The Best Oxygen Pump Wins
Seven Secret Weapons for Winning
Races By Michael Zumpano
A famous general once said, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all". Determination will carry you a long way past the point of pain (often that is enough), but no athlete can stay in the zone once his body stops doing what it is suppose to do. Mistakes start happening. Opportunities to slip by the competition are missed. Ultimately, confidence fades along with performance. We've all experienced it.
By the time you finish reading this article you will have a blueprint for avoiding fatigue. Whether you are a novice or a pro you will be able to feel, not just a small difference, but a dramatic difference in your exertion comfort, your peak power output, your focus, your stamina. and your recovery.
So, where does fatigue come from and how can you prevent it? There are four types of fatigue: acute, post, accumulated and chronic. Acute fatigue is what you feel during the race. Post fatigue is what keeps you from going to the movies after race day. Accumulated fatigue is what degrades your performance after multiple days of pushing it beyond your limits. Chronic fatigue is overtraining syndrome. It's ugly. We are going to talk mainly about acute fatigue in this article. That's enough introduction; here's the article.
In a mechanical sense, athletes are basically oxygen pumps. All things being equal, the best oxygen pump wins the race. By this we mean that the guy that can convert the most oxygen to CO2 is the guy putting out the most Watts of power. All other things being equal, he's got the best shot at winning. So the first and foremost goal of our anti-fatigue blueprint is to improve oxygen efficiency. At this point a physiologist may say, "wait a minute, you forget the impact of muscle pain on power output". True. Pain from lactic acid is associated with lower power output. But improving oxygen efficiency automatically lowers lactic acid and pain. Voila! Now lets investigate the factors and techniques that determine oxygen efficiency.
Vasopressor Effects
No matter how seasoned an athlete you are, you will experience some excitement preceding a competition. Excitement means adrenaline. Adrenaline causes the smooth muscle in blood vessels to clamp down (the vasopressor effect) and it reduces the diameter of blood vessels and consequently reduces blood flow. We believe this is one of the major reasons that athletes don't already have their "second wind" when the competition starts. It takes a while for the pre-contest adrenaline to wear off. Once it does the athlete notices a decrease in pain and an increase in "wind". he gets his second wind. This is the result of blood vessels expanding and allowing more blood to flow to and from tissues. The bigger your blood pipes are, the more flow you get and the better you feel. with one caveat. As the smooth muscle in your blood vessel relaxes and expands, your blood pressure decreases. This can reduce the amount of blood that flows into the heart when it readies itself to pump blood. Reduced ejection volume in the heart can mean less oxygen to tissues. So after you read our strategy for increasing the diameter of blood vessels, don't forget to read the section below titled, "Blood Volume".
Secret Weapon #1 - Vinpocetine
We've used a number of vasodilators with athletes over the years. DIPA (di-isopropylamine) used to be popular, but we found its action to be limited both in time and effectiveness. Compounds like amyl nitrite (poppers) and nitroglycerine have too many side effects - please don't learn this through trial and error. A few years ago we found the perfect compound. It is a natural extract of Periwinkle called vinpocetine. Vinpocetine interferes with the binding of adrenaline in smooth muscle so it is exactly what we are looking for. It has a bonus effect too - it increases the elasticity of blood cells so they release more oxygen in tissue (more about this later). It seems to do an amazing job of increasing the feeling of "air" when compared to other vasodilators and its effects last for many hours so it benefits you throughout the race. You can't help noticing you go faster while feeling more comfortable... except you may get a slight headache at first from the vasodilation.
Blood Viscosity
Like anything else, the thicker blood is, the slower it moves through the body. So anything that reduces the viscosity of blood is going to make it easier for the heart to get a full charge, faster for the heart to eject and quicker to deliver oxygen and remove heat, lactic acid and CO2. On a microscopic scale, at the entrance to capillaries, red blood cells tend to stack up like a traffic jam. This can reduce oxygen delivery. Thinning the blood a little can break up these traffic jams and improve flow. Red blood cells are less sticky when blood is thinned so you get more flowing through capillaries and delivering oxygen.
Secret Weapon #2 - Salycin
Although there are a number things you can take that reduce the viscosity of blood, the one we like best is a natural extract of willow bark called Salycin. As you may have guessed, it is related to Asprin (acetyl-salycilic acid). All blood thinners work about the same, by reducing cell-to-cell stickiness. Salycin is nice because you get all the performance enhancement without the risks inherent in more aggressive blood thinners.
Blood Volume - Ejection Volume
The chambers of your heart are filled by blood from a huge vein called the Vena Cava. The higher the blood pressure in the Vena Cava, the more blood fills your heart chambers between beats, and consequently, the more blood your heart pumps. The more blood you pump the more oxygen your muscles get and the more CO2 and lactic acid you remove from muscles. Blood pressure in the vena cava can be maintained by keeping blood volume high. The trouble is that proper fluid hydration is only one part of the blood volume equation. Water is bound to blood by blood-albumin. Albumin levels can degrade when an athlete becomes overtrained or if he or she does not get enough protein. If you don't have proper amounts of albumin to hold water in the blood, no amount of water will keep you hydrated. This is because the water won't stay in your blood. It moves out to tissues and to kidneys where it is excreted. So what can you take to improve blood volume?
Secret Weapon #3 - Blood Volumizers
Certain types of whey protein have been shown to mimic albumin and improve blood volume. There is a starch present in certain types of maize called heta-starch. Although most of it gets degraded during digestion, a small amount (< 1%) does get into blood relatively intact. Heta-starch is a powerful volumizers and it's effects last a long time. Glycerin is not a good choice because within two hours it gets out of the blood and into tissues where it holds water (just the opposite of what you want).
Total Volume - Heart Rate
The total volume of blood your heart moves is the ejection volume multiplied by your heart rate. All things being equal, the higher you can get your heart rate the more potential power you can generate. Studies have shown that young athletes perform better when they take something that gives a little kick to their heart rate. Generally, anything that wires you increases your heart rate. This includes ephedra, caffeine, Guarana and many other stimulants. These have all been shown to improve performance. We're not saying a fast heart rate is always good. For example, a fast heart rate can result from dehydration. Of course this is not good for performance because it is caused by insufficient blood volume.
Secret Weapon #4 - Caffeine
Okay, caffeine isn't that much of a secret but we have to stay with the format here folks. We don't like ephedra because we've heard of people experiencing temporary PVC's (irregular heart rate) if they use too much. Ephedra can cause vasoconstriction which partially cancels it's benefits but it still improves performance. It can leave you feeling crappy afterwards so we reserve its use for important sessions. Caffeine, or Guarana seem to work just fine.
Capillary Elasticity and RBC-Deformability
This is an interesting topic and a little known factor in performance. Red blood cells (RBC's) are almost 5 microns in diameter, but a capillary is only 1 or 2 microns (to put this in perspective the diameter of a strand of hair is about 50 microns). So RBC's have to elongate or fold in order to squeeze through capillaries. This extra surface area results in more oxygen release. The more deformable RBC's are, the faster they can slip through capillaries and the more oxygen they give up. On the other hand, capillaries are elastic too. And the more elastic the capillaries are the faster RBC's can flow through them.
Secret Weapon #5 - Omega 3 fatty acids and Vinpocetine
Even small amounts of Omega-3's taken over multiple days results in an improvement in capillary elasticity and RBC deformability. Same with vinpocetine. It doesn't happen in a day, you need consistency, but it works and it can remarkably improve oxygen in tissues. In fact, sickle cell anemia is a disease where tissues don't get enough oxygen. It is solely caused by a lack of deformability in RBC's.
Oxygen Dissociation
The body places a certain limit on how much oxygen is released by hemoglobin in red blood cells. It doesn't all leave the hemoglobin and pass into tissues. In fact, only about half of the oxygen actually bound in your blood actually gets used. The body controls the amount that is released by increasing or decreasing the level of a compound called 2,3-DPG (2,3-Diphosphoglyceric acid). As you go up in altitude your body makes more of this so you get more oxygen out of hemoglobin. This adaptation takes a number of days. European racers were popped last year for using a research drug called RM-13 that did about the same thing.
Secret Weapon #6 - Pyridoxal-5'-Phosphate
Pyridoxal-5'-Phosphate is a derivative of Vitamin-B6. It has been shown to mimic the action of 2,3-DPG. It actually bonds with the hemoglobin and intensifies its binding with waste acids and CO2 to remove these waste products, while allowing more oxygen to leave hemoglobin in capillaries and feed your muscles.
Oxidative Phosphorylation-Coupling
Now were getting into the real guts of the cell. the mitochondria. This is the little cell-within-your-cells where all the energy is made. This is where carbs are broken down into ATP, the final unit of energy used by muscle to do work. In the presence of oxygen this process is called oxidative phosphorylation. The trouble is, like with everything, it isn't 100% efficient. A lot of potential energy is wasted and the only thing you get is extra heat (not good). Here's why. In order to make energy the mitochondria must be charged with ions like a battery. To do this it must pump electrons through microscopic channels on its surface. Some of these electrons leak back through the channels and must be pumped out again. This saps energy and makes extra heat. As you age this gets even worse until at a certain age you just can't maintain cellular energy. The trick is finding something that improves the efficiency of these ion pumps. The tighter we couple the production of ATP to the breakdown of carbohydrate, the more energy we get for the oxygen we use (and the less heat is produced).
Secret Weapon #7 - Succinates
Succinic acid and its salts appear to improve the oxidative phosphorylation coupling. They are even used as antidotes for certain de-coupling poisons like carbon tetrachloride. Succinate formulas have been tested in University studies and found up to 11% improvement in oxygen efficiency. This is huge.
Bonus Topic - Neurological Effects
A study was done several years ago where they made a group of guys work their legs to exhaustion every day for a month. At the beginning of each day they would test the muscle for maximal strength, first by letting the athlete lift as much weight as he could, then by stimulating the muscle to contract with an electric jolt. They wanted to determine if an individual muscle could be overtrained, and within the muscle, what was it that got overtrained. By the end of the month most of the subjects had lost a tremendous amount of strength. But the jolt of electricity still lifted the same amount of weight. They determined it wasn't the muscle but the nerves that were getting overtrained. The nerves were depleted of neurotransmitters. There is a nutritional component that the body will almost immediately convert to neurotransmitter precursors. It is called DMAE, dimethylaminoethanol. Studies show that it can restore performance within about a half-hour.
Bonus - Secret Weapon #8 - DMAE
DMAE is available at any health food store. In addition to improving neurotransmitters related to strength and stamina, which can be depleted during a long race, it improves mental focus too.
So where can you get all this stuff
Champion Nutrition started accumulating all this research in order to develop a single product that incorporated this and a lot of other technology. In 1999 they introduced the product, called REVENGE PRO exercise drink (not to be confused with REVENGE SPORT which does not include all these components). Don't be surprised by the grit in this product. The grit is a timed-release powder that is important to the function of the product. In informal VO2 max studies we've seen improvements of 8 points in just hours after taking several doses. Take it ½ hour before your training session. You should notice a difference the first time you use it. Along with this you should use another product called, "Muscle Nitro". This is mostly succinate. You need several grams of Succinate to get the optimal effect. This is too much to put in a drink so we had to make capsules. Muscle Nitro has been a popular product with professional athletes for about 15 years now.
So now you know the basics of acute fatigue. Of course there's more. In a future article we'll tackle the topics of post and accumulated fatigue. These types of fatigue are addressed by a recovery system aptly called, "The System".
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Some of the techniques described in this article may not be legal for competition. This article is not meant to encourage illegal competition. The sole responsibility rests on the athlete to thoroughly investigate the legality of any technique described in this article.
"The Best Oxygen Pump Wins", is a trademark of Champion Nutrition
All other marks used in this article are the trademarks of their respective owners
