thenaturalone’s BodyBlog

For those who may be new to the subject of gaining muscle and losing bodyfat. Perhaps you are spending alot of time in the gym but not seeing the results that you think you should. I’m not saying that I’m some famous guru on the subject or anything like that, however, I do have some idea’s that I have have practiced and had phenominal results, and have passed these idea’s along to other people who have asked me for advice and have had amazing progress as a result. First off, the subject of cardiovascular training as it relates to weight training. You have one type of exercise, aerobic, which by definition should be low intensity and long duration. Then you have anaerobic, which by definition should be high intensity and short duration. The two forms of exercise are opposites and should be treated as such. In terms of fat loss the most important thing to focus on is preserving muscle tissue. Here is why. Your muscle is your metabolism. Muscle is active tissue and needs to burn calories 24/7 in order to survive which means that the more muscle you are able to maintain, the more calories you will burn and the faster your metabolism will be. Your muscle in your body is the same as an engine in a car. The bigger the engine or the more muscle you have, the more fuel that is burnt up. The biggest mistake I see people make is doing these very intense, balls to wall cardio sessions that last 45 minutes to an hour which is very catabolic (eats up your muscle), and sometimes weight training directly afterwards, even more catabolic. When cardio training is done at a high intensity it no longer is aerobic exercise, it becomes anaerobic which means that you will be tapping into your anaerobic pathways that your muscles need to recover and the body can’t replenish it’s biochemical resources fast enough and as a result your body will begin to metabolize it’s own hard earned muscle tissue for energy causing your metabolism to slow down and your body will be more prone to store fat. Now, how to avoid this so your getting the most bang for every minute you spend in the gym. Here are some idea’s that have worked tremendously for people that have asked my advice. 1.) Try to keep your weight training and aerobic or cardio training seperate. I never do them on the same day. If you do need to do them together on the same day try to keep them as far apart as possible. Idealy, if you could do cardio training first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, then do your weight trainging later in the afternoon or at night that would be best. If you need to do them together at the same time then always do your weight training first and cardio second. 2.) Don’t go balls to wall on your cardio training. You should not be huffing and puffing and turning purple with veins popping out of your head gasping for air. You should go at a nice steady pace so that you would be able to carry on a conversation with someone while your exercising. I like doing the gauntlet stair climber, only at about level 4 or 5 for around 45 minutes does wonders for me. Brisk walking or a low/moderate intensity on a cross trainer or eliptical runner would be good also. 3.) Before training, take some branched chain amino acids on an empty stomach along with a green tea supplement and an acetyl-L-carnitine supplement. I cannot stress this enough! Branched chain amino acids or BCAA’S can make all the difference in the world! BCAA"s are your insurance policy to make sure that your body doesn’t start eating up it’s own muscle tissue for energy, while at the same time helping to keep your blood sugar levels stable and your metabolic rate high. Take them before you do any form of exercise. They come in capsules and also powdered form. The capsules are easier to take but the powder is much more cost effective although doesn’t taste good and is very gritty. Add some crystal lite to it and it will be much less painful to ingest. Take about 10 grams worth for every 100 lbs of bodyweight seems to yeild the best results. The Acetyl-L carnitine works wonders for fat burning when taken before exercise and is also a neurotransmitter which will help you focus during training. It also speeds recovery. This is a fairly priced supplement also. Take 1-1.5 grams or 1000-1500 mg for every 100 pounds of bodyweight before you train. One last supplement that is cheap and easy to take is green tea. You can drink a cup of it or take it in capsule form to help increase your metabolic rate so you burn more calories when you train and also help give you an energy boost. For this one the effective dosage is whats directed on the package or bottle. 4.) The next thing I want to touch apon quickly is diet. Try to get at least 5 meals per day consisting of quality protein sources along with a lower glycemic index carbohydrate. These meals don’t need to be big. An example would be a tuna fish sandwich on 100% whole wheat bread with a cup of steamed broccoli. There also some good meal replacement drink mixes and bars out there supplement companies offer. I like MHP’s macrobolic MRP packs. Good combination of quality protein and carbs and essential fatty acids. Small but frequent balanced food intakes will help keep your metabolism moving fast and give you more energy. 5.) The last thing I want to touch on is weight training. Although resistance training is essential to keep building a lean muscular body, if you over do it it can be counter productive. I have had my best success weight training no more than 3 hours per week. I suggest keeping weight traing sessions very intense but not to let any workout go over 45 minutes. Also, try not to train each bodypart more than once per week. The body has very limited biochemical resources to recover with and and when you go hit muscle group hard before it’s had a chance to recover not only will you not see gains but it will actualy be counter-productive. Anytime you work a muscle to failure, you create an inroad into your muscles recovery ability. The next step is that you have compensate (put back what was there before), before you can over over compensate(put back more than was there before), which means add more muscle. This process can take days to weeks before a muscle can fully recover unless you take steroids, than the rules change but we wont get into that now. The stronger you become and more weight your able to lift than the deeper the inroad will be into your muscles recovery pathways and the more recovery time you will have incorporate between workouts from that point on in order to compensate for the stress increase on your muscles. If your stuck at a platue then you may want to through in a few extra recovery days between your workouts from here on out and your strength and muscle growth can move forward again. Cardio may be done every more frequently because the intensity should be less so you recover from it much more quickly. Intense weight training though shouldn’t be done frequently. No more than 3 times per week as the recovery will take much longer. I hope that this information will be helpful to who ever reads it so they can avoid making alot of the mistakes I have made in my 22+ years of experience. Good luck to everyone out there and keep striving for your goals!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 8:25 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.