-: Now let's kind of walk through protein synthesis
because when we look at these different training systems,
when we talk about incorporating the diet,
understanding how protein synthesis is activated
and what is needed for it to actually complete
and what the limiting factors are, for how fast it can run
and the potential amount of protein that you'll actually
be able to build.
All of these things are gonna be kind of important
for understanding how that interconnects,
so you can understand, if I do this program now,
my protein synthesis will be better the next time
I do a hypertrophy program, that sort of thing.
So if we're looking at protein synthesis,
the first thing that happens is we have to have some sort
of stimulus, which is what we're gonna get into
in the next unit or the next lesson, I'm sorry.
But we're gonna have this message
that basically is gonna lead us to the nucleus.
If you remember the nucleus is where your DNA is stored.
That's where all the instructions are.
So we have an incoming message that the nucleus
is now gonna say there's a stimulus out here,
we can actually open up these genes to respond
to that stimulus.
We're gonna open up these genes,
allow them to be transcribed, so parts of that DNA code
are gonna get tagged so that they can be transcribed,
translated and then actually leave the nucleus
and then they can actually go
and be synthesized into protein.
There's gonna be a lot of micronutrients
and energy-based limitations.
So if there's not enough ATP the nucleus can't do that.
If it's missing certain B vitamins, it can't do that.
So your first limitation is gonna be what's going on
right here at the nucleus.
Okay, do I have a stimulus?
If I have the stimulus coming in,
how fast can I quickly get the instructions copied
and printed so I can hand those off to the workers.
That means I have to be able
to re-establish energy balance in that cell
and I have to have all of the micronutrients that I need,
which is B vitamins are gonna be huge
in terms of this protein folding and unfolding
that happens in the nucleus
in order to be able to read your DNA.
We kinda look at this as a demonstration.
We have your nucleus here in this kind of purple section
and you're gonna get that transcribed.
So we're gonna get from the DNA to this kinda like
pre-mRNA, so that gets processed to the actual mRNA
that is then going to leave the cell,
or I'm sorry not leave the cell, but leave the nucleus.
Once it leaves the nucleus it goes out
into your sarcoplasmic reticulum
where all of these ribosomes are waiting there
for the instructions.
So those ribosomes are gonna take that
and they can say, okay now I have the instructions
to build a protein.
Each little section of that mRNA is gonna code
for an amino acid and it's just gonna read that
and it's gonna tack all those amino acids together
and eventually start to form a peptide,
eventually getting into larger peptides
and eventually proteins.
So we kinda walk this process a little bit further down.
So right now we're at the ribosome.
So the ribosome needs to be able to read
from nucleic acids.
Nucleic acids are what our DNA and our RNA
and the transfer RNA that the amino acids are tagged
are from.
So for that to happen we need a ribose,
which is a 5-carbon sugar.
We make ribose from glucose.
So in order for us to be able to actually replicate our DNA
or make our mRNA we need to have some sort of carbohydrate,
not a lot.
This isn't a mass of the carbohydrate defendant,
but in the severely depleted state you can see
that this could be a limiting factor.
So we have a special pathway called a pentose pathway
in our body where we're able to take glucose
and make ribose from it so that we can make
the nucleic acids, so that we can make more DNA or RNA
so we can make those instructions.
The other thing I need, I need to have enough ATP
and B vitamins to run that process, a few key minerals.
So then now I've got the instructions are all copied
and go to go at the ribosome.
Now I need the amino acids to actually start
building this protein matter.
So I'll need that and guess what?
The ribosome does not work for free, so he needs ATP
and he needs his cofactors too.
So again, micronutrient rich diet is going to be
key for optimal recovery, and understanding
that cellular energy has to be replenished.
So that means one I have got to have healthy mitochondria,
and two I have to be supplying nutrients so that I can
get my body back up to a high energy status.
So if I have enough of those, I have enough of amino acids
and I have the specific ones that I need.
So we have certain amino acids that are essential
and if I'm missing one of those I can't make it.
If I'm missing a non-essential amino acid, then my cell
will have ways of kind of obtaining that amino acid,
but not necessarily right on demand.
It kinda has to wait for it to happen
as a byproduct of metabolism so to speak,
and then eventually it could finish
synthesizing that protein, but what we rather have
is all the amino acids that are possibly gonna be needed
are there and available when I want to be running
protein synthesis.
I have all that, then we get to our synthesized protein
and then that protein can either, depending on what it is,
it can go and prepare some part of the contractile tissue
that was damaged, or it can become part of a new organelle
or it's a new enzyme that's going to work
in your metabolic function or something like that.
So whatever that protein happens to be,
whether it's for contractile or cellular function
outside of the muscle contraction, that protein now
gets transported to be able to do its job,
it becomes incorporated into the cell.
Just really quickly recapping our factors
for what's going to limit this.
That signaling portion is gonna occur mostly through mTOR,
so if your remember back to cellular energy metabolism
we got mTOR and AMPK kind of competing against each other.
So that means I need to have that AMPK level drop back down
so cellular ATP has to come up.
Maybe glycogen levels have to get to a certain amount
or oxidative stress needs to come down to a certain level
for this mTOR thing to actually say,
hey, we now have the nutritional conditions to support
protein synthesis.
It's now okay.
One we have enough energy, and two the mTOR also senses
the amino acids that we have, or any coming external signal
from the body that suggests
that there's enough incoming nutrition
to run protein synthesis.
Then we have the limiting factor is gonna be
how many nuclei I have because that's how many copies
of the instructions I have that I can duplicate
and send off, and the ability to actually do that process
which is dependent on ATP and macronutrients.
Then how many ribosomes do I have.
That's how many workers I have to actually be able
to read the instructions and build a protein.
So if I have a lot of nuclei and not a lot of ribosomes
I can't do protein synthesis very fast.
If I have lot of ribosomes and not very many instructions
well then I got a lot of ribosome sitting around
not doing anything waiting for the instructions.
So I want to make sure I have at much of each of these
as possible to be able to do protein synthesis
at a faster rate.
Then I have the sub-straits that I actually need to do it.
So the ATP and the amino acids that I actually need
to build a protein out.
So this is the building materials and the paycheck
for all the workers.
Gotta have those things in order for the ribosomes
to actually then synthesize the proteins once they receive
the instructions.
So if there is a limitation in any of these,
mTOR can't turn on because cellular energy is disrupted,
so AMPK is too high, or I have very low nuclei because
I haven't been doing any training for myonuclear,
or I have very low ribosomes because I haven't been doing
any of the types of training that are gonna help
boost our ribosome content, or I'm not getting
sufficient nutrition and not enough amino acids,
not enough essential amino acids, to actually build
the proteins that I need.
So the last type that we haven't really talked about
is this myonuclear where we're actually
increasing the nuclei.
So we get more nuclei in the muscle, more instructions,
it's obviously a good thing for protein synthesis
and recovery.
It's not a significant impact on muscle size.
So when we do a type of training
for increased myonuclear demand
there may not be an initial jump in muscle size.
You may not see it on the scale
'cause really what's happening is a cell
is kinda donating itself to the muscle cell,
which you'll see in an image here in a second,
but that doesn't change the volume of the cell much.
It's not like a bunch of glycogen coming in,
it's not a bunch of new protein formulated,
this is like an investment into being able to recover better
in the future if you will.
So it has a very significant impact on the future ability
to adapt and the future ability to respond to stress
and stimuli because the nuclei remember is the thing
that receives the incoming message from stimulus.
So mTOR might be the thing that gets turned on,
but mTOR sends the message to the nucleus to be able
to respond to that stress on a genetic level.
So it increases our ability to adapt to stress
because we have more nuclei that can respond
to whatever signals are being sent in.
So that's for all things metabolic, neurologic,
and hypertrophy based stuff.
This is a big part of muscle memory.
It is the fact that one we do retain
a lot of contractile protein
unless we do something very poor for our diet or lifestyle,
but we tend to maintain our myonuclei over time
even if we start to lose some contractile protein.
We tend not to lose the nuclei, which means that cell
has a really good ability to adapt even if I end up
getting detrained for a while.
So if I trained and I built up my myonuclei a lot,
and then I took a long period off
and then I went to train again,
my cells are in a much better place to respond to training
and hypertrophy and do protein synthesis faster
'cause I have way more nuclei able to do protein synthesis,
able to kind of get back to where I was
a lot faster that it took
or a lot faster and a lot easier
than when I tried to get to that spot
the first time I trained.
So let's just look at an illustration here.
So if we have an untrained person they're gonna have
a certain amount of nuclei,
which are represented by these little black dots.
So if this is a muscle fiber here, muscle cell,
you have multiple nuclei in there.
So there happens to be eight in this untrained person here.
Then we stimulate
we stimulate a process where we're going to tell
neighboring satellite cells.
So if you imagine there just being a pool of empty cells.
When I say empty I mean they have no purpose yet.
They're blank.
They're not a liver cell, a muscle cell, or anything yet.
They're a cell that doesn't do anything except sit there
and survive.
So we have these satellite pools that are just there
as backup cells for our body.
When we stress muscles in a certain way what's gonna happen
is that muscle is gonna release a signal and it's gonna
send it to that satellite pool and it's gonna change
what those satellite cells are doing.
Some of them are going to actually duplicate themselves
and others are going to actually differentiate themselves
and they're going to travel to the muscle cell membrane
and they basically merge into it,
like one oil droplet meeting a bigger piece of oil
and it kinda gets absorbed into it.
That's essentially what happens.
So this satellite cell comes to the edge of the muscle,
the membranes fuse and then the nuclei gets donated.
That happens over and over and over again,
and then what you have is you have a lot more nuclei
in that muscle cell.
If you detrain that muscle cell might get smaller
because you lose the sarcoplasmic stuff,
maybe even lose some myofibrillar hypertrophy,
but you'll maintain relatively high amounts
or almost all of those nuclei.
Then you re-train and then it's a much shorter trip
back to where you were in terms of your hypertrophy gains
because with those extra nuclei you can respond
to hypertrophy training.
You can do protein synthesis to a greater degree.
You can adapt to metabolic stimulus to a greater degree.
Any stimulus you can adapt to better because you have
more nuclei.
So it's really easy to get back to where you were
if you accomplish some improvement in your myonuclei.
So, recapping myonuclei.
It's the most permanent of our hypertrophy adaptations,
but very little actual contribution to muscle size
in itself.
But it increasing your ability to ether get sarcoplasmic
or myofibrillar hypertrophy in the future.
So of the things that actually look bigger,
it potentiates your ability to get those in the future,
even though new nuclei don't really
add a lot of cell volume.
So nobody's gonna be up on the Olympia stage and be like
man, I can tell that guy has so many nuclei.
Look how full his muscles are.
That's never gonna happen.
But he will be able to build bigger muscles faster
because he had a lot of myonuclei.
He was able to get sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar adaptations
at a faster rate.
It does take them longest to recover from this
and for this to be stimulated again
because if you think of a metabolic adaption
that's something the cell is doing all by itself
and is doing it relatively quickly.
This requires not only a lot more trauma
to the actual muscle usually, but it requires a signal
to be sent outside of the muscle,
a cell to actually move through the body in a part.
This isn't long distance, these things are very close
to where they need to be.
But they do have to move a little bit, and then it has
to merge with your muscle tissue and get situated
in that muscle cell where it needs to be.
And then, after all of that and the inflammation and stuff
where everything is resided, then now you have the potential
for greater recovery and everything,
but nothing has really happened yet
in terms of that new nuclei providing any benefit.
It doesn't actually provide any benefit until the next time
that you train.
So that you have a chance to stimulate it.
So it takes a longer time for that adaptation to occur
and that stimulus to kinda run its course
than the other types of training, and because of that
it kinda goes in stages.
So it's longer before it can happen again
and that's very important 'cause remember what I said
about those satellite cell pools when this signal gets sent
some of them will be told to differentiate,
meaning going to the muscle tissue and donating themselves
to it.
But other ones will be told to duplicate themselves
and that duplicating themselves is what maintains
the satellite cell pool.
If you didn't have some guys there staying and reproducing
to maintain that number what would happen is
your satellite cell pool would get lower and lower
and lower.
Then what would happen is your ability to do this type
of stimulus, your ability to recruit those satellite cells
would be less and less and less
because you'd have less and less and less of them
that could come and contribute, and that satellite pool
would start to dwindle.
That's why this can be slower and less efficient with age
just because people can actually get to the point
where they've damaged their satellite cell pools
and stuff like that.
You can even make the argument that sometimes
when we're looking at the PEDs and the anabolics
and stuff like that, that kinda work on some
of these signalings is that taking some of those hormones
and stuff can disrupt this type of thing
and potentially create an issue where it may be harder
for you to get gains in the future
because you have kinda of shrunk that satellite pool.
So you kinda got a really short-term boost in your recovery,
but now that satellite cell pool is smaller.
So it kinda decreased long-term potential in some cases
when things are abused.
Just something to think about.