It’s been a year that I’ve been doing physical fitness and nutrition. I see that my current situation is a bit different from before. There are many people I know who wanted to change their bodies but don’t know how to do it. Today, I’ll share the experience I had, and the lessons I’ve learned over the past year. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I hope everyone can have a healthy body!
I. Necessity of body-building
The main component of muscle is protein. A high school biology book says that “protein is the carrier of all life activities.”, which means that muscles are important for our daily activities. A great muscle not just brings a few envious eyes on you but also improve the quality of your life.
– 1. First, the most intuitive, healthy and powerful shape will make you more confident to face the outside world. In daily life, the increase in strength will also bring you convenience. On the contrary, you don’t want to meet someone by the stairs that will ask you to carry her luggage and all you can do is reluctantly shook your head and say “I’m sorry, I’m not strong enough.”
– 2. More muscle means more protein, meaning in facing a disease, your body will be able to produce more antibodies that will make you more resistant to sickness than others.
– 3. The increase in muscle content will reduce heart-load. A weak muscle naturally requires the heart to pump more blood for our use, which is why someone who does a little physical activity gets exhausted easily and have a faster heart rate. When becoming old, a great deal of cardiac stress can trigger a series of problems, such as heart disease.
– 4. Lastly, people will lose muscle slowly during their middle age. After entering old age, men lose more than 30% of their muscles while women will lose more than 50% of their muscles. No wonder that everyone always hears an old aged man saying “I don’t want to squat, I can’t stand up when I crouch”. This is what the muscles get if you don’t do physical fitness and nutrition, so as early as now, we need to move and strengthen our muscles more.
II. Fitness and Nutrition Objectives
Each person’s physical condition is not the same, so our exercise, fitness and nutrition goals are different. Overall, it can be divided into muscle gain and weight loss, and they can overlap.
1. Fat Reduction
This is commonly known as weight loss, and this is a big topic, therefore let’s slowly talk about it. Fat is an indispensable part of the body. Of all the substances in the human body that supply us with energy, the “efficiency” of fat is the highest. It occupies a small volume but has the largest function. Besides, it has the function of protecting the skin and internal organs. So, the less fat is better, it should be maintained within a certain range.
For overweight people, the fat reduction should be their priority, and the best way to reduce fat is to do aerobic exercise. What is aerobic exercise? It is the amount of exercise that keeps the heart rate at 150 beats/minute, and because the blood can supply enough oxygen to the heart muscle at this time, therefore, it is characterized by low intensity, rhythm, and long duration.
We all know that sugar is the main energy-supplying substance. In the first 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise (varies from person to person), all we consume is sugar, including glycogen, and we must continue to exercise for more than 30 minutes to start reducing fats. I have friends who ask me how many laps they should run daily to lose weight. I said it’s not about the counts of laps but the duration of your running. Aerobic exercise is not at your distance or how much you are sweating. The key is a period of continuous exercise.
So I suggest those who need to lose fat is to do aerobic exercise at least 3 times a week, 40 – 60 minutes per session. Note that this period has to be continuous, running for 20 minutes then resting for 10 minutes doesn’t affect, but will just improve your heart and lung function. As long as you do it strictly, it will be effective if you do it continuously. You can discard your weight loss tea and body-building soup.
2. Muscle Gain
Muscle building is an activity I am currently working on, so I’d like to highlight here. There are several concepts to learn about muscle gain:
The concept of muscle growth: Muscle Growth means “don’t break without standing”, what does it mean? It means that muscle growth requires you to destroy it and give it some time to recover, which is called growth. Science has shown that multiple sets and actions are beneficial for muscle growth.
The concept of RM: RM means the number of times you have exhausted for a certain strength training. For example, a bench press of RM is 5, which means that you can only do a maximum of 5 bench presses of a certain weight.
Not counting the number of times: It is important to count the number of times of your exercise. A specific muscle need to repeatedly stimulated, then the number of times and the number of groups is very important.
The number of times is determined according to RM. Science shows that the muscle dimension and strength increase fastest under RM of 8 – 12. (Simple algorithm for weight, 70% – 80% of weight when RM is 1.)
The concept of the number of groups: the number of times the same action needs to be done. There are 3 groups at the beginning and 5 or more at the intermediate level.
-Compared with fat loss, the progress of muscle gain is more complicated because the increase of muscle must be combined with your diet, proper sleep, and other comprehensive factors. If possible, it can be matched with some muscle gainer powder, which is specifically for muscle gain with all the proper training. The effect will be very obvious, but if you don’t move properly during training, it may cause harm to you instead.
The human body has more than 600 muscles but the main ones are as follows: chest muscles, back muscles, leg muscles, abdominal muscles, biceps, triceps, shoulder muscles, calves muscle.
For beginners, you only need to practice large muscle groups, namely the chest, back, abdomen, and legs because these exercises require complex movements, such as bench presses. Execute chest exercise as this also enhances your brachial head muscles. Pull-ups mainly for latissimus dorsi and biceps brachii. Do squats to strengthen the quadriceps and improve knee stability (basketball players must practice this movement), this also greatly enhances the stability of your waist and torso.
P.S. If you’re a beginner then do not exercise too much. You can do it 2 or 3 times a week. The first training is sure to be painful the next morning, so be sure to rest until you get back to work.
Intermediate trainers should be richer in movements (the specific movements are shown in parentheses in the training plan below). Middle-level trainers often encounter platform period, that is, training for a while, feeling sluggish and muscle growth is very slow. I suggest everyone ensure the quality of sleep and healthy eating. Don’t drag tired bodies to work out. It’s best to adjust your exercise, for example, your original exercise is to do bench press first then fly birds, I suggest you do bird-bench and press-butterfly machine exercises next to avoid boring training.
III. Training Plan
Monday: Chest: Dumbbell flat bench press (upward inclined bench press, downward inclined bench press), dumbbell bird (upward inclined bird, downward inclined bird), etc.
Wednesday: Back: Assisted pull-ups (forward and reverse pull-ups), seated rowing, (Deadlift), etc.
Friday: quadriceps: Instrument Exercise (Squat)
Abdomen: Abdominal muscles need special attention. Abdominal muscles are small muscle groups and need to be stimulated every day, otherwise, fats will form again immediately! There are many ways to exercise abdominal muscles and you can search these on the internet. Abdominal muscles are good for 8 minutes only. Keep in mind that the abdominal muscles need to be trained greatly.
To sum it up, the exercise of muscles is a test of persistence. If you don’t strictly follow your exercise routine then you might as well not do it anymore. Be firm with your actions and goals in achieving physical fitness and nutrition.
IV. Others
Diet: Those who want to lose fat should reduce their fat intake, eat less pork, drink low-sugar beverages, etc., all based on the principle of less sugar and fat. Those who are aiming for muscle gain should take more protein such as eggs, milk, chicken breast, beef, fish, etc.
Plant-based proteins should also be added to animal-based protein and can be supplemented by muscle gainer powder for efficiency. Lighter people (like me) should have more meals a day, they need to add meals at 10 am and 4 pm. Of course, it is best to eat only one meal at night unless you have to exercise after eating.
Sleep: Sleep is also a factor in fitness and nutrition that should not be ignored. In the state of sleeping, we have the largest secretion of muscle-related hormones, so we must ensure 7 hours of sleep and do not drag the tired body to exercise, otherwise the risk of injury is great.
