Building Your Own Gym - The Essentials: Car/RV Living Edition

-
Welcome to Part 4 of the "Building Your Own Gym" Series. This series will focus on the top 5 items I believe are best for creating your own "gym" based on your individual situation. As the title indicates, part 4 in this series is focused on best equipping the fitness needs of those living their best lives on the road, in their own cars or RVs (or any other vehicular device).  1.  Kettlebells: Incredibly versatile, a kettlebell is an absolute game-changer for your fitness if you love to travel and are living out of your RV or car. Living in your car/RV necessitates that you take maximal advantage of your space.  Kettlebells take up very little space and are extremely fun for training.  Buying one kettlebell will absolutely suffice for your nomad training. A single kettlebell will allow you to do any unilateral pressing and rowing movements for building your upper body, while also allowing for kettlebell swings, goblet squats, cleans, and snatches for training your l...
Post a Comment

Muscle Growth For The Beginner - Recovery Practices: (PART 2)

-

    Welcome to the second installment of Muscle Growth for Beginners. Part Two will focus on the key principles for building muscle outside of the gym. While these principles hold true for beginners, they likewise hold true for just about anyone else looking for best practices on building muscle outside of the gym. So without further delay...

1. Sleep:

You should be aiming for 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night. You should also try your best to have a consistent sleep schedule, going to bed and waking up around the same time each day, including on the weekends.

2. Water Intake:

Aim to drink at least half your body weight in ounces of water each day. Do not drink more than equal to your body weight in ounces of water each day.

3. Active Recovery:

An often overlooked piece of the pie, active recovery is very important in enhancing your muscle growth via helping your muscles recover. When I refer to active recovery, I am referring to very low-intensity walking, stationary biking, rowing, swimming, yoga, foam rolling, mobility work, etc. This low-intensity activity is meant to drive more blood flow to the muscles. This increase in blood flow to the muscles delivers more nutrients and oxygen to help repair them, while simultaneously pulling away waste particles that have built up from when the muscles were being trained. The active recovery exercise should be at a low enough intensity that no further muscle damage occurs! 

4.  Meal Timing:

Although a less significant piece of the recovery pie, meal timing does play a role in optimizing muscle recovery and growth. Particularly if you have fasted for an extended period of time before your exercise bout (say you exercise in the mornings upon waking up), the quicker you can get a quality source of protein and carbohydrates the better. When your muscle cells do not have an adequate supply of surplus energy to pull from to help repair them, they simply cannot be repaired to grow stronger. You must be in an energy surplus if you hope to see your muscles grow.


Don't forget! Looking to build a home gym so you can start maximizing your muscle growth without having to deal with annoying traffic to get to the gym? Check out my favorite fitness manufacturers,  Rogue Fitness and Kettlebell King's. If you are looking for suggestions on what pieces of equipment I believe are most important for your home gym, do not hesitate to ask in the comments section below!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 6 Pillars of Physical Movement

-
Image
**Stay with me. This article starts off a bit abstract, but I promise it comes together! Time . the one thing we as humans value above just about everything else is our time. We are constantly looking to find better ways to maximize our time.  Why do many people like working remotely? one reason is it saves them the time they would spend commuting. Why are podcasts and audiobooks so popular? People can listen to podcasts and audiobooks and learn WHILE they are attending to less mindful tasks such as yard work, eating, or driving. They no longer need to devote specific TIME to sit down and read a book to learn. Why are "High-Intensity Interval Training" (HIIT) workouts so popular? One of the primary reasons is that people can get more exercise done in less time. They burn more calories in less time. HIIT workouts are more efficient at burning calories versus slower, steady-state cardio.  All of the above are more popular because they are more time-saving practices that allow...
Read more

Loaded Carries: Why You Should Be Doing Them

-
       With all the Instagram fitness influencers out there these days, I would think that I might see more loaded carry variations on their "stories" and "images". Loaded carries are brutal and work like magic on the individual, both physically and mentally. I wondered why I didn't see them on the fitness influencers' stories, but then I realized why. It's not their fault at all. Loaded carries aren't sexy, flashy, or even much fun when you're working hard. They don't attract much attention. No, loaded carries are simple, humbling, and direct; boring to watch but they deliver hard-to-beat results. Oh and even though they might be boring to watch, they definitely aren't boring to do. Loaded Carries demand a high level of concentration to ensure they are performed properly and safely. They also allow for many variations. You are only limited by your imagination.     With that being said, here are three of my favorite forms of loaded carri...
Read more

Why You Should Be Doing Hex-Bar Deadlifts

-
The Hex Bar Deadlift (sometimes also referred to as the Trap Bar Deadlift) is a fantastic full-body exercise that works out just about every muscle in the entire body. It does all of this while also positioning you in a much safer, more biomechanically friendly way that reduces strain on your lower back and shoulders, while also allowing for optimal force generation through the lower body. This is not to say that the conventional deadlift or sumo-deadlift (or any other deadlift you might see at the gym) are not great exercises. When performed properly with technical proficiency, any deadlift variation is an awesome exercise. Some deadlift variations simply carry a higher risk for potential injury versus others.  Here's why I believe the hex bar deadlift is the best deadlift variation for any general individual training in the gym (versus say, a powerlifter, who must train with the conventional or sumo deadlift form due to those variations being the accepted variations that the pow...
Read more