Tag Archive for: muscle

So You Lose a Little Muscle—So What?

/in /by

Any of my former students who read the Memo should remember the following definition quite well:

A motor unit is a nerve and all the muscle fibers to which it attaches.

It’s called a unit because both sides of that equation are important. Muscle fibers contract when stimulated by a nerve. Reduce the number of fibers that the nerve can attach to, and the muscle won’t generate as much force. Losing a little strength is no big deal, right? How about walking up a flight of stairs? Or even being able to maintain balance while standing? Yes—it’s a big deal.

Sarcopenia is the progressive loss of muscle strength and function as people age. How much loss? Just look at the picture from the Journal of Physiology: the loss of muscle is obvious and with that, a loss of function. Let that sink in. I’ll talk about whether anything can be done about it the rest of the week.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: J Physiol. 2018 Mar 11. doi: 10.1113/JP275520.

 

Can Vegetarian Protein Help You Build Muscle?

/in /by

People often ask me which is the best type of protein to build muscle when weight training. The reason for the question is bodybuilder and weight-training websites that condemn vegetarian protein as not good enough to build muscle. In the same issue of Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise as the paper from Tuesday, a research study examined that question.

Researchers divided 54 men into three groups. One group got a vegetarian protein blend of soy and dairy, a second group got dairy-only protein, while the third received a maltodextrin placebo. They all performed the same weight training program for 12 weeks. The researchers then tested their strength as well as evidence of muscle growth after taking muscle biopsies.

All participants gained strength and muscle. Those who took the protein supplements gained slightly more muscle than the placebo group, but there were no differences in muscle gains between the soy-dairy blend and the whey-protein group.

This contributes to the body of research showing that it’s the protein that makes the difference, not whether it’s a vegetable or animal source of the protein. Use whichever fits your lifestyle better, but it’s doing the lifting that makes the real difference.

What are you prepared to do today?

Dr. Chet

 

Reference: MSSE. 2017 Feb 13. DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000001224

 

How Exercise Affects Menopause: Muscle and Bone

/in /by

In Tuesday’s post, we looked at how menopause affects exercise. Today and Saturday we’ll look at the reverse because exercise can have powerful effects on the changes we associate with menopause.

As a woman ages, she loses bone mineral content due to decreasing hormone levels. Her muscles change as well; fast-twitch muscle fibers become more like slow-twitch fibers. Women can’t run as fast . . .

We're sorry, but this content is available to Members and Insiders only.

If you're already a DrChet.com Member or Insider, click on the Membership Login link on the top menu. Members may upgrade to Insider by going to the Store and clicking Membership; your membership fee will be prorated automatically.

Gaining Muscle and Losing Fat with Protein

/in /by

Can you gain muscle while losing weight? Let’s take a look at the final study in this week’s Research Update on protein.

Researchers recruited 40 young overweight men to participate in a four-week diet and exercise weight loss program with an average age of 23 and average BMI of 29.7. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups. The control group had a diet that reduced calories by 40% and provided 1.2 grams of protein per kg of body weight per day. The protein group had their intake reduced by 40% but were given 2 . . .

We're sorry, but this content is available to Members and Insiders only.

If you're already a DrChet.com Member or Insider, click on the Membership Login link on the top menu. Members may upgrade to Insider by going to the Store and clicking Membership; your membership fee will be prorated automatically.

Dancing Your Way to Fitness

/in /by

Does the way dancers train make them some of the fittest and leanest athletes? On Tuesday, we looked at heavy weights and fewer repetitions. Let’s look at light weights and many repetitions.

In ballroom and other forms of dance, the resistance is almost always body weight. Yes, there are lifts and there are powerful turns and jumps, but the only resistance is often body weight. Think of repeatedly doing half-squats, push-ups, or abdominal curls for hours on end, plus the muscle needed to hold . . .

We're sorry, but this content is available to Members and Insiders only.

If you're already a DrChet.com Member or Insider, click on the Membership Login link on the top menu. Members may upgrade to Insider by going to the Store and clicking Membership; your membership fee will be prorated automatically.

Do Dancers Rule the Fitness World?

/in /by

Dancing with the Stars began a new season last night, and once again Paula asserted that dancers have the best bodies: great musculature and shape without being unnaturally bulky. She wondered if dancing was the equivalent of exercising at high reps with low weight as opposed to typical weightlifting that emphasizes systematically increasing weight when a specific number of repetitions are met. I do as my wife commands, so this week I'm looking into the difference in results between high reps at low weight and fewer reps at high weight.

Let’s look at fewer reps at . . .

We're sorry, but this content is available to Members and Insiders only.

If you're already a DrChet.com Member or Insider, click on the Membership Login link on the top menu. Members may upgrade to Insider by going to the Store and clicking Membership; your membership fee will be prorated automatically.

The Cause of Obesity: The Lack of Exercise

/in /by

After reading Thursday’s message, I’ll bet you all saw this one coming. Together with taking in too many calories, we just move way too little and it costs us. I specifically made the title of Thursday’s message “Muscle Aging” instead of “Aging Muscle.” The reason is that our sedentary lifestyle causes the muscle to age faster than it should. The solution is exercise. Here’s a partial list of what exercise does for skeletal muscle:


Better Blood Flow

Regular exercise increases blood flow to the exercising muscles. That allows nutrients in and more important, waste . . .

We're sorry, but this content is available to Members and Insiders only.

If you're already a DrChet.com Member or Insider, click on the Membership Login link on the top menu. Members may upgrade to Insider by going to the Store and clicking Membership; your membership fee will be prorated automatically.

The Cause of Obesity: Muscle Aging

/in /by

In the previous message, I said that there was one factor besides calorie intake that affected the rate of obesity in the United States. Because a picture is worth a thousand words, just take a look at the CT scans at right (1). These are scans of the thighs of a 25-year-old man and an 81-year-old man, matched for body weight and height. There are a couple of things that you can notice. The white area is the muscle and the dark area is mostly fat; the older man’s thigh has visibly less muscle mass . . .

We're sorry, but this content is available to Members and Insiders only.

If you're already a DrChet.com Member or Insider, click on the Membership Login link on the top menu. Members may upgrade to Insider by going to the Store and clicking Membership; your membership fee will be prorated automatically.