Cavan Brady Personal Training

The effects of being in a prolonged calorie deficit are not nice. Here are some signs to look out for in case you are in fact in an over due re-feed / change of plan.

◾️Muscle loss and lowered testosterone - as time goes on in your plan of being in a calorie deficit, you may notice that you are losing strength and s*x drive. These are both symptoms of lowered testosterone and a reduction in muscle tissue.

◾️Unhealthy food focus - you may look to focus on foods that are not beneficial to you whilst in a prolonged calorie defect and have major cravings. This could lead to binge eating and therefore having an unhealthy relationship with food.

◾️More susceptible to gain fat tissue - as time goes on in a calorie deficit, our body’s metabolism will slow down to adjust to this period. This warrants a bigger deficit to continued fat loss, therefore slowing your metabolism down even more. A slower metabolism means it is easiest to gain fat tissue.

◾️Mood, sleep and energy - these three factors can all be changed drastically when deep into a calorie deficit. Many people can become lethargic, easily irritable and find it hard to sleep at night.

If any of these signs occur in your calorie deficit, it may be time to address this to your coach / PT.

The above picture is an example of Christian Bale in a prolonged calorie deficit for movie roles.

Client win 🏆

Tiago has been with me for a few weeks now as an online client.

As an online client of mine, one of the perks that comes with the package is that you get a review and in-depth analysis of your form on all exercises.

He tries his best each week and records everyone of his sets in the gym. This isn’t only just good for me, but him too as he can look back on the weeks and realise how far he has come.

I send in-depth analysis videos to him of his form with a voice over on software that I use so he can learn on what he’s doing right and what he may need to amend.

He is always learning and each week progressing really nicely in terms of numbers on each lift and form wise.

A big well done to him 👏

You MUST deal with feeling and looking uncomfortable in a bulking phase. 😒

What I mean by this is that you cannot think in your head that you will look good or feel good in a bulk.

The amount of calories you will be consuming will be a lot and you could feel uncomfortable throughout the day. This is what has to be done in order to progress. You need to do things that others are not willing to do in order to progress and add more muscle to your physique.

You may feel sluggish at times, but it is what is needed to be done! 🥱

You may not want to eat anymore, but if you have a few hundred calories left to eat - eat them, it is what is needed to be done! 🤢

You MUST realise that bulking is necessary in order for you to put on quality, solid muscle tissue to your physique.

You MUST realise that you need to be willing to let go of the abs in order to be bigger and stronger next time when it comes to a cut.

Learn that a bulk can be uncomfortable at times. It is what you do on the bulk that pays off when it comes to the shredding phase. 🚀

The picture above demonstrates Jay Cutler in the bulk on the left and in a cut on the right.

Client win 🏆

Beth has been enjoying her sessions and has proved this by setting new PBs on many exercises each week! 🥇

The key to staying on track with a gym programme is making sure that you enjoy it! 😁

A massive well done to her! 👏

The right session structure can make a big difference to the progress that you make. If you need any help with your session structure and want to know more then get in touch by sending me DM!

So you want to start a diet? 🤔

This phrase is always being said by many many people who want to lose weight in many cases.

A lot of the time, people who say that they want to start a diet follow up the statement with “but it’s just too boring, I can never stick to one.” This doesn’t have to be the case!

It is a common misconception that dieting has to be boring with 3-5 clean meals a day eating nothing but plain chicken, white rice and steamed broccoli. It doesn’t have to be this way!

Dieting can be fun and tasty. There are plenty of meals out there in cook books and online that are healthy and nutritious. You can even find these meals for free!

Tips I’d suggest for starting a diet.

1. Do not dive into eating 100% clean / healthy the first day.

You will eventually end up going back to old habits and not wanting to eat healthily. Ease yourself into the dieting process. Take away certain unhealthy aspects of your diet at a time reducing it daily. 🍫❌

2. Use incentives each week as rewards for staying on track in the first week.

This is a great way to keep yourself on track. I’d suggest, like I have with many clients of mine, to go down this route. It gives you a sense of fulfilment when you are treating yourself to a takeaway or a naughty desert at the end of the week for staying on track and being good. It makes you feel good as is a reward for yourself for being good for the week just gone. 😋

3. One last final tip when you are starting a diet is, talk to friends and family about why you may be starting a diet. They can help and support you in the long run when things may get tough. Another benefit from talking to your family in particular is that your family may recognise that they may want to make healthy changes to their lifestyle too and join in with you. If they do join in, then there would be as little distractions as possible in the fridge and cupboards as the people you are living with would be trying to make healthy changes too so the unhealthy, non necessary foods will be to a minimum! 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

How to get big 💪

Firstly, you will need a:

◾️SENSIBLE calorie surplus - notice how sensible is in caps! You need to be eating more calories than you are burning. To start with, try a 200 calorie surplus and as time goes on, increase it to a 500-600 calorie surplus. Anything more, may be seen as unsensible.

◾️Sufficient amount of protein - eating protein recovers your body’s broken muscle tissue and builds it back stronger than before to grow.

◾️Excellent form - make sure that when you are performing exercise, ensure that you are utilising the full range of motion and correct technique to get the most ur of your training.

◾️Progressive overload - this is where each week you increase what you were doing since last time to make the exercise slightly harder. This can be done by increasing the weight or reps on a certain exercise to ensure you are progressively overloading on certain movements and getting better.

◾️Rest - make sure that you are recovering properly after sessions by stretching, sleeping an adequate amount and using other things like a massage gun (not essential though).

◾️Consistency - ensure that you are staying consistent throughout a plan week in, week out. Make sure that every variable listed above is staying consistent to ensure you get the most out of your programme.

Reflecting on lockdown 🔒

Lockdown made me better and here is why:

I didn’t stop training in lockdown. I found a way around it. I already had some weights, a multi gym and a heavy bag down my garage prior to lockdown so I was fairly lucky that I had something to work with.

I didn’t just stick with this though. Me and my dad built a squat rack from old wood that was laying about in the garage (majority oh building was from my dad 😅), purchased a double end bag and even made two cable machines out of products I purchased from B&Q. I made do with the small space of what I had.

It wasn’t glamorous or clean like a normal gym that we are used to, but I dealt with it. No excuses!

I kept on top of my training throughout lockdown and was prepared for when the gyms were open again. I was hitting PB’s days after lockdown ended and the gyms were open again. 💪

In many ways, I think lockdown made me better, despite being a pretty dull time in everyone’s lives. 🙄

Many people moaned and were down that they had nothing. There is always a way around things, people have just got to search for it! 👍

My top 3 recovery necessities for recovery

1️⃣ Sleep

Sleep is so important for recovering after gym session and life in general! When you sleep, your body repairs the damage that has been done to it during the day. During sleep, hormones like testosterone is introduced and helps recover tissue. A lack of sleep = a lack of testosterone. This could mean all that hard work you had put in at the gym trying to gain muscle was for nothing if you have 4 hours of sleep as the testosterone doesn’t have time to build and repair the damages tissue!

2️⃣ Stretching

Stretching is important before and after a session. It is something that we do not get enough of. If you stretch regularly, you will feel more agile and less rigid. It increases your range of motion, flexibility, mobility, increases blood flow to muscles. It is such a great tool that many people do not utilise enough.

3️⃣ Hot and cold water treatments

This is where you have a warm bath and a cold bath. You first start in the cold bath for a few minutes and instantly get into a warm bath for a few minutes. When you are in the cold water, your capillaries get smaller as a response to the cold water. The rapid change in temperature when you get out of the cold bath and into the warm causes the opposite in capillaries. When capillaries are closer to the surface of your skin and have increased in size, your skin becomes a reddish - pink colour. When you change from cold to hot, your heart rate changes also. In cold water, your heart rate tends to speed up, when in warm water, your heart rate slows down. The change in the heart rate also causes a change in your blood pressure. This is lead to believe that it will help recover your aches away.

Honourable mentions:

Foam rollers and massage guns are both great choices too. The only reason they didn’t make it to my top 3 is because they cost money whereas the others are free to do or in theory, cost less than purchasing these two pieces of kit.

Supplements

There are so many supplements on the market now that it may be overwhelming for someone who may be a novice when it comes to supplement knowledge trying to choose the right supplement for them.

I’m going to breakdown a few of the more relevant supplements out there and the ones that I think are worth investing in. I’ll also mention the one supplements that I do not recommend purchasing ever!

Good supplements that I recommend ✅

Whey protein (isolate too): 💪

This supplement is in my opinion of the better supplements out there. There are many flavoured powders that you choose from and mix with water or milk to make a shake. This is ideal for people who may not be getting enough protein into their system due to long working days and not being able to cook whole foods. I would always suggest whole foods over powdered protein, but in this scenario, it is ideal. It is good for anybody’s goal be it, build muscle or lose weight. If their goal was to lose weight, I’d say isolate is better in that aspect as it is less calories per scoop in comparison to regular whey.

Creatine: 🏋️

Creatine is regarded as one of the most investigated supplements on the market. It is said to have had many scientific studies revolved around it. It is reliable and does what it says it does. Creatine supports muscle growth, strength increase and performance increase.

Multi vitamin / specific vitamin tablets: 💊

These tablets are great for those that may be developing deficiencies in those specific vitamins. If you are developing signs of deficiencies of any vitamin, you could supplement it with these tablets causing your vitamin levels to level out.

1 Supplement I do not recommend ❌

Fat burning creams / tablets: 🤦🏻‍♂️

First of all, there is no actual evidence that fat burners burn fat. Second of all, I personally hate the term “burn fat”. 😂