A New Take on 5 Things

by Lee Boyce – 3/06/2012
Every successful career has hiccups along the way. Making mistakes and learning from them are the bricks and mortar of a long and productive career.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve stolen points from the best of ‘em to advance my own training knowledge. In doing so, there were principles and exercises that I readily accepted as gospel and would defend from the tallest tree.
This is how it is. Disagree? Well, you’re just misinformed.
But times change. New research is performed, new information becomes available, and it only makes sense that methodologies would evolve. That is, unless you’d rather stay “right” than admit you were wrong.

1. My Revised Take on Cardio

My one-track mind nearly eliminated the possibility of using conventional “cardio” for fat loss. I sided with the many coaches who argued that slow-go cardio was a potential muscle-waster, not to mention woefully inefficient at burning calories.
Though there is some science to support this position, I realize now that there’s a big fat exception to this:whether to perform steady state cardio depends on the size and musculature of the individual.
Steady state cardio – especially the fasted version – can be a great tool for intermediate and advanced trainees that carry a significant amount of muscle mass.
People generally support interval training as it will have a greater affect on the metabolism, primarily because it promotes two things:

• Oxygen debt
• Utilization of fast-twitch muscle fibers

But if you’re carrying a lot of muscle, chances are you’ve lifted, pushed, and pulled a lot of heavy things to get there. That means your fast twitch fibers have been thoroughly exercised – since they’re the strongest fibers available – so it won’t be the end of the world if you add in a bit of steady state cardio during fat loss phases.
Bodybuilders are perfect examples. While some high-intensity cardio has made it’s way into their fat loss programs, isolation splits combined with a good, clean diet, and fasted and/or post workout cardio still dominate the scene. This improves thermogenesis – heat production within the body – that helps burn fat.
While anaerobic training is what makes athletes like sprinters and running backs get so lean and muscular, most of us are just regular exercise enthusiasts, not pro athletes, meaning we can’t expect to train – or look – like Adrian Peterson.
But we can lift weights and train our strength and anaerobic capacity. Once we’re big and strong, as long as we don’t go overboard, we can use steady state cardio to achieve some solid fat loss.

2. The GHR – A Little-Known Knee Killer?

Don’t worry, I’m not about to completely outlaw such a great exercise. But here’s what I’ve found.
I’ve had several clients complain of knee discomfort during or after a workout that involved a variation of the glute-ham raise (GHR), most often the eccentric GHR.
At first, I didn’t think that this exercise was the culprit, but a couple of sit-downs with a practitioner-buddy of mine had me thinking it might be something to use on a case-by-case basis.
Some say the GHR is a “closed chain” movement since the feet don’t move anywhere during the movement, but here’s the catch. Just like a seated leg extension, a GHR makes only one set of muscles act on the knee joint during the movement (hamstrings). There isn’t a co-contraction of muscles on both sides of the joint.
This can produce the same amount of shear from the opposing side, and therefore pull on the corresponding ligaments that attach to the tibia away from the femur.
With an actual GHR machine, it’s normally not that bad. But when we go into variations like the makeshift eccentric GHR, the shear is intensified since the entire weight of the body is resting on the tibia, inaddition to the hamstrings’ contraction pulling it even further. That means a lot of stress on your PCL.
Still, some are more resilient to shearing forces than others. We all know guys who’ve been doing leg extensions and other open-chain movements for years with zero joint problems, while others get shooting pains if they so much as look at a leg extension machine.
The moral of the story? If you’re using the eccentric GHR in your training, be cautious of its effects. Hopefully you don’t fall into the contraindicated group.

3. “Functional Training” Revisited

The more I looked into it, the more variety I found in trainers’ definition of the term “functional.”
Sure, we have the basic exercises that have carryover into typical day-to-day situations like squatting, deadlifting, and standing pressing. But do we avoid biceps curls, hamstring curls, or bench presses because they seemingly don’t carry over to our daily grind?
Fact is, functional training can take on whatever description we want it to. A hamstring curl action has very little “real life” application, but one of the functions of the hamstrings is to flex the knee, and hamstring curls recreate this movement.
I advocate the big bang movements as much as the next guy. If our muscles aren’t performing their prime actions the way they should, then the number one exercise choices should always be those that enhance those prime actions.
However, I’ll humbly add that most T Nation readers seek strength and hypertrophy. What if we want bigger arms, and we’ve already spent the last three months overhead pulling, farmers’ walking, and close-grip pressing our way to oblivion?
Do we continue to avoid biceps curls because they’re “isolation” movements despite the stimulation for the biceps they provide? Do we still steadfastly avoid skull crushers or pressdowns, even though our horseshoes better resemble shoelaces?
Focus on the must-do’s first, keeping your muscular and skeletal health in check, but sometimes building up your body means training like a bodybuilder. In certain cases, that means isolating right down to the muscle.

4. Stretching and Foam Rolling

For a long time I used this stuff as an “answer.” Today I use it as a “prescription.” In almost all cases, muscles become tight because of a deficient muscle somewhere else. Usually the tight muscle is taking on the role of a muscle that isn’t pulling its own weight. A perfect example would be a pair of tight hamstrings picking up the slack for a set of inactive glutes.
A good rule of thumb is that when a muscle appears deficient, the answer isn’t always to give that muscle more attention. Considering this, we should be able to look at our weak links to see which smaller muscles aren’t doing everything they should to contribute to a functional body.
Flexibility and ROM increases will come immediately through restoring your antagonistic balance. This can be as simple as activating dormant muscles that for a while have been compensated for by the big dogs.
The true “answer,” in my book, is mobility. One of my favorite books is Assess and Correct by Eric Cressey. It has hundreds of drills that make small muscles fire up to create or restore range of motion.
I’m not saying that stretching and foam rolling to respectively lengthen and improve tissue quality is a waste of time. I still use them, and you should, too.
My advice is to turn it into a tactical approach. Instead of prescribing stretching and rolling to any ailment under the sun, start thinking in three ways: improve tissue quality first, activate muscles second, reduce inhibitions third.
Use foam rolling for myofascial release, dynamic warm ups to add range of motion and activate dormant muscles, and then static stretching to muscles that are “blocking” proper movement patterns, such as tight hip flexors affecting pelvic position during a back squat or Romanian deadlift.

5. A Quiet Tweak to Training Volume

This might be stating the obvious, but not all programs are for everyone.
Training volume should be tailored to each athlete, and failing to recognize this is what keeps some athletes from seeing continued progress.
I first experienced this as a collegiate track and field athlete. We sprint athletes would have our workouts set by the coach, though we’d train alongside the athletes from other disciplines (the jump athletes, etc). This was done for simple time management reasons, as it was the easiest way to train a bunch of athletes at the same time.
But each athlete isn’t going to respond to the same training volume the same way – especially when our “base” workouts, usually Mondays, would often look something like this:

• Dynamic warm-ups/flexibility work
• Drills
• Plyometric/ballistic training – Static jumps, stairs, uphill jumps, med ball work
• Base training workout – 300m + (2)200m + (2)150m @ 85% of max effort
• Core training circuit or weight training circuit

Needless to say, that’s a tough workout and would leave me destroyed. I’d be so sore that it would sometimes affect the practice on Tuesday.
This example is intended to show that quality is everything where training for performance is concerned. Big, tough, and heavy workouts have their place, but if you want to get stronger, bigger, or both, you haveto know when your body is working at its physiological peak, and when it’s starting to go down hill.
Once that line is crossed, it’s a good idea to cut your workout short, or heavily modify its contents.
I’m sure my track coach had the best of intentions, but not everyone’s going to have the same threshold and work capacity. Some levels of DOMS don’t need to be reached, and certainly not repeatedly.
Since you’re not training with a team and can control your workout, don’t be afraid to modify your programming. It may not take longwinded workouts to make your muscles big and strong.

Don’t Worry, I Haven’t Turned Into a Pansy

The smarter I get as a trainer, the more I’m reminded that there are many methodologies, techniques, and strategies for doing things, and many ways to achieve a desired result.
However, true wisdom comes from recognizing that what might work supremely well for person A could be a disaster for person B. In reality, it’s not the exercises that are contraindicated, but the people who do them. Stay aware of that and play your game, not someone else’s.
With age comes perspective and more importantly, wisdom. A lot might change in the next five years, but I can’t see that principle going anywhere.

Wikio

12 Reasons You’re Not Losing Fat | How to Build Muscle, Gain Strength & Become a Better Athlete

1) You’re Eating Too Many Carbs

This should be pretty obvious to most people by now, but there are still the old die-hards out there who swear that everyone should be consuming two grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight every day while maintaining a low fat intake. Load up on whole grains and fruit while cutting down on healthy, essential sources of fat like grass fed beef they’ll tell you.

Anyone experienced in physique transformation knows this is nonsense.Most people have a terrible tolerance for carbs, shitty insulin sensitivity and simply don’t do enough physically demanding work to warrant too many carbs. If you want to get lean cutting carbs is usually one of the first and most important steps you need to take. That doesn’t mean you can’t have any but you need to make smart choices and they need to be taken in at the right times and cycled properly.

2) You’re Eating Carbs at the Wrong Time

If you’re above 20% body-fat pretty much any time is the wrong time. In that case I would only recommend vegetables and possibly some post workout potatoes or a once per week refeed. When you get down to 15% you can increase the amount of carbs in the post workout meal or the weekly refeed. Everyone else should limit carb consumption to post workout and night time, as per The Renegade Diet rules. During the day you want to be alert and focused, which is one reason why you don’t want to load up on starchy carbs during this time. Save for them for the night time when you want to optimize serotonin production and rest, relax and repair.

3) You’re Eating Too Much Fat

Some people cut carbs and assume that they’re good to go and there’s nothing else to worry about. Unfortunately, the low/no carb diet isn’t as much fun as Dr. Atkins made it out to be. You can’t just eat pounds of bacon and mayonnaise with reckless abandon and think that you’ll magically end up ripped. Fat contains calories; nine per gram to be exact. At the end of the day total calories still matter, and if you’re eating more than you burn you’re never going to get ripped. Please don’t mistake this as my advocating a low fat diet. That’s just as bad, if not worse, than eating too much fat. A bare minimum of 20% of your calories should come from healthy fats like pastured egg yolks, wild caught salmon, grass fed beef and coconut oil to ensure optimal health. Just be careful about going overboard with it and thinking that low carbs automatically leads to single digit body-fat. You still need to keep a handle on things like total calories.

4)You’re Not Eating Enough Protein

In my experience it’s usually only females who are guilty of this but guys can make this mistake on occasion as well. The average female who can’t lose body-fat usually eats a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast with an egg. One… single… egg.

Then she’ll have a sandwich for lunch with four ounces of lean turkey. For dinner it will be a salad with low fat dressing and four ounces of chicken or fish. Although, in all honesty they may skip the protein all together and just have a salad for either lunch or dinner. Let’s assume she weighs 135 pounds. Most experts would agree that she would need to consume at least 100 grams of protein per day, if not a gram per pound, which would equal 135 grams. Each ounce of protein is around 4.5 grams of protein. So in this example she had 36 grams combined with lunch and dinner plus the six grams from the egg. So that’s a total of 42 grams, which falls just a wee bit shy of where she needs to be.

Females often freak out when you tell them to eat more than six ounces of protein at a sitting but when you break down the numbers for them and reveal just how many calories they’re eating it should make more sense. If they had eight ounces of protein three times per day it would 108 grams of protein. That’s only 432 total calories. Add in the fat and it’s still not that much.

People who eat a sufficient amount of protein usually end up having an easier time getting ripped than those who don’t. Make sure you’re getting enough.

5) You’re Drinking Too Many Protein Shakes

There are two problems associated with drinking shakes when you’re trying to get ripped. First of all, whey protein can raise insulin levels, as I have been telling people since the mid 90’s. If you’re trying to get lean you don’t want insulin to be flowing like the Nile all day. You want a nice insulin surge post workout but the rest of the day you want it under control. That’s why The Renegade Diet limits the intake of whey protein to very small amounts during most of the day and only allows a larger amount post workout or at night.

The second problem with drinking too many shakes is that they are so easy to digest that you don’t really burn any calories when you eat them. When you chew down some salmon and broccoli your body works harder to digest that food and you burn more calories during the digestion process. When you drink something that is so easily digested, like a protein shake, your body does almost no work in the process.

So, when getting ripped is your main goal, limit your shake intake and chew as many calories as you can.

6) Your Liver is Over Stressed

This is usually the last thing people think of when embarking on a fat loss diet but it can sometimes be the most important. Everything that goes into or on your body has to be processed by the liver. That means all food, alcohol, suntan lotion, environmental pollutants, etc. If you are constantly exposing yourself to this kind of stuff and overstressing the liver fat loss will be much more difficult to come by. Cut out booze, stop eating grain-fed, chemical laden meat and incorporate some regular periods of intermittent fasting to give the liver a break and you will find your rate of fat loss is noticeably faster.

7) You’re Eating Nuts

I love nuts. I mean, who doesn’t? Give me a bag of pistachios or cashews and I won’t look up till the whole thing’s gone. The problem is nuts have a ton of calories. When you’re dieting for fat loss the rules are usually the opposite of those followed by skinny hardgainers trying to gain size. Those guys want the most calorically dense foods possible. Fat loss dieters do not. You’re better off filling up on nutritionally dense foods that don’t pack a lot of calories, like green vegetables. If you’re dieting you need to limit your nut consumption to about ten almonds per serving. No too many people can eat ten almonds. Most people eat ten handfuls. If you are strictly tracking and calculating everything all day and you want to load up on nuts at certain times I suppose you could but I wouldn’t recommend it. Nuts can be very problematic for a lot of people, especially those with digestive or auto immune issues. As Paleo Solution author Robb Wolf has noted, nuts should be used the same way you use condiments- sparingly.

I should also add, and this is strictly my opinion, meaning it has NOT been proven and posted on Pubmed… nut butters seem to be easier for most people to digest than actual whole nuts. Just something to consider.

8) You’re Eating Fruit

“What?! You’re telling people not to eat fruit!? Everyone knows that it’s impossible to get fat from eating too much fruit!”

Yeah, yeah I know, that’s why physique competitors eat so much fruit and why all fat loss experts who specialize in getting people shredded recommend such high quantities of it. In our hunter gatherer days fruit was nothing like what you see in the supermarket today. Berries were small, dark and bitter; not the huge sugar sacks most people consume these days. Don’t get me wrong, fruit is healthy and can be eaten by lean individuals in limited amounts but any type of excessive fructose (a sugar found in fruit) consumption will lead to fat gain. Fructose can only be processed by the liver and once liver glycogen stores are full the excess gets converted to triglycerides and stored as body-fat. If you want to get ripped cut fruit completely for a while or limit it to one to two small servings per day. Just be sure to really up the vegetable consumption so you can keep your vital nutrient uptake where it needs to be.

9) You’re Not Training Heavy

When you want to lose body-fat the first inclination is often to crank up the reps and cut the rest periods. I actually have no problem with fairly low rest periods. But not if you’re used to resting three minutes between sets and all of the sudden cut them down to thirty seconds because you decided it was time to get shredded you’ll be in trouble. That never works. All that happens is your weights start plummeting on every exercise and you get weaker and smaller. High reps have the same effect.

When dieting, the primary role of strength training is to maintain muscle mass. That is the single most important thing. Don’t use it as your primary “fat burning” activity… UNLESS you are seriously overweight. If you need to lose more than fifty pounds or so that would probably be fine (although please don’t ever do any of the bullshit you see on those fat camp TV shows). Females can actually get something out of metcon workouts in the right situation as well. The caveat, however, is that that they need to be strong and actually have some muscle mass. If you take a weak female with no muscle and give her a silly metcon circuit she won’t usually get much out of it because she’s too weak to produce enough force. Females should get strong first before they attempt that type of training.

If you’re a guy and are trying to lose 10-20 pounds of body-fat without losing all your muscle mass in the process you should use strength training as a way to maintain size and strength; nothing more, nothing less. So the same principles that helped you get big and strong apply when dieting. Keep the reps low and the resistance high.

10) You’re Overdoing Cardio

Traditional forms of cardio are largely useless for fat loss. But useless is even okay, it’s when it starts to be counterproductive that we have a real problem. Excessive amounts of cardio lead to an overproduction of cortisol which leads to more abdominal fat and numerous health problems. If you want to do cardio that won’t actually hurt you and could do you some good, go for a long walk. No self respecting man should ever be spotted on an elliptical machine.

Sled work builds muscle, burns fat and is irreplaceable

11) You’re Not Running Sprints or Doing Sled Work

Dieting is the most important thing for fat loss. After that you should be doing some form of strength training to maintain your muscle mass. When you have those to things dialed in you’ll want to add in some type of sprinting or sled work. There is nothing more effective for fat loss. See all wide receivers, defensive backs, sprinters, soccer players, etc. for proof. Two or three 20-40 minute sprint or sled sessions per week will be enough for most people.

Don’t have a sled? 

12) You’re Not Getting Enough Sleep

When you’re short on sleep your insulin sensitivity decreases and your cortisol goes up. Both things lead to less than optimal fat loss. You also miss out on the critically important Growth Hormone boost that comes each night during deep sleep. If you want to lose more fat you have to get more sleep. Most people will ignore this and some of you are probably reading this at 2am. Unfortunately this just might be the most important thing on the whole list. More sleep improves EVERYTHING. Make it a priority.

Wikio

Wikio

>Fitness Fact or Fiction?

>1. FACT/FICTON: Cardio burns more calories than strength training. 

Fiction. 

Contrary to long-held belief, strength training is—as new studies have shown—superior to steady-state cardio in caloric burn. In one University of Southern Maine study, participants blasted as many calories doing 30 minutes of weight training as they did running at a six-minute-per-mile pace for the same amount of time. Unless you’re Lolo Jones, strength is your best bet.

The other huge benefit of weight training? It boosts your metabolism after your workout—and builds muscle that will further increase your fat-burning potential in the long run. “If you do steady-state cardio, when you leave the gym, that’s it for your calorie burn,” says David Jack, general manager of Competitive Athlete Training Zone in Acton, Massachusetts. “But when you do strength work, you’ll continue to burn calories for up to 36 hours.”

Cardio vs. Strength training face-off. Which really burns more calories?

2. You can reduce cellulite through exercise. 

Fact.

Cottage-cheese thighs can affect even the fittest athletes, and though exercise can’t prevent cellulite, it can help reduce the appearance of those tell-tale dimples. Cellulite is fat, so calorie-blasting activities and the right nutrition can make your skin look smoother. Likewise, weight gain can make cellulite worse.

“Women lose about five pounds of muscle per decade, and they lose most of it where they don’t use their muscles: where they sit. When they lose that muscle in their hips and thighs, the overlying layer of fat doesn’t have much of a foundation, so it starts to get pockmarked,” explains Wayne Westcott, Ph.D., author of No More Cellulite. “Strength training can play a major role to tone that muscle and get the firm foundation back.”

Westcott recommends moves that target your hips, quads, and hamstrings, but says not to ignore your other muscles. “Since all strength exercises boost your metabolic rate, they’ll decrease fat too,” he says.

3. Crunches are one of the best moves to target your abs. 

Fiction.

You probably know crunches are old-school, but you may not know hwy they’re not very effective. What’s their weakness? Most women initiate crunches with their hip flexors without engaging much of their core. This may get the surface muscles in your abs, but it ignores the ones underneath, which are also essential to a flat stomach.

Plus, crunches mimic the sitting posture we use for much of the day. “We don’t want to exacerbate this ‘hips flexed/shoulders hunched’ position,” Jack explains. “The point of training is to fix the gaps and do something different. Crunches repeat a similar movement pattern.

A better bet for flat abs? Focus on moves like the plank and side plan that work often-neglected areas of your core. And don’t forget your butt, too. Weak glutes push your stomach out and give you a belly even if you don’t have one. (Not fair, we know!)

4. Exercise immediately improves your ability to learn. 

Fact.

It sounds unbelievable, but it’s true. In a study at the University of Muenster in Germany, participants who ran sprints learned new words 20 percent faster than those who did nothing. Other research has tied physical activity to improve attention and memory as well.

“Exercise is the best thing we can do to ready our brain to learn,” says John J. Ratey, M.D., author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. “We know that the cells become more malleable and ready to make connections. And the learner is more focused, calm, and motivated—[she's] ready to learn.”

Physical activity has one other major perk too: It increases production of the stem cells that develop new brain cells.

Ratey has found that both aerobic activities and strength training have benefits to the brain, but that more complicated forms of exercise—like tennis and soccer—provide the biggest boost. “You’re taxing more parts of the brain in those activities, which helps it grow,” he explains.

5 Ways to boost your brainpower.

5. The morning is the best time of the day to exercise. 

Fiction.

If you have your pick of any time of the day, the late afternoon would be your ideal workout window. Muscle strength and body temperature both peak somewhere between 4 and 6 p.m., allowing you to work out heard with less effort. And you’ve eaten breakfast and lunch, meaning you’ll have much more fuel in your tank.

“Also, your threshold for pain is at its highest in the afternoon and your mental clarity is still there,” says Jack. “Of all the different variables, the most are in place at that time of day.”

Studies have show that the body can adapt to peak performance at any time, though, so if you’d rather work out in the morning or evening, go for it. “The best time of day to train is the time that you’re able to actually do it. That’s most important,” notes Jack.

6. Running a marathon increases your risk of a heart attack. 

Fact.

A May 2009 study form Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Hospital and the University of Manitoba confirmed what other studies had previously said: Marathons do cause short-term injury to the heart, but thankfully, they don’t seem to cause lasting damage. In this study, MRIs were used to show abnormalities in the hearts of runners in the Manitoba Marathon. They tracked 14 athletes, and all showed cardiac stress immediately after the race. After a week of rest, however, the runners’ hearts showed no long-term effects, and for most, heart function had returned to pre-marathon levels.

The key to staying safe? If you’re a newbie, talk to your doc beforehand, and make sure you train enough for the big event. A big stressor to the heart comes when runners attempt to do much more on marathon day than they’ve done in training. Also, remember that the overall risk is still very low: It’s estimated that there are only four to eight deaths per million marathon runners. 

7. Lift weights quickly to increase the burn. 

Fiction.

Though it may seem counterintuitive, the opposite is actually true. When you blaze though each move, you often use momentum instead of your muscles, and you also increase your risk of injury. “If you go too fast, you’ll muscle through areas that are weak,” Jack says.

Do the same reps more slowly (try counting to three while you lift up, and another three while you lower) and you’ll get more burn for your buck.

Westcott has done two slow-lifting studies published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness. In each, on group did 10 reps of each exercise that lasted seven seconds per rep, while the other group did five reps in 14 seconds. At the end of the study, the “slow” group averaged 5o percent stronger than the regular-paced group.

Unfortunately, lifting slow can be torturous, too. Wescott says that in his study, only tow of the 15o people wanted to continue training the slow way. “It was too hard; they just didn’t like it. So we use it as one of our tools in our toolbox, but not as our standard technique.”

8. Stretch before you run. 

Fact.

Stretching is a hot-button issue in running circles, and while “stretch before you run” used to be the conventional wisdom, new research has shifted this opinion. Recently, a review by epidemiologist Ian Shrier, M.D., of six stretching studies in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine found that none of the studies showed that stretching before exercise prevented injury.

Olympian Jeff Galloway has coached more than 250,000 runners and no longer recommends a pre-run stretch. “I used to be a huge advocate of stretching, but over the years, thousands of runners have described how they were injured by stretching.” He says what when his runners stopped stretching, the injuries almost always went away.

But this doesn’t mean that you should never stretch, or that it’s OK to skip a warmup before starting your run. Robert Maschi, a physical therapist at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery and author of RunMetrics, tells his clients to do five to 10 minutes of a slow jog before increasing speed to a normal training pace. After the run, he recommends static stretches held for 30 seconds to a minute. “[Do] a comfortable stretch that’s not overly aggressive,” he advises.

9. Skinny people are always healthier than overweight people. 

Fiction.

Take heart, our slow-metabolism sisters: They key to good health is not just your weight. “We judge each other by how we look,” says Jack. “That’s like driving by a beautiful house, but when you walk in, the place is a mess. We don’t know what our real health markers are.” Use measurements like resting heart rate,blood pressure, and cholesterol to monitor your health, not your six-pack or lack thereof.

Though belly fat in particular has been linked adverse health effects, some doctors believe it’s the invisible fat around your organs that could cause the most trouble. And this fat is prevalent in people who don’t exercise—whether they’re thin or chubby. Jimmy Bell, Ph.D., a professor of molecular imaging at Imperial College, has used an MRI scan on nearly 1,000 people to locate where fat is on the body. Bell found that even among those with normal BMI scores (20 to 24.9), as many as 20 percent had excessive levels of internal fat.

Bell feels that physical activity is the key to reducing these inner fat stores, because many of the seemingly thin subjects stayed at a healthy weight through diet but didn’t work out. “There are no shortcuts. Exercise has to be a part of everyone’s lifestyle,” he says.

Can heavy really be healthy?

In short: Overweight-but-active beats thin-but-inactive any day.

Wikio

Wikio

Interval Cardio – The best cardio

Posted on 04 April 2009 by Zuzana – BodyRock.Tv

A lot of people ask me how they can burn the most amount of calories and fat during their cardio workouts without spending hours and without loosing their muscles.

Simply by changing the intensity level of your cardio workouts it is possible to super charge your results – burning large amounts of calories without breaking down lean muscles. Interval training can be any exercise in which you are working out in short bursts of activity at high speed / intensity at close to your max effort, followed by periods of lower intensity.

Interval training has been scientifically proven to be highly effective for fat loss – at a much higher rate than the more common, long cardio training at moderate or lower intensity. High intensity interval cardio also boosts your metabolism AFTER the workout, ensuring that your body continues to burn calories at an accelerated rate long after your workout is over.

If you want to get the benefits of interval training then get ready to sweat because for these fat burning benefits to kick in you have to workout at high intensity and to exhaustion – to reach the point of overload so that the training will be effective. Without overload there is no adaptation.

Based on a research of Izumi Tabata at the National Institute of Fitness and Sports in Tokyo, Japan, a method consisting of 20 seconds of all out effort followed by 10 seconds of rest for a total of 4 minutes is JUST AS EFFECTIVE as 45 minutes of endurance exercise. This exercise method puts both the aerobic and anaerobic systems at peak stress, and can be used with body weight exercises as I have shown in my 20 minute workout.

Interval training will save your time, muscles, and deliver scientifically proven superior results. Let everyone else sweat it out for hours

Best,
Zuzana

Wikio

Wikio

How can I develop muscle definition and muscle tone? by Zuzana

Posted on 03 July 2009 by Zuzana – BodyRock.Tv

Muscle tone refers to residual tension in a relaxed muscle and increases with cardio and resistance training.  Generally the stronger you get the harder your muscles will be. There are two methods that can be used to produce high tension in your muscles.

1) Lifting heavy weights (using maximal or near maximal loads) at low speed

2) Lifting moderate loads at high speeds – explosive movements

If you have high percentage of body fat that is covering your body,  you won’t be able to see muscle tone until you lose fat.

I am a big fan of circuit training with combination of high resistance training and cardio, that will save you time and  give you all the benefits of both styles to optimize muscle tone and fat loss.

Wikio

Wikio

A Little Cardio Won’t Kill Ya’ by Tim Henriques

Strength athletes love to quote the research showing that cardio can decrease force production. I’ve used it myself to justify doing only 20 minutes of cardio a week just so I could spend more time lifting heavy shit. Others use it as an excuse to be fat and out of shape.

I think all of us need some element of conditioning in our training programs. We all need to include something that raises our heart rates and improves our overall endurance. Those activities not only increase our ability to train hard and train well, they also improve our health. And, most of all, they help us reduce bodyfat.

That said, I’m no fan of jogging for strength athletes. If you’re more interested in strength performance, I think shorter and more intense cardio workouts will improve your conditioning without any risk of decreasing your strength or power.

Brisk walking, especially if you go up an incline and/or walk with a weighted backpack, is great for general conditioning. Do it a few times a week and you should notice significant improvements in your overall fitness levels, along with some noticeable reductions in the size of your gut.

If steady-state cardio isn’t your thing, you can try interval training. Keep the workouts short — 20 to 30 minutes of combined work and rest intervals. Go short and really hard, rather than long and “kind of” hard. The classics like farmer’s walks, sandbag carries, sled pulls, car pushes, tire flips, and sledgehammer work are also good ideas. You’re only limited by your creativity.

Spend 30 to 120 minutes per week on your overall conditioning and you’ll feel better, look better, and have better overall stamina for your workouts and other activities. You may or may not get stronger, but you sure don’t have to worry about getting weaker.

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How Much Cardio Do You Need? by Dr. Clay Hyght

If you’ve been doing 20 minutes of steady state cardio three times per week and your fat loss results have slowed down, it’s safe to say that one of the reasons you’ve reached a plateau is because you’re just not doing enough.

For most people aiming for a traffic-stopping, totally shredded physique, I recommend doing high intensity interval training (HIIT) three times per week and steady state cardio about three times per week. As for volume per session, 20 minutes total is a good rule of thumb for HIIT, while at least 30 minutes is optimal for steady state work.

You definitely need to reevaluate your progress every couple of weeks. If you’re not progressing after two weeks, add five minutes to each cardio session and fine-tune your diet even more. At some point, you may also need to bump up the frequency of your steady state sessions, and maybe even add another HIIT session per week.

Going up to as many as seven hour-long sessions per week might be necessary to achieve the freaky ripped, vascular leanness you desire. However, I wouldn’t increase the HIIT to more than four (maybe five) days per week.

The good news is that it’s harder to get lean than it is to stay lean. So, while you may have to do what seems like endless amounts of cardio to get ripped, it won’t take near that much to keep your condition.

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How an Athlete Ages

This month, since I’m turning 50, I’m trying to prove that birthdays—even milestone ones like this one—are the most inconsequential change of all. It’s what’s in our heads rather than in our bodies that makes the real difference. But that’s not to say our bodies don’t undergo some pretty significant changes as we approach the Metamucil Years. In fact, here’s what happens to three of the biggest components of athletic performance:

Strength

According to research conducted at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (how did I not apply there?), the average guy’s ability to bench-press an 80-pound barbell drops from 23 reps at age 18-25 to 6 reps at age 65-plus. That means the average young man is nearly three times as strong as the typical gray-hair. Indeed, strength declines more precipitously with age than any other fitness component.

Cardiovascular fitness

Generally, the lower your heart rate during exercise, the stronger your ticker and the fitter you are. In another UNLV experiment, men between the ages of 18 and 25 stepped on and off a foot-high bench for 3 consecutive minutes. Their average heart rate was 102 beats per minute. But when the same test was given to guys age 46 to 55, their average pulse was 113 bpm. The simple act of getting older had eroded about 10 percent of their fitness.

Flexibility

Adults are at their Gumby peaks between ages 18 and 25. At that time, if you sit on the floor with legs extended and reach forward, you’ll generally be able to stretch 16 inches, or about an inch past your toes. But if a 65-year-old guy does the same thing, he’ll only get about 10 inches out (and you’ll probably have to help him up). Nearly half of his flexibility will be gone.

Your Action Plan

Getting depressed? Fighting the urge to Google the Jazzy Power Chair? Don’t sweat it. Although all these changes are happening inside you right now, you can slow, stop or even reverse their progression. That’s something science didn’t fully understand or appreciate even 20 years ago, when it was thought that much of this was irreconcilable. Now we know that with proper training and smart living, anyone can reclaim a good chunk of that 18 to 25 prime time.

For real-life proof of this, consider a study currently being conducted by Athletes’ Performance in Gulf Breeze, Florida. Since January, researchers there have been working with members of the Pensacola Fire Department in an attempt to determine the best way to train “occupational athletes,” or people who must be physically fit to do their jobs. Although the study still has a few months to run, researcher and kinesiologist David Frost says he’s already convinced that the physical effects of aging are surmountable obstacles.

“We’re dealing with firefighters from age 20 to 57,” he explains. “Initially, some of the older guys were hesitant about getting involved and training hard for 12 weeks. They didn’t think they were as strong, as flexible or as cardiovascularly fit as the younger, more ripped guys. And they were afraid of getting injured. But now they can do everything the younger guys can. It was just their confidence that was holding them back. They didn’t even require more rest.”

Frost hopes that recreational athletes will eventually shift from narrow, sports-specific training to a much broader style of conditioning, like the type of movement workouts Athletes’ Performance advocates. Instead of limiting your training to your preferred sport, be it running, strength training, softball or triathlons, he says the key to lifelong fitness is broadening your mindset. “Instead of training for a sport, train for life,” he says. “Instead of going to the gym to get a great workout, work out so you can enjoy a great life.”

For the specifics of how to do this, watch for my next blog, “The Age-Defying Workout.” Among others, I’ll be talking to strength-and-conditioning coach, Ken Croner, of Athletes’ Performance, who worked with ageless Packer and Jet vet, Brett Favre.

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