Month: April 2010

Victor Martinez Speaks About Fight With Chris Cormier

Yes, that’s me with IFBB Pro Victor Martinez at the offices of supplement company MHP. And yes, he IS wearing a “The Goonies” movie T-shirt! At the largest fitness/supplement trade show in Europe, Chris Cormier fought Victor Martinez last weekend! The fight took place at the annual FIBO trade show which in Germany. When the fight broke out, tables, chairs, protein powder and nitric oxide stimulators flew and people fled the hell out of the way! Okay, no protein powder or nitric oxide stimulators flew but you get the picture! Now after such an incident, most pros would may have dodged reporters and their fans and try to just sweep it under the rug. But like a true champion, Victor Martinez issued a statement online about the situation via MuscularDeveopment.com:

“Just wanted to take this time to send my apologies to MHP, MD, Weider, Exhibitors and most of all my fans. As most of you know, this past weekend there was an incident that happened between Chris & I. It occurred at FIBO & sadly, I wished it could have been handled in in more professional way, but, it wasn’t. I’m happy to say though that Chris & I have settled our differences and look

Read moreVictor Martinez Speaks About Fight With Chris Cormier

Push Ups for Pecs, Tris & Abs

That’s right, abs too! As we all know, push ups are an excellent exercise that you can do just about anywhere. They work the chest and triceps and to a lesser extent, the shoulders. Put your feet up on an exercise ball or a chair and you can do inclines to focus more on the upper chest. Move your hands closer together and you have yourself a very challenging triceps exercise. But what most people don’t realize is that they work the abs also.

You see, the abs are required to keep the body stabilized when you assume the push up position and the movement puts extra stress on the muscle as you complete each rep. Many cutting-edge exercise physiologists and strength coaches are now recommending that the most effective way to work the abs is using movements that don’t involve too much movement of the abs like crunches but to instead use movements like “the plank”, which stimulate the abdominal muscles without contracting them. It’s also becoming clear that crunches and sit ups may increase the risk of back problems.

Read morePush Ups for Pecs, Tris & Abs

Kai Greene Signs With Weider

On top of having a sweet contract with supplement company MUSCLE MEDS, 35 year old Kai Greene has left Muscular Development magazine to sign an exclusive publishing deal with Weider Publications/AMI. This is going to REALLY piss off Steve Blechman (owner of MD) because Kai has been the post boy for that magazine for years now. With MD stealing Jay Cutler from Weider just a few weeks back, I guess this is just a little payback!

“I’m excited and I feel many steps closer to the goals that I dream about,” Greene said. “The first bodybuilding magazine I ever read was Muscle and Fitness, but FLEX wasn’t long to follow. To become a Weider athlete and be a part of the Weider organization is like watching a little boy’s dream come true … Myself and my team are very thankful and happy with all of the success we’ve been able to experience thus far … We’re not totally fulfilled yet, though. We still understand we have a lot of work to do and are happy to do that work. I’m thankful for the opportunity to do it in this fashion, as a Weider athlete.” Greene said.

Read moreKai Greene Signs With Weider

Pull Ups Best for Upper Body?

If you were only allowed to do one exercise for upper body, what would it be? To answer this question, you would probably want to consider a movement that worked as many major muscle groups as possible, something you can do just about anywhere and that allows you to adjust the intensity.

Probably the best exercise to satisfy all of these needs is the pull up. Pull ups primarily work the lats (the upper, outer back) and the biceps but they also involve the rest of the back, the traps, chest, deltoids (shoulders) and forearms. No other single movement can work that many upper body muscles. You also don’t even need to belong to a gym to do pull ups, you can use an inexpensive chin up bar that fastens easily into a doorway, rafters in a garage, the branches on a tree, you could even rig up a bar or rope between any two sturdy objects.

Read morePull Ups Best for Upper Body?

Creatine Side Effects

As far as I know, the best part about creatine is that there are no adverse side effects of creatine. As far as reported by studies, creatine is totally safe and works as a very effective supplement. Although, there are no risks of taking creatine, but we don’t know about its long-term effects as the record of research is relatively recent.

Just like every supplement it is not recommended to over-supplement creatine once your muscles have achieved the saturation value. That is, you should only take the dosage recommended by your doctor or as written on the bottle. A conservative approach is to plan to use creatine only for limited periods before taking a substantial break from it so the body can re-set to normal functioning.

Many experiments performed on creatine have shown that creatine does not contain any adverse side effect as such but the only effect of taking creatine is that after taking creatine supplement you will experience an increase in body mass. But, that is the thing I think that all bodybuilders and athletes would love to have.

Creatine Side Effects

However, in a three-year study designed to find out whether these creatine side effects really do exist, creatine had no effect on the incidence of injury or cramping in a group of American footballers. Although, no negative side effects have ever been noted in the research but, then also some effects that you may physically experience may be:

  • Some of the persons claim that creatine users are susceptible to cramps, muscle spasms, and some may even be prone to pulled muscles.

    Read moreCreatine Side Effects

Creatine Dosage

First and foremost thing that you must keep in mind is – there is no single creatine dosage that is right for everyone. The creatine dosage routine that you select all depends on your body, your daily routine and needs. It all depends on your body’s weight, your body fat percentage, fitness goals that your are aiming, and the type and intensity of training that you are performing. Creatine dosage should be adjusted according to your individual needs, or as advised by your health or nutritional practitioner.

What is the recommended dosage for Creatine Monohydrate?

The typical dosage for pure creatine monohydrate is approximately 10-30 grams/day for a normal man. But there are many creatine products coming in the market nowadays. So, your creatine dosage depends on the type of creatine monohydrate supplement you are taking. It is always recommended to take the dosage as recommended on the product label. You must also read the directions to take creatine as written on the bottle.

Creatine Dosage Instructions

Your creatine dosage should be divided into 3 phases namely loading phase, maintenance phase and wash out phase.

Read moreCreatine Dosage

Cycling Creatine

Many experts recommend cycling creatine. They recommend that you load up with 20 or 30 grams per day for five days, take a maintenance dosage of five to 20 grams for two or three months and then discontinue it for a month or two. Many athletes believe this is the only way to take creatine. This is a fairly closed-minded approach. There may have been a few reasons for getting off of creatine that were justified years ago but they are not justified now. Many years ago, there was some legitimate question concerning the safety of creatine. Some people with various muscular diseases had used creatine for years without any apparent side effects but at that time, there had been no specific, organized study of potential side effects over the long haul (over six months).

Because of this situation, it may have been prudent advice to take some time off creatine. That way, if it did have any negative effects on the body, there would be time between cycles for the body to readjust. Now however, according to the American College of Sports Medicine’s roundtable meeting, there isn’t any definitive scientific evidence that creatine is harmful. One study even found creatine to be safe when subjects took it for up to five years and as much as 80 grams per day!

Read moreCycling Creatine

Combination Creatine Supplements

Many companies have tried to improve upon creatine by combining it with different supplements and nutrients. This is a compelling idea because if we can signal the muscles to take up more creatine from the blood, we will increase strength and muscle size – it’s that simple. The only problem is that there are only a few substances that can do this successfully. Let’s look at what works and what doesn’t work when combined with creatine.

Creatine and Ribose
Some companies combined ribose with creatine and this is an interesting idea. Let’s look at why. All the body’s movements, including exercising, are fueled by ATP. ATP is created in the body from food calories through a variety of metabolic processes. Basically, ribose is used to construct the ATP molecule. The theory is that extra ribose will allow the body to restore ATP levels in the muscle that have been depleted by exercise. Without getting too technical, ribose does regenerate ATP in some situations in which muscles have undergone very intense, exhaustive exercise. However, it has very limited effects on performance in these situations and only with very high dosages.

When it was tested in weight training men, 10 grams per day of ribose for four weeks increased their bench press by about 8 pounds, the group that didn’t get ribose increased their bench press by about 5 pounds – these results are not very impressive considering that most ribose supplements contain less than one third of the amount used in this research. Ribose has not been shown to increase muscle mass. So on its own, despite having a solid theoretical basis, ribose is not very effective even when large doses are used. No published studies exist to show that ribose and creatine would have any special effects when combined together. So until ribose is shown to increase performance or muscle mass at affordable dosages, stick with proven creatine formulas.

Read moreCombination Creatine Supplements

About Protein & Amino Acids

The following article will address the information that every person who trains hard and wants maximum results should know about protein. In fact, if you don’t know this stuff, you’re just going to waste your money blindly choosing supplements based on hyped-up advertising and suspect information churned out by various “experts”. The only way to defend yourself (not to mention your muscles and your pocketbook) from these clowns, is to get informed – “knowledge is power”.

This is very important, because, believe it or not, very few people who claim to be experts in this industry actually have a degree in nutrition. If you think about it, that’s amazing! You are reading articles about “nutritional” supplements in the magazines and websites that have been written by people who have never been formally taught about nutrition!! Would you read articles about medicine that weren’t written by doctors if you were investigating which medication to use? Would you read articles that weren’t written by qualified architects if you were trying to build a skyscraper? So I hope by this analogy, you can see that a lot of what you think you know about sports nutrition and supplementation may not actually be on the level.

But like I was saying, if you train hard, use supplements and want results, it is crucial that you know the proper basics about nutrition – mainly because most supplements are based on foods or nutrients from foods. So once I’ve explained the basics about nutrition and then linked the supplements with the everyday foods that you eat, you’ll be able to look at supplements in a whole new light!

Read moreAbout Protein & Amino Acids

Creatine, How To Use (part 1)

Despite being the most researched and proven sports supplement ever, most people don’t have all of the facts straight about creatine. The main questions I get asked are how and when to take it, is it safe? should I cycle? what should I take it with? What shouldn’t I take it with? and about the different forms of creatine. In the following two-part article I’ll address all of these questions and more, so that you can make the best choices around your creatine use and that means that you’ll be able to get the best possible results from your efforts in the gym!

First off, let’s go over the basics. There is no reason for me to bang on about the benefits of creatine. It is so effective at building strength and muscle (if used properly), that even the extremely restrictive UK advertising authorities have allowed companies to make these kinds of claims about it. More impressive is the fact that there are over 3,000 studies on creatine and exercise! So creatine is without question the real deal.

Next, let’s get the safety issue out of the way. As long ago as 2000, a roundtable of 12 of the world’s foremost creatine experts found “no definitive evidence” that creatine has any side effects whatsoever and the results were published by the American College of Sports Medicine. One study even found creatine to be safe when subjects took it for up to five years and as much as 80 grams per day! Actually, in some studies, the “placebo” group (that didn’t get creatine) reported more negative effects than the creatine group.

Read moreCreatine, How To Use (part 1)

Creatine, How To Use (part 2)

In the last instalment, I discussed the massive scientific support for using creatine monohydrate, addressed some very common myths about it and talked about how and when to take it and whether you should cycle on and off it. Now I’ll address the different kinds of creatine and what you should be taking with this proven muscle-builder to ensure you get the absolute maximum results from your gruelling sessions in the gym.

What Type of Creatine Should You Use?
This has to be the most controversial creatine topic because there are a few companies who are selling millions of dollars worth of fancy new creatine products that may not be any better than plain old creatine monohydrate. Here’s one important fact that everyone should know about creatine – regular creatine monohydrate is absorbed virtually 100 percent from the digestive tract. This has been known for over 90 years and anyone who says otherwise is NOT an expert on creatine. So if you see a creatine product claiming that it is ‘absorbed’ better than regular creatine monohydrate, you should be sceptical to say the least. Because creatine is fully absorbed from the gut, the trick is to increase the ‘uptake’ of creatine from the blood into the muscle and that can only be done through increasing the levels of certain hormones and cellular transporters in the body (more on this later).

Read moreCreatine, How To Use (part 2)

How Much Protein Should you Consume?

Make no mistake, heavy weight-training greatly increases protein requirements. The leading researchers who study protein requirements for athletes like Dr. Peter Lemon and Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky and leading sports nutrition experts like Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale have clearly shown that the protein needs of athletes are higher than those of ordinary folks(1,2,3). But remember, don’t get caught up in the mindset that you should only eat as much protein as you “need”. If you eat more than that the only consequence is that you will get leaner or possibly it might decrease your appetite too much.

Ideally, a 200 pound hard-training athlete or bodybuilder should eat at least 30 to 50 grams of protein at each of five or six small meals each day. 50 grams of protein is equivalent to one full chicken breast or two and a half small hamburger patties (there are tons of websites that give protein and calorie values for various foods that allow you to track your food intake).

Most top bodybuilder’s never allow more than 3 or 4 hours to go by without eating protein and they eat at least six meals a day. Their daily intake might include two to four protein shakes or meal replacement drinks since it can be difficult for even the most dedicated athlete to get adequate protein or an adequate number of meals from regular food.

Read moreHow Much Protein Should you Consume?