July 2021

Whole Body Vibration Boosts Muscle Blood Flow

Whole body vibration (WBV) training broke into the mainstream in the late 1990s with the introduction of affordable platforms that allowed for adjusting the amount of vibration users would receive. In its early days – and STEPS Fitness was one of the early pioneers here in Nashville – WBV was thought to improve bone density, muscle strength, flexibility and even fix your car. Just kidding, but the PR for it was excessive beyond the research on it. 

The research community has continued investigating it because there has been sufficient applications in the fitness and clinical setting that show benefits. Since blood flow to and through the muscles is necessary for proper function and overall health, and since microvascular blood flow (MBF) is critical for the exchange of nutrients, an Australian group wanted to see if WBV enhanced MBF. 

They had 11 healthy adults perform 3 mins of knee extensions at 25% of the subjects’ maximal capability on an extension machine. By trial and error, they found that a 12.5 Hz vibration setting on the WBV yielded a “similar peripheral hemodynamic response” to the knee extensions and was used for the MBF analyses. The study itself had each subject perform either the lifting exercise or the WBV standing for 3 minutes at a time in a cross-over design. 

They found that WBV increased MBF significantly but not to the degree that resistance exercise did, despite “eliciting similar increases in femoral artery blood flow and whole-body oxygen consumption.” For healthy populations, resistance training wins out but for a “therapeutic option for improving microvascular perfusion in at-risk populations”, WBV might be worth investigating.                  

MSSE Feb. 2021

Whole Egg vs Egg White: Which Makes You Stronger?

If only it was as easy as what you ate, we could all get stronger faster. While we know that ingesting a high-quality protein before but especially after a resistance training (RT) session boosts the synthesis of protein in the muscles used, there is a question as to whether or not the purest of proteins – egg white – is better than whole eggs. The yolk is a nutritious part of an egg but does it detract from the protein absorption lifters want to maximize in order to get stronger and bigger?

To test this, 30 young males were divided into two groups; they all did a whole-body RT program for 12 weeks, three times a week. One group ate 3 whole eggs after the workout plus 3 the next morning; the other had 6 egg whites (more protein plus yolk nutrients) after the session and the next morning. Muscle sizes and strengths, plus body fat and testosterone levels were the comparison measures. 

Those eating whole eggs had greater increases in quadriceps and handgrip strength, and testosterone, with more reduction in body fat compared to the egg-white eaters. They also increased lean body mass more than the latter but not significantly. Both groups increased body mass, lean mass of the legs, anaerobic power, growth hormone, insulin, and IGF-1 (beneficial hormones associated with muscle growth). So maybe, just maybe, eating whole eggs, when combined with RT, puts the yolk on you? 

JSCR Feb. 2021

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