Vince Andrich Uncensored

Male Hormone Tune-Up, Your Diet, Only Cleaner

2011-10-18T15:13:00.001-07:00

Food and exercise play a crucial role in the composition of your body. And it isn’t simply about energy in, energy out. It’s about chemicals. The food you eat truly becomes active after it becomes chemical messengers inside your body. Of course, training, especially with weights, activates a whole host of chemical connections that literally transform us. The human body orchestrates these chemicals with elaborate sensors that are nothing short of ingenious. But it’s not foolproof.

Our environment is changing quickly, which can fool our factory equipment. One area that concerns scientists are estrogen mimicking compounds that many believe promote fatness by disrupting the endocrine system responsible for regulating male hormone production. Just maybe, that’s why you have such a hard time figuring out why those last 10 pounds of fat just won't fall off your waistline.

Your diet is clean, but maybe it needs to get a bit cleaner?

What can you do?

A report in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives suggests that steering clear of pesticide laden foods for just 5 days can practically eliminate their presence in your body. Yes, many pesticides contain estrogen mimicking compounds.

As, I’ve mentioned before, you could go organic, but before you do, you may want to simply start by focusing on fruits and vegetables that typically retain very low pesticide levels.

This “low pesticide” list includes;

Onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, mango, sweet peas, asparagus, kiwi, cabbage, eggplant, watermelon, grapefruit and sweet potatoes. Certainly something for everyone’s taste.

What’s on the “bad list”?

Celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries, nectarines, bell peppers, spinach, cherries, kale and collard greens, potatoes and imported grapes.

Note: Yes, it’s a good idea to buy organic on the items above. to avoid pesticide residues.

Disclaimer

Please consult your healthcare provider before starting any supplement, diet or exercise program, before taking any medications or receiving treatment, particularly if you are currently under medical care. Make sure you carefully read all product labeling and packaging prior to use. If you have or suspect you may have a health problem, do not take any supplements without first consulting and obtaining the approval of your healthcare provider.

Burn Fat, Build Muscle, Live Life, 3-Day/Week Training Routines

2011-10-15T00:40:00.001-07:00

Here is another question I answered over at my blog on muscle and fitness trainer: http://www.muscleandfitnesstrainer.com/home/trainers/vince-andrich/questions/555

"body building questions".

Q: hi am, josian: and i have a question for you: i want to workout 3 times per week like, monday, wednesday and friday? can you show me a 3 day body split that i can do with dumbbells or barbells in those days? and please include in the 3 day body split a forearms, abs and calves workout too! thank you! your friend, josian.

A: With 3-days to train, like Monday, Wednesday and Friday, there a several options that will allow you to achieve an excellent physique. I suggest you begin by doing full body workouts on these 3 training days. Once you do this for several weeks you can split your body into two workouts, and do them on alternate workout days. This allows you to progressively do more work, and also increase the amount of recovery days for maximum gains.

Here’s the full body plan.

Pick one exercise per major muscle group. The 9 majors are:

Chest, Back, Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Shoulders, Abs, Biceps and Triceps.

Since you asked, we’ll add forearms, making it 10 muscle “groups’.

Pick one exercise per muscle group. After a warm up of 12-15 reps, perform 3-work sets per exercise. Rest no more than 60-seconds between sets. Always shoot for weights that allow you to do 6-12 reps. Don’t be afraid to add or remove weight if you don’t hit the target rep range. ONLY counts sets in the target rep range.

Sample Exercises are:

1-Dumbbell or Barbel Squats

2-Dumbbell Straight Leg Deadlifts

3-Dumbbell chest presses

4-One Arm Dumbbell Rows

5-Wide grip barbell upright rows

6-Dumbbell calf raises

7-Seated Bicep Dumbbell curls

8-Overhead Barbell Tricep Press

9-Reverse Dumbbell Curls

10-Flat bench leg lifts (abs)

You should always switch the order of the exercises to increase the variation and therefore the stress put on each muscle. If you have a weak bodypart, do it towards the beginning of the workout, when you’re fresh.

It's a good idea to stay on this plan for at least 4-weeks, and up to 8, then we can go to a split routine.

On the split you simply put all upper body movements on one day, and all lower body, plus abs on the other. At this point pick two exercises per muscle group and perform 4 work sets per exercise.

These two programs should keep you progressing for as long as you want, plus it is ideal for a busy person.

Drop me a line and let me know how this works at; vince@vandrich.com

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Beyond Built; Arms That Look Impressive Standing Still

2011-10-13T18:19:00.001-07:00

One of the hallmarks of an experienced Physique Athlete is they look great standing still. That’s part of the grand plan; visually arresting in real life, not just if you hit a pose. When your relaxed arms are viewed from the side, (short sleeves or shirtless), this area is the centerpiece of your “still picture show”.

For arms that hang great, it’s critical that you fully develop the lateral + medial heads of your triceps, and the brachialis. These tricep muscle strands run along the outer region of the back of your arm while the brachialis is the golf-ball-shaped muscle you see between the triceps and biceps, which are visibly prominent when viewed from the side.

While it is impossible to totally isolate an individual muscle "strand", we can pick exercises that cause these specific areas to contract more forcefully and enhance their development.

For the lateral head of the triceps a medium grip on regular tricep pulley pushdowns or EZ bar tricep extensions either seated or lying on an exercise bench are among the most effective. The medial head of the triceps, is also hit with the movements above, but many trainees opt for a rope on pulley pushdowns. This is so they can bend their wrists, pointing their index finger down and away from their body in the contracted position. The rope pushdowns are shown here, the straight pulley pushdowns are here and the EZ bar tricep extensions are here.

For the brachialis any normal bicep exercise with a reverse grip (plams down, a.k.a. pronated) places more stress on this muscle. In addition, dumbbell curls done "hammer" style also load the brachialis extremely well. Hammer dumbbell curls are done with your thumbs up, with the weights coming to your chest area at the top contracted position. The hammer curls are shown here and the reverse curls are here.

Remember, to do between 6-12 reps on all work sets, and do at least 4 work sets per exercise to get the physique improvements you're seeking.

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It IS About Hormones, But Not hCG, For Losing Stubborn Bodyfat That Is

2011-10-12T19:08:00.001-07:00

Another day, another miracle diet, another hoax. These mythical Unicorns don’t fool those of you who’ve found the “secret” to improving your body-composition is really no secret at all. You’re part of the few that have come to realize that weight-training, cardio, nutrition and smart supplementation, as practiced by Physique Athletes, is the fastest ticket to the body you want. Nevertheless, the seductive marketing tactics used by those selling miracle diets affect many, and eventually these folks finally ask someone, like you, that knows better.

Then you burst their bubble.

This time, the Unicorn is the hCG Diet, which is so ridiculous, I never felt the need to bother. I changed my mind. This will be quick, I promise.

hCG Diet Hoax

In 1954, British physician A.T.W. Simeons described a new method for dieting. He combined a severe calorie restricted diet (500 kcal per day) with daily injections of hCG, a hormone produced in women during pregnancy. Dr. Simeons claimed the patient should not lose more weight during a 4-to-6 weeks' diet than without hCG, but the injections should facilitate to maintain the diet and to lose body weight at specific parts of the body (e.g. hip, belly, thigh). In over 50-years, there is still no scientific research that backs up these “spot reducing” claims but some people did manage to get through the semi-starvation diet. Here’s the scam, as pointed out by my good friend DrProfAndro below, who has a great blog Suppversity (click here).

“I personally think its a way Dr's make money by fooling lazy people into the believe they were injecting them some magic serum... what happens is that the people experience a huge placebo effect and thus stick to their ridicolous 500kcal diet (because they believe they cannot be hungry on HCG) and lose a hell lot of weight, but the rebound will come ... I mean you would have to administer the HCG way beyond the diet period, if that whole thing should work, after all when you stop the HCG when you resume your usual diet your hormones will plummet at the same moment, when your kcal intake rises < YOYO effect, here I come ;-)”

I totally agree. But, do our natural hormones effect fat loss and muscle gain? You bet. Which brings me back to another reason more people are adopting the “secrets” used by Physique Athletes to get their best body.

The Physique Athlete, Hormone Advantage

Numerous studies in men and women of all ages has shown that simply by putting more time into your weight-training program, thus more volume, dramatically improves your natural fat burning and muscle building hormones. These naturally produced hormones; increased testosterone and insulin-like growth factor-1, plus decreased levels of cortisol are critical to both men and women for improving body composition. This is why the weight-training methods used by Physique Athletes, which focuses on the volume of work they do, often cycling periods of low to very high, is the miracle most people want. And you don’t need to follow, or rather should never use a semi-starvation plan for this to work. You can find that "secret" in a program I’ve outlined click here.

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Information provided on this blog is solely for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Do not use this information for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing of any medications or supplements.Please consult your healthcare provider before starting any supplement, diet or exercise program, before taking any medications or receiving treatment, particularly if you are currently under medical care. Make sure you carefully read all product labeling and packaging prior to use. If you have or suspect you may have a health problem, do not take any supplements without first consulting and obtaining the approval of your healthcare provider.© 2011 Vince Andrich Real BodyBuilding, Vince Andrich Uncensored, & www.vandrich.com. All Rights Reserved.

Modified Circuit Training, Cleansing Your Metabolism––Really

2011-10-10T17:28:00.001-07:00

The big trend these days is the sale of “Body Cleansing” products and modified fasting programs that claim to to increase your metabolism. I’ve seen these types of programs emerge again about every ten-years. In fact, as a teen in the late ‘70’s, when I was just beginning to explore health food stores, I even did one or two fasting programs. These fasts were not of the intermittent type, which has proven to be useful (click here) for progressively changing your body composition. The longer fasts, multiple days up to 14, are nothing but extremely low energy diets, which wreck, not improve your metabolism.

On the pure product side, Body Cleansing supplements are designed to “clean out any blockages in your intestines and colon”. For the most part, this is just another, more devious way to market fiber. But it gets worse, in addition to boosting your metabolism, the marketing claims most everything in the Body Cleansing category, are wild to downright fraudulent and include; warding off other health risks such as obesity, hypertension, heart disease and cancer.

While I’m sure that many of these cleansing programs or modified fasts will go a long way towards replacing junk food in your diet, they don’t put anything of value back in. So besides possibly adding fiber or gut health ingredients to your diet, let me repeat myself; these programs are nothing but extremely low energy diets, which wreck, not improve your metabolism.

What will work to improve your metabolism, or specifically, how your body stores energy, is to perform circuit training with weights. This is not the garden variety where you jump from exercise to exercise, but rather a modified version I’ve used for years to jump start my program, speed fat loss, and beat the boredom. Here’s how.

Pick one exercise per major muscle group. The 9 majors are:

Chest, Back, Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Shoulders, Abs, Biceps and Triceps.

Perform 2-4 sets per exercise, before moving to the next exercise. The goal is to rest very little between sets, maybe 10-20 seconds. As an example, for chest you might do dumbbell presses performed like this; grab a weight you can do for about 12 reps, rest for 10-20 seconds and repeat for as many reps as possible. You can repeat up to 4 times, but in the beginning two-sets per exercise is plenty.

Ideally, you will hit each major muscle group in each workout, which is done only 3-days per week. You need to take at least one day of rest from the weights after each training day to recover. If doing a full body workout is too much, simply split your body into two workouts and do these on alternate days, for 4 days of circuit-training per week.

This training method taxes your muscles ability to store energy (glucose a.k.a. carbs), which then tells your body to preferentially use the carbs you eat for brain, liver and muscle function. This essentially leaves much less, if any of the carbohydrate you eat to be stored as bodyfat. The net effect on your metabolism from the weight-training, plus essentially “draining” your energy reserves in muscle, is the real way to improve your metabolism, without wrecking it.

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Guts, The Determination To Do It Right.

2011-10-06T22:35:00.001-07:00

Albert Einstein famously stated; "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler". Realizing that Einstein was pretty bright, I've used this thinking to advise clients on a wide range of topics. These can be as diverse as coaching individuals through a physique transformation, to developing business strategies for many of your favorite sports nutrition, supplement and fitness companies. While many supplement firms are pleased with the results we achieve by simplifying their business, that advice often falls on deaf ears when it comes to product development. I feel this happens because it takes a lot more guts to build a product with fewer ingredients and in doses that work, than it is to put a laundry list of inadequate ingredients/doses together in hopes that consumers will think they're getting something remarkable. In some cases, they're right, but only until another company pulls the same stunt and steals the same unsuspecting customers, until the cycle repeats. The lesson is this; if you don't have the patience to build a product that is your best work, you won't be around long enough for it to matter anyway. The same is true for your own personal program, which means when you're faced with choosing a nutrition/supplement product to enhance your own program, less is more. Think about, the company trying to hide product effectiveness in a cloud of ingredients you've never heard of, probably doesn't have the guts to do it right.

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Make a Move, Hit The Exit When Muscle Energy Falls

2011-10-03T10:43:00.001-07:00

In the early years of my training, I kept great records in journals. My notes included nutrition, cardio, supplements and of course every weight training detail. What I learned was that each muscle group had a decent range of energy substrates they could store, which was dependent on my current nutrient intake and training schedule.

A key learning is that when glycogen levels are fit to full, I could perform around 16-sets per muscle group before my pump faded. This meant the stored energy in muscles trained had gone to very low levels, and that the necessary waste products had congested the crime scene so that getting more of a pump was impossible. This is time to move on to another muscle group or simply exit the front door. I also noticed if my carb intake was reduced that about 12-sets brought me to a max pump, and I headed out.

Nothing scientific but it's easy to see that when energy substrates fall off, so will performance and your ability to get just a bit tighter pump. Now you know when to move on, or move out in the gym.

Do Physiques Go Better with Organic or Natural?

2011-10-03T10:41:00.001-07:00

The term “organic” is used to describe production methods that use non-synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, which can be a problem. That's because some of the “natural” pesticides are more toxic than synthetics. Come to think of it, products that claim to be “natural” can really be quite dangerous, because compounds like sugar are “natural”, but that doesn’t mean they are even remotely good for anyone, much less a Physique Athlete. Organic is a good concept, but keep in mind at the end of the day, foods are chemicals themselves, making what happens “after you consume them”, like stimulating insulin release or causing excess inflammation, more important than whether they were organically produced or natural, before you ate them.

If you have the money, grass fed meats have been shown to have better ratio’s of omega 3 and 6 fatty acids and may be of value. Personally, I like the idea of consuming less ingredients or chemicals if you will, to get my intake of protein, carbs and essential fats. To do this, simply eat more foods that are not processed or “packaged” like lean meats, eggs, whole fruits, vegetables and nuts. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store, and avoid the packaged food aisles. In my view, the use of protein supplements that use milk proteins, seems to be a great way to limit the amount of toxins that may be present in factory farmed high protein foods like chicken.

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Have A Heart, Save Your Shoulders

2011-10-01T13:44:00.001-07:00

Your shoulder muscles and its intricate joint structure bear the brunt of almost every upper-body weight training exercise. That’s why smart physique enthusiasts are careful to give the area adequate rest, and work a variety of bodypart splits that allow the shoulders to be developed, not overtrained or injured. Even with lots of planning, its difficult to give the shoulder area enough rest from the grind, without resorting to adding another full day off from all upper body work. One simple trick is alternate the stress between upper and lower body work, with a short duration, high intensity interval cardio session. The cool thing is you’ll save your shoulders and build your heart strength in one move. It looks something like this;

Day 1) Upper body, (shoulders/arms OR chest and OR back)

Day 2) Legs ––Quads, calves abs

Day 3) Upper body, (Bodyparts not done on day one)

Day4) High Intensity Interval Cardio [known as HIIT (t for training)]

Day 5) Full day of rest

Short duration HIIT Cardio is best done on a stationary bike, because it is much less stressful on the knee and ankle joints as well. Do something like this;

Do a short warm up of say 2-4 minutes -- with bike on say level 5 bars out of 20 bars max resistance) then it’s

Work Interval 1--Go up to 7-bars of resistance and go for 20-30 seconds, then go back down to 5-bars for 10-30 seconds then

Work Interval 2--Go up to 9-bars of resistance and go for 20-30 seconds, then go back down to 7-bars for 10-30 seconds then

Work Interval 3--Go up to 11-bars of resistance and go for 20-30 seconds, then go back down to 7-bars for 10-30 seconds then

Work Interval 4--Go up to 13-bars of resistance and go for 20-30 seconds, then go back down to 7-bars for 10-30 seconds then

Work Interval 5--Go up to 15-bars of resistance and go for 20-30 seconds, then go back down to 5-bars for 10-30 seconds then

Work Interval 6--Go up to 17-bars of resistance and go for 20-30 seconds, then go back down to 5-bars for 10-30 seconds then

Warm down for 3 minutes, 1-min at 3 bars, then 1-min for 2 bars then 1-min for 1 bar

10-15 minutes MAX and you can GO HOME…

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The Almighty PUMP, Water Works

2011-09-26T16:46:00.001-07:00

If you’re looking to build your body these days, you’d have to be under a rock not to have seen the dizzying stream of marketing for pre-workout products that supposedly increase Nitric Oxide (a.k.a., NO). On molecular level, NO is a very short acting gas that your body produces to relax the walls of your arteries to enhance blood flow. So, marketers of NO products made the leap that (if) their product could increase NO while you were training, the dilated blood vessels would allow more “nutrient rich” blood to flow to your working muscles. Not surprisingly, these products were and are sold on the merits of a better pump and infer muscle growth will be greatly improved. To date, no studies have proven this theory out. But, the idea of the PUMP, or specifically “well hydrated” muscle cells is a rock solid sign that you have the “right” nutrition and training factors in play.

Exercise scientists now know that “cellular hydration” (i.e., cell swelling) serves as a physiological regulator of cell function. It is known to simulate anabolic processes, both through increases in protein synthesis and decreases in protein breakdown. While the mechanisms are not fully understood, the scientific community (and me) believe that increased pressure against muscle cell membrane is perceived as a threat to cellular integrity, which in turn causes the cell to initiate a signaling response that ultimately leads to reinforcement of its ultrastructure. Why might this be true? For 1)–resistance exercise, especially when higher volume is part of the plan, has been shown to alter intra- and extracellular water balance, and 2) when you train like a bodybuilder you increase the need to store carbohydrates (glycogen), and other energy producing molecules like creatine, in your muscle cells. The greatly increases your PUMP potential, because every gram of carbohydrate stored in muscle pulls in 3-grams of water. Of course creatine does the same thing, which is why you get bigger and stronger. So, if you’re getting your swell on, and not getting fat, it’s a good bet your nutrition and training are working pretty darn good. And that’s more than I can say about NO products.

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Broad Shoulders Maketh the MAN (and woman)

2011-09-26T09:44:00.001-07:00

I believe the visual impact, beauty and awe that immediately come to mind from seeing broad shoulders on a man (in particular) is pure biology. It's in our DNA as it stimulates neurons in our brain that sense the person in view can protect his tribe and triumph on the battlefield. Think Brad Pitt in the movie Troy. You get the picture. So today let's review how we can get those broad shoulders that inspire.

Your shoulders have three specific heads or sides, which are the anterior, medial and posterior or in English, front, side and rear delts. Typically, a focused effort developing the side head of the deltoid brings about the most width or broadness visually, but all three heads need to be trained for maximum roundness in the shoulder area. According to EMG analysis you will recruit the most motor neurons on the medial head with dumbbell side lateral raises. Here is how to do a proper side lateral raise.

Hold dumbbells in front of thighs with elbows slightly bent. Bend over slightly with hips and knees bent slightly. Raise upper arms to sides until elbows are shoulder height. Maintain elbows' height above or equal to wrists. You are leading with your elbow as if you were giving someone a forearm shiver. Lower and repeat. Your elbows should remain bent from 10-30-degrees, strive for elbows to be at shoulder height at top of movement. Use a rep speed of 2 up and 4 down, which is a count of 2 to raise and 4 seconds to lower the weights. Do your best to maintain smooth movement and control.

Packing on mass with this exercise calls for 4-5 sets of 6-12 repetitions. I suggest you follow this movement with front presses to the neck otherwise known as, barbell military press, which hits the front and side delts.

Grab barbell from rack or lift from floor with overhand grip, slightly wider than shoulder width. Position bar in front of neck. Press bar upward until arms are extended overhead. Lower to front of neck and repeat. Strive to get full extension at top and full stretch at bottom of the movement (full range of motion) Use the same sets, reps and rep speed as above.

The last shoulder movement will be rear lateral dumbbell raises for rear delts. Grab dumbbells to each side. Bend knees and bend over through hips with back flat close to horizontal. Position elbows with slight bend and palms facing together. Leading with elbows, raise arms to sides until elbows are shoulder height. You’ll feel this in your rear delts and upper back to a smaller degree. Squeeze and flex at top of the movement. Keep height of elbows above wrists by raising "pinkie finger" side up. Lower and repeat. Use the same sets, reps and rep speed as above.

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Same Exercises, Same Sets, Very Different Results

2011-09-26T09:43:00.003-07:00

It makes perfect sense. Most men, going to the gym to lift, pick an exercise and keep adding weight until they can't even do a few reps. While most women, if they do go to the gym to lift weights, pick an exercise and keep removing weight until they can't make it any lighter. The men believe; they must push beyond their capability to get strong so they can build a perfect body, and the women believe they must do as many reps as possible, to "burn" their body into a smaller dress size. Well not so fast. Besides major differences in hormones, sporting a muscular male "rig" or a "toned and tight" female body, starts with muscle. And, one of the best shortcuts to more muscle, which means improved body composition, is understanding how to focus and gauge the work you do in the gym.

Sets x Reps x Weight = The “Work”

Research has consistently proven that for building muscle, and increasing your bodies ability to store energy from food you eat in muscle, not fat (yes, ladies and gentlemen), performing a higher-volume of work through multiple-set programs, performed in the moderate 6-12 rep range are best.

Scientists believe this is due to greater amounts of work being performed by the target muscles, which really does make more sense than what's commonly believed.

The amount of work you do for each bodypart, in a single workout, is calculated by multiplying; sets x reps x weight. So 5 sets of 8 with 100-lbs = 4000–lbs total weight lifted. Exercise scientists call this number volume, but we'll call it "work”. By tracking total weight, not max weight, or reps in a given exercise you’ll have a much better gauge for progression. Here’s an example using a typical “get to my max weight” pyramid plan, men often use in the standard bench press:

Set 1––135-lbs for 15 reps = 2025 (warm up)

Set 2–– 225 for 8 reps = 1800

Set 3––275 for 6 reps = 1650

Set 4––295 for 2 reps = 590

Set 5––315 for 1 (maybe) = 315

Total= 6380-lbs lifted

To a lifter this looks great since they hit the magic 315-lb bench. To someone looking to build a better body it’s a disaster, because if you stay within 6-12 reps it would look something like this.

Set 1––135-lbs for 15 reps = 2025 (warm up)

Set 2–– 185 for 12 reps = 2280

Set 3–– 200 for 10 reps = 2000

Set 4–– 200 for 8 reps = 1600

Set 5–– 215 for 6 reps = 1290

Total= 9195-lbs lifted or 44% more WORK than the example above.

Here's an example for women in the leg extension:

Set 1––30-lbs for 15 reps = 450 (warm up)

Set 2–– 40 for 15 reps = 600

Set 3–– 30 for 15 reps = 450

Set 4–– 25 for 15 reps = 375

Set 5–– 20 for 15 reps = 300

Total= 2175-lbs lifted

But if she stays within 6-12 reps it would look something like this:

Set 1––30-lbs for 15 reps = 450 (warm up)

Set 2–– 50 for 12 reps = 600

Set 3–– 60 for 10 reps = 600

Set 4–– 70 for 8 reps = 560

Set 5–– 75 for 6 reps = 450

Total= 2660-lbs lifted or 22% more WORK than the example above.

Same exercises, same sets, very different results.

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Getting Off The Juice…

2011-09-26T09:43:00.001-07:00

It seems that the grass roots movements towards eating more nutritious whole foods is becoming cool again. The problem is; food processors can’t sell enough of their stuff when you reach for an apple, instead of apple juice. To the uninitiated, the realization that something like good-old fashioned orange juice is really liquid candy, is hard to comprehend. So, for those who believe that OJ, or the latest fruit in juice form is healthy, take note.

Even with no sugar added, fruit juice contains about the same amount of sugar as the same amount of regular soda (soft drink). Surprised? You shouldn’t be, fruits are naturally full of sugar.

Here’s a rundown based on name brands:

Cola ––40-grams carbs/40 grams sugar

Orange Juice–– 39-grams carbs/39 grams sugar

Apple Juice––42-grams carbs/39 grams sugar

Grape Juice––60-grams carbs/58.5 grams sugar

Don’t get me started on Non Fat Sweetened Latte’s; how about 40 grams carbs/35 grams sugar.

Chest Development: Dumbbells and Flyes

2011-09-21T11:09:00.001-07:00

Here is a question from my section at; http://www.muscleandfitnesstrainer.com/home/trainers/vince-andrich/questions

Q: According to effect. What is the difference between dumbbell press and dumbell flyes? Also please tell me what would b better after incline press;incline dumbell or incline fly? same question for flat bench press.

A: The main differences between dumbbell presses and flyes are as follows. Firstly, presses are considered a multi-joint movement, meaning both the shoulder and elbow joints must move to lift the weight and therefore stimulate more motor neurons which is due to the ability to use heavier weights. In general, you can put more stress on the chest muscles with presses. However, because your triceps are involved at the elbow flexion, the chest muscles may not get fully loaded before your triceps give out, thus diminishing the load. With flyes, your triceps are locked so that you are arching the bells (all 4) toward each other as if you were hugging a tree. The amount of weight may be lower with flyes, but the triceps should not be the limiting factor. Because of this, it is best to alternate doing presses before flyes for a few workouts, then switching to flyes then presses for a few workouts, to fully stimulate the chest area.

That said, you should not do incline press and then dumbbell presses as these are essentially the same movement. Do flyes instead.

On another note, decline presses with a barbell or dumbbell have been shown to recruit more motor neurons that stimulate both upper and overall pectoral development. This is due to leverage, whereas you should be able to lift more weight in the decline than presses on a regular flat bench or on an incline (45-degrees is best). The decline movement feels odd at first, but after a bit of practice you’ll find that it can be a valuable addition to your overall chest program.

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Simplified Is Focused, Easy Is Trendy

2011-09-13T12:29:00.001-07:00

There probably isn't an industry more saturated with easy solutions than those associated with changing your body. The list includes such notables as; Nautilus one-set to failure weight training, 6-second abs, eat anything but carbohydrate miracle diets, and products that deliver muscle building nutrients in nano-seconds. While we can all be seduced by the newest techniques, and products, many of them don't pan out in the real world, costing us something more valuable than money––our time. You see the easy way is not nearly the same as the simplified way. When we learn enough about a topic we can simplify it so we can focus on what matters, and produce results that are remarkable. In fact, the reason most health and fitness products are marketed as "the easy way" is the same reason you should avoid them in the first place––they don't set the trend, they become trendy. That means the majority of people less than motivated to change their body will follow. I mean, when was the last time the majority of the people at the gym looked great?

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Chemicals in the Night: Load Up Your Brain and Gain Access To Your Bodies Most Powerful Natural Hormones

2011-09-12T17:39:00.001-07:00

Vince Andrich

Editors note: This article was written by me about a year ago for the company Advanced Muscle Science (AMS) (http://advancedmusclescience.com), and I was paid to do so. I believe the information is still relevant and useful, no matter who it was written for, and asked the owner of AMS if I could repost. So, in the spirit of full disclosure, here it is again. And, if you’re looking for a good sleep formula please do visit AMS and check out Nocturnabol; (http://www.advancedmusclescience.com/products/mental-acuity-supplements/nocturnabol/),

I really like this formula (another buddy of mine who really studies this stuff developed it for AMS), and I definitely think it's a cost effective way to make big improvements in an often overlooked area that seriously impacts any smart bodybuilding and overall health program.

It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced bodybuilder, or new to the muscle-building scene, this article contains information that is invaluable to anyone serious about getting bigger and stronger with single digit levels of bodyfat. This article is about sleep, and in case you didn’t know, science has now shown that two of the key determinants for body composition are, 1) getting enough total sleep each night, and 2) getting adequate deep, slow wave sleep–– and more is definitely better . However these days, due to various sleep related problems, over 40% of all Americans don’t know what it’s like to wake up feeling refreshed. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why as a nation we struggle to lose weight––especially fat.

Don’t misunderstand, I know that as bodybuilders we do just about everything different than average Americans, but we aren’t immune to waking up feeling tired, and totally burned out. Truth is bodybuilders love to push the envelope, and that just might be the reason we rationalize sleeping less. Sadly, most of the time we don’t even realize how bad our sleep habits are because we can always turn to pre-workout cocktails to get through our training, and grab a grip of stimulants to fry the fat off our bodies and keep us amped all day. I’m guilty of this myself, and more than I like to admit. The fact is if you don’t put some effort towards “crushing” it when you sleep, you’ll never make it up training harder in the gym. So if you find yourself pushing more and more stimulants to be productive, or don’t feel like you’re rested enough when you get out of the rack, read on and find out how to master one of bodybuilding undisputed commandments––SLEEP.

Your Circadian Rhythm––Yep, You’re Getting Sleepy We’re all hardwired from birth with “software”, so to speak, that regulates our physiological, behavioral and biochemical processes in 24-hour cycles. This software is called your circadian rhythm, which some researchers call your “internal” or “humanclock”. Interpreting the lengths of each day and night as well as other signs allows your internal clock to create your individual sleep/wake cycle.

When it’s time to sleep your internal clock sends a signal to your pineal gland to secrete the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is the biochemical signal that drives the system that regulates the sleep-wake cycle by chemically causing drowsiness. Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone that regulates sleepiness. It is made in the brain, where tryptophan is converted into serotonin and then into melatonin, which is released at night by the pineal gland to induce and maintain sleep.

The problem with this elegantly designed system is that stress, stimulants and age can all reduce the production and release of melatonin, and the production of serotonin. The age-related decline in melatonin is well established and by the time you turn 30, your production is approximately two-thirds less than its peak (see chart below).

Priming Your Internal Clock Since we know that your internal clock uses melatonin and serotonin to keep your sleep cycle on track, there really isn’t any excuse for letting this part of your program fall victim to age related decline or a self-indulgent highly “amped” lifestyle. The first nutrient you should consider adding to your program is Melatonin. This compound has been widely used and studied and sold as a nutritional supplement/sleep aid since around 1994. The most important thing for bodybuilders to know is that recent data suggest that melatonin taken in fairly low dosages is best for shortening the time needed to fall asleep and improving sleep effectiveness. In a placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover study conducted in the UK, found that single evening doses of melatonin (0.3 mg and 1.0 mg orally) significantly increased Actual Sleep Time, Sleep Efficiency, non-REM Sleep and REM Sleep Latency . In effect, the low dose melatonin seemed to work in concert with the subjects’ own melatonin output for maximum effect.

Stages of Sleep The two main types of sleep are, REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and Non-REM (NREM) sleep. REM sleep is when you do most active dreaming. In fact, your eyes actually move back and forth during this stage, thus the name, REM sleep. Non-REM (NREM) sleep is a group of four stages of deeper and deeper sleep.

As you can see in the chart above, your body cycles back and forth from NREM to REM all night. While every sleep stage is important, for bodybuilders deep sleep is most critical, followed by REM sleep. Here’s how the stages of sleep progress through the night. Non-REM Sleep • Stage 1 - Light Sleep: This is the period where you are feeling drowsy, but are actually alternating between wakefulness and sleep. During this time you show some slow eye movement and you wake up easily. In healthy males your testosterone levels increase and peak at about the time of first REM, and remain at the same levels until awakening . • Stage 2 - Diminished Awareness: Your awareness of sensory stimuli is reduced as the brain disengages from your external surroundings. In stage 2 the brain produces slower waves, briefly interrupted by rapid waves. • Stage 3 & 4 - Slow Wave Sleep: These are the final stages of non-REM sleep, also known as Slow Wave or Deep sleep. This is a critical phase for bodybuilders because your body is now focusing its resources on regenerating tissues i.e., building muscle, revitalizing energy stores and bolstering your immune system. This is all possible because during slow wave sleep your body releases the largest amount of growth hormone (GH), of any time during the entire day .

REM Sleep During REM sleep you experience periods of rapid eye movement and intense dreaming. As adults we spend roughly 50 percent of our sleep time in stage 2, about 20 percent in REM, and the remaining 30 percent in the other stages. On the other hand, infants spend about half of their sleep time deep in REM sleep. Many researchers believe that infants require longer periods of REM sleep because it helps their developing brains. That’s because learning is thought to occur during REM since it is the more active stage of sleep. For bodybuilders it would seem plausible that REM sleep fosters a stronger mind/muscle connection, allowing you to lift heavier loads, and improving balance and coordination essential for heavy compound exercises.

Max Out GH Release By Promoting Slow Wave Sleep You now know, Growth hormone (GH) is normally released during your most restful phase of slow wave sleep (SWS). What’s much more important though, is that research has shown that for healthy men 70% of your entire daily GH output occurs during sleep throughout adulthood . Think about it, nearly three-fourths of your naturally occurring GH release happens while you’re asleep. Keep in mind GH plays a vital role in not only your bodybuilding program, but also promotes overall health. Just a partial list benefits GH offers include boosting immune function, amino acid uptake, and protein synthesis, while also increasing release of fat from your fat stores.

As we age the time we spend in slow wave sleep declines, likely due to melatonin and serotonin availability during sleep. We already discussed supplementing with low dose melatonin as a means to prime your internal clock. What we’ll look at now are nutritional co-factors that increase serotonin in the brain, which not only helps you take the edge off before bed, but also boosts slow wave sleep and more restful REM sessions as well. The combination of the amino acids L-Tryptophan and 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan) have been shown to increase serotonin production, and in turn melatonin . An increase in the availability of serotonin as a direct factor for promoting slow wave deep sleep was pioneered by French sleep researcher Michel Jouvet's from his work in the 1950’s. Jouvet’s wrote the seminal book, The Paradox of Sleep The Story of Dreaming and his research has been cited many times over the years . The take home message is pretty simple, for a good nights rest reduce the excitatory compounds, i.e., stimulants in your system, and increase the inhibitory/relaxing compounds i.e., L-Tryptophan and 5HTP that increase serotonin.

The Modern Bodybuilders Sleep Enhancement Protocol Your first goal is to try your best to limit stimulants about 4-hours before bedtime. Next, try and arrange any late night training so that once you’re finished you can eat, and then start your nutrient regimen that will ultimately feed your sleep cycle. Here’s the nutrients and dose ranges:

Melatonin–300mcg up to 1.5mg, L-Tryptophan—250-500mg, 5-HTP-12.5 to 25 mg

Conclusion: Don’t Let Your Physique Get Jacked By Losing Sleep If learning about the benefits of getting great sleep each night doesn’t motivate you then consider this. Running on just 4-hours of sleep per night for only six days has a markedly negative impact on key hormones that regulate feeding, leptin, muscle protein breakdown, cortisol, and fat burning, thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) . This means you’ll get double damage. In effect, you’ll inhibit GH release, possibly testosterone release, and the restorative power of sleep in general, and load up on muscle wasting and fat promoting hormones. Try and train and diet out of that!

References: Rao MN; Blackwell T; Redline S; Stefanick ML; Ancoli-Israel S; Stone KL. Association between sleep architecture and measures of body composition. SLEEP 2009;32(4):483-490.

M. E. J. Attenburrow1, P. J. Cowen1 and A. L. Sharpley1 Psychopharmacology Research Unit, University Department of Psychiatry, Littlemore Hospital, OX4 4XN Oxford, UK Psychopharmacology , Volume 126, Number 2 / July, 1996 179-181 Luboshitzky R, Herer P, Levi M, Shen-Orr Z, Lavie P. Relationship between rapid eye movement sleep and testosterone secretion in normal men. J Androl. 1999 Nov-Dec;20(6):731-7.

Van Cauter E, Copinschi G. Interrelationships between growth hormone and sleep. Growth Horm IGF Res. 2000 Apr;10 Suppl B:S57-62.

Van Cauter E, Plat L, Copinschi G. Interrelations between sleep and the somatotropic axis. Sleep. 1998 Sep 15;21(6):553-66.

Birdsall TC.5-Hydroxytryptophan: a clinically-effective serotonin precursor. Altern Med Rev. 1998 Aug;3(4):271-80

John D. Fernstrom 1 and R. J. Wurtman Brain Serotonin Content: Physiological Dependence on Plasma Tryptophan Levels Science 9 July 1971: Vol. 173. no. 3992, pp. 149 - 152

Steriade M. Slow-wave sleep: serotonin, neuronal plasticity, and seizures. Arch Ital Biol. 2004 Jul;142(4):359-67.

Van Cauter E, PhD; Kristen Knutson, PhD; Rachel Leproult, PhD; Karine Spiegel, PhD. The Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Hormones and Metabolism, Essay 2005

Rest In-Between Sets For A Wild Physique

2011-09-12T17:04:00.003-07:00

While may of the basic concepts for strength training can be applied to the art of building a "wild physique", the issue of rest in-between sets should not be one of them. That's because typically, rest periods of 3-5 minutes are considered correct for lifting what is regarded as “heavier” weights, which is where you do less than five reps per set. However, this low rep range is generally accepted by bodybuilders as pure strength training and therefore I, as well as many other more notable experts, believe this is really taking the long road to building a better body. In short (literally), if you rest too long in-between sets, you will not generate sufficient bodybuilding intensity from your workout to stimulate lean muscle gains.

To be clear, intensity is really dependent on the end goal, and for bodybuilders this is gauged by how much work you do in a given time frame. To maximize the concept of work-over-time, bodybuilders perform multiple sets of roughly 8-12 reps with an abbreviated rest period in-between sets. The result is "cumulative stress", which causes your muscles to increase in size and become visually more impactful than they would by simply increasing their capacity for pure strength.

The idea of more work, in less time, is a technique I learned from the late Vince Gironda, which is a google search every bodybuilder should explore if you’re really interested in maximizing your muscle building and fat loss program.

In more modern times, Mr. Olympia caliber bodybuilders like; Lee Labrada and Gunter Schlierkamp, to name a few, have used a very similar approach to the rest in-between sets plan you’ll see below. This seemingly "faster" style of training has worked for hundreds of bodybuilders who’ve wondered why they still look like weightlifters not bodybuilders––and yes, this includes with or without the help of illegal substances.

With that intro, here is what rest in-between sets looks like when you're training to build and maintain your best body ever.

Rest only long enough to catch your breath in-between sets.
The amount of time it takes you to catch your breath in-between sets is tightly related to the exercise you are performing.
On small bodyparts like biceps or triceps, you can likely catch your breath in 30-45 seconds, maybe a minute.
On large muscle groups like quads and back, or with multi-joint exercises like squats, bench press, or rows, especially when the reps are over 10, you will likely need 45 seconds up to a 3-minutes to catch your breath.

The key is to hit the next set so that you are fatiguing the target muscle group progressively with each successive set, but not so fast that you are outrunning your cardiovascular system. The tempo should make you breathe hard right after the set, but you should recover enough breath so that your heart isn’t jumping out of your chest.

As a last bit of advice, listen to what one of the all-time best bodybuilders, Lee Labrada says on the subject of training fast; “Don’t worry if your poundages actually go down as this is common because the intensity is increasing early in the workout, within the first few sets. Hence, the muscle will be tired towards the end of the workout, which will diminish your ability to perform repetitions. Once your body adapts to the pace, you should quickly be able to go back up on the poundages”.

I could not have said it better Lee, that's why I quoted him.

Disclaimer

Days Needed to Recover from Intense Weight-Training

2011-09-12T17:04:00.001-07:00

Good advice on how many days to rest each body part after each training session, is one of the most common questions for people who've realized weight training is the key to changing their body composition. The problem is that most programs (in print or online) go into great detail on the sets, reps and exercises to do for each body part, but not enough detail on how many days rest you should take before training the same body part again. The number of days needed to recover from intense weight-training can vary from 2-days (48-hours) with an upper limit of one week (168-hours) as you see in many of the "muscle" magazines. To better understand where you should be, my suggestion is to put a pen and paper to the number of sets and reps you do (known as training “volume”) and refer to the following.

Note: Look at each working set (not warmups) with 8-reps as an average.

At least 48-hours, when each body part gets 40-total repetitions or less per workout (8-reps per set/40 total reps equals about 5 sets).
At least 72-hours, when each body part gets up to 60-total repetitions per workout (8-reps per set/60 total reps equals 7-8 sets).
At least 96-hours, when each body part gets 90-total repetitions per workout (8-reps per set/90 total reps equals about 11 sets).

If you are doing over 100-total repetitions per workout (8-reps per set/100 total reps equals about 12 sets), you should consider training each body part just once weekly.

Remember, if you try and train a body part again when it is still tender to the touch, you should consider adding another rest day to your program.

Finally, train as hard as possible when you do train, and then stay the hell out of the gym so you can reap the benefits. If you are training hard enough with weights, the metabolic benefits should easily last a few days, so you don’t need to worry about gaining bodyfat, unless your nutrition plan is really off.

Disclaimer

Natural––Fat Loss Supplements--Do Any Of Them Work?

2011-08-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

Vince Andrich

Natural––Fat Loss Supplements--What Works, What Doesn't?

The question above is on the minds of most everyone that wants to lose excess body fat. Is that you? No doubt, there is a huge demand for product formulations that will actually work. While supplement companies look high and low for ingredients that will make an effective product a reality, they are still faced with ghosts of yesterdays past.

That is; to date the biggest problem has been that whenever an ingredient or ingredient combination proves to be of great value, you can be sure that not only will consumers over use them, but regulatory agencies and the mainstream media will eventually vilify their use.

Case in point; to date the hard science and anecdotal, real world results had shown that the combination of caffeine and ephedrine (200mg caffeine with 20mg ephedrine per dose) is in fact the GOLD standard. Yet, since August of 2006, when ephedrine was taken off the market in the US, supplement manufacturers have been scrambling to formulate a product that can deliver similar results. While ephedrine is off limits, its caffeine counterpart is still one of the best lipolytic agents (fat loss) that IS still currently available.

Rather than recommend a specific fat burning product, here is my short list of compounds that can add a bit more fat loss punch to a structured weight training and nutrition plan.

• Caffeine––A cup of regular Joe contains between 60-80 mgs of caffeine, which can provide a nice protein sparing/fat burning effect if you take long breaks between meals. Most consumers get a good “feel” from 200-mgs per dose, which is about 50% of the caffeine in a Large Starbucks Americano. Reaching for 200-mgs of caffeine with breakfast and or prior to training is safe and effective.

• Yohimbine––Several years ago it was known that yohimbine inhibits alpha-2-receptors leading to the theory that the compound would accelerate fat loss. The logic goes on to state that this inhibitory effect would play an even more significant role in liberating fat in otherwise known as stubborn areas of such as back of the thighs and lower abs. There is one study with soccer players that was NOT funded by a supplement company that showed a significant loss of fat. While the number of studies remains low, the anecdotal evidence appears very positive, which justifies its spot on my list. Be careful, many consumers report feeling like they have the flu when they take too much Yohimbine, and so I suggest no more than 3mgs per dose, with incremental increases of no more than 3mgs, once you know how your body responds.

• l-carnitine l-tartrate––In the late 80’s and early 90’s, the hype and ultimate flop of L-carnitine as a fat loss tool all but blacklisted this compound for use as a body recomposition agent. Now, new research has emerged this year using l-carnitine l-tartrate, a more expensive form of carnitine (l-tartrate is a carrier), provides enough evidence to put this compound on my list. Not only does l-carnitine l-tartrate help you utilize more fat as fuel, it does so by sparring muscle glycogen and improving work output. Look to get 1-2 grams per day and make sure it’s the l-carnitine l-tartrate form.

Now, there are many, many more compounds being added to, and marketed as fat loss agents, but I don’t feel “magic compounds” deserve any more time here. What I do what to emphasize is that even the most potent fat burning cocktail, doesn’t stand a chance if your daily nutrition and weekly training program are being approached as an after thought.

Never forget; You Can Never Outrun Your Mouth---Honest to goodness, lifelong body recomposition starts and ends with how you feed your body---because as the slogan above reminds us, we can always eat more than we can ever hope to "exercise off". The best part is that your nutrition plan does not need to be perfect, only consistent.

Want proof? You can limit the amount of fat you store simply by reducing the amount of carbohydrates in your daily diet from the “Suzy Creamcheese” norm of 65% of energy to 35%. And if you get an equal or greater amount of high quality protein (to carbs) in your daily diet, you’ll get a greater response in muscle and chew up a few extra calories to boot. With all that, I’ll bet just a simple weight-training program 2-3 times per week using 4-5 sets of 8-12 reps per body part, is all you’ll need to begin to strip off the fat you ALREADY have on your body. So, your nutrition plan stores little or no fat, and your exercise whittles it away––making any "fat burning" compounds just icing on the proverbial cake!

Vince Andrich

What Can You Do Better Today?

Disclaimer

Osmotic Anabolic Signaling PART III

2006-11-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

November 18, 2006

By Vince Andrich

For the Previous Section Please refer to

Osmotic Anabolic Signaling

Nutrition and Supplement Strategies that Go BEYOND the ‘Perpetual PUMP’ for True Muscle Growth and Cellular Recovery

Substrates that Trigger OAS
By now it should be obvious that what we’re calling the “super pump” can be achieved by manipulating muscle cell swelling. In particular, key nutrients have been identified that have the ability to maintain cellular fullness by forcing muscle cells to become maximally engorged with protective fluids — fluids that possess discrete anabolic properties as well as increase performance and produce full, tight physiques. It is important to note that cell volume is primarily a protective measure to combat muscle protein breakdown. Therefore, the first type of nutrients we will cover have the ability to pull fluids into the cell, making it more resistant to breakdown, all while providing the necessary osmotic pressure to produce massive pumps.

Amino Acids and Osmotic Signaling
Amino acids are not only important precursors for the synthesis of proteins and other nitrogen-containing compounds, but as you will see, they also participate in the dynamics of increasing cell volume. As we discussed, cell swelling has anabolic effects, which due to enhanced protein, carbohydrate and lipid metabolism, compensates for increases in intracellular osmolarity. In chemistry, the osmole (Osm) is a unit of measurement that defines the number of moles of a chemical compound that contribute to a solution’s osmotic pressure. Mechanisms responsible for cell swelling-induced changes in pathway fluxes include the changes in intracellular ion concentrations and in signal transduction.

Specific amino acids (e.g., leucine) stimulate protein synthesis and inhibit protein degradation independent of changes in cell volume because they stimulate mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), a protein kinase , which is one of the components of a signal transduction pathway used by insulin. When the cellular energy state is low — for example when following a chronically reduced carbohydrate diet — stimulation of mTOR by amino acids is prevented in part by a reduction in insulin production.

Surprisingly, it has been show that when subjects ingested a specific combination of amino acids, namely leucine, taurine, isoleucine and tyrosine they experienced a dramatic influx of hypo-osmotically induced cell swelling.

In laymen terms, the right combination of amino acids will send out a strong signal to increase cell swelling when muscle cell volume reaches low concentrations. This is likely due to, 1) a protective mechanism that can be triggered under severe conditions (like those generated by many diets and training methods), and 2) the ability for leucine to increase insulin production . These both are great benefits for those who want to train hard and maintain a full and pumped appearance while on reduced carbohydrates. Moreover, under normal feeding conditions, these amino acids will help maximize the fluids inside your cytoplasm for muscles that are super pumped, fuller, rounder and gorging with vascularity.

Maximizing the Reception of Osmotic Signals
There is no doubt that a powerful link between cell volume and muscle protein synthesis exists. It’s also a fact that muscle cell volume acts as an anabolic signal in response to specific nutritional compounds. In the previous section, we learned that when the available cellular energy inside your muscles is low, the amino acids leucine, taurine, isoleucine and tyrosine appear to signal actions quite similar to that of insulin. This should come as no surprise, since insulin is one of the most potent regulators responsible for controlling muscle growth and muscle breakdown.
What’s truly remarkable is that when you stop and think about it, the link between fuller muscles and anabolism is easy to see. That’s why I’m absolutely convinced the next great frontier in drug-free bodybuilding lies in unlocking the secrets to upgrading your body’s natural muscle cell volume machinery. I personally believe that the dynamics of muscle cell hydration and fluid volume are likely the master regulators at the core of the anabolic response. This theory has been proven in a number of studies by a variety of independent researchers. For example, one of the leading experts on cell volume, Dieter Häussinger, displayed evidence that cellular hydration is an important factor in controlling cellular protein turnover, while protein synthesis and degradation are affected inversely by cell shrinking. Moreover, an increase in cellular hydration (swelling) acts as an anabolic agent, whereas, cell reduction is catabolic . In another experiment Professor Siegfried Waldegger found that “cell swelling inhibits proteolysis (protein breakdown), and stimulates protein synthesis, whereas cell shrinkage stimulates proteolysis and inhibits protein synthesis” .
Natural Nutrient Sensors and Hyper Cellular Remodeling
After coming to the realization that cell volume regulates anabolic drive, it stands to reason that by increasing the availability of “nutrient sensors” it may be possible to maximize the effects, and markedly increase the storage of cellular contents or trigger what we’re calling “Hyper Cell Remodeling”.

In the medical community, prescription oral hypoglycemic agents (OHAs) are commonly used to up-regulate our cells’ ability to utilize nutrients. These compounds work through a variety of mechanisms, most notably by increasing insulin sensitivity and glucose disposal. Fortunately, there are several natural dietary supplements that have been shown to be extremely active at the receptor level and work to enhance the effects of insulin and nutrient disposal. The most effective natural nutrient disposal agents include, R-Alpha Lipoic Acid, (R-ALA), 4-hydroxyisoleucine, chromium polynicotinate and Rhodiola rosea.

Highlighting the Target Cells with R-Alpha Lipoic Acid
R-ALA is the biologically active form of alpha-lipoic acid that has recently demonstrated to possess all beneficial properties for acting as a natural substrate in damaged cell metabolism along with optimizing the actions of insulin. Being a natural isomer, R-ALA is most recognized by the mitochondrial enzymes inside the cytoplasm and in both human and animal models, R-ALA appears to directly activate target cells, which could lead to the stimulation of glucose uptake .

Chromium Polynicotinate the Magnetic Mineral
Chromium Polynicotinate has greater biological activity than other forms of chromium, including sources from picolinate. CP helps to stabilize blood sugar levels and can be critical to the synthesis of cholesterol, fats and proteins. Chromium polynicotinate consists of pure niacin-bound chromium, identified by United States Government researchers as the active component of true GTF (Glucose Tolerance Factor). GTF is responsible for binding insulin to cell membrane receptor sites .

Amplifying the Insulin Signal with 4-hydroxyisoleucine

Another potent compound is 4-hydroxyisoleucine; an amino acid extracted from fenugreek seeds that interestingly works through activation of the early steps of insulin signaling. This ingredient may stimulate insulin secretion (direct beta-cell stimulation) and help control blood sugar levels. This dual action makes 4-hydroxyisoleucine a potentially very valuable nutrient sensing agent for maximizing the storage of critical muscle cell components.

Rhodiola rosea- – Dual Action Cellular Energy-Boosting Herb

Rhodiola rosea L., also known as “golden root” or “roseroot” has been used in the traditional medicine of Russia, Scandinavia, and other countries for centuries. Since 1960, more than 180 pharmacological, phytochemical, and clinical studies have been published. At the Tomsk State University and Medical Institute in Tomsk, Russia, scientists examined rhodiola’s effects on fighting fatigue and boosting energy. Mice with weights attached to them were forced to swim to exhaustion twice a day for six days. Half of the mice received an oral rhodiola extract, while the control group was given only water. By day six, the rhodiola-supplemented group had ATP levels that were 17% higher, and creatine phosphate levels that were 45% higher, than those of the control group. Rhodiola’s benefits did not end there, however. The level of muscle glycogen was 53% greater in the supplemented group than in the control group, while concentrations of muscle lactic acid and ammonia (two toxic byproducts of muscular effort) were 18% and 60% lower, respectively . Clearly, the rhodiola extract helped maintain levels of key energy compounds needed for physical activity, which are indispensable to protecting muscle cell volume.

Hyper Hydration–Maximizing Total Body Water Volume

So far, I’ve given you a lot of good news about a totally new and reliable strategy for acute and permanent muscle expansion; now, here’s the bad news. You see, without maximizing your total body water availability, none of the strategies above will make much difference. That’s why I am about to tell you about a substance that occurs naturally in the body, and can dramatically increase the concentration of the fluid in the blood and tissues. The magical substance is glycerol, also known as glycerin, glycerine, 1,2,3-propanetriol and trihydroxypropane. Oral glycerol ingested with added fluid, increases total body water volume. This is known as glycerol hyperhydration. Some athletes use glycerol to improve thermoregulation and endurance during exercise or exposure to hot environments .

The concentration of these fluids is held constant by the body, so water consumed with glycerol is not excreted until the extra glycerol is either removed by the kidneys or broken down by the body. In laymen’s terms, taking glycerol in supplemental form quickly improves hydration and the absorption of other supplements that are taken with it. The end result is faster delivery of nutrients when and where you need them the most and the prolonged “pump effect” during your workouts.
STAY TUNED for the Summary in PART IV

Osmotic Anabolic Signaling PART II

2006-11-03T21:27:00.000-08:00
October 25, 2006

Nutrition and Supplement Strategies that Go BEYOND the ‘Perpetual PUMP’ for

True Muscle Growth and Cellular Recovery
PART II

By Vince Andrich

The Mirror-Key to Monitoring Low-Carb Diet Success

Using changes in the appearance of your muscles to gauge your nutritional status and/or needs is extremely useful on a carbohydrate-controlled diet, because they are very time sensitive. What I mean is, once you understand what nutrients alter the volume of your muscles, you can make adjustments literally day-by-day. These visible signs are more significant than ever when you understand that as a rule High Protein-Low Carb (HP-LC) Diets cause an overall loss of cell volume making the scale an unreliable measuring tool. Your visual goal will be to keep your muscles looking FIT not flat, which we will cover in detail later. If you desire muscles that are super pumped, fuller, rounder and gorging with vascularity then forget using a HP-LC Diet exclusively. To attain fat loss, and still be able to muster up a pump in the gym, takes some insight. In short, the goal is to “threaten” your glycogen stores to a point where your muscles begin to lose fullness, making it difficult to get a great pump, however we must avoid allowing our muscle to go entirely “flat.” The ‘trick of the trade’ is to utilize a cyclical carbohydrate cycling approach, where you eat about 100 grams of carbohydrates per day for up to three days, and then jump to about 5 times that number for day four. This would mean you would consume 100 grams of carbs for three days, and then on day four, consume 500 grams to replenish depleted energy stores. Beyond this “carbohydrate-balancing act,” there are several recent discoveries that have revealed numerous non-carbohydrate substrates that induce cell swelling so that you can attain maximum muscularity and avoid looking flat and stringy. Since most athletes don’t have much experience assessing their nutritional status as it relates to muscle cell energy, here is a quick guide.

Assessment Tools

Monitoring the “appearance” of your muscles is an art form that has been practiced for years by trial and error. Hey, it’s no accident that when you look around any commercial gym all you see is a wall of mirrors. However, beauty is more than skin deep. Today science has uncovered tons of the reasons why gauging muscularity by the mirror is essential to success.

So What Do I Look For?
The main storage compound in skeletal muscle is glycogen, which is measured in millimoles per kilogram of muscle (mmol/kg). Luckily, several researchers have found some relevant data regarding glycogen stores to help athletes gauge their cell volume. Here is what we know:

An individual following a normal mixed diet will maintain glycogen levels around 80-100 mmol/kg. Athletes following a mixed diet have higher levels, around 110-130 mmol/kg, which would represent a fuller looking muscle. As a rule weight trainers and active individuals classify a normal mixed diet as 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat. So then an active individual on a HP-LC Diet should aim for “fit” looking muscles which is represented by glycogen levels around 70 mmol/kg. If you are using other cell swelling techniques in this article, your muscles should look a much fuller than non-exercising individuals on a normal mixed diet or about 85 mmol/kg. At these levels of glycogen, fat oxidation increases both at rest and during exercise . Monitoring the “appearance” of your muscles is a very non-scientific measuring tool so it is necessary to use visualization. Picture “fit” muscles on a HP-LC Diet to look about 35 % smaller in overall cell volume than when you are not dieting (see fig.1).

If you’re still unclear remember how you looked when you were eating more carbs and compare that to these warning signs that tell you’re spiraling out of control:

A flat or stringy looking muscle would represent about a 70% decrease in your overall cell volume (glycogen at 40 mmol/kg). At this level, workout performance is largely impaired and protein can become an important fuel source during exercise.
Total exhaustion during exercise occurs when your muscles are about 85% under volumized (glycogen at 15-25 mmol/kg), which is not an environment conducive to favorable changes in body composition.

The Chemical Soup that Determines Muscle Cell Volume
It should come as no surprise that getting nutrients in and out of your muscles is under close scrutiny. The ‘gatekeeper’ that guards working muscles is called a cell membrane, or more specifically the sarcolemma. Covering the entire muscle fiber, the sarcolemma (muscle membrane) is an extremely thin, flexible and elastic substance. The first and most important job of the membrane is to maintain the integrity of the cell and keep the vital contents inside. If this protective cover gets damaged severely then the contents will escape and the cell will die. Further, the sarcolemma acts as a gateway through which substances (i.e. amino acids) can enter and leave, making it selectively permeable. Briefly, here are the main functions of the cell membrane:

To hold vital energy components inside the muscle cell, such as glycogen and Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the key energy ‘currency’ of your cells
To transport the waste build up from muscle fiber contraction out of the cell
To accept nutrients that are critical to the health, maintenance, repair and building of muscle cells. These nutrients are amino acids, carbohydrate molecules (glycogen stores), hormones, oxygen etc

One surefire way to manipulate the permeability of a cell membrane is to workout. Training damages the sarcolemma in a positive way and appears to “unlock the door” making it more permeable. This effect has likely been programmed into our genes for survival. The likely scenario is this: after a brutal workout, your body senses that the nutrients and fibers inside the muscle cell have been “torched” and damaged, then it allows what is effectively your muscle cell recovery team inside to “reconstruct” the crime scene. It appears that feedback provided by a number of mechanisms including amino acid monitoring and Osmotic Anabolic Signaling work in concert to maintain proper cell volume as a consequence of exercise.

The Cytosol — Key to Muscle Cell Volume
Once past the muscle cell gateway, what exactly do you find inside? You find the cell’s cytoplasm, which in regards to a muscle cell is called the sarcoplasm. This is literally everything inside of the plasma membrane. The muscle fibers are surrounded by a thick fluid or gel, which is called the Cytosol. This is center of the universe when it comes to bodybuilding. I say this because the nutrients that go in and out of the cytosol determine how the muscle cell is remodeled, or basically, rebuilt.
The cytosol is the intracellular fluid inside of the muscle fiber. The outer structure is a virtual superhighway, which takes raw materials from the outside of the cell (passed through the cell membrane), then stores or converts those materials into useable energy. In other words this transparent gel contains such foods as amino acids for maintenance and repair and glycogen (carbohydrates stored in muscle) for energy. You see a muscle fiber must have a fuel source in order to contract. This is why the cytosol also has tiny specialized structures called organelles, or microscopic organs. Perhaps the most significant of these — at least in terms of energy production — are mitochondria, because they convert carbohydrates (see chart above) and fats into ATP, which is our muscle cell’s main energy currency or fuel.

Blood Volume — The Red River That Feeds Cell Volume
The topic of blood volume is somewhat related to the subject we just discussed. That‘s because extracellular fluid levels that make up your blood volume also make a huge impact on the water content inside your muscle cells. Most bodybuilders don’t realize that even their performance is directly related to the level of hydration (or dehydration) when they step into the gym. Dehydration is defined as a >1% loss of body weight as a result of fluid loss. This is not usually a problem for a weight trainee during exercise, but if you start your training low on fluids it will become a factor. Consider this, if you are normally a 200-lb athlete and your lack of hydration brings your weight down to 196-lbs (2% of your body weight) there is a measurable decrease in muscle cell contraction times, and when fluid losses reach 4% of body weight, there is a 5 to 10% drop in overall performance which can persist for up to 4 hours even after rehydration takes place. When hydration levels plummet it slows recovery. Reparatory processes are so reliant on fluid for transporting anabolic substrates like amino acids and glucose to muscle cells as well as removing waste products from those cells.

So unless you are depleting water for a photo shoot or contest (which require arguably less performance), it is essential to anticipate and regularly replace fluid losses. For the record, thirst is not a reliable indicator of dehydration as it takes a fluid loss of 0.8 - 2% of body weight to trigger thirst. Now you know why many serious athletes carry water around with them in the gym!

There is no doubt that maintaining blood plasma volume is an important strategy to optimize your physical performance, and reaching a mind blowing pump IS a performance feat in it of itself.

Osmotic Anabolic Signaling In Action
I didn’t want to turn this into a piece on water and hydration, but now that we’ve covered the basic determinants of cell volume, though hydration and carbohydrate intake, here is a quick summary of OAS in action.

For the athlete, nutritional status and training frequency cause extracellular (blood plasma) and intracellular (cytosol) conditions to vary considerably with respect to each other.
Proteins and other substrates lie at the interface between these two compartments and relay signals relating extracellular conditions to the cell interior
Nutrient sensors act to regulate cellular contents, and therefore nutrient sensing may culminate in the altered activity of a multitude of cellular intermediates such as hormones, glucose, amino acids and other nutrients.
Osmotic Anabolic Signaling is triggered by specific nutrients (or their metabolites), or the detection of physiological signals generated as a result of changes in cell volume or cell membrane potential

STAY TUNED FOR PART III

tags technorati : Absolute Nutrition AccuMeasure Advanced Sports Nutrition ALRI Anabolic Xtreme ANSI AST Avant Labs Axis Labs BBs Best Belts BioScience Technologics Biotest Blackstar Labs BSN Built4Health Champion Nutrition Chef Jay Controlled Labs Cytodyne CytoSport Designer Supplements Dimaxx Dorian Yates Dymatize Nutrition EAS ErgoPharm Extreme BioSciences Fitness Enterprise Fizogen Flexsports Gamma-o Gaspari Nutrition German American Tech Get Diesel Human Development Technologies Ideal Food IDS iForce Nutrition INSTONE Iovate Health iSatori Global Technologies ISS Research JavaFit John Scotts Nitro Klein-Becker USA- Labrada Legal Gear Man Sports Maximum Human Performance MegaPro MET-Rx Mission Nutrition MLO Supplements Molecular Nutrition Muscle Marketing USA Muscle-Link MuscleTech Supplements Nature's Best Nature's Herbs New BSN labels Nutrabolics Nutraceutics NutraSport Nutrex NVE Pharmaceuticals Omega Sports Optimum Nutrition Pacific Health Labs PBL P

Osmotic Anabolic Signaling Part One

2006-11-03T21:26:00.001-08:00

Nutrition and Supplement Strategies that Go BEYOND the ‘Perpetual PUMP’ for True Muscle Growth and Cellular Recovery

PART ONE

By Vince Andrich

You want the ability to get a “perpetual pump” in any body part you train, every single time you walk into the gym, right? You are in pursuit of the almighty PUMP because you truly believe it holds the key to building more muscle size and strength, correct? You also believe that the magnitude of the pump you get in the gym is an indication that you’re on your way to less bodyfat and more defined muscles, true? Now, what if I said you were right and that the PUMP really was a reliable gauge of your bodybuilding progress? Well it is, but there seems to be a misunderstanding of sorts. You see, if you’ve been following this line of thinking — that pump equals growth — you must realize that the traditional mechanisms for accessing a perpetual pump, pale in comparison to a startling new breakthrough in bodybuilding chemistry. Don’t get me wrong, you will still learn about an integrated system that will allow you to attain a maximum pump, but you’ll discover that there is definitely more. This approach represents an entirely new way to look at the mechanisms for bodybuilding success — one where the benefits are noticeable and, most importantly, permanent.

The Breakthrough is Not For Everyone
The techniques outlined in this article are not intended for everyone, although anyone can benefit. What I mean is simply this: you need to ‘come clean’ and be honest about your bodybuilding goals and how YOU plan to achieve them. Let me explain more. If you are on a sophisticated regimen of bodybuilding pharmaceuticals like growth hormone, testosterone, insulin and the like, your ability to get a pump in the gym should be simple. If this is your approach to bodybuilding, then the rest of this article is of no relevance to you. I am not an expert on bodybuilding drugs, but I do know enough to say that whenever I am working with an athlete who is ON, my traditional nutritional recommendations are not necessarily applicable. This is why my focus is to work with athletes who’s hormone levels are not off — or all over — the charts, and therefore do not undergo severe fluctuations. However, even if you choose to go to the “dark side” and use bodybuilding drugs, which I do not suggest, you can’t stay on them long term. Eventually, if you want to have your health and a great body too, you’ll be seeking out “legal bodybuilding chemistry”, like the information in this article.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s review the popular method for
maximizing the pump — nitric oxide supplementation.

Nitric Oxide Boosters and the Rise of the Almighty PUMP
The popular trend in bodybuilding supplementation these days is the use of Nitric Oxide (NO) boosters as a method for increasing your “pump” while weight training. The use of nitric oxide supplements (NO is the acronym, for nitric oxide), has gained quite a following since they initially hit the bodybuilding scene around four years ago. I won’t go into the exact mechanisms associated with boosting nitric oxide, but the principle benefit appears to be vasodilatation. By improving vasodilatation, an athlete would experience increased blood flow from dilated blood vessels. As time goes on, more performance supplement companies are marketing various formulas as nitric oxide boosters, thereby dramatically increasing the popularity of the category.

The highly anticipated benefits associated with increasing nitric oxide levels were initially driven by multiple marketing campaigns and by at least one popular book. Many of the marketing claims for nitric oxide products became very similar to those of creatine. For example, fuller muscles, tighter pumps, gains in power and strength, and increased cell volume. As a result, these products were ‘granted’ nearly the same credibility as creatine, when it first hit the market. The hype for the nitric oxide products gave birth to what is now almost indistinguishable from the creatine category, and in fact, many of the most popular formulas include creatine as a major active ingredient.

I have no doubt that the most significant reason these products are in demand is because they are endorsed as a means for promoting massive pumps in the gym, increasing lean mass, enhancing fast twitch muscle, quicker recovery and improving strength, but the purpose of this article is not to dispute or justify these claims. Whether or not nitric oxide supplement claims hold up to the acid test of real-world training is an entirely different subject, so I’ll save it for another time.

As I said, nitric oxide supplements are not the focus here; rather I mention these products because the benefits they claim to deliver provide a backdrop for my main subject — The Pump.

What is The Pump?
In bodybuilding circles, the sensation of tight congestion, or swelling, of your muscles with blood during your weight training session is ‘The Pump’. Now, a weight trainer with any experience knows that if you lift a heavy enough weight, and don’t rest too long between sets, your working muscles will become swollen with blood. In scientific jargon, this is referred to as reactive hyperemia because it involves an increase in blood flow (i.e., hyperemia) in response (i.e., reactive) to the exercise stimulus.

Triggering the Osmotic Anabolic Signaling System
So, what’s the big deal with striving to attain what popular bodybuilding jargon refers to as a Super Pump? To be blunt, The Pump is the manifestation of many physique-altering benefits that are not visible to the eye. Ironically, what seems like such a foolishly vain aspect of bodybuilding to the uninformed is, in fact, an excellent means for judging your nutritional status, current anabolic/catabolic condition and measure of training recovery.

In essence, it appears that the magnitude of the PUMP you get in the gym can be traced back to multiple factors associated with muscle growth and recovery, and are intimately related to an intricate cellular swelling mechanism that modern scientific literature calls Osmotic Anabolic Signaling (OAS). This phenomenon is at the heart of building new muscle year round, and retaining lean mass in the face of hypo-caloric dieting. To maximize this system requires attention to several “puzzle pieces,” of which nutrition tops the charts.

Diet and Muscle Cell Dynamics
When you are well fed, i.e., carbohydrates are not restricted, your ability to get a pump should be pretty easy, even if your diet is not optimal. However, it has become increasing popular for weight trainers to follow a diet that carefully considers carbohydrate intake. The modern bodybuilding diet usually allows for 40-50% of your daily calories to come from carbohydrates. This number may increase for athletes who weight train for sports, which make it necessary for additional daily energy calories to be burned beyond those needed for the gym. Typically, carb intake is under strict control when an athlete wants to avoid gaining fat (this could be all year round), or must lose excess bodyfat for a wide range of goals including contest prep. For example, consuming less than 100 grams of carbohydrates is the standard level for a “low-carb” day. If this level seems low, it is, but keep in mind these diets usually remove carbohydrate calories and make up the remainder of the daily calorie allotment from increases in protein and/or fat. The best low-carb diets put an emphasis on protein intake due to its ability to promote additional calorie wasting.

The underlying problem with excessive restriction of carbohydrate is that when training intensity is high (and of course intensity is key to keeping or increasing muscle size much less the PUMP), even 200 grams of carbohydrates per day for larger athletes is tremendously meager. Research has shown that a high-protein diet coupled with low-carbohydrate intake creates a metabolic environment called acidosis, which is not conducive to high intensity weight training , . In addition, weight training intensely while simultaneously reducing carbohydrates dramatically depletes stored energy in muscle (glycogen), and therefore we know that low-carb dieting cannot be followed for weeks on end.

Fortunately, most athletes realize that it is best to utilize carb depletion/cycling regimens rather than attempt to stay on reduced carbs for the entire length of their diet. That is, they follow a few days of low-carb eating (usually 2-3) and then allow themselves a day or so of “normalized” feeding to drive the replenishment of glycogen so that training intensity can be maintained. The other benefit associated with this diet format is that the athlete enjoys maximum fat burning on low-carb days, and then when carbs are reintroduced in greater amounts, insulin is allowed to help maintain the desired anabolic state. Further, boosting carb intake at this point offers a mechanism to reinvigorate natural thyroid production — often reduced when on low-carb diets — for improved metabolic function.

Moreover, a consideration of importance, beyond the aspect of performance, is the anabolic effect of insulin secretion on muscle protein synthesis. Moderate carbohydrate intake at each meal should stimulate the proper insulin levels needed for maximum muscle protein synthesis. Over time depressed insulin secretion may halt any additional muscular progress. Therefore, my approach to feeding for most of the year is to systematically eat a little less carbs than I need and more protein than I can use. This concept is fully explained in a booklet called ‘No Mistakes’ - The Nutrition Guide to Building Your Best Body Ever. I wrote this guide with my colleague Rob Thoburn, who is an absolute bodybuilding genius and now works for the forward-thinking sports nutrition company BSN.

Nutritional Clues Related to ‘OAS’
I’ve mentioned relative dietary concepts because at the end of the day, your nutritional status will ultimately become the ‘core’ to engaging OAS, and the PUMP you get in the gym. How much does nutrition have to do with OAS? Have you every wondered why your muscles are flat some days and on others full? As you recall the muscle contains stored carbohydrates. Guess what? For every carbohydrate gram you store an additional 2.7 grams of water! Whenever you consume plenty of carbs, your muscle cells become saturated with them, and each carb pulls nearly 3 grams of water into a virtual anabolic Jacuzzi! Therefore, your muscles fill up like a balloon! You can always tell how anabolic your nutrition is by how full your muscle cells are. As we touched on previously, when you are on a reduced-carb diet, your muscle cells become flat and your skin is loose, and doesn’t look very tight. The initial stages of this are common while dieting, because the athlete is simply low on carbohydrate stores in their muscle cells. However, in speaking with many advanced athletes if your muscle cells are left high and dry for too long, with nothing to hold water inside the cell, you will eventually chew up your hard-earned muscle.

So, this raises the question: Can you get a super pump in the gym while carb intake is low? In my opinion, the answer is no, probably not.
Keep in mind the pump is relative, and is can only be judged against your personal experience. But you will get a better pump when your carb intake allows for stored glycogen in your muscles to be roughly 50% of capacity, and your water intake is adequate. As a reference, adequate fluid intake for a 200-lb athlete is about 1-gallon of water, or 12, 8-ounce glasses. When it comes to gauging your stored muscle glycogen levels, then best assessment is the mirror, which we will discuss in detail in the next section.
tags technorati : Absolute Nutrition AccuMeasure Advanced Sports Nutrition ALRI Anabolic Xtreme ANSI AST Avant Labs Axis Labs BBs Best Belts BioScience Technologics Biotest Blackstar Labs BSN Built4Health Champion Nutrition Chef Jay Controlled Labs Cytodyne CytoSport Designer Supplements Dimaxx Dorian Yates Dymatize Nutrition EAS ErgoPharm Extreme BioSciences Fitness Enterprise Fizogen Flexsports Gamma-o Gaspari Nutrition German American Tech Get Diesel Human Development Technologies Ideal Food IDS iForce Nutrition INSTONE Iovate Health iSatori Global Technologies ISS Research JavaFit John Scotts Nitro Klein-Becker USA- Labrada Legal Gear Man Sports Maximum Human Performance MegaPro MET-Rx Mission Nutrition MLO Supplements Molecular Nutrition Muscle Marketing USA Muscle-Link MuscleTech Supplements Nature's Best Nature's Herbs New BSN labels Nutrabolics Nutraceutics NutraSport Nutrex NVE Pharmaceuticals Omega Sports Optimum Nutrition Pacific Health Labs PBL P