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HIIT-like 400m sprinting is exhausting, but unlike running to exhaustion and medium intensity steady state cardio its not going to mess up your nervous system.

Not one but two recent studies confirm what many of us have experienced first hand: Endurance training - specifically during a cut - is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, its a neat way to augment the energy deficit, when youre dieting and maintain in a eucaloric state, when youre not. On the other hand, however, even moderate endurance training can alter the sympathetic and parasympathetic balance and thus create an imbalance that is characteristic of any form of overtraining.

Speaking of overtraining: As a SuppVersity reader you should actually be aware of the fact that scientists distinguish two different types of overtraining: Sympathetic and parasympathetic overtraining
Due to the fact that the symptoms (see Figure 1) closely resemble those Morbus Basedow (engl. Graves Diseases) and Addisons Disease, respectively, sympathetic and parasympathetic overtraining are also called Basedowoid and Addisinoid overtraining.

Figure 1: Overview of the symptoms of the two major forms of overtraining.

You can see that the symptoms partly overlap. Thats yet not the only problem you have if you want to diagnose the type of overtraining. In many resistance trainees, for example, you find either mixed forms or see a transition from classic sympathetic to parasympathetic overtraining over time (assuming the athlete doesnt do anything to normalize his / her sympathetic nervous system function).
For the average study participant in a recent experiment that was conducted by scientists from the , The 42nd Hospital of PLA, the Xinqiao Hospital and the Chongqing Normal University in China, the duration and intensity of their cardio workouts (running) determined, whether the prescribed workout routines that consisted of ...

• There is such a thing as overtraining, folks | read more

  4 times a week running at 100% of their maximal heart rate until they were exhausted (utmost intensity group)
   
• 30 minutes of running four times per week (moderate intensity group)


• 3 - 5x 1200 m runs per day with a  5-min break every 400 m four times per week (high intensity group)

made them overtrain or not, and whether their para- or sympathetic nervous system was overreacting.

Table 1: Characteristics of study groups at pre and post | Data are means XS± . Pre, pretraining; post, at the end of 8-week training; mid, at the end of 4-week training. Utmost, utmost intensity endurance training; moderate, moderate intensity endurance training; high, high intensity endurance training (Tian. 2014)

The subjects, 72 nonsmoking male students whose characteristics are summarized in Table 1, followed the routine they had been randomized to for 8 weeks. As you can see, there were no statistical significant changes in body composition over the course of the 8-week study. Although, it sould seem that the body fat percentage (I assume BFR is body fat) declined a tad bit more in the high intensity group.
Where the subjects differed, however, was in their response to the specific aerobic exercise programs theyve been assigned to (I will directly quote the results from Tian et al (2014) and briefly comment on each of them):

• Heart rate variability (HRV): No significant changes in HRV parameters were found in all groups at pre and mid. But at post, the moderate intensity group showed more significant increases in RMSSD, PNN50, HF, LF and SDNN (P < 0.05 or 0.01) and much greater reduction in LF/HF than the other two groups (P was 0.033, 0.037 respectively). HFn of the moderate intensity group was significantly higher than that of the utmost intensity group (P = 0.012), while the opposite pattern occurred in LFn and LF/HF of the two groups (P was 0.025, 0.015 respectively).
  
  As you would expect the changes in HRV in the moderate and utmost intensity group reflect increases in parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system activity, respectively.
• Circadian Changes in Cold Pressor Test (CPT): From pre to post marked differences were not found in SBP and DBP of all groups and their increases. At post HR was much less increased in utmost intensity group during CPT than the other two groups (average P < 0.05).
  
  Next to a high basal heart rate an inhibited increase in heart rate is another characteristic of later stages of sympathetic overtraining.
• Plasma catecholamine (NE & EPI): Norepinephrine (NE) concentration was considerably lower in utmost intensity group than the other two groups (P was 0.001, 0.00 respectively). At post marked inter-group differences were still not found in plasma PEI concentration.
  
  A reduced catecholamine release is a classic characteristic of long(-er) term sympathetic overtraining - a phenomenon, some people may call "adrenal fatique" that occurs after an initial phase of catecholamine overproduction in sympathetic overtraining.

Overall, the results of the study at hand confirm previous research that found associations between classic "moderate intensity" endurance training and parasympathetic dominance (Yamamoto. 2001; Pichot. 2002; Myslivecek. 2002).

For the utmost intensity group, on the other hand, the scientists diagnosed an "over-excited SN [sympathetic nervous system]" (Tian. 2014), which is in contrast to the medium intensity and high intensity group, where the head-up tilt test did not indicate an "impairing effect on autonomic regulation" (Tian. 2014).
References:

• Myslivecek, P.R., Brown, C.A. and Wolfe, L.A. (2002) Effects of Physical Conditioning on Cardiac Autonomic Function in Healthy Middle-Aged Women. Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology, 27, 1-18. 
• Oosthuyse, T., & Avidon, I. (2014). Changes in substrate utilisation and protein catabolism during multiday cycling in well-trained cyclists. Journal of Sports Sciences, (ahead-of-print), 1-11.
• Pichot, V., Busso, T., Roche, F., Garet, M., Costes, F., Duverney, D., Lacour, J.R. and Barthélémy, J.C. (2002) Autonomic Adaptations to Intensive and Overload Training Periods: A Laboratory Study. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 34, 1660-1066. 
• Tian, Kaixin, et al. "Effect of Endurance Training on the Autonomic Nervous System Function of Young Male." International Journal of Clinical Medicine 5.19 (2014): 1189.
• Yamamoto, K., Miyachi, M., Saitoh, T., Yoshioka, A. and Onodera, S. (2001) Effects of Endurance Training on Resting and Post-Exercise Cardiac Autonomic Control. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 33, 1496-1502. 

Purple rice sushi could actually replace chicken + rice in the BB std.diet

Chicken and rice, these are the staples of a classic bodybuilding diet. As far as the chicken goes, you will all be aware that it qualifies mostly due to its high protein and low fat content. Rice, on the other hand, is a decent carbohydrate source and as such not exactly zeitgeisty... I guess we could easily get lost in the high vs. low carb debate again, which is why I would draw your attention to the fact that Saghar Eslami and his colleagues from the University Putra Malaysia did not feed their thirty two healthy young male subjects (aged 18 to 32 yr), who were recruited for this double-blind clinical conducted in the Faculty of Sport Sciences at the University of Isfahan, in Iran, tons of rice (see bottom line for an estimation of how much it would take).

What they did was to provide their subjects, who were not allowed to drink, smoke or do any other exercise except from the prescribed protocol, with either 2x300mg ?-oryzanol or identically looking placebo capsules (There was no significant difference between the placebo and supplement groups with respect to age, weight, energy, carbohydrate, protein, and fat intakes).
According to Eslami et al. the use of gamma oryzanol, which is found in rice bran, wheat bran and certain fruits and vegetables "as a nutritional supplement for strength in athletes is prevalent" (Eslami. 2014), while the research to date has tended to focus on gamma oryzanol effects in patients, especially hyperlipidemics, rather than on resistance athletes.

If we take a look at the existing evidence there are studies by Bucci et al. who found that the intake of 30 mg ferulic acid per day (extracted from gamma oryzanol) for eight weeks resulted in increasing body weight and muscular strength in weight lifters, and a study by Fry et al. which reports strength increases in response to the ingestion of 500 mg/day gamma oryzanol supplementation in 40 year-old or older adults.

Figure 1: Overview of exercise protocol (left); changes in 1RM on the bench and leg curl machine (Eslami. 2014)

In view of the existing evidence its thus not totally surprising that the complex mixture plant sterols and ferulic acid esters had statistically significant effects on the 1RM strength increase in response to the 9-week resistance training protocol with its 4 weekly supervised RT sessions, a set-count of three and a rep range from 6-12 repetitions (at a pace of 2 sec up and 4 sec down) for each exercise (inter-set rest was 3 minutes; exercise selection see Figure 1).

Visible, but not significant changes in body composition

In contrast to the significant changes in muscular strength, the inter-group differences with respect to the already small changes in the anthropometric measurements (see Figure 2) did not reach statistical significance.

Figure 2: Changes in body composition (all non-significant inter-group differences; Eslami. 2014)

As Eslmai et al. point out, "it might be suggested to use this supplement for longer time" and or to "analyze the antioxidant levels in the blood of the athletes to consider exercise effects on oxidation and free radical production as well as inhibitory effect of supplement" (Eslami. 2014), which would be a first step to understand how ?-oryzanol is actually working - up to now this is still pretty much unknown (Fry et al. speculated about increases in testosterone or androgen receptor interaction, but thats not proven yet; Fry. 1997).
References:

• Boonsit, Panita, Dumnern Karladee, and P. Phongpiachan. "Gamma oryzanol content in purple rice Thailand local genotypes." Tropentag, October (2006): 11-13.
• Bucci, L. R., et al. "Effect of ferulate on strength and body composition of weightlifters." J Appl Sports Sci Res 4 (1990): 110. 
• Eslami, Saghar, et al. "Effects of gamma oryzanol supplementation on anthropometric measurements & muscular strength in healthy males following chronic resistance training." Indian J Med Res 139 (2014): 857-863.
• Fry, A. C., et al. "The effects of gamma-oryzanol supplementation during resistance exercise training." International journal of sport nutrition 7.4 (1997): 318-329.
• Patel, M., and S. N. Naik. "Gamma-oryzanol from rice bran oil: a review." J. Sci. Ind. Res 63 (2004): 569-578.
• Tsushimoto, Gen, et al. "DNA-damaging, mutagenic, clastogenic and cell-cell communication inhibitory properties of gamma-oryzanol." The Journal of toxicological sciences 16.4 (1991): 191-202.

Even Arnold benefited from ?-hydroxy-isocaproic acid aka HICA - the HICA his body produced and the HICA he got from his diet, whenever he ate cheese and other fermented foods.

You know that I am not the kind of person who likes to tell others what to do. After reading my summary of the contemporary research on ?-hydroxy-isocaproic acid aka HICA, you should yet be able to decide whether its worth a try or not.

If you take a look at the pertinent databases you will realize that there are more patents than papers on ?-hydroxy-isocaproic acid - usually, this is a good indicator we are dealing with another industry scam, but in contrast to the many funky forms of creatine, ?-hydroxy-isocaproic acid does actually have a handful of studies to back up that it does... or I should say "that it could" help you getting big and buffed.
That being said, it may be worth taking a look at what ?-hydroxy-isocaproic acid actually is. Just like HMB which is about to make a comeback in liquid form, these days, HICA is a metabolite of the mTOR and thus protein synthesis triggering branch-chained amino acid leucine. It is also known as "leucic acid" or "DL-2-hydroxy-4-methylvaleric acid" and is formed by ?-hydroxylaction from leucine. Its one of the end-products of leucine metabolism in muscle and connective tissue (Walser. 1978). Its usual concentration in our blood is about 0.2560.02 mmol/L - thats ~100x less than the amount of ?-keto-isocaproic acid (KIC), the corresponding keto acid of leucine of which youll find more than 21 mmol per liter in your blood.

Figure 1: Relative changes in lean mass (%) during 4 weeks of intense soccer training on 1.5g/day HICA (Mero. 2010)

Cheese, wine, soy sauce, etc. - the recently celebrated fermented foods, they all contain HICA, which appears to be the anti-catabolic counterpart to leucine. While the latter is a potent promoter of protein synthesis, the former appears to make sure that the work of its predecessor leucine is not lost.

It is thus no wonder that the promising results of a 2010 study by Mero et al. were recorded during an intensive and thus potentially catabolic training period in soccer athletes. In contrast to the placebo group, where only one individual gained a significant amount of lean mass, while 4 lost muscle, the subjects who had been consuming 1.5g/day of ?-hydroxy-isocaproic acid gained 300g of lean mass, on average, in the course of the 4-week study.

Thats not much and it was not fat free (ca. 150g of fat), but the data in Figure 1 shows that this is a difference between minimal muscle loss and gain... and I guess most athletes would prefer a marginal muscle gain over a marginal loss of lean mass.

HICA, a potent anti-catabolic? I dont think so!

The notion that HICA is, above all, a muscle loss inhibitor appears questionable, if we take a look at the results Charles H. Lang, Hugues Magne, Elizabeth Offord and Denis Breuille presented at a 2013 FASEB meeting. In the abstract to their presentation they cite the results of a rodent study in the course of which the rodents were immobilized for two full weeks. The consequence, an increase in the expression of catabolic hormones and a profound loss of muscle mass was identical in both the HICA and placebo supplemented groups, but in spite of the fact that "?HICA did not alter the immobilization-induced increase in proteasome activity and atrogene expression", the muscle mass had returned to control values only in ?HICA-fed rats after 14 days.
The fast recovery in the HICA group was associated with increased muscle protein synthesis and higher levels of the "protein synthesis pump initiator proteins" S6K1 and 4EBP1 in the previously immobilized muscle. The results Lang et. al. have not yet published in a full paper (at least I couldnt find it) put a huge questionmark behind the long-heralded hypothesis that HICA supplementation would slow muscle loss and puts it in line with its cousin HMB and its precursor leucine as a purported pro-anabolic muscle builder.

Figure 2: Gastrocnemius weight (rel. to control) immediately before and 14-days after the immobilization (Lang. 2013).

The data from the corresponding full paper the authors published a couple of month later in the American Journal of Physiology - Endocrinology and Metabolism you see in Figure 2 are even more impressive, though. According to this rodent data HICA is a more potent muscle (re-)builder than leucine; and, importantly, neither of the two does what the industry keeps promising: prevent muscle catabolism in response to disuse.
Reference:

• Chow K., and Walser M. "Effects of substitution of methionine, leucine, phenylalanine, or valine by their alpha-hydroxy analogs in the diet of rats." J Nutr 1975;105(3):372 8
• Lang, Charles H., et al. "Chronic ?-hydroxyisocaproic acid treatment improves muscle recovery after immobilization-induced atrophy." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 305.3 (2013): E416-E428.
• Mero, Antti A., et al. "Effects of alfa-hydroxy-isocaproic acid on body composition, DOMS and performance in athletes." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 7.1 (2010): 1.
• Walser, Mackenzie. "Therapeutic compositions comprising alpha-hydroxy analogs of essential amino acids and their administration to humans for promotion of protein synthesis and suppression of urea formation." U.S. Patent No. 4,100,160. 11 Jul. 1978.
• Woods M., and Goldman P. "Replacement of L-Phenylalanine and Leucine by a-Hydroxy analogues in the diets of germ-free rats." J Nutr 1979;709:738 43.