Sometimes I use jargon that is totally familiar to me (since I’m a gym rat) that is a foreign language to most people. So today, in no particular order, I’m going to give you simple definitions for some of the most common terms in fitness:

Rep – Short for “Repetition.”  This is one execution of an exercise.  One pushup is one rep, five squats is five reps.  Easy.

Set – A collection of reps.  We write the number of sets x the number of reps.  So “Bodyweight Jump Squats 4 x12″ would be four sets of twelve reps.

Homeostasis – Internal equilibrium of the body.  This means that all your body’s processes are maintaining a balance.

Metabolism – The sum of the chemical processes that occur in the body.  When you have a high metabolism you have a greater number of chemical reactions in your body, and burn more calories to power these reactions.  To raise your metabolism you must disrupt your homeostasis and your body will burn calories as it works to return to balance.

Concentric – A shortening of your muscles.  Curling a weight to your shoulder is a concentric action of your biceps.

Eccentric – A lengthening of your muscles.  Lowering your body towards the floor during a pushup is an eccentric contraction of your chest, shoulder, and arm muscles.

Tempo – The speed at which you do your reps.  This includes a prescription for both the eccentric and concentric phases of a rep, with occasionally a pause in between.  An example of a tempo prescription would be taking five seconds to lower yourself into a squat, pausing for ten seconds, then explosively jumping upwards.

Negatives – Lowering a weight (or yourself) as slowly as possible.  An exercise I use with my athletes to build upper body strength is to jump up into a pullup and then take as long as possible to lower themselves down.

Steady State – Used for aerobic exercise, this is maintaining a constant pace for a length of time.  Jogging on a treadmill for 45 minutes at 70% of your maximum heart rate is an example of steady state exercise.

Interval Training – Sets of high intensity work followed by periods of either rest or very low intensity work.  Jumping rope as fast as possible for thirty seconds followed by 30 seconds of walking in place is an example of interval training.  Work to rest ratios depend on many factors.  This type of training has been shown to be more effective at burning fat and improving athletic performance than steady state training.

Superset – Pairing two exercises together to achieve a greater training efficiency.  (I’ll be writing MUCH more about training efficiency in the near future)

Circuit – Three or more exercises performed in a row.  One of my favorite circuit plans is to do a set of upper body, a set of lower body, then a set of core, and then take a rest before going through the circuit again.  This disrupts your body’s homeostasis and has been shown to raise your metabolism for at least 39 hours after your workout.

Tabata Protocol – An exercise protocol where you perform 20 seconds of work with 10 seconds of rest, repeated 6 to 8 times.  If done properly, this will be the hardest you have ever worked in your life.  (Meaning, if you can talk during a “tabata set,” you aren’t working hard enough to get the benefits)  This protocol is famous because if you repeat it several times a week, you will receive more benefits in only minutes than you would in HOUR of traditional training.

Timed Set – Instead of ending a set at a predetermined number of reps, you finish in a certain amount of time.  This is one of my favorite ways to design fat loss training programs.

Kettlebell – A ball-shaped weight with a looped handle attached.  These are a very versatile training tool that have become popular over the last few years.

Medicine Ball – A weighted ball used to add extra load to an exercise.

Swiss Ball – An inflated ball used to add instability to an exercise.

Crocs – A type of shoe that will get thrown out of my weight room.

There are lots more definitions to come!  The next part of this series will focus on the terms used for aerobic training and get deeper into definitions and examples!

If you go to the gym right now, you’ll see hundreds of people working on their New Year’s Resolution to lose weight.  And almost all of them are doing the exact same thing: 45 minutes in their “fat loss zone.”

Research and experience has proven time and again that interval training is superior to steady state training when it comes to fitness, health, and fat loss.  The problem is that most people don’t know how to set up an interval-based session.

Here is a handout from my last seminar, with an EXACT plan of what to do.  This can be recycled every month (with week one having a higher intensity each time).

Do this on the “off days” from your metabolic resistance training sessions.

Interval Training For Extreme Fat Loss

This program is designed to raise your metabolism so that you will liberate and shed as much body fat as possible.  Do this routine 2, 3, or 4x a week and choose a different piece of cardio equipment each time.

Week 1:

5 Minute Warm Up

Intervals: 3x through this set

1 min high intensity (9/10 effort)

2 min moderate intensity (6/10)

5 min Very Low Intensity (2-3/10)

20 min moderate intensity (5-6/10)

3 min cool down

Total time: 42 minutes

Week 2:

5 min warm up

Intervals: 4x through this set

      1 min high intensity (9/10 effort)

      2 min moderate intensity (6/10)

5 min very low intensity (2-3/10)

20 min moderate intensity

3 min cool down

Total time: 45 min

Week 3:

      5 min warm up

      Intervals: 5x through this set

            1 min high intensity (9/10 effort)

            2 min moderate intensity (6/10)

      5 min very low intensity (2-3/10)

      20 min moderate intensity (5-6/10

      3 min cool down

      Total time: 48 min

Week 4:

5 min warm up

Intervals: 6x through this set

      1 min high intensity (9/10 effort)

      2 min moderate intensity (6/10)

5 min very low intensity (2-3/10)

20 min moderate intensity (5-6/10

3 min cool down

Total time: 51 min

An interview with John Alvino of How to get Ripped Abs.

Luke Wold: Hey John, I consider you a “real world” guy – in that you work with real people with busy lives and hectic schedules. We all know that there is a ton of fat loss advice for pre-contest bodybuilders (fasted cardio, two-a-day sessions, egg whites and steamed fish 6 times a day…).

And we also know that there’s good advice out there for the overweight guys who have never exercised before (like don’t eat Oreos, and take the stairs instead of the elevator…).

But what about the “in between” person? You know, the professional man or woman who works a solid 9-5 job with maybe up to an hour commute each way, and still tries to spend time with the family and kids. There’s a serious lack of information for this demographic. How do you set up a solid “real world” fat loss nutrition plan for these people?

JA: I couldn’t agree with you more. Earlier in my career, I would tell this type of client that they had to eat a broccoli and alfalfa sprouts omelet for breakfast every single day! When they told me that they didn’t have the time to prepare that, I would accuse them of not being committed.

Looking back on it now, I realize that as a young trainer, I had no idea how difficult it is to work a stressful job, raise a family, and still summon up enough energy to even get to the gym.

It wasn’t too long before I realized that my expectations were unreasonable, unnecessary, and unrealistic for them to stick to. Thus, I had to be creative enough to devise meal plans that would deliver results while being realistic and easy enough for this busy folks to actually follow.

After years of trial and error, I have found several ways to accomplish this goal. For starters, these clients have a tough time following a diet that has very precise parameters.

For instance, instructions such as: “eat exactly 3.35 ounces of salmon with 1 ¾ cups of broccoli at exactly 10:25 a.m. each morning”, or “You must prepare and eat 7 meals per day.” Their lives are simply too stressful and busy to be this rigid. They need more flexibility in their diet protocol.

Trying to force this “all or nothing” approach onto a person such as this will more often than not result in total failure. After your client realizes that he can’t follow the plan, he will fall off the wagon and feel completely defeated.

This may discourage him from ever trying to lose fat again. And it is just unnecessary. A successful diet, first and foremost, must actually be feasible. If it’s not, it doesn’t matter how great it is, because it will most surely fail.

To make an eating plan realistic for a busy businessman or woman, I would suggest that they eat 3 meals per day. Most people eat breakfast, lunch and dinner anyway, so this would not be disruptive to their extremely busy day. In between these “regular” meals, I would suggest eating 2-3 convenient snacks.

LW: What about training? Doing six or seven days a week, or multiple sessions for these people is just fantasy land. What about some real world workouts? I’ll give you an example – a 40 year old father of two – with a full time job (40 plus hours per week) who is maybe 19-20% body fat but wants to see his abs for the first time this summer?

JA: In my experience, when someone has a restricted schedule like this, I am usually only able to meet with them around train 3 times per week. So it is imperative that we get the most out of each training session. The most important goal for each of these training sessions is to create a metabolic elevation that will last up until the next training session.

Let’s assume that he would be using a Monday, Wednesday, Friday training schedule. Our goal is to perform a workout that increases metabolic rate for 48 hours. In order to accomplish this, we must work all major muscle groups – so that means full body training routines.

These full body routines should emphasize exercises that have a high metabolic cost. In addition, this routine should be designed using a multi-station approach.

Because there is a time constraint, you will spend very little time resting in between sets. Therefore, exercises performed back to back should not interfere with each other. In other words, consecutive exercises should not fatigue the same exact muscle groups.

Immediately following the resistance phase of this routine, he would perform a special type of interval training. For the actual interval, you will work hard (about 90% of your max) for 30 seconds. Then decrease the intensity to about 60% of your max for 60 seconds. That is one interval.

After the 60 second “easy” period, increase the intensity back up to 90% and begin the second interval of the workout. Start with 6 intervals per workout, and build your way up to doing 12 intervals per workout. Once you can perform 12 intervals at maximal intensity, it is time to vary your workout.

Varying your workout from time to time, when done in a calculated manner, will keep your body constantly stimulated to respond positively to this type of training.

LW: Can you give us a sample workout based on your training principles?

JA: Sure. I’ll give you’re a workout that I designed for my client JR. He fits the “busy working client” criteria perfectly. He works about 70 hours per week, has a wife and 2 kids that he spends a lot of time with. To his credit, he still manages to train hard 3 times per week. This is the workout that he just performed:

1: Dynamic Movement Phase (5 min):

Rope Jumping 3×60 seconds with 30 sec rest.

2: Joint Prep Phase (3 min):

Overhead Squat 30 seconds, Reaching Split Squat 30 seconds, Forward Flexion 30 seconds, Supine Hip Raise 30 seconds, Intermediate Plank 30 seconds

3: Resistance Phase (25 min): This is a multi station circuit. Perform 5 rounds without any rest.

1a) DB Squat Push Press Combo 5x 12,10,8,6,4

1b) Strap Chin Ups 5x 12,10,8,6,4

1c) DB Step Up 5x 12,10,8,6,4

1d) Hands Elevated A Frame Push Up 5x 12,10,8,6,4

1e) DB RDL With Shrug 5x 12,10,8,6,4

4: Interval Phase: (12 minutes)  Do 4 continuous sets

2a) Med Ball Slams 30 sec maximal effort

2b) Jumping Jacks 60 sec easy pace

2c) Rocket Jumps 30 sec maximal effort

2d) Seal Split Shuffles 60 sec easy pace

5: Static Stretch Phase: (5 minutes)

This routine has JR out of the gym in 50 minutes. And the results speak for themselves. JR has lost 22 pounds of fat in 9 short weeks and is in the best shape of his life.

LW: Nice. Any other tips for these people?

JA: There are several little things that they must do in order to succeed. Some of the keys to success are:

• Since you are only training 3 times per week you must make each workout count.
• You must be consistent.
• No missed workouts.
• Prepare food in bulk. (Most cheating stems from not having healthy food readily available).
• Keep the house stocked with quick and accessible healthy foods and snacks.
• During the first week of your meal plan, I encourage you to weigh/measure your food.

For instance, if one of your meals requires 1 cup of rice, you should have a pretty good idea of what a cup of rice looks like. That way, when you are eating out, or on the road, you will be able to estimate your portions with reasonable accuracy.

LW: Thanks so much, John, for taking the time to share these great insights with us. For those of you who are interested in creating an amazing body transformation and losing fat at an incredible rate, you should definitely go to John’s website, How to get Ripped Abs

He has changed a lot of lives with his amazing fat loss techniques, and clearly he is sensitive to the working class person who is busy, but still wants and deserves to get in great shape!

JA: Thank you, Luke. It’s always a pleasure speaking with you. I look forward to next time!

~ Luke Wold

PS – Click here to check out How to get Ripped Abs

A decade ago the average personal training client was looking to lose 15-30 pounds.  People could actually fit into the machines at the gym.

Today being 15-30 pounds overweight is considered “carrying a few extra pounds.”  Most of the average personal training clients can’t even fit into the machines at the gym.

It’s sad…. really sad.

Do you know what’s going on?

Let me show you….

I’ll bet some of the people in these pictures have kids.  What kind of a message are they sending?

Why are all of these people eating themselves to death?

I don’t know. 

Maybe they blame someone else.  Maybe they think there’s no hope for them.

I don’t know what the problem is.

But I know that most fat loss programs won’t cut it anymore.

One of my classmates in exercise science did a 12 week project training his obese mother.  He put her on a TEXTBOOK low fat diet and aerobic training program.

He got an A on his paper.

His mother died of a heart attack a week later.

His exercise program failed her.

Knowing what I know now, I could have taken 30 pounds off of her in those 12 weeks and probably saved her life.

She could be hanging out with her 2 young grandkids right now.

But she’s not.  Why not?

Because 95% of what they teach you about exercise and nutrition is DEAD wrong.

Most fitness experts approach fitness completely backwards.

Don’t listen to them, listen to me.

I’m giving you the first page of the manual from last Saturday’s Rules of The Game Seminar.

You’ll see WHY most exercise programs are doomed to fail you.

And you’ll see what I’ve decided to base all of my fat loss programs on (it’s in bold, so you can’t miss it).

 UNSTOPPABLE FITNESS FORMULA – RULES OF THE GAME

FAT LOSS FACT: 56% of Americans are currently “dieting”

One third of Americans are obese
Two thirds are overweight

In year 2000, obesity caused 400,000 US deaths – 16% of all preventable deaths and number 2 behind smoking (which caused 435,000 deaths – 18%)

This is due to the FAILURE of the fitness professions.

Despite fat loss, body composition, and physique transformation being the number one fitness goal of most people, this is actually a very new concept. 30 years ago we didn’t really need fat loss programs.

30 years ago the purpose of exercise was to ENHANCE an active lifestyle. But now we have to create programs specifically designed to enhance fat loss.

Exercise science has focused on aerobic training for HEALTH – not fat loss. Actually, the idea of training just to lose fat was an alien concept until the 1980’s.

Fitness guys knew it was time to create fat loss programs. They just didn’t know where to start. The first fat loss programs were designed by copying endurance athletes and hoping that somehow the program of a marathon runner would help a fat lady lose weight even when the program was cut down to 20 minutes 3x a week.

Problem: Fat loss was never the goal of endurance athletes. It was a side effect.

Then fitness guys turned to bodybuilding. Remember “Body For Life”? Another failure. To take the program of a full time, genetically gifted bodybuilder and use it to design a fat loss program for Mrs. Krensky was nonsensical.

But hey, at least they were trying something.

Bodybuilders are some of the most dedicated and driven people on the planet. They also devote ALL of their life to bodybuilding.

Then supplement companies (grandchildren of the traveling snake-oil doctors of the Midwest) jumped on the bandwagon and told us their miracle powders could give us the benefits of drugs without actually using the drugs.

This approach was closer. Fat loss WAS a goal for bodybuilders. But the low levels of bodyfat they achieved was a result of their increased muscle mass and metabolism.

Here’s the basis of my Unstoppable Fitness Formula: Before we start to program for fat loss, we have to understand exactly HOW it occurs. Then we design a program based on these principles – not on tradition, junk, or outdated beliefs.

———————————————————————

Now think back on all of the exercise programs you’ve seen or tried.  Were they just bastardized, watered-down versions of bodybuilder routines mixed with endurance routines?

I’ll bet they were.

If you’re serious about speeding up your metabolism, losing weight, and looking so good that you’re confident in your appearance everywhere you go, a lame edurance program or scaled-down bodybulding routine won’t do it for you.

You need something designed SPECIFICALLY for your goals.

I’m going to share my “master system” for rapid weight loss in the posts on this blog, so be sure that you’re subscribed by entering your name and email address in the box below:

So many people wrote in about my post on how grains will mess up your physique and your health (check it out here: Grains Suck!), that I decided it’s time to shed some light on aerobic training…

The fallacy of using aerobics as a fat loss tool is probably the biggest single lie ever foisted on America by the health and fitness industry.

So… if you’re already on a diet, will adding in aerobic training increase fat loss?

To be blunt: No, it won’t.

But you might not believe me.  That’s fine.  After all, it goes against what everyone will tell you about fat loss.

Just do me one favor – check out these studies before you decide I’m crazy:

Van Dale D, Saris WH, Schoffelen PF, Ten Hoor F.
Does exercise give an additional effect in weight reduction regimens?
Int J Obes. 1987;11(4):367-75

This group compared two groups over 8 weeks: A diet-only group, and a diet plus 4 hours of aerobic exercise per week group.

Unfortunately, the aerobics didn’t help the second group lose any more weight than the first.

8 weeks x 4 hours = 32 hours.  In 32 hours you could have read ten books, learned how to dance, or spent more time with your kids.

But 8 weeks isn’t that long.  Here’s a 12 week study:

Utter AC, Nieman DC, Shannonhouse EM, Butterworth DE, Nieman CN
Influence of diet and/or exercise on body composition and cardio respiratory fitness in obese women.
Int J Sport Nut. 1998 Sep; 8(3):213-22

Turns out that 45 minutes of aerobics at 78% max heart rate 5 days a week for 12 weeks had ZERO EFFECT over just dieting.

Ouch.  45 hours at 78% max heart rate for no fat loss.  That sucks.  What could you do with that 45 hours?  Build a room addition?  Even better – you could fly to Paris from Reno, have lunch and dinner, then fly back in 45 hours.  Or you could spend that same time on a treadmill.  Up to you.

How about a study longer than 12 weeks.  Will aerobics start working for you then?

Redman et al
Effect of calorie restriction with or without exercise on body composition and fat distribution
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2007 Jan 2

This crew looked at 6 months of aerobics and dieting.  The aerobics group did 50 minutes of aerobics 5 days a week for the whole six months.

Sadly, the aerobics group didn’t lose any more weight or body fat than the diet-only group.

Let’s see… That’s just over 108 hours of aerobics for no more weight loss.  MAJOR bummer.  What would you do with 108 hours?  You could build a real, working plane.  Maybe write a short novel.  Or drive from Carson City to New York and back, with time there to catch a Broadway play.

Of course, this study was only for 6 months.  How about over the course of a YEAR?

This time there was actually an effect from aerobic training!  Woo-hoo!

The aerobics group did 6 hours of aerobics every week for a year.

Average weight loss was .3 pounds (4.8 ounces) per month.

312 hours of hard aerobic exercise just to lose three and a half pounds.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be pissed.  3.5 pounds in a year?  There’s a heck of a lot of things I’d like to do with those 312 hours – maybe learn how to speak Italian.

Now, this is just the studies going over weight loss.  Since most people who go into an aerobics program are overweight, they get injured very quickly.  Or they just get bored at the repetitiveness.

The KEY to fast and dramatic weight loss lies in RAISING YOUR METABOLISM.

Why does everyone think of aerobics first when their pants don’t fit?  Simple, it makes sense. Burn more calories, lose more fat.

Too bad that doesn’t translate over into the real world.  (And the real world is where your skinny jeans are hiding)

If you want what DOES work, then you need to come to my Unstoppable Fitness Formula – Rules Of The Game Seminar this Saturday, November 7th at 1pm.

The entire seminar is only 77 bucks, has a bunch of cool bonuses, and comes with a 100%+ money-back guarantee.

There are only 4 spots left, but we might be able to squeeze in one or two more.

To get your spot, send an email to LDWold (at) gmail.com with your contact info and I’ll get you registered right away!

(Look at these pictures below, no one pictured used regular aerobics as part of their program…)

Lost 10 Pounds, 4 inches from waist, 3inches from hips

Lost 15 pounds, 3% bodyfat, 2 inches off waist, and 3 inches off hips

Lost 19 pounds, 5 percent bodyfat, and 5 inches off waist

Lost 20 pounds, 2 pants sizes, and more than 4% bodyfat

Lost 20 pounds and 6% bodyfat

Lost 25 pounds and 5% body fat

Lost 4% bodyfat and 4 1/2 inches off her waist

Lost 4% bodyfat and 9.5 total inches!

Lost 4 Dress Sizes!

Lost 5% Body Fat!

If you want the plan that gave these guys their great results, send that email to LDWold (at) Gmail.com right away!

A lot of people have written to me lately and asked for a FAST fat loss workout.

Based my experience, I KNOW you can get a great body-changing workout done in a short amount of time.

How short?

10 minutes

I figure everyone can find a way to get just ten minutes of exercise in.

“How,” you ask, “can I lose fat with a ten minute workout?  What about the rule that I have to exercise for 20 minutes before I get into ‘fat-burning’ mode?”

Well… scientific research and my own experiences as a trainer have shown that the whole idea of a ‘fat-burning zone’ or a mystical time period for fat loss just don’t make sense.

People can lose fat without doing any ‘cardio’.  If you follow the Fat Loss Hierarchy from my Unstoppable Fitness Formula, you know that if you focus on cranking up your metabolism, you’ll burn a LOT more calories than you would with traditional “aerobic” training.

See, the benefits of your training happen OUTSIDE of the gym, not during your workout.  That’s why your training should be designed to maximize your metabolism.

Enough foreplay, let’s get on to a ten minute fat loss workout!

If you only have 10 minutes, what can you do?

I call it “Twisted Training” – where you ‘twist’ your warmup, resistance training, and interval training all together.  With just 10 minutes, I’d use bodyweight resistance.

And in this 10 minutes you’re going to focus on 3 hot zones to get your metabolism ramped up.  These hot zones will be your upper body pushing muscles, upper body pulling muscles, and your legs.  Training like this will allow you to tone almost ALL of your muscles in just 10 minutes.

Exercise #1: Bodyweight Squat

Exercise #2: Bodyweight Row

Exercise #3: Pushup

In your first round, take it pretty easy.  If you can do 30 squats, do 10 instead.  Same with the pushups and rows.

For the rest of the ten minutes, go through as many of these circuits as possible doing ALMOST your maximum reps each time.  (Squats, rows, pushups, then start again with squats, rows….)

What I mean by “ALMOST max reps” is that you should leave a rep or two “in the tank” until your last set.  This way you won’t poop out before your ten minutes are up.

Give this workout a shot when you’re short on time and get your metabolism cranking!

I mean, c’mon, it will only take you 10 minutes….

A lot of people ask me why I say aerobic exercise sucks when it comes to losing fat.

Simple – I say it because I’ve seen it time and time again in my clients.

One lady came to me after she had faithfully jogged 6 days a week for a year.  When she started, she did a half an hour a day and quickly lost five pounds.  Then the weight came back.

She upped it to an hour a day.  This time she went down 8 pounds in 2 weeks, but had gained 7 of them back by the end of the month.

By the end of the year she was doing an hour on the treadmill and an hour on the elliptical every day PLUS pilates classes 3 times a week.  Fifteen hours of exercise a week.  For most of a year.  And she only lost a total of 7 pounds.

Now, I’m not faulting her effort.  Far from it!  That’s a heck of a lot of really hard work!

The thing is, she wasn’t that big to start with.  So she plateaued quickly.  Someone a little larger at the beginning might have lost 15 pounds but then reached a point where she wasn’t seeing any results from her efforts.

And THAT is one of the big problems with aerobic training for fat loss.   It doesn’t get you to the body you want!  (Other problems are orthopedic damage, monotony of sessions, body shape stays the same as weight goes down, and more)

Here are the simple basics of how incorrect exercise programming – focusing on aerobics – can actually REDUCE your metabolism and make it HARDER to lose fat.

Here are 5 Reasons Aerobics Suck For Fat Loss:

Loss of Lean, Toned Muscle

Your lean muscles burn a LOT of fat.  Losing muscle as a result of too much aerobic work means you’ll burn fewer calories.

Total Weight Loss

The less you weigh, the fewer calories it takes to move your body.  Simple physics.

Exercise Economy

As you become more skilled at performing repetitive exercises, like pedaling a bicycle, you become more efficient and burn fewer calories.

Stimulus Adaptation

Your body changes and becomes used to the workload (remember the woman who jogged an hour then jumped on the elliptical?).  As it adapts you will burn fewer calories.

Improved Fitness

Because of everything above, you won’t burn nearly as many calories going about your daily routine.  You’ll actually burn fewer calories when you’re resting.

The good news is that all of this can EASILY be avoided by following a sound training program.

You can maintain and even toned up your muscles with resistance training.  (At Fit Body Bootcamp we use your own body as resistance, so you won’t bulk up, but will tone instead)

You can prevent an adaptation to the stimulus by changing exercises, sets, reps, rest, and loading.  Planned variation and progressions are the keys to prevent going stale.  Plus, it makes it a lot more fun!

See, my Unstoppable Fitness Formula focuses on raising your METABOLISM so that you burn calories all freakin’ day!

No matter whether you train with me or on your own, you need to train in ways that maximize your metabolism, to turn your body into a fat-incinerating furnace.  Now get after it!

During today’s Carson City Bootcamp we rocked out a super-fun Upper Body Blast workout (don’t worry, we still burned over 700 Calories and raised our metabolism’s through the roof!)

One of my campers asked me how he could get better at doing chin ups.

First, you work on negative chin ups, where you jump up and lower yourself down slowly. This will build the strength you need to get your first pullup.

Once you’re able to get one good chin up, follow this program:

• Week 1 4×1 (four sets of 1 rep)
• Week 2 1×2, 3×1
• Week 3 2×2, 2×1
• Week 4 3×2, 1×1
• Week 5 4×2
• Week 6 1×3, 3×2
• Week 7 2×3, 2×2
• Week 8 3×3, 1×2

Perform each workout twice a week.

After finishing this progression, you should be able to bust out five reps! That’s a GREAT improvement in only 2 months!

Pull-ups are one of my very favorite exercises, they work your back like a champ and get your body burning some SERIOUS calories!

Now, if you want to learn exercises that are even COOLER than the pull up, come try a FREE week of my bootcamp in carson city.

Just visit: http://www.CarsonBootcamp.com

Most of you know that I’m a huge dork about the SCIENCE behind effective fat loss training.  I thought it might be fun today to see a study and translate it into “real world.”

Here’s the abstract of a study from my Unstoppable Fitness Formula seminar:

J Appl Physiol. 2007 Jan 18;

Fat Metabolism and Acute Resistance Exercise in Trained Men.
Ormsbee MJ, Thyfault JP, Johnson EA, Kraus RM, Choi MD, Hickner RC.

Human Performance Laboratory, Department of Exercise and Sports Science, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, United States.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of acute resistance exercise (RE) on lipolysis and substrate oxidation in adipose tissue. Lipolysis and blood flow were measured in subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue via microdialysis before, during, and 5 h following RE as well as on a non-exercise control day (C) in 8 young (24 +/- 0.7 years), active male participants.

The researchers want to see how fat breaks down during and 5 hours after resistance training.  As a control, they’re also taking measurements on days without exercise

Fat oxidation was measured immediately before and after RE via indirect calorimetry for 45 min.

They did their measurements by looking at how much oxygen the participants used during their workout.  I did these kind of measurements a LOT while I was in school

Energy expenditure was elevated in the 45 min after RE compared to the same time period on the control day (10.5% difference). Respiratory exchange ratio (16.5% difference) and fat oxidation was higher (105% difference) following RE compared to the same time period on the control day.

After training, participants burned TWICE as much fat as they did while resting on their off days

Therefore, the mechanism behind RE contributing to improved body composition is in part due to enhanced abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue lipolysis and improved whole body fat oxidation and energy expenditure in response to RE.

Doing resistance training, with either weights or bodyweight, burns lots of BELLY FAT

There are many benefits to stretching – it improves athletic performance, enhances recovery after exercise, and reduces your risk of injury.

Stretching wasn’t a part of mainstream fitness in the Western Hemisphere until the early 1950’s. In the past half-century though, it has gotten more and more popular.

Here is a quick overview of the four main types of stretching:

Ballistic Stretching:

Back in the day, bouncy, ballistic stretches were the most common. Athletes and coaches thought that bouncing into a stretch was the best way to loosen up the muscles.

It turns out that the opposite is true: The muscles contract to protect themselves during bounces, and so resist lengthening with ballistic stretches.

Muscles can even be injured with ballistic stretching, so almost no athlete uses this method today.

Static Stretching:

This approach involves holding a stretch with little or no movement.

The standard method is to stretch out to your level of slight discomfort, then hold that position for 30 seconds to several minutes.

Static stretching is the most popular style of stretching.

PNF:

Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) has been found to be at least 15% more effective than static stretching.

There are many protocols for PNF stretching, some of them are very complex.

Basically, you stretch and then contract a certain muscle group. Here’s an example:

1. Have a partner stretch your hamstrings and hold for 10 seconds
2. Push against your partner to contract your hamstrings for 5 seconds
3. Repeat 3 to 8 times
4. Always finish with a static stretch

Active Isolated:

Active isolated stretching is a method where you briefly assist a stretch with a rope or towel and repeat it several times.

You would stretch to the point of a bit of tension, hold for a 2 count, then release. Repeat 6 to 12 times. Do not bounce into the stretch!

Why should you stretch? Simple: It’s fun, easy, and the benefits to you are enormous!

Now get out there and stretch!