Hi all I hope everyone is doing well. Today’s topic is understanding progressive overload a term you all might hear often. Me and ash were on a call discussing this topic and it came to my attention that many may not know this term or understand it fully so today I’ll be going over the break through and this is all a combination of my team and wellness pro Tina and of course the owner of Iron Vanguard Ash. So let’s get started. Understanding progressive overload is important for best muscle gainz which for the sake of me tying it all out you’ll hear me saying P.O. However, progressive overload doesn’t directly cause muscle growth a common misconception is that it does cause muscle growth but it’s actually the effect of muscle growth in other words you getting stronger or rather P.overloading on an exercise is because you built muscle mind you that there are other adaptations that can increase strength those adaptations are the result of strength gains such as neutral or coordination adaptation tendon stiffness adaptation or Even an increase in lateral force transmission but after the first weeks of doing a certain exercise these strength gainz are being made primarily due to muscle hypertrophy which in other words is a big yes because that’s what you want another thing that I would like to mention is that strength is not an adaptation but instead it’s an outcome of an adaptation happening so for example when you build new muscle and outcome of that is adaptation and that is an increase of strength Because of new addition of con contractile proteins and that will directly result in increasing force production, which then increases strength, pretty cool, right and while you could make the argument that the act of progressing in an exercise is leading to muscle growth because it involves muscle fibers of high threshold motor units to experience high magnitudes of mechanical tension you did not previously make an adaptation so you may not have grown enough muscle or muscle at all for the strength gain to manifest in the workout given all this, the actual magnitude of progressive overload is direct feedback as to how we are all recovering and creating adaptations which couple posts back I talked about adaptations which the meaning is in its word you’re adapting to something. Going back to what I was talking about this is why besides the mirror and scale of progressive overload is the best indicator to whether you put on size and is possibly the best primary feedback we can get for our body and muscle gainz. I know this was a long read for everyone, but once I dive into these topics, I could talk all day long. I hope all of you enjoyed it and thank you again to my team and Wellness pro Tina and Ash for having a long convo over the phone :)

Hi all so today we’re gunna dive into a topic I find pretty interesting. So let’s get it started basically Type 1 fibers are slow twitch like endurance, fatigue resistance on the other hand type 2 fibers (fast twitch) strength, power, and highest growth potential now which fibers grows the most? A lot of studies confirm that Type 2 fibers hypertrophy significantly more than type 1 in response too resistance training quantitative analysis shows 25-75% greater increase in type 2 fiber size after training which in other words is a good amount. Heavy resistance training primarily recruits and grows type 2 fibers. so what does this mean? This means that you should opt for both traditional strength training and power oriented exercises for optimal fiber recruitment another thing is and something that’s really important is consistency is key changes in fiber size and phenotype requires sustained effort. So to sum things up type two fibers have the greatest hypertrophic response to resistance training training parameter adjustments such as load speed or rest can optimize growth favoring, hypertrophy, prone fibers. Hope you all enjoyed reading this and it’s not over if you are type 1 fiber but yes I’d be lying if I say it’s a slight disadvantage, but In the end stick to it and consistency is key. Bye all and ash let me know if I missed something haha

Hi all today we’re gunna be diving in a short anatomy talk that I find extremely important when it comes to muscle building and growth. Let’s start with Sarcomeres, Sarcomeres are the smallest parts of a muscle that actually do the work when it contracts. On the other hand Myofibrils are long muscle fibers made up of sarcomeres lined up think of it this way like in a row like beads on a necklace. When muscles stretch or relax the force comes mostly from a protein called titin which acts like a built-in spring like in a trampoline to help muscles snap back to their normal length. Muscles also have different types of proteins that help them contract regulate how they work and give them structure. All these proteins are designed to do their job naturally to make the muscle work the right way. Hopefully this helps someone out there and let me know your thoughts ash I find these topics super interesting and I hope some of you do as well 🔥🔥🔥 -coach Aaliyah

A common misconception is that cardio kills gains but is that really true. Hi all today I’ll cover the topic of if cardio kills gains or actually helps with it. Firstly it’s important to understand that cardio will not kill your gains if programmed correctly. Although cardio does active AMPK through something that’s called Molecular signaling to promote something called endurance adaptions now what is adaptions it’s kinda already mentioned in the word adapt meaning getting used to something or better at it. Now back to what I was this saying this signaling does NOT Override the MTOR pathway from resistance training therefore muscle growth is fortunately unaffected but it may actually help with muscle gains as cardio as the ability to improve your cardio respiratory fitness and interesting enough making you more fit can actually reduce perception of effort when hypertrophy training thus increasing the level of motor unit recruitment (MUR) vs being more unfit which in simple words is helps with gainz. So you should do your cardio if you want to be optimal. Now something id like to add is doing cardio session immediately before any sort of resistance training can create a level of fatigue that will actually impair motor unit recruitment (MUR) in the training consequently reducing the GROWTH STIMULI so my recommendation is to do it either well before training or immediately after your workout or on rest days. Though me personally I do thinking doing your cardio right after your workout is great since this won’t affect your workout the day. On the next post I will be talking about the different types of cardio and which ones are most damaging due to the impact phases they have. Hope to hear your thoughts Ash! Thank you reading this 🫶

Hi all! Today’s discussion that I find pretty commonly talked about with my athletes is Weight spike after increasing calories. Many of my athletes (lifestyle athletes who don’t go on preps) are on a weight loss phase or body recomp for long periods of time are used to seeing the weight go down and as we know the scale is just a tool and we can’t solely base measurements off that since something the scale doesn’t say what the mirror does. Once the goal has been achieved or when we have reached the goal weight I slowly make them increase there calories as there maintenance has also adopted and changed and what they’re maintenance might have been at 160 pounds and 15% Bf won’t be the same as when they drop 140 and 10-12% bf. What happens if after that increase the scale tends to go up and we can’t forget that one gram of glycogen binds with approximately 3–4 grams of water. We also increase the calories from higher carbs which then leads to increase in weight not body fat and that’s what my athletes mistaken thinking they have gained fat which isn’t true. Introducing higher carbs will lead to slight water gain as from from the data I talked about above. Hope this helps ash would love to hear your thoughts :)