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Even female volleyball players are wo- men - no wonder they tend to undereat ;)

Usually we are learning about what makes us fat by looking at those who are fat. Studies on athletes like gymnasts and volleyball players, and what influences their body composition, on the other hand, are scarce. Reason enough for me to take a closer look at two thesis by graduates from the Georgia State University who analyzed the relationship between moderate, within day protein intake and energy balance on body composition of collegiate sand volleyball players (Richardson. 2014) and the relationship between daily protein distribution and body composition in elite gymnasts (Paszkiewicz. 2014) - research that could be relevant for both, men and women.

I guess many of you will remember that Ive written about gymnasts before - in July 2013, to be precise. In said article with the telling title "Do Chronic Energy Deficits Make Athletes Fat? The Longer & More Severe You Starve, the Fatter You Are. Irrespective of What the Calories-in-VS-Calories-Out Formula May Say" (read more) I analyzed the negative effects of "starvation" on body composition to highlight that simply not eating or eating like a bird is not going to give you the Shape cover model body, many girls are looking for.
In spite of the fact that the titles of the two studies and hand and the previously cited study by Deutz differ, the objectives are not very different:

• "The  purpose  of  this  study  was  to  simultaneously  assess  energy  balance  and
  protein  intake  to  determine  if  these  factors  are  associated  with  body  composition  in  a
  population of collegiate sand volleyball players." (Richardson. 2014)
• "The objective of this study was to determine the relationship between hourly EB and protein intake with body composition" (Paszkiewicz. 2014)

If you look at the exact ways the authors phrase it, it does yet become obvious that Richardson (2014) puts a greater emphasis on the amount of protein, while Paszkiewicz is, just like Deutz back in the day, very interested in the hourly energy balance (EB) and thus the time the subjects remain in a positive / negative energy balance.

Apropos subjects! In the gymnasts who participated in Paszkiewicz study were elite and highly
competitive athletes from several training gyms across the country. The information on their daily food intakes was elucidated by the means of secondary analyses that were performed on previously collected three-day food diaries and the interactions with body composition were calculated by comparing intakes and anthropometric measures (made with DEXA).

Table 1: ?Subject? Characteristics of the Gymnasts ? (N=?40; Paszkiewicz. 2014)?

Table 1 provides an overview of the subject characteristics. If you take a closer look, you will see that there is a pretty broad range from hardly any muscle to pretty muscular and from ripped to the shreds to average body fat.
If we take a closer look at the correlations Paszkiewicz found, some of you may be surprised to see that the relative carbohydrate intake (as percent of macronutrients) was not just positively associated with higher lean mass (see Figure 1), but also negatively with fat mass (R = -0.043).

Figure 1: Minimal, maximal and average energy balance in the gymnasts (left); positive correlates and correlation coefficients R of lean mass in 40 elite competitive female gymnasts (Paszkiewicz. 2014)

The amount of protein the gymnasts ate, however, was not significantly associated with increase lean mass. In fact, when we compare two groups, i.e. those with a high and those with a low protein intake, statistics inform us that "the higher protein group ha[s] a statistically significant lower FFM [fat free masss]" (Paszkiewicz. 2014).

Are high(er) protein intakes bad for gymnasts or, what?

Personally I suspect that this is due to a correlation between high(er) protein intakes, lower cabohydrate intakes (R = -0.595) and, most importantly, a reduced overall energy intake, which is associated with lower lean body mass and (listen up, ladies!), just as it has been reported by Deutz et al. previously, increased body fat % (reread the corresponding article from July 2013).

But why dont we have a look at the other study? Beach volleyball players are regarded as the epitome of health and sexappeal, so things could easily look different for them compared to the "frail" gymnasts, right? With a mean body fat % of 18% and a standard deviation ±7% the twelve women from the GSU sand volleyball team who participated in Richardsons study have a much healthier body fat percentage than the average, let alone extreme gymnast in the previously discussed study (we got to be careful here, because the BF% in the Richardson study was measured by body impedance and could thus easily be 5% off).
With a mean BMI of 22 kg/m², all female participants of the study were normalweight and consumed a diet with >1.94g protein per body weight (mean intake 132 ±52 g per day). An amount of protein most of the ladies spread across the day with a mean 26.06 (±10.51) g being consumed on every eating opportunity. Thats not yet the "SuppVersity suggested" amount of 30g of protein per meal, but its getting close, yet with an uneven distribution from AM to PM:

• 30g from 6-12 AM,
• 63g from noon to six PM,
• another 39g in the evening

In contrast to many average Janes and Joes, the study participants consumed almost half of the mean protein intake during mid-day, while their protein intake from 6 pm to midnight amounted to only 24(±23) % of their total daily protein consumption. Still, Richardson is right to point out that

"[...] protein intake distribution was skewed, on average, toward the latter half of  the  day  with  approximately  19%  of  protein  consumed  in  the  morning  and  34% consumed  in  the  evening." (Richardson. 2014)

Much to my surprise, the ladies in the beach volley ball team were similarly anorexic as their peers in the gymnast group. With -404  (±385) kcal/day the average energy balance was clearly negative; and even if the standard deviations indicate that this was not the case for all of the ladies, the athletes spent 17 hours, on average, in a catabolic energy balance state (< 0 kcal) on a daily basis.

A high relative protein intake was not associated with better body composition!

Interestingly, though, no significant correlation was found between energy balance per gram of protein consumption and body composition.

Table 2: Spearman’s Correlations: Six Zone Protein Intake and Body Composition (N=12; Richardson. 2014); FFM – fat free mass: FFM to Ht ratio – amount of FFM per cm of height; eating Opportunities – number of times athlete consumed calories; 24 Hour EB – net kcal at the end of the day (energy consumed less energy expended)

The picture that emerges from a regression analyses with respect to the relation of energy balance and protein variables is in fact dubious (see Table 2). The only significant correlations (bold) are a positive correlation between fat free mass (FFM) and protein intake late, and a negative correlation between fat free mass and protein intake early in the AM. A similarly confusing, yet at no time significant association arises for the fat mass, which correlates negatively (albeit with p = 0.678 statistically non-significantly) with the number of meals with a protein content of 25g or more.

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.

Looking for muscle building protein fuel? No need for supplements, when a delicious steak is all it takes to propel the beneficial effects of resistance training on your body comp.

Yes, todays SuppVersity article is about beef protein, but its not about one chocolate flavored overpriced powdered slaugherhouse waste for carnivores, but rather about real beef: muscle meats from cattle, as the ones you put into a pan or onto the barbecue. A group of scientists from the University of Pavia in Italy wanted to know if a simple steak would affect the strength and body composition of young adults involved in a full-vody resistance-training program of eight weeks.

Based on previous studies Negro et al. knew that beef protein (90g from a 340g steak) can help trainees increase their muscle gains, when it is consumed 60 minutes before the exercise (Symsoni. 2011).
Similar, albeit dose-dependent increases in protein synthesis have also been observed by Robinson et al. (2013) who demonstrate that a 170 g serving of lean beef, which was consumed after the workout and provided 36 g of protein, resulted in greater rates of muscle protein synthesis in middle-aged persons than smaller servings of 113 g and 57 g of beef (24 g and 12 g of protein, respectively) when administrated after 3 sets of knee extensions exercise (using a predetermined load toelicit failure within 8–10 repetitions).

Figure 1: Mean myofibrillar muscle protein synthesis (MPS) in response to graded doses of dietary protein at rest and after resistance exercise (left); whole-body leucine oxidation with ingestion of various doses of beef (right; Robinson. 2013).

What neither of the two studies had to offer, though, is a longitudinal analysis of the hypertrophy response to a realistic strength training regimen.
In the study at hand, the forty healthy normal-weight volunteers without significant training experience who were recruited at the University of Pavia through advertisements posted on the main campus, were supplemented "soon after every exercise session" with a 135 g serving of lean beef (tinned meat), providing 20 g of protein and 1.7 g of  fat (water was available to favor the swallowing). With the exception of the tinned meat, the subjects who had an average baseline protein intake of 1.0g/day werent allowed to consume any supplements or ergogenic substances.

1.0g/kg protein +/- 20g of protein from canned beef after workouts = ???

Both, the supplement and the control group participated in the same standardized whole body resistance training program which had been  designed by a certified strength and conditioning specialist.

"All subjects trained three times per week(Monday, Wednesday, and Friday), for a total of nine weeks (one week of pre-conditioning (week 0) and eight weeks of training (week 1 to week 8)). The pre-conditioning week was designed to allow volunteers to become familiar with all the exercises included in the training protocol. During the eight weeks of training, FG [treatment group] and CG [control group] carried out their workout session late in the afternoon or early evening. After a warm-up all subjects performed, in a randomized order, three circuits (Legs Circuit: leg extension, leg press, leg curl; Chest Circuit: pectoral machine, bench press, triceps machine; Back Circuit: vertical row, lat machine, biceps curl)." (Negro. 2014)

Every exercise was performed for 8 repetitions at 75% of 1RM each. With each of the exercises in the circuits being performed four times and four minutes of rest between circuits, the subjects spent about 1.5 h in the gym. All training sessions were closely monitored to ensure effort, repetitions and intensity established.The body composition of the subjects was measured by BIA (Model BIA 101, AKERN-RJL, Florence, Italy) of which the scientists who obviously expected my criticism of their cheapness write that BIA shows "statistically significant linear relationships between LM and FM assessed by BIA and more robust techniques (such as DEXA) in both sexes" (Negro. 2014); yet while this is correct for the relative values the absolute values are often bogus.

Figure 2: Relative changes in body composition (left) and 1-RM strength (right) in response to training +/- beef supplement over the course of 8 weeks (Negro. 2014)

Still, in spite of the fact that the strength gains didnt differ significantly, the changes in body composition (Figure 2, left) speak in favor of the beef supplement.

FM declined from week 0 to week 8 both in FG [beef] and in CG [control], but only in FG this decline was significant (week 0: 15.0 ± 6.7 kg; week 8: 13.1 ± 7.6 kg; ?: ?1.9 ± 2.9 kg; p < 0.05); FFM increased in all subjects, but only FG showed a significant increase (week 0: 52.8 kg ± 9.4; week 8: 55.1 kg ± 10.9; ?: 2.3 ± 2.5 kg; p < 0.01). No significant differences in LM were found from week 0 to week 8 in either FG or CG, however there was an increase trend in FG and a decrease trend in CG (Table 2).

[...] Muscular strength, as assessed by the 1RM bench press, lat machine and leg press, respectively, increased significantly in both groups (Figure 1); this effect was independent of LM values and nutritional stimulus, but only related to the resistance-training program. " (Negro. 2014).

Needless to say that it would be interesting to have a whey control group, or a comparison between different forms of meat (grilled steak vs. minced tartar, for example). For the time being we do thus have to content ourselves with the (unsurprising) insight that it does not necessarily have to be whey if your goal is to augment the post-workout increase in protein synthesis.
References:

• Ginger, Irene D., Et Al. "Effect Of Aging And Cooking On The Distribution Of Certain Amino Acids And Nitrogen In Beef Musclea." Journal Of Food Science 19.1?6 (1954): 410-416. 
• Negro, Massimo, et al. "Protein Supplementation with Low Fat Meat after Resistance Training: Effects on Body Composition and Strength." Nutrients 6.8 (2014): 3040-3049.
• Pennings, Bart, et al. "Minced beef is more rapidly digested and absorbed than beef steak, resulting in greater postprandial protein retention in older men." The American journal of clinical nutrition 98.1 (2013): 121-128. 
• Rémond, Didier, et al. "Postprandial whole-body protein metabolism after a meat meal is influenced by chewing efficiency in elderly subjects." The American journal of clinical nutrition 85.5 (2007): 1286-1292.
• Robinson, Meghann J., et al. "Dose-dependent responses of myofibrillar protein synthesis with beef ingestion are enhanced with resistance exercise in middle-aged men." Applied physiology, nutrition, and metabolism 38.2 (2012): 120-125.
• Symonsi, T. B., et al. "The anabolic response to resistance exercise and a protein-rich meal is not diminished by age." The journal of nutrition, health & aging 15.5 (2011): 376-381.