#004 - Is muscle damage worth it? This one might leave you cheesed off, back to Japan (twice) and putting ketchup on eggs
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Mechanisms of Hypertrophy
So far we’ve discussed the benefits of strength training, what rep ranges you should use for your goals, and different types of progressive overload. In all these posts/videos, I’ve mentioned muscle hypertrophy regularly, which simply refers to increasing the size of muscle fibers, which in turn, increases the size of muscles. Bigger muscles mean more strength.
Yes, there is a difference between myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, but we’re not going to go into all that. For now, let’s say that muscle hypertrophy is a good thing for strength, athleticism, and longevity. Although it’s not the only reason to strength train and I would argue, maybe not even the most important reason, it is an important one and so we’ll take it as a given that muscle hypertrophy is good. So let’s talk about the ways to increase it.
Mechanical Tension:
The first way is through mechanical tension. Lifting something heavy produces mechanical tension in muscle fibers and this tensile force makes them adapt. This stress doesn’t necessarily have to result in muscle damage - which will be discussed below - in order to stimulate growth and it might just be that this tension signals to the body that these fibers need to be bigger in order to handle this stimulus. As discussed in the progressive overload video, this stimulus should be increased in small increments in order to get the most out of the subsequent hormone response and muscle protein synthesis. A lot of the specifics here are not well understood, but there is certainly a correlation between lifting heavy and muscle growth - so making this a priority in your training is important.
Metabolic Stress:
The second way is through metabolic stress. Lifting something moderately heavy, but more times and with shorter rest periods puts metabolic stress on the muscle cells. Metabolic stress occurs from the production of metabolites like lactic acid, the lack of oxygen in muscle fibers, an increase in reactive oxygen species, and cell swelling. All these things increase hormonal signaling for important substances like testosterone and growth hormone, which in turn increases muscle protein synthesis and thus the size of muscle cells. In some research this increase in size is consistent with the increase achieved by lifting heavier weights through mechanical tension. So here, lower weight and higher reps are your friend.
Muscle Damage:
Muscle damage gets a mention because it's talked about a lot in this hypertrophy conversation, but it seems like that might not actually cause muscle growth. Lifting something heavy and prolonging the eccentric phase, otherwise known as the muscle lengthening phase of a movement (think going down in a squat or lowering down in a push up), can produce a lot of muscle damage. Meaning small tears to the muscle fibers. This has been proposed as a driver of hypertrophy, but it seems that hypertrophy occurs independent of muscle damage and therefore has been called into question as a driver of hypertrophy. I think it suffices to say, that even if there were a benefit to damaging muscle fibers, you’d want to use this sparingly as this is also the most likely reason for muscle soreness. Luckily, plenty of strength and hypertrophy can be achieved without muscle damage and therefore it should not be a goal of strength training. Being sore is not fun and it seems it also provides no real benefit, which is definitely a relief. 😅
Take Away:
The takeaway here is that increasing muscle hypertrophy is good for strength and longevity. In order to increase muscle size, your strength training workouts should combine mechanical tension and metabolic stress. You should take advantage of both these drivers of hypertrophy to work different mechanisms that lead to our desired outcome. Loading some exercises up heavy and doing sets of 8 to 12 reps will produce mechanical tension and reducing load and increasing reps to 12 to 15 will produce metabolic stress. This should all be done in a progressive fashion so that optimal adaptation occurs and muscle growth is stimulated through protein synthesis, which I’ll discuss in my next post.
A Visual Supplement
too long; didn't read? - watch this video.
Sun and Steel
We’re once again back in Japan to explore the intersection of exercise and art. Introducing Yukio Mishima, the Japanese author, poet, playwright, actor, model, and workout enthusiast. In fact, Sun and Steel is the title of a book about his reflections on strength training and martial arts. Mishima is considered one of the most important writers of the 20th century and his work is characterized by "its luxurious vocabulary and decadent metaphors, its fusion of traditional Japanese and modern Western literary styles, and its obsessive assertions of the unity of beauty, eroticism and death", according to author Andrew Rankin. He is also a controversial figure that in the later years of his short life considered himself a nationalist that rejected modern Japanese ideals and exhibited particular sentimentality towards Imperial Japan. In fact, he died by committing seppuku (ritualistic suicide) after failing to inspire a military coup to restore the emperor to the throne. This action is thought by many to simply have been a pretense to kill himself, as he’d been planning his own death for well over a year and his literary works are drenched in an infatuation with death. Now that I’ve piqued your morbid curiosity, let’s change the subject.
Yukio Mishima liked to workout. It’s said that in the last 15 years of his life, he strength trained 3 times a week and never missed a session. In addition to weight training, he also practiced kendo (Japanese fencing) and karate. This obsession with working out and martial arts might stem from his upbringing where he wasn’t able to be very active, was physically weak, and was kept inside next to his ailing grandmother. This is partly documented in Confessions of a Mask, which is generally seen as the story of his own youth. Whatever the reason, he made up for it in his later years and encapsulated the confluence of beautiful prose and physical pursuits. Cultivating art and physical being is something that I identify with and I think there is a power in feeling your own strength that lets you express yourself fully. Whatever the origin of his obsession with physical fitness, he used it as a subject for his artistic expression and I can relate. I studied philosophy and enjoyed the Greek philosophers that celebrated the cultivation of the mind and the body in a way that myopic modern times don’t. These days it’s all about specialization and oftentimes that means people are pushed down a narrow path without a healthy balance of intellectual, artistic, and physical pursuits. This is one reason Yukio Mishima appeals to me - he struck that balance and cultivated himself in a well rounded way. However, he then went off the deep end I guess, but he’s certainly not the first artist to do so. Regardless, his is an interesting story and these old photos of him are entertaining.
I’ve read two of his books, Spring Snow and Patriotism. The former was so full of detail and description that it reminded me of Proust (if he had pumped some iron, lol), which is honestly not my favorite type of writing. The latter was short and beautifully written, balancing heavy topics with the mundanity of everyday life - I recommend it.
You’ve most likely come across images or news clips about the recent release of the “Real Cheeseburger” in Thailand. If you google it you’ll find no shortage of images or YouTube videos of poor saps taking bites out of a stack of 20 slices of American cheese sandwiched between a sesame seed bun, sans condiments. What would prompt someone to do this is beyond me, but they’ve most likely been swept up in the viral nature that was at the heart of this creation and they’re taking their turn choking it down.
I don’t even need to comment on this as a nutritionist, but as someone who takes food seriously from a culinary perspective, the first question I had was, “why American cheese?” I couldn't think of a worse cheese to get lodged in my windpipe and choke to death on. As has been confirmed by those that have tried it, the salt alone makes it tough to eat more than a few bites. The plastic nature of American cheese also must lend itself to turning into what feels like a ball of wax, much like those wax lip candies that I remember getting on occasion around Halloween. Those, I’m sure, like the “Real Cheeseburger”, seemed like a novel idea for a second and then once you put it in your mouth, turned out to be a mistake. A tasteless, waxy mistake.
This type of thing is the epitome of viral culture. People and companies doing anything to get a few seconds of attention before they have to come up with their next marketing ploy. But that’s not to say I wouldn’t buy one. Visually, they are kind of neat looking and I might have one sitting on my bookshelf along with some other knick-knacks that I’ve collected from travel. Not like I have to worry about it getting moldy at all since there’s no real food ingredients in it.
Eternally egged on
Now that your appetite is surely whetted thanks to Dustin’s blurb on probably the worst food to ever come out of Thailand (otherwise, my #1 favorite culinary origin – of all time), I too would like to visit Japan in this post.
I have recently discovered that watching omelette preparation is how I’d like to spend the majority of my free time. Really, any omelette (including the one Dustin makes us every morning) but, specifically this one from KichiKichi in Kyoto, an 8-seat, reservation only restaurant for dinner and a show. The dish is called Omurice, defined by Google as “a Japanese dish consisting of an omelette made with fried rice and thin, fried scrambled eggs, usually topped with ketchup”. Hey - I grew up with ketchup on my eggs, DO NOT KNOCK IT! Yum!
And as much as I enjoy to watch the slippery, soft scramble slide out of a skillet, Motokichi loves to perform it for you! What a legend!
It does not matter how many times I watch him slice open that little egg pouch, my jaw drops each time.
Honorable omelette mentions:
Tornado Omelette ( 회오리 오므라이스 )
📍South Korea
Omelette of Mother Poulard ( L'omelette de la Mère Poulard )
📍 Mont-Saint-Michel, France
And of course, Julia Child’s French Omelette
Tears of Awe
awe [ aw ] : noun
an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, fear, etc., produced by that which is grand, sublime, extremely powerful, or the like
If you’re anything like me and have been brought to tears many times in the middle of the sidewalk in Portland, Oregon during mid-spring bloom because of the beautiful fucking flowers everywhere, you’ll probably enjoy this discovery I made on HBO when it became MAX and imported all of these PBS meets HGTV type shows. wow. so many acronyms.
It’s called The Garden Chronicles. The videos are no longer than about 10 minutes each and they are the perfect decompression tool. I promise you, you will FEEL it.
I swear, when I start my own garden, I will make it my whole personality.
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