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How To Add Whey Protein To Coffee

February 3, 2012 — 12 Comments

I like to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, and adding whey protein powder to coffee is a way to get my morning dose of caffeine along with some high quality, flavored whey protein in one mug.

I need about 3 cups of coffee in the morning, so adding 1/3 scoop of vanilla flavored whey protein isolate to my morning coffee 3 times gives me about 25g of protein.

Adding up to 1/2 scoop of whey protein is fine, but I find that a full scoop makes the coffee too thick for my liking.

You can think of the whey protein as a protein-enhanced, flavored & sweetened coffee creamer. It taste a lot better than the normal non-dairy creamer such as Coffee Mate and is a lot better for you too (more about coffee creamers here). And if you’re using whey protein isolate, it’s lactose free as well.

Benefits

Make Instant Coffee Tastes Good

Supplement manufacturers appealed to our tastes buds and have produced a variety of different flavors of whey protein. Combined with coffee, it tastes pretty good. For example, adding vanilla whey protein isolate to my instant coffee tastes like French vanilla. Chocolate whey protein and coffee tastes like mocha.

Personally I’ve only tried vanilla, chocolate and unflavored whey protein isolate, but @elizabethwhit20 on Twitter told me that even BANANA flavored protein tastes good with coffee!

@ tried banana myofusion..pretty good crazy as it sounds Haha! creamy!
February 1, 2012 9:40 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@elizabethwhit20
IFBB Pro Elizabeth W

I’ll have to try that myself.

One day.

Get Protein First Thing In The Morning

If you’re like me, I drink a few cups of coffee in the morning before having breakfast. I wake up around 3:00AM and usually don’t eat until 7-8:00AM. Before this meant I had 4-5 hours without any food in my system.

By adding whey protein to my coffee, I’m getting around 25g of protein first thing in the morning.

To learn more about the benefits, effects and other facts and information, you can check out Examine.com's excruciatingly thorough analysis of whey protein.

How To Mix Whey Protein To Your Morning Coffee

The process is pretty simple. The trick is to cool down your coffee before adding the whey protein. If it’s not cooled down then the whey protein will curdle and get all sticky and lumpy once you add it to the coffee.

Here’s how I mix whey protein into my coffee:

Step 1: Prepare Your Coffee

how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-002

Prepare coffee like you normally do.

For me, I’ll add 1 heaping teaspoon of instant coffee, and half a pack of Splenda. I don’t need to use the entire packet of Spenda because the whey protein already has sweetener.

Make sure you fill the mug about 3/4 to the top. You want to leave some room for the milk and whey protein powder.

Step 2: Cool Down The Coffee

how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-003how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-004how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-005

Next I add a little bit of 2% milk to the coffee. I don’t measure the amount of milk I add; I just add until it turns light brown in color.

Adding the milk will cool down the coffee, but you can use cream, cold water, or just let the coffee sit for a few minutes.

Step 3: Add 1/3-1/2 Scoop of Whey Protein

how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-006how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-007how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-008

I use Whey-Factory.com (they've shut down since this review) vanilla whey protein isoloate, but other brands and flavors would work fine.

Here's some of the whey protein I've tried that mixes well with coffee:

  1. Canada Protein 
    • I've tried their whey blend as well as the whey protein concentrate. Vanilla tastes good! Natural flavor does not float my boat though, so I combine it with other flavors.
  2. Optimum Nutrition Whey Gold Standard
    • Mixes well and tastes good, but a little expensive for my tastes. Bought it when it was on sale before.
  3. MyProtein Impact Whey
    • This is the protein I'm using now. It's cheap, tasty, and cheap (I got 25% off my first order). Probably the best chocolate flavored protein I've tried in my life. They have a bunch of other flavors like banana, toffee, chocolate coconut, raspberry, cinnamon roll etc. They're big in the UK, but starting to get popular in North America based on the reviews. You can check them out here.

Sprinkling it on little by little allows the whey protein to mix faster and easier, but dumping 1/3-1/2 scoop of whey protein all at once work fine too.

If you want to add an entire scoop of whey protein in your coffee, mix in 1/2 scoop first until the powder is dissolved, then mix in the 2nd half.

Step 4: Mix

how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-010how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-012how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-014

This might take a little patience, especially if you’ve added a little more than 1/3 scoop of whey protein to the coffee (which I normally do). But mixing it takes less than a minute.

There will be some clumps, but you can use the back of your spoon to press it against the inside of the mug to break it down.

Step 5: Drink

how-to-add-whey-protein-to-coffee-015

Enjoy your protein-enhanced, flavored coffee!

###

Another way of doing this is to mix the whey protein and milk first, then pour it into the coffee.

The downside to this method is that the some of the whey protein will stick to the spoon and to the mug, which will require extra hard scrubbing to remove. Steel wool makes this easy.

Anyways, try it out! Adding whey protein to your coffee might become a new addition to your morning routine.

If tea is more of your cup of choice, then you can add whey protein to tea as well!

Coffee + whey protein #coffee #whey #protein #wheyprotein #gains

A photo posted by John Phung (@johnny_phung) on

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Basement Home Gym

February 2, 2012 — 1 Comment

The garage and the basement were the 2 locations I wanted to set up my home gym. They’re similar in size, but ultimately, I choose the basement. In this blog post, I’ll explain why.

Basement Home Gym

My Basement Home Gym: Version 1.0

Now, before I go on, my situation and my personal considerations might be different than yours. Some of it might apply to you, while others may not. Either way, I hope you find it helpful if you’re planning on setting up a home gym!

Benefits Of A Basement Home Gym

Floor Is Leveled

In my basement, the floor in the area where I train is level.

Because of the leveled floor, there’s no risk of a loaded barbell rolling on the ground and slamming into walls, equipment or anything else in my basement.

Furthermore, I don’t need to worry about building a sloped lifting platform or level my basement with self leveling cement. This would be an additional cost to my home gym, and a headache that I’d rather not deal with.

I can just lay down the horse stall mats, setup my equipment and begin training.

Temperature & Humidity Control

In the wintertime the basement will be warmer, and in the summertime, it will be a lot cooler compared to the garage because of the heat from furnace and cold air from the air conditioning unit. This will allow a more comfortable and consistent environment to train.

There are some people who prefer training in extreme temperatures. Personally, I’d rather keep this variable constant and focus on improving my strength. Getting stronger is my goal, tolerating varying temperatures while training is not.

Also, because of the stable temperature and humidity levels (with a dehumidifier), the Olympic plates, B&R bar and other metal equipment won’t be subject to varying temperatures and humidity levels, so they’ll less likely corrode.

Sound Proofing

I could be wrong, but I’m assuming sound proofing is a little bit better in the basement compared to the garage. At least with mine.

Dropping a deadlift with all-steel Olympic plates would only annoy anyone upstairs. Whereas in the garage, anyone within the general vicinity could probably hear the crashing of the weights onto the floor.

I’d prefer not deal with neighbors complaining about excessive noise.

Negatives Of A Basement Home Gym

No Fresh Air

The air in the basement feels a bit stale and stuffy. Also, all the sweating, huffing and puffing from exercise doesn’t exactly freshen up the air.

I could open up a small window in the basement to allow fresh air in and the perspiration-laced air out, but (depending on the weather) this would not be as effective as opening a garage door.

Also, the window is a little difficult to open (it’s located near the top of the wall, and I have to manually slide 2 windows), whereas I can just push a button to open and close the garage door.

Stairs

It is, was, and will be a pain in the ass to move all the equipment to the basement.

Exercise equipment isn’t exactly light, and much of it is long and awkward to carry, which makes it quite a challenge when trying to move everything downstairs without damaging the walls and floors. The good thing is I only have to do it once (or twice if I decided to move out).

Moving 10 pieces of 4’x6’ dirty stall mats weighing about 100lbs each from the garage to the basement was challenging. Moving 700lbs Olympic plates was hard labor. Long, rectangular boxes filled with metal pieces for my power rack wasn’t fun either.

If I had my home gym in the garage, it would be a lot easier to move equipment in and out.

Ceiling Height

As mentioned in my previous article, standing overhead press with two 45lbs plates on each side is not an issue for me because of my height (5’4”).

Someone who is 6’ or taller probably could not do this in a basement with a ceiling that’s just above 7’ high.

Jump squats and other plyometric exercises wouldn’t be a good idea in my basement either.

###

Ideally, I would have preferred my home gym to be in the garage, but decided on the basement because the floor was level. For me, it would be less of a hassle to move equipment downstairs into the basement than to deal with a sloped garage floor.

At this point, this leaves me to question: what am I going to do with the garage?

I’ve thought of a couple of options:

  1. Build a sloped lifting platform and do Olympic weightlifting movements in the garage
  2. Use the garage for plyometric training
  3. Hang a heavy bag on a wall mount in the garage
  4. Some the above
  5. All of the above

This would mean I would have 2 home gyms: basement home gym for weight training, and anything else that doesn’t need a perfectly leveled floor in the garage.

Something to think about. Hmm…

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Garage Home Gym

Garage Home Gym

January 31, 2012 — Leave a comment

Going from the commercial gym to a home gym was one of the best decisions I ever made.

For those who are considering setting a home gym but are torn between garage or basement, I’ll share with you some of my thoughts and notes while going through the decision making process. I hope it helps if you’re deciding to quit your gym membership and train at home.

Now, my situation might be a little different than yours. I recently moved, so the basement and the garage were empty. That means that I did not have to deal with having to move or re-arrange stuff that’s stored in the garage or basement. Also, the basement is unfinished and the floor is bare concrete, just like the garage.

I ultimately choose the basement as the location for my home gym, however the garage was my first choice.

I mean, take a look at this picture and tell me it’s not awesome (note: not my home gym!)

Garage Home Gym

Anyways, here are some of my notes of the positives and negatives of having a garage home gym:

Benefits of A Garage Home Gym

Moving Equipment

It’s easy to move exercise equipment in and out. This is beneficial because if I order heavy equipment and/or anything that requires assembly, I can tell the delivery guy to unload everything into the garage. From there, I can unpack, and assemble everything right in the garage.

With a basement home gym, all the equipment would need to be brought into the house and then moved down stairs. During this move, extra care would have to be taken to make sure that the walls, floors, and whatever else are not damaged. I can tell you that I have a few black marks on the wall from moving 10 4’x6’ rubber stall mats from the garage to the basement.

Moving all the equipment out from the garage would be easier compared to the basement. If I decide to move and don’t want to take apart my power rack, I move the entire thing (without having to disassemble it) through the garage door, and then into a moving truck and be done with it. But because my power rack is in the basement, I would have to disassemble everything, make sure I don’t lose any bolts and washers, and then reassemble the rack. Hauling hundreds of pounds of weights, equipment, and those stall mats up the stairs not be fun.

Ceiling Height

The height of the ceiling in my basement is about 92”, whereas my garage is 112”. It’s fine since I’m somewhat vertically challenged at 5’4”, standing overhead presses with 45lbs plates is no problem in the basement.

But for someone taller, pressing a bar with 45lbs plates on both sides may not be possible without hitting the ceiling. A taller person could substitute the seated barbell should press, but this exercise is far more inferior than the standing overhead press.

If I decide to program plyometric exercises into my training (such as box jumps, etc.), I wouldn’t be able to do it in the basement. Whereas the garage, with an over 9’ ceiling, wouldn’t be an issue.

Also the Rogue power racks are 90”, or 7'6” tall, which will barely fit into my basement. Doing pull-ups and chin-ups would be an issue if I only have 2” of head room to work with. However, according to this video, you can request a customized 7 foot version of the Rogue power rack for an extra $50. You’d probably want to contact Rogue’s customer support for details about a 7’ rack.

Opening The Garage Door

Opening the garage door allows you to let in the fresh air from the outdoors while letting out any sort of odours from your training session. A garage door screen can be used to keep the insects, dust & debris out.

Any sort of strongman training that involves carrying a weight and walking around would be easier with a garage because you could make use of the driveway. Training outside would be as simple as opening the garage door.

And lastly, for better or worst, training with heavy weights with the garage door open will probably attract the attention of your neighbors.

Negatives About A Garage Gym

Temperature & Humidity Control

I live in a part of the world where it’s too damn hot in the summer, and too damn cold in the winter, and not enough in between. Because of this, the garage, if not properly insulated, will be subject to the temperature and humidity levels outside.

You can combat this by first insulating the garage door. I’ve read the “Owens Corning Garage Door insulation kit” makes it easy, but there are other DIY solutions as well.

Next would be heating & cooling the garage. Cooling the garage would be easier because you could just use a fan and/or open the garage door.

As for heating, portable electric heaters and utility heaters designed for garages works well, provided that the garage door and walls are insulated (I’ve tried heating the garage with an un-insulated garage door made of wood using a Garrison oil heater and it has no effect. However, the same heater can heat up the basement just fine).

Humidity would need to be controlled, or else it can make all the weights, racks and bars corrode. Which is the last thing I want, since I removed the rust and refinished my Olympic plates, and do not want the bare steel B&R bar to rust.

Sloped Floor

From what I understand, garage floors are normally sloped down towards the outside.

Dan Thomson writes:

“Heavy things and liquids go downhill.

To maintain safety in the garage, it is necessary to slope the garage floor 1/4" per foot so things like gas fumes (which are heavier than air), fuel, water, etc. can exit the garage safety without building up and possibly causing a hazard.”

This is not good because the last thing I want is having a 400lbs+ barbell rolling into the garage door (or worst, rolling outside onto the driveway into the road!)

There are ways around this, such a building a lifting platform to accommodate the slope, or level the garage floor with self levelling cement (I don’t think I can do this because apparently a sloped garage floor is part of the Ontario building code).

Either way, it will be a pain in the ass and add addition work and cost into the home gym.

###

Overall, I decided against setting up my home gym in the garage because I didn’t want to deal with the issue of a sloped floor. Even though a garage home gym has many benefits, the negatives pushed me towards a choosing the basement as the location for my home gym.

And now, I have to figure out what to do with my garage! Right now it’s just a storage area for boxes that I’m too lazy to break apart and recycle.

For my next blog post, I’m going to talk about the benefits of a basement home gym, so stay tuned.

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10 Things I MISS About Commercial Gyms

January 27, 2012 — 3 Comments

One of the comments left on my last blog post entitled “10 Thing’s I Do Not Miss About Commercial Gyms” was from Craig Hirota, who suggested a great idea about writing my top 10 things that I DO miss about commercial gyms...so here it is!

Some of these might not apply to you, but I’m sure there will be a few you could relate to:

1. Observing Others


Human females with a symmetrical face and a waist to hip ratio of about 0.7, wearing form fitting gym apparel, and performing just about any exercise correctly using a full range of motion are nice to look at by most, if not all heterosexual human males.

It can increase performance for some, but distracting for others.

2. Secretly Competing With Others

Treadmill Racing

I do something similar, in the weight room, lifting weights.

I’m sure I’m not alone on this one.

I like to be the strongest one in the gym. When I am not, I push myself to get stronger.

When I was living in Bangkok, there was a really big guy (well, big upper body at least) who used to partial bench more than I could bench press.

This motivated me to bench more weight than he did, but with full range of motion (that is, the bar touching my chest with every rep), which I did.

Training at home, I don’t have anyone around me to compete with. Although I do compete with myself, trying to break my previous personal records, it’s really not the same as out lifting someone you see on a regular basis at the gym.

3. People Watching You

I’m not an attention whore, but having eyeballs on me when I lift weights is motivating, especially during my main sets. This is also known as social facilitation.

There’s a sense that an audience is around me and I would have to perform.

And because people are watching (at least, I think they’re watching...), I don’t want to look like I added too much weight to the bar and bit off more than I could chew, so there’s an extra bit of motivation to complete that last rep and not fail.

4. Mirrors

I don’t have any mirrors in my basement home gym. At least not yet.

I’m not the type of guy who trains for aesthetic purposes, but I have to admit it’s pretty awesome seeing yourself in the mirror after getting a huge pump.

Often times I would look in the mirror and see some guy with a big traps, huge back and a bubble butt. I’d think, “Damn, this guy is huge!”

Then I’d realize that I was looking at a reflection of another mirror on an opposite wall...and it was me all along. Sweet.

5. Answering Questions

I’m not the most approachable guy at the gym. I tend to be focused on my training and tune everything else out.

However sometimes people would ask questions, and I don’t mind answering as long as people listen (and as long as they’re not interrupting my training or taking too much of my time in between sets like that Mr. Million Questions guy who seems to manifest himself in every gym).

It’s rewarding to see that I helped make an impact on other people’s training, strength, and overall health.

6. Non-Verbally Inspiring People

At least in my past experience, sometimes I don’t have to say anything to inspire others in their training.

For instance, when I used to go to a gym in Bangkok, there would be a group of kids (either fresh out of high school or just starting university) who I knew watched me while I trained. After a few days, I would see them attempt the same thing, albeit a bastardized version of what I was doing. For example, my squat in the squat rack became their squat in the StarTrack Maxrack (a 3D Smith machine).

I even saw that they purchased the same equipment as me. I have the Schiek weight lifting straps that I use for deadlifts. One day, I saw the group of kids with the same straps using them for incline dumbbell bench presses and on the EZ-bar on the preacher curl bench.

I also carry around a belt at the gym. I use it during my main sets (and sometimes during my heavier warm-ups) during squat, deadlift and overhead press. After some time, I saw this same group of kids carry belts with them too and wore it for ALL lifts. But mainly the ones where you sit or lay down on a bench.

7. Personal Trainers with an Area of Expertise

At Fitness First Rama 3 in Bangkok, there were at least 2 former competitive Muay Thai boxers.

When I found out about this, I signed up for a few weeks of personal training sessions with one of the trainers and began my Muay Thai training (ironically, in comforts of an air conditioned commercial gym).

His English wasn’t that great, but through body language, he could communicate what I needed to do and what I was doing wrong.

Hitting the Thai pads with an experienced pad holder and former fighter sure beats any other conditioning exercise I’ve ever tried. And on top of that, he’s given me tips on improving my punches, kicks, knees and elbows.

There’s nothing like getting a killer workout while sharpening your skills under the guidance of someone who has been fighting in the ring even since he was a kid (children competing in full contact Muay Thai is normal in Thailand).

8. Rubber Coated Olympic Plates with Grips

I’m talking about something like this:

Urethane-Olympic-plate

Simply put, those rubber coated Olympic plates with built-in grips are easier to work with compared to steel Olympic plates with a bevelled edge.

It’s easier to carry around, doesn’t make that clanging noise when the plates hit each other, and are less vulnerable to rust.

Perhaps I’ll upgrade my weights in the future.

9. Super Expensive Specialized Machines

I’m not a big fan of exercise machines, especially those that are designed to replace their free weight counterpart.

But there are some machines I miss, and although I could buy them myself, they would cost an arm and a leg.

The machine I miss the most is the Freemotion “functional trainer” machine, pictured below:

freemotion-functional-trainer

Now, why would I miss this somewhat gimmicky looking machine?

It’s because the adjustable height of the pulley makes it easy to train my neck. What I do is attach my Ironmind neck harness to the machine, and adjust the pulley at the lowest level to do neck extensions, and then adjust the pulley to around eye level to do neck flexion and side flexion.

I’ve tried attaching a plate to neck harness and perform neck exercises. It works fine for neck extensions, but it doesn’t work as well when I’m trying to train the front and sides of my neck.

I would also use the same machine for face pulls.

The other machine I miss, and have only seen it in one gym (Popeye’s, which is now World’s Gym in Kitchener, Ontario), is the 4-way neck machine. These machines don’t come cheap either.

4-way-neck-machine

10. Compliments

Getting compliments from others feels good.

It’s a small reward for the time, money and energy I’ve invested in the pursuit of strength.

There’s nothing like a “YOU’RE A MONSTER!” from someone after nearly crushing myself with 400lbs+ on my back.

Feels Good Man

Feels good man!

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Have you switched from a commercial gym and started training at home?

If so, what do you miss from training at the last gym you were a member of?

Leave your comments below 🙂

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10 Things I Do Not Miss About Commercial Gyms

January 26, 2012 — 6 Comments

Over the course of my life, I have been a member of numerous commercial gyms in Canada and Thailand.

But ever since December 2011, I have put together a home gym in my basement and have been training at home ever since.

Here are a few things that I don’t miss about commercial gyms:

1. Personal Trainers Who Don’t Know What They’re Doing

personal-trainer-let-me-teach-you-how-to-curl-follow-me-to-the-squat-rack
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen a personal trainer do upright rows at the same time their client is performing bench presses with the same bar.

Or the number of times I’ve seen trainers without a training log for their clients.

Or the number of times I’ve heard giving out the wrong advice or exercise instruction.

Don’t take this the wrong way, not all personal trainers don’t know what they’re doing, but it seems like (at least in my experience) there are more crappy trainers than good ones.

2. Commuting

I’ve always thought of commuting as a waste of time. The time spent getting to the gym and back can take as long (or longer) that the workout itself!

Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but if possible, I’ll try to set up a situation for myself where getting from point A to B is minimal.

For the last 2 clubs I was a member of, I was fortunate to live close enough to be able to walk to the gym. It only took around 15 minutes each way, but that’s an extra 30 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back. Multiply that by the number of times I go to the gym (3-5) per week, the number of weeks in a month, the number of months in a year, etc. and it adds up.

3. Waiting

Normally, the squat rack is never in use. However there are times when I need to use a bench. And more often than not, the people doing bench press aren’t even doing half-range of motion!

There are also people socialize in between sets, and/or use their phones while sitting on the exercise equipment. Often times they would spend more time on their phones texting and chatting than actually working out.

4. Crappy Exercise Equipment

adductor machine

This machine trains the "NO" muscles

Yes-No machines, Smith machines, elliptical trainers, & Nautilus circuit machines and countless others seem to get the most use in a gym serving the general public. They’re also the equipment that have the least impact on “getting toned”, “getting cut” and “losing weight”.

(I have to admit, I did use the Smith machine as an adjustable height pull up bar when the chin up area was in use).

5. Crappy Workout Music

I would not have known about Justin Beiber, Kate Perry or Lady Gaga if it wasn’t for those Les Mills group fitness classes. I bet there’s someone out there who loves to lift heavy weights to “Somebody to Love”, but it’s not my cup of tea.

At home, I tune into Digitally Imported and listen to either Trance or Goa-Psy Trance, which is probably considered crappy music to some people.

The choice of music to listen to while training is subjective, but since I’m training in my home gym, I can listen to whatever “crappy” music I want.

One man’s crappy music is another man’s ear candy.

6. People Asking A Million Questions In Between Sets

Don’t get me wrong, I like to help people with their training and answer their questions to the best of my ability. But sometimes people ask too many questions at the wrong time (in between sets), and take up a lot of time with their interrogation.

7. Unhygienic People

I’ve seen people picking their noses in between their sets, people who don’t wash their hands after they use the rest rooms, and others cough or sneezing into their hands before they grasp the barbell.

Nasty.

8. Dealing With People Who Don’t Put Away Weights

Y U NO PUT AWAY WEIGHTS

Why can’t some people put away the weights?

It’s just common courtesy to put away those 35lbs dumbbells and put away the plates after doing quarter squats on the smith machine.

9. People Who Drop Puny Weights On The Floor

I’m not sure what the deal is with people who drop dumbbells on the floor after they’re finished the set. I’m talking about people who are dumbbell bench pressing 50lbs (total) for 12+ reps with little effort, and then dropping it.

No matter how loud the sound of dumbbells dropping make, it won’t make you look any manlier!

In my opinion, the weight shouldn’t be dropped on the floor unless it is unsafe or impossible to put it down in a controlled manner. Or if they’re lifting with bumper plates.

10. Initiation Fees, Recurring Membership Fees, Hold Fees and Cancellation Fees

‘nuff said.

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