Matt Metzgar

Feeding Cycles

Here's a neat research paper that got me thinking about what's the natural feeding cycle for humans.  The abstract is worth posting here:

"Nonhuman animals in captivity manifest behaviors and physiological conditions that are not common in the wild. Lions in captivity face problems of obesity, inactivity, and stereotypy. To mediate common problems of captive lions, this study implemented a gorge and fast feeding schedule that better models naturalistic patterns: African lions (Panthera leo) gradually adapted from a conventional feeding program to a random gorge and fast feeding schedule. Digestibility increased significantly and food intake and metabolizable energy intake correspondingly decreased. Lions also showed an increase in appetitive active behaviors, no increase in agonistic behavior, and paced half as frequently on fast days as on feeding days. Thus, switching captive lions to a gorge and fast feeding schedule resulted in improved nutritional status and increased activity."

Eating More II

I have been doing a ton of research into how total caloric intake affects body mass/body composition.  It looks to be so important I feel a bit silly about missing it.  I think part of the problem is the other bad ideas that are usually connected to a higher calorie intake.  Some of these are:

• Eating many meals a day - which I don't think is correct
• Balancing calories in versus calories out on a daily basis - which I also don't think is correct
• Force-feeding more protein and carbs - which I don't think is correct as well

I will post more on this, hopefully over the next few days.

Eating More

I try to base my ideas both on theory and the results of my training.  My main goal this year is to add 15 pounds of muscle, and so far my grand increase in weight has been... zero.  I may have added a little muscle and lost some fat, as my weight has stayed the same while my waist has decreased from 32.5 to 32 inches.  But overall, I'm not getting the increase in weight I wanted.

I feel confident I'm getting the growth stimulus through the workouts correctly.  And I'm eating the right foods (Paleo), and getting enough protein.  So that leaves only one other area: total energy intake.

I have for the last few days tried to find reasons not to increase total calories as a way to build muscle.  But I really can't find any.  If anything, I've found more research and anecdotes that show increasing calories is the way to go.

Christian Finn has a good write-up on the subject here.  In short, subjects consuming higher calories built more muscle.  The issue for me is where these extra calories should come from.  As far as protein, research shows after a certain point adding more protein doesn't help build any more muscle.  As far as carbs, the reverse almost seems true, as low-carb diets help retain muscle when on a diet.  You need some carbs for brain and muscle function, but again, after a certain point, I'm not sure where the benefit is.

That leaves fat.  Fat may be the ticket for a few reasons.  Eating more fat doesn't increase insulin levels as extra carbs do, and this may help partition extra calories towards muscle.  Second, eating more fat may be the most practical way to get more calories in.  You can add oil to about anything and it doesn't really affect feelings of fullness that much, at least for me.  Third, fat appears to be anabolic and may raise testosterone levels which helps build muscle.

So it looks like I will be increasing the fat content of my diet, as much as that goes against the outdated and ineffective low-fat paradigm.  Also, I will not be following the bogus six-meals-a-day plan, but instead will just add some more fat to meals and continue along with occassional intermittent fasting.  We'll see how it goes. 

The Relationship Between Size and Strength

When it comes to the relationship between a muscle's size and strength, there's more to the story than people think.  For example, this paper shows a lack of connection between the two.  For the arm muscle, there is only about a 23% correlation between size and strength.  Here's the actual graph:

The authors point out that the correlation is higher in the leg muscles, ranging from between 50 to 70 percent.  This may be because the leg muscles are primary weight-bearing muscles, and are used for walking, running, sports, etc., and receive different stimulation than the arm muscles.

So why would strength and size not be fully correlated?  I can't count the number times I've read that the cross-sectional area of a muscle is proportional to its strength, though this data (and other evidence) suggests this is not true.

For example, Bearpowered is a website run by speed coach Barry Ross.  His specialty is getting athletes to increase strength without increasing muscle mass.  In his "Hall of Fame", there are pictures of many people with slender physiques who are deadlifting pretty heavy weights.  Here's one picture of a person with a bodyweight of 144 pounds deadlifting 440 lbs:

I thought heavy weights equaled big muscle mass?  I guess not.  There is more to this story that I will explore in Part II. 

Calorie Restriction Improves Muscle Growth?

Here's a research study looking at how calorie restriction affects muscle hypertrophy.  Rats were separated into calorie-restricted and non-calorie restricted groups and then subjected to muscle loading.  The surprising result is that the calorie restricted rats actually had greater muscle hypertrophy.  The authors believe that this may be due to improved protein synthesis and oxidative capacity.

Though this study was done with rats and not humans, the conclusions are pretty startling.  To me, it's just another strike against the idea that you have to force-feed food in order to build muscle.

A Novel Idea: Eat When Hungry

The usual dietary prescription for someone looking to gain muscle is to simply eat more calories.  But the more I've looked into and thought about this, the less this simplistic notion makes sense.  I think the problem is in looking at calorie intake as an input, when really it seems to be more of an output or result of training.

If someone is looking to build muscle, they first have to stimulate this process through resistance training.  If a growth stimulus is correctly applied, then the body should naturally want more calories to facilitate growth, and signal this need through more hunger.  I feel the body is smart enough to know how many calories it needs, and that listening to hunger signals will be more efficient than trying to increase calories by a set amount.

Trying to force-feed calories just seems like a bad idea to me, as it is an attempt to override the body's natural system of hunger and satiety.  There is also the issue of whether the growth stimulus is really effective or not.  If a person isn't lifting weights with enough intensity and volume, then any force-fed calories will just go to fat.

Another issue is timing.  After resistance training, when does the body actually need nutrients to make muscle?  The bogus six meals a day idea says food should be eaten every three hours "just in case" that's when the body decides to create muscle.  A more logical approach would be to listen to the body.  If you're hungry, you're hungry for a reason: you body is seeking food for some metabolic process.  (This assumes you are eating natural/Paleo foods and the hunger is genuine.)

For example, a few weeks ago I had a bad weightlifting workout - nothing seemed to work and the workout didn't feel productive.  The next day, I wasn't really hungry at all, and that was probably because I didn't get the growth stimulus right.  Conversely, yesterday I had a solid workout at the gym,  and today I was very hungry.  So I listened to this hunger and ate a good bit today.

In this way, you could view hunger the day after a workout as a test of whether the workout stimulated any growth.  If you're hungry, it did; if not, maybe the workout was off the mark.

Regardless, I still find no reason to supersede the body's regulatory systems and try to force calories in order to build muscle.  Instead, I will simply try to get in good workouts, listen to my body, and just eat when I'm hungry.   

The Myth of Constant Tension

As I've posted about recently, one way to lift weights is to do so with a slower cadence throughout the movement.  The idea behind this is that by eliminating momentum, more force will be applied to the muscle, and hence, there will be more muscle growth.

This is a viable method to build muscle, as it's been backed up by a few research studies. But is this the best method?  I'm starting to think no for a few reasons.

First, I think there is a misconception regarding momentum.  Moving a weight quickly does utilize momentum, but what produced that momentum in the first place?  The muscles!  So momentum doesn't erase the amount of muscle force needed to move a weight, it simply reallocates it.  You can either lift a weight slowly, using a somewhat constant level of tension, or lift quickly and use more force at the turnaround point to slow the weight and then get it moving the other way.

Second, if slow movements are superior, then why do the top bodybuilders still lift fast?  If you look at videos of Ron Coleman and Jay Coleman, the last two Mr. Olympias, their lifting speeds look remarkably similar to those of Schwarzenegger and Ferrigno in the 1970s.  If slow lifting speeds were really superior, you would think the top bodybuilders would be utilizing them by now.

Third, even though slow lifting speeds are supposed to be safer, I think the reverse might be true.  Today, I was doing some squats and I tried a slow, heavy set.  My form immediately turned bad.  I felt more strain on my lower back and the stabilizer muscles, and less strain on the muscles.  After this, I stripped some weight off and did a set of fast reps, exploding from the bottom.  My form was much better, but most of this was done reflexively - my body was naturally putting itself in better positions.

Fourth, I think moving with weights should not be that different than moving without them.  For example, the squat is based on a natural body movement, jumping.  Squatting with weights is then really just a weighted jump.  And there is no such thing as a slow motion jump.

So for now, I will follow the lead of Arnold and all the rest and use a fast lifting speed.  I think when lifting with this method, it is important to not really lock out on movements.  In this way, the muscle is kept under more tension, even if it may not be "constant".

OpenID

I think one of the big developments of 2008 will be the spread of OpenID.  OpenID is a way for people to have a single sign-on across a variety of websites.  For example, a person wanting to comment on a particular website could login with their OpenID, instead of creating yet another username and password.

OpenID appears to be designed correctly as it is free, decentralized, and not controlled by any one provider.  The big players are signing on as well, as Yahoo just announced they will support OpenID.  I think OpenID is the future of identity management on the net, and it could be quite common by the end of the year.

Book Review: The Vitamin D Cure

Last month, I posted about Vitamin D and the upcoming book, The Vitamin D Cure.  I bought the book last week and just finished it the other night.  Much as I would like to, writing a positive review for this book is difficult for a few reasons.

First, it's not that the book isn't well-researched, because it is.  Second, it's not that the advice in the book isn't good, because I think it does offer sound advice.  The problem is that there is no "wow" factor, which I think will make it a tough sell and cause it to fade away.

Ancient hunter-gatherers got their Vitamin D the natural way: through the sun.  Nowadays, with indoor work environments and people living at higher latitudes, millions don't get enough sunlight.  The book shows that this can lead to a variety of health problems, problems that can be alleviated by Vitamin D supplementation.

The book really boils down to three main recommendations:

1. Eat a Paleo diet
2. Get moderate exercise
3. Get enough Vitamin D via sunlight or supplementation

I wish the author would have taken things further, like looking to see if high-dose Vitamin D can cure the common cold. 

Vitamin D is relatively cheap, and available at almost any drug store.  It's worth taking, and I take it myself.  If a person has major health problems, it could work wonders for them, you never know.  Vitamin D may become a routine supplement over time, prescribed by doctors and other health care providers.  But for some reason, it's just hard for me to get excited about the whole thing.  The natural way to get Vitamin D is through the sun, and given the time, I would rather go frolic in the sun than sit indoors and take a pill.

Open-Ended Running

Nowadays, people run for fun and fitness, but historically running always had a purpose.  Hunter-gatherers probably only ran when chasing game, being chased, or perhaps when just playing around with others.  But the nature of their running was quite different from modern training methods. 

Today, most people know how long they will run before they start.  A person may set out to run a certain number of minutes or a certain distance.  But for an ancient hunter-gatherer, running would have often been "open-ended".  A hunt may have lasted a mile or five, a half hour or several hours, continuous or stop-and-start. 

From this, some people theorize that humans are designed for such open-ended running - being able to run a variety of paces for various segments of time, even within one training/hunting session.  I think this is a good insight - one that can be used to design better running programs.

One idea would be to randomize each training session.  A person could roll a die or something similar to determine the paces and distance for each session.  Besides leading to improved performances, this might also be neat from a psychological perspective.  It would provide the element of surprise in training and keep things fresh.