Ongoing Education: Muscle Nerds - Part 1
Muscle Nerds Physique & Fat Loss Workshop – 10 takeaways!
Part 1
Recently Inner Strength was lucky enough to host Muscle Nerds founder and former Poliquin Group head coach, Luke Leaman. Luke presented to the Inner Strength crew along with a number of great trainers from around NZ It was an intensive workshop that he put on especially for us, so he made sure he covered and did justice to as much information as possible into two days where he spoke at length on:
- How energy is made
- What calories really mean
- How to find metabolism dysfunction
- How to unclog someone’s metabolism
- How to periodise training and nutrition
- Strategies for setting up long term physique training
- Supplementation for fat loss
- Biochemistry of fat loss
- Neurotransmitters and compliance for fat loss
- Digestion and assimilation from mouth to cell
- How to apply the teachings into yours and your clients programs.
- Metabolic Syndrome
- Stress
Here are 10 take-aways Luke discussed over the seminar. All of these will affect your ability to successfully drop body-fat!
Stress
#1 – Stress Management is king if fat loss is your goal, as a chronically stressed body is inflamed. Chronic stress and inflammation is associated with fat gain, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, cancer and faster aging.
Acute stress can be very beneficial for us (such as the stress applied to our bodies by training), as by elevating stress in this way, you will get the energy you need to live life and gives your body a chance to adapt positively, whereas if you didn’t have this type of stress response then you would simply have no ‘up-and-go’ and wouldn’t progress.
Chronic stress on the other hand is when it lasts for extended periods of time or becomes excessive. If you find that your weight fluctuates up and down a few kilograms ‘over-night’, then it can be a good sign that your body is under chronic stress, common causes of which can often be psychological stress, relationships, physical stress, irritations to food, poor quality sleep, environment…. This chronic stress is what we need to focus our attention on reducing as much as possible.
Great ways to mitigate this can be by introducing things like yoga/stretching routines (especially before going to bed), keeping a gratitude log, meditating, Epsom salt baths.
Digestion and assimilation from mouth to cell
#2 – You are not what you eat, you are what you assimilate. Your gut health and ratio of good and bad bacteria will have a massive say in what and how many nutrients your body is going to be able to extract and absorb. Needless to say, if you have poor ratio’s of good and bad bacteria (typically an over-growth of ‘bad’ bacteria and low number of good bacteria), then your body simply wont be able to gain access to the nutrients in the food you eat – No matter how clean you’re eating.
Supplementation for fat loss
#3 – If you can take only one supplement, a good probiotic should be your priority. Following on from #3, if you have an imbalance of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria (which is very common), then correcting this imbalance needs to be prioritized if you are to make optimal headway, regardless of your goals. By supplementing with a good probiotic and eating fermented foods such as Saur Kraut, Kefir or drinking Kombucha, you will help increase the numbers of good bacteria and will act to even out the ratio’s of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria.
How energy is made
#4 – Poor ability to make energy is a major factor in whether or not you will be successful at achieving a lean physique. In the theme of good gut health, if you have poor gut health/Dybiosis, then there is a high likelihood that you will not be able to use vitamin B1, B2, B3 (must get these from your food) well. These B vitamins have a major and direct influence on your cells ability to make energy. Therefore Dysbiosis/poor gut health will mean that not only will you not be optimally processing and assimilating your food, but the fuel that does get to your cells won’t be able to be fully utilized to make energy optimally.
Sweat Every Day
#5 – Sweat every day. Your skin is one of the ways your body gets to excrete toxins. Fat cells are one of your body’s most preferred places to store toxins, as this stops them from floating around our bodies and causing damage. By sweating every day, you can help reduce the toxic load on your body and therefore how much stress your body is under and how full your fat cells are.
Sweating everyday will help you with your body composition goal by a few ways, such as – A) The act of sweating will mean that liberated toxins and by-products have a chance to exit the body, decreasing the size of your fat cells and how your body responds to stress. B) Increased body temperature and sweating also increases blood flow and metabolic rate, which means you body is going to be able to saturate your cells with more oxygen and also expend more energy and therefore will encourage you to reduce body fat. C) To sweat, you must elevate your body temperature, which is well proven to increase longevity of life by increasing Heat Shock Proteins (HSP). HSP’s are responsible for keeping the proteins in your cells (which are needed for all of the biological work inside the cell) in their correct form/structure so they can function without accumulating excessive amounts of by-products and ultimately stress.
Expect Part 2 coming next week!
The post Ongoing Education: Muscle Nerds – Part 1 appeared first on Inner Strength Performance Centre.