Recovery From Hard Exercise: Part 2

Adequate fluid intake deserves full attention from athletes who perform hard exercise-particularly if you are doing double workouts and need to rapidly recover from one exercise bout to prepare for the next one.Your best bet is obviously to minimize water losses by drinking adequate fluids during exercise. But many athletes, to the detriment of their performance, fail to complete that task either because their sweat losses during exercise are too high or their fluid intake is too low. Whatever the story, rapid recovery from one bout of exercise to prepare for the second bout depends upon replacing fluids and electrolytes (the minerals lost in sweat along with the water). Be you a soccer player in a weekend tournament, a swimmer competing in two events at a meet, a cyclist doing back-to-back century rides, or a triathlete doing two-a-day workouts, you'll be able to perform better during the second session if you have planned your recovery diet. This article addresses fluids for rapid recovery after intense exercise; carbohydrates for rapid recovery were discussed previously in Part I of this two part series.Minimizing sweat lossesPreventing dehydration during exercise is preferable to treating dehydration post-exercise. To determine how much fluid your body needs, the best plan is to learn your sweat rate. Simply weigh yourself naked before and after an hour of hard exercise during which you drank no fluids. The weight loss reflects sweat loss. By learning your sweat rate under various conditions, you can then develop a schedule for drinking adequate fluids during exercise to minimize sweat losses and hasten recovery. A 2 lb. loss equals 32 ounces (1 quart). In the future, you should target drinking 8 ozs./15 minutes of exercise at that pace and under those climatic conditions. Because most athletes voluntarily consume only half of what they need, they inevitably need to pay attention to post-exercise recovery fluids. For each pound lost, you should now target drinking 150% more than that during recovery. That is, if you lost 2 pounds during a workout, you should replace that loss with at least 3 pounds of fluids (48 ozs.) within 2 hours post-exercise. An alternative to counting ounces is to simply monitor your urine. You should be urinating every 2 to 4 hours post-exercise, and the urine should be pale yellow color (like lemonade), not dark (like beer).What's best to drink for rapid recovery to prepare for the next tennis match or soccer game? Your best bet is fluids and/or foods that contain sodium. That is, if you are going to be consuming only fluids, a sports drink (with sodium) will do a better job of replacing sweat losses than will plain water, juice or soda pop. The sodium enhances fluid absorption and retention. Or, if you prefer sodium-free beverages, simply eat salty foods alongside, such as pretzels, crackers, pizza, or pasta with tomato sauce.What about sports drinks...?Sports drinks are designed to be taken during hard exercise, a time when digestion can be compromised due to reduced blood flow to the stomach. Hence, sports drinks are dilute and are actually a weak source of sodium and carbohydrates. If you need to rapidly recover for a second bout of exercise within an hour or two and are worried about gastric distress during the second event, consuming sports drink is a safe bet. But if you have a tolerant stomach, or more than 4 hours to recover, you can refuel and rehydrate yourself with higher carb fluids (juices, soft drinks) along with bagels, pretzels, and whatever carbohydrate-rich foods taste good and digest comfortably. You simply have to learn through trial and error which recovery foods and fluids you tolerate best--particularly in competitive tournament situations where stress and anxiety can take a toll on your digestive system.What about beer...?Hands down, a highly popular recovery fluid is beer--but is beer an OK choice for a top notch sports diet? Well, juices and soft drinks are preferable, but alcohol-free beer is fine, and so is near-beer or diluted beer with the alcohol content cut from 4.5% to less than 2.5%. Eating pretzels or other foods along with the beer improves the recovery process by providing carbs and sodium.CAUTION: Do not follow the common practice of drinking too much beer and eating too little food! Obviously, this hinders both glycogen and fluid replacement. And be careful to not drink alcohol on an empty stomach. This rugby player explains why: "After a game, when I'm dehydrated and haven't eaten any food that day, a beer hits me like a ton of bricks. I've learned to enjoy the natural high of exercise--it's better than walking around in a drunken stupor. I save the beer for later, when the tournament is all over!"Can alcohol ever fit into the recovery diet? According to Australian sports nutritionist Louise Burke, Ph.D., the answer varies. Burke researched the effect of alcohol (vodka) on glycogen replacement. She compared three recovery diets: carbohydrates only, vodka only, or carbs plus vodka. The bottom line: alcohol itself does not convert into glycogen, so it is a poor choice for a recovery fluid. But alcohol itself does not impair glycogen storage, as long as adequate carbohydrates are available. Burke stressed the importance of eating while drinking. Athletes who fail to consume enough carbs while drinking alcohol, plus fail to get up for breakfast the next morning have two strikes against them. Add alcohol's diuretic effect and you've done yourself in for the day!

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RECOVERY FROM HARD EXERCISE, Part I

If you are an athlete who needs to quickly recover from one bout of exercise before you perform again within the next 6 hours, you'll be able to perform better if you plan your recovery diet. The overall goal of this recovery diet is to reverse the process that caused fatigue. This means 1) knowing what to eat and drink to best replace depleted muscle glycogen stores and sweat losses, and 2) knowing how to organize your food supply so the proper foods and fluids are readily available.Obviously, to compete at your best, you need to train at your best. To train at your best, you need to thoroughly refuel on a daily basis. Less obviously, refueling is easier said than done! If you are doing double workouts or are involved in a weekend tournament, you are likely busy cramming this sports commitment into an already full school or work schedule. You may fail to even think about food or plan time for food shopping. However, "no time" is no excuse. You can make time to train and compete; you can also make time to fuel yourself optimally--even if this means keeping a supply of non-perishable food in your car, desk drawer, and gym bag. You simply need to prioritize proper refueling. Otherwise, your own laziness can keep you from reaching the winner's circle.Casual exercisers who work out less than an hour a day need not obsess about prompt recovery. They have not depleted their bodies' fuel supplies, plus they have plenty of time to replace what was used. Not the case for athletes who repeatedly stress their bodies with more than an hour of hard exercise, more than once a day. If that describes you, this article can help you get the most from your workouts. This article, Part I, focuses on glycogen replacement. Part II covers fluid replacement.Optimizing Glycogen ReplacementGlycogen is a form a carbohydrate stored in your muscles and used for fuel during exercise. When you deplete your glycogen stores, you experience extreme fatigue. Australian sports nutritionist Louise Burke, a speaker at the annual meeting of The American College of Sports Medicine (June, 2000), explained that muscles have an initial rapid recovery phase within the first hour post-exercise during which they quickly replace depleted glycogen stores, and then a slower phase thereafter. If you are competing in, let's say, a soccer tournament when you have to play a second game within 3 hours of the first, you want to take advantage of the rapid recovery phase by quickly consuming carbs post-exercise. The shorter the recovery period, the quicker you need to refuel. But if time is on your side, and you won't be exercising within the next 8 hours, you can be a bit more relaxed with your refueling schedule and wait until you feel like eating. Within 24 hours, the muscles given a delayed feeding will catch-up to muscles that were rapidly refed.How much carbohydrate is enough to replenish depleted glycogen stores? Your muscles get well fueled when you eat about 0.5 grams of carbohydrate per pound of body weight per hour for 5 hours after an exhaustive workout. For a 150 pound athlete, this means 75 grams of carbohydrates--equal to 300 calories and the amount in 16 ounces of grape juice, 2 cans of soda pop, or a big bagel every hour, preferably divided into half-hour feedings. When you are exercising twice a day, you easily have the appetite to eat this much. Casual exercisers, needless to say, have smaller needs and smaller appetites.Athletes who are too busy to plan their sports diet commonly fall short on carbs--particularly if they grab donuts for breakfast, burgers for lunch, chips for snacks, pepperoni pizza with double cheese for dinner, and ice cream for dessert. They are fat-loading, not carbo-loading, and fat does not replace depleted glycogen stores. If these same athletes had given thought to their recovery diet, they could just as easily have grabbed bagels, submarine sandwiches (thick with bread, not meat), pretzels, thick-crust pizza topped with extra veggies, and frozen yogurt. Carbs are available, even when you are eating on the run and at fast-food restaurants.Whether you consume carbs throughout the day by nibbling on cereal, bagels, bananas, yogurt, raisins, pretzels, dried fruits, juices, breads, crackers, and granola bars or whether you sit down and have one huge pasta meal, you'll eventually end up with similar amounts of glycogen. The main concern is getting enough carbs within each 24 hour time period; worry less about small meals vs large meals, and focus more on adequate quantity.If you have seen the new protein-enhanced recovery bars and gels that are invading the marketplace, you may be wondering about the role of protein in the recovery process. The verdict is unclear if post-exercise protein enhances glycogen replacement. Some research suggests protein may stimulate insulin, which in turn stimulates greater glycogen storage. Other research suggests adequate carbohydrates facilitates an adequate recovery; you just have to eat enough post-exercise carbohydrate-calories.If protein is needed to build muscles post-exercise, physiologist Robert Wolfe, a speaker at ACSM's annual meeting, questions if a good time to eat protein to enhance muscular development is pre-exercise. That way, the protein (actually, the amino acids that are the building blocks of protein) will be readily available to be taken up by the muscles during and after exercise. Stay tuned!Given your body needs adequate protein on a daily basis, consuming some pre- or post-exercise protein along with the carbs is a wise idea and a helps to balance the overall diet. Just be sure carbs are always the foundation of your diet, and protein is the accompaniment, such as milk on cereal, some turkey in a submarine roll, or yogurt with fruit. Protein should not displace carbs; that is, don't take Dr. Atkins High Protein diet advice to eat lots of chicken but avoid the pasta, rice and potatoes! You'll crash very fast...and recover very slowly.

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Is Fitness InThe Genes?

Most people believe they will die from some disease... did you know that? It's true. The current statistics show that an overwhelming 87% of people believe they will die from either cancer or heart disease.Here's the irony - of course, they will! But two hundred years ago, such thinking would have been next to impossible. Cancer and heart disease are relatively 'modern' ills. There are still societies that do not even have a word for "cancer" in their language! So, what's the secret? How can you actually live longer, fuller, disease-free lives? Is that even a possibility? One doctor thinks so. In fact, he swears it's not in our 'genes' - it's in our perceptions. This, from Dr. Bruce Lipton: "Brace yourselves, for we are in for a wild ride. Frontier research in cell biology has finally acknowledged the mechanisms by which perception controls behavior, selects genes and can even lead to a rewriting of the genome. Rather than being the victims of our genes, we have been the victims of our perceptions. We are on the verge of a most radical and most wonderful upheaval of human civilization." Bruce is not alone. Many researchers now give credit to negativity and stress as contributors, if not actual 'causes' of the majority of disease states, especially in people under 80 years of age. Now, ask yourself this simple question: what if you were to change your beliefs? Could you change your physiology, down to the cellular matrix? It's my personal mission to REVERSE the current trend among those of us who want to be fit and healthy, and that is to focus first on exercise, second on nutrition and last, if at all, on our state of mind.

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30 Muscle Building Myths

1. You can get as big as a pro bodybuilder. without taking steroids; it just takes longer.
Despite what many of the magazines say, all professional bodybuilders use either steroids or steroids in combination with other growth-enhancing drugs. Without manipulating hormones, it just isn't possible to get that degree of muscularity, the paper-thin skin, and the continuing ability to pack on mass, despite sometimes having poor workout habits and relative ignorance of the principles involved that many pro bodybuilders have. Many supplement distributors, in order to sell their products, would have you believe otherwise.
Still, that's no reason to give up. By using state-of-the-art training principles, consuming a nutrient-rich diet, and by getting proper amounts of rest, almost every person can make incredible changes in his or her physique. The competitive bodybuilder circuit may not be in your future, but building the kind of physique that gains you respect is certainly achievable, as are self-respect and robust health.

2. In order to get really big, you have to eat a super-high-calorie diet.
Well, that's true; you'll get really big if you eat a super high-calorie diet, but you'll look like the Michelin Man's fraternal twin. However, if you want to get big, lean-tissue wise, then super-high-calorie diets are probably not for you unless you are one of those very few people with metabolicrates so fast you can burn off these calories instead of depositing them as fat. Unfortunately, studies show that, in most people, about 65% of the new tissue gains brought about by high-calorie diets consists of fat! Of the remaining 35%, approximately 15% consists of increased intracellular fluid volume, leaving a very modest percentage attributable to increased lean muscle mass.
According to Dr Scott Connelly (MM2K, Spring 1992, p. 21), only about 20% to 25% of increased muscle growth stems from increased protein synthesis. The rest of the muscle growth is directly attributable to increased proliferation of the satellite cells in the basal lamina of muscle tissue, and dietary energy (calories) is not a key factor in the differentiation of these cells into new myofibres (muscle cells).
Of all factors determining muscle growth, prevention of protein breakdown (anti-catabolism) seems to be the most relevant, but adding adipose [fat] tissue through constant overfeeding can actually increase muscle pro- teolysis (breakdown). Furthermore, additional adipose mass can radically alter hormone balances which are responsible for controlling protein breakdown in muscle. Insulin balance, for one, which partially controls anti-catabolism in the body, is impaired by consistent overfeeding. So much for the eat-big-to-get-big philosophy!
Stay away from the super-high calorie diets unless you're a genetic freak, or you're woefully lean and don't mind putting on fat [or you're using appropriate pharmaceutical supplements].

3. If you eat a low-fat diet, it doesn't matter how many calories you take in, you won't gain any fat.
The bottom line is, if you exceed your energy requirements, you'll gradually get fatter and fatter. It's true that eating a diet rich in fat will pack on the pounds quicker for a variety of reasons, the most significant being that a gram of fat has nine calories as opposed to the four calories per gram that carbohydrates and proteins carry. Fat is also metabolized differently in the body. It takes a lesser amount of calories to assimilate the energy in ingested fat than it does to assimilate an equal (weight wise) amount of carbohydrates. Consequently, more fat calories get stored than carbohydrate calories. However, the gross intake of carbohydrates, as facilitated by many of the weight-gain powders, will make you fat very quickly.

4. The more you work out, the more you'll grow.
No, no no. This is one of the most damaging myths that ever reared its ugly head. 95% of the pros will tell you that the biggest bodybuilding mistake they ever made was to over-train--and this happened even when they were taking steroids. Imagine how easy it is for the natural athlete to overtrain! When you train your muscles too often for them to heal, the end-result is zero growth and perhaps even losses. Working out every day, if you're truly using the proper amount of intensity, will lead to gross overtraining. A body part, worked properly, ie. worked to complete, total muscular failure that recruited as many muscle fibers as physiologically possible, can take 5-10 days to heal.
To take it a step further, even working a different body part in the next few days might constitute overtraining. If you truly work your quads to absolute fiber-tearing failure, doing another power workout the next day that entails heavy bench-presses or deadlifts is going to, in all probability, inhibit gains. After a serious leg workout, your whole system mobilizes to heal and recover from the blow you've dealt it. How, then, can the body be expected to heal from an equally brutal workout the next day? It can't, at least not without using some drugs to help deal with the catabolic processes going on in your body [and even they're usually not enough .]
Learn to accept rest as a valuable part of your workout. You should probably spend as many days out of the gym as you do in it.

5. The longer you work out, the better.
It just isn't necessary to do 20-30 sets for a body part, or even 10 sets like many 'experts' would have you believe. In fact, research has shown that it's possible to completely fatigue a muscle in one set, provided that that set taxes a muscle completely, ie. incorporates as many muscle fibers as possible and takes them to the point of ischemic rigour where, rather than contract and relax, the muscle fibers freeze up, sort of like a microscopic version of rigor mortis. Any further contraction causes microscopic tearing. Hypertrophy is just one adaption to this kind of stress and it's naturally the kind most bodybuilders are interested in.
This kind of intensity can usually be achieved by doing drop or break-down sets where you rep out, lower the weight, and continue doing reps until you either can't do another rep or you've run out of weight. It can also be achieved by doing your maximum number of reps on a particular exercise: by a combination of will, tenacity, and short rest periods, you complete ten more reps. You achieve the short rest periods by locking out the weight-bearing joint in question without putting the weight down. In other words, completely surpass your normal pain and energy thresholds.
If you can truly work your muscle to the point described, it will afford you little, if any, benefit to do another set (Westcott, 1986). The exception would be the body parts that are so big that they have distinct geographical areas, like the back, which obviously has an upper, middle and lower part. The chest might also fall into this category, as it has a distinct upper and lower part, each with different insertion points.

6. You don't have to be strong to be big
For a variety of reasons, people, even those with an equal amount of muscle mass, vary in strength enormously. It might have something to do with fast-twitch/slow-twitch muscle ratios, or it might have something to do with the efficiency of nerve pathways or even limb length and the resultant torque. But it is still a relative term. To get bigger muscles, you have to lift heavier weight, and you, not the guy next door, have to become stronger -- stronger than you were. Increasing muscle strength in the natural athlete, except in a very few, rare instances, requires that the tension applied to muscle fibers be high. If the tension applied to muscle fibers are light, maximal growth will not occur (Lieber, 1992).

7. The training programmes that work best for pro bodybuilders are best for everyone.
You see it happen every day in gyms across the country. Some bodybuilding neophyte will walk up to a guy who looks like he's an escaped attraction from Jurassic Park and ask him how he trains. The biggest guy in the gym likely got that way from either taking a tremendous amount of drugs and/or by being genetically pre-dispositioned to get big. Follow a horse home and you'll find horse parents. The guy in your gym who is best bodybuilder is the guy who has made the most progress and done the most to his physique using natural techniques. He may still be a pencil neck, but he may have put on 40 pounds [19kg] of lean body mass to get where he is, and that, in all probability, took some know-how. That person probably doesn't overtrain, keeps his sets down to a minimum, and uses great form and concentration on the eccentric (negative) portion of each exercise repetition.
Many pros spend hours and hours doing innumerable sets--so many it would far surpass the average person's recuperative abilities. If average people followed the routines of average pro bodybuilders, they would, in effect, start to whittle down what muscle mass they did have or, at best, make only a tiny bit of progress after a couple of years.

8. You can't build muscle on a sub-maintenance calorie intake diet.
It may be a little harder, and it may require a little bit more know-how and a little bit more conscientious effort, but it can be done. The fact is, the obese state in humans and animals is not universally correlated with absolute levels of caloric intake and neither is the accrual of lean body mass. The ability to realize changes in lean/fat ratios is regulated by components of the automatic nervous system working in concert with several endocrine hormones; this is called nutrient partitioning. For example, certain beta-agonist drugs like Clenbuterol increase meat production in cattle over 30% while simultaneously diminishing bodyfat without increasing the amount or composition of their feed. Other drugs, including growth hormone, certain oestrogens, cortisol, ephedrine, and IGF-1 are all examples of re-partitioning agents. All increase oxygen consumption at the expense of fat storage--independent of energy intake!
Drugs are not the only way to do this, however. It's true that a significant component of this mechanism is genetically linked, but specific nutrients, in specific amounts, when combined with an effective training programme, can markedly improve the lean/fat ratio of adult humans. MET-Rx is one such nutrient re-partitioning agent, and several companies are trying to duplicate its successes [warning: one of the authors of this article has a significant financial stake in Substrate Technologies, the makers of MET-Rx].

9. You can't grow if you only work each body part once a week.
If you work out -- work out intensely-- then it can take 5-10 days for the muscles to heal. Although the following should be taken with a grain of salt when determining your own exercise frequency, a study in the May 1993 issue of the Journal of Physiology revealed it can take weeks for muscles to recuperate from an intense workout. The study involved a group of men and women who had worked their forearms to the max. All of the subjects said they were sore two days after exercising, and the soreness was gone by the seventh day, and the swelling was gone by the ninth day. After six weeks, the subjects had only gained back half the strength they had before the original exercise! By no means are we advocating that you wait two months between workouts, but we are trying to prove the point that it takes muscles longer to heal than what you might have previously thought. For some people, especially natural bodybuilders, waiting a week between body part workouts might be just what the doctor ordered for size and strength gains!

10. You can't make gains if. you only train with weights three days a week.
Although you probably couldn't find a single steroid-assisted athlete who trains only three days a week [well, I was, and I made fantastic gains!], there's absolutely no reason why a three-day-a-week routine couldn't work for many natural athletes. As long as your routine attacked the whole body and you worked to failure on each set, you could easily experience great gains on this sort of routine. However, you need to pay even more attention to your diet if you only train three days a week, especially if your job involves little or no physical activity, and you like to spend your idle time eating. Ignore those who say three-day-a-week bodybuilders are only 'recreational lifters'. Think quality and not quantity.

To Be Continued...

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The Reality Of Strength Training

When strength training became a popular way of athletic preparation back in the 50's and 60's, everyone was rushing to find the "best" way to train. Back in these early days, very little attention was given to the "scientific" aspect of the sport. Your average lifter would train using basic lifts, receive proper nutrition from a variety of foods and give their bodies time to rest and recuperate. It was that simple. No complicated supplements, special "lifting techniques" or masses of ineffective information. Just basic, sensible lifting.
When the "fitness boom" of the 70's hit, people began questioning these methods and demanded scientific evidence to support these training theories. Companies realized the potential to make a profit and began flooding the strength training world with ineffective supplements and equipment. If I had a dime for every "break through fitness program" I've seen, I'd be rich. Over the years, strength training theories have actually gone downhill. Hard, persistent and dedicated work in the weight room has been overtaken by a mass of miracle weight-gain pills and bogus bodybuilding programs. People always seem to be looking for an easier route to attaining a muscular build.
The reality of it all is that attaining an "in-shape" and strong physique is not purely a matter of science. The fact of the matter is that the achievement of this ultimate goal is not complex. That's not saying it's easy, but it really isn't as complicated as most of the "experts" make it out to be. Successful lifters must have tremendous focus and tolerance for pain. They must persevere in all situations and continually place their bodies under greater stress in order to better their physiques. They must eat the right foods and avoid the wrong foods and ensure that their bodies are receiving adequate rest. I have great respect for each and every individual out there who is able to continually and systematically follow these guidelines on their quest to mind-blowing muscle mass and strength. However, far too often we see serious lifters over-analyzing every situation in the weight room; Extremely simple things that will do little to nothing in bettering their current lifting approach.
The bottom line is to provide your body with a stimulus for growth using basic compound lifts, feed your body by consuming the proper nutrients, and give your muscles time to rest and recuperate. If you have these three elements down, there really isn't a whole lot more you can do to increase the effectiveness of your lifting regiment.
So why is it that every time I go to the gym I see the same misinformed people, week in and week out, slaving away on endless sets of concentration curls and tricep kickbacks? It makes me cringe when I see some of the ridiculous techniques these "lifters" are using. What you put in is what you get out, and sub maximal intensities will yield sub maximal results. The tougher the lift is, the better your body will respond. The whole idea behind weightlifting is to yield an adaptive response from the musculature, meaning the body must believe it is in life threatening danger. I don't care what anyone says, heavy squats, dead lifts, bench presses, overhead presses, rows and chins are the toughest lifts and without a question the most effective. Don't get me wrong, isolation lifts can have their spot in a successful routine, but certainly not in place of these basic compound lifts.
In the end, strength training is definitely more "art" than "science". I don't know everything about everything, but I'm certain of what I'm certain of, and I'm certain that the basic principles of gaining size and strength that were first put forth in the 1950's still hold true to this very day. Stop making it more complicated than it has to be! Get into the squat rack and squat! Load up the bar and dead lift! Yes, these are the toughest lifts, and that is exactly why you should be doing them! Building muscle and gaining strength is simple! Do you want to get big and strong? Then forget about all of the useless theories people seem to constantly put forth. Stop over-analyzing every situation. Stop wasting your time on useless debates about the latest breakthrough training principles. Go to the gym and train!

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Stretching And Muscle Growth

When you think about gaining muscle, stretching is probably
not the first thing that pops into your head. But did you
know that stretching plays a critical role in building
muscle?

Every muscle in your body is enclosed in a bag of tough
connective tissue known as fascia. Fascia is important for
holding your muscles in their proper place in your body.
But your fascia may also be holding back your muscle
growth. Think for a moment about your muscles. You train
them and feed them properly. They want to grow and will
grow but something is holding them back. They have no room
to grow!

Because fascia is so tough, it doesn't allow the muscle
room to expand. It is like stuffing a large pillow into
a small pillowcase. The size of the muscle won't change
regardless of how hard you train or how well you eat
because the connective tissue around your muscles is
constricting the muscles within.

The best example of this is the calf muscle. The lower leg
is riddled with fascia because of its tremendous weight-
bearing duties in the body. It is because of this fascia
that many trainers have great difficulty developing their
calves.

The solution: stretching.

Using the pillowcase example from above, imagine you can
expand the size of the pillowcase by stretching it.
Suddenly, the pillow within has more room and will expand
to fill that new space. By stretching your muscles under
specific conditions, you can actually stretch your fascia
and give your muscles more room to grow.

The key to effective fascial stretching is the pump. The
best time to stretch to expand the bags that are holding
in your muscles is when your muscles are pumped up full
of blood.

When your muscles are fully pumped up, they are pressing
against the fascia. By stretching hard at that time, you
increase that pressure on the fascia greatly, which can
lead to expansion of the fascia.

One of the major reasons Arnold Schwarzenegger had such
incredible chest development was that he finished his chest
workouts with dumbell flyes, an exercise that emphasizes
the stretched position of the pectoral muscles. He would
pump his chest up full of blood during the workout then do
flyes, holding the stretch at the bottom of the flye. This
gave his chest room to grow to amazing proportions.

Fascial stretching is more rigorous than regular stretching
but the results can be amazing. When you stretch hard
enough to cause the fascia to expand, you will really feel
it! When you are stretching the fascia, you should feel a
powerful pulling sensation and pressure as the muscle works
against the fascia to expand it.

Be sure you do not stretch so hard that you cause the
muscle to tear or cause injury to yourself. You will
rapidly learn to distinguish the difference between a good
stretch and a bad stretch. You should not feel any sharp
pain, just a steady pull.

Hold each stretch for at least 20 to 30 seconds as you must
give your fascia time to be affected by the stretch.
Stretch hard like this only when you have a fully pumped
muscle as you must give your fascia a reason to expand. If
your muscles aren't pumped, just stretch normally.

One set of hard stretching after each set you do for a
muscle group, besides the obvious benefits of increased
flexibility, can have an incredible effect on the size of
your muscles and their further ability to grow.

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8 Proven Strategies For Muscle Gains

There is so much conflicting information out there when it comes to the topic of building muscle, and sometimes it can be very difficult to know where to start. If you’re an average beginner looking for some basic guidelines to follow in the gym, the following 8 points will start you off on the right track.

1) Train With Weights and Focus On Compound, Free Weight Movements. If you want to make solid, noteworthy gains in muscle size and strength, you absolutely must train with free weights and focus on basic, compound exercises. A compound exercise is any lift that stimulates more than one muscle group at a time. Examples of these lifts are the squat, deadlift, bench press, chin up, barbell row, overhead press, dip and lunge. Compound movements allow you to handle the most weight and will stimulate the greatest amount of total muscle fibers.

2) Be Prepared To Train Hard. One of the biggest factors that separates those who make modest gains from those who make serious gains is their level of training intensity. In order to stimulate your muscle fibers to their utmost potential, you must be willing to take every set you perform in the gym to the point of muscular failure. Muscular Failure: The point at which no further repetitions can be completed using proper form. Sub-maximal training intensity will leave you with sub-maximal results, plain and simple.

3) Track Your Progress In The Gym From Week To Week. Our bodies build muscle because of an adaptive response to the environment. When you go to the gym, you break down your muscle fibers by training with weights. Your body senses this as a potential threat to its survival and will react accordingly by rebuilding the damaged fibers larger and stronger in order to protect against any possible future threat. Therefore, in order to make continual gains in muscle size and strength, you must always focus on progressing in the gym from week to week. This could mean performing 1 or 2 more reps for each exercise or adding more weight to the bar. Keep a detailed training log to track your progress as your strength increases over time.

4) Avoid Overtraining. Overtraining is your number one enemy when it comes to building muscle size and strength. When most people begin a workout program, they are stuck with the misguided notion that more is better. They naturally assume that the more time they spend in the gym, the better results they will achieve. When it comes to building muscle, nothing could be farther from the truth! If you spend too much time in the gym, you will actually take yourself farther away from your goals rather than closer to them. Remember, your muscles do not grow in the gym; they grow out of the gym, while you are resting and eating. Recovery is absolutely vital to the muscle growth process. If you don't provide your body with the proper recovery time in between workouts, your muscles will never have a chance to grow.

5) Eat More Frequently. The main area where most people fail miserably on their muscle-building mission is on the all-too important task of proper nutrition. Training with weights is only half of the equation! You break down your muscle fibers in the gym, but if you don't provide your body with the proper nutrients at the proper times, the muscle growth process will be next to impossible. You should be eating anywhere from 5-7 meals per day, spaced every 2-3 hours in order to keep your body in an anabolic, muscle-building state at all times. Each meal should consist of high quality protein and complex carbohydrates.

6) Increase Your Protein Intake. Of the 3 major nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats) protein is without a doubt the most important for those who are looking to gain muscle size and strength. Protein is found in literally every single one of the 30 trillion cells that your body is made up of and its main role is to build and repair body tissues. Without sufficient protein intake, it will be physically impossible for your body to synthesize a significant amount of lean muscle mass. If your body were a house, think of protein as the bricks. A general guideline is to consume 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight each day from high quality sources such as fish, poultry, eggs, beef, milk, peanut butter and cottage cheese.

7) Increase Your Water Intake. If you want a simple, easy and highly effective way to maximize your muscle gains, drinking more water is it. Water plays so many vital roles in the body and its importance cannot be overstated. In fact, your muscles alone are made up of 70% water! Not only will drinking more water cause your muscles to appear fuller and more vascular, but it will also increase your strength as well. Research has shown that merely a 3-4% drop in your body's water levels can impact muscle contractions by 10-20%! Aim to consume 0.6 ounces for every pound of bodyweight each day for optimal gains.

8) Be Consistent! Consistency is everything. Those who make the greatest gains in muscular size and strength are the ones who are able to implement the proper techniques on a highly consistent basis. Simply knowing is not enough, you must apply! Building muscle is a result of the cumulative effect of small steps. Sure, performing 1 extra rep on your bench press will not make a huge difference to your overall results, and neither will consuming a single meal. However, over the long haul, all of those extra reps you perform and all of those small meals you consume will decide your overall success. If you work hard and complete all of your muscle-building tasks in a consistent fashion, all of those individual steps will equate to massive gains in overall size and strength.

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The Most Powerful Muscle Building Tool Available

The Most Powerful Muscle-Building Tool Available

The bodybuilding debates will never end. The endless arguments over how an effective muscle-building program should be structured will most likely continue until the end of time. Just scour the Internet message boards, flip through any muscle magazine or talk to the sales rep at your local supplement store. No matter who you talk to or what you read, it seems that everyone is an expert these days. If everyone is an expert, confident in their own ideas and beliefs, how can the average beginner possibly know who to listen to? He or she is instantly confronted with endless questions that seem to have no clear-cut answer. How many days should I train per week? How many sets should I perform for each muscle group? What type of rep range should I be using? What are the most effective exercises for stimulating muscle growth? How long should my workouts last? These questions go on and on until he or she is eventually led to believe that building muscle is an infinitely complex process involving rocket-science precision and an intimate understanding of human physiology. I mean, that’s what takes to build muscle, right? Wrong! Believe me, there are answers to these important questions, and if you are willing to put in the time and effort you will most definitely find them. But that’s not what this article is about. You see, amidst all of the confusion and endless debating, the majority of lifters end up losing sight of the big picture. Beyond all of the specific workout principles, such as rep range and exercise selection, remains one crucial principle, a principle that lies at the very heart of the muscle growth process. If this principle is not given full attention, or even worse, completely ignored, building muscle becomes next to impossible. The bottom line is that muscles grow as they adapt to stress. When you go to the gym and lift weights, you create “micro-tears” within the muscle tissue. Your body perceives this as a potential threat to its survival and reacts accordingly by increasing the size and strength of the muscle fibers in order to protect against a possible future “attack”. Therefore, in order to continually increase the size and strength of the muscles, you must focus on progressing each week by either lifting slightly more weight or performing an extra rep or two. In doing this, your body will continue to adapt and grow to the ever-increasing stress. Building muscle is all about building strength! So what is the most powerful muscle-building tool available? Quite simply, it is a pen and a piece of paper! Every time you go to the gym you must write down exactly what you accomplished and then strive to improve upon it the following week. If you aren’t always getting better, then you’re either staying the same or getting worse. Every week you should have an exact plan of attack ready to be executed. You absolutely cannot afford to start throwing weights around aimlessly without a clear-cut goal in mind. The specifics of building muscle are important to understand and implement, but regardless of what style of training you’re currently using the ultimate deciding factor between success and failure is progression. You can sit around all day obsessing over specific principles, but the bottom line is that if you aren’t getting stronger every week, you absolutely will not be getting any bigger. Examine your training approach closely. If you haven’t been paying laser-like attention to the amount of weight you’ve been using, the number of reps you’ve been performing, and then striving with every ounce of your energy to improve upon those numbers each week, you are completely ignoring the very foundation of the muscle growth process.

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Strength Training For Women

The importance of strength training for women should not be underestimated. Once a practice reserved solely for competitive athletes and bodybuilders, strength training has gained incredible popularity over the last decade. This is due to the significant research devoted to the study of the benefits of strength training. It is now realized to be an essential part of any fitness regimen, and along with activities that focus on cardiovascular endurance, flexibility and optimal body composition, strength training insures a well-balanced, injury-free lifestyle.
Strength training has been proven to benefit all populations, from adolescent athletes to seniors. Women, in particular, see tremendous benefits from strength training. Traditionally, women relied on cardiovascular activity and a low calorie diet to change their physical appearance. Unfortunately, low calorie diets merely punish the soul and plummet the metabolism, and, without including consistent strength training in our program, effecting change can be an impossible goal. (Sidebar refers to article with tips on eating correctly for your metabolism.) Also, aerobically overtraining can lead to injury. We now know that strength training is absolutely essential if we wish to create visual changes in our bodies, and we've discovered that the benefits of strength training extend far beyond the visual.
Strength training creates strong ligaments and tendons, which serve to support our joints and decrease the likelihood of injury from other activities. Bone density increases dramatically, reducing our risk of osteoporosis. Strength training enhances quality of life, as it enables us to better perform daily activities that require lifting, pushing and pulling. The physical and spiritual benefits of strength training are myriad, and when realized, the goal no longer becomes a "hardbody", but the confidence and control that strength training teaches us.
Women further benefit from strength training because of the increase in resting metabolism created by strength training. Because of this increase, women who are trying to reduce bodyfat will do so more easily. When done sufficiently and consistently, strength training increases muscle fiber size. Once muscle fibers enlarge, they consume more energy - which boosts our metabolisms.
For women of middle age, this is particularly important. Strength training can help them avoid that predicable metabolic sluggishness that often occurs at that stage in life. Thus, the true secret to keeping middle age pounds off is not to eat less, but to strength train more!
Many women are afraid of strength training because they believe that it will create large muscles that are unattractive. "I’ll weight train once I get this fat off. I don’t want to turn it into muscle". This is a prevalent misconception. The vast majority of women cannot build large muscles because they are genetically incapable of doing so. It is impossible to turn fat into muscle, or muscle into fat, as each cell is unique from the other.
In order to dispel these types of myths, we need to understand the physiology of strength training. Strength training results in an increase in muscle fiber size. As the muscle fibers increase in thickness, the shape of the muscle changes, getting thicker in the belly, or middle, of the muscle. This results in a change in the shape of the muscle. How much the muscle changes in shape, and how large the muscle gets, depends on the amount of work the muscle is asked to do (as well as other factors discussed later). If the muscle is asked to lift very heavy loads, it will respond with a significant increase in fiber/muscle size. (The goal of most men.)
In order to avoid this gain in muscle mass, women are told to lift very light weights. This recommendation is oftentimes interpreted to the extreme, and women perform many repetitions with 3 or 5 pound weights. Unfortunately, without sufficient load (weight), the muscle will not change, and the goal of "tone" and "shape" cannot be achieved. A change in the shape or tone of a muscle is created in the same way that size is created, with hard work and consistency!! In order to shape or tone your muscle, you must lift a weight that is heavy enough to create muscle fatigue (also known as failure). Working your muscles to fatigue means that your muscles refuse to lift/move the weight in a correct and safe fashion. Working your muscles to fatigue will not necessarily create large, unsightly muscle mass. Even if you work your muscles to extreme fatigue, rest assured, that the majority of women are genetically unable to create large muscles because they lack sufficient hormones or body structure to do so.
Body structure and body composition, or the amount of bodyfat vs. lean tissue, plays an important role in how you respond to weight training. Muscular body types, or mesomorphs, respond quickly to weight training and are most likely to build muscle size. Ectomorphs, (thin, frail body) are generally unable to add muscle mass, even though they need to! Most women tend to be endomorphs, or pear shaped, and have a difficult time creating tone in their lower bodies, where they store most of their bodyfat. In addition, the more fat stored on the body in general, the less likely you are to see the muscle’s tone, as subcutaneous (under the skin) fat surrounds the muscles, obscuring their shape. Because each body type responds differently to exercise, it is recommended that you seek professional advise on how to create a weight training program that best suits your bodytype, goals, lifestyle and overall fitness level. Undoubtedly, women of all shapes and sizes benefit from strength training.
Strength training need not be complex or overly time consuming. It can fit easily into any woman’s lifestyle, since it requires minimal equipment and time. Free weights, weight training machines, rubber tubing or your own bodyweight will all enhance muscular strength and endurance with as little as 20 minutes to one half hour a day of training. All major muscle groups need to be worked to avoid muscular and postural imbalances. It is recommended that you choose a weight or load that produces muscle fatigue somewhere between 8-12 repetitions of an exercise for the upper body, and 12-15 repetitions for the lower body. Most current research recommends 1-3 sets per muscle group, depending on your goals and current fitness level. (A set is equal to the number of repetitions (8-12 or 12-15) you are currently able to do safely and with correct posture.)
Again, for the safest, most effective program, you should seek the advice of a certified fitness professional. Also, there are many books on the subject. I highly recommend "A Woman’s Book Of Strength", by Karen Andes, for the most up-to-date, correct information for women.
As always, please get approval from your physician before starting any exercise regimen.

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