We’re about to enter a new month, a new challenge. With that, a whole bunch of new Mondays…

That annoying day when nobody wants to work, that day that many people would remove from their week. The only really great thing about Monday is that smell of Bench Pressing around the gym. Doesn’t it lift your spirits?

Walking around the gym with a pumped up chest and hiding your legs (hold up, we’re not trying to discriminate) is a great feeling, which many people love. It’s easily observable, since it’s the busiest day in the gym. Now why’s that, I wonder…

RELATED: FOREARMS, THE FORGOTTEN MUSCLE!

But all of that doesn’t matter. Now that you’re here, you’ll do the course and set an example!

1. AMS– This acronym is very important; it stands for Accessory Muscle Strengthening. What does that mean? Isn’t the Bench Press all about the chest? Well, sort of. It’s a compound movement. Even though it primarily works the chest, it also recruits your anterior delts as well as your triceps. So a good way of progressing and gaining strength on the Bench Press is to strengthen these muscles. How? – you ask. Well, thanks to the Military Press for your anterior delts and the Close Grip Bench Press for your triceps. These two exercises will be important in your Amateur to pro transformation. You can fit them in on the days that you work these muscles, but you should increase the training frequency for these 2 exercises to 2-3 times a week.
2. Strengthening your upper back – What? There are even more muscles intervening? Yes, but these upper back muscles act in more of a passive way. Basically what they do is provide stability to the exercise. Long term it will also keep your shoulders healthy, since keeping your back tight while pressing relieves unnecessary tension from the deltoid. Less pain, less injury.
3. Foot placement – In the benches for pressing area, it’s common to see a plethora of bamboos, like a bamboo forest. Some with their “bamboos” (legs) wide, some close, some on the bench…even in the air. The goal here, so that you have better leverage to perform the press is to place your feet firmly apart, but not too much apart, while keeping a good amount of tension going through your legs, trying not to arch your back excessively. That’ll only shorten your range of motion, which can result in incorrect muscle development, injuries and lack of “gainz”, brah.
4. “Bar pathway” – The most efficient way, mechanically speaking, is to raise the bar from the bottom of your chest until the bottom of your neck. So, it’ll be a slightly curved trajectory, since your elbows will rotate throughout the concentric portion. Try to maintain tension on the pecs throughout both phases, both concentric and eccentric so that you optimally recruit its muscle fibers.
5. Elbow and wrist positioning– When we execute a flat Bench Press, we should keep our elbows and wrists aligned with the bar, specially on the bottom portion of the exercise. When you bend your elbow to reach this point, you’ll eliminate unnecessary tension on your rotator cuff and tendons. So, more health for your joints and tendons. The wrist, which you must not confuse with your fist, should not lean back. It should remain aligned with your forearm. Many weightlifters have broken their arms because they incorrectly placed their wrists in relation to their arms. This obviously happens when great amounts of weight are used.

When we go into a gym, it’s rare that we see someone packing serious “beef” on the posterior part of their legs. They usually carry a slice of ham instead.

What happened? Is it just an ornament?

In most cases, leg workouts are extremely focused on the quadriceps and tend to include only one isolation exercise for the Hamstrings, the posterior part of the legs, which usually is a leg curl performed at the end of your workout, right?

Well, it’s no surprise that this muscle is lagging…

The hamstring muscle group (where the bicep femoris is included) performs very important functions in terms of our motion, even though many people think this is the quads’ job.

SEE ALSO: DANILO MATOS’S 8 WEEK TRANSFORMATION

An athlete that doesn’t work these muscles has a high risk of injury and much less performance, since everything that these muscles do is important:

• Knee flexion;
• Hip extension.

These two movements are extremely important in our movements, including running, which has by itself acceleration/deceleration movements as well as many changes of direction. Deven though a race is primarily the results of good motor coordination, the work that needs to be done by this portion of your thighs is extremely important.

RELATED: WOMEN SHOULDN’T DO BENCH PRESSES

• In order to structure a good hamstring workout, you need to understand that:
  1. You must perform knee flexion as well as hip extension;
  2. This group of muscles is built for speed, so it has a high contractile speed;
  3. They’re involved in knee stabilization.

  Having these three aspects in your mind will allow you to optimally train this portion of the legs, by focusing on the eccentric (negative) portion of the exercises, controlling it slowly, and exploding on the concentric (positive) portions!

  SEE ALSO: FOREARMS, THE FORGOTTEN MUSCLES…

  Exercises to work into your routine:

  Hip Extension:

  • Romanian Deadlift;
  • Low Pulley Hip Extension;
  • Power Cleans or Snatches;

  Knee Flexion:

  • Glute-Ham Raise;
  • Leg Curl;
  • Isometric Leg Curl – 3 positions, 30 seconds each.

  .

RELATED: HOW TO WORK THE LATERAL PORTION OF YOUR DELTS!

Pro Tips: If you find it hard activating your hamstrings, before you actually start the workout, grab on to a wall or poste and perform 10 repetitions of a Standing Body Weight leg Curl. When executing Leg Curls on a machine, try to counter the hip raise by pushing it against the pad on the machine, so that you isolate and recruit your hamstrings. You’ll see that the load will go down, but exercise execution will improve, originating better results.

Many of our clients ask about beta-alanine supplementation during our coaching programs. Beta-alanine is present in numerous supplements, but mostly pre-workouts.

It’s transversely used in this type of supplement, so this question must be asked: Is it worth it?

More than that, we have to decompose beta-alanine into a little science:

RELATED: HOW TO MAINTAIN OUR DIET WHILE TRAVELING (PART 1/2)

Beta-alanine is a modified version of the Alanine amino acid, and is present I many natural protein sources, especially meat. When beta-alanine is ingested, it’s transformed along with histidine (another amino acid) into Carnosine. It’s then stored in the cells and is released when a decrease in PH occurs. The enzyme responsible for carnosine’s synthesis is called ATPGD1, which manifests itself mainly in the muscles and in a smaller scale in the brain.

High carnosine concentrations can protect our body from diet induced PH drops. In a state of ketosis, it can also offer protection against exercise’s byproduct lactic-acid. It also demonstrates to have neural protection, anti-aging, and anti-oxidant functions, as well protecting us from glycation. Also, it can make contractile muscle more sensitive to calcium.

Beta-alanine is synthesized in the liver and is posteriorly transported to the cells where carnosine is synthesized and stored, primarily in type 2 muscle fibers. Even though carnosine is composed by the junction of 2 amino acids, the limiting factor in its production is beta-alanine availability.

Even though beta-alanine plays such an important role, histidine deficiencies can result in diminished carnosine and beta-alanine in plasma and muscle.

Supplementing with beta-alanine results in greater carnosine concentration levels, that if it (carnosine) were to be taken by itself.

Beta-alanine is a very peculiar case, because it has a side effect that many people have grown to love, known as paresthesia. This phenomenon makes the user experience tingles/pins and needles on his face or body extremities. This side effect is totally harmless and only happens when there’s an over-usage of this modified amino acid (doses larger than 1g per serving). Pre-workouts can contain up to 3,2g of this products, per scoop.

By supplementing with beta-alanine, you’ll have increased muscular resistance, since it helps in lactic-acid elimination. But not only! It also reduces muscular fatigue. One of the chronic fatigue indicators is a high concentration of beta-alanine in urine!

RELATED: MARCO’S 15 WEEK TRANSFORMATION!

This product isn’t only for men. Actually, beta-alanine supplementation on women can reduce the perception of fatigue and exhaustion, as you can read about in the following link: (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17136505).

So that you don’t experience paresthesia and guarantee greater efficacy of this product, the best thing to do is take it every 4 hours. 800mg of beta-alanine + 200mg o histidine. You can ingest this combo in the form of pills or in powder, adding it to your favorite drink.

If you truly wish to optimize your approach regarding nutrition, you’ll have to consider flexible dieting, where you’ll calculate your macros on a daily basis.

The three macro nutrients (macros) that exist are protein, carbohydrates and fats. By monitoring these three, you will be able to increase or maintain your muscle mass when you’re Bulking/Cutting or in Maintenance. This allows you to have a greater freedom within your food consumption as well as your lifestyle.

Did we just say calories? Yes!!!

Calories are the kings and queens of our diet.

Calories are energy measuring unit that our body uses to survive. They determine if you gain or lose weight, meaning that you can only lose or gain weight if you’re in a caloric deficit/excess.

RELATED: HAMSTRINGS…THE SEARCH OF THE LOST CONTINENT!

When you combine the two motorizations, of calories and macro-nutrients, you’ll be provided with greater sustainability within your daily routine. There are no restrictions, no good or bad foods, no fairy tales. There is a nutritional content, which is a very important factor in your transformation.

It’s also crucial to keep a sound mind.

In a study done at Louisiana State University and Pennington Biomedical Research Center that had as a goal finding out the symptoms of eating disorders that were connected to diets, they tested the influence of a restrictive diet versus a flexible diet on 188 women.

The results showed that those who followed a restrictive diet had more symptoms of eating disorders, mood changes and greater concerns about their physical appearance than those you followed a flexible approach. These effects were felt throughout the entire study, they were constant. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11883916)

In your diet, science plays a vital role, your body works in a very specific way. On the other hand, your mind also need very special attention. When you follow a flexible diet, you can take advantage of that, using it as a sculpting tool for you to create your “sculpture”.

As soon as you can dominate these factors thanks to a scientific approach, nothing will be out of your reach. You are your own limit.

Bad performance on Pull-ups? Then you have to train them more often. Start every workout with 20 Pull-ups, done in the least time possible, using various mini-sets with reps only as high as the maximum you can achieve. Ex: Your max is 6 Pull-ups, do mini-sets of 3.

Use a watch or a times to monitor the time it takes you, so that every time you try this, you aim to beat your previous record.

RELATED: DÁRIO’S TRANSFORMATON!

Here are a few tips:

1. If your max rep number is 4-5, split that up into mini-sets of 2 reps, while resting as little as possible. 20 seconds should be enough to regain your breath.
2. If, when you do the second repetition on the second set, it feels hard, increase the rest time to 30 seconds.
3. If it’s still hard with that longer rest time, you’re better off doing sets of 1, while resting only between 15 and 20 seconds.

As you progress, you’ll be able to do more than two reps in a mini-set, but remember that the progression should be slow. Once again, monitor the time it takes you to perform the 20 repetitions. As the number of reps in each mini-sets increases, the total execution time should diminish.

Ideally, in 8-10 weeks you’ll be able to perform the 20 pull-ups in two sets while only resting 20 seconds. When that happens, you’ll probably be able to perform 15 Pull-ups in a row with no trouble.

RELATED: WOMEN SHOULDN’T BENCH PRESS

Progression method:

As soon as you can perform the 20 reps in two sets, with no more than 30 seconds rest, increase the total goal to 30 reps.

Eventually, when you’re able to perform 30 reps in two sets with only 20 seconds rest in between, go back to a 20 rep goal. But, this time, add a 5-10kg to your waist and start the progression once again!

Even though the female fitness world is ever growing, for women, the first contact with the gym can be quite hard (for men too, but they don’t admit it). Unfortunately, this industry still encourages some myths and even the people have a tendency to indulge in these myths, which are everything but true, we’ll have you know

Mistake nº1 – Obsession with toning and being afraid of the “iron”

For many women, their goal is to tone their body. This search has led to the appearance of many programs that consist of light weight utilization in exercises that are a bit odd, to say the least. This is not the best way to achieve this goal.

In order to become toned, you need to lose excess body fat and increase muscle cell size. This way you can improve your body composition (that means the shape of your body).

RELATED: THE TRICK TO DO MORE PULL-UPS!

Solutions?

The most important factor in toning is your diet. Starting a flexible diet can be a great advantage, since it focuses solely on ingested energy, calories and macro-nutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fats). This will allow you to manipulate your weight and consequently the appearance of your body, maintaining a healthy balance between fat loss and muscle mass increase.

After good nutrition comes training. And don’t fool yourselves, “weights” are not just for men. Even though an olympic barbell, with many plates on each side, doesn’t fit in most make up kits, it should be used just as often. The weight might be intimidating, but it’s a good way to increase resistance in specific movements, especially in the correct amounts. If it isn’t hard, you should increase.

It isn’t the weight of the dumbbells that makes men be men, but their hormones. So there’s nothing to fear regarding the “weights”, because it won’t change your gender…

Mistake nº2 – Not adjusting rest intervals during training

During physical exercise, our body is highly stimulated, it suffers tears, burns resources, etc… So, the frequency and duration of rest intervals are two very important factors in a workout’s “drive”. It’s during these times that our body recovers.

Adjusting rest interval duration between sets can make all of the difference in order to have a successful workout. Especially in our mind, which makes this control a bit harder thanks to procrastination. Who doesn’t like those extra 30 seconds rest?

RELATED: MARCO’S TRANSFORMATION

Solutions?

Rest time will ultimately depend on the exercise performed (volume and intensity). Various studies show that athletes, during strength workouts, achieved better results by resting between 3-5 minutes. But, better hypertrophy results were achieved by resting between 30-60 seconds! You can see this information in the following link:(http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19691365)

So:

• For strength exercises or big lifts use 2-3 minutes rest, especially if you’re trying maximal loads.
• You can also use the exercise-rest ratio 2:1, meaning that a 1 minute exercise should have 20-30 seconds rest.
• When you’re performing high intensity workouts, you can use supersets, by performing consecutive exercises with only 10-30 seconds rest.

It’s most certainly summer for many of you, summer days get longer and longer, nights out with the buddies become more frequent… The only thing missing in all of this is that full pump in the muscles during your workouts, right?

Training always focuses on our body’s motor development in each exercise, meaning that muscular/articular performance has a tendency to increase with training. Many people try out several variations, like the differences in range of motion to determine what the most efficient one is for the development of a certain muscle.

Should you primarily partial ranges of motion during a workout?

Probably not…

Today we know that full range of motion works/recruits more muscle fibers than partial range of motion. Even though partial ranges allow greater load, a full range ends up having greater benefits. So, full range of motion should be included in any exercise for better performance, but it might not be the answer you’re looking for. Bear with us.

Let’s imagine that you’re performing a flat bench press, there are certain portions of the movement where you feel greater resistance or difficulty, right? This is where partial movements can come into play.

RELATED: DÁRIO’S TRANSFORMATION!

Using a partial range during some exercises to hit a certain portion of the muscle can be the secret to overcome weaknesses. Especially in portions of the movement where you’re weaker or less efficient in terms of muscular-articular motion.

So, the solution always comes back to science, finding the best tools for each task:

• A full range of motion leads to better results, both in strength and in muscular development. It should be included in any exercise.
• Partial ranges are good tools to work weak points in certain portions of the muscle.

References:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15320644

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22027847

At Team Transformerz, we don’t advise the consumption of alcoholic drinks. But, we know that for many of you they are a good way to cope with rising temperatures, because after all, there is nothing better than an ice cold pint while you watch the sunset on the beach, is there?

Alcoholic beverages also count in your diet, since they contain macro-nutrients, meaning that they also have an energetic value for our body. As you well know, this is the decisive factor for weight loss/gain. Still, when it comes to alcohol, it’s specific amount is not always known. Still, you can perfectly count it, let us explain:

• Alcohol is a carbohydrate, it’s part of the carbohydrates family, it gives us 7kcal per gram, contrasting with its remaining carbohydrates family, which provides only 4kcal per gram
• So, if we decide to drink alcohol, we must take into account the alcoholic percentage of the drink so that we can correctly calculate its nutritional value.

RELATED: WHAT IS REVERSE DIETING?

How can I calculate its caloric value?

This step will depend on the circumstance. Generally, grams of alcohol don’t come labelled as carbs, so we have to calculate them from the alcoholic percentage of the drink (usually it’s on the label).

Example:

Generic beer (250 ml) with 5% alcohol has a total energetic value of 108kcal, with 9g of carbs and 1,1g of protein.

The alcoholic volume allows us to know that 12,5 ml of said beer will be alcohol.

We know that 1000ml of pure alcohol weighs around 791,5g, so, our beer will have around 9,9g of alcohol, which represents 69,3kcal.

It becomes harder to quantify the amount of alcohol when we don’t know its origin, like when we drink a cocktail (various) in a public establishment.

Still, it’s possible to do using generic values³, for example:

1 glass of lemon vodka with 100 ml of vodka (or four English shot measures). If you know that alcohol volume in vodka is around 38&, then, it’ll have 38ml or 30g of alcohol.

So, can alcohol be considered a ghost macro-nutrient?

In a certain way, yes. But even though it’s quantity isn’t explicit, it does have an influence on your caloric intake and should be monitored, since it’ll have an impact on your body and mind. So, alcohol can make you fat, but once again, the determining factor will be its energetic value, its calories. They will dictate weight loss/gain.

It still has other effects, as various studies demonstrate, like alcohol inhibiting protein synthesis, suppressing the anabolic response rate in muscle fibers. This means that it can also affect your workouts, since muscle recovery is put at risk.

That’s why moderation in alcohol consumption is important, be it regarding your diet or your training. Be responsible.

RELATED: POSTERIOR DELTS, ANOTHER FORGOTTEN MUSCLE!

References:

1. https://examine.com/supplements/Alcohol/
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24533082
3. https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teor_alco%C3%B3lico
4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11584159