After watching this video you should be out of excuses! If watching Arthur’s success story doesn’t inspire you to start exercising or to be consistent in exercising, then you’d better check your pulse!
P.S. We are sharing Arthur’s success story to motivate you. We were not involved in his results.
I saw a video today about Dorian Yates 1994 Mr. Olympia performance. He was huge, ripped, thick, and symmetrical. His posing routine was right on and he won the Big Dance by dominating his competition.
But did you know he was plagued by injuries in 1994? That’s right, Dorian Yates admits to suffering many injuries and setbacks during his 1994 training season. He even said that at one point he wondered if he’d even be able to compete in the 1994 Mr. O.
So what made the difference? How can a man who’s injured come back to snatch the Sandow Trophy from the grasp of so many eager competitors?
One Word.
Perseverance!
Dorian never quit. He never stopped training and never gave in to the voice of defeat. Did he hear them? Of course he did. He’s human. But he ignored those doubts. He trained around his injuries and willed his way to success.
Regardless of your sport, there’s a lesson here for you.
Things might get tough. You might suffer setbacks. Sometimes it might seem like everything is conspiring against you. But… Unless you quit or give up you’ll find a way through. You’ll succeed where others fail because you persevere. You might not win the Sandow or the Super Bowl but you’ll have an edge over all the want-to-be competitors because you know the number 1 secret to success:
Never Surrender!
That means keep moving forward. That means Perseverance!
Now get to it!
Oh yeah, here’s the video. Make sure you watch it all and listen to Dorian’s Speech at the end.
Text above Copyright © 2012 Mega-Pro®
How many times have you heard someone say, “I want to get in shape…But I don’t have time to workout…”Yeah, lots of times!
I just want to grab them, shake them by the shoulders and say, “You’re full of @#$!”
Anyone can make time to exercise! Even if it’s only 10 minutes a day, that’s 10 minutes more than nothing!
You might think that Mega-Pro®’s only interested in serious athletes like Bodybuilders, Powerlifters, Football, Basketball, Rugby players, MMA athletes etc. But the truth is; Everyone Deserves the benefits of a Healthy Lifestyle! Everyone Deserves the benefits of Regular Exercise!
So listen up! If you’re one of those people who says, “I don’t have time to exercise…” Then here’s some news just for you. “Yes You Do!”
Let’s go over a few questions.
There are many activities that could be listed. But these are easily the most notorious.
TV is probably the biggest culprit when it comes to “No time to exercise”.
Here’s one TV scenario: You’re bored. You switch on the TV to see if anything is worth watching. You flip through the channels, nothing seems good. Finally you settle for some show that you didn’t even know was on but that seems ok to watch. Well guess what? Not only did you just waste time “Figuring out what to watch” but now you’re going to waste time watching something you didn’t even care about!
Does that make any sense?
Um… NO!
That’s time you could use to exercise!
Here’s another TV scenario: You’ve had a busy day and missed your morning workout. You come home tired and turn on the TV to relax for a while. Next thing you know it’s late. Where did the time go? Well, you slipped into the mindless stupor of Television and wasted your evening.
You could have exercised!
But you were tired…
Yeah? Did you know that exercise energizes you and makes you feel better when you’re tired?
Now, you’ll notice I never said anything about watching your favorite show or tuning in for your teams game. The trick is to schedule your TV time instead of letting it schedule you.
Got it?
Good!
What about video games? Don’t even get me started on this one! What a colossal waste of time. People waste countless hours of their lives trying to achieve imaginary goals in imaginary worlds… All of that time could be spent doing things like exercising, hiking, sports, time with family, learning a new skill, etc.
OK. I know video games are important to some people. I have a friend who wanted to get in better shape. But he wasn’t willing to give up his video games. So he came up with an ingenious solution. He either rode his exercise bike or walked on his treadmill while playing video games. He never played his video games unless he was exercising at the same time. And guess what? He lost over 60 pounds in a year using that method.
Of course there are fitness video games now that are fun and healthy. You can try those too!
Let’s tackle Social Media Websites.
For some of us this is part of our job. We create relationships and provide value using Social Media. Social Media is all about connecting in one way or another. And connecting with others is good.
The problem happens when Social Media starts feeling urgent. It’s easy to think you have to check to see what you’re friends status is, or that you have to get the latest updates from people you enjoy communicating with. When Social Media feels urgent, it steals time from important activities like exercise because you’re allowing it to control your actions.
The best ways to combat this are to set time limits and schedule time for your Social Media playground. Then stick to your schedule! Another way is to make the commitment that you’ll match the time you spend on Social Media with time working out!
If you’re on Facebook for 30 minutes, then workout out for 30 minutes!
Even as little at 30 minutes exercise a day will create life altering results. You’ll feel better, handle stress easier, and have more energy for everything you do!
It’s up to you. You can either bemoan the shape you’re in or you can Do Something About it!
Mega-Pro® is here to help! We want you to succeed in your fitness goals! We want you to have the quality of life you deserve!
Examine your life today. Get rid of the time wasters. Stop making excuses and start exercising! You’ll thank us later.
Copyright © 2012 Mega-Pro®
A Missing Element in many exercise programs is nutrition.Good nutrition enhances the benefits of weight training—or any fitness program. The importance of Nutrition has received more attention lately, but many people still fail to understand that their eating habits can make or break their results.
Who wants to put hours in the gym without seeing a stronger, leaner, and healthier person staring back from the mirror?
Not me! And not you either!
So why would you overlook the need to give your body the fuel and resources it needs to repair and grow after a killer workout?
Right, you wouldn’t—at least not deliberately.
We want you to succeed with your fitness goals!
Here are some nutritional guidelines to stack your results in your favor.
Of course you know that to build lean muscle you should take in between 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass a day. But did you know that the most effective time to digest the protein in within the first 45 minutes after your workout? In a study by Levenhagen and Colleagues at Vanderbilt University it was shown that athletes consuming a protein/carbohydrate drink immediately after strenuous exercise experienced protein synthesis that was three times higher than the athletes who consumed the same mix three hours after finishing their workout! (Nutrient Timing by John Ivy, Ph.D., and Robert Portman, Ph.D.)
Along with the increase in protein synthesis, the athletes taking the protein/carbohydrate mixture immediately after working out experienced greater fat oxidation! That means they burned more fat than the athletes who waited three hours to take the protein/carbohydrate supplement!
So if you want to build more muscle and burn more fat, then take a supplement like Mega-Pro®’s Magnum Whey II immediately after you workout!
Give it a try for a month or so. Your body will thank you!
Copyright © 2012 Mega-Pro®
A few days back we talked about what motivates you to workout but there is another question that’s also critical to your exercise success.
You might train simply because you want to be in great shape. You might train because you’re getting ready for next Football season and you want to be first string instead of a bench warmer. The truth is all sports require some sort of physical training. Even the less than obvious ones like Auto or Motorcycle racing require physical preparation—I know if you enjoy those sports it’s obvious you must train but there are people who don’t know this!
What you’re trying to accomplish with your training carries a lot of weight—pun intended—on the type of training you should do. A person training for the 100M Breaststroke trains differently than a person competing in the 100M Sprint. An NFL Athlete trains differently than a gymnast. And it’s good that they do! Imagine a gymnast trying to break through the defensive line or a 350lb linebacker trying to vault in the Olympics!
Yeah…it could get ugly.
Now if you’re training for size, strength, and to chisel your physique, we’ve got a killer workout for you right here: http://megaprosports.com/mega-pro-workouts/
But we realize there are many other reason to train. So let us know what you want from your workout and we’ll hunt down the best training regimen possible for your goal and post it on our workouts page.
And remember, high quality supplements and nutrition are also key ingredients to massive success! http://www.mega-pro.com/index_sn.php
Copyright © 2012 Mega-Pro®
What is D-Aspartic Acid? What does it do? Where can I get it?D-Aspartic Acid is a naturally occurring amino acid that is clinically proven to boost Testosterone levels in men. One study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2774316/) showed that the test group of men using D-Aspartic Acid—for 12 days—showed an average increase of 42% Testosterone in their blood stream over the basal level. The placebo group showed no statistically measurable increase in Testosterone. Simply put, D-Aspartic Acid works to naturally increase Testosterone in men!
That’s great news if you’re an athlete who wants to get the most out of your workouts. When you naturally increase your body’s Testosterone levels you enhance your ability to recover from even the most extreme workouts.
Combine D-Aspartic Acid with a smart exercise program, healthy diet, and plenty of rest and you may just have an unbeatable formula for size and speed regardless of your sport!
The study referenced above also showed that the Testosterone levels of the men using D-Aspartic Acid stayed higher than normal 3 days after discontinuing use and slowly decreased to normal levels from there.
So if you want the edge in your training and you want to use naturally according amino-acids to increase your body’s production of Testosterone, then D-Aspartic Acid is the way to go.
And there’s one other thing to mention. You’ve probably already figured this out. But it’s worth mentioning that increasing your levels of Testosterone also gives you that edge in the bedroom.
Remember, the key ingredient to a successful fitness program is you. Supplements help. Your nutrition helps. The type of training you do helps. But in the end, you have to show up and pound out those reps or nothing will help you!
You have to eat if you want to pack on muscle.But how do you know what or how much to eat? If you eat too much you’re going to put on loads of fat with your new muscle. You could end up looking like a Sumo Wrestler.
And if that’s what you’re after… Great! Go for it!
But most of us want slabs of lean muscle. And getting that is a balancing act.
It’s not as hard as you might think though. You just have to figure out how many calories need to burn every day to maintain your weight and then add to that. For most people their maintenance calories can be found by multiplying their weight by 14. If you weigh 170lbs, that’s around 2380 calories a day to maintain your weight (170 x 14 = 2380). From there a good weight gaining guideline is to add 30% to your daily calorie intake. You can do less—which results in slower weight gain but less body fat increase—or you can up the calories even more—which results in quicker weight gain with more body fat increase.
Here’s the formula for you:
Your Weight x 14 = Maintenance Calories x 1.3 = How many calories you should eat to gain weight.
Using 170lbs as an example again:
170 x 14 = 2380 x 1.3 = 3094 (daily calories for weight gain.)
The truth is that it’s hard to gain weight without gaining some fat. If it were easy then professional bodybuilders wouldn’t have to cut before competitions, they’d just pack on pure, lean muscle and go to the show without the hassle of contest prep dieting and training. What they understand is how much they have to eat to gain muscle with as little fat as possible. Most professional bodybuilders eat around 6000 calories a day! That’s a lot of food! But they have a lot of muscle too. Each pound of lean muscle burns 50 calories a day in a resting state. As bodybuilders get bigger, they increase their calories to maintain their muscle mass while still being able to pack on new muscle.
The key in putting on muscle while minimizing fat is to monitor your progress. If you’re gaining weight but losing definition then you’re eating too much. If you’re not gaining weight or gaining it slowly then you’re probably not eating enough.
So what’s a good goal for weight gain?
A realistic goal for weight gain—lean muscle mass—is about 1lb a week. That might not sound like much, but consider this. If you weigh 170lbs and you have a great workout program and combine that with good nutrition, then in a year you could weigh in at a lean 222lbs!
That brings up another good point. Calories are calories right? Yes and no. If you eat 3094 calories a day of junk food your body will react differently than if you eat 3094 calories of natural, nutrient rich food or supplements.
Junk food gives you a sugar high and then leaves you flat. It has few nutrients and creates toxins as your body processes it. Sure, you’ll gain weight… But it won’t be muscle and you’ll struggle with endurance and exercise because junk food just doesn’t give your body what it needs to grow or perform well.
Nutrient rich foods and supplements give you the vitamins, minerals, amino-acids, and other substances your body needs to function at its peak. And if you exercise hard and want to gain weight you need to maximize everything your body has to offer!
*This article is reproduced with permission from our main website http://www.mega-pro.com/index_sn.php *
Creatine monohydrate (Cn) supplements rake in hundreds of millions of dollars, every year. If you aren’t buying the pills or the powders (creatine plus a water molecule), you’re still getting creatine from red meat, seafood, or its natural production in the human bones. For years, athletes have been exploiting its powers for longer, more-intense workouts, and bigger muscles to boot.
Accordingly, the supplement industry loves it, too. “Cn has had a stronghold in the industry since its arrival on the scene over 10 years ago,” says Jason Provenzano, executive vice president of sales and operations for Nutricap Labs (Farmingdale, NY). “It’s popular because of fast results, it’s relatively inexpensive, and it’s easy to flavor.” Creatine is a combination of amino acids (arginine, glycine, and methionine most notably responsible for increasing and regenerating adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels in human cells. Increased ATP translates into increased human energy. More energy can provide for longer workouts, which can mean bigger, bulkier muscles. That’s a nice start.
“Of the thousands of studies out there, I’d say that 90% just look at muscle mass and strength,” says Darren Candow, PhD, professor of kinesiology and health studies at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. “But in recent years, we’ve seen a shift.”
Researchers around the globe are now exploring Cn as more than a way to merely rock your bod. Here is a look at a few scientific breakthroughs that may have other people considering Cn.
Under our muscles, Cn may actually strengthen the bones that take a beating from years of growth and physical exercise.
A study published in last fall’s Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found that older men who supplemented with a low dose of Cn before resistance training saw multiple physical improvements. Aside from expected gains in body mass and muscle thickness, a significant factor in bone strength was improved.
Cross-linked N-telopeptide (NTx) levels were reduced by 27% with Cn supplementation, compared with a 13% increase in NTx levels with placebo. NTx is a product that results from collagen breakdown in bones, which occurs from normal human growth and sustainment of injuries. NTx also happens to be a strong marker of osteoporosis, so Cn’s ability to lower NTx could be a plus for those suffering from this bone disease. A body can go a long way with strong bones. “If we can increase the strength in the bone, of course that will increase muscle,” says Candow, a researcher in the study. “But this could allow older people, especially, to live longer and exercise longer, free of bone disease.”
“One can expect that elderly people will be most benefited by Cn,” says Brazilian researcher Bruno Gualano, who published an extensive scientific review on Cn in March’s Amino Acids journal. “After all, they are most prone to muscle weakness, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and mental disabilities, all of which may be quelled by Cn.”
Several other bone studies are investigating Cn as a possible therapeutic aid to mineral breakdown in bones. Candow and his colleagues are even preparing for an upcoming yearlong study that they hope will shed light on other bone issues related to bone mineral, lean tissue mass, and muscle hypertrophy.
Bone health is a serious concern for aging athletes, but cognitive functions are equally vulnerable in the latter stages of human growth. Could Cn have a positive effect here? Quite possibly.
Research suggests that diseases related to the central land peripheral nervous system – including (but not limited to) Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – may also find a friend in Cn.
Energy depletion, mitochondrial dysfunction, and antioxidative stress are key factors involved in these types of disorders. Scientists believe that Cn can positively affect each of these symptoms. (How it performs some of these novel functions is still a mystery.)
“The National Parkinson Foundation (NPF; Miami) and the entire Parkinson’s disease community hold out hope that Cn will affect disease progression in a positive way,” says Michael S. Okun, MD, medical director for NPF.
In an effort to get to the bottom of this, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is sponsoring a massive clinical trial involving 1720 Parkinson’s disease patients at more than 52 North American research centers. Patients will be involved in the study for five to seven years.
“The majority of studies test a relatively short (12 to 16 months) intervention in newly diagnosed Parkinson’s disease patients who are not yet talking any Parkinson’s disease medications,: says Tanya Simuni, MD, associate professor of neurology and director of the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center at Northwestern University. “But this study will test efficacy of Cn treatment over five years and is recruiting patients already taking Parkinson’s disease medication, thus making the study more reflective of ‘real life.’ The study will not only test the efficacy of Cn, but also provide information on utility of such a study design for future trials.”
Genetics research couldn’t help but catch the Cn bug, also. “It almost seems like Cn can wake up your muscle-building genes,” says Candow.
Proof of Candow’s theory came in the journal Physiological Genomics last year, when his colleague Mark Tarnopolsky, MD, conducted a study on a group of healthy men supplemented with Cn for just 10 days. Each patient had a muscle biopsy of his vastus lateralis (a muscle in the thigh), and biopsies showed increased regulation of genes involved in a variety of functions, including DNA repair and cytoskeleton remodeling. The study’s authors concluded that this was the first report of “large-scale gene expression” in the skeletal muscle with Cn supplementation.
While Cn continues to prove itself in functions unrelated to strength-training, new muscle studies keep pulling in positive results.
Earlier this year, the Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research published a study demonstrating Cn’s effects on immobilized limbs in healthy men. The participants of the study had their upper limbs placed in casts for two weeks – one week while on Cn, and one week while on placebo. The casts were removed after each week, and assessments (via X-rays and exercise results) showed that Cn supplementation provided better maintained tissue mass, elbow flexor strength, and endurance.
“The purpose was to show that individuals who underwent forced muscle inactivity could actually preserve muscle mass, strength, and endurance through Cn,” says Candow. “Cn has been shown to have a positive effect on muscle protein maintenance, thus causing a muscle anticatabolic effect.”
Healthy or not, people may have many more reasons to jump the Cn wagon. “Overall, the therapeutic effects of Cn are really exciting,” says Bruno Gualano, a Brazilian researcher who published an extensive overview of contemporary Cn research. “The supplement may benefit several populations due its broader spectrum of action (e.g., brain, bone cartilage, heart, muscle).”
He adds, “From a public health perspective, it’s also important to highlight that Cn Supplementation isn’t expensive and is free of serious adverse effects.” Cn needs to be evaluated carefully as an effective treatment for these highlighted issues, but the future looks promising.
© Gardner, R. (2009, November/December). Creatine does more than rock your bod. Nutritional Outlook, 12(9).
To develop a Great Physique you must combine strength—resistance—and cardiovascular training. Combining aerobic and weight training enhances overall health while producing the best physical results.
When you focus on the functional benefits of exercising first, the results follow. Your physique will improve. Your strength will improve. And a smart exercise program, combined with proper rest and nutrition, improves your overall quality of life.
As you know, people living healthy lifestyles generally live longer. But were you aware that people who exercise regularly have higher cognitive function in their twilight years? (Ref: “Brain Rules” by Ph.D. John Medina) So a good exercise program not only changes your physique, it helps your brain function better!
It’s simple. Building muscular strength increases your metabolic rate—allowing you to burn more calories/fat calories throughout the day. That means as you gain muscle you shed fat! Cardiovascular training also strengthens your heart and allows you to burn “fat” calories. Combine them and you fast-track your fitness goals.
Your old physique doesn’t stand a chance!
Copyright © 2011 Mega-Pro®
If you’re serious about training and committed to building and conditioning your body, The Mega-Pro® Workout Guide is for you! The Mega-Pro® Workout Guide provides all the fundamental knowledge and straight-forward information you’ll need to build and maintain an extraordinary physique!
The Mega-Pro® workout combines various lifting movements–designed to break down muscle fiber–with proper nutrition, supplementation and rest. If you follow the guidelines Positive Results in muscle size and strength will follow.
This is a very intense bodybuilding workout. It requires extreme concentration and exertion. The exercises prescribed in this workout are the same ones used by many of today’s top bodybuilders. When you combine consistency and intensity you’re training Just Like the Pro’s!
Copyright © 2011 Mega-Pro®