Everything You Need to Know about Catabolism (Muscle Breakdown)

Catabolism is the process where muscle mass is broken down. According to Wikipedia, Catabolism refers to any process where molecules are broken down to be used either for energy or an anabolic (building) process. Catabolism can also refer to the breakdown of fat for energy. Therefore, catabolism in itself is not a bad thing. It can be beneficial if it is breaking down fat cells, for those who are trying to lose weight. Many people have a negative viewpoint on catabolism because it is most often used to describe the breakdown of muscle tissue.

In this article, we will be focusing on the catabolism process with regard to muscle breakdown (the negative kind that you don't want to happen). Your body enters a catabolic state when it is too stressed, for example, and breaks down muscle tissue for a quick source of energy. 

The word is often thrown around many a webpage, and I thought it would be good to write up an in-depth article on what catabolism actually is, what it does, its causes and what you can do to minimize its effects.

The importance of understanding catabolism

According to fitday.com, understanding what catabolism is and how the process works will empower athletes and all health-conscious individuals to achieve greater results with their exercise and eating plans. They will be able to increase their fitness levels, reach their desired body compositions or grow muscle mass more efficiently if they have the right knowledge about what the body is breaking down during different times. 

By understanding catabolism and the catabolic state that your body enters into for various reasons, you can either enhance or counteract this process. For example, knowing when your body will break down muscle for energy will allow you to take actions that will minimize this process. Additionally, knowing when your body will break down fat cells instead will allow you to take steps that will maximize that specific chain of events.

Fit day uses the example of an athlete that knows when muscles are most likely to be broken down in his body because of hormones that are released during exercise. With this knowledge, he is able to stop this process by eating certain nutrients before, during and after exercise. This will decrease the amount of muscle that is broken down and therefore further his specific goals more easily.

Catabolism is a natural process

Many metabolic processes require a catabolic state in order to function properly. Without catabolism, your body cannot break down nutrients for energy and bodily repair. Catabolism is needed for anabolism, because nutrients are needed to be broken down into usable building blocks before they can be reformed into new tissue.

Catabolism and anabolism need to be kept in balance for the right things to be catabolized. Keeping the right balance between the two allows you to avoid the wrong things being catabolized. Your body will always prioritize survival. If it senses that it needs to break down muscle in order to survive, it will do so. If your body has a higher rate of catabolism and a lower rate of anabolism, muscle and fat deposits can become depleted. 

A good example of this would be hard gainers, ectomorphs and very skinny people. They struggle to put on weight because they have high metabolisms. Their bodies are very efficient at breaking down nutrients for energy. Since their bodies are so catabolic (breaking down so many nutrients for energy), they tend to be more catabolic than anabolic. Since catabolism is higher in these instances, these people have lower fat and muscle masses. When understanding the idea of catabolism in this way, it becomes clear that these people can eat more (to increase nutrient availability), exercise in ways that encourage anabolism (increase muscle growth), and work to lower their metabolisms if they want to change their bodies.

Bodybuilders aim to decrease body mass catabolism and maximize muscular anabolism by increasing nutrient intake and limiting exercises to activities that stimulate muscle growth during their bulking phases. During cutting cycles, they decrease nutrients (while still ensuring that they get enough to minimize muscle catabolism) to increase fat catabolism.

The causes of muscle catabolism and muscle breakdown

1. Insufficient nutrition

Livestrong.com explains that muscle catabolism can be avoided through proper nutrition. Larger muscle mass requires more calories to maintain. Therefore the more muscle you have, the more nutrients your body will need to maintain it. They say that sufficient protein and essential fats are the most important nutrients to prevent muscle break down. These two nutrients do this by giving the body what it needs to maintain muscle and regulate muscle-friendly hormones. 

20% of your diet should include protein to maintain muscle mass. This increases to 30% if you exercise every day. You can use protein supplements to assist you if you battle to get your protein requirements from your daily diet, but you need to ensure that the majority of your diet consists of real food. Good sources of natural protein include meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, nuts, seeds and legumes. 

20% of your diet should consist of fats. Good sources of healthy fats are oily fish (like salmon, pilchards, herring, mackerel and trout), olives, avocado, nuts, seeds and dairy products.

Eat fresh fruit and vegetables to keep healthy. When looking at a new diet, you always need to include a good amount of fresh fruit and vegetables for optimum health. This is essential to get all the micro nutrients that your body needs to be optimally healthy. Failure to get these micro nutrients can lead to illness (a significant cause of muscle break down - see below). Also, these are needed to improve digestion, which ultimately helps your body to absorb the nutrients it needs to achieve your goals. 

2. Prolonged exercise (and over training)

The Journal of Applied Physiology showcases a study that investigated the effects of muscle breakdown during prolonged exercise. They measured the breakdown of protein by looking at urea levels. Urea is the end product that is made when protein is broken down. High urea levels, for example, indicate highly broken down muscle mass. They measured the urea levels of participants who cycled for 1 hour at 61% of their VO2 max to determine the correlation between muscle loss and exercise duration. The researchers found that 13.7 grams of protein was broken in 1 hour of exercise. 10.4% of the total energy cost (measured in calories) was obtained by breaking down protein. The study reports that protein is broken down at a much greater extent than what is commonly estimated.

This study shows that you lose more muscle during exercise than what you would probably think. This happens because your body does not realize that you can stop exercising when you want to and that you are doing it out of choice. It thinks that you are physically exerting yourself because you have to for your survival. In order to protect your survival, it ensures that your system has as much energy as it can physical produce to allow you to do what you need to do. It would rather break down the protein in your muscle to survive than preserve it and compromise your chances of survival.

This sounds like a very depressing story. You exercise to get into better shape, but your body breaks down muscle when you do. The good news is that by understanding the above process, you can take steps to minimize the amount of protein that is broken down. Here are the ways that you can improve muscle retention during physical activity.

Don't prolong exercise for too long

Find the optimum length of time that you are going to train for, depending on your goals. Marathon runners have less muscle mass because they exercise for extremely long periods of time.

If your goal is to become a marathon runner, you shouldn't mind losing muscle mass as much as other athletes, because it will make you lighter and therefore require less energy to move your body over a long distance. You can still retain some muscle mass, though, by following the next few points.

If your goal is to build as much muscle as possible, like bodybuilders do, you should limit the amount of time that you spend on each workout to 90 minutes.

Check the exercise intensity

Exercise above a VO2 max of 60% is considered to be a very high intensity exercise. The higher the intensity of the exercise session, the more your body will break down muscle for energy. Take this into consideration when planning your exercise routines.

For example, I lower the intensity of my exercises by increasing the rest times between sets. This minimizes muscle loss. I do this because some of my training programs can't be squeezing into 90 minutes. I compensate for this by resting for longer than 2 minutes between sets so that the intensity is lower and therefore my body needs less calories to complete the task. I make these changes because muscle growth is a bigger priority than fitness. If fitness was more important to me than muscle size, I would rest less instead.

Have enough rest days

You muscles grow just as much on rest days (if not more) as they do on training days. If you don't have enough rest days, you are burning more energy than you should to achieve your goals. Catabolism is one of the ways that over training (training so much that the body does not have enough time to fully recover) negatively affects your physical progress. Exercise stimulates a muscle to get better. Rest is where it actually gets better. You need a balance between both. Too much of one will cancel out the positive effects of the other. Here are great ways to get the most out of every rest day.

Meet energy requirements

If your body is breaking muscle down for energy, then clearly providing your body with the energy that it needs will decrease the amount of muscle that it breaks down. BCAA's (branched chain amino acids) are known to reduce muscle breakdown and provide energy during exercise. Consuming the nutrients that your body needs for energy before, during and after exercise will also lower muscle catabolism.

3. Sleep

There are two sides of the coin when it come to the relationship between sleep and muscle breakdown. Firstly, sleeping without the right nutrients in your system can lead to catabolism because your body needs energy and resources to repair all of its tissues. Secondly, insufficient sleep leads to muscle breakdown because it does not have the time it needs to recover and rebuild.

The right nutrients to recover when sleeping

The nutrition you consume before sleep determines what resources your body has to rebuild. Nutrition timing determines how much your body can repair and grow during sleep. If you have enough of what your body needs, it can use these resources to replenish energy levels, maintain physical tissue, grow muscle and repair the central nervous system (a very important system that every athlete must look after).

If you don't have the right nutrients during these times, your body can recycle the protein in your muscles into the energy and building blocks that it needs to ensure that you recover and function at your best the next day. This decreases muscle mass. Your body will rather recover and function properly instead of retaining muscle and risk degrading into oblivion. Give your body what it needs to be able to do both.

You can do this by consuming a good amount of slow-release protein and complex carbohydrates before sleep. Slow release versions work best because they will last in your system for longer. Remember: they should be available for as much of your 8-hour sleep period as possible. I have a nutrition shake that has carbohydrates and casein protein, because casein lasts longer in your system before being used up. You can see the difference between protein supplements according to how long they last in your system here.

Getting the right amount of sleep

Medical News Today explains that lack of sleep can actually cause muscle loss. When you don't get enough sleep, you don't get enough recovery. This is because a large portion of recovery happens when you sleep. Your body needs to recover in order to become better at using energy more efficiently. When you haven't recovered, it takes more energy to do normal activities and function properly. This is why you crave food that is high in calories on days following poor sleep. Lack of sleep forces your body to prioritize regular function instead of muscle growth. It prioritizes regular function over retention as well, meaning that it will break down muscle tissue if it needs the resources.

4. Aging

Springer Link, a Sports Medicine authority, explains muscle loss as a result of aging. This also results in decreased muscle function. It also contributes to the increased risk of accidental falls and injuries.

As depressing as the above statement is, there is a little good news that comes with it. It may not be reversed or indefinitely stopped, but exercise can drastically decrease muscle loss from aging. Maintaining a good exercise routine right into old age can not only keep you around for longer, but keep those guns strong and healthy. Numerous studies have found that elderly people who start exercising can possibly reverse some conditions associated with old age and may appear younger than before they started.

5. Stress

Firstendurance.com explains how cortisol, the stress hormone, breaks down muscle mass. When your body is stressed, it undergoes changes in order to prepare for the impending dangers that it faces. It thinks that your survival is threatened and therefore releases cortisol to prepare the body for fight or flight. In preparation for this anticipated danger, your body will slow down recovery processes so that the energy that is used for those functions can rather be used where it might be needed more. Additionally, the body will gather its resources for quick energy that it can use. One of the resources that it will tap into is... you guessed it... muscle mass.

The opposite is also true. Serotonin (the happy, relaxing hormone) speeds up recovery because this hormone signals to the body that there is no impending danger. This lets the body know that it can relax and rather focus its resources on other functions like recovery.

A study proved that sending clowns into a hospital shortened the recovery times of its patients. The proposed reason for this was the reduction in the cortisol stress hormone and an increase in happy hormones which therefore increased internal anabolic processes.

Nutrition can help minimize the catabolic effects of stress because your body will have the nutrients that it needs for energy. Managing the stress in your life and creating opportunities for you to feel relaxed will help your body to become less catabolic and more anabolic.

6. Hormonal imbalances

Testosterone, human growth hormone (HGH, or growth hormone for short) and IGF-1 are hormones that support anabolic activity such as building muscle. They play vital roles in muscular repair, recovery, maintenance and performance.

Having imbalances of these hormones can interfere with your body's ability to build muscle and properly recover from exercise. On the other hand, exercise helps to regulate and improve these home levels.

Did you know? Women also naturally produce testosterone. Optimal testosterone levels in women ensure good health and lower-than-natural levels can cause adverse health effects.

7. Illness

Diseases and illnesses limit your body's ability to build and maintain muscle because of the way that they negatively impact basic biological functions. This is one of the reasons why maintaining a healthy lifestyle outside of exercise is important to boost the effects of exercise. Illness can reduce your physical achievements and potentially reverse all the hard work that you have put in. Exercise is one way to prevent many illnesses, but there are other essential ways to maintain a healthy lifestyle as well.

In order to protect yourself against illness and disease, it is important to follow a healthy, balanced diet, get enough rest and sleep, live a balanced life that includes fun hobbies and relaxing activities, interact with other people and have a reason to wake up every morning. All of these beneficial activities will not only add to your life, but also assist you in achieving your own physical goals.

I hope that this article has helped you learn the basics about catabolism, what it means and how to use the information to maximize the effort that you put into your body. I am looking forward to reading your comments below. STAY STRONG!

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The Scientific Connection Between Body Heat and Metabolism

It's commonly believed that you burn more body fat when you get hotter. We look at the research to determine whether this is fact or fiction.

What is metabolism and body temperature?

Metabolism refers to your body's ability to make energy from food and fat stores. The higher your metabolism level, the more fat you will naturally burn. People with high metabolisms often have lower body fat percentages. People with low metabolisms have less energy and struggle to lose fat mass.

Body temperature (also referred to as core temperature) is the overall temperature within your body. Being too hot or too cold is dangerous, so your body tries to keep it within a healthy balance (from 97 - 99 degrees Fahrenheit or 36.1 - 37.2 degrees Celsius).  A single shift upward or downwards of a single degree has significant health implications. Some people have a higher natural body temperature than others (We are covering whether this is related to metabolism). The environment, physical activity and general health play a role in your current body temperature. 

Reasons why people might believe that temperature affects your metabolic rate

Before we get into whether this is true or not, I want to list the most popular reasons why people believe that increasing your body temperature will burn fat.

Exercise makes you hot

Exercise raises your core temperature and burns fat. Many believe that you can determine how much fat you are burning during exercise by how hot the exercise is making you.

You can sweat fat away

Commercials have sold products that make specific parts of your body sweat, based on the premise that heat melts fat away. Many people use steam rooms in an attempt to lose weight. Others suggest that fat is one of the things that makes up sweat deposits. It is often assumed that sweating can help you achieve a better looking body.

Heat makes your body more active

Another theory is that heat increases bodily activity, and that this increased activity uses energy from fat.

Natural instinct

People notion the fact that your body will instinctively want to store up energy in the form of fat when the environment is cold (the hibernation effect) as a primal instinct. This notion will also stipulate that people will have more energy (and therefore a higher metabolism) when it is warmer.

The science: Is metabolism is affected by body temperature, and is body temperature affected by metabolism?

Higher body temperatures burn more calories

Fitday.com quotes a report by the American Clinical and Climatological Association. This report showed that higher body temperatures do indeed increase metabolism (or metabolic rates) within the body. This study provides evidence that you can burn 10 - 13% more calories for every 1 degree Celsius that your body temperature is elevated.  It is important to note that this is calculated regarding internal body temperature, not your environmental surroundings. 

Fit day says that this could mean that you would burn 100 to 130 extra calories per day, per degree by which your body is heated up. This is calculated on the estimate that you burn an average of 2000 calories per day, divided by two. The amount is divided by two because body temperature accounts for about half of your total caloric expenditure.

Low body temperatures burn less calories

The same study also showed that the opposite is true. It said that each drop in body temperature (calculated by degrees Celsius) decreased caloric expenditure by the same amount (10-13% of energy burned).

External factors: Cool environments burn fat

Cooler external environments cause the body to burn more calories to maintain the right core temperature. This is according to the National Institute of Health's research on how cool temperatures alter human fat and metabolism. The researches exposed men to cooler environments for a month to study the effects. They found that these men had higher metabolic rates than before. It appears that their bodies became better at burning calories to maintain optimal body heat. It was almost like their bodies were being trained to use more calories in a similar way that exercise trains muscles to perform better at doing a certain task.

External factors: Hot temperatures burn fat too

Another study measured the calories burned by people who exercised in different temperatures. The people who performed physical exercise at higher temperatures burned more calories than those who worked out at lower temps. The people who exercised in warmer surroundings burned more calories because their bodies had to spend more energy to cool them down. 

How can low and high external temperatures burn more calories?

It seems that energy expenditure boils down to the difference between what your bodily systems want and the external challenges that they are currently facing. Your body burns calories to warm itself up when it is feeling too cold. It also burns calories to cool itself down when it feels too hot. 

Therefore, the greater the challenge that the body faces in regulating body temperature, the more calories that it burns in order to do so. The effects on calories burned and overall metabolism are both immediate and gradual. Your body will use more calories during the exact time that it needs to regulate internal heat (or lack thereof) more intensely. When it needs to regulate temperature more often, it adapts by becoming better at opening fat cells for energy, which improves over metabolism.

Thermal weight loss: How to use heat to burn fat

Don't be scared to let your body regulate heat by itself sometimes

Compensating for the weather or environmental factors by adjusting the air conditioner and layers of clothing could be hampering your body's self-regulatory mechanisms. The more they are used, the better they become at tapping into fat to regulate themselves. In nature, our bodies had to face the usual increases and decreases in temperature without all the vices that we have today.

Don't overdo it

The trick is not to shock your system by sharply changing the surrounding warmth all at once. Gradually adjust it up or down to allow your body to naturally adapt. Dropping temperatures too low can cause hypothermia, which can have serious health risks. Also, increasing the temperature too quickly can lead to hyperthermia. Hypothermia and hyperthermia can both cause a variety of health problems. Gradually experimenting with different temperatures to stimulate your metabolism over time will give you better long-term results, just like how exercise should start off easy and increase in difficulty as your body adjusts.

There are times when you shouldn't use thermal weight loss techniques at all

As much as playing with the thermostat sounds more beneficial than ever, you should not try this if your body is already challenged. For example, exercising in hotter temperatures will decrease physical performance because your body will need to dedicate more energy to regulate itself. Sleeping in rooms that are too cold can disturb your sleep cycle and reduce sleep quality. Keep your body at the most comfortable heat when you are sick or feeling ill. It needs all the energy that it can get to recover. STAY STRONG!

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Why You Feel Cold After Exercise

Today I will be tackling the reason why some people feel the chills after their workout. Not everybody feels this way. For example, I feel hot and need more time to cool down than others. If your body temperature drops, here are the reasons why.

Outsideonline.com says that you continue sweating after you exercise, even though your temperature starts to drop. They say that people with higher surface-to-mass ratios are more likely to be affected for this reason, compared to people who don't feel cold after exercise at all. For example, woman and skinny men are more likely to experience this feeling. Since muscle is more dense, people who have more muscle mass won't experience this sensation as much.

We have many other reasons below. Find which one is causing your own exercise-induced hypothermia.

Possible causes of feeling cold after working out 

1. Your aren't wearing warm enough clothes

Some people's body heat jumps up faster than others. I am one of those people. My body also takes longer to cool down. For that reason, I dress cooler than normal so that my body can start getting rid of the excess heat that it generates early into my workout. Just as some people heat up faster, there are some people whose bodies take longer to warm up from exercise. If your body takes longer to heat up, exercise won't warm you up as much as other people. You might even cool down faster than others, so that the last part of your exercise routine brings your body down to normal temperatures very quickly. Clothes have a big impact on your body's temperature. You will be surprised at the heat different between two pairs of shorts that have the same length, but have a different thread thickness.

This should determine the kind of clothes that you wear. For my body's reaction, I dress cooler - even if I am shivering at the beginning of my work out because I will start sweating very soon. You might need to dress warmer than the average Joe, and wearing the same as everybody else when your body does not heat up as much as the others will leave it exposed to the cold. This could be why you end up cold at the end of your exercise session.

If this is the cause, make sure that you dress more warmly. If your body is too cold during your workouts, it will draw blood towards your organs and core to keep them warm so that it can function properly. This will limit the amount of blood that reaches your muscles. Muscles need blood flow to get oxygen, nutrients and energy. They also need this blood flow to remove waste products like carbon monoxide and lactic acid. Lactic acid is the stuff that makes your muscles burn and causes stiffness the next day).

If you get hot too quickly, it is a good idea to dress in such a way that you don't overheat so much during your workout. Just like how getting too cold can negatively affect your performance and results, so can getting too hot during exercise. This will dehydrate you faster and over exert your body. It will spend energy trying to cool itself down. You should rather have this energy to dedicate to your performance instead of temperature regulation.

2. Overcompensation

Homeostasis is the process where your body corrects an issue to restore balance. Overcompensation happens when your body tries to correct something but takes it so far that you end up with the opposite effect. This is why some people can feel warm after a cold shower.

This study on homeostasis looks at many different studies, theories and effects of homeostasis. One of the effects analysed was overcompensation. Your body can overcompensate for the heat that exercise generates by trying to cool down as quickly as possible. If it ends up cooling you down more than what exercise heats you up, you can end up colder than when you started.

This might be the case for individuals who are subjected to sharp heat changes throughout their normal lives or are used to hot climates, because your body will be better at cooling itself down. It might also be possible if you are working out in an environment which is cooler than where you spend most of the rest of your day. Don't assume that this is the reason and ignore all the other important points below. It might be something more serious (like dehydration or low blood sugar). The truth, however, is that overcompensation is indeed a viable and common cause on its own.

If overcompensation is actually the cause, you can counter this through clothing. Bring a jersey or jacket with you and take it off/ put it on as your feel your body temperature pick up or drop. This will help to cool you when you heat up and warm you if you get too cold. Softening the sharp increases and decreases in body temperature during exercise will lessen the effects of overcompensation.

3. Dehydration

Livestrong.com says that hydration during (and even before) exercise plays a large role on how you feel post workout. Your body needs water to regulate temperature. If your body does not have the fluids that it needs, your body's core temperature can drop along with other symptoms (like cramps, dizziness and nausea). This is why paramedics quickly put blankets or jackets on patients who have lost a lot of blood. 

You cannot assess the amount of water you need from the amount that you sweat out. We often forget about trips to the bathroom and the air we exhale. Your lungs release water along with air when you breathe. Why else would your breath as steamy as it comes out your mouth on really cold days?

Have you ever noticed that your muscles look a little bigger straight after exercise? That's because they are. They have increased in size to accompany more blood for performance and recovery. This is one of the reasons why warming up is so beneficial. Muscle volume increases in response to exercise (even if the size increase isn't noticeable). This increases you need for hydration because a lot of the body's usual fluids are pulled into muscle, and out of circulation.

Water is not the only thing that you need to stay hydrated. You need electrolytes as well, which help the body to hold on to water. This is primarily how salt increases blood pressure. One of its main functions is to regulate the water levels in your body (along with the other electrolytes). More salt means that your body holds more water, which increases pressure (more fluids, less space).

If you don't have enough electrolytes, the water you drink will flow right through you instead of staying in the body where it is needed.  In fact, too much water consumption can lead to dehydration. You excrete sodium and other electrolytes (along with water soluble vitamins) in your pee when you use the toilet. Drinking too much water can wash away the electrolytes that are meant to help your body hold onto water. This can, ironically, lead to dehydration.

On the other extreme, however, too much electrolytes (like salt) with too little water can pull water out of your tissues and into your blood, increasing blood pressure but possibly causing muscle dehydration. This is why so many people suffer from high blood pressure: too much salt and not enough water.

That is precisely the reason why many bodybuilders drink lots of water to intentionally dehydrate their bodies, so that muscles are more visible during bodybuilding competitions. It is one of the common ways that many bodybuilders prepare to look their best on stage.

What is the moral of the story? Balance is the key.

Try adding electrolytes to your workout drink to hydrate more efficiently or changing your hydration habits to find the best results. The solution to your exercise shivers might be as simple as that. Furthermore, if dehydration is the cause of your fitness frost then solving it will increase your overall performance and recovery.

4. Weather

The weather might be the reason that you are suffering from your workout chills. Humidity greatly impacts your body temperature, and so does the lack of it. If you live in a hot environment, your body might be extremely good at cooling you down. Winter weather could be cooling you down more than your physical activity heats you up. Moisture on your clothes from rain, if you exercise outside, can drastically drop your core temperature.

If you exercise in the cooler temperatures, increase the amount of clothing to keep warm. Your clothing might be heavier, but the increase in performance that you will experience from better warmth will outweigh those extra layers.

5. Sweat

Sweat's primary function is to cool down the body. See the other benefits of sweat here. It is surprisingly good at keeping your body temperature low. If sweat is making your clothes wet, this might be making your colder than you realize.

If sweat is the culprit behind your freezing frenzy, try to adjust your clothing so that sweat deposits can evaporate instead of sticking around. The airflow during the heated times when you sweat will also help to cool you down, so that you will sweat less. Carry something warm with you for the end of the workout when the chills are more likely to show up.

6. Low blood sugar

Low blood sugar (known as hypoglycemia) can make you cold. A common symptom to identify low blood sugar is when you feel cold in your hands and feet (although this can be from poor circulation and the weather as well). The risk of low blood sugar from exercise is increased when you don't eat enough before your workout. If you work out first thing in the morning, the length of time and what you eat the night before will affect this. If you exercise at night, your diet throughout the day has the biggest effect.

You can combat low blood sugar by eating complex carbohydrates before your workout. Complex carbohydrates take longer to turn into energy and will therefore stabilize your sugar levels for longer. Eating more protein throughout the day will stabilize your overall blood sugar levels, so that they won't drastically increase or decrease as quickly.

Another risk factor for low blood sugar after exercise is the length of time that you train for. Longer periods of physical training have a higher impact on blood sugar because your body is burning glycogen stores for energy. These glycogen stores take sugar out of your blood to replenish energy. Exercise also stresses the liver. In the long term, this is good for your liver because it adapts by getting stronger and more efficient. Exercise that lasts too long, though, decreases the liver's current ability to regulate blood sugar.

7. Lack of rest

If you are not getting enough rest, too much exercise can over train your central nervous system along with the rest of your body. This is the most likely case if you are feeling colder and colder after every workout, even though there aren't any other changes that could be causing it.

When you over train, your body starts to break down and fail to maintain its normal mechanisms, like regulating temperature. This is also the reason why many people experience flu-like symptoms or get depressed when they exercise.

If over training is causing your drop in body temperature after exercise, take a few days off to recover and allow your body to re-optimize. You will come back even stronger than before. Here are ways to get the best recovery out of your rest days.

8. Warming up and cooling down

If you aren't warming up or cooling down correctly, this could be the reason why you get so cold after exercise.

When you don't warm up and jump straight into intense exercise, your body gets a fright and pushes too much blood into your muscles. When too much blood is shifted too quickly, your body temperature can drop because there the warmth that the blood carries is shifted away from your core. Intense exercise can also increase your body temperature very sharply, instead of gradually through a warm up. A sharp increase in temperature will cause your body to over compensate (read above) to return things to normal.

A proper cool down is also essential for temperature regulation, along with other key benefits. It prevents your body from dropping the warmth that exercise creates all in one go. Cooling down also stops your blood from pooling in one place, which can also make you cold from working out. As discussed earlier, blood volumes increase in the muscles when they are exercised. A cool down assists to circulate the blood back to the rest of the body after the muscles have down their job. This blood brings warmth with it, along with the waste products that need to exit your muscles. Since blood is regulated, fresh blood can get into the muscles. This fresh blood brings the new nutrients that the muscles need.

Lack of proper warm ups reduce performance, and cooling down after exercise will enhance recovery.

Here are great warm up and cool down tips. 

If any of these solutions helped you, please let me know in the comments below. STAY STRONG!

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Supplements for Muscle Growth

In this article I look at the top supplements to maximize muscle growth. I've researched what most people use and what gives you the best results in the shortest period of time possible. Live Strong, for example, recommends a good combination of pre and post workout supplements to speed up the growth of lean muscle mass. 

The best supplements that will help your muscles grow as fast as possible

1. Protein powder

Stack.com says that bigger muscles can require twice the amount of daily protein, compared to people who don't work out at all. Legionathletics.com lists protein powder as the top choice in their article of the best and worst supplements. You can get all of the protein that you need from natural food sources like meat, animal products and nuts. Protein powder, however, is still a great supplement to have for the following reasons:

Benefits of protein powder

• Protein powder can be cheaper than food sources of protein, gram for gram. You can get the protein equivalent of a large piece of steak from a single protein shake. And a tub of protein powder gives you many shakes. This makes the cost of protein in powder form a fraction of the cost that it would be in food form.
• Protein powder is convenient. It is a lot easier to throw together a shake with a scoop of powder and a mix of water or milk than to have a cooked and prepared protein source when you need it. You can carry the dry powder in a shaker in your car, bag or locker and simply mix it with water when needed. When it is not mixed with wet ingredients like water, it won't spoil from heat, unlike most food.
• It doesn't expire as quickly as normal food. Protein powder, if left dry, can keep fresh for years without expiring. It will still be safe for consumption when you need it. You can literally buy a tub and keep it in your cupboard for months on end and only use it when you need to.
• Shakes are easier to consume. Eating a steak takes more effort than downing a protein shake. This can save time and is a lot less messy. For example, it is more practical to have a shake after your workout than to bring a bunch of eggs into the gym.
• They are easier to digest. Protein in a powder form is easier for the body to break down into the nutrients that it needs. Your body does not need to break down a full food into tiny pieces before it can enter into the gut for your body to absorb what it needs.
• Protein powders offer variety. There are a variety of flavors and brands to choose from. There are also different types of protein, ranging from egg and beef to milk and plant sources. You can also choose a protein powder according to the time it takes to reach your muscles after consumption. I have even seen birthday cake, mixed sundae and toffee flavors.

2. Creatine

Bodybuilding.com names creatine as the top muscle building supplement of their choice. 

Creatine is a naturally occurring chemical found in your body. It is actually found in almost all animals (all vertebrates). You will find it naturally occurring in meat based foods. It is also made by your body. It is one of the most popular supplements that bodybuilders and weight lifters use, after whey protein (a form of protein powder that comes from milk).

The supplement creatine is most widely available in the following forms:

• Creatine can be sold on its own. Creatine powder is available as an isolated supplement on its own, which you can add to protein shakes (post workout and meal replacement shakes), smoothies or juices.
• Creatine can be mixed with other ingredients in pre-workouts. Pre-workouts are supplements taken before your workout to boost energy levels, physical performance, and recovery and muscle growth. See more on pre workouts below.
• Creatine can already be mixed into meal replacement and post workout supplements. 

It has the following functions within the body:

• It assists your cells to make energy. Without creatine, your muscles will not be able to generate the energy that they need in order to work.
• Creatine increases muscle size by increasing the water that a muscle can hold. This increases the amount of nutrients that can enter the muscle. It also elevates the amount of waste products that can exit the muscle in a given period of time.
• It is involved with the formation of protein nutrients into muscle tissue, by allowing protein synthesis to take place.
• Creatine signals to the rest of the body where muscle needs to grow and recover.

There are different forms of creatine (like creatine monohydrate, micronized creatine, creatine serum, buffered creatine, ethyl ester, effervescent creatine, creatine nitrate, hydro chloride and more). See the different forms of creatine and how these differences affect your muscle growth here.

3. Branched Chain Amino Acids

www.muscleandfitness.com says that branched chain amino acids (BCAA's) are by the far the most important of all the amino acids for building muscle. It also says that they are important for repairing the muscle after stimulating it to grow bigger. The advantages of taking these amino acids are:

• They ensure the reduction of muscle breakdown (being in a catabolic state). Your body can break down muscle for energy if it feels the need to do so. This can often happen if training periods are too long, your body feels stressed or threatened, you are sick (flu or colds, for example) or if you don't have enough nutrients for it to get the energy it needs. When you take branched chain amino acids, your body can break them down instead of muscle for energy and leave your precious muscle mass alone. They are good to take during times when you risk muscle loss, like when you are sick or need to go a long time without eating.
• They increase protein synthesis. Protein synthesis is the process where protein is converted into muscle. BCAA's increase the rate of protein synthesis because they are crucial elements needed to make protein. They are important building blocks of protein. Taking them allows your body to create and maintain muscle more easily.
• They increase energy levels. These amino acids increase physical energy and physical performance. They also decrease the rate at which muscles start to fatigue. They are therefore also great to use during workouts to maximize performance and decrease muscle damage.
• They help to improve the time that your body takes to recover from exercise and other activities that impact your muscles. These other activities can be long periods of standing for work, for example.

4. Glutamine

Glutamine stimulates the growth of your muscle, according to mensfitness.com

It is also an amino acid and therefore one of the building blocks of the protein nutrient. It is a fantastic supplement that speeds up all round recovery. Patients on hospital recover faster from surgery when they consumed extra glutamine.

Exercise greatly depletes your glutamine stores, and therefore supplementing with it after exercise will speed up the recovery process. It helps with recovery on almost all aspects of your body. For example, it speeds up recovery from illnesses like flu and colds, shortens the amount of time that wounds take to heal, supports a strong central nervous system and even protects the immune system from vulnerability.

Similar to BCAA's, it prevents muscle from breaking down. While BCAA's will give you the energy to exercise while assisting muscle growth, glutamine will protect you from damage and speed up all-round healing and recovery while assisting with muscle growth. It also helps to increase human growth hormone (HGH) levels. This growth hormone is one of the most important muscle building hormones, along with testosterone.

Glutamine is very active in maintaining digestive and gut health. Glutamine supplementation is an effective treatment for leaky gut syndrome. It has a vital role in other bodily functions, like maintaining liver and kidney health.

5. Beta-alanine

Beta-alanine supplementation can combat muscle fatigue and therefore increases the amount of work that a muscle can do before tiring out. This is according Michael Matthews from www.muscleforlife.com

When your muscles perform at high intensities like lifting weights, they produce an acid called lactic acid. This lactic acid is responsible for the burning sensation you feel in your muscles when you work them hard enough. It is a by-product of what happens in muscle fiber when it exerts itself to contract or expand against a heavy force. This lactic acid was primarily responsible for our survival, because it stops us from working a muscle so hard that it causes more damage than what the muscle can recover from. It is also responsible for the soreness and stiffness that you can feel for days after a good workout.

The primary survival reason for this response was to prevent you from over working a muscle that hasn't healed sufficiently yet. Beta-alanine supplementation decreases the release of lactic acid, allowing muscles to perform for a longer period of time. This increases the total time under tension that stimulates a muscle before it tires out.

Some people are more sensitive to this supplement than others. The beta-alanine content of pre-workout supplements is what causes the tingling sensation that some people feel on their skin. It can also cause some users to itch. Others don't have any negative side effects from it at all. If you feel a tingly, itchy side effect from a pre-workout; it is probably the beta alanine that your body does not have a good reaction to. Others do feel the tingly sensation, but like the feeling. They say that it makes them feel like the supplement is working all over their bodies.

6. ZMA

www.myprotein.com says that ZMA boosts muscle building hormones. ZMA is made up of zinc, magnesium and vitamin B-6. My Protein mentions studies where people with zinc and magnesium deficiencies had increases in testosterone and insulin-like growth factor when they took ZMA. Insulin-like growth factors (or IF-1 for short) are proteins which are extremely similar to insulin. It is commonly known and used for its ability to enhance muscle growth. To find out more about the benefits, sources and deficiency effects of zinc and magnesium, click here. ZMA is typically sold at supplement, health and vitamin stores as a natural testosterone booster. 

As a combination of zinc, magnesium and vitamin B-6, ZMA aids muscle recovery by assisting the body to rebuild itself after exercise. This can increase the speed at which muscle grows, as well as the amount of growth that it undergoes following stimulus. This works to improve muscle size and physical ability in a shorter period of time. It enhances quality of sleep and allows the body to turn fat into energy more efficiently.

Your body cannot store zinc, so it is important to get enough of it regularly. Your body naturally needs zinc for healing (from exercise, wounds or other damage), growth (creating new tissue), turning food into nutrients that the body needs and maintaining proper immune function.

Magnesium is important for the optimal maintenance of muscular, skeletal and nervous systems. It is also heavily involved with many biochemical functions within the body. Magnesium supplementation can ease muscle pain, decrease fatigue and improve performance. Many runners use it during big races for this reason. 

Vitamin B-6 is needed for energy production from the food we eat and transporting oxygen throughout the body. It is also important for keeping neurotransmitters healthy and active.

A combination of the above benefits gives ZMA its muscle-building benefits.

7. HMB

Authoritynutrition.com lists HMB as one of the top muscle building supplements. HMB stands for Beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate. It is made when your body breaks down leucine, and it is essential for proper protein synthesis and muscle growth. It is naturally made within the body (by breaking down the amino acid leucine) and therefore supplementation is not necessary. Taking it as a supplement to increase the amount of HMB in your body, however, can benefit muscle creation. Authority nutrition cites studies that show that new athletes who take this supplement (at 3 - 6 grams a day) benefited with increases in muscles mass, compared to people who didn't.

Other studies show that trained athletes with more muscle mass than the beginners did not benefit significantly from HMB supplementation. Therefore, this supplement is a great option for people who are just starting out and need an extra boost to help them along their new journey. The benefits of HMS supplementation seem to diminish after the bodies of these athletes become better at turning protein into muscle. 

Beginners respond differently to exercise, compared to those who have trained for longer. For example, this workout plan is great for beginners who are new to weight training. It will help them to get their bodies into the routine of breaking down and building muscle without the amounts of physical stress that could hurt their bodies more than build them up. On the other hand, experienced bodybuilders will benefit from this workout routine more, since their bodies have adapted to weight training and need a newer, heavier stimulus to increase muscle growth.

Art of manliness says that HMB is not likely to be effective in increasing muscle mass. It discusses a study where people who took the supplement had great muscular gains from weight lifting. These people were consuming more calories than what their bodies were burning, though, which is also highly conducive to muscle growth. When these people used HMB while restricting their caloric consumption, they did not have the same benefits. This could mean that the reason why the people who used it initially gained muscle was because of diet and not because of the supplement itself.

My Take

It is fine to use HMB and the other supplements on this page, but diet must come first. Supplements cannot undo a bad diet. You should first focus on making sure that your diet is as conducive to muscle growth as possible before adding supplements into the mix. Supplements make a great bonus after your eating plan is properly implemented. Use these tips to create a diet that builds the most muscle.

8. Caffeine

The energy that caffeine gives you can benefit muscle development. Caffeine is found in most pre workout supplements for this reason. It gives you energy by breaking down fat stores. This is why it is also found in most weight loss supplements. Since your body has more energy from caffeine, it won't resort to breaking down muscle tissue for the immediate nutrients that it needs to cope with the physical stress during exercise. Studies have shown that subjects who work out in a fasted state retained more muscle mass when they had caffeine before their workouts. The extra energy that caffeine gives your body will allow your muscles to do more before tiring out. This increases the amount of stimulus that you can apply to muscle mass with every workout that you do.

The decreasing effect of caffeine

As great as the above information is, caffeine does have a diminishing effect. This is because the more caffeine you take the less sensitive to caffeine your body becomes. Since it increases energy levels by metabolizing fat, your body will try to counter this by decreasing natural fat metabolism. The process by which your body counteracts an action in order to restore balance is called homeostasis. The more caffeine you use (and the longer the period that you use it for); the more your body builds up a resistance in this way. For best results, I recommend using caffeine only in times where you need an extra boost, fear muscles loss due to diet change or need to jump start a new fat loss routine. By using it sparingly, you can get the benefits of this stimulant without minimizing its potential value for helping you to reach your goals.

9. Pre-workouts

The Athletic Build recommends using pre workouts to maximize strength and size gains. Pre workouts are supplements that are taken before exercise to increase energy and physical performance, decrease fatigue and rate of failure, increase recovery and growth, and boost motivation during exercise. Pre workouts are a mixture of different ingredients that bring about these benefits. Creatine, caffeine, testosterone boosters, amino acids and simple (fast acting) carbohydrates are common ingredients in pre workouts.

Pre workouts are usually very potent. For this reason, if you are using a pre workout for the first time; you should only use half of the dosage and increase or decrease it the next time that you work out, instead of taking a full dosage in the first go. For example, the first time I took a pre workout I felt very nauseous and felt like I was going to puke throughout my entire workout. 

It should also not be taken by people under the age of 18, or by people who are sensitive to stimulants. Since a lot of pre-workout supplements contain creatine and sugars which can increase water weight, many pre workout products are not recommended for people who are trying to lose weight or are preparing to compete. There are many variations without creatine and sugar for these people, though.

Pre-workouts give you an insane amount of energy. This massive amount of energy helps you to complete your workouts with the most stimuli that you can. The high energy effects also help to get your head in the game. I often compare taking a pre workout to drinking 10 cups of coffee in one go. 

Just like caffeine above, pre workout supplements need to be cycled. You should not take these every day of the week. Give your body at least two days of each week to rest from its energy-boosting properties; otherwise your body can burn out quite quickly. Also, allow for training cycles where you don't use a pre workout at all. Using it all the time will incur the same diminishing effect as caffeine. This happens when your body tries to balance out the effects of the pre workout. Since it greatly raises performance levels, it is easy to develop a mental dependence where people struggle to work out and give their muscles the stimulus that they deserve without the pre workout. 

Some people recommend using it for no more than 5 days a week and for no longer than eight weeks in a row before taking a 4 week break. This decreases dependence and counteracts the long term 'balancing out' reaction that your body will likely produce.

I personally only use it to break through a plateau where I haven't seen much progress in a long period of time. I also use it when changing up my program to a new routine that is much more demanding on my body. I also only use it for 5 weeks in a 1/4, 1/2, full, 1/2, 1/4 fashion. In my first week I will use a quarter of the full dose. In the second week I will use a half the normal dose. In the third week I will use a full dose so that I am increasing my dose as my body gets used to it. I then decrease my does to 1/2 and then 1/4 to give my body time to keep the same physical performance level with the decreasing amount of help from the pre-workout.

10. Horny goat weed and catuaba 

According to Men's Health, these two herbs reduce estrogen production and increase muscle growth. Estrogen is the female hormone; the opposite of testosterone. Your body balances these two hormones, which are both present (and made) in male and female bodies. When testosterone levels are high, estrogen levels will usually be lower. Your body uses the one hormone to balance out the other. For example, if your testosterone levels are too high, then your body will create more estrogen to balance out the excess testosterone. Horny goat weed and catuaba are often used to inhibit the production of estrogen.

Estrogen is not the worst thing in the world for muscle growth, says Iron Mag. Too much of it can cause ill effects (like practically every other substance in our bodies), but it is needed in male bodies for the creation of good sperm. Low estrogen levels are linked in infertility in men. Falling estrogen levels in women are linked to decreased bone health. Some studies suggest that the same is true for men. Estrogen is also strongly linked to good cardio vascular health.

Supplement tips

Here are some extra tips to help you decide what will work the best for you.

Choose wisely

Spot me bro recommends choosing the best supplements based on price and effect. If you are buying whatever everybody recommends and taking it without monitoring what works best for your own body, you could end up wasting a lot of money without achieving the best results. On the other hand, if you choose your supplements wisely, by doing a lot of research and trials to find what works best for you, you can achieve more while spending less.

Everybody's needs are different

Your body works different to mine and the next guy's. In the same way, some supplements will benefit you more than me. For example, I have tried a few pre-workouts to find the one that benefits me the most. I know of friends who say that the one that I use is nothing compared to their choices, but those ones don't have as a great an effect on me as the one I choose to use. Is one of us wrong? Not really. I discovered that the pre-workout I like works best for me. My friends have also tried a variety of supplements and found the best ones that work for them. 

Even entire categories of supplements might not benefit you in the same way that it could benefit someone else. Testosterone boosters are a good example. Most people below the age of 25 don't need testosterone boosters because their natural testosterone levels are already at their peak. Using them will be a waste of money that could be spent on other supplements that could make a much bigger difference. This isn't only limited to age or gender. Some people do better without pre workouts at all, for example.

Don't try too many new supplements out at once, so that you can test each one on its own without confusing the results. This way, you can feel which supplements are really helping you and which ones aren't making any difference.

If you have a few friends that are training with you, give the supplements that you don't use to them instead of throwing them away. Supplements are expensive. They might use it and benefit from it more than you did. This encourages them to give you their stuff that they don't use anymore. This becomes a great way for you to try out new stuff without having to commit money to it first.

Choose supplements according to goals

Decide on what your goals are before choosing the best supplements for you. If your goal is to lose weight, the supplements you use will be totally different to someone who is trying to gain weight. The ideal supplements differ greatly even for people who want to build muscle and lose fat, compared to people who want to build muscle and don't mind whether they gain a little fat or not.

If you don't mind gaining fat, for example, you will make sure that the calories that you consume are always more than what your body is burning, so that there are enough calories in your system for your body to turn into new muscle tissue.

If you want to burn fat at the same time, it becomes harder because you need to hold a close-to-perfect balance between eating enough calories to support muscle growth but less than enough for the body to turn into fat.

Different supplements can help you to bulk (or gain mass), lose weight (or cut/ tone/ define/ burn fat), strengthen (enhance performance), or recover. Find out what you want to do the most and buy supplements according to these objectives.

Priority list

Your first priority should be nutrients. Make sure that you get all the right nutrients that your body needs to stay healthy and grow muscle. These nutrients include water, carbohydrates, fats and micro nutrients (vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, trace elements, anti-oxidants etc.)

Build up a good diet that gives you as much of these nutrients as possible. Once that is done, find the best supplements to help you fill the gaps that your new diet cannot fill. For example, your diet might not be able to give you all the protein that you need according to your goals (for appetite, money or time reasons). This is how protein shakes can provide a good benefit.

Once your nutritional aspect is taken care of, you can look into supplements that will boost muscle growth over and above what would normally happen without them. The next best thing is totally up to you. It is a good idea, however, to choose the next supplement according to what you feel like you need the most.

For example, glutamine might be your best option if you feel sore for too long after your workouts or take longer to recover than normal. Caffeine and pre workouts will be better if you feel like you need more energy to give your workouts the kind of intensity that they need. Branched chain amino acids (BCAA's) are great for times when you feel like your body could be breaking down muscle (like going too long without eating or getting sick).

Choosing a supplement based on what you struggle with the most will give you a lot more bang for your buck.

Don't replace food with supplements

You need to eat real food. Do not replace too much real food for supplements.

One of the reasons for this is micro nutrient diversity. You might be getting the same amount of carbohydrates from an apple as you do in a meal replacement shake, but that apple has many naturally occurring micro nutrients which the shake does not have, but that your body needs. Real food has many micro nutrients that your body needs to function properly. Eating a varied diet of real food along with supplements ensures that you get all the micro nutrients that your body needs.

Additionally, studies are repeatedly showing that our bodies absorb micro nutrients a lot more efficiently from real food, compared to supplements.

Shape.com lists the following micro nutrients as absolutely essential for athletes that are creating diets to meet their caloric needs:

• Vitamin C is important. You can get it from fresh fruit and vegetables. This aids recovery and supports a strong immune system.
• Fish oil is also needed. You can get it from oily fish like salmon. This balances out negative plant oils (trans fats) that come from fried foods. Fish oil is great for eye, brain, heart, skin and cardiovascular health.
• Calcium consumption greatly benefits health. It benefits muscle function just as much as it benefits bone health.
• Magnesium that comes from spinach and legumes supports healthy living. Most people already don't get enough of this mineral. It alleviates muscles cramping and decreases muscle soreness from exercise.
• B vitamins, which are important for skin and nervous system health, should not be neglected. They are also extremely important for proper metabolism function and energy production.
•  Vitamin D is needed and is strongly connected to other muscle building hormones like testosterone and growth hormone. Insufficient vitamin D can lead to sleep problems.
• Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant that helps to combat the oxidation that exercise can put on cells. Almonds are a great source of this vitamin.

Another reason why we need real food is digestive health. Supplements are made to be easily digested and used within the body. Real foods are harder to digest into nutrients. If too much of your diet consists of supplements, your digestive system will lose its ability to break down actual food. I know of someone who ate nothing but protein shakes to lose weight for a few months. After that, they struggled to eat normal food and got pains every time they tried to; because their bodies grew too accustomed to easily digestible 'food'.

Stacking supplements

Stacking refers to using different supplements at the same time (throughout the day) to achieve a desired effect. Here are some of my personal stacks, according to my specific goals.

Bulking
During bulking phases I use a mass gainer, whey hydrolysate, casein and a pre workout.

I mix my mass gainer and whey hydrolysate in the mornings as soon as I wake up and straight after my workout. I use my pre workout half an hour before my weight training session and I use a combination of my mass gainer and casein before sleep.

Cutting 
On days where want to burn fat while retaining muscle I use BCAA's, whey hydrolysate, caffeine and casein.
I take my hydrolysate shake after I wake up, use the caffeine and BAA's before and during my workout and use BCAA's throughout the day. I drink a shake of casein powder before bed.

Maintaining
During maintenance phases, I only use my mass gainer and BCAA's throughout the day.

Please note: This is all in addition to my regular meals (I eat 4 meals of real food every day).

I hope that this article helps you to make the right supplement choices. I hope that it will not only help you to reach your specific physical goals, but also keep you strong and healthy. Health and physical success are closely inter-related. The less time your body needs to spend fighting off illness, the better. It will have more time to build muscle. The healthier you are, the more energy you will have to do the workouts that you need to do to get further. Unfortunately, none of these supplements work over night. You are still going to have to put in all of the time and dedication that it takes to reach the top. STAY STRONG!

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