17 Mar
Blog

The Ultimate Isometric Exercise Guide

The Ultimate Isometrics Manual is a nerds paradise, at least for this nerd. From the point of view of Convict Conditioning author Paul Wade, who was published by Dragon Door, this extensive book of 462 pages offers the most complete possible overview of isometric training.

The Ultimate Isometric Exercise Guide - Reviews, Body Weight Exercises, Isometrics, Functional Strength, Concentric Exercise Only, Contraction

Isometrics is about being easily accessible yet outside of a dedicated group of practitioners, not something that gets a lot of press. It's a shame because isometrics has wide applicability to all strength training populations, including beginners and seniors.

That's because isometric exercises force you to stay on track. By that I mean, they are not like lifting a barbell or dumbbell unless you can over- or under-load an isometric set and the overall risk of injury is much lower than with traditional exercises.

Isometric training is only as effective as the exertion, and the exertion can only be felt if you are properly positioned to create the required tension. That doesn't mean you can't screw up an isometric exercise, but you do need to be pretty motivated to do something wrong.

What is isometric exercise?

Isometric training relies solely on creating tension with concentric contraction of the muscle against an immovable object. This object can be a device like the Isochain, it can be a door jamb, and it can be your own body.

Every discussion about isometry refers without exception to the seminal study by Hettinger and Müller from 1953 (muscle capacity and muscle training). The German researchers found that a single daily exertion of two-thirds of a person's maximum exertion for six seconds at a time for ten weeks increased strength by about five percent per week.

Melody Schoenfeld wrote on these pages that isometry works at a standstill or uses force against resistance without changing the muscle length. For example, hold a curl of biceps at a 90-degree angle for 30 seconds.

Logan Christopher wrote about the legendary strong man Alexander Zass, who was a huge proponent of isometric exercise and believed the secret to isometric exercise was that it stored energy rather than dissipating it and that it enabled him to resist against very strong resistance work to build his stamina.

Zass had little access to weightlifting equipment in his life. He was a strong man who bent bars and broke chains. Bruce Lee was also known for his isometric work, as mentioned in Bruce Lee's 3-Minute Workout by Shane Trotter.

Unpack the secrets of static training

<img load = "lazy” alt=”In 1953, Hetting and Müller conducted pioneering research into isometric training” class=”imagecache-full_width” src=”https://cdn2.omidoo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full_width/images/bydate/202103/hettingerisometricexercises.png” title=”Early German Isometric Exam (Hettinger, 1961)” height=”547″/>

Let's get the biggest criticism of this book out of the way: It's a bit of an exaggeration to promote Isochain, an expensive isometric exercise machine that isn't featured here and isn't needed to enjoy this book or develop it any further.

You'd think Paul Wade, the guy who's behind no machine training, would be less inclined to push a machine, but to be honest, his publishers should have addressed that one little mistake of the book better.

To put it in perspective, this e-book costs just under ten dollars and has a lot of great information and exercises that the Isochain doesn't need. I'll be generous and give the Isochain infomercial about 50 pages of overexposure, which leaves about 400 pages of other material.

Otherwise I stand by my nerding-out statement. I have an isometric training reference. I have enough information to make an intelligent decision about its effectiveness, and I have many examples of isometric exercise use.

More importantly, there is enough information here to justify how isometric training can increase weight and reduce the risk of injury.

I asked an older friend of mine, someone who is quite sedentary, to try a series of isometric exercises that I improvised for him during the lockdown while he was working from home, 10 minutes a day. Based on my sample of one, the effects of phenomenal.

Whether it was the 10 minutes a day that were just part of the routine or the actually noticeable gains in strength that he experienced, my friend was sold and actually went the book himself.

Like everything in the fitness industry, there are cycles, fads, and fashions. Isometric exercises are not in vogue or fashionable, but they may require a refresher cycle and require modern appreciation. Paul Wade's book may be all you need to brush up on your isometrics.

15 Mar
Blog

The Ultimate Isometric Exercise Guide

The Ultimate Isometrics Manual is a nerds paradise, at least for this nerd. From the point of view of Convict Conditioning author Paul Wade, who was published by Dragon Door, this extensive book of 462 pages offers the most complete possible overview of isometric training.

The Ultimate Isometric Exercise Guide - Reviews, Body Weight Exercises, Isometrics, Functional Strength, Concentric Exercise Only, Contraction

Isometrics is about being easily accessible yet outside of a dedicated group of practitioners, not something that gets a lot of press. It's a shame because isometrics has wide applicability to all strength training populations, including beginners and seniors.

That's because isometric exercises force you to stay on track. By that I mean, they are not like lifting a barbell or dumbbell unless you can over- or under-load an isometric set and the overall risk of injury is much lower than with traditional exercises.

Isometric training is only as effective as the exertion, and the exertion can only be felt if you are properly positioned to create the required tension. That doesn't mean you can't screw up an isometric exercise, but you do need to be pretty motivated to do something wrong.

What is isometric exercise?

Isometric training relies solely on creating tension with concentric contraction of the muscle against an immovable object. This object can be a device like the Isochain, it can be a door jamb, and it can be your own body.

Every discussion about isometry refers without exception to the seminal study by Hettinger and Müller from 1953 (muscle capacity and muscle training). The German researchers found that a single daily exertion of two-thirds of a person's maximum exertion for six seconds at a time for ten weeks increased strength by about five percent per week.

Melody Schoenfeld wrote on these pages that isometry works at a standstill or uses force against resistance without changing the muscle length. For example, hold a curl of biceps at a 90-degree angle for 30 seconds.

Logan Christopher wrote about the legendary strong man Alexander Zass, who was a huge proponent of isometric exercise and believed the secret to isometric exercise was that it stored energy rather than dissipating it and that it enabled him to resist against very strong resistance work to build his stamina.

Zass had little access to weightlifting equipment in his life. He was a strong man who bent bars and broke chains. Bruce Lee was also known for his isometric work, as mentioned in Bruce Lee's 3-Minute Workout by Shane Trotter.

Unpack the secrets of static training

<img load = "lazy” alt=”In 1953, Hetting and Müller conducted pioneering research into isometric training” class=”imagecache-full_width” src=”https://cdn2.omidoo.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full_width/images/bydate/202103/hettingerisometricexercises.png” title=”Early German Isometric Exam (Hettinger, 1961)” height=”547″/>

Let's get the biggest criticism of this book out of the way: It's a bit of an exaggeration to promote Isochain, an expensive isometric exercise machine that isn't featured here and isn't needed to enjoy this book or develop it any further.

You'd think Paul Wade, the guy who's behind no machine training, would be less inclined to push a machine, but to be honest, his publishers should have addressed that one little mistake of the book better.

To put it in perspective, this e-book costs just under ten dollars and has a lot of great information and exercises that the Isochain doesn't need. I'll be generous and give the Isochain infomercial about 50 pages of overexposure, which leaves about 400 pages of other material.

Otherwise I stand by my nerding-out statement. I have an isometric training reference. I have enough information to make an intelligent decision about its effectiveness, and I have many examples of isometric exercise use.

More importantly, there is enough information here to justify how isometric training can increase weight and reduce the risk of injury.

I asked an older friend of mine, someone who is quite sedentary, to try a series of isometric exercises that I improvised for him during the lockdown while he was working from home, 10 minutes a day. Based on my sample of one, the effects of phenomenal.

Whether it was the 10 minutes a day that were just part of the routine or the actually noticeable gains in strength that he experienced, my friend was sold and actually went the book himself.

Like everything in the fitness industry, there are cycles, fads, and fashions. Isometric exercises are not in vogue or fashionable, but they may require a refresher cycle and require modern appreciation. Paul Wade's book may be all you need to brush up on your isometrics.

10 Mar
Blog

How to Perform the Ultimate Chest Fly Exercise

Upper body training can be complicated and daunting. Health freaks can have a hard time getting them right and getting results. As a result, your fitness routine can have serious repercussions. Breast fly exercises are exceptional in many ways. For starters, it's a fantastic upper body workout that is easy and safe to do.

For starters, it's a fantastic upper body workout that is easy and safe to do. Aside from that, it also offers a wide variety of fitness results that will leave you wanting more.
Let us help you learn all about the Breast Fly Exercise today!

What is chest fly training?

The chest fly exercise is an upper body workout that strengthens the chest and arms. You can do the exercise with dumbbells in both hands on a sloping bench or while standing. Unlike any other workout, chest fly exercises don't limit you to just one thing. Even beginners can safely opt for this workout if necessary.

Once you start doing the breast fly on a regular basis, you will notice a lot of changes. Your chest and arms will become firmer. The strength in your body will double. Your core will improve too. For more detailed benefits, read below!

Benefits of the breast fly exercise

Many people think that pectoral flies are just for building great chest muscles. That is not true. The chest fly workout works well for biceps, shoulders, and even general stability. Have a look!

  1. Protects Your Shoulders – As you do the Chest Fly workout, you will also strengthen your inner shoulders. The breast fly also protects the rotator cuffs in this way.
  2. Improves Chest Muscles – The Chest Fly works like magic for your chest muscles. It helps build flawless strength for that part of your body.
  3. Promotes arm strength – lift the dumbbells and use them to exercise your upper body. also helps to promote arm strength at the same time.

How to Perform a Breast Fly

Before exercising, remember that you need to pay attention to the weight of the dumbbells. Since a chest fly workout requires dumbbells to practice the exercise, you need to be careful about how light or heavy they are. We recommend beginners not to use more than 3 to 5 pounds initially. Once they continue with this workout they can start using 8-10 pounds.

  1. Lie flat with your back on an incline bench. Your feet should be on the floor. At this point, your head and back should be resting on the incline bench.
  2. Hold two dumbbells in both hands.
  3. Now gently raise your arms above your head. Don't lock them out. Make sure your elbows are slightly bent. Your dumbbells are also facing each other.
  4. Breathe in. Now lower the dumbbells in an arching motion until they are the same length as your chest. At this point, your arms should be stretched out to your sides. Don't lock them out, however.
  5. Now exhale and gradually bring the dumbbells up in the same motion that you brought them down.
  6. Do the workout in 10 to 15 repetitions of 3 sets.

How do you perform a dumbbell chest fly?

There are two other ways to perform a chest fly – incline bench and standing. Both positions for performing the chest fly are effective. You can do any of them according to your level of comfort.

  1. Lay your back flat on an incline bench. The incline bench should be low at about 30 degrees. Hold the dumbbells in each hand.
  2. Now place your arms on your sides at chest height. Keep your elbows bent and let them point them out.
  3. Now exhale and raise your arms over your chest.
  4. Inhale and gradually lower your arms to the side and bring them to the starting position.
  5. Keep going with the press.
  6. Do the workout in 10 to 15 repetitions of 3 sets.

How do you make a standing breast fly?

  1. Stand up with your feet shoulder-width apart. Hold the dumbbells with both hands.
  2. Raise your arms and bring them in front of you at chest level. Your palms should face each other.
  3. Now stretch your arms to the side and keep your arms outstretched. So make sure they are at chest level throughout the workout.
  4. Now bring them back to the center.
  5. Repeat the workout 10 to 15 times in 3 sets.
frequently asked Questions

1. Can I use chest flies during cardio strength training?

Yes. Combining the two workouts is an incredible idea.

2. How many calories does this workout burn?

This workout can shed 100 calories every ten minutes.

3. Is the training effective?

Yes. You can try the workout yourself to see the difference.

26 Feb
Blog

Active, Passive, and Earned Exercise Recovery Strategies

This article is the fourth and final installment in the exercise recovery series.

I'm finally going to cover the sexy stuff. These are not state of the art recovery modalities that will improve your training, recovery, and results, but they are the recovery methods that all work.

They're not performing as well as you'd expect from the marketing machine, but you're looking for small wins – not game changers – at this stage of the recovery puzzle.

The recovery strategies discussed in this article all have strong evidence to back them up.

I haven't covered some other recovery methods as there isn't enough evidence to be confident in recommending them.

There are two categories of recovery strategies. I will treat both:

  1. Passive recovery methods focus on silence and inactivity.
  2. Active recovery methods require activity, but in a way that promotes recovery rather than intensity.

Passive recovery

  • Hydration could fall under the umbrella of nutrition. It is undoubtedly an essential factor to consider in your overall exercise performance and recovery. Drinking adequate amounts of water is critical to your health, energy levels, gym performance, and healing.
  • Many of us are very conscious of our hydration during training and competition, but are less focused on hydration the rest of the time. If you spend the rest of the time raising awareness of your hydration status, it can greatly improve your recovery. We have roughly 60% water, so it should come as no surprise that staying hydrated is important.
  • Water supports all of our body functions. Optimal hydration levels enable, among other things, cell growth and reproduction, effective digestion, efficient nutrient uptake, oxygen supply, temperature regulation, hormone and neurotransmitter production, less stress on the heart and joint lubrication. All of these factors affect training and recovery.
  • The easiest way to check your hydration status is to look at your piss. If it's clear to a pale straw color, you are well hydrated. The darker your piss, the less hydrated you are.

A good goal for water intake is 0.04 liters per kilogram of body weight. For a person weighing 100 kg, that's 4 liters per day.

100 kg x 0.04 liters = 4 liters

Your exact needs will depend on other factors such as activity level, sweat rate and ambient temperature. Start with the recommendation of 0.04 liters per kg and adjust as needed. The following guidelines can help you stay well hydrated:

  • Drinking water is the best way to keep hydrated.
  • Tea and coffee have a net moisturizing effect, but are not as effective as drinking water.
  • You don't need sports drinks for average strength and bodybuilding training. Only drink them before, during and after strenuous exercise or competitions for a duration of> 90 minutes.

Proper diet planning will ensure adequate nutrients to benefit your workout.

  • take a nap is a bit of a deceit because I covered the importance of sleep in recovery from your last article. That focus was on improving the quantity and quality of your sleep overnight. Supplementing your nighttime sleep with naps can also be beneficial and improve recovery.
  • It's important to note that while napping can help you sleep well and better rest, it shouldn't replace healthy sleep patterns. Make a good night's sleep your number one priority. Then use the nap to optimize recovery. If you are taking a nap, it is best not to do it too close to your normal bedtime. Napping late in the day can disrupt your sleep during the night and turn into a false economy. In general, late morning or early afternoon naps work well for improving recovery without interfering with your normal sleep routine.
  • Keep naps short. Napping for 20 to 30 minutes can help improve recovery and mental awareness. Napping too long can lead to insomnia. The risk increases if you nap longer than 30 minutes or late in the day.
  • The coffee nap hack: If you feel drowsy after taking a nap, it may be a wrong economy. Napping for 20 minutes will help with recovery. However, if you feel like a zombie for the next hour, your productivity will increase and you will be right to question whether napping was a worthwhile strategy. I've struggled with this in the past.
  • One tip that worked well for me was to have a coffee right before my nap. The caffeine from the coffee hit my bloodstream, causing a short-term spike in cortisol that helped me feel awake and refreshed after napping.

Massage: While there is some evidence to support the physiological benefits of massage, the actual benefits appear to be more psychological in nature.

There is strong evidence of the psychological and relaxing benefits of massage. These factors all play important roles in your recovery and adjustment.

A deep tissue sports massage may not be the best approach as it is far from relaxing. A gentler approach may be more beneficial to recovery as you can completely relax and enjoy the experience.

Active recovery

Light days: Lighter days of exercise can potentially improve recovery time more than a full day of rest. Systematic decreases define an easier day in terms of training volume and intensity. Light days fall under good programming.

  • For strength or power goals: I find lighter days to be incredibly beneficial. You can program these every week (or several times a week) to allow for a higher frequency on tech-driven lifts like weightlifting and gymnastics. Still, allow rest and adjustment. This emphasis allows you to grease the groove of an elevator and refine the technique without creating a lot of fatigue.
  • For bodybuilding goals: I think you can use the easier days a little differently. In this case, I tend to use light days as days when smaller muscle groups cause less systemic fatigue and require less mental arousal to exercise or have a workout. I've found this to work well for handling all of the training stress over a week and means a lifter can get a productive workout while allowing a good recovery.
  • Active recovery days: Active rest days are very risky. You can certainly improve recovery, but most exercise rats struggle to resist the temptation to turn their active recovery day into a full-blown workout.
  • If the temptation is too great, just slow down recovery from your usual workouts. This slowdown defeats the Active Recovery Days object. It would help if you were honest with yourself about this. If you know that you lack the discipline to stick to your recovery day plan, stay away from the gym. Do nothing. Just take a day off.
  • However, if you can stick to your recovery day plan, you may be able to improve your overall recovery. The difference isn't dramatic, but every little bit adds up.

A day of rest increases blood circulation and relieves psychological stress.

These two things can speed up the recovery and customization process. Low-intensity activities are suitable for days of rest.

One of my favorite strategies is to take a brisk 20-minute walk outside. Walking increases blood circulation and supports regeneration, especially in the legs, but is still of low intensity. It does not affect recovery from previous training or performance in subsequent sessions.

Another correct choice is a mobility routine.

A full body mobility flow can be a productive strategy for recreational days.

The key is to remember that recovery days should include more general fitness moves in a less structured, lower-intensity training environment than regular exercise.

Avoid vigorous exercise, excessive duration or novel activity, and anything that is strenuous. Recovery day sessions should be easier and shorter than typical workouts. They should encourage recovery and not feel like a workout.

The clue is in the name – recovery!

Eke Out Exercise Recovery

This article is by far the shortest in this exercise recovery series. The reason for this is because these recovery strategies are less effective than the other factors I covered.

If you find that you are investing more time, money, and energy into the recovery methods in this article than you did in the first three installments, you are missing out on a better recovery.

However, if you've ticked off all of the other items in our exercise recovery series, you can get additional recovery capacity by implementing the strategies discussed here.

  1. Train hard, recover harder
  2. The Importance of Structured Training Programs in Recovery
  3. The Two Most Powerful Exercise Recovery Tools in Nature
  4. Active, passive, and deserved exercise recovery strategies
25 Feb
Blog

Active, Passive, and Earned Exercise Recovery Strategies

This article is the fourth and final installment in the exercise recovery series.

I'm finally going to cover the sexy stuff. These are not state of the art recovery modalities that will improve your training, recovery, and results, but they are the recovery methods that all work. They're not performing as well as you'd expect from the marketing machine, but you're looking for small wins – not game changers – at this stage of the recovery puzzle.

The recovery strategies discussed in this article all have strong evidence to back them up.

I haven't covered some other recovery methods as there isn't enough evidence to be confident in recommending them.

There are two categories of recovery strategies. I will treat both:

  1. Passive recovery methods focus on silence and inactivity.
  2. Active recovery methods require activity, but in a way that promotes recovery rather than intensity.

Passive recovery

  • Hydration could fall under the umbrella of nutrition. It is undoubtedly an essential factor to consider in your overall exercise performance and recovery. Drinking adequate amounts of water is critical to your health, energy levels, gym performance, and healing.
  • Many of us are very conscious of our hydration during training and competition, but are less focused on hydration the rest of the time. If you spend the rest of the time raising awareness of your hydration status, it can greatly improve your recovery. We have roughly 60% water, so it should come as no surprise that staying hydrated is important.
  • Water supports all of our body functions. Optimal hydration levels enable, among other things, cell growth and reproduction, effective digestion, efficient nutrient uptake, oxygen supply, temperature regulation, hormone and neurotransmitter production, less stress on the heart and joint lubrication. All of these factors affect training and recovery.
  • The easiest way to check your hydration status is to look at your piss. If it's clear to a pale straw color, you are well hydrated. The darker your piss, the less hydrated you are.

A good goal for water intake is 0.04 liters per kilogram of body weight. For a person weighing 100 kg, that's 4 liters per day.

100 kg x 0.04 liters = 4 liters

Your exact needs will depend on other factors such as activity level, sweat rate and ambient temperature. Start with the recommendation of 0.04 liters per kg and adjust as needed. The following guidelines can help you stay well hydrated:

  • Drinking water is the best way to keep hydrated.

  • Tea and coffee have a net moisturizing effect, but are not as effective as drinking water.

  • You don't need sports drinks for average strength and bodybuilding training. Önly dIce rink them before, during and after strenuous exercise or competition for a Duration> 90 minutes.

Proper diet planning will ensure adequate nutrients to benefit your workout.

  • take a nap is a bit of a deceit because I covered the importance of sleep in recovery from your last article. That focus was on improving the quantity and quality of your sleep overnight. Supplementing your nighttime sleep with naps can also be beneficial and improve recovery.
  • It's important to note that while napping can help you sleep well and better rest, it shouldn't replace healthy sleep patterns. Make a good night's sleep your number one priority. Then use the nap to optimize recovery. If you are taking a nap, it is best not to do it too close to your normal bedtime. Napping late in the day can disrupt your sleep during the night and turn into a false economy. In general, late morning or early afternoon naps work well for improving recovery without interfering with your normal sleep routine.
  • Keep naps short. Napping for 20 to 30 minutes can help improve recovery and mental awareness. Napping too long can lead to insomnia. The risk increases if you nap longer than 30 minutes or late in the day.
  • The coffee nap hack: If you feel drowsy after taking a nap, it may be a wrong economy. Napping for 20 minutes will help with recovery. However, if you feel like a zombie for the next hour, your productivity will increase and you will be right to question whether napping was a worthwhile strategy. I've struggled with this in the past.
  • One tip that worked well for me was to have a coffee right before my nap. The caffeine from the coffee hit my bloodstream, causing a short-term spike in cortisol that helped me feel awake and refreshed after napping.

Massage: While there is some evidence to support the physiological benefits of massage, the actual benefits appear to be more psychological in nature.

There is strong evidence of the psychological and relaxing benefits of massage. These factors all play important roles in your recovery and adjustment.

A deep tissue sports massage may not be the best approach as it is far from relaxing. A gentler approach may be more beneficial to recovery as you can completely relax and enjoy the experience.

Active recovery

Light days: Lighter days of exercise can potentially improve recovery time more than a full day of rest. Systematic decreases define an easier day in terms of training volume and intensity. Light days fall under good programming.

  • For strength or power goals: I find lighter days to be incredibly beneficial. You can program these every week (or several times a week) to allow for a higher frequency on tech-driven lifts like weightlifting and gymnastics. Still, allow rest and adjustment. This emphasis allows you to grease the groove of an elevator and refine the technique without creating a lot of fatigue.
  • For bodybuilding goals: I think you can use the easier days a little differently. In this case, I tend to use light days as days when smaller muscle groups cause less systemic fatigue and require less mental arousal to exercise or have a workout. I've found this to work well for handling all of the training stress over a week and means a lifter can get a productive workout while allowing a good recovery.
  • Active recovery days: Active rest days are very risky. You can certainly improve recovery, but most exercise rats struggle to resist the temptation to turn their active recovery day into a full-blown workout.
  • If the temptation is too great, just slow down recovery from your usual workouts. This slowdown defeats the Active Recovery Days object. It would help if you were honest with yourself about this. If you know that you lack the discipline to stick to your recovery day plan, stay away from the gym. Do nothing. Just take a day off.
  • However, if you can stick to your recovery day plan, you may be able to improve your overall recovery. The difference isn't dramatic, but every little bit adds up.

A day of rest increases blood circulation and relieves psychological stress.

These two things can speed up the recovery and customization process. Low-intensity activities are suitable for days of rest.

One of my favorite strategies is to take a brisk 20-minute walk outside. Walking increases blood circulation and supports regeneration, especially in the legs, but is still of low intensity. It does not affect recovery from previous training or performance in subsequent sessions.

Another correct choice is a mobility routine.

A full body mobility flow can be a productive strategy for recreational days.

The key is to remember that recovery days should include more general fitness moves in a less structured, lower-intensity training environment than regular exercise.

Avoid vigorous exercise, excessive duration or novel activity, and anything that is strenuous. Recovery day sessions should be easier and shorter than typical workouts. They should encourage recovery and not feel like a workout.

The clue is in the name – recovery!

Eke Out Exercise Recovery

This article is by far the shortest in the series. The reason for this is because these recovery strategies are less effective than the other factors I covered.

If you find that you are investing more time, money, and energy into the recovery methods in this article than you did in the first three installments, you are missing out on a better recovery.

However, if you've ticked off all of the other items from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of our exercise recovery series, you can take advantage of additional recovery capacity by implementing the strategies discussed here.

25 Feb
Blog

Nature’s Two Most Powerful Exercise Recovery Tools

In the first part this series, Train hard, recover harder, I explained that stress is a double-edged sword. In order to make adjustments, you have to impose stress, but too much stress affects your recovery.

Stress can be both good and bad, but your body doesn't distinguish between types of stress, and your body can only handle that much stress. Stress is good during exercise; Your ability to benefit from it depends somewhat on your overall stress level.

So you have to manage all of your life stress in order to free up as much capacity as possible for dealing with training stress. Stress management strategies can create a larger window of time for exercise stress to apply and recover.

In part two, The Importance of Structured Exercise Programs in Recovery, I discussed optimizing your exercise program as another powerful tool in maximizing recovery. By focusing on delivering efficient exercise stress, you make your recovery easier.

Intelligent program design = fatigue management

The four key factors to consider are:

  1. Volume landmarks

  2. SRA curves

  3. Stimulus: fatigue ratio

  4. Relative intensity

At this point, I am assuming that your workout is optimized and provides a reasonable incentive.

From this point on, the remaining adjustments, such as B. Increases in size and strength, from recovery, result in this simplified muscle building equation:

Stimulus + recovery = adjustment

In this third part of the series, I'm going to cover your two most powerful recovery tools and how to maximize them.

The two most powerful recovery tools available to you are:::

  1. sleep

  2. nutrition

If you focus on these consistently, you will be rewarded. With your choice of sleep, diet, and stress management, you are ready to make great strides in the gym.

The positive influence of sleep on performance

Sleep is your most important recovery tool. I have spoken repeatedly about the positive effects of sleep on athletic performance and your ability to recover from hard exercise. The harder you can train without exceeding your recovery capacity, the faster you can progress.

Sleep is the most anabolic state for your body. Lack of sleep limits your strength and muscle mass gains. It also increases your chances of losing muscle mass if you cut and absorb fat as you accumulate.

To maximize recovery and build more muscle, you need to prioritize sleep.

Better sleep will help you with this too::

In short, it makes you a fitter, happier, and more productive person.

Let's be honest; you probably already know that. Bet you don't give sleep the credit it deserves when it comes to your lifestyle choices. Most of us realize that we should sleep more. We know sleep is important. However, we do not prioritize it.

I'm pretty sure you are making this mistake because I do too. I've been guilty many times in the past. It's all too easy to stay up late to catch the next episode of a TV show or to scroll aimlessly through Instagram. Whenever I do that, I always regret it the next day.

Lack of sleep can creep up on you. You may not realize that you have been deprived of sleep. The occasional late night has little effect. The problem is when those late nights get normal.

Stay on the laptop for a long time to meet work schedules or relax before a good show. Both eat into your sleep and have a huge impact on the quality of your recovery. Over time, you will likely feel like a zombie with no caffeine in the morning, your fitness performance will begin to increase, and you will make poorer dietary choices. It all happens little by little.

They sneak up on you. I've seen this over and over with customers trying to burn the candle on both ends. They pretend they can get away with it because the drop in performance is gradual. Be warned, lack of sleep adds up and if not resolved, it can slow your progress.

My sleep deprivation experience was less gradual and more like a blunt force trauma. I had always slept well and made it a priority. Then I had children. After our son was born, it took me 18 months to feel normal again in the gym. I vividly remember the session after my first full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I felt like superman.

The sad thing is, I wasn't a Superman.

I wasn't even around. After a good night's sleep, I was just a normal Tom. My perception of what was normal had been so distorted by 18 months of sleep deprivation that I now felt amazing. You could have slept in the same situation without realizing it. Make sleep a priority for a month and I'm confident you will look better, feel better, and perform better.

The research on sleep deprivation is alarming. Studies show that for 11 days in a row with less than six hours of sleep, your cognitive abilities are roughly as high as if you had stayed awake for 24 hours.

After 22 days of sleeping less than six hours a night, your brain is functioning at the same level as someone who has stayed awake for 48 hours straight. To put things in perspective, it means your reactions are likely to be worse than someone who is over the legal limit for alcohol.

Are you more zombie than human?

Take a sleep survey on yourself and assess if you are more of a zombie than a human.

As a guide, this is what you should aim for when it comes to sleeping::

  • Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

  • Go to bed at the same time every night.

  • Wake up at the same time each morning.

  • Wake up without an alarm clock.

  • Sleep all night long – multiple bathroom trips are a sure sign of poor quality sleep (or way too much drinking just before bed).

  • Waking up in much the same position that you fell asleep (not throwing and spinning all night) is a good sign.

  • You should wake up refreshed.

How can your sleep hold up against this list? I suspect you are not ticking all of these points. In my experience, most people can't even check off a few of them. Your goal is to work towards ensuring that you can check off each of these bullet points.

Here are some practical tips to help you sleep better and longer.

  • Prepare for success: Get a comfortable bed, mattress and pillow. Bed quality can affect sleep. It can also reduce back and shoulder pain. Given that you spend almost a third of your life in bed, it makes sense to invest in a good one.
  • Establish a routine: Go to bed at about the same time and get up at the same time each day. Weekends count too. It was found that matching sleep and wake times improves long-term sleep quality.
  • Include relaxation: It has been found that relaxation techniques before bed improve the quality of sleep. Read a book, listen to a chill out playlist, take a hot bath or take a deep breath and meditate. Do whatever you can to relax and unwind.
  • Cut the coffee at 4pm: Drinking coffee is cool. I love this stuff, but having it later in the day can disrupt or even prevent your sleep. On average, the half-life of caffeine is around five hours. However, this half-life can vary massively between individuals. If you are a slow metabolizer of caffeine, you may have levels in your system that will keep you awake and will keep you awake until the wee hours if you drink it after 4pm. In extreme cases, having it within 10 hours of going to bed can be disturbing for some people. So cut yourself off at 4pm and see if it's easier for you to fall asleep. If you're still having issues, push things forward to 3pm and reevaluate.
  • Disconnect the matrix: The blue light emitted by the screens of your devices can disturb your sleep. The body's internal clock or daily rhythm is mainly influenced by the hours of daylight. Artificial lights like street lights and lightbulbs are already bothering it, but looking at screens magnifies the problem. Your internal body clock is supplied by the eye nerve, which is directly influenced by blue light. Your phone, TV, laptop, and tablet emit the same light. To improve sleep, I suggest that you disconnect from such screens for at least 60 minutes before going to bed.
  • Receive natural sunlight during the day: In these times the body needs light. Studies have found that two hours of bright light during the day increases the amount of sleep by two hours and improves the quality of sleep by 80%.
  • Sleep in the batcave: Make your bedroom pitch black, calm and cool to maximize the quality of your sleep. Remove all electrical devices.
  • Room temperature: Set the thermostats to around 20 ° C. It was found that room temperature affects the quality of sleep more than external noise.
  • Stay away from alcohol: Just a few drinks have been shown to reduce your sleep hormones. Alcohol alters melatonin production and lowers HGH (Human Growth Hormone) levels. Melatonin is an important sleep hormone that tells your brain when it's time to relax and fall asleep. HGH helps regulate your body clock, counteracts aging, and is vital to recovery.

There you have it, your comprehensive guide to better sleep. You have no excuse now. You know sleep is crucial. You can also rate your sleep based on the standards listed above. If you come up short, you have nine tips to improve your sleep.

As you improve your sleep, everything else improves too. Try to improve your sleep before you worry about investing in other recovery modalities.

Neither of them can hold a candle to sleep, and sleep is free.

Your caloric intake and energy balance

Your second most powerful recovery tool is your diet.

By properly fueling your body, you can take advantage of the stimulus generated by your exercise. Training creates the incentive to build muscle, lose fat and increase strength. Your recovery will determine whether or not you will achieve that potential.

When it comes to nutrition, there are several variables that you can manipulate. The most important variable when it comes to nutrition for recovery is your caloric intake and energy balance.

What is a calorie and what is energy balance??

A calorie (Kcal) is a unit of energy. Our food contains calories and fuels us with energy to lead our daily lives. Everyone needs different amounts of energy per day depending on their age, size and level of activity.

Calorie budget refers to the number of calories you consume compared to the number of calories you burn.

If you eat excess calories, you will gain weight. If you eat a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. While eating high calorie food in the process of maintenance, it means that you are maintaining the weight. When it comes to physical change, calories are king.

When consuming a calorie surplus, maximizing regeneration is easier to manage than when consuming a deficit. You have an abundance of calories available to meet your macro and micronutrient needs. When it comes to diet and you have an excess, keep things simple. Hit your macros, distribute your protein intake fairly evenly between 3-6 meals a day, and eat a variety of fruits and vegetables.

When you are calorie deficit, the details of your diet are more important in maximizing recovery as less energy is coming in. The basic principles still apply, but you need to take better account of your low calorie eating habits to ensure that you meet both your macro and micronutrient needs.

Meal timing, food quality, and micronutrition are more important when you are in a deficit, but none of them outperform achieving a reasonable calorie deficit.

Energy balance and macronutrients are the two most important factors in your diet in terms of body development and strength gains.

How to set calories for individual results

If you have an excess, I suggest that you eat enough to gain between 0.25 and 0.5% of your body weight per week.

A quick strategy to estimate your daily needs is to multiply your weight in pounds by 15.

This formula generally gives a good approximation of the calories needed to maintain your weight. An excess of 500 calories per day equates to roughly a pound of weight gain per week. If you weigh 200 pounds, this is right at the upper end of your weight gain target. An excess of 250 calories a day will result in you gaining roughly half a pound a week. An excess of between 250 and 500 calories would be adequate for a 200 pound lifter.

If you are in deficit, I recommend losing between 0.5 and 1% of your body weight per week.

If you maintain a faster rate than this for an extended period (say, more than four weeks), you run the risk of adversely affecting your fitness performance and muscle loss.

Similar to the excess example, you can estimate maintenance calories by multiplying your weight in pounds by 15 calories.

From this point on, you need to subtract calories in order to achieve a deficit. A 500 calorie deficit will give you one pound loss per week. For our 200 pound example, an ideal rate of fat loss is between 1 and 2 pounds per week. Consequently, a deficit of 500-1,000 kcal per day is the area to look out for in order to achieve this.

Macronutrients

There are three types of macronutrients: protein, fat, and carbohydrates. All of these provide energy and therefore contain calories. Here's how to establish and establish your macronutrient needs and goals.

The calorie content per gram of each macronutrient is listed below::

  • Protein: Four calories per gram

  • Fat: Nine calories per gram

  • carbohydrate: Four calories per gram

This information is useful in the practical step of creating your diet with the appropriate proportions for each macronutrient.

Protein is essential for survival

Protein comes from the Greek word proteios, which means "of primary importance".

  • Protein is involved in almost every process in your body.
  • Proteins are vital and healthy.
  • They play an important role in athletic performance and body composition.
  • Muscle mass consists mostly of protein.
  • Protein helps you recover from your workouts.
  • It preserves lean tissue on diets.
  • It will help you build more muscle as you build.
  • It has the greatest effect on satiety, or feeling comfortable, of any macronutrient.

To build muscle, consume protein in the range of 1.6 to 2.2 g / kg lean body mass to stimulate the MPS for the day.

Recent research supports the high end of this range.

I generally recommend eating 2 g of protein per kg of body weight. This formula is easy to remember, easy to calculate, and conveniently covers your needs. From a practical point of view, I've also found that it is a crowd that satisfies most people's appetites and eating habits.

Take away key– Eat 2 g of protein per kg (0.9 g per lbs) of body weight per day.

Never eliminate fat from your diet

The consumption of dietary fat is important for regular hormonal function, especially testosterone production.

You should never remove fat from a diet.

There is not so much an optimal amount of fat to consume, but a minimum

0.2-0.5 g / kg / day for normal hormonal function. There have been compelling arguments in favor of consuming between 20 and 30% of calories in fat to optimize testosterone levels.

However, when 0.6 g / kg / bw is reached, no significant benefit for the hormones can be seen.

How Much Fat Should I Consume?

I prefer a minimum of 0.6 g / kg / kg per day.

  • If there is an excess, this is enough to optimize hormonal function and generally equates to around 20% of the calories.
  • Since hormone function has little benefit after a calorie surplus after 0.6 g / kg / bw, there is no physiological need to increase this number as you go through your mass phase.
  • Even if the total calories are adjusted upwards to keep gaining weight, there is no physiological need to exceed the fat content of 0.6 g / kg / bw. In my experience, however, many people find it easier to stick to their eating plan when the fat is slightly higher as the total calories increase.
  • I generally find anything up to 1g / kg / bw is effective.
  • If there is a deficit, I suggest a range of 0.6-1 g / kg / body weight.
  • The risk of hormonal disorders is higher with a chronic calorie deficit.
  • While many clients have performed well and had exceptional results at the low end of this range, I tend to be conservative and start at the high end when a phase of fat loss begins.

From this point on, I take a results-based approach based on loss rate, customer feedback, and gym performance.

Take away key– Consume at least 0.6 g of fat per kg (0.3 g per pound) of body weight.

Carbohydrates affect hormones

Carbohydrates, like fats, have a positive effect on hormones. The carbohydrates you eat are converted to glucose and stored in the liver or released into the bloodstream. However, most of this glucose is actually taken up and stored by the muscles as glycogen. Despite this storage, glycogen is at the bottom of the body's list of priorities.

Glucose is used in a hierarchical order.

Cells in need of energy are the priority for the incoming glucose. Only when the majority of the cells' energy requirements have been met does the carbohydrate consumption increase blood sugar. When blood sugar levels reach a reasonable level, glycogen synthesis in the liver is the next priority.

Only then does the synthesis of muscle glycogen begin to a significant amount. When muscles absorb blood sugar, they can use it for activity or repair. This is important for muscle repair, recovery, and growth.

Carbohydrates are the dominant source of energy for the central nervous system (CNS) and physical activity.

They promote strenuous training and regeneration by replenishing muscle glycogen. Stored muscle glycogen is the primary and preferred source of fuel for high-intensity exercise. Carbohydrates are a great benefit for people who train hard.

During the diet phases, keeping carbohydrate levels very low has become very popular. This is not entirely unfounded, as cutting down on carbohydrates can help create a calorie deficit. I suggest you resist the temptation not to consume carbohydrates.

To get the most out of your workout, you need to do overloaded workouts. Eat enough carbohydrates to do this. They also help you retain muscle mass even as you lose body weight.

When you're low on glycogen, you risk suppressing the anabolic response to weight training. Eating enough carbohydrates allows for higher exercise intensity, higher exercise volume, faster recovery between sets and between sessions, and anti-catabolic and anabolic effects.

"How Much Carbohydrates Should You Consume?" Short answer:

"The rest of your available calories"

More protein preserves muscle mass and saturation

While you're in excess of calories, hitting your macros is likely to get 80% of the benefits of your diet from a recreational standpoint.

Factors such as nutrient timing, micronutrition, food variety, and quality all contribute to optimal results, but they make little difference.

When you're in a deficit, those tiny gains are yours to deal with as you don't have the safety net of an abundance of calories to do the heavy lifting for you.

Here are some tips on how to squeeze the most out of your diet for maximum recovery while cutting:

  • If you are in a calorie deficit, consuming the high end of the protein guidelines given earlier (2.2 g / kg / bw) is a great idea.
  • High protein intake has been shown to preserve muscle mass.
  • Anecdotally, high protein intake also appears to regulate appetite. This scheme is useful when cutting calories.

Protein timing

Several studies have shown that a 25-40g serving of protein is enough to maximize muscle protein synthesis (MPS). To give you a more specific recommendation, I suggest that you aim for 0.4 g / kg body weight per meal. If you weigh 65 kg, that would be 26 g, while a 80 kg man would have 32 g of protein per meal.

The current literature shows that eating a mixed whole meal results in MPS lasting approximately three hours and peaking for 45-90 minutes. While protein shakes / amino acid supplements typically only last two hours and peak earlier. Then MPS begins to subside.

Research shows that these peaks and valleys are beneficial in MPS for maximum muscle growth.

Based on the scientific evidence available, 4-6 servings of protein per day, 3-4 hours each, is the best choice to maximize MPS.

If you are calorie deficient, fine-tuning your eating plan to maximize MPS is the best option to avoid muscle wasting.

The holy grail of nutrient timing?

We've all heard of the post-workout anabolic window. Post-exercise diet has long been considered the holy grail of nutrient timing. I think this is a mistake. Pre-workout nutrition is just as important, if not more important, than post-workout nutrition, in my opinion.

As mentioned earlier, it takes the body several hours to digest a meal. For example, suppose you have a balanced meal before you exercise. In this case, your body will continue to receive a constant supply of nutrients throughout the session and even in the post-workout window.

Many people overlook the critical consideration that the important nutrient timing factor is that the nutrients are in your bloodstream, not when you eat them.

The nutrients from your pre-workout meal are in your bloodstream during and possibly after your workout. This means that you can immediately supply nutrients to the working muscles. If you only focus on the post-workout meal, there is a significant delay in the amount of nutrients getting to the muscles where you need them.

With this in mind, a few points should be noted here::

  • Insufficient carbohydrates can interfere with strength training.

  • Consuming carbohydrates in the pre-workout meal can improve performance in the workout session.

  • Consuming carbohydrates while exercising in sessions longer than an hour can improve performance at the end of the session and prevent muscle wasting (especially when combined with a quickly digestible source of protein).

  • By consuming carbohydrates after exercise, muscle glycogen is replenished more effectively than at other times. This post-workout window is much longer than the much touted anabolic window of 20 to 30 minutes. The 4-6 hours after the workout when consuming carbohydrates replenishes the optimal muscle glycogen.

As you build up, your carbohydrate intake is likely high enough that you don't have to worry too much about postponing your eating for one time or another.

If you distribute the carbohydrates evenly throughout the day, you are in good hands.

Calories and carbohydrates can be very low during a diet. IIn this situation, it is more important to consider your specific carbohydrate intake timing to aid in quality exercise and recovery.

It is wise to make sure that you consume carbohydrates at least during meals before and after your workout.

After that, you can just spread it fairly evenly over the other meals you eat during the day.

Eat the rainbow

Choosing nutrient-rich, low-calorie foods is a wise decision. This choice will help you stay full, which means you will be more likely to stick to your diet.

It also means you are getting all of the micro-nutrition you need to support a good recovery from exercise. A wide variety of vegetables is a smart decision when cutting calories.

An easy way to get a wide range of micronutrients is to eat fruits and vegetables in as many different colors as possible.

Avoid pseudosciences

While it is tempting to reach for the expensive recovery tool backed by pseudoscience, it is better to pluck the low hanging fruits of improving your sleep and diet to aid your recovery.

These two factors will have a far greater impact on your recovery and results than any other failed recovery method.

Use the guidelines I have provided to get a massive recovery benefit and keep those silly recovery fashions for less informed lifters.

25 Feb
Blog

Nature’s Two Most Powerful Exercise Recovery Tools

In the first part this series, Train hard, recover harder, I explained that stress is a double-edged sword. In order to make adjustments, you have to impose stress, but too much stress affects your recovery.

Stress can be both good and bad, but your body doesn't distinguish between types of stress, and your body can only handle that much stress. Stress is good during exercise; Your ability to benefit from it depends somewhat on your overall stress level.

So you have to manage all of your life stress in order to free up as much capacity as possible for dealing with training stress. Stress management strategies can create a larger window of time for exercise stress to apply and recover.

In Part Two, Good Recovery Starts With Good Programming, I discussed optimizing your exercise program as another effective tool for maximizing recovery. By focusing on delivering efficient exercise stress, you make your recovery easier.

Intelligent program design = fatigue management

The four key factors to consider are:

  1. Volume landmarks

  2. SRA curves

  3. Stimulus: fatigue ratio

  4. Relative intensity

At this point, I am assuming that your workout is optimized and provides a reasonable incentive.

From this point on, the remaining adjustments, such as B. Increases in size and strength, from recovery, result in this simplified muscle building equation:

Stimulus + recovery = adjustment

In this third part of the series, I'm going to cover your two most powerful recovery tools and how to maximize them.

The two most powerful recovery tools available to you are:::

  1. sleep

  2. nutrition

If you focus on these consistently, you will be rewarded. With your choice of sleep, diet, and stress management, you are ready to make great strides in the gym.

The positive influence of sleep on performance

Sleep is your most important recovery tool. I have spoken repeatedly about the positive effects of sleep on athletic performance and your ability to recover from hard exercise. The harder you can train without exceeding your recovery capacity, the faster you can progress.

Sleep is the most anabolic state for your body. Lack of sleep limits your strength and muscle mass gains. It also increases your chances of losing muscle mass if you cut and absorb fat as you accumulate.

To maximize recovery and build more muscle, you need to prioritize sleep.

Better sleep will help you with this too::

In short, it makes you a fitter, happier, and more productive person.

Let's be honest; you probably already know that. Bet you don't give sleep the credit it deserves when it comes to your lifestyle choices. Most of us realize that we should sleep more. We know sleep is important. However, we do not prioritize it.

I'm pretty sure you are making this mistake because I do too. I've been guilty many times in the past. It's all too easy to stay up late to catch the next episode of a TV show or to scroll aimlessly through Instagram. Whenever I do that, I always regret it the next day.

Lack of sleep can creep up on you. You may not realize that you have been deprived of sleep. The occasional late night has little effect. The problem is when those late nights get normal.

Stay on the laptop for a long time to meet work schedules or relax before a good show. Both eat into your sleep and have a huge impact on the quality of your recovery. Over time, you will likely feel like a zombie with no caffeine in the morning, your fitness performance will begin to increase, and you will make poorer dietary choices. It all happens little by little.

They sneak up on you. I've seen this over and over with customers trying to burn the candle on both ends. They pretend they can get away with it because the drop in performance is gradual. Be warned, lack of sleep adds up and if not resolved, it can slow your progress.

My sleep deprivation experience was less gradual and more like a blunt force trauma. I had always slept well and made it a priority. Then I had children. After our son was born, it took me 18 months to feel normal again in the gym. I vividly remember the session after my first full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I felt like superman.

The sad thing is, I wasn't a Superman.

I wasn't even around. After a good night's sleep, I was just a normal Tom. My perception of what was normal had been so distorted by 18 months of sleep deprivation that I now felt amazing. You could have slept in the same situation without realizing it. Make sleep a priority for a month and I'm confident you will look better, feel better, and perform better.

The research on sleep deprivation is alarming. Studies show that for 11 days in a row with less than six hours of sleep, your cognitive abilities are roughly as high as if you had stayed awake for 24 hours.

After 22 days of sleeping less than six hours a night, your brain is functioning at the same level as someone who has stayed awake for 48 hours straight. To put things in perspective, it means your reactions are likely to be worse than someone who is over the legal limit for alcohol.

Are you more zombie than human?

Take a sleep survey on yourself and assess if you are more of a zombie than a human.

As a guide, this is what you should aim for when it comes to sleeping::

  • Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

  • Go to bed at the same time every night.

  • Wake up at the same time each morning.

  • Wake up without an alarm clock.

  • Sleep all night long – multiple bathroom trips are a sure sign of poor quality sleep (or way too much drinking just before bed).

  • Waking up in much the same position that you fell asleep (not throwing and spinning all night) is a good sign.

  • You should wake up refreshed.

How can your sleep hold up against this list? I suspect you are not ticking all of these points. In my experience, most people can't even check off a few of them. Your goal is to work towards ensuring that you can check off each of these bullet points.

Here are some practical tips to help you sleep better and longer.

  • Prepare for success: Get a comfortable bed, mattress and pillow. Bed quality can affect sleep. It can also reduce back and shoulder pain. Given that you spend almost a third of your life in bed, it makes sense to invest in a good one.
  • Establish a routine: Go to bed at about the same time and get up at the same time each day. Weekends count too. It was found that matching sleep and wake times improves long-term sleep quality.
  • Include relaxation: It has been found that relaxation techniques before bed improve the quality of sleep. Read a book, listen to a chill out playlist, take a hot bath or take a deep breath and meditate. Do whatever you can to relax and unwind.
  • Cut the coffee at 4pm: Drinking coffee is cool. I love this stuff, but having it later in the day can disrupt or even prevent your sleep. On average, the half-life of caffeine is around five hours. However, this half-life can vary massively between individuals. If you are a slow metabolizer of caffeine, you may have levels in your system that will keep you awake and will keep you awake until the wee hours if you drink it after 4pm. In extreme cases, having it within 10 hours of going to bed can be disturbing for some people. So cut yourself off at 4pm and see if it's easier for you to fall asleep. If you're still having issues, push things forward to 3pm and reevaluate.
  • Disconnect the matrix: The blue light emitted by the screens of your devices can disturb your sleep. The body's internal clock or daily rhythm is mainly influenced by the hours of daylight. Artificial lights like street lights and lightbulbs are already bothering it, but looking at screens magnifies the problem. Your internal body clock is supplied by the eye nerve, which is directly influenced by blue light. Your phone, TV, laptop, and tablet emit the same light. To improve sleep, I suggest that you disconnect from such screens for at least 60 minutes before going to bed.
  • Receive natural sunlight during the day: In these times the body needs light. Studies have found that two hours of bright light during the day increases the amount of sleep by two hours and improves the quality of sleep by 80%.
  • Sleep in the batcave: Make your bedroom pitch black, calm and cool to maximize the quality of your sleep. Remove all electrical devices.
  • Room temperature: Set the thermostats to around 20 ° C. It was found that room temperature affects the quality of sleep more than external noise.
  • Stay away from alcohol: Just a few drinks have been shown to reduce your sleep hormones. Alcohol alters melatonin production and lowers HGH (Human Growth Hormone) levels. Melatonin is an important sleep hormone that tells your brain when it's time to relax and fall asleep. HGH helps regulate your body clock, counteracts aging, and is vital to recovery.

There you have it, your comprehensive guide to better sleep. You have no excuse now. You know sleep is crucial. You can also rate your sleep based on the standards listed above. If you come up short, you have nine tips to improve your sleep.

As you improve your sleep, everything else improves too. Try to improve your sleep before you worry about investing in other recovery modalities.

Neither of them can hold a candle to sleep, and sleep is free.

Your caloric intake and energy balance

Your second most powerful recovery tool is your diet.

By properly fueling your body, you can take advantage of the stimulus generated by your exercise. Training creates the incentive to build muscle, lose fat and increase strength. Your recovery will determine whether or not you will achieve that potential.

When it comes to nutrition, there are several variables that you can manipulate. The most important variable when it comes to nutrition for recovery is your caloric intake and energy balance.

What is a calorie and what is energy balance??

A calorie (Kcal) is a unit of energy. Our food contains calories and fuels us with energy to lead our daily lives. Everyone needs different amounts of energy per day depending on their age, size and level of activity.

Calorie budget refers to the number of calories you consume compared to the number of calories you burn.

If you eat excess calories, you will gain weight. If you eat a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. While eating high calorie food in the process of maintenance, it means that you are maintaining the weight. When it comes to physical change, calories are king.

When consuming a calorie surplus, maximizing regeneration is easier to manage than when consuming a deficit. You have an abundance of calories available to meet your macro and micronutrient needs. When it comes to diet and you have an excess, keep things simple. Hit your macros, distribute your protein intake fairly evenly between 3-6 meals a day, and eat a variety of fruits and vegetables.

When you are calorie deficit, the details of your diet are more important in maximizing recovery as less energy is coming in. The basic principles still apply, but you need to take better account of your low calorie eating habits to ensure that you meet both your macro and micronutrient needs.

Meal timing, food quality, and micronutrition are more important when you are in a deficit, but none of them outperform achieving a reasonable calorie deficit.

Energy balance and macronutrients are the two most important factors in your diet in terms of body development and strength gains.

How to set calories for individual results

If you have an excess, I suggest that you eat enough to gain between 0.25 and 0.5% of your body weight per week.

A quick strategy to estimate your daily needs is to multiply your weight in pounds by 15.

This formula generally gives a good approximation of the calories needed to maintain your weight. An excess of 500 calories per day equates to roughly a pound of weight gain per week. If you weigh 200 pounds, this is right at the upper end of your weight gain target. An excess of 250 calories a day will result in you gaining roughly half a pound a week. An excess of between 250 and 500 calories would be adequate for a 200 pound lifter.

If you are in deficit, I recommend losing between 0.5 and 1% of your body weight per week.

If you maintain a faster rate than this for an extended period (say, more than four weeks), you run the risk of adversely affecting your fitness performance and muscle loss.

Similar to the excess example, you can estimate maintenance calories by multiplying your weight in pounds by 15 calories.

From this point on, you need to subtract calories in order to achieve a deficit. A 500 calorie deficit will give you one pound loss per week. For our 200 pound example, an ideal rate of fat loss is between 1 and 2 pounds per week. Consequently, a deficit of 500-1,000 kcal per day is the area to look out for in order to achieve this.

Macronutrients

There are three types of macronutrients: protein, fat, and carbohydrates. All of these provide energy and therefore contain calories. Here's how to establish and establish your macronutrient needs and goals.

The calorie content per gram of each macronutrient is listed below::

  • Protein: Four calories per gram

  • Fat: Nine calories per gram

  • carbohydrate: Four calories per gram

This information is useful in the practical step of creating your diet with the appropriate proportions for each macronutrient.

Protein is essential for survival

Protein comes from the Greek word proteios, which means "of primary importance".

  • Protein is involved in almost every process in your body.
  • Proteins are vital and healthy.
  • They play an important role in athletic performance and body composition.
  • Muscle mass consists mostly of protein.
  • Protein helps you recover from your workouts.
  • It preserves lean tissue on diets.
  • It will help you build more muscle as you build.
  • It has the greatest effect on satiety, or feeling comfortable, of any macronutrient.

To build muscle, consume protein in the range of 1.6 to 2.2 g / kg lean body mass to stimulate the MPS for the day.

Recent research supports the high end of this range.

I generally recommend eating 2 g of protein per kg of body weight. This formula is easy to remember, easy to calculate, and conveniently covers your needs. From a practical point of view, I've also found that it is a crowd that satisfies most people's appetites and eating habits.

Take away key– Eat 2 g of protein per kg (0.9 g per lbs) of body weight per day.

Never eliminate fat from your diet

The consumption of dietary fat is important for regular hormonal function, especially testosterone production.

You should never remove fat from a diet.

There is not so much an optimal amount of fat to consume, but a minimum

0.2-0.5 g / kg / day for normal hormonal function. There have been compelling arguments in favor of consuming between 20 and 30% of calories in fat to optimize testosterone levels.

However, when 0.6 g / kg / bw is reached, no significant benefit for the hormones can be seen.

How Much Fat Should I Consume?

I prefer a minimum of 0.6 g / kg / kg per day.

  • If there is an excess, this is enough to optimize hormonal function and generally equates to around 20% of the calories.
  • Since hormone function has little benefit after a calorie surplus after 0.6 g / kg / bw, there is no physiological need to increase this number as you go through your mass phase.
  • Even if the total calories are adjusted upwards to keep gaining weight, there is no physiological need to exceed the fat content of 0.6 g / kg / bw. In my experience, however, many people find it easier to stick to their eating plan when the fat is slightly higher as the total calories increase.
  • I generally find anything up to 1g / kg / bw is effective.
  • If there is a deficit, I suggest a range of 0.6-1 g / kg / body weight.
  • The risk of hormonal disorders is higher with a chronic calorie deficit.
  • While many clients have performed well and had exceptional results at the low end of this range, I tend to be conservative and start at the high end when a phase of fat loss begins.

From this point on, I take a results-based approach based on loss rate, customer feedback, and gym performance.

Take away key– Consume at least 0.6 g of fat per kg (0.3 g per pound) of body weight.

Carbohydrates affect hormones

Carbohydrates, like fats, have a positive effect on hormones. The carbohydrates you eat are converted to glucose and stored in the liver or released into the bloodstream. However, most of this glucose is actually taken up and stored by the muscles as glycogen. Despite this storage, glycogen is at the bottom of the body's list of priorities.

Glucose is used in a hierarchical order.

Cells in need of energy are the priority for the incoming glucose. Only when the majority of the cells' energy requirements have been met does the carbohydrate consumption increase blood sugar. When blood sugar levels reach a reasonable level, glycogen synthesis in the liver is the next priority.

Only then does the synthesis of muscle glycogen begin to a significant amount. When muscles absorb blood sugar, they can use it for activity or repair. This is important for muscle repair, recovery, and growth.

Carbohydrates are the dominant source of energy for the central nervous system (CNS) and physical activity.

They promote strenuous training and regeneration by replenishing muscle glycogen. Stored muscle glycogen is the primary and preferred source of fuel for high-intensity exercise. Carbohydrates are a great benefit for people who train hard.

During the diet phases, keeping carbohydrate levels very low has become very popular. This is not entirely unfounded, as cutting down on carbohydrates can help create a calorie deficit. I suggest you resist the temptation not to consume carbohydrates.

To get the most out of your workout, you need to do overloaded workouts. Eat enough carbohydrates to do this. They also help you retain muscle mass even as you lose body weight.

When you're low on glycogen, you risk suppressing the anabolic response to weight training. Eating enough carbohydrates allows for higher exercise intensity, higher exercise volume, faster recovery between sets and between sessions, and anti-catabolic and anabolic effects.

"How Much Carbohydrates Should You Consume?" Short answer:

"The rest of your available calories"

More protein preserves muscle mass and saturation

While you're in excess of calories, hitting your macros is likely to get 80% of the benefits of your diet from a recreational standpoint.

Factors such as nutrient timing, micronutrition, food variety, and quality all contribute to optimal results, but they make little difference.

When you're in a deficit, those tiny gains are yours to deal with as you don't have the safety net of an abundance of calories to do the heavy lifting for you.

Here are some tips on how to squeeze the most out of your diet for maximum recovery while cutting:

  • If you are in a calorie deficit, consuming the high end of the protein guidelines given earlier (2.2 g / kg / bw) is a great idea.
  • High protein intake has been shown to preserve muscle mass.
  • Anecdotally, high protein intake also appears to regulate appetite. This scheme is useful when cutting calories.

Protein timing

Several studies have shown that a 25-40g serving of protein is enough to maximize muscle protein synthesis (MPS). To give you a more specific recommendation, I suggest that you aim for 0.4 g / kg body weight per meal. If you weigh 65 kg, that would be 26 g, while a 80 kg man would have 32 g of protein per meal.

The current literature shows that eating a mixed whole meal results in MPS lasting approximately three hours and peaking for 45-90 minutes. While protein shakes / amino acid supplements typically only last two hours and peak earlier. Then MPS begins to subside.

Research shows that these peaks and valleys are beneficial in MPS for maximum muscle growth.

Based on the scientific evidence available, 4-6 servings of protein per day, 3-4 hours each, is the best choice to maximize MPS.

If you are calorie deficient, fine-tuning your eating plan to maximize MPS is the best option to avoid muscle wasting.

The holy grail of nutrient timing?

We've all heard of the post-workout anabolic window. Post-exercise diet has long been considered the holy grail of nutrient timing. I think this is a mistake. Pre-workout nutrition is just as important, if not more important, than post-workout nutrition, in my opinion.

As mentioned earlier, it takes the body several hours to digest a meal. For example, suppose you have a balanced meal before you exercise. In this case, your body will continue to receive a constant supply of nutrients throughout the session and even in the post-workout window.

Many people overlook the critical consideration that the important nutrient timing factor is that the nutrients are in your bloodstream, not when you eat them.

The nutrients from your pre-workout meal are in your bloodstream during and possibly after your workout. This means that you can immediately supply nutrients to the working muscles. If you only focus on the post-workout meal, there is a significant delay in the amount of nutrients getting to the muscles where you need them.

With this in mind, a few points should be noted here::

  • Insufficient carbohydrates can interfere with strength training.

  • Consuming carbohydrates in the pre-workout meal can improve performance in the workout session.

  • Consuming carbohydrates while exercising in sessions longer than an hour can improve performance at the end of the session and prevent muscle wasting (especially when combined with a quickly digestible source of protein).

  • By consuming carbohydrates after exercise, muscle glycogen is replenished more effectively than at other times. This post-workout window is much longer than the much touted anabolic window of 20 to 30 minutes. The 4-6 hours after the workout when consuming carbohydrates replenishes the optimal muscle glycogen.

As you build up, your carbohydrate intake is likely high enough that you don't have to worry too much about postponing your eating for one time or another.

If you distribute the carbohydrates evenly throughout the day, you are in good hands.

Calories and carbohydrates can be very low during a diet. IIn this situation, it is more important to consider your specific carbohydrate intake timing to aid in quality exercise and recovery.

It is wise to make sure that you consume carbohydrates at least during meals before and after your workout.

After that, you can just spread it fairly evenly over the other meals you eat during the day.

Eat the rainbow

Choosing nutrient-rich, low-calorie foods is a wise decision. This choice will help you stay full, which means you will be more likely to stick to your diet.

It also means you are getting all of the micro-nutrition you need to support a good recovery from exercise. A wide variety of vegetables is a smart decision when cutting calories.

An easy way to get a wide range of micronutrients is to eat fruits and vegetables in as many different colors as possible.

Avoid pseudosciences

While it is tempting to reach for the expensive recovery tool backed by pseudoscience, it is better to pluck the low hanging fruits of improving your sleep and diet to aid your recovery.

These two factors will have a far greater impact on your recovery and results than any other failed recovery method.

Use the guidelines I have provided to get a massive recovery benefit and keep those silly recovery fashions for less informed lifters.

07 Jan
Blog

A Guide to Buy Exercise Equipment for Home

Experts believe that exercise is good for your physical and mental health. With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, it is not advisable to get involved in any training. Better to stay at home and do the sports that you need right for Exercise equipment for the home. With a mind-boggling selection of devices, you can be very confused about what is best for you.

Most people prefer to go to the gym because they believe that fitness equipment costs a lot of money. The truth is you can build a home gym on a frugal budget. And it won't take up too much space either.

Here is a guide to buying fitness equipment for the home:

Foldable treadmill

A treadmill is an essential part of your home gym. Although it's a bit pricey, you may be able to find one under $ 300. Try using a foldable treadmill with enough running surface (approximately 50 "by 16") and cushioned deck technology to protect your joints from impact damage.

Folding_Treadmill_Gym_Equipment

The speed of the treadmill can be anywhere from 0.5 to 10 miles per hour, although most of these machines come with two to three manual incline settings. Most devices also have an LCD that shows the speed, time, distance and calorie consumption of a session.

Today's treadmills have sensors built into the handlebars to monitor your heart rate. Did you know that 20 minutes of walking every day is a great physical activity that has numerous health benefits?

Folding exercise bike

Next on your list of priorities for your exercise bike is a collapsible (space-saving) exercise bike. Many people prefer an exercise bike because it is light and easy to store, which is inexpensive, and helps burn more calories. Exercise bikes are the best way to get your daily constitution up by cardio. Depending on your purchasing power, you can opt for simple cyclists or expensive, multi-function machines.

Folding_Exercise_Bike_GYM_EQUIPMENT

A standard exercise bike can support a weight of up to 300 pounds and is suitable for people between 5 feet 3 and 6 feet 1. With many adjustments to the level of difficulty, an exercise bike can be adapted to individual needs. These motorcycles have an LCD with a display of the distance covered, the calorie consumption, the time and the speed. Hand sensors embedded in the handlebars monitor your heart rate.

Rowing machine

Rowing machines offer the best cardio and muscle building. However, cardiac patients need to consult a doctor before rowing as it is a strenuous exercise. It is suitable for normal people who want brisk cardio workouts every day.

Rowing_Machine_Gym_Equipment

Additionally, exercising on a rowing machine can help build muscle over time. These devices are great for full body training and work on arms, legs and back. In addition, rowing has less of an impact than walking or running on a treadmill. therefore it is easy on the legs and ankles.

A standard rowing machine has a 350 pound load capacity and many resistance levels (depending on the model). The seats are padded and the handles are designed to be non-slip to ensure a firm hold. The LCD shows the time, number of lines and calories burned.

In summary

During this COVID pandemic that has driven most of us indoors, setting up a home gym is one of the best ideas. The equipment does not take up too much space and is suitable for workouts at any time of the day. Most devices require little maintenance other than regular dusting.

04 Jan
Blog

The most spectacular way of doing a good morning exercise daily

Many people hardly know what a Good morning exercise is. That's because this workout is being ignored because of its technical boost which is very daunting. There is of course a solution for this. Those who do this exercise correctly may not have encountered this problem. However, you need to be very precise with every move you make. Once you do that, the magic starts to happen.

A Good morning exercise helps improve squats as well as deadlift numbers. It also leaves a massive impact on your lower back, glutes and hamstrings, making you look like a fit model everywhere.

Good morning exercise benefits to take away

The good morning exercise is not a new discovery. It dates from a few years ago and is named after someone who bowed to say "Good morning". Although many people think that it is a useless exercise, it can work like magic in no time. The Good morning exercise benefits Your glutes, hamstrings, and upper back by making them stronger and more efficient for exercise.

It also has a massive impact on your lower body strength by helping you hit squats and deadlifts properly. A good morning exercise will also allow you to prevent muscle fluctuations that can cause serious injury. It also helps strengthen the rear muscles, which can encourage you to stay fit as an expert. With all of these Good morning exercise benefitsThis exercise turns out to be a dream for people who want a fantastic physique.

How do I do a good morning exercise with dumbbells?

We already mentioned how harmful it is Good morning exercise with dumbbells you may need to be careful when practicing this workout. Make sure that good morning exercise brings all the benefits unimpeded right to your doorstep. All you have to do is make sure that you follow each step carefully. Overall, you're good to go.

1. Hold the dumbbell properly. You either hold it in front of your chest or behind your neck.

2. Start with your feet shoulder-width apart. If you want to activate the thighs, make sure the shoulder width is wider. Then place the barbell on your chest with your leg slightly bent.

3. Now keep your back straight and your legs slightly bent. Once you do that, bend over your hips.

4. Once your torso is parallel to the floor, straighten your back with your back muscles to the starting position.

5. Perform the Good morning exercise with dumbbells regularly to get its benefits immediately.

The best alternative for a good morning

Many people are afraid to do good morning exercises because of their technical buoyancy. They also fear the risk of injury that will prevent them from practicing this exercise. If you are one of them, don't worry. We found the perfect way for you to get the same benefits without risking your life for this workout. Let's take a look at the best gGood morning exercise alternatives that will change the game for you.

1. Reverse hyperextensions

If you want to build strength in your hips and hamstrings, reverse strains are the perfect solution for you. With this variation, you can easily do a good exercise. It's also safer for you to practice. So, if you want to do a safe exercise with minimal obstruction, reverse overextension can be your perfect stop.

2. Glute hamstring lifts

If you want to do higher repetitions to strengthen your glutes, hamstrings, and other muscles, this is the perfect exercise for you. Since this exercise is useful for everyone, you must do this exercise daily for the best benefits. Something like that is one of the best Good morning exercise alternatives so that you practice.

3. Reverse the Chinese plank

In an inverted Chinese plank, you will need to use two benches or boxes for the best experience. The bench is under your shoulders and the other is under your heels. For the best experience, don't miss this exercise. It'll be the best ever Good morning exercise alternatives to you.

Take that away

These are some of the best Good morning exercises perform for you. If you like them give them a try and see how it helps you. We promise; It works out.

FAQ

1. Is a Good morning exercise alternative useful?

Yes, that Good morning exercise alternative is useful.

2. Are Good morning exercise with dumbbells useful?

Yes, that Good morning exercise with dumbbells is useful.

02 Dec
Blog

How to perform a Curtsy Lunge exercise to grab quick results?

Hip problems affect most of us these days. This is more common in people living their middle adulthood. No matter what remedy you try, nothing seems to work the way it should. During such a time Knicks lunge can work like magic in treating and stabilizing your hip problems. This is a versatile workout that activates the glutes while sculpting your butt. If you practice this lunge every day, it is sure to bring many benefits to your body. Let us explain to you how to do this lunge exercise on a daily basis for instant results.

What is Curtsy Longe?

Curtsy Longe is an exercise that promises to change the game for you if all else fails. For anyone looking to improve their glutes, shape their butts, and stabilize their hips, this lunge is perfect. With the Knicks lunge exerciseThere is no stone unturned in helping your body develop strength. The Knicks lunge exercise Also improves balance in the body by exercising the ankles, calves, quads, and core. Many people assume that doing a Knicks lunge is a daunting task, but it isn't true. If you follow the directions carefully, you will be ready to receive the difference in your body. Watch for mistakes during the exercise. Remember that even the smallest mistake can bring you terrible results.

Benefits of the Curtsy Lunge Exercise

There are numerous benefits to this exercise that promise to improve your body and stabilize muscles. Let's look at them.

1. Improves the gluteal muscles

Including multiple muscles in this workout does that Knicks lunge exercisesWe improve the gluteal muscles immediately. Although the gluteus maximus is the focus of this workout, the gluteus minimus and medius are also used somehow. Because of this purpose, the round appearance and the balanced piston appear.

2. Improves balance

When you do a curt lunge, your body balance automatically improves as the quads, core, ankles, and calves are trained together. You can also see better muscle activation and proper connection of mind and body in no time. So there is a maximum improvement here.

3. Improves the strength of the legs and gluteal muscles Due to the activated power of the legs and glutes, the Knicks lunge exercise seems to benefit them most. As a result, improved leg and gluteus muscle strength will soon develop once you start exercising every day. It also helps your body practice like magic when you are in a sport.

How do I do a Knicks Lunge?

It's not that difficult to do a Knicks lunge. Once you get it, this exercise is as easy as pie. If you've been waiting to know how to do a curtsy lungeLet's get into that right away.

1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Let your arms fall on your sides.

2. Try drawing a semicircle with your right foot and moving clockwise until it crosses behind your left foot. Make sure your right toe is tucked away. Fold your hands together in your heart too.

3. Jump down as low as you can and float your knees a few inches off the floor.

4. Now gradually return to your original dropout position.

5. Now repeat the exercise on the other side. If you were wondering how to do a curtsy lungeQuickly refer to these steps.

What are the Knick's lunge muscles worked?

As you do the Knicks lunge, the most important question to ask yourself is which one Knicks lunge muscles that worked? If you don't know about them, here's how to find out.

1. Gluteus muscles – The gluteus muscles are made up of three different parts called the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. The glutes activate all of these muscles in turn to help the body perform better.

2. Soleus / Gastrocnemius – These muscles are located on the back of the leg. These muscles act as stabilizers in your body when you are doing this exercise. So that's it Knick's lunge muscles worked.

3. Quadriceps – The four muscles that stand in the middle of your thigh are quads. These muscles are activated when you perform movements, especially when you stand and squat. These muscles are also used when we want to straighten our legs. So that's it Knick's lunge muscles worked.

Take that away

You had to do something like that Knicks Longe exercise and bring the best benefits to the table for you. Don't miss it. We promise; They work like magic in need.

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