Meet the coaches: Kavan Byrne

In my last post, we got a great insight into the mind of Mike Samuels as part of the 'Meet the Coaches' series. This time out I've been speaking to Kavan Byrne, he's a guy that I've been following for a long time and whom I have a lot of respect for. I've been following his antics since his first show, not only is he a phenomenal athlete, he's a great guy. So without further ado, let's get to it.
Q. Tell us a little about your background. Have you always been health and fitness oriented? Have you always been a coach? If not, tell us about what you did before and why you wanted to become a coach.

A. Well I wasn't born but I was raised in a gym. My parents owned gyms all through my childhood and bodybuilders and the fitness industry was something i was very much exposed to and very much involved in from a young age, it was where I started my fitness and bodybuilding journey. I worked in and managed a supplement shop for 5 years through college from the age of 17/18 before I came a coach so I'm a bit of a supplement buff aswell :)

Q. As a coach, what are the key things that you try to instil in your clients?

A. Train smart not hard. There's a time and place to go balls to the wall but there's no point lifting everything unless it's with intent and understanding the reason as to why you're lifting it and what you want from it.

Q. Have you ever competed in any bodybuilding/powerlifting/sport related competitions?

A. I have placed 3rd in Juniors in NABBA Mr. Ireland 2012 & 2013 and last year I placed 2nd in that same class the day after placing 4th in the RIBBF Nationals Junior class :) I'm 23 on the 1st March of this year so it's my last year as a junior and a good time to send me some monster zero as a present Al ;)

(Note from the author - The Monster must have gotten lost in the post, or it could be that I was just sending empty cans..)

Q. Describe your own training style/approach

A. I'm currently training powerlifting in Boyneside Strength & Performance , my coach Dean Gartland uses a conjugate system which I loves 2 upper body days and 2 lower body days one dynamic (speed work) and one max effort :) With bodybuilding, I like to pre exhaust every muscle group to begin with, work it as maximally and optimally as possible for a main move, work it from a stretched position then a finishing move to flood the blood in

Q. Who is your biggest inspiration? (Fitness or otherwise) and why?

A. I draw inspiration from a lot of different places and I always have, the bigger dude in the gym, my parents, my friends and from a pro level Flex Wheeler, Flex Lewis, Justin Compton and then the younger dudes Cody Montgomery and Dallas McCarver are big inspirations at the moment

Q. What would be your words of advice to anyone just starting out?

A. Enjoy it. It's a marathon not a sprint, don't try and take everything and do everything all at once. If you weigh 60kg soaking weight, don't try and get shredded like Lipsett, bulk up and build some muscle and a foundation (without becoming a blob) Matt Wenning is a popular powerlifting coach in the states and has made the point that if your foundation isn't all that wide you can only peak so high. So the bigger the foundation, the bigger the peak

Q. There's a huge difference in your physique between your bodybuilding competitions. So it really begs the question - Is it something to do with the beard?

A. Between my first and second show I put on 14kg of stage weights, now I could've been lighter but I did some growing. Face hair is the key and anybody who disagrees has a baby face hahaha

Q. What supplements do you currently use?

A. My go tos are a decent Whey protein, glutamine a good BCAA and intra carb powder. I'm using some Olimp and MyProtein stuff at the moment that are pretty decent

Q. Any projects on the horizon that you can give us a teaser of?

A. I'll be at BodyPower with my Sponsors Up&Cut and catching up with sown friendly faces in the industry :) Few photo shoots and then of course I'll be back on stage this October to claim the NABBA Junior Mr. Ireland title ;)

So there you have it, a quick crash course in the life and times of Kavan Byrne. If you're interested in finding out more, check out his social media channels -

Twitter - www.twitter.com/KayByrne_GWH

Instagram - www.instagram.com/kavb_gwh


As always, you can catch me on social media using the buttons below...
 

Using MyFitnessPal to Track Calorie Intake

In my last post I explained the basics behind calories and macronutrients, and provided you with a link to a calculator which would help you to calculate your own intake. Those numbers are great to have, but there's also got to be a way of tracking the foods that you eat in order to actually make use of those numbers. Enter MyFitnessPal:

Image credit - www.kent.edu

MyFitnessPal is an app that can be installed on any smartphone or tablet, or even just used as a web app as a means of tracking calories and macronutrients. It has an absolutely massive database of foods which can be searched for. If you're using a smartphone, you'll usually be able to scan the barcode of your food and the app will pull up the nutritional data for it.

The only issue with the app is that it tries to dictate what your calorie and macronutrient intake should be. This is just something that you have to ignore when using the app. Use the Macro calculator that I linked to in my last article to get your numbers for calories and macros, and then input those numbers into your app through the 'Calorie and Macronutrient goals' field, which can be found under the 'Goals' tab of MyFitnessPal.

Unless you purchase the full version of the app, you'll be forced to set your macronutrients as percentages of your calorie intake. Try and manipulate your percentages to be as close to the numbers that you were given by the calculator and set them up. My advice after this would be to purely use the app as a tracking tool through the use of the 'Nutrition' tab. Basically, make a note of the numbers that the calculator gave you, use the numbers on the left hand side of the nutrition tab as a guideline, and check those two sets of figures against each other instead of using the numbers on the app. 

The last thing that I will say about using MyFitnessPal, is that its up to you to keep yourself accountable. Track with honesty and accountability and stick to your numbers, and you'll find that you're on a sustainable path to your goals.

If you'd like to chat to me about this article, or you've got any feedback then you can get in touch with me on social media through the buttons below. If you don't have Twitter or Instagram then just drop a comment on this post and I'll get back to you!

 

Calories and Macronutrients - The Basics

In a lot of my posts I talk about nutrition and regularly reference things like 'macros', calories, IIFYM, flexible dieting etc. It has only just dawned on me that I'm excluding a lot of people and assuming that everyone is already clued in on the details of nutrition. So for that, I should apologise. However, instead of apologising, I'm going to dedicate this post to explaining the real basics of calories and macronutrients. I'll start with calories.

Image credit - www.mhpersonaltraining.co.uk

Calories are the fuel on which your body runs. Overall, they're the one set of numbers that you should always be looking at if you're serious about your nutrition. Whether its weight loss, weight gain, or maintaining weight; calories are important. There are too many 'experts' and nutritional zealots in the industry today proclaiming that calories aren't important. This is complete and utter rubbish. Yes there are schemes that help people to lose weight and they don't mention calories at all. People even lose weight on these schemes, but I guarantee that when they do, they're in a calorie deficit due to restricting some high calorie foods. Yes I'm looking at you guys on Slimming World - all of those 'Syns' that you're told to stay strict on are high in fat. You'll realise why its important to cut those down when I talk about macros later on.

Everyone will have their own specific number of calories that is needed for them to gain, lose or maintain weight. Usually these numbers will depend primarily on your height, weight, activity level and age (there are many other factors that can be used to really hone in on those numbers but the ones listed are the basics and good enough to get you a reliable result). I've explained this in another articles, but the basics behind weight loss, gain or maintenance in terms of calories boils down to the following:

Calories consumed > Calories burned = Weight Gain

Calories burned > Calories consumed = Weight loss

Calories Burned = Calories Consumed = Maintain weight

Don't let anyone tell you different, your caloric intake for each day is extremely important, and you can't trick the science of it with any wonder supplements or by pretending that they don't exist. 

Macronutrients

So now you have a basic idea of calories, let's talk about the building blocks behind those numbers. Those building blocks are known as macronutrients, or macros for short. They consist of Protein, Fats, and Carbohydrates. Any food with a calorie content will contain a mix of those macronutrients. As calories are calculated through the use of numbers, so are macronutrients. Here's how those numbers look - 

Protein - 4 calories per gram

Carbohydrate - 4 calories per gram

Fat - 9 calories per gram

By that logic, 25 grams of carbohydrates would be 100 calories, 25 grams of protein would be 100 calories, and 11 grams of fat would equal 99 calories.

Image credit - www.joshwalliecoaching.com

For any Slimming World followers - that's why your syns are all fat heavy foods. By reducing foods that are high in fat, you're reducing the foods that are most calorie dense and therefore increasing your chance of being in a caloric deficit. 

In terms of calculating your own personal calories and macronutrients, I could give you a way of calculating those numbers but I'd just be taking credit for someone else's work. Instead, I'm just going to give you a link to my man Mike Samuels' Macro calculator on his Healthy Living Heavy Lifting website. 

Healthy Living, Heavy Lifting - How to Calculate Macros for Cutting

That article will give you everything that you need in terms of calculating calories and macronutrients. The Healthy Living Heavy Lifting blog is also a great source of information, so if you head over there then spend a little bit of time browsing through the other articles. 

If you'd like to get in touch with me regarding these articles then you can find me on social media through the buttons below, or drop a comment on this article and I'll get back to you!