Health and Fitness

Many people come to me curious on the topics of health, fitness and nutrition. With so much information out there, it can be daunting to separate the truths from myths. A friend says one thing, a health/fitness professional says another. Who do you believe? In an effort to sort out of some of this confusion, I will address some of the most frequently discussed myths.

Myth 1: stretching before a work out prevents injuries:
studies show that stretching prior to activity can weaken the muscle by lengthening it to a point past optimal performance. This minimizes the benefits of strength training, cardio, and athletic performance.

Dave Q Says:
Instead try dynamic stretches that mimic the specific movement patterns you are about to do. This will loosen up the joints for your activity as well as reduce chance of injury.Many people come to me curious on the topics of health, fitness and nutrition. With…

What do you think the biggest mistake a newcomer to bodybuilding faces? Well the answer to that question is pretty straight forward, and can be summed up in a word – over training. When initially starting a weight training program the body can generally respond pretty quickly, and the firming of the body within the first couple of weeks can make the eager newcomer push even harder.

Recovery For Muscle Growth

This is where the problems for the newcomer can really start. The reason being, because after the initial muscle gains, the body will naturally begin to even itself out or plateau as it is known. Increasing the training volume at this point will only lead to over training. Now over training occurs when the muscles are not given sufficient time between workouts to be fully recovered.

Now lets get one thing straight, the process of developing muscle mass occurs during the recovery…

The ideal scenario to be in as a bodybuilder is maximum hypertrophy. This means our body is producing the most muscle tissue that it possibly can. This will make you a much larger individual, which is the goal of bodybuilding.

The majority of hypertrophy occurs while you’re asleep. A typical bodybuilder will sleep 9hrs, which means the body goes without nutrients for most of that time. The process of building muscles relies on the protein in our body. The nutrients from protein stay in the body for roughly 2-4hrs, so that means during the night, 5-7hrs your body goes without any nutrients. Therefore it is essential that you eat something that will prolong digestion while you sleep. In this case it is dietary fat. When you mix dietary fat and protein before bed, you will have the protein last throughout the night.

To continue on with the protein in your system, this…