Have you ever-noticed how increasing variables increases the complexity of a situation? Physicists have struggled with this increase in complexity of seemingly simple systems for several hundred years in the three-body gravitational problem. For those of you who get out a lot more than I do you may not know that it is a fairly simple matter to model how gravity and movement mutually influence two bodies, say the earth and moon. Now, if you add a third body to the system, like the Sun, things get VERY complex and we must rely on approximations to model these systems and quite quickly these approximations introduce enough error into our calculations to make the system largely chaotic and unknowable. Professor Piet Hut has a fantastic site that introduces the three body gravitational problem and he has a description of solar behavior that is essentially fractal in nature i.e. self-similar at all scales:

“The sun can shine for billions of years because nuclear reactions deep in its interior generate the energy that is lost through the sun's radiation at its surface. On a completely different scale but in an analogous way, stars are lost from the `surface' of a star cluster by `evaporation', and there is a similar need to replenish the energy in the central regions. In fact, the mechanism is remarkably similar in both cases: the sun burns hydrogen through slow nuclear fusion into helium, while star clusters `burn' single stars through a kind of gravitational fusion into binary stars.”

I guess it’s a sign of my extreme geeky-ness but I find this fascinating. The same processes that govern how a cup of coffee cools are at play on the surface of the Sun and heart of the galaxy. I need to expand on this dork-fest just a bit more but I will make this pertinent to you folks who are interested in performance health and longevity and did not subscribe to the Pmenu with the intentions of learning about sciency stuff! So back to this three-body problem… the difficulty with this scenario is keeping track of HOW the elements in the system influence each other. Imagine two particles, or planets or perhaps magnets, whose gravity, charge or magnetism affects each other. We’ll call one A and the other B (catchy, I know). In this pared down system if something happens to A it has an effect on B and vice versa. This is pretty straightforward and easy to predict and track. Things get spicy when we introduce another element… in avant-garde fashion we shall call this interloper C. So now we have a system in which A influences B&C, B influences A&C and C influences A&B. This may not look like much more complexity but this creates a situation in which it is almost impossible to know exactly how a change in one element will influence the other two elements—because simultaneous to let's say a change in A, B is being altered, which changes C… which is feeding back on the original change in A… which influences B… and on and on.

To make a little more sense of this check out this handy three-body gravitational model from the University of Toronto. First just press play for the single planet scenario without changing any of the controls. Pretty cool, eh? Now choose the “three planet” option. Things get chaotic pretty quickly. So what you might ask? Well, let's call Sun 1 insulin, Sun 2 glucagon, planet 1 protein, planet 2 carbohydrate and you guessed it, planet 3 fat. Although far from perfect I think this is a compelling analogy of the interplay and complexity of our hormonal system—and in an amazingly paired down format no less.

We are not looking at other hormones or environmental issues that change the “settings” on our simple model. Try this: Set up the three-planet run as before and open that same page in another window. In the second window set the mass of Sun 1 to “two” and start both animations. Two things should grab your attention. The first is that the two scenarios play out very differently with the increased influence of Sun 1 (increased insulin) and the second is that the animation looks like something you saw after eating several of Yael’s “Magic Brownies”.

All of this was a lead in for a “How To” piece on glycogen repletion. Sorry if that’s an abrupt lane change but that’s where this ride is heading! I’m obviously going to talk about that a bunch but I want to tie all this together first since you might be wondering why the analogy using the three-body gravitation problem? Well… it may be a stretch, but I think this illustrates how incredibly complex some of these systems can become with only a few variables and this pales in comparison to the actual complexity of living systems (us). A sub-point is the complexity of these systems is an outgrowth of the interaction of the various elements and how said interaction can change the state and or outcome of the system and its constituents. For example if we increase insulin, how does this affect protein, carbohydrate and fat metabolism? At the same insulin level how does various mixtures of macronutrients, and amounts of macronutrients, affect things like performance, health and longevity? If performance, health and longevity are affected by gene transcription as a consequence of insulin levels and macronutrient amounts and ratios (which is absolutely the case), how does this then feed back and affect hormone levels and how macronutrients are metabolized? Obviously this scene can get very murky and I don’t want to befuddle you with minutia and imponderables, but I do want to analyze all this information critically and remain just a bit skeptical about ANY conclusions.

We can draw some sound deductions from much of this material, but it’s always good to remain open to later modifications and better information. With all that said I want to look at the reasons WHY we might want to approach glycogen repletion in different ways… and if we have different methodologies that must mean we have different goals we might be considering. Why would one want to replenish glycogen stores AT ALL? Much has been written on this topic from a number of very bright people, who appear to split into two camps.

The first camp advocates aggressive post workout glycogen replenishment with the argument being that this activity will enhance both recovery and performance. There is no doubt this approach has merits but the methods for determining how much glycogen needs replenishment have not been well developed. Hopefully this article changes that.

The second camp advocates no aggressive post workout glycogen replenishment, arguing that this will impair health and longevity due to the deleterious effects of insulin spiking. These folks may be onto something, but they might also have something to contribute to enhanced performance oddly enough.

Performance, Health, Longevity-One More Time

I’ve kicked the concepts of performance, health and longevity around for a couple of years now, but I have never tried to define what these terms mean. I think this is due to the fact these are common usage words. It’s not like running across procrustean. Great word by the way. This lack of clarity is sloppy and frequently I find that a tight definition of a word or concept can help focus my usage and understanding. I’m not shooting for Webster-type definitions in this case—those are easy enough to find—I want something that just fleshes out meaning a little and shows our nutrition and athletics bias.

Performance: How well something does at a given activity. This could be anything from free kicks in soccer to a stock portfolio but for our purposes it is certainly more athletics and training oriented. Typically we are keeping track of some numbers; otherwise we are dealing with opinion. We need some data and comparisons to move into the realm of facts.

Health: I’d like to define health as one's biological status… perhaps even “fitness” in a Darwinian sense, right now. Today.

Longevity: For our purposes at the Performance Menu I’d like to think about longevity as health over a period of time.

Now a few points need to be made. The first is that these concepts are interrelated and at some points mutually supportive, and at other points mutually exclusive. Said another way we see both convergence and divergence in these concepts. The second point is that these definitions are not perfect. One could experience longevity in that one lives to be 90 years old… but one's health may have been terrible for 30 or more of those years and it was only a miracle of modern medicine that one got to lie in a bed and contemplate eternity… for nearly that long. Alternately you may have rocking performance and stellar health but you make the mistake of wearing a T-shirt that says “I Support Title IX” into an Iowa wrestling tournament. There goes your longevity.

Now that we have better defined the terms performance, health and longevity, I’d like to put forward the notion that we have a few different glycogen reload options, each of which will play to a bias of performance, health or longevity.

Performance Bias

The performance bias prioritizes recovery and high intensity training above all else. That said, glycogen recovery needs will vary from situation to situation. A hard training Olympic weightlifter may have very modest glycogen replacement needs due to the demands of that sport and the associated training. For example heavy 1-2 repetition sets with long 2-5 minute rest periods will be remarkably taxing on the nervous system but create little inroads with regards to glycogen status. In contrast, a wrestler or MMA competitor who is living in the lactate pathway for multiple 3-5 minute bouts in addition to specific strength work and adjunctive anaerobic/GPP sessions will have significant replenishment needs. A triathalete in race preparation will likely have needs more in common with the fighter than the weightlifter but that will depend upon how the triathalete structures training. Forty minutes spent at or near the “lactate threshold” will require far more glycogen for recovery than 40 minutes spent at 70% VO2 max. Keep in mind different situations and goals require different and sometimes antagonistic approaches to achieve the desired result.

Something I have found frustrating is the lack of precision in glycogen replenishment. Most studies simply quote a formula that consists of a 4/1 carb/protein mixture with the carbs weighing in at about 100g. That is a pretty big whack of high glycemic load carbs, and although at times it may be completely appropriate to use this formula, we must also ask are there times when smaller doses are more appropriate? The best thing I have seen was generated by Charles Poliquin and it correlates total volume of work performed to the glycogen repletion need. Here is a snippet from that:

12-72 reps per workout: 0.6 g/Kg/LBM (Lean Body Mass)
73-200 reps per workout: 0.8 g/kg/LBM
200-360 reps per workout: 1.0 g/kg/LBM
360-450 reps per workout: 1.2 g/kg/LBM

Now I really had a bug up my fanny to construct a glycogen repletion strategy that was much more detailed. I wanted this to look at total work performed during the workout, factor in some intensity elements such as work-rest pacing to take account of elements like the Cori Cycle in which lactate can be regenerated to glycogen. Well… I discovered why no one else has this information figured out! There are more variables and more errors involved with trying to tie things down than one can imagine and it’s interesting that an eyeball method can provide some pretty remarkable results.

Here is something I noticed: In the above example the relatively low volume workout, 12-72 reps calls for about 43g of carbs (0.6x73kgLBM). That’s about 5 Zone blocks. At the top 360-450 reps workout I’m looking at about 87g, or about 9 blocks. If one is following an Athletes Zone diet it simply means shifting somewhere between 25-66% of ones daily carb allotment to the post workout window. This is all based on my 16-17 block daily allotment and it REALLY simplifies things. If my training session was very intense, I could shift nearly all my carbs to that post workout window. Keep in mind that as total activity level goes up, so does block level.

Some special circumstances may necessitate more carbs in total to facilitate full recovery, but this is pretty manageable as one simply deletes fat blocks and ads additional carb blocks like this: For every 3 fat blocks deleted, add one carb block. If the initial large post workout carb meal is sufficient for recovery I would then recommend as many of the remaining carbs as possible come from low glycemic load veggies, and if you cannot fit in all the veggies, add 3 blocks of fat for every carb block deleted. If one is following a seat-o-your pants method, this boils down to Protein and carbs post WO, protein and fats most other meals. Pretty simple, No?

Health and Longevity

Since we are looking at longevity from the perspective of “health over the course of time” the approaches to optimize health and longevity are likely similar. In this scenario we are looking at nutrient intake, both with regards to composition and timing, as TOOLS to optimize health and longevity. This may be in stark contrast to the performance approach on a mechanistic level but we may also have something to learn from the performance mindset with regards to enjoyment of life, not just quantity.

If we adopt a health and longevity bias, we will rely on hepatic carbohydrate production and VERY low glycemic load carbohydrate for our glycogen repletion. Obviously this will limit our CrossFit-style metabolic conditioning sessions, but we can still be plenty active and develop attributes like strength, joint mobility and skills on a nutritional approach such as this. I’ll touch on some potential programming to complement the nutritional recommendations that carry a health and longevity bias. Why not the performance? Hopefully you have your performance training figured out!

Back to nutrition. If we are taking in mainly nutrient-dense, low-glycemic-load carbohydrate like greens and multicolored veggies, we will receive a very modest amount of carbohydrate to replenish glycogen. We can also manufacture glucose, or at least our livers can, from amino acids and the glycerol back bone of fats via gluconeogenesis. Glycerol will contribute relatively little to this process but it does help. Amino acids from our dietary protein will supply the carbon backbones necessary for the liver to manufacture glucose; however, gluconeogenesis is dependent on what percentage protein accounts for in the diet and overall energy balance. If one is following an Athletes Zone protein intake is quite modest, only about 15% of calories. However this should be adequate to replenish glycogen to a level that allows for about one hard metabolic conditioning session per week. Our key goals with this approach are to minimize glucose flux and, if possible, to induce a state of ketosis as this appears to confer potent adaptive and cellular protective properties via hormesis. You might be tired of hearing this, but including intermittent fasting in this protocol may be an easy way to accentuate the effects of the hepatic-driven glucose production. Intermittent fasting, as I’ve talked about elsewhere, may offer a route to straddle the worlds of performance and health/longevity by increasing insulin sensitivity, allowing for increased muscle glycogen stores which facilitate training, while simultaneously minimizing our exposure to the complications associated with constant glucose intake.

Training to optimize health and longevity should, not surprisingly, be a balanced affair. Something akin to the ME-Black Box template is very good so long as potent metabolic sessions are kept to around once per week. Now this is dependant on the situation as a short workout like Fran, although demanding, is not the glycogen depleter that a 400m run, 30 box jumps and 30 wall-balls for 5 rounds (Kelly) will be. Something else to keep in mind is that activities can be more or less glycogen dependant depending upon how you approach the activity. For example boxing or kickboxing is typically a very glycogen intensive activity; however, one can approach that activity by minimizing how many strikes are thrown in sequence and mixing fairly long rests between efforts. This may look like a jab, cross, round kick and then 5-10 seconds of foot work and movement to allow ATP/CP to be replenished via aerobic metabolism and fat stores. Sledge hammer GPP, wheelbarrow work and sled drags can all be approached in this beneficial but less glycogen-intensive manner. This is much like the training Scotty Hagnas has reported doing at various points of the year when he is eating a lower carb diet.

In closing, I think it’s important to remember complexity can be better managed with a clear plan and focused desire. The concepts mentioned above should provide a framework from which you can optimize your glycogen repletion strategies to suit YOUR needs. Also, some woo-woo physicists think our thoughts can actually organize and shape reality. Whether you buy into that or not, clear focus and an understanding of where you want to go and why you are doing things can help to remove you as a confounding element in an already complex situation.