Every time you lift weights, you are in fact ripping your muscle fibers (assuming you’re lifting enough weight). When your body repairs your muscles, they are bigger and stronger, hence the effects of working out.

However, working out again and again, without giving your muscles a chance to repair, can have adverse effects on your body (called over training). This is why people split their workout.

To create an effective split, a person must first understand how long it takes to repair your muscles after they’ve been ripped.

The repair process is known as muscle protein-synthesis. And its when your body uses proteins which you have consumed to repair your ripped muscles. This process can last as long as 48 hours after your workout. Which means that, for 48 hours, you should not put any serious strain on that muscle.

To take advantage of this bit of knowledge, you can split your workout in any number of ways. What I like to do is split my workout by muscle group.

Continue reading for examples and tips! Read the rest of this entry »

If you like to party, you probably won’t enjoy reading this. So, I’ll try to make this as quick as possible.

Your body treats alcohol as a poison.

What does that mean? It means, that when you’re drunk, you’re body is going to do everything it can to get the alcohol out of your system. To such an extent, that other bodily functions will no longer get the attention which they require.

More specifically related to weight lifting, your body does not synthesize protein which is already in your system when you consume alcohol. Therefore, you should either try to consume your protein a few hours before you’re even planning on drinking, or just drink on days which you’re not exercises/consuming exorbitant amounts of protein for muscle recovery.

There is an important science behind lifting weight up and bringing it back down. For those looking to gain mass, this article will provide a quick tip to improve your workouts, and re-focus your muscles on growth.

Your muscles rip in two different ways. When you bring the weight down, and when you bring it back up, they are two separate motions, and should be treated as such.

Why is this important you ask?

Well, for gaining mass, the more vital rip, is bringing the weight down, aka the descending motion. This is also generally the second motion of a repetition.

How should you use this information?

If you’re looking to gain mass, you should try to focus on moving at a much slower pace during the secondary or descending motion. Moving fast during the first motion is fine!

One of my claims to fame in our little workout group is I have great breathing techniques…..yea…..go me. But in reality proper breathing is important in all forms of physical activity and a lot of people either aren’t aware of that fact, or just don’t take the time to train themselves to breathe properly.

Proper Breathing While Running

The proper breathe in/breathe out ratio while running is 3:2. What this means is that you should be fully filling your lungs in three strides, and then fully exhaling in your next two strides. You might need to slow your pace for a while to get the timing down. What this does is get more oxygen to your muscles, which will lower your heart rate, and it also pushes all of the carbon dioxide out of your body. If you’re taking short, quick gasps for air, then you’re increasing the carbon dioxide in your system and this will increase your heart rate and lactic acid production, which in turn decreases your endurance. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re an avid weight lifter then chances are you’ve reached that point where you feel like you’re killing yourself in the gym (over training), going as hard or harder than you’ve ever gone before and somehow you’re just not seeing the desired results.

I feel your pain, I’ve been there on more than one occasion. If this is happening to you, then you’ve most likely been doing the same workout for too long.

Realistically it’s probably a good idea to be changing your routine up every month in order to get optimal results. I don’t change that often even though I should, the problem is I find a workout/routine that I like and just want to keep doing it.

On the same token though I really like feeling that burn during the workout and the soreness the next day. If you’re like me and you want to keep doing tough weight training workouts with similar exercises but still want to shock your muscles into shape and keep things from getting too repetitive, then read on for a few tips that I’ve found pretty enjoyable/effective. Read the rest of this entry »

Drop sets are a great way to increase the intensity of your workout. What they are, is a set immediately after your last set, of lower weight. I generally try to go for the highest weight which I can do for 12 reps.

Who should use the drop set? People looking to gain MASS. Drop sets do not add strength, or speed, or any other true athletic ability, they’re essentially solely for a cosmetic purpose.

Whats the science behind drop sets? According to Tom Venuto, drop sets are all about hitting all the muscle fibers within the muscle, to essentially stimulate growth.

The way this works is, with each set you hit different fibers, so after reaching your max weight, each subsequent drop set is hitting “reserved” fibers.

Ensuring you hit all these fibers will stimulate greater muscle growth, as all the fibers have been “ripped” meaning when they are all repaired, they will all be larger than before (i.e. the science behind muscle growth).

Don’t forget an important diet always plays a major roll in fitness however, and you need to consume the proper amount of protein (in food, or whey) to successfully repair your muscles.

I’m often asked the question, “What should I do at the gym to lose weight?” I always find this question interesting, because there are so many options.

Personally, I feel the best way to lose weight is through the food you eat. It is extremely difficult to lose weight when you have a bad diet, please keep that in mind.

The simple math, is you must expend more calories than you consume.

If you’re doing that in your current diet, you wont need to add any additional exercise to your current routine (daily life) to lose weight.

There are 3500 calories in 1 pound of fat.

What does this mean? It’s simple, if every day you burn 100 more calories than you eat, you will lose 1 pound of fat in 35 days.

If you’re not interested in changing your diet at all, and you really just want to know how to lose weight through a lot of hard work, read on.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you couldn’t tell from any of my previous articles, or my “about me” page, then let me say it again.

I have a constant goal to gain muscle mass

This past summer, I decided to look for a new workout program which focused in gaining lean mass. I found HST, which stands for Hypertrophy-Specific Training (which essentially means muscle growing training).

While this workout may be prime for gaining mass, it can not do it alone. Just like drinking protein without lifting weights will not add muscle, exercising without consuming more calories than you burn will not add muscle.

This is simple math, and the basics of nutrition.

Therefore, if your goal is to gain muscle, your first step (assuming you’re already on some type of workout regiment) should be ensuring that you have a proper diet. This means you’re hitting all your nutritional requirements, and consuming more calories then you burn. I may sound like a broken record, but its the bottom line. You are what you eat, and if you don’t eat enough, you won’t get any bigger.

Read on to learn all about HST. Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m going to do my best to address an age old question that has plagued weight lifters for years now….how can I build muscle fast/when should I take protein? First of all I’m going to address just why whey protein is so effective.

1. Whey protein isolate, which is the purest form of whey protein, digests very quickly. This means that once you take the protein, it’ll be in your system doing its job in no time.

2. As well as being one of the fastest acting proteins, whey protein isolate is rich in Branched Chain Amino Acids (leucine, isoleucine, and valine). This helps build muscle, increase endurance, and reduces muscle deterioration. These amino acids are also important because they get metabolized directly into your muscles instead of your liver like other amino acids. Read the rest of this entry »