Training For Life

Q. “Every running book I’ve read says that regular squats with a barbell are not good for distance runners. Do you think regular squats are OK for distance runners?”

A. Since it activates all the muscles in the legs, including the hamstrings, butt, quads, and calf muscles, and also the lower-back muscles, the squat is a highly popular exercise. The argument against squatting for distance runners goes something like this: even when performed properly  a squat can stretch knee ligaments in sideways and front back directions, which can damage an already overworked knee.

Unfortunately, no studies have proven this to be true. However, from a functional standpoint, a runner rarely does a traditional two-legged squat while running. So instead, distance runners should primarily do single-legged squats in a leg strengthening program.

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In recent months, a lot of the Facebook msgs. I receive are from “friends” asking about my workouts (I’m sure since I post every so often about my morning run). I must admit, this is not a topic I ever expected to be discussing on Facebook.
While I’m certainly happy to share what I do its important to note that my workouts vary quite a bit and are tailored for what I want to accomplish.
As for those of you who are interested in what I do for exercise, its important to know that first, I’m not a personal trainer and I don’t profess to know a lot about training. I know what I want for me, what I like and what works for me.
Second, although I stay active and try and stay disciplined, I don’t have a lot of time. I spend at most 45 minutes and at least 20 minutes working out each day. My philosophy is simply to make the most of the time I have so I utilize a very personalized, tailored system of High Intensity Interval Training. This maximizes the limited time I have and allows me to meet my expectations.
It’s equally important to note that despite what you see or read in health magazines, everybody is different and their body’s respond differently to training. thus, what I do for me may not be what you’re looking for.
From what I receive, a lot of folks who’ve requested my workouts are looking to hit 2011 running as part of a lifestyle change, new years resolution or simply getting back to feeling and looking a little better through increased activity.
Whatever the goal, I applaud you for your decision. Making the decision, finding time and following through takes a lot of personal discipline and you should be proud of yourself.
In this vein I thought I’d share two possible ideas for those of you who’ve sent me messages or are interested in kicking off your New Year in a gym.
The first is the “Do it yourself” model. If you’re limited on time, just starting or getting back and you’re committed to achieving your personal goal I suggest buying the book “Body for Life” by Bill Phillips. This is by far the best, easiest and most complete book on this topic I’ve ever read. It hits every angle of health and fitness and it works in every way (assuming you follow it). I read it a while back and I’ve read others since — nothing comes close to this book. Buy it, follow it and you will be a new person in more ways than one in 12 weeks.
The second is the personal trainer route. I’ve never used a trainer but I know a lot of folks who do.

They like having a trainer help them with the workouts and the discipline. If you go this route, make sure you pick a person you connect with, who’s personally positive and encouraging of your goals. I’ve heard of some trainers who push their own goals and ideals. Stay away from those folks.
If you’re in the North Snohomish County area and are looking for a trainer you may want to check out Arturo Espetia at www.trainingforlifeonline.com. Arturo formerly trained at my gym and his clients spoke very highly of him. He always appeared positive, encouraging and ready to go. He is personable and really appears to enjoy helping people reach their goals.
I’ll close by saying best of luck in your pursuits. My recommendations for the book and Arturo as a personal trainer are nothing more than simple ideas ro help those interested get started. Neither have asked or paid me to speak to their product (I have to include that disclaimer given my position).
I take seriously the requests of those who’ve contacted me and I want to help them get what they want out of life. If there are other trainers, plans, or books that my Facebook friends would like to share please do so. I’d love to hear them and I’m sure people reading this would like to as well.
Have a happy and successful new year.

UFC, Jiu Jitsu, MMA, oh my!

There’s quite a craze these days with mixed martial arts workouts–whether it be a kickboxing class, punching bag workout, Crossfit routine, or a even a grappling or karate class. These type of routines have a singular defining characteristic: the combination of body-weight exercises and explosive cardio designed to simulate the conditions one might experience in a fight, wrestling match, or other competitive event.

So will you benefit from a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) style workout? Consider the following criteria:

Are you in good shape? If you’re a fitness newbie, then the amount of hard breathing and muscle burning that will occur during MMA workouts could leave you over-trained, injured, or ill. So if you’re just getting off the couch, give yourself 8-12 weeks of general fitness preparation prior to jumping into this type of exercise.
Are you competitive? Most MMA style workouts require you to finish hard tasks in a certain period of time, gradually progress to more difficult variations of exercises, and constantly improve upon your flexibility, movement, and coordination skills. If all you want is a mindless “get-in-and-out-of-the-gym” workout, this may not be for you.
Are you trying to gain muscle? MMA style workouts are very good for getting lean, burning fat fast, and significantly improving cardiovascular fitness. If your goal is to purely “get bigger muscles”, you may want to try a power-lifting or heavy weight training routine instead. For more on that, read the article How to Build Muscle.

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Do you have a favorite t-shirt that would be even more favorite if your arms filled out those sleeves a bit more? Do you want to admire your backside in the mirror rather than avoiding your reflection? Whether you answered yes to either of the above questions, or you simply want to destroy the competition in your local arm-wrestling festival, then you will benefit from my article on how to build muscle.

How Do Muscles Get Bigger?

Before learning how to make your muscles bigger, you should understand how a muscle actually gets bigger.

Let’s use your biceps—the muscle group on the front of your arms—as an example. Like all the other muscles in your body, this muscle group is comprised of tightly woven bundles of muscle fibers, which are comprised of muscle cells.

When you require your biceps to produce a force, such as lifting a couch, most of those muscle fibers in your biceps are exposed to tension, especially if your couch has a fold-out bed hidden inside. The tension from the weight of the couch stretches the fibers and causes tiny tears in them. When the cells in your muscle fibers sense this trauma, they begin to rally the muscle-building troops from your body to repair the tears.

These muscle-building troops include hormones, growth factors, and white blood cells, and working together, they not only repair the muscle fibers in your biceps, but they also increase the size of those fibers and the strength of the nerves that activate them, so that next time you lift a couch you are better able to do so. As those fibers increase in size, the biceps grow, which is precisely why you do not want to challenge a moving-van employee in an arm wrestling competition.

Believe it or not, there are better ways to make your muscles grow than by simply lifting the occasional couch. By working with certain exercises, weight, sets and repetitions, you can stimulate much more trauma (and subsequent growth) than the average furniture re-arranging activity.

How to Build Muscle

The trick to building muscle is to adequately stress the muscle, allow the muscle to recover while eating enough healthy food to feed the new muscle, and then repeat!
The best exercises for full body muscle growth are exercises that require you to use multiple joints. For example, a combination of squats, cleans, deadlifts and bench presses is very effective at helping your entire body to get bigger.

Quick and Dirty Tip: If you don’t want all your muscles to get bigger, but just want to focus on a single muscle group, like your butt, then you’ll need to use a strategy that bodybuilders use. When weight training, do a higher number of sets that focus on that one single body section. For example, a butt-building routine could consist of 5-10 sets of 10-15 repetitions of reverse lunges.

How Much Weight Should You Lift?

Your muscles must be subjected to enough weight for actual muscle fiber tearing to occur. For most people, that means lifting about  65-85% of what you can lift one time (your “one rep max” or “1RM”). For example, if you can bench press 100 pounds, then your weight for increasing the size of your chest muscles would be 65-85 pounds. Most people can lift 65-85% for 8-12 repetitions.

Quick and Dirty Tip: You don’t have to actually go try and test what you your maximum lifts are for each exercise. That can be difficult and dangerous. Instead, there are calculators and formulas that allow you to approximate your 1RM based on the number of times you can lift a certain weight. Here’s a link to one such formula: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-repetition_maximum

How Many Sets Should You Do to Build Muscle?

Because your muscles need a significant amount of time under tension (about 60 seconds) for actual muscle tearing to occur, multiple sets are crucial.

Though you certainly could perform just one very long set for each muscle group, that is mentally challenging, extremely uncomfortable, and very risky. So instead, you should perform at least three sets and preferably five to six sets for each exercise. As I mentioned in a previous article on how to start weight training, some bodybuilders perform up to 20 sets! Each set should include one to two minutes of recovery for the muscle group you are working.

Quick and Dirty Tip: If you’re pressed for time, then rather than sitting down to rest between each set, simply work another muscle group during the recovery period. For example, while your chest muscles recover from bench pressing, you can perform a set for your calf muscles.

How Often Should You Lift Weights?

Beware! Before you rush off to do biceps curls every day until your arms are popping out of your coat, you must understand that there can certainly be too much of a good thing. If you stress, traumatize, or tear a muscle every day, your body will not have enough time to repair the muscle fibers, resulting in high levels of soreness, low muscle growth, and joint injury.

A proper muscle-building workout will give a muscle two to three days of recovery before re-stimulating those fibers again. You should also be sure to eat properly during your recovery. You’ll need 2500 calories for each extra pound of muscle you want to add. Unless you’re getting those extra calories from complex carbohydrates like whole grains and lean sources of proteins like fish, fat-free dairy, and protein powder, it can be very difficult to add muscle without gaining fat! Refer to episode #3 on what to eat before and after exercising for more tips on proper pre- and post-workout nutrition.

Quick and Dirty Tip: One very effective muscle growth strategy for the entire body involves exercising your chest and arms one day, your shoulders, upper back and abs the next day, and your legs and lower back the third day. You can then rest a day and repeat for a full week of workouts!

Ultimately, the trick to growing muscle is to adequately stress the muscle, allow the muscle to recover while eating enough healthy food to feed the new muscle, and then repeat! With this strategy, you can safely build one to two pounds of muscle each week–and since muscle is much less roomy than fat, those pounds will look tight and lean.

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When you exercise multiple times during the day, you raise your body’s temperature, oxygen consumption and blood flow, all of which will directly increase metabolic rate and calorie-burning. So if you have the choice to run on a treadmill for 30 minutes in the morning, or instead do three 10 minute treadmill sessions at multiple points during the day, the latter option will give you greater fat loss benefit.

Furthermore, if your goal is to gain muscle, and you have the luxury of going to the gym twice in a day, your muscles will have a better chance to repair, recover and refuel if you do two shorter workouts vs. one long workout.

Finally, research suggests that pleasurable activities become even more pleasurable if broken up into several portions, rather than completed all at once. So if you really enjoy exercise, that is another reason to split up your workout!  But, if exercise is not enjoyable for you, you may just want to get it done all at once.

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1. Use a fo
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   am roller.
   

2. Use heat. In addition to increasing muscle elasticity with a warm-up prior to a workout, you can also use a heating pad or hot wrap to improve function of the calf and lower leg.
3. Stretch . Rather than just sticking to a single stretch, incorporate a variety of stretches for your calves, such as toes against a wall or Yoga down dog position

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Let’s start with the most common and easily attainable muscle-building supplement and the one that has been used for the longest period of time: protein. When you eat protein, your body breaks the protein into amino acids, and those amino acids are used to repair and grow new muscle fibers. In addition, when you have adequate protein intake, you have a positive balance of nitrogen, which sends a signal to your body to be in an anabolic, or muscle-building state. As evidenced by the fact that people who don’t have sufficient access to protein experience muscle atrophy and often waste away, inadequate protein is certainly a good formula for losing muscle. Of course, most people with fancy gym memberships and the ability to regularly weight train don’t generally have a problem getting protein. As a matter of fact, the US Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.36 grams per pound, but most Americans eat twice that amount daily.

However, it may be unfair to use the average American as an example for adequate protein intake when we’re talking about building muscle, since most folks aren’t tearing down muscle by grunting and groaning under a barbell at the gym. So here’s a figure that is more relevant to the active individual: a recent study found that a protein intake of approximately 0.45g per lb of body weight resulted in a negative nitrogen balance. Nitrogen balance is a measure of protein metabolism, and a negative nitrogen balance indicates inadequate protein intake for muscle gains. The same study also found that protein intakes above 1.2 grams per pound of bodyweight provided no additional muscle building benefits, and actually increased the risk of kidney damage and dehydration.

So ultimately, consumption of adequate protein can help you build muscle, but you shouldn’t go overboard. Aim for around a gram per pound from your diet, and if you’re having trouble getting that, a protein powder supplement could help.

What Kind of Protein Powder Should You Buy?

Many types of protein powders exist, including whey, casein, soy, rice, hemp, egg, and yes, even pea protein, but some are better for muscle building than others. So here are three quick and dirty tips for using a protein supplement for muscle-building:

Tip 1: Choose a whey-casein protein blend: If you can digest it, a whey-casein protein blend appears to be superior for muscle gain. But if you’re lactose intolerant or get bloated from this blend, it may not work for you.

Tip 2: Eat after you exercise: When possible, try to eat your protein, along with a carbohydrate, within 2 hours after you’ve finished your workout, and even sooner than that if you plan on exercising again on the same day.

Tip 3: Stay away from certain ingredients: Avoid high priced protein supplements that include many other ingredients like caffeine, fat loss boosters, tesosterone precursors, or a long list of unpronounceable

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ingredients. 99% of the time, you’ll be wasting your money (and mixing multiple muscle-building ingredients is called “stacking,” and can be risky if you don’t know what you’re doing).