Understanding anabolic and catabolic processes
I started lifting weights when I was a student at University. I was told, “If you want big arms, you need to do squats and deadlifts." Nobody could explain to me how exercising the leg and back muscles affected the arm muscles.
After I graduated, I started work in an industrial laboratory. One of my colleagues was a woman who had studied medicine. She lent me her copy of Grey’s Anatomy. I studied the section on muscle physiology, and I finally understood what my gym partners were saying.
There is an “amino acid pool” that circulates around in your bloodstream. There are two sources of these amino acids. The first one is obvious. When you eat protein, the protein is digested in the stomach. It is broken down into smaller amino acids that can be absorbed through the stomach lining into the bloodstream.
The second source of amino acids is not so obvious. It is the result of the body breaking down old and damaged muscle fibre. This process is called catabolism.
Whenever you do load bearing exercises, the body is stimulated into producing growth hormones. These hormones promote the uptake of amino acids from the bloodstream into the muscles. The amino acids are used to repair muscles and grow new muscle mass. This process is called anabolism.
Catabolism occurs when the muscles are inactive for a long time. The early astronauts suffered from severe muscle loss, because they were confined to a weightless environment for a period of time. And bed-ridden patients similarly suffer from atrophied muscles.
If the body is in a catabolic state, the excess amino acids in the bloodstream are used as an energy source, a process called gluconeogenesis. The by-product ammonia is excreted as urea. You can eat as much protein supplements as you want, but if you don’t shift the balance from catabolic to anabolic (by doing load bearing exercises, or injecting anabolic steroids) the extra protein won’t build any muscle.
As we get older, the amount of growth hormone produced by the body diminishes. To counter this, it is vitally important to do load bearing exercises.
I started lifting weights when I was a student at University. I was told, “If you want big arms, you need to do squats and deadlifts." Nobody could explain to me how exercising the leg and back muscles affected the arm muscles.
After I graduated, I started work in an industrial laboratory. One of my colleagues was a woman who had studied medicine. She lent me her copy of Grey’s Anatomy. I studied the section on muscle physiology, and I finally understood what my gym partners were saying.
There is an “amino acid pool” that circulates around in your bloodstream. There are two sources of these amino acids. The first one is obvious. When you eat protein, the protein is digested in the stomach. It is broken down into smaller amino acids that can be absorbed through the stomach lining into the bloodstream.
The second source of amino acids is not so obvious. It is the result of the body breaking down old and damaged muscle fibre. This process is called catabolism.
Whenever you do load bearing exercises, the body is stimulated into producing growth hormones. These hormones promote the uptake of amino acids from the bloodstream into the muscles. The amino acids are used to repair muscles and grow new muscle mass. This process is called anabolism.
Catabolism occurs when the muscles are inactive for a long time. The early astronauts suffered from severe muscle loss, because they were confined to a weightless environment for a period of time. And bed-ridden patients similarly suffer from atrophied muscles.
If the body is in a catabolic state, the excess amino acids in the bloodstream are used as an energy source, a process called gluconeogenesis. The by-product ammonia is excreted as urea. You can eat as much protein supplements as you want, but if you don’t shift the balance from catabolic to anabolic (by doing load bearing exercises, or injecting anabolic steroids) the extra protein won’t build any muscle.
As we get older, the amount of growth hormone produced by the body diminishes. To counter this, it is vitally important to do load bearing exercises.
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There is another reason for doing load bearing exercises, and that is to maintain bone density. The bones contain cells called osteoblasts and osteoclasts. From Wikipedia: “Bone is a dynamic tissue that is constantly being reshaped by osteoblasts, which produce and secrete matrix proteins and transport mineral into the matrix, and osteoclasts, which break down the tissues.”
The osteoblasts are stimulated by load bearing exercises. You can eat as much calcium supplement as you want, but if you don’t stimulate the osteoblasts to use the calcium, it will be excreted.