Start the Muscle Recovery and Growth Process Immediately with Good Nutritional Habits

By Skip La Cour
Six-Time national Champion
Success Coach

Many Bodybuilders Don’t Start the Muscle Recovery Process When It’s Most Needed With A Post-Workout Nutrition Plan

This problem occurs when bodybuilders don’t eat immediately after their workouts.

Here’s the challenge:

“I usually don’t get a chance to eat until after I get home from the gym. By the time I get myself settled, a couple hours have passed.”

Take Action and Do This NOW!

For the same reasons that you must prioritize eating properly before you train, you must also execute an effective post-workout nutritional plan. You should consume a small meal comprised of a high quality protein source and high-glycemic carbohydrates after your weight training and cardiovascular training workouts. Doing so will protect the muscle you’ve already earned and immediately kick the massively-important muscle recovery process into gear.

If you tear it up in the gym the way you like to do during your workouts, your muscles are likely to be depleted of their valuable protein stores—even if you eat before the workout. Your blood sugar levels have been lowered while training as well. When your blood sugar levels have been lowered, the muscles will have difficulty getting the protein they need to maintain their size.

I’ve had certified personal trainers ask me why I would eat my MM25 Whey Protein and a banana right after beating myself up on the recumbent bike. “Aren’t you hindering the fat-burning process that you started by doing cardio when you eat so soon afterwards?” they’ve asked.

I, too, used to believe that you shouldn’t eat anything for a period of time after doing cardiovascular training. I must have read somewhere that doing so would cause your body to stop using your stored body fat as fuel as you intended. Instead, you would start using the food you just made available as fuel.

You don’t really burn enough fat at the time you train or immediately afterward to miss the opportunity to protect your starving muscles from damage caused by training.

Effectively burning body fat has far more to do with the number of calories you consume versus the number of calories you burn throughout the entire day. You will do a better job of shedding body fat when you focus on creating the proper deficit between the two during the day with intelligent nutritional habits.

============================================
Resources That WILL Take Your Efforts to the Next Level
===============================================

Start Your Bodybuilding and Training MASTERY JOURNEY Now!

Take control of your bodybuilding and training destiny! Start MASTERING this area of your life and order my Complete DVD and Book Library Special TODAY! I have bundled all of this POWERFUL information at a DISCOUNTED package price. I will even ship this valuable INVESTMENT in yourself absolutely FREE.

I’ve written ten (10) books and have produced seven (7) DVDs that explain every facet of bodybuilding. Almost 1,900 pages are written and over 20 hours of video footage created of pure INSTRUCTION and PASSION!

My almost 20 years of COMMITMENT have helped men JUST LIKE YOU take their bodies to the NEXT LEVEL in 52 COUNTRIES AROUND THE PLANET.

Order Complete DVD and Book Library Special NOW

===============================================

Go back to Skip La Cour's web site HOME

Copyright 2009. Skip La Cour Consulting. All Rights Reserved.

The EXPECTATIONS and STANDARDS of the Masses are FAR TOO LOW!

Many Bodybuilders Don’t Start the Muscle Recovery Process When It’s Most Needed With A Post-Workout Nutrition Plan

This problem occurs when bodybuilders don’t eat immediately after their workouts.

Here’s the challenge:

“I usually don’t get a chance to eat until after I get home from the gym. By the time I get myself settled, a couple hours have passed.”

Take Action and Do This NOW!

For the same reasons that you must prioritize eating properly before you train, you must also execute an effective post-workout nutritional plan. You should consume a small meal comprised of a high quality protein source and high-glycemic carbohydrates after your weight training and cardiovascular training workouts. Doing so will protect the muscle you’ve already earned and immediately kick the massively-important muscle recovery process into gear.

If you tear it up in the gym the way you like to do during your workouts, your muscles are likely to be depleted of their valuable protein stores—even if you eat before the workout. Your blood sugar levels have been lowered while training as well. When your blood sugar levels have been lowered, the muscles will have difficulty getting the protein they need to maintain their size.

I’ve had certified personal trainers ask me why I would eat my MM25 Whey Protein and a banana right after beating myself up on the recumbent bike. “Aren’t you hindering the fat-burning process that you started by doing cardio when you eat so soon afterwards?” they’ve asked.

I, too, used to believe that you shouldn’t eat anything for a period of time after doing cardiovascular training. I must have read somewhere that doing so would cause your body to stop using your stored body fat as fuel as you intended. Instead, you would start using the food you just made available as fuel.

You don’t really burn enough fat at the time you train or immediately afterward to miss the opportunity to protect your starving muscles from damage caused by training.

Effectively burning body fat has far more to do with the number of calories you consume versus the number of calories you burn throughout the entire day. You will do a better job of shedding body fat when you focus on creating the proper deficit between the two during the day with intelligent nutritional habits.
Copyright 2009 Skip La Cour Consulting. All Rights Reserved.

You Can't Just "Show Up" to the Gym and Expect to Grow

By Skip La Cour
Six-Time National Champion
Success Coach

Many Bodybuilders Don't Come to the Gym with a Definitive Workout Plan

Can you believe that some bodybuilders show up to the gym without a well-defined game plan? They put too much faith in their instincts to guide them through their training sessions. This is a big, stupid mistake.

There's a saying that goes “When you fail to plan—you plan to fail.” You should never take even one step into the gym without knowing exactly what you are going to do during that day's workout. Resist the temptation to be guided by your feelings or emotions on a particular training day. As you may already realize, your feelings about anything can change every 10 minutes. Come into the gym with a plan-of-attack and be ready to execute that plan the best you can once it's established.

Take Action and Do This NOW!

Set simple training goals before every workout. Creating a short list of “training disciplines” can be extremely helpful in your pursuit of big muscle gains. This list can include a few simple tasks that you'll focus on during your workouts even when you're not as motivated as you'd like to be.

Simply getting to the gym on time, completing every one of the exercises and sets that you planned to do when you stepped into the gym, making sure you really focus on the targeted muscle group during every repetition, and completing your training session in an hour are just a few examples of what you can include on your list of simple training goals. You don't need to be extremely detailed right off the bat, but create some structure to your workout so you'll know that you are progressing. As you track your goals, you will increase your level of focus and successfully take your efforts to the next level.

Be ready for every single set you perform in the gym. Know what you want to achieve before your hands even touch “metal.” You should always know the minimum number of repetitions you want to do before your hands even touch a barbell, dumbbell, or training machine apparatus. You should also know the minimum number of calories you want to burn and the minimum distance you want to travel before your feet touch the bike pedals or machine floor mat when doing cardiovascular training. Never let your body dictate what you can do when you can use your powerful mind to bolster its performance. Unless, of course, your body wants to do a little better than the specific goals you've set.

Consider taking this training strategy even a little further. Invest a little time to think about your next workout before you leave the gym. There's no need to get really involved in this particular step but do take the time to think about your next workout. You'll set your mental “wheels in motion” with a simple preview of what's to come during your next training session. Trust me. You'll be astonished with how effectively your subconscious brain will prepare you for your next productive workout over the next day or so—with very little effort on your part. You'll discover that this tip is a great investment of the last 30 to 60 seconds you spend in the gym.

===============================================
Resources That WILL Take Your Efforts to the Next Level
===============================================

Start Your Bodybuilding and Training MASTERY JOURNEY Now!

Take control of your bodybuilding and training destiny! Start MASTERING this area of your life and order my Complete DVD and Book Library Special TODAY! I have bundled all of this POWERFUL information at a DISCOUNTED package price. I will even ship this valuable INVESTMENT in yourself absolutely FREE.

I've written ten (10) books and have produced seven (7) DVDs that explain every facet of bodybuilding. Almost 1,900 pages are written and over 20 hours of video footage created of pure INSTRUCTION and PASSION!

My almost 20 years of COMMITMENT have helped men JUST LIKE YOU take their bodies to the NEXT LEVEL in 52 COUNTRIES AROUND THE PLANET.

Order Complete DVD and Book Library Special NOW

Get to the Gym; Work Effectively and Efficiently; and Then Get the Heck Out of There!

By Skip La Cour
Six-Time National Champion
Success Coach

Many Bodybuilders' Workouts Are Way Too Long—and Their Intensity Plummets

Many bodybuilders mistakenly believe that working out longer and doing more exercises and sets makes them better than the average person. They misguidedly see themselves as some type of training warrior who is going above and beyond the call of duty in order to achieve their ambitious goals. They incorrectly see themselves as working much harder than the average person because they are willing to put more time in the gym.

More isn't better—not when it comes to bodybuilding and training. Don't fool yourself and confuse time spent in the gym or volume of work with progress. This is one of the toughest things for many people training in the gym to understand.

You'll move from exercise to exercise smoothly and efficiently when you establish a time frame that you are committed to work within. It will be easier to focus on the matter-at-hand when you only have so much time to do so. Make a game out of meeting the time goal that you've established. This is just one more simple way to set the stage for a more productive training session.

Your weight training sessions should last no longer than one hour. And you know what? I'm being extremely liberal with that amount of time. I really believe you can be extremely effective in far less time. But, because I know it's such a challenge for most of us to shorten our workouts and still feel confident that we are doing enough to meet our bodybuilding goals, I'll make the cutoff point one hour.

Regardless of how you try to rationalize it, longer training sessions are NOT more productive. You must force yourself to become just as effective in a shorter period of time by becoming more efficient.

To borrow a phrase I learned from former Mr. Olympia Lee Haney, you want to “stimulate” the muscles when you are in the gym and not “annihilate” them. Stimulating the muscles can be done quite effectively in one hour or less. It's a fact that the more time you spend in the gym, the more your concentration and focus will wane. The more your mental focus and concentration diminish the less effective you will become physically.

Let me explain why doing four sets of every exercise is not an efficient way to train. Let's just say you plan on doing four sets of a particular exercise. During each set of that exercise, your goal is to get at least eight repetitions.

On the first set, you get eight reps—exactly as you had planned. While performing the second set, you will usually get all eight reps again. During the third set, you tend to squeak out all eight reps as well. Getting all of those reps during the third set may have been a bit more challenging than the first two sets. But, despite the difficulty, you were mentally tough and managed to meet your rep range goal. If you do happen to get any more than eight reps during any of those first three sets, you more than likely won't get many more than one or two in addition to the eight.

This is how I would describe my training performance in the past. No matter what exercise I was doing or which body part I was training, it always seemed to work out that way. Hasn't this been true in your case as well?

But isn't it strange that, when you know you only have one set remaining of a particular exercise, your mindset changes? You can mysteriously muster up incredible strength and produce three, four, or even five more reps for an amazing total of 13! All of a sudden, you really became a training warrior. You've instantly transformed into a determined, machine-like madman who would make Dorian Yates (my role model for training intensity) envious!

If you think about it, don't you believe your performance should have turned out just the opposite? Let me explain what I mean:

If you were really giving your all like you thought you were during the first three sets, there shouldn't be nearly as much energy and power left to meet—much less exceed—that goal of eight reps during the last set. There simply shouldn't be that much physical strength left inside of you by that time.

If you were truly training with the utmost intensity you probably should have gotten about 12 repetitions during the first set; somewhere around 10 reps during the second one; eight or nine during the third one; and maybe only about six during the fourth one.

Take Action and Do This NOW!

I urge you to eliminate less-than-intense sets—and start training like a training warrior would during every set—during the entire workout!

You must ignite a sense of urgency in order to train with the highest level of intensity. Planning to do only one, two, and sometimes three sets creates that sense of urgency you need.

Using fewer sets, aiming for fewer reps during those sets, training only one body part per training session, and training each body part less frequently will make you spend less time in the gym. It will be much easier to keep your focus, concentration, and intensity level high when you are required to do so for shorter periods of time. When you adopt these "less is more" strategies, your workouts should take no longer than 60 minutes.

The cornerstone to any effective training strategy is the amount of intensity that's put into it. Whatever training routine or philosophy you decide to use, you must train with intensity. Without enough intensity, your training efforts will produce results that are mediocre at best.

Intensity in training can be described as giving 100 percent of your mind, body, and soul to every repetition, every set, every exercise, and every workout. Intensity means pounding the weights so hard that every set throughout your entire workout ends in absolute failure. In other words, you have absolutely nothing left in reserve when the set is completed. Intensity is just as much a mental feat as it is a physical one.

When you train with this type of passion, zeal, and enthusiasm, constant improvement in your physique is inevitable. If you train with intensity, there's no question that you'll be more productive in your bodybuilding efforts than those people who do not. The higher your training intensity level becomes, the better you'll be at initiating the muscle-building process.

============================================
Resources That WILL Take Your Efforts to the Next Level
===============================================

Start Your Bodybuilding and Training MASTERY JOURNEY Now!

Take control of your bodybuilding and training destiny! Start MASTERING this area of your life and order my Complete DVD and Book Library Special TODAY! I have bundled all of this POWERFUL information at a DISCOUNTED package price. I will even ship this valuable INVESTMENT in yourself absolutely FREE.

I've written ten (10) books and have produced seven (7) DVDs that explain every facet of bodybuilding. Almost 1,900 pages are written and over 20 hours of video footage created of pure INSTRUCTION and PASSION!

My almost 20 years of COMMITMENT have helped men JUST LIKE YOU take their bodies to the NEXT LEVEL in 52 COUNTRIES AROUND THE PLANET.

Order Complete DVD and Book Library Special NOW

Dump Your "Old School" Way of Thinking! You MUST Eat Before and After Your Workouts!

By Skip La Cour
Six Time National Champion Bodybuilder
Success Coach

Many Bodybuilders Adopt a Pre-Workout Eating Plan that Leaves the Muscles Starving for the Nutrients They Need to Grow

This mistake happens when bodybuilders don't eat anything before their workouts.

Here's the challenge:

“I never eat before I work out. I'll burn more body fat by training on an empty stomach. I can't figure out why I'm not building the amount of muscle I think I should.”

Intense weight training and cardiovascular training literally drain the limited protein stores your muscles carry. Within a very short period of time after you start training, you'll be running on empty. That's incredibly detrimental to muscle growth and repair. Those harmful effects are magnified the more intensely you train during your workout. It's important that you have an efficiently burning source of protein in your body that can be quickly accessed during your workouts. The protein source should also be consumed with a high-glycemic source of carbohydrates.

Training in general, whether it is cardiovascular or with weights, lowers your blood sugar levels. When your blood sugar levels have been lowered, they have difficulty getting the protein they need to maintain their size. Consuming high-glycemic carbohydrates spikes your blood sugar levels and actually forces the high-quality protein you consume with those high-glycemic carbohydrates into your ravenous muscles.

Take Action and Do This NOW!

I took my nutritional habits to the next level when I started utilizing an intelligent pre-workout plan. If you want to make sure you preserve as much muscle mass as possible, you should start eating a small protein-based meal with high-glycemic carbohydrates before every one of your weight training and cardiovascular training sessions.

============================================
Resources That WILL Take Your Efforts to the Next Level
===============================================

Start Your Bodybuilding and Training MASTERY JOURNEY Now!

Take control of your bodybuilding and training destiny! Start MASTERING this area of your life and order my Complete DVD and Book Library Special TODAY! I have bundled all of this POWERFUL information at a DISCOUNTED package price. I will even ship this valuable INVESTMENT in yourself absolutely FREE.

I've written ten (10) books and have produced seven (7) DVDs that explain every facet of bodybuilding. Almost 1,900 pages are written and over 20 hours of video footage created of pure INSTRUCTION and PASSION!

My almost 20 years of COMMITMENT have helped men JUST LIKE YOU take their bodies to the NEXT LEVEL in 52 COUNTRIES AROUND THE PLANET.

Order Complete DVD and Book Library Special NOW