Old Forum finshers

[ali]

Thanks Pavel, fantastic info. If training S&S minmizes glycolysis then less need for carb recovery? Taps into Al's suggestion of adaptation and less need for glucose/glycogen as a fuel possibly? Yet my appetite with S&S has gone haywire and as such am able to feast quite nicely, thanks very much by the way. Enjoying all the side-effects!! Power training with aerobic recovery must whack up metabolism and type 2bs do like their carbs, don't they? Or is the additional energy cost/requirements more to do with the get-ups?

Thanks Pavel - I'm really glad I asked, got more than I bargained for, superb.

cheers, going off to eat something

 

[Al Ciampa]

Alistair,

No.  It takes a few hours after any activity for me to get hungry, and even then, it's only a mild pang.  I may normally eat twice per day, regardless of activity level.  I'll give you an example that some of us can relate to: the SFGI.

While most of my peers were running for power bars and food during the breaks, I actually forgot my lunch one day and had to wait until dinner.  The other two days, I packed my usual 1/2lb of ground beef for lunch, and had a large steak and salad for dinner every night.  So, 5 meals and no snacks across the cert.  I had energy to burn all day, however.  Not sure if anyone noticed my lack of sustenance ... I surely noted the ubiquitous need all around me; but my eye is keen to that.

This fits in with our discussion here: from a biochemical standpoint, the body is really trying to rid itself of glucose.  The dose makes the poison, and our social culture, couched in high carbohydrate eating - endless eating - is causing problems, even in the face of lots of exercise.

Pavel is describing exploding organelles when faced with the by-product of anaerobic glucose metabolism, and I'm pretty confident that one of the ways your body adapts to long-term low-carb feeding is using the aerobic system at higher intensity movement, bypassing, or minimizing, anaerobic glucose production.  I've observed and read about this in others - no muscle "burn" when going hard; no hunger after short, intense work; better performances at every intensity and duration, etc.

There are so few reports of long-term results ... most people turn back after the initial performance drop off when switching over.  Well, of course, if you've been a sugar burner your whole life, your fat metabolism machinery has down regulated: use it or lose it, the same applies to nutrition.

Bringing this back to training, as we know that glycolytic conditioning comes and goes easy ... why is this?  Glucose metabolism is the original cellular fuel system.  It's how single-celled creatures make fuel.  It is our cellular inheritance from eons ago, and my guess is, the glycolytic machinery doesn't down regulate to the same extant as our fatty acid and O2 using "modern" system.

Sorry for this extended post, but this is a lot of my day job ... evolution points to training in the alactic and oxidative systems: strength stuff, S&S, 100m sprints (with recovery); and the LSD stuff.  Couple that with low-carb eating, and you're within 6-8 weeks of anything.  Why?

Glycolytic work comes easy, and glucose is always around, even in carb restricted regiments.  Never mind the health benefits.

Great discussion.  I'd like to discuss this more and report my observations in others - as I think this is very important, but this is more of a training forum.  Maybe we could start a nutrition forum as well.

-Al

 

[ali]

Al - get what your saying - the aim is to train the body to use fat as a fuel source at high intensities, rather than perceiving that fat metabolism is for low intensity, glucose medium, Pcr high. I know they all function at the same time to a lesser or greater degree. So cut out the middle man. The only need for glucose would be for liver glycogen and cns function and minimal glycogen stores in skeletal muscle. Having an efficient oxidative energy system would enable moderate to high intensity work and a razor sharp Pcr system would make you super quick and powerful when needed. This leads to lean muscle tissue, very low body fat and a super machine - not unlike our hunter gatherer ancestors. Totally get it. I'm paleo mostly by the way but I add in white rice, both sweet and white potatoes for an evening meal/ kind of carb-loading and eat light during the day. I might experiment a bit more and cut the starch to see where it takes me. Brilliant. I know, going off-topic into nutrition but when you get into the details, it gets very interesting and goes to places you never realised. Cheers

 

 

[Pavel]

Alistair, nutrition questions are not down my alley.

Geoff Neupert has come across a fascinating study by Izumiya et al. (2008).   "The results from the current study indicate that modest increases in type 2B skeletal muscle mass can have a profound systemic effect on whole-body metabolism and adipose tissue."

 

[ali]

sorry about this but bringing it back onto S&S/finishers again - Pavel, the addition of a swing test in S&S is a case in point. You suggest not to do this until comfortable with a 32 kb after reaching the simple goal - presumably by that time you would have the necessary machinery in place to cope with the demands. What would otherwise be a glycolytic exercise for the untrained would become more of a highly functioning aerobic demand once trained to the simple goal level. I realise this is getting more detailed than I had originally intended, apologies for that. I just bought a 24, looks like I'll need a bigger bell.

 

[Matt]

Hi Al (aka aciampa) - I'd be super keen to learn more from you or from your suggested nutrition post.  In general this whole conversation is really interesting, a little out of my experience, yet I am keen to try (haven't investigated SS yet) - yet I am relating to my own training and past training.

Thanks - and thanks Pavel and Alistair for the interesting thread!

 

[Al Ciampa]

Pavel,

Thanks for taking the time ... I had read somewhere in my academic life about the cell adapting to using lactate for fuel after time, and I assume, exposure.  I had thought that H+ would have been buffered in this process (however it occurs) and so I asked about the training history of the subjects of (who I now know to be) Prof. Victor Seluyanov’s studies.

If possible, untrained individuals, or those with untrained glycolytic systems (powerlifters, runners?), could potentially present with destroyed mitochondria when first exposed to high lactate levels.  Chemistry is not my strong point, however,

Your idea dovetails with my experiences though.

-Al

 

[Pavel]

Al, Seluyanov works with elite athletes from rowing, wrestling, bicycle racing, soccer, and a couple of other sports.  Multiple times he prepared athletes who became very successful—and then ruined and went nowhere once they joined the national team.  According to him, this is what happened: excessive glycolytic loads burned out the mitochondria.  He claims that with typical modern training methodologies the people who make it to the national team are not always the best at the sport but most resilient to this type of damage.  Ironically, he says, glycolytic excesses are unnecessary to produce champions.  He goes as far as telling to not train glycolysis at all.  It is a controversial subject, obviously.

 

[Al Ciampa]

Interesting Pavel; and telling.

I think the most important thing you mentioned here leads to most of the confusion with copying others: "most resilient to this type of damage".  I see this resiliency all the time, but it doesn't mean that it is the correct way to train.  And, in just a few years, even the "machines" burn out.

The sport / job / mission really does pick the athlete, not the other way around.

-Al

 

[Matt]

Did the mitochondria eventually "come back"?  Wondering if this was a gradual process, or suddenly they hit the wall?