Are you a “tight” athlete who needs work on flexibility? In this week’s podcast Scott and I discuss exactly how to asses tone and how to address this restriction to better your mobility and performance.
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When looking to add muscle or lose fat, it goes without saying that you should be diligent about the foods you consume. However, there are certain foods that you can leverage to add or lose weight. Let’s cover putting on weight.
When looking to add muscle mass to your frame, it is customary to utilize a caloric surplus. In other words, you want to be eating more calories than you burn (both through your basal metabolic rate and activity). This surplus creates an environment for your body to have readily available resources to deploy protein synthesis and tissue repair (assuming you are exercising and lifting weights to break down muscle so you can grow). One should shoot for roughly 300 calories above their maintenance calories per day to create the surplus. The problem most people run into is they end up eating A LOT of extra food to get to that 300 calories (especially if you aren’t eating a micronutrient deprived processed foods diet…in which case…it’s really easy to overeat). If you are eating a clean diet, you may want to leverage nuts and nut butters to get into a surplus. Typically, 2 tablespoons of nut butter or 9 hazel nuts equals 180 calories. As you can see it would pretty easy to add a little nut butter to your breakfast, or a snack after dinner to consume the extra calories, rather than eating 10oz. of chicken breast.
When looking to lose bodyfat, you want to utilize a caloric deficit. Typically, after a maintenance phase, we would remove 300 calories from your diet to create the deficit. That may not seem like a lot, and that’s the point, you are slowly coaxing your body to burn off excess fat in order to keep up with the bodies “set point.” The “set point” is the calories needed to remain the same weight. If your metabolism is set to 3,000 calories, and you bring your caloric intake down to 2,700 calories, you body will have to burn it’s own fat in order to make up the caloric need. This gives you the potential to lose bodyfat. Because you are used to eating a certain volume of food, you can utilize vegetables to make up the difference. For instance, say you wanted to cut 100 calories from your breakfast and you typically eat two pieces of toast. Instead of the toast, you can have a cup of roasted mushrooms, which really don’t have an appreciable amount of calories. I would included any green leafy vegetables in this category as well as the breakdown of the fiber actually keeps these foods at zero or even negative calories.
This is a complex topic with many nuances, and I will try to unpack them as best as I can in upcoming posts. If you are anxious to learn more or get started with your own nutrition plan, I’m here to help! Click the link below to get started today and let’s put on some muscle, or lose the fat today!
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In this week's episode, I am joined by Scott Hagnas and Dustin Lebel. Dustin Lebel is a fitness coach who specializes in online individual coaching. In this episode, we discuss what fitness for life looks like, nutrition coaching for ageless athletes, how to assess your diet, and what Dustin has learned through 16 years of fitness coaching.
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The Most Important Workout for Ageless Athletes The 60 minute walk is the most important workout any ageless athlete can leverage for getting started with a exercise plan or for recovery if you been training. In this video, I highlight exactly why the 60 minute walk is so important!
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In this week's episode, my guest is Ed Gibbins. Ed is the lead product designer and co-founder of Rewire Fitness app. Ed and I discuss how the rewire app is different than any other fitness app on the market, why now is the best time to leverage neurotraining, and how just 2 minutes can completely change your day using the Rewire app.
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Yesterday, I wrote about the first steps after transitioning from athletics to fitness for life as an ageless athlete. That’s not to say that ageless athlete will not play recreational sports anymore like golf, tennis, and lacrosse, even if these were your high school/college/professional sports. What it means is that elite performance is no longer your goal, and instead your goals have pivoted to health and longevity.
I mentioned the first step in the transition is regaining for movement capabilities you once had long ago before you were dedicated to your sport(s). Most athletes I work with have tried stretching and massage to try and get themselves more mobility with minimal long term improvements. One of the common reasons ageless athletes have a hard time regaining mobility, especially through stretching, is that their nervous systems are usually super charged. They try to pull on muscles that are already tensioned by your fight-or-flight response. I talk a different approach. With ageless athletes, I try to use gentle movement and nasal breathing to calm the nervous system. Once the athlete is able to breath and relax, we then start to progress from position to position over time to rebuild our movement capabilities. Below is one of my favorite exercises that one of my mentors Zac Cupples showed me. Remember to move very slow, don’t force anything, and breath as relaxed as possible through your nose.
If this started to get you thinking about the chronic pain you have been having or maybe you just haven’t seen progress in the gym, I’m here to help! Click the link to get started working together today!
For ageless athletes, they usually have a background in sport. Whether that sporting level reached its peak in high school, college, or professionally, the measures afterward are the same: regain total body movement function.
Your see, when an athlete advances closer and closer to elite performance in a sport, the athlete’s body will naturally acclimate to that sport. Certain muscles will tension, others will loosen. Areas will gain explosiveness, while others stiffness and become rigid. Knowing this, in order to maintain healthy movement function and create longevity and resiliency after sport, you must focus on regaining and maintaining movement capabilities for the rest of your life. That’s right, the rest of your life. Some movements will never be the same again, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t get improve.
The most common issue I see is ageless athletes try to get back into shape after not moving for many years after they have finished their careers and they are still working with the body they had when they were competing. Unfortunately, the movements needs of the new fitness endeavors usually rub against the movement capabilities of the athlete. This is why athletes often times have issues when trying Crossfit. The ageless athlete still has the competitive mindset, but they have the body of their previous sport. The extreme movement demands of Crossfit are way more advanced than anything the ageless athlete has ever trained before. It’s like putting a Ferrari engine in a Ford Escort. The drive is there, but the structure can support it.
My advice to any ageless athlete who is looking to start a functional fitness routine? Learn the demands of the exercise routine in question, and spend most of your time working toward perfecting that movement. Not only will you see way more benefits from the routine, but you will save your self pain and time as well.
Not sure what fitness routine is right for you? I’m here to help. The first step in the journey with all ageless athlete I work with is understanding your strengths and weaknesses through an assessment. Click below to book one today!
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In this week's episode, Scott and I run through a quick checklist of considerations for ageless athletes prior to starting a high intensity exercise regimen. These tips could save your life!
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