imprüvism

How to Eat and Train for Fat Loss

May 23, 2013 by Armi Legge 2 Comments

You hate dieting. To you, the word “diet” usually means:

Hunger.
Strength and muscle loss.
Low of sex drive.
Lethargy.
Constant cravings.

Learn how to create a sustainable diet and exercise plan that will help you lose as much fat as you want.

Luckily, you can limit, or even completely avoid most of these problems if you train and eat intelligently for fat loss.

In this podcast, bodybuilder, researcher, and fat loss expert Eric Helms teaches you how to create a diet and exercise program that will help you lose unwanted body fat without going insane. You’ll also learn how to create a sustainable lifestyle that allows you to stay lean without obsessing over food, losing strength and muscle, and constantly fighting food cravings. Here’s what you’ll learn:

Your Scientific Guide to Fat Loss

3:53 — What’s a normal body fat level for men and women? How much fat do you need to lose to be considered “lean?”

5:13 — How to lose body fat.

6:25 — The crucial difference between getting lean, and getting thin.

8:16 — What happens to your body when you diet.

10:20 — How to stop being hungry on a diet.

13:00 — How meal plans, strict rules, and avoiding certain foods can derail your dieting efforts.

15:49 — A simple guide to “clean eating” on a diet.

19:20 — How taking a break from your diet can help you lose fat.

21:54 — How to maintain your strength and size while dieting.

24:46 — How to exercise for fat loss.

29:42 — How much protein to eat for fat loss.

33:00 — How many carbs and fats to eat on your diet.

36:30 — How to use cardio to get lean (without killing your strength and size).

39:26 — How to stay lean without going nuts or being miserable.

48:55 — Eric’s single most important tip that will help you lose body fat.

Click the Player to Listen:

Podcast: Play in new window

Show Notes

“The Full Diet Break” by Lyle McDonald

3DMuscleJourney.com

3D Muscle Journey YouTube Videos

Alan Aragon

If It Fits Your Macros (A good description from DoYouEven.com)

Other Listening Options

Click here to download the mp3 | 48.8 MB | 53:15

Click here to subscribe via iTunes

Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)

Click here to listen to past episodes

People on the Show

Eric Helms

Armi Legge

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Disclosures: None.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: body recomposition, bodybuilding, bulking, calories, counting calories, cutting, diet, dieting, exercise nutrition, fat loss, health, IIFYM, nutrition, nutrition myths, self tracking, sports nutrition, strength training, training, weight loss, weightlifting

The Top 4 Ways to Track Your Workouts

May 21, 2013 by Armi Legge Leave a Comment

As a committed athlete who wants to get the most out of your training, you know it’s important to track your workouts.

You know that recording your workouts is paramount to making sure you’re improving over time, optimizing your recovery, and adapting your plan to your specific needs. You also love the added motivation to keep chasing new goals.

Pick one of these methods to track your workouts so you can make the most of your training.

However, tracking your workouts can be a pain for several reasons:

It takes time — time that could be spent training.
There are endless options for how to track your workouts, and it can be hard to decide which is right for you.
It’s easy to forget to track your workouts.

Here are the top 4 ways to track your workouts that help solve these problems:

1. Paper and Pencil

Writing your workouts by hand is simple, easy, and reliable. Many of the top coaches and athletes in various sports still track most of their workouts using a paper and pencil.

This method doesn’t depend on electricity or a good internet connection. It also doesn’t have a learning curve, and takes almost no time. You can also customize your workout log in endless ways.

Here are several options for tracking your workouts with paper and pencil:

Marble notebook, spiral journal, or diary.
Folded piece of printer paper.
Sticky notes.
Graph paper.

2. Spreadsheets

Let’s face it, writing is a pain. Spreadsheets make tracking your workouts easier in many ways:

They’re simple.
You can customize them.
They’re easy to review quickly.
Most computers have great spreadsheet applications.
They eliminate the need for good handwriting.

Most spreadsheets can also be synced with your phone or shared with others with services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and Cubby.

Spreadsheets also do most of the math for you. With a table and a few functions, you can have your computer do in seconds what would have normally taken you 10 minutes with a calculator.

As long as you don’t mind creating a bunch of different tables, functions, and formulas, you can program a spreadsheet to add your reps, sets, distance, time, and almost any other variable without using a calculator.

On the other hand, spreadsheets have a few downsides:

You can’t edit them while you’re at the gym without bringing a laptop.
They don’t always sync well to a mobile device.
They can grow to massive proportions and become confusing and hard to review later.
They often take a lot of time to create.
They’re ugly.

3. Calendars

This is one of the most underrated and easy ways to track your workouts.

You probably have some sort of workout routine you follow every week, or at least a general idea of when and how long you’re going to train (if not, you should).

If you’re working towards a race, photo shoot, competition, or just a personal goal, you need to be able to plan ahead. Using a calendar, you can schedule your workouts so you’re in top shape in time for the event.

Calendars have the added advantage of letting you schedule your workouts around other activities (i.e. the rest of your life). If you can schedule your workouts on a calendar, it makes it much easier for you to find time for your job, family, and other hobbies since you know exactly how long you have to train.

Here are several calendar options to track your workouts:

Annual paper calendar.
Pocket memo calendar.
Calendar application such as iCal, Outlook, or Google Calendar.

You can also make a calendar in a spreadsheet if you prefer.

4. Workout Tracking Applications

Workout apps combine most of the benefits of the aforementioned systems, while eliminating many of the negatives:

They make reviewing your workouts easy.
They often have exercise libraries with descriptions that help you perform the exercises correctly.
Some let you record your workouts at the gym (no more trying to remember your workout later).
They’re often easily shared with a coach or personal trainer.
They sometimes do a lot of the math for you.
They’re easily shared on social media.
Some have calendar functions that let you schedule workouts.
You don’t have to set them up like you do a spreadsheet.
They usually sync to your phone.
They’re (mostly) reliable.

Workouts apps also have a few problems:

They often cost money.
They sometimes have glitches, crashes, or are slow to load.
They often don’t offer enough functionality for all of your activities.
They often have way too much functionality which makes them confusing and complicated.
They’re sometimes ugly.

Here are a few good workout tracking apps that capture the positives of technology, while mostly avoiding the negatives:

Fitocracy (Web/iPhone/Android, Free)

JeFit (iPhone/Android, Free)

Fitness Builder (iPhone/Android, Free)

TrainingPeaks (Web/iPhone/Android, Paid)

Fitness Buddy (iPhone/Android, Paid)

Instant Fitness (iPhone, Paid)

Full Fitness (iPhone App, Paid)

Imprüvr (Web Paid — can be used on smart phone)*

Which Method Will You Choose?

Tracking your workouts is one of the best ways to supercharge your progress as an athlete. There are a lot of options for how to do this, but the best method is the one that you’re comfortable with.

The only rule is that it must give you an easy way to review your progress over time (though it’s helpful to have a few other features as well).

No method is necessarily better than another — they’re all tools that have their pros and cons. The important thing is that you’re recording your workouts consistently, reviewing your progress, and adjusting your plan to keep you on track towards your goals.

* Imprüvr: A Better Way to Track Your Workouts…

I’ve got a little announcement for you. Over the past year, we’ve been building a fitness tracking application called Imprüvr. It’s designed to make tracking your workouts and sharing them with a trainer or coach easy, simple, and fun. Imprüvr is still being perfected, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s ready be clicking here.

Disclosures: I am the CEO and co-founder of Imprüvr, and I will make money from selling the application. Let me know if you like it.

Filed Under: Fitness Tagged With: data, exercise, fitness, fitness applications, fitness apps, impruvr, self monitoring, self tracking, training, workout log, workout tracking

Avoid Supplement Confusion with the Human Effect Matrix

May 16, 2013 by Armi Legge Leave a Comment

Choosing supplements is a pain.

Every supplement claims to be better than the last.

They all claim to be backed by the latest scientific evidence.

They’re usually expensive.

Most don’t work.

Learn how to use Examine.com’s new “Human Effect Matrix” to know which supplements are worth your money.

However, there are some supplements that do work. The problem is that until now, it’s been hard to translate research into actionable, simple advice on what supplements are the most effective and offer you the best value.

In this podcast, you’ll learn how to use Examine.com’s “Human Effect Matrix” to easily do your own research on what supplements are the most effective. Kurtis Frank, one of the co-founders of Examine.com, discusses how they created the Human Effect Matrix, and how you can use it to make wiser choices when shopping for supplements.

How to Scientifically Choose Supplements

1:33 — Who is Kurtis Frank and what is Examine.com?

3:20 – How to use the Human Effect Matrix to make wiser supplement choices.

9:28 – The two most unlikely supplements that may actually work.

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Disclosures: None.

Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: berberine, creatine, critical thinking, diet, fat loss supplements, interviews, nutrition, research, resources, scientific method, spirulina, supplements

How a Simple Mind Trick Can Make You Stronger in Seconds

May 14, 2013 by Armi Legge 4 Comments

There are very few shortcuts in life that actually work.

If you want to get big and bulky, you need to eat big and lift heavy.

Learn how changing what you think about during your workouts can boost your strength in seconds.

If you want to lose fat, you need to eat less and exercise more.

However, there are many small tricks that can make these larger goals easier to achieve. Every once in a while, researchers uncover a little nugget of information that makes dieting suck less or your training more effective.

This article will teach you a simple, easy, and research-backed mental trick that will make you stronger instantly. It can also improve your performance in other sports, or almost any task.

Most of the research we’re about to discuss comes from two reviews.^1,2 If you want to dive further into the science on this topic, feel free to read both papers here and here (the first one is free). If you don’t feel like spending several hours reading through over 30 years of research, don’t worry. You’ll find more articles about this topic on Imprüvism soon.

What You Think About When You Exercise Matters

What do you think about when you lift?

Do you focus on your arms?

The bar?

The cute girl in the squat rack? (Or guy, I don’t judge).

Where you place your focus matters more than you think. It’s obvious that focusing on your workout is going to produce better results than thinking about a distressing email, your car payments, or the squat girl. However, you can do better.

The Crucial Difference Between an Internal and External Focus

Assuming you’re already focused on your workout, you can divide your focus into two categories: internal and external.

An internal focus of attention means you’re thinking about your body movements. Your legs when squatting, your arms when doing chin-ups, your chest when benching, etc.

An external focus means you’re focusing on something in your environment that’s relevant to your task. If you’re squatting, this would mean focusing on the bar or on pushing the bar towards the ceiling.

This is an incredibly subtle difference, but it can have a huge impact on your performance. In some cases, researchers will give one group instructions that only differ by one or two words.

In a study using a vertical jump test, here were the instructions:

Internal focus: “Focus on your fingers.”

External focus: “Focus on the rungs.”

The latter option is better. Research has consistently shown that an external focus improves motor learning, strength, coordination, and performance across a wide range of activities and ability levels.

We’ll cover this topic in obsessive, nerdy detail in later articles. For now, let’s take a look at how we can use this information to get some “stremph.”

There are three primary ways using an external focus helps you move more weight:

Increased maximal force production.
Improved neuromuscular efficiency.
Greater full body coordination.

Let’s look at each of these in turn. Then I’ll give you several examples of how you can use this information in the gym.

1. Increased Maximal Force Production

Put simply, people who can produce more force are stronger.

In many studies, subjects are asked to perform a strength test, like pushing against a bar. They almost always produce more force when using an external focus, like focusing on the bar rather than an internal focus on their hands, arms, or chest.

In fact, the group that’s told to focus on their body parts often does worse than the control group that’s not told to focus on anything, or is told neutral instructions like “move the weight.”

Studies have also found that using an external focus can improve:

Sprint speed.
Power output.
The length of time people can wall-sit.
Vertical jump height.
Standing jump distance.
Discuss throwing distance.
Rowing performance.
Kayaking performance.

Researchers think these results are largely due to greater motor unit recruitment, which increases force production. However, that’s not the only reason.

2. Improved Neuromuscular Efficiency

An external focus seems to improve your ability to recruit not only more muscle fibers, but to recruit muscle fibers at the right times and in the correct muscles.

For maximum strength production, you want your movements to be as efficient as possible. If you’re trying to squat twice your bodyweight, you want all of your energy directed at raising the barbell.

When people adopt an external focus, they often have lower muscle activity (measured by EMG) using the same weight.

An external focus can also help reduce co-contractions. When you make any movement, some muscles have to relax while others contract. If some muscles contract at the wrong times, you won’t be able to lift as much weight.

Focusing on your body movements increases co-contractions (bad).

Focusing externally decreases co-contractions (good).

3. Greater Full Body Coordination

To maximize your strength, you have to be able to coordinate multiple muscle groups throughout your body.

When people use an external focus while performing a vertical jump test, they are better able to coordinate their movements to produce maximal force. Their ankle, knee, and hip angles all adjust in harmony — just enough to optimize their movements and no more.

On the other hand, the group that used an internal focus changed their joint angles disproportionally — their movements got sloppy, and they didn’t jump as high.

The change in joint angles in the group that used an external focus was associated with their jump height, which suggests this was not a coincidence. The group that used an external focus also had less EMG activity in the stabilizer muscles, which again suggests their movements were more efficient.

Using an external focus seems to help you coordinate your entire body to optimize your strength.

This Trick Isn’t Perfect (But it Doesn’t Have to Be)

This trick will not add 100 pounds to your back squat in a single workout. Sorry.

While the strength improvements in these studies are generally significant, the absolute differences aren’t drastic.

The studies on this topic also have several key limitations, but overall, the evidence supports the idea that an external focus is going to improve your strength and power more than an internal focus.

The best part about this trick is that it’s free, easy, and immediate.

You have to think about something during your workouts, so using an external focus is worth a try. Here’s how.

How to Convert Your Internal Foci into External Foci

Here are a few examples of how you can change an internal focus to an external focus, based on different lifts:

Squat

Push your knees apart -> Push the floor apart.

Push with your feet -> Push your feet into the ground.

Push with your legs -> Push an imaginary line off of your thighs.

Extend your hips -> Push your hips toward the wall in front of you.

Stand tall -> Push the bar towards the ceiling (my personal favorite).

Deadlift

Pull your shoulders back -> Pull your shoulder blades towards the ceiling.

Push your knees apart -> Push the floor apart.

Bench Press

Push up with your arms -> Push the bar towards the ceiling.

Chin-Ups/Pull-Ups

Pull your body up -> Pull your chin over the bar.

Pull with your arms -> Pull the bar towards the ground.

Contract your back muscles -> Pull your head into the ceiling.

Overhead Press

Push up with your arms -> Push the bar towards the ceiling.

Move your head forward as you push the bar up -> Slam your head into the wall in front of you as it passes under the bar.

If you have a specific cue that you’d like converted into an external focus, leave a comment below and I’ll help.

Use This Simple Mind Hack to Get Stronger

If you want to be strong, you need to lift heavy. If you also want to get big, you need to eat a lot, too. Everything else is far less important.

However, using an external focus is a simple, effective, ridiculously easy way you may be able to add a few percentage points to your lifts. It will probably also improve your technique, which might reduce your risk of injuries as well as improve your strength.

Changing what you think about during your workouts doesn’t cost you anything, and it’s likely to help.

The next time you lift weights, use an external focus instead of an internal one.

Do you have a question about this trick? Leave it in the comments section below.

Disclosures: None

References

1. Marchant DC. Attentional Focusing Instructions and Force Production. Frontiers in Psychology. 2011;1(210). Full Text: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153816/.

2. Wulf G. Attentional focus and motor learning: a review of 15 years. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 2012;00:1–28. Abstract: http://goo.gl/IFBA5 | Full Text: Received from author.

Filed Under: Fitness Tagged With: bodybuilding, exercise, mind tricks, motor learning, muscle gain, performance, psychology, resistance training, sports, strength, strength training, training, weightlifting

How to Prevent and Treat Muscle Cramps During Exercise

May 9, 2013 by Armi Legge 2 Comments

Think back to the last time you had a muscle cramp during or after a workout.

If it was a severe muscle cramp, you probably remember being in extreme pain for several minutes. If it was a moderate or light muscle cramp, it was probably not too painful, but annoying nonetheless.