Strength and Fitness Tips | How to Build Muscle Top muscle building and fat loss tips.

Have you ever found yourself becoming increasingly lethargic within the first 30 minutes of a workout? Your muscles don’t feel tired, yet you have an unexplainable feeling of weakness? This is most likely down to your pre and during workout nutrition. During workout nutrition is often overlooked, however without it training can be very counter productive. So lets go into an overview of what your body is doing during exercise. Your body can use three different types of energy source these are; Carbohydrates, Fats and Proteins. So what do they do? Carbohydrates – They come in two forms, complex and simple. A complex carbohydrate is found in foods like bread, they are long chain and give a sustained energy release over a longer period of time. An example of a simple carbohydrate is Glucose that gives the body an immediate energy resource. Fats – Fats are much more complex molecules, ... Read More »

I’m going to keep this brief as being overloaded with information before you start is only going to put you off. A gym can be an intimidating place, I remember the first time I went, it was full of First team Rugby players lifting silly amounts of weight. It’s very easy to be put off and muscled off what you are trying to achieve. Here comes my first rule, always go into the gym with a routine pre planned. If you go around the gym using only what positions are available you might as well not be there. Wait for your equipment to be free and don’t let people rush you or take your spot. My second rule, you need to use free weights and not machines. Machines limit your range of movement, thus building a muscle to work in only the direction set by parameters of the machine. Free ... Read More »

Hey guys, over the past year and a bit of training I have heard mixed views on the effect of cardiovascular exercise when trying to gain weight. Some people say cut it out completely others say it’s vital, this obviously means that different people experience different results, as with all things in life. I therefore tried all sorts of different training types, until I found something that worked for me. As you may know I am naturally slender so it doesn’t really seem to make much sense to do much cardio as I am trying to gain weight.  This couldn’t be further from the case, I trained for 2 months without cardio and found I ended up gaining weight slower and built more fat than I wanted.  When I trained with 15mins of cardio before a session and 20mins after I found I put on lean muscle so much faster. ... Read More »

Improve your fitness Right so improving your fitness, lets get one thing straight it’s not going to be as enjoyable as lifting weights. It’s harder to see physical improvements, you will not get bulging veins like you do when you lift weights. Well that’s not entirely true, what I should have said was at first it might not be enjoyable, I personally love increasing my fitness. Why? Well once you get into it your body starts releasing a hormones called endorphins, which to be frank are ‘feel good’ hormones. The more you do it the more of these you are going to get. So that being said what steps do you need to take? Record everything You need to make sure you keep a record of what you are doing, so get a pen and paper and write down what you want to achieve for the week. Set goals, at ... Read More »

Hey guys, so you are looking for some high calorie foods and meals that contain virtually no dead calories. What are dead calories? Well I define dead calories as something that is high in energy but has very little nutritional value. For instance a cheesecake is very high in calories yet it has almost no useful nutritional value, all the calories are in the form of sugars and saturated fats. So what are you looking for? You need to find foods and meals that have a good balance of each nutrient. A good guide is 40% Protein 40% Carbohydrate (of which 30% is complex) and 20% fats. You should also be getting a good portion of vegetables in with each meal, as your Mum probably once said, ‘eat your greens!’ So here are some examples: Pasta based meals Pasta is an excellent source of complex carbohydrates, typically in 100g of ... Read More »

High intensity training was first implemented in the 1970’s and used by many ‘Mr Olympians’ and many world class athletes. This training method is infrequent, usually performed once every fortnight and requires lower weight and higher reps. The rest is needed because you’re pushing your muscles to failure from which they need time to recover. Why are you pushing your muscles to failure? Exercising your muscles to failure is thought to further stimulate growth and stamina, it can be useful when your training reaches a plateau. You should only train one muscle group or a muscle group and their counterpart. For example Back and Biceps, shoulders and triceps etc. When working out like this your form is vital and the movement is mean’t to be slow and controlled. You should be looking to perform 15 repetitions per set at which point you should be reaching failure, and the workout length ... Read More »

Important fat burning tips When trying to burn fat it’s important to remember that skipping meals will only slow down your metabolism, making your health deteriorate. So avoid this, changing your diet alone will not cause you to suddenly lose loads of excess fat however when combined with a good cardiovascular programme it can work wonders. That being said some foods will naturally increase the body’s metabolism, so adapting your diet to include these foods is going to help you shed any excess weight. Foods that burn fat Citrus fruits high in Vitamin C – Oranges, limes, mangos all contain vitamin C which stimulates the carnitine amino acid, carnitine is involved in transporting fats around the body. The more free and mobile a fat is the easier it is oxidised. Apples – I have given Apples it’s own class because it contains a higher percentage of a substance called pectin, ... Read More »

Hey guys, so protein…. A vital aspect in both recovery and growth but which one is best for you? As I am sure you are aware, the diversity in types and brands of protein supplements is huge. This can also be said with the pricing, with some brands ‘Whey’ protein being 5x more expensive than the next. The pricing is often to do with a monopoly effect, some brands have established themselves therefore they can charge more for their products i.e. Maximuscle. Protein powders and supplements are often seen to be only used by bodybuilders, the truth is they are used by triathletes, tennis players, rugby players…etc the list could go on for hours. The type of protein supplement they are taking will however be different. Subsequently having a protein shake is no longer only for men, it’s become very trendy for women to have a ‘toning’ shake. Maximuscle have ... Read More »