NUTRITION 4/5 How to Stay Injury Free and Feeling Strong
Muscle growth and endurance is founded on one key principal: stressors. Without stressors there could be no results. If you do not engage in resistance training, you cannot build more muscle. Same goes for endurance: if you do not train yourself to your limits, you will not create a higher endurance threshold. Everyone does well enough at working hard during the workout, but the recovery part is something of a different beast altogether. Recovery takes time and for some it seems a tedious task. If not done correctly, or at all, it can cause muscle imbalances, chronic headaches, and eventually could lead to injury. These simple steps will help speed up recovery and ultimately help to secure the results of the hard work many people are already doing.
NUTRITION
Eating is monumentally important to recovery. Everyone has their own thing for diet and that is cool, you are entitled to your opinion. There are some key takeaways I have from my own experience that again seem like they should be so simple, but we all need reminding sometimes so here they are.
Carbs are a great thing, they are not the enemy here. Everyone knows about the no-carb diets that were all the rave in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Crock of shit you ask me. We all need carbs to keep going, I’m not going to get technical with you on this but I will link some books to check out if you are interested in reading into the subject further. (Maximum Muscle Minimum Fat by Ori Hofmekler and The Glucose Revolution by Jennie Brand Miller) The key here is not to eat high Glycemic Index (GI) carb sources, but low GI carb sources. This will help lower your risk for Diabetes.
Eat fruits, see it sounds so easy. Go get some bananas, apples, and grapes. Instead of eating a highly-processed, sugar-filled desert have some apples and peanut butter or grapes and cheese. I love ice cream like … well a fat kid, but some fruit has helped me curb my appetite for sweets.
Eat less more often. The more you spread your food out over a given period of time the easier it is on your stomach. Keeping your metabolism going throughout the day will help burn more fat. Keep small snacks like peanut butter and apples, a banana, carrots and hummus. Little finger foods that you can grab and eat while you read an email at your desk. Make sure to choose high nutrient foods like berries, almonds, dark chocolate, and nut butters. WARNING: do not take this opportunity to just eat almonds and dark chocolate for a whole meal, trust me that does not end well.
