Sharla's Log

[Sharla]

Yes it was fun and i probably looked exactly like that little yellow dude

Have just decided I'm going to have some offline time. A bit of net detox until i get into a routine again.

I'm going to be back online in a few weeks.

In the meantime don't think I've forgotten about your knee Youngblood and I'm gonna ask about it when i'm online again so don't go inventing some high impact knee and back thrashing workout program just to aggrivate me!

Good luck with the knee treatment and good luck to you too Sourpuss. I'll be keen to hear about how things have gone for the two of you dealing with your battles when i return!

[Sharla]

Um yeah my whole abstaining from the forum thing didn't last long!

I think i'm going to stick to the Ask The Trainer Board for a while though and mostly on weekends.

The reason I'm posting is I'm coming up with some new (to me at least) ideas / understanding of exercise physiology and i'm keen to hear opinions from others who are into this side of things like Scrap and Salty.

1) I happened to read that women tend to increase their VO2 max more by increasing oxygen uptake capacity in their muscles by capillarization more so than men. Apparently men will increase their heart stroke volume more than women. That's over time as a result of training i think.

2) Acidity in the blood is a consequence of exercise and i think if i understand it correctly it will signal the process of capillarization (forming new capillaries).

3) Apprently a study with swimmers having a dose of bicarbonate soda pre-workout increased their performance by decreasing blood acidity. I think this is for one workout - sort of like taking glucose right efore a workout - not going to improve your ability to mobilize energy stores in training probably but great for a good one off performance.

4) Apparently stroke volume is limited when tested while cycling due to the way blood can be pooled in the legs. Apparently trained cyclists don't have this problem though and will show the same exercise induced increase in stroke volume during a workout as they will over activities

5) The supine position as in swimming (and Scraps thing ) does not limit heart stroke volume at all.

6) Women begin to outperform men in ultra marathon endurance efforts beyond the 66 km running mark.. This is attributed to lipid metabolism but I'm also wondering if since capillarization is triggered more so by endurance training this has something to do with it.

Another observation was that women do not over-heat as much in these long events - perhaps because our heart is not generating as much heat due to increased heart muscle action associated with increased heart stroke volume.

I imagine capillaries existing in muscles which are able to allow more blow flow and therefore O2 reaching the muscles is a fairly passive mechanism not producing any real heat or using as much energy as increasing heart stroke volume. Perhaps part of the reason in ultra long running (higher heart rate than other sports) distances this mechanism of O2 uptake could become increasingly more important.

7) I never felt like endurance training decreased my power unless I was trying to make weight and not getting enough protein or suffering from te effect of impact. I would still make strength gains with resistance training and adequate nutrition. Apart from that i felt stronger for it .... coincidence or not?

So I'm trying to nut out basically if I should be tayloring my workouts to increase VO2 max in a couple of different ways in different workouts.

For example using either acidic or basic food/drink intake pre-workout and workout methods designed specifically to target or not target capillarization.

As a female capillarization will likely yield better results more easily for me. I'd definately aim to get the most out of that in some workouts.

Perhaps I should also try to design some sessions that will target my stroke volume more specifically since that is a weak point probably not well trained especially by me with my love of endurance training.

Ok enough blabbing from me! Thoughts, suggestions? Do you think it's possible to target these separately to a significant degree?

[Youngblood]

lol good idea sticking to the ATT forum. It can get ugly out there.

I too am thinking on a forum break. Hopefully I don't need to have myself banned again to make it happen...but I'm not above it or beyond another self-imposed intervention. Sorry...only read that far before responding.

Knee is feeling a bit better already, so ty for asking...and I'll let Salty and Scrap or someone else answer the other stuff I know nothing about.

[Sharla]

Good to hear the knee is feeling better

I'm house sitting at the moment so it's an easier time for me to have a forum break than usual but still now while visiting my mum i manage to end up on the computer which i think is frankly a little sick!

As for answering stuff you know nothing about I'm not sure of what makes you think i know anything about it and i'm talking about it so why not you too?

If you have ideas, comments or just a guess it will all help because i'll have to double check the literature or try something to work out what i think about it and that will teach me more too.

I think it's easy to miss key things because you look at things from one angle so hearing other people's angles on things is always good.

[Youngblood]

no srsly, too weakbrained atm 2 even try 2 figure anything chemical related, and I want to hide in here for a while, or take a break. Maybe I should make u some kinda bet to see who can stay away the longest. Oh and Sourpuss, if you read this, quit wimping out

k im out.

[Sharla]

Right well offer stands if you want to chip into the conversation (which so far I'm having exclusively with myself ) later.

So I've read that endurance training increases capillarization and I just assumed I'd find sprints were better for increasing stroke volume. Alas I found the opposite:

Endurance rather than sprint running training increases left ventricular wall thickness in female athletes

JournalEuropean Journal of Applied Physiology

Tomas Venckunas1 , Rasa Raugaliene1, 3, Birute Mazutaitiene2 and Sonata Ramoskeviciute1
(1) Department of Applied Physiology and Sports Medicine, Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education, Sporto str. 6, 44221 Kaunas, Lithuania(2) Department of Languages, Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education, Sporto str. 6, 44221 Kaunas, Lithuania(3) Institute of Cardiology, Kaunas University of Medicine, Sukileliu ave. 17, Kaunas, Lithuania
Accepted: 28 September 2007 Published online: 17 October 2007
Abstract Competitive athletics is often associated with moderate left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy. The aim of this study was to shed more light on the extent and type of cardiac hypertrophic response to different athletic conditioning in females. Standard two-dimensional M-mode and Doppler echocardiography was performed at rest in Caucasian female sprinters (n = 10) and long-distance runners (n = 10) of similar age (range 16–34 years), training experience (5–18 years) and competitive level, and in age-matched healthy female sedentary controls (n = 10). No differences in echocardiographic parameters were detected between female sprinters and sedentary controls (p > 0.05). Interventricular septum and LV wall (p < 0.05) were thicker, and LV mass was greater (p < 0.01) in long-distance runners as compared with sprinters or sedentary controls. Absolute LV diameter was not increased in long-distance runners (p > 0.05), though relative LV diameter was higher in long-distance runners as compared to sprinters (p < 0.05). As compared with controls, relative wall thickness (the sum of LV wall thickness and interventricular septum thickness divided by LV diameter) was higher (p = 0.004) in long-distance runners. Neither systolic nor diastolic LV parameters were different among the groups (p > 0.05). In conclusion, sprint running training has not been found to induce alterations in cardiac morphology or function at rest in female athletes. Cardiac mass in female long-distance runners is higher mainly due to myocardial wall thickening, while integral myocardial function at rest is not affected as a consequence of either this hypertrophy or sprint training.

As expected, the heart rate and the double product were
lower in endurance runners, which was probably due to
altered cardiac autonomic regulation and larger stroke
volume.

So does this mean that capillarization and stroke volume are most significantly increased by endurance training then to increase VO2 max endurance training is the only way to go?

Unless there is another component of VO2 max I haven't taken into account people?

[Salty]

Um yeah my whole abstaining from the forum thing didn't last long!

I think i'm going to stick to the Ask The Trainer Board for a while though and mostly on weekends.

The reason I'm posting is I'm coming up with some new (to me at least) ideas / understanding of exercise physiology and i'm keen to hear opinions from others who are into this side of things like Scrap and Salty.

1) I happened to read that women tend to increase their VO2 max more by increasing oxygen uptake capacity in their muscles by capillarization more so than men. Apparently men will increase their heart stroke volume more than women. That's over time as a result of training i think.

I too spend too much time on the forums, but it's just great in this one. I haven't done much comparison between men and women's training, but I can understand how this would be different especially from an evolution standpoint.

2) Acidity in the blood is a consequence of exercise and i think if i understand it correctly it will signal the process of capillarization (forming new capillaries).

3) Apprently a study with swimmers having a dose of bicarbonate soda pre-workout increased their performance by decreasing blood acidity. I think this is for one workout - sort of like taking glucose right efore a workout - not going to improve your ability to mobilize energy stores in training probably but great for a good one off performance.

The bicarb soda works by resisting a drop in pH of the muscles during activies where your workload exceeds that of your lactate threshold (where protons begin accumulating in the muscles).

In actual fact training your lactate threshold can be much more productive than your VO2 max for both endurance events and boxing.

An excellent article on that is here, have a read and you will understand it a lot better Report on blood lactate 1

4) Apparently stroke volume is limited when tested while cycling due to the way blood can be pooled in the legs. Apparently trained cyclists don't have this problem though and will show the same exercise induced increase in stroke volume during a workout as they will over activities

5) The supine position as in swimming (and Scraps thing ) does not limit heart stroke volume at all.

6) Women begin to outperform men in ultra marathon endurance efforts beyond the 66 km running mark.. This is attributed to lipid metabolism but I'm also wondering if since capillarization is triggered more so by endurance training this has something to do with it.

Another observation was that women do not over-heat as much in these long events - perhaps because our heart is not generating as much heat due to increased heart muscle action associated with increased heart stroke volume.

I imagine capillaries existing in muscles which are able to allow more blow flow and therefore O2 reaching the muscles is a fairly passive mechanism not producing any real heat or using as much energy as increasing heart stroke volume. Perhaps part of the reason in ultra long running (higher heart rate than other sports) distances this mechanism of O2 uptake could become increasingly more important.

I could not imagine running 42km's let along 66km's that is just crazy, but another thing which could account for this is the higher water percentage that women hold in their bodies. I'm sure this would start to play an important role in an event of such duration as it would be tough to remain adequately hydrated in those circumstances. This would also explain a few of the observations;

• Increased heart rate
• Increased body temperature
• Extreme fatigue
• etc.

But you do raise valid points, I haven't looked too much into capillaries at all and stroke volume of the heart.

7) I never felt like endurance training decreased my power unless I was trying to make weight and not getting enough protein or suffering from te effect of impact. I would still make strength gains with resistance training and adequate nutrition. Apart from that i felt stronger for it .... coincidence or not?

So I'm trying to nut out basically if I should be tayloring my workouts to increase VO2 max in a couple of different ways in different workouts.

For example using either acidic or basic food/drink intake pre-workout and workout methods designed specifically to target or not target capillarization.

As a female capillarization will likely yield better results more easily for me. I'd definately aim to get the most out of that in some workouts.

Perhaps I should also try to design some sessions that will target my stroke volume more specifically since that is a weak point probably not well trained especially by me with my love of endurance training.

Ok enough blabbing from me! Thoughts, suggestions? Do you think it's possible to target these separately to a significant degree?

One thing you have to be careful with endurance training is the transition of fast twitch to slow twitch fibers. After long events scientists discovered that fast twitch fibers had decreased in percentage, while slow twitch had stayed the same. The found that these missing fibers had turned into intermediate fibers which had characteristics of both, but if this training was regular of a long period of time (years) they would become slow twitch fibers, where they could never come back from there. I don't know if this would apply to you, but I found it pretty interesting. Especially for boxers who are addament about the jog every morning.

I read an article the other day about how one ex olympic gold medal winner in swimming I think trained his athetes over long duration as part of their speed training. His theory was that as slow twitch fibers fatigue more and more fast twitch fibers were recruited to do the work. Sorry my mates have all just arrived and telling me to get my ass off the computer. So I'll hopefully add more to this tomorrow, but interesting questions Sharla

[Scrap]

Sharla Bicabinated Soda, dont go anywhere near it while training. Salty that was a Superb post, the information given was well written and easy to understand. Lactic is the muscles freind, everything written by the guy makes absoloute sence good find. Top Man

[Scrap]

Sharla, if you can get hold of Biochemistry of Exercise vol V11 volume 21 you will enjoy, bicarbinated Soda stops the warning system through acid breakdown from working as it should and can overstrain the Heart its a NO NO.

[Sharla]

Thanks Scrap and Salty,

Great input as always.

I found the bicarb soda info in a Women's Health mag so women everywhere in Australia are likely to be trying it - a bit scary to hear it's dangerous!

I'm actually really suprised the acidity of gastric juices in the gut doesn't nuetralize the bicarb before it reaches the bloodstream but I guess it is absorbed too quickly for that.

I was thinking that the cycling part makes sense. My mum's running improved when she began cycling and that is a common scenario I've heard in triathlon circles. Further capillarization occurs to allow a cyclist to operate at their maximum heart stroke volume. Maybe that serves to help running performance even though it's not induced by running?

There wouldn't really be any equivalent exercise for your arms though would there not without extreme discomfort from all your blood rushing to your head! Pity it would be great for boxing conditioning!

Anyway I had thought that especially for women who are unlikely to increase heart stroke volume any other way maybe endurance training would be an advantage even for boxing. Perhaps endurance swimming or a low impact endurance sport at least.

Reading about the conversion of fast twitch to slow twitch muscle fibres and knowing the capacity of heart stroke volume increase is fairly small I'm not so sure now. Damn!

In general i think it might say something positive about increasing capillarization in the legs by cycling.

I think that must be how trained cyclists overcome the heart stroke volume limitation seen in non-cyclists are tested on stationary bikes.

My mum's running performance increased when she started cycling and that's quite common from what i've heard. I'd say it would be a good initial improvement but I'm not sure if you'd continue to improve for long.

Apparently guys have slightly bigger hearts than women (along with more hemoglobin, lower body fat percentages, more muscle etc etc ) so you'll have a larger stroke volume than me. Pity it's so hard to target in training for an athlete trying to maintain fast twitch muscle fibres.

Thanks for the article Salty - i will definately study it

I'll look for that text you mentioned too Scrap - sounds like something that should be available at uni - good to know there are some perks for being a uni student!

[Salty]

Sharla Bicabinated Soda, dont go anywhere near it while training. Salty that was a Superb post, the information given was well written and easy to understand. Lactic is the muscles freind, everything written by the guy makes absoloute sence good find. Top Man

Thanks mate, I've being doing a lot of research lately regarding various things, glad it could come of some help. But yes Sharla if I were you I would stay away from the bicarb unless your going towards a gold medal otherwise the risk is too great.

The link I posted has some great posts, soon hopefully I'll be posting salty's guide to boxing fitness, which I'll be testing myself for a few months. If anyone wants to follow the training plan I will be setting myself for after christmas let me, it's going to be a good adventure

[Salty]

Thanks Scrap and Salty,

Great input as always.

I found the bicarb soda info in a Women's Health mag so women everywhere in Australia are likely to be trying it - a bit scary to hear it's dangerous!

I'm actually really suprised the acidity of gastric juices in the gut doesn't nuetralize the bicarb before it reaches the bloodstream but I guess it is absorbed too quickly for that.

I was thinking that the cycling part makes sense. My mum's running improved when she began cycling and that is a common scenario I've heard in triathlon circles. Further capillarization occurs to allow a cyclist to operate at their maximum heart stroke volume. Maybe that serves to help running performance even though it's not induced by running?

There wouldn't really be any equivalent exercise for your arms though would there not without extreme discomfort from all your blood rushing to your head! Pity it would be great for boxing conditioning!

Anyway I had thought that especially for women who are unlikely to increase heart stroke volume any other way maybe endurance training would be an advantage even for boxing. Perhaps endurance swimming or a low impact endurance sport at least.

Reading about the conversion of fast twitch to slow twitch muscle fibres and knowing the capacity of heart stroke volume increase is fairly small I'm not so sure now. Damn!

In general i think it might say something positive about increasing capillarization in the legs by cycling.

I think that must be how trained cyclists overcome the heart stroke volume limitation seen in non-cyclists are tested on stationary bikes.

My mum's running performance increased when she started cycling and that's quite common from what i've heard. I'd say it would be a good initial improvement but I'm not sure if you'd continue to improve for long.

Apparently guys have slightly bigger hearts than women (along with more hemoglobin, lower body fat percentages, more muscle etc etc ) so you'll have a larger stroke volume than me. Pity it's so hard to target in training for an athlete trying to maintain fast twitch muscle fibres.

Thanks for the article Salty - i will definately study it

I'll look for that text you mentioned too Scrap - sounds like something that should be available at uni - good to know there are some perks for being a uni student!

One thing I would mention about training your lactate threshold is that it does not discriminate where you do it. For instance if you just train your right arm the left will exhibit similar gains, so running will improve that of the whole body, but if I were you I would find a cross trainer to do it with high resistance. Cross county skiing can be one of the best workouts your can ever do, too bad we don't have snow over here in Aus though

[Sharla]

Thanks Salty

I look forward to the guide!

I'm going to look up more on muscle fibres - I just don't really want to believe that they can only be converted from fast to slow and won't go back!

Especially in response to an Adult's training rather than during a young person's development? It sounds more like deterioration than an adaption to exercise.

Perhaps that's what it is though - less ability to react to firing neurons as quickly since they are not maintained or something? I'll have to read up on it!

[Sharla]

Right I'm still reading it but I found an article RE fast and slow twitch muscles fibres that might be of interest:

About.com: http://www.the-aps.org/publications/classics/articles/ingalls.pdf

And another one:

It is generally accepted that muscle fiber types can be broken down into two main types: slow twitch (Type I) muscle fibers and fast twitch (Type II) muscle fibers. Fast twitch fibers can be further categorized into Type IIa and Type IIb fibers.

About.com: http://www.springerlink.com/content/1137px7x66667132/

Bsically i think from these articles the evidence is inconclusive although granted I might want to keep looking for more up to date info.

I'm wondering how much mentality comes into it also.

I feel most confident with a strong endurance base and I think longer workouts tend to be a good outlet. I generally only need one real endurance and perhaps one semi-endurance workout per week to see improvement. I don't see it including these sessions as being at the cost of other workouts neccessarily since I doubt I'd make gains from having more than 2 max 3 speed sessions a week?

[Scrap]

Sorry missed this on the other post, Fibres can be altered over time. Also 3 maximum sessions a week is enougth for fitness. The secret of fitness is recovery Time, and having a good Vo2 max base. Boxing Fitness is in the catogary of middle distance Running train accordingly, its a mixture