Question
You mentioned Ecdy doing something to increase performance, something different than what I usually hear. Was it electrolyte intake or something similar?
Answer
A rapid increase in calcium flux is what you heard, so here’s a little more about that now. When I was asked to design my first Ecdysterone product, I did so with a few goals in mind. One of those was to leverage this mechanism, which admittedly I didn’t fully understand at the time.
Fortunately though, my intuition was correct and I had the right ingredients in the right amounts for it to really work.
Calcium & Muscle Contraction
So let’s talk about why calcium is important in both muscle contraction (and anabolic signaling.).
The sarcoplasmic reticulum in muscle stores calcium ions, which it releases when a muscle cell is stimulated; the calcium ions then enable the cross-bridge muscle contraction cycle.
Important to point out the entire process starts and ends with calcium, which should tell you how important it is. ATP is also a key player. Remember that for later. Now you CAN’T really increase the amount of calcium in muscle sarcoplasm (the body maintains a tightly regulated pool of it), but you CAN increase the RATE of said calcium ion flux.
So it’s HERE where we can start optimizing the process. It turns out the ecdysteroids as found in Rhaponticum do precisely that (See the journal “Steroids” Published online 2010 Apr 2 PMID: 203 632 37 “Ecdysteroids Elicit a Rapid Ca2+ Flux Leading to Akt Activation and Increased Protein Synthesis in Skeletal Muscle Cells”).
Now, that alone is a powerful mechanism to leverage, but I didn’t stop there because…
While you can’t increase intracellular calcium, you CAN increase another rate limiting step in this process – muscle ATP levels.
Normally, taking creatine will do just that. I wanted more though. Much more…
So I used an orally active form of ATP (ElevATE ATP), along with Orotic Acid.
And, while it’s true creatine will maximize ATP levels (after saturation), the mechanisms I use KEEP ATP elevated (even as they become depleted during a workout) – by re-cycling them no less than 3 different ways.
It also does all of this with ZERO water retention, and tops off nucleotide pools too (which is another topic for another day).
This increase in multiple forms of cellular energy then (Ecdy also boosts muscle glycogen), explains the enhanced performance seen in ecdysterone animal studies.
In particular, I’m referring to the most demanding test of cellular energy there is:
Forced swimming until exhaustion.
In those tests, Rats getting Ecdy swam 22% longer than controls, and in forced running tests, 32% longer
Bottom Line
It’s clear Ecdysterone works through yet another mechanism (which makes 3 now). In the near future, I plan to go in depth with my subscribers as to how to leverage this effect even further – the goal to realize an instant strength increase of at least 5%. Look for that info in a few months, found exclusively in the Blueprint Bulletin.
