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Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Acute Overtraining
Every competitive bodybuilder knows about that massive growth period that follows a competition. In fact many bodybuilders compete annually just for the gains that come afterward. Coming down you may be a certain weight at a certain condition say 2101b at a six percent bodyweight. Yet after the show you hit 2101b in much better condition. The difference is rock solid tissue. Why?
There are alt sorts of theories floating around but the most logical answer is that the body is compensating for the stress placed on it during the latter stages of the diet. What is meant by this is what physiologists refer to as the adaptive response. The old adage. Place a ten horse power load on a nine horse power body and you get a ten horse power body. The pre-contest diet if worked to the limit is a massive overload. It stretches your physical and mental resolve to the absolute limit. The masters of this are people like John Hodgson, who take it beyond the capacity of normal human endurance and achieve unreasonable levels of condition. Yet this massive effort has its rewards. Apart from the trophy on the mantelpiece it is a fact the harder the preparation the greater the mass rebound afterwards.
The question that comes to mind is what about overtraining at these times. If that is the case, why do we grow? The answer lies in the fact that the muscular growth does not occur during the over training period as we run down into a show but afterward. What happens after the show? Rest, tots of food, little or no training. The truth is the body is not growing when it is training , but when it is resting. Train as hard as you like as long as you give yourself adequate time to get over it. I suggest that there is no such thing as overtraining what we are realty looking at is under recovering. The contest phase is a clear example. Bodybuilders do hundreds of sets, thousands of hours of aerobics, low food, less sleep, they bombard their bodies with alt sorts of toxic compounds, dehydrate, carb deplete and load. Yet despite all this, the body grows like it is going out of fashion as soon as it gets adequate rest. This makes a mockery of the current views on overtraining is the key to maximum results. To be fair I got this idea from Tom Platz. Tom was known for eye popping blood and guts workouts. He was also known for freaky mass.
The two go hand in hand. He who trains the hardest will ultimately be the biggest. I accept that bodybuilding is not just about size but given the same symmetry and condition then the bigger the better As the saying goes "Jockeys should ride horses, bodybuilders should crack the pavement when they walk." The next step is to bring this concept into everyday training. It would be impracticable to compete every month and that would not work for obvious reasons.
The key is to simulate in mini cycles the events that surround a competition.
Recently I tried a method where I trained all out for three weeks. Peat Batts to the wall stuff. By the end of it I could hardly stand. I didn’t want to get out of bed let atone train. I hit each body part three times a week on a two way split. Each workout I pushed the weights or reps up and maintained this progress for three weeks, which was nine full workouts. Everything ached. My morning pulse was up. I had a tow level headache and a loss of appetite. All the classic symptoms of acute overtraining. Admittedly this state only came in the last week.
I then eased off dropped down three gears back to my eight day cycle. Hitting each body part once every eight days. For the first week I did just one set per body part using the maximum weights I had achieved during the last three weeks. I hammered the nutrition and got ten hours sleep a night. The second week was pretty much the same although I climbed to two sets which is my normal heavy duty system. By the end of the second week my enthusiasm was back and my overall weight was up two pounds from before the cycle. I was looking full again and my appetite was one hundred percent. The third week I kept it down at two or three sets per body part I did some forced reps and negatives in my usual style. I gained another pound. I was up three lean pounds in six weeks and feeling on top of the world. It had worked. I had driven my body into acute overtraining and then pulled back to allow it to adapt to the workload. I had gained three pounds of muscle and my weights were up an average of 12% across the board. I now realise that overtraining is not the enemy, it is an ally. A weapon in the war against being small and weak. When it comes to genetics I am not Ronnie Coleman and must work with what I have. My answer is to constantly strive for new and better ways to pile on the mass in the right places.
In the end I will have made myself the best I can be and that is the essence of bodybuilding. This is an advanced training technique for those in rut. Putting it to work in the everyday sense comes from cycling. As we said a two week hard one week easy works well for almost everyone, however some individuals (usually those less able to train all out) can go on another week before overtraining sets in.
Grow Muscle Right Now !
Previously Unknown "THUMB TRICK" Provides Potent Power For Pumping Up Your Pecs!
By The "Muscle Nerd" Jeff Anderson
Any bodybuilder worth his salt knows that to REALLY add some flare to his pecs, he MUST add Incline Dumbbell Flyes to his chest routine.
But now there's a way to make this powerful exercise even MORE effective using a breakthrough THUMB maneuver for more FORCEFUL CONTRACTIONS.
Can't finger it out. I mean FIGURE it out? Here's how YOU can take advantage of this awesome new tactic.
On an incline bench (set to no MORE than 30 degrees incline), hold a dumbbell in each hand at the starting position (arms extended above you, palms facing each other).
With your arms slightly bent, perform a standard flye by slowly lowering your arms to the side. BUT.
As you lower them, instead of keeping your hands and wrists LOCKED, ROTATE your hands so that your THUMBS point TOWARD THE CEILING at the bottom of the movement. (Make sure you feel a good stretch in your chest at the bottom.)
While focusing on contracting your chest muscles (rather than your arms), quickly raise both arms to the starting position while ROTATING your hands so that your palms face each other again.
This maneuver actually creates an isolated range of motion movement within your pecs resulting in increased muscle contraction and fiber stimulation.
To prove it, try this
Hold one arm in the flye position while placing your other hand on the chest muscle of the "working arm".
Now go through the motion of a "regular" flye with your wrists locked, while feeling the muscle movement with your other hand.
Once you've reached the bottom of the movement, hold your arm position and rotate your hand back and forth between the thumb "up" and the "normal" position.
Feel that movement in your upper pec?
Good! Now stick a dumbbell in your hand and get ready to GROW!
The "Muscle Nerd's" no-nonsense program, Optimum Anabolics, breaks the mold on building MASSIVE MUSCLE without expensive supplements or misleading gimmicks! Check it out NOW at...
www.grow-muscle-right-now.com
Nutrition Tips to Improve Fat Loss
by Rick DeToma
Incorporating these fat loss tips will improve your nutrition program. Start off slowly and add one a week, you don't have to adopt all of them at once. Before long, you have cleaned up your nutrition program and on your way to reaching your goal. Trendy diets, fads and the infomercial product of the month, are not going to help you reach your weight loss goals. A well thought-out nutrition and exercise program will. Eat breakfast Proven time and again, those who eat breakfast are more successful at controlling their weight than those that don't. Plus, when doing strength training exercises (and you know you should be), it's even more important to make certain you fuel those muscles after an overnight fast. The perfect time for burning fat because glycogen, blood glucose and insulin levels are all low. Unfortunately, it may also be perfect for burning muscle, because glycogen levels are low, and levels of the catabolic stress hormone cortisol are high. If you skip breakfast and eat lunch at noon, you are not only in a highly catabolic (muscle wasting) state, you are also sending an unmistakable starvation signal to your body.
Eat less sugar Start reading labels! Sugar is hidden in almost every commercial food item. A single tablespoon of ketchup gets 3 of its 4 grams of carbs from sugar. A 12 oz can of cola has a staggering 40 grams of sugar, and ALL of the carbs in a cola are sugar! Why does that matter? Simple sugars are digested very quickly and cause a rapid spike in blood sugar. Your body then releases large amounts of insulin. Insulin quickly clears the glucose from the bloodstream leading to low blood sugar (hypoglycemia.) Low blood sugar causes cravings, hunger, weakness, mood swings and decreased energy. These cravings for sugar result in a vicious cycle of ups and downs in blood sugar levels throughout the day.
Eat More Often Studies have shown that those who eat 4-6 smaller meals per day have less body fat than those eating 2-3 meals a day, even if both groups eat about the same number of calories. This is because of maintaining steady blood sugar levels. Too much insulin activates fat storage enzymes and forces fat in the bloodstream into fat cells for storage. High insulin levels also inhibit enzymes that promote the breakdown of existing stored body fat. You can manage your blood sugar and insulin levels by choosing fewer simple carbohydrates, more complex carbohydrates, eating fiber and having your carbohydrates with lean proteins approximately every three hours.
Eat protein Be sure to include enough protein for your level of activity (you are exercising. Right?) Protein speeds up your metabolism because your body has to work harder to digest, process, and utilize it compared to fats or carbs. The "thermic" effect of protein is one of the reasons that a higher protein diet is more effective for fat loss than a diet high in fat or carbs. Too much of any food can be stored as body fat, but protein is less likely to be converted to fat than any other nutrient.
Eat nothing from a box The closer your food is to nature the better off you are. Have you looked at the ingredients list in most packaged food these days? You need to be a scientist to figure out what half the ingredients are. Stick to real, wholesome foods, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, etc. Eat your vegetables I don't mean fast food french fries. Try to get as many vegetable servings into your meals as you can. It's nearly impossible to over eat vegetables. They are full of fiber and will help keep you full between meals. They also contain loads of antioxidants. Raw is great, steamed is another good way to have them. Hold the heavy cheese sauces please!
Eat protein and carbs together If you want to keep your blood sugar in check, then don't eat your carbs by themselves. Strive to always have balanced meals of protein, carbs and healthy fats. You'll feel better and your muscles will thank you.
Prepare your own food Best for several reasons…It's cheaper than eating out, you know exactly what you are eating, and it saves time. It takes no more time to cook up 6 healthy chicken breasts than it does to cook one or two. Make things easy. Prepare them over the weekend and your lunches for the next few days are done. While you are at it, put on a pot of brown or wild rice, or bake up some sweet potatoes and you're good to go.
Drink water LOTS! Most people are already dehydrated. Strive to drink a gallon a day. If you drink a lot of coffee, then you need an extra 8 oz for each cup of coffee. Exercise will put more demands on your fluid levels. You need water. Drink 50-75% of your body weight in ounces of water. Add an additional 16 oz for strenuous exercise. No complaining!
Get more exercise Get some exercise on most days of the week, and alternate between strength training exercises and cardio training. If you are a beginner, shoot for two weight workouts a week and progress to 3 or more depending upon your goals. Get in as many cardio sessions as your schedule will allow, but aim for at least 3. Commit to adopting these nutrition program changes and you'll be well on your way to reaching your weight loss goal, whether it's ten pounds or many more. Sound nutrition and exercise will always succeed in the long run. Don't give into the temptation of fads. The information contained in this article is strictly for informational purposes and is not intended to provide medical advice. If you are sedentary or over 40 please get clearance from a doctor before starting an exercise program.
The Pain When You Gain: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness
by: Jon Gestl
Nothing is more frustrating than the pain and discomfort that occurs in the days that follow a workout. The common muscle soreness and stiffness experienced one to two days after a workout may be so uncomfortable, particularly to the new exerciser, that it may discourage future workout attempts. As someone once said after her first workout, "What is the use of getting fit if I can not even get out of bed in the morning?"
Every exerciser, regardless of experience, deals with sore and stiff muscles following a particular workout. It is important to understand why this occurs and what to do about it in order to deal with this common, although irritating, phenomenon.
Why do I feel so much pain after a workout?
The typical muscle soreness experienced in the days following a workout is referred to as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) and is characterized by stiffness, pain and sometimes weakness in the exercised muscles. The soreness can last several days after a workout, with the height of the pain occurring about 48 hours following the workout activity.
Studies report that DOMS is most likely the result of microscopic damage or tearing of muscle fibers with the amount of damage correlated to the intensity, amount, and kind of exercise that occurs. DOMS is also related to an individuals exercise history, and is most typical among those who are either starting out in an exercise program or those who change the intensity or type of exercise.
DOMS appears to be strongly affected by eccentric muscle actions. Commonly referred to as the "negative" part of an exercise, eccentric action occurs when a muscle resists while it is forced to lengthen. This action happens in movements such as descending stairs, downhill running, and landing a jump, or with the lowering movements in exercises such as squats, lunges or pushups.
Although there is no conclusive proof, researchers have suggested that DOMS may also be related to inflammation that occurs in and around a muscle. Swelling may occur following exercise, which increases pressure and causes discomfort.
But I can not get out of be. How do I deal with this?
Although no surefire documented method exists to entirely get rid of DOMS, some treatments may temporarily alleviate some of the discomfort, such as application of ice, ultrasound and anti-inflammatory medication (aspirin, ibuprofen). Massage may also reduce some of the symptoms, but this method has not been proven.
As the saying goes, "time heals all wounds." DOMS usually dissipates within 3 to 7 days following exercise with no special treatment. Severe pain lasting longer than this time frame may indicate an acute injury and should be treated by a medical professional.
How can I prevent this from happening again?
There is no known technique or drug that entirely prevents DOMS. However, there may be some things you can do before you exercise to keep DOMS at a minimum. Popular fitness theory suggests warming up thoroughly then gently stretching both before and after exercise. Training with your limitations in mind is always a smart idea, building intensity over time rather than attempting an all-out effort on your first try.
The good news: The best prevention is regular exercise. Studies have demonstrated that continued training acts in a preventative fashion to reduce muscle soreness. Regular endurance training, specifically, has been shown to be a method of preventing the onset of DOMS.
The typical soreness experienced after training, or DOMS, is part of the process of getting stronger and reaching your fitness goals. The best method to reduce this somewhat frustrating part of starting or modifying a fitness program is none other than consistent effort.
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