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Saturday, January 9, 2010

Creatine, Beta-Alanine and Aerobic Power. Two naf tastes that go Great Together (for stuff like kb & vo2max training)

Creatine and Beta Alanine are increasingly discussed and used supplements. How might either

fit into the kind of training program that works both endurance and power, like say kettlebell training? The following is an overview of some work that's looked at creatine, beta-alanine, and the two together for aerobic power.

Creatine (Cr), an amino acid, is perhaps the most researched supplement on the planet. When it first came out the hope was that it would improve endurance. Apparently, It didn't, and looking back, one might say understandably so, since creatine mainly benefits the phosphocreatine (PCr) energy system - that system used mainly by sprints or sudden explosive moves that makes a blast of ATP (our energy fuel) available for work, fast.

It takes about 10 - 30 seconds to use up the ATP from PCr and about 6 minutes to resynthesize it at rest. The idea of creatine supplementation is that by getting more Cr into the muscle, more PCr will be available and thus more fast ATP is available for a sustained power blast (see for instance Kreider 98 and Volek, Kraemer and crew 97). When tested to see if it would help endurance athletes stay out longer before fatiguing, it just didn't.

Consquently, folks who sprint or folks who do power training in particular, where the focus is on low rep sets but high volume, generally like creatine. It's one of two supplements iron game master Clarence Bass uses. The other being Whey. So it's pretty durn normal and pretty durn popular. For resistance training.

Endurance Redux. Intriguingly, in what seems like a wee corner of the creatine research world, some researchers

have kept studying the aerobi/endurance space. In certain but quite common contexts of effort, creatine may actually help. Here's a quick review.

A good deal of research on endurance looks at time to exhaustion when pumping out maximal load. It's these kinds of tests where creatine didn't make a difference. Creatine or not, people quit pretty much at the same time to exhaustion.

In 2000, researchers set up a test to see if there were different levels of effort - submaximal loads (like VO2Max training) - creatine may make a difference to anything like maximal oxygen level for load and time to exhaustion.

Vo2Max Anyone? What they found, after just a week of supplementation - no special training - at the usual loading phase of 20g Cr a day for a week was that the Vo2 used for amount of effort dropped (see Fig 1 above). That's great. Now that's only a test of 15 mins of effort, but it's a graded effort to exhaustion. As the authors state,

In summary, creatine loading alters the initial mtabolic responses seen during a short-stage GXT. These alteration are most significant at the early stages of the GXT and are mnifested by a lower sub-maimal Vo2 and heart rate at the end of each GXT stage.

The creatine group also lasted about 70s longer, and had a significant improvement in T(vent) or Ventilatory Threshold (VT). AKA Lactate Threshold (a concept familiar to folks doing Viking Warrior Conditioning (VWC) and thinking VO2Max thoughts). VO2max training, remember, isn't sprint training or a maximal effort. It's submaximal, designed to push the edge of the aerobic envelop - to get greater oxidative capacity before flipping over to the anaerobic/glycolytic energy system. Cr sounds pretty good.

Heart & Power The authors hypothesize that Cr may impact VT due to the presence of greater PCr in the muscle This means the muscles can use that PCr as an energy source a wee bit longer, and that it MAY also be using H+ better (lactate buffering, keeping the Ph balance steady, so delaying fatiuge). Maybe. Now that sounds like Cr. is good for endurance after all?

In 2005, researchers looked at creatine on aerobic power as well as - way cool - what it does to the heart. Their concern was that if creatine brings water into the muscle (that's a not bad thing), what if it did this to the heart? Turns out, from their study that at least 4 weeks of sup'ing with Cr doesn't do anything negative. Groovy. They also found great lean mass improvements without fat mass improvements, though they didn't know what the mechanism for this was.

But what about endurance? Well, as of days of old, nothing again in terms of maximal effort in time to exhaustion. Indeed, they found, unlike the 2000 study, that there was no real significant difference in time to exhaustion between Cr & placebo groups, but once again, submaximal loads showed lower heart rates/more work.

The authors noted additionally beyond the 2000 study, that there was a "significant 3.7% decrease in HRmax following Cr supplementation." They couldn't entirely figure out what creatine was doing that resulted in the lower HRMax, since they saw no changes in the heart with the creatine. They speculate the effect may be due to plasma changes or Doppler flow changes.

Creatine and Beta-Alanine Combo for Endurance? More recently (2006) in the journal Amino Acids, researchers looked at these same measures but investigated creatine & beta-alanine individually and Cr and BA in combination. Like Reece's peanut butter cups, ya got two great tastes that go great together, at least this seems to be indicative.

The most noteworthy finding of this study was the significant increase in five of eight indices of cardiorespiratory endurance with CrBA supplementation. Individually, supplementation with Cr showed improvements in power output at VT and TTE, while b-Ala only demonstrated an improvement in power output at LT. A significant improvement in TTE was seen in the placebo group, but this was accompanied by decreases in power output and percent _V VO2peak at LT. The improvement in TTE seen in the placebo group appears to have been driven by relatively large increases in four of the subjects. These individuals demonstrated increases in TTE of 40, 45, 62, and 63 sec compared with a non-significant decrease of 15.4+/- 7.2 sec in the remainder of the group. However, any conclusions based on these findings must be tempered by the fact that there were no significant between-group effects.
Regardless, the present data at least suggest that supplementation with CrBA may enhance the potential for submaximal endurance performance as measured by the lactate and ventilatory thresholds....these data at least suggest that supplementation with CrBA especially may delay the onset of the VT and LT during incremental cycle exercise in men. Future studies should examine muscle carnosine and=or PCr levels along with blood lactate concentration during submaximal fatiguing exercise with and without b-Ala and=or Cr supplementation.

What about HIIT, Cr and Endurance? Now the interesting bit is where the supplement consideration falls apart again, and researchers' interests turn to HIIT and creatine in 2009. The idea would be that surely here, we'd get to an endurance breakthrough with creatine. But no. once again, doing the time to exhausion test, total work done is the same in both groups.

On the plus side, the same kinds of results for the VT are again seen, and the 2000 hypothesis is again asserted as to why this particular factor is so effected:

In conclusion, HIIT is an effective and time-efficient way to improve maximal endurance performance. The addition of Cr improved VT, but did not increase TWD. Therefore, 10 g of Cr per day for five days per week for four weeks does not seem to further augment maximal oxygen consumption, greater than HIIT alone; however, Cr supplementation may improve submaximal exercise performance.

What about Beta-Alanine and HIIT? Same year, same journal, and pretty much the same HIIT study uses beta-alanine instead of creatine.

Results: Significant improvements in VO₂peak, VO_2TTE, and TWD after three weeks of training were displayed (p <>2peak, VO_2TTE, TWD and lean body mass were only significant for the BA group after the second three weeks of training.

A key point? while BA did actually improve TWD - total work done - as well as improving that illusive Time to Exhaustion, it took over three weeks of supplementation of 6g a day.

Here's an interesting aside on how beta-alanine works from these papers' authors. It's the whole background section of the paper, but it's worth it. They say it so well and this shows why BA may be the next Cr:

This first part represents ideas around fatigue and what's causing it:

High-intensity exercise results in diminished stores of adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP), phosphocreatine (PCr) and glycogenic substrates, and the intracellular accumulation of metabolites (adenosine di-phosphate (ADP), inorganic phosphate (P_i), hydrogen ions (H⁺) and magnesium (Mg⁺), each of which has been implicated as a cause of muscle fatigue [1-3]. Excessive formation of H⁺results in a decrease in intramuscular pH which may contribute to fatigue in some models of exercise [1,4-6]. Enhancing an individual's ability to buffer protons may delay fatigue by improving the use of energy substrates and maintaining muscular contraction [6-9]. When the time and intensity level of exercise is sufficient, the majority of protons that are produced are buffered by the bicarbonate (HCO₃^-) buffering system [10,11] in which they are exported from the muscle [12]. Physiological buffering during dynamic exercise is typically controlled by the HCO₃^-system and is also supported by direct physico-chemical buffering, provided mainly by phosphate, hisitidine residues of peptides and proteins, and the small amount of bicarbonate present in muscle at the start of exercise. However, during short bursts of intense exercise, such as HIIT, physico-chemical buffering will exceed that by HCO₃^-mediated dynamic buffering, calling on intramuscular stores of phosphates and peptides.
In other words, HIIT pushes the body beyond the muscles' levels of chemicals available for buffering. Here comes why beta-alanine is such a potentially big deal: teh connection to canrosine

Specifically, carnosine (β-alanyl-L-histidine), a cytoplasmic dipeptide, constitutes an important non-bicarbonate physico-chemical buffer. By virtue of a pKa of 6.83 and its high concentration in muscle, carnosine is more effective at sequestering protons than either bicarbonate (pKa 6.37) or inorganic phosphate (pKa 7.2), the other two major physico-chemical buffers over the physiological pH range [7,13]. However, as a result of the greater concentration of carnosine in muscle than bicarbonate in the initial stages of muscle contraction, and inorganic phosphate, its buffering contribution may be quantitatively more important.
This sounds like BA would be a no-brainer since it gets carnosine metabolised. But here's why there's a research question:

Mechanisms for increasing muscle carnosine concentration have been somewhat disputed. While carnosine may be increased in chronically trained athletes, the effects of acute training are less clear. In one study, it has been reported that eight weeks of intensive training may increase intramuscular carnosine content [14]. In contrast, several other studies have shown that intense training, of up to 16 weeks, has been unable to promote a rise in skeletal muscle carnosine levels [6,15-17]. Only when β-alanine supplementation was combined with training did an increase in muscle carnosine occur [16], although the increase (40–60%) was similar to that seen with supplementation alone [18].
While carnosine is synthesized in the muscle from its two constituents, β-alanine and histidine [19], synthesis is limited by the availability of β-alanine [18,20]. β-alanine supplementation alone has been shown to significantly increase the intramuscular carnosine content [6,18]. Elevation of intramuscular carnosine content via β-alanine supplementation alone, has been shown to improve performance [6,14,21-24]. Recently, Hill and colleagues [6] demonstrated a 13% improvement in total work done (TWD) following four weeks of β-alanine supplementation, and an additional 3.2% increase after 10 weeks. Zoeller et al. [24] also reported significant increases in ventilatory threshold (VT) in a sample of untrained men after supplementing with β-alanine (3.2 g·d^-1) for 28 days. In agreement, Kim et al. [21] also reported significant increases in VT and time to exhaustion (TTE) in highly trained male cyclists after 12 weeks of β-alanine (4.8 g·d^-1) supplementation and endurance training. Furthermore, Stout et al. [22,23] reported a significant delay in neuromuscular fatigue, measured by physical working capacity at the fatigue threshold (PWC_FT), in both men and women after 28 days of β-alanine supplementation (3.2 g·d^-1– 6.4 g·d^-1).
And here's the kicker

Despite the improvements in VT, TTE, TWD, and PWC_FTafter supplementation, there were no increases in aerobic power, measured by VO₂peak [22-24].
So why test BA with HIIT?

Although HIIT alone does not appear to increase skeletal muscle carnosine content [17], training has been suggested to improve muscle buffering capacity [25-27]. When repeated bouts of high-intensity intervals are interspersed with short rest periods, subsequent trials are initiated at a much lower pH [28]. Training in such a manner subjects the body to an acidic environment, forcing several physiological adaptations. Notably, HIIT has been shown to improve VO₂peak and whole body fat oxidation in only two weeks (7 sessions at 90% VO₂peak) [29]. Furthermore, over a longer period of time (4–6 weeks), HIIT has been reported to increase high-intensity exercise performance (6–21%), muscle buffering capacity, whole body exercise fat oxidation, and aerobic power (VO₂peak) [25-27].
The respective supporting bodies of literature for the use of β-alanine supplementation alone and high-intensity training alone have gained recent popularity. However, to date, no study has combined and evaluated concurrent HIIT with β-alanine supplementation. In theory, we hypothesize that an increase in intramuscular carnosine content, as a result of β-alanine supplementation, may enhance the quality of HIIT by reducing the accumulation of hydrogen ions, leading to greater physiological adaptations. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the effects of chronic (6 weeks) β-alanine supplementation in combination with HIIT on endurance performance measures in recreationally trained individuals.

That is one of the clearest rationales for a study i've read. The authors ought to get a prize for that related work section. But just to bring it all home, BA sure seems wonderful. Imagine doing Viking Warrior Conditioning on BA:

Our findings support the use of HIIT as an effective training stimulus for improving aerobic performance, in as little as three weeks. The use of β-alanine supplementation, in combination with HIIT, appeared to result in greater changes in VO₂peak and VO_2TTE, during the second three weeks of training, while no significant change occurred in placebo group. In addition, TWD significantly (p < class="entity">β-alanine and Placebo groups, respectively. While more research is needed, the current study suggests that in untrained young men, the use of β-alanine supplementation may enhance the benefits of HIIT and augment endurance performance.

From the above, we can begin to see why creatine and beta-alanine are being proposed as the super 1-2 punch (well actually the latest is creatine, beta-alanine and citruline malate) for strength in resistance and endurance training. It's a hypothesis but the bet is that combining both Cr shown to be good for certain parts of HIIT and BA shown to be good for quite a few, might just be double plus good?

So for those of us doing power/endurance strength work like the Long Cycle, or Viking Warrior Conditioning, Cr+BA seems well worth exploring. That said, a key point may be to remember that while Cr. can kick in in 7 days and have an effect, it takes BA about 3+ weeks.

If you're thinking of giving either of these supplements a go, brand doesn't matter. Just look for certified GMP (cGMP) - see this overview on supplements for why. On Creatine, also, their are a bunch of types. Creatine Monohydrate is the one that gets studied and is the best. Creapure is a particular Creatine Monohydrate that's micronized for easy mixing that is 99% pure - look for a brand that's re-packaged that and you're doing great.

Best with your training.

Related Posts

Supplement Curmudgeon: Does that DO anything for you?
Supplement Quality: is what's on the label really in the Tin?
Nutrient timing MAY make a difference.
Dealing with a wretched cold
Carbs or Protein before bed?
b2d nutrition article index
b2d kettlebell article index
what's a scientific abstract and how's it used?

Citations

Graef, J., Smith, A., Kendall, K., Fukuda, D., Moon, J., Beck, T., Cramer, J., & Stout, J. (2009). The effects of four weeks of creatine supplementation and high-intensity interval training on cardiorespiratory fitness: a randomized controlled trial Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 6 (1) DOI: 10.1186/1550-2783-6-18

Zoeller, R., Stout, J., O’Kroy, J., Torok, D., & Mielke, M. (2006). Effects of 28 days of beta-alanine and creatine monohydrate supplementation on aerobic power, ventilatory and lactate thresholds, and time to exhaustion Amino Acids, 33 (3), 505-510 DOI: 10.1007/s00726-006-0399-6

Murphy AJ, Watsford ML, Coutts AJ, & Richards DA (2005). Effects of creatine supplementation on aerobic power and cardiovascular structure and function. Journal of science and medicine in sport / Sports Medicine Australia, 8 (3), 305-13 PMID: 16248471

Nelson, A., Day, R., Glickman-Weiss, E., Hegsted, M., Kokkonen, J., & Sampson, B. (2000). Creatine supplementation alters the response to a graded cycle ergometer test European Journal of Applied Physiology, 83 (1), 89-94 DOI: 10.1007/s004210000244

VOLEK, J. (1997). Creatine Supplementation Enhances Muscular Performance During High-Intensity Resistance Exercise Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 97 (7), 765-770 DOI: 10.1016/S0002-8223(97)00189-2

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Friday, January 8, 2010

When to Use Calorie Counting (or Heart Rate Monitors)

Follow @mcphoo This is the first of a two post piece on Calorie Counting and

Heart Rate monitoring. Oh you know, there's such debate about whether calorie counting or heart rate monitoring is meaningful or not, it seems worthwhile taking a look at the roles of each.

The Counter Arguments to Measuring. With calorie counting the comments usually suggest - if you just eat good food who needs to count calories? Or if you just get your portion control happening, you don't need to count calories. Or as Chris at condioning research pointed to recently - reports of calories, at least at fast food joints - aren't even accurate. Ya don't say. I'm shocked. shocked that calories are inaccurately reported at fast food establishments. But even food packaging can be off. Heck if ya can't trust giant food companies who can ya trust. Supplement companies? We'll see this is not a show stopper for using Calorie counting.

With the heart rate monitor the arguments are similar: there's a delay in the heart rate monitor - a slight lag, so while you're going hell for leather (where does that expression originate) your monitor is actually lower than what you really are at (by about 2-3 bpm). And heck, what really matters is perceived exertion anyway. Learn how your body feels and go with that.

And i agree with all the above sentiments. Except when they don't work.

I agree, in terms of diet that it's really critical to get with good eating habits and to learn about food to know what good food is. For instance it may be a surprise that an avacado is remarkably high in fiber. But it's also really full of fat. Knowing both these things helps make some healthy choices.

Likewise it's important to learn about how one's body feels especially for understanding whether one is about to push too hard or whether one has taken enough recovery to succeed with the next step, or to get whether one is really pushing hard enough. Bravo. Important stuff.

But how do you know what's really real for you?
Well, cave people didn't have heart rate monitors and they did ok, one might argue. They were in way better shape than us, one might suggest. Yes, sure, until picked off by disease or animal or next of kin. And likewise, until the last 50 or 60 years, we didn't really have to worry about getting all fat either. Calorie counting wasn't needed because, for most folks, calories were not in such amazing abundance - that's one - and fast crap food hadn't been invented. Our circumstances have changed, eh?

And as said, it's great to want to learn about oneself and how one's own body responds to food or effort. But sometimes a great PART of that learning is to get an external reality check.

SO i'd like to offer a couple points where i find both calorie counting and heart rate monitoring to be helpful. In this piece, we'll look at a calorie counting strategy. In the next, we'll look at another for heart rate monitors.

Part 1. When Calorie Counting Helps:
When the Scale Doesn't Want to Move

Executive Summary.
Since the following article has become way longer in detail than anticipated, here's the executive summary. Details unpacking each point below:

reality check sometimes a reality check on what we think we're doing and actually doing is a good idea if our progress feels like it's plateau'd or is going in a direction we don't want
"reality" however is relative it seems to the measures we use
calorie counting can be a good way to get an additional measure to unpack why the scale isn't moving the way we want.
if we're going to use that, though, we need to base line what it's calculations say something is and what our reality is
be prepared to take about two weeks to figure out how the calorie counting instrument measures up against the scale.
once that's done, simply start to reduce from that level to go down or add to go up (the actual numbers become incidental; it's a trend)
as this gets comfortable, be aware of macro nutrient ratios
blend with other measures like girth and bodyfat% to see that whatever's happening is pro lean body mass.
be consistent as much as possible in keeping up the records to get a rich picture for future ref of what does what to one's body
it's something that need be done only for a period once in awhile if something changes - like a new workout or eating regimen happens

Details on each of these points below

I've written not infrequently about precision nutrition and why i think it's helpful for achieving one's body comp goals. Part of the starting point of PN is just to forget about calories and just get practice in order - get some good nutrition habits down about protein and greens and fats - get those right for a month of what's known as 90% daily compliance with those habits. That's a framework. But then ya know what? the individualization guide to be used after that to tune the program for each person does indeed talk about both calories and macronutrient ratios. And why not? If the goal is to cut fat one has to be in caloric deficit. Well how do you know if you are?

As an example, when i was getting my own nutrition house in order, and following the right habits, i wasn't losing weight. I was doing the "just eat clean" thing to a T, and one of the things i loved about PN was the de-emphasis of calorie counting. And then on the forum uk trainer Alex Gold suggested that when he'd stalled out, he did some food logging for a few weeks and things fell into place. I took his advice - reluctantly - got going with fitday and voila, the weight loss started to kick in. What happened?

Calorie Counting as Trend rather than Absolute Value. The biggest benefit of calorie counting tools like fitday, in my experience, is that they offer a consistent set of measures that can be used to model trends.

What i mean by consistent values is that we get all sorts of numbers from all sorts of places about what *should* work for us. For instance, there are Base Metabolic Rates calculated on age, weight, gender and then there's an activity level and that tells you how many calories you supposedly burn in a day just from living your life.

That also means that that is the number of calories you could eat in a day and not lose or gain weight. That's maintenance.

By that logic, you should be able to plug foods into fitday or other calorie counting software and eat to that number and the next day not gain weight. Or lose it. Ok, let's be fair and say over the period of a week.

Does that calculated number for Maintenance Meet the Reality? For myself, according to these calculations i should be able to get away with eating about 300 more calories to maintain my weight than what has turned out to be the case. What's also very useful is that i can track macronutrient ratios - i can see if it makes a difference to how i feel or to my progress to look at the usual ratios of carbs, fats, protein.

By tracking my intake for say two weeks, and watching the scale, i find my own truth relative to that scale/software.

Trends rather than absolutes. Now while the calories add up in fitday to about 300 less than the BMR+Activity level calculation does, of course it might just be that the caloric amounts assigned to the foods i'm eating are not right, or the amounts i'm using are not exact. In other words, the calculation might be fine and my measures or reported calories or whatever are where the error is. Or maybe it's a combination.

But that doesn't matter.

What matters is consistency, and i'm consistent. and so is the error in the system. I consistently measure the same way, and generally eat the same kinds of food. Thus, what i get at the end of the two weeks of eating pretty much the same, at the same levels of input, are trends. So whatever the Absolute Reality is of the Platonic Calorie for this food, i know that when in this software i'm at this putative caloric level, i'm gonna maintain. And likewise if i drop it down, i'm gonna lose.

In other words, i'm calibrating against the system. It's sorta like zeroing a scale if you want to measure stuff in a bowl. You put the bowl on the scale first, zero the scale so that the weight of the bowl is removed from the readout, and then put the stuff in the bowl and remeasure.

Taking time to Set the Level.

If you take nothing else from this post, take this: give yourself time to set the level of whatever system your using. Once you get that, your success will accelerate; until you get that, you may flounder in a sea of frustration.

Generally speaking it takes me anyway about two weeks to get the level set if it's been awhile from using calorie counting. I need to relearn what the level is with my current work outs and life practices.

The end result is that i zero myself against the system, and then i'm really good to go. It's really important - at least i've found this so for myself - to allow myself this time just to get the data, to do the level setting as it were. And then, bam, i'm wired. It's almost freaky how easy it becomes ONCE that level is dialed in.

Plugging In to Related Feedback Measures. Calorie counting of course is not the goal. The scale is. Well ok, i'll reframe that. Usually it's body fat % and girth. That's then using one measure (calories) against three others: weight on the scale, body fat % and girth (hips, waist, arms, neck, thigh, chest, etc).

Why these other measures are important to me is that if i'm trying to cut fat, i don't really want to lose lean mass or muscle particularly. Just the fat, please. If i watch only the scale, all i get is absolute weight loss. I don't know if that loss is fat or just water or ick, bone mass and muscle tissue. By using other measures i calibrate the success of knowing how to eat to get my weight down with other measures to make sure that that weight loss is associated wtih fat cutting more than anything else.

Aside Lean Mass Gains while Cutting Fat And for folks who think that fat cutting inevitably leads to muscle loss too, especially in experienced athletes, here's a recent study that was just brought to my attention:
Paper was presented at the American College of Sports Medicine (2009).

Is It Possible To Maintain Lean Body Mass and Performance during Energy-restriction in Elite Athletes?
Ina Garthe1, Truls Raastad1, Per Egil Refsnes2, Jorunn Sundgot-Borgen1. 1The Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway. 2The Norwegian Olympic Sports Centre, Oslo, Norway.

Many athletes in sports that emphasize low weight and leanness attempt to reduce their weight in order to enhance competitive performance. The strategy recommended is a gradual weight-loss due to moderate energy restriction promoting a weekly weight-loss of 0.5-1 kg. However, a decrease in body mass due to energy restriction can lead to loss of lean body mass (LBM) and thereby impair performance.
Purpose: To compare the loss of fat mass, LBM and performance in two different weight-loss interventions promoting loss of 0.7% versus 1.4% of body weight per week in elite athletes.
Methods: 30 male and female elite athletes where randomized into two groups, “slow reduction” (SR, n=14, 23.5±3.3 y, 72.2±12.2 kg) and “fast reduction” (FR, n=16, 22.3±4.9 y, 72.2±11.2kg). All athletes followed a 6-12 week energy restriction period depending on the intervention and desired weight loss. Diets were recorded by 4-day weighed food records and each athlete followed an individualized diet plan promoting weekly body weight-loss of 0.7% or 1.4%. All athletes continued training their sport as usual (14.6±3.5h per week), and in addition all included four resistance-training sessions per week to emphasize muscle hypertrophy. Measurementsdonepre and post intervention were: body weight (BW), dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DEXA), 1 RM tests (squat and bench press) and vertical jumping test.
Results: There were no significant differences between groups in any of the measurements pre intervention. BW was reduced with 5.6±3.0% in SR-group (p<0.001) p="0.4)." p="0.1)" p="0.001)" p="0.05)">

Conclusion: Despite a weight-loss of ~5% of body mass it is possible to increase LBM and performance during a gradual weight-loss in normal-weight athletes. The magnitude of weekly weight-loss seems to be one of the factors that influence loss of fat mass versus LBM and performance.
It's interseting to note that the best results in actual lean mass gain were from people who did the smaller caloric restriction. The weight loss may be a bit slower, but the other gains certainly are worth considering in terms of considering a slower cut.

Measuring Is Not Single Factor. So calorie counting is not done just for the heck of it. It's part of a creating a picture of one's practice. We have to be able to connect it with our other measures - and they relate to each other too. For instance, if i'm eating so that i'm losing a lot of weight, but have no energy to do my workouts, or i stop making progress on my lifts or times, or am feeling really nasty and acting the same way, perhaps there's something going on. Likewise if my weight is going down, but my bodyfat measures aren't showing a change on the fat side, do i need to rethink my strategy? Or if my sleep seems to have gone out the window or i feel tired - what's the relationship?

The Value of Learning What's Normal. In athletic training, a staple of practice is a log of one's workouts. Some folks consider the log as a motivation tool, to see how progress is being made. But another role of the log it seems to me, is to understand simply what's normal? That can't be understood with just a record of sets and reps. That would need to be coordinated with what else is going on in one's world - has work changed? eating changed? some other stressor changed? It's rather difficult to know that without some history to show what's normal.

For example, i know that when i'm doing X kind of training, to feel energized i just can't do a Y workout the next day. At best i can do Z and then i'm ready to do X again. Now if i were to find myself too pooped even for Z consistently for a couple weeks, i'd be going Hmm. And wanting to see what's changing? Maybe i need to try putting that recovery drink back in for instance, or hit the sack sooner.

Without some kind of record of muliple factors, i'm just hacking around, guessing. With logs, i'm still guessing, but the time it takes to narrow something down is usually less. And it seems when i keep better logs the variations happen less. This effect might be down to Attention. The act of recording something puts it in our Attention, and by making something deliberate, we become more aware of it.

Measurement Support for the Big Picture. If you're not familiar with how to measure these other components - fat especially - this again is something that makes the precision nutrition package a worthwhile investment. It has a fabulous measurement guide as part of it.

Of course you can poke around the web to find stuff, but it's nice to have the whole shebang in one place with accurate info at each page, as well as examples for men and women. It goes through how to track a whole fleet of related measures for progress.

body weight measuring and calibrating a decent scale,
doing body fat measures with callipers, where the sites are for measuring, the equations to use,
what girth measures are,
what strength and performance measures are,
recovery measures (really critical),
what blood measures are,
how to take photographs

When to let go of the Rigerous Tracking: When the practice Registers. Somehow we've moved from calorie counting to help get weight loss (or mass gain) happening, up to the forty thousand foot level ofthe Big Picture - well being. Let's get back to calorie counting, then, and when we can stop - especially after i've just said how useful keeping logs can be.

Once i get into understanding my current caloric intake (as reflected in the system i'm using) where i've got the level that handles my workouts and nutrition and has me on a reasonalbe (.5 to 1lb a week loss) fat cutting pace and most especially, that reflects a consistent trend, i keep tracking that for about two weeks to make sure that i get some practice with those asssumptions. That way, i can validate if i'm right. Which is pretty easy to see: those next two weeks the trend heads DOWN. Happy happy joy joy. Once that's established, i'm usually pretty comfy with knowing what portion sizes are in the zone and what i have to be careful with (like dipping bread into olive oil and balsamic. dam).

Once i' drop the rigerous calorie counting, i keep up with the other body comp measures of girth and calipers, and that on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. That regular recorded feedback helps me tune my practice and adds a little more awareness and attention without being a burden. IF something goes unexpectedly out of line in that period, i have these other strategies to dip back into, like calorie counting for a week just to see what's REALLY going on.

Relative to Other Measures
And that's the main thing here: calorie counting can be a reality check. We may be happy that we're eating clean, but if we're gaining weight when we want to maintain or drop fat, and our body comp measures show that that gain is not just muscle, then it's pretty hard to deny there's an issue.

Granted, there are other approaches to check out what's going on. One could simply reduce the overall portion size at each meal for two weeks and see if that sorts out the issue. Absolutely. But sometimes we may *feel* like we're doing that and see no shift, and so that extra bit of information and rigour of a short term stint with calorie logging can be a way to make a breakthrough. And then let go and let those good nutrition habits take over.

Infrequent but Useful. Personally, i haven't used calorie counting for two years. I've recenty used it again to do exactly this reality check against my goal to put on some muscle mass and make sure i'm feeding the muscles rather than the fat. It's been just the feedback i've needed to tune what i'm doing.

If you want to try Calorie Counting. Here are some steps i've found useful in getting a reality check to tune my nutrition practice for my body comp goals.

Get a program you like for recording your food intake (if it records your workouts for showing energy used in a day that's great too. I personally like FitDay - indeed i like it so much i run a PC emulator on my mac pretty much just to use it. The site is free to use, but i find the food entry on the software more convenient than the website. The main attributes are that the software records food, exercise and has a daily weight log.
Give yourself time to set a level. This is the toughie if you want to lose weight right now. Allow yourself to take a week or two to get a clear picture of what your usual daily practice is. Do your calories vascilate wildly? do the ratios of fat, carb, protein, go all over the place from day to day? As you record these facts against your DAILY weight log, you'll be able to see how your body responds over a decent amount of time like 10-14 days. The first task may then be just to get more consistent - like trying to get to what maintenance or below maintenance is calculated to be and see if that's right for you; or too high or low. But you can't know that without staying consistent for awhile.
be rigerous - using a calorie log can be a pain in the butt. like really. but it doesn't really work unless you really count everything. Like the milk in my tea. That adds up to at least a cup of milk a day. That for me is not nothing. I actually don't mind when i'm into it doing the recording, and maybe it's part of that Awareness through Attention - that as i record these things i learn more about heh this is way high in carbs and not enough in protein. What would happen if i up my protein with a bit more in my recovery drink?
weigh yourself daily; track your girth and bf% weekly - you don't have to weigh yourself daily, but i find that by doing this i can see the trends in my body for wieght to vascilate. Then i can get a sense of when i might be putting on water, or when perhaps i ate later so there's just more food in my gut when i step on the scale. This is just more data. The given day is less important than the trend. And the more points of data, the clearer the picture of the trends. After having done this awhile i find i can look at the scale with more equanimity. Oh it's up a bit today; tomorrow it will be down. Likewise, and perhaps this is a result of more practice, seeing the number be lower is equally amorphous. It may be a bit up the next day, but the trend says it's all good; it's all going down. Tracking bf% and girth weekly will definitely reality check the scale to show the trend on all the things that count is heading in the right direction - or that something within the trend needs tuning.

A Note about Intermittent Fasting & Calorie Counting
Some folks are drawn to Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat for intermittent fasting. For Pilon, he suggests that just not eating once a week - a bit more if you want to lose weight - is a great way to lose weight because you just eat normally the other days of the week. THis approach, i've found, takes care of weight loss about as well as "just eat clean" or "just reduce the portion sizes for a couple weeks." While these strategies can be very successful, and do work in principle, personally, i find that if i'm starting into what i want to be a body comp change period, there's practical benefit to finding out what Normal is. For me, one sure way to do that is calorie counting for a couple weeks. Then, you bet, i have a trend to work against, a personally validated normal, and then if IF is what i want to do, i have a way of validating that, too.

To Count or not to Count.
Your mileage may vary. You may be very successful at losing weight or gaining mass when you want without these kinds of additional feedback measures. If you are, you likely haven't read down to here and bailed out much earlier. Good for you.

This post is really for those of us who do find having these extra measures helpful, and if so, how they might be used for success.

Big Take Aways for Calorie Counting:
At least in my experience and with some of the folks whom i coach:

calorie counting is about trends, not instnaces
cc'ing is not single factor; it's part of one measure against a recommended set of measures like girth, body fat%, weight, etc
it needs time to find the zero point to start using it effectively
it doesn't need to be used all the time, but as a tool to help get in the groove of what you want your body comp/well being practice to be

Hope this is helpful, and all the best for your body comp goals. Heart Rate montoring next.

Body Comp Coaching. IF you'd like to explore online coaching for your nutrition & bodycomp goals, email me. I take on a very few clients right now, usually for 16 week blocks. Included, Precision Nutrition including the PN Forum and online tools, personal assessment of where you're at now and what your goals are, bi-weekly assessment guides, live bi-weekly coaching and nutrition ed sessions, email support. £375GBP for four months, guarenteed you'll know yourself and nutrition, make great strides in your body comp goals, know what works for you, and how to achieve your goals, learn how to trouble shoot nutrition challenges, moving at your own pace and with a nutirtion plan that is designed for you and works for you.

B2D Nutrition Index
6 mins of training a week for fitness
Dieting is Hard - but there are strategies for success.
Motivation as a Skill
Where heart rate monitors may help in resistance/kb training

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Thursday, January 7, 2010

The mysterious wholes: whole protein, whole wheat, whole sprouts. What are these things and why should i care (should i?)

Follow @mcphoo What is a "whole protein"? And if you aren't a vegetarian do you need to care? And if grains complete veggies to make proteins, aren't grains evil these days - then can we still make whole proteins from plants? And what's whole wheat anyway? How's that different from sprouted grain? is that better? Are vegetarians driven mad by all this food science? Let's have a go.

Context: It started with Black Bean Soup. When i first

started going vegetarian it was a common saw to say oh wow if you eat beans you need rice to get a complete protein. I didn't think to consider what that meant; i just took it as gospel. More recently, when looking at veggie protein powders, folks will talk about their "profiles" to make decisions on which ones they want to use, when.

This morning, having some awesome homemade black bean soup as part of breakie, the beans and rice question came up again as we discussed the seeming regional differences across the south west in terms of ratio (or presence) of rice to beans in burritos & chimichangas. Is rice with beans part of the "whole protein" story, and is that story a myth?

The Skinny on "Complete" Proteins.
A whole or complete protein for a person consists two things:

the Essential Amino Acids and
the correct amounts

to meet our "dietary needs"

As a refresher, essential amino acids (sometimes represented as EAA's) are the ones we can't synthesise from other foods, but need. Here's the table of EAA's and amounts.

Essential Amino Acid	mg/g of Protein
Tryptophan	7
Threonine	27
Isoleucine	25
Leucine	55
Lysine	51
Methionine+Cystine	25
Phenylalanine+Tyrosine	47
Valine	32
Histidine	18

A wee aside - Histidine: Histidine is kind of a weird one it seems, that seems to be context dependent as to whether or not it's an EAA or non-EAA. It shows up in lists of non-essential AA's too.

Another Aside - BCAA's: You may note that the popular in the weight lifting space, branch chain amino acids or BCAA's are part of the EAA's - these are Isoleucine, Valine and Leucine. Why? As i understand it, they're metabolised in the muscle rather than the liver, so they are the onsite, on board amino's used for muscle building, of which the biggie is Leucine.

This finding has lead lots of folks to think BCAA's (or more recently just Leucine) must be the best way to go for muscle building. Well, it seems we're more complex than that. So while there are many many studies showing how great BCAA's are, for some strange reason, i can't find studies that pit say whey isolate head to head with BCAA's. Mike T. Nelson, who's doing research on metabolic flexibility, however, is not the only exercise expert recommending more complete packaging of EAA's for benefit (as per this minute with mike). Seems we also need the other things that come from complete proteins for all things bright and beautiful for food.

A few more notes about the EAA's. In a piece by Lyle McDonald, McDonald makes a further clarification about AA's: essentially all proteins are complete proteins, in that they have all the AA's in them, but *some* of those AA's are there in differing amounts. So, the idea of combining foods is to bring together the missing bits, we'll talk about this next.

Foods for Completeness

So now we know we're looking for EAA's in certain amounts in order to hit complete protein world. TO get it out of the way, meat, fish and dairy all are complete proteins. So let's set those aside for a sec. Different plants are EAA incomplete in different ways. Hence the reason for blending.

A trad heuristic'y way to get at combos is the grouping of same: group 1, breads, cereals, grains completes any of group 2 legumes, group 3 veggies, group 4 nuts and seeds.

We can get a little more refined about combinations of plant based foods based on understanding specifically what the "limiting amino acid" is - what EAA a food is lowest in and then design up from there.

There's a nice table with some examples here at sheknows listing foods low in say tryptophan (eg, green beans, brown rice) or lysine (eg, yams). So combine some of these together and get your EAA benefits. In other words, you don't even HAVE to use grains to get your wholes (though some sites still act like you do).

These are good lists to have since sites that focus on "amount of protein" in a plant item aren't conveying the, er, whole EAA picture.

What about beans and rice?? Does this mean that there's truth to the beans and rice combo afterall? Based on the above, seems that would depend on what kind of beans we're talking about. The wonderful black bean (which in some places seems to go by the name "turtle" bean), staple of the burito, has a far more complete profile than say even the kidney bean. Just take a look at the black bean's GORGEOUS protein profile. Better than 100% of the EAA's! Kidney beans, by contrast have a score of 89% - no slouch.

So, while the black bean seems a complete EAA source on its own, no acoutrements required, wrapping a kidney bean burrito up in a soft tortia (corn or wheat) takes care of the missing protein profiles, so rice seems like what it is: a cheap filler. Especially when it's white rice. Boo.

Aside: Grains? And for folks thinking no way i'm not doing grains; grains R evil - remember that whole grains, sprouted grains etc are way way far from evil and can make great choices for protein completeness.

They tend to get the evil label for a variety of reasons, but it seems few folks really discriminate between processed (low nutrition/high calories) and whole/sprouted grains (higher to high nutrition and lower cals).

And just a reminder on what 100% whole wheat means for example: that's when the whole durn seed - bran, germ, endosperm - is ground up into flour and used for whatever's being made.

Sprouting Aside By slight contrast, sprouted grains are living things (to make: get a whole grain - here's a list of candidates -from your local place to buy such food comestibles and soak 'em). To make bread, these sprouts get mashed up into a dough - not reduced to flour - and have up to three times the fiber of your whole grain flour. Isn't that interesting. Really - getting the daily requirement of fiber is no small thing. Lentils are super high relatively speaking, but every day? Also the enzymes that come along with sprouting can make the grain easier to digest. Germination apparently ups other nutrient content, too.

Given the above, how can whole grains be evil?

Variety Rules
So given that getting one's lysine and tryptophan in order mean having to get all freaked out about the foods on the plate?

Maybe a bit. But not much. First thing, we don't need to have the combo complements all in the same meal. Second thing, just understanding that the combos are needed for full EAA'ness, one may want to get a handle on food favorites and see what are the usual best complements to put together, especially if - no matter how one feels about grains - one is just trying to cut back on those more calorically dense carb foods.

If you're curious, just check out the foods you usually like to plate, and then do a check on whether these make good EAA combos. Nutrition.com is an amazing resource here as it DOES give the complete EAA profile of a food.

On the plus side, if we're already eating a variety of foods (lots of colors on the plate), apparently the likelihood of being screwed out of EAA's is vanishingly small.

For the conscientious meat eater, understanding plant-based proteins offers up easy ways to cut back on meat consumption, dropping it back to a few times a week rather than daily, as the energy costs alone of meat are so so high. Once we get that we do get whole proteins from as simple a combo as a yam and a green bean, or just black beans, getting into richer, more colourful options may mean just that much more sweetness and eating delight.

i'd like to thank Ryan D. Andrews from Precision Nutrition and PN Forum Regular Ron Ipock and their exchange with me on the PN forum about grains for prompting me to dig further into these questions.

Related Posts

b2d nutrition article index
Food Inc Discussion- the incredible-ness of the food industry driven by fast food
Georgie Fear's Dig In Recipe Book-review
Precision Nutrition v3 - with plant based approaches to eating - the best program to learn more about food and you.

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Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Brad Pilon on the Scientific Abstract. Here's my abstract: he's wrong - kinda

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Abstract: Abstracts to scientific papers provide summaries of the question the study considered, the method used and the key findings from the work. Due to publishers access/licensing restrictions it is difficult for most people outside a formal research context, unless associated with a library that offers such access, to gain access to full papers of scholarly articles. What publishers do make available for free are abstracts of scholarly papers. While the intent of these abstracts is primarily for scholars to assess latest research findings and trends, and to make determinations about the need or not to read more of the full paper attached to an abstract, the general public doing an online search for information on a topic may find these abstracts. Without access to the full paper, they may do the best they can to make their case on the basis of a paper's findings alone. Recently, health/diet author Brad Pilon has taken issue with this abstract practice as potentially misrepresenting the actual work/paper. The following is a detailed consideration from the perspective scholarly authorship practice of the points Pilon makes, showing where there seem to be errors in Pilon's assertion of the intent or use of abstracts. The conclusion is that first, contrary to Pilon's assertions, abstracts are not designed to induce people to buy papers; they are designed for scholars to make research decisions and overview a field. Second, the use of abstracts in lieu of paper reading is not necessarily as problematic as Pilon seems to suggest. More would need to be know of the context for that assertion.

I have a lot of respect for the author of Eat Stop Eat. Brad Pilon has but together a lot of well reasoned arguments to for the possible benefits of intermittent ceases of eating (he wishes he hadn't called it fasting) for well being. Great. Today on facebook from a post by Richard Chignel i saw a link about Brad Pillon saying what a scientific abstract is. His thesis is that it's like a Movie Trailer - it's there to get you to buy the Paper. Speaking as a scientist who publishes scholarly papers, this is not my experience nor i suspect my colleagues. So i'd like to take this post to give you a perspective from the other side of the house, going through Pillon's points.

Abstracts Exaggerate? Beyond asserting that the abstract is like the trailer to get you to buy a paper, Pillon also makes some general claims about what's in an abstract. So first problem: a key error is to say an abstract "exagerates" findings in the paper. To generalize like that, a person would need to have a large number of examples. I'm stuck trying to think of one. And i'm a Reader - that's my job title. I read a lot of papers. I read even more abstracts. Exageration in abstracts is not a sustainable practice.

Journals - where scientific papers are published - are managed by editors. Editors of journals, by the way, are almost always also experienced and active researchers. So these editors are also writers. It's their job to make sure what's in the abstract is a fair reflection of the content/findings of the paper. If that were not the case, the journal would soon get a rep for being shoddy. You may say you don't know as a non-expert what journal is shunned or not. There are a bunch of metrics for that, but if you search for "journal rankings" in google, you'll see that there are publically available metrics. And a researcher from any space will make that kind of tour through journals a first port of call, to find out the standing of the publication.

Abstract Structure. This is what i teach our graduate students to consider when they're writing up their results. And if the seminar hadn't been snowed out today, it's what we would have been looking at formally. Let no good lecture go to waste - so let me share this here. The abstract needs at least the following ingredients:

what is the problem being considered by the work reported?
why is that problem important?
what method was used to investigate the problem?
what are the results?

What's the point of this structure? It's actually the opposite in practice of what Pillon asserts. Abstracts are not written to get somone to buy/read a paper, but to help us skip what we don't need.

It's about NOT reading the paper. The point of the abstract is to give one sufficient information to know if they need to BOTHER reading the paper for their area of work. THis may seem kinda odd. IF i've put time into writing this wonderful paper, don't i want everyone to read it? It's not the first thing that hits most researchers' minds.

The hope is that the work is sufficiently interesting or relevant that others will find it so (or find it at all, ever), and thus it will stand on its own merits when folks are looking for related work to their own in that area. These are specialized pieces of writing that assume a certain knowledge level for reading. They are written to advance understanding in a particular field. And their are tons produced annually. Hence people who look at research papers generally do so because they have a question they want to understand.

And when such a question comes up, they usually his a dedicated searchable index site like pubmed or other domain specific indexes - not google or not a journal publisher - to see lists of papers, and to click through to the abstracts, and from there, if desired, one of the links to the full text.

example of pubmed search results

So of this myriad of possiblely relevant information, the abstract acts as a filter.
Of the sometimes hundreds of papers available, which ones should be set aside to read further? That's a first pass. This may sound like that's a match for Pillon's try to get you to read the paper. But authors of this kind of work AREN't trying to get you to read a paper. They aren't trying to show you the best shots from the film. They aren't being highly selective about what they show you. There are those pretty standard, one might say objective conventions, about what has to be in an abstract. No jump cuts. The really dry straight stuff only. We're talking about a community here of people who get to know each other. If you as a scientist started trying to sex up your abstracts, you'd be meat.

And since this is a community practice, we all know that we want to make our abstracts as useful as possible so that another readers can make these determinations. Our own reputations are at stake here, too.

As an aside: another way researchers make determinations about what's important to read in an area: looking at the papers other credible researchers are looking at in that area.

Surveying the Field. The second pass is that the abstracts give a researcher a very good sense of what the trends have been in a particular topic over time. So the researcher can begin to get a sense of what questions have already been considered - very important if that person is planning their own work and doesn't want to reinvent the wheel.

Likewise it's cool to see when a particular topic trended. You can see when a particular question seemed to have been hot by how many papers related to it came out in a year. What happened that it trailed off? Is it now called something else? Is the problem solved?

It's not to get you to buy the paper. Of course there's a difference too between reading and buying a paper. Pillon quotes the price a publisher assigns to a PDF. That's the publisher. If anyone is thinking about paying for an individual "off print" of a paper, may i encourage you to search elsewhere for that paper.

And for most of us who use ressearch papers, we don't pay for them individually: our libraries have licenses to the journals or the authors have made available "preprints" on their own websites.

There's a huge move in academic research towards "open access" (since most research in universities anyway is paid for through research funds, and if those are public funds the results should be publically available. Likewise there's a huge argument in terms of research impact that if one can't get at a paper digitally the paper might as well not exist. So academic authors find ways to make their papers available).

So what's going on here really?
Pilon's a smart guy. He does research, but he doesn't create peer reviewed papers himself, so he's not perhaps privy to the scene being described above. Fair enough. Even folks who do undergrad degrees and some masters degrees do not have to create peer reviewed research themselves. Consumption is not the same as production.

I'd suggest that, let's assume, the best intentions in the world, Pilon has still misrepresented scholarly practice, and in particular the role of the Scientific Abstract. Mayn't be his fault if this is how the outward facing journal products appear to a high consumer of such content. Maybe that's a problem for the scholarly community to take on board.

But really, Pilon's analogy of Abstract=Trailer is all noise and leger des mains around the main point he's trying to make: that the abstract is not the paper. His issue seems to be with folks who use abstracts to support their claims without having looked at the whole paper.

I'm not sure whom Pilon is thinking of, but for sure on online forums, lots of folks quote abstracts as support for their arguments without reading the paper. I'm not sure that's always a terrible thing, or leads to damaging conclusions. I'd have to know more about the intent of the exchange.

Likewise while, as Pilon suggests, one would not say they had seen the film because they'd seen the trailer, i don't know how many people actually lie about having read a paper when they've only read the abstract. Perhaps people act as if they've read the whole paper? The closest thing i've seen is the citation of abstracts as sufficient for supporting a claim. And sometimes they are. And sometimes seeing a trailer is absolutely sufficient to show it's either (a) it's not worth seeing or (b) all the best scenes were in the trailer. Now, i have to say, i have been surprised by the number of posts that have claimed that Avatar is like Dances with Wolves - i did not get that from either of the trailers i saw.

But if we assume there's more to the paper than the abstract, what is the difference, if the paper is just fleshing out the findings - the findings don't change.

Difference between Paper and Abstract: Here's what can change from reading the paper: by looking at the methodology of the paper - the how the study or experiment was actually done - one can begin to challenge the results. One might say - oh that population was not appropriate for generalizing the finding - that was done with non-trained participants rather than hard core athletes. I bet the findings would be different. OR you only used this muscle not that. That constrains the value of the finding.

One of my favorites is when someone states a result like a type of result was found with this approach (like longevity and fasting) - and then you find out the study is done with rats. And not that many of them either. Now in those cases that's not the abstract/paper's fault because all that's usually in the title - that's just how it can get reported.

So while reading the abstract is not the same as reading the paper, it's pretty durn good.

And while a professional researcher wouldn't get away with not reading the paper if they wanted to cite it as the basis for research, it is pretty durn legitimate to site a set of abstracts' results to show a trend. An informed reader or poster hopefully will start to get savvy enough to ask questions like "well what was the method" or "what was the population" or "how did they define X" to start to get at the important stuff to them.

Examples in Reading.Here's some examples of a blend of providing abstracts and some deeper readings of *certain* articles: b2d's series on DOMS is such a blend - requiring two parts - part 1 and part 2.

Maybe another good one is this survey on warm ups - that started with abstracts in order to ask the question where "warm up" is the term used in the abstract, but you have to read the paper to find out how a "warm up" is defined.

Apologies to Mr. Pilon. Anyway, as said, i dig Brad Pilon's work; he puts out loads of good stuff. I would be delighted to take the author out for coffee (and heck he lives in Canada. right on) or host him giving a talk or have a great discussion with him - so many of the folks i respect have been influenced by his work, and all for the good. This comment is in no way a criticism of him. And perhaps if i didn't actually teach this paper writing stuff and spend time working on abstracts with students, maybe i'd say ya sure abstract to movie trailer good comparison.

Except it's not. And not getting that may lead to furthering poor use and worse understanding of scientific practice - because the intents and also the designed uses are so different than a trailer that it's like - to use a food analogy - comparing apples to oranges.

And i do mean it: if this is what scientific practice appears in terms of public facing practice, we may have a job of work to do to address that. Follow @begin2dig

Running Shoes as Single Factor Thinking

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This is a post about Shoes not as evil, but as it seems a Great Feat of Misdirection. It's a wee bit about our biases towards single factor solutions for complex problems, and the arguments we will have around the Chosen Factor rather than pulling up and back to consider the wider view. In science, there's a strong bias towards studying the effect of a single factor in various circumstances, but you'll rarely find a scientist who will say that single factor study or finding is The Solution - as we'll see below. That's down usually to the media who tries to promote such results, or companies that like the sound of same.

We are such complex (and complicated) organisms, yet we yearn for the Single Factor Solution to complex issues. We usually see this with respect to struggles for fat loss, where single approaches - the right diet, the right workout, the right diet pill, the right diet surgery - are put to address what involves a cornucopia of issues, as described here just the other day. The same single factor thinking is evident in running shoes, too. The Shoe is the Solution. Get the Right Shoe before daring a Run. And so this post focuses around a response to a study. About sneakers.

So let's back up: why putitively are there so many durn sneakers out there such that there are studies about their effects? Selling that great shoe that's just right for your running gait peculiarities to reduce injury and let you run like blazes is of course an important thing. And of course the more you can afford the better the protection you can buy. More cushioning, more multiparts of rubber density in the sole etc etc. Or so the sales pitch goes.

But this is also a kind of single factor approach to good mechanics for running. It says let the shoe take care of any weirdness in your gait, cuz that's just the way you are, you're stuck, and so need to be "corrected" . That's a much faster solution (seemingly) than taking the more complex view of IF something is off with the gait that may be problematic for performance, how best deal with that? After all, we're plastic people, as Woolf's Law and Davis's Law have shown: bone and tissue are responsive to what we do. Is this something that can be addressed more holistically perhaps?

And so, as readers of b2d may know, there's a growing movement around "less is more" for foot wear, and indeed "free your feet" anytime of day, and in sports like running as well (with the b2d index of vibram fivefingers stories as a wee illustration) - where the emphasis is on (a) trust our own engineering and (b) work actively with our own engineering to improve it, rather than rely on prosthetics. Prosthetics *may* have knock on consequences, like reinforcing rather than solving an issue.

More Support for Less Support? So it was with happiness that i received the note from Chris from Conditioning research on a Science Daily story: Running Shoes May Cause Damage to Knees, Hips and Ankles, New Study Suggests. Ah good! a study that shoes what we of the Free Your Feet persuasion have been saying for some time. One more piece in the Trust your Foot - it's engineering is older than a shoe company's. There's a study i covered from the summer that showed as well that no matter what shoes for what supposed gait issues a person had, they didn't reduce incidence of injury. That's an important result, since of course these special shoe designs are all supposed to do exactly that: help reduce injuries.

I've written before about why any kind of thick padding and movement restricting of the joints of the food would have a hard time reducing injury when it so limits proprioceptive feedback (our positioning/speed in space), so it's not a surprise that more work is finding specific results showing other issues with running shoes.

Violent Agreement. The following day of the above post, Chris sent me another pointer, this time to Amby Burfoot, a runner's world editor at large commenting on the "dismal science" of the original study. The response is on the Runners World.com blog. And so i was taken aback when the author accused the study's author of being biased because she'd developed a flat shoe.

I'm not calling Kerrigan and Richards liars. Far from it, I agree with Richards's conclusion. But we should understand the motivation behind their writing and their research projects.

This from an editor of runner's world, where the companies best selling issues are their seasonal reviews of new shoes? Likewise, Kerrigan's disclosed company's technology is not what's studied in the reported experiments. It's pretty hard to find a scientist who doesn't formulate a hypothesis or an objective before beginning a study. What was Kerrigan's?

Objective: To determine the effect of modern-day running shoes on lower extremity joint torques during running.

And what were the conclusions?

The findings at the knee suggest relatively greater pressures at anatomical sites that are typically more prone to knee osteoarthritis, the medial and patellofemoral compartments. It is important to note the limitations of these findings and of current 3-dimensional gait analysis in general, that only resultant joint torques were assessed. It is unknown to what extent actual joint contact forces could be affected by compliance that a shoe might provide, a potentially valuable design characteristic that may offset the observed increases in joint torques.

Ok - knees are places that are more prone to a certain type of nasty arthritis. You'd think that more force at the knee would be problematic. We don't know, but we can say that there's more force with running shoes than not, but heck we only have the start of a partial picture here, and something more we'd need to know to enhance footware design we still don't have.

It's pretty hard to get more circumspect about findings that this. Indeed the study concludes with

Although increased repetitive loading has been shown to be a critical factor for the degeneration of articular cartilage at the knee, the forces experienced by distance runners have not been consistently found to increase the risk of onset of knee OA.

But it seems Burfoot is not happy, saying that you can't make connections between forces and injuries. Kerrigan isn't saying that, but Burfoot points to a study where supposedly athletes were asked to jump onto matts they were told were of varying thicknesses, when they were all the same, and the forces measured varied according to one hypothesis goes - expectation - so various degrees of relaxation rather than tensing pre jump had effects on forces. Remember - this is an hypothesis of what's going on. But Burfoot instead says that the same thing is happening in Kerrigan's study BECAUSE the results are the same in terms of more padding; higher forces; less padding more tensed forces. etc.

Right. The same result does not always mean the same process is operating to get that result. And that's just force not torque. But even so, so what? And even more, how possible is it to sustain that tension in a run over time/distance? Burfoot's a runner. How long is it possible to keep up tension when running distances, if that's what's causing less of a strike force or less of a joint torque? It may be possible to psych up and hold forces for one jump at a time, but continuous running?

Is there a Problem Here? Well, the big question is which approach is better for less injuries. Thing is, we don't know. We have lots more data on footwear than on minimal footwear or no footwear. It's a current area of research. AND KERRIGAN'S STUDY ISN'T OVER CLAIMING ANYTHING. It's: here's the data; in the discussion, we THINK this is what it might mean. There are limits to these results, and we may need to check that further.

Burfoot doesn't like that Kerrigan says that the forces at the knee measured in this study of sneakers are higher than those measured comparing highheels to non. He says walking is different than running. True. But the comparisons are RELATIVE. Walking is compared to walking and running to running. And that does indeed as Kerrigan says "represent substantial biomechanical changes" and Kerrigan's paper also states "However, given the substantial increases, there may be other factors as well." How about that. Multifactor thinking.

What Kerrigan's work has done is provide some data to have for later correlations when we start to get bare or near barefoot running population study results.

Anecdotally i know more folks than not who say going to things like vibram fivefingers has improved their experience of stability and confidence and speed and movement and...

Burfoot says he's in favour of as little shoe'ing as possible,

That said, I agree with her apparent position on one important point: Much of what we put under our feet has the potential to do more harm than good. You can't "raise the platform" without increasing instabilities. When you build one of those house-of-cards structures, the higher you go, the closer you get to collapse.

I believe many of us should buy the lowest-tech running shoe we can get away with. For the few who live in Shangri-La, that might mean no shoe at all. For others, it might mean a simple racing flat. For others, the very Brooks Adrenalines that were used in Kerrigan's study.

But some runners shouldn't even look at any shoe other the Brooks Beast, or a similarly built-up shoe. Because, in their experiment of one, that's the only shoe that will work for them

Wow, so all that article comes down to agreement about the main tenants of the "interested party"s findings. Strum and Drang in a teapot?

But all that aside, there's a few more things to think about here in a post finally about single factor thinking. And unlike Kerrigan's speculation about her team's results and their meanings for injury, burfoot has certain certanties, like the last point about "that's the only shoe that will work for them"

Which finally brings me back around to Single Factor Thinking. Here, it's the shoe is the solution. Maybe that's not what Burfoot meant entirely, but when we consider the context of Runner's World again, that's certainly what Runner's World's content is about. The Shoe is the Solution.

Final Fallacy? Let's ask the question WHY would that Beast be "the only shoe that would work for them"? Burfoot doesn't say what "works" means. Is it because their foot position is shite according to some norm, and this shoe is trying to oh i dunno correct stride? to maybe oh reduce injuries? when we KNOW that no specific shoe design does that? It seems that such an assertion is kind of at least partially crap.

Burfoot talks about "an experiment of one" quoting running guru George Sheehan. Well ok, what's the value of an experiment of one? In most cases in science it's zip. zero. nada. And a poorly designed experiment with such a tiny population is even worse. So what IS the experiment of one here supposed to be to determine "works"?

To go try on a bunch of shoes and say "this is the shoe hat 'works' for me" is a pretty crap trial if the Shoe is the Single Factor in the assessment - and if all what one is going for is a comfortable feeling shoe. Unless of course you're not trying on a bunch of shoes, but the sales person has already said "you overpronate; you should only try these" so your selection has just gone down. How many people have said those spring loaded Nikes are the best shoe that works for them? Or what about those totally inflexible Masai's? What are the measures of the experiment there as one's back continues to ache? But they feet feel great so heck you have the right shoes?

That's just poor study design - if you're interested in the performance of an entire system, not just the foot.

If the Shoe Fits as More Single Factor Thinking Kerrigan's group's study's conclusions aren't my happy place either, personally, but close. Their take away is that shoe design has focused on the foot's mechanics to the exclusion of the rest of the gait - or at least the knee. One joint further up the chain. Her work is saying that for good or ill those designs are having knock on effects up the chain. And for her, designing a shoe that minimizes those effects seems like a good idea.

The development of new footwear designs that encourage or mimic the natural compliance that normal foot function provides while minimizing knee and hip joint torques is warranted. Reducing joint torques with footwear completely to that of barefoot running, while providing meaningful footwear functions, especially compliance, should be the goal of new footwear designs.

Gosh, that sounds like vibram fivefingers - for example - to me. Just get out of the way of the foot. But then we have tricky words like "compliance " as "meaningful footware functions." Hmm. One can now go to kerrigan's company's page for what she thinks is a good compromise answer for the problem that, "The use of athletic footwear in running as a means to protect the foot from acute injury and the potentially debilitating effect of switching to barefoot running on foot health excludes such an alternative"

Ok, what potentially debilitating effect of switching to barefoot running? The "potentially debilitating effect of switching to barefoot running" sounds so much like the same old rationales for selling cushy sneakers in the first place. Be afraid. Be very afraid of putting your foot down in a running gait without some kind of Protection.

Getting Shod of Being Shod Here's an idea: start with your bare feet. Are you happy walking around in your bare feet? Neutral? Great. Why not move more that way? Why not find shoes that will enable that to happen? Some folks even recommend progressions - from whatever one is in now, to Nike Frees, and from there to thin soled shoes like running flats, and then to Vibram FiveFingers, and THEN - gosh, ya just gotta try au naturale as PART of a program of enhanced mobility?

In my experience working with athletes who have running issues, the ONLY time i've seen going to a no shoe (what Burfoot prefers) is when they've had some particular issue with a bone or otherwise that requires more often than not some cushioning and some support TEMPORARILY as they work out of PAIN AND work on other parts of their movement.

The Non Single Factor. In one case, this working towards let's call it raw or natural movement involved strategies to address inflamation (some diet changes in that case), some movement work, AND some foot orthotics and very neutral shoes with cushioning as said to help move the person out of pain.

In other cases, dealing with achiles issues, i've seen folks slowly, progressively moving into shoes that pass the twist test (bend from one end to the other, not just at the ball; twist like ringing out a tea towel) as PART of their rehab experience accelerated recovery.

And more, folks who have switched to twist test passing footwear as PART of a program to better global movement also seem to report other aches etc going.

So i'm not going to claim that better quality of physical life is all down to twist passing footwear - that would be single factor - but why that footwear seems to help is that it lets us find a truth about our movement, work with that movement, improve that movement, and not have a device like a shoe type mess up that work. In fact by using the most flexible footware possible for the person, it seems, we get a whole lot more reps for our bodies to practice that movement.

I say this typing having hoofed it up to work in a pair of vivo boots (snowing outside) and having changed into a pair of VFF's for the office. So it is possible to respect our feet even in winter weather. Snow shoe boots with rubber grips are also awesome possibilities.

So my combo? As i've suggested many times now:

- get a movement assessment to check out your WHOLE way of moving so you're not, as gray cook says, putting strength on top of dysfunction. Such an assessment will give you some strategies/movements to practice to optimize your athletic movement. Here's a list of z-health movement coaches (i do video consults too via skype - email me, link end of post)
- take up a mobility practice to support and enhance full joint well being for better movemen and injury prevention. Some folks like t'ai Chi and related. Sure. i like z-health. Here's why in comparison with those other approaches.
- move towards footwear that increasingly passes the twist test (gets closer to letting our feet be our feet without interuption). CAVEAT If anything causes pain/discomfort, stop, go back a step, slow down. Check with your movement specialist. Pain is a signal to change. So worth attending.

In other words, put the foot, and the shoes we wear on 'em into perspective. Running is NOT about the shoe. It's about our whole bodies moving. Are they moving well in that practice? What's the best way to support the optimal movement of the whole system?

The above list does not take into account all of the other factors that can play havoc with movement quality/injury suseptibility like nutrition, rest, stress, recovery etc. All of these things need to be considered as well as part of the whole system. My wee combo set is that a more rich place to begin thinking about running, is to think about running, the whole movement - and moving well - and looking at how to enhance that for ourselves rather than hitting a crutch first - especially one that has been shown to have no effect on the very thing it's been claimed to do: reduce injuries.

citations
Kerrigan, D., Franz, J., Keenan, G., Dicharry, J., Della Croce, U., & Wilder, R. (2009). The Effect of Running Shoes on Lower Extremity Joint Torques PM&R, 1 (12), 1058-1063 DOI: 10.1016/j.pmrj.2009.09.011

Knapik JJ, Swedler DI, Grier TL, Hauret KG, Bullock SH, Williams KW, Darakjy SS, Lester ME, Tobler SK, & Jones BH (2009). Injury reduction effectiveness of selecting running shoes based on plantar shape. Journal of strength and conditioning research / National Strength & Conditioning Association, 23 (3), 685-97 PMID: 19387413 Follow @begin2dig

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Saturday, January 9, 2010

Creatine, Beta-Alanine and Aerobic Power. Two naf tastes that go Great Together (for stuff like kb & vo2max training)

Friday, January 8, 2010

When to Use Calorie Counting (or Heart Rate Monitors)

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The mysterious wholes: whole protein, whole wheat, whole sprouts. What are these things and why should i care (should i?)

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Brad Pilon on the Scientific Abstract. Here's my abstract: he's wrong - kinda

Running Shoes as Single Factor Thinking

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