The Biggest Growth And Performance Killer

Ever wonder what could be keeping your gains to a minimum in the gym. It may not be the protein or carb amounts. Let’s think deeper. This hormone alone could be devastating any opportunity you may have to seeing serious muscle development.

This is the unscientific, condensed version...hang around.

Cortisol is probably one of the most over looked hormone when it comes to training and seeing results. Everyone seems to be more worried about their protein, carb and creatine intake than anything else. Believe it or not if you don't start training from the inside out your gains will be minimal if at all. I don't care how much you eat or how heavy you lift.

What is it: cortisol is a hormone produced by your adrenal glands and released by your hypothalamus during times of stress. Not all cortisol is bad but high levels from chronic stress can have a serious effect on your body. Small amounts of cortisol are released during what is known as the "fight or flight" response, these smaller amounts can actually have great benefit such as bursts of energy, strength, etc.

What I want to focus more on is the reality of 85% of most lifters. Cortisol is killing you.

Well maybe not killing YOU but its trashing any possibility for serious gains when it comes to your training. You see, due to such high levels of stress these days people are not trying to find ways to deal with and relieve this stress. They just learn to cope with it.

Their bodies just keep pumping out this stress hormone that in high amounts and often, can do some serious damage. Long periods of this release can lead to what is known as "Adrenal Fatigue". This is where your adrenal glands are over stimulated for too long and start to shut down.

This is where your training is affected.

Chronic high levels of Cortisol can have a negative effect on your muscle tissue as well as growth. Cortisol is what is known as a catabolic hormone (this just means it’s the driving force behind the breakdown of certain nutrients and substances in your body) High levels of cortisol will not only break down muscle tissue but it can blunt the release of growth hormone (the natural get big juice your body puts off). This means the intense workout you just did is worthless. Yes, high levels of cortisol is counterproductive to any gains you want to see in the gym.

Even your style of training can be responsible for the release of high levels of cortisol. If you train at high volume or intensity 99% of the time, odds are you're trashing your body and killing your chance of recovering properly. So when you add the stress of your daily life, work, lack of sleep and you’re over achiever workouts....you're basically wasting your time.

Your goal should not be to trash your body every time you enter the gym. Don't confuse intensity with results. You need to give yourself weeks of training where you focus more on form and less weight as well as challenging yourself with heavier. Taking every set to maximal failure then having your buddy drag two more reps out for you is also a great way to trash your Central Nervous System (which plays a big role in your growth and recovery as well....we will talk about that another time). If you want to find out your 1RM then a little face redness, shaking and grunting is aloud. After that you want to see how many reps you can bang out under perfect form as heavy as possible...by yourself.

For example: I may be on a bench with a weight I could probably do at least 12 times with some help. I will probably only rep out 10 or 11 depending on how I feel. I do this to save the strength in my CNS for the rest of my workout and recovery. The average person will shoot for 12 or more with the same weight and end up getting a buddy to help squeeze out the last two. This is where your CNS gets over worked.

I don't want a trashed CNS when I need a fresh one to start pumping out all the muscle building hormones I need to start repairing my body....make sense?

Growth and Performance Killers

So we covered what cortisol is and how it can affect your training and every day life. If you missed it than you need to start here.

These are some of the best ways to naturally lower your cortisol levels fast!

Cortisol is not something that you wake up "feeling". It's not necessarily something that you can tell when it's higher on a specific day. It's something that just naturally happens in your body but can end up hurting you if the levels are too high for too long.

A few common symptoms of high cortisol levels may be increased skin irritation such as acne, increase in abdominal fat, being more prone to infections or diseases etc. These are just a few of the possible symptoms. I don't want you to focus so much on those considering that high levels of cortisol have more of a long term effect on people. The symptoms are more gradual than anything.

My main focus was to give you a few things you can start doing NOW to lower your cortisol levels dramatically.

1. Stop training so hard: I talked about this before but lower the intensity of your training sessions and drop the length to no more than an hour. Learn to train smarter not harder.
2. Eat more protein: Research suggest that lower protein consumption leads to elevated cortisol levels. Eat more lean cuts of meat.
3. Eat more Omega 3: Omega 3 fatty acids are known to lower inflammation and cortisol levels in your body.
4. Go gluten free: Gluten which is found in most breads and pastas can lead to intestinal inflammation which leads to higher cortisol levels in the blood stream.
5. Get a Vitamin C I.V: Maybe not an IV but take more of it. High stress levels decreases the level of Vitamin C in your body and Vitamin C helps reduce cortisol levels.
6. Sleep More: I know it's hard but push for 8 hours of sleep...at least. Sleep is the only time your body is 100% at rest and able to heal itself from past workouts and loads from stress.
7. Chill out: Get away from things in life that stress you out. Maybe its the workout load, relationship, job, hobbies etc. Life is to short to be in something that causes more stress than joy.
8. Go blank: Do 30-45 minutes of something that brings you the most joy with the smallest amount of energy required. For me this is sitting in a dark room with nothing on. Try not to even think about anything just lay or sit there and go blank. I tend to fall asleep :)