NOTE: All articles in BetterU News are written by Nick Nilsson -
http://www.fitstep.com/ unless otherwise credited.

When you hear the word "hemp," generally the last thing that comes to mind is protein and bodybuilding. Without going into detail on the other "psychoactive" strains of hemp, it's time you learned more about what hemp can do for you from a nutritional point of view. I know I was very surprised to learn how complete a food hemp is!

I personally tested a hemp protein supplement for a period of 2 months, using NO other supplemental protein source. It was tough to give up the whey that had I been using for many years but, to give hemp a fair trial, I needed to be sure that the results wouldn't be affected by other supplemental protein sources.

So for 2 months, it was just hemp protein...

Now, hemp is one of the most versatile plants in the world - it can be used for anything from making clothes to fuel and even autoparts (all Mercedes/Chrysler models use hemp-composite side panels because they're more dent-resistant). For our purposes, we will focus entirely on its nutritional/protein content.

Hemp protein, while being a plant source, is actually a surprisingly complete protein. Hemp protein contains all 20 known amino acids including the 10 essential amino acids (8 in adults - 2 more are considered essential in children and seniors) our bodies cannot produce. Proteins are considered complete when they contain all 10 essential amino acids in a sufficient quantity and ratio to meet the body's needs.

Hemp also has an extremely good essential fatty acid profile - it contains the fatty acids in perfect balance to each other (Omega 3 and 6 Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs), in the near perfect ratio of 1:3 respectively).

One of the other major benefits of hemp protein supplementation is the very high insoluble fiber content of the powder. Fiber helps keep your blood sugar stable (ideal for fat loss), not to mention helping to keep you "regular." On the ingredient label, you'll see just how much fiber is in hemp...ALL the carb content is fiber, making it an excellent protein for low-carb diets.

So what does all this mean for you? Here are the main benefits of hemp protein supplementation that I discovered in my 2 month trial:

1. First and foremost - no loss of muscle mass or decline in muscle growth

One of the main things I worried about when switching to a plant-based protein would be loss of muscle mass. Could a plant protein really provide a complete protein and in substantial enough quantities to keep muscle AND help support muscle growth? The answer is "absolutely!" In using the hemp protein, muscle building was just as good, if not better, than with whey protein or protein blends. No problems at all there.

2. Excellent protein quality and usability

A better quality protein is more bioavailble in terms of digestibility and ability to be used in the body. When you're training with weights, you want a protein that is going to be well-absorbed and easily utilized by the body. Hemp fits the bill here. Being a "whole-food" supplement means it already contains many of the enzymes necessary for optimal digestion.

3. No protein-bloating

If you've ever taken a big protein shake (like whey or milk protein), you're most likely familiar with that "expanding" feeling that happens soon after. This does NOT happen with hemp protein. Whatever the reason, be it no milk-based ingredients or that it's a plant protein, taking hemp didn't cause any bloating at all.

4. No protein breath

Those who take milk-based proteins like whey or casein can definitely understand this one. Your mouth tastes and smells like rotten milk soon after you drink it. Hemp protein, however, doesn't leave a sour aftertaste. I know my wife was very appreciative of this fact and insisted I get more hemp protein based solely on that!

5. No unnecessary ingredients

The hemp protein product that I used in my test had only one single ingredient: hemp meal - no artificial sweeteners, flavors or anything not found in the hemp plant itself. To be honest, adding any other nutrients in would be totally unnecessary due to the nutritional completeness of the hemp. So if you're concerned about getting artificial sweeteners in your protein powder (especially when on lower-carb diets), hemp is an excellent way to go.

6. High Fiber = Cleaner Insides

One of the least talked-about aspects of health is intestinal health. But it's EXTREMELY important to mention because a cleaner intestinal tract makes for improved nutrient absorption. The better you absorb nutrients from the foods you eat, the healthier overall you will be. Plus, the better your nutrient absorption, the more efficient your body will be both in fat loss and muscle building. The high amounts of insoluble fiber found in hemp protein really help keep your digestive tract moving along and functioning well.

These are the major benefits of hemp supplementation that I experienced during my 2 month test. What about downsides? There are a few, but in my experience, they were relatively minor compared to the major benefits of the hemp.

1. Taste

Because there are no other ingredients, what you see is what you get. It's a plant-based protein and if you take it straight, it's going to taste like a plant. If you're used to oversweetened protein powders, it's going to come as a bit of a shock to you.

To me, however, this natural taste was actually a very positive thing (I was getting a bit sick of those oversweet protein drinks). I quite enjoyed the nutty flavor of the hemp and would drink it straight with water. I also tried mixing it with orange juice and it tasted quite good. Bottom line: don't come in expecting a strawberry shortcake flavor when you drink it but if you like natural flavor, you'll love this.

2. Cost

Hemp protein is not a "bargain-basement, 10 pounds for 20 bucks" type of protein powder. It is relatively expensive because it must be processed carefully to maintain its high nutritional content (especially the Essential Fatty Acids). Being extremely fresh and containing no preservatives, it's also extremely oxidative, meaning it'll go bad much faster than regular protein. This is why it's generally sold only in 1 or 2 lb containers. Personally, I used 1 lb containers, each of which lasted me about 8 to 10 days (and I was taking it fairly frequently throughout the day).

But here's the upside...you don't need to use as much of it to get the benefits! Rather than slugging down 40 to 60 gram+ whey protein shakes, I found myself taking only 10 to 30 grams of hemp at a time (the higher dose was post-workout). The body processes it very efficiently and I found I did just fine on the relatively lower dose in terms of muscle maintenance and muscle building.

Overall, as far as cost goes, to me it was well worth the price.

3. Tidiness

This was a very minor drawback that I found - because the containers are small (1 lb) and the scoop has a long handle in order to reach the bottom, I found every time I pulled the scoop out of the container, I spilled a little powder on the counter. But if that's the worst thing that happens to you in a day, count your blessings. Like I said, it's a VERY minor thing.

Conclusion:

When I first decided to give the hemp protein a try, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The information I read on it was very positive but I had always used whey or egg-based protein supplements. Would hemp do the job?

Hemp passed the test with flying colors. If you're looking for a high-quality protein that has the potential to really improve your health, I HIGHLY recommend hemp protein as an excellent addition to your supplement regimen.

As far as where to get hemp protein to try for yourself, here is a link to the source that I got my hemp protein from:

http://www.fitstep.com/goto/hemp.htm

The page brings up some very interesting points about hemp protein and whey protein - the tone may be a "controversial" but the product is just excellent. And while different from the recommendations on that page, after using the hemp on its own for 2 months, my personal preference now is to supplement with hemp throughout the day and use whey protein (which is faster digesting) immediately after workouts. I've found this to be a very good combination, giving you the benefits of both types of protein.

Let me put it this way...it's not often that I include a new supplement in my core supplement regimen and I'm CONSTANTLY testing new supplements to see how well they work. In the past 6 months, I've tried 11 new supplements. The ONLY one to make the cut is hemp protein.

Once again, if you're interested in trying out hemp protein, have a look at the following page to learn more:

http://www.fitstep.com/goto/hemp.htm

It's safe to say that muscle soreness is something EVERY trainer has experienced at some point in their career. Severity of muscle soreness (known as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness or DOMS for short) can range from mild discomfort when you move to the point of being almost crippling.

One of the most frequent questions I am asked is "should you train when your muscles are still sore?" The answer is not quite as simple as some people make it out to be, though. Many trainers will tell you "if the muscle is still sore, don't train it." And, in truth, for many people that's the safest answer.

But, in fact, by NOT training when you're sore, you could actually be missing out on results AND slowing down your recovery!

So what is muscle soreness? Muscle soreness is basically damage to the muscle fibers as a result of training. Without going into great detail on how it happens and how the recovery process occurs (which is beyond the scope of this article), muscle soreness is your body telling you that it's in need of repair.

Now how can it possibly be GOOD for you to train a muscle again while it's still sore? Here's where we get into a contentious area. After reading this, you may choose to agree with me or disagree with me (if you've read my articles before, you know I'm anything BUT conventional) but all I ask is that you consider my arguments...

Now, if you've never trained a muscle hard two days in a row or trained it while it was still quite sore, you're going to be in for a shock at how unique a stimulus it can actually be. Sure there are arguments against doing that, e.g. the muscle hasn't fully recovered and you'll be tearing it down even more.

But consider this...from an adapatation standpoint, of the following two scenarios, what would give your body the greater stimulus for growth?

If you train the muscle hard once, you'll get a good growth stimulus. Your body immediately starts sending nutrients to the damaged area and starts rebuilding. When the muscle is fully recovered and is no longer sore, you train the muscle again and restart the process. This is the standard way of training and it usually means directly training a muscle twice a week with at least 2 or 3 days in between sessions for that specific muscle.

In the next scenario, you train the muscle hard then the next day, train it hard again. Recovery is nowhere near complete and the muscle is sore when you train it on the second day.

Here's the key...if you think about it, would the body see this second scenario as a greater threat to its survival? Would the body then ramp up its recovery processes to try and prepare for the next challenge, which it (from its recent experience of being hit with the same hard stimulus two days in a row) thinks is coming again very soon?

In my experience, this absolutely happens. The body's response to training is a very simple "stimulus-response" system, but your body is also fully capable of sending more resources where more resources are perceived as being needed.

When you eat, your body sends more blood to the digestive system. Your brain doesn't tell it to do that, it just happens. When you get hot, your body produces perspiration. The same thing happens with training. For example, when you train your biceps, your body sends blood and nutrients to the biceps for recovery. It doesn't send it to the calves if the calves haven't been worked.

If you train your biceps hard two days in a row, your body sees this as a big threat to the biceps and will ramp up recovery processes to specifically protect the biceps. If the biceps are still sore... VERY big threat! THEN you allow the biceps to recover. The two days of training has built much greater recovery momentum, getting more results out of your training.

Here's yet another advantage to training a muscle when it's still sore...even if you don't train it hard, you will still be sending blood (and therefore nutrients) to that muscle, helping it to recover faster than if you didn't train it at all. So even if you're not up for a hard workout for a sore muscle, even giving it some light to moderate work will still help with recovery.

So I've talked about training a muscle two days in a row...what about when you're scheduled to train it a couple of days later and it's still sore at that point? The same concepts apply - your body will STILL perceive that as a greater threat and increase recovery.

The only times I would NOT recommend training when sore is if the soreness causes you to use poor form in your exercises or if the soreness is so bad that it makes the exercises too painful to do.

For instance, if you just did deadlifts for the first time in your life and the next day, you have a VERY hard time sitting down without falling down into the seat, you may want to wait a bit before doing deadlifts again. Your form will change because of the pain and it could lead to injury.

But if your muscles are a bit stiff or sore, go ahead and train them. Your body will ramp up your recovery processes in response.

How do I know training the body with this frequency can be effective? I'll give the best example I know (WARNING - if you're a proponent of high-intensity, very infrequent training, this will make you shiver in your boots!). This is NOT a program I would recommend lightly to anyone because at this time, being on vacation from work, I was basically only eating, sleeping and training...no stress, no extraneous activity.

This was one of the most extraordinary programs I ever put myself on, not only in terms of workload but results as well. It involved doing total body workouts twice a day, six days a week. This meant 12 total-body workouts per week, increasing the workload every week.

I used partial training, negative training, low reps and high reps. For the entire first week, I was EXTREMELY sore but I stuck with it and trained everything twice a day, no matter how sore I was.

After 3 weeks of this training, I backed off, still doing 12 training sessions per week but splitting the body in half - I was still working my whole body every single day and doing partials and negatives.

During the back-off phase, my recovery processes were practically unstoppable! NOTHING I did could make me sore (and believe me, I tried!) and my strength and muscle mass shot way up.

Conventional wisdom would believe I would be completely totaled at the end of a program like this, overtrained, small and weak. My results? In 6 weeks, I went from 208 lbs in bodyweight to 228 lbs. And as an example in strength gain, I went from a 295 bench press for 1 rep to 350 lbs for 1 rep.

This is a VERY extreme example of training through muscle soreness and using maximum workout frequency. But the take-home lesson from it is this: you CAN get great results by training even when you're sore! Your body will react to the stress and ramp up recovery in response.

One quick tip: if you want to decrease post-workout soreness, try taking 500 mg of Vitamin C about an hour before your workout. This helps protect against muscle soreness.

What is the one arm exercise you'll very rarely see anyone in the gym do? The Reverse Grip Curl, of course! There are two main reasons it's such a neglected exercise:

1. If you're doing it correctly, you can't use nearly as much weight as you could with a regular-grip barbell curl. Many lifters are going to opt for the exercise that allows them to use heavier weight with the thought that it'll be more effective for building up the arms.

2. The Reverse Curl works a muscle in the arms that is not particularly visible: the brachialis (located on the lower aspect of the upper arm, just below the bicep muscle). Not being visible often translates into not being important in the eyes of many trainers.

But for the lifter in search of bigger arms, the Reverse Curl is a KEY exercise. Want to know what a well-developed brachialis muscle does? It push the peak of the bicep muscle up higher, making for a more dramatic flex and an overall bigger arm!

So if Reverse Curls aren't a part of your arm-training routine, it's time to take another look at this neglected exercise. And, of course, I've got tips to help you make it even MORE effective!

Look for the link at the end of the article for pictures of this exercise and the tips in action.

How To Do It:

For this exercise, y ou can use either a straight barbell (e.g. an Olympic bar) or an EZ Curl bar. Start with about HALF of the weight you would use for a regular barbell curl for 8 reps - you may increase it later but it's important to use a lighter weight to start with to make sure you're using proper form. This exercise can easily turn into a "clean" movement with a lot of momentum if you use too much weight.

Take a shoulder-width grip on the bar. Instead of gripping with your hands underneath the bar like a regular curl, grip on TOP of the bar (this is known as a pronated grip). If you're using an EZ bar, grip it on the downward-sloping parts of the bar just outside of the central straight section.

Keeping your elbows close to your sides, knees slightly bent, and hands gripped tightly onto the bar, curl it up as you would with a regular curl. Because you are gripping the top of the bar, the supinated grip will utilize the brachialis muscle to move the weight. You'll feel strong tension in your forearms as well, especially as you come to the top of the curl.

Hold for a second at the top, then lower slowly. You should feel the area under your lower biceps swelling up with blood.

That's it!

Tips and Tricks:

1. For an extremely intense "grip drop set," try this techinque. Instead of taking the time to reduce the weight on your drop sets, you can accomplish the same increased tension by changing your grip on the bar.

Start with a very close grip (your hands placed about 3 to 4 inches apart). Do as many reps as you can with this grip width. The closer grip puts a more intense contraction on the brachialis - the reason we don't use it for regular sets is that it will reduce the amount of weight you can use for the exercise.

When you've done as many reps as possible with the very close grip, set the bar down and move your hands out to a shoulder-width grip. Do as many reps as you can with that grip. When you've done as many reps as you can with that width, set the bar down and move your hands out wider (I like to use index finger on the smooth guide circle on the Olympic bar). This grip is similar to what you'd use for a barbell hang clean and the movement itself on this last set can incorporate some momentum in order to keep the bar going. This will completely burn out your brachialis muscles.

2. When you come to the top of the Reverse Curl, let your wrists flex back and raise your elbows until they are pointing directly forward. This will look like the arm position for the front squat. This will provide a more full contraction of the brachialis muscles.

This will look like a 4 part movement: first, the normal reverse curl, then the elbows raise up and the hands flop back, then you lower the elbows, then you lower the bar to the bottom position.

3. When you're doing the Reverse Curl with the EZ bar, don't grip the bar with your thumbs against the top of the slope of the bar. Grip the bar at the BOTTOM of the slope. When you grip at the top, you will be bracing your thumb against the center section of the bar, decreasing the work the forearm and gripping muscles must do - this work is among the major benefits of the exercise. By gripping at the bottom of the slope, you get no bracing effect and you get more tension on the target muscles.

4. As you do the Reverse Curl, try to bring your elbows together. This will increase the contraction of the brachialis at the top of the movement. Try to imagine you are rotating your arms inward as you are curling the bar up.

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Conclusion:

The Reverse Grip Barbell Curl is not a glamorous exercise and it won't turn heads while you're doing it. What WILL turn heads are the results you get when you work hard at it!

For pictures of this exercise and the tips in actions, please click the following link:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue44-curls.htm