The Weigh Out

Yes, it does. In short, it does this in a number of ways: 1. Storing water in you muscles (increasing mass). 2. Providing your muscles with greater energy, allowing you to lift more weight in the gym. 3. Increasing the number of anabolic hormones evident in our body (these lead to strength gains).

Here’s a detailed breakdown:

Creatine acts by converting ADP (adenosine diphosphate) into ATP (adenosine triphosphate) through the donation of a phosphate group. The recycled ATP is then donated to muscle and brain tissue, the muscle tissue being the region that furthers your exercise capabilities. Through the donation of the recycled ATP, you’re able to complete just a few more heavy reps at the end of your set in the gym, helping you build muscle.

Weightlifting allows us to build muscle by creating micro-tears in our muscle tissue when we lift heavy weight. Creatine activates satellite cells that assist in repairing and regenerating these micro-tears to a point where there’s a slight increase in muscle mass, leading to muscle growth. These two actions, combined with its osmotic activity and storage of water in your muscle cells, allows creatine to help you increase muscle mass and get stronger.

If you’re purely just looking to get some work done on the pectoral muscles in your chest, and gradually increase or maintain your strength, then yes, doing a lots of push ups can be somewhat effective and adequate in doing this.

However, if you’re looking to maximize muscle growth, I’d recommend you perform a variety of different exercises targeting your chest with a much lower rep range of around 6 - 12 reps, doing 3 to 4 sets of each exercise.

See my push workout detailing the sets and reps I perform to exercise my chest through this link

It’s fair to say that resting after every set of every exercise is essential, with this rest period lasting 1 to 3 minutes depending on the intensity of the set.

• If you’re doing sets of 4 - 8 reps, your rest period should be closer to 3 minutes

• If you’re doing sets of 8 - 12 reps, rest for around 2 minutes

• If you’re doing sets of 12 or more reps, you don’t want to be resitng for more than 1 - 1 and a half minutes

It’s important to recommend that you should be training close to failure on each of these sets if you’re looking to maximize muscle growth. The exercise you’re doing doesn’t really matter, what matters is that you’re training as hard as you can, while still giving your muscles plenty of time to recover between sets.

I think smart equipment is an innovative concept that could be greatly beneficial to people in the gym once it’s advanced to a point where it’s flawless. If you’re looking to buy a piece of smart equipment to help you in the gym, I would definitely support that, but there are a number of considerations that you should take before you do this:

• Do your due diligence. Have people already bought from the source that you’re interested in buying from? Are there reviews available and are these positive? Does this product suit your wants and needs to an adequate extent? This is without a doubt the most important step

• Consider doing some more research into the product you’re interested in. A great way to know it it’s legit is if scientific studies have been conducted proving their effectiveness. You can generally tell if these studies are authentic by looking at whether the document/article is substantially long, contains an abstract, method, necessary definitions, conclusion, and has cited sources

• If you’re buying a piece of smart equipment, ensure you read the instructions and know exactly how to use it, so that it’s effective in helping you achieve your fitness goals

Despite the upsides of smart equipment, right now I’d say sticking traditional exercise concepts is a better idea. Using things like progressive overload, rate of perceived exertion, and other things including caloric surpluses and deficits for dieting is the best way to go for me. These concepts have been used for decades, and have been repeatedly proven by professionals to be greatly beneficial in helping people build muscle and lose weight.