Muscle loss on holiday

Managed only 2 proper workouts, and two pussy ones in the last month due to holiday.  Had to miss lots of stuff like dead lifts, squats and proper benching…but have only lost a small bit of muscle, mostly shoulder width and shoulder mass.  I guess I’ve prob.lost some lower back muscle too.

Still, I tried to keep my protein up.  And it seemed to hold what muscle I had. 

Back training tommorrow I think….properly!

Lifting in hotel gyms…

Hotel gyms…they suck.  Yup, I’m on holiday and trapped by the hotel gym.  The best two hotel gyms I’ve been in are the Bellagio and the Toronto city centre hotel which both had free weights, benches and squat rack.  Currently the gym I had to use was pathetic, just a multi-gym machine and no free weights.  Still, I managed to do 1 arm rows with the bench press machine, shoulder laterials with the cable and a few other things.  When at the hotel gym, I just do an all-body workout as I’m never sure when my next workout will be and the equipment is typically not the heavy lifting stuff so my muscles need less recovery time.  Aside from seeking out a private gym there’s no real option sadly but my current hotel has a free gym at least, even if it’s crap.

Muscle building algorithmn

 

Hmmm…muscle building, every man’s desire but not always an attainable goal.

I read in a magazine once the principal for building muscle

- lift weights for 1 hour

- eat 2lbs of red meat and some carbs

- sleep

 That’s basically it.

When you lift weights, the muscle is broken down.  You don’t build any muscle in the gym, just break it down.  When you rest/recover THEN the muscle is built.

Apart from proper training, the most important things to remember are

- get lots of protein – 1g per 1lb of bodymass

- eat more protein on training days. esp immediately after training where the ‘window’ to replenish your system is open

- get lots of rest/sleep

- avoid over-training.  over training will reduce muscle size and can stress the body to the point where it develops cancers

So that’s it in a nutshell.  Let’s keep it simple people.