Workout: Beginners Full Body and The Simplest Weight-loss Diet You've Ever Heard Of

-          Warm up thoroughly

-          Deadlift 4x6

-          BB Bench Press 4x6

-          Front Squat 4x6

-          BB Bent rows 4x6

-          Push Ups 3x15

-          Lat pull down 4x6

CORE:

o   Front Plank 3x1 minute

o   Leg Raises 3x12 

I hope you enjoy this full body beginners workout. Be certain that all movements can be performed correctly prior to adding any substantial resistance. Form comes first, and the weight will follow. Although this is a beginners workout, it can still facilitate growth in intermediate or advanced lifters. It can be made more difficult through particular variations. If the athlete is capable, the lat pull downs can become pull ups, and the push ups can become any variation of push up that will be more difficult, such as raised push ups, staggered push ups, or plyo push ups.

Enjoy!

The Simplest Weight-loss Diet You've Ever Heard Of

Fortunately, for myself, I have never had the personal experience of trying to lose weight. It has always been the goal of my training to gain weight. For instance I am 5'11" and I weigh about 200 pounds, my goal is to be 210 or 215 pounds by May of 2014. In a weird way I am actually disappointed that I have never had the experience of trying to lose weight because that means that I am without the personal knowledge that I would have gained through my dieting. However, I do have the experience of prescribing weight-loss regimens to people and viewing their individual successes.

In my experiences of helping people lose weight I have learned one thing above all others. People almost always over complicate what is needed to lose weight. The course of action that must be taken to lose weight is very, very simple. I'm not saying it is easy but is in not complicated whatsoever. The basis of losing weight is this: burn more calories than you consume, and you will lose weight. That is the bottom line. It doesn't matter where the calories come from, they could all be from donuts even. If you burn more calories through exercises that you take in through those donuts, you will lose weight. It will probably be one of the most miserable experiences of your life because your body cannot function on food like that so the workouts will be horribly difficult and you'll always be sick, but I promise you will still lose weight.

It's simple physics, the Law of Conservation of Energy to be specific. That's why people gain weight. A calorie is a measurement of energy. It used to be the standard unit for all energy but was replaced by the Joule. It has remained as the measurement for the amount of energy in food however. So when you look at the back of a box of food and see how many calories there are per serving, that is actually saying how much energy is in the food. Now when it is eaten the energy is then is your body, and then is transferred out of your body through movement. However, if there is not enough movement the energy must be stored in the body because it is not being transferred out of the body and cannot be destroyed (Law of Conservation of Energy). Therefore the leftover energy is stored in the body as fat, to be used at a later time.

This seems complicated, right? Not really. That whole last paragraph can be summarized into one sentence. If you burn fewer calories than you take in, you WILL gain weight; and if you burn more calories than you take in, you WILL lose weight. All those silly fad diets, elaborate exercise programs, fat burning pills or that stupid powder you can sprinkle onto food that tricks your brain into thinking you're full are all unnecessary (and in some cases are total scams). They were created by people capitalizing on the tendency for people to over complicate what it takes to lose weight.

The following "diet" that I prescribed for my little sister has led her to losing around 30 pounds in less than a year. I realize that compared to some of those fad diets I was talking about, 30 pounds in a year is slow. The difference is that with a "lose the weight in no time" diet, as soon as the diet ends nearly everybody goes back to their old lifestyle habits and gain all the weight back (or even more in a lot of cases). In my sister's case, she has had to maintain strict discipline for almost a year to reach her goals, thus resulting in a change in all her lifestyle habits. So now when she finally reaches her goals, she will not fall back into her old habits but will remain in her new habits that have led to her finally being healthy. I got the basics of this diet from Elliott Hulse. Although I don't know the man personally, he is one of my largest resources for gaining new information and ideas about fitness. I then test what he suggests and make my own modifications to it. This diet is extremely effective over a long period of time.

Here are the parameters of the diet I prescribed to my little sister.

1. Calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the amount of calories your body burns every day only through bodily functions that are necessary for survival, such as heart rate, breathing, digestion, maintaining body heat, etc. There are a lot of different free BMR calculators online, so just google it. Once you have calculated your BMR, take the number, perhaps it is 1600 calories per day, and drop it by 300 or 400 calories. This will be the number of calories you'll eat everyday until you reach your weight goal. You will be hungry from eating this little, but that's just a part of it. You have to be willing to make sacrifices if you really want to lose weight.

2. Walk for an hour every single day. It will help with the weight loss process if you do this every day on an empty stomach. This is critical. Walking an hour every day means every day no matter what. Sunday through Saturday, without fail. This is just another sacrifice that must be taken in order to reach your goals.

3. Weight train three to four days a week. It doesn't really matter what kind of training you do. Just train. I would suggest some form of circuit training that is going to raise your heart rate. I will post a good lifting circuit soon. The most important thing is that whatever training you do, you do it properly and consistently.

4. Stay consistent. Realize that this is going to take at least a year. Losing weight quickly doesn't work. It has to be done consistently over a long period of time. Once you reach your weight goal, you will begin a life-long journey of staying healthy, so a year to lose the weight really isn't that bad. Once again, I'm not saying that losing weight is easy, but it is simple. In fact, this will probably be quite difficult, but nothing worth doing is ever easy. Do these four things and you will lose weight. Make the sacrifice and change your life.

Workout: Upper Body, shoulders and The Infamous Creatine

-          DB Shoulder Press 5x5

o   Superset w/ DB Posterior Raises x5

-          Pull Ups 3x8

-          Upright Row 3x8

-          Single Leg Balance w/ quarter squats 3x1 minute

-          Plyo Ball Roll Outs 4x20

-          Bicycles 3x30

Enjoy this workout guys! The difficulty for this one is intermediate and so is the level of movements. I'm still working on making those instructional videos. I'll have them up as soon as possible. Until then these movements can all be found on youtube. For the plyo ball roll outs, get into the front plank position, with your feet on the ground and your elbows on a plyo ball. Then extend elbows out towards your head, and then pull them back towards your waist. Maintain stability and control through this movement while still in the plank position. Enjoy the workout!

The Infamous Creatine

For some reason, and I don't know why, creatine gets more flak than any lifting supplement I know of. Say the word creatine and everybody freaks out on you, either talking about how it's a steroid, it dehydrates you, it only adds water weight, or it's bad for the liver. All of these accusations are from a point of ignorance or misconception. I think the biggest reason why people are so scared of creatine is because it really works. I don't have any supplements that are as effective in giving me strength and energy in the gym quite like creatine. Essentially what creatine does, to paraphrase some scientific stuff that I've been reading, is it increases the production of ATP in the muscles, creating a fast source of energy for the muscles. This is why it is so beneficial in strength training, power training, and sprinting. I don't like to get too into the chemistry of it, but it is helpful to understand the basics. The reason I don't like to get too into the science is because I could spend all day reading "studies" on creatine, but without any personal experimentation, I wouldn't acquire any knowledge. I have done personal experimentation with creatine however, and this is what I've found.

1. Large gain of strength in the weightroom. Along these same lines, I have also noticed that there is little or no drop in strength when I stop taking creatine for any period of time.

2. Yes, it can be dehydrating. This is due to cratine needing water to activate itself so it takes water from the rest of the body and brings it into the muscles. So yes, creatine can dehydrate but that does not mean that it shouldn't be taken. It simply means that precautions must be taken while using it. In other words, just know that you will need to drink more water than normal, but I think that everybody should be drinking more water anyways. A gallon and a half a day should work. Two gallons is better. Just try drinking this much in a day. Yes, you'll be peeing a lot, but you'll also feel the best you have in a very long time.

3. When I begin taking creatine, I gain around four or five pounds of water weight within the first day or so. This will only occur if you're drinking enough water, so it should be a goal. People freak out on this one for some reason. I've heard that creatine just adds water weight or "fake weight." For one, your body is 70% water, so it's mostly water weight. More importantly however, the gain in water weight only lasts a day or two, and then anymore gained weight will be muscle (or fat if your training and diet sucks).

4. I feel dumb for addressing this point but I've heard it too many times to leave it unmentioned. Certain people believe that if you take creatine, you don't have to work as hard in the gym for gains. This in entirely false. Creatine is a supplement. The key word is "supplement." It will not work if it has nothing so supplement. There is no "supplement" in existence that makes it so you don't have to work hard. Someone can take all the supplements in the world and if they don't work hard, NOTHING will happen. Creatine is great because when you're already working your hardest, it gives the extra strength and energy your muscles need to work even harder. I felt dumb for mentioning this because it is absurd to think that there is any substitute for old fashioned hard work.

All things taken into account, creatine is an excellent supplement. I think people freak out about it so badly because it is so effective. There are certain precautions that need to be taken when taking creatine. Most important is to be hydrated when taking it. A gallon and a half a day worked very well for me. If you are looking for a supplement to help up your game in the gym and help you to put on muscle, I would strongly suggest the use of creatine.

Workout: Lower Body and What I Like to Call "Active Recovery."

-          Warm up thoroughly

-          Deadlift 4x6

-          BB Bench Press 4x6

-          DB lunges 3x8

-          BB Bent rows 4x6

-          Push Ups 3x15

-          Cable Lat pull down 4x6

CORE:

o   Front plank 3x45 seconds

This workout is intended for beginning or moderately experienced lifters, although it can also facilitate growth in advanced lifters. I realize that deadlifts are not a simple lift and could end up being very difficult for beginning lifters. However, it is such a critical lift for overall fitness and health that over everything else, the deadlift is the most important lift for a beginner to learn. Proper deadlifting will benefit more areas of the body than any other single exercise. From the ankles to the top of the head, deadlift is beneficial. Above anything else in the weightroom, the deadlift should be mastered. Here is a really good instructional video on how to deadlift I found on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqHYfpYEi2A. As soon as I can I'm going to film a ton of instructional videos and upload them to youtube. Then I will be linking them to the exercises I write in my blog. So that will be soon!

What is Active Recovery?

"Active Recovery" is my own unique term referring to the activities and methods used during recovery periods in order to maximize strength and muscle growth. Recovery periods are times between workouts in which the body is resting and rebuilding muscle. These periods are most commonly seen as down weeks, and off days. It is also important to realize that time between consecutive daily workouts is also a recovery period, particularly the time spent sleeping between workouts.

Everybody who lifts regularly has heard of overtraining. There are a lot of misconception surrounding it, however. Like that someone should only lift a particular body part once in a week. This is an incomplete statement because although in can be true, in most cases it is not. There are many different contributing factors that finally manifest into overtraining. Very rarely, if ever, will someone overtrain only because of lifting too much. When properly fed and rested, it is unreal what the human body is capable of adapting to.

Overtraining will only occur as a result of being overly stressed out. Overly "catabolic" would be the more technical term. There is only one instance in my lifting career in which I overtrained. This time in my life was extremely stressful. It was the second semester of my senior year in high school. On top of being stressed about graduating, I had also just had my first hip surgery and was going through a really lousy break-up with my now ex-girlfriend. So I was anxious about my future with graduating, physically weak because of my surgery, and depressed because of the break-up. This all accumulated into a very difficult time for me. The only way I knew to really feel at piece was by lifting weights. So I worked out Monday through Thursday for at least two hours. Over the course of about three months I became the smallest and weakest I had been since my sophomore year of high school. But why did this happen? I wasn't training stupidly. At the time I was following a typical body-builder routine (this was before I started to exclusively design my own workouts), lifting one muscle group once a week. The fact is, regardless of whatever workout program I did, I probably would have overtrained anyways. I had simply become way too stressed and did not have the knowledge as to how to relieve this stress. I thought that working out as hard as I could would relieve all the stress I was under, when in actuality it was adding even more stress. This is because on top of all the emotional and mental strain I was under, my body was also working to recover from damaging workouts.

Muscle is not built while you are working out, it is built while you are resting in between workouts. Active recovery is made up of focusing one's energy on releasing stress and resting the body. This allows for the nervous system to recuperate and the muscles to repair themselves, as well as for the mind to take its necessary rest. My problem when I was overtraining was not that I was working out too much, it was that when I finished working out, rather than resting, my body became even more stressed from everything else that I was dealing with. This resulted in my nervous system becoming totally fried, which made it so that I couldn't think straight anymore and so that my body wouldn't function. It is the combination of all the stresses placed on the body while few or no stress relieving actions are taking place that will result in overtraining.

Then what are stress relieving actions? They take the form of anything that is going to facilitate the recovery of your body. They promote the reduction of catabolism and encourage anabolism. That is the technical way to say it. Anabolism is the opposite of catabolism and is associated with the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, while catabolism is associated with the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. Proper diet is a huge factor in your body recovering. A bad diet will only stress the body further. Good supplementation is also helpful. Whey protein will help speed recovery; L-Arginine is especially helpful in hastening recovery. Being hydrated is huge as well. Alcohol and smoking are significant inhibitors of recovery. Regular smoking is always bad for you, and regular drinking should be done with strict moderation. Getting drunk will completely negate any possible benefits of exercising.

As far as actual activities go that will facilitate recovery, the methods I use most are: walking, yoga and meditation. These are all extremely effective. Walking for an hour everyday, not only on off days, is an extremely effective stress reliever. With yoga, I do not have the knowledge to describe all the good that it does for someone's body. In my personal experience however, there is no better exercise for relieving stress than yoga. And any man that says yoga isn't manly has never truly tried yoga. It takes intense focus and strength to be done well. The same goes for meditation. People who have never tried meditating will knock it, but if you actually try it with an open mind, it can be extremely beneficial. Meditating doesn't have to be sitting cross legged with your thumb and middle finger touching, like everybody pictures. I will generally meditate laying in bed with the lights off before I go to sleep. All it takes is giving all your mental and physical focus to relaxing your mind and body for an extended period of time.

Lastly, getting quality sleep is critical in recovering well. Sleeping is when the body does its repair work. I always try to get at least seven hours of sleep at night. I heard once that sleep before 12 is more restful than sleep after 12. I don't know if this is true for sure, but I have noticed being more rested when I go to bed early and wake up early.

Doing these activities during resting periods will drastically benefit your overall fitness. Physically, mentally, and spiritually you will be better off. With these techniques implemented, it becomes very difficult to overtrain. It it important to still give your body the time it needs to recover. I personally like to do a down week after every four weeks that I train consistently. Also, I never work out on the weekends. With these rest periods and recovery techniques applied, the body is capable of extremely intense training regimens.

So let's review. The body will recover faster, function better, and feel better if..

• you have a proper diet and
• you are hydrated

With proper diet, supplements truly are unnecessary, that is why they are called supplements. However, faster recovery, and better functioning can be further facilitated with proper supplementation.

Exercises that will improve recovery time include:

• Walking
• Yoga
• Meditation

And the last thing involved in active recovery is...

• Getting good sleep every night

 Applying all these different methods of active recovery will benefit your overall health in countless ways.

Thank you.

Workout: Upper Body Back and Chest and The Gift of Running

Power: Snatch Grip Squats 3x5

• BB Bench Press Dream Pyramid
• Warm up well
• First set 5 rep max
• second set 4 rep max
• third set 3 rep max
• fourth set 2 rep max
• fifth set 1 rep max
• after completing the fifth set perform a drop set

• superset w/ perfect push ups x5 

• BB Bent Rows 3x6
• superset w/ pull ups x6
• Med Ball Plyo Push Ups 3x8
• superset w/ DB posterior raises x8

I call this particular bench press workout the dream pyramid because the parameters actually came to me one night in a dream. When I woke up and remembered my dream I realized that it could actually be a really good workout. It is designed so that your body will fatigue through the sets so each rep max will remain at similar weights. At the end of the fifth set, the one rep max, immediately perform a drop set by having the spotter remove 20lbs from the bar, then perform as many reps as possible, rack the weight, remove another 20lbs and repeat until the weight has reached the original weight that you used to begin warming up. For instance, if you warmed up with 135 lbs and your one rep max ended up being 245 lbs then your drop set will be at 225lbs, 205lbs, 185lbs, 155lbs, and then finally 135lbs. Every set prior to the fifth set will be superset with perfect push ups. The only rest between sets of the drop set is the amount of time it takes for the spotter to change the weights, otherwise there is no rest during the drop set.

A perfect push up is just that. With flexed quads, glutes and a tight core perform 5 push ups with a level spine. Have face looking directly at the floor, not up, and keep elbows in tight, as if performing a close grip bench. The tempo is !-1-3-1, with the "!" being the pressing or concentric phase, and the "3" being the lowering, or eccentric phase. So from the top, lower for 3 seconds, pause for 1 second with nose about an inch or two off the ground, then press explosively but controlled to the top and hold for 1 second before repeating.

If you are confused about any of these exercises, I try to use generic names for them so instructional videos can be found for most of them on youtube.

The Gift of Running

During the summer of 2011, in July, I sustained what at first I thought to be a minor injury, but would actually end up changing my life. I was doing front squats with 225 pounds on the bar. Because I was fairly strong at the time I was able to stand up powerfully enough to make the bar bounce. On my last rep of my last set I stood up, and the bar bounced. When it landed on my shoulders I felt a strange pop in my right hip and I was immediately in a lot of pain. I racked the bar and stumbled to the nearest place I could sit down. Because the pain was located just below my right glute I thought that perhaps I had pulled my hamstring.

I have never known how to explain to someone the amount of pain I had to endure for months after getting hurt. In the beginning, however, I was able to run well enough to keep playing football. I was in unreal pain but I could move fine, so I decided to just tough it out so I wouldn't lose my senior season of football. Gradually however, the pain increased and my ability to run properly diminished. This went on until the second to last game of the season when I found that I actually was completely incapable of moving faster than a very slow jog. Pain aside, I simply could not move my legs quickly anymore.

By the end of the season, I was in pain 100 percent of the time I was awake.  After months of increasingly excruciating pain, and a ruined senior season of football it was found that I had actually torn the hip labrum. On top of that, it turned out that I had a particular hip malfunction, generally due to malformation, called Femoral Acetabular Impingement (FAI). About eight months after injuring myself I had my first hip surgery. After the surgery, because my senior year of football was so disappointing to me, I decided that no matter how much work it would take, I would play college football. So my therapy began, and for a long time my recovery was spectacular. My only focus in training was getting ready to play college football. Then I hurt myself again. I guess I didn't learn anything the first time I hurt myself, because I decided to just tough it out. I was able to make the team through a tryout and about a week later I hurt myself even worse and I was out for all of spring football camp. I was cut and three months later I had my second hip surgery.

I am writing now about how wonderful the gift of running is because for the first time in 27 months, I am able to run pain free. Wednesday of this week was the first day since my surgery in July that I was able to run. And by run, I mean more like a slow jog, but it is running nonetheless. It was exhilarating. I am so thankful to God for the ability to run again. You can count on the fact that I will absolutely not overwork myself this time, but I will do everything I can to become a capable athlete again. I'm so thankful for the ability to run now because over the course of my injury I have learned the incredible amount of work the body must do in order to run. When you consider the amount of muscles, tendons, ligaments and bones in the leg, it is mind-blowing to think of how in synch all these components must be to function properly. Whenever I am watching high level sports, like the NFL, or Olympic track, I always look at the movements of the athletes legs when they run. It is a truly beautiful thing to witness when one considers the multitude of critical components there are to such a seemingly simple motion.

I have been through a lot of pain and hardship because of my hip injuries, but even I am fortunate compared some people. Not everybody has the luxury of being able to get up and just go for a jog. There are so many people who, for various reasons, simply cannot. Perhaps from birth they are incapable of running, or maybe they are paralyzed due to an accident. Imagine what they would be willing to give up to be able to just run? So for those of us who are capable of running, or perhaps are injured but will be able to after an amount of work, like I was, I'm writing this post to remind us of the incredible gift we have. It is nothing to be taken for granted. Like so many wonderful things we have in our lives that we take for granted, running could be taken from us in the blink of an eye. I lost the ability to run for more than two years because I let a barbell bounce three inches off of my shoulders. I could type for hours describing the ways in which that three inch bounce has changed my life. I am thankful for it though. I would not be becoming the man I am trying to become if not for the injury. God allows for hardships and challenges and life changing accidents to occur so that through them we can all become the men and women He intended for us to be. He allows for us to be knocked down, for us to become depressed, angry, and hurt so that he can offer us the strength we need to get back up, become the best that we can be and grow in our relationship with Him. Throughout my journey of becoming able to run again, I have learned more and grown more than I think I ever would have if I had not been hurt while doing front squats two and a half years ago. Therefore, I am incredibly thankful for the challenges that I have had to overcome and for the gift I have of being able to run again.

Running should be done on a regular basis by all who are capable of it, and the ability should be relentlessly sought after by those who cannot run, but could with a certain amount of work. Running shouldn't just be done for the health benefits, it should be done for the places it can take us, for the people we can become because of it, and for the pure beauty and intricacy of the movement.

 Workout: Leg Workout I Wrote for My Pal Bryce and Supplementation Part 2

-          Power clean 5x5

-          Front Squats 4x6

-          Walking DB Lunges 3x4 each leg

o   Superset w/ single leg drop jumps x3 each leg

-          Single Leg RDLs on balance disc 2x6 each leg

-          Hanging Leg Raises 3x10

o   Superset w/ Med Ball Twists x15-20

This workout is what I would consider intermediate in difficulty. There are supersets but not as many as there would be in a more advanced workout I would right. Bryce is hoping to get back his six pack from this workout too, so I added some core exercises at the end. The bottom line, however, is that if you want a six pack, you've got to fix your diet and lose some fat first. Everybody has a six pack, it's just usually covered. Adding these core exercises will help build the abdominal muscles and that will make them more noticeable when the fat has been lost. And yes, that's right, spot reduction is a total myth. Doing core exercises will not result in losing fat in the stomach. It just doesn't work like that, I'm afraid. But it will build core strength and the size of the muscles associated with the core and that is a good thing.

My Odd Style of Supplementation Part 2

It has been a little while since I wrote my last post. I try to stay on top of these, but sometimes life just gets crazy. Anyways, in my last post I talked about how I take my protein, and my use of L-Arginine, and Fish Oil. In this post I'll speak about why I would drink baking soda daily. I was going to speak about Vemma Verve and creatine, but this post will probably go a little long, so I'll save those for another time.

Baking Soda

Everybody knows that baking soda is one of the most useful things around the house. It can be used for baking, cleaning, making volcanoes, and even deodorant... but as a fitness supplement? That's right. There are a few basic reasons why drinking baking soda would be beneficial for the average person to drink. It's beneficial because it is basic. Alkaline would be a more technical term to use.

Due to the massive amount of acidic food consumed on a day to day basis in most modern countries, almost every single person you see is overly acidic, and you probably are as well. I know I am. Acidic foods include citric juice, like orange or lemon juice, dairy products, a lot of meets, and so much more. Being overly acidic can lead to a myriad of health issues, anywhere from acne to cancer. Unfortunately, with food the way it is these days, it is essentially impossible to avoid enough acidic foods to become more neutral. There is a very direct way in which to combat this however, and that is through the drinking of baking soda.

I was first introduced to the use of baking soda when I was at my friend Chris' place, hanging out and being health nuts with him and his dad, Todd. Chris' father Todd is without a doubt the smartest and healthiest person I have ever known. I honestly think this man will live to be 100 years old at least. Anyways, we were using his 30000x microscope to look at the health of our blood cells. Todd would always say "healthy cells means healthy body, because your body is made up of cells." Looking at our cells, we could see the overall health of them. First we drank Vemma and then tested our blood immediately, and again in 15 minutes. There was significant improvement, and I'll get more into depth with that in a later post. Then we tested our blood again immediately after drinking a table spoon of baking soda with water. The improvement in cell health was astonishing. There was day and night improvement from before and after drinking baking soda. The baking soda actively combats acidity in the body.

The benefits I have had drinking a tablespoon of baking soda daily include a boost in strength, a boost in my immune system, my face beginning to clear of acne, and feeling overall healthier. So that's what I do. I drink a tablespoon of baking soda every morning when I wake up.

A warning about this supplement: it is even more disgusting than L-Arginine. It is truly awful, but the benefits are worth the taste 100 times over. I found it is most affective to chase it with something non-acidic. Chasing it with something acidic can reduce the effectiveness of the baking soda by neutralizing some of the alkalinity. My favorite thing to chase baking soda with is apple juice because it is non-acidic and covers the taste well.

I hope this information will help you and that you will try baking soda as a supplement and evaluate it through your own experience. After all, studies, research and blog-posts can only offer partial education. True education always comes through experience. I have personally experienced the effects of baking soda on my body and I would strongly recommend it for anybody interested in taking the health of their body to the next level.