Saturday, August 11, 2007

Simple Muscle Secrets- August 2007

Welcome to the August 2007 edition of Simple Muscle Secrets.

As you have read in Simple Muscle and no doubt understand, one of our primary goals with the diet and workout structure is to maximise the anabolic response in our body to ensure we are in a constant state of growth. However this cannot be achieved 24/7 because you need to ensure you are getting adequate rest, ie at least 8 hours sleep each night. Unfortunately this is one of the most catabolic times if you do not prepare your body correctly.

Overcoming The Most Catabolic Time Of Your Day

When you sleep it is the longest time your body will go without nutrients. During the day you wouldn’t starve your body of food for 8 hours or more but this is exactly what happens at night.

The last thing we want to be doing is breaking down muscle tissue that we have worked so hard to gain so what is the solution?

Well there are a couple of ways to go about it.

One of the tricks used by many a professional bodybuilder is to actually consume a meal half way through the night. Yes that means setting the alarm for 2 or 3am and dragging yourself out of bed. Generally the easiest way to do it is to prepare a high protein low carb shake before bed and have it ready to go for when you wake up. Then all you have to do is get up, consume the shake and then go back to bed and (hopefully) go back to sleep.

The infusion of nutrients halfway through the night keeps your muscles well fed and obviously helps prevent muscle catabolism.

However, I don’t know about you but the last thing I want to be doing every night is getting up half way through my deep sleep……sorry but I just love sleep too much…. As I’m sure most of you do as well.

So how else can we get around this problem?

What I prefer to do is consume a high protein, low carb (or low GI carb) shake before going to bed. This ensures my muscles are absolutely chock full of nutrients before I go to sleep.

Then as soon as I wake up I consume a high carb, high protein meal to replenish the nutrient stores that have been depleted throughout the night. You may remember that Growth Hormone levels are high after physical activity AND after sleep. By consuming a high carb (high GI) meal (similar to the post workout meal) you cause an insulin spike. This insulin spike, coupled with high GH levels results in the release of IGF-1. This release of IGF-1 coupled with the supply of quality protein first up puts our muscles immediately back into an anabolic response and state of growth.

Basically, we have minimised the time in which our muscles are without nutrients and therefore are in a catabolic state.

And consuming our high GI carbs at this time means that we give our bodies all day to burn them up and therefore there is no need to worry about putting on any fat!

Which method is best?

If you are aiming to compete in a bodybuilding contest and every ounce of muscle counts then the best method is to wake during the night.

However,

For the vast majority taking the second option is more than sufficient in terms of overcoming this catabolic time and of course is much easier and fits in better with our day to day lifestyles.
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Help shape Simple Muscle Secrets. As you know I’m dedicated to helping you achieve your goals and create the body you’ve always wanted. I want to hear from you on what issues you think are important or need addressing or what you would like to hear more about in Simple Muscle Secrets.

Simply send an email to
secrets@simplemuscle.com outlining your thoughts and I will endeavour to address these issues in the editions of Simple Muscle Secrets that follow.
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Always remember that your privacy is always respected and no results are published without your express consent.
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Miss An Issue Or Want To Check Out Previous Issues?

All editions of Simple Muscle Secrets can be found at the Simple Muscle Blog:
http://www.simplemuscle.blogspot.com

I hope you enjoyed this issue of Simple Muscle Secrets. Until next time……..

Train For Gain,

Paul James
SimpleMuscle.com