Brunos Fitness

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Ankle weights are a commonly found weight used in many activities. Further from the core, fixated above the ankle around the lower shin and Achilles tendon, due to leverage much less weight is needed to increase the forces on the body.

As they are attached to a region with a far smaller diameter than the thigh, there is not room for much weight without greatly changing the effective width of the lower leg. An advantage over thigh weights is that they are not attached to any major muscle or fat storage region, so tightness is not a factor and it can be used in almost any exercise.

Being above the ankle, movements incorporating the calf muscles such as calf raises can benefit from ankle weights.

Ankle weights are useful in adding weight to pull-ups and dips, especially when incorporating leg raises into the movements. They are also useful in slow kicking katas, and static-active stretching of the legs when balancing on one leg, or suspended in the air.

Light ankle weights have a history of use resistance for kicking in swimming, and of forward flexion in kicking, walking, jogging, and sprinting exercises. Concern has been expressed regarding this type of training. It may put too much stress on the joints, similar to the shearing forces found in leg extension and leg curl exercises.

Practicing weighted movements at high speeds also causes the nervous system to fire at larger intensities. If an individual loses the weight without being trained to adapt to the transition, he may overexert himself without checking at the end of the movement and overextend a tendon. This is more of a risk when people fully extend their limbs in such movements and do not come to a controlled stop at the end, limiting muscle flexion. Generally, the muscle being extended is more at risk, not one held statically. For example, the quadriceps muscle could overexert in a snap kick trained with ankle weights, but in a rising kick, it is the hip flexor muscle more likely to overextend. In either case, the hamstring and associated ligaments would be at risk for a tear.

One major advantage to ankle weights, unlike wrist weights, is that it adds a whole new component to exercises that wrist weights do not, since we can’t grip dumbbells with our feet like we can with our hands. It is a major advantage in training rotational hip stabilizers, to work on turnout for martial arts and dance postures. To do this, the leg is bent 90 degrees at the knee, and then rotated inwards and outwards to bring the foot upwards. This is commonly seen in footbag kicks and holds.

One major disadvantage to ankle weights is the ankle weight adds stress to ligaments in the knees and ankles. For this reason, it is advised to not run while wearing ankle weights.

Myth: Using hand, wrist or ankle weights increases exercise benefits
No. It’s not uncommon to see walkers and joggers carrying hand weights or wearing Velcro weight straps around their ankles or wrists. If it’s crossed your mind that these ‘fit bods’ are probably getting more benefit from their sessions than you are, don’t worry — they’re not!

Wrist, hand or ankle weights aren’t heavy enough to provide any strength training benefits. In fact, they decrease your activity gains by slowing you down and messing with your natural walking rhythm which raises your risk of injuries. So it’s probably best to give them a miss.

Don’t Wear or Carry Weights When You Exercise

Wearing ankle weights will not help you to run faster or longer, or jump higher. Training is specific. To run faster in competition, you have to run fast in practice. Ankle weights slow you down because they interfere with your coordination and make you work much harder to raise your knees. To train your muscles so you will be able to run longer, you have to run faster or for a longer time. The heavy weights will tire you earlier so you will not be able to run as fast or as far.

Using ankle weights won’t help you to jump higher, either. To jump higher, you have to strengthen your leg muscles in the same way that you would use them to jump. When you wear ankle weights, you strengthen your leg muscles for lifting weights off the ground with your feet. When you jump, you raise your body off the ground. To help you to jump higher, you have to raise your body up against resistance. You do this by doing leg presses or squats with heavy weights on your shoulders.

Ankle weights can also increase your chances of being injured. Since they force you to lift a much heavier weight when you raise your knees, they strengthen the quadriceps muscles in the front of your upper leg without strengthening the hamstrings in the back equally. This can make your quad muscle proportionately so much stronger than your hamstrings that you are prone to injury. The same principles apply to carrying weights when you walk or run, or wearing weighted belts or other devices. Strength training should be done using weights with proper form in specific exercises, and should be kept separate from your aerobic activities.

The Dangers of Exercising with Ankle Weights

The additional effort that goes into exercising with ankle weights can actually make you weaker and more prone to injury. Ankle weights cause added stress to joints, especially the knees. Torn ligaments and pulled muscles in the calves, thighs, and ankles can also be caused by exercising with ankle weights. According to the Mayo Clinic, walking with ankle weights changes how a person normally walks. This destabilizes balance and increases the risk of tripping and falling. People with preexisting orthopedic problems should definitely avoid using ankle weights.

An easy rule of thumb to follow is that ankle weights and aerobic exercises do not mix. Although ankle weights seem perfect for running and walking exercises, many health experts agree that walking with ankle weights is a risky activity.

The Benefits of Exercising with Ankle Weights

Many trainers and health experts will agree that while ankle weights can seriously damage your knees while running, they are great for resistance training exercises. Ankle weights are a valuable piece of resistance training equipment that work particularly well with leg lifts. These exercises benefit from the extra work needed to lift the weights without applying unnatural stress to the joints. Aside from leg lifts, ankle weights can improve the effectiveness of pull-ups and bicycle crunches. Proper usage of ankle weights will strengthen muscles and help burn more calories without causing too much stress on the joints.

A safe choice for using ankle weights is to combine them with exercises done under water like water aerobics. Water ankle weights will continue to force the body to work harder; however, there is far less risk of harsh stress on the joints.

Caution with Exercise Routines

The best advice when it comes to using ankle weights and all exercises in general is to err on the side of caution. If the ankle weights cause any aches and pains, it is a sure sign that it is time to rethink their use. To be safest, consult a doctor about using ankle weights before employing them in a workout routine.

I am very happy and excited for all you girls. Your achievements and results are out of this world. You destroyed your fit tests and your measurements where astonishing to say the least. I look forward to the months to come. I am very proud of being your trainer.

How Lactic Acid Training Works: Is designed to force your body to produce a lot of Lactic Acid in the target muscles and keep it there .Research has shown that the presence of Lactic Acid can cause an increase in both growth hormone and testosterone secretion by the body. These are two of the most anabolic (muscle building) and lipolytic (fat burning) hormones in the human body.

* Lactic Acid Training causes your muscles to fail due to lower cellular pH (the acid lowers pH, which is the acid-base balance in the blood. When it’s gets too low, your muscles are unable to contract effectively) and not due to contractile failure (the point where your muscle fibers are too fatigued to continue). Not being able to push to contractile failure protects the muscles from excessive breakdown, which is critical to preserving muscle mass under reduced-calorie conditions, i.e. dieting.
* Lactic Acid Training also burns quite a lot of calories during the session itself. This is because of the very short rest periods and high volume of work. This, in turn, keeps your heart rate in an aerobic conditioning zone even during the rest, further increasing the benefits of the training.
* Increased Growth Hormone levels also increase the use of fat for energy during recovery after intense exercise. This means your body will be burning fat in order to help you recover from your training!
* As well, high-rep Lactic Acid Training trains the Type 1 muscle fibers (endurance-oriented), developing and multiplying the cellular energy furnaces known as mitochondria, which rely greatly on fats to supply energy to your cells. This means your body will become more productive at burning fat even while at rest.
* The high volume of the training you will be doing will also help to stimulate Growth Hormone production. Higher training volume has been shown to produce a better Growth Hormone response than lower-volume training.
* The high-rep qualities of the training helps to develop circulation in the muscles by increasing the number of capillaries (tiny blood vessels) feeding the muscles. More circulation means more nutrients which means easier muscle growth down the line!

Put all these amazing benefits together and you’ve got one incredibly powerful training technique!

How To Do It:

The basic execution of Lactic Acid Training is very simple.

1. Pick one single exercise, using a weight you can get around 20 to 50 reps with.
2. Do as many reps as you can until your muscles are burning so strongly and are so flooded with lactic acid that you can’t move the weight. You will probably have to drop the weight pretty quickly by this point!
3. Rest 20 seconds.
4. Now do another set with the same weight. You will probably only be able to get 8 to 10 reps with that weight, even if you just did 50 reps with it a few seconds ago. The short rest period means the lactic acid hasn’t had time to fully clear and you will fail due to lactic acid build-up in the muscles rather than true muscular failure (which is what we want).
5. Rest 20 seconds then do another set.
6. Repeat this for a total of 6 to 12 sets per bodypart, depending on the program requirements and which bodypart you’re working.

The expression “lactic acid” is used most commonly by athletes to describe the intense pain felt during exhaustive exercise, especially in events like the 400 metres and 800 metres. When energy is required to perform exercise, it is supplied from the breakdown of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP). The body has a limited store of about 85 grms of ATP and would use it up very quickly if we did not have ways of resynthesising it. There are three systems that produce energy to resynthesise ATP: ATP-PC, lactic acid and aerobic.

The lactic acid system is capable of releasing energy to resynthesise ATP without the involvement of oxygen and is called anaerobic glycolysis. Glycolysis (breakdown of carbohydrates) results in the formation of pyruvic acid and hydronium ions (H+). The pyruvic acid molecules undergo oxidation in the mitochondrion and the Krebs cycle begins. A build up of H+ will make the muscle cells acidic and interfere with their operation so carrier molecules, called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), remove the H+. The NAD+ is reduced to NADH that deposit the H+ at the electron transport gate (ETC) in the mitrochondria to be combined with oxygen to form water (H2O).

If there is insufficient oxygen then NADH cannot release the H+ and they build up in the cell. To prevent the rise in acidity pyruvic acid accepts H+ forming lactic acid that then dissociates into lactate and H+. Some of the lactate diffuses into the blood stream and takes some H+ with it as a way of reducing the H+ concentration in the muscle cell. The normal pH of the muscle cell is 7.1 but if the build up of H+ continues and pH is reduced to around 6.5 then muscle contraction may be impaired and the low pH will stimulate the free nerve endings in the muscle resulting in the perception of pain (the burn). This point is often measured as the lactic threshold or anaerobic threshold (AT) or onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA).

The process of lactic acid removal takes approximately one hour, but this can be accelerated by undertaking an appropriate cool down that ensures a rapid and continuous supply of oxygen to the muscles.

The normal amount of lactic acid circulating in the blood is about 1 to 2 millimoles/litre of blood. The onset of blood lactate accumulation (OBLA) occurs between 2 and 4 millimoles/litre of blood. In non athletes this point is about 50% to 60% VO2 max and in trained athletes around 70% to 80% VO2 max.

Reference: Disposal of Lactate during and after Strenuous Exercise in Humans, Journal of Applied Physiology, Vol 61(1), pp338-343, 1986

Lactic acid – friend or foe?

Lactic acid (lactate) is not:

* responsible for the burn in the leg muscles when exercising very fast
* responsible for the soreness you experience in the 48 hours following a hard session
* a waste product

Lactate, which is produced by the body all day long, is resynthesized by the liver (Cori Cycle) to form glucose that provides you with more energy. Sounds like a friend to me.
Lactate Shuttle

Some of the lactate we produce is released into the blood stream and used directly as a fuel by heart muscle, and by the liver to produce blood glucose and glycogen (Cori Cycle).

The lactate shuttle involves the following series of events:

* As we exercise pyruvate is formed
* When insufficient oxygen is available to breakdown the pyruvate then lactate is produced
* Lactate enters the surrounding muscle cells, tissue and blood
* The muscle cells and tissues receiving the lactate either breakdown the lactate to fuel (ATP) for immediate use or use it in the creation of glycogen
* The glycogen then remains in the cells until energy is required

65% of lactic acid is converted to carbon dioxide and water, 20% into glycogen, 10% into protein and 5% into glucose.

It has been estimated that about 50% of the lactate produced during intensive exercise is used by muscles to form glycogen which acts as a metabolic fuel to sustain exercise.
Krebs Cycle

The Krebs cycle is a series of reactions which occurs in the mitochondria and results in the formation of ATP. The pyruvic acid molecules from glycolysis undergo oxidation in the mitochondrion to produce acetyl coenzyme A and then the Krebs cycle begins.

Three major events occur during the Krebs cycle. One guanosine triphosphate (GTP) is produced which donates a phosphate group to ADP to form one ATP; three molecules of Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and one molecule of flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) are reduced. Although one molecule of GTP leads to the production of one ATP, the production of the reduced NAD and FAD are far more significant in the cell’s energy generating process because they donate their electrons to an electron transport system that generates large amounts ATP.
Cori Cycle

The Cori cycle refers to the metabolic pathway in which lactate produced by anaerobic glycolysis in the muscles moves via the blood stream to the liver where it it is converted to blood glucose and glycogen.
hydronium ions

The breakdown of glucose or glycogen produces lactate and hydronium ions – for each lactate molecule, one hydrogen ion is formed. The presence of hydronium ions, not lactate, makes the muscle acidic that will eventually halt muscle function. As hydrogen ion concentrations increase the blood and muscle become acidic. This acidic environment will slow down enzyme activity and ultimately the breakdown of glucose itself. Acidic muscles will aggravate associated nerve endings causing pain and increase irritation of the central nervous system. The athlete may become disorientated and feel nauseous.
Aerobic Capacity

Given that high levels of lactate/hydronium ions will be detrimental to performance, one of the key reasons for endurance training is to enable the body to perform at a greater pace with a minimal amount of lactate. This can be done by long steady runs, which will develop the aerobic capacity by means of capillarisation (formation of more small blood vessels, thus enhancing oxygen transport to the muscles) and by creating greater efficiency in the heart and lungs. If the aerobic capacity is greater, it means there will be more oxygen available to the working muscles and this should delay the onset of lactic acid at a given work intensity.
Anaerobic Threshold

Lactic acid starts to accumulate in the muscles once you start operating above your anaerobic threshold. This is normally somewhere between 80% and 90% of your maximum heart rate (MHR) in trained athletes.
What a low Lactate Threshold means

If your lactate threshold (LT) is reached at low exercise intensity, it often means that the “oxidative energy systems” in your muscles are not working very well. If they were performing at a high level, they would use oxygen to break lactate down to carbon dioxide and water, preventing lactate from pouring into the blood. If your LT is low, it may mean that:

* you are not getting enough oxygen inside your muscle cells
* you do not have adequate concentrations of the enzymes necessary to oxidize pyruvate at high rates
* you do not have enough mitochondria in your muscle cells
* your muscles, heart, and other tissues are not very good at extracting lactate from the blood

Improving your Lactate Threshold

The aim is to saturate the muscles in lactic acid in order to educate the body’s buffering mechanism (alkaline) to deal with it more effectively. The accumulation of lactate in working skeletal muscles is associated with fatigue of this system after 50 to 60 seconds of maximal effort. Sessions should comprise of one to five repetitions (depends on the athlete’s ability) with near to full recovery.

Training continuously at about 85 to 90% of your maximum heart rate for 20 to 25 minutes will improve your Lactate Threshold (LT).

A session should be conducted once a week and commence eight weeks before a major competition. This will help the muscle cells retain their alkaline buffering ability. Improving your LT will also improve your tlimvVO2max.

Dynamic stretching uses speed of movement, momentum and active muscular effort to bring about a stretch. Unlike static stretching the end position is not held.

Dynamic stretching is similar to ballistic stretching except that it avoids bouncing motions and tends to incorporate more sport-specific movements.

Arms circles, exaggerating a kicking action and walking lunges (without weights) are examples of dynamic stretches. A walking lunge dynamically stretches the hip flexors by emphasizing hip extension and can reduce muscle tightness around the hip joint necessary for competition.

Dynamic stretching is useful before competition and has been shown to reduce muscle tightness. Muscle tightness is one factor associated with an increase occurrence of musculotendinous tears. More recent scientific studies seem to suggest that dynamic stretches before competition are preferably to static stretches. This may be particularly true for strength and power athletes.

Dynamic stretches are best incorporated into your warm up routine before training or a competition.

More recently, clinical studies have shown that traditional static stretching exercise may be detrimental to sports involving powerful movements. Dynamic stretches seem to be more effective at reducing muscle stiffness, which is thought to increase the likelihood of muscle tears. For this reason, many coaches now advocate static stretching away from competition to increase range of motion, and dynamic stretching prior to performing for injury prevention and preparation.

Thanks to all my clients, I have been away on holidays for just over 1 month. I would just like to take this time to wish all my clients, all the very best for now, and in the future. For anyone else out there interested in my services, my testimonials speak for themselves.

Love you all,

Your trainer and Friend,

Bruno

P.S.
Future blogs are on there way, I am back in buisness.

Also
You can have a look at my photo gallery and progress results at
http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/Scarfdaddy/

In desperate attempts to achieve the “ideal” weight and shape, many students turn to disordered behaviors such as restrictive dieting, a variety of fat burning or muscle building products, exhaustive exercise, and/or cigarette smoking. They may starve themselves because they hate their bodies, eventually overeat because they get over-hungry, feel incredibly guilty after eating, and then try to get rid of the unwanted calories.

Keep in mind that your weight and body composition are determined by a number of factors. Some of these factors (such as your calorie intake and level of physical activity) can be manipulated. But other factors (such as your body type, bone structure, the way you store fat, and other genetic variables) cannot be manipulated. Most people simply lack the raw materials to build the “ideal” body, regardless of how strict they are with their eating and exercise regimens.

Consider this, only about 5% of American women have the ultra-long and thin body-type that is seen almost exclusively in the media. Women who attempt to achieve this body type (but lack the genetic material to do so) are setting themselves up for years and years of yo-yo dieting, weight fluctuations, disordered eating, and depression.

Similarly, the body ideal projected to boys and men in most muscle magazines and cartoon action figure heroes is impossible to achieve without illegal anabolic steroids. In most cases, if a man claims to have achieved this ideal with hard training and strict diet alone, he probably didn’t. There is a physiological limit to how much muscle a man can attain naturally, given his height and body fat percentage. In other words, it’s physiologically impossible to gain unlimited pounds of pure bulging muscle mass while maintaining an ultra lean, ripped body (with only 3-7% body fat)–even when following the “perfect” training and diet program. Once you reach your maximal muscle mass, any further gains will come from both muscle AND fat. So, men who have greater muscle mass/size tend to have higher body fat percentages as well (e.g. 10-15%).

Thus, it is important to be realistic when determining how you want to look to avoid sacrificing your health and happiness for an impossible goal.

1. Realize that you cannot change your body type. Learn to love and respect your body and to work with what you have.

2· Invest time and money in yourself, rather than the diet and supplement industry. Spend your extra money on flattering clothes, fitness equipment, haircuts, massages, and other personal indulgences–not on diets.

3· Stop weighing yourself. Focus on how your clothes fit and how you feel. If you keep trying to achieve an unrealistically low body weight for you, you’re setting yourself up for failure, depression, disordered eating, and decreased quality of life.

4· Stop comparing yourself to others.

5· Celebrate your body and the marvelous things it can do when you are fit and well-nourished. So often, we take these things for granted.

6· Move and enjoy your body. Go walking, swimming, biking, and dancing. Do yoga, aerobics, and weight training…. not because you have to, but because it makes you feel strong and energized.

7· Surround yourself with people who have a healthy relationship with food, weight, and their bodies. It will make a difference in how you feel about yourself. Also, remember to set a good example for others by refraining from “fat talk” when you’re with friends and family.

8· Stop your negative thoughts and statements about yourself. Focus on what you love about yourself. Compliment yourself. Talk to your body the way you would talk to a good friend.

9· Reclaim your own inner strength. Focus on the unique qualities and personality traits that make you a special and successful person.

10· Nurture your inner self. Enjoy things you find relaxing (e.g. music, bubble baths, fragrances, candles, massages, reading, writing, napping), be close to nature (e.g. garden, sunsets, beach, stars), and/or seek spiritual connection (e.g. prayer, meditation, inspirational reading, reflection). Feeling good on the inside is key to feeling good on the outside.

11· Examine the degree to which your self-esteem depends upon your appearance. Although it may seem natural to wish you looked like a fashion model or a body builder, basing your happiness on this desire may lead to failure. Unrealistic goals can prevent you from exploring ways to enhance your life.

12· Broaden your perspective. Talk to people you trust, read books about body image, or write in a journal. These activities may help you to recognize emotionally destructive thoughts and put body image into perspective.

13· Recognize that “fat-ism” is a form of discrimination similar to sexism, racism, and classism. Assumptions that body shape determines attractiveness, personality, and success are incorrect and unjust. Combat discrimination when possible. Question assumptions and generalizations which promote the belief that one “type” of person is better than another.

1- Get up and stay up
Whatever you have to do to get out of bed, do it. Put the alarm clock across the room. Set the timer on the coffee maker to start brewing. Run to the bathroom to relieve yourself and jump in the shower. The hardest part of the morning mountain climb is taking that first step out of bed. Don’t let that little voice start whispering, “Just 10 more minutes.” Ten more minutes is never enough and it will turn into another 10. Don’t hit snooze, just get up the first time. Whatever you do, don’t crawl back into bed once you’ve gotten out, no matter how inviting.

2- Establish a routine
Even if you’re using these techniques to get up early for a flight, it’s best if you establish a routine the days leading up to it. Make coffee, pour a glass of orange juice, brush your teeth, get into the shower; whatever works for you, do it the same each morning. That way you’ll get into your morning without having to think about it. Also, use an alarm clock with a battery backup to ensure a power outage doesn’t mess up your schedule. If you can, keep your routine even on the weekends, though we acknowledge that takes a lot of willpower.

3- Go to bed early
This seems brain-dead obvious if you’re wanting to wake up early, but too many people will put off going to bed thinking: “Well, I’ll be tired tomorrow either way.” Getting six to eight hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep makes all the difference when getting up early and staying focused through the day. Many guys will make the excuse that they can’t go to bed until after midnight. You can — you just have to start the process early. One thing that will help you hit the racks is getting off your computer at least an hour before going to bed. Also, don’t watch TV right before going to sleep, especially the news. Let your brain have time to wind down. Read a book or write in a journal.

4- Drink water
Don’t go crazy and down eight glasses right before crawling in bed, otherwise you’ll be up in two hours. The point is to drink a couple glasses of water, so you’ll be hydrated throughout the night and in the morning. Dehydration will cause you to feel sluggish and only make it that much harder to wake up early. Also, avoid caffeine and alcohol. Caffeine for obvious reasons, it’s a stimulant, and while alcohol is a sedative, it commonly leads to restless sleep. Eating before bed doesn’t bother some, but for others it can cause heartburn and bad dreams. Use discretion with food, but definitely stay away from late night spicy dishes.

(Fights muscle fatigue)

Caffeine from coffee will also fight muscle fatigue. So slurp up a cup of coffee before performing a demanding activity like running, weightlifting or before a long day in the garden, and watch your performance increase.

Evidence shows that caffeine intensifies muscle contractions, masks the discomfort of physical exertion and even speeds up the use of the muscles’ short-term fuel stores.

At this point, you must be saying to yourself, “this guy must be sponsored by a coffee company.” But to be perfectly honest, I have my regular dose of coffee everyday. I know, however, that it can lead to health-related problems when consumed in exaggeration.

Overdoing it (4-5 coffees a day) can over-stimulate the nerves and generate some pretty nasty side effects. It can leave the drinker feeling restless, irritable, and make his hands tremble. In extreme cases, it can create severe insomnia.

(Addiction?)

Coffee has been heavily criticized for the fact that its caffeine content is addictive and unhealthy. But I think that if we would stop consuming everything scientists discover to be cancer prone or unhealthy, we would be left to surviving on bread and water. It’s like many things in life: if you drink coffee with moderation, it can actually be beneficial.

The caffeine contained in coffee will give you a significant boost of energy. It usually provides you with an increase in performance for more monotonous tasks like filing or simple bookkeeping, and it can also help you stay awake during drawn out tasks such as long distance driving or working as a security guard.

(Gives you a little boost)

When tired, caffeine can help you sharpen some complex mental skills like manipulating numbers or recognizing words. So it’s not bad to ingest one or two cups of coffee a day.

One cup in the morning to get things started, and one in the early afternoon after your lunch takes effect after you start feeling drowsy. It’s no secret why they call the 15-minute breaks, “coffee breaks” — it gives you a chance to get up from your work station, pick up some coffee and regain your energy.

As a result, your productivity will increase both from your time away from the PC and from the effects of the natural stimulant.

(Avoiding the jitters)

One quick tip to avoid the jitters and severe withdrawal symptoms is to keep your caffeine intake fairly steady. If you are looking to lower your caffeine intake from coffee, do it gradually over a course of a week or two.

For example, if you drink 5 cups of coffee a day, cutting it down to 4 cups will reduce your overall caffeine consumption by 20%, but if you cut it down to 2 cups it will reduce it by 60%, which is more likely to cause withdrawal symptoms.

If you haven’t started drinking coffee yet, I suggest you try it once in a while when you start feeling tired and enjoy its great taste. If the taste is what keeps you away from the hot drink, try one of those cool mocha lattes.

They are offered virtually everywhere but vary from one coffee shop to the next, as each one tastes better than the other. They are also offered in many fruit flavors and are a great source of refreshment on those hot summer days.

Another great way to avoid withdrawal symptoms is to opt for tea if you need a quick pick-me-up. While tea does have caffeine, it is not as addictive as coffee and does not cause the same side effects.

Don’t be afraid to get that quick caffeine fix from coffee every now and then; just remember that like everything else, too much of anything is not good.

(Side effects)

Other side effects from excessive caffeine consumption are diarrhea, copious urination, while some people can even experience facial flushing. It’s hard to say how much caffeine is needed to trigger these side effects because everybody’s body will react differently.

Occasional drinkers might experience the side effects after one cup whereas usual drinkers might get jumpy when drinking one more than usual.

Caffeine creates a dependency, and its main problem is caffeine withdrawal. This means that if someone who usually drinks between one and three cups of coffee a day suddenly stops drinking it, that person could develop headaches.

Other major drawbacks of quitting the brew are anxiety, light depression and fatigue. Obviously these might seem like very severe side effects but only a minority of coffee drinkers will experience them.