Rewrite Your Workout Books (and Bookends)

If your workout goals feel plateaued, there are steps you can take to rewrite and reorganize your workout to achieve maximum benefits!

Do you ever feel like you're working your butt off but not getting anywhere? Been stuck at your max for a month? Failed to enhance your 5K time? Perhaps it's time for a change. Follow these simple steps to reboot, rewrite, and reinvigorate your workout to get over that dreaded plateau.

Pre-Workout Berries

When you want that extra edge going into a workout, there is one thing you need to remember: blueberries. Blueberries are essentially little bombs of antioxidants ready and willing to set your workout ablaze. Antioxidants have been proven to reduce the oxidative stress of intense training, decrease inflammation, as well as increase isometric strength gains. So what does this mean? It means faster recovery, less fatigue, more reps, and, over time, more muscle. So next time you're shopping for Meal Prep Sunday, think about the most important muscle in your body (the heart, in case that wasn't a no-brainer) and load up on the blueberries.

Hit the Stretch Room Before You Hit the Weights

If you are like me, you can't help but compartmentalize time. It's often difficult to juggle work or school or keeping up with the family while also maintaining a social life. The thought of adding ten to twenty minutes to your already hurried gym-time can be a bit overwhelming. But you know who is really overwhelmed? Your body. And the only way to rectify all the damage we do to our bodies by sitting in our cars or at our desks or on our couches, in addition to the stress our musculoskeletal structures endure in training, is to stretch. If you can incorporate ten minutes of mobility movements prior to and following your exercise, you'll begin reaping the benefits almost instantaneously. Mobility movements before a workout help to prime targeted muscles for training. Think of stretching as a sort of pep-talk you give your muscles prior to working them out. I think you will be surprised by the response you get. Furthermore, post-workout mobility aims at unpacking all of the stress you have just put on your muscles and bones, allowing you to recover more quickly and get back into the gym the following day prepared for excellence. In short, sparing time for stretching could potentially save you time in your overall transformation. If you can carve out a few minutes each workout to give your body some much-needed stretching, who knows, it might give you a few years in return.

Water

Sometimes water gets out-shined in the gym by fancy sports drinks, but its importance cannot be underestimated. Training regimens and health fads come and go with the years, but if there is one thing that has stayed constant for time immemorial, it's water. Hydration is key for an effective workout for myriad reasons, the most important of those being your cardiovascular function. When you are properly hydrated, your heart does not have to work so hard to pump blood, which in turn facilitates the transfer of essential nutrients and oxygen to the muscles you damage during training. Also, nearly 75% of those prized muscles you've been working years to sculpt, are made of water. Many athletes use the rule of one when on an intense training regimen. One day, one gallon. So remember, bottoms up before you hit those rock-bottom squats. {9kucur9p}

Pick your protein

Tons of studies have been done in the last decade trying to accurately plot the measurements of the so-called anabolic window, with the consensus being within one hour after your workout. This is the time frame where your body is primed to receive simple sugars and protein to begin the recovery process. Luckily, we live in a time where delicious plant-based protein powders with rapid absorption speeds are highly available. Brown rice, pea, hemp, chia, and flax, you name it, you can find it. My personal favorite is Sunwarrior's Classic Plus. Being that I am in the military where the use of hemp, even nutritionally, is prohibited, I find this particular protein powder at the top of its class in taste, essential amino acid content, mixability, and the raw plant-based power it provides! Immediately after training and roughly two hours before your next meal, try to consume a shake containing 15–20 grams of protein for optimum recovery potential. Useful tip: the body also craves essential fats post-workout. Try tossing in a few tablespoons of chia seeds into that shake for some much needed fatty acids as well as additional protein.

Eat Plants Until You are Full

This is perhaps the easiest and most enjoyable step of the five. It is easy to get lost in the world of information constantly flashing at us, urging us to worry about macros and windows and high intense interval training and daily servings... The truth of the matter is that if you are leading an active lifestyle, what your body craves most is earth-grown nutrients. You can do hundreds of sit-ups, but if you fail to realize that your most important asset is the produce aisle, you will never have the six-pack abs to show for those sit-ups. Make fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes the star of every plate, and you will find yourself the star in the gym sooner than you think.

Use these steps as a jumping off point for your renewed love affair with being active and eating to succeed.

A great way to get you going on resolutions is joining our fitness challenge!

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