Sam
02-15-2008, 08:29 AM
Who has tried it and/or what do you think about it?
Stubborn Fat Protocol
This is an idea that came from Lyle McDonald. SFP cardio involves the sequencing of high-intensity cardio with low-intensity aerobic cardio in order to take advantage of specific metabolic activities.
SFP is ideally performed in the morning on an empty stomach, or at the very least a few hours away from the last meal. Adding in 5-10mg of yohimbine, 200mg of caffeine, and 2-5g of L-tyrosine about 30 minutes beforehand can have positive effects as well, for reasons to be elaborated upon.
When you perform high-intensity cardio, a few neat things happen. The level of catecholamines in the body increases, which is good. Catecholamines are agonists of sympathetic nervous system output, the "fight" part of the "fight or flight" syndrome. Catecholamines also have the nifty property of causing the release of fatty acids into the bloodstream.
Since aerobic cardio feasts upon fatty acids for fuel, having an abundance of them in the bloodstream would obviously be a good thing when performing such work.
So that's the idea. Start off with a brief warm up, 2-5 minutes or so as your body dictates, then do five minutes of high-intensity cardio. Lyle originally suggested just going five minutes as hard as you can stand, adding that doing five 60s intervals would likely do the same thing. Others have experimented with longer blocks of intervals, with shorter working times, but the original five-minute block is what I'd stick with.
After completing the high-intensity phase, rest for about 5 minutes or so, enough to restore heart rate and generally cool off a little.
Then it's time for the aerobic portion of the session. Again the original recommendation was to do around 60 minutes of steady-state aerobic work on whatever piece of cardio equipment you choose. If you're short on time, you could conceivably shorten this to 40 or even 30 minutes, but if at all possible you should complete the entire session.
The reason for the yohimbine: when dealing with adrenal hormones like the catecholamines, you have two signals in the cells, the alpha receptors and the beta receptors. The beta receptors, generally, stimulate fatty acid release. The alpha receptors on the other hand, block it.
You tend to notice stubborn fat the most in areas that have high concentrations of alpha receptors. In men, this is the chest, abs, and lower back. In women, this tends to be from the waist down. Yohimbine blocks the alpha receptors and improves blood flow, but is also counteracted by insulin (meaning, if you've eaten recently it's not likely to work). This makes the SFP cardio a prime case for its usage, to help with fatty acid mobilization from those stubborn areas.
Caffeine and L-tyrosine are added in simply for the sake of having the energy to get through the session (which can be just as important in these scenarios).
Stubborn Fat Protocol
This is an idea that came from Lyle McDonald. SFP cardio involves the sequencing of high-intensity cardio with low-intensity aerobic cardio in order to take advantage of specific metabolic activities.
SFP is ideally performed in the morning on an empty stomach, or at the very least a few hours away from the last meal. Adding in 5-10mg of yohimbine, 200mg of caffeine, and 2-5g of L-tyrosine about 30 minutes beforehand can have positive effects as well, for reasons to be elaborated upon.
When you perform high-intensity cardio, a few neat things happen. The level of catecholamines in the body increases, which is good. Catecholamines are agonists of sympathetic nervous system output, the "fight" part of the "fight or flight" syndrome. Catecholamines also have the nifty property of causing the release of fatty acids into the bloodstream.
Since aerobic cardio feasts upon fatty acids for fuel, having an abundance of them in the bloodstream would obviously be a good thing when performing such work.
So that's the idea. Start off with a brief warm up, 2-5 minutes or so as your body dictates, then do five minutes of high-intensity cardio. Lyle originally suggested just going five minutes as hard as you can stand, adding that doing five 60s intervals would likely do the same thing. Others have experimented with longer blocks of intervals, with shorter working times, but the original five-minute block is what I'd stick with.
After completing the high-intensity phase, rest for about 5 minutes or so, enough to restore heart rate and generally cool off a little.
Then it's time for the aerobic portion of the session. Again the original recommendation was to do around 60 minutes of steady-state aerobic work on whatever piece of cardio equipment you choose. If you're short on time, you could conceivably shorten this to 40 or even 30 minutes, but if at all possible you should complete the entire session.
The reason for the yohimbine: when dealing with adrenal hormones like the catecholamines, you have two signals in the cells, the alpha receptors and the beta receptors. The beta receptors, generally, stimulate fatty acid release. The alpha receptors on the other hand, block it.
You tend to notice stubborn fat the most in areas that have high concentrations of alpha receptors. In men, this is the chest, abs, and lower back. In women, this tends to be from the waist down. Yohimbine blocks the alpha receptors and improves blood flow, but is also counteracted by insulin (meaning, if you've eaten recently it's not likely to work). This makes the SFP cardio a prime case for its usage, to help with fatty acid mobilization from those stubborn areas.
Caffeine and L-tyrosine are added in simply for the sake of having the energy to get through the session (which can be just as important in these scenarios).