The One Critical component In Building A Muscular Body

If you have been trying to build muscle mass, then you know the importance of nutrition as a component in your muscle growth goals.

Many bodybuilders; when I use the term bodybuilder I use it in the truest sense of the word, "someone that is building his or her body," know of the importance of tuna fish in their diet.

Recently, the news came out regarding the muscle building benefits of omega-3 fatty acids i.e. enhanced fat loss, muscle growth and joint recovery. Suddenly salmon, the fish with the richest source of omega-3 fatty acids was nudging out Charlie the tuna for leadership.

If you were to choose one fish which would it be? Aside from personal taste preference.

Here's the facts:

Per 3 ounce can of light tuna has fewer calories, less total fat and more protein than fresh salmon. It's also a little richer in critical amino acids, like BCCAs, arginine, and glutamine.

Fresh salmon however is much richer in omega-3 fatty acids, more than 7 times the amount of tuna!

Fresh salmon also contains more than twice the vitamin b6 and slightly more vitamin b12. Each fish is definitely loaded with nutritional benefits.

So the question now becomes not WHICH fish to eat but WHEN!

For Meals before and after a workout the best choice is tuna. Why??

Greater protein content

Lower fat levels insure delivery of critical amino acids

Eating salmon around workout time is a bad idea. The healthy fats slow down the digestion process of the salmos proteins.

Still I like to get in 2 to 3 meals a week; on rest days, of salmon.

Or at worst eat my salmon meal but, not work out till 4 hours later

There has bee some recent studies as to the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids in the area of increasing male libido. I'll post more regarding tat in some future article.

Isometric Training- Fact Or Muscle Building Hoax? Part 1

I get tired of reading in body building forums about Isometric training and how they, these "internet experts" believe it doesn't work. They never offer up any facts or proof, just their opinion. Which they proudly pronounce it as if it were GOD's word!

Well folks, here are the facts read em and weep OR get excited!

I would like you to take a moment to read this entire article, this is not some rehash of the same subject. In this article I will break it down for you and give you all the facts.

Isometric Training In Space

Here's a short snip from an article published by NASA-

"Strength training, says Fitts, involves two different types of resistance exercises: high-intensity isotonics, which shortens and lengthens muscles (for example, lifting and lowering a dumbbell), and isometrics, which fully contracts muscles without movement (for example, pushing against a doorway). Both types of exercise could potentially reduce muscle atrophy in microgravity. Fitts' experiments with rats, however, suggest that isometrics may protect slow fibers better than isotonics because slow fibers develop very little force during relatively fast isotonic motions."

Hmm, sounds to me as the boys in space are using what works to build strength.

Isometric Training On Earth

Oh wait here's another one for the ladies, just in case you thought Isometric training was just for men. This a small part of an interview with Jane Seymour the actress regarding how she stays in incredible shape.

"Lifetime: What is your exercise of choice these days?

Seymour: Isometrics. I used to throw my back out often. A couple of years ago, it got so bad that I couldn't move. It turned out I had a herniated disc. That's the kind of injury you expect to see in a linebacker in the Super Bowl, not in a woman who weighs 115 pounds. I had to have surgery. My doctor recommended isometrics to help my recovery, so I've been doing it for two years." With isometrics, you have to focus on your body's alignment and engaging the muscles. I get more out of isometrics than crunches. It has given me really strong stomach muscles, and I have a longer, leaner look than before.

I really wasn't concentrating on looking good with isometrics — that was just a by-product.

The main thing is that it has helped with my back pain. I don't need a chiropractor or a masseuse."

I guess Isometric training is being used for rehabilitation. But, then what do doctors know!

In Part 2 I will reveal what Olympic Teams thru out the world think about Isometric Training

Isometric Training - Fact Or Muscle Building Hoax? Part 2

Soviet Isometric Training

Soviet literature concludes "…there is not a statistically significant difference between the maximum strength, as measured in a static regime, and the maximum weight that can be lifted in the same movement." (1) According to the A.S. Medvedyev 1986. report Isometric training plays a big role in the soviet strength training programs.

Benefits of Isometric Training In Everyday Life

I know that's all good you're saying "but I'm not an astronaut, I don't have an injury and I'm not a soviet powerlifter, how can Isometric training help me?"

I'm Glad You Asked...

Some of the General Benefits are as follows;

• Increased Lean Muscle Mass – Regular training stimulates the growth of new lean muscle tissue. This is vital, not only for looking good, but staying healthy as it burns fat, strengthen your bones and keeps you young.
• Increased Metabolism – The more lean tissue you have the faster you burn calories and the faster your metabolism becomes. Lean Muscle tissue is metabolically active – it requires more calories to sustain it than fat.
• Increased Fat Loss – This is tied into the faster metabolism. Lean Muscle tissue requires 75 kcals to sustain it, whereas fat only requires three. This means that if you only add 5lbs of muscle you can burn an additional 20-25 lbs of fat a year doing nothing!
• Decreased Risk of Osteoporosis – Regular training increases the density and hardness of the bones and thus strengthening you against osteoporosis.
• Lowered Bad Cholesterol – Exercie produces more HDL (good cholesterol while reducing the bad LDL cholesterol. This reduces among other things your chance of heart disease.

The Benefits of Isometrics provide all of those while also providing:

Increased strength faster than any other form of training – this is because it works the muscles more intensity and in a shorter space of time over conventional methods. In fact you can finish a workout in as little as 7 minutes.

Increased Neurological Strength – Isometric Training teaches you body to recruit more muscle fibre for each movement, thus your increased strength comes not just form more muscle, but form more efficient muscle.

Can be done anywhere – it requires no special equipment or a large commitment of time. You can do Isometric Training in your car while stuck in traffic, in the shower, even while reading this website.

Safer than conventional training – Because it doesn’t involve movement or weights, so they are far safer than any other form of exercise and often used in rehabilitation.

Dramatically improve conventional training – are you getting stuck in a lift or would like to lift more? Isometric training has been proven to increase the strength in lifts such as the bench press by as much as 40% and in the Nautilus North Study with an average increase of over 84%. These are just some of the many benefits that Isometric training can offer you.

But, wait there's more...

What if I told you that there was an Isometric training protocol that would increase the results by over 300% from normal Isometric Training?

In a future article I will reveal this almost "magically" muscle building secret.

Isometrics And Isometric Training: Alexander Zass The Father Of Isometrics

Alexander Zass-The Amazing Samson 1888 - 1962

Zass was born in Vilna, Poland in 1888, but lived most of his early years in Russia and after 1924 in Britain. He lifted a 500 pound girder with his teeth, carried a small horse, caught a woman fired from a cannon and allowed professional boxers to hit him in the stomach, but his greatest talents were in bending steel bars and breaking chains which were the center piece of his music hall exhibitions.

Tree Climber

At first he developed himself by climbing trees, running and with home made dumbells and barbells. Later he trained under some of the great Russian professional strongmen including Krelov, Anokhin, and Demetrioff who taught their systems in person and through correspondence. Anokhin taught his system to George Lurich who eventually became famous as a world champion strongman and wrestler.

Isometrics And Maximum Tension

Zass was very innovative and started bending green branches and twigs to develop his grip strength. Perhaps this was the start of his great belief in the application of isometrics and "maximum tension" (a concept that is present in Russian training methods to this day) for the development of strength. He believed such an approach superior to the use of weights in developing strength.

Walls Do Not A Prison Make

Whilst a prisoner of war he continued to develop his strength with the use of isometrics by pulling on the bars and chains. This episode and the knowledge that he obtained from it later became the basis of his mail order course which featured isometrics in the form of pulling on chains of various lengths.

Zass lived a very full and exciting life on many fronts. In addition to being a strongman he was also an accomplished animal trainer. At one time he worked for military intelligence in Russia and later as cover for his manager, Captain Howard, who was a British secret agent.

Unfortunately at the age of 74, Zass died, murdered in 1962.

The amazing thing is the fact that most old time strong lived very long lives. this is in shrp contrast to todays steroid crazed professional bodybuilders.

Isometrics - The Scientifically Proven Muscle Building System Part-1

Frog Legs And Muscles

In the 1920’s scientist studying the effects of inactivity on the muscles discovered a startling revelation. In one experiment, using a frog, with its legs tightly bound together to prevent any movement and kept that way for a long time, scientist discovered that the frogs legs were significantly larger and more muscular than the control group of frogs who’s legs were not bound.

The scientist sought to figure out what had happened. The frogs that had their legs bound had strained against the bindings struggling to get free. This contracting and tensing against their bindings had resulted in this incredible muscular growth. But, it wasn’t until two German physiologists, Hettinger and Muller in 1953, to apply this Isometric technique to healthy individuals and to scientifically measure the results thru the use of a dynamometer.

Bullworker

This research done at the Max Planck Institute in Germany was where Gert F Koelbel, got the idea of creating the Tensolator, later renamed the Bullworker. But, I’ll get back to that in a little bit.

Scientific Evidence

What was amazing about the Isometrics research is that Hettinger and Muller discovered that an “intense contraction” against a fixed object, increased the subject’s strength by as much as 5% per WEEK! Even thou the contraction was only held for 6 seconds and only once a day. Later on these results were substantiated by dozens of other researchers. One doctor reported strength gains of as much as 300%.

And so was born the Isometrics craze. Interestingly enough Isometrics is one of the few muscle building training systems that is backed with scientific proof. Yet so many “muscle heads” poo poo the undeniable scientific results.

Isometrics Today

Today Isometrics is still recognized as a viable training protocol to increase strength and build muscle mass quickly. In fact, Isometrics is still being used by physicians in the field of physical rehabilitation.