1. Eggs – In the UK, you can purchase 30 eggs for £3. Each egg contains 7g of protein. This is ridiculously cheap and virtually every bulking diet I see recommend you eat eggs as they are a great source of protein. Eggs taste great too!

2. Milk – For some of us, milk is a no go (lactose intolerance). However, if you don’t suffer from these shenanigans, milk can be an invaluable source of protein. Just remember that it’s high in unsaturated fat and so it’s best suited to really skinny folks.

3. Ground Beef – ground beef is another excellent source of protein with up to 25g of protein per 100g. It just so happens to have around the same amount of fat so you’ll need to be very watchful of the amount you have. Too much will lead to undesired fat gain.

4. Fish Fillets – Ahh fish fillets, My favorite! White fish fillets have around 20g of protein per 100g and around 1g of fat per 100g! That’s excellent! High in protein and low in fat. Can you see why this is my favorite (and staple) source of protein?

5. Whey Protein – Whey protein is actually one of the cheapest sources of protein. however, because it’s viewed as a mere supplement rather than a staple food, it’s always overlooked. Most 10lb tubs of whey protein will last around 2 months. They usually cost around £30 which is peanuts if you calculate it on a gram for gram basis.

6. Cottage Cheese – Cottage cheese is not only very healthy in general, it contains a good amount of protein and is extremely affordable. Great for adding to vegetable salads.

7. Canned Tuna – Tuna isn’t exactly ‘cheap’ but it’s low fat and high protein content makes it more than reasonable, 4 1/2 lb cans can cost around £4 which is the same as the price of fish fillets (£2 per lb).

8. Liver – At under £1 per lb, liver is very cheap. Unfortunately, not many enjoy it. It’s an acquired taste but those who eat it have got a great, cheap source of protein & iron & Vitamin A.

9. Beans – Beans are another cheap source of protein. Also, you have many bean varieties to choose from (most taste the same if i’m honest).

10. Chicken breast fillets – I personally hate chicken breast fillets but they DO have a high protein content and low fat. I find them to be too dry. You can substitute them for thigh fillets which are much tastier but are high in fat. Thigh fillets are also cheaper!

1. Muscle soreness mustn’t be unbearable – The human body is a pretty sophisticated machine but it’s totally idiot proof. When something is wrong, it usually tells you. You may feel pain or a general feeling of being unwell. Sometimes you may even get a headache. If you overdo it with the workout, the body responds with muscle soreness (and lethargy). Extreme cases result in inflammation and swelling in the area. Also, you may experience decreased load bearing capacity in the affected muscle group. When things get to this stage, you’ve overdone it. If the area feels a little tight/tender but you have no problems with mobility or using that muscle for exercises, that’s good. If it’s excessive and unbearable, that’s not good. Seemples.

2. It shouldn’t last over a week – Even a week is pushing it. Generally, muscles shouldn’t ache for more than 3-4 days after a workout. When your muscles are still sore after a week, you’ve probably done more harm than good. With that said, there are a number of reasons why it could be lasting longer than normal.

3. Poor diet can delay recovery – A diet that is low in protein (the nutrient muscles need to recover) can actually cause delays in recovery. I’ve found that when I keep my protein intake high, my muscles don’t ache or extended periods of time. Also, if my general eating habits are poor, my muscles take longer to recover.

4. Poor post workout recovery – A lot of people don’t cool down. Cool downs are said to reduce lactic acid build up in the muscles. Additionally,  massages and stretching can help reduce muscle soreness. Why don’t you check our article on post workout recovery techniques.

4. Not all good workouts result in muscle soreness – I tend to believe that a good workout must result in some stiffness the next morning. however, I do know that because the stresses on the muscle fibers are microscopic, this isn’t always the case. It’s perfectly possible to have a great workout but experience no discomfort the next morning. Admittedly, in my experience, this happens when my body has adapted to a training program so when I go for a while without feeling any stiffness tenderness, I switch things up.

So as we can see, for the most part, muscle soreness is benign and is simply a result of an intense workout. It usually affects people who aren’t used to exercising. However, when muscle soreness is excessive and unbearable to the point where it affects general mobility, that becomes a problem. This is because it can keep you out of the gym, ruin your progress and affect your overall motivation. If you are not used to training, it’s advised that you take it slow and ease yourself into your desired training program.

There are a few things you can do to aid your workout recovery and lessen the discomfort.

1. Stretching – When muscle soreness sets in, the pain usually results in a trainee restricting the movement of that muscle. This results in stiffness which compounds the problem. Stretching a sore muscle should be done regularly. I have found that when I stretch a sore muscle in the morning, the pain is dramatically reduced and I can go about my day in relative normalcy.

2. Massage – Massage is a way to get lactic acid (another contributor to soreness) out of the muscles and into the bloodstream where it can be washed out. It improves circulation and also helps you to relax.

3. Ice – Ice is one of the best ways to combat muscle soreness. It reduces inflammation in the muscles while effectively numbing the pain. Also, ice has the effect of constricting and dilating the blood vessels which helps flush out toxins from your muscles.

4. Nutrition – Good nutrition involves supplying your body with the right foods and nutrition to help accelerate the recovery process. Supplementing protein into the diet with whey powder has really helped me recover from some brutal workouts in the past.

5. Rest – Rest is a pretty obvious way to recover from vigorous exercise. The human body is pretty accomplished at sending signals to inform its occupant as to what it needs. After a vigorous workout, you’ll find that you are generally lethargic and sometimes even sleepy.

That’s your body’s way of telling you to take it easy. Working out before you fully recover has its obvious downfalls; you find that you cannot perform at a high level during your workouts and you interrupt your body’s natural repair and recovery process. You benefit more from taking a day off and letting yourself recover.

6. Sleep – Miracles happen in your sleep. HGH (human growth hormone) is released and it is mainly responsible for muscle tissue growth and repair. You also get a chance to rest and recover from your workouts.

Neglecting sleep after a tough workout will result in loss of concentration or focus during the day, general tiredness/sleepiness, loss of motivation for other workouts, more soreness and hindered muscle growth. Sleep more and you’ll grow more.

7. Contrast showers – This is a way to improve circulation by expanding and constricting your blood vessels using the contrasting temperatures of the shower. You can also go into a sauna and cold shower to achieve the same effect. I have found that when I go to the sauna after my workout, I get virtually no muscle soreness. It’s effective and also relaxing after a tough workout.

The funny thing is, during this time, my results were largely erratic. I’d grow and shrink but it was never consistent. I always wondered, rather foolishly on my part, why I wasn’t making progress. Why wasn’t I packing on muscle?

I had the number 1 problem that many trainees have: I was searching for the holy grail of all training programs.

I was looking for a way I could lift weights and pack on 50lbs in a month (Not consciously of course, I wasn’t THAT stupid!). Are you suffering from the same thing? Do you try a new program and abandon it after 2 weeks or even a month for ‘lack of gains’? Remember guys: holy grails don’t exist. This is a sweat equity thing. Some people get ripped on push ups and sit ups alone. It has little to do with your workout program!

Over time, I came to understand this simple fact: You need ATLEAST 12 weeks to see the benefits of a training program. That’s right folks. 12 weeks. 90 days! 3months! How’s that for consistency? That time-frame isn’t gospel. Nothing I say ever is. But it’s a rough guideline (a pretty good one at that). If you look around on the web, many ‘transformation programs’ span for how long exactly – “Ahem, 12 weeks!” I rest my case.

I may have found the reason for this. I find that it takes around a month for me to settle into a weight training program. This is why I’ve given myself 4 weeks to get ‘up to speed’ with German Volume Training before I go in for the kill. In that month, you discover the correct poundages to use. If the program is particularly demanding, you get to build up your muscular endurance and mental strength and you also settle into the routine. This all prepares you for the 2 months where you’ll be working in the right zone for enough muscle fatigue to manifest for growth. In other words, you’re working closer to your limit and that’s where the magic happens.

To get up to speed and get closer to your limit on a new program takes time. If you’re hopping from one program to the next, you’re not giving yourself time.

‘Time‘ means consistency. In my opinion, you can only accurately judge training program after 12 weeks. If you absolutely hate a certain way of training then that’s OK. You can abandon it but you cannot keep hopping from one program to the next hoping to find the correct one. Try and stick with it and if you’re not happy after 12 weeks, drop it for you know it’s not what you’re looking for. Besides, you probably tried it because many people were happy with their gains from it. So if they could make it work, why can’t you?

Arms (biceps + forearms) – German Volume Training requires you to do seated incline hammer curls for 10 sets of 10 reps. Not only that, they need to be completed with a SLOW tempo. A slow tempo can make a 50kg squat feel like a 100kg squat. Slow reps are THAT intense and physically demanding. My Friday workout was dedicated to arms and I can assure you, it was a day I’d rather forget. The biceps seem to ‘burn out’ pretty quickly. Those seated incline hammer curls are brutal on the delts and forearms. I DID complete all tens sets but I can tell you this: set #2 through to set #10 comprised of nothing but pure struggle. I was GLAD that was over. The burn in the arms, delts and forearms was just so painful. It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

Shoulders + traps – Man oh man I friggin’ hate training my shoulders! That sick burn in your delts is one of the worst I’ve ever experienced. I’m also amazed at how quickly it sets in. I usually feel it in the first set… then I remember that I have 9 more painful, slow sets to go. Ayayayayay! Not at all fun. Admittedly, my hatred for training shoulders has officially made them my weak point. I haven’t got much development in this area – especially around my traps which basically don’t exist. I’m out to rectify this though as i switched from this German Volume Training program to this one as it didn’t have a dedicated day for shoulder training.

Abs – Yes, I hate training abs. Most of the time, I don’t train them at all but I recently discovered that the best fitness models (who always have sick abs) train them often (usually daily). That inspired me to buy an abdominal exercise wheel so I could sculpt my six pack abs. I just find them debilitatingly painful to train (slight exaggeration).

Get commenting guys. I wanna know the body parts you hate training and why you hate training them. Maybe we could exchange tips on how to make training them more bearable!

What is the Tough Mudder?

According to their official site, the Tough Mudder is “not your average lame-ass mud run or spirit-crushing ‘endurance’ road race. It’s Ironman meets Burning Man, and it is coming to a city near you …” Very descriptive then. ‘Some say it’s probably the toughest event on the planet’. Now I’m interested.

So Tough Mudder is an obstacle course designed by the British Special Forces. It spans between 10 and 12 miles depending on where you take it and in the course, you’ll find 25 military style obstacles for you to find a way past, over, under and through. I gotta tell ya, it’s sounds compelling.

The obstacles

This is where it gets interesting. I was shaking my head in disbelief when I saw some of the obstacles that were part of this ‘road race’. For the most part, you can tell it was designed by the British Special Forces. Why? There’s lots of water and mud. It’s for you to swim through, wade through or fall in (should you slip). It rains a lot here in Britain so they had to use what nature gave them I suppose.

Once the highly imaginative special forces had filled most of the course with water and mud, they enlisted the help of Jigsaw from the SAW franchise. He would put his sadistic mind to use and come up with highly innovative and twisted ways to make the obstacle just that bit tougher. Among his genius creations are the barbed wire crawl.. with STINGING NETTLES BENEATH IT. In what’s aptly named Electroshock Therapy (because you’d need therapy to do something like this) they also decided to dangle live cables with high voltage at the finish so that when you think you’ve made it, a nice jolt through your body will remind you that you still suck and you’re not as tough as you think. Oh it get’s interesting. There’s an even worse one called electric eel which has you crawling on your belly in water (sometimes ICE!!) with live cables hanging ominously just centimetres above your head.

They also put some blazing fires around so that if you’re too tired, you may as well lose a few inches of hair. How dare you come to this event unfit and unprepared! Bear in mind that the flames are fueled by kerosene and are about 4 feet high. Imagine being tired and being overwhelmed by the fumes and passing out in the flames. Jigsaw would be proud. Wow! Pretty scary stuff right?

Tough Mudder has Jigsaw's stamp of approval (sort of). Some say he helped design some of the obstacles but abandoned the project halfway because the organizers were being 'too conservative'

There’s a lot more crazy stuff that you can check out here.

What it’s really about

While I’ve sounded overly critical, I actually see what the Tough Mudder is really about. Life is a real bitch and it can knock us around from time to time and frankly folks, that can create some mental blocks. How many people do you know of who live well below their true potential because of fear? Maybe you’re one of them. Hey, I certainly have a lot of irrational fears that I can’t consciously reconcile yet my actions are still dictated by them.

Tough Mudder is about facing them and conquering them. It’s about going through a challenge that’s seemingly insurmountable, beating it and living to tell the tale. Apparently you sign a death warrant before doing it (unverified). That’s MEGA. It’s staring death in the face and telling it to piss of because you’re one tough mother.. and giving it a nice kick in the rear so it never comes back.

It’s also about camaraderie and team work. People help each other along the course., The injured find support and virtually everyone gets to finish the course. It’s about trust and team building. It’s just a damn good way to bring out the best in people. People come together in times of crisis and hardship.

It’s also for a good cause. The Tough Mudder events raise money for the wounded warriors – war veterans who come back injured or disabled from the battlefield. It’s raised for stress recovery programs, adaptive sports programs, benefits counselling and employments services. Veterans are under-appreciated and often neglected once they return. They find adjusting to normal life difficult and some struggle to find employment and sustain themselves. This is a helpful way to ensure that some of them get support. You can find more info here.

I’m really liking this Tough Mudder and I may well do it. For now though, it’s strictly German Volume Training but I can assure you, this obstacle course thing is really piquing my interest.

All photos courtsey of the tough mudder website.

So I wanted to ask you a question. (I apologize for beginning most of my sentences with ‘so’). It’s a bad habit! But anyway, here’s my question: Is it OK to have bad body odor in the gym?

I know that most of you guys are in the U.S and your society is an overly sensitive one (let’s face it). I hear that colognes are banned in many work places so i can almost predict that your stance on body odor in the gym is that of complete intolerance. In the UK, people are either less willing to be open about it (as is the non confrontational style of the British) or don’t see it as much of a big deal. I’m inclined to believe the latter. Why?

The British are a little more forgiving when it comes to B.O because they appreciate that you’re there to sweat in the gym. When most people sweat heavily, they stink a little. It’s just one of those things. I know the argument you’re going to hit back with so I’ll lay it down before I mention it.

Most antiperspirants and deodorants are ineffective. Why do I know this? I suffer from hyperhidrosis a.k.a excessive sweating. The prescription I have means I sweat as much as a normal person does so the antiperspirant keeps everything under control but the prescription is harsh and unfriendly to the skin so I sometimes have to stop using it. When i do, the floodgates open. Also, i discovered that excessive sweating is more common than I thought. And to people who have this problem, deodorants and antiperspirants don’t work.

What’s inevitable is that they’re going to stink. Of course the ignorant will assume that having b.o. simply means you’re practicing bad hygiene and you need a shower. You’ll always get those know-it-alls who really don’t know anything at all. If you’re one of them, get some knowledge in your noggin!

My opinion is that we can make exceptions for body odor and the gym is just one of those places. When people sweat, they generally get stinky and antiperspirants have varying and mixed results from person to person. I personally expect B.O. in the gym and I never pay attention to it. You’ll never see me scrunching my face and causing a scene about it. Some people go as far as seeking out the smell so they can reprimand the source or worse still, give them hygiene tips. Er, can you get a life or just get on with your workout?

PS: if you suffer from B.O. in the gym, there ARE ways to reduce it. I’ve discovered that the culprit is usually armpit hair. Shave that shizzle off and you’ll notice an instant 80% reduction (not scientific figures). Eliminating meat from your diet and replacing it with green stuff and fruits also reduces your B.O. You ARE what you eat.

This is a hot topic indeed… I’d like to get your opinions on it.

So there’s this Pastor Maldonado. He’s been threatening to take the chequered flag recently hasn’t he? He’s always been there or thereabouts. This season has seen the maiden wins of two different drivers. All American (north and south). The hugely talented Sergio Perez and of course, Pastor Maldonado.

There’s just something about this guy. He looks like someone who’s USED to winning. The win in Barcelona was NOT a fluke. He was dominant and he drove serenely. He was very calm when he got out of the car – never showing too much emotion. He just seems a quietly confident character who came to f1 to win races and championships. A lot of the guys in the lesser teams are pleased to score a few points. Some are even pleased to finish the race. This guy looks to be only satisfied with the chequered flag. That’s the mark of a champion. You know who it reminds me of?

The guy who was on the podium with him; Kimi Raikkonen. The guy has been a sensation during his return. Last race in Bahrain he was second and now he’s third in Barcelona. I maintain my conviction that Fernando Alonso is the best all round driver on the grid. He always had a way to bring that dog of a ferrari into contention. I feel that Raikkonen may be a touch quicker though but is more prone to errors. During McLaren days he was stupidly fast and he’s showing that pace here too. He’s also showing a hunger to win and to Raikkonen, nothing else matters. He wasn’t happy with third and he highlighted the many problems the car had.

That to me is a winner and I wouldn’t be surprised if Raikkonen wins this years championship. He has the speed, the motivation and that Lotus seems quick enough. We’ll definitely see how the season pans out. I’d love Ferrari to win because I’m their biggest fan but that car is just terrible. It doesn’t help when your number 2 driver isn’t performing. Felipe Massa has been fighting for position with the bottom half of the grid this entire season and that’s GOT to be embarrassing especially since his teammate is doing so well.

Check out espnf1 and planetf1. Also BBC F1. I get my f1 news from these sources.

It just showed that like Manchester United, you can’t write off City until the whistle blows. They are definitely a force to be reckoned with and I certainly hope that they win many more Premier League titles. I’m not a usual fan of football but today’s events have raised my interest. I’m a little bummed that my favorite Man City player Mario Balotelli didn’t get his name on the score sheet. He’s a true character and he is never boring. Anyway, until next season folks! Congratulations Man City, you guys deserve it!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17973148

As a result, a trainee who bulks gains an insane amount weight in an impossibly short period of time. Much of that weight is fat however, some of it is lean muscle mass. The undesirable result of bulking is the torturous amount of cardiovascular exercise one has to go through in order to get rid of excess fat. So how do you gain lean muscle only?

1. Diet – The best way to control fat gain is through your diet. This means that if you control the proportion of the nutrients and the overall calories that you take in, you will create changes in your physique. A lot of fitness models control their diet to stay in peak shape throughout the year. There are able to gain lean muscle while maintaining single-digit body fat figures.

A common denominator in this diet is a reduction of overall carbohydrate intake and the increase of protein intake. Also, vegetables are introduced while sweets, fast-food, chocolate and alcohol are reduced and at times totally eliminated. This enables them to control the calorie intake while consuming nutrients that help build lean muscle.

2. Cardio – Cardio is one of the best fat burning tools known to man. It’s simple, convenient and extremely effective but only if done correctly. High intensity interval cardiovascular exercise has been proven to be more effective when it comes to burning fat as opposed slow steady-state cardio.

Slow steady-state cardio is the conventional approach to cardiovascular exercise which involves jogging or cycling steady pace for a long period of time. High intensity interval cardio involves periodically sprinting or cycling at full burst and then reducing the pace temporarily and then doing it all over again. It is much tougher and more demanding however, it has been scientifically proven to be more effective.

Please don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not ideal to exclusively do H.I.I.C. It’s too intense and it’s easy to reach burnout. Alternating between steady state cardio and high intensity cardio is actually more favorable.

3. Patience – You really need to be patient when building lean muscle. Over a period of three months, you can expect to gain between 5 and 15 lbs of muscle depending on your level of advancement. Beginners will gain muscle more rapidly at first however, they will see their progress taper off as they reach closer to their genetic potential. Therefore, you must decide early on that this is a lifestyle choice rather than just a fad or a hobby and also that you are going to do this for quite possibly the rest of your life as the incremental improvements really begin to stack up the longer you to stick to it.