Sapien Fitness: Part II
Muscle mass, VO2 max & stress resilience
Key Questions
Why & how should I get muscular?
Why & how should I improve my cardio?
What are the trade-offs between strength & endurance?
Can I become more stress resilient?
Topics Covered
Muscle Mass & Limiting Factors
Strength vs Power vs Endurance
HR Zone Training
Sapien Fitness Series
Muscle Mass
Hormesis
This principle applies similarly to any other type of training. We must balance how much workload we place on ourselves or we risk injury/burn out or non-meaningful progress.
CNS Fatigue
Bodyweight Training
I think that this is a good place to start for beginners who haven’t done strength training before. This was a big part of my beginning in fitness that allowed me to learn body positioning as well.
Resistance Training
Dumbbells → good for extra stabilization work
Barbells → good for loading heavy weight
Kettlebells → good for plyometric/whole body movement
Cables → good for constant tension through movement
Effects of Resistance Exercise on Bone Health (NIH, Dec 2018)
[Basically lifting weights make your bones denser and stronger.
Astronauts use resistance training in space to retain bone density/muscle.]
Limiting Factors
Things like your hormones and genetic dispositions can affect your muscle growth. Testosterone is a vital hormone that regulates a lot of bodily functions and muscle mass. This can be naturally boosted by a healthy lifestyle such as not being sedentary or eating poor quality food.
Myostatin is a protein that regulates our muscle growth so it does not get out of control. The amount of this protein can vary from person to person and mutations of this can be observed in animals where they grow excessively muscular. Nowadays there are experimental treatments to suppress this protein but it is extremely novel. I will elaborate on this with a post on regenerative medicine.
Getting Huge
Your maximum muscle mass potential scales with your height. Here is a link to a calculator that can give you a rough idea of a max bodyweight:
Maximum Muscular Potential of Drug-Free Athlete
[Take your height in cm, subtract 100, = ? kg is your maximum muscular potential in “peak condition” (for bodybuilding so ~5% bodyfat)]
Obviously it is more complicated than that. For example, the calculator gives me at 5’11” a maximum potential of 176 lbs at 5% body fat, but I do not plan to focus on bodybuilding and mainly workout for strength. Strength is typically better at a higher bodyfat, my goal being around 12%. I also intend on taking creatine my whole life for its health, cognitive, and athletic benefits. Due to this I will carry more water weight, so I see myself sitting at around 190+ lbs at my maximum muscular potential. At this weight I am considered “overweight” by BMI standards at 26.5, but I would actually be athletic.
My Personal Advice
Key Points
Don’t rush into things. You will injure yourself, I know from experience. Build volume gradually. Listen to your body.
Compound movements: bulk of exercise
Isolation movements: areas of weakness
Functional work: unilateral & cross-body compound movements
Linear progression: weight, reps, time under tension (slow & paused reps)
Dynamic programming: deload weeks, volume weeks, focus weeks
Eat liquid calories: 1000-2000 calorie smoothie + regular meals
Whole milk (high protein), greek yogurt (high protein), frozen fruits, banana, protein, creatine, collagen, peanut butter powder (sugar free)
Eat 1.6-3.3g of protein / kg of bodyweight
Studies corroborate that this is the maximum useful amount if doing high intensity exercise: bodybuilding, powerlifting, sprints, etc
Ex) At 160 lbs/73 kg I want to have 110 - 240g of protein /day
Smoothie above: >100g of protein inside
(depending on brands. pick no/low sugar high protein products)Chicken breast has the highest protein per weight:
8 oz raw chicken breast → 6 oz cooked chicken breast (~50g protein)
If you are seeking more rigorous and continually updated information I would highly recommend MASS (Monthly Applications in Strength Sport). It is a paid analysis of the latest research in exercise science with directly applicable conclusions.
https://www.strongerbyscience.com/mass/
The Benefits
Strength vs Power vs Endurance
Strength is a measure of the total force that you can produce. Increasing strength does not necessarily equate to increased muscle mass. A large proportion of strength ability comes from neural adaptations.
Have you ever heard of a mom post-hurricane lifting entire cars off of their children? Normally your body does not let you do this to prevent serious injury. However, you can strike a balance and you may unlock a new level of strength.
When powerlifters compete they stick to a certain bodyweight division. The multiples of their bodyweight in their lifts is used to gauge their level.
Weightlifting Strength Standards
However, increased muscle mass would result in overall greater strength. Strongmen would be a good example of those seeking maximal strength.
Power is different from strength in that it is the total force per unit of time. In other words, the explosiveness of an athlete. A good example of this would be Olympic lifters or sprinters. Plyometric programs are used to train power, involving exercises like jumps, sprints & other rapid movements.
Endurance is an entirely different field and athletes are often quite lean. This is likely because it is advantageous to carry less weight over long distances. We can see this clearly over the range of distance running athletes.
However, this leanness does seem to vary between other endurance sports. Triathletes are often more muscular despite enduring longer distances and cyclists have tremendous legs: the variations do make sense given the generalist nature of triathlon and the emphasis on leg drive for cycling.
Muscle Fibers
There are 3 type of skeletal muscle fibers. Type 1 is the slow twitch muscle fiber. Type 2 is the fast twitch muscle fiber but there are 2 types called 2A and 2X. 2A is sometimes called the intermediate fiber because it is between fast and slow fibers. 2X is the most explosive fiber in our bodies but is usually present in small amounts. Dependent on your training style the body will accumulate certain proportions of these fibers giving you an advantage for the activity.
Heart Rate Zones
The recommendation from a lot of experts is to do the bulk majority of your training in low heart rate zones and to focus on duration versus speed. Speed work has its place, but the low heart rate approach allows for quick recovery to train again the next day. The risk of injury also significantly drops so it is a better approach for longevity.
There are multiple ways of classifying heart rate zones. The original is the Nordic convention, but Dr. Stephen Seiler suggests looking at things from a physiological perspective where there are really only 3 zones to concern yourself.
MAF Training
Maximum Aerobic Function training = “run slow to run fast”
180 - age = Zone 2 upper limit (rough estimate)
+- dependent on experience, recent illness, diet/sleep/etc
80/20 Training
80% of training at low intensity
20% of training at moderate-high intensity
Anaerobic Cardio
Sprints, weightlifting & other oxygen deprived exercise
VO2 Max
Measuring your cardiovascular ability.
Now you may ask if I do endurance with strength training will it prevent muscle growth? The answer is not so straightforward, but generally it is healthier to do a balance of both.
It is entirely possible to train your body to handle both strength and endurance activities. As we saw in the previous post in this series the human body is capable of highly specializing into a niche, but we can also be very good generalists. It all depends on what stressors you train your body to handle and the mental barriers you may have to surpass.
