Fitness Facts

For some reason, many bodybuilders believe they have to turn themselves into a giant pumpkin during the off season in order to build any muscle. They believe, “you can't grow muscle when you're dieting.” Oh my God..... To find a greater pile of bullshit than that you'd have to visit a cattle ranch. That is such utter nonsense. It's true that you could not eat enough on a diet and not gain muscle, but it's not necessary to gain fat in order to gain muscle. All my clients gain muscle leading up to a bodybuilding show while losing body fat. All of them, men and women, doesn't matter. I always crack up at the big puffy bodybuilder who gains 50 pounds during the off season and then diets off 48 of it by show time. Why gain 50 pounds for a net gain of two? Why not gain five pounds and have all of it be muscle? What you need to understand is that the body signals the building of muscle as part of its survival mechanism. It doesn't grow muscle because you want a killer double biceps pose. It grows muscle, and only grows muscle, in response to progressively greater gravitational stress. The greater the stress your body endures the greater the adaptation. This was actually proven 2700 years ago by the world's first bodybuilder, Milo of Croton, who roamed the hills of southern Italy with a bull over his shoulder.  Milo was perhaps the best wrestler in world at the time, having won ancient Greece's triple crown of wrestling a staggering seven times and the Olympic games five times. The secret to his incredible strength was the bull. Not the kind of bull you get from the broscientists online these days, but an actual cow. Milo picked up the critter shortly after it was born, slung it over his shoulders and walked the hills behind his farm until he couldn't carry it any longer. He did this every day. As the calf grew, so too did Milo. And so was born the progressive resistance principle.  What Milo proved is that in order to grow muscle the body must be subjected, repeatedly, to an ever increasing work load it cannot accomplish with the stock muscle allotment. In order to survive that stress, it builds muscle  to become stronger and adapt.  And, that is IT. Other than some kind of rouge genetic factor, there is absolutely no other reason whatsoever your body will build muscle. In fact, the body will strive to get rid of muscle it's not using. If you doubt me, stick your arm in a cast for six weeks and see what you haver left after you cut it off.  It will only build muscle if it needs it. And, if the stress is grave enough, it will build that muscle no matter what, even if calories are restricted. You have to remember that a pound of fat has 3500 calories. If you weigh 200 pounds and you're at a fairly moderate 10% body fat, that means you have 20 pounds of fat on your body, that equates to 70,000 calories worth of potential energy on board, in addition to what you eat. So, unless you have zero body fat, your diet can consist of very few calories and you'll still have plenty of energy calories on board to keep you going. It might not feel very good, but you're not going to starve. And, if you're taking in the right nutrients, you're not going to lose muscle, in fact, with proper nutrients and stimulation in the gym, you'll grow muscle, even if calories are restricted. As far as proper nutrients go, protein is going to be king. Building muscle requires protein, particularly the essential proteins, also known as essential amino acids, particularly the branch chain amino acids. These nutrients are termed “essential” because the body does not produce them, or does not produce them in adequate amounts, requiring you get them either from your diet, or high quality nutritional supplements.  Building muscle requires building blocks. The more you have on board the better your chances of building muscle. But, you also need to keep the machine well oiled. So, in addition to the amino acid element, you will also benefit from complete protein powders, vitamins and minerals and  joint care supplements.  Growing muscle without getting fat is as possible as it is tedious. You have to work at it – hard. But, with consistency and attention to detail, you'll build it without having to battle pounds and pounds of unnecessary body fat.

Pondering whether or not a 30-minute workout is enough to build muscle is a bit like wondering if 30-minutes is enough to cook a meal. Sure, it could be. Depending on who you are. It could also be a disaster. Clearly, it's what you do with those 30-minutes that may or may not trigger muscle growth. Whether it be a good circuit workout, “popsugar” workouts, or whatever 30-minute fitness thing you can come up with, the reality is, that it's largely irrelevant. What is relevant – the only thing that's relevant. - is exercise intensity. And I'll tell you why.... The human body enlarges a muscle group by either one, or both, of two processes. The first is called hypertrophy - the enlarging of existing muscle fibers. This is the body's first response to prolonged and progressive physical stress. In the acute phase, the body pumps blood to the muscle being exhausted, bringing it more oxygen, more glucose and releasing creatine phosphate stores to help generate more energy. This is known as a “pump.” You literally feel your muscle engorge with blood, veins popping out (if you're lean enough to see them) and you can feel your skin tighten. It's an absolutely real and undeniable response. As the pump ebbs later on, while you're resting, the extra pumped in blood leaves the muscle, and with it goes all kinds of undesirable cellular rubble that you created when you tore down your muscle during a period of intense stress (your workout). During the subsequent recovery period, an increase in protein synthesis will take place, utilizing various essential amino acids, particularly valine, that got pumped in with the extra blood, to build complete muscle cells, which gradually enlarge individual muscle fibers. Now, if the continued and ever increasing stress persists into days and weeks, the body eventually becomes inefficient. It cannot keep up with the increased demand being placed upon it and it cannot satisfactorily recover in the given amount of time. The next response the body initiates in order to survive is the activation of satellite cells that live on top of the muscle fibers. These satellite cells then multiply and join together, while absorbing a host of nutrients and various hormones, to create new muscle fibers. This is called hyperplasia. It's important to note, that the birth of new muscle through hyperplasia, merely falls into the fray. Like an escalation of troops in a war. It will immediately be subject to the effects of hypertrophy – if the stress continues to be progressive, prolonged and intense. You also have to remember that this is merely the stimulus side of building muscle. The actual growth takes place while you rest and recover. The object of going to the gym is to convince the body it needs more muscle, but it's not where the muscle is built. You get swole in bed. So, the question is, actually: is 30-min enough time to stimulate the body's adaptive survival response, to initiate hypertrophy and subsequently - hopefully - hyperplasia? Any time such a question is asked, it can only logically be answered first with “it depends.” That's because it does. It depends not only upon what you do during that 30-minute fitness session, but also, and I say more importantly, how you do whatever it is you're doing. And that, my friends, is it - distilled all the way down to the very essence of what it takes for the body to build muscle – intensity. As I eluded to earlier, building muscle has nothing whatsoever to do with your desire for big biceps. The body builds muscle for one reason and one reason only – survival. Increased muscle mass is a survival response to a specific physical stress. The only way to get your body to build muscle is to keep it under stress. The question is, for how long? There is the theory of “time under tension” which infers that the longer the muscle is under tension, the greater the stimulus to increase muscle mass. While this is to some degree true, the “time” part of it is a bit ambiguous and leads to tremendous inefficiency, which ultimately mitigates recovery time. “Time under tension” is another way of quantifying reps and sets. To how many reps and sets do you subject a muscle in order to stimulate the growth response, and is 30-minutes enough time to do it? When you set out to put together a good circuit workout, what is your goal for reps and sets? How do you figure that out? Ask any successful bodybuilder how many reps and sets they recommend to build muscle and you'll get a different answer every time. This is because, without a universally accepted and tangible goal, anything anyone can suggest is – at best – vague, ambiguous and inefficient. How many reps? 8? 10? 12? 15? How many total sets per body part? 10? 20? 30? And who's right? “Jay Cutler is Mr. Olympia and he did This.... Yeah, but Ronnie Coleman is also a Mr. Olympia and he did this, this and that....Well, Lee Haney is another Mr. O and he doesn't follow either of those philosophies, he does XY and Z....” Who's right? They all are ranked the best in the world! Well, one bodybuilder – who never became Mr. Olympia, but should have - actually popularized the most logical answer to this question. The most obvious point to stop a set is when the muscle fails. He took that point a bit further and insisted that you really only need to do that once. In1978, Mike Mentzer became the only bodybuilder in history who, to this very day, has ever scored a perfect 300 to win the Mr. Universe. Mentzer popularized the “one set” theory, originally proffered by Nautilus founder, Arthur Jones. As the theory goes, the most logical point to stop a set is when the muscle can no longer execute the message sent from the brain to contract. According to Jones, via Mentzer, once you have reached the point where there is a momentary interruption in the neurological firing between the brain and the muscle being contracted, you have reached the most logical end of a set. And, anything more, or less, is a waste of time. This is the ultimate execution of intensity, and the most successful way to build muscle. Dorian Yates lent credence to that concept by winning six Olympias in a row using short, high intensity, workouts. That's not to say it's the only way, just the most efficient. Remember, muscle growth happens during rest. Your objective should be to minimize the amount of time it takes to stimulate muscle growth and maximize the amount of time spent recovering, so you can grow. If you're interested in the health benefits of some kind of 30-minute fitness program, you can probably accomplish something in that amount of time, but you're not going to get big. So, to adopt this Heavy Duty style of training - where one set taken to failure per exercise - it's entirely possible to stimulate the body's muscle growth messaging in 30 minutes. The only problem is, most people who set out to find “failure” merely find fatigue. Failure – true failure – lies well north of fatigue and the searing pain associated with getting there has been equated to having a tooth drilled without novocaine. This makes the concept of “failure” a bit too subjective, and a bit too masochistic for most tastes. That's why volume training is more popular. But you'll have to spend much more than 30-minutes training that way to build muscle. Which, is inefficient and shortens the amount of recovery time you can devote to growing. And, of course, it certainly doesn't hurt as much. Nevertheless, the fact has been well established that, within the confines of 30-minutes, it is entirely possible to convince the body it needs more muscle. So, yes, a 30-Minute Workout is Enough To Build Muscle. It just depends on your ability to manufacture intensity. Same goes for you guys with a personal trainer. A 30 minute personal training session can be enough to stimulate muscle growth. As long as your trainer is mean enough to push you there.

Many a hard training athlete has taken part in the debate, either for or against, as to whether or not the naked egg can stand up against a slab of beef steak, as far as protein sources go, or do the egg macros in that plate of scrambled eggs fall short? It's an age old question really. Athletes are hell bent on finding the best protein sources and the comparison is inevitable. And, that's just as far as food goes. When it comes to supplemental protein, egg macros are always held in high regard – even higher than whey in some cases, with athletes continually debating the best egg white protein powder, or what goes into making the best egg protein shake. It wasn't always like that though. Back in the day, even the best egg white protein powders made horrible tasting, lumpy, egg protein shakes. Modern technology has revitalized the egg protein powder market with great tasting, easy mixing products that make it easy, not to mention enjoyable, to get the nutrients out of eggs. But, are eggs as good a source of protein as a beef steak, or other animal source proteins? Dietary protein is made up of chains of amino acids. The proteins from animals - poultry, fish, beef, pork, lamb, game meats and eggs are considered “complete proteins” because they contain all of the amino acids that your body needs – including the nine essential amino acids that your body doesn't produce. To further highlight the importance of complete proteins is the fact that the body can only benefit from complete proteins. Incomplete protein is pretty much useless as far as muscle growth and recovery are concerned. Gram per gram however, meat is heavier in protein content than eggs. Eggs on the other hand, can be a healthier and more versatile alternative to meat. A gram of whole egg contains about 1/8th of a gram of complete protein. Conversely, a gram of meat (flesh of any animal) has about a 1/5th of a gram of complete protein. So, as you can see, in a gram-to-gram comparison, meat contains more protein than eggs.   I emphasized “whole egg” above because most of you are obsessed with not eating egg yolks. So, you have to remember that a large whole egg contains about six grams of protein, just a little over half of which come from the white. You throw out the rest with the yolk along with other beneficial nutrients. Just to get the same protein as a whole egg, you have to eat two egg whites. It's not unusual to see athletes throwing down 10 – 12, or more, egg whites at a sitting. Another thing to keep in mind is that, compared to meat, what eggs lack in protein they make up for in cholesterol. One large egg has about 3.5 grams of fat and 140 milligrams of cholesterol. A 3 ounce serving of animal flesh ranges between 1.5 to 5 grams of fat and 50 to 60 milligrams of cholesterol. What's interesting though, is that while saturated fats are known to increase cholesterol, the egg macros, while higher in cholesterol than meat, eggs reflect fewer saturated fats. The only other food I know of that contains high cholesterol, but is low in saturated fat is shrimp and other shellfish. It's kind of an odd dichotomy, but nevertheless prudent, that people with high cholesterol should avoid both egg yolks (the obvious) and shrimp (the not so obvious). However, those people with normal cholesterol, can not only eat shrimp, but should also not be tossing all the yolks because they think they're high in saturated (bad) fat – because they're not. And, because the nutrients in eggs are contained in the yolk, including all the valuable vitamins and minerals you get from the egg. So, it boils down to calories. Many athletes go by the “four whites and a yellow” ratio when they construct their egg meal. This gives them all the complete protein contained in the egg whites, a bit more from the yolk, and all the vitamins and minerals, with less fat. But, a lot of lifters don't want to worry about how many calories are in one scrambled egg and they just go online and look for the best egg protein powder. (https://www.thegasparinutrition.com/products/proven-egg?variant=33802534584451) At the end of the day though, a complete protein is a complete protein. It doesn't matter if it comes from a cow, a fish, an egg or a 3LB plastic tub. So, are eggs as good a source of protein as beef steak as far as protein quality goes? The answer is yes.

Dan Palacios of Kinetic Training in Davie, Florida takes Team Gaspari members Alex, Aliona, Melissa and Alex through a training regiment designed for military personnel and policemen to improve their tactical skills. This outdoor workout works all muscles in the body for complete physical conditioning!

Rich Gaspari takes Jose and Alex through an old school chest and back superset workout, just like the sets he used to do to prepare for the Olympia and the Arnold Classic.

Sports nutrition is basically pretty much like it sounds - nutrition for athletes. The essence of the concept being that a sports dietician, or the athlete himself, constructs a specific athlete meal plan that will spell out precisely what the athlete's diet should consist of, based on the specific nutritional needs the pursuit of his sport presents. There can't be enough stress put on the fact that, first and foremost, it's the athlete's meal plan that sets the stage for how well his performance will be affected.  There can't be enough stress put on the fact that, first and foremost, it's the athlete's meal plan that sets the stage for how well his performance will be affected. Depending on the sport, an athlete's nutritional needs will differ. For example, a strength athlete will need a higher protein appropriation in his meal plan; an endurance athlete will  need more quality fats; while athletes who require explosive bouts of energy – such as sprinters – will need more complex carbohydrates. And, of course, for many athletic pursuits, it's not so cut and dry and a variety of factors have to be considered when you calculate what an athlete's diet should consist of. Optimum sports nutrition insures that the body has the nutritional building blocks on board it needs to both fuel performance and aid recovery. Generally, sports dietitians agree that the overall goal of sports nutrition is to satisfy two important areas where an athlete's nutritional needs differ from non athletes. These are distinct because one cause the other: performance and the recovery from it. Optimum sports nutrition ensures that the body has the nutritional  building blocks on board  it needs to both fuel performance and aid recovery.  Complex carbohydrates from natural sources such as whole grains, potatoes, yams, fruit, etc. are converted by digestion into glucose. The  conversion of these particular carb sources is slow and sustained, which results in stable blood glucose levels. This not only supports the immediate performance requirements, but also replenishes glycogen stores in muscle, the liver, and the brain.  Dietary protein from fresh eggs, poultry, fish and lean meats deliver vital amino acids that aid in performance and recovery of muscle. While the body can manufacture most of the amino acids it needs, there are several which the body must have have but does not produce, or produce in sufficient amounts and must find them in the diet. Ironically, it's these very essential amino acids that are the most depleted through athletic training and competition. Clearly then, an athlete's meal plan must contain adequate complete protein choices, preferably from animal sources, to maintain the increased amino acid requirements of athletes. Vegan athletes bring a whole other element of complexity to the equation when it comes to deriving sufficient complete proteins, without suffering from a mountain of excess calories carbohydrate combining brings. But, that's an entirely separate topic for another day. For the purpose of this discussion, natural, complete, protein sources  - from animals – is what will be considered in an athlete's meal plan to deliver all the amino acids the body needs for optimum athletic performance and recovery.  Finally, dietary fats, from unsaturated “good” sources are vital for energy production and metabolism maintenance, not to mention the fact that, just like we have essential amino acids, there are essential fats the body must have, but does not produce, that must be derived from dietary sources. Long considered the enemy of a healthy diet, because they were just termed “fat” and lumped in with all the bad saturated fats that are the scourge of the American diet, good fats from unsaturated sources, such as cold pressed oils, nuts, seeds, and the essential omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) from fish, are vital for energy production, tissue repair, nervous system and brain function, joint maintenance, reducing  inflammation, and supporting immune function. All of which represent an elevated level of importance in an athlete's meal plan. Vegan athletes are also going to be confronted here with another reality of sports nutrition when it comes to getting enough ALA from plant sources - that must be converted into adequate quantities of  DHA and EPA (the only omega-3 the body uses) to support athlete nutrition. But, again, that's another level of complexity when it comes to determining what an athlete's diet should consist of and is a topic for another discussion.  There is no argument against specialized, balanced, nutrition for athletes, and is an essential element of effective, sensible sports nutrition. Ultimately, caloric requirements to effect maximum performance, while maintaining acceptable body composition will be regulated  with the athlete's meal plan. This usually requires some trial and error and attention paid to cause and effect. But, there is no argument against specialized, balanced, nutrition for athletes, and is an essential element of effective, sensible sports nutrition.

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