Column 34 | Skin cracks? Companions of growth

ANSWER

Many bodybuilders struggle with skin and tissue tears, including me. Once they occur, they stay with you for life. Tissue tears are usually caused by two factors: high body weight and genetic predisposition. Due to a genetic predisposition, it is possible for a person to develop tissue tears even with relatively little body weight. In contrast, other athletes hardly have them, even at 130 kilos. For me, the first skin tears appeared when my body weight was over 135 kilos. There is no special training to combat such skin irritations. Losing weight and size will certainly reduce the risk of new or larger tears, but it will not reverse existing ones.

In many cases, taking zinc capsules has proven to be positive. Although the cracks in the skin did not disappear, they at least faded much more quickly and were therefore no longer as visible. While zinc cannot reverse existing cracks in the skin, it can make a significant contribution to preventing new ones from forming in the first place. However, there is no guarantee here either and it must be considered on a case-by-case basis. But it is definitely worth a try.

If you want to try zinc, I recommend taking a HIGH QUALITY ZINC PREPARATION in combination with the amino acid L-histidine. Since zinc is bound to amino acids in an organic form, it is proven to be absorbed and metabolized much better by the organism.

Vitamin E or various moisturizers are not very effective in treating tissue cracks. It is more likely that the passage of time will make them fade, but this can take several years.

Regular visits to a solarium can visually reduce the appearance of tissue tears. However, since you are a minor, you will need your parents' written consent according to the future law - not to mention comprehensive information about the risks, such as skin cancer.

If you want to lose weight to avoid further tissue tears, that's one thing. Achieving a more defined and aesthetic appearance is another. In this respect, I don't think your training with 20 repetitions is appropriate. Many bodybuilders are still under the false impression that muscle can be built with few repetitions and fat can be burned with many repetitions. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. Body fat is burned primarily by the following three factors:

The interaction of all three factors increases your metabolism, which, with the right diet, leads to fat reduction in the long term. Jogging twice a day on the weekend might not be enough cardio training to burn fat effectively. I advise you to split the cardio evenly over the days of the week: two to four sessions per week, each lasting 30 to 60 minutes and with a pulse of around 140 to 160 beats per minute.

When training, you should choose weights that allow you to train cleanly in a repetition range of eight to twelve. Four to five sets per exercise is too much. Most people train according to the motto: more is better. But the opposite is the case. In bodybuilding, less is usually more, because the body, or rather the muscle cells, grow during the recovery phase and not during training. If you train with too many exercises and sets and for too long, you will overtrain and lose muscle.

Unfortunately, you haven't written anything about your diet, so I can't really give you any specific advice on that. But remember that even the best training is useless if you don't pay attention to your diet! The opposite is true. You can find information about the different nutritional principles and lots of nutritional tips on my homepage. You'll also find detailed suggestions on the topic of training there, which will help you to further optimize your workouts.