This is a simple dinner to make after you’ve had a great workout and want something quick and easy.  Consume your post-workout shake immediately after finishing at the gym; have this meal about an hour later.

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup quick cook (parboiled) brown rice
• 1 5-oz. can of tuna (in water)
• 1 Cup frozen stir-fry vegetable mix
• 3 Cups water
• 1 tsp. chicken, vegetable or seafood bouillon
• 1/2 tsp. quality curry spice
• 1/2 tsp. quality turmeric spice
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/2 Cup low-fat condensed cream of mushroom soup
• additional water for desired thickness

In a large skillet, add brown rice, tuna, vegetables, water, bouillon, and spices.  Heat on high heat until contents comes to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium high, and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until most water absorbed and rice is tender.  Add 1/2 Cup additional water if the soup is too dry, turning heat to high until soup boils.  Reduce heat to medium.  Add egg whites and stir until mixed and egg whites are solid.  Add cream of mushroom soup and stir until blended.  Allow soup to simmer on medium heat for a few minutes.  Pour soup into large soup bowl and let stand until cool enough to eat.

I prefer to use an asparagus stir-fry mix that also contains carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms, green beans, squash and cauliflower, because these impart good flavor to the soup.  Adjust spices to your liking.  Campbell’s soup for this recipe contains about 25% daily sodium intake, so you probably will not want to add salt.

Nutrition Information

• Calories: 574
• Protein: 43.5 g (32%)
• Carbs: 84.6 g (63%)
• Fat: 7.25 g (5.4%)

One key factor in building muscle is to significantly change your workout, say, every 6 months. One easy way to do this is by adding a type of superset to your routine. Traditionally, a superset is to combine two exercises by doing sets of each exercise in pairs. For example, you could do a set of bicep curls followed by a set of tricep pushdowns, and do 3 or 4 sets of this pair. The benefits of supersetting include increased intensity, shorter time in the gym, muscle overloading, and making workouts more interesting. Supersetting is also a great way to structure full-body workouts.  One nice feature is that supersets can also be combined with pyramiding or

In this article, we will cover variations of supersets that you can use to customize your workout routine.  The variables we will consider are: degree of coupling; antagonist, agonist, and staggered supersets; and body coverage.

Degree of Coupling

First, we can classify supersets by varying degrees of coupling, from most to least coupling:

• Alternating sets (traditional)
• Alternating exercises
• No supersets

For alternating exercises, one would do all reps of an exercise for one muscle group followed by all reps of an exercise for a second muscle group.  For example, 3 – 4 sets of bench press followed by 3 – 4 sets of lat pulldowns.  The “no supersets” option is included because this is still valuable to change up a routine for additional stimulation.  Particularly with the less coupled supersets, remember to change the order of the muscle groups each week for balance and symmetry.

The greater the degree of coupling, the more intense the workout.  Thus, alternating sets provides the most intensity.  This is best done with a workout partner doing the opposite exercise or when the gym is fairly empty.  Otherwise, you’re likely to have people constantly getting onto the equipment — since you are switching back and forth — which can cause you to wait much longer and eliminate the intensity benefit.

Example: Alternating Sets
Muscle groups: chest, back
Rest between sets: 45 seconds

1. Superset #1 (repeat 3-4 times)
   1. Cybex machine chest presses (5 – 10 reps)
   2. Lat pulldown, wide grip (5 – 10 reps)
2. Superset #2 (repeat 3-4 times)
   1. Incline dumbbell presses (5 – 10 reps)
   2. Cable/machine rows (5 – 10 reps)
3. Superset #3 (repeat 3-4 times)
   1. Kneeling cable flyes for chest (5 – 10 reps)
   2. Pullovers or straight-arm pushdowns (5 – 10 reps)

Example: Alternating Exercises
Same exercises as previous example.  Do all sets of one exercise before the next exercise.
Rest between sets: 45 seconds
Do 3-4 sets x 5-10 reps on each exercise

1. Cybex machine chest presses
2. Lat pulldown, wide grip
3. Incline dumbbell presses
4. Cable/machine rows
5. Kneeling cable flyes for chest
6. Pullovers or straight-arm pushdowns

Example: No supersets
Same as previous example, except exercises are ordered by muscle group

1. Chest
   1. Cybex machine chest presses
   2. Incline dumbbell presses
   3. Kneeling cable flyes for chest
2. Back
   1. Cable/machine rows
   2. Lat pulldown, wide grip
   3. Pullovers or straight-arm pushdowns

Antagonist, Agonist, and Staggered Supersets

Antagonist muscle groups oppose each other, so that one expands when the other contracts.  For example: biceps and triceps, chest and back, quads and hamstrings.  Coupling antagonist muscle groups has the benefit of loosening the previously-worked muscle group while contracting the current muscle group, which can permit more weight or reps.  Antagonist supersets can generate volume effectively, by providing extension while still promoting blood flow to the general area.

Agonist supersets focus on the same muscle group.  Agonist supersets can be further varied by combining compound and isolation movements.  This primarily means compound-isolated and isolated-compound, which are also called post-exhaustion and pre-exhaustion, respectively, based on whether the isolated movement is performed after or before the compound (exhausting) movement.  Less common combinations are compound-compound supersets, which can be too strenuous, and isolated-isolated supersets, which lack intensity. Compound-isolated supersets are great for overloading muscles, without using heavy weights, and are an alternative to drop sets for this purpose.

Finally, staggered supersets pair completely independent muscle groups, such as chest an calves.  This has the benefit of short workout times, but lacks the benefit of intensity.

Powerful antagonist and agonist superset combinations include

• Barbell curls (biceps) and weighted dips (triceps)
• Bench press (chest) and bent-over barbell rows (back)
• Leg presses (compound) and leg curls (isolated hams)

Body Coverage

When doing a superset workout, you have two primary options: working two muscle groups per workout or doing a full-body routine.  This gives you lots of options for workout combinations, such as antagonist supersets with two muscle groups and agonist supsersets with full body.

Keep in mind that if you are performing a completely supersetted routine, especially a full-body routine, this makes for a high volume workout.  To prevent overtraining, you should only perform such a high volume routine continuously for no longer than about a month.

Conclusion

Supersets are a great way to increase intensity, prevent muscle adaptation, and make workouts more interesting.  If you are fortunate enough to have a gym partner or an empty gym, antagonist supersets of alternating sets will give you a great pump, and agonist supersets can shred stubborn muscle fibers.  Hopefully the variables we discussed will give you some inspiration for changing up your next lifting routine.

In the spirit of non-perishable ingredients and quick preparation, protein oatmeal (“proatmeal”, if you will) is a great option for breakfast or one of the first several meals of the day.

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup quick oats
• 1 & 1/2 Cups water
• 1 scoop whey protein powder of desired flavor
• 1 tbsp compatibly-flavored jam or honey
• Dash of cinnamon, depending on other flavors

Cook the oatmeal in the microwave as per the directions — don’t let it overflow the bowl while cooking.  Allow the oatmeal to sit a minute or two to make sure water is absorbed.  Add protein powder and jam, mix, and enjoy!  Make sure to use “quick” oats, which have been milled to allow water to permeate the grain quickly; “old-fashioned” oatmeal will take much longer to cook.  Adjust the amounts to suit your daily calorie needs.

Nutrition Information:

Calories: 429
Protein: 30 g
Carbs: 73 g   (Dietary Fiber: 8 g)
Fats: 5 g

In addition to resistance training and cardiovascular exercise, eating right is part of a Beach Built body. In fact, one could argue that proper nutrition is as important as exercise, if not more. In this post we’re going to cover some of the basic points about a healthy diet. The word “diet” has taken on the meaning of “starvation”, but that is not the proper meaning and is certainly not what we mean here. Losing fat requires you to consume a surprisingly high percentage of your daily calories from carbohydrates. Your “diet” is simply the types and amounts of foods that you eat.

Bulking vs. Cutting

For bodybuilders, it is well known that adding muscle mass and losing fat are essentially opposing goals. Thus, these goals are separated into phases. The phase for building muscle is called “bulking”, and during this time, higher Calories are consumed per day. Although this leads to a gain in percentage body fat, these extra Calories provide the energy necessary to move heavier weight, train harder, and they support more rapid recovery between workouts. The phase for shedding fat is called “cutting”, during which fewer Calories are consumed daily. In this phase, adding muscle mass is not a goal; in fact, preventing the loss of muscle mass is a concern, since the body is more likely to catabolize muscle tissue. Rather, effort is placed on losing fat at a pace that sustains lean muscle, while concentrating on the definition of the body, to achieve a sculpted look.

Daily Calorie Requirements

Begin designing your diet by estimating your daily calorie needs. This is easy to do using the Calorie estimator from the Mayo Clininc. This calculator does several things for you. First, it calculates your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the number of Calories your body expends when you are resting. Second, it multiplies your BMR by a factor determined by the activity level you selected, to yield your total caloric expenditure (TCE). Use the calculator to determine your TCE for both training and non-training days.

As a rule of thumb, the calories you burn in resistance training are included in this number, but the calories you burn in cardio are NOT included. You can typically estimate the number of calories burned on cardio equipment, such as treadmills or elliptical machines, by entering your weight before you start exercising. Keep this fact in mind, because you will account for it later.

Your TCE represents what you need in order to maintain your current body weight under your typical life conditions. You will make two more adjustments to your training and non-training TCE’s:

• If you are bulking, you will consume more than your TCE, and if cutting, then less than your TCE. We’ll discuss bulking in this article (cutting will come in about two months).
• On cardio days, you will add the number of Calories burned in cardio.

So, how much should you add for bulking? You can find some calculators on the Internet, but a good rule of thumb is to consume 500 additional Calories above your TCE (or you could multiply your TCE by a factor of 1.15 if you feel more comfortable with this). In general, you want to add enough Calories to support muscle growth, without storing excessive amounts of fat.

Example: Consider John, a 27-year-old male at 5’9″ and 170 pounds. His non-training day activity level is “inactive”, while his training day activity level is “moderate”. The TCE for non-training days is 2200 Calories, and for training days is 2600 Calories. So, for bulking, he will consume about 2200 + 500 = 2700 Calories on non-training days, and 2600 + 500 = 3100 Calories on training days.  In addition, John will add the number of Calories burned in cardio, for any day that he does cardio.  So, if he burns 300 Calories in cardio on a non-training day, he will consume 2700 + 300 = 3000 Calories that day.

Does this sound like a lot?  It is, but if you don’t eat enough, you won’t have enough energy to push yourself in the gym, and your body won’t repair itself effectively.  As we will see, the bulk of these Calories will come from carbohydrates (good carbs, not Little Debbie cakes!).

What to Eat

Macronutrient Proportions

Once you know how many Calories to eat, what should you eat? I am sure you are familiar with the big three components of food (macronutrients): protein, carbohydrates and fat. In the US, the amount per serving of these macronutrients is always given in the Nutrition Facts label on food product packaging, which makes it easy to design your diet menu.

The recommended breakdown of your daily Calories should consist of 30% protein, 50%-55% carbohydrates and 15%-20% fats. Remember this is by Calories, not by mass.

When calculating the number of Calories for each macronutrient in your menu, you will need to know these approximate conversions:

• 1 gram of protein = 4 Calories
• 1 gram of carbs = 4 Calories
• 1 gram of fat = 9 Calories

It is interesting to note that alcohol (which is neither protein, fat, nor carb) contains 7 Calories per gram, and so is nearly as bad as fat in terms of Calories per gram.  Even worse, distilled liquor has little or no benefit to the body.  A jigger (1.5 oz.) of most liquors (94 proof) contains approx. 115 Calories.  Alcohol also increases appetite for up to 24 hours after consumption.  Finally, sugary mixers in drinks such as margaritas contain ridiculous amounts of sugar.  A single typical margarita (drink, not pitcher) contains 500 Calories of alcohol and carbs.

Calorie Distribution

So, from our example John should distribute his 3100 Calories on training days into three “square” meals of 1033 Calories, right?  Wrong!  Ideally, your body should receive Calories continuously throughout the day. Why is that?

The answer is a bit complicated, so I’ll oversimplify it.  When you eat, your body can only process so many Calories at one time; therefore, excess Calories are stored as fat.  However, once converted to fat, they are harder for your body to convert back into energy.  Your body would rather slow down your metabolism than burn fat, when possible. So for most people with sedentary lifestyles, this is what happens.  You get into a cycle of eating too much at each meal, storing the excess as fat, and not being able to burn it off because your metabolism is slow.

There is another compounding problem from eating a few large meals per day, related to insulin response.  When you eat, your body converts food into glucose (sugar), which is released into the blood.  In response to increased blood sugar levels, your body releases the hormone insulin, which tells your body’s cells to take up the glucose to use as fuel.  It also signals your body to stop metabolizing fat.  Consider the blood sugar level over time for a person that eats a few large meals.  In between meals, because the gap is so long, the blood sugar will drop rather low.  Then suddenly, the blood sugar rises rapidly when food is consumed.  Now, when your blood sugar is very low, your body naturally craves simple sugars like Little Debbie cakes, in order to quickly raise the blood sugar.  So you eat a box of Little Debbies, and glucose is produced by the truckload, so your body signals massive amounts of insulin to be produced.  In fact, it will produce too much, which causes a rebound effect on your blood sugar levels, which are low again.  So immediately after you ate your Little Debbies, you are craving more (when you don’t need the Calories at all), so you eat them, etc, etc, etc.  This cycle is very common among our society, and has been described as a disease by some medical spokespersons.  Suffice it to say, the steadier you can maintain your blood sugar and insulin levels throughout the day, the better off you will be.

You should distribute your Calories over six to eight meals per day.  This may require some planning and preparation!

When you eventually plan your diet menu, you will want to consider factors such as:

• frequency of trips to the market
• where to store food and how to access it through the day; and
• how much time foods take to prepare

Regular and Special Meals

In general, your diet will consist of three special meals: pre-workout meal, post-workout meal, and before-bed meal; and three to five regular meals.  Special meals do not follow the proportions of macronutrients that were given earlier.  Here are the rules for these special meals:

Pre-Workout

• Eat no fats (as little as possible)
• Consume 20 – 40 grams of carbs.  Carbs should be basic sugars (mono- and poly-saccharides, e.g., sucrose, glucose, maltodextrin) instead of grains, vegetables, or fruits
• Eat only half or one-quarter of the protein allocated to other meals. Protein should be a quickly absorbed form, such as whey protein shake

Post-Workout

• Eat no fats (as little as possible)
• Consume 40 – 60 grams of carbs.  Carbs should be basic sugars (mono- and poly-saccharides, e.g., sucrose, glucose, maltodextrin) instead of grains, vegetables, or fruits
• Eat the allocated amount of protein, plus the remainder from the pre-workout meal (so you will consume 1.5 to 1.75 times the protein allocated to other meals).  Protein should be a quickly absorbed form, such as whey protein shake

Before-Bed

• Eat no fats (as little as possible)
• Eat no carbs
• Consider a whey & casein protein shake (casein protein is found in dairy, and is absorbed more slowly than whey)

Your regular meals will consists of roughly the optimal daily proportions of macronutrients, plus whatever is added or removed to make up for the special meals, so that the daily macronutrient proportions are correct.  In general, the pre-and post-workout meals include no fats because fats interfere with the “absorbtion” of proteins and sugars for building muscle.  Sugars are needed here because they provide energy for the workout by raising blood sugar quickly and then quickly replenish glycogen stores depleted during the workout.  At bedtime, we want to avoid fats and carbs because, since we are resting, they will be converted into fat; proteins are needed to avoid muscle catabolism and to provide the protein necessary to repair and grow muscle fibers damaged during resistance training.

Macronutrient Sources

By now, you’ve probably figured out that Little Debbie cakes are a bad choice of food.  In general, proteins should com from lean sources, carbohydrates should not be processed and should contain a lot of fiber, and fats should be high in Omega-3 and should not be saturated, trans, etc.

Good sources of protein:

• Eggs (usually the whites, as yolks are high in fat)
• Fish
• Lean red meats
• Poultry
• Low-fat cottage cheese
• Fat-free (skim) milk
• Whey
• Casein

Good sources of carbohydrates:

• Whole grains
• Oats
• Fruits
• Fibrous vegetables
• Starchy vegetables
• Whole grain pastas or breads
• Sprouted breads

Good sources of fats:

• Fish oil
• Flax seeds & oil
• Olive oil
• Fish
• Nuts
• Coconut oil
• Avocados

Remember that not everything has to come from this list, including condiments with low Calorie counts (avoid most salad dressings and read the nutrition labels!)  Include such items sparingly.  For example, Jif reduced fat peanut butter can be a good choice because it is high in protein (but also fat!).  The important thing to consider is that Jif contains mostly natural ingredients, rather than the list of chemicals found on other brands’ lists of  ingredients.

What Next?

Now that you have this information, what should you do?  First, you should calculate your daily Calorie needs.  If you already have a fitness regimen, then use this to determine your TCE plus bulking Calories and cardio Calories.  Second, you should plan to eat between six to eight meals per day.  You should actually open up a spreadsheet program and make a full day’s menu.  Create columns for the type and amount of food, grams of protein, grams of carbs, grams of fat, and Calories.  You can easily find the macronutrient and Calorie counts, either from a book, such as The Complete Book of Food Counts by Corinne T. Netzer (highly recommended) or by searching the food name at http://www.nutritiondata.com/.  Obey the rules of special meals, and come up with a menu that meets your Calorie needs for a workout day.  Calculate the total grams of each macronutrient, convert the grams to Calories using the conversions given earlier, and calculate the number of Calories for each macronutrient using the formula:

Calories = (grams of macronutrient) × (Calories per gram of macronutrient)

Then calculate the proportion of each macronutrient to see if it is close to the optimal proportion.  For example, the proportion of protein is found by

protein % = 100% × (Calories from protein) ÷ [ (Calories from protein) + (Calories from carbs) + (Calories from fats) ]

You will need to adjust the types and amounts of foods to get the proportions to come out close — they don’t need to be exact.  Once you have such a menu in place, it is much easier to incorporate different foods for variety, and to modify for non-workout days and cardio Calories.  Third and finally, use your menu to estimate how much food you need to buy each week.

Although we haven’t arrived at a complete nutrition and supplement plan, you have enough information to get you 80% or 90% of the way toward that goal.  In a future post, we’ll discuss more specifically about the contents of each meal, and we’ll look at a sample menu.

If you are like me, you’ve always wanted to get more volume in your chest and have those solid, plate-like pectoralis muscles that you see on television.  My arms are the easiest for me to develop and seem to come naturally, but building a good chest has always remained elusive.

That’s where Milos comes in.  Milos Sarcev is a professional bodybuilder, and while I am not looking to be huge like him, he has some extremely valuable lessons to teach about chest training.  The training video follows, but here are a few key takeaways:

• Don’t use too much weight; focus on form.
• Keep elbows out at a 90-degree angle.
• Keep chest forward.
• Lift the weight with a chest contraction; don’t launch it up using auxiliary muscles.

The first of these cannot be overstated.  Some people think that lifting a lot of weight is the goal — it’s not!  “Bodybuilding” is different than “weight-lifting”.  Weight lifting is the sport of lifting the most weight, but is not focused on the aesthetics of the body; while bodybuilding is all about aesthetics of the body, rather than having the heaviest bench press at your gym.

I am looking forward to using Milos’ advice later today! I will exclude chest from my next full-body workout, so as not to overtrain. I’m also doing a little cardio today.

The Fit Show Season One, Episode #3: Milos Sarcev – Chest Training

Today I did the example workout from this Bodybuilding.com article, with some modifications.  Since I didn’t have a workout partner, I did bench press on the Cybex chest press machine (but I did do the freeweight incline dumbell presses).  I also replaced the barbell squats with deadlifts on the FreeMotion Lift machine.  This works well because I can incorporate shrugs in the upright position.  But this exercise really took a lot out of me and I had to sit down between sets (4 sets).  It’s really important to listen to your body and not overdo it.  If you need to take a little longer break between sets to catch your breath, then do.