The Best Muscle Building Workout Results

On April 20th, I posted up some of the latest research that was delivered this year at FILEX by Dr Len Kravitz. You can check out my initial post:

The Best Muscle Building Workout

I have now completed the following structure:

8 weeks of training (as per the initial parameters)
1 week of rest
8 weeks of training (again, as per the initial parameters)

Today was my final workout, legs day!

During the four months of training, I was unable to adhere to a consistent dietary plan the entire way through. I mentioned just over a month ago that I was unhappy with increasing bodyfat levels, so consequently I reduced my calorie intake. However, training remained unchanged throughout.

What did I find? Well, a few things worth noting:

1. I really enjoyed the variety, having the training change every two weeks. However, the downside is that you can only focus on one particular movement for 2 weeks before moving on. So, I guess the novelty worked well.
2. As I mentioned before, DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) was quite profound. Focusing on overloading particular groups of muscle fibres with varying repetition ranges really hit hard. I was surprised how sore I was doing very light weights at a 10-12 rep range with only 60 seconds of rest between sets!
3. My strength improved quite well over the four months. Honestly, I was surprised, especially with the low rep range. Having hit the type IIb fibres (or some of the “fast-twitch” fibres) quite hard, then resting them for a relatively long time (many weeks), I did not expect to experience such distinct strength gains upon revisiting that rep range later. However, I did find my results were similar to that of the research presented.
4. My endurance capacity also improved in the higher rep ranges. Again, I did think that allowing for such a long period of recovery of these muscle fibres (type I) would not yield great results. Much to my surprise, I improved quite well within the high rep ranges.

So is this the best muscle building workout? Unfortunately, there is no way to know. Yes, I did yield good strength gains, but strength is not a direct function of muscle volume. I did enjoy this particular workout structure and my results were consistent with the results of the study, which focused on strength (not hypertrophy, or muscle gain). Whether or not I will continue with something like this, or similar, I am not yet sure – I’ll decide that after I’ve taken my week of rest from heavy weight training!

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How to Choose The Best Protein Powder

There are so many protein powders available to purchase it can be overwhelming if you are trying to find a powder that best suits your requirements!

I remember when I first started exercising, I walked into a nutritional store and was utterly confused at all the choices that were available. I could buy a whey protein isolate, whey protein concentrate, a casein, soy, rice, pea, wheat, milk or egg based protein powder. Or, I could buy a protein powder which had a blend of a mix of ingredients. Where do you begin?!

In this single article, I am not going to be able to tell you exactly what is the most suitable for you as your circumstances will be quite different to the next person’s. However, I will be able to provide you with a general guide for one of the most common goals.

Choosing a protein powder to build muscle is one of the most common predicaments. This is the number one reason why people purchase a typical protein powder supplement – to enhance muscle gain. But all protein powders are not created equal! There are some distinct advantages and disadvantages with various forms of proteins.

The science strongly supports whey protein based protein powders to be the most effective at encouraging muscle synthesis (or gain). Whey protein (derived from milk) is a super-high quality protein that is quickly absorbed into the body, making it ideal for pre- and post-workout supplementation. Whey proteins typically fall into two categories:

Whey Protein Concentrates (WPC): Which are quite fast absorbing proteins.

Whey Protein Isolates (WPI): Which are even faster absorbing proteins due to further processing.

WPI is obviously more expensive and is generally regarded as the most effective form of protein supplementation pre/post workout. However, a blend of WPI/WPC is a very effective mix that won’t break the budget.

Other proteins do have other uses:

Casein proteins absorb slowly over approximately seven hours (will vary between individuals). So this is good when the body doesn’t need a fast acting source of amino acids (the building blocks of protein) – such as before or after a workout. Generally this is most useful prior to bed to provide a slow absorbing stream of protein throughout the night. Many protein blends also include casein for slow absorption throughout the day.

Whole Milk and Egg based proteins are of quite high quality, yet will take hours to digest. These are commonly found in protein blends and can be very effective to be ingested during the day if you are unable to consume sufficient protein from food.

Soy proteins are very poor in quality relative to milk derived (whey, casein) and egg derived proteins. If you are trying to build muscle, soy protein will yield significantly less results than higher quality proteins. However, they are the best quality available for people who have dietary limitations and cannot consume milk based products. Soy is much cheaper than milk based proteins.

Grain and vegetable based proteins are very low quality and are very cheap. Unless you have a specific dietary recommendation, stay away from these products.

If you are looking to purchase a protein powder, be sure to check out our supplement store!

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What is VO2max? – The Basics of Aerobic Fitness

VO2max is term commonly thrown around by scientists and fitness enthusiasts. But it can be darn confusing if you have no clue what “VO2max” is!

Vo2max refers to the maximum volume of oxygen that each kilogram of your body (on average) can process per minute.

V: Volume
O2: Oxygen
Max: Maximum

The units are mL/kg/min

So, why is this useful? Well, the more oxygen your body can process, the fitter you are! Consequently, the higher your VO2max, the more efficiently your aerobic systems operate. This is one measure of fitness.

In order to ascertain your VO2max, you can undertake a number of tests. One popular method is the beep test (AKA the 20m shuttle run test), which requires you to run between two lines (20m apart) at an increasing pace until you are unable to run any further.

In our Beep Test Calculator you can input your score and this will calculate your VO2max.

Your VO2max is greatly affected by the cardiovascular exercise that you regularly undertake. High intensity cardio exercise will have a far more profound impact upon your body’s ability to process oxygen. In an article I wrote entitled “The Fat Burning Zone“, I cited a study conducted by Tebata et al in 1996. Within this study, they found that a high intensity workout of duration 4 minutes had a 40% more profound impact upon VO2max than a lower intensity workout that was 15 times longer in duration (60 minutes in total)!

Earlier this year, I was at a conference where I was presented with some of the latest research into VO2max. A review conducted by Shepard, R.J last year found:

• Men’s VO2max declines 5ml/kg/min each decade from age 20
• Women’s VO2max declines 5ml/kg/min each decade from age 35
• This decline is primarily due to a decrease in inactivity and an increased body fat percentage
• The first 8-10 weeks of training (brisk walking was considered) had a far more profound impact on VO2max than from weeks 12-52! In the first 10 weeks, VO2max improved by 12.9% from day one, whereas in a year VO2max improved 16.9% from day one.
• Higher intensities yield greater VO2max gains

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Why Exercise & Diet If You’re Going To Die Anyway?

I get asked this question a lot – “Why exercise and/or diet if you’re going to die anyway?”. It has been suggested to me before that you could be hit by a bus tomorrow…so exercise and healthy eating really isn’t going to do you all that much good.

I concede that this is a very valid point. I can certainly understand why many people don’t bother exercising to live longer. In fact, even if you do live another 10 years by following a healthy lifestyle, chances are that you spent most of that additional time in your life exercising!

Of course I do not subscribe to this particular view that exercise is a waste of time. After all, I would be one of the world’s biggest hypocrites if  I did, having established Amino Z based on the belief that exercise and healthy eating is good for you!

What is grossly misunderstood by many people who do not undertake regular exercise and a healthy eating routine are the profound benefits to your quality of life. For me at least, exercising and following a healthy diet is not about “living longer”, its about “living better”.

Exercise and healthy eating brings about a number of “quality of life” benefits such as:

• Becoming sick less often
• Feeling better about yourself
• Not being plagued by guilt when you eat something “bad”
• Improving your productivity
• Being able to participate in activities and not being limited due to your lack of fitness or health
• Preventing early onset of disease
• Preventing injury
• Better quality sleep
• A greater sense of happiness
• Development and pursuit of personal goals, giving you direction in life
• The ability to learn about yourself on many levels – physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally
• Giving you the warm, fuzzy feeling that you are looking after yourself
• By looking after yourself, you are able to look after others
• Being a role model for your children
• …and so on

I could continue, but there are so many benefits to following a healthy lifestyle that to dismiss the thought with a notion of “I’m going to die anyway, what’s the point” means that you are missing out on truly living your life. Really, you only get one chance and your body is your one and only temple.

If you have never looked after your body before, it is never (NEVER) too late to begin. I have trained many pensioners who have decided to be healthy due to the imminent risk of severe health complications!

Until you begin looking after yourself, you will never, ever, be able to appreciate the true benefits of following a healthy lifestyle. Give it a go and it may just open your eyes to an entirely new world.

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Online Personal Training Rave Review in Women’s Health Mag!

What an exciting day it’s been! Today, the latest issue of Australian Women’s Health Magazine hit the shelves in newsagents and I rushed up to check out a review that was written on our online personal training services. Much to my delight, it was an awesome review!

I was Hanna’s online personal trainer through Amino Z and she mentioned that she was a staff writer for Women’s Health Magazine (a HUGE magazine – one of the most popular women’s mags) and that she was going to publish a review on the services that we provided. I was particularly glad to see that whilst she mentioned in the review that she couldn’t justify spending money on a conventional face-to-face trainer, she was “converted” with the high value of our online personal training services!

I am really glad to see that she valued our personal training services so highly – it’s amazing what a bit of education, direction, motivation, accountability and inspiration can do!

Be sure to check out our full online personal training review!

If you are interested in signing up to our highly popular personal training service, I very strongly suggest that you enquire as soon as possible. Please, do not wait until Spring hits (peak personal training time), because we are near our maximum capacity now with the number of clients we can train at any one time. It is a highly intensive 1on1 online service that we provide and so therefore we have a finite number of clientele that we can accommodate for.

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Bodybuilding Supplements at Cheap Australian Prices!

Well today I spent a lot of time thinking about the supplement store where we sell a number of bodybuilding supplements. Based on some feedback we received, I had a really hard think about what we could do to improve it. So, we came up with some pretty awesome shipping deals:

1. $2 Sydney Metro Shipping (for orders over $140)
2. Free Shipping Australia wide (for orders over $300)
3. $9.90 shipping for all other orders

Plus, we have the following other incentive schemes in place when ordering bodybuilding supplements:

1. 3% rewards points awarded for online purchases (not including PayPal) – these can be redeemed for future purchases
2. Free measuring tape for orders over $200
3. Free body fat callipers for orders over $250

The bodybuilding supplement brands that we currently have available include:

• AST Sports Science
• BSN
• Controlled Labs
• Cytogenix
• Dymatize Nutrition
• Gaspari Nutrition
• MuscleTech
• Optimum Nutrition
• PrimaForce
• Prolab
• Scivation
• Universal Nutrition

Speaking from a personal note, the reason why I made the decision to introduce bodybuilding supplements for sale on Amino Z is because they are a great compliment to the personal training services that we offer. When used correctly, these products can be of amazing benefit to you reaching your goals.

However, it is important to know how to use bodybuilding products correctly. If you are quite inexperienced and wish to achieve particular muscle building goals, don’t go out and spend a thousand dollars on bodybuilding supplements! Make sure you obtain some professional advice to ensure that you will obtain the full benefits from these products.

Also, it is important to keep in mind that supplements will do you no good if you haven’t established an appropriate approach to both nutrition and exercise. As a personal trainer, I see a number of people aspiring to build muscle mass, who have invested thousands of dollars into supplements, yet go out and eat take-away on a regular basis. You need to establish a balance that will be conductive of muscle gain. I have blogged about this in the past, so feel free to go through the various articles that are available on the website.

So having said that, I hope that you can make the most of the bodybuilding supplements that we have on offer. We have ensured that they are at highly competitive and cheap prices and you will receive the best online service!

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How to Overcome Feeling Demotivated to Exercise

We have all felt demotivated at one point or another to complete an exercise session. Whether you have had a long day, feel tired, can’t be bothered or would rather do something else, demotivation is the number one reason why people do not achieve their health and fitness goals. Even if you love the exercise that you do (and in this post I am assuming that you do), you will have days where you just can’t be bothered.

So how do you overcome the feeling of being demotivated? Great question! I wish I had the ultimate answer because then we would all be healthy and fit! What I do have is a strategy that I am going to share with you.

You know that when you perform a bout of exercise, you feel GREAT. You feel proud of yourself for completing a workout. You feel energised and focused from the endorphins that are secreted following your training session. You feel confident for achieving a goal. Think about it – how many times have you exercised and just felt really, really good when it was done?

This is exactly what you have to focus on. You cannot afford to focus on the fact that you’re going to have to “exercise”, requiring the effort that you don’t feel you have available (because you’re feeling demotivated). You need to focus on the end result.

In all actuality, if you train at the gym, the most common barrier to exercising is not actually performing the exercise. It’s getting to the gym! If you can take that first step to drive yourself to the gym, chances are that you will walk in, look around, see others exercising and then want to join in because of the ambiance.

What I believe to be one key the puzzle is routine. Set a routine and that way you don’t have to “think” about going to the gym – it’s automatic because it’s already part of your week. By doing this, you eliminate the hardest part to exercising – preparing yourself for it.

It sounds contradictory, but one way to overcome the feeling of being demotivated to exercise is to exercise. Next time you’re feeling down, just try to take my advice and see how you go.

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Three Psychological Tips to Enhance Exercise Performance & Intensity

If you’re going into the gym and investing your time and effort into improving yourself (physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally), then it makes sense to get the most bang out of your buck!

Something I haven’t blogged about before are ways to enhance exercise performance and intensity while you are exercising. I’m not talking about supplementing correctly or exercising in a particular fashion, within this blog I am referring to psychological applications that will greatly enhance your ability to perform.

Psychological Tip to Enhance Exercise Performance & Intensity #1: Listen to Music

This may sound commonsensical, but there is plenty of science that suggests that listening to a style of music that you enjoy can significantly enhance your exercise performance. The key is to listen to music that you enjoy and find motivating.

Yesterday, I performed a 15 minute HIIT cardio. I was feeling quite tired from working a very long day on Monday. I began warming up on the bike and my legs just didn’t want to go! There really wasn’t that spark of energy. Yet, I had an amazing workout.

From past experience, I knew that this feeling of being “flat” was all in my head. It’s not a physical thing, it’s purely psychological. The number one thing that I can attribute to going from relatively demotivated to 110% “fired up” in 10 seconds was due to the music I was listening to. I put on a track that I enjoy, the adrenaline kicked in and away I went!

Psychological Tip to Enhance Exercise Performance & Intensity #2: Competition

We perform better when we are in competition with someone else. Having someone there that you are trying to beat is such a powerful form of motivation. This is where a training partner can be of real value.

I am a very strong believer that when you train intensely, you are in competition with yourself. Competing against yourself (or trying to better past performances) is an excellent way to boost performance. But, if you can find a way to also compete against someone else, you will truly reap the benefits.

I have found that competition is most conductive of boosting performance when performing high intensity cardiovascular exercise. Set a handicap if your fitness levels are significantly different and then see who can obtain the greatest distance within a given time.

Weight training can be more difficult, but try setting rep targets to beat. Your strength will most likely be completely different to your training partners, so adjust the weights but compete on reps.

Competition isn’t only performance boosting, but it can also be really fun!

Psychological Tip to Enhance Exercise Performance & Intensity #3: Visualisation

Ever wondered why athletes have sports psychologists? It’s because the mind is such a powerful tool. When you employ visualisation into your training, you are “in the zone” and are able to truly test your limits – both physically and mentally.

One technique that I have read about and employed is to visualise yourself from a third party point of view. You close your eyes and imagine that you are looking at yourself as you are exercising. This is most appropriately accomplished during cardio which doesn’t require a great degree of balance such as the crosstrainer, bike, recumbent bike or rower.

There are many visualisation techniques that you can utilise to really harness the true power of the mind. The true benefit to this is if you are exercise near your maximal capacity – submaximal really won’t make that much of a difference. If you are able to implement visualisation techniques, you will learn very quickly that your mind, and often not your body, is the biggest limiting factor to performance.

–

For further reading on enhancing the intensity of a HIIT cardio session, please have a read of my article “Taking HIIT To The Next Level!“

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How to Breathe When Performing Weight Training Exercise

One of the most common area’s of training that many people struggle with is correct breathing technique. I would estimate that 90% of my personal training clients have experienced difficulty perfecting their breathing.

Correct breathing technique carries a range of benefits. Firstly (and most importantly), if you can learn how to breathe correctly when weight training, you will significantly reduce the degree to which your blood pressure is raised. Of course, blood pressure will rise when you are exercising, but it can increase to dangerous levels, particularly if you are intensely exercising and holding your breath!

Effective delivery of air into your body is of course another vital advantage of correct breathing. If you starve your body of oxygen, your output will significantly decrease quite rapidly.

Before I proceed, I would like to share a couple of personal experiences with you from many years ago.

Back when I began weight training, my breathing was shocking. In fact, I found that I would get completely out of breath because I didn’t know how to breathe. Probably the worst exercise was trying to work out how to breathe effectively on the incline crunches…by the fourth rep I was gasping for air!

Yet more profound was my poor breathing technique on the incline leg press. I was lifting a relatively heavy weight (for my strength level) and yet was tending to hold my breath as I was pushing. Consequently, my blood pressure rose significantly. It wasn’t uncommon to complete the set with “stars” in my eyes due to the build-up of blood pressure in my head. One day, I actually completed a set with a nose bleed due to the heightened blood pressure bursting a small blood vessel.

I’ll admit, I was very lucky that I didn’t cause any permanent damage due to my naive approach to training. Fortunately though, I hired a personal trainer who immediately got me exercising in a safe manner.

So, here are the general rules of breathing technique when performing weight training exercise:

1. NEVER hold your breath
2. Breath out on the concentric phase
3. Breath in on the eccentric phase

If you’re new to weight training, concentric and eccentric phases can be quite confusing (don’t you love the jargon?). Generally, the concentric phase is the harder part of each repetition (where you are contracting the target muscle), whilst the eccentric phase is the easier part (where you are stretching the target muscle).

Here are some examples of concentric phases:

1. Pushups: When you are pushing up from the ground
2. Lunges: When you are pushing up from the ground
3. Lat Pulldown: When you are pulling down
4. Bicep Curls: When you lifting the weight up
5. Shoulder Press: When you are pushing up
6. Bench Dips: When you are pushing up
7. Crunches: When you are crunching up

During these phases, you should be breathing out. On the opposite phases, you should breathe in.

If you haven’t been employing correct breathing technique previously, it will be difficult to practice this initially. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll wonder how you breathed any other way!

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Tips When Buying Gym (Weights & Cardio) Exercise Equipment

Many of our personal training clients opt to exercise at home because they prefer not to train in a gym environment. Quite a few people fall into this category and if you are one of them, then it may be of assistance to you to know how to make smart choices when purchasing exercise equipment.

Before we begin with some tips, keep in mind that you don’t need to purchase gym equipment. To achieve nearly any health and fitness goal, you don’t “need” dumbbells, a bench, exercise machines and a treadmill. If you are on a shoestring budget, you can achieve goals without the initial investment.

However, exercise equipment can be of great benefit to you. Whilst not necessary, they can significantly enhance your results and provide you with many more exercise options to keep your training fun, safe and effective.

Establish what Exercise Equipment You Need

The first thing you need to do is work out exactly what you need. If you have plenty of exercise experience, this will be quite easy to work out. But if you have never exercised before and are now getting serious about losing weight, building muscle, toning up, improving your fitness, or any other goal, the gym equipment that is available can be completely overwhelming.

As a very (very) general rule of thumb, for most common goals, you can get by with some basic weight equipment including:

• An incline bench
• Dumbbells (hand weights) with adjustable weights
• A barbell (a bar), again with adjustable weights
• Weight plates to put on the dumbbells and barbell
• An exercise ball

Really, you don’t need any expensive machines if you are just starting out. You could effectively exercise all your muscle groups with just this equipment, which would be more than suitable for any muscle gain, toning or fat loss goal.

Meanwhile when it comes to cardio equipment, it really depends upon your preferences. Do you prefer to use a bike, recumbent bike, elliptical trainer, rower, treadmill, stepper, or something else? Pick the machine that is most suitable for you. This includes considering:

• Any injuries you may have
• What exercise machine you enjoy using the most
• Your budget
• The space you have available
• Your goals

Avoid purchasing the cheapest piece of cardio equipment that you can find. On one particular auction site, I have found so many extremely cheap treadmills – I wouldn’t touch them with a 10 foot pole! Even the best treadmills are known to experience problems from regular use; I wouldn’t like to try using one purchased for less than a thousand dollars new!

Cardio equipment can be quite expensive, so I would suggest to consider weight training equipment first, prior to purchasing cardio equipment. There are so many outdoor options for cardio such as sports, leisure activities, riding your bike or just going for a run.

Also with the cardio equipment, try picking an effective machine where you can adjust the level of resistance. As you become fitter, you will want to increase the level of intensity so you can continue to make progress.

I hope this provides some degree of assistance if you are considering to buy new exercise equipment for weights and/or cardio. You don’t have to go over the top to achieve phenomonal results!

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