Tag Archives: guide
Volume goals and low reps.
Filed under Fitness, Nutrition & Health
Low Reps for Muscles?
Filed under Fitness, Nutrition & Health
How Much Protein?
How much Protein do you need?
Depending on what sources of information you read that number will vary from 0.6g per pound of Lean Body Mass up to 4g per pound.
*Quick Guide at bottom of post.
With all the different opinions which is correct?
Technically they all are, however what is forgotten is the conditions in which the data that give us these numbers is accumulated, not to mention the individual needs of the people used and their respective training goals/needs/training ages/steroid use and much more.
There are a great many factors to determine protein needs. For the average person who trains 3, maybe 4 times per week the best advice is to aim for a starting point of 1g per pound of LBM when looking to maintain and potentially build some muscle. Provided you’re in the correct caloric surplus and have adequate carbs/fats your body will use the protein for its intended purpose – building things.
Why 1g to start? It’s easy to workout the numbers (calories – 100g protein =400 calories for example) and serves as a good starting point. Consuming more protein than you need won’t make you more muscular, unless you’re on steroids and/or your uptake and use of protein is far superior, but having less than you need will prove troublesome as you can’t really build new cells without protein.
Typically to bulk (add muscle) starting by using 1.2g per pound seems to work well for most, try it and see how your body reacts, if you feel you need more than increase it slightly and the same goes for t you feel you ned less, simple.
A worthy fact to remember is when you’re looking to lean out or cut some fat you will want to in fact increase you protein to perhaps 2g per Lb of LBM as a base, this is because of the reduced calories through fats/carbs required to put you in a deficit, the extra protein will help in muscle sparing so that you don’t lose you hard eared muscle.
The topic of protein is very vast and complex, we have kept this very simple and give some basic and easy starting points to use, however, if you want know more of the details then some deep research will be needed to be done by yourself. I am not going to go in to the complexities because there are articles written by people who are far smarter than me out there who have already done it.
*Quick Guide
Maintenance – 0.8 – 1g per Lb or LBM
Muscle Gain – 1.2 – 1.5g per Lb of LBM
Cutting Fat – 2g per Lb of LBM
These are only guidelines based on current research, make sure you experiment and try varied ranges to find what works best for YOU.
Enjoy,
Ross
Filed under Fitness, Nutrition & Health
The Secret of Constant Progression: Part 1
When it comes to lifting weights well all want to have a steady progression, but many will stall and find their progress grinding to a halt without much warning.
Do you want to know how to avoid this?
Do you want the knowledge to build strength and muscle consistently?
Do you want to know what many trainers hesitate to tell?
Do you want to know the secret of constant progression?
I am going to write one short post per day about what elements of your training you can tweak that will allow you to continue to progress, they are not as complicated as you may think and on top of that there are only 3 KEY elements you need to be mindful off.
Volume
Intensity
Density
That makes 3 content filled posts for you to increase your knowledge and understanding of lifting weights, progression and progressive overload.
If you hied my advice you will find steady progression for many weeks, months and even years to come, so now we have all of the standard chatter of you the way;
Lets get started.
The route to progression is classed as continued progressive overload*, otherwise known as TOTAL VOLUME. This is the amount of weight you lift in one session, the get stronger or build more muscle you must lift more than you did before; simple right?
*Progressive overload by definition is that in order to adapt/grow we require a gradual increase in volume, intensity, density (frequency/time) in order to achieve the targeted goal of the user. In this context, volume, intensity and density are defined as follows: Volume is the total number of repetitions multiplied by the resistance used as performed in specific periods of time.
Not quite. Trying to constantly lift more weight each week will have you hitting a brick wall much sooner than you might realise, your body needs time to adapt, your ligaments and tendons need time to grow stronger as do your muscles. This is where the concept of volume can become skewed, lifting more weight to achieve more volume does not happen quiet the way you would think.
What is VOLUME?
Volume put simply is the cumulative amount of Sets & Reps you ave performed in that one session (Don’t get confused with Total Volume of Weight Lifted.*), the weight you’re using is known as the INTENSITY, but that’s something to talk about on another day, but as you will learn all 3 elements are intrinsically linked.
*The sum total volume of your weight lifted is what you will calculate at the end of your workout to see how much weight you lifted throughout the entire session and over a prolonged period of time throughout your different training phases, this will become important for establishing your ‘Power Index’, but more on that another day.
Example:
Week 1 – 5×5 @ 100kg – 5×100 = 500 – 500×5 = 2500kg lifted (Total Weight Volume) and 25reps Total Volume
So theoretically then this would be the next logical step:
Week 2 – 5×5 @ 105kg – 5×105 = 525 – 525×5 = 2625kg lifted (Total Weight Volume) and 25reps Total Volume
This progressive volume thing is easy according to this, the gains will be constant and strong… Or so we would like to believe. You have not changed the volume, you have changed the intensity, yes that has lead to more total volume, but not quiet in the way we are trying to achieve today.
Your body would only progress in this way for a certain period of time before it simply couldn’t handle any more weight for 5 sets of 5 reps, this is when you will need to change the volume load, I.E the amount of set’s and reps you’re doing.
You see, you can can increase your volume from a workout without having to increase the weight, take a look at this example:
Week 1 – 5×5 @ 100kg – 5×100 = 500 – 500×5 = 2500kg (Total Weight Volume) and 25reps Total Volume
Week 2 – 8×5 @ 100kg – 5×100 = 500 – 500×8 = 4000kg (Total Weight Volume) and 40reps Total Volume
Are you starting to get the picture now?
Week 3 – 10×5 @ 100kg – 5×100 = 500 – 500×10 = 5000kg (Total Weight Volume) and 50reps Total Volume
*Week 4 Deload to 6×5 @ 100kg – 5×100 = 500 – 500×6 = 3000kg (Total Weight Volume) and 30reps Total Volume a reduction of 40% Volume, you can have multiple variations of this, but you will learn that over the next few days – This allows your body to back off form he volume but maintain its neuromuscular connections and familiarity with the weight.
As you can see for my rather basic examples above you can increase the VOLUME of your workout by changing the numbers of sets you perform, you can also change the reps but of the purpose of this example I decided to change the sets as it’s easier to see the progression.
That said, if you did want to keep the sets the same but change the reps you might do the following:
Week 1 – 5×5 @ 100kg – 5×100 = 500 – 500×5 = 2500kg (Total Weight Volume) and 25reps Total Volume
Week 2 – 5×8 @ 100kg – 8×100 = 800 – 800×5 = 4000kg (Total Weight Volume) and 40reps Total Volume
Are you starting to get the picture now?
Week 3 – 5×10 @ 100kg – 10×100 = 1000 – 1000×5 = 5000kg (Total Weight Volume) and 50reps Total Volume
*Week 4 Deload to 3×10 @ 100kg – 10×1000 = 1000 – 1000×3 = 3000kg (Total Weight Volume) and 30reps Total Volume a reduction of 40% Volume
AS you can see now from the second example the sets can remain the same and the reps can change, provided your Total Weight Volume is increased you will be progressively overloading, thus getting bigger and stronger.
*PROVIDED YOU’RE EATING ENOUGH!
Hopefully now you have a solid understanding of what Volume is and what it actually means.
Tomorrow I shall be covering Intensity.
If you have any questions please leave a comment below.
Enjoy
Ross
Filed under Fitness, Nutrition & Health
The Busy Persons Guide to Fitness: Nom Nom Nom
Time is the only thing we have, but more often than not it is filled with tedious tasks such as work, family gatherings and sitting in traffic while the light is green because the learner in front of you has stalled.
Not having enough time also effects trying to eat the ‘right’ foods, nay, eat enough food to avoid crashing and heading straight for the coffee and pro plus can also be a challenge for some. Nutrition is clearly just too large a subject to ever be understood for such a busy person.
All of these can get in the way of achieving a rock solid physique, or can they?
In our world of limited time a simple guide is called for to help those who only have perhaps 2 days per week to train…This is that guide.
I will give you some tips and tricks to help you achieve not only a good physique but also strength and fitness too.
In this 4 part mini series I shall cover the following:
– Nutrition
– Programming – Based on 2 Days Per Week
– Recovery Nutriton
– Progress Tracking
Now you know what to expect, lets get your nutrition requirements sorted.
To get your total calories I would suggest multiplying your weight in lbs by 11 & 13 for fat loss and 17-19 for muscle gain.
*For the purpose of this example I have used 17-19, but I would advise you to use 11-13 when working out your needs.
Now we need to get your basic macro nutrients sorted.
The easiest way to find out how much fat you will need in your diet is to take your weight in lbs (Optimally your lean weight – if you know it.) and multiply that number by 0.3-0.6 to give you the amount in grams you will need per day. Multiply by 9 to find out how many calories this is.
I would say to start on the lower number (0.3). The you can workout your required protein by taking your weight (Again ideally lean.) by 0.8-1.2 depending on your activity level. This will give you your grams of protein needed, them multiply this by 4 to get the calories.
Add those two numbers together and then subtract that number from your total required calories for your specific goal. This will give you what calories you need in terms of carbs, then divide that number by 4 for the grams required.
With the amount of carbs your require in grams multiply that by 10 & 15% to get your fibre intake – this is included in your crabs, not added on top.
Example:
Weight – 175lbs x 19 = 3325 calories
Fat – 175 x 0.3 = 52.5g = 472.5 calories
Protein – 175 x 1.2 = 210g = 840 calories
Carbs – 3325 – 472.5 – 840 = 2012.5/4 = 503g
Fibre – 503 x 0.15 & 0.10 = 75g & 50g
So you will have the following:
Protein – 210g
Carbohydrates – 500g
Fat – 52.5g
Fibre – 50-75g
I would also suggest having 1 litre of water per 25kg of total bodyweight. Add in 1 exert litre for each hour of exercise on your chosen workout days too.
If you happen to like a cheeky drink after work to help wind down then you can use this to help you factor the calories from your chosen beverage.
There is 7 calories per 1 gram of alcohol (Just for your information.) but this isn’t really too relevant for the following. Count your alcohol towards your overall carb content (People we often speak to have carbs left over), simply because it’s easier to accept for this way.
To count your alcohol towards your carbs all you need do is take the number of calories in your chosen beverage and divide it by 4. (If you want to count it towards fat divide the calories in the alcohol by 9.)
If this doesn’t make sense so far please bear with us and keep reading.
Here is an example:
An average pint can have 300 calories per pint.
Divide this by 4 = 75. This can be counted as 75g of carbs.
There you have it. You have successfully accounted for alcohol, but be aware you should not actively try and get smashed just because you can count it in to your macros. There is nothing wrong with a little alcohol, just don’t over do it.
Now you have the guidelines to follow I would suggest downloading an app to help your track how well you’re doing form day to day. You can use a book if that suits you, but apps are easier.
*Try to have 80% of your calories coming from whole foods and 20% from what ever indulgences you desire.
There you have it, the first part of the guide all you busy people need to achieve results like never before.
Enjoy
Ross
Filed under Fitness, Nutrition & Health