i've often been told that, contrary to popular belief, athletes needn't boost their protein intake?!

Of the times I've seen this mentioned, it's always been contextualized by the idea that said athletes are already consuming more protein than the RDA, rather than that the RDA value is sufficient. Thus, no need for them to supplement.

Protein is not a purely structural component; it also has a role in energy metabolism. At least for elite athletes, adequate protein intake may be about 0.7 g per pound, or about 60% more than the RDA. Endurance athletes generally show performance gains when some protein is added to their (carb) recovery drinks. On the weight loss side, diets that increase the proportion of protein usually show greater fat loss while helping preserve lean mass.

^ I agree w/ that assessment, based solely on my own experience. David recommended as high as to 1 gram/lb of body weight. It varies obviously, but I'm pretty close to .7-.8-ish and that has worked well for me in both maintaining and building muscle mass and keeping fat off. We're all very much individuals and finding what works best is going to take at least some trial and error.

I'm sure if you were on a very high protein diet as a norm, then you may not have to boost your protein intake. It's pretty easy to figure out how much protein your ingesting daily and if your in the 0.6+/# you might not need to boost it. A "smoothie" (plain yogurt, egg, banana, frozen tropical fruit, orange juice and a scoop of whey protein) after a workout helps boost protein intake for me and appears to be beneficial in my recovery- ymmv :)

I'd second (or third, really) the protein intake recommendations of David and Mike. That has worked very well for me when I am lifting heavy.

I'd also like to add that for me raw spinach was extremely helpful with recovery after heavy lifts. I noticed a fairly dramatic effect after eating a large baby spinach salad the next day. It's now a regular part of my diet for that very reason.

^ hey- if it was good enough for Popeye :) actually had never heard of that before

Maybe it has something to do with all the iron in the spinach? Not sure, just something I stumbled on. I've gotten to the point that I really crave spinach and other similar greens. I usually eat them without dressing these days.

looks like it has several redeeming properties (including high in iron)

http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4608886_spinach-help-build-muscles.html

You can develop a quite strenuous workout routine without weights. All of the lower body is easily stressed with lunges, calf raises on stairs and the like. For upper body you can go with TRX style equipment. Once you check out these nylon webbing straps, you'll find it costs next to nothing to just make your own. Plenty of results in web searches.

Use it or lose it.

Yes but not the most efficient way to build muscle. Difficult to load up enough resistance to 75+% of 1 repetition maximum. Excellent for flexibility but not strength or muscle. Good for beginners.

It depends on what your objective is. 75%+ will build the fast twitch muscles which results in instantaneous lift capacity and bulk. Bands will induce growth in the long or slow twitch which supports endurance. You need both but you will rarely see bulky guys on the long trail.

"Bands will induce growth in the long or slow twitch which supports endurance."

Only if you are an untrained individual. Endurance is a misnomer when someone uses it to say, 'higher reps and a reduced load encourage endurance with the slow twitch fibres of the muscle.' You are also suggesting that it is somehow the bands that will make the difference. One could use milk jugs with water in them for resistance.

There are two problems with this approach.

First, there is muscle composition that is specific to each person. For example, a person who gravitates toward powerlifting and finds strength increase to come fast and easy likely has a high percentage of fast twitch muscle fibres in his / her legs. There is nothing you can do to train that individual to suddenly develop a higher percentage of slow twitch fibres and a reason why this person will likely not become an effective marathon runner. The only way to find out percentages is to have a muscle biopsy but certain body types gravitate toward certain activities anyway.

Second, slow twitch fibres are built with really high repetitions. I am talking about 300 to 500 reps (and more) and not 12, 15, or 20 (for example). What one ends up doing is simply training inefficiently for strength. Not only is a higher load more effective but 6 reps is more efficient than doing 20. Less work; better results.

'Bulk' as you call it is a function of diet. You can get remarkably strong without increasing 'bulk' excessively. What happens is you increase the density and thickness of the muscle fibres, lose intramuscular fat and keep your weight similar. This is why some atheletes who compete at weight specific events can increase their strength to substantial levels without increase bodyweight (not to mention there are 150lb powerlifters squatting over 400 pounds. Did I mention they were woman?)

I brought up the TRX straps (not bands) because Leslie grunted (I think ugh counts as a grunt) when weights were suggested. Her OP was on maintenance when not on the trail regularly. Not quite the same thing as muscle mass although closely related.

The three exercises for legs I think are best are lunges, calf raises (stairs are good), and ball curls (on your back, heels on a large gym ball, curl the ball toward your rear). It doesn't take much of any of these to get to a good burn - and that's when the maintenance is going to be stimulated.

Muscle mass for size sake isn't really the point, and I'm totally down with the right ways to really go for that. Light, long and slow one week; heavy, short, fast the next; protein asap, etc...

I think the important factors for maintenance (and training for that matter) are endurance, glycogen reserves, and neural tone. Endurance only comes from a gazillion reps. Glycogen reserves come from pushing the burn further into those reps and asap carb replacement. Neural tone is going to require stimulating the fast-twitch muscles. I maintain that pushing the endurance envelope forces the activation of the fast-twitch muscles as the enduro-fibers run out of glycogen and can't do the duty - essentially increasing the resistance for the rest of the muscle.

"Endurance only comes from a gazillion reps"

Hi Nathan - actually, this is not quite true. Endurance is also built with strength training because the capacity of the muscle to hold glycogen increases. The muscle then works less to achieve the same level of endurance.

Hi Leslie

I'm going to answer this as a chick, who was vegan for 20 years when this photo was taken, and who is also into backpacking.

For me, I basically lived on nothing but soy protein while dieting for my bodybuilding competitions. that, and lots of fresh veggies (try swiss chard if you can get it, it is far better than spinach), plus some whole grain rice, corn, oats and potatoes. They important thing really is lots of protein, and the source does not matter as long as you get plenty of it. Exercise is heavy weights of course, but also increasing amounts of low intensity endurance stuff, sprints, and stretching. The sprints are particularly interesting as they have been shown to promote the best aerobic endurance increases, as well as anaerobic, while promoting greater muscle gains. As a women, you can't really afford to increase calories too much. We are kinda screwed in that respect compared to men. If you do increase calories, make sure the extra is from protein. To me, true fitness is a balance of strength, speed, endurance and flexibility. As mentioned previously, you will not see this is most elite athletes as their particular sport is their sole focus, to the exclusion of other fitness factors. I think you need this pillar of four fitness attributes to be truly healthy. And a lot of it comes down to diet, with exercise proving a close second...



PS: I need to state this up front, as some people will notice the photo has been altered. It was only altered to remove the advertising banner that was behind my head, nothing more.

Edited by retropump on 06/24/2012 15:28:11 MDT.

> when "dormant"(i notice differences in a week even), i lose muscle super quickly
Really????
I find this a bit difficult to believe, if you mean you are losing muscle CELLS. That only happens to someone when doing something ridiculously extreme. Fiennes was actually burning muscle tissue in the latter stages of his Antarctic crossing, but very few would ever approach that. Seriously bad thing as well.

Could you be just changing the water balance in your muscles? If so, where's the worry? Lyn T can tell you all about pumping up muscles for a competition, but that does not involve increasing the muscle tissue. It is just swelling the muscles up by fluid retention, from prior work-out.

Anyhow, what is the benefit from bulked-up muscles? Apart from body-building competitions? I know plenty of lean walkers (many elderly!) who don't look anything like an advertisement for body building - but they will still walk the legs off you out on the track.

Cheers

Lynn, tell me if I'm wrong here, but it looks like you "pumped up" very little. But what I see in your picture is a lot of lean, dense muscle mass. The benefit there would be greatly increased strength. Contrary to most body-building models (which emphasize split routines to exhaust muscles into getting really large) strength training yields a rather lean physique that is capable of lifting large amounts. This will look a little different on everyone just because of body types/make-ups, etc., but the effect is less about size and more about strength.

Here's a picture of Eugen Sandow, an old school strongman who emphasizes what I mean. Notice the classical look to his body--the Greeks got a lot of things right. Certainly his muscles are larger, but nothing compared to body building today. That's because Sandow's chief draw was being able to actually lift things. (Notably, his pectorals aren't very large because that wasn't a lift emphasized in his day.)

Clayton, you are absolutely correct. Much to my coaches dismay, I ignored his advice to follow a classic 'bodybuilding' weight program as I wasn't really aiming to be a bodybuilder (I got coerced into competition), but wanted functional strength. So I basically trained like an Olympic weight lifter with emphasis on core strength moves. But I think the sport of bodybuilding has, for many decades, been tainted by heavy reliance on anabolic steroids. Honestly, to get any bigger, as a female, I would have had to resort to this, and I think the inflated muscles (pumped look)commonly associated with bodybuilding has more to do with the drugs used than the training technique. Again, this is not always true. Young adult males have plenty of natural hormones floating around to achieve pretty decent pumped looking muscles, women do not naturally achieve that look. I was also much more pumped looking the day after the competition, due to over-depleting my muscle glycogen to make weight, but by the next day after gorging myself on lots of carbs, I actually looked a lot bigger...

Roger, muscle cells are rarely lost, they just shrink or grow, and become stronger or weaker. Functional strength does not rely on size per se, merely making the cells you already have more efficient. Size is overated IMHO, but I fully understand why someone would want to at least maintain strength, as for most of us it can be useful in in aspects of life outside hiking. if the goal is merely to be the best/fastest hiker, than just hike more. But there is more to total fitness than just the endurance needed for hiking. I presume from the OP that the goal was to maintain basic fitness when not hiking. Honestly, speed, flexibility and strength are not needed for hiking, but they are pretty important for aging well and performing a myriad of daily tasks. Most of the people I work with can't even sit at a desk properly, as their core strength is poor, they don't stretch out their hamstrings which shorten while sitting for long periods, and this leads to a host of back and associated problems. To me, this is where overall fitness comes into play. That, and actually being able to lift and carry a bag of cement is quite nice!

"Anyhow, what is the benefit from bulked-up muscles? Apart from body-building competitions? I know plenty of lean walkers (many elderly!) who don't look anything like an advertisement for body building - but they will still walk the legs off you out on the track."

Indeed. Function is the name of the game in the real world.

True. But different goals yield different training. I doubt most doing strength training plan or hope to walk your legs off. Strength training that emphasizes compound lifts (activating several muscle groups at once) can be very functional in the real-world. Just not to walk anyone's legs off.

"Strength training that emphasizes compound lifts (activating several muscle groups at once) can be very functional in the real-world."

No argument there. Just a different set of goals, as you said. I guess my bias was showing in my post.