This is my 4th blog about my journey to compete as a figure competitor with the British National Body-Building Federation (BNBF) in July this year. In my last blog I discussed the type of training I was doing which was 'Full body training' and that I was having my body fat measured again.
Well had my body fat measured and I was glad to see that I had lost 1.3% body fat and put on another 1.2kg of muscle mass. I was really pleased with this result, considering I had been unwell for part of this phase. It shows that if you eat well you can still make changes even if you are not...
There seems to be a fair bit of chat around these days about the pros and cons of training multiple times a day. One camp saying that multiple times a day training is an excellent method of improving performance, physique and such like, while the other camp say that it will lead to poor results, reduced ability and fatigue. So here are some thoughts, observations, experience and the occasional, fact as I see it.
Consider the goal. What are you trying to achieve? Are you a professional athlete, keen sports person or simply someone that enjoys training for the many benefits it has?...
The fibre make up of a muscle group should determine the load and therefore the rep range of the set / exercise being preformed. All muscles have mix of fibre types, but they will have a dominance of one type of muscle fibre over another. Although there are many types of muscle fibres they are generally put in to these categories:
Type 1 – Slow twitch or slow oxidative, are often postural and endurance type muscle fibres. They have a good blood supply (red meat) and as such have a more prolonged work capacity due to the supply and use of O2 to produce energy. The soleus (muscle...
Here is a quick guide on how hormones impact on our health, well being and body composition. At this time of year a lot of us want to lose a bit of christmas chub and often the first thing we consider is the old addage - 'move more and eat less'. This 'calories in verses calories out' approach is only a very small part of a successful plan for health and fat loss and in fact is not the best approach!
It is the actions of our hormones and neurotransmitters that have the greatest impact on leaness and health. It is not rocket science though, if it was I certainly would not be able to...
Recently I attended a internship where the speakers were all gurus in their choosen fields, ranging from fitness and strenght to toxicity and health. Here are some of the points discussed:
Poorly fed (grain fed), hormonally enhanced and mass produced animals are more often than not also toxic animals. They store these toxins in the fatty parts of their flesh, just like us! These toxins are then passed up the food chain to us, this is another reason to ‘go organic’. If you decide not to bother with organic / grass fed meat at least cut off the fatty bits to reduce your...
There seems to be a lot of talk around these days about the pros and cons of intermittent fasting (IF). This is where someone would fast from eating for a certain amount of time for a host of reasons but the main one being to try to lose fat / weight. Some gurus suggest it is bad and are completely against it, while others say it is good and will improve health, increase fat loss and pay your mortgage, all very confusing! So I thought I’d give it a go to see what happened to me and make up my own mind if it can help or hinder.
Here are 10 things that I hear a fair bit relating to training, nutrition and performance that I think are open to debate…
‘We don’t need to do specific core type training’. I hear this a lot these days and in fact used to preach it myself. The rationale is that if we eat clean and do the big lifts / movements, our core will take care of itself. However after a lot of info gathering and experience gained I realise that this is not correct. I conclude that we should continue with the main big lifts such as dead-lifts, presses, dips, chin ups, squats (and squat variation), explosive...
