the Over training Trap

Hey people, how we doing today? Excellent, I'm sure. Today I'm going to talk to you about over training. I used to call it the myth of over training, but as you all know, most myths are a bastardised version of someones truth. Like the werewolf, and aliens, and Excalibur, oh, don't get me started on Excalibur, I could be at it all day. The truth is most people would have no idea how to even begin to over train. They barely know how to train, train! The people who might wander into the neighbor hood of over training, are the true workout enthusiast. The ones who truly love the feeling of hard work. Its easy for them to fall in to the trap of over training. Its because it seems like play to them. In reality its more like under resting then it is over training. It sounds alot like the same thing but its as much psychological as it is phsiological. Your nervous system needs to calm down from firing full blast everyday, and your body needs enough time to move a little bit further in the repairs that never seem to be complete.

Now I'm quite certain I've been in this neighborhood before. I recognise some of the landmarks, and the ugly architecture. I figure out I was in over trainingville when I got sick on Saturday. All week, I've been feeling run down, and my joints have been crying bloody murder. Now, to let you know how I got here, I train hard everyday, over the years my body has adapted to the punishment I put it through. If I were actually trying to grow bigger, it would be impossible based on the amount or lack of rest I give my body.fortunate for me, I'm only concerned with growing better, as opposed to bigger. The factor that changed was my cardio. I'm currently preparing to fight in late November December, so I'm doing more cardio, throw in a night job. Oh and my main form of transportation is a road bike...with pedals. Next thing you know your check engine light is on, the alignment on your robot is drifting to the left.

So there in lies the problem, the solution, I'm going to asses the things, I can alter, Boxing, no, jui jitsu, no, weights, maybe. Lets examine the maybe. I lift pretty heavy for a rep count of over ten for most sets. Slash the weight, slow down the reps go for form, and not to failure. Perhaps, just use resistance bands and body weight for a week. Instead of 40 mins to an hour, 25 mins light cardio and full stretch. Take a forced day off. Maybe go for a ride, zero resistance training. That's what my over training recovery week is gonna look like apparently, thanks for taking the time for helping me out with that. Oh, feel free to use it yourself when ever you feel that your check engine like might be about to come on, should be enough to keep you sane, and get your robot back in alignment at the same time.

If you have any topics that you want me to form an opinion on or if your interested in individual or group training please contact me on Facebook, or email at auku51@gmail.com. Right now I'm working as the strength an conditioning coordinator for the Brazilian Top Team, at Bodies in Motion is West LA, also I train privately at Soneca Martial Arts located in Brentwood.

http://www.sonecamartialarts.com/
http://www.bodiesinmotion.com/ClubTemplate.aspx?map=2&LocId=58

Thanks for your time, here's a cool article about protein intake. I skimmed over it and it seemed pretty solid. Until we meet again work hard and be easy.

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_nutrition/six_things_you_need_to_know_about_protein?utm_source=weekly_dose&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tmuscle

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.—Theodore Roosevelt

Cleansing: Fact or fiction part I

I'd like to apologise for the false advertisement. There's not going to be any myth busting here. I'm just going to give you my opinion on something that until this morning I knew very little about, and now I know a little bit more. Cleansing. We've all heard about it, know someone who's gone through the process, someone who loves it. Someone who hates it. Heard about someone who lost forty two pounds on lemonade and Ms. Butter worth alone. was proposed a question by one of my clients. Kiea come up to me and says "your next blog should blog about cleansing". And I think to my self, "that's an awesome idea" then I think,"perhaps I should form an opinion about cleansing first". So that brings us here. A good friend of mine is a trainer, and before she starts training a new client, she requires the to do a cleanse. I think she's a great trainer, so I figured it would have some merit, but I feel the need to gather information for myself before I can confidently pass it off to others with the stamp of confidence that is my opinion. Now before I go any further, I plan to try a supplemental cleanse myself next month. That's going to be part two of this topic. But the research that I gathered, pretty much stated that virtually anyone can stand to benefit from a cleanse. It you smoke, want to loose weight, have a skin condition,bad breath, add, history of cancer. It pretty much covered the whole gambit of issues why anyone would want to make a healthy change in there life.
Another thing is, when you think of cleanses, the first thing that comes to mind is the master cleanse, or the lemon cleanse. Now I also know someone who made it about four days on that cleanse, and talking to her, it pretty much sucked. To me it didn't make sense. Then again in my lifestyle, the fact the I feel the need to lift weights everyday, it's just logical to have a ready supply of protein to build and repair. It explained that the lemon juice provides the vitamins while the maple syrup provides the energy. I can see how someone can loose weight off of that, and I may attempt it my self just to see if it's an option should I have to burn muscle. I generally don't recommend burning muscle, but being a competitive athlete, and one who carries very little body fat, sometimes, in situations that require weight restrictions you have to take extreme measures. The body remembers the form where it was currently at its equilibrium, so it's not hard to gain it back once you establish a base line. Which is another reason why I believe that this particular cleanse as a weight loss strategy is faulty. What do you really think is going to happen after you get off of a lemonade diet for a week and a half....Exactly. Your going to go food zombie. What do zombies think about? Brains. What will you think about? Food...Only food. Until your are completely and totally satisfied. Who knows when that'll happen.

Now that was just my thoughts on the master cleanse, but I haven't written off cleanses as a whole. I think that a couple times a year cleansing is definitely a great idea, it is said to cleanse your mind and your body of toxins. Based on the results I get from my trial, it may be something I incorporate from here on out. If you wanted to read up on cleanse, I got the information from http://naturalmedicine.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_is_cleansing
I normally use more than one source, but I felt that the article was informative and thourough. If your interested, check it out, read it thouroughly, and read the correspondence, it's important to hear what other people just like you think about the subject, not just the author. Alright, that's pretty much it. Be good, and make the right choices.

Knowledge is Power

Welcome back people. Yesterday when I was writing my blog about fat burning supplements, I came across some interesting information about carnitine which I shared with you. I also stumbled across some interesting facts about fish oil. Everyone knows it contains essential omega-3 fatty acids which have a lot of benefits. EHA and DHA are also found there and aid in burning body fat.The omega-3s work by transforming to prostaglandins when they enter your body, which is a hormon like substance which causes thermogenesis, which is heat production by the body as a means utalize fat for energy. So that and the carnitine information, I found extremely useful. I've probably read that information about ten times, that's probably the main reason I began using those supplements in the first place, but rereading those is going to be the reason that I take them off of the shelf and renew my diligence regarding my usage of them. So the bottom line is, whenever you hear something is the bomb, and it's the next big trend in health and fitness, do a little research, and you might agree. It'll tell you how and when to properly utilize the supplements, but also it will give you an insight as to what's going on in there when you take the red pill, so you won't be so surprised like Neo. Bad form Morpheus, bad form. Arm yourself with some form of knowledge each day and by the end of the month, you'll be more informed then most trainers that just got into the game. You could buy a fitness magazine, and read one article a day until the next issue comes out. Try it, and let me know what you think. Until then, be easy.

Feel the Burn

Hey everybody, I hope all is well in your world, or on the verge of getting there. Today I'm going to say a few things about Fat loss agents. First off, I'd like to say that fat burners to work. You should consult your phacision before trying them like any other suppliment. But, when I just have to get totally lacerated, I accept no substitute. Although, when I do have to have a substitute, or want to use something in conjunction with a fat burner, I will take a serving of caffeine. It gives your metabolism a kick start and I recently found out that it binds to fat cells and help to prevent it from being stored. Green Tea extract is another friend of mine that gets to ride shotgun, on the road to Cuttstown U.S.A. The extract works by inhibiting the enzyme responsible for breaking down norepinephrine, which is the neurotransmitter that plays a pivotal role in regulating the metabolic rate. Lastly, Carnitine. Now where I'm pretty huge on the first two, carnitine, is a close third. I might have to try it separately to try and better gauge the effectiveness of it.The science behind it states, that it aids in fat burning by transporting fat into mitochondria of cells where it is burned for fuel.It is also said to enhance testosterone's anabolic potential, turning on the muscle building machines. Now that I said all that, I may have to put carnitine a notch higher. That's pretty much it. Remember that there is no supplement for hard work, so get in the room, move the weight. Then move your body around at an elevated pace for no less then twenty minutes. Do that three to four times a week, and the results are sure to please. Alright people, lets be better.

Build Your Robot

Greetings. Welcome back. I was about to work out the other day and like most days, when I'm about to workout, which actually are most days, I was super excited. But on this day I had to run errands, actually work, and the travel time in between. I noticed after a fashion, that is was getting annoyed with the fact that I had not began my workout yet. Then I thought back to my days a the University of Arizona and remembered sneaking out of the weight room, early. Shortly after my football career was over, I started down a new path. I no longer had the predetermined workout sheet based on my previous maximum lifts. I would just go to the gym, target a body part and play around from a couple of hours. I did the lifts that I really enjoyed, the ones I was really strong at, and most importantly the ones that got the best results. It became my hobby, it no longer seemed like work. Some people forget that that's why we should be doing this, because its awesome and it makes you feel strong and confident, it might even allow you to live longer, not to impress Larry Moe and Curly sue. So again the magic happens when working out stops feeling like work, so I don't know if any of you ever put together a model anything, but it's pretty damn fun, watching something physically materialize out of little ittie bittie parts. You have all the parts, you've got the instructions if you look in any magazine, or on the Internet, and you've got the rest of your life to pimp your Robot to your standards.

Pack Mentality

Hey, welcome back. Today I'm just going to say a few things about like minded individuals. Some, maybe even most of you are used to working out by yourselves. I'm the same way. When I first started personal training full time, I was required to stay at the gym a certain number of hours a day. Like a shift, almost like a real job....Yeah, pretty weird huh. Never the less, me being the progressive guy that I was, I decided to take that opportunity to try and construct the best physique that my genetic structure could handle, and document that process so that it could be duplicated simply by following the blue prints that I was laying out. Ha! Naw, at the time I was simply playing around on my lunch break, I did however, map out my workouts prier to blastoff, just to make sure I was hitting all the areas that I wanted to tune up. That helped my learn how to build programs, now it takes seconds, and often evolves on the fly. But I would workout by myself. I recorded my sets and reps, and although it was considerable weight I was moving, I may have limited my self by not using a spotter for about fifteen months. I recently over the past six months acquired a couple of workout partners. I say acquired because, I don't know how it really happens, sort of like, we work in a couple of sets and its like what time we doing this tomorrow. Now, for me the positives out weight the negatives of having a workout partner. For some, a negative is that is, should something pop up, and the have to go at it alone, they get spoiled by leeching off of someone Else's motivation and its hard for them to manufacture there own spark. You never want to loose that. The only negative for me is pace, sometimes I hit a groove, and I can bounce from exercise to exercise and blast non stop for forty minutes. Then again that is for the smaller body parts and just when I'm doing detain stuff. The big iron, it helps physiological, to have that support when you grab the scary weight, and to stretch yourself to achieve your ultimate potential, you simply must brave the scary weight, but, pay attention this is the important part, there's no sense in getting severely jacked up doing so. One workout partner is optimum, two is the max, any more and it just slows things down way too much. Power lifting, might be a different story. You can also gain motivation from them, when people are having mindless conversations about nothing, you guy and gals can talk about your goals, you can bounce ideas off of each other, some people reminisce about when they were in the best shape of there lives, and what shape there willing to accept this go round. The most important part is when you make that commitment to a friend to embark on that journey, for that span of time it actually is a commitment, and sadly alot of people will honor a commitment they make to another person before a commitment they make to their self. who knows the physiology behind it? Use it though, partner up, pick a path and climb. When ever your dawg needs a hand reach out, or simply bark it out with him.

the Rule of Three

Welcome back, today I'm gonna saw a few things about what I like to call the rule of three. Totally just made this up, but it's based off of a concept that I've been toying with for a few years. First off, I absolute love the the gym. It's my work place, its my garage, its my Max. You know like the Max. You know from saved by tha....never mind. Its where my peeps are. But when I graduated from college, and was in the credit card retention business, I didn't think I could justify paying for a gym membership, so I slowly built my home gym. I may get into that whole thing on a later blog. Anyway it was pimp, I had a pull up/dip rack in my little studio, still ranks as the best home gym investment in the history of my world. Anyway back on track. The rule of three simply states this. If you have a piece of cardio equipment, exercise through three commercial breaks, or blast hard and cruise during the breaks. Some times if you watch three scenes on a DVD that's enough, they do have to be longer scenes. The goal is to knock out an extra twenty or thirty minutes of exercise either first thing in the morning, or before bed. I might not do it right before bed, but it would be later in the day, as a second workout of if I couldn't make the gym. The rule also applies to resistance, you can play with the idea and mix it up. Three exercises, to failure. Three sets for three exercises, round robin them so one body part recovers while the other is working. An example of one combination I'm doing on some mornings is push up crunch combo. I'll push to close to failure, which is generally around thirty five or forty flip over and knock out, about thirty crunches, I then resume my push ups, switching my hand placement in an effort to tax the muscle from a different angle, I also switch the type of crunch that I preform. I complete four sets of each. It's a great way to start the day, even if I'm super sore, it would help to get the blood flowing back into those muscles and it alleviated some of the soreness. So if you wanna burn an extra couple hundred calories remember the rule of three, you might wanna implement it a couple times a day.