EXERCISE & ENERGY CONSUMPTION
By Adam Paz
MHP Nutrition Specialist

Aerobic Exercise
Imagine that you're at the gym exercising. You're working up a sweat, breathing hard and your heart is thumping. Blood is coursing through your vessels delivering oxygen to the muscles to keep you moving and you sustain the activity for more than just a few minutes. This is aerobic exercise – any activity that you can sustain for more than just a few minutes while your heart, lungs and muscles work overtime.

It all starts with breathing. The average healthy adult inhales and exhales about 7-8 liters of air per minute. Once you fill your lungs, the oxygen in the air (air contains approximately 20% oxygen) is filtered through small branches of tubes (called bronchioles) until it reaches the alveoli. The alveoli are tiny sacs (which look like bunches of grapes and you have about 300 million in each lung!) where oxygen diffuses (enters) into the blood. From there, it's a beeline directly to the heart.

Getting to the heart of it
The heart has four chambers (two atria and two ventricles) that fill with blood and pump blood and some very large and active coronary arteries. Because of all this action, the heart needs a fresh supply of oxygen. Once the heart uses what it needs, it pumps the blood, oxygen and other nutrients out through the large left ventricle and through the circulatory system to all the organs, muscles and tissue that need it.

A whole lot of pumping going on
Your heart beats approximately 60-80 times per minute at rest, 100,000 times a day, more than 30 million times per year and about 2.5 billion times in a 70-year lifetime! Every beat of your heart sends a volume of blood, called stroke volume, with oxygen and many other life-sustaining nutrients, circulating through your body. The average healthy adult heart pumps about 5 liters of blood per minute.

Oxygen consumption and muscles
All of that oxygen being pumped by the blood is important. You may be familiar with the term "oxygen consumption." Muscles are like engines that run on fuel (just like an automobile that runs on gas) – only our muscles use fat and carbohydrates instead of gasoline. Oxygen is a key player because once inside the muscle, it's used to burn fat and carbohydrate for fuel to keep our engines running. The more efficient our muscles are at consuming oxygen, the more fuel we can burn, the more fit we are and the longer we can exercise.

Fitness benefits of aerobic exercise
Here's what happens inside your body when you do aerobic exercise regularly:

1. Your heart gets stronger and pumps more blood with each beat (larger stroke volume). Elite athletes can have stroke volumes more than twice as high as average individuals. But it's not just that. Conditioned hearts also have greater diameter and mass (the heart's a muscle, too, and gets bigger when you train it) and they pump efficiently enough to allow for greater filling time. This is a good thing because it means that more blood fills the chambers of the heart before they pump so that more blood gets pumped with each beat.

2. Greater stroke volume means the heart doesn't have to pump as fast to meet the demands of exercise. Fewer beats and more stroke volume mean greater efficiency. Think about a pump emptying water out of a flooded basement. The pump works better and lasts longer if it can pump larger volumes of water with each cycle than if it has to pump faster and strain and to get rid of the water. High stroke volume is why highly conditioned athletes' hearts don't pump as fast during exercise and why they have such low resting heart rates; sometimes as low as 40 beats per minute, whereas the average is 60-80 beats per minute!

3. Downstream from the heart are your muscles, which get more efficient at consuming oxygen when you do regular aerobic exercise. This happens because of an increase in the activity and number of enzymes that transport oxygen into the muscle. Imagine 100 oxygen molecules circulating past a muscle. You're twice as fit if the muscle can consume all 100 molecules rather than if it can only consume 50.

4. Mitochondria inside the muscle increase in number and activity. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells. They do all the heavy-duty work to keep you moving. They use the oxygen to burn the fat and carbohydrate that makes you go. You'd be nowhere without mitochondria! The good news is that they increase in number and activity – by as much as 50% –  in just a matter of days to weeks in response to regular aerobic exercise in adults of all ages.

Anaerobic Exercise
While “aerobic” means “with oxygen,” anaerobic means “without air" or "without oxygen." Anaerobic exercise is short-lasting, high-intensity activity, where your body’s demand for oxygen exceeds the oxygen supply available. Anaerobic exercise relies on energy sources that are stored in the muscles and, unlike aerobic exercise, is not dependent on oxygen from (breathing) the air.

Examples of anaerobic exercise include: Heavy weight lifting, all types of sprints (running, biking, etc.), jumping rope, hill climbing, interval training, isometrics or any rapid burst of hard exercise.

Benefits of Anaerobic Exercise?
Anaerobic exercise uses your muscles at a high intensity for a short period of time. As a result, it can help:
•    Develop stronger muscles
•    Improve your VO2 max (the highest amount of oxygen one can consume during exercise) and thus improve your cardio-respiratory fitness
•    Increase your capacity to withstand the buildup of waste substances (such as lactic acid) and remove them from the body. This means your endurance and ability to fight fatigue will improve.

Overall, anaerobic exercise burns fewer calories than does aerobic exercise and may be somewhat less beneficial for cardiovascular fitness. However, it is better at building strength and muscle mass and still benefits the heart and lungs. In the long run, increased muscle mass helps a person become leaner and manage his or her weight because muscle uses large amounts of calories.

Adding Anaerobic Training to Your Program
Anaerobic interval training is primarily reserved for those who are very fit and desire to increase speed, lactate threshold and overall aerobic power. Such training usually results in greater lactic acid concentrations in exercising muscles and is accompanied by greater muscular discomfort. This can be a very intense type of training and should not be attempted by a beginning exerciser. Before you train anaerobically, always do a considerable aerobic warm up first, and stretch both before and after vigorous activity.

Interval training is a great way to incorporate anaerobic exercise. It can be done with many types of exercise (for example, running, biking or swimming). An interval is done by increasing your pace for a short period of time (for example, between 10-60 seconds), then having a slow recovery period that is at least 3 times as long as the interval.
•    If you are new to exercise, do not immediately start with high-intensity activity like anaerobic exercise. Beginners should start with lower intensity aerobic exercise for several weeks to build a base level of fitness.
•    Always check with your doctor before adding anaerobic exercise to your fitness program.
•    Anaerobic exercise is not recommended if you are pregnant.
•    Always warm up before starting any anaerobic exercise and cool down for 5-10 minutes after your workout session.

FUELS FOR EXERCISE

Fats and Carbohydrates
Fats and carbohydrates are the fuels our muscles burn. The difference between them is that fat is like high-test gas; it contains 9 calories per gram whereas carbohydrate has only 4, so you get more energy and can go farther on a gram of fat than on a gram of carbohydrate. You want to burn fat because it's such an efficient fuel, plus it's nice to lose some of your excess fat! The catch is that you need more oxygen to burn fat because it's denser than carbohydrate. The good news is that your body gets better at using oxygen and burning fat when you do regular aerobic exercise – your heart pumps more blood, your muscles consume more oxygen and you have more mitochondria. Regular aerobic exercise has the potential to turn you into a lean, mean, fat-burning machine.

Incorporating supplements to aerobic an anaerobic activities
Creatine
Unlike steroids or drugs, creatine is 100% natural and occurs naturally in many foods. Therefore, it can never be banned from any sports or international competitions (unless they banned eating meat!). Many foods – especially herring, salmon, tuna, and beef – contain some creatine. However, the very best source of this critical compound by far is creatine monohydrate because it contains more creatine per weight of material than any other source.
How does it work?
Creatine is bodybuilding's ultimate supplement, and for good reason. For one thing, creatine can significantly increase lean muscle mass in just two weeks. It is also responsible for improving performance in high-intensity exercise, increasing energy levels and speeding up recovery rates. It's no wonder athletes who use it have such of an edge over those who do not. Soon nearly every athlete who competes will use it (if they don't already). Creatine's ability to enhance energy reserves in muscles comes from its muscle protein synthesizing action, while minimizing protein breakdown. This occurs because creatine has the awesome effect of super-hydrating muscle cells with water. It enhances muscles' growth, too – making muscle fibers bigger and stronger.

Amino Acids
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. They come from protein rich sources such as meat, fish, dairy products and vegetables such as legumes, peas and grains. Amino acids are essential to the human body. There are many types of amino acid supplements on the market.
Bodybuilders can especially benefit from supplementing amino acids because they aid in repair, growth and development of muscle tissue. The body, through assimilation of amino acids, produces over 50,000 proteins and over 15,000 enzymes. Amino acids are not only responsible for the production of all the body's enzymes (including digestive enzymes), but they also play a key role in normalizing moods, concentration, aggression, attention and sleep. After protein is consumed, it is broken down into amino acids. Then, individual amino acids are used to create necessary body proteins and enzymes. Digestive enzymes break down the proteins a person consumes into amino acids. Scientists, experts and medical professionals agree that getting enough amino acids in one's diet is an important factor in maintaining good nutrition.

Waxy Maize
Waxy maize has a much higher molecular weight and a much lower osmolarity rate compared to dextrose or maltodextrin. So what does this mean to you? Mainly, waxy maize bypasses the stomach, is absorbed by the intestines and immediately is assimilated; this is all done at a much faster rate than dextrose or maltodextrin – almost double.
Waxy maize can help the absorption rates of many of your favorite supplements like creatine monohydrate, creatine ethyl ester, cell volumization and nitric oxide type supplements, etc. Nutrients like this often times are left in the stomach’s harsh acidic environment and degrade absorption rates. Waxy maize helps shuttle these nutrients to bypass the stomach and allow the body to assimilate these nutrients at a much higher rate.
Waxy maize has the ability to replenish the body's glycogen stores much faster than a mix of maltodextrin or dextrose. This is accomplished again by waxy maize's ability to bypass the stomach and go to the intestines for immediate absorption. Waxy maize's ability to shuttle all these nutrients and starch gives the body an immediate "pump" you can physically feel in your muscles post-workout. You will see a much larger, fuller and rounder muscle belly.

SUPPLEMENTS INCORPORATING THE ABOVE NUTRIENTS
Dark Matter
After describing the benefits of creatine, amino acids and waxy maize, you probably want to know how you can integrate them into your personal supplement program. Supplementing with MHP’s Dark Matter will quickly enhance recovery after a workout whether it be  aerobic or anaerobic exercise. The creatine will hydrate the muscles post work, the aminos will increase recovery allowing the muscle to GROW, and the waxy maize will spike up insulin levels increasing the amount of glycogen being driven into the muscle itself. All of these are a perfect blend for putting one’s body in an anabolic state – meaning constantly building muscle.

Probolic-SR
Incorporating MHP’s Probolic-SR prior to bedtime will allow for a constant anabolic state in the body. Our technology supports the 12-hour timed released protein. Think of it as a dripping faucet for 12 hours. While you sleep, the faucet keeps dripping, preventing your body from going into a catabolic state. This allows for a more efficient way of recovering while you sleep – resulting in an increase in lean muscle mass, as well as increased strength gains in the gym due to sufficient amounts of protein in the body.