Year: 2008

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A Guide to Body Composition

For far too many decades, dieters and diet books focused only on bodyweight.  If it went down, that was good.  If it didn’t or went up, that was bad.  And while body weight is more useful than some think, it doesn’t tell the entire story.  Rather, body composition, and altering it, is where the real focus should lie.

In the following guide I will address a number of topics related to body composition.  First, to ensure everyone is starting on the same page, let me define what it actually is.

Body Composition Basics: What are you Made Of?

I’m not talking here about the scientifically proven fact that little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice while boys are made of slugs, and snails and puppy dog tails; rather, I want to talk about what the human body is composed of in biological terms.

Let’s imagine that I could magically (and hopefully painlessly) separate your body into all of its different components and put them on a slab somewhere (putting you back together might be a problem).… Keep Reading

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Is Milk the New Sports Drink?

Although milk is often surrounded by controversy as I discuss below, emerging data suggests that it can have massive benefits for athletes.  These include body composition improvements along with it’s potential as a sports drink for both rehydration and recovery following training.  Today I want to look at a research paper that examines the data up to 2008.

Roy BD. Milk  the new sports drink? A Review. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2008 Oct 2;5:15

Introduction

Milk, like all aspects of nutrition is often surrounded by controversy. From the nutjob tinfoil on the head anti-milk zealots to bodybuilders who say that milk makes you smooth, milk is often thought of as a terrible food for adult humans to eat.

Yet, objectively milk is an excellent source of high quality protein (a mix of casein and whey), carbohydrates (lactose, which admittedly some people have problems digesting) along with providing fluids, highly bio-available calcium, and electrolytes.… Keep Reading

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Clean Style Deadlift Technique

Having examined Bench Press Technique fairly recently, I wanted to cover another important (and usually improperly done) exercise and that is the clean style deadlift. And while deadlifts are certainly less likely to be seen at the average commercial gym, when they are seen it’s usually a biomechanical horror that makes your back hurt to watch.

I Am Talking Only About the Clean Style Deadlift

To avoid some criticism and annoyances up front let me be clear on what I am and am not discussing.    Specifically, I want to make it clear that this piece is only detailing the clean style deadlift.

I mention this in that, in recent years, other deadlift techniques have become somewhat more common. Rounded upper backs and more of a stiff-legged type of DL are being seen. This seems to be especially true in geared powerlifting and among super-heavyweight lifters. But those are very specific styles of deadlift for every specific purposes.… Keep Reading

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General Philosophies of Muscle Mass Gain

Because of the primary focus of my books and many of my article topics I tend to get tagged as the fat-loss guy more often than not; but nutrition and training for muscle gain is actually a primary interest of mine. Having worked with bodybuilders, powerlifters and other athletes over the years, figuring out the optimal approach for muscle mass gains is just as important.

In this article (which will actually form an introduction to a series of articles I’ll be doing over the next several weeks and months), I want to talk about some basic concepts related to mass gaining nutrition, primarily looking at some of the different philosophies of mass-gaining that are out there. As usually, I’ll look at each in my normal way, looking at the various pros and cons of each approach.

And, of course, I’ll give my own recommendations for what I think is actually optimal for most trainees under most circumstances.… Keep Reading

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How Many Carbohydrates Do You Need?

How many carbohydrates do you need to eat?  This is one of those perennial questions around which there is endless debate.  One the one hand, mainstream nutritionists continue to recommend very high carbohydrate intakes.  On the other are “fringe” groups who are convinced that carbohydrates are the cause of all ills in the world.

And while I have discussed these controversies previously, primarily focusing on health issues, I want to look at the topic again in a more athletic context.

Carbohydrate Intake Recommendations

It’s safe to say that most carbohydrate recommendations that you will see are put in terms of percentages, you should be eating 45% of your calories as carbs, or 65% or whatever number is being used.

Now, I don’t like to use percentages to set up a diet as they can be terribly misleading. A low percentage of a very high calorie intake may have more total carbs than a high percentage of a lower calorie intake.… Keep Reading