What role do hormones play in physical training? What does it mean to train for hormonal responses? The release of hormones in the body when training plays a crucial role in various physiological processes. That includes muscle growth, fat metabolism/ energy, and overall health. Here are some aspects to focus on when training for a favorable hormonal response.
Individuals and athletes can incorporate resistance training into their program, preferably compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and rowing variations to have effective hormonal responses which will engage multiple muscle groups simultaneously. Hormones such as testosterone are then released during heavy compound lifts and result in enhanced muscle growth and strength development. IGF-1, a form of growth hormone, is released during heavy compound exercises and helps facilitate muscle repair and helps stimulate protein synthesis. Insulin is also increased during resistance training which also helps improve glucose uptake by muscles and enhanced nutrient delivery for muscle repair and growth. Increasing volume, exercise variation and intensity will result in the release of triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine(T4) from the thyroid gland which regulates energy expenditure. They also play a role in protein synthesis and muscle function, indirectly influencing strength training adaptation. However, we have cortisol, which is often referred to as the stress hormone. Cortisol levels can become high from overtraining and not properly recovering. While acute increases in cortisol can be beneficial for energy mobilization during exercise, chronically elevated cortisol levels can have catabolic effects, breaking down muscle tissue and impairing recovery. Proper rest and recovery between workouts will help manage cortisol levels. In contrast to the elevated stress, Epinephrine and Norepinephrine are released in response to intense physical activity. They increase heart rate, blood pressure, and energy availability, preparing the body for exertion during strength training sessions. Estrogen and Progesterone (in females) play a role in muscle growth and metabolism. While estrogen levels are typically lower in men, both estrogen and progesterone can influence muscle repair and recovery in women after resistance training. By understanding how these hormones respond to physical training, individuals can tailor their workouts, and recovery strategies to optimize muscle growth, strength gains, and overall performance. It's important to note that individual responses may vary based on factors such as genetics, age, sex, and training status, therefore, always consult with a professional for a more tailored program -Coach Andy Louis
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The term toning is a word that has been circulating the fitness industry like a newest trend. The arguments associated with the concept of "toning" often stems from various factors, including misconceptions, unrealistic expectations, and societal pressures. To make sure the proper information is given to all of our athletes and followers, we will discuss these few factors that cause some professionals and others to find toning infuriating.
Firstly, the term “toning” can mislead you and give you a misconception of what it really means. The term "toning" is often used in fitness and wellness contexts to imply the development of lean muscles and a more defined physique, typically through targeted exercises and dietary changes. However, the concept of "toning" can fuel the myth that there are specific exercises or techniques that can miraculously "tone" certain body parts without significant changes in overall body composition. Myself as a professional in the industry would often get into a discussion or debate with family and friends regarding toning and losing weight around certain body parts. Like, there are no specific exercises to lose facial fat or neck fat. Such misleading concepts will steer many individuals into the wrong expectations and often will not get the results they hoped for. Secondly, the term “toning” can bring unrealistic expectations to individuals. Many individuals may become frustrated with the idea of "toning" because they have the wrong expectations about what it entails and what results they can achieve. Also, this is often the realization of their body composition, the hard truth, and effort that will come to attain the “tone” physique. In a way, we can blame the media for what standards they put for toned bodies which often create unrealistic standards that can be difficult, if not impossible, for many people to attain, leading to frustration and feelings of low self esteem. Lastly, we find the term “toning” infuriating because it tends to make individuals lose their focus on what is truly important when it comes to our overall well-being. Toning will lead you to focus on overall appearance over better health. The emphasis on "toning" can sometimes prioritize aesthetic goals which may not be the necessary outtake for all individuals. This can be frustrating for individuals who prioritize their physical and mental health over achieving a specific appearance. We are all built differently and all have different capabilities when discussing better health and fitness. This is why professionals in the industry must do a better job educating and advocating individuals on functional training and self-acceptance to better help them achieve their goals. Overall, the frustration with "toning" often stems from a combination of unrealistic expectations, societal pressures, and a lack of understanding our differences and being knowledgeable on functional training. It's essential for individuals to focus on holistic approaches to health and wellness that prioritize self-acceptance, realistic goals, and evidence-based practices. -Coach Andy Louis The body is meant to function as a unit, therefore it has developed a system in which it can functionally operate to either stabilize, endure, push, pull, or stretch when doing certain movements. When we break it all down, the body will always need to have both concentric and eccentric strength to properly function. Those who are lacking in either of them will have it show in their fundamental movement patterns. We tend to always have misconceptions when discussing concentric and eccentric based strength training. We also find a lot of individuals developing asymmetry in muscular strength which in turn distorts their physique and performance. So first, let's break down the terms "concentric" and "eccentric" to better understand their roles in strength training.
Concentric Muscle Contractions are when muscles shorten as it contracts against resistance. It is commonly referred to as flexing. For example, during a chin up, the concentric phase is when you lift your body weight off the ground to pull yourself up bringing the upper chest to the bar which would then primarily contract the lats, rhomboids, biceps etc… The eccentric muscle contraction phase would control movement on the way down to where you started, lengthening the muscles as they resists against your body weight. While both concentric and eccentric contractions are important for overall muscle strength, balance and development, eccentric strengthening often receives less attention despite its significant benefits. Here at SPU we have many reasons why we implement eccentric strength training in our athletes program. Firstly, eccentric strength training helps stimulate muscle growth and pure strength. The eccentric contractions can generate greater force compared to concentric contractions, leading to greater muscle damage and subsequently greater muscle growth and strength when properly recovered. During the hypertrophy phase for an athlete of the appropriate age, we tend to put some form of eccentric strength movements to help them gain some lean muscle mass in the off-season. Secondly, eccentric strength training helps with the root cause of injuries and treating symptoms. By putting the joints through certain stress, it helps improve the athletes’ joint stability, reducing the risk of injuries, particularly in activities involving deceleration or sudden changes in direction. Lastly, eccentric strength training can easily help with improving functional strength. Many everyday movements involve eccentric muscle actions, such as lowering oneself into a chair or descending stairs. Strengthening the muscles eccentrically can improve performance and efficiency in these activities. As we age, eccentric strength becomes much more valuable. With cases of post surgeries, eccentric strength training is often used in rehabilitation programs to ensure a safe recovery. In all, we can not neglect the importance of eccentric strength training because it helps with the basis of fundamental and functional movements more than just focusing on training concentric movements. -Coach Andy Louis What are the main factors behind the causes of injuries? How do we best address injuries and prevent them from recurring? We’re speaking on non-contact injuries/ overuse injuries.
Here at SPU we prioritize our athlete’s unique body by making sure that we’re tailoring their program to their own body’s needs. Every athlete that goes through our doors will go through an analysis that allows us to attain more information about their body’s biomechanical integrity prior to training with us. Through the analysis we’ll be able to address things such as mobility, stability, strength, and neuromuscular firing patterns with 10 fundamental movements. If the athlete is experiencing pain through a certain movement then we take them through a sub-test similar to the initial movement to better address the root cause of the pain. We tend to find high levels of symptoms and injuries with younger athletes nowadays that are involved in multiple sports year-round with little to no rest. Not giving the body time to adjust, rest and grow through those vigorous movements will eventually cause an overuse injury. Also those athletes will most likely lack either strength, stability, or even neuromuscular firing pattern awareness to prevent themselves from getting injured. Another major factor to the causes of injuries is that athletes usually get the wrong treatment for their symptoms prior to the injury itself. There are lots of professionals on the market that tend to treat the symptoms and not the root causes of the problem. They’ll focus on strengthening the area rather than getting the athlete stronger all-around and moving better functionally. An athlete with a pulled hamstring doesn’t need more hamstring strengthening exercises, they need stronger hips/ glutes that will help better extend their hips through acceleration than having the hamstring doing the work. Same thing for a pitcher getting elbow pain from throwing. The issue isn’t the elbow, the root cause would be the scapula lacking strength and stability and not staying in place when throwing, gliding forward and transferring all the tension down to the elbows. When left unaddressed, the athlete then develops an elbow injury. In short, we find that athletes are not getting treated properly for their symptoms and injuries through wrong diagnosis and they’re also involved in too many activities leading to an overuse injury. -Coach Andy Louis Athletes need to separate speed, power, and strength exercise when training due to the specificity required in the exercise program. Each of these physical attributes requires different training stimuli from the body and muscles for optimal development, and focusing on one at a time allows for more targeted and effective progress. Here's a breakdown of why they are often trained separately. Firstly, we can better understand why we must specify our exercise programs when training by comprehending the SAID Principle. The SAID Principle states that the body will adapt to the specific demands placed on it. Therefore training for a specific quality such as speed or power allows the body to make targeted adaptations that enhance performance in that specific area. This is why when a coach is training an athlete that lacks agility and reaction speed, he tailors the program to focus on getting their body twitchy by increasing their plyos and power production exercise. In high volume and repetition, we hope the athlete will start to adapt to the stress that those exercises place on them with regards to the athletes overall strength. Secondly, different types of training have distinct effects on the nervous system and muscle fibers. Training for strength, for example, involves lifting heavier loads, which primarily recruits high-threshold motor units and increases muscle cross-sectional area. On the other hand, training for speed may involve lighter loads and higher velocity movements, emphasizing neuromuscular coordination and efficiency. With that being said, intensive training, especially for power and strength, places a significant load on the muscles, joints, and central nervous system. Focusing on one attribute at a time allows for proper recovery and reduces the risk of overtraining and injury. Lastly, different physical qualities often rely on different energy systems. For instance, power and speed activities are more reliant on the ATP-PC (adenosine triphosphate - phosphocreatine) system, while strength training may involve different energy pathways such as the glycolytic energy system. Speed training is based on fast bursts of movements that are short in duration. Such high intensity stress on the body will ask for more rest to recuperate that specific energy pathway to repeat the process. Therefore, training one quality at a time allows for targeted energy system development. Ultimately, while there is a benefit to training these qualities separately, it's important to note that there can be overlaps, and many training programs include elements of each. Working on speed would mean that we must also focus on the plyos and power production elements( Sprints, Plyo Hops, Box Jumps, Step Jumps), the strengthening elements (Heavy loaded exercises) required to produce the power, and stability elements (eccentric strength) required to be agile. Additionally, sport-specific training often requires an integration of these qualities, as real-world activities rarely isolate a single physical movement. Individual training goals, the demands of a specific sport or activity, and an individual's fitness level all play a role in determining the most effective training approach. -Coach Andy Louis One of the common misconceptions we hear from parents and kids is that they are getting in shape and working out because they are in-season, or going to practice, or participating in some type of sport related activity. In reality, you shouldn’t substitute performance training (read: strength, power, and speed development) and replace it with practice. Those are two separate things.
In simplest form, performance training is trying to increase your physical output. This means pushing more weight, jumping higher, being more explosive, etc., trying to increase your maximal output. This is your capacity. Playing your sport is about learning skills, applying your physical abilities to a sport, utilizing your capacity in highly specific ways. In both games and practices you will test your capacity, your skills, as well as your conditioning as well. However, playing your sport does not increase your capacity. Your ability to apply your capacity to specific activities is your efficiency. In short, capacity is what your total capabilities are, efficiency is how well you apply those abilities to specific skills. This means that performance training and sport activities, while closely related, are not good substitutes for one another. Just because you went to practice doesn’t mean you got your workout in. Ultimately, you’ll need to be able to improve both your capacity and your efficiency if you want to reach your potential. -Coach Alex Drayson What are the functions of the abdominal muscle group? The abdominal muscles' primary function is to stabilize the core and help with various movements done by the spine when we twist, extend, and go into flexion in all the planes. With social media constantly pushing content that can be way out of context to the general public and athletes, we tend to lose ourselves in how to properly train the abdominal muscles and not only focus on limited movements and muscle isolations.
Here at SportperformanceU, we needed something that would help us differentiate ourselves as an athletic performance gym from the others. With servicing countless student athletes, many of which are going through different stages of growth, we knew something needed to be done to help us help those athletes in a better manner. Understanding the body’s unique movements and fundamental functions was the first step towards making our program different from others.
Each athlete is different, whether it is a skill aspect, fundamental movement aspect, or even skeletal structure, there’s always a factor that makes them different. Biomechanical integrity is a way for us to understand how an individual's body performs doing the fundamental movement analysis. Our company founders Alex & Matt had thought it through and used a system derived from FMS to make what we have now. It tests the dominant knee movement, both bilateral and unilateral (in short, squats and lunges), dominant hip movement known as hinging or deadlift and eight other movements that challenges the fundamental functions of the spine, shoulders, scapula, pelvis, core, and lastly the glutes with subtests. Filtering out the muscular strength imbalances, stability, neuromuscular firing patterns, and mobility issues that show doing the analysis helps us indicate the root cause of certain limitations. And if there’s a history of injuries, it would help us better understand how to best address those and prevent more injuries down the line. Social media, which is a great tool, can also be deceiving when what you're seeing online, is labeled as “a good exercise,” can mostly be out of context to your body’s capabilities. The question, “Is this a good exercise?” needs much more information in relation to what your body needs and can do. That is why we take pride in making our athletes understand their individuality in a positive manner and properly teaching them exercises derived from their tailored program. That way, each athlete that walks through our door is doing a program that is tailored to their body’s capabilities and no one is doing the same thing unless they share the same case. -Coach Andy Louis How does our brain undergo various changes when doing consistent strength based training? It is well known that consistent strength training results in better longevity due to overall muscle mass and that high intensity interval training results in better heart health. However, those benefits aren’t the only effects of strength training on the body. Consistent strength training also affects our brain in various ways. We will discuss various cognitive adaptations that occur to the brain when consistently doing strength training.
Firstly, an improvement in the executive functions is an example of the cognitive adaptations that occur from consistent strength training. Executive functions are cognitive processes responsible for problem solving, decision making, and planning. A study on the “Effects of Exercise on Cognition” Sports Medicine , Volume 51 (12) – Dec 1, 2021 has shown a significantly improved performance on a “Stroop Task" - which challenges your cognitive flexibility and selective attention. The group consisted of healthy elderly women ages 65-75 training biweekly for 6 months. When compared to the controlled group doing light balanced based training the regular group had a better performance. It proves increased demand for focus and concentration during training can translate to improved cognitive control in daily life activity and also sports. Secondly, the brain undergoes various neurochemical changes when doing strength training. The stress induced from strength training causes the brain to release endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin. Those chemicals are responsible for pain tolerance, mood and stress control. This can lead to a better performance as an athlete when managing in-game situations. The brain’s neuroplasticity also increases when you introduce the body to various new movements, specifically when constantly strength training, forming new neural connections, recognizing, and adapting to new patterns. Lastly, the brain releases neurotrophic factors like BDNF stimulated by strength training. BDNF is a brain protein that supports the growth and maintenance of neurons. BDNF also contributes to neuronal plasticity, which is essential for learning and memory. Thus, the more we involve ourselves into strength based training with controlled intensities the more room we create for the brain to adapt and improve our overall performance whether in our daily living activities or in a sport. -Coach Andy Louis Exercising is a vital component of a healthy lifestyle and it provides benefits to both men and women. Staying physically active can offer great advantages such as better cardiovascular health, weight management, and better mental well-being. Although those components are only the top layer of what really goes on when exercising. It is essential to recognize and understand the hormonal differences between men and women and their influence on how exercise affects the body from the aspects of reproductive organs, body composition/ metabolism, and exercise induced stress.
The first component we can think of when discussing hormonal release differences between men and women is their reproductive organs. Men will always have an abundance of testosterone due to their reproductive organs. This is why men tend to have higher muscle mass when going through full development and higher power output when exercising. On the other hand, women who do not have testes (testosterone producer) therefore will have a lower count of testosterone in their body. Testosterone plays a key role in muscle growth, strength development, and overall athletic performance. Having an abundance of the hormone can boost your recovery time, and protein synthesis. So we can kill the myth of “Women will get bulky when they do strength training constantly”. Another hormone that brings more differences between men and women and its effect with exercise is estrogen. Estrogen is primarily a complex hormone for women. It does have similar effects to testosterone but also goes into improving bone health, joint stability, and helping with fat storage. For women, high levels of estrogen leads to higher fat storage at the hips and thighs, affecting body composition. In comparison to the levels of testosterone in men, estrogen levels in women are much lower, and even much lower in men, hence why men tend to store less fat and have a higher muscle mass. Lets not forget women's menstrual cycle that affects their energy levels. The follicular phase which is before ovulation is associated with high estrogen levels leading to higher fat metabolism and improved exercise performance. In contrast the luteal phase which is post ovulation leads to high progesterone levels causing a decrease in carbohydrate utilization and reduced exercise capacity. When we look at the metabolic system between men and women, the higher muscle mass composition in men leads to a higher metabolic rate, causing a higher caloric expenditure during exercise. For women, their lower muscle mass composition leads to a lower caloric expenditure during exercise and lower metabolic rate. Their higher fat composition serves as energy for longer bouts of exercises that increases the stress levels on the body. The body will release stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline which helps with energy mobilization and focus. However, the body composition along with the stress hormones also leads to recovery and overall performance differences. Ultimately, hormonal differences between men and women have a significant impact on exercise performance. While men benefit from higher testosterone levels, resulting in greater muscle mass and strength, women experience unique hormonal fluctuations throughout their menstrual cycle that can affect energy levels and exercise capacity. Recognizing and understanding these differences allows coaches to tailor the workouts and still attain the goal at hand. -Coach Andy Louis |
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