NPTI Dallas

California's anti-smoking push spurs big savings on health costs, finds study of program's 30-year history In the late 1980s, when smoking was still allowed on some airline flights, California boosted its tax on ci******es from 10 to 35 cents a pack, devoting 5 cents to programs to prevent smoking.

Latest Study Shows that a 3.3 g/kg High-Protein Diet is Safe -- And Yes, This Means it Doesn't Hurt Your Kidney or Liver In his latest SuppVersity guest post, my friend Alex Leaf (leaf-nutrition.com) summarizes the results of Jose Antonio's latest and first long-term high protein diet study ... and yes, that's "high protein" as in 3-4x more than the RDA of 0.8g/kg

TENDINOPATHY TREATMENT ANALOGY

“The more we learn about tendons, the more ridiculous these therapies aimed at "fixing" the pathological areas of tendons seem (PRP, cross-friction massage, infrared light therapy, IASTM). Load it!!”

“There is no change in structure of the pathologic area of the tendon, but progressive loading targets the healthy tissue and it creates more healthy tissue (hence thickening of the tendon).

That's why we TREAT THE DONUT, NOT THE HOLE!”

- Dr Nicole Surdyka

Lookout for some interesting new research on tendons in the Physio Network Research Reviews. Second edition out soon! - https://www.physio-network.com/membership-account/membership-levels/

Training a muscle 5 days a week is better than once a week with the same number of total weekly sets, a new study finds.

One group did 5 sets of 6 maximal eccentric biceps contractions once a week with 2 minutes rest between sets. The other group did one set of 6 maximal contractions 5 days per week. So one group essentially did a bro split with 6 hardcore sets of eccentric biceps curls once a week, whereas the other group had a high frequency training with one set a day 5x per week.

After the program, strength significantly increased in the high frequency group (+11%) but not the bro split group. The effect size was over 4x greater in the high frequency group and the results held for isometric, concentric and eccentric strength, indicating these findings likely also apply to conventional strength training.

Muscle thickness increased slightly more in the high frequency group in all 3 measured locations as well, but the difference was not statistically significant. The sum of muscle thickness increases was 10.4% vs. 8%.

The higher frequency group likely had better outcomes because they had higher quality workouts. Strength decreased about twice as much during the bro splits as during the high frequency workouts due to the greater number of sets per session, although the difference in total strength output wasn't statistically significant.

When you equate performance and training volume completely - equal reps and proximity to failure - most studies find that training frequency becomes largely irrelevant. However, performance is never equal in practice. It's almost always better with higher frequencies. Training frequency has essentially the same effect as extra long rest intervals in this sense.

The subjects were previously untrained. I did not expect to see significant differences yet in this population, because newbie gains often hit a ceiling effect that masks any between-group differences.

Also, the last muscle thickness measures were taken 3-7 days after the last workout, so the bro split group may have benefited more from muscle swelling still at this time, although the workouts inflicted surprisingly little soreness.

Overall, these results support the potential benefits of higher training frequencies to increase our gains by reducing the effect of fatigue on our workouts.

Protein is often said to have a higher thermic effect of food, resulting in higher energy expenditure, than carbs and fats, after consumption.

This is true when you only eat 1 macronutrient at a time, but when you combine all macronutrients together, as you would normally do in a meal, the total thermogenic effect is often not equal to the average of the 3 macros consumed in isolation. The macros and other compounds in foods can interact with each other.

In this new study, the researchers tested how much people's energy expenditure increased after consuming a high-carb, a high-fat or a high-protein meal with the same number of calories.

There was no difference in thermogenesis in the 3 hours after the different meals: it was 16-19% for all meals.

This finding is surprising, as other research has found high-protein meals can stimulate greater thermogenesis. The results of the new study are a bit odd on multiple fronts.

Nevertheless, overall, protein's thermogenesis is widely overblown. Another recent study by Oliveira et al. (2020) found that increasing protein intake from 15% to 40% only increased energy expenditure by 81 kcal a day.

Lifters should generally consume at least 1.8 g/kg/d (see my article on the optimal protein intake), but above this point, you don't have to go out of your way to consume more protein to lose more fat. It will majorly limit your diet options for very little thermogenic advantage.