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Growth Hormone.  This is usually synonymous with doping or steroid use.  However, your body produces this naturally and it's really important for muscle growth and fat loss.

While you sleep, your body secretes this hormone.  During this time, 2 purposes are fulfilled and they are, healing/muscle growth (especially if you lift), and fat loss.  This secretion while you sleep is much greater than the secretion that you get in the middle of the day, but nevertheless, you can still impact it's magnitude through training.

When I talked about testosterone last week, it was the primary hormone that impacted muscle size and strength through the impact it has on the central nervous system.  Growth hormone, on the other hand, is much more directed towards the muscles themselves rather than the central nervous system.  It's really the trigger that starts a whole cascade of events in the body that leads to growth and fat loss.

Regarding your training, this is where higher repetitions are better.  Sets of 8-12 are ideal, with shorter rest periods.  Adding to that, larger exercises such as squats or deadlifts are better at triggering this release than smaller ones such as dumbbell curls or any abdominal exercise.  Now, you can piggy-back exercises (known as a super-set) of which you'd do a large exercise first and follow immediately by a smaller one to improve the overall effect of the lifts.

Growth hormone is important for overall health, muscle structure, and fat management.  Training to maximize it's impact is purposeful and deliberate, and something that you should strive for within your training regime.

For more help on the subject, contact me.  

My fitness journey

Fitness is not simply point A to point B, it's more like a road map.  There are ups and downs, highs and lows, and everything in between.

My journey has been tumultuous at best.  I started out working out because I had friends that were doing it.  Later it was my desire to succeed in the Marine Corps that drove my fitness.  Through this all, I started out as the "fat kid" though my middle school aged years (our elementary school went up to 7th grade and our high school, at the time, began at 8th grade).  Later I progressed to being sort of the "skinny kid,"  once puberty kicked me in the face.

I began lifting in my friend's garage, with those old cement filled weights and a weight bench.  It was mostly benching, curls, more benching, and more curls.  Later it was a local gym membership and a heavy dosing of machines that filled my time.  Eventually, I learned about the proper way to do free weights and have since loved them.

I've battled with the "fat kid" most of my adult life.  As I've gotten older, I've realized that for me, I need a few things to totally improve my fitness.  These are:

1.  Cardio:  I have a love/hate with cardio, but in the end, without my doing it I chub up.
2.  Weights:  I tend to put on muscle fairly easily, when I lift that is.
3.  Intervals:  While these are good for fat loss, I find that if I devote the majority of my training to them, I don't tend to improve my physique.
4.  Diet:  I tend to work fairly well on a low carbohydrate diet.  Though this winter I'll be experimenting with other forms.

Like many, I am at war with my body.  This war is never-ending.  I have periods that I gain and I have periods that I lose.  Lately, I've been in a better position to improve, but the war has been far from won.

What is the first dietary suggestion?

Most of the time, nutrition is what's the most challenging and complicated of how to improve fitness and health.  We are often bombarded in our national media about what's good and what's bad for you, but it only provides a description of the field, not how to play.

May I introduce the first of important dietary suggestions....the kilo-calorie, or just calorie.  A calorie is simply a measure of energy, specifically the amount of energy needed to boil 1g of water.  We use it in nutrition as a measure of energy as well.  However in nutrition, a calorie is what's needed to sustain normal body function and/or appearance.

If you were to look at a nutrition label, the calories are at the top (along with serving size).  Usually, stuff at the
top indicates its importance, and the calories are nothing short of important.  Some suggest that it's about 50% of overall success, and that's managing calories.  The breakdown of calories is something I'll go into in future posts, but for now, know that if your calories are off, then your weight will be off.

Truthfully, it's not too difficult in our society and in our culture to overkill on the calories.  We are told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, often equating to 500+ calories.  For men, this could be around 1/4 of what's needed, for women closer to 1/2.  Add a 500+ calorie lunch and even a 1000+ calorie dinner in there and you see how it's hard to maintain or lose weight.

If you're a parent like I am, then you know that this is even more difficult.  Sometimes after a long day at work, you want to just feed your family, not count calories.  Often, this is a stop for pizza or Chick Fil A, easily getting us past the 1000 calorie mark.  Then, you have the sneaky bastards (Oreos) in the house just calling your name, so add another 150-300 on top of that.  After awhile you see how the dad (or mom) bod is formed.

Myfitnesspal is a huge asset for me in the counting of calories.  My target is 2300 calories per day, and honestly sometimes I struggle to hit it, other times I easily smoke that number.  The more I log and track, however, the easier it is for me to gauge my eating and therefore manage my weight.

Tracking calories, managing
weight, and being active is a lifelong commitment, even with kids.  And it's a challenging commitment.  I challenge you to keep track of your calories for several days (normal days) and to see how you stack up in the calorie department.  

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What is this molecule and why is it important in exercise?  Or, better yet, why is it important to know it's effects?

This is testosterone.

Testosterone is one of the most critical hormones in muscular development and often is overlooked for other things.

My focus with testosterone is not in the anabolic (growth) nature that it provides, but on the effect that it has upon the nervous system.  When bound to a nerve in some way, it increases the Action Potential frequency (action potential is essentially an impulse down the nerve).  When you increase the firing frequency, you typically increase the muscle recruited to perform a task.

When you increase the muscle used to do something, you ultimately increase it's size, strength, and it's power.  It's basically a cascade of events that lead into the ultimate desired goal.  In this case, starting with a hormone and ending with the targeted goal.

Increasing free testosterone is very difficult, more for women than in men, but nevertheless difficult.  A simple way of going about it is to commit to a long-term training plan that over time will increase it some, but depending on the person it could be in large magnitude or in small.

So ultimately, by increasing free testosterone in your body, you'll have the training effect that you likely desire.  Which usually is increased muscle size, strength, and speed, improved fat-burning capabilities, and ultimately a body that you can be proud of.  

Inspiration, one video at a time

On Monday, I was able to get a live stream of one of my workouts done on Facebook.  This workout was something I had thought about for awhile and it all played out well on camera.  Some things to note with the live stream:

1.  There is some idle time, depending on what's going on and my audience, you may see me texting or whatever during that idle time.
2.  I have to move the camera.  Not all of the equipment is located in one spot, such as a squat rack or a pull-up bar.
3.  I'm still learning how to better use live video.  This was my first time on camera in this way, and while it was successful (in my eyes) I'm still working on my comfort level in opening up.
4.  Camera angles are completely based off of what equipment is available.  I at some points had my tablet propped up against a bench or a bucket of chalk.  Just being opportunistic.

I'm going to try and live stream as much as I can.  Because I usually train in a commercial setting, I do need to be careful and mindful of my surroundings so that no one inadvertently get's caught on camera without prior knowledge.  I did have this happen the other day, but I believe you couldn't get much of a view of him.

I hope that you'll tune in frequently and hopefully are inspired by my workouts.  To finally break down what I did the other day it was as follows:

Squats
Pull-ups
Romanian Deadlifts
Banded Push-ups
Battle Ropes

Nothing crazy (maybe?), but I felt good doing it and it was really good to get back in action after a hiatus.  I'll keep posting more frequently regarding my schedule of workouts.  In the meantime, tune into my Facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/martinhubnerfitness/

A glimpse inside....

I decided on our drive home from the beach that I'll attempt a live-stream of my workouts.  I'm going to start out with Facebook but depending on how that goes, I may attempt with YouTube and/or Instagram.

My decision to do this is to show what I do and what I can do to motivate you.  For this upcoming week, I'll be only using Facebook and thus I have to tell you where to view.

So, to view the live stream please join my facebook group at this link https://www.facebook.com/groups/martinhubnerfitness/

I'll be keeping it public for the time being until it grows  enough to justify turning it private.  Once you decide you want to join, I ask that you look around at your friends list and see if any of them would be interested.

My plan is to go live around noon today, but they'll vary each and every day depending on my schedule.

I look forward to your watching.  

When I get back..

Today is the final day I'm at the beach, and as you may have noticed that I didn't go ahead and post on Wednesday.  It's not because I didn't want to, but this vacation is definitely some time to spend with my family, who during a normal work week do not get the attention that I'd like to give them.

I'll be on a new/old front when I get back to work.  The war on the dad-bod will continue, as it was under a ceasefire while I was here at the beach.  As much as I wanted to, and as well intentioned as I was, maintaining caloric balance, amongst many other things was next to impossible while here.

My initial goal when I return is to get back into a somewhat normal workout schedule.  Prior to my vacation it was erratic at best.  Primarily because of the increase in work schedule that happened about 3 weeks earlier.  Another factor that limited my exercise was my right foot.  Running was next to impossible as was many other exercises and lifts that I was hoping to perform.  It still hurts, but much less than it was before.

I'm still trying to hit the cardio hard, as when winter comes, it becomes less and less.  However this is that time of year that I do prefer to lift over cardio.  So I may work on something that integrates both.  I'm not exactly sure of some of my goals, but I do know that this dad bod needs to be chiseled out.

I'll also work on getting back to logging in my food on myfitnesspal.  I find that it's much better if I do it regularly and I'm less likely to do something stupid in the process.  What I love about the program is that if I"m still under on calories, I can have my kryptonite....oreos.

That's the plan for when I get back.  The #fightthefluffy continues.....