Food.  Sleep.  Supplements.  Are they important?  You bet they are!  But they take on a whole new meaning when they are wrapped in to your training program and you are actually trying to elicit an effect out of them.  What you find a lot these days are people who read a good amount of information regarding particular topics and then take the pieces that resonated the most with them and incorporate them into their program.  This is not necessarily a bad practice and many good things can come of it until the pieces you are putting together no longer blend together to produce the training effect that you want.  This happens simply because you lost focus and began trying the latest supplement fad or you adopted the “amazing” food plan of your buddy and neither of these had anything to do with your ultimate goal.

When you know what you should be focusing on with your sport, it makes it so much easier to tailor your food plan and gym life to reflect those goals:

BASKETBALL, SOCCER, TENNIS AND ETC.

These sports are power sports.  At some point in the game (mainly from beginning to end, haha) you are going to perform short, powerful moves that require a major shift in direction or some other form of speed/agility.  You need to be strong, quick, alert and fast to be able to be competitive here.  You also need to have endurance as these games last long.  So you need to be able to come back hard and fast time and time again.  This is no easy feat when you are doing it with the steak and cheese sub you had the other day washed down with two beers.  That’s not going to work so let’s try something else:

Performing:                   2 days/week (maybe you’re in a league)

Eating:                          45% more than baseline

Macro Breakdown:         25 to 35% protein

                                    45 to 55% carbs

                                    Fats round out the remainder

Training:                        3 days lifting—powerlifts abound in here!

                                    2 endurance cardio days recommended

                                    1 day functional SAQ type training

Supplements:                One that supports immune function

                                    One that supports recovery

                                    A few that harness alertness and proper cell function

Hydration:                     Critical

MARATHON, TRIATHALON, IRONMAN, CYCLING, ADVENTURE RACING

These sports are all about the endurance factor.  You must be able to go for long periods of activity without losing speed or effectiveness.  You need staying power here and that’s not going to happen with you eating goos and gels like they are breakfast.  Save those for long runs and race days and focus on a plan that’s going to give you all the food you need to be able to perform time and time again.  The take home message for you:  recovery. 

Performing:                   5 days/week

Eating:                          55% more than baseline

Macro Breakdown:         50 to 60% carbs

                                    25 to 35% fat

                                    Protein round outs the remainder

Training:                        2 days lifting—short, full body romps

                                    1 day functional with lots of BW training

Supplements:                Many that support immune function and antioxidant properties

                                    A few that support recovery

                                    One that supports proper cell function

Hydration:                     Crucial

WRESTLER, MMA, POWERLIFTER, RECREATIONAL LIFTER

These sports are all about muscle and strength.  You need to be able to move your weight around here and it needs to be fast for whatever size you are at the time.  This is where you hear terms like “pound for pound” or “powerful for his size” and etc.  You do not need the same type of endurance above; you need to maintain strength for a long time.  See below for a snap shot of your requirements.

Performing:                   3 to 5 days/week

Eating:                          45 to 60% above baseline (depends on weight class and etc.)

Macro Breakdown:         30 to 40% protein

                                    20 to 25% fat

                                    Carbs round out the remainder (high on ST side)

Training:                        4 days lifting—powerlifts, olympic lifts, BW

                                    1 day support lift that nurture grip, neck, rotator function

                                    3 days/week moderate cardio

Supplements:                Many that support proper cell function/growth

                                    One that supports recovery

                                    Some that support immune function

Hydration:                     Important

What you see here are 3 very different programs for 3 very different sports.  What I normally see are the same nutrition and supplement programs for the very different training programs.  Men tend to take care of their training first, nutrition second.  They try to fuel their needs based on “an as needed” basis and that is a huge mistake.  Again, if you want this vessel to perform for you in the manner in which was meant, you need to give it what it needs when it needs it.  You cannot have a one size fits all type of food/supplement mentality when your training is so vastly different.

Next, I’ll show you how women are a bit different.  We want to mother all over our food and what/how/when we eat but do whatever for training but hope to have a different training result every time.  That’ll be fun!  See you tomorrow when I have a recipe treat for you!  WOOP WOOP!:o)

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series

We are back from the weekend and I am truly hoping that you kept it together Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Now is the time to get serious about the goals that you have laid out for yourself for the week and do a mental program check to locate anything that could be holding you back from making progress.   Let me prepare you before you start reading that this is a mini rant.  There is absolutely no doubt about it.  The only thing that might get me a bit more riled up than this is driving.  And that rant is coming soon, too!  Maybe on a Friday so I can give you some humor to go into the weekend with because I am truly unstable behind the wheel. Hehe

1.        I have tried everything but…

At some point in your lifetime of dieting or goals you are going to come to a point where you may not be able to go any further but you still have room to improve.  As frustrating as I know it can be (trust me), most of the time it is not true.  You’ve come to a stop.  Your progress has not.  Any time I ask this person what they are doing they begin to tell me a long list of “I thinks” instead of “I knows”:

“Ok, so what are you eating.”

“Every day I eat…” (Already I am going to pounce on them like a cat on a runaway ball of yarn!)

“Ok, do you measure what you are eating?”

“No…because…”  (Insert some story that made my eyes roll to the back of my head thereby prompting the use of smelling salts to get me back.)

“Do you track what you’re eating?”

“No.  I eat the same thing…” (Ummm…no you don’t.  Even if you do eat the same thing every day, which is going to make me have a hissy fit, you still have slight variations to the day.  If you do not, you are not human and at that point you have the wrong coach and you are looking for District 9.)

Let me first qualify this rant before I enter into it by saying that this is for those who have plateaued.  In the beginning, you do not have to be as stringent as this.  Think of this as the last 10 pounds folks or those who have been dieting long enough to stall out—no need to shake in your boots newbies, but I am coming for you soon. 

At some point in your dieting you are going to become lazy.  It’s as simple as that.  You will act like you are “old hat” at this and you will begin to cut corners.  Then, when it does not work like it used to, it’s the diet’s fault.  As if it just decided to leave you hanging or something due to some hidden diet grudge.  You get out of this what you put in to this.  I am not telling you to become a slave to tracking for the rest of your life, I am telling you to become a slave to tracking for as long as the plateau lasts and then move on (and by tracking I mean measuring food portions and creating menus).  When’s the last time you saw a race that wasn’t timed?  Or a hockey game with no score (Oh look, another puck in the net.  I’m not sure how many that is, I just like watching them skate up and down the ice!)?  You haven’t.  And think twice before you tell me that weight loss to you is not the same as a game/even/competition because every time you step on the scale, look in the mirror or try on some clothes you are keeping score whether you like it or not.  So, suit up for the game, please and get out your food scale, journal and variety and get to work.  Or, make the mistake of telling me, “I have tried everything but…”

2.       I have tried every exercise but I still can’t grow my…

This is just like number 1 so I am not going to spend any time here.  Check list please:

When is the last time you changed your lift routine?

When is the last time you went up in the weight on an exercise?

How long have you been using those same 15’s for shoulders?

Do you track your workouts? Good, what do you do with that info?  Oh you just track it…riiiiigggght.

3.       I am following my program but…

I don’t understand this one.  It blows me out of the water.  I am, alongside so many others, a fitness professional.  I diet/train more people in one month than the average consumer can come across to ask questions to in one year!  But no matter what, I always get one person who will modify their program before they even start it because they know better.  Now don’t get me wrong, if you want to pay me a good amount of money for you to program yourself—that’s a win win for me.  But do me the favor and tell me when you cut me the check so I don’t have to bother putting something together for you.  I want to just go shopping with what you just paid me and not have to work.  Thanks.

The number one reason you hire a coach is not because they are going to give you something revolutionary (although that is nice when that happens) or something no one else knows about (don’t tell anyone about this amazing new food combo: oatmeal and eggwhites…shhhh), you hire them to know you objectively because you, yourself, cannot and to then program you based off of the information.  The problem really becomes apparent with you having to admit who you really are as opposed to who you want to be!  In other words, it’s not that you don’t trust the coach or believe in the coach or you would not have hired them, it’s more that you did not like the answer/program they gave you.  Let me put that in laymen terms for you:

“My girlfriend blah blah does blah blah and she has great legs so I started doing that instead of blah blah.  Is that ok?”

“Well let me see…your girlfriend is rather on the tall, slim side with not a lick of muscle in her legs and you are 4’10” with enough muscle in your legs to drag to a tractor trailer 2 blocks without taking a rest.  Let me go out on a limb here…NO.”

Get over who you want to become and accept who you are!   You are not Megan Fox so stop pouting because you were not given her program!  And if you are programming yourself and do not have a coach, stop wondering what Megan Fox is doing and go find someone who at least resembles you and do what she’s doing!  Write out your program and tweak it weekly.  Do not hop from thing to thing just because you spoke to someone in the gym.  Let’s make some sense of this.  Cool?

The Moral of the Story:

Let’s make this a good week.  Let’s break some plateaus. 

1.       Track what you are doing and improve where necessary. 

2.       Challenge yourself in the gym this week.  Go up in a weight or go a few extra reps.  Whichever.

3.       Embrace your program and follow it so you know what to change when it is not right.

Menu planning goes out this afternoon so keep an eye out for that., tomorrow we are back to Performing Beautifully so you will be spared from my ranting and we talk a little bit more about your bum this week!  Yeah!  In the mean time, challenge yourself and get to it!  WOOP WOOP!:o) 

Yo, if you didn’t know…it’s Friday!  WOOHOO!  I know you want to kick off your shoes, lay back and enjoy a restful weekend hanging out in front of the TV or maybe visiting friends somewhere—who knows?  Who cares?  It’s the weekend!  But for most people with some type of goal, whether it be weight loss, performance related or etc., the weekend represents a murky land of temptation and dread that starts out with the best of intentions but ends with you in a confessional spilling your guts out to the diet tracker gods.

Sound familiar?  “I could not wait to get home on Friday.  I was exhausted and just wanted to chill on the couch for a minute while I figured out what I was doing this weekend.  Since I planned my food for the whole day it was cool.  But Saturday, I was too tired to plan ahead and I figured I would just do it when I got up.  Of course I got up late because I was dead so I mapped out a route of good places to eat while I was on the run.  Well I ended up not going where I had planned and didn’t have any food on me so I tried to find a place to get a salad.  Now I am one meal short, starving and my girlfriend says she’s going to be late for lunch—can I wait?  I needed to get something so I grabbed a yogurt from SB with a coffee.  The day only went downhill from there.  So now, it’s Sunday and I will start anew tomorrow so I am not rushing to go food shopping today.  I will finish up the leftovers from yesterday’s romp and just call it a day.  I feel like I am always starting over…*sigh*.”

FOR THE GOAL ORIENTED DIETERS/PERFORMERS

Three things that kill your diet progress:

1.       Lack of Planning

If you enter the weekend without a plan, you might as well just skip all the silly formalities and just make the scale go up by 2 pounds right now.  Don’t even bother to eat the food.  Just gain the weight at your desk right now and save yourself some time of having to play the game above.  Let’s jump right to Monday where we begin trying to work it off for the rest of the week! haha 

Honestly, if you are goal oriented, there is no difference between Tuesday and Saturday or Monday and Sunday and etc.  You are obligated to treat those days with the same level of seriousness that you do on the weekday. 

Wake up early—not necessarily as early as M-F, but still early

Plan your food for the day like you would a weekday

Look up any restaurant possibilities and check out their menus

Don’t leave the house without knowing where you are going

If you are in play date Hell with kids (so sorry to hear), bring snacks with you JIC

2.       Lack of Focus

I am not sure what it is about the weekend that makes us lose our heads and throw all caution to the wind.  Is the freedom of time?  Is it childish rebellion?  I have no idea what it is but we can make some downright dumb @ss decisions simply because it is Saturday. 

I don’t care, I love cream cheese crab dip with muenster cheese and brie (I so made that up and it sounds nasty TBH).  I’ll be back on my diet tomorrow!

No you won’t.  You’ll be feeling so bad about eating that crap that you’ll be in mourning for at least 2 days.  I’m feeling some Southwest Egg Rolls, 2 slices of pizza and at least one cupcake following that mess!

I will go to the gym tomorrow.  I have too much to do today.  I’ll go after Church.

No you won’t.  First of all, you may possibly even miss church because you’re in a fat induced coma from the above meal.  Next, you feel like crap from the above mayhem so now you don’t even want to work out!  Let’s be honest here.  GO WHEN YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO.  The only time cancellations work in your favor is if it snows!  Any other time it just makes you feel bad thereby setting off a wave of bullcrap!

I will plan out my week this weekend then I’ll go food shopping…

No you won’t.  You will at work, though.  Plus wouldn’t you want to get paid to do that instead of doing it on precious weekend time?  What’s wrong with you?  Even if you could do that on the weekend—don’t!  That’s what meetings in work are for!  Planning your week!  Have I taught you nothing?

Be smart.  Begin positive reinforcement with yourself for the weekend on Thursday afternoon.  Have some great pep talks and keep the language going all weekend.  The minute you take your eyes off the prize amidst the temptations of the weekend, you are done for!  May the force be with you.

3.       Friendly Saboteurs

She’s your girl.  And you love her.  But she is as good for your diet as Madoff is for your retirement fund.  You need to keep her at arms length Friday through Sunday.  Maybe she’s hot already so what does she care.  Or maybe she’s not and what does she have to lose, who cares!  All that matters is that she comes with good times and 3 pounds every weekend!  Or how about the man?  Is he adding to the drama?  You’re googly eyed all weekend so you didn’t even notice the dress size he added on your behind when he wined and dined you and then left you for dead in front of the treadmill. 

Pick your friends wisely.  Are they going the same direction as you?  If you are drinking with them every weekend and then every Monday saying, “I just need to have more will power and say no.” you are fooling yourself.  That’s like buying a yummy cake and saying you’re only going to have one piece.  Umm…yeah right.  Or maybe you have the will of steel and can do that, but I guarantee you that you will be miserable every day that cake is in sight.  That’s when you find yourself at 2 in the morning on the floor of your kitchen eating that cake with no hands.  Now that’s a shame!  Denial feels worse than just abstaining.  See your friends that make you lose your “diet mind” once a month or so.  Do not make them an every weekend habit or you will never make your goal.

Have fun this weekend.  Stay safe and stay focused.  Monday starts a whole new adventure for us!  WOOP WOOP!:o)

I loves me a strong man with a swagger.  Yes I do!  You know, like the Marlborough Man.  My guy has to be tough enough to come into the house, grab me by my hair and drag me down the hallway without me every questioning him!  Now after I call 911 and have a few of my friends work him over in a back alley, I will probably acknowledge that I have a partner for life in this guy.  He must know how to harness his power and that is not easy for a guy when he is young never mind as he passes his mid thirties and heads into his forties.

When all of us (men and women both) are young we have an abundance of hormones.  They are free flowing like the Charles River in the middle of the summer.  With those hormones comes a sense of invincibility—nothing can stop us, watch me as I play basketball 3 times a week, lift 3 times a week, drink on the weekends with my buddies, run 10 miles the next day for the sake of running and recover in time to start work on Monday.  Ah, the life.  Then one day that life is gone.  Suddenly your knees hurt too much to play more than 2 times per week, your back is bothering you a bit too, you couldn’t run 10 miles unless someone strapped you to the back of a car and dragged you that far and you are never EVER recovered for work on Monday morning.  What has changed?  Your hormone balance.  How can you fix it?   Read below.  What follows is the foundation that you need to put in place before we can even talk about your best performance on or off of the court.

NUTRITION FOUNDATION:

QUANTITY: 

Believe or not guys, you eat like birds.  You eat just enough to make it through the day without being hungry, but there is little forethought put into planning for the day.  You do eat a lot of the same foods everyday but I would not say you are as bad as us ladies with that because you just don’t plan as much ahead of time to be that way.  No…you guys are “starvers”.  Every so often you get on a kick about getting bigger and you eat more, but then you eat more crap.  So in essence you are still starving yourselves to death. 

If you want to get your swagger back or keep your swagger going, EAT:

6 meals per day

at least 1g of protein for every pound of your body weight

at least 1/3 of your body weight in good fat sources

2 to 3 fruits/day—the rest being vegetables

Starches will depend on your activity level but you will be having them for sure!

And that’s just the foundation.  This is not taking your activity into account.

QUALITY:

Your number one concern as you age is how much total testosterone you have in your body and how much free testosterone you have in your blood stream at any given time.  No man has a swagger without it.  Your performance is based solely on your T values.  You may not have any idea of that right now but I can tell you, if you wake up in the morning happy to be alive (and you know where I’m going with this;), then you are still on the positive side of T production.  If you couldn’t get excited about waking up next to either Halle Berry or Heidi Klum you better call your doctor after reading this article because you are either really low on T production or you are dead!  Or both. (Heck, I would be excited waking up next to Halle Berry.  Whatever…I’m focusing…sorry;)

Although you are feeding your body every day, are you truly feeding your needs?  If you want a healthy T level in your body—eat for it.  Foods that are high in zinc are ones that are going to put that pep in your step and give you the tools (high T level) that you need to be who you need to be. 

Oysters

Wheat Germ (can I marry this stuff?)

Crabmeat

Salmon

Roast beef

Liver

Peanuts

FUNCTION:

Whether you are an athlete (basketball player, soccer player, endurance athlete or whatever) or a recreational lifter (wanna be big, wanna be cut, just a wanna be) your workouts should not only mirror what you are aiming for, but they should mirror where you are in life right now.  This means your workouts should be short, sweet and to the point.  Get in and get OUT!  Do not pass go, do not collect $200.  Get in and GET OUT!  If your workout takes more than 40 min. you are doing something wrong.  You do not have the capacity to recover to go much longer than that nor should you want to.  Maximize your time in the gym by doing exercises that take care of more than one body part at a time and require an enormous amount of effort to carry out. 

Three days per week—maybe 4

All major muscle movers being used

No more than 4 exercises per workout

Vary the volume, vary the intensity

Add cardio in when necessary, but aim for it to come from your lifts or your sport

TAKE INVENTORY:

All of this is just a highlight of where you should be before we even discuss optimization.  If you do not meet any of these criteria, you have one week to get your act together before we move into making it work in real life.   Next week I will compare three programs for you:  basketball vs. marathon runner vs. strength athlete and we will go over the different nuances of each program to ensure that you always Perform Beautifully.

Previous Series Post Next Post in Series