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]

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]

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?

 

[Kin]

Does anyone have an idea of how the O2 gets from the bloodstream across the cell membranes and to the myoglobin?

Sorry to bring this old topic but it looks interesting and the answer to the above question is in the first post link when Jue explains how this work in seal blood?

Jue explains that by reducing oxygen levels in the muscle, the seal establishes an oxygen gradient between the muscle and blood, allowing the animal to extract more oxygen from its blood to replenish its muscle supplies while holding its breath.

 

[DivingDane]

This is REALLY interesting as the availability of the "Extra" O2 kicks in as we reach high blood acidity causing contractions. so ideal really and with blood shift further starving the muscles combined with the increaseed acidity of the blood this release is VERY timely for us Freedivers

more research needed me thinks!

anybody have any further references on this?

DD

 

[esom]

hey

just entered, really like the style of diskussion!

my input concerning exercise type and bloodflow:

the mechanism i´m thinking is at work that´s preventing bloodflow is high intramusclular pressure relative to bloodpressure of the supplying vessels. As far as i understand it the pressure inside the muscle is influenced the most by muscle tension.
according to those basic assumptions neither static contractiontype nor great muscle lengh should be crucial.

... looked it up - in short: found only supportive. unfortunately nothing about influence of (relative) muscle lengh! -input anybody?


muscle tension and intramuscular pressure. threshold may be important (133-Xenon muscle clearance is indicator for bloodflow inside the muscle):
Skeletal muscle tension, flow, pressure, and EMG d... [Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1983] - PubMed result

concerning contraction type:
Knee extension torque and intramuscular pressure o... [Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol. 1995] - PubMed result

Intramuscular pressures for monitoring different t... [Adv Exp Med Biol. 1995] - PubMed result

Muscle tissue oxygenation, pressure, electrical, a... [Eur J Appl Physiol. 2006] - PubMed result



what is this info good for? less rules which is great itself and it leaves space for creativity in training- always needed.

still i think static at greater lengh may be a good practical option in case of the Quadriceps, because it provides constant and high muscle tension with low over all loads i.e. the bodyweight - very easy to apply!!
- for having comparable good conditions with more straight knee one would need weights/perhaps even machine with seat
- for getting really dynamic one needs BIG equipment


Andy

 

[Kin]

Bringing up an old topic sorry but in a blog i found something that describes how myoglobin actually works. Although it is not a scientific research but it looks interesting.

How does it work? Simply the blood will carry O2 to the tissues and the extra oxygen that is not used "immediately" will be stored in the myoglobin more or less in the same way as in the haemoglobin. Once the animal is under water and can no longer breath, the O2 stock of the blood will become depleted, the myoglobin will then release its O2 in to the blood that will carry it around where it is needed. At the same time the myoglobin will "catch" the excess CO2 in the blood restoring to a level that does not trigger the need to breath. When eventually the animal returns to the surface to breath air, the myoglobin releases all of its stored CO2 and replaces it with fresh O2. The amount of myoglobin present in the animal muscles will determine the maximum time the animal can spend underwater.

How air breathing diving animals hold their breath - Emperor Divers News