MUSCLE. Report. Volume 3 Issue 11. The latest Scientific Discoveries in the Fields of Resistance Exercise, Nutrition and Supplementation.

Transcription

1 MUSCLE Report Volume 3 Issue 11 The latest Scientific Discoveries in the Fields of Resistance Exercise, Nutrition and Supplementation.

2 It s wise to avoid soy pre-workout Soy has a pretty bad reputation among athletes with fears that it will cause testosterone levels to plummet and estrogen levels to rise. This was the subject of a Muscle Building Science Special Report which investigated the evidence between soy consumption and hormone profiles. Anyone who has read this report would be aware that the existing evidence is far from conclusive. There is certainly some research showing that soy consumption can negatively influence testosterone levels however the vast majority of the evidence fails to support such a conclusion. With soy being such a potentially damaging food for athletes you would expect this group to be the focus of intense research however this is not the case. Only one study can be identified in the scientific literature looking at the effects of supplementing with soy protein as part of a resistance exercise program 1. At the conclusion of this 12 week study it was found that supplementing with 50g/day (25g twice per day) of soy protein had no effect on testosterone or estrogen levels. The group taking soy protein increased their lean body mass almost as much as those taking whey protein. This suggests that soy protein does not influence hormone levels and can be an effective supplement for weight training athletes. A new study has reignited the debate and again brings into question the safety of soy. In this 14 day study volunteers participated in a resistance training program that was supplemented with 20g of whey protein isolate, soy protein isolate or a placebo taken 20 minutes preworkout. Blood samples were taken immediately before the protein supplement was consumed, midway through the workout, immediately after and at 5, 15, 30 and 60 minutes post-workout. The data shows that the soy supplement group had a significantly lower rise in testosterone levels immediately post-workout and at the 5, 15 and 30 minute marks compared to both the whey protein and placebo groups. At 60 minutes post-workout, testosterone levels were approximately equal among all three groups. This suggests that supplementing with 20g of soy protein 20 minutes before a workout can partially suppress the post-workout testosterone increase. What makes soy such a concern are its high concentrations of phytoestrogens. These plantbased estrogens can bind with human estrogen receptors and as such display estrogen-like activity 2. The question is though, why do two seemingly similar studies have completely different conclusions? The study by Kalman et al 1 had volunteers consume 2.5 times the amount of soy protein compared to those in the present study yet observed no change in testosterone. The quantity of phytoestrogens consumed by the subjects in the Kalman study was 49mg/day (soy protein isolate) and 138mg/day (soy protein concentrate). This is far greater than the 26.3mg/day consumed by the subjects in the present study. If anything it would be expected that the study by Kalman et al 1 would be more likely to see a negative effect on hormone levels yet none were observed. A possible explanation may lie in the time the supplements were taken in relation to training and blood analysis.

3 In the present study the supplements were consumed 20 minutes before training. In the Kalman study one dose of the soy supplement was consumed within 1 hour post-workout and the second at a random time later the same day. The Kalman study had blood drawn from the volunteers in the morning following an overnight fast while the present study had blood drawn immediately before, during and after training at regular intervals for one hour. This makes the present study far superior for examining the acute effects of soy protein supplementation on hormone levels. The Kalman study on the other hand is useful as it examines the chronic effects of soy protein supplementation on hormone levels. Kalman et al 1 failed to find any hormone disturbance because the blood was drawn from the volunteers at a time when the effects of the phytoestrogens had worn off. If we combine the results of these two studies it tells an interesting story of what soy might really be doing to the body. From the results of the present study it is clear that a soy protein supplement consumed within 20 minutes of commencing a workout can reduce the postworkout increase in testosterone for up to one hour. Is this reduced increase in post-workout testosterone detrimental to long-term progress though? The present study does not answer this question however the results of the study by Kalman et al 1 suggest the answer is no. Despite the fact the volunteers in this study consumed their soy supplement post-workout the results do suggest that consuming 50g/day of a soy protein supplement as part of a 12 week resistance exercise program does not appear to inhibit the hypertrophic response. This is certainly not the end of the soy debate as many more questions remained to be answered. For example does the amount of soy consumed pre-workout influence the degree of testosterone inhibition? If an athlete was to consume soy throughout the day from sources other than supplements (such as tofu, soy beans or soy drink) would this chronic daily consumption inhibit the long-term hypertrophic response? What would be the long term effects of consuming a pre-workout soy protein supplement? While these and many more questions certainly need to be answered they are also irrelevant for the typical weight training athlete. Unless you are on a vegan diet or have some sort of allergy or intolerance to dairy proteins, you are unlikely to intentionally consume a soy protein supplement. If you are such an individual then there are alternative plant-based supplements such as rice, pea and hemp proteins. If you do prefer soy for whatever reason then the existing evidence shows that moderate consumption is unlikely to do you or your training any harm in the short term. 1. Kalman, D, Feldman, S, Martinez, M, Krieger, D, Tallon, M Effect of protein source and resistance training on body composition and sex hormones. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 4:4. 2. Xiap, C Health Effects of Soy Protein and Isoflavones in Humans. Journal of Nutrition. 138(6). 1244S-1249S.

4 A supplement that delivers more than you expect When an athlete takes a supplement they do so in the belief that the list of ingredients labelled on the product is a true and accurate reflection of what they are putting in their bodies. Unless you have access to a laboratory capable of performing complex drug and chemical testing you simply have to put faith in the manufacturer that they are doing the right thing. A new report published in Drug Testing and Analysis may have you thinking twice about the supplements you are currently taking. A multinational research team has identified a potentially dangerous drug in a pre-workout supplement called Craze. Three different samples were purchased in the US and Europe and all were found to contain the methamphetamine analog N,α-diethyl-phenylethylamine. An analog is simply a drug that shares a similar structure and properties with a parent drug. N,αdiethyl-phenylethylamine is structurally similar to methamphetamine however its effects are unknown as it has never been studied in humans according to the authors of the report. Separate from this study, Korean investigators also identified N,α-diethyl-phenylethylamine in samples of Craze. How this drug came to be in the supplement is unknown and not surprisingly it is not listed as an ingredient. This suggests a problem lies with either the company s manufacturing or quality control processes. It is tempting to think of this as an isolated incident however another study published last month 1 gives further cause for concern. When researchers tested 44 herbal products they found 59% contained ingredients not included on the label, 33% contained undeclared fillers such as soy and 68% contained substituted ingredients. These results raise serious concerns about the supplement industry and the products that are being produced. Many manufacturers are clearly doing the right thing by their consumers however others are obviously not. A recent survey 2 found that 70% of respondents were influenced in their purchasing decisions by supplements that declared they contained no banned substances, 50% considered the information labels on supplements to be important and 40% were influenced by the list of ingredients on a supplement label. This shows that many people look beyond the advertising hype around a supplement and take an active interest in the supplements composition. The biggest lesson to take from these two studies is that reading the list of ingredients is no guarantee that is what you will be putting in your body. Everyone has the right to know exactly what they are consuming and it is disappointing that some manufacturers are betraying the trust of their consumers. 1. Newmaster, S, Grguric, M, Shanmughanandhan, D, Ramalingam, S, Ragupathy, S DNA barcoding detects contamination and substitution in North American herbal products. BMC Medicine. 11:222. Published online 11 October. 2. Gabriels, G, Lambert, M Nutritional supplement products: does the label information influence purchasing decisions for the physically active. Journal of Nutrition. 12:133.

5 Effects of caffeine determined by weight lifted Regular readers of the Muscle Report will be aware that the evidence surrounding caffeine as a performance enhancing drug is contradictory and inconclusive. Contrary to what supplement manufacturers would have you believe, the perception that a pre-workout caffeine hit will improve your strength, power and endurance simply is not evidence based. While some studies 1 have demonstrated a positive effect of caffeine on workout performance, others have found no effect 2. Possible explanations for the contradictory results include individual sensitivities to caffeine 1, dose 3 and even body fat levels 4. A new study has now shown that it may be a combination of dose and workout intensity that determines any performance-enhancing effect of caffeine. In this study a group of experienced weight training athletes performed bench presses and squats at 25%, 50%, 75% and 90% of their 1-repetition maximum following caffeine ingestion at progressively increasing levels. It was found that consuming caffeine at 3mg/kg body weight was sufficient to increase muscle power output at 25% 1-repetition maximum for both exercises. At 90% 1- repetition maximum a caffeine dose of 9mg/kg body weight was needed to elicit an increase in muscle power output for both exercises. This suggests that trying to identify a single number as the optimum dose of caffeine to improve workout performance is futile. The quantity of caffeine needed to improve your muscle power output may very well depend on the load you are lifting. One limitation of this study is that it only looked at single sets. Given that weight training routines employ multiple sets of multiple exercises the results of this study do not give any indication as to whether or not the increase in muscle power output at 9mg/kg of caffeine would be maintained for an entire workout. Another drawback is that almost 2 out of 3 participants suffered from adverse side effects at the higher caffeine dose. 1. Duncan, M, Oxford, S The Effect of Caffeine Ingestion on Mood State and Bench Press Performance to Failure. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 25(1): Astorino, T, Martin, B, Schachtsiek, L, Wong, K, Ng, K Minimal Effect of Acute Caffeine Ingestion on Intense Resistance Training Performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 25(6): Del Coso, J, Salinero, J, Gonzalez-Millan, C, Abian-Vicen, J, Perez-Gomez, B Dose response effects of a caffeine-containing energy drink on muscle performance: a repeated measures design. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 9(21). 4. Skinner, T, Jenkins, D, Leveritt, M, McGorm, A, Bolam, K, Coombes, J, Taaffe, D. Factors influencing serum caffeine concentrations following caffeine ingestion. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. Published online 9 August 2013.

6 Muscle growth is not as straight forward as you think Following a workout you likely envisage your entire muscle growing. For example, after a triceps workout you may imagine the whole muscle from the elbow to under your armpit getting bigger. Japanese researchers have dismissed this idea of uniform muscle growth by demonstrating that following 12 weeks of triceps training muscle hypertrophy was greater in the middle part of the muscle compared to the outer sections of the muscle. Even though the triceps muscles only were used in this study it does demonstrate an important physiological principal that applies to all muscles: hypertrophy does not occur uniformly along the entire length of a muscle. This was also the conclusion of another study published this month 1 which found 12 weeks of quadriceps training resulted in different degrees of hypertrophy at different points along the muscles. A possible explanation for the non-uniform hypertrophy could be that exercises do not place a uniform stress along the entire length of a muscle. Those areas of the muscle that have the greatest levels of stress applied to them would likely produce the greatest hypertrophic response. So what does this mean for your training? The results suggest that maximum hypertrophy requires the use of different exercises that place stress on different parts of the muscle. This is standard practice for individuals engaged in a bodybuilding type program and there is some evidence supporting this approach. A 2011 study 2 found that varying the position of the feet during calf raises stimulated different parts of the gastocnemius muscle. This provides evidence that muscle fibres are not stressed equally during a particular exercise. In accordance with this present study the different levels of stress applied along the length of the muscle results in different rates of hypertrophy along that muscle. Training your muscles with different exercises and different angles should therefore result in more balanced growth. 1. Ema, R, Wakahara, T, Miyamoto, N, Kanehisa, H, Kawakami, Y Inhomogenous architectural changes of the quadriceps femoris induced by resistance training. European Journal of Applied Physiology.113(11): Riemann, BL, Limbaugh, GK, Eitner, JD & LeFavi, RG Medial and Lateral Gastocnemius Activation During Heel-Raise exercise with Three Different Foot Positions. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Vol. 25. No

7 First it didn t work now maybe it does Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) is what our muscles use to power their contractions. The body is only able to store a limited amount however our supplies are never exhausted thanks to an efficient recycling system that is constantly producing it. Given the limited ATP stores in the body and its crucial role in powering our muscles it seems logical that increasing the levels of ATP in the body should result in greater physical performance. This logic however is contradicted by the evidence. The May 2012 issue of the Muscle Report discussed research showing that an orally administered adenosine tri-phosphate (ATP) supplement did not increase ATP levels in the body. This supported the findings of another study 1 which found taking an ATP supplement 1 hour prior to exercise did not improve muscle strength or endurance. This all suggests that ATP supplements provide no ergogenic benefit at all and are waste of money. The one limitation of these two studies is that they only looked at the acute effects of ATP supplementation. Simply because no immediate effect was observed does not necessarily mean that there would also be no long-term benefit. This was the question asked by an international collaboration of researchers. They found that consuming 400mg of an oral ATP supplement as part of a 12 week resistance training program does result in greater training adaptations. The group taking the supplement gained more than twice as much strength in the squat, bench press and deadlift compared to the placebo group. The supplement group also gained twice as much lean body mass and increased their muscle power output more than the placebo group. The ATP supplement also appeared to provide a level of protection against performance decrements induced by overtraining. This completely contradicts the two previous studies by suggesting that taking an ATP supplement as part of a 12 week resistance training program does produce greater training adaptations. So why the contradictory results? There is no clear answer for this question. The present study only looked at the long-term effects of ATP supplementation and did not compare the effects during individual workouts. This raises the question of whether the enhanced results were due to the ATP supplement increasing workout performance, resulting in a greater stimulus and subsequent hypertrophic response or it worked through some other mechanism. Another thing to consider is that each of the studies utilized a different supplement. It is possible that this latest study used a supplement with a formulation that allowed greater bioavailability. Whatever the reason, this latest study shows that an ATP supplement can enhance resistance training adaptations over a 12 week training period. 1. Herda, T, Ryan, E, Stout, J, Cramer, J Effects of a supplement designed to increase ATP levels on muscle strength, power output and endurance. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 5(3).

8 When is a set not a set? When it s a mini-set! For the typical weight training athlete a set of a particular exercise involves performing a certain number of repetitions then resting before launching into the second set. For example, a bench press workout may involve 4 sets of 6-8 repetitions each with a couple of minutes rest between each set. This type of straight set progression is what everyone is taught when they first venture into the world of weight training. Research is showing however that this type of set scheme may not be the most effective way to build strength and power. Another, more effective approach involves performing exactly the same amount of total work but breaking your sets up into smaller mini sets. Take the previous example of 4 sets of 6-8 bench press repetitions with two minutes rest between each set. Another approach would be to perform 8 sets of 3-4 repetitions with the same weight with 60 seconds rest between each set. This may seem deceptively easy because you are stopping each of the sets well before your muscles even come close to exhaustion. At first glance terminating a set so early seems counterintuitive to what our instincts tells us we should be doing in the gym: pushing ourselves as hard as we can on every rep of every set. A recent study compared straight sets and mini sets during a 12 week resistance training program. All volunteers performed exactly the same amount of work (weight x repetitions) in the same amount of time during each workout. The straight set group performed 4 sets of 10 repetitions with 2 minutes rest between sets while the mini set group performed 8 sets of 5 reps with 1 minutes rest between set. At the conclusion of the study the individuals performing the mini sets had gained significantly more strength and power compared to the straight sets group. Both groups gained equivalent amounts of muscle. This suggests that performing mini sets is a superior training strategy for increasing strength and power without impacting on hypertrophic gains. A possible explanation for the greater increases in strength and power is that mini sets allow for greater muscular power to be generated on each repetition compared to straight sets 1. This is significant because high velocity repetitions have been shown to produce greater increases in strength compared to performing them at a slower speed 2. Another key point to come out of this study is that muscle hypertrophy is not determined by the number of repetitions performed in each set or how close your muscles come to failure on each set. Rather, the results suggest that the volume of work your muscles have to perform is the key factor that determines the hypertrophic response. 1. Lawton, T, Cronin, J, Lindsell, R Effect of interrepetition rest intervals on weight training repetition power output. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 20(1): Padulo, J, Mignogna, P, Mignardi, S, Tonni, F, D Ottavio, S Effect of Different Pushing Speeds on Bench Press. International Journal of Sports Medicine. 33(5)

9 Repetition velocity: how fast is too fast? The previous discussion mentioned how high velocity repetitions produce greater increases in strength compared to slower velocity repetitions. This simple statement could easily lead one to believe that performing repetitions as fast as possible would lead to maximum results. It is a mistake to assume this as repetition velocity is a double-edged sword. While performing repetitions in a fast manner has been shown to elicit greater increases in strength researchers have found that hormonal responses are also strongly influenced by the speed at which repetitions are performed. Volunteers performed 4 sets of squats and 4 sets of leg presses with 8 repetitions per set at 80% of their 1 repetition maximum under 3 different protocols: maximum velocity repetitions, 70% maximum velocity and 70% maximum velocity with a 10% greater training volume. All protocols elicited an increase in testosterone and growth hormone however training with 70% maximum velocity resulted in higher growth hormone levels. Maximum velocity repetitions produced an increase in cortisol while at 70% there was no increase in cortisol. These results suggest that training with maximum velocity repetitions is probably not a good idea. The increased cortisol levels it produces could interfere with long-term training adaptations. Performing repetitions at a fast speed can produce greater increases in strength however there is a limit on how fast you should be training.

10 It s wise to avoid soy pre-workout References Kraemer, W, Solomon-Hill, G, Volk, B, Kupchak, B, Looney, D, Dunn-Lewis, C, Comstock, B, Szivak, T, Hooper, D, Flanagan, S, MAresh, C, Volek, J. The Effects of Soy and Whey Protein Supplementation on Acute Hormonal Responses to Resistance Exercise in Men. Journal of the American College of Nutrition (1): A supplement that delivers more than you expect Cohen, P, Travis, J, Venhuis, B. A methamphetamine analog (N,α-diethyl-phenylethylamine) identified in a mainstream dietary supplement. Drug Testing and Analysis. Published online 14 October Effects of caffeine determined by weight lifted Pallares, J, Fernandez-Elias, V, Ortega, J, Munoz, G, Munoz-Guerra, J, Mora-Rodriguez, R. Neuromuscular Responses to Incremental Caffeine Doses: Performance and Side Effects. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (11): Muscle growth is not as straight forward as you think Wakahara, T, Fukutani, A, Kawakami, Y, Toshimasa, Y. Nonuniform Muscle Hypertrophy: Its Relation to Muscle Activation in Training Session. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise (11): First it didn t work now maybe it does Wilson, J, Joy, J, Lowery, R, Roberts, M, Lockwood, C, Manninen, A, Fuller, J, De souza, E, BAier, S, Wilson, S, Rathmacher, J. Effects of oral adenosine-5 -triphosphate supplementation on athletic performance, skeletal muscle hypertrophy and recovery in resistance-trained men. Nutrition & Metabolism :57. When is a set not a set? When it s a mini-set! Oliver, J, JAgim, A, Sanchez, A, Mardock, M, Kelley, K, Meredith, H, Smith, G, Greenwood, M, Parker, J, Riechman, S, Fluckey, J, Crouse, S, Kreider, R. Greater Gains in Strength and Power With Intraset Rest Intervals in Hypertrophic Training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (11): Repetition velocity: how fast is too fast? Smilios, I, Tsoukos, P, Zaferiridis, A, Spassis, A, Tokmakidis, S. Hormonal responses after resistance exercise performed with maximum and sub-maximum movement velocities. Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism. Published online 02 October 2013.