'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#131

Post by mmastrac » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:04 PM UTC

outworlder wrote: post #127

mmastrac wrote: post #102

I'm curious if this is the same muscle that causes Charlie Horses. I can activate it on its own without moving my leg and can hold it in tension for a long time but if you flex it too hard it knots and is quite painful. The way that I can flex it: Lie on your back on the floor with your heels on a couch, knees approx 90 degrees Tip/rotate your foot forward and you'll feel a large muscle engage Try and flex that muscl…

> I'm curious if this is the same muscle that causes Charlie Horses. Not sure what you mean. We can have charlie horses in any skeletal muscle.

Oh yeah, but at least in myself, they are primarily in the calves.

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#132

Post by mmastrac » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

cowmoo728 wrote: post #97

debacle wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a biologist, but I would wonder why only this muscle would be capable of this. Metabolizing fats is a complex process.

All muscles are capable of metabolizing fat. In cycling (and other endurance sports), one of the adaptations observed in top athletes is that their muscles become highly efficient at metabolizing fat during medium-intensity exercise. A professional endurance athlete will metabolize about 70% fat, 30% carbs for the majority of a multi-hour event. This preserves their muscle glycogen for the high-intensity bits where t…

In this case, is the body releasing actual fat into the bloodstream for use by the muscles, rather than the fat stores burning fat directly for ATP?

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#133

Post by jaggs » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:12 PM UTC

Near the end of the actual paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422...) -

"Here we have focused on a method of raising slow oxidative muscle metabolism to complement (not replace) existing approaches."

Maybe less snake oil and more a reasoned hypothesis?

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#134

Post by kazinator » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:21 PM UTC

I think the soleus helps to pump blood. Flexing the soleus could be improving circulation, which is responsible for some of the allegedly observed effects.

In Japanese there is a saying "ふくらはぎは第二の心臓" (fukurahagi wa, dai-ni no shinzou: the calves are a second heart).

Calf-io-vascular workout? Haha.

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#135

Post by cowmoo728 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #132

cowmoo728 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All muscles are capable of metabolizing fat. In cycling (and other endurance sports), one of the adaptations observed in top athletes is that their muscles become highly efficient at metabolizing fat during medium-intensity exercise. A professional endurance athlete will metabolize about 70% fat, 30% carbs for the majority of a multi-hour event. This preserves their muscle glycogen for the high-intensity bits where t…

In this case, is the body releasing actual fat into the bloodstream for use by the muscles, rather than the fat stores burning fat directly for ATP?

Yes, fatty acids are bound up in TriAcylGlycerol (TAG). Exercise triggers the breakdown of TAG in fat reserves, sending fatty acids into the blood. These fatty acids go through a pretty complicated process to be delivered into a muscle cell, and then into the muscle cell mitochondria. This transport process cannot keep up with energy expenditure during intense exercise, thus the cutover to stored muscle glycogen (and at even higher peak loads under about 10 seconds, creatine phosphate).

Sedentary people lose the ability to rapidly deliver fat into muscle cell mitochondria.

This is a good summary of the current state of the research.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5766985/

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#136

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:46 PM UTC

mmastrac wrote: post #132

cowmoo728 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All muscles are capable of metabolizing fat. In cycling (and other endurance sports), one of the adaptations observed in top athletes is that their muscles become highly efficient at metabolizing fat during medium-intensity exercise. A professional endurance athlete will metabolize about 70% fat, 30% carbs for the majority of a multi-hour event. This preserves their muscle glycogen for the high-intensity bits where t…

In this case, is the body releasing actual fat into the bloodstream for use by the muscles, rather than the fat stores burning fat directly for ATP?

[deleted]

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#137

Post by tylervigen » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:53 PM UTC

canucker2016 wrote: post #126

pushcx wrote: post #94

For all the comments wondering what the particular movement and equipment is, see pages 5 and 6 of the supplementary materials: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S25890042220114... The equipment is an electromyography system with realtime display. It measures the muscle contraction and is displayed to the subject so they can learn to recognize the movement that properly activates the muscle. Contrary to th…

But sedentary people are the target audience for this exercise. Athletes worry about having enough energy during their exercise. When many people in developed countries are obese or overweight, every technique helps, especially something for those who don't like to sweat...

Right but the point is that there may be nothing special about this particular exercise.

It’s a bit complicated to get the equipment and training to learn how to do this; maybe that effort is better allocated to just encouraging people to get up and go for a walk every once in a while.

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#138

Post by wrycoder » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:56 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #129

wrycoder wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that the journal article is freely downloadable[0]. [0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422... (pdf) What is this diy calorimeter?

Oh, you're right. For some reason I thought it was requesting I pay. A calorimeter in a general sense measures heat transference, calories being a measure of heat. More specifically, what I build is an indirect calorimeter which uses respiratory gas analysis to not only measure human energy expenditure in calories but make an approximation of the ratio of glucose to fat being utilized. The reason I might fix my calor…

Do you have a link to your technology?

Why is the indirect method so sensitive to extraneous movement? More so than just reflecting the additional energy expenditure?

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#139

Post by throw101010 » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 10:59 PM UTC

tylervigen wrote: post #137

canucker2016 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But sedentary people are the target audience for this exercise. Athletes worry about having enough energy during their exercise. When many people in developed countries are obese or overweight, every technique helps, especially something for those who don't like to sweat...

Right but the point is that there may be nothing special about this particular exercise. It’s a bit complicated to get the equipment and training to learn how to do this; maybe that effort is better allocated to just encouraging people to get up and go for a walk every once in a while.

> maybe that effort is better allocated to just encouraging people to get up and go for a walk every once in a while.

This method has been used for decades and the results on the obesity rates do not seem to be very good so far. Maybe it's time to try other approaches.

Re: 'Soleus pushup' fuels metabolism for hours while sitting

#140

Post by tiagod » Thu, Sep 22, 2022, 11:00 PM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #54

elil17 wrote: post #18

At the end of the video, the researcher says that it's not as simple as just tapping your foot, you need some technology to isolate the motion. Could anyone with a better understanding of anatomy/muscles explain how that works and how they get people to perform this motion?

First, they get the university to publish an article making their claim seem credible. They then get an investor to give them $300,000 and make a custom order with a factory in China to add another piece of plastic and some branding to an existing device. They wait 3 months and then receive 30,000 "magic" gizmos in the mail. Then, they sell people a $250 electric muscle stimulator that you wear while sitting. Then th…

You spent all this time writing a comment calling out this study as a fraud appealing to lazy people, but it seems you were too lazy to read the article and truly understand the device's role...