The basic fundamentals of any transformation that you must know!
Whatever the goal of your transformation might be, whether it be losing fat, gaining muscle, or building up the endurance of your muscles and your VO2 max, there exist 4 fundamental principles which if mastered can be the missing link that you've been looking for.
These 4 principles can be related to a table. A table needs 4 feet to stand properly, can it stand on 3 feet? Yes, it can but the level of stability a table with 4 feet can provide is way more than a table with 3 feet. These 4 principles, when combined together, can be the make or break of your transformation. Now, let's stop the jaw japing and get to the actual meat of the topic.
Sleep
I know you probably know this one, but you must understand how much important sleep is for your body to rebuild itself. Remember we don't grow in the gym, we grow outside the gym. In the gym, we rip our muscle sarcomere apart and then provide the rest and nutrition for it to grow back. But how much sleep do we really need? The book says you need anywhere from 7-9 hours of sleep per day. However most people can't get this much sleep every day, so is there any other way out? Yes and the other way is called consistent sleeping habits. For example, if you sleep for 6 hours every day and maintain this time period for a week or so, your body will adapt to this and begin to complete all the recovery process within this time frame.
Cardiovascular endurance
You're probably thinking what does cardio has to do with muscle gains, and the truth is yes it does, cardiovascular endurance plays a vital role in every transformation, even if you wanna build mass. But the question arises what form of cardio to do? This basically depends on what your goal is. Wanna build muscle or lose fat, then go for HIIT training, or muscle building cardio(ie, circuit training your normal mass lifting workout with minimal or no rest in between sets). Performing workout based around the concept of multiple supersets and giant sets is the best solution, we'll discuss more below. Wanna build up the capability of your lungs to take in oxygen and give out carbon dioxide, then the conventional type of cardio is more your thing, ie hopping on the treadmill and running as fast as your can for a period of 45 mins or more.
Diet
This needs no introduction, diet plays a vital role, but how much of each of the 3 micronutrients do we really need. If you wanna build muscle, then the more protein you can get the better, what I like to do is eat natural, aim for 1.5 grams of protein per pound bodyweight and then not worry about the carbs and fats, but ensure that I'm getting enough of the good fats and carbs, and at the right time. Still, these are the stats the books says. Protein = 1-1.5 grams per pound body weight Carbs = 1.5 grams per pound body weight Fats = 0.4 grams per pound body weight
Now for an athlete Protein = 1 gram Carbs =2.5-3 grams Fats = 0.5 grams
Wanna lose fat Protein = 1-1.5 grams per pound body weight Maintain a caloric deficit, for more info regarding this refer this calorie calculator. That's all there is.
Lifting program
Even if all you wanna do is lose fat or increase your VO2, a lifting program is just as essential as any other thing. An hour on the treadmill burns more calories than an hour spent lifting, period. However as soon as you get off the treadmill your body stops burning calories, however, if you spend that same hour in the gym lifting, then your body keeps burning calories to rebuild those muscles back, thus in a total of 24 hour period, lifting burns way more calories than the hour on the treadmill.
Now many of you might be thinking that "yo, I don't have the time to go to the gym for separate lifting session and cardio session, period. What shall I do?" Well, you're in luck, because here at Devoted, our devotion guides us towards a solution every single time. The best trial and tested way to combine these 4 principles together into a program that can be followed every day by everyone is as follows
Diet and sleep have been discussed above and can be customized as per your everyday needs, the lifting and cardiovascular sessions, however, can be combined into 1. This will ensure you only go to the gym once and complete both the objectives. How?
Change up your normal lifting session into one loaded with supersets, drop sets, giant sets etc. This will help you build muscle more efficiently and also force your muscles to perform at a limited level of oxygen thus also building up your cardiovascular endurance. For this you must remember the definition of a superset, ie a set performed immediately after another set with minimal or no rest in between.
That's all folks, thanks for your time. If you have any questions feel free to contact us via the contact us section on our website.
Stay Devoted.
