Should I track Macros??

Should I track my macros all year round?

'Should I track my macros all year round?'.  This is a common request of many people just starting out in the gym as they believe tracking macros is a must. They see fitness models, top athletes advocating it on their social media pages from all their peeped meals prepared for them by companies and believe they should therefore do the same. Any yes this is great for those of you who have this money at disposal but, many of us don't and therefore cook there own meals and therefore track their macros. He are my thoughts on it

1) If you're looking to compete in a show you must track your macros in order to cut your body fat in order to look more atheistically pleasing when on stage. It's therefore a must to track your calories and furthermore the protein, carbs and fats you're eating within that. Protein needs to remain high in order to promote muscle recovery, whilst you may drops carbs as you no longer need such a high energy intake as you're trying to use body fat as energy. Marcos tracking is then essential to monitor exactly the quantity of these to meet your individual needs.

2) Tracking macros when I'm just starting out. I think this is something you must do when you're beginning in the fitness world. You're knowledge at this time is very limited and you don't yet understand what your body needs in order to promote growth. You can follow a plan of a celebrity trainer or your best mates and everyone's body reacts differently. Tracking your macros will allow you to see changes within yourself, what percentage of each macros work best for you in order to reach a goal. Always keep the protein content high but carbs and fats can change as you will react slightly different to them. 

3) 'Should I track macros in my off season'. If your understanding of nutrition is good and know how your body reacts to certain foods and quantity then tracking macros isn't too essential. Your goal at this point is to put mass on, growing stronger and no doubt larger so your food intake is going to be higher. Furthermore if you look at your plate and see 40% carbs, 40% protein with the remainder as fat then your on the right track. 5-6 meals a day looking like this and your no doubt reaching the macros you should be meeting anyway. 

Lastly don't let it rule your life. The gym and fitness in general isn't your life, there are so many other things that are more important. So occasionally don't weigh out your food, go out for something to eat, have a huge cheat meal. Live a little. Many people in the industry get so stressed about every fine detail, yes if your a world famous fitness model or you're just about to debut at your first show but if your just doing it for a hobby don't get so worked up about it. Stress will cause you to be less focused on the task, become less efficient, demotivation and you won't be reaching your goals. Enjoy fitness for what it is, fun!!!

Park Run

Park Runs

Recently on my travels back from Melbourne I was sat next to a gentlemen and got talking everything fitness. He mentioned how he'd  taken part in a Park Run around Albert Park, better well known for where the Australian Formula 1 takes place. I therefore thought I'd write a quick entry on running and how you can make it fun through things such as park runs.

 Park runs are the new must thing to do both in England and branching overseas. Every Saturday at 0900 there are many buddying runners getting their trainers on to run a distance of 5km around their local park. The turn out for these have gone through the roof with many peaking at 600 people, and with some reaching into the thousands. It's all so simple to do. Just go onto their website, register then you'll receive a ticket pre racing which is then scanned one you've finished the race. This information is then emailed or dropped to you via a text telling you your time, rank overall and rank for your age group. The main aim to most taking part is to beat their personal time but the competitive atmosphere is still there especially amongst the somewhat older members. I forgot to add the crucial element of the whole things, it FREE!!! So get out there and test yourself over 5km but most importantly have fun and stay active.

A few tip to prepare or help better your 5km time.

1) Relax and enjoy. This is what many fail to do when doing any sport. Don't always get to worked up on time and if you're improving, just enjoy the run.
2) Buy yourself a good pair of running based trainers then fit you correctly and meet your running style requirements.
3) Don't just run in preparation for the run itself. Cross training is a great element to include in your training such as rowing or swimming. These are all looking to build up your cardiac output levels, thus helping when it comes to the run.
4) Mix your running based training up. Include intervals, fartlek and steady state into your programme throughout the week, training in these different zones will enable you to improve.

So there you have it. Get down to your local park and start running.

Don't forget to follow me both in Instagram and Twitter.

Jack

Writing programmes

I'm currently away in New Zealand with work and am therefore having a week off totally from training, well when I say totally I've still programmed in 3 HIIT sessions in just to keep everything ticking over. No more than 25 minutes from start to finish. This personally helps me to keep focused and aids in keeping the muscles loose. This week away has come at the right time as I'm going to start a new programme when I get back gearing up for the summer. Plenty of hours on the plane has ensured I write out my new programme in detail so I thought I would elude to a few keys points to help. 

1) Ensure you have a goal in mind prior to writing. Set yourself a broad goal, such as putting on 5kg of muscle by July. Then split these goals down, micro goals, like a 6 week programmes within that. Again take into account if you want to be 5kg heavier but yet lean, than you need to put more weight on through the bulking phase. 

2) Setting goals use SMART goals.

Specific - make your goals are exactly what you want from your training. 

Measurable - use a system to see you're growth, thus helping motivation when you succeed. Weighing yourself and measuring certain muscles groups for example. 

Attainable - can you reach these goals or are they out of reach?

Realistic - you can go big with your goals but know your limit. Not achieving these could end up in demotivation.

Time Specific - set goals to a time scale and make sure you're always on target to meet them. 

3) Make sure you schedule in rest. Don't just train every day of every week and expect results. Add in rest, this is the time to grow. Hit you're workouts hard, eat well and grow with rest. 

4) Include compound exercises. Go heavy on these, bring shock and trauma to the muscle, then isolate the muscle with higher reps to build size and bring detail to the target muscle group. 

5) Don't spend too long in the gym!! Get a good warm up in, hit the muscle hard with adequate rest in between to reach your optimum level with your next set but don't spend ages, texting your friends. Hit the muscle hard and get out. You'll also keep the pump better throughout the workout and not annoy your fellow gym goers by spending ages in a piece of equipment. 

So 5 easy steps to planning your workouts, now get to it. 

Jack

Keeping in shape whilst away!!

Now with everyone paid off the crazy bills from Christmas it's time for a holiday, which is one of the reason why I'm writing this with you in mind. Furthermore I'm currently out in Australia for work and a, on the same position as many of you without a gym.

Firstly what your eating is the most important. Now I know your on holiday and you've got to relax therefore meaning you can eat and drink what you want, but as always do it in moderation. If you can go for the healthier option then do. Now I know how hard that can be with most countries washing salads in their own water meaning it's not the best thing to eat, trust me I know I'm struggling in India at the minute. But try and pick up the protein options and not the fried food!!!! With the alcohol side go with the lighter calorific drinks, stay away from the beers and instead opt for a gin and tonic.

Now on to the workout, if there is no gym to do your usual workout and only your room then what do you do?? You can still do a muscle building workout in your hotel room with just your own bodyweight. You can use easy exercises like press-ups, squats, dips and burpees onto advance exercises such as crab walks, ice skaters, crocodile walks and even as far as handstand push ups. So putting this all into your hotel room circuit:
20 press ups,
length of your room crocodile walk,
30 squats, crab walk length of room,
10 burpees,
15 dips.
 For press ups, squats and dips use time under tension for a count of 4010. This will add that little bit more too your workout, helping with the building phase. Give this a try for four rounds, changing if needed the number of reps to your specification.

If the weather is nice and you want to get outside you can also have a get workout. Use any poles you can pull bodyweight too, eg pulls ups, or rowing movements. Use benches for dips along with bars for bodyweight skull crushers. Involve sprints, walking lunges along with squats and you'll have yourself a great workout, all using your bodyweight.

So next time your in your hotel room not knowing what to do for your phys for the day give the above a go.

Jack

Chest Day - Bench Press

Bench Press

Now of course Monday was international chest day and every bench in every gym is going to be busy. That's why I trained yesterday!!! Good little tip if you don't want to be distributed and be hours in the gym trying to train chest. Train a different day!!! However the main reason as to why I'm writing this entry is to really focus on how you bench.

The bench press has so many different variations and of course rep ranges which can be used depending your goal from the exercise. Now recently I've opted for a closer grip, pinning my elbows in. This has aided with removing a lot of front delt for the exercise, along with greater lower chest development. This however caused me to push the bar slightly forward when going heavier as oppose to going straight up, meaning I wasn't getting all the power through the movement that I was actually generating. 

This caused me to totally change up my grip placement yesterday, opting for a wider press. The best way to describe it is lie flat on the bench with your arms at right angles, this is your grip placement. This taking into account your back width along with limb length. This grip placement is more of a powerlifting based placement, hence getting mor speed thus power through the push phase. I managed to go slightly heavier than normally, along with it targeting my chest a lot more as a whole. I also managed to hit higher reps and on the descent in weight, hit a PB at 100kg for 12. Some may say however the range of movement is a great deal less, but with correct rep ranges and programming it will aid you more in the long run. 

The rest of my workout followed on very much the say, focusing more on exploding in the concentric phase. Incline DB press focusing on lowering the weight over a four count, exploding up. Take the weight down to really use tempo to generate the power, thus working the muscle slightly different to normal. Flies and dips followed along with clap press ups to finish to really generate the explosive speed/power. 

Now the pump post workout was insane, mainly due to the change up in tempo and ethos of training. Make sure you always keep this in your routine in order to less likely plateau, keeping the body guessing. 

Now even though it's Wednesday, go and hit Chest again!!!

Jack

Use Cleans to build muscle!!

Following on from my last post reference powerlifting I want to go into detail how I've started using more powerlifting techniques in my programme, more so cleans. 

Now this is a exercise which I think is often over looked in the bodybuilding world as one of the mass builders along with the more common squat, bench and deadlift combination. The clean uses many muscle groups, as in its basic form it's a deadlift into a upright row, lastly pushing your elbow through ending in the rack position. Hamstrings and lower back dominate, moving into upper back, along with traps, whilst your core is essential to keep you stable at all times.  This is why I love to start my routine with heavy deadlifts, into heavy cleans. 

This is an explosive movement, so make it explosive!! 

- Recruit your legs as the power house muscle at the beginning of the movement.

- Much like a deadlift keep the bar in a straight line all the way through the movement.

- Get under the bar. Once the movement has been shifted from legs and more so to the upper back concentrate on getting under the bar. 

- Push your elbows through and high.  

- Lower the weight under full control. 

I like to do heavy cleans, really to focus on my speed, explosiveness, power and strength. I like 6x6 getting heavier each set. The the 100 rep challenge right at the end of my workout, with half my bodyweight on the bar, hitting the 100 reps in shortest time possible. If done correctly you will finish the workout on the floor in a puddle of your own sweat. Ensure that the form of the exercise however is never comprised. 

So there you have the one exercise you need to use in your programme. There are many different variations, so keep mixing it up. Learn the basics, gradually increase weight and this will be an exercise you keep in your programme. 

Power-bodybuilding, Mike O'Hearn

Bring powerlifting into your programme!! 

Firstly I apologise for not posting a blog recently. Work has been manic and I haven't been able to train a great deal, let alone blog about my training.

Many of you will know I've recently being using a lot of Mike O'Hearns training methods, especially the use of the blunt trauma training at the beginning of the workout. This basically being very little use of warm up sets making sure not to hit fatigue early, followed by few reps as you move up in a pyramid fashion hitting your heaviest weight for the most about if reps. He is however a big supporter and in some ways founder of power-bodybuilding. After watching some of his videos I really have implemented this into my routine, bringing down my volume and focusing more on one heavy movement at the beginning followed by accessory work to just finish off the muscle group. Trust me this really works as your second and third exercises fill so light after hitting it so heavy prior. I like to put in drop sets on the first exercise following my heaviest set, really focusing on time under tension, flushing blood into the muscle. This type of training also ensures you hit the target area hard and get out, as oppose to spending hours in the gym, not getting anywhere like many of us do. He is an example of my Chest, Back and Legs routine.

Chest

1) Bench Press, 4 warm up sets up to working weight, no more than 4 reps. 

7x4 working sets, triple Dropset on the last set. 

2) Heavy Incline Flies 5x10 super set, weighted dips 5x8.

3) Single Incline Press 4x12

Back

1) Deadlift, warm up to working weight. Same principle as bench.

8x3 working sets. Than 8 reps at 80%, 10 at 70% and 15 at 60%.

2) Heavy Barbell Row 5x8

3) Lat Pull down 5x10 Super set with close grip pull downs. 

Legs

1) Back Squat, same principle.

10x4 working sets. Body weight on bar, hit 100 reps.

2) Weighted Lunges, 5x8

3) Leg Extensions, 4 sets of upsets, hitting 15 reps at each weight. 4 increments in total.

And there you have it, three workouts that will leave you in pieces using the power-bodybuilding principle. Certainly give them a try and see what you think. 

Jack