Quick nutrition tip for awsome results

Most people just simply don't consume enough protein and consume way to many carbs. A simple trick I often use with clients is to add up your daily totals of carbs and protein, then switch the two numbers. So for example say you are getting in 300 grams of carbs a day and 100 grams of protein switch them around so your consuming 300 grams protein and 100 grams carbs. If your really eager for quick results consume those carbs first thing in the morning and around your workouts. Try this for as little as 3 weeks and you will notice a major difference in body composition.

A tip for training lats

When training your back for width you should take to your advantage that your lats respond very well to a 2 second isometric contraction at the peak of the concentric phase of lat exercises. In simple terms, when performing exercises that target the lats say, for example, a pull up , make sure that you squeeze your lats as hard as possible for a full 2 seconds at the top of the lifting phase (when your chin in over the bar). This goes for all back exercises in general, but specifically when lats are your primary focus.

How to workout when your cutting Part 3

Its time for the sample workout incorporating all the principles outlined in parts 2 and 3. Rest between sets and tempo will also be covered as a bonus!

Back Squats 5 sets of 3 reps (5x3) 90 sec rest (between each set) . Tempo 3:0:1 (3 seconds down, 0 sec pause, 1 sec up)
Barbell or dumbbell bench press: 5x3. 60 sec rest. Tempo. 3:1:1 (3 sec down, 1 sec squeeze at the top, 1 sec up)
Barbell or dumbbell bent row: 5x3. 60 sec rest. Tempo 3:2:1 (3 sec down, 2 sec squeeze at the top, 1 sec up)
Barbell push press (the key is the leg drive, be explosive): 5x3. 60 sec rest. Tempo 2:0:1 (2 sec down, 0 sec pause, 1 sec up)
Chin up (if you can do more than 8 with your body weight do weighted chin ups): 5x3. 60 sec rest. 3:2:1(3 seconds down 2 seconds squeeze at the top 1 second up)

Metabolic finisher; Persorm 3 rounds of the following cuircut with 45 seconds of rest between each round
30 sec of medicine ball pushups
30 second of medicine ball throws
30 seconds of burpees

This is agreat basic program when your cutting. Remember always:
Use compound exercises
Lift heavy weights (3-6 reps)
Low volume: 3-5 sets
Lift exposively
Use a metabolic finisher preferably a style of HIIT (high intensity interval training).

Which cardio burns the most calories?

This might suprise some, but the best cardio for overall calorie expenditure is High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). A basic example of high intensity interval training would be a 30 second sprint on the bike followed by 30 seconds of rest. Repeat this for 15 minutes. HIIT is more intense and takes alot less time than traditional forms of carido jogging do. The reason it burns more calories is due to a process called EPOC. EPOC stands for excess post-excerise oxygen consumption. EPOC sends an individuals metabolism through the roof leading to extra calories been burned not only during your workout but for up to 48 hours after! In simple terms this means that you worked your body so hard that you managed to create a debt that your body has to pay off in the form of consistently burning calories for an extended period of time. Next time you think of buring lots of calories stick to HIIT the key is short and intense!

How to workout when cutting part 2

In part 1 we established some ground rules. Lift heavy weights for 3-6 reps for a total of 3-5 sets. Focus on compound excerises that use the most amount of muscle and lift them explosively to stimulate the fast twitch muscle fibres becuase these have the most potential for growth. In Part 2 we will go over which exercises to use. We will also go over the structure of your session which will be split into two halves: Lifting and metabolic training in order to maximise your results.
     The exercises used are basic exercises that have withstood the test of time. Heres the exercises your going to use. The back squat, The standing military press, weighted pull ups, weighted dips, Pendelay row (a row that commences the rowing portion of the lift from a deadlift position, look it up for more details). As for metabolic training, there are quite a few options opened for you. I'll name a few to get you thinking in the right direction. Farmer walks with 15 kg dumbells. An intense body weight curcuit, skipping mixed with boxing, ground and pound work on the bag done in intervals. These are only a few to get you thinking. Stay tuned for Part 3 where an example ofa basic program will be given using all of the above principals.

How to workout when your cutting part 1

So you've decided to get ripped, shredded, cut, chiseled. You get the idea. You cut your carbs and eat them at breakie and around your workout (around meaning a mixture of before, during and after you workout). If your cutting and you don't do what I just mentioned try it and see what happens you'll thank me in 6 weeks. But even then you notice that you just can't lift as heavy when your cutting weight. This is then further amplified by the fact that people practise the MYTH of lifting light weights for high reps to get cut. Its absolute rubbish. When you are cutting your going to have to sacrifice SOME (not necessarily alot but some) of your hard earned muscle. For this reason your main focus during a workout when cutting is to PRESERVE your muscle mass. Lifting lighter weights for higher reps does not preserve your muscle mass,quite the opposite, infact it desensitizes it to lifting your usual heavier weight which leads to the body reacting something like this: your body: wow this weight is way lighter than before, looks like I dont need all this muscle here anymore! So whats the solution? LIFT HEAVY WEIGHTS FOR LOW REPS! A good place to start is the 4-6 rep range (personally I find the 3-5 range to be more effective) with a set total of between 3-5. By performing heavy weights with low reps your giving your body a reason to hold onto the muscle mass it already has, it also allows you to initiate a strength maintanince mode where your body has the ability to, whilst cutting, keep up a certain lift without loosing much strength. So what excerises should you perform? COMPOUND ONES! No isolation work, compound excersies stimulate the most amount of muscle groups giving you more bang for your buck and when performed explosively with heavy weights, simulate the high threshhold, fast twitch muscle fibres  which have the most potential for growth and strength.

The double effect

A neat little trick when it comes to bringing up a lift that is lagging behind the rest is performing the exercise twice in the workout. For example Squats, dips, pull ups, push ups, bent rows, Squats. By doing this your nervous system adapts by familiarising the movement pattern making you more efficient and in turn stronger at the chosen exercise. This is especially effective when trying to increase your strength in a given lift. As for gaining size, its advantageous in regards to the fact that the targeted muscle groups involved in the particular lift will get extra stimulation through the extended volume and time under tension leading to more growth.

Carb confusion?

There are 2 types of carbohydrates: Simple carbs and complex complex.You should be consuming most of your carbs in the form of complex Carbs expect for 2 key times where you SHOULD consume simple carbs: DURING and AFTER your workout. Simple carbs should be in the form of fruit juices( I recommend grape fruit juice) carb supplements and milk. As for the consumption of complex carbs stick to the stales of brown rice sweet potato and oatmeal.

Endocrinology is the study of human hormones. Hormones can be both incredibly beneficial to our progress in the gym but at the same time, highly detrimental. When your stressed your body releases a hormone called cortisol. Cortisol is a highly catabolic hormone which can significatly affect your weightloss efforts, and your muscle gaining efforts. The less stressful you are the more SUCCESSFUL you will be in your training. Here's the problem. Ironically weight training is actually a catabolic activity, it breaks down your muscles so you can repair from the workout and become a bigger stronger version of your previous self. To counter this catabolism aim to consume some some quick digesting carbs before during and after your workout, this will shift you into a anabolic phase which is prime for muscle building!

Its important to remember that it is possible to gain significant amounts of strength without gaining weight. This can be crucial to sports which have weightclasses for athletes such as boxing, wrestling, olympic weightlifting, and mma to name a few. How does it work, and how do you do it? The key is usling maximal weights and use a low volume of reps preferably between 1-3,  and a low-moderate to high volume of sets,  when PURE strength with minimal hypertrophy is the goal. Good ranges for PURE strength include the following, 3x3 6x2 and 8x3. They call this Neuromuscular strength becuase rather than stimulate purely the muscle whiste feeling the burn and the pump like the standard 8-12 rep bodybuilding approach, your stimulating your body's central nervous system by improving in the efficiency of motor unit recruitment patterns as well as the firing syncronization of these patterns allowing you to become more effiecient at a particular movement. Due to the fact that during a set the muscle is under a low time under tention the body does not maximise hypertophy but rather neuromuscular strength, im not saying you wont gain anything, but if size is your goal then this method of training is certainly not optimal.In simple terms this training style will not put on much size but it will make you alot stronger on your big lifts like the bench press, deadlift and squat in particular.

Theres so much debate about the optimal frequency in which an individual should hit the gym. Is it best to go 3 times a week?  maybe 5? How about 6? some even claim as little as 1! See the truth is...There is NO optimal training frquency. The best way i have dicovered to explain to people is something I picked up from a famous strength and conditioning coach. "An individual should train as often as possible without exceeding their aility to recover". Simpily put this means that you should train as much as you can as long as you can recover from the previous session. If that means training once a week or 20 times a week then so be it. The more frequestly you train and recover from that training the faster you will progress and achive results. So your focus should be on increasing your work load from week to week, especially if gaining muscle mass is the goal, in that case you should bumb up the volume as well as the weight used in excerises.

Did you know that everytime you gain fat you not only enlarge your fat cells but they actually multiply in a process called FAT CELL HYPERPLASIA. To explain, imagine a person who weighs 85 kgs but gains 10 kgs making him 95 kgs after mistreating his diet and slacking off at training. Lets say hypothetically that he had 1000 fat cells at 85kgs. When he went from 85 to 95 those 1000 fat cells enlarged but also multiplied giving him 1300 fat cells. Now this doesnt mean he cant loose that weight, it doesnt neccissarily make it any harder to LOOSE that the extra weight by sticking to a good diet and training program but once you mutiply your fat cells its PERMENANT!!! you cant ever loose them. What does this mean? Well it means that when you slack off your diet again you will gain fat at a faster rate! This is why when many overweight people loose a lot of weight but then go back to bad habbits they put it all back on and in some cases even more! This is why the conventional bodybuilding approach to bulking is not optimal.

The conventional body building of bulking in the form of eating as much as you can of whatever you want to put on mass is an absoloute waste of time. A much more efficient method to bulk is to eat 300 calories over your maintainance cals everyday for the first week and add 50 cals to that number every week after for a total of 8 weeks. so week 1: 300 cals above mainatainace, week 2: 350 cals week 3:400 cals above ect. Try to keep the majority of these cals come from breakfast, pre, during, and post workout.

You should always Cut BEFORE you Bulk. The reason is that the higher your body fat percentage is the easier you will put on fat, so when you bulk you'll be gaining weight, but the majority will be fat. The leaner you are the less likely you are to put on fat when your bulking so cut up BEFORE you bulk up.

Explode for new PBs!

Try this interesting technique. Before performing an exercise like barbell bench press or barbell squats, try performing 5 reps of an explosive body weight movement. So for barbell squats it would be a standing body weight squat jump and for bench press it would be an explosive or "clap" push up. The reason for this is that it stimulates your CNS (central nervous system) and primes it for heavy loads subsequently enabling the trainee to lift more weight. Give it a try!

When performing dumbell bench press try this quick, useful tip . At the top portion of the lift touch the insides of the two dumbells togther and squeeze them for a full second. On the few reps try squeezing for 2 or 3 seconds instead of one. This will properly stimulate the pecs as their primary function is horizontal felxion.

Successful training programming knowing when to change it up. As a rule of thumb never do anything the same for more than 3 months. Preferably change it up every 6-8 weeks. The key is to allow your body to progressively ajust to your program and progress through it to the point where your body has adapted as much as it can, then change the stimulus and repeat the cycle. Almost all programs will work, but none will work forever.

The most important priciple in weight training is progressive overload. You must consistintly strive to add weight on the bar, grind out an extra rep or two, add an extra set, increase your time under tention or decrease your rest periods.

Maximal hypertrohy has been been proven to be effective using frequent high volume training with the use of the 8-12 rep range wth MODERATELY heavy wieghts

Studies have shown that when hypertrophy is the goal (muscle size gain) its highly beneficial to eat a mixture low GI carbs and a high protein source an hour before your work out. And high GI carb (no not junk food) and high protein mixture both during AND after your workout.

During weight training we use glucose from our glycogen stores as a fuel source. This means that at the end of a hard workout due to the fact that your fuel is low we enter a catabolic state, uh-oh! To prevent this we should focus on consuming some quick diegesting carbs to spike our insulin levels so that we can jump back into an anabolic stae where we want to be! An excellent and highly efficient way to achieve this is by drinking grapefruit juice both during annd after your workout in conjuction with a source or protein.

Catabolic and anabolic are the two different states that are used describe whether the body is building tissue or breaking it down. For the most part of the day we want our body's to be in an anabolic state. But your body is in a catabolic state when you wake up, this means that it may break down muscle to use as an energy source. The... best way to combat a catabolic state is to consume carbohydrates because eating carbohytrates makes the body produce the hormone insulin, which is an anabolic hormone!. This makes eating carbs crucial when both gaining and even loosing weight. This also makes breakfast one of the most important meals as it kicks off the fueling of your body for the day ahead!

Try and eat 6 meals a day: 1 large ( breakfast) 2 medium (lunch and dinner) and 3 small (moring afternoon and night snacks)

As a rule of thumb, when it comes to vegies stick to the green varieties such as brocholi, spinach, asparagus, cabbage, brussle sprouts ect.

high volume weight training (meaning of lots of reps and sets) for getting cut is not practical and shouldnt be used by the general population. When it comes to weight training for fat loss, the key is low volume and heavy wieghts. Stick to a few basic compound excerises and work with a heavy weight for reps between the 4-6 range. This while fire up the metabolism without too much glycogen depletion. High volume is impractical when your in a caloric deficit

There are 3 MAIN macronutrients Protein Fat and Carbohydrate. When dieting for fat loss, macronutrient manipulation is key. Keep your protein high fat moderate and carbs low. Concentrate on eating your carbs in the morning, before your workout and after your workout (pre and post workout). For the rest of your day you should derive you carbs from vegetables

There are 3 MAIN macronutrients Protein Fat and Carbohydrate. When dieting for fat loss, macronutrient manipulation is key. Keep your protein high fat moderate and carbs low. Concentrate on eating your carbs in the morning, before your workout and after your workout (pre and post workout). For the rest of your day you should derive you carbs from vegetables

Diet is the key to your reslults in the gym regardless of your goal

When loosing weight, far to much time is commited to performing cardio. After Diet, Weight training is the top of priorites when fat loss is the goal is. It is more important than cardio is PERIOD. Weight training when performed correctly will fire up the metabolism and maintain your hard-earned muscle. Too much cardio can impair results and lead to loosing weight in the form of muscle, giving you that unwanted skinny-fat look.

You cant gain weight unless you have a caloic surplus. This just means that you need to eat more calories than you burn each day for a set amount of time to increase your bodyweight. The same goes if you want to loose weight, a caloric deficit must be achieved, meaning you must eat LESS calories than you are burning for a set amount of time to lower your bodyweight

if your a beginner stick to basic compound excerises. A compound excerise is one which uses more than one joint or muscle in at once. Good compound exersises to use are: barbell back squats, deadlifts, chin ups and pull ups, dips, push ups, push press, military press.

if your doing the Bodybuilders style bench press (wide grip elbows flared out and bringing the bar close to your collar bone) Your asking for shoulder injuries, do yourself a favour and pull your shoulder blades back and down to create an arch, cheep your chest prowed. Flex your lats and core keep your butt on the bench, keep your elb...ows in close to your body instead of flared, allow your grip to be closer to enable this, grip the bar tight. Bring your feet back AND wide as far as you can while still maintaining contact on the ground with your heels. When you unrack the bar being it to your nipple line and without bounching the bar touch your chest and as you push the bar up drive your heels into the ground as if doing a push press. This is the correct technique for the bench press.

There are no real concrete rules in training, as everyone is an indvidual and responds differently as individuals, So use my information more as a guidlines to help you in the right direction