Misconceptions

     In this entry I am going to talk about some of the stupid things I hear and see people do that are not good for your body or just plain counterproductive.

1. "REWARDING YOURSELF"

"I just ran, that means it's okay for me to eat this cake"

All of the time I hear people, females in particular, talk about how they just went running or did some cardio so it makes it okay to "reward" themselves with a big piece of cake or ice cream. This is so incorrect it is not even funny. First of all, what is the point of even going out and running if you are just going to throw it all away by eating junk. You might as well not even go out and run. Second, these people think they still got fat loss benefit out of the running when in fact, they take in more calories during the reward than they burn while doing cardio. If an average person runs for 30 minutes at a pace of 10 minutes per mile, they will burn about 300 calories. In one cup of ice cream, there are appoximately 290 calories. And that is if the person only eats one cup of ice cream, which we all know, is not very much ice cream.

2. THE SMITH MACHINE

Look how far forward her legs are, is that a position a person could be in naturally?

Now, I would just like to say that I do think the smith machine has its uses, such as for shrugs and calf raises, but what I see waaaay too often is people using the smith machines for benching and squatting and thinking this will make them stronger. I understand why people use them, because they are considered "safer" because you don't need a spotter, and because you can put more weight on it to try to look like you are strong. But, just because you won't drop the weight on yourself does not mean that it is safer. The reasons the smith machine is less safe than barbell and free weights is because it restricts your plane of motion. Your body is not naturally built to go in straight lines up and down with any wiggle room from side to side. Another reason these machines are not good for strength training is because they take your stabilizer muscles out of the workout and just isolate muscles, meaning the only thing you are actually getting stronger at is the smith machine workout, not actually functional strength.

3. DOING ABS ONLY

First of all, I would like to say ab workouts have their place in a workout as it is completely necessary to build core strength. But I see too many overweight people doing crunches and thinking that that is what is going to get them to have a six-pack. A six-pack does not come from having super strong abs, it comes from having a low bodyfat percentage. So, instead of doing 500 crunches, fix your diet and get on the treadmill.

4.NOT LIFTING HEAVY

This one is mainly for the females. "I don't want to get big and bulky." You hear this from females all the time at the gym. I do not know where this misconception came from that lifting heavy weights makes you turn into a man and get huge. It has been proven that a woman should work out no differently than a man. Girls, you are not going to get huge muscles by lifting weights, it is not in a females genetics for that to happen without many years of lifting for the purpose to become a female bodybuilder.

5. NOT EATING WHILE ON A "DIET"

This is one of the main diet misconceptions in the world. "If I want to lose fat, I just won't eat." This actually ends up having the opposite effect on a person. If you don't eat, then your metabolism doesn't have to work which in turn makes your metabolism weak. If you want to lose weight, eat less food more often. 5-8 meals per day keeps your metabolism working. Throw in cardio and a workout program and you are good to go for fat loss.

Supplementation

     In order to maximize your ability to grow muscle, you must have a great diet. This is a known fact. But often times it is very hard to have a great diet without supplements.
     The supplements I would recommend to everybody are a good multivitamin and a good protein powder. These two things are essential to someone who wants to get big. The multivitamins I would suggest are Orange Triad by Controlled Labs and Animal Pak by Universal Nutrition. The thing with protein powder is that it is not all that different from company to company, so I would suggest to find the cheapest protein that is low in carbs and extra additives.
     Now, the extra supplements... These will benefit you greatly but are not necessary for anybody. These include creatine, amino acids, nitric oxides, and thermogenics. Out of these, I would definitely recommend creatine and amino acids. Nitric oxides are good for extra energy during your workout and can help to increase blood flow to your muscles. Thermogenics are essentially weight loss supplements that increase your body temperature to burn more calories. I would only recommend Nitric Oxides and Thermogenics to advanced lifters as they are not really necessary and wouldn't do a beginner much good.
     The supplements I currently am taking are multivitamin (GNC's Megamen Sport), protein (Bodyfortress Super Advanced Whey Protein), creatine (EFX Kre-Alkalyn, EAS's Push), amino acids (Glutamine, Taurine, Cytosport's Monster Amino ), nitric oxide (Gaspari Nutrition Plasma Jet, Gaspari Nutrition' Superpump 250), and Fish Oil. Honestly, I get depressed just thinking about how much money I have spent on all of these... but I can see the great improvements in my body so I just say "Money well spent."

Learn more about supplements as well as buy them at http://bodybuilding.com/

Nutrition

     In this entry, I am going to discuss my diet. The diet I am currently on is called the Ketogenic Diet. It is similar to the very popular Atkins diet in that it is low carb. The basic principle to these diets is that your body will force itself to burn fat for energy as opposed to normal when your body burns carbohydrates. The difference though, is that in the Ketogenic Diet one is to consume low carb, moderate protein, and high fat as opposed to the Atkins diet which is high protein, low fat, low carb.

     To be more specific, Keto is 60/35/5 ratio of calories from fat/protein/carbs. To calculate the grams of fat/protein/carbs into calories from each, you multiply them each by a different number. For fat, you multiply it by 9. For protein, you multiply it by 4. For carbs, you multiply it by 5. So for example, if you ate something that had 5g of fat, 11g of protein, and 2g of carbs, you would be consuming 45 calories from fat, 55 calories from protein, and 8 calories from carbs. This would put you at a 42/51/7 ratio, which for keto would be low in fat. 

     Also, during this diet, you should be consuming between 5-8 meals per day. This does not mean you eat 8 huge meals per day, though. They are smaller meals that should average out to around 2000 or so calories when you are eating at a maintenance. When you are trying to cut weight or lose fat, you should typically eat 500 calories below maintenance- for me, this averages out to about 1900 per day because my maintenance level is around 2400 because I am bigger than an average person at 6'4" 240lbs. 

     A typical day of eating for someone on the ketogenic diet looks like this:

• Breakfast: egg with bacon
  28 g egg, 11 g bacon, 37 g of 36% heavy whipping cream, 23 g butter
• Snack: peanut butter ball
  6 g peanut butter and 9 g butter.
• Lunch: tuna salad
  28 g tuna fish, 30 g mayonnaise, 10 g celery, 36 g of 36% heavy whipping cream and 15 g lettuce.
• Snack: keto yogurt
  18 g of 36% heavy whipping cream, 17 g sour cream, 4 g strawberries and artificial sweetener.
• Dinner: cheeseburger (no bun)
  22 g minced (ground) beef, 10 g American cheese, 26 g butter, 38 g cream, 10 g lettuce and 11 g green beans.
• Snack: keto custard
  25 g of 36% heavy whipping cream, 9 g egg and pure vanilla flavouring

So as you can see, you typically want to eat anything high in fat and protein while low in carbs. This includes most meats, fish, full fat cheeses, etc.

     The reason I chose this diet is because I am just trying to cut a little bit of fat to get more defined, while at the same time preserving as much of my muscle as possible, before the summer when I will be at the pool with my shirt off a lot. I am currently at around 13% bodyfat and hope to drop to around 8-9% before beach season. 

If you want to learn more go to http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=36497

Working Out

LAYNE NORTON

     To start off this blog, I am going to be talking about my work out routine. I have included a short definition of some of the terms you may not know at the bottom of the blog. It is a 5 day, power/hypertrophy routine designed by natural bodybuilder Layne Norton with 2 days devoted to power/strength gains and the remaining 3 days devoted to hypertrophy. Each muscle gets worked twice per week with the first day being worked in a low rep range, 5, and the second day being worked in a higher rep range,8-12.

     Basically, what this routine calls for is:

Day One, UpperPower:

• 3 or 4 Compound pressing and pulling movements, 3-5 sets in the 5 rep range, and 1 Accessory Movement

Day Two, Lower Power:

• 2 or 3 Squatting and Deadlifting movements, 3-5 sets in the 5 rep range, and 1 Accessory Movement

Day Three, OFF

Day Four, Hypertrophy Chest/Arms:

• 3 Benching movements, 2-3 sets in the 8-12 rep range. 1-2 reps short of failure.
• 3 Supersets consisting of 2 exercises each, 3 biceps and 3 triceps, 3 sets in the 8-12 range, 1-2 reps short of failure.
• 1 Chest accessory exercises, 3 sets, 8-12 reps, 1-2 reps short of failure.

Day Five, Hypertrophy Shoulders/Back/Traps:

• 4 Supersets consisting of 2 exercises each, 3 Shoulders and 3 Backs in the 8-12 reps range, and 2 Traps in the 10-15 rep range, 2-3 sets each. 1-2 reps short of failure.
• 1 Optional Back compound, 2 sets in the 8-12 rep range, 1-2 reps short of failure.

Day Six, Hypertrophy Legs/Calves:

• 2 Supersets consisting of 2-3 exercises each, 4-5 sets in the 8-15 range. 1-2 reps short of failure.

Day Seven, OFF

The exact workout I do is:

Monday: Upper Power -5x5

• Barbell Bench Press
• Barbell Rows
• Military Press
• Pull-ups
• Barbell Curl
• Skull crushers or heavy dips
• Barbell Shrugs

Tues: Lower Power -5x5

• Back Squat
• Stiff Leg Deadlift, Or Romanian DL
• heavy hip thrust
• 6-8 sets of Standing Calf, little higher reps, I like to do 6-8 on heavy days

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Hypertrophy Chest/Arms (For hypertrophy days I never go to failure, always stop about 2 reps before failure)

• DB Incline Bech 3x8-12
• Barbell Close Grip Bench 3x8-12
• DB Flat Bench 2x8-12
• Preacher Curls 3x8-12 super setted with
• Standing French Press 3x8-12
• Push Downs 3x8-12 super setted with
• DB Hammer Curls 3x8-12
• Machine Curl 3x8-12 supersetted with
• Machine Dips 3x8-12
• Cable Crossovers 3x8-12
• Pullovers 3x8-12

Friday: Hypertrophy Shoulders/Back/Traps (For hypertrophy days I never go to failure, always stop about 2 reps before failure)

• DB Shoulder Press 3x8-12 super setted with DB Lateral Raise 3x8-12
• Bent Over Row 3x8-12 super setted with
• Bradford Press 3x8-12
• Lat Pull Down (Wide Grip) 3x8-12 super setted with
• Shrugs 3x10-15
• Lat Pull Down (Close grip, palms facing in) 2x8-12 super setted with
• Upright Row 2x10-15

Saturday: Hypertrophy Legs/Calves (For hypertrophy days I never go to failure, always stop about 2 reps before failure)

• Leg Press or Hack Squat 5x8-12 super setted with
• Standing Calf Raise 5x10-15
• Leg Extensions 5x10-15 super setted with
• Sitting Leg Curls 5x10-15 super setted with
• Sitting Calf Raise 4x8-12

Sunday: Cardio

DEFINITIONS

Muscle Hypertrophy: The increase in volume of muscle due to the enlargement of its component cells

Natural Bodybuilding: Bodybuilding without the use of banned substances, such as anabolic steroids

Compound Movement: A lift that stresses 2 or more bodyparts

Failure: Lifting until you cannot perform another rep due without lowering weight

Superset: Performing 2 exercises in a row without a break in between

*I got these templates for this routine from http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Layne_Norton's_Power/Hypertrophy_Routine

so I do not want to take credit for developing this routine or anything, I am just simply stating which routine I use.

**I would also like to say that this is a rather advanced routine that should not be performed by a beginner to lifting. This is a routine to move to after having years of experience. The beginning routine I would suggest is Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=998224 

In my next blog I will be discussing my nutrition as it relates to lifting.