The Jtrain's Recommended Equipment for Weightlifting

When it comes to lifting weights and bodybuilding, the accessories you bring to the gym can be just as important to your success as the bigger areas of focus (nutrition, exercise choice, form, etc.). I've discussed to some degree the importance of the more aesthetically-focused accessories that one can bring to the gym, such as the tank tops and clothes one could wear, but today I'd like to focus on the items one could bring to the gym that can improve lifts and make lifts safer.

Source: getmobilefitness.com

I'm going to highlight the equipment that I believe to be (kind of) essential, what each piece of eqiupment would be used for, and my recommendations on what to look for when purchasing said equipment. So let's get into it!


GLOVES

Every now and then, I come across someone who wants to tell me for whatever reason that wearing gloves while lifting weights makes you less of a man. Each time, I fail to associate the ignorance of such a comment with any form of actual logic or concrete data.

Look guys, gloves are a great invention for those of us who lift weights intensely and often. If someone wants to believe that decreasing the amount of friction and pain one feels absent a barrier between skin and weight handles increases the hypertrophy, fullness, and stress on muscle groups that have absolutely nothing to do with your hands.....let them be ridiculous.

Why do I love gloves? Because they completely take away any premature stopping of my lift due to pain felt while lifting heavy weight in my hands over the course of the set. If you drop the weights or stop lifting prematurely due to pain because you thought for whatever reason you were being tough or cool for going barehanded..........then you did not achieve the optimum reward from that set. The only thing you optimized when compared to someone who uses gloves is the amount of time it will take you to form calluses on your palms, which.....congratulations I guess?

Source: libertyglove.com

Gloves don't stop you from having calluses, as I can prove from showing you what my palms look like, so long as you're still pushing your maxes and lifting with itnensity. They merely let you focus 100% on the lift and not other variables that won't improve your gains.......and that's one thing I'm always looking for in a lift.

What gloves are good for:

So what are lifting gloves good for? Well, pretty much any exercise. They're a really great piece of equipment for weightlifting in the broad sense of the word. Other pieces of equipment are more specialized for different muscle groups in my opinion, but in general you can't go wrong using gloves for any exercise where you have to grip something.

What to look for when buying gloves:

In all honesty, if you lift weights consistently and with intensity you'll go through gloves like a box of tissues during cold season. I can't tell you how many gloves I've had to lay to rest on a seemingly monthly basis.

But there are some steps you can take to slow this effect from happening.

First off, many people purchase the $10 black Harbinger gloves which, don't get me wrong, are a pretty solid choice starting off in bodybuilding and weightlifting. These gloves however get DESTROYED very fast and you'll be replacing them often.

In my opinion, bite the bullet and get some really nice gloves that run you close to $30. It's one of those things where cost starts being directly proportional to quality, and having gloves that last you for a while will pay for themselves in the long run. Also, make sure YOU enjoy wearing the gloves. Different gloves have different materials that may aggravate your hand or have odd padding placement that you don't really enjoy and therefore should have no business wearing. I personally use gloves made by a company called Bionic. Find the right one for you!

Source: dickssportinggoods.com

*Side note about gloves: WASH THEM. You do not want to neglect washing your gloves, since your hands also sweat during a workout. This could result in a fowl odor when taking them off. Make sure you wash them on a consistent basis!*


LIFTING STRAPS

Lifting straps are another great piece of weightlifting equipment. They're cheap and effective. They can be used in place of gloves if you like a more light-weight less bulky on the hand feel. They take some getting used to though when it comes to securely wrapping them around bars for both of your hands.


Source: shopify.com

What lifting straps are good for:

I mainly use lifting straps on back days and for exercises that require an intense amount of pulling, as opposed to pushing, the weight. When working out back and doing exercises that require heavy pulling, your grip tends to slip easily and you stop lifting before acheiving proper exhaustion. Straps help with this becuase they shift the pulling from the fingers to the wrist, and give you a more secure lock around the handle of the weight or machine. It is due to instances like these, that straps should be used in place of gloves. I also like to use straps on exercises where I am not moving weight and having them hang down on my sides, like during lunges.



Source: ukfitnesssupplies.co.uk

What to look for when buying lifting straps:

The beauty with lifting straps is that they are VERY inexpensive....and durable. I've had the same pair of lifting straps for about 2 1/2 years now that cost me $3 at a local sporting goods store. When shopping in the exercise areas of sporting goods stores recently though, I've found that lifting straps have gotten more expensive and intricate, maybe to increase the incentive for the stores to stock them. I haven't seen $3 straps since I bought mine. However, you can probably go to your local hardware store and find the same material straps are made out of and create your own easily for a really efficient price.


LIFTING BELTS

Lifting belts are pretty cool. I've bought one, but actually never use it since I don't deadlift or squat often. You may have seen many different variations of them worn in the gym, like by those douchebags who wear them during their ENTIRE workout, but they all basically serve the same purpose of wrapping tightly around the lumbar portion of your spine to give you more support in areas of stress during certain workouts. They compensate for potentially bad form and give more support to prevent injury.


Source: olympicweightsetreview.com

Like I said, I don't really use a lifting belt, though I have in the past. If you have really good form during workouts that stress your lower spine, you should be alright. However, this may be difficult if you're lifting very heavy weight during exercises like deadlifts and squats. A little more support during sessions of super heavy lifting may be of benefit.

What lifting belts are good for:

Stabilizing the lumbar portion of your spine during sessions of heavy lifting that may stress this area.




Source: worldfitnessnetwork.com

What to look for in a lifting belt:

I'll state right off the bat I'm not an expert. However, I believe it's super important to look for a belt that snugly fits around your lower back while securely stabilizing your back during workouts. I purchased a belt that was around $30, but more specialized belts exist that can cost you a lot more.


SHOES

I wouldn't say that shoe choice is of massive importance to the bodybuilder, unless you really get anal about it and want to buy those shoes that offer thick back soles that are important during certain exercises like squats. In fact, some exercises benefit from having NO shoes, such as deadlifts (or so I'm told).



Source: ibrahimhusain.com

However, for those of you out there who are focused more on the cardio side of things, shoe choice is VERY important for foot health. Shoes are kind of like car tires. The more you use them, and the bigger the beating you give them, the more often you'll need to change them out to keep the rest of the machine running optimally and free of breakdown and unnecessary stress. Depending on how old your shoes are and how often you use them, you can seriously increase the stress and possible subsequent injury on your feet which may hinder your progress as you quest towards acheiving your fitness goals.

What to look for when buying a shoe:

Many things go into finding the right kind of shoe for you and what your fitness goals are.

When you run, are you a heel striker or ball striker? Do your ankles pronate when you run? Are you flat footed? These are all things you need to keep in mind when purchasing the right kind of shoe. Sometimes cushioned shoes are better, other times having a shoe that can flex is right for you. Furthermore, look for shoes with a grayish insert on the side that supports your foot and compensates for any pronation your heel might have if your heels overpronate.

Source: dickssportinggoods.com

I also think it's important to note that in my experience as an injury prevention epidemiologist who works around specialists who have studied shoes, that minimalist shoes and barefoot running do not in fact offer a significant amount of benefit when compared to cushioned / traditional shoes. In fact, you often times have to train your feet to be able to handle running in such shoes. Take that into account when making your decision.



And that's just the equipment that I think is most essential in terms of helping you stay safe and acheive an optimal workout. If you haven't already tried any of these pieces of equipment out, try one or all of them and see if it benefits your workout at all!

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Is Microwave Cooking Safe?

As many of you are probably aware, bodybuilding is a game of doing things to extremes. And one of the extremes that bodybuilders go to in attaining the bodies of their dreams, is with their nutrition. I've stated many times across previous posts the importance of nutrition, but I'm not really sure I've talked about aspects of the preparation of the food that bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts eat. So in this blog post, I'd like to touch upon a topic that many bodybuilders are familiar with, which also happens to be a hot button topic in the health world: microwave cooking.

Source: wordpress.com

Recently, I've come across many articles on the internet, as well as overheard many of my friends, highlighting their distrust of microwave cooking and how it could potentially be hazardous to your health. Many people are afraid that, by cooking their food in a microwave oven, they are blasting harmful radiation into their foods that can lead to detrimental health outcomes like cancer.

As many fitness enthusiasts, especially bodybuilders, are aware, cooking massive amounts of food and eating often makes the use of a stovetop / oven constantly an impractical reality. Show me a person who argues with me about how I should bust out a pan, wait for the stove or oven to heat up, and then proceed to cook the huge meals I have to eat every day in the 2-3 hours I have left in the day after working out for 2.5-3 hours, and I'll show you someone who doesn't understand that food needs to be prepared quickly and efficiently to realistically be able to consume all the food required to build an aesthetically pleasing body while maintining all of the other variables that go into achieving fitness goals. It's never about taste and presentation to a bodybuilder, so why convolute the process with unecessary extra steps? To me, and probably to most other serious bodybuilders, I am concerned with only one thing when it comes to food preparation: the fastest point between the raw ingredients and the end process of making them safe to eat.

Source: raisethebarphotography.co.uk

With that said, microwaves become an important asset to bodybuilders. While I concede that there are in fact bodybuilders who cook on stovetops for a lot of their meals, microwaves are still heavily incorporated in the lives of those who need to eat often, and who would much rather batch cook their food and reheat it throughout the day due to a busy lifestyle that makes allocation of time to cook every meal conventionally a ridiculous expectation.

So are microwaves killing bodybuilders and people who like to use them often? Let's dive deeper into the subject to help us better understand and possibly solve that problem.

Heat and Heat Transfer

What is heat, and how is heat generated? In the world of physics, heat can be defined (I think) as the energy generated from rapidly moving atoms within a substance. The degree of heat is determined by how rapidly the atoms and molecules in said substances are moving. Temperature is a measure of how much heat an object has.



Source: fi.edu

Heat transfer is the generation, movement, and transfer of the thermal energy / heat from one physical entity to another. On an atomic level, heat transfer occurs when the excited atoms and molecules of one substance come into contact with the other atoms and molecules of the same substance or a different substance. Heat travels from a hot substance to a cold substance due to the loss of energy from contacting and exciting a less excited atom / molecule. A substance can also absorb heat without an increase in temperature due to a phase change (solid to liquid, liquid to gas, etc).

Source: fau.edu

In the culinary world, thermal engineers have developed products (ovens, stovetops, microwaves, etc) that rely on differing forms of heat transfer to heat up food products for consumption. Differing forms of heat transfer are used in such products, and can range from such heat transfer methods as conduction, convection, radiation, and even phase change (source: wikipedia).

Traditional Types of Cooking

So how does heat transfer differ between traditional (non microwave) cooking methods?

Source: aos.wisc.edu

In traditional cooking, using a stovetop or oven, heat is radiated from a stovetop burner to a pan, or radiates off of the walls of an oven. Both methods heat foods from the outside in.

How a Microwave Works

A microwave is different from traditional types of cooking methods in that it uses microwaves to penetrate deep into the object you're trying to cook and cooks it from the INSIDE out simultaneously. Microwaves lie between radio waves and infrared radiation on the electromagnetic spectrum. The commonly used frequency for microwaves are 2.45 gigahertz (GHz). Waves of this frequency are actively absorbed by fat, sugar, and water molecules (source: howstuffworks.com).

A microwave uses a mini vaccum tube / magnetron to generate the energy needed to heat food, a waveguider to guide the wave towards the direction of the food, and a container to safely house the microwave radiation.


Source: research.fuseink.com

Since our food is made mostly of water, microwaves can heat food by taking advantage of the dipole (containing both a positive charge and negative charge) properties of water molecules. They do this by shooting microwaves, whose waves contain electric and magnetic fields that causes said waves to change directions rapidly, at the food. When the microwaves hit the water molecules contained within the food, the water molecules try to align with the electric field. Since the electric field is constantly changing direction, the water molecules are constantly moving back and forth, rubbing up against other water molecules, and thus generating heat. You can watch a fantastic overview by youtube user "engineerguyvideo", which is posted below.

Source: Youtube User-engineerguyvideo 

Types of Radiation

So will the radiation from microwaves kill you and make you grow an extra arm out of your eyeball? Aside from the fact that, as seen above, all forms of cooking are in their own way different types of "radiation", I think that this is a good time talk about two main types of radiation that you should become familiar with.



Source: wikimedia.org

Ionizing Radiation

Ionizing radiation is a type of radiation that can "knock off" or "ionize" atoms off of molecules and generate ions. In other words, ionizing radiation is so powerful that it can rip off electrons from the electron shell of atoms.

Biological structures like deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) can be severely damaged by this kind of ionization and can lead to the dreaded health outcome known as cancer.....since the blueprints for making your biological structures have now been damaged and unable to be properly processed during DNA replication or protein synthesis.




Source: serc.carleton.edu

Types of ionizing radiation include x-rays, gamma rays, and ultraviolent light (like in sunlight) (source: Enivironmental Protection Agency).


Non-Ionizing Radiation

Non-ionizing radiation is radiation that doesn't produce enough kinetic energy when passing through matter to generate charged ions, and only have enough energy to change the rotational, vibrational, or electronic valence of atoms and molecules (source: wikipedia). The effect of non-ionizing radiation on living tissue is not yet fully known, but has not yet been shown to be as harmul as ionizing radation.


Source: 0.tqn.com

Types of non-ionizing radiation can include low currents, extremely low frequency waves, radio waves, microwaves, and infrared waves.


Safety of Microwave Radiation

Microwaves do not emit ionizing radiation, so microwaves cannot strip electrons from the atoms of substances that they are trying to cook. Since sunlight, fluorescent light, incandescent light, and white light DO contain ionizing radiation, it is my understanding that you are just as much in harms way laying outside to tan or sitting under your office light as you are microwaving your food. Microwaves are just better at penetrating your food deeper, but uses energy in much the same way that stovetop, oven, and fast food heating lamps use energy to cook your food.  

 
Safety When using a Microwave

So where do I stand in the debate on whether or not microwaves are safe to use or not? What are my recommendations?

Personally, in my almost 4 years of bodybuilding I can tell you that I've used a microwave almost as much as I've used a dumbbell. Every day I'm cooking / reheating multiple items for consumption to hit my macros and attain success and gains in my physique. At this point in time, I can tell you that I do not feel any detrimental health effects or outcomes that I feel are in direct correlation to my microwave use.

And that's the kind of thing you need to keep in mind before shunning something. I often find myself frustrated as an epidemiologist when I see so many people on social media draw a definite conclusion in their minds from ONE study, or ONE source......whether credible or not. To me, multiple resources, personal experience, and heavy research into the mechanics (biological and technical) of any given topic, whilst also freeing yourself of any bias, should be thoroughly investigated before you draw any difinitive conclusion for yourself about any given topic.

When looking at detrimental health outcomes, ESPECIALLY with dietary studies, it's extremely difficult to deduce the effects any given "thing" is having on someone's health. Was it the microwave that lead you to have a particular disease? Or was it the other covariates you decided not to focus on, like the amount of processed foods you were eating, the additives you put in the food, or other lifetyle habits like drinking and/or smoking? These are all things you need to take into account.
However, you wouldn't want to microwave food for too long as overheating food may decrease the nutritional richness of a food (I think). But that can be said for ANY form of cooking with heat. It's also important in my opinion to heat your food in containers that are deemed safe for microwaving (which should be said on the packing somewhere), as you do not want leachate from containers to contaminate your food while heating. Glass and ceramic containers, paper plates, towels / napkins, and wax / parchment papers are examples of microwave-safe containers (source: realsimple.com).

Source: ecx.images-amazon.com

 

So is microwave cooking safe? Perhaps. I don't believe that it's extremely unsafe for cooking your food though. I don't believe it's going to turn your food into a toxic waste site or cause you to suddenly sprout wings and fly through your window. Do some thorough research removed from bias and come up with your own conclusion!

-Jtrain


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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Nutrition Hacks - Weaning Off Foods

Food is an addiction. You laugh at that statement now, but after a session of critical thinking, you start to realize just how intense your attachment to food really is. Try saying no to a food you enjoy eating every day and pay attention to the mental dilemma and anxiety you start to feel all over your body and into your very soul as you prolong the time you deny yourself of it. Then notice the calm and joy you feel once you give your body what you want. That's addiction my friends.

Source: breathelhc.org

Food can be / is just as addictive as hard drugs. The only reason the general population doesn't talk about it in such a light so intensely is because the harmful and detrimental effects aren't necessarily as pronounced and aren't readily seen right away, and because food is so deeply integrated into our human psyche, so essential to who we are and life as a whole, that those who we would need to perpetuate the idea of denial of great tasting foods enjoy food themselves....and are therefore blind to the severity and importance of the topic.

To conquer nutrition is to conquer your greatest enemy........yourself. Your body is so perfectly engineered to store calories and make you lazy that it can completely incapacitate you, crush your soul, come up with every justifcation in existance, and even create alternate realities in your mind to make you believe that eating that cupcake is a matter of life or death and /or not a big deal.

Food is also engineered to be addictive. The ingredients put into many of today's processed foods are made specifically to make you crave them more and thus eat more. Said ingredients make your taste buds go absolutely ballistic and fast track you on your way to a broken diet. With such options available in excess all around us, along with the discussed propensity of the human body to want to store as many calories as possible, we are set up for nutritional health failure and a poor bodily aesthetic.

While many people I know are focused on taking instagram photos of the weights they lift and the workouts they do as though that were the most important aspect of a fitness routine, I've always been on team nutrition (I wonder if there's a hashtag for that on Twitter?). I've always felt that the road most necessary to travel on your way to fitness goal accomplishment is the road of nutrition. Unfortunately, it's also the hardest and scariest road to travel.



Pictured Here: EVERY FREAKING GIRL ON MY FACEBOOK FEED
Source: 24.media.tumblr.com
 

But fear not fitness warriors. I've played this game for a long time. I've come up with a plan to every so often make a post on things that I've for years called "nutrition hacks". What is a nutrition hack you might ask? I'm glad you asked that, and if you didn't you should have....because they're great.

A nutrition hack is a way of doing something centered around your nutrition that can be either mental or physical that forces or tricks your mind to stay on track towards your fitness goals, and allows you to eat (at least mostly) clean. I've developed a bunch of these over the years that have worked for me, and I'd like to start sharing them with you. So let's get into my first nutrition hack!


WEANING FOODS OUT OF YOUR DIET

So you've woken up one morning and told yourself, "TODAY'S THE DAY! I'M GOING TO CHANGE MY LIFE AND EAT HEALTHY FOREVER!". The first day goes by pretty well, and you start posting statuses and telling all your friends how your life has miraculously become better.
And then your body realizes what you're doing and you're suddenly face deep into a bucket of fried chicken with chocolate syrup and a side of fries and a large soda.

Mmmmmmmmm....
Source: robynsonlineworld.com

 

So what happened? Why can't you just change the way you eat automatically? There are a lot of analogies I can use here, but one of my favorites is the one where I compare one's eating habits to a wagon being pulled down a steep hill.

I don't know if you did this as a kid, but imagine yourself being pulled really fast down a steep hill by someone as you're sitting in a wagon. As you get to the bottom, imagine that person trying to turn the wagon to the right or left. If the person suddenly pulled the wagon you're sitting in at a sharp right angle as you continue to roll down the hill, you will fly off of the wagon and crash into the ground. Conversely, if that person slowly started to turn, you would stay in the wagon and eventually have a smooth stop at the bottom of the hill.



Source: bespence.files.wordpress.com

 

It's the same with nutrition. If your body is used to outrageously tasty high sodium, high sugar, and high fat foods, it's going to be calibrated to expect those foods all the time, especially if you do the same things every day that exposes you to those foods. The way to combate this in my opinion, is to KEEP eating those foods in the same quanitities, while decreasing, i.e. weaning, the amount you intake every so often and never increasing back up to the original amount you ate before decreasing to the amount you're currently eating.

The amount you decrease the food(s) you're trying to kick and the period you choose as the time you will again decrease the amount is arbitrary and completely up to you. Choose a time period you know you can stick to and an amount that you don't think will make you go insane and relapse back into gorging yourself with said food.

Before I started bodybuilding, I would eat Wendy's about 3 times a week.....because it's absolutely delicious. Once I started to get heavily invested into bodybuilding though, I realized that the food I was getting at Wendy's was obviously not going to help me attain the bodily aesthetic I was questing for. Had I abruptly stopped eating Wendy's all together however, I would go into withdrawls and, when I did go back, order more of the food to compensate for the amount I quit eating all of a sudden (such is the way of the human mind).

Realizing this, I decided to CONTINUE eating Wendy's 3 times a week for at least two weeks....even if I didn't want to. The fact that I forced myself to eat it when I didn't necessarily want it also helped me not really look forward to it or crave it anymore. My protocol went something like this:

2 Weeks - Wendy's 3 times a week

2 Weeks - Wendy's 2 times a week

2 Weeks - Wendy's once a week

After 2 weeks of Wendy's once a week - No more Wendy's


Your times and quanitities may vary

I was actually astounded by how well this process worked. I believe now that a lot of bodily functions (like food cravings and sleep cycles) and routine changes (like getting into bodybuilding and / or fitness) require a period of adjustment, or a weaning phase. Going from outrageously great tasting food to plain chicken breast and salad is like going from kissing a person you're attracted to to all of a sudden only hugging them. You need time to adjust to the process and reset your mentality. You may look tough and inspirational in the beginning, but bodybuilding and fitness is the marathon of marathons. It's how well you consistently put in the work and dedication that matters, and setting your mind up in the right way to optimize that takes time.

So instead of suddenly kicking a food you're trying to get out of your diet, trying slowly weaning yourself off of it. Don't just dive right into completely eliminating things from your diet. Is it better to eat as clean as possible? Absolutely. But learning to slowly accept and eventually stay super dedicated to a diet is better than diving hard into it and suddenly crashing equally as hard.

-Jtrain

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*Have a question about natural bodybuilding / fitness / nutrition / stress? Need some advice? Email me at jtrainfitness@gmail.com and I will answer it on this blog! Be sure to enter your email to receive alerts for when the next blog post has come out, and be sure to tell your friends about this blog! Follow me on twitter @jtrainfitness and tell your friends to do the same!*
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