The MuscleTalker - Issue 38 (June 2005)

Last month nutrition moderator Mekydro decided to leave the team due to a busy work and personal life. He will still be a contributor to the forums, so we can still all learn from his excellent knowledge. Big thanks to Mekydro for his help as a moderator.

We have a number of great new articles and reports this month.

PartyBoy has written an informative piece in Clenbuterol

Big Les has written a really interesting article on SMART goal setting in bodybuilding - I urge you to read this as it's a really great motivational article.

We've another new Strength even report from ColinA - from Britain's Strongest Woman 2005, which MuscleTalk helped sponsor. Read about the organisation and the day at the Britain's Strongest Women 2005

Welshdragon remains the leader in the MT Powerlifting Competition, with a phenomenal total of 1826lbs/830kg. Can you beat that…?

*** Best Wishes from James and The MuscleTalk team! ***

See you at www.MuscleTalk.co.uk

*** Cheat Day or Treat Day ***
By Nick Pellat - MuscleTalk Member.

With summer almost upon us, many of us are still desperately trying to lose that bodyfat and get the six pack for the beach this year! Now cutting is hard for the best of us, so most of us tend to look forward to the 'cheat day' or the 'cheat meal' which most people tend to have once a week or so.

The idea behind a 'cheat meal' is fairly simple really, for most of us it keeps us sane, keeps us focused on our diet by allowing the odd craving to be satisfied, and helps stop your metabolism from getting too accustomed to the lower calories you're consuming on the diet, therefore giving your metabolic rate a little kickstart.

Now I have to say, I'm not entirely comfortable with the 'cheat meal' philosophy. In fact, I'm almost against 'cheat meals!'

If any of you fellow dieters are still reading, let me explain why! It's quite often reported in the popular press, that one of the issues with our eating habits in the Western World, is that we tend to encourage our offspring to 'eat your greens, or you don't get dessert'.

There is then an association created, at a young age, that eating veg is a 'bad thing', but is tolerated in order to get the 'good thing!', in this case, the desert! It then follows almost, that many of us see our Bodybuilding diets as a unsavoury thing to follow, with the burger and chips or Indian take-away on a Saturday as the good thing you are allowed for suffering so all week!

It may not be the most relevant metaphor, but telling a dieter its ok to have a takeaway on a Saturday as part of a cutting diet plan, is almost like telling someone who is giving up smoking, that as they have gone a few days without one, they can then have one at the weekend! Maybe I'm just the odd one out, but I am trying to encourage a train of thought where we re-evaluate our views of foodstuff, and rather than have a 'cheat meal' lets have a 'treat meal' instead!

I do whole-heartedly support the re-feed theory in having the extra food or calories, but I am trying to educate my taste and pallet by making my 'treat meal' something other than a poor nutritional choice. All week I tend to eat tinned tuna, frozen veg and apples as a part of my diet, due to cost and convenience, but how about once a week having a 'treat meal' of fresh tuna steak, fresh and possibly more exotic vegetables, followed by fresh pineapple, or mango! Sounds much better doesn't it? A fantastic, tasty meal, with extra calories and taste, as well as being nutritious! And it really is a 'treat meal' in my eyes!

I'm sure it will be deemed a little controversial, and I can imagine a few people disagreeing already, but I truly believe we need to educate our minds, as well as our taste buds in how we view our foods and our eating plans, and this in turn will add longevity to our bodybuilding plans.

Food for thought maybe?

*** Training on holiday ***
By MuscleTalk Moderator and Personal Trainer Steve Blades aka ToxicToffee

You have spent all year working out, pumping iron for the perfect beach body, now is the time to show it off when you go away on your summer hols (or 'vacation' for our American friends!). Being away from home is great, time to chill and enjoy the sun…hang on a minute…NO gym and no big tub of whey to hand. "aaahhh, what am I going to do?!" Many of my clients think their hard work is going to go to waste as soon as they have a break from training. Think again, muscular atrophy (becoming smaller or weaker) takes at least 2-3 weeks to kick in for most people and the body will enjoy the rest from a long hard winter in the gym.

For those who want to continue to train you may look to callisthenics and circuits to keep you ticking over and providing a fun work out that requires minimal equipment and in most case no equipment. Below is a sample routine for anyone on a beach holiday away from the gym this summer. Keep the reps high due to low resistance and go for the burn. These techniques are employed by the royal marines and navy seals when they are away from base on exercise and can be carried out in your hotel room or on the beach:

• Push ups - Yes as simple as that, using your own bodyweight to stimulate the pecs, delts and triceps
• Door pull ups - Simply find a sturdy door in your hotel and with an overhand grip pull yourself up
• Squats - You can even make these ballistic - power jumps with them
• Squat thrusts - Again on the deck using arms and leg for power movements
• Floor crunches - Great for the abs and can be done again with no equipment
• Chair dips - Legs on one chair, arms on another, make sure they are stable though!
  (And one more crazy one:)
• Suit case shrugs - As it says really!

Just be creative and use everyday items to your advantage. Mineral water bottles full up for lat raises and curls. This simple routine will hit the whole body in a short period of time and can be followed up by cardio.

The plan stated below is designed around the use of a flexi band (resistant band):

• Bicep Curls - Feet on the band and simply curl up one or two handed
• Resistance squats - Again feet on the band and just squat
• Shoulder press - Great for the delts
• Resistance lateral raises - Shoulder exercise, great one or two handed
• Bent over rows - Nice wide arms with feet on the band for back and biceps

Again these can be thrown in with the exercises above to make a more complete work out. The bands can be purchased at www.musclefinesse.com, the Golds Gym ones are a recommended product; nice and compact and very affordable.

Now we have the training sorted, let's look at diet. Keeping to your normal diet will be hard, but again we don't become weak and small over night. Damage limitation is the key. Prepare ahead. MRPs (meal replacement powders) and protein bars will be great to take with you in order to keep the protein intake rolling in - just don't forget your shaker! My recommendation would be to source the majority of your food from natural foods although a little bit of what we love is fine as its holiday time after all! Carb supplies generally will be easy to obtain through fruit and veg.

Cans of food can also be packed when you go, tuna being fairly compact and will also provide a quality source of protein without worrying about it going off!

And finally alcohol! You thought I wasn't going to mention this! We are all human and generally love a drink. It's your holiday and enjoy it, if you are worried about calorie intake whilst drinking, www.caloriesperhour.com has some great info on the calorie content of our favourite drinks

Relax and enjoy folks - do try to have fun and get yourself ready for another big push on your return.

*** Recipe - Tuna & Egg Pitta ***

By James Collier - MuscleTalk Moderator

** Ingredients
1 x 190g can tuna in brine (drained)
Fresh spinach + watercress (or similar)
1 egg
Black pepper
Hot chilli sauce
Lemon juice
Little olive oil
1 x wholemeal pitta

** Method
Beat the egg in a mug and add pepper. Heat the oil in the pan, add the tuna and green leaves, and stir well. Then add the egg, and keep stirring, adding lemon juice and chilli to taste, while it's cooking. Once it's all nice and hot, and the egg is scrambled, place into the pitta (lightly toasted), and it's ready to eat.

More great bodybuilding recipes can be found in Nicole's other great eBooks 'Muscle Menus', 'Muscle Menus 2' and 'Muscle Menus Vegetarian' eBooks:

*** DVD Review - Chris Cormier - Real Deal ***
Review by seungmena aka Big Les - MuscleTalk Moderator

Bodybuilding fans like me waited a long time for Chris to bring out a training DVD, and finally it has arrived. Expectations are bound to be high of this DVD given Chris is one of the strongest pound for pound bodybuilders on the planet, a legitimate contender for a top Olympia spot and widely regard as an uncrowned Arnold Classic champion.

We join Chris nine days from the 2004 Mr Olympia contest and follow him through his workouts. Being so close to the big show he is not pushing the massive poundages that he is famous for, no 200lb dumbbells, no 11 plate a side reverse hack squats, no 700lb plus deadlifts for reps. Instead we see the intensity that drove him to finish outside the top 6, and we see a troubled and obviously less that 100% excited Chris.

This is a very professional DVD; the production puts many other training productions in the shade, with excellent rap insets, and smooth editing. In addition to the training we get two lifestyle insets. Unfortunately there is no commentary from Chris, and this is the first let down of the DVD. Chris is legendary for his sense of humour and personality and we see none of this. The second let down is his physique, nine days out I expected to see an on form and in shape Chris. Instead as we pan in for the opening shot of Chris in his Real Deal vest top he looks like he is weeks out from the show not days.

Overall I felt let down by this DVD, this is not Chris at his best, instead we have a chronicle of a Chris whose heart is clearly not in his show preparation and sadly it my be a record of a Chris Cormier whose star has permanently started to fade, which leaves me a little sad.

I really wanted this to be a great DVD, as it is it is just average.

The articles in The MuscleTalker are for information purposes only and are the sole expressions of the individual authors opinion and are those not necessarily shared by the owners of www.MuscleTalk.co.uk