Want to up your Bench Press ?

Bench press is one of the big three compound movements that trigger maximum GH (growth hormone) release. The question you'll get asked most often by an average gym rat will be 'How much do ya bench?'.  Often my friends ask me how to improve their numbers in bench press. In this post I will summarize

factors that determine how good can one get at getting that weight off their chest.

1. Strengthen your Triceps: Triceps are one of the biggest muscle groups extending from the shoulders down to the back of forearms. Apart from adding thickness to the arms, it is very important in providing overall stability in day to day activities. Ever seen a guy benching heavy with tiny arms? The key is to make your triceps strong by doing exercises like seated overhead barbell extension, close-grip bench press, skull-crusher etc. Pay attention to your tris and watch your bench take-off!

2. More is not better: A widespread misconception is to do more of a job to get better at it. While true to an extent, people often take this beyond the getting-it-to-work realm. Bench pressing every other day or twice or thrice a week would not make you strong at it, instead might cause over-training. If trained properly excellent gains can be made by training the bench press once a week.

3.Correct your form: A big mistake made by many is to hyper arch their back that causes the butt to rise way off the table. Such deeds not only make you prone to injury but

might lead to unlearning of proper form. Chances of increasing your bench number are maximized if you perform it with perfect form.

4. Max-Out once a while: Test your one-rep max once in a while. A good way to do it is to max-out once in 2-3 weeks. One-rep max is the weight that you can bench only for one rep with perfect form. If you keep doing 10 reps at 175 pounds every week, you will keep doing 10 reps at 175 pounds! You need to make your body aware of the fact that it needs to strengthen itself to move a heavier weight.

5. Follow a routine: A well-organized plan for training your bench press is the best and most efficient way to go! It might take a while to find the program that suits you the most but better do it now than never. The 5x5 strength program is a good place to start with. I have my own customized way that did wonders for me  in the past (and still does!). I usually do 4 sets of the exercise (1 warm-up + 3 working). The key is to change the numbers of your last and second last set. For instance, if I can bench 135 x 8 in my 2nd set and 145x4 in my 3rd, for this week, then next week I might try doing 140x7 and 150x2-3 respectively.

Needless to say, all of the above will work like charm only if you have a proper diet with sufficient macro and micro nutrients backing you! 

Lose fat and gain muscle

"Can I simultaneously gain muscle and lose the fat?" is one of the questions that I get asked every now and then by my friends. Well my answer to that would be "Yes, but is difficult". The difficulty here doesn't lie in the following of an arduous regime, but the time it'd take to achieve the final long term goal.
Let us consider a sample person Y, weighing W with lean mass M and F, the body fat content (W = M + F). Our sample Y would love to attain a weight W' with lean mass M' and fat content F'. Ideally he would like (a) M'>M and (b) F'< F. The question that turns up here is if both (a) & (b) are approachable together. Let us see what each (a) and (b) demand.
Clearly, (a) calls for something extra to be added to the body, and hence needs calorie (energy) surplus. Ideally, most if not all of the calorie surplus should come from clean foods which means complex carbohydrates, lean protein and good combination of unsaturated and saturated (yes, some saturates are required for a balanced fat intake) fat. Usually the macro-components are taken in a specific distribution like 40/40/20 or 50/30/10 and so on. Cardiovascular training is best kept at minimum as it may result in loss of otherwise vital calories. The outcome one should expect out of this would be :
M' = M + mass-gained and F' = F + little-fat.

On the other hand, (b) requires a energy deficit in the calorie intake. The deficit is  best created by combining diet manipulation with cardiovascular training done 3 to 5 times a week. The diet has to be clean with carbohydrates limited only to breakfast and the post-workout meal. The macro components are to be tweaked with most of the calories coming from protein. In this case,
F' = F - fat-lost and M' = M - slight-muscle.

Yes, these two seem like two opposite pathways and indeed they are. Hence, the ideal thing to do is to go for (a) (a.k.a Bulking) and (b) (a.k.a. cutting) in phases one after the other. An ideal combination is to bulk for 4-6 months and then cut for 2-3 months. Doing otherwise will be no different than pedaling backwards with a will to go forward!

Do you have enough protein in your diet?

Its a widely accepted fact, that if the outcome of an event is dependent on multiple factors varying in importance, the factors should be dealt with accordingly. When it comes to losing fat or adding muscles to your frame, three most important factors are Nutrition, Exercise and Rest. Nutrition being a stand-out among the rest and unquestionably deserves the greatest attention.
The key for a perfect nutrition plan for you would be one that has an adequate amount of protein in it. So how much exactly is adequate? Well ideally the amount of protein in grams should be equal to your lean body weight in pounds. Here, the lean bodyweight is your total bodyweight minus the fat mass you carry. However, as is it with the mighty human body, nothing is perfect to the last digit. The protein value can be altered a little with a little more protein intake for skinny guys and a little less for those a tad over the scale.

Those looking to shed of the extra flab might get into believing  that they don't need protein as they don't need to 'add' anything to their frame. This perhaps one of the biggest mistake one can make. Protein is a must need for specifically two reasons.
1. Protein is needed for the repair and maintenance of the lean mass (muscle). The amount of lean mass directly affects the body fat content and also controls the overall metabolism. Hence when it comes to keep muscle, its either feed them or loose them.
2. In general, how much 'fattening' a food component is, is directly is measurable from its thermic effect. The body has a tendency to burn more calories to digest a protein component than a carbohydrate component (e.g. sugar). This indirectly boosts the resting metabolism and keeps fat gain at bay.

For the skinny guys or the 'hard gainers', there is just no excuse to take less or insufficient protein.  Just as one needs bricks to build a house, since muscle mass can only be gained if one intakes the stuff of which its made up of, that is Protein.

Weight Training - Will it help me lose fat?

Often the missing link in a fat loss program is training with weights. There has been a misconception that lifting weights will make you bigger. Well, if adding mass was so easier, bodybuilders wouldn't be killing themselves so much to add muscles to their frame. This is because, adding muscle mass requires a proper mix of lifting(20%), nutrition(60%) and rest(20%).  So your next question might be, "how do I make weight lifting beneficial, for someone like me, who is on the higher side of the scale?". In this post, I will try and answer the same.

In my previous post I mentioned, how a typical 'only cardio' & 'less food' regime can lead to a dead end to your goal of fat loss. The key ingredient for an effective and sustainable fat loss program is training with weights or weight lifting.The next few points will make it easier for you to comprehend the idea.

1. Lifting heavy weights boosts you metabolism. period!
One of the main reasons for a person getting fat is because of a sluggish metabolism. This means one's body has a greater tendency to store the food injested as fat, given caloric abundance is there at any moment of time. Weight Training leads to lactic acid production, which triggers the release of growth hormone (GH), which indirectly causes the body to turn into a fat burning machine.

2. Weight lifting shocks your body!
Starting a program like weight lifting acts as a shock to your otherwise 'efficient energy machine' body. As such your body's calorie expenditure per task will increase than before. This, if you have not guessed by now, will help you to further loose fat. Your body will realise the need for more lean mass resulting you in building muscle and hence burning even more fat than before!


3. Weight lifting allows you to eat more and still lose fat!
When you lift heavy, you create tiny tears in muscle fibers that are repaired when you rest and eat nutritious food. The good thing here is that the majority of food you eat, given that you eat healthy mainly with very less junk food, rush to repair the damage you did to your muscles. This inturn causes your body to burn the stored fat and produce energy for other daily tasks that need less energy like walking, cooking etc. In other words, you burn fat even while you are sitting!

4. Serious weight lifting makes you think and choose 'healthy'
Once you start lifting good, eating good will follow. The short term changes will lay down the path for the final long term change you stated out with. With changes coming, you are more likely to stay motivated for your final goal.

Eat less and Only Cardio = six pack?

Well if you care about the way you look you gotta get yourself in the gym once in a while. Add to this your will of getting those packs visible, cardio alone isn't going to take you far. Often my friends ask me 'I don't want to get any big, I just want to lose fat!, why should I lift?'. The question at first glance may seem quite reasonable, though in real terms carries no sense at all.In this post I will make a sincere effort to explain why and how.

The 'only cardio' and 'less food' path towards fat loss might work pretty well at first, especially if you are getting up from the couch for the first time, you don't have to wait very long to see your progress stall and frustration building up. Well the reason here is that the human body is indeed an intelligence machine that has all the important features of modern day technology. The point I am trying to play up here is feedback. By feedback, I mean the adaptation your body does in response to your new cardio and diet regime by slowing down your metabolism. This indirectly means, you will maintain your weight (which is actually a little less than your starting weight) and would not loose any more. This is further aggravated by lean body-weight loss in case you are one of those people believing in 'more is better' and going all the way up with cardio. This further lowers the body metabolism and weight loss becomes more difficult to continue. Surprisingly, this is the time when  you take either of the two pathways.

Option-1. "I did all the right things, I am not progressing ..&@$%&*@.! I will eat everything and enjoy life!' 

Result - You gain weight (fat) quickly now as your metabolism is lower than when you started and end up heavier than before.

Option-2. "I have to do more, I will run 8 kms instead of 6, I will eat salads only!" 

Result - You loose weight with your new 'aggressive only cardio' routine , (notice i said weight and not fat), where your metabolism slows further down since you carry lesser lean mass (muscle) . Consequently you hit a similar roadblock somewhere down the line with even less will to go forward. This time around you either choose option-1 above or continue in the vicious circle by going for option-2!

Keep in mind, weight loss is not going to lead you to your elusive goal of getting the packs. It is fat loss which will. Losing fat and minimum lean mass requires a proper combination of cardio and the missing component, which is 'weight lifting'. More on this in my later posts. Adios !