How Many Carbs Do You Need Post-Exercise?

Muscular Development prides itself on bringing our readers the most cutting-edge research available, but it's amazing how fast just one research paper can change a person's thoughts on a subject. If a bodybuilder asked our research department last week, "Do I need carbohydrates in my drink, post-exercise?" they would have said, "You probably need some carbohydrates because of the anti-catabolic actions of the insulin spike." If someone were to ask the exact amount of grams, we wouldn't have an answer. As you know, insulin is an anti-catabolic hormone that suppresses protein breakdown.

             In contrast, infusion of a low dose of insulin directly into the brachial artery has been reported to achieve the maximal effect on protein breakdown.^5,6 It’s interesting that diabetics or patients with insulin resistance have increased muscle protein breakdown and increased muscle atrophy, due to the defects in insulin signaling. The increased breakdown of muscle in diabetics is also due to elevated ubiquitin-proteasome pathway (UPP) levels, which create a catabolic scenario.¹

             Carbohydrate supplements reduce muscle protein breakdown, but have no effect on muscle protein synthesis.^2,3 In fact, even though carbohydrate ingestion reduces muscle tissue breakdown, the net balance of protein kinetics still remains negative.⁴ Most bodybuilders recommend incorporating periodic high-glycemic meals, which spike insulin— especially post-workout. This is not only effective for maintaining an anabolic state, but the insulin spike that results also shuts down the UPP pathway and reduces muscle tissue breakdown.

             A study published in BMC Molecular Biology reports that increasing amino acids, or leucine alone, acts with insulin to downregulate muscle protein breakdown and reduce UPP. Thus, the use of l-leucine while dieting seems to be effective for reducing muscle tissue breakdown by reducing UPP. In addition to hormonal stimulators of UPP, resistance exercise also increases UPP, which is a normal adaptation to exercise. For years, bodybuilders have been told to consume a high-glycemic index shake with some added protein/BCAAs after exercise, but a new study will make you ask, do you need a ton of carbs, post-exercise?

  How Much Is Enough?

             A study published in the American Journal of Physiology examined both low and high carbohydrate ingestion before resistance exercise to determine how many carbs is enough. The researchers used equivalent amounts of essential amino acids (~20 grams) but differing amounts of carbohydrates (low carbohydrates = 30 grams; high carbohydrates = 90 grams). The male research subjects ingested nutrients one hour after an acute bout of leg-resistance exercise.

  30-Gram Rule

             The results of the study were quite interesting. Of course, the group that consumed 90 grams of carbohydrates had larger increases in blood glucose levels, but the results in protein synthesis were similar. The researchers concluded that the findings were similar to previous studies, which found that muscle protein synthesis is not enhanced when carbohydrates exceed 30 grams. The researchers did not detect any significant differences in gene expression for markers of muscle catabolism following larger dosages of carbohydrates.⁷ They concluded that the changes in muscle protein synthesis were due to changes in the essential amino acids, while only a moderate dose of carbohydrates (~30 grams) is needed. Furthermore, these changes occur irrespective of the carbohydrate dose or circulating insulin levels.

             So when bodybuilders are using post-workout carbohydrate beverages such as Vitargo or maltodextrins, 30 grams are all you need— and taking more than that does not seem to provide additional benefit in terms of muscle protein breakdown.

  References:

             1. Wang X, Hu Z, Hu J, Du J, Mitch WE. Insulin resistance accelerates muscle protein degradation: Activation of the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway by defects in muscle cell signaling. Endocrinology, 2006 Sep;147(9):4160-8.

 

            2. Roy BD, Tarnopolsky MA, MacDougall JD, Fowles J, Yarasheski KE. Effect of glucose supplement timing on protein metabolism after resistance training. J Appl Physiol, 1997 Jun;82(6):1882-8.

            3. Roy BD, Fowles JR, Hill R, Tarnopolsky MA. Macronutrient intake and whole body protein metabolism following resistance exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2000 Aug;32(8):1412-8.

            4. Borsheim E, Cree MG, Tipton KD, Elliott TA, Aarsland A, Wolfe RR. Effect of carbohydrate intake on net muscle protein synthesis during recovery from resistance exercise. J Appl Physiol, 2004 Feb;96(2):674-8.

            5. Louard RJ, Fryburg DA, Gelfand RA, Barrett EJ: Insulin sensitivity of protein and glucose metabolism in human forearm skeletal muscle. J Clin Invest, 90:2348-2354, 1992.

            6. Meek SE, Persson M, Ford GC, Nair KS. Differential regulation of amino acid exchange and protein dynamics across splanchnic and skeletal muscle beds by insulin in healthy human subjects. Diabetes, 1998 Dec;47(12):1824-35.

            7. Glynn EL, Fry CS, Drummond MJ, Dreyer HC, Dhanani S, Volpi E, Rasmussen BB. Muscle Protein Breakdown has a Minor Role in the Protein Anabolic Response to Essential Amino Acid and Carbohydrate Intake Following Resistance Exercise. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol, 2010 Jun 2.

Your Guide to Bigger Back & Delts

Jay Cutler Shows You How

With nearly 25 years of in-the-trenches training experience and four Mr. Olympia titles Jay Cutler has a treasure trove of bodybuilding knowledge. Here he outlines his thoughts on back and lat training and reveals a routine for each that served him well in the past.
JAY ON BACK
Pull-ups
The champ was quite humbled at how badly he sucked at pull-ups when he first tried doing them again after a long break. “It’s not so much a strength issue, because I can pull a ton of weight on a lat pulldown any time,” he clarifies. “But with chins, or pull-ups, there’s a technique to it that requires a bit of a learning curve and a good deal of practice before you get it down. I do them at every back workout now.”
Over the course of 4 sets, he typically gets 6 reps on his own and has a spotter help him just enough to reach his goal rep range of 9-10.

Lat Pulldowns
Because they are so demanding, pull-ups have to be done first in the workout. Once his obligation of 4 sets on the pull-up bar has been fulfilled, Jay moves on to the lat pulldown station. Cutler believes variety and hitting the lats from every possible angle is critical for making continual gains over the years, so his choice of bar attachments and grips is constantly shifting from workout to workout. The standard wide overhand grip targets the upper and outer lats, while flipping his hands to a reverse grip on the same bar will better recruit the lats further on down.
Barbell Rows
Jay does plenty of T-bar rows and dumbbell rows, but barbell rows are definitely his weapon of choice for thickening up his lats. They are a staple in almost every workout, and he likes to alternate the standard overhand grip with an underhand grip from week to week. “Just like with lat pulldowns, I feel it lower in my lats with a reverse grip,” he notes.
“Back is one muscle group where too many guys get all hung up on how much weight they use,” he tells us. “They think because Dorian rowed over 400 and Ronnie was doing 500 in his video, that’s what they should use to get a huge back. But 99 times out of 100, these guys are just yanking the weight up and letting it drop, and getting almost no stimulation in the lats at all. They would be so much better off forgetting about how many stupid plates are on the bar and focusing on what they feel in their backs during the set.”

Hammer Strength Machine Rows
Jay is known to be a volume trainer, so a back workout never goes by with just one type of row. “I like the Hammer seated row machines because your torso is stabilized and you can focus on squeezing,” he says. Jay uses supported machine rows like this to focus on middle back thickness, a quality that like shoulder and back width, a champion bodybuilder can never have too much of.

Cable Rows
“The torso needs to stay upright at all times,” Jay points out. “When guys go too heavy, they start leaning forward to start the pull and then leaning back way too much to finish the rep. They wind up shortening the range of motion when they think they are increasing it, and using more heave and momentum than actual back power to move the weight.” In other words, ditch the ego, move the pin up a few holes in the stack, and do the damn cable rows correctly if you want results.
Machine Pulldowns
Jay doesn’t do machine pulldowns too often, but they do make an appearance in his back routine now and then. “Sometimes I do them just as a general warm-up, lighter and with higher reps, or else I might do them at the very end to get that last pump in my back.”
JAY ON SHOULDERS
Any of you who have stood next to Jay know that even the best photos and videos don’t do justice to how massive, wide, and round his shoulder span is. Live and in person, they truly are unreal to behold. Back in Jay’s early days as a teenage competitor, all he really had going for him aside from a mongo frame were his big sweeping quads and those sick shoulders. Since then, Jay has capitalized on a genetic gift by smashing the shit out of his shoulders with plenty of heavy, raw iron. They are now easily among the best pair of delts ever built by a human being.
Overhead Presses
You will occasionally find Jay on a machine for presses, but most often he likes to do seated dumbbell presses. And he’s a strong mofo on those, too. He’s been captured on video many times pushing up 140s and even 150s in good form, doing the reps all on his own, for sets of 8-10. “It’s tough getting away from dumbbell presses because they just feel right, and they’ve always been super effective for me,” Jay confides. For a period he did standing military presses as his mainstay pressing movement. “Those were great for the entire shoulder complex, plus it helped thicken my upper back.”

Lateral Raises
Jay’s style of performing lateral raises might raise an eyebrow among the Form Nazis out there (who I feel the need to mention often have very little muscle mass to show for their perfect form in the gym), but it’s what works best for his particular structure. “You never know what someone is feeling when they do an exercise a certain way, which is why it’s ignorant to judge another person’s form— especially if it’s obviously working well for them.”
One look at the bulging, round caps of Jay’s shoulders should be indication enough that the form he has adapted, which involves leading with the elbows rather than the wrists, is exactly the way he needs to do the movement. It might look like a hybrid between a lateral raise and an upright row, but it’s clearly been getting the job done for Cutler’s crazy side delts.

Front Raises
“If you’re trying to build the best physique possible, you can’t neglect body parts,” he pronounces. “Of course the front delts get hit on presses, but to maximize the quality, detail, and separation in them, you have to train them.”
Jay prefers barbell front raises, and makes sure his anterior delts are in fact taking the brunt of the stress. “Don’t let your traps get involved, as they will on any lateral movement if you’re not careful,” he advises. “Try to think of your hands as hooks and the your arms as a way to transfer the resistance on to the front delts.”
Rear Delt Machine
Rarely do you ever hear a bodybuilder express a desire to build huge rear delts, but Jay professes that extreme development in the posterior heads is a little-known secret to stupefying width. “Whenever you’re seen from the side in the quarter-turns or the side chest or triceps poses, that extra development in the rear delts adds a whole other level of impressiveness to the shoulders that most bodybuilders are too blind to realize,” he says.
Mr. O often does two dedicated exercises for this underrated muscle group, selecting from the rear delt machine shown here, dumbbell rear laterals facedown on an incline bench, or the two-arm cable version that looks like the reverse motion of a cable crossover.

Rope High Pulls
For this somewhat unique movement, Jay stands a few steps away and faces an overhead cable and weight stack. He pulls a rope attached to that cable to just under his pecs. It’s a finishing movement, which Cutler says brings out inner-back density and details. “It’s for the rear delts, but you also get the rhomboids and middle traps, the areas that you want to pop with detail in a rear double biceps shot."
Shrugs
Jay trains his traps with shoulders, not necessarily because he feels they have to be, but more due to the fact that his back workout is long and demanding enough without tacking traps on at the tail end. With shrugs, Jay rotates between using a barbell, dumbbells (he’s gone as heavy as 220s), or a Hammer Strength machine. “I tend to do the dumbbells or machine more because of the neutral hand position with the palms rotated in toward the torso,” says Jay. “I find I get a slightly better range of motion and feel a deeper contraction that way.”

A Typical Jay Training Split*
Day 1:    Chest and calves
Day 2:    Back and traps
Day 3:    Shoulders and arms
Day 4:    Legs
*Rest days are taken as needed. Sometimes Jay will run through all four days before taking a rest day.

Jay’s Back Workout, Circa 1992— Age 18
Lat Pulldowns to Front                 4 x 10
Pulldowns Behind Neck               4 x 10
Close-grip Pulldowns                   4 x 10
Seated Cable Rows                     4 x 10
One-arm Dumbbell Rows             4 x 10
Barbell Rows                              4 x 10
T-bar Rows                                 4 x 10
Hyperextensions                         4 x 10

Jay’s Olympia Back Workout
Lat Pulldowns (standard or reverse-grip)         3-4 x 8-10
Deadlifts*                                                      4 x 8-10
One-arm Dumbbell Rows                                3 x 8-10
Barbell Rows**                                              3 x 8-10
T-bar Rows                                                    3 x 8-10
Seated Cable Rows                                        4 x 8-10
Hyperextensions                                            4 x 8-10
Standing Cable Pullovers using rope (FST-7 “Sevens”)  7 x 8-10
*Done at every other back workout.
**Alternates overhand and underhand from workout to workout.

Jay’s Shoulder Workout, Circa 1992— Age 18
Seated Behind-neck Barbell Press        4 x 10
Dumbbell Lateral Raises                       4 x 10
Barbell Front Raises                             4 x 10
Shrugs Behind Back                            4 x 10

Jay’s Olympia Shoulder Workout
Seated Dumbbell or Machine Press                       4 x 6-10
Dumbbell Lateral Raises                                       4 x 10
Front Barbell or Dumbbell Raises                          4 x 10
Bent Dumbbell Rear Laterals                                 4 x 10
High Pulley Rows or Cable Rear Laterals               4 x 10
Seated Machine Laterals (FST-7 “Sevens”)           7 x 10
Shrugs (dumbbell, barbell, or machine)                 5 x 12

10 Facts You Need to Know about Growth Hormone

Advances in human growth hormone (GH) delivery have been reported recently, offering the anti-aging community, athletes, and physique enthusiasts reason to investigate new advantages and opportunities of this drug/hormone.

1 - Norditropin SimpleXx
 Novo Nordisk A/S is a large pharmaceutical company that already manufactures and markets the once-daily GH product Norditropin SimpleXx. Norditropin has proven to be effective and reliable when used clinically; those who obtain it outside of the legal channels for quality-of-life or performance/physique purposes comment positively.1 Norditropin is typical of pharmaceutical GH. It improves linear growth (height) in treated children, reverses aging-related changes in older subjects, improves body composition, and accelerates healing.

2 - Drug Design
There are a number of challenges in creating a drug that can be inhaled with the intention of absorbing the drug into the bloodstream. First, it cannot be an irritant to the lungs or airways to avoid sneezing it out, or worse yet, induce an asthmatic reaction (bronchoconstriction). Second, the drug cannot cause an unwanted drug response in the lungs/airways (e.g., bleeding). Third, the drug must reach the alveoli (the tiny air sacs where oxygen is exchanged) to be absorbed into the circulation. Fourth, it cannot interfere with gas exchange (oxygen for carbon dioxide).3 There are other considerations, but this gives you an idea of the challenges.

3 - Growth Hormone Delivery: It Doesn’t Come Easy
An inhalable form of GH has proven itself to be an effective substitute for injectable GH in human clinical trials; as yet, this product has not completed FDA approval. Inhalable GH has been shown in adults and children to be bioequivalent in delivering GH, and the drug kinetics— time to peak concentration, clearance, etc.— are similar, as well as the metabolic effect (IGF-1). Both injected and inhaled GH reached peak concentration approximately 2 hours after dosing, and were cleared within 8-10 hours.5 The downside to inhaled GH is that it is inefficient in regard to how much of the drug is absorbed.

4 - Injection
Traditionally, GH is injected subcutaneously (into the fat you can pinch) into the abdomen or thigh.6 This allows GH to disperse relatively quickly and near-completely. The abdomen and thigh are chosen due to the access (people can self-inject into these sites), and circulation is good. Other fat depots do not have adequate blood flow— slowing the release or even “trapping” the drug, rendering it unusable by the body. GH can be injected intramuscularly (IM) to greater effect, but IM injections are more painful and have additional complication risks.7

5 - The New Variation on GH–pGH
A variation on GH has been developed, attaching a long polyethylene glycol chain to the protein structure to prolong its presence in the bloodstream; this is called pegylated GH (pGH).8 Pegylation does not alter the activity of GH, rather it makes the protein bigger so that it is not filtered by the kidneys and pissed away, literally. It may help to think of pegylation as carrier-protein substitute, protecting the hormone and prolonging its presence in the blood. Novo Nordisk A/S, the manufacturer of Norditropin, recently reported the results of studies comparing once-weekly pGH to daily Norditropin, in regard to tolerability and bioequivalence.8 The studies used healthy, non-smoking, non-obese men, aged 20 through 40. None of the subjects showed any injection site reaction, demonstrating the tolerability of pGH. When blood tests were analyzed, pGH was shown to be equivalent to GH on a molar basis within the dose range normally prescribed to adults.

6 - Growth Hormone In Your Body
GH is normally produced in spikes several times through the day and night. It can be stimulated by certain amino acids, exercise, low blood sugar, etc.9 The effects of GH are fairly short-lived, but longer term effects are the result of IGF-1— a secondary protein hormone produced primarily by the liver when stimulated by GH.10 Skeletal muscle is also a significant source of IGF-1, but most of the muscle-derived IGF-1 effects are local (limited to the tissue that produces it).11 Liver-based IGF-1 would be rapidly cleared if it did not bind to a carrier protein complex (IGFBP-3 and ALS).10

7 - Primitive Side Effects Of GH
Early adaptors of GH for bodybuilding and anti-aging suffered a number of side effects, including carpal tunnel syndrome, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, facial bone distortion, elongation of hands and feet, organ growth, etc.12 This was due to their inappropriate use of excessive doses, following the treatment routines given to GH-deficient children (around 20 IU/day). This resulted in IGF-1 levels that were higher than the body could accommodate; most GH-related side effects can be managed by keeping IGF-1 values within or near the physiologic (normal) range.

8 - Know The Risks
Of course, as with anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, the maximal response requires maximal risk— many are willing to make that trade. IGF-1 induced muscle growth, one of many anabolic effects of growth hormone, is dose related.15 For years, athletes believed that GH increased strength, as well as muscle size. Then research was published stating emphatically that GH-increases in muscle size were either due to fluid retention or increases in non-contractile components in muscle tissue.16 In other words, the muscles may get bigger, but they do not get stronger or perform better.

9 - GH Vs. Test
Now, another study challenges the above claim, showing that in healthy adult men and women who exercise recreationally, GH (6 IU/day) significantly increased Wingate sprint performance— a measure of anaerobic power— by 4 percent compared to a control group that was not treated.17 Men experienced a synergistic increase in the Wingate test to 8.3 percent when testosterone was also administered (250 mgs Sustanon/week) along with GH. Interestingly, while testosterone and GH both increased lean mass, GH did so by increasing extracellular water; testosterone actually increased muscle tissue.

10 - GH benefits fat-loss and reduces muscular deterioration
Many of the benefits of GH relate to metabolic changes affecting energy utilization, or buffering in the muscle to reduce the (lactic) acid-related deterioration in performance. Further, fat loss is obviously beneficial in many sports. It is the chronic elevation of IGF-1 that appears to be related to the anabolic effects of GH, suggesting pGH may have greater effect for those seeking size or power gains.

It is probable that pGH will be approved in a few years; prior to that, it will likely reach self-experimenting bodybuilders or athletes. No additional risk with pGH, relative to current GH formulations, has been noted; yet, the report of delayed clearance, potential for hormone “buildup,” and suppression of endogenous (natural) production seem elevated in instances of abuse (dosing for anabolic versus replacement purposes).