Category Archives: Bodybuilding Myths

Cardio Burns Muscle Myth

Posted on by
1

Cardio-Burns-Muscle-Myth

Sure, it’s possible for you to lose muscle from doing too much cardio, but it’s highly unlikely. Shying away from cardio completely because you think you’ll lose muscle is a huge mistake. Only excessive amounts of cardio would cause you to lose muscle because over-training tips the scale towards the catabolic side. It’s difficult to generalize and pinpoint one specific amount as too much, but I think it’s safe to assume that just about anyone could do up to 45 -60 minutes of cardio a day, 6 to 7 days a week without losing any muscle – as long as the proper nutritional support is provided.

Losing muscle has more to do with inadequate diet than with excessive aerobics. If you suspect you are losing muscle there are four likely causes:

1. You are not eating enough calories to support muscle growth- This is the most common cause of muscle loss. When your calories are too low, your body goes into “starvation mode.” Your metabolism slows down and your body actually burns muscle tissue to conserve energy. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, requiring a great deal of caloric energy just to maintain it. That’s why your body will shed muscle if it thinks you are starving.

2. You are not training with weights- It is a common misconception that if you want to lose weight, you should start with cardio only and add the weights later – another big mistake! It is the weight training that keeps you from losing muscle while you are dieting.

You are much more likely to lose muscle from not eating enough than you are from doing too much cardio. All too often, people are afraid to eat a lot and do a lot of cardio at the same time. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Logically, it seems like the two would cancel each other out – but the opposite is true. Many people believe they must “starve” the fat by drastically lowering calories. Unfortunately, this approach can cause you to lose muscle along with the fat. The only way to maintain your lean mass while losing fat is to feed the muscles with plenty of nutritious calories and at the same time,burn the fat off with cardio.

3. You are not eating enough protein- Protein is the only nutrient that is actually used to build muscle. To stay anabolic you must eat five to six protein containing meals. Each meal should be spaced out approximately three hours apart. Research has proven that if you are physically active, you need a minimum of .8 grams to 1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

4. Your carbohydrates are too low- Low carb diets are often used for fat loss, but it is a mistake to cut your carbs too drastically. Carbohydrates are protein-sparing , so even if you are eating large amounts of protein, you can still lose muscle if you your carbs are too low.




What do you think of this post?
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Boring (0)
  • Sucks (0)

You Need To Eat Lots Of Protein To Build Muscle Myth

Posted on by
3

Bruno Natural Muscle

The more protein you eat, the more muscle you will build, right? Wrong.

The body only needs so much protein every day; when you surpass its requirements, it simply processes the extra calories the same way it would excess carbohydrate or fat calories. The protein is broken down, and some of it is excreted while some is stored as body fat or used as energy. The requirements for protein are 1.2 to 1.5 grams per kilogram of bodyweight; this amount will ensure that your body is getting enough of the building blocks it requires to create new muscle.

Rather than ingesting too much protein, a better option would be to supplement your diet with good sources of carbohydrates, as they are the body’s preferred source of energy to create the muscle tissue from the protein you took in.

Whatever your goal, many organizations and individuals (particularly within the bodybuilding community), insist on athletes eating an extraordinarily high amount of protein sometimes more than triple the levels typically recommended by international government health boards.

Here are a handful of recommendations on protein intake from multiple sources, from numerous locations around the world. Here they are, in approximate order from least to greatest:

1) World Health Organisation 0.45 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

2) British Nutrition Foundation 0.75 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

3) Food & Nutrition Board (USA) 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

4) Health Canada 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

5) National Health & Medical Research Council (Australia) 0.84 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

6) American Association of Kidney Patients 0.8 to 1.0 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

7) Ask the Dietician 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

8 ) Journal of Applied Physiology (USA) 1.0 to 1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

9) Medscape (USA) 1.2 to 1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight (for endurance athletes).

10) Canadian Dietetic Association 1.0 to 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

11) American Dietetic Association 1.0 to 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

12) Medscape (USA) 1.4 to 1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight (for bodybuilders).

13) Journal of the American College of Nutrition 1.6 to 1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

14) Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (UK) 1.4 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

15) Iron Magazine (USA) 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

16) Bodybuilding.com Protein Calculator (USA) 3.3 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

What do you think of this post?
  • Awesome (2)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (1)
  • Boring (1)
  • Sucks (0)

More Weight Means Bigger Muscles Myth

Posted on by
Reply

Bruno Body

Some guys focus solely on pushing the weight in their sessions. This is because they think there is a strict correlation between the amount of weight lifted and an increase in muscular size… and for many guys, the size of muscles like the biceps and pectorals is the point of bodybuilding.

This is not always the case. The fact of the matter is that regardless of what you do in the gym, you can’t build more muscle tissue out of nothing. If you aren’t eating more than enough of the nutrients that your body needs to maintain itself and to build the new muscle tissue, you aren’t going to get bigger — no matter how heavy the weights you lift are. It’s that simple.

Now, contrary to the point above, others think that if size is their goal, then life should become a 24-hour buffet. They eat everything and anything in sight, in the hopes that it will help spark new muscle growth.

What these individuals need to realize is that, yes, they do require more calories, however, the body can only assimilate so many of those extra calories into lean muscle tissue. After that, the remainder will go toward fat mass. Your P-ratio is what determines the amount of surplus calories going to fat and the amount going toward lean muscle mass. Your P-ratio is partly influenced by genetic make-up — which is something you can’t change — but the changeable factors that affect are your workout program, your nutritional intake and the timing of your meals.

So if size is your goal, you need to make sure that you are eating enough to get growth in the first place, but not so much that with the additional muscle mass, you get a great deal of fat mass as well.

What do you think of this post?
  • Awesome (1)
  • Interesting (1)
  • Useful (1)
  • Boring (0)
  • Sucks (0)