Back in March we returned home from a Caribbean cruise. Once we arrived back in Canada we were required to quarantine and self-isolate for 2 weeks. We were probably among the first people to do so as the Canadian government closed the border to international travel as we arrived. I remember the customs agent coming on the plane, explaining the quarantine process and duration and giving everyone a handout with the same information. I remember this agent saying we should feel lucky as were the last flight to arrive in Kelowna as the border was closed. The next two weeks were spent at home. We didn't go to work, school or out for any reason. It was kind of nice actually as we would simply text a friend or family member our grocery list and send them an email money transfer. We literally didn't even step out of the house for two weeks. And we could notice the difference this was making on our physical and mental health. I couldn't wait to get back in the gym, train and do something active. As someone who is normally active a couple weeks break from the gym probably wasn't the worst thing in the world. If I were a couple of decades older this quarantine could have been catastrophic. A new study looked at how 2 weeks of quarantine affects our health. In this study of 22 men and women, average age of 69 years, total daily steps were reduced to less than 1500 per day. Researchers looked at insulin sensitivity and muscle protein synthesis after 2 weeks of inactivity. What they found was that insulin sensitivity and muscle protein synthesis both decreased after only 2 weeks of sitting around. Leg muscle mass decreased by 4%. A key, and concerning, finding of the...

Every week our team at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc looks to help hundreds of people achieve their health and fitness goals. And getting stronger is at the top of the list of identified goals. An athlete wants to get stronger to increase his force production and be more powerful. With baseball for example, this translates to throwing harder and better hitting performnance. With the business professional having more strength allows for more distance off the tee box when they take clients out for a round of golf. And the new mom wants strength to be able to carry car seats, diaper bags, groceries, strollers as well as a new born. For all of these people more strength helps improve posture. It helps us protect us from injury. It helps us look better in the mirror after a shower or at the beach on the vacation. And this does wonders for our confidence. So whether we want to describe our strength goal as getting 'toned', 'jacked', 'swole' or simply to get stronger it is a goal shared by a number of people. But if you've been at the strength game for any period of time you know that it isn't easy to just put on 5 pounds of muscle. Consider for a second that a pound is 16 ounces. And picture what an eight ounce steak looks like. [caption id="attachment_5444" align="aligncenter" width="300"] An 8 ounce steak. You would need 10 of these for 5 lbs. To add 5 lbs of lean body mass, imagine 10 x 8 ounce steaks. Add this much protein to your arms, legs, chest and back and you have an idea of how much muscle protein we're talking about. As well, we should probably include one obvious condition. You can't increase your belt size as you add lean...

So we all know the importance of the pre-workout meal. Well, maybe I'm jumping the gun. I should say that I hope we all know the importance of the pre-workout meal.And I should qualify the position I'm coming from on this topic. This is based upon training for performance and athletic excellence. The reason I make the distinction is that there is a growing movement and popularity for intermittent fasting when it comes to weight loss and body composition changes. I'm not referring to this type of goal.When it comes to pre-workout nutrition for a performance goal wer're looking to hydrate and top up the body's supply of glycogen. Glycogen is the body's stored form of carbohydrate which can be found in the muscle and liver. If we have some carbs before training this can help 'spare' muscle glycogen or minimize the depletion of this energy source.And while carbs are our best source to accomplish this we want to make sure to keep the pre-workout levels of fats and protein a little lower. This may seem contrary to what you'll see many 'meat heads' doing as they suck on a protein shake while warming up on the treadmill. Don't follow this lead. Too much protein slows gastric emptying and impairs performance.But while we hear all the time how important it is to eat before training, how important is it really? How much does it impact your performance? Can one meal really make a difference?Consider the following session I had with a client this week. This client wears a heart rate monitor while training and of course we are monitoring loads, recovery times and outputs on energy system work. And for this particular workout the client had not had a pre-workout meal.Here's what happened.When we got to some of the conditioning sets...