Thursday, December 23, 2010

Happy Holidays

I would like to wish you all a safe and happy Merry Christmas.  HE is the reason for the season...

I will be resuming my blog entries after the holidays.  It has been a busy December I haven't had the time to write as much.  I appreciate all of you who follow my blog. Thank you.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Aging and the Importance of Exercise

Many people feel that exercise is only for the young, sexy folks. When people get older past 40 the need to be sexually appealing wanes. When this occurs then the motivation for exercise decreases. Those that stay with the program are usually the ones that know about the benefits of exercise. They exercise more for overall health than for just the bedroom. It is important for everyone to exercise if you want to keep the body working optimally. Yes! people can make it to be one hundred years old without ever exercising a day in their life. However, this is rare and the quality of life is not always good. Exercising throughout life is no guarantee that you will live to be 100 either.  Exercise does provide many benefits throughout life that can help improve quality of life and longevity.  First I will discuss the effects of aging then I will discuss the benefits of exercise on the aging effect.


Aging Effects


Brain: Neuron degeneration. Fewer neurons fire therefore memory is impaired. Synapses are weaker or delayed producing poor proprioceptor activation (balance).  Catecholamines decrease. Reaction time decreases.


Cardiovascular: Arteries occlude, slowing down the blood flow to throughout the body and especially the heart. Shallow lung capacity (decreased Vo2 uptake). Capillaries, blood vessels to the muscles diminish, resulting in smaller muscles. Walls of the arteries and veins weaken. Stroke volume and cardiac output decrease.  Oxygen saturation decreases.


Skin: Decreased protein suspension. Thinning of tissue. Wrinkles, browning spots, and spider veins. Develop. Wounds take longer to heal.  Slow production of platelets.

Eyes: Lens decrease in strength. Retina less sensitive. Pupils react slower to changing light.

Ears: Nerves die making hearing less sensitive. High notes are hard to hear.

Bones / Joints: Calcium decreases, bones become more brittle.  Osteoporosis can develop. Cartilage decreases, in some cases is gone completely. Spinal vertebraes compress and can fuse. Joints become easily dehydrated.

Organs: Lose size and cell number becoming less productive. Stomach becomes more susceptible of developing ulcers.  Digestive system decreases in production of nutrient exchange.  Harder to process fats, protein and carbohydrates.

Metabolism:  Nutrient exchange slows down, increases catabolic effect.

Hormone production: Anabolic hormones (growth hormone, insulin, testosterone) decrease causing muscles to shrink.  Increase in catabolic hormones.

Unfortunately,  there is no cure against aging.  We all are subjected to aging.  The best way to safeguard the  increasing speed of aging is to exercise on a regular basis. Exercise helps keep the body running at optimal speed, slowing down the effects of aging.  The benefits of exercise are numerous. The greatest benefit is the ability to maintain oxygen and hormone levels. Hormone levels drop naturally, but with regular exercise the degradation of hormones is slower.  This means that you can stay stronger and fit longer as you age. The old saying, " you lose what you don't use" is true.  You must use your body to reap the benefits of age maintenance.

EVERYONE SHOULD BE EXERCISING!!!! Even if it is only 10-15 minutes a day. EVERYONE SHOULD BE WEIGHT LIFTING AS WELL!!!

tags: aging, weight training, Daryl Conant, Vince Gironda, Ron Kosloff, New England Patriots.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The Shake Weight:

Someone asked me if the shake was of any value.  Well, here is my take on the product.

Monday, December 6, 2010

It was a Thrilling Moment To Hang the Signs on The Wall...

Hello Everyone,
Here is a video of the wall dedicated to Vince Gironda. It has different pictures of various guys that trained there, as well as the ACTUAL SIGN'S THAT HUNG OUTSIDE OF VINCE'S GYM. This is truly a treasure to me and it is an awesome piece of history. I hope you will enjoy it...


If you are in the Kennebunk, Maine area please drop by and get your picture taken under the sign. I will put your picture up on the wall, so you can be apart of the new history.


Daryl Conant
Student of Vince Gironda













tags: vince's gym, daryl conant, ron kosloff

Myles Henry

My friend Myles Henry unexpectedly passed away Saturday. He was a great guy. He will truly be missed. He was very passionate about life.  My prayers go out to Trish and the rest of his family.  Rest in peace my friend.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Importance of Supplements

I believe that to be a successful bodybuilder you must incorporate supplements into your program.  I have done experiments with and without supplements, and have found that there is no comparison to the way my physique looks like when I adhere to a strict supplement regime.

Supplements help ensure the proper amount of nutrients to get into damaged, fatigued, worked muscle tissue. Exercise, as I have always stated, is only a thermogenic boost to the muscles. The intensity at which you train will determine how much damage you will invoke onto the muscle tissue. If you train hard and with high intensity you are firing off many synapses and burning out many motor units along with tearing down muscle fibers.  This type of damage requires adequate amounts of nutrients to help repair and resynthesize; muscle cells (cellular machinery: i.e, organelles, etc), motor units, nerves, hormone reproduction, sarcoplasma concentrations.  It is going to take more than a spear of brocolli and 6 oz. of chicken to re-establish the muscle tissue and to help it grow.  For some reason you just can't get all of your nutrients need from food if you want to maintain muscle mass. If you are exercising just for the sake of increasing your core temperature a little and are performing muscular endurance exercises, then you probably will be fine with taking only a daily vitamin and eating a good clean diet.  However, if you want to put on muscle you have to supplement the diet.  There really is no getting around it.

My experiment:  I did a private study on myself a few years back.  I trained for six months without taking any supplements, not even a daily vitamin.  I ate 5-6 meals a day. My diet was very strict and regulated with the correct amount of protein, fat, and low glycemic carbs.  I trained hard, as usual.  The results were, I made small gains, but maintained my original starting muscle composition. My strength was marginal, no real significant changes.  My fat has always been 3% so that didn't change.  I was able to maintain but no significant changes occurred. I feel that my body was only able to resynthesize just enough of the muscle tissue that I was tearing down. I never seemed to get ahead of the repair / building cycle.  By the end of the week of each program I was completely exhausted and my joints would start to ache.  I had to drop the intensity of my training by the end of the week to recover.  I found that my recovery periods were getting longer and longer towards the end of the six months.

THen I added supplements back into the program.  For the next 6 months I trained hard, with high intensity. The results were much different.  I would find that I could lift more each week. My strength increased, my stamina increased, my recovery was much better, I wasn't tired by the end of the week.  WHen I woke up my muscles felt full and tight, not sore and flaccid. My energy was higher during the day.  My measurements increased in all the right places while keeping a 29 inch waist.

My experiment confirmed to me the importance of supplementation.  If you are serious about putting on good quality muscle you must take them.  If you have any questions or concerns to what supplements you should be taking you can email me your questions.

Vince Gironda told me one time that you have to take supplements with his programs, otherwise you will not see dramatic results.  He said that you have to restore used protein with new protein. And you have to keep protein high in your bloodstream.

Supplements that I take to build muscle: I only use NSP Products and have been using them for over 25 years.  These are the same supplements that Vince Gironda sold me years ago.  It's my own preference there are a ton of products out there from other manufactures.  I have never bothered with all those other products because NSP products work for me.  Ron Kosloff is a great friend and an honest, hard working businessman, a quality I respect. I feel that his products are superior and are affordable.  You can purchase supplements each month in the range of $200-1200.00.  That is up to you.  I don't want to make a mortgage payment to a supplement company each month so I stick with NSP.

Here is what I use:

All from NSP
* Multi-vitamin Bodybuilders Pak
* Free Form Amino Acids
* Digestive Enzymes
* Branched Chain Amino Acids
* I/Ki
* Alfalafa
* 92% Milk and Egg Protein (wicked good stuff!!!)
* L-Glutamine

How much muscle you develop is dependent on genetics, diet and supplementation.

If you are on a low budget I suggest the following;

* Multi-vitamin Pak
* Free Form Amino's
* 92% Milk and Egg Protein
* Digestive Enzymes

tags: supplements, amino acids, protein, bodybuilding, Vince Gironda, Ron Kosloff, Daryl Conant, lean muscle mass