Muscle Recovery After a Workout: The Important Role of Sleep
Originally posted on Slumber Yard
When you are regularly working out, you don’t always have the luxury of an extended recovery time. It’s common for people to spring an injury during workouts, only to have to power through the injury without giving themselves adequate time to heal.
Of course, there’s nothing better than sinking into the best mattress, but few people realize how much sleep can aid in muscle recovery. There are many flashy, expensive solutions out there to help improve sleep and reduce injury: supplements and therapies, machines and at-home systems. Some of these are effective, and some are not, but don’t underestimate the value of good old-fashioned sleep.
At the end of the day, your body needs rest so it can recoup and rebuild. This is why you should never underestimate the power of sleep, especially when you are working out.
Sleep Stages For Muscle Recovery
Sleep plays a major role in helping your body recover after a long...
What is Intermittent Fasting?
What is Intermittent Fasting (aka IF)?
You’ve probably heard the term Intermittent Fasting over the last few years. You may know exactly what it means or maybe you don’t and you’re interested in learning more. One important point of differentiation is that Intermittent Fasting -- or IF -- is not a type of diet, but a dieting tool that can be used in conjunction with Whole 30, Paleo, vegetarianism or any other type of eating plan. IF is essentially an eating schedule that allows you to eat larger meals because you are shortening the window of time when you consume calories. However, your overall calories remain the same. (This isn’t a license to eat everything in sight!) The most common fasting schedule is 16:8, 16 hours of fasting followed by 8 hours of eating.
How It Works
During the fasting portion, you typically only have black coffee, tea, or water. The easiest way to do this is to skip breakfast, fasting 16 hours from 8pm to noon....
Five diseases you can prevent with regular exercise
Regular exercise keeps you healthy, especially as you age. It improves your balance, helps you lose weight, strengthens your muscles and bones, all while making you look and feel better.
But that’s not the whole story.
Regardless of your age and conditioning level (yes, that includes everyone from power walkers to ultra-marathoners), research shows that working out more often provides health benefits—especially in the disease prevention department.
Here are five of the health ailments that regular exercise helps to prevent, manage, and assist in recovery and rehabilitation.
Improved Heart Health
Guess what’s the best way to improve your heart health and strengthen your heart muscles?
It’s cardiovascular training, according to the American Heart Association.
First, regular exercise reduces blood pressure, or what’s known as chronic hypertension. This is the biggest risk factor for heart disease. Hypertension is...
3 Ways to Build Muscle Faster
If you're a new or seasoned fitness enthusiast, you might be wondering if there is a way for you to supercharge your results and gain muscle faster. This could be for many reasons, maybe you want to lift more, maybe you are competing, or maybe you are just trying to get lean. Whatever the reason is, it’s important to know a few safe ways to help you achieve your goals a bit quicker.
So here are three ways you can help yourself build muscle faster.
1) Lift heavy and often
This might seem a bit obvious but it stands to be said. If you aren’t lifting weight 4-5 times a week, building muscle is going to be quite a bit slower. When lifting weight it’s also important to push yourself and challenge your current lifting capabilities. If you can do 12-15 reps with 15 pounds, increase it to 20 and see if you can get 6-8 reps. This is how you stress the muscle and cause micro-tearing that is essential for muscle growth. Lifting heavy and often is important, but so...
Eating Healthy Might Be Making You Fat
Okay I know what you are thinking, I’ve lost my mind… You probably think “if I eat clean then I will lose weight.” While this certainly can be true, if you aren’t tracking what you are eating you might be consuming just as much or MORE calories than you think!
For example, avocados, quinoa, beans, and nuts are all really healthy foods. But without portion control, they can actually cause you to gain weight and eat more calories / macronutrients than you intended. Similar to tracking a budget, you need to know how much is being spent to avoid going over. This is the same when it comes to food. Everything needs to be consumed in moderation, EVERYTHING!
This is where flexible dieting comes into play. Flexible dieting allows you to track your macronutrients and calories, and as long as you hit those numbers you can eat what you want. Yes, even a donut! The idea is that you eat your three meals a day (or six depending on your...
What have you been putting off?
It's easy to set goals and keep putting them off. Recently we renovated our kitchen after talking about it for five years. Finally we decided to go through with it and now we’re wondering why we didn’t do it sooner! This got me thinking about all the times this happens in our everyday lives and I wanted to take a moment to touch on it a bit and see if I can help you take action!
As the year is quickly coming to a close, you might be thinking about your goals for next year, and while it’s important to have new goals, it’s also important to actually stick with the ones you have.
I wanted to compete in bodybuilding competitions since I was a teenager. It wasn't until 2012 that I actually pulled the trigger and got a coach to help me achieve this. This year, I earned my pro card in several federations and was able to compete at the professional level! This is what happens when you take action and commit to making things happen! So often...
Three Reasons to Use a Meal Prep Service
When it comes to hitting your macros, meal-prepping is a must-do. But many times family obligations, work and other priorities get in the way. One option for the super-busy is to use a meal-prepping service. Recently I’ve discovered a meal-prep service that’s macro-friendly, delicious and doesn’t break the bank. This is a GAME CHANGER if you haven’t been able to master meal prepping on your own! Here are three reasons you should consider using this type of service if you aren’t already!
1) Convenient
These meals are so easy because they are pre-portioned and delivered right to your door. All you have to do is heat them up in the microwave. No going to the store, no cooking, just place your order online and they appear at your door. This is also a great way to try new foods and cuisines. They change the menu regularly so you never get tired of things and everything is always delicious! Best of all, your macros are already figured out. Just log them...
3 Reasons Why I Love Kajabi
When it comes to my online business, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m technologically challenged. I try to teach myself as much as I can, but with limited time and patience, I get easily frustrated. As an online fitness and nutrition coach, I want to focus on my clients, not the gory details of updating a website, email database and other tech required to keep my business running.
- No IT Background Required
Initially I started with a Wordpress site that was hosted through GoDaddy because I was blogging a lot and was told Wordpress is great for this. But the problem was I needed an advanced degree to figure out how to make changes to my site. (What the heck is a plugin?!) When I decided to go through a rebrand I knew I needed to find something that allowed me to eliminate all of the various platforms I was using. But I also wanted something that wasn’t a pain in the butt to figure out, could easily be updated, didn’t cost an arm and a...
Which Protein Powder is Right For Me?
I get this question all the time! There are so many different choices for protein powder it can be incredibly overwhelming and leave even the most seasoned fitness junkie wondering, “what the heck is the difference?” Most of the protein powder you will see in GNC or your local gym wellness store is going to be a protein called Whey or Whey Isolate. These are usually the cheapest but there are other options like Hemp, Pea, Casein, Soy, and the list goes on and on. I am going to go over each one so you can make an educated decision and choose the best one for you!
Whey: Because this is the most common I will talk about this one first. Whey is a protein in milk and is the most common because it mixes easily without having a bad taste. This is usually the cheapest protein because Whey is a byproduct of the cheese making process. Whey protein powder also typically has minimal or no Carbs but is higher in fat content. This type of protein is ideal for those who care...
What is Astaxanthin? Here's Your Complete Supplement Guide
Originally published on HVMN by Jamie Witherby.
You’ve probably seen the classic image of a wild salmon swimming upstream—schools of feisty fish fighting the current for hours and hours but never really getting anywhere. Sound like anyone else you know?
If you’re an endurance athlete, this feeling may be all too familiar. You work and work for long periods of time but you don’t really feel like you’re making strides.
Table of Contents
Where Does Astaxanthin Come From?
Supplementing with Astaxanthin
Don’t pity the wild salmon just yet. To improve your own endurance training, you may want to learn from this bright fish. Don’t worry if you’re not a swimmer; this tip is for all endurance athletes.
In this article, we’ll discuss the multi-faceted endurance...
