Quote of the day 29/4

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength - Arnold Schwarzenegger

Week 14 Progress Update

Here are pictures for week 14

Weight is 66.7kg's




Food is currently 250 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbohydrate and 40 grams of fat per day. I will possibly making some adjustments next week to my diet to shock the body into stripping off the last bit of fat.

Training Tip: Exercise Order

Performing your weight training before cardiovascular training has been shown to burn more fat compared to doing cardiovascular training first.

Quote of the day 26/4

“Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the 'someday I'll' philosophy.”

-Denis Waitley

Quote of the day 25/4

“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.”

- Wayne Dyer

Food Tip: Marinade your meat

Many people have the impression that food when dieting has to be bland and tasteless. This could not be further from the truth. The key to a successful diet is taking in the correct nutrients for your body and using a few low calorie condiments are not going to spoil your diet.

One way to improve the flavour of your food is to marinade the meat or fish. Leaving the marinade to soak in for a few hours will make the meat very soft and tender.

Acidic condiments such as lemon or lime juice and vinegar will help tenderise the meat, breaking down the fibres and improving the texture. You can also manually tenderise the meat by using meat hammer. This works especially well if you are preparing pork or beef.

With this you can use mustard, horse radish, tomato puree, soy cause, oyster sauce or many types of herbs and spices to add flavour. These will only add a negligible number of calories and make the food you are eating so much more flavoursome.

Spending 5 minutes marinating the meat in the morning and then refrigerating it will mean you have quick and very tasty meat to cook in the evening after work

Here are some marinade combinations-

Chinese style

Lemon Juice
Small amount of oyster sauce
Soy sauce

Indian Style

Lemon Juice
Cumin
Coriander
Turmeric

French Style

Balsamic Vinegar
Mustard
Salt + Black Pepper

Italian Style

Lemon Juice
Basil
Tomato Puree
Salt + Black Pepper

Keep your reps constant

I see a lot of guys when training pausing between almost every repetition of a set. When you are performing a repetition the blood flow is restricted to the muscle, if you pause between every rep you are allowing the muscle a brief rest allowing it to clear away lactic acid.

Now although the rest pause technique can be used for increased strength and size, allowing you to squeeze out a few extra repetitions at the end of the set the whole set should not comprise of this technique.

Try something different

Reduce the weight you would normally use try to keep the bar or dumbbells moving without pause throughout the whole set. Aim for 8-10 repetitions using a tempo of 2 seconds on the lifting phase and 3 seconds to lower the weight. Use full range of motion but don’t lock out your joints (knees, triceps, biceps) as this take the tension off the muscle, giving it a brief rest.

This will feel surprisingly difficult and possibly quite uncomfortable at first. This burning feeling or ‘pump’ you experience has been shown to aid in muscle growth by stimulating many growth factors and hormones to be released. This over time leads to better muscle stimulation and growth.

Try this technique for 6 weeks on a body part that you feel is lagging behind others and see what improvements you make. The muscle doesn’t care how much weight you are lifting, it responds more to how much tension you place on it. If muscle size is you goal then this is what you should be aiming for.