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The cheapest way to boost testosterone
Testosterone is king. The saying is true for both males and females looking to build the most amount of muscle possible and feel great at the same time.
The benefits of testosterone have been studied two-fold, and include things such more muscle mass, an increase of general wellbeing, better sleep, strength gains, higher libido, better bone density and more energy. Why in the world would you not want to optimise the amount of testosterone you have, naturally?
Everything you need post workout
So you have just finished off your training session and it was great. You hit multiple rep pb’s and you have a pump that’s going to last an hour or two (selfie anyone?). What is it that you should now turn your attention to? Should you make use of the pump and hit the town? Eat anything in sight as soon as possible due to the ‘anabolic window’? Get straight to bed so your muscles can recover during your sleep? Although in some way, all of those are plausible, let’s start with what not to do straight after a training session.
Everything you need pre workout
Before you head off into your training session, you should be prepping your body for all out war. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit over the top, but you should be making sure that your body has everything it needs to perform at its best every time you step into the gym.
Supplements to increase mental and physical performance have been around for quite a while now in the fitness industry, but have increased in popularity recently, with quite a few new ingredients coming through in the past few years.
Basic workout recovery
I have said it many times before, you can train as hard as you want but if you aren’t recovering to the best of your ability in between sessions, you are throwing away gains and limiting your potential. Whilst its true to a certain level that the younger you are the faster you can recover, it doesn’t matter how long you have been training or how old you are, if you don’t focus on your recovery as hard as you do your training, you are only doing half of what’s necessary to be your best. Personally, I couldn’t stand that, especially when recovery is so simple to nail.
Understanding Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one's musculature for aesthetic purposes. An individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. In professional bodybuilding, competitors appear in lineups and perform specified poses for a panel of judges who rank them based on symmetry, muscularity, size, conditioning, posing, and stage presentation. Bodybuilders prepare for competitions through the elimination of nonessential body fat, enhanced at the last stage by a combination of extracellular dehydration and carbo-loading, to achieve maximum muscular definition and vascularity; they also tan and shave to accentuate the contrast of their skin under the spotlights.
Time Under Tension Explained
Time under (Abbreviated as TUT) repetitions are performed with lighter weights than usual. Time under tension refers to the amount of time your muscle is under stress during a working set. This consists of the time spent in the concentric or the muscle-shortening, peak contraction phase, as well as the eccentric or the lengthening phase. For example, if you performed a set of 10 reps and each rep takes 3 seconds to complete, your muscle is under tension for a total of 30 seconds. If you were to perform the same exercise but if you spent 2 seconds in the concentric phase, 1 second to stop during peak contraction, and 3 seconds to lower the weight during the eccentric phase of the rep, the same 10 reps would end up putting your muscles under tension for about 60 seconds, hence resulting in more time under tension.
Training and diet around your menstrual cycle
Do you ever notice that some weeks you feel like Wonder Woman, others you feel like a 15-year-old tabby cat? Have you ever thought about tracking when these feelings occur? Have you ever thought that this rollercoaster of feeling may be linked to your monthly cycle? Let’s explain the physiology behind the menstrual cycle, how this may make you feel, and how we can use this to our advantage.
The importance of sleep: Muscle growth and beyond
As I do a fair amount of night shifts as a Junior Doctor, I thought it would be topical to talk about the importance of sleep and why the attitude of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” could be not only pushing you there faster, but reducing your quality of life while you’re at it. Sounds dramatic hey!? It’s really not. Lack of sleep can also have an impact on your muscle growth, which is less than desirable.
Optimising Insulin sensitivity in off-season
Insulin is a signaling protein, produced by beta cells in the pancreas, that acts as a key to open the door and allow fat and muscle cells to let glucose in. This enables utilisation of amino acids and glucose and therefore protein synthesis and muscle growth. In order to maximise your potential to gain muscle without gaining a load of fat, and then to lose the fat and not the muscle, you want to keep your insulin sensitivity on point.
Post diet hunger hormones: The roles of Leptin and Ghrelin
Can we explain that ravenous hunger we experience post diet? You’ve just finished your competition prep. For some that was an intense 12 weeks, for some a gruelling 25 week slog. Regardless, fat levels were dropping because calories were in a deficit and activity was high. You were hungry, yes, but were you this hungry? Post show hunger is something else right!? You’re eating more food now than you were before, yet you never feel full or satisfied. This can be a recipe for disaster when you no longer have the threat of stage over your head. I’m hungry, I’m not on prep anymore, I’ll eat. Eat, still hungry, in fact, eating has made you feel even hungrier! So you eat some more, and so on. Why does this occur?