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Besides training, which causes a break down in muscle tissue, there are two other important ways your body causes muscle damage. With these other ways there are measures you can take to prevent damage from happening. During weight training, the body has a natural feed-back loop of recovery and adaptation, making it an overall anabolic process (with proper nutrition and supplementation). Some clinical ways to test for muscle damage is by identifying biochemical markers such as CPK, LHD and 3-methylhistidine since they can be readily found in urine and blood samples when the muscle tissue is broken down or torn. Another way is to test for free radicals and cortisol levels in blood plasma; these are the areas where you can put forth an effort to prevent catabolism.

My philosophy behind weight training can be summed up in one phrase. “In order to succeed in the weight room you must fail!” What do I mean by this? You must reach failure with the rep range and weights you are using. Reaching failure, in my mind, is the most important rule due to the fact that it promotes the most muscle growth. A lot of lifters go into the gym and do 3 sets of 10 reps on, for example, bench press. They increase the weight each set and seem to still finish with 10 repetitions. Maybe that last set they struggled to reach 10, but what about the first two sets? Basically, they wasted 10 minutes of their time with too many warm-up sets. Instead of reaching failure and breaking down muscle tissue, this particular lifter fatigued their chest by messing around with a lighter weight on the first two sets. Therefore, the end result finished with less weight being used on their heaviest set because the muscles were too fatigued from the excessive warm-ups. Don’t get me wrong - it’s great to warm up, as everyone should to avoid injury, but to fatigue your muscles before your heaviest sets is just counterproductive.

Living in Boston means April is the time of year that thousands of people hit the streets, treadmills, and trails to prepare for the Boston Marathon. I have countless friends, family, and coworkers who raced this year and I always hear a similar story, some variation of "The race will be so rewarding to finish, and I will lose so much weight and get in great shape while training!" 

Doing the same type of workout day-in and day-out can get dull and discouraging for even the most dedicated person. If you are looking to add a little variety to your upper body routine or train grip strength, I strongly recommend you give rock climbing a try. It is a great way to work the upper body, grip strength, build confidence, meet amazing people and see a variety of beautiful places!

Are you one of those gym rats who spends endless hours in the gym day in and day out working hard to improve your physique but don’t see any difference in your body? You believe that the more work you do, the better off you will be. Believe it or not, you might be doing more harm to your body than good when training so much. As a result, you might not be seeing any of the results you want. If you are experiencing any of these symptoms listed below, you may be over-training.

The technique of a proper bench press is something you have to master and the only way you can is by benching and benching often – at least once a week. You have to find your “groove.” That groove will ultimately be the plane of movement from lock out (the top of the movement), down to where you naturally bottom out then back up over your eyes to lock out. For some guys their natural bottom out might not be hitting your sternum, but actually a few inches above.

Everyone strives for the chiseled abs and flat tummy, and some still think it requires thousands of boring crunches to achieve them! One thing remains certain: no matter how developed your abdominal muscles are, they will never make a visual impact with a layer of fat covering them. Your diet alone may be the deal breaker when it comes to achieving your very own six-pack. A combination of consistent diet and exercise is necessary to rid your belly bulge. If your diet is to blame, maybe you need help from the fully integrated health, supplementation and fitness program VIVO 360°! If you are looking for a way to get off the floor and spice up your dull ab routine, keep reading.

So, here we are at the end of Phase 2 and you’re all eagerly awaiting the results. As you know from my “End of Phase 1” blog, I was down 14 pounds and feeling good. My body had finally adjusted to having carbohydrates every third day, and I was a lot less cranky than I thought I would be with the lack of carbs.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Marc Siegel. I'm a certified personal trainer in New York with five fitness and training licenses and I currently write a weekly blog here. This week’s blog will be about my experience with Phase 1 of VIVO 360. I would like to preface this blog by saying that I have spent years working with Eric Hoult, the national director of VIVO 360, and share many similar views on dieting nutrition and training. I am sure that Eric can agree with me that while we have seen/put many people on various diet regimens ranging from the weekend warrior all the way up to people on a national competitive level, nothing has quite compared to the level of VIVO 360!

Do you want to pack on muscle Freaky Fast? Let me show you how to use the proven German Volume Training method so you can gain 7, 8, 9, 10 or even 11 pounds of Rock Hard Muscle in just 6-8 weeks! German Volume Training (GVT) + Advanced Methods = Pure Muscle Mass!