Category Archives: Body Building

How to Eat Enough Protein Without Breaking the Bank

For many people, creating a healthy dietary regimen can be a difficult balancing act with an assortment of separate challenges: healthy, nutritious food typically costs more than processed, unhealthy food, despite often looking less immediately appealing or easy to prepare when you open the cupboard to start cooking dinner.

To compound matters even further is the fact that grocery prices have risen by up to 4% over the course of 2011, with similar price increases expected to continue through 2012, according to the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Getting enough daily protein on a limited financial budget can be especially difficult with meat already costing far more per pound than items such as vegetables, fruits and grains.

From August of 2010 through August of 2011, the average prices of pork and beef rose by 7.5% and 10%, respectively, making it even more challenging for the average household to receive their suggested daily values of protein in this unstable economy.

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Posted in Body Building, Diet, Food, Health, News, Nutrition, Weight Training | 4,940 Comments

Want Big Muscle? Try Small Weights, Study Says

Significantly increasing lean muscle tissue is a combination of several disciplines and requires a high level of focus, effort, dedication, and knowledge.

The three primary factors that are required to promote serious gains in muscle density are regularly performing your strength training routine with a high level of effort, consuming well balanced protein rich foods day in and day out, and receiving plenty of sleep to allow your body to repair the muscle tissue that was damaged, torn, from the workout.

Further, when it comes to strength training, the conventional wisdom is that smaller amounts of weight should be used for toning and sculpting, while heavier weights are more appropriate for creating large gains in muscle mass, density and strength.

However, a new clinical study that was recently published concluded that regularly lifting lighter weights to increase your lean muscle tissue density, size, and mass can occur at the same rate as if you were consistently lifting heavier weights.

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Posted in Body Building, Exercise, Health, News, Studies, Weight Training | 8,240 Comments

Heart Problems More Common in Top Endurance Athletes

Competing at a high level across virtually any sport will require specific skill sets that are unique to that sport. In addition, each type of sport will place different stresses on the body.

For example, some sports tend to place a high level of stress on the various joints of the body though repetitive motion such as running long distances and biking long distances. Other types of sports that involve high impact place a high level of stress on virtually the entire body through blunt force trauma.

There are sports that tend to be more anaerobic and sports that tend to be more aerobic. Anaerobic activities involve short-burst movements where the cardiovascular system does not achieve an “aerobic effect”, while aerobic type sports place a high level of stress on the entire cardiovascular system (heart and lungs).

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Posted in Body Building, Exercise, Health, Health Facts, Medical, News, Studies, Weight Training | 6,526 Comments

5 Awesome Foods to Build Muscle

In general, most individuals that regularly strength train are looking to either significantly increase their muscle size and density or, at the very least, proportionally tone and sculpt the various muscles of their body.

There are three primary functions that contribute to increasing quality lean muscle tissue: regularly and consistently performing the strength training workouts, consuming nutritionally rich whole foods that are well balanced in terms of protein, carbohydrates, and fat, and ensuring that your body receives plenty of sleep.

The intent of this article is to discuss 5 foods that are ideal for supporting muscle growth and development. After every weight lifting session, you should be thinking about consuming high quality carbohydrates, not just protein.

In addition to restoring glycogen levels in the muscle tissue that was lost performing the exercise routine, the carbohydrates will also provide a healthy boost to your insulin, the hormone that acts as a vehicle to bring amino acids directly to your muscles.

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Posted in Body Building, Diet, Exercise, Food, Health, Health Facts, News, Nutrition, Weight Training | 14,138 Comments

Aiming for Core Fitness? Don’t Forget to Exercise Your Back

There are several different types of exercise to choose from when adding an exercise routine to your daily lifestyle. This being said, prior to deciding on a type of fitness to regularly perform, you will want to define your personal fitness goals and thereafter, determine the exercise type that best targets those goals.

If achieving improved overall core strength and toned, defined abdominals is one of your primary health and fitness goals, you are probably participating in some type of fitness program that includes regularly performing plenty a fair number of sit-ups, knee raises, and abdominal crunches. Although you are obviously on the right track, new research suggests that too many individuals with these types of core fitness workouts forget to incorporate exercises for the core area that specifically target the muscles of their back.

According to Peter Park and Dr. Eric Goodman, co-authors of a new book entitled Foundation: Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence, most people already spend plenty of time in their daily lives contracting their abs, pushing their shoulders forwards, and subsequently putting little to no resistance on their back muscles.

This occurs when you’re driving your car, sitting on the couch watching television, surfing the Web on a computer, and sitting at a desk at work. Goodman says that the key to true overall core strength is to exercise the back regularly, which, in turn, strengthens the spine and improves overall posture.

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