Eades: "It's The AMPK Activity, Stupid"

When viewed from this perspective, it’s pretty easy to see why AMPK activated by a calorically-restricted diet and/or exercise brings about many healthful changes. It also might make one wonder why drugs haven’t been developed to increase the activity of AMPK to provide these same benefits to people who suffer from obesity, high blood sugar, diabetes and all the other disorders caused by overnutrition. A drug designed to activate AMPK would be diet and exercise in a pill. Who wouldn’t want that?

Well, there are several such drugs. Most have probably heard of one of them: metformin (trade name Glucophage.) Metformin, derived from an ancient herbal remedy, is used by doctors to treat diabetes and insulin resistance and works by activating AMPK. In 2010, physicians wrote some 100 million prescriptions for metformin to treat type 2 diabetes.(5) Some use it to treat obesity, and many folks who can get access to it, take metformin in hopes of increasing longevity.

Drugs that increase the activity of AMPK, when used over time, along with all the effects mentioned above tend also to increase the number of mitochondria, which increases the capacity to burn fat and turn it into ATP. More mitochondria leads to improved endurance, and, consequently, many of these drugs have been placed on the banned list of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the regulating body that deals with drug abuse in sports.(7)

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/inflammation/can-your-food-make-you-fit/#more-4858

Dr. Mike Eades digs in deep in this post, and explains, in a relatively simple way, a very complex topic, that being enzymatic function in metabolism.  You don't need to know this kind of stuff to avoid high density carbs, but it was interesting to see how he explains another piece of the low carb puzzle.  And if you were ever put on metformin, this post will explain why it should have helped with blood sugar issues - any why carb restriction and fasting would work even better.

The short explanation - AMPK signaling starts a chain of healthful benefits when cells go through a period of greater ATP consumption than creation.  When you restrict carbs/kcal, or increase the time between meals, AMPK signals for beneficial effects such as:

• Increases glucose uptake: We want to get glucose out of the blood and into the cells to burn.
• Increases glycolysis: We need to break down glycogen (stored sugar) to get the glucose to burn.
• Increases fatty acid oxidation: An obvious one. We want to start burni ncreases glucose uptake: We want to get glucose out of the blood and into the cells to burn.
• Increases glycolysis: We need to break down glycogen (stored sugar) to get the glucose to burn.
• Increases fatty acid oxidation: An obvious one. We want to start burning fat to replenish the depleted energy stores.
• Increases mitochondrial biogenesis: we want to make more mitochondria to burn fat and generate as much ATP as possible.
• Inhibits gluconeogenesis: We don’t want to spend energy making more sugar – we want to burn it.
• Inhibits glycogen synthesis: Same thing – we don’t want to store sugar, we want to burn it.
• Inhibits fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis: We don’t want to spend energy making fat and cholesterol.
• Inhibits insulin secretion: We want insulin to be low, so that we can move stored fat and sugar to where it needs to be burned.ng fat to replenish the depleted energy stores.
• Increases mitochondrial biogenesis: we want to make more mitochondria to burn fat and generate as much ATP as possible.
• Inhibits gluconeogenesis: We don’t want to spend energy making more sugar – we want to burn it.
• Inhibits glycogen synthesis: Same thing – we don’t want to store sugar, we want to burn it.
• Inhibits fatty acid and cholesterol synthesis: We don’t want to spend energy making fat and cholesterol.
• Inhibits insulin secretion: We want insulin to be low, so that we can move stored fat and sugar to where it needs to be burned.

A small point of clarity - none of this is anything other than interesting, except that it shows why carb restriction and fasting has a beneficial effect.  It's not a question of whether those techniques are useful to a large number of folks - that is already known.

Reducing the Peak

For a baseline measurement of loading rate, the runners ran at their normal pace with their normal gait while wearing conventional motion-control shoes (a French model, the Kalenji Kiprun 2000). Then the researchers measured loading rate under four other scenarios: having the runners switch to a racing shoe that's 5 ounces lighter than the training shoe (the Kalenji Insipid Comp); having the runners increase their turnover by 10%; having the runners switch to a midfoot strike; and doing all three of the preceding changes at once (what the researchers called "combi").

When the runners switched to a midfoot strike, or when they ran in "combi" mode, they no longer produced an impact peak (a spike of impact concentrated in a fraction of a second), and they reduced their overall loading rate by about 50%. Only increasing turnover, or only switching to the racing shoes, didn't produce these changes. (It should be noted that the racing shoe used in this study has a heel-to-toe drop of 10 millimeters, which is 2 millimeters higher than that of the training shoe used. A larger heel-to-toe drop is often associated with a higher impact peak.)

The takeaway is that a midfoot strike by itself is as effective as midfoot striking with higher turnover in racing shoes in reducing impact loading rate; theoretically, this finding should be of most interest to runners who have a history of shin stress fractures.

http://news.runnersworld.com/2012/08/23/study-midfoot-strike-might-help-shin-injury/

This is not the most well written article ever, but still reinforces a point that Dr. Romanov and others have discovered and documented over the years; there's a natural shock absorbing system built into the body, and big, so called shock absorbing shoes, work against the way we were built to run.

Some of this is "too easy" (as my Army trainers used to say with a grin).

Landing on the ball of the foot allows many springy, well muscled parts of the leg to absorb impact and produce force; further, most running animals have legs that work in a similar way.  The idea of landing on the heels - and sending the impact through the solid bones of the heel, to the knee, to the hip - seems almost ridiculous in comparison.

Turnover is not the key to good running - it is a correlate.  Turnover is a function of keeping the legs close to the body's center line - one could move the feet too slowly or too quickly.  Thus, it also makes sense that the study didn't find it to be an independent variable for reduction of impact peak. 

Thank You, CrossFit!

Only thing to add to this one - I'm grateful to have been a minuscule part of this.

I hope someone will have as much success sorting out how to stop it from happening in the first place.  

Weil On The Obvious

The idea that adults should drink chocolate milk after a strenuous workout appears to stem from a single, small study published in the February 2006 issue of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. The study, which was partially funded by the dairy industry, included only nine participants, male cyclists who rode their bikes until their muscles were exhausted and then drank either low-fat chocolate milk, Gatorade or a sports drink that provides protein plus more carbohydrates than these beverages typically contain. The cyclists rested for four hours after their drinks and then rode again. The study found that those who drank the chocolate milk were able to ride about 50 percent longer than those who drank the sports drink and about as long as those who drank Gatorade.

I haven't seen any evidence suggesting that adults who work out regularly but who aren't endurance athletes would be better off drinking chocolate milk after exercise. If you did, you might end up taking in as many calories as you just burned.
http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA401147/Is-Chocolate-Milk-a-Healthy-Drink.html

I think this one's obvious - recovery drinks are for athletes doing intense training for competition, and therefore have trouble ensuring full recovery between workouts.  For those of us who train as often as possible but still not that often - it's most likely a self defeating waste of money.  Eat meat, eggs, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch, no sugar/wheat.

Giving the Gift of Slowness

Another good bit from Mike Boyle.  The BLUF:  The world is full of slow people.  If you want your child to optimize his/her athletic potential, do not let them "train" for slowness by running long distances.  By definition, if you are running more than a minute or two, you are running slowly.  

If you want your child to perform poorly this winter I have the answer. The answer is cross country. I have had countless parents 
over the years tell me that they can't figure out why little Janie 
or Johnny had such a bad winter sports season. They worked so hard 
in the fall, running all those miles.

Lets get some facts straight. There are no team sports where you 
run for miles at a time. 

Even if you actually "run" miles in a game, those miles are actually 
a series of sprints interspersed with a series of walks or jogs. In 
the case of a rare sport like ice hockey, you actually sprint and 
then sit down. Running long distances does not prepare you to run 
short distances. 

There is a concept in sport called sport specific training. The 
concept basically means that from a conditioning perspective the 
best way to condition for a sport is to mimic the energy systems 
of that sport. If the sport is sprint, jog , walk, than the training 
is sprint, jog , walk. Makes perfect sense

There is another very large concept to grasp here. 

It is simple. 

Train slow, get slow. 

The reality is it is very difficult to make someone fast and very 
easy to make someone slow. If you want to get an athlete slow, simply 
ask them to run slower, longer. Simple. They may be in shape, but it 
is the wrong shape.




www.FunctionalStrengthCoach4.com


www.OnlineBodyByBoyle.com

Reader Questions: "Can't I Have It All?"

A very good friend and long time training partner (martial arts days) wrote about a clip she saw in a blog, and asked:

Wait, something in this blog caught my attention regarding fat loss and muscle building he says:

"The bottom line is if you're in a positive caloric balance you've created an environment that's conducive to building muscle, while if you're in a negative caloric balance you've created an environment that's conducive to fat loss."

So does that mean that I can only do one or the other? Burn fat or build muscle?

Yes.  And no.  Next question?

Kidding, of course, but the actual answer to the question is most likely "yes and no" depending upon the athlete's needs.

Here's why - most of us cannot or don't want to gain muscle mass.  That is to say, for females, and most males with training experience (and thus probably having already achieved the amount of hypertrophy that is "normal" for them when actively training), gains in muscle mass are not common unless a specific mass gain approach is used.  Muscle hypertrophy results from specific set/rep schemes, which maximize the fluid volume in a muscle.  This is termed "sarcoplasmic hypertrophy."  More information on that term is easily obtained via "google", but the short version is that once you hit a certain amount of SH that results from the type of training that you do, greater gains in mass are a matter of months and years.  

As Louie Simmons says, "big is not strong, strong is strong."  That is to say, bigger muscles are neither required or desired for strength gains.  As Mark Rippetoe observed in his excellent book "Practical Programming", body builders (obsessed on mass) have softer, puffier muscles, whereas power lifters and Olympic weightlifters have noticeably more density and hardness in their muscles.  This is not good or bad, but is part of the explanation for why body builders rarely have the same strength levels as powerlifters, or the same explosiveness and athleticism as Olympic lifters.  

What most people and many athletes need is stronger muscles, not bigger muscles.  Sprinters, climbers, CrossFitters, cyclists, endurance athletes - each needs strength, but not mass.  These athletes gain and maintain strength using heavy weights and low reps; for example, pulling heavy weights for 5-12 sets, with 5 or fewer reps per set.  5 reps per set is on the high side if you do not want to gain any extra weight.  

Any degree of specialization can result in sub-optimization of fitness.  Just like you should not run long and slow all the time if you want to have speed and explosive power, you should not train for muscle mass all the time if you want to optimize fitness.  

Competence in endurance is not hard to get - train six to 12 weeks and voila, you can exert low power for long durations.  Power and speed on the other hand are truly hard won, the gains are relatively small, and these can be easily compromised.  

The CrossFit model of fitness is a compromise position.  Train like a sprinter, a gymnast, and Olympic weightlifter, and fill in around the edges with a few long runs/rows/rides/swims, skill work, and incorporate these diverse modalities to maintain a degree of training novelty.  Routine is the enemy.  This sort of training allows an athlete to improve in many arenas, by choosing not to maximize any single attribute.

Back to the original question about mass gains, diet, and fat loss.  For each human and each training approach, there's a minimal amount of protein that is required to support muscle recovery and continued gains in performance.  This number is not precisely known, but even the USDA says we need 60g of protein per day, so you can bet that a healthy, active athlete will need more in order to thrive.  However, even 100g of protein per day will only provide 330-400 kcal.  Thus, you should be able to ingest all the protein you may need, and still restrict carbohydrate intake enough to maintain fat loss.

If on the other hand you are trying to gain the most possible muscle mass, and look HUGE, it becomes problematic to try and maintain a calorie deficit and ingest optimal protein levels.

If your goal is to use training to better your quality of life, sustain mobility as you age, and look and feel better, don't sweat these issues.  Eat good quality protein, shoot for 60-100g per day.  Eat high quality carbohydrate sources, and reduce carb intake to achieve fat loss.  Eat good quality fats to satiety.  Train hard, sleep well, and sleep long.  Measure your weight and abdominal circumference (weight alone tells you little) and adjust the diet, training and sleep according to your results.   This will not allow you to "have it all", but you can much or most of what you want.

Mark's Daily Apple: Enjoy the Eggs

Exercise, practice stress reduction, and get your waist circumference checked.

Don’t smoke.

Don’t age.

Don’t pay too much attention to ridiculous observational studies (this is part of stress reduction).

Oh, yeah – eat egg yolks, and lots of them. Doubly so if you’re low-carb (remember the starch/grain-free high-egg diet referenced above). Make ‘em pastured, if possible, or at least from hens that ate something besides soy and corn. They’re more nutritious and probably “safer” than industrial eggs.

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/are-eggs-really-as-bad-for-your-arteries-as-cigarettes/#ixzz243RdMEKg

I recommend a read of the whole article.  Mark does a nice job as usual of dissecting a bad study, while highlighting how difficult it would be to even try to answer the "egg question" authoritatively.  Until the money is available for a long term intervention study, however, all you have to go by is your experiment on yourself - eat meat, eggs, vegetables, nuts and seeds, little fruit or starch and no sugar/wheat.  Then, measure your results.  If your results are not as good as needed, refine from there - if you are worried about eggs, for example, or dairy, try a 30 elimination test and see how you look, feel and perform.

The ability we all have in this day and time to get easy access to information, and to measure results for ourselves, means we do not have to depend on witch doctors or epidemiological studies to sort out how to be healthy.  Instead, formulate your own plan, check the results, refine from there.