Old people should do resistance training

Of course they should.  We know that.

Here is another study just to rub it in:

Physical function predicts improvement in quality of life in elderly icelanders after 12 weeks of resistance exercise.

Conclusions: Our study shows that a 12-week resistance exercise program significantly improves lean mass, muscle strength, physical function and HRQL in elderly individuals, and that improvements in physical function predict improvements in HRQL. Our study indicates that resistance training should be promoted for the elderly as it has the potential to improve physical performance, thereby prolonging healthy, independent aging.

The anabolic resistance of ageing

This is interesting.  The whole study is again available as a PDF. 

Basically, as you get older your muscles become resistant to the normal anabolic stimulants - resistance training etc.  Maintaining muscle is very important as we age - it is vital to function and to supplying a range of raw materials for the metabolism, not least in terms of immune response.  So we need to understand how to do that, how to keep our muscle.

The key recommendation seems to be to combine resistane training with branched chain amino acids.  Incidentally something that Art Devany has recommended for a while.

Skeletal muscle protein metabolism in the elderly: Interventions to counteract the 'anabolic resistance' of ageing

Evidence Based Resistance Training Recommendations

James Steele has had a peer reviewed article published identifying what protocols can be recommended for resistance training based not on tradition or fashion but on evidence!  How novel  ;-)

The full article is available here  and I'd recommend you to download it and have a read.  It challenges some popular  ideas that are out there - like plyometrics - and makes some recommendations based on what the science says.

It is good stuff - similar to the stufy here in fact!

Strength for health in old age

This is not really a shock, but the more that this sort of thing is recognised and promoted the better things will be:

maintaining muscle strength in old age is enormously important in order to maintain mobility and to be able to lead an independent life and manage everyday tasks independently. In the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, Frank Mayer and colleagues from the University of Potsdam conclude that progressive strength (resistance) training counteracts muscular atrophy in old age

Bodyfat makes you less responsive to exercise

Here is an interesting new one for you:  subcutaneous (i.e., under the skin) bodyfat makes you less responsive to resistance exercise.

Adiposity attenuates muscle quality and the adaptive response to resistance exercise in non-obese, healthy adults.

Background:Emerging data have revealed a negative association between adiposity and muscle quality (MQ). There is a lack of research to examine this interaction among young, healthy individuals, and to evaluate the contribution of adiposity to adaptation after resistance exercise (RE).

Objective:The purpose of this investigation was to examine the influence of subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) on muscle function among non-obese individuals before and after RE.\

Design:Analyses included 634 non-obese (body mass index <30 kg m(-2)) subjects (253 males, 381 females; age=23.3±5.2 years). SAT and muscle mass (magnetic resonance imaging-derived SAT and biceps muscle volume), isometric and dynamic biceps strength, and MQ (strength/muscle volume), were analyzed at baseline and after 12 weeks of unilateral RE.

Results:At baseline, SAT was independently associated with lower MQ for males (β=-0.55; P<0.01) and females (β=-0.45; P<0.01), controlling for body mass and age. Adaptation to RE revealed a significant negative association between SAT and changes for strength capacity (β=-0.13; p=0.03) and MQ (β=-0.14; P<0.01) among males. No attenuation was identified among females. Post-intervention SAT remained a negative predictor of MQ for males and females (β=-0.47; P<0.01).

Conclusions:The findings reveal that SAT is a negative predictor of MQ among non-obese, healthy adults, and that after 12 weeks of progressive RE this association was not ameliorated. Data suggest that SAT exerts a weak, negative influence on the adaptive response to strength and MQ among males.

Resistance exercise and appropriate nutrition to counteract muscle wasting and promote muscle hypertrophy.

This is an interesting study.  The context is clinical, treating people with conditions that lead to muscle wasting.  Anyway rather than just try to feed these patients up, they are realising that they need resistance exercise in order to promote growth and put the food to use.

Resistance exercise and appropriate nutrition to counteract muscle wasting and promote muscle hypertrophy.

Abstract
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Loss of skeletal muscle mass is a common feature of a number of clinical scenarios including limb casting, bed rest, and various disorders such as HIV-AIDS, sepsis, cancer cachexia, heart failure, and uremia. Commonly, muscle disuse (hypodynamia) is the sole reason, or a large part, of why muscle mass is lost. The reduction in strength, or dynapenia, that accompanies these conditions is also a function of the degree of hypodynamia and is related to muscle loss.

RECENT FINDINGS: The major and consistent finding in a number of human-based models of muscle wasting is a decline in the synthesis of new muscle proteins both in the postabsorptive and fed states. Thus, countermeasures are best suited to those that augment muscle protein synthesis and not those that attempt to counteract proteolysis. Our main thesis is that retention of muscle mass in wasting conditions will be achieved to the greatest extent by focussing on increased muscle use with moderate-to-high resistance loads as the primary countermeasure with a secondary countermeasure being to provide adequate nutritional support. Either intervention alone will alleviate some part of hypodynamia-induced muscle mass loss and dynapenia; however, together nutrition and muscular contraction will result in greater mitigation of muscle loss.

SUMMARY: Advances in our understanding of hypodynamia-induced muscle loss, a condition common to almost all syndromes of muscle wasting, has led to a focus on reduced basal and feeding-induced elevations in protein synthesis. Countermeasures for wasting should focus on stimulating anabolism rather than alleviating catabolism.

Heat grows muscles!?

This is weird! Comments please?

Responses of muscle mass, strength and gene transcripts to long-term heat stress in healthy human subjects

The present study was performed to investigate the effects of long-term heat stress on mass, strength and gene expression profile of human skeletal muscles without exercise training. Eight healthy men were subjected to 10-week application of heat stress, which was performed for the quadriceps muscles for 8 h/day and 4 days/week by using a heat- and steam-generating sheet. Maximum isometric force during knee extension of the heated leg significantly increased after heat stress (~5.8%, P < 0.05). Mean cross-sectional areas (CSAs) of vastus lateralis (VL, ~2.7%) and rectus femoris (~6.1%) muscles, as well as fiber CSA (8.3%) in VL, in the heated leg were also significantly increased (P < 0.05). Statistical analysis of microarrays (SAM) revealed that 10 weeks of heat stress increased the transcript level of 925 genes and decreased that of 1,300 genes, and gene function clustering analysis (Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery: DAVID) showed that these regulated transcripts stemmed from diverse functional categories. Transcript level of ubiquinol-cytochrome c reductase binding protein (UQCRB) was significantly increased by 10 weeks of heat stress (~3.0 folds). UQCRB is classified as one of the oxidative phosphorylation-associated genes, suggesting that heat stress can stimulate ATP synthesis.

These results suggested that long-term application of heat stress could be effective in increasing the muscle strength associated with hypertrophy without exercise training.

Astronaut conditioning research

I saw this in the New Scientist - How to survive the long haul in space - it is about how to tackle some of the health problems associated with being in space.

It turns out that maintaining the strength of muscle and bone is really important.....and is also a real challenge when weights are weightless.

In terms of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) there are a few interesting ideas being tried out:

Short bursts of high-intensity resistance training, at around 70 per cent of the muscles' maximum capacity for 15 minutes, twice a day, should help, says Fitts. A range of studies in animals and volunteers confined to bed rest suggest this will protect muscles better than long periods of low-intensity aerobic exercise. It may also guard against bone loss. Dan Bikle of the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied bone loss in rats whose hindquarters are suspended off the ground, recommends intense weight-bearing exercise for 1 second in 10, for a few minutes each day

What also caught my eye though was the idea of using resistance bands. They have been using what NASA call an Interim Resistive Exercise Device (IRED):

There has been a bit published on the studies which they have done with the device. Interestingly while it helped preserve muscle it did nothing for the bone density.

Scientists found that the only way they could reverse this process was by using exercises that deformed the bone cells (think of them squishing, like a tennis ball you’re standing on). This, they found, slowed bone mineral reabsorption (a natural process in the body that weakens bones) and increased bone density. They thought the iRED would accomplish this. But it didn’t work.
“The elastic bands simply didn’t provide enough resistance,” says Garcia. “And the resistance they did provide wasn’t consistent enough to affect the bone mass of the astronauts.”

That is from this interesting commentary which has a few key principles of the sort we might be familiar with here:

Rule 1: Use heavy weights (at least 80 percent of your max).
“In order to sufficiently work muscle and bone fiber to the point where the aging process is slowed,” says Spiering, “people can’t just run and play sports.” In space, the NASA astronauts experienced accelerated atrophy — even if they ran on treadmills. Heavy lifting — rather than static loading, as during a jog — was the only way, NASA scientists found, to deform the bone cells enough to grow cortical bone. To achieve this effect on Earth, Spiering found that resistance training — exercises such as squats, bench presses, and dead lifts — at 80 to 85 percent of the maximum amount you can lift is the optimum way to stop bone and muscle deterioration.

Rule 2: Slow down. Lifting weights isn’t nearly as critical as how you lower them.
The iRED revealed that the fluctuating resistance due to its elastic webbing limited eccentric forces — the resistance generated by lowering a weight — by 60 percent. Although iRED users were able to gain some muscle strength from the machine, their bone density decreased rapidly. Schneider assumed that the machine’s inability to generate eccentric force was the culprit. So in 2003 she put a group of men on a steady diet of exercises with free weights, which increase eccentric force when lowered slowly. (This theory had been out there before. In the early 2000s, many fitness buffs began clinging to an exercise program called Super Slow, which promised to increase metabolism and lower bad cholesterol. It seemed to work — though people weren’t sure why — and soon after many people replaced it with more functional training like CrossFit.) After 16 weeks, she tested the men’s bone mineral density and found that it had improved dramatically from their pre-program levels.

Rule 3: Drop the number of reps (keep the intensity high).
Earlier this year Scott Trappe, the director of the Human Performance Lab at Ball State University, in Muncie, Indiana, used NASA’s data from nine astronauts aboard the ISS to conduct and publish a study about weightlessness and exercise in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Using MRIs and biopsies to measure muscle fibers, he concluded that intense movements, like sprinting, jumping, and throwing (see the exercises at right), along with lifting heavy weights, resulted in better muscle size, a key element to protecting bones and thus keeping them from aging too quickly. The discovery wasn’t exactly surprising, but Trappe’s study did bust one misconception about the amount people exercise. “Most people think that more is better,” he says. “But our study showed that exercise should be done much less frequently than conventional wisdom suggests — but with much greater intensity.” Says Garcia: “The most recent space flight research indicates that doing six to eight reps — not the typical 10 — best maintains muscle function and strength.” In a recent study, Trappe found that elderly men who had been training three days a week, at 80 percent of their maximum loads, were able to maintain their muscle mass with just one high-intensity workout a week.

I don't know where I am going with this, but it is an interesting bunch of stuff to read. Train hard, less frequently, with slow negatives using heavy weights. Arthur Jones, John Little and Doug McGuff would be proud of NASA!

I'm not sure what it says about resistance bands though, if anything.

High-Intensity Intervals Vs. Traditional Exercise

This one caught my eye because it was about High Intensity Exercise....so I thought Body by Science. Actually it is just another study on intervals.

Intervals - good for cardiorespiratory fitness but not necessarily for:

• lowering the subjects resting heart rate,
• lowering fat percentage or
• reducing the ratio between total and HDL plasma cholesterol.

Increasing total bone mass and lean body mass needs weight training.

Interesting material.

High-Intensity Training Vs. Traditional Exercise Interventions for Promoting Health

PURPOSE:: to determine the effectiveness of brief intense interval training as exercise intervention for promoting health and evaluate potential benefits with reference to common interventions; i.e. prolonged exercise and strength training. METHODS:: 36 untrained men were divided into groups that completed 12 weeks of intense interval running (INT; total training time 40 min a week), prolonged running ( approximately 150 min/week), strength training ( approximately 150 min/week) or continued their habitual life-style without participation in physical training. RESULTS:: The improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness was superior in INT (14+/-2% increase in VO2max) compared to the other two exercise interventions (7+/-2% and 3+/-2% increases). The blood glucose concentration 2 hours following oral ingestion of 75 g of glucose was lowered to a similar extent following training in the INT (from 6.1+/-0.6 to 5.1+/-0.4 mM; P<0.05) and the prolonged running group (from 5.6 +/-1.5 to 4.9+/-1.1 mM; P<0.05). In contrast, INT was less efficient than prolonged running for lowering the subjects resting heart rate, fat percentage and reducing the ratio between total and HDL plasma cholesterol. Furthermore, total bone mass and lean body mass remained unchanged in the INT group, while both these parameters were increased by the strength training intervention. CONCLUSIONS:: INT for 12 weeks is an effective training stimulus for improvement of cardiorespiratory fitness and glucose tolerance, but in relation to the treatment of hyperlipidemia and obesity it is less effective than prolonged training. Furthermore and in contrast to strength training, 12 weeks of INT had no impact on muscle mass or indices of skeletal health.

Proper Exercise and Nutrition

Anthony (Dream) Johnson talks about his view of proper exercise and nutrition. Interesting stuff. He talks about Body by Science and the Primal Blueprint, both books that I've discussed here before now.

The post includes a link to his power point slides which is useful.

Exercise Demos from Keith

Keith from Theory to Practice has just posted some great exercise demonstration videos on his Youtube channel.

Keith is a pretty gifted athlete and a good and inspiring writer who really makes you think. It is worth checking out.

Here is an example

Resistance training is good ..... because it gives you an appetite

Well that is my reading of the paper.

The whole paper is available for download and it will repay some study.

Here is the abstract:

Normally, skeletal muscle mass is unchanged, beyond periods of growth, but it begins to decline in the fourth or fifth decade of life. The mass of skeletal muscle is maintained by ingestion of protein-containing meals. With feeding, muscle protein synthesis (MPS) is stimulated and a small suppression of muscle protein breakdown (MPB) occurs, such that protein balance becomes positive (MPS > MPB). As the postprandial period subsides and a transition toward fasting occurs, the balance of muscle protein turnover becomes negative again (MPB > MPS). Thus, during maintenance of skeletal muscle mass, the long-term net result is that MPS is balanced by MPB. Acutely, however, it is of interest to determine what regulates feeding-induced increases in MPS, since it appears that, in a number of scenarios (for example aging, disuse, and wasting diseases), a suppression of MPS in response to feeding is a common finding. In fact, recent findings point to the fact that loss of skeletal muscle mass with disuse and aging is due not chronic changes in MPS or MPB, but to a blunted feeding-induced rise in MPS. Resistance exercise is a potent stimulator of MPS and appears to synergistically enhance the gains stimulated by feeding. As such, resistance exercise is an important countermeasure to disuse atrophy and to age-related declines in skeletal muscle mass. What is less well understood is how the intensity and volume of the resistance exercise stimulus is sufficient to result in rises in MPS. Recent advances in this area are discussed here, with a focus on human in vivo data.

Another Doug McGuff interview

I interviewed Doug by email...Bo does it by video:

You don't need to do much......

A minimal RT program that required little time to complete (11min per session) resulted in a chronic increase in energy expenditure. This adaptation in energy expenditure may have a favorable impact on energy balance and fat oxidation sufficient to assist with the prevention of obesity in sedentary, overweight young adults, a group at high risk for developing obesity.

Minimal Resistance Training Improves Daily Energy Expenditure and Fat Oxidation

Q&A with Doug McGuff

Jeff has done an interview with Doug McGuff. It looks like he had a lot of similar thoughts about the approach to me.

Jeff keeps a good blog and comes from a "paleo" perspective as well, so the concerns he had reflected mine. Doug provided some good answers which again clarified how his approach can be integrated into an active / paleo life following what Art Devany would call a power law distribution of activity.

Jeff's interview with Doug

The Big 5 Workout

Here is Dr McGuff - the guy that I recently interviewed.

Discover Strength & functional training

.......one last one for tonight on High Intensity.

Here is an interesting looking gym - Discover Strength.

There is an interesting page on Strength Training for Distance Running:

Strength Training is a foundational component of a comprehensive distance running training program. The inclusion of a properly designed strength training program is important because the benefits of strength training are not achieved through running or cross-training alone.

The page includes a review of relevant research, including this on functional training:

Although the term "functional training" has become increasingly popular in the sport and fitness industry, the use of the term is somewhat deceiving. The intent of so called "functional training" is to perform movements that mimic movements performed during daily life. The thought is that these "functional" exercises carry over to our normal movements in daily living.

However, the scientific research in the area of motor learning and control definitively indicates that strength training movements that attempt to mimic everyday movements do NOT carry over to everyday movements. Stronger muscles make daily life easier, more efficient, etc. but the mimicking of these movements while training is not necessary.

Instead, exercisers should strengthen the muscles that are used to perform the specific movement in the most effective manner possible. Consider a running example: A functional training advocate would suggest that because running is an activity performed on one's feet, we should perform lunges (an exercise for the thighs and glutes) as they too are performed while standing. In truth, the runners goal should be to strengthen these muscles in the most effective means possible, which often involves sitting on a leg extension, leg curl or leg press machine. The movements are different from running (as the exerciser is clearly not on her feet) but the leg muscles are strengthened and this improved strength transfers to running - not the neuro-muscular pattern of the strength training exercise.

Unfortunately, functional training will continue to grow in popularity as many health club chains and fitness certification associations espouse the alleged benefits of this type of training.

So much for functional training.....this is what they do instead:



(Other videos here)

I've always been a bit critical of things like the leg extension machine....couldn't see the point or the real life application.....but maybe?

High Intensity - Research from Wayne Westcott

Continuing the High Intensity theme, I have come across some other studies from Wayne Westcott. Westcott works for South Shore YMCA and is

.....an internationally-renowned authority in the area of strength fitness. In addition to serving as our Fitness Research Director for the Quincy Branch Keeping Fit Programs, Dr. Wayne Westcott has authored more than 20 books and serves as a consultant for numerous national organizations such as the U.S. Military, the American Council on Exercise, the American Senior Fitness Association, and the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation. He is also editorial advisor for many well-known publications, including Prevention, Shape, and Club Industry magazines.

Dr. Westcott has been honored with numerous awards from prestigious fitness organizations across the nation. We are pleased to have him serving our South Shore YMCA members through his award-winning fitness programs.

There are a stack of good research articles on a wide range of things from training for Golf to the best repetition ranges.

Articles by Wayne Westcott

High Intensity - one set is enough

That interview with Doug McGuff got me thinking quite a bit about the whole High Intensity thing.

Here is a study which says that - for resistance training aimed at combating low back pain - there is no point in doing more than one set of an exercise. (Incidentally the same as was found in this review - The preponderance of resistance-training studies shows no difference in the gains in muscular strength, hypertrophy, power, or endurance as a result of performing a greater number of sets. )


Randomized trial comparing the effects of one set vs two sets of resistance exercises for outpatients with chronic low back pain and leg pain.

AIM: Progressive resistance exercises (PRE) are prescribed to reverse the deconditioning associated with chronic back pain. The spine rehabilitation program has utilized 2 sets of progressive resistance exercises during each session, with increased resistance between sets, and with successive sessions. Exercise literature has challenged the need for multiple sets of resistance exercises, with a single set producing similar functional benefits. The authors studied whether completing 1 versus 2 sets of resistance exercises would affect strength, pain and disability outcomes in subjects with chronic low back pain (CLBP).
METHODS: The study randomly assigned subjects with CLBP to perform either 1 set or 2 sets of progressive resistance exercises during otherwise identical spine rehabilitation programs. The patient sample included 100 subjects (36 male patients, 64 female patients, mean age 46 years) with chronic back pain referred to spine rehabilitation. Primary outcomes were back strength and progressive isoinertial lifting evaluation (PILE) at discharge. Secondary outcomes were Oswestry disability (0-100) and pain scores (0-10). Exercises consisted of Cybex back extension, rotary torso, pull downs, and multi-hip; lifting of crates from floor-to-waist (lumbar) and waist-to-shoulder (cervical) heights. The maximum levels of exercises were determined using a four repetition to maximum protocol, and the PILE.
RESULTS: At discharge, there was no significant difference in strength, disability or pain measures between subjects completing 1 versus 2 sets of resistance exercises.
CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that there were no added benefits for completing a second set of resistance exercises during therapy sessions for patients with CLBP.

Effect of power-training intensity on the contribution of force and velocity to peak power in older adults.

Effect of power-training intensity on the contribution of force and velocity to peak power in older adults.



Conclusion: Explosive resistance training in older adults results in the ability to produce higher PP outputs with heavier loads without loss of movement velocity. Moderate- to high-intensity training induced a greater relative contribution of force to PP production in this cohort.