HOLD ON NOW.......
I sent that article to my nutritionist Alan Aragon....and he sent me this:
He basically picked that article to pieces and explained where the author misinterpretted and distorted the data......
Just offering another perspective so we can all chew on info.
Ok, this are the Quotes, in italics, then Alan Aragon's underlined and then my thoughts on each one of them.
Quote:
1. Replenishing Glycogen Needs to be a Focus of PWO.
I’m not just suggesting that glycogen resynthesis is not important following exercise, I’m flat out saying that for strength training it’s not even a concern! This is because it’s just really easy to get our glycogen levels back up, and timing is generally not an issue.
Right off the bat, how many ofwith it was 91% full recovery in contra us here are training for strength, & how many of use are training for looks? Westside Barbell in da house? We're talking about bodybuilding, where for most trainees, strength is a welcomed & almost inevitable side effect rather than the primary endpoint goal. I agree that quick glycogen replenishment is almost a non-issue for SOME powerlifting & bodybuilding protocols & phases. But without a doubt, most bodybuilding training goes on within the glycolytic system, & level of glycogen depletion in many cases is significant. Nothing is ever as simple as we'd wish it to be.
I think in this one, Alan is talking about elite bodybuilders and not the likes of you and me. I would agree with T-MAG on this one since we are NOT in the elite, i would say IMO that we are included in "MOST cases" scenario.
Quote:
Although one study showed that following endurance exercise, glycogen levels were replenished more rapidly when carbohydrates were consumed shortly after the exercise (Ivy, 1988), this is really of little concern to most of us. Unless we’re subscribers to Runners World, athletes in competition, or doing 2 a day workouts, why do we care so much about rapid glycogen restoration? After all, we’re mostly concerned with muscle growth, fat loss, and getting stronger.
Perhaps the author hasn't done a whole lot of work with precontest bodybuilders. It's not uncommon at all for precontest guys to be training twice a day. Believe it or not, many guys in the final 6 weeks of prep kick it up to 3 times (cardio morning & night + weights mid-day). Even with noncompetitive bodybuilding trainees, there's a lot of potential of overlapping muscular work, especially in the lower extremities, when cardio is done in addition to weights. Can't blanketly state anything here, it really depends on how Mentzer-esque vs Classical/Germanic the training protocol is, & what phase or goal we're looking at.
Again on this one Alan is talking specifically about precontest bodybuilders and 2 to 3 exercise bouts a day. That is too specific, it does apply to you and me, it shouldn't concern us, as clearly stated by the article.
Quote:
The most common argument is that the subsequent cellular hydration and swelling will have an anticatabolic effect on muscle. I don’t believe that this is possible because cellular hydration to the extent that we get with creatine supplementation has little effect on muscle protein synthesis or breakdown in healthy men or women (Louis et al., 2003).
*BEEEEEEP* Wrong answer. The Louis study he cited simply showed that protein synthesis in the immediate postworkout period may not be an aspect of creatine's anabolic mechanism. This does not at all refute creatine's effects coming in part from its ability to volumize cells. This study did NOT show that creatine doesn't work for its intended purpose for bodybuilding (size & strength gains). The researchers did NOT measure lean body mass changes, which is indeed the primary physical manifestation of creatine supplementation. Why did the researchers not measure LBM changes? Because, according to the researchers themselves, "the likely changes observed over such a short period of creatine supplementation with only a single bout of strenuous exercise would be expected to be below the detection limits of any available method." Talk about study limitations, the testing was done after 4 weeks & a single bout of training. Good gracious.
On this one Alan is spot on, this study's limitations are enough for everyone to say with eyes closed that the amount of training given to the subjects, including the creatine given was not even close to enough. A single bout of training and and creatine for 5 days only!!!
Taken from the article itself:
Seven healthy men (body mass index, 23 +/- 2 kg/m2, 21 +/- yr, means +/- SE) performed 20 X 10 repetitions of leg extension-flexion at 75% one-repetition maximum in one leg, on two occasions, 4 wk apart, before and after ingesting 21 g/day creatine for 5 days. What sort of results did they expect? Nevertheless, we still don't have a clue about how harmful creatine can potentially be to our health in the long run.
Quote:
Surprisingly, one study showed that consuming carbohydrates after strength training only increased muscle glycogen by 16% more than when water was consumed (Pascoe et al., 1993)! With this information and the huge amount of carbs that we consume on a daily basis, we should have little doubt that glycogen levels will be maximized within 24 hours of the workout.
Okay, here we go.. 1st of all, a 16% difference in ANYTHING having to do with tissue reserves is a big proportion. For example, imagine losing or gaining 16% bodyfat. Imagine of you could take a pill that improved the amount of reps you could do in any given lift by 16%. Imagine carrying 150lbs of fat free mass, & increasing that by 16% (that's a 24lb gain). Imagine increasing your 16" arm by 16% (that's a 2.5" gain making your arm 18.5", not too bad). I think you get my point. To further support my point, the protocol in that study was training to exhaustion with appx 9 sets of 6 repetitions @ 70% of max on the leg extension. In bodybuilding training, 6 reps & 9 sets usually represents the low end, for both sets & reps for quads.
Ok, Alan is a bit overdramatic on this one, the study took samples after the first and second hour and what was given to the subjects was H2O to one group and CHO solution to the second group. After 6 hours the H2O group's glycogen content was restored by 75% and the CHO solution group by 91%, a fact that clearly shows us that, in a 24 hour period it should be expected a full recovery by the H2O group, and we are talking water OK? Oh, by the way, a 16% is not that big an increase regarding CHO consumption, it's a big increase in fat free mass though
. Don't forget that we can only store 500gr of glycogen in our body so the dfference is not big.
So in other words, no, i don't think that Alan tore the article in pieces...no, not really
:action3: What's happening ? :action4: