Eight HIIT Sessions on the Rowing Ergometer Cut Body Fat, Increase Adiponectin, VO2Max & Performance in National Level Rowers - Workmatched Classic "Cardio" Does Nothing

If you have hitherto ignored my previous advice (e.g. "Choosing Your Workout Style") to give the rowing machines a try, maybe the study at hand will rise your interest. Give it a try. It's an awesome whole body workout and highly effective, even if you just do 20min of steady state after lifting weights.

Yesterday you've learned that even the most idio... ah, I mean unconventional - not to say "experimental" in the literal sense - one-legged leg training routine is more likely to get you those six-pack abs, of which everyone appears to believe that it was a natural sign of outstanding health and a thing everybody must have (just like the new iPhone, you know ;-), than a bazillion of sit-ups. Today, you will see that a somewhat less "experimental" training regimen will not have you reach your goal faster and more efficiently, it will also have the welcome "side effect" of making you healthier and improving your conditioning. And you know what's the best about all that? It does not only work for sedentary baby-boomer, but also for highly trained athletes. 5 male and 2 female19(± 1.2)-year-old junior state and national level rowers from the Tasmanian Rowing Team (height: 1.77 ± 0.10 m, body mass: 74.0 ± 10.7 kg, body fat: 17.1%, VO2max 62.1 ± 7.0 mL·kg/min), to be precise (Shing. 2012).

Healthier, leaner, fitter - that's a HITTer ;-)

To evaluate the influence of two different training regimen, namely the traditional steady training (SST/LISS) on a rowing ergometer (a piece of equipment of which the regulars among you already know that I highly suggest you incorporate it into whatever cardio routine you may be doing), or a high intensity interval training (HIIT) variety of the latter the researchers from the School of Human Life Sciences at the University of Tasmania in Launceston, Australia put their participants, the aforementioned young national rowers, on two different workout protocols with matched cumulative energy expenditures (my emphases in Shing. 2012):

• SST: "The traditional training program involved rowers completing two ergometer sessions per week; one with a duration of 35 minutes and the other 40 minutes. [...] The intensity of each session
  was relatively low and more aerobic in nature when compared to the interval training protocol. The intensity of the traditional ergometer sessions was set to power outputs that corresponded to blood lactate concentrations of 2 and 3 mmol/l determined from the incremental exercise test."
• HIIT: "The interval training sessions consisted of eight 2.5 minute intervals at 90% of mean four-minute maximal power achieved during the incremental exercise test. Recovery between each interval was at an intensity of 40% of mean four-minute maximal power and the recovery duration was until heart rate returned to 70% of maximum heart rate, up to a maximum of five minutes."

The 2x four week experimental period (remember: we are dealing with a cross-over design, where all subjects participate in both protocols in random order) involved the incorporation of two ergometer sessions per week. Since all participants were part of the same squad the rest of their training regimen was identical, so that confounding factors - at least as far as the training is concerned - can be ruled out.

Body composition and adiponectin took a HIIT - a highly beneficial one that is ;-)

Performance tests were done and body fat mass (DXA), as well as a general blood profile and adiponectin values were taken at baseline and the end of both 4-week periods. Moreover, all participants had to keep a detailed training and diet log, so that the scientists could make absolutely sure that non of the effects they observed were due to unexpected changes in either activity levels or dietary habits.

Any potential influence of the randomized order, i.e. whether the rowers performed the classic training first and the HIIT sessions 2nd or vice versa was ruled out by statistical means before the scientists eventually analyzed their data sets and got the following results:

Figure 1: adiponectin levels before (pre) and after the respective workout at the beginning and end of the respective 4-week training period and body fat levels before and after 4 weeks of steady state (SST) or high intensity interval training (HIIT) in national level rowers (Shing. 2012)

I must admit, the changes are not earth-shattering, but there are changes - beneficial ones that is  - and they are statistically significant despite the small number of participants, and the fact that the subjects were already highly trained individuals and - I figure this may be the most convincing argument not to discard this effects - participated in no more than a total of only 8 HIIT sessions.

Bottom line: I guess, you could certainly argue that the novelty of the training stimulus was part of the reason, the HIIT regimen had so beneficial effects on the fitness, body composition and even the adiponectin levels of these already highly trained rowers (Adiponectin? That's the "new leptin", which promotes insulin sensitivity and exerts profound anti-inflammatory effects); but does this take away from the efficacy of this 4x2.5 min @90% max. + 5min active rest high intensity interval training regimen? I don't think so.

Click here to learn more about the "Iranian HIIT Solution" a minimalist program with maximal results

There is nonetheless one thing I want to add before I close the SuppVersity doors for today. The 4x2.5 minute protocol is certainly appropriate for trained athletes; in fact, previous studies even suggest that it requires those long(er) intervals in order to elicit gains in VO2max in highly trained (endurance) athletes (e.g. Franch. 1998; Laursen. 2002). The initially mentioned sedentary baby-boomer - obese or not - may however be better off, if they follows a different regimen, such as the one I outlined in the "Iranian HIIT Solution" (see image on the right) and incorporate that in a three-day split (e.g. A, B, hypertrophy, C strength) or a two-day full body circuit training.

The main message here is that starting out "low" (in terms of both volume and intensity) is not just possible, it's even advisable, so that there is still enough room to do more, and/or preferably up the intensity. I know I have been telling you that before, but I feel it's worth stating again: Real cardio training, i.e. the type of training that strengthens the cardiovascular system is progressive. If you do the same thing day in and day out the best you can hope for is to keep the status quo. Remember that before you start out way too high (esp. on the volume side of things) and either bunk directly, or end up without any room to make progress.

References:

• Franch J, Madsen K, Djurhuus MS, et al. Improved running economy following intensified training correlates with re-duced ventilatory demands. Med Sci Sports Exerc 1998; 30: 1250-6.
• Laursen PB, Jenkins DG. The scientific basis for high-intensity interval training: optimising training programmes and maximising performance in highly trained endurance athletes. Sports Med. 2002;32(1):53-73.
• Shing CM, Webb JJ, Driller MW, Williams AD, Fell JW. Circulating Adiponectin Concentration AND BODY composition ARE Altered in Response to High-Intensity Interval Training. J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Dec 4.

Caffeine for Peak Performance: 2.7% Increase in Max-Power Can Make All the Difference | Plus: Timing Matters! "The Caffeine Buzz" Occurs 30 Min After Blood Levels Peak

Yes, caffeine "doping" may in fact allow you to show up at the office in time, even when you've overslept (only useful if your tiredness is not due to a caffeine-abuse induced lack of sleep, obviously).

It sounds unbelievable, but up to now most of the research into the effects of caffeine on single bouts of brief ( ≤30 s) maximal exercise, predominantly using 30-s sprint cycling tests, shows no effect:  Bell et al. (2001), Collomp et al. (1991), Glaister et al. (2012), ... the list goes on. None of these and a bunch of other studies found increases in sprint performance irrespective of the amount and mode of caffeine supplementation.

Until today, only Anselme, Collomp, Mercier, Ahmaidi, and Prefaut (1992) found a significant effect of caffeine on maximal anaerobic power output (Wmax), as derived from a series of maximal 6-s cycle sprint tests. Unfortunately, study by Anselme et al. (1992) has some limitations including: (1) the use of a mixed gender sample; (2) the use of a fixed (250 mg), rather than a body mass-relative caffeine dose; (3) the absence of serum caffeine analysis to confirm caffeine abstinence; and (4) the absence of a familiarisation trial.

You can learn more about coffee at the SuppVersity

Remember: With Coffee More Won't Help More

Coffee - The Good, Bad & Interesting

Three Cups of Coffee Keep Insulin At Bay

Caffeine's Effect on Testosterone, Estrogen & SHBG

The Coffee³ Ad- vantage: Fat loss, Appetite & Mood

Caffeine Resis- tance - Does It Even Exist?

The aim of Mark Glaister and his colleagues from the St. Mary's University in Twickenham, UK, was thus to "repeat the study by Anselme et al. (1992), addressing the aforementioned issues, in an attempt to provide a clear answer as to whether caffeine has an effect on sprint cycling performance" (Glaister. 2014).

Update: The Latest on Caffeine, Exercise, Fat & Weight Loss | more

It would be beside if I tried to keep you on the tenterhooks. From the headline of today's SuppVersity article you know after all that the experiment was a success. Glaister and his colleagues whose experimental protocol involved fourteen male Strength and Conditioning and Sport Science students, who were regularly active in strenuous physical activity instead of average coach potatoes (that's important, because the results will differ), was a success.

The scientists were able to show that caffeine will actually increase peak anaerobic power output in a series of 6-s cycle ergometer sprints, separated by 5-min passive recovery periods.

Figure 1: Statistical significant performance increases occur only at torques that allow the subjects to perform at their individual maximal aerobic power output (W_max) - torques that were not used in previous studies (Glaister. 2014)

As you can see in Figure 1 the differences which reached statistical significance only on the latter of the sprints were not earth-shatteringly large, but they were there and could very well make the difference between victory and defeat in any competitive athlete.

With sprints caffeine timing will probably matter! While Cox et al. (2002) have shown that timing is of minor importance for endurance athletes, it does probably matter when exactly the amount of caffeine in your blood peaks vs. when it declines or just begins to rise for sprints and other short duration activities.

With the caffeine in the study at hand being ingested ~50 minutes before the workout (right after the blood draw that was conducted 1h before the exercise test), Glaister et al. probably hit the "sweet spot", of maximal "restlessneess" indica- tive of max. catecholamine levels of which Kaplan et al. found that it occurs after approx. 1h and thus 30 minutes after the serum caffe- ine levels peak (Kaplan. 1997)

Bottom line: As Glaister et al. point out, it is possible that the use of fixed-torque factors that didn't allow the subjects to attain their individual maximal anaerobic power (W_max) may explain the difference to previous trials. If you look at the corresponding graphs in the original paper, you will in fact see that significant differences were not achieved at fixed torques of 0.4 and 0.8 Nm/kg.

In addition, some of the previous studies used very short sprints of only 30s duration which may have been too short in total duration and to long (individually) for the subjects to even achieve their individual W_max.

Last but not least, the timing of the caffeine ingestion, which is also going to be a topic of a separate SuppVersity article in the near future (see sneak peak in the box to the right) may have been a performance limiting factor as well. Overall, the study at hand does yet provide further support for the WADA decision to put caffeine on the WADA 2014 Monitoring Program - as of now, it is yet not officially prohibited | Comment on Facebook.

References:

• Anselme, F., et al. "Caffeine increases maximal anaerobic power and blood lactate concentration." European journal of applied physiology and occupational physiology 65.2 (1992): 188-191.
• Bell, Douglas G., I. R. A. Jacobs, and K. Ellerington. "Effect of caffeine and ephedrine ingestion on anaerobic exercise performance." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 33.8 (2001): 1399-1403.
• Collomp, K., et al. "Effects of caffeine ingestion on performance and anaerobic metabolism during the Wingate test." International journal of sports medicine 12.05 (1991): 439-443.
• Cox, Gregory R., et al. "Effect of different protocols of caffeine intake on metabolism and endurance performance." Journal of Applied Physiology 93.3 (2002): 990-999.
• Glaister, Mark, et al. "Caffeine and sprinting performance: dose responses and efficacy." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 26.4 (2012): 1001-1005. 
• Glaister, Mark, et al. "Caffeine supplementation and peak anaerobic power output." European journal of sport science ahead-of-print (2014): 1-7.
• Kaplan, Gary B., et al. "Dose‐Dependent Pharmacokinetics and Psychomotor Effects of Caffeine in Humans." The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 37.8 (1997): 693-703.

Electrical Stimulation Improves Clearance of Lactic Acid After Anaerobic Activity in Collegiate Athletes. EMS Turns Out to Be as Effective as 'Traditional' Massage Therapy.

Image 1: The EU-940 EMS device the
scientists used in their study to activate
the vastus medialis and lateralis (high-
lighted in the image) of their subjects, is
very different from the average EMS based
"abdominal toner" advertised on TV.

Even here, at the SuppVersity, news on ergogenics, i.e. things that improve (athletic) performance, are usually about a pill, a fancy plant extract or another 'superfood'. Today's news, however is about a much more "physical" means to improve anaerobic exercise performance, decrease lactate accumulation and improve regeneration: Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS).

EMS? Now, many of you will probably remember those TV spots, where you were told that "Abmaster" & Co would transform your pot-belly into a "six-packed" attractant for the opposite sex, if you did not miss this "unique" opportunity and bought one of those electro-shockers no sane fitness professionals would voluntarily substitute his/her good old sit-ups and leg raises for. Yet, while these battery-powered torture instruments did, or I should say, were intended to electrically stimulate muscles (in fact in many of the obese buyers of these products, the abs were probably covered by a layer of fat that was way too thick for actually "stimulation" of the abdominal muscles to occur), both the devices, as well as the EMS protocol Seo et al. (Seo. 2011) employed in their double-blind randomized controlled trial at the Sports Science Research Laboratory of Kyungwoon University in Korea were a little more sophisticated.

Did you know? The fatigue index is a concept used in the study of fatigue during anaerobic activities. It is the ratio of power decline to the length of the time interval in seconds between peak power and minimum power. This means lower fatigue indexes equate lower declines of exercise intensity per time unit. When looking at the data in figure 1, you may want to keep in mind that higher starting values / greater overall workloads will entail greater declines in anaerobic power per time unit and thus present with higher fatigue indexes

During and after 3 all out intervals on an ergometer (resistance: 0.8 x body weight Nm; active rest between intervals: 10 seconds) verbal feedback on perceived fatigue, fatigue indexes in W/s, mean power/weight, total work and lactic acid values (from serum drawn before, after and at 15 min and 25 min post exercise) were recorded in a group of 24 randomly selected collegiate Taekwando athletes (age: 19.8yrs, height; 177cm; weight: 66kg, training experience: 5yrs; mean values with non-significant differences between groups).

Figure 1: Fatigue index, mean power (primary axis) and total workload (secondary axis) during Wingate ergometer test
(data adapted from Seo. 2011)

Immediately after the exercise bout, eight athletes, each, received one of the following treatments:

Table 1: Outline of the massage
protocol the  athletes in the massage
group received after having performed
an exhaustive anaerobic Wingate
ergometer test (according to Lee. 1998)

• The control group received no regenerative treatment at all. 
• The massage group was subjected to a massage protocol which had been shown to effectively improve exercise recovery in a previous study by the same authors (Lee. 1998).
• The EMS group was attached to an interferential current unit (EU-940, ITO CO., LTD, Tokyo, Japan), which applied an interferential current with a carrier frequency of 4kHz and a pulse duration of 125µs via four vacuum electrodes (vacuum pressure: 60ppm) to the vastus medialis and the vastus lateralis of the subjects.*
  * "The current  intensity was set within the range of the minimum visible contraction of the quadriceps femoris muscle", so that the muscle of the quadriceps were maximally stimulated, while the current was not so intense that cross-over effects to neighboring muscle groups would occur.

Seo and his colleagues found "significant differences in the lactic acid concentrations in the blood among the three groups [...] at 15 min and 25 min after exercise".

Figure 2: Relative reduction in lactic acid concentration after a wingate performance test followed by massage or EMS therapy compared to untreated control (data adapted from Seo. 2011)

As the data in figure 1 shows, massage and EMS promote the clearance of lactic acid to a similar degree (+17-18% vs. control). So, if you are a professional athlete you should either make good use of your already existing six pack and attract a significant other who is a massage therapist or save some bucks and get yourself a reasonably professional EMS device, in case you intend to be a gold medalist at the 2012 Olympics in London ;-)

Edit (26 July): The lactate & Lactic acid confusion

After I posted this piece of information an interesting discussion around the physiological role of lactic acid broke lose on Facebook and I do not want to deny you the great information my buddy Sean Casey from CasePerformance brought to the table. So, here is what he had to say:

Lactic Acid is an interesting thing....During the 1970-1980’s various studies found lactic acid impaired strength and contraction velocity in samples of isolated muscle tissue (1). Based off these early findings, many researchers evaluated ...post workout recovery modalities on their ability to remove lactate from muscle tissue post workout. Similarly, coaches and athletes started employing post workout techniques aimed at removing lactate from muscular tissue. For instance, our high school track coach used to have us lie on our backs and rest our legs on an elevated surface w/ respect to our body. Usually we'd lie on the floor next to a wall & place legs on wall. The theory was that acid would “drain” out of our muscle tissue, allowing our legs to be fresher for the following day’s workout. (I know, a very bro-science approach; , but mentally felt good and you'd always get a cool tingly sensation when you set your legs down and the blood rushed back into them!)

Interestingly, it turns out that lactic acid may not be the best form of measurement with respect to evaluating the effectiveness of a PWRM [post workout recovery measures]. As pointed out by Cairns SP, it may have a much smaller effect on muscle fatigue than was previously hypothesized(1). Thanks to advances in technology, scientists are now able to study muscle tissue closer to physiological temperatures (old studies were completed at muscle tissue held at cooler temperatures, 50-68ºF). As shown by Westerblad et al., acid had little effect on contraction velocity when completed on muscle tissue held at 89ºF (2). On the other hand, a 2006 study by Knuth et al. did indicate that lactic acid decreased muscle contractile power even at warmer temperatures(3). 

Although the lactate question is still being debated amongst scientist, athletes must ask themselves if the research is even applicable to their post training recovery protocol. Although lactate may induce muscular fatigue, its quickly metabolized within the body (1/2 life: muscle- 9.5 minutes; blood- 15 minutes), and eliminated from our system 90 minutes after an exercise session has been completed (4)(5). Thus, exercise induced lactic acid from one workout is likely not even present during a subsequent workout depending on when you complete it.

All this being said, don't misinterpret my comments and think that I'm trying to put down the role of EMS. I've had to use one a fair amount due to various issues and have found it to be effective. Anything that can get a muscle contracting and increase blood flow is always a good thing ;-) 

References

1 Cairns SP. Lactic acid and exercise performance: culprit or friend? Sports Med. 2006;36(4):279-91.

2 Westerblad H, Bruton JD, Lännergren J. The effect of intracellular pH on contractile function of intact, single fibres of mouse muscle declines with increasing temperature. J Physiol. 1997 Apr 1;500 ( Pt 1):193-204.

3 Knuth ST, Dave H, Peters JR, Fitts RH. Low cell pH depresses peak power in rat skeletal muscle fibres at both 30 degrees C and 15 degrees C: implications for muscle fatigue. J Physiol. 2006 Sep 15;575(Pt 3):887-99. Epub 2006 Jun 29.

4 Karlsson J, Saltin B. Oxygen deficit and muscle metabolites in intermittent exercise. Acta Physiol Scand 1971; 82: 115-22.

5 Barnett A. Using recovery modalities between training sessions in elite athletes: does it help? Sports Med. 2006;36(9):781-96.

The only thing I would like to add to Sean's insightful dissertation is a criticism of the indiscriminate use of lactate, which is sort of 'recycled' muscle fuel, and lactic acid, which is its ugly 'degraded' relative. With the ever increasing H+ levels as they can be observed in the course of a long distance race, for example, more and more lactate gets degraded into lactic acid and thus works like a buffer similar to the beta-alanine derived intramuscular H+ buffer carnosine. Now it is no wonder that with H+ release being a measure of muscular exertion and lactic acid being a measure of H+ buffering, Faude et al. (Faude. 2009) found in what is one of the most recent reviews on the role of lactate in exercise metabolism that

[t]hirty-two studies evaluated the relationship of LTs with performance in (partly simulated) endurance events. The overwhelming majority of those studies reported strong linear correlations, particularly for running events, suggesting a high percentage of common variance between LT and endurance performance.

And, after all, it does not really matter in how far the established performance increases from massages and EMG therapy are related to their ability to accelerate lactate clearance, or more generally to their ability to increase blood flow and thus nutrient delivery and waste clearance in the respective tissue - does it?