The Journey of 2 Years

If you wanted to gain as much muscle as possible without using illegal drugs, what would you do?

You could just hit the gym 7 days a week without a clue, and make up your own plan from exercises you see the regular gym rats doing.

Or you could buy a bodybuilding magazine, and see how those half- human half-beasts are training, in between their injection sessions in the dark corner of the locker room.

Or even better, you could go to all the bodybuilding forum and websites and read about a million different way to train, endlessly searching for a suitable program. Well, that might actually work if you have the time to try out all the program. 

After 2 years:

It's hard to believe how much progress is made, both physically and mentally in that mere 2 years. I'm going to list down  some of the key points that I wished I knew earlier in my lifting journey. It may or may not be beneficial to you, so take those that make sense to you ! :)

1. Listen To Your Body

I know, you've heard this time and time again. But guess what, you're going to keep hearing it because it is THAT important. No program out there will ever be a substitute for your ability to listen to your body and lift by feel. 

I used to tell myself not to give excuses and man the fuck up on those days that my body felt being hit by a truck. That's good only to a certain extent, for example, you're supposed to lift that weight for a certain amount of repetitions, but your form is totally fuck up to a point that it may caused injuries, would you still continue doing it ? The weights might be moving but definitely it is not by your muscle, instead your ego! 

If you're feeling beat up, take a day off. If you are  still feeling beat up, then deload. It's that easy folks. Your body tells you how it is feeling all of the time, but unfortunately most people are just too caught up in everything else to listen.

2. Vary Your Intensity Levels Weekly

This specific point is meant more for the strength athletes out there, but it can definitely be applied to the weekend warrior's training too. It is simply a modification of the regressive overload principle. According to progressive overload, you must gradually increase the intensity of work for optimum results,

Let's move away from this old way of thinking:

• Week 1- High
• Week 2- Higher
• Week 3- Highest

And on to the new method:

• Week 1- High
• Week 2- Medium
• Week 3- Very high

Just this small change in weekly intensity level has brought about some great personal records for myself. Squats: from 225lbs to 335lbs. Deadlift: from 275lbs to 365lbs. Bench: from 135lbs to 175lbs. Some people's bodies cant handle that first scheme. Unfortunately, mine is included amongst that list. But luckily, there is an alternative for those of you that can't manage that kind of progression. 

We are still following the idea of progressive overload here, but with one tiny modification, instead of three straight weeks of overload, we back off on the second week and give the body the rest it needs to come back strong for the third week. The small tweak has the potential to make a world of difference.

 3. Warm-up

Don't underestimate it. A solid warm-up is key in the prevention of injuries or other complications like Rotator Cuff (RC) pain. In fact, it is key in the prevention of all sorts of pain. So don't be a dummy like I once were. Do your warm-up.

RC warm-up:

Windmills

Start with bodyweight and work up to 5-10lbs. 3 sets of 5 forward and 3 sets of 5 backward per arm. For those of you with limited ROM where the humerus connects to the scapula, this is the exercise you need to include in your routine.

Internal and External Rotations

3 sets of 12-15 per arm, increasing weight as your body allows but never sacrifice forms for heavier weights.

Now on the hip flexors. Tight hip flexors can contribute to lower back pain via pelvic tilt. In particular, I'm talking about the anterior pelvic tilt here. This means that the psoas major, which is responsible for lumbar extension and hip flexion is too tight.

The gluteus maximus is supposed to oppose this muscle, but it's too weak, as are the hamstrings and the abdominals. So obviously we have a problem here. But no worries. It's really not that complicated to fix.

Stretching the hip flexors and strengthening the core can help to reduce the level of pelvis tilt and in turn decrease lower back pain. I've had lower back pain once in a while, until a few months back, i finally realised the importance of the hip flexors. It turns out that most of my lower back pain was due to extremely tight hip flexors. Below are two of the most common stretches that I have successfully used to alleviate lower back pain:

Lying Hip Flexor Stretch

Lie down on your back. Pull one knee up to your chest keeping the other leg on the ground. You may also draw in your belly button (therefore recruiting the abdominal muscles) to help stabilize the pelvis.

Lunge Hip Flexor Stretch

Kneel into a lunge position. Tuck the front of the pelvis up towards your head and lunge forward. You should feel a stretch at the front of the hip on the leg that you are kneeling on.

Utilize these stretches before all your lower body workouts, whether it be running, squat, deadlift or any other lower body exercise that you do. Hold it for 15-20s and repeat 3x.

4. Compound Exercises

Exercise selection can virtually make or break a workout program. If you aren't choosing the correct exercises, you are going to have a difficult time reaching your goals and seeing progress. Often, beginners like I once were, think that the more exercise they can do, the better. After all, hitting a muscle from every angle imaginable must mean you are training it in the best possible manner right? Wrong.

• Number of muscle fibers stimulated:

Isolated exercises simply won't give you the biggest bang for your buck because they just don't target that many muscle fibers. Take a bench press verses a tricep kickback. The bench press is going to your pectoral muscles, triceps,deltoids, with your biceps acting as a dynamic stabilizer.

While, the tricep kickback will pretty much only target your triceps. Now, which one do you think is going to provide the most growth? 

• Reduced Time in The Gym

Compound exercises are considered as superior because you are hitting more muscle fibers with each lift and therefore required to spend less time in the gym. Now, who doesn't want more results in less time.

My training sessions (at least 2 hours) used to consist of around 7-8 isolation exercises for each muscle group with the bro-split of Monday-Chest, Tuesday- Arms, Wednesday- Leg, and so on... 

Now, my 1 hour training sessions consist of 3 or 5 compound exercises which are Squats, Bench presses, Deadlift and Military presses as my first exercise and followed up with any accessory work.

• Greatest release of hormone

Not only will compound exercises target the greatest portion f muscle fibers, they will also result in significant release of anabolic hormones in the body. The two prime examples are testosterone and growth hormone.

The more taxing the exercise on the system, the greater the release. This in turn results in greater growth (assuming proper nutrition and rest protocols are followed). Now think of the last time you did a bicep/tricep workout. Did you sweat as much as you're doing Deadlifts or Squats? These are such small muscles that it's hard to really tax the body when training them alone.

5. Nutrition

There is a  lot of confusing information about workout nutrition out there that can make it nearly impossible to figure out how much protein to take or if carbs are beneficial, let alone whether other supplements can support your results.

As a general guideline, the safest way to know your macro split is to determine your BMR using an online calculator. Next, in order to calculate your daily protein intake (grams), multiply your BMR by a value of 1.0-2.0 depending on your goal and divide the number by 4. Then, multiply your BMR with 0.3 or any ratio of fat intake desired, divide the number by 9 to get your daily fat intake in grams.

Finally, to calculate your daily carbs intake, take your BMR and minus off the calories from the protein and fat, divide the remaining value with 4.

Personally, I would just consider the macro split as a reference and then tweak the ratios according to how my body react as time goes by.

In conclusion, those 5 points up there are the things that I wished I could go back in time and slap myself hard in the head to give myself a wake-up call.

Saving Money on Meals

Probably one of the most common question asked by people is " How much do you eat in a day?" Surprisingly, not what - although of course people do ask that, too- but how much. 

To me, this shows just how much people are worried about whether they're eating enough or not.

I am a full-time student at Monash University Malaysia and I live in Lagoon View Resort Condominium which is located in between campus and Sunway Pyramid (place that I usually get my groceries from). Sometimes people, mostly fellow students will casually ask me the question. When I reply, "5-6 meals per day and between 2,400- 2,800 calories." the person is astounded. Then they'll give me reasons like "I don't have enough time" or  "it's too expensive to eat like that."

My thoughts: false, and false. As a student myself, I know excuses like those can be simply thrown to avoid being held responsible for your own bad decisions. I can tell you that I've both run the numbers and put them to the test in the real world. No matter who you are or where you live, you can do this!

The Four Kitchen Essentials

Before you get rolling in the kitchen, you're going to need to outfit yourself with a few essential appliances: a microwave, an oven, a rice cooker and a large grill pan. You probably already have access to the first of those things, but trust me, the other three are just as important to spice things up.

They allow you to prepare - in large quantities, I might add- all that is necessary to eat according to your desired macros  in a university setting. Other electrical appliances like blender is nice to have, but they aren't necessary and most apartment won't provide it.

Below are the basic meals I prepare in each of the essential kitchen appliances. I highly encourage you to do some research to find recipes that fit  your taste buds.

1. Microwave
I use my microwave to reheat all of my meals. Besides that, I also use it to cook red potatoes and sweet potatoes, both of which can be considered as my staple food. To cook any kind of potato in the microwave, make sure you do the following:

 1. Rinse and scrub the potato with your hands in water at room temperature. Potatoes are grown in          the ground, so they usually have a little dirt on the skin, and they typically come in mesh bags,            they'll also pick up other contaminants along the way. Obviously cooking them at high                        temperature will kill the bacteria , but who wants to eat dirt?

 2. Using a knife or a fork, poke a few holes in each potato to ensure even distribution of heat                   throughout the whole potato.

 3. Place the potatoes into a microwaveable container and fill the container with water until it reach         approximately half of the potatoes. Cover the container with a lid but make sure that lid is not             fully sealing the container.

 4. The cook time will vary depending on the size of the potatoes and the settings of the microwave,
     but a rough estimation would be around 4 min each side.

Check the readiness with a knife; if you can put it through the potato with relative ease, you're good to go. If your knife stops or becomes hard to push, pop the potato back into the microwave for another couple of minutes.

Purple Sweet Potato with Wasabi sauce and baked chicken 

2. Oven

We all know how busy a university workload can get, which is why the oven is a must-have for me. You just simply wrap the tray with an aluminium foil and place your seasoned protein source and pop it in the oven and forgot about it.

Beyond being convenient time-wise, cooking with an oven makes your meats leaner; the fat will melt away into the juice/sauce you're cooking in. It also keep things interesting, because the combinations of meats and sauces are infinite.

My favourite meat by far to cook in an oven for a long period of time is the pork tenderloin, because it gets so tender and easy to eat as it just melt in your mouth. But there are thousands of recipes out there, so I encourage you to try your favourite meats and discover the ones you like.

Roasted Pork Tenderloin wrapped with Beef slices

This is the basic process:

1. Preheat your oven to around 200 deg and wrap the tray with aluminium foil so that the meat wont stick on the tray and you could avoid any washing. ( Fuck washing !!)

2. If the meat is too thick, make a few cut throughout along the meat so that cooking process will be even. Cover the meat with a thin layer of oil (optional) and spice it up with any seasoning of preference.

Chicken Breasts

3. Pop it in the oven and let it cook! The meat will take around 15-20 mins to be cooked at 200-250degs.

4. After your meat finished cooking, retrieve the meat with a fork and dump the remaining content down the drain.

Roasted Beef

Besides that, if you are craving for some fries, one of the best way to indulge in the healthy version of it by oven-baking with minimal oil and salt.

This is the basic process:

1. Wash and lightly scrub the potatoes with running water. Remove the skin of the potatoes because it may contain dirt or any contaminants.

2. Cut the potatoes into preferable sizes with almost similar thickness to ensure all the potatoes are cooked evenly at the same time. Use a fork to pierce the slightly thicker potatoes (optional).

3. Drizzle some oil (olive, canola, coconut- your choice) on the potatoes. Add a pinch of salt and black pepper and toss the potatoes around so that the seasoning are spread equally.

4. Pop it into the oven for around 20 mins at 200-250 deg. When the edges are golden-brown, it's ready to go!

Baked sweet potato + Steak 

3. Rice Cooker  

It is basically an electric pot that you just plug in. Follow the directions that come on the rice of your choice. A couple of tips:

1. Put a bouillon cube in with your rice and water. It will give your rice a better flavour without adding calories.

2. Dress your rice up with different vegetables and sauces.My favourites are red bean and pesto.





4. Electric grill / grill pan

It depends whether you have a stove in your apartment, but if you do, you could get the grill pan and if you don't, the electric grill would be your best bet. Get the biggest one you can get, so you can cook a lot of food at one time.

Some of my favourites to make on the grill are lean beef burger patties, steak, and chicken breasts. Because of the design, excess fat runs off, making it acceptable to use fattier cuts of meat.

Grilled Pork Tenderloin

Grilled Steak

That's my kind of salad ;) 

Stretch The Meat You Eat

This would probably cost around RM 60-70 if you were to eat out in Sunway Pyramid.

Buy what's on sale and plan your meals around that, rather than planning a meal and then buying the ingredients at full price. If you've space in your house or apartment, a small freezer can help you squeeze more than one meal out of a bulk buy.

Meat is the perfect item to buy big and freeze for a period of time. For instance, I would grab all of the meat at 50% off in Jusco and store them in the fridge/ freezer. Two pieces of 7-8 oz chicken breasts cost RM 8-10, originally, half the price would be RM 4-5 for two meals ! If you have access to any wet market or wholesale stores, that would be the best.

Canned Tuna in water or extra virgin olive oil should also be on your menu somewhere. It is low in fat, high in protein , and can be purchased at a normal price of RM 5.40 per canned with approximately 33grams of protein. That is relatively cheap compared to the price of food in Sunway which ranged from RM 7-10 per meal and it doesn't provide sufficient amount of nutrients for your building muscle-goal.

Make Cents of Carbs

The good thing about carbs is that they are relatively cheap.

You cant go wrong with rice. I eat a lot of it, probably almost every meal; a cup or more a meal. I don't really eat brown rice anymore because if you understand glycemic load- you would too. A bag of 10kg white rice costs around RM 30-40 and it could last for a month or two.

Potatoes cost RM 0.19 per 100 grams - perfect. 28 medium size potatoes cost me around RM 8- 9 and it will last about 2 meals a day for one week. 2 medium size potatoes consists of approximately 40 grams of carbs and about 160 calories.

Say Yes To Sauce

I've seen bodybuilders in magazines who eat their plain chicken breast, plain rice, plain everything. Honestly, you could do the same if you want to but I can't because I know it will be a matter of time before I breakdown and start to snack on other junk food. I need a little bit of flavour in my life, That means sauce, dressing or anything to spice things up a little.

I know what you're thinking, but sauce isn't a big deal. You've got to have a little salt in your food, or pepper, or whatever spices you want, You don't need to choke down that super-plain , dry chicken breast.

Remember, you have to enjoy the process and it's not all about suffering 24 hours a day. Spice it up.
 
Eating Big On A Budget

Meal 1

Meal 2

Meal 3

Whey Protein - 1 or 2 scoops

Meal 4

Meal 5

Note: You do not have to eat that many meals in a day, provided that you can ensure that you consume all the macro's that you need for your fitness goals. Personally, I can't eat like that all the time during the semester; sometimes I cook, sometimes I eat out. There must always be a balance.

Tonight We Squat in Hell

Finally exams are over and I am BACK!!

I decided to cut down on my calories by around 400cals during my study break and it felt terrible especially when I study, I will go on for 4-5 hours straight. 

Planning my workout schedule was one of my major concern during the semester because classes can start at 8-9 am to late evening around 6 with little breaks in between. I will save this for another article on how I managed to maintain my strength and my grades ;) ;)

Today was the first day after my exams that I trained my legs and I always incorporate major compound movements like Squat in my workout regime. 

The Squat requires great strength throughout all the prime movers and great technique. Great squatters have tremendous strength from head to toe; the quads, hamstrings, glutes, hips, core and entire back must be well developed for a successful lift.

Key technical points in the squat are:

1. The closer you can put your hands to each other on the bar, the easier it will be to have a tight setup. Make sure your elbows are inside your hands to maintain tightness. Using a thumbless grip often improves the comfort of a close hand position. 

2. Squeeze your elbows towards the middle of your body to enhance upper back tightness in the setup . Once you squeeze them towards your body as hard as possible, force them forwards under the bar. There will be very little movement of the elbow forward if you are doing a good job of squeezing them in. 

3. Get some air into your midsection by focusing on breathing into your low back, this will eventually create 360 degrees of pressure. Besides that, get air before you bring the bar out of the rack with your hips. 

4. The walkout should normally be achieved in 3 steps max and it also can be achieved in 2. Step back with your off foot, set your dominant foot and then make any re-positions of your off foot necessary to find your stand. 

5. Once your feet are set, take more air into your midsection by breathing into your low back before descending, while also flexing your glutes hard to neutral your spine and squeezing the bar hard in your hands.

6. Focus on maintaining 3 even points on contact at your feet throughout the lift. Weight should be evenly distributed through big toe, little toe and heel. There will be some forward movement on the knees in the lift and that is fine. 

7. Focus and commit to the descent of the lift. Going down as fast as possible is critical to take advantage of the stretch reflex and avoid expending unnecessary energy on the way down. This doesn't mean you should drop the weight in an uncontrolled manner. You need to descend as quickly as your TECHNIQUE can hold up to. 

8. Keeping the knees in line with the toes or slightly outside is valuable to create torque in the hips. "Knees out" though is often not the proper cue to achieve this as it causes the lifter to shift the weight to the outside of their feet and lose the 3 points of contact. 

9. The last thing to move during the descend is the lift, so it should be the first thing to move on the way up. Keep your chest up out of the hole by driving your head and shoulder back into the bar. Also drive your elbows forward under the bar as you initiate the drive out of the hole.

10. Focus on accelerating the bar throughout the concentric movement all the way to the top of the lift. The bar doesn't need to actually jump off your back but the intent should be there.

Muscle Memory

What Is Muscle Memory?

We all know that if you lift weights and stop lifting for a few months (3-6 months), you will eventually lose strength and muscle. However, if you start training back again, you will gain back the lost muscle or strength within a few weeks- as if the muscle remembers where you left off. This phenomenon is called muscle memory.

Past

We used to believe this is largely due to the nervous system mechanisms in our body. Well, the nervous system mechanisms may explain the strength gains, but it doesn't explain how you can gain back the muscle size so quickly. 

But recent studies show that we might have finally solved the mystery of muscle memory.

 

How did they solve it?

Unlike other cells, muscle cells have more than one nucleus (probably thousands). So why do muscles need so many nuclei? This is due to the fact that nucleus is basically what controls the cell and since your muscle are a lot bigger and way more complex than other cells in the body, one or two nuclei just won't do the job. So, when your muscles get bigger, you have to add more muscle nucleus. The increase in nucleus with muscle growth has been shown in quite a number of studies. It has been shown that people who take steroid and people who grow muscles easily have a lot more muscle nuclei than normal people do. 

Just like muscle growth, we believed that when we lose muscle, the opposite happens- we lose some muscle nuclei since there is no reason for the extra nuclei to sit around. This was also supported in studies which showed as muscle shrinks in size, the number of nucleus decreases too. 

Now here comes the surprise. 

However, recent studies using different animal models showed that as muscle atrophies or shrink due to inactivity or detraining (until 3 months), there is no loss of muscle nuclei as we previously thought! As shown in the picture below, the muscle size decreased b 50% (lines) but the muscle nuclei count (stained with green dye) remained the same.

Since now the muscles has the same number of muscle nuclei after we stopped training, it is relatively easy to build the muscle back to its previous size. So these muscle nuclei seems to acts like 'memory cells' due to the fact that they know how much muscle you had before you stopped training. 

But why did we think muscle nuclei die with muscle loss?

The recent studies used a different approach and technique to study these nuclei. In previous studies, they were actually counting nuclei which belonged to the connective tissues and other cells (satellite cells) and these nuclei do in fact die with detraining. So researchers mistakenly assumed that the muscle nuclei die with muscle loss. But these weren't actual muscle nuclei as the missing nuclei are those belonged to the connective tissues as explained above. The recent studies only counted the actual muscle nuclei and showed no loss. 

Carbohydrate: Glycemic Index

What Is The Glycemic Index

Glycemic Index (GI) is a numerical index that ranks carbohydrates based on their rate of glycemic response (their conversion to glucose within the human body). GI uses a scale of 0 to 100, with higher values given to foods that cause the most rapid rise in blood sugar. Pure glucose serves as a reference point and is give a GI of 100.

Some foods raise blood sugar more than other which means they have a relatively high GI compared to other food of equivalent amount. Our bodies respond to high blood sugar with a high dose of insulin (negatively feedback mechanism) - a hormone which takes sugar out of the blood stream and delivers it to the cells. High level of insulin (besides it makes you craving for more food and fucking sleepy when you want to study) can enhance the risk for a number of undesired health conditions, like Metabolic Syndrome and Type II Diabetes,

As you can see from the figure above, meals containing carbohydrates-rich foods with a high GI tend to give a more rapid and higher rise in blood glucose then meals with a low GI. Moreover, the low GI meal result in a moderate increase in blood glucose that is prolonged compared to that seen after a meal with a high GI food, thus providing a steady and continuous supply of energy for the body. 

How to lower the GI value of your meal

• Combining high GI foods with low GI foods
• High protein content
• High fiber content
• Lemon (2 tablespoon of lemon may reduce GI of a meal by 30%)
• Fat (however it isn't the best way for decreasing GI if you are looking for a low calorie solution).

We don't have to worry too much about consuming high GI food (especially you're an undergraduate who is trying to balance your university workloads, your nutrition and workout), because combining it with low GI foods levels out the overall GI value and results in an average GI value. The overall GI value of different foods in a meal is what really matters. For example, eating potato (high GI) with salad (low GI) lowers GI to an average value, so it is better to eat them together rather than eating potato in itself. Another good solution is to consume high GI carbohydrates with proteins (low GI) in order to decrease the GI of our meal.

Make sure you're clear that even though you're consuming low GI foods, it doesn't mean that you are in the correct path to weight loss provided the total calories consumed is less than the total calories used.  

Why Is Glycemic Index Important?

Your body performs best when your blood sugar is kept relatively constant. If your blood sugar drops too low, you become lethargic and experience increased hunger. If your blood glucose level goes too high, your brain signals your pancreas to secrete more insulin and it will bring your blood sugar down, by primarily converting the excess sugar to stored fat. Also, the greater the rate of increase in your blood sugar, the more chance that your body will release an excess amount of insulin, and drive your blood sugar back down too low. 

Therefore, when you eat foods that cause a large and rapid glycemic response, you may feel an initial elevation in energy and mood as your blood sugar rises, but this is followed by a cycle of increased fat storage, lethargy, and more hunger!

Although increased fat storage may sound bad enough, individuals with diabetes (diabetes mellitus, types 1 and 2) have an even worse complication. Their bodies inability to secrete or process insulin causes their blood sugar to rise too high, leading to a host of additional medical problems.

Should All High-GI Foods be Avoided?

For non-diabetics, there are times when a rapid increase in blood sugar (and the corresponding increase in insulin may be desirable. For example, after strenuous physical activity, insulin also helps move glucose into muscle cells, where it aids tissues repair. Because of this, it is recommended to consume high-GI foods immediately after exercise to speed recovery

Also, it's not Glycemic Index alone that leads to the increase in blood sugar. Equally important is the amount of the food that you consume. The concept of glycemic index combined with total intake is referred to as "Glycemic Load".

How Glycemic Load (GL) Improves the Glycemic Index (GI)

GI is calculated based on food food servings with 50g of carbohydrate and those serving sizes are nt the amount a person might normally eat, thus the concept of the glycemic load (GL) was created. 

The formula for calculating glycemic load is as shown below:

Example:

• Spaghetti (GI= 40): 1 cup contains 52 grams of carbohydrate. The glycemic load of spaghetti is :     (40 X 52)/100= 20.8
• Apple (GI=40): 1 medium size apple contains 15 grams of carbohydrate. The glycemic load of an apple is : (40 X 15)/100= 6

This shows how a high GI food can have a low GL in the amounts normally eaten. 

Low -GI foods may be a good choice before endurance sports, while high-GI foods could aid recovery after strenuous participation in any activity. 

Conclusion:

GI and GL have equally important influence on how fast the food is digested, thus affecting our blood sugar in our body. We must also be aware that there are numerous factors that comes into play when affecting the total GI of our meal, hence don't be that person who feels that it's the end of the world when he/she could only have white rice instead of their brown rice. Moderation and Improvisation is key.  

Creatine Monohydrate: 101 guide

For as long as I'm concerned, there's still confusion surrounded Creatine Monohydrate and people have linked it to getting naturally unattainable physiques with harmful side effects. So the question here: Is creatine safe and effective, or is it dangerous and over-hyped?

Crea-What?
Let's begin at the top. Creatine mono isn't some super chemical created by a bodybuilding Tony Stark. It's actually an organic acid found naturally in food, and it exists in significant quantities in poultry and fish.

Creatine is nitrogenous, which means it's nitrogen-containing and is made from a combination of 3 amino acids: Glycine, Methionine and Arginine.

In humans, approximately 95% of creatine is stored in our skeletal muscle where it exists as creatine phosphate and they are also known as a phosphate donor during certain metabolic processes. We'll discuss the importance of this in greater detail soon.

Crea-Who?
If you're wondering whether you can benefit from creatine supplementation,consider your fitness goals. Creatine will give the extra edge to people who are looking to maximize muscles, strength and performacne gains.

So, if you're trying to get bigger, stronger and maybe even lift heavier, creatine can help. If you're not trying to do any of these things, go take a nap and come back when you're ready.

Read more on How Creatine Boost Brain Power

The Energizer
Creatine support these goals because it can be used as a source for anaerobic work, which includes high-intensity weight training or any HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) like sprinting.

Supplementing with creatine has been shown to significantly increase the concentration of creatine in the muscle. Recall that, creatine is found as creatine phosphate in the muscle and can act as a phosphate donor. Our body's energy currency- a molecule called Adenosine Tri-Phosphate or commonly known as ATP- happens to use phosphate to power certain cellular processes.

During exercise, ATP is broken down to Adenosine Di-Phosphate (ADP), where it loses one of its phosphate molecules. The loss of the phosphate essentially provides the energy to power your cells during any activity.

As the training prolonged, your ATP stores become depleted, performance can suffer. Creatine Phosphate can help restore ATP by donating its phosphate to ADP to reform ATP. In this way, creatine can help improve performance and has also been shown to increase strength and power.

Size Matters
While all this performance and strength stuff sounds great, I'm sure you may be wondering what creatine will actually do to your body.

Creatine has also been shown to increase lean body mass, mostly through increasing the fluid content of muscle cells. While this may seem like an artificial increase in lean body mass, keep in mind that muscles cells that are better hydrated are also more anabolic.

Additionally, creatine has been shown to increase the activity of muscle satellite cells, which may increase the overall capacity for long-term muscle growth.

Read more here

So Many Options!
Every few years, it seems like the latest and greatest form of creatine comes out. Creatine monohydrates is the most common, and the most studied, form of creatine on the planet. It has proven its worth in research time and time again.

Fortunately for you, creatine mono is generally the least expensive form of creatine available, so it's good for the muscle and the wallet.

How Much, Man?
There are two traditional ways of taking creatine monohydrates. You can take 3-5g per day (depending on muscle mass), which will saturate your intramuscular creatine stores in a few weeks. Or, you can load creatine at 15-25g for the first 45 days, which will saturate the muscle cells more rapidly.

While the latter (loading) saturates the muscle cells at a rapid rate, the downside is that you do not assimilate the majority of that creatine, so those on a budget may consider it wasteful.

Timing is...

Numerous people consune creatine post-workout since it's been speculated that taking creatine after training will lead to better uptake of creatine into the muscle.

In all likehood, however, this is splitting hairs. Consistent supplementation of creatine at 3-5g per day has been shown to saturate the muscle cells, mostly regardless of time consumed, so you can consume your creatine whenever it's most convenient. Personally for me, I would consume around 10g pre- and 10g post-.

What To Choose
Based on current research, It appears that creatine monohydrates is the most effective creatine product available on the market today. If you are going to spring a few extra dollars for anything, then go for a micronized form of creatine monohydrate to improve mix-ability.

Other Sides To The Story
When creatine was introduced to the market as a supplement in the early 90s, many anecdotal and theoretical side effects were brought up as potential concerns- including kidney and liver problems, dehydration and cramping. Thus far, short- and long- term research studies have demonstrated no side effects of recommended creatine use on kidney, liver and/or the heart. Additionally, creatine has not been shown to increase the incidence of cramping.

There is some evidence that creatine can increase dihydrotestosterone levels. Some have theorized that this may cause an increase in acne, but his has yet to be demonstrated.

Finally, strong anecdotal evidence exists that some users may experience gastrointestinal distress when loading creatine. This is likely caused by excess creatine intake exceeding the GI tract's capability to absorb it, which could lead to gas and cramping due to the excess creatine.

If you experience GI distress during creatine loading phase, try reducing your creatine intake until you reach a comfortable level of intake.Alternatively, skip loading entirely.

Lastly, If your physician has advised you against using creatine, then you should avoid it.

Getting Certified

Sorry guys if you're following my fitness blog and hoping to read new stuff everyday. The thing is when I decided to open up this blog, I wanted to make it a regular thing to constantly post up fitness advice/tips or anything related ;), but 24 hours in a day is just not enough for me to sit down happily scratching my balls and write up a post.

Early this year, I decided to sign up for the ACE (American Council on Exercise) PT certification and I could say that it was one of the best experience in my life to be sitting in a room with people who share common lifestyle as I do.

In the first part, this course basically brief you through the code of ethics of a personal trainer in which greatly emphasize on the word "Rapport". Any personal trainer could explain the scientific theories or demonstrate a movement to their client but what separate them is the relationship formed when conducting the personal training session. Saying that, people could just search for workout routine splits online without the help of a personal trainer. So, one of the main focus of personal trainers is to form a bond with their client, motivate and guide them through their fitness journey.

I could briefly list out the Personal Trainer course outline so you guys will get a rough idea on what to expect if you decided to sign up. You will be introduce to the IFT model and various Exercise Techniques, Health Psychology, Initial Investigation and Physiological Assessment, Anatomy and Movement Fundametals, Functional Assessments, Nutrition and Weight management, Essential of Bioenergetics & Cardiorespiratory Anatomy, Cardiorespiratory training, Stability-Mobility Training, Movement Training, Load Training, Performance Training. ( purely based on my memory so I might missed out some O.o )

To be honest, if you wanna learn more about how your body move, utilize energy or respond to different forms of training, dont hesitate to visit FIT Malaysia and acquire about this course or just contact them here. The coaches and staff at FIT Malaysia just makes you feel at home and they will answer any questions or help you in any way they can.

I hesitated for over a year before taking up this course so stop giving yourself excuses in life and start stepping out of your comfort zone and explore all the possibilities.