Blog
Make sleep your best friend
Let’s start with a question and an honest answer.
Do you get enough high-quality sleep, consistently?
If the answer is no, you are missing out on one of the key components of gaining muscle and strength – recovery.
Recovery does involve other variables, such as stretching and foam rolling etc but sleep is king. It doesn’t matter if you are nailing your diet and training consistently and not sleeping. You grow and recover when you sleep.
The effect of social media on fitness
The birth of platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have had a huge impact on many things in today’s society. Many have been positive, like the ability to share good news stories and spread awareness about certain illnesses that come with some stigma, such as depression. Others may see a more negative side to it and believe it has just opened up another alleyway to bullying. Amongst all of this though, one of the biggest industries to thrive on it has been fitness.
Example of a great Weight loss diet
Most of us would like to lose a little weight, to feel better in our own skin, and be a little healthier. But it can be very difficult to know what to eat, with so many choices and so much conflicting information. So below I've compiled a list of healthy foods to include in your shopping list, as well as some meal options to ensure you eat a healthy and balanced diet.
The science behind muscle building
This is a tough one to write as I don’t like to over complicate muscle building or fat loss. Everyone can build muscle, and everyone can lose fat, therefore, how can it be that difficult?
In its simplest form, muscle building occurs when you train hard consistently and eat in a calorie surplus. You could tell the majority of the population to go away and lift weights in the 6-12 rep range for 6 months, with the aim to get stronger each week whilst eating in a surplus and the majority would come back with new muscle. You don’t have to explain to them the science behind it.
Stop losing muscle when you diet
There is absolutely no reason that you should be losing significant muscle mass when you decide to cut your calories and diet. I say ‘significant’ because depending on the severity of your diet, you may lose a small amount. However, this is usually when the said person Is dieting for a competition and extremely low body fat levels are needed. For the average joe who would just like to cut down so they can see their abs, there should be no reason why any muscle loss occurs.
How to decrease stress
Stress is something that we will all encounter at some point in our life. The degree of stress depends on a lot of things, and some people will feel the effects more than others unfortunately.
It can stem from a lot of places, some of the following being the most common:
Are you making these workout mistakes?
To achieve your goals, you want to be avoiding as many mistakes as possible when creating your program and putting it into practice. The thing is, we all make mistakes and a lot of what you learn will be trial and error. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be educated by what you read online and minimise the amount of mistakes you might have made if you had just wandered into the gym aimlessly and started training.
Small shoulders? Here’s why
Shoulders are one of the muscles that can make the biggest difference to your physique. Having thick, wide shoulders is a sure sign of power and a sight that a lot of women won’t ever complain about.
A lot of people like to train shoulders, but not a lot of people know the correct way to train them to achieve a wider appearance and therefore a more aesthetic look.
Short on time? don’t worry
Time is something that our modern society always seems short on. Even if you are the most avid gym goer, it's still likely life has other stresses that sometimes means you are short on time in the gym. It's nice to spend time in the gym, I get it. For a lot of people, it's relaxing, pushing your body to the limit nearly every day of the week. So, fear not, as you can still make progress and walk out the gym feeling like you have accomplished your goals in half the time you train now. It’s all about getting in, stimulating protein synthesis and then feeding your body what it needs to repair.
How to get a thick back
The back is probably one of the most under trained parts on the body, esp
ecially for people new to training. I think this is partly down to the fact that it isn’t a ‘mirror muscle’, meaning you can’t see it when you are training. Sadly, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and it also doesn’t mean nobody else can see your puny back. It's also no good for your posture if you overtrain your chest and arms continuously, without addressing your posterior chain. You will soon find that your shoulders start to roll forward and you resemble the likes of Quasimodo (okay not that bad but you get the picture).