ONLINE DRIVERS MEDIA

No sweat, just some wires? Study shows: It does not take much effort to lose belly fat.

Liposuction is an invasive procedure that is not without risk. Against that background its no wonder that people are marketing alternative methods like high-frequency current therapy as allegedly safe go-to methods to rid yourself of unwanted body fat. The question is: Do these currents actually help you to lose body fat? That is: Can electrocuting your belly "electro-cut" significant amounts of body fat? Practitioners who use this technology will say "yes". From a scientific standpoint, though, the question is difficult to answer, because the use of high-frequency current therapy has been given little attention in the scientific community.

As Kim et al. point out in a recent paper in the J. Phys. Ther. Sci., some previous studies have failed to provide evidence for the effectiveness of high-frequency current therapy in women with obesity, whereas more recent studies have indicated that a high-frequency current therapy decreases female abdominal obesity (Kang. 2005; Han. 2010). Accordingly, their latest study aimed to determine whether high-frequency current therapy can be effectively used to reduce female abdominal obesity.
To this ends, the researchers recruited twenty-two female volunteers who were randomly allocated to either the experimental group (EG) (n = 12; age, 21.17 ± 0.72 years; weight, 63.17 ± 7.91 kg; height, 159.63 ± 4.56 cm) or the control group (CG) (n = 10; age, 21.10 ± 0.74 years; weight, 68.79 ± 11.73 kg; height, 161.69 ± 5.25 cm). Inclusion criteria were as follows:

• a body mass index (BMI) of ?23 kg/m2 and a waist-hip circumference ratio of  ? 0.8013
• no past or present neurological, musculoskeletal, or cardiopulmonary disorders that would have affected health condition;
• no smoking and drinking habits; and
• no psychological problems.

Futhermore, pregnant women were excluded as well. The subjects of both groups were asked to keep a regular dietary habit during the experimental process. A nutritionist drew up a diet plan of 2,000 to 2,500 kcal/day across 3 meals (8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 6 p.m.) for the 6-week intervention. In addition, subjects were asked to avoid extra activities and exercises beyond daily routine activities.

Figure 1. Changes in BMI, waist circumference, subcutaneous body fat and total body fat (%) after 18 sessions of high-frequency current therapy in Korean women (Kim. 2015).

Only the subjects in the EG group were subjected to high-frequency current therapy, with a frequency of 0.5 Mhz. The treatments were performed exclusively on the abdominal region while subjects were supine using specific equipment (CWM-9200; Chungwoo Medical, Seoul, South Korea) for 60 minutes, 3 times per week, for 6 weeks (a total of 18 sessions).

"High-frequency current therapy was performed in 2 phases: 2 sets of 15-minute applications of capacitive electric transfer (CET) and resistive electric transfer (RET) with the pulsed current option (current conduction time, 0.7 seconds; rest interval, 0.3 seconds) for the fist 3 weeks, followed by a 30-minute application of the CET and RET modes with continuous current conduction in the final 3 weeks. The intensity was individualized within a range of 6–7 mA to comfortably adjust the heating sensation during the intervention. An insulated electrode and a stainless steel electrode (8 cm in diameter) were used for the CET and RET modes, respectively. Conductive gel (Body Rubbing Cream; SA’COS, Incheon, South Korea) was used to facilitate skin moisture and current conduction, and high frequency current therapy was delivered by making circular motions of the electrode over the abdominal region at a moving speed of 5 cm/s, avoiding focused pressure on therapeutic areas" (Kim. 2015)

The comparison of the pre- vs. post-data showed here significant main effects of time with respect to waist circumference, abdominal obesity, subcutaneous fat mass, and body fat percentage, which differed significantly between the groups (see Figure 1), "suggesting the effects of high-frequency current therapy in decreasing obesity" (Kim. 2015).
References:

• Han, J. S., Y. O. Park, and C. K. Zhoh. "The effect of high frequency treatment and meridian massage on the abdominal fat pattern of obesity women." J Korean Soc Esthet Cosmeceutics 6.1 (2010): 1-8.
• Kang SO, Won YK. "The effect of high-frequency therapy on women’s obesity." Kor J Aesthet Cosmetol 3 (2005): 121–131.
• Kim, Jin-seop, and Duck-won Oh. "Effects of high-frequency current therapy on abdominal obesity in young women: a randomized controlled trial." Journal of Physical Therapy Science 27.1 (2015): 31-33.
• Song MY, Kim HJ, Lee MJ. "The review on the evidence: effects of nonsurgical localized fat treatments." J Korean Med Obes Res 6 (2006): 1–10.

The results of the study and hand strongly suggest, but dont finally prove that a brief leg-focused HIIT like spinning will not impair your biceps gains even if its done immediately before weight training.

You will probably have read about the problem that doing endurance before or immediately after resistance training will blunt the protein synthetic response to exercise. In fact, I have written about this topic repeatedly. The latest article was published only two weeks ago ("How Much Cardio Messes W/ Your Weight Training Results Depends on Recovery Times: Cardio + Weights in One Session vs. AM + PM Training vs. Doing Each on One Day" | read more).

Now, a recent study from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences shows that the question whether "cardio" in the broadest sense will interfere with strength training gains cannot be answered with a simple yes or no.
In their study, Moberg, et al. (2014)set out to conduct a series of studies to examine the influence of endurance exercise on the acute stimulatory effect of resistance exercise on anabolic processes. To this ends, the effect of endurance exercise on a previously inactive muscle was investigated. The aim was to examine the influence of resistance exercise on mTORC1-signaling and rate of protein synthesis in the triceps brachii muscle with or without preceding intervals of high-intensity cycling.

Eight trained males performed, in a randomized fashion, two sessions of heavy resistance exercise (RE) with the triceps muscles, where one session was preceded by intervals of high-intensity cycling (E+RE), 5 x 4 min at 85% of VO2 peak. Mixed muscle protein fractional synthetic rate (FSR) was measured at rest, prior to exercise, and during a 3 hour recovery period following exercise by continuous infusion of L-[ring-13C6] phenylalanine. Muscle biopsies from the triceps brachii was collected twice at rest separated by three hours, directly after resistance exercise and following 90 and 180 min of recovery. Signalling in the mTORC1-and AMPK-pathway was assessed using western blot technique.
It is important to point out that the same amount of work with regard to load, total number of repetitions and total time under tension was performed in the two trials.

Figure 1: Fractional muscle protein synthesis response in the biceps brachii and corresponding changes in signalling proteins in the HIIT + resistance training (E+RE) and the resistance training only trial (Moberg. 2014).

Unlike in previous studies, where the "cardio" exercise was usually a steady state exercise and the muscle protein synthesis was measured in muscles that were trained during the "cardio" and resistance training session, mostly specifically the leg muscles, the muscle protein fractional synthesis rates (FSR) in the study at hand increased from 0.050 ± 0.006 %/h at rest to 0.078 ± 0.008 and 0.082 ± 0.0016 %/h following E+RE and RE, respectively, with no difference between trials.

The same goes for the signalling protein AMPK and eEF2,  as well as for the alleged protein synthesis gauge mTOR which was increased by 76% and 108% above rest directly after the E+RE and RE, respectively, and remained elevated in both trials during the entire recovery period.
References:

• Lundberg, Tommy R., et al. "Aerobic exercise does not compromise muscle hypertrophy response to short-term resistance training." Journal of Applied Physiology 114.1 (2013): 81-89.
• McCarthy, J., et al. "Combined strength and endurance training: Functional and morphological adaptations to ten weeks of training." No. NHRC-92-26. Naval Health Research Center San Diego CA, 1992.
• Moberg, Marcus, et al. "High-intensity cycling performed prior to resistance exercise does not influence mTORC1-signaling and the rate of muscle protein synthesis in the triceps brachii." 19th annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science, 2-5 July 2014, Amsterdam The Netherlands. 2014.