Q&A for: 11-Aug-05
341. Q:
HIIT
A:
See near the end of my Fat Loss article.
342. Q:
how can i tame my legs to sprinting wat gym routines should i do?
A:
Sport-specific training such as training for sprinting is more involved and complex than general fitness training. A good sprinting program will consist of three phases. Hypertrophy phase when you will work to pack on muscles onto your legs by exercises such as squat, lunges, leg press, calf raises, etc. A power phase when you will perform explosive power exercises such as cleans and do plyometric training such as depth jumps, box jumps, one-legged hops, etc. Finally you will have skill-specific phase when you'll actually be running sprints. These three phases would performed pretty much in that order, though they can overlap too. The amount of work will decline from phase to phase with the first one taking perhaps 6 hours per week (3 training sessions, 2 hours each), second one 3 hours (3 training session of 1 hour), and the last 1-2 hours (3-4 sessions of 30 minutes). Each phase may last 2-3 months. If you choose to overlap sessions you would need to adjust the amount of work to prevent overtraining.
In general best results for sport-specific training are achieved when you have a good trainer (such as a NSCA Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist :) supervising you closely and keeping track of you progress and making adjustments on the go.
If you can't or don't want to put so much planning into your training, then simply focus on heavy leg training in the gym (squats) and do sprints outside of the gym. Eat well and sleep at least 8 hours a day to help recovery.
343. Q:
Do you think it's necesary to load when starting to take creatine? Cause I read that it's not essencial as people thought. If not how much(g) should I start taking each day in how many doses?
A:
As you said, there are arguments for both approaches, but I've never seen a study that found that non-loading gave better results than loading. So I would still recommend loading approach. Typical dosage during a week-long loading phase is 15-20 grams of creatine per day split into 5g portions. Post-loading maintenance is 5-10 grams per day, again with 5g portions.
Best times to take creatine is to dissolve it in a little bit of water and drink about 15 minutes before a solid meal. That way the insulin response to the carbs and protein will carry creatine into the muscles. Typical meal choices are pre-breakfast and before the post-workout meals since these meals tend to be the biggest. But you can really do it before any meal.
Remember that creatine will not make up for a deficient diet or program, so always focus on those basics first. Also, around 20-30% of the people don't respond to creatine. For the rest it can be a useful supp in building muscle and strength.
344. Q:
Your site is just wonderful! I don't think you get complemented as much as you deserve. I take all your advice seriously and have read nearly every question for the past month. Thanks so much for providing such an informative, valuable resource!
A:
Thank you very much, I really appreciate that! Hope my advice is helping you make some serious progress!
345. Q:
How much time is required for muscles to recover?What happens if u make weight training again before that time passes?
A:
Recovery time will depend on the intensity and duration of the workout as well as the diet. After a good weighttraining session you should wait at least 2 days to train the same muscles again and you could easily wait a whole week. In fact many routines are structured to work each muscle group only once a week. These are called 'split' routines as opposed to 'whole-body' routines which work all the muscles 2-3 times per week. You can find samples of both in my Weighttraining article. Both types of routines are perfectly fine and switching between them can provide extra variety which is always good.
If you always train too soon, before muscles have recovered, you will eventually overtrain which will result in injuries and/or lack of progress. Overtraining is extremely common, so if in doubt, do LESS. The quality of your workouts is much more important than their length.
346. Q:
Would you suggest creatine for women?
A:
Creatine can work for women as well as for men. Just keep in mind that creatine is not a miracle supp by any means. It will slightly increase your strength and will allow you to have slightly more intense workouts which will translate into slightly higher metabolism. It is no substitute for having a good nutrition and training programs. It's also likely to make you gain a pound or two of water weight which some people don't like. It is really just water weight and it'll drop when you stop creatine supplementation. Finally, the response to creatine is different for different people, and it doesn't do anything at all for some. As long as you keep all those things in mind, it can be a useful supplement for women as well as men.
347. Q:
I workout for an hour four times per week. Do you think it is better to work the entire body all four days, or split it and devote the whole hour to intense upper body training one day and then intense lower body the next? To me it would seem better to work the entire body, but then I suppose you wouldn't work each muscle group as intensely as if you were to split it up. Or maybe I'm just overthinking it...
A:
Both whole-body and split approaches are perfectly fine, but if you're working out 4 times/week, then doing whole-body may not give quite enough recovery time in between sessions. Whole-body routines are typically done 1-3 times/week. So in your case a split routine might be more appropriate. You can do upper body twice and lower body twice, for example. Or you can follow something like this routine.
348. Q:
I am a female, and I gain most of my weight around the middle, which leaves me with pretty skinny legs. I've been working out for a few months and have noticed pretty good muscle definition in my arms and WONDERFUL muscle def in my quads, but maybe only a half inch to an inch has been lost from my waistline, despite the very hard muscles I can feel underneath the fat. I know you've said 'the first place you gain weight tends to be the last place you lose it'...do you think that is the case for me and that I'm on the right track to losing the last 10 lbs? Or do you think I need to maybe step it up a little to lose that fat?
A:
It sounds like you are making very good progress! You're definitely seeing that 'first fat on is the last fat off' effect in action :) As long as you're making progress and losing fat, even if very slowly, I would keep at it. I would not even count the inches lost, but just go by how your body looks and feels to you -- do you feel like you're making progress, even if it's slow? If so, then things are good and you just need to keep at it. If not, then you need to re-examine your training program. This is where a good personal trainer would be invaluable -- he or she should learn from your workouts and have a plan of what to do when the progress halts. He or she should have an idea of what exercise volume, workout structure, rep ranges, etc. you tend to respond best and restructure your program accordingly. Of course, by being very mindful of your own workouts and progress you can do the same thing yourself.
The other thing that may well be limiting your progress is, of course, your diet. Optimize it as much as possible with the info found all over this site, try to cheat less and eat veggies more :) But more than anything else, remember that slow steady progress is the one that will stick so don't give up and keep at it!
349. Q:
Couple of questions about beans (talk about a fascinating subject! :)...first, what do you think of canned beans? I use a whole can of black kidney beans in my chili. Where do buy fresh beans? I also read that some raw beans contain toxins that can give you food poisoning. Have you heard that?
A:
My philosophy is always to go with the least processed and least preserved foods possible. I would buy fresh first, frozen second, and canned third. So when given a choice I'd go with plain dried beans instead of canned. (I might've confused by saing 'fresh beans' elsewhere -- I really meant the dried beans or lentils that you can buy in plastic packets). Some beans (especially kidney beans) do have natural toxins in them, but they would only affect you if you actually ate the raw beans. By soaking the beans (something you have to do for almost all beans) and then cooking them at high temperature you will destroy those toxins. Canned beans are already pre-soaked of course, so they don't have the toxins.
My bias against things like canned beans is more of a personal choice. As far as I know they only have salt and water for packaging (not the nitrates that are often used in canned meats and some other products), so they're unlikely to have serious health side-effects for you. Still, if they're part of your everyday diet, my healthy paranoia would give preference to plain dried beans instead of canned ones :) Oh and as far as fresh alternatives, there're always green beans which are an excellent food!
350. Q:
what foods should i avoid to get a flat stomach and how many sit-ups and crunches should i aim for everyday?
A:
The only way to get a flat stomach is by losing fat over all of your body which will also lose it on the stomach. The best way to lose fat and keep it off is through a comprehensive nutrition and exercise program. Sit-ups and crunches are perfectly good exercises, but on their own they will not make a diddly of a difference in getting you a flat stomach -- instead you need to be exercising all of your muscles for maximum fat-burning effect. Please read this article to learn how.
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