Interesting article on seals' myoglobin and O2 capacity

[Adrian]

Seals' muscles hide a built-in scuba tank - life - 14 October 2008 - New Scientist

[hteas]

So how do we build up our myoglobin?
I have been trying to read up on it, but there seems to be little literature around. There's lots on hemoglobin, but not the myoglobin (at least that I've found).

The other thought is "how do you build up your myoglobin stores (if that is possible)?

Anybody?

[efattah]

Myself and Sebastien Murat have been working on the myoglobin problem since 2003.

Generally, to increase your myoglobin, you need to exercise your muscle with almost no blood flowing to the muscle. This can be accomplished in two ways:
1. High angle isometric exercise, i.e. a 'wall-sit' at 90 degree bend
2. Swimming under extreme blood shift and/or cold stress

Of course, if you are missing key nutrients like iron and B12, your myoglobin will not increase no matter what you do.

[Chrillepille]

It can also be achieved by "strangeling" the muscle, which is only applicable in the limbs. It has been tried in some studies, but if it is really useful in the real world I don't know. It is certainly not pain free.

Examples:
Effects of resistance exercise combined with vascu...[Eur J Appl Physiol. 2002] - PubMed Result
Resistance training with vascular occlusion: metab...[Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2003] - PubMed Result

[Ulf]

Originally Posted by efattah

Myself and Sebastien Murat have been working on the myoglobin problem since 2003.

Generally, to increase your myoglobin, you need to exercise your muscle with almost no blood flowing to the muscle. This can be accomplished in two ways:
1. High angle isometric exercise, i.e. a 'wall-sit' at 90 degree bend
2. Swimming under extreme blood shift and/or cold stress

Of course, if you are missing key nutrients like iron and B12, your myoglobin will not increase no matter what you do.

Why does isometric exercise increase myoglobin? Why does it have to be high angle? do you have any references?

/Ulf

[Chrillepille]

Actually all training where you have constantly higher intramuscular pressure than blood preassure should lead to this. However, very few train this way, you usually have some resting phase in the exercise, where new blood can flow to the muscle.

[efattah]

Originally Posted by Ulf

Why does isometric exercise increase myoglobin? Why does it have to be high angle? do you have any references?

/Ulf

During high angle isometric exercise, almost no blood flows into the muscle. There are several studies which showed that humans had increases in muscle myoglobin when training that way. Interestingly professional downhill skiiers were one group that had elevated myoglobin -- they spend much of the run in the bent leg position.

I don't have the references on hand, but you can find them if you search.

I also used my home made NIR spectrophotometer to measure my own myoglobin desaturation during high angle isometrics, and found that the myoglobin was almost completely desaturated. Doing apnea during the isometric had only a small extra effect.

[hteas]

Sorry, but I'm unclear in "high angle". Do you mean with the exercised muscles abvoe the heart, so they don't get much blood flow?
if so, how would static leg lifts with weights work for leg myoglobin?
Howard

[Mullins]

Joint flexed heaps

[efattah]

High angle = you bend a lot at the joint in question. For example doing a wall sit or squat, you need to be near 90 degrees of bend at the knee. Similarly for arm exercises. The high bend prevents blood from flowing into the muscle.

[hteas]

Thank you guys. I'm glad I didn't just assume.

[hteas]

Hemoglobin's affinity for O2 decreases as pH drops, allowing greater amounts of O2 to be available where needed.
Does anyone have an idea of how the O2 gets from the bloodstream across the cell membranes and to the myoglobin?