last lecture

Maximizing Adaptation for Endurance and Strength Training

• Goal: Increase adaptation for both endurance and strength training indefinitely.

• Understand how metabolic stress prevents mTOR activation.

• Design a program to maximize concurrent training.

Training vs. Performance

• Training: Focus on continuous improvement, sacrificing short-term performance.

• Performance: Giving your all on a specific day (race day, competition).

• Lecture 15 covered fueling strategies.

Nutritional Supplements and Timing

• Carbohydrates: Essential fuel for endurance recovery due to metabolic fatigue.

• Timing: Consume carbs within two hours post-exercise for optimal recovery.

• After two hours, the "address" for nutrients fades, reducing effectiveness.

• Increase Carbohydrate Absorption. Intestines use different transporters for glucose and fructose.

• Glucose saturation: Eating only glucose saturates its transporters, limiting intake.

• Fructose: Adding fructose utilizes different transporters, increasing overall carbohydrate absorption.

• Protein Intake. Important for recovery and adaptation, especially leucine-rich protein.

• Benefits: Improves muscle size and strength by activating mTOR.

• mTOR Activation. Tension, resistance, and amino acids (especially leucine) activate mTOR.

• mTOR Significance: Essential for muscle hypertrophy (increased protein synthesis, decreased protein breakdown).

• Supplement Effectiveness. Supplements are less effective if not delivered to the right place at the right time.

• Training Intensity. Many don't train hard enough for maximal performance; some overtrain, reducing performance.

• Rest: Rest is crucial for optimal performance.

Four Phases of Exercise Response

• Fatigue

• Recovery

• Adaptation

• Regression

Training Intensity and Frequency

• Low Intensity:

  • Lower fatigue and quicker recovery.

  • Less adaptation before regression.

  • Suitable for higher frequency training.

• High Intensity:

  • Higher fatigue and longer recovery.

  • Greater adaptation before regression.

  • Requires lower frequency training.

• Optimal Frequency: Train again during the adaptation phase to continually improve performance.

• Training Goals: Specific training is required to be elite in specific sports.

Training Specificity

• Muscle training is very specific; train the muscles you want to improve the most.

Examples of Athletes and Training Goals

• Heather Fox: Bodybuilder (strength-focused).

• Elmas Ayana: Distance runner (endurance-focused, long legs, less muscle mass from thigh to foot).

• Katarina Johnson-Thompson: Heptathlete (balance of strength and endurance, needs muscle to throw heavy spherical ball).

  • Day 1:

    • 100m hurdles

    • High jump

    • Shot put

    • 200m

  • Day 2:

    • Long jump

    • Javelin throw

    • 800m

• Jennifer Hunter Marshall: CrossFit athlete (strength prioritized over endurance, push heavy things for a certain distance within as fast as possible).

• Skylar Diggins-Smith: Basketball player (endurance somewhat more important than strength).

Concurrent Training

• Definition: Training for both strength and endurance.

• Limitations: Concurrent training can plateau strength gains.

• Hickson's Study: Concurrent training plateaued around 6-7 weeks, leading to decreased strength.

• Professor Hickson. Performed a study about concurrent training, 3 groups of people (strength training group, endurance training group, concurrent group).

Hickson's Concurrent Training Study Parameters

• Strength Training: Five days/week for ten weeks, focusing on leg strength, performed with as much weight as possible and until failure.

• Endurance Training: Six days/week for ten weeks:

  • Three days: Six 5-minute cycling sessions at $VO_2$ max with 1-minute rest.

  • Three days: Running at max speed. Week one 30 minutes/day, week two 35 minutes/day, and week 3 onward 40 minutes/day.

• Concurrent Group: Combined strength and endurance training, resulting in plateaued strength gains.

Molecular Basis of Concurrent Training Limitations

• Muscle Hypertrophy: Requires mTOR activation for increased protein synthesis.

• mTOR Activation: Resistance exercise and amino acids activate mTOR.

  • mTOR Function: Activates ribosome proteins (protein-making machinery) and increases ribosome production.

• mTOR Activation Duration: Resistance exercise increases mTOR activity for over 18 hours.

mTOR Activity Graph and Western Blot Interpretation

• Graph: Shows mTOR activity up to 36 hours after exercise.

• Western Blot: Measures phosphorylated S6K, indicating mTOR activity at 1.5, 3, 6, 12, 18, and 36 hours.

• Rapamycin: Inhibits mTOR activity, demonstrated by the absence of the phosphorylated S6K band.

• AMP Kinase and Endurance: Long slow distance or High intensity interval training increases PGC1 alpha.

• PGC1 alpha: Increases mitochondrial capacity, number, mitochondrial enzyme, blood vessels and fat oxidation enzymes.

Endurance Training and AMP Kinase

• AMP Kinase Activity: Increases rapidly after endurance exercise, peaking around 30 minutes and returning to baseline by 3 hours.

• Comparison to mTOR: mTOR activity (strength training) lasts longer compared to AMP kinase activity (endurance training).

Metaphorical Explanation of mTOR vs. AMP Kinase

• mTOR: Pushing a rock over a hill (long-lasting signal).

• AMP Kinase: Pushing a rock uphill (short-lived signal).

• Concurrent Training Limitation: Molecularly, the body cannot maximize both strength and endurance indefinitely.

Molecular Explanation of Concurrent Training Interference

• AMP Kinase Activation: Metabolic stress from endurance exercise activates AMP kinase, which activates PGC1 alpha.

• Metabolic Stress Inhibition: Metabolic stress inhibits amino acid activation of mTOR and reduces the number of protein-making machines.

• ATP Competition: Endurance exercise consumes ATP, limiting ATP available for protein synthesis.

Strategies to Overcome Concurrent Training Limitations

• Replenish Carbohydrates: To overcome metabolic stress after endurance exercise.

• Increase Leucine-Rich Protein: To activate mTOR.

• Training Sequence: Endurance exercise first, recover, then resistance exercise later.

• Rationale: mTOR stays active longer (18 hours), while AMP kinase has a shorter activation period.

• Concurrent Growth with Nutrition. 0.4 grams per kilogram body weight protein after the resistant exercise.

• Strength training in energy balance to replenish glycogen to minimize metabolic stress and keep the mTOR active.

• Alcohol blocks mTOR activity, which negates the effect of lifting weight.

• Always do the endurance work first using low and high intensity exercise.

• Strength training at high absolute power and low metabolic cost, go to failure; eat 0.25 gram per kilogram body weight of leucine rich protein after.

• Energy deficient state or training more than 7 times per week needs a greater amount of protein, 0.4 grams per kilogram body weight.

Example Training Schedule for Team Sports

• 7 AM: Meal with 0.25 g/kg protein.

• 11 AM: Meal with 0.25 g/kg protein.

• 12:30-2:30 PM: Practice.

• 3 PM: Meal with 0.25 g/kg protein.

• 4:30-5:30 PM: Strength training.

• 6 PM: Meal with 0.25 g/kg protein.

• 11 PM: Snack with 0.5 g/kg protein.

Case Study: Sir Bradley Wiggins (Cyclist)

• Goal: Increase power-to-weight ratio.

• Strategy: Decrease upper body muscle mass while maintaining leg muscle mass and power.

• Rough Salting: Spot reducing muscle is possible.

Wiggins Weight Fluctuations and Performance

• June 2008 (Tour de France): 76 kg

• August 2008 (Beijing Olympics): 82 kg

• Feb 2009 (Tour de France): 72 kg, 4% body fat (3rd place)

• Feb 2012 (Tour de France): 69 kg (1st place & Gold Medal)

Wiggins Strategy for Weight Reduction

• Low-Calorie Diet: 500 kcal/day for three days

  • High-quality leucine-rich protein sources (e.g., leucine-rich milk).

  • Example: Two big glasses of milk plus five pieces of bread.

• High-Intensity Leg Training: To maintain leg muscle mass.

• Leucine-Rich Protein Post-Training: To activate mTOR in leg muscles.

Consequences and Considerations

• Hangry State: Massive calorie deficiency makes him unpleasant.

• Team Support: Requires nutritionists and trainers to avoid health consequences.

• Limited Use: Used only three times in his career (two times for three days, one time for five days).

• Power-to-Weight Ratio Improvement: Dropped 3 kg of upper body weight while maintaining leg muscle size and power, increasing power to weight ratio.

• Reward: Post-victory beer after two years of abstinence.

Practical Summary

• Endurance Exercise: In the morning to maximize signaling and PGC1 alpha activation.

• Carbohydrate Intake: Within two hours post-exercise to replenish glycogen and minimize metabolic stress.

• Strength Training: Later in the day, once recovered from metabolic fatigue.

  • Lift heavy weights to failure.

• Protein Intake: Increase to 0.4 g/kg body weight if in energy deficiency or doing whole-body lifting.

• Leucine Supplementation: 0.25 g/kg body weight of rapidly digestible leucine (whey) after resistance exercise.

• Minimize Alcohol: After strength training because it inactivates mTOR.