Bashir Murtaza, Author at Blob Fitness

Why You Should be Training and Not Just Exercising

Posted on February 22, 2021September 4, 2023 by Bashir Murtaza

Training vs exercising is an important distinction that needs to be made especially if you’re trying to progress and move heavier weights or to meet body composition goals.

A training program consists of exercises and workouts formulated and designed to meet your goals. For some, it’s fairly common to just go and want to exercise or to go and workout without any real structured program to follow. This is fine in some cases honestly. Maybe you’re just trying to get a little bit of extra work done or you’re looking to just burn some extra calories overall. There could be cases where you’re experimenting with exercises to follow a better training program. All of that is fine. However, exercising is just a means to burn calories, whereas training is to meet specific goals.

No matter your goals, you should have a tailored training program to meet those goals. Let’s go over why you will make better progression with training than just exercising.

Progressive Overload

Progressive overload is one of the most important portions of a training program. Every good training program should have progressive overload included in it. It will allow you to progressively continue to get stronger throughout the program at a steady rate. This is very important considering the main purpose of training and working out is to get stronger or at a minimum maintain strength in general. You’re not training to get weaker. Most people correlate strength to large muscle mass when this isn’t the case. There are plenty of freakishly strong people that don’t have the muscle tone or definition you might see on a bodybuilder.

If you’re just exercising or just working out, most likely you won’t be following the foundations of progressive overload which are critical to building strength.

Implemented Deload Weeks

Resting and recovery are probably some of the more underrated portions when it comes to progressing and meeting your goals. Without adequate rest and recovery, you can easily burn yourself out, start to lose strength, and even risk injury as well.

This can cause issues for obvious reasons. A good training program has planned deload weeks implemented into it. A deload week is meant to give your body time to recover during an active recovery week. You’ll still be training, but not to the same intensity that you normally would be.

With this implemented portion into your training, you can easily continue to meet your goals but also take a scheduled ‘break’ to help ensure recovery and get you ready for the next block of training.

Designed and Planned for Your Needs

What I love about training programs is that they’re tailored to meet your goals. You won’t be doing useless exercises and workouts that may not benefit you and what you’re trying to achieve. A training program can easily work on your weaknesses and also improve your strengths. It’s a blueprint to meet your goals. I’ve designed dozens of training programs for many clients. If you ever want one created, feel free to message me at contact@blobfitness.com

Final Thoughts

Training programs are an ideal way to meet your goals. If your goal was on building a home, you would follow a blueprint on how to do so. This is the same thing when it comes to meeting your physical goals. You have goals that need a proper plan to execute and for you to achieve those goals. If you’re just working out or exercising for the sake of doing so, it’s very easy to fall off or miss those goals considering there is no plan in place.

Again, I don’t believe just working out or exercising is a bad thing considering it’s for the right reasons. You can even find a workout generator that can be extremely beneficial in specific use cases.

If you ever want a program created for you, feel free to message me at contact@blobfitness.com

As well, be on the lookout for a new product that will be giving you new weekly workouts that will be following the principles of a training program. Enter your email address below to keep up to date on when it’s released!

Photos:

Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels

Introducing the Workout Generator and How to Use It

Posted on February 15, 2021September 4, 2023 by Bashir Murtaza

The Workout Generator is finally live! If you’ve been following me for some time, you will know I’ve been teasing this for a bit. I’m happy to say it’s finally complete!

Since it’s finally released, I wanted to give a quick guide on who it’s for, how to use it, and make the best of it. As well as potential new features.

You can find the Workout Generator under Tools->Workout Generator

Who’s the Workout Generator For?

The Workout Generator can be used by anyone. Whether you’re a beginner or at a more advanced fitness level, you can still utilize the generated workout. This is a great tool if you’re looking for:

A new workout to follow
Discovering new exercises
Looking for a change of current workouts
On the go workout based on your available equipment

How to Use The Workout Generator?

The Workout Generator is fairly easy to use. Let’s go through a step by step process.

Choose Your Equipment

Your first portion is to choose your equipment. Here, you can select all the available equipment you may have. If you choose the ‘Gym/All Equipment’ selection, it will remove all other selections and give you a workout based on all equipment.

Besides that, you can choose any piece of equipment you may have.

Choose Your Categories

Here, you can choose which body parts you want to workout. You can choose multiple categories easily, but it’s preferred to choose 2-3 categories. Reason for this is that the algorithm will try creating to split your categories up into exercises, and with too many categories you won’t get too much variety in each category.

Choose Difficulty

Last but not least, you can choose your difficulty. The higher the difficulty, the more reps, sets, and exercises you get. As well, you’ll also get different exercises depending on your level. For example, you won’t get muscle-ups at the beginner level. You’ll get something like that at the more advanced level.

If you choose the “End Me” option, we would love to see the time and completion of the exercise! Feel free to tag us on Instagram (@blob.fitness) with #blobwod and we’ll share it!

Submit and Enjoy Your Workout!

Once you’ve submitted it, you will get your newly generated workout! Now what’s awesome about this is that each workout has its own YouTube link on how to do the exercise. I’ve only used sources I personally use for form information.

If you enjoy the workout or want to save it, you can easily enter your email address below and you can get the workout emailed to you with all the videos linked to it as well!

Final Thoughts

This is just the beginning of more functionality set to come in the future. If you have any feedback or issues using the tool, please email me at contact@blobfitness.com and I’ll make sure to get to it.

If you like your workout and enjoyed your workout, post it on social media and use #blobwod! I’ll share any posts/stories with that hashtag. I hope you enjoy your workout and be on the lookout for new features coming soon!

Photos:

Photo by Victor Freitas from Pexels

Are There Any Benefits to Extreme Diets?

Posted on February 8, 2021February 9, 2021 by Bashir Murtaza

Extreme diets tend to seem like it’s a fairly dominant within the fitness community. You’ll find someone who looks ‘healthy’ or is in good shape and plenty of times, they’re on a fad/extreme diet. Usually, this correlation makes it very easy to see if you need to get in shape or be ‘healthy’ then you need to follow an extreme diet.

First, let me define what is an extreme diet in this context. How I define an extreme diet is a diet that usually tends to cut out major macronutrients or food groups to be healthy.

Now, we know this is simply not the case overall. We know you can create a perfect diet for yourself without going crazy and cutting out macronutrients or food groups.

Even with this knowledge, can extreme diets provide any real benefits? Or are they usually more harmful than good?

Appealing to People Who Want to Get into Fitness

I don’t think I’ve ever encountered someone who when they first started to diet or get into shape, didn’t try some type of extreme/fad diet. When I first started to work out and bulk, it had to be all ‘clean food’ and when I was cutting, it had to be low carbs. From trial and error and plenty of research, I realized I didn’t have to do this anymore.

There is something about extreme diets that bring in new people to get into shape. This is probably because most may think that extreme diet = extreme results. Again, we know that’s not true. Plenty of extreme diets can actually cause other issues down the line due to a lack of micronutrients. Unless you’re properly supplementing, most extreme diets can start causing some sort of deficiency.

I will give credit that extreme diets tend to bring in new people which is always great. I do think though that newcomers should be educated though that extreme diets aren’t necessarily needed though.

Sustainability

To me, this is probably where extreme diets can either be truly beneficial or can lag your results and only make you frustrated through the process.

People who are educated about extreme diets, sometimes know that it’s not needed for them to be healthy. Why do they keep doing it though? Simply because it’s sustainable for them.

There are plenty of people that having the choice/option to eat whatever they want as long as it fits into their macros, which actually causes them to not sustain their diet because they easily go off the rails. Extreme diets, tend to cut out a majority of the items you may normally binge on, so people who do follow an extreme diet, may find it more sustainable to follow.

Now, this can also cause issues too. I’ve noticed others who go on extreme diets simply can’t keep up with it for a couple of weeks and then start to binge. They feel guilty, go back on the extreme diet, and then again can’t keep up with it. This process is unsustainable and will leave a person feeling defeated. In this case, a more flexible diet might be a better approach.

If you have trouble sustaining your diet due to too many choices of food items and having it be overwhelming, then an extreme diet may be more beneficial to you.

However, if you feel like you keep yo-yo dieting from an extreme diet, maybe you need to have a more flexible diet.

I wrote this article on how to create a sustainable diet for you that goes over these concepts more. If you ever have trouble sustaining your weight loss, check out this article.

Can be Useful for Specific Underlying Conditions

First, I’m not a doctor. You should consult your doctor if you plan on changing up your diet in any regards that can impact your health.

From what I’ve witnessed, extreme diets can sometimes be beneficial for underlying conditions coupled with a healthy supplementation and being at a healthy weight. For example, someone who is type 2 diabetic may be better off going on a more low carb diet/ keto diet. I’ve heard other stories of people who use the carnivore diet for their underlying conditions.

I don’t wish to dwell on this subject too much as again I’m not a doctor and this isn’t my place to say whether an extreme diet can benefit you and your underlying condition. These are just situations i’ve witnessed or heard from others. Again, if you have any underlying condition and plan on trying a more extreme diet, please consult your doctor.

A Tool to Meet Your Goals

Even though you can probably achieve your goals without an extreme diet, that doesn’t mean you won’t get results from an extreme diet. You can see some great results and lose weight (specifically not saying fat because at first, most water weight sheds off first) fast in some cases. It can be a great tool to utilize to meet your goals and potentially help with sustainability or lose those last extra pounds fast.

Final Thoughts

Extreme diets can have some benefits that can help you. The main issue is that too many people preach that it’s the only way to get results, which isn’t true. I do think it can potentially benefit you depending on if you have issues sustaining a more flexible diet. It also can help bring more people into the fitness community in general, which is always a good thing. However, more people should be aware of the potential side effects of extreme diets and the fact they’re not needed. They can be used as a tool to meet your goals, but there is no one diet to cure-all. If you plan on changing your diet and want to go on a more extreme diet, I would highly advise you to consult with your doctor first before making any changes.

Photos:

Photo by Ella Olsson from Pexels

6 Reasons Why You Should Start Jump Roping

Posted on January 31, 2021January 31, 2021 by Bashir Murtaza

Jump roping seems to that it was a lost form of exercise, but looks to have been picked up more recently due to some of the awesome videos you’ve seen. If you’ve been on TikTok or Instagram, chances are you’ve seen some of these awesome videos of people jump roping. It’s aesthetically amazing, but that’s one of the least important reasons you should start jump roping.

What was once popular during the Rocky Era seems to have been merely forgotten. However, besides it looking cool, the benefits of jump roping are amazing and can be a key piece of your daily workouts to help achieve your goals. Here are some of the reasons you should start jump roping.

#1 You Can Take It With You Anywhere

One of the reasons people tend to stray from their workout regimen is due to vacation or needing to go away. If you’re going away, most likely you don’t have or want to bring any equipment with you. I doubt you’ll be throwing some kettlebells in your luggage with you to the airport. What makes jump roping great is how lightweight it is and you can bring it with you anywhere.

A jump rope you can easily store in any of your luggage and it won’t impact weight.

Besides it is light, you can also jump rope in most places with constriction.

If you want to stay home, you can easily just jump rope inside your place. I know many people would think jump roping in your place would make a bunch of noise, but if you’re landing properly and with good form, you shouldn’t be making too much noise.

Let’s say you want an outside workout, you can easily bring your jump rope to an open area and start doing it there.

What makes jump roping great is its lack of limitations environmentally and physically.

#2 Get a Total Body Workout

Jump ropes come in all different shapes and sizes. You can get a speed rope, designed for faster jumping or you can get a weighted rope. A weighted rope will be a bit harder to sling around, but that’s the point.

A weighted rope will add some extra resistance to the workout. While jump roping already workouts out your legs overall and requires core stability, a weighted rope amplifies this and hits those muscles even harder.

If you ever wanted to add a little extra burn to a leg day or just get a more full-body workout, then you should start jump roping. As well, get a weighted rope.

#3 Get Strong Calves

We just went over that one reason to start jump roping is that it’s a great overall total body workout. I do want to emphasize though, the jump rope really works your calves. If you feel like your calves may be weak or need improvement, I highly suggest you start jump roping.

I personally have fairly decent calves (at least I thought I did), and when I picked up a jump rope and started for 10 minutes, I felt like my calves were nowhere near as strong as I thought. It was a humbling experience, to say the least.

#4 Burns a Great Number of Calories

Jump roping easily burns a great number of calories. You can easily burn 200 calories in a 20-minute workout. However, this also depends on how much you weigh cause your body is its own resistance in this case. The more you weigh, the more calories you’ll burn.

Most people like to compare jumping rope vs running in terms of calories. If you’re running a 10-minute mile you will probably burn around ~100-115 calories. A good jump rope session in that same time frame can burn around ~115-130. Granted, not a huge difference but in terms of the impact running can have on your body and all the other factors you have to take in to play, I think it’s safe to say jump roping is the better option to choose with a better outcome.

#5 Helps with Coordination / Balance

Jumping up and down seems fairly easy. To do that though over a rope at different intervals and keeping your body fairly balanced to not trip over the rope is a more difficult task. The better you get at jump roping, the better your coordination and balance will be for those exact reasons.

If you’re jump roping and your arms start flailing out to one side more than the other, you’ll trip over your rope. You time your jump wrong, you’re going to trip over the rope. It takes patience, but the better you get at jump rope, the better your balance and coordination will get.

#6 Easy to Jump Into (Pun Intended)

The last reason to start jump roping is that it’s a fairly easy exercise to get into. I will say, it may require some patience if you have balance issues as I do, but overall for most, it should be something to easily pick up. You can easily get going with it and incorporate it as a warm up, or as just some extra cardio into your workout.

Since jump roping (when done correctly) should be fairly easy on your joints, and you can do it anywhere, it makes it an easy option to pick up. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or advanced athlete, this is still something you can easily throw into your workout with ease.

Getting Started Jump Roping

If you’ve been convinced to start jump roping, well then awesome! I’ll like to go through a quick starting portion on how you can pick up a jump rope and learn how to use it with proper form.

Buying a Rope

First, you need a jump rope. Personally, I use the Rogue SR-2 Speed Rope . This was my first rope, but I’ve heard from others if you’re starting out you should start with a weighted rope instead.

Measuring Your Rope

Once you get your rope, you actually may need to measure it and cut it for your height. I had no idea this was a thing, so I hope to save you some time by mentioning this. Here is a video on how you can measure and cut your rope:

Jumping with Proper Form

Jump roping with proper form is essential to mitigate injury and ensure a proper workout.

Here is a good video on jump rope form:

If you end up like me and tripping over the rope 100 times, here is a video that can help fix your mistakes:

Workout Regime

Okay, so you’ve got your jumping down! Now here’s a quick sample workout you can use to get you started and keep improving over time.

Final Thoughts

Jump roping has many benefits. You increase your cardio but also get a total full-body workout that can help with coordination and balance. It’s somewhat of a lost art form that’s gained some popularity as of the last couple of years.

If you’re trying to lose weight or just need to include some more cardio into your regime overall, this is a great tool to have that you can bring anywhere with you.

Photos:

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

How Should You Warm Up Before a Workout?

Posted on January 25, 2021January 25, 2021 by Bashir Murtaza

Warming up before a workout is something that is important to do before any workout. There are plenty of benefits to it, but some people have many different warm-ups than others. Some people would warm up with just the exercise they’re doing in general. Others warm up doing static stretching, dynamic stretching, bodyweight exercises, etc. taking overall 30 – 40 minutes. So what is the right way to warm up? Before we get into that, let’s discuss some of the benefits of warming up before a workout.

Benefits of Warming Up Before a Workout

The first thing is first, why should you warm-up before a workout in general? Well, it has plenty of benefits to it, but the main benefit, in my opinion, is that it leads to a lower risk of injury(1).

If you’ve been injured, you already know it’s something that can derail your progression overall. You can always overcome that injury and setback with the proper tools like BFR training but it still may take sometime before you’re back in the full swing of things. I’m always for lowering the risk of injury and warming up plays a big factor in that.

Another benefit of warming up is that it can help increase your range of motion. Personally, I have terrible mobility overall, it’s something I’m consistently working on to try and get better. I know for some exercises if I don’t have the proper range of motion I will most likely injure myself or not get the same benefit of the exercise.

What’s the Goal of a Warm Up Before a Workout?

The main goal of a warm up is to get your heart rate up, get your blood and oxygen flowing more and increase your range of motion. Any time you’re warming up, you would want to check off those 3 boxes:

Is my heart rate at an elevated, but not super high level (around 100bpm, but will depend on your overall fitness level)
Do you feel like you’re warmer in general?
Are you feeling looser and will have the ability to perform your exercises without as much restriction?

Once those boxes are checked off you should be good to go.

How Should You Warm Up Before a Workout?

Like I mentioned before, people have varying different techniques to warming up. Some people spend up to 30 – 40 minutes warming up. Others will warm up with some compound movements with lightweight and move right into it. For example, some people will warm up for bench press, by just bench pressing the bar for a couple of sets at high reps and a slow tempo.

What’s the best way for you to warm up though? Do you need a 30 minute warm up? or should you just be warming up with the exercise? Well, it depends.

When You Should Have a Longer Warm Up

There are cases you should potentially be warming up a bit longer to help decrease the risk of injury and to increase your range of motion.

Here is a perfect example for me. My lower body in particular is always fairly tight. Ankles, calves, hamstrings, quads, and hips. So if I just try warming up for Squats with just the bar, it’s usually not the best thing for me because I won’t even be able to squat the bar with proper form on my first couple of sets. Even if it does get better and I start loading the bar with weight, it still doesn’t feel quite right. Times I have tried to warm up with just the bar, I’ve actually ended up with some minor tweaks. So now, I’ll take some time and do some dynamic stretches for all of the above movements above until I feel like I’ve hit an adequate level that I can put the barbell on my back and squat without much issue. Usually, a warm up before squats takes me about 15 minutes.

If you’re someone who struggles with mobility and range of motion with the exercises you’ll be hitting in the workout, it will more beneficial to have a longer warm up to decrease the risk of injury.

I do want to note a word of caution though. If you’re powerlifting or someone who’s trying to hit heavyweight, a long warm up can make you more fatigued overall and you may not be able to lift as much. Your performance may overall decrease that workout. In my opinion, I rather have decreased performance than an injury.

When You Should Have a Shorter Warm Up

If you can perform the exercise as a warm up with a range of motion not being an issue, you can likely shorten your warm up to just the exercise and maybe some quick dynamic stretches.

Another example for myself is when I bench press. I don’t normally have to do too much for a bench press warm up. I’ll do some quick arm circles and jumping around for a couple of minutes and then I’ll warm up with the bar for the bench. I don’t normally have to do too much and it only takes about 10 minutes until I’m at my working set for bench press. (Working set meaning the intended weight for reps for the workout).

Compound vs Isometric Exercises

I’ve been talking mainly about compound movements (squat and bench press) but what happens if your workout consists of mainly isometric exercises like bicep curls and tricep kickbacks? You probably won’t need to warm up too long in cases like this. You most likely can hit those 3 checkboxes I mentioned in the ‘What’s the Goal of a Warm Up?’ section pretty fast or with just the exercises in general without risking many injuries.

Do I Need to Warm Up for Every Exercise?

What happens if you’re doing multiple compound lifts in your workout? Do you need to warm up for every exercise? Most likely, no. You should be good to just warm up before the workout in general and then do warm up sets for your exercise. Again though, this is subjective to your body composition, and if you’re struggling with a range of motion in areas for your exercise that can potentially lead to injury.

For example, if I’m doing squat, bench, and deadlift on the same day. I’ll warm up for squat, by the time I get to the bench I’m only doing warm up sets with the bar. When I get to deadlifts though, I’ll just do some quick core exercises to get get some good core stability and get into it.

Tips on Warming Up

Personally, my go-to warm ups focus on increasing range of motion in areas that are limited by doing dynamic stretches (only in severe cases, static stretching) and usually doing some stability work if I’m doing compound exercises like squats or deadlifts. Depending on the exercise though and your range of motion limitations, a dynamic stretch for you can just be doing warm up sets at a lightweight for the exercise. If you’re looking for a good leg day warm up, I highly recommend checking this out.

Final Thoughts

Long vs short warm ups before your workout are subjective and really depends on your body. For most, you may be able to do some dynamic stretches and move right into some warm up sets and get into your working sets. If you have more issues in your range of motion, you may need to warm up longer to target those nuance areas. Longer warm ups will tend to lead to more fatigue and overall lower performance if you’re lifting heavy weight. In my opinion, I will rather be moving less weight with better form than more weight with crappy form.

As long as you’re able to hit an adequate range of motion for your lift and you generally have a higher than normal resting heart rate and you’re feeling warm and loose, you should be good to start your workout/exercise!

Photos:

Photo by Victor Freitas from Pexels
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

References:

LaBella CR, Huxford MR, Grissom J, Kim K, Peng J, Christoffel KK. Effect of Neuromuscular Warm-up on Injuries in Female Soccer and Basketball Athletes in Urban Public High Schools: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2011;165(11):1033–1040. doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.168

Jocko MOLK Protein Review

Posted on January 21, 2021September 18, 2023 by Bashir Murtaza

This review will be covering the Jocko MOLK protein supplement created by Origin Maine and Jocko Willink.

Origin Maine is a company that sells multiple different and innovative items. From GI’s to fitness equipment and now nutritional supplements. One of the things Origin Maine is famously known for is that all items are made in America. Especially when it comes to clothing and accessories this is something very rare to see, but in this case, we’ll be mainly going over the protein supplement.

Jocko, who isn’t for the Sugar Coated lies, has a great supplement that is a bit different from others but has an amazing flavor and gives you a good bang for your buck.

This review will specifically be going over the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor. This Jocko MOLK review will be breaking the protein down by Nutrition Facts / Ingredients, taste, mixture, and price. Let’s dig into it.

Jocko MOLK Protein Review

A high-quality protein with great ingredients and great taste. With a variety of flavors, it's a fantastic protein to pick up. A bit on the pricey side, but if you support Jocko and what the company stands for, it's worth it.

Nutrition Facts / Ingredients

From the image above you can see the Nutrition Facts as listed:

Calories: 110
Fat: 2
Carbohydrates: 1
Protein: 21

Serving Size = 1 scoop

Right off the bat, this a low carb protein drink like many others. Even though most protein drinks are low in carbs, this protein is a bit lower than most. Whereas something like Optimum Nutrition, for example, has about 4g of carbs. If you’re a fairly carb-conscious person, this is a great protein for you.

In terms of ingredients, there isn’t anything too crazy being done except for the inclusion of Monk Fruit Extract. Monk Fruit Extract not only is safe and fine for you, it also contains zero calories and is fairly sweet. This is probably how the protein itself can contain such a low amount of carbs while also maintaining a fairly good taste. (more on that later)

Another great thing about this product is that it contains: No Soy, No rGBH. It does contain peanuts, milk, and eggs. Now unless you have a severe allergic reaction to milk and you’re just lactose intolerant, you may still be able to take this protein due to it containing digestive enzymes and specifically containing Lactase. It also contains other digestive enzymes like Lipase (used for indigestion), Amylases (helps for indigestion), Protease 1 and 2 (helps break down protein). It also contains a probiotic called L. acidophilus (good for gut health and helps produce lactic acid)

Overall, the nutritional content is pretty solid with this product. It also doesn’t include much useless junk in it which an always a positive!

Nutrition Facts / Ingredients : 5/5

Taste

This review is going to cover the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor. However, I’ve also tried the Chocolate Mint, Vanilla, and Chocolate flavors. The Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor is phenomenal! (Especially when taken with milk). It’s up there with some other good flavored proteins like Legion and Optimum. If you’re looking for a great tasting protein shake, you got one!

Now, this won’t affect the review, but the Chocolate Mint is probably my 2nd favorite then being Vanilla and Chocolate.

There isn’t too much to delve into the taste, but it’s awesome!

Taste: 4.5/5

Mixture

The mixture is always an important factor when it comes to protein. No one wants things big ol clumps of protein all over their bottle.

It’s unfortunate that this has been one of the biggest falls of the protein to an extent. Now if you’re the sane person and you mix your protein in a protein bottle, then you’re good to go. No chunks and has is pretty easy to go down.

Now if you may have forgotten your protein bottle or it’s still sitting in the dishes dirty, you may need to mix it with a glass and spoon. If you’re going down this route, it’s still not that bad. There will be some clumps but overall it should be something still fairly easy to get down without much of an issue

Mixture: 4.5

Price

If ordering this on Amazon (affiliated link) this will cost you $45 for a container. Now how does this rank against other proteins?

Let’s take Legion Protein. This protein comes in at $40 on Amazon (affiliated link). With one less serving size as Jocko MOLK (31 Serving Size). So you can assume that for Jocko MOLK it’s about $1.45 per scoop and Legion is $1.33 per scoop. So Legion is a bit less

If you look at Optimum Whey Protein, it ranks at $30 on Amazon with a serving size of 29. This would be about $1.03 a scoop.

Overall, the price is definitely more on the higher end of things, granted not by much but it makes a difference in the long term if you have a protein container a month would come out to $540.

Price: 3.5

Final Thoughts

My overall review of Jocko MOLK is a great protein overall. With its awesome ingredients and great taste, it’s a great protein and you’re supporting a great company as well. It is a bit more on a higher scale overall in terms of price, but also, not by much. If you like Jocko and want to support the company, then you’re getting awesome and high-quality protein. If you’re trying to get something a bit cheaper, you may want to look for something else.

You can buy Jocko MOLK here from Amazon (affiliated link). You can also go to Origin Maine’s site and get it there as well.

If you’re looking for a good pre-workout that will get you fired up, check out my review on Outwork Nutrition’s Preworkout.

Overall, I’m giving this protein a 4.4/5.

How Much Protein Do I Need per Day?

Posted on January 18, 2021December 27, 2023 by Bashir Murtaza

The amount of protein you intake per day can alter your results whether your goal is to gain muscle or lose fat. Protein can play a vital part in both preserving muscle mass if you’re trying to lose fat. It can also help you build muscle if you’re in a caloric surplus.

Many people too often consume less protein then they really need. On the other hand, sometimes you have people who eat too much protein per day and it’s not really doing much for them. We’re going to go over just how much protein you need per day and how to properly allocate protein in your diet.

How Much Protein per Day?

Taking directly from my, Why are Macros Important article:

Protein is possibly one of the most important macronutrients. Protein is responsible for building, restoring, and maintaining muscle. It’s also responsible for creating healthy blood cells, enzymes, hormones, and much more. Protein is made up of amino acids.

There are 2 categories of amino acids, essential amino acids, and nonessential amino acids. Essential amino acids can’t be made by the human body. You can only get them from food. Non-essential amino acids can be made by the human body.

The recommended amount of protein to make sure you’re not in a deficient is 0.8 grams per kg or 0.36 grams per pound. For someone who works out regularly you want around 1.5-2.4 grams per kg or 0.65-1.1 gram per pound. Protein is broken into 4 calories per gram.

So if you’re let’s say 150lbs (68kg), you should be having around 130-140 grams per day. You can also always use the Macro Calculator to get your other Macro Nutrients

What Happens if I Don’t Eat Enough Protein

Intaking an adequate amount of protein is highly important. There are multiple things that can happen if you aren’t intaking enough protein per day:

Muscle Loss
Weakness
Potentially Weaker Immune System

What Happens if I Intake too Much Protein

On the other hand, taking too much protein can lead to some other issues. If you’re intaking too much protein, it can start to break down into sugar and can lead to weight gain. This can be an even bigger issue if you’re on the ketogetic diet considering this can throw you out of ketosis.

Final Thoughts

Protein is essential to building and maintaining muscle as well as overall body functions. Try to intake around 1.5-2.0 grams per kg or 0.65-1 gram per pound. You should divide your daily intake of protein into about 3 -4 meal (or more) meals per day.

Use the Macro Nutrients to figure out the rest of your macro nutrients

References:

Schoenfeld BJ, Aragon AA. How much protein can the body use in a single meal for muscle-building? Implications for daily protein distribution. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2018;15:10. Published 2018 Feb 27. doi:10.1186/s12970-018-0215-1

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Does Exercising with Extra Clothing Make a Difference?

Posted on January 10, 2021 by Bashir Murtaza

Have you ever gone to the gym and seen that one person exercising with extra clothing like with a hoodie and sweats on and completely drenched? Yeah, if you haven’t seen that before you will one day, I promise you. Even though many people do this, is it necessary and does it actually provide any real benefit to you and help with fat loss? As well, can there be any other hidden benefits to it that we may not originally guess?

Does Exercising with Extra Clothing Burn More Fat?

The first thing you’ll probably assume when thinking of exercising with extra clothing is that you sweat more. That’s absolutely true! (1)

When your body is sweating, the purpose of it is to cool down your body. This makes sense especially if you’re exercising with extra clothing. However, it’s imperial to note that sweat ≠ fat loss. Although it is usually a sign that you’re working (or your body is working) a bit harder in general, the process of sweating doesn’t burn a crazy amount of calories.

Now, there isn’t as much research on this topic as I would hope. However, exercising with extra clothing is bound to increase your heart rate even for the sole reason as it provides another form of resistance to your training. Due to the extra resistance, your body will need to work a bit harder and your heart rate should be higher, so you’ll probably be burning more calories than usual. Now, will it be a significant amount? Probably not.

So to clear clarify and some up this portion, will it burn more fat? Not necessarily. You’ll exert more, but not enough for it to make a significant difference.

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Okay, so we know that exercising with extra clothing doesn’t burn more fat, so why should you do it? For this simple reason.

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable.

Exercising with extra clothing is usually no easy task. It’s uncomfortable and hot and you’re dying to just get cool. The longer you keep your composure though and hold your disciple to not take the easy way out, the more comfortable you’re getting being uncomfortable.

You will notice, the more you keep doing uncomfortable things, you’ll have a tougher mindset and not so easily willing to quit tasks.

This is something that will translate into your day to day life and I can’t recommend it enough.

When to Exercise with Extra Clothing

Anytime I exercise with extra clothing, it’s usually during cardio. Why is that? There is a couple of reasons:

Burn a bit more calories
More difficult

I usually don’t wear extra clothing when I do weight lifting like squats, bench and deadlift. Mainly squats for me because it’s an exercise I don’t want to be dripping sweat and have the potential to slip, as well I’m trying to lift heavy weight. With extra clothing, I’ll probably burn out a bit quicker and not be able to hit my reps and sets.

Obviously, it’s up to you when you want to wear extra clothing, but that’s my personal preference.

Dangers

If you do plan on exercising with extra clothing, I highly recommend bringing some extra water with you. The more you sweat, the more your body is is excreting water/fluid and electrolytes. I would even go as far as say drink something with electrolytes in it.

Final Thoughts

Exercising with extra clothing may not make you burn as many extra calories as you were hoping for, however it can be a great asset for you to sweat more and build a better mindset during your training. You will get comfortable being uncomfortable and such lessons will carry into your everyday life.

I personally like to exercise with extra clothing mainly during cardio, but you can choose to do it when ever you want! If you do plan on doing it, I would recommend brining some extra water or even a drink with electrolytes in it.

References:

Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research; Marriott BM, editor. Nutritional Needs in Hot Environments: Applications for Military Personnel in Field Operations. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1993. 3, Physiological Responses to Exercise in the Heat.

Photos:

Photo by Burst from Pexels

Do You Need to Track Macros and Calories Every Day?

Posted on January 3, 2021July 16, 2023 by Bashir Murtaza

One of the main issues I’ve heard from clients over the years is that they don’t want to track macros and calories every day. I get it, it seems like a fairly daunting practice to do every day.

You’ll know, I always advise people to track their macros and calories. Especially if you’re trying to lose weight easily and effectively. I also talk about changing your mindset on food, and why tracking is an important part of that process. Just because it’s an important process though, does it mean you need to track macros and calories every day though? Let’s go over quickly why tracking your macros and calories are important and then we’ll dive further into that question.

Why is Tracking Macros and Calories Important?

Whether you’re gaining weight, losing weight, or even maintaining weight, tracking macros and calories is an important factor in all of these. We know that macros in general are something important to look out for. Calories are as well when it comes to weight management.

When it comes to weight management, it mainly comes down to CICO (Calories in and calories out). This is true for gaining, losing, or maintaining weight. If you intake more calories than you’re burning, you’ll gain weight. Whereas if you’re burning more calories than you’re intaking, then you’ll lose weight. Intake just as much as you burn, and you’ll be maintaining weight.

Why Tracking Calories is Important

Tracking calories is important because depending on your goal, you’ll need to track to ensure you’re hitting your goals of calories and macros that will determine if you hit your goal weight. If you have a calorie range of 1700 and you just assume you’re eating 1700 calories a day and you gain weight, you’re going to think that you need to lessen your caloric amount. In reality, though, you might be eating more than you were expecting because you weren’t tracking your calories or macros. Then you might really start eating way less than you need to and you’ll drop weight, but you also may start dropping lean body mass as well.

Why Tracking Macros is Important

Macros are extremely important to track as well. When losing weight, the main goal should be to drop weight while limiting the amount of lean body mass being lost. Losing lean body mass is inevitable when losing weight but you would want to limit that. One of the main components of that is by eating enough protein throughout the day. Getting an adequate amount of protein throughout the day when cutting will help you preserve your lean body mass as much as possible.

Trying to calculate your macros? Check out the Macro Calculator here.

Tracking when Starting Out is Extremely Important

If you’re just starting out, tracking macros and calories is extremely important to find out where you’re at and how your body is responding to the new calorie intake. Maybe you hit your target of 2000 calories a day for a week but it hasn’t made a difference. GOOD, now we know we can effectively cut some calories and try again the following week. We do know that 2000 calories weren’t getting the job done and losing at the pace you wanted to lose. You can cut down to 1900 calories and maybe your body starts dropping .25-.5 lbs by the end of the week.

Only Eating What You Need to Eat

One of the main reasons I advocate to track macros and calories besides the reasons mentioned above is that you should only be eating what you need to be eating. If you’re on a cut, and you can lose a steady weight of 1900 calories a day, there is no need for you to eat less than that. Why would you eat at 1600 calories a day unless you wanted to really speed up the process but this will also leave you being cranky and potential to lose more lean body mass? The same goes for gaining weight and bulking, if you can gain a steady weight at 2400 calories a day, why jump up more then that? You can eat 2800 calories but you’ll only gain more fat in the process and not tack on that much more muscle.

Trying to find out how much you need to eat? Check out the Calorie Calculator here.

Do I Need to Track Macros and Calories Every Day?

Ah yes, the question we’ve all been waiting for. So the question is, do you need to track macros every day?

Short Answer: No

Long Answer: Well, it depends on your goals.

When You Don’t Need to Track Every Day

If you’re following the same diet and you eat the same things every day, it does become rather useless to keep on tracking the items you’re eating. If you intake something that you normally wouldn’t you can probably gauge if you’re going over and under pretty easily.

The more time you spend tracking calories, the better you get at gauging if you’re over or under for your maintenance. It honestly becomes second nature at some point.

When You Need to Track Every Day

I would say though if you’re planning on just dropping weight for a competition or for a very specific goal, it might be worth to track every day to keep yourself in check. This will also keep you prepared and if you won’t have any slip-ups.

Another reason to be tracking your calories every day is if you aren’t making progress towards your goal. You may need to reevaluate your caloric and macro goals then. After you reevaluate, you would need to start tracking your calories and macros again at least for a week to see if everything is matching up and you’re making progress towards your goal now.

Final Thoughts

Tracking calories and macros is relatively important, especially when you’re first starting out with weight management. Whether if you’re trying to gain muscle, lose fat, or even maintain. If you’re starting with a new caloric/macro range it’s best to track everything to make sure the range is good for you and you’re meeting your goals. If you’re following the same diet and you’re eating the same thing every day, you can usually stop tracking until you hit a plateau.

However, if you’re someone who is doing a competition or trying to hit a specific weight goal, it might be best to track your weight every day to not have any slip-ups and stay on track.

Photos:

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels
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How to Keep Fit During the Holidays

Posted on December 20, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Keeping fit during the holidays has to be one of the toughest things to do. I give props to people who are able to maintain their nutrition and workout ethic past Thanksgiving, cause usually from there, things start to go downhill for a lot of people. What may seem like an impossible task, maybe a bit easier to do than you think if you follow some of the basic principles of weight management or even just change up your goals a bit for this time of year.

Changing Up Your Goals – The Tale of Bulking

Usually, during the winter, most people tend to hunker down go on bulk, and workouts like madmen and women. You pack on some extra weight, it keeps you that much warmer and overall it just fits with the season. Around this time of year, I’m almost exclusively on bulk and if you think about it, it makes sense logistically to do so.

Here’s why.

Not so Much Guilt

If you’re cutting or trying to even maintain weight during the holidays, it always tends to be a bit more difficult. You don’t want to skimp on your Holiday traditions and fun but you also want to achieve your physical goals. While you shouldn’t still go on a complete binge when you’re on a bulk, you will be able to allow yourself to eat more than you would on a cut. You wouldn’t feel so guilty and you can treat yourself a bit more cause you’ll be making all the gainz anyway (kidding). Seriously though, the more you’re capable of eating and being able to hit your goals is always great. You won’t feel too guilty if you splurge a bit on the actual holidays.

Best Time of the Year for It

If you’re in North America, this is probably one of the better times of year to bulk. In most places, it’s fairly chilly so you can pack on extra layers of clothing to hide that extra weight you may have put on. As well, with the holidays and knowing there will be more days of indulging, bulking seems like the best option to fit into this plan from a caloric standpoint. If you live somewhere warmer, it would still probably be the coldest time of the year regardless. During Spring/Summer, you’ll probably want to be a bit leaner but obviously, that’s up to you.

Changing Your Weekly Calorie Intake

If you’re on a cut or maintenance, it’s not the end of the world. Yes, staying fit during the holidays is a bit harder, but you have some strategies you can implement to stay fit and maintain/lose weight if needed.

One of the things I like to do is plan out my weekly calories and adjust my calories for specific days. For example, currently, I’m eating 1800 calories a day. If I know I’m going to have a Christmas coming up on a Friday, i’ll do the following:

Monday – 1730
Tuesday – 1730
Wednesday – 1730
Thursday – 1730
Friday (Christmas) – 2200
Saturday – 1730
Sunday -1730

As you can see, what I did was increase my calories for Friday (Christmas) and decreased it everywhere else throughout the week. You can easily do this by adding X amount of calories to the day you know you’ll be eating more.

From there, take X and divide it by the number of days you’ll be following be eating ‘normally’ which will be Y. Then subtract your normal daily intake by Y to get your new daily calorie intake.

So if you’re only adding 400 calories to one day of the week, you’ll do 400/6 = 66.66. Then you would do 1800 – 66 = 1733.

If you’re adding 400 calories to 2 days of the week you’ll do 800(total of extra calories added across 2 days)/5 = 160. Then you would do 1800 – 160 = 1640.

The formula would look something like this: NormalCalories – (ExtraCalories*Days/NormalDays) = NewDailyCalories( In exception to the days you’ll be eating more)

If you need to figure out your calories, check out the calorie calculator tool.

Okay, no more math for a bit!

Put in Some Extra Work

I think this point is a bit more obvious, but one way to counteract the indulgence of the holidays is to work out a bit harder. If you have to incorporate a bit of cardio, that works, or even just adding some extra accessory work is always good. Every Thanksgiving, I go really hard at the gym and sometimes do some extra cardio as well. It makes that meal that much more worth it and feels a bit more guilt-free.

Indulge. Get Back to It the Next Day

Okay, so you may have indulged a bit during the holidays. Guess what? You can easily just get back on track the next day. The next day will always be an opportunity to make it right and get back on track. This goes for anything in life too. That one day won’t derail all of your hard work, heck even a week won’t derail all of your hard work. You just make sure you get back to things the next day and you’ll be good to go. Having a sustainable diet will also help you get back on track a bit easier.

Final Thoughts

This time of the year, it seems almost impossible not to gain weight. However, you have many options to keep fit during the holidays.

I would say even if you don’t implement any strategies from this article, let the one thing you take away is to not feel guilt and get back to it the next day. No reason to beat yourself up over a day/week of being off track. You won’t gain back hundreds of pounds. You won’t be even that off track. Just make sure to get back to it and you’ll be good to go.

Happy Holidays from the Blob!

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