March, 2019 | Life Health Fitness

How Often Do You Need to Strength Train to Build Muscle?

Strength training is important at all ages and stages of life, for both men and women. The good news is you don’t have to join a gym or train every day to get fitness benefits and build muscle. These days, more people use bodyweight exercises and do strength workouts at home with little or no equipment. Some invest in a few pairs of resistance bands or dumbbells to enhance their training but that’s not necessary, especially in the beginning. There’s no one way to strength train. You can work your muscles against resistance in a variety of ways, including resistance bands, dumbbells, barbells, machines, or your own body weight.

How Often Should You Strength Train?

Suppose you want to get stronger. How much time do you need to put in and how frequently do you need to train to get benefits? The frequency with which you train is a variable that can impact the hypertrophy and strength gains you make. In fact, a number of studies have looked at whether more frequent training leads to greater strength gains. What can we learn from these studies?

Frequent training is lifting three times per week or more while low-frequency training is working muscle against resistance only one time per week. Working muscle groups one time per week seems to be the minimum you can get by with and still see strength gains. Is low-frequency training as effective for strength gains?

A study published in the International Journal of Exercise Science compared strength gains subjects made when they trained three times per week as opposed to only once per week. Despite the differences in how often the subjects trained, total training volume was similar. The subjects who trained only once per week did three times the volume on their training days to even things up.

The results? After 8 weeks, strength gains between the two groups were similar. Based on this study, it appears you can train only once per week and get similar strength gains to someone who works out three times per week. The key is to do equal training volume. So, total training volume is more important than strength training frequency, based on this study.

Another study in 2012 that compared strength training 3 times per week to 6 times per week and controlled for total training volume found that more frequent training led to greater strength gains. However, this study was published in a peer-reviewed journal. Plus, it involved highly trained powerlifters.

Finally, a recent meta-analysis of 12 studies looking at the impact of training frequency on strength gains showed no additional benefits of more frequent training on strength gains when the total training volume was the same. These studies suggest that total volume is more strongly linked with strength gains than how frequently you train.

Also, of interest is a study showing you can retain the strength gains you gain through strength training by training as little as one day per week. However, the endpoint of the study was 12 weeks, so it’s not clear if that holds true over a long period of time. The good news? It takes less training to retain strength than it does to develop it in the first place.

Conclusion

Training frequency seems to be less important than training volume for strength gains. Most of the research showing greater strength gains with more frequent training didn’t control for total training volume. But there haven’t been enough studies that adequately controlled for total training volume to draw firm conclusions. How frequently to train to maximize strength can vary based on a variety of factors – age, genetics, gender, how heavily you train, and the muscle groups you work. It’s hard to draw firm conclusions based on limited data.

Here’s the bottom line. Although it may be possible to gain and retain strength by working your entire body only once per week, the volume you’d have to do could be time prohibitive. But it’s reassuring to know if you ever get into a time squeeze and can’t train more than once per week for a while, you can still make strength gains and retain them.

Whatever approach you take, be sure to give the muscles you worked at least 48 hours of rest and recovery before working them again. Strength adaptations take place in response to training, but they occur between training sessions when your muscles are recovering and rebuilding. Rest is an important part of the equation and one you shouldn’t skimp on. Also, give as much attention to nutrition as you do to your training. If you don’t consume enough calories and protein, the gains you make will be slow.

References:

Stronger by Science. “High-Frequency Training for a Bigger Total: Research on highly trained Norwegian powerlifters”

International Journal of Exercise Science 9(2): 159-167, 2016.

Sports Med Open. 2018 Dec; 4: 36.

Int. J. Sports Med. 1988 Oct; 9(5): 316-9.

How Long Should You Rest Between Sets When Resistance Training?

The rest period between exercise sets is one of the variables you can tweak to change the stimulus you place on the muscles you’re training. The length of time you rest between resistance sets should depend on the resistance you’re using and your training goals. It’s during the rest between sets that your muscles partially replenish their energy stores so they can generate force again. Therefore, the time you rest can impact your performance when you train. So, how long should you rest between sets?

If Strength Building Is Your Main Goal

If your main objective is to build strength, the ideal formula is to choose a heavy resistance since lifting a heavy load maximizes strength gains. In general, a resistance that allows you to complete three to five reps before the muscles are exhausted works best for maximal strength gains. Because you’re using a heavier load, you won’t be able to do as many reps before your muscles fatigue. Once your muscles are exhausted, they have to partially recover to generate the same amount of force. Depending upon the length of the rest period, the recovery can be partial or almost complete.

For strength gains, you’re maximizing the amount of weight you lift on each set. Since you’re using a heavy load, your muscles will need more time to recover between sets. Adding extra recovery time means they can generate more force on the next set. So, in general, rest periods are longer when the goal is to build brute strength.

How long should you rest between heavy lifts? Two minutes would be the minimum, but many powerlifters rest even longer between sets, as long as three to five minutes. Resting longer gives your muscles more time to gear up for the next set.

If You’re Trying to Get Fitter and Leaner

What if your main objective is to get fitter and leaner rather than to build muscle size or strength? In this case, lift lighter and do more reps. This approach primarily builds muscle endurance and increases general fitness. Since you’re not using heavy weights, where you need longer recovery time, the rest periods between sets is short.

In fact, you can do a circuit workout where you whip through exercises in quick succession with little or no rest between exercises. The need for muscle recovery and regeneration of energy is less since you’re not completely depleting muscle energy reserves. In addition, moving quickly from exercise to exercise burns more calories than standing around

If You’re Trying to Increase Muscle Size

If you’re trying to boost the size, or hypertrophy, the muscles you’re working, a moderate rest period can help you achieve your objective. For hypertrophy gains, moderate resistance works best because you can do more repetitions using a moderate weight than you can using the heavy resistance you need to maximize strength gains.

For hypertrophy gains, choose a weight that allows you to do 8 to 10 reps before the muscle is thoroughly fatigued. Since you’re not using an ultra-heavy resistance, as with strength building, the rest period can be shorter, between 60 and 90 seconds. Shorter rest periods, as opposed to the several minute rests you use for strength gains, create more metabolic stress and that favors muscle hypertrophy.

Studies don’t universally support this though. In fact, there was a small study showing a longer rest period may be best for both strength and hypertrophy gains. In the study, 21 guys performed resistance training using either long or short rest periods between sets. The short rest group rested one minute between sets and the second paused for three minutes.

The results? At the end of eight weeks, the long rest group enjoyed greater strength AND hypertrophy gains. The likely reason is the longer rest group was able to perform more total volume when they rested longer between sets. Keep these results in mind when deciding how long your rest periods should be. Extending the rest period a bit to two or three minutes may stimulate greater muscle gains over time by allowing you to do more total volume.

On the downside, you get less metabolic stress, another driver of muscle growth. You can always vary the time you rest between sets during different training sessions or periodize your workouts so you vary your training variables, including rest between sets.

The Conclusion

How long you should rest between sets depends on the resistance you’re using and what you’re trying to achieve. If you’re after brute strength, go heavy on the weight and rest for two to three minutes between sets. For fitness gains without marked changes in muscle size or strength, lighten up on the weight, do high reps, and rest minimally between sets.

Hypertrophy falls somewhere in the middle. Moderate weights and moderate rest between sets. Rest periods can be as short as 60 seconds, but as long as three minutes may be ideal, based on one study. Know your goals and adjust resistance, total training volume, and rest periods based on those factors.

References:

Greatist.com. “How Long Should You Rest Between Strength Training Sets?”

Fitness Prescription. February 2004. pages 152-153.

4 Phases of a Successful Workout Sequence

Are you ready to get into top physical shape at home? Then, it’s time to put on your fitness trainer cap and learn to design your own workout sequence. Fortunately, it’s not hard to do You can divide a workout sequence into four distinct stages. Let’s look at each one and why it’s important.

Dynamic Warm-up

Don’t skip the warm up! Never start a workout with cold muscles. The warm-up is designed to raise your core body temperature and get the blood flowing to your muscles before you start working them. The increased blood flow improves the pliability of muscles and gives them more flexibility. A dynamic warm-up also prepares your heart, nervous system for the exercise to come and gets you in the mood to workout.

At one time, it was popular to make static stretching part of the warm-up, but some research shows this can reduce the power output of a muscle as well as reduce exercise performance. So, a dynamic warm-up is what fitness trainers recommend. This type of warm-up moves the muscles you’ll be working in a dynamic manner rather than holding a muscle static and stretching it.

To begin a dynamic warm-up, start with a few minutes of light cardio exercise, like jogging in place, jumping jacks, high knees, or butt kicks. The goal isn’t to get cardiovascular benefits but to slowly increase your heart rate and body temperature. Keep the intensity low. You should easily be able to talk in complete sentences.

After a few minutes, do some leg swings, front kicks, walking lunges, and alternating side lunges. This sequence should cover your lower body. For the upper body, do a series of arm swings, punches, arm crossovers, shoulder circle shrugs.

Length of time:

5 to 10 minutes. If you’re working out later in the day when your body is warm, 5 minutes may suffice. If it’s first thing in the morning, cold or if you feel stiff, 10 minutes is more appropriate.

Skill Training Phase

Now that your muscles are warm, it’s time to get to the “meat” of the workout. These are the exercises you’ll do to increase your fitness level over time. If you’re training at home, you can build strength, muscle endurance, and muscle size using only body weight exercises.

First, decide how many days per week you plan to train. If you can only train two days per week, you’ll want to work your entire body in a single session, including upper body, lower body, and core. If you can train 3 or 4 days per week you can set up a split routine. Do lower body and core during one session and upper body in a separate session and alternate back and forth between upper and lower body exercises at each session. Here are some of the exercises you can choose:

Upper Body Bodyweight Exercises:

Push-up and push-up variations.
Pull-ups and chin-ups
Triceps Dips
Lower Body Bodyweight Exercises:
Deep squats
Forward, lunges, backward lunges, and side lunges, Bulgarian split squats
Glute bridges
Hip Thrusts
Donkey kicks
Calf raises

Core:

Planks and plank variations
Crunches and variations on crunches (stick more to planks if you have back issues)
Leg Raises
Bird dogs
Supermans
Dynamic Exercises for Cardio Benefits:
Squat jumps
Plyo lunges
Burpees
Mountain climbers

If you’re training lower body and core, pick 3 exercises from the lower body exercise group and three from the core group. For each exercise, do as many reps as you can until it’s hard to complete another rep using good form. Rest for 2 minutes. Do another set. Aim for 3 sets total. Do the same for the upper body on days that you work your upper body.

What about the dynamic exercises on the list? You can do these exercises that boost your heart rate during a separate training session or in between other bodyweight exercises. If you do them between exercises, the dynamic nature of these movements will keep your heart rate up for additional cardiovascular benefits.

Length of time: 45 minutes to an hour

Maintain Conditioning Phase

To keep making fitness gains, you must continue to place an additional challenge on your body. This is the principle of progressive overload, the idea that you must incrementally increase the challenge to force your body to adapt. When you’re working with weights, you can do this by increasing the weight. With bodyweight exercises, you can overload the muscles by increasing the number of reps, by increasing the number of sets or by adding more exercises to your current workout. Another option is to train more frequently. This will increase the total number of sets you do on a weekly basis. But, be sure to rest the muscles you just worked for at least 48 hours.

Also, you can do more challenging versions of body weight exercises you’re currently doing. For example, you can make push-ups harder by elevating your feet on a bench or by doing variations like plyo push-ups or triangle push-ups. There are tons of push-up variations to choose from! The same goes for planks.

If you continue to train without adding progressive overload, you’ll maintain your current level of fitness but will eventually reach a plateau where you stop making further gains. If you’ve built up a certain level of fitness and just want to maintain it, this may work for you.

Cool-Down Phase

The cool-down is designed to bring your body temperature down slowly and re-equilibrate blood flow. When you exercise, blood diverts to the muscles you’re working and away from organs, like your digestive tract that doesn’t need it.

The cool-down helps restore blood flow to vital organs like your brain. If you suddenly stop exercising without cooling down, you may feel lightheaded or dizzy as blood flow hasn’t is still directed toward your working muscles and your brain feels the shortfall. So, it’s important to reduce exercise intensity slowly and not stop suddenly.

If you’ve just done exercises that boost your heart rate, like mountain climbers, a light jog will bring your heart rate down gradually. Include some of the dynamic movements you did during the warm-up, such as leg and arms swings, in the cooldown as well.

Now that your workout is over, static stretching helps lengthen the muscle you’ve just worked. Include some of these at the end of a cooldown, especially if you have muscle groups prone toward tightness. Borrow from yoga and include downward and upward-facing dogs in your cooldown routine. Once you’ve finished cooling down, don’t forget to hydrate!

Length of time: 5 to 10 minutes

Conclusion:

Now you have a better idea of how to structure your workouts when you train at home. Be sure to give yourself a full day of rest each week!

Pull vs. Push Workout: Why It’s an Effective Way to Strength Train

When you train for strength or hypertrophy gains, the workout you do should be balanced. Maintaining balanced strength and muscle development means working each muscle along with its opposing muscles to ensure symmetrical strength development. That’s important since strength imbalances increase the risk of injury.

The movements that muscle perform fall into two main classes: pushing and pulling. For example, when you do a bench press, a classic pushing movement, the muscles in your chest contract as you push the weight above your chest. Pushing movements, like the bench press, also work the triceps and deltoids in the upper body. So, the triceps and deltoids are pushing muscles. Other examples of pushing movements for the upper body include push-ups and shoulder presses. These exercises target the triceps and deltoids respectively. In the lower body, a classic pushing exercise is leg extensions and squats, exercises that primarily work the quadriceps. Other push muscle muscles in the lower body are the glutes and calves.

Muscles That Pull

With a pull movement, the muscles you’re targeting contract as you pull the weight toward your body. These movements work the opposing muscle groups to the ones targeted during push exercises. An example of an upper body pulling exercise is biceps curls. When you curl the weight up toward your shoulders, you pull the weight in the direction of your body, and your biceps do the pulling. So, the biceps are classic pull muscles. Other pull muscles include the muscles in the upper back (trapezius & latissimus dorsi), the hamstrings, and the abdominals.

Push-pull training helps ensure you’re getting balanced training since you’re working the opposing muscle groups separately and focusing on muscles that perform a particular function during each training session. The goal is to do specific exercises that target the “pushers” or “pullers” in a balanced manner. Balanced training is important for making functional strength gains. For example, the shoulder press works the deltoids, classic pushing muscles, but the opposing muscles in the upper back also need strengthening for symmetry, balance, and functionality. Strength imbalances are a common cause of injury and contribute to chronic back and neck pain. By working the opposing, pulling muscles, both sets of muscles get the attention they need. How do you balance out a deltoid-centric exercise like the shoulder press? Try chin-ups. Pulling your chin above a bar is a movement that works the opposing muscles in the upper back.

In reality, most people focus too much on strengthening the pushing muscles and too little on working the muscles that pull. Doing enough pulling exercises is particularly important if you sit in a chair most of the day. If you’re stuck in a chair most of the day, you probably sit hunched over in a way that tightens the muscles in your chest and lengthens the muscles in your upper back. Talk about an imbalance! The best way to correct that imbalance is to add pulling exercises to your routine to strengthen the upper back muscles that counter tight chest muscles.

How to Do a Push-Pull Workout

The idea behind a push-pull workout is to train the pushing muscles during one session and the pulling muscles during a separate session on a different day. That way each type of muscle gets the focused attention it needs. Doing it in this manner maximizes workout efficiency and hits the muscles you’re working hard for greater strength and hypertrophy gains. So, one training session would be devoted to pushing exercises and the next to pulling. Depending upon how many days you train, you could work both upper and lower body pushing muscles during the same session or split the upper and lower body into separate sessions.

Some people do a push or pull workout for their upper body during two separate sessions but work their entire lower body on a separate day. For example, they might do upper body pushing exercises during session one. Session two would be lower body training, and session three would consist of upper body pulling exercises. Since you need a day of rest between each session, that means you train three days per week.

If you can work out four days per week, you can train upper and lower body via separate push and pull sessions. Do an upper body push workout on day one, and a lower body pull session on day two. Take a day of rest. Then, do an upper body pull workout on day four and a lower body push session on day five.

You can structure a push-pull workout however you’d like. The only stipulation is that you focus exclusively on pushing or pulling during that session. Of course, you need to know which exercises focus on pushing and which are pulling movements.

Pushing Exercises

Pushing exercises for the upper body include bench press, push-ups, chest presses, chest flies, shoulder presses, lateral raises, front raises, triceps kickbacks, skull crushers, and lateral raises. For the lower body, you can choose from squats and their many variations, leg presses, and forward lunges. You can even do a push workout without equipment by doing several push-variations along with deep squats and lunges.

Pulling Exercises

Pulling exercises for the upper body include biceps curls and their variations. There are lots of variations on curls, including preacher curls, concentration curls, dumbbell curls, barbell curls, hammer curls incline curls, and reverse curls. Each is a pulling exercise. Also, rows and their variations, including bent-over rows, upright rows, renegade rows, single-arm rows, and barbell rows. Don’t forget about pull-ups! They’re the ultimate in challenging pulling exercises. For the lower body, deadlifts, glute bridges, back extensions, and squats and their variations strengthen the muscles that pull efficiently.

Conclusion

Now you have a better idea of the benefits of structuring your workouts around separate push and pull sessions and a greater awareness of which exercises emphasize pulling and which target the pushing muscles. As always, warm up before starting a push or pull workout. Don’t forget that you still need to use progressive overload to keep seeing results. Have fun pushing, pulling, and growing!

References:

Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2013 Apr; 8(2): 138-144.

J Electromyogr Kinesiol. 2005 Jun;15(3):282-9.

Supersets: An Advanced Strength-Training Technique You Want in Your Routine

Muscles adapt to the stimulus you place on them. When you progressively overload your muscles by increasing the resistance or volume when you train, your muscles are forced to develop greater strength and mass to accommodate the overload. But over time, muscle growth and strength gains can slow down or plateau. At that point, you’ll have to challenge them in a way they’re unaccustomed to. There are a variety of advanced training strategies that can help you break out of a plateau and challenge muscles that need a wake-up call. One of these is super sets.

What Are Supersets?

A superset is performed by doing two sets back-to-back with no rest between the sets. Supersets can target agonist muscles or antagonist ones. An agonist superset is carried out by doing two exercises in a row that target the same muscle group. For example, an agonist superset might be squats followed by leg extensions. Both exercises work the quadriceps muscles.

Antagonist supersets work two opposing muscle groups in the same way. For example, the biceps and triceps are two opposing muscle groups. To do an antagonist superset that works these muscles, you could do triceps dips followed by biceps curls. Why not do triceps kickbacks instead of triceps dips? Ideally, supersets should consist of a compound exercise followed by an isolation exercise.

Compound exercises are multi-joint movements that work more than one muscle group at a time. They involve the movement of several joints simultaneously. Squats and triceps dips are examples of multi-joint movements. Isolation exercises, like biceps curls and leg extensions, work only one muscle group at a time.

Could you do two compound exercises instead when you super set? It would be difficult since performing two compound exercises in a row is too exhausting. Remember, you aren’t resting between the two sets. So, you’ll have a hard time tackling another compound movement so quickly. Some people superset by doing sets that involve two different muscle groups entirely. For example, squats followed by biceps curls. However, this isn’t a true superset.

Exercise Order

Which should come first, the compound or the isolation exercise? If you do the isolation exercise first, you’re doing a pre-exhaust superset. In this case, you exhaust a muscle with an isolation movement and then force it to work again in an already exhausted state. Pre-exhausts can spur the growth of the muscle group you targeted with the isolation exercise. If you do the compound exercise first, it’s a post-exhaustion superset.

Which is better? A 2003 study looked at quadriceps activation using EMG analysis when participants did pre-exhaust and post-exhaust sets that worked the quadriceps. Two of the three quad muscles were activated more with the post-exhaust set as opposed to the pre-exhaust set. So, post-exhaust may give you more bang for your training buck.

Why Do Supersets?

As mentioned, supersets challenge your muscles in a unique way. Therefore, the extra stimulus your muscles get from supersetting can help jumpstart muscle growth when you’ve reached a plateau. It’s an example of a more advanced training technique and a way to use progressive overload in a less conventional manner.

Another benefit of this type of training is it creates more of an afterburn. Also referred to as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), the afterburn is the additional calories your body burns after exercise to restore your body to its pre-workout state. When you do two sets in a row without rest, more lactic acid builds up in the muscles you worked. The lactic acid lowers the pH and forces your body to expend more energy to recover. So, it’s a strategy for boosting the number of calories you burn when you train.

Plus, as mentioned, supersets help stimulate the growth of the muscle you’re exhausting. For example, if you’d like to jump-start the growth of your triceps, you might do a post-exhaust set by doing triceps dips (a compound exercise) followed by triceps kickbacks. (an isolation exercise) You can use this strategy to target any muscle group and exhaust it.

Conclusion

Supersets are an advanced training technique you can easily add to your strength-training arsenal. Use this training technique once you’ve mastered a traditional rep scheme and need another way to stimulate your muscles. You can also use supersets as a way to make a training session more time expedient. By not resting between sets, you’ll expedite your workout on those days when you have less time to train. However, superset training fatigues the muscles you’re working more and may require more recovery time between workouts. Keep this in mind and don’t do them more than once per week.

Enjoy the added strength, hypertrophy, and fitness benefits that adding supersets to your routine offers!

References:

Poloquin article. “Workout Systems: Post-Exhaustion Method”

Eur J Appl Physiol. 2017; 117(9): 1877-1889.

Does Strength Training Reduce the Risk of Cancer?

Cancer is a diagnosis we don’t want to get. Unfortunately, the odds of hearing the frightening words “you have cancer” at some point in a lifetime are relatively high. According to the American Cancer Society, a man has a 39.7 percent risk of developing cancer over a lifetime while women have a 37.6 percent risk.

Cancer is a multifaceted disease that can affect any organ and strike at any age, but the risk of developing most cancers rises as the years go by. Genetics plays a role in cancer risk, but most cancer stems from an interaction between genetics and the environment. Estimates are that at least 40 percent of cancers can be prevented through lifestyle. That’s encouraging!

One healthy lifestyle factor linked with a lower risk of some health problems, including cancer, is exercise. You might think that aerobic exercise wins the prize for being the most protective against malignancies, but a large study suggests that strength training too may lower the odds of getting a cancer diagnosis too.

What Research Shows about Exercise and Cancer Prevention

During the study, researchers looked at the lifestyle habits of over 80,000 adults past the age of 30. They quantified how much strength and aerobic exercise they did and took into account other lifestyle factors that might influence cancer risk. What did they find?

Subjects who strength trained at least two times per week had a 31 percent lower risk of dying of cancer. They also had a reduced risk of dying prematurely from any cause. Interestingly, following the World Health Organization’s guidelines for aerobic activity was not linked with a lower risk of developing a malignancy, although this doesn’t mean aerobic exercise doesn’t have benefits.

Because this was an observational study rather than a randomized, controlled trial, it only shows an association between strength training and a reduction in cancer. It doesn’t necessarily imply causation. However, other research links greater muscle strength with a reduced risk of dying of cancer as well. In addition, a study published in Mayo Clinical Proceedings found that strength training at least once per week was correlated with a lower risk of death among cancer survivors. So, exercise is beneficial for people who have had cancer too.

How Might Strength Training Reduce Cancer Risk?

The mechanism by which strength training lowers cancer risk isn’t clear but there are some theories. Working muscles against resistance and increasing muscle size and mass improve how cells handle glucose. When cells can more easily take up glucose, less insulin circulates in the bloodstream. That’s a health positive! Insulin is a growth factor that stimulates cell growth, including malignant cells. One way in which strength training may reduce cancer risk is by reducing insulin-stimulated cell growth and by lowering blood sugar levels.

Another possible way strength training likely reduces cancer risk is by helping with weight control. Obesity is associated with a higher risk of at least 13 types of cancer. So, staying a healthy body weight should be part of an anti-cancer lifestyle. It’s not just total body weight that counts, it’s also body composition. You can be normal body weight and still be obese according to body fat percentage. Men who have a body fat percentage greater than 26 percent are obese while over 32 percent is the cut-off for obesity in women.

Start Strength Training!

Strength training has so many health and fitness benefits. It’s through strength training that we reduce muscle loss due to aging. Inevitably, loss of muscle tissue leads to frailty and inability to get around as easily. How many seniors are in nursing homes because they lost so much muscle from inactivity and because they didn’t work their muscles against resistance?

On the positive side, research shows even people in their 80’s and 90’s can gain muscle size and strength through strength training. But, even better, start now. Do it regularly and you may lower your risk of health problems later, including your risk of developing cancer.

Remember, you don’t need a gym to build strength. You can strength train at home with little or no equipment. Bodyweight exercises build strength and muscle size and all you need is an exercise mat. Once you’ve built a baseline level of strength, you can add resistance bands, kettlebells, or dumbbells later. Just do it! But, remember, aerobic exercise is still important. Make time in your routine for that too. It doesn’t have to be prolonged. Even 20 minutes of high-intensity interval exercise is enough to offer substantial health benefits.

References:

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2009;18(5):1468-1476. doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-08-1075.

Medical News Today. “Strength training may lower early death risk”

Mayo Clin Proc. 2014 Aug; 89(8): 1108-1115.

American Cancer Society. “Facts & Figures 2018: Rate of Deaths from Cancer Continues to Decline”

WebMD.com. “Body Fat Measurement: Percentage Vs. Body Mass”

Why is it important to Read Food Labels?

Food Labels: Cracking the Code

Food labels are meant to be informative, but are instead often misleading. Most food companies use misleading terms and unusual names on their food labels to hide the unhealthy ingredients they add to their products. If you are committed to eating only healthy food, then you need to crack the food label code and understand what it’s really telling you.

If you are serious about getting healthy then you need know how to read food labels. The labels have nutrition information that can make or break your diet. This is especially important if you are trying to manage a disease such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar. These are a few of the reasons why you should read food labels. In addition , calorie, protein and carbohydrate information is on the package . If you have food allergies or gluten intolerance this information is also on the package.

But some of the ingredients can be hard to figure out. Here is how to decode some of the most common ingredients.

Salt

It can be surprisingly difficult to determine how much salt there is in the food you buy. If you are trying to be careful about your salt intake, you should be aware that flavorings like soya sauce and stock cubes themselves contain high levels of salt. Cured ham and smoked fish also contain a lot of salt. It doesn’t necessarily help to check the nutritional information, either, because that is often written in a way that is misleading. Many of them list the amount of salt per 100 grams, not the salt in the entire package. To figure out how much salt the whole item contains, you have to multiply that figure by the weight of the food in grams. Sometimes the nutrition labels list sodium instead of salt. If you have high blood pressure then blood you need to be very aware of the sodium and salt content in food. Decreasing your salt intake can help improve your blood pressure.

Chemical Codes

If you are trying to avoid chemicals in your food, then you need to stay away from artificial colors and flavors. Sodium nitrite, benzoate, and sodium nitrate are all fancy names from chemical preservatives that can cause cancer and heart disease. MSG, also called monosodium glutamate, is another chemical to avoid, one that can cause nausea, chest pains, and headaches.

Sugar Codes

Today’s health conscious, calorie counting consumers try to avoid foods with a lot of sugar. To trick this kind of consumer, food labels often use sneaky alternative terms for sugar, such as evaporated cane juice, dehydrated cane juice, cane juice crystals, and cane crystals. Some food companies use a number of different types of sugar, each with a different name. This makes the casual consumer think there isn’t any sugar used at all. However, dextrose, glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, brown rice syrup, malt syrup, barley malt syrup, honey, fruit juice concentrate, turbinado, xylose, treacle, and lactose are all different kinds of sugar.

Fat Codes

Sometimes fats are called “oils” on food labels, just so they don’t have to use the word “fat.” Also, not all fats are created equal. Trans fats are extremely unhealthy, even when eaten in small amounts. They raise your level of bad cholesterol and can cause serious heart disease issues. Because people are catching on to the health risks of trans fats, manufacturers often list them as hydrogenated oil or brominated vegetable oil.

Animal Product Codes

If you are staying away from animal products, you should know that rennet and gelatin are made from animal sources. Vegans, who even avoid cheese and milk products, should be aware that whey and casein come from dairy products. Also, you need to look at the nutrition label, and not just the ingredient list. If there is any amount of cholesterol in the food, then it uses animal products no matter how cleverly the ingredients list hides that fact. Cholesterol comes only from animals.

GMO Codes

Avoid genetically modified foods, or GMOs, can be very difficult. Food labels often try to hide them. You should be aware that any processed foods that have high fructose corn syrup or soy products on their ingredient lists most likely contain GMOs. Any corn products carry a significant risk of being made from genetically modified corn, so you should also avoid those if GMOs are a significant concern.

In Conclusion

As a general rule, if you have a food-related health issue and you are not sure what an ingredient actually is, don’t take the risk. Instead, choose something with a simpler, clearer list of ingredients.

Power Up Your Fitness Level with Mountain Climbers

Mountain climbers sound like a tough exercise. It’s true! They’re no walk in the park. But, with challenge comes change and greater fitness. That’s the goal, right? Mountain climbers have you covered on all accounts. What is this powerful exercise and how can you add it to your fitness routine?

An Equipment-Free Movement

All you need to do mountain climbers is an exercise mat and a sturdy pair of exercise shoes. In the beginning, you can place your hands on a low riser or bench as opposed to the floor. Elevating the hands makes the exercise a bit easier. Here’s how to do a mountain climber:

•Stretch out on the floor with your feet. Your body should be in a straight line in a standard plank position. Keep your weight on the ball of your feet.

•Flex your right knee up toward your chest and bring it back down.

•As you bring the right knee down, quickly flex the left knee toward your chest and bring it back down.

•Keep switching the leg you bring toward your chest as quickly as possible.

Mountain climbers is an exercise that mimics the task of quickly climbing a mountain. The good news is you don’t have to leave home or find a mountain to do it! Yet, you can still get some of the fitness benefits of tackling an incline.

What Are the Fitness Benefits of Mountain Climbers?

You might wonder why you want to do mountain climbers in the first place. It’s a multi-faceted exercise. As little as 20 seconds of mountain climbers will quickly elevate your heart rate. Assuming you maintain a quick pace, mountain climbers qualify as a cardiovascular exercise. You may not start out at a super-fast pace, initially, but you can work up to faster speeds. As your fitness level increases, switch your legs back and forth in an explosive manner to further enhance aerobic and anaerobic fitness.

Mountain climbers also work multiple muscle groups simultaneously. You’re constantly moving your lower body as you switch your legs back and forth. With each leg switch, your hamstrings, quads, and glutes get a workout. Your deltoids, chest, and triceps are also targeted isometrically as you hold the plank position. Plus, the all-important core muscles contract to stabilize as you do the movements. So, it’s a total body workout.

Improve Agility and Mobility

One fitness attribute we sometimes fail to emphasize enough is agility. Mountain climbers require coordination, quick reaction time, and stamina. Doing them regularly also improves agility. This can improve your performance in sports that require quick movements and changes in direction. You can be strong and have good stamina, but if you lack agility, you’ll have a hard time excelling at sports like volleyball, soccer, basketball, and rugby. They can also make you a better mountain climber!

Mountain climbers will also improve your hip mobility. Most of us have tight hip flexors from sitting too much during the day. When your hip flexors are shortened and tight, it throws off postural alignment and can trigger back pain. Mountain climbers are also an ideal exercise for increasing the mobility of your hips. Hip mobility is often a limiting factor for other exercises, especially exercises like kettlebell swings that use a hip hinge movement.

Conclusion

Mountain climbers improve multiple aspects of fitness, including muscle endurance, agility, speed, power, and coordination. It’s a dynamic exercise that’ll get you in shape fast. But, as with all exercises, you’ll get more out of them and reduce your risk of injury if you use good form. Don’t get so caught up in making the movement fast and explosive that you let your hips or back sag and don’t maintain proper alignment. Always keep your weight balanced between your two feet. If possible, have someone snap a video while you’re doing the exercise and make sure you’re doing the exercise with good form.

With mountain climbers, you can combine strength training and cardio. Just do 20 or 30 seconds of mountain climbers in between your strength training moves. Mountain climbers are a low-impact exercise that doesn’t place added stress on your joints as long periods of running can. Take advantage of this dynamic and highly efficient exercise and make mountain climbers part of your fitness training routine!

References:

Movement as Medicine. “4 Hip Mobility Drills to Improve Your Squat”

Stack.com. “Why You’re Doing Mountain Climbers Wrong and How to Fix Them”

How Does Exercise Order Impact the Results?

So many factors impact the gains you get from strength training. Muscles grow in response to progressive overload. To progressively overload of muscle, you must increase the stress you place on that muscle over time. You can do that by:

•Increasing the resistance
•Boosting the number of reps
•Increasing the total training volume
•Altering the tempo of the reps
•Increasing or decreasing the rest period between reps
•Changing the exercises
•Frequency of training

Another variable you can alter is the order in which you do the exercises. Exercise order is a variable that doesn’t get as much attention as factors like increasing the resistance or the volume of training. How does altering the order of the exercises you do impact gains in strength and muscle size?

Strength building exercises can be roughly divided into two classes. One class is called compound exercises. These are exercises that work for more than one muscle group at a time. They also entail movement around more than one joint simultaneously. In contrast, isolation exercises involve movement around a single joint. For example, squats are a compound exercise while leg extensions is an isolation movement.

Most fitness trainers will tell you to do compound exercises first. That’s because these exercises are the most demanding on the body but also offer the most potential benefits. Therefore, it’s best to do them while your muscle’s glycogen stores are high & you can give these movements your best effort and focus. Compound exercises, like deadlifts, squats, push-ups, bench press, and lunges should be the workhorse exercises of your training, so it makes sense to do these exercises first.

In support of this, studies show subjects complete fewer reps for exercises they do at the end of a workout as opposed to doing the same exercises at the beginning. That’s mostly due to the fatigue factor. Another study published in the Journal of Sports and Science in Medicine showed that exercises performed early in a workout, whether it’s a compound or isolation movement, are linked with greater muscle gains. So, you have to ask yourself which exercises are most important. For most people, compound exercises offer more return on training time than isolation movements. Therefore, it makes sense to begin a workout with squats, deadlifts, push-ups or bench press than to start a workout with biceps curls, triceps extensions, leg extensions or other exercises that work a single muscle group.

If you’re limited on time, your entire workout might consist of compound exercises. Even when you have more an abundance of time, fitness trainers often recommend devoting at least 75% of training minutes to compound exercises. These are the exercises that build strength and muscle size the fastest and burn the most calories and body fat.

Are There Exceptions to Doing Compound Exercises First?

One situation where you might start with an isolation exercise is if you have a lagging body part. For example, you have good development of your chest and shoulders, but your biceps or triceps could use more work. In that case, you might specifically target those lagging muscle groups by working them first before you become fatigued.

Conclusion:

Exercise order will likely have less impact on strength training than factors like total training volume and the resistance you use. But, in general, starting a workout with high-priority exercises is the best approach based on current research. In most cases, that will be compound exercises, but if you have a single muscle group that needs extra work, you might begin with an isolation exercise that specifically targets that muscle.

Also, if you’re trying to gain strength and muscle, do strength training before a cardio workout. A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that strength training before cardio was associated with a significantly greater release of anabolic hormones, like testosterone, that boost muscle growth. Even better, do cardio and strength exercise on separate days or at least 8 or more hours apart. For example, you could strength train in the morning and do cardio in the evening. The more intensely you train, the greater benefit there is to doing strength and cardio on separate days.

Regardless of how you order the exercises, start with at least a 5-minute warm-up before getting into the meat or your workout. The warm-up will raise your core body temperature and make your muscles more pliable and ready-to-work. Don’t skip this step!

Now you have a better idea of how to order your exercises. It’s a small tweak you can make to your routine to get better results!

References:

J Sports Sci Med. 2010 Mar; 9(1): 1-7.

Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2012. 12. 3281-3288.

How Focusing on Abdominal Exercises Can Keep You from Getting a Six Pack Abs

Ask most people what to do to get six-pack abs and they’ll tell you to do more ab crunches. Are they giving you good advice? In many people’s minds, ab crunches are synonymous with six-pack abs. Unfortunately, that way of thinking gets in the way of carving out a set of strong, defined abs. It might sound counter-intuitive, but to get abs that pop, you should do fewer exercises that specifically target the abdominal muscles.

Of course, you shouldn’t completely banish crunches from your ab routine, because according to ACE they are still the best ab exercises that target the entire abdomen, but don’t count on them alone to give you six-pack abs. Crunches are an isolation exercise that only works the muscles in your abdominal region. You don’t burn a lot of calories when you crunch, and that’s one of the drawbacks to doing them.

The real reason most people don’t develop six-pack abs is that they have too much fat covering their ab muscles. All ab crunches do is strengthen and define the underlying muscle They aren’t effective at removing the layer of fat that covers them and that’s the limiting factor for most people! So what’s a girl to do?

Focus on Exercise that Burns More Body Fat

Since most guys and gals who yearn for a six-pack have too much ab fat, fat-burning exercise helps those abs come out of hiding. High-intensity interval training where you do short periods of intense exercise followed by recovery intervals is effective for burning ab fat, and studies suggest it may be more beneficial than moderate-intensity cardio exercise for burning fat.

Keep the active intervals short but intense, 20 to 30 seconds of an exercise that boosts your heart rate, followed by a recovery interval where you keep moving but at a lower intensity. By alternating periods of intense exercise with low-intensity recovery intervals, you create an after-burn that helps with fat loss. After-burn is where your body burns more calories after a workout is over. High-intensity intervals place more stress on the body, as it must work harder to recover. But that stress is what primes your body for burning tummy fat.

How about Strength Training?

Strength training is a must for developing strong, defined abs, but that doesn’t mean you should spend hours each week doing crunches. Instead, focus on strength training that works the most muscle groups, including the muscles in your abs and core. Believe it or not, squats, deadlifts, and push-ups will help you build abs. These exercises work multiple muscle groups, including your abs and core muscles, but they burn lots of calories and body fat. That’s because you’re working multiple muscle groups at the same time and you’re hitting the muscles in your lower body. The big muscles are the calorie burners! In contrast, your abs are small muscles and don’t burn many calories, no matter how many crunches you do. Lifting heavy weights also boosts fat burning more than going light. Choose a resistance that thoroughly fatigues your muscles after 6-10 reps.

Challenge Your Core Too

The muscles that make up your abs are only a small part of a bigger muscle group called the core. The core includes all the muscles in the middle of your body, the muscles in your back, abs, spine, and the floor of your pelvis. In total, you have more than 20 core muscles. If you only focus on your ab muscles in the front, you’re not training your core in a balanced manner.

Strong abs must be balanced by strong back muscles to avoid muscle imbalances. Muscle imbalances in the core can alter your posture in a way that makes your mid-section look less lean and defined. Not to mention, core exercises strengthen a deep abdominal muscle called the transverse abdominis that helps hold in your abs like a girdle. Most abdominal exercises neglect this muscle.

What exercises are best? Substitute plank exercises for a portion of the ab crunches you’re currently doing. Once you can hold a basic plank for 30 seconds, add more advanced plank variations. There are close to 50 different variations on a plank. Some, like the side plank, works your oblique muscles and also add a balance challenge. Others, like plank jacks, burn calories while you target your core. Explore the many plank variations and start challenging your abs and core in a new way!

Don’t Neglect Your Diet

The trite phrase about abs being made in the kitchen is true, and the 80/20 rule holds as well. Getting six-pack is 80% kitchen work, meaning good nutrition, and 20% exercise. And when they say exercise, they aren’t referring exclusively to crunches. Cut back on ultra-processed food, junk food, and sugar-sweetened stuff, even fruit juice. Add more fiber and high-quality protein to your diet. You can do the right exercises for six-pack abs and still blow it in the kitchen.

The Bottom Line

Look beyond ab crunches if you want to carve a six-pack. Do some ab crunches, but make sure they’re part of a balanced workout and sound nutrition.

References:

Men’s Health. “Six-Pack Science”

Exercise Physiology. Theory and Application to Fitness and Performance. Howley and Powers. 2009.