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 (more…)
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Continue reading about Health And Fitness Is Not A 12-Week Program
- Don’t delay getting in the best shape of your life…
Are you waiting until January to get serious about fitness?
I’m already starting to hear a phrase I absolutely hate: “After the holidays I will… [fill in the blank]“
For some it’s “After the holidays I’ll get serious about eating right.” For others it’s “…I’ll start lifting heavy,” or “…I’ll start on that workout program I bought last month.” You get the picture.
Are you guilty of saying this?
What in the world is so magical about “after the holidays?”
I’ll tell you what the “magic” is – it’s the dark magic of excuses and procrastination.
Because “the holidays” are a recognized calendar demarcation, it’s easy to put things off until afterward.
“I’ll be too busy until then.”
“There are too many temptations during the holidays.”
Wah wah wah.
And then you bring in the worst self-improvement lie I know of: the New Year’s Resolution.
I’m going to be sharing with you REAL strategies on goal setting in the coming weeks and let me assure you, there is nothing special about New Year’s except what’s in your head. That means it’s perception, and you can change your perception.
Your fitness is too important to wait.
You are ready now.
You are subscribed to this website (or else you landed here because you did a web search for something fitness related) and you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t considering getting serious.
There is no better time.
Some of you (thank goodness) are already well on your way to having a great physique and I’ll bet you didn’t “turn the corner” because of a New Year’s Resolution or by saying “I’ll start after the holidays.”
Sometimes it takes a life-changing event to push you into making change. Don’t wait for a life-changing event.
You are there now.
You have no excuse.
We went over the 8.5 Types Of Thinkers While Weightlifting last week. What you think about while lifting is critical for your progress.
This week, let’s talk about what you should be thinking about!
What Type of Thinker SHOULD You Be?
So now you probably have a little more insight into the type of thinker you naturally are. But I’m here to tell you that you need to become more focused in your thinking and become part of the Elite. Even if you are already super focused, you can get moreso.
All success, in every endeavor, starts in the mind first. Every success guru from Napoleon Hill to Stephen Covey to Tony Robbins, etc. talks about how your frame of mind and the thoughts you intentionally put there impacts whether you succeed or fail.
The same holds true for lifting.
During your workout, you need to monofixate one thing – performance.
- Before your workout starts, look at your training log from the previous workout. Quickly imagine yourself doing today’s exercises. Set goals for a few of the exercises. (I’d say set goals for every set, but I admit that might be asking too much.) Repeat any mantra you need to repeat to get yourself in the zone. This step is really important because it sets your mental frame. And, if you are doing supersets or triplesets, you will have very little resting time and so resetting your mental tone will be harder. Do it now.
- During your warm up, do a body inventory to make sure every muscle you’ll be using today is ready.
- During every set, as you are lifting, tell yourself
- “This is the only set that matters so I have to give it my all”
- “Think about your form and getting full range”
- “Mentally imagine the muscle areas you are you doing are getting bigger/more defined/less flabby/whatever your physique goal is”
Continue reading about What Do You Think About When You Lift? Part 2 of 2
A few weeks ago we had fun talking about what we think about when we run. I figured it would be cool to do the same think with lifting. But I’ve got a serious message at the end of this, so be sure to read all the way through.
Unlike jogging, where you are doing the same physical motion for long periods, weight lifting is more staggered. You have the lifts themselves of course. But you have rest periods. You have between-set activities like changing the weights. [Aside - interval training is somewhat similar, especially if you are doing my "inverted Tabata" routine.]
You may also have a lifting partner who influences what you think about.
And then, in commercial gyms, there’s that dreaded background music. I absolutely hate that. Not because I don’t like the particular music (sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t). I hate it because it’s something I can’t control and it distracts me from my lifting.
But what do you think about during your body building workout? (And I’m using “body building” here generically – as two words – meaning that if you are lifting weights, you are building your body in some form.)
If you unplug your ipod, and tune out the commercial gym music, I’m betting you fall into one of these camps…
The 8.5 Thinking Body Builder Types
1. The gabber – You actually aren’t spending much time thinking – you’re talking, chatting about the weather, and talking up the nearest person. Congratulations on your social skills, but you’d do yourself (and other gym (more…)
Continue reading about What Do You Think About When You Lift? Part 1 of 2
In many countries around the world, today is a day to celebrate fathers.
Being a proud father myself, I like this holiday!
This will be a short post, with a few notices at the end, so that you all can get back to the day’s celebrations.
Father’s Day And Fitness
Father’s Day reminds me of part of the reason I take fitness so seriously:
- to be around longer for my kids and (future) grandkids
- to have the energy to play with my kids, even after a long day
- to model great behavior so that they grow up to be healthy and strong (it’s kind of hard to preach eating right and exercising if I sit on the couch eating chips and drinking beer all the time)
- to keep up with them! My older kids are fast and in an all-out race I can barely win!
- for my daughters, to model the fact they they should choose a partner who also takes his health seriously
You probably have similar reasons. But it’s hard sometimes to help kids understand why I don’t eat the deserts they do. Or why I get up early and work out to build muscle. Or why I’d rather go for a run than watch a movie.
While I’m sure they “get” the big picture, I also have to understand that they can’t see the world exactly through my eyes. So sometimes they think I’m a bit extreme!
But not today! Today will be a carbolicious day!
Now some of you might not have ideal fatherly role models yourself. Maybe your dad is/was fat. Maybe he never taught you how to eat right. Maybe you have to work twice as hard as the rest of us because you have to un-learn bad habits from your youth. Or maybe your dad simply wasn’t around.
None of that matters now.
You are in control of your beliefs and actions.
The very fact that you are reading this says that you are taking responsibility for bettering your health and fitness.
Congratulations!
I don’t want to work out today.
I’m tired. My head hurts. My legs are sore.
Plus, I’m not sure I can get my full workout in before taking my kids to school (I workout in the mornings and I have a home weight room). I’m slated to do a heavy upper body workout, including my deadlifts.
I’m serious, I should just bag it.
Have you ever said these things to yourself? I know you have. It happens to all of us. Some other comments you might say to yourself:
• “I didn’t sleep well.”
• “I have a big project due at work.”
• “I’ve got a sniffle – I wonder if I’m getting sick?”
• “I’ve been (pretty much) sticking to my schedule, so I deserve a day off.”
Days like this really test your motivation. Are you working out for the right reasons? Are you dedicated to getting healthier and looking better and feeling great?
Sure, there are some legitimate reasons to skip a planned workout: • You are really sick (like vomiting, or a high fever; sniffles don’t count!) • You are injured • An opportunity to spend some really excellent time with your kids or spouse that really is a sudden opportunity you can’t replicate (side note-always take the time to play with your kids and workout later; if playing with them means your 45 minute workout can’t happen, then skip your TV show later and workout then) • A family emergency • The muscle group you are going to work today is still sore from your last workout
And remember, if you must skip a workout, try your best to do SOMETHING instead – 15 min of bodyweight exercises, 15 minutes of sprints, etc. Something.
But other than something on the same scale as these (I’m sure there are more), you need to stick to your routine.
This is where my (your) workout schedule comes into play. If I skip today, it throws off the rest of the week’s workout schedules.
Ask yourself if you’ve ever felt worse when you did exercise on days even after you tried to convince yourself not to. I bet you’ve never regretted workout out anyway.
And the inverse of that question is, “Now think back to the days that your skipped your exercise after mentally debating if you should or you shouldn’t. Have you ever felt worse?” My guess is that when you’ve skipped, you felt worse (emotionally and physically).
No matter how bad you feel, you must put 100% into your workout.
There’s so much science that shows how critical intensity is to building lean muscle. Don’t think you can do a half-way effort and get half the results. No, it doesn’t work that way. A 100% effort gets your maximum results. But a 50% effort, not really trying too hard, going through the motions, etc. only gets you about 25% of the results. If you’re going to go, go big.
So back to today…
I got myself downstairs.
I got my protein shake and a small bite to eat.
I did my dynamic stretches and warm-ups.
And after the first set, something amazing happened.
It’s probably obvious to you that steroid use is just about the last thing we’d recommend at WFN. It’s exactly the wrong look we are going for in our ideal physique. The photo to the right is not our goal. To refresh your memory on what our ideal physique is, check out (and comment on) the WFN Manifesto.
But so many bodybuilding sites, especially those with forums, have entire sections devoted to them. Why is that?
I really question where people are coming from when they consider steroids. What’s the motivation?
Is it just to get bigger in a shorter period of time? Why?
Just simply “to be bigger”? That’s sad.
Is it because they were scrawny as a kid and now want to prove to everyone they can be a big man? Pathetic.
Although still twisted, I can at least understand the motivation for professional athletes – “everyone else” is doing it, and their livelihoods depend on them performing at an inhuman level. I still don’t agree with it, and it still says something about the weakness of that athlete’s self-worth, but I can understand it.
Yet illegal is illegal. You are cheating yourself, cheating your peers, cheating your fans (if you are a pro) and cheating “the system”. Illegal is a pretty black and white word.
I could never look my kids in the eye, tell them to obey the law, and at the same time be taking steriods. I’m also one of those people who never copies a CD or DVD from someone else.
But even if someone wants to argue that there are shades of grey in “illegal”, it comes back to the motivation.
For me, the motivation for lifting is to be healthy for my kids and grandkids, to look good, and certainly see how far I can push my body safely. Those are part of my UFG. Weight training is pretty much unparalleled in this regard. There’s a real thrill in seeing progress and knowing that it’s purely my willpower and hard work getting me there.
If you want to take steroids, I think you really need to question your motivation and find something else in your life worth striving for. When you strip down to the basic motivations involved, I would argue that there’s nothing admirable about anyone’s primal drive that would lead them to take illegal steroids.
Darrin
p.s. I can hear some people saying “yeah, but adding protein powder to your meals isn’t natural either”. Come on. You really can’t compare them. Protein powder (more…)
Continue reading about You Don’t Need Steroids To Develop Lean Muscle
Your body is 100% unable to do anything that your brain does not tell it to do. Period.
For every movement you make, and for every action you take, the initiation and completion begins and ends with the signals that come from your brain. Since your brain is the central command center for your body, it makes sense that improving the function of your mind also improves your physical capabilities.
This improvement can be accomplished through mental rehearsal and visualization. By using your mind to visualize the actions you will take, dramatic increases in performance are possible. Here is an example:
Individuals were divided into 3 groups. Each group was tested to see how many free throws they could successfully shoot with a basketball at the beginning and the end of the study.
Group A: Practiced free throws for 20 minutes Group B: Did not practice free throws at all Group C: Practiced mental free throws every night for 20 minutes. No real free throws were done, only a mental (more…)
Continue reading about Mind Over Matter: Performance Through Visualization
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