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Fitness

The Importance of Phase Angle for Athletes’ Performance

By BIA, Body Composition, Body Composition Analysis, Fitness, Medical, Muscle, Nutrition

Outline

In the realm of elite sports, achieving and maintaining peak performance is a multifaceted endeavor. Athletes and coaches constantly seek innovative methods to enhance performance, optimize recovery, and prevent injuries.

Among the various metrics and tools at their disposal, one that stands out for its unique insights is the measurement of Phase Angle (PA). This blog post delves into the significance of Phase Angle for athletes, offering essential tips for leveraging this metric for improved performance and recovery.

Image of a male athlete in mid-stride running on an outdoor track field with his max performance

What is Phase Angle?

Phase Angle is a key metric derived from Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA), a method used by high-tech devices like InBody. It measures the integrity of body cells and quantity of an athlete’s lean body mass, reflecting the health of their cells and tissues. In simple terms, Phase Angle provides a snapshot of an athlete’s cellular health, which is a cornerstone of their overall physical condition.

 Whole Body Phase Angle which related to athletes' performance

Research Insights on Phase Angle and Muscular Performance

Recent research further underscores the significance of Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA)-derived Phase Angle (PhA) in assessing muscular performance among athletes.

A comprehensive study involving 117 adult athletes from diverse sports backgrounds examined the correlation between whole-body PhA and muscular performance. Key performance metrics, including handgrip strength and countermovement jump power, were evaluated in relation to both WB and regional PhA, alongside lean soft tissue measurements obtained via BIA and dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry.

The findings were revealing: whole-body PhA showed a positive association with both relative power and relative absolute strength, independent of lean soft tissue.

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This implies that PhA, whether measured for the entire body or a specific region, can be a useful indicator of muscle health, which is important for assessing an athlete’s performance.
A graph illustrating 'Segmental Body Phase Angle' measurements at frequencies of 5kHz, 50kHz, and 250kHz for different body parts labeled RA (Right Arm), LA (Left Arm), TR (Torso), RL (Right Leg), and LL (Left Leg). The body parts are color-coded with pink for clarity.

Why is Phase Angle Crucial for Athletes?

  1. Muscle Quality Assessment: The Phase Angle is an indicator of muscle health and function. For athletes, a higher Phase Angle is typically associated with better muscle quality, which is crucial for strength, endurance, and performance.
  1. Training and Recovery Insights: Monitoring changes in Phase Angle can help in assessing the impact of training regimes and recovery strategies. A decreasing Phase Angle might suggest inadequate recovery, or emerging health issues.
  1. Nutritional Evaluation: When Phase Angle and muscle mass remain stagnant, it could suggest that the dietary plan was not adhered to as strictly as the training regimen required. Nutritional evaluation, including the optimization of dietary plans based on Phase Angle, becomes crucial to ensure the body receives the appropriate balance of nutrients for effective muscle development and recovery.

Maximizing Performance with Phase Angle

Athletes with a higher Phase Angle generally have better cellular health, which correlates with greater and stronger muscle mass. Athletes looking to maximize their performance can benefit significantly from monitoring their Phase Angle. Here are some ways to use Phase Angle data effectively:

  1. Personalized Training Programs: Understanding individual variations in cellular health can lead to customized training programs that cater to specific needs and goals.
  2. Optimized Recovery Strategies: Phase Angle can indicate the body’s state of stress and recovery. Athletes can use this data to tailor their recovery protocols, ensuring adequate rest and recuperation.
  3. Nutritional Adjustments: Regular monitoring of Phase Angle can signal the need for nutritional adjustments. Athletes can work with nutritionists to modify their diet, focusing on nutrients that enhance cellular health and performance.

    Phase Angle could help coach to understand the recovery of the athlete

    Injury Recovery Tracking and Enhanced Rehabilitation

    Phase Angle is not only related to sports performance, but it is also a crucial tool for tracking the progress and effectiveness of injury recovery and rehabilitation. Here is how Phase Angle can be utilized in these areas:

    1. Phase Angle as an Indicator of Injury Recovery: An increasing Phase Angle can be an early indicator of improvement for injury, allowing the health practitioner to know that the athletes are complying with the rehab instructions.
    1. Tailored Rehabilitation Programs: If the phase angle is declining or not improving, it could indicate that the current rehab routine is not suitable for the athletes. Monitoring the phase angle during the recovery process can help design rehabilitation programs that promote faster and more effective healing.
    1. Return-to-Play Decisions: Accurate assessment of an athlete’s readiness to return to play post-injury is crucial. Phase Angle measurements can provide objective data to support these decisions.

    Photo of a person sitting on a yoga mat and receiving help to perform a leg exercise using a green foam roller, focusing on the calf muscle. The individual helping is wearing a white shirt and gray pants, while the person exercising is in a gray sweatshirt and blue leggings.

    Actionable Tips for Improving Phase Angle

    Improving Phase Angle is synonymous with enhancing cellular health, muscle quality, and overall physical well-being. Athletes can take several actionable steps to positively influence their Phase Angle readings:

    1. Balanced and Nutrient-Dense Diet: Focus on a diet rich in nutrients that support cellular health, including antioxidants, healthy fats, and adequate proteins. Hydration is equally crucial.
    1. Regular Strength and Conditioning Training: Incorporate a balanced mix of strength, endurance, and flexibility training to enhance muscle quality and overall physical health.
    1. Adequate Rest and Recovery: Prioritize rest and recovery, including quality sleep, rest days, and active recovery sessions, to allow the body to repair and strengthen.
    1. Stress Management: Chronic stress can negatively impact cellular health. Engage in stress-reduction techniques like meditation, yoga, or other relaxation practices.
    1. Regular Health Check-ups: Besides tracking Phase Angle, regular health check-ups can provide a comprehensive view of an athlete’s health status and inform adjustments in training and lifestyle.
    A coach in a white T-shirt and two male athletes, one in a blue tank top and the other in a black T-shirt, are discussing strategy over a clipboard on a bench beside a basketball court. The coach appears to be explaining tactics with the players attentive.

    Concluding Thoughts: The Transformative Impact of Phase Angle

    Understanding and utilizing Phase Angle can be a game-changer for athletes at all levels. This metric offers a deeper insight into the body’s inner workings, going beyond traditional measures of fitness and performance. By focusing on improving their Phase Angle, athletes can enhance their performance, speed up recovery, prevent injuries, and potentially extend their sports careers.

    Regular monitoring of Phase Angle, combined with tailored training and recovery strategies, can help athletes stay at the top of their game. The integration of this metric into sports regimes signifies a move towards more personalized and effective athletic training and health management.

    In conclusion, Phase Angle is more than just a number; it’s a reflection of an athlete’s overall health and a predictor of their athletic potential. By embracing this powerful tool, athletes and coaches can unlock new levels of performance and longevity in sports.

    Tips for Managing Muscle Soreness After Workouts

    By Blog, Body Composition, Body Composition Analysis, Fitness, Muscle, Press

    Muscle soreness is something we’ve all experienced, whether you’re a fitness newbie or a seasoned athlete. It’s that unmistakable feeling after a vigorous workout or a new physical activity. But what really causes muscle soreness, and how can you benefit from understanding it better?

    This article explains what muscle soreness is, what causes it, and how you can track your muscle health using body composition analyzers like those made by InBody.

    What is Muscle Soreness?

    Muscle soreness, often known as DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), is the pain and stiffness you feel in your muscles a few hours to days after doing a new or challenging exercise. It’s common to experience muscle aches within **[6 to 12 hours after a workout].

    DOMS is caused by tiny muscle fibre damage during exercise, particularly when eccentric contractions are involved, such as downhill running or lengthening under load. This is a natural part of the healing and strengthening process happening within the muscles, which may cause some pain.

    Prolonged muscle soreness could be injury

    Muscle Soreness is Normal, But It Should Not Last Too Long

    While some might wear their muscle soreness as a badge of honour, thinking it’s a sign of an effective workout, it’s essential to understand the difference between productive pain and potentially harmful pain.

    Overtraining and not giving your muscles adequate time to heal can lead to injuries. Hence, understanding muscle soreness and tracking muscle health becomes vital.

    Body Composition Analysis and Muscle Soreness

    This is where tools like the body composition analyzer from InBody come into play. Using bioelectrical impedance analysis, InBody devices can provide detailed insights into your muscle mass, body fat percentage, and overall muscle condition.

    If you experience prolonged muscle soreness, it may be helpful to check your muscle mass and related parameters in the InBody Result Sheet. A consistent or unexpected decline in muscle mass in a particular segment in the Segmental Lean Analysis, despite regular workouts, could indicate that your muscles are not recovering effectively, putting you at risk for injuries.

    Segmental Lean Analysis in InBody

    Additionally, if you have a higher ECW Ratio in a certain segment of your muscle, it could indicate a risk of acute inflammation due to injuries, and you may need medical help. However, it’s crucial to have your InBody results interpreted by healthcare professionals.

    How Does Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis Work?

    Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) sends a low-level electric current through the body. Since muscles contain a large amount of water, they conduct electricity better than fat does. Thus, by measuring the resistance to this electric flow, BIA devices, like the InBody analyzer, can estimate muscle mass and body fat percentage, among other parameters.

    Benefits of Tracking Muscle Health with InBody:

    1. Better Understanding of Recovery: If your muscle mass remains consistent or increases after exercising and experiencing muscle soreness, it indicates that your muscles are recovering well.
    2. Injury Prevention: If you notice a consistent decrease in muscle mass or an imbalance between muscle groups, it might be time to reconsider your workout regimen and recovery practices.
    3. Inflammation Indicators: Having a higher Extracellular Water (ECW) Ratio in a specific muscle group could indicate an increased risk of inflammation due to injury. Any abnormal increase in ECW Ratio levels could serve as a warning to undergo a health check before continuing with workouts.
    4. Tailored Workouts: By understanding your muscle health and body composition, you can design workouts that target specific muscle groups or address imbalances.

    Tips to Reduce Muscle Soreness

    Tips to Reduce Muscle Soreness:

    Here are some general tips to manage and reduce muscle soreness:

    1. Warm-Up and Cool-Down: Begin your workout with a proper warm-up and end it with a cool-down routine to prepare and recover your muscles.
    2. Stretching: Incorporate dynamic stretching before your workout and static stretching afterwards to improve flexibility and reduce muscle tension.
    3. Hydration: Stay well-hydrated before, during, and after exercise to prevent cramping and muscle tightness.
    4. Proper Nutrition: Consume a balanced diet rich in protein and antioxidants to support muscle repair and reduce inflammation.
    5. Gradual Progression: Avoid overexertion and gradually increase workout intensity and duration to allow your muscles to adapt.
    6. Rest and Recovery: Ensure adequate rest between intense workouts to give your muscles time to heal and grow.
    7. Active Recovery: Engage in low-intensity activities like swimming or cycling on rest days to promote blood flow and alleviate soreness.
    8. Massage and Foam Rolling: Use foam rollers or consider getting a massage to relieve muscle tension after your workout and improve circulation.
    9. Pain Management: Over-the-counter pain relievers like ibuprofen can help manage soreness, but use them sparingly and as directed.
    10. Listen to Your Body: If you’re in significant pain, skipping a workout or modifying your routine is okay. Pushing through severe soreness may lead to injury.

    Conclusion

    Muscle soreness is a common experience for many people who engage in fitness activities. It can be a sign that your muscles are working hard and growing stronger. However, it is essential to be mindful of this soreness and take steps to promote proper recovery and growth. By understanding the intricacies of muscle soreness and recovery, you can ensure that your muscles are not only growing but also thriving.

    Advanced tools like InBody’s body composition analyzers can provide valuable insights into your body composition, helping you better understand the changes taking place in your muscles. Additionally, listening to your body and recognizing the signals it sends you is crucial to any fitness journey. Remember, every ache tells a story and can provide valuable information about your body’s needs. So, don’t overlook muscle soreness – use it as an opportunity to learn and grow stronger!

    Preventing Sarcopenia: Guide to Preventing Muscle Loss With Lee Ke Wynn

    By Fitness, Health, Muscle, Press

    In collaboration with Lee Ke Wynn, our Rehab Exercise Professional at Ke Wynn Medical Fitness Center, we explored the silent threat of Sarcopenia – age-related muscle loss.

    While Ke Wynn has shared some key insights via our #AskExpert session, let’s delve deeper into understanding Sarcopenia and effective strategies to prevent and manage it.

    Understanding Sarcopenia

    As we age, our bodies naturally start to lose muscle mass and strength. This phenomenon is called sarcopenia. While it’s a natural part of the ageing process, it can significantly impact your quality of life. Sarcopenia affects balance, slows down metabolism, and decreases physical stamina, increasing the risk of falls and fractures.

     

    According to Lee Ke Wynn, the risk of sarcopenia increases with a sedentary lifestyle. Therefore, the key to fighting this muscle loss is regular resistance training. But before we jump into its solution, let’s first understand how to identify our risk of developing sarcopenia.

    Identifying the Risk of Sarcopenia

    preventing sarcopenia is important

    To comprehensively identify the risk of sarcopenia, a thorough assessment is needed. This assessment may include evaluating the patient’s muscle mass, strength, and physical function.

    By conducting this comprehensive assessment, healthcare providers can better understand a patient’s risk of sarcopenia and develop targeted interventions to prevent or manage this condition. There are a few established methods for diagnosing sarcopenia, as shown below:

    • Gait Speed: The speed at which an individual walks is one of the indicators that may point towards the presence of sarcopenia.
    • Handgrip Strength: Assessing handgrip strength is another common method used to diagnose sarcopenia.
    • Skeletal Muscle Index (SMI): The SMI measurement from BIA devices provides a comprehensive view of muscle mass distribution, playing a critical role in sarcopenia diagnosis.

    SMI for sarcopenia detection

    Determining your current muscle mass and Skeletal Muscle Index (SMI) using the BIA test is an effective way to identify your risk of sarcopenia. If the SMI is less than 7.0 kg/m^2 for men and 5.7 kg/m^2 for women, there is a higher risk of developing sarcopenia.

    It’s never too late to start monitoring your muscle health. Early detection of sarcopenia can lead to better management and prevention strategies.

    Battle against Sarcopenia: It’s Never Too Late

    Remember, it’s never too late to start building muscles. Regardless of age, our bodies are capable of muscle growth and strength improvement. Although muscle building can get more challenging as we age, with proper resistance training, we can effectively be preventing sarcopenia.

    workout like pushup to prevent sarcopenia

    Resistance training exercises, such as weight lifting, resistance band workouts, or body-weight exercises, are recommended to promote muscle strength, balance, and coordination. It’s important to start slow and gradually increase the intensity to avoid injury. Consulting with a trained professional like Lee Ke Wynn can also ensure a safe and effective training plan tailored to your needs.

    Nutrition’s Role in Preventing Sarcopenia

    The importance of nutrition can’t be overstated in our fight against sarcopenia. High-protein foods, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D play a crucial role in muscle growth and recovery.

    A balanced diet containing lean meats, dairy products, eggs, and plant-based proteins can help increase your protein intake. Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids like fish, walnuts, and chia seeds aid in muscle health. Vitamin D, which can be obtained from exposure to sunlight and foods like fatty fish and fortified dairy products, is also essential for muscle function.

    In conclusion, age-related muscle loss, or sarcopenia, may seem inevitable, but with regular resistance training and a balanced diet, we can keep our muscles strong and healthy. Remember, it’s never too late to start building muscles and improving your quality of life. Consult with a professional like Lee Ke Wynn and start your journey towards better muscle health today.

    To learn more about preventing sarcopenia and other health-related topics, stay tuned to our #AskExpert series, where we collaborate with medical professionals to bring you reliable and practical health information.

    Achieve a Lean Muscular Body with InBody

    By BIA, Body Composition, Fitness, Muscle

    Achieving a lean muscular body is a goal for many fitness enthusiasts and athletes. It not only improves physical appearance but also enhances overall health and fitness.

    In this blog post, we will explore the importance of strength training in building lean muscle mass, reducing body fat, and using advanced body composition analysis like InBody to track your progress. By following these principles, you’ll be well on your way to a lean, muscular body.

    strength training for muscular body

    Strength Training: The Key to a Lean Muscular Body

    Strength training is crucial for developing a lean muscular body, as it helps increase lean muscle mass, burn calories more efficiently, and improve overall health and fitness. Incorporating strength training into your fitness routine not only enhances physical appearance but also provides a myriad of health benefits, such as injury prevention and better posture.

    Here are some essential tips highlighting the importance of strength training in building muscle:

    • Compound exercises: Focus on compound exercises, like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and rows, which target multiple muscle groups simultaneously. These exercises help build muscle mass, improve functional strength, and stimulate greater hormonal responses for muscle growth.
    • Progressive overload: Gradually increase the weight, sets, repetitions, or rest time between sets to challenge your muscles and promote muscle growth. This principle ensures that your muscles adapt and grow stronger over time.
    • Train consistently: Aim to train each muscle group at least twice a week for optimal muscle growth. Consistency in your training routine will lead to better results and help prevent plateaus.
    • Mind-muscle connection: Focus on the contraction and control of your muscles during each exercise. Establishing a strong mind-muscle connection can help activate the target muscle group more effectively and lead to better muscle development.
    • Adequate recovery: Give your muscles time to recover and grow by scheduling rest days or alternating between muscle groups. Proper recovery is crucial for muscle growth and preventing overtraining.

    By incorporating these strength training tips into your fitness routine, you will be well on your way to building a lean, muscular body.

    Nutrition for lean muscular body

    Maintaining a Healthy Metabolism and Nutrition

    Once your metabolism is in check, you can manipulate foods to help you lose weight and implement an effective training schedule to add muscle to your body. Building muscle is hard work and requires excellent sports nutrition. Make sure to consume a balanced diet rich in protein, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals to support muscle growth and recovery.

    Here are some nutritional tips for achieving a lean, muscular body:

    • Prioritize protein intake: Protein is essential for muscle growth and repair. Aim to consume a source of high-quality protein with every meal, including lean meats, poultry, fish, dairy, legumes, and protein supplements.
    • Opt for complex carbohydrates: Complex carbohydrates, such as whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, provide a sustained source of energy and help maintain stable blood sugar levels. These carbs are crucial for fueling your workouts and supporting muscle recovery.
    • Incorporate healthy fats: Healthy fats, like those found in avocados, nuts, seeds, and olive oil, play a vital role in hormone production and overall health. Ensure that you consume adequate amounts of healthy fats daily.

    Consistency and Monitoring Your Progress

    Consistency is crucial when working toward a lean, muscular body. Stick to your strength training routine and maintain a balanced diet to see results over time.

    Tracking lean muscular body with InBody

    Tracking your progress with tools like the InBody analysis can help you stay motivated and make any necessary adjustments to your training and nutrition plan.

    The InBody devices, a body composition analyzer is an advanced tool that provides accurate, quick, and non-invasive assessments of your body composition, including Skeletal Muscle Mass (SMM) and body fat percentage.

    We understand that achieving a lean muscular body is a goal for many fitness enthusiasts and athletes. It not only improves physical appearance but also enhances overall health and fitness. That’s why InBody provides age-specific evaluation by InBody Big Data, a comprehensive analysis that considers your age group in order to provide a more personalized and accurate assessment of your body composition.

    The InBody 970 provides an age-evaluation graph that focuses on Skeletal Muscle Mass. This allows you to compare your current muscle with the reference range, which helps you determine whether your current muscle mass is adequate compared to the InBody big data.

    With this feature, the InBody 970 can provide Skeletal Muscle Index (SMI) and Skeletal Muscle Mass by age, based on globally accumulated InBody Big Data. This allows you to compare your data to the data of the young age group (T-score) and the same age group (Z-score), providing a more detailed understanding of your body composition.

    With the ability to compare your data to others within your age group, you can see how you measure up and potentially identify areas for improvement. This feature adds an extra layer of analysis to the InBody 970, making it an even more valuable tool for those looking to achieve a lean muscular body.

    Conclusion

    Achieving a lean muscular body requires a combination of strength training, proper nutrition, and monitoring your progress using advanced body composition analysis tools like InBody.

    By focusing on muscle gain, incorporating effective strength training techniques, maintaining a healthy metabolism and nutrition plan, and tracking your progress consistently, you will be well on your way to a lean, muscular body.

    Remember that patience and perseverance are vital, and with time and effort, you will see the results you desire.

    A man is having a rest days workout

    Rest Days Workout: Train Smarter, Not Harder

    By BIA, Body Composition, Fitness

    Are you someone who is constantly pushing yourself to your limits during your workout sessions? Do you feel like you need to work out every single day to see results?

    If yes, then it’s time to take a step back and re-evaluate your approach to exercise, focusing on the importance of rest days in your workout routine. Contrary to popular belief, working out every day may not be the most effective way to achieve your fitness goals. In fact, rest days are just as important as exercise days when it comes to muscle recovery and overall fitness success.

    A man is having a rest days workout

    The Science Behind Rest Days in a Workout

    When we exercise, we put our muscles under stress, causing microscopic damage to muscle fibers. This damage is what leads to muscle soreness and fatigue after a workout.

    But it’s during the rest period that the muscles repair and rebuild, leading to stronger muscles. When we give our bodies time to recover, we can perform better during the next workout session. Additionally, rest days help prevent injuries that can result from overuse or fatigue, especially when engaging in high-intensity or repetitive exercise activities.

    đź’ˇ Research shows that the optimal rest time for muscles to recover is between 48-72 hours for the muscles that were worked during the exercise session. However, the exact rest period needed may vary depending on various factors, such as fitness level, age, and intensity of the workout.

    The Benefits of Rest Days in a Workout Routine

    Improved Muscle Recovery

    Rest days allow your muscles to recover and repair, which leads to improved muscle strength and endurance. Skipping rest days can lead to muscle fatigue and decrease in performance.

    Prevents Overtraining

    Overtraining can lead to injuries and setbacks in your fitness journey. Taking rest days can help prevent overtraining and allow your body to recharge.

    Better Sleep

    Physical activity increases energy-boosting hormones like cortisol.

    However, overdoing it can lead to the increase of this hormone, which can negatively impact your quality of sleep and worsen feelings of fatigue and exhaustion.

    Rest is essential for allowing your hormones to return to a normal, balanced state and ensuring better sleep quality.

    Mental Health Benefits

    Rest days can help reduce stress and anxiety associated with exercise. Taking time off can give you a mental break from the pressures of working out and help you feel refreshed and motivated for your next workout.

    Tips for Incorporating Rest Days into Your Workout Routine

    1. Plan your rest days: Schedule your rest days into your weekly fitness routine to ensure that you are giving your body adequate time to recover.
    2. Active recovery: Instead of completely taking the day off, consider doing low-intensity activities like yoga or stretching on your rest days.
    3. Listen to your body: If you feel like you need an extra rest day, don’t hesitate to take it. Your body knows best and it’s important to listen to it.
    4. Focus on nutrition: Rest days are the perfect time to focus on your nutrition and make sure that you are fueling your body with the right nutrients.

    Importance of Knowing Your Body Composition

    If you’re serious about fitness and muscle recovery, then it’s important to know your body composition. This is where the InBody Test comes in. The InBody Test is a non-invasive and quick body composition analysis that provides an accurate breakdown of your weight in terms of muscle, fat, and water. By using the InBody Result Sheet, you can easily track your muscle mass and fat mass, and see how your body composition changes over time.

    A man is experiencing pain due to not having any rest days.

    Knowing your muscle mass is especially important when it comes to muscle recovery. Rest days are crucial for allowing the muscles to recover, repair, and strengthen. By monitoring your muscle mass with the InBody Test, you can ensure that you’re not losing muscle mass during rest periods, and that you’re taking enough rest days to allow for proper muscle recovery.

    Additionally, the InBody Result Sheet provides a detailed analysis of your muscle and fat mass in specific regions of your body, which is known as Segmental Lean Analysis. This allows you to see which areas of your body have higher or lower muscle and fat mass, and make adjustments to your workout routine accordingly.

    InBody Segmental Lean Analysis. png

    For example, in the picture shown, if you have lower muscle mass in your legs, you may want to incorporate more leg exercises into your fitness routine.

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, rest days are just as important as exercise days when it comes to muscle recovery and overall fitness success. Rest days allow your muscles to recover and repair, prevent overtraining, improve sleep quality, and provide mental health benefits. It’s important to schedule rest days into your weekly fitness routine, and get the progressed track with body composition analysis.

    The InBody Test and Result Sheet are valuable tools for monitoring muscle mass and ensuring proper muscle recovery. They enable you to make informed decisions about your workout routine and rest days. InBody devices are trusted by over 200 fitness centers in Malaysia, making it easy for you to locate the nearest center and track your fitness progress.

    Where can I get InBody test?

    Remember to schedule rest days, listen to your body, and focus on nutrition for optimal muscle recovery and overall fitness. Incorporating information from the InBody test with sports professionals can definitely help with your progress in muscle gain.

    Sports Nutritionist and Athletes' performance

    How does the athlete’s body composition impact their performance?

    By BIA, Body Composition, Fitness, Muscle, Nutrition, Press

    When most people think of nutritionists, they think of “healthy eating” and weight loss. However, the importance of sports nutritionist to maximise the athlete performance is fundamentally linked to diet and body composition too.

    See Min, a professional sports nutritionist who works at the National Sports Institute Malaysia, recently joined the Malaysian contingent to the Southeast Asian Games in Hanoi to support the national team, shared her experience with how she accurately tracks athletes’ body composition using Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA).

    How does the BIA application provide a better strategy to maximise athletes’ performance?

    Bioelectrical impedance analysis, as See Min mentioned, is one of the convenient methods for monitoring body composition in the sports nutrition field. It is utilised to monitor segmental lean mass for sports in a mass group, such as team sports, especially when regular assessment is required at different training phases. This is highly useful when sports nutritionists want to monitor changes in athletes’ body composition as the sports seasons change and adjust the dietary plan to assist athletes in achieving body composition goals that allow for maximum performance during competition.

    By referring to the result sheet printed out from the BIA devices, sports nutritionists are able to explain body composition changes to athletes and coaches with ease. This allows the athletes to understand how their dietary practice and training programme could affect their body composition and performance in competition.


    Sports nutritionist talks about how athletes' body composition impact their performance
    Watch the video to learn more about how BIA can assist sports nutritionists in helping athletes to achieve optimum body compositions for optimum performance in each phase of their training.

    Why building lean mass is important for everyone (even you!)

    By Blog, Fitness, Health, Muscle

    People have all sorts of reasons for working out and developing lean body mass (LBM).  Athletes are interested in muscle building to improve their performance on the field. Bodybuilders want muscle growth for that trophy-winning physique.  For us regular joes and janes who struggle to find enough time to diet and workout, it can be as simple as looking losing weight and looking lean.

    Whatever the reasons, recent research has made a very strong case that building lean body mass has health benefits far beyond aesthetics and athletic performance.  Sufficient amounts of LBM are actually critical for building a healthy life over the long-term.

    This doesn’t mean that you have to work out twice a day lifting heavy weights. Male or female, young or old, everyone can benefit from increased lean body mass.  Here are four important health benefits that you gain from developing your lean body mass.

    Women training with coach

    1. Lean body mass combats obesity

    Based on the National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) Malaysia 2019, 50.1% of adults are overweight or obese (30.4% overweight and 19.7% obese) and the numbers keep on rising. With this current situation in Malaysia, it’s hard to avoid advertising that guarantee weight loss in X number of weeks, or a new workout technique that promises to shred fat off of your frame, or that new diet that promises to increase your metabolism and burn body fat.

    However, most of these shortcut approaches fail to address the basic issue regarding weight gain: it’s about calories in vs. calories out (energy balance).

    “Energy imbalance” in this context refers to consuming more calories than your body needs.  Do this for a long enough period of time, and you’ll gain fat. Gain enough fat over a long period of time, and you can become overweight or obese.

    “Energy intake” refers to how many calories you consume through eating and drinking, in other words, your diet.  This is what many people think of when they think about calorie reduction.

    However, its “energy expenditure” where you can really make a big effect on balancing your calories in and calories out, and this is why developing your lean body mass is so important.

    Lean body mass is associated with your basal metabolic rate (BMR) – the amount of calories you burn at rest.  The greater amount of LBM you have, the greater your BMR will be. This means that people with greater amounts of lean body mass will have a greater energy expenditure while doing nothing, helping to avoid calorie imbalances, and ultimately, obesity.

    2. Lean body mass helps you battle diseases

    When you become sick and your body becomes stressed, your body’s immune system gets kicked into high gear.  When that occurs, your body’s nutritional demands change. In order to support the immune system and contribute towards recovery, your body requires protein – and a lot of it.  Diet alone won’t supply the amount of protein required to defend against illness. Where will your body find protein reserves? Your lean body mass.

    For example, in burn victims, the need for increased protein can increase tremendously: around 4 g of protein per kilogram of body weight, or about four times the normal daily intake of protein. Too much protein for a person to consume through a healthy diet.  This demand for protein exceeds the demands put on the body during fasting (times where you aren’t bringing in calories), which is when muscle breakdown occurs.  The same trend was also found in cancer survivors. In those whose overall body protein decreased due to cancer and cancer therapy, the rate of recurrence of cancer increased.

    In both cases, the ability to survive these serious conditions ultimately came down to how much lean mass each patient had to begin with, and how much their bodies lost due to increased demand for protein.

    Bottom line: your lean mass can act as protein reserves that your body can draw off of when the immune system is triggered.  If you have built sufficient lean mass through diet and workout, your body will have a much easier time fighting off infection because it will have enough protein in reserve to power the demands caused by the immune system.

    If you don’t have sufficient lean mass, your body will have a much more difficult time defeating and recovering from illnesses because it won’t have the type of nutrients it needs to power the immune system.

    3. Lean body mass contributes to strong bones

    One common concern that both men and women have as they age is the onset of osteoporosis or frailty in general.  These conditions can put people at serious risk in the later stages of life because they can lead to falls and broken bones.  Sometimes, these falls are so serious that some people never walk again.

    What can preserve bone density and bone mass later in life?  Maintaining sufficient and healthy amounts of lean body mass.

    In the Mediterranean Intensive Oxidant Study, researchers found that lower amounts of skeletal muscle mass, a significant and major component of lean body mass, was correlated with weaker and thinner bones in elderly men.  Because lean body mass is made up of multiple components that cannot be readily increased, such as the weight of body water and internal organs, increasing skeletal muscle mass is the primary means of increasing lean body mass. This, in turn, builds up greater bone strength and density.

    In order to protect against thin and weak bones, maintaining and developing sufficient skeletal muscle mass is key.

    4. Lean body mass can protect against (and potentially reverse) insulin resistance

    Insulin resistance occurs when the body is unable to clear the blood of excess glucose due to the presence of free fatty acids (FFA).  The release of FFA into the body is generally associated with high amounts of body fat mass, which lessens insulin’s ability to clear glucose from the blood.  If this insulin resistance becomes significant over a duration of time, the development of Type 2 diabetes mellitus can occur.

    Once again, developing sufficient amounts of lean body mass can help prevent the onset of insulin resistance/Type 2 diabetes. Because insulin resistance/Type 2 diabetes can strike anyone at any age, ensuring that your LBM levels are sufficient while keeping your body fat mass low (i.e. a healthy body composition) is very important for everyone.

    In a large-scale study of over 13,000 people over a 6-year span conducted by the UCLA School of Medicine, the researchers concluded their findings by illustrating an inverse relationship between skeletal muscle mass and insulin resistance.  Not only that, they found that for every 10% increase in skeletal muscle mass, there was an 11% decrease in insulin resistance.  For people without diabetes, the decreases were even more pronounced.

    Developing your lean body mass also has the added benefit of increasing your BMR, which will increase your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) all on its own, which, when combined with proper diet and nutrition, causes body fat mass reduction.  This reduction contributes to less release of free fatty acids into the body in the first place, which will, in turn, make it easier for the body to clear excess glucose and transport it into muscle cells.

    Fitness for Long-Term Health

    Muscle building isn’t something that only bodybuilders and athletes should worry about; for long-term health, everyone can benefit from building their LBM.

    For this reason, it is important to monitor the changes in your lean body mass by having your body composition measured. InBody body composition analysis can divide your weight into its various components – Body Fat Mass, Lean Body Mass, etc. – which will give you a much clearer picture of your overall fitness and health.

    Building lean body mass is an investment in your future. The more LBM you build while you are still young and healthy, the more you will have in reserve when you really need. But before you start adding protein shakes and resistance workouts to your daily regimen, you need a plan. The first step to building a healthy level lean body mass is to measure how much you have with a body composition analysis.  You can learn about the different types of BIA devices that analyze body composition and the types of outputs for each devices.

    Body Fat Percentage doesn’t always give a complete picture 

    By Blog, Body Composition, Fat mass, Fitness, Muscle

    If you’re using body composition tools like calipers to measure your body fat percentage to assess your health, then you’re already ahead of most (like those who are still using BMI).

    But be aware that body fat percentage doesn’t always paint a complete picture when it comes to body composition. What’s more, decreases in your body fat percentage don’t always mean fat loss.  That’s because body fat percentage is a simple equation of your fat mass divided by your total weight.

    Percentage Body Fat = Body Fat Mass / Total Body Weight

    In some ways, body fat percentage is the most basic of all body composition results, because it only requires your Fat, Fat-Free Mass (or Lean Body Mass), and total weight.

    While fat and fat-free mass are enough to give you a body fat percentage value, it isn’t always enough to explain changes in body fat percentages or give enough information to determine whether your body fat levels are healthy. You will get much more context about what your body fat percentage means if you look at it alongside things like Skeletal Muscle Mass. These are the muscles in your body that you can grow and develop through exercise.

    Without assessing your amount of Skeletal Muscle Mass, your body composition assessments are going to be incomplete.  You won’t be able to fully understand the changes in your body fat percentage, and you may also be misled by what your body fat percentage means.  Here are a few examples:

    1. You’re working out, but body fat percentage doesn’t change (or increases)

    This situation can occur when you are working out to gain muscle in order to improve your physique, but you aren’t seeing the changes in the mirror that you hoped to see as quickly as you’d like. When you check your body fat percentage, you don’t see any change despite a month of hard workouts. What’s going on?

    The first thing to check is to see if your weight has changed. It probably has. If your weight has increased but your body fat percentage remains unchanged, this likely means that your SMM is increasing at the same time as your Fat Mass. As you increase musculature, fat gain can occur due to the caloric surpluses required to increase SMM. This is a well-recognized phenomenon and is commonly referred to in gym-speak as “bulking.”

     

    Additionally, situations can occur in which after initial drops in body fat percentage, the percentage rises right back where it used to be after a couple months.  Why?

    This is because your body has entered what is referred to as an anabolic state – the condition in which your body increases muscle production.  Your body will require more calories than what you’re used to in order to build more muscle than it had before.

    Not all of these calories, however, are going toward muscle development.  Being in a calorie surplus can lead to fat gain as well, which can cause an increase in body fat percentage.

    2. You’re Losing Weight, But Your Body Fat % Doesn’t Change (or increases)

    Similar to #1, this situation also involves little or no change in body fat percentage but instead of occurring due to anabolism, this time, catabolism is the driving force behind the change.

    In catabolism, the body is focused on reducing tissue, not building it.  In order to lose weight, especially fat, the body should be in a catabolic state; in order to be in a catabolic state, the body needs to be in a caloric deficit (taking in fewer calories than needed).  In gym speak, this is referred to as “cutting.”

    If you observe that you’re losing weight, but you don’t see the results in the mirror that you’d like to see and notice that your body fat percentage is unchanged, this is because your SMM and Fat Mass are actually decreasing together.

     

    Why would Skeletal Muscle Mass decrease when you’re trying to target body fat only?  Although there isn’t a singular cause, the majority of the time this is caused by improper training and diet.

    Most weight loss is a combination of body fat and skeletal muscle.  That much is unavoidable. For this reason, preserving or even increasing muscle becomes a priority when encouraging the body to enter a catabolic state.  This means ensuring your nutrient intake is balanced while engaging in some kind of resistance or weight training.

    Many people neglect these important precautions and cause their body to metabolize muscle as well as fat.  Depending on how much muscle is lost, body fat percentages can drop extremely slowly, stay the same, or in extreme circumstances, increase.

    3. Your Body Fat Percentage is Acceptable, But You’re Underweight

    At first, this doesn’t seem like it makes sense – how can you be at a healthy body fat percentage, but not be healthy overall?  Simple: you’re underweight.

    Underweight individuals may have enviable body fat percentages which can lead some people into believing that they are healthier than they actually are. However, if you are underweight, this means that you don’t have enough muscle mass.  Being underweight doesn’t get as much popular attention as being overweight does, but over time, being underweight can lead to the development of osteoporosis, which is diagnosed when a person has low bone density.

    Not having enough muscle mass will also become problematic if you get sick.  When you become sick, the body’s need for amino acids to power its immune and recovery processes increases, and it will look to your muscle mass for those amino acids.  Essentially, your body will start to break down muscle in order to fight and recover from disease, and if you’re underweight with a healthy body fat percentage, you won’t have enough muscle to easily fight off illness.

    4. Your Body Fat Percentage is Acceptable, But You Have Muscle Imbalances

    Even if you are at a healthy weight and have an acceptable body fat percentage, only having Fat and Fat-Free Mass as results can hide potential issues. Because Fat-Free Mass is a catchall term for everything in your body that isn’t attributed to fat, an absolute value for Fat-Free Mass can’t describe how well developed this mass is in terms of your overall body composition.  In order to see that, you would need to take a closer look at how this mass is distributed segmentally.

    Specifically, people can have well developed Lean Body Mass areas in some parts of their bodies but not in others.  Some people prefer developing upper body muscle while neglecting lower body muscle development. Others may have what’s referred to as a bilateral imbalance, which occurs when one side of the body is stronger than the other.  Here’s what that looks like from a body composition analysis viewpoint:

    In this example, this person has almost one pound of muscle difference between their right and left arm.  Although this might seem more of an aesthetic problem, significant muscle imbalances such as the one shown above can also contribute towards injury.  Shoulder muscle imbalances in volleyball players, for example, have been shown to increase the onset of shoulder pain and injury.

    It’s Just One Number

    Although your body fat percentage is a very significant and useful number, relying on any one number, even an important number like body fat percentage, will never provide you with a complete picture about your overall health.  While body fat percentage is a very good way to assess your weight, it only takes Body Fat (and by extension Fat-Free) Mass and Weight into account.

    In order to maintain your weight and understand the changes that your body experiences over time, including your change in body fat percentage, you will need more specific values than just Fat and Fat-Free Mass.  If you don’t compare your body fat percentage to Skeletal Muscle Mass, you won’t be able to:

    • Understand increases and decreases in body fat percentage
    • Maintain a healthy body fat percentage in respect to a healthy weight and muscle mass level
    • Determine if your muscles are balanced

    Your body is a very complex system of many components all working together. That is why it is very important to get as much information as possible in order to understand your weight and your health properly. Calipers are a good a start, but in order to assess whether you have a healthy body composition try devices like a DSM-BIA device, that will go beyond body fat percentage and give you your muscle mass and body water results.

    How to Maintain Muscle Mass While Losing Fat?

    By Blog, Fitness, Health, Muscle, Nutrition

    You may not be able to crush your body composition’s goals during a public health crisis especially months of gym closure lately in Malaysia, but you can definitely keep from losing your hard gained muscle mass. We are so glad to have Mr. Leonardo Azevedo, General Manager of Peak Fitness Gurney Plaza who has over 22 years of experience in the Sports & Fitness industry, share us about his top 3 tips that can ensure you still maintain muscle mass while aiming for the body fat to fall off (even though your gym is still closed).

    “Most of the time when people want to cut away their body fat and cut down to a healthier and more aesthetic physique, they often think the only way is with hours and hours of tireless exercise at the gym. But, if you can’t exercise at the gym due to our current Government restrictions, then all isn’t lost.” – says Mr. Leonardo.

    A balanced food & calories intake, proper muscle stimulus and quality sleep can definitely change the way you look despite the challenges we face by being forced to workout at home. Sounds like a perfect recipe for losing your gains, doesn’t it?

    Here’s why you shouldn’t worry about losing your gains during the lockdown with these 3 rules to help you out.

    #1: Balanced Food and Calories Intake

    You don’t need to find a bunch of weird or novel exercises in order to maintain some semblance of fitness. In fact, by controlling your calories intake and balancing the amount of nutrients such as Protein, Carbohydrates and Fats in your daily diet routine, you can definitely maintain your mass while still achieving fat loss. Based on Scientific research, it’s also recommended an average daily intake of 30 (female)/35 (male) calories per Kilogram of Body Weight to maintain the weight in individuals from 20 to 30 years old who exercise moderately (home workout) 3 to 5 times per week.

    In order to maintain your Muscle Mass, the most used way to divide this total amount of calories by the nutrients you should intake daily macronutrient of 40:40:20 (Protein:Carbs:Fat). As per science we know that a gram of carbohydrate and protein contains 4 calories each, and a gram of fat, though, contains 9 calories. Therefore, Mr. Leonardo also gives an example of a calculation on daily macronutrients intake with the sample reference as follow:

    Female who has total Body Weight 60KG (aged between 20 to 30 years old)

    * Calories per day = 60KG x 30 calories = 1800 calories day

    * Daily Protein Intake (40%) = 1800 x 0.40 = 720 calories / 4 calories (1 gram of protein) = 180grams of proteins per day.

    * Daily Carbohydrate Intake (40%) = 1800 x 0.40 = 720 calories / 4 calories (1 gram of carb) = 180grams of carbohydrates per day.

    * Daily Fat Intake (20%) = 1800 x 0.20 = 360 calories / 9 calories (1 gram of fat) = 40 grams of fats per day.

    You can figure out the proper food based on its nutrients, speak to your certified personal trainer or look for a professional nutritionist to help you on a more personalized nutrition advice.

    #2: Proper Muscle Stimulus 

    When it comes to muscle mass maintenance, engaging the proper exercise intensity is very important to achieve optimum results. Functional training is, in most cases, the way to exercise from home. I also would recommend the usage of some household items to replace gym equipment. Suspension training, and small equipment such as dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells are very good and easy to handle at home. Besides that, it can produce a very efficient load as muscle stimulus. Always search for assistance from Fitness Professionals in order to create the best and most efficient way to get the best results working out from home. In order to ensure that you can be consistent in your workouts, there are some Professional Online Home Trainings that you can join as well.

    #3: Improve Sleep Quality

    You might think this counterproductive to losing weight, as sleep doesn’t burn many calories. But as you sleep you recover, and two important hormones come into play: Leptin and Ghrelin. These two hormones tell your body when it feels satiety and hunger. If you sleep badly, the levels of these hormones will be unbalanced, and science has found that you’re more likely to be overeating and getting overweight.  Besides, poor sleep quality and short sleep duration are associated with an increased risk for muscle mass reduction. Thus, according to research, sleeping for 7-9 hours per night is crucial, especially if you are looking to change body composition, increase muscle mass and/or if you want to improve quality of life. Sleep enhances muscle recovery through protein synthesis and human growth hormone release as well. Like Mr. Leonardo said, he recommends at least 8 hours of good sleep every night.

     

    Conclusion

    Keep life and the gym workout in perspective. Your habitual mindset should keep up a healthy lifestyle, which it shouldn’t be affected by any of these challenges. When this is over—and it will be over at some point— we don’t want you to end up feeling worse, deconditioned, and incredibly detrained. One thing we should be grateful is: Staying fit is one way we may have to protect ourselves against getting sick over the years. A healthy body usually has a healthy immune system. Although it doesn’t give you any guarantees, well it’s certainly a better option than doing nothing. So do your best to be well.

    **

    Leonardo Azevedo

    Mr. Leonardo Azevedo from Brazil with over 22 years of experience in the Sports & Fitness industry. Holding Bachelor’s Degree in Sports & Science, FIFA Certified Conditioning Coach, Specialized in Physiology of Exercise, Certification in Biomechanics of Exercise and Sports Nutrition, Extensive Experience in Fitness Business Management. Currently working as General Manager at Peak Fitness Gurney Plaza, Brazilian Eagles Football Academy Head Coach & Owner, Mitts Boxing Fitness MD, SEA Sales Representative at Rezzil Sports.

    Muscle and Its Role in Diabetes Risk

    By Diabetes, Fitness, Health, Medical, Muscle

    A widely-known but often misunderstood disease is steadily overtaking an increasing portion of the U.S. population. In this country, more than one-third of adults are at a high risk for developing this condition and causes about 330,000 deaths each year. This disease is diabetes.

    Diabetes, type 2 in particular, is a condition affecting an ever-expanding pool of Americans. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 30.3 million Americans had diabetes in 2015. That’s nearly 10 percent of the population! Furthermore, about 90 percent of those people had Type 2 Diabetes, and those numbers are only expected to rise.

    The steady increase in diabetes diagnoses is due, in part, to the obesity epidemic. 87.5 percent of adults with diabetes are overweight or obese according to their Body Mass Index (BMI), a simple health indicator based on the ratio of weight to height. However, these findings make it seem like only those with high body weight are at risk for diabetes, and that is not the case. In fact, so-called “skinny fat” people, individuals with a normal or low BMI but a high percent body fat, are at an increased risk to develop diabetes or prediabetes. As you can see, the underlying theme here is that, rather than a high body weight, it is an imbalanced body composition that increases the risk of diabetes. This is why it is important for those looking to reduce diabetes risk or manage their diabetes to understand their body composition.

    So what’s going on here? How does your body composition affect your diabetes risk, and can improve your body composition reduce that risk or help you overcome diabetes?

    Let’s first take a look at body composition. What is it and why is it important?

    What is Body Composition?

    The term “body composition” means exactly what it sounds like: the components that your body is made up of. Generally speaking, these components can be simply categorized as fat and fat-free mass. As you might expect, your fat-free mass, also called Lean Body Mass (LBM) is everything in your body that isn’t fat. It includes your lean muscle, organs, blood, and minerals.

    The body generally needs a balance of LBM and fat mass to function optimally and maintain positive health. However, this balance is disrupted in many overweight and obese individuals due to excess fat.

    Most people think that the ultimate goal for overweight individuals should be to lose weight, but this overlooks the bigger picture. In order to improve your health, get physically fit, and fit into those skinny jeans, you’re going to have to change your body composition. In other words, the goal for overweight individuals should not be to simply lose weight; instead, it should focus on improving body composition by reducing fat mass while maintaining or increasing LBM.

    Not only will a more balanced body composition make you look leaner, but it can also reduce your risk of diabetes and other obesity-related disorders. Furthermore, it can have a positive effect on your metabolism.

    Diabetes and Metabolism

    When most people think about metabolism, they imagine some magical system within the body that allows certain people to eat more food without gaining weight. In reality, metabolism simply refers to the process of breaking down foods in order to supply energy for the maintenance and repair of current body structures.

    When you consume food, your body breaks it down into its elemental components and then directs each piece to where it needs to go. It looks something like this:

    • You eat food.
    • Your body breaks down carbohydrates into glucose, a simple sugar.
    • The glucose enters your bloodstream.
    • Your pancreas releases a hormone called insulin (Phase 1 insulin response).
    • Insulin helps the glucose enter your body’s cells so it can be used for fuel, stored for later use, or stored as fat.
    • Since your pancreas has released insulin, it needs more. So it starts to create more insulin. (Phase 2 insulin response)
    • Now your body is ready to start the process all over again the next time you eat.

    Seems like a relatively simple process, right? But for people with diabetes, the process doesn’t work the same way.

    This is because diabetes is a metabolic disorder. It changes the way your body metabolizes food so that your cells are unable to use that glucose for energy. How? It all comes back to insulin.

    Let’s look at that metabolism breakdown again. There are two places where insulin is key: the Phase 1 and Phase 2 insulin responses. Insulin is a hormone that helps your cells absorb glucose to use for energy. Your pancreas releases this hormone when it first detects the glucose from your food, and then it makes more insulin to use later.

    In people with type 1 diabetes (T1D), the body does not produce insulin at all. In type 2 diabetes (T2D), the body produces insulin, but the cells can’t use it properly. This is called insulin resistance. Without access to insulin, glucose can’t get into your cells, so it ends up lingering in your bloodstream.

    Of course, when the glucose can’t make its way out of the bloodstream, it will start to build up. All that excess blood sugar may then be converted to triglycerides and stored as fat. With this increase in fat mass, hormone imbalances or systemic inflammation may occur or persist, increasing risk for many other diseases or conditions. Diabetes is associated with increased risk for heart attacks, stroke, kidney disease, nerve damage, skin infections, and eye problems. Diabetes can even result in an impaired immune system, which, combined with poor circulation to the extremities, increases risk of wounds and infections, sometimes even leading to amputation of the toes, foot, or leg(s). In far too many cases, diabetes creates complications that eventually lead to death.

    Effects of Type 2 Diabetes on Muscle

    Many are already aware of the connection between high-fat mass and diabetes, however, more recently, researchers have begun to focus on another aspect of body composition as it relates to diabetes risk: Lean Body Mass. Many studies have shown strong links between Type 2 Diabetes  (T2D) and low lean body mass.

    A large component of our LBM is our skeletal muscle mass, the muscles used for posture and movement. Unfortunately, diabetes is not only more common in those with less muscle, it can actually have negative effects on their muscle.

    There are three main muscle characteristics that T2D affects: fatigability, strength, and mass.

    Muscle fatigability refers to the rate at which your muscles become weaker after exercise or movement, and the amount of time it takes for them to recover or return to their full power. Researchers have known for years that muscle fatigability increases with T2D. When people with T2D perform an exercise, their muscles lose power faster than those of a healthy person.

    T2D reduces overall muscle strength as well. Even after adjusting for age, sex, education, alcohol consumption, lifetime smoking, obesity, and aerobic physical activity, people with T2D had less handgrip strength than people without it.

    Not only do T2D patients have both reduced muscle recovery and strength, they also start to lose muscle mass. In fact, the longer you have diabetes, the more muscle mass you tend to lose, especially in the legs.

    As you can see, the raised blood glucose levels caused by diabetes and insulin resistance puts your muscles at a disadvantage for a number of reasons.

    How Building Muscle Mass Reduces Risk of T2D

    Workout to improve Phase Angle

    Here’s the good news. You can take control of your diabetes risk by improving your body composition. It all starts with Skeletal Muscle Mass.

    Research has shown that increasing your muscle mass reduces your risk of T2D. For example, In a 2017 study, researchers in Korea and Japan followed over 200,000 otherwise healthy people who had no diabetes or prediabetes at the start of the experiment. After 2.9 years, the participants with more muscle mass were significantly less likely to have T2D: Yet another reason to include muscle building resistance exercises into your workout routine.

    In fact, exercise is good for reducing diabetes risk as well as improving diabetic state all on its own. This is because exercise increases the delivery of glucose to our muscle cells. When you exercise, your muscles are exerting more than their normal energy demand, thus creating a higher need for energy/glucose to fuel them. In fact, resistance training has been shown to be particularly beneficial for T2D. Larger muscles require more energy, therefore the leg muscles, being the largest muscles in the body, are especially important for glucose uptake and regulation. Therefore, targeting the legs with resistance exercise may improve diabetes risk factors as well as promote physical function. As mentioned previously, those who are diagnosed with T2D often lose the most muscle mass in the legs, making leg day all the more important to maintain and build muscle mass to reduce the risk of diabetes.

    Although type 2 diabetics are insulin-resistant, this increased demand for glucose from exercise helps to increase the efficiency of insulin to get glucose into the muscle cells, improving their diabetic state overall!

    How to Improve Insulin Resistance with Diet and Exercise

    So, what does this mean for you? We’ve talked a lot about diabetes and its relationship to your body composition. Remember, people with T2D and pre-diabetes are resistant to insulin, meaning their cells can’t utilize the insulin they need in order to absorb glucose from the bloodstream. Eventually, this can lead to a number of health complications and other debilitating diseases. However, we’ve seen that it’s possible to significantly reduce diabetic risk and, in some cases, even reverse T2D. Here are some diet and exercise tips that will help you improve your body composition and get to a healthy level of insulin sensitivity.

    If you are otherwise healthy but have low LBM and high PBF

    If you don’t currently have diabetes or pre-diabetes, the most important thing you can do to lower your risk is exercise.

    In one study, researchers looked at data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. The survey covered 13,644 adults who were not pregnant and not underweight. They reviewed each person’s muscle mass and compared it to their diabetes status. What they found was astounding.

    For each 10% increase in the ratio of skeletal muscle mass to total body weight participants showed an 11% decrease in insulin resistance and a 12% decrease in prediabetes. The results were significant, even after the scientists took into account other factors affecting risk for insulin resistance.

    For people with T2D and Prediabetes

    If you already have high blood sugar or diabetes, there are still ways that you can improve that. First, resistance training 2-3 times a week can relieve some diabetic symptoms.

    One study found that participants who completed a strength training program had reduced their HbA1c levels from 8.7 to 7.6 percent. In fact, 72% of participants in the resistance exercise group were actually able to reduce their medication use after 16 weeks of a strength training program.

    Regardless of the type of training you engage in, getting started is the first step. However, make sure you check with your health provider if you have diabetes or any other conditions before you start an exercise regimen.

    Takeaways

    The major takeaway here is that diabetes is not only a disease that has to do with weight – high body fat and low muscle mass both increase diabetic risk.

    The main goal to reduce this risk or improve diabetic state is to improve body composition. This can be done by reducing body fat for those who are overfat, as well as building muscle for those who have low skeletal muscle mass. One study showed that people who increased their LBM while reducing their fat mass had a much lower risk of T2D than people who had high fat mass combined with high LBM, or low body fat combined with low LBM.

    What’s next?

    The best thing to do in order to have a better idea of your health risks and create attainable goals for yourself is to get your body composition tested. From there, you can make adjustments to your lifestyle to alter your body composition, if necessary, to reduce your risk for diabetes and other conditions. If you already have T2D or prediabetes, focus on losing fat while engaging the muscles with exercise.

    Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of how your body composition affects your diabetes risk, and how you can harness the power of diet and exercise to control that risk. A low-sugar, high-protein diet combined with regular exercise, especially strength training, can improve your body composition and improve insulin sensitivity, among other benefits.

    So what are you waiting for? See what you’re made of and get started on the path to a healthier life today!

    **

    Nicole Roder is a freelance writer specializing in health, mental health, and parenting topics. Her work has appeared in Today’s Parent, Crixeo, Grok Nation, Chesapeake Family LIFE, and the Baltimore Sun, among others.

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