Strength Conditioning and Nutrition 101

The site has been moved to a new and improved location http://www.performancenutrition101.com/

Many organisations and textbooks have suggested standard fluid replacement guidelines. However, with the numerable variables (environmental conditions, intensity level, duration, rest periods, the amount of clothing worn, and the goal of the session, practice, competitive event, physical fitness level, individual sweat rate, and etc), research and clinical trials have demonstrated that these standards or drinking by thirst are not adequate and hydration should be individualized. It is important that we incorporate the latest research in tandem with our knowledge of our athletes to ensure the best evidence based clinical practice when it comes to hydration for our athletes and ourselves.

Research on the effects dehydration has had on physical and psychological performance has been controversial. There has been a great deal of disagreement amongst research which has been mainly attributed to different environmental conditions. However, the overall consensus is that as little as 1% dehydration has an effect on heart rate, body temperature, recovery rate and physical and psychological performance.

Everyone wants to improve their performance, get bigger, and stronger faster. One way that has caused an explosion in the supplement industry is rooted in scientific theory. The theory goes as such increasing blood flow to working muscles by way of vasodilation may increase work capacity during both aerobic and anaerobic performances. Also, it may enhance recovery through increased nutrient delivery. Due to these potential benefits the supplement companies grabbed on to the semi-essential amino acid L-arginine because it can be converted to nitric oxide (NO) via NO synthase. NO is responsible for vasodilation. The supplement companies developed a vast market of NO products with L-arginine as the primary ingredient without any human trials being done. The NO supplements continue today to be one of the leading forces in the supplement industry.

Megavitamins 

Everybody knows about multivitamins and more than likely have helped make them into the number 1 supplement. Multivitamins are the largest supplement in the supplement industry. With the huge demand for them, every supplement company is competing in producing thousands of gimmicks to make them stand above the rest.

These supplement companies are praying on the consumers who have heard from the TV doctors that multivitamins are great. Many TV doctors and famous health books have put multivitamins as one of their top 5 supplements everyone should take. However, they haven’t provided us with much information on what constitutes a good multi vitamin.
Today I write in order to educate and protect you from the supplement companies propaganda and the health risks associated.
Yes multivitamins are perfectly fine for you and can be beneficial for the majority of North America but only when multivitamins do not exceed 100% of the RDA value.
I know that the majority of multivitamins on the market have 800% of this, 1600% of that, and so on. This comes with an awesome tag line/gimmick “multivitamins that meet the athletes needs” or bodybuilder or weight lifter and so on.
Unfortunately, this is completely bogus and puts you at incredible health risks. Once your enzyme system becomes saturated the vitamins taken in “megadose” begin to act as chemicals (drugs) in the body.

This probably doesn't mean much to you so let us look at a couple of examples.

Written By Assistant Professor Andrew Heming

Unfortunately, the people who are most interested in strength training are the ones who need it the least. Gyms have tons of young people slaving away to attain their beach body or improve sport performance reasons. However, there are often a smaller handful of wise 50+’ers who realize they need resistance training  more than ever!

Everyone needs a great breakfast to start off the day! So I am going to show you guys my favorite breakfast to kick start the day. This breakfast is loaded with nutrients: low GI carbs, healthy fats, protein, and minerals. This breakfast is a great choice for everyone and especially those who are living an active lifestyle.

Another Study came out demonstrating the incredible effect that High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) can have on your overall health. As you all know, I have become an increasingly strong supporter of HIIT training over the course of the blog. The research has been speaking for itself, stronger than ever, as it continues to come out in support for HIIT training. However, a river of research has been coming out to show the negatives of long distance running (cardio).

So to begin my return to the blog, I want to begin by providing an explanation for why I have not written in a long time. This summer I went up to northern Saskatchewan which is approximately a 10 hour drive north from Saskatoon. For those who do not where I’m talking about, search in Google maps Points North, Saskatchewan, Canada and you will have an idea of where I was. Over the course of the summer, I had little to no internet access and was working for a Uranium Exploration company 7 days a week. On top of all this, I was planning my wedding with what little internet I did have.
The second half is the plan for the upcoming year

Pre Competition Carbohydrate Consumption
Being a former boxer, I knew I needed to eat carbs and lots of them prior to competition. But, how much and when? I could not find the answer by looking through forums and such. I just kept coming across guidelines for aerobic athletes (cyclists and marathon runners). So, today I write with the intention of helping you avoid going through the same issues as I did.

• Eat 3-4 hours before the competition
• 1-2 g/kg body mass or 200-300g of carbohydrates be consumed during this meal
• Of low glycemic carbs (this could be detrimental if you use high glycemic)

This eating will have little to no effect on your muscle glycogen stores (energy stored in your muscles). However, it does have a large effect on your blood sugar levels. It will help prevent the feelings of hunger and help maintain energy level. If you feel hungry between this time and your competition, which I suspect you will, you will want to snack on low GI foods.

During competition
During your exercise you want to have those super high GI carbs you love so much. So many studies have shown that this will help maintain blood glucose levels and improve your exercise performance. I suggest that you do this through your water in-between each round. Make your drink about a 6-8% solution of the delicious sugars (I suggest dextrose; you can get this at any store that has a beer making section) in 8-16 ounces of water. Make sure your trainer knows you have sugar in it so he doesn’t splash you with it and make you all sticky.


Post competition
After that brutal fight, you are exhausted and completely drained of energy. It’s hard to even lift your arms up; only the adrenaline left over from the fight is keeping you going. Your body has used up all its glycogen stores and now it needs your help desperately to refuel it. Here we are going to continue to drink those delicious high GI foods. This will result in the highest amount of muscle glycogen replenishment possible. Not doing this immediately after training will result in a reduced muscle glycogen resynthesis by more than 50% (This means you may take 18-24 hours longer to recover).

• During this phase you should double the concentration of carbs so approx 12-16% solution in 8-16 ounces of water 

During and Post competition carbs are super important if you are in a tournament with multiple matches during the day

Fast absorption of amino acids is incredibly important after training. I have discussed in great detail the importance of having carbs and protein that can be digested and absorbed at incredibly fast rates during and after exercise.

To me, it has always made sense that ingesting essential amino acids as a supplement would provide the fastest possible way in getting them into your blood. However, I had assumed that I must be wrong since I had not found this mentioned in common research literature. With all the focus on protein and branch chain amino acids, I figured I would forget about my hypothesis.

A question commonly asked is whether protein shakes are necessary for obtaining the benefits previously mentioned. Interestingly enough, they have found that milk can be a viable way of attaining all the benefits associated with protein shakes. Studies have demonstrated that milk consumption can stimulate amino acid uptake by skeletal muscle and result in an increase in net muscle protein synthesis.

Something that I find surprising is that Whole milk appears to be more beneficial than fat free milk, unless you ingest the same amount of caloric value of the fat free as the whole milk.

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This is where the fun begins!!!
This article will help improve the performance of every athlete.

Over the 24 hour day, your muscles go through a constantly changing growth cycle, there are times when they are actively involved in producing energy, times when they are recovering, and other times when they are growing. In order for your muscles to function at their peak ability, we need to cater to each of these scenarios, to do this we need to provide the muscles

with the adequate and proper nutrients at the appropriate time.

In every scenario we can guide our muscles metabolic pathways to produce and replenish our muscle glycogen (stored glucose) and synthesize muscle protein. By providing the body with the right nutrient mixture to the muscles at the right time, you can greatly enhance your rate of recovery (18-24+hours) and improve muscle growth, strength, and power. This all adds up to making one deadly warrior

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Note: Understanding that a great deal of people may read this series who have not been following this blog, I am going to attempt to create a fairly in depth series. For those who have been following, I will attempt to provide new information to make them worth your while. Also, I will attempt to go through this stuff at mock speed, so we can get to the fun stuff.

Combat sports in recent years have exploded with the start of the UFC TV series. MMA has become the world’s fastest growing sport. With so many people having the dream of being the next great MMA fighter, boxer, kick boxer, etc. We need to start with having proper nutrition and hydration.


Nutrition for combat fighters is unique. In order, to bring your performance to the next level, we need to work on creating a nutrition plan that enhances skeletal muscle skeletal recovery from the high intensity training associated with your sport. In order to deal with this intensity, we need to provide your body with adequate energy and protein consumption.

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Traditionally, when a woman becomes pregnant, it seems like their freedom for the nine months of pregnancy has disappeared. However, this old school thought should be thrown out the window. No more locking yourself up in the house and trying to avoid all forms of labour.


Since 2002 the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has been in support of regular exercise during and after pregnancy for both healthy and sedentary women. It is time for the public to throw out their out beliefs and see what the research is telling them.  The changes that women experiences during her pregnancy should not be viewed as a limitation. Instead we should all be encouraging them to participate in exercise and practice healthy habits.

Pregnancy is a beautiful time in a woman’s life. But, pregnancy does not come without its issues. One of the  most common problems that women experience is lower back pain.


In order to deal with this issue very few exercise recommendations have been offer to those who suffer from it.


On top of this every mother is worried about maintaining their figure as close as possible during the pregnancy and returning to their sexy body as quickly as possible.


All of these issues can simply be resolved by training the core.  Currently there is very little information available to personal trainers and pregnant mothers on how to safely and appropriately train the core.

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If you only had enough time to do a few exercises, these would be the go to exercises.
There are no better exercises then these for building muscle, strength, and losing weight!
As you know, I am a massive advocate for exercises that involve free weights and moving your body through space.

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Whey protein is probably the biggest supplement purchased.  Most people go to the supplement store and purchase whey because that’s what everyone does. But, is it the right choice and are you using it properly? Could you be using your protein more effectively and see significant improvements?

Written By Vincent St. Pierre
Hypermobility screen


Almost everyone today is extremely inflexible. With all the desk jobs today, it can sure cause your muscles to shorten and tighten. Research has shown that from holding a position for 20 minutes can cause your muscles to begin shortening and we sit around at work for 8 hours.

Before assessing ones shortened muscles and lack of flexibility, we first need to check areas of too much flexibility and double joint. You may be thinking, how can you be too flexible? How can being overly flexible be a problem?

Written By Vincent St. Pierre

• Everyone has asked the question when starting creatine: how should I take it? 
• I have heard about loading, should I, and how much?
• Is there a difference for athletes or general public?

We will attempt to answer all these questions through the course of this article.

I have gone through all these questions myself and have received a million and a half answers: “You should take this much for loading”.....“no, this much”...”no, loading isn’t important it’s just marketing”.... etc.
I found this so frustrating trying to find the true answer, yet no one could supply me with one. They would just tell me what they did. However, I don’t care what they did, I care about what the most effective way of using creatine is; in order to get the full benefits and my money’s worth.