Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Ab Exercise Surprise - Moves you mayn't have suspected require (lots of) abs/core
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Six pack lust. So many workout programs are sold on the promise of delivering visible abs. As we've talked about before, a 6 pack is largely about body fat %: get it below 10 if you're a guy, 16 if you're a gal, and voila: visible abs. But what if you want stonking great abs? Then work them in traditional isolation patterns of crunches, as per these approaches for more ab strength/hypertrophy? Well, you could. There are some interesting programs to do that and folks like powerlifters and olympic lifters definitely have them - for a specific reason - as part of their workouts. But you may find that you are already working your abs sufficiently to meet your goals - if you plan the rest of your program right. And on the high side, you'll be able to show off some beautiful skills that simultaneously work the abs.
Known Compounds We know that the abs get worked as part of many "compound" exercises - that is, exercises that work multiple muscle groups at once, and in particular, workouts that work the core: the hip, pelvic, lumbar areas. A kettlebell swing is a great example of a compound exercise that hits the core, getting both upper body, middle and lower body. A turkish get up (as worked through in Kalos Sthenos for example) requires lots of ab work to complete that getting up part. The more traditional squat, likewise. A push up, a pull up (even a pull up, here's a how to resource), all engage the fabulous core, of which the abs are a core part. But these aren't the only ones.
What i'd like to share here are a few exercises that shake up the abs and may be a bit of a surprise to find that they do. What i'd like to ask is to hear from you, if these or any particular moves have surprised you in how they hit your core.
Renegade Row.
The renegade row (detailed here) is a powerful exercise, demanding a lot of rigidness through the middle - like a plank - to maintain form. But unlike a plank, the renegade row is a lovely full body movement that requires a lot of sensory-motor integration and small movement firing.
You'll find that the obliques in particular are hit happily by this one - all the while working the chest, delts, lower back, butt - well lots of full on core and upper body too.
Windmill
The windmill is a combination press and bend movement.
This one has been a big surprise for me, again working the obliques with light loads and lots of reps, The usual focus of windmill is hip/pelvis stability and shoulder stability, but goodness, this will fire up the middle - again the obliques, but in a way different and lower down than the Renegade Row
Flexed Arm Hang
I like pull ups. I do pull ups. A pull up is a part of the RKC II test - doesn't show up on the RKC I cert test. I looked at the test for the gals for the HKC cert and noticed that it's a flexed arm hang hold for 15 sec - don't even have to pull up to the bar.
A flexed arm hang means hanging onto a pullup bar so that the chin clears the top of the bar.
As a kid, one of the tests for a kid to get a gold fitness medal was a 60sec flexed-arm hang. For a gal who does pull ups, this is gonna be easy peasy.
Er, no, it wasn't. The first thing to start to feel it, beside the shake in my arms? My abs. Oh man.
So y'all out there who do pull ups? Well i got something to say to you: don't go for second best, baby: put your pull up to the test. Make them express how your abs feel then you'll know they're made of steal.
In other words, next time doing a pull up? Stop at the top for 15 secs (or longer, like 70 as in the USMC test) and see how that isometric hold works for you. It may just be a surprise.
Skipping
Ok, this is perhaps my biggest ab surprise. After watching Andrea U Shi Chang skip non-stop last summer effortlessly for well over ten minutes, and listening to Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength talk about the many values of skipping (here's a discussion over at b2d on facebook), i've thought what the heck - especially for travel. Where do i feel it? Mainly? Yes, abs. That was a surprise.
And if you're interested in giving skipping a go, it's a skill, and one to think of initially in terms of short sets. It can cause DOMS in the areas of the calf muscles not generally worked - even by bicycle couriers. But as said, more than that, abs will get it good too.
In the facebook discussion, Rannoch points to a couple sources from bodyweight maestro Ross Enemait: Part 1, and Part 2 of his tutorials are here. And here's some inspiration:
Variety is the Spice of Muscle Life
Each of these movements hits the abs in a slightly different way, and that's good - to be able to get the obligues through pulls and rotaion, and the abs through say static holds and higher reps.
What has surprised me is just the fact that these moves have been able to show me the next day the degree to which these are hitting the abs in new ways. Why the surprise? I do a lot of swings with various load kb's (eg, running the bells). Recently i was able to start adding hanging leg raise work to my routine (until my shoulder said it wanted a break from pull ups) - that's supposed to be a big ab challenge. i didn't really feel it there the next day, either. Which suggests that HLR's may be at this point more about technique work than strength development - afterall, i ain't doing 20 in a row. So, not a new load and not a new enough move to make the abs say "new work."
But skipping? Skipping? for like 70-110 reps? That makes my abs talk to me the day after?
So, here's the thing, muscles adapt to movements by developing new muscle fiber firing patterns to support loads and movements. The more these are practiced, the more familiar, the more literally engrained they become. Change the load; change the movement involving that muscle, and the body has to put effort into learning a new process.
When we feel that bit of next day challenge (aka DOMS) in a muscle group that's used to being worked one way, we know we're getting it in a new way. That's a good thing: it means our bodies and minds are mapping new skills and adapting in new ways - in this case part of the new adaptation is strength. And as posted recently, hypertrophy starts with rep one. So that's good too.
I'm not saying at all the desire here is to trigger a DOMS response; it's just a way to know that a muscle has been hit in a new way - and that can mean either a new move or a new load. Light DOMS is a way to know that that has been the case.
Potential Trivia:
In DOMS, it's generally the eccentric part of an action that causes the DOMS experience, which is why researchers testing DOMS will often have participants walks backwards down an elevated treadmill.
In the crunch, while most of us usually focus on the energy to contract in, the science suggests it's the uncurling - controlling the eccentric contraction that causes the DOMS response.
Recently we also looked at the role of these eccentrics in helping address tendinopathies - might there be a relationship?
So here's a question:
Above are four examples of Ab Surprises.
What moves have hit your abs/obliques by surprise - when perhaps you mayn't have thought the move was going anywhere near your midsection? Do you still do that move?
Look forward to hearing from you,
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Six pack lust. So many workout programs are sold on the promise of delivering visible abs. As we've talked about before, a 6 pack is largely about body fat %: get it below 10 if you're a guy, 16 if you're a gal, and voila: visible abs. But what if you want stonking great abs? Then work them in traditional isolation patterns of crunches, as per these approaches for more ab strength/hypertrophy? Well, you could. There are some interesting programs to do that and folks like powerlifters and olympic lifters definitely have them - for a specific reason - as part of their workouts. But you may find that you are already working your abs sufficiently to meet your goals - if you plan the rest of your program right. And on the high side, you'll be able to show off some beautiful skills that simultaneously work the abs. What i'd like to share here are a few exercises that shake up the abs and may be a bit of a surprise to find that they do. What i'd like to ask is to hear from you, if these or any particular moves have surprised you in how they hit your core.
Renegade Row.
The renegade row (detailed here) is a powerful exercise, demanding a lot of rigidness through the middle - like a plank - to maintain form. But unlike a plank, the renegade row is a lovely full body movement that requires a lot of sensory-motor integration and small movement firing.You'll find that the obliques in particular are hit happily by this one - all the while working the chest, delts, lower back, butt - well lots of full on core and upper body too.
WindmillThe windmill is a combination press and bend movement.
This one has been a big surprise for me, again working the obliques with light loads and lots of reps, The usual focus of windmill is hip/pelvis stability and shoulder stability, but goodness, this will fire up the middle - again the obliques, but in a way different and lower down than the Renegade Row
Flexed Arm Hang
I like pull ups. I do pull ups. A pull up is a part of the RKC II test - doesn't show up on the RKC I cert test. I looked at the test for the gals for the HKC cert and noticed that it's a flexed arm hang hold for 15 sec - don't even have to pull up to the bar.
A flexed arm hang means hanging onto a pullup bar so that the chin clears the top of the bar.
As a kid, one of the tests for a kid to get a gold fitness medal was a 60sec flexed-arm hang. For a gal who does pull ups, this is gonna be easy peasy.
Er, no, it wasn't. The first thing to start to feel it, beside the shake in my arms? My abs. Oh man.
So y'all out there who do pull ups? Well i got something to say to you: don't go for second best, baby: put your pull up to the test. Make them express how your abs feel then you'll know they're made of steal.
In other words, next time doing a pull up? Stop at the top for 15 secs (or longer, like 70 as in the USMC test) and see how that isometric hold works for you. It may just be a surprise.
Skipping
Ok, this is perhaps my biggest ab surprise. After watching Andrea U Shi Chang skip non-stop last summer effortlessly for well over ten minutes, and listening to Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength talk about the many values of skipping (here's a discussion over at b2d on facebook), i've thought what the heck - especially for travel. Where do i feel it? Mainly? Yes, abs. That was a surprise.
And if you're interested in giving skipping a go, it's a skill, and one to think of initially in terms of short sets. It can cause DOMS in the areas of the calf muscles not generally worked - even by bicycle couriers. But as said, more than that, abs will get it good too.
In the facebook discussion, Rannoch points to a couple sources from bodyweight maestro Ross Enemait: Part 1, and Part 2 of his tutorials are here. And here's some inspiration:
Variety is the Spice of Muscle Life
Each of these movements hits the abs in a slightly different way, and that's good - to be able to get the obligues through pulls and rotaion, and the abs through say static holds and higher reps.
What has surprised me is just the fact that these moves have been able to show me the next day the degree to which these are hitting the abs in new ways. Why the surprise? I do a lot of swings with various load kb's (eg, running the bells). Recently i was able to start adding hanging leg raise work to my routine (until my shoulder said it wanted a break from pull ups) - that's supposed to be a big ab challenge. i didn't really feel it there the next day, either. Which suggests that HLR's may be at this point more about technique work than strength development - afterall, i ain't doing 20 in a row. So, not a new load and not a new enough move to make the abs say "new work."
But skipping? Skipping? for like 70-110 reps? That makes my abs talk to me the day after?
So, here's the thing, muscles adapt to movements by developing new muscle fiber firing patterns to support loads and movements. The more these are practiced, the more familiar, the more literally engrained they become. Change the load; change the movement involving that muscle, and the body has to put effort into learning a new process.
When we feel that bit of next day challenge (aka DOMS) in a muscle group that's used to being worked one way, we know we're getting it in a new way. That's a good thing: it means our bodies and minds are mapping new skills and adapting in new ways - in this case part of the new adaptation is strength. And as posted recently, hypertrophy starts with rep one. So that's good too.
I'm not saying at all the desire here is to trigger a DOMS response; it's just a way to know that a muscle has been hit in a new way - and that can mean either a new move or a new load. Light DOMS is a way to know that that has been the case.
Potential Trivia:
In DOMS, it's generally the eccentric part of an action that causes the DOMS experience, which is why researchers testing DOMS will often have participants walks backwards down an elevated treadmill.
In the crunch, while most of us usually focus on the energy to contract in, the science suggests it's the uncurling - controlling the eccentric contraction that causes the DOMS response.
Recently we also looked at the role of these eccentrics in helping address tendinopathies - might there be a relationship?
So here's a question:
Above are four examples of Ab Surprises.
What moves have hit your abs/obliques by surprise - when perhaps you mayn't have thought the move was going anywhere near your midsection? Do you still do that move?
Look forward to hearing from you,
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
PDF
Monday, May 3, 2010
Occlusion Training: Tightening up everything we don't know about Hypertrophy
Follow @mcphoo
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If we asked someone "what should i do to build muscle" probably not a lot of people would say "cut off the blood flow to a working limb." Turns out though, that this latter kind of work - called occlusion training, or blood flow restriction (BFR) - has proven a powerful technique for inducing hypertrophy at very low loads (10-30% of a 1RM). While it's mainly been explored as a rehab technique to help accelerate recovery, some researchers have been looking at it as an approach in regular training. What, then, are the pro's and con's of this technique for training? And what are we learning about the mystery that is hypertrophy from studying the phenomena of occlusion for hypertrohhy strength?
These questions are addressed in an excellent review of occlusion research from 2008 called " Ischemic strength training: a low-load alternative to heavy resistance exercise?"
Two of the highlights of the paper (at least for me) -the review of hypertrophy models such as they are and a possible rationale for the Pump in bodybuilding circles.
Overview on the (un)Known of Muscle Building
The authors go through an amazing job of investigating the known models of hypertrophy - and all that we dont know about it - to see where occlusion training may fit in with existing models. Heck, in order to understand what role occlusion plays, we need to have some sense of the depth and breadth of the puddle it's playing in.
Unaccustomed as i am to being brief, i'm actually not going to go through these models in detail here. Suffice it to say though that what we have often thought of as the biggie thing to boost in order to super charge hypertrophy may not hold. The authors do a lovely job of showing for instance that heh, post occlusion training, yes Growth Hormone (GH) is up and IGF-1 is up, but according to all this other research, we really don't know if the presence of these hormone levels is really what's upping protein synthesis at all.
Not just hormones, the reviewers look at other factors too - like mechano checmical. THat means that maybe the calcium involved in the actin/myosin bridge that enables contractions is a key to what's really important for hypertrophy - but so far there aren't studies looking at these responses in occlusion, so we have no comparison.
This review is great for myth busting. In other words, its review of what we can actually point to and say "that's what casues muscle growth" shows us what we know is so small, it's really exciting. Why is being able to say "but we don't know if that's what's doing it" exciting? One, it means we're starting to know what's going on in more detail to be able to say we don't know and two, it means in any discussion about somebody saying this is WHY this works (like why the pump "works") we can be pretty confident in knowing they maybe shouldn't be so confident.
It may seem a fine point, but work like this also lets us continue to say that "if you do this protocol, you'll get big" - assuming it's been tested on lots of athletes of various types. What we cannot say with the same confidence is WHY if we follow that protocol we're getting big.
I recommend the full first half of the article just for this review of the state of the art (as of 2008) on hypertrophy.
SO where does this get us then with occlusion and hypertrophy?
First a few words about occlusion training - what is it?
Occlusion training goes by a bunch of names: kaatsu training, occlusion, Blood Flow Restriction (BFR), ishemic training. Occlusion generally means to obstruct or block or even hide something (from view). In the case of muscle work, the blood flow is obstructed, usually by a tournequette of some kind. Ischemia is sort of the technical term for blood flow restriction - to the heart or other body tissue -as a result of some type of block (or occlusion).
Protocols - often seem to involve tournequetting the working limb, then using loads of 10-30% of a 1RM, usually lots of reps, very low rest, until fatigue hits. The results in strength gains are similar to working sets with 80% 1RMs.
The main benefit has been seen in rehab, getting a person who's too weak to work at heavy levels, back on their feet again. There's even been consideration of the use of this kind of training for astraunauts who, following Woolfs' and Davis's law do tend to lose it from not using it - their muscle that is.
So, we can start to see with results like this, it would be interesting to understand how low loads with a cuff can cause strength gains equivalent to 80% of a 1RM
Is It Safe?
One of the biggie first questions people have about occlusion is (well, what was yours>) - is - is it safe? The authors respond that by saying they looked at 13 studies with thousands of trials - and even in the one where the forearm was completely occluded for 20mins, there were no measurable ill effects.
Most sessions last only 5-10 mins, and are not full, but partial occlusion.
Likewise, i was reading a 2010 study that wanted to see if thrombosis symptoms would occur in healthy participants - another concern about occlusion - and nothing close to that effect was measured. So from these typical kinds of fears, no such effects it seems have been measured.
The one side effect "acute muscle pain" - i think this means similar to the burn sensation some folks get when going too far in a set. That's common with the "to fatigue" type training used in occlusion. DOMS is also common in the first few bouts. The authors suggest that with these cautions in mind "training combined with ischemia clearly requires a high degree of motivation from the trainee, especially if performed with a high level of effort."
Will that be Wide or Narrow?
The consensus is it seems that wide cuffs have the advantage: lower pressures can be used with wider cuffs. Likewise there are fewer shear force issues with wider cuff and one can stay away from complete occlusion with more control.
Last year i looked at a study that just tied up the lower limbs with wide wraps. Important to note that the cuffs these folks are describing in the research reviews can have the pressure adjusted with the cuff to exact mmHg, similar to a blood pressure cuff.
I make no recommendations about whether it's better to use a proper occlusion cuff or just wrap up a limb; i only note that the places in Japan that have the most experience with this approach use Katsu cuffs - cuffs that enable control of pressure.
Is a Tournequette Even Necessary?
This is my favorite part of the paper because i think there's a link between what is described here, and what is discussed with the Pump (b2d overview here). See what you think.
First the authors point out that studies show the effect of an occlusion cuff is erased once loads get up to 40-60% load. What's interesting is that work using research's favorite - the leg extension - showed that even without a cuff, loads as low as 20% could induce "ischemic pain" - like that's a good thing.
The authors hypothesize that there are ways to get a low load ischemic effect without a cuff by doing the following: partials
So this is where my Pump query comes in: the Pump - if one is not overtraining and under nourished - is easy to achieve by using lots of reps with light loads, until one's arms or related feel like they're so full of blood they can't move. Sounds like kaatsu work.
Now there's been an ongoing debate about whether or not the Pump really leads to hypertrophy. Some of the vigerous come backs are "i never train for the pump and i still get big" - while true not really a defence. And actually, what hasn't been directly tested it seems is post ishemia self-induced, does hypertrophy occur? A lot of body builders will say yes.
What i'm intrigued by is that there seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence to say that ishemia induced with low loads develops hypertrophy - but if anyone tries to say "and here's why that is" - and they start talking about NO supplements and flushing and who knows what all - you can pretty confidently say, well, based on what research?
In other words, there's a relationship it looks like, but what the actual mechanism is, we don't entirely know. Mybe it's fatiguing out type one and bringing on type II, maybe its IGF-1 goes up and myostatin goes down. Maybe it's mTOR levels. They're all in the soup. But what's cause and what's conincidence - ain't clear. But i sure as heck ain't gonna say the pump is a myth - just the explanations for it so far are pretty mythical.
To Cuff or Not to Cuff
One might think that just going for this kind of non-cuff'd based ischemia (blood pooling; can't flow back) is better than cuff based. Here's what the authors think:
What about the Dose?
To summarise a great long section of this paper, the results are not in for normal training about what the optimal frequence, volume, intensity is for optimal hypertrophic effect using occlusion.
The authors make a great note that not all ischemic training results in strength gains. For some reason, cycling isn't great for occlusion and strength development. On the other hand walk training is one of the big successes of occlusion work, and of course stength training - the short bursts of activity - is where the biggest benefit seems to be. Whether therefore the ratio between ischemia and reperfusion is key here, we just don't know but it seems to be a factor.
Will it Blend
So if we're not rehabbing, and with all the unknowns about dose, is it appropriate to put occlusion training into the mix of a regular strength program with "heavy" resistance.
I dunno.
The authors focus on work that's looked at two great benefits of heavy resistance training: bone mineral density and tendon stiffness.
In both cases lighter load work has been shown to have less of an effect on these factors. So - for ones bones, heavy resistance is a bonus - but then, so is stop and start action. For tendons, however, it seems that volume is also a key factor in enhancing stiffness (MTC descibed here - doesn't mean anything about flexibility, but about load, really)
In other words, while occlusion may not bring on the benefits of heavy resistance, there are other ways than heavy work to enhance these benefits so playing with ischemia may be useful for strength development.
High Volume towards Ischemia? Again, to take another page from bodybuilding and powerlifting practice, mechanisms to increase volume without killing form or inducing failure can be awesome. 
Trainer par excellance Roland Fisher introduced me to the timed sets of Huge in a Hurry
's Chad Waterbury. Very simple: get a weight at the end of a session where you can do 20 reps, and as soon as the fast tempo drops to complete the set, drop the weight, go for another 20. By using time as the marker, there's no way to get to fatigue and form failure. One heck of a pump, too. Thus, one has done their heavy work, and uses the occlusion level sets for a finisher. I love it. Your mileage may vary. See what you find.
Wrap UP - sans wraps even
And speaking of finisher, the authors wrap up with the following. The first sentence for me is key:
Meanwhile, if you wish to try occlusion training yourself, there's only about 4 uni's in the US using it; most work is in Japan. Here's an intereting PDF that talks about a specific Kaatsu cuff system, too.
The point is, i guess, that as this article started, just when we think we know something who'd a thought that strength can be aided by counter-intuitive actions like restricting blood supply? where does that map to evolution?
If nothing else, occlusion work shows us that we are complex systems with more than one path to create an effect.
Related Resources
Citations:
If we asked someone "what should i do to build muscle" probably not a lot of people would say "cut off the blood flow to a working limb." Turns out though, that this latter kind of work - called occlusion training, or blood flow restriction (BFR) - has proven a powerful technique for inducing hypertrophy at very low loads (10-30% of a 1RM). While it's mainly been explored as a rehab technique to help accelerate recovery, some researchers have been looking at it as an approach in regular training. What, then, are the pro's and con's of this technique for training? And what are we learning about the mystery that is hypertrophy from studying the phenomena of occlusion for hypertrohhy strength?These questions are addressed in an excellent review of occlusion research from 2008 called " Ischemic strength training: a low-load alternative to heavy resistance exercise?"
Two of the highlights of the paper (at least for me) -the review of hypertrophy models such as they are and a possible rationale for the Pump in bodybuilding circles.
Overview on the (un)Known of Muscle Building
The authors go through an amazing job of investigating the known models of hypertrophy - and all that we dont know about it - to see where occlusion training may fit in with existing models. Heck, in order to understand what role occlusion plays, we need to have some sense of the depth and breadth of the puddle it's playing in.
Unaccustomed as i am to being brief, i'm actually not going to go through these models in detail here. Suffice it to say though that what we have often thought of as the biggie thing to boost in order to super charge hypertrophy may not hold. The authors do a lovely job of showing for instance that heh, post occlusion training, yes Growth Hormone (GH) is up and IGF-1 is up, but according to all this other research, we really don't know if the presence of these hormone levels is really what's upping protein synthesis at all. Not just hormones, the reviewers look at other factors too - like mechano checmical. THat means that maybe the calcium involved in the actin/myosin bridge that enables contractions is a key to what's really important for hypertrophy - but so far there aren't studies looking at these responses in occlusion, so we have no comparison.
This review is great for myth busting. In other words, its review of what we can actually point to and say "that's what casues muscle growth" shows us what we know is so small, it's really exciting. Why is being able to say "but we don't know if that's what's doing it" exciting? One, it means we're starting to know what's going on in more detail to be able to say we don't know and two, it means in any discussion about somebody saying this is WHY this works (like why the pump "works") we can be pretty confident in knowing they maybe shouldn't be so confident.
It may seem a fine point, but work like this also lets us continue to say that "if you do this protocol, you'll get big" - assuming it's been tested on lots of athletes of various types. What we cannot say with the same confidence is WHY if we follow that protocol we're getting big.
I recommend the full first half of the article just for this review of the state of the art (as of 2008) on hypertrophy.
SO where does this get us then with occlusion and hypertrophy?
First a few words about occlusion training - what is it?
Occlusion training goes by a bunch of names: kaatsu training, occlusion, Blood Flow Restriction (BFR), ishemic training. Occlusion generally means to obstruct or block or even hide something (from view). In the case of muscle work, the blood flow is obstructed, usually by a tournequette of some kind. Ischemia is sort of the technical term for blood flow restriction - to the heart or other body tissue -as a result of some type of block (or occlusion).
Protocols - often seem to involve tournequetting the working limb, then using loads of 10-30% of a 1RM, usually lots of reps, very low rest, until fatigue hits. The results in strength gains are similar to working sets with 80% 1RMs.
The main benefit has been seen in rehab, getting a person who's too weak to work at heavy levels, back on their feet again. There's even been consideration of the use of this kind of training for astraunauts who, following Woolfs' and Davis's law do tend to lose it from not using it - their muscle that is.
So, we can start to see with results like this, it would be interesting to understand how low loads with a cuff can cause strength gains equivalent to 80% of a 1RM
Is It Safe?
One of the biggie first questions people have about occlusion is (well, what was yours>) - is - is it safe? The authors respond that by saying they looked at 13 studies with thousands of trials - and even in the one where the forearm was completely occluded for 20mins, there were no measurable ill effects.
Most sessions last only 5-10 mins, and are not full, but partial occlusion.
Likewise, i was reading a 2010 study that wanted to see if thrombosis symptoms would occur in healthy participants - another concern about occlusion - and nothing close to that effect was measured. So from these typical kinds of fears, no such effects it seems have been measured.
The one side effect "acute muscle pain" - i think this means similar to the burn sensation some folks get when going too far in a set. That's common with the "to fatigue" type training used in occlusion. DOMS is also common in the first few bouts. The authors suggest that with these cautions in mind "training combined with ischemia clearly requires a high degree of motivation from the trainee, especially if performed with a high level of effort."
Will that be Wide or Narrow?
The consensus is it seems that wide cuffs have the advantage: lower pressures can be used with wider cuffs. Likewise there are fewer shear force issues with wider cuff and one can stay away from complete occlusion with more control.Last year i looked at a study that just tied up the lower limbs with wide wraps. Important to note that the cuffs these folks are describing in the research reviews can have the pressure adjusted with the cuff to exact mmHg, similar to a blood pressure cuff.
I make no recommendations about whether it's better to use a proper occlusion cuff or just wrap up a limb; i only note that the places in Japan that have the most experience with this approach use Katsu cuffs - cuffs that enable control of pressure.
Is a Tournequette Even Necessary?
This is my favorite part of the paper because i think there's a link between what is described here, and what is discussed with the Pump (b2d overview here). See what you think.
First the authors point out that studies show the effect of an occlusion cuff is erased once loads get up to 40-60% load. What's interesting is that work using research's favorite - the leg extension - showed that even without a cuff, loads as low as 20% could induce "ischemic pain" - like that's a good thing.
The authors hypothesize that there are ways to get a low load ischemic effect without a cuff by doing the following: partials
Other quadriceps exercises can also be modified to achieve intramuscular restriction of blood flow. During closed kinetic chain exercises such as the squat and the leg press, the force demands of the movement dictate that the electrical activity of the quadriceps is high at flexed knee angles (90°–100°) and low near full-knee extension (Andersen et al., 2006). If the range of motion instead is limited to between ∼50° and 100° of flexion, the muscle activity remains fairly high throughout the movement and intramuscular occlusion is thus more likely to occur.The goal of going for ischemia with low loads is to get the benefit of heavier loads without having to use heavier loads that perhaps could not be taken to the given rep level.
So this is where my Pump query comes in: the Pump - if one is not overtraining and under nourished - is easy to achieve by using lots of reps with light loads, until one's arms or related feel like they're so full of blood they can't move. Sounds like kaatsu work.
Now there's been an ongoing debate about whether or not the Pump really leads to hypertrophy. Some of the vigerous come backs are "i never train for the pump and i still get big" - while true not really a defence. And actually, what hasn't been directly tested it seems is post ishemia self-induced, does hypertrophy occur? A lot of body builders will say yes. What i'm intrigued by is that there seems to be a lot of circumstantial evidence to say that ishemia induced with low loads develops hypertrophy - but if anyone tries to say "and here's why that is" - and they start talking about NO supplements and flushing and who knows what all - you can pretty confidently say, well, based on what research?
In other words, there's a relationship it looks like, but what the actual mechanism is, we don't entirely know. Mybe it's fatiguing out type one and bringing on type II, maybe its IGF-1 goes up and myostatin goes down. Maybe it's mTOR levels. They're all in the soup. But what's cause and what's conincidence - ain't clear. But i sure as heck ain't gonna say the pump is a myth - just the explanations for it so far are pretty mythical.
To Cuff or Not to Cuff
One might think that just going for this kind of non-cuff'd based ischemia (blood pooling; can't flow back) is better than cuff based. Here's what the authors think:
Intuitively, a training model which is based on the muscles own internal restriction of blood flow would have advantages both from a safety point of view and from a practical point of view. On the other hand, in certain muscle groups and in some individuals, it may be difficult to induce relative ischemia at low loads by exercise alone, due to factors such as insufficient intramuscular pressures developed during exercise. Furthermore, it is possible that there are differences between the muscle ischemia resulting from exercise alone and the ischemia induced with a tourniquet in combination with exercise (e.g., a greater build-up of metabolites in the cuff-occluded muscle), which in turn could lead to differences in the stimulation of hypertrophic pathways. Future studies should compare the effects of ischemic training with and without cuff occlusion at the same level of effort.Another great "we don't know" but a great question: is cuffing the same kind of physiological response as non-cuffing occlusion effect?
What about the Dose?
To summarise a great long section of this paper, the results are not in for normal training about what the optimal frequence, volume, intensity is for optimal hypertrophic effect using occlusion.
The authors make a great note that not all ischemic training results in strength gains. For some reason, cycling isn't great for occlusion and strength development. On the other hand walk training is one of the big successes of occlusion work, and of course stength training - the short bursts of activity - is where the biggest benefit seems to be. Whether therefore the ratio between ischemia and reperfusion is key here, we just don't know but it seems to be a factor.
Will it Blend
So if we're not rehabbing, and with all the unknowns about dose, is it appropriate to put occlusion training into the mix of a regular strength program with "heavy" resistance.
I dunno.
The authors focus on work that's looked at two great benefits of heavy resistance training: bone mineral density and tendon stiffness.
In both cases lighter load work has been shown to have less of an effect on these factors. So - for ones bones, heavy resistance is a bonus - but then, so is stop and start action. For tendons, however, it seems that volume is also a key factor in enhancing stiffness (MTC descibed here - doesn't mean anything about flexibility, but about load, really)
In other words, while occlusion may not bring on the benefits of heavy resistance, there are other ways than heavy work to enhance these benefits so playing with ischemia may be useful for strength development.
High Volume towards Ischemia? Again, to take another page from bodybuilding and powerlifting practice, mechanisms to increase volume without killing form or inducing failure can be awesome. Trainer par excellance Roland Fisher introduced me to the timed sets of Huge in a Hurry's Chad Waterbury. Very simple: get a weight at the end of a session where you can do 20 reps, and as soon as the fast tempo drops to complete the set, drop the weight, go for another 20. By using time as the marker, there's no way to get to fatigue and form failure. One heck of a pump, too. Thus, one has done their heavy work, and uses the occlusion level sets for a finisher. I love it. Your mileage may vary. See what you find.Wrap UP - sans wraps even
And speaking of finisher, the authors wrap up with the following. The first sentence for me is key:
By seeing an interesting strength effect from occlusion, that raises the question how is this working in terms of what we know about hypertrophy? Turns out that in asking what we know about hypertrophy, it's surprisingly still very little. Lots about what's happening in the soup with strength training, but not lots of clear A therefore B. Having occlusion in the mix gives us a great point of comparison to be able to say at least what's different with the following factors (or the same) when blood flow is restricted? what's going on that this is happening? That's cool.
The research on resistance exercise performed during ischemic conditions has so far provided important new insights into the physiology of strength training. In addition to being a possible alternative or complement to conventional high-load resistance training in certain situations, ischemic strength training may also have a place in sports training. Because relative ischemia can be induced at rather low loads in certain exercises even without tourniquets, external pressure may not always be necessary to achieve significant training effects. Also, any unique effects of cuff occlusion per se during exercise have yet to be determined because the increased training effects observed in the studies published to date may simply have been due to greater effort. With reference to training combined with cuff occlusion, current evidence suggests that this mode of exercise is relatively safe, but more research is needed especially regarding the potential adverse effects on soft tissues.
Meanwhile, if you wish to try occlusion training yourself, there's only about 4 uni's in the US using it; most work is in Japan. Here's an intereting PDF that talks about a specific Kaatsu cuff system, too. The point is, i guess, that as this article started, just when we think we know something who'd a thought that strength can be aided by counter-intuitive actions like restricting blood supply? where does that map to evolution?
If nothing else, occlusion work shows us that we are complex systems with more than one path to create an effect.
Related Resources
- Occlusion Training
- Get Huge or Die
- Protein Ingestion and Protein Sythesis
- Nutrient Timing for muscle building
- Creatine and Beta Alanine
- Does this stuff work?
- the Pump
Citations:
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Wernbom M, Augustsson J, & Raastad T (2008). Ischemic strength training: a low-load alternative to heavy resistance exercise? Scandinavian journal of medicine & science in sports, 18 (4), 401-16 PMID: 18466185
Madarame, H., Kurano, M., Takano, H., Iida, H., Sato, Y., Ohshima, H., Abe, T., Ishii, N., Morita, T., & Nakajima, T. (2010). Effects of low-intensity resistance exercise with blood flow restriction on coagulation system in healthy subjects Clinical Physiology and Functional Imaging, 30 (3), 210-213 DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-097X.2010.00927.x
Loenneke, J., & Pujol, T. (2009). The Use of Occlusion Training to Produce Muscle Hypertrophy Strength and Conditioning Journal, 31 (3), 77-84 DOI: 10.1519/SSC.0b013e3181a5a352
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Kettlebell Swings: harder than Circuit Weight Traning; easier than Treadmill? How can this be?
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There's a new study in English of Kettlebells that shows 12mins of two handed swings is tougher/harder than circuit weight training, but not as hard as treadmill work. That's probably a surprise for folks used to swinging kettlebells, and certainly how kettelbells have been promoted as an amazing, tough, cardio conditioning endurance tool, where more is more. What this great new study does, therefore, is help us ask some questions about studying kb's. It also gives us new ways to think about where kb work might be situated relative to other activities. So this post is a wee overview of one of the first english language, peer reviewed articles on Kettlebells.
There's not a lot of english-based research on the effects of using kettlebells. In the latest Journal of strength and Conditioning, though, there is a small paper looking specifically at a 12 min 2 handed swing protocol. The authors credit this protocol as "Dept of Energy Man Maker" described in Pavel Tsatsouline's Enter the kettlebell. Just a note, however: the protocol from what is in Enter the Kettlebell is a wee bit different than what these sudy authors use - it's looser. Here's Tsatsouline's description:
Indeed, the protocol is even less specific in Bill Cullen's founding eponymous article describing it.
the routine’s published description, for 12 minutes in duration." Er, and that would mean? Sets of high reps with jogging? No, because later it reads:
Standard benchmark tests for max heart rate and vo2 were taken; then during the actual kb trial, VO2 and HR levels were recorded throughout the 12 min swing set. The study looked at just this one kb experience. Results varied pretty wildly among participants (10 "active" men).
Even given that "active men" were doing this, the results seem to have a heck of a standard deviation in such a small sample size, eh? I'm curious about how many times people stopped. Did the person with the lowest score only stop once? Did the best score recover frequently? That would be interesting to know.
Main results: during the kb effort, %HRmax was "significantly higher (p<0.001) than average VO2max. That's a bit of a surprise. One would usually expect that %HRmax would be strongly corelated to predicted VO2max. For instance, 85% MaxHR should connect with about 75% VO2max (see calculation here). In this small study of "active men" however,
What the results of the study mean
These results show that, at least according to the ACSM, the KB 12 min swing circuit rates as "hard". Second, the respiratory exchange ratio (RER) shows that the 12min effort means that this workout is high in "non-oxidative metabolism." That means that these 12 mins are not primarily fat burning minutes - calorie burning yes, but where many of those calories are coming from sources other than fat. But these results do suggest, that at least in this protocol, this is not a hugely stimulating protocol for enhancing Vo2max.
So again, i'd say that the way this protocol must have been run was out for a stroll with the 16, it still shows a pretty durn good effect, cardio wise.
Where does this KB workout Fit?
In terms of other similarly tested workouts - circuit weight training (see description of cwt here, mid port) and treadmill running, amazingly, it's higher than circuit weight training but lower than treadmill running.
The authors recommend that this particular protocol is good for cardio training, but that coaches should be aware that the HR cost relative to the VO2 demainds. Treadmill work (where speed and incline are used to push on cardio work).
Moving Ahead
The intent of this study the authors say "was to document the heart rate (HR) response and oxygen cost of performing a kettlebell exercise routine that is intended to improve cardiorespiratory fitness." That's a rather general claim to make about investigating ONE protocol - one way - of working with a kb.
It's also a protocol used in ETK specifically, as "a smoker" as bill cullen called it and as a "man maker" as its name implies. That's pretty much an all out effort for miles not time and "until you leave a lung on the ground." That's not, it seems, how this study ran the protocol. That's ok; just don't call it a particular protocol if that's not the test you're running.
On the high side, it's great to see the formal research running assessments of KB protocols in a comparative, peer reviewed study. A recent American Council of Exercise test shows that kb's are just awesome for Vo2max training in particular - they effectively paid to have Kenneth Jay's protocol for VO2max replicated and tested, but without standard research protocols for running a comparative analysis, or having the protocol peer reviewed. Indeed, it's at the very least intriguing that the results in that article (shown in the image below) using the snatch got such different results than the swing - that's in 20mins, with 15 secs on, snatching, 15 secs off, as opposed to 12mins, swinging as many reps as possible non-stop.
Not saying there's anything wrong with these results - just that the benefit of the JSCR shorty gives us a way to situate a KB protocol relative to OTHER kinds of training, and the results are a wee bit of a surprise - we tend to think that all kb's all the time are the hardest ass whopping we can get. And, what seems to have been the case here, is that sure, if you're not swinging with intent to get smoked, you don't get smoking results.
But that's ok. Not all protocols, all the time. And that's actually a good thing. We need physiological variety. Now we're learning what kind of variety kb's can deliver - relative to other workouts.
Looking forward to more formal KB research, to learn more about this awesome fitness tool.
Related Resources
There's a new study in English of Kettlebells that shows 12mins of two handed swings is tougher/harder than circuit weight training, but not as hard as treadmill work. That's probably a surprise for folks used to swinging kettlebells, and certainly how kettelbells have been promoted as an amazing, tough, cardio conditioning endurance tool, where more is more. What this great new study does, therefore, is help us ask some questions about studying kb's. It also gives us new ways to think about where kb work might be situated relative to other activities. So this post is a wee overview of one of the first english language, peer reviewed articles on Kettlebells.There's not a lot of english-based research on the effects of using kettlebells. In the latest Journal of strength and Conditioning, though, there is a small paper looking specifically at a 12 min 2 handed swing protocol. The authors credit this protocol as "Dept of Energy Man Maker" described in Pavel Tsatsouline's Enter the kettlebell. Just a note, however: the protocol from what is in Enter the Kettlebell is a wee bit different than what these sudy authors use - it's looser. Here's Tsatsouline's description:
The Man Maker is a painfully simple workout that was devised and implemented at a federal agency’s academy by Green Beret vet Bill Cullen, RKC. Its template is simple: alternate sets of high-rep kettlebell drills—swings in our case—with a few hundred yards of jogging. Do your swings “to a comfortable stop” most of the time and all-out occasionally. Don’t run hard; jogging is a form of active recovery. Senior RKC Mike Mahler prefers the jump rope to jogging, another great option.
Indeed, the protocol is even less specific in Bill Cullen's founding eponymous article describing it.
Do 10 to 75 snatches with each arm depending on your ability level, be sure that you use good form, dig your toes in, and at the top of your snatch or swing hold for a second. Breathing is important, get a good rhythm going. Once done with your snatches jog -don’t run! - quarter of a mile, jogging lets your heart and body recover, if you are running fast it means you didn’t do enough repetitions with your KB.Note that the quantifier in Cullen's work is distance rather than time and number of snatches rather than time. The protocol tested in the study is, by contrast, more specific. It's 12 mins of 2 handed swings. Not sure where 12 mins came from, but the version run in the study is described in three different ways. First, the abstract describes it as "a kettlebell exercise routine consisting of as many 2-handed swings as could be completed in 12 minutes using a 16-kg kettlebell." I initially thought this meant "continuous" swings. But, in the article itself - thanks to Mike Reid, RKC for pointing this out, it is described as "Subjects performed 2-handed swings, in accordance with
Continue this routine for 2 miles or farther or till you leave a lung on the ground. This is a fat buster and a cardio gut check but the great thing is you can always make it harder or easier by tweaking the number of repetitions.
the routine’s published description, for 12 minutes in duration." Er, and that would mean? Sets of high reps with jogging? No, because later it reads:
Subjects completed a 12-minute exercise bout, known as the ‘‘US Department of Energy Man-Maker’’ (ETK). The bout consisted of performing 2-handed swings, using a 16-kg kettlebell (Perform Better, Cranston, RI) for 12-minute duration. A 16-kg kettlebell was used in this study because that is a recommended weight for beginning men (ETK). Subjects were told to work at their own pace, resting as needed, while aiming to complete as many swings as possible in the 12-minute time frame. Heart rate was monitored continuously and recorded every minute of the bout.Ok, so what is not the man maker is that (a) time is fixed at 12 mins (b) there is no active recovery, one is "working at their own pace" rather than, in Cullen's case of this routine being a "smoker" as hard as possible. I'd nay be inclined to call this the man maker, then. More "swing at your own pace, stopping as often as necessary, to get as many swings in as possible for 12 mins"
Standard benchmark tests for max heart rate and vo2 were taken; then during the actual kb trial, VO2 and HR levels were recorded throughout the 12 min swing set. The study looked at just this one kb experience. Results varied pretty wildly among participants (10 "active" men).
Subjects completed an average of 265 plus or minus 68 swings during the 12 minutes, for an average work rate of 22 plus or minus 6 swings per minute.Ok, looking at the numbers, 12 mins of swings, does this sound like a man maker to anyone who's focused on a "smoker"? Just looking at myself, a wee 5'6", 60kg female, i do 100 swings for recovery during RTK with a 12 or 16 - i just checked with the 16 - it's 2 mins and a bit. So i'm mystified at how non-manmaker'ish (ie "smoker") this protocol must have been run.
Even given that "active men" were doing this, the results seem to have a heck of a standard deviation in such a small sample size, eh? I'm curious about how many times people stopped. Did the person with the lowest score only stop once? Did the best score recover frequently? That would be interesting to know.
Main results: during the kb effort, %HRmax was "significantly higher (p<0.001) than average VO2max. That's a bit of a surprise. One would usually expect that %HRmax would be strongly corelated to predicted VO2max. For instance, 85% MaxHR should connect with about 75% VO2max (see calculation here). In this small study of "active men" however,
The equation describing the regression line to predict %V̇o2max from %HRmax was %V̇o2max = 0.714%HRmax − 4.57, with a significant correlation of 0.58 and an SEE of 6.6%. Figure 2 illustrates the relationship between %V̇o2max and %HRmax.That resulted in an 85% max heart with 65% V02max
What the results of the study mean
These results show that, at least according to the ACSM, the KB 12 min swing circuit rates as "hard". Second, the respiratory exchange ratio (RER) shows that the 12min effort means that this workout is high in "non-oxidative metabolism." That means that these 12 mins are not primarily fat burning minutes - calorie burning yes, but where many of those calories are coming from sources other than fat. But these results do suggest, that at least in this protocol, this is not a hugely stimulating protocol for enhancing Vo2max.
So again, i'd say that the way this protocol must have been run was out for a stroll with the 16, it still shows a pretty durn good effect, cardio wise.
Where does this KB workout Fit?
In terms of other similarly tested workouts - circuit weight training (see description of cwt here, mid port) and treadmill running, amazingly, it's higher than circuit weight training but lower than treadmill running.
lance armstrong: two handed kb swing
The authors recommend that this particular protocol is good for cardio training, but that coaches should be aware that the HR cost relative to the VO2 demainds. Treadmill work (where speed and incline are used to push on cardio work).
Moving Ahead
The intent of this study the authors say "was to document the heart rate (HR) response and oxygen cost of performing a kettlebell exercise routine that is intended to improve cardiorespiratory fitness." That's a rather general claim to make about investigating ONE protocol - one way - of working with a kb.
It's also a protocol used in ETK specifically, as "a smoker" as bill cullen called it and as a "man maker" as its name implies. That's pretty much an all out effort for miles not time and "until you leave a lung on the ground." That's not, it seems, how this study ran the protocol. That's ok; just don't call it a particular protocol if that's not the test you're running.
On the high side, it's great to see the formal research running assessments of KB protocols in a comparative, peer reviewed study. A recent American Council of Exercise test shows that kb's are just awesome for Vo2max training in particular - they effectively paid to have Kenneth Jay's protocol for VO2max replicated and tested, but without standard research protocols for running a comparative analysis, or having the protocol peer reviewed. Indeed, it's at the very least intriguing that the results in that article (shown in the image below) using the snatch got such different results than the swing - that's in 20mins, with 15 secs on, snatching, 15 secs off, as opposed to 12mins, swinging as many reps as possible non-stop.
Not saying there's anything wrong with these results - just that the benefit of the JSCR shorty gives us a way to situate a KB protocol relative to OTHER kinds of training, and the results are a wee bit of a surprise - we tend to think that all kb's all the time are the hardest ass whopping we can get. And, what seems to have been the case here, is that sure, if you're not swinging with intent to get smoked, you don't get smoking results.
But that's ok. Not all protocols, all the time. And that's actually a good thing. We need physiological variety. Now we're learning what kind of variety kb's can deliver - relative to other workouts.
Looking forward to more formal KB research, to learn more about this awesome fitness tool.
Related Resources
- b2d KB article index
- Review of KJ's Viking Warrior Conditioning (VO2max)
- Cardio, VO2max, Kettlebells
- Hill Workouts with Kettlebells
- Respect the Fat - the role of fat in energy metabolism
- 6 mins a week workouts?
Farrar RE, Mayhew JL, & Koch AJ (2010). Oxygen cost of kettlebell swings. Journal of strength and conditioning research / National Strength & Conditioning Association, 24 (4), 1034-6 PMID: 20300022Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Football (er, soccer): best for coach potatoes seeking health, fat loss, muscle?
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What to do if wanting to move off the coach and into health? If a guy - especially a guy just starting up a fitness program - wanted to do just one thing that would help drop fat, build muscle (and muscle mass), improve endurance, enhance bone mineral density, improve cholesterol levels and blood pressure, it's football (what north americans call soceer).
Really. Better than HIIT, than running, than resistance training alone, football seems to be the Big Pill solution. The only potential downside is that levels of injury may be higher than hitting the weight room or stationary bike. Overall, the cost/benefit analysis may make football the Healthy Choice. As the authors say in the abstract:
Blood Pressure and Heart Rate
Over 12 weeks, men who trained for an hour, two or three times a week, on the football pitch, comparable to endurance training of same lenght and duration. Football also showed up as better than strength training, to the level thought to have significant health benefits. Risk of death from heart attack goes down with bett blood presure too.
The footballers also have a lowered resting heart rate, and lowered heart rate during submax runs. They also have lower heart rates in intermittent exercise. Compared with groups who did resistance training alone, that didn't happne. This indicated both central and peripheral adaptations. That's great.
Vo2Max
A quality near and dear to the hearts of many people is VO2max. Playing football over 12 weeks had the same effect (13% improvement) as "using continuous training" (eg running) for the same time, or HIIT for less time. BUT what's particularly cool is that the football group continued to have an imporvement after the first four weeks of ball play. Runners did not. It also seems that just playing some extra small sided games had the same effect as additional interval running susseions for experienced players. Playing a game is likely more enjoyable than running repeats, too.
Fat Burning (& other metabolic impacts)
Here's the kicker. How does football do for fat burning? Fat oxidation during low to moderate intensity goes up. muscle enzyme activity up, muscle fiber conversion from IIx to IIA up (good). LDL/HDL ration changed signficantly - for the good.
Now here's an interesting comparison: neither low intensity aerobics for 12 weeks, nor high intensity intermitent running or strength training lead to changes in cholesterol. What does show benefit is higher intensity work. Football vs just running seems to hit the sweet spot. Runners do have similar weight loss - just not these other perks to the same degree.
A result i find peculiar is a claim that
Lean Body Mass
12 weeks of football, not only does fat go down, and cholesterol change, lean body mass goes up. The study authors look at related work to say heh, this should be good for glucose tolerance. Indeed, there's one study the authors site that when 12 weeks of football & dietary advice was given to a bunch of 47-49 year olds with type 2 diabetes, glucose tolerance was "markedly improved" (a similar trial without that advice showed no difference. hmm)
Musculo-Skeletal fitness
Soccer is stop and go. I've written before about how such action has been shown to be good for bone mineral density. Seems its good for muscle too. Again, comparing with interval and steady state running where there was no muscle fiber change, football does it all. The cool result is that 12 weeks of football got similar results to "14 weeks of heavy resistance training in young men" These kinds of changes just don't seem to happen in regular endurance training. But they do happen across ages in football.
Bone Mass
I admit i am partial to work on bone mineral density. It's a big deal for gals in particular, and we know that muscle size plays a not inconsiderable role for keeping the bones working. But so does the type of axial loading on the bones.
Here's the latest: go lift or do stop and start sports
Perceived Exertion
How tired are we after an activity? A lot of this experience is assessed perceptually against physiologic markers. Guess what? footballers repport lower poop'dness, despite work done. Play is good.
Injury
All good things come at a price? After last week's exegisis on ankle injuriers in sport, this question of injury level is not inconsiderable: what happens when someone gets off the coach and wants to get back int the game?
Most of the comparisons about footbal are with other on-your-feet activities like running, or very different work like lifting. Alas, no comparisons have (yet) been done with Kettlebells. The point is, when looking at injury, these are the places of comparison: how does football compare with say running?
Stay away from match play and risk of injury seems to be lower.
Just to put the icing on the cake, it seems the study authors would like it to be known that runners are sucks:
Citation:
Krustrup, P., Aagaard, P., Nybo, L., Petersen, J., Mohr, M., & Bangsbo, J. (2010). Recreational football as a health promoting activity: a topical review Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2010.01108.x Tweet Follow @begin2dig
What to do if wanting to move off the coach and into health? If a guy - especially a guy just starting up a fitness program - wanted to do just one thing that would help drop fat, build muscle (and muscle mass), improve endurance, enhance bone mineral density, improve cholesterol levels and blood pressure, it's football (what north americans call soceer).
Really. Better than HIIT, than running, than resistance training alone, football seems to be the Big Pill solution. The only potential downside is that levels of injury may be higher than hitting the weight room or stationary bike. Overall, the cost/benefit analysis may make football the Healthy Choice. As the authors say in the abstract:
Taken together, recreational football appears to effectively stimulate musculoskeletal, metabolic and cardiovascular adaptations of importance for health and thereby reduces the risk of developing life-style diseases.Let's take a look at the attributes the authors reviewed. To begin with, they considered studies of men who have been sedentary and then got into some kind of training protocol.
Blood Pressure and Heart Rate
Over 12 weeks, men who trained for an hour, two or three times a week, on the football pitch, comparable to endurance training of same lenght and duration. Football also showed up as better than strength training, to the level thought to have significant health benefits. Risk of death from heart attack goes down with bett blood presure too.
The footballers also have a lowered resting heart rate, and lowered heart rate during submax runs. They also have lower heart rates in intermittent exercise. Compared with groups who did resistance training alone, that didn't happne. This indicated both central and peripheral adaptations. That's great.
Vo2Max
A quality near and dear to the hearts of many people is VO2max. Playing football over 12 weeks had the same effect (13% improvement) as "using continuous training" (eg running) for the same time, or HIIT for less time. BUT what's particularly cool is that the football group continued to have an imporvement after the first four weeks of ball play. Runners did not. It also seems that just playing some extra small sided games had the same effect as additional interval running susseions for experienced players. Playing a game is likely more enjoyable than running repeats, too.
Fat Burning (& other metabolic impacts)
Here's the kicker. How does football do for fat burning? Fat oxidation during low to moderate intensity goes up. muscle enzyme activity up, muscle fiber conversion from IIx to IIA up (good). LDL/HDL ration changed signficantly - for the good.
Now here's an interesting comparison: neither low intensity aerobics for 12 weeks, nor high intensity intermitent running or strength training lead to changes in cholesterol. What does show benefit is higher intensity work. Football vs just running seems to hit the sweet spot. Runners do have similar weight loss - just not these other perks to the same degree.
A result i find peculiar is a claim that
12 weeks of intense interval training and short-term strength training, no changes were observed in fat mass (Fig. 2b), which may be related to the fact that the total energy expenditure was limited for the interval runners and that the strength training group had no changes in metabolic fitness as indicated by unchanged fat oxidation during exercise, lipid profile, capillarization and enzyme activities (Nybo et al., 2010).Study design is interesting, isn't it? As i've written about before, in work by Trapp, intervals on bikes were the one thing that showed fat loss - especially in the trunk - where steady state did not - even without tracking diet. So hmm. I'll go for total caloric expenditure did not exceed caloric intake in these runners/lifters, but it did in the football case, but i'm not ready to say "football is better than intervals for fat loss" -with fat loss as the single factor of interest. That said, there's more good stuff for football
Lean Body Mass
12 weeks of football, not only does fat go down, and cholesterol change, lean body mass goes up. The study authors look at related work to say heh, this should be good for glucose tolerance. Indeed, there's one study the authors site that when 12 weeks of football & dietary advice was given to a bunch of 47-49 year olds with type 2 diabetes, glucose tolerance was "markedly improved" (a similar trial without that advice showed no difference. hmm)
Musculo-Skeletal fitness
Soccer is stop and go. I've written before about how such action has been shown to be good for bone mineral density. Seems its good for muscle too. Again, comparing with interval and steady state running where there was no muscle fiber change, football does it all. The cool result is that 12 weeks of football got similar results to "14 weeks of heavy resistance training in young men" These kinds of changes just don't seem to happen in regular endurance training. But they do happen across ages in football.
Bone Mass
I admit i am partial to work on bone mineral density. It's a big deal for gals in particular, and we know that muscle size plays a not inconsiderable role for keeping the bones working. But so does the type of axial loading on the bones.
Here's the latest: go lift or do stop and start sports
[T]he increase in leg bone mass following 12 weeks of recreational football training was of a similar magnitude as the gains observed following strength training of the same duration, whereas neither recreational jogging nor high-intensity interval running induced changes in total or leg bone mass. In accordance, both male and female football players have higher hip and spine BMD than equally fit runners (Fredericson et al., 2007; Mudd et al., 2007). Furthermore, meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies reveals that participation in non-weight-bearing sports or physical activities with monotonous and stereotypic movement pattern appears to have little or no effect on bone mass or BMD, whereas strength-based and high-impact sports are associated with higher BMD (Egan et al.,2006).In football, small sided games with lots of turns, stops and starts seems to be optimal.
Perceived Exertion
How tired are we after an activity? A lot of this experience is assessed perceptually against physiologic markers. Guess what? footballers repport lower poop'dness, despite work done. Play is good.
Injury
All good things come at a price? After last week's exegisis on ankle injuriers in sport, this question of injury level is not inconsiderable: what happens when someone gets off the coach and wants to get back int the game?
Most of the comparisons about footbal are with other on-your-feet activities like running, or very different work like lifting. Alas, no comparisons have (yet) been done with Kettlebells. The point is, when looking at injury, these are the places of comparison: how does football compare with say running?
[One study ]Parkkari et al. (2004) "have reported an injury incidence of 7.8 injuries per 1000 h of football participation, which ranks football eight in 31 recreational and competitive sports. Running ranks 20 with an injury incidence of 3.6 injuries per 1000 h of participation, but no differentiation between the types of running has been made. ... In another study involving 31 620 inhabitants in a Swedish municipality, injury rates in persons attending a physician for an acute injury sustained during sports participation were reported (de Loes & Goldie, 1988). In this study, ice hockey and handball were found to have the highest risk followed by football. For males aged 15–59 years, the ranking was ice hockey, horseback riding, handball and football. If an injury incidence of 7.8 injuries per 1000 h of football participation is valid in recreation football in general, the implication is that the players would be exposed to one injury every 1.2 years if he carried out two 1-h sessions per week all-year round and one severe injury every ∼13 years as the severity of most injuries in recreational football is mild to moderate with approximately 9% categorized as severe injuries, defined as injuries that result in missing of work or a corresponding activity for at least 1 day (Parkkari et al., 2004).
It should be emphasized that the above-mentioned injury incidences in football are the incidence for training and match play analyzed together. However, it is well known that for elite and amateur football players the injury risk per hour of activity is approximately 5–10 times higher during match-play than training (Poulsen et al., 1991; Hägglund et al., 2003; Arnason et al., 2004) with injury incidence from two to five injuries per 1000 h of participation in training sessions.
Stay away from match play and risk of injury seems to be lower.
Just to put the icing on the cake, it seems the study authors would like it to be known that runners are sucks:
In the reviewed studies dealing with the fitness and health effects of recreational football and running, around 150 subjects have been followed over 3–4 months of training performed two to three times a week. During these studies, 5% of the footballers (n=3) and distance runners (n=3) contacted the in-house medical doctor regarding injuries, whereas 33% of the interval runners did (n=5) [note the small sample size -mc]. However, further studies are required to obtain more information about injury risk, types of injury, injury severity, etc. for various age groups playing recreational football organized as small-sided games among friends.Ok, just go play ball, already. Getting into some frienly 4 a side games, a couple times a week, seems to have so many pluses going for it's hard to imagine the down side - if everyone is rather at the same level (So great, where does one find these games?)
Field Note - General recommendation before Getting Back in the Game: get one's doctor's ok first to start a new prorgam of action, then consider getting a movement assessment to check how you're moving to reduce the risk of injury. It's also immediately beneficial to practice some sensory-motor drills to help field awareness so as to reduce likelihood of falling on self or colleague, and so actually getting more out of the game. Such drills can start with proprioceptvie awareness work. I like z-health's r-phase and especially i phase for this (overviews).
After R- and I- phase, the drills for fast turning, fast getting up off the ground, and just moving fast in the S-Phase Complete Athlete Vol 1 dvd are awesome - as are the drills for field awareness and quickness (review here). A colleague is using a lot of the z-drills to help the kids baseball team he coaches, from proprioception to visual acuity. Injury down, performance up, much?? oh ya.
Citation:
Krustrup, P., Aagaard, P., Nybo, L., Petersen, J., Mohr, M., & Bangsbo, J. (2010). Recreational football as a health promoting activity: a topical review Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0838.2010.01108.x Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Hypertrophy: More sets are Better than 1, from Day 1
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In strength training, research has looked at the question of "how many sets" to make a difference for strength - does it matter if we train with 1 set or multiple sets? Most research of late has put the strength question to bed: more sets = more strength. What is less known is the relationship of hypertrophy to strength development. Strength is about at least two things: neural adaptations - muscle firing patterns - to be able to lift stuff, and structural changes to be able to support these loads without tearing ourselves apart. The latter is generally known as hypertrophy. So an open research question has been: are the changes in real strength more about the neural side of the fence than the structural? According to work done to review a TON of studies that have ever bothered to measure hypertrophy along with strength, more seems to be better here, too. In other words, hypertrophy is playing a side-by-side roll in strength training. At least as far as we can tell from eligible studies. The juicy bits are highlighted.
This review is published in the April 2010 Journal of Srength and Conditioning Research. Here's the abstract:
The key bony bit of the result above is that some of us (i count myself in here) may need to change our thinking about the role of hypertrophy especially in the early phases of training with untrained participants. Now, that finding does not mean that noticeable mass gains are happening from day one, but it would mean that structural adaptations are happening way sooner in the process than has been pretty much taken as given for some time. For instance:
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Citation:
In strength training, research has looked at the question of "how many sets" to make a difference for strength - does it matter if we train with 1 set or multiple sets? Most research of late has put the strength question to bed: more sets = more strength. What is less known is the relationship of hypertrophy to strength development. Strength is about at least two things: neural adaptations - muscle firing patterns - to be able to lift stuff, and structural changes to be able to support these loads without tearing ourselves apart. The latter is generally known as hypertrophy. So an open research question has been: are the changes in real strength more about the neural side of the fence than the structural? According to work done to review a TON of studies that have ever bothered to measure hypertrophy along with strength, more seems to be better here, too. In other words, hypertrophy is playing a side-by-side roll in strength training. At least as far as we can tell from eligible studies. The juicy bits are highlighted.This review is published in the April 2010 Journal of Srength and Conditioning Research. Here's the abstract:
Previous meta-analyses have compared the effects of single to multiple sets on strength, but analyses on muscle hypertrophy are lacking. The purpose of this study was to use multilevel meta-regression to compare the effects of single and multiple sets per exercise on muscle hypertrophy. The analysis comprised 55 effect sizes (ESs), nested within 19 treatment groups and 8 studies. Multiple sets were associated with a larger ES than a single set (difference = 0.10 +/- 0.04; confidence interval [CI]: 0.02, 0.19; p = 0.016). In a dose-response model, there was a trend for 2-3 sets per exercise to be associated with a greater ES than 1 set (difference = 0.09 +/- 0.05; CI: -0.02, 0.20; p = 0.09), and a trend for 4-6 sets per exercise to be associated with a greater ES than 1 set (difference = 0.20 +/- 0.11; CI: -0.04, 0.43; p = 0.096). Both of these trends were significant when considering permutation test p values (p < 0.01).
Mean hypertrophy effect size for single vs. multiple sets per exercise. Data are presented as means 6 SE. *Significant difference from 1 set per exercise (p <0.05).
There was no significant difference between 2-3 sets per exercise and 4-6 sets per exercise (difference = 0.10 +/- 0.10; CI: -0.09, 0.30; p = 0.29). There was a tendency for increasing ESs for an increasing number of sets (0.24 for 1 set, 0.34 for 2-3 sets, and 0.44 for 4-6 sets). Sensitivity analysis revealed no highly influential studies that affected the magnitude of the observed differences, but one study did slightly influence the level of significance and CI width. No evidence of publication bias was observed. In conclusion, multiple sets are associated with 40% greater hypertrophy-related ESs than 1 set, in both trained and untrained subjects.Correlation of Hypertrophy with Strength. To get into the detail a little further, after the results are presented of comparing the various studies' methods, muscles, participants and periods of study, the author states:
This is a nice finding: hypertrophy - structural changes in muscle - seems to go hand in hand with strength, and right from the start of training. This is interesting in no small part because changes in measurable muscle size seem to lag behind measurable differences in strength.In a previous meta-analysis on strength using an identical statistical model, a 46% greater ES was observed for multiple sets compared with single sets (23) (Figure 3). A 40% greater ES was observed in this study. This indicates that the greater strength gains observed with multiple sets are in part because of greater muscle hypertrophy.
It is known that mechanical loading stimulates protein synthesis in skeletal muscle (39), and increasing loads result in greater responses until a plateau is reached (24). It is likely that protein synthesis responds in a similar manner to the number of sets (i.e., an increasing response as the number of sets are increased, until a plateau is reached), although there is no research examining this. The results of this study support this hypothesis; there was a trend for an increasing ES for an increasing number of sets. The response appeared to start to level off around 4-6 sets, as the difference between 2-3 sets and 4-6 sets was smaller than the difference between 1 set and 2-3 sets (figure 4)
Dose-response effect of set volume on strength from Krieger (23). Note similarity to dose-response effect for hypertrophy in Figure 2. Data are presented as means ± SE. ES = effect size. *Significantly different from 1 set per exercise (p < 0.001).
It has been proposed that the majority of initial strength gains in untrained subjects are because of neural adaptations rather than hypertrophy (28). The results of this analysis suggest that some of the initial strength gains are because of hypertrophy. Given the insensitivity and variability of hypertrophy measurements, it is likely that hypertrophy occurs in untrained subjects but is difficult to detect. This is supported by research that shows increases in protein synthesis in response to resistance training in untrained subjects (24). Recent evidence also shows measurable hypertrophy after only 3 weeks of resistance exercise (38).
What the studies do not discriminate about is whether these hypertrophic adaptations are more myofibrial or sarcoplasmic. And that rather makes sense as the main consideration has been (1) strength and (2) simply whether or not hypertrophy is more or less corelevant with the development of neural adaptations that lead to strength.
Practical Application
Practical Application
A super attribute of the JSCR articles is their "practical application" section - what can someone do with these results. The first application Krieger suggests is to get behind the awareness that hypertrophy increases from day one from more sets. In other words the number of sets does make a difference whether a beginner or not. Cool. Move it move it:
The second point is that those multiple sets make a statistically significant difference in terms of the amount of hypertrophy. More is more (at least up to 4-6 sets) for strength and structural development.Multiple sets per exercise were associated with significantly greater changes in muscle size than a single set per exercise during a resistance exercise program. Specifically, hypertrophy-related ESs were 40% greater with multiple sets compared with single sets. This was true regardless of subject training status or training program duration.
So while 1 set is certainly not useless, it mayn't be optimal (where that means before we hit a plateau). What remains to be done, according to Krieger, is to figure out that optimal set range:There was a trend for an increasing hypertrophic response to an increasing number of sets. Thus, individuals interested in achieving maximal hypertrophy should do a minimum of 2-3 sets per exercise. It is possible that 4-6 sets could give an even greater response, but the small number of studies incorporating volumes of ≥4 sets limits the statistical power and the ability to form any definitive conclusions. If time is a limiting factor, then single sets can produce hypertrophy, but improvements may not be optimal.
More research is necessary to compare the effects of 2-3 sets per exercise to ≥4 sets. Future research should also focus on the effects of resistance training volume on protein synthesis and other cellular and molecular changes that may impact hypertrophy.
Practical Awareness
For beginners interested in doing more sets, excellent. What to watch out for: fatigue. Stay fresh. Might be a grand idea to make sure to get a program that waves the volume so that there's ample recovery. Without that recovery, growth in strength/hypertrophy does seem to get retarded pretty fast.
For more experienced trainees, from what i hear among the folks i work with is: want to get bigger? lift more. More sets. more reps. more more more. The question this article nicely raises is what's an optimal more? Will be interesting to see if, when and how this question is formally explored in the future.
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- Supplement Curmudgeon: Does this stuff work?
- b2d General Fitness Articles
Citation:
Krieger JW (2010). Single vs. multiple sets of resistance exercise for muscle hypertrophy: a meta-analysis. Journal of strength and conditioning research / National Strength & Conditioning Association, 24 (4), 1150-9 PMID: 20300012Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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