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Skipping breakfast and toning up
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Posted on Mar 02 2020
Remember how Brennan Huff and Dale Doback in Step Brothers decided to start Prestige Worldwide? If that movie isn’t on your top list of comedies, we can’t be friends. It didn’t go so well the first time around as they screwed up big time because they didn’t think things through.
When it comes to achieving your physical goals, it’s evident that placing an emphasis on the little things rather than shiny objects is going to produce long-term significant changes. Oddly enough, that’s not stopping a lot of you from going on another half-baked plan.
Q: Will skipping breakfast help me get in better shape?
A: I don’t mean to rub you the wrong way when I say this, but this isn’t something you should lose sleep over. There are some folks who do really well omitting breakfast. There are others who do much better having a meal first thing in the morning. If you don’t want to eat breakfast, then don’t. Both are viable options.
Not getting enough sleep? Heavy alcohol consumption? Instead of pin balling back and forth between fitness dogma, pay closer attention to the stuff that actually matters.
Q: Is there any truth to high reps for toning up?
A: It appears that lifting lighter loads is equally effective as heavy weights for building muscle, as recent research suggests. This raises the question: do you even need to lift heavy?
One thing to consider with this is, if higher rep work has you working well below your threshold, your return is obviously going to be significantly less. In other words, if there’s hardly any difference between your first and last rep of a squat or bench press, you need to bump it up. The number one mechanism that causes muscle growth is tension, and you need a sufficient amount of it. This invariably means you need appreciable weight. So, it’s worthwhile to vary your rep ranges and keep progressive overload in the mix.
