Posts Comments

You are here: Home / 2011 / Archives for May 2011

Archives for May 2011

Rest and Recovery For Muscle Growth

May 30, 2011 by

The specific adaptations you get from your workouts is in part determined by the amount of rest you take from set to set, and the recovery you get from workout to workout.

Arnold Resting Between Sets

The rest you take from set to set determines the type of conditioning and anatomical changes that happen within your body. Shorter rest has a different response than longer rest. Both are necessary for maximum muscular adaptation to training.

The process of recovering from workout to workout is dependent on multiple factors including systemic stress, the amount of food you’re eating and probably most important, the quality and quantity of sleep you’re getting.

From month to month you can become fatigued in a specific rep and rest range. A good workout program should change every 3-4 weeks to accommodate this workout specific fatigue.

Finally on a year to year basis you should be taking some time off to let your entire system relax and come down to a base level. Taking a week off of training 3-4 times per year is one of the best things you can do to allow for systemic recovery from the stress induced by your workouts.

John

Login and Download Podcast Here

For more information as well as how to get access to Adonis UNCENSORED, click the link below:

Adonis UNCENSORED Premium Podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With: , , ,

Get Lean First, then Build Muscle

May 25, 2011 by

Muscle building happens at different rates at different times of your life. If you first start working out in your  late teens or early 20’s you get a big initial growth burst because of juvenile muscle growth being stacked on top of the beginners burst that everyone gets.

Adonis Index Junior Winner David Donoghue

Adonis Index Junior Winner David Donoghue

This is what the Adonis Index is all about

This is what the Adonis Index is all about

Once you reach your mid 20’s the fast growth stops and you have to accept that growth takes more time and effort and patience. This is the revelation that our Adonis Index Open Junior category winner David Donoghue has learned during is time with us as an Adonis Index community member and now contest winner.

In todays podcast David shares his experiences with muscle building and some of the things he has experimented with and how he got into the phenomenal shape you see him in here.

The message is pretty clear. Bulking and cutting simply doesn’t work. Spending years and even decades overweight just to build a few pounds of muscle is hardly a good way to go about getting in shape. You could end up spending all of your 20’s and 30’s as a fat guy telling yourself the lie that you’re ‘bulking’ and one day will cut down. This is a big mistake and many older guys are struggling with this. But David is smart and at only 25 years old he’s already got this figured out and will never make the mistake of being trapped in the endless bulking cycle.

The first key is giving yourself permission to be light and accepting that your bodyweight can’t tell you how good your body looks.

Getting to a lean bodyfat level you’re happy with should be your first step, then from there spend your time in the gym building muscle. At this point you can be ready to push it hard in the gym, and that is exactly what you need to do to build muscle…you gotta push it HARD during every workout.

It’s the difference between ‘working out’ and ‘training’. When David started ‘training’ is when the results really started showing up.

John

LISTEN:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Podcasts, Transformation Tagged With: , ,

Juvenile vs Work Induced Muscle Growth: What is going on Inside the Muscle

May 23, 2011 by

Multiple factors influence muscle growth including your age, genetic predisposition, exercise, nutrition and drugs. This is a general list but each category has specific effects and interact with each other. Over the course of your life there are two major factors that override all others with respect to how much muscle you’ll ever build and those factors are:

JuvenilevsWorkInducedGrowth

Once you're past the age of 25 Juvenile growth is over.

1) Juvenile Muscle Growth

2) Work Induced Muscle Growth

The effects that nutrition and your specific workout pattern can have on your ability to grow muscle will change depending on the stage of muscle growth you are working within.

The changes that happen at the muscle are also different depending on your stage of life and training status/history.

In todays podcast we’ll look at what happens at the cellular level when muscles are growing in both the juvenile state and as a result of working out.

We’ll discuss something called “satellite cells” and how they might be the limiting factor to the amount of muscle you can ultimately grow and how various factors such as nutrition, age, working out, supplements and drugs can affect your satellite cells.

We’ll also discuss how your specific situation will change how effective supplements like creatine or protein can be and what the best strategies for using these might be.

John

Login and Download Podcast Here

For more information as well as how to get access to Adonis UNCENSORED, click the link below:

Adonis UNCENSORED Premium Podcast

 

Filed Under: Muscle Building, Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With: , , , ,

Changing Your Body Changes Your Perspective

May 18, 2011 by

Your attitude towards yourself and towards others is going to be influenced by the look and shape of your body. You simply cannot separate your self perception from what you see in the mirror on a daily basis. This will color how you view everyone else even if you don’t realize it.

Sean_Rafferty_Adonis_Index_4th_Place_Front

Sean took 4th place and looks great

Sean_Rafferty_Adonis_Index_4th_Place_Back

Big back!

SeanRaffertyAdonisIndex4thPlaceSide

Sean has some serious muscle

The only time this will become clear to you is when you finally change your body and start seeing yourself and everyone else through a new set of eyes…and this is exactly what Sean Rafferty did in our last transformation contest when he took 4th place.

Sean explains what his perception and judgement of other people in the gym were like before he made his transformation, and then again after he became one of those people he was ‘judging’. It’s definitely a new perspective and a fairer more accepting perspective, and finally you’ll never know what it feels like until you make the change for yourself.

We also talk about Sean’s challenges with diet throughout the contest, how he found motivation and support to make the change and what he thinks are the keys to sticking it out and making it happen.

John

LISTEN:

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Filed Under: Contest, Transformation Tagged With: ,

What Controls Appetite? Appetite Regulation Explained

May 16, 2011 by

Seriously…what the heck controls appetite? Wouldn’t we be gazzillionaires if we had a simple answer for this question? We would be able to abolish obesity and all the related disorders that go along with it…if only it were that simple.

The truth is appetite is controlled by a complex interplay of various hormones released in different areas of your gastrointestinal tract as well as your fat cells themselves.

A short list of some of the gut and other hormones that are involved in appetite control include:

Ghrelin

Appetite

What controls your Appetite

Peptide Tyrosine-Tyrosine

Pancreatic Polypeptide

Glucagon-Like Peptide 1

Oxyntomodulin

Cholecystokinin

Leptin

Insulin

There are others but this list is some of the major players. But this list is to say nothing of the other controlling factors that do not originate from your gut or fat tissue but rather come from other area’s of your brain and are rooted in your emotional connection to food as well as your feelings of reward and pleasure.

The main brain structure that regulates appetite is being influenced on a constantly basis from other areas of your brain as well as your gut and fat tissue to send a complex set of signals to tell you to eat or not eat.

The two overriding driving factors that determine appetite can be classified as homeostatic and non-homeostatic appetite control.

In our modern obesogenic environment it has become the non-homeostatic controllers that override our control of appetite.

In today’s podcast, we talk about what the real drivers are for appetite in our modern society and what we can do about it. We’ll also discuss the direction research is going and how it is slowly uncovering more mechanisms and pathways that influence appetite.

John

Login and Download Podcast Here

For more information as well as how to get access to Adonis UNCENSORED, click the link below:

Adonis UNCENSORED Premium Podcast

 

Filed Under: Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With: ,

A Systems Approach to Health

May 9, 2011 by

When we think of health many of us might have too small a view of all the things that really affect our health in a measurable way.

There are many levels of systems in your life that you are a part of that will affect your health. It is becoming more prudent to view health from this systems approach. It can be imaged as layers of an onion, with the smallest component being at the center. The levels of systems that affect your health and interact with each other are as follows:

1. Cell – The cellular level.

Systems Approach to Health

Systems Approach to Health

2. Organ – All your cells are part of an organ

3. Organ System – A grouping of organs that make up a system (ex: digestive system)

4. Your body as a whole

5. Your lifestyle (includes diet and exercise)

6. Your family

7. Your place of work/school

8. Your city

9. Your country

10. The planet and it’s biosphere

At a glance this list may seem a bit extensive and unnecessary, but upon closer examination, you’ll see that each of these levels affects the other and many of the levels are within your control to change.

As an extension of this approach, we will discuss the concept of ‘Locus of Control’ and how to identify where you can and should take action in your own health and where you need to defer to a professional for their help.

Your health is your job, in all cases you need to take action to live the healthiest and most satisfying life (according to your definition).

Adoption a systems approach view of health will go a long way to helping you decide what you need to do to live the life you want.

John

Login and Download Podcast Here

For more information as well as how to get access to Adonis UNCENSORED, click the link below:

 

Adonis UNCENSORED Premium Podcast

 

Filed Under: health, Podcasts, Uncensored Podcasts S01 Tagged With:
Next Page »
Support