Muscle Titans

Pre Workout Supplement - Good or Not?

admin@muscletitans.com — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:31:00 -0200

This post is going to be talking about how a pre workout supplement can help you get better workouts. Having recently started using Jack3d (a pre-workout), im going to talk about the pros and cons of my experience with it.

Ok first off, the energy boost is definetly there. Aftre 30 minutes of drinking, you feel a rush in your head, feel an increased sense of concentration, increased strength, and euphoria. During the workout, i also noticed i was getting better pumps. Another good point when talking about Jack3d is that it contains a lot less ingredients when compared to another pre workout supplement. This also means it containss no (or very little) fillers, which means ingredients that are added just to increase the selling price. Speaking of price, Jack3d has an average price of 28$, easily making it the cheapest pre workout supplement around.

In terms of negative effects, the major one you want to take care of is to access your tolerance. You should start off with one scoop, and then slowly increase. The reason for this is that if you take a dose that is too strong for your body, you will "crash" after the effect has worn off and feel really terrible. Another thing you should be aware of is that your body will quickly build tolerance to this product, so you should always cycle it.

So, to recap:

Pros:

Increased Energy
Increased Focus
Bigger pumps
More strength
Dirt cheap

Cons:

Tolerance increases rapidly
Can cause crashes

You can get your own pre workout supplement tub here:

Creatine Effects

admin@muscletitans.com — Mon, 02 May 2011 15:28:00 -0200

Before we discuss Creatine as a supplement you must know some basic information about the body’s energy systems. There are 3 energy systems and these are:

ATP-CP (CP=Creatine Phosphate) - These are the activities which are the most intense and last under 10seconds such as a 60m dash, clean and jerk, lifting at gym low reps etc...

ATP is a molecule consisting of 1 Adensoine and 3 Phosphates, and the body can only make use of ATP as it energy source. When the body needs energy it breaks dons

Lactic acid system - Activities which last around 2mintues. Great examples would be 800m runs

Oxidative system - These are the activities which are low intensity and last a long time.

These energy systems and how creatine effects them can be explained into greater detail but all that you need to know is that the ATP-CP system uses Creatine as a fuel source.

ATP is a molecule consisting of 1 Adensoine and 3 Phosphates, and the body can only make use of ATP as it energy source. When the body needs energy it breaks down a bond between 1 Phosphate and the Adenosine energy is a produced. The problem here is that ATP than become ADP(Adenosine Di Phosphate)which is unusable at its current state. What Creatine does is that it gives a phosphate molecule so it joins up with a pre-existing ADP to once again become ATP(Readily available as energy)

With this being said it is common sense that having extra Creatine stores means being able to be stronger/powerful for that extra bit more, this being one of the most beneficial of the multiple creatine effects. You can feel when your body transitions from one energy system to the other (this happens around rep number 4-5). Your body loses speed and that power factor. The longer we can delay the depletion of Creatine stores directly translates to an increase in performance whether it is running speed or amount of reps benched.

In short, here are the Creatine effects you need to know about:

Will spark new muscle growth because of greater stimulus performed because of more reps
In increase in power output because body produces more energy quickly for longer
Muscular endurance increases because the body starts producing lactic acid when creatine runs out.
Muscles increase in volume because more water is needed to store the Creatine.

Now it’s up to you to decide what type of creatine to buy because there are various types of creatine supplements. Some experts prefer one over the other but there are no real scientific studies which show one is actually better than the other. What everyone agrees on is that Creatine equals better,bigger,stronger bodies.

-Antonio Flores

What are Vegetables?

admin@muscletitans.com — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:36:00 -0200

We all remember Popeye and his spinach right? Now while it may not be that effective at building muscles, vegetables are nonetheless very important in your diet. Vegetables are important and beneficial to everyone, but what do they do for a bodybuilder?

First off, vegetables are low in calories, high in fiber, and rich in vitamins, minerals, and pigments. Lets go into some more specific details about what are vegetables.

Building Muscle

While many of us think that protein is the way to go to build muscle (and its true to a degree), protein along wont cut it! Vegetables are packed with vitamins and minerals that not only help reduce recovery time, but also aid red blood cell production, muscle contractions, etc. Some vegetables also contain Calcium which is important for strong healthy bones.

Immune System

Sick of getting sick? Vegetables can help you! The minerals and vitamins found in vegetables help your body build a stronger immune system, helping it fight off viruses and other nasty things! Remember that many of the nutrients you get from vegetables are water-soluble and thus are not stored in the body. This means that you need to get multiple servings a day to get the most benefit.

Mental Health

We all know bodybuilding isnt just about lifting weights. The brain is the most important aspect of our body, because it controls everything. Vegetables contain antioxidants that help protect your brain and prevent mental ilness (including age related decline).

Loosing Fat

Want to loose fat? Eat vegetables! Vegetalbes can aid in keeping a healthy metabolism ,increased sense of fullness from eating them, and stabilize blood sugar levels. This means that your cravings will go down, thus (hopefully) consuming less calories. They also aid digestion and increase overall energy levels.

Ok, now you know what vegetables do, bur which ones are the best? All of them! The best thing you can do is to consume a varied selection and change it everyday. Here is a list of virtually every vegetable in existence, along with its nutritional value.

Now when someone asks you what are vegetables? You are well equipped to answer! Just remember that taking multi-vitamins is just one step of the process. A multi-vitamin is a supplement, not a replacement!

5 Ways to Lose Stomach Fat Fast

admin@muscletitans.com — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:12:00 -0200

Possibly the most common question asked is how to lose stomach fat fast. What you first need to understand, is that it is not possible to loose fat from your stomach only, you loose it from all over. So if your body genetically stores bodyfat in your arms, and little in your stomach, your body will first remove the fat in your arms. Another thing people often get wrongs is training isn't the way to loose fat. The primary way is your diet, supplemented by cardio. Now that you know that, lets get to how you can lose stomach fat fast!

1. Eat a calorie deficit diet

Probably the most important thing you can do, is to eat less calories than your body uses! This way, your body will start taking fat away, giving you the results you want!

2. Eat foods with low glycemic value

Glycemic Index is how fast the carbohydrates contained in food are converted to glucose and enter the bloodstream. The less the Glycemic Index of a food item, the less insulin your body has to make insulin and thus is likely to convert carbohydrates into fats. Foods with low Glycemic Index will also make you feel "full" more than foods with high Glycemic index will, helping with your cravings!

Low Glycemic Index is considered to be anything under 55 (anything above that wont really help you lose stomach fat fast). You can find a comprehensive list of food items with their corresponding GI values here.

3. Cardio!

One of the most important things you need to do to lose stomach fat fast is to do cardio. Cardio is a great way to lower lower the total amount of calories you take during the day and should be done with any fat loss diet. The best way to do cardio is to use the HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) system. Basically, HIIT is when instead of doing cardio in a constant fashion (for example jogging for an hour, keeping heart rate constant), you go all out until you cant anymore, walk, and then go all out again for about 30 minutes. Here is a very good video explanation:

4. Eat Frequent Meals

Eating small, frequent meals is an important aspect of loosing weight. It has many advantages, such as:

Simulating your metabolism every time you eat a meal
Allows your body to make more effective use of the nutrients you give it
Prevents catabolism!

5. Drink lots of water!

Water is very important for your overall body function, but it also helps with loosing fat! Drinking lots of water will help keep your liver hydrated and as such it will burn fat more effectively. Water has also been shown to improve metabolism. Studies show that up to 30% increase in metabolism can be gained from just 17 ounces of water!

Bodybuilding Photos - Round One!

admin@muscletitans.com — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:26:00 -0200

Greetings, and welcome to the first post of bodybuilding photos. Over the years i have collected a lot of bodybuilding photos, "5,206" to be precise. In these posts, i will be sharing with you the best one from my collection, including rare photos from the golden age of bodybuilding!

Dexter Jackson

Dorian Yates

Kevin Levrone

Lee Priest

Ronnie Coleman

Hope you enjoyed them. Stay tuned for more bodybuilding photos later on!

Weekend with Dusty Hanshaw Series - Three Part Video Series

admin@muscletitans.com — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:55:00 -0200

Check out this three part series released by iFORCE nutrition featuring Dusty Hanshaw.

Top 5 Best Biceps Exercises

admin@muscletitans.com — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 17:50:00 -0200

We all love big biceps, but most people don't know the first thing about training them! First of all, the bicep is a very small muscle with only two basic functions, which are palm rotation and curling your arm. The bicep muscle is actually split into two smaller muscle, the inner head and the outer head, that is why it is called biceps and not bicep. Underneath the biceps sits another muscle called the brachialis, but for you generally work both muscles together.

1. Standing Barbell Curl

The first thing that comes to your mind when you think of biceps exercises is always this exercise, and with good reason. Its a very good compound movement which is very good at building mass on your biceps. What most people do wrong on this exercise is that they put too much weight on the bar and end up swinging their back to lift it. As mentioned before, the bicep is a very small muscle and it doesn't need a lot of weight to train. Instead, what you should be doing is putting on moderate weight on the bar on focusing in contracting at the top, and slowly bringing the bar down. The grip should be shoulder width. These focus more on the bicep than the brachialis.

2. Barbell Preacher Curls

Another very good exercise is the barbell preacher curl. This exercise will put more emphasis on your brachialis and is more of an isolation movement. Again you should use low weight on this and focus on the contractions at the top.

3. Rope Hammer Curl

A compound exercise that focuses on the brachialis, as well as hitting your forearms hard. You should use relatively heavy weight on this exercise, as long as you still use good form. You can superset these with bicep curls for additional burn!

4. Drag Curl

Invented by the legendary Vince Gironda, this is one of the few biceps exercises that comes close to truly isolating the biceps. You perform the exercise by grasping the bar using shoulder width grip, and then dragging the bar on your torso, while your shoulders move backwards. Be warned that this is a very hard exercise and should be done with light weight.

5. Wide Grip / Narrow Grip Curls

As i mentioned before, the bicep is split into two muscles, the inner and the outer. If you need to put more emphasis on either of the heads, you can modify your grip.

Using a wide grip (more than shoulder width) will put more stress on the inner head, while using a narrow grip (less than shoulder width) puts more stress on your outer head. A good way to go is to superset these two biceps exercises together.

5 Tips to Improve Your Chest Training

admin@muscletitans.com — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 13:45:00 -0200

Whether you are a seasoned veteran or a gym-newbie, you probably put a strong emphasis on your chest training week to week. Lets face it; girls love a sculpted chest and guys are envious of a massive bench press. Bottom line. The problem is that not all of us can easily pack on the size and strength that we envision ourselves having when we picture our perfect physique.

It took a long time for me to accept it but I have a stubborn chest. It sucks. When I talk to guys about fitness and lifting, the first question I am asked 90 percent of the time is always the same. “How much do you bench man?” You know what I am talking about, we've all been there. Regardless of your satisfaction with the size and strength of your chest, I’m going to let you in some tips and tricks that really helped me bust out of that dreaded plateau and take my chest routine to a whole new level.

1. LEAVE YOUR EGO AT THE DOOR

Focus on form. Yeah, sure, someone MIGHT notice if you are throwing up heavy weight on bench but to be completely honest, nobody really cares and if you are using bad form, you are doing nothing more than wasting time. If you are benching, keep your ass on the bench, your back flat and don’t flop around like a fish out of water. Work on slow and controlled reps. They will pay off.

2. DUMB IS SMART

If you have never used dumbbells for your chest training, it is time to make a change. Although barbell bench and incline are great for strength and mass, they can put a lot of pressure on your shoulder joints. If you really feel pain in your shoulders using barbells, don’t throw it in the back of your mind and try to work through it, that’s how your injure yourself. Try switching it up from week to week, incorporating flat and incline dumbbell press. Additionally, try throwing in some incline flyes to get a good stretch in your upper chest.

3. UTILIZE YOUR BODYWEIGHT

The only way to develop a chiseled chest is to push heavy weight right? Wrong. If you have forgotten about some of the most basic exercises you learned in elementary school P.E. class, it is time to jog your memory. Basic pushups and all of their variations (decline, diamond, etc) do wonders for your chest, as long as you are focusing on form and slow, controlled reps. Dips are another bodyweight chest exercise that you should incorporate if you haven’t already. You may find that they put too much pressure on your shoulders. If so, lean even more forward and keep your knees up closer to your body. This will place more of the pressure on your chest. Once you become comfortable and develop more strength, grab a dip belt to move on to weighted dips for that extra oomph. For a nice burnout at the end of your chest training, superset dips and pushups and work to failure.

4. MIND POWER

The mind-muscle connection is possibly one of the most overlooked aspects of getting the most out of your chest training. It wasn't until I started focusing on contracting my chest that I started to see impressive gains. Think about this. You are standing in front of a mirror flexing, posing and looking at your progress (don’t be embarrassed, everyone does it). Now think about flexing your chest. Got it? Now picture yourself doing a set of flat dumbbell presses, for example. Do you use various parts of your body to get those extra reps or do you concentrate on contracting your chest to push the weight? If you are confused, work on making the connection with your mind and chest the next time you hit the gym with lighter weight. It might take a bit of time but when you experience that new level of fatigue in your chest, you‘ll know you've figured it out.

5. THINK NEGATIVE

Although you can apply negatives to any exercise, I have found that they are especially useful in busting out of a chest plateau. On the last rep of any set of presses, focus on using the mind-muscle connection to contract your chest and let down the weight as slowly as possible. If you have never used negatives, you will likely find it a great way to fatigue your chest like never before. With flat barbell bench, load a weight that is higher than your one rep max to get in a heavy negative, but make sure you have aspotter to assist you in bringing the weight back up; spotters are essential when using a barbell for negatives.

Hopefully you find these tips helpful. Keep in mind that weight training itself is only a portion of building the physique you desire. Without adequate sleep for recovery and a spot-on diet, you aren't maximizing your potential. With that said, no one body is the same. What works for me may not work as well for you, but using new ways to hit all parts of your chest and maintaining a solid work ethic in the gym will provide you with results.

-Louis Edwards, Junior Writer

Gain Mass using Strength Training Routines

admin@muscletitans.com — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 08:19:00 -0200

Bust through a plateau by learning how to use strength training routines to your advantage!

It’s all strength and muscle

Most exercises use stored potential energy generated from the eccentric contraction prior to concentric, this is what you may notice as a bounce at the bottom. How many times have you struggled to overhead press a weight for the first rep and the rest of the reps feel easier? This is because in the beginning of the set it’s all muscle working and not momentum (stretch reflex). Simply by pausing for a second or 2 at the bottom of the eccentric you are eliminating the momentum and causing the muscle to contract without the aid of this stretch reflex thus making it work harder. This practice is used a lot in strength training routines.

Mechanical drop sets

Everyone knows what a drop set is right? Reducing weight after a certain amount of reps to keep on pumping extra reps. Another way that can be done is simply starting the hardest way to perform an exercise and then moving to an easier version to continue pumping reps. A perfect example would be dumbbell bench press set. First a set of incline press is done and immediately after hitting failure or 1-2 reps shy of failure, than the bench would be lowered so it would be flat. By doing this more reps can be performed. This can also be taken to another level by going to decline after the flat bench. This can be done to various exercises:

· High bar squat to low bar squat
· Overhand pull ups/row to under hand pull ups/row
· Reverse curl to barbell curl
· Romanian deadlifts to regular Deadlifts
· Close grip bench press to regular grip bench press

Partial reps

One of the most popular strength training routines is partial repetitions. This is when one performs the strongest part of the lift (Ex: top part of bench press). This works by strengthening connective tissue and by improving the body’s ability to recruit muscle fibers. Always perform full R.O.M after the partial reps. excellent exercises to try partial reps are: Bench press, Squat, Deadlift, Standing press. The reps should be kept in the moderate range (8-12). Note-do not perform more than 6 weeks of partials due to the high stress it inflicts

Speed is what you need

Increasing the speed of a lift is increasing the amount of muscle fibers being recruited, this is why speed is a major factor in most strength training routines. It is also why weightlifters and powerlifters are stronger than bodybuilders similar in size. You might ask “but I don’t care how strong I am, how will this help me?” By improve power out up you have more muscle fibers at your disposal to fry…so more muscle fibers recruited=more potential for growth. So increasing power output is achieved by including some plyometric work to your workout. A few good examples of plyos are med ball chest pass, med ball slams, depth jumps, dynamic bench/squat/deadlift…

An important thing to keep in mind is that plyos cannot be done when muscles/CNS are even slightly fatigued, so always to be done prior to lifting or at least 48hrs after a heavy workout. Also no more than 5 reps at 1 go and decent recovery time is needed.

-Antonio Flores

Looking for Bodybuilding Clothing? Get in here!

admin@muscletitans.com — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 13:00:00 -0200

Looking for bodybuilding clothing? You have landed on the right page, because I'm going to help you find just what you need. Wearing bodybuilding clothing that makes you look good to the gym has positive effects on your motivation and thus will help you workout better (I know this from personal experience).

We already have a page about this, check it out: Bodybuilding Clothing

This post is simply meant to explain and categorise so you get a better idea.

So lets start off. Getting the correct bodybuilding clothing depends on what you prefer. Generally, you have clothes that are a tight fit, and clothes that are a little baggy. Here are two examples:

This is a shirt from AnimalPak in baggy style (i own two of these):

And this one is from Bodybuilding.com in tight fit style:

Then we also have tanktops:

Most people stop there when they thing about bodybuilding clothing , but there is a lot more.

Bodybuilding clothing includes pants, watches, hats, gloves, and other accessories.