Have you ever tried to get your body on a workout plan? If you have, chances are you may not have looked exactly as you wanted by the end of it. If you would of eaten properly, the results could of gone more your way. What you fuel your body with is critical to athletic and physical success.
First you must figure out what kind of workout routine works for you and what you really want to do to your body, which may be to cut weight or gain muscle. A good way to gain muscle, is doing specific lifts such as squats one day then the next day some kind of back or shoulder exercise, and then a chest day mixed with biceps and triceps.
Mixing up your workouts is also effective on building muscle. You should not just be power lifting or running every day. This needs to be split up. Tom Caruso, the Wellness Director at Providence Day School says, “we need to be changing up the stressor on the body as much as we can because the body will adapt to doing the same thing every day. Change it up by doing one day working strength, one day working power, changing the order in which you do cardio, will maximize the amount or gains that we get. Research shows the more you change a workout and shock the body the better the gains will be or more weight you will be adding on".
In regards to eating properly, food is similar to gas for your body, making it run. If you're not putting in the right gas, you won't get the results you are looking for. Caruso says, “Depending what your goal is, weight gain or weight loss, it is very important that your meal plan has to be tuned to those goals. You can't outwork a bad diet”. If you gain too much unhealthy weight, you are not going to have the muscle to move your body. That's why it's so important to be intelligent about eating, because if done wrong, you may not achieve your fitness goals.
A well balanced diet with the right amount of protein and the right amount of whole foods is very important. What's even more important is the timing and consumption of your diet. Are you eating too much food? Too little? This can depend on when you're working out on a certain day and this should mean you need to plan accordingly on when to eat.
Working out five times a week is ineffective if you eat five Big Macs a week. Nutrition matters.
Your muscle mass building workout can vary from these examples. Mixing power lifts with push- ups and pullups can also be a very effective way of gaining strength.
After a workout you should eat as soon as possible, ideally 30 minutes to an hour. Even if you're trying to lose weight the solution shouldn't be to stop eating. You still need to eat at the desired times, the amount of food and what type of food just may vary.
Image courtesy of O.Tappy
"There's no magic pill, the secret program is hard work" - Tom Caruso
What you put into your
body is what you get out
By Owen Tappy
Tom Caruso helps a student with an exercise. Image courtesy of O.Tappy
The Charger, December 2017
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