Back when I was a bodybuilder, we consumed amino acids like they were jelly beans! Of course, we couldn’t eat jelly beans, so it seemed a pretty crappy trade-off. Today we know so much more about amino acids. BCAA’s are amino acids that include leucine, isoleucine and valine. Unlike the other amino acids, these little guys bypass the liver and go straight to doing their jobs, which of course is repairing muscle. Taking BCAA’s prior to your workout is a great idea. I would even consider mixing your BCAA’s with your water to drink during exercise. This way your muscle has what it takes when it starts to repair immediately after your workout. I also like to take arginine and onithine prior to my workout. Both of these aminos help drive nitric oxide production. This helps the muscles to relax and promotes more blood flow into the muscle, allowing oxygen, nutrients and red blood cells to the muscle site.  Add this to your routine and you will see results pretty quickly – and you will feel a pretty healthy pump during your resistance training.

Keep checking our blogs for my next post on glutamine.

This is a hot topic because it seems everyone has a low carb diet.  ESP always holds true to the idea that diet is a personal thing based on many different facets, including resting metabolic rate, lifestyle, and body type.  For the most part, diets are more about math and timing than they are about some gimmick or trick. Low carb diets typically work because you are removing simple sugars from your diet which, if not burned through exercise, are most often stored as fat. In addition, the protein is feeding the muscle, and lean muscle increases your resting metabolic rate which means the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn at rest.  That being said, the thing that low carb diets often do is put your body in a caloric deficit that can lead your body into starvation mode.  In my 6 year career as a competitive bodybuilder, the thing that we did to strip the fat and get ripped was as close to a “trick” on the body as you can get. We called it 3 days low, 1 day high.  Three full days of low carbohydrates followed by one day of high (and by high we really mean moderate consumption of carbohydrates), and then we’d go right back to 3 days low. This kept our bodies from going into starvation mode and purposely dropping our metabolic rates to prepare for famine.  If you stay low calorie, low carb for extended periods of time, your body will see that as an attack and will slow all of its processes down to get ready for what it sees as a long hibernation. At this point, I can’t tell you what to eat or how many calories because I don’t know your profile.  If you want specifics, you should sign up for the Gold membership now!  But I can at least give you an idea of the percentages for each day.

3 days low carb – 70% Protein, 20% Fat, 10% Carb – All bread carbs should be consumed in the AM hours, then only veggies in the PM hours.

1 day high – 40% Protein, 40% Carbs,  10% Fat – Try to hold true to only vegetable carbs for dinner.

A good rule of thumb is to consume 32 ounces at every meal.  If you happen to be on a low calorie diet, drinking water can help alleviate the feelings of hunger, but can you drink too much?  Typically the answer to that question is no, and you should always consult your doctor if you are concerned for any reason. If you have kidney or adrenal problems, or if you’re taking diuretics, consulting a physician about your water intake is crucial.  Don’t drink all of the water at once — drink several glasses of water throughout the day. Of course hydrating during intense exercise, like PED’s or PER’s, is essential to maintaining your stamina and warding off fatigue.  If you are waiting to drink when you are thirsty during a long bike ride or run, it is difficult to stay ahead of water loss.  Always hydrate while exercises at a rate a little faster than you truly think you need to.  Also remember that if caffeine is a major part of your diet, then you will need to increase your water consumption; coffee, tea, and other caffeine laden drinks are great sources of a pick-me-up, but they’re also a diuretic. Temperature and humidity are also concerns: make sure that on hot, humid days you increase the amount of water you consume accordingly.

Sources:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Tips for Preventing Heat-Related Illness.” http://www.bt.cdc.gov/disasters/extremeheat/heattips.asp.

Institute of Medicine. “Dietary Reference Intakes: Water, Potassium, Sodium, Chloride, and Sulfate.” http://www.iom.edu/?id=18495.