A COMMON MYTH

One of the biggest discussion in gyms is how to bulk up and how to gain more definition?

And surely all you gym going guys would have listened to the following phrase:

“Heavier weights/low repetitions and low weights/higher repetitions for cutting”

Let’s evaluate how true is this saying.

Muscles are composed of muscle fibres which can be further divided into major categories.

1. Slow Twitch Muscle Fibre
2. Fast Twitch Muscle Fibre

Each fiber type is unique in its ability to contract in a certain way. Human muscles contain a genetically determined mixture of both slow and fast fiber types. On average, we have about 50 percent slow twitch and 50 percent fast twitch fibers in most of the muscles used for movement.

1. Slow Twitch Muscle Fiber: These fire more slowly than fast twitch fibers and can go for a long time before they fatigue. The slow twitch fibers respond well to longer duration of stress (i.e. high reps). These fibers do not grow as fast as their counterparts.
2. Fast Twitch Muscle Fiber: They fatigue more quickly and are much better at generating short bursts of strength or speed than slow muscles. The fast twitch fibers respond readily to heavy load explosive movements. This is the muscle fiber which has the capacity of growing fast.

Having understood some scientific terms now, lets revert back to our original discussion, i.e if the phrase “Heavier weights/low repetitions and low weights/higher repetitions for cutting” is essentially true:

As logically deduced from above, fast twitch fibers are those which respond immediately to our workout. Hence this is the usual bulk(pump) that we observe while working out. The more the stress the more the bulk. However this does not mean lifting weights blindly. Going for heavy sets implies sets in which you need support only for the last repetitions. Getting help from your partner from the beginning doesn’t put stress on the muscle. So when you are bulking up, try to do more compound movements which can help you gain some solid muscle

Similarly doing 500 reps with no or negligible weights won’t help in bringing definition or to say cutting in muscles. Slow twitch fibres need to be stressed and while you need to be doing reps for a longer time, some intermediate weight is required to produce the desired effect. Hence you have to use optimal weights(resistance) if you want to work your muscles optimally.

More importantly, to bring out the definition loosing fat is necessary so that the underneath muscle can come to foreground. For that combination of cardio, diet and weights works best.

PUSH UPS: Basic Exercise

Push Ups are the most basic form of exercise that you all of you must have tried one time or the other. They develop the pectoral muscles and triceps, with benefits to the deltoids and the midsection as a whole. Push Up works on the upper section of the body and help in strengthening your torso as a whole.

However this exercise, however basic it may seem, should be carried out in the right manner. So we lets evaluate the right form to do pushups, various forms of pushups and their effects on body parts, and the common push up errors.

POSTURE:

Start with lying upside down. Now with feet close together rise up with hands a little wider than your shoulder width. Your fingertips should be pointed straight ahead, and make sure you keep your back flat and your head in natural alignment with your spine. Assume the Push-up starting position with your elbows locked. Lower yourself by bending your elbows until your chest almost touches the floor. Come back up by pushing through the floor. Exhale as you push back to the starting position.

Important points to be noted while performing repetitions:

1. Don’t take your hands out to wide. Put your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width.

2. Chin should be tucked in, i.e whole of the body should be in a straight line. Your neck must stay inline with the rest of your spine. Don’t look forward as this can lead to neck injuries

3. Don’t bend your back. No pressure should be felt on back. Try to form a straight line from shoulders to ankles.

4. Lead with your chest. The basic and best form of push ups is up and down in a vertical manner. You might find many people leading with their heads and going forward while going down, before coming up. This can lead to neck injuries.

Common Errors while doing push-ups:

Here are some of the most common Push-up errors you’ll see.

1. Looking Forward: Hyper-extending your neck can cause neck injuries. Keep your neck inline with the rest of your spine from start to finish.

2. Letting Your Torso Sack: Your body must be in a straight line from ankles to shoulders.

3. Elbows Out: Increases the torque on your shoulder joint. Tuck your elbows at 45° angle to your body.

Types of Push Ups:

We can variety of push up forms having affect on different parts of the body. The closer your hands are together the more you will engage your triceps, the wider apart the more you will engage your chest and shoulders.

Basic pushups

Basic pushups will work your chest area, triceps and rear deltoids. These are already explained above.

Close-Grip Pushups

Close-grip pushups mostly work the tricep muscles, the inner chest and the trunk muscles. Use the same starting position and breathing pattern as the basic pushup. Bring your hands together and form a triangle with your index fingers and thumbs. As you go down to the floor, your elbows should go to the side, which incidentally puts more stress on your triceps and inner chest. At first, close-grip pushups might strain your wrists, so make sure you stretch appropriately and start off slowly.

Wide-Grip Pushups

Wide-grip pushups will work your chest, rear shoulders and parts of your back muscles. Again use the same starting position and breathing pattern as the basic pushup. Your hands should be positioned beyond shoulder width, with your fingers pointing frontward. The wider position emphasizes the tension on your shoulders and lengthens your pectorals. Wide-grip pushups are more demanding, so you will tire more quickly than with other pushups.

For starters, doing pushups might not be a easy task. Atleast sustaining them for say 15-20 repetitions might be difficult. So in the beginning you can start with knees-feet on the floor and rest process remains the same.

As you grow in strength and stamina you can move from basic pushups onto harder forms.

1. Try having your feet on a elevated place (say bench) with hands down on floor. Lower your body till your nose almost touches the ground.

2. Try with gym sidebars. Place your feet on bench and hands on 4”sidebars. Now let your body fall in between those sidebars in a controlled manner. Gradually come up.

3. One legged pushups: Place your one foot on top of the other and do pushups.

4. One handed Pushups: As ROCKY BALBOA does them. Have your feet wide, one hand on the back while you do push ups on the other hand. However, this is bound to put a lot of stress on your one arm.

5. Use of push up band: Many gyms nowadez have this push up bands. These are basically resistance bands that increase the resistance as you come up.

Let’s PUSH ourselves UP!!!!!!

HOW TO LOOSE FAT AND NOT MUSCLE

First of all, let’s be clear that weight loss does not necessarily mean fat loss. 70% of your body mass is water. So one way to loose fat rapidly would be by zeroing your water intake However, this is extremely dangerous and should not be even attempted. So the goal should be to loose body fat and not body weight.

Now, loosing fat in itself is a cycle that involves discipline on the part of subject. It is simply not related to starving yourself but actually being aware what to eat and when to eat. The major principle involved in fat loss is ‘CALORIE BALANCE’ i.e (calorie intake – calorie burnt). To loose fat one has to go into negative calorie balance over a period of time.

Some techniques to achieve that are presented below:

FREQUENT MEALS:
The amount of calories burnt by one’s body depends on the metabolism system of the individual. High metabolism rate means more calories being consumed. To keep the metabolism of your body high, you have to eat frequent meals. Frequent meals imply eating, say every 3 hours. You don’t have to necessarily stuff yourself each time, but small nutritious meals will go a long way in maintaining an uninterrupted supply of protein to maintain your hard earned muscle.

Rather than eating three large meals, 6-8 evenly spaced small meals can be utilized better by your body. This keeps your body always in working mode in the sense that you are always digesting food (digestion of food also burns calories). Also, body will be in a good balanced state and so it won’t produce the chemical enzymes to convert food into fat storage. When you eat infrequent meals, the body goes into a panic mode and starts storing fats in order to withstand long time without food.

It’s kind of maintaining a trust relationship with your body. If it is assured that it will continue to receive energy through food every now and then, no storage results.

NEVER EVER STARVE:

Going into a negative calorie balance does not mean that you start to starve. Our body has this great adaptation mechanism which adjusts to food intake and thereby adjusts the metabolism rate. So if the body gets the impression that it is being starved, it starts conserving food in form of fat by slowing down the metabolism rate. Remember fats are the last source from which body derives energy in case you starve. It will first feed onto the muscle, then move on to fats. Reducing the calorie levels by 10-15% is generally considered safe, i.e if your burn approx 3000 calories per day then intake of 2600-2700 calories is good to maintain a negative calorie balance and hence loose fat.

You might have noticed people who go on strict diets (very little food), usually show good results in the first week, but then gradually the results taper off. Even in the first week, they have lost mostly muscle and not fat.

Also, starving yourself over a considerable point of time is not easy. At one point, one would get totally hopeless on fat loss and might start to eat normally again. But now his body has adapted to very less calories. So even 2000 calories would be excess for it and it will deposit it as fat under your skin. This is the most common mistake that people do and complain that their diet is not working.

CHEAT DAYS:

As stated earlier, human body has this amazing adapting mechanism. So if you keep your calorie balance negative always, the results will slow down and your body will simply adapt to the situation and will stop you from loosing weight and fat.
So, in order to carry on with the fat loss, we must learn to CHEAT. “Honest people don’t always end up on the winning side, but you will always find Smart people on that shore.”

Let’s learn to cheat then.. Cheat in the right sense.

After three or four days of continuous negative calories, your body might think of shifting gear and it will try to adapt to the situation, by slowing down the metabolism. But if you place a high calorie meal at this point, you will no longer be negative calorie balance. Instead you will be in a positive calorie balance. So your body won’t get adapted to the situation and will continue to support you in loosing fat. So that also gives you the reason to pamper your taste buds. Have that pizza, grab that finger licking pastry but limit it to once a week

For endomorphic people( who are obese by nature) , spacing of cheat meals by 6-7 days is suggested.

If you are obese by nature then space the cheat meals 5-6 days apart.

WHAT TO EAT n WHEN TO EAT:

As everyone knows, carbohydrates are the basic source of energy and excess of carbs is converted into fat. Now to derive energy from carbs, body needs to be set into motion. So try consuming more carbohydrates during your breakfast, before your workouts and even after your workouts. But it should be lesser during the night.

If we consume carbs and go to sleep, then the energy consumed could not be used up by the body. So in turn the body will try to convert it into fats. So we must consume more carbs before high physical activity hours of the day and try to keep it very low during the low activity hours of the day and in night.

Good Carbs and Bad Carbs:

Good Carbohydrates: Try to consume fibrous and starchy carbohydrates.

Bad Carbohydrates: Try to stay away from sugars, as they can increase your insulin levels and can spoil your diet.

But consuming sugar carbohydrates immediately after training can help you replenish the lost glycogen stores in your muscle.

DRINK PLENTY OF WATER

Drinking water has enormous good effects on human body. It not only gives u filled feeling (so you don’t crave for food in between meals) but also flushes out your system.

These are the basic steps, if followed religiously along with a active workout regime, might help you a long way in achieving that dream physique of yours.

GO FOR IT!!!!!

UNDERSTANDING BODY TYPES: First Step to a Bigger Goal

Everyone has different fitness goals. Some might want to lose fat, others may be too skinny and want to gain, yet there may be different class which wants that perfect chiseled body. However attaining your dream shape is a bigger picture. It requires hard work and perseverance to achieve that. We start today with the three different basic body types. Each body type is different from other, and requires different kind of nutrition/activity program to achieve results.

The three basic body types are:

1. Ectomorphs
2. Mesomorphs
3. Ectomorphs.

Ectomorphs are the lean, skinny types. They are usually very thin, with fast metabolisms and extremely low body fat.

Mesomorphs are the "genetically gifted." They are lean and muscular. Mesomorphs have the ideal body type as they have the tendency to lose fat and gain muscle easily

Endomorphs are the "fat retainers". Endomorphs usually have high body fat and often face great difficulty in losing it.

Although there are three basic categories, pure body types are very rare. Usually there is a mix of two or even all three types.

Let’s look into some more details:

THE ECTOMORPH

The ectomorph tends to be tall and skinny with small joints and a small waist. Ectomorphs are naturally lean and usually never have trouble with excess body fat during their entire lives. Many ectomorphs can maintain extremely low body fat while doing no cardiovascular exercise whatsoever. Ectomorphs have overly efficient metabolisms. However they usually have a hard time while trying to gain muscle or put on weight.

Ectomorphs usually do not experience much weight fluctuations, even if they do it’s usually in the direction of losing weight. An increase in activity is usually accompanied by rapid lose in weight.

Ectomorphs will usually lose most of the muscle they gained if they quit training or if they allow their calories to drop too low for too long. Without proper ectomorph training and nutrition, they will eventually slide back towards the level of leanness where their body is most comfortable. It takes lifelong commitment for an ectomorph to keep the muscle and body weight up.

Strategy for ectomorphs:

1. Less Activity

Ectomorphs are hyperactive people with fast metabolisms. So the first and most obvious solution is less activity to gain weight. Ectomorphs must slow down and relax more.

2. Avoid overtraining

The ectomorph must get in and out of the gym quickly and allow plenty of recuperation between workouts. Keep cardio vascular exercise to a minimum

As such, cardio should be kept to a minimum and done mainly for health reasons. 15-30 minutes a day, three days a week is usually sufficient.

Keep the calories high and never, ever, ever miss a meal. Diet moderately high in complex carbohydrates is recommended for ectomorphs.

Carbohydrate restriction is an effective fat loss strategy, but since ectomorphs burn up nearly everything they consume, there’s usually no reason to restrict carbohydrates. Fifty or even fifty-five percent of total daily calories should come from carbohydrates in the ectomorph diet with 30% from lean proteins and 15-20% from fats.

Pay attention to food quality. Don’t think that being an ectomorph enables you to get away with anything.

THE MESOMORPH

Mesomorphs are the typical natural-born athletes and bodybuilders. Most of them were lean and muscular before they even started working out.

A bodybuilder like Arnold Schwarzenegger is almost pure mesomorph with low body fat and massive muscles.

Because mesomorphs are so genetically gifted, they often have the tendency to cheat and skip workouts because they can get away with it and still look good. But just imagine what they would look like if they applied themselves 100%. If you recognize that you are genetically gifted in any sense, then make the most of your gifts - train and eat to the best of your ability and you could become one of the best in the world in bodybuilding, fitness

or athletics. Even if you’re not a competitor, why shouldn’t you actualize your full potential and be the best you can possibly be?

Pay attention to food quality

Like the ectomorph, those with mesomorph tendencies quickly discover that they can also “get away with” eating certain foods without ill effects on body composition, so they often do exactly that – eat anything and everything.

THE ENDOMORPH

Most people who are working hard but still struggling to lose body fat are endomorphs. An endomorph is someone with a slow metabolism who is genetically prone to store fat easily. Endomorphs sometimes have varying degrees of carbohydrate sensitivity and insulin resistance, so high carbohydrate diets are usually not effective for body fat control.

Processed and refined carbohydrates that contain white sugar and white flour are especially detrimental and tend to convert to body fat more rapidly in endomorphs. Low to moderate carbohydrate diets with higher protein usually work best for endomorphs.

Endomorphs generally have a very difficult time losing fat with diet alone. Even a nearly perfect diet sometimes won’t work by itself because the endomorph needs the boost in metabolism that exercise provides.

A larger quantity of cardio is almost always necessary for the endomorph to lose body fat.

Strategy for endomorphs:

1. High protein, medium to low carbs

High protein, low to moderate carb diets work best for the endomorph. Muscles are like burning furnaces which burns away fat and proteins are basic building blocks of muscles.

So having control over what they eat is most important for endomorphs as compared to other two body types.

2. Exercise is an absolute MUST

Endomorphs generally have a very difficult time losing fat with diet alone. Even a closeto-perfect diet often doesn’t work by itself because the endomorph needs the boost in metabolism that comes from exercise.

3. Large amounts of cardio

Cardio exercises are most important for endomorphs. Having your heart beat raised over a considerable amount of time, increases blood circulation and thereby boosts metabolism. Doing cardio 4-5 times a week (approx 30mins per session) is generally shown to be effective.

4. Weight Training

While cardio burns more calories for the time your heartbeat is raised, weight training helps in maintaining a higher calorie burning ratio throughout the day.

Weight training exercises that utilize large muscle groups like the back and legs are extremely effective for stimulating the metabolism and for stimulating the hormones that increase fat burning.

If you are an endomorph, you must fight the urge within you to relax and train with high intensity. You have to push yourself constantly. Not only must you train almost every day, you must push yourself to train harder every day and repeatedly beat your own personal best.

HOW TO DETERMINE YOUR BODY TYPE

The way you respond to training and nutrition is a good indicator of your body type. If you grow muscle like crazy and the fat melts off with great ease, you have genetic gifts; you have the mesomorph’s muscle-building qualities and the ectomorph’s fat-burning qualities.

How quickly you respond to de-training is also a good indicator of your true body type. What happens when you stop training? Do you hold your muscle gains? Does the body fat stay off? If so, you are genetically gifted. If body fat starts accumulating the second you stop training, you have a higher endomorph component.

Try to progressively increase your training duration and frequency gradually as stamina starts to build up. Human body has this great mechanism of adjusting and slowing down your metabolism rate. So it is necessary to surprise your body by changing the intensity and type of your training program.

Timing Your Workout

Another frequent question is -
what is the best time to workout? Before dawn? Before bed?
Does it make a difference?
Aware of natural daily rhythms in body functions, called circadian rhythms, many people wonder whether there is an ideal time for exercise.
Just to make things clear, pasting a link below to determine your circadian rhythm.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/crt/

Now that we know little bit about natural daily rhythms in body functions, called circadian rhythms, lets discuss if there is an ideal time for exercise
The answer is that exercise itself is ideal at any time - and getting exercise is more important than getting it at a certain time of day. But research does show that your body's intrinsic tendencies can affect quality of your athletic performance.

LET'S LOOK AT IT MORE CLOSELY
For example, when you wake up, your body temperature is low. By late afternoon, it may be as much as one or two degrees higher - its peak for the day. Likewise, muscles may be cold and inflexible first thing in the morning. Although we are not aware of it, many body processes, such as blood pressure and hormone production, go through daily cycles, too.
Not everyone's circadian rhythms are identical, but most people experience similarities. Variations and disruptions can occur when you travel, when you are under stress, or when you vary your sleeping habits.
AFTERNOON ADVANTAGES
If achieving high performance is critical, late afternoon is likely to be your pick. Flexibility, strength, endurance, and ability to handle pain are highest at this time. This is the time you are most likely to break your own record, achieve your best lift, time on a cardio machine, or cycle further than you've ever cycled before.
Another advantage of an afternoon workout: Studies show exercise can improve your sleep patterns - particularly when the exercise occurs in late afternoon. A half-hour workout tends to help you go to sleep faster, and sleep more soundly. However, exercise right before bed can make you too alert, keep you awake, and start a damaging cycle of exhaustion. If you like the late-day approach to exercise, try to plan at least two hours between end-of-workout and bedtime.
MORNING ADVANTAGES
Morning exercise can have an energizing effect, setting the stage for a successful day. Like coffee, morning exercise can pick up your heartbeat, heighten your alertness, and help you feel ready to tackle your day. If you like outdoor exercise, another pro for mornings is that air pollution levels are typically at their daily low. If you do opt for morning workouts, take extra time to warm up muscles and stretch to prevent injury.
Also, people who exercise in the morning are more likely to stick with their routines. Late-day workouts, on the other hand, can be postponed or missed when demands of the day become too hectic, or when the day's events drain your energy. But getting up early in the morning can be a pain too:)
People who exercise in the early hours tend to be very productive at whatever they do throughout the morning. However, the afternoon sleepiness that hits most of us for an hour or so every day can be intense, and afternoon may become a low-energy period. This time of day is ideal for a relaxing break, a 10 min nap – may re-energize you.
ANY TIME IS TERRIFIC!!!
Take a hard look at your own schedule, and decide when it will fit most realistically and reliably. In other words, the best time to exercise is the time that you can stick with.

STARTING WITH THE RIGHT APPROACH

One of the most controversial topics in bodybuilding and in fitness is “The workout frequency”. Some people say train each muscle once a week, others might say train each muscle twice a week, then you might find people suggesting number of rest days/week, duration of workout etc,

To get started, we will discuss these and then subsequently move on to some other complex things.

As you might have seen in your gym, people try to emulate their role models. But let’s be very clear about one thing, our workout (and by us I mean, natural bodybuilders) cannot match the workout schedule of those Pro’s that we see on boxes of supplements.

Here’s the reason why:

LOGIC FOR MUSCLE GROWTH:

When we train in the gym, we break the muscles tissue of the body part that we are training(say chest). Now for the muscle to grow, it has to first be repaired and then overcompensated. This is done through diet. Big bulging muscles are not made in gym, they are made at home, with adequate rest. Getting sufficient protein in your diet helps repair the damaged tissues, and builds new muscle. Thus adequate rest is necessary for muscle to recover before you break it again by working out.

This is where the genetics plays a vital role. All the pro’s have superior genetics as compared to normal human beings (not to mention, they modify genes through steroids). Thus their bodies recover quickly then normal and hence their bodies grow faster. Now, if you have good genetics, then you can be one of them. Hence, one should never schedule a workout before he/she feels fully recovered.

Consider the following example:

When we do a very intense set for a muscle, here we virtually create a small hole on the muscle (let us imagine damage to hole here for the sake of understanding).When we do another intense set for the same muscle, here we make the hole deeper. Another set and the hole gets still deeper. As I said earlier the growth process starts after the workout when we rest. So if the hole is very deep, all the protein that we take will be used up to fill the hole. But what about the overcompensation? Before the muscle fully recovers it would be more than a week. So our “go to gym” syndrome will kill the growth and we would train the same muscle again. So if you observe here, our progress is zero. This is the reason why most of the bodybuilders lack to make gains.

So what should you do?
Just try to be logical and rational about your workouts and your frequency. Train optimal, train no more than what is required to create a small hole onto the muscle. But remember lazy workouts are not going to help. Do not spend too much time in the gym. Just concentrate on your workout. Working out for longer duration is not going to help as long as you have your work cut out while doing your sets. Try to induce failure in muscles, not giving much rest in between.

What I mean here is just choose very minimal amount of exercises per body part and do several warm-ups and do one or may be two all out sets to failure. By reaching temporary failure of the local muscle you can be sure that you created that required damage to the muscle. When you reach your failure, you not only damage the muscle but also induce the growth stimulus of your body’s growth mechanism. So when you rest and eat proper nutrition, you have no other option but to grow.

Now you would have understood about the volume of workout. There is one more important topic, the training frequency. Just make a practice of listening to your muscle. Don’t train when you feel that your muscle is not fully recovered. Take a day or two off. Believe me you wont loose your gains. Have you noticed that after a complete week or two of rest you always come back stronger to the gym. You are able to feel your muscle better during the workout!! This is because your muscle is fully recovered. Listen to your muscle and train accordingly. You will make optimal gains.

TO CONCLUDE:
There is no magic number of sets or number of days you must train in a week. All you have to do is train each of your muscle with no more than what is required to induce the body’s growth mechanism and not train the same muscle until that muscle and its supporter muscles are fully recovered.

With this, I take your leave for now. More to follow………