Reading Time: 6 minutes
When people face difficulties trying to change their body composition, the metabolism is one of the most common scapegoats. Is this blame warranted?
Maybe a “slow metabolism” is scrutinized for challenges with weight loss or maybe a “fast metabolism” is blamed when it seems impossible to gain weight. It all starts with how we define the word “metabolism.”
These claims are often misguided, and I’ll explain why in
this article. Then we’ll explore what you can actually control to change your body composition to reach your
goals.
What is the human metabolism?
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Reading Time: 5 minutes
As always, the first step is to define your goal. We can walk through a few scenarios for why cardiovascular training might make sense for you.
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The days of doing endless crunches to train your core are over!
The core is extremely complex and needs to be engaged and trained in a variety of ways. It should be stable, be able to rotate and resist rotation, and flex at the belly button. And then there’s the obliques! We’ll review a few exercises to cover our bases.
We can simplify core training, and break it down into 2 parts:
- Spinal flexion – Think of the chest-to-belly-button movement, like the crunch
- Spinal stability – Think of bracing and resisting rotation
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Reading Time: 8 minutes
If you haven’t already, and you’d like some background on how to diagnose the root of your muscular-related discomfort or pain, please check out this article.
Attacking The Root Of The Problem
In the last article, I illustrated some common scenarios for why these types of discomfort are prevalent. Now we need to create some actionable items for how to fix the root of the problem! Fortunately, a lot is in our control. However, since there’s so many moving parts, the root cause can be difficult to assess.
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First, I want to start this off with the disclaimer that I’m not a licensed doctor, health practitioner or physical therapist. I’m basing this information off my own review of the scientific literature, personal experience, and feedback from people that I’ve worked with. Please consult your doctor before doing anything that may have an adverse effect on your health.
We’ll start out by introducing the problem, dive into some common scenarios that cause the pain/discomfort, and then offer solutions for how to get to the root of the problem! If you’re already confident with your diagnosis, feel free to skip ahead to the action plan that fits your individual situation.
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Reading Time: 8 minutes
Different Goals, Different Adaptations
You can’t train to optimize all three goals! Unless you’re a beginner. Then it really doesn’t matter what you’ll do. You’ll still progress!
But for those of us with a little bit of training under our belt, it’s advantageous to take a more granular look at each “phase” of workout programming.
Interestingly enough, building muscle (hypertrophy) and increasing muscular strength are considerably different. More muscle does not necessarily mean greater strength and vice versa. The two variables are not linear!
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Reading Time: 13 minutes
As I’ve mentioned in some of my previous articles, including the one about training for strength, you can’t effectively train to optimize all three goals of strength, hypertrophy and fat loss at the same time!
There is a bit of carryover between strength and hypertrophy, but it’s more effective in the long-run to prioritize one at a time.
Here, we’ll focus on the primary goal of maximizing hypertrophy, which is commonly referred to as the scientific term for building muscle.
What Is Hypertrophy?
Muscle mass is essentially the amount and size of muscle fibers that you have, which makes up a cross sectional area. There’s no such thing as lean muscle or bulky muscle. Muscle tissue is muscle tissue.
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Reading Time: 8 minutes
You can’t effectively train to optimize all three goals of strength, hypertrophy (muscle growth) and fat loss!
As a recap, building muscle (hypertrophy) and increasing muscular strength are considerably different.
Muscle mass is essentially the amount and size of muscle fibers that you have, which makes up a cross sectional area.
Muscular strength is the ability to recruit those muscle fibers.
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Reading Time: 4 minutes
What is Creatine?
Creatine is a molecule composed of amino acids that is naturally produced in the body. It can also be found naturally in some foods, mostly in meat, but also in eggs and fish.
It is not an essential nutrient because it can be produced by the body, but it is not supplied in optimal doses for optimal health and performance.
Creatine is stored in your muscles. When your muscles do work (ex. exercise), ATP (cellular energy) is tapped into for energy.
Creatine essentially works by improving ATP production, which in turn improves your body’s ability to perform many biological processes.
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