- maybe I should just try and get really cut instead
- maybe I should work on strength instead of mass and try my hand at powerlifting
- maybe I'd have more time to do well at other stuff if I didn't so much time working on the gym and eating properly....!
Tuesday 7 July 2009
Bodybuilding and Fitness Aims and Targets
I was suppose to be writing the second part of my overtrainning post. Don't worry I haven't forgot, just a slight detour. I was having a think about my own body building aims and targets. Every now and then I have a moment of weakness where I want to completely change my aims, but luckily I don't. I manage to pull myself back together. I'm half way through a bulk at the moment and during these 'moments of weakness' I'll think to myself:
Saturday 4 July 2009
Overtraining Symptoms
My Personal Experience of Overtraining Symptoms
The damage caused by overtraining is seriously underestimated by a lot of athletes and bodybuilders. Looking back I can identify over a whole year where I was in a state of overtraining and didn’t realise. I was recently advising a friend in the gym that he was overtraining and his response was:
Me: “You’re overtraining”
Friend: “So?”
Me: “You won’t grow any more muscle.”
Friend: “I just want to get stronger.”
Me: “You won’t get any stronger, you’ll loose muscle and strength.”
Friend: “You don’t loose strength from overtraining” (look of disbelief)
Me: “Never mind…..” (me giving up on a lost cause)
From my own personal experience I did not know I was overtraining. I was struggling to make gains at the gym and spent a whole year hardly gaining any strength or muscle and not losing any body fat. I was sucked in to a vicious loop and was unable to recognise my own overtraining symptoms. Then I took a week of because I had a cold and gained more muscle in that week despite having a cold then I had in any of the 52 weeks before. Ironically enough getting ill more often is one of the overtraining symptoms but it was the only one that made me realise what I was doing wrong. I’d like you to compare the two scenarios set out below and identify the overtraining symptoms.
Scenario 1:
I always feel tired when it comes to time to go the gym but I see my self as a dedicated athlete and force myself every time. Once I’m in the gym I wake up and I’m glad I forced myself to go. I train with weights and do cardio in the same session believing this will help me to gain muscle and loose fat without any knowledge of catabolism. I feel as though I’ve had a good workout, I haven’t made any big gains in a while but I believe I may just be at a stage where gains are harder to make. I also come up with some other beliefs like people who are bigger then me MUST be on steroids or have some sort of superior genetics. I get home and as usual don’t feel that hungry after a work out. The next day I feel fine. I very rarely get sore from a workout as I’m used to them now.
Scenario 2:
When it comes to gym day a hoard of wild horses couldn’t keep me out of there, I’m bursting with energy before I even get in there. I manage to make a gain every work out weather it be an extra rep at a certain weight or I go on to the next weight for a particular work out. After my work out I eat like a horse to feed the muscles. The next I feel pretty rubbish! It’s what I call being “Gym’d Over” because it feels like a hangover. I start to feel more and more sore as the day goes on (this is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS for short). The second day after my work out I still feel a bit gym’d over and sometimes the muscles are still getting sorer, especially if it was a leg workout. A hoard of wild horses COULD NOT drag m into the gym! I wait until I’m recovered and bursting again before I enter the gym.
Some of the overtraining symptoms were easy to spot but some were not! I want to tell you about the harder ones to spot. Scenario 1 was obviously me when I was overtraining. I felt proud of the fact that I was forcing myself in to the gym! The truth was I was an over trained endorphin addict! The feeling of being gym’d over where I feel tired and dry, this was probably what I felt like all the time when I was overtraining but it is something that build up gradually so you know no different!
The DOMS I attribute directly to muscle growth. If I only give my muscles enough time to repair but not to grow before I jump back in the gym I short circuit this growth and therefore no DOMS. Eventually the overtraining is so much that I can’t workout intensely enough to create the stimuli needed for muscle growth. My body in a way has protected me from further over training by gradually reducing my ability to train!
I have come a long way since then but the reason I tell you all this is to help you recognise overtraining symptoms that took me too long to recognise. Now I work out less, gain more and feel better, that’s what working out should be about.
For my next blog I will take a more general look at overtraining, it’s symptoms and how to recover from over training. How you feel and your psychological state as you may grasp from what I have written above is the best way to diagnose if you are overtraining.
The damage caused by overtraining is seriously underestimated by a lot of athletes and bodybuilders. Looking back I can identify over a whole year where I was in a state of overtraining and didn’t realise. I was recently advising a friend in the gym that he was overtraining and his response was:
Me: “You’re overtraining”
Friend: “So?”
Me: “You won’t grow any more muscle.”
Friend: “I just want to get stronger.”
Me: “You won’t get any stronger, you’ll loose muscle and strength.”
Friend: “You don’t loose strength from overtraining” (look of disbelief)
Me: “Never mind…..” (me giving up on a lost cause)
From my own personal experience I did not know I was overtraining. I was struggling to make gains at the gym and spent a whole year hardly gaining any strength or muscle and not losing any body fat. I was sucked in to a vicious loop and was unable to recognise my own overtraining symptoms. Then I took a week of because I had a cold and gained more muscle in that week despite having a cold then I had in any of the 52 weeks before. Ironically enough getting ill more often is one of the overtraining symptoms but it was the only one that made me realise what I was doing wrong. I’d like you to compare the two scenarios set out below and identify the overtraining symptoms.
Scenario 1:
I always feel tired when it comes to time to go the gym but I see my self as a dedicated athlete and force myself every time. Once I’m in the gym I wake up and I’m glad I forced myself to go. I train with weights and do cardio in the same session believing this will help me to gain muscle and loose fat without any knowledge of catabolism. I feel as though I’ve had a good workout, I haven’t made any big gains in a while but I believe I may just be at a stage where gains are harder to make. I also come up with some other beliefs like people who are bigger then me MUST be on steroids or have some sort of superior genetics. I get home and as usual don’t feel that hungry after a work out. The next day I feel fine. I very rarely get sore from a workout as I’m used to them now.
Scenario 2:
When it comes to gym day a hoard of wild horses couldn’t keep me out of there, I’m bursting with energy before I even get in there. I manage to make a gain every work out weather it be an extra rep at a certain weight or I go on to the next weight for a particular work out. After my work out I eat like a horse to feed the muscles. The next I feel pretty rubbish! It’s what I call being “Gym’d Over” because it feels like a hangover. I start to feel more and more sore as the day goes on (this is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS for short). The second day after my work out I still feel a bit gym’d over and sometimes the muscles are still getting sorer, especially if it was a leg workout. A hoard of wild horses COULD NOT drag m into the gym! I wait until I’m recovered and bursting again before I enter the gym.
Some of the overtraining symptoms were easy to spot but some were not! I want to tell you about the harder ones to spot. Scenario 1 was obviously me when I was overtraining. I felt proud of the fact that I was forcing myself in to the gym! The truth was I was an over trained endorphin addict! The feeling of being gym’d over where I feel tired and dry, this was probably what I felt like all the time when I was overtraining but it is something that build up gradually so you know no different!
The DOMS I attribute directly to muscle growth. If I only give my muscles enough time to repair but not to grow before I jump back in the gym I short circuit this growth and therefore no DOMS. Eventually the overtraining is so much that I can’t workout intensely enough to create the stimuli needed for muscle growth. My body in a way has protected me from further over training by gradually reducing my ability to train!
I have come a long way since then but the reason I tell you all this is to help you recognise overtraining symptoms that took me too long to recognise. Now I work out less, gain more and feel better, that’s what working out should be about.
For my next blog I will take a more general look at overtraining, it’s symptoms and how to recover from over training. How you feel and your psychological state as you may grasp from what I have written above is the best way to diagnose if you are overtraining.
Wednesday 1 July 2009
Fitness Nutrition: What is the best nutrition for good fitness?
The answer to this will vary depending on your exact fitness goals but I will try and give a general answer here. I will start with a definition of terms.
Fitness
Fitness means that you posses:
If you possess fitness then the benefits of this are believed to include better health, stamina, speed, reaction times, balance, coordination and agility.
Nutrition
There are 2 categories of nutrition, they are macronutrients, meaning “large nutrients” (mainly fat, carbohydrates and protein) and micronutrients “meaning small nutrients” (mainly vitamins and minerals).
Macronutrients provide us with energy to fuel our metabolism as well as for exercise. They are also used to make up our body composition as too much or too little results in too much or too little stored fat.
Micronutrients do not provide us with energy but are used as part of chemical reactions that take place within our bodies. Deprivation of macronutrients over time prevents the body from functioning properly and can cause serious health problems and even death.
Good Fitness Nutrition
Now to connect the two! The first point of good fitness was body composition. This is quite easy to relate to your nutrition – you need to eat the right amount of food, the right types and at the right times to have the correct body composition. If you are at a point where you’re fitness is poor then you will need to alter your nutrition to alter your body fat and or muscle mass to create the body composition we associate with good fitness.
To achieve all the other points on the list you will have to embark on regular exercise. I’m not going to go in to exercise programmes in this article but I am going to talk about how this affects your nutritional needs. Your nutrition needs to be even better if you are going to provide your body with what it needs to adhere to a good exercise programme as well as not end up with incorrect body composition. If you compete within a particular sport then you can look at successful athletes in that sport to see what body composition they have. Try and look at someone that is the same gender, similar height and bone structure. Then ask these questions:
The last three also relate to your training more so then nutrition but you need to make sure that you provide good enough nutrition to get the most from your training.
To maintain your weight you should consume an amount of calories equal to your daily metabolism plus any extra calories burnt off through exercise. Here is an example of a metabolism calculator you can use to work out your metabolism.
If you want to lose body fat long term then it should be done slowly by eating less then you need. Eating 500 calories a day less will equal 1 lb a week. 1000 calories less will equal 2 lb weight loss a week. You shouldn’t really try and lose fat any faster than this. If you want to gain weight then add on 500 calories a day.
Now that you know how many calories you should be eating you need to know when to eat them and what to eat.
3 square meals a day is not how you should be consuming all these calories. That would leave long gaps between meals and it would mean you have to eat lots of calories at each sitting. This would cause peaks and drops in your blood sugar and you metabolism. It makes it a lot harder to manage your weight and to fuel your exercise.
For ideal fitness nutrition you should be eating the required calories spread out into at least 6 meals a day if not more. You can still make the main ones larger and the in between ones smaller for convenience but the more even the meals are the better.
All meals should contain protein, fat (healthy fats if possible) and carbs. The carbs should be mostly slow releasing carbohydrates that have a low GI. These types of carbs are usually within food that contains fibre such as oats and sweet potatoes. You should also include fibrous carbs (most veg) and fruit as sources of carbs. Here is a good list of proteins, fats and carbs (at the end of the page).
You should try and balance your meals so that your totally calories come from 50% carbs, 25% protein and 25% fat. Fat contains twice as many calories per gram as carbs so don’t forget to take this into account.
Fruit will be your main source of micronutrients but it may also be beneficial to supplement with a multi vitamin and then a vitamin C straight after intense exercise.
An example of a good meal would be:
Pilchards (in red sauce) with peas, sweet potatoes and a glass of pure orange juice. You have to work out the quantities depending on how many calories you need a day and how many meals you’re going to have each day.
A good breakfast would be oats with one or two whole eggs and a little bit of milk, cooked in the microwave. Use sweetener if you have a sweet tooth.
These are just examples but you should be able to put together lots of different combinations using the list I mentioned earlier.
I hope you found this article on fitness nutrition useful.
Fitness
Fitness means that you posses:
- body-composition within a particular range (not too much or too little fat or muscle),
- cardiovascular fitness (the ability to perform exercise that places stress on the cardiovascular system) ,
- flexibility
- muscular endurance (or muscular stamina), and
- strength
If you possess fitness then the benefits of this are believed to include better health, stamina, speed, reaction times, balance, coordination and agility.
Nutrition
There are 2 categories of nutrition, they are macronutrients, meaning “large nutrients” (mainly fat, carbohydrates and protein) and micronutrients “meaning small nutrients” (mainly vitamins and minerals).
Macronutrients provide us with energy to fuel our metabolism as well as for exercise. They are also used to make up our body composition as too much or too little results in too much or too little stored fat.
Micronutrients do not provide us with energy but are used as part of chemical reactions that take place within our bodies. Deprivation of macronutrients over time prevents the body from functioning properly and can cause serious health problems and even death.
Good Fitness Nutrition
Now to connect the two! The first point of good fitness was body composition. This is quite easy to relate to your nutrition – you need to eat the right amount of food, the right types and at the right times to have the correct body composition. If you are at a point where you’re fitness is poor then you will need to alter your nutrition to alter your body fat and or muscle mass to create the body composition we associate with good fitness.
To achieve all the other points on the list you will have to embark on regular exercise. I’m not going to go in to exercise programmes in this article but I am going to talk about how this affects your nutritional needs. Your nutrition needs to be even better if you are going to provide your body with what it needs to adhere to a good exercise programme as well as not end up with incorrect body composition. If you compete within a particular sport then you can look at successful athletes in that sport to see what body composition they have. Try and look at someone that is the same gender, similar height and bone structure. Then ask these questions:
- How muscular are they?
- How much body fat do they have?
- Is there a particular muscle group that is disproportionately large or small e.g. large legs or arms for sports involving power or smaller arms or legs when stamina is required?
- How good is their stamina?
- Can they generate a lot of power?
The last three also relate to your training more so then nutrition but you need to make sure that you provide good enough nutrition to get the most from your training.
To maintain your weight you should consume an amount of calories equal to your daily metabolism plus any extra calories burnt off through exercise. Here is an example of a metabolism calculator you can use to work out your metabolism.
If you want to lose body fat long term then it should be done slowly by eating less then you need. Eating 500 calories a day less will equal 1 lb a week. 1000 calories less will equal 2 lb weight loss a week. You shouldn’t really try and lose fat any faster than this. If you want to gain weight then add on 500 calories a day.
Now that you know how many calories you should be eating you need to know when to eat them and what to eat.
3 square meals a day is not how you should be consuming all these calories. That would leave long gaps between meals and it would mean you have to eat lots of calories at each sitting. This would cause peaks and drops in your blood sugar and you metabolism. It makes it a lot harder to manage your weight and to fuel your exercise.
For ideal fitness nutrition you should be eating the required calories spread out into at least 6 meals a day if not more. You can still make the main ones larger and the in between ones smaller for convenience but the more even the meals are the better.
All meals should contain protein, fat (healthy fats if possible) and carbs. The carbs should be mostly slow releasing carbohydrates that have a low GI. These types of carbs are usually within food that contains fibre such as oats and sweet potatoes. You should also include fibrous carbs (most veg) and fruit as sources of carbs. Here is a good list of proteins, fats and carbs (at the end of the page).
You should try and balance your meals so that your totally calories come from 50% carbs, 25% protein and 25% fat. Fat contains twice as many calories per gram as carbs so don’t forget to take this into account.
Fruit will be your main source of micronutrients but it may also be beneficial to supplement with a multi vitamin and then a vitamin C straight after intense exercise.
An example of a good meal would be:
Pilchards (in red sauce) with peas, sweet potatoes and a glass of pure orange juice. You have to work out the quantities depending on how many calories you need a day and how many meals you’re going to have each day.
A good breakfast would be oats with one or two whole eggs and a little bit of milk, cooked in the microwave. Use sweetener if you have a sweet tooth.
These are just examples but you should be able to put together lots of different combinations using the list I mentioned earlier.
I hope you found this article on fitness nutrition useful.
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