Personal Fitness Goals 3/26

About three weeks ago ago I began to lift weights as my primary fitness objective. I pictured myself as bodybuilder with a strength emphasis. I've been training in high rep ranges for hypertrophy and muscle gains, but also spending time on powerlifting lifts and lower rep strength exercises. I will continue to post my progress throughout this project.

Strength: One rep max

Deadlift: Goal - 355 by 6/1/15

 3/1/15 295 lbs,

Squat: Goal - 345 by 6/1/15

3/1/15 315 lbs,

Bench Press: Goal - 245 by 6/1/15

3/1/15 200, 3/26/15 215.

Overhead Press: Goal - 165 by 6/1/15

3/1/15 135, 3/26/15 145

Muscle Building Nutrition

Basic Bodybuilding Nutrition

There are many ways a bodybuilder’s diet differs from a regular diet, however, the two main goals of  a bodybuilding diet are to make sure your muscles are supplied with protein when they need it, and that you have enough energy to use for training.

How many meals a day?  

Three meals a day is considered healthy, and it is. However, a bodybuilder may want to eat more than three meals a day. Eating more often and spread throughout the day will guarantee a more steady supply of nutrients to your muscles. This is important because you want your muscles to be repairing themselves at all times outside of training to get the most gains.

Some people take this the wrong way and eat 5 meals, of equal amounts of calories to their regular 3 meals a day diet. Your body will still need the same amount of calories throughout the day as it normally does, so the more meals you eat, the smaller they should be. Also, this strategy only works if each meal contains protein, because otherwise the meal is only fueling your energy and not helping your muscles rebuild.

How much food/protein do I need?

Everyone’s metabolism is different, and everyone’s metabolism also varies day by day. Some bodybuilders are fans of IIFYM, or “if it fits your macros”, meaning they eat a certain number of calories in each macronutrient category per day. For example, 50g of protein per day, 250 carbohydrates per day, and 80g fat per day. This strategy ignores the fact that metabolism varies by day. There is no exact set amount of macronutrients you should take in. Instead, a better way is to use the numbers calculated as a guideline. If you use IIFYM for dieting, only use it as a guideline, not exact amounts. Everyone can estimate their suggested intake here at ChooseMyPlate.gov. The suggested amount of daily protein intake is 0.36g per lb of bodyweight, but again, this number varies due to many different reasons. A bodybuilder may want to take in closer to .7g per lb of bodyweight.

What type of food should I eat?/Where should I get my protein from?

The type of food should vary. Nobody should only ever eat fish, or only eat broccoli. It’s healthy to be eating different types of food in order to get all the nutrients you need. Protein shakes are great if you need a ton of protein, but most people will find that from their normal diet they get all that they need. If you make choices to eat foods that are high protein there is no need for protein supplementation. More protein that your body can use will not help you.

Good tips on cutting bodyfat

Low body fat percentages bring out the cuts and curves in a muscle. To cut body fat you must be in a caloric deficit. This basically means you need to burn more calories that you consume. You can do this by exercising more, consuming less, or both. Here’s a list of strategies to drop body fat the easiest and simplest ways:

- One of the easiest strategies to dropping body fat is excluding all junk food from your diet. When I say junk food, I mean any food that is high fat or high sugar.

- Another is making sure you never overeat. Pay attention to how much you eat by eating slowly. Eating slowly will allow you to realize when you're full, before you’ve already eaten more.

- Drink water instead of other drinks. Especially avoid juices, they are high calorie.

- Don’t snack. Many people grab a bite of food, even just a cracker, almost every time they pass through their kitchen. Especially at night people trying to diet are more at risk of snacking.

- Lower your normal food consumption slightly. If you would normally eat a sandwich, a protein shake, some carrots, and an orange, don't eat the orange during your diet. Nobody should skip whole meals, but instead just make each meal a little bit smaller.

- Keep a goal. It’s hard to measure small bodyweight cuts by weight due to body weight fluctuations (Average body weights can fluctuate anywhere from 2 to 8 pounds during a day), but for longer diets people can see progress by measuring their body weight. Also, you should be able to see your body change as you make progress.

You shouldn’t have to be hungry when you're dieting. If you spread out your meals throughout the day, make sure you don’t cut too quick, and stay motivated with a goal, dieting really isn’t that hard!

Other tips:

- Make sure you get your protein after a workout within 30 minutes. This is key because your body is most responsive to muscle rebuilding 15 minutes after a workout.

- Have some protein close to when you go to sleep. A lot of rebuilding is done when you’re sleeping (make sure you get enough sleep!) so if your body has nothing to build with, your muscles won't grow.

Creatine

Creatine  

What: Creatine is a chemical (C4H9N3O2)found normally in the body. It can be made by the body and obtained from certain foods.

Who takes it: Athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, and sprinters who want to gain muscle mass.

Where can you find it: Can be found from many different suppliers. To make sure the supplement is creatine with no additives, it is safest to buy from a company NSF certified.

When: When someone is active, has a very healthy diet, and wants to increase their exercise performance, they can take creatine.

Why: Creatine helps to replenish ATP faster. It brings phosphate to the ADP. With more volume of phosphate available, ATP can be replenished faster.

How: Take 240-350 mg per kg body weight daily for 3-7 days. After this phase is complete, maintenance doses vary, but can be estimated with this chart.

Body Weight	Loading Dosage Range/Day*	Maintenance Dosage Range/Day*
Below 155 lbs.	12-16 grams	4-8 grams
156 to 175 lbs.	13-17 grams	5-9 grams
176 to 199 lbs.	14-18 grams	6-10 grams
200 to 225 lbs.	15-19 grams	7-11 grams
Above 225 lbs.	16-20 grams	8-12 grams

What I’m doing; I weigh about 170 lbs currently. My creatine arrived here 2/20, I will begin today. The loading dosage will be 20g for 5 days, then I will stick to the maintenance dosage of 6 grams.  

Bodybuilding specific training

Bodybuilding specific training

Rep Range/Tempo: It's good to mix it up, but the mean number of reps per set should end up around 10-15. Nobody should only train in a certain rep range, and no rep range is exactly defined for a certain purpose. 5 reps will work on strength, but also to a degree with work on muscle endurance, just as 20 reps to a degree will work on strength. No matter what rep range your training in, that last rep should be hard as hell. Bodybuilders train to failure. The harder you train the more results you will get. Tip: Use spotter’s help to help you get to failure.

Tempo is how fast you complete the exercise’s movement. Try a few sets where you move the weight very slow and controlled. Moving the weight very fast and explosively can also benefit as long as the movement is still controlled and safe. The last thing we want is injury.

Set Range: People tend to gravitate to 3 sets per exercise. Thats not the best way to grow. Some bodybuilders have been known to complete up to 10 sets or more. Its not great to only do huge amounts of sets, but as usual, its good to mix it up.

Type of Exercises: Bodybuilders benefit from Time Under Tension exercises. This means exercises where the tension is maintained on the muscle. Most of these exercises are compound - meaning one movement. Keeping tension on the muscle increases the rate at which it will break down, it also helps with the Pump. The pump is really called hyperaemia and is when blood flow is increased to certain muscles. The blood flow increases to these muscles due to engorgement of the muscle’s blood vessels.

Time between sets: On heavier lifting days, spend more time between sets. Lighter days, spend less time. The less time you spend waiting, the better your pump will be.

So why is: its good to mix it up, a recurring theme? When your muscles are worked to do something hard or something they can’t do, they react, and grow so that they will be able to. If you keep doing similar workouts, your muscles will grow to fit that workout best, but may plateau, but if you switch it up, they will continue to react and grow.

Scheduling your workouts: People tend to assign certain days of the week to certain muscle groups, but are there exactly 7 muscle groups you want to train? Not really. I wouldn’t recommend creating a schedule like this. Instead, I would first through experience learn how long it usually takes each muscle group to recover. My legs recover in about 4 days, so every 4 days I do a leg session. My delts on the other hand will recover in about 3. Scheduling like this will guarantee you more gains, but it has its downsides. For example, because every muscle group is on its own schedule, there is a chance that you could end up working chest, delts, legs, abs, back all in one day. To avoid this we can restart the schedule every month or two. Restarting the schedule also plays into the next topic.

Sculpting/Bodybuilding: By rearranging your schedule, you can increase and decrease the number of times you train a bodypart. Some people are genetically gifted with certain muscles being larger relative to their others. They may want to bring the other muscles closer to proportion with the others. Training that muscle harder, or more frequently, will do so. Bodybuilding can be considered an art, because of this ability to change the proportions of muscles to what looks best. Bringing out the lines and texture through diet is the next step to sculpting an amazing physique.

Tips to throw into training: What other things can you do to break plateaus, get more gains, and enjoy yourself more while training?

- Drop sets: Basically one huge set. Start with a weight you max out on at about 12 reps. Go to failure on that weight, drop the weight by about 20%, and with no rest go again. Keep going  for 3-6 sets. I prefer 4. Each set should be to failure.

-  Supersets: Complete a set of one exercise, and immediately move to complete a different exercise. Rest after your second or final exercise before starting again. Make sure the exercises are related, for example, Incline bench superset with cable flys is one of the best.

- Negatives: Use a weight heavier that you can regularly handle. Slowly, bring the weight through an eccentric motion. To raise the weight back up either use a spotter or do one leg/arm down, both up.

- Try a few sets of very slow motion sets.

-Pyramid sets: example rep range: 12, 10, 8, 10, 12

Explaning the Creatine Experiment

About a month ago I began to take Creatine, which has been determined a safe supplement and approved by the NCAA. Basically all it does is raise your ATP levels. I'm trying to think of ways possible to test its effectiveness. I don't have a large enough sample size to run an experiment that would be recognized as official, of course, but I want to see what I can do partly for practice, and also just because I'm curious. I think my best option is to not use a control, and just ask people how they feel their performance has changed. Without the control, we wont be able to see how they would have progressed without the supplement. It doesn't matter too much for my project though because the goal is to help people move towards their goals, and if it helps one person a lot, then great. But if it doesn't help another person so much, but they think it does, it doesn't really matter as there is no negative or anything we give up by taking creatine.

I'm recommending using Optimum Nutrition's supplement of creatine because they are a very well known and respected brand that is NSF certified. With Optimum Nutrition you know what you are getting, and there will be no "secret ingredients" added.