At JBN, we are all about fitness and healthy living. Many of our customers come into our store looking to gain lean muscle mass. It is our philosophy to only sell the highest quality all-natural supplements to better improve your performance and goals. As many are aware, some body builders take their workouts too far, with these 5 tips you will see that is not necessary in order to gain muscle mass, while also sustaining a healthy lifestyle. 

 

1. Growtein

 

Have you heard about JBN’s Growtein powder? If you are looking for a lean mass gainer without tons of unnecessary calories, this is just the protein for you. You are sure to bulk up with only lean muscle mass as this contains only 200 calories with 30 grams of protein, it is made from a combination of whey concentrate and isolate, a whole serving of creatine, L-glutamine and BCAA’s. In addition, the combination of creatine, L-glutamine, and BCAA’s are added to ensure optimum muscle recovery and prevent protein breakdown within the muscles. Looking to add more calories? How about adding an extra scoop of your favorite JBN Whey Superior Series with a splash of your favorite milk of your choice for a delicious, nutrient-dense post workout milkshake!

 

2. Train with a Partner

 

Sometimes all we need is a little push to get ourselves out of bed and to the gym. Finding someone that shares the same workout goals as you can help you form a healthy competitive attitude that takes your performance to the next level. Incorporating a friend into your can increase your ability add extra weight, try an ab workout that requires a partner or just push your friendly competitive spirit.

 

3. Choose Foods that Give the Most “Bang for Your Buck”

 

What does this mean? Choose calorie and nutrient-dense foods. When trying to bulk up, it is important to be taking in enough calories to support the exercise you are doing. You may find yourself hungry all the time, and it is important to listen to these hunger cues. Foods such as avocados, quinoa, fatty fish (i.e. salmon, tuna), peanut butter, hummus, beans and legumes, are all examples of some healthy calorie and nutrient-dense foods. Do not forget, JBN offers countless delicious protein powder flavors that can combine with some of your favorite foods to make protein shakes and smoothies for when sitting down and eating just is not practical. 

 

4. Plan Ahead

 

Achieving your goals of adding lean muscle mass is easiest to do when you plan ahead. In this fast paced world, it is hard to keep up with everything. Planning your workout schedule and meal prepping are time savers. At the end of every week, take Sunday to cook ahead and portion out your food. Have the proper ingredients for your daily shakes washed and ready to go for easy access, is also a key element. As well as, keeping a calendar of your daily workouts for the month makes it easier to know what day is dedicated to what body parts need a little pump. Being organized saves time.

 

5. Add a Nighttime Snack of Casein

 

Many people trying to gain lean mass complain they are unable too, and find themselves starving over night or as soon as they wake up. As we sleep, we continue to burn calories through the night and burn energy stores. JBN offers the most high quality casein protein to drink before bedtime that's acts as a slow releasing protein to replenish your muscles with amino acids all through the night. This also helps with the mid-night munchies or early morning hunger pains.

Hopefully now it is easier to see where adding in JBN's Growtein and Casein to your usually protein regimented diet, while staying organized and planning ahead will make increasing lean muscle mass a breeze.

                                                 

My exercise of choice is running, I’m currently training for the Runner's World 10k and Philadelphia Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon, which will be my second half of the year. With my Bachelor’s degree in nutrition and dietetics as well as credentialed as a registered dietitian I thought I knew everything I really needed to know regarding sports nutrition… until starting at JBN.

As a 23 year-old working and trying to hold onto some sort of social life… it’s difficult to find time to continue my training and fit in at least 20 miles in per week. I knew I was in desperate need of some sort of pre-workout, so I started drinking Elite V2. This pre-workout is able to combat my exhaustion and give me the push I need to get through my long runs.  

Prior to working at JBN, I was always “iffy” about pre-workouts and found some products out on the market to be dangerous. Usually my routine was to eat half a banana and a cup of black coffee within the hour before starting my runs. I still like coffee for my shorter runs, however when I have a 6-10 mile run planned, it just doesn’t do the trick.

So what makes the Elite V2 work? The first ingredient in this pre-workout is Vitamin A and along with vitamins C, D, E, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, B6, Folic Acid, B12, Biotin, and a bunch of excellent minerals! For those of you concerned with caffeine, it’s the LAST ingredient in this supplement, and is equivalent to less than a cup of coffee. In addition, this supplement has BCAAs, creatine, L-arginine, and L-glutamine to assist with muscle repair and prevent muscle fiber damage.

I usually prepare my pre-workout with water, shake and sip on it for the half-hour leading up to my run. If I do not finish it by the time I'm ready to begin, I mix the remaining in with my water bottle to keep an ongoing boost throughout the duration of my run. 

I use the Runkeeper App on my smart phone to track my runs. I wanted to show you the difference between similar runs, one using the Elite V2 and one without. Please keep in mind that when monitoring these runs I had no intention of writing an article on the product, and I run to the best of my physical ability each and every I run.

                                           

                                    Without Elite V2                                                                                                    With Elite V2

                                                         

With summer sadly coming to a close, and school back in full-swing our healthy summer habits may have already started to take a back seat. I know that you have been hearing your whole life, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” – but what if I told you that this absolutely… a fact! Many people come to me and say “Why can’t I lose weight?” or “How can I lose weight”, nine times out of ten my first question is “What do you eat for breakfast?”

The speed of our metabolism heavily relies on our physical activity and what we choose to eat (and how much we eat) each day. It is best to eat within an hour and a half within waking up in order to kick-start your metabolism and avoid going into starvation mode.

Even as a dietitian, I would find myself a fellow culprit of breakfast skipping…that was until I discovered JBN. Now, it’s so easy for me to throw a few ingredients in the blender, and out the door I go! I have come up with a few delicious breakfast shake recipes, so you can continue your healthy habits through the upcoming school year!

 

1. The Sunrise

• 1 scoop of JBN's French Vanilla Crème Whey Superior Protein

• 1 scoops of orange Krank’D Body Fuel

• 1 scoop of tropical punch Krank’D Body Fuel

• ½ cup frozen pineapple

• 1 scoop ice

• 12 ounces water or almond milk

2. The Banana Pancake

• 1 scoop of JBN's Maple Brown Sugar Earth Superior Veggie

• 1 scoop banana crème Krank’D Body Fuel

• 1 tbsp. peanut butter

• ½ frozen banana

• A dash of cinnamon

• 1 scoop ice

• 12 ounces water or almond milk

3. The Green Goddess

• 1 scoop of JBN's Strawberries and Crème Whey Superior protein

• ¼ cup frozen strawberries

• ¼ cup frozen blueberries

• 1 teaspoon of JBN's Ultra Greens Concentrated Superfood

• 1 handful of spinach (optional)

• 1 scoop ice

• 12 ounces of water or almond milk

4. The Chocolate Covered Banana

• ½ scoop of JBN's Chocolate Truffle Whey Superior protein

• ½ scoop of JBN's Banana Cake Earth Superior Whey protein

• ½ frozen banana

• 1 scoop ice

• 12 ounces water or almond milk

5. The Blueberry Oatmeal Cookie

• 1 serving of JBN's Oatmeal Cookie Whey Superior protein

• ½ cup frozen blueberries

• ½ tbsp. peanut butter

• 1 scoop ice

• 12 ounces water or almond milk

                                                             

 

There has been a lot of attention surrounding BCAA (branched chain amino acids) supplementation lately in relation to performance and recovery. The questions vary from "Who can take it?" "What can I expect from taking it long term?" to "How often can I take this?"  "Do I have to take time off to give my body a break?".

In this article we'd like to address the main takeaways of what makes BCAA's a great supplement to take to help your body recover. 

 

1. BCAAs kick-start protein synthesis within our muscles – leading to a gain in lean muscle mass. 

2. BCAAs have been studied and proven to reduce the amount of muscle fiber damage during an intense workout. 

3. Individuals that have taken BCAA supplements have stated that the amount of stiffness, tenderness, and pain following exercise is noticeably reduced in comparison to individuals that have not taken the supplement. 

Our body requires nine essential amino acids to maintain normal body functions. Among the nine, there are three essential that are considered “branch-chained amino acids” (BCAAs) which include: leucine, isoleucine, and valine.

These are especially important to athletes because they promote protein production within the skeletal muscle and help reduce break-down. BCAAs are oxidized in the muscle, rather than the liver like the other essential amino acids. Why is this important to us? Without proper protein synthesis within our skeletal muscle, we can never gain lean muscle mass! 

When we perform intense exercise, BCAA oxidation is further enhanced in the muscle; because of this, it has been studied that supplementation will protect our muscles and further assist in post-exercise recovery. Usually “delayed onset muscle soreness” (DOMS), which includes stiffness, tenderness, and pain during movement, starts to occur within 24-48 hours following an intense exercise performance. DOMS is thought to happen because of muscle fiber damage during intense workouts. Because of this, your next exercise bout may suffer. According to a study published in The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, it was reported that oral BCAA administration before and after 120 minutes of cycling decreased the amount of muscle damage. This was proven by measuring certain enzymes in the blood that quantify muscle breakdown for scientists. The results of this particular study demonstrated that supplementation with BCAAs to a diet already rich in BCAAs significantly decreased occurrence of muscle damage following intense and prolonged exercise. Another study was performed in the American Journal of Physiology that found that BCAAs can prevent protein breakdown within the muscles by sparing essential amino acids in muscle tissue.

Here at JBN, many of our fantastic products already contain extra BCAAs. For example, our Growtein (known as a lean muscle mass gainer) and Recovery fuel (best suited as a post-endurance workout protein powder) both contain BCAA’s, because we believe that they will help you best recover from your exercise and inhibit muscle breakdown. In addition, we sell BCAA powder that can be added to any of your favorite beverages, for example many of our customers like to add it to their “during” workout beverage and also like to add it to their post-workout protein shake!

Works Cited:

1. Shimomura Y, Murakami T, Nakai N, Nagasaki M, Harris RA. Exercise promotes BCAA catabolism: effects of BCAA supplementation on skeletal muscle during exercise. J Nutr. 2004;134:1583S.
2. Negro M, Giardina S, Marzani B, Marzatico F. Branched-chain amino acid supplementation does not enhance athletic performance but affects muscle recovery and the immune system. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2008;48:347.
3. Borgenvik M, Apró W, Blomstrand E, et al. Intake of branched-chain amino acids influences the levels of MAFbx mRNA and MuRF-1 total protein in resting and exercising human muscle. American journal of physiology.Endocrinology and metabolism. 2012; 2011;302:E510. 
4. Md. Monirujjaman and Afroza Ferdouse, “Metabolic and Physiological Roles of Branched-Chain Amino Acids,”Advances in Molecular Biology, vol. 2014, Article ID 364976, 6 pages, 2014. doi:10.1155/2014/364976

Interested in trying out BCAA's to see where it takes your workout?

Try our BCAA's risk free for 30 days!

 

 

Plant-based diets enrich our bodies with powerful antioxidants and phyto-chemicals that can actually protect us against certain types of disease such as cancer. You may have heard a nutritionist say that it’s important to “eat the rainbow”...

That's just a fun way to say foods that are rich in colors, such as blueberries or strawberries, represent a predominant nutrient in that particular food. For example, Yellow (like a yellow pepper) is rich in Vitamin E. Vitamin E is great for our skin and will help us stay looking young and vibrant! 

So what about athletes that are vegetarian or on plant-based diets? How do they get enough protein in their diet if they can't have meat or whey? Protein is essential to muscle and the body in general, won't they be defficient?

Most proteins, including our best-selling protein products at JBN are made from whey. Whey protein is the protein derived from milk. Those of you that are allergic to lactose or lactose-intolerant may understand that they cannot tolerate whey products. Some of you may also choose to avoid whey protein because it is an animal by-product. A vegetarian often times may find that they're protein deficient, especially if you are an active athlete constantly breaking down and repairing damaged muscle tissue. If any of this applies to you…then our Earth Superior Veggie Protein may be something you want to consider adding to your current diet to fill the protein void.

What makes JBN veggie protein different?

 

We flavor and manufacture a “complete-protein” vegetable protein. This means that our body is able to absorb the protein to its full potential. Protein from animals are considered a “complete protein” because they have all of the essential amino acids. Most plant proteins are “incomplete” because they do not have all the essential amino acids coming from just one source, however when you combine two incomplete proteins, such as rice or pea, you can make a complete protein! That's exactly what we did.

In fact, our vegetable protein can be taken by anyone, at any age, at any fitness level in place of or as a substitute to whey protein.

Earth Superior Veggie is a wonderful alternative protein source that contains rice and pea protein containing no GMO's and virtually no allergens.

Both brown rice and pea proteins boast high bioavailability protein percentages, which our bodies use extremely efficiently, thus creating the perfect vegetable based protein. The brown rice husk is treated with enzymes that break down the kernel that in turn separates the carbohydrates, leaving behind just the protein.

Field peas are dried, ground up and de-fatted, which results in how pea protein is extracted. We then carefully blend both proteins together.

Best of all, you’re still getting all of your naturally occurring BCAA’s for muscle growth that you typically get from whey protein! These two specific earth-grown protein sources trump Chia, Hemp and Flax proteins by as much as 60% making pea and rice protein sources reach as high as 90% purity!

 

Curious about Earth Veggie? 

Give our Earth Veggie a shot! You have nothing to lose with our 30-Day Money Back Guarantee!