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REASONS FOR WORKOUT PLATEAU

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Each one of us at one point falls into that period that puts limits to оur progress in the workouts and in the building of muscle mass. Despite our efforts, we feel that something it’s not quite right and things are not going the way we want them to go. In this article we are going to pay attention to one of the popular topics related to training with weights – the feeling that we are reaching the point where workouts are at a standstill and we are not progressing at them, as a result of that the process of building muscle mass Is slowed down. To continue further, so we can look into the details of this occurrence it is good first to specify what exactly means – workout plateau

Plateau in the workout routine is a situation which may occur with everybody no matter how advance they are in their training level. Characteristic of this period are the feeling of reduced motivation and lack of result for a given time period. Depending on various factors the plateau may be long-term or short-term. The reasons for occurrence of this “event” can be different, the most common among them are: following same workout plan for long period of time, not enough physical/mental recovery, meal plan errors.

In order not to fall in this unpleasant to every gym enthusiast situation we need the right approach. For this reason we will look at the three most common causes leading to a standstill in our workouts.

* following same workout plan for long period of time – The workout plan plays major role in the way how the body is going to develop. If we think about it for a little, we can reasonably conclude that adding more variety of different exercises to our workout routine gives more chance of different muscle groups in our body to start to develop, in addition to that, we may say that the body acts on the principle of Gestalt – every muscle, every tendon, every joint is part of the general puzzle. Also here is the place to mention that, a different approach to a given muscle group, by performing different exercises from those we are used to perform, creates a further need for this muscle group to adapt to these new and different loads.

*not enough physical/mental recovery – The recovery as a process takes important place not only in sports, but in the good health of the body. If disturbances are present in the recovery process it is normal to observe decline in the good condition and tonus in general. This will give negative impact in our workouts. The best we can do to get out from that situation is to focus our efforts on the two fundamental “repositories” of restoration and recovery – sleep and nutritional plan.

*meal plan errors – By causation effect we reach to what was said in the above lines about the possible reasons leading to the occurrence of the event of workout plateau – the meal plan errors. The errors can be different, one of the most common among them is the use of foods rich in “empty calories” or so called “junk foods”. Consuming such foods, we intake large quantity of calories, but at the same time we are starving at the cellular level due to the lack of valuable nutrients. This sooner or later reflects on our tonus and motivation. Another common mistake in the meal plan is the incorrect distribution of the macronutrients.

To sum up, we can say that, paying attention to each detail and careful consideration of each step would be the best preventive measure in terms of workout plateau.

 

CityFitness ™

WHAT IS BCAA AND WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS FROM THEIR INTAKE?

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To answer one of the most frequently asked questions in connection with how BCAA is helping us during our training sessions it is important to know what they are in their essence. By nature BCAA are amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. The protein plays important role in every cell in the human body. Your body uses it to repair and to build new tissues. Therefore, the body also uses proteins and to build muscle tissue.

It is important to note that not all amino acids are BCAA. Most commonly amino acids are divided into two types, the first type is called NONessential amino acids and the second type is called Essential amino acids. The body can produce from other compounds, for its needs, the NONessential amino acids. The Essential amino acids , part of witch are BCAA can not be produced by the body and we can get them only from food sources. Foods rich in Essential amino acids are red meat, dairy, eggs.

It is also right to say which are the benefits for our body from the BCAA intake. The three nonessential amino acids in the structure of BCAA are L-leucine, L-isoleucine and L-valine.  Each one of those amino acids works in a way that optimizes your physical performance.

Typically in the blend of NONessential amino acids that you can take as additional nutritional supplement, L-leucine is the one who present In bigger quantities compared to the another two amino acids. L-Leucine gives strength to the bones, skin and muscle tissues. The body also metabolize it and uses it as a quick source of energy during physical workouts. The intake of L-leucine help burning body fat by slowing the process of breaking down of proteins. When the body can not get the needed “fuel” by breaking down proteins starts to breaks down body fats for energy.

The L-isoleucine functions are primarily directed to the recovery of muscle tissues after physical exercise. It also, raises endurance and energy levels.

L-valine has a beneficial effect on the proper functioning and recovery of the nervous system during and after physical exercise. Improves the function of the immune system. Enhance the endurance and helps for faster muscle recovery.

Why the intake of BCAA is beneficial during workout? As already mentioned, the Essential amino acids are contained in different types of foods, which are rich in protein, as well in well known nutritional supplements in a form of protein powders. For the body to be able to absorb this foods and food supplements  and to “feed” our muscles first it has to decompose the protein to amino acids. This process takes time, postponing the nutrition and recovery of the muscles. When we intake BCAA directly in the form of nutritional supplement the amino acids are already isolated and for their absorption by the body it is not necessary, to go trough the process of decay of protein. Exactly that, that they are isolated and from that, be able to enter the blood stream immediately after their intake, feeding and recovering our muscle tissues almost instantly during our workout, makes BCAA extremely efficient and valuable nutritional supplement.

In conclusion we can say that even if you have a well – balanced diet with sufficient protein intake the additional use of BCAA would be an advantage. The extra amount of essential amino acids taken at the right time would make your training sessions even more full and effective.

CityFitness ™

DIET , MEAL PLAN AND NUTRITIONAL HABITS

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Today we suggest to you to take a look in to one of the most important subjects in the field of healthy lifestyle  – the topic of nutrition. Before we proceed further, we should note that there are a variety of theories and points of view on how much, when and what we have to eat. Anyone who wants to seriously pay attention to this section of his healthy lifestyle must find out what works for him best. In this article we show our point of view.

Nutrition is the topic that concerns not only your sports success, but health in general. Many consider feeding as some kind of obligation, stretching over some period of time. Above all the goal of every sports enthusiast must be to improve his health. For us to eat properly doesn’t mean we have to exclude our favorite foods. With the right strategy, both in the correct distribution of calories and in their intake at the right time we can safely achieve our goals without the enchanted circle called “diet”. This is where we need to clarify the differences between “diet”, “meal plan” and “nutritional habits”.

The “diet” or s specific type of “meal plan” which you have to follow for limited time, as a nutritional strategy has undoubtedly gives good results, or at least for a while. Each “diet” or “meal plan” have to be followed for a certain period of time. Then comes the expected end of that time and with that comes the returning to the old eating habits resulting in the return of the original body shape and size, which were from before the “diet”. Last but not least mental discomfort that you have to experience while following strictly defined eating rules takes up enough energy that could be directed to something better than that you to be “tortured” on a psychological level. The long-term effects of the “diet” usually lead to worse results for you and your body than before you started it. Why is this happening? The answer is not complicated. Following a nutritional plan for a given period of time gives results only for that certain period in which you keep following the plan. If we give a thought about for the moment, it looks logical and also fair. If we go deep in our analysis we will discover that the word “diet” is charged with some kind of obligation and that direct us to the intrusive thoughts of constraint and discomfort. By instinct when the “diet” comes to an end we want to shake off those thoughts. Usually that results in adding more nutrients and empty calories to your daily intake, from which your body doesn’t really need and from which it was deprived.

Developing nutritional habits as a nutritional strategy for you to achieving your goals is a method, which become more efficient in a long-term period of time. The habit which we have to create in the desired direction is a way of thinking, automated process about how we think about something. The course of our thinking determents whether our achievements will be for a short or long period of time. Properly formed habits would allow you to think ahead in time. Again, we want to pay attention to the fact that proper nutrition does not exclude your favorite foods. With the right approach to them, they will not stand between you and your success. When you manage to create the right food habits, they will allow you to properly plan your nutritional strategy. In conclusion we can say well structured nutritional strategy means constantly moving in to the right direction. Those time in which you “cheat” on your diet with a “junk” meal every couple of weeks is not necessary a bad thing and even have to have it’s place in your nutritional strategy.

CityFitness ™

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

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How long does it takes to get in shape ?  How long should I workout a day? Will I become too muscular? What should I eat?

A beginner female asks herself most often those four main questions when she begins working out in the gym. We will try to answer them in this article.

– How long does it takes to get in shape

The answer to this question depends both on the efforts you are willing to make and on your own ideas for how a good-looking body should look like. If we have to be specific , when you combine all necessary factors together the first changes in the physics begin after the first few months

– How long should I workout a day?

There are variety of ideas and theories about how long the perfect workout should last. People often confuse quantity and quality.  In weight training it is important to perform all moves in the exercises with good quality, which means putting maximum accuracy and precision in the performance. The optimal time for a quality workout is up to an hour.

– Will I become too muscular?

The answer to this question is No. This is one of the biggest fears of most of the women which are just started training with weights. There are a number of studies showing that lower level of testosterone in the female body will not allow, even with weight training, significant increase in a muscle mass. The muscular women you see and don’t want to look like have this muscular vision for totally different reasons.

– What should I eat?
In the beginning when you start, even if you don’t change anything in your eating habits you still will achieve some results. However , afterwards in the future you have to pay attention to the proper nutritional strategy. When you go deeper in your new healthy lifestyle, comes the time to be more determined and consistent in your plans to achieve the desired results. A popular nutritional strategy that works flawlessly is to reduce the tree biggest „pests” of your body: alcohol, sugar and dough.

CityFitness ™

HOW TO INCREASE MUSCLE SIZE

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Everybody who is visiting the gym has a goal in mind. This article is about one of the most common goals for every gym enthusiast – how to build muscle and size. Bodybuilding is a sport displays a level of aesthetics and muscle size. From aesthetic point of view, everybody have their own conception about how well toned body should look like. It is widely accepted that, for a body to be considered visually appealing and aesthetic, it must have visible muscle mass with very little body fat. The process of gaining muscle size goes thru 3 main phases, which if followed correctly can guarantee you good results. Those phases are: Developing and increasing will power, Workout plan, Meal plan. For the best results all 3 of them have to be applied together.

  1. Developing and increasing will power

It’s not a secret to anyone that in order to achieve every goal we need to put our best effort and consistency. To maintain a good speed and dynamic of what we started, keeping our motivation up, it is necessary to create a certain way of thinking. If we don’t pay enough attention to this phase of the process the chance of success is decreasing. Increasing our will power is long and complicated journey. It is not a temporary phenomenon that will accompany the fulfilment of our goal and then we will forget about it. Will power is not just a tool to achieve the task at hand. If we keep thinking of it like that, we will lose everything that is accomplished shortly after the goal is achieved. It is important that we start to consider that developing and increasing our volitional abilities is a part of our constant way of thinking and it is a part of our personality in general. An effective way in the long run to improve our volitional abilities is to take notes of what we are doing at the gym. For example – how many repetitions we are doing in a set, how much weight we are putting on the bar and etc. The efficiency of this activity is very often underestimated but in a long term it can guarantee results. At any time we can look at our notes and they can gives us information how close we are to the final goal. With this method we illustrate and arrange our ideas, which helps us to clarify our plans.

  1. Workout plan.

– High intensity workout – These type of workout includes exercises that are done in supersets.  Another popular method that is included in this group is – increasing repetitions in one set with optimal weight. The idea behind high intensity training is to teach us to do our working sets under the conditions of so-called ‘”burn”. One of most effective way to increase our volitional abilities is to try to do more repetitions coincided with a “burn”.

– Heavy lifting – It is important to note that this type of workout requires high level of preparation. With this method we have to be very careful. If we underestimate it and didn’t pick up the right approach to it in the long term it may lead to injuries. This type of training strategy can be used just to „test our limits”, but it is not a method we can practice for a long period of time. The purpose of heavy load workouts is to reach maximum muscle hypertrophy. When muscle hypertrophy occurs we tear apart small muscle fibers, then the body repairs them and make them stronger than before. This process in fact makes muscles grow.

– Workout with negative reps – One extremely efficient way of stimulating muscle growth is to do our repetition very slowly and concentrated. This may be quite painful, which is why we need a high level of volitional culture, which we have already talk about. The purpose of this method is – by making slow repetitions we trigger the breaking of as many muscle fibers as possible, and activate as many muscle groups as possible.

– Meal plan – Success is an aggregation of many factors, so achieving it cannot be done without looking at the last piece of the puzzle – food. The proper caloric balance is fundamental for our physic. The reach of our goal depends on how and what we feed ourselves. If we want to gain muscle mass it is important to realize that we have to work consistently on that idea forward in time. To increase the size and volume of our muscles in the right way, it is extremely important to clear our menu from empty calories. Otherwise, the gained kilograms will be dead weight, which will make our body look not so toned and not very aesthetic. In addition to that, the dead weight can lead to health problems in time. The macronutrients that we are using as fuel is important to come from good quality food which are well absorbed by the body. To start gaining muscle mass our caloric balance should not be increase more that 300-350 calories per day. Anything rather that that would rather push us a step backwards, that‘s way it is important to be combinative, analytical and, above all, patient. Success goes to those of us who can wait!

CityFitness ™