Bashir Murtaza, Author at Blob Fitness

How to Utilize BFR Training

Posted on May 23, 2020May 3, 2021 by Bashir Murtaza

BFR training (Blood Flow Restriction) has a scary name to it. Any time I just mention it, I get a very weird look from whoever I’m talking to. I can’t blame them, I’m sure I had the same reaction the first time I heard the term. BFR isn’t new, but people are starting to implement it into their workouts more and more. With BFR training you will be able to break plateaus and gain muscle and strength with lighter weights! Yes, you read that correctly.

What Is BFR Training?

Blood flow restriction (BFR), also known as occlusion training, is when a person uses wraps/bands to restrict blood flow to specific muscles when they’re working out. Usually, these bands are placed on the upper arms or upper thighs when training. When performing BFR training, you restrict the veins (not arteries) blood flows into the muscle and also prevent it from leaving the muscle. Essentially, blood is being trapped in the muscle.

If you’ve worked out long enough, you know what a “pump” is; it’s one of the best feelings in the world and you wish you could always look as good as your pump. When you do BFR training, you will have the CRAZIEST pump of your life for the reason that blood is trapped in your muscle. It’s one of the reasons your muscles grow.

This pump is also known as cell swelling. Cell swelling and metabolic stress are key factors in muscular growth. Another contribution to muscular growth is the fact that you’re fatiguing your muscles extremely fast. When you fatigue your muscles, your body has to start recruiting more fast twitch muscle fibers which have a greater chance of growing.

How To Use and do BFR Training

We understand now that BFR training has enormous benefits like increased strength and muscle size. So how do you go about starting BFR training? Let’s first go over some fundamentals of how to use BFR to your advantage and how to apply it to your workout.

Exercises and Repetitions

When training with BFR you don’t need to use heavyweight. Most optimal results come when using about 20% of your 1RM for high repetitions. For example, if I can do leg extensions for 200lbs for about 8 – 10 reps I would use around 90 – 100 lbs doing BFR for about 20-30 reps. You can apply BFR to any part of your workout-squats, bench, deadlift, curls, leg press etc. It’s up to you what workouts you want to do it with. You could also do a whole BFR workout and still do heavy sets. However, you will fatigue fairly fast and your form may be sacrificed which can lead to injury.

Another thing is that when I do BFR training, I like to cut down on my rest time between sets unless it’s a compound movement (squats, bench, deadlift etc). If I’m doing isometric exercises (curls, leg extensions, tricep pulldowns, etc.) I cut down my rest time to 20-30 seconds between sets. This increases the intensity and volume of your training.

Band Tightness

When applying the bands, the general rule is that on a scale of 1 – 10 in terms of tightness, you want to be around a 7 (10 being really tight.) If at any time you’re experiencing numbness or pain, loosen up the straps. Personally, I worked my way up and started at a 4 in tightness and slowly progressed to 7 to make sure I wasn’t going too tight and to learn how my body responded to the exercises.

How to Apply the Bands

Upper Body

If you’re doing any upper body workout you want to place the bands right above your biceps/ right below your shoulders.

Lower Body

If you’ll be performing any type of lower body workout, you want to place the bands on your upper thigh. It can be placed outside or inside your clothing as well.

BFR Training Safety and Final Thoughts

BFR Training is a very safe method of training and has been proven many times to be. Physical therapists even use BFR training on clients to help them recover from injuries. It’s a great tool to use. I like to only train BFR 2-3 times a week. I don’t like to do heavy lifting and BFR together because it causes me to fatigue too quickly and can sacrifice my form. If you implement BFR training into your schedule, I promise you that you’ll have great results in strength and muscle gain! Currently, I use these straps and they’ve worked wonders!

If you’re looking more into recovery and what you can do for it, try taking a deload week.

Note: The link above is an affiliated link.

References

Hughes L, Paton B, Rosenblatt B, et al.Blood flow restriction training in clinical musculoskeletal rehabilitation: a systematic review and meta-analysis Br J Sports Med 2017;51:1003-1011.

Yamanaka, Tetsuo, Farley, Richard, Caputo, & L, J. (2012, September). Occlusion Training Increases Muscular Strength in Division.: The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research. Retrieved February 10, 2018, from https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2012/09000/Occlusion_Training_Increases_Muscular_Strength_in.29.aspx

Loenneke, Paul, J., Pujol, & Joseph, T. (2009, June). The Use of Occlusion Training to Produce Muscle Hypertrophy : Strength & Conditioning Journal. Retrieved February 10, 2018, from https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/Fulltext/2009/06000/The_Use_of_Occlusion_Training_to_Produce_Muscle.11.aspx

Lose Weight Easily. A Step by Step Process

Posted on May 23, 2020October 29, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Losing weight seems like a complex process. You often hear about all of these fad diets that pop up every few months on how you can lose X amount of pounds in as little as 3 days. In some cases, it may be true. In other cases not really. Losing weight is a much more simplistic process than what it’s made out to be. We are going to go over the different types of fats, the key to losing weight, and a step-by-step process on how to lose weight with ease.

Different Types of Weight

When we’re in the process of losing weight, we are more concerned with how much weight we lose on the scale. It’s important to note though that we have different types of weight. Your body is made up of lean body mass and body fat.

Lean Body Mass

Lean body mass is your weight minus your body fat. This includes muscular tissue, bones, water weight, organs, and skin. When we refer to “lean body mass”, this is what we mean. Usually, if you’re dropping weight that is lean body mass, you’re either losing water weight or muscle tissue. If you’re losing LBM due to organs, bone density or skin… well that might be a problem.

Body Fat

Body fat is broken up into essential body fat and storage body fat. Essential body fat is the amount of fat we need to live a healthy and functional life, whereas storage body fat is the accumulation of fat/adipose tissue that protects the internal organs. Key word is that it accumulates and can becomes excessive. When you’re losing weight, your goal is to lose storage body fat.

What Losing Weight Easily Comes Down to

We learned that when we are losing weight, our main goal is to lose stored body fat while maintaining as much lean body mass as possible. To lose weight, it comes down to one simple rule, you have to be in a calorie deficit, meaning that you have to burn more calories than you intake. That’s the simplicity of it. Most fad diets work mainly because you’re in a caloric deficit during the process. Let’s look at what a caloric deficiency means for you.

Caloric Deficit

When you’re in a caloric deficit you’re intaking fewer calories than your body is burning. In return, your body starts burning down fat and uses that as energy.

For example, if your calorie maintenance was 2000 calories a day, you can eat 1800 calories a day and be in a calorie deficit and you would start losing weight. It would be as simple as giving up a can of soda or a couple of snacks a day to go into a 200 calorie deficiency.

Granted, you may lose about 0.25 – 0.5 a week but you would be losing weight nonetheless. Now, let’s say you worked out 3-5 days a week and your calorie maintenance was 2000 calories. If you increase your workload (workout 5-6 days a week or more) you can then eat 2000 calories and still be in a calorie deficit and losing weight.

By increasing your workload, you’re utilizing more energy and burning more calories than you’re taking in, which will lead to weight loss.

Step by Step on How to Lose Weight Easily

From above we know that going into a calorie deficit is the key to losing weight. So the first thing you want to do is figure out what your calorie maintenance is. You can click here to utilize the calorie calculator to determine your maintenance calories. Remember, maintenance means if you hit that goal, you are not gaining or losing weight, it’s just the baseline amount your body burns throughout the day.

Step One: New Caloric Goal

So let’s say for example your maintenance calorie intake was 2000 calories a day. The first thing you would want to do is take this number and subtract around 200-300 calories. So your new calorie intake will be 1700-1800 calories a day.

Step Two: Macronutrients

Now that you have your new calorie goal, you’re going to need to get your new set of macros. To understand why macros are important, you can click here. To give a quick summary though, protein is the most important factor when it comes to calculating your macros. The reason being is because you want to maintain as much lean body mass as possible and only lose fat. Granted, this is practically impossible to do on a cut (same as trying to go on a bulk without gaining fat), but you can at least minimize the amount of muscle loss by intaking a proper amount of protein.

Ideally you want to have around 1 gram of protein per pound of body mass. So if you weighed 160 lbs you would want about 160 grams of protein per day. When it comes to carbohydrates and fat, you can weigh that out to decide what works best for you. If you prefer to follow a more keto diet, minimize the carbs and increase your fat intake.

If you’re wondering how you would go about adjusting your macros let’s break it down a bit more. For every 1 gram of protein = 4 calories, 1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 calories and 1 grams of fat = 9 calories. We know that our calorie intake is 1700-1800 but we’ll stick with 1800 for now. We also know that we need to consume 160 grams of protein in order to maintain as much lean body mass as possible.

We’ll multiple the 160 grams of protein by 4 and that equals 640 (160 * 4 = 640). So 640 calories needs to be dedicated to just protein. Let’s subtract that from our 1800 and we’re left with 1160 calories (1800 – 640 = 1160). With that 1160 calories you can do whatever you want!

So if you wanted to do a keto diet and needed a minimum of 40 carbs a day then you would do 40 * 4 = 160. Then you would want to do 1160 (remaining calories) – 160 (calories from carbs) = 1000. Now you have 1000 calories left for fat so then you just do 1000(calories remaining)/9(calories per gram of fat) and you’re left with 111 grams of fat.

Your macronutrients would then be 160 grams of protein, 40 grams of carbs, 111 grams of fat. It may look like a lot at first, but it’s not too bad and you can make your own calculations in a minutes! For the rest of the examples, we’re going to stick with an ordinary carb/fat intake so we’ll say our protein is 160 grams of protein, 145 grams of carbs and 64 grams of fat.

Step Three: Exercise

Now we have everything figured out it’s important that you still exercise the same amount you usually do. If you’re doing resistance training, your main goal when cutting should be to maintain as much strength as possible during the cut. You’ll most likely lose strength no matter what, but you want to try and maintain as much as possible to not see any drastic decreases in strength.

Cheat Meals and Exercise

I want to also note that if you know you’re going to go out to eat and probably go over your macro and calorie range, you should double down on your workouts. If you usually do resistance training, add cardio to your workout that day and vice versa. If you usually do both resistance training and cardio in your workouts just do a little bit more than usual. This way you’re most likely going to expend more calories than you’re consuming and hopefully stay in a calorie deficit (or at-least close the margin of excess calories eaten).

Step Four: Tracking Weight

One of the most important steps is to track and log your daily intake. When you don’t track the foods you’ve eaten it’s very easy to forget what you’ve taken in during the day and underestimate the amount of food you’ve already eaten. I remember the first time I started tracking my food I was surprised on how fast everything started adding up! When you start tracking your items, you’ll be more self aware of just how much you’ve eaten and where you’re at throughout the day in regards to your macros. I promise, once you start tracking your food intake, you’ll see better results. There are plenty of great tracking apps like Myfitnesspal or My Macros + (you can also do it old school and write it all down).

Step Five: Checking In

The last part of this process is checking in. After every week it’s important to check your body weight and your body fat. From here you can see if you’re on track with your goals. Let’s go over a few scenarios that can occur and what to do (all assuming you’ve been keeping track of calories and macros):

I’m Not Losing Weight and/or Body Fat

If you didn’t lose any weight or body fat don’t panic! A simple solution to this problem is take the calorie intake you originally had and reduce it by 100. You can do that, or add some extra training time into your normal routine.

I Gained Weight and/or Body Fat

If you gained weight during the process, follow the same advice as above but reduce your calories by 150 this time and see where you lay in the following week.

I Gained Weight and Lost Body Fat

If you gained weight and lost body fat, that means you gained some lean body mass. This isn’t a bad thing. You should keep you calories and macros the same. If your body fat starts to increase though, then you’ll reduce more. (Note lean body mass also means something like water weight)

I Lost Weight and Didn’t Lose Body Fat

This is usually due to dropping water weight. You can drop water weight REALLY fast. Whenever you hear someone say “I lost 10lbs in a week!” It’s mainly water weight they lost. You’ll still be keeping your calorie intake and macros the same

I Lost Weight and Body Fat

Congrats! This is what you want to achieve! You won’t be adjusting your calorie and macros. You want to be able to consume as many calories as possible and still lose weight and fat. So once you hit a plateau, you’ll cut back on calories again.

Final Thoughts

This may seem like a lot to take in! You may even be thinking to yourself “hm this isn’t as simple as he made it sound like.” Trust me, it is. Tracking your food and checking in once a week takes up a small fraction of time. Once you do it for a week or two, you’ll get used to it and it’ll be part of your daily routine that you won’t think much of it.

Best Music to Listen to When you Workout

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Music is one of the few, but most important things that fuel my workout. It gives me energy, it gets me ready, and puts me in a proper mindset to get after my workout. If for some reason you haven’t listened to music while training I highly, HIGHLY recommend it. With all of the genres out there, what is the best music to listen to when exercising? I actually like to break up my playlist based on the type of workout I’m doing (cardio, resistance training, mobility/yoga). Here are the genres I listen to for each kind of workout:

RESISTANCE TRAINING/PRE WORKOUT

If you know me personally, you know I’m a huge heavy metal fan. When it comes to resistance training I always listen to heavy metal. It provides an extra pump that is almost undescribed. When you’re listening to a band like Amon Amarth, a Swedish band that has all of their songs based on Norse mythology, and you hear things like “See me rise, the mighty Surt Destroyer of the universe, Bringer of flames and endless hurt, Scorcher of men and Earth” with crazy riffs and drumming in the background, how could you not get hyped? You feel like you’re about to destroy everything in your path. Weights look puny and light and you feel like you can conquer the world. If I’m about to go for a new PR (personal record) or one rep max, my go-to song is The Heaviest Matter of the Universe by Gojira. I can’t put into words how good this song is. Next time you’re going to lift heavy, listen to that song. You won’t be disappointed.

Another genre I listen to during resistance training is hip hop. I wouldn’t listen to it during the workout itself, but more often during my warm up to get into the proper mindset. I’m not too much into hip hop and my knowledge of artist is very limited. However, I usually listen to Kendrick Lamar or Eminem.

Top 10 Resistance training songs:

The Heaviest Matter of the Universe – Gojira
Rip & Tear – Mick Gordon (Doom Soundtrack)
Flying Whales – Gojira
Destroyer of the Universe – Amon Amarth
Twilight of the Thunder God – Amon Amarth
Anything off Kill ‘Em All – Metallica
Iron Tusk – Mastodon
Holy wars – Megadeth
Clenching the Fists of Dissent – Machine Head
The Great Southern Trendkill – Pantera

There are so many more I want to list and I’m sure my top 10 will change, but currently, that’s what I’ve been listening to.

CARDIO

With cardio I’ve always had mixed playlists. Some days I’ll put on metal, other days I’ll put on rap. At some point though (and most often) I’ll turn to EDM(electronic dance music). I’m not a huge EDM fan, but I do enjoy listening to it during my cardio sessions. I’ll make the exception for when I’m doing something like HIIT(High Intensity Interval Training)- I don’t really like having a constant/consistent beat because usually HIIT workouts aren’t consistent and get changed up quite often.

My top 10 Cardio songs:

Superliminal – Deadmau5
One More Time – Daft Punk
Touch It / Technologic – Daft Punk (Alive 2007)
Pursuit – Gesaffelstein
Stache – Zedd
Who’s Afraid Of 138!? – Armin Van Buuren
Iron – Calvin Harris
EML Ritual – The Chemical Brothers
Galvanize – The Chemical Brothers
Greyhound – Swedish House Mafia

My EDM knowledge isn’t too great and some of these songs may be basic to true fans, but it helps me get through those long dull cardio sessions.

YOGA/MOBILITY

The times I do yoga or any type of mobility work, I like to listen to something that’s more unwinding and a bit more relaxing. My go-to genre is post rock. It can be slightly dramatic in sound, but usually it has a more calming sound to it. During mobility work you don’t want to be too distracted from what you’re doing (at least I don’t) and listening to something that helps me stay more focused usually works best.

My top 10 yoga/mobility songs:

Barren Lands of the Modern Dinosaur – If These Trees Could Talk
The Wilderness – Explosions In The Sky
Pig Powder – God is An Astronaut
The World is Our __ – This Will Destroy You
They Move On Tracks Of Never-Ending Light – This Will Destroy You
The Only Moment We Were Alone – Explosions In The Sky
Ashes in the Snow – Mono
Darkfield – Caspian
The Heart That Fed – Caspian
I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead – Mogwai

Don’t let the song titles fool you, these are some really amazing songs. Post rock may not be everyone’s genre, but if you’re looking for something relaxing or something to listen toto focus, I think you’ll like it 😉

FINAL THOUGHTS

Music is one of the main elements that fuel my workout (Fuel – Metallica). It gets me amped up and sets the mood and energy for me. When I see people workout without music I give them huge props cause I know my workouts aren’t the same without listening to some type of music. These are all of my go-to tracks depending on what I’m doing. Send me an email or DM on Instagram of any tracks you like to listen to! I’m always interested in new music to listen to!

Benefits Of Creatine

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Creatine is supplement that is a bit mystic to most people. You’ll see someone look at another person who’s built and say something like “Wow that’s all creatine, bro,”almost as if it was a steroid. I’ve had people tell me they want to be “natural” and they think that taking creatine would make them “unnatural,” which is not true. Let’s go a bit deeper into what creatine is, and if it can help you see better results!

WHAT IS CREATINE?

Creatine is “an amino acid, that is a constituent of the muscles of vertebrates and is phosphorylated to store energy used for muscular contraction”. Basically, creatine allows your muscles to produce more energy. This allows you to be able to lift heavier weights and perform high intensity workouts quicker. Even though we know of creatine as a supplement, creatine is formed naturally in your body as well. It helps regenerate adenosine triphosphate or known as ATP. ATP is your body’s source of energy. To simply things, when ATP is used or gets “split off” it turns into ADP. ADP can be regenerated into ATP again though. When you take creatine, it helps ADP recycle to ATP[1]. Dr. Layne Norton has a great article explaining this process in more depth.

CREATINE BENEFITS

MUSCLE GROWTH AND STRENGTH GAINS

From the above section, we know that creatine will give us more energy and allow us to work out longer and lift heavier. Creatine will improve strength and hypertrophy when performing weight training[2].

Even from my own personal experience, once I start cycling on creatine my workouts take a noticeable shift. They’re more intense and I can push out a lot more than usual. My body usually has more of a “pump” to it as well. If you haven’t used creatine before, you’ll most likely experience noticeable benefits in strength and muscle mass fairly quickly.

IS IT SAFE?

Even though creatine sounds harmful, it’s actually a safe supplement to take! It has been shown through studies not to have any negative effects [3]. However, like anything else, if you take more than the recommended dose of it, it can lead to complications.

WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO TAKE IT?

BEFORE OR AFTER WORKOUT?

There tends to be a bit of debate on when the best time to take creatine is. Some people say the best time to take it is before their workout because it provides more energy. Other people say that they like to take it after their workouts to help ensure recovery. It’s been shown though, that taking it after your workout may be more beneficial, there isn’t a significant change in body weight and fat. One study found the benefits of post-workout creatine to be fat-free mass, 1RM for bench press, and fat mass.[4]

BULKING OR CUTTING?

One of the main side effects of creatine is increased retention of water weight. So if you’re bulking and start taking creatine, you’ll most likely gain an extra 4-5 pounds of water weight easily. It will also help with your overall goal of getting stronger and muscular gains.

If you were cutting and going into a competition, I personally wouldn’t recommend taking it because, like I said above, you’ll have an extra 4-5 pounds of water weight on you and you’ll not only be a bit more bloated, but you’ll look it too. However, if you can cut down the water weight and cycle off (stop taking the supplement for about 2-4 weeks) of creatine, then it doesn’t hurt. You’ll most likely have an easier time of retaining strength and mass.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Creatine is a great supplement to take that can help you achieve success in your journey. If you’re bulking, I highly recommend taking it, and if you’re cutting then I would say you can take it as long as you don’t have a contest coming up. Personally I use the optimum nutrition creatine and it’s worked great for me! I do want to state though, before you start taking any supplement you should talk to your doctor first to make sure it is okay for you to be taking it.

REFERENCES

The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. (2016, August 19). Adenosine triphosphate. Retrieved January 20, 2018, from https://www.britannica.com/science/adenosine-triphosphate
Wang C-C, Lin S-C, Hsu S-C, Yang M-T, Chan K-H. Effects of Creatine Supplementation on Muscle Strength and Optimal Individual Post-Activation Potentiation Time of the Upper Body in Canoeists. Nutrients. 2017;9(11):1169. doi:10.3390/nu9111169.
Hall, M., & Trojian, T. H. (n.d.). Creatine supplementation. Retrieved January 20, 2018, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23851411
Antonio J, Ciccone V. The effects of pre versus post workout supplementation of creatine monohydrate on body composition and strength. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2013;10:36. doi:10.1186/1550-2783-10-36.

Overcoming Setbacks and Injuries

Posted on May 23, 2020September 30, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Getting injured during your fitness journey is probably one of the most frustrating things that can happen to you. You usually have to take time off in order recover from your injury. Usually when you get back, it feels like you just took 3 steps backward and you feel demoralized and unmotivated to get after it again. I know it’s terrible, I’ve been there multiple times. Let’s go through some strategies to overcome these setbacks and injuries.

WHAT CAUSED THE INJURY?

My most frequent injuries stem from during squats. Oftentimes, as soon as I felt like I getting better at it, I would injure myself and have to stop squatting for a month or 2. Then I would return back and have to rebuild my strength once again. Injuries happen for a reason though. Even though there can be many causes of the injury, it usually ends up being an issue related to mobility, form, or adding too much weight too fast. I went through knee pain, hip pain, lower back pain, elbow pain, shoulder pain, wrist pain and groin pain. All from squatting! Even though it would have been very easy to just say “Squats are bad for you!” and stop forever, that’s not the truth. I was doing something wrong and had to correct it.

LEARN FROM THE INJURY

Once I pinpointed what caused my injury, the first thing I did was try and figure out how to fix it. I found out I had knee pain because I didn’t have a straight bar path when I was squatting, so I took time to fix it. While you’re injured and resting, it’s a great time to learn more about the movement that caused the injury in the first place. Getting injured is a way of finding out where some of your weaknesses lie and offers a chance to fix them so they don’t lead to injury again.

FOCUS ON MOBILITY

Most of my injuries ultimately stemmed from poor mobility. Unfortunately, mobility is overlooked fairly often. However, lack of proper mobility commonly causes injuries. While I’m injured and resting, I focus my attention more on my mobility. I do a lot of self-myofascial release (foam rolling) and stretching. Focusing on mobility will help you to recover and contribute to the prevention of further injuries as well. At one point, I was suffering from lower back pain that was actually being caused by my glutes. I made sure to focus more on mobility in that area and it helped clear up my issues. You’ll find that when you’ve increased your mobility and are able to perform the move again, you’ll perform better than ever!

GO UPON YOUR NORMAL SCHEDULE

Even though you’re battling an injury, you can still do workouts to keep along your schedule. For example, if I injured hamstring, I would skip leg day for the most part and focus on mobility and stretches for legs, but I would still be able to do upper body workouts and focus on other parts that I may be lacking. If I were to injure my arm, I would focus on getting my leg workouts in and throw some more cardio into the mix (as long as it’s not using my arms). Just because one area is injured, it doesn’t mean you have to throw out your entire fitness plan! Keep on your schedule and replace workouts of the injured area with recovery work.

TAKE AN OFF/DELOAD WEEK

When you’re injured, you can go along your daily schedule, but sometimes the best thing to do is either to take an off week or a deload week. What’s the difference? A deload week is different from just not going to the gym. On your deload week, you reduce the amount of weight you lift compared to your usual schedule, which allows for recovery and prevents overtraining while still keeping to your schedule. In some cases, taking some time off from the gym and not doing any lifts at all can work in your favor. Sometimes, the cause of your injury could have been from overloading and not having proper recovery, so your body just may need a break.It’s important to listen to your body and not overthink things, if your body is telling you to stop, there’s no shame in taking some time off! You might want to try starting off by deloading and moving to a full off-week if you’re still in a lot of pain.

FINAL THOUGHTS-DON’T GET DISCOURAGED!

Being injured is terrible. I like to think of it as a learning experience that provides some time to focus on other areas of weakness. For me, mobility is my biggest weakness and being injured gives me extra time to work on that issue. During the time you’re injured, reflect on what you can do better so when you’re back, you’re better than before. Use the time to your advantage. While your body may be injured, your fitness journey isn’t. When you come back, you’ll know how to prevent that same injury in the future, you’ll be better and more prepared for the move, and you’ll be back with a fresh mind and body. I know from experience that going through sometimes long, grueling months of trying to return from an injury can be frustrating, but if you use that time constructively and learn from what happened, you’ll come out better in the end.

I also want to remind you that any injury you may have should always involve a consultation with a doctor in order to determine the best route for recovery.. You should also never “push through the pain”. The only time that advice is relevant is when you’re sore and you’re simply “pushing through” that. You should never push through an injury you’ve sustained. If you do have one, you should seek a doctor consult ASAP to prevent it from getting worse.

Tips to Improve Your Squat

Posted on May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

The squat is one of the most dominant exercises you can do. It’s a compound movement that works out your quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, hips, and even your core. Unfortunately, squats get a bad rep. Many people get discouraged from doing squats because they hear that it’s bad for their knees/joints or they’ve experienced an injury firsthand when squatting before. The squat is not a bad movement and it isn’t “bad” for you. However, doing the squat improperly will lead to injuries and other issues. Let’s look over some of the most common issues faced during squats and see how we can fix them.

KNEE PAIN

Knee pain is probably one of the most common pains associated with squats. Plenty of people fall victim to it, including myself. One of the major reasons knee pain occurs when squatting is usually because of a non-vertical bar path. When you squat, you want the bar path to stay in a straight, vertical line aligned with your midfoot. If the bar path isn’t accurate and lays more forward than it should, you will be putting all that pressure and weight onto your knees.

ANKLE MOBILITY

One of the causes of a non-vertical bar path is poor ankle mobility. Lack of ankle mobility could make you lean forward during a squat, which leads to an improper bar path. If you want to improve your ankle mobility I would recommend checking out this article. I highly recommend getting squat shoes as well, if you don’t already have them. I currently use Adidas Performance Men’s Powerlift 3.1 and they’ve worked wonders!

STANCE

Another issue that can cause knee pain is your stance while squatting. This is a little bit more tricky though. We all have a different anatomy, which means your squat stance is going to vary person to person. The recommended stance is with feet shoulder width apart and your feet pointed slightly out about 30-40 degrees out. Personally, I squat a little bit wider than shoulder width and have a foot stance of about 35 degrees out. One trick I learned to get a proper foot stance is to squeeze your glutes. Squeezing your glutes will usually place your feet in what would be an optimal position for you to squat. Play around with your stance and feet angles and see what is most comfortable for you.

LOWER BACK PAIN

Lower back pain is another common issue when people squat. There are plenty of issues that can cause lower back pain during the squat. It may be an issue with your form, a weak core, too much weight or mobility issues (or maybe a combination of sorts).

ANTERIOR PELVIC TILT

Something that is common though is anterior pelvic tilt. Anterior pelvic tilt is when the front of the pelvis drops and the back of the pelvis rises. It causes your lower back to curve and your stomach/gut will stick out more. Usually anterior pelvic tilt is caused by a sedentary lifestyle. Which can lead to either muscle imbalances or tight muscles. Since we tend to sit a lot, the hip flexors tend to get tighter which can cause anterior pelvic tilt.

One specific movement that helped with my tight hip flexors was the half kneeling hip flexor stretch. To perform the stretch, follow the steps below:

Take your right leg and place your knee on the ground.
Take your left leg and place it in front of you.
While you’re in this movement push your hips forward and hold this stretch for 30 seconds.
Repeat on opposite side.

CORE STABILITY

For core stability, I highly recommend doing the Valsalva maneuver. The Valsalva maneuver is a breathing technique that will help to provide core stability and proximal (or center/core) stiffness which helps you power through movements. Most people say the proper way to breathe when lifting is to inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up. However, that isn’t the proper way to breathe when doing lifts, especially squats. It has been proven that the Valsalva maneuver increases intra-abdominal pressure which creates stability in the vertebral column. Doing this maneuver not only helps protect your lower back and your spine, but will also help you power through your lifts, and is a completely safe technique.

TIGHT HAMSTRINGS

For tight hamstrings, I recommend doing PNF(Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation) hamstring stretches. Over time, it has worked wonders for me. My hamstrings are extremely tight and I usually end off a squat session doing these hamstring stretches. You want to already be warmed up before you perform this stretch.

To perform this stretch, follow the steps below:

*Requirements – Resistance Band.

Lay on your back and put your right leg at a 90 degree angle and lay your left leg on the ground.
Push your leg in the opposite direction and hold for about 5-10 seconds.
Release and bring your leg towards you and you should be able to bring your leg closer to you.
Repeat steps 2-3 for 4-5 times on each leg.

Here is a great video explaining the movement and showing the technique.

BALANCE/STABILITY

Another issue that occurs while squatting is improper balance while doing the movement. A while back I use to have a problem with balance and keeping stability. Lack of stability would cause me to either lean too far forward during my squat or cause me to lean side to side. This can lead to plenty of the issues we’ve described above. The solution to my problem was cured with one easy switch.

I use to always squat in front of a mirror. Mainly to look at myself lift and make sure I wasn’t making any mistakes during the lift. It makes perfect sense, but I could never get my stability down. The reason why is because the mirror was distracting me. I was constantly moving my eyes and following my own eyes in the mirror. This led to me being unbalanced and never keeping true stability. Just to try as an example, if you stand on one foot and keep balance, and you move your eyes up and down constantly, you will eventually lose balance fairly fast. Now try the same thing except keep your eyes fixated on one position (preferably slightly in front of you but towards the ground.) You’ll notice you’re able to keep balance with ease. Next time you squat try not looking into the mirror (squat the opposite direction.) If your gym equipment doesn’t allow you to squat the opposite direction, that’s fine; keep your eyes fixated on one position and you’ll notice how much easier it will be for you to maintain balance and stability.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The squat looks to be a very simple movement but there is plenty that goes into it. I personally used to get discouraged from squats any time injury occurred. You live and you learn though. The techniques I mentioned above helped my squat in so many ways. I would like to go into more about the squat and even how to perform the squat but this has been done countless amounts of times and there are people who are far more experienced with the physiology behind the squat.

Personally a book I highly recommend getting is The Squat Bible by Dr. Aaron Horschig and Dr. Kevin Sonthana. In the book, they delve into the basics of how to perform the squat (and multiple variations of the squat) as well as how/where injuries can occur, from your ankles all the way up to your shoulders, with detailed answers on why these injuries occur and stretches/movements on how to fix them. You can read my review of the book here. I also want to note, that if you’re experiencing any type of pain/injury, you should still contact your doctor or a sports doctor to get it looked at. Make sure to lighten the load if you’re injured or maybe just take some time off. It’s better to stop now rather than have the injury to get so serious that you can’t do certain exercises anymore.

REFERENCES

Myer, G. D., Kushner, A. M., Brent, J. L., Schoenfeld, B. J., Hugentobler, J., Lloyd, R. S., McGill, S. M. (2014). The back squat: A proposed assessment of functional deficits and technical factors that limit performance. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 36(6), 4–27. http://doi.org/10.1519/SSC.0000000000000103

Crushing Your New Year’s Goals

Posted on May 23, 2020December 28, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

It’s a New Year! Or almost a New Year depending on when you’re reading this. So Happy New Year to you, dear reader or happy almost New Year! A new year means it’s time to start setting your goals and crushing them! You’ve got the extra motivation to get it done and you want to start the year off right and productive. Often you hear convictions of people saying they don’t believe in new years resolutions or they’re not into setting goals. That’s fine if that works for you. I believe New Year’s Day marks a new beginning and it’s a mental fresh start to accomplish your goals. Let’s go through some ways you can maximize your abilities to achieve those goals.

Writing Your Goals Down

Before the new year starts, I write down all of the goals I wish to accomplish. I either grab a notebook or use Google Sheets and mark down all the goals I wish to achieve in the New Year. Depending on the goal, I usually set up more “mini” goals.

Mini Goals

A mini goal is a smaller goal that helps you progress to completing the main goal. As an example, if my goal was to lose 30lbs this year, I would make a goal to lose 2lbs in the next 2-3 weeks. I would keep building upon that until I’ve lost the 30lbs. I personally do this with weight lifting. My goal for this year is to hit a 400lb deadlift. I’m going to try reaching small PRs(personal records) throughout the year until I meet my goal. Using this technique also helps because it guides you from getting discouraged and allows you to stay focused and on track.

Logging Your Days

It’s easy to be bombarded with tasks to do throughout the day. You may not get a chance to be as productive as you want to be. Maybe you forgot to complete tasks that you were supposed to do simply because you were too busy or it wasn’t on your mind. To fix this, you should start logging your days.

What I mean by logging, is keeping track of everything did for the day as well as seeing what still needs to be done. This is a bit different from just making a task list of things you wish to get done throughout the day. The reason being is that when you log everything you do throughout the day you can start to see where you have or don’t have free time. You can also see if you’re giving yourself too many tasks. This is extremely beneficial because you will know just how busy you are, where you have free time to get certain tasks done, and you can see if you need to scale yourself back and give yourself more free time.

In terms of fitness, you can use this technique more in-depth. In addition to just logging your days, you can also be logging your food intake and your weight lifting/cardio progress. You’ll be able to see if you’re eating too much or too little. You’ll get a gauge of how strong you’re getting or if you’re plateauing. I track my workouts and my food intake daily and it’s helped me progress in tremendous ways.

Ask Yourself One Question

I like to ask myself this one question every day, and that is “Am I one step closer to reaching my goals?” It’s a question to see if I’m headed in the right direction or am I falling behind. It’s a way for me to summarize my day and say to myself “Great, keep doing what you’re doing” or, “Alright, I gotta get myself back on track tomorrow.” I like this question because it puts things into perspective. If things aren’t going right, I’ll check my logs and do some time management rearrangement to see where I’m able to fit in extra tasks.

Get Disciplined

If this isn’t already on your list of goals, I would add “get disciplined”. Being more disciplined in your own life will help you take better control of yourself and your goals. You’ll notice that you’ll get more done and you’ll be completing more goals. To read more, check out this article I wrote Forget Motivation, Get Disciplined. I also recommend, checking out Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Willink.

Final Thoughts

New Year’s resolutions are great to set. It’s a great way to set new goals and challenges for yourself for the upcoming year. The problem usually lies within following up with these goals. All the tips I’ve mentioned above have helped me to achieve my goals at exceptional rates of time. These tips don’t have to be applied to just fitness goals either, you can use them for pretty much anything. Keep track of your goals, keep yourself inline, and be honest with yourself on where you might be slacking and where you need to fix it. Go crush your goals!

Mind and Muscle Connection

Posted on May 23, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

MIND AND MUSCLE CONNECTION

Exercising is a physical activity. We are sometimes mindless during the process. Being more mindful during your workouts can give you a bigger boost in strength and hypertrophy!

WHAT IS BEING MINDLESS?

We usually lift weights and workout and don’t really concentrate on the movement. We throw weights around and lift them up without really thinking too much about, which is fair because exercising is a physical activity. You shouldn’t have to think too much about it except to make sure your form is good. You’ll still see results, but it may feel like you’re lacking for the amount of weight you’re lifting. This is where being mindful comes into play.

BEING MINDFUL

When you’re working out, you should be mindful to some extent to at least ensure your form is good. If there is one thing you should be mindful of, that should be it. However, being mindful of the actual movement and contraction itself can play a huge benefit in your results.

For example, if you were going to do curls of 25lbs,it could be very easy to just kind of use momentum to get your arms up and down. It’s fairly easy to do and you feel like you’re lifting some pretty good weight. Now if you lift that same weight and focus on the muscle contraction and the eccentric of the movement, you’ll notice that the exercise is more difficult and you may have to lighten the load just a bit.

WHY?

When you establish a mind and muscle connection, and do it effectively, you’ll notice that your strength will go up and you will make hypertrophy gains (gaining muscle). Studies have shown that having a mind-muscle connection helps activate muscles more during the movement. When you’re activating more muscle fibers, you’re fatiguing them faster which leads to hypertrophy and strength gains. From various people I’ve encountered, the one pivotal part of their lifting experience was when they started focusing on the movement. Once you master it, you’ll reap extreme benefits from it.

ESTABLISHING A MIND AND MUSCLE CONNECTION

Let’s walk through a proper way of establishing a mind/muscle connection. For the example we’ll be using the bicep curl as our movement.

Take the weight in hand. Feel free to lighten the load just a bit since it may be difficult to do at first.
When lifting the weight concentrate on the contraction of the bicep. Try to make sure you’re only using your bicep to lift the weight up. Don’t use your back or rely on momentum to lift the weight up.
When lifting, make sure you’re going through the whole movement,not just a half rep. Lift the weight all the way up to its peak without messing up your form or exaggerating the movement.
When settling the weight, don’t just throw it down. Concentrate on the eccentric (when the muscle in lengthening under load or when bringing the weight down) part of the movement and feel your muscles stretching back out to its original position.
Repeat.

This same method applies for all exercises. If it’s a compound movement like squat, bench, or deadlift, you’re focusing on more then just one muscle group,so it’s a bit more difficult. I want to reiterate that if you need to, lighten up the weight. There is no shame in it. Having perfect form and concentration during an exercise with less weight will always be superior to performing an exercise with higher weight and bad form/ no concentration.

FINAL THOUGHTS AND EXTRA TIPS

Having a mind and muscle connection can help you reach a new level in your results. I specifically remember when I started to establish a connection because I hit a new level in strength and mass really fast. I was using muscles I wasn’t normally using and it was easily noticeable the muscle gain I was getting from this too. If you’re having trouble establishing a mind/muscle connection I would recommend trying time under tension movements.

TIME UNDER TENSION

Time under tension (TUT) means how long long your muscle is under strain during a specific movement. For certain muscle groups I had a problem establishing a proper connection with, I would use TUT and It would help me establish a more mindful connection. To perform a TUT workout follow these steps:

Lighten the weight for the exercise you’re going to perform.
When contracting the muscle go at a steady pace of 6 seconds.
When you hit the peak, focus on the eccentric part of the movement for a pace of 6 seconds as well.
Repeat.

You can change up the amount of time, but I would recommend 4+ seconds. You can also do something like: 6 seconds up, and 4 seconds down or 4 seconds up and 6 seconds etc. Experiment with it and see what works best for you. After doing TUT exercises, you should have a easier time establishing a better mind/muscle connection.

NOT THE END ALL BE ALL

I want to clarify that even though I do think a mind-muscle connection is extremely important, it doesn’t mean you have to have that connection every movement. When you’re lifting heavy weight, you would want a more explosive movement. Explosive movements also recruit a great amount of muscle fibers and fatigue you fairly fast. A mind-muscle connection during a workout should be something you use during your workouts, but it doesn’t have to be every exercise. It should be a tool for you to use when needed.

For example, if it was leg day and I had to do a compound movement like squats, I would use more explosive movements. However, if i’m doing something like leg extensions or leg curls, I would make sure to contract the muscle and use a more TUT approach. Experiment with it and see what works best for you!

REFERENCES

Calatayud, J., Vinstrup, J., Jakobsen, M.D. et al. Eur J Appl Physiol (2016) 116: 527. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-015-3305-7

Fixing Tight Glutes

Posted on May 23, 2020October 29, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

The glutes are some of the most powerful muscles we have and use. We usually tend to overlook these muscles in terms of mobility. However, tight glutes can cause plenty of issues down the line including, lower back pain, hamstring pain, and much more.

The Glutes

Your glutes are primarily made up of 3 different muscle groups. The gluteus medius, minimus, and gluteus maximus. You also have another muscle called the piriformis that is underneath the glute. When your glutes are immobile or weak it can cause a wide array of issues. Usually, a common issue lies at the piriformis muscle. The piriformis muscle helps with rotating the hip as well as stabilization in the hip joint. When the piriformis gets tight it can cause issues that are similar to the ones mentioned above. We are going to go over how to overcome some of these issues and increase mobility.

Stretches and Mobility Work for Tight Glutes

There are various movements you can do to increase mobility within your glute muscles. Here is a compiled list of stretches/techniques I use to help with my mobility.

SMR- Glutes

SMR (Self-myofascial release) is a form of therapy to help release muscle tightness by relaxing contracted muscles and improving blood circulation.

Requirements: Lacrosse Ball/Tennis Ball or Foam/Rumble Roller.

Perform:

Place the lacrosse ball or foam roller underneath your glute
Place that same leg over the opposite knee.
Roll for about 20 seconds
Turn on the side of that same glute and roll for another 10 seconds
Repeat on the opposite side

You should do this 2 times on each side. Totaling for 60 seconds on each side.

Supine Piriformis Stretch

Requirements: Ground. Mat (optional)

Perform:

Lay on the ground.
Bend both knees.
Place your left leg over your right knee.
Wrap your hands around your right hamstring.
Pull and hold for about 20 – 30 seconds.
Repeat on the opposite side.

Pigeon Pose

The pigeon pose is a great glute stretch but it’s also a great hip flexor stretch!

Requirements: Ground. Mat (optional)

Perform:

Start in a downward dog position.
Raise your left leg up in the air and then swing it in front of you.
When your left leg is coming in front of you rotate it towards your right hand.
Place your right leg behind you.
Lean over and hold the stretch for about 30-45 seconds.
Repeat on the opposite side.

Wikihow has a great tutorial on how to do this move!

Final Thoughts

I want to first say that if you’re experiencing any pain whatsoever you should visit your doctor/physician or a sports doctor. I’m not a doctor. These are just some helpful stretches and mobility work that I do that has helped me out in the past. If you’re experiencing any type of pain, you should go see a physician.

If you’re looking for more superior glute exercises, no better workout than the squat. Check out my article on squat tips that may help alleviate your cause of tight glutes.

Is Cardio Detrimental to Gains?

Posted on May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 by Bashir Murtaza

Cardio is known to most weight lifters as evil; it ruins all the gains and would cause setbacks in strength and hypertrophy. The question is, how true is this? Most people hear this from word of mouth or “bro-science”. We’re going to dive deeper into it and see the real results.

WHERE DID THIS ORIGINATE?

Since the dawn of the gym, it has always been said that if you do cardio you’re going to ruin any gains (muscle gains/hypertrophy) you may get. It’s also believed that you may also lose out on any strength benefits from your resistance training. You do resistance training to gain strength/muscle mass. You do cardio to lose weight/fat. Thinking about this logically, it almost seems counterproductive to do cardio and resistance training together. It makes sense, which is why this is believed amongst lifters.

DOES CARDIO DETEREMENT GAINS?

There are different forms of cardio. There is high-intensity training (HIT) and there is also moderate-intensity endurance training (MOD) (There are more but this is what we’ll be focusing on.) A study conducted in 2016(1), it showed that people who combined MOD and regular resistance training (weight training) saw a slight increase in mass, mainly in the lower body. However, combining HIT and resistance training didn’t show much of an increase in mass. The difference wasn’t too significant though. Overall, resistance training solely had the best outcome of hypertrophy gains. From that study, the upper body and total body growth didn’t increase to a significant amount.

DOES CARDIO DETEREMENT STRENGTH GAINS?

Strength is different from just ordinary muscle gain. Strength is defined as “Physical strength is the measure of an animal’s exertion of force on physical objects”. When we workout, we usually test our strength by performing a one-rep max. Doing so, we can determine how strong we are. From the same study from 2016(1), people who incorporated HIT or MOD into their resistance training saw a lower increase in strength vs people who only did resistance training. If you’re looking to increase strength, your best bet is to limit the cardio as much as possible or at least do something not too intense.

DOING TOO MUCH

If you’re in a caloric surplus and you’re doing resistance training, you’ll most likely experience hypertrophy and strength gains. However, when you add cardio into the equation you’re increasing your workload and you’re expending more energy than normal. If you keep the same diet and keep your caloric intake the same, you’re bound to either maintain or even lose mass. It’s very important that if your goal is to gain mass/strength and you’re doing cardio, you must consider that factor and increase your caloric intake even more. If you don’t know what your caloric intake and what factors to consider, click here.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Cardio definitely has an effect on your muscular gains and strength. However, from the research I was looking into, there are some variables I would like to see that weren’t taken place, such as swapping when cardio was done and when resistance training was done during the workout (the people who were doing this experiment were doing cardio first, then resistance training.) If more information becomes available, I’ll make sure to revisit this article and give additional information. If you’re looking to make muscular gains or strength gains, you should limit the cardio. If you need to do cardio, make sure to keep it at a low level, and to increase your caloric intake.

REFERENCES

Behm DG, Young JD, Whitten JHD, et al. Effectiveness of Traditional Strength vs. Power Training on Muscle Strength, Power and Speed with Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Frontiers in Physiology. 2017;8:423. doi:10.3389/fphys.2017.00423.