Microsoft word - supplement cycling for muscle nerds.doc

Do you get frustrated when you read article after article about adding supplements to your workout routine like you’re some kind of “millionaire” who can afford to fork over a couple hundred dollars a month for the latest “cutting edge” formulas? Well, I’ve got good news! Setting up a specific schedule where you stop taking certain supplements can actually enhance their effect when you start back up again. It’s called “cycling” (no.nothing to do with wheels, gears, and uncomfortable little seats threatening our private parts!) and not only will it allow you to increase the effectiveness of certain supplements, but it can really help you utilize your budget as effectively as possible as well! Here’s why. With all the possibilities available to us for supplementing, plus all the research being done showing how the supplements and their various combinations can help build muscle, it’s hard to know where to invest your money, right? You might be wasting both your time and hard-earned cash on supplements that do very little for your particular metabolism. So cycling your supplements will allow you to “test” exactly which supplements are best for enhancing your physique, providing you with a more custom tailored program focused with laser-like precision on YOUR goals. The second way cycling your supplements will help you is in its powerful “rebound effect”. FREE 5-Day Video Course: “Evil Girl Scouts Fitness Secrets” Curious? Go to www.Natural-Body-Building-Tips.com We all know about the pain of the “plateau”. Once you’ve reached a certain level, your workouts become less and less effective at moving you forward. You need to change things up to get to the next level, right? Well it’s the same with supplements. If your body gets used to a particular regimen of supplementation, it can also limit the effectiveness of certain supplements your body has adapted to leaving you stuck at your current level. Cycling is all about changing up your schedule to increase your effectiveness. But before you lock all of your supplements in a cabinet, let’s talk about those supplements you can maintain year round without ever building up a tolerance. Year Round Results. Whey Protein Before and after workouts, you need a protein source that will be digested quickly and immediately absorbed into your system. You need protein’s amino acids for use as essential ingredients to build muscle. No other source of protein can provide as optimal a performance for you as whey protein (particularly hydrolyzed whey protein and whey protein isolate). And since our bodies can’t store massive amounts of protein, you won’t build up a tolerance for it. Multivitamin/Mineral Supplements Even athletes with the best nutrition plan can find themselves lacking a few vitamins or minerals in their diet. For those of us training hard, it’s actually impossible to get enough of the right nutrients in our diet to maintain optimum levels to see continued progress. Plus, research is showing that loading up on certain vitamins/minerals like C, D, and selenium has additional health benefits. Look for manufacturers who offer at least 100% of most of the vitamins and minerals listed and be sure to take your supplements with a meal in the morning and again in the evening. Fortunately, multivitamins are among the least expensive supplements available. Omega-3 Fatty Acids Research suggests that taking omega-3s, in particular those derived from fish oil, have a variety of health benefits, including boosting brain function, increasing endurance, aiding fat loss, enhancing the recovery of muscles after a workout, encouraging muscle growth, reducing pain and inflammation, improving joint recovery, and even protecting against heart disease and stroke. FREE 5-Day Video Course: “Evil Girl Scouts Fitness Secrets” Curious? Go to www.Natural-Body-Building-Tips.com That’s a whole lotta benefits – and to get it in a supplement instead of packing your whole freezer full of smelly fish is just a huge plus in my book. Fish oil contains both omega-3 fatty acids DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). Take between two and six grams twice daily with food. Now let’s get back to the strategy of cycling. For every three months you are on any of the supplements below, take one month off. This will not only improve the effectiveness of each supplement, but also reduce your costs by one fourth for each year you follow this program. Put those dollars toward something special – like a good chest waxing! ;-) The three supplements that provide you with the best physical and monetary value through cycling are creatine, arginine, and BCAA’s. Let’s take a closer look at each one. Creatine While some research suggests that you don’t have to cycle creatine to continue to derive benefits from it, cycling will definitely increase those benefits. Standard use of creatine can boost your strength by more than 10% and add between five and ten pounds of muscle in just the first few weeks after you add it to your regimen. Yup, it’s the secret behind Superman’s superpowers. However, the saturation of creatine in your muscles will trigger your body to reduce its production of natural creatine. If, after three months, you take one month off, your body’s production of creatine will normalize. You shouldn’t see any loss of mass or strength during the off time and when you re-add creatine back into your regimen, you should see a jump again. These increases probably won’t be as dramatic as your initial gains, but they will still be significant. Three to five grams of creatine pre- and post-workout during your three month on-cycle, then none for a month, then back to those levels for another three months will do nicely. FREE 5-Day Video Course: “Evil Girl Scouts Fitness Secrets” Curious? Go to www.Natural-Body-Building-Tips.com Arginine As with creatine, the plan is a three month on-cycle and one month off. The month off will let your muscles get used to not having it so that when you add it back in, ka-boom! You can expect an increase in gains. Arginine produces growth hormone (GH) and nitric oxide (NO). NO increases blood flow to your muscles. GH is important for bulking, increasing strength, and losing fat. It works best especially before your workout in a dose of between three and five grams, but also add a morning dose and another just before bed. Look for arginine mallate, L-arginine, arginine ethyl ester, arginine alpha-ketoglutarate, or arginine ketoisocaproate. BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acids) Again, go with a three month on-cycle followed by one month off. Your return to BCAAs should increase both your size and strength. Yup – faster, stronger, and bigger than ever. These amino acids, which include leucine, isoleucine, and valine, are an important source of energy during workouts. They are also important for muscle growth, since leucine in particular is known to initiate the process of protein synthesis by which muscles grow. During your on-cycle, take doses per day of between five and ten grams: first, in the morning with food, then before your workout, after your workout, and finally one last dose before bed. A special note if you take testosterone-boosters: “Testosterone boosters” should only be taken for eight week periods, followed by a four week off cycle, or you could end up with reduced levels of testosterone in your system. Unless you’re ready to audition for the Austrian Boys Choir, that’s not an appealing option. This is particularly relevant if you take tribulus terrestris, (sounds like a sci-fi film location, eh?) which increases the levels of luteinizing hormone (LH) coming from your brain, which in turn influences your testicles to increase production of testosterone. Testosterone, of course, increases muscle strength and muscle fiber growth. A final note. Don’t synchronize your off-cycles so that you’re not taking any supplements during a given month. Stagger your cycles so that you are off-cycle for only one supplement at a time. On the next page is a sample cycle for your reference: FREE 5-Day Video Course: “Evil Girl Scouts Fitness Secrets” Curious? Go to www.Natural-Body-Building-Tips.com Multivitamin/ Multivitamin/ Multivitamin/ Multivitamin/ Multivitamin/ Multivitamin/ FREE 5-Day Video Course: “Evil Girl Scouts Fitness Secrets” Curious? Go to www.Natural-Body-Building-Tips.com

Source: http://www.makeyourownsupplements.com/program/report-supplementcycling.pdf