Nueroendocrine Response
Thanks to CrossFit Flagstaff for providing a link to the article in which Greg Glassman, CrossFit’s founder, answered a question about the nueroendocrine response to our workout protocal. Powerful stuff. Enjoy.
“Neuroendocrine response is a change in the body that affects you either neurologically or hormonally. Most important adaptations to exercise are in part or completely a result of a hormonal or neurological shift. Current research, much of it done by Dr. William Kraemer, Penn State University, has shown which exercise protocols maximize neuroendocrine responses. Deadlift, squat, presses, and cleans all have a demonstrated potent neuroendocrine response.
Among the hormonal responses vital to athletic development are substantial increases in testosterone, insulin-like growth factor, and human growth hormone. Exercising with protocols known to elevate these hormones eerily mimics the hormonal changes sought in exogenous hormonal therapy (steroid use) with none of the deleterious effect. Exercise regimens that induce a high neuroendocrine response produce champions! Increased muscle mass and bone density are just two of many adaptive responses to exercises capable of producing a significant neuroendocrine response.
It is impossible to overstate the importance of the neuroendocrine response to exercise protocols. This is why it is one of the defining themes of the CrossFit program. Heavy load weight training, short rest between sets, high heart rates, high intensity training, and short rest intervals, though not entirely distinct components, are all associated with a high neuroendocrine response.”
Very interesting stuff – I have been hearing this kind of thing since my interest in new areas of medicine the past 15 months. I tend to think, “Why did God make us in _____ way? What was His intention, etc?” I don’t think God intended for us to find easy ways to do things. But we have a tendency to avoid hard labor, etc. I think about the times in the Bible where is says some guy lived to a very old age, “and his strength was not abated and his eyesight was not dimmed.” I wonder how much really hard labor people did years ago and how much that kept them in good health.
What he says about testosterone, IFG-1 (an indirect measure of Growth Hormone) and Growth Hormone agrees with what I have been reading and studying. Also tearing down muscle releases amino acids that the brain interprets as damage and the brain then releases Growth Hormone that rebuilds muscle.
I didn’t used to believe that exercise had to be varied or your body got used to it and didn’t improve as much. I thought doing the same thing over and over was just fine. I began to see new things this last year…. I like what Alan said a few months ago when I said something about this – muscle tear down causing release of growth hormone – he said, “we are experts at random damage.”
I like the way I feel a day or two after pretty much any exercise we do – I hurt in a good way in muscles that didn’t hurt the days before…. and almost every workout we do makes me realize that I did some “damage” to muscles that will then cause my body to heal and grow.
But the pain I feel isn’t severe – and it is NOT like the pain of being really sore after a workout when you haven’t been working out at all…. This is just a kind of nice message from my body that I have done something constructive.
Another thought – what would be an advantage from survival point of view of specific type of exercises being more likely to cause this neuroendocrine response? Are there studies that show other exercises (like long distance running, bicycling, yoga, Pilates, nose-picking, etc) do NOT cause this response?
I do think from what I have heard and studied that it takes fairly extreme exercise to cause this response – bursts of almost “violent” exercise pushing heart rate really close to maximum….
I wonder if doing a single dead lift or other exercises Greg Glassman mentions with plenty of rest between and then increasing weight and doing one more rep (I think this is the way a lot of body builders do their exercises) does the same thing that doing 20 reps of squats with close to maximum weight or 20 dead lifts with close to maximum weight does.