms of preserving lean tissue in the upper limbs.
The authors caution that results by others of testing lower limb immobilization has not found these results. They wonder if it's the ratio of fiber types in the upper limbs or other factors that show these results. Suffice it to say, if you find yourself in an arm cast, you may want to consider trying some creatine to reduce "myoplastic changes directly related to disuse atrophy, thereby facilitating the rehabilitation process."
Just be sure to get a good quality creatine :) Tweet Follow @begin2dig
out. The old saw in muscle work is use it or lose it.Turns out, at least for young men who haven't done creatine before, that doing *some* creatine supplementation makes a difference in terms of preserving lean tissue in the upper limbs.
Johnston, APW, Burke, DG, MacNeil, LG, and Candow, DG. Effect of creatine supplementation during cast-induced immobilization on the preservation of muscle mass, strength, and endurance. J Strength Cond Res 23(1): 116-120, 2009-
Muscle and strength loss will occur during periods of physical inactivity and immobilization. Creatine supplementation may have a favorable effect on muscle mass and strength independently of exercise. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of creatine supplementation on upper-limb muscle mass and muscle performance after immobilization. Before the study, creatine-naive men (n = 7; 18-25 years) were assessed for lean tissue mass (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry), strength (1-repetition maximum [1RM] isometric single arm elbow flexion/extension), and muscle endurance (maximum number of single-arm isokinetic elbow flexion/extension repetitions at 60% 1RM). After baseline measures, subjects had their dominant or nondominant (random assignment) upper limb immobilized (long arm plaster cast) at 90[degrees] elbow flexion. Using a single-blind crossover design, subjects received placebo (maltodextrin; 4 x 5 g[middle dot]d-1) during days 1-7 and creatine (4 x 5 g[middle dot]d-1) during days 15-21. The cast was removed during days 8-14 and 22-29. The dependent measures of lean tissue mass, strength, and endurance were assessed at baseline, postcast, and after the study. During immobilization, compared with isocaloric placebo, creatine supplementation better maintained lean tissue mass (Cr +0.9% vs. PLA -3.7%, p
The authors caution that results by others of testing lower limb immobilization has not found these results. They wonder if it's the ratio of fiber types in the upper limbs or other factors that show these results. Suffice it to say, if you find yourself in an arm cast, you may want to consider trying some creatine to reduce "myoplastic changes directly related to disuse atrophy, thereby facilitating the rehabilitation process."
Just be sure to get a good quality creatine :) Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Monday, July 27, 2009
Rannoch's 100s (R100s): the unWorkout that Refreshes, repairs and prepares the embodied soul for work
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Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength, RKC extra-ordinaire of Scotland, and one 
of the top most rated RKC instructors has a simple philosophy about basic training. Well, really he's got a lot of philosophies, but i like this one in particular.
300 is so 2007. 100 is where it's at.
Awhile ago Rannoch was telling me about his philosophy of getting 100 reps in a day of something. Doesn't matter what. Just get 'em in.
Now at the time i thought that was way cool, and as i have a variety of kettlebells around me at work and home, i started doing 100's of light snatches. That sorta faded from my view for awhile traveling, but in terms of coming back to some serious preparatory training, and feeling kinda down on myself for being deconditioned, i thought about Rannoch's 100's and thought well at least i can start there.
This was a new way of thinking about using the 100's as pump priming.
So i got a 100 out of the way with one weight.
And i felt better.
That was something when i didn't think i was going to have time then for anything.
That's a start; that's a foundation.
That's a few minutes of work i wouldn't have had before a morning shower.
So after a cup of tea, i did another 100. heavier. harder. stinkier
Aside: The pause that refreshes (when the unpause is stupid). When my hand was feeling a little raw on the bell i did something i usually don't let myself do: i put the bell down for a sec and did not feel like a failure or loser for taking a break 25 reps in to go find the chalk. I chalked. And continued. Who said it had to be non-stop every time? Maybe tomorrow it will be. Today i needed chalk - and am i glad i did or there would not be a tomorrow. (I put the ability to take a break down to intense work on getting rid of crap around goals -but that's another story)
So i got in two blocks of non-threatening-to-my-cns-first-thing-in-the-am, happy R100's before the morning shower. First one, gentle reminder with some effort in endurance; the second one more work overall. Good.
Threat Modulation value of 100's
One might say well hell that's not working out, that's not serious. that's nothing.
Well it sure as heck is greasing the neurological groove. Reminding my body about the time it takes to get in 100 consecutive perfect snatches; looking to keep that under 5 mins. Letting my body know what it feels like to find the flow of that movement. Then taking it up a notch. Still feeling safe. Letting myself get chalk to protect my hands - and so feeling safe and those reps were better. And getting in volume on a move. The perfect rep is still the perfect rep.
Those 100s then have great psychological benefit, and what's really cool, considerable neurological benefit, to let my brain, the body and their connective cns tissue work together well and get ready for the Great Work to Come.
Preparation vs A Plan of Action: 100's as the unpsych psych
As said, i'm getting ready to do some serious training. Talking about "getting ready to do some serious training" is a rather newish concept for me anything outside seasonal macro cycles for Strength and Conditioning athletes for pre during and post season training.
What i'm talking about with Preparation is the prep to get into the training i know i need to do for a particular training goal that has a specific date attached to it. What i've learned in the nutrition context and work in the habit-changing context is that when we're introducing a new behaviour (and new can be relative) we often fail because we leap into action without having a plan of how we'll deal with stuff around the action.
For me right now i know that if i try to leap into a heavy training regime some part of me will balk: i need to revise my wake up times and all the rest of it.
So Rannoch's 100's around all the moves i'll need to practice are great ways for me to prepare for the work to come; to get the conversation with my brain and body happening to make the coming 6 months effective, injury free and why not fun?
Non Excercise Physical Activity is Good Too. If you don't need R100's for your prep, that's cool. You may want to consider them as a little extra daily grit like the value of NEPA's. They're great for that too. just super in fact.
What are R100's then?
Rannoch's exact definition may be different, but my sense of them is as something pretty low threat, easy to focus on form, with some at least NEPA value to them.
Likely 100 consecutive whatevers is the goal.
If it's so intense as to require (a) breaks for recovery mid 100's or (b) a do or die requirement for a shower after said 100 cuz you stink beyond what's fit for polite company - it may just be too intense for what we're describing.
Now my second set of 100's today did not pass that later shower requirement test. Do i care? no. i wanted to get some effortfulness in. And the first R100 made that happen. ya hoo.
Hope you'll give some r100's a go - especially if you're a little freaked out about getting into an intense workout regime or if you can't think of where you'll get your workout in today. What's 100 of something you know you can do? Tweet Follow @begin2dig
of the top most rated RKC instructors has a simple philosophy about basic training. Well, really he's got a lot of philosophies, but i like this one in particular.300 is so 2007. 100 is where it's at.
Awhile ago Rannoch was telling me about his philosophy of getting 100 reps in a day of something. Doesn't matter what. Just get 'em in.
Now at the time i thought that was way cool, and as i have a variety of kettlebells around me at work and home, i started doing 100's of light snatches. That sorta faded from my view for awhile traveling, but in terms of coming back to some serious preparatory training, and feeling kinda down on myself for being deconditioned, i thought about Rannoch's 100's and thought well at least i can start there.
This was a new way of thinking about using the 100's as pump priming.
So i got a 100 out of the way with one weight.And i felt better.
That was something when i didn't think i was going to have time then for anything.
That's a start; that's a foundation.
That's a few minutes of work i wouldn't have had before a morning shower.
So after a cup of tea, i did another 100. heavier. harder. stinkier
Aside: The pause that refreshes (when the unpause is stupid). When my hand was feeling a little raw on the bell i did something i usually don't let myself do: i put the bell down for a sec and did not feel like a failure or loser for taking a break 25 reps in to go find the chalk. I chalked. And continued. Who said it had to be non-stop every time? Maybe tomorrow it will be. Today i needed chalk - and am i glad i did or there would not be a tomorrow. (I put the ability to take a break down to intense work on getting rid of crap around goals -but that's another story)
So i got in two blocks of non-threatening-to-my-cns-first-thing-in-the-am, happy R100's before the morning shower. First one, gentle reminder with some effort in endurance; the second one more work overall. Good.
Threat Modulation value of 100's
One might say well hell that's not working out, that's not serious. that's nothing.
Well it sure as heck is greasing the neurological groove. Reminding my body about the time it takes to get in 100 consecutive perfect snatches; looking to keep that under 5 mins. Letting my body know what it feels like to find the flow of that movement. Then taking it up a notch. Still feeling safe. Letting myself get chalk to protect my hands - and so feeling safe and those reps were better. And getting in volume on a move. The perfect rep is still the perfect rep.
Those 100s then have great psychological benefit, and what's really cool, considerable neurological benefit, to let my brain, the body and their connective cns tissue work together well and get ready for the Great Work to Come.
Preparation vs A Plan of Action: 100's as the unpsych psych
As said, i'm getting ready to do some serious training. Talking about "getting ready to do some serious training" is a rather newish concept for me anything outside seasonal macro cycles for Strength and Conditioning athletes for pre during and post season training.
What i'm talking about with Preparation is the prep to get into the training i know i need to do for a particular training goal that has a specific date attached to it. What i've learned in the nutrition context and work in the habit-changing context is that when we're introducing a new behaviour (and new can be relative) we often fail because we leap into action without having a plan of how we'll deal with stuff around the action.
For me right now i know that if i try to leap into a heavy training regime some part of me will balk: i need to revise my wake up times and all the rest of it.
So Rannoch's 100's around all the moves i'll need to practice are great ways for me to prepare for the work to come; to get the conversation with my brain and body happening to make the coming 6 months effective, injury free and why not fun?
Non Excercise Physical Activity is Good Too. If you don't need R100's for your prep, that's cool. You may want to consider them as a little extra daily grit like the value of NEPA's. They're great for that too. just super in fact.
What are R100's then?
Rannoch's exact definition may be different, but my sense of them is as something pretty low threat, easy to focus on form, with some at least NEPA value to them.
Likely 100 consecutive whatevers is the goal.
If it's so intense as to require (a) breaks for recovery mid 100's or (b) a do or die requirement for a shower after said 100 cuz you stink beyond what's fit for polite company - it may just be too intense for what we're describing.
Now my second set of 100's today did not pass that later shower requirement test. Do i care? no. i wanted to get some effortfulness in. And the first R100 made that happen. ya hoo.
Hope you'll give some r100's a go - especially if you're a little freaked out about getting into an intense workout regime or if you can't think of where you'll get your workout in today. What's 100 of something you know you can do? Tweet Follow @begin2dig
3 minutes of icing to let you play again? Really?
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Would you be surprised to learn that if you apply an icebag to 
your hamstrings for ten minutes, and then go to do a vertical jump, you'll jump less high than if you didn't have an icebag on your leg for ten minutes? Ah but what about 3mins of icing? and why should you care about the difference? Consider this recent article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research:
This is a little better unpacked in the article. Icing is used a lot for dealing with injuries. It's one of the famous parts in RICE, rest, ice, compression and elevation.
Aside: why ice? Turns out that RICE is being debated. While lots of good things have been claimed about icing, and there's literature that says, even though we don't know why, icing works better with compression, (er, maybe it's just the compression) some folks have been wondering if compression and ice are really great ideas rather than not interfering with the body's natural injury healing mechanisms. What about heat instead? what about no restriction on the area? what about compression rather than cold? what about letting the body just do it's thing?
A recent summary in 2007 by JL McDonald called Fire and Ice (pdf) states:
No wonder researchers are worried about someone being iced up going back into play: they aren't feeling their limbs properly and spatial awareness would go south. The authors only hint at this being their concern:
But wait. Aren't you hurt if you're icing?
What is interesting to me anyway, here, is that we're dealing with an athlete who has an injury, or they wouldn't be getting iced, and the question is what effect will icing have on their vertical jump? Ok, we're testing with un-injured participants, that's one (ethics and all but who's to say the effects are the same with someone with an injury), but isn't there a sort of fundamental ethical conundrum about asking someone who is so f'd up that they need to be icing in the first place then to go back into the game? The authors write in their Discussion section
What the others do note in practical applications is
What are the authors saying? 10 mins may impact their performance so ten minutes is too long? But while three mins doesn't that's ok, send them back in? The authors leave the question hanging as to whether three mins. of icing, has that had a good effect, though, at all.
Or *maybe* the whole idea is stupid?
Here's my question: why does the athlete need to be iced? - assuming icing is in any way a good idea.
Here's the follow up questions:
If someone has such a degree of pain or inflammation that they need to be iced, what evidence is there to suggest that a three minute shot of ice has made the tissue situation sufficiently ok to enable a full re-introduction back into play in the first place?
Now maybe there is super evidence to support this: that staying moving is a good idea. There's tons of work in pain that pain does not equal injury, but let's say there is an injury, what are we doing here with the ice bag? Where is the work that shows in cases such as these - the athlete keen to get back in the game - that that's been a Wise Move in and of itself?
As said, there may be, and maybe that literature is so well known the authors haven't felt the need to site it, but that that issue doesn't even get a mention makes me think, maybe not. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
your hamstrings for ten minutes, and then go to do a vertical jump, you'll jump less high than if you didn't have an icebag on your leg for ten minutes? Ah but what about 3mins of icing? and why should you care about the difference? Consider this recent article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research:Functional Performance Following an Ice Bag Application to the Hamstrings
The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. 23(1):44-50, January 2009.
doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181839e97
This study examined the immediate and short-term (20 minute) effects of 3- and 10-minute ice bag applications to the hamstrings on functional performance as measured by the cocontraction test, shuttle run, and single-leg vertical jump. Forty-two (25 women, 17 men) recreational or collegiate athletes who were free of injury in the lower extremity 6 months before testing and who did not suffer from allergy to cryotherapy were included. Time to completion was measured in seconds for the cocontraction and the shuttle run test. Single-leg vertical jump was measured on the Vertec (Sports Imports, Columbus, Ohio) in centimeters. The 10-minute ice bag application reduced immediate postapplication vertical jump performance and increased immediate post and 20-minute post shuttle run time (p <= 0.05). A decrease in cocontraction time was observed at 20 minutes post compared with preapplication during the control condition in which no ice bag was applied. Power and functional performance are affected by short-term cryotherapy application. Power and functional performance was impaired immediately and 20 minutes after 10-minute ice bag application to the hamstrings, whereas a shorter duration of ice application had no effect on these tasks.
Right. Really, this result can't be seen as much of a surprise, so why did this study get published - publication of work generally means there's deemed to be a "significant contribution" to the field by the work presented
Aside: why ice? Turns out that RICE is being debated. While lots of good things have been claimed about icing, and there's literature that says, even though we don't know why, icing works better with compression, (er, maybe it's just the compression) some folks have been wondering if compression and ice are really great ideas rather than not interfering with the body's natural injury healing mechanisms. What about heat instead? what about no restriction on the area? what about compression rather than cold? what about letting the body just do it's thing?
A recent summary in 2007 by JL McDonald called Fire and Ice (pdf) states:
When the evidence to support the use of ice in musculoskeletal disorders is separated out from the commonly used context of the RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) protocol, it has been claimed that ice alone is effective in relieving pain, reducing oedema and relieving muscle spasm.I mean, folks make it sound so obvious: use ice (and elevation and compression) to bring down swelling, not heat because
• The evidence suggests that ice alone has a local anaesthetic [cuts off sensation -mc] rather than analgesic effect [actually acts on pain signals -mc].
• There is contradictory evidence for whether or not ice alone can reduce oedema [tissue swelling - mc] , but it may be that compression is the most effective component of the RICE protocol for oedema, given that, while compression is effective in reducing oedema, the addition of ice to compression shows no additional benefit.
• No evidence was found in the reviewed literature to support the assertion that ice can relieve muscle spasm, although there is consensus in the research that local heat can.
Heat is not your friend at first, because it increases circulation, which puts painful pressure on nerve endings. The warmth stimulates the flow of inflammatory chemicals, too, which make pain worse.Ok, pain is not necessarily a good thing, but if stimulating the flow of inflammatory chemicals is bad (is it? isn't inflammation an essential first part of healing? but ok, more is not always better) - what's the deal with trying to cut off that process with ice? what's ice doing in this kind of tissue condition where only ice is used? It doesn't bring down swelling - that's compression, apparently; it doesn't mitigate pain chemistry; it doesn't calm down spasaming muscles. What's left is that it anesthetizes the pain response so the sensation in the area goes numb.
No wonder researchers are worried about someone being iced up going back into play: they aren't feeling their limbs properly and spatial awareness would go south. The authors only hint at this being their concern:
In addition to the potential risk of injury [?? is it proprioception/senstation being deadened? -mc], the effect of cryotherapy on functional performance is a relevant concern, especially if the athlete plans to return to practice or competition immediately after the treatment.These authors are not the first to be concerned with the effects of icing prior to athletic endeavor. They site over a dozen studies that have come up with conflicting results about its impact on performance.
But wait. Aren't you hurt if you're icing?
What is interesting to me anyway, here, is that we're dealing with an athlete who has an injury, or they wouldn't be getting iced, and the question is what effect will icing have on their vertical jump? Ok, we're testing with un-injured participants, that's one (ethics and all but who's to say the effects are the same with someone with an injury), but isn't there a sort of fundamental ethical conundrum about asking someone who is so f'd up that they need to be icing in the first place then to go back into the game? The authors write in their Discussion section
Our study provides additional insight regarding the effect of cryotherapy on a major muscle group while performing functional activities. We wanted to provide clinical relevance to practicing certified athletic trainers; hence, we chose ice bag application because it is the most widely available form of cryotherapy. The time of application also coincides with the clinical relevance of the study. Our rationale for this includes circumstances in which the athlete will be returned to play after ice treatment of short durations. In some instances, an athlete will remove the ice bag early (within 10 minutes) and return him- or herself to play without clearance by a certified athletic trainer. We also examined the effect of these ice treatments after 20 minutes of time had elapsed; we found that as little as 10 minutes of ice can still detrimentally affect functional performance, as shown by the shuttle run in our study.I guess other questions would be, so what? We now know that three minutes has no impact on power, but ten minutes does. But isn't the question about the status of the injury? not about the overall minimal effect on power? What's the likelihood that with that slowed down effect that they'll reinjure themselves or be better protected? That doesn't get discussed.
What the others do note in practical applications is
Certified athletic trainers, athletes, coaches, and practitioners often apply ice to an injured athlete during practice or games. There are often times when athletes feel that they are ready to go back into competition, and they do not complete the total application time for the cryotherapy session. Our findings suggest that a 3-minute application does not affect the functional test measures, but a 10-minute application affects vertical jump and shuttle run times. An athlete may not be able to perform at his or her optimal level after a 10-minute application of cryotherapy even though the cryotherapy was applied to a secondary muscle group; therefore, we should use caution in returning the individual back into competition because there may be other deficits that have not yet been identified. Further research is warranted on primary muscle groups and on the use of short-term cryotherapy applications.
What are the authors saying? 10 mins may impact their performance so ten minutes is too long? But while three mins doesn't that's ok, send them back in? The authors leave the question hanging as to whether three mins. of icing, has that had a good effect, though, at all.
Or *maybe* the whole idea is stupid?
Here's my question: why does the athlete need to be iced? - assuming icing is in any way a good idea.
Here's the follow up questions:
If someone has such a degree of pain or inflammation that they need to be iced, what evidence is there to suggest that a three minute shot of ice has made the tissue situation sufficiently ok to enable a full re-introduction back into play in the first place?
Now maybe there is super evidence to support this: that staying moving is a good idea. There's tons of work in pain that pain does not equal injury, but let's say there is an injury, what are we doing here with the ice bag? Where is the work that shows in cases such as these - the athlete keen to get back in the game - that that's been a Wise Move in and of itself?
As said, there may be, and maybe that literature is so well known the authors haven't felt the need to site it, but that that issue doesn't even get a mention makes me think, maybe not. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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