Revisiting Caffeine + Lactate - In Combination They May be Powerful Muscle Builders Which Boost Satellite Cell Activity + Anabolic Signalling And Trigger Muscle Hypertrophy - SuppVersity: Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Revisiting Caffeine + Lactate - In Combination They May be Powerful Muscle Builders Which Boost Satellite Cell Activity + Anabolic Signalling And Trigger Muscle Hypertroph

High intensity
training builds muscle and maximizes lactate build up. Caffeine helps
you to train at maximal intensities. Correct, but there appears to be a
more direct link between lactate accumulation, caffeine supplementation
and skeletal muscle hypertrophy.

No, you are not mistaken: The headline says and means that caffeine and
lactate are powerful agents that may promote skeletal muscle hypertrophy
by boosting satellite cell activity and anabolic signalling in favor of
muscle hypertrophy.



After a thorough review of the existing literature discussing the
individual effects of caffeine and lactate on skeletal muscle metabolism
and anabolism, Yoshimi Oishi and colleagues from the Ritsumeikan University
hypothesized that "a lactate-based supplement containing caffeine, an
activator of intracellular calcium signals, could elicit proliferation
and differentiation of satellite cells, activate anabolic signals in
skeletal muscle, and thereby increase muscle mass when combined with
low-intensity exercise training."



Study Indicates Cut the Volume Make the Gains! 



Well, you already know that they were able to proof their hypothesis,
right? Let's still take a look at how they did that - at least briefly:

"To assess this hypothesis, we initially examined whether lactate and/or
lactate-caffeine treatment could elicit proliferation and differentiation of satellite cells or
activate anabolic signals in C2C12 skeletal muscle cells. Furthermore, we examined
whether the administration of a mixed lactate and caffeine compound (LC compound),
concomitant with endurance exercise training, could effectively increase muscle mass
via activated satellite cells and/or anabolic signals in rat skeletal muscle" (Oishi. 2015)

I know, the human study is missing, but if you think about the
intensity dependent increase in lactate production it appears logical to
assume that increasing lactate levels which as previously been shown
to...

• upregulate the expression of MCT1 and genes coding for other
  components of the mitochondrial reticulum in skeletal muscle (Brooks.
  2009)
• increase myogenin (the satellite cell activator) mRNA in skeletal muscle cells in the petri dish (Hashimoto. 2007)

Now, this raises the question how calcium comes into play. According to
Oishi et al. its beneficial effects are related the ability of caffeine
supplements to increase the amount of intracellular calcium (Lu. 2007),
which activates
calcineurin, which will in turn induce slow and
fast fiber hypertrophy (Talmadge. 2008) - unfortunately, this effect
appears to favor type I (=endurance fiber) over type II hypetrophy, but
this may well depend on the trigger that's used, i.e. endurance training
as it was the case in a rodent study by Talmadge et al. or your
strength workouts.

Figure 1: Graphical illustration of the mechanism by which caffeine and lactate may increase your gains.

Too complicated? Well, check out my graphical summary in Figure 1.
I guess this should explain the basic mechanism: Lactate up = increase
satellite cell proliferation = hotbed for muscle hypertrophy + calcium
up = increased calcineurin = trigger for increased hypertrophy.

Bicarbonate
supplementation buffers the decline in muscle pH and allows for 15%
greater increases in lactate levels while still increasing training
performance on a high volume, high intensity leg workout | read more

High intensity = high lactate, high intensity + bicarbonate = even higher lactate: The study at hand used lactate + caffeine supplementation and low
intensity exercise. With high intensity exercise the increase the
usefulness of additional lactate supplements may be significantly
reduced, because higher intensity equals higher lactate accumulation
anyway. As a previously discussed study on high intensity high volume
leg training indicates, this effect can be augmented by sodium bicarbonate
supplementation which allows for increased lactate levels in the
absence of the debilitating effects of skeletal muscle acidosis (read more).

In the study at hand, the researchers quantified the effects on skeletal
muscle hypertrophy by weighing the gastrocnemius and tibialis muscle of
the rodents after 4 weeks of treadmill training and the effects on
muscle restructuring via incorporation of new muscle nuclei (learn more)
by measuring the increase in DNA content from exercise training alone
and exercise training in conjunction with lactate + caffeine
supplementation.

Figure 2:
Exercise and exercise + supplementation induced changes in muscle weight
and DNA content of skeletal muscle in mice exposed to four weeks of low
intensity treadmill running (Oishi. 2015).

As the data in Figure 2 indicates, both muscle hypertrophy and
the exercise induced increase in satellite cell activity were further
augmented by the addition of lactate and caffeine in dosages of 1g/kg
sodium-lactate and 36mg/kg caffeine.



In conjunction with the likewise observed increases in myogenin and
follistatin expression of the fast twitch (that's what you use for
lifting weights) gastrocnemius muscle relative to the exercise alone,
the results of the study at hand clearly warrant the scientists
conclusion that the administration of sodium lactate and caffeine "can
effectively increase muscle mass concomitant with elevated numbers of
myonuclei, even with low-intensity exercise training, via activated
satellite cells and anabolicsignals" (Oishi. 2015).

So, what does this mean in practice? Assuming the same effects
would occur in human beings the effective dosages of sodium lactate and
caffeine would be 81mg/kg and 2.9mg/kg, respectively. Practically
speaking you would have to take ~6.5g of sodium lactate and 232mg of
caffeine.

Remember? Study suggests, significant increases in mitochondrial builder PGC1-a with HIIT + sodium bicarbonate | read more

That's quite a reasonable amount and should not have nasty side effects.
Whether the sodium lactate offers additional benefits to trainees who
work out far beyond the lactate threshold (remember: the rodents did
only "light exercise"), remains questionable. The same goes for the
question whether the addition of sodium bicarbonate would elicit similar
beneficial effects on the lactate induced increase in satellite
activity. In view of the fact that previous studies show that it does
potentiate the beneficial effects on another albeit not directly related
marker of mitochondrial changes in muscle structure, namely PGC-alpha
(see previous SuppVersity article), I personally believe this would be worth investigating | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Brooks, George A. "Cell–cell and intracellular lactate shuttles." The Journal of physiology 587.23 (2009): 5591-5600.
• Hashimoto, Takeshi, et al. "Lactate sensitive transcription factor
  network in L6 cells: activation of MCT1 and mitochondrial biogenesis."
  The FASEB Journal 21.10 (2007): 2602-2612.
• Lu, Ying-Mei, et al. "Imbalance between CaM kinase II and
  calcineurin activities impairs caffeine-induced calcium release in
  hypertrophic cardiomyocytes." Biochemical pharmacology 74.12 (2007):
  1727-1737. 
• Oishi, Yoshimi, et al. "Mixed lactate and caffeine compound
  increases satellite cell activity and anabolic signals for muscle
  hypertrophy." Journal of Applied Physiology (2015): jap-00054.
• Talmadge, Robert J., et al. "Calcineurin activation influences
  muscle phenotype in a muscle-specific fashion." BMC cell biology 5.1
  (2004): 28.

What a Diet of 70% Saturated Fat Does to your Body -

What a Diet of 70% Saturated Fat Does to your Body -

Posted on June 30, 2013 by Chad Cochran • 15 Comments

When
describing how one should eat I always start out with an evolutionary
explanation. I inform my listener how for hundreds of thousands of years
our nomadic ancestors followed herd animals and gathered roots and
tubers to supplement their diet. Whenever a hunt was successful they
would consume the entire edible portion of the animal because the next
kill was never guaranteed. Taking all edible portions of the animals
into consideration, including the brain, bone marrow, suet, ect., the
caloric density of the animal is around 75% fat. Therefore our diets
would have evolved in the majority of fat.

If this explanation does not persuade my
listener, I then attack it from a physiological approach. I describe the
gylcemic index of foods and how the pancreas secretes insulin in
response to blood sugar. I explain how fat has the opposite effect of
carbohydrates on your insulin response and allows your body to burn
triglycerides for energy. I systematically break down how it is not
physically possible to become fat from eating saturated fat.

After all my efforts I still frequently get
the response “But doesn’t eating all that fat make you fat?” So here is
my next attempt in convincing the skeptics. Anecdotal proof. I have
been eating a diet of 70% saturated fat for the past three years and
here is what is has done to my body. In addition to looking great I feel
amazing. Come to our gym and witness it for yourself firsthand. Better
yet, come to our gym and allow us to change your life forever.

Filed Under: Article

The Super-Short Workout and Other Fitness Trends - NYTimes.com

The Super-Short Workout and Other Fitness Trends - NYTimes.com

By Gretchen Reynolds

December 31, 2014 12:01 am
December 31, 2014 12:01 am

Photo

Credit Brandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times, Willie Davis for The New York TImes and Buda Mendes/Getty Images

The big story in exercise science this year was the super-short workout.

In one particularly
useful study from May, scientists found that three brief sessions per
day of interval-style exercise — consisting of one minute of brisk
walking followed by another minute of strolling, repeated six times —
allowed people at risk of diabetes to control their blood sugar better
than a continuous 30-minute walk.

Just as important, these short “exercise snacks,”
as the scientists called the condensed sessions, were more popular with
the study’s participants than the single, longer walk, the scientists
reported. They liked finishing quickly.

That sentiment likewise explains the popularity of the “Scientific 7-Minute Workout,” which I first wrote about in 2013 and updated this fall with an advanced version and a related app. Similarly, many of you were intrigued by a July study detailing how running as little as five minutes a day
might add years to someone’s life span. “Most people can fit in five
minutes a day” of exercise, one of the study’s authors told me.

But should even that time commitment seem excessive, scientists obligingly developed and tested a one-minute workout
this year, with three 20-second intervals of very hard exercise leading
to robust improvements in the endurance and health of the study’s
overweight, out-of-shape volunteers.

There is naturally a
catch to such truncated workouts, however. In each of these studies, the
exertion involved was intense. The volunteers panted and strained,
albeit briefly. Their strenuous exercise seemed to invoke “more potent”
physiological responses than gentler activity, one of the researchers
involved in the exercise-snacking study said.

A nifty June study helps to explain why. In that experiment,
mice that were pushed to run hard on running wheels developed
distinctly different biochemical responses within their muscle cells
than other animals and these differences translated into larger,
healthier muscles. The study’s lesson, its lead author concluded, is
that sometimes you need to “get out of your body’s comfort zone.” But
only, thankfully, for a minute or five.

Activate The Chest When You Bench Press | NattyOrNot.com

Activate The Chest When You Bench Press | NattyOrNot.com

On paper the bench press is supposed to
be a chest, triceps and shoulder exercise. However, since it’s a
compound movement that involves many muscle group, sometimes one of the
muscles will be lagging and performing less work. Often that’s the
chest. Many people develop bigger arms
and shoulders from bench presses alone, but there chests remain flat
and underdeveloped. In this article we will show you how to activate
your chest when doing the bench press.

1.Lower the amount of weight you are lifting

You ego may hate it, but in order to
learn proper technique you need to lower the weight. If the weight is
too heavy, chances are you will focus mainly on lifting the barbell in
anyway possible. This is called ego lifting and is the reason why your dominant body parts take over. Lower the weight and start working on your bench press technique.

Pectoralis major muscle

2.Grab the bar really hard

When you hold the bar as hard as you can
you are forming a strong base and increase the muscle tension. In this
case that’s good because unlike sports such as swimming lifting weights
is about strength, and tension is required. When you hold the bar harder
you immediately improve your strength because less of it is lost in the
nothingness when you push-up. You will feel tension going down from
your forearms, into your biceps and even in your chest by just holding
the bar tight.

Squeeze!

3.Lower the bar under control

Don’t just let the bar crash on your
chest. Hold it tight and lower it under control. A great deal of people
only care about the lifting part but the negative (lowering) is just as
important since it prepares you for the actual pushing phase. If you are
not tight and don’t lower the weight under control, you are losing
strength. Your joints are also compromised. Be in control of the weight
as much as it allows you.

4.Stick your chest out, arch your back

Excessive arching of your spine is
counter productive. However, you need some of it to stretch your chest
and sort of pre-load it. Stick your chest out, keep your shoulders
pressing against the bench and flex your lats in order to stabilize the
shoulder blades in place. Keep your shoulders tight all the time. If you
let your shoulder lose its tightness, you are putting it in a
compromised position where it’s separated from your torso. That’s
weakness and possible injury may occur. If you do the bench press
correctly, you will feel your lats working really hard to stabilize the
weight, keep the arch and reduce the unnecessary mobility of the
shoulder joint.

5.Don’t keep your elbows too close to your body

You shouldn’t keep your elbows your
elbows too close to your body. Flare your elbows to the sides a little.
This will keep the stretch of the pectoral muscles. If your elbows are
tucked too close to your body, you are sort of reducing the tension on
your chest muscles and placing more of the load on the front deltoids
and upper arms. However, don’t flare your arms too much either because
flared elbows and wide grip will kill your shoulders in a heartbeat. Somewhere in the middle is the best.

6.On the way up imagine that you are trying to bring your arms together

While all other points are important,
this one makes all the difference. When you are pushing the weight up
imagine that you are trying you bring your hands together. DON’T
ACTUALLY DO IT! Just imagine it. It helps if you visualize a spring
being squeezed between your hands. If you do this technique correctly,
it will give you a great chest pump. You can even do it when you are
performing other exercises such as push-ups and dumbbell bench presses.

Combining Bodyweight And Weight Training | NattyOrNot.com

Combining Bodyweight And Weight Training | NattyOrNot.com

Instead of wondering what’s better: bodyweight exercises or weight
training, why not combine both? Bodyweight exercises can build
a super strong upper body and abs, as seen among gymnasts,
while full body barbell exercises build the hips and the legs.
Combination of both is one of the most effective ways to do business on
the muscle exchange market. It saves you money while keeping the value
high. Muscles traders have no choice but to love it.

As we’ve said many times exercises like push-ups, dips, pull-ups,
muscle-ups and their advanced forms such as planche push-ups, front
levers…etc. can really develop a muscular upper body. You can truly
reach your genetic potential
without ever doing a single bench press set or a barbell row. The
classic bodyweight exercises are more than enough to make the chest,
arms, back, abs and lower back as strong as naturally possible.

However, the downside of bodyweight training is that there are no
exercises such as the deadlift, for example, which works 90% of the
musculature in your body at the same time. While movements like the
glute ham raise are cute, the hips can benefit a lot from true overload
that can only be achieved through exercises such as squats, deadlifts
and their friends.

Even the skeletal system benefits from the heavy iron. People who
squat have extremely dense femur bones and overall skeletal system. When
you’re young you may not care about bones density, but sooner or later
we all get worn out. It may be hard to see it right now, but in about 50
years Justin Bieber will be an old man too.

The classical approach to do this gangsta mix is to remove all upper
body exercises you do in the gym, and go there only for squats, Romanian
deadlifts, deadlifts, leg presses…etc.
This will save you a lot of money from gym memberships and
transportation. An example routine would look something like this:

****

Day 1: Upper Body;

Dips – 5 sets;

Push-ups – 5 sets;

Leg raises – 5 sets;

Day 2: Rest;

Day 3: Lower body and hips

Squat – 5 sets;

Leg press – 5 sets;

Calves – 5 sets;

Day 4: Rest;

Day 5: Upper body;

Pull-ups – 5 sets;

Horizontal rows – 5 sets;

Back hyper-extensions – 5 set;

Day 6 & 7: Rest;

****

The above routine does not have weak links. Everything is worked
pretty hard and you’re in the gym only once a week. Of course, there are
many ways to mix things. If you are more advanced, you may add some weighted pull-ups and chin-ups to your gym sessions. Here’s another example routine:

****

Ex. 1 (no squats)

Day 1: Back/Deadlift day

Deadlift – 1-2 working sets;

Weighted pull-ups – 3 sets;

Dumbbell rows – 5 sets;

Day 2: Rest;

Day 3: Chest/Pushing day

Dips – 5 sets; (take a backpack with you);

Push-ups – 5 sets;

Leg raises – 5 sets;

Day 4: Rest;

Day 5: Lower body speed training;

Sprints/Plyometrics

Day 6 & 7: Rest;

****

Ex. 2 (squats and deadlifts)

Day 1: Squat/Leg day

Squats – 5 sets;

Leg press – 5 sets;

Day 2: Rest;

Day 3: Chest/Pushing day

Dips – 5 sets; (take a backpack with you);

Push-ups – 5 sets;

Leg raises – 5 sets;

Day 4: Rest;

Day 5: Back/Deadlift day

Deadlift – 1-2 working sets;

Weighted pull-ups – 3 sets;

Dumbbell rows – 5 sets;

Day 6 & 7: Rest;

****

In order to come up with a routine that works for you, you first need
to set your current goals straight and write a plan that allows
adequate recovery. You may be able to do a lot more than what the
described above routine suggest. However, if you feel you are not
recovering, don’t be afraid to remove a few sets/exercises or add a
couple of rest days as described here.

I never write routines with intention that they will work for
everybody. In fact, I think that most routines I write suck big time,
but I just use them to illustrate the principles I present to you.


FAQ:

What about the bench press?

When you are doing heavy dips, muscle-ups and working on advanced
skills such as the planche, there is about zero need to do bench presses
unless you are a powerlifter or just want to have a really strong bench
press for some other reason. If that’s the case, you should use the
bodyweight drills only as assistance exercises while treating the bench
press as your main lift.

To summarize:

– Bodyweight exercises are the best when it comes to upper body training.

– The hips can benefit a lot from heavy weight exercises like the deadlift and the squat.

– Counting on bodyweight exercises to build your upper body will reduce your gym membership and transportation costs.

– You can use your gym days to do weighted dips and pull-ups.