When condition allow I personally like work out at 4am. On empty stomach, (may be with half on orange) this will further boost fat loss and increase the metabolic rate which tent to slow down as we age, Training on empty stomach will also utilize any food left over from the previous day. I will have my first meal at 7 am.
The four main benefit of working out in the morning:
1)Crucial hormones (i.e., testosterone) that help build muscle mass are elevated in the body. By exercising in the morning, you’re taking advantage of these naturally circulating hormones as they’re peaking, rather than later in the day when they’re lower.
2)Working out in the morning will help to boost your metabolism, allowing you to burn more calories for the rest of the day. This phenomenon is called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.
3)Release endorphins, feel-good hormones: your mood will improve.
4)More alert, more focused during the day.
Carbs
Anyone hoping to maximize muscle mass while minimizing body fat needs to understand the difference between a carbohydrate food that digests almost as soon as it hits the gut and others that break down considerably slower.
1) Slow Digesting Carbs Are Natural And Slow Is Generally Better.
Where do yams, wild rice, beans, red potatoes and oats come from? They’re certainly not manufactured in a food processing plant. No, they’re natural carbs and natural carbs, in general, break down slowly into glucose, the basic fuel source muscles require for energy and growth. As we will see, there are advantages to slow-digesting carbs.
2) Fast Digesting Carbs are “Man-Made”
The more processing involved to ‘make’ a carb, the faster it digests. Bagels, dinner rolls, white bread/ rice, mashed potatoes, fat-free muffins, cold cereals, and rice cakes require some degree of processing which creates a carbohydrate that hits the bloodstream far quicker than slow-digesting carbs.
3) To decrease % bodyfat you Need Slow-Burning Carbs
When you eat carbs, your body responds by releasing the hormone insulin. Insulin helps energize your training by pushing glucose, the basic energy unit found in carbs, into your muscle. Insulin also helps push protein into muscles, leading to growth. The downside of insulin is that in bodybuilders/ persons who have a tough time staying lean, elevated insulin levels along with eating too many calories, can facilitate the storage of body fat. The solution is to stick with natural (slow-digesting) carbs. Gram for gram, they release less insulin than fast-digesting carbs and controlling insulin is a major factor in controlling body fat.
When you eat carbs, your body responds by releasing the hormone insulin. Insulin helps energize your training by pushing glucose, the basic energy unit found in carbs, into your muscle. Insulin also helps push protein into muscles, leading to growth. The downside of insulin is that in bodybuilders/ persons who have a tough time staying lean, elevated insulin levels along with eating too many calories, can facilitate the storage of body fat. The solution is to stick with natural (slow-digesting) carbs. Gram for gram, they release less insulin than fast-digesting carbs and controlling insulin is a major factor in controlling body fat.
4) Fat Free
What about fat-free and low-fat baked goods such as cookies and muffins? Low-fat pop tarts, white bread and cold cereal? These are off limits to dieters. Refined foods (fast digesting carbs see #2) exert a greater insulin surge than natural foods (slow digesting carbs see #1) and also help elevate the appetite. For hard gainers, keeping the appetite stimulated is one of keys to adding bodyweight. but not for someone who want to shed weight / body fat. Do yourself a favour and avoid the refined carbs listed in #2 By rapidly burning, they can short-circuit your energy by causing a surge & ultimately a drop in blood sugar levels, making you feel weak.
Reducing carbs promotes fat loss by limiting calories and insulin. Since the amount of insulin you secrete is tied to your total carb intake, cutting back on your carbs automatically controls insulin. The second way to control insulin is to rely on slow-digesting carbs; oats, cream of rye, oat bran cereal, yams, beans, rye bread, and peaches. Slow-digesting/natural carbs produce a milder release of insulin. For example 40 grams of carbs from oats yields the same calories as 40 grams from a fat-free cookie. The catch is that the concentration of insulin released is smaller with the slow digesting carb. Controlling insulin when dieting contributes to a leaner physique.
9) Fiber, Fat and Protein
Although carbs can be classified as slow, medium and fast digesting; other nutrition factors influence how fast the carbs you eat will race into the blood stream. Fiber found in veggies, fruit, beans, oats, and in the skin of yams and potatoes slow the delivery of carbs into glucose, the muscle’s main source of fuel. For example, combining white rice, a medium to fast digesting carb, with a cup of broccoli will slow the digestion of the rice. A side of black beans added to mashed potatoes will dramatically slow the speed at which the potatoes are digested. Dietary fat also influences the speed. Combining any protein food that contains fat – chicken, meat and whole eggs, along with any carb will skew the rate of digestion to a lower number. Of course, if you’re trying to get lean, you would benefit from relying on fat-free sources of protein such as egg whites, turkey breast and fish.
10) Controlled Insulin = Controlled Appetite
Hungry and trying to shed some body fat? Choose slow digesting carbs for all meals Slow digesting carbs help to control the appetite better than fast digesting ones. Adding lots of low-calorie veggies can bump up your fiber intake which will make even slow digesting carbs digest even slower. This will help to control the appetite and make you feel full and satisfied, even when eating a lower calorie diet.
Good, now read it again and again!!!
Exercise & Longevity
1) Walk fast for an hour every day.
2) Take the stairs instead of escalators and elevators.
3) On the weekend, walk everywhere, even faraway places (avoid polluted areas as much as possible).
4) Do moderate exercise for 2.5 to 5 hours a week, with some of it in the vigorous range. Most of the beneficial effects appear to be caused by the first 2.5 hours of exercise, making the additional exercise optional.
5) Use weight training or weight-free exercises to strengthen all muscles.
6) To maximize muscle growth, consume at least 30 grams of protein in a single low-carb meal 1-2 hours after a relatively intense weight-training session.
Coach Ernie Hornung
“An excuse is the skin of a lie wrapped with a reason.”-
Strength Training Program
When *are* strength gains specific?
After we start strength training, we achieve large strength gains in the exercises we use (and in the exact ways we perform those exercises), and smaller strength gains in *similar* exercises that use the same muscle groups.
This observation has been called the “principle of specificity.”
The principle of specificity is a general strength and conditioning principle, just like the principles of progressive overload, individuality, and variation.
But general principles do not tell us *why* certain adaptations or specific strength gains tend to happen, they only remind us that these things do in fact usually happen.
Following strength and conditioning general principles is, therefore, a reliable way to ensure that your training programs get you to your intended goal. However, knowing *when* the principles apply will take your programming knowledge from good to great.
It helps to know when you can “break the rules” and when you need to follow them carefully.
So when are strength gains *usually* specific?
When are strength gains *usually* specific?
There are many ways in which we can do a strength training exercise, and most of those ways affect the strength gains that result.
For example, we can choose to lift or lower a weight, move quickly or slowly, lift heavy or light weights, move through full or partial ranges of motion, use stable or unstable environments, use either “weight” or other types of resistance (such as elastic bands), direct force vertically or horizontally relative to the body, and work different muscle groups.
Let’s take a quick look at each of those.
#1. Lifting and lowering weights
In normal strength training, we use both lifting and lowering phases. However, some athletes only do one or the other, because using each phase alone produces very different adaptations from a conventional strength training program.
If we only do the lifting phase (called the concentric), then we might drop the weight under control afterwards, before lifting it again (just like Olympic weightlifters do). This is called “concentric-only” strength training, and it excludes the lowering phase (called the eccentric).
Conversely, we could just do a controlled lowering phase (the eccentric) and have spotters help us return the weight to the top afterwards, before lowering it again (as in a Nordic hamstring curl). This is called “eccentric-only” strength training, and it excludes the lifting phase (the concentric).
Concentric-only and eccentric-only strength training each produce specific adaptations inside the central nervous system and within the muscle itself.
As a result of these specific adaptations, concentric-only strength training produces proportionally greater increases in lifting strength, while eccentric-only strength training causes proportionally greater increases in lowering strength.
#2. Lifting quickly or slowly
When we lift weights, we can choose to either use a slow, controlled tempo, or we can lift the weight as quickly as possible. In addition, we can choose to use a relatively light weight and move very quickly, or we can use a relatively heavy weight and move more slowly.
These possibilities give us three options:
- Lift heavy weights
- Lift light weights slowly
- Lift light weights quickly
Obviously, because muscles have a fairly constant force-velocity relationship, we cannot lift heavy weights quickly.
Lifting light weights quickly produces the greatest increases in high-velocity strength (through a range of unique adaptations that only occur when we contract a muscle very quickly), while lifting heavy weights produces the greatest increases in maximum strength (through a totally different set of adaptations that only occur when we impose a very heavy external load on the muscle).
#3. Using a full or a partial range of motion
When we lift weights, we can choose to either use a full range of motion (like a full squat) where we allow the muscle to lengthen fully, or we use a partial range of motion (like a half squat) where the muscle is only partly lengthened when it reaches the end of the lowering phase.
Strength gains in each case are usually specific to the *longest* muscle length reached in the exercise, because of the adaptations that this triggers within the muscle fiber itself.
This means that the full range of motion exercise produces the greatest increases in strength at a long muscle length, while the partial range of motion exercise produces the greatest increases in strength at a more moderate muscle length.
And this is why strength training using a full squat produces greater gains in 1RM full squat than strength training using a half squat, while strength training using a half squat produces greater gains in 1RM half squat than strength training using a full squat.
#4. Using low reps or high reps
When we lift weights, we can choose either a heavy weight or a light weight, and we can choose to lift to failure, or not to failure. This gives us four options:
- Lift heavy weights to failure
- Lift heavy weights not to failure
- Lift light weights to failure
- Lift light weights not to failure
Lifting to failure allows light weights to recruit more high-threshold motor units, and this seems to be important (perhaps even necessary) for training with light weights to cause muscle growth. And muscle growth is probably the only way that this type of training causes strength gains.
Lifting to failure is less important when using heavy weights, however, as most motor units are recruited in order to lift a weight of 80–90% of 1RM anyway. And using heavy weights causes strength gains through several mechanisms, and not just through muscle growth.
Since lifting to failure has its own set of drawbacks, including a much greater demand on the anaerobic energy system, this means that the options used in practice are (1) lifting a heavy weight not to failure, and (2) lifting a light weight to failure.
Lifting heavy weights produces proportionally greater increases in maximum strength (force produced against a very heavy weight) because of the effects of imposing a very heavy external load on the muscle-tendon unit, while lifting light weights to failure leads to proportionally greater increases in repetition strength (maximum number of repetitions with a given weight), because it involves undergoing high levels of metabolic stress.
#5. Using “weight” or elastic resistance
Most of the time in the gym, we use “weight” to provide resistance for our muscles, whether it is weight on a barbell, on a machine, or just our own bodyweight.
When we lift a plate-loaded barbell, we exert resistance to overcome two forces. Firstly, there is force exerted on the barbell by gravity, which pulls it constantly towards the earth. Secondly, we exert a force to start the barbell moving, to overcome its inertia. This force applies only when we are accelerating the barbell, at the start of the exercise.
When we squat with a plate-loaded barbell, the force we need to exert on it is therefore greatest at the bottom of the exercise, because we need to overcome *both* inertia and gravity. And as we decelerate towards the end of the exercise, force is at its lowest.
In contrast, if we apply large resistance bands to a barbell squat, there is much less force due to either inertia or gravity, and most of the resistance comes from elongating the elastic. Consequently, the force we need to exert on the barbell is greatest at the top of the exercise, because this is where the elastic band is most elongated.
Using “weight” on the barbell therefore challenges the muscles most when they are at their most lengthened, while using elastic resistance tends to challenge our muscles more when they are short. This produces different effects in each case, because of the adaptations that stimulating a muscle at a certain length triggers within the muscle fiber itself.
This is why strength training using a plate-loaded barbell squat tends to produce proportionally greater gains in 1RM plate-loaded barbell squat, while strength training with a barbell squat against bands produces proportionally greater gains in 1RM barbell squat against bands.
#6. Using “vertical” or “horizontal” force vectors
When we exert force, this can be in any direction relative to our own body, and can be categorized as vertical, horizontal, lateral, and even rotational, depending on the movement.
- Vertical force vectors occur when we exert force upwards, from our feet towards our head (like a vertical jump).
- Horizontal force vectors occur when we exert force forwards, from our back towards our front (like a standing broad jump).
- Lateral force vector occur when we exert force sideways, from our middle towards our side (like a side-step or standing lateral jump).
- Rotational force vectors occur when we turn at the waist.
Each direction involves a different set of joint angles at which peak force is produced, and therefore again involves a different set of muscle lengths in each of the main muscles. And so training with different force vectors causes specific strength gains in each of those force vectors.
#7. Using stable or unstable environments
Most of the time when we lift a weight, we tend to be in either a very stable environment (using a machine) or a moderately stable set-up (using free weights). Rarely, we might be persuaded to do an exercise on an unstable surface, like a Swiss ball.
Under very stable conditions (like a Smith machine bench press), we can lift a heavier weight than we can in moderately stable, or unstable conditions (like a dumbbell bench press on a Swiss ball).
This difference in strength is largely because the need to *balance* in less stable environments requires more involvement from opposing (called antagonist) and supporting (called synergist) muscles. Initially, the activation of these muscles makes it hard to move the weight, which is why we appear to be so much weaker in unstable exercise variations.
Yet, as we practice lifting weights in less stable environments, we learn to move the weight while balancing, and so we appear to gain strength. In reality, much of that gain in strength is an improvement in balance, and so it does not transfer as well as you might expect to strength gains under more stable conditions.
Conversely, no matter how much we gain strength under stable conditions, we will struggle to display that strength under unstable conditions, until we learn to balance as well. And this is why we observe strength gains that are specific to the type of stability used in training.
#8. Muscle group
When we do an exercise, this tends to involve a number of muscles. But there are almost always a range of exercises that can be used to train the same muscle groups.
For example, the squat and the hip thrust both involve the main lower body hip extensors (adductor magnus, gluteus maximus, and hamstrings) and knee extensors (quadriceps), albeit working them hardest at different muscle lengths.
Comparing these exercises, there are important differences in the muscle lengths at which peak muscular contractions occur, and also in the coordination patterns used for each exercise. So strength training with the squat will never produce the same gains in 1RM hip thrust, compared with hip thrust training, and vice versa.
Yet, when a muscle group is trained, it will usually increase in size, and we might expect that this will produce a degree of strength gains in other exercises that use the same muscle groups. And this is exactly what researchers have found, when investigating the hip thrust and squat exercises.
What is the takeaway?
Strength gains are specific for a number of reasons, depending on the key factors that affect force production, such as muscle length, muscle contraction velocity, external load on the muscle, amount of metabolic stress, or need to balance.
Strength gains are therefore specific to whether we lift or lower a weight, move quickly or slowly, lift heavy or light weights, move through full or partial ranges of motion, lift in stable or unstable environments, use “weight” or elastic resistance, direct force vertically or horizontally relative to the body, and to which muscle groups we use in training.
Maximizing the effectiveness of a strength training program means designing it to fit the
specific goal you want to achieve.
1. Muscle action (eccentric or concentric)
2. Velocity (fast or slow)
3. Repetition range (maximum strength or muscular endurance)
4. Range of motion (full or partial)
5. Degree of stability (stable or unstable)
6. External load type (constant load or accommodating resistance)
7. Force vector (vertical or horizontal)
8. Muscle group
https://medium.com/@SandCResearch/when-are-strength-gains-specific-deee7e3a6e18
Functional Movement Training
Benefits: Physical, Physiological and Neurological adaptations.
1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance – The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.
2. Stamina – The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.
3. Strength – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.
4. Flexibility – the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
5. Power – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.
6. Speed – The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
7. Coordination – The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.
8. Agility – The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another,
9. Balance – The ability to control the placement of the bodies center of gravity in relation to its support base
10. Accuracy – The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity.
Remember, neurological adaptation is one of the most profound ways to increase your
flexibility quickly. The expression of ROM (range of motion) is often not limited by the length of the muscle
itself but by the nervous system’s reluctance to allow a position from which the body is
ill-prepared to recover. By strengthening the body in these difficult positions, the nervous
system becomes less likely to create a stretch reflex when the positions are approached
because the muscular tension experienced becomes more “normal.”
Trying to burn calories? Heed the clock
Humans’ ‘resting energy expenditure’ follows a predictable cycle, research shows.
MELISSA HEALY
A new study offers further evidence that circadian rhythms dictate not just when we feel the urge to sleep but how complex mechanisms such as metabolism operate across a 24-hour period
Next time you stagger into a Waffle House in the wee hours of the morning and order the Texas sausage egg and cheese melt (1,040 calories), consider this new research finding: At roughly that hour, the most basic operations of the human body throttle back their caloric needs by about 10% compared with the rate at which they will burn calories in late afternoon or early evening. Maybe you’d prefer to come back around dinnertime.
This pattern of calorie use doesn’t significantly vary based on whether you’re the waitress working the graveyard shift or a 9-to-5er stopping in for breakfast after eight hours of shut-eye, the researchers found. Humans’ “resting energy expenditure” — the body’s use of calories to power such basic functions as respiration, brain activity and fluid circulation — follows a predictable cycle that waxes as the day progresses and wanes as night sets in. The new study, published last week in the journal Current Biology, offers further evidence that circadian rhythms dictate not just when we feel the urge to sleep but how complex mechanisms like metabolism operate across a 24- hour period. It may help explain why people who keep irregular sleep schedules, including swing shift workers, have higher rates of obesity and are more likely to develop metabolic abnormalities such as type 2 diabetes. And it demonstrates that whether we hear it or not, our body’s clock is always ticking, locating us in our daily cycle with uncanny precision.
At “hour zero” — roughly corresponding to between 4 and 5 a.m. — our core body temperature dips to its lowest point and our idling fuel use reaches its nadir. From that point, at first quickly and then a bit more slowly, the body’s “resting energy expenditure” rises until the late afternoon/ early evening. After reaching its peak at roughly 5 p.m., the number of calories we burn while at rest plummets steadily for about 12 hours. And then, just as surely as day follows night, we start again. These new findings are a reminder that no matter how 24/7 our schedules have become, our bodies were built for a slower, simpler world in which humans moved around all day in search of food, ate while the sun was up, and slept when the sky was dark.
Today, our appetites and the all-night availability of tempting food may induce us to eat well after sundown. And our jobs may demand that we sleep during the day and wait tables, care for patients or drive trucks through the night. But our bodies still adhere to their ancient, inflexible clocks. The study’s findings also come with an implicit warning: When we disregard the biological rhythms that rule our bodies, we do so at our peril. Resting energy expenditure accounts for the majority of the minimum calories we burn in a day. Just to spend a day eating, sleeping and breathing uses up 60% to 70% of our “resting energy expenditure.” So a serious mismatch in the time when calories are consumed and the time when most of them are burned could prompt the body to make decisions — like storing calories as fat — that aren’t necessarily healthful.
The new study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that a good 12-hour fast, when aligned with darkness and our bodies’ nocturnal response, may be a way to prevent or reverse obesity. In lab animals and a growing number of people, Salk Institute researcher Satchin Panda has demonstrated the effect of dietary obedience to our circadian rhythms. Others have demonstrated the power of timing by showing how readily it can be disrupted. In a 2014 study, 14 lean, healthy adults agreed to turn their days upside-down over a six-day period. Fed a diet sufficient to maintain their weight, the subjects quickly adapted by turning their thermostats down. Compared with the baseline readings taken upon their arrival (when they were awake by day and asleep eight hours at night), the subjects burned 52 fewer calories on Day 2 of their swing-shift schedule, and 59 fewer calories on Day 3 of that schedule. Do that for a couple of days and you might feel a little off. Do it for months, years or a lifetime, and the result could be too much stored fat and metabolic processes that go haywire.
“One take-away is indeed that for optimal health, including metabolic health, it’s best for us to have a regular schedule seven days a week — getting up and going to bed at the same time and eating our meals at the same time,” said senior author Jeanne F. Duffy, a neuroscientist and sleep specialist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. “We have these powerful clocks in ourselves, and they’re prepared to deal with certain events — eating and sleeping — at particular times every day. So we want them to be optimally prepared for that.” To get to these findings, the researchers had to coax seven people to spend three weeks sequestered in windowless rooms without clocks, cellphones or internet service. In what is called a “forced desynchrony protocol,” the researchers extended the subjects’ days by four hours. All got a minimum of eight hours in bed at the end of their extended day, but then woke up and marched through an 18-hour period of artificial “daylight” before being allowed to sleep again. At first, they seemed to race to keep up with this odd clock. But after three weeks of such discombobulation, subjects essentially come to rely on their own internal clocks to set the duration of their days and separate their days from nights.
The individual rhythms that each subject fell back into did not show that much variation: Without alarm clocks or other cues, they eventually found their way back to a cycle of sleeping and waking that hovered closely around 24 hours, Duffy said. By the end of Week 1, the patterns in their hour-byhour resting energy expenditure had become clear: In a span of time ranging from 23 to 24.5 hours, subjects who were disconnected from day and night cues showed patterns of resting energy use that were remarkably similar, and that followed the same daytime rise and nighttime decline. These patterns remained unchanged until the end of Week 3. Along with that were similar patterns of “macronutrient utilization.” Subjects burned the most carbohydrates early in their waking day. Carbohydrate use then declined steadily, with a small jump in the middle of the night. The burning of fat was lowest in the morning, peaked in early evening, and declined from there. “We were impressed by the fact that these patterns were so similar between individuals,” Duffy said. “That told us this was something real.” The number of calories we burn — or store as fat — is probably influenced not just by our size, what we eat and the amount of exercise we get, Duffy said. The timing of our eating matters too. When we sleep late on weekends, hopscotch across time zones, or work on schedules that have us up all night and then back on the day shift, “we’re disrupting our clocks and making our metabolisms inefficient, and in the long term, that will lead to disease,” she said. “Staying on the same schedule is the best way to prevent that.” melissa.healy@latimes.com http://enewspaper.latimes.com/desktop/latimes/default.aspx?pubid=50435180-e58e-48b5-8e0c-236bf740270e
Training Sensitive Zone – Oxygen Consumption
One can determine maximum exercise heart rate immediately after several minutes of an all-out effort in a specific form of exercise.
Maximal heart rate computes 220 – minus the person age in years.
Maximal heart rate during swimming and other upper body exercises will average 13 beat minutes lower.
The actual lower limit depends on the participant exercise capacity and the current state of training.
Longer exercise duration offsets lower exercise intensity.
Exercising at or at slightly above the lactate threshold provides effective aerobic training.
4 factors influence the aerobic training response:
1) The initial level of aerobic fitness
2) The training intensity
3) The training frequency
4) The training duration
Generally the higher the training intensity above the threshold the greater the training improvement for VO 2 max(maximal oxygen consumption).
Sports Nutrition: Macronutrients timing.
The International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) provides an objective and critical review regarding the timing of macronutrients in reference to healthy, exercising adults and in particular highly trained individuals on exercise performance and body composition. The following points summarize the position of the ISSN:Nutrient timing incorporates the use of methodical planning and eating of whole foods, fortified foods and dietary supplements. The timing of energy intake and the ratio of certain ingested macronutrients may enhance recovery and tissue repair, augment muscle protein synthesis (MPS), and improve mood states following high-volume or intense exercise.Endogenous glycogen stores are maximized by following a high-carbohydrate diet (8-12 g of carbohydrate/kg/day [g/kg/day]); moreover, these stores are depleted most by high volume exercise.If rapid restoration of glycogen is required (< 4 h of recovery time) then the following strategies should be considered:aggressive carbohydrate refeeding (1.2 g/kg/h) with a preference towards carbohydrate sources that have a high (> 70) glycemic indexthe addition of caffeine (3-8 mg/kg)combining carbohydrates (0.8 g/kg/h) with protein (0.2-0.4 g/kg/h) Extended (> 60 min) bouts of high intensity (> 70% VO2max) exercise challenge fuel supply and fluid regulation, thus carbohydrate should be consumed at a rate of ~30-60 g of carbohydrate/h in a 6-8% carbohydrate-electrolyte solution (6-12 fluid ounces) every 10-15 min throughout the entire exercise bout, particularly in those exercise bouts that span beyond 70 min. When carbohydrate delivery is inadequate, adding protein may help increase performance, ameliorate muscle damage, promote euglycemia and facilitate glycogen re-synthesis.Carbohydrate ingestion throughout resistance exercise (e.g., 3-6 sets of 8-12 repetition maximum [RM] using multiple exercises targeting all major muscle groups) has been shown to promote euglycemia and higher glycogen stores. Consuming carbohydrate solely or in combination with protein during resistance exercise increases muscle glycogen stores, ameliorates muscle damage, and facilitates greater acute and chronic training adaptations.Meeting the total daily intake of protein, preferably with evenly spaced protein feedings (approximately every 3 h during the day), should be viewed as a primary area of emphasis for exercising individuals.Ingestion of essential amino acids (EAA; approximately 10 g)either in free form or as part of a protein bolus of approximately 20-40 g has been shown to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis (MPS).Pre- and/or post-exercise nutritional interventions (carbohydrate + protein or protein alone) may operate as an effective strategy to support increases in strength and improvements in body composition. However, the size and timing of a pre-exercise meal may impact the extent to which post-exercise protein feeding is required.Post-exercise ingestion (immediately to 2-h post) of high-quality protein sources stimulates robust increases in MPS.In non-exercising scenarios, changing the frequency of meals has shown limited impact on weight loss and body composition, with stronger evidence to indicate meal frequency can favorably improve appetite and satiety. More research is needed to determine the influence of combining an exercise program with altered meal frequencies on weight loss and body composition with preliminary research indicating a potential benefit.Ingesting a 20-40 g protein dose (0.25-0.40 g/kg body mass/dose) of a high-quality source every three to 4 h appears to most favorably affect MPS rates when compared to other dietary patterns and is associated with improved body composition and performance outcomes.Consuming casein protein (~ 30-40 g) prior to sleep can acutely increase MPS and metabolic rate throughout the night without influencing lipolysis.
Pre and Post Workout Nutrition (Snack)
Depending on your goal, fitness need, intensity and duration of the workout, there is no a rule that can be applied to everyone, if you trying to lose weight eating before a workout will be different than if you try to get stronger and gain muscle mass. How much weight you have to lose? how hard and how long will you train? How does your body metabolize insulin levels? those factors must be kept into consideration when choosing the carbohydrates that will fuel your workout during and replenish it after. The answer to these questions will define the choice of foods and the time those foods will be ingested either before your workout begins and when your work out finishes. m.a.
Foods to Avoid (Weight Loss)
Foods to Avoid (Weight Loss)
1. French Fries and Potato Chips
(Boiled potatoes instead)
2. Sugary Drinks (soda…)
(and Sports drinks, they may be useful for athletes regular people don’t need them, Water instead)
3. White Bread
4. Candy Bars
5. Most Fruit Juices
(Fruit Juices are basically just liquid sugar, Have real whole fruit instead)
6. Pastries, Cookies and Cakes
7. Alcohol (Especially Beer)
8. Ice Cream
9. Pizza
10. High-Calorie Coffee Drinks
11. Foods High in Added Sugar
(like sugary breakfast, granola bars, flavored yogurt)
“Low-fat” or “Fat-free” foods, often add lots of sugar to make up for the flavor that’s lost when the fat is removed.
12. Most Commercial Salad Dressings
Are loaded with sugar, vegetable oils and trans fats, along with artificial chemicals
Bench Press 101
Grip. Hold the bar in the base of your palm, close to your wrist. Squeeze the bar.
Grip Width. Hands inside the ring marks of the bar. Vertical forearms at the bottom.
Thumbs. Wrap your thumbs around the bar. Don’t Bench Press with a thumbless grip.
Wrists. Straight line bar to wrist to elbow. Don’t Bench with bent wrists or they’ll hurt.
Elbows. About 75° out at the bottom. They shouldn’t touch your torso or flare out 90°.
Forearms. Vertical to the floor from every angle: from the side as well as from the front.
Shoulders. Keep them back, on the bench. Don’t shrug your shoulders forward at the top.
Upper-back. Squeeze your shoulder-blades together to increase stability when you Bench.
Chest. Raise it to the ceiling. Reach to the bar while you lower it. But keep your butt on bench.
Head. Setup with your eyes under the bar. Keep your head neutral. Don’t push it into your bench.
Lower Back. Natural arch. I should be able to slide my flat hand between the bench and your back.
Butt. Keep your butt on your bench when you bench. Don’t cheat by raising your butt off the bench.
Feet. Flat on the floor, not in the air. Feet under knees. Use a shoulder-width stance like on Squats.
Unracking. Unrack the weight by straightening your arms. Move the bar above your shoulder joint.
Way Down. Lower the bar to your mid-chest. Tuck your elbows in 75° while you lower the weight.
Bottom. Straight wrists, vertical forearms. Elbows in but not against your torso. Bar on mid-chest.
Way Up. Don’t pause at the bottom. Press the bar back to above your shoulders. Lock your elbows.
Lockout. Lock the bar over your shoulder joint. Lock your elbows at the top. Don’t bend them back.
Racking. Lockout with straight elbows. Move the bar back against the rack. Lower it in the uprights.
Bar Path. Diagonal line from your mid-chest to shoulders. Not vertical over shoulders, neck or chest.
Breathing. Big breath at the top, hold it on the way down, hold it at the bottom, exhale at the top.
http://stronglifts.com/bench-press/
Early Morning Training
Question to Ask Yourself