Training For Life

Aside from protein, creatine has been the most popular muscle buildling supplement for at least the past decade. As a matter of fact, Americans spend about $14 million per year on creatine. You can get creatine from meat, fish, or creatine supplements. Creatine is also made by the human body in the liver. It’s actually an amino acid, and it’s stored as creatine phosphate in muscles, where it is used as energy for high intensity activities that last less than about 30 seconds.

Because it’s used as a high intensity, short duration energy source, creatine may help build muscle. For example, if you can benchpress 200 pounds for 6 repetitions without creatine, you may be able to benchpress 200 pounds for 7 repetitions with creatine. And that slight extra bit of work performed can actually help build muscle.

Does Creatine Work for Building Muscle?

But creatine will not magically build muscle in the absence of weight training or intense physical activity. Furthermore, though many studies have shown a muscle gain and performance benefit from creatine, not every person seems to respond the same way to it, and some people experience no benefits. For example, some people have naturally high stores of creatine in their muscles and just don’t get an energy-boosting effect from taking extra.

In all studies to date, creatine appears to be generally safe, unless it is taken at high doses, in which case there is the potential for serious side effects such as kidney damage or inhibition of the body’s natural ability to make it’s own creatine.

3 Quick and Dirty Tips for Using Creatine

Here are my three quick and dirty tips for using creatine:

Tip 1: Start then decrease: Load with creatine, taking approximately 20g per day for a week, then decreasing to 2-5 grams a day during periods of intense physical activity or weight training.

Tip 2: Take with carbs: To enhance absorption, take creatine with carbohydrate sources like fruit, fruit juices, or starchy foods.

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Tip 3: Try creatine cycling: The benefits of creatine can wear off after prolonged use, so try creatine cycling, in which you take creatine for several weeks of high intensity activity and then quit taking it during periods of relatively light activity.

Talk to Your Doctor

If you take any other drugs, be sure to talk to your physician about the use of creatine, since it can increase risk of dehydration and kidney damage when combined with compounds such as NSAID’s and diuretics. Also be cautious with “stacks,” which I mentioned earlier iare combinations of multiple ingredients. For example, when taken together, creatine, caffeine, and ephedra can significantly increase stroke risk.

Ultimately, protein and creatine can both help you build muscle, but only if you’re doing the work. Just like fat loss supplements, 90% of the work to get results must be done by you, and not by a pill, capsule, liquid or powder.

BG

What Is A Personal Trainer?

Let’s start with the basics. A personal trainer is a certified exercise professional who has studied for and successfully passed an examination on topics such as anatomy, physiology, basic nutrition, and, of course exercise. Often, a personal trainer also has a bachelor’s or master’s degree in an exercise science related field. Typically, a personal trainer helps you to reach your fitness goal faster than you would have yourself–or they might simply help you identify what your goals should be!

Where to Find Personal Trainers

Your gym is the best place to look for a personal trainer, since the trainers there will be probably be more financially affordable as a part of your gym’s membership package.

If you’re not a member of a gym, you can find a personal trainer at a private studio. Typically, in a studio setting, the only people exercising are actually working out with a personal trainer whom they have hired, so studios are smaller, but less crowded. Often, personal trainers who own a private studio tend to be more highly qualified or knowledgeable than trainers at a public gym. Of course, they also tend to be slightly more expensive!

What to Expect In a Personal Training Session

So now that you’ve found a trainer, what happens? Usually, your first meeting with a trainer is called a consultation. In most cases, a consultation is free at a gym and often included with your membership package. At a studio, you may actually pay for the consultation, although many trainers will waive the fee if you end up purchasing a training package.

During a consultation, be prepared to answer questions about your health, exercise, and diet history, as well as your goals. That information helps the trainer design your program and tell you what type of package will work for you.

When you get past the initial consultation and into the sessions,  the trainer will supervise your warm-up and exercise preparation, walk you through your workouts, answer your questions about exercises, motivate you to lift the proper amount of weight or exercise at the proper intensity, and possibly even keep you entertained with exciting stories, quotes, and jokes (yes, during my time as a personal trainer, I do sometimes feel like part exercise professional, part song-and-dance performer). Many trainers will also be available to you via phone or e-mail to answer your questions apart from the actual session, and may also provide you with workouts to do when you’re not at a personal training session.

What to Look For In A Personal Trainer

Now that you know how to find a personal trainer and what to expect, I’m going to give you 5 quick and dirty tips on how to choose your personal trainer

Quick and Dirty Tip #1: Experience. Imagine that you are going to hire a surgeon to operate on your knee. Ideally, you’d choose a surgeon who had operated on many, many knees.In the same way, if your goal is fat loss, you don’t want to hire a personal trainer who specializes in training high-school baseball players. Choose a trainer who has experience helping people to reach your specific goal. During your consultation you might want to ask for references from the trainer’s past clients who were similar to you.

Quick and Dirty Tip #2: Certification. Believe it or not, it is possible to slap down three hundred bucks and get a personal training certification via an open-book, weekend certification test. That is not the type of personal trainer you want, as these type of certifications are easy and primarily designed to make the certification companies money. Instead, look for trainers who have more rigorous and respected certifications. The top four are ACSM, NASM, ACE, and NSCA.

Quick and Dirty Tip #3: Personality. Even if a trainer is completely perfect on paper, they may not have a personality that fits your needs. Many trainers have a gruff, drill sergeant style that you may find uncomfortable or intimidating. Other trainers have a reserved, quiet nature that just doesn’ t mo

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tivate you. If possible, watch the trainer work with their other clients, observe their approach, and decide if that approach would motivate you.

Quick and Dirty Tip #4: Flexibility. A good trainer will not give you a generic exercise “plan-in-a-can,” but will instead adapt your workout program to your injuries, your vacation schedule, your last minute social appointments, and changes in your goals or progress. That means that your trainer will need to think on his feet and be willing to adjust your session if you arrive at the gym tired, hurt, or with only 20 minutes to spare.

Quick and Dirty Tip #5: Consistency. During your consultation, ask your trainer about their plans. Are they in this as a quick college internship? Are they planning on moving soon? Do they frequently travel out of town? If your goal is 2 years of consistent fat loss, you don’t want to have to keep switching trainers, which can disrupt your progress and motivation. In the same way, you’ll also want a trainer who is consistently able to show up at the appointed days and times.

Just like choosing a doctor, you’ll want to be careful when choosing a personal trainer. Ask your friends who have worked with a trainer, check the local Angie’s List listing, speak with other members of the gym or employees at the gym’s front desk about which personal trainer they think would be best for you, and do your due diligence. With the right personal trainer, you can achieve your fitness goals more quickly and safely.

BG

There is a principle in exercise called SAID. It stands for specific adaptations to imposed demands, and it means that our bodies eventually adapt to the demands we place upon them. For people who lift weights, that means you must constantly change or alter your routine in some way in order to burn more calories, make your weight lifting workouts harder, and get better results.

How to Get Better Results from Weight Lifting

But there is far more you can do to make a weight lifting workout harder than simply add more weight. So in this article, you’ll learn ten quick and dirty tips for getting more work done, burning more calories, and making your muscles feel it more.

Tip #1: Bouncing

Rather than taking a pogo stick to the gym, bouncing actually involves doing mini-reps at end ROM. Yes, that last bit of lingo may require some explaining. “ROM” stands for range of motion, and end ROM refers to the very end of the range of motion. For example, the end ROM of a body weight squat is when your knees are bent, at the very bottom of the motion. At this point in the squat, you could do 5-10 “mini-reps” or very short, bouncy squats, and then stand. Bouncing works for push-ups, crunches, lunges, curls, and just about any basic movement.

Tip #2: Explosions

Pyromaniac readers, please settle down–this has nothing to do with dynamite. For explosions, hold a movement in the toughest position, then explode quickly up and down, then back into toughest position. For example, when you get to the bottom of a push-up, you can hold for 1-2 seconds, then push-up as fast as possibly (your hands can even leave the ground) and land back in the bottom of the push-up.

Tip #3: Quarter Reps

For quarter reps, you do your exercise normally, but in the very middle of the movement you stop, do a quarter rep, and then continue. For example, while performing a lunge you would stop when your knee is halfway bent, stand halfway, then continue through the lunge, which basically turns every 1 rep into 1.5 reps. I suppose quarter reps could also involve lifting rolls of quarters, but I don’t imagine that activity could possibly burn too many calories.

Tip#4: Ladder Reps

For ladder reps, do 5 mini-reps in the bottom range of motion, 5 mini-reps in the middle range of motion, and 5 mini-reps in the top range of motion. For example, during a body weight dip, you would do 5 reps with your elbows bent at the bottom of the dip, 5 reps in the middle of the dip, and then 5 reps at the top of the dip.

Tip #5: Stripping

Contrary to how it might sound, stripping does not involve taking your clothes off at the gym (although pole dancing cardio classes are increasing in popularity). Instead, stripping involves lifting a weight until you cannot perform any more repetitions, decreasing (or stripping) the weight, then continuing with the same exercise for as many repetitions as possible. In a single set, you can strip the weight to your heart’s content, until a tiny, embarrassingly small weight is making you grunt and groan.

Tip #6: Supersets

In a superset, you perform an exercise set immediately after a different exercise set, with no rest in between. There are three different types of supersets.

First: In the first, you do a set for one muscle group, such as leg extensions for your quadriceps, then with no rest, do a set for the opposing muscle group, such as leg curls for your hamstrings.

Second: In the second, you perform both sets for the same muscle group, such as chest flies followed by chest presses.

Third: Finally, you can do a giant superset, in which you perform 3-4 back-to-back exercises for the same muscle group, such as triceps pushdowns to narrow grip push-ups to dips to triceps overhead extensions.

Tip #7: Super Slow Sets

As you might guess, in a super slow set, you perform your repetitions in a very slow controlled manner. Though super slow training can be a waste of time to do all the time, if something like a regular push-up is very easy for you, try to do a push-up with a four count down and a four count back up. See what I mean?

Tip #8: Forced Repetitions

Forced repetitions are exercises that are assisted by a training partner, or spotter. They are typically performed with a much heavier weight than you could normally lift on your own, or significantly more repetitions than you could do by yourself. As you reach failure, your spotter helps you, or forces you, to complete the set.

Tip #9: Negatives

In a negative set, you slowly lower a heavier weight than you would normally use, and either “cheat” to raise the weight back up, or have a partner help you. For example, if you are trying to increase the amount of weight you can bench press, you would slowly lower a very heavy weight to your chest, then have a spotter grab the bar and assist you in pushing the weight back up to the starting position.

Tip #10: Cheating

Speaking of cheating, believe it or not, this is actually another strategy. Although attention to good form is usually recommended when you are lifting weights, cheating may involve rocking back and forth with your body, arching your back, or using an extra part of your body to perform an exercise. For example, if you are pressing a weight overhead with one arm, you may jump, arch, or use the opposing arm to help you out just a bit.

Now that you know how to bounce, explode, cheat and strip, you have no excuse not to get more results from your weight lifting.

BG

As an ex-user of weight-lifting belts, I can attest to the fact that there are times when they come in handy. But these times are very rare. Here is when you would want to use a weight-lifting belt:

1. You’ve injured your back. Think of a belt as a temporary band of muscle that you can wrap around your waist to support an injured area. If you simply must go exercise, and
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   you want added support, a belt can give you that. For this purpose, choose a compressive, Lycra version that you can find at just about any sporting goods store.

2. You need to lift very heavy weights. Athletes and competitive weight lifters use exercises like deadlifts or squats to build strength quickly. These exercises can place a great deal of stress on the lower back, and for very heavy sets, a leather or nylon weight lifting belt is a good injury prevention strategy.
3. You want to do weighted exercises. If pull-ups and dips are easy for you, then first, congratulations! Second, you can make them more difficult by wearing a belt that allows you to actually add weights that hang from a chain on the belt.  It looks like this. Knock yourself out!

Ultimately, very few people need a weight-lifting belt, and they’re often over-used as a crutch for a weak back. As a result, the back stays weak. Strength training exercises for the back are a much better idea–

GFG