Forewarning: I’m totally going to nerd out on supplements on this one.

A Glimpse of My Recent Order from TrueNutrition:

Pre-workout Staples

Creapure® – Creatine Monohydrate Powder (1000g) – $17.90

I loaded on creatine at 0.3 * kg of bodyweight for a week, then I continue to supplement 5g daily to stay at my optimal level. For non-workout days, I take 5g first thing in the morning. For workout days, I take 5g with carbs post workout. Based on that, this bottle should last me almost 6 months.

Beta-Alanine Powder (1000g) – $37.80

I loaded on beta-alanine at 6g per day for 3 weeks, then I continue to supplement at 4g daily to stay at my optimal level. On non-workout days, I take 2g first thing in the morning and 2g again 12 hours later. On morning workout days, I take 2g after I workout, then 2g again 12 hours later. Base on that, this bottle should last me about 8 months.

Citrulline Malate Powder (1000g) – $48.50

I supplement with citrulline malate 8g 15 minute before I workout and I workout on average 3 times per week. Based on that, this bottle should last me about 10 months.

BCAAs – Branched Chain Amino Acids (1000g) – $35.90

I supplement with 20g of BCAAs whenever I do fasted training in the morning. I typically do this twice per week, so this bottle should last me about 6 months.

Stimulants

Alpha GPC Powder (100g) – $46.99

For extra focus, I add 500mg of Alpha GPC into my pre-workout whenever I will be attempting heavy singles or maxes (about twice per week). Based on that, this tiny bottle should last me over two years!

Burn Fat Burner 502mg Capsules (135 Capsules) – $14.99

For extra energy and fat burn, I typically take 2 capsules before I do super early morning fasted workouts (once per week). Based on that, this bottle should last me at least 8 months (most likely much longer because I cycle off of stimulants time to time).

Flavor Packs

Premium Flavor Key Lime Pie Flavor Pack (50g) – $4.49

Premium Flavor Hawaiian Punch Flavor Pack (50g) – $4.49

Premium Flavor Lemon Meringue Pie Flavor Pack (50g) – $4.49

Custom Pre-workout Mix

Experimental custom mix late day pre workout formula (1 lb) – $11.51

• Hydrolyzed Whey Protein Super Grade (30%)
• MCT – Medium Chain Triglyceride Powder (20%)
• Dextrose (30%)
• Fructose (10%)
• L-Leucine (10%)
• CEC / PEC / Vitamin Mineral Mix / Electrolytes
• Premium Peanut Butter and Jelly Flavor
• Optional: Alpha GPC (500mg)

At 45g per serving, this will last only 10 workouts. With each serving, I add my 8g of Citrulline Malate to this mix. I use this mix when I’m not in a fasted state when I workout (afternoon / early evenings) so that I can take advantage being able to ingest nutrients into in the bloodstream to help me lift. I only workout once a week at night, so this should last me a couple of months.

Note that Alpha GPC is fat soluble but we don’t need to add fish oil into the mix because our Medium Chain Triglycerides will serve as the fat source to aid in Alpha GPC absorption into our digestive tract.

Late day post workout formula (not really a formula, just things I consume after workout)

• Creatine (5g)
• Beta-Alanine (2g)
• Protein source (100g)
• Carb source (50g)

Early morning fasted workout formula (mixed from staples):

Top reasons why I like ordering from TrueNutrition:

1. They sell the building blocks to let me totally nerd out my supplements.
2. I like knowing which supplement and how much of it goes into my body.
3. They cut out all the bull shit marketing expenses and bring the savings to the consumer.
4. Each product info page educates you on the supplement in detail, its proper dosage, and any warnings related to the supplement.
5. They offer bulk discounts. On my recent order, I bought 1000g of BCAAs for $35.90. That is at least 20% cheaper than any other designer BCAAs out there (e.g. Xtend).
6. You can create your own custom mix of proteins, supplements, and even the flavor of the mix.

Use TrueNutrition Discount Code “TAK129″ to get 5% off!!

When purchasing from TrueNutrition.com you can use TAK129 to get 5% off of your order. Booyah!

Also let me know if you have your own personal mixes that you like in the comments section below!

7. Sports Tape

I use sports tape is a safety measure for when my calluses decide to rip up on me or if the bar decides to scrape my knee on the way up during a deadlift. Sports tape works much better than bandaids at taking bar punishment which allows you to finish your workout without spreading your germs all over the bar.

Sports tape also comes in handy as thumb wraps if you do a lot of hook gripping with your lifts.

6. Chalk bag & chalk

Chalk will give you a better grip on the barbell. When I’m in the 90%-100% 1-rep-max range, I make sure I chalk up my hands so I don’t have to worry about any bar slippage (so that I can focus more on performing the lift).

Aside from giving you better grip, chalk also helps prevent calluses from forming and ripping up.

5. Hand lotion

Now don’t laugh at me here, but hand care is absolutely essential to every weightlifter. The last thing you want is to be limited by your hands while the rest of your body is completely able to perform. As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, after a lifting session, always wash your hands thoroughly with soap, towel dry, then lotion up to prevent callus formation.

4. Small notebook & pen

I use a small spiral notebook and a pen to keep track of my lifts. I like to record my lifts on a small notebook because it’s faster than any electronic devices, it won’t fail on me, and I can always go back to see how I did in my previous workouts.

Once I go home, I copy what I wrote into Fitocracy (<– invites here!) so I can see pretty graphs.

3. Shaker bottles

I keep a couple shaker bottles handy with different supplements in them. I usually have one shaker filled with pre workout supplements and the other filled with peri-workout supplements or post workout supplements. They are almost a requirement if you want to train hard.

2. Weightlifting straps

Sometimes gyms won’t let you use chalk so the next best alternative is to use weightlifting straps to move all that weight while not tearing up your hands. In my opinion, the muscle driver USA straps are the best straps for the money (and they are the same ones that olympians use).

1. Proper weightlifting shoes

If you intend to do any snatches, cleans, jerks, or ATG (ass-to-grass) squats, weightlifting shoes are absolutely essential. Due to the slight lift in their heels, weightlifting shoes will allow you to be more comfortable at the receiving position. They also help you to be more stable when you explode into position.

If you are more of a powerlifter (bench, squat, deadlift), you might want to look into getting some Converse Chuck Taylors, Vibram Five Fingers, or any other form of flat shoes.

My Gym Bag

By the way, I recently upgraded from my dinky old gym bag to a OGIO Big Dome Duffel bag and couldn’t have been happier. The bag has a separate shoe compartment, is durable, and is large enough to fit a lot of goodies. I highly recommend getting one bag per physical activity you do so you can just grab the right bag and go with no time to waste!

And the winner of the Gamma Labs PTF Giveaway is: Josh Janousek!

Josh won bottle of the New Gamma Labs Pre-Training Formula by simply liking the Gamme Labs facebook page and commenting on their wall. Congratulations Josh!

What’s Next?

Photo © Westside Shooter

Hamstring tightness is quite common in many athletes and they are darn tricky to loosen up. I’ve had my share of tight hamstrings so I wanted to share some quick tips that I found have worked for me. Here are my list of tips in no particular order (I find that I usually go through the entire list and randomly find that one of the bunch did well that time around).

Release Your Hamstrings

Sometimes your hamstrings are tight because of muscle spasms in that area. The best way to relieve muscle spasms is to perform self myofascial release on yourself by rolling out the spasm with a really hard foam roller, a lacrosse ball, or a soft ball. You can also use a theracane to apply pressure once you find a tense spot in your hamstrings.

You’ll want to start warming up your hamstrings by just using the foam roller to go over the hamstrings 8-10 times in different angles. After that, if you noticed any painful / tight spots, you can apply more direct pressure in that area with a lacrosse ball, soft ball, theracane (pick your poison) and perform cross-friction massage. Apply pressure to each spot till the pain is about 50% gone, then move onto the next spot (you don’t want to be bruising your muscles).

Retest to see if your hamstrings feel better. If it doesn’t yet, then maybe the issue is not really in your hamstrings.

Release Surrounding Areas

Since everything is connected, tight areas around your hamstrings can pull on your hamstrings causing them to be tight. Some common culprits that can cause hamstring tightness is tight quads, calves, and gluts. Use the protocol above on these areas to try to release them too.

Retest to see if your hamstrings feel better.

Try Static Active Stretching

Static active stretching is another way you can attack this problem. You will need to use stretching straps to do this.

1. Start by laying on the ground and looping the strap around your right foot.
2. Raise your right leg straight into the air and pull onto the strap as far as you can while keeping your right leg straight and relaxed.
   
3. Hold relaxed for 10 seconds
4. Tense your right leg at 50% effort (like you are trying to push your leg back down to the ground) while you pull on the strap for 10 seconds.
5. Stop tensing your right leg for 10 seconds and try to pull your leg in some more.
6. Repeat steps 4 & 5 a couple more times.
7. While keeping your right leg straight and holding onto the straps, drop your right leg to the right so that your hips open up.
   
8. Repeat steps 4 & 5 a few times.
9. Bring the right leg back up to vertical, then while keeping your right leg straight and holding onto the straps, drop your right leg to the left (crossing your left leg). Go as far as you can.
   
10. Repeat steps 4 & 5 a few times.
11. Bring the right leg back up to vertical and release.
12. Repeat for left leg.

There was a point in my life when I was overweight. At that weight, I was still able to play basketball and run many miles without any issues. I knew I was strong and athletic, but I was still fat nonetheless. So one day I decided to lose fat by going on a cut. It shouldn’t be too hard right? All I have to do is do cardio, eat less, and I should be there in no time. Boy, was I WRONG. I ended up being flabby skinny and ended up losing a bunch of my hard earned muscles.

I then decided that I wanted to gain muscle, so I started amping up the lifting and started eating more. Guess what happened. I was fat and athletic again. At which point I thought, “WTF? There must be something I didn’t know.”

Of course there were many things I didn’t know at the time about fitness but one important one was:

Nutrition Partitioning

Favorable nutrition partitioning is the idea that you want the nutrients you eat to go fuel your muscles instead of being stored in your adipose tissues as fat cells. So it sounds like the key to nutrition partition is to control where the nutrients go, right? Yup! That’s correct!

So how do I control where the nutrients go? By controlling your Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL) activities in certain areas of your body.

Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL)

Lipoprotein lipase is an enzyme responsible for hydrolyzing triglycerides in lipoproteins into two free fatty acids and one monoacylglycerol molecule. [1]

There is a lot of biochemistry involved here, but I’m going to keep it short by going over just the part that matters to us fitness enthusiasts.

LPL is widely distributed in the adipose tissues (this is the stuff you want to shrink), heart, skeletal tissues (this is the stuff you want to retain or grow), and lactic mammary glands.

Wherever there is high LPL activity, that’s where triglycerides will get broken down into fatty acids and:

• If the fatty acids are floating around in the adipose tissues, there is a chance that they will get stored. (DO NOT WANT)
• If the fatty acids are floating around in the skeletal muscle tissues, there is a greater chance that the fatty acids will get used up for energy. [2]

How to Control LPL to Get Me Ripped?

So you’ll want your LPL activity to be high in your skeletal muscle tissues and low in your adipose tissues to make body recomposition easier. Here’s how you can manipulate your LPL activity levels in these areas.

Cooking is a bit of a recent obsession of mine and I’ve been trying to make the most delicious foods that I can make that will fit into my macronutrient requirements.

Here is a recipe for my rest day where I should be eating high protein, moderate fat, and low carbs: Honey Mustard Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup honey
• 1/2 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon chile powder
• 2 pounds pork tenderloin
• 6 thick strips of apple wood smoked bacon

Instructions

Macronutrients

A lot of the honey mustard marinade and bacon fat drips to the bottom of the pan. Because of that only some of the carbs and fats remain. This recipe serves 3 with each serving containing the following macronutrients:

Gamma Labs took my feedback quite seriously and now they have just released a new revamped packaging to include 33% more PTF per bottle for the same price.

Priced competitively, now the price works out to about $0.90 – $1.80 per workout session depending on how sensitive you are to stimulants. Woot!

Gamma Labs Pre-Training Formula Contest

How to Win

For a chance to win, all you’ll have to do to is:

• “Like” the Gamma Labs Facebook page
• Write ”TweakFit sent me!” on their wall.

The contest ends Wednesday 3/14/12 9pm PST. Winners will be announced and contacted directly after contest ends. Good luck!

New to TweakFit?

Ideally, on your workout days, you want to be consuming lots of carbohydrates, lots of protein, and as little fats as possible (more on the why in a later article). This is easy to do if you just eat chicken breast all the time, but chicken breast does get boring after one week.

So what can you do to try to keep yourself sane? Fry up some moderate fat meats (e.g. pork chops), chow it down, and chase it with a glass of green tea. Also make sure to drink green tea throughout the rest of day (due to how digestion works).

Studies [1, 2] have found that green tea helps inhibit intestinal absorption of lipids (fats). Better phrased:

“Although the mechanism underlying such effect of green tea is yet to be determined, it is evident from in vitro and in vivo studies that green tea or catechins inhibit the intestinal absorption of dietary lipids. Studies in vitro indicate that green tea catechins, particularly (-)-epigallocatechin gallate, interfere with the emulsification, digestion, and micellar solubilization of lipids, critical steps involved in the intestinal absorption of dietary fat, cholesterol, and other lipids.” – [3]

There’s a caveat, green tea (more specifically EGCG) only helps block some of the fats. Because of that don’t treat it like a free ticket for you to chow down on a ton of bacon if your goal is to keep fats low that day.

This is also not free ticket for you to eat whatever the heck you want. if you’re trying to lose weight, don’t eat more calories than your basal metabolic rate no matter what kind of calories they are (fat, carb, protein). It’s simple physics (energy in must be less than energy out if you want to lose weight).

One of my more favorite things to cook and eat is Rib Eye Steak. Why? It’s meaty, delicious, satisfying, and has a good amount of protein.

Here’s how I cook the steak:

Ingredients

• 1 Rib eye steak (~300g)
• ~1 tbsp Olive oil
• Dry seasoning (whatever the heck you want. e.g. salt, pepper, herbs, garlic salt, rosemary, cayenne peppers, chile flakes, etc.)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450F. Put empty pan (even better if you use a iron cast skillet) on stove on high heat.
2. While waiting for pan to get hot, take steak out of packaging.
3. Lightly drizzle top side of steak with olive oil, then season with dry seasoning.
4. As soon as the pan gets hot enough for searing, throw the steak onto the pan seasoning face down.
5. Lightly drizzle the top (unseasoned) side of the steak with olive oil, then season with dry seasoning.
6. Wait for about 2 minutes. Flip steak and immediate put the pan into the oven.
7. Take pan out after 4 minutes for medium rare or 6 minutes for medium.
8. (bonus) Eat with leafy greens and green tea (I’ll explain why in a later article).

Macronutrients

The raw 300g steak should yield something like 240g steak after being cooked. Here are the macronutrients of the cooked steak + the olive oil (keep in mind, you don’t eat all of the oil since lots of it will be in the pan):

• Calories: 736
• Protein: 63g
• Carb: 0g
• Fat: 54g
• PCF Ratio: ~50/0/50

Brian won:

• 1 tub of iMetabolic Perfect Meal Protein Shake
• 6 packs of Beef / Chicken Jerky
• 1 box of iMetabolic High Protein Soups

What’s Next?