10 Commandments of Fitness - Steroids Source Talk

eazy · #1 (**permalink**) 03-02-2012, 08:06 AM

For those of us raised on bible class at school we will be familiar with the story of the ten commandments, passed down by God to his servant Moses as not so much a guide, as an instructional manual backed up by a few lightning bolts to ensure the righteous obey the wishes of God.

That got me thinking that surely a community such as the bodybuilding and general fitness community should have its own code of behaviour and ethics to ensure that the masses evolve steadily from Mr Punyverse to Mr Universe. The challenge was set, except this time instead of God it was Predator Nutrition's very own Reggie Johal who would don a white beard and crown and proclaim for all time the...(drum roll)

Ten Commandments of Fitness
1. Thou shalt practice progressive overload
If ever there was a cast iron law of fitness this would be it. Whether our goals are weight training or endurance training all progress will grind to a halt unless, over time, we increase the stimulus presented to our body either by adding weight, sets, reps, or exercises. Ignore the advice about shaping muscles, going for a pump and anything else which stops you from increasing what you do. You will not get any bigger doing the same thing week after week, as we see so many do in commercial gyms.
2. Thou shalt make every meal count
Once training is nailed the average gym rat can often take a funny view on feeding themselves. In my time I have seen everything from a Big Mac, a can of Coke, or a pint of beer used for post workout nutrition and the number of otherwise dedicated athletes who drink to excess at the weekend or skip meals only to overeat on junk is quite high. To get into shape we need to ask ourselves is this meal going to help us in our efforts? Will it help increase muscle building via the provision of adequate amounts of protein? Will it provide carbohydrates to ensure glycogen repletion? Are you having enough essential fats? Am I eating enough calories to gain size? If we pause to consider questions each time we eat a meal we should realise that the aim of eating is to accelerate recovery and enhance muscle building while minimising fat gain.
Generally, the following advice will suit 99% of people
Eat 1-1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight at all times
Consume 3-6g of fish oil caps or eat oily fish frequently
Adjust carbohydrates and fat as required.
Aim for 16 calories per pound of bodyweight as a figure to base your maintenance level of calories at and adjust upward or downward by 200 calories depending on your goals.
If you don't want to get too anal just ensure you get enough protein and essential fats and set your calories to whatever you will and let the fats and carbohydrates fall as they will. In practice have more carbs around training and less on off days.
3. Thou shalt have a Goal
You would never try to do anything which requires dedication, skill, passion and resourcefulness without an end goal. You wouldn't build a house without a clue as to what the end goal will be, nor would a doctor start operating on a patient without some idea of what he is digging around your insides for.

Similarly, when it comes to training the most successful people will always set objectives that are clear and focused. These can be daily, weekly, monthly or yearly goals. As an example here is my own way of breaking it down:

Daily - Ensure I sleep 8+ hours and time my meals to have an optimum level of energy when I train. Look to beat the same performance a week earlier.

Weekly - Weight and track body-fat readings weekly to ensure the diet and training is on track.

Monthly - Aim to hit personal monthly strength goals for the key exercises such as squats.

Yearly - I want to squat 500lb at the year end.

By breaking down a yearly goal into smaller periods we can constantly adjust training or diet to ensure we hit our goal. Make goals SMART which means

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time Bound

By setting goals appropriately they act as a constant reminder to keep your diet and training program on track as well as providing clues to where you need to adjust things.
4. Thou shalt be Consistent
Are you the guy who starts the year off with a bang; training like a demon, monitoring every last calorie and buying a load of supplements to get you to where you want to be? As laudable as that may be it is often the case that such people burn out and lose interest and end up switching between phases of intense activity to generally doing very little at all and blowing off their diet at the same time. This will not get you a good body.

Or perhaps you are someone who trains and eats perfectly through the week and then at the weekend stays out late, has a few drinks and forgets to track their protein intake? You could well undo a week's worth of work by having a bad weekend.

The obvious conclusion we can make is that to achieve our ideal goals we need to remain focused on our training and our diet throughout the week and ensure that we adhere to a realistic regime which allows us to stay motivated, improve weekly and ensure we also take our recovery and nutrition seriously. While you may hear of stories of people getting in shape quickly from Hollywood, in my experience only the genetically gifted or those using drugs can make such a journey and even in those cases, without a consistent program the gains are quickly lost.
5. Thou shalt be Healthy
It amazes me when I see pro athletes wolfing down burgers and pizzas and paying minimal attention to their vitamin and mineral status. It is not a surprise then to see that so many athletes are deficient in key vitamins and minerals such as vitamin D, magnesium and zinc. Deficiencies in vitamins and minerals will eventually lead to compromised health as well as performance.

It is not a surprise that many athletes end up paying for their lack of attention in the form of injuries, illness or even as has been noted in American Football players, shortened lifespan. Given the pounding we impose on our joints and soft tissue structures, it is important these are not neglected either when it comes to optimising health.

To improve our health a number of key things should be stressed:

a) Ensuring we eat high quality, fresh food

b) Avoid overly processed food or anything which is not conducive to building a great body

c) Ensure we supplement with a good multivitamin and take extra omega fatty acids and vitamin

D. This can ensure optimal health, improved mood, skin and hair quality, as well as improve body composition and cardiovascular health.

e) Limit stimulant usage and cycle in non-stimulant pre-workouts to your routine such as Ultima and Hemavol.
6. Thou shalt put in Hard Work!
How many times have you seen people making up excuses for why they can't train, why they are not progressing in the gym and how they need a particular supplement to give them a kick-start. While everyone hits a plateau at some time or another, why is it that most people treat a plateau as a case of more of the same until they break through which generally fails dismally. On the other hand when others fail to progress they get lured by the siren voices of the HIT crowd which advocates an emphasis on training intensity (training to failure) at the expense of training volume (number of sets). While this works in the short term for some, in the long run you end up training your body to have a lower tolerance for work with a reduction in recovery ability.

In the sports training world over the last decade or two there has been a huge growth in training volumes. Everyone from cyclists to endurance, from weightlifters to some natural bodybuilders such as Layne Norton, have come around to the conclusion that, providing you allow the body to adapt slowly over time, the route to success is nothing more complicated than working damn hard over a long period of time.

Many people who don't have the appetite for this work or who thinks their body is not so gifted at recovering miss the key point - that these different types of sportsmen will all very gradually increase the volume and intensity until a point where in most cases of elite, world beating sportsmen they are training twice a day or more virtually every day. This is what you call hard work, not training at the gym 3-4 times a week taking a whole week off between body parts!

Given the fact these guys manage to excel at their chosen sports often without even paying a great deal of attention to diet should give all the people reading this a clue as to what they should be doing.

Now, if you are going to start training harder; do so gradually. Maybe add an extra workout per week for your legs at a light intensity and then gradually over time add another. As your body adapts to the workload you should find you are less sore and able to make more rapid progress.
7. Thou shalt include Compound movements
A lot of people want to get big but they seem to think that doing a load of isolation work, machine exercises and other "easy" exercises as being a shortcut to success. Rather than a shortcut these people end up taking a detour into no-man’s land ending up smaller, weaker and fatter than if they had ignored what they wanted to do and instead concentrated on what they didn't want to do meaning heavy weights on compound movements like the squat, deadlift, bench presses and pull ups. Seriously, has anyone ever gained any size off of cable crossovers, leg extensions, or concentration curls? The answer is no, and yet an awful lot of people spend far too much time on these and similar exercises.

Perform at least 75% of your total number of sets on compound, multi-joint exercises and steadily focus on increasing your strength on these over time.

eazy · #2 (**permalink**) 03-02-2012, 08:07 AM

8. Thou shalt Sleep
This must be the commandment which absolutely gets ignored, the fitness equivalent of trying to stick to "Don't covet your neighbour's wife" when your neighbour is Hugh Hefner. That is gonna’ be a hard one to stick to.

Why is sleep so difficult to get right, given a large amount of research showing it is invaluable for boosting testosterone, controlling cortisol levels (elevated levels of which are responsible for increased abdominal fat storage), and boosting mood, recovery and performance even in skill based events. For more on sleep read our article on sleep.

To help ensure you get enough sleep you should avoid stimulants at night and aim to go to sleep at the same time of night every day and try to rise in the morning at the same time also avoiding weekend lie-ins. Once you get your body to a solid sleep routine aiming for 9+ hours of sleep a night you should find yourself requiring less of a pick-me up in the morning or before workouts and your performance in training should be much improved.
9. Thou shalt implement Periodisation
Periodisation is a fancy name which basically means having some type of structured training plan or philosophy which allows you to manipulate variables such as the exercises, frequency of workouts, number of sets and reps as well as type of training performed with a view to constantly challenging the body so that over the long term you make progress even if occasionally this means you will backslide potentially.

Traditionally, periodised training routines were designed to ensure success in Olympic sports and led athletes' coaches to formulate a plan designed to ensure their charges hit peak performance for a single period of time. While this may work it has drawbacks which led to it falling out of favour.

For bodybuilders an example of a periodised plan would be to assign a 4-6 block of training to high rep work to build muscle endurance, and size and then follow this up with another 4-6 block where the number of reps are reduced while the number of sets are increased which is following up a hypertrophy block with a strength training block. The pricing behind this is that the body requires a certain period of time to build optimal muscle size and by focusing purely on this you can gain muscle optimally. Then, after a period of time where the body has adjusted to this type of program you switch to a strength oriented routine where the increased muscle mass you have just gained allows you to push more weights.
10. Thou shalt manage their Stress
Ever noticed that when you go through a rough period in life such as exams, or relationship problems that your performance in the gym suffers and you struggle to motivate yourself to train?

What is going on when we encounter stress is that our levels of testosterone will drop while the catabolic hormone cortisol will rise. This leads to the reduced motivation and sex drive as well as the increased difficulty in gaining muscle/losing fat which is common to high stress situations.

In life we are always going to encounter stress but we should do our utmost to mitigate its effects. For instance, ensuring we sleep enough, eat adequately, practice mindfulness when eating to avoid overeating without even being aware of it or taking supplements such as a good intra-workout or adaptogen complex which can help our bodies to help overcome the negative effects of stress.

It also means listening to our body and knowing when to cut back a little (which you should do in any periodised training plan) or when to stop obsessing over food and training and learning to enjoy life a little. As much as we should always remember not to miss workouts and meals, it is also important that we do not sacrifice our social lives to our training and diets as doing so will probably be the worse for us leading as it does to a type of stress (boredom).
Conclusion
The Ten Commandments passed down to Moses were not so easy for his followers to live by. The same applies with our Ten Fitness Commandments but if we do adhere to them we will ultimately benefit massively by reaping all the rewards of a healthy and powerful physique which draws admiration from everyone. More importantly you will know that it was a hard won victory like anything in life that is worth having.