Category: BB Supplements & Diet


Powerful supplements against pain & cancer.

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — 4 Comments
August 16, 2017

Please click here to watch video “CUTTING EDGE SUPPLEMENTS AGAINST PAIN AND CANCER”

When one reaches over 40 and especially over 50 then there are two major concerns that becomes reality for many, constant daily pain and for some the dreaded cancer!

All is not lost. Well for some it is…when one continue on an unhealthy living path (smoking, drinking, and no exercise) well, then the future unfortunately looks a bit bleak.

But just the other day I met a 92 y/o guy, fit, very mobile, with it! So certain things can be done to limit your risks and enhance your quality life.

However even if you do that, constant pain in joints/muscles seems to be part of any person over 40’s life. And so does the possibility of getting cancer.

We use to think it is just by the “throw of a dice” luck that we do not get cancer. But alas, there might just be a way out! Yes you hear right there just might be a very (!) powerful tool in your arsenal that limits your risk for cancer DRASTICALLY.

The same goes for the constant pain. There are 2 weapons in your arsenal to fight this rather effectively.

But first, let’s lay the basic groundwork.

Alpha Lipoic Acid & Potent Multi Vitamin

Two health supplements that form the basis of good health is a good/potent multi vitamin and ALPHA LIPOIC ACID. The best two choices for a potent multi vitamin is OPTIMEN or ANIMAL PAK.

Take the multi vit as directed on the container (must be after meal).

Why the multi vit – well simple you need to ensure that all the basis are covered concerning vitamins and minerals. Just short of one of these can have real bad consequences. This is very important for the older individual. You CANNOT rely on your food to get everything in.

Alpha Lipoic Acid must be taken at 200mg after morning meal and after evening meal.

Why Alpha Lipoic Acid?

Based on evidence from animal and human studies, lipoic acid offers the following essential health benefits:

  • Reduces oxidative stress in the body via powerful antioxidant activity
  • Improves several components of the metabolic syndrome—a combination of risk factors that increases one’s risk for diabetes
  • Reduces blood pressure
  • Reduces insulin resistance
  • Improves the lipid profile
  • Reduces weight
  • Increases insulin sensitivity
  • Improves diabetic neuropathy
  • Protects against cataract formation
  • Improves visual function in glaucoma
  • Helps prevents retinal cell death when combined with vitamin E in retinitis pigmentosa
  • Reduces brain damage after a stroke
  • Prevents bone loss, possibly through an anti-inflammatory effect
  • Removes toxic metals from the body
  • Reduces frequency and intensity of migraines
  • Improves skin texture

Now on to powerful pain relievers (although Alpha Lipoic Acid also play a role to relief pain).

MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane)

The first one is MSM. Now you might have heard about it. But the truth is, IT DOES WORK. But, not immediately. It is not like popping a pain-pill. It is more like reprogramming your body first before it takes effect.

Some of the most common uses for MSM include treating:

  • chronic joint pain (osteoarthritis, joint inflammation, rheumatoid arthritis)
  • leaky gut syndrome and autoimmune disorders
  • osteoporosis and susceptibility to bone fractures
  • bursitis, tendonitis, the development of scar tissue and other musculoskeletal pains
  • allergies and asthma
  • yeast infections
  • muscle cramps
  • constipation, ulcers, upset stomach, indigestion
  • PMS symptoms (cramps, headaches, water retention, indigestion)
  • stretch marks
  • hair loss
  • skin problems including wrinkles, sun burns (it offers some protection against UV light/wind burn), wounds, cuts, skin abrasions
  • eye inflammation
  • poor circulation
  • high blood pressure
  • fatigue
  • oral infections, toothaches, gum disease/periodontal disease

Three uses that MSM has gained the most notoriety for include: acting like an anti-atherosclerotic (preventing the hardening/thickening of arteries), chemo-preventative compound and natural anti-inflammatory. MSM seems to help the body’s natural free radical-scavenging, which means it lowers oxidative stress as the many ailments that come along with it. It’s an effective anti-inflammatory because it blocks the release of pro-inflammatory mediators and down regulates certain harmful signals sent from the immune system that can affect the entire body.

According to the Arthritis Foundation, based on the most reputable studies conducted so far on MSM — such as a 2006 pilot study that analysed the effects of 6,000 milligrams of MSM taken daily by patients with osteoarthritis — it effectively helps improve symptoms of pain and physical function without any major side effects.

That being said, MSM is capable of causing mild side effects for some people, including indigestion, upset stomach or diarrhoea. It’s also not suitable for people taking blood-thinner medications. If you’re pregnant, you’ll want to speak with a doctor before taking it regularly.

Lastly, MSM does NOT start working immediately. It takes up to 3 months for it to start working effectively. For some up to 6 months. So although there is a considerable lead time…it really is worth investing in the long term in using MSM because it IS a powerful pain suppressant with many other health benefits.

Co Enzyme Q10

Now an even more interesting product, Co Enzyme Q10. [Suggested: 150mg after morning and evening meal]

I have written about this wonder supplement in the past and I consider it the “mother of all supplements”. None comes close to it in effectiveness and health boosting ability. And to top it off, it is a significant pain suppressant. To such an extent that many doctors are now at long last starting to subscribe CQ10 to their migraine patients.

Coenzyme Q10 is a mitochondrial energizer that has shown remarkable effects against common heart ailments and neurological disorders. In just the past year, scientists have uncovered specific mechanisms indicating that CoQ10 may have a role in fighting certain cancers. Most surprising, however, are new studies that show how CoQ10 guards against a wide array of common age-related disorders. In this article, we summarize recent discoveries that significantly broaden the clinical utility of CoQ10.

Guarding the Brain After Cardiac Arrest

People who survive cardiac arrest often suffer irreversible brain damage as a result of the disruption of oxygen to the brain. European researchers recently investigated whether combining CoQ10 with mild hypothermia—a technique proven to reduce neuronal damage and increase survival—might enhance the effects of that treatment.

Forty-nine patients who had suffered cardiac arrest and then received cardiopulmonary resuscitation were randomly selected to receive hypothermia (reduction of body temperature) treatment plus CoQ10 or hypothermia plus placebo. The hypothermia treatment involved the patients being placed on a body-surface-cooling mattress.

The patients were then administered either liquid CoQ10 (250 mg followed by 150 mg three times daily for five days) or a placebo through a nasogastric tube. The remarkable findings showed that three-month survival in the CoQ10 group was 68%, compared to only 29% in the placebo group. Coenzyme Q10 thus helped reduce the death rate from cardiac arrest by an astounding 57%. The researchers also found that 36% of patients in the CoQ10 group had a good neurological outcome at three months, versus only 20% in the placebo group.

Preventing the Onset of Migraine

Migraine headaches are a debilitating, all-too-common affliction. Because mitochondrial dysfunction may play a role in migraines by limiting oxygen metabolism, researchers recently explored the use of CoQ10 in preventing these headaches. Published in the February 2005 issue of Neurology, the research describes a placebo-controlled trial of 42 patients in Switzerland.

Patients who had suffered migraines for a year or more, with two to eight attacks per month, were randomly assigned to receive either 100 mg of CoQ10 or placebo, three times daily. At the end of the three-month trial, the CoQ10-treated group had lower attack frequency and fewer headache days and days with nausea than did the placebo group. The mean number of monthly migraine attacks dropped from 4.4 to 3.2 in the CoQ10 group, compared to a negligible decrease from 4.4 to 4.3 in the placebo group.

In this study, supplemental CoQ10 reduced migraine frequency by 27%.

Slowing Early Macular Degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration is the most common cause of vision loss in people over 60. With the deterioration of the macula (a tiny cluster of highly specialized cells in the retina) central vision progressively begins to blur. As the disease worsens, central vision loss may increase until it becomes impossible to perform tasks that require detailed vision, such as driving and reading.

In recent years, researchers have focused on how oxidative damage affects age-related macular degeneration. The eye, one of the body’s most metabolically active organs, not only generates an enormous amount of free radicals through normal function, but also incurs additional oxidative damage from ultraviolet radiation and air pollution. In recent trials, the use of antioxidants has been shown to counter age-related macular degeneration. For example, in an 11-center, double-blind clinical trial conducted by the National Eye Institute (a division of the National Institutes of Health), a combination of antioxidants plus zinc slowed macular degeneration progression in people with intermediate or advanced disease by about 25%.

Hungarian scientists are now exploring a metabolic rather than an antioxidant approach to managing macular degeneration. Citing findings that mitochondrial dysfunction might also play a role in the development of the disease, the researchers designed a clinical trial to evaluate intervention in early age-related macular degeneration with a combination of compounds—including CoQ10—that have demonstrated the ability to improve mitochondrial metabolism. The researchers reported results of their double-blind, placebo-controlled trial last year in the journal Opthalmologica. More than 100 patients with early age-related macular degeneration were randomly assigned to receive either two capsules per day containing 200 mg of acetyl-L-carnitine, 780 mg of omega-3 fatty acids, and 20 mg of CoQ10, or capsules containing an equal quantity of soy oil.

At the end of the 12-month treatment period, the researchers found statistically significant improvement in the treatment group as measured by all four parameters of visual function studied. In addition, only one of the 48 patients (2%) in the treatment group showed clinically significant worsening in visual field mean defect (blind spots in the visual field), the primary study endpoint, compared to 9 of 53 patients (17%) in the placebo group. The decrease in drusen—tiny yellow retinal deposits associated with macular degeneration—of the treated eyes was also statistically significant compared to placebo when either the most-affected eyes or the less-affected eyes were considered. In the less-affected eyes, the drusen-covered area decreased by 23% in the treated group, but increased by 13% in the placebo group. These findings suggest that intervention with an appropriate combination of nutrients that affect mitochondrial lipid metabolism may stabilize and even improve visual functions in early age-related macular degeneration.

New Applications in Fighting Cancer

Research on CoQ10 and cancer has focused on two lines of inquiry: CoQ10’s ability to improve immune response and its ability to decrease the cardiotoxicity caused by a common class of anti-cancer chemotherapeutic agents.

Patients with cancer often exhibit low levels of CoQ10,6,7 and researchers have shown that CoQ10 can increase immune response in humans.

Based on these findings, Danish researchers investigated CoQ10’s effects alone and in combination with other nutrients as an adjunctive therapy for breast cancer.

In one case report, the researchers describe three breast cancer patients with metastasized cancer. The women underwent conventional cancer treatment and supplemented with a daily dose of 390 mg of CoQ10. All three women demonstrated tumor regression and decreased incidence of metastasis.

In another study, the same research team investigated 32 high-risk breast cancer patients whose malignancy had spread to the lymph nodes. In addition to conventional therapeutic interventions, this group of patients received a daily combination of nutrients (vitamin C: 2850 mg; vitamin E: 2500 IU; beta-carotene: 32.5 IU; selenium: 387 mcg; and secondary vitamins and minerals), essential fatty acids (1.2 grams of gamma linolenic acid and 3.5 grams of omega-3 fatty acids), and 90 mg of CoQ10. At the end of the 18-month trial, six patients showed apparent partial remission, none of the patients showed signs of additional metastases, and their quality of life improved. None of the patients died during the study period, though four deaths were expected based on the patients’ disease stage. In one of the six patients with partial remission, the dose of CoQ10 in the nutritional protocol was increased to 390 mg. After two months, that patient’s tumor had disappeared completely, as confirmed by a mammogram.

While chemotherapy drugs can be highly effective, their use can also be limited by toxic side effects. This has been noted in the case of anthracyclines, a class of drugs widely used in cancer chemotherapy. These drugs have demonstrated efficacy in the treatment of leukemia, lymphomas, and solid malignancies, and are often used to treat breast cancer, with higher doses yielding greater clinical responses. These higher doses of anthracyclines, however, can produce toxic effects on heart tissue, possibly leading to cardiomyopathy and heart failure that are not responsive to conventional pharmacological interventions. In fact, anthracyclines selectively damage mitochondria in the heart, but not in other organs. Since coenzyme Q10 supports both heart tissue and mitochondria, researchers conducted human trials to determine whether CoQ10 might prevent cardiotoxicity during the administration of anthracyclines.

Two recent review articles addressed CoQ10’s potential as an adjunctive therapy during chemotherapy with anthracyclines. Writing in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers summarized five reviewed studies in which CoQ10 was given along with anthracyclines. They report that in three of the studies that measured heart rhythm, patients who received CoQ10 showed favorable changes suggesting that CoQ10 might have a stabilizing effect on the heart. They also note that supplementation did not interfere with anthracycline treatment, and that no adverse effects were reported in any of the trials. The authors concluded that although coenzyme Q10 demonstrates potential for reducing cardiotoxicity, larger and more rigorous investigations are needed.

Slowing Neurodegenerative Disease Progression

Many investigators have conducted preclinical studies examining how oxidative stress and impaired mitochondrial function may contribute to neuronal cell death, a characteristic of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases. For example, a recent journal article in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology reported on the effects of the herbicide paraquat on neuronal cell death in the laboratory. The researchers found that this toxic chemical damaged mitochondria and increased free radical production, eventually resulting in the death of neuronal cells. Pretreatment of the cell cultures with CoQ10, however, inhibited both mitochondrial dysfunction and free radical generation. The researchers postulated that coenzyme Q10 may prove useful in preventing and treating neurodegenerative conditions related to environmental toxins.

While published research on the use of CoQ10 in slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease has been limited to preclinical studies, investigations of CoQ10 and Parkinson’s disease have moved into clinical trials, including randomized controlled studies. This work has been led by Clifford Shults, MD, professor of neurosciences at the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine. In Parkinson’s disease, brain cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine progressively die. Research in animals has shown that CoQ10 can protect the substantia nigra, the area of the brain where these cells reside. Studies by Dr. Shults and others have shown that mitochondrial dysfunction and diminished mitochondrial CoQ10 levels frequently occur in Parkinson’s sufferers.

With funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders (a division of the National Institutes of Health), Dr. Shults and his colleagues undertook the first double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter clinical trial of CoQ10 in patients with early untreated Parkinson’s disease. In this phase II, dose-finding study, 80 patients were randomly assigned to receive one of three different CoQ10 doses (300 mg/day, 600 mg/day, or 1200 mg/day) with vitamin E, or a placebo containing vitamin E alone. The patients were followed for 16 months or until the participants required levodopa, a standard drug treatment for managing disease symptoms.

The results, reported in the Archives of Neurology, showed that patients who received the largest dose of CoQ10 (1200 mg/day) had 44% less decline in mental function, movement, and ability to carry out activities of daily living than those who received the placebo.19 Patients who received CoQ10 doses of 300 mg/day and 600 mg/day also showed some slowing in decline compared to the placebo group, but not as much as those who took the highest dose. The authors concluded that CoQ10 was safe and well tolerated at doses up to 1200 mg/day.

A clinical trial has also been undertaken in patients with Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative genetic disorder. This trial, conducted by the Huntington Study Group, randomly assigned 347 patients with Huntington’s disease to receive CoQ10 at 600 mg/day, remacemide hydrochloride at 600 mg/day, a combination of both, or placebo. Over the 30-month trial, the CoQ10 treated patients showed a 13% decrease in overall functional decline and beneficial trends in some secondary measures. However, the difference between the CoQ10 group and the other groups did not reach statistical significance.

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METFORMIN

Now on to the last miracle supplement. Metformin [suggested 500mg daily]

This is actually not a supplement but a prescribed medicine for diabetics. However it seems to do much more than just treating diabetics and all of it is good, very good news!

Let me give you the rundown…

[From the US National cancer institute]

“In 1957, the first results from a clinical trial of the diabetes drug metformin in patients were published. Yet, it would take nearly 40 years for the drug to be approved in the United States as a treatment for type 2 diabetes.

Now researchers want to know whether this decades-old drug may have additional uses in another disease—cancer. Based on findings from a number of large epidemiologic studies and extensive laboratory research, metformin is being tested in clinical trials not only as a treatment for cancer, but as a way to prevent it in people at increased risk, including cancer survivors who have a higher risk of a second primary cancer.

Numerous early-stage clinical trials are currently under way to investigate metformin’s potential to prevent an array of cancers, including colorectal, prostate, endometrial, and breast cancer. Several of these trials are being funded by NCI’s Consortia for Early Phase Prevention Trials. And NCI is collaborating with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to study participants from the landmark clinical trial, the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), to investigate metformin’s impact on cancer incidence.

Some of the early-phase prevention trials of metformin are enrolling participants who are at increased risk for cancer and who are obese, have elevated glucose or insulin levels, or have other conditions that put them at risk for diabetes.

“With the obesity epidemic, these studies are applicable to a substantial portion of the U.S. population and, increasingly, of the world population,” said Brandy Heckman-Stoddard, PhD, MPH, of NCI’s Division of Cancer Prevention.

Expanding the Data Pool

Much of the human data on metformin and cancer has come from epidemiologic studies of people with diabetes. In many, though not all, of these studies, people with diabetes who were assigned to take metformin had a lower incidence of cancer than those taking other diabetes drugs.

Completed in 2002, the original DPP enrolled more than 3,200 people at increased risk of developing diabetes and randomly assigned them to one of three groups: one group received metformin, one took part in an intensive diet and physical activity program, and one received a placebo. Participants in the metformin arm had a substantially lower risk of developing diabetes than the general population; participants in the exercise and diet regimen fared even better.

With NCI’s involvement, the program’s extension, called the DPP Outcomes Study, will allow investigators to document cancer incidence and death among study participants. Those observations should provide some of the strongest data available to date on metformin’s anticancer effects in people without diabetes, explained Dr. Heckman-Stoddard. The first data on cancer outcomes in study participants, which will be based on 15 years of follow-up, should be available in 2014.

“Once we have that data, there are a host of other questions we can ask,” she said. For example, Dr. Heckman-Stoddard and her colleagues plan to study metformin’s impact on certain blood biomarkers that studies have suggested are associated with cancer risk. They will also study the drug’s mechanism of action—that is, how metformin may work to prevent changes in cells that can lead to cancer.

For Prevention, Small Biomarker-Driven Trials

The smaller prevention trials being conducted are very different from the DPP Outcomes Study. These trials are not designed to determine whether metformin prevents cancer. Prevention trials must generally have a large number of participants and span many years to show whether a drug or some other intervention reduces the risk of cancer.

Instead, these short, 3- to 6-month trials are investigating whether the drug has an effect on specific proteins and/or signaling pathways that have been implicated in cancer development and that laboratory studies have shown are affected by metformin.

At the University of California, Irvine Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, for example, Jason Zell, DO, MPH, is leading an early-phase clinical trial that is testing metformin’s effect on the mTOR signaling pathway in obese people who have previously had precancerous growths removed from their colons.

Numerous studies have implicated the mTOR pathway as an integral hub in cancer development and progression, and laboratory studies have consistently shown that metformin can blunt mTOR signaling.

“The key point of the trial is to get at the mechanisms of action … to see if metformin is behaving in the expected manner” based on the lab findings, Dr. Zell explained.

Numerous early-stage clinical trials are currently under way to investigate metformin’s potential to prevent an array of cancers, including colorectal, prostate, endometrial, and breast cancer.

Dr. Zell and his colleagues chose to study obese patients “because of the interesting side-effect profile of metformin, which can include weight loss,” meaning it may not be suitable for underweight, nondiabetic individuals, he continued.

If this first trial shows that metformin is having the expected effects on mTOR signaling, the next trial would be similar but would measure a clinical outcome, such as whether metformin decreases the number of colorectal polyps that return.

A phase II trial at the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center is testing metformin’s effects on a host of biomarkers in postmenopausal breast cancer survivors who are obese.

Funded by NCI’s Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) program, the trial, called Reach for HealthExit Disclaimer, will involve treatment with metformin alone and in combination with an exercise program. The study will examine the effect of 6 months of metformin treatment, with or without exercise, on a host of biomarkers associated with cancer risk. The change in biomarker measurements before and after treatment will be compiled into a score that predicts the risk of dying from breast cancer.

This is all part of the trial’s novel “biomarker bridge” design, the lead investigator, Ruth Patterson, PhD, explained. The biomarkers and the risk score are being derived from an analysis of tissue samples collected as part of an NCI-supported phase III trial called the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) study. This study found that a diet low in fat and high in fruits and vegetables did not reduce the risk of cancer returning in survivors of early-stage breast cancer compared with survivors who maintained their normal diet. Researchers have continued to follow the health of WHEL participants to document their health outcomes, including death from breast cancer.

“The WHEL trial is over, and we have a freezer full of blood samples, and we know participants’ breast cancer recurrences, mortality, and other outcomes,” Dr. Patterson said. “So we’re hooking together a short-term trial with a long-term cohort study by means of blood biomarkers.”

The Dose Is the Question

Most of the cancer clinical trials of metformin use the same doses typically used to treat diabetes. That makes sense, because all of the epidemiologic data suggesting a cancer benefit came from studies that used those doses, said Michael Pollak, MD, of McGill University in Montreal, who has extensively studied metformin and its anticancer potential.

“We already know that those doses are safe, so why not study them?” Dr. Pollak continued. “But then you have to realize that virtually all of the lab studies [of metformin] have been done using drug concentrations that are as much as 100-fold higher than those found in the serum of diabetic patients. So the lab studies do not directly justify the clinical trials that are using conventional antidiabetic doses.”

With the obesity epidemic, these studies are applicable to a substantial portion of the U.S. population and, increasingly, of the world population.

—Dr. Brandy Heckman-Stoddard

Although laboratory studies suggest that larger doses of metformin “deserve study” for cancer treatment, Dr. Pollak noted that “for cancer prevention, we can only consider the hypothesis that the antidiabetic dose, or even lower doses, will be clinically useful.”

Dr. Zell agreed. “In the realm of cancer prevention, where side effects are less acceptable than they are in the realm of cancer treatment, the conventional dose for treating diabetes or something close to it may be the limit.

“I don’t imagine that prevention researchers will be looking to use [significantly larger] doses of metformin,” he continued. “In a healthy population, even a low risk of side effects could be extraordinary when applied to a larger population…. That’s why trials like ours are important. At the end of this 12-week intervention, we’ll have a good idea of whether the standard dose of metformin can affect cancer signaling pathways.”

Early Days

It’s still far too early to tell whether there is any future for metformin as a means of preventing or treating cancer, several researchers said.

Despite the very strong epidemiological evidence, there’s a chance that, even if metformin has some ability to prevent cancer, its efficacy may be limited to just several cancer types, Dr. Pollak noted. For example, metformin is not absorbed very well by the body and is absorbed differently by different tissues, he explained, which could limit how effective it might be against particular cancers.

Although the drug in its current form has certain limitations, some investigators are working on developing more potent derivatives of metformin. At the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, for example, Italian and U.S. researchers reported that several metformin derivatives they had developed potently blocked the growth of breast cancer cells in the laboratory, including cell lines of triple-negative breast cancer, and caused the cells to die.

To be used for cancer prevention, any metformin derivative would have to be safe, with few side effects, Dr. Heckman-Stoddard stressed. As for the original metformin formulation, she added, current trials should help to map the way forward for its use in prevention.

“It’s important that we identify the right populations in which this is most likely to be an effective agent,” said Dr. Heckman-Stoddard. “We need to look at the evidence from all of these early-phase trials as a whole,” she continued, including examining the population groups exhibiting the strongest suggestions of efficacy “so we can design efficient phase III trials.”

Examples of Clinical Trials Testing Metformin for Cancer Prevention

Trial Phase Measured Endpoints Sponsor
Exercise and Metformin in Colorectal Cancer Survivors II Insulin levels and other biomarkers Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
An Endometrial Cancer Chemoprevention Study of Metformin [and Lifestyle Intervention] III Biomarkers in the endometrium and insulin levels University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Metformin as a Chemoprevention Agent in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer II Progression of potentially precancerous bronchial lesions (secondary endpoint) in patients who have undergone surgery for lung cancer Mayo Clinic
Prostate Cancer Active Surveillance Metformin Trial II Progression of prostate cancer in men undergoing active surveillance for low-risk disease University Health Network, Toronto
Metformin Hydrochloride as Chemoprevention in Patients with Barrett Esophagus II Changes in the levels of the signaling pathway protein pS6K1, thought to play important role in progression to esophageal cancer Mayo Clinic”

 

The bottom line is that Metformin has already proven to be a powerful tool against some of the most common cancers.

Here is a article by Medscape on whether everyone should be taking Metformin due to it’s incredible benefits: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/835676

 

WANT A HOLISTIC TRANSFORMATION SYSTEM FULLY CUSTOMIZED?  The program I am following for the past 6 years (age 46 to 52), available now fully customised on all levels. before-and-after-dec2016Every little secret, every hard-earned practical fact, every scientific study that actually support the (very) few supplements between all the thousand ridiculous advertisement claims have been filtered en incorporated into one system that MAKES A DIFFERENCE click here: 

https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/

 

Metformin has been proven to be very safe even for non-diabetics. But since it is a prescription drug you will have to twist your doctor’s finger to get a prescription. Ask him to look at the anti-cancer and weight-loss properties of Metformin…this might change his mind.

So here you have it – 5 powerfull tools in your arsenal for good health, anti pain and anti cancer. As the Vulcan say “Life long and prosper!”

Happy Training

Gert Louw

Gert Louw video cover

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Diet tricks for fat loss – intermittent fast & carb cycling

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — Leave a comment
July 4, 2017

Diet tricks for fat loss

I get many guys asking me about “intermittent fasting” and “carb cycling” and similar “tricks” in the search to drop body fat.

Let’s look at this objectively.

I am not going to shoot any of these methods down, I think there are enough counter-proof that at least for some it is working.

However the people contacting me is never advanced athletes but Joe average who plays around with bodybuilding and want to get a quick road to loosing fat.

This is where the problem comes in.

The advanced athletes employing these diet tricks are already at very low body fat and are preparing for a show or event. In their toolbox which they use constantly, are their fat-callipers, tape measure and weighing scale and caloric counter. They approach this very scientifically and got the whole process down to a tee. They hardly ever make a mistake. But even then some do make a mistake and the consequences are close to disastrous. The truth is that with these tricks they are walking a thin line and it is very easy to make a mistake. You really need to know what you are doing and monitor the body extremely closely. You need to be very scientific about it to the extreme!

But Joe average is not a guy who will put in the time and effort these guys do with these tricks. He will not daily pull out the fat calipers, the tape measurement and scale and double-check calories etc. He just wants a simple to follow solution that will allow him to shed fat. And this is NEVER a simple solution. This is a hardcore solution. And nearly 99% of Joe average who have tried these hardcore solutions have badly burned their fingers. By burned fingers I mean training derailed, getting sick (due to immune system dropping as a result of too much required from the body) or losing all the hard-earned muscle in the process.

If you want my complete training/diet/supps system customised specifically for your body and goals, have a look here: https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/

The risks simply outweight the benefits for Joe average …by far.

It is not worth it.

For Joe average and most advanced athletes it makes sense to follow a proven sensible approach.

Such a sensible approach is to monitor the body every 14 days with fat calipers and a weighing scale. Then to interpret the results with wisdom and make the necessary caloric adjustments to reach your goal.

In the cutting phase you want to lose fat and keep muscles safe (not necessarily build muscle but definitely not losing muscle!).

In the building phase the goal is adding a little body fat (2%-4%) and built muscle. Whenever you have to adjust calories, never do it with more than 10% in 14 day period up or down. The body need time to adjust and by adjusting calories with more than 10% will throw the body’s normal responses off for up to 1 month which makes the 14 day monitoring very difficult to interpret correctly.

The type of diet to follow is simple.

For cutting: https://gertlouw.com/2014/08/16/cutting-diet-challenges/

For building: https://gertlouw.com/2014/10/27/muscle-building-phase-sample-diets/

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Now I hope this let’s you think twice about venturing these risky paths. If you want to use me as an example…I have never done these diet tricks, simply because they are too risky! I am not about to sacrifice my hard-worked by slipping up once.

Wish you all happy training!

Gert Louw

GUYS & GIRLS DREAM BODYc

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Best FREE body transformation system available for all ages

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet, BB Training & Exercises, Be MOTIVATED! — Leave a comment
April 22, 2017

Here is my latest video I just finished. It discuss the best FREE body transformation system out there available. Those of you that dreamed of that new body…well, now is your chance! MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

This video will take you step by step through the 4 major detailed aspects that must be in place:

  1. Structure of attack
  2. Diet & Lifestyle (for printout versions of diet: https://gertlouw.com/2014/08/16/cutting-diet-challenges/ )
  3. Training system
  4. Bodybuilding & health supplements required

Click here to watch the video “THE BEST FREE BODY TRANSFORMATION SYSTEM AVAILABLE”

If you want my more advanced system, fully customised for your body, situation and goals, click here: gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets

Happy training! Cheers…
Gert Louw

Gert Louw dbicep

 

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Confusing bodybuilding terms for newbies!

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet, BB Training & Exercises — 2 Comments
March 17, 2017

Click here to watch video “Confusing bodybuilding terms for novices”

 

Quite a few of my followers have requested that I must clarify some of the basic training terms I refer too in my videos. I can fully understand their confusion. Some of them has never seen the inside of the gym. After watching some of my videos they are so inspired and then want to embark on this new adventure but alas everything is soooo confusing! It is similar when a nuclear physicist is trying to explain cold fusion in the most basic terms, but you still have no clue as to what he/she is talking about because you do not grasp the meaning of the most basic terms.

Gert Louw white small

So although many of you will find this boring, let me lay the ground work and give some clarification for those newbies to the basic training terms I refer to in my videos.

Ok, let start at the big term: “training program”. This refers to the training aspect and does not include nutrition or supplements. It refers to everything where muscles are involved while you exercise.

By the way, I support a 4 or 5 day workout schedule.

Workout is the specific routine you will be following on a specific day.

There are total body workouts, which refers to a workout where all muscles groups are trained/exercised during a single session.

Then there are more goal orientated split routine workouts where one only focusses on 2-3 muscle groups per training session/day – this is the kind of training I support.

You will hear I talk a lot about sets and reps.

Reps are the time it takes to lift a weight to the maximum position and dropping it back to the original starting position. This will be a single rep. If you lift and drop the weight 8 times, that will be 8 reps performed.

concerntration curl

Sets are slightly more complicated. This is a method of grouping the reps together for a specific goal. For example if one wants to build muscle you will typically group the reps in sets of 8 (and reach muscle failure on the last rep). When you want to lose body fat one typically group the reps together with more reps, about 15 in a set (and just stop short of complete muscle failure).

Muscle failure is the point where one cannot perform another rep with the weight, meaning the muscle is literally failing.

Between sets one typically rest long enough to allow the muscles to recover enough to be able to do the next set effectively. This is usually 2-3 min but when one really training very heavy this might be slightly longer.

A muscle group refers to a single muscle like biceps for example. For effectivity one strings 2-3 logical muscle groups together in a training session. (For example: Pecs, Biceps and abs)

Warm ups is the process by which one perform light exercises before the training session to get the blood flowing and make sure the target muscles are sufficiently warmed up before you start training intensely.

Stretching is the process after each set which you use to lightly stretch the muscle which was just trained.

You will hear I will also refer to training concepts and things like supersets.

Training concepts is any activity that you add to your training session to perform your normal reps and sets in a different fashion to stimulate the muscle for growth.

The way the body works is that anything that become repetitive over time stop stimulating the muscles for a response. The muscles learn to handle that type of training/attack without further increasing in shape or size.

So training need always be fresh and changing to allow for effective muscle stimulation.

A training concept I regularly refer to is supersets. That is where you string two different muscle group’s sets together without resting in between. You only do this for 2 sets at a time. It is good tool to help burn more body fat and stimulate muscles for growth.

Dumbbells refers to the weights showing on the screen now.

Dumbbells

This is how a EZ barbell look.

EZ bar

Then one also get barbells with straight bars.

barbell

This is a flat bench.

flat bench

This is an incline bench.

Incline Bench.png

This is a seated bench.

seated bench.jpg

This is an exercise ball.

exercise ball

When I talk about technique, I refer to the specific way and form in which one performs an exercise or lift a weight.

I also regularly refer to Cutting Phase and Building Phase. Cutting phase is the process by which one train and diet with the focus on preserving muscles mass while losing body fat. Building Phase is the process and diet which focus on building muscles with adding a little more body fat to allow the body to build muscles effectively.

Lastly, you will hear I refer to health supplements and bodybuilding supplements.

Health supplements is anything (like a multi vit) you take to ensure optimal health. Bodybuilding supplements is something one takes in a specific way and timeframe to assist the body with certain aspects of the bodybuilding process (could be fat loss, muscle building, tissue repair, etc…)

 

Hope this give some better understanding for those newbie’s that want to start the great adventure.

 

WANT SOMETHING MORE ADVANCED & FULLY CUSTOMIZED?  The program I am following for the past 6 years (age 46 to 52), available now fully customised on all levels, just for you. Every little secret, every hard-earned practical fact, every scientific study that actually support the (very) few supplements between all the thousand ridiculous advertisement claims have been filtered en incorporated into one system that MAKES A DIFFERENCE click here: 

https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/

 

Wish you all happy training!
Gert Louw

http://www.gertlouw.com

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Cheat and still win with your diet

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet, Be MOTIVATED! — 2 Comments
June 8, 2016

Cheat and still win with your diet!

Click here to view video “CHEAT & STILL WIN WITH YOUR DIET“

Now this is probably what everyone wants to hear – lol! BUT, the truth is, there are methods to cheat and still get to the top!

Life is not meant to be without a dessert once on a while…and I am talking Baked Chocolate Fondant with oozing real sweet chocolate out if it’s center with ice cream (real ! ice cream) liberally used. The same goes for the odd glass of wine/whiskey or beer or whatever blows your skirt up, even a chocolate!

A certain balance needs to be applied to stay sane with anything in life. I’ve just done a 3 weeks severe cutting diet, sticking 100% to it…and, it’s was hell! The more you are going to disallow yourself a treat once in a while, the bigger the chance that your diet will fail completely in the end. You would just say…”I had enough”. And you know what? I have big compassion for that…so let’s have a look here how (!) you can cheat regularly without crashing your diet and keep yourself sane and focused to stick 98% to your diet.

Sundays to Fridays – sorry that (!) is where you stick 100% to your diet.

Get yourself some sugarless, carb less, fat free sweets. Do some searching and buy those that have as little calories as possible…like below 10! Then during the Sunday to Friday period…pop a few (3-4) of those during the day when you feel the urge to treat yourself a bit. Apart from that – nothing else.

The key is always to eat all your regular meals and drink all your water (2L-4L)…THAT is what keeps you full and keep the urges to eat wrong away.

Obviously, if you are at your target body fat then some different rules apply. Then you are allowed 2 -3 cheats evenly spaced out during the week. But for this documents purpose, let’s assume we are dealing with all those that are still far from the target body fat levels.

Your cheat should be left for a weekend day…when you are less stressed, more relaxed and doing something you like. This cheat will go to great lengths to make you not feeling deprived of some great things and food in life. Even if you don’t feel like a cheat, maybe it is a good idea…simply to help you stay balanced and not feeling deprived later on in the week.

Gert Louw LEGS CB

Now, “HOW?” should you cheat?

There can only be one cheat and that cheat can only be once per day per week on just 1 day of the week!

First you eat the diet as normal for that day as specified.

Let’s look at the next cheat scenario’s:

1.       Ice Cream cheat / Soft drink / dessert cheat / potato crisps – once anytime during day. Then for 2 of your meals for the day cut out carbs completely. One small meals carbs and one larger meals carbs.

2.       Chocolate cheat 150g – anytime during day. The same as above:  For 2 of your meals for the day cut out carbs completely. One small meals carbs and one larger meals carbs.

3.       Alcohol cheat (500ml equivalent wine) – anytime during day. Usually late afternoon or evening you will use this cheat. So for the evening meal cut out carbs completely and ONLY clean fatless meat and salad…no sauces, no carbs, nothing else! And definitely no dessert. If you want dessert, then no wine! One or the other… [Note: be very careful with alcohol. It is the key reason why men, especially older men, struggle to loose fat around the tummy and have a bloated look to the tummy. Best is to cut alcohol COMPLETELY out and have other types of cheats.]

 

Remember that with any of the above cheats it will set you back 24 to 48 hours before your body reverted to the level before you cheated and only then will it be able to start losing fat again. So even though you have cheated it is STILL very much possible to loose fat for the week, but only within above rules.

 

I strongly believe that the only winning approach is a balanced approach. That keeps you focused and you feel like “life” is not deprived of you. Part of this balance is to cheat on a weekly basis with your diet by applying above wisdom!

 

Wish you all happy dieting and a great training week!
Gert Louw

http://www.gertlouw.com

Gert Louw green small

 

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Transforming your body STEP-BY-STEP

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet, BB Training & Exercises, Be MOTIVATED! — 7 Comments
May 26, 2016

In all my coaching systems and many articles on my site, I regularly refer to the process of transforming into a wow physique by “climbing a ladder step by step”.

Facebook profil

Here I want to explain as to WHAT exactly I mean by that.

Now, many people think they are starting to climb the ladder and start transforming, and they actually start doing rather great, but then stuff starts happening…things like: getting sick regularly, tendon/joint injury or other serious injury or they lose hope because they just cannot put on muscle no matter how hard they train and some just cannot lose fat no matter how hard they diet.

This is when the train stops and they get off the ladder.

Not because it was not possible but because they LACK knowledge.

KNOWLEDGE in terms off:

  1. You CANNOT lose fat if the calories are too low…then your body enters famine mode and you WILL lose all your hard earned muscle first before it uses the fat – no matter how HARD you train! There is a sweet spot with calories where the body use fat for energy and keep muscles safe. You need to find it. (In my SYSTEMS I and II this is covered).
  2. You CANNOT build muscle if: caloric intake too low, body fat too low or you do too much cardio!
  3. You WILL get sick regularly if you continue pounding your body week after week, month after month, in the wrong fashion and you do not use certain basic health supporting supplements.
  4. You WILL run into serious tendon and joint issues if you do not alternate every 3 months between BUILDING and CUTTING phases to allow healing and strengthening.

All of these are covered in detail in my COACHING SYSTEMS (https://gertlouw.com/contact-me), but the bottom line which brings all these together are a continuous alternating between a 3 month CUTTING PHASE and a 3 monthly BUILDING phase.

Each Phase has its own specific training methodology and specific type diet.

The two phases are vastly different and by continuously alternating between them, you allow your body every 3 months to go through a process off:

  1. Loosing max fat while protecting muscles in Cutting Phase.
  2. Building max muscle at slightly higher body fat levels in the Building Phase.
  3. Allowing your body to be fed correctly for your exact goal and training methodology for each phase.
  4. Allowing tendons and joints to strengthen and recover regularly in Cutting Phase.
  5. Allowing the body a balanced and healthy approach preventing sickness and injury by not overtraining and stressing the body and immune system.

These 2 phases hold the KEY to climbing the ladder. One step on the ladder = 1 BP (Building phase) + 1 CP (Cutting Phase). After each step you will be able to see a significant difference in shape and size. THIS is how you climb up the ladder.

Look at the following graph showing the BODY FAT variation during the phases

This is what your body fat will do when sticking to my SYSTEM I or II training that incorporates these principles (BP = Building Phase, CP = Cutting Phase):

Climing the ladder BODYFAT

Every BP1 + CP1 covers a 6 month period. At the end of each of the cutting phases your body fat is lower and lower till typically after a 3 year period you reach crazy levels like 5% body fat.

 

Let’s look what your muscle size will do when alternating between the phases:

Climing the ladder MUSCLE MASS

At the end of each of the cutting phases your body weight is higher than after the previous cutting phase. That COUPLED with the fact that the body fat is lower after each Cutting Phase compared to the previous cutting phase makes a HUGE difference on how the body looks and the amount of lean mass you are carrying.

THIS (!) is how you climb the ladder…not after one cutting phase or one building phase but after various of these phases. Stopping with the process simply mean you stop climbing the ladder.

Simply put – After each Building Phase your muscle weight is higher at lower body fat levels, and during the Cutting Phase you show your results, keeping that muscles safe and dropping the body fat on each Cutting Phase lower and lower than in the previous Cutting Phases until after a few years you look back and say…”WOW!”

Wish you all happy training!

Cheers – Gert Louw

gert louw B&A

 

 

 

 

 

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Speaking my mind about banting and banters

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — Leave a comment
February 19, 2016

Click here to watch video “Speaking my mind on banters & banting”.

For some or other reason the banting crowd is the most aggressive crowd I have ever come across. The steroid junkie bodybuilding crowd does not even come close to them in terms of aggression!

From my experience, less than 1 in every 100 banters seems to have the ability to disagree with me in a decent way. I am sorry to say this, but I have never come across so many plain nasty people in my life. I suspect it has something to do with the high fat consumption that makes them jittery…any case, I don’t know but in all honestly they need to learn to communicate in a decent way. They stand out like a sore thumb between all the people I have ever met on forums and the likes…and there’s been some bad ones. And off course they will mark this article and video down as far as they can because ANYTHING opposing their viewpoint is just not tolerated!

To clear up any “misunderstanding”…my gripe ( and the gripe 99% of doctors and nutritionists have) with banting is the fact that the amount of carbs (simple and complex) you consume on banting is too low to stimulate a healthy insulin response from the body. Doing this over time will harm the insulin sensitivity response the body has to carb consumption, you cannot get away from it. It could theoretically even result in permanent metabolic damage. That’s why if you do banting, you don’t do it long-term. And banting for anyone trying to build a muscled physique, is a very bad (!) idea. A very healthy insulin response is required to effectively build muscles. Insulin is the most potent muscle-building hormone in the human body.

But you do NOT have to agree with me or the billions of other  people out there. You are entitled to your own opinion. In any case if you believe in what you are doing why do you care what I or other people say?

And if you do care, all I ask is that you do it in a decent way like a normal human being.

Any person leaving a nasty comment on any of my videos, blog posts and websites will be deleted and blocked immediately. If you cannot communicate with me in a decent way, I do NOT talk to you, full stop. And unfortunately it seems that more than 9 out of 10 of those people are banters.

For those that are interested in the type of eating regime I support, you can look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRsdh3WGN08 and www.gertlouw.com/2014/08/16/cutting-diet-challenges/

 

Wish you all happy dieting and may peace be with all the banters!

Gert Louw

http://www.gertlouw.com

Gert FACE2

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Which supplements work and which not!

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet, Be MOTIVATED! — 2 Comments
January 20, 2016

This is probably the single most confusing area for anyone want to venture the road of fitness/bodybuilding or just to transform their body for a “wow” look.

 

The first question is, “Do I need to take supplements at all”?

Now those of you that have followed me for a while know that I am very (!) outspoken against supplements. My photos have been stolen and abused with fake stories by supplement companies more than 80 times now (those are the one’s I actually busted, let alone the one’s I don’t know about).

So the bottom line is EVERY advert you read about how great this or that product is, is hugely inflated and chances are very high the photos produced as proof are stolen and the stories as proof are fake. There is NO (!) magic pill out there. Not even anabolic steroids can do what some of these supplement companies claim, ie: “complete body transformations in 14 days or 3 weeks”!

So lesson one – NEVER read supplements advertisements. It has 90% lies and 10% truth. Very few real advances have been made in the last decade or so about supplements for bodybuilding. I am not talking about hollow claims, but I am talking about real scientific independent studies and proof.

Those that is going to believe me and listen to what I say will save THOUSANDS of dollars!

Bodybuilding and fat loss supplements contribute a miniscule 2.5% to your overall results. Thus, you CANNOT waste your money on any supplement that is not highly effective and focused.

Now all that being said, truth is, there are a core group of supplements for both your general health (very important for those putting their body under strain due to heavy training and dieting) and for creating and environment for muscle-building and fatloss and increase your repair ability of your body.

Anything outside these groups of supplements you need to question and REALLY do your homework before parting with your hard-earned money.

Click here to view video “How to choose the RIGHT supplements for muscle building and fat loss”

 

Regarding BRANDS

Now generally anyone knowing me, knows that I am steering clear here because I do not like promoting brands and shooting others down. BUT, I had so many people ask me about safer brand options. So here is my opinion:

Experience and knowledge leads here. Let me explain. NO supplement out there, with little to no scientific studies to back it up, can make any significant difference no matter what the marketing or claims are.
The are MANY, MANY scam supplements out there that are totally worthless and it cost and arm and leg.
So the first rule is, it MUST be backed up by various independent scientific studies and control groups. This immediately cancel 95% of supplements!
The rest well, there are various degrees of success. Even if it is backed up by solid studies, if the effect is minimal, one is wasting your time and money.
The supplement must have a significant effect to be even considered.
Now, filtering through everything with the above rules and the supps I suggest are the ones that can and will make an ever so slight but important difference (see section below). The only one outside of this group is creatine…for about 90% of people it can have solid advantages (even to the degree of the most potent supp this side of anabolic steroids)…but that should only be used while on a building phase and not cutting phases. Just a note on creatine – anyone with kidney issues should steer clear…creatine is placing some strain (albeit moderate) on the kidneys. So drink LOTS of water while on it.
When buying the “approved” supplements…stick only to highly reputable BIG brands, EAS, On Nutrition, Animal and Muscletech.
That does not mean all the supplements these companies sell, is working…they sell whatever the public has been brainwashed to buy! So tread carefully!
Which brand I use? A local, South African brand – HMT, but you will only have access to it if you are in South Africa and the range is designed specifically for competing athletes.

 

INTERESTED IN MY ONLINE COACHING SYSTEMS – TRANSFORMING YOU BODY? CLICK HERE : advanced coaching and body transformation systems

 

First, let’s look at GENERAL HEALTH supplements (supported by science and real world trials)

 

CQ10 (Co-Enzyme Q10) – the number ONE potent health supplement out there. [150mg – 300mg daily]

“Coenzymes are substances that help the activities of enzymes. Evidence shows that Coenzyme Q10 plays a very important role in the production of energy throughout the body. It also has been found to have powerful antioxidant effects, destroying free radicals in the body.

Improved energy production is of particular importance to athletes and bodybuilders.

Coenzyme Q10 helps the body convert food into energy in the form of ATP. Nearly every cell in the body contains at least some Coenzyme Q10, with mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of cells, containing the most. The heart and liver, due to their high content of mitochondria, contain the most Coenzyme Q10 out of any organs in the body.

In a placebo-controlled study, Coenzyme Q10 supplementation was shown to help people with congestive heart failure. People with congestive heart failure may not see any results for a few months, but should not quit taking it immediately without consulting a doctor. People with angina have been able to exercise for longer periods of time and with more energy when supplementing with Coenzyme Q10. It has also been shown to lower blood pressure and improve the pumping function of the heart.

Coenzyme Q10 may even help facilitate weight loss due to its stimulating effects on the body’s metabolism. Evidence suggests that Coenzyme Q10 can help in a number of ailments and diseases including: diabetes, angina, give support with chemotherapy, male infertility, mitral valve prolapse, give support with HIV, gingivitis, and congestive heart failure.  The assimilation of Coenzyme Q10 may be better if taken with a fatty substance such as oil, peanut butter, olive oil, etc.”

CQ10 has also shown to have highly effective pain treatment properties, especially for migraine sufferers.

 

ALA(Alpha lipoic Acid) [200mg – 400mg daily]

“In addition to the anti-oxidant effects that ALA produces the list below shows why it is such an important supplement. The list of benefits includes:

  • Improving of physique
  • Combats free radicals
  • Protects our genetic material
  • Slows aging
  • Protects against heart disease
  • Protects against cancer
  • Improves skin and helps erase wrinkles
  • Regulates blood sugar in diabetics
  • Protects the liver
  • May be used as a treatment for Stroke

If Alpha-Lipoic Acid were just another antioxidant, then its value would be far less. After all, there are dozens of ingredients on the market that have powerful antioxidant functions. However, the unique qualities possessed by Alpha-Lipoic Acid, functioning as both a water- and fat-soluble antioxidant make it an intriguing ingredient and a supplement worthy of serious consideration.”

 

Omega 3+6 [2g to 6g per day]

“Omega-3 fats are essential fats your body needs for brain development that may also help limit your risk for heart disease. Good sources include flaxseeds, walnuts, salmon, herring, tuna, mackerel, sardines and other fatty fish. The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends getting at least 500 milligrams per day of EPA and DHA, the main omega-3 fats found in seafood.

Getting plenty of omega-3 fats in your diet may help increase your feelings of fullness, making it easier to lose weight and keep it off, according to a study published in Appetite in November 2008. A review article published in Nutrients in 2010 noted that omega-3 fats may help with weight loss by reducing appetite and increasing fat burning, especially when combined with a reduced-calorie diet and exercise.

Omega-6 fats are essential as well, but most people get more of these than they need in their diets. A high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats, such as that found in the typical American diet, may increase inflammation and your risk of cancer, heart disease and arthritis. If you’re trying to lose weight, it may be best to limit your omega-6 consumption, which can cause you to retain water. Aim for a 3-1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats, recommends Unity Health System. These fats should make up between 5 and 10 percent of your total calories for the day. Some of the main sources of omega-6 fats include soybean oil, safflower oil and corn oil.”

Consumption of Omega 3 + 6 will actually help you to lose fat!

 

Potent Multi Vitamin [as directed on container]

When the body is under strain due to serious training and dieting, then you need larger amounts of trace minerals/vitamins to ensure that the body stays healthy. Some doctors lately actually support the notion that one does not need a multi-vitamin at all. However, I oppose this notion, especially when it comes to a body under strain. Potent type multivitamins contains higher dosages of all vit/min combinations than those used by non-active people. Just a note here: Never use anti-oxidants or Multi Vit in near to the time you train. It has been shown by recent science studies that this limits your body’s ability to lose fat. Use it as far removed from your training session. Good examples: Optimen, Optiwomen, Animal Pak, Nano Pack by Nuskin, etc…

 

Now, about supplements that can make a real difference in the bodybuilding/fat-loss environment:

BCAA – branched chained amino acids [use as directed on container – buy shake and not pill form]

BCAA shake while training has been proven scientifically to “force” your body’s energy requirements to come from the fat reserves and not the muscles. You NEVER want energy to come from the muscles, when that happens, you enter a catabolic state = smaller muscles! BCAA goes a long way to help stop this process and encourage energy to come from fat reserves. It is a critical component when you train heavy and intense and is best use while training in shake form.

L-Glutamine [5g before and 5g after training]

L-Glutamine has been proven through various science studies to be a miracle bodybuilding supplement.

  • Glutamine has been linked to protein synthesis. It prevents your muscle from being catabolic (eaten up) in order to provide Glutamine for other cells in the body.
  • Glutamine helps maintain cell volume and hydration, speeding up wound and burn healing and recovery.
  • Glutamine benefits you by replenishing declining Glutamine levels during intense workouts.
  • Research has shown Glutamine can help you produce growth hormone levels. A study has shown 2 grams of L-Glutamine increased growth hormones by over 400%.
  • Glutamine may serve to boost your immune system. For bodybuilders, this is important since heavy workouts tend to greatly deplete Glutamine levels. (Glutamine is a primary energy source for your immune system.)
  • Glutamine is one of the most important nutrients for your intestines. It has the ability to ‘repair a leaky gut’ by maintaining the structural integrity of the bowels.
  • Bet you didn’t know this: It can even cure ulcers! Studies have found that 1.6 grams of Glutamine a day had a 92% cure rate in 4 weeks.

Researchers are suggesting that Glutamine is the most important amino acid to the bodybuilder. It provides a component in muscle metabolism and cellular support not shared by any other single amino acid, making the benefits of L-Glutamine supplementation a realistic venture.

Glutamine has also various benefits for hiv+ people.

Whey protein [40g immediately after training]

Immediately after training you need to spike the insulin. This is to create a potent environment for growth. Insulin is the most powerful muscle-building hormone in the body. To do this, one consume 40g of whey protein (without added carbs or fats) and eat a banana or apple. This is a key aspect for anyone serious about building muscle and loosing fat. This will also feed the muscles very much-needed nutrients.

 

Creatine – optional [use as directed on container and pre load if necessary]

Creatine will work for some and for some not. For those that it does work, it can be the most potent muscle-building supplement this side of anabolic steroids. So it might be worthwhile to test out. Just be carefull, creatine places strain on kidneys and only use if you have healthy kidneys. Creatine must always be use together with grape juice or Vitargo for best absorption.

 

Ok, now you have some guidance about what to choose between all these 1000’s of supplements.

 

But just some food for thought about your plans to transform that body this year…

Everyone experience failure along the adventure of transforming their body, but those that get to the goal post are those that got up EVERY time after they failed on diet or training for a day or a week and kept going…THAT is the single biggest and most important ingredient for EVERYONE who reach the goal post of a “wow” transformation. Like a well-known slogan says: “JUST DO IT.” Don’t think about it…DO IT! The more you think about it, the more reasons you will find not too. Because it is an effort. It is not easy and it will take a lot of sweat and pain. But the adventure is incredible and will change your life forever. The return on your investment will be unbelievable! Reach for the stars, nothing less…

But to make it worthwhile, change everything…inside and out. become the best person you can be, with integrity, kindness and compassion, otherwise it is a hollow aim that will let you just become a more well-known jerk instead of a guy people look up to and admire for more than just their body. A role model that can change the world!

Here are 3 incredible transformation photos – look at them and burn them in your mind…GET TO THAT GOAL POST!

f0bb03272e74e54f7dcd59e237d74e6d maxresdefault stunning_body_transformations_640_02

Click here to watch video “HOW TO TRANSFORM TO A “WOW” PHYSIQUE”.

 

It can be done…but YOU will have to do it and MAKE IT HAPPEN.

For those that want complete customised transformation systems and diets to get you to the goal post, follow this link for some of the most comprehensive systems in the business: https://gertlouw.com/contact-me/

And lastly, here is my transformation pic (age 50 on the right):

 

gert b&A 12May2016 small

Make 2016 the year you become the best you can be…from the inside and outside!

Wish you all a great day.

Gert Louw

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After training – LOW or HIGH-GI carbs to ignite growth and fat-loss?

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — Leave a comment
November 17, 2015

Click here to view video “After training – LOW or HIGH GI carbs?”

 

How to spike your insulin naturally to ignite growth and shed fat…this will tell you how.

The whole idea of immediate after training nutrition is three-fold:

  1. To flood your system with muscle-building amino acids.
  2. To create environment for repair, healing and recovery.
  3. To get your insulin levels spiked to ignite growth and speed up fat-loss.

 

Let’s look at each point individually.

 

FLOODING THE SYSTEM WITH MUSCLE BUILDING AMINO ACIDS.

After training your body needs protein (amino acids) to feed the muscles and help with the growth/healing process. The key here is NO FAT. If you take in even the least amount of fat it will slow down the process of replenishing the body to such a degree that the feeding after training becomes near worthless. After training your body requires amino acids that are quickly absorbed. The best way to achieve this is to take a couple scoops of whey protein in water (not milk = fat!). The whey protein got all the required amino acids and will give the body with all the protein it requires to grow/heal. Make sure the brand you are using have no carbs added and that it is only pure whey protein.

 

CREATING AN ENVIRONMENT FOR REPAIR, HEALING and RECOVERY.

It has been proven in various scientific studies that supplementing with L-Glutamine during and immediately after training adds significantly in providing the environment for recovery. Simply put, you will recover faster when you supplement with L-Glutamine.

 

TO GET THE INSULIN LEVELS SPIKED.

Insulin is the MOST powerful anabolic hormone in the body. Nothing comes close to it, not even testosterone or HGH. When insulin levels are spiked in the right way, the result is increased muscle growth and increased fat loss. Now how do one get insulin levels spiked after training? Well, Whey protein will already add to this effect but a compounded effect will happen when you consume the RIGHT type of carbs. Low-GI carbs cannot spike the insulin for any type of significant effect. That is the job of High-GI carbs. But don’t think chocolate here! ZERO fat must be in the carb. Plus it is highly advisable to use a natural, healthy high-GI carb with added fibre like a banana or apple to do the job. Vitargo is also a good choice.

This type of spiking is only effective immediately after training. Do not try it outside this window of training.

 

Summary

So after immediately training you need to consume the following:

  • L-Glutamine – 5g
  • Whey protein powder – about 40g
  • High-GI carb – Banana/apple or Vitargo

 

It is believed that this is an absolute key aspect of obtaining a “wow” physique and can be seriously beneficial in helping gaining muscle and shredding fat.

 

Wish you happy training!

Cheers…

Gert Louw

Gert sitting

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The DIRTY road too forcing fat loss

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — 2 Comments
September 30, 2015

Now, we all wish there was this magic pill that would melt the fat away while we sit on the coach drinking our beer…

Reality is, there are a few “dirty” tricks one can apply to melt the fat away. Some of it will work by sitting on the coach and some of them would need a caloric restricted diet and training to work effectively. So either way there is hope for the coach potatoes wishing for a fat melting pill although it is a bit of a “dirty” road!

  • Dirty trick 2, 3, 4 and 6 will work for the coach potatoes.
  • Dirty trick 1 and 5 must have a caloric restricted frequent meal plan in place and a training system.

But ALL dirty tricks will work much more effective when they have a caloric restricted frequent meal plan in and a moderate to intense training system in place.

 

Please note – the fact that I discuss these “dirty” methods, does not mean I approve of any of it. Neither does it mean I am using it or have ever used it in the past!

This article is meant as an informational study into what last alternatives there are legal and otherwise to control weight for those not prepared to put in the effort with a healthy living and lifestyle. Knowledge is power and to suppress it simply because you disagree with what is being said is not a healthy road to enhance your knowledge base and understanding.

 

Now as you all know, I am not sponsored by any supplement company or brand out there and regularly shoot down overrated/worthless supplements so what I am saying here is unbiased and cutting to the bone.

On the subject of supplement companies, just about ALL the supplements claiming magical fat-loss and other fantastical claims are close to worthless. You will spend a lot of money for something that will make a very, very small difference. You should either just focus on your diet/training/core supplements to reach your goals and if you WANT to spend money on fat loss products then choose something that actually works and steer clear from marketing hype.

Those that think the golden path to fat loss is via cardio, well, in a caloric restricted environment the body very easily go into a catabolic state when doing cardio and such will burn more muscles away than fat! Even under the best scenarios cardio will ALWAYS limit muscle growth/size. So for those wanting some size, cardio is not a weapon but an enemy. With that said, if size is not at all on your agenda then cardio can be beneficial. But one thing you must understand is that losing muscle will mean less shape to your body, especially without clothes. If you want to look great you must have muscles – that IS what gives your body shape and nothing else.

The reason why I call these tricks “dirty”, is because with every one of these there are certain potential health drawbacks. So anyone considering them needs to educate themselves and apply the necessary wisdom to monitor their health and do it under a medical doctor’s supervision.

So back to the “dirty” tricks, here is the list:

 

1. Captopril – prescription required

Health risk level: low, Fat Loss ability: meduim

Dan Duchaine first wrote about the fat loss side effects of Capropril ( a cheap blood pressure medication) and brought the notion to the bodybuilding fraternity. The fat loss effects of Captorpril is well documented by medical studies.

The medical studies also show that Captopril had a slight anabolic effect on muscles with no virilization in women

The wonder about Captopril is that it seems to help one to lose fat in areas where one traditionally struggles to lose fat. However Captopril is not a short-term approach. It take months before it starts showing it’s true colors and usage should be longterm for optimal results.

 

How to take it?

If you suffer from hypotension (low blood pressure) you cannot take it.

25mg before bedtime (Mild diuretic and also makes one slightly sleepy.)

After you established that you are fine with the 25mg, dosages can be increased to 50mg before bedtime.

It is prescription medication so you must get it from your doctor.

A good stack with Capropril is Yohimbe at 10mg per day. It will increase the fat loss effects of Captopril.

 

2. ECA stack – The ECA stack combines ephedrine, caffeine and aspirin in a predetermined ratio.

Health risk level: medium, Fat Loss ability: medium

It causes your body to target specific fat cells to be burned for energy, all the while raising your overall metabolic rate and suppressing appetite. Each ingredient in an ECA stack works with the next. Ephedrine works as a beta agonist and stimulates production of norepinephrine, as well as circulating it through adipose tissue. The caffeine and aspirin function to inhibit the body’s natural response to halt this cAMP production, thus prolonging the effects. If you want to take an ECA stack, review your medical situation with your health care provider before you begin. (It can raise your heart rate and blood pressure)

How to use ECA?

Consume ephedrine, caffeine and aspirin doses up to three times a day, and no more than four, in equal intervals. Slowly taper the dose upward as your tolerance increases. Begin at one dose each day, and add in the next dose every two to four days until you reach the full amount. Take the first dose immediately upon waking. Take each subsequent dose on an empty stomach, at least four hours after the previous one. Avoid taking too close to bedtime as it may interfere with sleep.

Repeat this process for up to eight weeks. Do not exceed this time without taking a break, as your body will gradually build up a tolerance to the ECA stack, and it will stop to work. To maximize the effects of ECA for both fat loss and energy, it is advised to take one to two days off each week to allow your receptors to recover and avoid adrenal fatigue.

Things You’ll Need

  • 25 mg ephedrine
  • 200 mg caffeine
  • 80 mg aspirin

  

3. Glucophage – also know as Metformin ER – prescription required (available on black market)

Health risk level: low, Fat Loss ability: low – medium

This is a very interesting medication. It is prescribed for type II diabetics.

Metformin works by promoting AMPK, which acts like an energy sensor in the body. When activated, AMPK does promote greater fat oxidation, but it also blunts muscle protein synthesis. In addition, some studies show that metformin in high doses many interfere with testosterone synthesis. On the flip side, animals provided with metformin live longer, thought to be due to better glucose control. Also, emerging studies show that metformin provides a significant protective effect against cancer onset, particularly lung and pancreatic cancers.The way it does this is by interfering with the activity of mTOR, which also happens to be a key player in muscle protein synthesis. – Jerry Brainum

Metformin seems to be only truly effective at dosages of about 2000mg per day. Less than that and the fat loss effects dissipate. The problem however is that not many people can stomach dosages above 1000mg a day. Upset stomach, runny tummy and feeling nausea’s.

It also seems to be less effective for fat loss purposes the more healthier the person is. The closer the person is to being diabetic (insulin resistant) the better fat loss effect metformin has.

However all considered it might be beneficial taking metformin simply for it’s amazing anti-cancer properties. This has been proven in a massive study including more than 180 000 people with significant reduced risk for cancer.

 

How to use Metformin

Start with 250mg tablet morning and evening after meals.

If no side effects increase to 500mg tablets morning and evening after meals.

This can be increased eventually to a max of 2 x 500mg tablets morning and evening after meals.

 

4. Clenbuterol – prescription required (available on black market)

Health risk level: medium-high, Fat Loss ability: medium

Clenburerol has been around for a long time and many Hollywood actors have used this as a trick to get body fat levels down.

Clenbuterol Hydrochloride is a powerful bronchodilator that is used to treat breathing disorders like asthma. Beyond treating breathing disorders, Clenbuterol is commonly used as a thermogenic. In fact, you will more than likely find more Clenbuterol use in fat loss plans than anywhere else. It is a very common fat burning tool used by many. It is a long-standing favorite among competitive bodybuilders and other physique athletes during contest preparation.

Clenbuterol should not be taken for long durations – it can harden the heart and also increase heart rate rather dramatically which makes it dangerous for anyone taking part in extreme fitness activities. But for short durations it can be a very effective fat burning tool. It is available as prescription in most countries, except the USA.

How to use Clenbuterol?

The preferred method of Clenbuterol is as follows: will last for 4-6 weeks and can be an excellent way to use it for the person who is only using it the last few weeks leading up to competition. The individual will start with 40mcg per day and increase periodically until he reaches the maximum desired or needed dose and will hold at the maximum dose the final 7-14 days of the plan. The increases in dosing will not be as dramatic as the two-week rotation schedule but stronger than the continuous plan. At this stage, if more Clen is still needed, the person will need to wait 4-6 weeks before beginning a new phase. This makes this type of use best for those who only need a short period of metabolic enhancement.

The maximum Clenbuterol dose will normally be 120mcg per day. Some may find 140mcg per day to be acceptable, especially some men, but no one should for any reason surpass the 140mcg per day mark if they are going to avoid cardiac damage. Regardless of the total dosing or plan of use you use, Clenbuterol use should be kept at no more than 16 weeks of total use. 16 weeks of total use per year should be your guide. For the person competing in more than one show per year at different stages of the year, we can make exceptions. However, this person should try to keep the total use as close to a 16 week total every 12 months as possible for safety reasons.

 

5. Primobolan (Methenolone Acetate) – prescription (available on black market)

Health risk level: low, Fat Loss ability: high (with very low caloric diet)

Although Primobolan (injections) will not in its own result in fat loss, the magic of it lies in the fact that it has an uncanny ability to protect muscle mass under very (!) low daily caloric intakes. So for those wishing to go on an extreme diet, Primobolan can protect the precious muscle mass while you melt the fat away. It is a prescribed drug for hiv+ patients experience severe muscle wasting which usually also occur during long bouts of very low caloric intake due to frequent diarrhea. It protects and even to some degree restore muscle mass under very low daily caloric intakes.

It is considered a banned substance, so be careful athletes!

However it is extremely mild compound with very little side effects.

 

How to use Primobolan?

The acetate version It must be injected once a day in the glutes – not for the faint hearted! (upper outside corner of the bum). But you want to fat to melt away, then you have to suffer the pain!

Recommended dosages:

MALES – standard male Primobolan doses will fall in the 100-150mg per day range, max 12 weeks.

FEMALES – the standard female Primobolan dosing range will be at 25mg per day, max 6 weeks. [However this is one of such compounds better left to men. Virilization risks are low for women but still a risk.]

Not to be used for longer than 3 months in men. It could have a suppressing effect on your natural testosterone levels and men could experience erection problems.

 

6. Somatropin/IGF/IGF1 LR3 – prescription (available on black market)

Health risk level: low, Fat Loss ability: high

Ok now we are straight into the territory of banned substances. But of all, nothing really comes close to the fat burning effect of HGH and related variants – IGF and IGF1 LR3.

Somatropin (pure HGH) is so effective in fat burning that it is the only considered medical approach to attempt to treat Lipodystrophy (fat accumulation at certain areas and around the organs) in HIV+ people.

Even as a banned substance HGH is remarkably safe to use. The biggest drawback is that it can increase growth rate of tumors. It does not increase your risk of tumors but if you have cancer growth it can increase the rate of growth dramatically. Apart from that it is actually very safe at recommended dosages.

By supplementing with Somatropin the benefits in-which may be obtained are truly great. Largely the benefits provided by Somatropin include but are not limited to (in order of max to min benefit):

Main benefits

  1. Increased Fat Burning
  2. A Leaner and Tighter Physique
  3. Increase Recovery Time
  4. Muscle, Joint and Bone Repair
  5. Increased Energy

Other “claimed” benefits (no study have clearly proven any of this)

  1. Healthier Skin (only after long periods of use)
  2. Age Reduction (staving off the effects of age – only after long periods of use)
  3. Decreases Stress slightly
  4. Improved Focus & Clarity of Thought

Based on the benefits that are in almost all cases guaranteed to occur the most obvious question is why wouldn’t you supplement with this amazing hormone? When we begin to look at the aspects revolving around side-effects then the question becomes obvious yet again, as side-effects are in almost all cases non-existent when Somatropin is used responsibly.

Somatropin is not only side-effect friendly it is in almost all cases very well-tolerated in both men and women; a claim not too many hormonal compounds can make and a claim no hormonal compound can make to the extent of Somatropin. Nevertheless, there can be negative adverse side-effects; although rare they will be highly dose dependent, meaning, those who take too much will be more susceptible to such affects. Such side-effects may include:

  • Water Retention
  • Bone Growth
  • Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
  • Tingling of the Hands & Feet
  • Unwanted Intestinal growth

While slight water retention is the most common and tingling is very common in performance enhancing level doses, bone growth and carpal tunnel are only concerns when such doses far exceed personal responsibility.

Somatropin and all its variants are VERY expensive. Black market options are drastically cheaper but can be counterfeited, so be carefull and know your brands. In any case this seems to be the playground of the Hollywood stars!

 

How to use Somatropin

For women a dosing of 1 to 2iu per day is all they need for optimal results. For the average man, 4iu per day will prove to be the perfect dose, providing all the metabolic benefits and muscularity and healing attributes associated with it. Somatropin should be used 1 month on followed by one month off and repeat if necessary. Do not use on a continuous basis since this can increase the risk of unwanted intestinal growth.

 

Other options

DNP – If you ever hear of DNP – skip that page…you play Russian roulette with your life by using it!

Nolvadex – (and other anti-estrogen drugs) are temporary measures to get water levels down but do not have real fat loss abilities.

Insulin doping – this is downright dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Yes, some bodybuilders reach massive success by performing this successfully but the risks by FAR outweight the potential fatloss and muscle growth benefits…in any case in a sane person’s mind! This is the quickest way in becoming a Diabetic I (insulin dependant for the rest of your life, plus one wrong move calculating the injection protocols and the bodybuilder can be dead within 24 hours)

Thyroid hormones (T3 and other related hormone treatments) – have proven to be mildly effective at best.

 

Conclusion

Well as you see this article hold true to the ‘dirty” side of fat loss. The next step beyond these “dirty” tricks is an operation removing some of your intestines to limit food absorption. So if you want to stay out of hospital, this approach is probably your last call in getting the fat down in a dirty way!

These may seem extreme but can produce real results unlike all the hundreds of fat loss supplements with all their fantastical claims which are close to worthless and will cost you and arm and leg.

Of course there is a simple solution to all – a balanced caloric controlled diet (based on a frequent meal system) combined with a moderate to serious training regime. We are not created sedentary beings. God made us active beings and the moment we become coach potatoes the fat will (!) come rolling in!

 

Wish you all happy training!

Cheers

Gert Louw

gert15

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A killer 6-pack in 90 days!

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet, BB Training & Exercises — 10 Comments
August 12, 2015

Click here to view video “Program for washboard abs in 90 days”

 

How many times have you heard similar slogans and the only requirement was this or that supplement that will do the trick, or a simple exercise that is supposed to produce magic results.

In this article I will tell you how to get that coveted 6-pack in 90 days BUT one thing you need to understand, there is NO magic pill that will ever produce a 6-pack (not even anabolics can do it alone!) and there is no single exercise that on its’ own can give you a 6-pack.

You will see that I said, “90 days”. There is a very good reason why. 90 Days is a period in which the body can actually make a visible difference in muscle-building and fat loss with the necessary skill applied.

To get that coveted 6-pack you need to do two major things:

  1. Build the ab-muscles to increase in size (enlarge the peaks and valleys).
  2. Decrease the fat layer covering the abs while feeding the muscles for growth.

cutting

So let’s get down to business…

How do you build the muscle of the 6-pack in a 90 day period?

  • The abs (and calves) are of a different muscle fibre type that get stimulated for growth with more frequent training than the other muscles groups and also at a higher rep range per set.
  • For just about all the other muscles you will perform (for muscle growth) about 8 reps per set. For abs we are talking closer to 25 reps per set.
  • Other muscles will generally be trained once a week intensely. Abs can and for the purpose of this discussion must be trained up to 3 times a week intensely, typically Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
  • Forget about fancy moves, stick to proven fundamental exercises that build muscles. One word here – CRUNCHES! There is NO other ab exercise that stimulates the 6-pack growth like the crunch. Various forms of crunches exist, ie: exercise ball crunches, legs in air crunches, crunch bench, etc…

 

About CRUNCHES 

The purpose of a crunch is to contract the muscles of the abs really intensely. When performing any type of crunch, you need to lift the shoulders and upper body just slightly and crunch with the abs. You need to focus the abs so hard at the crunch that you feel pain. If the abs do not start paining after a couple of reps you are NOT doing the crunch correctly. Very few exercises deliver the intense pain the crunch delivers and 99% of people do it wrong because they don’t like the pain. A saying from one of my favorite movies is: “Life is pain princess. Anyone tells you differently, well they are lying.” So suck it up and do it. If you really want that 6-pack you will learn to LOVE that pain!

Here follows your plan of attack for growing the ab muscles:

 

upper-body-crunchesimagesimages (1)exercise ball ab crunches

 

The above is all different versions of the crunch. The crunch focuses on the ab area but not the obliques.

To get the obliques to stand out it is usually just a matter of putting in a slight twist with the crunch, alternating between the two sides.

A dedicated oblique exercise is the following – RUSSIAN TWIST:

ath_todd_duffee_medicine_oblique

This can be done with a medicine ball or holding a weight. However when this move is performed your technique must be perfect or you can hurt your back. Keep the abs contracted and stop the move with your abs and core and not the back or other muscles.

The last ab exercise of note that works the ab to the core and WILL make the abs ache for at least two days is LEG THROWS, yep, good old-fashioned leg throws. Your training partner must throw the legs straight down with force and to either side without you knowing where he is going to throw it.You are not allowed to touch the ground. (If you don’t have training partner, try and find someone to help you with this, I consider it an important aspect of developing impressive abs.)

leg throws

These are the three types of ab exercises to stimulate growth.

Your training must be as follows – Monday, Wednesday and Friday you must do an ab session consisting of:

  • 4 sets of 25 reps of CRUNCHES (any form of crunch)
  • 4 sets of 50 reps LEG THROWS.
  • 3 sets of 25 reps RUSSIAN TWIST with weight.
  • 3 sets of 25 reps of CRUNCHES (different variation)

 

You doing this consistently for a 90-day period and you WILL stimulate the abs for growth. But now come the even bigger part of the trick!

No matter how good you train and stimulate the abs for growth, if you do not feed the body now correctly NO GROWTH WILL OCCUR!

The Diet is critical for 2 reasons

  • To feed the muscles to grow (after they were stimulated for growth by the exercises).
  • To cut down the fat layer on the tummy. If the fat layer on the tummy is more than 12%, no matter how good those abs are, they will be covered by an invisible cloak!

 

Now, how do you cover the above two points? Well, I can refer you to a serious diet structure specialized for this kind of deliverable, but instead I am going to make it easy for you.

Stick to these basic simple diet rules and you WILL see results:

  1. You must eat 7 small meals per day – evenly spread out from point of waking to point of going to bed.
  2. Each meal must contain clean protein, low GI (Glycemic Index) carb and some veggies – generally fist size portions.
  3. You must drink a BCAA and L-Glutamine shake during training to prevent muscles going catabolic.
  4. You must drink a WHEY shake and L-glutamine with banana after training – immediately (replace one meal)
  5. You must get at least 3 tablespoons of salt free, sugar-free peanut butter in per day – this is critical to keep your hormone levels healthy!
  6. You must drink 4L (1.05 gallon) of water per day.
  7. Alcohol only once a week and not more than 500ml of wine (2/3 of a bottle). No carbs at meal when drinking alcohol.

 

As easy as that! 90 days later and that 6-pack will be rather impressive!

Regarding genetics – I’ve never met a person that was unable to increase muscle size by following growth principles (including right diet, etc…). The abs are like any muscle, when sufficiently stimulated they will grow if fed correctly!

Last point…

Although the above plan will deliver 6-pack results, that body is going to look all the more impressive with not just a 6-pack but broad strong shoulders, deep chest, muscled biceps, strong legs and a v-back. Make this an opportunity not just to get that 6-pack in 90 days but an impressive body from head to toe!

 

Interested in my online coaching? Here are the systems available: ONLINE COACHING

 

Wish you all happy training! Cheers

Gert Louw

www.gertlouw.com

gert3

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Water speeds up fat-loss – RESEARCH EVIDENCE

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — 6 Comments
August 3, 2015

Water controlling APPETITE & SPEED UP FAT-LOSS

Various studies have found that water intake have a significant impact on suppressing appetite and speeding up fat-loss.

Although drinking water just before, during or immediately after eating might have a negative effect on food and nutrients absorption, there is some evidence that drinking water before or during a meal may help aid weight loss when used in conjunction with a calorie-controlled diet.[1]

GertLouw15Large

Drinking water prior to each meal may actually help in appetite suppression. Although this was believed to be the case for many years by dieticians, it was only recently that the approach was subjected to a scientific randomised controlled trial to see how much effect it had:

  • A 2008 study concluded that drinking water is associated with weight loss in overweight dieting women independent of diet and activity.[2]
  • A 2009 study concluded that consuming 500ml water prior to each main meal (combined with a hypocaloric diet), leads to greater weight loss than a hypocaloric diet alone in middle-aged and older adults. [16]
  • A 2010 study concluded that people who consumed two cups (500 mL) of water right before eating a meal ate between 75 and 90 fewer calories during that meal.[3]
  • A 2011 study conducted on middle-aged and older adults (aged ≥40 years) given 500 mL 30 minutes before meal 3 times daily for 12 weeks found that the individuals lost 2 kg body weight compared to the control group.[6]
  • A 2013 study conducted on adults 18-23 concluded that when they were given 500 mL given 3 times daily for 8 weeks they lost body weight.[7]

 

Water controlling BASE METABOLIC RATE

Various studies have found that water intake have a significant influence on the bodies base metabolic rate, the rate at which the body burns energy.

  • A 2011 study conducted on obese children concluded that water drinking on resting energy expenditure was significant.[4] Pediatricians agree that hydration in children may be optimal only in breastfed infants.[5]
  • Another study found that drinking 500 ml of water increased metabolic rate by 30% after 30-40 min with a total thermogenic response of 100 kJ (24 kcal). About 40% of the thermogenic effect originated from warming the water from 22 to 37 °C.[9]
  • However, a later study in 2006 states that approximately 500 mL 3 °C cold water caused only increase in energy expenditure by 4.5% for 60 minutes.[10]
  • Michael Boschmann, MD, and colleagues from Berlin’s Franz-Volhard Clinical Research Center tracked energy expenditures among seven men and seven women who were healthy and not overweight.

After drinking approximately 17 ounces of water, the subjects’ metabolic rates — or the rate at which calories are burned — increased by 30% for both men and women. The increases occurred within 10 minutes of water consumption and reached a maximum after about 30 to 40 minutes.

The study also showed that the increase in metabolic rate differed in men and women. In men, burning more fat fueled the increase in metabolism, whereas in women, an increased breakdown of carbohydrates caused the increase in metabolism seen.

The researchers estimate that over the course of a year, a person who increases his water consumption by 1.5 liters a day would burn an extra 17,400 calories, for a weight loss of approximately five pounds. They note that up to 40% of the increase in calorie burning is caused by the body’s attempt to heat the ingested water.

 

Water controlling DIET BEHAVIOUR

Research by Barry Popkin et al. has shown that people who drink lots of water eat more vegetables and fruits,[11] drink fewer sugary carbonated beverages, and consume fewer total calories.[12] The reason for drinking less sugary beverages would likely be that the increased water substitutes for them in the diet, quenching the thirst so that the person does not feel as much need to drink sugary beverages.

Increased water consumption, or replacement of energy-containing beverages with energy-free beverages,[13] or consumption of water-rich foods such as fruits and vegetables with a lower energy density,[14] may help in weight management.

 

Other water benefits

Apart from above significant fat-loss aspects of higher water intake, water adds to the following in the body:

  • Smoother bowel movements and less constipation.
  • Better muscle tone – the less dehydrated the muscles the better they can function and the fuller they look.
  • Water helps clean the body from waste. Healthy amounts of water will decrease colon cancer, breast cancer and bladder cancer by 70%!.
  • Water plays a significant role in kidney health. Higher water intake lessen the pressure on the kidneys especially for the bodybuilder taking in excess food and supplements.
  • Healthier skin, teeth, bones and joints.

 

How much to drink?

Everyone is preaching 8-10 glasses per day. However, there is no real science behind it. From experience by dietitians and the bodybuilding community, it is suggested not less than 4L water per day for men and 3L water per day for women. However bodybuilders should, due to the higher protein and supplement intake, drink closer to 6L water a day to make sure proper hydration for training and kidney health. Less than these suggested amounts and the body tends to hold back water.

 

The following extract from an article by Ron Kosloff:

 

Stay away from soda pop, an almost lethal poison. Listed below are several reasons why:

  • To clean a toilet, pour a can of cola into the toilet bowl and let it sit for one hour, and then flush clean.
  • The carbonic and phosphoric acid in cola removes stains from vitreous china. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers, rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of aluminum foil dipped in cola.
  • To clean corrosion from car battery terminals, pour a can of cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion. (One at a time, though – don’t electrocute yourself!)
  • To loosen a rusted bolt, apply a cloth soaked in cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.
  • To remove grease from clothes, empty a can of cola into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent and run through the regular cycle. The cola will help loosen the grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.
  • The active ingredient in cola is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4 days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis and arthritis.
  • To carry cola syrup (the concentrate), commercial trucks must use hazardous material placards reserved for highly corrosive materials.
  • The distributors of cola products have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!
  • In many states in the U.S., the highway patrol carries two gallons of cola in their vehicle to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.
  • You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of cola and it will be gone in two days.

 

WHAT’S IN OUR DRINKING WATER?

Dr. Kurt Donsbach, shared with me, many years ago, that half of the heart attacks and cancers in America are caused by our drinking water.

Drinking water contains toxic levels of chlorine and fluoride. Chlorine attacks organic matter. What are you made of? Organic matter. Our drinking water is so polluted, it’s scary. Dioxins, E.coli, PCBs, DDT, human waste, trihelamethanes, just to name a few, are in our drinking water. Then add to that the conglomeration of our industrial pollutants.

It’s a fact that all of our oceans are polluted today. When PCBs and dioxins are found in the fat cells of walruses in Antarctica and the South Pole, we must realize that the whole world is now polluted.

Our lakes are polluted and are loaded with Methyl Mercury, which is a very toxic poison, so it’s not very funny that they put it in your teeth fillings. The American Dental Association continues to tell us that this is not true, but metal poisoning, we now know, causes diseases.

The main reason that chlorine is added to our drinking water is to kill bacteria and it ends up killing us! In Europe, they never use chlorine, they use oxygen purification and deionization or they use ozone purification.

Some years back, a myth was created that adding fluoride to the water would prevent tooth decay. Fluoride is a toxic chemical that is painted on children’s teeth, and, among other things, is responsible for causing cancer. The man who heavily promoted fluoride when it became law, Dr. Faulkes, passed away a few years ago. On his deathbed, he expressed great regret and said that he was sorry he ever told people to use fluoride.

Both he and Dr. Hardy Limeback from Canada had been significant promoters of fluoride and have both issued apologies concerning their support of fluoride. They stated that they did not accurately check the opposing scientific date before speaking out of behalf of fluoride. They were just not properly informed. So why do we use it?

“SOME YEARS BACK, A MYTH WAS CREATED THAT ADDING FLUORIDE TO THE WATER WOULD PREVENT TOOTH DECAY.”

When aluminum is produced, the by-product is tremendous amounts of synthetic fluoride. Since chemical and aluminum companies were spending thousands of dollars to dispose of it, why not market it to municipalities to put in the water? So, they ended up selling a poison, and at a profit. I was born with a low thyroid function and I spent a lot of time swimming at the local high school with a pool that was loaded with chlorine.

This lowered my thyroid function even more. If it weren’t for nutritional doctors, supplementation, glandular therapy and purging heavy metals from my body, I probably would have had to have my thyroid removed. Never take synthetic hormones for your thyroid!

When you do this, it displaces the natural nutrients that nourish the thyroid, for example:tyrosine, Vitamin E, essential fatty acids, protein, and manganese. Synthetic hormones actually destroy the thyroid. Chlorine and fluoride are called halogens and act as synthetic hormones. Iodine is the number one nutrient for your thyroid. What halogens do is displace iodine in your thyroid and push it out and then mimic it in your thyroid.

Therefore, you end up with chlorine and fluoride deposits in your thyroid and you can become very unhealthy. I am affiliated with a clinic here in Michigan and the Naturopathic doctor there says that people routinely come to him with poor thyroid function. My friend, Dr. David Jantz, using CRA, will diagnose their health issue as poor thyroid and they’ll say, “No, I went to a medical doctor and he did a blood test and my hormone levels are normal.”

That’s due to the fact that chlorine and fluoride have displaced the hormones and they’re floating around in your blood stream so the medical doctor and the chemist will read that your levels are appropriate when, in fact, the hormones are not in the thyroid to do the job that they were meant to do. Look around at the obesity and the hair loss and the problems we’re having today with low thyroid function.

IS ANYTHING SAFE TO DRINK?

DEHYDRATORS TO AVOID

  • commercial tea
  • coffee
  • beer
  • wine
  • distilled spirits
  • soda pop
  • white sugar
  • white rice
  • white flour
  • hydrogenated oils
  • antibiotics
  • most prescription drugs
  • chlorinated water, etc.

The question becomes, what should we drink? Never drink distilled water. Distilled water is cooked water, it’s depolarized and all the minerals are removed. So when you drink distilled water, it acts as a vacuum and, while it will pull out toxins, it will pull out everything good too.

Drink good reverse osmosis water or deionized water or good spring water that’s tested as pollutant free. You should add either colloidal minerals or Celtic sea salt to your regimen everyday. As I mentioned before, our soil is depleted of half the minerals.

There are 92 minerals in the world, micro, macro, trace, and rare earth, and they are gone due to factory farming, so you have to put minerals back into your own body. Mineral depletion in the United States is paramount. Everyone suffers from a lack of minerals. The people that don’t are the people that supplement.

Remember that in 1936 the government told us that we were missing over 22 minerals in our soil; today it’s over 45. You must take a complete mineral like colloidals or Celtic Sea Salt. People ask me how much water to drink daily. Ah, that is the question of the day, which you and only you might answer.

A decent rule of thumb is that you should drink when you are thirsty, how’s that? The same goes for food, eat when you are hungry. Your body is extremely smart isn’t it? When you do drink, just sip small amounts throughout the day, between meals, of course. Don’t drink large amounts at one time or you will just urinate it out, like big beer drinkers do.

Overhydrating is extremely taxing on your body. If you participate in sports, your perspiration and mineral loss will dictate the amount, but sip it slowly. A decent, accurate test for dehydration is when you take the thumb and index finger of one hand and you pinch a portion of the skin on the top of your other hand, pull up and then let go. If the skin snaps back to a flat position, you are well hydrated. If your skin is very slow to return to a flat position, you are dehydrated.

Always remember how important your thyroid is and have a doctor check it! If you wake in the middle of the night, drink a small amount (8 oz) of good, healthy water. Remember to consume water throughout the day.

When you are in the hospital for dehydration, you are given minerals and water for hydration, but you aren’t told that.

Some medical doctors will tell you that, if you are dehydrated, you should drink 8 to 10 glasses of water a day, but they don’t tell you to take macro and micro minerals. We now know that if you don’t have the 92 minerals found in the world, you won’t have hydration of the tissue.

 

Wish you all happy training!

Gert Louw

GertLouw13Original

 

References

  1. ab“Pre-meal water consumption for weight loss”. Australian Family Physician42 (7): 478. July 2013. PMID 23826600.
  2. Stookey JD, Constant F, Popkin BM, Gardner CD (November 2008). “Drinking water is associated with weight loss in overweight dieting women independent of diet and activity”. Obesity16 (11): 2481–8. doi:1038/oby.2008.409. PMID 18787524.
  3. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100823142929.htm
  4. Dubnov-Raz G, Constantini NW, Yariv H, Nice S, Shapira N (October 2011). “Influence of water drinking on resting energy expenditure in overweight children”. International Journal of Obesity 35 (10): 1295–300. doi:1038/ijo.2011.130.PMID 21750519.
  5. Manz F (October 2007). “Hydration in children”. Journal of the American College of Nutrition 26 (5 Suppl): 562S–569S. doi:1080/07315724.2007.10719659. PMID 17921466.
  6. Dennis EA, Dengo AL, Comber DL et al. (February 2010). “Water consumption increases weight loss during a hypocaloric diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults”. Obesity 18 (2): 300–7. doi:1038/oby.2009.235. PMC 2859815.PMID 19661958.
  7. Vij VA, Joshi AS (September 2013). “Effect of ‘water induced thermogenesis’ on body weight, body mass index and body composition of overweight subjects”. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research 7 (9): 1894–6.doi:7860/JCDR/2013/5862.3344. PMC 3809630. PMID 24179891.
  8. Muckelbauer R, Sarganas G, Grüneis A, Müller-Nordhorn J (August 2013). “Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review”. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 98 (2): 282–99.doi:3945/ajcn.112.055061. PMID 23803882.
  9. Boschmann M, Steiniger J, Hille U et al. (December 2003). “Water-induced thermogenesis”. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 88 (12): 6015–9. doi:1210/jc.2003-030780. PMID 14671205.
  10. Brown CM, Dulloo AG, Montani JP (September 2006). “Water-induced thermogenesis reconsidered: the effects of osmolality and water temperature on energy expenditure after drinking”. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 91 (9): 3598–602. doi:1210/jc.2006-0407. PMID 16822824.
  11. Popkin BM, Barclay DV, Nielsen SJ (December 2005). “Water and food consumption patterns of U.S. adults from 1999 to 2001”. Obesity Research 13 (12): 2146–52. doi:1038/oby.2005.266. PMID 16421349.
  12. Stookey JD, Constant F, Gardner CD, Popkin BM (December 2007). “Replacing sweetened caloric beverages with drinking water is associated with lower energy intake”. Obesity 15 (12): 3013–22. doi:1038/oby.2007.359. PMID 18198310.
  13. Dennis EA, Flack KD, Davy BM (December 2009). “Beverage consumption and adult weight management: A review”. Eating Behaviors 10 (4): 237–46. doi:1016/j.eatbeh.2009.07.006. PMC 2864136. PMID 19778754.
  14. Rolls BJ (July 2009). “The relationship between dietary energy density and energy intake”. Physiology & Behavior 97 (5): 609–15. doi:1016/j.physbeh.2009.03.011. PMC 4182946. PMID 19303887.
  15. Sichert-Hellert W, Kersting M (December 2004). “Home-made carbonated water and the consumption of water and other beverages in children and adolescents: results of the DONALD study”. Acta Paediatrica 93 (12): 1583–7. doi:1111/j.1651-2227.2004.tb00847.x. PMID 15841765.
  1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2859815/
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CARB CYCLING explained

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — 6 Comments
June 9, 2015

 

Click here to WATCH video: “Carb Cycling explained”

 

What is Carb Cycling? It is a method employed of alternating carbohydrate intake to break through plateaus and ease fat-loss.

With Carb Cycling you will alternate between high, medium and low carb days to manipulate hormones and increase the bodies fat burning ability while trying to hold on to your hard-earned muscle mass.

With carb cycling the body never goes into “famine” mode (an occurrence so often happening when too little carbs is consumed over extended periods. Such a famine mode usually results in severe muscle loss).

An interesting fact is that carb cycling is controlling the ghrelin hormone levels, the hormone responsible for feeling hunger. Because of this many people find carb cycling relatively easy because they do not feel hunger.

 

HIGH CARB DAYS – spike the insulin levels and fill the glycogen stores, firing up the metabolism and prevent a catabolic environment.

A dieter’s insulin levels needs to be spiked to reap the anabolic benefits of the insulin hormone. (insulin allows one to burn fat while protecting the muscle).

The low carb days can be very taxing on the body when training hard. But even with traditional carb restricted diets it has nearly the same effect. The big plus for the Carb Cycling is that the dieter can hold out one day of “starvation” with the knowledge of tomorrow he will feed carbs again.

 

Carb cycling is NOT considered a long-term solution but a short-term strategy to just help you break through plateaus or to get your body stage ready.

Many different methods of carb cycling exists.

The more common approach is a high, medium and low carb day – 3 days in a cycle. During all three days fat and protein consumption stays roughly the same with a slight increase in protein and fat on the medium and low carb days.

An example is 300g – 400g carbs on the high days and on a low day about 50g of carbs.

Also which must be noted here is that especially in first 2 weeks there should be twice as many high and medium carb days than low carb days. Typically something like this: high, medium, high, medium, low, high, medium, high, medium, low, etc…

After about 2 weeks you can go the normal high, medium and low days as a regular 3 –day cycle.

Some people shift their training intensity to be max on the high carb days but many others ignore this and train hard no matter if it is a high, medium or low carb day. Both approaches produce good results.

 

How to structure your approach?

HIGH CARB DAYS (divided into 6-8 meals)

  • 6 – 6.5g carbs for every kg bodyweight
  • 2 – 2.2g protein per kg bodyweight
  • 0.3 – 0.4g fat per kg bodyweight
  • Insulin must be spiked on the high carb days and thus high GI sugars best (sweets, fruit, etc…)
  • As the diet progresses in time you can experiment by dropping the GI content of the carbs to the lower end of the scale.
  • Perform the heaviest workouts on these days (back/chest/legs)

MEDUIM CARB DAYS (divided into 6-8 meals)

  • 2g carbs for every kg bodyweight
  • 5 – 2.75g protein per kg bodyweight
  • 0.3 – 0.4g fat per kg bodyweight
  • Typical muscle groups suited for these days: shoulders, abs, biceps, etc…

LOW CARB DAYS (divided into 6-8 meals)

  • 1g carbs for every kg bodyweight
  • 3 – 3.5g protein per kg bodyweight
  • 0.5 – 0.7g fat per kg bodyweight
  • Perform the lightest workouts on these days (preferably cardio)

Just some key notes

  1. Try and keep on all the days the majority of carbs before/during/after training.
  2. Water intake must be directly proportional to your amount of carbs. If you eat twice as many carbs you must drink twice as much water.
  3. Keep a journal and monitor the effects closely on your body in terms of high GI carbs and low GI carbs, how your body react to the amount of carbs, etc… This is by now way a fixed one for all solution and you need to carefully monitor and adapt the carb cycling to best suit your body.
  4. Carb Cycling is best done under close supervision of a skilled coach. It is not impossible to reach success on your own, but the slightest miss step might do significant harm. So educate yourself VERY WELL before venturing this route.

Wish you all happy training!
Cheers

Gert Louw

 

gert.png

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Forcing Fat Loss and keeping muscles safe

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — 1 Comment
June 1, 2015

Click here to view video “Forcing fat-loss and keeping muscles“

Forcing Fat Loss and keeping muscles safe – This is probably the most difficult part of any cutting/fat-loss diet.
With your aim to lose as much fat as possible, the error most people make is to pitch the calories too low for their body and as such create a “famine” environment which have certain very unwanted reactions in the body.
This “famine” environment result in a drastic amount of muscle-mass being lost amongst other things. In most scenarios this is much more than the actual fat you are losing. Many people say they do not care about this fact, but what they do not realize is that the muscle mass they carry plays a significant role in their bodies energy burning/metabolic rate. Muscle mass is one of the biggest factors in determining your base metabolic rate. Plus a body with little muscles will NEVER look as good as a body with good muscle mass – muscle give shape to a body. If you lose your muscle you might be slim but will always look floppy and shapeless.

Those interested in the program I’ve been following: available now fully customised on all levels, just for you. Every little secret, every hard-earned practical fact, every scientific study that actually support the (very) few supplements between all the thousand ridiculous advertisement claims have been filtered en incorporated into one system that MAKES A DIFFERENCE click here: https://gertlouw.com/my-transformation-secrets/

The best approach is ALWAYS (!) to pitch the daily calories consumed such, that you lose maximum fat and minimum muscle.

Now how does one do that?
The problem everyone is facing is the fact that not any two of our bodies are the same.

Our bodies reaction to the same amount of calories differ from person to person.

The following factors are just some of the reasons why:

  • Your past few years diet routines.
  • Your past few years exercise routines or lack thereof.
  • How frequently you eat meals and the sizes thereoff.
  • Your amount of muscle mass on your body.

Your age.
And many more…

So if you think you can grab a diet from a book or of the internet and plug-in to reach success – WRONG!
Here is a process that you can apply to adjust any diet to function optimally for your body.
In other words a process to align the calories consumed to allow your body to primarily burn fat and not muscle.

The process:
Start with a sample cutting diet (here is a rock solid place to start: https://gertlouw.com/2014/08/16/cutting-diet-challenges/)
Every 14 days you need to re-align the calorie amounts depending on how your body reacted in this earlier 14 day period.

The realignment process:
Weight yourself in on a scale
Fat calliper pinch measurements on abs, chest, shoulders, upper and lower arms, upper and lower legs, upper and lower back and back of neck.
skinfold-calipers1

All these measurements together paint a picture:
Should the scale be down but fat calliper readings stayed the same, it shows muscle loss and diet must be adjusted across the board with and 10% increase in calories. This must be done every two weeks until such time that the scale drops but fat callipers measurements dropped as well…this is called your sweet spot where your body is NOT in a famine environment but you feed it just enough to protect the muscles and start losing the fat reserves.
Should the fat calliper measurements show an increase and the scale increased as well, then you are consuming too much calories and must cut calories across the board with a 10% factor and redo above monitoring after 14 days. This must be done until such time that you hit the sweetspot.

AND NEVER EVER ALTER YOUR DIET WITH MORE THAN A 10% FACTOR IN CALORIES – this is asking for trouble. The body needs time to adjust.

skinfold-calipers1

Wish you all happy training!

Gert Louw

GERTFITNESS5b

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How to eradicate and prevent joint pain – for the fitness minded person

Filed under: BB Supplements & Diet — 4 Comments
March 18, 2015

Click here to play video “How to eradicate joint pain”

 

Joint pain is probably the most common injury a bodybuilder struggle with. And the bad part is, as you pass the 40 y/o mark the challenges increases drastically to walk the narrow pain-free road with your joints.

In this article I will explain how to train to avoid /minimizing joint pain and then also give some options as a last resort for effective treatment considerations.

 

When we speak about joint pain then we generally refer to any of the following:

ARTHRITIS, BURSITIS (aka Tennis/Golfers Elbow), TENDONITIS

The good news is that all three can be nearly fully avoided, even for us older folks. (I am not taking into account genetic predisposition to arthritis or similar conditions)

 

A very effective avoidance principle

Few of us employ the basic training principles required for avoidance. It is so simple but our aim and eagerness to grow is the main culprit here.

The human body CANNOT take increasing punishment month after month for an extended period.

IT WILL BREAK! And the first to go is your tendons, joints and immune system.

Younger guys can get away with it to a certain degree but as you age your body has less testosterone and growth hormone available and the healing and repair slows down = breaking easier.

The avoidance principle is as follows: A Three month Building Phase must be applied and followed by a three-month Cutting Phase in a very specific way and repeated.

Click here to play video “Cutting & Building phases explained”

 

During the Building phase you will punish your body severely and consume higher calories. This is where growth occurs. You will increase the weight sizes (sets of 8 reps) with a maximum of 10% every 14 days. NOT MORE THAN 10%! Even if you feel you have to power, DON’T! Your tendons and joints need time to strengthen in a structured gradual approach. Bypassing this step-up gradual approach and you WILL run into joint and tendons problems. This I guarantee you.

The Building phase will be continued for a 3 month period.

Click here to play video “Building Phase diet”

 

At the end of the 3 months you will enter the Cutting Phase. This Cutting phase’s purpose is to allow for tendon and joint healing and to cut the body fat down for a shredded look with fewer calories consumed daily compared to the Building phase.  You will cut the weight sizes lifted on ALL exercises by 30% and increase the reps per set to be 15-20 for all exercises (from the 8 reps per set on the Building phase). You do NOT train to failure in the Cutting phase. Your body needs time to repair and strengthen the tendons and joints after the hammering of the Building phase. This is a CRITICAL approach for joint health and the moment you bypass this alternating Building/Cutting phase approach you WILL run into problems.

The Cutting phase is NOT a phase for growing muscles but simply to maintain them while allowing the body time (3-months) to heal and strengthen tendons and joints.

Click here to play video “Cutting phase DIET”

 

Three months is considered the safest and best approach for the length of the phases. If you lengthen the time of the Building phase, the risk for joint/tendon injury will skyrocket.

I again emphasize: Do NOT underestimate the importance this approach is playing for joint health. It is also a method employed by most successful bodybuilders.

 

Just a short note on TENDONITIS

Tendonitis is inflammation/damage of tendons and can sometimes be dealt with an over the counter medication like aspirin or ibuprofen (ask your health care worker).

Tendonitis can be fairly easily avoided/managed by applying the following basic principles:

  • Warm up thoroughly, gradually building the intensity level of your workout. Cool down after the session.
  • Train for a new sport before you start it. Start building strength and flexibility in the muscles you will use a few weeks or months in advance.
  • Learn the proper method/technique and use the proper equipment for any exercise or activity.
  • Work out regularly, not just once a week (4 to 5 days a week)
  • SLOWLY increase weight sizes (not more than 10% every 14 days)

 

Short note on Bursitis (Tennis/Golfers Elbow)

One of the primary reasons for tennis/golfers elbow is bad form/technique. The critical aspect that must be avoided is bending the wrist up or down when handling any weight. The wrist and hand must be 100% in a straight line with the forearm. The bending of the wrist inwards and outwards places severe stress on the elbow and it’s workings and is usually a primary cause for Bursitis.

 

Tips on how to deal with joint paint after exercise

  • Ice: The most straightforward solution is to apply ice to the affected joint. Immediately after an intense workout, put ice on your muscles and joints to prevent inflammation and speed up the healing process. However, ice will not solve everybody’s joint troubles.
  • Eat more raw vegetables: The vitamins and minerals in raw vegetables contain a number of helpful things that ease your joint pain. Designed specifically to fight the effects of muscle oxidation, natural vegetables are often your best option.
  • Avoiding painful exercises: Some workouts are more painful than others. Depending on your body’s shape, size, and flexibility, certain workouts could negatively affect your joints. If you haven’t been noticing significant gains from a specific workout, but have experienced joint pain, then you might want to cut that workout from your routine.

 

Supplements which treat joint pain
If bodybuilding is one of the most important things in your life, then you may want to consider taking a supplement to help ease your joint pain.

  • Omega 3 & 6 is a rather important supplement when dealing with joint pain. 3 tablets morning and 3 tablets evening usually sufficient. Also make sure you get enough good fat in – Peanut Butter, Avocado, extra virgin olive oil, etc…
  • Super Cissus has been show to help control joint pain. It is no wonder supplement but might help some to relief pain.
  • There is a natural substance found in high concentrations in our joint structures known as Glucosamine. Numerous double-blind studies have shown that Glucosamine produces better results in the treatment of joint pain than traditional drug therapy. The main function of glucosamine is to stimulate the manufacture of substances necessary for joint repair. Glucosamine is a well-tolerated, natural treatment. There have been no reported adverse reactions. In rare instances, some gastric discomfort was reported but was easily relieved by taking the supplement with food.
  • Other supplements worth trying: MSM and Chondroitin.
  • Deca Durabulin (an anabolic steroid) is available as a prescription from doctors for treating severe joint pain. It has great success (as many bodybuilders in the past can testify too) and is also a great lean muscle builder. So if you think you fall in this category – speak to your doctor and get the added benefit of muscle growth minus the pain.

 

Word of Warning

Any supplement (creatine for example) or anabolic steroid that enhances your power levels drastically with immediate effect will put you at severe high risk for joint problems. You might have the power now but your joints and tendons are not strengthened to deal with the power. Many, many anabolic steroid users run into this injury territory.

 

Wish you happy training and GROW. Cheers…

Gert Louw

GERT B&W

 

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