Food
Top protein cookie recipes
When it comes to quick and delicious protein snacks, there is no better option, (in my opinion) than a protein cookie. They are quick to make, need minimal ingredients and taste great!
Let’s take a look at some of my favourite protein cookie recipes that you can easily make yourself at home.
Are you doing these 3 things correctly?
When it comes to training, I have always educated people on 3 specific areas they must focus their success on if they want to continue to see progress in the gym. These three areas are Progression, Nutrition and Recovery.
Not building mass? Read this...
Let me start off by saying that I have been in your position, I know how you feel. I used to be that skinny guy who couldn’t build any mass and, if you’re reading this, I guess you are too.
The good news is that I’m not still that skinny guy who can’t build mass. I did in fact find the perfect way to add mass to my frame, and it's not no secret formula. You need to understand that when I’m talking about adding mass to your frame, it's not all going to be slabs of muscle. Most of it will be, but you can’t add those slabs without adding some fat, it's just the way it goes. With that said, you can certainly limit the amount of fat that is added through smart training and diet.
Are you a healthy lifter?
This may be a question that you haven’t asked yourself for a while, or even ever. I know we can all get carried away with wanting to hit certain numbers in the weight room and on the scale, I’ve been there. When doing this, it can be easy to forget to ask yourself if you are doing it in a healthy way.
What does make you a healthy lifter then? Well, there are a few things that anyone can do to make sure they are prioritizing their health alongside their training and none of them are secrets. Plus, they are relatively simple to incorporate into your routine. They are also variables you are very aware of, but they can easily be overlooked by more exciting goals you put in place.
What diet should a natural lifter eat?
With insights into how professional bodybuilders and athletes train now so easily accessible, people now believe that if they mimic everything they do, why wouldn’t this mean that they look like them? Often the two easiest things to change are how you train and what you eat. Really, that’s the only thing you do need to change to see a difference, baring recovery, but that’s another topic.
Dirty bulking vs Clean bulking
Bulking seems to be the main goal of most gym-goers through the colder months, to pack on some muscle ready for a summer shred, but there’s two different ways of going about it. Bulking is essentially just gaining weight, ideally through muscle growth, but this also constitutes some degree of fat gain simultaneously. Dirty bulking refers to the idea that eating a lot of calories, regardless of the macronutrient breakdown can result in increased size and strength, so, tied together with being the easier method, it seems the reasonable choice. Clean bulking is the reverse, and involves creating a calorie surplus with healthy balanced foods, resulting in minimal fat-gain, with optimal muscle growth. It can certainly be said that both of these methods can have decent results on your body, but which should you choose? Let’s take a look at each.
Understanding Glutamine
Glutamine is an α-amino acid that is used in the biosynthesis of proteins. Its side chain is similar to that of glutamic acid, except the carboxylic acid group is replaced by an amide. It is classified as a charge-neutral, polar amino acid. It is non-essential and conditionally essential in humans, meaning the body can usually synthesize sufficient amounts of it, but in some instances of stress, the body's demand for glutamine increases, and glutamine must be obtained from the diet. It is encoded by the codons CAA and CAG.
Vitamin D supplementation: How and why?
There’s more than one reason we come back from our week in the sun feeling re-energised. It gives us a big dose of Vitamin D! SO what’s the big deal about this little sunshine vitamin and why is supplementation so important?
Understanding Vitamin C
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate, is a vitamin found in various foods and sold as a dietary supplement. It also functions as an antioxidant. There is, however, some evidence that regular use may shorten the length of colds. It is unclear whether supplementation affects the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, or dementia. It may be taken by mouth or by injection. The United States Institute of Medicine recommends against taking large doses.
How to optimise your recovery
Over the past few years I have seen a growing interest into the importance of recovery and training.
When I first started training (like many of you reading this I assume) I thought that more was better in the gym. If I do more reps, more sets and train twice a day then surely I must be building more muscle right? I wasn’t sleeping that bad and I was eating a tonne of calories so surely, surely I am gaining muscle? Well, guess what, in hindsight, I wasn’t and my physique hardly changed, but why? I wasn’t optimising my recovery properly. Sure, I had heard that saying ‘you grow when you rest’ but I didn’t really take note of how important it was.