Five steps to muscle recovery

Get yourself back in shape for your next workout faster with these tips

Top-up with cinnamon

Half a teaspoon twice a day in coffee reduces muscle inflammation.

Have a Brazilean Tea

Reduces pain and swelling like ibuprofen. Drink 2-3 cups the day before a workout for faster recovery.

Go hot and cold

Take your muscles from one limit to the other to enhance your recovery. Press an ice pack against your sore muscle for a minute, then submerge it in hot water for a minute. Alternate 12 times to be ready for your next muscle-blast.

Avoid the sauna

It may be relaxing, but making your way to the hot room straight after resistance or weight training can impair your performance for days after.

Drink tea (black & red)

A compound in your cuppa triggers insulin secretion, which lowers the amount of sugar in red blood cells. Sip a cup of black tea after your workout to reduce blood pressure by more than 40%.

Jason Momoa’s Conan the Barbarian Workout

Try the 110-rep per exercise routine the Hollywood star used to pack on 20lbs of muscle and step into Arnie's shoes to play Conan the Barbarian. You’ll build a barbaric amount of muscle and slash away fat.

Build barbarian muscle

To get a body like a barbarian, you need to lift more than a broadsword. But achieving Jason Momoa’s physique doesn’t require you to bivvy down in a corner of your local gym for months on end. The Conan the Barbarian star’s colossal physique was built through simple 30-minute, extremely-high-rep sessions.

If you really want to test yourself, try to gradually increase the load you use each day you perform the workout. Pick a heavy weight and it will get you shredded and build a lot of muscle. Fat slayed. Muscle plateaus conquered. 

Instructions

Each workout should take 30 minutes. Pick three from the following five exercises and take a day's rest between each session. Try to use a weight around two thirds of the maximum load you can lift in one rep.

Squats
Shoulder Presses
Incline Bench Presses
Cable Crosses
Pull-Ups

Sets, reps and rest

With your first move, perform 7 reps. Then take a 7-second rest. Then perform another 7 reps. Take another 7-second rest. Continue in this way until you have completed 7 sets of 7 reps. Rest for 30 seconds. Then do a 6-rep round: 6 sets of 6 reps with 6-seconds rest between each set. Finish with a 5-rep round to bring the total rep count for that exercise to 110. Take a breath. Then do the whole thing again with two more exercises. 

The ultimate beach-body workout

Get ripped for the beach in six weeks with this simple routine

Get a beach body in your lunch hour

Will you be ready to unveil your abs when the summer sun finally emerges? The workouts are relatively short so you should be able to squeeze them into a lunch hour if necessary. They are also grouped by movement rather than muscle group, so if the gym is busy you can quickly choose another exercise. Whether you're vacationing, staycationing, or just want a great new routine, read on for your foolproof plan to a stacked summer.

The routine

This routine is designed to strip away body fat, define your chest, abs, shoulders and arms, as well as sending your strength level soaring. Combine it with a decent diet for six weeks and you'll have a beach-ready body to be proud of.

Monday: Resistance Workout 1
Tuesday: Cardio (30-45 minutes steady-state cardio at 80-85% maximum heart rate – eg. cycling or running)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Resistance Workout 2
Friday: Cardio (20-30 minutes of interval training)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Freestyle cardio

Pragmatic performance

The way this routine works is that you can use any exercise that fits the bill. For example, with the horizontal row you can substitute any horizontal rowing movement (e.g. seated row, dumbbell row, inverted bodyweight row). So if the bench-press station, for example, is busy, you can just use the machine press or dum-bell press instead. If all the horizontal pressing equipment is busy, you can just do press-ups instead. Feel free to change the days to suit your schedule, but try to leave at least two days between the resistance workouts.

How do you do supersets?

Using the first superset in Resistance Workout 1 as an example...

1. Start with the bench press (or any horizontal pushing exercise) and do 6-8 repetitions.
2. Then, move straight to the dumbbell row (or any horizontal pulling exercise) and perform another 6-8 repetitions.
3. Rest for 60-90 seconds.
4. Repeat for the prescribed number of sets.

You'll be using supersets to increase the intensity of your workout. These involve moving quickly from one exercise to another, with little or no rest between. Rather than resting between sets, you perform an exercise for another muscle group. Compared to workouts that involve resting for several minutes between sets, supersets allow you to get twice as much work done in the same amount of time.

Resistance workout 1

Deadlift 3 sets x 6-8 repetitions (rest for 2 minutes between sets)

SUPERSET 1
4 sets x 6-8 repetitions
Horizontal push (e.g. bench press)
Horizontal pull (e.g. dumb-bell row)

SUPERSET 2
2 sets x 12-15 repetitions
Vertical pull (e.g. lat pulldown)
Vertical push (e.g. overhead press)

SUPERSET 3
2 sets x 12-15 repetitions
Face Pulls
Bent Over Lateral Raise

CORE
2-3 sets x 8-10 repetitions
Ball rollouts

2-3 sets x 12-15 repetitions
Reverse Ab Curl

Resistance workout 2

Barbell squat 3 sets x 12-15 repetitions (rest for 60-90 seconds between sets)

SUPERSET 1
4 sets x 6-8 repetitions
Vertical pull (e.g. pull-up)
Vertical push (e.g. seated dumbbell press)

SUPERSET 2
2 sets x 12-15 repetitions
Horizontal push (e.g. incline dumbbell press)
Horizontal pull (e.g. seated cable row)

SUPERSET 3
3 sets x 8-10 repetitions
Incline Dumbbell Curl
Triceps Pressdown

CORE
2-3 sets x 8-10 repetitions
Woodchopper

2-3 sets x 12-15 repetitions
Swiss Ball Crunch

With both workouts, rest for 2 minutes after completing the low rep (6-8) sets and for 1 minute after completing the high rep (8-10 and 12-15) sets.

Finally, for the 'freestyle' cardio on Sunday, you could go for a long walk, play some sport or just do the same thing as you did in the week. It's up to you.
Happy honing.

Reach your goal faster - Rules to Workout

Use these exercise and nutrition rules to workout 

For weight loss

Nutrition - Cardio is key to fat loss, but it can take up to three weeks to start seeing the benefits. Consistently making the right food choices delivers faster results and it's easier.

For instant energy

Exercise - Simple carbs leave you feeling lethargic later on. A study at California State University found a 10-minute walk increased energy levels for twice as long as sugar.

For lean muscle

Nutrition - To bulk up, you need a surplus of muscle-building nutrients. Splash some olive oil on that salad: its healthy fats prevent muscle wastage.

For a mood boost

Exercise - A healthy brain is well-nourished. But in the short-term, cardio is king. 20 minutes of exercise will improve your mood for 12 hours.

To lower your blood pressure

Nutrition - Exercise reduces the narrowing of arteries, but it won't neutralise the ill effects of a poor diet. Increase your fruit and veg intake. Studies have shown raisins to be particularly potent.

For a sharper focus

Nutrition - Inositols, unique carbs that stimulate your nervous system, will improve mental endurance. Add a side serving of beans to your lunch.

Conquer pain to upgrade your fitness level

Yes, pain hurts, but it can also be a sign that your body is becoming stronger. Reveal which pains to crave and which to crush for optimal fitness.

Hammer your body to stay strong

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness strikes 24 to 72 hours after a punishing exercise session, like a delayed muscular hangover.

Crave it DOMS is due to muscle damage and your body's inflammatory response. It's a sign your muscles are adapting to new activity, giving you increased strength.

Push through (gently) Although your muscles need time to rebuild, DOMS isn't an excuse to skive. Gentle exercise in the affected muscles offers short-term pain relief. If you're suffering after a 10K, you'll feel better after a gentle jog. A massage two hours after your workout also helps. Apply pressure into the core of the affected muscle in a circular action. This ensures an even blood flow for a faster recovery. So you can punish yourself all over again.

Unpick your stitch and run further

The dreaded stitch is an intense stab under your lower rib cage, as if someone slipped a carving knife into your side.

Crush it, the stitch occurs when your peritoneal ligaments, which hang from the diaphragm, become stressed as your torso twists during exercise. It disrupts your session and slows your running. In other words, sew it up.

Love your ligaments: avoid chest-only breathing and instead take deep 'belly breaths". This lets your diaphragm lower and ligaments relax, preventing the spasms that cause the damage. After two minutes, alternate your breathing. Exhale only when the leg on the opposite side to the stitch hits the ground. This reduces stress on the ligaments and relieves pain.

Endure the flames for fitness

Immediate muscle burn feels like being injected with sulphuric acid.

Crave it, when you feel that burn, you're working just below or at your lactate threshold. Hit it often and you'll push your threshold, making you faster and increasing your rate of fat-burning.

Light a fire To work out your lactate threshold, run for 30 mins at a pace that leaves you exhausted. Wear a HR monitor and take an average reading for the last 20 mins of your run. That should be your target in cardio exercise from now on. Sprint up a gentle hill at 90% of all-out effort for one minute. The interval is your jog back down. Repeat six times and feel lactic acid seep in.

If your fitness plateaus, or you're training for an endurance event, work at 120-140% of lactate threshold three days a week, for five weeks. Athletes who did this improved their ability to buffer the chemicals that cause your muscles to produce lactic acid by 25%. 

Explore your limits... occasionally

Exercise-induced nausea is a feeling akin to boozing.

Crush it, this occurs when you have low blood sugar from dehydration, over-hydration or over-exertion.

Your move: push yourself to this level rarely. For instance, when training for a triathlon, you need to be properly hydrated and well-fuelled. I recommend a high-carb snack such as a muesli bar an hour before you start. Then, if you're feeling lousy, it's only because you've pushed yourself. And funnily enough, that's got to feel good.

Get the shakes and get stronger

Your muscles shake under pressure.

Crave it, the achy-breaky shake occurs when nerve cells that control your muscles drop out of service due to fatigue.

Rest, then repeat It's a sign you've put your body through something it's not accustomed to. But take heart: the more regular your exercise, the more your neurons and muscle fibres will adapt, leading to less twitching. Increase your rest between sets to 3 mins and repeat your workout an extra day per week. This will train your body to cope with the workouts, so your muscles repair and expand sooner. But don't go over-board. Push too hard and you could damage the muscle it's best to stop and stretch before continuing, or drop to a lighter weight. After all, you'll get nowhere with a broken elbow.

Burn fat, build muscle

Achieve the impossible – lose weight while adding muscle

Burn fat, build muscle

Like most blokes, you've probably been reminded by your other half of men's inability to multi-task. Totally untrue. It's often said that building muscle and losing fat are mutually exclusive. To lose body fat you need to eat less and to add muscle you have to eat more, so it can seem downright impossible to have these two goals. Read on to find out how to tighten your sleeves and loosen your jeans.

How it works

You'll alternate between weeks of heavy weights and low repetitions to build muscle and low weights and high repetitions to burn fat. This strategy elevates your metabolism by conditioning your muscles to have both endurance and strength. Combine these efforts with the "Get ripped" meal plan and you'll expose your body to the variables you need to hit your seemingly contradictory goals and realise the overall objective: looking your absolute best.

Get muscle workout

Do this low-repetition, high-weights programme for weeks 1,3,5,7,9. Rest for 60-90 seconds between sets to make sure you're fully recovered and constantly increase the weights you're lifting. 

EXERCISES                     

Monday: chest and abs

Bar-bell bench press               
Sets: 5
Rep: 12,8,6,4,12
Incline dumb-bell press
Sets: 4
Reps: 8,6,6,6
Flat flye
Sets: 4
Reps: 8,6,6,6
Dips
Sets: 4
Reps: 8,6,6,6
Weighted sit-up
Sets: 5
Reps: 10               
Standing cable crunch  
Sets: 4
Reps: 8           

Tuesday: legs

Bar-bell squats   
Sets: 5
Reps: 12,10,8,8,6
Dumb-bell lunge               
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,12,12,12
Leg press                   
Sets: 4
Reps: 10,8,6,6
Leg extension          
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,12,12,12
Bar-bell straight leg deadlift   
Sets: 4  
Reps: 12,8,6,6
Lying leg curl               
Sets: 4
Reps:8,8,8,8
Donkey calf raise
Sets: 5
Reps: 12,10,10,8,12

Wednesday: arms

Underhand pull-ups
Sets: 5
Reps: 10
Alternating bicep curl   
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,8,8,8
EZ bar curl      
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,8,6,6
Lying triceps extension          
Sets: 5      
Reps: 10,8,8,8
Cable pushdown
Sets: 4
Reps: 8,6,6,6
Dumb-bell overhead extension   
Sets: 4
Reps: 8,6,6,6

Thursday

Rest day

Friday: shoulders and abs

Seated dumb-bell shoulder press     
Sets: 5
Reps: 12,10,8,8,6
Bent-over lateral raises      
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,8,8,8
Front raise                  
Sets: 4
Reps: 10,8,8,8
Lateral raise      
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,10,10,10
Smith machine upright row  
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,8,8,8
Medicine ball Russian twist      
Sets: 4
Reps: 10,8,8,8
Weighted leg raise  
Sets: 4
Reps: 12,10,10,10

Saturday

Rest day

Sunday

Rest day or a light cardio day

Do 10 minutes each on the rowing machine, bike and elliptical cross trainer.

Get ripped workout

Do this high-repetition programme for weeks 2,4,6,8,10 and rest for no more than 15-20 seconds between sets to keep your heart pumping and sweat dripping.

EXERCISES

Monday: back and biceps

Lat pull-down  
Sets: 5
Reps: 12
Bar-bell bent-over rows   
Sets: 4
Reps: 12
Seated rows   
Sets: 4
Reps: 15
Standing one arm cable row      
Sets: 4
Reps: 15
Standing bar-bell curl       
Sets: 5
Reps: 12
EZ bar curl          
Sets: 4
Reps: 12
Cable rope curl              
Sets: 4       
Reps: 20

Tuesday: legs and abs

Smith machine front squat          
Sets:  5      
Reps: 12
Dumb-bell straight leg deadlift  
Sets: 4
Reps: 12
Leg press               
Sets: 4
Reps: 15
Lying leg curls      
Sets: 4
Reps: 15
Leg extension           
Sets: 4
Reps: 15
Calf raises          
Sets: 5
Reps: 20
V-up                       
Sets: 4
Reps: 20
Roll-out  
Sets: 4
Reps: 15

Wednesday:

cardio machines

Do intervals on the treadmill for 40 minutes: sprint for 40 seconds, then jog for 60 seconds to recover.

Thursday: chest and abs

Bar-bell bench press       
Sets: 5
Reps: 12
Smith Machine incline press       
Sets: 4      
Reps: 12
Smith Machine decline press       
Sets: 4      
Reps: 15
Pull-over                  
Sets: 4      
Reps: 12
Leg raises                  
Sets: 5      
Reps: 20
Cable woodchop               
Sets: 4      
Reps: 15

Friday: shoulders and triceps

Clean and jerk              
Sets: 5       
Reps; 12
Dumb-bell lateral raise           
Sets: 4      
Reps: 12
Dumb-bell front raise          
Sets: 4      
Reps: 15
Bent-over lateral raise           
Sets: 4      
Reps: 15
Dumb-bell upright row          
Sets: 4       
Reps: 12
Cable pushdown              
Sets: 4      
Reps: 20
Kickback                  
Sets: 4      
Reps: 12
Bench dip               
Sets: 4      
Reps: 12

Saturday

Rest day

Sunday:

Cardio machines
Do intervals on the rower for 30 minutes: sprint for 40 seconds, then recover for 30 seconds at a slower pace.

The time-saving weight-free workout

Get fitter with no gym time. This circuit uses only your bodyweight to work your body from head to toe. Do each exercise for 20sec on, 10 sec off, then repeat eight times. Rest for 1min between circuits.

Push plank

Muscles worked: arms, shoulders, core

Kneel with your forearms on the floor, then drive forwards, bending

your elbows and raising your forearms. Finish in the position shown. Return.

Torso rotation

Muscles worked: core, hips

Crouch with your palms on the floor. Twist your hips, taking your knees to either side. You'll carve a core more stable than a banker's income.

Box press-up

Muscles worked: arms, chest

Kneel, place your hands on a box and perfrom a press-up. This works your whole upper body – plus the Ikea crate storing your spare linen.

Spider rock

Muscles worked: core

Sit on the floor and grab your shins. Rock back, then return to the start. Bringing your torso into your legs. The tension chisels out your abs.

The table

Muscles worked: glutes, back

Sit on the floor, legs bent, arms straight and fingers facing forwards. Drive your hips up to add strength to your glutes and back. Lower again.

Lunge

Muscles worked: legs, glutes

Stand with your arms bent then step forwards. Lower until your knee is bent to 90 degrees. Repeat with the other leg for explosive power.

Get constantly evolving workout and nutrition plans personalised for your specific needs and training goals.

Muscle builders

 Chow down these foods for greater gains

Full-fat milk

A glass of the white stuff is rich in CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid), which reduces fat and preserves muscle tissue according to a study in the Journal of Nutrition. It forces glucose into your muscles and connective tissue cells instead of letting it turn into fat. It's also high in protein and full of vitamins and minerals, but you need to have semi-skimmed or full-fat milk to get the benefit. 

Spirulina

A nutrient-packed green algae, spirulina contains 65% of easy-to-digest protein and is amazingly low in fat. It is also a source of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant important for your post exercise muscle recovery. Add it to your breakfast smoothie, but be warned: everything it touches turns a weird shade of green.

Almond butter

A spoonful of almond butter adds a muscle building protein punch to food and is also rich in magnesium, the mineral needed for healthy muscle contraction. Add a spoonful to your porridge or smoothies. 

Eggs

You may have heard of bodybuilders cooking with only egg whites as a purer protein source, but for those of us who have an aversion to body paint and gold lamé trunks, eating the whole egg is best. Apart from containing all essential amino acids important to build and repair muscles; the egg yolk contains a high level of vitamin D needed to maintain the integrity and composition of muscle tissue. 

Wheatgerm

Not an airborne disease, but a great source of chromium, which improves glucose uptake into muscle cells, giving you extra energy to power through your workout. Wheatgerm's also high in arginine, an amino acid needed for the production of nitric oxide, which enhances blood flow to muscles so more nutrients can get to them. Sprinkle on your cereals or add to protein shakes and smoothies.

Red peppers

Red peppers are rich in vitamin C, which acts as a powerful antioxidant and aids muscle recovery at a cellular level by preventing free-radical damage. Red peppers contain 60% more vitamin C than their green equivalent and are also high in vitamin B6, which supports protein synthesis as well as muscle growth.

Turkey

Contains glutamine, an amino acid found in high concentration in muscle tissue. It increases protein synthesis, which leads to increased muscle mass. A recent study found glutamine also significantly increased growth-hormone levels.

Papaya

This juicy gem contains the compound papain, which breaks proteins down into simple components. These can then be easily utilized by the body. It also has an anti-inflammatory effect in the body and so will also relieve those post workout muscle aches and pains. Serve sliced with chopped ginger and lime.

Edamame beans

Also known as soybeans, they're a great low-fat form of vegetable protein containing all the muscle-building essential amino acids. Cook the beans for a minute or two and throw into salads.

Coffee

The quickest route to more muscle (and, incidentally, the loo) is a shot of espresso. A study showed that caffeine improves endurance-training performance by reducing muscle pain during exercise, which means you can train for longer. So that's no pain, more gain.