vince_andrich’s BodyBlog

For PART I Refer To;

Osmotic Anabolic Signaling

Nutrition and Supplement Strategies that Go BEYOND the €˜Perpetual PUMP’ for

True Muscle Growth and Cellular Recovery
PART II

By Vince Andrich

The Mirror-Key to Monitoring Low-Carb Diet Success

Using changes in the appearance of your muscles to gauge your nutritional status and/or needs is extremely useful on a carbohydrate-controlled diet, because they are very time sensitive. What I mean is, once you understand what nutrients alter the volume of your muscles, you can make adjustments literally day-by-day. These visible signs are more significant than ever when you understand that as a rule High Protein-Low Carb (HP-LC) Diets cause an overall loss of cell volume making the scale an unreliable measuring tool. Your visual goal will be to keep your muscles looking FIT not flat, which we will cover in detail later. If you desire muscles that are super pumped, fuller, rounder and gorging with vascularity then forget using a HP-LC Diet exclusively. To attain fat loss, and still be able to muster up a pump in the gym, takes some insight. In short, the goal is to “threaten your glycogen stores to a point where your muscles begin to lose fullness, making it difficult to get a great pump, however we must avoid allowing our muscle to go entirely “flat. The €˜trick of the trade’ is to utilize a cyclical carbohydrate cycling approach, where you eat about 100 grams of carbohydrates per day for up to three days, and then jump to about 5 times that number for day four. This would mean you would consume 100 grams of carbs for three days, and then on day four, consume 500 grams to replenish depleted energy stores. Beyond this “carbohydrate-balancing act, there are several recent discoveries that have revealed numerous non-carbohydrate substrates that induce cell swelling so that you can attain maximum muscularity and avoid looking flat and stringy. Since most athletes don’t have much experience assessing their nutritional status as it relates to muscle cell energy, here is a quick guide.

Assessment Tools

Monitoring the “appearance of your muscles is an art form that has been practiced for years by trial and error. Hey, it’s no accident that when you look around any commercial gym all you see is a wall of mirrors. However, beauty is more than skin deep. Today science has uncovered tons of the reasons why gauging muscularity by the mirror is essential to success.
<strong />

So What Do I Look For? 
The main storage compound in skeletal muscle is glycogen, which is measured in millimoles per kilogram of muscle (mmol/kg). Luckily, several researchers have found some relevant data regarding glycogen stores to help athletes gauge their cell volume. Here is what we know:

An individual following a normal mixed diet will maintain glycogen levels around 80-100 mmol/kg. Athletes following a mixed diet have higher levels, around 110-130 mmol/kg,  which would represent a fuller looking muscle. As a rule weight trainers and active individuals classify a normal mixed diet as 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat. So then an active individual on a HP-LC Diet should aim for “fit looking muscles which is represented by glycogen levels around 70 mmol/kg. If you are using other cell swelling techniques in this article, your muscles should look a much fuller than non-exercising individuals on a normal mixed diet or about 85 mmol/kg. At these levels of glycogen, fat oxidation increases both at rest and during exercise . Monitoring the “appearance of your muscles is a very non-scientific measuring tool so it is necessary to use visualization. Picture “fit muscles on a HP-LC Diet to look about 35 % smaller in overall cell volume than when you are not dieting (see fig.1).

If you’re still unclear remember how you looked when you were eating more carbs and compare that to these warning signs that tell you’re spiraling out of control:

• A flat or stringy looking muscle would represent about a 70% decrease in your overall cell volume (glycogen at 40 mmol/kg). At this level, workout performance is largely impaired and protein can become an important fuel source during exercise.
• Total exhaustion during exercise occurs when your muscles are about 85% under volumized (glycogen at 15-25 mmol/kg), which is not an environment conducive to favorable changes in body composition.

The Chemical Soup that Determines Muscle Cell Volume
It should come as no surprise that getting nutrients in and out of your muscles is under close scrutiny. The €˜gatekeeper’ that guards working muscles is called a cell membrane, or more specifically the sarcolemma. Covering the entire muscle fiber, the sarcolemma (muscle membrane) is an extremely thin, flexible and elastic substance. The first and most important job of the membrane is to maintain the integrity of the cell and keep the vital contents inside. If this protective cover gets damaged severely then the contents will escape and the cell will die. Further, the sarcolemma acts as a gateway through which substances (i.e. amino acids) can enter and leave, making it selectively permeable. Briefly, here are the main functions of the cell membrane:

• To hold vital energy components inside the muscle cell, such as glycogen and Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the key energy €˜currency’ of your cells
• To transport the waste build up from muscle fiber contraction out of the cell
• To accept nutrients that are critical to the health, maintenance, repair and building of muscle cells. These nutrients are amino acids, carbohydrate molecules (glycogen stores), hormones, oxygen etc

One surefire way to manipulate the permeability of a cell membrane is to workout. Training damages the sarcolemma in a positive way and appears to “unlock the door making it more permeable. This effect has likely been programmed into our genes for survival. The likely scenario is this: after a brutal workout, your body senses that the nutrients and fibers inside the muscle cell have been “torched and damaged, then it allows what is effectively your muscle cell recovery team inside to “reconstruct the crime scene. It appears that feedback provided by a number of mechanisms including amino acid monitoring and Osmotic Anabolic Signaling work in concert to maintain proper cell volume as a consequence of exercise.

The Cytosol €” Key to Muscle Cell Volume
Once past the muscle cell gateway, what exactly do you find inside? You find the cell’s cytoplasm, which in regards to a muscle cell is called the sarcoplasm. This is literally everything inside of the plasma membrane. The muscle fibers are surrounded by a thick fluid or gel, which is called the Cytosol. This is center of the universe when it comes to bodybuilding. I say this because the nutrients that go in and out of the cytosol determine how the muscle cell is remodeled, or basically, rebuilt.
The cytosol is the intracellular fluid inside of the muscle fiber. The outer structure is a virtual superhighway, which takes raw materials from the outside of the cell (passed through the cell membrane), then stores or converts those materials into useable energy. In other words this transparent gel contains such foods as amino acids for maintenance and repair and glycogen (carbohydrates stored in muscle) for energy. You see a muscle fiber must have a fuel source in order to contract. This is why the cytosol also has tiny specialized structures called organelles, or microscopic organs. Perhaps the most significant of these €” at least in terms of energy production €” are mitochondria, because they convert carbohydrates (see chart above) and fats into ATP, which is our muscle cell’s main energy currency or fuel.

Blood Volume €” The Red River That Feeds Cell Volume
The topic of blood volume is somewhat related to the subject we just discussed. That€˜s because extracellular fluid levels that make up your blood volume also make a huge impact on the water content inside your muscle cells. Most bodybuilders don’t realize that even their performance is directly related to the level of hydration (or dehydration) when they step into the gym. Dehydration is defined as a >1% loss of body weight as a result of fluid loss. This is not usually a problem for a weight trainee during exercise, but if you start your training low on fluids it will become a factor. Consider this, if you are normally a 200-lb athlete and your lack of hydration brings your weight down to 196-lbs (2% of your body weight) there is a measurable decrease in muscle cell contraction times, and when fluid losses reach 4% of body weight, there is a 5 to 10% drop in overall performance which can persist for up to 4 hours even after rehydration takes place. When hydration levels plummet it slows recovery. Reparatory processes are so reliant on fluid for transporting anabolic substrates like amino acids and glucose to muscle cells as well as removing waste products from those cells.

So unless you are depleting water for a photo shoot or contest (which require arguably less performance), it is essential to anticipate and regularly replace fluid losses. For the record, thirst is not a reliable indicator of dehydration as it takes a fluid loss of 0.8 - 2% of body weight to trigger thirst. Now you know why many serious athletes carry water around with them in the gym!

There is no doubt that maintaining blood plasma volume is an important strategy to optimize your physical performance, and reaching a mind blowing pump IS a performance feat in it of itself.

Osmotic Anabolic Signaling In Action
I didn’t want to turn this into a piece on water and hydration, but now that we’ve covered the basic determinants of cell volume, though hydration and carbohydrate intake, here is a quick summary of OAS in action.

• For the athlete, nutritional status and training frequency cause extracellular (blood plasma) and intracellular (cytosol) conditions to vary considerably with respect to each other.
• Proteins and other substrates lie at the interface between these two compartments and relay signals relating extracellular conditions to the cell interior
• Nutrient sensors act to regulate cellular contents, and therefore nutrient sensing may culminate in the altered activity of a multitude of cellular intermediates such as hormones, glucose, amino acids and other nutrients.
• Osmotic Anabolic Signaling is triggered by specific nutrients (or their metabolites), or the detection of physiological signals generated as a result of changes in cell volume or cell membrane potential

STAY TUNED FOR PART III

Nutrition and Supplement Strategies that Go BEYOND the €˜Perpetual PUMP’ for True Muscle Growth and Cellular Recovery

PART ONE

By Vince Andrich

You want the ability to get a “perpetual pump in any body part you train, every single time you walk into the gym, right? You are in pursuit of the almighty PUMP because you truly believe it holds the key to building more muscle size and strength, correct? You also believe that the magnitude of the pump you get in the gym is an indication that you’re on your way to less bodyfat and more defined muscles, true? Now, what if I said you were right and that the PUMP really was a reliable gauge of your bodybuilding progress? Well it is, but there seems to be a misunderstanding of sorts. You see, if you’ve been following this line of thinking €” that pump equals growth €” you must realize that the traditional mechanisms for accessing a perpetual pump, pale in comparison to a startling new breakthrough in bodybuilding chemistry. Don’t get me wrong, you will still learn about an integrated system that will allow you to attain a maximum pump, but you’ll discover that there is definitely more. This approach represents an entirely new way to look at the mechanisms for bodybuilding success €” one where the benefits are noticeable and, most importantly, permanent.

The Breakthrough is Not For Everyone
The techniques outlined in this article are not intended for everyone, although anyone can benefit. What I mean is simply this: you need to €˜come clean’ and be honest about your bodybuilding goals and how YOU plan to achieve them. Let me explain more. If you are on a sophisticated regimen of bodybuilding pharmaceuticals like growth hormone, testosterone, insulin and the like, your ability to get a pump in the gym should be simple. If this is your approach to bodybuilding, then the rest of this article is of no relevance to you. I am not an expert on bodybuilding drugs, but I do know enough to say that whenever I am working with an athlete who is ON, my traditional nutritional recommendations are not necessarily applicable. This is why my focus is to work with athletes who’s hormone levels are not off €” or all over €” the charts, and therefore do not undergo severe fluctuations. However, even if you choose to go to the “dark side and use bodybuilding drugs, which I do not suggest, you can’t stay on them long term. Eventually, if you want to have your health and a great body too, you’ll be seeking out “legal bodybuilding chemistry, like the information in this article.

Nitric Oxide Boosters and the Rise of the Almighty PUMP
The popular trend in bodybuilding supplementation these days is the use of Nitric Oxide (NO) boosters as a method for increasing your “pump while weight training. The use of nitric oxide supplements (NO is the acronym, for nitric oxide), has gained quite a following since they initially hit the bodybuilding scene around four years ago. I won’t go into the exact mechanisms associated with boosting nitric oxide, but the principle benefit appears to be vasodilatation. By improving vasodilatation, an athlete would experience increased blood flow from dilated blood vessels. As time goes on, more performance supplement companies are marketing various formulas as nitric oxide boosters, thereby dramatically increasing the popularity of the category.

The highly anticipated benefits associated with increasing nitric oxide levels were initially driven by multiple marketing campaigns and by at least one popular book. Many of the marketing claims for nitric oxide products became very similar to those of creatine. For example, fuller muscles, tighter pumps, gains in power and strength, and increased cell volume. As a result, these products were €˜granted’ nearly the same credibility as creatine, when it first hit the market. The hype for the nitric oxide products gave birth to what is now almost indistinguishable from the creatine category, and in fact, many of the most popular formulas include creatine as a major active ingredient.

I have no doubt that the most significant reason these products are in demand is because they are endorsed as a means for promoting massive pumps in the gym, increasing lean mass, enhancing fast twitch muscle, quicker recovery and improving strength, but the purpose of this article is not to dispute or justify these claims. Whether or not nitric oxide supplement claims hold up to the acid test of real-world training is an entirely different subject, so I’ll save it for another time.

What is The Pump?
In bodybuilding circles, the sensation of tight congestion, or swelling, of your muscles with blood during your weight training session is €˜The Pump’. Now, a weight trainer with any experience knows that if you lift a heavy enough weight, and don’t rest too long between sets, your working muscles will become swollen with blood. In scientific jargon, this is referred to as reactive hyperemia because it involves an increase in blood flow (i.e., hyperemia) in response (i.e., reactive) to the exercise stimulus.

Triggering the Osmotic Anabolic Signaling System
So, what’s the big deal with striving to attain what popular bodybuilding jargon refers to as a Super Pump? To be blunt, The Pump is the manifestation of many physique-altering benefits that are not visible to the eye. Ironically, what seems like such a foolishly vain aspect of bodybuilding to the uninformed is, in fact, an excellent means for judging your nutritional status, current anabolic/catabolic condition and measure of training recovery.

In essence, it appears that the magnitude of the PUMP you get in the gym can be traced back to multiple factors associated with muscle growth and recovery, and are intimately related to an intricate cellular swelling mechanism that modern scientific literature calls Osmotic Anabolic Signaling  (OAS). This phenomenon is at the heart of building new muscle year round, and retaining lean mass in the face of hypo-caloric dieting. To maximize this system requires attention to several “puzzle pieces, of which nutrition tops the charts.

Diet and Muscle Cell Dynamics
When you are well fed, i.e., carbohydrates are not restricted, your ability to get a pump should be pretty easy, even if your diet is not optimal. However, it has become increasing popular for weight trainers to follow a diet that carefully considers carbohydrate intake. The modern bodybuilding diet usually allows for 40-50% of your daily calories to come from carbohydrates. This number may increase for athletes who weight train for sports, which make it necessary for additional daily energy calories to be burned beyond those needed for the gym. Typically, carb intake is under strict control when an athlete wants to avoid gaining fat (this could be all year round), or must lose excess bodyfat for a wide range of goals including contest prep. For example, consuming less than 100 grams of carbohydrates is the standard level for a “low-carb day. If this level seems low, it is, but keep in mind these diets usually remove carbohydrate calories and make up the remainder of the daily calorie allotment from increases in protein and/or fat. The best low-carb diets put an emphasis on protein intake due to its ability to promote additional calorie wasting.

The underlying problem with excessive restriction of carbohydrate is that when training intensity is high (and of course intensity is key to keeping or increasing muscle size much less the PUMP), even 200 grams of carbohydrates per day for larger athletes is tremendously meager. Research has shown that a high-protein diet coupled with low-carbohydrate intake creates a metabolic environment called acidosis, which is not conducive to high intensity weight training , . In addition, weight training intensely while simultaneously reducing carbohydrates dramatically depletes stored energy in muscle (glycogen), and therefore we know that low-carb dieting cannot be followed for weeks on end.

Fortunately, most athletes realize that it is best to utilize carb depletion/cycling regimens rather than attempt to stay on reduced carbs for the entire length of their diet. That is, they follow a few days of low-carb eating (usually 2-3) and then allow themselves a day or so of “normalized feeding to drive the replenishment of glycogen so that training intensity can be maintained. The other benefit associated with this diet format is that the athlete enjoys maximum fat burning on low-carb days, and then when carbs are reintroduced in greater amounts, insulin is allowed to help maintain the desired anabolic state. Further, boosting carb intake at this point offers a mechanism to reinvigorate natural thyroid production €” often reduced when on low-carb diets €” for improved metabolic function.

Moreover, a consideration of importance, beyond the aspect of performance, is the anabolic effect of insulin secretion on muscle protein synthesis. Moderate carbohydrate intake at each meal should stimulate the proper insulin levels needed for maximum muscle protein synthesis. Over time depressed insulin secretion may halt any additional muscular progress.  Therefore, my approach to feeding for most of the year is to systematically eat a little less carbs than I need and more protein than I can use. This concept is fully explained in a booklet called ‘No Mistakes’ - The Nutrition Guide to Building Your Best Body Ever. I wrote this guide with my colleague Rob Thoburn, who is an absolute bodybuilding genius and now works for the forward-thinking sports nutrition company BSN.

Nutritional Clues Related to €˜OAS’
I’ve mentioned relative dietary concepts because at the end of the day, your nutritional status will ultimately become the €˜core’ to engaging OAS, and the PUMP you get in the gym. How much does nutrition have to do with OAS? Have you every wondered why your muscles are flat some days and on others full?  As you recall the muscle contains stored carbohydrates. Guess what?  For every carbohydrate gram you store an additional 2.7 grams of water!  Whenever you consume plenty of carbs, your muscle cells become saturated with them, and each carb pulls nearly 3 grams of water into a virtual anabolic Jacuzzi! Therefore, your muscles fill up like a balloon!  You can always tell how anabolic your nutrition is by how full your muscle cells are. As we touched on previously, when you are on a reduced-carb diet, your muscle cells become flat and your skin is loose, and doesn’t look very tight. The initial stages of this are common while dieting, because the athlete is simply low on carbohydrate stores in their muscle cells. However, in speaking with many advanced athletes if your muscle cells are left high and dry for too long, with nothing to hold water inside the cell, you will eventually chew up your hard-earned muscle.

So, this raises the question: Can you get a super pump in the gym while carb intake is low? In my opinion, the answer is no, probably not.
Keep in mind the pump is relative, and is can only be judged against your personal experience. But you will get a better pump when your carb intake allows for stored glycogen in your muscles to be roughly 50% of capacity, and your water intake is adequate. As a reference, adequate fluid intake for a 200-lb athlete is about 1-gallon of water, or 12, 8-ounce glasses. When it comes to gauging your stored muscle glycogen levels, then best assessment is the mirror, which we will discuss in detail in the next section.

Go Here for
PART TWO

http://blog.bodybuilding.com/vince_andrich/2006/10/25/osmotic-anabolic-signaling-part-ii/