Stop Smoking, Start Training!

Let's face it, smoking is not easy to let go of, even if its dangers are well-known. However, if the few of you have some troubles stopping, start doing some simple exercises. Turns out, sports play an important part for the effort to stop smoking. Research indicates that smokers who do some workouts regularly have twice the success rate to stop smoking than smokers who do not do some workout regularly.

image credit to alternativehypnosisny.com

Cigarettes act as stress-reliever for a lot of smokers, and when they don't smoke, they can feel their stress level increasing. Fact is, working-out is the best stress-reliever and can replace your smoking addiction to relieve your stress. And for those who doesn't do workouts regularly, don't worry, because a research by Dr. Adrian Taylor and his team indicates that simple exercises such as walking around for 5 minutes can decrease your desire to smoke.

According to him, anything that can distract a smoker from smoking help decrease the urge to smoke. Meanwhile, sports will trigger the body to produce the hormone called dopamine that can decrease the nicotine dependency for smokers.

Other research also indicates that the higher your workout intensity, your success rate to suppress your smoking addiction is higher. You can do other workouts with higher intensity for 20 to 30 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. Do any sports you like, like jogging, cycling, swimming, tennis, basketball, etc.

However, this research also states that to quit smoking needs combination of sports and other techniques to stop other smoking habits. But still, there's no harm in trying their suggestion from those experts, because doing sports and other physical activities regularly are not only reducing the smoking addiction, they are also good for your health and fitness.

Overtraining

I've mentioned about overtraining a lot, but a lot of people still don't know what is the cause and symptoms. Through this post I'm going to share some info about overtraining, especially for those "noobs" (newcomers) in workouts and training.

I already posted about the importance of recovering after a training. You can read it here. If you don't have enough rest and just workout everyday, what you're doing is overtraining.

image credit to fitnessgurusam.com

Overtraining can be caused by:
- Too much training or workout in a week
- Too many equipment in one workout session. Use 4 to 5 equipment only, and don't use all the equipment for training variations. You will tire yourself.
- Too much set, or training for too long. Some even do it for 3 hours. You only need to do 3 to 4 sets per equipment, no need to do 10 sets.
- Lifting weights that are too heavy in a long time.

Symptoms or indications of overtraining that you have to be aware of:
- The loss of power in your body. You may wonder why you train often but your strength is not as strong as it was before. It might be the cause of overtraining.
- Prolonged exhaustion.
- Sleep-deprived, or got no sleep at all.
- Decreasing appetite.
- Prolonged muscle-pains.
- Mood swings.
- No passion to train or have some workout.
- Decreasing immunity, for example, prone to flu, catch a cold, and body recovery is slowed down.

Few things you can do to prevent overtraining:
- Manage your training so that you have enough rest. It doesn't mean that you can't train everyday. Read my previous post about this.
- Add some variations into your training.
- Don't achieve Failure Set in EACH SET every time you train and in EVERY TRAINING SESSION.
- Add some more other activity like treadmill or some other cardio into your weight-lifting training.

Sure enough, workouts can make you healthy and stronger. But you also have to remember to manage your training. Train smarter, not harder!

Why You're Not Getting the Results from Your Workout

If you've been following my posts since the very beginning (and I hope you do), and yet still don't get the results, this is the post that will answer your question. Don't even think about supplements to get faster results  before you read this post first.

Before asking which supplements to use, we have to realize that there are many factors that involves in body-building efforts. Even stress can thin out your body. Here I will share few factors that you may have to reevaluate when you don't get the results from your workout or your training.

image credit to thelegalcommune.com

1. Rest
Have you have enough rest? How long do you sleep in a day? Of course, every person is different in terms of sleeping needs, but the standard sleeping time is 7 to 9 hours a day. When we sleep, our body produces growth hormones that can repair the broken cells. Besides the sleeps at night, you also have to pay attention to the resting time between each training. You won't build your chest muscles when you train it everyday. Give at least two or three days gap before you train it again in the next workout.

2. Train Hard for the Designated Muscles
Let's say you want to build your biceps, and you don't get the results. Reevaluate your training: was it "hard" enough? Some say that it was hard enough, but they do the same pattern with the same weight every time (and didn't do the overload principal). Add more weight over time because your muscles will get used to the same weight you're using every time, making your training pointless. It's like when we were in school in 1st to 6th grade, the lessons get harder everytime, right?

3. Variations
Use some variations in your training so that your muscles don't get bored. When you do the same training pattern every time, your body will adapt, and won't respond much to your training. Use different order when you train, different weights, different resting time between each set, and different sets to "surprise" your muscles and triggers them to adapt and develop.

4. Did you do cardio before your weight training?
What usually happens is people do cardio before their weight training. They thought that it was just a warm up. You do have to do a little cardio before you train for a warm up, but what people usually did is that they did it too hard, and sometimes, too long. You don't have to run in the treadmill for 30 minutes as a warm up. This will tire you in your weight training, and will significantly hamper your effort to build your body. Do your cardio after your weight training.

And that's the four basic things that you have to reevaluate when you reach a plateau (no progress) in your training. If you do them all right, then reevaluate your nutrition. Did you consume enough nutrition your body needs to build your body? It doesn't matter if you want to lose weight or want to gain some, your daily nutrition needs is important.

Run, Forrest, Run!

Want to run in full speed? Make sure your training is not in vain, by checking out these tips to maximize your performance in running or jogging.

image credit to fitnessgurusam.com

1. Choose the right shoes. Don't use old shoes or soccer shoes to run. Instead, use some running shoes and use it for 600 kilometers. Don't use the same shoes to run continuously, because the soles under the shoes will decay rapidly. Buy spare shoes to run and use them alternately.
2. I said this before and I'll say it again: rest is important. Don't force your body to run everyday. Make some intervals in your running days with resting days, so that your body have enough time to recover.
3. Breathe properly when you run. Long breaths are needed in running so that oxygen can fill all air cavities inside your lungs.
4. Have something to eat a few hours before you run. Choose foods that are slow-absorbed so that it will give you some energy for few hours ahead. Before you run, you can also drink supplements like Carbo Booster which can energize you without feeling too full.
5. Warm-up is important. Don't start to run as fast as you can when you just started. Start by warming up your legs by walking, then power-walk, start to jog, then run as fast as you can.
6. Remember to cool down to prevent cramps or any other injuries after your training.
7. Ready yourself mentally. Besides strong stamina, running needs strong mentality too. Focus yourself to your goal and fight to achieve those goals.

Ready to run?

Beginner's Guide to Build Your Body

In the previous post, I've shared about how to gain weight ideally. In this post, I'm going to share about what you have to do when you want to build your body. By "build", I mean gaining some weight or losing some weight. Either way, they are quite the same, with some differences here and there.

image credit to smithalan00.hubpages.com

The Guide:
- measure your body - as in your biceps, chest, legs, all of them.
- train YOUR WHOLE BODY, including your legs even if you only want to show off your upper-body, because this will help you produce the growth hormone which will help you build ALL THE MUSCLES.
- you have to keep in mind that you can't get a six-pack while you're bulking (thickening your muscles)
- train your stomach, but you have to remember that you can get a six-pack after you attenuate the fat in your stomach with diets.
- it's ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to thicken your muscles (bulking, also known as gain weight) while losing some weight (cutting)
- when you want to bulk up, get a realistic goal. Gaining 0,5 - 1 lb per week of lean muscle mass is impressive already.

The Diet:
- find out your body type to determine your diet strategy.
- use the 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat benchmark for your diet, while keeping your body's needs (everyone is different).
- for carbs, choose complex carbs instead of simple sugars.
- for fat, avoid saturated fat, and choose good fat such as flax seed, fish, peanut butter, and olive oil.
- drink as much water as you can (but don't get too bloated up).
- it's better to consume too many calorie than not get enough, especially for those with ectomorph type of body. You can adjust your calorie intake if it's too much when you can see some fat in your body when you take a look at yourself in the mirror :)

The Training:
- train you muscles at least once a week AS INTENSIVE AS YOU CAN, but not more than 1 hour.
- 45 to 55 minutes are your "developing window" to build your muscles. More than that, your body will go catabolic.
- never think that when your muscle pain is gone you can train it again the next day. You can see more about the recovery time here.
- never push yourself too hard (overtrain). TRAIN, EAT, REST, and you'll get your results :)
- take a week off every 8 weeks, and start training again with new routines.
- remember to stretch and warm up before workout or training to prevent injury.
- take about 90 to 120 seconds to rest between each set. Read more about this here.
- make sure you do the motions correctly. Doing it wrong can injure you, or doesn't give you the results you want.
- start with compound movement, and end with isolation movement.
- after 2 or 3 sets of warm up, start to GO HEAVY for a round, 3 sets to failure.
- take notes of your progress so you can track it down.

The Supplements
- multivitamin with enough vitamin C
- try Creatine, Glutamine, and ZMA
- Whey Protein is compulsory if you can get some, but make sure the protein from REAL FOOD is fulfilled.

Gaining Weight the Right Way

In losing some weight, the usual advice is that the calorie intake has to be smaller than those that are out. If the calorie intake is more than what the body needs, the body will store the excess calories as fat. However, if the calorie intake is equal than those that are out, our body won't gain or lose some weight. But is it that simple?

There are some articles on the internet that explain about the BMR to count the daily calorie needs to maintain weight. More than the BMR rate, we'll gain weight; and less than that, we'll lose some. However, the fact is different.

For example, a thin person with 50 kg in weight and 175 cm in height eats 2500 calories a day. If he's not losing or gaining some weight, then we can assume that 2500 calorie intake is equal than those that are out. Let's say he wants to gain weight, and do what people usually do: eat more, especially before he sleeps (because as we know, this is considered to be "forbidden" for those who wants to lose some weight), eats ice cream and chocolates as desserts, then goes to sleep. It's quite clear that the calorie intake is more than 3500 calories a day, yet he still complains that his body is still thin (by now he can be regarded as a person with ectomorph type of body, which is a body that has fast metabolism, which makes them hard to gain weight).

Then what about the above theory? Why is he not gaining any weight even if he increases his daily calorie intake for more than 40%?

First, you have to take into account that human's body always tries to keep its fat level point in a balanced and stable condition. This also happens in ectomorph type of body, where they have low level of fat and unable to store big quantities of fat.

It's also known that it's better to not eat a lot at the same time, because our body will only absorb a few, and the rest will be stored as fat. However, for those with ectomorph type of body, they can't store fat, thus their body speed up their metabolism to dispose the new "fats" that are supposed to be stored.

This is the concept of Fat Level Point, where the body will always try to maintain the fat level in its stable condition. Some call this as the condition where the fat people find it hard to lose weight, and the skinny people find it hard to gain weight. With this concept, it's clear that eating more is not the solution to gain weight ideally.

Those with ectomorph type of body can only gain weight by enhancing their muscle mass (not their fat, because it won't work). To add some muscle mass, they have to lift some weight with medium or heavy weight. They also have to eat right for their muscle recovery.

Even for those who wants to gain weight, they also have to eat 5 or 6 times a day with medium portions. That meal plan is necessary so that the food intake will be optimally absorbed. Medium portions will make sure the excess calories won't be stored as fat and get disposed by the body.

In the next post, I'm going to share a quick guide to gain weight in a healthy way :)

Recovery Time after Each Training

There are a lot of questions that usually come from gym newbies that I have shared in the previous posts. For example, I've shared about how much weight you have to lift, resting time between each set, and now, I'm going to share about the suggested amount of recovery time after the workout.

People usually start to workout when they want to shape their body. The reasons are various, some want to lose weight, some want to build their muscles and get buff. However, in achieving our goal, we tend to want to get the fastest results. We thought that the harder we train, the faster we'll get to that goal.

Like many aspects of our lives, doing something excessively is not always good. It's the same with workouts. Training harder won't get the best results, only increase the accident risks.

When we train, we're stressing our muscles that it creates tiny rips in our muscles. When we rest, our body will repair those rips, making our muscles stronger. This process will be repeated over and over again until we reach the goal of our training. Therefore, enough rest and nutrition is as important as the workout itself.

image credit to tascha.ch

Always rest your muscles for at least 24 hours. But that doesn't mean that if we train our chest muscles today, we can't train our back the next day. What I mean is, the same muscle group should not be trained constantly, because it won't get the chance to recover. Therefore, if you do full body training in one workout, it should not be more than 3 times a week.

However, if you train one muscle group in one training, then you better arrange your training schedule. For example, if you train your chest on Monday, train your legs on Tuesday, shoulder and back on Wednesday, then train your chest on Friday. You can see in that example that that way, you're training your chest and giving it a couple days to rest.

This method is used by people who understands about recovery and trains very hard so that their body needs longer time to rest. Even professional bodybuilders rest their muscles for 5 days before starting another training. It doesn't mean that you train once in every 5 days, but with the above pattern, they give long enough rest so that their muscles are getting the maximum recovery.

There are still a lot of gym newbies that haven't understand the importance of recovery time. They thought that by training harder and more often, they'll get the results faster.

Remember, train smarter, not harder!