How much sodium should you have per day?
One very controversial topic in the health and fitness industry is the about sodium intake.
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The average Joe Blow doctor will tell you to cut back on your sodium intake and will talk down about sodium like it’s the root of all evil. They’ll tell you about how it will cause high blood pressure, heart problems, kidney problems, etc.
But 99% of the time the doctor is giving this advice to sedentary individuals. Not hard training athletes and bodybuilders. So if your workout routine consists of walking from the fridge to the sofa and the occasional jog to the toilet then keep listening to your doctor’s advice… |
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However, if you are here reading this article right now there is a good chance that you are NOT the typical sedentary couch potato. And if that’s the case the rules about low sodium intake do not apply!
In fact for hard training athletes too little sodium can cause more problems then consuming too much. Low sodium intake causes muscle cramps, dizziness, and electrolyte imbalances, which can cause neurological problems, or even be fatal (yes you read right!)
Drinking too much water, with insufficient sodium intake, puts a person at risk of water intoxication (hyponatremia) which can cause a seizure or coma.
What Is Sodium?
Sodium is a mineral element and an important part of the human body. It controls the volume of fluid in the body and helps maintain the acid-base level. About 40% of the body’s sodium is contained in bone, some is found within organs and cells and the remaining 55% is in blood plasma and other fluids outside cells. Sodium is important in proper nerve conduction, the passage of various nutrients into cells, and the maintenance of blood pressure.
The body continually regulates its handling of sodium. When a person eats too much or too little sodium, the intestines and kidneys respond to adjust concentrations to normal. During the course of a day, the intestines absorbs dietary sodium while the kidneys excrete a nearly equal amount of sodium into the urine.
The concentration of sodium in the blood depends on the total amount of sodium and water in arteries, veins, and capillaries (the circulatory system). The body regulates sodium and water in different ways, but uses both to help correct blood pressure when it is too high or too low.
If the body has too little sodium (called hyponatremia), the body can either increase sodium levels or decrease water in the body. Too high a concentration of sodium (hypernatremia), can be corrected either by decreasing sodium or by increasing water intake.
Sodium Intake For Bodybuilders & Athletes
If you are doing hard weight training and / or cardio workouts and sweating a lot. Then you need to replace the sodium you lose in order to maintain a healthy electrolyte balance in your body.
And if you are following a fat loss diet or cutting back on your carbohydrates, then you actually need to “Increase” your sodium intake. Carbohydrates will cause your body to retain water and sodium. Generally for every gram of carbs you eat your body will hold 3 grams of water. So if you switch to eating a lower carb diet you will lose a lot of extra water and sodium.
When I’m dieting for fat loss I purposely add salt to my food and even flavor my food with high sodium condiments like soy sauce. It will help you feel stronger and it will replace the sodium that you lose from sweating doing your weight training, cardio, etc.
In fact a lot of the negative aspects people experience from “low carb dieting” such as feeling weak, flat, low energy, etc. is not really due to the carbs at all. But from low sodium levels in the body. If you experience any of these symptoms, increasing your salt intake will generally make you feel A LOT better and more energetic.
I even go so far as to carry salt packets (just like you get at the fast food restaurants) in my gym bag. This way when ever I feel the effects of low sodium during my workouts. Such as muscle cramps, dizziness, etc. I’ll rip open a packet of salt and chase it down with some water and within 5 minutes I’m feeling much better.
Bottom Line…
For athletes and serious fitness enthusiasts you are more likely to need to increase your salt / sodium intake rather than reduce it. You need to replace what you lose from sweating in order to keep your electrolytes in balance and train hard in the gym.
Now I don’t actually break out the calculator and count my sodium intake, and I doubt that many other people do either. But I don’t shy away from consuming sodium. The best advice I can offer is to keep tabs on how you feel, your energy levels, etc. and if you do feel light headed, dizzy, or experience muscle cramps during your workouts. There’s a good chance that low sodium is causing it.
Posing Practice 3 Weeks Out…
This is a posing practice I did at 3 weeks out from the 2010 Atlantic Canadian Bodybuilding Championships. The show is going to take place on April 17 in Moncton New Brunswick.
I’m currently 198 pounds in the video…
Click Here For More Info About The “Extreme Fat Loss” Program…
Do You Have One Arm Bigger Than The Other?
Do you have one arm or one leg bigger than the other?
If so there are certain exercises (that I’ll show you in the video below) that you can do that will force each side to handle an equal workload and help you develop a well balanced, proportioned, and symmetrical physique.
Free Webinar: Street Fighting Uncaged!
This Thursday, March 25th, at 9:00pm EST you are invited to attend a FREE online self defense webinar with my good friend, Jeff Anderson, who is a 10 year veteran of the U.S. Army, a Master Fitness Trainer, and Master Instructor of Close Quarters Combat tactics for “real life” self defense!
“Street Fighting Uncaged: Illegal Fight Moves For Extreme Survival Scenarios!”
Check it out for yourself at: www.RealWorldSelfDefense.net
How Can You Tell If You Are Overtraining?
The whole topic of “Overtraining” is surrounded by myths and misconceptions in bodybuilding circles. Some fitness gurus believe that virtually everyone is overtraining, and then some other fitness gurus believe it’s impossible to overtrain… Obviously, the truth of the matter lies somewhere in between these two extremes.
According to Wikipedia they define Overtraining as:
Overtraining is a physical, behavioral and emotional condition that occurs when the volume and intensity of an individual’s exercise exceeds their recovery capacity. They cease making progress, and can even begin to lose strength and fitness. Overtraining is a common problem in weight training, but it can also be experienced by runners and other athletes.
And just like a lot of the valuable stuff you’ll find on Wikipedia, that definition of overtraining is pretty dam accurate in my opinion.
The big problem I find with most of my coaching students and website followers is they pretty much “know” what overtraining is, but they can’t really tell if they are overtraining in their own workouts or not.
The root of all this confusion comes from the fact that what is overtraining for one person, is not necessarily going to be overtraining for another person. We all have different levels of fitness, different levels of work capacity, and different recovery rates. Not only that, but all of these factors will change within the individual as they get more experienced with their workouts and get in better physical shape.
A common e-mail that I get at least a dozen times a day is one of my followers will send me a copy of their workout routine that they are following and then ask me:
“Am I Overtraining or Is My Routine Ok?”
And you know what I CAN’T accurately answer that question. Anything I say will only be an educated guess. Only YOU can truly tell if you are overtraining or not by monitoring your progress (or hiring a coach who is going to monitor your progress for you).
But I’ll give you some guidelines here within this article that you can use to help monitor your progress. This will allow you to decide for yourself if you are overtraining and if you should make changes to your workout routine, or if you can keep on doing what you are doing.
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1. Strength Gains
Are you making strength gains with your workouts? You should strive to constantly improve your strength on a regular basis by either getting an extra rep on your sets, or adding an extra 5 pounds to the bar.
This is what we refer to as “progressive overload”. Now obviously it’s not alway going to happen each and every workout, but you should be seeing some noticeable progress in your strength as the weeks go by, especially if you have been tracking your workouts in a log book.
For your major lifts like bench presses, squats, deadlifts, rows, leg presses, etc. it should be fairly easy to make 5 pound jumps in weight on a regular basis. For the smaller isolation type of exercises like bicep curls, lateral raises, flyes, etc. the gains will come slower. After all there is a BIG difference between adding 5 pounds to a 200 pound squat compared to adding 5 pounds to a 20 pound dumbbell curl.
So right now do a quick self evaluation…
Have you been making steady strength gains over the past several weeks? Have you been able to set some new personal records with your major compound lifts? If so then chances are you are NOT overtraining.
However, if you have been lifting the same weights for months on end, or even worse you had to reduce some of your poundages on certain lifts, then you may very well be overtraining.
Gaining strength is one of the most easy to measure signs of progress with your workouts. And if you are not moving forwards, then you are moving backwards, it’s as simple as that.
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2. Changes In Bodyweight
Another measurable way to monitor your progress is by keeping track of your bodyweight. Any unexplained changes in your bodyweight could be a sign of overtraining.
For example, if you are currently training to gain muscular size and bulk and you are hitting the gym hard and consistently. But you find that your weight is actually going down, when it should be going up, then you may very well be overtraining.
On the other side of the coin, if you are training for fat loss and you are following a very strict diet, doing regular cardio, and hitting the gym consistently. But you are still not losing any weight, or worse you are even gaining weight. Then this maybe a sign that you are overtraining.
You see your body has to be coaxed into making progress, you can’t force it. When you try to force your body to change it sometimes backfires and does the opposite of what you want. And one of the ways it does this is through unexpected weight changes.
A prime example of this is with a lot of overweight people who try and diet themselves skinny. Have you ever known someone who went on a borderline starvation diet or maybe even cut back to eating just one meal a day in effort to lose weight?
What usually happens is that their body basically says “F-ck You” and it ends up clinging to all the stored bodyfat for fuel, while burning up precious lean muscle tissue in effort to slow their metabolism down. It does the exact opposite of what the dieter is trying to accomplish. In fact they may actually gain fat in this calorie deprived state.
Some words of advice that you should follow when trying to change your body, be that gaining muscle or losing fat, is that most people “over estimate” how hard improving their physique will be… But they “under estimate” how long it will take…
Bottom line, you don’t have to force yourself, torture yourself, or any such thing. You just have to be consistent with the basics over the long term in order to get the results you want.
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3. Energy & Motivation
The first 2 guidelines are concrete and measurable. Meaning they are actual numbers that anyone can monitor and instantly see if there is any change or not. But this 3rd guideline is more subjective and you have to be extra cautious when monitoring subjective things because human error and inexperience can really screw things up.
If you have been training hard and consistent for weeks or months on end and then all of a sudden you find that your strength, energy, and motivation for your workouts start to drop then this is very likely a sign of overtraining and it’s your body’s way of telling you that you need a rest.
But the problem here comes with less experienced fitness enthusiasts who often times mistake lack of motivation from plain old laziness as “overtraining” and then they may end up backing off with their training, when in fact they need to do the exact opposite and kick themselves in the butt and push it even harder.
For beginner and intermediate level bodybuilders it’s best to focus primarily on the concrete and measurable guidelines to determine if you are on the right track with your workouts and avoiding overtraining. But as you get more advanced in your training and you get in tune with your body, how you “feel” will be more accurate.
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A prime example of this occurred within my own training just recently…
I’m currently less then a month out from my next bodybuilding competition and I’ve been training very hard for this event. My daily routine consists of approx. 2 hours of cardio, weight training workouts, as well as posing practice all while following a carbohydrate and calorie restricted diet.
Now a mild form of overtraining is actually quite normal for competitive bodybuilders in their pre-contest phase, especially when their main concern is pushing the limits with burning off as much bodyfat as possible.
But just this past weekend I hit the wall so to speak, I was physically and mentally run down and I could hardly keep myself awake during the day. I knew darn well that I was overtrained and needed a break. So I purposely took a couple days off from training entirely…
No Cardio. No Weight Training. No Posing.
And I purposely ate more food as well to help fill out my liver glycogen stores and aid with my recovery.
After just 2 days of this I feel like a new man, I have literally gained about 5 pounds (mostly from the extra carbs and water weight) but I’m feeling myself again and ready to kick it back into high gear and push it hard for the final few weeks to get in my best contest shape ever.
Having this sense and knowing when to push it hard, and when to back it off is critical as you get more advanced. It will help keep you on the edge with your workouts and moving yourself in the right direction towards your bodybuilding and fitness goals.
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If you’d like to learn more about how you can push your training to the limit, while avoiding the negative pitfalls of overtraining. Be sure to check out my new “Hardcore Muscle Building DVD”.
This killer weight training muscle building workout program will show you how to push your muscle gains to the limit by training your body past the point of muscular failure. But at the same time, it will allow for adequate recovery time between training sessions to maximize your growth and strength gains. You can check it out for yourself right now at: |
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Mixed Martial Arts Vs. “Street Fighting”…
Are you a UFC fan?
I’m a big fan myself and it’s not too often that I’ll miss
the PayPerView events when they come on TV. Usually
a bunch of my close buddies and I will hit up one of the
local pubs that’s showing the fights and we’ll go watch it.
And we’re not alone… MMA style cage matches are the
fastest growing sports phenomenon in the world!
There’s just something about watching 2 men locked in a cage
for a “no holds barred” battle… kicks, throws, chokes…
almost anything goes!
So why has the sport of mixed martial arts risen so rapidly?
Is it the gladiator-style competition?
Is it an overload of male hormones?
Perhaps it’s just that we love the sight of blood?
Nah… it goes much DEEPER than that!
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It’s because you’re a MAN…
…and men are SUPPOSED to
be able to fight!
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Here’s what I mean…
As a guy, you are HARD WIRED – genetically and hormonally – to
WANT to possess superior fighting skills.
Going all the way back to when we were all “clan members”,
running around in nothing but sabre-tooth loin cloths,
we HAD to fight.
* We fought to protect our clan from other invaders!
* We fought to be the “alpha male” of our clan and call the
shots!
* We even fought for MATING RIGHTS with the local
“cave-hotties”!
Fast forward to TODAY and you’ll realize that we haven’t
progressed all that far when it comes to fighting.
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What if this happened to YOU…
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Let’s say that you’re out with your wife or girlfriend and as
you’re walking back to your car from dinner, you’re approached
by a couple of vagrants who approach you for money.
Could be a harmless request…
…or it could be a setup!
If you’re not prepared to QUICKLY take BOTH of these guys out in
just a matter of seconds, you could find yourself on the ground
bleeding while your female companion is left at their mercy!
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If you’re thinking…
“That would NEVER happen to me!”
Well, you’re simply delusional!
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It happens EVERY DAY to fine, upstanding citizens like yourself
who don’t go out looking for trouble… it finds THEM when
they’re least expecting it!
Now I’m not trying to scare you.
Fact is, most guys have their heads stuck in the sand and will
NEVER do anything to prepare themselves to protect those they
love.
They’re the ones who criminals spot right away as “easy targets”
because they look, walk, and act like “victims”.
But then there are those who know what it REALLY takes to defeat
someone in a real “street” self defense scenario.
And I’m NOT talking about putting on your white pajamas and belt
and going down to the local McDojo strip mall karate school and
practice complicated kicks next to a bunch of 8-year olds.
I’m talking about…
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How to fight with the
ruthless tenacity of
a caged animal!
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The kind of fighting that’s known ONLY by vicious gang members,
prison inmates… and battle-hardened soldiers!
If any of these describe YOU, then you can probably stop reading
right now… you already know what I’m talking about.
But if the only fight you’ve ever been in was the pushing match
in high school or one or two slug fests with some wise guy at the
local bar…
…then you’re SEVERELY underqualified to protect yourself or
your female companion when you’re face-to-face with a BIGGER,
STRONGER, more experienced attacker!
Fortunately all that’s about to end
THIS THURSDAY NIGHT!
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FREE WEBINAR INVITATION!
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Extreme Self Defense Tactics
For Real World Violence!
When: This Thursday Night @ 9:00pm Eastern
To RESERVE YOUR SEAT NOW, go to:
http://www.RealWorldSelfDefense.net
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Trust me… if protecting yourself and those you love is
important to you (and I know it is!), then you’re not going
to want to miss this event.
You can attend from ANYWHERE in the world and you’re going to
walk away with REAL “self defense tactics” known only by the
most vicious criminals and battle-hardened soldiers.
And check out what’s going to be covered:
* Head-to-head analysis of mixed martial arts “cage matches”
and your ability to survive a violent attack on the street!
(This is gonna piss some people off!)
* How to quickly “open up” even the most skilled
fighter… then take him off his feet and finish him off
in SECONDS!
* The #1 weapon used in real bar fights and gang attacks that
you’ll never even see coming… and how to launch your own
counterassault that will render it completely useless!
(Hint: it’s NOT a knife, a gun, or even a broken bottle.
It’s WORSE!)
* LARGER ATTACKERS! You’ll know something they don’t… and it
gives you the power to use their size and strength AGAINST
THEM to make sure they hit the ground… HARD!
Here’s the link one more time to register for your seat now:
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RESERVE YOUR SEAT NOW, go to:
http://www.RealWorldSelfDefense.net
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I’ll be there tuning in to catch this stuff live…
I hope you will be to!
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P.S.
You owe it not only to yourself, but also to those you
PROTECT (like your wife, girlfriend, kids, etc.) who rely
on you to keep them safe!
It doesn’t cost a thing and the strategies that are revealed
on this webcast WILL make you a better fighter than 95% of the
guys out there who THINK they know how to handle themselves in
a real fight!
They know NOTHING!
YOU will!
Go NOW to sign up at:
http://www.RealWorldSelfDefense.net
