Aminos and Fat-burning Exercise!

Tuesday turned out to take a toll on my body!  I was feeling great IN class, but after 3 classes, Wednesday was tough.  I decided to try out Anabolic Amino Rush, which is an Apex product sold at 24 Hour Fitness (click here for $4 shipping or I can get it to you with a discount and free shipping!).  Here's what it does and why I decided to try it: 

In your body, amino acids that are either produced in your body (non-essential) or are needed in your diet (essential) to be used as the 'building blocks' or proteins and for metabolism.  Basically, they control every cellular process that goes on in your body.  What an important role!  Specifically in regard to exercise, your body needs those amino acids to help repair what you have 'broken down' in your workouts.  

This is where Amino Rush comes in to play.  This powder has a great ratio and just the right amount of aminos to help your body repair.  Leucine, Iso-leucine, and Valine, are all vital in that process (Leucine being the MOST important).  Leucine is essential and we can get it through our diet*, but it would take a lot of dietary leucine to do its job effectively.  As you work out, your body breaks down glucose in your muscle tissue and creates the byproducts pyruvic acid and NADH (electrons).  Leucine binds with pyruvic acid to reform properties in your muscle tissue.  So, instead of your body having to clear away that byproduct, leucine helps reuse it to repair the muscle damage faster.  What is even cooler, leucine is able to do this process in adipose and muscle tissue!  

Since I have been doing a lot of exercise through classes, I wanted to see if it would help reduce muscle fatigue and increase my strength over a prolonged period of time.  Basically, I don't want to feel like I got whiplash every Tuesday!  I'll keep you updated :)

*some dietary sources include:  fish, peanuts, wheat germ, soy beans, and beef 

On to another study related to exercise!  Have you seen this music video? 

 I love that they used treadmills :)  

Freemotion Fitness, a company that produces and sells great exercise equipment, has a research link that I have found interesting.  They are 'famous' for their incline trainer, which makes the average treadmill look lame.  Their trainer can take you on inclines as high as 30, where a normal treadmill goes to 15...

Here is a synopsis on their research: 

As a trainer, I take different energy systems into the equation when helping someone to their goals.  The most common goal is weight loss, so I often turn to High Intensity training to help them burn the most calories and gain muscle under a short period, but also tell them to use this tool to stress a different energy system.  Let me back up...

Here are your three energy systems, or rather, how our body uses energy in any activity:  ATP-CP, glycolysis, and oxidative.   Although all are used at any given time, one of them will be stressed and used more than another.  The oxidative process is what I want to look at here for fat burn.  

Oxidation takes a slow and steady rate of exercise and produces enough energy to keep you going through oxygen (hence the name!).  Walking is a great example.  

However, it takes a VERY long time to burn lots of calories.  And how do we burn calories?  We use as much muscle as possible.  This is where the incline trainer research is great!  They took the need for a slow oxidative exercise while increasing muscle being used and found that walking at a very steep incline reaches that need!  Their studies found that walking at an incline anywhere from 18-24% and at a speed of 2-3mph activated more muscle and utilized more fat as energy.  

If you want to use this in your fitness regime, walk more than 30 minutes at an incline of at least 18% at 2.4 mph and you will use 6 cals/min of fat versus a meek 2 cals/min of fat at a flat 6mph jog.  Have fun inclining!