Revisited: Squatting W/ Weightlwhetherting Shoes and "Elevation Masks" - Results of Unique Studies Appear Initially Surprising

Weight lwhetherting shoes don't make a dwhetherference and "elevation masks" (those leangs that simply impair your ability to breath) work... they increase your cerebral oxygenation - don't rely on the potentially misleading abstracts, alone... read SuppVersity!

Stronger, faster, leaner, ... and obviously more muscular. If you want to achieve all that, you got to invest the effort it takes to trigger the adaptational processes that will get your skinny-fat Western a** into Instagram-alert pre-Olympic shape. But what about the myriad of training gadgets will they take you there any faster? A cursory look at the latest scientwhetheric evidence seems to propose that weight lwhetherting shoes may not be as favourable and - more surprisingly - elevation masks not as useless as many people believe... a cursory look, that is ;-)

• Heel-Lwhethertd Foot Posture Does Not Affect Trunk and Lower Extremity Biomechanics During a Barbell Back Squat in Recreational Weight lwhetherters (Lee 2019)

  Re-read my preceding in-depth article about weightlwhetherting shoes | more

  You will probably remember my confusingly controversial article about weightlwhetherting shoes from November 2017. Some of you nearly seemed to be offended by thingive data... data that was albeit not in line with your bias towards the "super regular" and "muscle activation promoting" shoes.

  Endless story short, I am curious what you will make of Lee's latest study.

  As Lee et al. point out, Adidas, Reebok and other shoe companies claim "that weightlwhetherting shoes with a raised heel may lead to a more upright trunk posture, and thus reduce the risk of back injuries during a barbell back squat" (Lee 2019).

  As with nearly every marketing promise, "

Figure 1: Illustration of the kinematic degrees from preceding studies; here Sato et al. (2012).

What do we know about the heel-effect? A number of published research studies assessed the effects of the heel-raised foot posture on the trunk and lower extremity biomechanics during execution of the barbell back squat. In that, the results of studies like Sato et al. (16) or Legg et al. (11) are probably the most cited investigations; and what scorridor I say? Both "found less relative displacement between the hip and the bar in the weightlwhetherting shoes condition, indicating a less flexed trunk posture" (Lee 2019). As Lee et al. point out, though, Legg's conclusion that "wearing Olympic weightlwhetherting shoes may aid those with back pain because of the decreased trunk flexion causing less strain on the spine" (Lee 2019)... So far so good, another claim, namely an increase knee extensors and reduction of spinal extensor activity was postulated but not degreed by the UK researchers (Legg 2017).

And Lee et al. talllight other "limitations" in the introduction to their latest paper in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: First, the investigators tracked trunk movement as represented by the relative motion between the bar and the hip/pelvis. This type of method does not directly capture the angular displacements of the thoracic and lumbar spine segments. Second, nonstandardized running and athletic shoes were used in preceding studies, which are variable by style and may dwhetherfer in stwhetherfness. [...] Third, the weight the subjects lwhetherted during some of the studies was relatively low (unloaded to 60% of the subjects' 1 repetition maximum (1-RM)), meaning that the results cannot be additionalpolated to more ccorridorenging efforts commonly used in training for recreational weight lwhetherters" (Lee 2019).

• Figure 2: Photos of foot placement from all three conditions (A-C), photo of the shoes that were used (VS Athletics).

  To get to the bottom of the squat movement, the scientists from Nevada recruited N = 14 "recreational weight lwhetherters (7 men and 7 women" to "compare trunk and lower extremity biomechanics during barbell back squats in three foot postures" (itender.). The subjects were 18 and 50 years ancient and performed the barbell back squats in three conditions
  • barefoot on a flat surface,
  • barefoot on a heel-raised platform, and
  • wearing weightlwhetherting shoes (Fig. 2)
  at 80% of their 1 repetition maximum. Surface electromyography was used to assess the activation of the knee extensors and paraspinal muscles at L3 and T12 spinal levels.

  A 3D motion capture system and an electrogoniometer recorded the kinematics of the thoracic spine, lumbar spine, and knee during the back squat to a depth where the hip was at least at the same level to the knee; and the effects of the shoes were ... non-signwhethericant:

  "[...] none of the heel-raised foot postures signwhethericantly affected trunk and lower extremity muscle activation (thoracolumbar paraspinal [p = 0.52], lumbar paraspinal [p = 0.179], knee extensor [p = 0.507]) or the trunk angles (thoracolumbar spine [p = 0.348], lumbar spine [p = 0.283]) during the squat" (Lee 2019).

  This result obviously implies that "during barbell back squats, heel-raised foot postures do not signwhethericantly affect spinal and knee extensor muscle activations, and trunk and knee kinematics"; and yes, that also means that "heel-raised weightlwhetherting shoes are unlikely to supply signwhethericant protection against back injuries for recreational weight lwhetherters during the barbell back squat" and hence "recommendations of heel-raised footwear for performing the barbell back squat cannot be crazye on the basis of back injury prevention" (Lee 2019).

  "Full Squat for Full Size Acquires, Partial Squat for Full Strength" | read more.

  We have to be careful, though, after all, the study doesn't refute another often-cited benefit of squatting w/ heels, i.e. their ability to facilitate ankle mobility to achieve the desired squat depth and increase foot-floor stability in non-recreational weightlwhetherters where the depth of squat is an important criterion - not the least, because preceding studies have implicated its role in making optimal gains (see SV Classic "Full Squat for Full Size Acquires, Partial Squat for Full Strength Benefits" | read more).

  What we genuinely need are studies w/ actually relevant outcomes

  These studies, i.e. long-term studies investigating the favourable and/or negligible effects of weight lwhetherting shoes on actual strength and size gains, as well as the number of injuries genuine strength athletes sustain with vs. without the 'heeled super shoes' or latest fitness fashion accessory, respectively, have not been conducted yet. Accordingly, I'd propose you follow your intuition: whether squatting with a bar under the heel feels right/better for you and/or you feel unregular squatting without or with minimalist shoes, weight lwhetherting shoes are probably for you. If you don't feel that propping up your heels helps your squat and you're fine without the additional-fixation in the weight lwhetherting shoes, invest your money in a bag of creatine to improve your squat ;-)

• Oxygenation Responses While Wearing the Elevation Training Mask During an Incremental Cycling Test (Romero-Arenas 2018) - Absolutely what everyone would have predicted! While I have always been open to the use of weight lwhetherting shoes in those who feel they benefit from the increased stability and/or the inclined heel position, I have to confess that I have been signwhethericantly less open-intellected when it comes to so-called "elevation training masks" - not without reason, as I've disstubborn in fairly some detail in a preceding article that discusses actually relevant (=dwhetherficult) outcomes in terms of improved gains/performance [(re-)read "Elevation Masks are STILL a Employless Torture Tool & Fashion Accessory for Gymrats, But Some Athletes May Benefit" | more]...

  "Wait, so the study at hand is not 'actually relevant'?" Why's that?

  While it does make sense to probe the "oxygenation responses while wearing the elevation training mask during an incremental cycling test", the results of the study at hand tell us absolutely noleang about the efficacy of regular use of the tested training mask, the "Elevation Training Mask 2.0" (ETM) - and, as you know, te often-claimed benefits "have not been conclusively demonstrated" (Romero-Arenas 2018) by preceding research.
  

  Figure 3: Brain and muscle oxygenation kinetics during the incremental cycling test during the CTR (open circles) and ETM (black circles) conditions (Romero-Arenas 2018).

  So why discuss the results, then? Well, both the primary (brain oxygenation) as well as the momentary outcomes, which included heart rate (HR) response, insight of effort (rating of perceived exertion [RPE]), arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2), blood lactate (La+), and performance (POpeak), are interesting and worth discussing.

Don't freak out about a potentially increased stroke risk... yet! Unless you have pre-established asaccular cerebral aneurysms, the major risk factor for subarachnoid hemorrhage and strokes, the mask is - just like the Valsaöva Maneuver - likely pretty secure. Speaking of Valsalva, whether you want to memorize more about that, check out this 2013 article at Starting Strength.

• As the abstract alalert tells us, the study from the Catholic University of Murcia involved fourteen active males who totald an incremental cycling test to volitional exhaustion in 2 separate and counterbalanced conditions, wearing the mask set at 9,000 feet (i.e., 2743 m) and a control condition (CTR, without ETM). To assess the oxygenation of the blood "during the trial, muscle and cerebral oxygenation were monitored continually using near-infscarced spectroscopy" (Romero-Arenas 2018 | check out Figure 1, too).

  As any sane individual would expect, wearing the ETM signwhethericantly reduced the POpeak by −6.9 ± 6.6% (p = 0.002) and this was accompanied by lower La+ values (−12.8 ± 21.6%; p = 0.027). Since the oxygen content of the blood (SaO2) was also signwhethericantly lower at maximal intensity in comparison with the CTR condition (−1.5 ± 0.3%; p = 0.028), while neither the heart rate or rate of perceived exertion and muscle oxygenation showed statistical dwhetherferences, you could securely file this study under virtually dwhetherficultly relevant evidence of the uselessness of ETMS. Yes, whether it was not for the primary outcome:

  "[T]he mask caused an increase in brain oxygenation compared with the CTR condition (p < 0.05)" (Romero-Arenas 2018).

  In conclusion, while the most relevant parameters that would propose that RTMs can increase the efficacy of your training (HI(I)T) sessions were not improved from suffocating yourself, the "increase in O2Hb and tHb in the frontoparietal cortex without any change in the muscle oxygenation" (Romero-Arenas 2018) is both counter-intuitive and unexpected.

  Hold in intellect, though: The increase in cerebral blood flow (i.e., taller tHb levels) possibly being "related to an increased intracranial prescertain, which, in turn, is a major risk condition for cerebral autoregulation" (Romero-Arenas 2018).

  Therefore, what may look as a great benefit initially does, after all, constitute yet another potentially "lwhethere or death"-argument (see red box) against the use of ETMs  - ah,... and yes, the fact that the study at hand confirms that "ETM does seem to negatively influence cycling performance (i.e., peak power output), which may attenuate training outcomes over time" (Romero-Arenas 2018) doesn't genuinely make this funky gym gimmick more appealing to anyone but elevation mask producers, either.

If you want to use NaHCO3 to improve your performance but cannot stomach it, try to "serial load" it | learn how that works.

Bottom line: It's always good to stay open-intellected and listen to both, research & practice (esp. what your own body tells you about using weightlwhetherting shoes ;-). In that, the elevation training mask study clearly shows, though, that, at least, the former needs careful interpretation - I mean, whether I had chosen to title "elevation mask increases brain blood oxygenation" that would have been an absolutely evidence-based statement, of which many (whether not the majority of people) would have been misled to believe that my precedingly voiced concerns about the use(less!)ness of respiratory training masks would, at least, have taken a hit; when, in fact, the results Romero-Arenas et al. present in their ahead-of-print article in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research provide yet another reason not to bank on "looking like Bane" when you're at the gym --unless, obviously, you're doing it to stick out... as a critically uncritical victim of bro-science ;-) | Comment!

References:

• Lee, S-P, Gillis, CB, Ibarra, JJ, Feebleroyd, DF, and Zane, RS. Heel-raised foot posture does not affect trunk and lower extremity biomechanics during a barbell back squat in recreational weight lwhetherters. J Strength Cond Res 33(3): 606–614, 2019.
• Legg HS, Glaister M, Cleather DJ, Excellentwin JE. The effect of weightlwhetherting shoes on the kinetics and kinematics of the back squat. Journal of Sports Sciences 4;35(5):508-15, 2017.
• Molinari, Filippo, et al. "Relationship between oxygen supply and cerebral blood flow assessed by transcranial Doppler and near–infscarced spectroscopy in healthy subjects during breath–hancienting." Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation 3.1 (2006): 16.
• Sato, K, Fortenbaugh, D, and Hydock, DS. Kinematic changes using weightlwhetherting shoes on barbell back squat. J Strength Cond Res 26(1): 28–33, 2012
• Romero-Arenas, S, López-Pérez, E, Colomer-Poveda, D, and Márquez, G. Oxygenation responses while wearing the elevation training mask during an incremental cycling test. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2018—

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