1-2-1 Fitness

17 ways to Fight Fat

2010-08-21T07:35:00.001-07:00

EAT MORE FREQUENTLY.
Eating 5-6 small meals a day as opposed to “three squares” causes your metabolism to work constantly. Eating larger meals, however, slows your metabolism and forces leftover calories to be stored as fat.

GET LEAFY.
Those who eat a salad before dinner tend to consume less calories overall during dinner. But don’t sabotage yourself - stay away from high-fat dressings like ranch, blue cheese and Caesar.

EAT PROTEIN.
Since muscle-building is the fastest route to slim down, make sure your protein consumption is enough to keep up with your weight training. Eat too little and your gains could be slower. Get 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight per day to help your muscle gains along. Use protein bars and shakes to supplement your whole-food consumption and stave off cravings.

CARB SMART.
Keep your carbohydrates low to moderate when trying to lose weight. If you rotate low- and high-carb days, you’ll be able to keep your energy levels up while running a caloric deficit. Good, clean, fibre-rich carbs include oats, potatoes, rice and whole-grain bread. Also, limit high-carb drinks like fruit juice to post workout, when your body needs carbs to speed recovery.

CUT OUT FIZZY DRINKS.
Instead, rely on water. If you drink one can of fizzy drink a day, you’re adding 1,750 calories per week to your diet. Also, studies have shown that those who regularly consume diet sodas tend to gain weight in the long run because of over-indulgences elsewhere.

SKIP HAPPY HOUR.
Alcohol consumption can temporarily blunt testosterone levels, hindering muscle repair and growth and blunting sexual drive. Also, the calories from alcoholic beverages - in the neighbourhood of 100-200 each without cocktail mixers - add up faster than you may think.

SLOW DOWN, TURBO!
Successful dieters and fitness buffs will tell you that fast eating and body fat go hand in hand because you end up overeating. It takes about 10 minutes for the food in your stomach to signal your brain that you’ve eaten enough.

OPERATION DINNER OUT.
Be diligent when ordering in a restaurant. Ask to have your meats grilled without oil or grease. Request steamed vegetables with no butter. Get a salad (no cheese) with either low-fat dressing or vinaigrette.

CALORIES OUT!
The goal in any fat- or weight-loss program should be to burn more calories than you consume. Aim to cut total calorie consumption by about 250 calories per day. That means you’ll have to figure out how many calories you eat in a normal day. The maths will pay big dividends later.

AVOID SIMPLE SUGARS.
Too much sugar in your diet can wreak havoc on your metabolism by spiking your insulin response and promoting the accumulation of body fat. Immediately after exercise, however, is an ideal time to ingest simple sugars; otherwise, steer clear.

TIMED CONSUMPTION.
When you eat is just as important as what you eat. Eat two-thirds of your daily calories before dinner to avoid overeating later.

EAT MORE FIBRE.
Fibre, both soluble and insoluble, is essential to health and helps decrease body fat. Adults should consume 35-40 grams of fibre per day, with about one-third coming from insoluble fibrous sources. Along with fibre-rich whole grains, consume large amounts of fibrous vegetables, such as broccoli, to attain your daily intake and promote satiety.

PREPARE.
If your workplace serves nothing healthy, take food or snacks along with you.

GET YOLKED.
Eating eggs for breakfast was found to reduce hunger and food intake for up to 24 hours.

DON’T BE SALTY.
Excess sodium consumption can make you look softer and cause you to burn less fat. To help you look leaner and strip sodium from your diet, drink more water, cut back on highly processed foods and use potassium chloride to season your foods.

GOT MILK?
Individuals who consumed high levels of dietary calcium in a 24-hour period had higher rates of fat oxidation that day than those who consumed lesser amounts. So stock up on low-fat versions of cheese, milk and yogurt; if you’re lactose intolerant, choose dark-green leafy vegetables, legumes and almonds.

GO NUTS!
Looking for a healthy snack? Eating a handful of almonds helped test subjects lose 62% more weight, 56% more fat and 50% more from their waistline after 24 weeks compared to those who followed the same diet without almonds.

GRAVITY is coming to Jersey !!!

2010-08-11T07:06:00.001-07:00

GRAVITY training is coming to Jersey !!!

Introducing a new concept in exercise that's fun, exhilarating and different to any other exercise regime.

The Gravity Training System (GTS) uses body weight as resistance on an adjustable incline plane with a dynamic pulley-cable system. You'll need to work your core stabilisers to balance on the unit's free-rolling glide-board.

The GTS is designed to facilitate full body workouts, without the use of any additional accessories.

You can challenge yourself with multi-plane movements, unrestricted range of motion and all at your own level of ability.

Are you are feeling a lack of interest toward exercise or are you tired of doing the same standard exercises using the same equipment?

The Gravity Training System is new, innovative and fun, creating a fresh approach to your training. The Gravity Training System provides a workout and results that cannot be achieved on any other equipment.

You will see improvements in strength, flexibility, balance, power and endurance after training with GRAVITY.

The GTS is a functional resistance-training workout. You can join in one of our circuit training sessions or can arrange private, or semi-private small group sessions to get the maximum benefit from your training time, ensuring more value for money.

The GTS targets a multitude of health and fitness goals to suit your needs, from hypertrophy, toning and weight loss to joint and muscular rehabilitation and improvements of athletic performance.

With over 200 biomechanically correct exercises, you will get a versatile program that offers you fresh and challenging training sessions.

It's ideal for people of all ages and every fitness level, providing a new incentive and a fresh approach to exercise!

The GTS is designed for anyone, including people with injuries or muscular skeletal complaints.

Further information about Gravity Jersey will be released very soon so watch this space....

Sexuality and Power: Learn 6 Ways Body Image Affects Us

2010-08-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Are you satisfied with your body?

Wow, that question opens a big can of worms. If you're seriously into fitness, the answer "no, I'm not satisfied" may come more easily as most in this category accept constructive criticism as healthy and necessary to goal attainment of a more perfect body.

Others, however, may feel differently and may either shy away from critical physical assessments or may simply say they accept themselves as they are. However, some recent research suggests something much deeper going on.

We judge our bodies mostly by how we think we're viewed by the opposite sex, according to several recent studies. And although several factors contribute to our body self-image, foremost is the desire for power over the opposite sex. Following are six ways body image can affect us according to one survey:

1) Size - Men perceive large physical size as powerful, while women see being smaller and more petite as better for obtaining power and influence over the opposite sex.

2) Satisfaction - Men generally are more satisfied with their appearance and see themselves as attractive to women, even when they're not in great shape, while women were generally less satisfied with their appearance and desiring to improve it to gain power over men.

3) Social Pressure - Women feel social pressure to look attractive in order to gain power more than men do as popular culture tends to focus more on glorification of the perfect female body and appearance.

4) Motivation - Women are generally more motivated to change their appearance by what men think, while men are more motivated by what they think of themselves, suggesting that men tend to already see themselves with the inherent upper hand.

5) Height - Both men and women agree that the man should be taller than the woman in a relationship, and that the reverse has a negative impact on the relationship's power structure, i.e. both the taller woman and the shorter man would have less power over the opposite sex.

6) Physical Standards - Women are generally less concerned about physicality and more concerned about femininity as a power lever over the opposite sex, while men were more concerned a strong physical appearance and overall presence.

Agree or disagree?

7 Reasons Why Workouts Fail You

2010-07-13T04:07:00.000-07:00

While literally millions of people workout, very few realize true workout success. Most dabble in the gym on and off, never getting results. They quit working out, usually under a myriad of excuses along the lines of being too busy or of disappointment that "they're just not seeing results".

Below are seven common reasons why workouts fail:

1) No clear goals -

If you can't measure it you can't manage it. Too many people head into the gym with either no thought of what they're trying to accomplish or vague goals of "losing weight" and "toning up".

What to do:

Be specific and write it down. If the goal is weight loss or body fat loss, identify how many pounds or the target weight, the time element, and what you'll do every day to make it happen. If it's muscle gain, identify things like desired bicep and chest measurements or one-rep max increases.

2) Motivation is missing -

Motivation has two key elements:

a) possessing a goal that is deeply meaningful to you, and

b) feeling mostly in control of the outcome.

If motivation is missing from your workouts, examine these two factors and identify what's missing. Why do you care about your goals? Do you feel you can make them happen or do you need help?

What to do:

Take stock of why you started working out and make sure the cause matters to you, and especially that you're doing it for yourself and not because someone else thinks you should.

Also, if you feel frustrated or even helpless about your ability to achieve the desired workout outcome, get help from a personal trainer and/or a nutritionist.

3) Fear of discomfort -

Let's face it, success in transforming your body requires some discomfort. This can be pushing weights until your muscles fail, upping cardio to uncharted heart rate territory, and dieting when the body tells you it must eat.

Many people fail in their workouts for the simple reason that they can't overcome discomfort.

What to do:

Discomfort is only a state of mind. Learn to recognize discomfort as only a mental barrier to your goal. Love your goal more than you dislike the discomfort.

4) Workout uncertainty -

In sports they say that a cloudy head makes for slow feet. With working out, especially in a gym, uncertainty about what exercise to do and about proper form can result in a tentative approach that lacks the intensity required for improvement and progression toward a goal.

What to do:

Don't go it alone, get the help of a professional trainer and then become a student of how to work out. Like anything else, the more you study it, understand it, and practice it, the better you'll become at it and the faster you'll improve. This usually results in increased enjoyment too.

5) No passion for results -

High achievers in the gym get jacked up about results that can be in the form of increased muscle strength, increased muscle size, and increased muscle endurance. Those that fail in the gym usually lack a vision of their future physical states and a burning desire to realize positive change

What to do:

Visual imagery can be a very powerful force. Look at fitness magazines or fitness sites and find examples of what you want to look like. One great site for this is BodySpace on Bodybuilding.com. Learn what it takes to achieve the look you're after, visualize yourself looking like that and then only do things that will get you there.

6) Missing the diet equation -

Whatever your reason for working out, you won't get there without the proper diet and nutrition. And absolutely don't make the mistake that "cardio" will effectively substitute for diet discipline because it won't. Depending on your goal you'll need a specific calorie target and the correct mix of lean protein, low-glycemic carbohydrates, and healthy fats.

What to do:

Study some good books on diet and nutrition, especially related to fitness. Better yet, to get jump started hire a nutritionist or a good personal trainer that can teach you the right ways to eat and strategies for managing you diet under the stress of every day life.

7) Making workouts drudgery instead of uplifting fun -

If it's not fun you won't do it. Too often people see their workouts as a kind of punishment for being out of shape, and that workouts are to be endured rather than celebrated.

What to do:

Make workouts your personal time to get away from life's stresses and to work up a great endorphin release. Workout in a place you like to be in. This could be in the gym or in the garage.

If you don't like your gym, shop around for one that feels like someplace you look forward to being at. View your workouts as a fun investment in yourself where you get to move closer to that future "you".

Lighten Up! Maximize Your Results Through Perfect Form, Not More Weight

2010-07-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

With lifting, it's about how, not about how much....

We've all seen it, and guys are the worst, wildly swinging huge weights, bodies swaying all over the place, swayed back, half or even quarter reps, then banging the weights down hard, causing everyone in the gym to look over to see if an accident just occurred.

Yep, we're talking about what I call ego lifters. These are the guys who boost their self esteem and try to impress others by loading up as much weight as they can lift off the ground or off the rack, and then make a ridiculous mockery of themselves and the exercise they're trying to perform.

The whole intent of recreational weight lifting is to target specific muscles or muscle groups, to isolate them, and to make them work through their full range of motion to exhaustion that results in hypertrophy, or growth. To accomplish these goals we need to maximize the stress on our target muscles, getting the most possible from every single rep, and, like it or not, form is much more important than weight volume.

The important basics

When performing any given resistance training exercise, we basically have the following two muscle groups:

1) Prime Movers
2) Stabilizers

The prime movers are the muscles or muscle groups we're targeting for development, and the stabilizers are the muscles or muscle groups that hold everything else in place while we isolate the prime movers. A good example is the standing bicep curl because it's one of the most popular lifting exercises and also one of the most abused.

Clearly, in a bicep curl the bicep is our prime mover. The only intent of this exercise is to develop the bicep, which means it must be isolated, or more simply not receive help from any other source. This is much easier said than done, because our brain and our bodies are programmed only to achieve the end result, which is getting the weight from a low point to a higher point, and by nature we typically use our bodies as a system to get this done, using several muscle groups and also leveraging to get underneath the weight. To achieve muscle isolation we must re-program our body mechanics.

So first let's make an important distinction between isolation (or "iso") moves and compound moves.

In isolation moves we primarily target a single joint movement, and we isolate the muscle or muscles that move only that joint. So from our bicep example, we may think of the bicep as a single muscle, but it's actually a group of muscles that move the elbow joint to a closed position, like the quadriceps, a group of four leg muscles on the front thigh extending the leg at the knee. This helps us understand the role of "prime movers" by thinking of single joint movement.

Alternatively, compound moves involve several joints in a single movement, with the squat as a great example, involving joint movement of the knees, ankles, and hips, calling on all of the associated muscle groups that move those joints. In both isolation and in compound moves, we seek to isolate only the muscles in these joint movements as prime movers. It's the range of these prime movers that we're seeking to maximize throughout the full movement of the joint.

The important role of stabilizers

Think back to our bicep curl example. If we're to isolate the bicep complex, everything around it must be stable. And lifters must build form from the ground up just like golfers build their swing from the ground up, so with lifting it all starts with posture, balance, and core strength. To understand the importance of the ground up approach, try doing bicep curls with your back against a wall so that your body can't sway forward or backward. Notice how much harder this is. Without swaying momentum, the bicep becomes more isolated and must work harder, creating greater load and maximizing hypertrophy. Now stand away from the wall and do the curl, note the need for an upright posture, a balanced stance, and a strong core to keep from swaying. This is all part of the stabilization process.

In stabilizing, holding a strong core is critical, and we do this by pulling in our stomach and by squeezing our glutes together. This activates the torso core stabilizer muscles and will keep your body from moving at the waist and will also keep your spine and your back straight.

Now do the curl standing sideways next to a mirror and watch your elbow. Does it move forward and backward with each rep? If so, you need to engage your shoulder muscles to stabilize and stop the arm sway. Put a small piece of tape on your shirt at the bottom-most elbow position and watch to ensure the elbow does not move from this spot. If you've eliminated body sway and elbow movement, then you have successfully isolated the bicep complex and are maximizing muscle load with each rep.

Get your full range of motion and cadence

Another major sin we see created by ego lifters is limited range of motion. They load up with so much weight that their entire kinetic chain, much less their target muscles, can't handle the weight, and they compensate by shortening the muscle's range of motion, sometimes by over half. This misses the opportunity to develop the muscle's full strength and mobility potential. Worse yet, shortened reps lead to shortened muscles, creating imbalances that effect everything from symmetrical appearance to potentially causing injuries.

Additionally, ego lifters tend to rush their cadence and focus mostly on the reps concentric, or contracting portion. This leaves out two important aspects of the rep: the isometric portion where we freeze and hold the fully contracted muscle, and the eccentric portion, where the target muscle is used as brake against gravity. All three repetition aspects best mimic real life application and, when used in resistance training, can best maximize the muscle-building potential of each rep. Besides, rushing through jerky reps using too much weight puts tremendous stress on the joints and connective tissues, and who wants to be forced out for weeks while an inflamed tendon or torn muscle heals?

Conclusion

We only have so much time in the gym and we only perform so many reps per set. Using proper form can maximize the strength and muscle-building impact of each rep. So assuming an exercise targeting a specific muscle runs 4 sets of 10 reps, lighten the weight so you can use perfect form on every rep, even when fourth-set failure comes. Avoid the urge to force the rep by breaking form and watch your muscles grow. Remember, when it comes to lifting it's how, not how much!

Puncturing Popular Broscience Myths

2010-06-06T10:24:00.000-07:00

Broscience [broh-sigh-en(t)s]: A branch of knowledge or study dealing with the human body's response to strength training, supplementation, or nutrition systematically arranged to explain why one doesn't appear in the mirror as they'd prefer to appear.
Origin: 1970s California, gym locker rooms, and backstage at fitness events.

Do you remember your first time? I surely do. It was in a changing room at the gym. Two guys, one slightly muscular and the other pleasantly round. The slightly muscular guy was telling our round friend to "lift weights for size and do cardio for cuts." I'm sure you've heard that line of reasoning before; it's the most popular type of broscience.

Gymlore, regardless of how much time has passed or how much contrary information has come out, is still widely accepted, practiced, and acknowledged as truth. So, let's deflate some of these hot air balloons, shall we?

"Yo Bro, Try This!"
Broscience Myth #1: Never Eat Carbohydrates and Fat in the Same Meal

The food combining theory states that you shouldn't mix carbohydrates and fat intentionally in the same meal. The reasoning behind this is that the insulin spike from the carbohydrates will increase the chances of dietary fat being stored as body fat.

In reality, this is a very myopic view of insulin that doesn't consider the entire meal. I'd never advise a client to consume a high-carbohydrate and high-fat meal together, but there's nothing wrong with having a moderate amount of both at the same time. There's little, if any, scientific evidence to support the theory, and humans have been combining carbohydrates, fat, and protein together for ages and we turned out all right. (Well, some of us at least.)

Most of us who mean business are eating every two to three hours, which means that our nutrients from meal one are still being absorbed when we start to eat meal two. So, the nutrients from our first two meals are acting together anyway, even if we don't intend on it.

Golay, et al. conducted a study looking at a mixed diet versus the food combining theory.

Here's what they stated in their results:

"There was no significant difference in the amount of weight loss in response to dissociated (6.2 ± 0.6 kg) or balanced (7.5 ± 0.4 kg) diets. Furthermore, significant decreases in total body fat and waist-to-hip circumference ratio was seen in both groups, and the magnitude of the changes did not vary as a function of the diet composition. Fasting plasma glucose, insulin, total cholesterol and triacylglycerol concentrations decreased significantly and similarly in patients receiving both diets."

There was actually a slight increase in fat loss in the subjects who used a mixed diet. Go figure, right? We tend to focus solely on the insulin response of carbohydrates, when really the insulin response of a carbohydrate and fat meal depends on how saturated the fat is. An unsaturated fat tends to actually lower the insulin response of the carbohydrate, or not affect it at all.

You also have to factor in your caloric intake. If you're in a lower caloric state, the insulin response from a carbohydrate and fat meal can be a glorious thing. If you're eating a ton of calories, then you might want to watch out.

Let me put the nail in the coffin by saying this: If you follow the food combining theory and its rules, you'll have a harder time maintaining stable insulin levels, which is the point of the whole theory to begin with.

Broscience Myth #2: You Have to Eat Different Foods for Different Goals

Bodybuilding is a fanatical sport because everything is done in extremes. So, it only makes sense that we'd eat different foods when we have different objectives, right? Wrong as the day is long. The line of "clean" and "dirty" foods is so blurred that many a physique has been ruined as a casualty of water.

From a physiological standpoint, there's no difference between "clean" or "dirty" eating, provided that your macronutrients are kept in line with your goals. It's why the cookie-cutter bodybuilding coach that advocates one diet to rule them all often fails. You can take five different dieting bodybuilders and give them five radically different diets and they can all get shredded. It's all about hitting your macronutrient numbers.

I'm not advocating that one should eat a pizza everyday to get ready for the beach — far from it. Let's say that the protein, carbohydrate, and fat amounts in the pizza fit in with your daily allotment. You eat the pizza, and then you're done. What about the rest of the day? You won't have much room left for more fat or carbs; thus, you'll end up wrecking your physique.

Now, I brought up pizza to serve as an example. You can freely eat white rice, white bread, bagels, and pasta daily, as long as they fit into your daily macronutrient numbers.

Broscience Myth #3: Depleting Water Will Make Your Midsection Tighter and Leaner

The most common type of broscience can be found in the days leading up to a bodybuilding event, or even a big day at the beach. Individuals looking to tighten up their midsection will often progressively drop water, while raising carbohydrates throughout the week, until they get to the day of their event when they'd have zero water and ultra-high amounts of carbohydrates.

The fact of the matter is that water is stored in two different areas in the body — intracellularly and extracellularly (inside the muscle and underneath the skin, respectively). The problem with following the cool kids is that the body strictly regulates the intracellular to extracellular balance at a seventy to thirty ratio. If you pull water out of one area (like people try to do with extracellular water), it'll also be pulled out of the other area to keep that seventy to thirty balance.

The ratios don't change; you just get flatter. That is until you have your post-event binge meal and take in copious amounts of carbohydrates and water. You end up looking better the day after the event that you've trained and dieted for during the previous sixteen weeks. Not cool.

Broscience Myth #4: Sodium Makes Your Body Hold Water

This goes hand-in-hand with our previous myth. For some reason, physique athletes are so afraid of what they think sodium might do to their bodies that they put themselves on a path of destruction.

It's true that sodium does make your body hold water. I'm not denying that fact. But that's a rather simplistic view. Your sodium balance affects both fluid and blood volume. Why does that matter? Well, aren't we after a harder and tighter look that depends on both fluid and blood volume? Like the water ratio we mentioned above, the body holds on to its normal range of sodium very strictly.

Your kidneys will either increase or decrease their sodium output depending on your intake. A Harvard study done by Rogacz showed what happens when sodium is restricted over the course of six days. For those who always scream that research studies don't apply to bodybuilders, six days is the typical amount of time that athletes manipulate their intake for a contest or event.

In the Rogacz study, sodium intake was eliminated, but the sodium in the subject's blood stayed the same. By the sixth day, the body had nearly stopped getting rid of sodium. What does this mean? All the sodium manipulations that you did the previous week did nothing! All it did was raise the hormone aldosterone, which causes increased water retention and re-absorption of sodium.

Don't try to trick the body; it's always smarter than we are.

"Hey Bro, It Really Works..."

As you can see from the above four myths, the fitness and bodybuilding insider is filled with crazy claims and ridiculous rationale. Your best bet is to stay on top of the information and by practicing and using each new method. That's the only way you'll truly find out what works.

Don't listen to some folklore because the biggest or leanest guy in the gym said so.

5 Foods You Should Be Eating To Build A Healthier And Muscular Physique

2010-05-26T10:57:00.000-07:00

If you want to build a healthy, muscular physique, the quality of your food matters more than the quantity.

I see the diets of a lot of guys who want to get bigger and stronger. They run the spectrum from excellent to atrocious (mostly atrocious), but there's one commonality shared by almost all: every guys thinks his diet is perfect.

Every day I have guys tell me that they don't actually need any nutritional advice, because they "already eat really well."

Bullshit...

Talk with any good nutritionist, and they will tell you it's rare to find someone who consistently makes good food choices. In my mind, it's the true linchpin to body composition success—improving the quality of the foods you eat has just as big of an impact on your physique as the quantity you eat.

With that in mind, here are five foods that you can immediately add to your diet to improve the quality of your calories and take your physique to a whole new level

1. Sprouted Grains
Yeah, you've probably already switched to "whole-grains" instead of white bread. Unfortunately most whole-grain breads in supermarkets today are complete crap. They contain added sugar, fructose or high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten the product, as well as tons of dough conditioners to give it the mouth-feel of white bread.

While the glycemic index is overrated, it still reflects how quickly your blood sugar is raised by a food, and conventional whole-grain bread is barely any better than white. So really, you're not getting that much benefit from whole-grain bread.

This is where sprouted grains come in. Sprouting grains and seeds before baking them creates a vastly superior product. The sprouting causes the composition of the grains and seeds to change dramatically by increasing vitamin content and diminishing phytic acid content. (Phytic acid, by the way, binds to minerals and prevents their absorption. The sprouting process breaks down these bonds and increases the digestibility of the grain and its mineral content.)

Sprouted grain products are also a complete protein source, are higher in fibre, and have a much smaller impact on blood sugar than conventional whole-grains. Because these products are generally made with other grains and legumes, they have a lower gluten content, which is also a good thing.

Most sprouted-grain products don't contain any preservatives so you gotta stick these products in the fridge if you don't want to have a freaky science experiment in your cupboard.

I also suggest toasting them as it causes an enzymatic browning process that really brings out the flavour of the bread.

2. Pasture Butter
Butter, because of its high saturated fat content, generally gets a bad rap in health-conscious circles. Fortunately, we are here to enlighten you and we know that saturated is not nearly the enemy it has long been made out to be. From the right sources it's actually very beneficial.

As with all animal foods, not all butter is created equal. Conventional butter from factory-farmed animals is garbage and is to be avoided. You'll often see the ingredient annatto in the nutritional profile. This is because the beta-carotene content is so low the butter is hardly yellow at all, so annatto is added to give it some semblance of the rich yellow that real butter has.

However, butter from pasture-raised grass-fed cows is an excellent food choice. Pasture butter is high in fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and K2. Butter is also the richest known source of the short-chain fatty acid butyrate. Butyrate was recently shown to reverse the effects of metabolic syndrome in rats. (It helped the rats lose bodyweight, decrease cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting insulin while increasing insulin sensitivity.)

Butyrate is also the primary energy source for your large intestine and may have potent anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits as well.

Pasture butter, unlike conventional, also contains a nice dose of omega-3's, as well as the cancer-fighting CLA. In fact, pastured dairy products are among the richest sources of CLA on the planet, containing 3-5 times more CLA than conventionally produced dairy products.

The best part about pasture butter, though, is that it tastes freakin' incredible.

3. Coconut Oil
Just like with butter, the source of the coconut oil is of utmost importance. I highly recommend the unrefined organic extra virgin type, as it has undergone the least amount of processing and should provide you with the most benefits.

Coconut oil is also very high in saturated fat, but it's made up of a unique saturated fat called medium-chain triglycerides, or MCT's. MCT's have some incredible unique properties: they do not need bile to be digested, they are digested and absorbed intact rather than broken down, and they're more likely to be oxidized as fuel rather than stored as fat.

One of these MCT's is a fatty acid called lauric acid. Lauric acid (which is also found in FA3 makes up about 44% of the fatty acid content of coconut oil. It's converted into monolaurin in the body, which has powerful antimicrobial and antiviral properties.

It makes an awesome addition to stir-fry's, omelette's, and smoothies.

4. Chia Seeds
A long time ago chia seeds were a staple food of some of the world's most dominant civilizations like the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans. It was so prized it was actually used as a currency. (Today it's made for people who apparently can't take care of real pets.)

Chia seeds are very similar to the more common flax seed and may even be better since chia contains more soluble fibre (6 grams), a higher antioxidant content, and roughly equal omega-3 content.

The great thing about soluble fibre is that it's fermented by the intestines and made into short chain fatty acids like butyrate, which as we learned earlier, may improve health and body composition.

Chia, mainly due to its soluble fibre content again, is considered highly hydrophilic. This means that the seeds can absorb up to 12 times their weight in water and form a viscous gel (much like glucommannan), greatly increasing satiety and creating long-lasting energy. It's also a source of iron, calcium, phosphorus, and manganese. Recent research has shown that chia seeds can be beneficial for diabetics, celiac's disease, and can lower cholesterol.

So toss a tablespoon or two into your next protein shake or Greek yogurt.

5. Cacao Nibs
This is dark chocolate for men. No pussy-footing around with a high-sugar "dark" chocolate. This is the real deal, 100% cacao dark chocolate, and nothing but.

Cacao nibs are a fiber heavy-weight, providing just under five grams in 2 tablespoons, which is as much as flax. Besides its high fibre content cacao nibs contain a boatload of magnesium, as well as some copper, iron, and manganese. But the antioxidant content is where cacao nibs really shine.

They're rich in powerful antioxidants such as catechins, like in tea, and polyphenols, like in red wine. These antioxidants help cacao to lower LDL cholesterol, decrease blood pressure, improve vascular and platelet function and decrease the risk of heart disease.

Cacao nibs are perfect to add to some Greek yogurt, a smoothie, or home-made protein bars.

By itself, 100% dark chocolate tends to be a little bitter, so make sure to add it to something a little sweet to knock down that bitterness and bring out the chocolate flavour.

Wrap-Up
Like I said earlier, it's not necessarily the quantity of calories you take in but the quality. These five foods have the ability to greatly impact your health and body composition since the added fibre, healthy fats, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants will all greatly contribute to improving your health and vitality.

And while I can't guarantee that adding these foods to your diet will make you jacked instantly, I can say that optimizing your health will always help you to maximize your performance and your physique.

So, go eat!

The 1-2-1 Fitness Pound for Pound Diet Plan goes LIVE !!!

2010-05-22T08:50:00.000-07:00

9 Foods That Reduce Stress Levels

2010-05-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

Reach for these items next time you're feeling under pressure, under the weather, or just too close to that breaking point. Munching on these stress-free foods will help pull you back into the game.

Oranges

A German study in Psychopharmacology found that vitamin C helps reduce stress and return blood pressure and cortisol to normal levels after a stressful situation. Vitamin C is also well-known for boosting your immune system.

Sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes can be particularly stress-reducing because they can satisfy the urge you get for carbohydrates and sweets when you are under a great deal of stress. They are packed full of beta-carotene and other vitamins, and the fiber helps your body process the carbohydrates in a slow and steady manner.

Dried apricots

Apricots are rich in magnesium, which is a stress-buster and a natural muscle relaxant as well.

Almonds, pistachios and walnuts

Almonds are packed with B and E vitamins, which help boost your immune system, and walnuts and pistachios help lower blood pressure.

Turkey

Turkey contains an amino acid called L-tryptophan. This amino acid triggers the release of serotonin, which is a feel-good brain chemical. This is the reason why many people who eat turkey feel relaxed, or even tired, after eating it. L-Tryptophan has a documented calming effect.

Spinach

A deficiency in magnesium can cause migraine headaches and a feeling of fatigue. One cup of spinach provides 40 percent of your daily needs for magnesium.

Salmon

Diets high in omega-3 fatty acids protect against heart disease. A study from Diabetes & Metabolism found that omega-3s keep the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline from peaking.

Avocados

The monounsaturated fats and potassium in avocados help lower blood pressure. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute says that one of the best ways to lower blood pressure is to consume enough potassium (avocados have more than bananas).

Green vegetables

Broccoli, kale, and other dark green vegetables are powerhouses of vitamins that help replenish our bodies in times of stress.

More stress-busting tips:

Exercise reguarly.
Eat small meals throughout the day, which will keep your blood sugar stable (when blood sugar is low, mental, physical, and emotional energy decreases, and stress increases).

3 Fat Loss Nutrition Tips to Blast Fat

2010-05-16T07:55:00.000-07:00

I was in the shop looking for some magazines when something caught my eye. The subtitle read Hot Bodies Best Diets. I can't remember exactly which magazine featured the subtitle but it was one of the popular tabloids. I had two questions immediately.

What do they mean by "Hot Bodies"?

What do they mean by "Best Diets"?

According to the magazine "Hot Bodies" means skinny and "Best Diets" means diets that make you skinny. I looked through the magazine and I found that celebrities use all kinds of different diets just like non-celebrities. There was a common factor with all the diets in the magazine, calorie deficit. A diet that results in calorie deficit does not necessarily mean a quality diet, but it does mean weight loss. In my opinion all quality diets share some characteristics.

The key factors in quality diets are:

Calorie intake (matters whether you're consciously counting or not).
Consumption of sufficient quantity of essential nutrients.
Consideration of individual likes and dislikes.
Consideration of metabolic abnormalities.
Occasional breaks from the diet.
Recognizing that you don't have to stick to the program 100% of the time to see the benefits.

1. Junk Food
Does consuming junk food (highly processed foods) make you fat? That depends on how much junk food you eat and your average daily metabolic rate. Isn't junk food bad for your health? That depends on how much junk food you eat, your energy expenditure and whether you have any metabolic abnormalities.

2. Do Calorie Sources Matter If A Calorie Is A Calorie?
A calorie is a unit of energy. It is the amount of energy or heat that it takes to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). The energy derived from foods when they are oxidized in the body is measured in kilocalories (thousands of calories).

A kilocalorie is the amount of energy required to raise 1000 grams of water one degree Celsius. Kilocalorie is written as "Calorie" (with a capital C) or it may be abbreviated to "Kcalorie" or "Kcal." Therefore, whenever the word calorie is used in connection with food or nutrition, the meaning is always kilocalorie or calorie.

In terms of fat loss, a low calorie diet consisting of crisps will result in weight loss just like a low calorie diet consisting of fruits and vegetables. When considering which is more nutritious, fruits and vegetables wins hands down. Which is more filling? Fruits and vegetables win again. When considering issues other than energy content it's not just about calories.

We get calories from four sources including protein (4 Kcal per gram), fat (9 Kcal per gram), carbohydrate (4 Kcal per gram) and alcohol (7 Kcal per gram).

Are all calories the same? Yes and No.

Technically speaking a calorie is a calorie. The definition of a calorie does not change, but different calorie sources have different properties, and they affect the body in various ways. So, when considering nutrient value, affects on appetite, intolerances, and allergies, there are differences in calorie sources.

On a final note, some low-carb advocates claim that calories from fat are different than calories from carbohydrate. This assumption comes from the fact that short term weight loss is usually greater, even when eating the same amount of calories, with a low carbohydrate diet than a higher carbohydrate diet; however this occurs due to water loss.

3. Supplements
Do you really need to spend hundreds of pounds per month on supplements if your nutritional practices are optimal? I doubt it. Let me re-word that, no, you don't.

Supplements add to the program. They do not replace sound training and nutrition. Legendary protein researcher, Kevin Tipton, says, "There is no reason to recommend protein supplements per se because there is no evidence that supplements work better than foods." I am not anti-supplement, but I am anti-nonsense.

Coming Soon..... The Pound for Pound Diet Plan

2010-05-13T12:01:00.000-07:00

The Pound for Pound Diet Plan is like no other !

There are no membership fees !

1-2-1 training sessions in our private studio are available at no extra charge, regardless of the number of sessions you require !

A bespoke service tailored to the individual !

Food plans are created for your use at no extra cost !

and much more.....

Further details to be announced soon.......

2010-05-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

Are you considering taking part in the Standard Chartered Jersey Marathon this year?

Whether you are attempting to take-on the gruelling 26 mile course or are joining a relay team, 1-2-1 Fitness can help you with your training.

From exercise plans to 1-2-1 training sessions, we are able to assist you every step of the way.

If this is your first time running in the event, we will prepare you for the challenge.

If you are a regular runner, we will help you increase your pace and overall fitness.

For further information, call 1-2-1 Fitness on 07700 335 973

or send us an e-mail to onetoonefitness@hotmail.co.uk

How The Bodybuilding Supplement Whey Can Help You Drop Body Fat

2010-05-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

Sleep, genetics, your training program, what you eat and stress all play a role in how your body looks and how you feel. If you've made changes to what, when and how much you eat as well as your training program but you still can't seem to drop that stubborn body fat, consider how the bodybuilding supplement whey protein may help.

What Is Whey Protein?

Whey protein is a milk protein that is the liquid by-product of cheese production. In supplement form, whey protein comes in three main forms:

Whey Protein Concentrate: Contains some fat and lactose and between 29% - 89% protein depending on the specific product. Whey protein concentrates often have more bioactive compounds.

Whey Protein Isolates: Contains minimal fat, cholesterol and lactose and 90% or more protein.

Whey Protein Hydrolysates: Are often used in clinical nutrition applications because they are predigested and partially broken and therefore easier to absorb.

Whey protein has the highest protein digestibility corrected amino acid score (PDCAA) - a measure of both how well a protein is digested and how well it supplies the amino acids needed by an adult. In addition, it is a complete protein meaning it contains all essential amino acids.

Whey also contains more branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) than any other source of protein and more leucine than other types of protein.

Several studies indicate that whey protein is beneficial for increasing muscle protein synthesis. Consume whey post-training and you'll tip the scale in favour of muscle growth and strength gains over time. But, there are a number of other benefits associated with whey protein.

How Bodybuilding Supplement Whey Protein Can Help You Shed Body Fat:

Add whey and drop weight? It sounds too good to be true but it may work.

Whey Protein Is Rich in Leucine: Leucine plays a key role in protein synthesis, a process that burns through quite a few calories. In addition, it stimulates fatty acid oxidation.

Whey Satiates Your Appetite: Studies show that whey may satiate your appetite better than some other types of protein. Milk proteins contain glycomacropeptide - a peptide that stimulates the cholecystokinin (CCK). CCK is an intestinal hormone that is released after eating a meal and it signals satiety.

Studies Show Supplemental Whey Helps People Drop Body Fat: There are at least two studies where scientists examined whey protein supplementation and weight loss. In one study at the University of Oklahoma, scientists told both groups of participants not to change their diet. However, one group was given a nutrition supplement containing whey (300 calories, 40 grams of protein) once per day for two weeks and twice a day for the remaining eight weeks of the study. Both groups engaged in a supervised resistance and endurance-training program for 10 weeks.

After the 10-week study, both groups decreased fat mass but the exercise + food supplement group showed a significantly greater decrease in fat mass (-9.3% versus -4.6% in the exercise-only group). The supplemented group also showed significant gains from pre- to post-test in muscle mass and significant decreases in total and LDL cholesterol.

A 2006 study found that adding 60 grams of whey protein per day, in comparison to 60 grams of soy protein or 60 grams of carbohydrate, led to significant decreases in body fat and weight after 6 months.

Additional Tips To Help Shed Body Fat:

Use a food journal and write down everything you eat. Studies show that people who log their food intake every day are more likely to lose weight than those who do not.

Seek the advice of a sports nutrition expert to help you.

If you are having problems losing weight yet you feel you are doing everything right, talk to your physician. Low levels of certain hormones, hypothyroidism and other conditions can make weight loss more difficult.

Conclusion:

If you want to shed body fat, it makes prudent sense to incorporate whey protein into your routine. As a bodybuilder, this is something you should already be doing. After all, why spend time in the gym trying to get a better body (health and physique) if you aren't going to eat the right foods to support the changes you are striving for? Try whey, if nothing else, you'll likely notice an increase in strength.

Quick and Easy Pea and Ham Soup

2010-05-06T11:48:00.001-07:00

This recipe is so easy, I thought it was worth mentioning it here...

I was looking for something to snack on the other day so decided to make a soup.

I looked through the cupboards and nothing appealed to me. I then thought "I know, I will make a soup".

Within 10 minutes I had created a wonderful and healthy soup packed full of vitamins, protein and fibre.

Here is how it was made....

Chop 2 spring onions into a pan and gently fry in olive oil.

Once softened, add frozen peas to the pan (the amount depends on how many you are cooking for so you be the judge).

As soon as the peas are defrosted, add enough water to just cover the peas. Add a ham stock cube also (add 2 cubes if cooking for 2 people).

Stir until the stock cubes have dissolved.

Break 2 bay leaves into the soup (without stalks) and heat for 10 minutes.

Add pepper and then blend until smooth.

Serve and enjoy.

Stir in a spoon of yogurt if you want to be naughty...

3 Key Factors for Fat Loss – Part 3

2010-04-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

Key #3:
Exercise

You will lose fat by dieting alone, but not as effectively as you would using a calorie controlled diet and exercise plan. If you just dieted, you would end up as a smaller version of yourself.

Exercise helps you to build muscle (which helps you to burn more calories and lose more fat in the process), as well as helping you feel good about yourself, and providing a way to destress. The FITT and SOAP principles should be applied to your exercise program.

The FIIT principle:

Frequency: The number of training sessions completed in a given time period.

Intensity: The level of exertion that you are training at - i.e. if you are training for basic strength you will be using 80-90% of your one repetition maximum.

Time: How long the session lasts for - i.e. resistance training should last no longer than 45-50 minutes.

Type: What mode of exercise is being performed - i.e. aerobic, anaerobic, strength, power, etc.

The SOAP principle:

Specificity: Training you in a manner specific to producing the training adaptation or goal achievement desired - i.e. you must be training for fat loss. "Specificity also relates to the athlete's sport season. As an athlete progresses through the pre-season, in-season, and postseason, all forms of training should gradually progress in an organized manner from generalized to sport specific" - i.e. if you are an athlete your off-season would be general conditioning, progressing to strength and power work, then speed, and eventually to sports specific exercises. "The more similar the training activity is to the sport movement, the greater the likelihood that there will be a positive transfer to that sport".

Overload: "Refers to assigning a workout or training regime of greater intensity than the athlete is accustomed to. Without the stimulus of overload, even an otherwise well-designed program greatly limits the athlete's ability to make improvements. Overload training principles ensure that the muscles involved in the selected exercises are those that the sport relies on and that the loads are sufficient to challenge the athlete to become stronger, larger, faster, and more resistant to fatigue" - i.e. if you are training for strength, then if you do not consistently increase weights lifted during resistance training, then you are not overloading the muscles enough to get stronger. It is only when the body is consistently pushed that gains are made.

Adaptation: Training must be continually progressing via overload; otherwise [positive] adaptations can be lost quickly and performance can begin to decline, with fitness and conditioning sometimes returning to its initial state - i.e. if there was no periodization to your training and you perpetually did the same thing, then your body would stop making adaptations and progressing.

Progression: "The intensity of the training must become progressively greater. Progression, when applied properly, promotes long-term training benefits" - i.e. this is why you must change your training program every 4-6 weeks, to ensure that you are providing new challenges and continually getting results.

The best exercise program for losing fat is one that includes weights, cardio (mostly in the form of high intensity training), and flexibility (to help your muscle flexibility and joints).

Resistance Training:

If you are a beginner, you can start off with 2-3 full-body workouts each week. Otherwise, I would recommend a 3 or 4 day split. Each muscle group should be rested for at least 1 day before training that muscle group again. This gives it plenty of time to recover before the next training session.

Exercises that you should be doing are multijoint, compound exercises, as they use more than one muscle, and are the most effective for not only building muscle, but also in burning fat, because they are recruiting more of your body to perform the exercise than isolation exercises (these are a waste of time unless you are a seasoned lifter and are looking to target specific muscle groups).

The best compound exercises that you can do are the squat and the deadlift, as they use pretty much every muscle in your body. Other compound exercises that are good to include are the bench press, shoulder press, pullups, dips, and calf raises (the only isolation exercise that's really good).

You should be performing between 25-40 repetitions per muscle group, consisting of 3 sets of 10 repetitions for example per exercise, with a 1 minute recovery in between the sets (the shorter the recovery, the lighter your weights will possibly be, which will give you a 'cardio' workout as well).

Be sure that you always use good form for every exercise; otherwise you are putting yourself at risk for injury. All reps should be controlled and with good form. It is not about how much you can lift, but how well you lift. You will get stronger as you keep at it (although maybe not so much when trying to lose fat, but this depends on the individual).

You should never spend longer than 45-50 minutes in total lifting (i.e. your session should take that long from the time you walk in to the time you walk out, excluding if you do a warm-up - and this is strictly your own preference); otherwise you become too catabolic and can end up losing muscle.

You also need to change your weights program around slightly every 4-6 weeks, just so that your body does not get used to it and stop adapting. This can be as little as changing the order of exercises in a session or the number of sets and/or reps that you do for an exercise (and it only needs to be one exercise changed at a time, small adjustments over the weeks).

Here's a sample circuit plan for a beginner. This is a very basic routine, designed to get you 'used' to resistance training and condition your body for it, building a base to work on, whilst also targeting your goals. After 4-6 weeks you will need to change your program.

Do an easy 10 minute warm-up. Select weights that you can do for said reps on each exercise (but not too much more), and use these for the entire session.

Complete exercises in order from 1-7, with minimal recovery (ideally it should be moving from one exercise to another; but if you are a beginner 30-60 seconds will be ok). At the end of one set (i.e. 1-10) rest for 1 minute, and then repeat. Stretch full-body for 5 minutes after your session. This should take ~45 minutes in total.

Every week your weights should increase (i.e. not on all sessions, but keep weights the same for a week, and increase as you can for the next week's sessions), so that you keep challenging your body.

Beginner Fat Loss Workout Program:

Barbell Squats: 2 sets of 15 reps
Romanian Deadlifts: 2 sets of 15 reps
Standing Calf Raises: 2 sets of 15 reps
Pullups: 2 sets to failure
Pushups: 2 sets to failure
Dumbbell Shoulder Press: 2 sets of 15 reps
Crunches: 2 sets to failure

I highly recommend getting a personal trainer if you are a beginner, so that you can be shown the correct technique (very important) for each exercise.

Personal trainers can be there with you for your first few sessions, to determine starting weights, as you get acquainted with resistance training. They also provide motivation, support, and a source for accountability.

A personal trainer will also assist in creating a workout for you and should offer nutrition advice.

Cardio

Whilst long, slow cardio burns calories, you require long periods of time to do it. Some even recommend doing two hours of cardio a day, or double cardio sessions, to lose fat, but it's simply not necessary.

The most effective way to burn fat through cardio is to do either:

Interval training

Cardio at a higher intensity (i.e. just going out and running as fast as you can over a certain distance, instead of 45 minutes at a 60% max heart rate).

Forget about the 'Fat Burning Zone'; it does not matter what fuel you use during cardio, as your body will burn other substrates during the rest of the day (i.e. if you burn fat during cardio it will use carbs the rest of the day, and vice versa).

If you feel that you need to do more cardio, then you can do brisk walks every other day, or perhaps a run (but no more than 30 minutes; after 30 minutes of running you are very catabolic and are likely to lose muscle, which you do not want happening). Skipping, stair sprinting/running, or rowing, are the next highest calorie burners after sprinting.

Flexibility:

Stretch for 10-20 minutes per day, preferably after you have done either cardio or weights, while your muscles are still warm, as this decreases the risk of injury. Stretching makes sure that you can move more freely and easily and helps elongate the muscles, ligaments, and tendons.

Remember that when it comes to exercise more is not always best!

You want maximal results for minimal time. You also need to remember that some of this is experimental, and about finding what works best for you, since everyone is different and responds differently to different exercise programs.

Conclusion

The first step to successful fat loss is to set a goal. Your goal should follow the principles of SMART goal-setting. Once you have set your goal, then you need to look at your nutrition.

Your diet should be individualised for you, to ensure that you get the results that you want in the timeframe that you want them. Your diet should follow the principles of adequacy, balance, energy control, nutrient density, moderation, and variety.

The last piece of the fat loss puzzle is exercise. Your exercise program should follow the FITT and SOAP principles; and include resistance training (3-4 times weekly), cardio (predominantly in the form of high intensity sessions), and flexibility (to aid your joints and muscles).

As long as you are eating right for you for fat loss, doing weights 3-4 times per week, doing cardio 2-3 or more times per week for 12-30 minutes per day (depending on the intensity; the higher the intensity the shorter you do it for!), and allowing your body to recover (this is very important; if you do too much, then your body will not be able to recover properly and you will not get the results you want, since your body only adapts and gets results in the recovery time!), then you will successfully lose fat!

1-2-1 Fitness can help you start your journey to a leaner, fitter body.

Please contact me for further information.

3 Key Factors for Fat Loss – Part 2

2010-04-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

Key #2:
Nutrition

When you look at your nutrition you should think "diet", as defined by a diet plan that can only be sustained for short periods of time (i.e. low calorie or low carbohydrate diets). When you think "diet", you should think lifestyle eating (i.e. your diet should be something that you can easily maintain all year round, with the only thing you change about it being the amount of calories consumed, based upon your body goal).

Your diet plan should incorporate 6 principles:

Adequacy: Your diet provides enough energy and nutrients to meet your needs.

Balance: Not over consuming any single type of food.

Energy Control: You need to know what your energy needs are (i.e. maintenance), and allow for that; to ensure that you get the nutrients that you require without going in excess of your required calories, use foods that have a high nutrient density.

Nutrient Density: Select foods that deliver the most nutrients for the least energy.

Moderation: Moderating portion sizes; and consuming foods that contain high fat and sugar in moderation.

Variety: Eating a variety of foods day-to-day.

Here are some tips on diet for fat loss:

Eat every 2-3 hours after waking. This helps keep the metabolism going throughout the day, as well as keeping insulin levels stable (you can see that 3 meals is simply not enough, even if they are in small portions).

Every meal should include quality lean protein (i.e. chicken breast, fish, tuna, salmon, lean beef, egg whites, etc.), and fibrous carbs (i.e. vegetables, green ones in particular). Complex carbohydrates (i.e. rice, oats, etc.), should be consumed mainly around your workouts.

Do not avoid fat (except saturated fat and trans fats). You need fat in your diet, as fat plays major roles in energy metabolism and other parts of your body. It is important to ensure that you consume your required amount of good fats (i.e. flaxseeds or flaxseed oil, fish oils, peanut butter, nuts - especially almonds and walnuts, hempseed oil, olive oil, etc.) each day.

Do not avoid carbs completely. You need a small amount of carbs each day for your body to burn fat effectively and to provide the energy requirements of your brain and central nervous system.

The only sugar needed on a regular basis is the natural sugar found in food; these are mostly found in fruit. Too much sugar plays havoc with insulin levels; you want these as stable as possible throughout the day. The best time to be having sugar is straight after a resistance workout, when the body is trying to replenish muscle glycogen stores. Therefore, make sure that you have a protein shake with some simple sugar (i.e. fruit smoothie with ice and protein powder is great here) as soon as possible after your resistance training, and then a proper meal (i.e. complex carbs, protein, fibrous carbs) about 60 minutes after your post-workout shake.

Consume adequate protein, to prevent muscle loss and maintain a relatively high thermic effect.

It has been proven that one or two servings of dairy per day help you lose more fat than if you avoid it altogether.

At a minimum your body requires 2 litres of water per day to cover its water needs. For those with higher energy outputs, good recommendation is to drink 4 litres of water per day. This will help keep your system clean.

Do not drink black tea or coffee. Try drinking green tea instead; it helps with thermogenesis, and is especially good if you take it one hour before doing cardio first thing in the morning.

Do not drink alcohol. Alcohol has no nutritional value and is full of calories.

Minimize salt addition to food. Instead, flavour meals with herbs and spices (i.e. ginger, cumin, cayenne pepper, curry powder, chilli powder, and garlic all help thermogenesis).

Eat most food as 'natural' as possible. This means fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, grains, etc. Try not to eat too much packaged food, as it is full of extra calories and sugar.

Most importantly, remember that it is OK to cheat every now and then. Actually the body needs cheat meals. By throwing all the guidelines just mentioned out of the way and having a day where you eat what you want it helps not only your mind, but also in preventing your body from going into starvation mode (i.e. where the body battles you to hold onto the fat as much as it can). If you prefer not to 'cheat', then add in 1-2 higher calorie days (i.e. go up to just above maintenance, or bulking, or even slightly higher), with the extra calories coming from quality complex carbs.

Supplements should not be a big deal, as most fat loss can be done through simply eating the right food at the right time; and unless everything that you are doing is already done to ensure the maximum results in the timeframe that you want to achieve it in, and then supplementation should not be the focus. However, there are a few supplements that I think are important to any regime.

Multivitamin: Although you should be eating as much of a variety of food as possible, in order to meet the RDI/AI of most nutrients from actual food.

Creatine Monohydrate: Creatine helps the body to recover faster, as well as indirectly aiding in increasing strength levels and lean body mass.

Flaxseed/Fish Oil: This is the good fats. Flaxseed or Hempseed oil is great with breakfast or in protein shakes.

Protein Powder: This just helps when you are struggling to fit a meal in, or after the gym, and to make sure that you get enough protein in.
Apart from these four 'staple' supplements, you do not need much else. You especially do not need fat-burners or thermogenics; they are a waste of time unless you are already lean and are looking for that 'extra edge' to lose the extra % BF (i.e. like a fitness competitor, etc.)

The 1-2-1 Fitness Diet is available at a very competitive rate. We will calculate your daily nutrient requirements for you, help you with meal plans and assist you all the way until you reach your goal.

Please contact me if you would like more information regarding the 1-2-1 Fitness Diet.

Part 3 of this article will be coming soon....

3 Key Factors for Fat Loss – Part 1

2010-04-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Many people have the desire to lose weight. More specifically, many people desire to lose body fat . However, most of those people do not know how to go about it. They see conflicting messages everywhere, from one fad diet to another, one person telling them one thing about training and someone else telling them differently.

Those who are successful at fat loss know their body well and how it responds to different aspects of nutrition and training manipulation. Those who do not know look to those who are successful and try to emulate their methods. What everyone needs to remember is that everything is individual. What works for one person may not work for another.

However, there are three keys to fat loss that apply to everyone:

1. Goal Setting
2. Nutrition
3. Exercise

Each key is important, and without one of those keys, whilst one may lose weight/bodyfat for a time, they are less likely to keep that weight/bodyfat off.

This article is going to discuss the first key, and make suggestions on how to utilize them effectively for fat loss.

Key #1:
Goal Setting

The first thing that you need to do, before you look at diet and exercise, is to set goals. Look at where you are now, and what you want to be. Your end goal can be whatever you want, because as long as you give yourself a realistic timeframe to achieve it in, you can achieve anything that you want!

Once you have set your long-term goal, then you need to set smaller goals - these are your short-term goals that will help you get to your long-term goal. Goals made should be SMART goals.

Specific: You must be specific in what your goals is - i.e. I want to lose 4% bodyfat in 8 weeks.

Measurable: You must be able to measure your progress towards achieving your goal - i.e. %bodyfat can be measured doing a 6-8 skinfold body composition test every week.

Adjustable: Your goals must be able to be adjusted if for whatever reason something happens and they no longer become realistic for the period that you have set yourself.

Realistic: Your goals must be realistic - i.e. losing 4% bodyfat in 8 weeks is realistic; losing 4% bodyfat in 2 weeks is NOT.

Time-Based: You must set a time frame over which you want to achieve your goal; have specific start and finish dates- i.e. I want to lose 4% bodyfat in the period 13 July to 6 September.

Part 2 (Nutrition) will be posted soon, so keep your eyes peeled for it....

Using a Foam Roller ? You should be !

2010-04-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

A decade ago, strength coaches and athletic trainers would have looked quizzically at a 36-inch long cylindrical piece of foam and wondered, "What is that for?" Today, nearly every athletic training room and most strength and conditioning facilities contain an array of foam rollers of different lengths and consistencies.

What happened to bring foam rollers into prominence? The change has been in our attitude toward massage therapy. We have been slowly moving away from an injury care mode of isokinetics and electronics to more European-inspired processes that focus on hands-on soft tissue care. We now realize that techniques like massage, Muscle Activation (MAT), and Active Release Therapy (ART) can work wonders for sore or injured athlete.

In addition, the understanding at the elite athlete level is: If you want to stay healthy, get a good manual therapist in your corner. Thus, athletes at all levels are starting to ask for some form of soft tissue care.

What does all this have to do with foam rollers? As coaches and athletic trainers watched elite-level athletes experience success from various soft tissue techniques, the obvious question arose: How can I make massage available to large groups of athletes at a reasonable cost? Enter the foam roller.

National Academy of Sports Medicine President Michael Clark, DPT, MS, PT, NASM-PES, is credited by many-this author included-with exposing the sports medicine community to the foam roller. In one of Clarke's early manuals, he included a few photos of self-myofascial release using a foam roller. The technique illustrated was simple and self-explanatory: Get a foam roller and use your bodyweight to apply pressure to sore spots.

Since then, many of us have discovered more uses for foam rollers, including injury prevention and performance enhancement. We've also moved away from the accupressure concept and now use them more for self-massage. And we've come up with specific protocols for different situations.

Essentially, foam rollers are the poor man's massage therapist. They provide soft tissue work to the masses in any setting. But you need to know their nuances to get the most out of them.

What, How & When

A foam roller is simply a cylindrical piece of extruded hard-celled foam. Think swimming pool noodles, but a little more dense and larger in diameter. They usually come in one-foot or three-foot lengths. I find the three-foot model works better, but it obviously takes up more space.

They are also now available in a number of densities from relatively soft foam (slightly harder than a pool noodle), to newer high-density rollers that feel much more solid. The denser the athlete, the more dense the roller should be. Large, heavily-muscled athletes will do better with a very high density roller whereas a smaller, younger athlete should begin with a less dense product.

The application techniques are simple. Clarke's initial recommendation was based on an accupressure concept, in which pressure is placed on specific surfaces of the body. Athletes were instructed to use the roller to apply pressure to sensitive areas in their muscles-sometimes called trigger points, knots, or areas of increased muscle density. The idea was to allow athletes to apply pressure to injury-prone areas themselves.

The use of foam rollers has progressed in many circles from an accupressure approach to self-massage, which I've found to be more effective. The roller is now usually used to apply longer more sweeping strokes to the long muscle groups like the calves, adductors, and quadriceps, and small directed force to areas like the TFL, hip rotators, and glute medius.

Athletes are instructed to use the roller to search for tender areas or trigger points and to roll these areas to decrease density and over-activity of the muscle. With a little direction on where to look, most athletes easily find the tender spots on their own. However, they may need some instruction on the positioning of the roller, such as parallel, perpendicular, or 45 degrees, depending on the muscle.

The feel of the roller and intensity of the self-massage should be properly geared to the age, comfort, and fitness level of the athlete. This is one of the plusses of having the athlete roll themselves-they can control the intensity with their own body weight.

There is no universal agreement on when to roll, how often to roll, or how long to roll, but generally, techniques are used both before and after a workout. Foam rolling prior to a workout can help decrease muscle density and promote a better warmup. Rolling after a workout may help muscles recover from strenuous exercise.

My preference is to have athletes use the rollers before every workout. We also use them after a workout if athletes are sore.

One of the nice things about using the foam roller is that it can be done on a daily basis. In fact, in their book, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, Clair Davies and Amber Davies recommend trigger point work up to 12 times a day in situations of acute pain.

How long an athlete rolls is also determined on a case-by-case basis. I usually allow five to 10 minutes for soft tissue activation work at the beginning of the session prior to warmup. If my athletes roll after their workout, it is done for the same length of time.

Some Specifics

While the foam roller can be used on almost any area of the body, I have found it works best on the lower extremities. There is not as much dense tissue in the upper body and our athletes are not prone to the same frequency of upper body strains as lower. The hamstrings and hip flexors seem to experience the most muscle strains, so we concentrate on those areas.

Here are some protocols I use:

Gluteus max and hip rotators: The athlete sits on the roller with a slight tilt and moves from the iliac crest to the hip joint to address the glute max. To address the hip rotators, the affected leg is crossed to place the hip rotator group in an elongated position. As a general rule of thumb, 10 slow rolls are done in each position (although there are no hard and fast rules for reps). Often athletes are simply encouraged to roll until the pain disappears.

TFL and Gluteus Medius: The tensor fasciae latae and gluteus medius, though small in size, are significant factors in anterior knee pain. To address the TFL, the athlete begins with the body prone and the edge of the roller placed over the TFL, just below the iliac crest

After working the TFL, the athlete turns 90 degrees to a side position (see Figure Three on page XX) and rolls from the hip joint to the iliac crest to address the gluteus medius.

Adductors: The adductors are probably the most neglected area of the lower body. A great deal of time and energy is focused on the quadriceps and hamstring groups and very little attention is paid to the adductors. There are two methods to roll the adductors. The first is a floor-based technique that works well for beginners. The user abducts the leg over the roller and places the roller at about a 60-degree angle to the leg. The rolling action begins just above the knee in the area of the vastus medialis and pes anserine, and should be done in three portions. To start, 10 short rolls are done covering about one third the length of the femur. Next, the roller is moved to the mid-point of the adductor group and again rolled 10 times in the middle third of the muscle. Last, the roller is positioned high into the groin almost to the pubic symphysis for a final set of 10 rolls.

The second technique for the adductors should be used after the athlete is comfortable with the first one. This exercise requires the athlete to sit on a training room table or the top of a plyometric box, which allows him or her to shift significantly more weight onto the roller and work deeper into the large adductor triangle. The athlete then performs the same rolling movements mentioned above.

Although I primarily use the rollers for athletes' legs, they can also be used with upper extremities. The same techniques can be used for pecs, lats, and rotator cuffs, although with a much smaller amplitude-making the movements closer to accupressure.

Assessing Effectiveness

Foam rolling is hard work that can even border on being painful. Good massage work, and correspondingly good self-massage work, may be uncomfortable, much like stretching. Therefore, it is important that athletes learn to distinguish between a moderate level of discomfort related to working a trigger point and a discomfort that can lead to injury.

When an athlete has completed foam rolling, he or she should feel better, not worse. And the rollers should never cause bruising. Ask the athlete how his or her muscles feel after each session to assess if the techniques are working.

I also judge whether foam rolling is working by monitoring compliance. If I don't have to tell athletes to get out the foam roller before a workout, I know the techniques are working. Most do it without prompting as they see the benefits.

Rolling vs. Massage

The question often arises: "Which is better, massage therapy or a foam roller?" To me the answer is obvious: Hands-on work is better than foam. Hands are directly connected to the brain and can feel. A foam roller cannot feel. If cost was not an issue I would have a team of massage therapists on call for my athletes at all times.

However, having an abundance of massage therapists on staff is not in most of our budgets. Therein lies the beauty of the foam rollers: They provide unlimited self-massage for around £20. Sounds like a solution to me.

Antioxidants: Twenty Of The Best Health-Boosting Foods

2010-04-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

The US Department of Agriculture recently presented a Top 20 list, which provides a surprisingly helpful guide for picking out some of the healthiest foods the next time you go to the supermarket. (I say 'surprisingly' because these are the same people that brought us that famous food pyramid that was built on refined flour.)

Measuring up
Last month, a team of USDA nutritionists published a study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The title: 'Lipophilic and hydrophilic antioxidant capacities of common foods in the United States.'

Snappy title. But perhaps a more descriptive title would be 'Top 20 antioxidant-rich foods.'

The USDA nutritionists examined more than 100 different kinds of fruits, vegetables, nuts, spices, cereals and other foods. Using an analysis method called the oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), they were able to detect the lipid soluble (lipophilic) and water soluble (hydrophilic) antioxidant capacities of the food samples.

They also singled out certain foods to test the impact from two different processing methods: cooking and peeling.

Starting at the bottom...

The results weren't altogether surprising: Fruits, vegetables and beans claimed nearly all the spots in the Top 20. We'll start with the lower ten, counting backwards:

20. Gala apples
19. Plums
18. Black beans (dried)
17. Russet potatoes (cooked)
16. Black plums
15. Sweet cherries
14. Pecans
13. Granny Smith apples
12. Red delicious apples
11. Strawberries

If there's a surprise here, it's that strawberries - known for their high antioxidant content - just missed the top ten.

Cream of the crop....

When I began reading the USDA study, I tried to guess the number one antioxidant food before looking at the list. I guessed 'blueberries,' and I was close, but not quite on the money. Here's the Top 10:

10. Raspberries
9. Prunes
8. Blackberries
7. Artichokes (cooked)
6. Cranberries
5. Blueberries (cultivated)
4. Pinto beans
3. Red kidney beans
2. Blueberries (wild)

And the number one antioxidant-rich food:

1. Small red beans (dried)

Small red beans! Who knew? The small red bean looks like a kidney bean - same colour and shape - except that it's (you guessed it) smaller. It's sometimes identified as a Mexican red bean, but it's grown in Washington, Idaho, and Alberta, Canada.

To cook, or not to cook...
The USDA list is very useful, but it's important to remember that the best way to get your antioxidants is not to eat heaping bowls of dried small red beans each day, but rather to eat a wide variety of antioxidant-rich foods.

That way you'll also get other useful nutrients, such as ellagitannin; a substance that has been shown to help prevent the growth of cancerous cells and is found in raspberries and strawberries. And when you eat pecans you'll add copper and potassium to your diet.

Pinto and kidney beans are good sources of folate (sometimes called vitamin B-9), which may help lower homocysteine levels. And blueberries deliver a chemical called anthocyanis that has been shown to help protect brain cells.

As you might imagine, most antioxidant foods lose some of their antioxidant capacities in processing. (The most notable exception is the tomato; the antioxidant lycopene is enhanced by cooking.) Ronald L. Prior (one of the study co-authors) told HealthDayNews that 'fresh' is the unsurprising best choice over frozen, cooked or otherwise processed.

So while blueberry pie may seem like a somewhat healthy treat, it can't begin to compare with a bowl of blueberries, picked fresh from the meadow.

The Basics Of Bulking And Adding Lean Mass

2010-04-16T06:51:00.000-07:00

While most of us are always trying to lose weight, there are some people who are interested in just bulking up; which in simple terms means eating more and training heavier in order to gain muscle weight.

There could be many reasons for this such as, a person has been dieting for a long period of time and wishes to increase size and muscle tone.

Or, a sports person that includes a vast amount of cardiovascular exercise into their routine and has suffered muscle atrophy.

Like everything, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. I see many people who in an attempt to gain weight just start eating everything in sight, and thus, either overtax their digestive systems, thus not being able to eat several times a day, and/or simply start gaining too much body fat, as the case is for those without a hardgainer metabolism.

In order to gain quality weight, the nutrients taken in have to be of a high quality nature. While some hardgainers have such a fast metabolism that they could benefit from also adding cheat meals to their nutrition plan, the best way to gain weight is through a planned and controlled increase in macronutrient intake. By ensuring that the quality of the nutrients is high (such as low glycemic index carbohydrates, low fat proteins and high quality fats) muscle weight gain is optimized and fat weight is minimized.

However, in order for a bulk up phase to be effective, it needs to be executed properly. Otherwise, you end up gaining way too much body fat, which at the end of the day, whether you just want to look good for the beach over the summer or participate at a bodybuilding competition, you will need to lose anyways. In this bulk up/weight gain guide I'll teach you the bulking up rules to gaining some solid muscle weight while minimizing fat gains.

When To Bulk Up
First of all, bulking up is not about eating everything in sight and trying to lift as heavy as possible hoping that all of the increased weight gain will come in the form of muscle. This old school strategy will only lead to excessive fat gain. The best time, in my opinion, to bulk up is after you have been dieting for a long period of time. At this time your body will act like a sponge and absorb all of the nutrients that you give it at peak efficiency in response to the fact that it has not been getting such an influx of nutrients for a while. Also, if you are above 10% body fat, in which case you cannot see your abs, then you need to concentrate on losing body fat up until the point (at the very least) where you can see the top two rows of abs (when you have a four pack). Your bulk up plan will work even better, however, if you get down to where you can easily see your full abdominal wall (which is around 6-7% body fat for most people) as when you increase calories in this state, your body will be more primed to gain most of the weight in the form of muscle mass in response to the low calorie period that came before it.

Bulking Up Basics
Having said that, know that while most of the weight that you will gain will be in the form of muscle, some of it will be in the form of fat no matter how good your diet is. The reason for that is the fact that on a state of caloric surplus (when you feed your body more calories than what is burned) some of those calories are stored as body fat. However, by bulking up on good foods, by training hard and by starting from a low percentage of body fat, you will minimize the fat gain and maximize the muscle mass gain.

Blast: Metabolic Interval Training

2010-04-16T00:23:00.000-07:00

You know what's really cool about powerlifters and strongman competitors? Their necks are wider than their heads. You just gotta love that.

But I'm talking about something else cool about them: They do what works. No bullshit, no endless study-flinging — they just try stuff. If it works, they keep it. If it doesn't, they dump it. It's like survival of the fittest for training methodologies.

That's why I was intrigued when I heard about Chad Coy, a dude who's both a powerlifting champ, a strongman athlete, and a trainer and gym owner. When guys like Chad say something works, they mean it. They've tested it in the real world, and they wouldn't use it if it didn't get them fast results.

This is Chad's method for stripping body fat off in record time. He calls it "Blast." I just call it one hard-ass workout.

Beg, Borrow, and Steal to Get Ripped Fast
Metabolic interval training, or "Blast" as I call my version of it, is an exercise protocol that utilizes the latest science of endocrinology and performance training to totally tax the body's major energy systems. The main focus of Blast is to maximize the use of stored adipose tissue (fat) as a fuel source, both during and after exercise.

Blast is a "beg, borrow, and steal" type of training, taking ideas from every aspect of exercise to make a superior training session that incinerates fat at an incredible rate. In a given session, you could experience a combination of standard resistance training, calisthenics, body-weight training, gymnastics, reactive training — that's plyos for you old-schoolers — Olympic movements, kettlebell training, and strongman events in one integrated interval training session.

These sessions are fast paced, involving intervals of hard work and short rest periods to produce maximum fat loss in the shortest period of time. And don't just think gymrats are the only ones who thinks this works — it's backed up by science.

In a 2008 study presented in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning, metabolic interval-type training had a ten-fold greater fat loss when compared to either aerobic exercise or weight training individually. Numerous other studies found in The Journal of Medicine and Science in Sport, The European Journal of Physiology, The Journal of Sports Nutrition, and The European Journal of Applied Physiology over the last eight years have supported this.

Some research showed that metabolic interval training actually had as much as a 50 percent increase in the use of fat as a fuel source during exercise. One research study showed that this type of training produced EPOC (Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption) that lasted 16 to 48 hours.

As a personal trainer and performance coach, I have to produce results fast or I'll find myself without a job. As an athlete myself, I've trained about every way known to man in the last 30 years, but I'm always looking for more productive ways of doing things. After reading the research, I began working on how to incorporate this type of training into what we do at my gym.

Over the last twelve months I've been working on the Blast training protocols with all my clients: professional and college athletes, bodybuilders, strongmen, MMA fighters, police officers, firefighters, powerlifters, and MILF's (Moms in Love with Fitness — get your mind out of the gutter). Through the use of Polar heart rate monitors and the BodyBugg by APEX, we found that the average client burned 11kcal per minute during exercise and had an elevated metabolism post exercise.

I haven't seen the 16 to 48 hours of EPOCH that some of the science has reported, but my clients have maintained a metabolic "afterburn" of four hours on the average.

One thing that I didn't expect was that this type of training helps aid recovery. Like "feeder" sets, Blast does a great job of flushing out the metabolic garbage from muscles by pumping tons of blood through them. GPP (general physical preparedness) is most assuredly improved by doing metabolic interval training.

Enough science. Time to show you how to do it!

You can work this in as a stand-alone session or build it into your body part splits. I'll give you some loose guidelines of how we do it for a stand-alone session.

Work and Rest
We start with a split of 30 seconds of work to 20 seconds of rest. We'll work up to 45 seconds of work and as little rest as 15 seconds.

Week 1: 30 seconds work / 20 seconds rest / 120 seconds between rounds
Week 2: 35 seconds work / 15 seconds rest / 110 seconds between rounds
Week 3: 40 seconds work / 20 seconds rest / 100 seconds between rounds
Week 4: 45 seconds work / 15 seconds rest / 90 seconds between rounds

Exercise Selection and Load
The bigger the movement the better, but the load doesn't need to be super high. I personally prefer compound movements across as many joints as possible and a load that allows 15 or more reps to be completed in the interval.

Stations and Rounds
Twelve stations and three rounds is what seems to work best. Much more than that and my clients — regardless of their conditioning — seem to just shut down. Our typical session lasts about 45 minutes.

Breaks Between Rounds
We range between 90 and 120 seconds of rest between rounds. That's generally enough time to wipe your face off and get a sip of water.

Note: The rest between rounds can be adjusted depending on condition of those in a training session. Some of our high school teams have gone up to 60 seconds work and 15 seconds rest.

Frequency
Training sessions per week should be limited to no more than four. Most of my clients lift weights two times per week and then add one to two Blast sessions.

Effort
How much effort should you put into each set and every round? I guess that depends on what you want to get out of the training? More effort = better results!

A "Regular Gym" Example
At my facility we have all kinds of specialized equipment. Your gym probably doesn't. Sorry about that. But here's a session example you can do with common equipment that'll leave you sucking gas and dripping sweat.

1. Body weight squats
2. Pulldown with reverse grip
3. Push-up
4. Dumbbell high pulls
5. Stationary speed skaters
6. Dumbbell bent-over rows
7. Jump dip. You'll need something to absorb your jump, such as an aerobic step.
8. Hanging leg raise (hold chin bar)
9. Lunge walk while holding plate locked out over your head
10. Ab roll-out
11. Dumbbell stiff-leg deadlifts
12. Standing broad jumps

Bonus Round
Fifteen to twenty minutes of good old low- to moderate-intensity cardio. The calories burned during this time period are almost exclusively fat because of the hormonal cascade you set up during the metabolic interval training.

Same Session Blast
Like the idea but aren't super keen on doing an entire separate session? Then just toss it in at the end of your workout.

Start out with no more than three exercises and three rounds at the end of your main training session. I've done the same body parts that I just trained, and I've just worked feeder sets for what I hit the day or two before. Both ways produce great results.

Give this session a shot and let me know what you think!

The Football Strength, Speed and Endurance Program

2010-04-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

With the current football season drawing to a close, most players will do very little exercise during the break until the dreaded pre-season training sessions take place.

Some may go for a run a couple of times a week and others may opt for a kick-around with their mates.

Why not take advantage of the break and get yourself stronger, quicker and fitter.

Get the upper-hand on your competitors and start next season at the top of your game.

During the break, 1-2-1 Fitness will be offering routines specifically designed to increase your strength, speed and endurance.

These are all vital components to make you a better player.

1-2-1 Fitness is also offering to train 2 people for the price of 1, so why not train with a friend / team mate and split the costs?

If you want to start next season fitter than the rest, then contact me for further details.

Tea Benefits. Not drinking it ? You should be !

2010-04-09T04:08:00.000-07:00

Energy drinks, fat burners, green tea capsules, why not just go to the source? It's convenient and cheaper! Green tea offers a ton of health benefits including disease-fighting antioxidants, assists in burning fat, and even protects your pearly whites, keeping you energized and looking your best.

More Tea, Please
The next time you're in line at Starbucks you may want to think about ordering tea instead of your usual coffee. With only 1/3 the amount of caffeine it may not be enough to perk up the avid coffee drinker, but tea offers numerous health benefits that will keep you going in the long run.

Tea has been popular for thousands of years all over the world. It is the second most consumed beverage behind water. Teas such as black, green, white, and oolong are made from the leaves of the evergreen tree camellia sinensis, which contains polyphenol antioxidants.

Antioxidants are important in a person's diet, because they rid the body of molecules called free radicals, which are a by-product of cellular activity, pollution, and the natural aging process.

Free radicals are destructive within the body, because they harm DNA molecules and pave the way for illness and disease. High amounts of antioxidants can be found in fruits and vegetables and other plant based foods such as the dried leaves used to make brewed tea.

Green Tea Benefits
One of the most studied teas for its amazing health benefits is green tea. Green tea is rich in catechin polyphenols, such as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). EGCG is an antioxidant with cancer fighting powers.

Studies have shown it can aid in protection against various forms of cancer including esophageal, gastric, skin, ovarian, lung, and colon cancer. Studies have also shown that drinking 2-3 cups per day can lower blood pressure, cholesterol, and decrease the risk of heart attack.

Not only does green tea contain immune boosting antioxidants, but it can also protect your teeth. Tea has bacteria killing properties to fight plaque, gum disease, and bad breath. Tea contains fluoride, which can protect against cavities.

Green tea has gotten a couple of knocks for it's fluoride content, despite the positive attributes, since too much fluoride can be bad for you. It is recommended that a person receive no more than 10/mg of fluoride per day. Loose leaf green tea only contains about 0.3 mg of fluoride, so unless you're drinking about 30 cups per day, don't worry.

Studies suggest that the polyphenols in green tea can help reduce and prevent rheumatoid arthritis. One study found that regular tea drinkers reported to have stronger bones and were less likely to develop arthritis. Those who drank tea regularly for 10 years or more had higher bone mineral density in their spines than non-tea drinkers.

Conclusion
Green tea is currently gaining more popularity due to studies that suggest it aids in weight loss. The combination of EGCG and caffeine in green tea work together to stimulate thermogenesis, heat production in the body. It increases fat oxidation and increases energy expenditure.

Although EGCG is capable of giving metabolism a boost, drinking a cup or two of green tea is not a weight loss remedy. A Japanese study shows that 5 cups of green tea per day only burns about 70 calories through thermogenesis. Drink your tea for all the health benefits, but keep in mind that you must always exercise and eat a well balanced diet for weight management.

There are tons of teas to choose from, but high quality loose leaf teas are the best. Brew your tea for 3-5 minutes to bring out the antioxidants. Add honey, milk, lemon or sugar to sweeten. Relax, sip, and enjoy.

Interval Training and High-Intensity Weight Training for women reducing body-fat levels

2010-04-08T03:06:00.000-07:00

For years, marathon cardio sessions were 'mandatory' for women who wanted to lower their body fat. These sessions were long and boring... nothing like 2 hours on a recumbent bike!

No one seemed to notice that athletes who trained using short duration, intense workouts (such as sprinters) were leaner and more muscular than athletes who did much higher volumes of cardio (long distance runners).

Part 1: Interval Training
Research now shows us that higher intensity training, such as interval training, can deliver the same results in much less time than traditional longer duration cardio sessions.

Many studies prove the effectiveness of high intensity training:

The first major study was conducted in 1985. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition determined that high-intensity training increases metabolism for up to 24 hours after training.

With lower intensity training (steady-state cardio) metabolism returned to normal shortly after the exercises session ended. (It is now an accepted fact that the rate at which you burn fat depends more on how many calories you burn in the hours following your workout as opposed to the number of calories you burn during your workout).

As recently as December 2006, researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada found that two weeks of interval training done on alternate days can increase metabolism by 36% in women.

"Short term intense interval training is highly effective in altering the ratio of lean body mass to fat without compromising muscle size." -Dr. Patrick O'Shea, (Quantum Strength and Power Training, Gaining the Competitive Edge).

What Is Interval Training?
Interval training is characterized by short, intense speed/effort increases during your cardio session, followed by longer duration 'recovery' period in which you return to your usual pace on whatever piece of cardio equipment you are using.

For example, let's say you normally run at 5.0 on the treadmill for 40 minutes. To introduce intervals into your session, you would (once you are warmed up) sprint for 20-30 second 'intervals' (at a higher speed than your usual 5.0), then reduce the speed back to 5.0 (or slightly lower) for 2-3 minutes, depending on your conditioning. This would be repeated for half of your normal cardio time (20 minutes).

That's all there is to it… It seems simple but if you've never tried it, be prepared for an extremely intense workout. Research shows that proper interval training can get you the same results in half the time of steady-state/lower intensity cardio.

This can be done on any piece of cardio equipment. The spin bike is excellent for intervals because of the ease at which you can control the speed/tension.

You should be out of breath at the end of each interval segment. If you can talk comfortably, you are not pushing yourself hard enough!

Just remember to take it easy while you are a beginner.

As your conditioning improves, you can increase intensity by:
1. Increasing the length of the interval segment.
2. Decreasing the 'recovery' time (some of my competitors sprint on a track for 30 seconds and 'recover' for only 1 minute).

Training at this intensity is only for women who are in superior cardiovascular condition. The worse thing you can do is to rush the process and burn out. I've seen this happen far too many times!

Part 2: High-Intensity Weight Training
Look in many exercise magazines for women and you will see workouts that call for 2 or 3 sets of 15 reps per set. A few sets and fifteen reps may be good for someone trying to get or stay in shape, but for someone trying to lose body fat and keep as much muscle as possible; it is not the most efficient way to train.

What Is High-Intensity Resistance Training?
Studies show that higher intensity weight training (lifting heavier weights in the 8-10 rep range) is more effective at burning calories and keeping metabolism elevated, in the hours following your workout, than higher rep training.

The key to fat loss is this continued elevation in metabolism, which continues for 16-24 hours after a high intensity workout. Lower intensity/high rep training and low intensity cardio do not keep your metabolism elevated in the hours following a workout. With lower intensity forms of training, your metabolic rate returns to normal shortly after the workout is finished.

This dispels the myth that high repetition training is the best way of getting 'cut'.

When I talk about high intensity weight training, I'm not just talking about lifting heavy weights. I'm talking about weight training in a manner that:
1. Burns the maximum amount of calories.
2. Keeps all of your hard earned muscle.

These are the two most important goals.

The best way to accomplish both of these goals is to:
1. Use weights that only allow about 8 - 10 repetitions (for most sets - but there are some higher rep exercises such as jump squats which are great for maintaining muscle size and send your heart rate through the roof).
2. Choose multi-joint exercises. These are exercises that require the use of many muscles to execute, such as plyometric pushups or walking lunges with bicep curls.
3. Group the exercises together in a circuit type fashion with minimal rest between sets - repeat these circuits multiple times. (10 minutes to 45 minutes depending on your conditioning).

This is a very demanding way to train. The heavy weights will maintain your muscle size while the choice of exercise and the circuit format keeps your heart rate high. The calorie burn is tremendous.

If you are not used to this type of training, take it easy at first. High-intensity training places great demands on your body. Proper form is very important because you will become exhausted while performing these exercises and it's easy to get sloppy and lose focus.

Conclusion
The combination of interval training and high-intensity weight training is the most effective way to decrease your body fat percentage. When performing intervals for the first time, decrease the time you normally perform cardio by 50%. Work hard and as your conditioning improves, increase the length of your cardio (interval) sessions.

The same goes for your resistance training. Reduce your normal workout time by 50% if this is your first time trying this type of circuit training. As your body becomes more conditioned, you can increase the length of your workouts. You will actually do more 'work' in these shortened sessions than you did in your longer ones.

Over-indulged at Easter ?

2010-04-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

The Top 10 Reasons To Use FULL BODY Workouts

2010-04-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

Choosing the appropriate muscle-building workout program is important if you are to maximize the time you spend in the gym and get clear body changing results. Some people are too quick to hop onto the first program they find without really thinking through what they are looking for in a weight lifting program.

Each type of program has its own pros and cons so getting straight in your mind what each one has to offer will make the decision of which program is right for you quite clear. The following are the top ten benefits to using full body workouts.

1. Lower Time Commitment:
The first benefit to using full body workout programs is that there is a much lower time requirement to perform them. If you're someone who has something on the go every night of the week, it can be hard to fit in a four-day-a-week gym program.

Since full body workouts can be performed over the course of just two or three days a week, this allows more time for other obligations in your life.

Depending on how you structure the full body workout program you may find they do take slightly longer in the gym to complete, but when you consider the overall weekly time commitment they require, you'll still end up much further ahead than with other programs such as the upper/lower body split.

2. Increased Muscular Recovery Rates:
The second benefit of full body workouts is the increased muscular recovery rates. One main reason why some people do not get progress on their workout program is simply because they aren't recovering from session to session.

Some people cannot handle back-to-back workouts even though they aren't working the same muscle part, so for those individuals, full body workouts are perfect. You will get at least one day off between each full body workout, so they will give your muscles maximum recovery time.

3. Greater Allowance For Additional Sports Or Activities:
Third, since full body workouts only call for you to be in the gym two to three times a week as already mentioned, this also frees more time for other activities.

If you're currently also doing cardio training either for health purposes or because you want to run a 5 or 10 km, using a full body approach will give you four or five days of the week in which you can complete those activities.

Note that you will still have to be mindful of your recovery rates because exercise is still exercise and is stressful on the body, but at least you won't be forced into doing double-day sessions as you would if you were on a higher frequency lifting schedule.

4. Larger Weekly Testosterone Boosts:
When it comes to really putting on lean muscle mass, the amount of testosterone you have flowing through your body is really going to make a significant difference. The higher the levels of testosterone you have in your body, the faster you're going to be able to build muscle-mass tissue.

When it comes to influencing testosterone release through your resistance training workouts, exercises that utilise full body movements and work as many muscle fibres as possible are going to release the greatest amount of testosterone.

Since you will be making good use of compound exercises in a full body workout in order to work every muscle group thoroughly, this fact makes them ideal for accomplishing this goal. Leg exercises especially are known for this, and in a full body workout you will have at least one leg exercise per workout.

5. Easier Manipulation:
In order to prevent training plateaus, it's important that you're constantly manipulating something about your workout program. This could be the exercises you're performing, the total number of reps you are using, the angle in which you're executing the lift, and so on.

When you're on a split body workout, you're going to be using more total exercises for each workout, making it slightly more difficult to throw in new exercises to prevent the plateau.

When you're using fully body workouts on the other hand, each muscle group is only going to get one or two exercises total, therefore you can easily swap things around either from full body workout to full body workout, or from month to month.

Additionally, if you happen to become injured in a particular muscle group, with a full body workout it tends to be easier to omit the exercise(s) that aggravate the injury and replace it with others that don't.

With a split body workout though, if one major muscle group gets injured that could throw off an entire day's workout, so that will definitely put a large kink in your program plan.

6. Decreased CNS Fatigue:
Sixth on the list of advantages of full body workouts is the lower level of central nervous system stress on a week to week basis. Whenever you lift a weight, a stress is placed on the CNS. It doesn't matter if it's a biceps curl or a squat, your CNS will be stimulated.

When you're stimulating the CNS day after day after day, eventually it too begins to fatigue and the overall amount you're able to lift on a daily basis really takes a hit.

The only way to prevent this from happening is to give the CNS a complete break from training, which is accomplished quite thoroughly on full body workouts.

That day in between sessions really goes a long way towards allowing better CNS recovery, so if you're beginning to feel fatigued all the time no matter what you do (short of taking consecutive days off), this might be an indication that you should be switching to a full body workout program instead.

7. Ideal For Home Workouts:
If you're someone who is doing their workouts at home, full body workouts make for a really good option. Often equipment choices will be limited when doing home workouts, so full body workout fit nicely since they require fewer different lifts total, making it easier to complete them just with a set of dumbbells.

Dumbbells can be used to perform walking lunges, deadlifts, lying chest presses, shoulder presses, bent over rows, lateral raises, biceps curls, and overhead triceps extensions, which, when done in combination together, will make up a complete full body workout.

8. Simple Scheduling:
If you're someone who finds life crowding out your workouts on a regular basis, if you're on an upper/lower split or another type of divided workout set-up, this can get to be quite the nuisance.

You must then make the decision of whether you'll perform the workout that was missed on the next workout opportunity, or if you'll just skip that workout entirely and go on to the next. If you repeat the lost workout you're going to be behind in your overall program plan, but if you skip it, then those muscles didn't get worked as they should.

It's quite the predicament to be in and can mess up what would otherwise be a sound plan. With full body workouts though, if you miss a workout, you simply wait until the next opportunity and you'll still be hitting the full body once again.

What's also great is that at most you'll be doing three workouts a week, even if you do miss a day; if you can make it to the gym the next day you won't throw off your weekly schedule, because you will always have some point in the week where you have two consecutive days off.

For this reason, full body workouts are the most practical approach for those who have irregular schedules.

9. Ideal For Fat Loss:
If you're looking for fat loss, then the perfect choice here is also full body workouts. When you're on a fat loss diet you're taking in fewer calories than the body would ideally like, which means a lower level of recovery reserves.

Despite this fact, you still must be stimulating the muscle tissues at least twice per week in order to prevent fat loss on a diet, so cutting back on workouts entirely is not going to be an option.

Full body workouts make for the ideal fat loss workout set-up because they will get you working each muscle group at least twice a week, but won't ask too much from the body in terms of recovery.
This is an important combination because the risk of muscle mass loss on a diet is high for either not working out enough or working out too much, so the two-day-a-week full body workout program is the right compromise between both these issues.

10. Lower Levels Of Boredom:
Finally, the last benefit to full body workouts is lower levels of boredom. The more often you repeat the same activity over and over again the greater the chances that you will find boredom settling in. Since full body workouts require lower levels of frequency, they already have an advantage.

Secondly, since there are so many different ways you can set up and design full body workouts, when you do become bored, it won't take much effort on your part to renew your interest in the program.

Conclusion
So, be sure you give full body workouts a fair consideration. Many people overlook them for what appear to be 'fancier' splits, which are less effective. When done properly, full body workouts can be used to build maximum amounts of muscle regardless of what your current fitness level happens to be.

Contact me if you require assistance creating your own full-body workout.

14 Reasons You Shouldn’t Ignore – Full Squat Benefits !

2010-04-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

There seems to be much confusion amongst trainers and trainees as to whether squats should be performed all the way down or just half way.

In most gyms today, a common instruction during squats, deadlifts, and lunges (as taught by many personal training organizations) is not to allow the knees to travel beyond the toes. Doing so will ultimately cause the destruction of your knees!

I do not agree. There are certain instances where partial range of motion (ROM) is indicated, but for the most part, I teach people the full squat for the following reasons.

Full Squat Benefits

1. It is the most primitive movement pattern known to man; our ancestors used to perform many daily functions (i.e. harvesting, gathering, hunting, cooking, eating, etc.) in a full squat position.

2. Also, in case anyone hasn't noticed, we spend 40 weeks in the fetal position (which is basically a full squat) prior to entering this world - do we come out with bad knees?

3. We should strive to train in full ROM for each and every exercise. The squat is no exception.

4. Every exercise produces stress around a joint - the body then adapts to this stress.

5. Contraction of the quadriceps, the hamstrings, and the gastrocnemius maintains integrity around the knee joint.

6. Sheering and compressive forces do occur around the knee joint (as opposed to only sheering forces that occur in some open kinetic chain lower body exercises, such as the leg extension); however, the large contact area of the patella with the femoral groove (as knee flexion increases during the full squat) helps to dissipate compressive forces.

7. Therefore, not only is the squat - as a closed chain exercise - considered a natural movement pattern with high functional carryover, but it is also a safe exercise if performed correctly (and that includes full ROM!)

8. Drawer tests are performed at a knee angle of 90 degrees because there is a greater amount of laxity in the knee joint at that specific angle. So, does it make sense to only go down half way where you are most vulnerable especially when greater loads can be used (because you are much stronger in this partial ROM?)

9. According to Ironman contributor, George Turner, the fulcrum moves to the knee joint in a parallel squat as opposed to the muscle belly of the quadriceps in a full squat.

10. Think about it, if you constantly trained in a limited ROM, the likelihood of injury increases if one day you happen to squat beyond your trained ROM.

11. Partial squats performed on a regular basis will decrease flexibility.

12. There is a low incidence of lower back pain and knee injury in Aboriginal and Oriental societies which perform full squats on a regular basis.

13. Even Olympic weightlifters who practice full squats have quite healthy knees compared to other athletes.

14. Although you may find some research that indicates full squats as potentially harmful to the knees, only one study has ever proved this to be true. However, it was performed on a skeleton - the same results do not hold true with surrounding connective tissue. On the other hand, numerous studies show the benefits of full squats.

Unfortunately, many personal training certification courses are teaching half squats as a safe version suitable for all individuals and this has now become written in stone.

God forbid that you deviate from this golden rule to do something that our bodies are meant to do!

Read this carefully: squatting should be performed in a full ROM where the hamstrings make contact with the calves (so that no light can be seen passing through your legs at the bottom position).

It is okay for your knees to travel beyond the toes (just do not relax the knees in the bottom position). In other words, keep the legs tight and try to stay as upright as possible throughout the exercise.

Conclusion
So, next time some fitness instructor approaches you in the gym and advises not to go deep while squatting tell him/her that they don't know squat and come and train with me instead!!!

3 Protein Myths. Don’t buy into them !

2010-04-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

Claim Number 1:
High Protein Diets Are Bad For Bone Health

Investigation: At one time or another you have probably heard the claim that "high protein diets are bad for your bones, and they cause calcium losses." However, when examining the scientific evidence we see a different picture.

A large study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research showed that both elderly men and women who consumed the most animal protein had the lowest rate of bone loss whereas those who consumed little protein had much higher rates of bone loss.

A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has shown that postmenopausal women who consumed the highest amount of protein, particularly animal protein, were least likely to suffer from hip fractures and had the strongest bones.(1)

Heaney and colleagues showed, that in free-living middle-aged women who were studied in a metabolic ward and ingested diets that matched their everyday intakes of protein and phosphorus, calcium losses were significantly positively correlated with protein intake and calcium balance was significantly negatively correlated.(2)

This study, cited extensively since its publication, contributed to the common belief that protein is harmful to bone. Almost two decades later in an editorial that was featured in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Heaney critiqued his own study and reported on recent findings.(3)

In conclusion Heaney stated, "Analysis of the diets of hunter-gatherer societies, and nitrogen isotope ratios of fossil bone collagen, indicate that human physiology evolved in the context of diets with high amounts of animal protein.

Although caution has been urged in the interpretation of such analyses, it remains true that there is certainly no evidence that primitive humans had low intakes of either total protein or animal protein. That, coupled with the generally very robust skeletons of our hominid forbears, makes it difficult to sustain a case, either evidential or deductive, for overall skeletal harm related either to protein intake or to animal protein. Indeed, the balance of the evidence seems to indicate the opposite."

Research suggests that consuming high protein diets that contain sufficient amounts of calcium and Vitamin D do not negatively affect bone health. Researchers at Tufts University in Boston found that adequate ingestion of dietary calcium helps to promote a positive effect of dietary protein on the skeleton in older adults. Also, phosphorus (like in milk and meat) and potassium (found in milk, legumes, and grains) reduce calcium loss, thus negating protein-induced urinary calcium excretion.

Conclusion: A high protein diet that lacks sufficient amounts of calcium and Vitamin D may cause harm to bones. But a high protein diet that contains sufficient amounts of calcium and Vitamin D can have positive effects on bone health.

Claim Number 2:
High Protein Diets Increase The Risk Of Coronary Heart Disease

Investigation: A review conducted by Li and colleagues(4) looked at the relationship between red meat consumption and coronary heart disease factors; 54 studies were reviewed.

Findings of the review indicated that, "Substantial evidence from recent studies shows that lean red meat trimmed of visible fat does not raise total blood cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol levels." And also that "lean red meat is low in saturated fat, and if consumed in a diet low in SFA (saturated fatty acids), is associated with reductions in LDL-cholesterol in both healthy and hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol) subjects."

In conclusion the studies found that "lean red meat trimmed of visible fat, which is consumed in a diet low in saturated fat does not increase cardiovascular risk factors."

Conclusion: High protein diets that contain excessive calories and high fat may increase risk factors associated with coronary heart disease. But high protein diets that are low to moderate in calories and saturated fat do not increase risk factors. I generally recommend a few servings of lean red meat each week. Red meat is loaded with micronutrients and is a good source of quality protein.

Claim Number 3:
High Protein Diets Are Bad For The Kidneys

Investigation: Media sources often report, "Too much protein stresses the kidney." What does science say?

Martin and colleagues(5) reviewed the available evidence regarding the effects of protein intake on kidney function with a particular emphasis on kidney disease.

The researchers reported, "Although excessive protein intake remains a health concern in individuals with pre-existing renal disease, the literature lacks significant research demonstrating a link between protein intake and the initiation or progression of renal disease in healthy individuals."

In addition they reported, "At present, there is not sufficient proof to warrant public health directives aimed at restricting dietary protein intake in healthy adults for the purpose of preserving renal function." Protein restriction is common treatment for people with kidney problems.

I have known individuals who consume 300-400 grams of protein per day. Guess what, no kidney problems.

Conclusion: There is no evidence that high protein intake causes kidney damage in individuals with healthy kidneys. To many people this may come as a shocker.

References:
1. Tbk Fitness. How to Prevent Osteoporosis. [Online] September 11, 2009 http://www.tbkfitness.org/Osteoporosis.html
2. Heaney RP, et. al. Effects of nitrogen, phosphorus, and caffeine on calcium balance in women. J lab Clin Med, 99:46-55 1982.
3. Heaney R. Protein intake and bone health: the influence of belief systems and the conduct of nutritional science. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 73,1:5-6 Jan 2001.
4. Li D, et. al. Lean meat and heart health. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr, 14(2):113-9 2005.
5. Martin WF, et. al. Dietary Protein intake and Renal Function. Nutrition & Metabolism 2:25 2005.

The Jamie Eason Legs Workout

2010-03-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

I have always been a huge fan of Jamie Eason and I was lucky enough to be given an insight into her workout routine.

So, here is how she keeps those legs and booty in great shape..

Jamie says:

I thought I'd share my leg workout with you.

I'm going to use the bodybuilding.com exercise database for reference pics and video. The video defaults to the male workout so just click on the female 'tab' to see me demonstrating the exercise.

Although this workout will target my hamstrings and glutes, I warm up with leg extensions to pre-fatigue my quads so that I'll hopefully use them less and engage my hamstrings and glutes more. (3x12, progressively getting heavier, 1 drop-set to exhaustion)

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/leg-extensions/f

I like to use the smith machine for my squats because I have spina bifida and can easily wretch my back. If you can do a free-standing squat, that typically engages more muscles, so go for it!

(4 X 15, first set I add 70 lbs, last 3, I use 90) I really focus on form here (slow and controlled) and push through my heels.

Use a wider stance to hit your glutes and hamstrings and a narrow stance for quadriceps.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/smith-machine-squat/f

___________________________________________________

SIMON'S NOTE:

I do not recommend using the smith machine for squats as it is not a natural movement. I spoke to Jamie regarding this and suggested dumbbell squats instead.

This is her reply:

I have used the dumbbell squats with an exercise ball behind my back, but I can't seem to go as heavy as I would like. I will say this though, exercise guru Kim Oddo taught me a while back that for those of us you have a blocky middle, myself included, dumbbell squats keep the weight off of our trunk. When I was competing, I was more cognizant of this and because I was looking for more detail than size, I always did dumbbell squats.

___________________________________________________

Next I would use the seated leg curl, going fairly heavy and pausing during each contraction.
(3 X 15).

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/seated-leg-curl/f

After the seated leg curl, I would likely do a stiff-legged deadlift.

In the video, the weight is fairly light, so I am bending rather far. Typically, I use a regular sized bar with wrist wraps and 90 lbs. I put two 10 lb plates under my toes to keep my weight back, since I only weigh 104 lbs.

Keeping a flat back, I bend to just about 90 degrees, squeezing my glutes as I pull back into an upright position. (3x12).

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/stiff-legged-barbell-deadlift/f

The split squat, or bulgarian squat, is one of my favorite leg exercises.

In the database you can find it under quadriceps, but I swear I feel it the most in my glutes.
(3 X 12, with about a 40 - 50 lb bar).

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/one-leg-barbell-squat/f

I like to finish with the lying leg curl because I can really squeeze out the last bit of effort that I can from my workout. (4 sets - 3 X 15, last set is a drop-set).

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/lying-leg-curls/m

I will often do a few calf exercises at the end of my workout as well. I like to use the smith machine to do standing calf raises because I do not fit very well in many of the standing calf raise machines.

In this video, I am using a barbell with fairly light weight, but when I do these in my gym, I use the smith machine with 70 to 90 lbs and place my toes on the base of the triangle bench (4x15).

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/standing-barbell-calf-raise/f

The seated calf raise is usually my last exercise. The seated calf raise machine is often taken, so I've opted to show you this barbell alternative.

I am demonstrating with a light weight but I usually use about 70 lbs for these. (3 X 15).

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/barbell-seated-calf-raise/f

Well, that's it.......

Thank you to Jamie for taking the time to give us an insight into the world of a fitness model.

The workout demonstrates that Jamie uses the same equipment that is found in most gyms and simple determination and hard work has given her a figure to be proud of.

If you would like to find out how you can create your own routine, feel free to contact me.

4 Female Training Myths Debunked

2010-03-28T06:42:00.000-07:00

"I just want to lose fat around my stomach and nowhere else."

"I just want to tone my inner thighs."

"Lifting weights is just going to turn me into a man!"

I have heard these statements from women about 3,000 times. Those 3 desires have one thing in common; they are pretty much impossible.

Myth 1: Spot Reduction

Let's start off with the theory of burning fat or toning a certain area of the body. Toning involves two constituents: adipose tissue (the subcutaneous body fat) and muscle tissue. In order to appear more toned, a reduction in body fat and increase in muscle mass will have to occur.

The human body does not allow spot reducing, which would include losing fat exclusively in the abdominal area. If you were to lose weight, it would occur all over your entire body. Unfortunately, body fat is not necessarily reduced evenly.

People often have trouble areas where the fat is last to go. Women especially find this to be their stomach, legs or arms. There is not much that can be done about this aside from continuing to lean out.

A reduction in body fat occurs when a person is in a caloric deficit. This occurs with two variables: decreasing the amount of calories you consume, increasing the amount of exercise you participate in, or doing both. Resistance training is used to help build and maintain muscle tissue, while cardiovascular training is a tool used to help achieve a caloric deficit.

Here is a statement that many of you probably do not want to believe: There is no exercise out there that is going to burn fat off of your body in a specific area!
No resistance training exercise will help tone or reduce fat on top of any muscle in your body. It is a reduction of calories and an increase in exercise that will take care of that.

There is a very big misconception regarding that "burn" you feel after performing many repetitions during an exercise. Some people actually believe that is the fat melting off the body right before our very eyes!

That burn is actually caused by lactic acid, which is a by-product of the lactate system when forming adenosine triphosphate (ATP) for immediate energy.

I often see a female lying on the ground at the gym performing sets of 100 crunches. She probably assumes that burning sensation is actually helping her "toning her stomach". If you are performing a set of 100 repetitions on any exercise, don't you think it is time to move on to something a little harder?

Myth 2: Losing Your Femininity

The theory that lifting weights will cause a woman to appear bulky and manly is completely false. I used resistance training to bring my body weight up 25 pounds over the course of two years.

I must say that the actual weight training was the easy part. The difficult part included eating like a horse, because a calorie surplus is needed to gain muscle mass. I often gagged during some meals as I was pretty much force-feeding myself like a mother would to a small child eating their vegetables.

Now, I am pretty sure that most women do not force feed themselves by mistake. Extreme muscle mass gains are not something that occurs out of the blue. You have to really want it for it to happen.

It is pretty safe to say that muscle gain is much, much harder than fat loss for most people.

Another little fact that most women forget is testosterone. Testosterone is a very anabolic hormone found in the human body, males and females, which is very important for gains in muscle mass. Men usually have about ten times more testosterone than women.

Even if a woman were to put the time into eating a crazy amount, it would still be about ten times harder to look like a man. It sounds like it is fairly difficult for a woman to gain an incredible amount of muscle mass and be mistaken for a man, doesn't it?

Myth 3: Avoiding Chest Exercises

Another fairly popular fallacy is the theory that a woman should not perform any chest exercises, as this would "shrink her breasts".

A woman's breasts are an area of fat deposit just like anywhere else on her body. The breasts will shrink as body fat levels of the entire body are reduced.

Resistance exercises for the chest would not cause a reduction in size. In fact, it might help your breasts appear larger as you can stimulate growth of your pectoral muscles.

The larger pectoral muscles would help push out the fat found on your breasts and assist them in looking bigger.

Myth 4: Eating Less To Lose Weight

Most women claim to have a sound diet, but this usually ends up being in the form of a starvation diet. It probably includes skipping breakfast, eating a salad at lunch and one slice of cheese for dinner if you are lucky.

Breakfast is known as the most important meal of the day for a reason. Your body is begging for fuel, as it has not received any in most likely a good eight to ten hours. Skipping meals frequently actually slows your metabolism down as it is much more beneficial to eat five to six smaller meals spaced evenly throughout the day.

A lot of people are always confused by this as they think eating so frequently will cause them to gain weight. This simply is not true unless you eat many calories above your maintenance level.

Let's say 1,500 calories is adequate for your goal of weight loss. Instead of eating two 700-calorie meals, five meals consisting of about 300 calories would be much better. If you happen to eat 500 calories for one meal and 200 calories for another, this will not break you. As long as you finish the day with the same amount of calories and you eat several times per day, you will be fine.

There Is No Replacement For Hard Work:

I have known too many ladies who have purchased far too many fitness gadgets seen on television at 4am on any random weeknight. There are things like the famous "ab belts," which "electronically stimulate your abdominal muscles" (even I bought one of these many years ago before I knew any better).

How many people actually think a little belt will trim down belly fat without breaking a sweat at all?

I think we have struck gold here!

There isn't an overweight person in the world anymore due to this cool belt!

Wait, it is time to enter reality again as there are no tricks or gadgets that replace the hard work you have to put in to achieve your goal. It all comes down to diet and exercise, which has always been the equation and always will be.

I have thrown a lot of information at you, and you are probably wondering what you should do. Well, I hope you have realized that resistance training is an important tool you can use to achieve a better-looking body.

It is important to focus on compound movements, which use more than one muscle group. These include all variations of squats, lunges, bench presses, rows and shoulder presses.

These are the biggest bang for your buck exercises, as you are using many muscle groups. Focus on performing variations of these exercises at least twice a week for about 40 minutes, and you will reap the benefits in your physique.

Do not forget to include cardiovascular training, which doesn't have to be running on a treadmill. It is important to find an activity you enjoy and look forward to, such as hiking, tennis, swimming or even rowing a boat.

If you love the activity you perform, you are much more likely to stick to your program in the long run, which will improve your chance of succeeding.

The Importance Of Diet:

A sound diet is just as important as exercise, if not more important. Make sure to eat frequently throughout the day, but control the portion sizes.

Eating the right types of foods will definitely help your progress as well. Protein rich foods are very important, as they are necessary for recovery from your workouts. Lean meats, eggs, and whey protein are great examples.

Moderate carbohydrates should also be included in your diet, as it is your body's main fuel source after all. Whole grains are the keys here as they are much slower digesting and help keep you fuller longer.

Fat is also important for recovery and hormone production; examples of good fat sources include: olive oil, canola oil, any variety of nuts, fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel.

Fruits and vegetables also need to be incorporated as they are packed with vitamins and minerals necessary for everyday body functions. The fibre found in them promotes digestive health as well as helps keep your belly satisfied.

Contact me if you would like further information regarding diet or training sessions to help you on your way to a leaner, fitter body.

The Stacey Oster-Thompson Booty Workout

2010-03-28T01:25:00.000-07:00

Check out this video by Pro Bikini competitor Stacey Oster-Thompson.

It is easy to follow and the exercises can easily be incorporated into your existing routine.

http://www.flexonline.com/videos/?bcpid=17320904001&bclid=1460782895&bctid=73746567001

The Best Chest And Tricep Exercises

2010-03-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

Following on from the best back and bicep exercises I posted a few days ago, again using EMG, here are the top three chest and tricep exercises in terms of mean and peak activity.

Upper Pec

Mean: Mid Pulley Crossover
Band Push Up
JC Band Press

Peak: DB Incline Press
Guillotine Press
JC Band Press

Mid Pec

Mean: DB Bench Press
Floor Press
Fly

Peak: Guillotine Press
DB Bench Press
Fly

Lower Pec

Mean:Weighted Dip
Blast Strap Push Up
Guillotine Press

Peak: Guillotine Press
Fly
Weighted Dip

Medial Triceps

Mean: Rope Extension
Cable Extension
Weighted Dip

Peak: Rope Extension
Cable Extension
Band Extension

The form used for the guillotine press was feet on the bench, no arch, elbows flared out, wide grip, bar lowered to the neck. It's no surprise the guillotine press works much more pec than the bench press.

Looking at the entire pecs, they found much variety in movements. This jives with the old bodybuilder theory that the best workout should hit muscles from a lot of angles with different forms of resistance. We've always known the pecs respond to a good stretch, as shortened ranges of motion rarely build a nice chest.

They have long-suspected that pec isolation movements can rival compound movements in terms of pec activity. This study confirms that suspicion. Powerlifting gurus like Louie Simmons and Dave Tate have always discussed the importance of triceps specialization for a strong bench.

This experiment lends support to their recommendations.

1-2-1 Fitness Workout At Home Training Sessions GOES LIVE !!...

2010-03-19T02:00:00.001-07:00

The Best Back and Bicep Exercises

2010-03-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

Every guy has his own theory about which exercises are the best and which exercises suck.

Whether we're analyzing the biomechanics of an exercise (not very likely), "feeling the burn" (more likely), or simply doing a ton of sets and seeing how sore we get over the next few days (ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!), we all think we know the best movements to grow our muscles.

But do we really?

Using EMG (a tool that measures how much muscle activity is going on, with every movement that you do) a study was undertaken to establish what the most effective exercises are.

So, here are the top three exercises in terms of mean and peak activity for the back and biceps.

Biceps:

Mean: Weighted Wide Parallel Grip Pull-Up
Weighted Chin-Up
BB Curl

Peak: Weighted Chin-Up
Weighted Wide Parallel Grip Pull-Up
EZ-Bar Curl

Latissimus Dorsi:

Mean: Weighted Chin-U
Weighted Pronated Wide-Grip Pull-Up
Rack-Pull

Peak: Weighted Pronated Wide-Grip Pull-Up
Rack-Pull
Underhand-Grip Feet Elevated Inverted Row

Mid Trap:

Mean: DB Bent-Over Row
DB Elbows Out Chest-Supported Row
Prone Trap Raise

Peak: Prone Trap Raise
DB Bent-Over Row
DB Elbows Out Chest-Supported Row

Lower Trap:

Mean: DB Bent-Over Row
Prone Trap Raise
DB Elbows Out Chest-Supported Row

Peak: DB Elbows Out Chest Supported-Row
Prone Trap Raise
DB Bent-Over Row

The Best Damn Back and Biceps Workout

Based on the results of the experiment, I bet the following would be one kick-ass workout that would target the lats, mid, and lower traps as well as the biceps.

Enjoy!

Weighted Pull Up, Weighted Chin Up, or Weighted Parallel Grip Pull Up

Dumbbell Bent Over Row or Weighted Feet Elevated Inverted Row

Dumbbell Elbows Out Chest Supported Row or Prone Trap Raise

Deadlift or Rack Pull

Barbell Curl or EZ-Bar Curl

The results of the best exercises for other muscle groups will be posted soon...

Jogger hit by plane. Who said exercise was healthy?

2010-03-16T05:47:00.000-07:00

A man jogging along a beach in the USA was killed after being struck by a plane.

The full article is here....

A single-engine plane killed a jogger yesterday as it made an emergency landing on a beach.

The plane had been experiencing engine trouble for over an hour as it flew up the coast from Florida towards Virginia in the U.S.

It was directed to land at Hilton Head Airport in South Carolina but at 13,000ft oil began to leak on the windshield blocking the view of the pilot and his passenger.

Then the propeller came off and the pilot decided to make an emergency landing on the beach near the Hilton Head Marriott Resort and Spa.

It was at this point that the Experimental Lancair IV-P plane hit the beachgoer who was jogging.

The plane came to rest a little farther down the beach.

Patrick Murphy, manager of the Dunes House, a beachside bar and restaurant, told South Carolina's The State paper he witnessed the crash.

'It was obvious that the engine had gone out because there was no sound - it was like a glider,' he said. 'It was awful. A bunch of us called 911, and the fire department was here within five minutes.'

The names of the man killed, as well as the pilot and passenger on the plane have not been released.

'They [the pilot and his companion] were really shook up,' said Joheida Fister, of the Hilton Head Fire and Rescue Division.

'I would have to say it's pretty unusual.'

Workout At Home Training Sessions Being Launched 20 March 2010

2010-03-15T13:38:00.000-07:00

The 1-2-1 Fitness Workout At Home training sessions will be launched on 20 March 2010.

The workouts are designed for every fitness level from the beginner to the trained athlete.

E-mail me for further information and prices prior to launch date.

Another Funny Weight Training Incident

2010-03-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

I found myself looking through the You Tube videos of funny weight training accidents and this one just cracked me up every time I watched it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xXdiUoOmI&NR=1

It's not big and it's not clever.....

2010-03-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

Far too often do you see guys stacking weights onto a bar and trying to push out a bench press with the worst form ever in an attempt to impress their mates.

This can only lead to an EPIC FAIL !!!!

I love this video as the guy attempts to lift a weight far more than he can handle and his form is so bad, it all goes pear-shaped.

Enjoy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYcGwMht6L8

Principles of Training

2010-03-11T01:01:00.000-08:00

Getting the best out of your training requires a little planning. The best training programmes are built on principles of specificity, overload, progression and reversibility.

Training should be matched to an individual's needs.

By using the principles of training as a framework we can plan a personal training programme that uses scientific principles to improve performance, skill, game ability and physical fitness.

A successful training programme will meet individual needs which are personal fitness needs based on age, gender, fitness level and the sport for which we are training. A successful training programme will also include exercise in the correct heart-rate target zone.

The key principles when planning a programme are:

Specificity – training must be matched to the needs of the sporting activity to improve fitness in the body parts the sport uses.

Overload - fitness can only be improved by training more than you normally do. You must work hard.

Progression – start slowly and gradually increase the amount of exercise and keep overloading.

Reversibility – any adaptation that takes place as a result of training will be reversed when you stop training. If you take a break or don’t train often enough you will lose fitness.

In planning a programme, use the FITT principles to add the detail:

Frequency - decide how often to train.

Intensity - choose how hard to train.

Time - decide how long to train for.

Type - decide which methods of training to use.

You should also consider the principle of moderation. It is important to have rest periods which allow the body to adapt.

Exercise and Muscle Directory

2010-03-10T05:54:00.000-08:00

The most important thing to remember when exercising is 'good form'.

I see far too many people attempting to lift weights far too heavy for them and this has an effect on their form. This can then lead to serious injury.

The Exercise and Muscle Directory is an extremely useful website to ensure that you are performing an exercise correctly.

http://www.exrx.net/Lists/Directory.html

The Components of Physical Fitness

2010-03-10T02:16:00.000-08:00

When people talk about their fitness levels, they often relate to how far they can run or how much weight they can lift, but rarely consider the other components of physical fitness.

In order to be truely 'fit' you must work on 5 components of fitness.

The components of physical fitness are:

1. Cardiorespiratory (CR) endurance - the efficiency with which the body delivers oxygen and nutrients needed for muscular activity and transports waste products from the cells.

2. Muscular strength - the greatest amount of force a muscle or muscle group can exert in a single effort.

3. Muscular endurance - the ability of a muscle or muscle group to perform repeated movements with a sub-maximal force for extended periods of times.

4. Flexibility - the ability to move the joints or any group of joints through an entire, normal range of motion.

5. Body composition - the percentage of body fat a person has in comparison to his or her total body mass.

Improving the first three components of fitness listed above will have a positive impact on body composition and will result in less fat.

Excessive body fat detracts from the other fitness components, reduces performance, detracts from appearance, and negatively affects your health.

Factors such as speed, agility, muscle power, eye-hand coordination, and eye-foot coordination are classified as components of "motor" fitness.

These factors most affect your athletic ability. Appropriate training can improve these factors within the limits of your potential.

A sensible weight loss and fitness program seeks to improve or maintain all the components of physical and motor fitness through sound, progressive, mission specific physical training.

New Kettlebell Routines Available

2010-03-08T04:39:00.000-08:00

A new set of kettlebells has arrived.

These are a great addition to the Workout at Home routines available.

If you would like more information regarding 1 to 1 kettlebell training sessions in the comfort of your own home, then drop me a mail and I will send you details and costs including special offers.

E-mail: onetoonefitness@hotmail.co.uk

Myprotein on Facebook

2010-03-08T04:32:00.000-08:00

Myprotein.co.uk now have their own facebook page.

Check it out for weekly special offers on supplements. They offer a wide range of products and a first class service.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/myproteincouk/24808861862?ref=mf

New On-line Supplements Store in Jersey

2010-03-08T04:29:00.000-08:00

A new on-line supplement store based in Jersey will be opening soon. Register with them now for a 10% discount on your order.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2UYuFM/musclebits.com//r:f

Linwoods Milled Organic Flaxseed

2010-03-08T04:23:00.000-08:00

A great way to get those all important omega oils into your diet is by sprinkling some Linwoods Milled Organic Flaxseed over your food.

It's great when mixed in with eggs or sprinkled over a salad. I tend to mix it with cottage cheese to make it more appealing. The flaxseed with Goji berry is my favourite but there are many types to choose from.

It is available from all good health food retailers. If you live in Jersey, you can find it in Leaders.

Yet Another Fad Diet......?

2010-03-08T00:56:00.001-08:00

... I think so.

The latest addition to the fad diets lists is the Acai berry diet.

Lose 25lbs a month by just eating these lovely berries.

Try a little google search for 'acai berry scams' and you can make your own mind up.

Good and Bad Fats

2010-03-08T00:49:00.000-08:00

Fat is an important part of a healthy diet. There's more and more evidence that many fats are good for us and actually reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.

They also help our sugar and insulin metabolism and therefore contribute to our goals of long-term weight loss and weight maintenance. And because good fats make foods taste better, they help us enjoy the journey to a healthier lifestyle.

But not all fats are created equal, there are good fats and bad fats.

"Good" fats include monounsaturated fats, found in olive and canola oils, peanuts and other nuts, peanut butter, and avocados.

Monounsaturated fats lower total and "bad" LDL cholesterol - which accumulates in and clogs artery walls, while maintaining levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, which carries cholesterol from artery walls and delivers it to the liver for disposal.

Omega-3 fatty acids - polyunsaturated fats found in coldwater fish, canola oil, flaxseeds, walnuts, almonds, and macadamia nuts, also count as good fat. Recent studies have shown that populations that eat more omega-3s, such as Eskimos (whose diets are heavy on fish), have fewer serious health problems such as heart disease and diabetes.

There is evidence that omega-3 oils help prevent or treat depression, arthritis, asthma, and colitis and help prevent cardiovascular deaths.

"Bad" fats include saturated fats - the heart-clogging kind found in butter, fatty red meats, and full-fat dairy products.

"Very bad" fats are the manmade trans fats. Trans fats, which are created when hydrogen gas reacts with oil, are found in many packaged foods, including margarine, cookies, cakes, cake icings, doughnuts, and potato chips.

Trans fats are worse than saturated fats; they are bad for our blood vessels, nervous systems, and waistline.

The Importance of Stretching

2010-03-08T00:44:00.001-08:00

This is something a lot of people overlook but is a vital part of any exercise regime.

Stretching is so often something people neglect to do at the end of a training session because they are too tired to do anything else. Or when they do, they just rush through each stretch and so don't get the full benefit of each one.

We stretch to improve our flexibility. Flexibility is the range of motion that is available to a joint or joints.

Flexibility is important because:

· It improves muscle balance around a joint, thus improving posture
· It reduces the chance of injury when playing a sport or in every day activities
· It increases the blood and nutrient supply to muscles and cartilage, thereby also reducing muscle soreness after training.

Stretching Correctly:

Stretching should not be done as a warm-up to an activity as you could injure your muscles if stretching them when they are cold. At least 3 to 5 minutes of cardiovascular training is recommended to warm up the muscles sufficiently.

Each major muscle group should be stretched slowly and with control, holding each stretch for 1 to 3 sets of 10 to 30 seconds. Hold each stretch at the point of mild tension or tightness, not to the point of pain.

It is important to stretch after doing any physical activity. When muscles perform any exercise, they tighten and shorten as a result. Stretching them out helps to restore and improve their length.

When doing strength training, you could stretch each muscle group directly after performing each set.

When not to Stretch:

· Following muscle strains or ligament sprains
· When joints or muscles are infected, inflamed or hurt
· After a recent fracture
· When sharp pains are felt in the joints or muscles.

Online Bodyfat Calculator

2010-03-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

This is a great website that gives you step-by-step instruction how to measure your bodyfat.

Measuring bodyfat is vital when calculating your daily nutrients.

http://www.linear-software.com/online.html

Boditronics Profusion Reloaded

2010-03-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

This is the daddy of all supplements.

Contains Beta Alanine that will make you tingle all over.

Boditronics offer a wide range of supplements, so visit their website and have a browse.

http://www.boditronics.co.uk/xcart/product.php?productid=64&cat=0&page=1&featured

Recipes for budybuilders

2010-03-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

This is a gret facebook page that has lots of interesting recipe ideas.

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/group.php?v=wall&gid=67731984954

Nutritiondata.com

2010-03-07T07:22:00.000-08:00

Nutritiondata.com is a geat website to help you calculate macro-nutrients.

The site has tens of thousands of foods in it's archives and is very easy to use.

A great tool to be used in conjunction with The Diet Plan.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/

The Diet Plan

2010-03-07T05:55:00.000-08:00

The Neil McTeggart Diet Plan could be one of the best investments you will ever make.

A no nonsense guide to nutrition and exercise that will benefit anyone either trying to lose weight or add muscle mass.

The Diet Plan can be purchased on-line for less than £10.

Just click on the link below and start your journey to a fitter, healthier body.

http://www.neilmct.com/neilmct-diet-plan.php

i-Bodybuilder. The ultimate bulking routine

2010-03-07T04:46:00.000-08:00

I am the same as most people and have toyed with many routines to find the most effective hypertrophy programme.

I have found that the i-Bodybuilder routine which was created by Christian Thibaudeau (T-Muscle Bodybuilding Specialist) to be the most effective.

With the assistance of a balanced diet, I am currently adding approximately 1lbs / 1.5lbs per week with little gain in bodyfat.

It is certainly different to most routines which is what makes it interesting.

If you are looking for something a little different then give this a try.

http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_program/sports_body_training_muscle_anaconda/anaconda_protocol#i-bodybuilder-program/guidelines

Weight Training Myths

2010-03-07T01:19:00.001-08:00

There are quite a few as you can imagine.

It is a long post but is certainly worth a read.

Enjoy.

You can get as big as a pro bodybuilder. Without taking steroids; it just takes longer:

Despite what many of the magazines say, all professional bodybuilders use either steroids or steroids in combination with other growth-enhancing drugs. Without manipulating hormones, it just isn't possible to get that degree of muscularity, the paper-thin skin, and the continuing ability to pack on mass, despite sometimes having poor workout habits and relative ignorance of the principles involved that many pro bodybuilders have. Many supplement distributors, in order to sell their products, would have you believe otherwise.

Still, that's no reason to give up. By using state-of-the-art training principles, consuming a nutrient-rich diet, and by getting proper amounts of rest, almost every person can make incredible changes in his or her physique. The competitive bodybuilder circuit may not be in your future, but building the kind of physique that gains you respect is certainly achievable, as are self-respect and robust health.

If you eat a low-fat diet, it doesn't matter how many calories you take in, you won't gain any fat:

The bottom line is, if you exceed your energy requirements, you'll gradually get fatter and fatter. It's true that eating a diet rich in fat will pack on the pounds quicker for a variety of reasons, the most significant being that a gram of fat has nine calories as opposed to the four calories per gram that carbohydrates and proteins carry. Fat is also metabolized differently in the body. It takes a lesser amount of calories to assimilate the energy in ingested fat than it does to assimilate an equal (weight wise) amount of carbohydrates. Consequently, more fat calories get stored than carbohydrate calories. However, the gross intake of carbohydrates, as facilitated by many of the weight-gain powders, will make you fat very quickly.

The more you work out, the more you'll grow:

No, no no. This is one of the most damaging myths that ever reared its ugly head. 95% of the pros will tell you that the biggest bodybuilding mistake they ever made was to over-train--and this happened even when they were taking steroids. Imagine how easy it is for the natural athlete to overtrain! When you train your muscles too often for them to heal, the end-result is zero growth and perhaps even losses. Working out every day, if you're truly using the proper amount of intensity, will lead to gross overtraining. A body part, worked properly, ie. worked to complete, total muscular failure that recruited as many muscle fibres as physiologically possible, can take 5-10 days to heal.

To take it a step further, even working a different body part in the next few days might constitute overtraining. If you truly work your quads to absolute fibre-tearing failure, doing another power workout the next day that entails heavy bench-presses or deadlifts is going to, in all probability, inhibit gains. After a serious leg workout, your whole system mobilizes to heal and recover from the blow you've dealt it. How, then, can the body be expected to heal from an equally brutal workout the next day? It can't, at least not without using some drugs to help deal with the catabolic processes going on in your body [and even they're usually not enough.]

Learn to accept rest as a valuable part of your workout. You should probably spend as many days out of the gym as you do in it.

The longer you work out, the better:

It just isn't necessary to do 20-30 sets for a body part, or even 10 sets like many 'experts' would have you believe. In fact, research has shown that it's possible to completely fatigue a muscle in one set, provided that that set taxes a muscle completely, ie. incorporates as many muscle fibres as possible and takes them to the point of ischemic rigour where, rather than contract and relax, the muscle fibres freeze up, sort of like a microscopic version of rigor mortis. Any further contraction causes microscopic tearing. Hypertrophy is just one adaptation to this kind of stress and it's naturally the kind most bodybuilders are interested in.

This kind of intensity can usually be achieved by doing drop or break-down sets where you rep out, lower the weight, and continue doing reps until you either can't do another rep or you've run out of weight. It can also be achieved by doing your maximum number of reps on a particular exercise: by a combination of will, tenacity, and short rest periods, you complete ten more reps. You achieve the short rest periods by locking out the weight-bearing joint in question without putting the weight down. In other words, completely surpass your normal pain and energy thresholds.

If you can truly work your muscle to the point described, it will afford you little, if any, benefit to do another set (Westcott, 1986). The exception would be the body parts that are so big that they have distinct geographical areas, like the back, which obviously has an upper, middle and lower part. The chest might also fall into this category, as it has a distinct upper and lower part, each with different insertion points.

You don't have to be strong to be big:

For a variety of reasons, people, even those with an equal amount of muscle mass, vary in strength enormously. It might have something to do with fast-twitch/slow-twitch muscle ratios, or it might have something to do with the efficiency of nerve pathways or even limb length and the resultant torque. But it is still a relative term. To get bigger muscles, you have to lift heavier weight, and you, not the guy next door, have to become stronger -- stronger than you were. Increasing muscle strength in the natural athlete, except in a very few, rare instances, requires that the tension applied to muscle fibres be high. If the tension applied to muscle fibres are light, maximal growth will not occur (Lieber, 1992).

The training programmes that work best for pro bodybuilders are best for everyone:

You see it happen every day in gyms across the country. Some bodybuilding neophyte will walk up to a guy who looks like he's an escaped attraction from Jurassic park and ask him how he trains. The biggest guy in the gym likely got that way from either taking a tremendous amount of drugs and/or by being genetically pre-dispositioned to get big. Follow a horse home and you'll find horse parents. The guy in your gym who is best bodybuilder is the guy who has made the most progress and done the most to his physique using natural techniques. He may still be a pencil neck, but he may have put on 40 pounds [19kg] of lean body mass to get where he is, and that, in all probability, took some know-how. That person probably doesn't overtrain, keeps his sets down to a minimum, and uses great form and concentration on the eccentric (negative) portion of each exercise repetition.

Many pros spend hours and hours doing innumerable sets--so many it would far surpass the average person's recuperative abilities. If average people followed the routines of average pro bodybuilders, they would, in effect, start to whittle down what muscle mass they did have or, at best, make only a tiny bit of progress after a couple of years.

You can't build muscle on a sub-maintenance calorie intake diet:

It may be a little harder, and it may require a little bit more know-how and a little bit more conscientious effort, but it can be done. The fact is, the obese state in humans and animals is not universally correlated with absolute levels of caloric intake and neither is the accrual of lean body mass. The ability to realize changes in lean/fat ratios is regulated by components of the automatic nervous system working in concert with several endocrine hormones; this is called nutrient partitioning. For example, certain beta-agonist drugs like Clenbuterol increase meat production in cattle over 30% while simultaneously diminishing bodyfat without increasing the amount or composition of their feed. Other drugs, including growth hormone, certain oestrogens, cortisol, ephedrine, and IGF-1 are all examples of re-partitioning agents. All increase oxygen consumption at the expense of fat storage--independent of energy intake!

Drugs are not the only way to do this, however. It's true that a significant component of this mechanism is genetically linked, but specific nutrients, in specific amounts, when combined with an effective training programme, can markedly improve the lean/fat ratio of adult humans. MET-Rx is one such nutrient re-partitioning agent, and several companies are trying to duplicate its successes [warning: one of the authors of this article has a significant financial stake in Substrate Technologies, the makers of MET-Rx].

You can't grow if you only work each body part once a week:

If you work out -- work out intensely-- then it can take 5-10 days for the muscles to heal. Although the following should be taken with a grain of salt when determining your own exercise frequency, a study in the May 1993 issue of the Journal of Physiology revealed it can take weeks for muscles to recuperate from an intense workout. The study involved a group of men and women who had worked their forearms to the max. All of the subjects said they were sore two days after exercising, and the soreness was gone by the seventh day, and the swelling was gone by the ninth day. After six weeks, the subjects had only gained back half the strength they had before the original exercise! By no means are we advocating that you wait two months between workouts, but we are trying to prove the point that it takes muscles longer to heal than what you might have previously thought. For some people, especially natural bodybuilders, waiting a week between body part workouts might be just what the doctor ordered for size and strength gains!

You can't make gains if you only train with weights three days a week:

Although you probably couldn't find a single steroid-assisted athlete who trains only three days a week [well, I was, and I made fantastic gains!], there's absolutely no reason why a three-day-a-week routine couldn't work for many natural athletes. As long as your routine attacked the whole body and you worked to failure on each set, you could easily experience great gains on this sort of routine. However, you need to pay even more attention to your diet if you only train three days a week, especially if your job involves little or no physical activity, and you like to spend your idle time eating. Ignore those who say three-day-a-week bodybuilders are only 'recreational lifters'. Think quality and not quantity.

You should only rest 45 seconds in between sets:

That's true if you're trying to improve cardiovascular health or lose some bodyfat. But in order to build muscle, you need to allow enough time for the muscle to recuperate fully (ie. let the lactic acid build-up in your muscles dissipate and ATP levels build back up). In order to make muscles grow, you have to lift the heaviest weight possible, thereby allowing the maximum number of muscle fibres to be recruited. If the amount of weight you lift is being limited by the amount of lactic acid left over from the previous set, you're only testing your ability to battle the effects of lactic acid. In other words, you're trying to swim across a pool while wearing concrete overshoes. When training heavy, take [at least!] two and three minutes between your sets. Notice I said, "when training heavy." The truth is, you can't train heavy all the time. Periodization calls for cycling heavy workouts with less intense training sessions in an effort to keep the body from becoming overtrained.

You have to use fancy weightlifting equipment in order to make the best gains:

Futuristic-looking, complex machinery designed to give your muscles the 'ultimate workout' is typically less effective than good-old barbells and dumbbells. Using simple free weights (barbells and dumbbells) on basic multi-joint exercises, like the squat, bench press, shoulder press, and deadlift, is still the most effective means of resistance exercise ever invented. Scientific research has shown that many exercise machines lack the proper eccentric component of an exercise that's necessary to stimulate muscle tissue to remodel (grow).

Weight training makes you big; aerobic exercise cuts you up:

Manipulations in your nutrient intake are the main factor in getting cut up, and how you do it doesn't matter. If your daily caloric expenditure exceeds your daily caloric intake on a consistent basis, you will lose fat and get more cut.

Aerobic exercise is generally meant to improve cardiovascular efficiency, but if you do it long enough, you will burn up calories and in the long run drop the fat. However, weightlifting can do the same thing, only better. Studies have shown that the body burns far more efficiently if exercise is performed at a moderate pace for periods longer than 20 minutes. (It generally takes that long for the glucose in the bloodstream to be 'burned up', causing the body to dip into glycogen reserves for its energy) Once the glycogen reserves are used up, the body must metabolize fatty acids for energy. That equate to lost bodyfat.

In the long run, bodybuilding is more efficient than aerobics for burning up calories. Let me explain--if researchers were to undertake a study of twins whereby one twin performed daily aerobics and the other practiced a bodybuilding programme where the end result was increased lean body mass, the bodybuilding twin would ultimately be a more efficient fat burner than his aerobic twin. Why? Well, by adding lean body mass, that person's metabolic requirements are higher--muscle uses energy even while it is not being used. The aerobic twin might use more calories during the time period of exercise itself, but the weight-lifting twin would use a higher amount during rest time, leading to a higher net 24-hour expenditure. The weight lifter burns fat just sitting there.

You can completely reshape a muscle by doing isolation exercises:

You can't limit growth to only one area of a muscle. Larry Scott, for whom the 'biceps peaking' Scott curl was named, had tremendous biceps, but he didn't have much of a peak. The shape of your biceps, or for that matter, any muscle, is determined by your genetic makeup. When you work a muscle, any muscle, it works on the all-or-nothing principle, meaning that each muscle fibre recruited to do a lift -- along the entire length of that muscle -- is contracted fully. Why would a certain number of them, like the ones in the middle of the biceps, suddenly start to grow differently or at a faster rate than its partners? If anything, the muscles that are closest to the insertion points are the most prone to mechanical stress, and you don't see them get any bigger than the rest of the muscle. If they did, everyone would have proportions like Popeye.

This is true of any muscle, but you're probably thinking, what about quads? I know that when I do hack squats with my feet together, it tends to give me more sweep in my legs. Sure it does, but the quadriceps are made up of four different main muscles, and doing hacks with your feet together forces the vastus lateralis muscles on the outside of the leg to work harder; consequently, they grow proportionately along their entire length and give the outer quads more sweep.

As further evidence, take a look at a picture of any young professional bodybuilder before he was developed enough to become a pro. He will have virtually the same structural lines as he does today. All that has changed is that his muscles are now bigger.

If you get a pump, you're working the muscles adequately to ensure muscular hypertrophy, or if your muscles are burning, that means you are promoting muscle growth.

A pump, despite what Arnold Schwarzenegger said about it "feeling better than coming", is nothing more than the muscle becoming engorged with blood from capillary action. It can be achieved easily by curling a soup can fifty times. It by no means equates to the muscular intensity needed to promote growth. The same is true of the coveted 'burn' that Hollywood muscleheads advise the public to 'go for'. A burn is simply an accumulation of lactic acid, a by-product of chemical respiration. You can get a burn by peddling a bicycle or simply extending your arm straight out and moving it in tiny circles [or sitting in a burning fireplace!]. It does not necessarily mean you are promoting muscle growth. For hypertrophy to occur, you have to subject the muscles to high levels of tension, and high tension levels are best induced by heavy weights.

If you do hundreds of sit-ups a day, you will eventually achieve a narrow, washboard-type midsection:

There is no such thing as spot-reduction. Doing thousands and thousands of sit-ups will give you tight abdominal muscles, but they will do nothing to rid your midsection of fat. Thigh adductor and abductor movements will give women's thighs more firmness, but they will do nothing to rid the area of fat, or what is commonly [and erroneously] called cellulite. Nothing will rid the body of fat, unless it is a carefully-orchestrated reduction in your daily energy intake; in other words, if you burn more calories than you ingest.

Training like a powerlifter --deadlifts, heavy squats, bench presses--will make your physique look blocky.

Blockiness, like baldness or a flat chest, is a genetic trait. If you were born blocky, then powerlifting will simply make you a bigger blocky person. The only way to offset a blocky appearance is to give special emphasis to the lats, the outer muscles of the thighs, and to a fat-reducing diet which will keep the midsection as narrow as possible. With these modifications, you will give your body the illusion of a more "aerodynamic" appearance. The truth is, powerlifting exercises are excellent for bodybuilding.

High repetitions make your muscles harder and more cut up:

Although there is some evidence to suggest that high repetitions might induce some extra capillary intrusion into a muscle, they will do nothing to make the muscle harder or more cut up. If a completely sedentary person began weightlifting, using either low reps or high reps, he or she would experience a rapid increase in tonus, the degree of muscular contraction that the muscle maintains even when that muscle is relaxed, but that would happen regardless of rep range. The only way that high repetitions would make a muscle more cut up is if, by doing a higher number of reps, your body as a whole was in negative energy balance, and you were burning more calories than you were ingesting. The truth is, heavy weights, lifted for 5-8 reps per set, can build rock-hard muscles. You just have to get the fat off them to see how "hard" they are.

Instinctive training is the best way to promote gains:

If bodybuilders followed their instincts, they'd go home and pop open a Bud. Instinctive training is a wonderful catch-phrase, and it might even work for drug-assisted athletes since the very act of opening up a Bud would probably induce muscular growth in them. However, in a natural bodybuilder, the approach to long-term, consistent gains in muscular mass has to be, shall we say, a bit more scientific. Research results conducted by exercise physiologists recommend a systematic approach such as the one encompassed by periodization where the bodybuilder, through a period of several weeks, lifts ever-increasing pre-set percentages of a one-rep lift. This heavy period is also periodically staggered with a lighter training phase 'cycle'. Ultimately, the percentages increase, the maximum one-rep lifts increase, and lean body mass increases. There is nothing instinctive about it.

Women need to train differently than men:

On a microscopic level, there is virtually no difference between the muscle tissue of men and the muscle tissue of women. Men and women have different levels of the same hormones, and that's what is responsible for the difference in the amount of muscle a man can typically put on and the amount of muscle a woman can typically gain. There is absolutely no reason why either should train differently than the other sex, provided they have the same goals. The only difference in training might be as a result of cultural, sexual preferences. A woman might desire to develop her glutes a little more so she looks better in a pair of 'Guess' jeans. Conversely, a man might want to build his lats a little more so that he fits the cultural stereotype of a virile man.

There are food supplements available that are just as effective as steroids, yet safer:

The only things as effective as steroids are other steroids. Despite the proclamations of some supplement distributors, usually in giant, 35-point type, no currently available supplement works like steroids. However, nutrients and supplements can be extremely effective, especially if your diet is lacking in some critical component or you're genetically predisposed to accept that nutrient or supplement. Biochemically, individuals vary enormously, and the interaction of genetics, coupled with the widely varying diets that each of us eats, makes it virtually impossible to gauge just what will work for one individual and what won't. That is why some supplements work better than others for some people, just as some people are genetically predispositioned to accept steroids more readily than others. Food supplements do have benefits that can't be overlooked -- they're generally safe, and they won't get you thrown into jail. But none of them build muscle as fast or as well as steroids.

Professional bodybuilders represent the epitome of health and fitness:

The ultimate irony is that the IFBB is facing in trying to get bodybuilders into the Olympics is that while every athlete in every other sport is presumably the healthiest they've ever been so that they are able to compete athletically and break records, the bodybuilder is so weak on competition day that he or she would have trouble fending off the attacks of an enraged toy poodle. The weeks of constant dieting, workouts that continually tax the body almost beyond recovery, and a constant influx of potentially harmful drugs and diuretics have brought most of them to total exhaustion.

And think about the huge amounts of food some steroid-using bodybuilders eat. In all the longevity sites in the world where people routinely live to be one hundred, the only common denominator is that they all either under-eat or eat just enough to meet their daily caloric requirements. By ingesting less food, they ingest less harmful chemicals, and fewer free radicals are formed in the body. The average professional builder probably eats at least four or five times what these aforementioned people eat. As a result, bodybuilders often suffer from high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Plus, with all that extra mass, the heart has to work that much harder and will probably stop beating years before it was designed to. That's why professional bodybuilding is the ultimate act of vanity. It was done strictly to fulfil some misguided notion of the superhuman ideal, and health was not even a consideration. Almost without exception, these guys and gals are not healthy, and they'll probably be among the first to tell you so. However, weight-training and consuming a nutrient-rich diet is very healthy, as long as it is not carried to extremes.

Training with weights causes your muscles to get tight and hinders flexibility and, consequently, athletic performance:

If anything, when done properly (slowly and using a complete range of motion), weight training increases flexibility. Many athletes now engage in weight training in order to improve their performance in their chosen sport -- witness Evander Hollyfield or any number of track athletes, basketball players, or gymnasts; the list goes on and on.

This lie goes all the way back to the 1930s. Companies that were selling isometric exercise programmes by mail were trying to convince people _not_ to exercise with barbells, simply because it wasn't practical to send weights through the mail. So they made up the 'muscle-bound' lie.

This lie might have been fuelled from the feeling of 'tightness' that accompanies an intense workout. If the workout was intense and a sufficient number of muscle fibres were recruited and microscopically damaged, then even the normal tonus (the normal amount of contraction experienced by a relaxed muscle) is more than enough to cause a feeling of pain and tightness. The tightness is compounded by the 'tugging' of the tendons on the muscles. Stretching, however, would do much to alleviate this tightness, and stretching is a recommended part of any athletic pursuit.

The only possible confirmation of this lie concerns a baseball pitcher's arm. An intense weight training programme might affect a pitcher's ability to throw a fast ball, but it wouldn't be because of a lack of flexibility. The speed a pitcher can generate seems to be determined more by a complex relationship of tendon length and strength and nervous system efficiency as opposed to muscular strength, and weight training could, possibly, upset this delicate balance.

Loading up on carbohydrates is an excellent way to enhance your athletic performance:

The traditional manner in which athletes 'carb up' for an athletic competition usually involves first depleting the body's stores of carbohydrates through exercise and diet. This is then followed by rest and a high carbohydrate intake. However, studies have shown that this type of preparation is unnecessary. An athlete who eats a balanced, high-carbohydrate diet and is in reasonably good shape has plenty of carbohydrates in his or her system to meet the demands of short-duration exercises that don't exceed roughly one hour. Anyone that does exercises that last more than an hour, like long-distance running or cycling, may benefit from 'carbing up', but the ability of muscles to use fat as a source of energy rather than carbohydrates in endurance events may be even more important to performance at that level.

Consuming foods high in sugar before training provides your body with extra energy to sustain workouts:

Simple sugars like sucrose don't need to be broken down by the body's enzymes to be used as energy like complex carbohydrates do. Therefore, they elicit a rapid release of insulin, the hormone that regulates blood-sugar levels. The trouble is, the sudden, rapid influx of sugar into the system causes the body to release insulin in what must be considered a haphazard method, ie. the amount released is usually more than what's needed to metabolise the sugar. Consequently, your blood sugar often temporarily drops to a point that is actually lower than it was _before_ you had the sugar, which might cause you to become more exhausted much earlier than it normally would. Your body is then forced to dip into its glycogen reserves in order to correct the imbalance.

To ensure that you have enough energy to complete a workout, eat nutrient- rich foods with low glycemic indices (those that elicit a smooth, steady stream of sugar into the bloodstream) like barley, lentils or beans.

All anabolic steroids are extremely toxic and dangerous:

Here's a good trivia question borrowed from Dan Duchaine's Underground Steroid Handbook [highly recommended]: if you lined up a bottle of Dianabol (a popular steroid), a bottle of Lasix (a diuretic used by heart patients and bodybuilders who want to 'cut up' for a competition), a bottle of Valium, a bottle of aspirin, and a bottle of Slow-K (a potassium supplement), which one, upon eating a 100 tablets, wouldn't kill you? Well, most likely the Dianabol. This isn't an endorsement of steroids; it's just an effective illustration of the stigma generally associated with all steroids: 'they'll give you brain tumours like Lyle Alzado . . . they'll cause your heart to enlarge and eventually give out [they cause spontaneous decapitation . . .]'. Maybe, but all steroids are different. Some are more dangerous than others. Birth control pills are steroids. Testosterone patches have been used with great success to enhance the quality of life for elderly men. Some of the steroids that bodybuilders use are very mild, and the risk associated with them is virtually negligible. Still, there are dangerous steroids, and that's all the more reason that athletes who choose to use them must be more knowledgeable about them.

If you stop working out, your muscle will turn into fat:

This is almost too preposterous to address. Muscle can no sooner turn to fat than gold can turn into lead. Muscle is made up of individual cells--living, 'breathing' cells that undergo all kinds of complex metabolic processes. Fat cells are simply storage packets of lipids. The possibility of one changing into another is akin to the bowling ball in your storage closet turning into your Aunt Edna. If you stop working out, if you stop applying resistance to your muscles on a consistent basis, they will simply adapt to the new condition. In other words, they'll shrink. If the degree of inactivity or immobilization is severe, the muscles will shrink faster than the surrounding skin, and a temporary condition of loose skin might be experienced, but that too would remedy itself with time.

If everyone took the same amount of steroids, everyone would look like a professional bodybuilder:

One of the ironies of steroid use is that some people are genetically 'gifted' in terms of steroid receptors. That means that they have a large number of receptor sites in the muscles with which a particular steroid can combine and exert its mass-building effects. The man or woman who won the last contest might very well have the most active steroid receptors rather than being the most dedicated, knowledgeable bodybuilder. On the other hand, some people might possess very few receptors for a particular steroid. That's why they experience very little, if any, growth on a particular steroid. Another factor that influences receptor affinity is age. The highest receptor affinity seems to occur in late teenage years. This is a generalization, but it seems to be true for a good number of people. Since there is a greater uptake in these individuals, they are often able to take lower dosages for longer periods of time and make better gains than older users. The truth is, two bodybuilders could take the same steroid stack, train and eat the same, and one could turn out to be in the Olympia, and the other might never even win a local contest. The difference in how people react to these drugs is incredible.

Someone with a well-built body must be knowledgeable about fitness and physique development:

Despite popular belief, just because some guy has 20" [51cm] arms or 30" [77cm] thighs, that does not automatically credential him as a bodybuilding expert. Unfortunately, in a society where looks count for so much, well-built lifters are often regarded as bodybuilding scientists. The unfortunate fact is, many well-built athletes, even pro bodybuilders, have no idea how they got where they are. Many of them are so genetically gifted and embellish their genetic potential even further by using tons of bodybuilding drugs that they actually succeed in spite of themselves. With few exceptions, elite bodybuilders are the last people in the world you want to turn to for bodybuilding advice if you're genetically average like 98% of us. You're more likely to find expert advice from someone who has 'walked a mile in your shoes'.

Split Routines

2010-03-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

There are many advantages to split workout routines. Full-body training works great for some, but split routines let you concentrate on specific parts of the body that may be lagging behind others. With a split routine, you should spend 45 minutes to an hour in the gym, the same as a full body workout.

There are many different kinds of split routines but the most popular are the push/pull split and the upper/lower split. With the push/pull idea, you “split” your weekly routine into exercises that deal with pushing and pulling. With the upper/lower idea, you “split your weekly routine into exercises that deal with the upper body and lower body.

Now that you know what splits are all about, you’re probably wondering how to get started and what to do to create a split routine. When creating a routine always do your weakest body parts first and then your strongest body parts later in the week. Bigger body parts should always be trained before the smaller body parts. The smaller muscles are used as support for basic lifts, so it is important that they are not tired when needed. Bigger body parts include chest, back, and legs.

The key to splits and any kind of workouts is keeping intensity levels high. The main part of training is to tear muscles down and then allow them to grow back bigger and stronger. If you are training to achieve maximum power be sure to keep the reps low.

Sleep is also a key to training. The anabolic growth hormone reaches its peak levels in deep sleep, so it is very important to get as much sleep as possible. Many professional body builders sleep at least eight to ten hours a night!

Contact me should you require assistance creating a split routine...

Jamie Eason

2010-03-06T09:22:00.001-08:00

No website is complete without a picture of the fantastic Jamie Eason.

Jamie is a truly inspirational fitness model.

Jamie had a breast cancer scare when she was in her early twenties, and she made the decision to exercise more and have a nutritionaly balaced diet.

She is now one of the top fitness models in the industry and spends a considerable amount of time helping others lead a healthier lifestyle.

Plyometrics

2010-03-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

Plyometrics is a type of exercise that uses explosive movements to develop muscular power, the ability to generate a large amount of force quickly. It may be used, for example, to improve the effectiveness of a boxer's punch, to quicken the throwing ability of a baseball pitcher, or to increase the vertical jump of a basketball player.

Plyometric training acts on both the musculotendinous and neurological levels to increase an athlete's power output without necessarily increasing their maximum strength output.

Physics of Plyometrics:

Muscular power is determined by how long it takes for strength to be converted into speed. The ability to convert strength to speed in a very short time allows for athletic movements beyond what raw strength will allow. Thus an athlete who has strong legs and can perform the freeweight squat with extremely heavy weights over a long duration may get less distance on a standing long jump or height on a vertical leap than a weaker athlete who is able to generate a smaller amount of force in a shorter amount of time.

Though the plyometrically trained athlete has a lower maximal force output and may not squat as much, training allows them to compress the time required to reach their maximum force output, allowing them to develop more power with each contraction.

Musculotendinous component:

For a muscle to cause movement, it must shorten; this is known as a concentric contraction. There is a maximum amount of force with which a certain muscle can concentrically contract.

However, if the muscle is lengthened (eccentric contraction) just prior to the contraction, it will produce greater force through the storage of elastic energy. This effect requires that the transition time between eccentric contraction and concentric contraction (amortisation phase) be very short. This energy dissipates rapidly, so the following concentric contraction must follow the eccentric stretch before this occurs.

The process is frequently referred to as the "stretch shortening cycle", and is one of the underlying mechanisms of plyometric training.

Neurological component:

In addition to the elastic-recoil of the musculotendonous system there is a neurological component. The stretch shortening cycle affects the sensory response of the muscle spindles and golgi tendon organs (GTO). It is believed that during plyometric exercise, the excitatory threshold of the GTO's is increased, meaning they become less likely to send signals to limit force production when the muscle has increased tension. This facilitates greater contraction force than normal strength or power exercise, and thus greater training ability.

The muscle spindles are involved in the stretch reflex and are triggered by rapid lengthening of the muscle as well as absolute length. At the end of the rapid eccentric contraction, the muscle has reached a great length at a high velocity. This may cause the muscle spindle to enact a powerful stretch reflex, further enhancing the power of the following concentric contraction. The muscle spindle's sensitivity to velocity is another reason why the amortisation phase must be brief for a plyometric effect.

A longer term neurological component involves training the muscles to contract more quickly and powerfully by altering the timing and firing rates of the motor units. During a normal contraction, motor units peak in a de-synchronized fashion until tetanus is reached. Plyometric training conditions the neurons to contract with a single powerful surge rather than several disorganized contractions.

The result is a stronger, faster contraction allowing a heavy load (such as the body) to be moved quickly and forcefully.

Therefore, a plyometric exercise involves:

1) An eccentric contraction

2) A brief amortisation phase (no change in muscle length)

3) A short concentric contraction delivering maximum force in a short period of time

Safety Considerations:

Plyometric exercises carry increased risk of injury due to the powerful forces generated during training and performance, and should only be performed by well-conditioned individuals who are under supervision. Good levels of physical strength, flexibility and proprioception should be achieved before commencement of plyometric training.

The specified minimum strength requirement varies depending on where the information is sourced and the intensity of the plyometrics to be performed. Chu (1998) recommends a participant should able to perform 5 repetitions of the squat exercise at 60% of their bodyweight before doing plyometrics. Core body (trunk) strength is also important.

Flexibility is required both for injury prevention and to enhance the effect of the stretch shortening cycle.

Proprioception is an important component of balance, coordination and agility, which are also required for safe performance of plyometric exercises.

Further safety considerations include:

Age - low-intensity and low-volume only for athletes under the age of 13 or for athletes who squat less than 1.5 times their bodyweight.

Surface - some degree of softness is needed. Gymnastics mats are ideal, grass is suitable. Hard surfaces such as concrete should never be used.

Footwear - must have adequate cushioning and be well fitting.

Bodyweight - athletes who are over 240 pounds (109 kg) should be very careful and low-intensity plyometric exercises should be selected.

Technique - most importantly, a participant must be instructed on proper technique before commencing any plyometric exercise. They should be well rested and free of injury in any of the limbs to be exercised.

Plyometrics is not dangerous, but the potential for high intensity and stress on joints and musculo-tendonous units makes safety a strong prerequisite to this particular method of exercise. Low-intensity variations of plyometrics are frequently performed in various stages of injury rehabilitation, indicating that correct performance is valuable and safe for increasing muscular power in all populations.

5 Stupid Things Healthy People Do

2010-03-05T10:35:00.000-08:00

This article was posted by bodybuilder Mike O'Hearn and I thought it was a good read so wanted to share it.

______________________________________________________

5 Stupid Things Healthy People Do

You are not a stupid person. Not by any means.

In fact, it's my guess that you're healthier than most.

You probably exercise regularly. You watch what you eat. You keep up-to-date on the latest health concerns. You don't binge on sugar.

And you never - ever - eat fast food. Well, almost never.

But you do have a few unhealthy skeletons in your closet -ones that you probably aren't even aware of.

The following 5 Stupid Things are frequently committed by health conscious people. Once you break these bad habits, you'll find that achieving your weight loss goals just became a whole lot easier.

1. You're Dehydrated

It has been said that 75 percent of the population is chronically dehydrated.
Would you disagree?
When was the last time that you actually drank 8 glasses of water in a day?

Dehydration occurs when more fluid leaves your body than is taken in.
Symptoms include: fatigue, irritability, headaches, nausea, rapid heart rate, and, in extreme cases, even death.

Dehydration also slows your metabolism, which hinders weight loss.

You shouldn't wait until the feeling of thirst or dry mouth hits you, at that point damage has already been done. Instead, constantly rehydrate throughout your day to avoid dehydration.

The best way to do this is to incorporate water into your daily schedule.
Have a water bottle at your desk and train yourself to sip on it often, and get into the habit of drinking a full glass of water with each meal and snack.

2. You Eat Out Too Often

Research suggests that most people eat out one out of every 4 meals and snacks.
That's an average of once a day.

Restaurant food is designed to do one thing: to taste good. In order to increase eating pleasure, each item is loaded with fat, salt and sugar.

This causes you to eat way more calories than you actually need.

Even when you order ‘healthy' items, you're still taking in more calories and fat grams than you would if you had prepared the item at home. Imagine the last salad you ordered out. Didn't it come with cream dressing, croutons, cheese sprinkles and a piece of butter laden bread on the side?

The main reason people eat out is for convenience, so with a little organization you'll find that preparing your own meals takes less time than you thought it would.

On the weekend sit down and plan out your meals for the week. Then go to the grocery store and stock up on everything you'll need for those meals.

Pack your lunch and snacks each night before bed, then grab it on your way out the door in the morning. When you prepare dinner at home, make enough for at least the next day as well. Your efforts will pay off both in terms of weight loss and in money saved.

3. You're Sleep Deprived

In Gallup Poll surveys, 56% of the adult population reported that drowsiness is a problem in the daytime. That's more than half of us that clearly don't get enough sleep.

Healthy adults require 7-8 hours of sleep each night. When you fail to meet this need your body goes into sleep debt, which continues to accumulate indefinitely until you catch up.

A lack of sleep negatively affects your immune system, your nervous system, and interferes with healthy hormone release and cellular repairs.

The best way to combat sleep deprivation is to set a scheduled bedtime. Your body will benefit from a consistent sleeping and waking routine, and you're sure to get all the rest you need.

If you have trouble falling asleep once you're in bed, then try these two tips. First, make sure that you don't drink any caffeinated beverages after lunchtime. Second, don't eat for three hours before you go to bed.

This helps eliminate sleeplessness due to indigestion, and will also turbo-charge your weight loss.

4. You're Stressed Out

I don't have to tell you that we are living in a fast-paced world and that most of us have stress levels that are through the roof. But what you might not realize is that your stress levels are making you fat.

Stress creates an increase in the hormone cortisol, and chronic stress creates a chronic increase in cortisol. This is a problem because is slows your metabolism, leads to cravings and is linked to greater levels of abdominal fat storage.

The vicious cycle of stress and weight gain goes around and around.

Stress causes you to eat emotionally, and your raised cortisol levels cause that food to be stored as fat.

One of the most effective ways to instantly eliminate stress is to sit down and write out a list of all the things that are bothering you. This should include things that you need to get done, issues that weigh on your mind and anything you believe contributes to your stress level.

Once it's all down on paper, organize it like a to-do list and start resolving each item. Doing so will get the stress off of your mind and will put your body into the motion of resolving each issue.

5. You're on Exercise Autopilot

You do the same thing each and every time you exercise. Same machines, same pace, same duration. While your routine sure feels comfortable, your results have long since halted.

A plateau occurs when your body adapts to your routine and weight loss stops. It is incredibly frustrating, and totally avoidable.

You don't have to increase the amount of time that you spend exercising in order to see quicker, faster results. It's all about challenging your body.

There are two simple ways to instantly increase the effectiveness of your exercise routine. First, increase your pace. Secondly, increase your intensity. Constantly vary your speed and intensity in order to keep your muscles guessing and adapting.

Another way to break through the exercise plateau is to do something totally new. If you regularly use weight machines then start using free weights. If you normally jog on the treadmill then start using the bike.

Are you ready to break the plateau as you take your routine to the next level?

Would you like to know without a shadow of a doubt that you are going to lose weight in the coming months?

It's my goal to see you achieve greatness. I believe that you've got what it takes.

Cycling - Get on your bike !!

2010-03-05T10:24:00.000-08:00

Getting on your bike regularly not only gets you where you want to go faster than a car, it protects you against a wide range of ill health, and also makes you feel better.

Cycling is good for your heart and health:

Everyday cycling, where the exercise leaves you breathing heavily but not being out of breath, is an effective and enjoyable form of aerobic exercise. This is the type of exercise that is most effective at promoting good health. For example, cycling reduces the risk of serious conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity and the most common form of diabetes.

One rough calculation suggests that new cyclists covering short distances can reduce their risk of death (mainly due to the reduction of heart disease) by as much as 22 per cent.

Cycling will help with weight management:

Cycling can be part of a programme to lose weight also because it burns the energy supplied by a chocolate bar or a couple of alcoholic drinks in an hour (about 300 calories). A 15-minute bike ride to and from work five times a week burns off the equivalent of 11 pounds of fat in a year.6 That kind of cycling pattern also meets the Government's latest target on exercise: that we should take part in some mild to moderate physical activity that leaves us out of breath for at least 30 minutes five times a week.

Cycling can improve your mood:

Cycling can have positive effects on how we feel too. Moderate exercise has been found to reduce levels of depression and stress, improve mood and raise self-esteem, and has also been found to relieve symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.

Cycling can help to maintain strength and coordination:

There can also be indirect benefits in terms of reducing injuries from falls, which can be seriously disabling, especially in older people. The strength and co-ordination that regular cycling brings make them less likely. Physically active older people have much reduced rates of hip fracture.

How cycling improves fitness:

A study carried out for the Department of Transport found that 'even a small amount of cycling can lead to significant gains in fitness'. The study found that aerobic fitness was boosted by 11 per cent after just six weeks of cycling 'short distances' four times a week. If cycling the equivalent of four miles to and from work in total a day the aerobic benefit increased to 17 per cent.

According to the Department of Transport study people who do not exercise who start cycling move from the third of the population who are the least fit, to the fittest half of the population in just a few months.

Leg strength also improved in the cyclists in the study. This is more important than it seems because leg strength improves other mobility by allowing people to get out of chairs more easily, and helps older people especially avoid falls and the broken bones and other injuries associated with them.

Cycling, the researchers behind the study concluded, is 'one of the few physical activities which can be undertaken by the majority of the population as part of a daily routine'.

Cyclists breathe in fewer fumes than car drivers
If you are worried about traffic fumes, there may be no need. Cyclists and pedestrians actually absorb lower levels of pollutants from traffic fumes than car drivers.

Who can cycle?

There are no real age barriers to cycling, and people of most fitness levels can cycle, slowly and gently if necessary. Anyone with heart disease or other conditions affecting their activity should, of course, consult their doctor before starting any exercise programme. Those of all body shapes and all but the most extreme body weights can ride a bike.

Getting Started:

What sets cycling apart from most other forms of exercise is how well it fits into our busy, modern lifestyles. Apart from the bicycle itself (and a recommended protective helmet) no other equipment is needed, no special time needs to be set, and no special clothes are needed (although you might want to leave your best suit on the hanger). Instead of spending time stuck in a car or bus, you spend it on the bike; there is no need to find extra time to exercise.

It's as easy as riding a bike. You simply start to use a bike when you would otherwise have gone by car, bus, train or on foot. How much you ride depends on you, your fitness and your lifestyle. New cyclists could start off by using the bike to pop a few hundred yards down the road to the shops or the post box, and gradually increase the distance they cover. In a few weeks aerobic fitness will have improved and you will be able to ride for miles without feeling anything more than a little puffed out.

Helmets:

There is still some argument, but there is increasing evidence that cycle helmets can reduce the number and severity of head injuries in cyclists. To be any good at all the helmet must be worn correctly and be close fitting without being pushed to the back of the head. Get expert advice from someone in a bike shop. But remember, the health benefits of cycling significantly outweigh the risks of cycling on British roads.

Keep at it:

Most cyclists are 'utility' cyclists where the bike is a way of getting from A to B, and getting some exercise is an added bonus. Nearly three-quarters of journeys people make are of five miles or less, and these could be achieved by most people. On reasonably flat ground you will soon be able to cover at least four to six miles in half an hour - faster than cars in many towns and cities.

But those bitten by the bike bug may improve their fitness and may make long rides to work, or may choose to go leisure cycling where they cover 30-50 miles a day.

Competitive individuals may want to start racing - against other cyclists or against the clock.

Fitter individuals with a taste for adventure may choose to try mountain biking, speeding down specially made trails on the side of hills, leaping over dips and jumping over obstacles.

These more active cyclists are likely to increase their health benefits. In general the more active an individual is, the healthier they are. But, whichever form of cycling you choose to pursue, remember to have fun while you're doing it. As you are whizzing past drivers stuck in a queue, you can enjoy the fact that not only are you getting to your destination quicker, but you are getting fit at the same time.

Weight Training Full Body Workout

2010-03-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

Chad Waterbury is one of the world’s leading experts on developing muscle for the goal of enhancing performance and he has written a training plan that will start you off on the right foot. Here is what he has to say.....

For decades, men built slabs of muscle with simple, three day-per-week training programs. They trained their whole bodies in one brief workout session and they grew big and strong. Scoff all you want, but tens of thousands of trainees can’t be wrong.

Well, it's high time we look into the past, learn from what we see, and build a new future.

We must learn from the successes and just as importantly, the failures. Yes, although this classic hypertrophy plan worked well, it wasn't perfect. And today we know what we can do to fix the drawbacks.

Let's break it down right now. The majority of non-steroid injecting trainees who’ve built respectable physiques have done so with the following, undisputable parameters:

1) They train every major muscle group three times each week.

2) They keep intensity levels sufficient without overindulgence.

3) They choose a training volume that can be maintained along with the stressors of life.

4) They execute compound, multi-joint exercises that have been shown to produce the most hypertrophy.

5) They keep each training session as brief as possible.

6) They allow at least 48 hours of recovery between workouts.

I’ve worked with trainees at every imaginable level of the fitness spectrum, and the aforementioned elements are ubiquitous in their most successful hypertrophy programs. So I often wonder why they ever strayed. Why stop doing what's working?

Usually their reasoning is based along the following statement that I recently heard from a veteran of the iron game: "Hell," he said, "I don’t know why I ever stopped doing it. I just assumed there was a better way." Well buddy, I’m here to tell ya, there ain’t no better way!

I’ve written numerous training programs for T-Nation, and they all work. But, oftentimes, trainees don’t seek what I seek. They want to look good nekkid, period. Not only that, but they don’t give a rat’s ass what strength qualities they’re training. All they care about is the most efficient and effective route to the physique they’ve only seen in pictures.

It’s time for a change. I want each and every one of you to see that physique in the mirror, not just in magazines. But as I said, we must also learn from the failures of past programs. Burnout and training injuries were often a "given" in old-school, total-body programs. The reason for this indiscretion is simple: poor planning.

Therefore, this article is based on the successes of the past along with my own successes as a trainer. I’ve learned to properly plan my clients' programs so results are steadfast and continuous.

Every single time I hit the gym, I perform a total-body workout with most of the following guidelines. I doubt that will ever change. In fact, that’s how I added almost 100 pounds of muscle to my frame. I don’t know why I ever wandered, so I’m here to keep you from running astray.

The Obstacles

The single biggest mistake trainees have made in their quest for the ultimate physique is in periodization parameters. Simply speaking, they keep executing the same damn parameters in hopes of the body not "catching on" to what they’re doing. Big mistake, my friends. Our bodies are designed for one sole purpose: adaptation. If you forget that, then you can forget about ever creating the physique of a Greek God.

Bill Starr came damn close to pulling off one of the best training programs with his classic text, The Strongest Shall Survive. His initial parameters were excellent. Unfortunately, his program wasn’t willing to adapt, so progress on his "Big Three" program came to a screeching halt for most trainees. You can’t endlessly perform the same exercises with the same parameters and keep experiencing results!

A New Generation is Born

Now the dichotomy arises. We must incorporate the variables that withstood the test of time along with a new plan for continued progress. It’s time to take the past, present and future and blend it into a new hybrid plan!

The How

Exercises per Session: 6

Sets per Muscle Group: 2-4

Reps per Exercise: 5-18

Rest between sets for the same muscle group: 60-120 seconds, and 120-240 seconds (antagonist training)

The Why

The first thing you probably notice with the above parameters is variance. This is the key to your consistent hypertrophy success. A lack of variance is the single biggest reason why trainees aren’t still talking about the continuous progress they received from some of the most popular hypertrophy programs. Without consistent change, results will be anything but consistent.

Exercise Selection

Every session is going to consist of six exercises. Why? Because my empirical evidence has shown that natural trainees can consistently maintain six exercises per session without burning out.

It’s imperative to base your exercise selection around compound, multi-joint exercises. Four out of the six exercises for each session must be compound exercises. Six sissy-assed, single-joint isolation exercises ain’t gonna do the trick. But, you can perform a few of my recommended single-joint exercises for two of the six exercises. Here’s the list you must choose from:

Compound Exercises

Chest: Incline, flat, decline barbell or dumbbell bench presses. Wide-grip dips.

Back: Upright or horizontal rows. Pull-ups or pulldowns with pronated, semi-supinated, and supinated grips.

Deltoids: Standing or seated military presses with a barbell or dumbbells utilizing pronated, semi-supinated or supinated hand positions.

Quads: High-bar full barbell squats, hack squats or front squats.

Lower Back/Hips: Traditional and/or sumo-style deadlifts or Good Mornings. Power cleans or snatches.

Single-Joint Exercises

Biceps: Barbell curls, hammer curls or preacher curls.

Triceps: Lying barbell or dumbbell triceps extensions, and pronated or supinated grip pressdowns.

Deltoids: Front, side or rear dumbbell raises.

Hamstrings: Glute-ham raises or leg curls.

Calves: Standing, seated or donkey calf raises.

Stick to the above list of exercises for optimal results.

The Total-Body Plan

First and foremost, proper periodization planning is imperative. Without sufficient set/rep/load/rest parameters, even the best exercises won’t produce results. Therefore, I’ve devised the following periodization plan for unsurpassable hypertrophy increases:

Week 1

Workout 1
Sets: 3
Reps: 5
Rest: 60 seconds between sets

Load: Choose a weight that forces you to near-failure for the last rep of the last set.*

*This is the recommended load for all workouts.

Workout 2
Sets: 3
Reps: 8
Rest: 90 seconds between sets

Workout 3
Sets: 2
Reps: 15
Rest: 120 seconds between sets

Week 2

Perform with the same parameters as Week 1, but execute antagonist training for all six exercises (more on this later).

Week 3

Workout 1
Sets: 4
Reps: 5
Rest: 60 seconds between sets

Workout 2
Sets: 4
Reps: 8
Rest: 90 seconds between sets

Workout 3
Sets: 3
Reps: 15
Rest: 120 seconds between sets

Week 4

Perform the same parameters as Week 3, but execute antagonist training for all six exercises.

Week 5

Workout 1
Sets: 2
Reps: 18
Rest: 120 seconds between sets

Workout 2
Sets: 2
Reps: 8
Rest: 60 seconds between sets

Workout 3
Sets: 2
Reps: 12
Rest: 90 seconds between sets

Week 6

Perform the same parameters as Week 5, but execute antagonist training for all six exercises.

Week 7

Workout 1
Sets: 3
Reps: 18
Rest: 120 seconds between sets

Workout 2
Sets: 3
Reps: 8
Rest: 60 seconds between sets

Workout 3
Sets: 3
Reps: 12
Rest: 90 seconds between sets

Week 8

Perform the same parameters as Week 7, but execute antagonist training for all six exercises.

Explanation

1) Weeks 1,3,5 and 7 are to be performed with straight sets. In other words, perform one set of the first exercise, rest, perform your second set, and continue for all the recommended sets before moving on to the next exercise.

2) Weeks 2,4,6 and 8 are to be performed as antagonist training. Every session consists of six exercises so antagonist training is simple; all you have to do is perform three antagonist exercise groupings during each workout. For instance, perform quads/hams, chest/back, and biceps/triceps exercise pairings for the recommended sets and reps.

Example: Do one set for chest, then one for back, then another for chest, etc. Then move on to the next pairing, like quads/hams or biceps/triceps.

3) Choose four exercises under the list of compound exercises. Choose two exercises under the single-joint exercise list. Don't leave out any major muscle groups.

4) Constantly rotate exercises from each category. In other words, don’t always start your session with a chest/back pairing. You must keep rotating the body parts and exercises you begin each session with.

5) Don’t perform the same exercise for more than two weeks in a row. For example, if you performed a flat barbell bench press as your chest exercise for Weeks 1 and 2, you must switch to either incline, decline or dumbbell bench presses for another two weeks before switching again.

6) Increase the load 1.25 to 2.5% with each subsequent workout.

7) Perform all three workouts within a seven-day timeframe with 48-72 hours rest between workouts.

8) Be creative! I’m giving you endless options. Just be sure to pick four compound exercises and two single-joint exercises with each session. You can rotate exercises as much as you desire. All you have to do is follow the prescribed parameters.

The future of training is here. Take charge and use these guidelines for lifelong hypertrophy gains!

Exercise - according to Jeremy Clarkson

2010-03-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

This is an old article but it makes me laugh every time I read it.

_______________________________________________________

I have absolutely no figures to hand but would hazard a guess that golf is by far the most dangerous pastime in which you can indulge.

Bing Crosby is the most famous casualty of this absurd hobby but he is by no means alone. My old doctor went West on the fairway and I'm fairly sure that every weekend, some red-faced freemason curls up his toes somewhere between the fifth and sixth greens.

This is because golf is usually played by old, fat people who have not done any form of exercise since leaving school back in the days when they had diphtheria and Hitler.

Your heart, when you've spent 50 years sitting at a desk eating chocolate, is a fatty, amorphous blob which cannot be expected to cope should you suddenly decide to take up golf. And it certainly won't be able to cope the first time you catch a glimpse of yourself in those stupid strides.

Remember this: exercise of any kind is dangerous. Even horizontal jogging can be hazardous.

Time and time again, people with a predilection for wearing yellow lycra tell us that we must look after ourselves, that we must give up smoking, that we must run everywhere and that red meat is evil.

And who is that man who jumps up and down on breakfast television?

Look. During the eighties, I smoked 108,000 cigarettes and drank perhaps 7,500 pints of beer. I rarely did anything strenuous - except that -- and here I am in 1995, fit, fat and happy, though I will admit that in a morning, I do sometimes produce the most enormous docker's oysters.

Now compare this state of affairs to my more agile and sporty friends who, throughout the '80s, jogged to work, trained twice a week, went to the gym and played rugby. And all of them ended up injured in some unpleasant way.

This meant they couldn't carry on being sporty and, as a result, all their muscle has turned to fat. They still have broken knees, wonky spines and jogger's nipple.

They don't smoke so they're on edge. They don't drink much so they're dull. And pretty soon, they're all going to take up golf and die of a heart attack.

In the past 15 years I have skied occasionally and each time some part of me which was working has stopped. Once I broke my thumb. And most of my right knee is still in Val D'Isere.

I have done some karting but I always, always, always end up headbutting a wall. Which hurts.

I once went fishing and just as we were about to come home, a 502 pound Marlin took a fancy to the plastic octopus I'd been dangling in the water and it took me six hours to land the damn thing. My hands were bleeding and I was sick twice.

Just recently, I learned how to scuba dive. This, I figured, was not a sport, as all you do is hang around, weightless, looking at fishes and coral. Apart from the bit when you jump off the boat, it's completely effortless, and furthermore, you can't possibly hurt yourself under water, unless a shark eats your leg.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. There are currents which are pretty handy for moving you away from the boat but a damn nuisance when you want to get back. Ideally you wait for the tide to change but as I was getting through a tank of air in 15 minutes, this was not an option.

Also, I cut my foot and bled like a stuck pig. I bruised my knee getting back into the boat and my left ear, even now, three weeks later, still thinks it's 75 feet down and won't pop back to one bar.

Now, I have never ever hurt myself in a pub or while slouched in front of the television. So that, from now on is where you'll find me.

And to make sure I always take the car, even when I'm popping down to the corner shop for more fags, I have bought one of those American traffic light things to hang over my front door. It says, simply, Don't Walk.

I understand that as a result, I shall die earlier than might have been the case if I'd spent every waking moment down at the gym, grunting.

But I shall have had a happy life and I shall toddle off before Alzheimer's sets in and before I'm humiliated with the need for an incontinence bag.

High Intensity Interval Training.

2010-03-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

What Is HIIT?

Interval training has been the basis for athletic training routines for years. The first forms of interval training, called "Fartlek" involved alternating short, fast bursts of intensive exercise with slow, easy activity. Fartlek was casual, unstructured training that perfectly fits it's English translation: "speed play."

The interval programs of today have become highly sophisticated methods of structured training for athletic performance enhancement. Physiologists and trainers have designed interval programs that are specifically suited to individual athletes. These sessions include precisely measured intervals that match the athlete's sport, event and current level of conditioning. Often the appropriate intensity and duration of the intervals is determined by the results of anaerobic threshold testing (AT) that includes measuring the blood-lactate of an athlete during intense exercise.

How Interval Training Works

Interval training works both the aerobic and the anaerobic system. During the high intensity effort, the anaerobic system uses the energy stored in the muscles (glycogen) for short bursts of activity. Anaerobic metabolism works without oxygen. The by-product is lactic acid, which is related to the burning sensation felt in the muscles during high intensity efforts. During the high intensity interval, lactic acid builds and the athlete enters oxygen debt. During the recovery phase the heart and lungs work together to "pay back" this oxygen debt and break down the lactic acid. It is in this phase that the aerobic system is in control, using oxygen to convert stored carbohydrates into energy.

This repetitive form of training leads to the adaptation response. The body begins to build new capillaries, and is better able to take in and deliver oxygen to the working muscles. Muscles develop a higher tolerance to the build-up of lactate, and the heart muscle is strengthened. These changes result in improved performance particularly within the cardiovascular system.

Interval training also helps prevent the injuries often associated with repetitive endurance exercise, and they allow you to increase your training intensity without overtraining or burn-out. In this way, adding intervals to your workout routine is a good way to cross train.

According to the American College of Sports Medicine, more calories are burned in short, high intensity exercise. If you are counting calories burned, high intensity exercise such as intervals are better than long, slow endurance exercise. You don't need to be a world-class athlete and have sophisticated blood analysis to take advantage of the benefits of interval training. The standard "speed play" training of fartlek works well for the rest of us. This type of interval work is based upon your subjective needs. Simply pay attention to how you feel and set your intensity and duration accordingly.

Precautions for Safe Interval Training

Warm Up before starting intervals

Assess current conditioning and set training goals that are within your ability

Keep a steady, but challenging pace throughout the interval

Build the number of repetitions over time

Bring your heart rate down to 100-110 bpm during the rest interval

To improve, increase intensity or duration, but not both at the same time

Make any changes slowly over a period of time

Train on a smooth, flat surface to ensure even effort

Below; is a basic training plan which can be followed until a good level of fitness has been achieved.

Don't forget to warm up and then...
30 Second Sprint
30 Second Slow Jog
45 Second Sprint
45 Second Slow Jog
60 Second Sprint
60 Second Slow Jog
45 Second Sprint
45 Second Slow Jog
30 Second Sprint
60 Second Walk

Your aim is to complete three full sets of the above pyramid however; this WILL NOT be achievable until a very good level of fitness has been gained, so don’t get disheartened.

Remember, start off gently and build your fitness slowly over a period of time. It is advisable to replace the sprinting sections of the pyramid with ¾ pace jogs for the first few attempts. Don’t forget to warm-up properly and to cool down at the end of your exercise.