Time to whip out the body fat calipers and see what I’ve accomplished over the past week.  The past few weeks, I really haven’t been too excited to see where I’ve finished, but this week I really feel like I’ve made some decent progress toward my fitness body transformation goals.

The main reason that I think I’ve been able to “get over the hump” and finally start making some progress again is two fold…

First, I decided last week to start supplementing with AST’s micronized creatine monohydrate in order to help me move past a rather serious strength plateau.  I knew that if I continued training with the same weights that I had been using for the past 3 weeks or so, that my chances of packing on any more muscle mass were slim at best, so I figured that a few weeks of creatine monohydrate supplementation would not hurt the cause.  Instead of dosing the creatine out based on the manufacturers recommendations however, I decided to give the advice in Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón’s book Creatine A Practical Guide a try.  While I’ve had really good luck in the past dosing out a loading phase of 20 grams a day and a maintenance phase of 5 grams a day, I always kind of felt like maybe that was more than my body really needed.

After implementing the advice found in Creatine A Practical Guide and finishing out my loading phase (5 training days), I began to see and feel an immediate difference in the size and strength of my muscles…I was pretty excited! All in all, a few grams of creatine monohydrate taken in an intelligent way allowed my to literally blast through my workouts at training weights that I hadn’t been able to hit for years, and more importantly allowed me to continue to stimulate new muscle growth during a cutting cycle (which up until now has been almost impossible for me to accomplish).  If you find yourself ina similar situation (trying to lean out but still want to pack on some muscle mass), I wholeheartedly recommend investing in Dr. Alfredo Franco-Obregón’s book Creatine A Practical Guide and shelling out about $20 for some high quality AST Micronozed creatine monohydrate – if you follow the advice in the guide and you drink enough water and continue to train hard, your strength and muscle mass will most likely increase.

The second reason that I fell I’ve started to move in the right direction is the fact that I upped my cardio workouts a bit.  Instead of running for 20 minutes 4 times a week, I decided to start jogging 6 times a week.  This is definitely helping me strip off body fat and so far I haven’t noticed any muscle loss so I’m going to stick with it into the next few weeks and see what happens. If I don’t start to lose any muscle mass, I may start to push it a bit and perform 2 cardio sessions a day for the duration of this training cycle.

Now on to my fitness body transformation week 8 progress report…

Here Were My Fitness Body Transformation Initial Goals

• To gain 25lbs of lean body mass
• To lower my body fat level from 23.2% to 8%
• To increase the size of my arms by 2 inches
• To increase the size of my legs by 3 inches
• To get killer six pack abs
• To really focus on building up the muscle in my back

Here Are All of My Fitness Body Transformation Week 7 Measurements

• Percent Body Fat – 10.0% (an overall improvement of -13.2%)
• Current Lean Body Mass – 176.4 lbs (an overall improvement of +25.1 lbs)
• Current Fat Weight – 19.6 lbs (an overall improvement of -26.1 lbs)

As you can see, I really started to “hit my groove” and blast past the rut that I’ve been in the past few weeks.  I feels great! My strength levels are steadily increasing, my mood is stable (I’m typically really cranky while dieting) and I’m starting to strip off body fat at the same time.  If this type of progression continues I’ll definitely be able to achieve my fitness body transformation goals (I’ve already met my lean body mass goal of 25lbs!)- and probably even surpass them.

Your Friend And Trainer,

Nick

My Fitness Body Transformation – Week 8 Progress Report is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

Simply slugging down huge amounts of low quality protein throughout the day will not help you build muscle mass. If you’re serious about achieving your muscle gain goals, you definitely need to be taking a look at the quality of the protein sources you’re consuming.

When it comes to supplemental whey protein isolate – the best muscle gain protein powder I’ve ever used is AST’s VP2. Not only is VP2 easy to mix and smooth going down the hatch, but it’s also predigested for faster nutrient uptake.  This makes it an ideal choice for a post workout nutrition boost. I’ve never had a bad experience using VP2 and I use it religiously as a staple in my supplemental post workout nutrition arsenal.

When it comes to naturally occurring whole food sources,  the best muscle gain protein can be found on nearly all lean cuts of meat including: beef, chicken, turkey, venison, bison, lamb, pork and cold water fish.  If you’re unsure about the protein content of a particular food source, grab a calorie counter and look up the nutritional profile of the protein source.  If you don’t want to buy a calorie counter, there are many free versions available online:

Here’s a link to my favorite free online calorie counter!

What ever you do,  make it a priority to eat enough of the best muscle building protien sources to fuel new muscle growth. Providing you’re eating a minimum of 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day and you’re making an effort to consume your protein from a varitey of natural and supplemental sources, chances are you’re doing more than enough to provide your body with the muscle building protein it needs to help you pack on some new muscle!

Read the full article and uncover the best muscle gain protein sources.

The Best Muscle Gain Protein is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

In my experience, nothing is ever quite as good or bad as it seems.  Before assigning CLA supplements the top shelf billing in the muscle building supplement market, or relegating CLA supplements to the “worthless” category, you owe it to yourself to take a look at the studies and make your own informed decision regarding CLA.

Over the past 25 years, more than 600 CLA studies have been published highlighting the many ways CLA supplements can help to enhance the way your body looks as well as your health.

What Are CLA Supplements Supposed To Do?

Lets kick this off by explaining that traditionally, CLA supplements have not been presented as muscle building supplements, rather fat loss and weight loss supplements.  If you’re reading this blog to find out about the best muscle building supplements, CLA is definitely not in the same muscle building category that supplements like creatine monohydrate are in.  That said, there is a substantial amount of evidence that suggests that CLA can help you shed excess body fat.

When it comes to decreasing body fat, CLA supplements safely work in four ways:

1.) They decrease the amount of fat stored after eating

2.) They Increase how fast fat is broken down in fat cells

3.) They Increase the rate of fat metabolism

4.) They Decrease the total number of fat cells in your body

While these benefits are not directly related to the muscle building process, I have never met a bodybuilder who wasn’t interested in burning more fat – naturally!

What Is CLA?

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is a naturally-occurring polyunsaturated fatty acid – an essential fatty acid of the omega-6 family. The human body is unable to manufacture Linoleic Acid or CLA, so it must be obtained from dietary sources. Foods highest in CLA include milk, cheese, beef, and lamb as well as a lot of other processed foods.

Getting enough CLA from your diet for the preferred benefit would require considerable intake of potentially unhealthy foods. This is not only impractical, but would also have a seriously negative impact on your metabolism due to the high caloric penalty you would pay.

My Experiences With CLA Supplements…

Based on my experiences with CLA, I honestly can’t say that I noticed a dramatic impact in the amount of lean muscle mass that I gained, or a drastic reduction in body fat once I began taking CLA supplements regularly. I don’t believe that CLA is a supplement that will give you results that you’ll be able to instantly recognize.

I view taking CLA supplements as more of a healthy thing to do to ensure that I’m getting enough high quality essential fatty acids into my diet. In addition to CLA I regularly use an omega-3 essential fatty acid fish oil supplement and occasionally throw high quality flax seed oil into the mix (especially if I am cutting calories to burn fat). I really believe that if you can experience even one of the many benefits commonly associated with CLA supplements, taking them regularly is well worth the price!

==> More information on cla supplements.

CLA Supplements is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help

“Once I tried AST’s micronized creatine monohydrate…I was hooked!”

To this day this is one of the only creatine supplements that consistnetly produces muscle building results for me.

While AST’s micronized creatine monohydrate doesn’t contain any cutting edge blends of nutrients to aid in the uptake of the creatine, you can have confidence that you are getting pure – high quality creatine monohydrate with every serving.

Find out more about AST’s Micronized Creatine Monohydrate here!

Micronized Creatine Monohydrate By AST Sports Science is a post from: Gain Muscle Mass Help