Convenient Protein

"I can't eat protein three times a day. What can I do?" 

So that must be the deal - not being able to eat protein seems to be the big obstacle holding many of you back from seeing progress with training and dieting. I believe that a high quality Protein Powder can fix that.

They come with all the possibilities you could want.

There are powders with whey protein, rice protein, vegetarian style, etc. Just get one that fits your lifestyle and try to find a way to get it down that doesn't increase the number of calories in your meal. For example if protein at breakfast is hard for you to figure out, make a protein shake. Use the directions on the container and add water (not milk or fruit juice which will add calories) and some fruit or yogurt with fruit. Use a calorie counter either as an App or in a book and figure out approximately the number of calories you are about to consume. 

Be reasonable - 500 calories on a 1000 calorie a day diet will take up too many available calories. Try to be in the less than 1/3 of your day allotment range. This should take care of at least one meal. I have a shake in the morning because I don't want to cook at 4a.m. - what ever your reason is - try it, it works for me.

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Body Fat and Resistance Training

If you are the same weight now that you were in High School, I can bet you aren't the same body composition. Starting at about the age of 20 if you are not doing anything to promote the growth of muscle mass then you are losing about 2lbs. of muscle a year. The take away is that we all must be doing some form of resistance training to gain muscle or we will be fatter every year even if our bodyweight remains the same.

 My preferred resistance training is a combination of bodyweight exercises such as push-ups and pull-ups, with free weight and machine exercises. Find a form of resistance that gives you pleasure and keep at it or change to a different one but, you can't give up the fight. I know it's working for me!!!

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Know Your Bodyparts

It is really important to identify what bodypart is targeted by each exercise in your program.  The mental connection cannot be overemphasized.  No matter what you are trying to accomplish.
 If  you are not connecting to the bodypart the exercise is designed to work on, you will be wasting your time.

For example, a chest exercise requires thinking about the chest as you execute.   The contraction in the chest must be part of your concentration.

If you are not feeling the chest there are two possibilities.  One is that you have not yet developed the mind to muscle connection and the second that you are not using the correct form.

When you put together your exercise program be sure you know each exercise and what bodypart each exercise is designed to enhance.

 If you have not been doing this, it will give your workout a new dimension.

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Workout vs Cardio

One of the most common questions I am asked is:  What should I do first cardio or weights?

My preference would be to do them at different times altogether.
That being unrealistic for most people, the next best plan would be weights followed by cardio.

Believe it or not weight training, and the ability to contract muscles takes concentration. If you exhaust yourself with cardio before your weight training session, most likely  the weight work will suffer.

Try getting a good workout when you are depleted. Not likely.

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Cardio and Muscle Mass

Call me a "groupie" but, my favorite athletes to watch in competition are short track sprinters.  Why - because they look so damn good.

So what makes this rock hard muscular look that's so appealing -  Sprinting.  So if I translate this to an average person I would suggest that the cardio be done more like sprints than long distance running.  We have all seen people who are in the gym day after day, year after year doing endless cardio and not looking a bit different.  So try something else - INTERVALS - short bursts which can be done on a tread mill, bike, stair stepper or any cardio equipment.

Try starting with a warm up and then sprint for 30 seconds.   Follow with an active rest for 90 seconds.  Continue for 20 minutes.  After you are comfortable with this output, increase your sprint time and decrease the rest until you are able to go one minute on one minute off for 20 minutes.  Alternatively you can experiment with the length of sprint and active rest times. Now that's CARDIO.

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