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Don't let it own you. Everyone knows of at least a handful of exercises they aren't good at. Why aren't you good at them? Why are you avoiding them? Those exercise have you by the short hairs.

Start owning them through correct technique and then higher volume. As you get better, ramp up the intensity. Show those movements who's the boss. Find a harder version to do, or multiple versions. Combo them together. Then circuit them together.

Want some inspiration on mastering exercise? Check out this clip:

That's owning an exercise.

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There are four ways to work out: low intensity/low volume, low intensity/high volume, high intensity/low volume, and high intensity/high volume.

Now most of you know my opinion of low intensity/low volume efforts. This is for relaxation, recovery, etc. only. Almost no one I know should be working out at this level unless you're taking a recovery break. You don't need to adapt to this level of training unless you were completely sedentary before starting your exercise program.

The other three options all take some time to adapt to. But here's the key: if you don't commit to doing high volume or high intensity on a fairly regular basis you WILL NOT adapt.

Contrary to popular belief, my job isn't to make people sore. That's fairly easy to do actually. My job is to get people fitness results and that happens through adaptation. You adapt to the work you do. But if you don't do it and do it regualrly, you'll never adapt.

This becomes an issue with people that want to come in once or twice a week. I always insist that these people buy some of the equipment we sell to use at home because 1-2 times a week just isn't sufficient volume or intensity. What will happen is that the clinet will always be sore or borderline injured because the consistency is not there.

The methods I use are also pretty intense. That's why we only have 30 minute classes -- I pack a big punch in a small time frame. You must experience that intensity regualrly to overcome it and make the big gains that this method can bring you.

So those of you doing P90X, Crossfit, kettlebell training, or other fairly high volume and high intensty methods should be careful to make a commitment to the training. Letting things interfere with it and then trying to go back at the intensity and volume that you left it will not pay off in the end.

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Contradiction in terms? Not in my mind.

I've been really restless lately with my workouts. I feel like I've been working in a little box that gets smaller by the day. And I'm not as happy inside that cozy little box as I used to be. Sure, the walls once provided a comfort -- boundaries can keep you safe. But I've always been interested in some things that I lately felt were off limits. Well, says who?

Years ago, I was interested in bodybuilding and that never totally went away. Lately the old desires have returned.

The reasons are many. For one, I feel some of my limitations as a trainer more and more lately. Fat loss circuits on the kettlebell are great, but in all honety, most people need to work on getting stronger. Increasing lean body mass is one major key to fat loss and that means strength training. Strength training also is crucial in eliminating muscle imbalances. Lately I feel like I've been letting some of those weaknesses slide.

Paul Chek's statement also still sticks in my head, "Isolate, then integrate." I addressed this in internal martial arts years ago and it's rearing it's ugly head again -- sometimes you need to isolate muscles before you can integrate them into full-body movement. 

It's a big problem when clients can't tense their glutes or abs in planks, for example. Or when I need someone to squeeze their hamstrings and they can't do it. Most people have never done anything like that. The feeling of the muscle must often be isolated and built up BEFORE it can be integrated but that's hard to do when you only have full-body exercises at your disposal. People need to feel individual muscles and gain control over them.

Then there's my personal desires. I loved bodybuilding when I did it. I LOVED going to the gym and the way it made my body feel. Sometimes the functional fitness stuff seems like we're just trying to make people feel tired.

The functional fitness dogma against the pump is one of the worst things IMO. Getting the pump feels incredible. Your body responds to training by making you feel tens times bigger than you are. If you've never felt it, it elating. And yet, us functional fitness people often snicker at it. Why take away one of the most pleasurable feelings you can get from exercise? Why do that?

So this is me thinking out loud. I've already changed my personal workouts and the classes a bit to reflect my current thinking. More to come soon.

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Good name for a workout, huh? This is something I came up with during my workout this morning:

deadlift 10 (last few should feel really hard)

heavy swing 20

pullups (or chins) max

rest and repeat

I've seen few people that had a proper pull vs. push strength ratio. The fact is most everyone lacks significant pull strength.This workout hits that hard.

Now this workout seems to contradict good workout design by not balancing push vs. pull, but the lifts are different as is the emphasis of each. The deadlift is a lower body grind pull, the swing is a lower body ballistic pull at higher reps (I initially did 10 reps but found 20 worked better), and the pullups are an upper body pull.

This triplet makes a great workout ender or a workout by itself. So get to pullin'. :)

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You're probably not. This is something I'm seeing more and more of. Do you get cramps in your feet when you stretch? Little muscle jumps and twitches? Catch a cramp on the warmup? Get dizzy when you stand up too quickly?

All these are signs that you likely aren't drinking enough water. And this is very common.

Hard training requires that you give your body what it needs and no, contrary to popular perception, your body doesn't need Pepsi Cola. When you train hard and don't get adequate water, you're just asking for trouble. You'll start cramping, you will feel dizzy, and your recovery will be greatly slowed.

If you're going to make the effort to train hard, why sabotage your progress with something like this?

But how much is enough?

You're going to need around 2 liters of water (2000ml or around 68 ounces) a day to stay hydrated. Hard training and weather/climate may demand more or less water. So ask yourself: am I drinking 2000ml of WATER (not coffee, not Coke, not "juice" or anything else) a day?

If not, then I highly suggest buying one of these:

nalgene-bottle.jpg

so that you can measure your water intake every day.

Take it from someone that knows first hand: working out hard and not drinking your water can be a very bad idea. Don't wait till you've developed a health problem to take water intake seriously.

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So here I am knocking it out. I had done the challenge three times in three days trying to get the clip perfect. Today's form was off on the knee up part. Each one should be 90 degrees or more and some of these are a little less. Plus the last 5-6 rows aren't perfect. But no more. :)

I'm ready to move on. So I'm going with this third try instead of trying to get the challenge perfectly.

It took me a few weeks of hard training to get it. The atomic pushups and low rows have a lot of value to them. They are great exercises to add to your program and only a fraction of the good stuff that you can do on the TRX.

TRX classes are going smoothly so if you are interested in it, give me a shout.

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This is one of those things that makes me want to bang my head against the wall. Proof, once again, that the population at large is playing with very little good info on fitness. So here's your new "news" for the day:

"High-intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise," said Jan Helgerud, an exercise expert at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "This is like finding a new pill that works twice as well ... we should immediately throw out the old way of exercising."

Studies on intense training have been published in sports medicine journals and have largely been based on young, healthy people. Experts say more studies are needed on how older and less fit populations handle this type of exercise before it can be recommended more widely.

Intense interval training means working very hard for a few minutes, with rest periods between sets. Experts have mostly tested people running or biking, but other sports like rowing or swimming should also work.

Helgerud recommends people try four sessions lasting four minutes each, with three minutes of recovery time in between. Unless you're an elite athlete, it shouldn't be an all-out effort.

"You should be a little out of breath, but you shouldn't have the obvious feeling of exhaustion," Helgerud said....

Helgerud says the time people spend in the gym could be slashed dramatically if they did interval training instead. He said officials have been too afraid of recommending intense training for fear it would be too much for some people.

"I'm much more afraid of people not exercising at all," he said. "Inactivity is what's killing us."

When compared to people on a normal exercise routine, like jogging, research has shown those doing interval training can double their endurance, improve their oxygen use and strength by more than 10 percent and their speed by at least 5 percent. Even studies in the elderly and in heart patients found they had better oxygen use and fitness after doing interval training.

And yet 99% of people think that walking on a treadmill while watching Oprah some how consitutes a fitness regimen. And then they wonder why it doesn't work. 

Interval training is a great way to exercise. Start adding it to your regimen and watch the fat disappear.

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Looking for a challenge? Here you go.

This is the 40/40 challenge. 40 atomic pushups followed by 40 low rows.

Drew Brees TRX game day challenge

The TRX lower body challenge. Three goals to shoot for.

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March is burpee challenge month for me. The challenge is to do 50 each day, 5-6 days a week. So far, so good.

The burpee is a very complex exercise. I can use it to spot deficiencies very easily. Because of its complexity, it's also very good for hitting lots of problem areas.

Take, for example, ankle inflexibility. I have stiff ankles so I was turning the foot out too much as I kicked my feet up for the jump. As a result, I was pulling the inside of my knee and got injured. When I looked at what I was doing, I realized my error and started pointing my feet forward, allowing for a greater stretch, and the knee pain disappeared.

I also see lots of problems with the squat. A lot of times we can't get low enough and I'm still debating whether or not we should keep the heels on the ground or if raising the toes is okay. Heels on the ground would force people to work on their inflexibility.

Many clients have trouble with the "pushup" portion of the move, although I don't have them actually do a pushup. Many lack the upper body strength to do it, showing a deficiency in that area.

Others have problems thrusting both feet out and back at the same time due to a lack of core strength.

Finally, the jump is ....ahem.... a little less than one for many folks. This is due to weak legs or just conditioning. I like to see a fairly vigorous jump unless you're in the final reps.

I've found that isolating the problem components -- the squat, the leg thrust, etc. -- allows clients to improve on form, which in turn both increases movement quality and allows clients to do more reps. At this point, I'm starting to think of it as a movement assessment.

Take a look at your form and see what you're lacking. Improve those qualities and use the burpee as part of your workout to fix those problems. Have fun training.

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I don't like muscle heads either, but I totally understand his response to Planet Fitness. The "no work" workouts these places offer are a waste of time and anyone that actually tries hard needs to leave. It's no longer the survival of the fittest but "the fittest need to be weeded out." Watch the fitness industry die in this clip. R.I.P.

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Time to introduce functional fitness and the advantages of this type of training. Hope this makes sense. It was off-the-cuff.

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Here I am gutting it out at the end. I managed to pull 15 as a finisher. I like to throw in a final challenge into my workouts as a gut check. It keeps things interesting. I had done about 30 minutes at that point with the TRX.

The TRX will kill your core. It's even tougher than the kettlebell. The kettlebell exercises are done primarily in a standing postion and maybe 10% on the floor (floor press, russian twists, etc.) It works the core but the TRX is more intense.

The TRX has you in a diagonal leaning position for most of your workout time. You're stabilizing (like in holding a plank) for the entire workout. It gets really intense. I love it. That constant stabilization means you're burning more calories than standing up or laying down.

UPDATE: Our new STX trainer is now available for a fraction of the cost! Check it out here: http://formosafitness.com/?page_id=48

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I did my first actual workout on the TRX yesterday and I started with the All Body Xpress included with the package. It was tough and I was very suprised. I did 1:00 each on the exercises and if you've never done bicep curls with the TRX for 1:00, you're in for a surprise.

There are 12 exercises in total and they're split between lower body, upper, and core. The lower body portion surprised me the most. LOTS of one leg stuff: pistols, balance lunges, step behind lunges, cossack squats, etc. I didn't expect the lower body stuff to be worth much but it's turning out to be one of the best parts of the program.

The core stuff is really killer. I did the crunches and they're brutal. It gets even worse when you do the atomic push up:

The TRX is a solid buy. The exercises are really fun to do and it's easy to make each one easy or hard simply by moving your feet forward or back.

I've introduced the TRX to my clients and many say they really like it. It's more like play, they say. Of course, I didn't show them the atomic pushup. :)

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This is a short intro to metcons I wrote for a local forum:

Metabolic conditioning, usually shortened to metcon, is great way to mix up your usual workout, especially if you normally lift weights. I'm introducing it here because I doubt many people know how to do this. It's excellent for fat loss and conditioning.

Metcon workouts involve anaerobic movements done in a way as to get both anaerobic and aerobic benefits. That's a fancy way of saying you can have your cake and eat it too by combining strength training and aerobics. The combo means you can cut your workout time in half without losing the benefits. Neat, huh?

One of the best tools for this is the kettlebell because it unilaterally loads the body. That means you can work one side of the body while the other rests, do the same exercise on the other side, and then switch back to the other half with a new exercise. This type of loading combined with cycling exercises like this is very efficient.

But you don't need a kettlebell to do it. Metcon can be done with basic barbells, etc.

Try it out if you get a chance. I didn't want to get heavier kettlebells beyond 32kg. So I went with a barbell set instead. Cheaper and it's good to switch up to the bar to train your body in different ways. The bar has much to teach us.

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I just ordered my first shipment of TRXs. Can't wait till they get here. I think the TRX is a perfect fit for my gym and our clients. So excited! :)

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One of the best parts of the functional fitness paradigm is joint mobility. We're not talking flexibility so much, as in the static stretching you did in gym class, but mobility exercises to improve range of motion in the joints. Things like shoulder dislocates, wall squats, goblet squats, etc. are all considered part of the joint mobility component.

So what happens if you've lost range of motion and use joint mobility exercises to open up that area?

It's going to hurt.

There's just no way around it. Opening up a closed area to re-gain that range of motion means you're going to feel pain. This is often news to a client that has a lot of mobility issues since NOTHING in the mainstream fitness industry requires people to deal with their weaknesses. And since most all of us sit way too long everyday, most of us do have a lot of mobility issues. I still do and I make myself work on them every day. It's part of the process. For some people, it's most of the process of getting fit. At least at the beginning.

Now there's a difference betwen good pain and bad pain. Good pain is when the technique is correct and we experience some discomfort but we don't take it too far. Bad pain is when the technique/position is wrong or when a correct position is held too long, too deep, etc.

But a huge problem is that beginning clients with little or no ability to sense what their bodies are doing can't tell the difference. All they know is that it hurts. And if you put them in a position that hurts...

Telling someone to go gently into the pain but not too much works to a degree, but only so far. What often happens is that the entire process becomes annoying because nearly every session involves dealing with a degree of pain. It's not pleasant even though the client may be becoming capable of new movement. And because the process isn't pleasant, continuing to go through it in every session can become an issue.

So what's a trainer to do?

Do you allow half-movements because that's all the client is capable of at the moment or do you make clients work through issues more directly and possibly antagonize them?

This is one of the toughest things I deal with as a trainer and I'm constantly revisiting this issue. I don't have a clear-cut answer because I do a little of both. I push clients sometimes and other times I back off. Maybe I'm being inconsistent. I see it as being flexible.

But sooner or later, major issues have to be addressed and every single time it's what the client wants to avoid.

What are your thoughts on this?

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You're aren't buying a fitness product or service -- you're investing in your health.

This is a big change for many people.

I once had an older client come in and she showed lots of issues in her movement screen. I gave her an initial workout and showed how I could help her. But she said she wanted to think about it and there was nothing I could do. When I contacted her later, she said she was using a public gym for the equivalent of US$1.50 per visit. The worst possible equipment, little of it, no instruction, no correction -- but hey, the price was cheap. And by the way, she could have easily afforded me.

Some people think they're buying something but that's not true. You can't buy health and fitness. It isn't for sale. You either invest in it and reap the rewards or you don't. Cheap doesn't matter when there's absolutely no return whatsoever. If you didn't invest, you bought something, instead. That's a big mistake.

Invest your time in using quality fitness products and services and you'll get a greater return than the time, energy, and money you put in. And isn't that what we all want?

 

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mp2.jpg One of the major differences between me and those around me in the fitness industry is that I teach people to practice their exercises. Practice? Why would you want to do that?

Think of your fitness as a martial art. You want to get better at the movements themselves. Movement, period, should be your first goal followed closely by movement quality. That quality only comes through practice.

Practice means increased stability and the ability to move more weight. You'll have more confidence as well because you know the movement. You OWN the movement. And here's where postural improvement comes into play. Movement quality is reflected in your everyday posture.

And by making quality part of your fitness path, the focus is more challenging and stimulating than calories burned, time spent exercising, or other boring measures.

So by practicing, you get: fat loss, muscle building (more weight can be lifted), postural improvements, mental stimulation, etc.

It's a win-win situation.

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This was asked on a local board and below is my response.

I'm obviously biased in this area but IMO, "detox" isn't going to cure what is ailing you. It sounds to me like you need to get in shape and that means changing your mental and physical diet, and adding exercise to your regular schedule.

People who feel like this don't need detox nor are their bodies full of poisons. What's happened is that they've made poor choices that have resulted in a low energy state. If you eat crap food and get little to no exercise, then your body adapts to that input and output. You wind up with little mental or physical energy because you're not supplying it (food) nor do you need to produce it (exercise). So you're losing out in both the areas of supply and demand.

Instead of an expensive detox vacation, I'd recommend that the money be spent on buying higher quality, natural foods. High quality fruits, veggies, nuts, meat, milk, whole wheat products, etc. are a good start and if you still want some cheat foods, get high quality ice cream or something comparable. Quality is key. Processed food is out.

Second, either start an exercise program on your own or find a class to join (and yes, I offer them. Shameless plug.) The main thing is MOVE. Make movement part of your lifestyle by exercising 30 every day. Some forms of movement are better than others but you have to start somewhere.

Finally, you mentioned mental negativity and I see a lot of that. I recommend that people stop watching the news, period. News tends to extremely negative and a steady diet of it will depress you. Instead, spend your time with positive media and people that you find uplifting and encouraging. I use books on MP3 a lot for this. Seriously, negative media is one of the biggest mental outlook killers I can think of.

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abs.jpg I often get the impression that people want to go from what they look like now to looking like Arnold or like the fitness model on the left. The problem is that the gap between current reality and the goal is waaaaaaay too extreme. You don't have to set something like that as the goal.

The main problem is that people doing so set themselves up for failure. First of all, read Arnold's books and you'll learn that he worked out for HOURS a day. Yes, HOURS. So do many fitness models. Can you devote that much time to training? If so, go for it. But if you can't, is that level a smart goal to set? I think not.

Set yourself a reasonable goal of getting down to around 20% body fat at first and then evaluate your training and nutrition from there.

What you may find is that you're perfectly happy being somewhere between where you are and these "ideals."

And if you're happier and healthier then maybe that's enough?

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