Single vs Double Leg Jumps

Plyometrics are explosive workouts aimed to improve power and burst force. These types of exercises are typically given to athletes in sports that require quick power or movement. Plyometrics for athletes are used to improve an athlete’s Rate of Force Development (RFD). The RFD is essentially how quickly an athlete can load up (i.e contract) their muscle for use. For explosive power, you are looking at muscle loading taking place within 250 milliseconds.

Previous studies have reviewed strength generated between one leg and both leg activiations. The  findings determined that one legged exercises produced more strength in that leg than the same  exercises done with both legs. These studies were solely done on strength moves and not explosive  moves.

A study was done at the University of Athens to specifically look at explosive power between single  and double leg exercises. The study used 15 physically active participants between the ages of 18  and 26. All participants completed a test on single leg jumping and double legged jumping before and after the study. Participants were split into two groups, one for single leg and one for double leg  exercises. Each group completed 8 exercises twice a week for 6 weeks.

After the 6 week training session the participants all completed the same single leg and double leg  jumps as they did at the start.

Figure 1 shows the initial results for each group and the percent change for each group at the end of the study. The white bars are the bilateral or the double leg group. The black bars are the unilateral or single leg group. The first graph shows the average results for each jump and each group followed by the percent increase for each jump and each group. Both groups saw a similar increase in their double legged jump performance. However, the single leg group saw a 15.6% larger improvement for the single leg jumps on average, which is 5 times more improvement!

Figure 1: Post study testing results

These results can conclude that single leg plyometrics is great for increasing single leg jump  performance as well as double leg jump performance. Double leg plyometrics is great for increasing  double leg jump performance, but less effective at improving single leg jump performance.

A possible explanation for the greater improvement in single leg jumps is due to the nature of the  movement. It has been observed that single leg movements are slower than double leg movements.  The slower speed allows more of the muscle to contract, which leads to a greater force during the  movement. This could explain why the single leg group performed better in the single leg jump test,  since they were training more of the maximum force in their legs.

The take away from this study is that athletes should be incorporating single leg plyometrics in their  training to improve lower body explosive power.



References

https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/Fulltext/2019/03000/Comparison_Between_Unilateral_and_Bilateral.5.aspx

https://www.scienceforsport.com/rate-of-force-development-rfd-2/

Making a Habit

Do you want to lose weight, improve health, increase strength, or have another fitness related goal? If so, then your real goal is to make fitness a habit. A habit is something you do so regularly that it becomes hard not to do. A good example is brushing your teeth. You do it everyday and it feels weird if you don’t. Brushing your teeth is such a built-in habit that even if you skip a day, you still go back to brushing your teeth the next day and everyday after that. So how can you make going to the gym a habit? It’s going to take time, but with small steps you can get there!

To start, let’s go over what you can do while sitting on your couch before even getting to the gym. The big first step is to create some goals. When creating your goals, make a short term goal and a long term goal. Your short term goal should focus on building a habit, while your long term goal can focus on results. Results always take time, so your short term goals should always focus on habits and changes, such as going to the gym twice a week. Your goals should be easy to measure and attainable. If you are just starting out, having a goal of hitting the gym for two hours every day may be too big. Look at your current lifestyle and schedule and build goals that can easily fit in.

Once you’ve got your goals hashed out, the next step is to visualize success. There are two visualizations you want to do. The first is visualize yourself achieving your goal. If you want to lose 40 lbs, visualize yourself 40 lbs lighter. Don’t just visualize the image of yourself 40 lbs lighter, think about how you will feel as well. The second visualization is visualizing yourself taking steps to reach that goal. In the same example, you can visualize yourself at the gym working up a sweat, or cooking healthy meals. Visualizing your success and how you will reach it helps to motivate you and get you in the proper frame of mind to reach your goals.

Now that you have your goals and have visualized yourself succeeding, it’s time to get started. Here are three methods to help simplify the addition of new habits into your schedule. A great way to start building your habit is to tack it onto habitual things you already do. An example is working out right after work.  Additionally, schedule your workouts. At the beginning of the week, fill out the following sentence “I will workout on [day] at [time] at [place].” If you have a calendar you use, write it in. Seeing your commitment will help you remember to do it and you will be mentally prepared for it. Another method is to use “if-then” planning. Start thinking about your new habit as a part of another action. For example, “if it is 5:00, then it is workout time.” That is a very simple example, and you don’t always need to use “if”, it can be anything to help tie in the habit to something else. Other examples are “after dinner I will workout.” Or, “when it’s dinner I will cook a healthy meal.” Keep repeating your selected sentence to yourself as you build your habit.

Finally, when starting, keep it simple. If starting a new workout routine, ease your way into it; if changing your eating habits start by cutting out one thing. If you start with a difficult workout or entire diet change, it will be physically and mentally difficult for you, and failure is highly likely. Another way to keep it simple is to eliminate reasons to give up or to have cheat days. Pick a gym right by your work or house so it isn’t too far. Don’t buy that bag of chips when at the grocery store, so it’s not at home to snack on later.

If you do have a cheat day or skip the workout, make a note as to your reason why. This will help you track what exactly is stopping you from building that habit. If you keep skipping the gym because you had a stressful day at work, you need to look at reducing your stress levels. When making your notes be specific. Don’t write down “no time” because when you look back over your reasons it doesn’t tell you much. Write down “no time due to child’s school play.” It helps show you that you skipped the gym for something that is more important rather than “no time, Bond marathon was on TV.” Just be real with yourself, no one else needs to look at your reasons list.

Good luck building a healthier you! Let me know what other methods you’ve used to build up new habits.

References

http://99u.com/articles/17123/5-scientific-ways-to-build-habits-that-stick

http://jamesclear.com/exercise-habit

Calories and Macronutrients

Calories and macronutrients play an important part of any fitness goal, as they are required to fuel your body and nourish your muscles. So what are they? Which ones and how much should you be eating? I’ll start off going over what calories and macronutrients are, then give some tips to determine how much of each you need.

Calories are, scientifically, a unit of energy. In the nutrition sense, a calorie is the amount of energy you will get from food. Over the course of a day, you will burn a certain number of calories just for your body to survive, this is your Basal Metabolic Rate. This means that, even if you slept all day long, you still burn calories. Moving around and doing your daily activities will burn even more calories. So, you burn calories on a daily basis, and just like a fire, you need fuel to sustain this burn. That is where food comes in. The calories listed on nutrition labels are the estimated amount of calories you will gain from consuming that food. I say estimated because the amount is calculated in a lab, and the human body is  more complicated than a controlled experiment. That being said, it’s still a good estimate to use the nutrition labels on food. The basic breakdown of how many calories you should eat is dependant on your goal. To lose weight you need to consume fewer calories than you burn. To maintain weight you should consume the same amount of calories that you burn. Similarly, to gain weight you need to consume more calories than you burn. Each person burns a different amount of calories depending on their metabolism, gender, age, weight, and other factors.

The calories in your food can be broken down into three macronutrients; carbohydrates, protein, and fat. The primary purpose of any macronutrient is to provide energy. The breakdown calories into grams for the macronutrients is as follows

Macronutrient (1g)	Calories
Carbohydrates	4
Protein	4
Fat	9

Let’s take a closer look at each macronutrient.

Carbohydrates bring to mind starchy food, like bread and potatoes; but they are actually defined as sugars. Aside from bread and potatoes, carbohydrates are also in fruit, milk, and anything sweetened. Carbohydrates are used for long term energy and for fueling your brain. Due to the use of carbohydrates throughout the day, a person should typically consume a lot of them. The recommended amount of carbohydrates in a person's diet is 45 - 64 % of total calories.

When you picture protein you will often think of meats, but nuts, beans, and dairy are also high in protein. Protein is used as the building blocks of our body and are broken down into amino acids for use in growth and repair. If you don’t have enough carbohydrates to fuel your day, protein will step in and be used to sustain you. It is not ideal to have your body run off of protein since it is needed elsewhere. The general recommendation for protein intake is 0.8g for every kilogram of body mass. This number will change depending on your fitness and dietary restrictions. For example, someone who is looking to build muscle and lifting a lot of weights may need as much as 1.7g for each kg of body mass.

The third macronutrient is fats.Fats are in pretty much everything and, despite their bad reputation,are an essential part of your body’s metabolism. Fats are your energy reserve. While you burn carbohydrates throughout the day and protein goes to repairing your body, fat gets stored for future energy burns and are essential during hard and long exercise sessions. Fat does not immediately get stored as body fat. An excess of calories, regardless of the macronutrient, is what causes body fat storage. Fats also are a source of fatty acids which are important in transporting nutrients throughout your body. The tricky part with meeting your fat intake is ensuring you choose good fats. Fats are divided into trans, saturated, and unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats are the ideal fats and can be found in avocado, nuts, seeds, and cooking oils. The recommended intake of fats is 20 - 35% of your daily calorie intake.

Your required calorie intake will be unique. Work with a nutritionist to accurately determine your calorie intake and macronutrient amounts. The following two links can be used to get an idea of your calorie intake and macronutrient breakdown.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/macronutcal.htm

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/macronutrients_calculator.htm

References

http://www.livescience.com/52802-what-is-a-calorie.html

http://www.innerbody.com/nutrition/macronutrients

Weight Training: High vs Low Reps

Let’s talk weight training. If you aren’t doing it, you should! Weight training is an important part of any healthy lifestyle. There are typically two types of weight training people think of: heavy weights with low repetitions or light weights with high repetitions. Which should you be doing to meet your goals? Unfortunately it’s not that clear cut.

Weight lifting can be broken down into three zones: high reps, mid reps, and low reps. Using the below chart, we can talk about what type of weight lifting you should do to meet your goals.

Weight Training Type	Training Effect	Reps per Set	% 1RM
Low Reps	Strength	1-5	80-90
Mid Reps	Hypertrophy	6-12	60-80
High Reps	Endurance	15+	40-60

Strength Continuum

1RM stands for 1 Repetition Maximum, or the amount of weight you can lift once. It is the basic unit used to determine strength. Here’s an online tool to help you calculate your 1RM (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/other7.htm).

First, weightlifting and losing fat. In a previous post, I talked about cardio for fat loss and the link to heart rate. The ideal range of your heart rate to maximize fat loss is 70% - 85% of your maximum heart rate. While that article was about cardio,  The same principle applies to weight training for fat loss as well. How does that translate to high vs low reps? The truth is, it doesn’t matter. The important thing to do is get your heart rate up. My personal suggestion is to do mid to high reps in a circuit of 4-6 moves, taking little to no rest between sets. That being said, the exertion it takes to do heavy weights will also bring your heart rate up. It is harder to maintain a higher heart rate, but the benefit is still there.

Next, what if your goal is to build muscle? It’s commonly thought that lifting heavy weight with low reps is the only way to build muscle.. Studies on the best way to build muscle do not all point to low reps. It seems the most benefit comes from lifting weights until failure or fatigue. So how do you decide which is right for you? It’s going to depend on your experience and time. Doing a low rep workout until failure will be a shorter workout than a high rep workout until failure. The best way to maximize your muscle growth is to mix it up every few weeks. Lift big for a week or two, then switch to low weights.

If your goal is to improve your athletic performance, weight lifting should be an important part of your workout routine. As with cardio, you want to mimic your sport and target the muscles you will be using. If you are in a sport that requires you to be a brick house, like football or rugby, you want to work on muscle growth and strength, so stick to the high weight with low to mid reps. If you are in a long distance endurance sport, such as running or cycling, stick to low weight with high reps. Weight training for endurance sports doesn’t give the body the same simulation as the actual sport itself, but it’s important to have the increased lean muscle to get full power in each stride or push. And lastly, if you are in a power sport that requires you to do quick bursts of action, such as hockey, sprinting or roller derby, you will want to do explosive training. For explosive training, I recommend being in the mid to high reps range, do your movements quickly to simulate the sudden energy you will require in sport.

One last tip. If you are new to weightlifting, start in the high reps range with light weights. Have a friend or a trainer spot you to make sure you are using proper form.

Happy lifting!

References

http://www.builtlean.com/2012/07/19/high-reps-vs-low-reps/

http://www.bodybuilding.com/content/high-reps-low-reps-which-rep-scheme-is-best.html

http://www.trainingscience.net/?page_id=301

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/strengthtraining.html

Cardio for Muscle Gains

A lot of people looking to bulk up and build muscle do not do cardio. The thought is that cardio will impair or even reduce your muscle growth. Just look at marathon runners! The “no cardio” thinking is not 100% true. People looking to build muscle and make big gains should not completely dismiss cardio, they just need to approach it correctly. Let’s break down what you should be doing and how often.

An important factor with building muscle is losing fat. Let’s look at the cardio and fat burn chart from my Cardio for Fat and Weight Loss post (check it out for a breakdown of the chart below). In that post, I went over how a higher heart rate (HR) burns more overall calories, and therefore more fat. I’m going to use the same logic here, but turn it up to 11!

HR % from max	% fat burned from total calories burned
65 -70 %	60 %
70 - 75 %	50 %
75 - 80 %	35 %
80 - 85 %	20 %
85 - 90 %	10 %
90 - 95 %	5 %
95 - 100 %	0 %

An important part of adding cardio to your muscle building routine is to make sure you aren’t overworking your body and burning muscle. In order to make sure you aren’t burning off your hard earned muscles, intensity and duration are important factors. Let’s start with intensity, bring it to the max! Remember how we talked about the body type of long distance runners? Now think about sprinters. Short and intense is the type of cardio you want to aim for. A good example would be sprinting 100 m, then resting for 4 min, and repeat 4 to 10 times. With this intensity, your duration is going to be fairly short, which is good. You want your cardio to be 20 minutes or less. As for the weekly basis, 2 or 3 times at most a week is all you need.

Doing 10 sets of 100 m sprints is a lot of energy and requires a good cardiovascular base. If you are just starting to add cardio into your weight workout start easier and longer. Go with a steady state HR you can maintain for 30 minutes and build yourself up. Once you can maintain a cardio session with an HR at 80% of your maximum HR, start doing your high intensity cardio.

An important thing to remember when adding cardio into your workout plan is the additional calories burned. Make sure you aren’t over training and burning up too many calories, this will negatively impact your muscle gains. It’s a good idea to review your workout and diet with a trainer and a nutritionist to make sure you are maximizing your results!

References

http://www.muscleforlife.com/cardio-and-muscle-growth-friends-or-foes/

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ask-the-muscle-prof-best-cardio-for-preserving-mass.html