Dr. Squat - Dr. Fred Hatfield

Yea I know everyone's going to get all pissed because I'm posting so much, but I'm doing research for something I'm working on and I keep passing by these things that I cant find on a search of this site (most of the time anyway) and I think are interesting topics...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11834116 -- like this for example...

It says here that repeated bouts of exercise dont affect the recovery process??? This one's particularly troubling, because I once called on the ISSA help line and was advised that you SHOULDN'T exercise if you're too sore or too close to your last workout because you WILL affect the recovery process!

If you really wont affect recovery if you just keep training and training ... then ... you can just keep training and training?

This cant be right.

That's why C days are spaced so far apart, Kid! Here's something I wrote about a couple of years ago....

Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) – sometimes called post-exercise muscle soreness -- involves muscle pain, soreness or stiffness that is not felt until 12-48 hours after exercise. It is commonly experienced when beginning an exercise program after a prolonged layoff or as a raw beginner in weight training or other forms of exercise. It is also common following a change in sports activities, or following a dramatic increase in the duration or intensity of exercise.

Minor, non-debilitating muscle pain is normal and quite ubiquitous. It is a response to strenuous exertion and is part of the adaptation process that leads to greater muscle size, stamina or strength as the muscles recover and supercompensation occurs. The delayed soreness is generally at its worst within the first 2 days following the activity and subsides over the next few days.
DOMS is quite common and quite annoying, particularly for those beginning an exercise program or adding new activities. For example, a beginning exerciser who bikes 10 miles, followed by push-ups and sit-ups is likely to experience muscle pain and soreness in the next day or two.

Causes of DOMS
Delayed onset muscle soreness is thought to be a result of microscopic tearing of the muscle fibers. The amount of tearing (and soreness) depends on how hard and how long you exercise and what type of exercise you do. Any movement you aren't used to can lead to DOMS, but eccentric muscle contractions (movements that cause muscle to forcefully contract while it lengthens) seem to cause the most soreness.

Examples of eccentric muscle contractions include going down stairs, running downhill, lowering weights and the downward motion of squats and push-ups. In addition to small muscle tears there can be associated swelling in a muscle which may contribute to soreness.

Treatment
There is no one simple way to treat delayed onset muscle soreness. In fact, there has been an ongoing debate about both the cause and treatment of DOMS. In the past, gentle stretching was one of the recommended ways to reduce exercise related muscle soreness, but a study by Australian researchers published in 2007 found that stretching is not effective in avoiding muscle soreness.
Does anything work to reduce delayed-onset muscle soreness? Some people have found the following advice helpful, but it's best for an individual to try a few things to see what works for them. Ultimately, the best advice for treating DOMS is to prevent it or at least minimize it in the first place.

Here are some tips you should provide your client with for dealing with DOMS:
• DOMS will go away in 3 to 7 days with no special treatment. You may wish to exercise a muscle after 3-4 days despite mild stiffness or pain. Some people claim that this helps in speeding the recovery process. Just don’t overdo it.
• You may still exercise other (non-affected) muscles. A complete cessation of working out is not necessary or fruitful.
• Try an ice bath or contrast water bath. Although no clear evidence proves they are effective, many pro athletes use them and claim they work to reduce soreness.
• Use active recovery techniques. This strategy does have some support in the research. For example, perform some easy low-impact aerobic exercise to increase blood flow. This may help diminish muscle soreness.
• Although research doesn't find that stretching reduces soreness, some say they like it because it simply feels good. It’s a temporary fix at best.
• Gently massage the affected muscles. Some research has found that massage was effective in alleviating DOMS by approximately 30% and reducing swelling, but it had no effects on muscle function.
• Try using a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs such as aspirin or ibuprofen) to reduce the soreness and inflammation.
• Avoid any vigorous activity that increases pain in the affected muscle(s).
• Don't forget to warm up completely before your next exercise session. There is some research that supports that a warm-up performed immediately prior to unaccustomed eccentric exercise produces small reductions in DOMS, while a cool-down performed after exercise does not.
• If your pain persists longer than 7 days, or reaches an intolerable pain level despite these measures, or if you notice a brownish tint in your urine, consult your physician. This may be a sign of rhabdomyolysis (explained below).

Preventing DOMS
While DOMS is common and annoying, it is not necessary for it to be so painful as to become disruptive or debilitating. There are many things you can do to ameliorate the debilitating effects of DOMS:
• Warm up thoroughly before activity and cool down completely afterward.
• Be sure to hydrate before exercise and rehydrate during and after exercise.
• When beginning a new activity start gradually and build up your time and intensity.
• Start a new weight training routine with a weight that yu can easily perform 10-12 with, but do only 5-6 reps with that weight at first. Gradually increase the amount you lift as well as the number of reps and sets you perform over several weeks.
• Avoid making sudden major changes in the type of exercise you do.
• Avoid making sudden major increases in the frequency, intensity or duration of your exercises.
• Avoid making sudden major increases in the amount of time that you exercise.

At this point, we will segue to the extreme case of DOMS, a condition that is referred to among medical professionals as rhabdomyolysis.

Rhabdomyolysis
While not clinically proven, it appears that rhabdomyolysis is on a continuum with DOMS. Like DOMS, rhabdomyolysis is caused by the breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue due to injury, but it is far more severe. Unlike DOMS, rhabdomyolysis is a potentially life-threatening syndrome resulting from the breakdown of skeletal muscle fibers with leakage of muscle contents into the circulation. While muscle injury due to exercise stress is the most common among gym-goers, muscle damage may be caused by physical, chemical, or biological factors. The destruction of the muscle leads to the release of the constituents of damaged muscle cells into the bloodstream. Some of these muscle constituents, such as myoglobin, are harmful to the kidney and may lead to acute kidney failure.

One of the reasons that a thorough medical history on your client is vital is that rhabdomyolysis can be caused by several other common factors besides intense physical activity. As always, if any factors appear on your client’s history that you are unsure about, or which match the physical or non-physical causes listed below, you must discuss them with your client’s physician.
Signs and symptoms

Most cases of rhabdomyolysis develop as a result of muscle injury or strain, or other external causes (such as medication or intoxication). However, the cause is not always directly evident. Pain, tenderness, weakness and edema (swelling) of the affected muscles is usually present. If the swelling is very rapid, low blood pressure and shock may be present due to depletion of fluid from the bloodstream. Other symptoms are nonspecific and result either from the consequences of the breakdown in muscle tissue, or from the condition that caused the muscle breakdown.

Swelling of the damaged muscle occasionally leads to compartment syndrome, the compression by swollen muscle of surrounding tissues in the same fascial compartment (such as nerves and blood vessels), leading to damage or loss of function in the part of the body supplied by these structures. Symptoms of this complication include decreased blood supply, decrease in sensation, or pain in the affected limb.

Release of the components of muscle tissue into the bloodstream leads to disturbances in electrolytes, causing nausea, vomiting, confusion, coma and cardiac arrhythmias (abnormal heart rate and rhythm). Furthermore, damage to the kidneys may lead to dark (tea-colored) urine or a marked decrease or absence of urine production, usually about 12–24 hours after the initial muscle damage. Finally, disruptions in blood clotting may lead to the development of a state called disseminated intravascular coagulation.

(stopped here...lots more to this...)

So I take it nobody knows the answer?

Did I finally stump drsquat.com ???

I tried emailing Ken Nosaka, the author of some of these studies... since everyone here was apparently on their coffee break, all at the same time, for several days in a row...

And here's what I got.

===============================
As you know, muscles become less susceptible to muscle damage with training (repeated bout effect). Thus, actual "muscle damage" does not occur so much in training (DOMS does not necessarily indicate muscle fiber damage).
Muscle hypertrophy is due to a balance between protein degradation and protein synthesis. Any workout increases protein degradation, and stimulate protein synthesis pathways.
If no rest between workouts, no time for protein synthesis, thus no hypertrophy. So, it is true that rest is important.
Mechanical stress is the key factor stimulating muscle hypertrophy genes, not damage.
Without any muscle damage, we can still give muscles good mechanical stress, resulting in hypertrophy.
I think that even muscles are not completely recovered from the previous workouts, if "overload" is given to the muscles, it could stimulate hypertrophy genes.
In this case, submaximal intensity can still be "overload."
Needless to say, protein synthesis requires amino acids and ATP.
In a nutshell, the best training is to maximise mechanical stress by minimising muscle damage.
================================

Ok, I thought muscle damage WAS protein degradation. I tried looking up the process of protein degradation in athletes, I could couldn't find anything that explains the exact process of exactly what protein degradation is, if not muscle damage.

So what is it?

Maybe he has DOMS in the cranial cavity.

TNT

I'm probably the last person who should be answering this, but as i understand it, Protein degradation is a natural process whereby proteins are released by the muscle cell in response to stress, signaling the beginning of protein synthesis, which leads to hypertrophy. Muscle damage is like little tears in the muscle, which if allowed to accumulate without recovery, will lead to overtraining and injury.

So in my relatively uneducated perspective, the goal is to train sufficiently to induce protein degradation, while minimizing the actual damage to teh muscle fiber, so that recovery, in the form of protein synthesis, happens quicker, allowing you to start the process over again sooner.

something like that anyway

>>Protein degradation is a natural process whereby proteins are released by the muscle cell in response to stress, signaling the beginning of protein synthesis, which leads to hypertrophy.

◘ HOLY FRIGGEN DADDY BIG BOSS HE ANSWERED IT!!! Someone actually answered it oh my friggen god you're the first one in like 4 different forums 57 goddam thousand web pages and 5 different emails to doctors all around the world THANK YOU JESUS H CHRIST thank you for finally answering that friggen question if you were a woman I'd kiss you!!!!!!!

Marry Jesus and Joseph Aries Buddha Vishnu GOD!!!!!!

Ok, now... please... just one more step. I mean we are RIGHT at the finish line here folks lets PLEASE not drop the ball now.

........ I just need 1 person to confirm it. Todd, Kenny, Mike... you know who you are... I'd normally ask for links but I'm not too picky at this point, its been weeks and I've lost sleep wanting to know the answer to this question.

Someone please confirm that protein degradation is what Yukon says it is. I'm not going to sleep until you do. The plethora of nonsensical messages that shall spew forth from my keyboard after several days of no sleep WILL make your eyes bleed. I drank half a bottle of pure caffeine before coming here today. Dont make me drink the other half!!!

You know guys, ignoring this thread isn't going to make it go away.

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performa...

Recruiting slow twitch fibers STOPS protein degradation?

There's only one explanation. The author is brain dead.

I agree if you train the same muscle group that will affect the recovery, however if you train a different muscle group then your recovery won't be affected by the earlier sore muscle group. Provided that you are eating right and getting enough sleep.

I'm enjoying the discussion.

A protein is essentially a chain of amino-acids with a particular order/sequence, otherwise called a polypeptide-string.

What makes the difference between "just that chain" and a functional protein, is the way the chain is folded in a characteristic 3D shape. This folding can be from comparatively simple to very complex.

WITHIN THIS CONTEXT, protein denaturation means the disturbing/alteration or loss of the unique folding structure of that specific protein and thus it's inherent functionality.
One step further is the proces of degradation also referred to as proteolysis,in which a polypeptide chain is broken down partially, into peptides, or completely, into amino acids, by proteolytic enzymes.

IF degradation is associated with the contractile proteins of myofibrils, than technically speaking you could speak of 'damage'
Since myofibrils are the structural units of a muscle fibre, naturally we must speak of muscle fibre damage as well.

Ok, so...

Basically, as a muscle begins taking on damage, it starts out with protein degradation. If it keeps ON getting damage, you could get cumulative microtrauma.

Correct?

Now, if we keep exercising with the same exercises, eventually we wont get sore anymore, even though we STILL ARE causing protein degradation! How?

Now let me see if I can get this right.

Is it because certain elements of the muscles adapt to the exercise and thus no longer become damaged, then swell up, then squeeze the nerves causing DOMS? It would mean that you are indeed doing enough to cause protein degradation, but not necessarily enough to cause DOMS.

Is this right?

Now how about when you do an exercise thats slightly different and get sore from doing that, even if its just 1 set of that exercise?

^^^ Ok...

My idea (on why changing to a different exercise and doing even 1 set made you sore) was that somehow a different neurological input was being used, and since different motor units were being recruited, the next day these motor units were hyper sensitive...

I SWEAR I read DrSquat article on how hydroxyproline is caustic to these nerve endings making them sore... but I cant find it...

So do you think that has anything to do with it? I'm gonna try looking for that article one more time... Christian (FrenchNameHere) also had an article where he stated something similar.

My idea (on why changing to a different exercise and doing even 1 set made you sore) was that somehow a different neurological input was being used, and since different motor units were being recruited, the next day these motor units were hyper sensitive...

I SWEAR I read DrSquat article on how hydroxyproline is caustic to these nerve endings making them sore... but I cant find it...

So do you think that has anything to do with it?

Yes I certainly do. It must be some combination of neurochemical and mechanical factors.

Since I'm in the right mood anyway....

Based on this assumption I also think:

- That DOMS is a VERY POOR indicator of muscle growth, if at all.

It is more likely to be an indicator of microtrauma or perhaps only an indicator of how (momentarily) susceptible/sensible you are for microtrauma expressed trough DOMS.
Granted, severe DOMS might hinder in such a way it's near impossible to train the sore muscles.
On the other hand, imho it is complete bullshit that you have to wait until DOMS has disappeared COMPLETELY before you can start training that musclegroup again.
On the contrary, gradually increasing training frequency with still feeling some DOMS just helps to prevent DOMS over time and leads to faster&bigger gains in my experience. (of course provided that your adaptive reserves/recovery capacity is not overtaxed)

- That these changes of exercise and the resulting DOMS are not a sign of new growth spurt coming your way, perse.

Apart from all other factors like volume and frequency, I still believe in the premisse that the number one stimulant for musclegrowth trough training, is intramuscular tension. (Caused by mechanical strain)

Exercises that generate a large amount of intramuscular tension (by load, leverage factors and inherent forcefull contractions) combined with a high motor unit activation pattern (EMG)are the ones of choice to stimulate hypertrophy (and strength of course.

As a consequence, for mass&strength building purposes, most muscle groups you really don't need more than one or two (perhaps 3 in some cases)exercises.
Using exercises with inferior potential in terms of generating intramuscular tension/activation for variety's sake or to elicit DOMS is utterly useless in my opinion.
The obvious example here, is that (within this context)I would never replace squats with leg extensions in order to break a plateau in mass/strength building.

The only reason I would choose slight variations WITHIN a specific exercise (e.g. deficit deadlifts, pause squats, pin presses etc.) is to emphasize a specific part of the main lift, in order to obtain a higher level of neuromotoric activity/efficiency.
In other words, to develop more OVERALL strength in the main lift, NOT as variable growth stimulant, since the main lift already took care of that...

Enough blahblah for now

I'm gonna try looking for that article one more time... Christian (FrenchNameHere) also had an article where he stated something similar.

Please do!

(By the way, It's Thi-bau-deaux or just CT/Thibs)

Have you left out "intensity" in scenario one? In my own understanding, CM can be made worse OR better by more exercise. Higher intensity training may increase the CM accumulated from exercise bout 1, but lower intensity training will be beneficial by promoting blood flow to the area which will in turn lead to a faster rate of healing.