April 15, 2010 in Articles, Motivation by James Dawson Martin

Why Women need to lift weights!

I would like to take a few moments to address an issue that I deal with on a daily basis – Women in the gym who are afraid to lift weights, fearing they will become female versions of the incredible hulk just by touching anything heavier than a 2lb dumbbell.

They are many benefits for women when it comes to participating in regular weight resistanceworkouts.

Below I will list the top 3 reasons:

1. Shape and tone – Shape and tone comes from losing body fat and gaining lean muscle.  Women seem to be fine with the losing body fat part but when they hear the words ‘gaining lean muscle’ they begin to panic… WRONG.

Lean muscle is what gives your body shape with the tone you want. If you didn’t have muscle you would just be fat hanging from bone. You would have no tone to work with.

2. Burn more calories – The more muscle to fat ratio you have, the more body fat you are able to burn. If you have a high percentage of bodyfat and a low percentage of muscle, you will have a harder time being able to burn fat and keep fat off long term – another reason why fad diets alone without weight training does not work long term – it doesn’t help you gain lean muscle to help you raise your metabolism to fuel the fat burn process throughout the day.

My wife, Nicole, is a great example of a woman achieving great, feminine lean tone in the gym(just don’t wear the stilettos)

3. Health Benefits - By working out and eating correctly, not only can a woman look better on the outside.. They can feel better on the inside! Studies have shown that building healthy lean muscle is a great indication for longevity – more so than cholesterol or blood pressure levels.

By mixing endurance weight sessions with strength weight lifting sessions, women are able to increase their cardiovascular output, have healthier and stronger bones/joints, and be able to live longer!

Not to mention lifting weights can be even better for you than just doing cardio!
If done right, you can burn just as many calories, if not more, and burn more calories throughout the day because you have more lean muscle!
Copyright JamesDawsonMartin.com

April 14, 2010 in Articles, Workouts by James Dawson Martin

Periodization: Training Smart, not just hard

Periodization: periodization is planning and structuring your training into specific phases – either by manipulating intensity – reps, tempo, rest, or weight and volume of load lifted. It can also be about taking someone from point A to point B in a structured and goal defined way.

A microcycle phase – refers to one week of training

A mesocycle phase – refers to two-four months of training

A macrocycle phase – refers to one to four years of training

Periodization is a form of structured training that is popular amongst athletes.

Coaches across the world structure an athletes program based on their current level of fitness, season of training, and competition.

For example, a football coach will have his athletes on a strength and mass routine during off season, before bringing in a period of recovery, and then changing it to endurance, speed and more agility later on – this is all part of periodization.

Periodization allows you to train certain times with higher volume and load and then have you go through a new cycle phase of recovery training so that you do not overtrain.

Where many people make mistakes is that they think training too much and too hard will cause overtraining. The truth is that by manipulating our training to include periodized recovery weeks - reduced volume – will stop overtraining from being able to occur.

As you can see, bodybuilders and anyone wanting to increase lean muscle can see the importance of periodization for further growth and fat loss.

You are able to plan weeks of intense, heavy lifting and then structure in weeks of higher rep, higher volume training, before tapering off and recovering.

We get all the benefits of strength training, lean muscle building – and we recover before we overtrain!

Perdiozation is becoming more popular with bodybuilders because of this.

Training hard is great.. But training smart as well as hard is the key to results.

April 13, 2010 in Articles, Member Updates by James Dawson Martin

6 Week Workout to get you BIG!

Many people think it is over training – too much of a good thing to train a muscle group more than once a week.. That we are limited to training just once and nothing good can come from pushing ourselves that little bit more.

The fact is, our muscles need 24-72 hours of recovery (general rule of thumb) after an intense workout session.

Studies show that after the 72 hour period, our muscles atrophy – they get smaller.

Therefore, by training a body part 2-3 times a week in a smart, effective and program structured and periodized way, with the correct nutrition throughout, we..

Access this Program in full HERE

April 2, 2010 in Articles, Energy Systems by James Dawson Martin

Carbs 101

Breakdown:

Carbohydrates, along with protein, should make up the heart of your daily caloric intake because they form muscle glycogen – the fuel that gives us that energy to perform our workouts.

Focus on non processed, natural complex carbohydrates like yams, potatoes, whole grain breads, oatmeal and brown rice. The complex carbs are made of long chains of sugar and are digested very slowly, a lot slower than simple sugar carbs. Slow burning complex carbs promoted consistent blood sugar levels, which help to offset fatigue while promoting the release of insulin – the body’s principal anabolic hormone.

Spread them out

Divide your carbs into 5-6 meals throughout the day. This forms a steady release of insulin to keep our body in an anabolic environment! If you eat them in large amounts in one sitting, the body will store them as fat.

Eat them when you are active

Eat the majority of your carbs when you are most active – before and after workouts, and in the morning.

Focus on a big complex carb meal an hour before your workout. Focus on simple sugars and after an intense workout when you are bulking.

No Carbs before bed

4 hours or so before bed, taper your carbohydrates down and just have lean protein sources and green leafy vegetables or green vegetables.

Having carbs before bed will interfere with the release of growth hormones and promote fat storage as you sleep.

Eat carbs with protein

Mixing carbs and proteins reduces the risk of carbs being stored as fat. Eating protein with carbs facilitates the transport of amino acids in protein foods into the muscles to trigger new growth – just what we want.

March 24, 2010 in Articles, Stretching by James Dawson Martin

Dynamic Stretching

There are two main types of stretching – static (holding a stretching exercise in one position without movement) and dynamic stretching, which means moving while stretching – quick bursts of dynamic movement to stretch.

Static stretching works great for flexibility and recovery after a work out/inbetween workouts. However, when it comes to warming up, static stretching has been proven to be less than beneficial.

Static stretching, studies have found, has been associated with muscle damage. A study completed on mice illustrated acute stretching of muscle fibers just five percent beyond resting length resulted in a five percent loss of isometric force.

More studies have found that stretching twenty percent beyond resting length have been related to muscle damage and decrease force in humans. Therefore, stretching before sport or intense strength activity could provoke enough muscle damage to reduce maximum force and explosive strength.
Infact, the National Association of Sports Medicine and many other organizations agree with this.

Going Dynamic:

Dynamic stretching is aerobic, it elevates heart rate and gets the oxygen pumping – resulting in your muscles being warmed up for the workout to come. Dynamic warm up activates the musculature to prevent injuries and the body is in a heightened active state for the workload ahead.

Dynamic stretching will give you better conditioning, it will help with balance and co-ordination, and it is effective for warming up many specific muscles at a time for strength exercise.

Following a dynamic stretch routine will give you the most effective warm up you can get:

Below I list some very effective dynamic stretches that emphasize the quads, abs, calves, hamstrings, pecs, shoulders, and back.

Squat into Arm Raise

1. Perform a regular squat, keeping your arms at your side

2. As you reach the bottom of the squat, extend your arms back behind you.

3. Come back up out of the squat, raising your arms in a controlled fashion as you do, all the way above your head, stretching your lower back.

Chest Stretch:

1. Stand with feet hip width apart and knees slightly bent
2. Start with arms stright out in front hands at shoulder level, as you would a bench press.
3. Keeping you arms straight take your hands back as far behind you as possible so you feel the stretch around your shoulders
4. Still keeping your arms straight return your hands back to the front
5. Repeat these actions for 30 seconds, gradually getting quicker and quicker

Side Lunge with rotation:

1. With feet touching, bend your arms at the elbow and hold in front of your chest
2. Bring your right foot out, taking a wide stance from the left, which stays where it is
3. As soon as you do this, lunge down as far as possible
4. As you are lunging down,  rotate your arms and upper body all the way to the right at the same time as you lunge
5. Come back up and bring the right foot back right next to the left, as you are coming up from the lunge, rotate back up with your body, so it is back to where it was at the beginning.
6. Once practiced, this should be performed in one dynamic burst

March 17, 2010 in Articles, Celebrity Workouts by James Dawson Martin

Celebrity Workouts – Part one: Brad Pitt, fight Club

Celebrity Workouts:

The Fight Club Physique:

Fight Club is arguably one of the best movies of Brad Pitt’s career. However, the majority of buzz surrounding the movie was Brad Pitt’s ripped and toned physique, not his acting.

Below I list a workout split that would have been like the one Brad used to get lean and mean for the role of Tyler Durden.

The Routine:

Brad’s goal was to get ripped, functional and toned muscle. He didn’t want a bulky look for the movie.
With that said, Brad used an intense weight training circuit program a long with a cardio program to achieve the physique of fight club.

Weight Circuit:

This routine is an intense weight training circuit. 2 days a week will be multi joint compound movements and inbetween those days will be a mixture of multi-joint exercises and isolation exercises – more reps.

This routine would be perfect for Brad – The constant circuit training kept his heart rate elevated and the weight training helped tone and chisel his physique without adding bulk. Exactly what he wanted for the Fight Club Role!

Guidelines:

Do one set of each exercise of the circuit without stopping.

Once you complete the circuit once, rest a few minutes and begin again. End after doing 3 sets – finishing with the ab workout after completing the weight training circuit.

Monday:

3 sets of each, 12 reps
Do one set of each exercise until you reach the end of the circuit – then repeat another 2 times – this will equal 3 sets per exercise.

Squats x 3 sets -
Dumbbell Bench Press x 3 sets
Barbell Rows x 3 sets
Stiff leg deadlifts x 3 sets
Arnold Dumbbell Press x 3 sets
Dumbbell shrugs x 2 sets
Tricep Pushdowns x 2 sets
Barbell curls x 2 sets

Abs:
After completing the circuit, do 3 sets of each ab exercise
Planks x 3 sets
Roman Chair side raises x 3 sets

Wednesday:

Leg Press x 3 sets
Cable Crossovers x 3 sets
Lat pulldowns or pushups x 3 sets
Leg curls x 3 sets
Lateral raises x 3 sets
Dumbbell Shrugs x 2 sets
French Press x 2 sets
Hammer curls x 2 sets

Abs:
Decline crunches
Roman Chair scissors

Friday:
See Monday’s workout.

Cardio Program:

2-4 days a week. Following a HIIT (high intensity interval training) system.

2 minutes – warm up, slow jog pace
1 minute – all out sprint
2 minutes – jog
1 minute – all out sprint

*Continue this for 20-25 minutes

February 23, 2010 in Articles, CLA, Supplementation by James Dawson Martin

The Benefits of CLA

CLA (conjugated Linoleic Acid) is a naturally occurring fatty acid. It is found in cheese meat and dairy products in low amounts.

CLA is one of the ‘good fats’, and at levels of 2-3 grams per day CLA can help achieve body fat loss – which studies have shown.

The one problem with CLA is that it is found in foods at very low levels that also contain a lot of saturated fat – this is the reason we supplement with a CLA product.

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STUDIES & Research:

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CLA has strong and scientific evidence to support weight loss. For many years, studies have been done on CLA to find out just how effective supplementing with it can be.

Extensive studies have shown that  CLA reduces fat mass, while increasing lean body mass. A recent study showed that in 53 healthy individuals taking 4.2g of CLA a day led to a significant 3.8% decrease in body fat compared to individuals not taking CLA!

Optimum CLA, 180 Softgels CLA Is A Naturally Occurring Nutrient That Exerts A positive Effect On Protein And Fat Metabolism!

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Impact on Weight Training

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When combined with a weight training program, CLA can be of even more benefit.

A small trial study investigated CLA on muscle development in bodybuilders consuming 7.2 grams of CLA or placebo a day for 6 weeks while completing bodybuilding multi-joint exercises.

An increase in skin fold corrected arm girth, body mass and leg press strength was seen in the group taking CLA – this was not found in the group using the placebo!

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Summary

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With proper exercise, nutrition and dedication, CLA can undoubtedly lead to an increase in fat reduction and increased lean muscle.

Remember that in order to be successful, the dosage of CLA should be around 3.4 or higher – maybe as high as 6 grams for bodybuilders and weight training men.

I will be utilizing CLA for my new workout journal – so keep checking that out!

- James

February 21, 2010 in Articles, Motivation by James Dawson Martin

Get comfortable with you!

As a trainer, I always begin by having a client discuss their goals with me. These goals can range from general fitness, athletic performance, strength, and physical appearance.

The latter, in my opinion, counts for the majority of my clients main goals.

In terms of physical appearance, some of these clients wish to morph their bodies not

just by increasing muscle mass or decreasing fat, but to actually change the shape of their muscles -width and length.

This is the mistake many people make initially.

The way our muscles are shaped – the way our chest is formed and our abs are shaped - is mostly genetic.

Some people have a wide, broad chest and others have thick less broad chests. While we can work to change this, a lot of it is genetic.

It is important that one becomes comfortable in their own skin and body before beginning a workout – that they know that they can achieve fantastic results, that they can strip away that body fat and have abs that they dreamed of..But they must realize that those abs will be their own and nobody else’s.

We are unique individuals and have separate genetics.

Coming to this conclusion and focusing on the way your own physique will look like is one of the most important factors before starting a workout program.

You will not look like ‘Brad Pitt in Fight Club’..

You will not look like ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando’..

No. You will look like yourself -

You will look like yourself with toned muscles and six pack abs -

Unique muscle. 

So take this time.. Look in the mirror.. Look at your chest and the shape of it..

Think of it being lean, think of your stomach with six pack abs, the way it will all come together.

You will make amazing results happen.

Just Make sure you visualize yourself being ripped and muscular - not another person being it for you.

You are you. You are unique.. And that is an amazing thing my friend.

November 25, 2009 in Articles, Supplements by James Dawson Martin

Ectomorphs: The Hard Gainers

Do you have light bone structure, small joints, and find it hard to gain weight/muscle?
You are probably an ectomorph/hard gainer – welcome to the club! It’s time to forget what anyone outside of the club has told you!

Do you watch your carbohydrate intake too much?
Do you just eat complex carbohydrates?
Do you go low carb/high protein?
Do you

Forget what you learned! You are a hard gainer. Your physique and dietary needs differ completely when compared to the big jointed mesomorph next to you!

He may be eating a salad and steak with a small serving of rice.. But that isn’t going to cut it for you! That’s not going to create the anabolic fueiling we need!

Calories – eat them up!

The majority of us hard gainers/ectomorphs needs to consume at least 4000 calories a day, sometimes as much as 5000-6000. Yes, that is a lot of calories!
With that amount, it is very hard to achieve your intake with just complex carbohydrates and protein… Plus, your energy requirements are much higher.

You also have a completely different anabolic situation than endo’s and even meso’s (people who gain fat easier and those that gain muscle easily).

We need to focus on being anabolic a lot more – focusing on extra rest, limiting cardio, heavy weight training, and high GI (glycemic index) foods that spike insulin levels/create an anabolic environment.

Mesomorphs can generally get away with limited calories, limited insulin spike/energy before training, and less sleep/rest and gain well, which is why you should never pay attention to people outside of our club..

What to do:

• Decrease the cardio and other calorie devouring activity – get just enough to be fit and healthy.
• Go heavy and intense in the weight room and decrease the volume – less sets and time in the gym.
• See that bagel – two bagels? Fill it up with that jam/jelly and have it with a protein shake before the gym. You need that insulin spike! After training? A protein shake with a couple of banana’s could do the trick.

• Taper your carbohydrates in the evening but never reduce them to zero. Eat carbohydrates even for your last meal. Eat the majority, especially high GI carbs in the morning and before/after training.. But still consume for your other meals.
• Take a good quality protein powder. I recommend some of the following:

Gaspari Nutrition MyoFusion, 5 Lbs., Strawberry & Cream Optimal Ration Of Whey Protein Concentrate & Isolate, Egg Albumen & Milk Protein Isolate!



Gaspari Nutrition REAL MASS, 5.95 Lbs., Rich Vanilla Milkshake The Complete Weight Gainer For Maximum Increase IN Muscle Mass!



• Use a good creatine product:

Gaspari Nutrition SizeOn, 1290 Grams, Wild Berry Punch Patent Pending Cell Volumizer To Induce Maximum Muscle Recovery!



Controlled Labs Green MAGnitude, 80 Servings, Sour Green Apple Increase Your Stamina In The Gym And Gain Size And Strength!

These are just a few of our club guidelines. The ectomorph club is unique. While some people are plauged by gaining weight (fat) very easily, we are the polar opposite and cannot gain weight without effort.

Remember these guidelines and remember that you are eating for two regular weight lifters!

October 5, 2009 in Energy Systems by James Dawson Martin

The Human Energy Systems

Energy Systems – By James Dawson Martin.

The energy our body requires to produce movement, force against objects, grow or generate heat comes from one place – a substance in the body known as adenosine triphosphate, ATP for short. This is a form of energy provided by the macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates) in the food that we eat, with fat and carbohydrate stores being the perferred energy sources. ATP = ENERGY.

ATP is what provides the energy to allow for muscular contractions – working out. Therefore, as long as ATP Supplies are sufficient to meet our exercise demands, muscular activity of any kind can occur and continue.

The body has three distinct energy systems to meet the ATP demands;

• The Creatine Phosphate System – 0-10 seconds high intensity, short burst activities – uses purely chemical energy as fuel
• Lactate System – 1-3 minutes high intensity activity – uses carbohydrates as fuel
• Aerobic System – long duration, low intensity activity – uses carbohydrates and fat as fuel

The creatine phosphate system:

For high intensity, low duration physical activities (heavy weight training, sprinting, etc) energy for muscular contraction is required quickly and in short bursts – this is supplied within the muscle stores of ATP and creatine phosphate.
These ATP stores are extremely limited and may only last for the first few seconds of exercise – 5 to 8 seconds.

This system, the creatine phosphate system, comes exclusively from chemical energy stored within the muscles, and the process requires no oxygen (anaerobic) and places no immediate demands on fat or carbohydrate stores like lactate and aerobic energy stems.

Recovery rates usually range from 30 seconds to 4 minutes.

This system is utilized for when we do heavy, high intensity and low duration exercise and sports. For example, a one rep max on your bench.

Lactate System

The lactate system is associated with the burning sensations felt during high intensity activities. The lactate system bridges the gap between aerobic and creatine phosphate systems. It allows for energy to continue beyond the few seconds of the creatine phosphate energy system, and at a rate greater than the aerobic system can achieve. Exercise can be sustained for between 60-180 seconds.

Even when we rest, small amounts of ATP energy are produced using the lactate system – there is always a small amount of lactate present in the blood. During low intensity activity, our energy requirements are easily met using the aerobic system. However, when the energy demands of an activity become too great for the aerobic system to manage, the lactate system starts to be utilized and blooc lactate levels will start to rise.

The rate of energy production from the lactate system is rapid and the fuel is glycogen/carbohydrates.

The duration of activity would be 1-3 minutes of intense activity.

Recovery rates vary from 20 minutes to two hours, which is dependent on the intensity and duration of exercise.

Think of an example lactate activity as being a 400m sprint or a high rep set of weights.

Aerobic (oxygen) system:

Aerobic means ‘with oxygen’, and refers to the energy system that produces ATP (energy) from the complete breakdown of carbohydrates and fat, with oxygen being present.

The aerobic system is dominant during lower intensity activities when ATP energy demands are low and oxygen is relatively plentiful.
At rest or during low intensity activity, most aerobic energy is supplied by fat. As exercise demands increase and ATP is required more quickly, carbohydrates will begin to contribute more to the process. Protein contains as many calories of energy as glucose/carbs, but it will contribute little to energy production so long as sufficient carbohydrate levels are available. If not, protein is utilized and muscle breakdown can occur.

The rate of energy production from the aerobic energy stem is s low and uses glycogen/carbohydrates and fat as fuel.

The activity used for this kind of energy system is a low intensity, long duration time of activity.

Recover is usually fast – just replenish the stores by eating or drinking a mixture of carbohydrates and protein.

Think of aerboic activity as being a long distance walk – something that does not require much energy.

I hope this gives you a basic idea of the three energy systems our body utilizes for different forms and different intensities of activity.

Best to you all,

James