Boosting Male Fertility
Seeking an alternative treatment when trying to conceive is more common than you may think. According to a study, in nearly half of infertility cases, the male is shown to have less than desirable sperm quality (1). Whilst your physician may advise you to get in shape and lose...
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Can Foam Rolling Improve My Recovery?
Recovery is a crucial part of the sport and fitness world and if recovery is not at an adequate level, performance and adaptive responses such as muscle growth can be negatively affected. Therefore, can a myofascial release (relieving tension within connective tissues such as muscles or fascia) in the form of foam rolling help improve that process? Roam Rolling...
Focus on Sleep to Optimise Your Results
The Impact on Training Firstly, quality of sleep is getting enough of it at the right times and without it performance related factors such as concentration, mood and response time are affected (1). The issues don't remain just cognitive, but also translates directly into physiological issues such as the possibility of muscle strength decrements. In addition, good sleep quality...
How Much Volume Do We Need to Build Muscle?
The straightforward answer is that no one knows a specific amount of volume an individual should perform for muscle growth, but there is take away information that can be applied to being more productive when you workout! Volume in regards to exercise can be defined as the amount of sets, reps and volume load defined as sets, reps and...
Should I Take Caffeine Pre Workout?
Caffeine can be found in many forms with the creation of energy drinks, supplements and the ever so popular form of coffee and teas. Before deciding if you should use caffeine before a workout, understanding the basics of how it works will be beneficial. How it works Adenosine is created in the brain and attaches to the adenosine receptors and...
Should You Worry About Overtraining?
Overtraining can be broken down into different sections (functional overreaching, nonfunctional overreaching and overtraining syndrome) and can be defined as an imbalance between training and recovery, leading to a decrease in training performance that lasts for several weeks to months (1). For the average gym user, overtraining should not be a worry and possibly applying more intensity to your...
The Benefits Of Full Body Splits
For decades, single muscle group body splits have become the go-to training method and thought to be the most optimal. The body part split can be a great tool for many but should we be performing full-body sessions instead? Ignoring full body splits at some point in your training career could mean you're missing out on many potential benefits....
The Benefits Of A Progressive Training Program
Most training programs are designed in a linear style model were generally speaking as the weeks go on, the training program gets relatively harder. This can be done by manipulating variables such as volume (sets & reps performed) and intensity (weight/ load lifted) (1). Unlike the linear progression of changing variables less often such as monthly increases in intensity and...
Is Muscle Soreness Required For Muscle Growth?
It’s generally thought that muscle soreness, otherwise known as DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is a direct by-product of muscle growth. With that in mind, chasing muscle soreness with the idea that more is better and using it as an indicator of a good workout might not be the best approach. You may be selling yourself short if that’s...