The most effective workouts - a supposition

[Robert Z]

I have started noting a pattern in my workouts and wondered if anyone has read about any similar ideas or theories.

 

The total work done in any workout depends on how much weight you lift, how fast you do it, and for how long. This is referenced in units of calories [typically]. If I lift heavy I end up doing less work than if I lift light. If you take this to the limit, a human can put out about 100 watts all day long. But typically we can only produce 1 hp, or 746 watts, for a few seconds if at all. As the demand goes we up go over a cliff in terms of endurance. In terms of physics, we have a highly non-linear response to the load.

 

I can lift light weights and do a lot of fast reps and do far more work than if lifting heavy. But at the end of the workout I am just as tired either way. So in terms of fatigue, the total work done isn't as important as how we do it.

 

This all makes me wonder if there is an ideal target for the total work done in any workout. Currently I am noticing that as my endurance on the elliptical increases, I need to keep upping the demand in order to keep the workout hard enough. But my total work done stays about the same. One would expect the total work to increase as I get in better shape. But by constantly increasing the demand, I end up being less efficient and the calories for the total workout remains approximately constant - about 600.

 

 

So it starts to look like I should shoot for 600 calories as a way to target the demand, in order to keep myself on the edge. If I start producing 700 or 800 calories, I am probably running too light and fast.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Robert Z

[Andy_K]

Most likely that's all correct, but I don't think work done/fatigue makes a good measuring stick.

 

My goal is either to improve my strength/size or increase my cardiovascular endurance, depending on the workout. It's true those things are rather harder to objectively measure, but I'd only find work done a useful measure if my goal was weight loss. I would think that Ideally the goal is to push yourself harder every week, rather than pick a value foreach workout.

[Robert Z]

Most likely that's all correct, but I don't think work done/fatigue makes a good measuring stick.

 

My goal is either to improve my strength/size or increase my cardiovascular endurance, depending on the workout. It's true those things are rather harder to objectively measure, but I'd only find work done a useful measure if my goal was weight loss. I would think that Ideally the goal is to push yourself harder every week, rather than pick a value foreach workout.

 

I failed to mention that this refers to heavy workouts and bulking, and not weight loss.

 

It strikes me as interesting because it becomes a quantifiable reference to balance against the subjective reference of fatigue. For example, sometimes I catch myself working less hard than I should because I'm not pushing myself. I feel like I'm working hard. But when given an objective reference - the total work value compared to the time - I realize that I'm not really pushing as hard as I should.

 

I'm not really interested in the practical application of this so much as the theoretical side, for now. But I can imagine that a useful application of this idea could result if it all makes sense.

 

 

PS. As a strange quirk, I ended up doing a study of biophysics and biomechanics for a couple of years after finishing college. That is why I am familiar with some of the statistics and the application here.

Edited April 15, 2014 by Robert Z

[jba10582]

I'll try to give this one a go...

 

You talked about power output...I understand that slow and fast twitch fibers can be recruited to generate maximum force at different speeds. Something on the order of 0.1 s - slow twitch, 0.025 to 0.05 s - fast twitch. I am not 100% certain but I believe the distribution of these are set (take that with a grain of salt)...

 

My understanding of hypertrophy has two mechanism that I am aware of, sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar. (sp?..)

 

myobibrillar - stimulated by high tension loads under heavy lifting, increase in myfobril size, heavy lifting utilizes ATP replinished by creatine...so creatine supplementation would help here.

 

sarcoplasmic - amt of glycogen/nutrients ect in muscle stimulated by depletion of glycogen under high volume, high rep/sets. utilizes and glycogen which would be refilled at a "higher sensitivity".

 

if you are on low carb diet and your body is adapted to ketone bodies, not really sure why this particular fuel source cannot be adapted to high output quick burst of energy (many people practice cycling carbs so that more intense anerobic workouts in during the week can be integrated and the deplete the glucose later in the week such as a CKD or TKD....

 

also not sure if the two hypertrophy mechanisms are independent or not, and I am not entirely sure if this is what you are even asking...

[Robert Z]

I wasn't trying to relate this specifically to a low carb diet.

 

 

I think everything you said is applicable but doesn't quite get to the heart of the matter. Within the context of your post, the question is, how are both mechanisms for hypertrophy maximized?

[jba10582]

Lyle McDonald - Bodyrecomposition is a free site run by Lyle Mcdonald who is more of a guru on these things.

 

He is really a staight shooter on his advice and would explain better than me. He goes into a lot of different topics such as nutrition, diets, fat loss, muscle gain, supplements, hormone physiology, and even uses of controlled substances and illegal drugs. Although he does not advocate the use of all those things, he does not hold back his knowledge and the reality of things. He explains what works based on actual clinical studies and tests. You as the responsible adult decide how far you want to take things to optimize where you want to go with your goals. I like his no bullsh*t ways of explaining things because he doesn't try to stir you away from things other that stuff he believes simply doesn't work.

 

I recommend checking it out. I recently read an article and a forum topic on insulin sensitivity and how genetic predispotion, intermittent fasting, training, muslce glycogen depletion (supercompensation), level of body fat, and how interaraction of other hormones such as glucagon, hgh ect have on different target tissues such as liver, muscle and fat in the partitioning and storage. As a non-diabetic, I found this particular insightful because it had been a "voodoo" topic I knew very little about. This would also relate to sarcoplasmic hypertrophy as well and he mentions that somewhere else. So, you can basically spend as much or as little time as you like on it depending on where you want to go with it. Hope that helps.

Edited April 17, 2014 by jba10582

[contact1]

I've never really heard of relating calories to heavy workouts as a way of measure, and don't believe it can really be associated in that manner, in advance levels that is. When I think heavy lifting, I view doing barbell workouts, ie squats, deadlifts, chest press, etc. An elliptical I would not consider heavy weight lifting, or weight lifting for that matter.

 

Now onto the matter of work done and if there is an ideal target. This really depends on what your goal in the workout is with lifting. If you are looking to build size, that's where hypertrophy comes into play, which someone has already gone into. If you are looking into endurance development of your muscles, you would be doing lighter load workouts, and in essence, start moving into the cardio area thus yes burning some more calories.

 

Having a set number for a workout is very difficult for many reaons. One, how are you measuring your calories? As it stands, only very expensive equipment can give you a realiable reading of your calorie expendure. Secondly, as your grow in strenght / endurance, your body becomes more efficient in using fuel to produce results, so you could be doing more work, with less energy. Think of it like cars today to those back 20 years ago, they still use the same type of fuel (gasoline) but are much more efficient at it.

 

As far as weight lifting goals, I think what's more important is having an appropriate weight, and depending on your goals, having a set number of repetitions that gets you to fatigue. If you do heavy loads with small repetitions, or light loads with large repetition, will yeild you different results. One is not better than the other, it is just different forms of training.

[Robert Z]

An elliptical I would not consider heavy weight lifting, or weight lifting for that matter.

 

 

 

True. But you can set the load high enough to go anaerobic for interval training. So in this sense I was relating it to heavy lifting. In fact it [interval training] is a constant mix of aerobic and anaerobic training.

 

 

But your comment about efficiency is the key to what I was thinking. The very point was to have a measure of when your efficiency drops. This would be indicated by doing less work with a heavier or more demanding load over the same period of time.

 

 

I will have to do some reading. But I would bet that there is an optimum efficiency for building new muscle. It may be that the most efficient exercise for bulking occurs when the muscles are least efficient. But this might suggest that one lift with as much weight as possible is the best exercise. So that doesn't seem to make sense.