#TeamSwench – Upcoming Competitions

Shiro Miller will be making his debut at the Miami Pro Championships on 7^th April 2013. With it still being months away, the main focus now is to put on some more quality muscle mass and concentrate on lagging areas! Catch him going HAM in gyms around Birmingham!

Scott Sawyers will be competing at the AMMA Fighting Championships on 2^nd December 2012. This is for the AMMA Semi-Pro Welterweight Title, so the biggest test yet. Currently training at top birmingham gym Fearless MMA (www.teamfearlessmma.com) in preparation for this fight, focusing on all aspects of MMA and also dropping weight back down to 77kg!

Keep track with our progress and training by following us on twitter and we will also be keeping you updated with videos via www.youtube.com/teamswenchtv

#TeamSwench – Our Supplementation

In and out of the gym a lot of people tend to ask us if were ‘on anything’ or what supplements we use. Now the reality of it is that we don’t really use a lot of supplements and the ones that we do are literally the basics!

Here’s a rundown of what we use and why:

Whey Protein

At the moment I’m using Bodybuilding Warehouse ‘Premium Mass’ Whey. Whey protein is highly digestible so I’ll have a shake first thing in the morning. After waking your body is in a fasting condition, you haven’t eaten protein for around 8 hours and your body needs a fast digesting protein source. A fast digesting protein like will quickly put your body into a positive nitrogen balance and get your day off to a good muscle building start! And then ill have one straight after a workout to kick start the recovery process after completely destroying the muscles I’ve trained that day. One thing to remember, don’t use whey protein as a meal replacement. I would always suggest getting the majority of your daily protein intake from ‘real food’. I tend to go for protein powders with low carb as I’m quite carb sensitive (Scott Sawyers) and put on fat quite easily and I’m only looking for that essential protein at the times I’ve talked about.

 

Flaxseed Oil

I’ll also mix some flaxseed oil into my protein shakes. Flaxseed is a really good source of protein and essential fatty acids (High in omega 3), as you need fats for protein synthesis it’s a good way to consume those healthy fats without increasing your calorie intake. It’s also good for burning fat! By consuming this healthy fat you allow your body to use it a cellular level and burn off the fat you don’t need. That is assuming your burning enough calories throughout the day.

 

Creatine

Now and again we’ll cycle Creatine, roughly taking around 5 grams a day, for up to 6 weeks. Creatine is actually already produced naturally in your body. Your muscles use creatine to form creatine phosphate which produces an enzyme called ATP and in turn this provides all the energy for the work performed by your muscles. You naturally only produce a small amount of creatine and it gets used very quickly during intense exercise. So basically creatine provides extra energy for your muscles, it also pulls water into your muscle cells which increases the size of your muscles, and has been known to enhance protein synthesis (the process in which your body uses protein to build muscle).

And that is all we use believe it or not. The reality of it is that you can make the majority of your gains from maintaining and adjusting a good diet! If you’re consistent in the gym and in a calorie surplus your body has no choice but to gain size! As much as there are supplements that genuiwinly will help you achieve your goal I tend to believe that a lot of them work more as a placebo and actually aren’t doing as much as you’d think! But that’s just my opinion!

I would 100% recommend www.bodybuildingwarehouse.co.uk for all your supplements. They have everything you could need, great offers, fast delivery and also will answer any questions have regarding something your looking to buy.

Shoulders Day @ Pure Gym, Birmingham

So today we went in with a shoulder and traps workout.

after warming up for ten minutes on the stationary bike, we moved onto a muscle based warm up (the same one we previously mentioned in the chest day blog post)

and then we kicked off with our working sets:

Smith Machine Shoulder Press:       1^st Set – 50kg x 10

                                                        2^nd Set – 60 kg x 8

                                                        3^rd Set – 70kg x 6, (Rest Pause) 70kg x4

                                                        4th Set - 50kg Until Failure

Front Raises Superset with Lateral Raises:

So here we used a 18kg Dumbell for lateral raises and 16kg Dumbbells for Front  raises. 

8 reps on each back to back for 4 sets. Really gets the shoulders pumped!

Dumbbell Raises

Rear DB Delt Fly (Bench):         1^st Set – 16kg x 10

                                                 2^nd Set – 20kg x 8

                                                 3^rd Set – (Dropset) 22kg until failure, then 12kg until failure again

Seated Rear Delt Fly (Machine):

Not sure of the weights again here as it was a machine exercise. however we did the 4 sets of 12 reps, increasing the weight on each set.

Dumbbell Shrugs:                      1^st Set – 36kg x 20

                                                 2^nd Set – 36kg x 20

                                                 3^rd Set – 36kg x 20

                                                 4th Set - 36kg until failure

(Pure Gyms dumbbells only go up to 36kg, ideally we like to keep reps below 12 but in this case we just went high on reps due to the lack of weight)

Dumbbell Shrugs

Team Swench Promo Video

Check out our short promo vid for #TeamSwenchTV

It gives a little insight into the background of both of us here at Team Swench

Subscribe to the youtube channel which will keep you updated on everything weve got going on from Training Videos, Competition Diary Vlogs, Supplement Reviews and much more!

#OperationSwench – Gym Visits - G&A Fitness

So today we hit up G&A Fitness Gym (Garretts Green, Birmingham). A Small local bodybuilding gym, the old hardcore style just how we like it! No fancy machinery, TV screens etc, just heavy ass weights!

So today we were working chest, just like the majority of the lifters who train chest on a Monday! Who doesn’t like starting off the weeks training with a heavy chest day!

Were still months away from the Miami Pro Competition so were still trying too add as much quality mass as possible at the moment.

We started off with a warm up routine we normally do which consists off, DB Chest Press, DB Shoulder Press, Lateral and Front Raises and some rotator cuff exercises. All with light dumbbells, just to get some blood pumping through the upper body and to get warmed up. Since we’ve both suffered from previous shoulder injuries we make sure we get those rotator cuff exercises in before we start any upper body workout)

So here’s the workout:

Incline Dumbbell Press:    1^st Set – 35kg x 8

                                          2^nd Set – 37.5 kg x 8

                                          3^rd Set – 40kg x 8

Flat Dumbbell Press:         1^st Set – 40kg x 8

                                           2^nd Set – 42.5kg x 8

                                           3^rd Set - 45kg x 8

Seated Incline Chest Press:    1^st Set – 50kg (25 each side) x 10

                                                2^nd Set – 60kg x 8

                                                3^rd Set – (Dropset) 60kg until failure, then 50kg until failure again

Seated Chest Fly (Machine):

I can’t actually remember the weights we did here, but we did 3 sets increasing the weight on each set. Then a 4^th set in which we did a dropset. So we got our 8 reps with the chosen weight, and then dropped that by half and repped until failure!

We did finish off with some Barbell Bicep Curls, as we felt we ha a bit more energy to burn. Check back on the blog later this week for our actual arm workout which we have a separate day for!

 

Seated Chest Flyes

 

Until then don’t forget you can get at us on pretty much all social network platforms, so feel free to contact us with any questions, queries, advice etc!

Twitter: @Team_Swench @Scott_Sawyers @ShiroMiller_

Youtube: TeamSwenchTV

Instagram: Team_Swench