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The best post workout smoothies
Post workout smoothies are a great way to start the recovery process after a hard session. They are packed not only with all the macronutrients you need, but many of the micronutrients we often forget about needing to consume in our diet. They also come with a huge range of variety, allowing you to pretty much add in any ingredients you desire, as long as the outcome agrees with your taste buds. As well as this, they are quick to make and they can be put together before or after your workout.
Is an essential amino acid worth the extra dough?
Amino acid products are very popular in the fitness industry, but you'll notice that Essential Amino Acids are often more costly than Branched Chain Amino Acids. But we need to know if it's worth paying a little extra for EAAs over BCAAS. To start us off, we need to understand exactly what an Amino Acid is. An Amino Acid is a monomer which makes up a protein. There are 20 individual Amino Acids in total, but as we're speaking about health and fitness, we'll be discussing the essential nine. In the fitness industry, there are two main types of Amino Acid products: Branched Chain Amino Acids, (BCAAs) and Essential Amino Acids (EAAs). But what is the difference between them?
Strength Training For Striking Martial Arts
All Martial Artists dream of possessing that KO power. We all see it on TV and wish we could do the same. When it comes to throwing a hard strike, there are a lot of variables controlling our ability. You may think a decent punch directly correlates with a muscular, strong arm, but this very often isn't the case. When developing an effective strike we need to consider factors such as strength, mobility, speed, dexterity, balance and more.
In this article we're going to try and break these down, to understand the training methods we can use to improve our overall striking.
How much protein do you really need?
Do you have to be shovelling down an exact amount of protein each meal and every day in order to make gains, or is the whole debate about how much protein you need to eat a little bit overrated?
I feel like there are 2 camps. You either swear by incredibly high levels of 2-2.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight or you reside down at the more realistic 1-1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight.
No matter what camp you’re in, it's easy to agree on the benefits of protein (don’t worry, we will get to the ideal daily amount later on). Protein is used by the body to build and repair cells such as the organs, hair, skin and nails. Although you only care about its ability to repair and build muscle tissue, don’t you? So, let’s have a look at that.
What is the most researched supplement?
Let’s get straight to it. Its creatine.
Creatine has been researched for over a century now and there isn’t much we don’t know about it. Saying that, how much do we, gym rats, know about it? Most of us im sure have heard the joke that ‘creatines a steroid bro’ and that it ‘puffs you up’ and makes you look ‘fluffy’. However, is any of that true? Well, along with being the most researched fitness supplement it's also one of the most used, so we either believe the marketing hype or this stuff works.
So, what is creatine?
What is cortisol?
If you have read a few of my articles then I'm sure you have heard me talk briefly about cortisol. I think it's about time I went into a little bit more detail about this hormone and what roles it has in the body, what effects it has on the body if you have too much or too little, what can raise and lower levels and of course what effect it has on training.
Supplements for Combat Sports
If you're reading this, it should be safe to assume you're a fighter, or that perhaps you're looking into martial arts... So let's get straight to it.
We all know that with any Martial Art, we tend to face the same difficulties with: fatigue, joint pains, muscle-loss, recurring injuries and more.
There are numerous ways we can deal with these issues, and truth be told, there is no secret formula. We are all different, and often we need multiple approaches to effectively tackle these problems.
Sleep better with these supplements
Sleep is massively underrated. You could have the best training and nutrition program in the world, but if you weren’t getting enough quality sleep each night your performance and physique would still suffer. It shouldn’t be too hard to believe really, at some point I’m sure we have all experienced a terrible night’s sleep, and I think we can all agree, the following day isn’t much fun.
Can you have too many supplements?
Supplements are extremely popular and play a large role in the daily diets of many people. By their name and nature, they are not designed to be relied upon to secure a healthy balanced diet, they are 'supplemented' into your daily diet to fill any gaps in your essential nutrients. Sports supplements work much the same way and provide macronutrients to those who need specific balance, or energy to those who are diminishing their with vigorous exercise. In an ideal world, we would all eat a perfectly balanced diet every day, getting 100% of the vitamins and minerals we need from fresh, tasty, and home-cooked foods. In real life, however, that rarely happens. That’s where supplements come in. But one thing most of us would like to know is whether one can take too many supplements, and is it dangerous to do so?
Understanding Casein
Casein is a family of related phosphoproteins . These proteins are commonly found in mammalian milk, comprising c. 80% of the proteins in cow's milk and between 20% and 45% of the proteins in human milk. Sheep and buffalo milk have a higher casein content than other types of milk with human milk having a particularly low casein content.