"If you slow down…you die!" That’s what Los Angeles hit man Chev Chelios was told in the 2006 movie “Crank” after he screwed up and was given a chemical concoction called the Beijing Cocktail. The chemical cocktail suppressed Chev's adrenal gland so he couldn’t produce adrenaline. As a consequence, he had to keep his adrenaline constantly pumping by other means to keep his heart pumping. If he slowed down and rested he would die. Chev does everything he can to keep his adrenaline going (which would put any bodybuilder's pre-workout stack to shame). He increases his adrenaline by popping caffeine tabs, drinking Red Bulls nonstop, having sex in public, performing daredevil stunts, stealing epinephrine shots from a local hospital, sniffing Sudafed and putting his hand under a waffle iron. Yikes…talk about an adrenaline rush! No need to abuse Sudafed or stand on your motorcycle to increase adrenaline, a high-intensity bout of resistance exercise increases catecholamines (epinephrine and norepinephrine).

Epinephrine is produced naturally in the body, not only can it increase your heart rate, but it's also a powerful fat burner. Epinephrine is secreted from the adrenal gland and binds to ?-receptors located on fat cells, which enhance fat mobilization. The regulation of fat metabolism is complex and is regulated by multiple mechanisms, including fat-mobilizing agents (GH, cortisol, catecholamines, HSL) and fat-storage hormones (insulin) and their receptor-signaling pathways.

“Crank” the Movie Meets Exercise Physiology
Hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) is the rate-limiting enzyme that controls fat lipolysis (fat burning) at rest. Epinephrine, which is increased during high-intensity exercise, is a powerful stimulator of HSL activity. Research scientists were interested in how adrenaline affected HSL activity in their own version of “Crank” the movie meets exercise physiology.
Research scientists took patients who had their adrenal glands removed (adrenalectomized patients: their adrenal glands were removed because of adrenal tumors, so they didn’t produce epinephrine and norepinephrine). The researchers were specifically interested in whether HSL would be activated in response to exercise in these subjects because they don’t produce catecholamines (epinephrine/norepinephrine).

In one trial they exercised, while in the other trial they exercised while being infused with epinephrine. Sounds just like “Crank.” Luckily, they didn’t ask the subjects to have sex in public or sniff Sudafed!! Researchers found that without epinephrine concentrations rising during exercise, there was no increase in HSL activity in these patients. However, when infused with adrenaline, they produced increases in HSL similar to normal, healthy subjects.28
In another related study, subjects were asked to cycle on a bike. The second part of the experiment had the subjects come back and cycle again after they’d had an adrenaline infusion. The subjects had higher increases in HSL activity with the epinephrine infusion compared to the control trial.27
In this month's American Journal of Physiology Regulatory Integrative and Comparative Physiology, researchers reported that an increase in epinephrine at the start of both moderate- and high-intensity exercise results in an increased cyclic AMP content, which produces an increase in HSL activity in muscle within the first minute of moderate and intense exercise.33 Increasing catecholamines during exercise is a powerful stimulator of fat metabolism.