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Indeed creatine supplementation is something i will employ in this year plan. Im currently researching the specifics of it but lets not go off topic there is another thread on this specific subject. Im not sure i understand what the quoted sentence means to us. Like if you have big glycogen storing capacity you will have more tedious time recovering from sessions with lots of muscle acidity?Another consideration is that someone with high glycogen in the muscles at rest will have more oxygen uptake compared to someone with low glycogen as more synthesis of glycogen from lactic acid will be taking place.
High Co2 means increased oxygenation of the muscle tissue ( oxygen disassosiation curve ) causing aerobic glycolysis? Thats my idea maybe wrong.I was thinking about how to experiment or test what metabolism gives better performance for an individual. If one does a high intensity apnea walk and a low intensity walk they could measure final heart rate and oxygen concentration. This may reveal what state the metabolism was in. Distance may reveal which metabolism is favorable to the fitness type. Climbing heart rate and less oxygen consumption may indicate anaerobic state. If heart rate levels of it may indicate a period of aerobic metabolism. I am left scratching my head finding out how O2/CO2 ratio or O2 concentration affects the metabolism.
Wow... That, even if it's not the case is a spectacular concept! You think it is true that doing say a cnf dive with strong stroke and then mini glide, compared to steady continuous strokes(both scenarios with the same work rate for the same duration) employ different energy systems? Hats off for the idea!To answer your question, if I were to train form maximum glycogen usage I would do a couple things: Anaerobic exercise and weight training to increase glycogen storage and uptake, and practice/improve dive response for best peripheral vasoconstriction effect. I wonder if DNF is intuitive to anaerobic metabolism since the exercise starts out and is maintained in short bursts of energy.
Do you mean Rv statics and dives ? are there other ways ?practice/improve dive response for best peripheral vasoconstriction effect
That's a nice well written summary, shared, learned and corrected old knowledge but mainly many new questions came up.I agree with MarcinB. For a single max dive, muscle glycogen concentrations are not likely to be fully depleted. Do make sure you are not already depleted before your dive of course. Long sessions of repetitive diving such as during spearfishing may benefit from carboloading (glycogen supercompensation). However, glucose replenishment (drinks, bars) during the session shouldn’t be an issue, making carboloading not a worthwhile intervention imho.
Carboloading does not require a 7-day period of strict dietary guidelines (~old school); glycogen supercompensation can be reached within 24-48 h, by eating ~10 g of carbs per kg bodyweight per day after your final (strenuous) training session. It is likely that this means a change in your usual dietary pattern, and it contrasts to the tendency to eat less in the run up to (static) apnea performance. You can still experiment with it, but don’t do that during competition, experiment during the training phase. Don’t be alarmed that you suddenly gained 1-2 kg (= glycogen + water), it means that your intervention worked.
@7BDiver: some assumptions you make may benefit from a bit of nuance. I hesitated a bit to post this, but here is my interpretation on some of your ideas which may stimulate further speculation.
- ‘anaerobic exercise, short high intensity and lifting likely develop robust glycogen storing capacity for a generally fit person.’ --> Also without regular implementation of this type of training one can increase glycogen stores (see above).
- ‘At least with diving where there is intermittent recovery the replenishing oxygen will convert the lactic acid back to glycogen readily.’ --> But not in the working (contracting) muscles within that session.
- ‘someone with high glycogen in the muscles at rest will have more oxygen uptake compared to someone with low glycogen as more synthesis of glycogen from lactic acid will be taking place’ --> This is incorrect (‘uptake’ is not ideal wording here!), but I assume that you are referring to the fact that energy production from glycogen is more oxygen-efficient compared to energy production from fatty acids – hence requiring less oxygen for a similar amount of work.
- 'caffeine is known to help restore glycogen stores considerably hours after.' --> I am with you for the sake of good coffee, but it should not be considered a necessity to accomplish glycogen supercompensation.
- Agreed that creatine monohydrate supplementation may be worthy to experiment with, either during the preparatory phase to enable a greater training load (strength training, HIT), and potentially during the competitive phase to compete with a slightly elevated anaerobic alactic capacity. Again, don’t be surprised gaining some weigth within the first week of supplementation. Unfortunately, this is due to fluid retention, not sudden gain in muscle mass.
- Hmm, should one train ‘according to’ his/her fiber type composition (and associated ‘metabolic preferences’), or should one train according to the required energy systems for the sport/discipline of his/her choosing? Imho, specificity is key here.
- I expect your heart rate during apnea walks (hope it will decrease, not increase!) to give you some information about your dive response rather than anything else.
- ‘Muscle tissue in general has greater perfusion than is required, oxygen to the muscles is not limited by blood flow but by the ventilatory threshold in which blood can be oxygenated by cardiovascular endurance.’ --> This is not correct. The limiting factor of whole body VO2peak in healthy individuals is oxygen delivery (cardiac output and total hemoglobin mass), thus including muscle perfusion! Only when using small muscle mass (i.e., single-leg cycling) oxygen delivery (through perfusion) exceeds muscle oxygen combustion capacity.
- ‘I wonder if DNF is intuitive to anaerobic metabolism since the exercise starts out and is maintained in short bursts of energy.’ --> During repetitive short bouts of muscle contraction, metabolism gradually shifts from anaerobic to aerobic pathways. I.e., a single 30 s sprint: PCr, anaerobic glycolysis, and aerobic glycolysis contribute approximately 16, 55, and 29% of the energy contribution. Perform 3 of these sprints, with 4 min of recovery in between, the relative energy contribution during the last sprint will have shifted to 16, 21, and 63%. Similar shifts occus during shorter (i.e. 6-s, 30-s recovery) repeated sprints. However, freediving is not an all-out performance energy-wise, making it far more more complex to estimate what would be going on. I keep hearing people saying that the initial part is very anaerobic, I doubt that - it is not an all-out performance - is it? (or you should seriously work on your duck dive and hydrodynamics). I presume the greatest rate in lactate generation will occur during the ascent, when your muscles have to work hard though they are not being well-perfused due to vasoconstriction.
Local lactate use depends on exercise exertion. During rest, approximately 50% of lactate disposal take place through lactate oxidation whereas in time of strenuous exercise (50-75% VO2 max) approximately 75-80% of lactate is used by the active cell, indicating lactate’s role as a major contributor to energy conversion during increased exercise exertion.SDS, thank you for questioning much of the statements, as I read studies I will inevitably mix something up and get it wrong.
Yes, glycogen stores and availability are determined by diet, however, capacity is dependent upon muscle mass. As far as I know glycogen concentration in the muscles is not determined by exercise.
To add a little clarification: The fate of the lactate produced is primarily oxidative (55–70%), with as much as 90% of the labeled carbon in tracer lactate showing up as CO2 during active recovery from exercise. Lactate clearance during rest and exercise occurs primarily by three processes: oxidation (50% to 80%), gluconeogenesis/glyconeogenesis (10% to 25%), and transamination (5% to 10%). All three processes involve the movement of lactate. Instead of using the word "uptake", it would have been better to state that there will be a greater oxygen debt from anaerobic metabolism required to process lactate once respiration is restored.
Caffeine is not required for supercompensation, it merely speeds up the recovery of glycogen stores given the other dietary requirements have been met.
If you get a dive response during apnea walk your heart rate would decrease. I would be incorrect stating a raise in HR is indicative of anaerobic metabolism, it is more likely be a response to stress or dehydration.
Perhaps better stated: At maximum O2 uptake, O2 supply to muscle is always limited by both perfusion and diffusion. In nomoxia, perfusion limitation is prevalent, but in hypoxia diffusion limitation becomes predominant. In diffusion-limited gas exchange, the gas will diffuse as long as the partial pressure gradient is maintained. In perfusion-limited gas exchange, the partial pressure gradient is not maintained and blood flow must be increased in order to increase the amount of gas transported. This is dynamic as muscle oxygen uptake and energy consumption increases with increasing muscle contraction frequency.
I agree with your final statement, no dive will be all out nor maintain anaerobic metabolism. It will start out anaerobic regardless of effort and likely last a minute before transitioning to a mostly aerobic state. As stated before, the immediate stores of ATP from aerobic metabolism is very short lived, anaerobic metabolism is always present at the start of an exercise until HR, circulation and aerobic metabolism catch up to the ATP demand. I think the main question for the topic at hand is how to prolong the anaerobic state, preferably without increasing exertion outside of being practical, and is this of significant benefit to reserving oxygen for vital organs? How long can one expect anaerobic metabolism to last before the after effects decrease performance?