Muscle strength linked to magnesium in older adults

PALERMO, ITALY.

Magnesium is central to human health as it plays a role in a wide range of activities on the cellular level. A deficiency can lead to muscle weakness, fatigue and insomnia. This nutrient may therefore be essential for maintaining muscle strength throughout life.

Evidence from athletes supports a role for magnesium in avoiding damage to muscle cells. Muscle mass and function can be compromised in older age, a condition known as sarcopenia.
Researchers from the University of Palermo investigated the relationship between sarcopenia
and magnesium status.

Magnesium status was found to be significantly related to each of the measures of muscle strength - grip strength, lower-leg muscle power, knee rotation, and ankle strength.

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Gary Moller comments:

Depending on the study, around 70% of adults do not get enough magnesium in their diets to remain healthy. Hard exercise, emotional stress, injury, illness and various medications boost our daily requirements.

Few athletes would not benefit from supplemeting their diets with this mineral which is their principal protection from muscle cramps.

Magnesium has an important role, working with other nutrients including vitamin D, for prostate, blood pressure and bone health.

Programmes to reduce falls in the elderly are a wasted exercise if nutrition (including Mg intake) is poor because physical strength can not be created out of thin air. Any gains will be temporary, impossible to sustain for long.

Magnesium supplementation is cheap and very safe. Up to 800mg of total Mg can be safely taken per day depending on need.

Here are articles by Gary Moller about endurance training

Here are articles on this website by Gary Moller about endurance training for events like the Oxfam Trailwalker 24 hour Charity Walk or Run. This newsfeeder updates every time Gary writes a new article. To keep up to date click on the subscription tab at the bottom of this newsfeeder page.

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If your query has not been answered, you may write to me here (fees may apply in some cases)

Caffeine Helps in Sprints and Endurance Events

It has been established for more than 50 years that caffeine helps you exercise longer in events that require endurance. Recently researchers at Christ Church University in Canterbury, UK, showed that caffeine also helps you in much shorter events. Trained cyclists raced one kilometer (0.6 mile) on three times, in random order, after taking 5 mg of caffeine, taking a placebo, or taking nothing. Their speed, mean power and peak power were more than three percent higher after taking caffeine (Journal of Sports Sciences, November 2006).
Most athletes know that caffeine improves their performance. A recent study from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia shows that 90 percent of triathletes used a caffeinated substance immediately prior to or throughout a competition (International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, October 2006). They used cola drinks (78 percent), caffeinated gels (42 percent), coffee (37 percent), energy drinks (13 percent), and caffeine tablets (9 percent).
Caffeine increases endurance by preserving muscle sugar, causing your muscles to burn far more fat. When your muscles run out of their stored sugar (glycogen), they hurt and are difficult to coordinate. Caffeine causes your body to produce more adrenalin that moves fat from your fat stores into your bloodstream and causes your muscles to burn more of these fats. Caffeine also helps you move faster in shorter races because adrenalin makes you more alert and more aggressive. Source: Dr. Gabe Mirkin's Fitness and Health e-Zine April 1, 2007
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Gary Moller comments:
Dr Mirkin, like most medical and physical conditioning experts has been sucked in by the over supply of caffeine industry-driven research to believe that caffeine is not just OK but good for athletes. What this "favourable" research fails to tell us is that the majority of test subjects are already caffeine addicts and all that the caffeine shots are doing is restoring a sense of "normality" to the subjects and their performance. Already feeling low due to the addiction, the subjects and the researchers perceive the consequent lift as a performance gain. Without the constant topping up with caffeine during the testing the subjects would feel like shit and perform accordingly, as one would of course expect when dealing with addiction.

One only needs to be an observer in the back offices of a typical law firm first thing in the morning to understand how important a few cups of brewed coffee are to get the legal wheels turning for the day! The same applies to the addicted athlete.



Caffeine addicts its users within days of use, causing a let-down in energy and mood if not used daily in increasing strength. For these people, the majority, the purpose of a shot of coffee is to restore normality, let alone give the user a more than normal boost to performance.

When I was in the 2006 Commonwealth Games village, I was struck by the gallons of strong coffee, including straight caffeine shots, being consumed by the athletes from the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada as compared to the black African and Caribbean athletes who consumed little if any other than tea. The lack of consumption of caffeine by the African athletes did not seem to disadvantage them in any way as they generally kicked the butts of all-comers in the sprint and endurance contests!

A caffeine free athlete who has trained properly over many years, like a Kenyan has, for example, will outperform the caffeinated athlete in terms of consistency and overall performance. Please read my article here about how to determine if you are addicted to caffeine and how to wean yourself off it.

Train your ability to efficiently metabolise fat. Read the chapter beginning page seven here to get the idea of how to do this.

Above all else, have faith your your training and your own ability. You have no need for artificial stimulants to get you through.

Here's a mountain duathlon worth doing

If you are training up for an event like a marathon or just wanting to get really fit, a good strategy is to do a variety of challenging events that:

• Makes training varied and interesting,
• Gives you a really good incentive to get out and do the training,
• Makes life an exciting challenge,
• Gets you into the great outdoors and:
• If you get injured or fall ill the day before the big event of the season, all is not lost - you had a damn good time getting there!

Wairarapa Multisports Club in conjunction with the Masterton Tramping Club presents the 20th Annual Wairarapa Mountain Duathlon Sunday 4th March, 2007 10.00am Start from Clareville Showgrounds.



The race consists of a bike to the base of the mountain and then a steady 10km out and back run and then cycle to the finish. There is a short course option. Although I am pretty good on a bike, I am teaming up with a mate who is doing the cycling and I will concentrate on the run. Great fun, great training and great country-side!

Should an endurance athlete take creatine?

"Gary,

Do you have much experience on the use of creatine? perhaps you could make a post of that, I heard of an aquaintance who was taking it, his body bloated up as a result! I understand it only helps anaerobic performance as its used in the energy pathway for glycolytic independant energy pathway, since anaerobic is actually a misused phrase, anaerobic energy is what is used in throwing and jumping, for a maximal quick surge of power, more sustained maximal output is the glycolytic independant pathway that is commonly referred to as anaerobic"
Wayne
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Gary Moller comments:
Good question Wayne. There are no easy answers. All the energy pathways contribute to a greater or lesser degree whether sprinting or exercising steady state. It is just a question of degree. So, even during steady state our "anaerobic" processes are still at work. And they sure are whenever there is a surge of pace

Cycling is a good case in point: during a 100km race, there may a thousand micro-surges and a hundred longer ones. Seldom is it steady state. Surge-gasp for air-surge-gasp- surge and on and on and if you are lucky you still have enough left in the tank for a final sprint! Having optimum creatine stores for such events makes good sense. Low creatine levels will reduce muscle power and slow recovery from these bursts.

I have always been reasonably good on a bike and there are few mountain bikers my age who can beat me up a long hill. This is partly because I weigh just a little over 60kg. Now, I have good lungs but it is lack of leg strength that limits me. I have no sprint and I have to work very hard to hold onto a surge. I can chug along with my partner Alofa for a good three hours or so; but she always kills me on that last sharp hill when those strong Samoan thighs get pumping. My chicken thighs are no match.

I have been experimenting with adding about 5 grams of creatine to my recovery Super Smoothies because it is strength and power that are my limitations. I might have put on a Kg of body weight but this may be attributed more to my eating more and doing less overall activity. What I can report is I am riding just about the best in memory with no problems with failure of the thighs so far this season. The test will be this coming weekend when we do the 80km bone rattling Gentle Annie through the Central Nth Island.

Although I am running hard right now I would be concerned, as a runner, about possible weight gain from creatine supplementing and would probably take less than 5 grams per day. However; I have the impression that significant weight gain may be offset by the natural leaning effect from endurance training of 2-4 hrs depending on it being running or cycling.

There is also the factor of body type. If you are a heavily muscled mesomorph, just thinking about lifting weights will see muscle growth! If you are like me - a lighlty muscled ectomorph - then no matter how heavy the weights you lift and the supplements you take, you will be lucky to put on a kilo or two. Especially if you do endurance work as well. If an athlete has any tendency to gain excess muscle in a sport that favours light weight, I would be cautious about anything more than creatine supplementation of up to 5gm per day - no more. Whereas a "skinny" might benefit from a little more - up to 10 grams.

Athletes need to identify their strengths and weaknesses. A runner like Peter Snell needed to work on his endurance because he had strength to burn. Alofa is like that - her weakness is her lungs and not her legs. My weakness is my leg muscles - or the lack of them.

If you are taking creatine, it is advisable to spell the body by having a month or so off it every three or so months. For leg strength, endurance and recovery other nutritional factors such as optimum supplies of magnesium and calcium may be of greater importance.

Oh - and despite the current creatine experiment, Alofa continues to thrash my arse on that last hill!

Creatine can be purchased from here

New Product added- Balance Effervescent Glutamine Powder - Lemon / Lime 500g

I have added this new product to the www.myotec.co.nz store.

Glutamine contributes 80% of the free nitrogen found in the body and is the most abundant amino acid in muscle tissue. During periods of heavy training, an increased demand for glutamine throughout the body results in the depletion of stores from muscle tissue and a consequent loss of muscle mass.

Special Features

• Helps preserve muscle glutamine levels
• Supports new muscle growth and repair
• Reduces muscle catabolism
• Improves endurance and stamina
• Improves absorption of other nutrients
• Helps prevent build up of harmful ammonia
• Reduces recovery time

Does it work; or is it just another scam?

I competed in the Crazyman last weekend. It was one of the most gruelling events I have ever done (came 2nd in my age group, btw and cramp-free). Cramp was a huge problem for many, if not most of the competitors in the Crazyman. One of the sponsors gave away "Phiten" titanium anti-cramp patches to every competitor and I spent most of the race staring at these things that were plastered on hamstrings, calf muscles and shoulders. As, I said, there was no shortage of cramp during the race - this, despite the liberal presence of Phiten patches.

Phiten Titanium products are heavily promoted world-wide with slick marketing that makes liberal use of some of the World's most famous athletes. Being well-paid professionals, they must surely be right when they swear by the magical properties of these products.

I am sceptical. I keep thinking of "snake oil"

Apparently, a commonly used trick is to have the customer lift a concealed brick with an outstretched hand which they have initial difficulty with. After applying the titanium, the lift is executed with relative ease and this is attributed to the magical properties of the product. Of course, this is utter rubbish: The improvement is the result of the brain reprograming for the 2nd effort after being deceived by the first attempt. It had nothing to do with the titanium.

Phiten claims to have a secret method by which titanium is rendered soluble in water, as well as rendering it with special bioelectric qualities. Search as I did, I could find no published research about this method that they call "Phild". I have a reasonable academic background in chemistry and I understand that titanium is a very hard metal that is extremely corrosion resistant and insoluble in water. Until I am shown the science behind the secret Phild process, I think the claims are bunkum.

I seriously question the claim that wearing a titanium impregnated patch, bracelet or beanie will have any effect on deep underlying muscle. They would have us believe that the titanium ions, that have somehow been rendered water soluble, now magically penetrate the waxy skin layer, the thick subcutaneous fat layers and then the muscle sheaths to finally penetrate the muscle and then exert some strange bioelectric effect on them. This is a miraculous feat and one that few other products have ever mastered, including anti-inflammatory rubs that are heavily promoted to athletes, although they are also of little practical benefit to the user.

These products serve only to line the pockets of already wealthy executives - probably in New York.

Of course, I would welcome a representative from Phiten to post a response to this article - to put the record straight by presenting peer reviewed and published scientific evidence that validates the claims of their advertising and their sales representatives.

While we await this evidence, my advice for avoiding muscular aches and pains associated with exercise and competition is to stick with tried and proven methods, including preparing properly with a tailored fitness programme, a suitable diet and stocking up body stores of magnesium and other minerals. I have already written much about this and I can tell you that these strategies really do work for the majority of athletes.

Oh! - while I am at it - can somebody tell me this; can I improve circulation and reduce cramp if I rub titanium-containing sunblock all over the affected parts? Its much cheaper.