In this Article:
1. How Bodybuilding can Damage Your Heart
2. Fact: Bodybuilding Requires Protein to Build Muscle. Can This Damage Your Heart?
3. How to Enjoy Your Protein and Monitor your Cardiac Output
When it happens, it hits the front page of many news stories. An athlete or bodybuilder after years of training and maintaining a healthy looking physique drops dead of a heart attack or has to go in for by-pass surgery to unclog arteries. The non-exercisers may relish in that news, using it as a reason to stay sedentary. But bodybuilders that want to build muscles and athletes that are training for endurance and performance want to know if they can find a bodybuilding supplement that works to gain muscle, enhance performance and still protect the heart.
How Bodybuilding Can Damage the Heart
First, let’s take a look at the connection between bodybuilding, muscle gain, and damage to your heart.
Your heart is a muscle that thrives with exercise. Its whole reason for being is to work tirelessly day in and day out to pump blood throughout your body. And if you’re lifting weights, training for a sport, and building muscles then you are going to be involved in more frequent and varying levels of exercise. This exercise will put greater strain on your heart and require it to pump enough oxygenated blood to feed your activity.
And…this is a good thing when your heart is healthy.
Exercise can, in fact, strengthen your cardiovascular system when it is healthy and being supported with the right lifestyle choices that compliment your training. This means: eating clean, drinking enough water to flush your system, and taking dietary supplements to support and enhance your overall training regiment.
However, if you are not taking the right supplements or getting the best mix of nutrients in your diet, then the effects on your heart and entire cardiovascular system can be fatal.
And the problem with bodybuilding and heart disease is that too often guys train with the sole goal of getting big fast…often unknowingly at the risk of their heart health. They take an assortment of protein, creatine, steroids, potions, powders and pills in various forms to achieve instant bulk or shrink-wrapped abs with the least amount of effort in the least amount of time.
For bodybuilders seeking muscle, this doesn’t seem like a “problem” at all until they are lying on the operating room table.
And while many of these dietary supplements are, in fact safe, and do give you the results you’re looking for, without the full nutritional story you could be setting yourself up for health and heart problems in the future.
Fact: Bodybuilding Requires Protein to Build Muscle. Can This Damage Your Heart?
What? Now you may think that I’m just talking crazy! But…hear me out.
There is ongoing research that links some protein to an increase of homocysteine in the blood. Homocysteine is a known factor for cardiovascular disease. The protein source is question is not the type you derive from vegetables. The type of protein consumed that increases homocysteine is from animal sources.
So, as a bodybuilder going after muscle gain, you must get a lot of protein to feed those muscles, right? However, to keep your overall calorie count in check you probably try to avoid eating tons of meat and choose to supplement your required protein intake with milk-based proteins, right?
And, because milk protein is absorbed more slowly, it’s a good way to achieve greater muscle building throughout the day, long after you’re done working out.
Seems innocent enough.
Until you realize that milk-based protein (of which many of the protein powders are based) contains very little amounts of the B vitamins that are needed for the metabolism of homocysteine. And, most of us, no matter how clean our diets are, don’t get enough fruits and vegetables (with those important B vitamins) to make up for the deficiency. And if we do, then we often cook the goodness right out of them.
So what’s the solution? You need bodybuilding supplements that work.
You want to build that muscle; you want to achieve greater clarity and endurance; and you want to do it with a total fitness workout lifestyle that will keep you going and your heart pumping for many, many years.
How to Enjoy Your Protein and Monitor your Cardiac Output
Most people don’t get a full heart checkup before they start working out. They figure that exercise is healthy, so even if they are pre-disposed to heart conditions or are not in the best shape to begin with, then bodybuilding and working out will fix it.
In part, that’s true. Any time to choose a healthier lifestyle that includes a good diet, proper nutritional support and exercise, you’re way ahead of that guy sitting on the couch with a death grip on the remote control.
But you still gotta be smart about it. And, you should be monitoring your progress…no matter what your ultimate fitness goals are.
One way to do this is by monitoring your pulse rate and your cardio output. When your cardiovascular system is fully developed, the pipes are clean, and the right amount of oxygenated blood is pumping through your arteries, then no matter how much exertion you experience during a workout your pulse will never exceed a benchmark of 130-140 beats per minute.
You can read more about cardio output in this article about Sports Training.
Then, be sure that your dietary supplements are designed to help you achieve your bodybuilding and muscle building goals – safely. Yes, you can have muscles, eat meat and have a healthy heart!
The science team for Active Life Global Solutions, the makers behind Military Grade Nutritionals has had some exciting results in subjects taking their Multi-Purpose High-Potency Super Nutritional Complex Formula. The indicators often associated with cardiovascular disease which include excess serum accumulation of uric acid, high levels of LDL cholesterol and high levels of homocysteine appear to be positively affected (meaning they go down) with the use of dietary supplements.
Test subjects (the human kind, not the rat kind) were taking 8 capsules a day over a period of 7 months. The results included:
- Lower LDL Cholesterol levels
- Lower Homocysteine levels
- Lower Uric Acid levels
- Higher levels of Folic Acid (part to the B-Vitamin family)
After these promising results, the test has been expanded.
To find out more about Military Grade Multipurpose Supplements to support your bodybuilding, sports training, and lifestyle visit the site by Clicking Here.
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