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How Oxygen Supplementation Can Help Build Muscle Faster

Introduction

There are basically two parts to building muscle: breaking the muscle down through training, and rebuilding the muscle tissue through nutrition, rest and recovery. Muscle building supplements tend to fall into these same categories: supplements that help you train harder (like creatine and nitric oxide), and supplements that help you re-build muscle tissue faster (like amino acids and protein). Oxygen is one of the few nutrients that can be extremely valuable in both areas. That is why using supplemental oxygen can have profound effects on your ability to build muscle.

Oxygen Supplementation

Although oxygen is known to be the most important factor in muscle performance, its use as a performance enhancer has never been heavily publicized. The most effective form of oxygen supplementation is breathing oxygen (like what you see pro football players using on the sidelines). In the past however, breathing oxygen was prohibitively expensive and only available with a doctor's supervision. This made it inaccessible to the general public and only available to elite athletes with large training budgets.

This is no longer the case. Portable canisters of recreational breathing oxygen are now available at very affordable prices. These canisters allow athletes to flood their bodies with valuable oxygen before, during and after exercise, which can have a dramatic impact on training capacity and intensity.

What Oxygen Supplementation Does For A Workout

Resistance-based training (weight lifting, plyometrics, interval training, etc.) is the part of your training routine that is going to help you build the most muscle mass. During workouts, you perform high intensity lifts or movements for a short duration of time to stimulate muscle growth and build strength. The majority of the work load is considered "anaerobic" or non-oxygen reliant because there simply isn't enough oxygen to generate the energy needed to perform at these extreme levels.

So you may be wondering how exactly is oxygen supplementation going to help? The answer is fairly straightforward. Oxygen helps muscle performance in two ways: 1) oxygen is needed by your body to create ATP the main power source for your muscles, and 2) oxygen also buffers against the buildup of lactic acid, which increases your endurance, allows you to increase your training capacity, and slows the depletion of your creatine-phosphate stores, which provides the bulk of the energy during a resistance training workout.

How This Helps Build Muscle Faster

Sparing your creatine stores and having a higher amount of ATP energy available means you will be able to sustain significantly higher levels of training and higher workloads throughout your routine. This leads to more muscle damage, and subsequently, a greater stimulation for muscle growth and recovery. This means that flooding your body with oxygen before and during each training session can cumulatively increase the muscle building capabilities of those sessions. (Example: If you were able to do more reps and more sets every time you trained, that would result in significantly faster results.)

Why Oxygen Supplementation Rather Than Other Methods

• Supplemental Oxygen is completely natural. You breathe it in everyday and there aren't any harmful byproducts that can tax your body's liver or kidneys like some other supplements.
• Supplemental Oxygen does not contain stimulants, so there is no "crash" and you can use it at night and it should not affect your sleep.
• Supplemental Oxygen does not contain any calories and can be great for weight sensitive athletes whose energy stores have been depleted while they try to make their specific weight class.
• Supplemental Oxygen is like food for your muscles. Your body never gets used to it and always needs it. So, you don't need to cycle on and off it for it to remain effective.
• Supplemental Oxygen can be used to target specific areas of your body that may be weaker. Unlike creatine and other ingested supplements, supplemental oxygen only affects the workouts it is used on. If your chest is proportionately weaker and smaller than the rest of your body, for example, simply use supplemental oxygen with your chest workouts to make them more productive.
• Supplemental Oxygen should also help you get more out of your other supplements in the same way that training harder helps you get more out of your supplements.
• The effects of Supplemental Oxygen are realized immediately. You don't have to be on it for weeks before feeling the benefits. When used correctly, it should work well EVERY time you use it.

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