-: Already get your brain switched over
to another training session.
We're talking about local metabolic programming
and the way that we are going
to assess how well that is working.
And we're looking at, you know, metabolic stuff.
I think a question that kinda came up repeatedly
with the systemic stuff is that you don't need
to be in a fat loss goal to take advantage of these things.
So pay attention to the context of how we're looking
at assessing these things
on whether or not they happen to be
for somebody that is focused on fat loss
or hypertrophy or maybe doing these things
from a conditioning or a performance perspective.
So keep that in mind guys.
Just wanted to throw that out there.
That was kind of a common theme question
after going through all the systemic stuff
is I think people just need
to make sure they understand that there's gonna be times
in your periodization where you can use a lot of these tools
and don't lose sight of that just
because we tend to use them at a higher volume
for one particular person.
Just because we use save systemic in a higher
like quantity, like over time we'll use that more
in a fat loss person.
Does not mean that it is not just
as important for somebody with a hypertrophy goal
to pursue those systemic adaptations
because they're gonna help maintain that recovery
and what not.
Okay, well, hello everybody that's in here.
We're gonna go ahead
and get started with today's lecture.
So as said, today we are talking
about assessing Local Metabolic Program Stimulus
and Recovery.
So when we look at this one we're gonna have a lot
of similarities to the systemic.
So you're gonna see some of these slides,
they're gonna look very similar
but don't sleep on it
'cause there's gonna be subtle changes.
In some areas they're gonna be big differences.
So we're starting the same.
Really it comes down to why did we choose
to do this in the first place?
Because we need to know why we're doing it,
what the goal that we are currently pursuing so
that we can actually understand what we're trying
to accomplish and if we're working towards that or not.
We have to be able to,
we have to have a goal.
We have to have somewhere to put those markers
to know if we are hitting them,
getting closer or further away from them.
So like I kinda opened this
with it's a metabolic stimulus
but you can use that metabolic stimulus for body comp.
You can use local metabolic especially for potentiation.
One of the things we do here a lot is we tend
to use like an AMPK phase before a, you know,
attention based hypertrophy phase as a way
of potentiating like, you know,
our ability to tolerate the volume,
our glycogen stores and all of things.
So we can get more out of that subsequent hypertrophy block.
Local conditioning and performance,
that can be the same thing as potentiation
or it can be different if you are literally needing
to have a certain skillset.
So like if you train MMA fighters,
MMA fighters have a very diverse demand
of strength and energy systems
and performance qualities that they need to have.
So, you know, when you're looking at their camp
and stuff over time there may be times where it's like,
"Okay, we need to kinda throw something
like this in there."
You know, to really kind of push those qualities differently
than what they're getting
in their actual grappling based training
or whatever it may be.
'Cause they might be getting a lot of like, you know,
a systemic work in their Jujutsu training
but they may not be getting a lot
of isolated local conditioning.
And that could be the thing like, you know,
a guy loses his legs or, you know,
blows out his arms, you know,
trying to hold a couple chokes
or something like that.
If you work with athletes,
local conditioning can be very important
because wherever they fatigue first,
that's where they're gonna get the technical breakdown.
And so you, one you wanna delay how soon that fatigue comes
but also understanding like,
"Okay, if we kinda know the order of operations
and where we're gonna kinda break down and whatnot
that can then become part of the strategy
and you can actually, you know,
create your strategy as like a, as a fighter
or whether or not, you know, the types of plays.
Whether you're running an uptempo team for football
like there's so many applications
in sports where you can be like,
"Man, if we can kind of understand this conditioning stuff,
we can know how that's gonna affect us
on the technical side."
It gets really cool.
So if you are one of those people that happens to work
with athletes don't underestimate the potential benefits
that you could get from doing local conditioning work.
And then, you know, a recovery aspect.
So systemic training is gonna be more,
we'll say have a stronger, you know,
potentiation for improving recovery
because it really helps.
You know, if we're systemically conditioned,
our threshold for our autonomic nervous system is just,
it's so much better that it allows us
to stay parasympathetic more of the hours of the day.
So not much is gonna supersede systemic conditioning
for recovery but when we're talking
about recovering from specific locally traumatizing training
like hypertrophy training
that's where then being conditioned
at the local metabolic level can help a lot.
But if we're just talking about like in general,
not like for specifically people
that are gonna be using this
as a potentiation hypertrophy tool, you know,
systemic is gonna be probably a stronger stimulus
for improving recovery.
But for those seeking hypertrophy,
the seeking the gains,
local metabolic work actually is going to be a big chunk
because their training is very locally stressful.
It's just the nature of the game.
So let's kinda look at what the ideal outcomes are gonna be
for these respective goals.
Obviously, when we're looking at body comp,
body fat we obviously want it
to be moving in the right direction.
But what you're gonna see
when you're doing a local metabolic thing
is you're gonna see maybe a higher percentage of recomp
versus like, you know, weight loss.
And that's kind of what we should be focusing on
because you guys you've been through course two,
you know that when we're pushing
these local metabolic systems
we're not necessarily gonna be trying
to do this on zero carbs, low carbs.
We're gonna try and make sure
that we're providing the fuel source
that kinda matches that stimulus.
And so recomposition is likely a better way
of describing what we're shooting for
during this particular phase.
It doesn't mean weight loss can't occur
but we shouldn't be trying to lose weight loss
at the maximum rate during these phases
because we will, the training will suffer too much
if our calorie deficit is too high
or if our, we don't have sufficient carbohydrates.
So when we're looking at body fat here you wanna shift
that kinda target, that goal that you're looking
for more towards recomp, less towards weight loss.
Like in systemic, especially if you're using
like carb cycling or whatnot.
You could expect to lose a lot more weight
during a block of systemic training
but that's also because you won't be promoting
as much glycogen retention and stuff like that.
And you won't be getting as much of a local stimulus
for maybe a, you know, modest hypertrophy and whatnot.
So just keep that in mind when you're looking at,
you know, the scale versus the calipers
or whatever measurement you're using
to track body fat is that
during this we wanna see the percentage shift more
than we want to see the scale shift.
And it's possible that in some instances weight gain
with a positive percentage shift
in body comp may be perfectly acceptable
or be more acceptable goal depending
on who you're working with.
Because it may be that you're
like you're really expecting this person.
Like maybe they're coming from a low carbohydrate,
you know, blocked beforehand
and all of a sudden now you're gonna expect them
to retain more glycogen and therefore more water.
But we should see those body composition,
you know, percentages improve
and we should see like if they're lean enough,
we should see an aesthetic improvement
like that fullness, that improvement
in terms of muscle volume
from that hydration and glycogen.
For looking at hypertrophy potentiation we can't tell
that we're gonna be able to potentiate hypertrophy.
Like we can't tell that like,
"Okay, I'm, now I see in my, you know,
crystal ball that future hypertrophy gains are coming."
But what we can know is whether
or not we're setting ourselves up
for a successful place to go into a hypertrophy block.
And that means we are going to be seeing a greater shift
towards fluid and substrates into the muscle tissue, right?
So not only we will see performance improvements
and we will also should see improved muscle volumizations.
So we're looking at potentiating hypertrophy,
probably don't want to be losing a lot of weight.
Okay, we could still be recomping absolutely fine
but you definitely don't want to be losing lean
like sarcoplasmic muscle volume
during this phase if your goal is to use it
to potentiate hypertrophy.
If anything you wanna end
with a higher sarcoplasmic volume.
More water, more substrates, more glycogen
'cause that is what is going to improve your performance
and your tolerance in those hypertrophy blocks.
From a performance and recovery goal
then we're really just kinda
like if it's performance-based,
we are literally set in the objective
in terms of like what type of performance do we need.
Like whether that is an intensity level
or a duration level, et cetera.
And we're literally looking at moving closer and closer
to being able to hit whatever performance metric goals
that we have.
So if it's amount of work over time,
it's a, if it's amount of recovery,
if it's recovery between sets
or whatever those are gonna be the variables
that you're pushing over your subsequent sessions
in weeks with this type of training.
And so you're just,
you're looking at very specific improvements
in the markers that you want to,
that you want to improve there.
From a recovery perspective you're gonna see improvements
in all those things too
but if your goal is just for recovery,
you may be kinda looking overall
at performance improvements rather than trying
to get improvements in just a specific area.
Now it could be that you still kinda wanna focus
on one area because you know that, that happens
to be an area that you're under recovering
or you don't have the potential at,
in your other blocks of training.
So for instance, you could note that like,
"Okay, this person seems to have a hard time recovering
between sets."
They tend to drop off performance
and have that low tolerance to volume.
And so you could actually say,
"Okay, so during this phase the thing
that I'm actually gonna progress is density
by decreasing rest intervals
because that's the kind of the metric
that I wanna move forward so that we move out
of this block that no longer is
as big of a limiting factor
in my other phase of training.
And as usual you may have overlaps in terms of, you know,
some of this stuff depending on who you're working with.
So getting a little bit more detailed and nuance, okay.
Into the body comp, recomp thing, right?
Improved performance tolerance,
that's gonna be up there
but volume per muscle is gonna be the thing
that we're really kinda looking at
for that ideal outcome.
And so when I say volume per muscle,
so first like systemic that might
like that increases our overall recovery capacity
but it doesn't necessarily increase
like how many sets of biceps that we could tolerate
in a workout or how many sets of biceps that it took
before we fatigued.
So we're looking at improved performance and tolerance here,
we're looking at volume per muscle,
or tolerance to local fatigue or failure.
So what that means is I can handle more sets,
or I don't fatigue as fast over the course of sets,
or I can handle taking sets to a higher degree of failure.
Those are the things that we're kind of hoping to improve
or the performance enhancements that we're hoping
to get from this.
Now the one that you're probably not gonna know
on the spot as well
is how much you can tolerate increased proximity
to failure because depending on the metabolic stimulus
that you're pushing, you may or may not be trying
to push to failure more
than just maybe the very end of the last set or whatnot.
So oftentimes for focusing
on local metabolic work if we're focusing more
on AMPK you're only gonna be hitting failure
at the very end.
So what we're really looking at is,
is like are we actually able to do more work?
Are we able to tack on more sets, more reps, et cetera
before we get to that failure point, that fatigue point.
Are we able to improve the density?
Those would be the things
that maybe we'd be looking at, right?
And then the other one would be tolerance
to low level activity demands
via improved fatty acid metabolism.
What that means.
So on the systemic side,
okay we can improve our ability
to tolerate low level stuff
and increase the threshold before we would be pushed
into sympathetic drive
because systemically like we're better at mobilizing,
you know, blood, oxygen, you know,
our cardiovascular system is better.
Our aerobic and maybe our respiration systems
are getting improved there.
But here what actually happens is,
is that when I'm doing a low level activity,
there's less of a strain on blood glucose
because I'm able to utilize fatty acids more efficiently
and my metabolism.
Overall that local level is just more efficient.
So these kinda work in tandem
in terms of bringing up my threshold
of low-level activity that is say,
quote, unquote non-stressful to the body.
So what we would like to see is
that mundane tasks become easier.
You know, like things that normally would have a,
you know, a small bit of effort.
Become effortless is what we're hoping
for especially from like a local level.
So things where normally it's like,
"Okay, you know, I go up a flight of stairs.
Yeah, I kinda feel my legs."
Maybe now, I mean,
obviously if you just train them recently
it might actually be the opposite.
But the goal would be like, "Oh, I threw this."
Like now when you take the flight of stairs
like if you're doing systemic training,
maybe we aren't out of breath as much.
For doing local training maybe it's like,
"Oh my, you know, it was easier for the local tissue.
Didn't feel as hard to go up the stairs."
Okay, obviously you choose an example
of something like that.
Again, the things that are gonna be easier
for you to look at is volume per muscle
and how long it takes to fatigue over the course of sets.
Those are gonna be your easiest and,
you know, most applicable ones
but failure and increased tolerance
to low-level activities is gonna be a component to there.
And those can be things that you can
instead of, you know, trying to evaluate
within your workout you can get an idea kinda
like at the end of the phase.
Maybe, you know, you have a metric
that you can look at for that.
So, you know, you may be able,
you may not be able to within your metabolic phase
really know how much your tolerance to failure improved
but you can look back and evaluate how effective that was
by comparing the phase prior
and after if you are going,
like if you're doing similar style training
and pushing to failure
and seeing how your tolerance changed
between those two blocks
with that metabolic period in between.
And then increased local metabolic flexibility, right?
Again, the ability to switch between carbs and fats
and use both of them very efficiently.
And what we will see with that is
that low-level activities are a little less effort
and they tend to impact us systemically less.
So if you are doing a lot of stuff back to back
like you're doing a systemic phase
and then you do a local metabolic phase back
to back sometimes there's gonna be a blur
and you don't know like,
"Okay, does this improvement in, you know,
like the stare test for example,
is that more from the same systemic training
or the local training?"
It's gonna be always be a combination of both
but if you pay a little attention you may be able
to eke out which one of those is the,
is we'll say the limiter
or the, has the lowest threshold.
Continuing on.
Nutrient partitioning. I mean, it's a big reason
that we do the metabolic phases is we're hoping
to get more nutrients into lean tissue
and less fat storage, right?
So increase local utilization of fat.
Okay, how do we really, we can't really measure
that we're utilizing fat better other
than the fact that we seem to be able
to tolerate lower effort exercises more effortlessly.
That means like maybe we're able to, you know,
do the same work on a bike
or a treadmill at a lower heart rate.
Okay, 'cause if we're utilizing fat better,
utilizing carbohydrates better,
it's gonna be less of a systemic demand.
Another big thing is, is that like looking
at how we respond to food.
So if we are getting better at, you know,
utilizing fat likely we're going to tolerate
like space between meals better,
we're gonna be able to tolerate lower carbohydrates better
or periods that they don't have carbohydrates better.
We're gonna start to see that like, you know,
less of those hungry episodes, things like that.
Those would be signs
that we are getting better overall metabolically.
And obviously we have to be using something for fuel, right?
Like just because we get better at doing things
or whatnot it doesn't mean they don't still require energy.
And so likely we're getting more efficient
and efficient energy utilization is going
to be more fatty acid dominant at lower intensities.
So if we're looking at comparing effort
and heart rate across low intensity aerobic activity
we would expect to see some improvements there.
As well as like decreased like lactic acid buildup.
So basically increasing the threshold
before you would start to actually kinda get that burn
in your muscles.
So you may have like a,
like if you had somebody doing an RPM
or whatever at a given heart rate, et cetera for the bike,
they may be able to tolerate that
with less lactic acid accumulation
if they're becoming better at utilizing fat.
And just overall more metabolically efficient, period.
So all of this nutrient partitioning
is we want increased local fat utilization,
improved local metabolic efficiency,
and then we want increased local fuel stores,
and the concentration of the fuel sensors
or transporters that are gonna help get that in there.
So that last one like,
"Okay, how do we know if we are actually, you know,
getting better at transporting nutrients in there?"
That's where that changed,
that fluid shift into the muscle.
So we, you know,
hopefully see people store less extracellular water
and have a more full appearance.
That's gonna be hard on somebody
that has a very high body fat
but it's not impossible.
You can use things like, you know,
circumference measurements
and kinda looking at like waste
versus like where they would have more muscle.
You could use the thigh or the, you know,
the arm or whatnot.
And you could kinda look and see like,
"Oh, we're actually starting
to get to the point where, you know,
if I give you a refeed meal
or like give you a carb meal
or whatever that, you know,
you tend to store a little bit more volume
of that in the extremities
and a little bit less around the midsection.
Not perfect.
That metric is gonna be much the eye test
in a lean person is the easiest one for that.
When you're looking at tools
like bioimpedance and things like that
that could measure extracellular water,
if those things worked really well
that would be awesome.
Like it would be such a valuable tool
to always be able to know where water is shifting,
you know, whether you're holding more extracellular
versus intracellular. Give you a really good idea
of how your nutrient partitioning,
how you're managing inflammation, et cetera.
But my confidence in the current tools
for that are just very low right now.
I'm in the InBody,
I mean, the it's the top
of the line one that really gives you the detail on that.
And so for the 17 or $25,000 that you would invest
in that to me it's one not worth it
and or accurate enough.
I mean, if it was dead on accurate I'd be like,
"Man, that actually might be something
that would totally be worth it."
You know, 'cause like I would look
at that marker as almost something that we could use.
Maybe even more applicable than like a HRV type number
but it's just not accurate enough.
And, you know, inaccurate data can be worse
than the no data quite often.
So glycogen and substrate,
the things we want to be partitioning.
What we're looking is increased intra,
say this 10 times fast,
increased intramuscular substrate concentration
of glycogen enzymes
because enzymes are metabolically active proteins, right?
And that includes things like kinases and stuff like that.
So basically active molecules.
That means they do something,
they're part of pathways, they're part of change,
they have properties where they, you know,
accelerate pathways or they switch the roles of,
you know, transporters, et cetera.
So basically the higher concentration we have of enzymes
and co-factors basically means that we can do things faster.
All the things that, that cell does,
we can do them faster
or we can do them in a greater magnitude.
Okay, having more glycogen, more hydration that is going
to increase the amount of fuel we have.
But also like, so cells can only handle
like certain concentrations of things.
So like a certain amount of glycogen
or anything, you know, hydrogen ions or whatever
like this cell has to maintain a certain chemistry.
So the lower the hydration
of a muscle cell the less it can tolerate changes
in concentration of the things within it
because it's changing it to a greater degree.
The more hydrated those cells become the greater
like tolerance, the greater the buffering capacity is
for you to have changes in the substrates.
So that be positive or negative?
So overall you just become a more metabolically flexible
and functionally flexible cell when you are hydrated.
Now hydration is not just water.
Hydration is also all of your electrolytes
and stuff as well.
And you could consider like we're talking
about hydration, there's gonna be certain proteins
and glycogen, et cetera
that are also gonna be fairly important
for your ability to maintain that.
And then creatine and carnosine levels.
So obviously you guys probably all know what creatine does
by now, you know, in terms of helping to,
you know, recycle ATP
but carnosine is also an important one.
Carnosine levels in the muscle improve our tolerance
to hydrogen ions and lactic acid production, et cetera.
And so, and then those can be very beneficial
from a performance and a volume tolerance perspective.
So these are the things that we're going to be,
you know, hoping to happen.
Of those, glycogen and water are gonna be the things
that we can probably reasonably track
because we can, you know, we can't necessarily say,
"Okay, take a B vitamin and then measure how much
of the B vitamins go into the muscles."
But we can give somebody a bunch of carbs,
We can give somebody water and see what happens.
Do they get bloated?
Do they get more full, right?
Do they now have better pumps when they go back to the gym?
You know, do they have improved performance,
improved energy, et cetera?
So what we're really looking forward
to is positive responses
from adding glucose into the system
and maintaining hydration.
And then we can assume that if we're doing the things
in terms of getting quality nutrition and taking our basics
and maybe we're supplementing with creatine and, you know,
maybe you're giving somebody some beta-alanine
or something like that to help increase muscular carnosine
that we're gonna be optimizing all of those things
as well onside that.
But glycogen and water are gonna be the ones
that change the volume of the cell the most
and so therefore those are gonna be the ones
that we're gonna kinda use
to know if we've created a scenario
where we are nutrient partitioning
in the right direction.
So this is where having, you know, you know,
you maybe having somebody take their weight, you know,
before and after an off day
or before and after refeed so
that you can kinda see what happens
when we either take away training
or we add more carbohydrates.
How does their body respond
in that scenario is gonna be a very valuable way
of assessing the nutrient partitioning adaptations
that are occurring.
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