Brunos Fitness

Posts Tagged ‘Bodybuilder Nutrition’

Below are 10 reasons why you should hire me as your trainer.

1. I am always honest and reliable

I have over 5 years experience as being a personal trainer. I have a lot of passion for my job, I have been training in and out of gyms since I was 14 years old. I have studied and have over a decade of knowledge along the way. I am not that sort of trainer who has been training for 2 years or has gotten his/her Personal training certification, and then pretends I he or she knows everything. That is not my style or my character. Along the way I have done both, studied the physiology of the human body and have trained at the highest physical possible level.

2. I always plan and organize realistic goals and expectations for my clients

Again I am not one of those trainers who will put you on a ridiculous diet and put you on supplements. Which will only give you quick-short term result, which will only be wasting your time and your money. I never take short cuts with my training and dieting, so why should my clients?

3. My clients come first

I always find time to get back to all my clients questions and demands. Some trainers leave there clients with a program and diet plan. But don’t bother explaining to there clients what is going on with the program. Its like a doctor giving you a program for your sore lower back, and not telling you why its going to work for you. So why should you hang onto his or her words?

4. I give out proper programs

I give out workouts and nutrition programs to all my clients, which are easy to follow.
While other trainers can’t be bothered and simply copy and paste there workouts and diets off other websites, or even had out there own workout or diet programs. God made us all made different, so why would a work out or diet program from someone else work for you? Simple answer is: it wont! We are all born different from one another, and our bodies are all unique. So in the end, we all need a workout program and diet program that is specific to our body, shape and size needs.

5. I have never used steroids

Why have a trainer who has taken the easy road? I don’t understand how people can pay someone money, who has taken the easy way. Its like going to church and the priest telling you cheating on your wife is a sin, yet he goes out on the weekend and has sex with married women at the local pub.

6. My physique never changes

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

Why have a physique that changes? My body stays the same all year round, wouldn’t you like your body looking great all year round? Why go threw those ridiculous cutting and bulking diets? Its very taxing and unhealthy on your body, also majority of body builders are on steroids. Also a study was done saying symmetrical bodies attract the opposite sex. Makes sense, seeing as there was another study done saying symmetrical facial features attract the opposite sex. So why wouldn’t you want to look and stay symmetrical to your body type all the time?

7. I evaluate my personal training sessions

When I was getting my business started, I used to watch other trainers. I would look on and question, would I pay money to be trained like that? So in doing that, I have a lot of pride that comes along with my training sessions. So I make my sessions that good, that I even I would pay for them.

8. I have friends who are professional athletes, doctors, nutritionists and kinesiologists-Sports doctors, surgeons and lawyers

My life is always heavily influenced in the right way, sometimes its good getting other opinions. While other trainers will get opinions and ideas they have either heard at the gym or off the internet. They follow myths and stories of secret supplements, myth diets, and all sorts of bizarre ideas based on myths. Just have a look at my body building myths on this web page. So my views and opinions are always approved by all the right sort of people that they should be approved by. I Consult with doctors, physiotherapists, dietitians and other allied health professionals to create health and fitness programs for my clients.

9. You get educated

I don’t simply tell you do this and eat this. Without first knowing, how, why, what, where and when.
Most trainers will get you to do this and take these supplement shakes in your diet. I will tell you why and what is going on with the program. I will never put you on supplement shakes or even supplements for that matter. Would you like drinking meal replacing supplements your whole life?
Supplement means to: to make up for a deficiency.
So its obvious the trainer, is to lazy or does not want to go threw the effort of making you a proper program or diet. When you have a proper diet, you don’t need any sort of supplement. I give you results you keep for the rest of your life. You will never be given diets and workouts that you cannot maintain for the rest of your life. For me its never about the money, the fitness industry is embarrassing.
Lucky enough if you choose me to be your trainer, you wont have to deal with cons and scams ever again.

10. I TRAIN AND HAVE TRAINED WITH FRIENDS COMPETING AND TRAINING AT OLYMPIC AND PROFESSIONAL LEVELS

WHY SETTLE FOR A SECOND RATE TRAINER? FUNCTIONAL-PRODUCTIVE MUSCLE IS THE WAY TO GO. HOW CAN YOU TAKE GUIDANCE OR PAY SOMEONE WHO HAS NOT COMPETED AT OR IS EVEN TRAINING AT THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE LEVEL. WHY PAY AND SETTLE FOR A SECOND RATE TRAINER???????????

11. I Help you to Become a Personal Trainer
How do I do this for you? Read all of they above.

The days of trying to bulk up as much as possible and look like a bodybuilder are out. Now the body image most men are looking for and most women find attractive is that of a professional sprinters and swimmers. They are lean and toned with just the right amount of muscle and body fat to turn heads wherever they go. This is not a simple look to achieve, though. You must follow the right training protocols and make sure your diet is in check.

Top 3 things to avoid at all costs.

1. Taking long rest periods during sets

The general guideline for building a great deal of mass states that you should allow ample rest time between sets to let your muscles recover. This enables you to lift maximally on your next set. While this principle still holds true for putting getting big, reducing this rest time will increase your metabolism, helping you get leaner.

Since your goal is not to achieve your maximum size, the shortened rest breaks will not hinder you in getting good muscle definition. You still need to rest enough so that you can challenge yourself, but there is no need for two-minute rest periods anymore.

2. Neglecting all forms of cardio

If you want to get that lean look, you have to do some cardio training. Former methods enforced the principle of boycotting all cardio as it burned precious calories that could potentially go toward muscle growth. This is fine if you don’t wish to control your body-fat levels, but in order to see your hard-earned muscles, cardio is essential.

3. Eating everything in sight

This was fairly typical during the “beefcake” days when every guy wanted to pack on as much mass as possible. He would eat anything he could get his hands on in the hopes that it would help add muscle to his frame. Doing this will add mass, but a greater portion of it will be body fat, bringing you further away from the toned physique you’re looking for.

Top 4 things you should do.

1. Cardio sprint training

When it comes to cardio, the preferred method is interval training. This allows you to push your body for a short period of time, and then take a period to rest and recover before going once again. It is preferable because it will also help develop your fast twitch muscle fibers and will kick your metabolism into high gear.

Any form of exercise that is very intense will help with your fat-burning process as the body will expend a great deal of calories repairing the damaged muscle tissue once you are finished your workout. Try to incorporate at least two sessions of interval training into your week — one focusing on longer intervals of one minute with two minutes of rest, and the other focusing on shorter intervals of 20 to 30 seconds with one to one and a half minutes of rest. Note: The shorter the interval, the more intense it should be.

2.Plyometric training

Plyometric training uses exercises that require you to move very quickly using only your body weight. They are great for developing explosive power and strength. Since you are not acting against a heavy weight load, you will not get the same hypertrophy effects that result in the bulky muscle look. Typical plyometric exercises are:

Box jumps: Jump onto as high of a box as you can, and then back down again. For added difficulty, try doing this off one leg.

Squat jumps: Begin by moving from a standing position down into a full squat, then rapidly push off the ground using your thigh muscles to propel yourself as high as possible. Land once again in a full squat position and repeat 10 to 15 times.

Clap push-ups: Perform the normal push-up action, but use your muscles to propel your body off the ground in the up phase. While in the air, clap your hands together and then land back into the push-up position to complete the downward portion of the exercise.

3. Circuit speed training

Circuit training is another good option for those looking to get lean and toned. It works in a similar way to supersets, but instead of working opposing muscle groups, you complete an entire circuit of exercises for your whole body. Perform one set of each exercise before moving onto the next one with little or no rest in-between. Once you finish one whole circuit, take a few minutes to rest, and then complete it again one to three more times.

Additionally, you may want to focus on increasing the velocity in which you perform the concentric (working portion) of your exercise, as this will help develop your fast twitch muscle fibers more.

4. Supersets

Supersets are an exercise technique in which you perform one set of an exercise for one muscle group, and then another set for an antagonistic group. For example, complete one set of bicep curls followed by one set of overhead tricep presses. Since these muscles oppose one another, while one is working, the other can rest. This both cuts down on your total workout time and increases the overall amount of calories burned during your training session.

Getting lean and toned is dependent on burning more calories than you take in to remove excess body fat, so anything that helps you accomplish this is a step in the right direction. Try to incorporate these types of exercises into your workout as much as possible. Good examples are chest presses supersetted with bent-over rows and leg extensions supersetted with hamstring curls.

*Also note
If you are looking to develop a defined yet muscular body, put some of these principles into effect. You do not have to be huge to be strong, and most people these days prefer a more toned appearance over a bulky look. Don’t forget to stretch, make sure your diet is free from all junk and processed foods, and make sure you are eating five to six times a day to keep your metabolism up. Once you have mastered both the workout and the diet, your physique will get noticed.

Bodybuilding enthusiasts and athletes looking to gain an inside competitive advantage constantly battle with the temptation to take steroids or not. Deciding to body build naturally is much better than taking the steroid route. There are a number of good reasons to support this statement.

First off, have you ever seen what happens to a bodybuilder when they go off muscle enhancing anabolic steroids? Two words that muscle building enthusiasts never want to hear, atrophy (get small), and strength lose.

The fact is a steroid induced bodybuilder shouldn’t stay on steroids day in and day out for years on end. It is suggested to cycle your administration, say, 6-10 weeks at a time, and then go off for an extended period of time before starting again. Weeks following going off tend to equal muscle atrophy, decreased strength, and even depression.

Natural bodybuilding may not elicit that huge, rapid spike in muscle growth in a super short time, but illustrate a long term, stable growth curve. It may take longer to develop muscle strength and size, but when you have it, you have it as long as you keep training at an intense level. However, as witnessed many times by former steroid users, a rapid shrink in size and strength occur to levels sometimes below the natural bodybuilder’s production. How much fun is that?

Take, for instance, a professional baseball player who administers generous amounts of steroids one year and hits 58 home runs, but is only able to hit 16 during his next, steroid free season.

Since we all want instant results, steroids may be attractive, but the medical side effects don’t quite seem worth it.

Is adding ten pounds of muscle more important than increasing heart disease risk, cancer risk, or manipulating your natural hormonal balance? This question is only for you to answer, not me. In my opinion,
the risks far outweigh the benefits which are only visible when you are taking steroids. Size and strength quickly decrease after ceasing steroid use.

Steroid users seem to have a greater risk of injury from the muscle tissue growing faster than the, trying to adapt, connective tissue. The workloads are more aggressive, more frequent, and with faster muscle building recovery times. Once again, do you want the injury prone “quick fix,” or the slow, but steady wins the race approach? Just remember, the natural bodybuilder will probably show better results compared to the steroid user who has not used steroids in years. Are all the health risks worth it?

Anabolic steroids are illegal if not administered by a physician. I known people who have died, and even been thrown in jail for using, and selling anabolic steroids. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me.

There can also be a sense of addiction for the non-natural bodybuilders. The performance enhancing, drug user gets a very good feeling when their bodies are pumped up and buff. However, the opposite happens when they stop the steroids, and the muscle shrinking process begins. Imagine the feeling these athletes get. Their body image quickly erodes, and thoughts of the next muscle producing cycle are rolling around in their heads.

Aside from the health, and legal risks, it also costs quite a bit of money to take muscle enhancing drugs.

Hopefully, I convinced you to not take the performance enhancing pathway, but to use your resources, and energy into training smarter. If you are a natural bodybuilder, and want an advantage, you must train in an intelligent manner. That means providing the proper intensity of muscle producing stimulus, followed by adequate rest. The natural bodybuilder must pay extra close attention to sound training practices, in order to continue that gradual, continuous climb up the muscle development ladder.

Just remember to be patient and think long term results, not quick, short term, hi-risk muscular development. If you make a chart listing all the positives versus the negatives when it comes to natural bodybuilding versus steroid induced training, the natural bodybuilding positives far outweigh the drug induced positives. Therefore, in my eyes, natural bodybuilding is a much better training system than anabolic induced bodybuilding.

By Jim O’Connor- Exercise Physiologist

Egg whites

Finally, the last food you want to make a staple of your ab diet are egg whites. As a quick and relatively cost effective form of protein, they are rapidly digested by the body so your muscle cells can get the amino acids they need.
Additionally, there are a vast number of ways to cook and prepare egg whites, further increasing your meal options while on the diet. As many dieters already know, when meal selection becomes scarce, that’s usually about the same time that dietary adherence also falls by the wayside. Anything that helps to avoid this issue is going to serve to keep you on track. The fact that egg whites don’t take long to prepare further increases the chance you’ll turn to them instead of a double cheeseburger from your local drive-thru.

Peanut butter

Peanut butter is one of the foods that many dieters find themselves craving as they progress on their diet. And it can actually be a terrific choice when it comes to food selection in your quest for visible abs.

Two big advantages that peanut butter has to offer are that it is has a very high satiety effect and it is chock full of healthy fats. It will only take one or two tablespoons to give you hunger control that lasts for hours and help meet your good-fat requirements.

Since you likely won’t be spreading this over a bagel, consider mixing it into your oatmeal, using it to create a tasty Thai sauce recipe for your vegetable stir-fry or just eating it plain, as is.

Be sure when you purchase your peanut butter that you look for the natural variety, as they will contain fewer added sugars that can be particularly problematic when trying to lose fat around the waist.

Spinach

Since you’re likely to be eating a lot of salads on your way to getting ripped abs, you need to try to make the most of these. Spinach is a nutritional powerhouse — it contains a high amount of carotenoids, such as beta-carotene and lutein, as well as quercetin, which is a phytochemical that presents antioxidant effects. In addition to that, you’ll also get folic acid, vitamin K, magnesium, manganese, and more protein from spinach than from many of the other vegetable options.

As a side note to your spinach intake: try to eat it cooked once in a while as the cooking process really serves to bring out the antioxidant effects it carries.

Unsweetened oatmeal

When it comes to the carbohydrates you do take in, you want to make the most of your allotted calories. While there are other sources that are slow digesting, free of sugar and will work for fat loss, oatmeal is going to provide you with more volume per calorie, thus helping you feel full.

At only 147 calories per cup of cooked oatmeal, it beats rice and baked potatoes, which come in at 216 and 180 calories, respectively.

To enhance the flavor of plain oatmeal, try adding in artificial sugar, cinnamon or even mixing in protein powder to really boost the taste and make it more of a complete meal.

Coconut oil

One type of oil that many people rarely even think about eating is coconut oil, and it can actually be beneficial when added to your selection of ab foods.

The primary reason why coconut oil is a good ab food is due to its composure of medium chain triglycerides that are handled by the body differently than most other fats. They are able to be used as energy much quicker than the usual fats are, thus, if you are not eating very many carbohydrates for energy, this can help to prevent that energy slump you experience.

Don’t make the mistake of not factoring the calorie content though, it is a fat and will still supply your body with nine calories per gram. Be sure they are replacing other fats or carbohydrates in your diet, so that they’re not just added in with the ones currently there. Another interesting thing about coconut oil is that for the first week or so of consumption, it slightly bumps up the metabolism before the body adapts to it. So, even if you decide not to incorporate it into your plan long-term, using it for a week might just help give your diet that extra kick you need at this point.

Apples

If you’ve cut down your carb intake, and as you move toward the 5% to 8% body fat range, hunger will likely be an issue. Your body simply does not like being this lean and it’s going to fight you. Hunger is a good way of doing so.

Further to the point, on diets that are very low in calories (like diets full of ab foods), you are definitely going to be in a catabolic state (tissue breakdown). This can spell trouble for the muscle mass you’ve worked so hard to attain and it needs to be minimized.

The liver is the primary determinant (after total calorie intake) of whether you are in a catabolic or anabolic state. As such, the type of carbohydrates in fruit is treated slightly different than, say, the carbohydrates in rice or bread, and will send a much stronger signal to the liver to not be in a catabolic state.

You may still not be able to cross over into an anabolic state since that’s near impossible if you are eating under maintenance, but you can minimize the damage done to your tissues. Fruit will help you do this; shoot to eat one to two pieces a day.

Apples as ab food work great because they won’t raise blood sugar very much and will supply you with plenty of fiber, which helps with the hunger issue.

Low-sodium cottage cheese

Protein is an integral component to a fat-loss diet because it’s the single macronutrient that is going to promote muscle maintenance. You can cut both fat and carbohydrates down, but without enough protein your results will be less than optimal.

However, all proteins are not alike. When dieting to very low caloric digits, hunger is going to be calling your name. You want to minimize this by selecting ab foods that are going to digest the slowest and keep you satisfied the longest. Dieting on ab foods gets tough when 20 minutes after a meal, you’re ready for the next.

Cottage cheese is a terrific source of casein protein — one of the slowest digesting protein sources out there. When shopping for your cottage cheese, opt for a low-sodium variety. While salt is not necessarily always a bad thing, depending on your current health status and the rest of your diet, in the case of abs, we need to minimize water retention as best as possible.

At about 500 mg of sodium per half-cup of regular cottage cheese, water retention could prove to be an issue.

How do bodybuilders keep going on this diet of myths and contradictions?

Professional bodybuilders look great during competition, and most of them believe that their ‘ripped’ physiques are at least partially the result of their carefully planned nutritional programmes. However, new research carried out by Janet Brill at Florida International University indicates that most bodybuilders have weighted down their minds with a load of nutritional bunkum. At best, these faulty beliefs waste bodybuilders’ money; at worst, they may actually make it harder to produce the rock-hard physiques which bodybuilders desire.

After surveying 309 male and female bodybuilders, Brill discovered that the following myths about nutrition were prevalent:

Myth No. 1: Protein supplements are necessary to build muscle mass. Fact: Whenever a bodybuilder lifts a weight during a workout, carbohydrate – not protein – provides the necessary energy. Therefore, large amounts of carbohydrate are required to carry out the strenuous training needed to stimulate muscle growth. The excess dietary protein which bodybuilders consume isn’t funneled directly into muscle production; in fact, the builders’ bodies actually convert extravagant quantities of protein into carbohydrate, which is then metabolized for energy.

Myth No. 2: Carbohydrate loading just before a competition helps to ‘pump up’ muscles. Fact: When carbohydrate (glycogen) is stored inside muscle cells, water is stockpiled, too, so this belief seems logical at first glance. After all, maybe that accumulated water could make muscle fibres swell up a bit. However, if carbo-loading really produced a ‘maximum pump’ marathon runners would have gargantuan arms and legs instead of their characteristically scrawny appendages. Indeed, scientific research has shown that carbo-loading doesn’t expand muscle-cell diameters at all.

Myth No. 3: Carbohydrate loading stretches the skin, making muscles bulge. Fact: Carbo-loading doesn’t broaden the muscles, so there’s no extra pressure put on the skin. Also, carbohydrate isn’t stored in the skin, so there is no reason for the body’s outer covering to change in any way.

Myth No. 4: Consuming extra quantities of sodium increases muscle definition. Fact: The hypothesis is that the additional sodium will pull water into muscle cells, making the muscles expand, but there is absolutely no evidence that this actually happens. In fact, the extra sodium is usually simply dumped into the urine.

Myth No. 5: Sodium restriction increases muscle definition. Fact: Again, there’s no supportive evidence, but this widespread belief, the exact opposite of Myth No. 4, gives a good indication of the nutritional confusion which prevails among bodybuilders.

Myth No. 6: Bodybuilding magazines are the best source of information about sports nutrition. Fact: Bodybuilding magazines can’t survive on subscription sales alone; they need the advertising revenues which they receive from nutritional-supplement manufacturers. It’s doubtful that bodybuilding publications will ever bite the hand which feeds them; after all, contradicting the unverified nutritional claims made by supplement makers could lead to a loss of advertising.

Myth No. 7: ‘Growth-hormone releasers,’ including amino acids such as arginine and omithine, are effective alternatives to steroids for enhancing muscle growth. Fact: There’s no solid evidence that the releasers have an anabolic effect.

Not surprisingly, Brill found that only 1 per cent of bodybuilders get their nutritional information from registered dietitians. The same percentage of builders derive their dietary information from family members and friends – or from television! In contrast, about 50 per cent of all bodybuilders receive their primary nutritional advice from other bodybuilders, and 17 per cent rely on bodybuilding magazines. Overall, ’someone who has recently won a contest is viewed as a far more credible source of nutritional information than a nutritionist or an exercise scientist,’ notes Brill.

How do bodybuilders look so great – when their nutritional beliefs are so flabby? I will have to let you use your imagination to resolve that strange paradox. *cough* STEROIDS!!! *cough*