July 6, 2022By pjcar

Can You Force Muscle Growth?

The number one ingredient for strength training determination, but it also requires a sound strategy. You go to the gym week after week, but your muscles do not grow larger. Perhaps you're doing something incorrectly?

A good pump and a sweaty t-shirt after a workout do not always indicate that you are working hard to build muscle. Learn how to force muscle growth using these scientifically proven methods.

What is progressive overload?

Progressive overload is the most effective way to force muscle growth. Jeremy There are various types of overloading that you should be aware of in order to use it when it is most appropriate for you. Depending on the exercise, one method of overloading may not be as effective as another.

The law of overload is one of the first principles in exercise physiology, and no resistance training program would be complete without it. Mother Nature compensates for training stress by making your muscles bigger and stronger.

1. Load

If you are a beginner, the best way to force muscle growth is to add more weight to your lifts.

You will eventually reach a plateau, however, because you cannot simply add more weight to your bench press, for example, every week indefinitely. There is a limit to how much your muscles can move.

According to the logic of overload training, if someone simply benches the bar and adds five pounds per week for three years, they will break the 722-pound bench world record by 103 pounds in that time. Not at all realistic! While piling weight on the bar is the most effective overload technique, it is limited in its effectiveness. Fortunately, when adding pounds reaches a plateau, you can manipulate other variables to effectively overload your training.

2. Reps

When you think you have reached a plateau after increasing the weight on your barbell, increasing the number of reps is another effective way to stimulate muscle growth.

Even if you only add one rep to your regular set each week, you will be lifting more total weight by the end of the week.

How many reps should you gradually increase to? According to a 2017 meta-analysis, if you push hard enough, you can keep the same weight and increase to 30 reps and still get the same growth as if you added more weight.

3. Sets

When you believe you have reached a plateau after increasing the weight on your barbell, increasing the number of reps is another effective way to stimulate muscle growth.

Even if you only add one rep to your regular set each week, you will be lifting more total weight by the end of the week.

4. Tempo

The rate at which you lift weights can help you gain muscle. Slowing down your reps increases the amount of time the tension is applied to the muscle, stimulating more growth.

This is especially useful for exercises involving smaller, weaker muscle groups, such as lateral raises, where even a small amount of weight can significantly increase difficulty.

Slowing your reps with bodyweight exercises is also beneficial because it is often difficult to add more weight while performing callisthenics movements.

According to statistics, you should limit reps to no more than 6 seconds for the entire movement.

5. Form

If you do the same exercise every week, but each week you can control the weight better, use less momentum, and feel your muscles activated, you've added another method of overloading. Better form entails putting more emphasis on the target muscles, which will result in growth even if all other variables remain constant.

Overloading Tips

Overload must be approached with scientific knowledge and common sense. While bodybuilders may require more frequent exercise rotation, they frequently fail to overload when cycling between exercises. It is critical to increasing the weight that was previously used. Keeping a training journal simplifies this.

Muscle GainNatural Muscle GainSupplements

October 25, 2021By Jake Ayers

Testosterone- How to Boost Naturally for Muscle Gain

Testosterone- How to boost naturally for muscle gain

Testosterone, is a bodybuilders greatest ally, and not just for males. For everyone looking to put on muscle, gain strength, lose weight, experience better moods and gain energy test is a must!

Todays world is very much anti testosterone with natural levels dropping 1% every year, in the last century the range of testosterone has dropped dramatically, from an average of between 800ng/DL to 2000ng/DL to an average of just 270 ng/DL to 700 ng/DL!

This gibberish translates to a direct decrease in strength with grip tests dropping from 117pounds to 98pounds of force on average.

Why ? As previously mentioned the world has become an anti testosterone environment, processed foods, hormonal meat, pesticides, lack of physical activity, proper supplementation and unfortunately the inevitable, age.

When we consume hormonal foods (meat full of growth hormone, dairy full of estrogen), expose our selves to pesticides or chemicals (heating food in plastic containers) our body converts these hormones and stores them as Estrogen (another sex hormone), problem being high estrogen environments (your body) will result in what’s call aromatisation, which is when fat lipids convert testosterone to estrogen, this conversion is a common reason bodybuilders can develop gynocomastia or why we hold stubborn fat on our lower back, chest, legs triceps. And can cause the addition of un natural test boosters to build more fat and limit muscle gain as the testosterone is being lost to estrogen conversion.

To limit excess estrogen and in turn fat and to help boost testosterone, avoid hormonal foods, avoid chemicals, alcohols, smoking and before taking any androgen or anabolic compounds reduce your body fat to limit wasting your testosterone. Lifting weights is a fantastic way to boost testosterone as well as the natural endorphin rush stimulates testosterone production!

Certain supplementation including natural test boosters:

Fats (cholesterol is the beginning of the steroid path, and converts to Testosterone)

Vitamins

In summary,

Eat organic, whole foods, stay away from estrogenic/hormonal foods and activity’s, train at an optimal level for endorphin creation and muscle break down, supplement well and be mindful of what you are taking!

If you are looking for a supplement that contains most many of the ingredients I mentioned in this article, my mates at Crazy Bulk are offering a two for one special for my readers.

Enjoy

Jake

Diet

October 10, 2021By Jake Ayers

Why do you count calories?

Not do you count them but, specifically why do you?

A question most people have an answer for but don’t realize it isn’t the solution to the question.

For some people the answer to the aforementioned question is, “so I know exactly how much energy I’m consuming, so I can make sure I expel more or less to grow or lose weight” an answer I would respect but always challenge by asking if they knew how many calories they actually absorbed and thus could use for energy.

Kilocalories are the measurement of a substances (food and drink specifically) ability to raise the temperature of 1L/1kg of water by one degree Celsius, this method has been refined and averaged over the years and we usually go off the Atwater factors for measuring calories of Protein (4cal/g), Carbs (4cal/g), Fats (9cal/g) and Alcohol (7cal/g).

This is all great information but can be quite useless when you introduce the idea of True Absorption, a problem I’ve dealt with 98% of the time when coaching new clients. True absorption is the term I employ to explain that you are more than likely not absorbing or using 100% of the calories you consume. So why would it matter if you increase your calories from 2200 to 2400 if you were only utilizing 1700 in the first place?

A good example I have found is bodybuilder from Australia named Stan Turek, who can eat 2-3 meals a day and look better than bodybuilders who eat 5-6 meals of the same size, reason being his attention to detail with Gut health, Micronutrient consumption, Organ function, Enzyme consumption before food and nutrient partitioning.

The reason a true absorption level occurs and is ever changing is the very reason I rarely utilize the calorie counting method when coaching unless it’s a high level athlete preparing for a bodybuilding competition. Because if your

Gut health isn’t optimal (Proper chewing, Stomach acid pH and level, Enzyme abundance and Gall Bladder bile production)
Your liver/pancreas/thyroid gland isn’t performing at 100% (filtration, insulin response, metabolism)
Your diet is perfectly consistent
You experience high levels of stress and anxiety

I’m not saying counting calories is a bad thing, or that you shouldn’t do it, what I am saying is you should focus more on the calories your utilizing rather than consuming, there is no 100% way to measure exact expenditure as you would have to measure minute details including each change in gradient when running, or the time spent sitting vs. standing in the day, or the exact utilization of calories as you would have to make sure your chicken is the same breed and brand every day or your vegetables and fruits are the same ripeness every day, my point being foods and drinks are very likely not going to be the same caloric value consistently.

“What I’m saying is that there is a damn good chance the caloric level your consuming at isn’t what your body is utilizing.”

You’ll know this not from being above or below your caloric maintenance value but instead by the energy you get from foods, the bloating and digestion distress you feel how long you are sore for after your workouts or your cravings for certain foods, if your not getting energy from your carbs, bacteria and stress has gotten to them first, if your having prolonged muscle soreness then your protein is going to waste and if your bloating after meals, the bacteria is having a party with your food that your not invited to.

To increase absorption and use of calories I recommend, chewing your food thoroughly, unfiltered Apple cider vinegar (contains the mother) 1 tbsp. in the morning, ox bile 125mg – 150mg each morning, low sugar/alcohol diet, taking digestive enzymes, specifically Betain HCL, Protease (Aspergillopepsin), Cellulose, Amylase and Lipase before each meal, Sedative before bed and after training to reduce cortisol load on the liver, lots of good Veg Low FODMAP if possible and eating wholefoods rich in micronutrients, to open the cell and let the rest of the vitamins minerals and macro nutrients be absorbed into it.

A question most people have an answer for but don’t realize it isn’t the solution to the question.

Gut health isn’t optimal (Proper chewing, Stomach acid pH and level, Enzyme abundance and Gall Bladder bile production).
Your liver/pancreas/thyroid gland isn’t performing at 100% (filtration, insulin response, metabolism)
Your diet is perfectly consistent
You experience high levels of stress and anxiety

To improve your gut health we recommend the products from Bioptimize. Their probiotics and enzyme formula are far superior to most that are out on the market today.

“What I’m saying is that there is a damn good chance the caloric level your consuming at isn’t what your body is utilizing.”

To increase absorption and use of calories I recommend, chewing your food thoroughly, unfiltered Apple cider vinegar (contains the mother) 1 tbsp. in the morning, ox bile 125mg – 150mg each morning, low sugar/alcohol diet, taking digestive enzymes, specifically Betain HCL, Protease (Aspergillopepsin), Cellulose, Amylase and Lipase before each meal, Sedative before bed and after training to reduce cortisol load on the liver, lots of good Veg Low FODMAP if possible and eating whole foods rich in micronutrients, to open the cell and let the rest of the vitamins minerals and macronutrients be absorbed into it.

Our friends at Bioptimize have an ultimate digestions package, especially for our readers.