Strength Conditioning and Nutrition 101

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.

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.

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.

The most common and effective way of increasing your creatine stores is through loading. So, what is the best way to load? How much should you take? And for how long should you load?

Now as previously mentioned the best form of creatine to take is creatine monohydrate; for why please refer to this article. don’t fall for the sales pitch that you don’t need to load with this form of creatine or this new mix..... It’s not true!!!

I’m sure many of you have walked into your local supplement store or online site looking to purchase some creatine. You walk over to the section and see a vast quantity of different forms of creatine. In total and utter confusion, you turn to an employee and ask what creatine you should be taking. Being on commission or having no knowledge at all, they spew out information based on what the supplement companies claim and try to influence you to buy the most expensive one.

This article is meant to help you understand what research has to say on this topic. To help you avoid being scammed by your local supplement stores and the supplement companies propaganda.

Throughout the academic world, there has only been one consistently reported side effect associated with ingestion of creatine which is weight gain.

Brain Health

Written By Martin Ng

According to Yahoo News, one recent article suggested that sugar can make you dumb; however, is this really the case?  In the study, rats were fed with omega-3 fatty acid diet (n-3 diet) with and without fructose; another group that was n-3 deficient was fed with and without fructose as well.  It was found that high levels of fructose were associated with cognitive dysfunction.

This is just a bit of an intro to a future article on how to deal with anemia from a nutritional standpoint.

Over 2 billion people worldwide suffer from anemia with most people having not been diagnosed. This health problem is typically found in women. It is so common and significant in women that on average women have 10% lower blood volume then males; this is purely due to anemia. This issue is so significant and affects the daily lives of so many (symptoms):

• Fatigue
• Organs not functioning properly
• weakness
• twitching, flinching
• restless legs syndrome
• pale skin
• tongue problems 
• reduced amounts of saliva
• brittle nails 
• Pica desire to eat non food items
• Headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, shortness of breath, and loss of consciousness
• Rapid heartbeat and chest pain

After looking at the health risks of using stimulants let us consider how to use them appropriately. I believe it always preferable to understand the risks in order to avoid going overboard when you hear the possible benefits. In case you missed the last post here is the link 

Do not abuse?
As Kelly Baggett wisely said “Low grade stimulants like caffeine can give you an extra boost if used intermittently and judiciously.” When selecting the stimulant to use, there are a few considerations:

• Select one that does not make you feel jittery 
• Avoid ones that contain significant amounts of sugar
• Consider additional benefits associated with the stimulant
• Side effects of the stimulant 

If you greet the morning with the aroma of freshly brewing coffee, you are one of billions of people worldwide who indulge in the daily grind of coffee consumption. According to the latest coffee statistics from the International Coffee Organization (ICO), we pour about 1.4 billion cups of coffee a day worldwide. That's a lot of coffee!  And about 45 percent of it (400 million cups a day!) is drunk in the United States. The United States is the single biggest consumer of coffee in the world - but that does not mean that the typical person in the U.S. drinks more coffee than the typical person in any other country.

There is an optimal bodyweight for every position and athlete. A great way to improve your performance on the field is by reducing your body fat and increasing your muscle mass, it does not stop at just improving performance, but also your general health. Having a consistent lower body while improving strength leads to a longer and healthier life. For all those looking to improve their performance and/or general health, here are some tips to help you lose that unwanted fat: