There are a lot of callouts of "This is BS" in regards to this article.
Look at it from a different perspective. I would HIGHLY prefer this to a short press release blurb that allows pop-science clickbait aggregators (or even worse, the "science" sections of CBS/CNN and the like) to have first crack at it.
This was produced by the university themselves, and provides a concise yet accurate and detailed overview of the biochemistry involved, as well as a nice short embedded youtube video demonstrating the movement in question and going over the main points of the research.
Yes, improvements could be made, and yes, follow up studies will need to be performed. But this is head and shoulders above the "ONE SMALL TRICK, DIETICIANS HATE HIM" alternative we would have gotten otherwise.
Exactly. Essentially the trick is not "use this muscle". It rather is "do this specific movement with this muscle. I can describe it quite simply, but to truly learn it you'll need a biofeedback device and you need to know what you're working towards."
There are a lot of surprising skills that we could learn if we just knew how and put in the effort. See e.g. the blind mountainbikers using echolocation to 'see' the path, or method of loci/other memory techniques.
>I can describe it quite simply, but to truly learn it you'll need a biofeedback device and you need to know what you're working towards.
I don't know, some gifs from different angles would sure have helped more given our lack of devices (though yes, the video does show one important angle).
At any rate the complaints aren't so much in the description but in it being yet another simple trick, of which we see thousands and few if any pan out especially to the level claimed here.
Related, back in the 80's I tried a friend's small biofeedback device and learned in a short time how to really relax.
The device was a galvanic skin response device that looked like a mouse.
You put your fingers on it and it would make a tone that would decrease in pitch with less muscle tension. I laid down and tried to decrease the tone and I gradually learned where I was holding tension and how to relax. As the tone got deeper I would get closer and closer to falling asleep.
search for GSR biofeedback on amazon (not affiliated in any way)
It's actually not. The reason he mentioned what's going on on the inside is not what you think is going on by looking from the outside.
Sit in that same position, and then do a lift part way. At some point, you'll find a "spring" balance, where you can autonomously drum your leg. The muscle that is doing that triggered flex is the only muscle you are focusing on with the Soleus Pushup. Except for the SP, you are triggering it with a pause instead of letting your leg hammer. That rest will allow you to do the move indefinitely without muscle fatigue in that muscle only. It's a bit like your heart beat. Other than the pause, the distance you aim upward for, and the catch (the small bounce right before your heal falls to the ground), the move is way more like this leg drumming than any calf raise, but slower and with rest strokes.
Incidentally, you can google the paper, which includes graphs of the muscle use. The two main muscles engaged for calf raises are only nominally activated (because it's pretty hard not to flex with this move) but the Soleus is doing way more of the work.
So visibly it is pretty much identical to a calf raise. But what is driving the motion is totally different. Plus you limit to only 1% of your body weight. That muscle specifically has that spring action the surrounding muscles don't have, and uses nutrients entirely differently in order to be that way.
After a half-hour of doing this, just like cycling, your body enters a metabolic state, which means that muscle is eating up fats and sugars from your blood at a much higher rate than normally. Then you keep going from there because your Soleus is the one demanding the nutrients.
Look at it from a different perspective. I would HIGHLY prefer this to a short press release blurb that allows pop-science clickbait aggregators (or even worse, the "science" sections of CBS/CNN and the like) to have first crack at it.
This was produced by the university themselves, and provides a concise yet accurate and detailed overview of the biochemistry involved, as well as a nice short embedded youtube video demonstrating the movement in question and going over the main points of the research.
Yes, improvements could be made, and yes, follow up studies will need to be performed. But this is head and shoulders above the "ONE SMALL TRICK, DIETICIANS HATE HIM" alternative we would have gotten otherwise.