Guest article by Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS
www.burnthefat.com
Not long ago, one of the members of my health club poked her head in my office for some advice. Linda was a 46 year old mother of two, and she had been a member for over a year. She had been working out sporadically, with (not surprisingly), sporadic results. On that particular day, she seemed to have enthusiasm and a twinkle in her eye that I hadn’t seen before.
“I want to enter a before and after fitness contest called the “12 week body transformation challenge.” I could win money and prizes and even get my picture in a magazine.”
“I want to lose THIS”, she continued, as she grabbed the body fat on her stomach. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”
Linda was not “obese,” she just had the typical “moderate roll” of abdominal body fat and a little bit of thigh/hip fat that many forty-something females struggle with.
“I think it’s a great idea,” I reassured her. “Competitions are great for motivation. When you have a deadline and you dangle a “carrot” like that prize money in front of you, it can keep you focused and more motivated than ever.”
Linda was eager and rarin’ to go. “Will you help me? I have this enrollment kit and I need my body fat measured.”
“No problem,” I said as I pulled out my Skyndex fat caliper, which is used to measure body fat percentage with a “pinch an inch” test.
When I finished, I read the results to her from the caliper display: “Twenty-seven percent. Room for improvement, but not bad; it’s about average for your age group.”
She wasn’t overjoyed at being ‘average’. “Yeah, but it’s not good either. Look at THIS,” she complained as again she grabbed a handful of stomach fat. “I want to get my body fat down to 19%, I heard that was a good body fat level.”
I agreed that 19% was a great goal, but told her it would take a lot of work because average fat loss is usually about a half a percent a week, or six percent in twelve weeks. Her goal, to lose eight percent in twelve weeks was ambitious.
She smiled and insisted, “I’m a hard worker. I can do it”
Indeed she was and indeed she did. She was a machine! Not only did she never miss a day in the gym, she trained HARD. Whenever I left my office and took a stroll through the gym, she was up there pumping away with everything she had. She told me her diet was the strictest it had ever been in her life and she didn’t cheat at all. I believed her, and it started to show, quickly.
Each week she popped into my office to have her body fat measured again, and each week it went down, down, down. Consistently she lost three quarters of a percent per week – well above the average rate of fat loss – and on two separate occasions, I recall her losing a full one percent body fat in just seven days.
Someone conservative might have said she was overtraining, but when we weighed her and calculated her lean body mass, we saw that she hadn’t lost ANY muscle – only fat. Her results were simply exceptional!
She was ecstatic, and needless to say, her success bred more success and she kept after it like a hungry tiger for the full twelve weeks.
On week twelve, day seven, she showed up in my office for her final weigh-in and body fat measurement. She was wearing a pair of formerly tight blue jeans and they were FALLING OFF her!
“Look, look, look,” she repeated giddily as she tugged at her waistband, which was now several inches too large.
As I took her body fat, I have to say, I was impressed. She hadn’t just lost a little fat, she was “RIPPED!”
During week twelve she dropped from 18% to 17% body fat, for a grand total of 10% body fat lost in three months. She surpassed her goal of 19% by two percent. I was now even more impressed, because not many people lose that much body fat in three months.
You should have seen her! She started jumping up and down for joy like she was on a pogo stick! She was beaming… grinning from ear to ear! She practically knocked me over as she jumped up and gave me a hug – “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Don’t thank me,” I said, “You did it, I just measured your body fat.”
She thanked me again anyway and then said she had to go have her “after” pictures taken.
Then something very, very strange happened. She stopped coming to the gym. Her “disappearance” was so abrupt, I was worried and I called her. She never picked up, so I just left messages.
No return phone call.
It was about four months later when I finally saw Linda again. The giddy smile was gone, replaced with a sullen face, a droopy posture and a big sigh when I said hello and asked where she’d been.
“I stopped working out after the contest… and I didn’t even win.”
“You looked like a winner to me, no matter what place you came in” I insisted, “but why did you stop, you were doing so well!”
“I don’t know, I blew my diet and then just completely lost my motivation. Now look at me, my weight is Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: motivation
Last month I shared with you some tips for lunchtime workouts. Now I’ve got an article from Mike Geary with a totally different take on how to squeeze fitness into a busy day! This is unusual, but he gives LOTS of details in this article (it’s longer than he usually writes). Enjoy (and post comments!).
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
Warning: this style of workout is WAY different than anything you’ve ever tried before and may result in a dramatically leaner, stronger body so that your friends no longer recognize you in a matter of weeks!
Alright, I exaggerated about your friends recognizing you, but this workout is still great for busy people that always use the excuse that they don’t have time to go to the gym, or even for the normal gym rat to try out for a few weeks to break out of a plateau.
Please keep an open-mind and don’t worry so much about what other people think, because this is quite different and you may get some funny looks, but you’ll get the last laugh with your new rock hard body! To be honest, most people are too self conscious to try something like this. If that’s the case for you, then that’s your loss.
Here’s how it works (these workouts can be done at home or even in your office):
Instead of doing your traditional workouts of going to the gym 3-4 times a week and doing your normal weight training and cardio routines for 45 miutes to an hour at a shot… with this program, you will be working out for just a couple minutes at a time, several times throughout each day, 5 days/week.
The program will consist of only Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bodyweight exercises
It’s time I come clean.
Sometimes I feel pretty dumb about fitness
I have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to strength and conditioning.
At least, that’s how it felt after I finished a full-day fitness seminar in Boston put on by Perform Better last weekend. This was an amazing event featuring Todd Durkin (I wrote about meeting him before), Mike Boyle, and Gray Cook.
In case you don’t recognize the names, these are GIANTS in the strength and conditioning world. We’re talking about the guys who not only train pro sports teams. These guys train some of the most explosively strong athletes on the planet: American football, hockey, and more.
The day was broken into morning/afternoon: lectures/hands-on practical. So tons of knowledge was dropped before lunch and after lunch we actually were trained, hands-on, by these guys. Both experiences were amazing. Here’s what I learned from the day – there are many take-aways you can put to use yourself… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Boyle, Durkin, Gray Cook, perform better, seminar
- Does semi-fasted cardio help with fat loss?
In the bodybuilding world, “morning cardio” or “semi-fasted cardio” is often cited as a key for getting uber-ripped. But is it true?
Recently I wrote about fasting for fat loss and muscle growth.
But the concepts around semi-fasted cardio training have been around longer. Seems like there would be conclusive science on this right? Unfortunately not.
Nonetheless, today I’ll take you through enough science for you to draw some lessons and I’ll finish with 10 tips for you. Read the rest of this entry »
I know you have questions about how to get leaner and/or more muscular, no matter what level you are currently at in your fitness goals.
And you aren’t the only ones with your question. Most people have the same 10 to 20 questions. All that differs are the numbers.
Last week I asked you to submit your questions for me – and I got flooded!
I’ve recorded the answers in the audio below – just click the start button and listen. It’s only about a half hour or so, and I’ve got a surprise at the end. So enjoy!
Join the forum discussion on this article, or comment below.
- You can keep lifting weights after 60, into your 70s, and beyond
I recently took my family to visit my parents and got to workout with my dad at his gym (Gold’s Gym – wow, their membership fees are really low!). While coaching him, I was reminded of many tips that I bet you’ll find valuable. (Dad, you don’t mind do you???) Let’s get right into the list of 12 Tips and Observations:
- After Your Warm-ups, Every Set Is A Working Set. Don’t stop at the end of set #2 with “gas still in your tank” so that you’ll have more energy for set 3. Go all out for set #2. And then, go all out again for set #3.
- Old Guys Can Still Lift Heavy – My dad is almost 70 and of course he can’t lift what I can lift. But there’s no reason to go easy on yourself. Even if you are “an old guy” you still need to lift heavy – that means heavy FOR YOU. For me, lifting heavy might mean X pounds. For you, lifting heavy might mean Y pounds.
- Cable Machines Are Not “Machines”. I discourage use of machines. My dad uses a lot of these newer cable machines from a company called FreeMotion. They really are excellent. I even used them for deadlifts (there wasn’t enough weight on the stack for doubles but it was still surprisingly effective). But most fixed-path machines still suck.
- Intensity Trumps Volume. I had to remind my dad, and I’m guessing you can use the reminder too, that it’s better to do 4 exercises really intensely than it is to do 6 exercises without going all out. 30 minutes of intense lifting is better than 50 minutes of moderate intensity. Of course, you do need to be safe and you can get “too intense”. But I’d bet you are currently really far away from being too intense. Read the rest of this entry »
You might remember a while back an article by Tom Venuto on the front squats.
Today I’ve got a new take for you – from Mike Geary. I’ve been doing front squats for a while now, and I’ve gotta agree with Mike about how amazing front squats are as a full-body exercise. Here’s what he has to say:
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
The Front Squat is a surprising exercise not only for legs, but also rock hard abs!
As you may have already discovered, the squat is at the top of the heap (along with deadlifts) as one of the most effective overall exercises for stimulating body composition changes (muscle gain and fat loss). This is because exercises like squats and deadlifts use more muscle groups under a heavy load than almost any other weight bearing exercises known to man. Squats and deadlifts use hundreds of muscles throughout your entire body to move the load and also to stabilize your body while doing the drill.
Hence, these exercises stimulate the greatest hormonal responses (growth hormone, testosterone, etc.) of all exercises.
In fact, university research studies have even proven that inclusion of squats into a training program increases upper body development, in addition to lower body development, even though upper body specific joint movements are not performed during the squat. Whether your goal is gaining muscle mass, losing body fat, building a strong and functional body, or improving athletic performance, the basic squat and deadlift (and their variations) are the ultimate solution.
If you don’t believe me that squats and deadlifts are THE basis for a lean and powerful body, then go ahead and join all of the other overweight people pumping away mindlessly for hours on boring cardio equipment.
Squats can be done with Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: abs, front squats, squats
I love running. I love bodybuilding. I keep hearing that you “can’t ride two horses”. But I do. True, my gains in each are probably more moderate than if I gave one up. But being fully human means making choices to move up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
If you get past the conditioning phase of cardio (whatever kind of cardio you choose, not just running), you too may learn to love it as much as you love pumping iron. You’ll find ways to do progressive cardio. You can have your cake and eat it too.
People who are cardio haters have recently glommed on to the HIIT craze (high-intensity interval training). I’m working on a more elaborate article comparing HIIT to steady state cardio for fat loss, but here’s a preview: HIIT is not necessarily better for fat loss. Like any modality of exercise, HIIT has pros and cons. One con is that it is really hard to do properly and so most people only think they are doing HIIT – actually, they are just doing intervals.
While I think HIIT could make some sense, for some people, some of the time, I’m one of those freaks who likes long, steady-state cardio.
Regardless of HIIT vs. steady state, there’s a movement afoot that says “If you are lifting weights, you don’t need to do any cardio at all.”
Huh?
Fitness Gurus On Crack
Lots of fitness experts are saying that you should stop cardio altogether! Why?
I think part of it is a combination of fad, lemming behavior, and marketing.
You see, people want to believe they can skip cardio. Most people hate cardio and will believe any argument that tells them what they already want to hear.
Wouldn’t it be great to hear that you can be healthy and lean without having to do any work?
So these fitness gurus play “you can skip cardio” on their flutes, and many people start following them.
And these guys are in great shape to be sure. So if they look that good without doing cardio, it must be the ticket, right? Read the rest of this entry »
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