Bodybuilding Blog
Archive May
Tracking Your Progress
This tip is so elementary, many of you laugh, but it's also one of the most overlooked. To properlyadjust your diet, training, or life in general, you must know what your starting point is. Ensure that you keep a journal of your training sessions and diet. This way, at the beginning of your next workout,you will know what your starting weight should be for the upcoming exercise. This eliminates many wastedsets and time, and allows you to gauge your progress. I strive to go up 5 lbs or increase in repetitions witheach workout. Tracking your diet allows you to effectively tweak it. You will be able to learn which foodsaffect your body in a particular way. I keep two seperate journals which allow me to track my diet, training andfeelings about the two. If a particular food gives me energy, I make note of it, things like that are especially important.
Good luck!
Training for Quality Size Gains
When trying to put on size one must decide whether or not they want to add an excessive amount of bodyfat along with some new muscle tissue, or add lean muscle with limited amounts of bodyfat accumulation. The obvious answer to the question is that one should not desire to add bodyfat as extra bodyfat accumulation will hamper muscle gains. When extra bodyfat is added to the body, it is usually aaccompanied by a drop in the efficiency of the cardiovascular system which in turn can have an adverse effect on your workouts and recovery! Hormonal pathways are also sometimes disrupted when a significant rise in bodyfat is noted, this can cause a drop in serum (found in blood) testosterone levels which is hardly desireable for someone who is trying to add muscle to his/her body. To avoid this altogether it is a must that you follow these important steps/rules...
1 - Always know how many calories you are consuming on a daily basis. This is important because any calories that are not burmed or stored as glycogen in the muscles or liver or proteins used for growth and repair will most certainly be stored as bodyfat!
2 - Balance your daily caloric intake with your daily energy expenditure. To do this write down everything you eat and everything you do in the gym for 10 days. If you lose weight then you are not consuming enough calories; while if you gain weight then you are consuming too many calories. Adjust accordingly, not drastically up or down.
3 - Never set goals that are too lofty. Many times people set goals for the amount of weight they want to gain in a certain timeframe, this can be bad as when they are falling behind in their progress, they often resort to an "eat everything"approach which often leaves them with a large gain in bodyfat stores. Take a logical approach to reaching your goals, don't expect to attain them "overnight", as they say "rome wasn't built in day" and neither will your physique! Give yourself time to develop properly and you will reap the rewards of having a strong and healthy body that you can be proud of!
Maximizing Muscle Recovery
To maximize muscle recovery and growth these things must be met:
1) 15 minutes following a workout, a carbohydrate should be ingested along with a protein supplement. The carbs should be mixed in nature but mostly complex. A good example would be two scoops of whey mixed with fruit juice and a small white potato or some white rice. This will ensure that all nutrients needed for recovery are present in the bloodstream when insulin and other anabolic hormones are at their active peak. This is when most nutrients are "shuttled" to the ares in which they are needed most.(carb intake should be 50-75% of bodyweight)
2) Before going to bed, take in a good quality source of protein. This will ensure proper nitrogen balance which is essential to muscle growth. Protein (especially whey) has been shown to have a g/h(growth hormone) stimulating affect. On top of that, the first 1-2 hours of sleep are prime time for g/h(growth hormone) release. So take that protein before bed and watch yourself become bigger and stronger!
3) Don't rely on supplements for growth. Instead, learn the proper way to feed your body to growth using whole foods.
Quality Calories
You should consume calories from quality sources such as:
Protein: Chicken Tuna Egg Whites Lean Fish (ie, Cod, Roughy, etc) Lean Red Meat Low Fat Dairy
Carbs: Yams/Sweet Potatoes Rice (brown preferred) White Potatoes Beans Oatmeal Corn
Fats: Olive Oil (Monounsaturated Fat) Flax Seed Oil Safflower Oil
Bear in mind that these are examples of what is good. You can find other foods that are comparable, but you will need to buy a food index book to determine which foods are valuable to your diet.You should incorporate some of each of the above in each of six meals consumed throughout the day. This ensures a constant supply of nutrients and energy throughout the day. A good ratio to follow is 40 - 40 - 20, protein, carbs, fats. This is a starting point. It is up to you to tweak the ratio to best suit you. Stay away from animal fats and fatty foods such as fatty beef, pork, whole dairy products, etc.