You NEED to know about the 3 surprising things that are ruining your gains. No longer will you unknowingly deprive yourself of the bigger, stronger muscles you’ve been working so hard for.
Are you busting your ass at the gym, eating healthy, hitting your protein goals, AND tracking each and every calorie, but still can't seem to get the results you desire?
Well…keep reading. Here are the 3 things that could be preventing you from putting on muscle (a.k.a. ruining your gains).
#1 Cold Showers After Your Workout
Taking a cold shower in the morning is one of the best ways to jumpstart your day. BUT, post-workout cold showers can hinder your gains at the gym.
There are many benefits to cold temperature exposure:
- Boosts the immune system
- Increases your energy
- Reduces inflammation and muscle soreness
- Increases brown fat-the healthy fat
- Triggers hormesis - the body's adaptive mechanism against stressors
Cold temperature exposure also lowers your body's temperature and can be used as an aid it to relieve injuries/damage to a particular region on the body.
Here’s the Catch…You NEED Some Inflammation to Adapt
Exercising - particularly resistance training - causes microtears to the muscles. It creates scarring to the tissue which can then be repaired with nutrition and sleep. In general, working out causes inflammation, especially if you're burning a lot of glycogen.
Inflammation is generally seen as bad, as it is associated with diseases, aging, and elevated stress. However, in order to recover from your workout and actually get stronger, you NEED that inflammatory response. Without the inflammatory response, your body would not recognize the necessity for building new muscles and adapting to the stimulus.
Hormesis is the process by which your body adapts to stressors - it causes hardening and improves the ability to cope with future stressors a lot better.
At the same time, hormesis follows a very dose-specific reaction. You only need a certain amount to trigger a positive response. Too much stress will actually lead to under-adaptation and makes you WEAKER.
How to Take Cold Showers and NOT Ruin Your Gains
You should continue to take cold showers because of the health and mindset benefits, but not all the time. It shall vary between different types of training as well. Here's what you should do:
- Continue taking cold showers in the morning - let this be a mandatory practice to kickstart your day
- Do NOT take cold showers before exercise because it's going to stiffen your muscles and joints, which may lead to injuries.
- Do NOT take cold showers after resistance training or lifting weights because it will shut off the positive inflammatory response that essentially makes you stronger. If you desire a cold shower after your lifting session, you should wait at least 3-4 hours.
- Say YES to a cold shower after low-intensity exercise or cardio. This may actually improve your performance because it will lessen inflammation and promote recovery.
- Take a cold shower or an ice bath in the evening after 5+ hours have passed (post-workout) and you have managed to consume plenty of nutrients. This will reduce soreness, speed up recovery for the next day and improves your sleep.
Using hot to cold contrast showers are another great way to promote lymph flow. It will help to move out the lactic acid from your body, which will ultimately enhance athletic performance.
#2 Consuming Antioxidants Post-Workout
The same principle applies to consuming antioxidants post-workout.
There are a many health benefits to anti-oxidants.
- If you're exercising, eating inflammatory foods or experiencing a lot of stress, then you're causing oxidation.
- This further produces free radicals that may damage the cells.
- Antioxidants like vitamin C can shut off these reactions, leading to lower levels of inflammation and improved health.
However, it has been found that some oxidative stress is actually needed because it makes you adapt to the stressor of training[i]. What does this mean? You should not feel the need consume a lot of antioxidant-rich foods just because you want to live longer or improve your health.
Here are Some Foods High in Antioxidants:
- Berries - Goji berries, blueberries, cranberries, blackberries
- Ginger, Turmeric, and Cinnamon
- Herbs such as: clove, oregano, parsley, and basil
How Antioxidants Can Be Ruining Your Gains
You should definitely continue to eat a nutritious antioxidant rich whole foods diet to keep your inflammation low the majority of time. However, in your post-workout window, you don't want to shut down this adaptation response if you want to build muscle or get stronger.
Keep in mind, this does NOT mean that you should promote inflammation or oxidative stress either. The key is to leave a mild trace of it for hormesis to do its work.
It also means that if you're eating good whole food, then you should not feel compelled to take antioxidant supplements either. Studies have found that taking antioxidant supplements can have a reversed effect on life-extension and health effects[ii] if you're already eating a healthy diet. It's been also suggested that antioxidant supplementation may actually increase disease prevalence in humans [iii] because of blocking hormesis.
Here are a some guidelines to follow:
- Eat an antioxidant-rich diet most of the time - before your workouts and on rest days
- Don't take antioxidant supplements like glutathione or reservatrol on a consistent basis. Supplementing vitamin C, however, can be useful if you're experiencing a lot of stress whether through exercise or lack of sleep. It's not going to benefit you when you're less active
- Use the anti-inflammatory compounds like ginger, turmeric, and cinnamon daily, but consume them pre-workout
- Limit your antioxidant consumption in your post-workout nutrition. I am not telling you to avoid vegetables or to not eat berries after exercise as those foods will promote your recovery. However, you should not eat a whole lot
How many antioxidants to consume?
There's really no definite answer. And your goals may be different as well.
If you want to promote longevity and health, then your antioxidant consumption should be higher than if you want to simply build muscle.
Something that you can consider is to consume a lot anti-inflammatory compounds in the earlier parts of the day before your workout.
#3 Blue Light Exposure at Night
The biggest secret thing that is ruining your gains mostly has to do with recovery. Training hard is the easy part because your body only needs a very small amount of stress to trigger hormesis.
Rest and recovery are actually a lot more important because that's when your body repairs the damage and facilitates growth.
In the previous sections, we talked about nutrition and cold, now it's time to talk sleep, which is actually the most crucial aspect for not only building muscle but also improving your general health!
Getting good quality sleep is more important than the quantity. On average, you need about 7-9 hours of sleep per night, but if you're more physically active, then you may need up to 10 hours.
How Blue Light Kills Your Gains
In order to sleep better and trigger the beneficial positive adaptations, you need the assistance of some hormones as well.
Most crucial hormones for muscle building are testosterone and growth hormone.
A poor night's sleep will lead to less recovery and higher levels of cortisol in the morning, which decreases testosterone as well. The result? You gain fat more easily.
The biggest reason why you can't sleep at night or feel like crap in the morning has to do with a mismatch in circadian rhythms.
Hormones and Blue Light
If you're exposed to a lot of blue light in the evening, then you're suppressing melatonin (the hormone that helps you to sleep).
Staying up past midnight gives your body a second wind of cortisol, which will make you feel like “Dang…I'm not tired AT ALL and I don't need to sleep", whereas you're just under the spell of adrenaline that's trying to keep you alert.
What's more, human growth hormone gets released the most during the first few hours of sleep between 11 PM - 3 AM. Thus, the first parts of the night are most important for repairing your muscles and nervous system.
Missing out on these natural performance enhancing hormones will ruin your gains, or they will at least drastically slow down your potential.
How to Stop Sleep Deprivation Ruining Your Gains
- Adjust to the circadian rhythm - start getting up early around 5-7 AM and go to bed around 9-11 PM.
- Avoid blue light in the evening after sunset. Wear blue light blocking glasses, don't look at bright screens, and turn down the lights.
- Sleep at least 7-8 hours and don't become too stressed out due to sleep deprivation.
Another crucial aspect that helps me to sleep better is tracking my sleep. I track my sleep and training activities with my Fitbit .
References
[i] http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0306987705004676
[ii] https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.cmet.2007.08.011
[iii] https://doi.org/10.1001%2Fjama.297.8.8423
Now that you’ve learned about 3 surprising things that can be ruining your gains, get an extra mind pump with these articles:
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