Q&A for: 12-Sep-09
2886. Q:
Does a junk food diet increase the risk of getting injured while playing sports (muscle strain for example)? I've pulled my calf muscle twice in three weeks while playing badminton.
A:
It's unlikely that junk food can cause immediate physical injuries. It's certainly bad for you and in the long run will cause all sorts of problems, but having a poor diet for just a couple of weeks shouldn't lead to injuries. However, what can happen is that injuries will take longer to heal if your diet is lacking in nutrients. Muscle cramps become more likely as well.
2887. Q:
You mention in your "Fitness Rules of Thumb" that if weight training at the same time, limit cardio to under 2 hours per week and if not weight training at the same time, limit cardio to under 7 hours per week. What is the reasoning behind this? I typically run 30 minutes/day mon-fri and lift following my run (hitting different muscle groups each day). I just want to make sure I'm not doing more harm than good.
A:
The reason for limiting cardio more while weight training is to give your body time to recover and prevent overtraining. Overtraining occurs when your body does not have enough time (or possibly enough nutrients) to fully recover between workouts so each additional workout beats up your body more and more. If continued long enough this leads to all sorts of injuries, poor immune response, and subpar progress, whether in gaining strength, building muscle, or losing fat. Heavy whole-body weight training puts more stress on your body than most cardio (which is why it's so effective in raising metabolism -- that's your body's working overtime to repair muscle damage) so I recommend limiting additional physical stresses, such as cardio, while weight training to prevent overtraining.
Of course different people can have very different recuperative abilities. Elite athletes can put in several hours of intense physical exercise daily and still benefit from it. To a large degree this is true of young people in general. But for a quick rule of thumb, up to 2 hours/week of cardio with weight training or up to 7 hours/week of cardio by itself, is in the right range for most people.
Your specific situation running for 2.5 hours/week plus weight training sounds just fine, so don't worry about it if you are enjoying your program and getting good results.
2888. Q:
hi mike.i am a 22 yr old guy.i weigh 70 kgs and i am 5ft 10.i wanna tone my body.i have beer belly which is about 35inches..plz suggets me a diet and fitness routine.
A:
Start by reading my Fat Loss, Nutrition, and Weight Training articles. Spend some time to make sure you really understand them. Then you can fill out Fitness Guide to get your own custom starter diet and exercise program which you can taylor to your specific needs using the knowledge you got from the articles. Also consider registrering with my site and starting a Fitness Blog -- it's a good self-motivational technique and it will allow me to check in on your progress and offer suggestions from time to time. And it's all completely free, of course!
2889. Q:
I go to the gym twice a day. Morning I do 1000 situp plus 1hr of cardio and in the evening I do 1000 situps plus weight trainig. what else do I need to do to increase my fat burning?
A:
It sounds like you have the training part down already, but the equally important aspect of losing fat and keeping it off is your diet. Start by reading my Nutrition article and making sure your diet follows the guidelines outlined there.
You also may want to cut down on those situps to save time and energy for other exercises -- situps are a fine exercise but not a particularly important or effective one. Doing thousands of situps will not burn your belly fat any faster. You may want to check out my Weight Training article to make sure the rest of your weight training program is up to par and not suffering at expense of those situps. If the rest of your program is OK and you like doing situps then that's fine. But if the situps is your focus and the rest of the time you just do some bicep curls and bench presses, then you can definitely improve your program as outlined in that article.
2891. Q:
Hi mike, Whats the duration for doing HIIT?
A:
I usually recommend doing HIIT in 30-second intervals. So you do 30 seconds of maximum speed sprinting, followed by 30 seconds of walking, followed by 30 seconds of sprinting, followed by 30 seconds of walking, and so on. The total duration of a HIIT session can be anywhere from 3 to 15 minutes, depending on your fitness level -- a newcomer to HIIT type training will typically be exhausted after just 3 minutes but as her strength and endurance builds up she'll be able to slowly keep increasing the length of a singles session up to 15 minutes (which fits in 15 sprinting intervals interspersed with 15 walking intervals). And I would put in 3 HIIT session per week on average.
2892. Q:
hey man, can i drink whey protein while i am working out, and when i am lifting weights should i start from small to big or from big to small..
A:
You could drink protein during your workout session and some people do that, but I would recommend saving protein for before and immediately after the workout -- your body needs to work relatively hard to digest protein which diverts bloodflow and energy from the workout and protein is not a good source of energy anyway which is what you are really looking for. If you need like you are running out of energy too quickly during the workout, first make sure that your overall diet is adequate -- read my Nutrition article if you need a starting point.
If that doesn't help then you could consider drinking some sugary drink (such as Gatorade) during your workout -- simple sugars get digested and absorbed into your bloodstream much faster than protein and provide a quick energy source, especially if your workouts last over an hour. Personally I am not a big fan of this approach for most people because simple sugars decrease your insulin sensitivity in the long run which leads to easier fat gains and potentially even diabetes (not to mention teeth rot). It also makes some people nauseous and lessens the workout effectiveness. But it may be the right approach for some people, such as athletes, who have to have long workouts (or actual competitions) and need energy to carry them through.
2893. Q:
my son is 15 5'7" and weighs 130 would like to gain some weight tried weight gainer in powder form and he vomited over and over just on half a serving . What can I use?
A:
Use real food!!! There's absolutely nothing special about weight gainer powders and in fact they are inferior to real food in helping to bulk up. They are simply whey protein mixed with simple carbs -- sugars really, even though they're usually advertised as complex carbs on a technicality. As far as your son's body is concerned they are protein + sugar. They are only popular because of their heavy marketing, not because they're better than real food in any way at all.
Instead of weight gainers your son could get much better and healthier results from eating more real food, especially protein-rich lean meats, poultry, fish, and dairy combined with complex carbs in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
Please check out Nutrition article to learn how to structure a good diet of real, healthy, foods for weight gain (or fat loss). If you are looking for a ready diet, something like this should be about right for your son and if he starts gaining weight too quickly, just take out one of the middle meals and spread the others more throughout the day. But again, the most important message is that best healthiest weight gains come from real, nutritious foods and not weight gainer powders.
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