Technical chit-chat thread

[Hawkpeter]

Nice find.

I've certainly encountered some pearl-clutching with regards to including even a small amount of aerobic capacity work for weightlifting. As stated earlier in the thread, the concern is around disruption to signalling for muscle protein synthesis. I dont have enough data available to properly weigh my intended outcomes of left ventricle strength (upper Zone 2 low Zone 3) and fat oxidization versus the signalling disruption.

I do like going back to longer sets on things like squatting similar to the 'high intensity conditioning phase', and I think this is a better way of categorising this kind of work as opposed to 'hypertrophy phase'.

[brian.degennaro]

Circling back to the Charlie Francis comments I made earlier, I think that is where the high-low training methods can come in handy. I have not seen a negative impact of including long duration, low intensity Zone 2 or very moderate effort intervals on myself or any of my athlete's training; and my years of doing it in HS track has clearly stayed with me even 16 years later. They can get through workouts with shorter rests given enough time. Work capacity always goes up and they can tolerate more heavy attempts with shorter breaks if necessary like when people shuffle the cards at a comp. Practically speaking, I may experiment with including such high-low methods with classic lifts where on the low days we may do high rep clusters or EMOMs with 60-70% to enhance these anaerobic/aerobic pathways. I think there is a good argument that increased capillarization/mitochondrial density in the prime muscle groups in weightlifting could lead to an increase in performance as it does in other power based sports.

Regarding nutrition, I definitely agree that higher carbohydrate intake is anything but a negative for weightlifters. I have seen a very positive relationship with myself and others when adopting high carb intakes of 3-5g/kg/BW and almost no negatives when protein intakes are as low as 1.6g/kg/BW. If anything it helps keep fat intake lower, and you can be more satiated with such higher volumes of carbs and food in general. The last times I cut to 73kg and was doing 120/150 I was still consuming 350g+ of carbs per day, and it did not feel too unreasonable to maintain my bodyweight and training capacity.

[strapping]

Nice find.

I've certainly encountered some pearl-clutching with regards to including even a small amount of aerobic capacity work for weightlifting. As stated earlier in the thread, the concern is around disruption to signalling for muscle protein synthesis. I dont have enough data available to properly weigh my intended outcomes of left ventricle strength (upper Zone 2 low Zone 3) and fat oxidization versus the signalling disruption.

I do like going back to longer sets on things like squatting similar to the 'high intensity conditioning phase', and I think this is a better way of categorising this kind of work as opposed to 'hypertrophy phase'.

I'm just not convinced the magnitude of interference is meaningful in the broader context, if it's even there. I think the real "interference effect" occurs with CNS fatigue from doing multiple modes and high volumes of training. This applies especially if conditioning is performed in a way that may cause lots of muscle damage - running, CrossFit etc.

My anecdotal concern regarding high rep squatting/pulling is acute fatigue and injury risk without adequate time for preparation. In general, I'd prefer to have people just do sets of no more than heavy 5-6s on squats/deads (or clustered doubles/triples etc), do accessories in a circuit and then do some cardio to get better cardio.

Circling back to the Charlie Francis comments I made earlier, I think that is where the high-low training methods can come in handy. I have not seen a negative impact of including long duration, low intensity Zone 2 or very moderate effort intervals on myself or any of my athlete's training; and my years of doing it in HS track has clearly stayed with me even 16 years later. They can get through workouts with shorter rests given enough time. Work capacity always goes up and they can tolerate more heavy attempts with shorter breaks if necessary like when people shuffle the cards at a comp. Practically speaking, I may experiment with including such high-low methods with classic lifts where on the low days we may do high rep clusters or EMOMs with 60-70% to enhance these anaerobic/aerobic pathways. I think there is a good argument that increased capillarization/mitochondrial density in the prime muscle groups in weightlifting could lead to an increase in performance as it does in other power based sports.

Regarding nutrition, I definitely agree that higher carbohydrate intake is anything but a negative for weightlifters. I have seen a very positive relationship with myself and others when adopting high carb intakes of 3-5g/kg/BW and almost no negatives when protein intakes are as low as 1.6g/kg/BW. If anything it helps keep fat intake lower, and you can be more satiated with such higher volumes of carbs and food in general. The last times I cut to 73kg and was doing 120/150 I was still consuming 350g+ of carbs per day, and it did not feel too unreasonable to maintain my bodyweight and training capacity.

Greg Nuckols just wrote a 10,000+ word essay (albeit from a different angle) to basically say what Lyle McDonald said about protein intakes 5 years ago on his website and 17 years ago in his protein book.

Practically, I think 1.6/kg is a good minimum for men and definitely women (especially for trainees who are not orienting their lives around training), but I think there is a reasonable argument to be made for substantially more protein than that. MPS is easy to measure and 0.4g/kg x 4 per day seems maximise it, but MPB is the elephant in the room because it's hard to measure. Whole body protein breakdown can be used as a proxy measurement but it's only that. We don't really know how MPB changes with regards to protein intake.

That said, I would expect a heterogeneous response to protein intakes as is frequently the case with individual response to... everything. Human physiology statistical analysis is like drawing a line through a cloud.

I think there is a good argument for high protein intake in a main-gaining phase and very high protein intake (>2.6g/kg LBM or even >3g/kg LBM) in a fat loss phase to maintain muscle mass, as long as fat intake needs are met and carbohydrate intakes are sufficient for good training. However, I still don't feel we have good evidence for any specific recommendations due to general poor quality of research.

[strapping]

Another Nuckols article, this time on the relationship between volume, proxmity to failure and and strength gains

Will take my time to read it