There's an acronym that's been shimmying its way into a lot of articles about weightlifting lately. It's mTOR, and unless you're a biochemist, the concept of it probably makes you appreciate how even really intelligent dogs can't seem to understand how the TV occasionally makes a doorbell noise.
You might have read that mTOR stands for the "mammalian target of rapamycin" and you wonder exactly which varmint this rapamycin dude is trying to plug with his bow and arrow and why.
Your confusion is well founded, but suffice it to say, mTOR is just another alphabet soup chemical, a "protein kinase" to be specific. It's hugely important, though, in that it's a regulator of cell metabolism.
Sometimes you want more mTOR and sometimes you want less. If you're a lifter, you generally want more, especially during and after workouts, because mTOR also controls protein synthesis and the more protein you synthesize, the more muscle you can grow.
Several things kick mTOR into action, including hormones, growth factors, protein intake, and mechanical loading, i.e., weight lifting. Certain substances also kick mTOR into high gear, especially when combined with mechanical loading. Prominent among these substances is phosphatidic acid or PA for short.
PA is the source of a lot of enthusiasm in the biochemical world, so much that it's spawned a lot of studies on how it affects weight lifting, practically all of which were consolidated into a review paper that was recently published in the journal Nutrition & Metabolism.
It's pretty clear that PA helps regulate mTOR, and when you add resistance training to the mix, you up-regulate muscle protein synthesis. PA might also play a role in slowing down muscle protein breakdown, in addition to possibly helping fight catabolic conditions like cachexia (the muscle wasting associated with disease).
But, as scientists love to say, further study is needed. Regardless, it looks like PA might be a "useful strategy" for increasing muscle mass and strength when combined with resistance training.
Based on the studies, it looks like taking 750 mg. of phosphatidic acid one hour before training is the best strategy.
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