New YouTube page up and running

Hi guys,

Just a quick one today - I've started up a new YouTube page.
On here I am planning to start with short "thought of the day" videos, and progressively build it up and include demonstrations and program design information as well.

So go and check it out;
At this moment in time there are only 2 posts on there but I am planning to add more frequently.

So here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYSYh-AiO0LwO9tE6jEJcuw

Go have a look and hit subscribe.

Rob Nitman. BSc. ASCC.
http://www.createabetterversionofyou.co.uk/robnitmancoachi…/
www.nitmanperformance.co.uk
nitmanperformance@gmail.com
Twitter – @nitman89
Instagram – @rob_nitman

Recovery - sleep and nutrition

Recovery Part 5 – Sleep and Nutrition

So here we are, part 5 and the final segment of the Recovery Series. Having already covered Ice Baths, Massage, Compression Clothing, and Active recovery, we are now left with two of the most important aspects of performance and recovery – Sleep and Nutrition.

Let’s get down to it.

To begin I’m going to talk about hydration. It’s often spoken about how important it is to stay well hydrated, yet people will often let this be the first thing to slip when they start to focus on other things. It often seems to drift into the back of their mind as soon as they have something else to think about.

Well hydration is damn important. So drink some water people! It can help aid you in fat loss, keeps performance high both mentally and physically¹, and when recovering it is essential to replace the fluids you lose when sweating – so try to make sure you get a good amount of water in as soon as you can. I know that after a good game of club rugby on a Saturday all you want to do is sink a pint of Irish black gold, and believe me that would be my first thought too, but before you get yours hands on that beautiful well deserved pint get some water in.

(Alcohol in general is obviously not good for performance, or for recovery, but I’m just being realistic here – especially now that “Dry January” is over.)

Nutritionally speaking the best way to explain it is through a very cliché quote;

“You wouldn’t put diesel in a petrol car”.

And it’s true, when practicing a sport or exercising, your body is the car. And for that engine of yours to work at its best it needs to be adequately fuelled.

Now there is a huge amount of information about nutrition out there on the Internet, and within that there is contrasting advice and endless different diets. Honestly, it’s a bit of a pain in the arse. Wouldn’t it just be amazing if there were one way that fits everyone? In my opinion it would. But that isn’t the case, and there is a reason. Different people react differently. For instance some people have food intolerances, some react better to carbohydrates, some better to fats, some can work well eating the majority of their carbs late at night, others would get fatter by doing the same thing.

So it can take a bit of time to find out what works for you. Trial and error, and not just trialing for something for one day and saying it doesn’t work. You have to try it, allow time for adaptation to occur, and then make a decision based upon results. This goes for weight gain, maintenance, and loss.

That being said – there is some basic information that can be very transferrable, and that should be put into place when trying to improve recovery.

First off – you need to eat! Even if you were lay in bed doing absolutely nothing but breathing and thinking all day your body would still burn calories. This is called your basal metabolic rate. The amount of calories you would burn doing the absolute minimum. So if you’re not eating, you will gradually lose weight and your everyday bodily functions will start to suffer if not properly fuelled.

What foods do we need? Well the obvious answer first up is to look at your macronutrients – Carbohydrates, Protein and Fats.

When you consume carbohydrates, the body can break it down into glycogen, which then is utilised for energy production (I’m putting it simply – its much more complicated than that in real life, but for that stuff go read a text book).

Protein is made up of amino acids, these are the building blocks for muscle repair. So to make sure you maintain muscle or build muscle, you need to get protein in from somewhere such as meats, eggs or supplements.

Fats – oh here we go! So fats get a lot of stick in the press. Low fat this, low fat that. That’s great, well done, but the body needs fat. Simple. Fat can also be used as fuel for the body, as well as insulation. Different fats that we get through food can also be used to help keep our joints healthy, and keep our brain functioning.

So how much of each should you be eating? Unfortunately it all depends on you. Protein should be a mainstay. If you are a sports person, or if you train regularly, you will need more than the average person as your muscles are being used on a regular basis. Carbohydrates can fluctuate, for me personally I feel like crap if I eat loads of carbohydrates, but equally if I eat a low amount I feel rubbish too. So I rotate them so I eat more on hard training days to fuel my workouts and replenish afterwards, but less on off days as I don’t need that fuel. I then rotate fat consumption to balance my carb intake.

If you feel like you are always tired, or you’re losing weight or strength, you probably need to eat more. If you’re gaining weight, but are having no performance improvements and just getting fat, you probably need to eat less. But finding something that works for you takes time. My advice would be find a balance, try it for 6-8 weeks, then change if necessary.  Eat more carbohydrates when you’re training hard, plenty of protein every single day no matter whether you’re training hard or resting, and get fats in through good sources such as nuts and fish.

One last thing on nutrition – eat your vegetables! ^{(Nutrition references 2-5)}

The final section of this article is my personal favourite, and the most important. Sleep. Everyone needs to sleep. It is absolutely fundamental to performance, and to general health. Lack of sleep not only leads to tiredness (obviously), but it can screw up your hormone balance, which will lead to performance changes.

There are plenty of people who aren’t getting where they want to be in sport or business, and they will give an extra 2 hours a day training or working in the office at the expense of sleep, and this will then just pile on top itself to manifest into something bad. If they had an extra hour or two each day, their concentration throughout the day would actually increase, and likely their productivity.

For those of you wanting sporting gains, our muscles repair when they are resting. And we get a boost of naturally occurring growth hormone when we sleep. Combine those two statements and you should realise that you need sleep.

So there we go. A little bit longer than my usual articles, but we have covered a lot in this one. I’ve put a few references together at the bottom, including a couple of podcast episodes which are fantastic for understanding the importance of sleep, so have a flick through them if you want.

As I mentioned at the start, this was the final part of the Recovery Series. I hope you have enjoyed reading them, and please share them around as much as you can. It would be great if these could reach more people, as a lot of athletes don’t understand the importance of recovery to their performance.

Next week we will be looking into something new, so I’ll leave you hanging on to find out.

Thanks again for reading, and feel free to get in contact.

Rob Nitman. BSc. ASCC.

www.nitmanperformancetraining.com
nitmanperformance@gmail.com
Twitter – @nitman89
Instagram – @rob_nitman

References:

1.     Gibson-Moore, H. (2014) Hydration and Health. Nutrition Bulletin, 39 (1).

2.     Dr. Israetel, M. (2014). The Renaissance Diet. E-Book.

3.     Bean, A. (2013). The Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, London UK. 7^th Edition.

4.     American College of Sports Medicine. (2009). Nutrition and Athletic Performance. Medicine & Science in Sport & Exercise, 49 (3).

5.     McLaren, D. (2008). Protein, Carbohydrates and Muscle Recovery. The Journal of the UK Strength & Conditioning Association, 10.

6.     Barbell Shrugged. 158 - The 1 Thing That Will Make You Better at Everything. 07 January 2015.

7.     Barbell Shrugged. 113 - 1 Quick Way To Naturally Increase Testosterone: Sleep. 16 April 2014.

Recovery - Active

Welcome one and all to part 4 of The Recovery Series on the Macro Man Fitness Blog.

In the past few weeks we have covered compression clothing, ice baths, and most recently massage.

In this article I’m going to talk a little bit about active recovery, what it is, and how it can be used to help aid recovery.

Active recovery is a fairly simple concept – it is enabling your body to recover from hard exercise by doing some mild exercise. One of the most common for this is swimming, but also cycling and walking.

The basic idea is that you are doing some form of exercise that allows you to raise your heart rate, and increase blood flow. So just going for a very slow and lethargic walk won’t really cut it.

By increasing heart rate and blood flow it can help to flush away waste products from the muscles such as blood lactate¹.

A large amount of the research uses cycling as the selected exercise choice, and recommends working between 30% of your lactate threshold² or 30-40% VO2 Max^3,4,5. But for the regular trainer, this means absolutely nothing and can be a bit of a pain to find out. So – how else can we judge how hard to work?

Without being research driven, as it is completely different from person to person, it is recommended at a level where you are breathing heavier than normal but would still be able to hold a conversation. This shows an increased breathing rate, and therefore blood flow as you begin to breathe faster to supply greater oxygen for the increased pulse rate.

So if you decided to go out and cycle to recover, it would be a cruising speed, not just turning the pedals over to stop you from falling, but also not fast enough to be physically challenging on your muscles or aerobic system.

If you went out for a walk, it would be somewhere between the slow stroll home after leg day at the gym, but not as fast as the hypnotic hip movement of speed walkers at the Olympic Games. A walk with a hyperactive dog would probably be about the right level.

Now earlier on I mentioned swimming, and I haven’t really got back to it yet.

Next week we’ll talk about …

Just kidding. Swimming can be great when used as a recovery tool, because it is a form of exercise that can allow you to either be partially or fully submerged in water, so using either the lower body or whole body to propel yourself, it raises heart rate, and it is non-loaded.

What do I mean by this? If you’ve ever swum you’ll know the feeling of weightlessness in the pool. This is because the water takes the weight of your body, so there is no pressure going through your joints in activities such as aqua jogging, unlike if you were road jogging where your knees can take a beating.

I am not saying that you’re not working when swimming, because if you were to stop moving completely you’d drown. So don’t do that. Not wise. But swimming is definitely a good way to recover between high intensity exercise bouts⁶.

So there you have it, some info on active recovery. So now your options include, wearing leggings, jumping in some cold water, getting a massage, using a foam roller, or doing some more exercise to help you recover.

Next week is the grand finale of this series, and it will be looking at what I believe to be the two biggest factors in getting adequate recovery – sleep and nutrition.

So head back to the Macro Man Blog regularly, see what the other awesome authors are writing about, and check out the latest installment from yours truly. And of course – share it around.

Thanks for reading,

Rob Nitman. BSc. ASCC.

www.nitmanperformancetraining.com
nitmanperformance@gmail.com
Twitter – @nitman89
Instagram – @rob_nitman

References:

1.     Martin, N.A. et al (1998). The Comparative Effects of Sports Massage, Active Recovery, and Rest in Promoting Blood Lactate Clearance After Supramaximal Leg Exercise. Journal of Athletic Training, 33(1).

2.     Spencer, M. et al (2006). Metabolism and Performance in Repeated Cycle Sprints: Active versus Passive Recovery. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 38(8).

3.     Fairchild, T.J. et al (2003). Glyocgen Synthesis in Muscle Fibers During Active Recovery From Intense Exericse. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 35(4).

4.     Gupta, S. et al (1996). Comparative Study of Lactate Removal in Short Term Massage of Extremities, Active Recovery and a Passive Recovery Period After Supramaximal Exercise Sessions. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 17(2).

5.     Bond, V. et al (1991). Effects of active and passive recovery on lactate removal and subsequent isokinetic muscle function. The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, 31(3).

6.     Lum, D., Landers, G. & Peeling, P. (2010). Effects of a Recovery Swim on Subsequent Running Performance. International Journal of Sports Medicine, 31(1).

Recovery - Massage & SMR

Massage & SMR

Welcome back to the recovery series. This is now part 3, and our subjects for discussion are massage and self-myofascial release (SMR).

Now, I imagine most people understand the basic premise of what a massage is and what it consists of. Usually there are two types, a regular massage which is more therapeutic and relaxing using softer contact, and also sports massage which is a more physical experience getting deeper into the muscle to release tension, knots, and bound up tissue caused by exercise or general life¹.

This leads to a happy customer either way in most cases (not the kind of happy endings you may be thinking … this is a child friendly article after all) as the tension of muscles can be released leading to greater range of movement, and can also assist stress management².

SMR is slightly different. A lot of you reading this will have heard of it, and if you haven’t, I’m hoping that you have heard of something called Foam Rolling. They are one and the same in that SMR is what it says – releasing the tension of the fascia by yourself. Broken down this is; self - you, myofascial - the thin layer of fascia that covers the muscle belly, and release – how can I put this … “to free from confinement/to free from anything that constrains”³. Yes I did just use a dictionary for that, don’t judge me.

Essentially it is just using a foam roller, or other such tools, to release any areas of tension in the body⁴.

There are pros and cons to both of these in my opinion. With massage you can get a more thorough treatment on any identified area, but unless you have a friend in the business who can give you a good deal it can often be quite pricey. Especially seeing as the effects are not life long but only short term⁵.

It can also be a bit less time effective, as depending on your masseuse it could be either 30 or 60 minutes per treatment, plus travel time to and from. Plus there’s one more, you might not know when you’re going to be in need of a massage. So unless you have a regular booking already in place, if something causes you to need one – you may then have to wait for an available slot.

With foam rolling the only expense is the initial purchase of the items. This can be entirely based upon your budget or needs. For me – I use a Trigger Point roller; it’s quite heavy duty and has ridges allowing for a more thorough release. It’s a little more expensive than some, but I’ve had it for almost 3 years and it’s still holding strong. I used to own one of the simple and cheap rollers, but being 115kg+ at the time, I flattened it within a few weeks of regular use. I also use a massage stick to roll my calves and quads, and a lacrosse ball, hockey ball or sometimes even a golf ball (for the real sneaky little knots hiding away) to get at individual knots rather than a whole muscle belly. I’m not saying you need all these, but it’s just what I use.

Apart from that, with foam rolling all you need is the know-how (knowing where is sore and how to roll that area – check out reference 4 & 6 for more info), and some floor space to do it. Time-wise I feel it is more efficient as a little and often approach can alleviate a lot of issues.

What role do these both play on recovery I hear you ask (and even if you’re not asking, I’m going to say anyway); both can be used to alleviate muscle fascia tension, which will allow a greater range of movement. It can also help to reduce the amount of waste product build up in the area, with appropriate technique (generally considered to be towards the heart) helping to flush waste.

Once again, I hope this article was helpful for you. If it was, please give it a share on social media. There are plenty of other good articles to read on the Macro Man blog, so check them out and get anyone you think might be interested to have a look.

The Recovery Series is well under way, with 3 parts now complete. Next week we’ll take a look into active recovery and how it could help you.

Thanks for reading,

Rob Nitman. BSc. ASCC.

www.nitmanperformancetraining.com
nitmanperformance@gmail.com
Twitter – @nitman89
Instagram – @rob_nitman

References

1.     Cherkin, D.C., Sherman, K.J., Kahn, J. et al. (2011). A comparison of the effects of 2 types of massage and usual care on chronic low back pain: a randomized, controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine, 155(1).

2.     Sherman, K.J., Ludman, E.J., Cook, A.J. et al. (2010). Effectiveness of therapeutic massage for generalized anxiety disorder: a randomized controlled trial. Depression and Anxiety, 27(5).

3.     http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/release?s=t

4.     Robertson, M. (2008). Self-Myosfascial Release: Purpose, Methods & Techniques. Robertson Training Systems, Indianapolis, USA.

5.     Furlan, A.D., Imamura, M., Dryden, T. et al. (2008) Massage for low-back pain. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 4(1).

6.     http://www.lightfield.com/etc/Self_Myofascial_ReleaseMM.pdf - accessed 11/01/2015