My Bodybuilding Background

I’ve been training for a lot of years now. For the first couple of years, I just did lots of curls and bench presses in my garage, whenever I felt like it. As I became more committed to my training, I read lots of magazines, online guides, bodybuilding books, etc., which led to me incorporating squats into my training program. I got results, very good results, so put more focus into my squats, leading to better results. However, I never really did deadlifts that often. About 7 years ago, I combined deadlifts into my training program and my results improved massively.

The Barbell Deadlift

Barbell deadlifts are the best mass gaining exercise, closely followed by the squats in my honest opinion. Not only does a heavy deadlifting workout boost your testosterone levels, but it also works pretty much every muscle in your body, as a unit. There are so many variations on the deadlift, that you will always get good results and never really plateau on this exercise (as long as your diet and rest are perfect).

For best results, I recommend using a weight which is around 75% of your 1 rep max and following a powerlifting style, such as 5×5, i.e. 5 sets of 5 reps. Any heavier and your form can be compromised, leading to injuries. Make sure you follow perfect form, by watching as many videos on Youtube as possible. Power the weight up as fast and as powerfully as possible, keeping your back arched, shoulders back and body tight. Increasing your strength on this exercise will make you stronger on seemingly unassociated lifts, such as the bench press, whilst thickening up your back muscles more than any amount of pullups or pulldowns will ever achieve. You can try higher reps, slow reps, partial reps, etc. to vary the exercise. Just find what works for you and go with it.

Barbell Deadlift Variations

Some people struggle to find good form on the barbell deadlift and round their backs on the lower part of the movement. This is dangerous, as heavy weights can lead to serious injuries over months and years of training. From experience, it seems that people with longer legs and shorter arms and bodies struggle on finding good barbell deadlift technique. Your shins and kneecaps generally take a scraping and even get in the way if you have short arms and a short body compared to your legs and rounding the back seems unavoidable for this type of person. If this applies to you, or you have some other issue with the barbell deadlift, then you should try the Trap Bar Deadlift.

The Trap Bar Deadlift allows you to stand inside the bar and perform deadlifts, with more emphasis on your quads and slightly less on your lower back at the bottom part of the lift. You may be able to lift more weight, safer, using this variation on the deadlift, which will yield better muscle mass gains. If you try this exercise, make sure you start with a light weight and position your hands perfectly centrally, or the bar will twist in your hands. If you get a good grip, you should really enjoy this exercise. Partial deadlifts offer another alternative, but you lose the lower part of the lift, which takes away from the benefits of the exercise.

Deadlift Vs Squats

Both exercises are excellent and should form the basis of all bodybuilding, powerlifting, or other strength training programs. Both squats and deadlifts allow you to work with very heavy weights on a multiple joint, whole body exercise, so provide similar benefits. The squats target the quads and glutes slightly more than the deadlift, but the deadlift works the hamstrings and back muscles much harder.

A good point to consider in favour of the squats though is that when you reach your physical peak, you should generally be able to lift more weight on the squats than the deadlift and more weight means more mass gains. The strongest powerlifter in the world at the moment is Andy Bolton, who can deadlift 1008lbs! His best lifts are (roughly):

• Bench Press – 350Kg
• Deadlift – 450Kg
• Squats – 550Kg

There’s some targets for you! For more information about Andy Bolton, check out his Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Bolton.

Regards,

Promart Supplements

What is Testosterone?

Chemical Structure of Testosterone

Testosterone is a steroid hormone mainly secreted by the testes in males and the ovaries in females. It is also secreted by the adrenal glands. Testosterone is an anabolic steroid, which means it increase protein synthesis, which results in the building of muscle mass. Men produce approximately ten times more testosterone than women and it is responsible for characteristics such as increased muscle mass, body hair, good health, etc. Women, although they produce much less testosterone than men, are much more sensitive to the hormone.

Testosterone is an androgen, from the same group as Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), Androstenedione, Androstenediol, Androsterone and Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and is anabolic in that it promotes muscular growth, or growth of tissues with androgen receptors. Increased muscle size, strength and power are associated with higher testosterone levels.

Natural Ways to Boost Testosterone Levels

Sleep & Testosterone

To naturally boost your testosterone levels:

Testosterone Boosting Workout

1. Address the above points
2. Lift heavy weights on exercises such as Leg Press, Deadlifts, Squats, Pullups and Presses, with maximum intensity for 6-8 smooth reps per set, with constant tension, no locking out, near full range of motion, for 45-50 minutes, 3 times per week, no more. Note: more results in overtraining and cortisol production (stress hormone), which will negatively effect your testosterone boosting and/or muscle building efforts.
3. Reducing your body fat percentage has a positive effect upon test levels. Check out our sustained weight loss article for more tips.
4. Further diet tips to be included in your typical daily diet:
   

   Broccoli and Testosterone

   • Fat – good fats, in moderation, are required in order for your body to produce testosterone, with monounsaturated fat, found in nuts, being the best type.
   • Vegetables – Broccoli and cauliflower have long been known to increase testosterone, but recent research also shows these vegetables can actually reduce estrogen at the same time as raising testosterone.
   • Carbohydrates – a high carb diet, high in simple sugars and starches, especially the high GI carbs, elevate insulin and cortisol levels which reduce testosterone production. Eat low GI carbs, such as wholewheat pasta, multigrain bread, brown rice, plus green vegetables and salad, to avoid this negative effect. Also note that eating little and often, i.e. 6 small meals per day, is the best way forward.
   • Protein – little research has been made into the effects of a high protein diet on testosterone, but from the research that has been done, it appears that total testosterone or total T levels are reduced for people on a high protein diet compared with a high carb diet. However, the bioactive testosterone or bioactive T, which is what really counts is higher for people on a higher protein diet.
   • Garlic – has been shown to increase testosterone levels, whilst reducing cortisol levels.
   • Other Foods – Oysters, Asparagus, Figs, Eggs, Basil, Nuts, Brown Rice, Cheese, Turkey, Liver, Avocado, Bananas, Celery, Pine Nuts, Salmon, Tuna increase testosterone, libido and sex drive.
   
5. Stress – being under a lot of stress plays havoc with your hormones and results in increased release of adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol. These hormones negatively affect testosterone levels and have catabolic effects on the body, i.e. make you lose muscle mass. Avoiding stressful life situations is therefore very important for your testosterone levels. Whenever the Football World Cup is on, you will hear reports on the news about how being a big football fan of a losing team can significantly reduce testosterone levels, whereas following a winning team can have positive effects.

Increase Your Testosterone Using Supplements

The following supplements increase testosterone production and/or support higher testosterone levels:

Tribulus Terrestris

Stimulates testosterone production in the testes by increasing the Leutenizing Hormone levels

ZMA

Zinc, Magnesium and Vitamin B6 in the right doses, taken daily has been shown to elevate natural testosterone levels

Multivitamins

Crucial for maximum levels of testosterone, if diet is lacking in nutrients. Supplementing with a multivitamin, even for people with a good varied diet, tends to be beneficial in terms of testosterone absorption.

Essential Fatty Acids

It can be difficult to consume the right amounts of the right types of fatty acids through the day, every day and so supplementing can be beneficial for testosterone production.

Our testosterone booster stacks are below:

Top 50 Bodybuilding Tips

Below is a list of the Top 50 Bodybuilding Tips, covering training, lifestyle, diet and supplementation for bodybuilders. Applying these tips to your bodybuilding programme will improve your results significantly.

Training Tips For Bodybuilding

1. Do not spend more than 60 minutes in the gym, or your body will start releasing a stress related hormone called cortisol, which is associated with muscle loss. The 60 minute rule applies to any high intensity exercise.
2. Remember that bodybuilding is an art and requires serious concentration to achieve a proper mind muscle link. The mind-muscle link is important for recruiting muscle fibers when lifting heavy weights. Over time, with practice, you should be able to recruit more muscle fibers from each muscle, allowing you to lift more weight on each exercise. There are lots of ways of improving the mind muscle link, but the most memorable is the quote by Arnold Schwarzenegger in Pumping Iron.
3. To continually build more muscle, you need to keep increasing the intensity of your training. It is therefore essential to your progress as a bodybuilder that you achieve maximum intensity in each and every work set at the gym. I personally recommend the views of Dr Darden (Massive Muscles in 10 Weeks, HIT, etc.), Stuart McRobert (Braun series of books) and Dorian Yates (Blood N Guts book).


Lift Free Weights, including Presses, Rows, Squats and Deadlifts

4. Use an ever increasing training intensity, suited to yourself. For someone who hasn’t been to the gym in the last few months, just going is ‘high intensity’. After a month or two, supersets are worthwhile. After supersetting for a couple of months, include drop sets, pre-exhaustions, timed sets, post-exhaustions, super slow sets and everything you can imagine on every work set. Training to a higher intensity than your body is used to signals your body to grow more muscle. Training to too high an intensity too quickly can leave you overtrained, which makes you feel like you have flu and is awful.
5. Every 3-4 weeks, perform a testosterone boosting workout, followed by 3 days rest for maximum results. By this, I mean go to the gym and do 10 sets of super slow full squats, starting with a weight that allows 12 slow, controlled reps for your first set and adding weight each set until you can only manage 2-3 reps on your 6th or 7th set. Then, reduce weight and increase reps again up until your 10th and final set. Take a 90 second rest between sets and complete the workout within 20-30 minutes.
6. Finish each workout with a fast set of 100 light, fast, controlled reps on a body part worked in your previous workout, i.e. if you trained your back Monday, then on Wednesday you train your legs, then end your leg workout with a set of 100 light pulldowns, aiming for a maximum muscular burn. Not only does this send blood to your recovering muscles, but it gives your body a GH (Growth Hormone) boost, which helps muscle growth and fat loss.
7. Go heavy. Heavy weights lifted with correct form are key to overloading the muscles, leading to hypertrophy.
8. Use a smooth, slow rep cadence. This helps avoid injury and makes your target muscles do the work, rather than momentum and avoids sticking points on exercises leading to plateaus in progress.
9. Emphasize the negative part of your reps for maximum muscle gains. 1 rep super slow sets, such as a 1 minute-rep on the pullups, i.e. 20 seconds in positive phase and 40 seconds in negative phase, really work the muscles and give big results.
10. Build your training routines around the big multiple joint movements, such as squats, deadlifts, weighted pullups, weighted dips, rows and presses. Increase your reps and weights on these exercises and you are guaranteed to see muscle gains. Don’t worry about isolation exercises until you are 6 months away from competition. I’m not saying don’t do isolation exercises, I am saying that if you do isolation exercises, do them at the end of your workouts, keeping them under 60 minutes and don’t do more than 2-3 sets.
11. A true high intensity workout should involve no more than 12-18 actual work sets. If you can do more than this, then you aren’t trying hard enough. Each work set should leave you out of breath, sweating, maybe a little light headed due to blood flow to muscles, etc. and 12-18 sets will leave you feeling very tired.


Full range squats and deadlifts with good form are the biggest overall muscle building exercises. Get stronger on these exercises and overall strength and muscle mass will increase significantly.

12. For some reason, many people avoid training their legs, despite them being the biggest muscle in your body and having a big effect on overall progress. If your legs are lagging behind and you struggle to achieve high intensity on the legs, then start your next three workouts with this superset:
    1. leg press (10-12 reps to complete failure); immediately followed by
    2. leg extensions (9-10 reps to absolute failure will hurt badly); immediately followed by
    3. full squats (8-10 reps to absolute failure)

    Gains of 1 inch on the quads in one week are possible.

13. Warm up for each work set by performing 1-3 sets with 20%, 40% and 60% of your work set weight. Do not reduce your work set ability, but feel the movement and prepare yourself mentally for the work set.
14. Use a full range of movement for each and every exercise, without stressing your joints. Follow this principle 95% of the time, other than for forced reps at the end of a set.
15. Use partial reps occasionally, to allow your body to feel a heavier weight for maximum overload, or to achieve more reps on the same weight, for bigger muscle pumps
16. Perform light cardio sessions first thing on a morning before breakfast for maximum fat burning. Your hormone levels on a morning place your body in the perfect environment for fat loss and seeing as your glycogen levels will be depleted from not eating since the night before, the only energy source that can be used is (mainly) body fat. This will make you feel sluggish, but it really works. Keep the cardio low intensity, to avoid stressing your body, which would result in catabolism.
17. As a 2nd best alternative to early morning runs for fat loss, follow up your weights sessions (40 minutes) with a 20 minute cardio session. Again, glycogen levels will be depleted from your weights session and body fat will provide the main energy source for light cardiovascular exercise at this point.
18. Never miss a training session, no matter what the reason. As soon as you miss one session, the rot can set in and before you know it, you no longer go to the gym. In advance, check with your gym for closing times over bank holidays, Xmas and Easter, as you may need to find another gym for those periods.
19. Try and find a training partner, or better still, two training partners. It is not a social gathering though, you know that of course, but what about your training partners? Make sure they are as dedicated as you are. Incline dumbbell press drop sets are much better with two spotters. Also, seated dumbbell lateral raises, with your training partner pushing your elbows down on the negative phase are not possible on your own. This is a very good exercise!
20. Finish your routines with 3 sets of perfect form standing barbell curls, alternating between you and your training partner repping to failure. Start with a weight that allows 12-15 reps. Reps will reduce quickly and therefore rest reduces and you get a real burn and a massive pump in the biceps. Just make sure you don’t overtrain the biceps.
21. Don’t use weight gloves, use chalk. Weight gloves do protect your palms from blistering, but they make your grip less effective on heavy pulls, such as deadlifts. With chalk, your grip on the deadlifts should improve enough for you to increase the weight by at least 25%, without straps, as long as your back is strong enough.
22. The only exercise where partial reps are okay all the time is deadlifts. The bottom 10% of normal deadlifts for some individuals can be impossible without rounding the lower back. Use a power rack, or similar and put the bar on the lowest setting, so that you are pulling from your lower shins, rather than from the floor.
23. Keep your toes in line with your knees on the squats and leg press, or risk injuries.
24. Think of any big compound exercises you hate doing and are relatively weak at and start your next 10 workouts with 1 work set of that exercise, until it becomes one of your favoured exercises. Wide grip pullups, deadlifts and most back exercises are common for people to avoid. This is probably because a lot of gym goers are extremely vain and prefer to train their front, rather than their back, as they can see it in the mirror. Not you though, of course!

Lifestyle Tips for Bodybuilding

25. Keep motivated and track progress monthly with realistic goals and photos.


Sleep well, be happy, avoid stress and alcohol and your bodybuilding progress will be optimised

26. Avoid stressful situations, as stress related hormones are associated with a loss in muscle mass.
27. Ensure you get sufficient rest, by doing as little as possible during the day when you are out of the gym
28. Sleep 8 hours every night at the same times. People often say its what you do when you are out of the gym that makes you ‘big’. Eating a good high protein diet, drinking lots of water and getting plenty of sleep is what they mean. It is hard to follow a good diet, but it becomes routine after a few weeks and gets easier.
29. Obvious one here… don’t drink alcohol. If you must, then drink lots of water before during and after your night out, to avoid dehydration. Guinness is high in iron, so would be a better choice than vodka and red bull, etc. Gin & Tonic aint a bad choice either. If you are going to have a takeaway, then a chicken kebab with chilli sauce is better than a burger, etc. Don’t make habit of it though, or you will add a bit of flab to your muscles, making you just look big and round.

Diet Tips for Bodybuilding

30. Spread your daily calories out evenly over at least 6 meals per day, so that you ‘stay hungry’. This will help regulate your insulin levels and optimise and maximise nutrient absorption.


Tuna is a great source of protein, but limit yourself to 2-3 tins per week, or the high levels of mercury in tuna can be poisonous!

31. Ensure that each of your 6+ meals per day contain the same amount of protein, to reach your daily protein requirements. Too little protein per meal and your body may become catabolic, too much and it may de-sensitise your body to protein, as well as either being excreted as waste, or used as energy through a process called gluconeogenesis. Using protein shakes, protein powder or other protein supplements makes this task much easier.
32. Drink 3-4 cups of green tea per day for it’s anti-oxidant qualities as well as naturally burning an extra 100 calories per day.
33. Try this breakfast shake:
    1. 500ml water
    2. 1 banana
    3. sprinkle of sunflower seeds and pine seeds
    4. 1 cup of fine milled plain oats
    5. 1 scoop of whey protein

    Blend and drink quickly, before the oats settle. You may have to stir between sips, but it is the quickest way of consuming 100g of oats by far.

34. Consume enough protein per day to keep your body in an anabolic muscle building state. You can use a macronutrient calculator to work out your daily protein requirements.
35. Don’t eat more than 3-4 tins of tuna per week. Tuna is very high in mercury, which is toxic in sustained high doses and can seriously and permanently affect your health.
36. Fruit is good for you and your bodybuilding diet. However, due to the sugars in fruit, it is best to consume small servings of fruit, spread out throughout the day. Also, it is better to consume fruit before your meals, as it digests much quicker than regular food and would give you gas if eaten after a large meal.
37. Low fat cheddar cheese is low calorie and 30g of protein per 100g. Not bad on wholemeal toast!

Supplements Tips for Bodybuilding

38. Don’t buy your bodybuilding supplements from the supermarkets, they sting you with much higher prices, than online supplements stores.
39. For convenience, if you don’t have a post workout shake available, drink a pint of skimmed milk, as it is high sugar, high protein and low fat, making it ideal for this purpose.


Protein shakes, such as Cytosport Muscle Milk really taste great and can be enjoyed in many flavours

40. Use a hand held blender (available from most supermarkets for under £10) to mix your protein shakes in a measuring jug. All you do is dip the hand held blender in the top of the jug, blend for 15-20 seconds and your shake is ready. Swill the blender under the tap and it is ready for your next protein shake. Much less faffing about and washing up than using a proper blender!
41. Drink 8-10 glasses of water per day, to keep your body well hydrated. Dehydration can drastically affect physical performance, which means that your training sessions will be less intense.
42. Help your body avoid overtraining by eating a good diet, high in fruit and vegetables, wholegrains, rice, lean meats, fish and poultry.
43. Avoid sugary foods at all times except for before, during and after training, when glycogen levels are depleted, to avoid the accumulation of body fat. Your liver can only hold about 150g-200g of glycogen and any more will be excreted and/or stored as body fat. Also, sugary foods play havoc with your insulin levels, which in turn results in hunger pangs and a downward spiral with your diet.
44. Do not listen to all the sales hype on the internet about ‘supplements awards’, etc. 9 times out of 10, the company or magazine promoting a particular product or brand of supplements, usually owns the brand as well and the awards are more about self promotion.
45. Always consume a sugary high protein post-workout shake immediately after training, to restore glycogen levels and restore a positive nitrogen balance in the body to allow muscle gain, rather than muscle loss.
46. Use protein supplements, to achieve a high protein diet that is low in fat.
47. Use protein bars and high protein flapjacks for convenience, rather than missing meals when on the go
48. Use creatine supplements to increase reps and strength, resulting in higher intensity training, leading to hypertrophy of the muscles. You will gain weight whilst using creatine, mainly due to the increased hydration of the muscles. It is up to you to make sure you build muscle whilst using creatine, so that when you stop using it and normal hydration levels return, the net result is a quicker increase in muscle mass than could have been achieved without creatine.
49. Use multivitamin and mineral supplements to boost micronutrient intake throughout the day. Benefits include better protein absorption, transport and synthesis, as well as many other benefits.
50. Use nitric oxide supplements, such as Gaspari Superpump to increase strength during your training sessions and to achieve a bigger pump, allowing better nutrient transport in the muscles. Be warned that using nitric oxide supplements can lead to diarrhoea if you already consume excessive amounts of arginine from your protein shakes – the tolerable amount varies widely person to person.

Remember, it is a lot harder to build a world class physique than it is to lose it. That is good news though because that’s what sets you apart from the crowd. Only an elite group of individuals can become professional bodybuilders due to the level of determination required, as well as your genetic disposition.

This list is a ‘Work In Progress’, so any additional items, or improvements would be greatly appreciated. Please leave your comments and feedback below.

Regards,

Martin Procter
Promart Supplements

Sleeping and Fat Loss

To increase fat loss, it is important to get a good night’s sleep every night. Sleeping well stimulates growth hormone secretion (GH), which is a powerful fat loss hormone and regulates the body’s proportions of muscle and fat..

Conversely, sleep deprivation can lead to:

1. reduced growth hormone levels
2. reduced ability to metabolize carbohydrates
3. high blood levels of glucose, leading to higher insulin levels, which leads to an increase in body fat accumulation
4. reduced leptin levels, increasing hunger
5. insulin resistance, increasing risk of developing diabetes
6. increased blood pressure
7. increased risk of heart disease , through other processes

Something else to consider is a recent study, which showed that a lack of sleep in older men, resulted in lower morning testosterone levels. Presumably the effect on younger men is less, but I am unaware of any studies of younger men. The effects of low testosterone (Hypogonadism) are: increased body fat, loss of body hair, decreased muscle mass and strength and many more symptoms.

Conclusion

Lack of sleep is going to mess up your fat loss efforts, negatively affect the planning of your daily diet and training routine and ultimately lead to you gaining fat and losing weight and wrecking your overall physique, not to mention messing up your hormones!!!

However, sleeping 8-9 hours per night and following the other top fat loss tips is going to help you achieve your long term goals for strength, fitness and appearance.

Come back tomorrow for Top Tip Number 10…

Regards,

Martin