Archive for ‘October 2009’

If you want to look like a bodybuilder-or even simply want to look more like a bodybuilder than you do now-you need to learn and master the training techniques that bodybuilders have developed on a trial-and-error basis over the past fifty years or so.

It takes hard, dedicated work to build a great physique, but hard work alone is not enough. In addition to training hard, you need to train smart, which means mastering the fundamental principles of bodybuilding. These principles should be learned and practiced right from the beginning because it’s easier learning the right principles then fixing the wrong ones.

Of course, different people have many different reasons for doing bodybuilding training. Some want to build their bodies just to look and feel better. Others want to improve their performance in a variety of sports. When it comes to bodybuilding there are principles which everyone must learn, and then there are some which you will learn only by trial and error. Yes, everyone is different some people might have better metabolic system others might gain muscle faster but in the end the basic guidelines are all the same.

Principles

Your muscles will grow only when they are subjected to an overload. They will not respond to anything less. Muscles will not grow bigger or stronger unless you force them to. Making your muscles contract against a level of resistance they are not used to will eventually cause them to adapt and grow stronger. But once they have adapted sufficiently, this progress will stop. A Primary way of keeping the resistance up is by adding more weight. But if you increase the weight to much too soon you can increase the chances of injury due to incorrect form.

Reps, Sets, and Weight Amount

A rep is one complete cycle of an exercise movement, example lifting a weight and lowering it again.

A group of reps is called a set for example 8 reps by 3 sets means 8-rest-8-rest-8. But how do you know how much weight to use? Well it has been researched and shown that about 75% of your one rep maximum is the most effective weight to be used. One Rep Max is the amount of weight you can only complete once. The general amount of Reps which will suit the 75% one rep max is 8-12 Reps and slightly higher for major muscles.

When it comes to selecting the right amount of sets I generally recommend 4 Sets each exercise. The Reason I think 4 Sets is the Right amount is because I believe that this amount of Sets will Fully Stimulate all the muscle fiber in the group. An Example of 4 Sets will be:

· 1^st Set: Warm Up

· 2^nd Set: about 10 Reps

· 3^rd Set: About 8 Reps

· 4^th Set: 6-8 Reps

This Reps are where you should start failing at.

When exercising make sure that you do a full range of motion because this will increase that chance that you will be stimulating all the fibers in the muscle group.

Warming Up

Warming up is very important when you are exercising. The reason for this is when you warm-up your muscles will receive fresh oxygenated blood, Higher Blood Pressure and a Higher Hearth Rate, This will benefit you because it will clean out all the waste produced when working out. It will also lower the chances of injury because you are preparing your body for the upcoming exercises. That is why your first set should always be a light weight warm up.

Along with warm-ups you should also stretch before and after a workout this will decrease the chance of injury and allow you to complete more effective reps.

Power Training

To shape and develop the body, it is necessary to do a lot of endurance training-that is, the appropriate number of sets and reps. But you also need to include low-rep strength training, you will never achieve the hardness and density necessary to create a truly first-class physique. Including some power sets in your workout program also helps make you stronger for the rest of the workout, you will start to use heavier weights sooner and you will also strengthen your tendons which will make it much less likely you will strain them while doing higher reputations.

Overtraining and Set Rests

The harder you workout the more time your body is going to need to recover, recovery time is usually the time when the most muscle growth occurs therefore you should have a decent rest period in-between training days. By doing split workouts it will allow you to rest certain muscle groups while working-out other muscle groups, otherwise if a fully body workout is being done then you should have at least 1 day for rest.

It is important to pace yourself when working out if you do too much training you can cause injuries so you should take a decent break in-between sets, it has been shown that a 1 minute break should recover approximately 70% of your strength back and about 3 minutes you should have all your strength back. But you are trying to push yourself while training so you shouldn’t weight for all your strength to recover because then you won’t be working out the last bit of strength which you normally skipped.

Well there you have it some basic and simple principles that everyone that wants to gain muscle should know about and hopefully you will find this article useful for your purpose.

If protein supplements are number one, creatine is an extremely close second when it comes to supplements for bodybuilders. Proven safe and effective, creatine

is a derivative of amino acids and is hands down the most effective supplement used by strength athletes and bodybuilders to boost gains in strength and muscle mass

. Creatine citrate, creatine phosphate and creatine malate are just some of the formulations available today.

The proper use of creatine supplements may help a bodybuilder to add five or ten pounds of pure muscle in no time. Hundreds of studies have been published on the safety and effectiveness of creatine. Most of these studies were done on creatine monohydrate, which was the first and most basic formulation of creatine to hit the market. Creatine monohydrate was found to be safe and effective in most of these studies.

How does creatine work?

Creatine has two important functions for bodybuilders. First,creatine increases the size, or volume of muscle cells, which is the amount of water each cell can hold. This slight expansion of each cell causes the entire muscle to expand which triggers even further muscle growth. The second important function of creatine is that it provides muscle cells with immediate energy in the form of ATP (Adenosine triphosphate), which is absolutely essential to perform bodybuilding exercises. Having extra ATP within the muscle cells will allow you to perform more repetitions than you normally could, which translates into greater muscle growth.

Unfortunately, creatine is only effective for about 70% of athletes and bodybuilders. Those who do not respond to creatine may already produce enough creatine phosphate in their muscles that supplementing with creatine does not make much difference.

Different types of Creatine Formulations.

Creatine Monohydrate.

Creatine monohydrate was the first creatine supplement available and is still the least expensive form of creatine. Most people respond well to this basic creatine powder, although some people experience bloating, diarrhea or cramps. This is usually caused by forms of creatine that have not been ground into a fine enough powder. Almost all brands of creatine monohydrate on the shelves today is micronized creatine, which is an easily mixed fine powder. If you decide to stick with creatine monohydrate, be sure that it is the micronized version. This is the type of creatine that I use and it works great for me, and it is cheap!

Creatine Anhydrous.

Creatine anhydrous is simply creatine with the water molecule removed. This makes the creatine powder slightly more pure, but this is a minor advantage. There is little difference between creatine anhydrous and creatine monohydrate.

Creatine Citrate.

Creatine citrate came out shortly after creatine monohydrate gained popularity. The creatine citrate product is created by binding creatine molecules and citric acid molecules. Citric acid is used for energy production, and the theory is that when taken with creatine, the combination would provide more muscle energy than creatine taken by itself. Although this sounds good, it has never been proven through research. Creatine citrate, when compared serving for serving, supplies, about 40% less creatine than the monohydrate form, but it may dissolve more easily in water.

Creatine Phosphate

Creatine phosphate also popped up soon after creatine monohydrate first hit the supplement market. The creatine phosphate version is made up of a phosphate molecule and a creatine molcule bound together. The bonding of these two molecules normally takes place inside the muscle cell and is something that must take place an order for creatine to be effective at all. Creatine phosphate was very popular when it first came out. However, most bodybuilders found out that it was somewhat less effective than creatine monohydrate.

Creatine Malate

Creatine malate is one of the newest forms of creatine. It is created by binding creatine and malic acid. Malic acid as well as citric acid, is an intermediate component of the Krebs cycle, which is the metabolic pathway that creates aerobic energy inside the muscle. This means that malic acid is important for energy creation which is believed to make creatine malate more potent than creatine monohydrate. Creatine malate also dissolves easily in water and creates less stomach discomfort. Unfortunately, research on creatine malate is rare at this time, so its benefits are still in question.

Creatine Ester.

Creatine Ester is one of the more recent formulations of creatine, and is technically known as creatine ester ethyl hydrochloride. Developed by scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, this version of creatine is basically an alcohol mixed with acid. The theory behind this formulation is that it will allow the creatine to permeate cell membranes more easily in the intestines and muscle cells. This should allow the creatine to be absorbed and taken into muscle cells much more quickly than the other forms of creatine.

Effervescent Creatine.

This creatine formulation has been around almost as long as monohydrate and when mixed with water, creaqtes a fizz. The formulation is usually a creatine citrate or creatine monohydrate mix together with bicarbonate and citric acid, which causes the effervescent effect to separate the carrier from the creatine. The creatine left over can dissolve more easily in water, and is prevented from being destroyed by stomach acid and may be better absorbed in the intestinal tract. Some studies have confirmed that this type of creatine does indeed remain stable in water much longer than creatine monohydrate does. This would be a good formulation of creatine to use if you plan on mixing it several hours before you drink it.

Magnesium Creatine.

This is a form of creatine that is bound to a magnesium molecule. This protects the creatine from stomach acid and allows it to be absorbed more easily. Magnesium must be present in order for creatine phosphate to be converted into ATP, which is what creates energy in the muscle. At least one study has shown that this form of creatine causes the muscle to take in more fluid and creates greater strength than taking creatine and magnesium separately. If you're looking two use this type of creatine, you're better off buying the actual combination, rather than just adding magnesium as a separate supplement.

With all the different types of creatine available today, and with very little research showing one being better than another, I personally would recommend sticking with creatine monohydrate in the micronized form, unless you are experiencing some gastric distress. If this is the case, try some of the other versions to see if they work better for you.

The dosage we recommend is 3-5 grams before and immediately after your workout session, along with 40 or 50 grams whey protein and 60-100 grams simple carbohydrates.

Author: Chris J Watson

Of all the myths that surface from time to time, the protein myth seems to be the most deep rooted and pervasive. It just won't go away. The problem is, exactly who, or which group, is perpetuating the "myth" cant be easily identified.

You see, the conservative nutritional/medical community thinks it is the bodybuilders who perpetuate the myth that athletes need more protein and we of the bodybuilding community think it is them (the mainstream nutritional community) that is perpetuating the myth that athletes don't need additional protein! Who is right?

If you tell the average nutritionist you are on a high protein diet because you are an athlete they will often reply, "oh you don't want to do that, you don't need it and it will lead to kidney disease" without a single decent study to back up their claim!

You see they too are susceptible to the skulking myth specter that spreads lies and confusion. In this article I want to address once and for all (hopefully) the protein myth as it applies to what the average person is told when they tell their doctor or some anemic "all you need are the RDAs" spouting nutritionist that he or she is following a high protein diet.

Myth #1 "High protein diets are bad for your kidneys”

For starters, the negative health claims of the high protein diet on kidney function is based on information gathered from people who have preexisting kidney problems, which has little to no relevance to healthy athletes. You see one of the jobs of the kidneys is the excretion of urea (generally a non toxic compound) that is formed from ammonia (a very toxic compound) which comes from the protein in our diets.

People with serious kidney problems have trouble excreting the urea placing more stress on the kidneys and so the logic goes that a high protein diet must be hard on the kidneys for healthy athletes also. Now for the medical and scientific facts.

There is not a single scientific study published in a reputable peer - reviewed journal using healthy adults with normal kidney function that has shown any kidney dysfunction what so ever from a high protein diet. Not one of the studies done with healthy athletes that examined this issue, or other research I have read, has shown any kidney abnormalities at all. For example, a recent study that examined the renal (kidney) function of athletes who follow a high protein diet–that is protein intake well above the US RDA– found no negative effects of a higher protein intake on the kidney function of these athletes.

The study called “Do Regular High Protein Diets Have Potential Health Risks on Kidney Function in Athletes? (International Journal of Sport Nutrition, 10 {1}) examined the kidney function of bodybuilders and other well-trained athletes following a high and medium protein diet.

The athletes underwent a 7-day nutrition record analysis as well as blood sample and urine collection to determine if their high-medium protein intakes affected their kidney function. The study found the athletes had renal clearances of creatinine, urea, albumin, and glomular filtration rates that were within the normal range.

The authors concluded “there were no correlations between protein intake and creatinine clearance, albumin excretion rate, and calcium excretion rate.” Furthermore, animals studies done using high protein diets also fail to show any kidney dysfunction in healthy animals.

One study that looked at the effects of a high protein diet on older dogs (“Effects of aging and dietary protein intake on uninephrectomized geriatric dogs.” Am J Vet Res 1994 Sep;55(9):1282-90) found not only did a high protein diet have no ill effects on the dogs kidneys, the dogs getting the higher protein intakes lived longer! Now don't forget, in the real world, where millions of athletes have been following high protein diets for decades, there has never been a case of kidney failure in a healthy athlete that was determined to have been caused solely by a high protein diet.

If the high protein diet was indeed putting undo stress on our kidneys, we would have seen many cases of kidney abnormalities, but we don't nor will we. From a personal perspective as a trainer for many top athletes from various sports, I have known bodybuilders eating considerably more than the RDA recommends (above 600 grams a day) who showed no kidney dysfunction or kidney problems and I personally read the blood tests! Bottom line? Higher than RDA intakes of protein will have absolutely no ill effects on the kidney function of a healthy athlete,
period.

So far, the data continues to support what we in the sports nutrition/bodybuilding field have been saying for decades, higher than RDA intakes of protein are perfectly healthy for athletes and their kidneys. Now of course too much of anything can be harmful and I suppose it's possible a healthy person could eat enough protein over a long enough period of time to effect kidney function, but it is very unlikely and has yet to be shown in the scientific literature in healthy athletes or “regular” people for that matter.

Myth #2 “High protein diets cause Osteoporosis”

So what about the osteoporosis claim? That's a bit more complicated but the conclusion is the same. In fact, recent data not only totally debunks this myth, but shows it may be the other way around!

The pathology of osteoporosis involves a combination of many risk factors and physiological variables such as macro nutrient intakes (carbs, proteins, fats), micro nutrient intakes (vitamins, minerals, etc), hormonal profiles, lack of exercise, gender, family history, and a few others.

The theory is that high protein intakes raise the acidity of the blood and the body must use minerals from bone stores to "buffer" the blood and bring the blood acidity down, thus depleting one's bones of minerals. Though some early studies appeared to show higher protein intakes caused an excretion of calcium, which would ultimately lead to bone loss, recent studies have debunked that assertion and do not support the claim that higher than RDA intakes of protein will lead to bone loss (“Excess dietary protein may not adversely affect bone.” J Nutr 1998 Jun;128(6):1054-7).

Even if there was a clear link between a high protein diet and osteoporosis in all populations (and there is not) athletes have few of the above risk factors as they tend to get plenty of exercise, calories, minerals, vitamins, and have positive hormonal profiles.

Fact of the matter is, studies have shown athletes to have denser bones than sedentary people, there are millions of athletes who follow high protein diets without any signs of premature bone loss, and we don't have ex athletes who are now older with higher rates of osteoporosis. What about regular people? One prominent researcher did an exhaustive review of the literature called “Optimal Intakes of Protein in the Human Diet” (Millward DJ .Proc Nutr Soc 1999 May;58(2):403-13) and came to some interesting conclusions on the issue. The study outlined an extensive body of recent data showing that high protein diets may in fact be beneficial for reducing blood pressure and stroke mortality. On the matter of bone loss, the review paper concludes “For bone health the established views of risk of high protein intakes are not supported by newly-emerging data, with benefit indicated in the elderly.”

Interestingly, a large body of research is now showing that the elderly may in fact require higher intakes of protein that is currently being recommended (“Increased protein requirements in elderly people: new data and retrospective reassessments.Am J Clin Nutr 1994 Oct;60(4):501-9).

Of course some will tell you that eating meat will increase bone loss, but a recent study 572 women and 388 men between the ages of 55 and 92 years, actually found animal protein consumption was associated with an increase in bone density over vegetable proteins! (Am J Epidemiol 2002;155:636-644.). So how long will it take for the conservative medical/nutritional community to give up on this myth that higher than RDA intakes or protein will make your bones turn into saw dust? I have no idea but clearly it’s untrue.

Myth #3 "All proteins are created equal"

How many times have you heard or read this ridiculous statement? Here has been such a plethora of research over the years showing different proteins can have different biological effects, I think even the most conservative people are letting go of this myth.

For example, whey protein has been shown to improve immunity to a variety of challenges and intense exercise has been shown to compromise certain parts of the immune response that whey may combat, and we know proteins such as soy, casein, etc. have many of their own unique effects.

So, this may be one myth that is finally put to rest with 99.9% of the myth perpetrators, but I am sure there is one die hard out there some place.

Myth #4 "Athletes don't need extra protein"

Interestingly, there has not been much new research of note on this topic since I wrote the first version of this article in 1995. Now the average reader person is probably thinking "who in the world still believes that ridiculous statement?" The answer is a great deal of people, even well educated medical professionals and scientists who should know better, still believe this to be true.

Don't forget, the high carb, low fat, low protein diet recommendations are alive and well with the average nutritionist, doctor, and of course the "don't confuse us with the facts" media following close behind.

For the past half century or so scientists using crude methods and poor study design with sedentary people have held firm to the belief that bodybuilders, strength athletes of various types, runners, and other highly active people did not require any more protein than Mr. Potato Head.....err, I mean the average couch potato.

For those of you who may need a brush up, one review paper on the subject by one of the top researchers in the field (Dr. Peter Lemon) states "...These data suggest that the RDA for those engaged in regular endurance exercise should be about 1.2-1.4 grams of protein/kilogram of body mass (150%-175% of the current RDA) and 1.7 - 1.8 grams of protein/kilogram of body mass per day (212%-225% of the current RDA) for strength exercisers” (“Is increased dietary protein necessary or beneficial for individuals with a physically active life style?” Nutr. Rev. 54:S169-175, 1996).

Another group of researchers in the field of protein metabolism have came to similar conclusions repeatedly (“Evaluation of protein requirements for trained strength athletes.” J. Applied. Phys. 73(5): 1986-1995, 1992.) They found that strength training athletes eating approximately the RDA/RNI for protein showed a decreased whole body protein synthesis (losing muscle jack!) on a protein intake of 0.86 grams per kilogram of bodyweight.

They came to an almost identical conclusion as that of Dr. Lemon in recommending at least 1.76g per kilogram of bodyweight per day for strength training athletes for staying in positive nitrogen balance/increases in whole body protein synthesis.

They concluded "In summary, protein requirements for athletes performing strength training are greater than sedentary individuals and are above the current Canadian and US recommended daily protein intake requirements for young healthy males."

This same group found in later research that endurance athletes also need far more protein than the RDA/RNI and that men catabolize (break down) more protein than women during endurance exercise. Although there has been some well thought out criticisms of the above conclusions for a variety of reasons, and the exact amount of protein each person needs depends on many factors (i.e. intensity and duration of exercise, age, whether the person is a beginner or experienced athlete, etc.), that people engaged in regular exercise require greater than the RDA in protein to get optimal effects, is without question in my view.

Conclusion

Now my intention of presenting the above quotes from the current research is not necessarily to convince the average athlete that they need more protein than Joe shmoe couch potato, because they already know they do, but rather to bring to the readers attention some of the figures presented by the current research since I wrote the first version of this article.

How does this information relate to the eating habits of the average athlete and the advice that has been found in the lay bodybuilding literature years before this research ever existed?

With some variation, the most common advice on protein intakes that could be-and can be- found in the bodybuilding magazines by the various writers, coaches, bodybuilders, etc., is one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day.

So for a 200 pound guy that would be 200 grams of protein per day. Although a tad higher than the research we have to go on at this time, it’s still an easy to follow time tested formula that clearly has no negative heath ramifications. Over the years the above myths have been floating around for so long they have just been accepted as true, even though there is little to no research to prove it and a whole bunch of research that disproves it!

I hope this article has been helpful in clearing up some of the confusion for people over the myths surrounding protein and athletes.