Supplements That Help Build Muscle Mass

Author: Abigail Everson

For the last few decades, protein has become one of the most talked about supplements for athletes. Protein stimulates muscle protein synthesis, the building and repair of muscles and tissues. Protein is also needed for a variety of hormonal and metabolic activities (Campbell 2008). For this reason, protein bars, shakes, and other supplements have become an important part of exercising and strength training. In recent years creatine has been rising in popularity and it has been shown to improve performance and lean body mass. Although creatine is newer, both protein and creatine seem to have the similar impacts on lean muscle mass in athletes.

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Effects of Different Forms of Resistance Training on Athletic Performance in Soccer

Author: Erik Sigman

In the past two decades there has been an increased discussion on the benefits and drawbacks of resistance training in regards to athletic performance in soccer. When it comes to emphasis on athletic enhancement, soccer has just recently become a sport where collegiate and professional teams have made athletic development a larger priority for players. There seems to be two camps when it comes to the debate on whether soccer players should incorporate resistance training in their training routine. Those in the first camp tend to think in a sense that resistance training won’t help a soccer player become better at “soccer skills” like dribbling, passing, shooting etc. The second camp tend to have the view point that soccer is evolving to become much more reliant on a player’s physical capabilities and resistance training may help athletic development in areas like speed, agility, and explosive power (Silva et al. 2015). Regardless of what camp one may fall into, there are some common beliefs in regards to the benefits and drawbacks of resistance training that the soccer world has adopted. Benefits include increased athletic ability in soccer specific actions like sprinting, cutting, jumping, and explosiveness (Turner and Stewart 2014). Drawbacks include player’s putting on unnecessary muscle mass, becoming “blocky” or “bulky”, and the injury risk of doing resistance training. With all that being said, let’s look at what the research says regarding resistance training and athletic performance in soccer.

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The Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Muscular Strength and Endurance

Author: Travis Kerr

Intermittent fasting, a common dietary strategy, has gained popularity in the past few years. Many people have implemented this type of diet to assist in trimming fat, without understanding the effects that it can have on strength and endurance performance. There are many ways to implement this type of diet (e.g. 16 hours fasted/8 hours fed, 20 hours fasted/4 hours fed, alternate day 24 hour fasting, etc.), which can lead to differences in results. This is because depending on the type and length of intermittent fast that is chosen, the total daily caloric intake is likely to change.

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Does whey protein actually help you gain muscle faster in strength training?

Author: Kolton Vinzant

There is so much hype about how to, according to normal everyday language, “get swole” faster. Of course, it is widely accepted that the type of training someone does affects how you accumulate muscle mass. For instance, endurance training such as running is going to yield different results than heavy weight lifting in terms of muscle mass gains. Now, there is a wide range of studies that have been done to investigate how whey protein assists in muscle growth with strength training exercises. To expand how this emphasis on supplementation has been such a fast growing topic, the first gym I ever gained a membership in my later teenage years very much surprised me in what the fitness trainers emphasized in terms of my goal to build more lean muscle mass. Initially, the fitness trainers at this gym asked me about what kind of exercises I believed would enhance my muscle mass the most. This was talked about for maybe 30 seconds. The conversation shifted immediately from what types of exercises are important for accumulating muscle mass to what supplements I was taking pre and post-workout, specifically whey protein. We discussed this for approximately 20-30 minutes. It came to my surprise that the emphasis of this conversation was placed on the whey protein supplementation I was going to do versus the type of exercises I was going to do. In my mind, the emphasis of the conversation would have been flipped. Ever since, I have always had the lingering question in my head… does whey protein supplementation make a significant difference in the rate at which you gain muscle mass in strength training?

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Effects of a High Protein Diet and Resistance Training on Health

Author: Miranda Strelecki

Individuals that are over-weight tend to want a diet that will show fast results. When doing quick research online, they may find that high-protein low-fat diets will give them the results they want to see. In order for a high protein diet to have its full effect, exercise needs to be coupled with it. Verreijen and team found that a high protein diet did not significantly decrease the amount of free fat mass in  sedentary individuals. They did find that a high protein diet paired with resistance training did not significantly lower the amount of free fat mass in individuals that were previously obese.

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