WHAT TO PUT ON YOUR PLATE TO BUILD MUSCLE

 

 

EATING TO BUILD MUSCLE

If you’ve missed the previous write-up s in this series, you can catch it here:

Now that we’ve covered why muscle matters and how to approach your training to build and maintain muscle, it’s time we pivot to the other half of the muscle-building equation: Nutrition.

Let’s get into it!

 

PROTEIN … DUH!

This might seem obvious, but when it comes to nutrition advice for building and maintaining muscle, protein is key.

We’ve all heard this before, but protein is the building block for lean muscle mass. Simply put, if you’re not getting enough protein in your diet, you aren’t going to build muscle.

The problem is that a lot of people still aren’t getting enough protein in their diets, meaning they are leaving valuable gains on the table and negatively impacting their recovery.

Remember, eating enough protein and regularly doing strength training is not going to make you bulky. Even if your goal is to burn off excess body fat and change the composition of your body to look leaner, building muscle is critical.

Also keep in mind that by prioritizing protein in your diet, you’re more likely to feel satiated after your meals, which can help prevent cravings for highly palatable, calorie-dense foods — that’s important if your primary goal is fat loss.

Which gets us into the million-dollar question: How much protein do you need in order to support ideal muscle growth?

As with most things nutrition-related, it depends. But generally speaking, 0.8–1.0 grams of protein per pound of body weight is a good bare minimum to shoot for.

So, for a 185-pound male, that would mean about 148–185 grams of protein, and for a 140-pound female, that would mean about 112–140 grams of protein. But remember, this should be looked at as more of a minimum to shoot for rather than a rigid recommendation for how much protein is actually ideal for muscle growth.

The leaner you are, the more active you are, and the longer you have been training are all factors that will increase your demand for protein beyond these numbers. For most, however, this is a good place to start.

 

ONE THING TO TRY THIS WEEK

Calculate how much protein you should be eating based on the numbers recommended above and track your food for a few days to see how close you’re getting to that goal.

Sure, tracking your food can seem intimidating or even an unnecessary step for some, but if you really want to know if you’re setting yourself up for ideal muscle growth, strength gains, and the body composition changes you want to see, you need to know if you’re coming close to your daily protein needs or not. You can watch a short video on how to start tracking your food HERE

How else are you going to recover and maximize the gains you get from the new cycle on the Sentry App?

Are you ready to feed your body what it needs to make the most of it?

LET’S GO!

MUSCLE MATTERS — FOR EVERYONE

 

BUILDING AND MAINTAINING MUSCLE

Why is this such an important topic?

Regardless of your fitness goal, building and maintaining muscle needs to be a priority. Whether you’re trying to burn fat, get stronger, or just live freely and fully outside the gym, the amount of muscle on your body will play a key role in determining your success.

When it comes to weight loss, what most people are trying to achieve is to burn fat. The only way to do that is by putting your body in a caloric deficit, which means that you want to burn more calories than you consume. This is where building muscle comes into play. You see, the more lean muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn, in turn making it easier to comfortably stay in a caloric deficit and burn excess body fat.

Obviously, if you’re looking to make strength gains, building and maintaining muscle is key. Even if performance isn’t a priority and all you’re focused on is health and longevity, muscle still matters.

Several studies have tied increases in muscle mass to all sorts of reduced risks for negative health outcomes in the long term. Simply put, you need muscle to live a long, free, full life.

 

ONE THING TO TRY THIS WEEK

We’ll dive a lot deeper into how you can effectively build and maintain lean muscle in blog posts throughout the rest of the month, but from a high level, it really just boils down to this:

Fuel your body with proper amounts of food (protein in particular), prioritize sleep, and regularly work resistance training into your weekly exercise routine.

This week, let’s start with the basics. Make sure to incorporate some resistance training at least three times this week. You can squat, deadlift, and press, or just follow our daily workout on the Sentry App to check off all the boxes.

“WHETHER YOU’RE TRYING TO BURN FAT, GET STRONGER, OR JUST LIVE FREELY AND FULLY OUTSIDE THE GYM, THE AMOUNT OF MUSCLE ON YOUR BODY WILL PLAY A KEY ROLE IN DETERMINING YOUR SUCCESS.”

Getting Your Life On Track

August 22, 2022

Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “When you work out, your whole life works out!”

And maybe exercise doesn’t fix everything, but it can sure feel that way.

Exercise makes you more confident.

Exercise makes you calm.

Exercise helps you think more clearly.

Exercise increases memory storage AND recall.

Exercise helps you focus.

Exercise makes you want to eat better.

Exercise with friends gives you perspective.

Exercise makes you happy.

These are the fundamental building blocks to a happier life.

When you’re confident, you socialize more. You ask for the things you want. You stop hiding.

When you’re focused, you feel less overwhelmed. You stress less. You perceive that you have control over things.

When you’re happy, people will want to be around you more. Little daily stresses won’t worry you. You’ll feel like you’re winning almost all of the time.

When you’re calm, you’ll make better decisions about your health, your relationships and your work.

When you look better, you’ll feel better too.

Look, exercise doesn’t solve every problem in your life. Not directly. But it’s a good first step. When you change your habits, you change your perspective. When you change your perspective, things just seem to fall into line. You start getting little tiny wins, and that makes you appreciate the big wins more.

Want proof?

Ask yourself right now, “How am I feeling, on a scale of 1-10?”

Then go for a 30-minute walk outside.

Then ask yourself the same question again.

If you don’t feel at least a little better, I’d be surprised. BUT WAIT–not all of the results are in yet.

At the end of the day, ask yourself, “Did the day go better than I thought it would? Did it go worse? Or was it about what I expected?”

Most of the time, your day will go better when you start with exercise.

Try it for a week. Tell me I’m wrong.

If you’re really ready to start moving your life forward, click here to talk with our team.

-Travis

How to Burn More Fat While Exercising

August 15th, 2022

The cost of work performed is the energy used to perform it. We measure energy in kilocalories, and your body produces energy in different ways. The body has different systems for producing the energy required to do work.

Longer, slower, lighter: you can burn fat to create energy.

Shorter, faster, heavier: you can burn sugar to create energy.

This is called metabolism: breaking down chemicals in your body to create energy.

Think of your body like a hybrid vehicle.

In the lower zones (Z1 and Z2), you can run on your batteries – the stored energy that your body has packed away as fat.

In higher zones, you need more power, so you have to draw on fuel – the carbohydrates that you’ve put in your tank.

This is a very simple way to think about burning energy. If you keep your output low but steady, you’ll primarily run off battery power—fat in the form of ketones. If you ramp up your output through resistance or speed, you’ll need more energy, faster—carbs in the form of blood sugar.

Your batteries will power you at a low level for a very long time – a healthy adult will have over 130,000 kilocalories stored as fat, ready for use in Z1 and Z2 activities. But when you start burning gas, your body switches over to that system and you stop running on battery power alone. And the higher your heart rate climbs, the less fat you burn.

How do you know which energy source you’re using?

Your heart will tell you. As your heart beats faster to keep up with the work you’re performing, your metabolism changes to keep up with your energy demand.

When your heart is beating slower, you can metabolize fats for energy. This process is called lipolysis, and it’s slow, but it can keep you going all day.

When your heart starts beating faster, you start to metabolize carbohydrates (stored as sugar in your blood and muscle). This process is called the Y cycle, and it will give you a lot of energy really quickly, but it won’t last long.

The higher your heart rate, the sooner you’ll run out of energy.

But you need both high-intensity exercise to improve your fitness, and lower-intensity exercise to change your bodyfat.

How much of each? It depends on the person. A coach at Sentry can tell you! Click here to book a free consultation.

Meet Lucas Vasilauskas and upcoming seminars!

Lucas Vasilauskas 

Lucas has worked in the fitness industry almost his entire career and has coached at a number of affiliates throughout California, most notably CrossFit Sacramento and CrossFit Natomas, before moving to Washington. 

He holds his NASM Personal Trainer Certification and multiple CrossFit certifications including the CrossFit Level 2 designation. 

Lucas has been subbing some classes here at Sentry and will also be hosting some upcoming specialty seminars including a pull-up seminar!

Pull-Up Seminar:

Have a goal to get your first strict Pull-up? Maybe your first kipping or butterfly pull-up? Or maybe having some more options for scales? Then this is the class for you! We will be having 2 class days for this. June 11th and June 18th at 11am, and they will be about an hour each. The first day will cover the more beginner side, starting with:

  • how to properly hang from a bar
  • all the way to Kipping Mechanics The second day will cover the next steps from everything g covered in day one like:
  • kipping pull-ups
  • butterfly
  • etc.

Throughout the 2 weeks I will give each of you some drills that you can work on in your own time to help improve the area we discovered needs fine tuning for you.

Prices:

$20 Drop in. This is open to non members as well!

Anyone interested can email info@crossfitsentry.com

 

Why You Should Start Personal Training

The options or plans to choose from to lose weight, build muscle and improve your health seem endless. You probably see them in your Facebook and Instagram feed daily. And while the number of options for in-home exercise are increasing and group classes are fun for some, you need to ask yourself.

“WHAT’S BEST FOR ME?”

The answer may be working one on one with a coach.

Here’s 5 reasons why you should consider working one on one with a coach to help with your health and fitness goals;

  1. IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU – You know the results you want. You know how you want to feel, look, move, etc. Our role is to create the roadmap for you to get there. We remove all the guesswork for you, and that’ll speed up your success. You’ll have your own coach who is responsible to make sure you’re successful. Your role is to show up and work hard. Your coach will put together an individualized plan just for you based on your needs and goals.
  2.  ACCOUNTABILITY – If you’re exercising at home, it’s easy to skip a day or 5 when “life gets in the way”. People are much more likely to follow through on plans, when the alternative is letting people down. If you sleep in, the globo gym or the online program you follow aren’t going to call you and ask what happened. Your coach will.
  3. INSTANT FEEDBACK – Many people we meet are nervous or flat out afraid to start an exercise program because they don’t know what to do. But when your personal training sessions are in person, the coach is there to help make sure you’re moving properly. You don’t need to wonder if you’re doing something correctly. We’ve trained hundreds of people over the years and while each of you is unique, we haven’t met a person that we couldn’t create an effective training plan for.
  4. TIME – Between family, friends and work…You are busy! Many of our clients that do personal training say they enjoy the flexibility it offers them as opposed to needing to follow a pre set group class schedule. We can offer training sessions 7 days a week, starting as early as 6am! You need a time? We’ve got the time for you!
  5. CLEANLINESS – Given the current climate, many people are unsure or nervous to be among groups of people. Working one on one with a coach is a smart way to keep you out of large groups, and in a more comfortable, controlled setting.

If you’re ready to learn if working with your own personal coach is right for you, click I’m ready and include your top health goal for us. We’ll have time to talk about it and build your personalized plan that works for you.

We look forward to working with you soon.

Travis

Sentry Affiliate Program

Are you a gym owner/coach who has lost the desire to sit down for hours on end and program for your gym? Are you just someone who wants to get fitter, stronger, faster and healthier?

LET US HELP!
For $19 a month, you get access to the program we write for our athletes. This is the day to day workouts offered in the gym. You can register HERE

We have a passion for programming, have the experience to back it up and are eager to share it with you!