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Archives for May 2010

Muscle Building

May 31, 2010 by

The amount of muscle you can build is controlled by multiple factors, the two most important being your genetic starting point and your workout routine.

Your age is the next most important factor.

The specifics of your workout routine including the sets and reps and rest intervals play an important role in determining which routine will work best for you based on your current training status and your goals.

Nutrition and supplementation plays a minor role in muscle building. Adequate calories and how much protein you eat daily are all that is typically needed to ensure maximum results from a muscle building program.

In today’s audio training lesson we’ll discuss the major factors that contribute to your muscle building success.

John

(transcript: Insider Muscle Building)

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Nutrition Research: Problems Measuring Calories

May 24, 2010 by

Nutrition researchers are trying to determine what the best weight loss diet is, and in order to do this they must account for all the calories a person eats before they make any conclusions. This however is a bigger challenge than you might think. It has become apparent that people cannot accurately report how many calories they are eating on a regular basis. In fact chronic under-reporting of calories is one of the most common and pervasive issue in diet/health/fitness research.

Whether it is due to embarrassment or lack of memory, people will simply get it wrong when they are asked to report how much they’ve eaten. This makes studying diet and weight loss almost impossible as there is no solid conclusions that we can make about dieting other than the fact that people won’t admit what they’ve eaten.

In this audio training session we’ll discuss the issues with nutrition research and why the results are hard to measure. We’ll also talk about the permission to be light, to wear a size medium shirt and the difference between shirt on big and shirt off big.

(Download Transcription: “Problems Measuring Calories“) [pdf]

John

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Transformation Contest Final Coaching Call

May 20, 2010 by

It’s just about time to take your final pictures for the second Adonis Transformation Contest.

Here is the link to the final coaching call: Final Coaching Call

Monday May 24th is your last day to take your pics, however I suggest doing two rounds of pics. The first round on sunday and the second round in monday. Try a set of pics after a 24 hour fast, and another set after 24 hours of regular eating.

I suggest fasting from sat morning to sunday morning and trying your first set of pics sunday morning, then begin eating as usual for the remainder of sunday and do another set of pics sunday evening. Take another set of pics monday morning and finally monday evening. Send me the pics you like best.

Be sure to pump up all major upper body muscles before your pics, arms, chest, shoulders back. You can do this with push ups, decline push ups, some lateral raises and a tug of war style pull with a towel (you’ll need someone to hold the towel on the other end)…you can also use the towel for curls (again you need someone pulling down on the towel)

Send all of the following info to me at john(at)adoniseffect.com

Have the current days newspaper in plain view in at least one of your pics (remember to get the paper on both sunday and monday if you do two rounds of pics)

Pictures: Take a front, side and back picture

Lighting: Use lighting to your advantage as described in the coaching call

Tanning: Tanning will help improve your look, go for a tan today, friday and or saturday. You can also apply a self tanner cream or spray on tan. If you choose the self tanner or spray on make sure you do it friday or saturday and give at least one day to let it dry before you ever try applying oil (if at all).

Oil: Simplest and easiest way to apply oil is to use an oil cooking spray like pam (seriously no joke). Just a quick light spray might help bring out your look on camera. (this is optional). If you choose to do this and use a self tanner make sure you apply the self tanner at least one day before you try the oil to be sure the tanner is dry before you apply any oil (otherwise the oil and tanner will mix and run making you look blotchy).

Shave: Body hair will kill your look and hide any muscular definition. Shave your chest arms back, everything. Wherever there is hair it will hide your results.

Essay: Email your 250 word essay about your best Adonis Effect experience. This could be anything from the way other people have reacted to you to the way you’re now perceiving yourself or a combination of both.

Measurements: Send me your before and after of all the following measurements:

Waist

Shoulders

Weight

Height to waist ratio

AI ratio

We are also testing out the new muscle measuring system I created and if you don’t mind I could use your help. I need the following measurements as well:

Circumference of flexed bicep

Circumference of thigh at largest point

Circumference of hip (around your butt at largest point)

These measurements added to your shoulder and waist measurement will allow me to determine your “Volume Index” which is one of the components of our new muscle measurement called the “Muscle Index”

I’ll be providing more information on the Muscle Index in the next few weeks.

If you’ve got any questions ask them here in the comments section or email me. john(at)adoniseffect.com

Looking forward to hearing your stories and seeing your transformations.

John

Filed Under: Contest, Featured Articles

How Do You Measure Muscle Mass

May 17, 2010 by

Working out with weights builds muscle mass, this we know for certain. The amount of muscle you can gain is what we don’t know and it’s very difficult to measure.

Most supplements companies and fitness marketers will use a bodyweight claim to display increases in muscle mass.

But is bodyweight is notoriously bad at predicting or displaying changes in muscle mass over the short term, and very limited over the long term as well.

Many factors determine your bodyweight such as hydration status, the amount of time since your last meal, the amount of food mass in your stomach/intestines, fat mass.

It’s not uncommon for an average man to fluctuate between 5-7 pounds in a given day simply from food and liquid intake (and water and mass loss from sweating and just going to the bathroom to make a ‘deposit’)

The large daily fluctuations your body can go through make it very difficult to detect much smaller changes in muscle mass.

In other words, it’s virtually impossible to measure a 3-4 pound gain in muscle over the course of a year or two if you daily bodyweight can change as much as 5-7 pounds (and thats assuming you don’t gain or lose any fat mass at all).

Unless you have access to a body composition lab (such as those found at a university) you’ll only be left guessing at your muscle mass and change in muscle mass.

For this reason I’ve developed a new muscle mass measurement tool that will allow you to determine your relative muscle mass. This tool will also allow you to track any changes in muscle mass (weather you gain or lose muscle).

This is a new and more accurate predictor of muscle mass that corrects for fat mass, somatotype and changes in non-muscle lean mass…it’s called the Muscle Index and it will be the new standard in muscle measurement.

In todays podcast we discuss how the Muscle Index tool is built and why it’s a better measurement than bodyweight or any other predictor of muscle mass.

John

(download transcript here)

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Steroids The True Stars of Bodybuilding and Fitness

May 10, 2010 by

The true stars of bodybuilding, pro and amateur sports and fitness competitions aren’t the people, it’s the drugs. Many top athletes, bodybuilders, fitness models and even celebrities are on some combination of various physique enhancing drugs.

The following list is just an example of some of the drugs a typical bodybuilder might use to build muscle or reduce bodyfat.

Oil based testosterone injectable

Water based testosterone injectable

Testosterone derivative tablets (dianabol, anadrol, anavar etc)

Injectable testosterone derivatives (deca durabolin, winstrol, primobolan)

Growth Hormone injection

Insulin injection

IGF-1 injection (insulin like growth factor)

Oral clenbuterol tabs/liquid

T3 (thyroid hormone)

HCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin)

Diuretics (oral and injectable)

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but rather the most commonly used and popular ones.

Bodybuilders are the extreme and set the stage for what the upper limit of use and abuse is. From there fitness/figure models, pro athletes and celebrities who use drugs will be using some lesser combination of the same drugs that bodybuilders use. This is the trickle down effect from the extreme.

In todays podcast we discuss how pervasive drug use is in bodybuilding circles and how it’s obscures our perception f what we think it an attainable ideal body shape, size and proportion.

John

P.S. For a good example of a steroid free bodybuilder vs a known steroid user check out this link: EUGEN SANDOW

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Ideal Proportions Are The Goal

May 3, 2010 by

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