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Friday, October 26, 2012

ARE YOU "MISTER FANTASTIC" OR ONLY A "THING"

Have you, an advance resistance training athlete, realized that your body has become tighter as you sum up more years of training and get older? Well even you beginners to intermediate weightlifters, do you stretch before, during or after your workouts? Does anyone know the importance of stretching?

First of all what is the difference between Flexibility and stretching? Well flexibility is the distance that a joint can extend for example, if you touch your feet or the floor with the palm of your hands, the muscles of your hip joint is flexible, but if you have to make an effort to touch your toes and feel all the muscles behind your legs when you do it, you are stretching. Stretching is the method in which you gain Flexibility.

So what type of stretching is best for resistance training? There are two types of stretching that you see used for resistance training. Static stretching is how much a joint and its surrounding muscles can be moved during a movement such as reaching both arms above your head when you wake up. And dynamic stretching is the stretching done while in movement, such as those done by runners before a marathon, such as the swinging of legs. So which one is the best? Generally dynamic stretching should be done by people who know what they are doing. The problem with dynamic stretching is that if you don’t know what you are doing you might go beyond your own limits and strain the muscle you are stretching, because most of the stretching that is done is the active stretching (while in movement) or ballistic stretching (consists of bouncing). And if you haven’t gone beyond your limits before you hit the weights, and while doing your program you use the full Range of Motion (ROM) you can seriously injure yourself when doing an exercise. So the indicated type of stretching for resistance training is the Static stretching, and depending on the person even the active (not using an outside resistance) would be more appropriate, especially if you are recovering from an injury or have some debilitating condition that doesn’t permit the full extension or movement of a joint. Static passive, stretching, is probably the most appropriate for beginners, intermediates or advance weightlifters for resistance training.


When should it be done? When setting up your resistance training program, time for stretching should be done according to the goals you aim for. Stretching before strength training is not indicated because according to a study published in 2007 by the Sports Medicine Journal (The Effects of Stretching on Strength Performance) there is reduced sensibility of the muscle, tendon and joint receptors before strength training, and neuromotor responses are delayed immediately following stretching exercises which means for strength training it reduces your strength, then it is best done after. But if your goal is a healthy lifestyle, weight loss, or hypertrophy, there is no reason why you shouldn’t stretch before, during and/or after training. Studies have not come to a conclusion whether stretching before or after sports training is better, and for hypertrophy or just for every day weight training, stretching in between sets increases hypertrophy, and after a workout maintains or increases flexibility.
 
So those of you who are bouncing around, moving arms and legs while in movement, or not even doing any stretches at all, it might be time for you to think of taking an extra 10 minutes, and start, because it also might be one of the reasons why you haven’t seen results and are becoming stiffs by the day. And remember if you think just because you have big muscles you don’t have to be flexible, well you’re stereo typical musclehead!!!!

Friday, October 19, 2012

GYM RATS OR PIGS?

What is up with people? I guess they didn’t read “Hogs and Slobs”, but if they did, they still didn’t get the picture…because this week the gym just had so many free weights missing from the rack...

The other day arriving at the gym, there was a sign near the weightlifting gym machines, saying in so many words, please don’t rest on the equipment….but share! It is obvious since there may be someone else who needs to use it. So get your butts off the equipment and rest standing near what you are using or on the equipment you are using.

In many gyms you may notice all around that there are signs posted, but I guess that most people don’t even bother to read most of them which ask politely, say or even explain why, to put your equipment away after using it for the next ”Guest”.

Yes, that is a term used in the gym. A price is paid to be able to use the equipment in the gym and if you don’t own the gym, then you are a Guest. And most are taught how to behave as a guest while growing up, so people should use their manners as if they are going visit their Grandmother or immediate family, which is treat the environment with respect. This means, what you use you should put away no matter if it’s just one dumbbell to a few pieces of equipment! How many times, especially at the end of the day after the busiest time, is it easy to see the dumbell rack empty of weights, and hard to find dumbells of a certain weight not in place?

Also when you finally find the equipment out of place that you are looking for, just because you didn’t do it doesn’t mean that when you finish you can’t put it back.

Other rude behaviours seen in the gym is spitting. How many times do you see men spitting in the waste baskets, and some of the time it doesn’t go in. When were they taught to spit inside???? What about Gum? It is banned in schools, because it always ends up underneath chairs or desks, but in gyms you see it on the equipment, such as the treadmill track, or even on the floor or stuck to the sides of equipment (cable machines). And people think that the cleaning people are responsible for throwing other people’s trash out, such as water bottles. If they didn’t do their job correctly, which they should receive much appraisal for, the gym floor would have empty water and drink bottles all over.


Your home must be a pigsty if you are to blame for any of these behaviours, because what you do out of your own home will be the same way that you behave in public. You are a Guest at a gym, and if you’re not, still you would use your manners because you are probably the owner and wouldn’t treat your propriety with disrespect. So clean up after yourself and remember that there ARE other GUESTS

Friday, October 12, 2012

PROPER FUEL BOOST FOR ENERGY


How many times do you walk around the gym and see people drinking liquids other than water, such as cans, shaker cups or bottles filled with colorful liquids?

You can understand the professional or amateur bodybuilder or fitness athlete or exercise professional carrying one around drinking it, especially after you have been watching them work out for at least an hour, but what about those who do it just for a healthy lifestyle or for losing weight?

First of all, a resistance training session should be at max 20 to 40 min, when you have the appropriate pre-training meal. After 40 min, without the appropriate meal plan, causes anaerobic glycolysis, where glycogen from the liver is broken down to produce energy, and if that isn’t available, because there is no extra reserve of energy, due to inadequate eating habits, the glucose in the muscle is transferred so that it can be broken down to produce energy (catabolism) for the continued work out session. That is why bodybuilders and fitness athletes have them to keep that glucose in the muscle, and why those who spend more than an hour in the gym doing weights are probably not seeing any results.

If you had the appropriate pre-training meal and you are not trying to keep your energy levels high due to a long weight training session to continue building muscle, then that extra energy boosting drink, which is usually taken before a workout anyway, and not during, containing complex carbohydrates, which means high calories won’t do anything except add calories which probably won’t be used during your workout, and thus stored for the next opportunity. But when the next opportunity occurs, you yet again are filling your metabolic system with more calories which will add up and go against your much wanted results of a healthy lifestyle or weight loss.

Instead of having something during your workout, the post workout meal should be considered the most important. Up to 20 minutes after the workout, there should be proteins provided for the recovering muscles, and up to 40 min complex carbohydrates for recovery of energy levels according to the energy balance to get the desired results.

As for the energy drinks, there is a big concern, not only for the reasons that there is really not enough knowledge about the effects on the body with the mix of ingredients (stimulants such as taurine, ginseng, ginko balboa and guarana) which contain and can turn the effects of the content of caffeine more potent, but because they are carbonated beverages that contain 13 teaspoons of sugar in a 16 ounce can (equal to four cans of soft drinks). Besides the sugar itself, it contains Vitamin B which adds to the production of sugar for energy. People are confusing energy drinks that cause dehydration due to impairment of absorption of liquids, and can cause heart attack symptoms, with sports drinks, which are means of rehydration during or after training with its contents of carbohydrates, electrolytes and minerals needed for recovery after long sessions of exercise.

If you do not need the extra calories, water is perfect for the duration of the workout session, for most people don’t get enough of it anyway and along with hydrating the whole body, it helps in metabolism so that the results desired can be achieved.




Friday, October 5, 2012

OPTIMAL RATIOS TO SUCCESS

When will people understand that no matter what are your intentions for resistance training whether it is just for healthy life style reasons or if it is bodybuilding and fitness, or to supplement athletic training, that most of the time what you do outside of the training is what matters most to get your results representing 70%?

First of all everyone has heard of the saying that “you are what you eat”, well that is totally the truth for obtaining results. It doesn’t matter how much you train, or if you exercise every day, you will still represent what you eat. People in the fitness world make sacrifices to have a lean, hard body with low fat percentages. Today Nutrition has evolved a lot from when resistance training started. What used to be diets of complex carbs, such as potatoes, protein, such as chicken breast and minimal fat, which usually came from peanut butter or even from the proper chicken to obtain low fat percentages, now has turned into calculating the energy balance of calories consumed and wasted to get the results, and the discovery of what works for each individual person. Food is then consumed according to obtaining the correct combination and amount of proteins, carbs and fats, and to complement vitamins, minerals and even water so that the body can metabolize the nutrients properly.

Another factor that influences results is how you sleep. You will never get results being a night owl. If you are a party animal at least once a week with possibly adding the calories of the drinking that takes place, which results in water retention and dehydration, even though you train 7 times a week, besides catching up with you later on, won’t bring you the results you desire. Part of maximizing results is the rest you get, which includes sleep. While you are sleeping, the body is performing its reconstruction, and that is when some hormones interact in the anabolism process the most, such as the Growth Hormone. Growth hormone has anabolic effects due to the stimulation of bone and skeletal muscle growth and metabolic functions such as maintaining blood glucose levels, increasing uptake of glucose and Amino Acids (AA) into the muscle cells. The AA uptake and protein synthesis cause hypertrophy of the muscle fiber, which is released during the slow wave phase of sleep and it occurs when there is no sunlight. So even if you do get 8 hours sleep during the day, that won’t be enough to contribute to your results.

Now the lack of sleep and other factors cause stress, and when there is stress, especially greater amounts related to work, emotional state or even everyday life, it can reflect on the body with the release of the hormone cortisol that can prevent a person from reaching their goal. Cortisol is a catabolic (breakdown) hormone that regulates the blood glucose and maintains it in prolonged fasting and during exercise promotes the degradation of proteins used by the liver to form glucose and is also released when doing resistance training because it is a stress on your organism. You need the Cortisol to produce energy when there is a deficit, but too much of it can be hazardous.  

So if you are training right, which will be left for future discussions, which most people in Canada and USA really don’t have a clue what they are doing when they are exercising, especially on the gym floor, remember that it only represents 30% of the results your aiming for, and even if you`re doing everything right, training can be a problem, for there are people that are spending too much time doing it which can also affect results negatively.