Mathematical Model Predicts Best Way To Build Muscle (phys.org) 67
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: Researchers have developed a mathematical model that can predict the optimum exercise regime for building muscle. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used methods of theoretical biophysics to construct the model, which can tell how much a specific amount of exertion will cause a muscle to grow and how long it will take. The model could form the basis of a software product, where users could optimize their exercise regimes by entering a few details of their individual physiology. The results, reported in the Biophysical Journal, suggest that there is an optimal weight at which to do resistance training for each person and each muscle growth target. Muscles can only be near their maximal load for a very short time, and it is the load integrated over time which activates the cell signaling pathway that leads to synthesis of new muscle proteins. But below a certain value, the load is insufficient to cause much signaling, and exercise time would have to increase exponentially to compensate. The value of this critical load is likely to depend on the particular physiology of the individual.
In 2018, the Cambridge researchers started a project on how the proteins in muscle filaments change under force. They found that main muscle constituents, actin and myosin, lack binding sites for signaling molecules, so it had to be the third-most abundant muscle component -- titin -- that was responsible for signaling the changes in applied force. Whenever part of a molecule is under tension for a sufficiently long time, it toggles into a different state, exposing a previously hidden region. If this region can then bind to a small molecule involved in cell signaling, it activates that molecule, generating a chemical signal chain. Titin is a giant protein, a large part of which is extended when a muscle is stretched, but a small part of the molecule is also under tension during muscle contraction. This part of titin contains the so-called titin kinase domain, which is the one that generates the chemical signal that affects muscle growth. The molecule will be more likely to open if it is under more force, or when kept under the same force for longer. Both conditions will increase the number of activated signaling molecules. These molecules then induce the synthesis of more messenger RNA, leading to production of new muscle proteins, and the cross-section of the muscle cell increases.
This realization led to the current work. [The researchers] set out to constrict a mathematical model that could give quantitative predictions on muscle growth. They started with a simple model that kept track of titin molecules opening under force and starting the signaling cascade. They used microscopy data to determine the force-dependent probability that a titin kinase unit would open or close under force and activate a signaling molecule. They then made the model more complex by including additional information, such as metabolic energy exchange, as well as repetition length and recovery. The model was validated using past long-term studies on muscle hypertrophy. "Our model offers a physiological basis for the idea that muscle growth mainly occurs at 70% of the maximum load, which is the idea behind resistance training," said [one of the paper's authors]. "Below that, the opening rate of titin kinase drops precipitously and precludes mechanosensitive signaling from taking place. Above that, rapid exhaustion prevents a good outcome, which our model has quantitatively predicted." [...] The model also addresses the problem of muscle atrophy, which occurs during long periods of bed rest or for astronauts in microgravity, showing both how long can a muscle afford to remain inactive before starting to deteriorate, and what the optimal recovery regime could be.
In 2018, the Cambridge researchers started a project on how the proteins in muscle filaments change under force. They found that main muscle constituents, actin and myosin, lack binding sites for signaling molecules, so it had to be the third-most abundant muscle component -- titin -- that was responsible for signaling the changes in applied force. Whenever part of a molecule is under tension for a sufficiently long time, it toggles into a different state, exposing a previously hidden region. If this region can then bind to a small molecule involved in cell signaling, it activates that molecule, generating a chemical signal chain. Titin is a giant protein, a large part of which is extended when a muscle is stretched, but a small part of the molecule is also under tension during muscle contraction. This part of titin contains the so-called titin kinase domain, which is the one that generates the chemical signal that affects muscle growth. The molecule will be more likely to open if it is under more force, or when kept under the same force for longer. Both conditions will increase the number of activated signaling molecules. These molecules then induce the synthesis of more messenger RNA, leading to production of new muscle proteins, and the cross-section of the muscle cell increases.
This realization led to the current work. [The researchers] set out to constrict a mathematical model that could give quantitative predictions on muscle growth. They started with a simple model that kept track of titin molecules opening under force and starting the signaling cascade. They used microscopy data to determine the force-dependent probability that a titin kinase unit would open or close under force and activate a signaling molecule. They then made the model more complex by including additional information, such as metabolic energy exchange, as well as repetition length and recovery. The model was validated using past long-term studies on muscle hypertrophy. "Our model offers a physiological basis for the idea that muscle growth mainly occurs at 70% of the maximum load, which is the idea behind resistance training," said [one of the paper's authors]. "Below that, the opening rate of titin kinase drops precipitously and precludes mechanosensitive signaling from taking place. Above that, rapid exhaustion prevents a good outcome, which our model has quantitatively predicted." [...] The model also addresses the problem of muscle atrophy, which occurs during long periods of bed rest or for astronauts in microgravity, showing both how long can a muscle afford to remain inactive before starting to deteriorate, and what the optimal recovery regime could be.
This explains (Score:4, Funny)
The internet was a mistake (Score:1)
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Re:The internet was a mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
For those of us that hate exercise, finding a way to min/max the effort to get into passably healthy but definitely not elite shape is great. I personally want to put the least possible effort into it, it's a super obnoxious drawback of meatspace. Proving it mathematically is best of all. Eliminating personal trainers, their books, their establishments and equipment is best of all.
In a perfect world we'd have a metric of health and a 3db point at which returns are diminishing and only worth it if you really like that sort of thing. Sort of a "take this daily shit and forget about it" guide to moderately healthy living.
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I agree with this one. Being healthy is much more than just big muscle: thinking of cardiovascular health, obviously, but also lung capacity and oxygen utilization, flexibility and posture, speed vs strength, etc. Better blood fluidity and circulation (which also seems to he
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I disagree completely.
You're making the assumption that all exercise is the same, all people have the same time to do it, same motivation, and same goals. Knowing that muscle growth is fastest at 70% of the max is incredibly helpful for everyone, the old fart trying to stay healthy and the young buck trying to get swole.
Most of us adults have very limited time we can spend in the gym. I do some of the newfangled HIIT stuff, and it's a mix of strength and conditioning. For the bits of it where I'm working on
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For those of us that hate exercise, finding a way to min/max the effort to get into passably healthy but definitely not elite shape is great. I personally want to put the least possible effort into it, it's a super obnoxious drawback of meatspace.
You need cardiovascular health, not toned muscles. Put some earphones on and take reasonably brisk walks. Listen to informative podcasts and you'll make good use the time.
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Brisk walks are good for cardio, but to a very limited point. If you're old, infirm, or obese sure... that's far better than watching TV all evening but still less than ideal.
If you're not, you need to raise your heart rate. Then your body adapts and you can work harder for the same raise. etc.
*Toned* muscles is more for show, but building muscles in general is very good for you overall. It also does far more than cardio for raising your metabolism (especially longer term).
For general health in someone
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For those of us that hate exercise, finding a way to min/max the effort to get into passably healthy but definitely not elite shape is great. I personally want to put the least possible effort into it, it's a super obnoxious drawback of meatspace. Proving it mathematically is best of all. Eliminating personal trainers, their books, their establishments and equipment is best of all.
In a perfect world we'd have a metric of health and a 3db point at which returns are diminishing and only worth it if you really like that sort of thing. Sort of a "take this daily shit and forget about it" guide to moderately healthy living.
I agree with you completely, most physical exercise bores the living shit out of me. Even practicing Krav Maga, which is quite engaging, still manages to get boring after an hour or so... Sitting on a treadmill staring at a wall is utter mind numbing agony.
The problem that has plagued the various sports sciences and nutritional sciences is that there are too many variables to the human body. What works for one person doesn't work for another. If it weren't this way we'd have the perfect formula to simply
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This model pretty much replicates what exercise studies have shown. The bad news is that you're going to have to make an effort. The good news is that it doesn't have to be for a long time. Three sets of ten reps with a weight you could potentially lift 12-15 times should be sufficient for significant for a sedentary person to see significant gains with just one session per week. That's hard work but not much work. If you plateau and want to gain more, then things get complicated, but being more fit t
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" Three sets of ten reps with a weight you could potentially lift 12-15 times should be sufficient for significant for a sedentary person to see significant gains with just one session per week"
Totally agree.
I used to be a wimpy weakling (real geek material) for most of my life but then I got fat and then, after being diagnosed with Parkinson's nearly 3 years ago, decided to make a few changes to my life.
I dropped 20Kg of fat from my frame and began to do some really basic resistance training with some dumb
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Of course then what? Here's a list of exercises I've collected, so far:
30 Minute TRX Workout https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
TRX Tactical Force Suspension trainer program full videoguide
Re: The internet was a mistake (Score:2)
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These molecules then induce the synthesis of more messenger RNA, leading to production of new muscle proteins, and the cross-section of the muscle cell increases.
This comment raises an interesting question of whether the muscle fibers actually need to be stressed, or if mRNA synthesis is sufficient. For those who really hate to exercise, maybe there will be a hypertrophy shot available soon?
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Google Myostatin Inhibitors.
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For those of us that hate exercise, finding a way to min/max the effort to get into passably healthy but definitely not elite shape is great. I personally want to put the least possible effort into it, it's a super obnoxious drawback of meatspace. Proving it mathematically is best of all. Eliminating personal trainers, their books, their establishments and equipment is best of all.
I get your notion, that you could somehow optimize the amount of work necessary for a given outcome. Who can argue with that?
The problem is that the optimal amount of work for this kind of thing is PROBABLY much much much more hateful to most people than whatever existing exercise they hate. Think HIIT, where instead of doing something boring for a half hour, you have to repeatedly do something for 30s at an intensity which makes you feel like puking. Additionally, going at that intensity increases your
Who's the target audience? (Score:2, Insightful)
Geeky mathematicians are not usually the type who hit the gym regularly, and bodybuilders aren't known for their calculus skills. So who is this for exactly?
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When it comes time to build the terminator and send him back in time. We'll know the muscles will be mathematically perfect.
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Good thing they won't be *really* perfect then. ^^
*Awaits perfectly spherical Terminator on a sinusoidal trajectory*
Re: Who's the target audience? (Score:2)
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Mathmeticians & app makers who recognize marke (Score:5, Interesting)
Geeky mathematicians are not usually the type who hit the gym regularly, and bodybuilders aren't known for their calculus skills. So who is this for exactly?
Short answer: to make money off the gym rats and meat heads. Seems like we'll see a million apps claiming results from this method.
I have a math degree and enjoy going to the gym. It's pretty common in my area. My gym is next to biotech and software companies and thus most of the people in there work in those fields. I'd pay good money for tangible gains...to spend less time in the gym, look better, and now that I'm older, injure myself less. Convince me your methodology is not bullshit and I'll pay good money!
The fitness market is HUGE...not just people who want to look good naked for their spouses, like me, but others who need to stay in shape for various health reasons. I'd love to look like John Cena, but for me, and most of the market for this, we just don't want to look like a bag of milk, to quote the hockey bros from Letterkenny...or keep chronic ailments at bay.
Re:Mathmeticians & app makers who recognize ma (Score:4, Insightful)
You could do the same thing with an exercise journal. Once a month find your new max weight for the muscle group you are working on, then the rest of the month do multiple repetitions at 75% of that max. The next month find your new max and recalculate your new 75% level.
The article mentions that below the optimum exercise level the growth signaling drops precipitously so a little above the optimum would be better than a little below it. You might sacrifice a few additional reps during a workout, but that's better than not reaching the signaling level at all.
As you gain more muscle mass you can afford to eat more carbs and protein to fuel those muscles, but if you ease back on your exercise routine, don't forget to drop back to your lower calorie diet.
If they offered a single-purchase price for an app to track things like monthly max, optimized target zone, total monthly reps, etc. it might be worth it, but I wouldn't install an app that required a monthly subscription fee. They'll probably make enough selling your contact information to every other fitness company willing to bombard you with "customized" ads.
--
Sometimes pencil and paper beats the calculator.
Re:Mathmeticians & app makers who recognize ma (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, this model seems to confirm what a lot of personal trainers already recommend, i.e. find your 1 rep max & calculate exercise routines from there. As you get stronger, get your 1 rep max again then re-calculate routines (or just increase weights to that you're always pushing your muscles as far as they can go). Perhaps the 70% figure is something newly significant? Does anyone here know?
One thing I did learn was that the reps:weights ratios, i.e. lighter weights & more reps or heavier weights
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Also, our bodies start going downhill after 40-ish & we need to make them work just to maintain muscle mass & bone density.
Citation needed? Recent studies show, for instance, that our metabolism actually stays relatively steady from 20 all the way to 60, and people can maintain great muscle mass relatively easy all the way to age 80+ - there has to be much more to it than just "hit age 40, decline!" - that sounds incredibly, and dishonestly, oversimplified (if any of it is accurate to begin with).
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I've heard it from multiple reliable sources, one being my mother who's a qualified Pilates instructor (She's pretty geeky & reads the papers on this stuff). Here's the first quote I found from a search just now, "A combination of age-related changes, inactivity, and inadequate nutrition conspire to gradually steal bone mass, at the rate of 1% per year after age 40." From: https://www.health.harvard.edu... [harvard.edu] I can't be arsed to find any quotes for you about muscle atrophy. It's in TFA itself & I'm ass
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I wonder how accurate the 1-rep max is. Presumably technique factors in (especially with a complex free-weight lift like a clean or a snatch) and then there will be different psychological limits - the legendary mom lifting car off of baby effect. I'm guessing some people will simply declare their max earlier than physiologically similar others.
Is there such a thing as "a maniac with the strength of 10 men" ?
Is animal muscle really stronger than human muscle or does it just have a "better driver"
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Re:Mathmeticians & app makers who recognize ma (Score:5, Insightful)
Short answer: to make money off the gym rats and meat heads.
I doubt it. This seems more geared towards trainers of professional athletes or rehabilitation physicians. None of the findings here are any different than what your average gym rat already knows. 70% of maximum load is generally what you can do 12 reps of, and 8-12 reps is the standard range for weight lifting. So your average person isn't going to gain much if anything from this kind of research. It is either for those at the cutting edge of physical performance or medicine, or simply research to find out more about the human body in general (basic research is still important).
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Seems like we'll see a million apps claiming results from this method
Social media addled millions who wouldn't leave a burning building unless their phone told them to.
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And you never know when you might need strength on short notice, maybe even in an emergency.
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Okay boomer. That stereotype hasn't been true for a generation or so.
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If you wanna make an argument, I suggest you don't start with an insult that makes you look like somebody who failed at life and blames it on other generations.
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It just struck me that a perfect retort to "OK Boomer" is "OK Boomee".
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Geeky mathematicians are not usually the type who hit the gym regularly, and bodybuilders aren't known for their calculus skills. So who is this for exactly?
A friend of mine competed on the Cornell gymnastics team back in the early '80s and got his BS/MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering there and then a Masters / MBA at the MIT Sloan School of Management, so math/science geeks can be buff.
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It's for mathematicians. The kind that doesn't care if it's useful.
The kind that believes reality is merely an externalization of their mathematical models, instead of mathematics being merely an artifact of the way predictive neural nets works.
What I call the religious half of mathematics. As opposed to the scientific half. (I'm not giving any guarantees on that ratio.)
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NASA
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In the real world we each use our strengths to benefit the other.
A researcher may put his analytical mind into developing a model.
A doctor may put his medical expertise into verifying that model.
A geeky mathematician may put his expertise into developing a simple calculator / flip chart.
A bodybuilder will read that flipchart, or have a trainer dictate a regime based on that chart.
Your comment is basically saying bodybuilders are too dumb to bodybuild effectively, and geeks don't care about their body. Don't
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It is for this person and others like him: https://science.slashdot.org/c... [slashdot.org]
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The muscle atrophy research (Score:2)
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Hey Gavino, what do you bench? Dead lift?
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Easy: Just use other parts of your body to masturbate. ;)
Mathematical model... (Score:1)
Let me guess: Perfectly spherical muscles on a sinusoidal trajectory. ;)
Building Muscle is not the whole picture (Score:1)
More muscle maybe but not the same as strength. As Strength depends on several factors, muscle of course being only one of those. There is also muscle recruitment (how many muscle fibers can I get to fire at once) - this is nervous system factor; there is also coordination (how can I fire all the various muscles in a way to move this weight correctly) - this is a nervous system factor. So the nervous system factors must be trained by moving the weight in different ways and may require s sub-optimal weight
steroids (Score:2)
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Re: steroids (Score:2)
Models are Great and All But... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem I see here is that these tend to be based on lab results. The problem with that is that real world exercises do not necessarily conform.
Most exercises work more than one muscle group. So a given bench press may work your triceps at 90% while your pecs are at 70% (or vise versa depending on your specific physiology). 70% of your single rep max in any given exercise does not necessarily translate to 70% of a given muscle fiber's maximum effort.
On top of that, you have psychological factors at play. People have different psychological tolerance for high efforts. Some folks may have the most difficulty squeezing out that last rep in a 15 rep set, while others crumble under heavier loads that require closer to maximum single rep efforts.
There's also a difference between muscle growth and strength. At any given time, you can only recruit so many muscle fibers, one thing training does is allow you to recruit a higher percentage to do work. So you can actually increase strength without muscle growth (hypertrophy). Typically, hypertrophy workouts are a bit higher rep (and lower weight) than maximum recruitment workouts. Whether you prefer max size or max recruitment may depend on your exercise goals (looking for a beach body or looking to set a new bench personal best?)
But these difficulties have already been pretty much "solved" in the exercise community. People pretty much know what works, and a good trainer/coach can adapt a program for someone's personal capabilities and goals that will get you about as good as you can realistically get.
Finally, 99% of gym goers are nowhere close to their physiological ideal workout/body. They don't have the time to pursue a "perfect" plan or the motivation to put in the necessary effort. And that's fine. The vast majority of folks are never going to the Olympics for weight lifting.
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The problem I see here is that these tend to be based on lab results. The problem with that is that real world exercises do not necessarily conform.
I just finished reading the paper, and you are 100% correct. The authors even admit it. Worst of all, they didn't model individual muscles, they modeled individual muscle fibers. One of the many problems they face is how to deal with pre-tensioning of muscle fibers.
This model predicts how muscles grow on a micro-scale. What bodybuilder's want is a macro-scale model, which will likely be much more complex.
A better approach to a macro-model would be to run a DoE [wikipedia.org] based on the dependent variables predic
The big reveal (Score:2)
Dumb question, perhaps ... but .... (Score:2)
Since all of this seems to be done to accomplish the goal of getting molecules to generate messenger RNA signaling to build more muscle fibers? Couldn't you bypass all of the physical effort if you were able to synthesize the same messenger RNA and inject it into the muscle at the locations you wanted to see muscle growth?
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google myostatin inhibitors, also look at the size differences in olympic speedskater's leg muscles between 2000 and now.
Why? (Score:2)
I think the only people who would find this useful are those "bodybuilders" who want to have big muscles to impress girls... or perhaps athletes to gain a competitive advantage. At the price of being a freak of nature.
Having big muscles doesn't really do anything for health and well being. Regular moderate exercise (along with a good diet) builds cardiovascular health which should be the goal.
Dropsets (Score:2)
Sarcopenia, and confirms trainer experience (Score:2)
This is very interesting work and confirms something that those who have taught weightlifting will have discovered for themselves.
The hardest thing to teach beginners, and the most important, is that there are two limits. Below a certain level you achieve little or nothing. Over it, either in raw weight in a given movement, or in the stress on the whole body, you are at risk of injury.
The initial problem is that people are so unused to working hard that they don't realize how much work you have to do. It