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March 28, 2021

Does Fish Oil Supplementation Impact Recovery?

Filed under: Fitness — Tags: anti-inflammatory, creatine, eccentric training, Fish Oil, Fitness, heart health, jumping squats, omega 3, resistance training, supplements, The Recovery Guide, vertical jump — admin @ 7:29 am

Fish oil supplementation has gained a lot of attention for its health benefits. Specifically, supplementation of omega 3 fatty acids has demonstrated positive effects on blood pressure, triglycerides, and heart rate.¹

Additionally, they’ve been shown to improve arterial dilation, possess antiarrhythmic and anti-inflammatory properties. All of these have been shown to have protective effects against cardiovascular disease development.¹

But less is known about the role of fish oil supplementation in recovery from resistance training.

A 2020 paper² by VanDusseldorp et al. set out to examine the effects of fish oil supplementation on various markers of recovery following a strenuous bout of eccentric exercise.²

A 2020 paper³ by Heileson et al. found that the minimum effective dose for fish oil supplementation to elicit a positive response on recovery was 2 g supplemented for at least four weeks.³ However, research has been conflicting regarding what the appropriate dosing should be.

Therefore, the previously mentioned paper by VanDusseldorp and colleagues where they set dosages to 2 g, 4 g, and 6 g between groups and examined the effects of a seven-week fish oil supplementation protocol. This paper was on a well-controlled study:²

“Utilizing a randomized placebo-controlled double-blind experimental design; participants were randomly assigned to consume 2- (2 G), 4- (4 G), or 6- (6 G) g/da of either FO or placebo (PL) supplementation for ~7.5 weeks (8 participants per group (4 males and 4 females per group); a 6-week run-in the supplementation period, 1-week involving familiarization testing at the beginning of the week and experimental testing at the end of the week, and three days of recovery testing). Muscle soreness, venous blood (for the assessment of creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and indices of muscle function were collected before eccentric exercise, as well as immediately post 1-, 2-, 4-, 24-, 48-, and 72-h (H) post-exercise. Participants continued to supplement until they completed the 72H time-point.”²

Participants completed eccentric squats on a Smith machine at a tempo of 4-0-1 for ten sets of eight reps using 70% of their 1 RM and taking three minutes to rest between sets.
Additionally, participants were made to complete five sets of twenty bodyweight split jump squats.
The primary metrics used to evaluate muscle damage and recovery were blood biomarkers, perceived soreness, vertical jump, agility test, forty-yard sprint, and maximum voluntary isometric contraction.

Researchers observed 6 g of fish oil supplementation had a beneficial effect on perceived muscle soreness.

Whereby participants reported lower soreness scores across all time points of measurement. The 6 g group also decreased the recovery time of vertical jump performance. In some cases, it also resulted in better blood values when monitoring indirect markers of muscle damage compared to the other controls.

So, what does this mean practically? Although the researchers found a beneficial effect on recovery when supplementing 6 g/day of fish oils, the effect’s magnitude was still relatively small. Therefore, a costs benefit analysis should be the basis for deciding whether to utilize this strategy.

I typically don’t recommend many supplements to individuals.

However, from a health perspective, I think fish oil supplementation is generally beneficial. So if you decide to take it for that reason, you may also experience some minor benefits of enhanced recovery.

Finally, if you want a comprehensive analysis of primary recovery strategies and how to utilize them for better results effectively, I have covered it on Kabuki Strength.⁴

References

1. “Effects of B vitamins and omega 3 fatty acids on cardiovascular diseases: a randomized placebo controlled trial.” BMJ. 2010;341:c6273. Accessed March 17, 2021.

2. Trisha A. VanDusseldorp, Kurt A. Escobar, Kelly E. Johnson, Matthew T. Stratton, Terence Moriarty, Chad M. Kerksick, Gerald T. Mangine, Alyssa J. Holmes, Matthew Lee, Marvin R. Endito, and Christine M. Mermier, “Impact of Varying Dosages of Fish Oil on Recovery and Soreness Following Eccentric Exercise.” Nutrients, U.S. National Library of Medicine, NIH. Published online 2020 Jul 27. Accessed Mar 16, 2021.

3. Heileson JL, Funderburk LK. “The effect of fish oil supplementation on the promotion and preservation of lean body mass, strength, and recovery from physiological stress in young, healthy adults: a systematic review.” Nutr Rev. 2020 Dec 1;78(12):1001-1014.

4. Daniel Debrocke, “Optimize Your Recovery For Maximum Strength.” Online Kabuki Strength, Accessed March 16, 2021.

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December 7, 2020

Do This To Increase Your Bench Press

Filed under: Fitness — Tags: absolute strength, bench press, biomechanics, eccentric training, Fitness, isometrics, loading, microcycle, pectorals, powerlifting, rest and recovery, shoulders, stretch shortening, tempo training, triceps exercises — admin @ 4:26 pm

Have you ever said any of the following about your bench press?

“I almost had it, I just mis-grooved the lift.”

“I always get pinned at the bottom of my bench.”

“I can touch and go this weight, but when I pause my bench, I’m so much weaker.”

“My overhead press and other bench accessories all got stronger but my bench stayed the same.”

These are comments I frequently hear from people who are struggling to increase their bench press.

The good news is they’re easily fixed by identifying the underlying problem and implementing effective solutions to address them.

Typically when people fail, their bench presses a few inches off their chest because of one or more of these reasons.

Weak pecs relatively to their shoulders and triceps.
Inability to rapidly absorb and reverse the direction of the load.
Poor technique.

When the bar is touching your chest, your pecs are stretched and in an advantageous position to generate force and reverse the load.

However, at that same bottom position, your shoulders and triceps are at a disadvantaged point of leverage.

Their primary contribution occurs closer to the mid-range and upward.

That’s generally the point where we see the elbows flair to transfer loading demand from the pecs to the shoulders and triceps in an attempt to complete the lift.

I am going to provide an overview explanation here but if you need to work on your own specific goals or have other issues just contact me at Stacked Strength.

Weak Pectorals

When a lifter mis-grooves a lift right off the chest, it’s often indicative of weak pecs.

Since the pecs aren’t capable of generating enough force to press the weight up, the elbows flare excessively to shift loading demands onto the triceps and shoulders.

However, as mentioned earlier, at the bottom of the rep, the triceps and shoulders are at a disadvantaged mechanical position to press the weight.

So weak pecs are typically the culprit when an athlete fails a rep a few inches off the chest.

However, this often goes hand in hand with an inability to effectively absorb the load and maximize the stretch-shortening cycle. As the athlete lowers the bar, if eccentric and isometric strength is insufficient, they will not absorb the load leading to a decrease in elastic energy.

This energy, if not lost, would be used to reverse the weight from the chest rapidly.

Poor Technique

Another major contributing factor to failing is poor technique.

But there are several articles and instructional videos on how to optimize bench press technique based on your leverages and experience.

So, the technique won’t be the primary focus of this article since the assumption is that the technique is not the limiting factor.

Here I’m going to teach you a simple strategy that tackles both of these major issues so you can start hitting some new PR’s.

Who Benefits?

But first, let’s talk about who this is for. As mentioned previously, if you fail at the chest, or if you often mis-groove lifts or struggle with paused reps, and assuming your technique is decent, you likely have weak pecs.

Also, you likely lack the specific eccentric and isometric strength to both absorb and reverse the weight.

If this sounds like you, then this strategy can help. The individuals who primarily have these issues are beginners and intermediate lifters.

Advanced athletes are a bit more complex, which can make the solutions equally complex. But I digress.

The Solution

Below is a video demonstration of an effective exercise to correct the aforementioned issues.

The strategy I discuss can be implemented with various pressing exercises with great success and isn’t limited to the demonstration below.

An additional benefit to using tempo while simultaneously removing your mechanical advantages is that it places greater demand on the targeted muscles and connective tissue without generating the same fatigue.

This is because, although the exercise feels challenging, the absolute load is lighter than if you were to do a full powerlifting setup and select a load of the same relative intensity.

For example, with a proper powerlifting setup, you might do a set of 8 at 100 lbs, but if you do a set of 8 at 70 lbs utilizing tempo, it may not feel easier.

Same relative intensity, but less absolute load.

This reduction in absolute load reduces the amount of stress being placed on your body. This allows you to have more productive training sessions within a microcycle without exceeding your ability to recover.