World Fitness Blog : Leading Global Bloggers

March 17, 2021

Longevity in Fitness

John Du Cane is the author of Qigong Recharge, publisher, fitness guru, and accomplished businessman. I was lucky enough to talk to him recently. At first, I thought we would be steering the conversation towards all things kettlebell, and John’s pioneering work on seeding the fitness industry with quality kettlebell trainers, but something else caught my attention. And so, we talked about resilience and longevity.

John’s journey started in South Africa, where he spent his youth. At a young age, he sensed a connection between life and energy. I understood this as his awareness of the human body’s life force and the energy connection between humans.

John says, “I was constantly surrounded by nature, and it made me think about the world.”

John began his Qigong and Tai Chi practice in 1975 and has owned and run Dragon Door Publications since 1990 where he has embraced everything from martial arts to isometrics, beyond the popularization of hard style kettlebell training under the RKC banner.

Qigong and Resilience

As a qigong student, John Du Cane understands how our breath is a tool that we can use to develop physical and mental resilience.

Qigong is an art that originated in China and is taught to warriors to develop full self-awareness of their bodies and movements. I asked him if a specific qigong segment would help modern-day martial artists create this type of resiliency.

He suggested the iron shirt qigong.

If the breath is energy and energy is life, it will make sense why we would breathe in a way that flexes our core muscles as we engage in exercises like running, pull-ups, or lifting heavy weights in general.

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Master Your Breathing

There have been many books and courses published on breathing techniques.

If you ever get intrigued enough to pick up a copy of John Du Cane’s qigong series on Amazon, I would also suggest picking up a copy of Breathing for Warriors by Belisa Vranich and Brian Sabin.

These books contain lots of information, tips, and tricks to get you started on your journey to mastering your breathing.

According to John, learning to master your energy through qigong can take many years. It takes a long time to develop because it goes beyond the physical aspects of our being. It helps us develop mental fortitude that will go on to sharpening our intuitive mind.

Train Your Inner Self

This ability can help us navigate through life by making decisions that make sense. I have made some choices in life that were logically sound but didn’t exactly feel right. Ultimately, those decisions led me to square one because I chose to ignore this sense of inner knowing.

That sense of inner knowing is your intuition, and if you choose to cultivate it through qigong, everything that happens to you starts happening for you.

It’s a shift in perspective—a deeper understanding of your purpose on this planet.

Teamwork makes the dream work. John began his friendship and working relationship with Pavel Tsatsouline when he enrolled in Pavel’s classes. Pavel’s technique, charm, and articulation skills made John approach Pavel to publish his programs.

In an interview with John, I asked him, “Was it because of all those decades of cultivating and training your intuition that you had an inner knowing that this partnership was going to be a success?”

John Du Cane replied that it might be challenging to comprehend what was going on in his universe, but it makes sense that he derives his strong self-knowing from training his inner self.

Kettlebell Movement

At that time, kettlebells were neither a trend nor incorporated in mainstream training programs. Even Pavel stated that it was probably a very niche market where he could reach out to elite strongman lifters and other interested professional athletes.

Little did they know, the kettlebell movement would become a worldwide phenomenon.

The kettlebell challenge provided a platform for people to develop their strength, breathing, and resilience all-in-one. At this point, it’s probably safe to say that as long as we are alive and enthusiastic about life, we will always want to push the limits.

We push boundaries to find the answer to the question that we’ve all been asking—Is there more to life than just our daily routines and duties?

A training program emerged called the Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) and led to millions of people worldwide having the initials RKC tattooed on their bodies. It’s safe to say that there is more to life for anyone who decides to challenge themselves by enrolling in this rigorous program.

Like Pavel says, “I’m going to show you how to be a better man. If you don’t know, I’ll show you. If you don’t want to, I’ll make you.”

Kettlebell Mechanics

I am a reflective learner who takes knowledge from the external world to make it my own internally. My experience with kettlebell workouts has been amazing.

But to do it well, it will take even more years of training because the pursuit of perfection is the journey of a lifetime.

My initial encounter with the kettlebell helped me expose my bad habits with posture, breathing, and timing. I was a strong young man in my late teens and always found ways to add to my training program.

The first thing I noticed was that you could easily hurt yourself with bad form.

More specifically, it’s not advisable to curve your back when you are on the down-swing. It also means that I was using my arm strength and hip strength without utilizing my core strength’s full potential.

Having abs is cool but having the ability to flex and relax your core at the exact timing you want is the next level.

The repetitive movement of tension and release that we use to perform the kettlebell swings can apply to other fitness forms such as martial arts and rugby.

It’s a lot to take in, but the good news is, if you have a kettlebell sitting in your room or office like I do, you can get more training time to perfect your form and breathing. It only takes about 10-20 mins for a real workout which means it’s less invasive on your time.

As UFC multiple weight-class champion Connor Mcgregor once said, “Accuracy beats strength, and timing beats speed.”

I hope you have embarked on your journey to finding your form of perfection. If that journey is in fitness, I would highly recommend you pick up a copy of John Du Cane’s Qigong Recharge and Pavel’s Fast and Loose- Secrets of Russian Champions.

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March 14, 2021

Avoid Burnout On The Way To Your BJJ Black Belt

Avoid Burnout On The Way To Your BJJ Black Belt - Fitness, weightlifting, bodybuilding, BJJ, jiu-jitsu, energy systems, periodization, explosive strength, muscular endurance, proprioception, burnout, cardiovascular fitness, fitness nutrition, The Recovery Guide

In the culture of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, it is encouraged for the athletes to train more and more. Athletes are training Jiu-Jitsu every evening, lifting weights every morning or vice versa, and doing two sessions a day at least five to six days a week.

If you are training this way, yet feeling like you are not necessarily progressing because you:

Then most likely, you are overtraining.

Do You Overtrain?

Many chronically overtrained athletes come my way feeling like this, and to top it all off, they are frustrated because they can’t lose weight even with all the training.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a complex sport that is very taxing on the nervous system.

It involves the constant activation of multiple muscle groups with both significant movements and small, subtle movements.

The rolling around at the gym can be up to eight minutes long, and black belt matches are ten minutes long, so muscular endurance and cardio fitness are necessary to be explosive within that timeframe. Hence, BJJ requires all energy systems to be firing at one stage or another.

Relax and Repair the Central Nervous System

There are methods for increased recovery, such as ice baths, meditation, and good nutrition.

Deep sleep is one of the best ways to deal with overtraining because it allows the central nervous system to relax and begin the repairing process. Many people don’t understand that the nervous system takes much longer to recover than other systems, such as the muscular.

Due to the nervous system affecting slow muscle firing, which then may influence:

  1. Reaction time
  2. Speed
  3. Grip strength
  4. Explosive power

Ironically, once our nervous system is fried, it’s hard to sleep, yet it’s what our body needs the most when we continually train to recover.

Even though ice baths, meditation, and good nutrition will help mitigate some adverse effects of chronic overtraining, it will eventually catch up if we do two intense sessions a day.

Structure and Periodization

Bazilian, Jiu-Jitsu training needs to be periodized and structured for long-term success.

  • If you want to train on the mat daily, there need to be days selected for hard rounds and other days for more flowing rounds, focusing on the sport’s more technical aspect.
  • Strength training should only be performed about twice a week and should be done on the days you are doing flow rolls.
  • Make the strength sessions count and perform them with intensity. Then, give your body time to recover.
  • Don’t go to the gym and go through the motions just because you think you should—which so many of us do.
  • Push yourself to make those gains and make each session count.

Perform with purpose.

Choose Exercises That Mimic Movement Patterns

In the bodybuilding culture (why gyms came about in the first place), lifting started with the purpose of building big muscles.

This way of lifting is not necessarily conducive to performance athletes who need to work the compound movements of multiple muscle groups at one time for coordination or core strength for balance, power, speed, and muscular endurance.

Getting creative is the key, so try and mimic the movement patterns of BJJ as closely as possible. Think outside the box.

Here are some great exercises to perform back to back that will benefit any performance athlete.

2. Pullups With the Gi to Increase Grip Strength

Avoid Burnout On The Way To Your BJJ Black Belt - Fitness, weightlifting, bodybuilding, BJJ, jiu-jitsu, energy systems, periodization, explosive strength, muscular endurance, proprioception, burnout, cardiovascular fitness, fitness nutrition, The Recovery Guide

3. Kettlebell Swings

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4. Plank Holds and Variations

Avoid Burnout On The Way To Your BJJ Black Belt - Fitness, weightlifting, bodybuilding, BJJ, jiu-jitsu, energy systems, periodization, explosive strength, muscular endurance, proprioception, burnout, cardiovascular fitness, fitness nutrition, The Recovery Guide

5. Stability Ball Exercises to Increase Proprioception

Avoid Burnout On The Way To Your BJJ Black Belt - Fitness, weightlifting, bodybuilding, BJJ, jiu-jitsu, energy systems, periodization, explosive strength, muscular endurance, proprioception, burnout, cardiovascular fitness, fitness nutrition, The Recovery Guide

Performing the workout in a circuit-based format with little rest is ideal while building muscular endurance and cardiovascular fitness.

Aim to do significant full-body movements that activate the core to build overall full-body strength, then spend the remainder of the day resting if you can or doing technique and flow rolls. Limit these effective and intense strength sessions to only about two days per week.

Once a week, allow a full day of rest to allow your muscular system and your nervous system, and joints to recover and recharge.

Start the following week strong and repeat. By adding rest, it reduces your stress levels which will help to keep you lean.

Athletes who chronically overtrain are highly stressed, and as a result, they are holding onto body fat and water.

Train intensely with less overall volume, rest to recover and de-stress, and you will be leaner in the long run.

In It for the Long Haul

For most of us to embark on this beautiful Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu journey, we want to be in it for the long-haul. You want to keep progressing and keep your body healthy and strong by training smarter and not necessarily harder.

To sum it up, aim for three hard BJJ sessions a week, two intense strength sessions a week, and one full rest day a week.

This schedule will give you the recovery you need to keep working towards your goals without fatigue or burnout. It will also keep you progressing and on track to a black belt.

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February 25, 2021

Active, Passive, and Earned Exercise Recovery Strategies

This article is the fourth and final installment in the exercise recovery series.

I’m finally going to cover the sexy stuff. These aren’t cutting-edge recovery modalities that will supercharge your training, recovery, and results, but they are the recovery methods that all work. They don’t work as powerfully as the marketing machine would have you believe, but you are looking for marginal gains at this stage of the recovery puzzle—not game-changers. 

The recovery strategies covered in this article all have strong evidence to support them.

I have not covered several other recovery methods because there is not strong enough evidence to be confident in recommending them.

There are two categories of recovery strategies; I’ll cover both:

  1. Passive recovery methods are those that focus on stillness and inactivity. 
  2. Active recovery methods require activity, but in a way that promotes recovery rather than intensity.

Passive Recovery

  • Hydration could fall under the umbrella of nutrition. It is undoubtedly an essential factor to consider in your overall training performance and recovery. Drinking adequate amounts of water is critical to your health, energy levels, gym performance, and healing. 
  • Many of us tend to be hyper-aware of our hydration during workouts and competition but less focused on hydration the rest of the time. Increasing awareness of your hydration status the rest of the time can significantly improve your recovery. We are about 60% water so, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that it’s essential to stay hydrated.
  • Water aids all of our bodily functions. Amongst other things, optimal hydration levels allow for cell growth and reproduction, effective digestion, efficient nutrient uptake, oxygen delivery, temperature regulation, hormone and neurotransmitter production, lower levels of stress on the heart, and joint lubrication. All of these factors influence training and recovery.
  • The simplest way to check your hydration status is to look at your pee. If it is clear to a pale straw color, you are well hydrated. The darker your pee, the less hydrated you are.

A good target to shoot for with water intake is 0.04 liters per kilogram of body weight. For a 100 kg (220 lbs) person, that is 4 liters per day.

100 kg x 0.04 liters = 4 Liters

Your exact needs will depend on other factors like activity level, perspiration rate, and ambient temperature. Begin with the 0.04 liters per kg recommendation and adjust as needed. The following guidelines can help you to stay well hydrated:

  • Drinking water is the best way to hydrate.

  • Tea and coffee have a net hydrating effect, but they are not as effective as drinking water.

  • You do not need sports drinks for average strength and bodybuilding training. Only drink them before, during, and after strenuous exercise or competition for a duration > 90 minutes. 

Proper diet planning takes care of adequate nutrients to fuel your workouts.

  • Napping is a bit of a cheat because I covered the importance of sleep for your last article’s recovery. That focus was on improving the quantity and quality of your sleep overnight. Supplementing your nighttime sleep with naps can also be beneficial and enhance recovery.
  • It is important to note that while napping can help get quality sleep and improve recovery, it should not replace sound sleep patterns. Make getting a good night’s sleep your top priority. Then to optimize recovery, utilize napping. When napping, it is best not to do it too close to your regular bedtime. Napping late in the day can disrupt your sleep during the night and become a false economy. Generally, late morning or early afternoon naps work well to improve recovery without impacting your normal sleep routine.
  • Keep the naps short. Taking 20-30 minute naps can help increase recovery and mental cognition. Napping for too long could result in sleep insomnia. The risk of this increases if you nap for longer than 30 minutes or late in the day.
  • The Coffee Nap Hack: If you feel groggy after a nap, it can be a false economy. Napping for 20 minutes aids recovery but, if you feel like a zombie for the next hour, your productivity will tank, and you will rightly question whether the nap was a worthwhile strategy. I have struggled with this in the past.
  • A tip that worked well for me was to have a coffee just before my nap. The caffeine from the coffee hit my bloodstream and caused a short-term spike in cortisol which helped me feel alert and refreshed after the nap.

Massage: While there is some evidence to support massage’s physiological benefits, the real benefits appear more psychological.

There is strong evidence for the psychological and relaxation benefits of massage. These factors all play a significant role in your recovery and adaptation.

So, deep-tissue sports massage may not be the best approach since this is anything but relaxing. A gentler approach may be more beneficial for recovery as you can completely relax and enjoy the experience.

Active Recovery

Light Days: Lighter training days can potentially improve recovery time more than a full rest day. Systematic decreases define a lighter day in training volume and intensity. Light days fall under good programming.

  • For strength or power goals: I find that lighter days are incredibly beneficial. You can program these every week (or multiple times per week) to allow for increased frequency on technique-driven lifts such as weightlifting and gymnastics. Yet still, allow for recovery and adaptation. This emphasis will enable you to grease the groove of a lift and refines the technique without generating much fatigue.
  • For bodybuilding goals: I think you can utilize the lighter days in a slightly different way. In this instance, I tend to use light days as days when smaller muscle groups create less systemic fatigue and require less mental arousal to train or make up a workout. I have found this works well to manage the total training stress across a week and means that a lifter can get a productive workout while allowing for a good recovery. 
  • Active Recovery Days: Active recovery days are quite risky. They certainly can enhance recovery, but most gym rats struggle to resist the temptation of turning their active recovery day into full-blown workouts.
  • When temptation is too strong, all that happens is you slow the recovery from your usual workouts. This slowdown defeats the object of active recovery days. It would help if you were honest with yourself about this. If you know you lack the discipline to stick to the recovery day plan, stay away from the gym. Do nothing. Just take a rest day. 
  • On the other hand, if you can stick to the plan for your recovery day, you might improve your overall recovery. The difference isn’t dramatic, but every little bit adds up.

A recovery day increases blood flow and alleviates psychological stress.

These two things can boost the recovery and adaptation process. Low-intensity activities are suitable for recovery days.

A favorite strategy of mine is to get outside for a brisk 20-minute walk. Walking increases blood flow and will aid recovery, especially to your legs, but is still low intensity. It does not interfere with recovery from prior training or performance in subsequent sessions.

Another right choice is a mobility routine.

A whole-body mobility flow can be a productive strategy for recovery days. 

The key is to remember that recovery days should involve more general fitness movements in a less-structured training environment at lower intensities than regular training.

Avoid any high-intensity style training, an excessive-duration or a novel activity, and anything strenuous. Recovery day sessions should be lighter and shorter than typical training sessions. They should promote recovery, not feel like a workout.

The clue is in the name—Recovery!

Eke Out Exercise Recovery

This article is the shortest one in this series by some margin. The reason is that these recovery strategies are less effective than the other factors I’ve covered.

If you find you are investing more time, money, and energy in the recovery methods in this article than those in the first three installments, then you’re missing out on a better recovery.

If, however, you’ve ticked off all the other elements from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of our exercise recover series then, you can eke out some additional recovery capacity by implementing the strategies covered here.

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February 24, 2021

Nature’s Two Most Powerful Exercise Recovery Tools

In part one of this series, Train Hard, Recover Harder, I explained that stress is a double-edged sword. To make adaptations, you need to impose stress, but too much stress will interfere with your recovery.

Stress can be both good and bad, but your body doesn’t differentiate between types of stress, and your body can only handle so much stress. Whilst training is good stress; your ability to benefit from it is somewhat dependant on your total stress load.

So, you must manage your overall life stress to free up as much capacity to deal with training stress. Stress management strategies can create a bigger window of opportunity to apply and recover from training stress. 

In the second part, Great Recovery Starts With Great Programming, I discussed optimizing your training program as another effective tool to maximize recovery. By focusing on delivering efficient training stress, you make your recovery easier. 

Intelligent Program Design = Fatigue Management

The four key factors to consider are:

  1. Volume landmarks

  2. SRA Curves

  3. Stimulus: Fatigue Ratio

  4. Relative intensity

At this stage, I am assuming your training is optimized and provides an appropriate stimulus.

From this point forward, the rest of your adaptations, such as gains in size and strength, are dependent on recovery and results in this simplified muscle-building equation:

Stimulus + Recovery = Adaptation

In this third installment of the series, I will explain your two most powerful recovery tools and how to maximize them.

The two most powerful recovery tools at your disposal are:

  1. Sleep

  2. Nutrition

If you focus on these consistently, you will be rewarded. When you have sleep, diet, and stress management dialed in, you are primed to make great progress in the gym. 

Sleep’s Positive Impact on Performance

Sleep is your number one recovery tool. I have talked repeatedly about sleep’s positive impact on athletic performance and your ability to recover from hard training. The harder you can train without exceeding your capacity for recovery, the faster you can make progress.

Sleep is the most anabolic state for your body. A lack of sleep will limit your strength and muscle mass gains. It will also increase the chances of you losing muscle mass when cutting and gaining fat while bulking.

To maximize recovery and build more lean muscle, you must make sleep a priority.

Better sleep will also help you to:

Long story short, it will make you a fitter, happier, and more productive person.

Let’s be honest; you probably already know this. Yet, I bet you don’t give sleep the credit it deserves when it comes to your lifestyle choices. Most of us realize we should sleep more. We know sleep is important. Yet, we do not prioritize it. 

I’m pretty confident you make this mistake because I do too. I have been guilty of it on many occasions in the past. Staying up late to watch the next episode of a TV show or scrolling aimlessly through Instagram is all too easily done. Whenever I do this, I always regret it the next day.

Lack of sleep can sneak up on you. You probably don’t realize you are sleep-deprived. The occasional late night has little impact. The problem is when those late nights become normal.

Staying up late on the laptop to meet work deadlines or relaxing in front of a good show both eat into your sleep and have a big impact on the quality of your recovery. In time, you’ll probably feel like a zombie without a hit of caffeine in the morning, your gym performance will start to plateau, and you’ll make worse dietary choices. These all happen gradually.

They sneak up on you. I have seen this time and again with clients that try to burn the candle at both ends. They fool themselves that they are getting away with it because the drop-off in performance is gradual. Be warned, lack of sleep adds up and can stop your progress dead in its tracks if left unresolved.

My experience with lack of sleep was less gradual and more like blunt force trauma. I had always slept well and made it a priority. Then I had kids. After our son was born, it was 18 months before I felt normal in the gym again. I vividly remember the session after my first full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I felt like Superman.

The sad thing is, I wasn’t Superman.

I wasn’t even close. I was just regular Tom after a good night’s sleep. My perception of what normal was had been warped so much by 18 months of sleep deprivation that feeling normal now felt amazing. You might have slept-walked into the same situation without realizing it. Make sleep a priority for a month, and I’m confident you’ll look, feel, and perform better.

The research on sleep deprivation is alarmingStudies show that 11 days in a row with less than six hours of sleep, your cognitive ability will be about the same as if you had stayed awake for 24 hours straight.

At 22 days of less than six hours of sleep per night, your brain function is at the same level as someone who has stayed up for 48 hours straight.​ To put things in perspective, that means your reactions are probably worse than someone who is over the legal limit for alcohol.

Are You More Zombie Than Human?

Do a sleep survey on yourself and assess whether you are more of a zombie than a human.

As a guide, you should aim for this when it comes to sleep:

  • Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

  • Go to bed at the same time every night.

  • Wake up at the same time each morning.

  • Wake up without an alarm clock.

  • Sleep the whole night through–multiple bathroom trips are a sure sign of low sleep quality (or drinking way too much just before bed).

  • Waking up in almost the same position you fell asleep in (not tossing and turning all night) is a good sign.

  • You should wake up refreshed.

How does your sleep stack up against that list? I’m guessing you don’t tick off all those points. In my experience, most people can’t even tick off a couple of them. Your goal is to work towards being able to check off each one of those bullet points.

Here are some practical tips to help you sleep better and for longer.

  • Set yourself up for success: Get a comfortable bed, mattress, and pillow. Bed quality can affect sleep. It can also reduce back and shoulder pain. Given you will be spending nearly a third of your life in bed, it makes sense to invest in a good one.
  • Establish a routine: Go to bed at roughly the same time and get up at the same time every day. Weekends count too. Being consistent with sleep and waking times has been found to improve long-term sleep quality.
  • Include relaxation: Relaxation techniques before bed has been found to improve sleep quality. Read a book, listen to a chill-out-playlist, take a hot bath or do some deep breathing and meditation. Do whatever it takes to help you relax and unwind.
  • Cut the coffee at 4 pm: Having coffee is cool. I love the stuff, but having it later in the day can disrupt or even prevent your sleep. On average, caffeine’s half-life is about five hours; however, this half-life can vary massively between individuals. If you are a slow metabolizer of caffeine, then you might have levels in your system keeping you alert and awake into the early hours if you drink it after 4 pm. In extreme cases, having it within 10 hours of bed can be disruptive for some people. So, cut yourself off at 4 pm and see if you can fall asleep easier. If you are still struggling, slide things forward to 3 pm and reassess.
  • Disconnect from the matrix: The blue light emitted by the screens on your devices can disrupt your sleep. The body’s internal clock or circadian rhythm is influenced mainly by daylight hours. Artificial light like streetlights and lightbulbs already disrupt it but staring at screens magnifies the issue. Your internal body clock is served by the ocular nerve, which is directly affected by blue light. The same light waves your phone, TV, laptop, and tablet give off. To improve sleep, I suggest you disconnect from screens like this for at least 60 minutes before bedtime.
  • Get natural sunlight exposure during the day: At these times, the body needs light. Studies found that two hours of bright light exposure during the day increases the amount of sleep by two hours and improves sleep quality by 80%.
  • Sleep in the Batcave: Make your bedroom pitch-black, quiet, and cool to maximize the quality of your sleep. Remove all electrical devices.
  • Room temperature: Set thermostats at about 20 C or 70 F. Room temperature has been found to affect sleep quality more than external noise.
  • Stay off the booze: Just a couple of drinks have been shown to reduce your sleep hormones. Alcohol alters melatonin production and decreases Human Growth Hormone (HGH) levels. Melatonin is a key sleep hormone that tells your brain when it’s time to unwind, relax and fall asleep. HGH helps regulate your body clock, is anti-aging, and vital to recovery.

There you have it, your comprehensive guide to better sleep. You have no excuse now. You know sleep is crucial. You can also rank your sleep against the standards listed above. If you come up short, you have nine tips to help improve your sleep.

If you do improve your sleep, then everything else will improve too. Aim to enhance your sleep before you worry about investing in any other recovery modalities.

None of them can hold a candle to sleep, and sleep is free.

Your Caloric Intake and Energy Balance

Your second most powerful recovery tool is your diet.

By fuelling your body appropriately, you can capitalize on the stimulus created by your training. Training creates the stimulus for muscle gain, fat loss, and strength increases. Your recovery dictates whether or not you reach that potential. 

When it comes to diet, there are several variables you can manipulate. The most important variable when it comes to nutrition for recovery is your calorie intake and energy balance.

What is a calorie, and what is energy balance?

A calorie (Kcal) is a unit of energy. Our food contains calories and is what fuels us with energy to go about our daily lives. Everyone requires different amounts of energy per day depending on age, size, and activity levels.

Caloric balance refers to the number of calories you consume compared to the number of calories you burn

If you eat a surplus of calories, you will gain weight. If you eat a deficit of calories, you will lose weight. While eating calorically at maintenance, it means you maintain weight. For physique changes, calories are king.

When consuming a calorie surplus, maximizing recovery is more manageable than when in a deficit. You have an abundance of calories available to hit your macro and micronutrient needs. When it comes to nutrition, if you’re in a surplus, keep things simple. Hit your macros, spread your protein intake relatively evenly between 3-6 meals a day, and eat various fruits and vegetables. 

When in a calorie deficit, the details matter more with your diet when maximizing recovery because you have less energy coming in. The fundamental principles still apply but, you have to be more mindful of your food choices when calories are low to ensure you hit both your macro and micronutrient needs. 

Meal timing, food quality, and micronutrition all matter more when in a deficit, but none of them trump hitting an appropriate calorie deficit.

An energy balance and macronutrients are the two most essential factors in your diet regarding physique development and strength gains.

How to Set Calories for Individual Results

When in a surplus, I suggest you eat enough to gain between 0.25-0.5% of your body weight per week.

A quick strategy to estimate your needs per day is to multiply your weight in pounds by 15.

This formula generally gives a good approximation of the calories needed to maintain your weight. A surplus of 500 calories per day will equate to about a pound of weight gain per week. If you weigh 200 lbs, this would be right at the upper end of your target weight gain. A surplus of 250 calories per day will result in you gaining about half a pound per week. So, picking a surplus between 250-500 kcal would be appropriate for a 200 lb lifter.

When in a deficit, I suggest losing between 0.5-1% of your body weight per week.

If you are sustaining a rate quicker than this for a significant period (e.g., more than four weeks), you risk negatively affecting your gym performance and muscle loss.

In much the same way as the surplus example, you can estimate maintenance calories by multiplying your weight in pounds by 15 calories.

From this point, you need to deduct calories to achieve a deficit. A 500-calorie deficit will net you about a pound loss per week. For our 200 lbs example, a loss rate of between 1-2 pounds per week is an ideal fat loss rate. Consequently, a deficit of 500-1,000 kcal per day is the range they should be looking at to achieve this.

Macronutrients

There are three types of macronutrients: protein, fat, and carbohydrates. All of these supply energy and therefore contain calories. Here is how to establish and set your macronutrient needs and targets. 

The calorie content per gram of each macronutrient is listed below:

  • Protein: Four calories per gram

  • Fat: Nine​ calories per gram

  • Carbohydrate: Four​ calories per gram

This information is beneficial for the practical step of constructing your diet with the appropriate ratios of each macronutrient. 

Protein Is Essential For Survival

Protein comes from the Greek word proteios, meaning “Of primary importance.” 

  • Protein is involved in nearly every process in your body.
  • Proteins are critical to survival and health.  
  • They play an important role in athletic performance and body composition.
  • Muscle mass is predominantly constructed from protein. 
  • Protein helps you recover from your training.
  • It preserves lean tissue when dieting.
  • It helps you grow more muscle when building. 
  • It has the highest effect on satiety, or the feeling of comfortably feeling full, of all the macronutrients.

To build muscle, you should consume protein in the range of 1.6-2.2 g/kg of lean body mass is sufficient to stimulate MPS for the day.

Recent research supports the higher end of this range.

I generally recommend eating 2 g of protein per kg of body weight. This formula is easy to remember, easy to calculate, and comfortably covers your needs. From a practical standpoint, I have also found it is a quantity that satisfies most people’s appetites and eating preferences. 

Key Takeaway–Eat 2 g of protein per KG (0.9 g per lbs) of body weight per day.

Never Eliminate Fat From Your Diet

Consumption of dietary fat is important for regular hormonal function, especially testosterone production.

You should never eliminate fat from a diet

There is not so much an optimal amount of fat to consume, rather a minimum of

0.2-0.5 g/kg/day for normal hormonal function. Cogent arguments for fat intakes between 20 to 30% of calories have been made to optimize testosterone levels.

With that said, once 0.6 g/kg/BW is reached, then no significant benefit to hormones is apparent.

How Much Fat Should I Consume?

My preference is a minimum of 0.6 g/kg/BW per day.

  • When in a surplus, this will be sufficient to optimize hormonal function and generally equal about 20% of calories. 
  • Given there is little benefit to hormonal function after 0.6 g/kg/BW when in a calorie surplus, there is no physiological need to increase from this figure as you progress through your mass phase.
  • Even when total calories are adjusted upwards to continue to gain weight, there is no need to exceed the 0.6 g/kg/BW of fat level from a physiological viewpoint. However, in my experience, many people find it easier to adhere to their diet plan if fat is scaled up a little higher when total calories climb.
  • I generally find that anything up to 1 g/kg/BW is effective.
  • When in a deficit, I suggest a range of 0.6-1 g/kg/BW.
  • The risk of hormonal disruption is higher when in a chronic calorie deficit.
  • Whilst many clients have performed well and had exceptional results at the lower end of this range, I tend to take the conservative approach and begin at the upper end when beginning a fat loss phase.

From this point, I take an outcome-based approach based on the rate of loss, client feedback, and gym performance.

Key Takeaway–Consume at least 0.6 g of fat per kg (0.3 g per pound) of body weight.

Carbohydrates Impact Hormones

Carbohydrates, like fats, have a positive impact on hormones. The carbohydrates you eat are converted to glucose and stored in the liver or sent out in the bloodstream. Most of this glucose is, however, actually taken in and stored by the muscles as glycogen. Despite this storage, glycogen is quite low down the list of the body’s priorities.

Glucose gets utilized in a hierarchical sequence.

Cells in need of energy are the priority for incoming glucose. Only once the majority of cells’ energy needs are satisfied will carbohydrate consumption increase blood glucose. When blood glucose reaches appropriate levels, liver glycogen synthesis is the next priority. 

Only after this does muscle glycogen start to be synthesized to a significant amount. When muscles take up blood glucose, they can use it for activity or repair. This is vital for muscle repair, recovery, and growth.

Carbohydrates are the dominant source of energy for the Central Nervous System (CNS) and athletic activities.

They help to fuel grueling training and aid recovery by replenishing muscle glycogen. Stored muscle glycogen is the primary and preferred fuel source for intense exercise. Carbohydrates are a huge advantage to hard-training individuals. 

During dieting phases dropping carbohydrate levels very low has become popular. This is not entirely without merit, as a reduction in carbohydrates can help create a calorie deficit. I suggest you resist the temptation to go zero carbs, though.

To get the most from your training, you need to push through overloading training sessions. Eating sufficient carbohydrates will help you to do this. They will also help you to retain muscle mass even while losing bodyweight.

If you are low on glycogen, then you risk muting the anabolic response to weight training. Eating sufficient carbohydrates allows for a higher intensity of training, higher volumes of training, quicker recovery between sets and between sessions, and anti-catabolic and anabolic effects. 

“How many carbohydrates should you consume?” Short answer:

“The remainder of your available calories”

More Protein Preserves Muscle Mass and Satiety

While in a calorie surplus, hitting your macros will probably deliver 80% of your diet’s benefits from a recovery perspective.

While factors like nutrient timing, micronutrition, food variety, and quality all contribute to optimal results, they only make a marginal difference.

When in a deficit, you need to take care of these marginal gains because you don’t have the safety net of an abundance of calories to do the heavy lifting for you.

Here are some tips for squeezing everything you can out of your diet for maximum recovery when cutting:

  • When you are in a calorie deficit, it is an excellent idea to consume the upper end of the protein guidelines provided earlier (2.2 g/kg/BW).
  • High protein intake has been shown to preserve muscle mass.
  • Anecdotally, high protein intakes also appear to help regulate appetite as well. This regulation is useful when cutting calories.

Protein Timing

Multiple studies have shown that a serving of 25-40 g of protein is sufficient to maximize Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS). To give you a more specific recommendation, I suggest you aim for 0.4 g/kg of body weight per meal. If you weigh 65 kg, that would be 26 g, while an 80 kg guy would have 32 g of protein per meal.

The current literature indicates that consuming a mixed whole food meal causes MPS to last roughly three hours and peaks for 45-90 minutes. While protein shakes/amino acid supplements tend to last only two hours and peak sooner. Then, MPS begins to tail off.

Research indicates that these peaks and troughs in MPS are beneficial to maximal muscle growth.

Based on the available scientific evidence, 4-6 servings of protein per day with 3-4 hours between each are your best bet to maximize MPS. 

When in a calorie deficit, fine-tuning your eating schedule to maximize MPS is your best bet to avoid muscle loss.

The Holy Grail of Nutrient Timing?

We have all heard of the post-workout anabolic window. Post-workout nutrition has for a long time been perceived as the holy grail of nutrient timing. I think this is a mistake. Pre-workout nutrition is, in my opinion, just as, if not more, important than post-workout nutrition.

As previously discussed, the body takes several hours to digest a meal. So, suppose you consume a balanced meal before training. In that case, your body will continue to receive a steady supply of nutrients throughout the entire session and even into the post-workout window.

Many people miss the critical consideration that the important nutrient timing factor is when the nutrients are in your bloodstream, not when you eat them.

The nutrients from your pre-workout meal are in the bloodstream during and possibly after you train. This means you can deliver nutrients immediately to the working muscles. If you only focus on the post-workout meal, there will be a significant delay in nutrients arriving at the muscles where you need them. 

With that in mind, here are few points to consider:

  • Inadequate carbohydrates can impair strength training. 

  • Consuming carbohydrates in the pre-training meal can improve performance in the training session.

  • Consuming carbohydrates intra-workout in sessions lasting longer than an hour can improve performance at the end of the session and prevent muscle loss (especially when combined with a fast-digesting protein source).

  • Consuming carbohydrates post-workout replenishes muscle glycogen more effectively than eating them at other times. This post-workout window is a lot longer than the much-touted anabolic window of 20-30 mins. The 4-6 hours after training when eating carbohydrates replenishes optimal muscle glycogen.

When bulking, your carbohydrate intake is probably high enough that you don’t need to worry too much about skewing your eating to one time or another.

Spreading carbs evenly throughout the day will serve you well.

When dieting, calories and carbohydrates can be very low. In this situation, it is more important to consider your specific timing of carbohydrate intake to support high-quality training and recovery.

It is wise to ensure that you consume carbohydrates at least in the meal before and after training.

After that, you can simply space it relatively evenly throughout the other meals consumed during the day.

Eat the Rainbow

Picking nutrient-dense low-calorie foods is a wise decision. This choice will help you stay full, which means you are more likely to adhere to your diet.

It also means you get all the micronutrition you need to support good recovery from training. A wide variety of vegetables is a wise decision when cutting calories.

A simple way to achieve a broad spectrum of micronutrition is to eat fruits and vegetables of as many different colors as possible.

Avoid Pseudo-Science

While it’s tempting to reach for the expensive recovery tool, backed by pseudo-science, you are better served picking the low-hanging fruit of improving your sleep and diet to boost your recovery.

These two factors have vastly more influence over your recovery and results than other fancy recovery methods.

Use the guidelines I’ve provided to get a massive recovery advantage and save the silly recovery fads for less well-informed lifters.

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February 2, 2021

Health, Fitness and the Tao of Functional Bodybuilding

There’s a reason functional bodybuilding (FBB) has become an overactive buzzing buzzword in the fitness industry today: It combines traditional strength training with a more, let’s call it, practical way to train, one that gets you moving better—moving more functionally. This goes a long way in improving health and fitness long-term.

Learning Functional Bodybuilding

Functional bodybuilding, which focuses more on quality of movement than intensity, allows us to bring bodybuilding principles to functional resistance training.

This helps build a great foundation of strength and efficient movement, one that is designed to accommodate each individual’s abilities and goals in a way that’s supportive for health and longevity.

Hence, it’s useful not just for high level athletes, but also for people just wanting to be healthy and functional for life, but who aren’t interested in being bodybuilders.

A Functional Bodybuilding Primer

I mentioned the importance of understanding the principles of bodybuilding and energy system training. Let’s talk about these principles, starting with traditional bodybuilders.

Bodybuilders are known for their ability to increase muscle mass (aka hypertrophy). This isn’t just about lifting heavy weights, it’s also about understanding how to manipulate repetitions, sets, tempo and rest time, as well as mastering concepts like time under tension—meaning the amount of time a muscle, or muscles, are under tension during any given set.

For hypertrophy to occur, the optimum time under tension is in the neighborhood of 40 seconds.

While that might sound simple enough—5 squat reps @3311 = 40 seconds of time under tension. Easy peazy—it’s not quite THAT simple.

It’s also incredibly important to consider the person’s abilities and their training age, meaning how long they have been training. This is why if you’re a coach, or if you’re a client looking for a program or a coach, an individualized assessment with a coach is key to the process. You may want to try the systematic approach assessment guide for coaches.

Health, Fitness and the Tao of Functional Bodybuilding - Fitness, Health, energy systems, functional strength, functional training, functional bodybuilding, fitness assessment

That being said, here are four key principles to keep in mind if you’re about to start, or build a FBB program for a client:

  1. Compound movements first: Compound exercises, like a squat or a bench press, should be done at the start of a training session, while isolation exercises, like a bicep curl or a leg extension, should be done later in the training session.
  2. Keep track of contractions per muscle group in any given session: Ideally, the number of exercises per body part should be between two and four per session. If not, technique and recovery is likely to suffer.
  3. Keep in mind intended contraction: This comes down to knowing what movements are appropriate for you (or if you’re a coach, knowing your clients’ abilities and limitations). Don’t be fooled by sexy movements. If they’re out of your ability, they’re not going to help you.
  4. Quality over intensity: It’s as simple as that. This doesn’t mean there can’t be intensity. It simply has to be appropriate intensity given the skill and strength level of the individual. Simplicity over complexity. Quality over intensity.

Energy System Training

One of the ideas behind FBB is to provide strength training without hurting aerobic capacity. This largely comes down to understanding energy system training, meaning the anaerobic alactic, anaerobic lactic, and aerobic systems.

Two important, and often overlooked, concepts to understand include:

  • Get the rest time right: The most important part of rest and recovery time comes down to the individual and what they are capable of recovery from. This is true to both rest time during interval training and recovery from one session to the next.
  • Avoid interference: If you’re doing (or programming) aerobic work, consider the types of movements you (or your client) is going on their resistance/FBB training the next day. For example, if they’re doing a ton of hinging the next day, then maybe avoid high-volume rowing intervals on their energy system training day, as it’s a similar movement pattern. As a general rule, keep these movement patterns separated by at least a day.

Key takeaway: Whether you’re someone wanting to begin a functional bodybuilding program, or a coach looking to design one, the most important takeaway is that there’s no one-size fits all approach to a program.

For best effectiveness, a great functional bodybuilding program needs to consider the individual’s capabilities, priorities, training age and goals. This concept is at the heart of OPEX education, and the foundation of their new functional bodybuilding guide.

Choosing the Right Functional Bodybuilding Program

Take one scour of the old internet and you’ll find countless functional bodybuilding—or FBB—programs for sale. And like most products and services, they’re not all created equal.

Take one scour of the old internet and you’ll find countless functional bodybuilding—or FBB—programs for sale. And like most products and services, they’re not all created equal.

I believe a great functional bodybuilding program will get you results and requires understanding the key principles of not just bodybuilding, but also of energy system training.

Check out OPEX’s free How to Program Functional Bodybuilding Workouts introductory ebook.

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November 30, 2020

How to Start Calisthenics Training

With the amount of information we’re exposed to, it”s easy to overcomplicate our training. When it comes to calisthenics, it appears to look unsafe because we see the end product from the best athletes, but calisthenics is for all levels.

There are various forms of calisthenics/bodyweight training that you can do, based on your goals.

It’s important to keep things simple. You need to ask yourself this question “Does my training match my goals?” I see many times that people aren’t training specifically for the goals they want.

They say they want apples, yet they are planting orange trees.

This article is meant to simplify calisthenics training, guide you from beginner to advanced, and show you how all levels can use the body as a paintbrush to create a masterpiece.

General Strength- Beginner to Intermediate

I know the temptation to advance as quickly as possible is significant, but it will only lead to injuries, massive weakness, burnout, and frustration.

If you haven’t done this style of training before, then start with the basics. Work on the big six:

  1. Pullups
  2. Dips
  3. Rows
  4. Pushups
  5. Handstands
  6. L-sit

These are the pillars of calisthenics training because they cover the muscle groups used in many advanced skills. Do this for 3-6 months.

It may seem long, but it is the quickest way to advance.

If you skip this vital stage in your development, you’ll still have to come back to it because the chinks in your armor will show, and progress will be slow.

During this phase, the aim is to learn your first pullup.

For example, get comfortable with doing 12 + reps. As you progress, begin implementing different variations of these moves in the free beginner calisthenics program, Bodyweight Strong.

Use this time to improve your mobility and flexibility so that it won’t restrict you later.

Keep in mind less is more. More time in the gym and more days of training will not make for better results.

As a beginner, train 2-4 days a week. One hour per session is enough time to put in good, quality work while allowing adequate time for your body to recover.

Specific Strength- Intermediate to Advanced

This is when you start to focus on specific goals like static skills, freestyling, and rings.

Choose 2-3 goals to focus on:

It really depends on what you want and where you want to take your training.

Design your program in 4-8 week blocks, with your overall training 3-6 days per week.

Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat Sun
High Intensity Low Intensity High Intensity Low Intensity High Intensity Rest Rest
Pulling Strength Handstand Balance Grip Pulling Strength Handstand Balance Core Pulling Strength    

For example, if your goal is the muscle-up and handstand pushups, each exercise you choose for your program should improve some aspect towards reaching those specific goals.

I see too many people trying to cover every movement pattern and work on every weakness.

Less is more. You can always change your focus in the next program.

Build Strength

The word strength is used too loosely in fitness, so let’s define it. When I mention strength, I refer to absolute strength as 1 rep max and maximal strength (85% to 90% of 1 RM).

The stronger you are, the more calisthenics skills you can do.

Understand that your body has three energy systems that it uses independently or simultaneously to contract your muscles.

  1. Creatine phosphate lasts 1-12 seconds and is used for high intensity and demanding tasks such as heavyweight or difficult bodyweight exercises that you can only do for low reps.
  2. The glycolysis and oxidative system are used for muscle building, conditioning, and endurance.
  3. The anaerobic system lasts for 10 seconds – 2 minutes. The aerobic system is low intensity and lasts for a long time. This is your endurance training or for daily tasks.

How to Start Calisthenics Training - Fitness, 1 rep max, Training, endurance training, bodyweight exercise, calisthenics, mobility, flexibility, rings, handstand, energy systems, static balance, pullups, handstand push up, rows, l-sit, hand strength, bodyweight workout

Strength training is taxing on the nervous system, requiring a minimum of 24 hours to recover between strength sessions.

  • Train 2-4 days per week.
  • Training your absolute strength to failure should be used sparingly to test your current level or gain that motivational boost.
  • You cannot train like this all the time because your nervous system will not recover between sessions, and it will ruin your progress.
  • Instead, train your maximal strength leaving 1 rep in reserve. If you know/ think that you can do 3 reps of an exercise max (e.g., muscle-ups), do 2 reps for all your sets.
  • This builds strength while not overtaxing the nervous system.
  • Train high sets in the 4-8 and 1-5 rep range.
  • For isometrics (during contraction, the muscles don’t noticeably change the length, and the affected joints don’t move), 1-12s.
  • Eccentrics (contraction caused by the muscle’s lengthening) 1-5 reps, each rep 7 seconds long.

Remember, if you feel the pump or burn in your muscles, you’re no longer training strength.

Build Muscle

Run from anyone who says, “You can’t build muscle with calisthenics.”

Your muscles don’t know the difference between bodyweight exercises, weights, or a table.

It can’t identify whether you’re picking up a 6 kg, 20 kg dumbbell, or bodyweight. Your body feels the resistance, intensity, and how taxing a movement is.

How does the training look? A rep range of 6-12 reps (working at 65-85% of 1 rep max) is the most effective way to stimulate muscle growth.

Instead of increasing the weight, you increase the difficulty of the bodyweight exercises.

Choose exercises that are challenging to you in this rep range.

When pullups become easy, do a harder variation such as close-grip pullups. Utilize the same muscle-building techniques you would with weights such as mechanical tension, eccentric damage, metabolic stress, push-pull splits, or drop sets.

The current culture wants to create a rivalry between calisthenics and weights when the reality is you can use both.

Gymnastics is a bodyweight sport, and they utilize weights in their training.

Many sports, football, basketball, athletics, use weights to improve performance, calisthenics is the same.

  • Doing weighted calisthenics, such as weighted pull-ups and weighted dips, is a great way to build strength and muscle.
  • Bodyweight exercises and weights are great for training compound movements (multiple muscle groups and joints).
  • There’s a wide variety of isolation exercises (multiple muscle groups and one joint). With isolation exercise, you can target certain muscles, which is great for improving aesthetics.

The lower-body is naturally powerful, so bodyweight training can only go so far. That’s why weighted squats, deadlifts, hip thrusts are excellent for building muscle.

Match Training to Goals

I always say there’s no perfect way to train. It depends on your abilities and goals.

Make sure your training matches your goals, and train specifically with them in mind.

Train like a powerlifter if you want to do those advanced calisthenics skills.

Train like a bodybuilder if you want to be in the best shape of your life.

Train like an athlete if you want to be crazy fit or do freestyling.

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