“I’m starting my weight loss program today”

“I’m back on track…starting today”

Eventuall you have to leave the starting box...

Being in a perpetual starting position is just another way of saying that you’re standing still. You may recognize what I’m saying about those people around you who are always ‘just starting’ something.

But those same people never come back 3-4 months later when they’re ‘finished’ the program.

Sadly for most people they’re forever stuck in the starting blocks. They desperately want to do something, but somehow are frozen in place and can’t get going.

This inability to follow through is not because of a lack of discipline, or a physical inability to get things done…it’s rooted in a belief system.

All of our actions are preceded by a belief. In the case of weight loss or getting in shape many people are stuck with a belief that they simply do not deserve to lose weight or get in shape. As bizarre and contradictory as that sounds this is something people learn and it becomes ingrained into their subconscious over time.

Changing this belief system is the key to getting out of the starting blocks and actually getting into and finishing the weight loss and exercise race.

Changing beliefs like this is what you might call a paradigm shift, and it’s at base of both the Adonis Effect and Eat Stop Eat.

If you haven’t read them I suggest you do, if you already have them, re-read them to remind yourself why you workout and why you at least think twice about how you eat and look.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m going to be offering a coaching program to help get you out of the starting blocks and into the race for both weight loss and muscle building. I’ll be posting more details in the next few weeks, but if you’re interested in getting a gentle nudge (or maybe a good old fashioned kick in the ass) to make your weight loss and fitness dreams a reality I might just have the foot your looking for!

Email me at john(at)adoniseffect.com and we can discuss further.

John

Unlike this road, our muscle growth does have a finite limit.

The largest muscle size you can ever achieve is determined in combination by your genetic predisposition and your workout pattern, consistency, effort, and to a lesser degree nutrition. Beyond that you can push closer to your limit by using anabolic drugs like testosterone and it’s derivatives, Growth Hormone, IGF-1, Insulin and others.

However, even those individuals who use any or all of these drugs will eventually reach a limit as well.

The human system (any biological system for that matter) can only adapt to a finite and specific amount of stress until it eventually breaks down.

This is a well known phenomenon and is an example of hormesis (not to be confused with homeostasis)

Hormesis is the concept that a given stressor (such as exercise) can force the system to adapt in a positive manner but the amount of stress that compared to the benefit/reaction is not a linear relationship but rather a curved relationship.

In other words, there is an amount of exercise that is too little and an amount that is too much and an amount that is just right.

The ‘just right’ zone is where you want to be to stimulate muscle growth, and as you get stronger this zone changes.

You need to do more work and more often to continue to grow over time. This however reaches a limit at which point the entire system breaks down (over training).

Most people don’t do enough work to ever reach a true state of over training so this really isn’t an issue.

The key to stimulating maximum muscle growth is pushing the upper edge of the ‘just right zone’ without ever going over it.

John

A good deadlift session will probably make you pretty sore.

The necessary rest time interval between exercise bouts is not fully understood. We know that delayed onset muscle soreness peaks between 24-48 hours after exercise and can take up to 7 days to dissipate, however it’s not necessary to wait 7 days to workout again.

The soreness is likely caused by multiple factors associated with muscled damage including swelling, the release of noxious chemicals in the muscle cells, the stimulation of pain receptors and other by products of local inflammation.

For those of you who were wondering…’lactic acid’ has nothing to do with it <– this is just gym talk for those people who don’t understand exercise physiology.

The muscle damage and soreness we feel from time to time after our workouts seems to be more closely linked to the eccentric phase of each rep (the negative phase) rather than the concentric (the push or up phase)

Even if you don’t purposefully do ‘eccentric’ exercises most heavy weights require a controlled eccentric contraction as well (ex: when lifting in the 5-8 rep ranges)

It is possible to train through soreness however there is likely a limit to how sore you can be and still get a good workout in.(there doesn’t seem to be any danger training while sore, but you just might not be able to generate enough force to make the workout worthwhile)

A good rule of thumb might be: Train through mild to moderate soreness, but hold off through the worst soreness until it dissipates to a more manageable level.

On a scale of 1-10 that might mean it’s ok to train through soreness levels of 1-6, but back off if your soreness level is a 7 or higher.

John

The specifics of muscles growth are not well understood yet.

Yesterdays discussion brought up some questions about the specifics of muscle growth. It seems there is some confusion on what muscle growth even is.

To understand muscle growth we have to first understand what a muscle is made up of.

Skeletal muscles are somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-85% water, this is the fluid that makes up the cytoplasm of each cell. The rest of the structure is a mix of protein and lipids and some carbohydrates.

Glycogen is stored in the muscles as well as some amount of amino acid pool that is in a constant state of flux.

Glycogen is stored in approx a 1-2 ratio with water; for ever gram of glycogen the muscle can store it also needs to store two grams of water. Each gram of muscle protein also seems to require approx 2 grams of water.

The transient states of exercise, or even day to day activity are what determine if your muscles will grow or atrophy. In other words, it’s incomplete to assume your muscles have a standard size.

A more accurate view would be say: How big are you muscles when they are:

A) complete inactive in a cast

B) active from day to day activity but no purposeful weight training

C) stimulated from regular weight training

D) stimulated from drug use (testosterone and GH etc)

E) stimulated from supplement use (creatine, BCAA’s etc)

F) Some combination of the above

Each one of these stimulus (or lack thereof) combined with your genetic predisposition for a baseline of muscle fibers will determine how ‘big’ your muscles are given the state they are in.

The specifics of what even makes a muscle bigger and smaller is still unclear. Some research points to sarcolemma growth while other research suggest sarcomere growth, and still others are assuming both happen along with some degree of hyperplasia and potential fiber splitting.

In any case the size of a muscle is dependent upon a transient state of stimulus. Take the stimulus away and the muscle will atrophy, add more stimulus in and it will hypertrophy, but there are always limits to both ends of the spectrum.

John

How Do You Make The Descision to Use Steroids or Not?

Alek sent in a very interesting question. He simply asked what are the real objective reasons for not using steroids.

This is a good question because there is much misinformation about steroids in the general media, and the side effects and potential negative effects are usually associated with massive doses.

What then are the objective reasons to avoid steroid use?

First of all any drug taken on a chronic basis will have some side effects to deal with. In the case of testosterone and it’s derivatives the side effects (no matter how mild the drug or dose) are as follows:

Aromatization of some testosterone to estrogen and then estrogen based side effects (development of breast tissue is the most obvious)

Hair Loss (not too many guys would trade a head of hair for slightly bigger muscles)

Raised blood lipids and cholesterol. This is one of the side effects that can directly increase risk of heart disease.

Potential increased risk of prostate cancer.

Acne (it’s person to person, not everyone gets this reaction)

And finally, there is likely a set of completely unknown side effects that the scientific community has yet to uncover or have a chance to study.

This list (while not complete) is a good starting point of ‘con’s’ to using steroids. If a guy wanted to use them he would have to weigh out these vs the ‘pro’s’.

Depending on the dose testosterone can be a benefit to many guys, it’s even prescribed as an anti-depressant and to elevate mood and well being.

It may also be of use for men who are beyond 50 years of age and want to replace some testosterone to restore their circulating levels back to those of a 30 year old. This may actually be beneficial for longevity and quality of life. This is analogous in some respects to hormone replacement therapy for post menopausal women.

In the end it should be up to each individual to decide what they want to do with their body. Collecting unbiased and objective information is the key to making an informed descision.

John