Time Under Tension (TUT) Another Under-Appreciated Determinant of the Protein Synthetic Response to Exercise?

Image 1: Is it really time to buy some revolutionary new exercise equipment to time your time under tension? Or should you keep pumping away like there was no tomorrow?

If you have been following the SuppVersity news for some time now, you know that I am a "fan" of the research Stuart Phillips and his colleagues at the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, are doing. Before I get to some details on their latest coup, I must yet express some concerns about Phillips' focus on immediate changes protein synthesis. Yes, amino acid ingestion and particularly leucine increase protein synthesis, yes, bolus ingestion of whey protein increases protein synthesis over sipping and yes, training with low loads (30%) and slow reps, as in the study at hand, increases protein synthesis,... but hey. Do you really give a damn about protein synthesis? No, you don't. Either you want to gain muscle or you want to get stronger and exactly here I am missing a link that would connect the short-term increases in the protein synthetic response to exercise Phillips and his colleagues are investigating in one study after the other and the long(er)-term real-world outcomes in terms of muscle size and strength gains.

Wait! Is protein synthesis really that important?

I will probably touch on this issue in tomorrow's installment of the Intermittent Thoughts, as well, so let me just say this: Muscle protein synthesis is only one out of two (maybe three processes) and probably not even the most important one, when your goals are getting really big or really strong. I mean, if increasing protein synthesis was all it would take to get as buffed as Phil Heath and as strong as Derek Poundstone, everyone would be training like a sissy (like in this study), take his BCAAs and whey protein and see amazing results... but I am once again getting off a tangent here, and as I already said, you will read more on that here at the SuppVersity in the future. So, for the time being, let's get back to the time under tension, i.e. the exact number of seconds your muscles are actually working (meaning contracting) during a given set.

Figure 1: Basic outline of the study first and second testing session (based on Burd. 2011)

For their most recent study Nicholas A. Burd et al. recruited 8 recreationally resistance-trained men (23.5 ± 1 years; 88.3 ± 5 kg; BMI=26.5 ± 1.0 kg/m²) who had performed lower body resistance exercise training with a frequency of at least 2x/week in the course of the last 2 years prior to the study [note: this certainly is a huge plus of the study, because we all know that you can have a newbie do nothing but climb stairs and he will still grow ;-] The individual one rep-max for leg-extensions was accessed once prior to the infusion trial (105kg right, 101kg left leg) and dietary intakes were recorded prior to both the resting and the exercise infusion trials, in the course of which the participants reported to the lab fasted (at 7am) before a catheter for the tracer infusion was inserted into their arm and a first (fasted) muscle biopsy was taken from their legs (3.5h after reporting to the lab).

Participants subsequently performed bouts of unilateral leg extension exercise at 30% of
their previously established concentric 1RM. Legs were randomized and balanced for dominance based on maximal strength to perform exercise at a slow lifting (SLOW) or an external work-matched control (CTL) conditions. The leg assigned to the SLOW condition performed exercise with a lifting/lowering cadence of 6 s concentric phase and a 6 s eccentric phase with no pauses until volitional fatigue (i.e. failure). Failure was defined as the point at which the participant could not lift through the full range or their technique to lift the load included motions at joints other than the knee. The CTL condition was completed with the contralateral leg and was matched to the experimental condition for contraction volume such that the leg performed an identical number of repetitions at an equivalent load, but not to failure, and was performed with a lifting cadence of 1 s concentric phase and a 1 s eccentric phase.

The participants performed a total of 3 sets with 2 minutes of rest between the sets for each condition. Lifting cadence was monitored by an instructor and by the use of a metronome. Moreover, the exact knee-joint angles were recorded by the means of a goniometer. After a subsequent 2nd blood sample was taken, all participants consumed 20g of whey protein isolate. 6h after, a 2nd bilateral biopsy was taken and the participants were fed a standard cafeteria meal. For the rest of the day they were advised to follow a diet that would mirror their previously recorded food intake, with the last meal being consumed before 22h, "to ensure a 10 h fast prior to the beginning of the 24 h post-exercise protein synthesis measurement", which took place the next morning after the consumption of another 20g of a tracer-enriched whey protein supplement.

Figure 2: Fractional protein synthesis (in % per hour) - left; and relative differences in protein synthesis of slow vs. ctrl condition - right (based on Burd. 2011)

The data in figure 2 clearly shows that going to failure (and this is what I consider even more important than time under tension when training with sissy 30%1RM loads) produces profound (compare the relative increases in the smaller graph on the upper right corner) increases in fractional protein synthesis, which are, in the time-window right after the exercise bout, particularly pronounced in the mitochondrial and sarcoplasmic compartment of the muscle. In this regard, Burd et al. point out that

[w]hat we observed here was a potentiated effect, from that seen in the fasted-state, of prior exercise in enhancing the feeding-induced myofibrillar protein synthetic rates. This effect appears to be dependent on maximal fibre activation during exercise, [...] The current study is noteworthy in that an enhanced effect of protein feeding during late exercise recovery was induced by a longer time under muscle tension rather than intensity-independent contraction volume, which we have previously examined (Burd. 2010).

As far as the delay in the normally immediate increase in myofibrillar protein synthesis is concerned, the researchers speculate that both the timing of the biopsies, as well as the training status of the subjects and the specificity of their protocol about which they state that with its long loading times at relatively low intensities it must have shifted the protein (immediate) myofibrillar protein synthetic response "toward increased synthesis of proteins in the mitochondrial and sarcoplasmic pools" (cf. figure 2) - a process the underlying causes and mechanisms of which are yet unclear.

Why would you change a winning team?

Image 2: When it comes to SST and all the other training types from the alphabet soup, I alway wonder why people keep questioning what has worked well for the majority of bodybuilders and athletes, they are looking up to and whose physiques they are admiring!?

Actually this observation takes us full circle to my introductory remarks on the possible short-sightedness of measuring acute fractional protein synthesis. After all, what we are seeing here is rather the response we would expect as a consequence to a rather endurance-oriented exercise regimen. Whether the latter would entail the "size" (and strength) gains everyone currently associates with the magic words "increases in protein synthesis" remains thusly highly questionable.

This is particularly true if we take into account the results of another pretty recent study be Eonho Kim et al. (Kim. 2011), which found that an even slower (10s concentric, 10s eccentric) training protocol at 50% or the 1RM led to greater increases in flexibility but highly variable and overall lower strength gains than a traditional protocol with (4s total TUT at 80%RM) in college-aged women. This basically confirms what previous studies by Keeler et al. (+39% in traditional, only +15% in slow training; Keeler. 2001) have already established: (Super) Slow Training works, but it does not work as well classic resistance training.

And no matter whether you train slow or fast - in the end, intensity will always be determined by a matrix of loads, volume, TUT and training density and I doubt we will see a study that controls for all this variables even in the remote future (and if that happens you know that the SuppVersity is the place where you will read about it, first) - so the best thing you can do, is to rely on what worked for generations of physical culturists and that was definitely not training with 6s concentric and 6s eccentric reps ;-)

Intensity or Exercises Switching? What's More Effective to Build Muscle And Strength - Switching Exercises Yields 20% Higher Strength & 5% Higher + Balanced Muscle Gains!

Intensity or exercises switching what's more effective to build muscle and strength - or is it best to do both?

Let's be honest: When was the last time you've switched up your exercise regimen? Kicked out the old boring bench presses and squats and did something totally different? You don't remember? Well, what if I tell you that the latest study from the University of São Paulo, the University of Tampa and Delboni Auriemo Diagnostic Imaging Sector shows that not switching up your exercises is what's keeping you from making the gains you deserve?

Shocker? Well in that case I highly suggest you read the rest of today's article, before you go back to the drawing board and revamp your training regimen.

Learn more about building muscle at www.suppversity.com

Tri- or Multi-Set Training for Body Recomp.?

Alternating Squat & Blood Pressure - Productive?

Pre-Exhaustion Exhausts Your Growth Potential

Full ROM ➯ Full Gains - Form Counts!

Battle the Rope to Get Ripped & Strong

Study Indicates Cut the Volume Make the Gains!

The actual purpose of the study, the results of which are soon going to be published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research was...

"to investigate the effects of different combinations of training intensities and exercises selection, as well as the combination of both, on muscle strength and CSA." (Fonseca. 2014)

Base on the authors previous findings (Lamas. 2012; Laurentino. 2012; Wallerstein. 2012), Fonseca et al. hypothesized that muscle hypertrophy would not be affected by the different loading schemes and exercise variation; however, the differences in motor unit recruitment provided by the exercise variation would produce superior gains in muscle strength.

A secondary purpose of the present study was thus to identify if the loading scheme and exercises variation would produce differences in the hypertrophy response of the quadriceps muscle heads.

Figure 1:  Vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM), vastus intermedius (VI), and rectus femoris (RF) cross sectional area (mm²) for the constant exercise-constant intensity (CICE), constant intensity-varied exercise (CIVE), varied intensity-constant exercise (VICE), and varied intensity-varied exercise (VIVE) groups, pre- and post-training (Fonseca. 2014)

Speaking of muscle heads, the two letter acronyms in Figure 1 represent vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM), vastus intermedius (VI), and rectus femoris (RF) and as you can see the hypertrophy response was affected by the different loading schemes and exercise variation.

Chest	Biceps	Back	Core	Legs	Triceps	Shoulders
Navigate the SuppVersity EMG Series - Click on the desired body part to see the optimal exercises.

Based on the caption of Figure 1 you will already have gathered that the study protocol involved 4 different conditions (+ control; not shown in Figure 1).

Maybe it's not just about the exercises, but also about which exercises you rotate in... This is something you should keep in mind, when you look aat the results of the study at hand. Ok, squats may be the best exercise for legs, but is it surprising that adding in some leg presses and deadlifts will yield even better results? I don't think so - do you?

Table 1: Overview of the Training protocols; CICE= constant intensity and constant exercise, CIVE= constant int. varying exercise, VICE= varying int. and constant ex. VIVE= varying int. and varying ex (Fonseca. 2014).

I would have to waste a thousand words to explain exactly how the exercise regimen differed.

Therefore I decided to simply give you the overview of the 12 training weeks from the original paper in which you can see that there were two parameters Fonseca et al. varied, i.e.

• intensity as in higher reps, lower weight vs. lower reps, higher weight and 
• exercise, i.e. did the subjects to the same stuff all the time or did they switch from one exercise to the next,

And eventually, both of them influenced the training outcome, with varying exercises producing a "more homogeneous muscle hypertrophy response" (Fonseca. 2014). 

In terms of strength gains, it's ~20% less efficient to vary only the intensity on the same exercise (Fonseca. 2014).

Bottom line: As the scientists point out, future studies will have to elucidate,"whether highly trained individuals would be able to handle a high degree of training variations (i.e. intensity and exercises) and achieve greater strength gains when compared to a program that only varies the exercises." (Fonseca. 2014)

In the mean time, the Brazilian / US research team is yet spot on, when they say that "variations in training intensity are not critical to produce strength and muscle hypertrophy gains in the initial phase of a ST program." (Fonseca. 2014).

Specifically for rapid mass and even more so strength gains beginners and early advanced trainees (instead of trainees who hadn't touched a weight regular for at least 6 months, as it was the case in the study at hand), varying the the exercises and thus the stimulus mode instead of its intensity will yield significant gains and "seems to produce a more  complete  muscle  activation  hypertrophying  all  of  the  heads  of  multi-pennate muscles." (Fonseca. 2014)

References:

• Fonseca, RM, et al. "Changes in exercises are more effective than in loading schemes to improve muscle strength." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2014). Published Ahead of Print.
• Lamas, Leonardo, et al. "Effects of strength and power training on neuromuscular adaptations and jumping movement pattern and performance." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 26.12 (2012): 3335-3344.
• Laurentino, Gilberto Candido, et al. "Strength training with blood flow restriction diminishes myostatin gene expression." Med Sci Sports Exerc 44.3 (2012): 406-412.
• Wallerstein, Lilian França, et al. "Effects of strength and power training on neuromuscular variables in older adults." Journal of aging and physical activity 20.2 (2012): 171-85.

Tabata Workouts: Do They Work & How Energy-Demanding Are They? 14.5 Kcal/Min Sounds Nice, But You Must Earn It!

Tabata training is intense: So if you don't have the guts to do it on your own, find someone to suffer next to you. Trust me that'll keep you going, if you'd have long surrendered if you had trained alone. Some gyms even offer special courses.

Most of you will probably be familiar with the ultra-short + ultra-intense HIIT prescription that's known as the Tabata protocol. Not really? Well, here is the elevator pitch, then:  "Tabata training," was first described by the Japanese scientist Izumi Tabata in 1996. Tabata and his colleagues (Tabata.1996) conducted a study that compared moderate-intensity continuous training at 70% of maximal oxygen consumption (VO2max) for 60 minutes, with HIIT conducted at 170% of VO2max. The HIIT training consisted of eight, 20-second all-out exercise bouts followed by 10 seconds of rest for a total of 4 minutes of exercise. Based on what you have read about the contemporary HIIT research here at the SuppVersity, you will be aware that Tabata's protocol is more intense, but also much shorter than the currently favored HIIT regimen with their ~1-4min (sometime even 8min!) intervals at 80-100% intensity.

Now, the "original" study found that HIIT improved aerobic capacity to a similar degree as moderate intensity continuous training (aka LISS). Nevertheless, it did resulted in an impressive +28% increase in anaerobic capacity.

Tabata 2.0? Is it time for a modification?

Meanwhile Tabata training has evolved to include a variety of modes and exercises. What has always remained an essential characteristic of this type of HIIT training, though are the classic 20-10 patterns (i.e., 20 seconds of all-out effort followed by 10 seconds of rest).

According to Talisa Emberts, John Porcari , Scott Doberstein, Jeff Steffen and Carl Foster, the general physiological effects of this type of training are well documented. What would be lacking, however, is data on the the relative exercise intensity and energy expenditure of Tabata training (Emberts. 2013). Therefore, the purpose of the study at hand, which comes right from the labs of the Department of Exercise and Sport Science at the University of Wisconsin, was to determine the u exercise intensity and energy expenditure of a Tabata workout.

What did the scientists do?

In order to measure the energy expenditure, the researchers recruited 16 trained volunteers (8♂: 35.3 ± 8.1 years, 1.81 ± 0.06 m, 93.7 ± 8.70 kg, 53.2 ± 0.6 ml·kg·min -1; 8♀: 28.4 ± 9.3 years, 1.71 0.09 m, 71.9 ± 12.0 kg, 42.9 ± 11.3 ml·kg·min -1). After the usual initial fitness tests, each subject completed two identical workouts.

Table 1: .Exercises included in the 20-minute Tabata workout; each exercise was repeated twice at a ratio of 20 sec exercise/10 sec rest

• workouts consisted of four, 4-minute "segments".
• segments consisted of performing the exercises listed in table 1 twice in succession.  

• subjects completed as many repetitions of each exercise as possible in 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest.

• there was 1 minute of rest between each segment.  

As Emberts et al. point out, they "chose to do the four segments of Tabata in succession, since one of the criticisms of Tabata training has been that individuals cannot burn a sufficient number of calories in 4 minutes to favourably impact energy balance" (Emberts. 2013)

Figure 1: Energy expenditure per minute and total energy expenditure in 20 vs. 4 min TABATA studies (Emberts. 2013; Olsen. 2013)

A brief glimpse at the data in figure 1 goes to show you that the relative energy expenditure per minute was as impressive as in previous studies:

"Caloric expenditure averaged 14.5 ± 2.7 kcal·min -1 , which is very similar to the value found by Olsen (2013), who reported a slightly lower value of 13.4 kcal·min -1 . This was probably due to the fact that her study included 13 women and only 3 men. Total energy expenditure ranged from 240 to 360 kcals for the 20-minute workout, which is significantly higher than the estimated 54 kcals expended during the 4 minutes of exercise reported by Olson." (Emberts. 2013)

What was also impressive, though, was the rate of perceived exertion (RPE), which averaged 15.4  ±  1.3 for the two workouts and was that rated as "hard" by these already trained subjects. I mean, ask yourself what an untrained individual would have been telling you after high knee runs, plank punches, jumping jacks, side skaters, rope jumping, in/out boats, line jumps, push-ups, burpees, russian twists, squats, lunges, mt. climbers, push-ups, split squats and box jumps... right probably nothing: The average sedentary inhabitant of the Western Obesity Belt would simply have collapsed after two exercises ;-)

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If you are a pro (and I mean "are" and not think of yourself as one) looking for an intense workout that will help you cut body fat and gain muscle at the same time, look no further. The cross-fit protocol Smith et al. used in a study I wrote about earlier this year has what you are looking for - unfortunately it has a similarly insane intensity: "From 16% to 8% Body Fat in 10 Weeks: Crossfit Workout Gets The Leanest Shredded - But Only the Fittest Survive" (learn more).

240-360kcal/s in 20 min - is that worth it? It stands out of question that trained individuals who are willing and able to give their muscles and more importantly their central nervous system the recovery time they will need after these workouts will greatly benefit from the intensity of a Tabata routine like this. This is after all, the "uncomfort zone" in which someone with years of training experience under his / her belt can still enforce adaptation.

Contrary to the trained athlete, for whom the total amount of energy expenditure is secondary to proving new "growth" (the word refers to general growth as in increases not just in muscle power or size, but also overall conditioning) stimuli, the rookie and even many intermediate trainees are however going to be overwhelmed by the physical (some also by the mental) demands of this workout. For him / or her, a combination of strength training and LISS (rookie, or someone trying to cut weight) or strength training and "regular" HIIT (advanced trainee) may be thus in fact be  better choice. Not necessarily because it would burn more calories, but rather in view of the fact that it is not as overtraining prone as a 20min session of Tabata training.

References:

• Olson M. Tabata  interval  exercise:   Energy  expenditure and post-exercise responses. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 45. 2013; S420.
• Emberts T, Porcari J, Doberstein S, Steffen J, Foster C. Exercise Intensity and Energy Expenditure of a Tabata Workout. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. 2013; 12:612-613

Medium Intensity Interval Training (MIIT) Increases Fitness of Overweight Sedentary Women Slower, But Eventually Just As Effectively as HIIT. Neither Cuts Fat / Body Weight

It does not always have to be "all out", but 70% is probably the minimum for intervals - esp. for the non-obese.

If you know all SuppVersity articles by heart, the name Astorino may ring a bell. I mentioned a previous study by Todd A. Astorino in my 2012 article "Are You Still Burning Calories or Already Losing Fat? Study Shows: 5x15 Min HIIT Reduce Body Fat & Improve Fitness Twice as Effectively as 5x40min of Classic Cardio" (read more). In their most recent study, the researchers from the Department of Kinesiology at the California State University took another look at HIIT exercise for the average female US citizen, to be precise. And the observation they made is actually quite astonishing.

MIIT vs. HIIT: Can both be equally effective?

In this group of healthy sedentary (<1h/week of regular physical activity) women (n=30; age 18-40; BMI >35kg/m²) it did effectively not make a difference, whether the participants trained at a high or medium intensities.

As you can see in figure 1, over time, both workouts yielded the exact same increases in VO2Max (marker of cardiovascular fitness)., What is however significantly different is the slope and the general look of the VO2max graph.

Figure 1: Study design and results of the 12-week intervention; training was performed 3 days/week on a cycle
ergometer and consisted of 6–10 bouts of 1 min duration at the given intensities; the asterisk after the week # indicates that the intensity values were adapted to the increase in W-Max over the past weeks (Astorino. 2013)

While the latter is clearly logarithmic for the high intensity interval training arm (HIIT; intensities see figure 1, left), the MIIT (LO in figure 1) VO2Max development is much more linear and does not display the same ceiling effect you see in the HI group. It would thus be reasonable to argue that...

MIIT hits HIIT, but...

... it is VERY likely that this is a "overweight woman phenomenon". After all, the heart rate was essentially the same regardless of whether the ladies worked out at an average intensity of 176W (MIIT) or 202W.

Figure 2: Heart rate and workload develoment over the 12-week study period (Astorino. 2013)

At first that may seem odd, but to push your heart rate through the 200 mark, you actually need a pretty decent fitness level. If you have been sitting around your whole life, you will be up to 190bpm when you simply take the stairs instead of the elevator; and while this is no health benefit it makes the same walk in the park that's just a nasty way of locomotion for the average athletic person an intense workout for the morbidly obese.

And what do we know about "intense workout"? Right, those are the true "cardio workouts" adaptation does not happen in the comfort zone and it does not entail weight loss (!) - I don't know how often I have to repeat that, but weight loss happens in the kitchen. You can only steer and promote what and how much you lose by working out... but that's the topic of another article.

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"Men are different women, too..." We all know that, but can we still train together or will women have to do cardio first, while men would be better off starting out lifting weights? (learn more)

Bottom line: If you, family or friends are starting out to work out - keep things at a pace that's intense for YOU - not for whomever you are trying to emulate or you are training with. If there is one beauty of doing cardio in the gym instead of outside, it is that you can train right next to a friend at your personal intensity level.

So don't put a spoke into your own wheels by trying not too look bad in front of a friend. Stick to your own tempo and use yourself as a reference to judge your progress - and if the latter looks like the orange graph in figure 2 (right) you know you are on track, no matter what the absolute wattage (or RPMs) say.

References:

• Astorino TA, Schubert MM, Palumbo E, Stirling D, McMillan DW, Cooper C, Godinez J, Martinez D, Gallant R. Magnitude and time course of changes in maximal oxygen uptake in response to distinct regimens of chronic interval training in sedentary women. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2013 Sep;113(9):2361-9.

- 66% Body Fat! 7 Weeks of Intense (!) Exercise and Moderate (!) Caloric Restriction Transforms Biggest Losers into Healthy Winners. Improvements Persist 4 Month After.

Image 1: Coming soon
on NBC - the next season
of the Biggest Loser; this
time big couples

I don't know if you have followed the 'Biggest Loser" TV show. Other than the show itself, which I obviously must have missed (I still wonder how that could happen ;-), the recently published study (Ashmadi. 2011) on the effects combined intense exercise and moderate caloric restriction had on the 17 sedentary, morbidly obese contestants (32+/-11 years; 50/50 men/women), of which 3 were excluded from the study, because their arteries were not yet VERSTOPFT enough, really got my intention. After all, finally someone got the order of the words "intense" and "moderate" in relation to exercise and caloric restriction right... its no longer about starving yourself and walking from the couch to the refrigerator, when your weight has gone up into regions (>>300lbs+), where no man, god-beware woman, had gone before (I guess the introduction of high fructose corn syrup and trans-fats were to the average American what the Warp drive was for Captain Kirk ;-)...

In the three month, the show was aired, the participants who were voted off by their peers on a weekly base exercised 3.3 +/-2.1 h a day, of which only 50% were initially supervised. They received lectures on "exercise and general dietary measures" - which certainly did not match the quality of the information you are served on the SuppVersity on a daily base - and they were instructed to consume a diet with a macronutrient ratio of 30:45:35 (protein /carbohydrate / fat) that would provide them with at leas 70% of their resting daily energy expenditure (RDEE), which was (unfortunately) not measured but calculated by the following standard equation: RDEE = 21.6 x lean mass [in kg] + 370

Figure 1: Markers related to blood glucose, blood lipid, heart health and body composition of 14 morbidly obese participants of the "Biggest Loser" TV show 7 month after baseline (3 month after the show)
(data adapted from Ashmadi. 2011)

It really does not matter, whether you saw the visual results on TV or not, from the data I plotted in figure 1, alone, you can tell that the "big losers" really transformed their lives. Four months after the show was wrapped, the mean weight loss among the 14 subjects that were included in this study still amounted to >132lbs, of which more than 80% were fat - thank god, they got the order of intense and moderate right! What you could not see on the TV pictures, though, were the profound health effects:

serum insulin level (-52%), glucose (-21%), high-sensitivity CRP (-81%), HbA1c (-11%) [indicator of long term blood glucose levels], PAI-1 (-49%) [plasminogen activator inhibitor-1], TNFRII (-12%) [tumor necrosis factor receptor-II], and CIMT (-25%) [carotid intima media thickness]

Video 1: Stopping at 20s won't get you lean. Intensity in the gym, moderation in the kitchen. These are the keys to success - Bob, knew it all along. And you better don't make him angry ;-)

all decreased significantly, whereas the scientists recorded profound increases of positive markers of metabolic and heart health, such as a +132% improvement of the carotid artery distensibility index [CaDI], a whopping 344% and 94% increase in resistin and adiponectin, respectively and +73% higher levels of Lp(a).

While, as a diligent and well-informed student of the SuppVersity, you should not have learned anything completely new from the study, I bet you have a friend or relative who still has not got the attribution of intense exercise and moderate diet right and is just about to lose the last lbs of lean mass on the latest starvation diet from people magazine. In that case you better do it like Bob (see video 1) and tell him/her the way to go.

"Go Hard or Go Home?" Study Reveals Different Anabolic Signalling in Response to "Heavy" vs. "Medium" Intensity Leg Extensions at Different Times Under Tension

Working out ain't child's play, right? "Go Heavy or Go Home!" this is the mantra of true champions, but is it also the mantra of skeptical scientists?

I guess, it's important to say this first: The results of the study Daniil V. Popov et al. conducted at the Institute of Biomedical problems of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow need to be interpreted to have any relevance in terms of the question all of you keep asking yourselves: "What is the best training intensity to make fabulous gains?"

The data the Russian researchers offer is acute, not chronic. It's not based on muscle size measurements, but on the measurement of anabolic signalling proteins and the expression of MyoD, IGF-1, myostatin & co. We know that all of them are involved in the process of skeletal muscle hypertrophy, but even if all of them are elevated, this is not identical to muscle size increases as you would measure them in a long(er)-term study.

Learn more about effective training techniques at the SuppVersity

Optimizing Rest for Size and Strength Gains

When Rodents Squat, We Can Learn A Lot!

Farmer's Walk or Squat? Is Strong- men T. For You?

Full ROM ➯ Full Gains - Form Counts!

Battle the Rope to Get Ripped & Strong

Up Your Squat by 25% With Sodium Bicarbonate

I hope that the previous elaborations were detailed and convincing enough to increase your awareness of the limitation of the data I am about to cite.

Figure 1: Toque and angle during knee extensions in the high intensity (HI), medium intensity (MI) and medium intensity continuous tension trial (MIR) - the subjects did bilateral leg extensions (Popov. 2014)

Data that was recorded with 10 strength-trained athletes who performed high-intensity [HI, 74% of 1 repetition maximum (RM)], middle-intensity (MI, 54%1RM), or middle-intensity (54% 1RM) no-relaxation exercise (MIR; continous tension on the trained muscle).

"High intensity" vs. HIGH intensity: I am pretty sure most of you read my articles closely, for the rest it's important to note that the high intensity group trained at ~74% of the 1-RM - that's about 10 Reps to failure and actually not as heavy as some people may expect, when they hear "high intensity". Just remember one thing: Heavy ≠ intense - I see guys at my gym training with maximal weights and minimal intensity.

Figure 2: Changes in p21, MyoD, myostatin and MGF in response to each of the three training regimen (Popov. 2014)

The previously mentioned parameters were measured before, 45 min, 5h, and 20 h after exercise - you can see the results in Figure 2. The lactate concentration, which is not shown in Figure 2 was approximately 2-fold lower in the MI vs. the MIR & HI. It was the highest in the MIR session, and would thus coincide with the expression of the pro-anabolic protein p21 and the maximal early reduction in myostatin.

Over the course of the 24 study period, however, the high intensity trial yielded distinctively more pronounced anabolic effects.

A more pronounced and sustained elevation in p21, a maximal increase in MyoD, a marker of satellite cell (muscle precursor cell) activity, a significantly more pronounced increase in the intramuscular isform of IGF, i.e. MGF (learn more) and, last but not least, a sustained reduction of the muscle growth break myostatin.

Learn more about the fundamental signals that trigger and sustain muscle hypertrophy at the SuppVersity | more

Bottom line: The 24h+ reduction in myostatin in response to the high intensity trial alone would support the statement "Go Hard or Go Go Home!" In conjunction with the significant increase in MGF, the data Popov et al. present in their latest paper provide compelling evidence in favor of heavy resistance training as a means to trigger a maximal hypertrophy response - and that despite the fact that another often-measured indicator of skeletal muscle hypertrophy, i.e. ERK-1/2 (linked to protein synthesis) did not depend on exercise intensity and was thus identical for the similarly stressing MIR and HI trials.

As mentioned in the introduction, though, the acute changes in any of these measures are indicative of muscle growth, they are not identical to muscle growth. Thus, only a 6-12-week study with a training regimen that mimics the different training intensities could prove that high intensity is required to maximize muscle growth, when the basal stress is identical (i.e. HI would build more muscle than MIR).

References:

• Popov, Daniil V., et al. "The Influence of Resistance Exercise Intensity and Metabolic Stress on Anabolic Signaling and the Expression of Myogenic Genes in Skeletal Muscle." Muscle & nerve (2014).

Step By Step Guide to Your Own Workout Routine - Part III: Understanding the Role of Workload, Density and Intensity

Image 1: Simply copying Arnold's routine would probably be a bad idea, but copying the way he played with workload and density to achieve maximal intensity would be.

After reading Part I and Part II of the "Step By Step Guide to Your Own Workout Routine" on the last weekend and a whole week to think about your first / new own workout program, you should by now know

• how often and on which days you train (cf. part I), and
• what type of workout you perform on a given day (cf. part II)

Those of you who have not already done that may want to check out Adelfo's latest "own" workout plan, the details of which he explained in the last installment of his weekly guest-posts here at the SuppVersity, so that you get an idea of what I have already hinted at in the last installment: Despite that the number of possible workout regimen you could come up with is literally endless, your knowledge about your goals, your past training experiences and your personal preferences should always be reflected in your program design.

The logical next step: Set and rep prescriptions for your workouts

It goes without saying certain decisions you may have made in the last week will make at least part of the considerations regarding the total number of sets, the number of repetitions per set, the time-under-tension (TUT), the rest times between sets and many of the related, less important parameters obsolete. If, for example, you decided on a similar routine as Adelfo's week 1 EDT + 5x5 combo, you would not have to care about either the number of sets or reps, because both "workouts" (in this case the term refers to a the whole concept) include detailed prescriptions, i.e.

• "perform your superset for 20min with as many reps as you can" (EDT), and
• "do 5 sets of 5 reps to failure" (5x5)

While it would certainly be possible to modify these prescriptions that would leave you with something I like to call an XY-esque, as in EDT-esque or 5x5-esque workout. In the end, though, it does not even matter if you want to modify an existing routine to suit your current goals or come up with a new one, without at least a cursory understanding of the implications the number of exercises, sets, reps, TUT and weights you use will have on your results, it is pretty likely that the latter will at least be suboptimal - if not completely absent.

Tip #1: It is very well possible to modify any detailed workout prescription to suit your individual needs. Whenever you do that, you should yet keep in mind that whoever came up with the original workout probably had his reasons to incorporate for example 10 sets of 10 reps and not 10 sets of 3 reps. Or put more simply, if you change fundamental variables of a given routine - in the example at hand this would be using a strength specific rep-range in a workout routine that was designed primarily for hypertrophy gains - it usually is more prudent to start building your own routine from scratch instead of making one modification after the other to end up with an at best "suboptimal" routine (in many cases you will end up with a non-functional mutant, though).

Learning from the bros and checking with the pros

I guess, many of you will already be familiar with the most commonly cited principles of workout programing and in case you were expecting me to come up with revolutionary insights into what you may call the "workout 101", you have obviously overlooked that they were and still are the ones 90% of the successful weight lifters and bodybuilders adhere to.

Image 2: Unlikely that you won't find the information on the left somewhere in this incarnation of the Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding (img MuscleMag International). Why? The answer is simple: They work - as long as you choose and combine them correctly.

If you take a look at the inferior and oftentimes non-existent results many of the trainees have, although they know many of these "fundamentals"

• in and out of the gym in <60min
• less than 18-20 sets total
   
• 10-15 sets for the back and leg muscles*
• 6-9 sets for chest and shoulders*
• 4-8 sets for arms*
  *the numbers apply to bodypart split training
   
• 3-5 reps for strength
• 6-12 reps for hypertrophy
• 12-25 reps for strength endurance (+conditioning)

it does yet become obvious that there is more to getting stronger, building muscle and improve your conditioning than the knowledge of these simple rules.

And as awkward as it may seem, my personal experience tells me that in 75% of the cases, where trainees are not satisfied with the results their workout programs are generating, the underlying reasons is not following the rules. In that, I have found that the "in and out of the gym in <60min" rule and the "less than 18-20 sets total" rule, as well as the "6-9 set for chest and arms" and "4-8 sets for arms" rules appear to be among the favorite "does not apply to me" rules for the average trainee

Tip #2: Even though the most fundamental contributer to continuous progress is having a sound workout program, sticking to the plan is a very close second. And both, coming up with a new plan every week and just doing more than your plan prescribes are the worst enemies of your progress.

Pull the trigger and leave!

The reason for the widespread ignorance towards these rules is the very human misconception that more was always better. To understand why this is not the case, it may be useful to read up on the underlying physiological processes of skeletal muscle hypertrophy and increases in contractile force in the respective parts of the Intermittent Thoughts on Building Muscle series, here at the SuppVersity.

Figure 1: The intricacies of skeletal muscle hypertrophy. For all the details check out the preliminary summary of the Intermittent Thoughts on Building Muscle (click here to be redirected)

If you take a closer at figure 1 and remember what you have learned in the course of the series, it should be obvious that working is at the heart of all those processes that will make you stronger and more muscular, but its role is not that of a driving force, but that of a trigger.And just as you probably do not push the "on" button on your computer ten times to accelerate the time it takes for the system to boot, you should leave the gym at the very moment, where the signaling cascade has kicked in.

The primacy of intensity and how it relates to workload and density

Of the many factors which will determine how "long" it will take to initiate this cascade, the training workload (often also referred to as "volume"), the density and the intensity are not only the most important ones, they are also the ones you can deliberately control. "Optimal" results thusly requite that you align these factors with the ones you cannot manipulate directly, such as your age, your overall health, your current training status, the time you have to spare, etc. to match your current goals.

Image 3: German Olympic lifter Julia Rohde - do you still believe lifting heavy will make you "bulky"? (img sportzentrum-flora.de)

• Workload: Of these three variables the training "volume" is probably the most straight forward one, as it can be measured simply by the workload. Even if you are no physicist you should be aware that the work (w) is the total amount of force applied to the weith (F = mass x acceleration) times the way (S) you are moving it (W = F x S). In other words, if you carry a 50lbs stone 100m exerting the force of F = 50lbs * 10m/s² (where 10m/s² is the acceleration due to gravity), you have performed the same amount of work as someone who carries a 5lbs stone in his pocket while walking 1km. It should be obvious that this measure alone is of little value and I do still see people training set after set, staying in the gym for 2 hours, performing twice or thrice the amount of "work" I do and still stagnate in terms of strength and size gains.
   
• Density: If we use the previous example of carrying a stone, and think of ten steps you take as one rep, then the density of your "workout", i.e. carrying the 50lbs stone for 100m would be 10x higher than the one of the other person, because - if we assume that you walk at the same pace - you will be ready in 10x shorter timespan than the person who carries the 5lbs stone for 1000m.
   
• Intensity: Contrary to what you often see in the "intensity" column of many workout programs, the weight (often expressed relative to your one-repetition max, the 1RM; or as the maximal amount of weight you can lift for X repetitions, the 12RM, 6RM, etc.) is not the single determinant of the intensity of your workouts. A workout with little to no rest periods, light weights, high reps and a medium amount of sets can be as "intense" as one of Metzner's HIT workouts where you warm up for two sets perform one all out set and head home. 

The last example, which revolved around the notion that a Metzner HIT workout could be as intense as a more medium workload, high density workout actually brings up an important point: Regardless of what your goal may be - you must always train intense!

Tip #3: Planned periods of light lifting after likewise planned periods of deliberate overreaching (we will get to the issue of periodization in a future installment), aside, you should always try to do the one rep more or add another of those ridiculous 2.5lbs plate to the bar. If you do not push yourself, you cannot expect to push the envelope on the way you look and perform.

Science says: Many roads lead to Rome

With "intensity" being a prerequisite and goal-specificity (re-)emerges as the fundamental determinant particularly in view of the number of reps and sets to perform. Against that background it is also less confusing that you will find scientific evidence to support almost every of the initially mentioned pieces of common wisdom. In 1999, for example, Weiss et al. confirmed the common wisdom that a low (=4x 3-5RM) rep-scheme produces favorable increases in squat performance (strength) compared to 4x 13-15RM or 4x 23-25RM routines. Now, was this a result of the heavier weight alone? No, it was the mere consequence of the specificity of the program - after all, the performance on slowly performed leg-extensions was slow-velocity (~1-2s concentric and 1-2s eccentric phase) was maximal in the 13-15RM group (Weiss. 1999). 

Tip #4: Although this is somewhat of an anticipation, the intensity principle and its dependence on volume and density do also explain why most trainees see success with higher rep work in their ab routines. While you can argue that this is a consequence of the physiology of the rectus abdominis (click here to read about the most effective exercises in the SuppVersity EMG series) and the way it is used in the exercise most trainees perform, i.e. the crunch. With the minimal range of movement and the low weight, density, i.e. short to non-existent rest periods and high reps (like walking 1km vs. just 100m in our previous example) are a must to achieve the intensity that is necessary to pull the "growth trigger".

In tomorrows direct follow up to this third part of the "Step By Step Guide to Your Own Workout Routine" we will take a look at three concrete incarnations of this principles with some guidelines how to adapt total workload and density to allow you to train, recover and grow at full intensity ;-)

Block Periodization - Impressive Performance Gains in Pro-Athletes: Revolutionary Training Concept, Or Just a Good Way to Eventually Break Out of the Comfort Zone?

Block Periodization - Training revolution or simple trick? This is what we have to ask ourselves in view of these results.

With all the news and discussion about nutrition and dietary supplements, it's easy to lose sight of the significant impact even minor tweaks to your training routine may have on your results. The results of a recent study from the Lillehammer University College in Norway, for example, remind us all of the importance to periodize our training regimen. Now you could obviously randomly divide a year into cycles with different workout frequencies, intensities, volume, etc. It does yet go without saying that this is probably not the most promising approach to periodization.

What are good ways to periodize your training?

As B. R. Rønnestad, J. Hansen, S. Ellefsen point out in the introduction to their latest paper in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, there is yet a "paucity of studies" that would allow us to decide which of the myriad of possible periodization strategies works best.

You can learn more about periodization at the SuppVersity

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There is, for example, preliminary evidence that would suggest that block periodization is more effective than traditional periodization in improving performance (García-Pallarés. 2010), but this evidence is far from being conclusive and thus reason enough for the Norwegian scientists to conduct their own study to investigate

"the effects of a 1-week block of five HIT sessions, followed by a 3-week period of one HIT session per week and a naturally high volume of lowintensity training in trained cyclists." (Rønnestad. 2014)

And compare the results to those of a group of cyclists who employ a more traditional two HIT sessions per week organization while simultaneously performing a relatively high volume of low intensity training.

Mixed or exclusive periodization?

If you think in strength training terms you could probably say that we're comparing the nasty classic HST regimen with it's fixed strength-endurance, hypertrophy, strength blocks to a mixed mode regimen without a clear distinction between strength-endurance-, hypertrophy-, and strength-phases.

Different rules apply for increases in size and strength | learn more

Don't extrapolate data from trained cyclists to noobs and/or other athletes: At this point it's probably advisable to remind ourselves that we cannot extrapolate the results of this study to your own strength training regimen and/or cycling rookies who may achieve similar performance gains with either the classic mixed mode vs. blocked periodization regimen.

If your goals are strength and size, I highly suggest not to discard mixing things up, as it is done in undulating periodization regimen (learn more)

Much contrary to what we've seen in Spinetti's resistance training study from 2013 (learn more), the cyclists in the study at hand did capitalize on the strict separation of HIIT and steady state HIT and LISS training as it is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Weekly distribution of training in the different intensity zones during the intervention period for the block periodization group (BP) and the traditional group (TRAD; upper panel). The relative distribution of the training in the different intensity zones during the intervention period in the two intervention groups (lower panel; Rønnestad. 2014)

If you take into consideration that the "zones" represent the three heart rate (HR) zones: (1) 60–82%; (2) 83–87%; and (3) 88–100% of maximal HR. A brief glimpse at Figure 1 should suffice to see that the main difference between the two groups is the high intensity focus in week one in the blocked periodization (BP) group and the subsequent reduction of intensive training to an absolute minimum in weeks 2-4.

During these HIT sessions the participants in both groups alternated between 6x5 and 5x6 min in the intensity zone 3 (➲ all cyclists were instructed to perform each HIT session with the aim to produce the highest possible mean power output across intervals). The intervals were separated by 2.5- or 3-min recovery, respectively. This makes the actual mean power output of each HIT session an indicator of performance level.

Figure 2: Perceived well-being in the legs during the intervention period (Rønnestad. 2014) .

"In order to monitor the power output during HIT sessions, seven cyclists in the BP group and six cyclists in the TRAD group were equipped with a PowerTap SL 2.4 (CycleOps, Madison, WI, USA) mounted on the rear wheel. The PowerTap device is a valid and reliable power meter (Bertucci. 2005). Furthermore, in order to quantify how the training weeks affected the perceived well-being in the legs, the cyclists reported their perceived feelings on a 9-point scale, going fromvery very good to very very heavy after each training week (Fig. 2)." (Rønnestad. 2014)

Needless to say that the initial week took it's toll on the legs of the 21 trained male cyclists with 6 ± 4 years of competitive cycling experience in the cycling shorts (data from two dropouts due to illness was excluded).

Figure 3: Maximal power, maximal oxygen uptake and average power output of the cyclists after the intervention expressed relative to baseline (Rønnestad. 2014)

Is it all about breaking out of the comfort zone? Likewise neeedless (?), but probably still worth mentioning is that they had to break out of their comfort zone during these initial 7 days of intense training, which were so different to their previous  9 ± 3 h per week of low-intensity endurance training, with no HIIT component in it. Against that background we must ask ourselves if the impressive performance gains you see in Figure 3 are a simple result of a novel training stimulus, or the consequence of this specific (i.e. blocked periodization) trainning stimulus.

So, is what we see in the study at hand the effect of the adaptation to the unconditioned stress initial HIIT week or is it a result of clever periodization?

If you asked me, it's the former - a result of one week of high intensity interval training. A result as it was observed by Lindsay et al. (1996), Westgarth-Taylor et al. (1997), Laursen et al. (2002), Swart et al. (2009) or Driller et al. (2009) in cyclists and other highly trained athletes. The take home message is thus not that mixing things up sucks, but the simple truth that you got to push beyond what your body is used to to trigger adaptation.

Reference:

• Bertucci, William, et al. "Validity and reliability of the PowerTap mobile cycling powermeter when compared with the SRM device." International journal of sports medicine 26.10 (2005): 868-873.
• García-Pallarés, Jesús, et al. "Performance changes in world-class kayakers following two different training periodization models." European journal of applied physiology 110.1 (2010): 99-107.
• Laursen, Paul B., Michelle A. Blanchard, and David G. Jenkins. "Acute high-intensity interval training improves Tvent and peak power output in highly trained males." Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology 27.4 (2002): 336-348.
• Lindsyay, Fiona H., et al. "Improved athletic performance in highly trained cyclists after interval training." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 28.11 (1996): 1427-1434. 
• Rønnestad, B. R., J. Hansen, and S. Ellefsen. "Block periodization of high‐intensity aerobic intervals provides superior training effects in trained cyclists." Scand J Med Sci Sports 24 (2014): 34–42.
• Spinetti J, et al. Comparison Between Different Periodization Models On Muscular Strength And Thickness In A Muscle Group Increasing Sequence. Rev Bras Med Esporte. 2013; 19(4)
• Swart, Jeroen, et al. "Effects of high-intensity training by heart rate or power in well-trained cyclists." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.2 (2009): 619-625..  
• Westgarth-Taylor, Christopher, et al. "Metabolic and performance adaptations to interval training in endurance-trained cyclists." European journal of applied physiology and occupational physiology 75.4 (1997): 298-304.