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Decisions, decisions, decisions

This might be the single most important thought I ever post on this blog.  Seriously.

I really should make this my new landing page for anyone stopping by for the first time.

It’s that important in my opinion.

Decision fatigue refers to the idea that people make worse decisions after having made a lot of decisions.

Limiting decision fatigue can catapult your fitness success.  It will streamline your workouts and relieve the anxiety of your workout choices.  It starts from the moment that you decide to rid yourself of all of the minutiae.

If you’re not familiar with the concept of decision fatigue, try this exerciseDrive to your local gym, walk to the middle of the building and stop once you feel like you are dead center in the gym.

Now, do a slow 360 degree spin, making sure to take in all of the equipment, classes, posters, tv’s, etc.  Take note of the vast amount of options that the gym has so graciously offered you in exchange for your monthly membership fee.

Now, take note of how overwhelming the number of options truly are.

Assume for a second that you walked into that gym with a limited knowledge on exercise, with no notes and no workout plan in hand.  Assume that you walked in just to improvise your workout for the day.

My question is this… Assuming that you’re not yet an expert in effective exercise, how in the hell are you supposed to make steady progress toward your goals (which are commonly weight loss, fat loss or lean muscle gain)?

How?

How are you supposed to make any lasting progress what so ever?  One great workout is not going to create change.  A series a great workout spread out across months and years is going to solidify your results, paying dividends on your physical efforts.

There is a niche machine or gadget for everything in that gym, and in my personal opinion, over 80-85% of them are not worth your time.  Yes, if you’re an able bodied person, put the blinders on to over 80-85% of the strength machines, ellipticals, treadmills and the like.

Just to take the heat off of the geriatric resistance machines and the hamster wheels, the equipment that I promote the most doesn’t help the situation much more.

Medicine balls, resistance bands, dumbbells, power wheels, kettlebells, barbells, sandbags, weight vests, suspension trainers, bodyweight specific movements, sleds, jump ropes, battling ropes, climbing ropes, plyo boxes, and on and on and on.  This is all equipment that I highly endorse, but there is an overwhelming number of options.  Where does it all fit?

I know how to design a program using this equipment, but it is insane to think that the average Joe or Jane, who is focusing their attention on building a career outside of fitness, should know how to incorporate all of this equipment.

You can experience this same sense of “decision fatigue” when you walk onto a dealership to shop for a car, peruse a website to compare digital cameras or enter a grocery store to purchase grocery items for the week.

Grocery store decision fatigue.

The grocery store might be the best immediate example of how draining decision fatigue can be. There are tens of thousands of products in a grocery store, and probably less than 200 that are ideal for human consumption, assuming you are mindful of your health.  I recently read a marketing article stating that grocery stores put candy and other junk food next to the checkouts because by that point in the shopping experience, people are weakest.  If they are going to make a impulse buy, it’s going to be in the check out line because they have the perception that once they are done checking out, the opportunity to have that package of delightful candy is no longer.

Decision fatigue.  I don’t know why it took me so long to make the connection between decision fatigue and achieving body transformation/performance.

I have often stressed about paying attention to the details of your workouts, nutrition and recovery tactics, but now I have to admit that I believe that limiting the onset of decision fatigue might be the key to high level fitness results and reduced anxiety.

Off of the cuff, I have a couple of suggestions that can help relieve decision fatigue:

1)  Have Your Workout for the Day in Your Hands!

Unless you’ve had experience designing strength and conditioning programs, don’t wait until you arrive to the gym and “wing it”.  It’s a complete waste of time to sit down and brainstorm a workout once you arrive.  Have your plan in hand so that when you arrive you can immediately get to work, then get out.  Do not, for any reason, head to the gym expecting to make progress if you don’t know exactly what workout entails for that day.  Would you drive to a far off, highly populated unknown destination without a map?  Probably not.  So don’t put yourself at risk by showing up to the gym without some idea of what is about to take place.

Also, have an idea of what you accomplished in the previous workouts and a decent idea of what you hope to accomplish in the future workouts.  Keep measuring where you came from, where you are and where you are going.

Side-note:  I am convinced that the likelihood of a person to buy poor quality food in the grocery store because they didn’t make a shopping list is increased exponentially.  No list + no plan = poor choices. Decision fatigue beats you down until you have little to no willpower.

2)  Choose between 1-3 pieces of equipment.

The best workouts I have ever had usually involve no more than 3 different pieces of fitness equipment.  Weight can only come in so many forms, and to be honest, weight is weight.  The earth’s gravitational pull has established what things are going to weigh, so keeping that in mind, weight is pretty much weight.  The design of the grip points and the location of center of mass might vary between equipment.  Think kettlebells versus dumbbells here.

I choose “iron” when it comes to weight.  “Iron”, meaning dumbbells, barbells and kettlebells (cast iron).  You cannot go wrong with this type of equipment.  Using less equipment is great for acclimating yourself to that style of equipment.  Jumping around from innovation to innovation without working to master the basic (time tested) equipment teaches you nothing over the long-haul.

As I mentioned above, you have to measure your progress.  If you lift the same 100lbs on the barbell squat all year long, you’re not going to get anything out of it.  Your body will adapt quickly and then progress will flatline.  But, if you add weight in small increments, you’re going to get a hell of a lot stronger and your body will change in the process.  Staying consistent with that barbell squat will allow you to measure your progress over time.

Choose less and you’ll receive more.  Decision fatigue will entice you to touch everything in the gym for that “total body workout”.  Total body workouts are accomplished through movement patterns, not equipment.

3)  Choose less exercises.

Half reps, whole reps, tempo, single leg, double leg, off-center loading, overhead, goblet, racked, alternating grip, neutral grip, blah blah blah.  There are so many options it makes me sick.  “Options”, keeps fitness magazines profitable.

First off… squats, deadlifts, pull ups, chin ups, push ups, row variations, lunges, and a select few core specific exercises should make up the bulk of your training.  Choose an upper body movement and pair it with a lower body movement.  Sprinkle on a core drill after the second exercise in the tri-set, or address flexibility issues during your rest period.  Add a realistic amount weight that challenges your muscles and joints, lift it up and down a few times, set it down, rest, rinse and repeat.

Leverage the basics to the fullest and you’ll end up getting great results on your investment.

An example of a complete resistance training workout might look like this:

Tri-Set #1

A1)  Squat

A2)  Chin Up

Core)  Ab Wheel Roll Outs

Tri-Set #2

B1)  Lunge

B2)  Inverted Row

Core)  Lateral Plank

9 out of 10 people will see dramatic results from a workout designed with the format above.  Executed 2-3 times per week with adequate rest in between each session and a steady progressive loading plan, now you’re getting somewhere.  Drink some water, eat protein and veggies, get adequate sleep and you’re going to enhance the gym work.

It’s almost disheartening reading statements like that isn’t it?  I think our brains desperately want us to believe that there is something complex, some secret, some hidden element missing from our training efforts.  We subconscious crave the complicated and complex versus accepting and leveraging the simple tactics.

I didn’t believe in simplicity much when I went deeper into strength and conditioning rabbit hole some years ago.  I thought we needed more exercises, fatigue, fancy gadgets and variability all of the time.

It’s not true.  Simple is better.  Simple is better for the beginner population and simple can be a much needed element for the advanced population that has gotten sidetracked from information overload.

Our days are chock full of decisions.  Use your mental strength to make decisions about life, career and what is best for yourself and your family, not your workouts.  If you’re forced to workout in the evening, chances are quite high that you’ve been beaten down by the amount of decisions that you’ve had to make throughout that day.  More decisions is not what the doctored ordered.

Find a simplified and streamlined plan and execute like a savage.

Cheers to limiting decision fatigue and leveraging simplicity in your workouts!

KG

*** The same can be done with nutrition.  Find out how to limit decision fatigue with your eating here***

Precision Nutrition: Results Based Eating for Body Transformation

The best nutritional strategies are the strategies that you’re more apt to stick to.

The more I read about nutrition, the more I am reminded that the best tactics to leverage are also the most simple.

We overcomplicate a lot of things in life, and nutrition frequently is made much more difficult than it actually is.  In times like that, I outsource to professionals and programs that carry a knowledge that is beyond my own.  I have no problem humbly sending people to someone who specializes.  It’s the right thing to do.

Precision Nutrition is my go to resource.  I trust them whole heartedly right now, and will for years to come.  I first started leveraging Dr. Berardi’s nutritional advice years ago when I was first learning about nutrition for myself. I really started to realize how influential nutrition is to boosting sport performance, and later on, improving body composition.

I started reading free articles from Dr. Berardi on the popular website T-Nation, which is a niche site primarily targeted at males who desire higher level training and nutritional advice.  Dr. Berardi used to contribute guest articles to gain exposure to his cause when he was an up and comer.

“But Kyle, it’s the internet, nothing is true on the internet!”, you say.

Despite the negative outlook toward health advice on the internet, there is actually a lot of useful information that a person can leverage if you know where to look and who you can trust.  The key is that you have to spend some time deciding on who you can trust!  Or, you can take advantage of other people like myself that have a great working knowledge of where you should be looking for solid information.

Sometimes you have to sift and sift until you find the gold, but it’s out there.

My experience with learning how to eat…

Prior to making any changes to my diet, I thought that my eating was pretty decent really.  But looking back, I was a fool.  My activity level was so high that I could get away making poor nutritional choices.  I was burning through so many calories throughout the day that it almost didn’t matter what I was putting into my mouth.

A lot of people have a similar situation to this.  They burn so many calories from activity that they don’t even know that making a few subtle (yet impactful) changes to their diet would send their body aesthetics to a whole other level.  

Anyways, I began to dabble with some of Dr. Berardi’s suggestions.

Here are four different observations/ideas that I came away with…

1) Nutritional adjustments are easier said than done in the beginning.

There are thousands of nutritional articles that are published on the internet every single day.  Most of them preach the same general ideas: eat more protein, consume less sugar and refined carbohydrates.  I think it is safe to say that just about everyone agrees that this advice is legit.  It’s bland and boring advice, but still, it’s great advice.

Sugar and refined carbohydrates aren’t tolerated by the body very well, especially if you’re inactive or currently carrying a higher percentage of bodyfat.

I used to eat bread with nearly every meal as most people do.  The first step forward for me was cutting my bread consumption in half.  Instead of eating two pieces of bread with a sandwich, I would only eat one.  Again, this was difficult adjustment at first because my entire life I had been eating sandwiches with bread on top and bottom, as most people often do.

Cutting my bread consumption in half was challenging, but I knew that it had to be done in order to make improvements to body composition.  It was a simple change, but it wasn’t easy.  Old habits can be tough to break.  But, over time, new habits were formed.

Eating my meals with a lean protein source on top of only 1 piece of bread started to feel natural in short time with some consistency.

I noticed significant decrease in body-fat by doing this.

2)  Vegetable intake was increased.

When people think carbohydrates, they often think about foods like bread, pasta and rice.  At least those are the foods that usually come to mind.  Interestingly, there is a significant amount of carbohydates that are in vegetables like broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus and other leafy greens that provide valuable fuel for performance and energy throughout the day.

This change I found to be easy.  Initially, I began preparing my veggies by boiling them.  Later, I read an article that shared that the nutrient retention of veggies was greatly increased by steaming vegetables versus boiling.  So, I began steaming my veggies for all meals.  I cooked the vegetables on a meal by meal basis, eventually figuring out that steaming veggies in bulk was a far more convenient tactic (along with being time effective).

Filling up on veggies during meals is one of the oldest tricks in the book.  If you’ve never tried it, you’re missing out.  It works.  Veggies are low calorie foods that pack a huge nutrient punch.  It’s one of the most powerful nutritional shifts that a person can make in their quest for body transformation.

My decreased bread intake was now joined by an increase in vegetables.  Again, I noticed a change in body composition and an increased energy to direct toward my workouts.

Note:  There is also a certain mental satisfaction in eating more vegetables throughout the day.  Quite honestly, I began to build a healthier mindset just from increasing my veggie intake.  You’ll know what I am talking about when you make the leap.

3)  Nutrient timing

Nutrient timing completely changed my outlook on eating, and how to approach it throughout the day. The concept that there are specific times when foods are better tolerated by the body was mind blowing. Remember, I was learning about nutrition from ground zero. If you already know about nutrient timing, congrats, because you in the top 15% of people in the world who are leveraging this concept. 

I made valuable trade-outs in the foods I was eating for breakfast and in the timeframes before, during and after my workout sessions.

Again, I saw a drastic improvement in body composition and performance.

From a performance standpoint, the most notable improvement was my ability to recover quickly in between workouts.  It became apparent to me after adopting the new nutritional strategies that Dr. Berardi outlined, that I had not been recovering fully between workouts.  I was essentially entering the next workout incompletely recovered, which can be an overlooked hold up when aiming to lose fat and build muscle.

Again, had I not made the changes, I never would have known anything different.  I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  Make sense?

I was now using food properly.  It was fueling my physical activity appropriately while keeping me lean in the process.

4)  It’s way more effective to follow a nutritional system.

In as few words as possible, a system gives you focused direction.

It takes you from point A to point B as efficiently as possible.  No heartache, no anxiety, no wasted efforts.

I know I pump up the Precision Nutrition System a lot, but it really is a world class program.  They teach you how to eat, when to eat, what to eat, why you’re eating it, how to advance and progress your eating to achieve even higher levels of health, performance and leanness.

It was one of the first nutritional programs that I came across that made logical sense in their approach.

We stress the importance of progressing in all other areas of our lives, so why not approach nutrition with a progression?  It’s soooooooooo difficult to go from poor eating habits to perfect eating habits overnight.  It’s too much for a lot of people to handle in the beginning.  Saying goodbye to old habits can be extremely draining.

I often talk about the importance of following a fitness regimen that is results effective, yet sustainable for the long-term.  To do this, you have to manage your stress levels, scale your workouts to your current physical abilities and assess constantly.  It’s in ongoing process that you want to adhere to for life.

Nutrition requires a very similar format.  You need to be willing to put an ounce of energy into learning a few tips and tricks.  Once you apply the basics, things begin to snowball and you gain momentum.  Old habits disappear and new habits form.  Your body changes in the process and eventually you’re equipped with knowledge that will serve you well for the remainder of your life.

If you can dial in your eating habits for the long-term, again, you’re now in the top 15% of healthy people in the world, without even breaking a sweat during a workout.  Sound personal eating habits are vital.

Of course, this is summarized and simplified guidance, but it’s pretty close to what happens when you transition into being a fit eater.

If you’ve got anxiety with nutrition, let these guys and gals help you out.  They are incredible resources…

Hopefully some of my personal testimonials that I touched on will help you bring your own eating into some kind of perspective.

*** If this post sounds like a sales pitch, I can assure you, it is.  Yes that’s right, it is absolutely a sales pitch.  People like to talk about products and programs that they love.  Word of mouth marketing is one of the most powerful forms of advertising on the planet.  It just so happens that PN is something that I completely believe in, so why the heck not talk about it?

 

 

 

Cheers to your nutritional success!

KG

Hang In There… The Kettlebell Clean is a Great Exercise and an Acquired Taste

The kettlebell clean is an acquired taste, for sure.

It reminds me of a craft beer drinkers first sips of an I.P.A. or a Double I.P.A.  Do you remember the bitter beer face commercials?

One quick search on the old Dragon Door article library or the new StrongFirst forum, and people will praise the hell out of this move, but I am here to warn you up front, you might not enjoy this exercise at first.

It’s an acquired taste.

Both from a technique standpoint and a “Why the hell would I choose this exercise over kettlebell swing variations, kettlebell snatches, weighted jump squats or even barbell cleans”?… standpoint.

For quite some time, I wasn’t exactly sure what significant purpose kettlebell cleans served.

At that time, the kettlebell clean seemed more like a sweet little method to move the kettlebell from the floor up to the rack position, and not much more than that.

Photo credit: FitBomb

In case you’re not familiar, the rack position describes a static posture where the bell rests for a given amount of time (split second or for multiple seconds) against the chest with elbow tucked tightly to the side.

Also, at that time, my timing was way off with the kettlebell clean.  I was mostly pulling the bell up from between my legs using my upper extremities, and flipping it over the top of my knuckles.  Obviously, the upper body does have some involvement in most kettlebell training, but one of the main principles of any ballistic kettlebell movement is hip snap.  I have always viewed “hip snap” as the slang terminology for aggressive/powerful extension of the hips.

Kettlebell drills like swings, snatches and cleans all thrive off of aggressive hip extension, or hip snap to catapult the bell through its trajectory/range of motion.

[Improving your ability to aggressively extend your hips is incredible for sport performance and fat loss.  The research on the influence that kettlebell swings has on body fat elimination has been growing rather consistently in recent months.  Anyone that has spent any time working out with kettlebells in a dedicated manner will no doubt give the nod to kettlebell training (specifically swings, cleans, snatches) and its dramatic effect on fat loss.  Almost to the point of zero dietary intervention.  That’s not to say that you shouldn’t pursue higher standards of eating… because you should.]  

Ok, back to kettlebell cleans.  Originally, I didn’t like them.  I just didn’t see the value.  Swings (moving the bell to about sternum height) provided a noticeably large training stimulus that mimicked an explosive deadlift and kettlebell snatches (moving the kettlebell overhead) worked very similar to dumbbell snatches, which are amazing for building uni-lateral explosive power.

But kettlebell cleans seemed like the red-headed step child (forgive my joke if this offends anyone).  I kept asking myself,  “What are they good for?”

I never felt like I was achieving anything while practicing the kettlebell clean.  The hip snap didn’t feel like it was present, and quite frankly, it didn’t seem like it really needed to be present in order to execute the clean.  So then what?

Again, as I stated early in this post, the clean (to me) felt like an efficient method to transport the kettlebell vertically to the rack position so that I could set up for other exercises like:  squats, overhead pressing or carries.

Eventually, I made the decision to work on my clean technique in a diligent manner.  I also spent some time combing over the forums and articles from trusted resources for to increase my understanding of what the kettlebell clean is and why it was important.

Here’s a messy synopsis of what I found…

From a basic observation, I thought of the kettlebell clean as a variation of the swing, and still do.  Obviously the motion is different, but hiking the kettlebell through the legs, moving forward into an arcing pattern is very similar to that of the kettlebell swing.  However this arching pattern is interrupted as the hand/arm pulls the bell much tighter to the anterior (front) aspect of the body than the arc of the kettlebell swing.  Some people will refer to this as “taming the arc”.

You can read more about “taming the arc” from this excerpt:

Once the bell begins its ascent vertically to the chest, this is where most people will get lost, as I did.

Why?  Because in the time that it takes to blink your eyes, the bell needs to transition from a prone (hand over the top) grip to a neutral grip (palm toward the midline of the body) with the kettlebell nestled partially against the forearm and chest, at armpit height.  The entire sequence happens really quickly.

The most common mistake here is “flipping” the bell.  Technically, it’s incorrect yes, but the bigger mistake is that flipping the bell over the hand is essentially beating yourself with the greatest mass of the kettlebell.  Kettlebells are constructed of dense cast iron so… it hurts.  Once the bell flips over the hand, the only object to stop its motion is your body, and this can be painful.  If you’ve played contact sports, the sensation of the bell impacting your body will be eerily similar to the impact of another human hitting you.

So what is supposed to happen?

Around waist height, the bell begins to turn over and rotate.  It’s a combination of both.  The only way to successfully accomplish this, is to relax your grip and allow the kettlebell to turn over/rotate around your forearm.  I said RELAX, NOT LET GO.  Your hand position changes on the bell, without your hand ever leaving the bell.  I use the terminology turn over/rotate because I feel this is the best description of what happens to the kettlebell as it transitions into the rack position hand position changes on the bell, without your hand ever leaving the bell.

This “relaxed” grip was uncomfortable for me at first.  It didn’t feel natural to loosen a grip and relax while dynamically swinging a 53lb piece of cast iron.  I am sure that you might feel the same way when you give this movement a go.  It can be unsettling for the first few reps.  Make sure that your hands are dry and free of any grease.

Chalking your hands is a great technique for improving hand/grip integrity kettlebell training, although chalking can be messy for you house over time.  Check out this Metolius Eco Ball chalk bag that really helps to save yourself the hassle of cleaning up chalk mess.

But, like anything other new stimulus or skill, consistent practice will move your  technique of the clean from completely foreign to second nature.

Filming my kettlebell clean (which I encourage you to do always) revealed that I wasn’t initiating my turn over/rotation of the bell soon enough.  I was attempting to mimic the barbell clean, where the hands and elbows (and body) move under the vertical moving barbell above waist level.

Again, if you attempt to “flip” the kettelbell above waist level you’re going to get some tough love from the bell in the form of a shot to the chest/shoulder.  As long as you don’t hurt yourself, this type of feedback is probably a good thing, as there will be no question that your timing is off.

The kettlebell should park itself into the rack position rather peacefully.

The kettllebell clean is a “steering strength” movement that requires adequate attention for successful completion.

You might start out despising it like I did and end up loving it as I do now.

A series of simple tips that can help you out:

• In the beginning feel free to learn using a lighter bell.  This is important.
• Quickly move into a heavier kettlebell that demands some  hip snap to make the bell move.  Otherwise, you may find yourself “muscling” the bell as I was.
• Work the single arm kettlebell clean until you feel you are proficient with technique at heavier weights.  Forget about “work capacity” training while you are learning, learn it first, don’t get ahead of yourself.
• Once you’re moving a heavier kettlebell (32kg men/24kg women), consider transitioning into the double kettlebell clean, which will require attention to be paid to both arms and an increase in hip snap to move the bells to the rack position.
• Practice, practice, practice.

On a positive note, if decide to dedicate some time and practice into learning the kettlebell clean, you’re going to find great carryover to all of your other lifts also (kettlebell swings, presses, etc).  The move requires timing and coordination, but improving both will boost your performance and your results in the race to lose fat.

The clean is nothing that I thought it was and everything that I thought that it wasn’t.  I have been pleasantly surprised and challenged by its technique and it’s purpose inside of a balanced strength and conditioning program.  I highly suggest that you work it for yourself and see how it benefits you.

 

 

Cheers to kettlebell cleans babies!

KG

A Brief Synopsis About Why “Fat Loss” is Preferred Over “Weight Loss”

Look familiar?

“Weight loss” is a common set of terms that has been the measurement of health and wellness for decades.  Once the mainstream grabbed ahold of the weight loss, it was all over.  As for who first used the phrase “weight loss” to describe a positive shift in a person’s health and appearance?…

I have no clue.

What I do know is that I have never really understood why we say “weight loss”.

While I know that on some level, “weight loss” does do a decent job of describing the events taking place when a person decides to improve their nutrition or physical activity, I also feel that “weight loss” is so short-sighted.

Especially when the weight that is being lost is being measured by a bathroom scale or the equivalent.  We judge our progress by comparing our previous weigh in to the current weigh in.  If the needle moves left (weight loss) we celebrate and feel good, if the needle moves right (weight gained) we become frustrated, depressed, pissed off and in some extreme reactions, give up on our health endeavors all together.

I’ve witnessed people give up on physical activity and nutritionally smart eating habits solely based on the needle bouncing to the right instead of the left.  They may not give up the first time that they see it happen, but most certainly on the second, third, or fourth time that significant loss does not occur.

The problem with letting the weight scale be the dictator of your progress is that weight scales measure weight!  Ha!  Yes, weight scales suck because all they do is measure weight.  Weight scales don’t factor in whether that weight is useful muscle or useless fat (not all fat is useless), water weight, fecal matter (grow but true), etc.  There is zero indication about where the weight displayed on the scale is coming from, which is why I feel that body composition (or the composition of your total weight) is such important information to know.

Here are a couple of pictures that help make my point.  If you are someone that finds motivation to get fit for body appearance reasons, consider this picture:

The picture depicts the same female at different weights, yet different shapes.  Although the difference between the right and left pictures may be subtle, there is a noticeable difference.  When asked, most people would probably want to look like the picture on the right, especially not knowing that the picture on the right represents the same girl at a HEAVIER weight.

The girl looks more “toned” (not sure I like using this word but it works for now) and fit in the picture on the right, but she weighs more.  Why?  She built lean muscle and removed  layers of fat.

Fat on the body, visually, projects much different than muscle on the same body.

Here is a picture that helps support my last statement, anyone who has ever been in a health class or kinesiology classroom has no doubt seen images like this:

While the old “muscle weighs more than fat” adage doesn’t make much sense, body composition and  visual observations at what muscle increase and fat decrease looks like certainly do.

What we could potentially say, is that “a pound of fat takes up nearly four times the space of the same amount of muscle tissue”.

In other words, your height and weight can remain exactly the same, but you can feel and even visually look, well… fatter.

If you add more lean muscle to your body while simultaneously losing fat, you’re going to see a decrease in size, despite what the scale tells you. Your body begins to “tighten up”, “tone” or whichever descriptive word you choose to use.

Increasing muscle while decreasing fat is a positive shift in body composition, and generally, overall health.

The most direct and efficient way to accomplish this is with resistance training, and decent nutritional regimen.

Here is an old article from the University of New Mexico describing all of the benefits of resistance training…

Too simplify, here is a snapshot:

Because of this, I have to recommend that we shift our thinking and judgements away from the weight scale, and on to body composition tests like bodpods, skin calipers or hydro-static weighing to analyze what the ratio of muscle to fat really is.  The problem is, these are all laboratory tools.  They are unrealistic for the average person to use for monitoring progress.

Waist circumference is also a decent indicator of how your body is reacting to exercise and nutritional interventions.

Go find a pair of jeans that fit tight at the current moment.  Try them on.  Set them aside for now.

Get aggressive with your movement and eating, forgetting about any measurements or weighing.

A week or two down the road, try on that same pair of jeans.

Rinse and repeat for months, because months is how long it is going to take.  Dedicated and repeated effort for months, not overnight or in a week.  Bodies built naturally and properly, take months to establish.  But once they are built, basic upkeep is all that needed to maintain their integrity.

Better yet, strip down into a swimsuit for females, and a  pair of short with no shirt if you are a male.  Make a conscious effort to show some skin.  Now, take a full body picture.  Have the courage to do this in the beginning and frequently along the way.  It’s unscientific but it is brutally effective.  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

You don’t have to show anyone the pictures but yourself.  It’s your reminder of where you started and how you a progressing.  In the future, it may serve as a fuel to continue on the right path when times get rough.  We can all use a little motivation every now and then.

It takes time and effort to make change.  Transformation is a big process.  You’re tearing down and building up.  A complete remodel of your body.  Don’t get discouraged.  If you’re doing right things to initiate lean muscle gain and fat loss, you’ll make progress.  There is no doubt.  If you falter or give up, your progress will slow or halt.

Always remember that if it were easy, everyone would do it.

In most cases, body composition change is incredibly predictable.  Keep moving often, purposefully and aggressively and leverage that effort with nutrient dense food.  The combination of the two will peel fat off of your body like an onion, and restore something that most of us could use more of… muscle.

Cheers to trading weight loss for fat loss…

KG

The Brilliance of CrossFit

The day that I opened by mind and stopped hating on other methods of building physical fitness is the day that I realized that I could write a book, teach it and be a resource to the masses.

If you’ve spent any time lurking around this blog, you’ve undoubtedly come across some posts where I take some jabs at the fitness phenomena known as CrossFit.

While I am not endorsing CrossFit in this post, I do have to pay this fitness monster a few compliments.

Because you see, CrossFit, while not completely in line with my thought process and methodology, has achieved some feats (in a matter of a few years) that hundreds of other fitness fads have failed at miserably.

This post is devoted to acknowledging these feats.  Yes, CrossFit, I am going to pump your tires for a bit here, but that doesn’t meant that you and I are buddies by any means…

Community.

The first thing that I noticed about CrossFit, all silly training methods aside, is that they have built a community that is unlike any other.  And they did it record time, as CrossFit was founded in 2000.  We all probably know someone who is a member of a CrossFit “box”, and you have probably heard this person (in conversation) talk about how great it is to workout with the support and encouragement of other CrossFitters.  I hear it all of the time.  It’s the same attitude and encouragement that you receive when you are apart of an athletic team.  No one wants to see anyone else fail.  The attitude seems to be that although the workouts are accomplished on the individual level, the greater victory is that everyone finishes the race.  I can get on board with that.

Intensity.

CrossFit has given people the hope that working out doesn’t have to be centered around cheesy aerobic bars and headbands, water weights, hamster training (withering away for life on the treadmill), or Jazzercise while blasting the Tina Turner on a treble dominant boom box.  It brought “cool” back to giving a training session an all out effort, using every god-given muscle to complete physical tasks.  It brought the idea that it’s ok to put the “work” back in working out.  A little effort never killed anyone, although pushing it too far has definitely hurt some people.  Breathe a little intensity back into your training.  You’ve probably got another safe gear to switch in to.

Positive body composition shift.

This builds off of intensity.  I like that Cross-Fit doesn’t preach the same old song and dance about working out and it’s benefits for fat loss.  Yes, I talk about this a lot on this blog, but I also stress the importance of fat loss as BY PRODUCT of working both hard and smart.  Work capacity style training sessions will burn fat like none other, especially when using total body lifts and sub-maximal loading.  Assuming the person doesn’t injure themselves or cause long-term internal damage from the training stimulus, it is safe to say that training sessions that involve metabolic resistance-like efforts are going to rip fat off of your body.  I’ll even go as far as saying that you can avoid an alterations in your diet (for a little while) and see great results.  Lord knows the number of people who would rather exercise over tweak the basics in their diet.  It’s habit, I get it, change is difficult for me too.

Iron and women.

Women are afraid of rough hands and bulky bodies.  Okay, this might be a bad stereotype, but in my experience most women hate the idea of loading a barbell and lifting it with their silky soft hands.  Heaven forbid ladies, you roughen them up a bit.  CrossFit made this cool also.  When you walk into a CrossFit gym, it’s common to see no cable machine or rubber coated handles of any kind.  It’s mostly iron.  Skin on iron.  Those women who survive the first few weeks of torture, seem to end up becoming addicted to moving weight with hands on iron.  You wouldn’t believe the kind of resistance that most strength coaches and personal trainers get when attempting to integrate barbell work into a clients training regimen.  I applaud you CrossFit.

Crazy lifts.

CrossFit has done what even strength coaches and highly educated personal trainers could not.  They made olympic lifting “cool”.  The people in my social network that regularly attend CrossFit training sessions think that Olympic lifting (snatches, cleans, jerks, etc) is the greatest thing ever.  In CrossFit’s infancy, I know for a fact that these lifts were being taught half-ass.  It was disturbing to think that they were even posting videos on their website, basically showing the crime being committed.  Over the years, however, I have noticed that they have progressively taken steps forward in the reinforcement of technique during such lifts.  If nothing else, it’s encouraging to see gym owners/trainers taking the time to coach before loading them up for a WOD.

Bright minds surface.

Guys like Kelly Starret are the greatest thing that has ever happened to CrossFit.  I say no more.

Rogue.

Rogue training equipment is brilliant.  I have been looking for rugged training gear that is meant for un-polished concrete for a while.  I always wondered why I couldn’t find anything that could be used OUTSIDE of the controlled gym environment.  The fact that the bumper plates from Rogue are recycled from used car tires and have minimal bounce when dropped, are a major turn on for me.  I can support this.  Part of the problem of a person’s struggling commitment to fitness is the dullness of the place where fitness happens.  It’s like going to school when you were younger… you knew that you had to go but dreaded waking up for it every day.  Get outside, train in your garage or your basement.  Don’t be reckless, but don’t be afraid to switch up your scenery to keep your training fresh and interesting.

The Wrap Up…

I feel like I just went to confession.  I purged myself on this blog just now.  But as I alluded to earlier in the post, I have to stop holding grudges against ideas and methods that I don’t like. Life is too short, there is value is just about everything.  The sad part is that the strength coach community does the same thing.  I won’t fall victim to being narrow-minded.

Since adopting this sort of open-minded thinking, my writing skills (book-wise) have improved tremendously.  I no longer feel pigeon-holed to writing about any one technique.  “Cornered” might be a better description.  All methods work just fine when executed properly, it’s just a matter of assessing yourself both physically and mentally, your goals and then getting to work.

 

 

Cheers to some positive things that Crossfit has brought to the table!

KG