Training in Line W/ Your Genetic Potential Can Boost Your Performance Gains More Than 600%, DNAFit™ Studies Say

Training in Line W/ Your Genetic Potential Can Boost Your Performance Gains More Than 600%, DNAFit™ Studies Say

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While the study at hand appears to confirm that the DNAFit test can tell you if you're an endurance or strength athlete, it won't help you achieve goals you were not "made for" - it eventually you may thus have to give up your dream of being the fastest, strongest or most chiseled guy / gal on the track, field or in gym.

You probably know that: There's that guy at the gym who has been training only half as long as you and still made twice the gains, ... must be juicing that idiot, right? Well, even if we assume that you're not one of the >50% of trainees who overtrain (and undereat) that's by no means the most likely explanation for the astonishing discrepancies.

A recent study that was conducted by a consortium of European researchers is now the first to impressively demonstrate that "matching the individual’s genotype with the appropriate training modality leads to more effective resistance training" (Jones. 2016) What the scientists some of whom work for a company that offers corresponding DNA tests won't tell you, though is that their test will eventually just help you to select the right sport, not to excel in the one sport you have already chosen.

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Eventually, none of this should surprise you, though. Scientists and practitioners alike have suspected for centuries and known for decades that elite athletes are born, not formed in the gym. Association studies have identified dozens of genetic variants linked to training responses and sport-related traits (Table 1 provides a glimpse at the peak of a hitherto largely unknown iceberg of genetic variants that will influence your adaptation to specific training types).

Table 1: List of known genetic variants that influence your adaptation to specific (resistance) training stimuli that were analyzed with the patented DNAFit Peak Performance Algorithm™ in the study at hand (Jones. 2016).

Yes, the way and consistence with which you train will obviously have an effect on the way your physique, strength, speed, conditioning, etc. develops, but when all is said and done, you are simply lucky if you're not lapped by somebody who has trained just as intense- and persistenly who was gifted with a more appropriate gene set for the sports you love. It is thus no wonder that scientists have been pondering about ways to (a) select the right candidates for the right sports and (b) personalizing athletes' training based on their genetic profiles.

In the previously cited study, Jones et al. proposed to do just that by the means of an algorithm that would allow athletes to achieve "greater results in response to high- or low-intensity resistance training programs by predicting athlete's potential for the development of power and endurance qualities" (Jones. 2016).The DNAFit algorithm which is designed to predict the response to high- or low-intensity resistance training programs invokes the 15 performance-associated gene polymorphisms from Table 1.

Figure 1: Both studies used the same randomized, double-blinded crossover design (based on Jones. 2016).

To validate it, its designers from DNA Sports Performance Ltd. and scientists from the University of Central Lancashire, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and the Parc Científic i Tecnològic Agroalimentari de LleidaPCiTAL performed two studies in independent cohorts of male athletes using in ...

• study 1: athletes from different sports (n=28) / 55 Caucasian male University athletes, all aged 18-20 years, volunteered for the study, and 28 of them (height 180.7 ± 1.5 cm, weight 77.0 ± 2.1 kg) successfully completed it (27 athletes had not completed all aspects of the study due to either injury or illness); each participant was a member of first or second team, actively competing in British Universities and Colleges Sports (BUCS) leagues. The athletes competed in squash (n = 1), swimming (n = 7), running (n = 1), ski/snowboard (n = 4), soccer (n = 1), lacrosse (n = 2), badminton (n = 1), motorsport (n = 1), cycling (n = 4), cricket (n = 2), volleyball (n = 1), fencing (n = 1) and rugby union (n = 2). and 
• study 2: soccer players (n=39) / 68 male soccer players, all aged 16-19 years, volunteered to participate in the study, and 39 of them (height 176.1 ± 1.0 cm, weight 68.9 ± 1.5 kg) successfully completed it (29 participants were withdrawn from the study due to non-adherence of set training volumes over the 8 weeks, or injury); each subject was a member of college soccer academy who actively competed in British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) league.

In both studies athletes completed an eight-week high- or low-intensity resistance training program, which either matched or mismatched their individual genotype. In that, participants of both studies were initially randomly allocated to an eight-week high- or low-intensity resistance-training program, after undergoing performance tests for both explosive power and endurance. After another set of performance tests, they then transitioned to the respective other 8-week intervention, the results of which were then compared with the previous ones and correlated with the subjects gene types.

No, the muscle or strength gains were not assessed: I am not sure why the scientists decided against measuring the lean / fat mass gains / losses. After all, their gene set included the thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) receptor gene where polymorphisms at rs16892496 A/C that influences the secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) and prolactin (PRL) and has been found to modulate the amount of lean mass by Liu et al. in 2009. My best bets are that the reasons are financial ones (DXA is expensive, everything else inaccurate)strategic ones, with 8-weeks of training being unlikely to produce sufficiently inter-group differences in already trained athletes, given the small sample size(s) and range of sports that were included (esp. in study 1), or a mere consequence of the choice of protocols, which did not include a hypertrophy protocol (thus no measurement of muscle gains) and/or would obviously produce greater strength gains with the high intensity protocol (measuring those would thus be useless, too).

As the authors point out, "[t]he study was double blinded, in that all were unaware of their ‘genetic potential status’, as determined by the DNAFit Peak Performance Algorithm™" (Jones. 2016). Since this also included the lead investigator who coached the participants during the 8 weeks of resistance training, the notion that 'this is the optimal training type for me / my trainee' should not have influenced the study outcomes.

Figure 2: Intergroup comparisons of CMJ increases (%) in response to high- or low-intensity training; the %-ages over the bars indicate the difference to the mean effect (all) - It's easy to see that training 'according to your genotype' makes a 40-80% difference even if you compare the speficic to the average success; >100% for inter-group comparisons (Jones. 2016)

And still, as the data from the explosive power and aerobic fitness tests that involved countermovement jumps (CMJ) and an aerobic 3-min cycle test (Aero3) revelead, training 'according' to your genes (or rather the assessment of the DNAFit test), i.e.

• high-intensity trained with power genotype or 
• low-intensity trained with endurance genotype,

significantly increased results in CMJ (P=0.0005) and Aero3 (P=0.0004). Athletes from the mismatched group (i.e. high-intensity trained with endurance genotype or low intensity trained with power genotype), however, demonstrated non-significant improvements in CMJ (P=0.175) and less prominent results in Aero3 (P=0.0134).

Figure 3: Inter-group comparisons of Aero3 increases (%) in response to high- or low-intensity training; left axes = power and endurance genes groups, right axes = all subjects (data from both cohorts | Jones. 2016).

Similar results were observed in the 2nd study, where  soccer players from the matched groups saw significantly greater (P<0.0001) performance changes in both tests compared to the mismatched group. In that, the following facts are particularly noteworthy:

• the advantage of training 'according to your genotype' ranges from ~40% to ~80% even if you compare it to the average training response (Figure 1, "all");
• comparing training according to training in discordance with your genotype(s) yields differences that range from 55% up to 610% (the latter in the soccer players on the low intensity regimen for CMJ; Figure 1, study 2 / low intensity)

What is maybe even more important than the statistically significant differences in the mean gains is the consistency of failure, i.e. the fact that Among non- or low responders of both studies, 82% of athletes (both for CMJ and Aero3) were from the mismatched group (P<0.0001).

Remember? Your Post-Workout Testosterone Levels Can Predict Your Gains - Study Takes Novel Approach to the T ↔ Muscle Link | Learn more

Bottom line: As the (maybe biased) authors of the study point out, their well-designed and appropriately blinded trial clearly "indicate[s] that matching the individual’s genotype with the appropriate training modality [as determined with 'their' proprietary DNAFit test] leads to more effective resistance training" (Jones. 2016). It does therefore stand to reason that "[t]he developed algorithm may be used to guide individualised resistance-training interventions" (Jones. 2016). Whether that's actually useful for the average gymrat, whose goal may diverge sign. from what he was 'born to achieve', though, is another story... at least until you'll be able to home-brew / -tweak your genes with CRISPER ;-)

Another thing we shouldn't forget is that getting big and buffed, the goal of a majority of male gymgoers, wasn't even investigated in the study at hand... I bet, though, that future studies with different training regimen and study populations (e.g. untrained individuals) will assess and probably find similar results for muscle and strength gains - And you know where you will be able to read about their results, right? | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Jones, N., et al. "A genetic-based algorithm for personalized resistance training." Biol Sport 33.2 (2016): 117-126.
• Liu, Xiao-Gang, et al. "Genome-wide association and replication studies identified TRHR as an important gene for lean body mass." The American Journal of Human Genetics 84.3 (2009): 418-423.

Mo, We, Fr - Sequence of Hypertrophy, Power & Strength Will Up Your Gains on the Big Three (Squat, Bench, Deadlift)

Mo, We, Fr - Sequence of Hypertrophy, Power & Strength Will Up Your Gains on the Big Three (Squat, Bench, Deadlift)

ADP athletes bench press build strength deadlift DUP performance periodization powerlifting resistance training squat training programming training programs UDP

Squat, bench press, deadlift - All major three benefit from the right order in your daily undulating periodization program (DUP) - This is how it works...

As a SuppVersity reader you are familiar with the term "undulating periodization". In contrast to regular periodization schemes, undulating schemes will have you train in different rep ranges on a weekly or - as in the latest study by Zourdos et al. (2016), even daily (as in every workout) basis.

As Zourdos, et al. point out, the available research shows mixed results with the respect to the efficacy of regular linear vs. undulating periodization schemes. While some studies report no differences among training models (Baker. 1994; Buford. 2007; Kok. 2009), others suggest that the more frequent changes of the rep ranges in an undulating periodization scheme are more advantageous for strength development (Miranda. 2011; Monteiro. 2009; Peterson. 2008; Prestes. 2009; Rhea. 2002).

The method used int he study is an alternative to classic periodization schemes.

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When you take a closer look at the data, one of the potential confounding factors that emerges is the subjects' training experience with no significantly distinct advantages in untrained or recreationally trained individuals (Baker. 1994; Buford. 2007; Herrick. 1999; Kok. 2009) and a significantly greater degree of muscular strength development when using a DUP design compared with LP (Miranda. 2011; Monteiro. 2009; Peterson. 2008; Prestes. 2009; Rhea. 2002). An alternative difference, the effects of which have not been investigated yet, are programming variations within the daily undulating periodization (DUP) framework in experienced athletes. More specifically, ...

"[i]t is reasonable to speculate that the program design and practical implementation of DUP can be further optimized. A possible area of improvement in the DUP design is the temporal configuration of hypertrophy-centric, strength-centric, and power/speedcentric sessions within a given week. Previous research demonstrating the effectiveness of DUP over LP implemented a weekly training order of hypertrophy-centric, strength-centric, and power-centric bouts (e.g., hypertrophy training on Monday, strength training on Wednesday, and power training on Friday) (Peterson. 2008). However, this design calls for a strength-centric bout to be performed just 48–72 hours after a hypertrophy-centric bout each week. Hypertrophy training is characterized by sessions of high volume of exercise, a condition shown to result in heightened muscle damage, and compromised neuromuscular performance for up to 48-hour postexercise (Flann. 2011; Rhea. 2002b). In the context of traditional DUP formatting, this may conceivably hinder performance (i.e., total volume [TV] performed) during the subsequent strength-centric bout, thereby precluding strength athletes from maximizing their training potential" (Zourdos. 2016).

To investigate the potential negative effects of hypertrophy training induced muscle damage on the subsequent strength training bout, Zourdos et al. (2016) compared the effects of a modified DUP format with a weekly training order of hypertrophy-centric (H), power-centric (P), and strength-centric bouts (S | H-P-S) on total training volume (i.e., sets 3 reps 3 weightlifted) and muscular strength in comparison with a traditional DUP model (i.e., HSP) in resistance-trained men for 6 weeks (see Figure 1).

Table 1: Experimental training periodization - Traditional Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP) involves a weekly training order of hypertrophy, strength, and then power focused bouts (HSP). Modified DUP involves a weekly training order of hypertrophy, power, and then strength focused bouts. Each protocol spans 6 weeks and consists of three exercises: back squat, bench press, and deadlift (only performed during strength-centric bouts | Zourdos. 2016).

In order to find out what could be responsible for any potentially observable differences in their study, the authors also tested the total training volume as measured by the total poundage the subjects moved during the strength sessions, in which the subjects trained to failure, and the temporal secretion patterns of testosterone and cortisol in response to both DUP training programs.

Understanding the benefits: Since I've already received questions about how the benefits came about, let me briefly elaborate on the idea of HPS vs. HSP. The notion was that <48h of recovery, from Monday to Wednesday, after a higher volume hypertophy (H) training program would not be enough to hit personal bests on the strength day on which - and that's important - the subjects had to perform each set to full failure. If you train to failure, recovery is a crucial determinant of the number of reps you will master and thus the total volume. The latter, in turn, appears to be one of the central determinants of the strength / hypertrophy response to resistance training, which in turn makes you stronger and will allow you to lift even more weight. So, postponing the strength (S) day to Friday instead of Wednesday will have both, direct and indirect beneficial effects on your gains.

In that, Zourdos, et al. hypothesized that "HPS (i.e., modified DUP) would yield greater volume and strength gains in the 3 exercises performed during training" (Zourdos. 2016).

Figure 1: Rel. change in strength and abs. Cohen’s d effect size in HSP and HPS groups (N = 9 for both; Zourdos. 2016).

As you can see in Figure 1, the scientists were right, the effects of the otherwise identical training protocols, which involved 3 exercises (squats + bench presses in every, deadlifts only in the strength sessions) during training, of which the subjects did ..

• 5 sets of 8 reps at 75% 1RM during H = hypertrophy,
• 5 sets of 1 rep at 80%-90% increased every 2 weeks during P = power and
• 3 sets to failure at 85% during S = strength raining

differed significantly, with a statistical significant advantage on the bench and meaningfully higher effect sizes for all three exercises in the HPS group - an effect that could be mediated by the increased total volume and Wilk's coefficient, a measure that can be used to measure the strength of a powerlifter against other powerlifters despite the different weights of the lifters (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Rel. change in powerlifting volume and Will's coefficient + effect sizes in HSP and HPS groups (Zourdos. 2016).

An alternative explanation of which previous studies do yet not confirm that it may explain the difference is the differential cortisol / testosterone response (learn more) - in view of the fact that the difference you see in Table 2 is not statistically significant, though, it is even more unlikely that the meager difference in testosterone and cortisol the scientists observed had any effect.

Table 1: Pre- and post-training serum testosterone and cortisol level (Zourdos. 2016).

Against that background, we're back to the "usual" subject, when it comes to determinants of the degree of adaptation to resistance training: volume - the same parameter reviews and studies by Schoenfeld et al. (2010; 2011; 2014) have previously singled out as the (most important) determinant of training success.

Again: The differences in the cortisol / testosterone levels were not just statistically non-significant. At least the latter has also been shown to have no effect on your gains, anyways | more.

Bottom line: As the authors point out, "[t]hese findings demonstrate 2 important factors in accordance with the previous literature: (a). Total training volume seems to be a determinant of increased strength performance, and (b). Daily undulating periodization is an effective model to
enhance 1RM strength during short-term training protocols in well-trained men" (Zourdos. 2016).

Zourdos et al. are yet also right to point out that few training studies exist regarding various training designs. This alone warrants further "research examining further DUP configurations is necessary" - studies in less trained individuals, and studies investigating the size gains, too could after all both yield different results for the same H-S-P to H-P-S comparison | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Baker, Daniel, Greg Wilson, and Robert Carlyon. "Periodization: The Effect on Strength of Manipulating Volume and Intensity." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 8.4 (1994): 235-242.
• Buford, Thomas W., et al. "A comparison of periodization models during nine weeks with equated volume and intensity for strength." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 21.4 (2007): 1245-1250.
• Flann, Kyle L., et al. "Muscle damage and muscle remodeling: no pain, no gain?." The Journal of experimental biology 214.4 (2011): 674-679.
• Herrick, Andrew B., and William J. Stone. "The Effects of Periodization Versus Progressive Resistance Exercise on Upper and Lower Body Strength in Women." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 10.2 (1996): 72-76.
• Kok, Lian-Yee, Peter W. Hamer, and David J. Bishop. "Enhancing muscular qualities in untrained women: linear versus undulating periodization." Med Sci Sports Exerc 41.9 (2009): 1797-807.
• Miranda, Fabrício, et al. "Effects of linear vs. daily undulatory periodized resistance training on maximal and submaximal strength gains." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 25.7 (2011): 1824-1830.
• Monteiro, Artur G., et al. "Nonlinear periodization maximizes strength gains in split resistance training routines." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.4 (2009): 1321-1326.
• Peterson, Mark D., et al. "Undulation training for development of hierarchical fitness and improved firefighter job performance." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 22.5 (2008): 1683-1695.
• Prestes, Jonato, et al. "Comparison of linear and reverse linear periodization effects on maximal strength and body composition." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 23.1 (2009): 266-274.
• Rhea, Matthew R., et al. "A comparison of linear and daily undulating periodized programs with equated volume and intensity for strength." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 16.2 (2002a): 250-255.
• Rhea, Matthew R., et al. "Three sets of weight training superior to 1 set with equal intensity for eliciting strength." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 16.4 (2002b): 525-529.
• Schoenfeld, Brad J. "The mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 24.10 (2010): 2857-2872.
• Schoenfeld, Brad. "The use of specialized training techniques to maximize muscle hypertrophy." Strength & Conditioning Journal 33.4 (2011): 60-65.
• Schoenfeld, Brad J., et al. "Effects of different volume-equated resistance training loading strategies on muscular adaptations in well-trained men." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 28.10 (2014): 2909-2918.