Cytosport Background

Tasty Pre, During & Post Workout Shake

Cytosport are a popular supplements brand, who were established in 1998 by Greg Pickett and his son Mike. Cytosport are huge, especially in America, where they have a 14,000m² manufacturing facility. To visualise the size of their factory, it is roughly the same area as two Wembley football pitches!

The benefits of these huge brands are that they control the manufacturing process in-house from start to finish, so they know exactly what is in their products. They are also amongst the market leaders when it comes to pioneering new processes for the production of the best supplements, as they re-invest their profits into research. Smaller companies who outsource production have no control over quality and have to settle for what is available.

Cytosport Muscle Milk

Cytosport provide a large range of products, and Muscle Milk is possibly the most popular, closely followed by Monster Milk and Cytogainer. Cytosport Muscle Milk is the perfect shake for before, during and after high intensity anaerobic exercise such as bodybuilding. Here is the nutritional information, along with additional statistics regarding other attributes of this product.

As owner of Promart Supplements, I am sick and tired of seeing weight loss programmes devised by scheming individuals who are first and foremost looking to make money, at the expense of frustrated people who want to improve themselves. The majority of these diets you hear about from your friends and see on TV are rubbish. They aren’t good for you and they rarely give the results they advertise.

Weight loss is not simple, but if you can follow the 8 tips below, then you will lose weight healthily, progressively and best of all, you will retain and even increase your muscle tone – meaning that once you lose the excess body fat, your physique will be much more athletic. Here are the rules:

1. Consume between 10 calories per day for every pound that you weigh, i.e. if you weigh 12 stones, that is 12 x 14 = 168 pounds, so consume approximately 1680 calories per day. This amount of calories will create a calorie deficit, without being so low that it puts your body into starvation mode, where your metabolism slows down.
2. Split your daily calorie intake over 5 small, low sugar, low fat, high protein, even sized meals to reduce insulin spikes to regulate energy levels, reduce hunger and avoid the accumulation of body fat; show your body there is an abundance of food available and so your long term energy stores (fat) are not so important and can be used; boost your metabolism; and maintain/increase muscle tone
3. Drink more water, i.e. 8-10 glasses per day, as drinking more water can boost your metabolism by up to 30%
4. Sleep 8-9 hours per night at the same times every night
5. Do not drink alcohol
6. Eat the right foods for weight loss. This means avoid sugary and fatty foods and keep protein intake fairly high, using protein shakes if necessary. Ideally, you should consume less than 5g sugar per meal. This means that ready meals are not an option. A typical diet is shown below.
7. Perform low intensity cardio sessions, first thing on a morning before breakfast, when your hormone levels and depeleted glycogen levels put your body in the perfect place for fat loss. Note: at other times of the day, you are likely to use a small amount of fat, glycogen stores in your liver (from food) and also some muscle mass will be used for energy, through a process called gluconeogenesis. Three or four 40 minute sessions per week will provide the best results, but remember to aim for low intensity, i.e. 60% of your max heart rate for your age.
8. Perform high intensity anaerobic exercise 3-4 times per week, to increase muscle tone and strength. Don’t worry about getting big and muscly, as consuming just 10 calories per day for every pound of bodyweight, whilst exercising regularly, will not provide your body with enough calories for your muscles to grow big, although they will get much more toned.
9. Consume plenty of fruit and vegetables, as their nutritional benefits help weight loss and improve your overall health and appearance. However, you should only consume fruit in small portions, typically on a morning and before/after exercise due to their high sugar content.
10. Consider using supplements, such as protein supplements to boost low protein meals, meal replacement powders to provide 2 of your 5 meals per day, multivitamins to make up for lack of fruit and veg in your diet and green tea to burn an extra 100 calories or so per day for every 3-4 cups. I wouldn’t bother with other supplements such as fat burners, fat blockers or carb blockers as following the above tips means you don’t need them. They are worthwhile supplements for bodybuilders wanting to reduce body fat levels below normal ranges, but not so much for normal weight loss.
11. Be consistent. Results won’t happen overnight. I can guarantee success to anyone who follows all of the above points, but unfortunately only a small numbe rof people will, whilst the rest will part follow some of the tips for a couple of weeks then try something else. Don’t let that happen. Get motivated. Forget eating a single sweet, chocolate, biscuit, or anything like that and see where you end up in three months. When it works, get in touch and let me know your progress. Small improvements every week add up to a new physique after a few months.

Let me know how you get on, but be consistent. If you are going to follow these tips, follow all of them precisely, or results will be greatly affected. However, before undertaking any new diet or exercise programme, please make sure you consult your GP beforehand.

Regards,

Martin Procter

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

The most convenient and worthwhile bodybuilding supplement has got to be the meal replacement powder (MRP). When you HAVE TO eat 6-8 high protein meals per day, reducing that number by 2-4 can really make things easier. Your other meals can simply be breakfast, lunch and dinner, like ‘normal people’.

You could use a carb powder mixed with a whey protein powder, to form a cheap meal replacement, but it would not contain vitamins and minerals like meal replacements, nor would it contain a blend of fast and slow protein sources. It would also be high GI/GL, which is not good unless it is a post-workout shake.

So, going back to MRPs, use 2-4 per day and eat 3-4 normal meals per day, to ensure a minimum of 6 high protein, small meals, per day. If your normal meals are low in protein, you can easily top them up with a scoop of whey protein powder, adding around 20g of protein and less than 100 calories to the meal.

All in all, MRPs are the best bodybuilding supplement out there, because they allow the average person to achieve a perfect, high protein bodybuilders’ diet, whilst being full of vitamins, minerals, good fats and other quality ingredients that provide postive health benefits in a nice tasting, easily digestible form. One thing to remember is that the vitmain content in individual sachets of MRPs, like CNP Pro MR and EAS Myoplex does not lose quality, like it would if it were in a tub. These vitamins and minerals improve protein metabolism and other bodily functions which increase your strength training capabilites, so play an important part in your overall diet and supplement programme.

One other benefit of using 2-4 meal replacements and 2-3 whey protein shakes per day is that you will also be increasing the amount of water you drink per day, which if you are anything like me and don’t drink enough water, will help your efforts considerably.

Do Vitamins Go Off in a Week?

The front page headline of the Metro today said “Stored vitamins go off in a week“. The Metro article was based upon some recent US research that could have a serious affect on the £600m/year vitamin and health supplements industry. The research stated that whilst the vitamins can become degraded, the product will still be safe to use, but less effective.

Before you start worrying that your supplements are no longer effective, it should be noted that the research is based upon supplements that are kept in humid locations, such as the kitchen or the bathroom. When the lids are taken off, the moisture from the humid atmospheres enters the tub and can destroy the product. Most people keep supplements in the kitchen, which is fine, as long as you only take the lids off when the window is open and the humidity is normal, i.e. not when you are cooking. Also, make sure your hands are dry, to avoid allowing any water into the tubs.

Don’t throw your Supplements Away!

If you have protein supplements with added vitamins and minerals at home in your kitchen or bathroom and you think that they have been affected, then don’t throw them away, just continue using them as protein supplements. You will still get the benefit from the protein, just not the vitamins.

Avoid Vitamin Degradation with Meal Replacement Shakes

To avoid these problems altogether, you could consider using meal replacement supplements – which are loaded with vitamins and minerals and come in individual sachets. This means that as soon as you open the sachets, they will be mixed, then consumed, meaning no time for degradation of the vitamins.

One last thing… don’t believe everything you read in the papers, it could all be hype! Either way, avoid the moisture!

Regards,

Gareth

What are Sports Supplements?

Sports Supplements are products that are suitable for use by athletes and sports men and women, to enhance physical performance. Sports supplements are a subset of bodybuilding supplements, as sports supplements only make up about half of supplements available to bodybuilders. For example, whey protein supplements, creatine, energy drinks and fat burners are all types of sports supplements, but they are also bodybuilding supplements. Whereas, testosterone boosters, nitric oxide boosters and amino acids are types of bodybuilding supplements, but are not of much use as sports supplements.

Which Supplements are Suitable for which sports?

Below is table showing which sports supplements are suitable for which sports:

Why should you use Sports Supplements?

There is no reason for you to use sports supplements, other than to increase your performance. If you do not want to use them, don’t! But, be aware that your team mates, rival clubs and many other sports people are already using a combination of supplements that may be allowing them to overtake you in your chosen sport. If you want to catch up, or reach a higher level in your particular sport, then take a look at the table above and decide which sports supplements would be most useful for your particular circumstances. Make sure you leave your comments below, to show people how much sports supplements have helped you!

I’ll start this article off by telling you out right, IT IS NOT possible to be a bodybuilder whilst being a high level footballer. Sure, it is possible to play a bit of 5-a-side as well as being a casual bodybuilder, in fact these two forms of exercise could complement each other and help you improve your physique. But, if you want to get to a high level in bodybuilding, you have to give up football, or you will be permanently overtrained and you will pick up lots of injuries.

However, if you are a high level footballer, lifting heavy weights in a bodybuilding style could improve your overall game!

Depending upon the position you play, you may require different strengths, but as long as you can maintain or improve your existing aerobic function, then combining some natural bodybuilding principles into your training regime could lead to improved footballing performance for the following reasons:

1. Increased strength on the ball
2. Increased strength in the air
3. Increased shot power
4. Increased sprint speed
5. Improved balance

All of the above are good qualities for a footballer, but if you overdo it, you may reduce your flexibility and endurance. The idea is to find a balance between aerobic and anaerobic activities and combine them with a very good diet, incorporating plenty of fruits, nuts, seeds, lean meats, wholegrains, wholemeal pastas, brown rice, eggs and milk. To help increase your daily protein intake, you could also supplement your meals with a whey protein powder. To further increase speed and power, you could also supplement with creatine. Our article about football supplements also provides some good advice.

If you decide that you are going to start lifting weights for the above reasons, then start with one or two weight training session per week. Consuming a good high protein diet, drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of sleep will help you avoid overtraining. A typical routine is below:

Leg Extensions
Leg Curl
Barbell Squat
Cable Crossovers
Barbell Bench Press
Dumbbell Lateral Raise
Barbell Shoulder Press
Pullups
Dumbbell Pullovers
Bent Over Barbell Rows
Barbell Shrugs
Triceps Extension
Biceps Curl
Deadlift

Warm up for each exercise with two sets, working with 50%, then 80% of your main work set weight, doing about 8 reps. Once warmed up for an exercise, perform just one actual work set of each exercise, selecting a weight that allows 12 reps per set. Ensure that you train to a high intensity, but under control, by taking 3-4 seconds per rep and moving the weight in a slow, controlled, non jerky, smooth cadence. Research each exercise, to ensure that you use perfect form, therefore avoiding potential injuries. Do not do more than one work set per exercise, or you will overtrain the muscle group involved. Remember, higher intensity leads to better results. Rest 30-60 seconds between sets, reducing rest time and increasing weight as you improve. Do not spend more than 60 minutes lifting weights, or your body will start releasing a stress hormone called Cortisol, which is associated with a reduction in muscle.
Consuming a recovery drink immediately after training (football or weights) can help your body retain existing muscle and build new muscle. A recovery drink is usually made up of simple sugars, fast releasing protein and minimal fats, so an ideal choice would be a pint of skimmed milk, or better still a dedicated recovery drink.

p.s. If there are any high level bodybuilders, who can still play a good game of football, I would really like to hear from you and I may even publish your stories on this blog.

Regards,

Martin.

Got skinny arms? Do you train your arms a lot, but they never get bigger? Well, my arms are 17.5 inches, which isn’t bad for someone who only trains 3 days per week and weighs under 14 stone is it? Genetics do play a part, but I’m sure the majority of people reading this article can add at least an inch to their arms within 8 weeks, by following the principles below.

Top 20 Training Tips For Bigger Arms in Weeks

1. Perform a multiple joint whole body routine, with very high intensity
2. Perform 3 training sessions per week, or 5 training sessions per fortnight
3. Avoid excessive cardio. Consume a glucose drink before and during the cardio and a recovery drink immediately afterwards.
4. Consume 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight, i.e. I weight 190lbs, so I need 190 x 1.5 = 285g of protein per day, spread evenly throughout the day
5. Use creatine supplements
6. Drink 8-10 glasses of water per day
7. Eat 6+ equal size meal per day and DON’T mess up on a weekend!
8. Perform weighted dips and emphasise the negative part of the movement. Increase the weight as much as possible, as long as you can still do 5-6 smoothish reps.
9. Perform close grip bench presses (hands 10″ apart)
10. Train arms with high intensity and low reps, with no more than 2-3 sets on the biceps per average training session. Same applies to triceps. If you have to use isolation exercises, do biceps and triceps on different days, but at the end of your workout
11. Vary your training enough to keep your muscles guessing, but not so much that you are guessing whether or not you are making improvements!
12. Perform bar holds. Hold a barbell and squeeze it, whilst in a standing position for as long as possible, with your training partner counting out every 5 seconds. Use a weight which allows 30-40 seconds and increase weight as you improve
13. Focus your training efforts on increasing the following exercises, with the most important first: squat, deadlift, barbell rows
14. Get plenty of sleep
15. Use perfect form on all exercises, with a smooth and continuous rep cadence, lasting about 1-2 seconds in the positive part of the movement and 2-4 seconds in the negative part. Vary this occasionally, to train your muscles in different ways, but use the aforementioned cadence in the majority of your workouts.
16. Try supersets once per week, i.e. one minute underhand pull-up (30 seconds negative and 30 seconds positive with a smooth rep cadence), immediately followed by standing barbell curls and 1 minute dip (30 seconds negative and 30 seconds positive – smooth cadence), immediately followed by lying EZ extensions (use a spotter or you will find out why this exercises is also called skull crushers). Perform both supersets at the beginning of your workout once per week, then continue as normal with compound movements.
17. Try antagonistic training on your biceps and triceps at the end of a workout once per week, i.e. lying EZ extensions, followed immediately by standing EZ curls and repeated immediately.
18. For a massive muscle pump on the biceps, perform a set of standing barbell curls to failure, where failure occurs at 9-10 reps. Your training partner performs his set as soon as you finish your set. You then perform your second set straight after your training partners first set and so on, until you have done 3-4 sets each. Don’t cheat at all and your arms will feel more pumped than ever. For an even bigger pump, try using BSN No-Xplode.
19. Do weighted underhand pull-ups and increase the weight regularly, so you stay in the 5-7 rep range.
20. Do not overtrain! 50-60 minutes in the gym is optimum. Any more and your body release a muscle shredding stress hormone called Cortisol

There are lots of potential variations to your workouts listed above and you should aim to incorporate one of these options for 4 weeks say, i.e. antagonistic training at the end of your multiple joint compound movements workout (which mainly comprises squats, deadlifts, pull-ups, rows and presses), then incorporate a different option, i.e. superset at the beginning of your workout. However you choose to follow the above advice, make sure that you do not overtrain your arms, or they just won’t grow.

The above training advice focuses on many different ideas, which would take about 20 pages to explain, so I simply haven’t. Basically, some types of training encourage a higher secretion of IGF-1 by the body, whereas others encourage a higher increase in testosterone levels, or Growth Hormone (GH). Steroids manipulate these hormone levels unnaturally, but you can do it naturally, by following the above tips, which will lead to your best gains ever!

I appreciate that some people may need further advice with regards to this article and if so, please leave a comment and I will provide further advice within 48 hours. Alternatively, if you think you can add to this advice, please leave your comments!

Regards,

Martin.

If you are a bodybuilder or an athlete and you want to add muscle mass quickly, then you are going to have to live with adding a little bit of fat as well. That being said, the following typical daily diet should enable you to add much more muscle than fat, meaning that you may not notice the additional fat, due to the huge gains in muscle. Also, when you reach your target weight, you can then switch to a maintenance diet, where you cut your carbs and fat, whilst maintaining your high intake of protein, which would allow you to reduce bodyfat, whilst retaining as much muscle as possible, when combined with a suitable training programme.

Here is a typical diet for a bodybuilder weighing around 200 pounds and wanting to add more mass. Note: in general if you consume 20-22 times your bodyweight (in pounds) in calories, you should put weight on – even if you have a fast metabolism.

Meal 1 – 6AM
100g Oats, blended in 500ml milk, with 20g whey protein
1 banana, 1 apple, 1 orange
Total: 800 calories, 50g protein

Meal 2 – 9AM
Tuna or chicken sandwich (3 slice of wholemeal bread) OR Pro-Mass in shaker cup
50g cashew nuts
salad (optional)
Total: 700 calories, 50g protein

Meal 3 -12PM
Jacket Potato (large)
100g Cottage Cheese
40g Whey Protein in shaker cup
Total: 700 calories, 50g protein

Meal 4 – 3PM
Same as meal 2

Meal 5 – 6PM
Evening Meal
20g-40g whey protein if necessary
Total: 700 calories, 50g protein

Meal 6 – 9PM
2 slices of wholemeal toast with peanut butter
1 pint of semi skimmed milk (or micellar casein shake)
Total: 700 calories, 40g protein

Daily Total: 4300 calories, 290g protein

post-workout shake would be additional and could either be Pro-Recover from CNP, or simply a pint of skimmed milk (red top)

Tip: Make sure you sleep 8+ hours per night
Tip: Make sure you drink at least 8 glasses of water per day
Tip: Make sure you train no more than 4 days per week
Tip: Focus on improving your control and weight on the big exercises, i.e. squat, deadlift, rows, weighted chins, weighted dips, presses, etc.
Tip: Consider using Creatine Monohydrate.
Tip: Include a daily multivitamin and mineral tablet

Regards,

Martin

Only Consume Simple Carbohydrates on a Morning and Before and After Training

Complex carbohydrates can be found in foods such as wholegrain breads, wholegrain pastas, oats, muesli and brown rice. Complex carbohydrates are broken down into glucose more slowly than simple carbohydrates and therefore provide a sustained stream of energy, which helps maintain steady insulin levels throughout the day, reducing the potential for your body to store the food as body fat.

All complex carbohydrates are broken down by the digestive system into glucose to produce the energy molecule ATP, which is short for adenosinetriphosphate (Creatine boosts ATP levels). This energy molecule fuels your workouts, but the efficiency of the whole process is dictated by the inclusion of vitamins and minerals in your diet. Complex carbohydrates are usually packed with vitamins and minerals, so complex carbohydrates are the preferred source of energy for the body.

Simple carbohydrates can be found in foods such as sugars, sweets, fizzy drinks, processed foods, energy drinks and fruit. If you want to lose fat, then I would suggest that you cut all simple carbohydrates out of your diet completely, except for fruit and maybe energy drinks. The simple carbohydrates in fruit come in the form of fructose, which is slower releasing than the other simple carbohydrates, is low GI and has little effect upon your insulin levels.

However, your body can only store a limited amount of glycogen in the liver and in the muscles. So, if you have just eaten a meal and you eat fruit afterwards, then it is likely that your glycogen levels will be pretty high already, meaning that your body may convert the additional energy into fat. So, the best times to eat fruit are when your glycogen levels are depleted, or need topping up, which is first thing on a morning, before exercising (if it is over 2 hours since your last meal) and after exercising.

Conclusion

1. Eat plenty of fruit – it is good for you, but only at the right times, or you will gain fat.
2. Notwithstanding point 1, ensure all of the carbohydrates in your meals are complex.
3. Eating a small portion of fruit before a small meal is better than eating lots of fruit after a large meal. Also, as fruit digests quickly, you will get less gas by eating the fruit first.

Come back tomorrow for Top Tip Number 5…

Regards,

Martin.